Random News: December 3, 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 3, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. Whooo boy, do I have a busy day today. Meetings and deadlines and more, oh my! But that’s okay. A life should be lived, and that sometimes means doing a lot of things, sometimes fun, sometimes tedious and frustrating, but never boring.

• Today is a somewhat recently-spawned altruistic event called GivingTuesday. It began in 2012.
• It’s an annual day held the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the United States, and is touted as a “global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world.”
• If you’re able to donate to a cause important to you today on GivingTuesday, take a look around and see if you can find an entity doing bathing donations. I know that Facebook has done so in previous years.
• I am making small donations today to two entities that I use every single day to help research and verify information that helps me do this report for you… the Associated Press and Wikipedia.
• Let’s do some news.
• A mom in Tennessee has had to take days off work to drive hundreds of miles from her home in Nashville to a North Carolina clinic that could treat her transgender son after Tennessee banned gender-affirming care for transgender youth last year.
• Parents like her and transgender communities across the United States will be paying close attention tomorrow as the US Supreme Court hears arguments in US v. Skrmetti – a case that could determine whether states can ban certain forms of gender-affirming care for trans children and teens.
• The case, brought by the Biden administration on behalf of families of trans youth, challenges the constitutionality of Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban, which restricts puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors and enacts civil penalties for doctors who violate the law.
• If the court rules the Tennessee ban is unconstitutional, it will deliver a resounding win for transgender rights advocates. Similar state laws would be effectively invalidated, and trans youth would gain greater protections in accessing gender-affirming care.
• Maybe I’m more pessimistic after the recent election and my awareness of the track record of this Supreme Court, but I’d be surprised if that happens.
• We’ll see. Let’s move on.
• Yesterday, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) announced that it will stop publishing content on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, beginning January 20th, 2025.
• That, of course, is the date that Dumpy the Dick Tater will assume office.
• The organization stated that it can “no longer ethically participate in a social network that its owner has transformed into a machine of disinformation and propaganda.”
• Understandable. “We cannot continue to participate in the social network feed of a man who proclaims the death of the media and therefore of journalists,” said the president of EFJ, Maja Sever.
• The EFJ is the largest organization of journalists in Europe, representing over 295,000 journalists in 44 countries has announced that it will stop posting content on X.
• In absolutely related news, Bluesky, a nearly 2-year-old app, is grabbing a ton of attention amid a recent massive surge of new users due to growing frustrations with X.
• Bluesky’s membership snowballed following the November 5 presidential election. The platform currently has more than 22 million users, up from about 12 million people in mid-October.
• PCWorld tech writer Dave Parrack wrote in a recent column that, “Bluesky feels like a safe haven. There's very little trolling, and when it does happen, people aren't biting.”
• How is Bluesky able to sustain itself without accepting advertising? In October, the company raised $15 million in venture funding, which followed a seed round of $8 million in 2023.
• They will eventually be adding revenue streams from subscriptions and financial transactions. 
• Their business model is obviously far different from that of Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, who has more than 3 billion daily users across its apps, and booked almost $40 billion in revenue during that time.
• I hope the best for them. I like Bluesky a lot. You can find me there.
• From the International Desk…
• South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law today, vowing to eliminate “anti-state” forces as he struggles against an opposition that controls the country’s parliament and which he accuses of sympathizing with communist North Korea.
• That’s not good… none of it.
• The surprising move harkens back to an era of authoritarian leaders that the country has not seen since the 1980s, and was immediately denounced by the opposition and by the leader of Yoon’s own conservative party.
• Following Yoon’s announcement, South Korea’s military proclaimed that parliament and other political gatherings that could cause “social confusion” would be suspended.
• The military also said that the country’s striking doctors should return to work within 48 hours. Thousands of doctors have been striking for months over government plans to expand the number of students at medical schools.
• I really wish the world would chill the fuck out. I know that’s not happening anytime soon, but I still wish it.
• Moving on…
• Sex workers in Belgium have been given the right to health insurance, maternity leave, sick pay, and other employment benefits under a new world-first law.
• The new legislation will allow sex workers to enter into employment contracts and benefit from the same rights and legal protections as any other employee, which also includes pension, unemployment benefits and annual vacation.
