Random News: September 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.

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Good morning. It’s September 24, 2023, and it’s a Sunday. I’m in my robe and enjoying coffee on a nice and quiet morning thus far. Let’s take a look at what’s been happening…

• It’s still a fight of Republican versus Republican up on Capitol Hill where exasperated leaders in the House are pointing fingers at the holdouts in their own party who are keeping them stuck and without a clear plan to avert a government shutdown in just one week.
• They do not have the votes to advance a short-term funding bill to keep the lights on past September 30, nor are they taking the step of working with Democrats on a compromise. 
• However, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said yesterday that he will keep the $300 million of Ukraine aid in the Pentagon funding bill, a reversal from his announcement one day earlier that he would strip the money out due to opposition from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
• I hope the Republicans can avoid a shutdown, but I’d be shocked at this point if they did. This is the corner into which they’ve painted themselves. We’ll see how voters like the results of their actions (or inactions).
• In other news, President Joe Biden has decided to supply Ukraine with long-range army tactical missile systems (ATACMS), an important boost to Kyiv’s capacity to target Russian military logistics at long range distances as the country prepares for a second winter at war.
• Ukraine will commit not to target Russian territory with them and a waiver allowing the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine has expanded the number of potential missiles that could be used there.
• In other Biden news, as mentioned before, he’s heading to Michigan on Tuesday to support strikes by the United Auto Workers. He accepted the invitation of UAW boss Shawn Fain to join them on the picket lines.
• Nice. Let’s see how Trump supports his folks with a flashback to 2019 while he was still president.
• At a welcome ceremony of General Mark Milley at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Army captain Luis Avila, who was severely wounded in Afghanistan, sang “God Bless America.”
• “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded,” Trump said to Milley in front of several witnesses.
• Avila, who was handpicked to perform by Milley, had completed five combat tours and lost a leg in an IED attack in Afghanistan. As a result of his injuries, he subsequently suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage. 
• If you or your family members have any kind of disability, be they physical or mental or otherwise, people like Trump want to shove you someplace where you can’t be seen or heard.
• Moving on. It’s Sunday, which is Gunday here at Zak’s Random News. Let’s take a quick peek to see if, by chance, any gun violence has happened in the USA over the past couple of days.
• A toddler and two adults dead and other wounded in Jacksonville, FL. Three dead in a shooting near a mall in Atlanta, GA. Two dead in the parking lot of a bar in Bismarck, ND. One dead and five injured at a party in Pomona, CA. One shot dead and three more wounded at a nightclub in Washington, DC. One dead, three injured in an apartment complex in Orlando, FL. One dead and two more shot on a street in Wilmington, CA. A teenager dead and a woman wounded critically in Kansas City, MO. A 15-year-old shot dead in Brockton, MA. A man dead and a woman critical at a party in Littleton, NC. One dead, one wounded in Toledo, OH. One dead on a street in Phoenix, AZ. One shot dead at a gas station in Tucson, AZ. One dead on a street corner in Central Falls, RI. One shot dead at a party in Lexington, KY. An 86-year-old shot dead in Chicago, IL. A child critically injured in Memphis, TN. A woman shot in a nail salon in Kensington, PA. Four critically injured at a shooting in a. restaurant in Downey, CA. One found shot in Minneapolis, MN. Four kids and one adult shot in Chesapeake, VA.
• Reminder: that’s not all of them. That’s what I saw with five minutes of news scrolling, and only for the shootings on Friday and Saturday of this week. There are many more I didn’t list.
• How many shootings were there in a rest of the world in that same time frame? Maybe two or three. In America, it’s the guns. And it can be fixed if that’s what we wanted.
• Moving on to some amazing science.
• Seven years after launching to space, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth today to deliver a pristine sample collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. It’s NASA’s first time returning an asteroid sample from space.
• The spacecraft lifted off in 2016 and began orbiting Bennu in 2018. The spacecraft collected the sample in 2020 and set off on its lengthy return trip to Earth in May 2021.
