Random News: November 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.

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Good morning. It’s November 30, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I’m getting my day rolling much like the Tin Man in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, previous to his getting oiled. Such is life for a person who is no longer young, but I’ll make it through. Someone oil me, please.

• I don’t often open these bullets with a note on the recently departed, but Henry A. Kissinger has died at age 100.
• He actually seemed to be 100 or so to me when I first became aware of him as a child. It amazes me he was still around in late 2023.
• Kissinger served as secretary of state and national security adviser under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, but then remained a prominent voice on foreign policy issues even into the current era.
• He was both celebrated and reviled. Kissinger was credited with many positive acts of diplomacy in the Cold War era, like thawing U.S. relations with China, but he was also accused of war crimes for the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, backing Pakistan's genocide in Bangladesh, and green-lighting the Argentine dictatorship's dirty war against dissidents.
• Many feel he should have spent the latter part of his life imprisoned in the Hague rather than galavanting about as a foreign policy wonk for another 40+ years, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
• Moving on.
• Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of a social network called X, had a message for the brands who have halted advertising on the platform formerly known as Twitter due to Musk’s open endorsement of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
• His words to advertisers on X while appearing Wednesday at the New York Times' Dealbook Summit? To go fuck themselves.
• Musk is aware of what he’s doing. In his convoluted thought process, he hopes that the advertiser exodus will kill the company, and then somehow the advertisers will be blamed for the loss of Twitter, when they simply don’t want to funnel money into a platform that has their ads displayed next to swastikas and words of racial and ethnic hatred.
• "And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company," he said. But the hilarious part of the interview was when Elon said to the interviewer, "Jonathan, the only reason I'm here is because you're a friend."
• And then the interviewer, Andrew Ross Sorkin, responded, “… I'm Andrew."
• Let’s move on.
• Ryan Fournier, co-founder of the group Students for Trump, was arrested in North Carolina and charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of assault on a female.
• Fournier, 27, grabbed a woman by her right arm and struck her with a pistol. The incident occurred on November 21.
• Fournier, who co-founded Students for Trump in 2015, s the chair of the group and also serves as the executive director of Red Alert, a conservative activist group. And, true to form as a young Republican, he uses physical violence to subjugate women.
• Moving on.
• Today or tomorrow, Congress will vote whether or not to expel one of the most openly terrible House reps in history, George Santos (R-NY). You’d think it would be pretty simple after the charges against him, but Republican leaders are not pressuring their members to vote one way or the other.
• The deadline for the lower chamber to act on two measures calling for his ouster is technically today, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he thought a vote might slip to Friday. The speaker can postpone some votes for up to two legislative days under the House rules. 
• In other news…
• Democrats are fired up about putting Republicans on the spot over health care after 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner Donald “El Dumpo” Trump said recently he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act and urged his party to “never give up” on terminating it.
• Reminder: terminating the ACA means that your pre-existing conditions would no longer be covered under your insurance.
• In Florida alone, where the populace is rife with senior citizens, nearly all of the 3.2 million people who bought private health insurance plans under Obamacare get some of their coverage paid for by the federal government.
• Wait until they find out the GOP’s plan to kill Social Security and Medicare as well.
• Are they going to vote for the guy who is openly stating he’s going to take away their health care? Only time will tell. I’d say that when these politicians say something, believe them.
• Speaking of the criminal who once called himself President…
• A court-appointed monitor caught Dumpy quietly moving $40 million without disclosing the transfers as required by Judge Arthur Engoron.
• Engoron had put the Trump Organization under court monitoring after the New York attorney general raised concerns that he may try to move money out of the company before it is potentially sanctioned.
• Engoron appointed former U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones to oversee the finances and required Trump to report any transfers larger than $5 million. Jones notified the court yesterday that she discovered that the Trump family failed to report $40 million in transfers despite the order.
• Why would he do that? Because he’s broke and needed the cash to pay taxes.
• Let’s move over to Pueblo, Colorado, where yesterday, President Joe Biden contrasted his economic vision with that of MAGA Republicans, including GOP Rep. and hand job expert Lauren Boebert during a visit to her Colorado district.
• “She, along with every single Republican colleague, voted against the law that made these investments in jobs possible. And then she voted to repeal key parts of this law, and she called this law a massive failure. You all know you’re part of a massive failure? Tell that to the 850 Coloradans who got new jobs.”
• Earlier this year, Democrat Adam Frisch – who just barely lost to the incumbent Boebert in 2022’s midterm elections – announced he would again mount a campaign to unseat her in 2024.
• I highly endorse him.
• In other political news, officials in a rural Arizona county who delayed canvassing the 2022 general election results have been criminally charged. A grand jury has indicted Cochise County supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby on one count each of conspiracy and interference of an election officer.
• “I don’t feel like I broke a law. But, obviously the courts had different feelings,” Judd said.
• Fuck them both. Do your jobs.
• If you can stomach watching Fox tonight, there’s a 2028 presidential debate being aired.
• It’s Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R) facing off against California governor, Gavin Newsom (D).
• The 90-minute debate, which starts at 9pm ET and will be moderated by Fox News asshole extraordinaire Sean Hannity, is being billed by the network as “DeSantis vs. Newsom: The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate.”
• It will be interesting, and it’s particularly impressive that Newsom feels confident going up against DeSantis on the conservative world’s home turf.
• Moving over to Vatican City, where Pope Francis is evicting US Cardinal Raymond Burke, an outspoken critic, from his Vatican apartment and revoking his salary.
• Cardinal Burke is part of a group of American conservatives who have long opposed the Pope's plans for reforming the Catholic Church with a greater acceptance of LGBT people. 
• Earlier this month, Francis fired Joseph Strickland, a conservative Texas bishop who had blasted his attempts to move the church to more liberal positions on abortion, transgender rights and same-sex marriage. 
• It’s good to see.
• In our continuing coverage of the assholes who tried and failed to enact a coup against the USA on January 6, 2021, meet Nathan Pelham.
• Pelham, a member of the Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and shot at law enforcement this year after he was asked to surrender, was sentenced yesterday to two years in federal prison.
• FA, FO.
• And now, The Weather: “The Slang Word P(*)ssy Rolls Off The Tongue With Far Better Ease Than The Proper Word Vagina . Do You Agree?” by André 3000
• Rest in peace to singer-songwriter Shane McGowan of the Pogues, who died aged 65 today following a recent hospital stay after being diagnosed with encephalitis.
• He’d been unwell for some time, and had well-documented problems with drugs and alcohol. If you know him from anything, it’s his songs “Fairytale of New York” and “A Pair of Brown Eyes.”
• From the Sports Desk… tonight’s NFL action has the Seattle Seahawks (6-5) visiting the Dallas Cowboys (8-3). Dallas is a -9 point favorite.
• Today in history… The Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial of Federalist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase (1804). The Confederate Army of Tennessee suffers heavy losses in an attack on the Union Army of the Ohio in the Battle of Franklin (1864). The first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England (1872). A German engineer patents front-wheel drive for automobiles (1900). The Soviet Red Army crosses the Finnish border in several places and bomb Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, starting the Winter War (1939). The SS-Einsatzgruppen round up 11,000 Jews from the Riga Ghetto and kill them in the Rumbula massacre (1941). In Sylacauga, AL, the Hodges meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap (1954). Michael Jackson's sixth solo studio album, ‘Thriller’, is released worldwide, ultimately becoming the best-selling record album in history (1982). Exxon and Mobil sign a US$73.7 billion agreement to merge, thus creating ExxonMobil, the world's largest company (1999). In Seattle, WA, demonstrations against a World Trade Organization meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies (1999). NASA launches STS-97, the 101st Space Shuttle mission (2000).
• November 30 is the birthday of admiral Andrea Doria (1486), satirist Jonathan Swift (1667), novelist Mark Twain (1835), physician/activist Martha Ripley (1843), actor Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (1918), police officer/activist Elliott Blackstone (1924), actor Richard Crenna (1926), actor Robert Guillaume (1927), TV host/producer Dick Clark (1929), lawyer/criminal G. Gordon Liddy (1930), NFL coach Bill Walsh (1931), actor/director Woody Allen (1935), activist Abbie Hoffman (1936), film director Ridley Scott (1937), bass player/songwriter Roger Glover (1945), playwright/director David Mamet (1947), actor Mandy Patinkin (1952), singer-songwriter Billy Idol (1955), singer-songwriter Stacey Q (1958), singer-songwriter Cherie Currie (1959), NFL/MLB player Bo Jackson (1962), actor Ben Stiller (1965), DJ/music producer Steve Aoki (1977), singer Clay Aiken (1978), and model Chrissy Teigen (1985).

