Hello. I girlbossed too close to the sun. But
stuff still happened. So what's up? Let's start
with a fun fact. I want to have some fun before
the rest of the facts. It's a brutal one. So
let's have some fun. Just a little bit of poetry
for ya. Telephones. Some people would say that
telephones are useful. They let us talk to each
other from a distance to be clear this is not
a telephone. This might be a telephone. If you're
watching on a phone, it is. That's how you can
tell. But back in the day, in not on your phone,
how did we get voice from one place to another?
Didn't have broadband, didn't have cellular towers,
we used wires. But how did we get those wires
everywhere, and especially how did we connect
all of the rural households across this gargantuan
country? The answer is equal parts ingenious
and metal as hell. Barbed wire. In the late 1800s,
a patent expired from Bell regarding the telephone
system, and so a bunch of companies were able
to come in and build out additional telephone
networks. A popular thing at the time was to
do a thing called a party line, where you basically
have a bunch of households on a single telephone
line. Different ring patterns were meant for
different households, so everyone's phone would
ring, but if it wasn't your ring pattern, you
weren't supposed to pick it up. You could, and
anyone could listen to any conversation. No privacy,
but it was cheap. So that's that, but where does
the barbed wire come in? Well, telephones needed
telephone lines, and telephone lines required
infrastructure to put them down. Guess who already
had a lot of wire everywhere? Farmers. If you
had a bunch of pasture, if you had livestock,
if you had whatever you wanted to fence off your
land, you probably had barbed wire going all
around your property, which meant that there
was already a network of connected wires across
rural America. At least, there was a lot of...
wire already. They were able to reuse it. They
tapped into the barbed wire networks and used
them as makeshift telephone lines. This was effective,
cheap, and was in use all the way up to the 1970s.
So that's cool, unless you had a particularly
wily cow, in which case it might just like walk
through the barbed wire and fuck up your conversation.
But, you know, stateside! It is day six of the
United States government shutdown, and there
does not appear to be an end in sight. As of
now, nearly two million federal workers are either
working without pay or on unpaid leave. In a
couple of weeks, we'll see the pay periods for
military and federal workers come and go, and
that will increase the stakes of the shutdown
significantly. All the while, no actual talks
have been happening between the parties. Instead,
our leadership is currently in a meme war, in
which the president is tweeting racist memes
about the leaders of the Democratic Party. Trump's
only attempts to negotiate have been to threaten,
quote, irreversible cuts to federal spending
and federal employees. He has also frozen $28
billion in funding that was supposed to go to
Democrat -run states for things like infrastructure
and public transit. He says he's going to keep
doing this until Democrats fold and vote for
the Republican bill that has no Democrat concessions,
which is not how anything is supposed to work.
Very abuser -coded, but we knew that. Trump and
his allies are trying to push that the Democrats
have shut down the government because they want
to, quote, give health care to illegal aliens.
And I want to be clear, that is nonsense. I'm
not out here trying to defend the Democrats.
They've got their own problems, but they're not
the ones who are unilaterally in power right
now. And to say that their goal is to give illegal
immigrants health care is whack. They don't even
want to give U .S. citizens health care. They're
asking for not wildly increasing premiums on
private health insurance that already exists.
And the argument that they're trying to give
illegal immigrants healthcare is based on completely
nothing. It is a lie. They point to legislation
that they hope you won't read because that's
not what it says. This course of action, the
threatening cuts, the freezing funding, the lying
about what's going on, is so much that even some
Republican officials are quietly expressing their
concerns about the precedents being set. If only
they would be a bit more loud about their concerns
instead of being cowards. As of now, it's a waiting
game. Both parties think that they are currently
coming out on top and it's just a matter of which
party is going to buckle first. It could be a
while. Let's talk about if we are or are not
at war. A couple episodes ago, I asked the question,
are we at war? And I'm very glad that I can finally
give you an update to that answer. The answer
to the question of are we at war has changed
from sort of yes, but kind of no, to kind of
no, but sort of yes. The White House has informed
Congress that the United States is now engaged
in a, quote, non -international armed conflict
with drug cartels. This is what the White House
is using as justification for the bombings on
civilian vessels in the Caribbean by the U .S.
military. We've done that four times now. We've
killed at least 17 people. And the United States
has not produced a shred of evidence to support
their claims that these people were narco -terrorists.
