Random News: November 15, 2025

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 November 15, 2024, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I seem to be mentally settling in to the idea of resisting the evildoers for the next four years or so. One thing that’s important in that regard is to have confidence in yourself and to be unwavering in your beliefs. And I believe I will never let these fuckers win, at least without a fight.

• Something that I neglected to mention earlier because, ironically, I was unaware of it.
• November 13-19 is Transgender Awareness Week, a one-week celebration leading up to the Transgender Day of Remembrance which memorializes victims of transphobic violence.
• TDoR occurs annually on November 20, when transgender advocates raise awareness of the transgender community through education and advocacy activities.
• What does awareness even mean? I’ll tell you.
• In 2008, only 8% of Americans reported knowing or working with someone who is transgender; by 2015, this had doubled to 16%. By 2021, this had risen to 42%.
• It’s obviously not because there are five times as many transgender people; it means that far more people are aware of and have an understanding about transgender people.
• It is still far less than the number of Americans who know someone who is gay or lesbian, which is over 90% now.
• Trans people face far higher rates of assault, sexual assault, and murder compared to their cisgender counterparts.
• Before the 2024 campaign season, the transgender population already experienced higher levels of depression and anxiety than other groups. These levels tended to skyrocket amid threats of anti-trans legislation, with suicide rates increasing up to 72% when such legislation became law.
• And the incoming leadership administration of the USA specifically campaigned on acts of hatred toward transgender people. The timing of Transgender Awareness Week couldn’t be more appropriate.
• For transgender individuals, their families, and their friends who are fearful of what might happen, counseling and support is offered by the Trans Lifeline. They can be reached in the US at 877-565-8860.
• Let’s move on.
• As expected, Dumpy added another name to his clown car with the choice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
• I’ll be nice and include Dump’s comment before telling you more…
• “The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.”
• So let’s start with the hilarity that just days before the election, Dump’s transition co-chair Howard Lutnick said in an interview that Kennedy was “not getting a job for HHS.”
• “He would not be in charge of HHS?” he was asked on CNN.
• “No,” Lutnick said, “of course not.”
• And yet, here we are. Because they are always full of shit.
• Kennedy has been one of the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists for years, and has frequently spread false conspiracy theories about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
• I will remind you that vaccines have been the single largest contributor toward the survival of the species and extending our average lifespan by decades. This is especially true for children, whose mortality rate before vaccines was exponentially higher than it is today.
• As you likely know, common vaccines that all Americans and most people in the world have taken for many decades include tuberculosis, tetanus, polio, hepatitis B, diphtheria, pertussis, measles/mumps/rubella, and haemophilus influenzae type b.
• Kennedy has gone on record saying that schools that mandate vaccines — which is basically every public school in the country — should be defunded.
• The kids who will be hit the hardest and fastest? Those in red states.
• If RFK Jr. limits access to these (or worse, makes them illegal), not only will the number of childhood deaths skyrocket, but the diseases themselves, many on the verge of eradication, will spread quickly throughout the land.
• I’ll also remind you that a multitude of vaccines are also a requirement for enlistment in the U.S. military.
• Let’s put it this way: if you thought COVID-19 was bad, that will be nothing compared to the tens of millions killed via an unvaccinated populace.
• For the sake of fairness, I will also say that RFK Jr. also made a pledge to get processed food out of school lunches “immediately” if he is given a position in a second Trump administration.
• And if that was possible, it might be a good thing. That announcement shocked nutrition experts who remember how Dump’s first administration fought against stricter school lunch standards.
• You may recall that Republicans waged an assault on Michelle Obama’s efforts to design healthier school menus when she was first lady.
• Some of the ideas Kennedy is pushing — such as stripping ultra-processed food from school cafeterias and cracking down on food dye — have found public support in liberal camps.
• But then in the next breath, Kennedy — who is not a doctor and has zero expertise beyond his own “research” — promotes proven quackery, like drinking raw milk and using hydroxychloroquine.
• Last point: one of Kennedy’s big targets is one of his boss’s favorite things in the world — McDonald’s fries. Just this week, he called the Big Macs and Kentucky Fried Chicken served on Trump’s campaign plane “poison.”
• And he recently falsely claimed that Froot Loops in Canada have just two or three ingredients.
