February 27, 2023 • 57 mins
Australia confirms it's busted multiple spies, apparently all working for the same country. Fox News faces a defamation lawsuit that may pose a serious threat to the network. Along the US-Canadian border, experts are warning folks to be on the lookout for a new invasive species: a crossbred mix of pig that's smarter, more aggressive, highly resistant to injury -- and wreaking havoc everywhere it goes. All this and more in this week's Strange News segment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My
(00:25):
name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis codenamed
Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. It's the top of the week. We are
heading into the end of February the beginning of March
(00:48):
twenty twenty three. There are so many things happening in
the world. We talked a little bit about the continuing
debacle in Ohio, Never Fear. We have an episode on
that coming, and we've also talked extensively with ourselves about
Cops City here in the metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. We'll
(01:11):
have more on that. The reason we started doing Strange
News is because there's a lot of stuff that doesn't
make it through the news cycle or gets lost, you know,
in the constant chatter of modern society. You may not
know that Australia has discovered a hive of spies. You
may not know about the rise of the super pig.
(01:31):
We didn't know about all these things. And you know,
you may have, like many of us, forgotten that there
is still litigation going on surrounding election conspiracies. And that's
something that's kind of fallen out of the news and
it really shouldn't. Yeah, and it's interesting that we're talking
about the news because that is exactly what this pertains
(01:55):
to than that news cycle and the way, in many
cases it is designed to just you know, attract eyeballs
and demographics, and you know, the idea of what gets
chosen selectively, very selectively to be covered is part of
a much larger calculation that of course pertains to ratings
(02:17):
and ultimately advertising dollars and you know, market share and
things like that. So with any news outlet, you have
to take that into consideration. Why are they showing me
this now? What are they trying to distract me from?
Why do they want me to be thinking about this now?
Who am I as pertains to? That demographic? And today
we're specifically talking about Fox News, which is obviously a
(02:40):
very divisive network. It is the most successful news network
typically you know, absolutely creaming CNN in the ratings. And
this is something that the folks in charge at Fox
News take very seriously. They want to remain you know,
on the top of the heap as far as ratings
or concerns so that they can, you know, things like
(03:02):
that affect stock prices, things like that effect advertising dollars
coming in the amount that they can charge per advertisement
campaign or whatever. There's different metrics for television and radio
and all all that stuff, but it's usually there's you
command kind of a premium price depending on your ratings,
(03:23):
and that is a thing that can fall and lead
to lower income for your company. Fox News, you may
recall reported pretty extensively on this idea that the dominion
voting machines that were being used during the last presidential
election were in some way compromised. Do you guys remember
(03:47):
that there was all kinds of things being thrown around.
It was like they're owned by what was it Guatemala
or some some other some country that was suspect. I
fully remember just the concept of connecting dominion voting machines
with being hackable, like easily hackable and could be manipulated.
And I remember this because we were here where we vote,
(04:10):
where I vote. Those machines were in use and it
was freaking me out. Yeah, dominion voting systems has been
um I don't know, it's like because it is international,
it's not all in house. They have software offices in
Canada and Serbia, weirdly enough, as well as the United States,
so they were they were quite controversial, and everything about
(04:34):
the process of the US election is controversial, and frankly,
it's often confusing to people from other countries, Like why
isn't of voting a holiday? You know what I mean?
The same reason, Like the tax system is ridiculous. Let me,
I'm not going to get all the way on the soapbox.
But the IRS is like, hey, we know how much
money you owe? Are you going to tell me? No,
(04:54):
you guess and you're we'll tell you if you don't
pay it right, and then we'll come from you and
then we'll charge you a big because the IRS is
essentially a you know, a mafioso type organization come and
to take their collections. I mean, what weird toxic relationship
is that, Like, hey, IRS, are you mad at me?
I don't know, should I be ben? Exactly? What something
(05:16):
wrong anyway, a shame if something happened to your livelihood
and then knocks the vase off the table. But you're right,
it's Canada. That's where they were founded, right, Dominion, Well, yeah,
they are founded in Canada. But there were reports that
were later disproven that the Dominion Voting System organization was
(05:36):
tied to Venezuela, specifically to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to
George Soros, to the Clinton Foundation, all kind of red
meat for right wing controversies, the idea that these entities
are in some way steering the course of human events,
let's just say. And Fox News repeated a lot of
(05:59):
these claims that were being made by the Trump campaign
and other kind of far right pundits and types, you know,
like the the Alex Joneses of the world and all
of that. Well, the chickens have most assuredly come home
to roost in a one point six billion dollar defamation
suit that was filed last week by Dominion Voting Systems
(06:22):
against Fox News for spreading what they must believe are
probably false bits of information. And the reason that I
say they must be pretty confident in that is because
defamation is one of the hardest things to prove. I'm
not a legal scholar by any stretch of the imagination.
(06:43):
I did take kind of media law and ethics in
college when I was studying communications, and I do remember
that was one thing that the professor really hit home
that defamation, the burden of proof is very much on
the plaintiff. Yeah, and it's something you have to have
to approve actual malice. You have to approve that not
only did an organization or you know, the the defendant
(07:08):
say something that was defamatory, you have to prove that
they knew what they were saying was false when they
said it, and that they were essentially being completely negligent
and spreading false information. And you'd think that would be
hard hard to prove in this case because a lot
of the the I believe one of the first sort
(07:31):
of segments that took place with this was Fox News
having some representative of the Trump organization or you know,
political organization on with the question leading question admittedly being
something to the effect of, so you say there are
some voter or irregularities, tell us about that, you know,
and that opens the door for that person to to
(07:52):
spread you know, whatever and whatever whatever they believe to
be the truth. It was actually Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.
But now as part of this suit, a lot of
information has become part of the public record, and that
information shows people like Sean Hannity saying things to colleagues
in other higher ups, even I believe Murdoch Rupert Murdoch
(08:15):
himself saying, hey, this stuff is bogus. We know this
stuff isn't true. We can't believe people believe it. But
if we don't push this narrative out there, we're gonna
get our butts handed to us by you know, right
wing news alternatives like Newsmax. Yeah, he called I think
he specifically called it in this uh this wonderful Columbia
(08:38):
Journalism Review art of very good article. He called it.
H called it really crazy stuff. But you know, with
an Australian accent, right, And I believe it was Hannity
who was saying this is obviously BS. And I can't
believe our our viewers are good people. I can't believe
they believe this. And then ultimately it led to them
(08:59):
just push more of this stuff out and they did
it for months. And I bet you in the case
it will come down to the minutia of the way
they reported it, you know what I mean, because you
can kind of give yourself an out if you're just
giving voice to others, Right, you're quoting, That's right, you're quoting.
(09:19):
But there's also acknowledgments in a lot of these communications
that include emails and texts and you know, all kinds
of internal comms, uh, saying that they were basically cherry
picking quotes, leaving out the relevant kind of actual facts stuff,
and just broadcasting the stuff that was more inflammatory. And
you know, with just a cursory glance of a lot
(09:41):
of this stuff, it seems very clear if they were
doing that with the express purpose of pandering to that audience. Yeah,
it's it's tough too, because you know, you're looking for
just like the libel, right, you're looking for this kind
of intention. You have to prove intent. This would be
a malicious intent. And one thing that really stood out
(10:04):
to me in some of this reporting is that access
to internal communication, like you mentioned, thole shows a lot
of the same phrasing being used, which is not I mean,
its circumstances like that's crazy or things like threading the
needle right, right, Well, that's that's more corporate speak for
(10:25):
how do we you know, how do we hijack this
narrative to our benefit? Basically threading again, also, how do
we not piss off our viewers? That's what threading the
needle means. It means treading lightly. Right, Does that mean
they're coordinating? You know, like that's something that would be
they would question, right, like, how how much of this was? Hey,
(10:46):
we know this story is bs. Let's all work together
to make dominion voting systems look bad. And I don't
think we're necessarily saying dominion voting systems are them sacro saint.
It's just, of course not. I mean defamation though you
nailed it, man, Like, is it going to be possible
(11:07):
to prove that there was Defamation's kind of a conspiracy
at this point, that's right. But the point is in
the point of a lot of these great reporters, like
in the La Times piece a column by Harry Littman,
you don't you don't go out on a limb with
a case like this if you don't feel like it's
pretty strong, right, you just wouldn't do it. You know,
(11:27):
you would have enough smart people smarter than us in
these matters advising, you know, unfortunately, Yeah, it's probably true,
but the burden is so tough for you to prove
that that they had actual malice. It's not worth exorbitant
court costs. And I mean, I'm sure Dominion Voting Systems
is a large corporate company with with lots of assets,
(11:50):
but probably not to the degree of Fox News. Wouldn't
you say, I don't know what they're like org chart is.
It could well be there part of some giants and
it's not even necessarily say, or a giant corporate structure,
and they have unlimited, you know, deep pockets for things
like this. But Fox News has the deepest of pockets
when it comes to stuff like this, and they will
defend themselves to the teeth with with all their you know,
(12:13):
cavalcade of lawyers and legal resources. I mean, it's it's
deep water already, right. Would you say one point six
billion dollar billion? So so you know, even with those
deep pockets that Fox has, that would be a serious blow,
wouldn't you say? I mean they did. I think they
posted profits of upwards of two billion last fiscal years,
(12:35):
So it wouldn't like tank them necessarily. Surely they have
plenty in reserves and operating budget and all of that.
I mean that's just on top of all operating costs.
So it would it would basically wipe out their profits
for that whole year if if they lost, not to
mention all of the court costs that they would be
on the hook for as well. Um, Matt, what do
(12:56):
you think, man? This is like let's say this does
go through their guilty, they get in trouble, they get
fined all that money. Do you think it actually changes
their viewership at all? Well, that's the thing a lot
of folks are saying. It could potentially have impact on
that and on their relevance and on their credibility. And
(13:16):
I'm doing quotation fingers for credibility because a lot of
their credibility isn't the kind of credibility you would usually
ascribe to like a news organization. It's credibility with their viewers.
And we know that organizations like Fox and Newsmax, they're
very divisive in the way they report things, in the
way the rhetoric that they give voice to. So you
(13:36):
could argue from one side they have no credibility already,
but that credibility with their viewers is money in the
bank for them. And if this is this is literally
them talking like liberal elitist right off the record, you know,
so they say, oh, our our viewers are so dumb
they believe this stuff. You know, we know it to
(13:59):
be not true because it got a lot of these
people like Tucker Carlson we know are from the the
elitist of the elite, I mean, the heir to the
Swanson you know, the frozen Foods company and these We
think he'd be much more whimsical. I sink I have
some weird prejudices about frozen food airs. Yeah, like they'd
be like Santa Claus type figures like Wonka is I
(14:21):
don't know I got you? But do you see what
I mean? Though? That stakes and could torpedo that credibility
with their viewers because all of a sudden, now they're
seeing these these internal communications where they're kind of being
talked down to and realize that they're being lied to purposefully.