And even if they were, that's supposed to fall
to the Coast Guard. Not the US military. But
that doesn't matter. If you are of the age that
you should schedule your prostate exam, you might
recognize the term non -international armed conflict.
That is the same thing that George W. Bush used
to label al -Qaeda, without having to actually
formally declare war. The difference being that
back then, Congress did give approval for use
of military force against designated targets
from that statement. In this case, both Democrats
and Republicans have gone to the Pentagon being
like, hey, what? The fuck, actually, can we get
like a legal reason for these strikes? To which
the Pentagon said, suck it. Which is great for
international relations. The United States president
cannot unilaterally declare war per the U .S.
Constitution. That hasn't stopped this administration
yet. We shouldn't expect this administration
to follow the law. We should expect them to continue
doing what they're doing, which is break the
law as much as they can until they get a little
bit of pushback and then break a different law
while they deal with that one. And unfortunately,
when they break the law, in some cases that results
in murdering foreign civilians. The United States
government is currently trying very hard to manufacture
consent to get support to bomb any target that
someone in the administration deems dangerous.
And being the state that arbitrarily bombs random
foreign vessels, claiming that they are evil,
is not a good state to be. We don't have the
option to unbomb those boats, but we sure as
hell can bomb them. But why target foreign nationals
when we've got so many nationals domestically?
In the early hours of the night on September
30th, 2025, the United States government unleashed
a federal agent raid on a residential apartment
building in Chicago. When I say raid, I mean
it. Masked federal agents rappelled from Black
Hawk helicopters onto the top of the apartment
building while others stormed in from the streets.
They indiscriminately ripped people from their
homes, zip -tied them, dragged them out in the
middle of the night. They separated people from
their children, zip -tying children, in some
cases naked children taken from their beds, separated
from their parents, and zip -tied in the street.
Everyone. Citizen or not. Not that that's an
acceptable way to treat anyone of any status.
The federal government claims that this apartment
building had some illegal immigrants in it, which
was their justification for - doing that. They
turned around and boasted by posting on social
media a dramatic video about how successful this
operation was, boasting that they got two people
who are suspected gang members. I'm going to
read you an excerpt from reporting from a local
Chicago public radio station. This is from WBEZ.
Roger Johnson, 67, is one of many residents who
were detained by federal agents during the South
Shore raid. A U .S. citizen, he said agents broke
through his door and dragged him out in zip ties.
Johnson said he was left tied up outside the
building for nearly three hours before agents
finally let him go. Quote, I asked agents why
they were holding me if I was an American citizen
and they said I had to wait until they looked
me up. I asked if they had a warrant and I asked
for a lawyer. They never brought one. When residents
went back to their apartments, they found that
their property was strewn about, missing or destroyed.
There's reports that the building was in disrepair
to begin with, but residents went back and found
their personal belongings destroyed. This was
the federal government sending their goons in
in the middle of the night to raid a residential
building in a city that voted against the current
administration. This is a gargantuan and indisputable
violation of civil rights. And I hope that each
and every one of these people get a multi -million
dollar payout. This is not the last time this
is going to happen, and it is a miracle that
nobody was killed. I want to note that there
are also suspicious circumstances surrounding
a real estate dealing with this building and
an investigation from the Fed of this building
just a few weeks before this raid. I am waiting
to get more information on this as this information
is coming out. I've linked to an early article
researching this in my newsletter. The last thing
about ICE, they are also working real hard to
increase their digital surveillance nationwide.
