Random News: October 12, 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 October 12, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. I’m up and awake on an overcast morning, drinking Peet's Organic Uzuri African Blend because I am very fancy, and wearing a blue bathrobe because I am also very lazy. Let’s take a look at various things that have happened.

• While the imminent danger of Hurricane Milton is in the past, people in Florida are now returning home to flooded streets, piles of debris, and — in some cases — shattered homes.
• A crew of some 50,000 linemen had restored power to about one million customers. Still, as of last night, more than two million remained without electricity.
• It will likely be mid-next week before many of those folks — especially in places like Pinellas and Pasco Counties — get power back on.
• Like I said, this cleanup is going to take a good while, and many people will be in bad shape trying to find housing and safe living conditions.
• A large portion of Americans are only a couple of paychecks from being homeless, and when disaster strikes, there’s no margin for survival.
• Wishing everyone luck.
• Yesterday, a group of climate scientists reported how they were able to determine with precision the effect on human-induced climate change as it applied to Hurricane Milton.
• Record-high global temperatures, boosted by the burning of fossil fuels, helped power the storm as it traveled across the balmy waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
• Those conditions boosted Milton’s rainfall between 20 to 30 percent and wind speed by 10 percent compared with a scenario without human-caused climate change.
• The same research group found climate change also intensified Hurricane Helene, which like Milton intensified rapidly as it barreled toward the U.S. coast.
• You can expect this as the new norm. Even if we stopped all excess carbon generation (which isn’t about to happen in any way), the damage that’s already been done is going to continue this path of more severe weather, more frequently.
• Plan accordingly.
• One final note I want to address, because I’ve seen it come up multiple times on Facebook and elsewhere, is the rumor — spread by Donnie Dump and others — that FEMA will only provide $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery.
• This is 100% false.
• The $750 (actually $770, to be precise) is called Serious Needs Assistance. It is an upfront, flexible payment to help cover immediate essential items like food, water, baby formula, breastfeeding supplies, medication, and other emergency supplies.
• It is NOT a loan. It’s an initial payment you may receive while FEMA assesses your eligibility for additional funds.
• After you apply for more assistance for disaster relief, you may still receive additional forms of assistance from FEMA for other needs such as support for temporary housing, personal property, and home repair costs.
• So please stop saying this. Also, please make sure that your government representatives support funding FEMA’s budget so that there’s money available for folks in need.
• If your congressperson or senator votes “no” on FEMA funding, that means they don’t want you to get help. Go take a look at how your representatives vote and act accordingly.
• Moving on.
• Kamala Harris has released a health report. Will Dumples the Old Fat Orange Clown do the same?
• Per Dr. Joshua Simmons, a U.S. Army colonel and physician to the vice president, Harris is in “excellent health” and “possesses the physical and mental resiliency” required to serve as president.
• Dr. Simmons noted that Harris, 59, maintains a healthy, active lifestyle and that her most recent physical last April was “unremarkable.”
• It’s already in question as to whether Dump, 78, is mentally fit to serve. Since he won’t release any updated health information — including after his ear was grazed by a bullet during an assassination attempt in July — it might be indicative that he has serious physical problems.
• And that would mean he is likely not to survive four years of a presidency where he’d be 82 at the finish. That would leave JD Vance as President after Dump dies in office.
• In other news…
• The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Virginia election officials yesterday. They accuse the state of striking names from voter rolls in violation of federal election law.
• The National Voter Registration Act requires a 90-day “quiet period” ahead of elections for the maintenance of voter rolls. If you are removed from a voter roll within three months of the election, you might not even be aware until it’s far too late.
• But an executive order issued in August by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin requiring daily updates to voter lists to remove ineligible voters violates that law.
• Get his ass.
• A brief note about elections and social bubbles. No, we’re not going to talk about polls, because they are bullshit.
• But I want to remind you: it’s very likely that you surround yourself with people of similar outlooks, and avoid those with opposing outlooks.
• So in your mind, you have no doubt that your preferred candidates will win, because that’s what “everyone” is saying. But that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
• My belief — based on historical voting patterns, the way the electoral college works, swing state voting, and yes, some of the more legitimate longstanding polls — is that the 2024 election is going to be super close.
• And again, with my own biases acknowledged, I hope I’m wrong. I’d love nothing more than to see Kamala Harris win in a landslide on Tuesday November 5.
• I’ve envisioned scenarios where she wins Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, and every other state that pollsters consider a toss-up.
• But the MAGA folks are equally convinced that their guy will do the same… because they only talk to and associate with each other.
• And despite that fact that Dump trails Harris in most polls, he is — if you want to believe polls —  in better shape now than he was at this time in 2020, and in his winning White House campaign of 2016.
