Random News: August 31, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 31, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I’m drinking coffee and I just heard a goose honk somewhere over the horizon. These things aren’t related; I’m just telling you what’s going on.

• Let’s do the latest Don the Con news. There’s always so much of it, and none of it is good… for him. Great for us, though.
• Donnie inflated his net worth by as much as $2.2 billion in one year, per the New York attorney general’s office. This investigation, to help you keep track, is for the civil fraud lawsuit against Trump, his two adult sons, and the Trump Organization.
• The new allegations were made in a partial summary judgment motion made public yesterday by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
• James’ office is asking the judge to find that Trump and others made false or misleading financial statements from 2011-2021 and benefited from inflating his assets by receiving favorable loan terms and insurance rates.
• The judge is not expected to rule on the motions until just before the trial for the $250 million lawsuit, which is set to start in October.
• How about Donnie’s best pals? How are they doing?
• Yesterday, a federal judge ruled against Rudy Giuliani by forfeit for the defamation lawsuit from Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
• The mother and daughter are asking for unspecified damages. Rudy’s trial to determine how much he owes the ladies will be set for later this year or early 2024, per Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court.
• The damages could easily amount to millions of dollars. Rudy is selling his New York apartment to raise money for his legal defense. Many reports say he is suffering financially and has a serious alcohol problem.
• Let’s move to another Republican guy who’s having problems of a different sort: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He… froze again.
• Ugh. I genuinely feel almost sorry for this guy now. Whoever is encouraging/enabling him to continue working at this point should be charged with elder abuse.
• The new incident occurred yesterday after McConnell, 81, was asked about running for re-election in 2026. He acknowledged the question, but trailed off shortly after and stopped speaking and began to stare ahead blankly.
• After the first 10 seconds of silence, an aide stepped in and asked Mitch whether he heard the question. He continued to look off into the distance for another 30 uncomfortable seconds. After the incident, a spokesperson said that McConnell "plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do."
• They just want him to die on the job. This isn’t a conservative/liberal thing; Dianne Feinstein, whom I adore, has to retire immediately.
• Some very good news out of Texas.
• In June, Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that prohibited cities from passing certain local ordinances. It was widely seen as an effort to curb the power of Democrat-led cities.
• Now, a judge has ruled HB 2127 unconstitutional. District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Texas announced the decision yesterday in response to a lawsuit from the city of Houston. 
• Among other draconian measures, Abbott’s law even eliminated ordinances that mandated water breaks for construction workers.
• Texas’s corrupt AG Ken Paxton, who is facing impeachment and criminal proceedings, has filed an appeal, meaning that the law will still going into effect tomorrow (September 1) despite being ruled unconstitutional. Sorry, Texas. This will work out eventually, though.
• Moving on… to how not to react to a tragedy.
• After the shooting at UNC Chapel Hill, Wendy Waters, principal of Spring Creek Middle School in Goldsboro, NC, wrote on Facebook about the shooter Tailei Qi…
• “My bet is he’s a Chinese Nationalist as a “visiting student” stealing our intellectual property working for the CCP!! There is nothing WHITE about him and since this is now at my front door I will not let them get away with their gaslighting BS!!!”
• My bet is that Spring Creek Middle School has a new principal next week. Can you imagine having a non-white child at that school, knowing how their principal feels about other races?
• Let’s move back to good news.
• Mississippi will have its first-ever openly gay state legislator after a House candidate won his Democratic primary election runoff Tuesday. Fabian Nelson prevailed over Roshunda Harris-Allen in the race to represent the House district in the south Jackson metro area.
• Republicans did not field a candidate for the general election, so Nelson will go on to represent the district. A gay black man elected to office in Mississippi isn’t something I’d have expected to see in my lifetime. That’s amazing progress.
• And now some horrifying news.
• Alabama’s Republican attorney general said in a court filing that he has the right to prosecute people who make travel arrangements for pregnant women to have out-of-state abortions.
• In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote that providing transportation for women in Alabama to leave the state to get an abortion could amount to a “criminal conspiracy.”
• I predicted when Roe v Wade was repealed that the forced-birth states would be pulling over women as they left the state and forcing them to take pregnancy tests.
• I stand by my prediction. Women, you don’t deserve this. Please vote for candidates who respect your bodily autonomy.
• And now, The Weather: “Good Intention” by Laura Groves
• Tropical Storm Idalia is pounding the Southeast’s Atlantic coast, prompting flash flood warnings in North Carolina.
• Thousands of homes are damaged in Florida – some with shredded walls and roofs, others with knee-high, murky floodwater that officials warn could be dangerous for days to come.
• For those needing FEMA relief after Hurricane Idalia, keep in mind that the initial $700 cap is for immediate needs like water, toiletries, clothing, and so on. The longer term assistance is capped at $41,000, which still feels super low compared to what some people will definitely require.
• Republicans fought tooth and nail to keep them that low. If it’s not enough, tell a Republican about it.
• In better news, the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services is recommending that the DEA significantly loosen federal restrictions on marijuana.
• I think it should be entirely removed from the Controlled Substances Act, but that’s me.
• HHS wants the drug moved from Schedule I to Schedule III under the CSA, which would be the biggest change in federal drug policy in decades.
• Here’s a different kind of chart… not really a chart at all, but instead, here are all the songs that made it to #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts in 1988 (from when they started this chart) and 1989, along with the dates they did. What was I doing around then? I was just starting to figure out my life while working at a Sunglass Hut in a mall.
• Peek-a-Boo (Siouxsie and the Banshees) - September 10, 1988 • Just Play Music! (Big Audio Dynamite) - September 17, 1988 • All That Money Wants (The Psychedelic Furs) - October 1, 1988 • Desire (U2) - October 22, 1988 • Orange Crush (R.E.M.) - November 26, 1988 • Charlotte Anne (Julian Cope) - January 21, 1989 • Stand (R.E.M.) - January 28, 1989 • Dirty Blvd. (Lou Reed) - February 11, 1989 • I'll Be You (The Replacements) - March 11, 1989 • Veronica (Elvis Costello) - March 18, 1989 • Mayor of Simpleton (XTC) - April 1, 1989 • Fascination Street (The Cure) - May 6, 1989 • So Alive (Love and Rockets) - June 24, 1989 • Disappointed (Public Image Ltd) - July 29, 1989 • Channel Z (The B-52’s) - August 5, 1989 • Come Anytime (Hoodoo Gurus) - August 26, 1989 • Love Shack (The B-52’s) - September 16, 1989 • Sowing the Seeds of Love (Tears for Fears) - October 14, 1989 • Pictures of Matchstick Men (Camper Van Beethoven) - October 21, 1989 • Proud to Fall (Ian McCulloch) - November 11, 1989 • Love and Anger (Kate Bush) - December 9, 1989 • Blues from a Gun (The Jesus and Mary Chain) - December 30, 1989
• From the Sports Desk… congrats to Phillies slugger Bryce Harper, who hit his 300th career home run yesterday against the Angels. Harper is the 158th player in major league history to reach that mark.
• Fun Fact: he hit his first career homer on May 14, 2012, when he was with the Washington Nationals.
• Today in history… Byzantine Empress Theodora dies childless, thus ending the Macedonian dynasty (1056). King Henry V of England dies of dysentery and Henry VI becomes King of England at the age of nine months (1422). Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta (1864). Mary Ann Nichols becomes the first of Jack the Ripper’s victims (1888). Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his navigable balloon (1895). The USA passes a Neutrality Act to try and stay out of the tensions concerning Germany and Japan (1935). Malaysia gains its independence from the United Kingdom (1957). Princess Diana dies in a car crash in Paris (1997).
• August 31 is the birthday of Roman emperor Caligula (12), Roman emperor Commodus (161), Chinese emperor Zhang Zong (1168), educator Maria Montessori (1870), radio/TV host Arthur Godfrey (1903), actor/educator Sanford Meisner (1905), novelist William Saroyan (1908), composer Alan Jay Lerner (1918), actor Buddy Hackett (1924), actor James Coburn (1928), saxophonist/bass player Wilton Felder (1940), illustrator Roger Dean (1944), singer-songwriter Van Morrison (1945), violinist Itzhak Perlman (1945), singer-songwriter/guitarist Bob Welch (1945), actor Richard Gere (1949), track and field athlete Edwin Moses (1955), drummer Gina Schock (1957), voice actor Dee Bradley Baker (1962), singer-songwriter Debbie Gibson (1970), comedian Chris Tucker (1971), NFL player Larry Fitzgerald (1983), and NFL player Sauce Gardner (2000).

