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Feb. 3, 2025 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
01:29:34
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1092
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Hello everyone.
Welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters.
Today is Monday the 3rd of February.
This is episode 1092. I'm your host Stelios and I'm joined by Josh.
Hello.
We didn't plan this by the way.
We're not dressed very similarly on purpose.
Yeah.
We just sort of turned up this way.
Next time our ties should be black.
To remind people of Pulp Fiction.
Maybe even Reservoir Dogs as well.
Yeah.
Ezekiel 25, 17. Right, so we're going to talk about the plans to shut down USAID, a very large problem in Michigan.
I think, in fact, it will break Michigan.
And how 2025 is off to a weird start.
We have no announcements to make, so whenever you want, let us start.
I'll have a think about it.
You know, I'll put my feet up.
Take your time.
Take your time.
Yeah, no rush.
Time's no issue, is it?
No, of course.
One of my favourite developments of the Trump presidency is the discussion around the US Agency for International Development, or USAID. And in Trump's very first day, he had this executive order, re-evaluating and realigning United States foreign aid.
And in it, he had a 90-day pause on all of the things that come under this sort of...
Purview, I suppose.
And I liked how they framed it.
And I can actually scroll down and show you it rather than just read it myself, but I'll do that anyway.
The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.
True.
They serve to destabilise world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly in verse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and amongst countries.
Which I like the sound of.
And basically is saying that they're going to pause these organisations because, of course, it's not only the USAID, but it also comes into other things as well.
And they're going to review them and figure out what they're going to do with them.
And what that is, is this.
Because, of course, Elon Musk being in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, I don't know why I couldn't say that, or DODGE, Said he's actually going to be shutting down the Beyond Repair U.S. aid department, which...
Aflera.
Yes, wonderful.
Just get rid of whole departments.
This is what I want to see.
This is how you make America great, is you get rid of all of the federal government, because you don't need it.
Yeah, most of it is needless.
As, you know, technology and infrastructure has got better and more efficient, the government has grown when actually it should do the opposite.
Because, of course, communication.
There's no reason why when people are using letters and fax, why in the world of email and mobile phones you need more people to do the same job.
It doesn't make any sense.
Sure, there are more people in America, but I think you can have a lean estate, can't you?
And just to illustrate that, let's have a look at some of the facts and figures here.
So, the budget for 2025 would be $22.58 billion.
That's a lot of money.
It represents 0.2% of the US federal budget, which is horrifying, but it's worth mentioning.
In 2023, although the camera's in the way, it was nearly 51 billion.
So that's, you know...
50.1.
Yeah.
That's a lot.
That's quite a lot.
It's a waste of money, basically, is what it is.
Because once we see what the money is spent on you, you'll be very, very glad, but probably very, very angry that it happened in the first place.
So if you're a US taxpayer...
I'm sorry, I'm going to make you very angry.
However, I'm also going to make you very happy that it stopped.
There's some silver lining.
Yes.
So, quick question before we say more about this.
It sounds like the executive order that Trump signed is more like a statement of intent that says for three months, foreign aid is going to pause until it's re-evaluated.
So, yeah, we need also to see what's going to happen after three months.
I think what they were looking at was potentially folding the USAID, some of the things that were under its purview, into the State Department and getting rid of this and basically trimming a lot of the fat because, as we will see, there is a lot of fat.
And there's also this.
This was very interesting.
apparently Elon Musk's team tried to enter the offices of USAID and I'm gonna read from the Guardian here because of course they're gonna talk about this the demands of wanting to have to see the files which they're allowed to see led to a tense standoff during which a senior deputy to Musk threatened to call the US Marshals in to grant access to the building The officials said John Voorhees...
No, it's not that kind of...
Not that person, okay.
He doesn't have a hockey mask on.
I thought the same, to be fair.
USAID's Director of Security and Deputy blocked efforts by DOJ's members to physically access restricted areas.
So, I don't know what he did.
Did he just sort of stand in the way?
Like, you know, how eco-protesters chained themselves to trees?
Similar thing, maybe?
I don't know.
But they were put on leave after that show.
Which is...
If you're directly resisting the will of the president, which they are, because he signed that executive order and Elon Musk is acting on his authority, then you don't deserve to work for the executive branch of government.
That's pretty obvious, right?
So let's also point out this.
So the head is Samantha Power.
That's a good surname.
You have to give it to her.
Yeah, if you're in politics and your surname is Power, I feel like you're destined to succeed.
Or maybe you're destined to have people forever suspicious of you.
I don't know.
But she served as the administrator for USAID between 2021 and 2025. And she'd previously served as an ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017 under Obama.
In her time as an ambassador to the UN, she pushed loads of woke stuff and was pretty hawkish when it came to possible armed interventions abroad.
It's like the worst of both worlds, really, isn't it?
We want to bomb you with rainbow bombs.
And I see something really interesting there.
She began her career as a war correspondent covering the Yugoslav wars before entering academic administration.
And she was a member of the Democratic Party and actually very vocally in favour of Obama's policies.
Yes.
Which is kind of weird, because Yugoslavia was a very failed multicultural or multi-ethnic ceremony.
Maybe, Stelios, this is a strange thought.
Maybe she didn't pay attention to the actual lessons of the Yugoslav wars.
But yes, she was also...
Involved in the Russiagate conspiracy or hoax or whatever you want to call it.
The failed attempt to say that Trump was a Russian agent.
She used her authority to reveal the identities of hundreds of names of those involved in intelligence.
And it was a big scandal.
And yeah, so obviously she's very critical of Trump.
And so going after a department in which she's been in charge of for four years and has been shaped around her, presumably, is probably a good idea, right?
Seeing this from this senator here.
A president is not a king.
Trump cannot eliminate USAID with the stroke of a pen.
Not only is it illegal, it is a gift to our adversaries.
It's worth mentioning JFK, not RFK, as in JFK shot in the head, created the department by executive order and so it makes perfect sense to my mind that it can also be dismantled in the same way, right?
If you can create a department in one way, you can dismantle a department in one way.
It doesn't mean that if a department is created, it should forever be in existence.
Yeah, the powers of the presidency have not changed in the Constitution since that has happened.
Well, at least in theory.
But Elon on Twitter, of course, said it is a criminal organization and it's time for it to die.
So it seems like the whole thing is just going to be wiped.
And apparently, Elon Musk has said that Trump agrees with him, which is good because he's beneath Trump, so shouldn't be framing it that way around.
But still, it seems like Trump does agree.
And in fact, this is what he had to say.
Disciplining him, yeah.
*laughs* *whispers* Well, it's been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we're getting them out.
USAID, run by radical lunatics, and we're getting them out, and then we'll make a decision.
*laughs* I love how he repeats everything twice.
Giving the media their sound bite there.
But it's true.
I mean, it's not even hyperbolic.
It is run by radical...
Left-wing lunatics.
And we will see this.
I'll show you some of the things they're funding.
We need it also here in Europe because we have all these crazy NGOs funding our destruction.
Even more so than the US, yeah.
So this was interesting.
In this same presumably press conference here, he mentioned South Africa.
And they're cutting aid to South Africa.
And this was really important because remember I covered recently the land expropriation bill?
Yes.
Basically said that the government can take white farmers' land without even compensating them.
Trump said this about that.
It's only South Africa.
Terrible things are happening in South Africa.
The leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things.
So that's under investigation right now.
We'll make a determination.
And until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing, they're taking away land, they're confiscating land, and actually they're doing things that are perhaps far worse than that.
That's really, really promising that the US is now using its influence to push back against what I would call the...
The genocide of white people in South Africa.
They're going full communist there.
Of course they are.
They're de-kulakizing the country because they want to completely disrespect the property rights of the farmers.
Well, they don't even recognize them.
and here's a post from Donald Trump about that to sort of expand upon it.
South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people very badly.
It is a bad situation that the radical left media doesn't want to so much as mention.