And it's not like televangelist where you can come on
(14:41):
and have a performative like get right with God, change
of Heart. Yeah, but how much is Fox News going
to report on this story about itself? Right? And mostly
if you've got mostly a bubble of Fox News that
you bring in good point. They could spin it to
their benefit like that they they were being fairly maligned
and unfairly you know whatever. And we've seen that kind
(15:05):
of thing, maybe not to this extent, but we've seen
that kind of thing in the past. What I would
be more worried about if I'm your Rupert Murdoch or
a person who runs one of these divisions at Fox News,
it's that the advertisers notice all of this stuff, they
don't want to be associated with false reporting, and then
they pull out. And if they pull out, then your
(15:26):
company's done. But you could also argue, though, that a
lawsuit is a matter of public record that even if
they don't report on it, it's it's gonna be out there,
you know what I mean. And I mean even folks
that willfully maybe pull the wool over their own eyes.
It's hard to deny a one point six billion dollars
(15:47):
defamation suit loss from there. But again maybe not maybe
that there the rabbit hole is so deep and these
folks are so entrenched that they would just see that
as a as a sign that the man is after
they're chosen News source. Well, yeah, there's also we have
to think about it. With that excellent point you made,
met Um, Fox is not alone in its space, right,
(16:10):
as corporate types would call it. So the attack or
attempting to get that news to people who usually do
watch Fox would probably come from one of its rival networks, right,
That's what success of course it would, And they're already
shedding viewers who were already if not dual tuned in
(16:32):
to Fox and a news Max or something of that
ilk they'll see that reported and they'll be like, what up, Fox,
what's the deal with this story on my other chosen
news you know source. So, for everybody at home, Noll
just got off the phone, Tucker Carlson. I'm pretty sure
it was a Cambridge, Massachusetts number that that does sound
(16:53):
like the kind of place that old Tucky would have
a have a little getaway, a little bungal though. It
was probably George from Seinfeld to get in. Yeah. Yeah,
he's the worst, now, the absolute best. But this is fascinating,
And I don't even think this is even an issue
of political brinksmanship or whatever. Maybe I'm just using that term,
but this is this is like whatever side you fall on,
(17:14):
nobody wants to be lied to. And when you hear
that these people that are feeding you what you believe
to be the truth are knowingly feeding you lies. That's
not okay. It reminds me of Brexit, honestly, when you
see the internal communication of the of the power structures
in the United Kingdom that we're pushing to leave the
(17:36):
European Union. They knew it was going to be a
bleep me here, doc. They knew it was going to
be a show, which is why they started moving their
money in different places. And when you can rely to protects, Yeah,
heartbreaking interviews with just average people in the United Kingdom
who are saying, well, we got sold a pig in
(17:58):
a poke, for sure, and this is unfortunate, you know,
because voting is incredibly important and there are a lot
of powerful forces that don't want you to do it.
Just being honest, it's true, I have no problem with that.
I think there are probably shades within that, but I
think that's always sort of on the table, the idea
(18:19):
of how can we prevent folks that would oppose us
from getting to the polls or make it complicated, you know,
so that only it just it's sort of like, I
just I'm sorry, I can make everything about Disney World,
but I just got back from Disney World, and they
do a thing. We realize pretty quickly that the lines
the number for like how long the weight is, they're
inflated by about thirty to forty five minutes, And inherent
(18:42):
in that is to thin the herd. It is to
raise the barrier of entry to only the most serious writers.
So this is exactly what we're talking about with all
of these you know, roadblocks with voting. It's not necessarily
you couldn't say it's fully disinframed franchising, but it's making
it just inconvenient enough, and it's gonna thin them. I
(19:05):
didn't know that. Hey, did you get it was the
Tron Ride a thing? Is that a thing? No, there's
no Tron Ride. I wish we did Guard into the Galaxy.
We did Star Wars, we did Avatar, we did all
the like three hour weights, and they are easily two hours,
but it'll say three and a half and it is
easily forty five minutes less than that. But anyway, I
(19:25):
don't know that we need to go much deeper into
this because it's going to be an ongoing thing, But
I think it's absolutely fascinating to see the clearly this
company believes they have a strong case, and I wish
I could find it. It might have been in that
Columbia Journalism Review there was actually some quotes from a
from a defamation lawyer that was just commenting for the
(19:47):
article saying how strong the case was. Oh, I know
what it is. It's because Fox News is actually claiming
that what they're doing is as a matter of First
Amendment freedom of the press. And then it's p he
acted by New York Times versus Sullivan, which I don't
have the specifics, but it says here, okay, in this
LA Times column Sullivan, the landmark press freedom ruling is
(20:09):
indeed central to this case. That's why Fox is facing
a potential disastrous dree trial and the possibility of a
gargantuan liability verdict. And that is because that ruling protects
news organizations if they exhibited goodwill, if they exhibited sorry,
good faith, right, if they were making these reports in
(20:31):
good faith. But now we literally have these communications internally
from this company saying they were not making these reports
in good faith at all. So this precedent they're siting
doesn't really apply. Guys. Before we move on to the break,
I just want to point out if anybody was just
thinking that, oh, all the voting machines are safe and
(20:53):
can't be hacked, just remember there was reporting well before
this time about vulnerabilities within those older tech voting machines,
and those are very much real. It's just people, yep, yep.
There are a lot of issues still with those machines.
(21:14):
And just because the facts were wrong when it comes
to reporting of Fox News about this particular company, doesn't
mean that all the voting machines are safe. I mean,
no technology is completely infallible, and we know that, you
know a lot of times, putting things on a network
that can be accessed by folks that know how to
(21:36):
do that is always a potential gateway to problems. So
why they used to just use like punch cards, you know.
So anyway, something to keep an eye on, for sure.
Let's take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsor,
and then we'll be back with another piece of strange news.
(22:00):
And we're back. We're going to Australia, guys. I know
there are a lot of people hearing this right now
in Australia. Right, we know this, We've seen the metrics. Yeah.
Shout out to our Australian fans. Uh. Shout out to
some of our fellow fellow podcast folks in Australia. We're
(22:20):
we're fans, big fans. Still never been to Australia, want
to go. So if any anybody listening, you know, has
the hook up, send us to Australia. Let's go. I
can't go into details, but I think I have to
go actually, so I'll be careful what we say on this.
Don't go into details whatever you do. But Australia is
(22:42):
not a land well, I think it's more of a vibe.
It's a broad out kind of land. Well, hopefully you're
going to investigate the following ben Uh. Australia has, according
to the Guardian. I really love their phrasing. Here has
quote busted a hive of spies, which we've been operating
within the country for years. Who spy hive? How many
(23:06):
years are we talking? Yeah? I love that. We're talking
a long time. We can get into some of the
specifics here, but let's go through the reporting from the Guardian.
I've really liked the way, like I said, they've been
phrasing things. So let's just let's get into who this
group was targeting, why they were targeting them, and then
what we know about the group themselves. Is it one group,
(23:28):
is it a bunch of different spies, like, is it
truly functioning as a hive mind within this phrasing, or
are they like individual actors. So the first thing you
need to know, at least according to the reporting that
I've seen thus far, no single country has been named
as in like, these are spies from China, Definitely, these
are spies from Russia or the United States or whatever.
(23:51):
Probably not the US because Australia. Remember, as we're talking about,
this is a member of the old Five Eyes thing,
which is the wests like dome of protection when it
comes to spying on every it's the eye of Sauron
that exploits an incredibly dumb legal loophole to allow domestic
(24:14):
spying even when one of the countries doesn't allow it.
Cough cough US cough cough. But it also it also
does provide, lest we less we make it entirely a
hit piece on this, it also does provide a lot
of intelligence that can help these countries in the global sphere.
So if you're not in five eyes, no matter who
(24:37):
you are, you really want to know what they're talking about.
Oh yeah, well let's see what they were finding out here.
So according to Mike Burgess, I think that's how you
would say that maybe I'm wrong. This person is the
is an intelligence chief. They're in Australia, And he stated
that these people were targeting journalists, they were targeting judges
(25:01):
and veterans, so military veterans often. They were targeting people
who would put on their social media accounts that they
had security clearance. Not everybody who's targeted, but this was
a common thing. And just since we just talked about
this in the recent past, guys, what do you think
(25:23):
about that, Like the concept of touting in a way
and your outward appearance, the part you play or portray
to people on social media that hey, I have security clearance.
I think it's messy and you shouldn't do it. There's
and I'm being pretty absolutist about that, like as a flex,
like look at me, I've got security clearance. Sometimes it's
(25:44):
a flex, but it could also be you know, consider
the scenario where somebody is on something like LinkedIn, and
they're looking for a job and they want you to
know they have qualifications to do a specific type of
work that requires a clearance. That's less. Still, there other
avenues you don't You shouldn't be necessarily doing that in public. Now.
(26:05):
Of course, your mileage may vary, and maybe maybe one
of our fellow conspiracy realist will have an absolutely watertight
reason for doing that. But if you are, if you
are playing for another team, you're looking for low hanging
fruit like that, because it is a violation of OPSEC
for sure, yes, yes, And oh, by the way, the
(26:27):
way they would get to these people often ben is
to well, the quote here is to seduce them, but
that doesn't mean necessarily, you know, sexually seduce somebody at
a bar. It could mean that, but it could also
mean something like giving a journalist and all expense paid
trip to some other country, maybe the country of the
(26:48):
spies origin, and take them on tours, you know, give
them all kinds of information and be able to lobby. Well, well,
imagine putting a bug. You're put your taking this bug
that you've been watching, putting it in your jar, and
now you get to just watch what the bug does
for a little while at the hotel that you put
them in, you know what I mean, It's just, you know,
(27:10):
the regulations on things like that, even within our entertainment
based industry are pretty tight, like the you know, FCC
has has laws or rules internal guidelines against things called
paola where it's like pay to play kind of stuff
where you know, if you're given gifts, then that is
a conflict of interest, especially if you then turn around
(27:31):
and give someone airplay. So if we're beholden to things
like that in the entertainment industry, why aren't governments held
to those same kind of guidelines. Well, it's very very
bad if you get caught and now and also I think, Matt,
you hit one of the most important things right now.
(27:51):
No one's naming the suspected countries or country. There are
some pretty good guesses you can make if you're playing
a law at home. But one hundred percent the investigators know,
and there is a reason that they are not disclosing,
And the most likely reason is that they feel like
they can shake a few more people out of the
(28:12):
out of the trees on this one. Oh for sure,
for sure, because I just have to keep reading from stuff.