That’s all for now. Enjoy your day.

Random News: August 30, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 30, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. This week has kicked my ass and it’s only Wednesday somehow, but I’m gonna keep on truckin’ along and do what I have to do.

• I want to start today with a message from political commentator Lawrence O’Donnell Jr.
• “What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican party? I’ll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed liberals on every one of those things, every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal’, as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work because I will pick up that label and wear it as a badge of honor.”
• Same here, Lawrence.
• And one addendum I like to add: a huge majority of the people helped by these liberal actions are those who now vote against them. If you meet a MAGA supporter who accepts any form of public assistance, they do so only because Republicans were unsuccessful in their efforts in preventing it, and fought kicking and screaming against it.
• The hypocrisy seems to be part of the mindset. Many of these folks have bumper stickers showing their support of law enforcement and the justice system (Back the Blue! Thin Blue Line!), but then they cheer when cops are injured and killed during an insurrection, or decide that justice is crooked when their favorite people have to face repercussions for the crimes they commit.
• They claim to hate illegal drugs but have the highest addiction rates for opioid substances. They fight to control women’s reproductive rights, and then fight even harder to prevent children from getting necessary benefits.
• The easier thing to do would be for liberal folks to say, “Okay, you know what? You’re on your own. Good luck,” and let them find out what happens. But that’s not in our nature. I’m fighting for the rights of every person, including those who act against their own best interests.
• Okay, on with the news…
• The center of Hurricane Idalia has slammed Florida at dangerous Category 3 strength, with a deadly storm surge and catastrophic winds not seen in that Gulf Coast area in 125 years.
• As of 9AM ET, it was whipping top sustained winds of 110 mph, threatening inland Florida and the Georgia and South Carolina coasts with intense flooding, ferocious winds and tornadoes.
• I wish nothing but the best for you folks. Please prioritize your safety and that of your family and neighbors above all else.
• In other news…
• Today was supposed to be the sentencing day for Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group, but Judge Timothy Kelly is ill.
• Prosecutors are seeking 33 years behind bars for Tarrio, who organized and led the group’s assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 during the failed coup attempt.
• He and three lieutenants were convicted in May of charges including seditious conspiracy.
• Moving on…
• Canada is advising LGBTQ travelers planning trips to the United States to check how they might be affected by recently passed laws in some states.
• Canada’s travel advisory for the U.S. now includes a cautionary message for those who consider themselves two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning or intersex.
• Can you blame them? I’d advise against nearly anyone visiting certain states in the USA right now. Those who discriminate against LGBTQIA+, those who negate women’s reproductive rights, those where racial and religious violence is rampant… those states make it clear who they are.
• And their economies don’t merit income from tourism, much less national/global business.
• In other news of people behaving badly and reflecting badly on their state…
• Oklahomans are calling for an impeachment probe of Ryan Walters, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, citing a range of recent issues, including bomb threats against a school district following one of Walters’ provocative social media posts. 
• Walters, a Republican known for focusing on culture war issues, has ushered in the nation’s first religious charter school, promised to “put God back in schools” and threatened to take over the state’s largest school district in Tulsa — all within his first eight months in office. 
• Fuck that guy. Kick Ryan Walters’ anti-American, anti-Constitutional ass to the curb. What an embarrassment to Oklahoma.
• Moving on to our destruction of the environment.
• Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency and US Army released a new rule that slashes federally protected water by more than half, following a Supreme Court decision in May that rolled back protections for US wetlands.
• The rule will invalidate an earlier definition of what constitutes the so-called waters of the United States, after the Supreme Court ruled Clean Water Act protections extend only to “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own rights.”
• It will impact up to 63% of US wetlands by acreage and around 1.2 million to 4.9 million miles of ephemeral streams. The new rule will take effect immediately.
• This used to be such a nice planet. Pity that people fucked it up so badly that they couldn’t even live here anymore and had nowhere else to go. I hope the next intelligent species that evolves here learns from our mistakes.
• Let’s do a little news in regard to the Creamsicle Criminal.
• Three of Trump's co-defendants turned on him in the Fulton County, GA case. They are among the group of fake electors. In court filings submitted this week, they say that they signed falsified forged documents “at the direction of Trump and his legal team."
• I’d have never have thought it possible, but there is a distinct chance, the way things are headed, that criminal #P01135809 could easily win the GOP nomination while being tried and convicted, and immediately remanded to jail. 
• Can you imagine next year, with that Orange Blob running a general-election campaign… while incarcerated?
• However, he may face another obstacle to that plan. Yesterday, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office began reviewing an effort by some Republicans in the state to keep Trump off the ballot in 2024.
• Bryant “Corky” Messner — an attorney and prominent Republican who ran on Trump’s endorsement as the state’s 2020 U.S. Senate nominee — has publicly questioned Trump’s eligibility to run for president, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
• The section disqualifies those who’ve taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding office again if they’ve “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
• Other states will be following suit.
• In other breaking news regarding That Pricks and his pals, DC District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled just now that former White House aide Peter Navarro must face both of his contempt of Congress charges for defying a subpoena from the January 6 Select Committee, rejecting claims that former Trump invoked executive privilege and partially immunized him.
• Hilariously, Trump had given Navarro immunity from the House COVID subcommittee, and did not authorize Navarro to claim privilege when he was subpoenaed later by the Jan. 6 committee.
• What. An. Idiot.
• And now, The Weather: “what's underneath” by Swansea Skag
• Labor Day Weekend is coming up fast, and your area may be getting nailed with yet another heat wave. Just get used to the weather being shitty for most people in most places.
• If you want to know how deeply the MAGA ideology has permeated some areas of this otherwise great country, 40% of American dog owners are concerned about vaccinating their pets — including rabies shots — for fear their dogs will develop autism.
• I’m not kidding. Some of these people are your friends and neighbors.
• From the Sports Desk… defending champion Carlos Alcaraz cruised into the second round of the US Open yesterday after his opponent, Dominik Koepfer of Germany, retired because of an injury during their prime-time match in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
• The 20-year-old top seed from Spain was leading 6-2, 3-2 when Koepfer quit after rolling his ankle (ouch). Alcaraz will play Lloyd Harris of South Africa in the second round.
• Today in history… Guru Ram Das becomes the Fourth Sikh Guru/Master (1574). HMS Pandora sinks after having run aground on the Great Barrier Reef (1791). Melbourne, Victoria, Australia is founded (1835). The city of Houston,TX is founded (1836). Germans defeat the Russians in the WWI Battle of Tannenberg (1914). The Queen Mary wins the Blue Riband with the fastest transatlantic crossing (1936). The Moscow–Washington hotline between the leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union goes into operation (1963). Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1967). President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar of Iran are assassinated in a bombing (1981). Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage (1984). The 11-day Ruby Ridge standoff ends with Randy Weaver surrendering to federal authorities (1992). The last remaining American troops leave Afghanistan, ending U.S. involvement in the war (2021).
• August 30 is the birthday of novelist Mary Shelley (1797), physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871), politician Huey Long (1893), actress Shirley Booth (1898), actor Fred McMurray (1908), MLB player Ted Williams (1918), singer-songwriter/guitarist Kitty Wells (1919), actor Bill Daily (1927), businessman/philanthropist Warren Buffett (1930), singer-songwriter/guitarist John Phillips (1935), race car driver/designer Bruce McLaren (1937), radio host John Peel (1939), illustrator Robert Crumb (1943), model/actress Peggy Lipton (1946), comedian Lewis Black (1948), NBA player Robert Parish (1953), singer-songwriter/bass player Dave Brockie (1963), singer-songwriter/guitarist Lars Frederiksen (1971), model/actress Cameron Diaz (1972), and tennis player Andy Roddick (1982).

Alrighty, well… lots going on, as always. But I think a lot of it is tilting more toward the good than the bad, despite all of this seemingly depressing shit you just read above. The good guys do win in the end. If they haven’t won yet, it’s not yet the end. Enjoy your day.