• They have 14 ingredients.
• Let’s move on.
• But still on the topic of food, one big part of Dumpy’s campaign was focused on the cost of the foods most Americans eat. Many MAGA voters are expressing joy that their lord Donnie Dump will quickly lower their grocery bills.
• Dumpy himself often made specific references too the price of bacon, cereal, crackers, and other items. “We’ll get them down,” he told shoppers during a September visit to a Pennsylvania grocery store.
• But here’s the fact: food price inflation stunned not only the U.S., but many and other parts of the world in the past three years. The causes are complex.
• Most economists think Dump’s plans, including putting tariffs on imported foods and deporting undocumented workers, will actually make food prices rise.
• But won’t tariffs help American farms so we dampen our reliance on imported food? Not so much.
• First, without undocumented immigrants to work those farms, their production will drop steeply. But U.S. food producers rely on imported goods like fertilizer, equipment, and packaging materials. If they’re forced to pay more for those items, they will be forced to raise prices.
• And U.S. farmers will have trouble selling their goods overseas, since other countries will certainly respond with retaliatory tariffs.
• So everyone loses. Go take a fucking picture of prices today at your grocery store… common things like eggs, milk, cereal, ground beef, whatever.
• Because if they’re not significantly lower at this time next year, you’d been swindled.
• Moving on.
• A quick mention of some of Dump’s additional picks to the WFCE (Worst Fucking Cabinet Ever): he’s nominating North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) to serve as secretary of the Interior. 
• He is expected to play a central role in Dump’s push to increase oil drilling and energy production, and in the process destroy our environment, rape our natural resources, and quicken climate disasters.
• Dumpy also picked Todd Blanche, his defense lawyer who unsuccessfully defended him in his New York felony trial, to be Deputy Attorney General.
• I do not give a single fuck.
• I will briefly mention that Dumpy’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs.
• The reason is obvious: there’s no possible way that people like Matt Gaetz (his pick for attorney general) and Tulsi Gabbard (Dump’s choice director of national intelligence) could pass a thorough background check.
• Gaetz is a pedophile drug addict; Gabbard is a spy for Russia. That’s who Dump wants running our government.
• Let’s move on.
• In today’s edition of “Hey, You Have Rights!”, an interesting fact: we always refer to the Constitution as our guide to determine the direction of the country and the interpretation of our laws.
• But there was a big point of contention between the Federalists (those who supported the Constitution and a stronger national republic) and Anti-Federalists (those more in favor of small localized government): the Constitution in its original form lacks any information regarding basic civil rights.
• You know the rest of the story, hopefully. In order to get the Constitution ratified by enough states (nine of the 13 colonies), they had to quickly update — or amend — the document with a set of additions that we now call the Bill of Rights.
• Those are the first ten Amendments to the Constitution. We’ve added another 17 of them over the course of history. Not all Amendments have to do with rights of the people, though some do.
• James Madison was the guy who championed the Bill of Rights. He would go on to become our fourth President, after Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.
• He introduced 12 amendments to the First Congress in 1789. They were based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the English Bill of Rights, the writings of the Enlightenment, and the rights defined in the Magna Carta.
• Wait, 12? I just said there were ten. Where’d the other two go?
• Well, one of them didn’t get ratified until (drum roll)… 1992. It’s the most recent one, the 27th amendment, and has to do with the pay of Congresspeople and Senators. It’s not about rights at all.
• And the other one never got ratified at all. It is listed as still pending, all these years later. It has to do with the number of Congressional reps versus the population of the country.
• See, Madison felt — and I agree — that the number of people in Congress should correspond to the number of people in the USA. As the country grew, so would the number of reps so that people were accurately represented. Makes sense, right?
• Madison’s proposal was to start with one rep for every 30,000 people (with that number eventually climbing to one representative for every 50,000 constituents). It’s called, simply enough, the Congressional Apportionment Amendment.
• But under that plan, instead of the 435 members of the House that we’ve had in place since 1911, based on current US population, we would currently have (wait for it)… 6,629 Representatives.
• Think about it… if our House is as dysfunctional as it is with 435 members, imagine it with almost 7,000 members. They already can barely do their jobs of passing budgets as is, which is why the government always seems on the verge of shutting down.
