Hello. I lost my mentor at the height of Act
2. But stuff still happens. So what's up? Today
I'm going to do my best broken record impersonation.
Today I'm going to do my best broken record impersonation.
That was it. Because we're going to talk about
the Iran War and - Lo and behold we're still
doing it. The US and Israel are still bombarding
Iran and Lebanon because reasons primarily because
Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to. The death tolls
are rising and at this point I just I don't I
don't really know what to do with regards to
talking about this so here's just kind of where
things are right now. The current focal point
is the disruption to oil trade as there's a whole
bunch of ships waiting to get through the Strait
of Hormuz. This is a critical shipping route
that isn't just some canal that Iran put some
sort of like sorry we're closed sign on. At its
thinnest the strait is still more than 20 miles
wide and so what Iran is doing is basically saying
hey we're not gonna let any of these ships through.
They're using munitions and naval drones which
are basically ships with bombs that and they've
already hit multiple tankers like it sucks. This
very obvious retaliation from Iran was very obvious
before we went to war. But that didn't stop us
from going to war and causing the very obvious
outcome. And so those skyrocketing oil prices
have stayed skyrocketed and it doesn't look like
it's gonna come down in time soon. Which is why
people are paying like four, five, six dollars
at the pump in the US and they're like, what's
going on here? Now the White House was posturing
as if we were gonna send out ships that would
escort these oil tankers through the strait as
if that's a thing that we can do. That didn't
happen. So instead we're just bombing a whole
lot more and oh, would you look at that? We've
dispatched thousands of marines to the region.
Now, to be clear, these aren't boots on the ground.
Yes, they are being sent to a war zone wearing
boots which will be on the ground, but that's
not what boots on the ground is. Boots on the
ground is something else entirely, but not this.
Why are you asking for clarification on what
boots on the ground is? No, I think you should
be satisfied with the answer that... I gave you
already. Hey podcast listeners, I just did kind
of like a gag where I ran out the door while
saying that. If you imagine, if you will, me
running out of a door. Of course, they want to
avoid acknowledging putting boots on the ground
because that would just acknowledge our continued
failure in Iran. All we've truly managed to do
is kick up dust and kill a guy that was going
to die probably this year anyway, as well as
thousands of civilians. Oh, and that girls elementary
school that we bombed? There's been more investigation
into it and it really does look like we just
kind of struck a girls elementary school with
a tomahawk missile now again broken record I
keep talking about the elementary school that
was hit by a missile But I do that because it
feels like hey guys We just hit a girls elementary
school with a tomahawk missile, which is possibly
the most recognizable US munition in the world
That seems like something I should probably keep
talking about. Meanwhile, Russia's kind of digging
this. You know, one of the big reasons that we're
over there in the first place or that we have
any interest in Iran is because Iran works with
China and Russia, specifically in oil and also
military stuff. Russia's been fighting their
own war with Ukraine. for a while and so like
they aren't really able to jump in and be like
hey we're gonna side with Iran here but it does
seem like they are pretty happy with this war
because they are now able to sell their oil for
a much higher price because of the geopolitical
disruption Russia is now in a position to sell
more oil in more places at a higher price, which
they can use to fund their war. The US has claimed
that Russia is sharing intelligence with Iran,
and while I don't tend to take what the US says
as fact, duh, why wouldn't they? Not only does
Russia get more money as this war goes on, but
they've already got prior relationships in economics
and war shit. Makes sense to me. I want to say
one more thing for this before we move on, and
I want to preface by saying that it's generally
my policy to not have segments where I just talk
about what some politicians said that's repugnant.
These politicians are repugnant, and they say
and do a lot of repugnant things. And if I talked
about all the things that they posted on Twitter,
I would never talk about anything else. And constantly
calling them out for being repugnant doesn't
really do a whole lot because they don't care.
At all. And I could be spending my time trying
to get everybody to pay attention to said repugnance,
but most people stop once they hear politician
being bad and they're like, yeah, duh. Which
is why I tend to focus on other things, but with
all of that said, there has been a sharp uptick
in blatant, overt racism being proudly posted
by members of Congress. Now, members of Congress
in the US being racist is as far from new as
you can get. But in recent years, they've largely
felt that they've had to use dog whistles and
coded language to give themselves benefit of
the doubt. And now they're just saying, no, I
meant the hard R. Granted, instead of being a
hard R here, it's them saying Islamism is incompatible
with the West. Specifically, most recently, we've
got Andy Ogles and Randy Fine posting things
to Twitter and saying things on video of them
basically just being like, Muslims don't belong
here and they're the enemy. I'm not going to
quote their exact stuff because I do not need
to replicate their bile, but the point is that
they are feeling comfortable just saying this
and doubling down to clarify that they mean it.
