Random News: April 3, 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 April 3, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday. I’m in my usual morning routine, which means I got up at 6am, showered and dressed, made coffee, and now here I am to deliver your news, like some kind of lazy journalist/paper boy.

• Hate starting with horrible disaster shit, but I can’t ignore those things either.
• The strongest earthquake in a quarter-century, measuring 7.4 magnitude, rocked Taiwan during the morning rush hour today. It killed at least nine people (but likely many more),  trapping dozens in quarries, and severely damaged many buildings.
• Hundreds are also injured. The epicenter was near rural Hualien County, but even in Taipei about 100 miles away, they were rocked by the quake and its aftershocks. It was even felt in Shanghai and several provinces along China’s southeastern coast.
• Growing up and spending nearly my entire life in Southern California, I’m quite familiar with earthquakes, but the biggest one I was personally impacted by was the 6.7 Northridge quake in January 1994.
• I’d prefer never experiencing a larger one.
• Let’s move on.
• Presidential primaries were held in four states yesterday. Obviously, it’s mostly symbolic as  both President Joe Biden and Humpty Dump have locked up the Democratic and Republican nominations.
• Both prospective leaders easily won their primaries in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Wisconsin. As expected, Biden faced opposition from activists who disapprove of the USA’s support for Israel in the Gaza War, and a scary (if you’re a Republican) amount of voters are still voting for Dump’s rivals who have dropped out.
• A pretty funny note out of Wisconsin, though.
• Their state Republicans made a big deal about a state constitutional amendment that will change campaign and election rules ahead of November.
• It bans the use of private funds to aid in the state’s administration of elections, with the entire premise of the initiative being that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife funded a shadow operation to help elect Biden in 2020.
• Except that’s not true at all. The funds in question were donated to help agencies and voters safely navigate the COVID-19 pandemic that year, and were distributed to communities who requested them
• Typical. Let’s move on.
• I know that a lot of your folks likely assume that if you’re not in the direct path of totality for Monday’s solar eclipse, the there’s no reason to get excited about it.
• Au contraire, mon frères et sœurs.
• Even if you’re a thousand miles away, the eclipse will offer some amount of noticeable effect. The further you are from the path of totality, the less of the impact, of course.
• But even here in Southern California, we’re going to get about a 60% partial eclipse. It won’t get super dark or anything, but it will change the light level that one would expect at that time of day.
• I’ll be outside and experiencing it, as should you.
• Let’s move on.
• After serving just 15 days in prison, Dump advisor Peter Navarro is begging anyone to let him out.
• Nope. Do the crime, do the time. That fucking guy only got a four month sentence and he’ll probably get out in two.
• His reason for wanting out of jail is beyond silly, based on a date for appellate briefs to be due. It’s the same argument he used that was already rejected but he Supreme Court.
• Moving on.
• Something I meant to mention on Monday but forgot: it was my vaccinaversary!
• Yup, it was April 1, 2021 when I got my first vaccine against the COVID-19 virus. It was literally the first day that people in my age group were eligible to receive it.
• I can’t describe how happy I was. Like most of you, I had the second injection four weeks later, on April 28 of that year, and for the first time since the pandemic started, I felt some degree of protection.
• Funny story: at that very early stage, the vaccine (Moderna in my case) was not available everywhere. The closest place that Kat and I could get vaccinated was up in the hood, in South LA at some church parking lot.
• So on the way there, I got to show Kat some parts of LA she had yet to experience, like the corner of Florence and Normandie where the 1992 LA riots kicked off.
• Meeeeeeeeemoriesssss…
• In the “Lying Liar Who Lies” folder, yesterday Dumpy made a speech in Michigan where he said he’d been in touch with the family of a woman who’d been murdered by an “illegal.”
• Except…
• Ruby Garcia had been dating the suspect and police described the killing last month as a domestic dispute.
• And Garcia’s family said that the Smelly Man has not spoken to them.
• The Dump campaign declined to comment on the lie, but Dump went full bore on it, saying, "They said she had just the most contagious laughter and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room, and I've heard that from so many people."
• He never, ever spoke to them. Not once.
• And now, The Weather: “Very Heaven” by Elbow
• From the Sports Desk… before yesterday, former MLB MVP Bryce Harper had been having a shitty year, going 0-for-11 at bat in three games to open the season.
• Then yesterday, he hit a home run at his first at-bat, another one at his second (the 1,000th run of Harper's career), and then a grand slam, the seventh of his career.
• Damn Bryce. Way to turn it around!
• Today in history… The first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, MO, to Sacramento, CA, begins (1860). Union forces capture Richmond, VA, the capital of the Confederate States of America (1865). Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for a light, high-speed, four-stroke engine (1885). The trial in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde begins, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality (1895). Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922). Japanese Lt. General Masaharu Homma is executed in the Philippines for leading the Bataan Death March (1946). U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries (1948). The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges (1955). Martin Cooper of Motorola makes the first handheld mobile phone call to Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs (1973). The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco (1981). Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski is captured at his Montana cabin in the United States (1996). Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust law by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors (2000). Texas law enforcement cordons off the FLDS's YFZ Ranch, with 533 women and children taken into state custody (2008). Apple Inc. released the first generation iPad, a tablet computer (2010). A 38-year-old gunwoman opens fire at YouTube Headquarters in San Bruno, California, injuring 3 people before committing suicide (2018). 
• April 3 is the birthday of Chinese emperor Xing Zong (1016), writer Washington Irving (1783), social reformer Mary Carpenter (1807), actor Leslie Howard (1893), actor Iron Eyes Cody (1904), journalist Herb Caen (1916), singer/actress Doris Day (1922), actor Marlon Brando (1924), astronaut Gus Grissom (1926), German chancellor Helmut Kohl (1930), anthropologist Jane Goodall (1934), singer-songwriter Jan Berry (1941), actress Marsha Mason (1942), singer Wayne Newton (1942), singer-songwriter Richard Manuel (1943), singer Tony Orlando (1944), NFL player Lyle Alzado (1949), singer-songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson (1949), actor Alec Baldwin (1958), actor/activist David Hyde Pierce (1959), actor/comedian Eddie Murphy (1961), skier Picabo Street (1971), NBA player Michael Olowokandi (1975), actress Amanda Bynes (1986), NFL player Kam Chancellor (1988), mass murderer Dylann Roof (1994), and actress/model/singer Paris Jackson (1998).

Okey dokey. Oh, I had my first live show in six weeks last night. I’ll write about that elsewhere when I can. Enjoy your day.