Random News: November 22, 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 November 22, 2022, and it’s a Tuesday. Here’s whatever that I have time to write in the time I’ve allotted to write things…

• Big salute to retired US Army Major Richard M. Fierro. He was the man who rushed the shooter at Club Q in Colorado Springs, CO. 
• He did four combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in his 15-year career. His service record shows that he was awarded the Combat Action Badge and the Bronze Star twice.
• When the shooter began his rampage, Fierro (who was there with his wife, daughter and friends on Saturday, enjoying the drag show) first hit the deck, grabbing his companions and pulling them down to safety, and then rushed the guy.
• Fierro took Anderson Lee Aldrich down while he was still shooting, and yelled for other club patrons to help him. A man grabbed the AR-15-style rifle and moved it away to safety. A transgender woman stomped on Alrdich with her high heels. And Fierro grabbed a handgun from the killer and beat the fuck out of him, leaving him senseless.
• Thanks to their brave actions, there were five dead instead of 50+.
• There are lots of courageous and good people in the world. If you can’t find one, be one.
• Side note: Fierro and his wife Jess own Atrevida Beer Co., a local brewery in Colorado Springs. Looks like a cool business whose motto is “Diversity, it’s on tap!”. I bought one of their t-shirts last night.
• Moving on.
• Having been appointed on Friday, special counsel Jack Smith is already getting to work on his double investigations against FPOTUS.
• The prosecutors who are working under Smith have continued taking witness testimony and collecting documents under subpoena.
• And now, The Weather: “Haunted House” by Cosmopaark
• I’ve continued to cover the punishment of traitorous insurrectionists involved in the January 6, 2021 coup attempt.
• Why? Because it’s bound to happen again. There are still forces actively campaigning to motivate violent insurrection to our government.
• Riley Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, PA, was convicted of six charges, including two felonies. You may remember her as a) the women who stole Nancy Pelosi’s laptop and b) the prisoner who managed to get granted temporary release to attend a fucking Ren Faire.
• Williams is a big fan of Nick Fuentes, who has used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric.
• There won’t be fairs in her immediate future. She was visibly shocked in court when U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered Williams immediately remanded to federal prison.
• In more personal news…
• I got my turkey. I always wait until the days before the feast and get a fresh bird as opposed to frozen.
• It’s a crap shoot. If they don’t have one, then I’m driving around town until I find somewhere that does. But my fat little gobbler was right there waiting for me; a 13-pound Butterball that will be perfect for four people and leftovers.
• Thanksgiving is a very American holiday (yes, Canadians, I know you have them too).
• I often feel sorta bad that my news bullets are so USA-centric.
• I mean, I do know why. I’m an American and I tend to focus on things that might affect me personally.
• And yet, saying that, I write very often about things that absolutely don’t impact me on a direct basis. I’m white, primarily heterosexual, and cisgendered. I’m not super rich but definitely not particularly poor. I live in what might be the best state in the country for liberal outlooks, voting rights and more.
• Obviously, I care about people who aren’t named Me, but at the same time, like most folks probably do, I mentally prioritize things that have some degree of proximity to me, or that I might be able to affect even in small ways.
• When I see that hundreds of people were killed and many thousands more injured and/or left homeless by an earthquake in Indonesia, it’s obviously sad. But there’s a disconnect there.
• I don’t personally know anyone in Indonesia directly, at least no one I’m aware of aware of immediately or are close to.
• Anyway, that’s sad and I hope they recover well.
• Speaking of sad, Herschel “Head Injury” Walker is running a new ad attacking the LGBTQ+ community just days after the Colorado Springs mass shooting. 
• Of course he is. The cruelty is the point. Re-elect Raphael Warnock for a better direction, Georgians.
• From the Sports Desk… the 2022 FIFA World Cup began this week in Qatar. I’m not here to talk about soccer, a sport that doesn’t interest me very much despite having played it for a number of years in my youth.
• Instead, the Sports Desk will point out that it’s very difficult to live in a world where actions and behaviors that would be considered human rights violations in one country are celebrated and encouraged in others.
• Visitors and players in the World Cup were banned from wearing any sort of apparel with rainbows, since homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, which is a theocracy (a county governed by religious belief).
• For all the good it may bring, the world would be better off without religion.
• In unrelated news, I was thinking about nipples.
• How bizarre is it that people of every gender have nipples, and yet I can walk around all day with no shirt on, post topless pics of myself on any social media site, and not one person will think of this as some form of obscenity?
• We’re just mammals. Mammals have nipples.
• Today in history… Juan Fernández discovers islands now known as the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile (1574). Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard attacks and boards the vessels of the British pirate Edward Teach, aka “Blackbeard", off the coast of North Carolina (1718). In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched (1869). General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th Army is surrounded in Stalingrad (1942). The Summer Olympics, officially known as the games of the XVI Olympiad, are opened in Melbourne, Australia (1956). U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald, who also kills Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit after fleeing the scene (1963). U.S Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States (1963). Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of Francisco Franco (1975). British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher withdraws from the Conservative Party leadership election, confirming the end of her Prime-Ministership (1990). ‘Toy Story’ is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery (1995). England defeats Australia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final, becoming the first side from the Northern Hemisphere to win the tournament (2003). Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany (2005).
• November 21 is the birthday of organist/composer Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710), first lady Abagail Adams (1744), novelist/poet George Eliot (1819), US vice-president John Nance Garner (1868), French president Charles de Gaulle (1890), songwriter/musician Hoagy Carmichael (1899), composer Benjamin Britten (1913), comedian Rodney Dangerfield (1921), actress/singer Geraldine Page (1942), actor/director/animator Terry Gilliam (1940), tennis player Billie Jean King (1943), guitarist Rod Price (1947), musician/actor Steven Van Zandt (1950), bass player Tina Weymouth (1950), actor Richard Kind (1956), actress Jamie Lee Curtis (1958), actress Mariel Hemingway (1961), actor Mads Mikkelsen (1965), tennis player Boris Becker (1967), actor/activist Mark Ruffalo (1967), singer-songwriter Karen O (1978), businessman Shawn Fanning (1980), and actress Scarlett Johansson (1984).

Well, I have things to do. My back is still fucked up. Trying not to let that bum me out. Pain is a shitty way for the body to let you know something is wrong. I think whoever designed this body could have chosen a way better method. Anyway, I’m tough and I’ll get better. I will always get better until I don’t. Enjoy your day.