Random News: February 22, 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 22, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. Let’s take a look around and see…

• The Supreme Court cases from yesterday and today in regard to Big Tech’s responsibility for third-party content and giving platforms to that provide aid to terrorist organizations have been interesting thus far.
• Those entities have been mostly immune from culpability due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
• Yesterday’s case of Gonzalez v. Google is mostly about the YouTube algorithm. Today’s case of Twitter v. Taamneh focuses on the Anti-Terrorism Act.
• It’s difficult to say what’s right and wrong here. The lines are so unclear that there was no consensus of questions contrasting the right wing and left wing of the SCOTUS so far.
• Stay tuned on these things. Much more to come.
• As projected yesterday, Democrat Jennifer McClellan has made history as the first Black woman elected to represent Virginia in Congress.
• She defeated Republican Leon Benjamin in the special election for the state’s 4th Congressional District. McClellan will fill the seat of Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin, who died from cancer shortly after he won re-election in November. 
• The good news: McClellan will join 29 other Black women in the House. The bad news: there are no Black women in the Senate.
• There was one, but we made her vice president.
• Moving on.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been fined $5 million for using shell companies to obscure the size of its $32 billion portfolio.
• Whistleblowers allege that the Mormons misrepresented how they used donations and, rather than direct them to charitable causes, invested in assets including real estate and shell corporations.
• What a fucking scam. Sounds like they got off cheap to me.
• This is interesting.
• Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of murdered Black civil rights activist Malcolm X, is suing the NYPD, FBI, and CIA over her father’s 1965 murder.
• She says US officials fraudulently concealed evidence that they "conspired to and executed their plan to assassinate" her father. Shabazz, 60, was two years old when she saw her father gunned down by three armed men who shot him 21 times as he was preparing to speak at a Harlem auditorium.
• Meet Robby Stuteville. He was the superintendent of a Texas school district until a third-grade student found his loaded gun unattended in a school bathroom.
• Stuteville submitted his resignation from the Rising Star Independent School District effective Monday. He said he was using the restroom and placed his gun in the stall.
• Probably a bad idea.
• Some 37-year-old rich idiot named Vivek Ramaswamy announced his candidacy for President. His whole platform is as an "anti-woke" capitalist.
• I hope he enjoys spending a lot of money for nothing. The GOP doesn’t like brown people.
• And now, The Weather: “Sunset” by Andy Shauf
• As I mentioned previously, there are winter weather alerts in 23 states, with six states under blizzard warnings.
• And here’s the weird part: weather stations east of the Ohio River and across the South are expected to break records for high temperatures Thursday… Washington, D.C. (80ºF), Orlando, FL (90ºF), New Orleans, LA (83ºF), and Raleigh, NC (86ºF).
• Buttttt… cities along the West Coast of the U.S. are expected to set records for the coldest high temperatures at the same time, with chilly highs in places like Burbank, CA (49ºF), San Francisco, CA (48ºF), Portland, OR (32ºF), and Billings, MT (0ºF). 
• And, in personal weather news, my patio fence blew down in last night’s wind storm. Like, a big-ass six-foot wooden fence. Ripped out by its ground posts. Gone. That will be a fun call to my landlord a little later this morning. 
• A quick note on 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley. Back in 2010, she did some interviews when running for governor of South Carolina and had some quotable gems, like…
• “I think you have one side of the Civil War that was fighting for tradition, and I think you have another side of the Civil War that was fighting for change. So, you know I think it was tradition versus change is the way I see it.”
• Anything else, Nikki?
• “And so, when you look at that, if you have Black History Month and you have Confederate History Month and all of those. As long as it’s done where it is in a positive way and not in a negative way, and it doesn’t go to harm anyone, and it goes back to where it focuses on the traditions of the people that are wanting to celebrate it, then I think it’s fine.”
• Best of luck with your candidacy.
• From the Sports Desk… I guess March Madness is coming? I don’t do college sports, but maybe I’ll be one of those people who fills out a bracket without knowing shit.
• Today in history… Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty (1371). Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars (1819). The United States Republican Party opens its first national convention in Pittsburgh, PA (1856). The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee (1872). In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of five-and-dime Woolworth stores (1879). President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states (1889). Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500 (1959). In Lake Placid, NY, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3 in a game known as the Miracle on Ice (1980). In Roslin, Midlothian, British scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned (1997). 
• February 22 is the birthday of Hungary king Ladislaus the Posthumous (1440), US president George Washington (1732), philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788), general/Scout Association founder Robert Baden-Powell (1857), actress Marguerite Clark (1883), poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892), actor Robert Young (1907), radio/TV announcer Don Pardo (1918), tallest human Robert Wadlow (1918), actor Paul Dooley (1928), politician Ted Kennedy (1932), MLB player/manager Sparky Anderson (1934), film director Jonathan Demme (1944), drummer Harvey Mason (1947), NBA legend Julius Erving (1950), Kyle MacLachlan (1959), zoologist Steve Irwin (1962), actress Jeri Ryan (1968), actress Drew Barrymore (1975), NBA player Rajon Rondo (1986), and NFL player Khalil Mack (1991).

For those keeping track, I’m happy to report that my sense of smell is back up to 75-80% of normal. I can now tell the difference between a cup of Peet’s Aged Sumatra versus a cup of Folgers Crystals instant, so that’s a bonus. I’m still not 100% health wise in general, but that’s to be expected. I’ll get there eventually. COVID is a bitch. Enjoy your day.