Random News: February 12, 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 February 12, 2025, and it’s a Wednesday.

• I’ll start today on a personal note, a sad one.
• Rest in peace to my cat Sneak. She died yesterday at age 14.
• Sneak was a typical cat in that she was a rescue. All of my cats have been.
• She was brought to my home — very much against my will at the time, I should add — as a tiny kitten in 2011, after she was found in some shitty environment.
• And I will say, she had a terrific life in which she was very well cared for and very much pampered and loved. She never wanted for anything.
• She’d been diminishing in the past few months, and she had a vet appointment just last week where they saw some signs of kidney disease, but we were totally unprepared for the speed at which she spiraled down. She ended up dying in my son’s arms as he and Kat rushed to the vet yesterday morning.
• My first reaction was anger… angry at myself that I didn’t insist on her being put down earlier and having to suffer, angry at the vet for giving us false hopes that she’d pull through.
• But rage is just misdirected depression, and I got over it soon enough. The rage, that is. I’m still very sad that Sneak is gone. It will take a good while to get over.
• Her death wasn’t anyone’s fault. Everything has a beginning and an end… and it’s what happens in between that matters.
• Most of us have been there before, experiencing loss. Frankly, I’ve lost human relatives whose passing were less depressing than the death of my animal friends.
• I will now mention that I have three other cats who are all healthy and fine and almost certainly will be around for many years to come.
• So I’ll focus on them and their well being, and that of my son, who was particularly close to Sneak. But he’s a grown man and is strong as well.
• Let’s do some news.
• Yesterday, a federal judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Food and Drug Administration to restore webpages and data that had been removed in compliance with Dumples the Clown's executive order on gender ideology.
• U.S. District Judge John Bates agreed to grant a temporary restraining order sought by the group Doctors for America, which argued that its members used the websites when treating patients and conducting research. The nonprofit organization said that the removal of the webpages by the Department of Health and Human Services and its components violated federal law.
• Bates found that the challengers were likely to succeed in their claims that the Department Health and Human Services, CDC, and FDA acted unlawfully when they stripped medical information from public-facing websites.
• ”It bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants' actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare," he wrote.
• His order directed the agencies to restore earlier versions of their websites by 11:59 p.m. last night.
• Moving on.
• Wasn’t one of the big campaign promises of Donnie Dump to bring down consumer prices, and quickly?
• Not only has that not happened… but January inflation numbers are so high that this morning, the stock market tumbled.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled by 400 point (around 0.8%), while the benchmark S&P 500 slipped 1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite did a nosedive, falling more than 1.1%.
• The January Consumer Price Index (CPI) out this morning showed headline consumer prices rose more than forecast in January as core prices reversed last month's easing.
• So not only do things continue to cost more, but now your 401(k) and IRA accounts are losing value… something that almost never happened under president Joe Biden.
• Let’s move on.
• I’ve told you many times that the MAGA world is seeking to eliminate women’s right to vote. Here’s one way they’re doing it today.
• The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act could prevent many married women from being able to register to vote.
• The act, reintroduced by Rep, Chip Roy (R-TX), is intended to amend the National Voter Registration Act to ensure that all people registering to vote are U.S. citizens. It would require people to present in-person documentation as proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
• Seems simple, right?
• But the SAVE Act requires you to show a birth certificate that matches the name of the person registering to vote. And 69 million married women in the United States have changed their legal name since getting married, meaning their name does not match their birth certificate.
• So under this act, any married woman who took her husband’s name, any person who changed their name for other reasons, or anyone who can’t procure the documentation necessary to prove the name they had at birth will now be disenfranchised.
• That means they can’t vote.
• The SAVE Act does not include proof of name change or a marriage certificate as acceptable proof of identity. This is vital for married women with a birth certificate that does not match their current legal name.
• With Republicans in charge of both congressional chambers and the White House, the SAVE Act will likely make its way into law.
• What about its supposed intent? The bill is expected to have little effect on noncitizens voting, as there are so few cases of noncitizens trying to vote, but it will make it significantly harder for Americans to be able to register to vote.
• Which is the real reason it exists.
• When I tell you about these things, like women losing the right to vote, to have bank accounts, credit cards, to own a business, to make decisions about their body, to be allowed to divorce an abusive man, and so on, I’m not talking about some time in the distant future.
• I mean now. You may not be able to vote in the 2026 midterms. I’m fucking serious. Do you care?
• Moving on.
• Steve Bannon, the human gelatinous cube, pleaded guilty to a state charge yesterday for his role in a plot to defraud donors to a nonprofit devoted to building a wall on the country's southern border.
• And of course, because justice is almost never just, Bannon won't serve time behind bars under the plea agreement, which was laid out during a hearing in a New York courtroom yesterday.
• In exchange for pleading guilty to one count of scheming to defraud in the first degree, Bannon received a sentence of conditional discharge for three years. During that time, he’s forbidden from serving as the director of any nonprofit in New York or raise money for charities with assets in the state. He was also forbidden from using donor data stemming from the scheme.
• If this sounds familiar, it’s because a federal grand jury indicted Bannon in a the same case in August 2020. That prosecution came to an abrupt halt when Bannon was pardoned by Dumpy in the final hours of his first term in office.
• But Dump's pardon authority extends to only federal matters, meaning he is not able to pardon Bannon in this case, which is in a New York State court.
• Ha ha, fucker.
• Bannon did serve four months in a federal prison in 2024, after he was found guilty in 2022 of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena to appear before the House committee investigating the January 6 failed coup attempt.
• Moving on with some news from the Health Desk.
