Random News: February 23, 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 February 23, 2024, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I wrapped up the second big portion of my dental extravaganza yesterday, and I’ll tell you more about that down below. First, let’s check out some news.

• That Alabama supreme court decision that we mentioned earlier this week, the one that defined frozen embryos as “children”, is becoming a real problem for Republican politicians.
• A poll run by conservative Kellyanne Conway's consulting group says 85% of Americans support in-vitro fertilization (IVF), including 78% of pro-life respondents and 84% of Evangelical respondents.
• But by supporting the Alabama court decision, Republicans are causing IVF access to be shut down.
• Three fertility clinics in Alabama have already halted part of their IVF treatment programs amid legal concerns following the ruling, causing uncertainty for patients trying to start families. If embryos are children, then any number of laws could be used to prosecute both fertility clinics and the people trying to become parents.
• Let me tell you what’s behind all this: conservative men want to force all women to have penetrative sex in order to get pregnant. 100% of this stuff comes down to removing the sexual choices of adult women.
• Moving on.
• We’re back… on the moon.
• The US-made Odysseus lunar lander made a touchdown on the moon yesterday, becoming the first commercial spacecraft to accomplish such a feat.
• Odysseus is the first vehicle launched from the United States to land on the moon’s surface since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
• The uncrewed spacecraft launched last week from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The moon, as you hopefully know, is that big rock orbiting the planet that you sometimes see in the night sky from its distance of about 240,000 miles.
• If you get in your car to drive to the moon, it would take five months non-stop doing 60mph the whole time.
• Also, don’t do this.
• Moving on.
• Today’s number of the day: 87,502, which is how many additional dollars of interest Don the Con owes every single day, along with the rest of his massive fraud penalty in New York.
• Ha ha, loser. Also in loser news…
• Late last night, Donnie Dump begged Judge Aileen Cannon for his classified documents charges to be dismissed in seven separate motions, asserting presidential immunity and other legally dubious defenses.
• Some of Dumpy’s motions are publicly available, while others will remain under seal for days until the parties discuss necessary redactions.
• Similar arguments from his lawyers have already been rejected in the D.C. election subversion case. An appeals court panel unanimously ruled earlier this month that Dump does not have immunity in that case. The Supreme Court is currently reviewing the matter, which could settle the question in both cases.
• To put into context what El Dumpo is demanding of the courts: if this were allowed, any POTUS could declassify all of our most sensitive secrets when leaving office and sell them to Putin five minutes later with zero legal repercussions.
• It’s insane and insulting to the American people that Dumpy would even ask, as desperate as he is.
• That wasn’t all of Dumpy’s crying and begging for the day.
• The judge overseeing the $355 million civil fraud case has denied Dump’s request to delay the judgment for a month.
• In an email reply, Judge Engoron rejected the request for an additional 30 days, writing, “You have failed to explain, much less justify, any basis for a stay.”
• Dump fails a lot.
• In final Smelly Man news of the day, he arrived for a speech in Nashville last night over an hour and a half late, and then appeared both visibly tired and was often incoherent and had trouble pronouncing many words.
• Shrug.
• In other news…
• Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant who lied under orders from Russia about a bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden’s family, was again taken into custody yesterday in Las Vegas, two days after a judge released him.
• Ha ha, you piece of shit.
• Smirnov, 43, was arrested while meeting with his lawyers at their offices in downtown Las Vegas. His claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family.
• It’s ridiculous and frankly embarrassing for the Republicans that they have yet to drop their investigation even after the evidence came out that Smirnov is a Kremlin-backed tool.
• Speaking of Russians, as we mentioned earlier this week, today President Joe Biden announced more than 500 new sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine and the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
• Biden said the sanctions would target those connected to Navalny’s imprisonment, as well as Russia’s financial sector, defense industrial base, procurement networks and sanctions evaders across several continents.
• The U.S. is also imposing export restrictions on almost 100 entities that support Russia’s military efforts and taking action to reduce Russia's energy revenues.
• Good.
