08/31/26
Title
I’m Not a Meteorologist. I’m Just a Kim
Good morning! It’s Monday, August 31st.
National Trail Mix Day
You know what I like? I like the ones with the M&Ms and raisins. But nothing else. I guess I just like the dessert part of it. But it’s trail mix, so it’s healthy.
And now, the news.
Hey, sorry about no news at the end of last week. I’ll tell you exactly what happened. I’ll name names. SPECTRUM. SPECTRUM INTERNET SERVICES. I think maybe because of the heat or I don’t know. Whatever it was, caused outages Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and even Sunday so I’m recording this and just hoping you get to hear my cherubic little voice. Anyway, I’m back and hopefully we’ll be able to get a week of news out this week but honestly, if not – SPECTRUM.
And don’t forget that you can go to Instagram - @hereswhatshappeningnews where I didn’t do it last week but in addition to info about the episodes, I’ll post if I suddenly can’t do an episode. Because of SPECTRUM. (and now the news for real this time. I hope.)
Weekend Shootings
-via ABC News and Gun Violence Archive
We start how we start here in America, with three dead and eighteen injured after two mass shootings over the weekend.
In Chicago, it started when police attempted to break up a large gathering at a park on the South Side. One person died and nine others there were injured. No arrests have been made as of this recording, and police believe it’s possible there was more than one shooter.
In Jersey, two people were killed and nine were injured in downtown Trenton. Police responded after 911 callers reported the gunshots, but so far the circumstances of that shooting have not been announced.
This is the 243rd day of the year, and these are the 319th and 320th mass shootings of the year.
Update: Iran
And moving to Iran – on Sunday, US forces launched with Iran has called a deadly attack that they will retaliate against after striking Iranian rocket launchers in the Strait of Hormuz. The military says it was done to prevent the deployment of more mines in the Strait. Last week the military said they’d cleared all the mines in the Strait.
This is believed to be the first US military action against Iran in about a month.
If Iran returns the attack, it could possibly, depending I guess on what kind of mood Trump is in, return things between the US and Iran to the back-and-forth conflict they’ve been engaged in, off and on, for six months.
How’s Trump feeling about all of this? Last week, as he talked about economic sanctions, he said he’s “not in a hurry” to get things settled with Iran.
Oh yeah, great. Good. Take your time, dude. No rush at all.
So as always, things are in flux and… that’s exactly… exact.
Canadian Sanctions
-via NY Times, CBC, and The Guardian
And speaking of sanctions and not making any friends literally anywhere…
This is how you know that I wanted to do the news but it was out of my hands. Because do you REALLY think I would have voluntarily skipped doing an episode talking about Lake America?? No! Zero chance – it truly was out of my hands.
THANKS SPECTRUM
Okay, to back us up a little. Canada? Our friend. Always. Historically, literally our closest ally.
But then last week Trump decided to do sanctions against the country, expecting, obviously that they would just roll over.
But that’s not what happened. Canada’s Prime Minister Carney told Trump – Bring it On. Bring it On: All or Nothing. Bring It On: Worldwide #Cheersmack
Carney pulled the plugs on the talks after feeling like they didn’t do enough to help Canada. They then announced their own tariffs and we were off to the races. But then we get Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford.
Dude’s a wildcard. He tells Trump to kiss his ass, that’s a direct quote. He also told a reporter this about Trump: "He's the type of guy in school that would take your lunch money one day, take your toque off your head the next day and then steal your running shoes. I'm not going to take any advice from a guy that's the king of bankruptcies."
Which… what a Canadian sentence! A toque is a beanie – I learned that from the world’s best Canadian – Uncle Stef.
So now Trump’s mad at Ford. The Premier of Ontario.
How will he get back at him? Well fear not, there’s actually a lake named after Ontario.
Or at least, there was.
Because with the swipe of his super weird signature with way more letters than are actually in his name, Lake Ontario is now… Lake America.
We did it!
USA! USA!
How embarrassing! He was like “this’ll show em!!” And it has showed exactly no one.
Although it is cool that people like Hegseth and Speaker Johnson have to pretend like this is normal and fine. That’s so silly. So embarrassing. For the rest of their lives, they will have gone along with it.