• For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, more people in the U.S. died of influenza than from COVID-19 in the week ending January 25, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• For that week, nearly 1.7% of all deaths nationwide were attributed to the flu, compared to 1.5% being the result of COVID-19. Rates of influenza hospitalizations are more than three times higher than COVID-19 hospitalizations amid this season's record wave of flu infections.
• There are two takeaways from this. First, COVID-19 has still been killing Americans at an astonishing rate, in case you bought into the propaganda that the pandemic magically went away.
• Second, the flu is really pretty terrible and can indeed kill you, especially if you’re elderly or otherwise health compromised.
• Interestingly, the gap between flu and COVID-19 deaths is biggest in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming, where the percentage of weekly deaths from flu are at least double those from COVID-19. 
• Because many of us still protect ourselves from COVID, unlike people in your filthy germ-bag state.
• Moving on.
• I only post the next item to anger people who are prone to such things.
• Kendrick Lamar has broken the record for the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show ever, pulling in 133.5 million viewers for his show.
• That’s more than Michael Jackson, more than Prince, more than U2, more than Lady Gaga, more than Madonna. More than any of them.
• If you don’t like it, that’s fine. But maybe you should acknowledge that it was indeed an impactful moment in American culture. The numbers don’t lie.
• And now, The Weather: “Only” by Tiny Tomboy
• In natural phenomena news, Kilauea volcano began shooting lava into the air once again yesterday on the Big Island of Hawaii.
• Kilauea has been erupting on and off for nearly two months since it burst to life on December 23. No residential areas have been threatened by lava.
• The latest release of molten rock began 10:16 a.m. with lava flowing on to the floor of Halemaumau Crater. A half-hour later, a vent shot lava about 330 feet high.
• Nature, you scary.
• Let’s do a chart.
• Today, the clock goes back to this date in February, 1978. I’m in fourth grade. I am already playing guitar, in addition to piano and violin.
• Here’s the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart at the time, and it’s a helluva list.
• 1. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack). 2. The Stranger (Billy Joel). 3. News Of The World (Queen ). 4. All 'n' All (Earth, Wind & Fire). 5. Foot Loose + Fancy Free (Rod Stewart). 6. I'm Glad Your Here With Me Tonight (Neil Diamond). 7. The Grand Illusion (Styx). 8. Running On Empty (Jackson Browne). 9. Little Criminals (Randy Newman). 10. Rumours (Fleetwood Mac). 11. Aja (Steely Dan). 12. Out Of The Blue (Electric Light Orchestra ). 13. Slowhand (Eric Clapton). 14. Down Two Then Left (Boz Scaggs). 15. Galaxy (War). 16. Point Of Know Return (Kansas). 17. Close Encounters Of A Third Kind (Soundtrack). 18. Draw The Line (Aerosmith). 19. Live At The Bijou (Grover Washington, Jr.). 20. Foreigner (Foreigner).
• From the Sports Desk… I am completely clueless in terms of who’s good in the NHL. Let’s look at some individual leaders.
• Points: 1. Nathan MacKinnon (COL) - 87. 2. Leon Draisaitl (EDM) - 83. 3. Nikita Kucherov (TB) - 82. 4. Connor McDavid (EDM). 5. Mitch Marner (TOR) - 71.
• Goals: 1. Leon Draisaitl (EDM) - 40. 2. William Nylander (TOR). 3. Mark Scheifele (WPG) - 31. 4. Sam Reinhart (FLA) - 31. 5. Brayden Point (TB) - 31.
• Goals Against Average: 1. Connor Hellebuyck (WPG) - 2.07. 2. Anthony Stolarz (TOR) - 2.08. 3. Darcy Kuemper (LA) - 2.19. 4. Jacob Markstrom (NJ) - 2.20. 5. Logan Thompson (WSH) - 2.23.
• Today in history… Isabella I issues an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity (1502). Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for high treason after having claimed the throne of England for 9 days in July 1553 (1554). Approximately 3,000 Joseon defenders led by general Kwon Yul successfully repel more than 30,000 Japanese forces in the Siege of Haengju (1593). Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, by settling at Savannah (1733). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — NAACP — is founded (1909). George Gershwin's ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ received its premiere in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music", in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Paul Whiteman and his band, with Gershwin playing the piano (1924). African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer, galvanizing the civil rights movement (1946). Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO (1963). United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial (1999). NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down on 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid (2001). The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom (2004). 
• February 12 is the birthday of naturalist Charles Darwin (1809), US president Abraham Lincoln (1809), engineer/businessman Louis Renault (1877), US general Omar Bradley (1893), MLB player/announcer Joe Garagiola, Sr. (1926), NBA player Bill Russell (1934), author Judy Blume (1938), keyboardist/songwriter Ray Manzarek (1939), scientist/futurist Ray Kurzweil (1948), guitarist Steve Hackett (1950), singer-songwriter Michael McDonald (1952), bass player/producer Bill Laswell (1955), actor/TV host Arsenio Hall (1956), drummer Omar Hakim (1964), SCOTUS justice Brett Kavanaugh (1965), actor Josh Brolin (1968), NHL player Owen Nolan (1972), rapper Gucci Mane (1980), actress Christina Ricci (1980), and NFL player Robert Griffin III (1990).

Sneak had been part of my life for a long time. It’s definitely not easy to accept that she’s gone, and my whole household is pretty devastated. But as I said up top, immediate emotions aside, she had a great life and was a good cat. Logically, I know that I helped her be happy, and I won’t base my memories of her on what happened at the very end of what was otherwise a good life. Enjoy your day.