• It dropped the sample capsule — containing an estimated 8.8 ounces of asteroid rocks and soil — from a distance of 63,000 miles above Earth’s surface early today, and entered the planet’s atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET while traveling at a speed of about 27,650 miles per hour.
• It landed, slowed by parachutes, in the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range about 10 minutes after entering the atmosphere. Sweet!
• In other happy news, former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn took a ride through the Plains Peanut Festival in Plains, GA yesterday.
• Carter, who turns 99 on October 1, entered hospice care in February. He’s an amazing man, and might be the best overall pure human being who ever served as POTUS.
• And now, The Weather: “Bright Green Vibrant Gray” by Helena Deland
• As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been researching my ancestry through all manner of information gathering and DNA. I thought it would be fun to tell a little scandalous family tale from about a thousand years ago.
• William IX of Aquitaine, my 28th great-grandfather, was married to my 28th great-grandmother, Philippa of Toulouse.
• They had several children, including my 27th great-grandfather, William X of Aquitaine, who was born in 1099.
• Another of my 28th great-grandfathers, Aimery I de Châtellerault, had married a woman named Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard, also my 28th great-grandmother. Dangereuse was her nickname, given for her extraordinarily seductive nature. Meow!
• Those two also had a few kids, including my 27th great-grandmother Aénor de Châtellerault, born in 1103.
• With me so far?
• After being married to Aimery for seven years, Dangereuse began an affair with William IX. She moved into his castle where he built a tower for her, and even painted a picture of her on his shield.
• William's wife Philippa was, understandably, enraged about this, and complained to the court and the church, but there wasn’t much she could do. His son William X wasn’t happy either. They settled this quarrel by arranging a marriage between William X and Dangereuse's daughter Aénor in 1121.
• This all worked out okay for the western world; William X and Aénor had their own daughter in 1122. She was Eleanor of Aquitaine, my 26th great-grandmother, who was Queen of France from 1137 to 1152 (as the wife of King Louis VII), and Queen of England from 1154 to 1189 (as the wife of King Henry II), and became the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. 
• There you go. Hope that ancient soap opera was enjoyable.
• From the Sports Desk… NFL games kick off in a little under an hour, but I thought I’d mention an impressive baseball feat. Mookie Betts hit a two-run double in the eighth inning last night, giving the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder 105 RBIs, the most ever by a leadoff hitter.
• The Dodgers clinched a first-round bye in the postseason with the victory. Let’s Go Blue!
• Today in history… The Battle of Rowton Heath in England is a Parliamentarian victory over a Royalist army commanded in person by King Charles (1645). The United States Congress passes the Judiciary Act, creating the office of the Attorney General and federal judiciary system and ordering the composition of the Supreme Court (1789). General (and future President) Zachary Taylor captures Monterrey in the Mexican-American War (1846). Gold prices plummet after President Grant orders the Treasury to sell large quantities of gold after Jay Gould and James Fisk plot to control the market (1869). Teddy Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation's first National Monument (1906). Cathay Pacific Airways is founded in Hong Kong (1946). The Honda Motor Company is founded (1948). President Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation (1957). USS Enterprise, the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched (1960). Representatives of 71 nations sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations (1996). 
• September 24 is the birthday of Guru Ram Das (1534), historian/politician Horace Walpole (1717), SCOTUS Chief Justice John Marshall (1755), athlete Lottie Dodd (1871), third oldest person ever Sarah Knauss (1880), singer-songwriter/guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893), novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896), sportscaster Jim McKay (1921), puppeteer/director/producer Jim Henson (1936), singer/activist Linda McCartney (1941), guitarist Jerry Donahue (1946), actor Phil Hartman (1948), MLB player Rafael Palmiero (1964), and drummer Janet Weiss (1965).

Okay, I have to get out of this robe, into a shower, into some clothes, and back into this seat to enjoy some football. Enjoy your day.