• Anyway, with a current US population of 345,426,571 people and 435 reps, that’s (gets out calculator), a typical congressperson today represents 794,084 people… far from the 50,000 person cap Madison had envisioned.
• Let’s move on.
• I’ve mentioned the suddenly massive social net Bluesky recently. I’ve been happy in recent days to follow and be followed by a number of people who know me from here.
• Well, on November 6 — the day after the election — Elmo Muck’s X platform experienced its largest user exodus since he bought the platform in 2022. That single day saw 115,414 account deactivations, and many hundreds of thousands more have happened since.
• More than 1 million people joined Bluesky in the past week. Almost 17 million people are now using the app, while Meta’s similar platform Threads has surpassed 275 million monthly active users.
• Bluesky is currently the no. 1 free app on Apple’s App Store, directly ahead of Threads. 
• Find me there or at Threads. I will no longer be participating at all on Elmo’s shitty app.
• And now, The Weather: “BIG FISH” by Blood Wizard
• Rest in peace to Shel Talmy, the American-born producer behind classic ‘60s songs by the Who, the Kinks, and even a teenaged David Bowie. He died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles from complications due to a stroke. He was 87.
• I can’t tell you how important this guy was to the start of hard rock music as we know it. Talmy arranged and produced songs like “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” “Tired of Waiting,” “Sunny Afternoon,” and “Waterloo Sunset” by the Kinks, “I Can’t Explain” and “My Generation” by the Who, and many more.
• He also produced hits by Manfred Mann, Chad & Jeremy and others, worked on David Bowie’s early singles, and with bands like the Small Faces and the Damned.
• A rare report from the Entertainment Desk… Conan O’Brien will host the next Academy Awards. It will mark the Emmy-winning television host and comedian’s first time at the helm of the Oscars.
• Like many people around my age, I’m a big fan of Coco. I regularly check out his “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast. I might even force myself to watch the Oscars with him hosting, though I abhor awards shows on general principle.
• From the Sports Desk… last night’s game between the Washington Commanders (7-4) and Philadelphia Eagles (8-2) was super close until Philly hit the gas, scoring 20 in the 4th quarter for a final score of 26-18.
• Want to know the worst teams in the NFL right now? Sure, why not.
• Browns (2-7), Titans (2-7), Raiders (2-7), Giants (2-8), and Jaguars (2-8).
• Today in history… Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire (1533). After 16 months of debate, the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation (1777). Lieutenant Zebulon Pike spots a mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (1806). Eduskunta declares itself the supreme state power of Finland, prompting its declaration of independence and secession from Russia (1917). The NBC Radio Network opens with 24 stations (1926). Nazi Germany bans Jewish children from public schools (1938). Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps” (1943). Craig Breedlove sets a land speed record of 600.601 mph (966.574 km/h) in his car, the Spirit of America, at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah (1965). Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004 (1971). A research assistant is injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes (1985). Microsoft launches the Xbox game console (2001). Sony releases the PlayStation 4 game console (2013). The world population reached 8 billion (2022).
• November 15 is the birthday of author Madeleine de Scudéry (1607), UK prime minister William Pitt (1708), astronomer/composer William Herschel (1738), astronomer Mary E. Byrd (1849), SCOTUS justice Felix Frankfurter (1882), painter Georgia O’Keeffe (1887), animator Bill Melendez (1916), judge Joseph Wapner (1919), actor Ed Asner (1929), singer-songwriter Petula Clark (1932), actor Yaphet Kotto (1939), actor Sam Waterston (1940), politician Bill Richardson (1947), fashion designer Jimmy Choo (1948), actress Beverly D’Angelo (1951), drummer Tony Thompson (1954), rapper E-40 (1967), rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard (1968), singer-songwriter/guitarist Chad Kroeger (1974), and actor Asia Kate Dillon (1984). 

Well, that’s more than enough stuff. I have a work event coming up soon where I actually have to play guitar on camera, and at some point I’ll be coming up with a batch of sweet-ass riffs to help show off a variety of acoustic guitars. But — perhaps more importantly — I’d better get my hair cut and be groomed enough that I don’t look like a homeless weirdo when the cameras roll. Enjoy your day.