Random News: October 2, 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 October 2, 2022, and it’s a Sunday. 

• President Joe Biden is heading to Florida and Puerto Rico this week to survey the devastation from Hurricane Ian. 
• At least 73 people died in Florida as a result of Ian. That death toll is expected to rise.  It’s unknown how many died in Puerto Rico because 99% of Americans don’t give a shit about Puerto Rico, including a good portion who don’t know it’s part of the USA.
• I don’t like political photo ops after horrible disasters, but the fact is that if you don’t do them, the opposing side screams that you don’t give a shit about the people impacted. It’s all bullshit, but… hey, politics.
• Little side note on the above: Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL) voted against federal relief money for his state to help aid people in Florida affected by the disaster.
• As noted in my history bullets yesterday, October 1 was the five-year anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting by an individual in American history, which is saying a lot. I had friends at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. They all lived, fortunately. But 60 others died and 413 more were wounded, and if you ever thought any event would allow for Americans to seriously consider gun control measures, that was it.
• The only thing that came out of it (and the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School four months later) was a ban on “bump stocks”, but the NRA and other groups have challenged the ban as being unconstitutional, because of course they did.
• And now, The Weather: “Silvertongue” by Packs.
• Ukraine still has Russia on the defensive as they continue to liberate cities and districts that had been annexed. Good for them. I hope they keep kicking all the ass.
• It’s a big day in Brazil as they hold a presidential election today. The country’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on the brink of an astonishing political comeback, with polls suggesting he is poised to defeat his far-right rival Jair Bolsonaro.
• Lula was polling far ahead of the Trump-like Bolsonaro, but if he falls short of the 50% required to avoid a runoff, it opens the door to a month of uncertainty and political violence.
• Buncha shootings yesterday and last night, because it’s a weekend and this is America.
• Today in history… The United States Bill of Rights is sent to the various States for ratification (1789). The citizens of the Papal States accept annexation by the Kingdom of Italy (1870). Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of the United States Supreme Court (1967). The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments are signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton (1996). The Beltway sniper attacks begin in Washington, D.C., extending over three weeks and killing 10 people (2002). The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi is assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey (2018).
• October 2 is the birthday of king Richard III of England (1452), American slave and uprising leader Nat Turner (1800), sociologist Patrick Geddes (1854), activist Mahatma Gandhi (1869), actor Groucho Marx (1890), baseball great Maury Wills (1932), lawyer Johnnie Cochran (1937), film critic Rex Reed (1938), director/producer Steve Sabol (1942), singer-songwriter Don McLean (1945), actor Avery Brooks (1948), fashion designer Donna Karan (1948), musician Richard Hell (1949), photographer Annie Leibovitz (1949), musician Mike Rutherford (1950), musician Sting (1951), singer-songwriter Gillian Welch (1967), and host Kelly Ripa (1970). 

What am I doing today? I don’t know. Checking out football games, probably doing some housework, getting my guitar hands warmed up for a show I have this coming week, and… I don’t know. Just Sunday stuff, I suppose. Enjoy your day.