Hello. I cooked a baked good using a light bulb.
But stuff still happens. So what's a thought
experiment? Consider the following. You are stuck
in the Australian outback. You've got nothing.
It's been like 10 days, no food. The only water
you've got is anything you can muster together
from puddles. And there's Australians. Well,
not people, but animals. Do you survive? But
I'll tell you who did survive. Carolina Wilga.
Sick name. Wilga is a 26 -year -old from Germany
who was traveling in the Australian outback when
her car broke down. She was nowhere near anything
and was walking around for 11 days in the Australian
outback alone with basically no food or water.
Very thankfully, she was spotted by a passing
driver who said that she looked distressed. I
would think so. But she has been taken to the
hospital. She's alright. I mean, considering.
She's alive according to her. She's taking it
one day at a time Which is probably for the best
because she's apparently covered in bug bites
like an obscene number of bug bites Which would
probably be of everything that you would have
to deal with the thing that gets me. I'm out.
I'm done So just real quick my advice to you
is don't get stranded in the Australian outback
Unless you got that will go in you stateside
boy howdy the US federal government is doing
absolutely nothing to defeat the overtly evil
allegations a bit of history and context for
those who are outside of the states or are new
to the political landscape of the US Ronald Reagan
That's kind of all the context actually Ronald
Reagan once famously said the nine scariest words
in the English language are I'm from the government
and I'm here to help and that phrase Has destroyed
the minds of an entire generation In the U .S.,
government -provided services are seen as a moral
failing because of that. It's wild. Republicans
often campaign on cutting government spending
and removing programs and removing social safety
nets and health care and everything. Basically
everything. They want to not have homeless shelters.
They want to not have anything. Their ideology
is just, you should have been better. So, but
anyway, just with that background information.
The Republican -controlled U .S. federal government
has recently voted to strip $9 .4 billion from
the following. Contributions to international
organizations, contributions for international
peacekeeping activities, global health programs,
mitigation and refugee assistance, the Complex
Crises Fund, the Democracy Fund, the Economic
Support Fund, contributions to the Clean Technology
Fund, international organization and programs,
development assistance, assistance for Europe,
Eurasia and Central Asia, international disaster
assistance and transition initiatives. The bill
also rescinds that are provided for U .S. aid
operations, the Inter -American Foundation, the
U .S. African Development Foundation, the U .S.
Institute of Peace, and the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting. So the public broadcasting one.
That's why you've been seeing a whole bunch of
stuff about how the government is killing PBS
and NPR. That's not - precisely what is happening,
but the government is undermining funds that
are used to go to public broadcasting initiatives.
Now, that list of things is not perfect. There
are some things on there that aren't quite exactly
what the name says, but there's also things on
there like international disaster relief and
like the medicine programs and whatnot that USAID
does. So again, this was less than $10 billion
in total. Republicans just voted to add trillions
to the deficit. But then they turn around and
they point to this kind of stuff and they're
like, look, we cut billions of dollars from the
budget by getting rid of all these wasteful services.
Without talking about the specifics of the services
and also hoping that you overlook the B, where
there's usually a T. Now look, aid programs and
social safety nets are not the problems with
the government. As much as they want to make
it seem like it's just a bunch of lazy people
extracting money from the system and taking your
dollars. That's what billionaires are. Again,
10 billion. All of that stuff. 10 billion. When
we otherwise dole out hundreds of billions of
dollars of contracts to bomb manufacturers. The
US federal government is the bad guy. Like, we
know this. Governance as a concept and government
services provided to the public are not the bad
guys. Be careful not to let unilateral hatred
of the US government seep into your views of
things that can be good for people. Food assistance
programs, health assistance programs, housing
assistance programs, all of these things strengthen
communities and improve societies. They ultimately
turn around and put more money in your pocket.
Economies are stronger when there is stability
among the populace. But instead of doing that,
our foreign policy is what gets funded. Which
is to say bombs. Let's talk labor rights. There
is a new appointee for the National Labor Relations
Board, the NLRB. This is the group that works
to ensure that workers in America have any semblance
of rights. This group is essentially why unions
can exist, and it exists because capitalism definitionally
destroys itself without regulation. So while
this board is supposed to protect workers' rights
and help us keep our weekends, Trump has just
appointed the head employment lawyer from Boeing.
