Random News: July 7, 2022

DISCLAIMER: Zak's Random News is very random and doesn't cover many things, and not everything may be accurate, because I'm just some guy. Go find a real news source.

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Good morning. It’s July 7, 2022, and it’s a Thursday. Here’s what I’m gonna tell ya…

• UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned. I’ve always had an admiration for UK leaders who actually leave office when they do something awful.
• Can you imagine a leader who lost the confidence of his country and yet still refused to leave office in a peaceful transferral of power?
• Oh wait… never mind.
• Johnson will remain prime minister until a suitable replacement is found. Unlike the USA, the UK has no equivalent to a vice-president waiting in the wings.
• My opinion, and that of many others who study political science, is that the executive branch (i.e., the President and his cabinet and agencies) is the least powerful of the three branches of government in the USA.
• The executive, judicial, and legislative branches are balanced, but not completely.
• We put way too much weight on the power of the President to affect change, and not nearly enough on our actual representatives.
• Speaking of Presidents, gas prices have dropped for 21 consecutive days. Thanks President Biden!
• Just kidding. Loudly for those in the back: PRESIDENTS DO NOT CONTROL GAS PRICES.


• Irony: the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, one Lindsey Graham, is refusing to comply with a subpoena from Georgia prosecutors about his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
• Next time ol’ Lindsey issues subpoenas from his committee, I hope he expects a similar response, or lack thereof.
• Note: a subpoena is not a birthday party invitation. We normal people don’t have the option of saying we’re busy that day.
• In case you want to send thanks to the person who is making all this happen, your gratitude should go to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
• Thanks!
• I went shopping on Tuesday as I always do, and among many other things, bought a bunch of bananas, also as I always do.
• Isn’t a “bunch” a bizarrely non-specific quantity? I mean, it is the official term for banana purchases beyond a single fruit. But any number of conjoined bananas is a bunch. Three banana? A bunch. Seventeen bananas? Also a bunch.
• What does a successful stripper and a giant gas planet have in common? It rains diamonds on Uranus!
• Ha ha.
• But seriously, both Uranus and Neptune appear blue due to methane in the atmosphere, which has carbon in it, and that carbon is under tremendous pressures, so deep inside those planets’ atmospheres, it actually is raining diamonds.
• True story.
• Apparently July 7 is World Chocolate Day. Of the many marketing-driven holidays, this one is perfectly fine by me.
• Life without chocolate would suck. There’s some alternate universe where chocolate was never a thing, and people are sad, and they don’t even know why.
• What are we missing in our universe that’s making us sad and we don’t know why? Probably a lot.
• Elon Musk had twins with one of his employees last year. He also has a bunch with his former wife, including another set of twins and a set of triplets, and a couple with the singer Grimes.
• He’s a weird lizard-person alien, isn’t he? I’m not saying he is, but he is.
• Don’t fuck employees. Rule of thumb. General good idea.
• We should talk about Britney Griner. She’s still being held prisoner in Russia. My personal feeling is that a person who wasn’t a Black lesbian would have been prioritized for diplomatic help by now.
• She pled guilty on drug charges, but who knows what led to that admission?
• Also from the sports desk… The Cleveland Browns have traded QB Baker Mayfield to the Carolina Panthers, ending a controversy that’s continued for months since the Browns picked up serial sex abuser Deshaun Watson for the QB job. The funny (not ha-ha funny) thing is that Watson may not even be able to play this coming season while handling his rapey stuff. 25 different women have accused him of sexual misconduct.
• QotD: “Election days come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the one percent - a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice - that struggle continues.” - Bernie Sanders
• Reminder: abortion is health care.
• Today in history… Joan of Arc is acquitted via a retrial 25 years after her death (1456). Four nights of rioting against slavery abolitionists happen in New York City (1834). Four conspirators in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination are hanged (1865). Hawaii is annexed as a US territory (1898). The USA, UK, Japan, and Russia ban open-water seal hunting, the first international environmental treaty (1911). Sliced bread is sold for the first time (1928). Construction starts on Hoover Dam (1930). Howard Hughes crashes his plane into a neighborhood in Beverly Hills (1946). Sharia law begins in Iran (1980). Boris Becker wins Wimbledon at age 17 (1985). A New York court of appeals rules that women have the same right to go topless as men (1992). 
• July 7 is the birthday of Emperor Shirakawa of Japan (1053), composer Gustav Mahler (1860), baseball player Satchel Paige (1906), musician Mary Ford (1924), musician Doc Severinsen (1927), musician Joe Zawinul (1932), drummer Ringo Starr (1940), actress Shelly Duvall (1949), hockey great Joe Sakic (1969), and figure skater Michelle Kwan (1980).

You should have a great day today. You should register to vote, or confirm your voter registration. You should run for office. You should do things to help other people and/or animals and/or plants. You should have some chocolate and/or sex. Enjoy your Thursday.