Mike Burgess was saying, because a lot of this comes
from kind of a speech that he gave about the
state of what was going on, almost like a state
of the Union, but for an intelligence organization in Australia.
The organization is called the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization,
(28:35):
also also known as ASIO. I don't think it's a
SiO the way you would say CIA for Central Intelligence Agency.
I think it's a CEO or ASIO or something like that.
I've I haven't actually heard it, I've only read it.
But because it's not all capitalized, that's why I mean.
But it's not it's not like CIA. But he is
the chief there. He was saying that there was a
(28:58):
concerted effort to target Australian media. So we're talking about
journalists talking about judges and all that stuff, veterans, but
really it seems like one of the main objectives was
to infiltrate media so that you could they could figure
out sources, right, So who are these journalists talking to
to get all the important information that might have security implications,
(29:22):
which is really creepy, and also to actually shape some
of the media being generated within Australia from within. Yeah,
parts and minds, Yeah, a little bit more complicated than
out and out buying propaganda spots. We recently talked to
(29:44):
our pal Jordan Harbinger, and he pointed out, I think
he's fine with us saying this. He pointed out in
our conversation with him that, oh, not too long ago,
he and several other people on YouTube had been targeted
by a foreign government to disseminate an alternative narrative about COVID.
(30:05):
Oh yeah, uh huh. We didn't receive those, right, I don't.
I don't personally remember ever seeing anything like that. Well,
it doesn't always happen. In defense of some of these
reporters or people working in entertainment. Very rarely is it
going to happen like in the movies, you know, like
a guy with a trill being a trench coat kind
(30:26):
of sitting on a bench next to you randomly and
saying weird things that are code words. It's like you're
having a great time and your buddy Gregg wants you
to do a favor. Yeah, I don't know why. I'm
maybe think of this guy's on the subredit for news
like slash r slash news. That's where I first encountered
(30:48):
the stories. Often where I first encountered these stories. I'm
sure you guys do that as well, at least to
some extent. There was somebody commenting on this person, Mike
Mike Burgess and how he kind of looks like Mike
erman Trout um, and he really kind of definitely a look. Yeah,
but it's like a bad to me, it's a badass look,
like he's just gonna come in there. He's not gonna think.
(31:12):
He's just gonna take this hive and he's gonna take
it out, you know what I mean. It's just I
really enjoyed this. I feel like that's his vibe. Yeah,
And he also looks, like I'll say it, he looks
a little bit more rugged than Erman Trout, you know
what I mean. He's wearing a suit in a lot
of media pictures that are circulating, but yeah, he looks
(31:33):
he looks like a Irocket if he has to, I think,
you know what I mean. I think so he's also
got one of those I I you know, I don't
like to talk about people's bodies unless I'm saying something
objective or complimentary. And I really like to your point,
Matt about his appearance. I really like how he's one
of those people who has one eyebrow that scants up naturally,
(31:55):
because those people always looks I always thought those people
look so cool. Oh dude, dude, agreed. I'm gonna give
you a quote that he that he said they were good,
but Azio was better working with our partners. We removed them.
They stuff. That is an army quote, right there, really
good voice, too many. Oh my god, sorry, that's kind
(32:20):
of so this This stuff never comes about like suddenly,
right they They usually if you're doing counterintelligence or whatever,
just like we saw with German authorities stopping Heinrich's attempted coup,
Still ridiculous. This is usually the culmination, right of several
(32:41):
months of work at least, or how long is this
pot of coffee of counter intelligence coffee been brewing? Well,
I suppose it's been for a year, that's what was
stated there, but I don't know. I have a feeling
it was longer than that. Guys, And I wonder if
we're going to get more details about this, because it's
the real umami of it, right, is learning ins and
(33:03):
outs of how that kind of thing works on both sides.
And yeah, unfortunately, I would imagine Matt that we're not
going to get a lot of details right away if
they're not even going to name the country. No, and
when it comes just when it comes to a time
frame like that, I imagine it would be not advantageous
(33:24):
to publicly announce how long you've been investigating something, right,
because then you give the people like a timeline of
when technology could have been planted on where those people live. Like,
you know, you don't want to do that if you're
actually doing counterintelligence like this, you want it to be
a little more amorphous or under or overestimate a number
(33:45):
pretty heavily. Yeah, that's a great point, man. And then
there's another thing in the Guardian article that you had
mentioned and sent around earlier toward toward the end is
something initially confused, but towards the end Burgess, as almost
a separate thing, said that OSSIO have found two other
(34:08):
countries attempting to essentially kidnap people or to lure them away,
like you said, seduce them just like you said, you know,
as someone is trying to find a human rights activist
and get them outside of off Australian soil where they
could be And Burgess used this phrase disposed of. That's
(34:29):
where that's where the water gets deep, you know what
I mean, Because now it's not just hey, can we
throw a journalist the equivalent of several thousand dollars or
whatever and get them to spread propaganda for us, it's
can we snuff people? Yeah? Who? Oh yeah? Mark, Yep, guys,
(34:51):
this one, this one might scare you, you both a
little bit scares me a little bit. Burgess describes a
scenario where at a bar, two women approached a couple
of employees Mail employees, and they just wanted to know
everything they could find out about Pine Gap, a place
(35:14):
that we've talked about on this show before, place very
important for signals intelligence. And Mike said, quote, fortunately the
defense employees resisted and reported the approach to ten rule mail.
We got that one time about somebody who was stationed abroad,
and we're talking they were like essentially monitoring people, and
(35:38):
they sent them they were like communicating with a loved one,
you know, secretly kind of and they met somebody randomly
at a bar that kind of knew everything about them.
Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, this reminds me of that.
That's actually that's a great counter example because in that example,
it was it was an entirely a hometown game, you
(35:58):
know what I mean. So that was that was the
US doing their due diligence. And I think we can
say it's the US, but we probably remember we had
to be careful with some details on that. But this
stuff happens more than people think, given Australia's literal position
in the world and the amount of resources it possesses,
especially mineral resources. Um, I don't know. And also you
(36:21):
just want to know stuff, right, It's cool to know things. Well, yeah,
and what Australia knows might be also what the US
knows or what the UK knows. Right, So they're allies. Yeah,
but there are five eyes, right, there are five allies,
and there's a lot of shared information there, and that's
why it becomes very dangerous. Guys, we're gonna have to
(36:44):
keep our ears and eyes out for this and definitely
definitely guys, resist anyone who approaches you and wants to
know about Pine Gap overall. Overall, Yeah, all right, we'll
be right back with one last strange news story. I
(37:09):
am so excited about this at all caps so the
document excitement registered visually there. What I'm on one and
we have to ask, is it the coffee or is
it legitimate excitement? But this one legit excitement, even if
I wasn't caffeinated to the gills as usual. Okay, here's
(37:30):
here's the entry point. So while I was traveling a
couple of places I can remember where I got, I
started reading this book by Neil Stephenson. I love Neil Stevenson.
Amazing author. Maybe not for everybody, but amazing guy, amazing mind.
He recently wrote a book called Termination Shock, and Termination
Shock has a really interesting opening. It's in the near future.
(37:53):
It's sci fi about climate change. But don't let that
turn you off. That's why I didn't want to read
it for a while at so I was like, oh,
come on, I don't need this diatribe today. But in
the very beginning, this plane, I think it's like the
Queen of the Netherlands is piloting a plane for reasons
we don't have to get into and it crashes in
(38:15):
Texas and they are attacked by this massive collection of
Farrell Hawgs. And as I'm reading this, yeah, and this
happens very quickly in the beginning of the book. So
it's not a spoiler. As I'm reading this, I'm like,
all right, well, let's see if he gets preachy about
climate change. But for right now, great setup, Neil, and
(38:37):
probably she makes it out of that first encounter. Yeah, okay, okay.
And here's the other thing. Remember, gosh, how many years
ago was it when the cyclical conversation about firearms in
the US was at its apex and people were talking
about needing fully automatic weapons in case they had to
fight off thirty to fifty Farrell hawks. And that became
(39:01):
a meme for a second. Yeah, because you started it.
Though it's so kind of accidentally. This guy Jason Isabel,
who's songwriter guitarists, used to be in the drive by
truckers and then kind of went solo, and he tweeted
sort of like a hot take about assault weapons, said,
if you're on here arguing the definition of assault weapon today,
you're part of the problem. You know what an assault
(39:22):
weapon is, and you know you don't need one, to
which Willie McNabb replied, legit. Question for rural Americans, how
do I kill thirty to fifty Ferrell hogs? They run
into my yard within three to five minutes while my
small kids play jeez, and so these things. Once again,
Stephenson made some As a brilliant sci fi author, he
made predictions that are closer to becoming true as we
(39:46):
record this. Fellow conspiracy realist, especially the northern United States,
super pigs are coming your way. That's like twenty twenty
three already we got some. We got some new a species. Uh.
They're a cross breed between domestic pigs wild boars. They
can get up to two hundred and fifty pounds in
(40:09):
weight on average. They go absolutely beast mode on anything
in the environment. They can also, according to the USDA,
they can go into uh like a height of three
feet they could be five feet long. These are not
the pigs from Charlotte's Web, you know, I mean, this
is not Babe, I'm just doing that's oh my. And
(40:33):
it does it look like a pig or a boar.
It looks more like a bore if you were just
hanging out. Good god, that's that's terrifying to me. Yeah,
and you can see some pictures of these. I mean,
I know we've been quoting The Guardian extensively here. They
just did a lot of great work this week. Um
the uh, there's a great article by Adam Gabbett that
(40:55):
will give you a quick look at some of this stuff.
Right now, this Canadian based creature, this super pig, it's
being called that because it's incredibly agro, it's incredibly you know, belligerent,
it's very intelligent, and it's super good at not being
found if it doesn't want to be found. And right now,
(41:19):
already just the regular pigs that are running around the
US and they're not a native species, remember that right now.
Uncle Sam estimates there's already six million wild or feral
pigs and they cause one point five billion dollars of
damage each year. So maybe maybe if the courts get creative,
(41:40):
dominion will say, you know, you know, you can pay us,
or you can fight the pigs, you know what I mean,
to death. It's like rubber Bathian. Yeah you know, yeah,
well you'll trial by combat. So the males have long
tusk and they can spear, they can gore, they can
(42:02):
stove in a chest. These things have killed deer and elk. Yeah,
like I will give you a sense, Ben, I just
got that Guardian article you're talking about. It says they
can even get bigger than that two hundred and fifty
pound average rings like like doubleyet nah, five pound tust
pig that's like three feet tall. Nah, And people, the
(42:28):
weird thing is as ridiculous as this sound. Scientists have
been warning about this for years and years and years,
and no one listened because the idea sounds so preposterous. Like, hey,
I know there are a lot of terrible things going on.