In personal news, I finally made a dental appointment yesterday to resolve these ongoing issues with an accent wisdom tooth that is finally demanding to be removed, and is causing a plethora of issues in the meantime. I’m glad it’s going to finally get handled. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 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.

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Good morning. It’s November 29, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. I’m here and ready to tell you some things that have happened.

• The temporary truce between Israel and Hamas is set to expire today, but mediators in Qatar are trying to extend it for at least another 48 hours to allow for the exchange of more captives and for additional aid to reach Gaza.
• The latest swap since the cease-fire began Friday had 10 Israeli citizens and two Thai nationals freed by Hamas and had been returned to Israel. Soon after, Israel released 30 Palestinian prisoners. The truce is currently due to end after one more exchange tonight.
• Hope the good news in the Middle East continues. Moving on…
• Life expectancy in the United States shows a partial rebound from the worst phase of the COVID pandemic, but drug overdoses, homicides, and chronic illnesses such as heart disease continue to drive a long-term mortality crisis that has placed our country on the low end of longevity among wealthy nations.
• Per info from the CDC, life expectancy for 2022 in the USA rose more than a full year, to 77.5 years. Over 80% of this positive jump was attributable to a drop in COVID-19 deaths.
• But the rebound in 2022 regained less than half the years lost to the pandemic. In 2019, U.S. life expectancy at birth stood at 78.8 years before nosediving to 76.4 in 2021.
• Let’s try to live longer, people.
• In other news, gotta give credit where credit is due…
• Sunday (November 26) was the busiest day ever at airports in the USA, with the TSA reporting 2,884,783 people screened. It was also an incredibly smooth day of travel with fewer than one-half of one percent of 51,332 scheduled flights canceled.
• This tells me Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is doing a damn fine job.
• Up next, a story that I’m posting this next item for a specific reason.
• A former girlfriend of Jason Eaton, the guy accused of shooting three Palestinian college students in Vermont, had at one point reported him to the police because he was harassing her with messages "sexual in nature" — but she stopped short of pressing charges against him.
• He’d sent her numerous sexual text messages, emails and phone calls after she made it clear she didn't want to communicate with him or see him anymore. They weren’t threatening messages, but they were unwanted. And that’s the point I wanted to make.
• People, if someone says they are not interested in you, that’s not a signal to be even more annoying to them. If someone doesn’t want to date you, move on to someone else. If someone says they don’t want you to contact them, regardless of the previous nature of the relationship, just don’t.
• It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you deserve to be treated that way. I think this sense of entitlement is the cause of a lot of problems. Listen to what people tell you, believe them, accept the loss and move on.
• Moving on.
• Disgraced national joke George Santos (R-NY) has said he will not be resigning ahead of a vote that could see him expelled from the House following a scathing ethics report.
• That report states that Santos knowingly used his campaign committee to file false and incomplete reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), that he used campaign donations for personal expenses, that he violated the Ethics in Government Act, and that he committed fraud using a company he co-owned.
• Santos used campaign money to pay for Botox, luxury purchases at Hermes and Ferragamo, and spent his constituents and supporters money to masturbate on OnlyFans, among other things.
• I find the overall concept of taking money from people to literally jack off seems very on-brand for Republicans. I wonder how many other GOP reps are doing the same? Perhaps the ethics probe should be expanded, computer records researched and so on.
• While we’re on political news…
• Dumpy is creating bigly problems for his fellow Republicans, especially those locked in tight Senate races. Over this past weekend, he made extremist statements on health care, immigration, and other issues unlikely to play well with swing voters in key states. 
• Among other repulsive statements, Dump declared that if elected president again, he would make another run at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. 
• A bunch of GOP Senators immediately distanced themselves from Dump’s comments. Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-SD) said he doesn’t know what Trump is talking about. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Health Committee, said repealing Obamacare was unlikely to happen regardless. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), said there’s no consensus within his party on how to replace former President Obama’s landmark law. 
• But the biggest thing that would happen with Dump’s proposal would be to repeal protections for people with preexisting conditions, a key reform of ObamaCare. 
• Remember this when you vote in 2024.
• Some more political news… the possibly good kind.
• A proposed Georgia House map released on Monday drew five new majority-Black districts and forced several incumbents into head-to-head matchups in next year’s elections.
• The maps arrived the day before legislators return to the Georgia Capitol for a special session in response to a federal judge’s ruling that the state’s political boundaries drawn in 2021 illegally weakened Black voting power.
• While this seems like great news on the surface, the new map — which was drawn by state Republicans — might not be enough to meet the standards of Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act.
• Some districts declared illegal saw changes that did little to affect their racial or partisan balance. By contrast, Republicans propose redrawing a number of Democratic-held districts in Fulton and Cobb counties that U.S. District Judge Steve Jone didn’t single out.
• Okay, let’s do some good news for real.
• Yesterday, 813,000 Americans got emails today announcing that their student loans have been forgiven under programs rolled out by President Biden.
• The Biden Administration has now forgiven $127 billion in loans for 3.6 million Americans.
• Hallelujah.
• Moving on… to the clusterfuck formerly known as Twitter.
• In recent days, a number of prominent media brands have not only paused their paid marketing campaigns on the embattled Elon Musk-owned social platform, but have ceased posting on it altogether.
• The flagship accounts belonging to Disney, Paramount, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery have not posted on the platform in over 10 days, following Musk’s disturbing endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory, which he still has not apologized for.
• Using Disney as an example, the studio’s most high profile accounts, such as @StarWars, @Pixar, and @MarvelStudios, which were previously posting multiple times a day on the platform to their millions of followers, have gone dark. Instead, these brands have switched over to the Meta-owned rival Threads, where they have started actively posting.
• And now, The Weather: “Water Underground” by Real Estate
• Speaking of which, significant winter weather hit communities across the interior Northeast this morning. As expected, more than 40 inches of snow fell over the past two days over parts of the Great Lakes and interior Northeast in the first significant lake-effect snow event of the season.
• The heaviest snowfall was recorded at Constableville, New York, where 42.7 inches landed. Yikes! Cold weather and snow has been happening across the Midwest as well.
• Stay warm and safe, peoples.
• From the Sports Desk… 25 semifinalists were just announced as potential inductees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. This will be pared down to 15 before the final voting process for the 2024 class.
• Eric Allen, CB. Jared Allen, DE. Willie Anderson, T. Tiki Barber, RB. Anquan Boldin, WR. Jahri Evans, G. London Fletcher, LB. Dwight Freeney, DE. Antonio Gates, TE. Eddie George, RB. James Harrison, LB. Rodney Harrison, S. Devin Hester, PR/KR/WR. Torry Holt, WR. Andre Johnson, WR. Robert Mathis, DE/LB. Julius Peppers, DE. Steve Smith Sr., WR. Fred Taylor, RB. Hines Ward, WR. Ricky Watters, RB. Reggie Wayne, WR. Vince Wilfork, DT. Patrick Willis, LB. Darren Woodson, S.
• A typical enshrinement class will have 5-9 of these players. 
• Today in history… San Jose, CA is founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe and is the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California (1777). The crew of the British slave ship Zong murders 54 Africans by dumping them into the sea to claim insurance (1781). Union forces under Ambrose Burnside successfully defend Knoxville, TN from Confederate forces under James Longstreet (1863). Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time (1877). FC Barcelona is founded by Catalan, Spanish and Englishmen (1899). Richard E. Byrd leads the first expedition to fly over the South Pole (1929). The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia is declared (1945). Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (1963). "I Want to Hold Your Hand", recorded on October 17, 1963, is released by the Beatles in the United Kingdom (1963). Atari releases Pong, the first commercially successful video game (1972). 
• November 29 is the birthday of evangelist the Public Universal Friend (1752), physicist Christian Doppler (1803), novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832), physicist John Ambrose Fleming (1849), director/choreographer Busby Berkeley (1895), novelist C. S. Lewis (1898), singer-songwriter/guitarist Merle Travis (1917), author Madeleine L’Engle (1918), sportscaster Vin Scully (1927), singer-songwriter/guitarist John Mayall (1933), actress Diane Ladd (1935), musician/producer Meco (1939), horn player/composer Chuck Mangione (1940), singer-songwriter/pianist Felix Cavaliere (1944), singer-songwriter/guitarist Ronnie Montrose (1947), comedian Garry Shandling (1949), guitarist Barry Goudreau (1951), writer/director Joel Coen (1954), comedian/TV host Howie Mandel (1955), politician Janet Napolitano (1957), politician Rahm Emanuel (1959), actor Andrew McCarthy (1962), actor Don Cheadle (1964), actor Brian Baumgartner (1972), actor Chadwick Boseman (1976), actress Anna Faris (1976), politician Andy Beshear (1977), NFL player Russell Wilson (1988), and NFL player Stefon Diggs (1993).