This guy, Scott Mayer, he is a lawyer who has
been working at Boeing to essentially help them
not have to deal with the fallout of all the
things they do to their employees, like killing
them. Who said that? Who said that? For legal
purposes, I do not have evidence that Boeing
has killed an employee. I just have a lot of
articles about it. Here's a quote from the Economic
Policy Institute. So, like, this is not surprising.
This shouldn't be surprising. Donald Trump has
a very long and well -documented history of screwing
over workers, not paying out contracts. and getting
rid of anyone who's inconvenient to him. In my
lifetime, I don't think there has been a stronger
anti -labor candidate than Donald Trump, and
it blows my mind that people just don't see that.
So where we're at right now is the NLRB has been
in stasis. They haven't really been able to do
anything because Trump fired some people from
the board and they haven't been able to make
any decisions. So he's appointing these people
to try to get them on the board and undo things
that Biden did to enshrine some workers rights
during his administration. Because won't someone
think of the corporations? Won't anyone think
of the companies? Mustocks! Last thing for stateside.
Let's talk about the Epstein. Here's an Epstein
update. An Ep -State, if you will. The Epstein
files continue to be a thorn in the side of Trump
and he's made It gets so much worse for himself.
The man has decided that the way he's going to
handle this is by attacking his own base. So
after zigzagging on whether or not these files
even exist, he went as far as to say that these
files were made up by the Democrats and anyone
who believes that the Epstein files are a thing
are his quote former supporters and our weaklings,
which that pissed off his base a lot, which is
hilarious. because he called them weaklings and
that made them mad. Like, out of everything that
he has done, these people have the emotional
capabilities of a middle schooler. It's outrageous.
So he called them weaklings and losers and they
got all big mad and now they're turning on him.
But to be clear, MAGA turning on Trump doesn't
mean that MAGA is no longer a far -right group.
Like, he's not far -right enough for that. They
want to establish a white Christian ethnostate
and Trump is starting to become impotent in that
regard. The inability to release the Epstein
files is proof that He's not our guy. He's not
gonna deliver us to the world that he's been
promising us. So a lot of them feel betrayed,
and not like, oh, I see the light now, but what
happens to my guy? That said, if a non -zero
number of people have a realization that they've
been duped, and they realize they've been duped
this whole time, great. You got there eventually.
Elsewhere. Hey, Germany, you weren't supposed
to copy our homework. Germany hosted a summit
with a handful of European allies to discuss
a clamping down of immigration policy for the
EU. They're unhappy with migrants and asylum
seekers, and they want to get rid of them. Does
this sound familiar? In getting rid of them,
they want to deport them to third party countries
and hold them in deportation camps. Does this
sound familiar? They want to get rid of them
now without actually giving them due process
and just yeet them out of the country so they
don't have to look at them anymore and put them
in a third party and then take care of it later.
Does it sound familiar? Yeah, don't don't do
that. Don't do that. But they are doing that.
And after they made that decision, they turned
around and as a show of force, deported 81 people
to Afghanistan. Notably, Afghanistan's not a
great place to be deported to right now. So much
so that international human rights groups were
like, what the fuck? Stop, stop, stop doing that.
And like the UN Human Rights Council said, stop
it. Stop deporting people to Afghanistan. Just
kind of period. So to be clear, this has not
been signed into law, but it is a direction of
policy and it's already having an effect. But
hey, don't mass deport people. Like we have the
roof. Meanwhile, over in Cambodia. They're saving
my cell phone. Authorities in Cambodia have been
cracking down hard on scam call centers, arresting
thousands of people over the past couple of weeks.
Over 2 ,100 people have been arrested across
a bunch of nationalities at dozens of locations
across Cambodia that all are operating various
call scams. This is a multi -billion dollar scam
industry and a lot of the people who are working
these call centers are not there on their own
volition. Human trafficking is a big source of
their employment. And wouldn't you know it, USAID
was investing in reducing human trafficking.
in that area before it was destroyed. These scams
range from your typical go to 7 -Eleven and get
a Google Play gift card and give me the code,
to people imitating someone that you know in
distress using an AI voice generator. Like they're
getting sophisticated, but again, lots of crackdowns.