A massive human rights violation at a minimum is happening for all to see.
The United States won't stand for it.
We will act.
Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed.
and uh... i think they are quite serious about this because They have deleted the account, the Twitter account, for USAID. And the Financial Times is reporting that the website has gone dark as well.
So it does seem like the whole thing is going, which is great.
And why does it exist?
Why does this government exist in the first place?
Governmental department, should I say.
Well, Akele...
The president of El Salvador has a thing or two to say about it and I think he's bang on the money here.
Most governments don't want USAID funds flowing through their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up.
While marketed as support for development, democracy and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas and destabilizing movements, which is very true.
At best, maybe 10% of the money reaches real projects that...
10% number has been repeated by Elon Musk and lots of other people that have said that actually most of the money disappears before it reaches its intended target.
Funny that, isn't it?
That free handouts have a habit of disappearing.
Cough, cough, Ukraine.
But it carries on to say...
Before the money reaches real projects to help people in need, and there are many such cases, but the rest is used to fuel dissent, finance protests, undermine administrations that refuse to align with globalists' agendas, and cutting this so-called aid isn't just beneficial for the United States, it's also a big win for the rest of the world, which I agree with.
Yeah, I mean, the whole thing, funding corrupt governments in order to...
To just somehow become non-corrupt is ridiculous.
You pay them to not become corrupt?
This is known for decades.
Most of the economic aid given, for instance, to Africa doesn't actually help people there.
No, of course not.
It actually harms them by funding the people who oppress them.
So Mike Benz has done a lot of work on this and he had been on Joe Rogan saying there is no aid in USAID.
It's not an aid organization.
USAID stands for U.S. Agency of International Development.
What it's developing is all these activist organizations in foreign countries that the State Department is building to gain influence, which is true.
USAID was created to be a central hub that organizes all different foreign clandestine operations.
It has a 50 billion budget.
The entire intelligence community is only 72 billion.
So this is an important comparison here because I think that there's a pretty good argument to suggest that It's a sort of more public-facing arm of the US intelligence agencies, and you can look at the fact that the funding's almost comparable there.
And it carries on to say, it's more than the CIA and State Department, it's a switch player to assist the Pentagon, the State Department, and the intelligence community.
Which, to be fair, it is.
And of course, we know these people in charge of these departments.
Very resistant to Trump and the right more generally.
They back the Democrats and they have done lots of things to interfere in political processes domestically and certainly abroad.
So there's another example here.
That the USAID program set up a fake AIDS prevention workshop to topple a foreign government here.
So this says, Perfect excuse for the program's political goals.
A gambit that could undermine America's efforts to improve health globally.
Yeah, and that is going to be accompanied by famous people talking in famous platforms.
I'm not naming any of them for known reasons.
Who are going to say we need to solve this issue.
It's social justice.
So how are you going to do it?
Fund us.
Fund this organization over there.
Yeah, I don't see how this is in the interest of the American people, how this money is being spent.
And then...
RFK has talked about how the CIA have used USAID as a front that used 5 billion in 2014 to ignite a colour revolution in Ukraine.
And Victoria Nuland, that's not her real surname, picked the new government a month before the old government was overthrown.
Which, you know, looking at some of the leaks from Biden when he was vice president of Obama and how he's talking as if he's...
Choosing people and saying, listen, we're going to hold this money back unless you get rid of this prosecutor who happens to be involved in prosecuting a company that his son worked for.
Funny that, isn't it?
Yeah, Burisma.
So where is a lot of this money going?
So apparently some of it's going to the production of heroin in Afghanistan.
I'm sure they're very upset about this because the Taliban have clamped down on it.
But apparently they're helping irrigate, fertilise Afghan opium fields.
And here we go here.
American taxpayer money has funded irrigation canals, farming equipment and even fertilisers used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan.
I don't know why they're saying it mainly benefits the Taliban.
Actually, they've shut it down.
They don't like heroin, it turns out.
But there we go.
It's also worth mentioning on the topic of Afghanistan.
This person here, you might recognise him, Callum.
He used to work here.
When Callum went to Afghanistan, he went rummaging around in the rubbish, as you often do, behind a hotel, and found this.
So I found this big trash pile.
All trash.
Things that Afghanis don't need.
Loads of chairs.
Other crap.
More chairs, rugs they don't want.
What else don't they want in Afghanistan?
Gender sensitivity training.
You can see the USAID logo there.
Yeah, Callum's got a channel.
You should go check it out.
Doing his travel videos.
Another thing that the USAID may have helped fund is the...
They funneled $53 million to EcoHealth Alliance, who were supporting the gain-of-function research of coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab.
So, yes, here we are.
USAID, one of the main funders of this organization, which...
Depending on how you look at the COVID origin.
Yeah, I think that the Wuhan lab is the most likely origin point of the virus.
And so, yes, you have USAID to blame for COVID. There you go.
Also, they gave them a further 13.2 million grant after it was found that the National Institute of Health admitted that The EcoHealth Alliance had violated the terms of the Wuhan lab grant and they gave them more money.
And this was in 2021. And they're also the third largest donor to the BBC. Here's the BBC talking about it.
USAID was our far...
Third largest donor, providing nearly 1.9 million.
So the US taxpayer is funding our state broadcaster for some reason, which even I don't fund.
I don't pay for the BBC. So why are you?
Why would they do this, Josh?
By the way, I want it abolished.
That's not me gloating.
Why would they do this, though?
You don't...
Well, it's left-wing propaganda, isn't it?
That's why they're funding it.
And also, they've given millions of dollars to...
Bill Kristol as well.
He was complaining, he's saying the deep state is far preferable to the Trump state.
And then someone pointed out the deep state is preferable because you are listed as the president of Defending Democracy, which is an indirect beneficiary of USAID through the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
So, there you go.
Lots of money involved by the looks of it.
So yes, obviously a lot of the people coming out and defending it.
are also the beneficiaries of it, so that's worth mentioning.
That's always the question, who benefits?
They've also provided 2.1 billion to Gaza, which is confusing because I thought the US government worked on behalf of Israel, but there we go.
And then also they've spent an inordinate amount of money countering disinfo.
So this is...
Like a video and you can see that you've got the USAID thing there.
People are taxed in order to fund their own censorship.
And of course here's another document funded by USAID and it's asking for social media companies to agree to policies on strategic silence.
So on certain topics you can strategically silence people.
Why would the average American taxpayer want to be strategically silenced when, you know, they have the constitutional right to free speech and they're paying to have that right deprived?
Seems a bit strange, doesn't it?
It's of strategic importance, Josh.
Strategies all that matters.
Yes.
Strategy of left-wingers, unfortunately.
So...
Here is Mike Benz again, who's been very good on this stuff, saying that the military under Joe Biden and Mark Milley openly plotted to incite race riots in Africa and then used USAID to swoop in and give striking protesters no-show jobs on US taxpayers' dime so they could keep getting paid while striking and protesting in the streets.
And he was saying that they're paying to destabilise these countries to then get something in return.
They say, we can make this go away if you do what we want.
This makes sense because in the previous segment you did about South Africa, if we bear in mind the kind of language that Ramaphosa and his supporters used, it is language that is just tailored to a first-year undergraduate audience in Ivy League universities.
It reads as if he's speaking to Americans.
Exactly.
And it's very easy to pick up on that as well, isn't it?
Particularly from outside.
And so that may explain why that's going on in the first place.
And then here's another example.
They paid $20 million to hit-piece journalists trying to dig up dirt on Rudy Giuliani, of course Trump's lawyer, and then used that as the basis to impeach the president then, 2019, which was Donald Trump, funnily enough.
Strange that.
So it's almost like the department was explicitly working to...
You know, remove someone from their office that is now in charge of them.
Kind of makes sense that Trump's removing them then, doesn't it?
