A perfectly valid reason to convene a Convention of the States under Article V of the Constitution is Term Limits. Congress refuses to take up the issues the American People want, so it is now up to the States to use the powers given to the Legislatures
Naw, make going to Mom & Pop places the thing to do. Vets and "regular working Joes" all about going to places where the sizes of the cups are in English. Local business, not corporate woke. Maybe the return of the railroad car diner?
Fresh made apple pie to go with the java juice, yes indeedy
Suspected Smuggling Boat Breaks Apart Off San Diego’s Cabrillo National Monument
Reuters
May 2, 2021
May 2 (Reuters) – Three people were killed and more than two dozen injured on Sunday when a suspected smuggling boat broke apart off Cabrillo National Monument at California’s Point Loma, San Diego Fire-Rescue said.
The initial call arrived just before 10 a.m. (1700 GMT) and prompted a large emergency response, including the U.S. Coast Guard and state and local agencies, as the magnitude of the incident became clear.
The 40-foot (12-m) boat had been pummeled to pieces by the surf by the time rescue boats arrived, said Rick Romero, lifeguard lieutenant for San Diego Fire-Rescue.
Several people were pulled from the water, and some required life-saving efforts on the beach. There had been about 30 people on the boat in severely crowded conditions without adequate safety equipment, authorities said.
“Every indication from our perspective is that this was a smuggling vessel, used to smuggle migrants into the United States illegally,” said Jeff Stephenson, a Border Patrol agent.
@SDLifeguards and SDFD firefighters at Cabrillo Monument on the overturned vessel incident. 24 persons were on board. Many patients transported to hospitals. @USCG Fed Fire & many other agencies assisting. pic.twitter.com/jGbfnaRbJh
— SDFD (@SDFD) May 2, 2021
The nationality of the people on the boat was not immediately known, Stephenson said, who added that the captain was in custody and speaking with investigators.
Authorities said they had seen a marked increase in maritime smuggling in recent years. The vessel involved in Sunday’s incident was larger and had more people than most smuggling boats, according to the Border Patrol.
https://gcaptain.com/suspected-smuggling-boat-breaks-apart-off-san-diegos-cabrillo-national-monument/
First there's this, pay attention to the date and the last line in bold:
DHT offloads vintage VLCC trio
Hans Thaulow Hans Thaulow
April 29, 2021
For weeks sales chatter has surrounded a trio of vintage VLCCs owned by DHT Tankers.
About three weeks ago the ships were reported sold for $28.5m each. Splash understands that this information was premature. Now sources confirm DHT Holdings’s co-chief executives Trygve Munthe and Svein Moxnes have let go of the ships for half a million more per unit. Chinese interests are behind the acquisition of the 2004-built DHT Condor, DHT Lake, and DHT Raven.
Chinese buyers have been behind most of the vintage VLCCs purchased this month.
https://splash247.com/dht-offloads-vintage-vlcc-trio/
Then there's this:
Shortages After Cyberattack on Major U.S. Pipeline
Bloomberg
May 9, 2021
By Sheela Tobben and Jeffrey Bair (Bloomberg) —
The shutdown of America’s largest fuel pipeline after a cyberattack is threatening to send gasoline prices to the highest in seven years as suppliers work to stave off shortages from Atlanta to New York with tankers and barges.
Traders and fuel shippers are seeking vessels to deliver gasoline that would have otherwise been shipped on the Colonial Pipeline system, according to people familiar with the matter. Others are securing tankers to temporarily store gasoline in the U.S. Gulf in the event of a prolonged shutdown, they said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
Colonial Pipeline halted all operations on its system late Friday after suffering a cyberattack that affected some of its IT systems. The company has said it’s working to restore operations but has given no timeline for a restart.
The attack comes just as the nation’s energy industry is preparing to meet stronger fuel demand from summer travel and could raise more concerns about inflation as commodity prices from oil to corn rally in a post-pandemic rebound. Americans are once again commuting to the office, planning major travel for the first time and booking flights. A prolonged disruption along the pipeline system threatens to send the national average gasoline price above $3 a gallon for the first time since October 2014, a threshold that often piques concern from federal lawmakers that worry about the impact on consumers.
“It’s an all-hands-on-deck effort right now,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said of federal government actions as the shutdown drags on. “We are working closely with the company, state and local officials to make sure that they get back up to normal operations as quickly as possible and there aren’t disruptions in supply.”
Colonial is just the latest example of critical infrastructure being targeted by ransomware. Hackers are increasingly attempting to infiltrate essential services such as electric grids and hospitals. The escalating threats prompted the White House to respond last month with a plan to increase security at utilities and their suppliers. Pipelines are a specific concern because of the central role they play in the U.S. economy.
Colonial is a critical source of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to the East Coast from the nation’s refining belt along the U.S. Gulf Coast. It has the capacity to send about 2.5 million barrels a day on its system from Houston as far as North Carolina, and another 900,000 barrels a day to New York.
The attack appeared to use a ransomware group called DarkSide, according to Allan Liska, senior threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. The cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. said its Mandiant incident response division was assisting with the investigation.
Ransomware cases involve hackers seeding networks with malicious software that encrypts the data and leaves the machines locked until the victims pay the extortion fee. This would be the biggest attack of its kind on a U.S. fuel pipeline.
The national gasoline average stood at $2.96 a gallon Friday, according to auto club AAA. With gasoline inventories ample, the pump price wasn’t expected to tick much higher until Memorial Day at the end of May, which is traditionally viewed as the start of the U.S. summer driving season. If the pipeline doesn’t restart soon it will accelerate the move higher.
“I think we’re at strong odds for it by Memorial Day given current trends,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy.
A key concern at present is meeting product demand in the U.S. Southeast, which is especially dependent on the Colonial system, people familiar with the situation said. Drivers in landlocked and car-dependent Atlanta may be the first to feel the pinch at the pump.
“Atlanta will be one of the earlier sore spots, along with eastern Tennessee, and perhaps the Carolinas,” De Haan said.
The Northeast can secure gasoline shipments from Europe but it will come at an increasing cost the longer the pipeline stays shut.
“The longer it lasts, the more bullish it will be for refined products on the East Coast,” said Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING Groep NV. “This will likely also drag European product prices higher, as we see more waterborne cargoes needing to go into the U.S. East Coast to meet the shortfall.”
In the meantime, fuel producers including Marathon Petroleum Corp. are weighing alternatives for how to ship their products to the Northeast.
More:
https://gcaptain.com/oil-traders-work-to-avert-shortages-after-cyberattack-on-major-u-s-pipeline/
>>78478 (me again)
Ok, a VLCC, Very Large Crude Carrier is one of those "supertankers" that are over a thousand feet long and can carry two million barrels of oil in the tanks.
Chinese "customers" bought up a bunch of big tankers just before the pipeline got cyberscrewed. Now all these businesses are scrambling for tankers?