That’s enough for now. I’m going to try and convince myself to deal with some health things that I’ve been putting off. Wish me luck. I’m super stubborn in some ways and I don’t enjoy dealing with myself. Wish me luck in my battle against me. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 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.

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Good morning. It’s November 28, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. This already feels like a long week and it’s only fucking Tuesday. Uggggh. I’m probably fighting off some seasonal depression, but I’ve become pretty adept at fighting off various things, so even when I’m not doing great at one moment, I’m always pretty sure there will be something better around the corner. Let’s do some news.

• Former President Jimmy Carter is expected to attend today’s memorial service for his late wife, Rosalynn Carter, in Atlanta.
• Also expected: all the living First Ladies. Jill Biden will be joined by former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, and Melania Trump in attending the service. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and second gentleman Doug Emhoff are also expected to be present, as is former President Bill Clinton.
• You know you lived a good life when you get that kind of respect.
• Moving on.
• The temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip continued today after being extended for two additional days to allow for the release of more hostages by the militant group and more Palestinian prisoners to be freed by Israel.
• Around 170 people remain captive in Gaza, according to Israel, but not all are held by Hamas. U.S. officials have said they're continuing to work for further extensions in the truce, and that they'll keep pushing the negotiations until everybody is released. 
• A Hamas official said it would release not just women and children, as it has done daily since Friday, but also male hostages and abducted Israeli soldiers. That sounds promising, assuming a terrorist group can be trusted.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is accusing Israel of being in violation of international law with their strikes on Gaza.
• While Bernie has declared repeatedly that Israel has the right to defend itself in response to Hamas' October 7 attack that claimed more than 1,300 lives (something I agree with), he's also been critical of their "indiscriminate bombing” (which I also agree with).
• Israel’s strikes have caused more than 13,000 deaths to date, per Hamas.
• Moving on.
• Today, the Texas Supreme Court will consider this question: Are the state's abortion laws harming women when they face pregnancy complications?
• The case, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, has grown to include 22 plaintiffs, including 20 patients and two physicians. They are suing Texas, arguing that the medical exceptions in the state's abortion bans are too narrow to protect patients with complicated pregnancies.
• At today’s hearing in Austin, the nine Texas Supreme Court justices will consider whether to apply a temporary injunction that a lower court judge ruled should be in place. That injunction would give doctors greater discretion to perform abortions when a doctor determines that a woman's health is threatened or that a fetus has a condition that could be fatal.
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is fiercely defending the state's current abortion laws and arguing that the case should be dismissed, so those women should die rather than being allowed to have reproductive health care.
• For God’s sake, please vote for candidates who support women. Thank you.
• Let’s do some Dumpy news.
• Yesterday, Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request from El Dumpo’s legal team for permission to subpoena members of the House Jan. 6 select committee and others for evidence in his upcoming trial.
• Attorneys for Orange Man allege there are missing records from the now-disbanded committee that they would like for pretrial preparation. But members of the committee say there is no missing material.
• Dumpy has pleaded not guilty to four felony charges accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. 
• Perhaps the bigger headline this morning in relation to the 2024 election is that the powerful political network led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch has endorsed Nikki Haley for president.
• Americans for Prosperity Action, the network’s flagship political group, announced the group’s first endorsement in a presidential race. They will be doing all they can to to stop Dumples from being the Republican nominee.
• So that’s not only a huge blow to Dump, but also to Ron DeSantis, who was obviously hoping for that huge endorsement and influx of cash. Haley will now have access to the network’s influential donors and organizational heft.
• Interesting.
• Let’s do some good news on the international front.
• 41 construction workers who’ve been trapped in a collapsed mountain tunnel for over two weeks are going to be saved after rescuers drilled their way through debris to reach them.
• The workers are to be pulled out through a passageway made of welded pipes which rescuers pushed through dirt and rocks. About a dozen men had worked overnight to manually dig through rocks and debris, taking turns to drill using hand-held drilling tools and clearing out the muck in the final stretch of the rescue operation.
• That’s good. No one wants to die in a fucking hole in the ground.
• Moving on.
• Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, is open to testifying publicly before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee on December 13. He was subpoenaed by House Republicans in early November and summoned to appear for a closed-door transcribed interview.
• “We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door,” wrote his lawyer to Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY).
• Pretty smart move. If they don’t let him testify openly, it seems like they’re hiding something. I think Hunter Biden seems like a sleazeball, but it doesn’t matter; he’s not an elected official and I don’t give a shit what he does or doesn’t do.
• Moving on.
• If you need something to look forward to, the vote to expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY) from Congress could happen as early as today. Republicans are eager to end the embarrassment of his presence in the House.
• The more important question is whether a Democrat could flip Santos’s Long Island, NY seat to blue after he’s ousted.
• Moving on.
• Hey, remember COVID?
• Nearly 1 in 10 new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are from the BA.2.86 variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Monday, which is triple what the agency estimated the highly mutated variant's prevalence was two weeks ago. 
• BA.2.86's prevalence is largest in the Northeast: 13.1% of cases in the New York and New Jersey region are blamed on the strain.
• Before this point, officials have said the vast majority of new COVID-19 cases have been blamed on the XBB variant and a crowd of XBB's closely related descendants. Those include the HV.1 and EG.5 variants that are currently predominant nationwide.
• Please continue to stay up to date with vaccinations and boosters, and if you’re really smart, continue to practice social distancing and other preventative measures.
• And now, The Weather: “When The Rope Post 2 Break” by Kevin Abstract
• "Authentic" was selected as the 2023 word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, landing among the most-looked-up words in the dictionary's 500,000 entries.
• Why? Probably in response to things like Chat GPT and AI, and the incredible lies of people like George Santos, and the proliferation of social media bots.
• An additional 13 words stood out in 2023's look-up data: coronation, dystopian, EGOT, implode, doppelganger, covenant, kibbutz, elemental, X, indict, deepfake, deadname, and rizz.
• Want to know more about those words? Look them up like everyone else did.
• Let’s do a chart. It’s the end of November 1992, and I’m wrapping up my final semester of college. My then-fiancee/future ex-wife and I are living with my dad in his apartment in Long Beach because I’m taking 24 fucking units at CSUDH and have almost no time or way to have income. We’d move into a shitty apartment in Torrance a few months later in 1993 after I’d started a real job. Anyway, here’s the Billboard Modern Rock chart of that moment.
• 1. These Are Days (10,000 Maniacs). 2. Love (The Sundays). 3. Somebody to Shove (Soul Asylum). 4. Drive (R.E.M.). 5. Trout (Neneh Cherry). 6. Nearly Lost You (Screaming Trees). 7. Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (U2). 8. Not Sleeping Around (Ned’s Atomic Dustbin). 9. Taste It (INXS). 10. Uh Huh Oh Yeh (Paul Weller). 11. Steam (Peter Gabriel). 12. Digging In The Dirt (Peter Gabriel). 13.  Lifetime Piling Up (Talking Heads). 14. Dizz Knee Land (Dada). 15. Behind The Sun (Red Hot Chili Peppers). 16. Happiness in Slavery (Nine Inch Nails). 17. Iron Lion Zion (Bob Marley). 18. Mrs. Robinson (Lemonheads). 19. Spiritual High (Moodswings). 20. Get Out Of Control (Daniel Ash).
• From the Sports Desk… on Monday Night Football the Chicago Bears (4-8) upset the Minnesota Vikings (6-6). Neither of those teams will be in the Super Bowl in February, I promise.
• Today in history… In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond — equivalent to £12,500 in 2022 — for their marriage license. Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig (1811). Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin as a political party with the main aim of establishing a dual monarchy in Ireland (1905). The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee, as the ‘WSM Barn Dance’ (1925). First successful flight of SM-65 Atlas; the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (1958). NASA launches the Mariner 4 probe toward Mars (1964). The first pulsar is discovered by two astronomers Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish (1967). British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigns as Prime Minister and is succeeded by John Major (1990). Over seven hundred civilians are massacred by the Ethiopian National Defense Force and Eritrean Army in Aksum, Ethiopia (2020).
• November 28 is the birthday of poet/painter William Blake (1757), philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820), Venezuela president Ramón José Velásquez (1916), songwriter/producer Berry Gordy, Jr. (1929), singer-songwriter/composer/pianist Randy Newman (1943), keyboardist/bandleader Paul Shaffer (1949), actor Ed Harris (1950), actress S. Epatha Merkerson (1952), drummer/songwriter Matt Cameron (1962), comedian/TV host Jon Stewart (1962), singer-songwriter/guitarist Sigurd Wongraven (1975), rapper Chamillionaire (1979), NBA player Andrew Bogut (1984), actress Karen Gillan (1987), and NFL player Jarvis Landry (1992).

