Hello. I dotted my I's and crossed all my T's.
But stuff still happened. So what's up? We're
starting off with a heist of merchandise valued
at about a hundred thousand dollars. I'm gonna
talk to you about the price of being the very
best. This past Tuesday in the wee hours of the
morning in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a crime
took place that only one person can solve. Officer
Jenny reminder a cab even if they can get it
So yeah, there's a shop called first edition
collectibles and they were robbed of about a
hundred thousand dollars worth of extremely rare
Pokemon cards now while this shop does trade
in rare cards They don't advertise the price.
So whoever broke into this shop knew what they
were going for They pulled stuff off the shelves
that were the most valuable again Like we're
talking a hundred grand for like some Pokemon
cards that level of like a collectible item and
This is kind of sad. Here's a quote from one
of the owners of the shop quote. We're literally
just three guys This is our passion. This is
what we love since we were children, which is
It makes me sad. At time of recording, they've
closed up shop and they're figuring out what
to do next. I've linked to some information about
them in today's newsletter, but it looks like
they're trying to get an online store set up.
That said, I did learn that at this level, these
cards are actually indexed and serialized. So
an appraiser will go through the card and be
like, okay, it's worth this much and we're assigning
it this serial number. They then put it into
a case with a serial number on the inside so
that if it does get traded, it can be evaluated
and in cases where it gets stolen, it can be
traced back. Now, They could take it out of the
box. But who would do that? The suspect is still
at large, and while you know I love a good heist,
and I almost always am supportive of the heister,
in this case, the heisted, you've got my heart.
Because as much as I love a good heist, I draw
the line at stealing another man's Charizard.
Whatever happened to honor among thieves? Anyway,
stateside. Alright. Epstein list. Let's get this
out of the way. I'm not going to spend a lot
of time on it. The MAGA world is in essentially
complete meltdown right now because the Trump
administration came out and strongly stated,
There are no Epstein files. Stop asking us. This
comes after Trump basically used release the
Epstein files as one of his core tenets of his
campaign and his own cabinet was like we have
the files and then two months later they're like
psych they don't exist. Trump then tried to double,
triple, quadruple, quintuple down telling people
to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein. That's
how that works. Hey guys, that thing that you're
all pissing me about, stop talking about it.
I don't want to hear about it anymore. Now, look,
I like to be skeptical about conspiracy theories,
and I generally am. The Jeffrey Epstein thing,
there's a lot of funk here. Regardless of anything,
they came out and they were like, well, there's
no further evidence about his whole death situation,
and also we're not going after anybody else with
regards to the whole child trafficking thing,
which is... Wild like so then just nothing it's
not like it's a question of whether or not something
bad occurred on Epstein's Island We know that
there was serial abuse of children but But no
one was the abuser. So obviously this is bullshit
and people are coming out with their own theories
and especially within the MAGA world there's
a bit of a rift of people landing on the side
of I Didn't really care about it. Anyway versus
Trump is complicit. This makes it obvious now
again I might dive into this later on. People
are threatening to quit the administration. It's
a mess right now. So instead of trying to focus
on this, I'm just going to say this is a dumpster
fire, and it's going to be a dumpster fire, and
we'll keep watch on it. But let's look at some
other stuff. I've got a sign of the times. It's
a very clever intro to this story. You'll see.
You'll see. And you're going to be impressed.
Back in May, the Secretary of the Interior sent
out a memo to the National Park Service saying,
hey, y 'all, it's time to fuck up everything.
That's not exactly what it said. It would have
been better if it just said that. So here's what's
up. Trump signed an executive order earlier in
his presidency titled Restoring Truth and Sanity
to American History, which is a very normal thing
to do, and very truthful, very sane. So to carry
out this executive order, the Secretary of Interior
is saying, hey, we're going to comb through all
of the signs with historic information from all
of the national parks and ensure that none of
them have any wording that we don't like. Here's
an actual quote. from the memo. I want you to
listen to this and just see how quickly they
flip their own words upside down. Orders are
to, quote, determine whether since January 1st,
2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, markers
or similar properties within the department's
jurisdiction have been removed or changed to
perpetuate a false reconstruction of American
history. inappropriately minimize the value of
certain historic events or figures, or include
any other improper partisan ideology. I love
it when my country's administration tells me
what ideologies are improper. Because right after
that, they say they're going to quote, take action
to ensure that all public monuments, memorials,
statues, markers, and properties do not contain
descriptions, depictions, or other content that
inappropriately disparage Americans Past or living?