There's a lot of crap we have to be worried about.
But add super pigs to the list, and everyone's like,
(42:49):
get out of here, professor, you're drunk. And you know,
it's like a last of a situation, but with pigs
instead of corducepts. Like imagine someone finally goes to the
professor's pigproof bunker and he's like, you have to apologize first, yo.
Can you imagine if the super pigs joined forces with
the super bugs. That's kind of supercap That's kind of
(43:15):
what's happening if you mean, like if if we're talking bugs,
is in affections, infections exactly become that become resistant to antibiotics, right,
and they are a mixtape. Uh. They are potentially a
great American melting pot of viruses that are zoonotic that
(43:36):
are transmissible to humans. Man, so you think you got
away and then the coughing starts. God, it's a terrible thing, right. Um. No, Now,
of course there are a lot of programs to try
to tamp down on these these invasive species, these wild
(43:58):
or feral animals. But the new ones, right, the V
two point zero that are coming, they do like hardcore
special forces stuff like if they if they know someone's
hunting them, they will be smart enough to burrow under
snow and freezing temperatures and hide out for hours until
(44:21):
you know, the heat passes back up. Yeah. Yeah, and
they're breeding. Um. The ideas that because they expand and
they can be tough to catch, the populations they're breeding
with other pigs that are already over the border, right
because nature doesn't really care about political borders. So the
(44:41):
pigs are going to have a pig party very you know,
showtime after dark pig party, and they're just their population
will explode. I know, man, it's not the most poetic phrase.
But the problem then becomes they Okay, they do tremendous
damage to crops, they do tremendous damage to agriculture, to
(45:03):
other extant species, but they can also pose a great
danger to humans. This Every article I've been reading about
this turns into this laundry list about how bad these
things are for everyone. And I know it's very um
it's very easy to think like we're being cold and
nature should run into course and so on. But that's
(45:26):
until you learn all the stuff about these creatures, the
fact that it's difficult to kill them with firearms unless
you're packing something heavy because of the weird composition of
their bodies. Like you can shoot at them. I don't.
I don't think we owe an apology to those guys
on Twitter, but it like you can shoot at these
(45:49):
things and they'll still get you. They're armored, and they're
like the like smoug from the Hobbit, or they only
have a tiny little vulnerable cube. So apparently they are
far more resistant on pretty much every level. So I
think there is physiological stuff I've got to We've got
(46:11):
to find one, just one. Yeah, well, wait you I
will hang out in a chicken coop, but I will
not go trapesing through the wood looking for Farrell hogs
with you. Sorry, that's where I draw the line. I
actually put me in y'all. Let me know what's up.
I may try the well because forgive me if I'm
wrong here, but these pigs are edible like any other pig, right,
(46:35):
Heck yeah, they're probably get Yeah, so if you do,
if you happen to eat that, Um, maybe maybe you don't,
but I mean, I guess I would if I had to.
So people are going hungry. There's a food source. You
just need some high caliber weaponry to take one out
if you can't. So here an argument for assault rifles. Boom.
(46:55):
It's the most high stakes bacon you will ever eat. Oh.
I like the idea of high stake sam makes it
taste that much better. It does, it really does. It's
like in Game of Thrones or song about some fire
technically whether where they they're like, did you buy that
with the gold price or the iron price? Iron brow? Yeah.
It's the same as people eating, you know, food from
(47:16):
the supermarket versus catching or at the very least, slaughtering
their own food. It's a different, and it's different, you know.
And this okay, so I'm so excited about this that
I forgot to talk about how these came to be.
Because if you look for super pigs in your browser
of choice, then you are going to see that the
(47:37):
government of China and the US had been trying to
breed different streams of pigs and sometimes these were called
super pigs as well, Canadian super pigs very different. What
had happened was Canadian farmers imported wild boars from Europe
in the nineteen eighties and they got out because the
(48:00):
very smart. They're very intelligent animals, and they thought, okay,
we can rear these boar because we like some of
these traits. We can rear them for meat. But to
do that, we need to breathe them with domestic pigs,
which we're not a thing in this continent till the
fifteen hundreds or so. So they breathed these pigs to
get the boars and the pigs together. And they're not
(48:20):
indigenous to Canada, but they are very very enterprising minds,
and so of course the escape because they're not dumb.
If you figure out that you're being raised for as
food as a food source, you try to get out,
you know, see if you could change your circumstances. And
(48:41):
some of them escape from farms. But then the population
grew again because there was a decline in demand for pork,
and some farmers just said, well, I'm not going to
kill you if there's no reason, go free, you know. Yeah, Like,
what's that thing at the end of that'll do that'll pig?
(49:03):
That pig? Did you guys read about the method of
a Judas pig? The hunting method of a Judas pig.
I'm gonna guess it's biblically disgusting. No, Can I just
tell this really? Yea. The concept is, if you're hunting
these special super pigs, you capture one. You don't kill it.
(49:26):
You capture one, then you fit it with a GPS,
then you release it back into the wild, and theoretically,
if you leave it alone long enough, it goes back
to it's not called a herd, I don't know what,
it's called the group of pigs um or maybe it
is a herd, I don't know, um a group. And
then you go and take out that group, but you
(49:47):
leave the Judas pig alive, and then you release it
again and let it go and it goes and finds
other pigs, and then you take out that group because
it's betraying it. That's so much And this is like
a gutty and a tactic. You know what I mean
send the survive, send one back and let them think
(50:08):
they made it. A group of pigs is apparently called
a drift or drove or a sounder, and a group
of boars is called a singular. So help us out
what should why does it call a singular? Right? So
what should we call a group of super pigs? I
don't know? But can I just add really quickly, one
more little Disney thing I learned. I did the Safari
(50:30):
thing an animal Kingdom, and our driver was really into
animal group names. And I learned a flamboyance of of flamingos.
And it's not because they're fabulous, it's because they're buoyant.
They're very good at float it's good. And then a
crash of rhinos, which I love, um actually good one.
(50:53):
There was a float of crocodiles if they're in the water,
and a basque of crocodile aisles if they're on the land. Wow.
I always liked unkindness of ravens and the corvids. Man,
there's so many a glaring of cats. How do we
get in the business of just making up those names? Right?
(51:15):
They're they're cleverly descriptive. Someone had to have kind of
coined it some zoologist or whatever, but they usually are
like some clever description, but I still don't quite get
a singular of boars. No, that's just a flex. At
that point, you know, somebody was being too clever. So
there are other things you need to know about this.
(51:36):
What we're seeing is something called Bergman's rule playing out
in real time Bergman b R G M A N N.
This rule says that the further north at animals range
is the higher the tendency that they will be larger.
(51:56):
So the size and the intelligence of super pigs allowed
to survive in harsh conditions, which makes moving to less
harsh environments cheesecake, which means that in less action is taken.
These are on the way, and I just I am
so fascinated that Neil Stevenson predicted this was reading about it.
(52:19):
It hits everything we know about sci fi blockbusters. There's
a hapless professor who's been warning people ape man like
serious cast of characters. I've only ever read um. It
was called re reamdi Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's about like
gold farming in like multiple like MMARPG games and some
sort of diabolical plot. But then there's also I think
(52:41):
snow crash is maybe the most kind of cyberpunky or
like like very much an important one from him, right
m h and anathema or anathem and seventies were also
great like okay, again not for everybody, pretty cerebral, but uh,
but pretty predict in this case. So the last thing
you need to know, let's get a quote from Ryan Brook,
(53:05):
who is the leader of the Wild Pig research project
at the University of Saskatchewan. Might have to reach out
to Professor Brooke and see if he wants to talk
in an interview or on an episode, but add this quote.
It gives us the lay of the land. He says,
probably as late as maybe twenty ten or twenty twelve,
there was probably a reasonable chance of finding and removing them,
(53:28):
being the super pigs. But now they're so widespread and
so abundant that certainly as late as twenty eighteen or nineteen,
I stopped saying that eradication was possible. They're just so established.
They've definitely moved in and they're here to stay. Oh
boy are they? Yeah? So tell us what you think, folks,
tell us what tell us what you think of high
(53:51):
stakes Bacon tell us what these other invasive species you
think maybe on the way, let us know particular early
if you have had experience with Farrell picks with bore
or something like that. We can't wait to hear. We
also want to know your thoughts on defamation. We want
(54:12):
to know your thoughts on dominion voting systems and what
may or may not happen to Fox News if you
are in Australia or anywhere. As we said, just don't
talk about Pine Gap to strangers, you know what I mean,
especially attractive ones at a bar. Especially attractive ones at
a bar. Yeah, they might be trying to seduce you.
(54:34):
I just want to add really quick, one last little
bacon bit. Yeah, I saw I saw a thing. I
think it was New York Times cooking. Apparently, if you
twist your bacon like into a braid and then fry
it up that way, it's like delightful. I haven't tried
this yet. I haven't tried it, but I'm fascinated by
this idea. Let's do it because we are going to
(54:56):
be on the road together for the first time in
a while, so maybe maybe we can make that a project.
Cancel our plans. We're doing a high stakes baked experiment.
It's Project Braid. Yeah, I like this braids and acronym.
(55:16):
We're not going to tell you what it stands for though.
It's also an excellent value game. You had a band? Yes? Uh?
And the last thing, if you you heard us reference
the two ten rule really quickly, it's it's a rule
of thumb. It is not It is not like a
high fluting procedure of any sort. The ideas that if
(55:37):
you are in an unfamiliar place, you're doing something interesting
right like you are you're at the fancy hotel bar
because you are at your fancy business convention. And then
and as stranger approaches you, it is not going to
hurt not meant to hurt your self esteem. You need
to think of the one to ten attractiveness level and
(55:59):
treat yourself like a two and imagine whomever speaking to
you as a ten and immediately question their motives. No
matter how cool you feel at the time, You just
have to keep your head on swivel. That's funny and accurate,
good advice. If you have any of these things that
you want to communicate with us about, you can reach
(56:19):
us on social media where we're conspiracy stuff on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook,
conspiracy stuff show on TikTok and Instagram. And if you
don't want to do any of those things, you can
give us a telephone call. Yes you can. You can
call one eight three three std wy t K and
tell us all about our book that you ordered, because
(56:41):
now you're getting a fifth copy and we don't understand why.
But if you explain it to us, we will help
us get this thing into paperback. Y'all, come on help us, Yeah, seriously, please,
but yeah, when you do call in, give yourself a
cool nickname. You've got three minutes. Tell us whatever you'd like.
