Random News: June 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 June 23, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. I’d love to tell you what a nice relaxing morning I’m having… but I forgot to take out the bag of trash in my office last night, and the very first thing I awoke to this morning was the thousand of so ants that fucking found it. I don’t have to tell you the rest of that story, so now that it’s handled for the most part, let’s see if the rest of the world is doing better than I am so far today. Hopefully yes.

• Read an interesting article on a topic that I nevertheless found completely unsurprising: double-hater voters.
• You all know them. In fact, you might even be one. A voter who is dissatisfied with both major party choices and doesn’t want to support Biden or Trump.
• And I actually think they might have a bigger impact nationwide than most people care to consider. I think the question is whether one candidate is more disliked than the other.
• That’s what it might come down to. And before you mention this obvious response, yes… even when you try and contrast the two men in tangible ways — perhaps showing the many successes Biden has had, versus the many horrific pitfalls of another Dump presidency, these folks are only committed to their dislike of both.
• I think the age factor is a big deal for a lot of them. By the way, older voters tend to point out the ages of the candidates as much as younger voters do.
• But voters opposed to both candidates are not monolithic. Some mildly dislike both candidates, but have made peace with voting for the one they prefer.
• And others deeply disdain both Biden and Dump for whatever reason, and seem incredulous that they find themselves choosing between “the lesser of two evils.”
• Side note: if that’s your criteria, and you truly want to avoid evil, it’s pretty obvious who to choose.
• Still others plan to not vote, or to opt for a third-party candidate. But the ironic part is that even the main guy in that arena, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is also hated.
• And here’s the thing: because of our fucked up voting system, just six or so states will likely decide the election. Guess where most of those double-haters live?
• Over 20% of swing state voters are self-described double-haters.
• Sigh.
• Of note: a New York Times-Siena College poll found that double-haters were especially likely to abandon Trump, who lost more than one-fifth of those who previously supported him after his felony conviction.
• Roughly half of this group said they now preferred Biden, while the other half said they remain undecided.
• But the double-haters also fall into realms of people who focus on Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war or the economy as reasons they were loath to support him.
• So, if you want to know what I believe will happen with these folks who can’t stand either guy: I think more of them dislike Dump for reasons that are more specific and tangible to their own lives.
• These include women’s reproductive freedom, separation of church and state, and many more core values that has Biden in stronger alignment with a higher percentage of Americans.
• And many of the reasons people cite in their dislike of Biden — like the ongoing genocide in Palestine — would be far worse under Dump. And they know it.
• Anyway, enough on that for now.
• Our Gay of the Day, celebrating Pride, is a very well-deserving one: politician Harvey Milk.
• Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, and one of the first in the nation.
• He was a veteran, serving in the United States Navy during the Korean War aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake.
• In 1955, he resigned from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, forced to accept an "other than honorable" discharge and leave the service rather than face a court-martial because of his homosexuality.
• He was elected city supervisor in San Francisco in 1977, and during his short tenure, Milk sponsored one of the first bills banning discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment on the basis of sexual orientation. 
• Perhaps his closest friend on the board of supervisors was its then-president, Dianne Feinstein.
• On November 27, 1978, Milk and mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk's bill.
• Milk’s legacy has been ubiquitous. Harvey Milk Plaza is at the corner of Market and Castro in San Francisco. Terminal 1 at SFO is the Harvey Milk Terminal. He has a Navy ship named after him (the USNS Harvey Milk), as well as schools, operas, and the Academy Award-winning film ‘Milk’ starring Sean Penn and Josh Brolin.
• Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. He deserves all of his accolades and more.
• Let’s move on.
• Time for Sunday Gunday, where we look at just some of the incidents of gun violence in the USA over the past two days.
• Four dead and nine others wounded in a shooting at a grocery store in Fordyce, AR. One dead and seven wounded in a shooting outside a nightclub in Louisville, KY. One dead and five wounded in a shooting in downtown St. Louis, MO. One dead and three wounded in a shooting at a Holiday Inn parking lot in Tampa, FL. One dead, one wounded in a shooting in Midtown Anchorage, AK. One dead after being shot on a train in the West Adams area of Los Angeles, CA. One dead after a shooting outside a Planet Fitness in Perris, CA. One shot dead in Wilkinsburg, PA. One shot dead in downtown Indianapolis, IN. One shot dead on the south side of Columbus, OH. A teenager shot dead in Cincinnati, OH. A women shot dead in the East Poplar neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. Thirteen injured in a mass shooting at a large party in the North Pass area of Montgomery, AL. Ten injured in a shooting in the Short North area of Columbus, OH. Six shot at MLK Park in Rochester, NY. Six shot in Henrico, VA. Three women and a man wounded in a shooting in Southeast Washington, D.C. Two shot and in critical condition in Churchville, VA. One shot in Dorchester, MA.