• He’s down against the incumbent vice president by smaller margins than he faced in his first two general elections — both of which saw him score higher with actual voters than the ones who responded to pollsters.
• So if you’re complacent, you’re in for a devastating shock in just over three weeks.
• If you want to help your preferred candidates win, there’s only one way to do it: vote, and encourage others to vote. That’s it. That’s all you’ve got.
• Moving on.
• A Texas man who’d sued three women for allegedly helping his ex-wife obtain abortion pills — and was being hailed as a hero by far-right anti-abortion groups — has dropped his claims.
• It was the first case of its kind to be brought since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade under the order of Donnie Dump.
• The lawsuit, filed in March 2023, claimed that helping someone obtain an abortion qualifies as murder under the state’s homicide law. The man, Marcus Silva, had been seeking at least $1 million in damages from each of the defendants.
• He dropped the case on Thursday after several different state courts refused to compel his ex-wife and the three defendants to provide additional information. One Texas Supreme Court justice called attention to what he described as Silva’s “disgracefully vicious harassment and intimidation of his ex-wife.”
• Fucking asshole.
• And now, The Weather: “Luna” by ultrasaturated
• Been awhile since I did a chart. Here’s a fact that’s only interesting to me; as a child, I lived for a short while in a suburb of Chicago called Evanston, IL… and a few years earlier, so did Kamala Harris.
• Both of us were there as small children for the same reason: our parent’s careers. My dad moved us there as an apparel rep for some clothing company. Harris’s folks held teaching and researching positions at Northwestern University.
• Since Kamala was there around 1968, so we’ll go with that for our chart. Here’s the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for this date in October of that year.
• 1. Hey Jude (The Beatles). 2. Fire (The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown). 3. Little Green Apples (O.C. Smith). 4. Harper Valley P.T.A. (Jeannie C. Riley). 5. Girl Watcher (The O’Kaysions). 6. Midnight Confessions (The Grass Roots). 7. My Special Angel (The Vogues). 8. I've Gotta Get A Message To You (Bee Gees). 9. Over You (Gary Puckett And The Union Gap). 10. Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud (Part 1) (James Brown). 11. Time Has Come Today (The Chambers Brothers). 12. Suzie Q. (Part One) (Creedence Clearwater Revival). 13. Those Were The Days (Mary Hopkin). 14. Elenore (The Turtles). 15. Piece Of My Heart (Big Brother And The Holding Company). 16. Slip Away (Clarence Carter). 17. Revolution (The Beatles). 18. Hey, Western Union Man (Jerry Butler). 19. Hold Me Tight (Johnny Nash). 20. All Along The Watchtower (The Jimi Hendrix Experience).
• From the Sports Desk… the 1-seed Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t allow a single run in the last two games of the NLDS against the 4-seed San Diego Padres, winning 2-0 in game 5 and punching a ticket to the NLCS, where they’ll face and unlikely but scary opponent: the 6-seed Mets.
• The NLCS starts tomorrow in LA.
• Today, stating very soon, the Tigers face the Guardians in Game 5 of their ALDS series. They’re tied at 2-2. The winner of today’s game will face the Yankees in the ALCS, which starts Monday in New York.
• Today in history… the army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon, ending the Babylonian empire (539 BC). The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from Province of Massachusetts Bay Governor William Phips (1692). America's first insane asylum opens (1773). The citizens of Munich hold the first Oktoberfest (1810). The British in India enact the Criminal Tribes Act, naming many local communities "Criminal Tribes” (1871). The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many US public schools (1892). President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House (1901). Desmond Doss is the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor (1945). President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops from Vietnam before Christmas (1970). Matthew Shepard, a gay student at University of Wyoming, dies five days after he was beaten outside of Laramie (1998). Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya becomes the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours with a time of 1:59:40 in Vienna (2019). 
• October 12 is the birthday of composer Bernardo Pisano (1490), inventor Elmer Ambrose Sperry (1860), activist Kamini Roy (1864), author Ding Ling (1904), animator Art Clokey (1921), singer-songwriter Nappy Brown (1929), actor/civil rights leader Dick Gregory (1932), singer-songwriter Sam Moore (1935), singer Luciano Pavarotti (1935), singer-songwriter/guitarist Rick Parfitt (1948), terrorist Carlos the Jackal (1949), comedian Les Dennis (1953), singer-songwriter Jane Siberry (1955), actor Hugh Jackman (1968), actor/evangelical prick Kirk Cameron (1970), and golfer Christie Kerr (1977).

I’m going to get out of this robe, into a shower, into some clothes and then… I have things to do. Some of them are even fun. Enjoy your day.