It goes on to say and clarify, including persons
living in colonial times. History is when you
don't talk about the bad parts. So that's a lot
of words to say we want to take down signs that
are critical of our own past, which is an absurd
thing to do because these signs are explicitly
there to teach people things like history. And
hey, in American history, there's some bad stuff.
I don't know if we've talked about this before,
but I guess history and discussing history is
too woke for signs discussing history at historic
landmarks. Can't have that. While the Parks Department
is asking parkgoers to take pictures of signs
that they should remove, there is an organization
that's come together called Save Our Signs that
is asking people to do the opposite, take pictures
of the signs that are there now so they can be
archived. This way, after the Trump administration
and all of his cronies are found guilty of crimes
against humanity, we can put our signs back.
Yay. Well, sorry about click to cancel, but don't
click to cancel listening to me. I did good.
Oh, that reminds me, speaking of I did good.
I did good with that first headline, right? Yeah.
Yeah, I did. Okay, click to cancel. So there
was an effort that was going on in the US for
years, starting back in like 2019, to enact a
new rule. that basically said that if you signed
up for a subscription, it should be as easy to
cancel as it was to sign up. This is to help
push back on the situation where you sign up
for a service online with a couple of clicks,
but then when you go to cancel the subscription,
they're like, yeah, you're going to want to call
Jerry. Jerry is only awake for two and a half
minutes every other Sunday on leap years. Now
this rule was going through the FTC and it got
made and it was about to go into effect like
July 15th. And then it's gone now. Evaporated.
Because a judge has vacated the rule. Let's talk
about what happened. So back in 2019, the FTC
was like, hey, we want to do this thing. And
so they started signaling they're gonna make
a click to cancel rule. Over the next few years,
they were working on that process of trying to
push through a click to cancel rule. They had
an open hearing for comments and they got over
16 ,000 comments, which is a lot. So then, come
fall 2024, they passed the rule, and it has a
pending implementation date in 2025. Under this
rule, companies would have to make it as easy
to unsubscribe as it is to subscribe, and they
would also have to collect positive, affirmative
consent to actually move from a trial to a subscription.
We love consent here. But companies don't. And
so they formed a coalition and they pushed back
and they filed a complaint against the FTC saying
that the FTC's rule would have an impact on the
market greater than a value of a hundred million
dollars. So according to the FTC Act, if a rule
implemented by the FTC would impact the economy
over a hundred million dollars, they have to
do like an investigative report into that impact.
And the FTC did not do that. And so the companies
that were suing the FTC said they didn't do that.
So this entire thing is null and void, to which
the judge agreed. So a bunch of companies came
together and said, hey, judge, it would cost
way too much money if we were to not be predatory
towards our customers. And the judge was like,
that's a shitty argument, but you're technically
correct. Like the judge said in the ruling, like,
obviously we don't want them to do shitty things
to customers. but the rule was broken and the
FTC didn't follow protocol and they have a point.
Now this is a spirit versus letter of the law
kind of thing, and I really feel like maybe our
government should do more to protect consumers,
but this is the same government that also voted
to stop the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
from limiting overdraft fees. So like... I don't
know. Maybe next they can have a ruling that
we all punch ourselves in the nuts eight times
a day. Last thing for stateside, there was a
massive ice raid at a farm in Southern California,
which the federal government is referring to
as a, quote, marijuana facility. This is because
our leaders are, and this is true, massive squares.
So the agents roll up on this farm and start
arresting hundreds of farm workers working the
farm. Thankfully protesters with an actual soul
showed up and got in ICE's face, did everything
they could to fuck with the operation. The FBI
is actually seeking information on one person
who they claim shot a gun at the ICE agents,
but I asked around and I didn't see anything
and no one that I've asked saw anything. I don't
think, did you see anything? So this comes on
the heels of several attacks on ICE agents and
ICE facilities. And for a source, I'm actually
going to use the White House's own website. Now
they've linked to external sources, but I just
want I want to read to you. words directly off
of WhiteHouse .gov. The first event was, quote,
On July 4th, 11 leftist criminals ambushed officers
at an ICE facility in Texas. Oh, no, they put
graffiti on the vehicles and they called ICE
agents pigs. On July 4th, deranged rioters viciously
assaulted federal agents at an ICE facility in
Portland, Oregon. And then on July 7th, a man
unleashed a barrage of gunfire at a Border Patrol
facility in Texas. So according to the White
House, our country is under attack by leftist
criminals, deranged rioters, and a man. Elsewhere.
