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 February 13, 2025, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. It’s raining here in SoCal, and I’m enjoying it. Well, I’m able to enjoy it because I don’t live in a mudslide evacuation zone, but that’s another topic.
- I’ll start again today on a personal note.
- Thanks to the multitude of you who expressed condolences on the passing of my cat Sneak.
- Like nearly everyone has experienced with the loss of a pet or other family member, I am accepting of her being gone, but I had some moments yesterday that were rough.
- For some reason, when I’d work out each morning at 8am, Sneak would come out from wherever she was and park herself near me… sometimes behind me on the couch, but often directly in the way of where I’d be doing yoga stretches and various aerobic exercises.
- She did that daily for years. I often would be annoyed that I’d be trying a perfect downward-facing dog, and I’d find myself with an upward-looking cat inches from my face.
- And obviously, yesterday I found myself alone while I exercised. The other cats don’t seem to share her fascination with my attempts to stay in shape. So that was a sad moment.
- My son is having a hard time of it as well. He’s 25 and she’d been his cat since he was in sixth grade.
- But I’m okay, and he’ll be okay eventually, and again… your kind words do make a difference.
- Let’s look at the news.
- Haven’t been covering much about the asshats being appointed to various cabinet positions in the Dump administration.
- There’s little that any of us can do about it. All we can do post facto is hold the Senators who vote yes on each confirmation to pay the price at the next election.
- An interesting one today, though; Linda McMahon seeks Senate approval to lead an agency that Dump wants her to destroy.
- If Dumples has his way, his pick for education secretary would be the last in the role. Dumpy has promised to close the agency, saying it has been infiltrated by “radicals, zealots and Marxists.”
- You know, people who want our kids to be educated. That’s against his entire plan.
- Here’s how it would work: Dump will direct the education secretary to dismantle the department as much as legally possible while asking Congress to abolish it completely. At a White House news conference last week, Dump said he wanted McMahon “to put herself out of a job.”
- Whether or not the Senate confirms her in the role with its goal stated ahead of time will be very telling. And remember, it’s Dumpy and the Senate who will be to blame if she is confirmed.
- Let’s move on.
- I mentioned the lovely rain up top; I should tell you about the downside.
- Southern Californians are evacuating their homes for the second time this year, but this time, it’s for heavy rain and debris flows that threaten new destruction in areas still recovering from last month’s devastating wildfires.
- The strongest storm to impact parts of California in over a year has arrived and was drenching more than 600 miles of the state early this morning. Coastal areas and valleys in Southern California — including the Los Angeles basin — will see up to 3 inches of rain through Friday, with mountainous areas facing up to 6 inches.
- LA County will see the worst of its flooding rain in the afternoon and evening but heavy rain could start as early as the late morning.
- And yes, we’re under flood watch here, but other than garages getting damp and some other minor inconveniences, our topography in my area of Redondo Beach means we don’t get affected badly by flooding.
- I’m on a hill; the water just flows on by.
- Moving on.
- After issuing two stays, U.S. District Judge George O'Toole has declined to block the Elon Musk administration's deferred resignation program for federal employees.
- I’m really not surprised.
- The ruling comes more than two weeks after the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent an email to more than two million civilian employees of the federal government with the subject line "Fork in the Road."
- Government workers were given a choice to either resign now — allegedly in exchange for pay and benefits through the end of September — or they could remain in their positions, with the caveat that their jobs are not guaranteed.
- The legal group Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit on behalf of labor unions representing more than 800,000 civil servants, alleging that President Musk's resignation offer is unlawful, as well as "arbitrary and capricious in numerous respects."
- But in his ruling, O'Toole wrote that the plaintiffs — the labor unions — lack standing to challenge the directive, because they are not directly impacted by the "Fork" directive.
- Shrug.
- Look, if you didn’t want the country to fall apart, you wouldn’t have voted for Musk and his sidekick Dumples to run the country.
- Right?
- In other news…
- Vladimir Putin had planned to capture Ukraine in just a few days, but due to the tenacity of the Ukrainian people and its great leadership, that ended up in a disaster for Russia.
- But now Putin’s dream has come true. Dumples the Clown is handing him the country, and the Russian president is now closer than ever to getting what he wanted from his three-year-long invasion.
- Putin’s main ambition has always been to establish a new security architecture that gives Russia a sphere of influence in Europe — much as the Yalta conference did for the Soviet Union at the end of the second world war.
- And Dumpy, who is too ignorant and stupid to see the big picture, is handing it to him.
- Dump is rolling back the US’s commitment to NATO and leaving to European countries the job of sustaining a peace. In Moscow, there was palpable joy following yesterday’s call between Dump and Putin.
- They bypassed Ukraine in the conversation. President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine will not accept a peace deal struck between the United States and Russia without Kyiv’s involvement.
- Which European country will be next in line to be taken over by Russia? I’d say the most likely candidates are Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, before they start marching into western Europe.
- Moving on.
- And now, The Weather: “Silver and Red” by Helena Deland
- From the Sports Desk… I have to get my mind off the now-finished NFL season and into the NBA season.
- Here are the current leaders.
- Eastern Conference: 1. Cavaliers (44-10). 2. Celtics (39-16). 3. Knicks (36-18). 4. Pacers (30-23). 5. Bucks (29-24). 6. Pistons (29-26).
- Western Conference: 1. Thunder (44-9). 2. Grizzlies (36-18). 3. Nuggets (36-19). 4. Rockets (34-20). 5. Lakers (32-20). 6. Clippers (30-22).
- Today in history… Hulegu Khan, a prince of the Mongol Empire, orders his army to sack and plunder the city of Baghdad, which they had just captured (1258). Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery (1542). Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition (1633). William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England (1689). Thomas Edison observes Thermionic emission (1880). The 13th Dalai Lama proclaims Tibetan independence following a period of domination by Manchu Qing dynasty and initiated a period of almost four decades of independence (1913). In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers — ASCAP — is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members (1914). With the success of a nuclear test codenamed "Gerboise Bleue", France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons (1960). Black college students stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, TN (1960). An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany (1990). Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations (2008).
- February 13 is the birthday of economist Thomas Robert Malthus (1766), French president Paul Deschanel (1855), painter Grant Wood (1891), philosopher Agostinho da Silva (1906), singer/actor Tennessee Ernie Ford (1919), pilot Chuck Yeager (1923), actress Kim Novak (1933), actor Oliver Reed (1938), actor/musician Peter Tork (1942), actress Stockard Channing (1944), TV host/politician Jerry Springer (1944), politician Richard Blumenthal (1946), basketball player/coach Mike Krzyzewski (1947), singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel (1950), musician Peter Hook (1956), singer-songwriter/actor/DJ Henry Rollins (1961), singer-songwriter Robbie Williams (1974), singer-songwriter Feist (1976), NFL player Randy Moss (1977), actress Mena Suvari (1979), and NFL player Aqib Talib (1986).
Time for me to go work out. Enjoy your day.
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