Random News: November 4, 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 4, 2022, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Sparrows are birds, MAGAs are turds, after seconds come thirds, and here are some words…

• Don’t forget to set your clocks back this weekend. Daylight Saving Time is done once again.
• What actually is time? There’s a valid scientific concept that time doesn’t exist, or at least not at all in the way that we seem to perceive it.
• Here’s something to think about… it is both ALWAYS now, and it’s NEVER now.
• By the time you can say “now” or snap your fingers or whatever you can do near-instantaneously, what was “now” has already passed.
• Here’s another thing. Massless particles do not experience time. A photon generated in a star in the Andromeda galaxy takes about 2.5 million years traveling at the speed of light to reach your eyeball from your perspective, but to the photon, no time elapsed at all in that journey.
• Time is weird, man. It could be that everything that ever happened or ever will happen is actually happening now.
• Or now.
• Or now.
• There is a “smallest possible time division”. It’s the Planck Time. Here’s how small one Planck Time is: there are more Planck Times in one second than there have been seconds since the start of time itself.
• And now, the news.
• According to the U.S. Elections Project, more than 32,970,000 early votes have now been cast.
• That’s really good.
• The elections happen in four days on Tuesday November 8.
• Do you want to explain someday how your wife or daughter died of not being treated for an ectopic pregnancy because you thought gas prices were a bit high that one time in 2022?
• Vote blue all the way through.
• Hey, check this out.
• Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) on camera: “It will be my objective to phase out Social Security. To pull it up by the roots and get rid of it.”
• He said it out loud and he’s serious. Maybe that doesn’t mean shit to you today, but it will when your elderly parents can’t afford groceries or a place to live.
• And anyone who has ever worked has paid into Social Security their whole lives. Where is that money going to go? It’s YOUR money.
• Vote out Mike Lee in Utah next week, and vote in Independent candidate Evan McMullin. The dude is not even a Democrat. He’s just way better than Mr. Steal Your Social Security Lee.
• And now, The Weather: “Beautiful Friend” by Space Equator
• From the Sports Desk… Game 5 of the World Series was a tough fight from both sides, but the Astros beat the Phillies and now have a 3-2 lead. They can wrap it up in game 6 tomorrow night in Houston, or it could go to game 7 on Sunday if necessary. Go Phillies!
• Also in sports… NFL’s Thursday night game had the Eagles beating the Texans (oddly enough, it was Philadelphia versus Houston in this sport as well), and the Eagles are now 8-0 for the first time in their storied franchise history.
• Also in sports… well, this was inevitable. The Brooklyn Nets suspended Kyrie Irving for at least five games (and possibly indefinitely) without pay Thursday, dismayed by his repeated failure to "unequivocally say he has no antisemitic beliefs."
• NBA commissioner Adam Silver asked Kyrie to apologize for posting a link to an antisemitic work on his Twitter feed. He refused, and now the team says he is "currently unfit to be associated with the Brooklyn Nets.” Yikes.
• The Sports Desk concludes today by noting that Ray Guy, the only NFL punter to be elected to the Hall of Fame, has passed away at age 72. Famously, Ray’s punts for the Raiders went so high that at least one opposing coach demanded the ball to be checked to see if it had been filled with helium. RIP Ray.
• Death by alcohol use in the US spiked during the pandemic, studies show. It jumped 26% between 2019 and 2020.
• I don’t drink alcohol. When I was in my early 30s about 20 years ago, I developed an intolerance to alcohol where if I drank enough to get drunk, it just mades me sick, sometimes for days. So I stopped, and while I’m not at all sober (hello weed!), looking back I know that drinking was very, very bad for me personally.
• But you have to make those decisions for yourself. I did it because that’s what was right for me at the time. Before that, I’d have laughed if someone had told me I would get to a point where I didn’t drink at all.
• Today in history… The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange; they later jointly reign as William and Mary (1677). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 36 is performed for the first time in Linz, Austria (1783). Sir James Young Simpson, a Scottish physician, discovers the anesthetic properties of chloroform (1847). Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi is assassinated in Tokyo (1921). British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings (1922). Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female elected as governor in the United States (1924). Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel begins a retreat of his forces after a costly defeat during the Second Battle of El Alamein (1942). The United States government establishes the National Security Agency, or NSA (1952). Dr. Jane Goodall observes chimpanzees creating tools, the first-ever observation in non-human animals (1960). Ronald Reagan is elected as the 40th President of the United States, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter (1980). Barack Obama becomes the first person of biracial or African-American descent to be elected as President of the United States (2008). 
• November 4 is the birthday of painter Guido Reni (1575), painter Gerard van Honthorst (1592), king William III of England (1650), actor Edmund Kean (1787), actor/social commentator Will Rogers (1879), physicist Alfred Lee Loomis (1887), actor Gig Young (1913), gunnery sergeant John Basilone (1916), journalist Walter Cronkite (1916), actor Art Carney (1918), actor Martin Balsam (1919), actress Doris Roberts (1925), actress Loretta Swit (1937), singer-songwriter Delbert McClinton (1940), conservationist Kafi Benz (1941), first lady Laura Bush (1946), photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946), actress Markie Post (1950), race car driver Jacques Villeneuve (1953), guitarist James Honeyman-Scott (1956), keyboardist Jordan Rudess (1956), actress Kathy Griffin (1960), actor Ralph Macchio (1961), rapper Sean Combs (1969), and NFL player Vince Wilfork (1981). 

Alright. I have a hell day coming. I can’t even tell you how jam packed my day is. It will stress me out to even think about. So, I’m just going to do all the things, and not think about them, and eventually they’ll be done, and then I won’t be totally freaking the fuck out like I am at the moment. Enjoy your day.