Random News: February 4, 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 4, 2023, and it’s a Saturday. I’m wearing a blue bathrobe and I have my coffee handy, so let’s see what’s shaking on this silly planet…

• Everyone is still pretty hyped about the Chinese balloon, or balloons, as there seem to be more than one.
• I mean, I get it. We don’t like to have our sovereignty disrespected.
• But they’re always spying on us, and we’re always spying on them. Like, all the time. For years. There are tons of low Earth orbit satellites from various countries all looking at each other. It’s not just China and the US.
• They are extraordinarily precise. They can under some circumstances, I believe, single out an individual person from space. It’s nuts. You know how you can zoom in on your house via Google Maps? That’s the consumer version.
• Now imagine the military version.
• Anyway, there are some amazing military geniuses on places like Twitter and in the comments sections of YouTube videos who want to shoot down the balloons, or who think someone else would have already shot down the balloons.
• Allow me to retort against this brilliant suggestion.
• First, the fucking balloons are somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 feet. A typical airliner flies at 35,000 feet. A military fighter jet like the F-15 has an absolute maximum flight ceiling of 65,000 feet.
• Second, these things have tons of metal in them, and possibly some other materials that aren’t good to contact. Where does it go when the balloon pops? Straight fucking down.
• “This isn’t like ‘Top Gun’ where it just explodes and doesn’t go anywhere. It’s large and it’s metal, it would put hundreds of Americans at risk.” - US security official yesterday
• So no. A great intelligence test is to scroll through your social media contacts and note the people who are adamant about shooting down the balloon over the US mainland. Those people are stupid. Now you know.
• And now, The Weather: “Kind of a Nice Time” by Vansire
• In other news, it is super fucking cold in many places. Dangerously so. Please do not try and be tougher than the cold. You are not. You are a sloshy bag of liquid that’s not meant to live in such conditions.
• Obvious note: it’s not cold here. It’s nice. 60 and sunny.
• Actual news headline I just saw (but didn’t read the story)…
• ‘Man wanted for leaving a dead fish at ‘The Goonies’ house saved by Coast Guard in daring rescue’
• Okay then. Wait, here’s another…
• ‘Prosecutors Feared They'd Have To Prove Trump Wasn't Legally Insane’
• Okay, I’m done.
• From the Sports Desk… Kyrie Irving has asked the Nets to trade him.
• For those of you with short memories, he was suspended eight games earlier in the season after making a social media post promoting a book and movie that features antisemitic themes.
• He is also a very talented player who has some good years left in him, and I’m sure many teams will be willing to look past the fact that he hates Jews to sell some more tickets.
• Today in history… The coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song, initiating the Song dynasty period of China that would last more than three centuries (960). George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College (1789). John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States (1801). The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal (1825). Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Armed Forces High Command (1938). The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops (1941). The Yalta Conference between the "Big Three" (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea (1945). Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft (1967). A coup d'état is led by Hugo Chávez against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez (1992). Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot 41 times by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city (1999). Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin (2004). 
• February 4 is the birthday of composer Johann Ludwig Bach (1677), labor organizer Bill Haywood (1869), pilot/isolationist Charles Lindbergh (1902), astronomer Clyde Tombaugh (1906), civil rights activist Rosa Parks (1913), actor Conrad Bain (1923), film director George A. Romero (1940), computer scientist Ken Thompson (1943), politician Dan Quayle (1947), singer-songwriter Alice Cooper (1948), new Zealand prime minister Jenny Shipley (1952), NFL player Lawrence Taylor (1959), playwright Jonathan Larson (1960), attorney/lobbyist Hunter Biden (1970), boxer Oscar De La Hoya (1973), singer-songwriter Natalie Imbruglia (1975), and singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw (1977).

I guess I’ll take a shower and get dressed. I’m going to try and relax a bit and not do a whole lot of responsible stuff. Far too much of that lately. Enjoy your day.