Random News: February 23, 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 23, 2025, and it’s a Sunday. I was going to sleep in some more, but my bladder has its own alarm clock, and I decided to just stay up and make coffee and get things rolling bright and early.

• For those of you who may want to make your displeasure with the Dump administration known in some kind of tangible way — but aren’t in a position to take more direct action — I have a few dates you may want to mark down.
• And they’re all more about what you don’t do, rather than do do. Not doing something is pretty easy.
• February 28th: The Economic Blackout.
• A 24-hour economic protest scheduled for Friday, February 28 has been building steam in recent weeks. The call to action — or rather inaction — is asking that American consumers refrain from making any purchases at major retailers on that day.
• Official messaging from the organization b behind it suggests a boycott of all major retailers, with the goal of enacting broader economic change.
• What’s the point? The real power of the USA exists in the wallets of its people. If the Dump admin wants to run rampant over our laws with the assumption there’s nothing we can do about it, welp… they may find out otherwise.
• It’s really simple: don’t make any purchases at all that one day… or if you must, let them be with small, local, single-location businesses.
• If enough people are aware of this and participate, it sends a powerful message… and makes the powers that be aware that the next one could be much more than 24 hours.
• Some supporters have suggested a more targeted boycott of retailers that have ended their DEI programs to comply with an executive order signed by Dumpy the Douchebag.
• In any case, the protest comes as people continue to endure rising prices on everything from food and gas to housing and utilities, epitomized by the soaring cost of eggs.
• Other coming planned days of inaction are indeed more focused.
• March 7-14: Amazon Boycott. March 21-28: Nestle Boycott. April 7-14: Walmart Boycott. April 18: Economic Blackout 2.
• And more.
• Let’s do some news.
• Federal workers will have to document everything they did last week or face resignation. 
• Those were the instructions that came out yesterday afternoon from Elon Musk, the head of the White House's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
• Federal workers received an email that read, "what did you do last week." They were instructed to reply with five bullet points of what they had accomplished in the last week, excluding any classified information.
• The deadline to reply was by Monday at midnight. "Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," Musk added in a post on a social platform.
• But the actual email sent to workers made no mention of this possible consequence, which would be illegal.
• “I don’t know how that’s necessarily feasible,” Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY) this morning. “Obviously, a lot of federal employees are under union contract.”
• Correct.
• And think about this part: the email hit inboxes Saturday, when federal law bars some employees from working outside of their assigned shifts.
• Some federal workers were on leave — such as sick leave, parental leave, or paid administrative leave imposed by the Dump administration — and unable to access their emails. 
• And still others, in the Defense Department, were on duty tours in remote locations, like jungles, without access to computers.
• I kinda had to laugh at a thought that crossed my mind. Imagine if no one at all responded. What is Elon going to do, fire the entire United States government?
• Fucking psychopath douchebag.
• And indeed, The Dumpster earlier that same day posted that Musk is doing a great job in reducing the federal government and that he would like to see him get more aggressive in the pursuit.
• There you have it.
• The comedic aspect of all this: government agencies have no idea what to do about Musk’s email.
• The State Department told employees not to answer it. Employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were told to definitely reply. And in some parts of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, staffers received instructions to draft a response but not send it yet.
• So I guess we’ll see tomorrow if President Musk will dismiss the entire federal government of the USA, which, I should note, is our country’s largest employer.
• In somewhat related news…
• One government office that has a mission which seems highly supported by all Americans is the 700-person organization within the Defense Department known as the POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA.
• Their solemn task is locating, repatriating and identifying America’s war dead. They employ historians, archaeologists, and scientists to long-silent battlefields where the remains of those classified by the U.S. government as prisoners of war or missing in action are believed to be. 
• But Elon and Dumpy are moving with haste to dismantle the federal workforce — including at the Pentagon, just like Putin wants — staff at DPAA fear an indiscriminate approach will jeopardize what they consider a sacred mission.
• DPAA has accounted for 3,477 missing Americans since 1973, when the agency was established, including 172 last year alone. More than 81,000 remain unaccounted for.
• And now, with less personnel and budget, they definitely never will.
• In other news…
• Pope Francis, in critical condition with a complicated lung infection, rested well during a peaceful night following a respiratory crisis and blood transfusions.
• Yesterday he suffered a long asthmatic respiratory crisis that required high flows of oxygen.
• I’ve had that happen. It’s pretty awful and I’m nowhere near 88 years old like Francis, who’s been hospitalized for a week with a complex lung infection. 
