Hello.
I spent 10 years before the mast.
But stuff still happens.
So what's up?
Science people continue to amaze me.
In this case, it's space science people continuing to amaze me.
Space science people sent a probe out to an asteroid,
drilled off a sample,
and brought it back in a temperature-shielded case
to prevent it from getting ruined by the atmosphere upon reentry.
I made a bowl of cereal for breakfast.
They've been analyzing the sample and have already found water, sulfur, and carbon,
which gives us a bit more insight into maybe how life has been distributed throughout the solar system.
I zoned out in the shower for 20 minutes.
The takeaway here is that I am very comparable to the space people
who sent a probe to an object hurtling through space,
and then collected a sample and brought it back,
and are now analyzing it for chemical compounds that could indicate life.
Cough.
Strike 2. The United Auto Workers strike is expanding,
as 8,700 workers have walked off the job at a Ford plant in Kentucky.
This plant is among the most profitable locations for Ford,
and is responsible for putting together a lot of the big heavy-duty trucks,
think the F-Series.
Ford has responded by saying,
We're not gonna give any more money.
We're at, we're already capped out.
We're maxed out, dawg.
To which the workers are saying,
Have fun with that.
Enjoy not having employees.
It's strange, because it seems like when the employees walk off the job,
it brings companies crumbling to their knees,
which seems to me to indicate that maybe employees
should be paid more if they're worth that much.
But what do I know?
All I had for breakfast was cereal.
The Speaker of the House vote is finally moving forward,
as Republican Congressman Steve Scalise
has won his party's nomination for Speaker of the House.
This doesn't mean that he's now Speaker of the House,
but it does mean that he's gonna go up against presumably
Democratic Representative Jeffries for Speaker of the House.
One person has to win a majority of all sitting Congresspeople's votes
to become Speaker of the House,
so it's still, you know, kind of up in the air.
But now that the Republicans have finally picked a nomination,
we're going to move on.
And then...
Oh.
Uh...
Um...
The Speaker of the House vote has not moved anywhere,
as Republican Congressman Steve Scalise
has pulled out of the running for Speaker of the House,
just one day after receiving his nomination.
It seems he sees no path towards actually getting everybody in his party to vote for him,
and since Republicans have such a slim majority,
they basically need to have everyone in their party vote for them,
or work with the Democrats.
Working with the Democrats is what got McCarthy, the former Speaker,
ejected from his seat by his own party.
And so now we're back to not knowing what the hell is gonna happen
with Speaker of the House,
as Republicans now don't have somebody that they're putting forth.
The other person who was running against Steve Scalise for the Republican nomination
was Jim Jordan, who,
despite covering up sexual assault of student athletes under his supervision,
the Republicans didn't rally behind him.
So we'll see what happens next, I guess.
At this point, the House is just kind of...
in a standstill.
So you might be wondering, like, why is this happening...
suddenly?
Like, this didn't used to happen before.
They just kind of voted for a leader, and then there was a Speaker, and it was boring.
Or maybe you didn't even think about Speaker of the House until now,
and you still don't need to think about it.
Go back to not thinking about it.
But here is a smidge of context.
The Republicans have a super small majority in the House right now,
which means that there is a small contingent of people who can be very loud
and have very boisterous demands.
And if those demands aren't met, they can throw a hissy fit.
That is exactly what is happening.
The ultra-right flank of the Republican Party has ousted their own leader
because he worked with the Democrats to keep the government open.
They saw that as a betrayal, and they want their demands met,
and so they booted him out.
They actually ended up working with the Democrats to boot him out.
That's not super fair, actually,
although, like, fuck the Democrats,
but the Democrats just saw the opportunity to oust a Republican
and cause chaos in the Republican Party, so they took it.
And a portion of the Republican Party was excited to jump on that opportunity as well.
That same group of people has to be on board, essentially,
with anyone who might go forward as being Speaker of the House.
So they, more or less, get to choose who's the new Republican Speaker,
unless a contingent of the Republican Party is going to go cross the aisle
and work with Democrats.
That is very difficult,
because Democrats probably want to put their own person up as Speaker of the House.
They're probably saying,
yeah, you can work with us, but you got to elect one of us as Speaker.
And there's virtually no way that House Republicans would allow a Democrat to be the sitting Speaker
while they have the majority.
That's a death blow to all of their political futures.
Weird how, um, political careers affect decision-making
for the things that affect our lives.
Maybe that's not how this should work.
On this day in the year 54,
the Roman Emperor Claudius died of presumably poisoning.
His death is shrouded in mystery,
and there's a little bit of discussion about who may have killed him.
The general consensus seems to be that his wife did it,
but there may have been other people involved.
Notably, after his passing, his adoptive son Nero took over as Emperor.
A live orchestral concert tour of Stardew Valley music,
called Festival of the Seasons, has been announced for 2024.
I've linked to more information in my newsletter.
You can get tickets, and there's, you know, multiple dates and locations and whatnot.
Go check it out.
The EU has reached out to Elon Musk, saying,
hey, it's really not okay how much false information you've got going on your platform,
and also stop amplifying that information.
Elon's response was essentially, make me, and so now they're investigating him.
Sony is rolling out cloud game streaming for PS5 games,
but for some reason, the only thing you can stream them to right now is a PS5.
So, I mean, I guess you don't have to install games, but what?
Presumably there will be more platforms in the future, but I don't know.
For some reason, James Corden hosted an employee all hands at Activision.
At, what is going on?
And finally for today, I am happy to tell you that my dog Flynn is feeling better after about a week of being sick.
He's on the mend, he's on medication, he's been waggy, lovey, and very into chewing bones this morning.
This makes me very happy.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
Head to StuffKeepsHappening.online for sources, bonus content, and more pictures of my dog.
You know, I'm actually going to include that in today's newsletter.
I think we could use that.
My name is Endeavorance. I'll be back on Monday.
Take care and be well.