Stop the Idiocracy: McDonald's

Showing posts with label McDonald's. Show all posts

Monday, October 20, 2025

Amazon collapses, dragging half the internet—and all reliant upon it—into paralysis: a mere fire drill for civilisation’s fall

A spectral tableau of digital desolation rendered in cinematic chiaroscuro. A young woman with pale hair and an expression of quiet detachment stands amid the ruins of a once-modern city, its skyline dominated by black monoliths branded Amazon and Google. She wears a powder-blue dress with a white Peter Pan collar, its innocence jarringly at odds with the dystopian scene. In one hand she clutches a small loaf of bread—a relic of survival—while in the other she gazes down at a smartphone, its cold light illuminating her downcast face. Around her, the remnants of a fallen civilisation—darkened shopfronts, lifeless screens, tangled cables—form a graveyard of consumer technology. Overhead, storm clouds writhe with veins of lightning, their electric fury mirrored by the web of wires that ensnare the towers. The image reads as an elegy for the human spirit—adrift, obedient, and alone in the shadow of its own creations.

image generated via ChatGPT

{Mashable 20 October} ‘AWS outage update: What happened today and why’

Perhaps the body politic hath been something more than rash in permitting a slender coterie of vast corporations to hold dominion over near the whole compass of human commerce—and to consign it all to ‘the cloud’. If an entire infrastructure collapses at the faintest tremor, of what practical worth is that infrastructure? And why does no redundancy—of any worth, at least—exist to sustain it? From the internet to the power grid, from energy production to the extraction of the earth’s finite resources, few of us truly grasp the fragility of our modern age, or how fearfully we have enthralled ourselves to the artificers of Silicon Valley. Verily, we are become their vassals—SLAVES at the mercy of our technological overlords.

These incessant glitches fray my nerves and leave me in a state of abject vexation—and of late, there hath been no paucity of such afflictions in my own affairs. I shall not recount the full litany of woes, yet it suffices to note that my grocery delivery—through Amazon Fresh—was abruptly cancelled this very morning amid their latest systemic collapse. Then, in attempting to activate a new debit card with a different institution—yet one of the countless enterprises now beholden to Amazon Web Services, alongside such disparate entities as McDonald’s, Venmo, and innumerable others encompassing nearly every conceivable sphere—I found myself stymied by yet another glitch, and obliged once more to telephone some remote call centre in India to have the matter rectified.

It is without end—until, at last, the entire fabric of society doth crumble utterly, and whatever remnant of humanity survives is cast back into the dim estate of the cave-dweller. This technological grotesquerie hath insinuated itself into the sinews of daily existence, sowing silent chaos in the lives of billions. And this most recent outage—still not wholly resolved as I write—is but a fire drill, the ominous prelude to a coming conflagration that shall devour the whole edifice.

Do I, then, harbour hope for that collapse? I cannot with certainty avouch it. For I was an unwanted soul upon this planet long before the rise of the tech barons in the 2000s and 2010s; unwanted I remain beneath their cold dominion; and it shall matter little whether I be wanted once they—and the brittle edifice of their devising—have dragged the sum of civilisation into the abyss. For I shall not endure to behold the final ruin. Then again, judging by the precipitous haste of our present decay, that reckoning may well descend upon us before next Thursday—and I may not be so fortunate as to miss the ensuing ghastly revels. Such would be my luck. —Arthur Newhook, 20 October 2025.

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Spineless Speaker Kevin McCarthy still will not call on proven fraud George Santos to resign from the House, even after Santos is indicted on federal charges

Andrew Harnik/AP

Republicans appear poised to stop at nothing in their war with President Biden over the debt ceiling limit. Cutting aid to veterans, and Social Security and Medicare recipients, trumps (pun intended) any ethical considerations. FTA: ‘While an association with Mr. Santos may be a political drag on Republicans, the impact of his resignation would pose a challenge for leadership. With a slim majority in the House and a fight over the debt ceiling looming, Mr. McCarthy cannot afford to lose Mr. Santos’s vote. The speaker only narrowly passed a bill last month to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts, with no Republican votes to spare and Mr. Santos in the “yes” column.’ {NYT 5/10}

Florida: ‘Conservation groups across the Southeast United States are urging Gov. DeSantis to veto a bill that would allow the use of radioactive fertilizer waste in road construction across the state.’ {WFTV 5/08}

Louisville, KY: U.S. Labor Department fines three McDonald’s franchises for child labor violations. {AP 5/03}

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

American mega-corporations cave into pressure to suspend Russian operations

Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters

Let’s be honest, nearly all boycott threats are just that - ‘threats’ that most have no real intention of carrying out. Still, the mere threat of a boycott will usually suffice to pressure governments, corporations, and individuals into compliance with prevailing sentiment. But it took nearly two weeks of receiving intense criticism and two weeks of watching the ongoing carnage in Ukraine to drag, kicking and screaming, major American conglomerates Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s, and Starbucks into temporarily suspending (key words) most of their operations in Russia. Lord forbid we ever prevent a Big Mac or a Frappuccino from ever been sold at any given time or place. -

PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Starbucks each said Tuesday they are suspending business in Russia after that country’s invasion of Ukraine, a symbolic move by four iconic U.S. brands.
Pepsi has sold it products in Russia for more than six decades, even when the company had to trade its soda concentrate for Stolichnaya vodka and warships. McDonald’s opened its first location beyond the Iron Curtain in Moscow, just months before the Soviet Union collapsed.
In recent days, Pepsi, Coke, McDonald’s and Starbucks have drawn criticism for continuing to operate in Russia while other U.S. companies announced suspensions and paused sales.
Yale Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld compiled and made public a list of U.S. companies that have withdrawn from Russia following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion — and those that hadn’t. Until Tuesday afternoon, Coke was among the most recognizable names on the spreadsheet.
“Our hearts are with the people who are enduring unconscionable effects from these tragic events in Ukraine,” Coke said in a brief statement Tuesday afternoon. “We will continue to monitor and assess the situation as circumstances evolve.”
Russia represents one of the few regions worldwide where Coke’s rival PepsiCo has a larger presence. In a regulatory filing, Coke said its business in Ukraine and Russia contributed about 1% to 2% of its consolidated net operating revenue and operating income in 2021.
Pepsi, on the other hand, generates roughly 4% of its annual revenue in Russia, though it is not halting all business in the country. The company said it will keep selling some essential products, like baby formula, milk and baby food.
It said it will suspend Russian sales of its Pepsi-Cola, 7UP and Mirinda brands, along with capital investments and all advertising and promotional activities. (Read more)