• A little reminder of the 2024 primary voting schedule. We’re about to hit the big rush of election days.
• Tomorrow (February 23) is the South Carolina Republican primary. Next Tuesday is Michigan’s for both Democrats and Republicans. Michigan is super fucked up right now for the GOP, having split into two factions each running their own primary process.
• Idaho, Missouri, D.C., and North Dakota also have Republican primaries over the subsequent week.
• And then on Tuesday March 5, aka Super Tuesday, 17 different states and territories all have their primaries at once.
• Please vote. Thank you.
• Back to Asshole News for a moment.
• A federal judge affirmed a $5 million arbitration award against former crackhead and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell in favor of a software engineer who challenged data that Lindell said proves China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and tipped the outcome to Joe Biden.
• Lindell launched his "Prove Mike Wrong Challenge," as part of a "Cyber Symposium" he hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in August 2021. Lindell offered a $5 million reward for anyone who could prove that data he released there were not valid data "from the November 2020 election."
• A guy proved it. Now Lindell is on the hook for that $5 million. It’s unclear if Lindell has the money to pay him.
• And now, The Weather: “Go Away” by Sofia Bolt
• I know everyone loves updates on my ongoing hell of dental health.
• Yesterday morning I was scheduled for four root canals. And despite my dentist having done a bunch of the prep work, the first one was a fucking nightmare that took over two hours.
• I hung in there for two more root canals, but that was my limit. I’d already spent four hours in the dentist chair two weeks ago, and then another 3-1/2 yesterday. I’d had enough.
• The good news: all that’s left is one root canal and getting my permanent crowns affixed. The hardest part by far is done. I do have a couple more appointments coming up, but those will be a cakewalk compared to what I’ve already been through.
• Oh, and in stark contrast to my last multi-hour dentistry session, as soon as the novocaine wore off, I was… perfectly fine. No pain, no anything.
• Back on augmentin for awhile though. I mean, yay for antibiotics and not dying at a young age from infections. Boo for being on antibiotics far too often lately, even when it’s necessary.
• Okay, way more than enough on that.
• From the Sports Desk… Major League Baseball has a pants problem. Specifically, that the new uniforms are see-through.
• An MLB spokesperson said in a statement that adjustments are being made to the jersey size, waist, in-seam, thigh fit and the bottom of pants, based on player requests to reps from Fanatics, Nike and MLB, who have been visiting training camps and conducting uniform fitting and feedback sessions with players.
• I mean, we go to games to see balls and strikes, but perhaps less balls are better.
• Today in history… Empress Wu Zetian abdicates the throne, restoring the Tang dynasty (705). Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, PA, to help to train the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1778). The Siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, TX (1836). Post-U.S. Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union (1870). Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of aluminum from the electrolysis of aluminum oxide (1886). Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity” (1903). U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill by Congress establishing the Federal Radio Commission — later replaced by the Federal Communications Commission — which was to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States (1927). German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his uncertainty principle for the first time (1927). Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg (1941). The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh (1954). Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African-American citizen, is shot and murdered by three white men after visiting a house under construction while jogging at a neighborhood in Satilla Shores near Brunswick in Glynn County, GA (2020).
• February 23 is the birthday of diarist/politician Samuel Pepys (1633), composer George Frideric Handel (1685), banker/businessman Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744), businessman César Ritz (1850), sociologist/activist W. E. B. Du Bois (1868), journalist Agnes Smedley (1892), physicist Allan McLeod Cormack (1924), actress Majel Barrett (1932), actor Peter Fonda (1940), NFL player Fred Biletnikoff (1943), singer-songwriter Johnny Winter (1944), NFL player Ed "Too Tall" Jones (1951), guitarist Brad Whitford (1952), singer-songwriter Howard Jones (1955), MLB player Bobby Bonilla (1963), businessman Michael Dell (1965), actress Niecy Nash (1970), actress Emily Blunt (1983), comedian/actor Aziz Ansari (1983), actress Dakota Fanning (1994), and NBA player D'Angelo Russell (1996).

I’m going to appreciate a normal day with no dentistry. Enjoy your day.