Hello, I paid off my loan to Tom Nook, but stuff still happens.
So what's up?
Space is up.
I know that as far as space imagery goes, the James Webb's Cosmos peeper is the one that's been getting a lot of the attention.
But there's a new kid on the block.
Yesterday, the ESA's Euclid Telescope revealed its first full color images of the stars.
More than just stars, like the universe.
It's very pretty and super rad.
It's also cool and great.
These photos are the first look at the power of this telescope and its ultimate goal of creating the most extensive 3D map of the universe yet.
This is your reminder that human curiosity can shine through any fog as we raise our thoughts, minds and hopes to the cosmos.
And also space is fucking cool.
I've got art thieves art thieves for you, but well, they got caught.
But you're going to like the art.
Back in 2019, a piece of high art was stolen from the Blenheim Palace in England.
This is apparently where Winston Churchill was born.
And the art was in a room just opposite where he was born.
The art in question was entitled America.
And it was a toilet made out of gold, a working toilet made out of gold.
Visitors could use it.
There was a three minute time limit, but you could stand in line and take a dump in a golden toilet.
It was reportedly worth about five million Great British pounds.
And it went missing overnight one day.
And they just found a bunch of water spewing everywhere from the pipes.
How you steal a toilet made of gold from a palace?
I don't know.
I would love to see that footage.
But they didn't do a good enough job.
They got caught.
It was four guys now being charged.
Just guys being dudes.
For real, though, I want to take a shit in a golden toilet, but specifically a stolen golden toilet.
What a statement.
So this next story just kind of kept getting more absurd the more I read.
There's not a whole lot to talk about here, but I'll just give you the play by play.
Exterior Union Station Washington, D.C.
Two people are in a car at a green light, but they're not moving.
Capitol Police take notice of this car and intend to go over into a traffic stop, assuming that they're inebriated.
As the cop approaches the car, it speeds away and crashes into a barrier surrounding the U.S. Capitol.
It is at this point that I should tell you the car was stolen.
And after it crashed, the two dudes inside went running for it.
They were chased by a bunch of cops and eventually caught.
And then cops found they both had handguns, one of which had been modified with a giggle switch.
Both of the pistols were unlicensed and they were not allowed to be carrying them in the first place.
And a giggle switch is super illegal.
It essentially turns a semi-automatic pistol into a borderline fully automatic machine pistol.
They also had an extended magazine for it.
Just not the kind of stuff you want to get caught having in a stolen car that you crashed into a barrier around the U.S. Capitol.
The moral of the story is don't idle at green lights.
That's why we honk at you.
Elections happened.
Here's some results.
Specifically, U.S. elections happened.
And here are some U.S. election results.
High level. Overall, Democrats are very happy.
Republicans are not as happy, but also had some wins.
Ohio had two major resolutions on the ballot.
One was enshrining abortion rights in their state constitution and the other was legalizing cannabis.
Both passed with flying colors.
Abortion rights was about 56.5% yes to 43.5% no.
And cannabis legalization was about the same.
57 yes, 43 no.
In Virginia, Democrats took control of the entire statehouse.
So the statehouse representatives and the state Senate.
This contrast, the Republican controlled governorship in the state.
The Republican governor of Virginia was intending to pass more abortion restrictions.
That is almost definitely not happening now.
Virginians also voted against constructing a casino in Richmond.
In Kentucky, Democrat Governor Andy Beshear held his seat, which was a little surprising given that Kentucky is super, super, super Republican.
But he distanced himself from Biden and pointed to his record and managed to keep his seat.
A close race that Republicans are happy about is Mississippi, where Republican Governor Tate Reeves held his seat against apparently a relative of Elvis Presley, who was his competitor.
And Philadelphia has elected their first female mayor.
The Democrat, but that's to be expected. It's Philadelphia.
There's a long tale of smaller elections and stuff that happened as well.
Check out your local state results.
I have a big history one for you today.
On this day in 1892, the New Orleans general strike began.
It only had to last for a few days, but it got pretty wild.
It all began with the Triple Alliance, a sort of union supergroup between the Teamsters, the Scalesmen and the Packers.
These three came together to form a labor council called the Working Men's Amalgamated Council, which was also my nickname in high school.
They were calling for better pay, better hours, better working conditions, and they started to gain the favor of many more unions.
As calls for a general strike began to rise, nearly 50 unions joined in and doing a strike.
These unions represented about half of the entire workforce in the city.
Shit got whack. Natural gas stopped flowing. Electricity stopped being delivered.
The city went dark. Construction stopped. Deliveries stopped.
Everything stopped. And the employers and the government were not very happy about that, especially because the workers were extremely well organized and super orderly.
The picket lines were calm and composed.
No one was being harassed, and they were making their statement as plainly as they could.
And so there are multiple attempts at trying to break up the strike.
First, they were targeting racial divides, trying to say that black workers were causing a problem and harassing white women and children.
And they're the issue here.
It didn't work. The workers remained united.
And so then they called in strikebreakers. That didn't work either.
Eventually, they called in the state militia, saying that there was chaos in the city and they needed the militia to reestablish order.
But when the militia got there, they found just a bunch of peaceful, striking workers.
And they were like, there's nothing for us to do here. There's no danger here.
The militia left the next day.
Eventually, the Board of Trade sat down with union leaders where unions won most of their original requests, getting a, get this, 10 hour workday.
And overtime pay.
These people literally called in the state militia because workers wanted to have a 10 hour workday.
Anyway, after getting their absolute ass handed to them and being humiliated publicly,
the Board of Trade and the local politicians, as well as the federal government,
attempted to sue the union leaders, saying that they were doing conspiracy, some racketeering shit.
The lawsuit was held up in court for a while, and eventually the state withdrew the lawsuit because there was nothing there.
Solidarity then, solidarity now, and I want to be very clear that they tried to use racial divides to keep us separate and it didn't work.
Lightning round. They're making a live action Zelda movie.
I'm scared.
According to a former aide, towards the beginning of the pandemic,
Boris Johnson wanted to be injected with COVID on live TV to prove that it wasn't a threat.
While shopping at a thrift store for Halloween decorations, an anthropologist in Florida found an actual human skull among the decorations.
A hospital patient in England talked a hospital worker out of detonating a homemade bomb.
The hospital worker was unhinged and was ready to try to kill, quote,
as many nurses as possible using a homemade pressure cooker bomb.
It didn't happen. The patient talked him out of it.
Now the guy is in custody. So well done, hospital patient.
And finally, for today, Sony is removing their Twitter integration for PlayStation 4 and 5,
so you won't be able to view or share posts on it anymore because Elon Musk has just ruined the platform.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
Don't forget to leave a review and do a share at a friend with this show because that helps.
Thank you. I'm so bad at delivering these kinds of messages.
Anyway, head to Stuff Keeps Happening.Online for sources, bonus content and a lead on where you can get your very own golden toilet.
My name is Endeavorance. I'll be back on Friday. Take care and be well.