They didn't accidentally insult a large group
of people by accidentally misinterpreting what
words they said. They were like, no, I meant
that. Get them out of here. And I want to be
clear that they're saying this. because there
is a contingent of people that support them in
saying that, and they're trying to capture that
group. Trump is going to fucking beef it soon,
and a lot of people are trying to be the new
big crazy guy in the room that'll get everyone
behind them. I have a very strong suspicion that
no one's gonna be able to recapture the lightning
in a bottle that Trump had. Do I think that him
going away will fix all of this? No, absolutely
not. But I do not think that right now the best
strategy is to publicly go on record being as
awful as you can possibly be to large groups
of people around the world. That worked for Trump.
It's not gonna work for you, Randy Fine. Moving
on. What has ICE been up to? The usual. Abducting
people, killing citizens. It's what they do.
ICE recently abducted a Spanish -language journalist
from a local news station in Tennessee. Estefany
Rodriguez Flores was abducted on March 6 after
doing a few pieces at her network. critical of
ICE. What a fucking shocker that not long after
she started being critical of ICE, her car, which
was marked as a work vehicle for the station
she worked for, was accosted while she was driving
by multiple other vehicles. Vehicles full of
ICE agents cornered her and abducted her and
she is now being held away from her husband and
daughter. They never showed a warrant. Flores
has been working in the US legally for over five
years. She has a visa and is here legally. According
to her lawyers, ICE never showed any warrant
and there's no legal precedent for them to hold
her, which is exactly what we've seen from ICE
all over the place. But ICE responded, and they
cleared everything up. They said that their detainment
of her is, quote, not in violation of any laws
or regulations. I guess that clears it up. Work
here is done. Meanwhile, or rather, not meanwhile,
last year in March, it turns out, ICE killed
another US citizen. Ruben Ray Martinez was 23,
and he was driving his car slowly through an
area that ICE officers were, like, directing
traffic. Originally, ICE put out the exact statement
you would expect. They killed someone who was
in a car. They claimed that that car was coming
right at them with deadly intent, just as we
heard with Renee Good and... basically anything
that involves a vehicle and ICE officers discharging
their weapons. The body cam footage that's out
now shows that he was driving slowly past a few
officers. There didn't appear to be any officers
in front of his car. They started to yell, stop
him! and then they unloaded bullets into him.
DHS originally claimed this was self -defense
and didn't originally identify the officers as
ICE, and it's pretty clear as to why. There wasn't
any evidence recorded by onlookers to prove them
wrong. This body cam footage came out, it's blurry
and it's not great and still doesn't fully prove
them wrong, but it's pretty clear that their
story doesn't add up. I will say that one of
the wildest parts of the story for me is that
Martinez's mother voted for Donald Trump. and
said that she doesn't blame Trump for her son's
death because Trump didn't pull the trigger.
She said that something's got to be done to reign
this in, but I can't think of a more concise
example of the mindset of a Trump voter than
that. 2025 was the deadliest year on record for
ICE since the early 2000s, and 2026 is on pace
to beat that. With disease, torture, and suicide
rampant in these ice concentration camps, things
are pretty fucking bleak right now, and I'm not
gonna sugarcoat that. But I wanna call out that
all is not lost. I know that a lot of the things
I talk about are really horrific and bad. It's
not good right now, but people care. If people
didn't care, it'd be a whole lot worse. But people
care, and they are making moves. One example
is Kansas City, Missouri, which recently passed
a law saying... No, ICE cannot make any more
of their people warehouses here. They are far
from the only municipality doing that. There
is real, meaningful pushback happening constantly
all around this country every single day, and
I do not want to dismiss the effort that people
have been putting in to push back against all
of this bullshit. So thank you to everyone who
has been going out and chasing down ICE officers
and getting in their faces, blowing their whistles,
helping protect our neighbors. Because you have
more grit in your pinky than any of these fucking
basement dwellers that sit around talking about
how happy they are that people they've never
met in towns they'd never visit are being killed
by federal agents. Hey, so I want to take a second
and just say I know that a lot of this is real
rough. Trust me. I know. Thank you for being
here. Thank you for sticking it out with me.
And I want to be clear that it's not your job
to fix everything. You should have good values,
you should try to participate however you can,
but this is not all your fault and it's not your
job to fix it all. Let's talk about anything
else. Valve did not leave the New York Attorney
General on red. A couple of weeks ago, I talked
about how Letitia James, the New York Attorney
General, is suing Valve Software, the video game
company that makes Steam, Counter -Strike, and
Dota, over loot boxes. The argument is essentially,
loot boxes are gambling, and it also allows children
to gamble. That's illegal. Valve has now responded
with a pretty rare statement on their part. They
posted a rebuttal, more or less, on their help
website. And so I want to go through sort of
what they've said, how they are responding to
this claim, and then I want to give some more
of my own thoughts here because I feel like I
didn't really clarify how I think about this
last time. Let's start with their blog post.