Random News: August 29, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 29, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. Oh boy, do I have some stuff for you. It’s been a busy 24 hours in the world of news, so without further adieu…

• U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has scheduled Donald Trump’s D.C. trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election for March 4, 2024.
• Note: this is one of the two cases from special counsel Jack Smith, the other one being a separate criminal case in regard to the documents Trump stole and hid at his golf motel.
• This case involves four charges for which Trump was indicated earlier this month: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction; and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
• Jack Smith had requested a start date for this trial in January, while El Dumpo had requested a start date of — hee hee — April 2026.
• Judge Chutkan's decision sets the trial in the middle of the Republican presidential primaries and the day before Super Tuesday. Too bad, so sad.
• Trump posted that he would appeal the trial date decision. But orders setting trial dates are not appealable, which any of his lawyers could have mentioned to him (and probably did). The Orange Turd might still affect the trial date due to other litigation in the case, however.
• Let’s head back down south to Georgia, where yesterday morning, former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows surprisingly took the witness stand in a bid to get the criminal case charging him with tampering with the 2020 presidential election results moved out of state court and ultimately dismissed.
• This is in the Fulton County Fani Willis case, to avoid any confusion.
• Meadows spent more than two and a half hours testifying. He stated that he took an extremely wide-ranging view of his responsibilities as chief of staff and viewed that role as encompassing nearly all his actions prosecutors say amounted to corrupt pressure on Georgia officials.
• In other words, he was “just following orders” as part of his job as CoS.
• And here’s the danger: if a federal judge agrees that Meadows’ actions plausibly fell within the scope of his federal duties, the case may get moved into federal court, and Meadows may be immune from the charges against him. It’s the same defense that Trump himself is expected to use.
• Four other defendants have joined Meadows in seeking to move their cases to federal court, including three GOP fake electors and former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, who has a similar hearing set for September 18.
• Anyway, at the exact moment Meadows was testifying for his own defense in Georgia, another former senior Trump White House aide, Peter Navarro, was testifying in a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., on charges for defying a House January 6 select committee subpoena for testimony.
• Navarro is also using the “just following orders” excuse, saying that Trump asserted executive privilege to shield him from having to cooperate with the committee’s request for testimony and documents.
• You know who else were just following orders? Most of the Nazis. And they faced the ultimate punishment anyway. It didn’t work then. It doesn’t work now.
• These cases are like watching a 100-car pile-up on a fogbound icy freeway. Everyone involved in the inner circle of The Former Guy is going to be defending their criminal actions for a long, long time to come. This is how their lives are now.
• Moving on…
• Very happy with my state’s attorney general. AG Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against the Chino Valley Unified School District yesterday over its recently adopted policy that requires schools to notify parents if their children change their gender identification or pronouns.
• We don’t do that shit in California. Fuck right off, Chino Valley.
• In other news, all hell broke loose yesterday at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when a graduate student shot a faculty member to death. Tailei Qi was arrested and booked on a first-degree murder charge.
• The shooting caused chaos at the school, with students jumping from windows in panic to escape. Classes have been canceled there today.
• Let’s do some good news.
• This morning, the Biden administration released its list of the first 10 drugs that Medicare will target for price cuts by negotiating the prices with drugmakers.
• These 10 drugs cost people on Medicare $3.4 billion in out-of-pocket costs in 2022.
• The list includes blood thinners Eliquis and Xarelto; diabetes drugs Jardiance, Januvia, Farxiga and Fiasp/Novolog insulin; Enbrel and Stelara, drugs used to treat autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and Crohn's disease; and Imbruvica, a drug that treats blood cancers.
• Speaking of President Biden, he and first lady Dr. Jill Biden visited Eliot-Hine Middle School yesterday, surprising kids who are just getting back to class for the new school year.
• When he popped into an eighth-grade math class, a kid screamed “Joe Biden!”
• Joe told students and staff that he had been bullied when he was younger because he was small and would stutter. Both the president and first lady shook every child’s hand.
• And now, The Weather: “Ready For You” by Cherry Glazerr
• Hurricane Idalia is expected to intensify considerably as it heads toward Florida. It’s due to hit at Category 3 strength, and millions are under storm warnings.
• I used to be one of those people who would say, “Why don’t people just leave?”
• Then I found out that they had no place to go, no money to get there, no where to keep their pets, no one to protect their homes from looters, and would lose their jobs for not being there in the middle of a disaster.
• We’re basically unevolved, stupid barbarians with Internet.
• The National Guard is on call and evacuations underway as the storm could deliver a devastating blow to parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Good luck to all.
• Eminem has told GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to stop singing “Lose Yourself”.
• Performing rights organization BMI has informed Ramaswamy’s campaign at Eminem’s request that it will no longer license the rapper’s music for use by the campaign.
• A funny thing about Ramaswamy: he’s being positioned as a “Younger Trump”, but do his backers really think that the majority of the MAGA voter block will throw support behind a brown-skinned Hindu man?
• Never gonna happen.
• I’ll remind you that above all else, abortion will be the primary topic going into the 2024 election cycle. Pennsylvania will be the next state-level battleground on this issue.
• More to come on that topic. Much more.
• From the Sports Desk… today at 4PM ET is the deadline for all NFL teams to set their final 53-man rosters for the 2023 NFL regular season, which kicks off Thursday, September 7.
• Good luck.
• Today in history… Copper coins are minted in Japan (708). The city of Nuuk, Greenland is founded (1728). American forces defeat the British and Iroquois forces at the Battle of Newtown (1779). Massachusetts farmers have an armed uprising against high taxes and debts, called Shays’ Rebellion (1786). Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction (1831). Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first internal combustion motorcycle, the Reitwagen (1885). The Goodyear tire company is founded (1898). The Beatles perform their last ticketed concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco (1966). Netflix is launched as an internet DVD rental service (1997). Hurricane Katrina devastates the Gulf Coast, killing up to 1,836 people and causing $125 billion in damage (2005).
• August 29 is the birthday of physician/philosopher John Locke (1632), physician/writer Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809), engineer Charles F. Kettering (1876), actress Ingrid Bergman (1915), saxophonist/composer Charlie Parker (1920), singer-songwriter Dinah Washington (1924), soldier/politician John McCain (1936), actor Elliot Gould (1938), director Joel Schumacher (1939), press secretary/activist James Brady (1940), singer-songwriter Michael Jackson (1958), actress Rebecca De Mornay (1959), astronaut Chris Hadfield (1959), SCOTUS justice Neil Gorsuch (1967), bass player/singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello (1968), and MLB player Noah Syndergaard (1992).

As usual, there are more things to say than the time I have allotted to say it. That’s okay. There will be more things on other days. Enjoy your day.

Random News: August 28, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 28, 2023, and it’s a Monday. I’m sure things have happened, and the more you know, the better decisions you can make and the better your life goes. Let’s do it.