And if you don't have enough reason to be bitter against them, AOC, apparently her career in politics was kick-started by their college program, which, yes, they brought AOC into politics, USAID. And another thing as well, this might be important for you, they played a key role in censoring the internet in Brazil.
I'm pretty sure you've covered this before, haven't you?
Yes, with Alexander de Moraes.
That's right, yeah.
And finally, they've given 15 million to George Soros' Open Society Foundation, which may as well be, you know, the Kick Puppies Foundation or something like that.
Yeah, that was only...
Only over Obama's last four years, which means that most probably they'll have given more before.
That is true, yeah.
And of course, anyone who's familiar with George Soros and his Open Society Foundation knows that it is a force for great evil in the world.
Yeah, and especially the last sentence gets me.
However, the funding was primarily for Soros' operations in Albania and Macedonia, which probably means that he's basically people trafficking.
Like, there is proof out there of George Soros funding illegals flying into Mexico to break into the southern border.
But also it's an issue of how this foundation is used in order to destroy identity in the Balkans, for instance, when he's talking about Skopje.
Yeah, well, obviously USAID is a massive...
What it has been used as is a means of getting political leverage for people who don't have the American people's interests at heart.
They only have themselves at heart.
And the fact that lots of the money has gone to left-wing figures, and also the fact that it's been used to destabilise foreign countries, which has actually brought plenty of refugees to Europe and America, It's quite telling, isn't it?
And I think it's a very good thing, and it's nice to hear that something is actually being done about it.
Right, we have several comments.
Do you want to read?
Sure, blimey, look at all these.
We have time.
Matt G. Hammond says, did you know that the USAID funded the campaigns of Soros' prosecutors who prosecuted Trump?
You knew what I was going to say before I said it.
Thank you for the two dollars.
That is true.
He has a team of six autistic people.
I don't know if they're autistic, but I'm just going to guess they are.
Maybe.
Matt G. Hammond says, FJP, Fair and Just Prosecution, a non-profit that supports and influences progressive prosecutors in the US, was given £27 million by USAID. Excuse me.
That's awful.
That's one of the ones I didn't see, but I would have included.
There's so much, obviously, that it's impossible to know.
Update from Pennsylvania.
Punk's attorney Phil seizes shadow and declares martial law and suspension of all human rights.
Blimey.
That groundhog's...
Dangerous.
I mean, just keep Bill Murray away.
Neil Unrealis says, USAID is the vehicle through which the migrant NGOs are funded through South America, Central America and Mexico.
Trump and Elon are smashing the permanent infrastructure the left took years to build.
Good.
Yeah, why should taxpayers pay for their own replacement?
It's ridiculous.
Binary Surfer says, prediction, most of these dodge targets organisations will survive.
I see an attempt to recapture the rival castles, not dismantle them.
The real test will be where there is real tax and spend drop.
Well, I imagine they're getting rid of most of this stuff, right?
Old Eagle says, USAID is a money laundering organisation.
Everyone and organisation that GoFunds from them should be thoroughly looked at.
Bet will find government officials have their pockets lined with donations.
We're pretty much already finding that out, but yes, I agree with what you're saying.
Right now we are going to talk about a very important story that happens in Michigan, and it actually hits right at the heart of law fair, and talks about weight being a protected characteristic.
Mm-hmm.
And there has been an issue now with Lyft and De Jour Blanding.
Do you know De Jour Blanding?
The what?
Yeah, are you aware of De Jour Blanding?
De Jour Blanding?
Yes, that's a name.
Oh, is that a person, is it?
She's also known as Dank de Moss.
I thought De Jour Landing sounded like some sort of legal principle.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Anyway, maybe my pronunciation...
Isn't that good?
It's a silly name.
It's what it is.
Well, I mean, not necessarily.
It's a different name.
Okay.
Very diplomatic today.
We are talking about her swing Lyft.
Lyft is a taxi platform, I think, something like that.
Sounds like it, yeah.
Something like Uber.
I've never used their service before.
Yes, exactly.
And what happened was that Miss Blonding ordered a vehicle.
She wanted to enter the vehicle and the driver told her that you can't fit into that vehicle because it's going to be very harmful for that vehicle.
Is there a picture of her anywhere?
Yes, yes, there is.
Don't look at the top stories, by the way.
Right, so we have here...
Miss DeMoss.
Goodness me.
And her lawyers.
She got any acting credits for playing the boulder in Indiana Jones that chases him?
She's a rap artist.
A hip-hop artist, by the way.
I mean, how is she able to spit bars when she's so busy filling her mouth?
But there's a video here of her trying to enter the vehicle.
And I want to play it because this is like, you know, in football.
The VAR. Where's this going?
Yeah, where there is a kind of incident where the referee hasn't decided yet.
So people are going to look at the video because she says...
That the driver hurt her feelings and denied her entrance to the car and the driver says that he was extremely polite and this is a very contested case and her lawyers are using this footage in order to say that she was actively discriminated against because of weight and weight is a protected characteristic in Michigan.
Ever since 1976, the Elliot Larson Civil Rights Act?
It's a human rights case since the 70s that if you're overweight, it's a discriminatory category.
People shouldn't discriminate according to weight.
Let us play this, because she actually filmed it.
There's a lot into this rabbit hole.
She's like a feeding frenzy for lawyers, is what she is.
I'm sorry.
What?
What you saying?
I got more space.
My car is small.
I can fit in this car?
Believe me, you can.
Yes, I can.
Believe me.
So, I'm sorry.
What I'm going to do about my money?
I'm going to cancel you.
You're not going to be car.
So, you're telling me I can't get a lift because I can't fit in your car?
Yeah, you need to order a bigger car.
What make you think I can't fit in a car?
Yeah, I'm sorry.
What makes you think I can't fit in this car?
My best friend has a biz that's newer than this that I can fit in.
That's the same size.
You're going to need a bigger boat.
So you're really telling me I'm too busy in your car, so I gotta order another lift.
Sam's only having a heart attack.
She's obviously fishing in this one.
I don't know Josh, if he gets the hands out, I don't know.
What I got to do with your tires?
How do you know I don't have no space?
How do you know I don't have no space?
Because I've tried before.
It's his car.
He can do what he wants.
So every big person you turned on because they can't fit in your car?
Yeah, because they need to order the Uber XL. No, I don't ever have to order an Uber XL. I don't want to hear this annoying word.
What's your name?
He was very polite as well, wasn't he?
Right, so first of all, I think he came across as polite.
Yeah.
And how should I say it?
He told her that you should have taken the XL lift because there was a separate...
Is there another category, is there?
There was another category, which is a vehicle that fills up to six people.
Because the standard one is up to 40. Does it come with a really long...
I shouldn't do that.
A really tall arm that is used in the construction and destruction of tall buildings?
I can't believe I just did that.
It's an issue of comfort.
Right?
It's an issue of comfort.
So he tells her, I'm going to reimburse you, I'm going to cancel the fare.
But he didn't actually help her take...
Order an XL on the spot.
So he gave her the money back and just declined the fare.
We should say also that it is his vehicle because it's like the Uber thing, like the Uber platform.
Lyft is like that.
If you want to be a driver...
What did you say?
I'm just trying to maintain the culture.
If you want to be a driver, Josh, with Lyft, you take your own car and you become a Lyft driver.
Right.
So, she is suing this, and this is a multi-million dollar suit.
And she says that this is segregation, and it is the exact thing like discriminating against people's color.
Let's play this.
Georgia Blanding tells us she was just trying to get to a Detroit Lions watch party this month when her lift rolled up.
As I'm walking, I see him, like, making faces or whatever.
I'm like, oh, man.
She already knew.
I can fit in this car.
Believe me, you can.
Yes, I can.
Believe me.
He told her there's not enough room in his car.
It looks like a lift might be hurting pretty soon, too.
I knew it was illegal and I knew that it was wrong.
Her attorneys, John Marco and Zach Runyon, say weight is a protected characteristic in Michigan by law.