• A reminder: that’s not nearly all the gun violence. Just some, not all, of the past two days, and not including police shootings or self-harm.
• Can you even imagine a weekend going by with no shootings in the USA? Seems totally impossible, huh?
• Think about that. How you can’t even visualize a Friday and Saturday without someone being shot somewhere in the USA.
• Maybe you could consider voting for candidates who support common sense gun laws. It might help.
• Let’s move on.
• I’ll remind you that this coming Thursday, June 27, is the first and possibly only presidential debate of the 2024 election.
• There is one more still scheduled, but no one can possibly know if that will actually take place.
• Biden is spending the week preparing. He’s obviously a veteran debater who will be ready.
• His team, well acquainted with Dumpy’s predictable bag of tricks, expects aggressive attacks on his physical and mental strength, his record on the economy and immigration, and even his family.
• Joe will be ready.
• The Dumpster is also spending a couple of days preparing this week at Mar-a-Lago.
• Neither guy can afford a shitty performance, though my prediction is they’ll both be underwhelming for the 90-minute event. I hope Joe does well.
• One huge rule in Biden’s favor: since each candidate’s microphone will be muted, except when it’s his turn to speak, Dumples the Clown can’t use his usual approach of just speaking over everyone in the room.
• And now, The Weather: “Dogear” by J.R.C.G.
• From the Sports Desk… while tomorrow’s possibly historic Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs will be in Florida, I have yet another reason to cheer for the underdog Edmonton Oilers.
• A good number of Panthers fans at Game 5 in Miami were loudly booing during the performance of the Canadian National Anthem. That’s some classless shit, Florida.
• And if you lose — which I doubt you will, but you never know — it will be karma putting a foot up the asses of those fans.
• Today in history… The mutinous crew of Henry Hudson's fourth voyage sets Henry, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in an open boat in what is now Hudson Bay; they are never heard from again (1611). Empress Catherine II of Russia allows Jews to settle in Kyiv (1794). John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company (1810). At Fort Towson in the Oklahoma Territory, Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant Confederate army (1865). Christopher Sholes gets a patent on an invention he calls the Type-Writer (1868). The College Board administers the first SAT exam (1926). Adolf Hitler goes on a three-hour tour of the architecture of Paris with architect Albert Speer and sculptor Arno Breker in his only visit to the city (1940). The United States Senate follows the United States House of Representatives in overriding U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto of the Taft–Hartley Act (1947). The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world (1960). The Antarctic Treaty System, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and limits military activity on the continent, its islands and ice shelves, comes into force (1961). Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren (1969). IBM announces that effective January 1970 it will price its software and services separately from hardware thus creating the modern software industry (1969). U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about illegally using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins (1972). Sonic the Hedgehog is released in North America on the Sega Genesis platform (1991). The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48% (2016). Twelve boys and an assistant coach from a soccer team in Thailand are trapped in a flooding cave, leading to an 18-day rescue operation (2018).
• June 23 is the birthday of Egyptian king Caesarion (47 BC), sexologist Alfred Kinsey (1894), UK king Edward VIII (1894), computer scientist Alan Turing (1912), businessman Art Modell (1925), choreographer Bob Fosse (1927), singer-songwriter June Carter Cash (1929), novelist Richard Bach (1936), runner Wilma Rudolph (1940), bass player Stuart Sutcliffe (1940), singer-songwriter Robert Hunter (1941), SCOTUS justice Clarence Thomas (1948), singer-songwriter Glenn Danzig (1955), bass player/producer Randy Jackson (1956), actress Frances McDormand (1957), singer-songwriter Chuck Billy (1962), NHL player/coach Félix Potvin (1971), actress Selma Blair (1972), singer-songwriter KT Tunstall (1975), singer-songwriter Jason Mraz (1977), NFL player LaDainian Tomlinson (1979), and MLB player Tim Anderson (1993).

So, I’ll be doing some more anti-ant actions over the remainder of the day, but that’s okay. It was bound to happen. Now I have a reason for going on the offensive in this war. Time to kick ants and take names. Enjoy your day.