So thanks to Cambodia, I no longer have to deal
with my old friend's scam likely. Well, I still
do, but less. Israel! is bombing Syria now. So
things aren't great in Syria. That's not your
statement. And Israel is bombing them now. The
reason that they are doing this, they state,
is they are defending their Druze brothers in
the region. Druze is an ethnic group that is...
Prominent in Israel, but found all over that
general region. It's not a great excuse to bomb
Damascus This means that Israel is now bombing
Lebanon Iran Syria and Gaza in addition to their
assaults in the West Bank and everything else
They're doing in the region international reactions
are largely condemnation like what the fuck are
you doing? Why are you escalating this and Israel
says that they've got a right to defend themselves?
Yeah, they're saying the strike is to help prevent
militants from Syria who are taking over the
country from threatening Israel. Just once, can
I open up any news site and not have it be that
Israel is bombing someone and killing more people
in Gaza? Let's move on to science and economy
and technology. I kind of lumped a bunch of stuff
into one. Oil. Chevron has acquired Hess. Which
honestly sounds like an RPG character, like got
some really cool ancient item, but no, it's just
oil companies. So Chevron, an energy company,
bought Hess for $55 million, pissing off Exxon,
who wanted Hess. Exxon filed a motion saying,
hey, yo, we had dibs on that. I think that's
exactly what the legal paper said, and the judge
found that they did not. Actually have dibs said
another way Exxon was like this feels like a
breach of contract We should have had a chance
to buy shares of Hess and that didn't happen
and the judge said nah And so Exxon's like okay.
Well, we're gonna patch that in our contracts
going forward. This is a massive acquisition
It's one of the biggest energy deals in decades
and it sent Exxon stock tumbling after it was
announced threesomes but with science. There
was a procedure that's exceedingly rare and had
a big leap forward recently out of the UK. It
is a three -way IVF treatment. Women who have
mitochondrial diseases have a high probability
of passing that along to any child they may birth,
giving them debilitating lifelong issues. If
you can give birth and you have this issue, basically
your options have been don't have kids or find
a donor. and so your child is not going to be
genetically related to you. Basically, the way
it works is this. There's the two parents and
a donor, and the donor's egg has the DNA that
overwrites what the mother's DNA would have otherwise
put in there to cause the mitochondrial disease.
If it sounds like gene editing or eugenics, it's
kind of similar, but there's a lot of safety
guards. Obviously, anything that has to do with
editing and messing with the genetic structure
of an embryo... is a slippery slip. But in this
case, the way that it works is modifying a tiny,
tiny fraction of the DNA that only affects the
ability for the cells to produce energy. Everything
else, all of the genetics, all of the traits,
all of the ancestry, that's all from the parents
still, and that's all the same as it would have
otherwise been. So whether or not this makes
you squeamish, you know, am I here to tell you
how to feel about it? But there has been a lot
of research into this and there has been a lot
of discussion among bioethicists about the potential
risks of this slipping into something like a
designer baby thing and a legal framework around
it. But then on the flip side you have eight
children who were born recently from this procedure
who are healthy with no signs of mitochondrial
disease. who are related to their parents who
now have a child that they wanted. Obviously,
adoption is an option as well, but a lot of people
want to have a genetically related child. This
is not a widespread thing. This is still exceedingly
rare. It's been done like three times ever, basically,
since 2016. So we're not about to have a massive
uprising of genetically edited children, but
it's a thing. Speaking of cells, we saved pandas.
We didn't save pandas, but I actually learned
that pandas are no longer endangered. They're
still vulnerable, but they're not technically
endangered. All right, so what did we do? We
saved the groomers. We took their skin. Wait.
I misread. Scientists took skin cells from a
giant panda and successfully converted them into
stem cells. Stem cells are those classic, you
know, the omni cells. They can kind of turn into
anything. They're really, really great for developing
treatments, and this is a massive step forward
in potential conservation efforts. So while the
pandas are still, I mean, frankly, a very dumb
species, maybe we'll have more of them. Maybe
we're gonna each have our own panda in a few
years. Who knows? Thanks... cells? Last thing
for tech, it's a lot of computer. There's a lot
of computer out there and they're making more
of it. Mark Zuckerberg is in the headlines, which
is never good, because no one needs him. in our
life, but he's specifically in the headlines
right now because he is talking about how Metta
is going to build massive data centers about
the size of Manhattan. You heard both of those
parts right. I said data centers, plural. the
size of Manhattan. They're doing this because
they want to have more computing power for AI.