It would be no different than a driver pulling up and saying, you know, I don't want to have black people in my car or I don't want to have Christians in my car or Muslims in my car.
It's the same under the law.
The lawsuit is filed.
Since she posted the encounter on social media, other full-figured folks have reached out saying the same.
Full figured.
Five figured.
So, I'm no legal expert.
I'm no law expert.
So, it's very conceivable that something has eluded my attention.
But I checked the Elliot Larson Civil Rights Act of 1976, Josh.
And it's mostly, at least from a first glance, it's mostly about employees and employees.
I didn't see that saying anything about customers.
Because there's a distinction between discriminating against employees or potential employees and discriminating against customers.
Furthermore, there's also the case of the basis of discrimination.
So these are separate matters.
But something may have eluded me, so don't take that as very indicative.
But she said that her feelings were hurt and that she can't come out of the house.
And that's not nice.
That's not nice.
Is that the reason?
That's not nice.
It's the feelings that prevent her from leaving her house.
Let's hear this.
I haven't really, like, left my house since then.
She hopes this lawsuit will change how people treat others of all sizes.
So, how does this sound?
It sounds like she's really missing out on her really long daily walks that she would have definitely done regularly.
Had she not had her feelings hurt.
So do you believe, does this sound as credible when she says that she doesn't, that she doesn't, she can't get out of the house?
I don't, I believe that she doesn't leave her house much, yeah.
Right, so I have here something, where is it?
I found out that she's actually a known rapper from Detroit.
Who has thousands of followers.
And I... Orbiters, some might say.
Don't be mean.
It's just another term for follower.
I don't know what you mean.
Yeah, actually, yeah, you're correct.
I know.
You're correct.
You see how evil I was.
I rushed to interpret what you said in the worst possible way.
I definitely meant that in a well-mannered and polite way, didn't I? Right, so we see here De Jour Blanding, a.k.a.
Dank DeMoss, is a rapper from Detroit, Michigan, known for penning tracks including So What, Just Talking and Rounds.
The star is proudly class-sized and has been vocal about the importance of body positivity.
Class-sized?
According to her Instagram account, she's the CEO of Detroit Bass Record Company for Show Doe Records.
Of course it's got the word Doe in it.
She also describes herself as a writer, ghostwriter, rapper and a sanger.
So I want to say something.
If you are a body positivity activist, you actually want...
You're kind of used to being discriminated and you want to highlight it, so it's very unlikely that something like that, an incident like the left driver declining her fare, would actually impact her.
I've always thought that the problem with the body positivity movement is visibility.
They're just not visible enough, are they?
Yes, and by the way, Lady Gaga said some things about some other groups about visibility, but I'm not going to touch on it because it's a separate issue.
Basically, yeah.
Right, so what are the odds she may be doing this for publicity?
100%.
No, actually, money.
Right, so DeJour has over 170,000 followers on Instagram as of January 2025, where she nicknames herself Paid.
Fat Queen.
Well...
P-A-H-A-T. If she willingly calls herself that, is she really that hurt?
Yeah, but what about the tyres?
Because the argument of the driver was about the tyres, that the added weight on the car would actually impact her tyres and would destroy the vehicle.
Isn't that too much?
Um, not really.
Right, so on her social media account she shares insight into her life, including her love of fashion.
In one video, she transformed the skirt into a shirt which she paired with her Prada bag.
I'm surprised it wasn't a pair of curtains.
The joueur said that she thinks that it is okay to re-wear clothes and urged fans to ignore people who say otherwise.
Old parachutes, maybe bedsheets.
I don't understand this, but what...
What's the issue with re-wearing clothes?
I mean, you wear some clothes, you wash them again, and you re-wear them.
If it is about this celebrity culture that you only wear a dress once, I think I'm actually with her.
No, I think, yeah.
And if she's on about second-hand clothes, that's also okay, as long as you're not wearing someone else's underpants.
And I will say about her music, I can't play it because it has lots of explicit language.
We're a family-friendly podcast here.
Exactly, yeah.
She's using words that start with N and B. Okay.
All the time, and I don't think it's...
We should maintain a level of quality.
But I will say that music-wise, it's kind of catchy.
It has a tune or something.
And I will play this without sound.
I want to show you, because there's something I really like about her.
I want to...
She's got a real gravity about her, isn't she?
Yes, here in the God bless cameras we can see her here.
But the point is, she's really famous.
If you play here, her part is the most replayed one.
So she's coming up and she's gonna shame all them, you know, all them bees.
She doesn't like insects.
Yeah, but you know, she's gonna take the stage here and she's actually going to...
She actually pulled it off well.
And I think there's a kind of, you know, how should I put it in intellectual fashion?
There's a kind of shaming in this bit because she's shaming lots of people from the hood for not upholding standards.
No one can say she bit off more than she can chew.
She's a titan of the hip-hop game.
Yeah.
So, here she fell on stage.
I do people in Australia.
And that's an issue.
So there's a question here with elevators, planes, stages, because the point is, if you constantly make it about having a product, like a stage that someone is going to buy for, You know, for concerts, for gigs.
You constantly need to thank almost everyone.
It's not unconditional.
Like, if you go on, I think the weight is close to 498 pounds.
I think Samson might be dying.
You're right.
Do we need a medic or something?
I've never seen someone turn so red.
Okay.
Right, okay.
This is a very serious issue, Samson.
Yeah, please let us maintain a standard of quality.
I, for one, will not see discrimination and bigotry.
Yes.
Fat phobia on this podcast.
Can you breathe?
Just do a thumbs up if you can breathe.
Okay, that's a thumbs up.
Samson's alive.
So, the issue is you walk into a building and you see the lift says tops.
You know, the elevator can only...
Take, can only withstand the weight of X kilograms.
If you are more than X, you can't sue them for racism.
You can try.
You can try and maybe...
It wouldn't work.
I mean, to be fair, I'm quite a tall person.
When I've been on an airplane, my knees have been digging into the back of the seat in front of me quite often.
I don't think, you know what, airlines, they hate that I'm tall.
I think most people are shorter than me.
The world is designed around the average person and, you know, at least I don't have to get a footstool to reach tall things.
I'm not going to do the same thing twice in one segment, by the way.
Yeah, but I want to say people have been exceptionally mean and I do not condone this and they put out memes about forklifts and they draw comparisons about airplanes.
And they say that, you know, this is an issue, how much everything needs to be catered into just essentially covering the needs of each and every person.
I think that they need to look at certain industries because, you know, with lots of competition, it breeds innovation.
And I feel like the market for them is, you know, shipping and sea travel.
Rather than air and land.
I think they're best suited by the way in which they have been made to travel by those means rather than other ones.
Exactly.
So I think that this is a very interesting debate in lawfare and actually I think that Trump has a lot of work to do because wokeness doesn't end and all this, you know...
Silliness doesn't end.
It's also an issue in the States and this is going to continue.
The ever-devouring issue of wokeness.
The ever-devouring and, let's say, ever...
Wokeness is something whose hunger can't be satiated.
It does have an insatiable appetite for the consumption of all in its view.
Exactly.
And I will say this because a lot of people are saying this.
I've started being pessimistic about the...
About wokeness going away, especially in the U.S. I think it is here to stay.
It will come back with a vengeance.
And the argument is, on the one hand, that they're embarrassing and the Democrats need the Bernie bros who are going to highlight the economic issues and go back to a kind of social democracy or a bit more heavy on the traditional working class.
But I think that nothing stops them from doing both.
That's true.
They can make the same mistake again.
Yeah, so I think that cases like that, they are going to magnify and amplify.
They're going to get bigger.
Exactly.
They're going to be bigger in the same way that Michigan can be destroyed and Detroit can be destroyed.
It will happen to other US states.
Did she personally get the auto manufacturing out of Detroit?
Was that her?
Yeah, so I think that people need to be very vigilant and see silly cases of the sort.
And bear in mind that it's never over.
