Random News: March 15, 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 March 15, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. Things have happened, so you should know about them…

• It’s the Ides of March today. Know what that is?
• It’s just March 15. 
• The Romans did not number each day of a month. Instead, they counted back from three fixed points of the month: the Nones, the Ides, and the Kalends). In March, the Ides fell on the 15th.
• According to philosopher/historian Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Julius Caesar on the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "Well, the Ides of March are come,” implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, they are come, but they are not gone."
• It’s probably bullshit that was written way after Caesar was killed to spice up the story. Plutarch’s account was from 100 years later. It probably wouldn’t have been remembered at all but then Shakespeare made it a big dramatic point in the play written over 1600 years after the fact.
• While I don’t believe in cursed days, I did get laid off from a job on the Ides of March some 23 years ago… but then I found a better job a couple of weeks later and my life improved dramatically. So much for curses.
• The US government reported yesterday that a Russian Su-27 jet has collided with a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea. To be more precise, it seems the Russian jet purposefully dumped fuel on the propellor of the drone.
• The incident took place in international airspace over international waters. The US military was forced to bring down the drone over the Black Sea. 
• Russia gives a somewhat different account of this encounter, as you’d expect.
• Cmdr Gen. James Hecker of the USAF says: “Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9.”
• That’s not good.
• If it had been a manned aircraft as opposed to a drone, it would immediately be defined as an act of war. Frankly, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life at war with anyone, much less Russia or China (or both).
• Got some potential breaking news for ya…
• Trump Media, which owns the social media platform Truth Social, is under federal investigation to determine whether it violated money laundering laws in connection with two loans totaling $8 million from shady Russian sources.
• The loans seem to be connected "in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin."
• Moving on…
• Today in Texas, a federal judge will have a hearing where he’ll decide whether or not to block the US government’s approval of the drug used for medication abortions.
• The case was brought by the anti-abortion right. Depending on how US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk handles the medication abortion lawsuit, access could be cut off nationwide to mifepristone, the most common method of abortion in the United States.
• So yes, to be clear: today, a male judge in Texas is going to choose the reproductive rights of women in Oregon, New York, California, Massachusetts and so on.
• If you were under the impression that all January 6 insurrectionists were uneducated middle-aged yokels who were misled by evil politicians, meet Larry Fife Giberson, 21, of Manahawkin, NJ.
• Larry, a Princeton University student, was arrested Tuesday on charges that he joined other rioters in pushing against police officers guarding an entrance to the U.S. Capitol during the mob's attack. He has a felony count of civil disorder and faces four other counts including engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds.
• Giberson tried in vain to start a chant of "Drag them out!" and then cheered on rioters using weapons and pepper spray against police in the tunnel, according to the FBI.
• The Justice Department recently reached a milestone in its prosecution of the U.S. Capitol attack, confirming it has arrested at least 1,000 people in connection with the failed coup attempt.
• And now, The Weather: “Love Fang” by Moto Bandit
• Speaking of weather, both coasts got a bunch of precipitation in the last day… some wet, some frozen. Buncha people flooded, many without power. It happens.
• I wasn’t going to mention this next thing, but I have far too many friends with teenage kids not it.
• A 34-year-old piece of shit — I won’t give him the honor of calling him a man — met a 13-year-old girl in a video game chat and enticed her to leave the home. He abducted her and took her from Dallas, TX to Davidson County, NC, a thousand miles away.
• They found the child two weeks later. Jorge Camacho was arrested on child abduction, felonious restraint, statutory rape and other charges.
• My point here… yes, it’s impossible to monitor everything your kid does online. But when they have a headset on and are playing some first-person shooter game, you have no idea who they’re interacting with. The way that these criminals find their victims is not something that’s immediately obvious to a parent.
• Maybe it’s a discussion you want to have with your teen son or daughter. I’m just saying.
• From the Sports Desk… so much movement in NFL free agency this week, your team will likely be unrecognizable by the time the season cranks back up next August.
• Today in history… The assassination of Julius Caesar takes place (44 BC). King Charles II of England issues the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, granting limited religious freedom to all Christians (1672). Maine is admitted as the twenty-third U.S. state (1820). Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the Russian throne, ending the 304-year Romanov dynasty (1917). Germany occupies Czechoslovakia (1939). President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to the Selma crisis, tells U.S. Congress "We shall overcome" while advocating the Voting Rights Act (1965). Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first President of the Soviet Union (1990). Approximately 1.4 million young people in 123 countries go on strike to protest climate change (2019).
• March 15 is the birthday of US president Andrew Jackson (1767), physician/epidemiologist John Snow (1813), physician Emil von Behring (1854), mathematician Grace Chisholm Young (1868), singer-songwriter Lightnin' Hopkins (1912), actor Lawrence Tierney (1919), NFL player Norm Van Brocklin (1926), music producer Arif Mardin (1932), SCOTUS justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933), actor Judd Hirsch (1935), songwriter/bass player Phil Lesh (1940), director David Cronenberg (1943), singer-songwriter Sly Stone (1943), guitarist Ry Cooder (1947), singer-songwriter Dee Snider (1955), singer Bret Michaels (1963), singer Mark McGrath (1968), actress Eva Longoria (1975), rapper will.i.am (1975), and MLB player Kevin Youkilis (1979).

Alrighty, well… I’m just going to do normal human stuff on this hopefully normal day. I’ll work and stuff and things and whatever. Enjoy your day.