• Let’s start with some important shit… the double threat of Tropical Storm Idalia and Hurricane Franklin. Florida, you folks are experienced with this shit. Do what you have to do to be prepared and survive.
• Moving on.
• Donald John Trump will be arraigned in the Georgia election subversion case at 9.30AM on Wednesday September 6. His 18 co-defendants will be arraigned that same day, each in 15 minute increments. 
• Already this morning, Trump’s lawyers have arrived at federal court in Washington DC for the hearing that will determine when his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection will be held.
• Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has asked that the trial begin in January 2024, while Trump’s attorneys have proposed starting in 2026. Federal judge Tanya Chutkan is presiding over the hearing.
• Meanwhile in Atlanta, Mark Meadows will be in federal court, arguing that his trial on charges of trying to disrupt Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia three years ago should be held there, and not in its current state court venue.
• I’ll let you know how both of those hearings go in tomorrow’s news.
• Moving on.
• 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter has been identified as the white supremacist gunman who killed three Black people at a Jacksonville Dollar General store Saturday. Investigations show that Palmeter legally purchased the two firearms used in the racially motivated attack.
• Palmeter killed Angela Michelle Carr, 52; Anolt Joseph Laguerre Jr., 19, a Dollar General employee; and Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion, 29, before shooting himself in the head.
• At a vigil for the victims yesterday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was loudly booed and hackled. DeSantis, 44, has loosened gun laws in the state and faced criticism from civil rights leaders for targeting what he calls "woke ideology".
• "We must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has no place in America.” - President Joe Biden
• Do you know what a drastic difference would happen if gun owners were simply required to carry liability insurance, similar to what all Americans have to do to own and drive a vehicle?
• Moving on…
• You know who we haven’t mentioned much recently? Our US lawmakers. What’s the top thing on their mind right now?
• House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and top Republicans have begun to strategize about how to move forward with an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden this fall.
• In recent weeks, McCarthy has privately told Republicans he plans to pursue an impeachment inquiry into Biden and hopes to start the process by the end of September.
• These people could be addressing climate change, the economy, the epidemic of gun violence that’s killing our children, securing reproductive rights for women across our country, but… no, that’s what grown up politicians would be doing.
• And now, The Weather: “I Forget” by Jaakko Eino Kalevi
• We’re expecting a bit of a heat wave in many areas of Southern California for the next couple of days… not here at my beloved beach, but most other places will be toasty.
• Also in local (for me) news: I was chilling here in the afternoon yesterday when I heard helicopters and sirens and all kinds of batshit craziness disturbing my peaceful Sunday.
• Turns out the hubbub was about a large disturbance at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance. Video showed hundreds of teens and young adults running around the mall, with multiple fights occurring in groups as they moved around.
• It took several hours for officers from multiple agencies including Torrance PD but also LAPD, LA County Sheriffs, and others to disperse the crowds, as the city issued warnings asking the public to steer clear of the mall. They say there may have been as many as 1,000 juveniles at the mall.
• Witnesses said that some of the fights seemed to have started around the AMC movie theater. Sunday was National Cinema Day and theaters around the country were offering $4 ticket specials.
• Let’s move on.
• Age discrimination may be banned in the workplace but the employers of the US president — the people of the country — aren’t shy about their bias. A recent poll says that 77% of Americans feel Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. Not only do 89% of Republicans say that, so do 69% of Democrats. That view is held across age groups, not just by young people, though older Democrats specifically are more supportive of his 2024 bid.
• Let’s keep in mind, Biden and Trump are just three years apart in age. They would have been in high school at the same time.
• I’ll gladly vote for Biden in 2024, knowing he’s also surrounded by a fantastic team in every position. But my personal preference would also be to have some new blood at the helm. The 2028 election is going to show a whole lot of that.
• Fuck all this news.
• Let’s do some charts. This time, we’re looking at Billboard’s Modern Rock songs from this date in August 1994. I was done with college and was already fully working at the same basic job I do now, 29 years later. I’m a lot better at it now than I was then, and I worry less about what other people think of me, which is a bonus of being old.
• 1. Basket Case (Green Day). 2. Vasoline (Stone Temple Pilots). 3. Einstein On The Beach (Counting Crows). 4. Am I Wrong (Love Spit Love). 5. Come Out And Play (Offspring). 6. All I Wanna Do (Sheryl Crow). 7. Prayer For The Dying (Seal). 8. Undone - The Sweater Song (Weezer). 9. Sometimes Always (The Jesus And Mary Chain). 10. Headache (Frank Black). 11. Far Behind (Candlebox). 12. Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden). 13. Fall Down (Toad The Wet Sprocket). 14. Shrine (The Dambuilders). 15. Fade Into You (Mazzy Star). 16. Stay (I Missed You) (Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories). 17. Saints (The Breeders). 18. Labour of Love (Frente!). 19. Girls & Boys (Blur). 20. You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast (Spin Doctors).
• From the Sports Desk… amazing work by the El Segundo, CA Little League team. They won the Little League World Series championship yesterday over international champs Curaçao by a score of 6-5.
• Watch this space and mark my words… that kid Louis Lappe will 100% be a major league baseball player some seven years from now. I’ll be quoting myself in 2030 or so.
• I played Little League. I was a second baseman because I was small, but I was… slow, and didn’t bat very well.
• Today in history… Fatimah, daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, dies (632). Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founds the oldest continuously European-occupied city in the continental United States near St. Augustine, Florida (1565). William Herschel discovers Saturn’s moon Enceladus (1789). The US takes possession of then-unoccupied Midway Atoll (1867). Caleb Bradham's beverage "Brad's Drink" gets a better brand name, being changed to “Pepsi-Cola" (1898). Italy declares war on Germany in WWI (1914). Toyota Motors becomes an independent company spun off from Toyota Industries (1937). Black teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi, kicking off the civil rights movement (1955). Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gives his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech (1963). Cops and protestors clash at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (1968). 
• August 28 is the birthday of writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749), physician George Whipple (1878), conductor Karl Böhm (1894), writer/illustrator Jack Kirby (1917), actor Donald O’Connor (1925), actress Roxie Roker (1929), MLB player/manager Lou Piniella (1943), drummer Danny Seraphine (1948), MLB player Ron Guidry (1950), actor Luis Guzmán (1956), actor Daniel Stern (1957), singer-songwriter Shania Twain (1965), actor Billy Boyd (1968), actor/singer-songwriter Jack Black (1969), actor Jason Priestly (1969), NHL player Pierre Turgeon (1969), singer LeAnn Rimes (1982), and singer-songwriter Florence Welch (1986).

I suppose I’ll wrap it up there. We’ll know a lot more after the results of this morning’s various hearings in various courtrooms that are trying various crimes of that Orange Fool, and I’ll tell you about those tomorrow. Enjoy your day.

Random News: August 27, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 27, 2023, and it’s a Sunday. I’m up and about, enjoying my coffee, and it’s time to see what’s going on in the world…

• I usually don’t open with this… it’s too depressing. But Sunday is Gunday here at Zak’s Random News, and this one is a doozy. Americans really got their Second Amendment on this weekend, and the ammosexuals are loving all the death and destruction… it’s their favorite thing.
• Four dead including the shooter at a Dollar General in Jacksonville. A teenager killed and four others injured at a high school football game in Choctaw, OK. One dead, six injured in Louisville. At least seven wounded in a shooting at a parade in Boston. One dead, one injured in Philadelphia. Four dead in Joppatowne, MD. Five injured in an apartment complex in Pasadena, CA. Five shot in Orem, UT. Two wounded at the White Sox game in Chicago. A woman critically injured in a shooting in Tallahassee, FL. A woman killed in Papillion, NE. A road rage shooting in Denver. A 14-year-old shot in Rochester. A woman shot a man to break up a fight in a sports bar in San Antonio. A South Carolina student shot and killed for mistakenly entering the wrong home on a street where he lived.
• And, like I often mention, those are just the ones I noticed in a quick scroll through the news. There are always more.
• Let’s back up a sec. The shooting in Jacksonville was particularly purposeful and heinous. It was a racially motivated attack. The shooter, a white man in his 20s, shot and killed himself after the attack. He’d left behind three manifestos outlining his disgusting ideology of hate and his motive in the attack.
• It seems like he’s actually wanted to target Edward Waters University, a historically Black school. He was turned away from its campus after refusing to identify himself. This piece of shit wore both a tactical vest and mask during the attack. He was armed with an AR-15 rifle and a Glock handgun. He’d painted swastikas on the rifle.
• There have been at least 470 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2023; it’s only the 239th day of the year. A mass shooting is defined by four or more people being injured and/or killed by gunfire, not including the shooter. We are likely on track for a record number of shootings in 2023, with one of the causes being the purposeful loosening of sensible gun laws in states like Florida.
• I’ll remind you that guns are the #1 killer of children in the USA… above car accidents, above cancer, above any other cause of death. When you vote for candidates who are against sensible gun control measures, you are complicit in the deaths of those children, and they might end up being your own kids, grandkids, neighbors, nieces and nephews.
• Moving on…
• And now, The Weather: “Skin” by Best Frenz
• A state of emergency has been issued in 33 counties along Florida's Gulf Coast in preparation for Tropical Storm Idalia. Stay safe, friends.
• Some sort-of good news: 100 of the remaining 388 people on the missing list form the Maui wildfires have reported themselves safe. That still leaves nearly 300 more people missing. Hoping the best.
• From the Sports Desk… congratulations to the local boys from El Segundo, CA, a city just a few miles up the road from me here in Redondo Beach. They clinched a spot in the Little League World Series championship game yesterday with a 6-1 win over the team from Needville, TX.
• The LLWS consists of two brackets; an international bracket and a United States bracket. El Segundo will face a team from Willemstad, Curaçao. That final game is happening right now.
• Also from the Sports Desk, American Chase Ealey successfully defended her women's shot put crown at the World Athletics Championships yesterday, winning her second successive gold medal. Ealey won with a 20.43 meter throw, while Canada's Sarah Mitton took the silver with 20.08.
• And in final sports news, again from the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, both the American men’s and women’s teams got gold in the 4x100 relay. Both teams were anchored by the respective fastest man and woman on the planet: Noah Lyles for the guys, and Sha’Carri Richardson for the ladies. Well done!
• Today in history… the Visigoths stop sacking Rome after three days (410). George Washington gets his ass kicked by British forces under William Howe at the Battle of Long Island in what is now Brooklyn, NY (1776). Napoleon defeats a bigger army of Austrians, Russians, and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden (1813). Cruse oil is discovered in Titusville, PA, leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well (1859). Krakatoa is almost completely destroyed in four explosions during a volcanic eruption (1883). The UK and Zanzibar fight the world’s shortest war, from 9:02am to 9:40am (1896). In the Battle of Ambos Nogales, the US takes on Mexico in the only battle of WWI fought on American soil (1918). The Kellogg–Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by fifteen nations… lol (1928). First flight of the Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft (1939). The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records is published (1955). An attempted coup d'état fails in the African nation of Chad (1971). Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years (2003).
• August 27 is the birthday of shōgun Ashikaga Yoshikazu (1407), philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770), vice president Hannibal Hamlin (1809), vice president Charles G. Dawes (1865), serial killer Ed Gein (1906), president Lyndon B. Johnson (1908), actress Martha Raye (1916), MLB player Pee Wee Butts (1919), computer scientist Kristen Nygaard (1926), writer Ira Levin (1929), pianist/composer Alice Coltrane (1937), guitarist/composer Sonny Sharrock (1940), keyboardist/songwriter Daryl “Captain” Dragon (1942), actress Tuesday Weld (1943), actress Barbara Bach (1947), actor Paul Reubens (1952), guitarist/composer Alex Lifeson (1953), fashion designed Tom Ford (1961), NHL player Adam Oates (1962), dog trainer Cesar Millan (1969), actor Aaron Paul (1979), and NFL player Darren McFadden (1987).