Losers!
Now, let’s talk about your phone. Because it probably says Lake America on it. Just like it probably says Gulf of America. And that’s because Apple and Google get their map info from a ton of different places including U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the Geographic Names Information System. Those are controlled by the executive branch. When Trump makes his absolutely mortifying name changes, it gets changes in the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the Geographic Names Information System.
And since Apple and Google get their info from those systems, it makes sense that the names would be changed. They didn’t bent the knee or comply in advance, they just… got the info where they normally do. And while yet, they COULD change the names back, changing their own standards of naming confessions opens a door to a whole host of other issues.
Now, Mapquest did do a cool thing where they called it Lake Are We Really Doing This Again and then put out a generator where you can name it anything you want. So that’s better, obviously. But Mapquest is maps. Where as Google and Apple are a part of bigger entities so it makes sense that they wouldn’t go against the standard they set.
I’m not sticking up for a multi-billion dollar company, I’m just, you know… explaining.
Anyway… Lake America. Turning Homes to Shame since November 8th, 2016.
Floods
In Tibet and Nepal last week, a chunk of ice, believed to be half a half-mile wide, snapped off a glacier and tumbled 17,000 feet into a river valley below, causing a torrent of mud, water and ice that has killed, as of this recording, nearly 800 people with another more than 3,000 people missing.
Power has still not been restored in the majority of the area, because major generation and transmission facilities were damaged in the flood as well, and most crews are focusing on the search and rescue mission, leaving limited emergency rescue and assessment teams to focus on the grid.
Meanwhile, residents are warned not to return home yet because there is a fear of floods again this week.
And here in the states, 15 people are missing and 62 others have been evacuated after flash flooding swept through the Grand Canyon National Park, with between a half and full inch of rain falling in 30 minutes.
Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground, Phantom Ranch Canteen, the North Kaibab Trail, the Black and Silver bridges, and traffic to the Colorado River in the area are closed "until further notice."
And you can expect that closure to stick for a bit, as officials warn that more flash flooding is expected today.
All of this comes on the heels of the latest El Niño predictions, which came out this week, warning that this winter’s El Niño has a 70% chance, by the end of the year, of being the strongest on record. And look, I’m not a meteorologist. I’m just a Kim. But I’m going to keep ringing the bell about this because it feels like no one else is talking about it. Well, no, that’s not true. A lot of people are talking about it. We just… we should be talking about it more often, between friends and family, as a way to prepare.
I mean, look at this last week for this show – even today the internet’s been unstable. Who knows if you’ll even get this episode on time. And it’s heat-related.
Generators. Flashlights. Water. Shelf-stable food. Extra phone chargers (that are actually charged). Maybe a gameboy or something because it’s gonna get boringgggggg (or I book, I guess – if you’re a NERD).
And that’s it. That’s the news.
Hey, let’s end on an up. Over the weekend, Daisy Chain Fields Festival, put on by Olivia Rodrigo, raised millions for ten nonprofits, including Black Mamas Matter, Center for Reproductive Rights, John Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Institute for Reproductive Health, National Women’s Law Center, and Planned Parenthood.
Rodrigo is 23. The former Disney Channel actor has three mega albums under her belt. She’s at the beginning of what will be a huge career and two years ago, while playing a show in Missouri, where abortion was illegal at the time, volunteers at the show gave out packages containing an emergency morning-after pill), condoms, and cards with QR codes that linked to reproductive health and abortion resources.
In an incredibly divided moment, someone just starting out (then, I mean. Now obviously more very established) risked losing a huge chunk of her fanbase because she wanted to protect the lives of people who can get pregnant, as well as her own morals.
It’s so cliché to say the kids are alright, especially coming from me… someone so incredibly young. And yes, every day the news is… the news.
But stories like these are just a great reminder that we have so much to feel optimistic about.
Plus also… her new album is great.
I’m proud of Olivia Rodrigo. And people who stand up for what they believe in.
I’m proud of trail mix – it’s healthy literally no matter what’s in it because it’s called trail mix.
But more than trail mix, because there’s literally nothing that needs to be added or removed from you to make you more perfect… I’m proud of you.