• So yes. A hooker in Brussels probably has better benefits than you do at your crap-ass job in the USA.
• I’m serious.
• In other news…
• Senate Democrats are meeting this morning to elect colleagues to the party’s leadership ranks — with the main action expected to be the elevation of Sens. Amy Klobuchar (MN.) and Cory Booker (NJ) into the third and fourth spots of conference leadership, respectively.
• Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Whip Dick Durbin are expected to be tapped again for their leadership posts, while Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) is slated to become chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
• Side note: last night, the Senate confirmed two more of President Joe Biden’s judicial picks to lifetime posts, and Schumer filed cloture on five more picks. That’s good news.
• Moving on…
• Following up on a horrifying story we reported earlier, a Florida woman was sentenced yesterday to life in prison for zipping her boyfriend into a suitcase and leaving him to die of suffocation.
• Circuit Judge Michael Kraynick imposed the sentence in Orlando on Sarah Boone, 47, for the 2020 killing of 42-year-old Jorge Torres.
• Wanna hear about a bad decision (on top of a long series of bad decisions, I’m sure) by this person? Boone had rejected a plea deal offer of a 15-year sentence. Now she has life.
• Let’s move on.
• A piece of shit is dead, and it’s cause for celebration.
• Roger Golubski, a white former police detective accused of sexually assaulting Black women and girls in Kansas — and terrorizing those who tried to fight back — did not appear in court yesterday morning for the start of jury selection.
• He was to be tried on six felony counts of violating women's civil rights. On a multitude of occasions, Golubski would pull over women and demand sexual favors and threaten to harm or jail their relatives.
• His attorney said his client "was despondent about the media coverage." He did not elaborate. Hopefully that means what I think it means.
• The details of this guy are so vile and disgusting that I don’t want to repeat them here. In one instance, he drove one of the women at the center of a criminal case to a cemetery and told her to find a spot to dig her own grave. He’d sexually assaulted her repeatedly, starting when she was just in middle school.
• So we should absolutely celebrate the death of this worst of human beings.
• And now, The Weather: “Make 'em Laugh” by Benét + Faye Webster
• A personal side note: today would been my mom’s 80th birthday. She would have found this fact annoying, were she alive.
• From the Sports Desk… the NFL suspended Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair three games for repeated violations of player safety rules after his hit to the head of Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence on Sunday.
• The hit was fucking nasty. Lawrence was running with the ball and had gone into a slide when Al-Shaair slammed him straight to the head, causing the Jaguars star to suffer a concussion.
• Sorry. There’s no place for that kind of shit in today’s NFL. Three games seems about right to me.
• Today in history… Pope John X crowns Berengar I of Italy — my 36th great-grandfather — as Holy Roman Emperor (915). The Electoral College casts votes for president and vice president that resulted in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (1800). Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state (1818). In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word report to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits” (1901). Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show (1910). Nazi Germany issues the Decree on the Utilization of Jewish Property forcing Jews to sell real property, businesses, and stocks at below market value as part of Aryanization (1938). Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter (1973). In Cincinnati, 11 fans are suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert (1979). A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague (1992). Sony releases the first PlayStation in Japan (1994).
• December 3 is the birthday of general/politician George B. McClellan (1826), philanthropist/activist Phoebe Hearst (1842), businessman Charles Alfred Pillsbury (1842), novelist Joseph Conrad (1857), songwriter Gussie Davis (1863), psychologist Anna Freud (1895), singer Andy Williams (1927), director Jean-Luc Goddard (1930), singer-songwriter Ozzy Osbourne (1948), singer-songwriter Mickey Thomas (1949), race car driver Rick Mears (1951), actress Daryl Hannah (1960), actress Julianne Moore (1960), singer-songwriter/bass player Joe Lally (1963), actor Brendan Fraser (1968), businessman Hal Steinbrenner (1969), comedian/actress Tiffany Haddish (1979), actor Brian Bonsall (1981), and rapper Lil Baby (1994).

That’s plenty of news. So, in addition to the utter giant assload of work I have to do today, I also have a live music show at Hotel Chelsea in Second Life tonight at 5PM SLT, for those of you who might want to pop by. Enjoy your day.