1 – Gun haul

Police arrested man who hauled this gun hardware into an Atlanta Publix market

A man was arrested Wednesday after entering a Publix supermarket in Atlanta carrying six loaded firearms and wearing body armor, police said. The man, who Atlanta police have identified as 22-year-old Rico Marley, was charged Thursday with five counts of criminal attempt to commit a felony and six counts of possession of a firearm during commission of or attempt to commit certain felonies. 

CBS

Copy cats used to have some creativity. Now it's just “bring as many guns as you can haul.”

2 – FINALLY! Here's 2021 saying to 2020: Hold my beer!

Public health officials in Washington state are monitoring 23 low-risk people who recently traveled from areas experiencing an Ebola virus disease outbreak, according to the Washington Department of Health.

KING5

Of course, as I am halfway to immortality (one dose of the Pfizer), they announce this. Great. Super powers: ENGAGE!

3 – Take no prisoners

Dominion Voting Systems has sued Fox News for defamation. They've also sued ex-president's lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, among others.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Friday, arguing the cable news giant falsely claimed in an effort to boost faltering ratings that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election.

DVS is employing a scorched earth policy and I like it!

4 – “Zero threat”

The ex president was on Fox News host Laura Ingraham yesterday. He literally said the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol building posed "zero threat."

Dozens wounded, police officers killed, others dead. But zero threat. Sure, buddy.

To think that some people still believe this schmuck.

5 – Mormon church sued for fraud

On Monday, the Mormon church was sued for fraud.

James Huntsman, of a prominent Mormon family from Utah, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of fraud, saying it spent members’ tithes meant for charity on commercial purposes.

Washington Post

Here's how it went down: The church, like many others (i.e., all), expects parishioners to give a tithe to the church. Said tithe is to be used for church business (paying for the preacher man's living quarters, for example) as well as charitable causes.

Except in this case, the Church of Latter Day Saints gave some of that money to Ensign Peak Advisors, a registered tax-exempt charity, who then invested that money in investments.

In fact, the Ensign Fund is as wealthy as Softbank's Vision Fund and it's bigger than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ensign had a rather spectacular Q4 2020:

• Overall, the value of its stocks rose 11% to $44B
• The fund grabbed 46k GameStop shares at <$19 each, pre-mania
• The fund 4x’d its Tesla stake to 467k shares

Source: The Hustle

Not bad…but the feds ought to check out the Utah Retirement Systems fund. Just sayin'.

This solidifies my idea that starting a church is a sound business venture. Well, until you get caught defrauding millions of billions of dollars.

6 – “Like an enormous beached whale”

As reported here yesterday, the Ever Given is still stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking hundreds of ships from going in and out of it. Estimates are that the blockage is causing about $10 BILLION to the global economy.

Here's a picture showing just how enormous this ship is:

That's C-R-A-Z-Y BIG.

It's been reported that it may take weeks to dig the vessel out of the sand.

Shipping companies are considering re-routing their cargo around the Horn of Africa, adding 6,000 miles to their journey and $300,000 (give or take a few hundred thousand) in fuel costs.

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Idea: The Weekly Wonk. It will dive deeper into a story or theme. Weekly (duh). Could be written, could be a podcast (video). Thoughts?