People need to remember that wokeness is just a way of creating artificial divisions and trying to give arbitrary power to those who are entrusted to enforce those divisions.
And it's kind of silly, but I don't think it's going to go away.
But also people shouldn't be mean.
I think people should take a short stand for their gentle right to exercise their ability to be fat.
Right, so, Dragon Lady Chris, hello.
She says, lift, XL lift, forklift.
Neon Realist, all jokes aside, the driver wasn't being mean.
He had a small car.
She clearly didn't fit in and even empty the car was a few inches off the ground.
Had she gotten in, I suspect the car would bottom out.
Yeah, but she said she could fit.
Neon Realist, she said she could fit.
Right, Wesley 1924, the Lyft driver would have had an easier time parking his car up her backside rather than have her squeeze into the back seat.
That's mean, that's mean.
Sigil Stone 17, Obi-Wan Kenobi quoted as saying, That's no moon, it's a fat ass.
Right, and that's a random name.
Pay attention during the entire video.
She's standing still and panting.
Also, her speaking in ebonics makes her fit the Jabba the Hat aesthetic even more.
LMAO. She just wants to find Han Solo.
I had some memes, but I ended up not putting them in.
It's YouTube's rules for us, eh?
Yes, and one of them was Jabba the Hat calling a taxi.
Hear me out.
I can fit in.
Bobo Bad, "Dijon Landing" was landing Di Gournos at her record rise.
"I wonder how long it takes to make a rap song when she's winded after one sentence." Yeah.
And GLE771, GLE777, if she took the lift the cables would snap.
Binary surfer, you know you're screwed when you're so fat you start panting.
G... Still talking with a driver.
Also, that multi-million dollar suit will only keep her in KFC for a week.
That's true.
How many KFC buckets is she going by with that?
Neon Realist.
Wade could be a protected class in Michigan, but the laws of physics don't cease to exist because leftist laws are passed.
Hamas would bottom out the car to the ground even if she could fit.
Bill Murray, Dana Croyd and Emmy Hudson are on their way to stop her after she stepped on a church in their town.
Bobo Bad, the real friends were really unliftable all along, and of course she was going to a Detroit Lions watch party.
In Gold Eagle 1787, weight is not a protected class.
There are several cases in the US that deem weight as a public safety risk when it comes to methods of transportation, which can deny service because of weight.
Bobo Bad, I can't believe USAID used du jour to cause food shortages in Africa and South America.
And Connor's Smug Mug, I roll with Fat Kelly.
That's how we roll.
Right.
You might say, how do I follow that last segment?
But I'm gonna.
Music to my ears.
So, I've noticed since the turn of 2025...
Some of the news has been strange, stranger than usual.
And I'm going to go through some of it as a nice light-hearted start to February of 2025. So, I'm starting off with this.
The Belgian government advised Belgians not to eat their Christmas trees.
This is tyranny.
The tyranny of Brussels.
Brexit, you know.
Rescued us from this oppression.
But apparently the city of Ghent in Belgium urged its citizens to make spruce-needle butter.
However, Christmas trees are often treated with pesticides and, don't laugh at this word, Stelios, fire retardants.
That means that it prevents fire, okay?
Which, if you consume them, are cancer-causing and hormone-disrupting.
So yes, they're actually saying, despite what the city said, you should not eat your Christmas tree.
No.
This makes me ultra-libertarian once again.
Because a man's liberty is a man's right to eat one's tree.
If I want to consume pesticides and fire retardants...
I want to eat my tree.
Is that what happens in Greece?
No.
No?
You want to be the man to start it?
Yeah.
It's a better principle.
But if you're feeling hungry and say you go on holiday from Belgium to North Korea for some reason, well, I've got some bad news for you.
Because apparently it is now treasonous to serve hot dogs.
Apparently, if you're caught cooking or selling hot dogs, you can be arrested and sentenced to hard labour in North Korea.
Because of course it's unrevolutionary to eat hot dogs.
This makes no sense.
Why?
Because they're American.
Also wearing blue jeans is also considered to be counter-revolutionary.
That's economic protectionism to a whole new level.
So yes, if you wanted some respite, you can't eat your tree.
Well, you can't eat hot dogs anymore either.
I know, it's political correctness gone mad.
Say you want to go to somewhere to buy some furniture, take your mind off of the fact that you can't eat these, you know, your Christmas tree or a hot dog.
Well, you need to watch out.
You can't roll up with your tank because apparently a dozen or so anti-tank mines ended up in IKEA. Which, you wonder, how does this happen?
That would be cool though, to have a tank and just drive around.
Do you know that tanks in Britain are actually road legal?
You can take a tank on the roads in Britain, fine.
In fact, tank ownership is just as legal as a regular road car.
So yeah, you know, they may have taken our firearms, but we can still have our tanks.
The Greens have anti-tank minds because they say they pollute too much.
It's in there to appeal to the eco-audience that are just tired of all of these British tank owners.
So apparently they were...
In Poland, there was a cargo shipping of mines that was, I think, destined for Ukraine, and they were being transported by rail near to the border of Belarus, and then they were in an ammunition depot.
Ammunition, even.
I don't know why I said it like that.
I'm saying it like I'm foreign now.
And they were offloaded, and then they went to the wrong warehouse.
Which happened to come under the control of IKEA. And so IKEA apparently contacted the people who shipped them and asked them, when are you going to collect all of your mines?
And so for a few days, IKEA was in possession of lots and lots of anti-tank mines.
So there you go.
If you use the bomb yourself.
But you might be concerned, okay, well, you know, these anti-tank mines could have...
You know, been taken up by terrorists and caused an act of terror.
Well, you might take some solace cowering in your bedroom, but be wary, because apparently...
The UK government has issued a cyberattack warning as apparently sex toys could be weaponised by hackers, which I didn't know was even possible.
Apparently, and I'm going to read directly from this, a report commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, so a government report, this is obviously very important stuff to the British people, well-spent taxes, has raised fears over the potential for cybercriminals to bypass security on app-controlled vibrators and alter their intensity.
Take them to epic mode.
So what are these cyber attackers going to do, exactly?
No, that setting's too high.
I'm slightly uncomfortable now.
The report found the connection between sex toys and smartphones are often not encrypted, making them vulnerable to cyber attacks.
It also found apps used to control sex toys often store sensitive information on third-party servers, which are also vulnerable to hacking.
Which is just another reason not to be a degenerate, isn't it?
Yeah, you need the Republican congressman who will appear out of nowhere and say...
Slap it out of your hand and say, the Chinese are going to get your data if you use it.
Stop using that vibrator.
Protect the Republic.
That's both immoral and insecure.
Shut them down.
So, you think, okay, so maybe I should go outside.
My home is not safe.
IKEA is not safe.
Maybe I should just go for a walk.
And if you're in Florida...
This might not be a good idea, because around this time of year, apparently, when things start freezing, you have to watch out for falling iguanas, as apparently, and this is a direct quote from the article, cold-blooded animals live in high trees throughout Florida, but aren't used to cold temperatures, meaning they just drop from the trees.
And here is a sort of screenshot of one falling.
I don't really want to show it, because I hope it doesn't get hurt.
But yes, yeah.
That's an iguana-fail compilation.
I don't know if it's a full compilation.
I hope they're out there somewhere.
But yeah, apparently if you're walking underneath trees in Florida when it's cold, you could be hit by a rogue reptile.
It's a cold town.
I knew you'd like that one.
I put that in there just for you.
And in animal-related news, apparently Colorado has ruled that elephants at a zoo cannot pursue their release because they're not human.
Yeah, but elephant rights are human rights.
I know, we just covered that in your last segment, didn't we?
That was whale rights.
That's true.
The case was brought by animal rights groups and apparently the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that they can't have the legal right to pursue their release because they are not human.
The court said the decision does not turn on our regard for these majestic animals.