They're working with tech companies to find ways
to digitally track you everywhere, who you are,
who you talk to, what you do. And Apple just
pulled IceBlock, an app in the App Store that
allowed people to say, hey, there's ice activity
in these different areas. A thing that we're
allowed to do. But Apple, and specifically Tim
Cook, are fucking cowards. Thank you so much
for being here, dear listener. I'm humbled that
you would spend this time with me. If you want
to help me out, sharing my content is always
extremely helpful. Liking, comment, subscribe,
all that good stuff. It's great. You can also
head to isupport .dev, where you'll find links
to more ways to support me. Thank you. Let's
move on. Elsewhere! I'm gonna start by talking
about Cash Patel, who's a US person, but I promise
this is elsewhere. Cash Patel has a new challenge
coin, and it's awful. If you don't know what
a challenge coin is, it's like a commemorative
coin... thing. It's a thing in the US government,
and probably elsewhere. But Cash Patel made a
challenge coin, and it looks like this, and it's
the worst. But that makes sense, because he's
the worst. Anyway, he went to New Zealand. I'm
sorry, New Zealand. He went to New Zealand, and
he presented his counterparts in New Zealand,
in their, like, intelligence agency, with a display
for his challenge coin. This display included
multiple 3D -printed pistols, which were found
to be possibly made operable with modifications.
Pistols in New Zealand are heavily regulated,
and if they can even be modified to be operational,
they're illegal, without permits and such. And
so they had to take the pistols and destroy them.
So he brought an illegal gift to show off his
awful fucking challenge coin. But why was he
in New Zealand? It's because the United States
has opened an FBI office in New Zealand that
reports to Washington. and he was there for the
opening of that office. And it was a secret.
Like, literally, it wasn't supposed to come out
that he was in New Zealand until after he had
returned. But yeah, there's been an FBI presence
in New Zealand for a while, but it was sort of
like an oversight thing that worked with Australia
and reported to Five Eyes stuff. Largely, there's
now a direct FBI office in New Zealand. Welcome
to the fun, y 'all. In Gaza, there is just a
shred of hope. So the United States has proposed
a 20 point plan to end the assault on Gaza by
Israel and help to alleviate the incredible levels
of human suffering that Israel has inflicted
on the people of Gaza. At time of recording,
nearly 2 million of the 2 .2 million people living
in Gaza have been displaced. And estimates say
that 2 .15 million of the 2 .2 million people
in Gaza are facing a hunger crisis. None of this
had to happen. Just wanted to say that. So Trump
is tired of dealing with this and he's getting
increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu. He has
proposed a 20 point plan and Hamas has agreed
to some of the plan. Arab nations have also been
supportive of some of the plan. The plan is pretty
shitty for Palestine in general. And so they're
like, look, we're happy and we're looking forward
to finding a path towards peace. But you can't
you can't be just telling us that we can't exist.
The United States proposal essentially is like,
yeah, it'll all end, but also Palestine needs
to be completely disarmed and under the purview
of a neutral board and so on and so forth. And
Palestinians are like, hey, we deserve our country.
That you took from us. So conversations are now
happening. Israel has still bombed Gaza even
after the ceasefire discussions began, because
of course. But I just want to note here that
the world has seen what's happened. Internationally,
there have been huge protests, millions of people
taking to the streets, even just from the flotilla
getting intercepted by Israel. Polls are showing
that sentiment towards Israel among American
citizens is rapidly changing. It used to be that
Israel had an iron grip on public sentiment in
America. If you said anything bad about them,
the worst you would get would be people saying,
oh, well, you know, it's just so complicated.
I guess what I'm trying to say is it's gotten
a lot less complicated for a lot more people.
Anyway, Japan's woke. Liberals rejoice. This
woman's probably going to be the next prime minister
of Japan for the Liberal Democrat Party. She's
super fucking conservative. So for international
viewers in the US, the word liberal has been
poisoned to mean, like, progressive slash leftist
somehow. The closest thing that we have to a
progressive party is the liberals, so the liberal
democratic party being conservative is funny.
So who is it? Let's talk about Sanae Takeiichi.
Takeiichi is a woman in a very male -dominated
party that is indisputable. Japan has a very
different set of gender norms than even the US
and UK. The gaps are even more significant. And
so while it's significant that she's a woman
that's gonna be leading this party for the first
time, she's still deeply conservative. She's
strongly anti -queer and not particularly good
for women's rights. She's loudly against giving
women the right to keep their maiden name after
marriage. But largely, she's a conservative populist.
That's her platform, is conservative populism.
And it shouldn't be surprising at this point.
This is kind of happening everywhere. Young people
in Japan are becoming disillusioned with the
status quo, and smooth -talking populists on
the internet are convincing them to shift right.
