Random News: January 29, 2024

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 January 29, 2024, and it’s a Monday. I’ve been gone but now I am back, so let’s see if anything important happened since last Wednesday.

• Where was I?
• Not far away from home but a million miles away nonetheless. I was working at the NAMM Show, the annual trade event for people in the music and audio product industry.
• It was my 31st NAMM Show. I am old.
• It went fine. My exhibiting clients all seemed happy with my work. I did have one aspect of my business travels that went awry; when I checked into my hotel which was to have been paid for by my main client there, I handed them a card which I thought was being held for incidental purchases.
• And they mistakenly rang up the entire $1,700+ room charge on the card. They immediately reversed the charges, which was great… and then it took three full days for the reversal to refill my bank account.
• But no big harm was done, and I managed fine without access to money between Wednesday and Saturday through the generosity of various friends.
• Okay. Anyway, I’m back. Let’s get back to the news.
• We should probably note the $83.3 million judgement against Donnie Dump for having raped, then defamed writer E. Jean Carroll, and then continuing to do so.
• The verdict was the second time over the past year that a jury has awarded Carroll millions of dollars in damages from Dump, who states he’ll appeal the judgement.
• Fuck him. I’m even more looking forward to this week’s potential decision in the civil fraud case against Dumpy in New York City.
• Closing arguments in the case were made Thursday, and Judge Arthur Engoron indicated that he hopes to make a decision by Wednesday of this week.
• How much will it be? AG Letitia James has asked Engoron to force El Dumpo to pay a nearly $370 million penalty for falsely altering his net worth on key financial statements to receive tax and insurance benefits.
• The state is also asking the judge to bar the former president from New York’s real estate business for life.
• Here’s hoping.
• Moving on.
• Things in the Middle East and other parts of Asia seem to continue to deteriorate in recent times. Three US Army soldiers were killed and more than 30 service members were injured in a drone attack overnight on a small US outpost in Jordan.
• It’s the first time US troops have been killed by enemy fire in the Middle East since the beginning of the Gaza war. President Joe Biden said that the US will respond, as you would expect we would.
• The drone was fired by Iran-backed militants and appeared to come from Syria. It is still being determined which militia group specifically is responsible. The number of wounded is expected to rise as service members seek treatment for symptoms consistent with traumatic brain injury.
• Sigh. War sucks and violence is stupid. Let’s move on.
• On Friday, the Illinois State Board of Elections held a hearing on whether the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban” applies to former President and current accused felon Donald John Trump.
• The judge’s recommendation is expected to be announced tomorrow when the full election board meets. The panel will then vote on the recommendation.
• Interestingly, an attorney for the challengers asserted that Dump filed false paperwork with Illinois election officials when he certified that he was “fully qualified to serve as president.”
• I think that may be provable.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday the Republican National Committee made fun of President Joe Biden for having attended a church service in South Carolina, but as happens a lot with the evil RNC, it backfired spectacularly.
• They put up a social post deriding Biden for having entered a Black church 15 minutes after the service started.
• In doing so, they made it clear that they didn’t know special guests are traditionally introduced after the service begins in Black churches.
• If there’s a way to do something wrong and misguided and ignorant, that’s what the Republicans will choose to do.
• Meanwhile, Biden’s presumed opponent in the 2024 presidential election decided to trash workers and their unions after United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain endorsed President Biden.
• Fain is pretty clear with his reasons: “When you look at these two candidates, you know, Joe Biden has a history of serving others, and serving the working class, and fighting for the working class, standing with the working class. Donald Trump has a history of serving himself and standing for the billionaire class. And that’s contrary to everything that working class people stand for,” he said yesterday.
• Hey, how’s that classy lady Lauren Boebert doing? Not so good.
• A straw poll of voters in the district where the controversial congresswoman recently relocated had her coming in fifth place out of the nine Republican candidates.

• And now, The Weather: “How To Feel Uncomfortable” by Dana Gavanski
• The northeast is getting slammed with snow, rain, ice, and a wintery mix of utter shit today. Stay warm and stay safe, friends.

• I have a chart for you. It’s this date in 1968. I won’t be born for about a year and a half. Vietnam is raging, social unrest is peaking, and the tunes were pretty damn good.
• 1. Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) (John Fred And The Playboys). 2. Chain Of Fools (Aretha Franklin). 3. Hello Goodbye (The Beatles). 4. Woman, Woman (The Union Gap Featuring Gary Puckett). 5. Green Tambourine (The Lemon Pipers). 6. Daydream Believer (The Monkees). 7. Bend Me, Shape Me (The American Breed). 8. I Second That Emotion (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles). 9. I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Gladys Knight And The Pips). 10. If I Could Build My Whole World Around You (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell). 11. Honey Chile (Martha Reeves & The Vandellas). 12. Skinny Legs And All (Joe Tex). 13. Susan (The Buckinghams). 14. Different Drum (Stone Poneys Featuring Linda Ronstadt). 15. Monterey (Eric Burdon & The Animals). 16. Spooky (Classics IV). 17. Nobody But Me (The Human Beinz). 18. Boogaloo Down Broadway (The Fantastic Johnny C). 19. Who Will Answer? (Ed Ames). 20. Baby, Now That I've Found You (The Foundations)
• From the Sports Desk… the NFL conference championship games were yesterday. I actually returned from my business event in time to catch most of the first game and all of the second.
• In the AFC, the Kansas City Chiefs upset the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 to head to the Super Bowl. Frankly, the Ravens beat themselves. They had plenty of opportunities to win, and all the weapons to do so, and then… didn’t.
• I respect the Chiefs, but I would have preferred some more new blood in the championships this year.
• The NFC game between the Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers was a massive heartbreak for Lions fans, who are at least familiar with that sensation. The Lions were up 24-7 at halftime, and then the Niners rattled off 27 consecutive second-half points and surged to a stunning 34-31 win to claim the franchise's eighth NFC championship.
• So we now have a Super Bowl matchup between the Chiefs and 49ers. It’s as even a match as we’ve seen in history; the current odds have San Francisco as a favorite, but only by -1.5 points.
• Today in history… "The Raven" is published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe (1845). Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state (1861). Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile (1886). Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator (1907). The Bolshevik Red Army, on its way to besiege Kyiv, is met by a small group of military students at the Battle of Kruty (1918). The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced (1936). In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush describes "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea (2002). The Trump administration establishes the White House Coronavirus Task Force under Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar (2020).
• January 29 is the birthday of scientist/philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688), activist/philosopher Thomas Paine (1737), US president William McKinley (1843), playwright Anton Chekhov (1860), businessman/philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874), actor W. C. Fields (1880), actor John Forsythe (1918), composer Leslie Bricusse (1931), bass player James Jamerson (1936), actor Tom Selleck (1945), drummer Tommy Ramone (1949), actress/TV host Oprah Winfrey (1954), diver Greg Louganis (1960), actor Nicholas Turturro (1962), NHL player Dominik Hašek (1965), actor Edward Burns (1968), actress Heather Graham (1970), actress Sara Gilbert (1975), singer Adam Lambert (1982), and MLB player José Abreu (1987).

Okay then. That’s enough for now. My day should be mostly on the lower end of the stress scale today, with my entire industry recovering from our efforts at NAMM. I do have a big list of “we’ll get to that after NAMM” things to do, but they don’t need to be done all at once. I’m going to relish the quiet comforts of being home. Enjoy your day.