We can't wait to hear your stories. And if you
would like to not do that, why not instead send
(57:03):
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you to Know
(57:27):
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My
(00:25):
name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis codenamed
Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. It's the top of the week. We are
heading into the end of February the beginning of March
(00:48):
twenty twenty three. There are so many things happening in
the world. We talked a little bit about the continuing
debacle in Ohio, Never Fear. We have an episode on
that coming, and we've also talked extensively with ourselves about
Cops City here in the metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. We'll
(01:11):
have more on that. The reason we started doing Strange
News is because there's a lot of stuff that doesn't
make it through the news cycle or gets lost, you know,
in the constant chatter of modern society. You may not
know that Australia has discovered a hive of spies. You
may not know about the rise of the super pig.
(01:31):
We didn't know about all these things. And you know,
you may have, like many of us, forgotten that there
is still litigation going on surrounding election conspiracies. And that's
something that's kind of fallen out of the news and
it really shouldn't. Yeah, and it's interesting that we're talking
about the news because that is exactly what this pertains
(01:55):
to than that news cycle and the way, in many
cases it is designed to just you know, attract eyeballs
and demographics, and you know, the idea of what gets
chosen selectively, very selectively to be covered is part of
a much larger calculation that of course pertains to ratings
(02:17):
and ultimately advertising dollars and you know, market share and
things like that. So with any news outlet, you have
to take that into consideration. Why are they showing me
this now? What are they trying to distract me from?
Why do they want me to be thinking about this now?
Who am I as pertains to? That demographic? And today
we're specifically talking about Fox News, which is obviously a
(02:40):
very divisive network. It is the most successful news network
typically you know, absolutely creaming CNN in the ratings. And
this is something that the folks in charge at Fox
News take very seriously. They want to remain you know,
on the top of the heap as far as ratings
or concerns so that they can, you know, things like
(03:02):
that affect stock prices, things like that effect advertising dollars
coming in the amount that they can charge per advertisement
campaign or whatever. There's different metrics for television and radio
and all all that stuff, but it's usually there's you
command kind of a premium price depending on your ratings,
(03:23):
and that is a thing that can fall and lead
to lower income for your company. Fox News, you may
recall reported pretty extensively on this idea that the dominion
voting machines that were being used during the last presidential
election were in some way compromised. Do you guys remember
(03:47):
that there was all kinds of things being thrown around.
It was like they're owned by what was it Guatemala
or some some other some country that was suspect. I
fully remember just the concept of connecting dominion voting machines
with being hackable, like easily hackable and could be manipulated.
And I remember this because we were here where we vote,
(04:10):
where I vote. Those machines were in use and it
was freaking me out. Yeah, dominion voting systems has been
um I don't know, it's like because it is international,
it's not all in house. They have software offices in
Canada and Serbia, weirdly enough, as well as the United States,
so they were they were quite controversial, and everything about
(04:34):
the process of the US election is controversial, and frankly,
it's often confusing to people from other countries, Like why
isn't of voting a holiday? You know what I mean?
The same reason, Like the tax system is ridiculous. Let me,
I'm not going to get all the way on the soapbox.
But the IRS is like, hey, we know how much
money you owe? Are you going to tell me? No,
(04:54):
you guess and you're we'll tell you if you don't
pay it right, and then we'll come from you and
then we'll charge you a big because the IRS is
essentially a you know, a mafioso type organization come and
to take their collections. I mean, what weird toxic relationship
is that, Like, hey, IRS, are you mad at me?
I don't know, should I be ben? Exactly? What something
(05:16):
wrong anyway, a shame if something happened to your livelihood
and then knocks the vase off the table. But you're right,
it's Canada. That's where they were founded, right, Dominion, Well, yeah,
they are founded in Canada. But there were reports that
were later disproven that the Dominion Voting System organization was
(05:36):
tied to Venezuela, specifically to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to
George Soros, to the Clinton Foundation, all kind of red
meat for right wing controversies, the idea that these entities
are in some way steering the course of human events,
let's just say. And Fox News repeated a lot of
(05:59):
these claims that were being made by the Trump campaign
and other kind of far right pundits and types, you know,
like the the Alex Joneses of the world and all
of that. Well, the chickens have most assuredly come home
to roost in a one point six billion dollar defamation
suit that was filed last week by Dominion Voting Systems
(06:22):
against Fox News for spreading what they must believe are
probably false bits of information. And the reason that I
say they must be pretty confident in that is because
defamation is one of the hardest things to prove. I'm
not a legal scholar by any stretch of the imagination.
(06:43):
I did take kind of media law and ethics in
college when I was studying communications, and I do remember
that was one thing that the professor really hit home
that defamation, the burden of proof is very much on
the plaintiff. Yeah, and it's something you have to have
to approve actual malice. You have to approve that not
only did an organization or you know, the the defendant
(07:08):
say something that was defamatory, you have to prove that
they knew what they were saying was false when they
said it, and that they were essentially being completely negligent
and spreading false information. And you'd think that would be
hard hard to prove in this case because a lot
of the the I believe one of the first sort
(07:31):
of segments that took place with this was Fox News
having some representative of the Trump organization or you know,
political organization on with the question leading question admittedly being
something to the effect of, so you say there are
some voter or irregularities, tell us about that, you know,
and that opens the door for that person to to
(07:52):
spread you know, whatever and whatever whatever they believe to
be the truth. It was actually Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.
But now as part of this suit, a lot of
information has become part of the public record, and that
information shows people like Sean Hannity saying things to colleagues
in other higher ups, even I believe Murdoch Rupert Murdoch
(08:15):
himself saying, hey, this stuff is bogus. We know this
stuff isn't true. We can't believe people believe it. But
if we don't push this narrative out there, we're gonna
get our butts handed to us by you know, right
wing news alternatives like Newsmax. Yeah, he called I think
he specifically called it in this uh this wonderful Columbia
(08:38):
Journalism Review art of very good article. He called it.
H called it really crazy stuff. But you know, with
an Australian accent, right, And I believe it was Hannity
who was saying this is obviously BS. And I can't
believe our our viewers are good people. I can't believe
they believe this. And then ultimately it led to them
(08:59):
just push more of this stuff out and they did
it for months. And I bet you in the case
it will come down to the minutia of the way
they reported it, you know what I mean, because you
can kind of give yourself an out if you're just
giving voice to others, Right, you're quoting, That's right, you're quoting.
(09:19):
But there's also acknowledgments in a lot of these communications
that include emails and texts and you know, all kinds
of internal comms, uh, saying that they were basically cherry
picking quotes, leaving out the relevant kind of actual facts stuff,
and just broadcasting the stuff that was more inflammatory. And
you know, with just a cursory glance of a lot
(09:41):
of this stuff, it seems very clear if they were
doing that with the express purpose of pandering to that audience. Yeah,
it's it's tough too, because you know, you're looking for
just like the libel, right, you're looking for this kind
of intention. You have to prove intent. This would be
a malicious intent. And one thing that really stood out
(10:04):
to me in some of this reporting is that access
to internal communication, like you mentioned, thole shows a lot
of the same phrasing being used, which is not I mean,
its circumstances like that's crazy or things like threading the
needle right, right, Well, that's that's more corporate speak for
(10:25):
how do we you know, how do we hijack this
narrative to our benefit? Basically threading again, also, how do
we not piss off our viewers? That's what threading the
needle means. It means treading lightly. Right, Does that mean
they're coordinating? You know, like that's something that would be
they would question, right, like, how how much of this was? Hey,
(10:46):
we know this story is bs. Let's all work together
to make dominion voting systems look bad. And I don't
think we're necessarily saying dominion voting systems are them sacro saint.
It's just, of course not. I mean defamation though you
nailed it, man, Like, is it going to be possible
(11:07):
to prove that there was Defamation's kind of a conspiracy
at this point, that's right. But the point is in
the point of a lot of these great reporters, like
in the La Times piece a column by Harry Littman,
you don't you don't go out on a limb with
a case like this if you don't feel like it's
pretty strong, right, you just wouldn't do it. You know,
(11:27):
you would have enough smart people smarter than us in
these matters advising, you know, unfortunately, Yeah, it's probably true,
but the burden is so tough for you to prove
that that they had actual malice. It's not worth exorbitant
court costs. And I mean, I'm sure Dominion Voting Systems
is a large corporate company with with lots of assets,
(11:50):
but probably not to the degree of Fox News. Wouldn't
you say, I don't know what they're like org chart is.
It could well be there part of some giants and
it's not even necessarily say, or a giant corporate structure,
and they have unlimited, you know, deep pockets for things
like this. But Fox News has the deepest of pockets
when it comes to stuff like this, and they will
defend themselves to the teeth with with all their you know,
(12:13):
cavalcade of lawyers and legal resources. I mean, it's it's
deep water already, right. Would you say one point six
billion dollar billion? So so you know, even with those
deep pockets that Fox has, that would be a serious blow,
wouldn't you say? I mean they did. I think they
posted profits of upwards of two billion last fiscal years,
(12:35):
So it wouldn't like tank them necessarily. Surely they have
plenty in reserves and operating budget and all of that.
I mean that's just on top of all operating costs.
So it would it would basically wipe out their profits
for that whole year if if they lost, not to
mention all of the court costs that they would be
on the hook for as well. Um, Matt, what do
(12:56):
you think, man? This is like let's say this does
go through their guilty, they get in trouble, they get
fined all that money. Do you think it actually changes
their viewership at all? Well, that's the thing a lot
of folks are saying. It could potentially have impact on
that and on their relevance and on their credibility. And
(13:16):
I'm doing quotation fingers for credibility because a lot of
their credibility isn't the kind of credibility you would usually
ascribe to like a news organization. It's credibility with their viewers.
And we know that organizations like Fox and Newsmax, they're
very divisive in the way they report things, in the
way the rhetoric that they give voice to. So you
(13:36):
could argue from one side they have no credibility already,
but that credibility with their viewers is money in the
bank for them. And if this is this is literally
them talking like liberal elitist right off the record, you know,
so they say, oh, our our viewers are so dumb
they believe this stuff. You know, we know it to
(13:59):
be not true because it got a lot of these
people like Tucker Carlson we know are from the the
elitist of the elite, I mean, the heir to the
Swanson you know, the frozen Foods company and these We
think he'd be much more whimsical. I sink I have
some weird prejudices about frozen food airs. Yeah, like they'd
be like Santa Claus type figures like Wonka is I
(14:21):
don't know I got you? But do you see what
I mean? Though? That stakes and could torpedo that credibility
with their viewers because all of a sudden, now they're
seeing these these internal communications where they're kind of being
talked down to and realize that they're being lied to purposefully.