Alrighty. I’m going to get my shit together, workout, and stop being in self-pity mode, which is never helpful. Instead, I’ll be in denial mode, which is also not helpful. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 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.

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Good morning. It’s November 27, 2023, and it’s a Monday. It’s the worst sort of Monday; a back-to-work Monday where you’re struggling to remember what you actually do for a living. I’m sure things will start becoming more familiar as I start getting into it. Meanwhile, let’s do some news.

• Starting with something good on the labor front. Leaders of Portland Public Schools and the Portland Association of Teachers finalized a tentative agreement yesterday, allowing 43,000 students to return to school today for the first time since Halloween.
• The final sticking point – an additional $4 million in raises – was resolved in favor of teachers. Union leaders agreed that teachers will return to work on today, even though the district’s 3,500 unionized educators won’t have a chance to review and vote on the proposed contract by then.
• Good… for the teachers and students. Moving on.
• If you thought that Palestine and Ukraine were the only places in the world experiencing violent conflict, you’re wrong… and we never seem to talk about Africa for some reason.
• A nationwide curfew was been declared in Sierra Leone after gunmen attacked the country's main and largest military barracks in Freetown, the capital city, raising fears of a breakdown of order amid a surge of coups in the region. The curfew has since been lifted, though will be in place again tonight.
• President Julius Maada Bio later said most of the leaders behind the attack had been arrested.He described the events as a "breach of security" and an attack on democracy.
• He carefully avoided calling them an attempted coup. Bio said calm had been restored but gave no details about who the perpetrators were or what they wanted.
• Hmm.
• Back in the USA, Congress is aiming to pass a foreign aid package by the end of this year to provide what lawmakers say is critically needed assistance for key U.S. allies, including Israel and Ukraine.
• Despite the USA’s longstanding support for allies Israel and Ukraine, President Joe Biden's emergency request for foreign aid has met hurdles in the House and Senate over how to move forward.
• A bipartisan Israel-only aid bill is at a standstill because House Republicans, led by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) included an offset provision that would pay for the assistance through cuts to the Internal Revenue Service budget.
• Meanwhile, the Republicans are trying to link U.S. aid to Ukraine with immigration reform.
• And throughout the process, nothing happens. This entire Congress might become famous mostly for their inability to do anything at all.
• Speaking of our President, Joe Biden will invoke a Cold War-era measure to boost investment in U.S. manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies that he has deemed important for national defense.
• The announcement is part of a series of measures the Biden administration is unveiling today to help industrial supply chains and counter several years of historically high inflation. Biden will authorize the Department of Health and Human Services to use powers under the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to enable investments in essential medicines.
• The areas of investment also include "medical countermeasures," which include supplies that diagnose, prevent, or treat diseases related to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attacks.
• Um. Well, that’s not frightening or anything.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters blocked traffic on the Manhattan Bridge.
• The demonstration demanding a cease-fire in Israel's war on Hamas militants in Gaza came on one of the busiest travel days of the year. The protest ended around 6pm, and the NYPD said there were multiple arrests at the demonstration.
• Among the organizers was Jewish Voice for Peace, which has called Israel an apartheid state.
• A current pause in the war to facilitate the exchange of Hamas hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody and the delivery of aid is set to expire tomorrow. It would be great to extend the period of peace if possible.
• It’s being said that both Israel and Hamas have expressed interest in extending the truce. Here’s hoping.
• In related news, Elon Musk is in major damage-control mode after his social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) faces tanking advertising revenue in the wake of Musk’s blatant antisemitic comments.
• To that end, Musk is meeting today with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Musk was taken to Kfar Azza — one of the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas on October 7 — by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The kibbutz was the home of Abigail Edan, a four-year-old American dual citizen abducted by the militant group that day and released Sunday.
• In a live online conversation with Netanyahu today, Musk agreed with the prime minister that Israel must destroy Hamas. Let’s see how well that plays with the anti-Jewish cabal that’s taken over much of Twitter.
• Musk’s visit to Israel comes more than a week after he agreed with the conspiracy theory claim that Jewish communities push “hatred against Whites,” a theory that has long been espoused by online hate groups.
• Also in likely related news, Burlington, VT police have arrested a white man who is suspected of shooting three 20-year-old men of Palestinian descent on Saturday, which we covered in our weekly “Sunday Gunday” section yesterday.
• The three men were in Burlington visiting the home of one of the victim's relatives for Thanksgiving. Two of the victims were shot in the torso while the third man was shot in his lower extremities.
• Two of the victims were wearing keffiyehs, scarfs that have come to symbolize Palestinian solidarity. Two of them are U.S. citizens and one is a legal resident. 
• Police detained Jason J. Eaton, 48, yesterday afternoon. Evidence collected during a search of Eaton's home gave investigators and prosecutors probable cause to believe that he’d perpetrated the shooting. He was then arrested and is scheduled to be arraigned today.
• Fucking piece of shit.
• Just one note in political news today.
• The Republican Party’s finances are increasingly worrisome to party members, advisers to former president Donald Trump, and other operatives involved in the 2024 election effort.
• The Republican National Committee disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, the lowest amount for the RNC in any Federal Election Commission report since February 2015. That compares with about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle and about $61 million four years ago.
• The Democratic National Committee reported having $17.7 million as of Oct. 30, almost twice as much as the Republican Party, with one year before the election.
• It seems that big-dollar and small-level donors are way down as it becomes apparent that most of the money is going toward the legal defenses of the criminals who make up much of the party.
• Okay, one other note.
• Tuesday will mark the first time lawmakers are back in the Capitol since the House Ethics Committee released a damning report about Rep. George Santos (R-NY),  which said he “violated federal criminal laws.”
• The chair of that panel — Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS) — introduced a resolution to expel Santos, and other lawmakers have said they plan to force a vote on the New York representative’s ouster this week.
• He will not be missed.
• And now, The Weather: “Stump” by Hotline TNT
• RIP to Kevin “Geordie” Walker, guitarist and founding member of post-punk icons Killing Joke, who died after suffering a massive stroke. He was 64.
• Killing Joke formed in 1978 by Jaz Coleman (vocals, keyboards), Paul Ferguson (drums), and Youth (bass). Apart from Coleman, Walker was the only constant member over the group’s 45-year history. His inventive style — atmospheric and aggressive — inspired countless others over the last four decades.
• From the Sports Desk… the Carolina Panthers fired head coach Frank Reich this morning. I like Reich, but an NFL-worst 1-10 record doesn’t keep a coach around for long.
• It will be the sixth straight losing season for the Panther since owner David Tepper purchased the team in 2018 for $2.275 billion.
• Today in history… James Pratt and John Smith are hanged in London; they are the last two to be executed for sodomy in England (1835). Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on Cheyenne living on reservation land (1868). Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss is first performed (1896). In New York City, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held (1924). CARE is founded to send CARE Packages of food relief to Europe after World War II (1945). The Soviet space program's Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module. It malfunctions and crashes, but it is the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars (1971). The United States Senate votes 92–3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (1973). In San Francisco, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White (1978). A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet (2001). 
• November 27 is the birthday of Aragon King Ferdinand I (1380), physicist Anders Celsius (1701), painter Frank Dicksee (1853), Israel president Chaim Weizmann (1874), novelist/critic James Agee (1909), sportscaster Chick Hearn (1916), car dealer Cal Worthington (1920), drummer Al Jackson, Jr. (1934), actor/martial artist Bruce Lee (1940), singer-songwriter Eddie Rabbit (1941), singer-songwriter/guitarist Jimi Hendrix (1942), trumpeter Randy Brecker (1945), human glob of goo Steve Bannon (1953), engineer/educator Bill Nye (1955), lawyer/diplomat Caroline Kennedy (1957), MLB player/manager Mike Scioscia (1958), and actor Jaleel White (1976).