Instead, the legal question here boils down to whether an elephant is a person, the court said, and because an elephant is not a person, the elephants here do not have the standing to bring a habeas corpus claim.
laughing No, I want to go for elephant visibility.
Yeah, you want more elephants just to round about?
Yeah.
Do you know in Zimbabwe, they're killing them to eat them because they're running out of food.
I wonder why that happened.
Also, a new kind of fungus has been discovered, named after David Attenborough, which turns cave spiders into zombies and makes them climb up to the top of a cave roof.
A zombie climbs on the top of the roof.
Yeah, the fungus controlling it directs the spider and then it infects other spiders through that.
And apparently the first one was actually found in a castle.
The first specimen named to science.
And it was discovered when the BBC was making a documentary.
So there you go.
A zombie spider.
Yes.
The parallels between David Attenborough's sort of eco-activism making lots of just-up-oil zombies and the zombie spiders.
There's a certain palpability to that.
And the final bit of animal news is a new bug was discovered.
Where do you think this bug was discovered, Stelios?
First of all, it just looks like a weird arthropod.
It does look like one of those.
It doesn't look like Darth Vader at all.
Yeah, I find them unbelievably cringe.
But what does it have to do with Darth Vader?
Well, it's been named after Darth Vader.
It's called Bethonomous Vadery after Darth Vader because of the shape of its head.
Apparently it looks like Darth Vader's helmet.
Actually, I don't know.
It reminds me of the other people in the room where Darth Vader entered in order to seek counsel to...
Darth Sidious in A New Hope.
They had some huge helmets.
Oh, like the clones?
Yeah.
Or the clones.
It doesn't matter.
But anyway, it was found in a Vietnamese wet market.
I'm going to look the other way.
People were eating these.
That's how they found them.
People were just like, yeah, what is this strange creature unknown to science?
Let's just eat that thing.
And apparently it tastes like lobster.
So that actually sounds quite nice.
Actually, lobster tastes good.
I really like lobster, yeah.
And so, they look like giant sea lice, don't they?
That's what they look like to me.
But yeah, the fact that they found a new species in a food market, well, of course it was going to be in Asia, let's be honest.
They eat anything over there.
And, okay, I lied.
There is one more bit of animal news.
So, apparently, the British Navy here, and it's been an embarrassing month for Britain more generally, The Navy bosses feared suspicious pings were Russian drones targeting UK nuclear submarines, but apparently they picked up farting whales.
One would have to wonder how accurate our detection systems are if you can mistake a whale for a drone.
Well, Josh, I think you're a bit unfair.
Because you don't know if something has changed in the whale's diet and people aren't that knowledgeable of it yet.
It just makes sense.
Maybe something in the diet of whales changed.
We need to look into that.
We only learn it now.
That's true.
They could be eating something else.
Who knows?
But one other thing that I thought was amusing was this.
Apparently...
That the UK has sentenced the first person ever for cyber farting.
Apparently a lady was harassing, I think it was, the ex of our current boyfriend or something.
I don't know.
Some sort of lover's dispute.
And this 25-year-old woman sent four videos of her farting, which is deemed cyber harassment by magistrates, and she had to...
Go through a 12-month community order, which required her to pay £100 in compensation, £199 in costs, along with a two-year restraining order, which is a very expensive fart.
Right, so he had some outputs.
It was a woman.
So she had outputs, and someone filmed her.
No, she filmed herself and sent it as like a taunt.
To this person.
Imagine that.
You're trying to get back at someone.
Like a bully or something.
You know, this is what's going to happen to you unless you comply.
In your face.
I don't know if it was a threat.
I don't know what possesses someone to do this, but yes, Britain's been very embarrassed this month.
Everything that's coming out of Britain is very shameful.
But it's a lot better than living in Paris.
Because Callum points out this.
This is from the Pakistani embassy.
It says, Paris, we're coming today!
Which, this was to do with resuming flights between Islamabad and Paris on the 10th of January.
However, it takes on a bit of a different look, doesn't it?
Americans in the audience, I'm sure, can point out how this looks.
Particularly around September.
So it looks like...
Pakistan's threatening to blow up the Eiffel Tower.
If you didn't get it.
If you're stupid.
There's also this.
Apparently, astronomers were worried about there being a newly discovered asteroid that was in Earth's orbit.
And they thought, oh no, this could cause some potential damage.
Well, it turns out it's actually Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster that he launched into space.
So Elon is trolling people.
Even after the fact.
And speaking of...
Oh, that's not a meteorite strike.
There should be a video here of a meteor striking a Canadian home and it lands right on their doorstep.
Hang on, let's see if I can refresh it and it'll come up because it's worth seeing.
How small a meteor was this?
This is not a meteor.
You've got mail.
I was an advocate for...
This looks like Australian news to me.
West Sydney Road.
Well, I'm sorry, but apparently this news outlet has changed their video, so you can't see it.
But there would have been a fun video here of a meteor hitting a Canadian doorstep.
What happened to the door?
Nothing.
It started fizzing.
There was lots of smoke.
But imagine that you walk home and there's just a meteor on your doorstep.
I'd like to see if there's any kind of message.
Crack it open.
Message in an egg.
Okay, well, that's disappointing.
Well, another thing that's disappointing is this.
Apparently, New York had their first five days in a row of no shootings, and then five minutes after it was announced, there were two shootings.
So that was the longest streak of no shootings in 30 years.
And it only took five minutes for it to end after it was announced, which is a shame.
But on a similar note, law enforcement...
Are they happy now that they caused this with their...
Shooting ways.
...segment?
If they said nothing about it, these shots wouldn't have been fired.
Exactly.
The police are a direct cause of it.
Here we have another one.
Police Officers Union says, PD, I think that's Houston, so it's in Texas, unit doing donuts was snitching.
And I think the video is somewhere.
Ah, here we go.
Cops eating donuts.
I mean, I can't blame them.
Well, cops...
Oh, for goodness sake, they've got announcers.
Just play the video.
But basically, they were just doing donuts in the snow, and then someone snitched on them, and the police called them out for it.
Saying you're a snitch and you know there's a phrase that I had and many others actually not just me it was pretty well known that if you snitched when I was in school people would say snitches get stitches you know and rightfully so no one likes a snitch.
Let them enjoy their doughnut.
Exactly.
So the Chinese are also having problems with their police force.
Their first police corgi Lost their end of year bonus.
Apparently they were sleeping on the job and they also peed in their food bowl.
And having donuts.
They didn't.
There were no donuts involved.
But apparently some of their toys were confiscated after bad behaviour.
But look at that little guy.
Look at him.
That police corgi.
I think they're a bomb dog.
It's an issue of inflation.
That's why he didn't get the bonus.
Yeah, the Chinese have printed too much money, that's it.
But yes.
No, actually they should discipline this dog.
That's a dirty habit, isn't it?
Yeah, you don't pee where you eat.
Just don't do this.
Speaking of dogs in China, who wants to see...
This is a Chinese zoo that unveiled its new tiger exhibit.
And of course...
These tigers look a little bit on the small side.
Like a tiger zebra.
And also, those fences, I don't know.
These dangerous animals need to be kept in specialist facilities, really.
Look at them.
Bloodthirsty animals, both.
And of course, this is the same zoo that is known for...
There should be a video somewhere.
What is going on?
All of the videos are disappearing.
Is that the video with Steve Irwin?
No, it was meant to be a video because they had the pandas that were just dogs.
I hate these websites.
The dog pandas.
Yeah.
What's actually doing?
Is there a crossbreed?
They're painting the dogs.
They're painting the dogs.
I know.
It's better than eating them.
It's true.
They're not Haitians.
Actually.
Stalios, it's China.
They are eating the dogs.
Oh dear.
Took it on a low note there.
But we're not done with China yet because obviously lots of weirdness goes on.
Apparently, if you like going on your phone when you go to the toilet, in China that is not allowed.
Apparently they've been taking too long.
So what's been going on?
