Random News: April 6, 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 April 6, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Always many things happening in the world, some good, some bad, so let’s not be blissfully ignorant and instead be angrily aware…

• Kansas is banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports from kindergarten through college. Their Republican legislators have overridden the Democratic Governor’s veto in this regard.
• Their disgusting new law allows forced genital inspections for children who want to play sports. I would be the first in line to levy charges of pedophilia and child sex abuse to anyone who demanded to see my son’s or daughter’s genitalia.
• This is what Republicans want nationwide. Remember it every time you vote for anything.
• Yesterday, Indiana’s governor signed a bill banning all gender-affirming care for minors. At least 12 other states have now enacted laws restricting or banning such care.
• In semi-related news, and I truly wish I didn’t have this opinion… but I’m truly beginning to think that all organized religion is merely a front for sex abuse and money grifting.
• More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children and often escaped accountability. A report released yesterday revealed the scope of abuse spanning 80 years and accused church leaders of decades of coverups.
• Some parishes, schools and congregations had more than one abuser at the same time — including St. Mark Parish in Catonsville, which had 11 abusers living and working there between 1964 and 2004. One deacon admitted to molesting over 100 children.
• Anyone in a position of trust and authority, from doctors and law enforcement to clergy and politicians, should get ten times the punishment of others who commit these crimes.
• Moving on…
• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas have received lavish gifts for over 20 years from GOP mega donor Harlan Crow, and have failed to disclose them.
• The gifts include luxury vacations, flights on Crow's private jet, and stays at his exclusive, private resort. If the Thomases had to pay for the chartering of the jet and yacht, "the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000," a new report concludes.
• Thomas should immediately resign over this gross ethics violation.
• Speaking of gross…
• Idaho has become the first state to pass a law explicitly restricting some out-of-state travel for abortions. But wait, there’s more:  Idaho's law also expressly criminalizes assisting with an out-of-state abortion. So if I help you leave Idaho to get an abortion next door in women-friendly Washington State, I am not also a criminal.
• Can you imagine sending your daughter to a school like Boise State University, where police will be there to “monitor” her pregnancy status? What’s next, pulling women over for pregnancy “inspections?” Where a woman just leaving the state on vacation is cause for suspicion and investigation?
• This is what Republicans want for the whole USA. DO NOT LET IT HAPPEN.
• Moving on…
• Bob Lee, a respected guy in the tech world, was stabbed to death at about 2:30AM yesterday morning in San Francisco. He was the founder of CashApp and had been the CTO at Square. He’d also been a big developer for Android as a software engineer at Google. The dude was only 43. RIP to him.
• I’m gonna say something that will make me seem like the biggest prude you’ve ever met, but it’s true: not many good things seem to happen to folks who are out after midnight. And yes, I was a young rock musician who often closed bars. I speak with both experience and a good measure of hypocrisy here.
• The social media platform Twitter is getting worse and worse.
• They added a "state-affiliated media" tag to NPR's main account on Tuesday, applying the same label to the nonprofit media company that Twitter uses to designate official state mouthpieces and propaganda outlets in countries such as Russia and China.
• Fact check: NPR operates independently of the U.S. government. NPR gets less than 1% of its annual budget from federal sources.
• Twitter cannot be trusted.
• And now, The Weather: “Days” by Car Kiss
• Tens of thousands of student walked out of class yesterday across the nation to demand change in our gun laws. Gun violence is the number one cause of children’s deaths in the USA.
• A 21-year-old idiot named Tanner Cook makes YouTube videos of himself harassing random strangers. On Sunday, he repeatedly harassed a man in a Virginia mall who was just there to pick up food for his DoorDash job. The man shot Cook in the stomach.
• Too bad, so sad. Cook is expected to live. Maybe he should try and harass me to see what happens.
• Today in history… Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Cato the Younger at the Battle of Thapsus (46 BC). The New York Slave Revolt of 1712 begins near Broadway (1712). John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company, that would eventually make him America's first millionaire (1808). U.S. President John Tyler is sworn in, two days after having become president upon William Henry Harrison's death (1841). In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I (1896). Robert Peary and Matthew Henson become the first people to reach the North Pole (1909). The United States declares war on Germany (1917). Huey P. Long, Governor of Louisiana, is impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives (1929). Sarajevo is liberated from German and Croatian forces by the Yugoslav Partisans (1945). The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievement (1947). Launch of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit (1965). Pierre Elliott Trudeau wins the Liberal Party leadership election, and becomes Prime Minister of Canada soon afterward (1968). Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft (1973). 
• April 6 is the birthday of philosopher/scholar Maimonides (1135), poet/playwright Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1671), engineer/businessman Anthony Fokker (1890), businessman Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. (1892), composer/conductor André Previn (1929), guru Ram Dass (1931), singer-songwriter Merle Haggard (1937), actor Billy Dee Williams (1937), actress Marilu Henner (1952), actor Paul Rudd (1969), and NFL player Tim Hasselbeck (1978).

Sigh. Well, being aware of things isn’t always fun. But I truly believe that the most evil powers in the world want nothing more than to keep you uneducated and unaware… which is why they’ve tried to turn “woke” into a pejorative. Fuck those people. Enjoy your day.