And it's not like televangelist where you can come on
(14:41):
and have a performative like get right with God, change
of Heart. Yeah, but how much is Fox News going
to report on this story about itself? Right? And mostly
if you've got mostly a bubble of Fox News that
you bring in good point. They could spin it to
their benefit like that they they were being fairly maligned
and unfairly you know whatever. And we've seen that kind
(15:05):
of thing, maybe not to this extent, but we've seen
that kind of thing in the past. What I would
be more worried about if I'm your Rupert Murdoch or
a person who runs one of these divisions at Fox News,
it's that the advertisers notice all of this stuff, they
don't want to be associated with false reporting, and then
they pull out. And if they pull out, then your
(15:26):
company's done. But you could also argue, though, that a
lawsuit is a matter of public record that even if
they don't report on it, it's it's gonna be out there,
you know what I mean. And I mean even folks
that willfully maybe pull the wool over their own eyes.
It's hard to deny a one point six billion dollars
(15:47):
defamation suit loss from there. But again maybe not maybe
that there the rabbit hole is so deep and these
folks are so entrenched that they would just see that
as a as a sign that the man is after
they're chosen News source. Well, yeah, there's also we have
to think about it. With that excellent point you made,
met Um, Fox is not alone in its space, right,
(16:10):
as corporate types would call it. So the attack or
attempting to get that news to people who usually do
watch Fox would probably come from one of its rival networks, right,
That's what success of course it would, And they're already
shedding viewers who were already if not dual tuned in
(16:32):
to Fox and a news Max or something of that
ilk they'll see that reported and they'll be like, what up, Fox,
what's the deal with this story on my other chosen
news you know source. So, for everybody at home, Noll
just got off the phone, Tucker Carlson. I'm pretty sure
it was a Cambridge, Massachusetts number that that does sound
(16:53):
like the kind of place that old Tucky would have
a have a little getaway, a little bungal though. It
was probably George from Seinfeld to get in. Yeah. Yeah,
he's the worst, now, the absolute best. But this is fascinating,
And I don't even think this is even an issue
of political brinksmanship or whatever. Maybe I'm just using that term,
but this is this is like whatever side you fall on,
(17:14):
nobody wants to be lied to. And when you hear
that these people that are feeding you what you believe
to be the truth are knowingly feeding you lies. That's
not okay. It reminds me of Brexit, honestly, when you
see the internal communication of the of the power structures
in the United Kingdom that we're pushing to leave the
(17:36):
European Union. They knew it was going to be a
bleep me here, doc. They knew it was going to
be a show, which is why they started moving their
money in different places. And when you can rely to protects, Yeah,
heartbreaking interviews with just average people in the United Kingdom
who are saying, well, we got sold a pig in
(17:58):
a poke, for sure, and this is unfortunate, you know,
because voting is incredibly important and there are a lot
of powerful forces that don't want you to do it.
Just being honest, it's true, I have no problem with that.
I think there are probably shades within that, but I
think that's always sort of on the table, the idea
(18:19):
of how can we prevent folks that would oppose us
from getting to the polls or make it complicated, you know,
so that only it just it's sort of like, I
just I'm sorry, I can make everything about Disney World,
but I just got back from Disney World, and they
do a thing. We realize pretty quickly that the lines
the number for like how long the weight is, they're
inflated by about thirty to forty five minutes, And inherent
(18:42):
in that is to thin the herd. It is to
raise the barrier of entry to only the most serious writers.
So this is exactly what we're talking about with all
of these you know, roadblocks with voting. It's not necessarily
you couldn't say it's fully disinframed franchising, but it's making
it just inconvenient enough, and it's gonna thin them. I
(19:05):
didn't know that. Hey, did you get it was the
Tron Ride a thing? Is that a thing? No, there's
no Tron Ride. I wish we did Guard into the Galaxy.
We did Star Wars, we did Avatar, we did all
the like three hour weights, and they are easily two hours,
but it'll say three and a half and it is
easily forty five minutes less than that. But anyway, I
(19:25):
don't know that we need to go much deeper into
this because it's going to be an ongoing thing, But
I think it's absolutely fascinating to see the clearly this
company believes they have a strong case, and I wish
I could find it. It might have been in that
Columbia Journalism Review there was actually some quotes from a
from a defamation lawyer that was just commenting for the
(19:47):
article saying how strong the case was. Oh, I know
what it is. It's because Fox News is actually claiming
that what they're doing is as a matter of First
Amendment freedom of the press. And then it's p he
acted by New York Times versus Sullivan, which I don't
have the specifics, but it says here, okay, in this
LA Times column Sullivan, the landmark press freedom ruling is
(20:09):
indeed central to this case. That's why Fox is facing
a potential disastrous dree trial and the possibility of a
gargantuan liability verdict. And that is because that ruling protects
news organizations if they exhibited goodwill, if they exhibited sorry,
good faith, right, if they were making these reports in
(20:31):
good faith. But now we literally have these communications internally
from this company saying they were not making these reports
in good faith at all. So this precedent they're siting
doesn't really apply. Guys. Before we move on to the break,
I just want to point out if anybody was just
thinking that, oh, all the voting machines are safe and
(20:53):
can't be hacked, just remember there was reporting well before
this time about vulnerabilities within those older tech voting machines,
and those are very much real. It's just people, yep, yep.
There are a lot of issues still with those machines.
(21:14):
And just because the facts were wrong when it comes
to reporting of Fox News about this particular company, doesn't
mean that all the voting machines are safe. I mean,
no technology is completely infallible, and we know that, you
know a lot of times, putting things on a network
that can be accessed by folks that know how to
(21:36):
do that is always a potential gateway to problems. So
why they used to just use like punch cards, you know.
So anyway, something to keep an eye on, for sure.
Let's take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsor,
and then we'll be back with another piece of strange news.
(22:00):
And we're back. We're going to Australia, guys. I know
there are a lot of people hearing this right now
in Australia. Right, we know this, We've seen the metrics. Yeah.
Shout out to our Australian fans. Uh. Shout out to
some of our fellow fellow podcast folks in Australia. We're
(22:20):
we're fans, big fans. Still never been to Australia, want
to go. So if any anybody listening, you know, has
the hook up, send us to Australia. Let's go. I
can't go into details, but I think I have to
go actually, so I'll be careful what we say on this.
Don't go into details whatever you do. But Australia is
(22:42):
not a land well, I think it's more of a vibe.
It's a broad out kind of land. Well, hopefully you're
going to investigate the following ben Uh. Australia has, according
to the Guardian. I really love their phrasing. Here has
quote busted a hive of spies, which we've been operating
within the country for years. Who spy hive? How many
(23:06):
years are we talking? Yeah? I love that. We're talking
a long time. We can get into some of the
specifics here, but let's go through the reporting from the Guardian.
I've really liked the way, like I said, they've been
phrasing things. So let's just let's get into who this
group was targeting, why they were targeting them, and then
what we know about the group themselves. Is it one group,
(23:28):
is it a bunch of different spies, like, is it
truly functioning as a hive mind within this phrasing, or
are they like individual actors. So the first thing you
need to know, at least according to the reporting that
I've seen thus far, no single country has been named
as in like, these are spies from China, Definitely, these
are spies from Russia or the United States or whatever.
(23:51):
Probably not the US because Australia. Remember, as we're talking about,
this is a member of the old Five Eyes thing,
which is the wests like dome of protection when it
comes to spying on every it's the eye of Sauron
that exploits an incredibly dumb legal loophole to allow domestic
(24:14):
spying even when one of the countries doesn't allow it.
Cough cough US cough cough. But it also it also
does provide, lest we less we make it entirely a
hit piece on this, it also does provide a lot
of intelligence that can help these countries in the global sphere.
So if you're not in five eyes, no matter who
(24:37):
you are, you really want to know what they're talking about.
Oh yeah, well let's see what they were finding out here.
So according to Mike Burgess, I think that's how you
would say that maybe I'm wrong. This person is the
is an intelligence chief. They're in Australia, And he stated
that these people were targeting journalists, they were targeting judges
(25:01):
and veterans, so military veterans often. They were targeting people
who would put on their social media accounts that they
had security clearance. Not everybody who's targeted, but this was
a common thing. And just since we just talked about
this in the recent past, guys, what do you think
(25:23):
about that, Like the concept of touting in a way
and your outward appearance, the part you play or portray
to people on social media that hey, I have security clearance.
I think it's messy and you shouldn't do it. There's
and I'm being pretty absolutist about that, like as a flex,
like look at me, I've got security clearance. Sometimes it's
(25:44):
a flex, but it could also be you know, consider
the scenario where somebody is on something like LinkedIn, and
they're looking for a job and they want you to
know they have qualifications to do a specific type of
work that requires a clearance. That's less. Still, there other
avenues you don't You shouldn't be necessarily doing that in public. Now.
(26:05):
Of course, your mileage may vary, and maybe maybe one
of our fellow conspiracy realist will have an absolutely watertight
reason for doing that. But if you are, if you
are playing for another team, you're looking for low hanging
fruit like that, because it is a violation of OPSEC
for sure, yes, yes, And oh, by the way, the
(26:27):
way they would get to these people often ben is
to well, the quote here is to seduce them, but
that doesn't mean necessarily, you know, sexually seduce somebody at
a bar. It could mean that, but it could also
mean something like giving a journalist and all expense paid
trip to some other country, maybe the country of the
(26:48):
spies origin, and take them on tours, you know, give
them all kinds of information and be able to lobby. Well, well,
imagine putting a bug. You're put your taking this bug
that you've been watching, putting it in your jar, and
now you get to just watch what the bug does
for a little while at the hotel that you put
them in, you know what I mean, It's just, you know,
(27:10):
the regulations on things like that, even within our entertainment
based industry are pretty tight, like the you know, FCC
has has laws or rules internal guidelines against things called
paola where it's like pay to play kind of stuff
where you know, if you're given gifts, then that is
a conflict of interest, especially if you then turn around
(27:31):
and give someone airplay. So if we're beholden to things
like that in the entertainment industry, why aren't governments held
to those same kind of guidelines. Well, it's very very
bad if you get caught and now and also I think, Matt,
you hit one of the most important things right now.
(27:51):
No one's naming the suspected countries or country. There are
some pretty good guesses you can make if you're playing
a law at home. But one hundred percent the investigators know,
and there is a reason that they are not disclosing,
And the most likely reason is that they feel like
they can shake a few more people out of the
(28:12):
out of the trees on this one. Oh for sure,
for sure, because I just have to keep reading from stuff.