Time to shower and dress and do various things. Enjoy your day.

Random News: August 26, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 26, 2023, and it’s a Saturday. I’m in a blue bathrobe and drinking a cup of Peet’s Las Hermanas blend. It’s an organic, Fair Trade certified, single-origin, medium roast coffee 100% produced by women in the highlands of Jinotega, Nicaragua, and has a flavor profile of milk chocolate, caramel, and toasted nut. That was too much information about my coffee, but it is delicious. Let’s do some news…

• We’ve spent most of this week covering the many various aspects of a fast-moving story… that of the Former Guy and his 18 cohorts being arrested for their 2020 election-based racketeering crimes in Georgia.
• I thought we should catch up and see where things stand right this moment.
• At least eight of the co-defendants have filed what became a flurry of legal motions, arguing for their cases to be delayed, moved, or expedited. So much for sticking together, which would have been way better for Trump.
• But these people have a better instinct for self preservation than to go down with the sinking ship. And it’s also a race; in these kinds of legal proceedings, the first to cooperate gets the best deal. Those looking to save their own asses better hurry up, which is why lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell have invoked their constitutional right to a speedy trial.
• By the way, what is “speedy”? It varies state by state. In Georgia, defendants are entitled to a trial starting within two weeks of indictment.
• Since Judge Scott McAfee approved the trial date of October 23, the ball is now rolling and not much can stop it.
• Five other co-defendants — former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, GA state senator Shawn Still, GOP official Cathy Latham, and former George GOP chairman David Shafer — filed motions to remove their cases from Fulton County court to Atlanta federal court.
• Fascinatingly, just one co-defendants — Harrison Floyd, the former director of Black Voices for Trump and the only Black guy in the crime gang — was denied bond by a judge in a hearing yesterday. He remains in jail.
• One thing that should be obvious: fighting these kinds of very serious criminal accusations is expensive. One might think that Trump, who claims to be a billionaire, would be fitting the bill for these people who risked their liberty to try and fraudulently get the election overturned.
• Nope.
• That’s why many of the co-defendants are turning to desperate measures to raise money for their legal fees. Each of their defenses could easily cost well in to the six figures.
• "I don't see anyone's fee less is than $250,000-500,000" unless they strike a plea deal with prosecutors, said Cornell Law School adjunct professor Randy Zelin.
• The lawyers of co-defendant Rudy Giuliani claim that he faces financial difficulties, per a recent filing. He’s planning on hosting a fundraising dinner at Trump’s Bedminster club.
• Others are turning to more common means, like lawyer Jenna Ellis, who set up a GoFundMe-style crowdsourcing fundraiser.
• Cathy Latham wrote on a crowdfunding page that she is a "retired public school teacher living on a teacher's pension.” She was hoping to raise $100,000. She pulled in less than $7,000 so far.
• I don’t have any sympathy for any of them, even the low-level peons who may have genuinely thought they were doing the right thing while committing felony-level crimes. Ignorance is never a valid excuse.
• One thing that seemed to interest people in the midst of all this was the publication of Donnie Dump’s mugshot and body statistics from his arrest booking.
• You’ve all seen it. He’s deranged, with glaring eyes filled with fear, looking every bit the man who painted himself into a corner and now sees no way out.
• The funnier thing was his self-reported size of 6’3”, 215 pounds. I’ve greatly enjoyed the comparative photos of professional athletes — boxers, NFL and NBA players, and so on — who share this height/weight statistic, and how obvious it is that Trump is far, far away from this in actuality.
• My real guess is that he’s 6’1-1/2” and 319 pounds… and I truly think I’m being generous with this estimate. Side note: I’m not body-shaming this guy; I’m dishonesty-shaming him.
• Me? I’m exactly 5’11” and 176 pounds at this moment. I can’t help being awesome.
• Side note: they asked President Biden if he’d seen the mugshot and what he thought of it. Joe laughed and then quipped, “Handsome guy. Wonderful guy.”
• Let’s move on.
• At Bunnell Elementary School in Flagler County, FL on August 18, they held an assembly for fourth and fifth graders. Not all of them. Just the Black ones.
• They were collectively told to improve their school performance – regardless of how well each student was doing individually.
• The principal and a teacher at the school were placed on paid administrative leave. The interim superintendent Lashakia Moore said in a news conference, “This should not have happened, but it did,” and offered an apology to the students and their families.
• In historically-related news…
• This weekend is the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which happened on August 28, 1963.
• The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. At the march, final speaker Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism.
• Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000, with 75–80% of the marchers being Black. It was a seminal event in US history.
• Today, the family of Dr. King are joining an expected crowd of tens of thousands of people gathering at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the original event.
• Got another back-to-school story for you. Meet Casey McGrath, a 28-year-old geometry teacher at Chattanooga Central High School in Tennessee. Last year she received a “teacher of the month” award.
• This year she’d been charged with statutory rape after allegedly having sex with one of her students. She was indicted on August 14 and charged with “unlawfully and knowingly engaging in sexual penetration with a person of at least 13 years of age, but less than 18. The indictment noted that she is at least 10 years older than the victim.
• McGrath is scheduled to be arraigned in Hamilton County Criminal Court on September 6.
• Real simple rule: don’t fuck people you teach. Don’t fuck coworkers, especially subordinates. Don’t fuck people in jails. And definitely do not ever have any kind of sex with anyone under the legal age of consent, because it’s rape by definition.
• I shouldn’t have to tell people that.
• Nikki Haley managed to fuck herself after a pretty decent showing in this week’s GOP debates.
• One day later, Nikki stated that she thinks the US' retirement age is "way too low" and needs to be increased. In an interview, Haley said the country should increase the retirement age in an attempt to address possible Social Security and Medicare insolvency.
• It’s a wildly unpopular idea for both conservative and liberal voters. Per a Quinnipiac poll from March 2023, nearly 80% of respondents opposed upping the retirement age even three years to 70 years old from the current age of 67.
• Bye Nikki.
• I forgot to mention a couple of whoppers from that debate from Florida governor Ron De Santis. In addition to the stolen valor of claiming he was a Navy Seal (which he absolutely was not), Ron said he would send US Special Forces into Mexico to confront drug cartels operating in the country. he said he would “do it on day one.”
• So to be clear, he would do a military invasion of an allied country unilaterally, without approval of Congress, to combat an issue that is mostly the fault of Americans creating a demand for these drugs.
• It’s just another example in a long list of evidence that shows this man is in no way qualified or capable or running a country. Look at his state, for Christ’s sake.
• And now, The Weather: “Away From The Castle” by Video Age
• Lots and lots of weather-related news today, with none of it being good. Tornadoes in Michigan, severe, damaging thunderstorms in central Illinois and Kentucky, and more. Stay safe, wherever you are.
• RIP to Bob Barker, who died today at age 99. He famously hosted “The Price Is Right” starting in 1972 and kept doing it until 2007. Barker spent more than a half a century on TV, taking over as host of the popular “Truth or Consequences” in 1956.
• Barker was also a longtime animal rights activist, ending each episode of “The Price Is Right” with his well-known catchphrase, “Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.”
• Do you live in San Diego? I did for awhile; my first year out of high school was spent at SDSU. I didn’t go to class much and spent my days taking bonghits and watching reruns of ‘Magnum P.I.’.
• But some residents in the San Diego area have been told to boil their tap water and use bottled water for drinking and cooking after E. coli was detected in the drinking water at a site in Imperial Beach, CA.
• Gross. More than 17,000 individual service lines are affected by the advisory.
• From the Sports Desk… Noah Lyles accomplished what no sprinter has since Usain Bolt, cruising to a 200-meter victory in 19.52 seconds to complete the ‘sprint double’ in Budapest, Hungary at the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
• And he did it just five days after winning the men’s 100-meter. The 26-year-old Lyles is easily and undeniably the fastest man on Earth right now.
• Today in history… the Delhi Sultanate takes Chittorgarh and kills thirty thousand Hindu inhabitants (1303). An English army easily defeats a French one twice its size at the Battle of Crécy (1346). Captain James Cook sets sail from England on board HMS Endeavor (1768). John Fitch gets a US patent for the steamboat (1791). The eruption of Krakatoa begins its final stage (1883). The 19th amendment takes effect, giving women the right to vote (1920). The 50th anniversary of US women being able to vote is marked by a nationwide Women's Strike for Equality (1970). The Games of the XX Olympiad open in Munich, West Germany (1972). 
• August 26 is the birthday of UK prime minister Robert Walpole (1676), mathematician Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728), UK prince consort Albert (1819), inventor Lee de Forest (1873), socialite/philanthropist Peggy Guggenheim (1898), Catholic saint Mother Teresa (1910), physicist Katherine Johnson (1918), journalist Irving R. Levine (1922), NBA player/coach Tommy Heinsohn (1934), politician Geraldine Ferraro (1935), voiceover artist Don LaFontaine (1940), drummer Moe Tucker (1944), singer-songwriter Leon Redbone (1949), NBA coach Stan Van Gundy (1959), saxophonist/composer Branford Marsalis (1960), singer-songwriter Shirley Manson (1966), actress Melissa McCarthy (1970), actor Macaulay Culkin (1980), actor Chris Pine (1980), actor/comedian John Mulaney (1982), MLB player Elvis Andrus (1988), NHL player Wayne Simmonds (1988), and NBA player James Harden (1989).

