Random News: June 11, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s June 11, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. Yesterday was one of those work days where you wake up, feel like you’re sprinting for eight straight hours, and then it’s time to sleep.  Today will be busy too but hopefully not like that. Let’s see what’s gong on.

• Starting with some good news.
• The main passageway into the Baltimore port was fully restored after the March 26 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after being rammed by a container ship.
• You may not know that the Port of Baltimore is the U.S.′ busiest auto port. It processed a record 1.1 million containers and $80.8 billion in foreign cargo value last year.
• Last night, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that the Fort McHenry Federal Channel was reinstated to its original operational dimensions of 700 feet wide and 50 feet deep for commercial transit through the Port of Baltimore.
• Well done.
• Moving on.
• Our Gay of the Day for June 11 is Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde.
• Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day.
• He wrote just one novel, the acclaimed ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ in 1890. He then produced four society comedies — including ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ — in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
• Wilde was criminally prosecuted for “gross indecency with men,” and was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labor, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897.
• He died just a few years later in 1900 at age 46.
• In 2017, Wilde was among some 50,000 men who were pardoned for homosexual acts that were no longer considered offenses. The 2017 act is known informally as the Alan Turing law.
• Wilde remains an acclaimed and influential writer today, 124 years after his death.
• Moving on.
• Convicted felon El Dumpo completed his pre-sentencing interview with the New York City Department of Probation yesterday as planned.
• It was described as uneventful. 
• Dump answered all questions in the virtual interview and was described as polite, respectful, and accommodating to the probation officers.
• It was very much in his best interest to put aside his natural inclination to be a dick. The meeting forms part of the report the probation department will submit to Judge Juan Merchan to help decide Trump’s punishment ahead of his sentencing, set for 10 a.m. on July 11. 
• What is a pre-sentencing interview? That’s when a defendant is asked about their conviction and other basic background information such as their employment and criminal history. 
• Defendants do not have to cooperate with the routine pre-sentencing investigation, but a judge can take a negative inference from a defendant’s lack of cooperation.
• So there you go.
• Let’s move on. Do you like seafood? I do. A lot.
• However, you should make sure you know where your oysters or clams are coming from.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers to avoid eating shellfish from Oregon and Washington state because they may be contaminated with toxins that cause what's known as paralytic shellfish poisoning.
• At least 31 people have been sickened in Oregon so far. The FDA says to avoid oysters and bay clams harvested from Netarts and Tillamook bays in northern Oregon since May 28, as well as shellfish harvested from areas around Willapa Bay in southern Washington since May 26.
• They may be contaminated with high levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP, a naturally occurring toxin produced by algae.
• Gross.
• Moving on.
• You may note that it’s extremely rare that I cite polls here.
• And if you read me regularly enough, you already know why: I think polling methodology is completely out of touch with today’s voter.
• What you have to factor in: how the polls are being handled. To this day, a whole lot of polling is still being done to landlines, and way less than half of Americans even own a landline at all.
• But that’s not the real problem. It’s that landline or cell, people are far less likely to pick up calls from “unknown number” or “polling organization.” And making all those calls, far more than they had to in the past to get people to answer, is expensive.
• So who is most likely to pick up the phone and spend 10-15 minutes answering often annoying and personal questions? Older and presumably more conservative voters. It skews the results.
• That’s why — especially after the proliferation of completely off-base polls in 2016 and 2020, even form trusted resources — I don’t use polling info here to try and predict the trends of what may happen come November.
• All that being said, the latest CBS News national poll has President Biden and former President Dumples the Clown running neck-and-neck among likely voters.
• Dump and Biden are also virtually tied in seven important battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.
• So not only are the polls potentially wrong, but now they’re not helpful at all. “It’s a tie,” is useful information (if it’s accurate), but it doesn’t really give you a pathway to make plans.
• My only advice, if you want to influence the future of the world, is to make a plan to vote. Make sure you are registered. Help other people register (which is super easy to do). And then vote.
• Let’s move on.
• It makes me sick to consider much about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The idea that a person as politically biased as him could make decisions that affect the country so drastically is just awful.
• In a recorded conversation posted on social media, Alito is heard questioning whether compromise between the left and right is possible. Alito is also heard agreeing with a woman who says the United States should return “to a place of godliness.”
• “One side or the other is going to win,” Alito said. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”
• Alito has rejected calls to step aside from Supreme Court cases involving Dump and the January 6 insurrectionists after stories emerged about controversial flags that flew above his homes.
• And of course, Alito blamed his wife for that.
• Piece of shit. Let’s move on.
• U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) and his wife Gisele were involved in a two-vehicle crash in Maryland on Sunday.
• They’re fine. Fetterman, 54, was driving a Chevrolet Traverse, traveling west on I-70 when the Traverse struck the rear of a Chevrolet Impala.
• Both of the Fettermans and the driver of the Impala were taken to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. John was treated for a bruised shoulder.
• Moving on.
• Activists from an animal rights group have vandalized the first official portrait of King Charles. Yes, that red monstrosity.
• The group Animal Rising posted a video on its social media channels today showing two activists using a paint roller to stick signs over the portrait of the monarch.
• Seemed like an improvement to me.
• In other news…
• Dick Van Dyke is perhaps the only guy still around today who my grandparents were fans of. At 98 years old, he just made history – as the oldest actor to win an Emmy.
• ”Am I really the oldest? I'll be darned. I think I'm the last of my generation. I'm 98. I have – almost – all my marbles. I can't remember what I had for breakfast," he joked.
• Van Dyke also revealed that he still goes to the gym three days a week.
• That guy is fucking awesome.
• And now, The Weather: “Heat Seek” by Idaho
• From the Sports Desk… the Florida Panthers once again manhandled the Edmonton Oilers, taking a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Finals after beating them 4-1.
• At least the Oilers weren’t blanked like they were in Game 1. The series heads to Edmonton for Game 3 on Thursday.
• Today in history… Henry VII marries Catherine of Aragorn (1509). James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef (1770). The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between Yankees and Irish. (1837). Paris–Bordeaux–Paris, sometimes called the first automobile race in history, takes place (1895). Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown (1919). Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, NJ (1935). Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island (1962). Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school (1963). After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first women to do so (1970). Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black MPs in Great Britain (1987). Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing (2001). 
• June 11 is the birthday of poet/playwright Ben Jonson (1572), astronomer Johann Georg Palitzsch (1723), painter John Constable (1776), composer Richard Strauss (1864), politician Jeannette Rankin (1880), businessman Kiichiro Toyoda (1894), NFL coach Vince Lombardi (1913), actor Gene Wilder (1933), race car driver Jackie Stewart (1939), mobster Henry Hill (1943), actress Adrienne Barbeau (1945), drummer Frank Beard (1949), NFL player Joe Montana (1956), actor Hugh Laurie (1959), surgeon/failed political candidate Mehmet Oz (1960), actor Peter Dinklage (1969), WNBA player Diana Taurasi (1982), actor Shia LaBeouf (1986), and WNBA player Brittany Boyd (1993).

That’ll do. Side note: in addition to work insanity, I remain in ant killing mode. It’s just life. I don’t like killing them, but I don’t accept their presence in my home either. So it goes. Enjoy your day.