Random News: August 11, 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 August 11, 2022, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Here’s just whatever it is that I’m going to write, which I never know until my fingers start tinkly-winkling along my keyboard…

• President Biden signed the PACT Act into law yesterday. It expands health care for veterans exposed to toxins.
• As you’re likely aware, the President’s own son Beau died of cancer after being exposed to burn pits while deployed in Iraq.
• Our veterans get treated horribly. Any small step to improve the lives post-service is a good thing.
• One of my favorite charity fundraising shows I do pretty regularly is for Homes for our Troops, which is a non-profit that builds and donates custom homes for severely injured post-9/11 veterans. In Second Life, it’s coordinated by Frets Nirvana.
• Ukraine slapped back at Russia, with missile strikes at a Crimean air base. Russia is denying it happened despite satellite images showing the damaged planes and surrounding area. Ah Russia. Slava Ukraini!
• Back to the criminal who was once the president…
• The far-right has coordinated on messaging about the search warrant actions at Mar-a-Lago, saying that, “The FBI planted evidence."
• Here’s the fun part: how would they know? The contents of the search warrant have not been made public. The only party who has them apart from the Justice Department is Trump himself, and his lawyers.
• Trump could post the warrant any time he wanted. Snap a pic, pop it up on his social media platform. Why hasn’t he done that?
• Also — while I am well aware that planting evidence does happen — this sounds like something a meth addict says when he’s pulled over and his car is searched.
• I’m done talking about this until there’s something to actually talk about… as in, when we see the warrant or they indict him.
• One more note on a different topic, though. When I heard he pleaded the Fifth at his civil trial on Tuesday, I did not know he did so 440 times. Sweet lordy.
• Moving on.
• Let me rewind a couple of days (sound of tape rewinding)…


• Before all that insanity happened Monday, I’d popped over to Twitter (where, by the way, I get news and info way before the actual media reports it), and I saw a notification that I had a new follower, and I took a look.
• It was Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, serving Illinois’ 8th congressional district.
• In case you were wondering (I was), IL-8 covers a large area northeast of Chicago, centered around Schaumburg. Krishnamoorthi was elected in 2016 and has been reelected in 2018 and 2020. The previous representative of this congressional district was Tammy Duckworth, who left to become a US Senator.
• I have plenty of influential people who follow me, including a whole bunch of blue check marks that range from media personalities to well-known musicians. But I believe this is the first national-level politician who follows the Zak Man.
• Does that matter in any way? Will my little words have any greater impact as a result? Probably not. Impossible to say. There are 435 members in the House of Representatives. I have one.
• It does tell me that there’s a tangible reason to continue this list I started on a daily basis in May, and who knows? Maybe down the road some more Congress members and Senators follow Raja’s lead, and maybe my ramblings do become more impactful.
• If want to follow me on Twitter, it’s @zakclaxton, obviously.
• And now, The Weather: “Twist” by Mah Kee Oh.
• A house in Evansville, IN exploded with such force that it damaged another 39 houses in the area. No one knows why yet. There was nothing left but splinters and rubble.
• Meet Dave Alvord. He’s a council member in Salt Lake County, UT. Dave made the genius public statement, “The baby is not part of the body of a woman. The umbilical cord and placenta do not directly connect to the woman. The baby floats inside the woman. It is not about the woman’s body, it’s to kill then remove the baby’s body. It is done in greater proportion to black babies.”
• No word on where Dave got his medical degree or other information in obstetrics or general physiology.
• The fight for women to have autonomous control of their own bodies will continue through the midterms and beyond.
• 89 days until the Midterms. Register to vote or check your voter status now, before it’s too late.
• There’s a supermoon rising late tonight. It’s the last one of 2022, and it’s called the sturgeon moon. I don’t make this shit up, I promise.
• Little word to the wise: Facebook is constantly monitoring everything you post, be it in public, in private messages, in videos, no matter how you’ve configured your security settings. I know most of you know this. But monitoring your content is their actual business. They do so with algorithms that then sell your data to advertisers, and in various situations will turn your content over to law enforcement.
• Point being, keep it in mind if, for example, you’re helping someone in a forced-birth state to obtain abortion services. There are far more secure ways of messaging than Facebook Messenger, as convenient as it may be. I’ll be glad to offer alternatives to those who need them.
• Today in history… The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar begins (3114 BC). Claudius Silvaneous proclaims himself Roman Emperor despite being accused of treason (355). The Great Famine of Europe is so bad that the King of England can’t find bread (1315). Babe Ruth hits his 500th home run (1929). Actress Hedy Lamarr gets a patent for a frequency-hopping communication system that’s the basis for all wireless phones and Wi-Fi (1942). Chad declares independence from France (1960). Cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev becomes the first person to float in microgravity (1962). The Watts Riots begin in Los Angeles (1965). The last US ground combat troops leave Vietnam (1972). The Mall of America opens in Minnesota (1992). 
• August 11 is the birthday of physician and contagious disease scholar Richard Mead (1673), talk show host Mike Douglas (1920), historian and author Alex Haley (1921), televangelist and horrible human Jerry Falwell (1933), person with the supposedly highest-measured IQ and journalist Marilyn cos Savant (1946), musician Eric Carmen (1949), Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (1950), musician Bob Mopthersbaugh (1952), wrestler/actor Hulk Hogan (1953), amazing musician and songwriter Joe Jackson (1954), podcaster and general idiot Joe Rogan (1967), musician Ben Gibbard (1976), actor Chris Hemsworth (1983), and absolutely awful person who until a couple of years ago was my neighbor here in Redondo Beach Tomi Lahren (1992).

I have a typical day ahead for me, which means a bunch of writing and design and spreading information around. And meetings. Can’t forget the meetings. But that’s okay. Looking back, you may find that you have a greater appreciation for “normal” days than you’d assume. Enjoy your day.