Random News: December 28, 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 December 28, 2022, and it’s a Wednesday. Here are some things that I’ve heard and/or thought…

• Yesterday, a Michigan federal judge sentenced Adam Fox, the leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, to 16 years in prison.
• A jury convicted Fox and an accomplice in August on charges of kidnapping conspiracy and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.
• Good. Fuck that guy.
• In far less good news, yesterday the Supreme Court voted to keep the Title 42 border policy in effect for now. This immigration rule was put in by executive order under Trump.
• If you like the idea that the Supreme Court can pick and choose which executive orders to support and which to deny, you might want to take some remedial American history lessons.
• The court says it will hear arguments in February over whether red states can intervene in the litigation over the policy. The vote was 5-4, with Neil Gorsuch joining the three liberals.
• This situation with George Santos has to be urgently addressed. He didn’t “fib on his resume”; he lied about every aspect that could have qualified him for his new job as a Congressman. He didn’t go to college at all and never worked for the companies he’d claimed to have.
• If any other federal worker was found to have lied on their job application about anything, let alone their work experience and education, that would be grounds for immediate termination. 
• Despite that, Santos is about to be seated in Congress and possibly given committee assignments. Kevin McCarthy has the power to expel him from Congress, but we all know Kevin doesn’t have the balls to do the right thing regardless of circumstance.
• And now, The Weather: “Wheel” by Cate Le Bon
• I want to mention something that’s neither quite news and not quite personal but falls between those areas.
• You need to have a plan together in case something awful happens where you live, be it a flood, an earthquake, a tornado, or in the case of a dear friend of many in the Second Life community who passed away last Friday, a fire.
• Veritas McMaster had already made it out of her home that had caught fire on December 23, but then ran back in to try and save her beloved pet bird. I understand that. I do. My cats are part of my family.
• But the rule in a fire is “Get Out, Stay Out”. What ends up happening way more often than not is that by running back in, not only do you not save the people or animals inside, but you end up dying too.
• Veri was always a positive force, and I’m not surprised she had the courage to rush into a burning building. She will be missed by many people.
• Sigh.
• To cheer us up a bit, here’s a tidbit of info about the orange-hued guy who pretended to be the president for awhile.
• He’d been POTUS for three years and 11 months before finding out that his daily public schedule actually went out to the public.
• This revelation was shared by former White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere in his testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee that was made public yesterday.
• “Every evening we prepared and released the daily guidance for the following day of the president’s public schedule. Beginning sometime around mid- to late December, the president discovered that, for the first time, my understanding, that we released a public schedule of his to the public.”
• Jesus fucking Christ.
• Today in history… John C. Calhoun is becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign, after being elected Senator from South Carolina (1832). Osceola leads his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the United States Army (1835). Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state (1846). Wilhelm Röntgen publishes a paper detailing his discovery of a new type of radiation, which later will be known as x-rays (1895). The Syracuse Athletic Club defeat the New York Philadelphians, 5–0, in the first indoor professional football game, which was held at Madison Square Garden (1902). The first municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco (1912). Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants in the first ever National Football League sudden death overtime game at New York's Yankee Stadium (1958). American businesswoman Muriel Siebert becomes the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (1967). The last scheduled day for induction into the military by the Selective Service System (1972). 
• December 28 is the birthday of brewer John Molson (1763), astronomer Thomas Henderson (1798), US president Woodrow Wilson (1856), singer-songwriter Pops Staples (1914), writer/publisher Stan Lee (1922), NHL player Terry Sawchuk (1929), actress Maggie Smith (1934), musician Edgar Winter (1946), singer-songwriter Alex Chilton (1950), actor Denzel Washington (1954), NHL player Ray Bourque (1960), computer programmer Linus Torvalds (1969), and actor/TV host Seth Meyers (1973). 

I thought this week was going to be somewhat mellow, with many folks still on vacation or otherwise enjoying the nebulous week between Christmas and New Year’s. I was wrong. I was busy as fuck yesterday, so I’m not going to make any more assumptions about this week. I already have a good-sized list of things to do today, so things are just sort of normal. I’m okay with normal. Enjoy your day.