It's very lawyer -friendly, I would say that,
but one of the first things it does is it kicks
off by making the argument that loot boxes are
basically the same as booster packs for a trading
card game. Quote, we shared with the New York
AG that these types of boxes in our games are
widely used, not just in video games, but in
the tangible world as well, where generations
have grown up opening baseball card packs and
blind boxes and bags, and then trading them and
selling the items they receive. But then the
post pivots to being like, except also, the stuff
that you said is against our terms of service.
Quote, in the process of cooperating with the
NYAG's investigation, we have shared with them
our efforts over many years to shut down accounts
found to be using Valve game items on gambling
sites in violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
I too violate the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
It's up to you to figure out how. After that,
they go on to be like, okay, also the changes
that the New York Attorney General wants us to
make would themselves be consumer hostile. Valve
pushes back saying that if they implemented these
changes, they would make it so that items couldn't
be transferred, which would be anti -consumer
and fair. They also go on to say that they would
have to start collecting more information to
specifically adhere to the law in New York by
doing more like geolocation stuff and trying
to catch people who are using VPNs to get around
certain laws and whatnot. Essentially tapping
into the current fear of like age verification
and surveillance on the internet, which is a
fair fear. They end by calling out the New York
Attorney General for her use of the video games
cause violence line, which I'll go ahead and
read you that quote. This is from the New York
Attorney General press release regarding the
lawsuit, quote, Valve basically replied saying
that's bullshit, and there are studies that say
that's bullshit, and I agree. That's bullshit.
And there's been a lot of studies that say it's
bullshit. Ultimately, this is just an initial
response that this isn't like they've done anything.
We're gonna have to see how this all plays out
in the legal system. But as for how I think about
this, are loot boxes gambling? I don't think
I can answer that question. Not because I can't
see the arguments one way or the other, but because,
one, the legal definition of gambling changes
wildly between countries, let alone states in
the US. And two, I don't think that it really
matters whether or not it's gambling because
I think this is all the wrong entry point into
the problem. Said another way, I think that focusing
on loot boxes and trying to target the regulation
around loot boxes specifically misses the forest
for the trees. What we really need are comprehensive
consumer protection laws, especially in tech
and gaming. If I'm a game developer and I was
told that my loot box system is now too much
like gambling, I would just figure out a new
way to hide all those mechanics in other systems.
Do that enough and bring on a lawyer and you've
suddenly got, at the very least, another court
case before you have to do anything. But unfortunately,
the US is pretty much the worst country to ask
to put in consumer protections for basically
anything. Because we are already watching as
age verification is being layered into everything,
and the second that we start saying, oh, this
is gambling and also targets children, think
of the children, the think of the children is
a huge alarm bell for me. Should kids be gambling?
No. Should we have to verify our age with official
documentation to play a video game? Also, no.
For now, vote with your wallet, inform your friends,
and continue to complain about bullshit patterns
in game design. I say game design. It's not really
game design. It's just like market design. Just
nickling and diming people with microtransactions.
Lightning round. Atlassian has laid off 10 %
of their workforce, citing that they're gonna
invest in AI. I'll be back next week with a different
company doing the exact same thing. The sexting
feature for ChatGPT has been delayed. OpenAI
was planning to release an adult version of ChatGPT
that you could... Fuck? Digitally? But that's
being delayed. Washington state has passed a
9 .9 % income tax on personal income over a million
dollars. Washington's one of the only states
that doesn't otherwise have income tax. Some
business leaders are like... That was that was
me being a business leader The US has dropped
dramatically in its ranking among countries in
the Americas with regards to free press went
down from 4th to 11th in a year number one is
the Dominican Republic Sonic the Hedgehog may
have been ahead of his time scientists believe
that some hedgehogs may be using inaudible communication
frequencies while other scientists believe that
they are simply rolling around at the speed of
sound And finally for today, five drivers in
Maryland owe over $600 ,000 of unpaid traffic
violation fees in DC. Maryland and DC, they share
a border. DC's kind of like cut out of Maryland.
And Maryland drivers are known for being among
the worst. But one dude accounts for $284 ,550
in unpaid traffic violations in the city of Washington,
DC. He somehow has a car. Thank you so much for
listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
Head to SKH .News for sources, bonus content,
and a button to print your own traffic violations
that you can just kind of play around with yourself.
My name is Endeavorance. We'll talk again soon.
Take care and be well.