Right now, AI is just deeply inefficient, and
it's like that by design. It's not inefficient
because these people are bad at making software,
it's inefficient because it's inefficient software.
And so, to fix that, we just need an endless
supply of energy and computational power so that
these AI systems can handle the load that is
currently being subsidized by investors. That
was a lot of words to say the tech industry is
just doing tech industry things, but... I would
like a world with clean water and breathable
air. Because as he's talking about building these
giant data centers, we've been hearing about
the data center that's powering Grok, Elon Musk's
AI, from Memphis that's poisoning the air. These
tech oligarchs are increasingly detached from
reality and it's getting out of control. I don't
know when we decided that being slightly okay
at having a tech company means that you get to
just ignore... all rules, and you deserve to
shape the future of reality? Like, I don't think
that's the right group to lead us. But here we
are, in our Manhattan -sized computers. Hey,
thank you so much for being here. Did you know
that I've got a Patreon, and a newsletter, and
I'm on Blue Sky, and Tumblr, and Macedon, and
I stream on Twitch, and I'm building a tabletop
role -playing game? I do a lot of shit. Discord
server. Links in description. That's all I'm
gonna say about that. Gaming. Roblox is rolling
out an IP licensing system. Hot damn. Roblox
is an online like metaverse -ish platform. It's
somewhere between a social space and a game engine.
It's indescribably popular and it has all the
metaverse stuff like hosting digital concerts
and all that good stuff. Now they're rolling
out a platform for companies with intellectual
property to put that up for use. in roblox this
is so that developers who build on the roblox
platform can use actual like ip stuff in their
in their games like imagine spider -man running
around but it's above board instead of not business
meanwhile over at virtuos there's been some layoffs
virtuos is a co -development company they are
a contractor company that works with studios
to help build out big projects recently they
worked on the remaster of elder scrolls 4 oblivion
And despite its success, they're being laid off.
They're laying off about 270 people, around 7
% of their workforce, primarily in Asia and Europe.
The reason for this, they cite, is headwinds
in the industry. Essentially, the gaming industry
can't find its ass with both hands, and they've
been spooked. to Greenlight AAA stuff recently.
Because of that, there are less big projects
with less big budgets going around, so less need
for co -developers. This'll wax and wane as the
market churns around, but largely it's just kind
of a bummer that, like, really good talent is
just being thrown aside because executives. Which
has been the case. It's not like this is a new
thing, but I'm still mad about it, you know.
Last thing for gaming, Nintendo has announced
the casting for Link and Zelda in their upcoming
live -action Zelda movie. Now, I am wary about
this, because I'm a fan of the hi -yah boy and
everything. Don't fuck it up. Please. Lightning
round. If you live in the UK, some porn sites
are going to start requiring age verification
by way of credit card verification. Shortly someone
hacked Elmo's Twitter account and started stealing
a bunch of anti -semitic shit get off Twitter
someone managed to break in to vehicles owned
by backup dancers for Beyonce on her tour and
Stole unreleased Beyonce music security officers
at an airport in Germany confiscated 1 ,500 baby
tarantulas that were being hidden in a box of
confectionaries. They said that it smelled bad.
The late show with Stephen Colbert has been canceled
after Trump beefed with Paramount. Paramount
is the parent company of CBS who runs that show,
and Trump does not like him. They maintain that
it was a purely financial decision, that the
timing is a bit wacky. A Netflix executive has
stated that they have officially used AI generative
technology to produce effects for a show on their
platform. And they're gonna do more of it. And
finally for today, popular music group Massive
Attack has announced a coalition of musicians
who have spoken out about Gaza. It is an effort
to try to come together and push back on some
of the coordinated hate campaigns against them,
and the legal campaigns against them as well.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode
of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to skh .news for
sources, bonus content, and the secret location
of those tarantulas. My name is Endeavorance,
we'll talk again soon, take care, and be well.