Mike Burgess was saying, because a lot of this comes
from kind of a speech that he gave about the
state of what was going on, almost like a state
of the Union, but for an intelligence organization in Australia.
The organization is called the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization,
(28:35):
also also known as ASIO. I don't think it's a
SiO the way you would say CIA for Central Intelligence Agency.
I think it's a CEO or ASIO or something like that.
I've I haven't actually heard it, I've only read it.
But because it's not all capitalized, that's why I mean.
But it's not it's not like CIA. But he is
the chief there. He was saying that there was a
(28:58):
concerted effort to target Australian media. So we're talking about
journalists talking about judges and all that stuff, veterans, but
really it seems like one of the main objectives was
to infiltrate media so that you could they could figure
out sources, right, So who are these journalists talking to
to get all the important information that might have security implications,
(29:22):
which is really creepy, and also to actually shape some
of the media being generated within Australia from within. Yeah,
parts and minds, Yeah, a little bit more complicated than
out and out buying propaganda spots. We recently talked to
(29:44):
our pal Jordan Harbinger, and he pointed out, I think
he's fine with us saying this. He pointed out in
our conversation with him that, oh, not too long ago,
he and several other people on YouTube had been targeted
by a foreign government to disseminate an alternative narrative about COVID.
(30:05):
Oh yeah, uh huh. We didn't receive those, right, I don't.
I don't personally remember ever seeing anything like that. Well,
it doesn't always happen. In defense of some of these
reporters or people working in entertainment. Very rarely is it
going to happen like in the movies, you know, like
a guy with a trill being a trench coat kind
(30:26):
of sitting on a bench next to you randomly and
saying weird things that are code words. It's like you're
having a great time and your buddy Gregg wants you
to do a favor. Yeah, I don't know why. I'm
maybe think of this guy's on the subredit for news
like slash r slash news. That's where I first encountered
(30:48):
the stories. Often where I first encountered these stories. I'm
sure you guys do that as well, at least to
some extent. There was somebody commenting on this person, Mike
Mike Burgess and how he kind of looks like Mike
erman Trout um, and he really kind of definitely a look. Yeah,
but it's like a bad to me, it's a badass look,
like he's just gonna come in there. He's not gonna think.
(31:12):
He's just gonna take this hive and he's gonna take
it out, you know what I mean. It's just I
really enjoyed this. I feel like that's his vibe. Yeah,
And he also looks, like I'll say it, he looks
a little bit more rugged than Erman Trout, you know
what I mean. He's wearing a suit in a lot
of media pictures that are circulating, but yeah, he looks
(31:33):
he looks like a Irocket if he has to, I think,
you know what I mean. I think so he's also
got one of those I I you know, I don't
like to talk about people's bodies unless I'm saying something
objective or complimentary. And I really like to your point,
Matt about his appearance. I really like how he's one
of those people who has one eyebrow that scants up naturally,
(31:55):
because those people always looks I always thought those people
look so cool. Oh dude, dude, agreed. I'm gonna give
you a quote that he that he said they were good,
but Azio was better working with our partners. We removed them.
They stuff. That is an army quote, right there, really
good voice, too many. Oh my god, sorry, that's kind
(32:20):
of so this This stuff never comes about like suddenly,
right they They usually if you're doing counterintelligence or whatever,
just like we saw with German authorities stopping Heinrich's attempted coup,
Still ridiculous. This is usually the culmination, right of several
(32:41):
months of work at least, or how long is this
pot of coffee of counter intelligence coffee been brewing? Well,
I suppose it's been for a year, that's what was
stated there, but I don't know. I have a feeling
it was longer than that. Guys, And I wonder if
we're going to get more details about this, because it's
the real umami of it, right, is learning ins and
(33:03):
outs of how that kind of thing works on both sides.
And yeah, unfortunately, I would imagine Matt that we're not
going to get a lot of details right away if
they're not even going to name the country. No, and
when it comes just when it comes to a time
frame like that, I imagine it would be not advantageous
(33:24):
to publicly announce how long you've been investigating something, right,
because then you give the people like a timeline of
when technology could have been planted on where those people live. Like,
you know, you don't want to do that if you're
actually doing counterintelligence like this, you want it to be
a little more amorphous or under or overestimate a number
(33:45):
pretty heavily. Yeah, that's a great point, man. And then
there's another thing in the Guardian article that you had
mentioned and sent around earlier toward toward the end is
something initially confused, but towards the end Burgess, as almost
a separate thing, said that OSSIO have found two other
(34:08):
countries attempting to essentially kidnap people or to lure them away,
like you said, seduce them just like you said, you know,
as someone is trying to find a human rights activist
and get them outside of off Australian soil where they
could be And Burgess used this phrase disposed of. That's
(34:29):
where that's where the water gets deep, you know what
I mean, Because now it's not just hey, can we
throw a journalist the equivalent of several thousand dollars or
whatever and get them to spread propaganda for us, it's
can we snuff people? Yeah? Who? Oh yeah? Mark, Yep, guys,
(34:51):
this one, this one might scare you, you both a
little bit scares me a little bit. Burgess describes a
scenario where at a bar, two women approached a couple
of employees Mail employees, and they just wanted to know
everything they could find out about Pine Gap, a place
(35:14):
that we've talked about on this show before, place very
important for signals intelligence. And Mike said, quote, fortunately the
defense employees resisted and reported the approach to ten rule mail.
We got that one time about somebody who was stationed abroad,
and we're talking they were like essentially monitoring people, and
(35:38):
they sent them they were like communicating with a loved one,
you know, secretly kind of and they met somebody randomly
at a bar that kind of knew everything about them.
Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, this reminds me of that.
That's actually that's a great counter example because in that example,
it was it was an entirely a hometown game, you
(35:58):
know what I mean. So that was that was the
US doing their due diligence. And I think we can
say it's the US, but we probably remember we had
to be careful with some details on that. But this
stuff happens more than people think, given Australia's literal position
in the world and the amount of resources it possesses,
especially mineral resources. Um, I don't know. And also you
(36:21):
just want to know stuff, right, It's cool to know things. Well, yeah,
and what Australia knows might be also what the US
knows or what the UK knows. Right, So they're allies. Yeah,
but there are five eyes, right, there are five allies,
and there's a lot of shared information there, and that's
why it becomes very dangerous. Guys, we're gonna have to
(36:44):
keep our ears and eyes out for this and definitely
definitely guys, resist anyone who approaches you and wants to
know about Pine Gap overall. Overall, Yeah, all right, we'll
be right back with one last strange news story. I
(37:09):
am so excited about this at all caps so the
document excitement registered visually there. What I'm on one and
we have to ask, is it the coffee or is
it legitimate excitement? But this one legit excitement, even if
I wasn't caffeinated to the gills as usual. Okay, here's
(37:30):
here's the entry point. So while I was traveling a
couple of places I can remember where I got, I
started reading this book by Neil Stephenson. I love Neil Stevenson.
Amazing author. Maybe not for everybody, but amazing guy, amazing mind.
He recently wrote a book called Termination Shock, and Termination
Shock has a really interesting opening. It's in the near future.
(37:53):
It's sci fi about climate change. But don't let that
turn you off. That's why I didn't want to read
it for a while at so I was like, oh,
come on, I don't need this diatribe today. But in
the very beginning, this plane, I think it's like the
Queen of the Netherlands is piloting a plane for reasons
we don't have to get into and it crashes in
(38:15):
Texas and they are attacked by this massive collection of
Farrell Hawgs. And as I'm reading this, yeah, and this
happens very quickly in the beginning of the book. So
it's not a spoiler. As I'm reading this, I'm like,
all right, well, let's see if he gets preachy about
climate change. But for right now, great setup, Neil, and
(38:37):
probably she makes it out of that first encounter. Yeah, okay, okay.
And here's the other thing. Remember, gosh, how many years
ago was it when the cyclical conversation about firearms in
the US was at its apex and people were talking
about needing fully automatic weapons in case they had to
fight off thirty to fifty Farrell hawks. And that became
(39:01):
a meme for a second. Yeah, because you started it.
Though it's so kind of accidentally. This guy Jason Isabel,
who's songwriter guitarists, used to be in the drive by
truckers and then kind of went solo, and he tweeted
sort of like a hot take about assault weapons, said,
if you're on here arguing the definition of assault weapon today,
you're part of the problem. You know what an assault
(39:22):
weapon is, and you know you don't need one, to
which Willie McNabb replied, legit. Question for rural Americans, how
do I kill thirty to fifty Ferrell hogs? They run
into my yard within three to five minutes while my
small kids play jeez, and so these things. Once again,
Stephenson made some As a brilliant sci fi author, he
made predictions that are closer to becoming true as we
(39:46):
record this. Fellow conspiracy realist, especially the northern United States,
super pigs are coming your way. That's like twenty twenty
three already we got some. We got some new a species. Uh.
They're a cross breed between domestic pigs wild boars. They
can get up to two hundred and fifty pounds in
(40:09):
weight on average. They go absolutely beast mode on anything
in the environment. They can also, according to the USDA,
they can go into uh like a height of three
feet they could be five feet long. These are not
the pigs from Charlotte's Web, you know, I mean, this
is not Babe, I'm just doing that's oh my. And
(40:33):
it does it look like a pig or a boar.
It looks more like a bore if you were just
hanging out. Good god, that's that's terrifying to me. Yeah,
and you can see some pictures of these. I mean,
I know we've been quoting The Guardian extensively here. They
just did a lot of great work this week. Um
the uh, there's a great article by Adam Gabbett that
(40:55):
will give you a quick look at some of this stuff.
Right now, this Canadian based creature, this super pig, it's
being called that because it's incredibly agro, it's incredibly you know, belligerent,
it's very intelligent, and it's super good at not being
found if it doesn't want to be found. And right now,
(41:19):
already just the regular pigs that are running around the
US and they're not a native species, remember that right now.
Uncle Sam estimates there's already six million wild or feral
pigs and they cause one point five billion dollars of
damage each year. So maybe maybe if the courts get creative,
(41:40):
dominion will say, you know, you know, you can pay us,
or you can fight the pigs, you know what I mean,
to death. It's like rubber Bathian. Yeah you know, yeah,
well you'll trial by combat. So the males have long
tusk and they can spear, they can gore, they can
(42:02):
stove in a chest. These things have killed deer and elk. Yeah,
like I will give you a sense, Ben, I just
got that Guardian article you're talking about. It says they
can even get bigger than that two hundred and fifty
pound average rings like like doubleyet nah, five pound tust
pig that's like three feet tall. Nah, And people, the
(42:28):
weird thing is as ridiculous as this sound. Scientists have
been warning about this for years and years and years,
and no one listened because the idea sounds so preposterous. Like, hey,
I know there are a lot of terrible things going on.
