Hello.
I accepted all of the terms and conditions,
but stuff still happens.
So what's up?
Gobbler's Knob.
It's called Gobbler's Knob.
That's the place where we yank a magical groundhog out
of a stump to ask it about the weather.
If you are not familiar with the ritual that is Groundhog Day
here in the US, it's a literal holiday
where a bunch of dudes in tuxedos
pull a groundhog out of a stump at a place called Gobbler's Knob.
They then talk to the groundhog, whose name is Puxitani Phil,
and they ask him how long until spring's going to arrive.
And then everyone hears the prediction,
and we're like, wow, did you hear about that this year?
Dang, we did that again, huh?
Regardless, the magical meteorologist
has said that spring is going to come soon.
Global warming, I guess?
This groundhog is real tapped into fossil fuels.
Anyway, this is the perfect example of something
I'm actually super into.
Like, I don't care about Groundhog Day,
but its existence makes me happy.
Knowing America, I'm sure there's some egregious history
behind it.
But the notion of a bunch of people getting together
and pulling a groundhog out of a stump because of weather?
That's just very human.
What's also very human is fighting
for a better quality of life in France and the EU.
I want to start this off by saying, again, climate change.
Real bad.
And we did a lot of bad things to get here.
And by we, I mean massive corporations
and the politicians they purchased,
not we as in you for not recycling that one can
that one time.
But as we're looking towards the future
and hopefully having a planet still,
we're trying to figure out ways to fix that.
And unfortunately, the ways that we're looking into
largely just dump on the little guy
instead of targeting the problem at its core.
And so all around the world, but in this case, France
and the EU, farmers have been getting
hit with increased taxes and more regulation
and all this stuff because agriculture is to blame.
And if we're going to blame agriculture,
we might as well blame it on the farmers, too.
Let's ignore the fact that we've spent the past several decades
moving from agriculture to agribusiness,
despite all the farmers saying this is a bad idea.
Nope.
Now that you've been having to meet our demands
for the past however long, you suddenly
have to change everything and deal with the cost.
And so farmers and those who are standing in solidarity
with them in France and beyond in the EU
have been protesting and striking and blocking roads
using their equipment and going hard,
doing what they do best.
They're basically saying, hey, you can't just place all
this burden on us.
How the hell are we supposed to feed our family?
How are we supposed to have a future
while we're doing all of this work?
This has been going on for several weeks,
but there has finally been some progress
as now two major farmers unions in France
have called for a pause to the protest,
citing that they've had productive talks
with the government.
We are far from like, you know, being done with this
and getting them all the things that they deserve.
But it's a reminder that we need to actually be thoughtful
about how we move forward.
This doesn't get solved by punishing the farmers.
This gets solved by changing the system
that created the problem to begin with.
Stand in solidarity and in holding people accountable.
Speaking of holding people accountable,
I have someone I want to hold accountable, Hideo Kojima,
creator of the Metal Gear Solid franchise
and my arch nemesis.
Sony recently held their state of play live stream
in which they announced a whole bunch of games
that were coming out this year
and also stuff from Hideo Kojima.
He announced the sequel to the game
that stars Norman Reedus and has a character named
Die Hard Man.
It's going to be called Death Stranding 2,
on the beach.
Yep, Death Stranding 2 on the beach.
Presumably there's going to be a beach
and maybe we'll be able to take Norman Reedus
to some exquisite locations like Gobbler's Knob.
He also announced a new IP called Fizent in all caps
and it's supposed to be more like his original
espionage action Metal Gear Solid stuff.
Just let me rest.
Kojima, please.
I just want to go to bed.
There's also a Silent Hill 2 remake
and there's a new game by Team Ninja.
Kojima, let me sleep.
I haven't slept since Metal Gear Solid 2
because I'm still confused.
Anyway, the United States is mad
because someone else has a crush on drone strikes.
And so now we're engaging in one of our favorite pastimes.
Bombing the Middle East.
Yes, the US is bombing Iraq and Syria
after three service members from the US
were killed by a drone strike from militias
that were presumably backed by Iran.
Three US service members were killed
and so we've launched over 100 bombs
at like 85 plus targets.
Using drone strikes and bombers, all that stuff.
Why are we there in the first place?
Colonialism.
According to National Security Boy
and Smash Bros mainstay, John Kirby,
quote, the goal here is to get these attacks to stop.
We're not looking for a war with Iran.
Yeah, the Biden admin is currently patting themselves
in the back being like, yeah, we're just doing like
some bombings, not like war grade bombings,
just your, you know, playful bombings.
And meanwhile, the Republicans are criticizing old Joe
saying he's not going far enough
and should do way more and blow everything up
because we may not have federal abortion rights.
We may not have affordable college tuition.
We may not have reasonable healthcare,
but we sure can't bomb the hell out of places.
And isn't that what God's really all about?
Look to the sky because today's moon phase
is a years overdue library book
that you found in an old box of stuff
while you were cleaning out a closet.
I would recommend that you return it,
but the library that you checked it out from
probably doesn't exist anymore.
Lightning round.
After participating in violence against Palestinian citizens
in the West bank, the Biden admin has sanctioned four
Israeli settlers.
Elmo somehow managed to become like the center
of a whole bunch of people's venting sessions
on the internet.
After tweeting, how's it going?
According to recent research, Gen Z boys are more upset
about feminism than even boomers are.
Now I wanna be clear that this is still a minority
of Gen Z boys, just the ones who like watch Andrew Tate,
the tater tots, if you will.
Dovetailing off of that, Spotify just signed
another $250 million contract with Joe Rogan.
Finance.
Microsoft and Google had less than expected earnings results,
which is funny because AI is supposed to save everything.
They maintain that it's still early,
but can we just stop hearing about AI for a second?
And finally for today,
because we can't stop hearing about AI,
Google is already renaming their AI assistant
from Bard to Gemini because they can never just
stick with one name.
Remember Hangouts?
Like the original one?
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode
of Stuff Keeps Happening.
Head to Stuff Keeps Happening.online for sources,
bonus content, and an AI whose name never changes.
My name is Endeavorance.
I'll be back on Thursday.
Take care and be well.