Random News: November 27, 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 27, 2022, and it’s a Sunday. I’m not having any more turkey for a good long while, so let’s do some news and thoughts…

• China is going through some shit.
• The country’s zero-Covid policy caused protests to erupt on Saturday, including at universities and in Shanghai where hundreds chanted “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!”
• That is astonishing in a country where protest and defiance of government policy is nearly unheard of due to extremely harsh penalties.
• It’s so hard to find a middle ground that works in regard to pandemic response. Whiny people in the USA freak out from being politely asked to wear a mask in public; in China, they’ve faced mandatory near-total lockdowns.
• Speaking of this country, while other former Presidents were helping out at food banks and continuing their commitment to public service, Donnie Boy made more than 40 posts on his personal social network and never mentioned Thanksgiving once.
• Seems about right.
• The FPOTUS also spent a good amount of time this weekend trying to do damage control over his disastrous dinner with Kanye West and white nationalist holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
• You can tell what upset him the most wasn’t the realization that he was inviting these horrible people into his home. It was that Ye suggested that Trump run as his vice president in 2024.
• However, many people on the right are publicly faulting Trump for his bad judgement in having these people in his home in the first place. Lots of cracks forming in the many groups that fall under the Republican umbrella right now.
• People in Georgia were lined up hundreds deep this weekend to cast votes for their run-off Senate election between the incumbent Democrat Reverend Raphael Warnock and the sadly brain-damaged former NFL player Herschel Walker.
• Many people waited multiple hours to cast their votes.
• Adding that 51st Democrat vote in the Senate is a big deal. It means subpoena power. It means the Democrats can continue the Jan. 6 Committee’s work. It means oversight of the threat of MAGA Fascism. It means picking up the pace of judicial confirmations
• If you think Warnock has an easy win, think again; some polling sources still have Walker at a slight advantage. VOTE, GA! Thank you.
• And now, The Weather: “Carbon Dioxide” by Fever Ray
• Speaking of votes, here’s some less good news: the Senate almost certainly does not have the 60 votes that would be needed to reenact the Assault Weapons Ban that was previously so successful at curtailing mass shooting events.
• I wasn’t expecting it to pass if it even gets put to vote.
• From the Sports Desk… just a weird note that three NFL games being played at this second (Bucs/Browns, Bengals/Titans, Falcons/Commanders) are tied at 10-10 at halftime.
• Today in history… James Pratt and John Smith are hanged in London; they are the last two to be executed for sodomy in England (1835). Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on Cheyenne living on reservation land (1868). Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss is first performed (1896). In New York City, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held (1924). CARE is founded to send CARE Packages of food relief to Europe after World War II (1945). The Soviet space program's Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module. It malfunctions and crashes, but it is the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars (1971). The United States Senate votes 92–3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (1973). In San Francisco, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White (1978). A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet (2001). 
• November 27 is the birthday of Aragon King Ferdinand I (1380), physicist Anders Celsius (1701), painter Frank Dicksee (1853), Israel president Chaim Weizmann (1874), novelist/critic James Agee (1909), sportscaster Chick Hearn (1916), car dealer Cal Worthington (1920), drummer Al Jackson, Jr. (1934), actor/martial artist Bruce Lee (1940), singer-songwriter Eddie Rabbit (1941), guitar legend Jimi Hendrix (1942), trumpeter Randy Brecker (1945), human glob of goo Steve Bannon (1953), engineer/educator Bill Nye (1955), lawyer/diplomat Caroline Kennedy (1957), MLB player/manager Mike Scioscia (1958), and actor Jaleel White (1976).

I’m going to be doing some overall cleanup of my home today, knowing that this coming week (and all weeks from now through the holidays) will be busy. I like waking on on Monday and not having trash and dishes and shit all over the place, and having clean clothes to choose from. It’s not how I want to spend my Sunday, but it’s a favor to my future self. You’re welcome, future me. Enjoy your day.