As usual, there’s more, but I don’t have more time to tell you what it is. Ah well. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 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.

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Good morning. It’s November 26, 2023, and it’s a Sunday. I’m up and about on a chilly (for here) morning, but I’ve got my coffee so we might as well get rolling on this news.

• A second group of hostages released from Gaza — comprising 13 Israelis and four Thai nationals — arrived in Israel late yesterday. Around the same time, 39 Palestinian detainees and prisoners were released from Israeli jails.
• Hamas had delayed the second exchange over a dispute about the prisoners and aid for Gaza that was resolved through mediation, according to Qatar, which helped negotiate the 4-day truce and exchange agreement between the two sides.
• Israel has been given a new list of hostages expected to be released today in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. For the first time under the deal, an American citizen is expected to be among them.
• I hope that goes smoothly.
• Moving north to a war that has continued this whole time, both Russia and Ukraine have reported thwarting major drone attacks in their respective territories.
• Russia’s claims that at least 20 drones were shot down over Russian regions, including Moscow. Ukraine says it destroyed eight of nine attack drones launched overnight by Russia.
• Ukraine has warned in recent weeks that Russia will target critical infrastructure in a winter aerial campaign, as it did last year.
• Would’t it be nice to wake up one day in your life where there was no war going on anywhere?
• Here’s hoping.
• It’s Sunday, which means it’s Gunday here at Zak’s Random News, where we look at just some of the gun violence in the USA for Friday and Saturday.
• Two shot dead in in Sacramento County, CA. Two more shot dead at Juniata Park in Philadelphia, PA. One dead, two injured in a shooting in Midtown Anchorage, AK. One dead, one injured at a shooting in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, MA. One dead, one injured at a shooting in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, CA. A 3-year-old shot dead at a hotel in Tamarac, FL. One shot dead in Jackson, MI. Another in Savannah, GA. Another in Toledo, OH. Another in Raleigh, NC. Another in Auburn, WA. Another in South St. Paul, MN. A woman dead after being accidentally shot in Laurens, SC. One shot dead on I-65 in Nashville, TN. One shot dead in the East Bluff of Peoria, IL. Five people shot at a bar and lounge in Winston-Salem, NC. Three Palestinian students shot in Burlington, VT. Three shot at a bar in Dixmoor, IL. Three shot at Katy Mills Mall in Houston, TX. Two teens shot in Public Square, Cleveland, OH. Two teens in critical condition after being shot in Sharon, PA. Two shot in Portland, OR. One in critical condition after being shot at a blues club in Memphis, TN. Another in critical condition after being shot at an apartment in Colorado Springs, CO. Another in critical condition following a shooting in Prince William County, VA. Another in critical condition after a shooting in Indianapolis, IN. A woman shot in road rage incident on the Harding Place exit ramp off of I-24 in Nashville, TN. One shot in Orlando, FL. Another in Wentzville, MO. Another in Douglasville, GA. Another in Fort Wayne, IN. Another in Appleton, WI. A boy shot at Southcenter Mall in Tukwila, WA. A man shot at a Dollar Tree in Orlando, FL. A teenager shot in Lansing, MI. A teenager shot in Cayce, SC. A baby shot in Memphis, TN.
• Once again, I’ll remind you that these are just some of the shootings in the USA. I don’t have all day to list them all. And yes, just those on Friday and Saturday.
• Guns are the number-one cause of death of children in the USA, and those shootings happen in every place in every sort of race and socioeconomic class. Can you imagine being a parent and voting for a political candidate who supports more people having guns when it’s provable the most likely way their own child will die?
• Vote accordingly. Thank you.
• Moving on.
• Rep. George Santos (R-NY), facing near-certain expulsion from Congress as early as this coming week, launched a tirade in a livestream Friday night. Santos accused his House colleagues of casting votes hungover, cheating on their spouses, and being “hypocrites.”
• Shocking, am I right? Heh.
• The three-hour-long rant came after House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest introduced a resolution to expel Santos that many of his former allies have promised to support.
• Santos added that some of his colleagues are “more worried about getting drunk every night with the next lobbyists they're going to screw” than doing their jobs. “I’m not running for reelection because I don’t want to work with a bunch of hypocrites,” he said. “It’s gross.”
• Santos may not be an expert on much, but he is definitely qualified to speak about things that are gross.
• Moving on.
• Former president and current accused felon Donald John Trump was met with loud boos as he arrived at Williams-Brice Stadium in South Carolina yesterday ahead of the Palmetto Bowl college football game between the University of South Carolina's Gamecocks and Clemson University's Tigers.
• Booooooooo!
• In other Dump News, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said he would vote for some Democratic presidential candidates as the 2024 race for the White House approaches, calling them an “upgrade” from former President Donald Trump.
• He’s right.
• And now, The Weather: “Dumb Guitar” by Mount Kimbie
• In other weather news, multiple states are under winter weather alerts across the country today as millions of Americans prepare for one of the busiest travel days of the year.
• The National Weather Service forecasted that “moderate to heavy snowfall” will continue to impact the Southern Rockies and the Central Plains regions, including most of Kansas. It said the storm system will then shift into the Mississippi Valley Region and the western Great Lakes into Monday. 
• Be safe, peoples.
• RIP to Marty Krofft, the guy who produced “Land of the Lost,” “H.R. Pufnstuf” and numerous other television shows. He died at age 86.
• Known as the “King of Saturday Mornings,” Krofft and his brother Sid dominated children’s television programming for decades. In addition to “Land of the Lost” and “H.R. Pufnstuf,” Sid & Marty Pictures produced “The Bugaloos,” “Lidsville,” “Pryor’s Place” and “The Krofft Supershow.”
• Here’s a weird list: US Presidents (or eventual Presidents) who were alive at the time I was born…
• Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973), Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994), Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006), Jimmy Carter (1924- ), Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), George H. W. Bush (1924-2018), Bill Clinton (1946 - ), George W. Bush (1946 - ), Barack Obama (1961- ), Donald Trump (1946 - ), Joe Biden (1942 - ).
• Relevant side note: Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) died just a couple of months before I was around.
• Side note two: I find it likely that the 2028 election has a high possibility of the first time we elect a US president younger than me. I can accept this. Or at least I will be able to in five years.
• From the Sports Desk… here are the ten current worst teams in the NFL.
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-6), Los Angeles Chargers (4-6), New York Jets (4-7), Washington Commanders (4-8), Tennessee Titans (3-7), New York Giants (3-8), Chicago Bears (3-8), New England Patriots (2-8), Arizona Cardinals (2-9), and the worst team in the NFL, the Carolina Panthers (1-9).
• This list will update considerably after today’s games.
• Today in history… Vlad the Impaler becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time (1476). In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui (1778). A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as proclaimed by President George Washington at the request of Congress (1789). United States President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26 as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November (1863). The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams (1917). Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years (1922). ‘Casablanca’ premieres in New York City (1942). George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida's electoral votes by Katherine Harris, going on to win the United States presidential election, despite losing in the national popular vote (2000). The World Health Organization identifies the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (2021). 
• November 26 is the birthday of physicist Rudolph Koenig (1832), policeman/journalist Bat Masterson (1853), inventor Willis Carrier (1876), AA founder/activist Bill W. (1895), cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (1922), actor Robert Goulet (1933), comedian Rich Little (1938), singer-songwriter Tina Turner (1939), bass player John McVie (1945), producer Michael Omartian (1945), NFL player Art Shell (1946), NBA player Shawn Kemp (1969), NHL player Chris Osgood (1972), rapper DJ Khaled (1975), and NBA player Malik Beasley (1996).

