Random News: February 12, 2023

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 February 12, 2023, and it’s a Sunday. It’s not just any Sunday; it is the holiest of American holidays, Super Bowl Sunday, so let’s get this out of the way so I can go be a big dumb jerk for like 13 hours…

• We popped another balloon, or something seems balloonish by description but is still officially an unidentified flying object.
• This one was over northern Canada. It was, once again, shot down via a heat-seeking missile fired by a US F-22 Raptor.
• Some people seem to forget that the forces who defend the US in case of air-based attacks also do the same for Canada. 
• You may have heard of NORAD — the North American Aerospace Defense Command. 
• That’s them.
• What you might not know is that hours later, a part of Montana airspace was temporarily closed due to a “radar anomaly,” then later reopened. A fighter jet was deployed to investigate the radar situation but did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits.
• I’m not saying it was aliens, but… shrug.
• Thought you’d like to learn more about the planes we use to fuck shit up. The The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is an American single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft, designed as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence capabilities.
• They are only used by the USA. They are scary. There are 183 of them. They can fly at Mach 2.25 (1,500 mph) and have a range of 1,800 miles.
• Each F-22 has one 20 mm M61A2 Vulcan rotary cannon with 480 rounds. For air-to-air missions, they load them with six AIM-120C/D AMRAAM missiles and two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles internally, and four AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles along with other external armaments as needed.
• Each one costs between $150 and $200 million. They’ve been in active use since 2005. Guess how many total objects F-22’s have shot down?
• Three. One balloon and two UFOs. All in the past week.
• And now, The Weather: “Echolalia” by Yves Tumor
• In Sad Trombone News, Trump’s 2020 campaign commissioned Berkeley Research Group, an outside research firm, in a bid to prove electoral fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election.
• In the final weeks of 2020, they carefully examined voter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, and found nothing. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court.
• Womp womp. 
• From the Glad We Don’t Live In a Theocracy File, a man identified only as Waris had been in police custody in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province for desecrating pages of a copy of Islam's holy book, the Quran.
• Hundreds of Muslims descended on the police station yesterday, snatched him from his cell, took him outside and lynched him for blasphemy.
• This is why we don’t combine church and state in the USA. Charges of blasphemy carry the death penalty under Pakistani law.
• From the Sports Desk… I guess we’ll stick with the obvious. Super Bowl LVII is today at 3:30PM PST on Fox. Held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, AZ, the game will feature the Kansas City Chiefs at the Philadelphia Eagles.
• The Chiefs will be the guys in the red helmets and white jerseys. The Eagles will be the guys in green jerseys and helmets. It is unknown as of press time whether the Chiefs will wear their red pants, or use their alternative white pants instead. The Eagles will definitely be in their white pants.
• Both teams, including playoffs wins, are 16-3.  They’re both good. They both have strong offensive and defensive weapons. Either team can win, and one will.
• That being said, there are factors that could lead to a much more lopsided score than has been prognosticated thus far. 
• Not much to say beyond that, except for this.
• You know how it’s been said for decades that the Super Bowl is the worst day for domestic violence in America, and that women's shelters and hotlines are flooded with more calls from victims than on any other day of the year?
• That’s completely false. It’s not true at all.
• Domestic violence numbers and violence against women are pretty horrible year round, and they do escalate around Christmas or other times of year that coincide with school vacation.
• But statistically, Super Bowl Sunday is no worse in that despicable area than other days. That being said, perhaps it’s a good thing that many are reminded of the continuing pervasive aspects of domestic violence during this game, if if it’s not a direct correlation.
• All that being said, impaired driving and other alcohol-related incidents do go up, so have fun but try and be a responsible human being while you do and not be a complete fucking idiot piece of shit.
• Thanks.
• In personal news, my fucking back is out again. It happens. You get used to it. I have dealt with spinal issues for many years that manifests itself in various ways, all painful.
• I had to spend the entirety of yesterday evening laying down flat. Neither sitting nor standing was an option.
• Can it be fixed? Maybe. Not through methods like exercise or chiropractic care, though. It would require surgery. Would surgery 100% fix it? No one can say.
• Anyway, the timing is shitty as it often is. I had to spend a chunk of yesterday dealing with plans for my mom’s mortal remains. Not the best Saturday I’ve had in recent memory. But I’m not letting it get me down.
• Today in history… Isabella I issues an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity (1502). Approximately 3,000 Joseon defenders led by general Kwon Yul successfully repel more than 30,000 Japanese forces in the Siege of Haengju (1593). Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, by settling at Savannah (1733). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — NAACP — is founded (1909). George Gershwin's ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ received its premiere in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music", in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Paul Whiteman and his band, with Gershwin playing the piano (1924). African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer, galvanizing the civil rights movement (1946). Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO (1963). United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial (1999). The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom (2004). 
• February 12 is the birthday of naturalist Charles Darwin (1809), US president Abraham Lincoln (1809), engineer/businessman Louis Renault (1877), US general Omar Bradley (1893), MLB player/announcer Joe Garagiola, Sr. (1926), NBA legend Bill Russell (1934), author Judy Blume (1938), keyboardist/songwriter Ray Manzarek (1939), scientist/futurist Ray Kurzweil (1948), guitarist Steve Hackett (1950), singer-songwriter Michael McDonald (1952), bass player/producer Bill Laswell (1955), actor/TV host Arsenio Hall (1956), drummer Omar Hakim (1964), SCOTUS justice Brett Kavanaugh (1965), actor Josh Brolin (1968), actress Christina Ricci (1980), and NFL player Robert Griffin III (1990).

So yes, despite everything else, I will be enjoying the Super Bowl today. Life is full of challenging shit, and taking one day to be a babbling idiot is perfectly acceptable. If you have a team, I hope your team wins, unless it somehow interferes with my own interests in this game, in which case I hope your team is complete shit. Enjoy your day.