Random News: December 20, 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 December 20, 2024, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Feeling reasonably good this morning as we get to the end of another long work week. There’s a whole lot going on, and much of it affects many of us directly, so let’s talk about it.

• The end of today is the deadline for the House to pass a budget. If they don’t, the government shuts down.
• To bring you up to speed, the House had already passed a bipartisan spending bill… and then President Elon Musk and his employee Donald J. Trump forced them to change their votes.
• Musk and Dump threatened to primary any Republican who didn’t go along with their plan.
• Yesterday, they tried to jam through their alternate version of that budget. Elon’s version did things like removing the funding for children’s cancer research, and stopping the criminalization of the creation of pornographic AI images.
• Their version failed miserably. Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the new plan “laughable.” In addition to nearly all Democrats, 38 Republicans voted against the Musk/Dump version. It lost by a vote of 174-235.
• So what’s going to happen? Is President Musk and his little buddy Donnie going to have the government shut down for Christmas?
• Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said early this morning that Republicans had arrived at a plan C — a third attempt at a bill that’s acceptable — to avert a shutdown, and a vote was planned soon.
• Unless it goes back to Plan A — which, as I said, was bipartisan and passed in the original vote — I doubt we’ll have a federal government tonight.
• Good job, President Musk. Way to fuck up the country that literally no one elected you to control.
• What an asshole.
• And what kind of person is Elon Musk? He let the world know just last night when he posted that “Only the AfD can save Germany."
• The AfS is Germany’s neo-Nazi party. We tried to tell you what was gonna happen. We really did.
• Let’s move on.
• You might be expecting to receive some holiday gift packages from Amazon over the next few days remaining before Christmas and Hanukkah.
• You might want to look into alternate plans.
• Workers at seven Amazon facilities went on strike yesterday, an effort by the Teamsters union to pressure the e-commerce company for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
• The Teamsters said the workers, who voted to authorize strikes in recent days, joined picket lines after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union set for contract negotiations. The union called it the largest strike against the company in U.S. history, although Amazon claims it does not expect the labor action to impact its operations.
• And to be clear, the Teamsters represents about 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, but that’s only a small portion of the 800,000 workers employed in the company’s U.S. warehouses.
• The strikes that started Thursday are taking place at seven delivery stations, which are run by contractors who drop off of packages to customers everyday. They include three locations in Southern California, and one each in New York City, Atlanta, Georgia, and Skokie, IL.
• Amazon has said it does not consider delivery drivers like the ones on strike to be its employees. Under the company’s business model, the drivers work for third-party businesses, called Delivery Service Partners, who deliver millions of packages daily.
• Well, at least you can have a delicious grande latte while looking for substitute gifts, right?
• Welllllll…
• The workers' union representing more than 10,000 baristas at Starbucks said its members will strike at stores in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle this morning, citing unresolved issues over wages, staffing and schedules.
• Workers United, representing employees at 525 Starbucks stores across the U.S., said yesterday that walkouts will escalate daily, and could potentially reach hundreds of stores nationwide by Christmas Eve unless an agreement is reached.
• Starbucks said it is ready to continue negotiations. I’ll bet they are!
• Power to the people, baby.
• Moving on.
• Be careful with your snack foods. Frito-Lay is recalling a limited number of 13 oz. bags of Lay's Classic Potato Chips, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration citing the risk that some consumers could experience a "life-theatening allergic reaction" due to an undeclared allergen.
• Before you freak out, no allergic reactions related to the recall have been reported. The FDA said it had been alerted by a consumer that the product might contain undeclared milk.
• So unless milk will kill you, you can probably have your chips. Note: the bags of chips affected by recall were distributed to some retail stores and e-commerce distributors in Oregon and Washington, and were available for sale beginning Nov. 3, 2024.
• Let’s get a report from the Idiot Desk.
• Jeran Campanella is a prominent YouTuber and a flat-earther. So that’s two strikes against him.
• So he spent $37,700 to travel 9,000 miles from Salinas, California to Antarctica. He was there to disprove what he assumed was false news that the sun would stay up for 24 hours, indicating that we’re on a sphere rather than a pancake.
• Flat-earthers often claim that the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 was enacted purely to prevent civilians from visiting the southernmost continent in an attempt to hide the true shape of planet Earth.
• Except when Campanella arrived, he indeed witnessed the sun circle the sky without setting. he subsequently confessed to his followers that he had been wrong, acknowledging the Earth's true round shape.
• Dipshit.
• And now, The Weather: “old lover's eyes” by witness.
• From the Sports Desk… something unexpectedly interesting happened last night in the Broncos/Chargers game.
• There’s an obscure NFL rule that allows a team that has just made a fair catch to attempt a field goal without the opponent trying to block it. Frankly, I’d never heard of it before, and I’m a pretty knowledgeable football guy.
• But it’s no surprise; it was the NFL’s first successful fair-catch free kick in 48 years. It was also the longest fair catch free kick in NFL history.
• Kicker Cameron Dicker (yes, their kicker is named Dicker) made the 57-yarder on the seldom-used play. The longest previous fair catch free kick was a 52-yarder by Paul Hornung of the Green Bay Packers in 1962.
• And the Chargers won 34-27.
• Today in history… Richard I of England is captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after the Third Crusade (1192). The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans (1803). South Carolina becomes the first state to attempt to secede from the United States (1860). Japanese air forces bomb Calcutta, India (1942). The EBR-1 in Arco, ID becomes the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity, powering four light bulbs (1953). Cardiff is proclaimed the capital city of Wales, United Kingdom (1955). The Zodiac Killer murders his first two officially confirmed victims in Benicia, California (1968). The United States invasion of Panama deposes Manuel Noriega (1989). Macau is handed over to China by Portugal (1999). Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch in the history of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years and 243 days (2007). The United States Space Force becomes the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces since 1947 (2019). 
• December 20 is the birthday of physician/diplomat Arthur Lee (1740), composer Pietro Raimondi (1786), businessman Harvey Samuel Firestone (1868), physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff (1901), film director George Roy Hill (1921), actor John Hillerman (1932), sprinter/NFL player Bob Hayes (1942), drummer/songwriter Peter Criss (1945), director/screenwriter Dick Wolf (1946), musician/producer Alan Parsons (1948), singer Anita Ward (1956), singer-songwriter/guitarist Billy Bragg (1957), singer-songwriter/bass player Mike Watt (1957), bass player Jackie Fox (1959), NFL player Rich Gannon (1965), singer-songwriter Chris Robinson (1966), and actor Jonah Hill (1983).

Obviously, many of the stories in today’s Random News are in flux. We’ll report back tomorrow on how things are going with the looking government shutdown, strikes, and all the other wonderful things happening in this peaceful time heading into the holidays. Also, for those of you who may be interested, I’m performing a show on Sunday morning at Lutz City of Templemore in Second Life, and I’m pulling out the holiday classics. Enjoy your day.