My plan for the day? Not much of one. I have laundry to do and some general housekeeping, and that’s about it. Not every moment has to be glamorous or exciting. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 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.

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Good morning. It’s November 25, 2023, and it’s a Saturday. I’m slowly getting my day rolling, but am enjoying the quiet time in my robe with my coffee. If it wasn’t for that whole “need to be a responsible person and work for a living” aspect of life, I could get used to this. Anyway, let’s look at the news.

• Former Minneapolis police officer and convicted murdered Derek Chauvin has been stabbed in an Arizona prison.
• If your memory isn’t helping here, allow me to assist: Chauvin is the cop who killed George Floyd in 2020 by kneeling on his neck for over nine minutes, which became the springboard for the riots of that summer and the launch of the BLM movement.
• Chauvin, 47, was seriously injured in the attack by another inmate. There are no other details available, but I’m just going to guess that wherever he goes, he’s not going to be very loved by other inmates (as a former cop) or especially by Black inmates (as a racist killer).
• No word either on how bad the stabbing was, but it was reported that Chauvin required life-saving measures after the incident. Chauvin did survive the attack, but it might not be the last as he serves his 22-year sentence.
• Do I want that guy to get killed in prison? No, no I don’t. It’s not justice. He’s been tried by a jury and given punishment that they saw fit his crime. He’s put in his appeals and they’ve failed. Now he has to serve the time. They did not sentence him to death whether we feel like it’s merited or not.
• Moving on.
• While the Israel-Hamas war is in the midst of their brief break, I wanted to once again mention something I hope you all can understand.
• You can support Israel while condemning their actions against the people of Palestine.
• You can be critical of Hamas and other terrorist organizations without hating Palestine or other Muslim-dominant countries.
• Above all, you can express your opinions without spewing hatred on those who don’t. Acts of antisemitism and Islamophobia are equally repugnant. I don’t care how you consider yourself from a political or religious standpoint. Hatred and violence are wrong. End of story.
• And that brings me to…
• If you’re like me, you can merely hope that the entire world comes to the realization that violence and armed conflict of any sort is never a real solution. It only postpones the inevitable revenge that leads to more violence and misery and death.
• There are only two factors to overcome that would end all wars on this planet: fear and greed.
• Granted, they’re among humanities biggest and most longterm weaknesses. It may never be possible to get past them. But I think it’s good to point out that it might be possible someday.
• That being said, the brief period of peace has already hit a snag. Today was supposed to be the second day of hostage release, but Hamas is delaying their end of the bargain, saying Israel had not allowed an agreed-upon amount of aid into Gaza.
• So as is typical in this and many wars, you have a “he said, she said” situation, and it’s impossible to know who’s the actual asshole entity here.
• Moving on.
• Complete douchebag Dean Phillips (D-MN), who is the only person challenging Joe Biden for the Democrat presidential primary, announced yesterday he will not seek reelection to Congress in 2024.
• Good. Because we want that guy out of office completely. His hot take on how “Biden is great but we need a younger guy” reeks of agism and self-serving bullshit.
• Side note on Phillips: he is one of the wealthiest members (among many very wealthy members) of Congress, and heir to his stepdaddy’s Phillips Distilling Company empire.
• I haven’t mentioned Phillips before now and I really don’t intend to any more than he warrants, which is not at all. Fuck that rich centrist moderate fuck and his entire political future.
• Let’s move on.
• President Joe Biden is expected to be in Atlanta next week to honor Rosalynn Carter. Biden is scheduled to arrive with first lady Dr. Jill Biden on Tuesday to attend the former first lady's memorial service.
• Vice President Kamala Harris and husband second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will attend, too. Carter, the wife of former president Jimmy Carter, died Sunday, November 19, at age 96.
• In other news, the world’s biggest iceberg is on the move after decades of being grounded on the seafloor in Antarctica.
• The huge mass of ice broke away from an ice shelf in 1986, calved, and grounded on the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea floor almost immediately.
• Named A23a, the iceberg is about 1,312 feet thick and over 1,500 square miles in area. That’s over twice the size of London, for comparison’s sake.
• Let’s talk about voting. We’ll be doing that a lot over the next 11 months.
• Voters in the swing county of Northampton, PA, had some issues when their new touchscreen voting machines glitched during a down-ballot judge’s race in 2019. But then a similar issue cropped up earlier this month, and it left state and local election officials in this key swing state racing to restore voter confidence ahead of what very likely will be another contentious presidential election.
• Pennsylvania boasts 19 electoral votes, and is expected to be a top battleground next year as it’s been the past couple of major elections. Dump won the state by just 44,000 votes in 2016. He lost it by roughly 80,000 votes four years later.
• In 2019, a programming glitch caused the ES&S touchscreen machines to significantly undercount the votes for the Democratic candidate in a local judges’ race. This year, Northampton residents who showed up at their local polling station found that printouts from the same devices didn’t match the votes they had submitted digitally for two down-ballot judges contests.
• They have to get that shit fixed and restore public trust in this process ASAP.
• Now let’s talk about abortion.
• Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, an increase of over 32,000 births happened in states that now force pregnant women to give birth via restricting their reproductive rights.
• It adds up to a 2.3% increase in births, relative to what we would have expected if those states weren't enforcing bans. That is about 30,000 additional births on an annual basis since the Dobbs ruling.
• I think it’s only fair that those states’ residents have increased taxes to help pay for the additional strain on public resources. I actually think that is a really good idea.
• And now, The Weather: “Rover” by Nightshifts
• We can do a sort-of chart today. This is an amalgamation of the best-of year-end lists from Los Angeles’ KROQ and San Diego’s 91X, both alternative music stations, for the year 1984.
• 1. Pride (In The Name Of Love) (U2). 2. Relax (Frankie Goes To Hollywood). 3. Two Tribes (Frankie Goes To Hollywood). 4. Wild Boys (Duran Duran). 5. People Are People (Depeche Mode). 6. Hold Me Now (Thompson Twins). 7. I Send A Message (INXS). 8. Blue Jean (David Bowie). 9. Flesh For Fantasy (Billy Idol). 10. Ghost In You (Psychedelic Furs). 11. Let's Go Crazy (Prince). 12. What Is Love? (Howard Jones). 13. The Gap (Thompson Twins). 14. It's My Life (Talk Talk). 15. My Ever Changing Moods (Style Council). 16. Cruel Summer (Bananarama). 17. Girl In Trouble (Is A Temporary Thing) (Romeo Void). 18. If It Happens Again (UB40). 19. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (Wham!). 20. Killing Moon (Echo & The Bunnymen).
• From the Sports Desk… a very rare Friday game happened yesterday in the NFL. I figured out why.
• Amazon Prime now owns the “Thursday Night Football” broadcast rights, but this particular Thursday was Thanksgiving, which has its own broadcast rights split between Fox, CBS, and NBC. So to give Amazon their viewership, they had to schedule a weird-ass game day.
• In that game, the Dolphins (8-3) beat the Jets (4-7) as expected.
• Some thoughts for tomorrow’s NFL games: nearly every matchup is super close, with nearly all of them having a spread of a field goal or so. the only exception, is the Chiefs (7-3) facing my Raiders (5-6) in Las Vegas. Chiefs are favored by -9, but this might be a bad time to bet against the scrappy Silver and Black.
• Today in history… Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant break the Siege of Chattanooga by routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg (1863). A group of Confederate operatives calling themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattan starts fires in more than 20 locations in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down New York City (1864). The "Hollywood Ten" are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios (1947). Thirty-six top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia (1984). U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua (1986). A five-year-old Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez, is rescued by fishermen while floating in an inner tube off the Florida coast (1999). 
• November 25 is the birthday of violin maker Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Guarneri (1666), author/activist Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck (1778), businessman/philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835), engineer/businessman Karl Benz (1844), engineer/businesswoman/philanthropist Kate Gleason (1865), MLB player Joe DiMaggio (1914), singer Percy Sledge (1940), NFL coach Joe Gibbs (1940), actor John Larroquette (1947), businessman/convicted felon Jeffrey Skilling (1953), singer songwriter Amy Grant (1960), lawyer John F. Kennedy Jr. (1960), singer-songwriter Mark Lanegan (1964), singer-songwriter/guitarist Tim Armstrong (1965), actress Christina Applegate (1971), NFL player Donovan McNabb (1976), and activist Barbara Pierce Bush (1981).