• The other big threat facing him is the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia.
• Wishing him well and moving on.
• I want to talk about model and actress Hunter Schafer, one of the most prominent transgender women in Hollywood.
• You may know her from her acclaimed role in the HBO drama “Euphoria.” She was also recently nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for best lead performance in the 2024 film “Cuckoo.”
• After losing her passport recently, Schafer, 26, went through the process of replacing it, but when she received her new passport this week, the gender marker incorrectly listed her as male.
• See, Dumples the Asshole signed an executive order on his first day in office instituting a new and narrow federal government definition of the sexes. As part of the order, the federal government defines sex as only male or female and says that must be reflected on official documents, like passports.
• Shafer explained in an eight-minute video that her driver's license and passport were first changed when she was a teenager, but she never updated her birth certificate. 
• She stated, "Trans people are beautiful. We are never going to stop existing. I'm never gonna stop being trans. A letter and a passport can't change that."
• She’s right. And for all of you who think Dump can change the intrinsic nature of who people are with the stroke of a pen, try and imagine if you’d comply with a president who signed an executive order saying everyone is gay.
• Would you immediately be gay that day (assuming you weren’t already)? No? You’d disobey an illegal executive order? Yes? Then shut the fuck up.
• From the International Desk…
• German voters are heading to the polls today for a national election that pits the incumbent chancellor against the opposition leader, the vice chancellor and — for the first time — a leader of a far-right party.
• Polling stations open from 8am to 6pm. Germans can also vote by postal ballot, but their ballot must arrive by the time polling stations close on election day to be counted.
• Vote-counting will begin immediately after voting ends, and the general picture of the outcome should be clear very quickly thanks to exit polls. A final official result is expected early Monday.
• Four candidates are running to be Germany’s next leader: incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the center-left Social Democrats; Friedrich Merz of the mainstream conservative Christian Democratic Union party; current Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, of the environmentalist Greens; and Alice Weidel, of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
• Side note: turnout is typically high in German elections. The final turnout figure in the 2021 election was 76.4%.
• I genuinely wish we could get that many Americans to give a shit about their own lives and the world around them.
• And now, The Weather: “Mega Circuit” by Japanese Breakfast
• From the Sports Desk… okay, okay, I’m slowly getting reacquainted with the NBA. Let’s do a look at which teams are leading at this point, over halfway through the season.
• Eastern Conference: Cavaliers (46-10), Celtics (40-16), Knicks (37-19), Pacers (31-23), Bucks (31-24), Pistons (30-26).
• Western Conference: Thunder (45-10), Grizzlies (37-19), Nuggets (37-19), Rockets (35-21), lakers (33-21), Clippers (31-24).
• Today in history… Empress Wu Zetian abdicates the throne, restoring the Tang dynasty (705). The publication date of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type (1455). Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, PA, to help to train the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1778). The Siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, TX (1836). Post-U.S. Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union (1870). Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of aluminum from the electrolysis of aluminum oxide (1886). Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity” (1903). U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill by Congress establishing the Federal Radio Commission — later replaced by the Federal Communications Commission — which was to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States (1927). German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his uncertainty principle for the first time (1927). Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg (1941). The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh (1954). Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African-American citizen, is shot and murdered by three white men after visiting a house under construction while jogging at a neighborhood in Satilla Shores near Brunswick in Glynn County, GA (2020).
• February 23 is the birthday of diarist/politician Samuel Pepys (1633), composer George Frideric Handel (1685), banker/businessman Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744), businessman César Ritz (1850), sociologist/activist W. E. B. Du Bois (1868), journalist Agnes Smedley (1892), physicist Allan McLeod Cormack (1924), actress Majel Barrett (1932), actor Peter Fonda (1940), NFL player Fred Biletnikoff (1943), singer-songwriter Johnny Winter (1944), NFL player Ed "Too Tall" Jones (1951), guitarist Brad Whitford (1952), singer-songwriter Howard Jones (1955), MLB player Bobby Bonilla (1963), businessman Michael Dell (1965), actress Niecy Nash (1970), actress Emily Blunt (1983), comedian/actor Aziz Ansari (1983), NFL player/coach Jerod Mayo (1986), actress Dakota Fanning (1994), and NBA player D'Angelo Russell (1996).

It’s still pretty early here, so I’m going to lounge about in this bathrobe for a bit while I figure out what’s next. Enjoy your day.