A Chinese company has been taking pictures of people on the toilet and shaming them by leaving their pictures up in the bathroom.
Apparently, a Chinese company in Shenzhen has received massive criticism after it took extreme measures to punish employees for spending too long in the restroom.
Lijun Daisheng in southern China's Guangdong province resorted to photographing employees using the toilet and subsequently posting the pictures on the restroom wall.
That's not nice.
That's horrible, isn't it?
Just zero privacy.
Look at these people.
They look as if they're sitting on a hole.
Yeah.
They don't have proper toilets, do they, a lot of the time.
Apparently they were smoking and playing mobile games.
Also, if it's just a hole in the ground, it's not like you're sat on something, so you're just squatting there.
So you shouldn't be doing that anyway, but it's still gross that the company was doing that.
And then, what do you think my final story is, Stelios?
Something about New Zealand.
That's true, you can see the tab, yes.
Yeah, so that's the only thing.
Say, you're a fan of mountains, right?
Yeah, of course.
Of course I'm a fan of mountains.
I know, you're Greek, you love a mountain.
So mountains, you think that maybe they add a bit of character to a place?
Maybe they...
Depends, they can, yeah.
They have a feeling, an essence, a sort of character about them.
They need to be well behaved though.
That's true, you don't want misbehaving mountains.
Yeah, because actually they give a bad name to countries if they're not nice.
They start erupting, maybe.
Yeah.
So the final thing I wanted to touch on, the weird stories of the month, is that this sacred mountain, Mount Taranaki, was granted personhood in a new law.
So this mountain is now legally a person in New Zealand.
Does it look like a person to you?
I think so, yeah.
Okay.
I think I could communicate with it.
Do you speak mountain, do you?
Yeah, I do speak mountain.
What does it sound like?
Give us a rough idea.
It actually sounds a lot like Dutch.
Lots of kh.
Yeah.
Okay, I never would have guessed that.
But apparently, because it's viewed as an ancestor in the Maori language, even though they didn't really get there in the 14th century, so they...
I think so.
We've got provable evidence that they're not born of a mountain.
So, yes, because it's part of their indigenous view that they are born of this mountain, it's been legally recognised as a person and holds the same rights as a person.
So, apparently, you can't climb...
If you climb the mountain, you've got to ask it for consent first now.
Which is strange, but apparently they've ruled that a river and a stretch of sacred land are people before as well.
Taranaki manga rights are human rights.
We need to hear more about this, don't we?
Mountain rights.
But that's it.
That is the start of the news for the year.
It's been very weird.
I don't know what people have been doing, but yes, there's probably a lot more to come.
I'm keeping my eye out on the monkey news personally, that's my favourite kind of news.
But yes, you're welcome I suppose.
Got a bunch of rumble rants before we go to the video comments.
Enexo says...
Eddie the Beast Hall, former World's Strongest Man, has a tank and frequently uses it to go shopping.
Eddie Hall's a bit of a legend, isn't he?
OPHUK, I went to IKEA, came home with an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Again.
I know, it's easily done, isn't it?
It's the naming conventions.
You know, it'll be a table and it'll be called like Plop or something.
Because it's all Swedish.
Conor Smug Mug says there is a Chinese otomie game that tracks women's menstrual cycles.
Xi Jinping wants to know your period.
Yeah, well, to be fair, knowing when to avoid women when it's that time of the month.
that's quite the power.
Boba Bad says, I don't want the Chinese threatening me with Nancy Pelosi's or her husband's toy settings and I really don't want to get a cryptic message from Beijing saying offshore drilling.
Dragon Lady Chris says, Speaking of weird news of the UK Navy, is it true that King ordered the renaming of HMS Agincourt to avoid offending the French?
Does he actually have authority to do that?
Yeah, I think it was...
What was it called instead?
It was called something else.
I didn't know it was the King that did it, but I know that it has been renamed.
It was also renamed to something else that was equally as offensive.
Oh yeah, King involved in woke name change.
It's now the HMS Achilles.
Okay.
So apparently it's just got one weakness.
That if you hit it, we'll kill it instantly.
So what you want out of your nuclear submarine, or whatever it is, is name it after something that's famous for having a weakness.
Just one, though.
Just one?
Because everyone else had weaknesses.
They were full of them.
Achilles is a good one.
I mean, he's weak to swords, arrows.
Yeah, only on his foot.
The submarine doesn't have a foot.
So it doesn't have a weakness.
I like your thinking, Stelios.
It's immune to damage now.
It's name change.
Right, let's have a look at the video comments.
Reveal its true essence.
Remove safety clip.
It's a bit quiet.
Don't look at my feet!
Fire?
Fire?
No?
Aim nozzle at base of fire.
That is typical.
LAUGHTER Why they've done that?
Yeah, I mean, labor just does everything that we know is wrong.
Everything.
Just as if they have a playbook.
It's almost like their entire ideology is just an inversion of our actual belief systems.
Almost like some sort of weird psychological operation.
It'd be terrible if that were true, wouldn't it?
Right, let's go to the next one by Steve H. Carl, I'm actually a AAA and film 3D artist, and I'm actually pretty optimistic around Astartes.
What I think is going on here, since the moment they post him, Pedersen and his corporate sponsors have been trying to get Astartes 2 greenlit, and they sort of gave him the secret level project as a test.
I think that the whole secret level short was just dripping with those influences.
I think after its tremendous success, they were finally able to win over upstairs and get the project greenlit, which is why the trailer for Astartes 2 dropped immediately afterwards, which is actually really good.
They're willing to put Pedersen's old work as the face of the brand and trust it.
That's huge, man.
For once...
I didn't understand, but I always enjoy watching you work on cars.
I'm sure Carl will find out about this, though.
We do have a quick comment here.
Keel sounds like heel.
The ship has a weakness.
There we go.
Sigilstone, thank you.
I've recently seen a lot of memes about the French Revolution popping up in leftist spaces, and it's made me wonder why they venerate the persecution of women and minorities.
Then I realised they claim it's working class praxis, and that made me realise how they fetishise the working class as a human shield for evil.
After all, no matter how you feel about gays and black people, or how many children you execute, or how much violence you instigate, it's justified because consequentialism in pursuit of utopian ideals.
It's why they get so very angry when the working class and minorities are shown to disagree with them in aggregate.
Their human shield has abandoned them, and all that's left is the undeniable reality that they are evil.
Yeah, yeah.
Yep.
Let's go to the next one.
So one feature about my game I particularly like is that I've tried to make it as realistic as possible.
Apologies, Samson, we can't hear, could you?
Could you restart it, please?
So one feature about my game I particularly like is that I've tried to make it as realistic as possible.
I've actually based the stats on real-world metrics, which means you can actually work backwards to determine what some of your stats would be.
For example, in episode 1084, Ogopogo776 said they achieved an IQ score of 120. Assuming they're male, that would mean he has a wisdom score of 20 and would be at minimum level 5. I'd love to know what the stats of the Lotus Eaters would be.
I don't know my IQ, and I kind of want to keep it that way.
But I do like a game that respects its stats.
I think that having organic stats and also basing it off of something.
I always like it when you're playing an RPG or something, and rather than just picking what you want to play as, you just answer questions, and it figures out what you're like, and then it sort of says, here's the character that suits you, but it has to be done well.
It shouldn't be overdone.
Because, for instance, I was a very big Diablo Lord of Destruction fan.
And when they put forward Diablo III and you went to buy items and stuff, it always told you how each item is going to affect your dexterity, your agility, your strength, and how it's going to affect...
And actually, it ended up killing the magic of...
Of the previous games, because you were comparing all the...
you tried to infer the stats yourself, whereas it actually gave you automatically.
It was a bit weird.
What I would really like is for games' weapons to all have pros and cons, because they spend all this time making them, and then...
The idea is you just get rid of most of the weapons until you have the best ones.
Whereas I think that it'd be much more interesting to...