Wouldn't you know it, Israel's doing the thing
again, where they're coming up with a new reason
to bomb Iran. You know, Israel, they were bombing
Iran, and then the U .S. got involved and dropped
even more bombs, and then we were like, cool,
we destroyed their nuclear program entirely.
And then other U .S. officials were like, no,
we didn't. We didn't do that. And then the White
House is like, yes, we did. Don't. don't correct
us. But now Israel is also saying, hey, maybe
the nuclear program wasn't thoroughly destroyed.
And we believe that Iran might be able to get
to any uranium that was still in those facilities
that were bombed. Now, Israel said that they
don't have evidence that Iran is doing this.
They just said we think that they might be able
to retrieve uranium. And if we think that they're
going to do that, we won't hesitate to bomb them
again. Whether or not their claim is true, we
don't know. Some people who actually designed
the bomb the bunker buster bomb that was supposed
to blow it all up. They said that they don't
have any evidence yet that it actually destroyed
and went as far down as they were hoping it was
going to. They just know that it hit. But that's
not... The White House says stop asking, it's
destroyed. Next question. Meanwhile, Russia is
viciously ramping up their attacks on Ukraine,
specifically the capital city of Kiev. They've
been launching heavy drone and missile strikes
at the region, and it's right around the time
that Zelensky was heading to talk to EU leaders
about plans to rebuild post -war Ukraine. So
Zelensky... is that Putin is ramping up attacks
right now to make that prospect of post -war
reconstruction less palatable for possible investors.
Regardless of if that is or is not the case,
the US is also going to be resuming shipments
of supplies to Ukraine after previously wanting
to stop that, but Trump is mad at Putin again,
and whether or not Ukraine gets military supplies
is basically based on what Trump is feeling like
that day. But regardless of all of that, we got
another perfect just Russia headline because
the transport minister from Russia was found
dead from a gunshot wound. Hours after having
been dismissed from the government, technology!
YouTube is a bit confused about what they want
to do with AI, but let's talk about what is changing.
So YouTube has been pushing a lot of, like, AI
tools recently. As somebody who publishes videos
on YouTube, I am constantly inundated with pop
-ups and ads from YouTube being like, Use our
AI tools! Don't you want to be creative? Like,
bitch! I'm pretty creative already. So I don't
use that but there's a lot of people who do and
then there are also accounts that use AI tools
to just automate the generation of slop content
for the purposes of just getting clicks and views
to extract money from YouTube's monetization
system. But recently YouTube has updated their
policy and has quote -unquote clarified that
the monetization will only be available for actual
original content. Now a lot of places are calling
this a ban on AI on YouTube. That is not the
case. even kind of. They're not even actually
removing anything from the platform, they're
just demonetizing slop. They're also still going
to allow original content that uses AI in some
way. It's a bit fuzzy, the line there, but it
does seem like they're trying to move towards
more actual high quality original programming.
Like me! I'm quality and original. Hey, let's
talk about Mechahitler. So Elon Musk's AI grok
recently became Mechahitler. The AI is baked
into Twitter and recently Elon's been beefing
with it because it's been saying things that
Elon doesn't agree with like Jews don't control
the world. And so Elon has gone out of his way
to try to, quote, fix it. And after a recent
fix, it just started spewing out bile. Anti -Semitic,
anti -black, just complete hatred towards all
minorities. It called itself Mecca Hitler, it
talked about how Jews control the media, all
that stuff. It started to cite the Heritage Foundation
for, like, everything. And then an even more
recent update to Grok showed that it is reaching
out and looking for Elon Musk's tweets to get
his thoughts on a subject when you ask it a question.
How many more things is it gonna take for us
to just be like, yeah, the man's a Nazi? Anyway,
they had to take Grok down, and they've since
issued an apology, but... The CEO of Twitter,
who, reminder, was not Elon Musk, recently stepped
down as well. Game it! It's been a few weeks
since the Switch 2 came out, and it's like the
best -selling console ever. In the first four
days, it sold like 3 .5 million units, so for
everyone who was saying don't buy a Switch 2,
I'm sorry to tell you that unfortunately the
prospect of a Switch, but a little bit more,
and it plays all the games you had, and it has
a few new features, that was enough! Is that
right? Is that fair? Is that good for the future
of the - No, but it was enough now despite the
incredibly successful sales numbers There's also
been of course some tumultuous news with the
launch There was an issue where people were buying
their switches at GameStop and then they stapled
Receipts to the switch and it stapled to the
screen like through the box into the screen.