Okay, that’s all for now. I need to do something with this day, yet to be determined. Enjoy your day.

Random News: August 25, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 25, 2023, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I’ve had a reasonably good week and I’m looking to wrap it up on a high note. Let’s take a look around the world and see what interesting shit catches our eye…

• The day many people waited for — frankly for decades — arrived yesterday when Donald John Trump turned himself in at the Fulton County jail on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results.
• It wasn’t a big event. The Orange Menace spent a little more than 20 minutes at the Fulton County jail, where he was processed and released on bond. His booking number was P01135809.
• Side note: I’ve been singing Donnie’s criminal booking number as if it was the song by Tommy Tutone. Those who know will know.
• A mug shot of Trump was released soon after he left the jail. He looks completely deranged, meaning it was an accurate portrayal of the man.
• Right after The Dumpster was booked, co-defendants Jeffrey Clark, Emily Hayes, Michael Roman, Shawn Still, and Robert Cheeley had surrendered at the jail. That leaves only two of the 19 defendants remaining: Stephen Lee, an Illinois police chaplain, and Trevian Kutti, a former publicist for Kanye West. They have a couple of hours left before being brought in via warrant. By the time I post this, they may already be in custody.
• Anyway, that was fun. But the bigger news was going on earlier in the day. I’ll start by saying that if there’s such a thing as a Fani Willis fan club, I want to sign up immediately as a Fani Fan.
• The Fulton County, GA District Attorney has proposed an astonishingly quick start to the trial for Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants in Georgia. Why?
• She called their bluff. After co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro demanded yesterday that he get a speedy trial (as is his constitutional right), Willis was very agreeable, saying she’d be more than happy to put all 19 defendants on trial starting October 23, 2023—just eight weeks away.
• Willis had originally proposed a March 2024 trial date. Chesebro’s gamble was that Willis wasn’t ready. He was wrong. He done fucked up.
• Judge Scott McAfee — I like that guy! — who has been handling the initial booking and bond proceedings for the 19 defendants agreed to the October 23 trial date for Chesebro. Ha!
• Of course, neither Chesebro nor any of the other defendants were actually ready for this same-day response. Trump’s brand new attorney, Steve Sadow, quickly objected to Willis’ proposed trial date and indicated he would file a motion to sever Trump’s case from Chesebro’s and from “any other co-defendant who files such a demand.”
• You know how Trump claims that each of his indictments and arrests drive him upward in the polls? Like almost everything Don the Con says, that’s not true.
• A new POLITICO/Ipsos poll provides some bad news for The Crime King: while he remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination, the cascading indictments are likely to take a toll on his general election prospects.
• Fifty-nine percent of respondents in the poll said that the federal trial in Trump’s 2020 election subversion case should take place before the 2024 Republican primaries begin early next year. 61 percent of all respondents said that the trial should take place before the general election next November.
• Nearly 90 percent of Democratic respondents sought an early trial date and roughly a third of Republican respondents agreed.
• It was the reaction of independents, however, that may prove most ominous for Trump. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of independents said that Trump should stand trial before next November.
• About half of the country — including overwhelming majorities of Democrats and roughly half of independents — believe that Trump is guilty of the series of charges.
• If he is convicted, 50 percent of respondents said that he should go to prison, including a large majority of Democrats (87 percent) and a slight majority of independents (51 percent).
• To wrap this up, the poll respondent’s unfavorable rating of Trump was far above that of Joe Biden, as well as the “villains” of the MAGA world like Merrick Garland and Jack Smith.
• Let’s move on for now.
• Vivek Ramaswamy certainly got some attention at Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debates. His name was Googled over a million times in the hours following the debate. That surge in interest put Ramaswamy at the top of Google’s daily search trends, above the Inter Miami soccer team’s anticipated U.S. Open match, Rudy Giuliani’s arrest that day, and Yevgeny Prigozhin’s reported death.
• He also raised almost a half mil in funds after the debate.
• Ramaswamy is a terrible piece of shit — a 9/11 conspiracist and a believer that young adults shouldn’t be allowed to vote without passing tests —  but I love that there’s a viable candidate who will draw support and enthusiasm away from He Who Shall Not Be Named. Plus, Ramaswamy’s newfound attention will be a huge cause of angst to Ron De Santis, so win-win.
• How did President Biden’s campaign react to the GOP debate? Their answers were so awful, Biden used them in a new ad that features a series of Republicans discussing the end of Roe v. Wade and calling for national limits on abortion.
• The spot will run online and in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 
• And now, The Weather: “D 4 N” by Laura Groves
• Hundreds of thousands of people are without power in Michigan after a tornado ripped through Ingham County last night. Ohioans also are dealing with power outages and damage from a series of storms. Good luck, folks.
• Somewhat good news in relation to the Maui fires: only roughly 388 people remain unaccounted for, which is a big drop from the 1,300 folks missing a few days back.
• Also in weather: parts of Chicago hit a “feels like” temp of 120 degrees yesterday. GOP politicians and candidates continue to refuse to acknowledge mankind’s effect on the climate.
• I have two pieces of news regarding the private space exploration firm SpaceX.
• A SpaceX and NASA mission that was set to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station was abruptly called off Thursday evening. They said only that they were delaying the liftoff time to Saturday, August 26 because it “provides teams additional time to complete and discuss analysis,” whatever that means.
• That crew includes a NASA commander, a Danish co-pilot, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut.
• Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but the same day, the US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against SpaceX for allegedly discriminating against refugees in its hiring practices.
• The suit claims that “from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylum seekers and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
• SpaceX also falsely claimed in its job listings that only green card holders and United States citizens could work at the company because of federal export control laws.
• SpaceX is owned by Elon Musk… an immigrant from Africa.
• Moving on. To Florida. Because Florida.
• Wild monkeys spotted in parts of the state have prompted authorities to issue warnings about the primates, urging people to not feed or attempt to capture the animals. 
• Per to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, these monkeys "pose a variety of environmental and human health concerns," and some of the monkeys in Florida have tested positive for herpes B. 
• Seeing monkeys is weird even in Florida. Having herpes in Florida is not at all weird.
• For charts today, we’re checking out the Billboard 200 album chart for this week in 1975. I was six years old. Some very good stuff in here. How lucky am I in my career choice? Well, I just counted, and out of the 20 albums listed below, I’ve been able to interview or hang out with people who were involved with 10 of them that I recall. Not too shabby.
• 1. One Of These Nights (Eagles). 2. The Heat Is On (The Isley Brothers). 3. Red Octopus (Jefferson Starship). 4. Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy (Elton John). 5. Cut The Cake (Average White Band). 6. Cat Stevens Greatest Hits (Cat Stevens). 7. Between The Lines (Janis Ian). 8. Love Will Keep Us Together (Captain & Tennille). 9. Why Can't We Be Friends? (War). 10. The Basement Tapes (Bob Dylan And The Band). 11. That's The Way Of The World (Soundtrack) (Earth, Wind & Fire). 12. Fandango! (ZZ Top). 13. Gorilla (James Taylor). 14. Toys In The Attic (Aerosmith). 15. Venus And Mars (Wings). 16. Melissa (Melissa Manchester). 17. Greatest Hits (Tony Orlando & Dawn). 18. Horizon (Carpenters). 19. Chocolate Chip (Isaac Hayes). 20. Diamonds & Rust (Joan Baez).
• From the Sports Desk… in more track and field news from the Budapest championships, U.S. athletes Janee' Kassanavoid and DeAnna Price secured silver and bronze respectively behind meet winner Camryn Rogers of Canada in the women's hammer throw competition.
• Those are some strong ladies!
• Today in history… Byzantine emperor Constantine V discovers a plot against him and executes the leaders (766). António Mota and a few of his friends become the first Europeans to visit Japan (1543). Gallileo demonstrates his first telescope (1609). A hoax is published in ‘The New York Sun’ about the discovery of life and civilization on the Moon (1835). Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the English Channel (1875). Germany purposefully destroys the library of the Catholic University, losing hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts in WWI (1914). The British Royal Air Force bombs Berlin in WWII for the first time (1940). Paris is liberated by the Allies during WWII (1944). American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell is shot and killed by a former member of his group (1967). ‘Voyager 2’ makes its closest approach to Saturn (1981). ’Voyager 2’ makes its closest approach to Neptune (1989). Belarus gains its independence from the Soviet Union (1991). Linus Torvalds announces the first version of Linux (1991). Aaliyah is killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas (2001). Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in Florida (2005). ’Voyager 1’ becomes the first man-made object to enter interstellar space (2012). Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2004 (2017).
• August 25 is the birthday of Russian ruler Ivan the Terrible (1530), painter George Stubbs (1724), Bavarian king Ludwig I (1786), writer/activist John Neal (1793), detective/spy Allan Pinkerton (1819), dentist Henry Trendly Dean (1893), actor Van Johnson (1916), actor Mel Ferrer (1917), athlete Althea Gibson (1927), actor Sean Connery (1930), TV host Regis Philbin (1931), saxophonist/composer Wayne Shorter (1933), MLB player Rollie Fingers (1946), singer-songwriter/bass player Gene Simmons (1949), singer-songwriter Rob Halford (1951), keyboardist/composer Geoff Downes (1952), singer-songwriter Elvis Costello (1954), director Tim Burton (1958), singer-songwriter Billy Ray Cyrus (1961), guitarist/composer Vivian Campbell (1962), rapper Shock G (1963), singer-songwriter/murder victim Mia Zapata (1965), singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy (1967), NBA player Robert Horry (1970), model Claudia Schiffer (1970), actor Alexander Skarsgård (1976), actress Blake Lively (1987), and MLB player Max Muncy (1990).

