Random News: November 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 November 6, 2022, and it’s a Sunday. I’m up early due to the time change; it’s rare that I’m asleep when the sun is already up, so might as well spread some news around while I devour coffee…

• For those of you upset by polls coming into Tuesday’s election, here’s a little reminder.
• In Kansas, the anti-abortion measure they had in August was supposed to win by four points, according to polls. 
• It lost by 18 POINTS.
• Pollsters do NOT understand the change that’s happened in recent years. They’re doing things as most statisticians do, by following “proven” methods and longterm trends.
• Vote. Vote like your candidate is 50 points behind, or 50 points ahead, or whatever inspires you to get your ass to the polls.
• “They won’t hear you boo, but they will hear you vote.” - Barack Obama
• Let’s talk for a moment about elections in close races… which is now the norm nearly everywhere.
• You may not find out the winner of the election on election night.
• You may not find out for days. It takes time to count and verify millions of votes. The only time the race is called — usually by a trustworthy media source like the Associated Press — is if there’s no mathematical possibility for one side to win based on a large percentage of votes having been counted.
• Point being, we’re humans and we’ve come to expect instant gratification. It doesn’t always happen that way. A longer time to tally votes doesn’t mean something weird is going on.
• Be patient. Be strong. Be peaceful. And do trust the results. Mass-scale voter fraud is all but impossible in this country. In all but a tiny number of instances, whoever wins will have won legitimately.
• Moving on.
• Huge respect to Valerie Bertinelli. She changed her display name on Twitter to “Elon Musk” and spent the weekend binge-tweeting support for Democratic candidates and policies.
• The brilliance here is in that Musk has announced a new policy at Twitter so that the “blue check” verifications are now for sale and no longer help secure the identity of the user.
• Therefore the tweets really do look like they are coming form Musk at first glance.
• He was hoisted by his own petard. They may likely ban Bertinelli for this stunt, but I guarantee she was aware of that before she started.
• Apparently no one won that ridiculous Powerball lottery, and it’s now up to $1.9 billion. That’s a lot of money. Imagine a stack of 1,000,000 dollar bills going up to the sky.
• Now imagine 1,900 of those stacks.
• If you gave away a million dollars every single day, it would still take you over five years to burn through that money.
• And now, The Weather: “Too Far Gone” by Pecq
• Speaking of the weather, a storm system in the Caribbean is heading toward Florida and could impact on Tuesday, aka Election Day. Make sure that nothing stops you from voting.
• Here’s an actual Fox News top headline from this morning (I’m not kidding; go look if you want): “Conservatives turn on Trump for attacking Ron DeSantis ahead of midterms: ‘What an idiot’… DeSantis is among the most popular and successful Republicans in the country.”
• They’ve abandoned Trump, and that will become progressively more and more apparent over the next couple of years.
• From the Sports Desk… congrats to the Houston Astros, who beat the Philadelphia Phillies four games to two in the World Series. I’m still not happy about the Astros’ cheating scandal from while back, so I really get no joy from this win, but what’s done is done.
• Sports Desk also says he’s going to check out NFL games today. Baseball is done, basketball and hockey are just getting started, so it’s all football for awhile here in Sportsland.
• At the risk of being repetitive, I will once again ask my friends who are acting as poll workers and election officials to be SUPER careful throughout the election.
• In places like Arizona, there have been hundreds of documented threats of torture and death toward people who just want a job or want to do something for their country. All threats have come from MAGA-associated Republican persons and groups.
• Today in history… Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States with only 40% of the popular vote, defeating John C. Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen A. Douglas in a four-way race (1860). Rutgers College defeats Princeton University 6–4, in the first official intercollegiate American football game (1869). President William McKinley is re-elected, along with his vice-presidential running mate, Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York (1900). The 1st Ukrainian Front in WWII liberates Kyiv from German occupation (1943). ‘Meet the Press’, the longest running television program in history, makes its debut on NBC (1947). Art Modell announces that he signed a deal that would relocate the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore (1995). Tammy Baldwin becomes the first openly gay politician to be elected to the United States Senate (2012). The Democratic Party wins the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections (2018).
• November 6 is the birthday of sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1494), instrument designer Adolphe Sax (1814), economist Charles Dow (1851), composer John Philip Sousa (1854), basketball inventor James Naismith (1861), director Mike Nichols (1931), actress Sally Field (1946), musician Glenn Frey (1948), journalist Maria Shriver (1955), actress Rebecca Romijn (1972), NBA player Lamar Odom (1979), actress Emma Stone (1988), and comedian Bowen Yang (1990).

Jesus, I woke up and made coffee and wrote all that shit and it’s still only 8:30am. I have no big plans today, beyond some typical weekend maintenance chores. I leave you with just one thought, and it’s that YOUR VOTE TRULY MATTERS and to please make a plan to vote Tuesday if you have yet to do so. Thank you. Enjoy your day.