It is the same thing that's happening in Brazil
and the US and the UK and France and Germany
in a lot of places. So the Liberal Democrat Party
in Japan has recently lost their stranglehold
on the politics there. They had a majority and
they lost it recently. So now they have to actually
form a coalition before they can just choose
the prime minister. And presumably they are running
Takeichi because they want to take away from
the growing far -right populism, like the very,
very far -right. A new party has sprung up recently
and is getting traction because of, again, the
online conservatism, and I think they're trying
to undercut that, essentially. But still, Japan's
looking towards a new prime minister that's going
to be very right -wing. The woman idolizes Margaret
Thatcher. We'll leave it at that. Technology!
The time has finally come. It's here. Everything
that you've done, all of the work that you've
been putting in, human existence. every thought,
every moment has built to this point. PayPal
and Venmo can now send money to each other. Yep,
it took for fucking ever, but PayPal and Venmo
can now actually send money back and forth to
each other. Venmo is owned by PayPal. It's kind
of shocking it took this long. Now again for
international viewers, if you're watching this
and you're like, why is that important? What?
Or if you're wondering why the US has like a
trillion different payment apps, or why we're
just weird about money in general, it's because
there's money to be made in moving money. We
only have a viable consumer -grade money -moving
system provided by our government that operates
for free, like most of the world does. Instead,
we have a bunch of private companies that sell
the service of moving money for a cost. That
cost may be paid by the sender or the receiver,
or is eaten by a bank and then turned into bank
fees or something, but there's always a cost
they just try to hide it from you. So yeah, if
you use Venmo slash PayPal, you'll be able to
Venmo slash PayPal people cross, cross thing.
Worldwide, that's kind of neat. Moving on. Do
you have eggs? No? Give me your skin. For science.
Scientists got weird with it. They have worked
on a new fertility treatment that uses skin cells
to produce human eggs. Let's say that you are
struggling with fertility. Let's say you've got
eggs and they're not cracking, so to speak. I
don't know if that made any sense. You got eggs
and they ain't working. Here's the idea. Scientists
take egg and they yank the nucleus out of the
cell. We're talking about biology. Then they
take your skin cell and they take the nucleus
out of a skin cell and Put it in the egg cell.
It's like threading a needle, except for instead
of thread, it's minuscule soft tissue. And instead
of a needle, it's also minuscule soft tissue.
The idea here is to empower people who otherwise
can't produce genetic offspring to produce genetic
offspring. That's pretty fucking cool. This is
also hyper experimental. So for one, it's kind
of dubious. It brushes up against cloning technology.
So we're going to set all of that aside and just
talk about what it could possibly do, because
it could be a potential future treatment for
infertility. It also could be a future way for
people who do not have the ability to produce
offspring themselves to have genetically related
children. So like if you are a same -sex couple,
for example. Now, that is nowhere near reality.
I want to be super clear. According to the people
involved in this kind of research, they're saying
this is like... minimum 10 years off and that
does not even include legality and discussions
and approval and stuff like that. The embryos
that they were able to cultivate existed, but
none of them were like viable and none of them
were kept growing past like six days. But like
the proof is there. The concept is there. And
fertility treatment is just one of those things
that I think is really fucking cool because it's
a thing that ruins so many people's lives. Like
I don't have kids and don't want kids, but I
know that there are people who really do. And
I want them to have that. So that's cool. Anyway,
give me your skin. Lightning round! A New York
City apartment building partially collapsed as
a chimney just crumbled to the ground, leaving
a huge pile of rubble in the street. Leaders
of a church in Florida who had a mansion had
their mansion raided in which federal agents
found 57, quote, forced laborers who were working
the mansion. Some would call that slaves. A blizzard
at Mount Everest has trapped hundreds of hikers
on the mountain. And finally for today, the head
of a major U .S. beef producer has warned that
U .S. beef is not producing enough beef for the
U .S. Apparently we're too hungry for protein,
and with the tariffs and everything, there's
just not enough beef, which is why it's expensive.
I guess the point I'm trying to make here is,
where's the beef? Thank you so much for listening
to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
Head to SKH .News for sources, bonus content,
and a map with a location. of the beef. My name
is Endeavorance. We'll talk again soon. Take
care and be well.