Well, I guess that’s all for now. Last weekend I was getting ready for a hurricane. Today I’m just looking forward to my sushi lunch, as is my Friday tradition. Enjoy your day.

Random News: August 24, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 24, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I’m having some delicious coffee, and let’s see if there’s any tasty news to serve you…

• Sticking with the topic near and dear to our hearts, more of the accused felons in the Georgia RICO case against the FPOTUS and his gang have turned themselves in for booking. There’s a total of nine as of now.
• Yesterday, Ruby Giuliani was booked with fingerprints and a mug shot, as was Sidney Powell, the crazy kraken lady; Jenna Ellis, the hapless traffic attorney turned election fraudster; and Kenneth Chesebro, the architect of the Trump campaign’s fake electors plot.
• Five others went through the same process over the past few days: Trump campaign lawyer Ray Smith; former Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer; Cathy Latham, former chair of the Coffee County Republican Party; right-wing lawyer John Eastman; and Scott Hall, a bail bondsman.
• In addition to racketeering, they’re all charged with various felonies relating to the fake elector scheme and/or witness tampering, making false statements, and so on. Orange Meanie himself is scheduled to turn himself in later this evening.
• Speaking of That Guy, he replaced his top Georgia lawyer ahead of his surrender tonight. That’s always a good sign that things are going according to plan, said no one.
• I expect all of them to capitulate to the requirement. The two who were fighting hardest to avoid it are former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark.
• Both Meadows and Clark sought to block their arrest ahead the deadline to surrender. But yesterday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones denied both men’s requests in separate six-page rulings.
• Ha ha! Surrender, bitches.
• Friday August 25 is the final deadline for all 19 defendants to turn themselves in or face active arrest warrants. And once they come get you on a warrant, it’s not that simple to just walk away.
• Trust me on that.
• Let’s do some global news. You might recall a couple of months ago when the Wagner mercenary group, led by a thug named Yevgeny Prigozhin, staged an armed insurrection where they took their military convoy north away from Ukraine and toward Moscow.
• At the time, Prigozhin agreed to a truce for his forces to "stop movement inside Russia, and to take further steps to de-escalate tensions.” he brokered some kind of deal with Putin via Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus.
• Welp.
• Yesterday, Prigozhin was killed onboard a plane that mysteriously crashed northwest of Moscow. Even Joe Biden, who is usually not a speculative kind of guy, suggested that Putin may have been behind the plane crash. "I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised," he said.
• No one in their right mind is surprised. Putin’s go-to way to get out of a jam is via murder, especially with someone who he views as a rival or political enemy. There’s no “good guy versus bad guy” here. They’re all bad guys.
• Going back through Russian and Soviet history, this has been pretty common. Putin’s certainly not the first Russian leader to take those tactics. From Ivan the Terrible to Joseph Stalin and his henchmen like Lavrentiy Beria, some of the most ruthless and wicked political leaders in history have made their horrifying mark there.
• Putin is just another piece of shit in a long line of shit.
• I guess we should mention last night’s Republican presidential debate?
• I didn’t watch it, but I did look through a bunch of analysis. I will say this: if Donald Trump was not in this election and these were the Republican’s only choices, they’d still not have a single soul who was capable of leading this country.
• Vivek Ramaswamy tried to run roughshod over everyone else on the stage, taking a note form the Trump playbook.
• Chris Christie had the best response to smarmy Ramaswamy: "I've had enough of a guy who sounds like chatGPT."
• Of that particular batch of assholes, Nikki Haley seemed like the adult in the room.
• And the funny thing was that Ron De Santis, while being present, was practically a non-entity there. He didn’t command the stage in any way, got little speaking time, and just faded into the background.
• De Santis did, at one point, claim to have been a Navy Seal. Fact check: lie. He was a lawyer in the Navy who represented a Seal once.
• So who won the debate? Joe Biden. All these people did was prove without a doubt that they are not qualified for the office.
• Where was Trump? Well, he did a pre-recorded interview with his pal Tucker Carlson that aired on some social media thing called X. No one seems to know what he said since no one watched it.
• I do have one quote from that piece of shit, which is about January 6, 2021, a day when law enforcement officers were killed and insurrectionists attempted a coup against our country: “People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they ever experienced. There was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love.”
• Moving on.
• There was a mass shooting last night in Orange County, CA. The gunman, a retired cop, killed three people and wounded six others, and then was fatally shot by sheriff's deputies.
• It happened at Cook's Corner, a well-known biker bar in Trabuco Canyon.
• Sigh.
• And now, The Weather: “Trickin” by juicer
• The heat dome in the Midwest is still brutal. Please stay safe out there, friends.
• From the Sports Desk… The San Francisco 49ers have chosen their backup QB, and it’s Sam Darnold. He’ll be behind their starter Brock Purdy, leaving Trey Lance, the number 3 pick in the 2021 NFL draft, in limbo.
• Today in history… the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs is written (367). The Visigoths pillage Rome (410). Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz, Germany after being blamed for the bubonic plague (1349). William Penn receives a colony now known as Delaware, and adds it to Pennsylvania (1682). British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn the White House, the Capitol and other buildings (1814). Amelie Earhart flies across the USA from Los Angeles to Newark non-stop (1932). Allied troops attack German-held Paris (1944). The treaty creating NATO goes into effect (1949). Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies disrupt the NYSE by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery (1967). Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon (1981). Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union (1991). The IAU redefines the meaning of “planet” and Pluto is demoted (2006).
• August 24 is the birthday of writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899), mob boss Carlo Gambino (1902), historian Howard Zinn (1922), actor Kenny Baker (1934), guitarist Mason Williams (1938), guitarist John Cipollina (1943), businessman Vince McMahon (1945), writer Paulo Coelho (1947), politician Joe Manchin (1947), musician Jean Michel Jarre (1948), politician Mike Huckabee (1955), actor Stephen Fry (1957), MLB player Cal Ripken Jr. (1960), actress Marlee Matlin (1965), NBA player Reggie Miller (1965), comedian Dave Chappelle (1973), and actor Rupert Grint (1988).