There's a lot of crap we have to be worried about.
But add super pigs to the list, and everyone's like,
(42:49):
get out of here, professor, you're drunk. And you know,
it's like a last of a situation, but with pigs
instead of corducepts. Like imagine someone finally goes to the
professor's pigproof bunker and he's like, you have to apologize first, yo.
Can you imagine if the super pigs joined forces with
the super bugs. That's kind of supercap That's kind of
(43:15):
what's happening if you mean, like if if we're talking bugs,
is in affections, infections exactly become that become resistant to antibiotics, right,
and they are a mixtape. Uh. They are potentially a
great American melting pot of viruses that are zoonotic that
(43:36):
are transmissible to humans. Man, so you think you got
away and then the coughing starts. God, it's a terrible thing, right. Um. No, Now,
of course there are a lot of programs to try
to tamp down on these these invasive species, these wild
(43:58):
or feral animals. But the new ones, right, the V
two point zero that are coming, they do like hardcore
special forces stuff like if they if they know someone's
hunting them, they will be smart enough to burrow under
snow and freezing temperatures and hide out for hours until
(44:21):
you know, the heat passes back up. Yeah. Yeah, and
they're breeding. Um. The ideas that because they expand and
they can be tough to catch, the populations they're breeding
with other pigs that are already over the border, right
because nature doesn't really care about political borders. So the
(44:41):
pigs are going to have a pig party very you know,
showtime after dark pig party, and they're just their population
will explode. I know, man, it's not the most poetic phrase.
But the problem then becomes they Okay, they do tremendous
damage to crops, they do tremendous damage to agriculture, to
(45:03):
other extant species, but they can also pose a great
danger to humans. This Every article I've been reading about
this turns into this laundry list about how bad these
things are for everyone. And I know it's very um
it's very easy to think like we're being cold and
nature should run into course and so on. But that's
(45:26):
until you learn all the stuff about these creatures, the
fact that it's difficult to kill them with firearms unless
you're packing something heavy because of the weird composition of
their bodies. Like you can shoot at them. I don't.
I don't think we owe an apology to those guys
on Twitter, but it like you can shoot at these
(45:49):
things and they'll still get you. They're armored, and they're
like the like smoug from the Hobbit, or they only
have a tiny little vulnerable cube. So apparently they are
far more resistant on pretty much every level. So I
think there is physiological stuff I've got to We've got
(46:11):
to find one, just one. Yeah, well, wait you I
will hang out in a chicken coop, but I will
not go trapesing through the wood looking for Farrell hogs
with you. Sorry, that's where I draw the line. I
actually put me in y'all. Let me know what's up.
I may try the well because forgive me if I'm
wrong here, but these pigs are edible like any other pig, right,
(46:35):
Heck yeah, they're probably get Yeah, so if you do,
if you happen to eat that, Um, maybe maybe you don't,
but I mean, I guess I would if I had to.
So people are going hungry. There's a food source. You
just need some high caliber weaponry to take one out
if you can't. So here an argument for assault rifles. Boom.
(46:55):
It's the most high stakes bacon you will ever eat. Oh.
I like the idea of high stake sam makes it
taste that much better. It does, it really does. It's
like in Game of Thrones or song about some fire
technically whether where they they're like, did you buy that
with the gold price or the iron price? Iron brow? Yeah.
It's the same as people eating, you know, food from
(47:16):
the supermarket versus catching or at the very least, slaughtering
their own food. It's a different, and it's different, you know.
And this okay, so I'm so excited about this that
I forgot to talk about how these came to be.
Because if you look for super pigs in your browser
of choice, then you are going to see that the
(47:37):
government of China and the US had been trying to
breed different streams of pigs and sometimes these were called
super pigs as well, Canadian super pigs very different. What
had happened was Canadian farmers imported wild boars from Europe
in the nineteen eighties and they got out because the
(48:00):
very smart. They're very intelligent animals, and they thought, okay,
we can rear these boar because we like some of
these traits. We can rear them for meat. But to
do that, we need to breathe them with domestic pigs,
which we're not a thing in this continent till the
fifteen hundreds or so. So they breathed these pigs to
get the boars and the pigs together. And they're not
(48:20):
indigenous to Canada, but they are very very enterprising minds,
and so of course the escape because they're not dumb.
If you figure out that you're being raised for as
food as a food source, you try to get out,
you know, see if you could change your circumstances. And
(48:41):
some of them escape from farms. But then the population
grew again because there was a decline in demand for pork,
and some farmers just said, well, I'm not going to
kill you if there's no reason, go free, you know. Yeah, Like,
what's that thing at the end of that'll do that'll pig?
(49:03):
That pig? Did you guys read about the method of
a Judas pig? The hunting method of a Judas pig.
I'm gonna guess it's biblically disgusting. No, Can I just
tell this really? Yea. The concept is, if you're hunting
these special super pigs, you capture one. You don't kill it.
(49:26):
You capture one, then you fit it with a GPS,
then you release it back into the wild, and theoretically,
if you leave it alone long enough, it goes back
to it's not called a herd, I don't know what,
it's called the group of pigs um or maybe it
is a herd, I don't know, um a group. And
then you go and take out that group, but you
(49:47):
leave the Judas pig alive, and then you release it
again and let it go and it goes and finds
other pigs, and then you take out that group because
it's betraying it. That's so much And this is like
a gutty and a tactic. You know what I mean
send the survive, send one back and let them think
(50:08):
they made it. A group of pigs is apparently called
a drift or drove or a sounder, and a group
of boars is called a singular. So help us out
what should why does it call a singular? Right? So
what should we call a group of super pigs? I
don't know? But can I just add really quickly, one
more little Disney thing I learned. I did the Safari
(50:30):
thing an animal Kingdom, and our driver was really into
animal group names. And I learned a flamboyance of of flamingos.
And it's not because they're fabulous, it's because they're buoyant.
They're very good at float it's good. And then a
crash of rhinos, which I love, um actually good one.
(50:53):
There was a float of crocodiles if they're in the water,
and a basque of crocodile aisles if they're on the land. Wow.
I always liked unkindness of ravens and the corvids. Man,
there's so many a glaring of cats. How do we
get in the business of just making up those names? Right?
(51:15):
They're they're cleverly descriptive. Someone had to have kind of
coined it some zoologist or whatever, but they usually are
like some clever description, but I still don't quite get
a singular of boars. No, that's just a flex. At
that point, you know, somebody was being too clever. So
there are other things you need to know about this.
(51:36):
What we're seeing is something called Bergman's rule playing out
in real time Bergman b R G M A N N.
This rule says that the further north at animals range
is the higher the tendency that they will be larger.
(51:56):
So the size and the intelligence of super pigs allowed
to survive in harsh conditions, which makes moving to less
harsh environments cheesecake, which means that in less action is taken.
These are on the way, and I just I am
so fascinated that Neil Stevenson predicted this was reading about it.
(52:19):
It hits everything we know about sci fi blockbusters. There's
a hapless professor who's been warning people ape man like
serious cast of characters. I've only ever read um. It
was called re reamdi Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's about like
gold farming in like multiple like MMARPG games and some
sort of diabolical plot. But then there's also I think
(52:41):
snow crash is maybe the most kind of cyberpunky or
like like very much an important one from him, right
m h and anathema or anathem and seventies were also
great like okay, again not for everybody, pretty cerebral, but uh,
but pretty predict in this case. So the last thing
you need to know, let's get a quote from Ryan Brook,
(53:05):
who is the leader of the Wild Pig research project
at the University of Saskatchewan. Might have to reach out
to Professor Brooke and see if he wants to talk
in an interview or on an episode, but add this quote.
It gives us the lay of the land. He says,
probably as late as maybe twenty ten or twenty twelve,
there was probably a reasonable chance of finding and removing them,
(53:28):
being the super pigs. But now they're so widespread and
so abundant that certainly as late as twenty eighteen or nineteen,
I stopped saying that eradication was possible. They're just so established.
They've definitely moved in and they're here to stay. Oh
boy are they? Yeah? So tell us what you think, folks,
tell us what tell us what you think of high
(53:51):
stakes Bacon tell us what these other invasive species you
think maybe on the way, let us know particular early
if you have had experience with Farrell picks with bore
or something like that. We can't wait to hear. We
also want to know your thoughts on defamation. We want
(54:12):
to know your thoughts on dominion voting systems and what
may or may not happen to Fox News if you
are in Australia or anywhere. As we said, just don't
talk about Pine Gap to strangers, you know what I mean,
especially attractive ones at a bar. Especially attractive ones at
a bar. Yeah, they might be trying to seduce you.
(54:34):
I just want to add really quick, one last little
bacon bit. Yeah, I saw I saw a thing. I
think it was New York Times cooking. Apparently, if you
twist your bacon like into a braid and then fry
it up that way, it's like delightful. I haven't tried
this yet. I haven't tried it, but I'm fascinated by
this idea. Let's do it because we are going to
(54:56):
be on the road together for the first time in
a while, so maybe maybe we can make that a project.
Cancel our plans. We're doing a high stakes baked experiment.
It's Project Braid. Yeah, I like this braids and acronym.
(55:16):
We're not going to tell you what it stands for though.
It's also an excellent value game. You had a band? Yes? Uh?
And the last thing, if you you heard us reference
the two ten rule really quickly, it's it's a rule
of thumb. It is not It is not like a
high fluting procedure of any sort. The ideas that if
(55:37):
you are in an unfamiliar place, you're doing something interesting
right like you are you're at the fancy hotel bar
because you are at your fancy business convention. And then
and as stranger approaches you, it is not going to
hurt not meant to hurt your self esteem. You need
to think of the one to ten attractiveness level and
(55:59):
treat yourself like a two and imagine whomever speaking to
you as a ten and immediately question their motives. No
matter how cool you feel at the time, You just
have to keep your head on swivel. That's funny and accurate,
good advice. If you have any of these things that
you want to communicate with us about, you can reach
(56:19):
us on social media where we're conspiracy stuff on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook,
conspiracy stuff show on TikTok and Instagram. And if you
don't want to do any of those things, you can
give us a telephone call. Yes you can. You can
call one eight three three std wy t K and
tell us all about our book that you ordered, because
(56:41):
now you're getting a fifth copy and we don't understand why.
But if you explain it to us, we will help
us get this thing into paperback. Y'all, come on help us, Yeah, seriously, please,
but yeah, when you do call in, give yourself a
cool nickname. You've got three minutes. Tell us whatever you'd like.
We can't wait to hear your stories. And if you
would like to not do that, why not instead send
(57:03):
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you to Know
(57:27):
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