I'm thinking of games like either Skyrim, where the different kinds of weapon should have different specialisations, but not necessarily just be blanketly better than other things, or like Dark Souls or Elden Ring, whereby you don't upgrade them, you just have...
Things that are better, more all-round, and you get more specialist things.
Maybe.
I don't know.
There are lots of more interesting ways where you can have a variety of gameplay that aren't being done.
Let's go to the next one.
About a year ago, I was in Taiwan on business and met a former girlfriend who was reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel.
I commented that I'd heard good things about the book and asked if she was enjoying it.
Indeed, she was and recommended it.
Upon returning home, I looked it up and Amazon promoted it as part of a trilogy with collapse and upheaval.
In the following 30-second book clubs, I'm going to explain why you should read the first two.
Unfortunately, the last one reveals Diamond as a confused leftist.
Oh, that's so bad.
When you start reading someone and then you find out that they are packaging everything in a foreign ideology or in a different ideology, it's just...
I actually picked up Guns, Gems and Steel recently along with another book that was endorsed by Henry Kissinger and it had the line that mass migration and multiculturalism are policies that are perfectly designed to invert Western culture and are basically entirely orchestrated to The
real reason Mount Taranaki was given personhood now of all times is because it's actually just a protrusion sticking out of Dajwa's massive gut.
The picture is just really something.
Right.
Shall we get the comments, please?
Sure.
Okay.
So, Charles Ellington.
Josh, the Patriot Acts 1 and 2 completely eliminate the Constitution.
Under a national emergency, you can, as the President, unilaterally declare martial law and become essentially a dictator.
Woohoo!
That is true.
Yeah, the Patriot Acts were unbelievable that people allowed that to pass.
Like...
I know America had been attacked and everything, but still.
I know there were lots of people at the time that did make a fuss, actually.
Baron von Warhawk says, It seems that every time a US department is slashed and their spending habits are revealed, all we get is information on how cartoonishly evil it is.
I'm half expecting the National Park Department is going to be related to spending its budget kicking puppies and selling heroin to nuns.
I'm pretty sure that They always find the weirdest things to fund.
You need to have a really catchy title for your organisation to give funding.
The Organisation for Kicking Puppies, unfortunately, doesn't cut it.
George Happ says, the moving chart of US foreign aid was something to behold.
The money to Egypt are likely supporting all the US operations in Africa, like the attacks on Libya.
As for...
I put that in the reading list and then took it out actually that chart because I wasn't able to verify it and I'd seen conflicting information and so although it claimed to be sourced by something I did double check it and I was just like I'm not sure maybe it's taken different data at different times but it was getting close to the deadline so I took it out because I didn't want to misinform you.
Someone online says this is excellent for everyone.
Foreign aid actively destroys the local economies, making the population perpetually dependent on the American taxpayer.
That's true.
Learned helplessness.
Michael Brooks says you guys need to do a segment on the EU and NGO-funded colour revolution that was just foiled in Slovakia against FICO, who was shot last year.
It was being planned by a Georgian man working for a Ukrainian agency when he was part of the Maidan in 2014. He has been deported to you.
Some of the things that are going to be uncovered when the EU falls, it's going to be crazy.
They're sort of mad with power at the minute, aren't they?
They feel like they can do pretty much anything.
They're funded by several other eastern places.
They had now the Qatargate scandal, and they are investigating the role of several NGOs now.
Which are Undoubtedly implicated.
Good question.
Especially a British one, which many of us want to get rid of ourselves.
Can we stop state-based charity, internal and external, in the US and over here in the UK?
I'd only support aid if it were a working fee to stop immigration.
Yes, me too.
Right.
Arizona Desert Rat.
The driver was polite.
He suggested that she request a large vehicle instead of a sedan.
Makes sense to me.
She should have suggested a monster truck or something.
Far King Al, the Stelios, is the N and B words, nibble and biscuits.
Yeah, they are.
How did you know?
Just listen to more of her tunes to see how much she's going against Nibbler and Biscuits.
Stelius' Yellow Pillow.
The fact that a 500 LB Libris rapper can even...
Sorry.
Pound.
Pound, yeah.
Can even thrive is one hell of an indictment of a modern society.
Never mind the laws.
Well, she's one of the few rappers that has earned that big prefix, isn't it?
I mean, the video with her on stage, that was priceless.
But also, I had so many other memes to show.
Stage-shattering performance.
Yeah, but we ended up not playing it, so it's okay.
That's the world we live in.
Supreme General David Farugia, it's nice to know where all the food in Ethiopia went.
Adam Hack Davis.
As a fat person, I can honestly say this body positivity BS is harmful.
My fatness in no one else's fault but mine.
The person shoveling food in their mouth should take responsibility for their arse size and not the world to change to fit.
I know I need to get up and move more and I will, but I do not want everyone else to pander me.
I mean, I think that's the correct mentality.
Also because...
The main thing you need to do to lose weight is to actually stop all the voices that tell you that you can't and that everything else and actually change your habits.
I know because I had bad habits in the past.
Yeah.
It's the only way.
Just eat, eat less, eat more healthily and exercise more.
Yeah.
It's a fail-safe way to get more healthy.
Ham planet.
DeMoss is a big example of the huge problem facing the fullest of figured among us.
This jiggles my confidence in Lyft's ability to hold up the weighty social issues over time.
Either way, I hope she has a whale of a time if she wins this hefty lawsuit and is on a gravy train to future gains.
Ewan Baker, she made a new genre called Hipper Hop.
Hipper Hop?
Yes.
Sounds like an Egyptian pharaoh, doesn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
And also with a fat bitch where she put...
Sorry.
Fat something else.
Stelius, it's all coming out.
Yeah, fat something.
She had it with a PH. That sounds a bit Egyptian.
Yeah.
Sorry, it was a momentary lapse of, you know...
Reason.
Yeah, Lars Peter Simonson.
I think airlines should be able to discriminate on weight and size.
A 300 pounds bodybuilder should pay more or have less luggage than 110 pounds ballerina.
Russian garbage human.
Thanks, Russian.
Become unliftable.
Yeah, that's it.
So, for my segment...
Captain Charlie the Beagle says, regarding 2025 is off to a weird start.
I've seen a group of French people advocating for the restoration of the monarchy, marching through the streets holding a portrait of Louis XVI. What is wrong with you sometimes?
You cut off a king's head, you want a king back, you get an emperor, you get another king, you get rid of him.
Make up your mind.
We've got another comment here.
The real reason USAID exists is because every time DeMoss falls on stage, there's a magnitude 8 earthquake that goes off on the other side of the globe.
Stay safe, folks, with an X. So Eloise says, I love that we have so many different sources of information now, but also with a lack of one narrative or homogeneity in life.
Equally feels very chaotic as there is so much going on and different lives and world views and perspectives floating around.
No wonder we also feel less connected to each other in a lot of ways.
I was reading a very nice and sentimental comment.
You're there giggling.
Yeah, I feel like a school teacher.
MR Awad says, do IKEA anti-tank mines come with flat pack instructions and an Allen key?
You've got to assemble them yourselves.
And also to defuse the bomb.
Yeah, it's really, really difficult to defuse them.
Diffuse it yourself.
The instructions don't tell you how to take it apart again.
Maybe you need to add that into the instruction manual.
AZDesertRat says, "This makes me wonder how whale farts appear on sonar.
Was the sonar picking up on the whales because we know what whales look like on sonar, or was the sonar picking up the actual bubbles from the whale farts?" I would imagine the latter, actually.
Fane Scotty of Swindon says, "Chinese police dog misbehaves, faces consumption as punishment." Not the poor Corgi, it looks adorable.
And then finally, Captain Charlie the Beagle says, I've seen a group...
Oh no, that's already been mentioned.
It's already in the comments.
It's alright, we're out of time anyway.
We're out of time.
So see you tomorrow at 1pm.
We're gonna have episode 1093. Check us out.
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