But there's also been reports of people trying
to use hacked game cartridges that they put into
their Switch 2, and then immediately get banned.
Their console is blocked from the internet, essentially
bricked. And also, also, iFixit recently did
a teardown of the Switch 2 Pro controller, which
is an $85 controller, and they referred to it
as piss poor regarding the repairability. Oh,
last thing on Nintendo real quick. The FBI seized
a website that hosted Switch games for emulation.
So we've got we've got our priorities in order.
Hey, you're a murderer or maybe not stop killing
games This has been going on for a while, but
there is a movement called stop killing games
That is an effort from consumers in the gaming
industry to basically pressure companies to say
hey stop having games that we buy that then just
go away. If you've played modern games, you've
probably dealt with this. Like, you pay for a
game, the servers eventually go down, and now
it's just useless. So there's essentially a movement
that says, hey, this equates to planned obsolescence,
and there should be something in place such that
consumers can continue to enjoy the game they
bought even after the company, you know, goes
defunct, or servers go down, or what have you.
Industry leaders are pushing back on this, saying
that would make games prohibitively expensive
to make. I would point right back to the story
we had earlier about how companies don't want
to be less predatory and wrapped up in all of
this a very popular twitch streamer named pirate
software Express that he very much does not like
this movement and people have not been very happy
with him for that I'm not gonna that's not the
point of the story, but the dude Catastrophically
can't take an L If you want to learn more, you
can head to StopKillingGames .com. They've also
recently passed a million signatures to get a
debate on the floor of the EU Commission. So,
might go somewhere, but this is not the first
time that they... hit a roadblock after some
success. We'll see. Last thing for gaming. A
strike for video game actors has finally come
to an end as SAG -AFTRA members have voted to
accept a new contract. So there's been an ongoing
strike among video game actors and one of the
sticking points has been AI and specifically
how to treat the data recorded from a motion
capture performance. So studios wanted to say
that motion capture performances are just data
and not a performance and therefore they can
use AI to recreate that data, which would effectively
create AI -generated performances that were otherwise
done by an actual actor. Actors do not like this
characterization, and they were like, no, can't
do that. Ultimately, the contract includes a
bunch of bonuses for the actors as well as guarantees
around that, so they can't just take the recording
and do whatever. They have to get actual explicit
permission. Also, the actors are allowed to revoke
their permission if there's another strike, so
they can't... Fuck with the actors too much or
try to like toe the line there. So that's good.
Stop stealing people's artistic performances.
Just sort of like at large. Hey, I have new merch.
It's up right now at merchfrom .dev. You can
get yourself these stuff keeps happening embroidered
tee pictured here. And if you are listening to
me, you know, just imagine if you will, the most
beautiful shirt you've ever seen. It's a pretty
good shirt. You should get it. That's my review.
Lightning round. The music of K -Pop Demon Hunters
has topped the charts in the US and the charts
in my heart. France is criminally investigating
Twitter over claims that the algorithm was messed
with for, quote, foreign interference. The US
Justice Department is dropping charges against
a doctor who famously destroyed vaccines and
falsified vaccination records early into COVID.
Cool. YouTube is removing its trending tab. Now...
None of us will know what is on the tab that
none of us use. As of now, you can officially
keep your shoes on when going through security
in the US as the TSA has said, you no longer
need to let the dogs out. Walmart is recalling
nearly a million units of a 64 ounce stainless
steel water bottle as its lid is launching off
and has already caused permanent vision loss
in two customers. Don't point your water bottles.
at your eyeballs. And finally for today, the
Pope was gifted a Pokemon card and is apparently
cherishing it. And hopefully it's not the one
that was stolen from earlier. I don't think the
timeline works up on that. Maybe the Pope stole
it? Oh shit. Someone call Officer Jenny. Thank
you so much for listening to today's episode
of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to skh .news for
sources, bonus content, and a totally legit,
absolutely not stolen, wonderful deal on a first
edition Charizard. My name is Endeavour and thank
you so much for being here. Take care and be
well.