Time to do more things. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 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 November 24, 2023, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Yesterday’s feast was fantastic, but today I seem to be paying the price for my overindulgence. I’m sure a turkey sandwich and some ibuprofen will help. Let’s do some news.

• Starting on a high note.
• A four-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas began this morning, allowing sorely needed aid to start flowing into Gaza and setting the stage for the release of dozens of hostages held by militants and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
• There were no reports of fighting in the hours after the truce began. The deal offered some relief for Gaza’s 2.3 million people, who have endured weeks of Israeli bombardment and dwindling supplies of basic necessities, as well as for families in Israel worried about loved ones taken captive during Hamas’ October 7 attack.
• So far, things seem to be going well. At last update, 13 Israeli hostages were freed from Hamas captivity this morning, and 39 Palestinian women and teenagers who were being held in Israeli prisons were released in exchange. Hamas also released 12 Thai nationals who were being held hostage.
• This deal is being brokered by negotiations mediated by Qatar.
• Let’s hope the four days of peace holds up and extends into many more.
• Today is Black Friday. What does that mean?
• While the term seems to have been around forever, that’s not the case. While the day after Thanksgiving has been a big shopping day for a long time (notable back to 1952), it was in the early ‘80s that the “Black Friday” appellation gained traction.
• The reference is to the idea that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss for most of the year (January through November) and made their annual profit during the holiday season, beginning on the day after Thanksgiving.
• Why “black”? Because in the analog days of yore, accounting practices would use red ink to show negative amounts and black ink to show positive amounts. Black Friday is the beginning of the period when retailers would no longer be "in the red", instead of taking in the year's profits.
• The earliest known published reference to this explanation occurs in The Philadelphia Inquirer for November 28, 1981. Despite that, in 1985, retailers in places including Cincinnati and Los Angeles and elsewhere were still unaware of the term.
• The term is now known not only around the USA but in some countries around the world, since international stores starting using it to promote the day to remain competitive with US-based online retailers. Makes sense.
• As long as we’re on this topic…
• New Jersey’s American Dream mall — the second largest mall in the country — was evacuated minutes after it opened today on Black Friday because of a bomb threat that was later deemed unfounded.
• That’s an asshole move.
• Just after American Dream opened its doors at 7am, someone told police there was a bomb inside the facility, and officers evacuated the shopping center so they could search it. The mall was swept for explosive devices; none were found. It reopened around 9:15am.
• Let’s move on… to some problems with the far-right that are plaguing places other than the USA.
• In Ireland, right-wing protesters angered by a stabbing attack they believed had involved someone of immigrant background rampaged through central Dublin last night, leaving behind a trail of burning destruction.
• They torched double-decker buses, trams, and police cars. After the stabbing incident, rumors spread online that the perpetrator of the attack was an immigrant or had an immigrant background.
• Except the BBC says the man was an Irish citizen who had lived in the country for 20 years.
• Moving over to the Netherlands, where hard-right politician Geert Wilders was elected prime minister on Wednesday. 
• Wilders has been dubbed the Dutch Trump. His publicly expressed views include linking Muslim immigration with terrorism and calling for a ban on mosques and the Quran.
• Other far-right Europe leaders, like Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Flemish independence leader Tom Van Grieken, hopped on the congratulatory bandwagon.
• And, speaking of far-right nutjobs, the accused criminal Donald John Trump has told Argentina’s President-elect Javier Milei that he plans to travel to the South American country so the two can meet.
• Sigh. You know how to prevent this stuff in the USA, right? Vote. Every opportunity, at every level. Local, county, state, national, anything. Vote like your life depends on it.
• Because it does.
• Let’s move on.
• New York police have identified the victims of the explosive car crash Wednesday at the Rainbow Bridge border crossing between the United States and Canada.
• Kurt P. Villani, 53, and Monica Villani, 53, of Grand Island, New York, died when their vehicle crashed into a median at the border crossing. The exact cause of the crash is still under investigation.
• Villani’s car was a $300,000 Bentley, but it may have have some awful mechanical problem and then exploded when the gas tank was ripped open during the accident.
• In other news, 34 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested yesterday after they briefly disrupted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York by gluing themselves to the pavement of the parade route.
• Most were just issued summons for trespassing. Another four people were criminally charged with resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, trespassing, and disorderly conduct related to the vandalism at the New York Public Library.
• C’mon people. Don’t spray paint a fucking public library. Jesus.
• In “Things I Wouldn’t Do” news, the Biden family did their annual Thanksgiving tradition of a polar plunge in the frigid waters off the coast of Nantucket, MA. It’s apparently something the’ve done nearly every Thanksgiving since 1975.
• No thanks.
• Members of the Biden clan involved in this insanity included President Joe, son Hunter, granddaughter Naomi, and several others. Water temps in the Nantucket Sound were 48F were a rather chilly 48º F (about 9º C) yesterday afternoon. 
• And now, The Weather: “Miss Me” by Selmer (feat. JEZ_EBEL)
• From the Sports Desk… yesterday’s three NFL games featured one upset and two blowouts. The Packers (5-6) surprised the Lions (8-3), winning 29-22. Note: the Lions, who play every Thanksgiving, haven’t won their turkey day game since Obama was in office.
• The Cowboys (8-3) killed the Commanders (4-8) 45-10, while the 49ers (8-3) made mincemeat of the Seahawks (6-5) by a score of 31-13.
• From the not-Sports Desk, the amazing Dolly Parton at age 77 performed the halftime show of the Washington/Dallas game wearing an outfit inspired by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, then did a set that included songs off her recent ‘Rockstar’ album as well as some classics like “Jolene” and “9 to 5.”
• Today in history… Genghis Khan defeats the renegade Khwarazmian prince Jalal al-Din at the Battle of the Indus, completing the Mongol conquest of Central Asia (1221). Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land, later renamed Tasmania (1642). The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers (1835). Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species (1859). Anna Sewell's animal welfare novel ‘Black Beauty’ is published (1877). In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory officially opens (1932). Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is killed by Jack Ruby (1963). Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (1974). Iran signs an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for reduced sanctions (2013). 
• November 24 is the birthday of composer Charles Theodore Pachelbel (1690), missionary Junípero Serra (1713), US president Zachary Taylor (1784), painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864), pianist/composer Scott Joplin (1868), educator Dale Carnegie (1888), mob boss Lucky Luciano (1897), author/publisher William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925), politician George Moscone (1929), NBA player Oscar Robertson (1938), NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue (1940), drummer Pete Best (1941), bass player Donald “Duck” Dunn (1941), comedian Billy Connolly (1942), keyboardist/composer Richard Tee (1943), serial killer Ted Bundy (1946), NBA player/coach Rudy Tomjanovich (1948), actress Denise Crosby (1957), and actor Colin Hanks (1977). 

In weird news, I awoke this morning with a super painful right hand (no jokes please), including pretty awful swelling near my index finger knuckle. I’ve tried to fix it so far with coffee, a turkey sandwich, and ibuprofen, and it seems to be helping. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 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.

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Good morning. It’s November 23, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason… and it’s Thanksgiving, possibly my favorite holiday.  I’m enjoying a cup of Peet’s coffee in my robe, but my time to relax is short; I gotta get cooking soon.

