Random News: October 6, 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 6, 2022, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Here are the things…

• Hate to start with a big bummer, but it’s shaping up that Ian is likely Florida’s most deadly hurricane since 1935, with the death toll still rising.
• Most of its victims drowned, which is pretty horrifying.
• I’m a good swimmer… surfed a lot as a kid, did the Junior Lifeguard program. But I still never want to have to swim for my life, and plenty of older/disabled folks don’t have that option at all.
• Immigrant workers, many of them undocumented, are heading to Florida to help the state clean up after Ian.
• These migrant workers are much like the people who follow harvest seasons and work on farms. They’re coming in from across the country to help do these terrible jobs that no one else is able or willing to do.
• Hats off to these hard-working people who will help Florida get back on its feet.
• More awful news: at least 36 people, including children, were killed in a mass shooting at a child care center in Thailand yesterday.
• The perpetrator was Panya Kamrap, 34, a former police officer who was fired in June after being caught with amphetamines.
• Unlike most countries in Asia and the world, Thailand has a high rate of gun ownership, with 10 million guns in a country of 70 million people.
• Here in the USA, there are more than 393,000,000 guns for 326,000,000 people, meaning there are about 120 guns for every 100 people here.
• A federal appeals court yesterday said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy violates U.S. immigration law.
• However, DACA was left intact for current beneficiaries. But the government will be prohibited from approving first-time DACA applications.
• Yesterday, President Biden was caught on microphone saying, “Nobody fucks with a Biden.” I’m personally really fucking happy about this. If you’re not, fuck you too. I like my Brandon dark.
• And now, The Weather: “Leopard Skin” by Toledo.
• Couple of polls, just so you understand how important your vote is, especially in places like Georgia...
• Georgia Senate: Warnock (D-inc) 47% (+3), Walker (R) 44% (Insider Polling)
• Georgia Governor: Kemp (R-inc) 50% (+5), Abrams (D) 45% (Insider Polling)
• Keep in mind that a lot of polling tends to favor older people at home with land lines.
• Also keep in mind that paranoid MAGA/QAnon types tend to not answer polls at all, or at least as honestly as liberals.
• These two quirks in the system somewhat counterbalance.
• No matter what you see in ANY poll, the one way to lose is to be complacent and assume things will work out without your personal action. All you have to do is vote. It’s easy. Ask me how if you don’t know. My inbox is always open.
• Today in history… Rebels decapitate Wang Mang two days after his capital was sacked during a peasant rebellion (23). ‘Euridice’, the earliest surviving opera, receives its première performance, beginning the Baroque period (1600). Immigrant families found Germantown, Pennsylvania in the first major immigration of German people to America (1683). Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the largest American music fraternity, is founded at the New England Conservatory of Music — side note, I am a Mu Phi alumnus (1898). The Bosnian crisis erupts when Austria-Hungary formally annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina (1908). Opening of ‘The Jazz Singer’, the first prominent "talkie" movie (1927). Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is murdered by Islamic extremists (1981). The first planet orbiting another sun, 51 Pegasi b, is discovered (1995). 
• October 6 is the birthday of writer Marie de Gournay (1565), businessman/university founder James McGill (1744), soprano Jenny Lind (1820), engineer/businessman George Westinghouse (1846), pilot Roland Garros (1888), actress Carole Lombard (1908), activist Carolyn Goodman (1915), activist Fannie Lou Harner (1917), actress Britt Ekland (1942), politician Gerry Adams (1948), inventor Lonnie Johnson (1949), TV executive Leslie Moonves (1949), musician Kevin Cronin (1951), musician David Hidalgo (1954), football player/coach Tony Dungy (1955), actress Elizabeth Shue (1963), musician Matthew Sweet (1964), and high school basketball player LeBron Raymone "Bronny" James Jr. (2004). 

Okay then. I’m going to have a day that just like any other day that’s ever been, with the sun going up and the sun going down, and in between doing various things and being a responsible human. That’s fine. There are things that bother you, and things that make you smile, and life is a big balancing act, a tightrope that we all navigate in varying degrees of success. Enjoy your day.