Well, this is one of those days where there’s more news than I have time to tell you about. It happens. I have a typical Thursday planned, and hopefully it stays typical. Enjoy your day.

Random News: August 23, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 23, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. Many things happen every moment of every day, and here are some of them...

• Got a few big news items pertaining to the Guy Who Was President For Awhile and his multitude of criminal cases.
• Let’s start with a big one. Meet “Trump Employee 4”, also known as Yuscil Taveras. Yuscil’s job at Mar-a-Lago included monitoring security cameras, among other tasks as the director of information technology.
• Previously, Yuscil has testified to a grand jury in Washington, D.C., that he was unaware of any effort to erase the videos that showed criminal actions at the golf motel. 
• But after Yuscil got a new attorney, he immediately retracted his prior false testimony and detailed the alleged effort to tamper with evidence related to the investigation of the handling of classified information there.
• Taveras’ reversal is what led directly to new charges against Trump that Jack Smith included in a superseding indictment issued by a federal grand jury in Miami last month, detailing alleged efforts to erase the security camera recordings.
• But wait. There’s more. 
• Former Trump White House chief of staff and co-defendant in the Georgia RICO case Mark Meadows is begging a federal judge to step in before Georgia prosecutors arrest him this week on charges that he conspired with Donnie Doo Doo to subvert the 2020 election.
• Meadows says the charges against him in Georgia stem from his work as Trump’s chief of staff, a federal role that should make him immune to the local charges. Ha!
• Why the urgency? Because Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ rejected his request to delay his arrest.
• “I am not granting any extensions,” Willis wrote in an email to Meadows’ attorneys yesterday morning. “I gave 2 weeks for people to surrender themselves to the court. Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction. The two weeks was a tremendous courtesy. At 12:30 pm on Friday I shall file warrants in the system.”
• Fuck them all. As I mentioned previously, SunnyD will be turning himself in on Thursday evening.
• Two of the 19 defendants have already turned themselves in: Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, and John Eastman, a conservative attorney. They were released on bond, as per their arrangement.
• Rudy Giuliani is traveling to Georgia today to negotiate his bond and surrender at the Fulton County jail.
• Moving on.
• India has become the fourth country – after the Soviet Union, the U.S. and China — to land on the moon, and the first to land on one of the moon’s lunar poles. Only the USA has landed people on the moon thus far.
• The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft launched last month and touched down on the lunar surface at 8:34 AM ET today.
• Congrats India!
• Tonight, if you want to torture yourself due to some bizarre masochistic kink (not judging here), you can watch the eight Republicans who qualified for the party’s first 2024 presidential primary debate, being held in Milwaukee, WI.
• As mentioned here previously, the list includes North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
• And not that you were going to watch just for candidate Burgum (who?), but the North Dakota governor was taken to a Milwaukee emergency room yesterday after suffering an injury while playing a game of pick-up basketball with his staff, and might not make the debate.
• That’s a shame, said no one, anywhere.
• Moving. On.
• Sam Bankman-Fried is not having a good time in jail.
• Lawyers for the former crypto billionaire, who is vegan, said the detention center is not accommodating his diet and failing to regularly dispense his Adderall.
• He pleaded not guilty yesterday to an amended indictment alleging fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges, appearing in court for the first time since his bail was revoked and he was sent to jail to await trial.
• Magistrate Judge Netburn said she would contact the Bureau of Prisons about the accommodations. That was nice of her.
• SBF’s bail was revoked after he attempted to intimidate potential witnesses against him, is now locked up in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a notoriously overcrowded facility that’s been regularly accused of keeping inmates in inhumane conditions.
• He could have been living in luxury at his parents’ swanky Palo Alto, CA home. But instead, he chose to be a dick.
• In international news, the Biden administration is urging U.S. citizens in Belarus to depart the country immediately and warned against travel there. Bordering countries Lithuania, Latvia and Poland have stepped up security along the border over concerns about Wagner mercenary forces who are exiled in the country.  
• In other news, it’s back-to-school week for millions of school kids and college students.
• In Broward County, FL, a 15-year-old at Coconut Creek High School was arrested for bringing a loaded Glock 9mm handgun on the first day of classes.
• He showed it to another student, school security was notified, and the gun was found in the teen's backpack. The kid now faces charges including carrying a concealed weapon, possession of a firearm by someone under 18, and causing a school lockdown.
• In Perkins, OK, third grade teacher Kimberly Coates got herself arrested on the first day back by being drunk off her ass in the classroom. A breathalyzer test showed her at three times over the legal limit for driving, and she was booked for public intoxication.
• Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
• And now, The Weather: “Protocol” by Hotline TNT
• I want to clarify something about last weekend’s tropical storm here in SoCal. When I reported that there was little or no damage, I was referring only to my specific local beachside area.
• Other places less than an hour’s drive from here have had huge cleanup to deal with from mud and debris flow. I didn’t want to minimize what they’ve been through.
• Also in weather, a brutal heat wave is gripping a huge swath of the central U.S., with temps into the triple digits across Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and other parts of the Midwest, as well as farther south in Texas and Louisiana. Chicago could see heat index values reach 111 degrees this week, while Houston could peak at 113.
• From the Sports Desk… a general recommendation for people everywhere: don’t be grabbing body parts or kissing people unless you are clearly invited to do so.
• Why is this advice in the Sports Desk section? Because twice, during the celebrations of the team from Spain winning the women’s World Cup, various people did inappropriate things.
• Spanish football federation president Luis Rubiales gave Spain star Jennifer Hermoso an unwanted kiss on the lips after the 33-year-old received her gold medal.
• But even before that, after Spain’s Olga Carmona scored the only goal of the game, head coach Jorge Vilda embraced a female staff member, which would be fine, except he went for an extended boob grab at the same time.
• And yeah, there are always excuses of being caught up in a celebration. I get that. And I am not at all a prudish person who panics at the slightest bodily contact between people. I’m actually pretty affectionate and like hugs and such.
• But keep in mind, these people are essentially coworkers in a big industry. Would it be cool if your wife’s boss kissed her on the lips or grabbed her boobs after a successful sales meeting because he was “caught up in a moment of elation”, or for your husband’s boss to fondle his crotch at a trade show in similar circumstances? No?
• Then this isn’t cool either. Also, are some cultures different than others in terms of expressions of affection and joy? Of course they are. But being Spanish or any other nationality isn’t an excuse for this. Don’t do it. End of story. 
• In actual sports news, huge congrats to American Laulauga Tausaga. She was a big underdog in the competition, but took first place in the discus throw at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Second place went to another American, the Olympic champ Valarie Allman.
• Tausaga, 25, produced the farthest throw of her life, recording a lifetime best of 69.49m. Well done!
• Today in history… the Golden Horde lays siege to Moscow (1382). George III states that the American colonies are in open and avowed rebellion (1775). A state named Franklin in what’s now eastern Tennessee declares itself independent but is not accepted into the USA and only lasts four years (1784). Japan declares war on Germany in WWI (1914). Italy executes anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti (1927). Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies in WWII (1944). César Chávez begins the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history (1970). The World Wide Web is opened to the public (1991). Muammar Gaddafi is overthrown during the Libyan Civil War (2011).
• August 23 is the birthday of King Louis XVI of France (1754), physicist/astronomer Sarah Frances Whiting (1847), actor/dancer Gene Kelly (1912), actress Barbara Eden (1931), drummer Keith Moon (1946), singer-songwriter Linda Thompson (1947), singr-songwriter/actor Rick Springfield (1949), actress Shelly Long (1949), guitarist/songwriter Dean DeLeo (1961), actor River Phoenix (1970), politician Gretchen Whitmer (1971), NBA player Kobe Bryant (1978), and NBA player Jeremy Lin (1988).

That seems like enough news. I have a lot of work on my plate today, but that’s okay. I will kick as much ass as necessary, but no more ass than required. Enjoy your day.