• Here’s my annual guide on how to make a turkey.
• First, get a turkey. Don’t get a frozen turkey. You’re way too late. You couldn’t make a frozen turkey ready for dinner tonight with anything less powerful than a hydrogen bomb. A frozen turkey would laugh at a typical flamethrower. 
• So get a fresh turkey. Take it home.
• Preheat your oven to 350º F. Some say 325º. I say my oven runs a bit cool and I don’t have all fucking day. Adjust accordingly.
• The turkey will be wrapped in some kind of plastic.
• Be careful about where you open said plastic. There will be various liquids inside that you don’t want to spray around willie-nillie in your kitchen.
• I’m assuming you’re in your kitchen. Don’t prepare food in your bedroom or bathroom.
• So anyway, you’ve got this turkey in front of you. You will notice something right away.
• The turkey will have a hole where its neck used to be, and a hole in the general vicinity of its ass.
• But don’t worry. This is normal. Here’s where it gets weird.
• You’re gonna remove the neck from the ass, and the body parts, aka giblets, from the neck. Do not freak out. They are in little plastic bags.
• You are not compelled to do anything with these spare parts. Now, if you’re a cool-ass motherfucker, you might want to make your own giblet gravy from scratch.
• I will not be telling you how. I’m just your turkey guy. Go find a giblet guy elsewhere.
• Controversial moment: to rinse the bird or not.
• The actual USDA has a statement on this. It says…
• “Many consumers think that washing their turkey will remove bacteria and make it safer. However, it's virtually impossible to wash bacteria off the bird. Instead, juices that splash during washing can transfer bacteria onto the surfaces of your kitchen, other foods and utensils.”
• So, ew, fucking gross, there’s so much bacteria on the fucking animal carcass that it’s pointless to wash and you should just give up. That’s what they’re saying.
• I carefully rinse my turkey in my sink with nothing else in it. I do NOT splash turkey juice all over the fucking place. I am careful. I am calm. I am at one with this dead bird.
• After I give it a rinse, I pat it down with some paper towels. Then I put the turkey on some more paper towels.
• Important note: everything the turkey touches in this raw state must be SUPER cleaned immediately after. I’m talking hot water, soap, disinfectant, and so on. Hands, countertop, sink, the car in which you drove the turkey home, and all points in between.
• I mean, don’t freak out. But do clean.
• Let’s talk about stuffing.
• I fucking love stuffing. You could serve me literally everything else in a giant Thanksgiving feast and without stuffing, it would be entirely meaningless to me.
• Stuffing is easy to make. I won’t tell you how. You can easily find that info elsewhere. But I will say this.
• If you’re going to put in in the bird, you should have made your stuffing like two hours ago. It’s already cooled down entire and has been in your fridge with some plastic wrap on it to keep it moist.
• Moist, I said, Moist.
• Your other option, and many prefer this anyway, is to cook the stuffing apart from the bird.
• Why do I bring all this up? Two reasons.
• First, the cooking time is longer with the bird stuff versus not.
• Second, I’m gonna tell you some shit about how to stuff.
• Put your bird into the roaster pan. Don’t stuff the turkey until right before that fucker is going in the oven. 
• Do not overstuff the bird. That’s a terrible idea. Just put the stuffing in the cavities until it is loosely full.
• Side note: I make twice as much stuffing as I need for the bird because a) I heat up the non-stuffed stuffing as its own side dish and b) I require stuffing for my sandwiches the next day.
• So you have your stuffed bird, and your oven is well heated to the proper temp.
• One more thing.
• Take a lot of butter and put it all over that turkey.
• How much butter? Like, way more than you think. Every millimeter of the surface area of that turkey should be buttered. Heavily buttered. Apply the butter any way you want. Melt it and pour, or just squish it all over at room temp. Smear it into the crevices.
• I hope you have a meat thermometer. If not, you’ll probably be fine. If so, stab it into the beast in the lower part of the thigh next to the body, not touching the bone.
• Put the bird in the oven. Try putting it in at an angle where you can actually see your thermometer. That’s helpful.
• So, that’s basically it. Oh wait, you probably want to know how long to cook that sucker.
• Roast your bird at 325-350º for about 15 minutes per pound, if it’s stuffed. For my typical 12-13 pound turkey, that’s usually right around four hours.
• This is a good time to scrub the crap out of everything per above. Especially yourself.
• But wait. There’s one more thing.
• When it’s about 2/3 done and the skin is a lovely shade of golden brown, make a little tent with some aluminum foil and put it over your bird.
• The turkey is fully cooked when the thigh’s internal temperature is 180 degrees. If you’re super fancy, the thickest part of the breast should read 170 degrees and the center of the stuffing should be 165 degrees.
• Take it out of the oven. Don’t leave your oven on unless you’re cooking other shit as I do.
• This next part is important.
• You may be hungry but you’re gonna wait a bit. Let the turkey stand for 15 to 20 minutes before carving. There are reasons for this that involve your turkey being delightfully juicy rather than bone-ass dry.
• Also, if you’re me, you’re finishing up 17 other dishes at that moment and need the time regardless.
• And now, The Weather: “Pink Mold” by Daneshevskaya
• Let’s do a little news.
• A four-day cease-fire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas will began tomorrow morning, a day later than originally announced, as negotiators worked out final details of the deal, which is to lead to the release of dozens of hostages held by militants and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
• I wish them all the best. Release those people and try to live in peace.
• Yesterday, Fox News posted screaming headlines about a terrorist attack at our northern border.
• Senator Ted Cruz, always a bastion of truth, has a social media post that’s still up right now, saying, “This confirms our worst fear: the explosion at Rainbow Bridge was a terrorist attack.”
• Except it wasn’t. It was a poor fucker from western New York and his wife, who’d planned to attend a Kiss concert in Canada that ended up being canceled.
• The Bentley they were driving rammed into the crossing at Rainbow Bridge near Niagara Falls, hit a curb on the US side of the border, and became airborne before exploding.
• The FBI found no explosive materials and no relationship to terrorism related to the incident. It was just a bad car accident in a luxury vehicle that’s prone to explosions.
• In news no one wants to hear on Thanksgiving or any other time of year, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency in Rockcastle County following a multi-car train derailment yesterday that resulted in a chemical spill.
• Around 16 train cars were involved in the incident, including two carrying molten sulfur that ended up on fire.
• Ugh.
• From the Sports Desk… today is obviously a football day in the USA, but here are the top 10 teams in the NHL based on their current record.
• 1. Boston Bruins (14-1-3). 2. Vegas Golden Knights (14-4-2). 3. New York Rangers (13-3-1). 4. Vancouver Canucks (13-6-1). 5. Dallas Stars (12-4-2). 6. Los Angeles Kings (11-3-3). 7. Florida Panthers (12-6-1). 8. Colorado Avalanche (12-6-0). 9. Winnipeg Jets (11-5-2). 10. Tampa Bay Lightning (9-6-5).
• In a Sports Desk story I thought was cute, when they do the coin toss for today’s set of games, one side of the coin will feature the image of John Madden. The other side will depict Madden’s famous Thanksgiving nightmares fuel food: the turducken.
• It is part of the league's second annual Thanksgiving tribute to the late broadcaster and coach, a holiday on which he called 20 games over his career.
• Today in history… Thespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray a character on stage (534 BC). John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship (1644). King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to succeed him (1890). Edwin Hubble's discovery, that the Andromeda "nebula" is actually another island galaxy far outside our own Milky Way, is first published in The New York Times (1924). The BBC broadcasts ‘An Unearthly Child’, the first episode of the first story from the first series of ‘Doctor Who’, which is now the world's longest running science fiction drama (1963). Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17, giving the CIA the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua (1981). Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury announces in a statement that he is HIV-positive and dies the following day (1991). The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada (1992). Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country (2005). After 11 months of protests in Yemen, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity (2011). 
• November 23 is the birthday of Holy Roman emperor Otto I (912), US president Franklin Pierce (1804), actor Boris Karloff (1887), comedian/musician Harpo Marx (1888), baseball player Josephine D’Angelo (1924), composer Johnny Mandel (1925), singer-songwriter/guitarist R. L. Burnside (1926), activist/politician Bobby Rush (1946), politician Chuck Schumer (1950), singer-songwriter/pianist Bruce Hornsby (1954), reality TV personality Snooki (1987), and singer-songwriter Miley Cyrus (1992).

Alright. Time to get my deviled eggs cooking and then start on my stuffing. One last thing: I know why people say to avoid political talk at Thanksgiving. I get it. But I would also say that there are ways to have important conversations with people you care about while you’re all together that don’t result in ruining the holiday. You’d be surprised how a simple chat over dinner can actually impact someone’s thoughts. Just an idea. Enjoy your day.