Random News: October 21, 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 21, 2022, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Let’s take a stroll down the information superhighway and try not to get run over…

• Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied, without explanation, an emergency request to put on hold President Biden’s debt forgiveness plan.
• The emergency SCOTUS request was brought up by a Wisconsin taxpayers organization represented by a conservative legal group.
• Ha ha. Womp womp. 
• Speaking of the SCOTUS, there were two security incidents in one hour there on Wednesday.
• First, they found guns in the minivan of Tony Payne, 80, who was arrested and is now facing weapons charges. He was parked adjacent to the Court.
• A few minutes later, Melvin Marbrey, 73, told Supreme Court police he was at the Court to meet with Chief Justice John Roberts and "would not leave (until) he was allowed into the building."
• He was not, it turns out, allowed into the building.
• There is no indication of any connection between the men. Shrug.
• Also this week in our nation’s capital, congressional Republicans introduced a measure that would take Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and make it national.
• It would prevent any acknowledgement of the existence of LGBTQIA+ people within any institutions for kids – schools, libraries, and so on – that receive public money.
• If that passed, I would make it my life’s goal to organize Pride events outside every elementary school in the country. Try me!
• My thoughts to the people of Seattle, who have been suffering literally the worst air quality in the world these past few days… worse than Beijing or Delhi.
• The combination of smoke from local fires and very unusually hot and dry weather left the city with AQI well over 300 in places… about 40 times higher than the guideline recommended by the WHO. Fucking awful.
• Poll workers and early voters have reported harassment in Arizona by self-appointed “election monitors” who are following voters, filming them, and accosting them at dropbox locations.
• A complaint has been filed with the Arizona secretary of state, who forwarded it to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general’s office for investigation.
• Assholes. Intimidating voters is an old school racism trick.
• I should be a poll-watcher watcher. And then some other person could watch me watching the poll watchers watching the voters.
• Let’s all watch each other.
• And now, The Weather: “Garden of Our Neighbor” by Goon
• Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tried to block a subpoena from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, claiming that a sitting senator is shielded from such investigations.
• Sorry, Lady G… a federal appeals court said Thursday that he must appear before a Georgia grand jury investigating possible attempts by the FPOTUS and his criminal team to disrupt the state’s 2020 presidential election.
• Awhile back, Kevin de León was considered a rising star in national politics. He ran an impressive campaign as a progressive candidate for Senator against Dianne Feinstein. He also ran for mayor of Los Angeles.
• And now, he was part of the racist conversation between LA city council members and has been asked/told to resign by everyone in every political direction, and he refuses to step down.
• Resign, Kevin. You’re now a detriment to the city and staying in place will be a terrible detriment to the citizens of your district. Put your ego aside and do the right thing, Pendejo.
• Today in history… Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait now known as the Strait of Magellan (1520). In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched (1797). The Medicine Lodge Treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders (1867). Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his design for an incandescent light bulb (1879). President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting U.S. president against lynching in the Deep South (1921). The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published (1940). The city of Aachen falls to American forces after three weeks of fighting, the first German city to fall to the Allies in WWII (1944). In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public (1959). The meter is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second (1983). Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery (2005).
• October 21 is the birthday of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772), chemist/dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel (1833), producer Owen Bradley (1915), musician Dizzy Gillespie (1917), MLN player/manager Whitey Ford (1928), author Ursula K. Le Guin (1929), musician Manfred Mann (1940), musician Steve Cropper (1941), musician Elvin Bishop (1942), judge Judy Sheindlin (1942), astronaut Ronald McNair (1950), musician Brent Mydland (1952), musician Charlotte Caffey (1953), actress Carrie Fisher (1956), musician Steve Lukather (1957), musician Nick Oliveri (1971), ummm… Kim Kardashian (1980), and MLB player Zack Greinke (1983).

Okay, well… hey, it is Friday. I’ve had a pretty productive week. I’m hoping to not get blindsided by bullshit. You really can never tell how a day is going to go. Every person that ever had a really great day or a really bad day awoke that morning not knowing for sure what was in store for them. I’m going to go with positivity and trying to make the world a better place in which to live. I’ll also try not to be an asshole. I can do that. Enjoy your day.