August 19, 2024 • 65 mins
Imagine your wife dies on a Disney vacation, and their lawyers try to get your wrongful death lawsuit dismissed... because you signed up for a Disney+ trial subscription several years earlier. Corporate food giant Mars acquires Kellenova for $36 billion, furthering the danger of monopolization in the world of food. Could glitter help terraform Mars? What's up with the newest Banksy controversy? Are Americans finally fighting back against fake inflation? All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
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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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Alexis code name Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here. That makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. We're hurtling headlong
toward the end of August, and we have such wonders
to show you. We're going to We're going to talk
(00:51):
about Disney, We're going to talk about Mars. We're going
to hit up Banksy before we do any of that.
Matt Nol, code named dot Call, is a little bit salty. Uh,
a little bit salty with me.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
What about your where you find yourself in the world? Yeah, yeah,
I'm having a little foam on myself. I'm not gonna
lie going on blow up your spot, but uh, let's
just say mister Miyagi would be proud.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Ooh nice, nice. What did you call it? Doc? Not
a cold open but a heartless open.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
All right now, Ben, we wish you the best in
your travels abroad. We really do. We're not mad at all.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Here, we go for yourself because I am mad. Oh,
I just think it's cool.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
It is cool, super cool, not like literal mad. You know,
we all go a little mad sometimes code named Doc Holliday.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
And speaking of going, okay, this is one that just
as as I mentioned that a lot of our fellow
conspiracy realists have sent us, we all saw the thing
about News having to hunt down all that candy with
methamphetamine in it. Did you guys hear about that.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Code named candy? All right? The street name, yeah it was.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Was it a part of some charity or some kind
of super positive thing?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And then there's myth, yes, yeah, in the candy, which
is like the Halloween myth.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
There was a similar story too about like a guitar center,
if anyone like knows guitar center for you know, amps
and music gear and stuff. A bunch of amplifiers were
found to be stuffed with bricks of cocaine. So I
thought that was a sort of an analogous kind of story.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, speaking of analogous. In our show's home state of
Georgia as I'm sure we all saw. That's right right,
Doc is on the road and this whole place falls
apart without your code name Holiday because over two three
hundred pounds of methamphetamine were found hidden in a celery
shipment to the Georgia farmers Market out.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yeah the vegetable no one ever pays at digit.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah yeah, I said forrest, You said forest Park.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, on the way to my old uh stompy grounds.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So celery candy, yeah, anything else we get, guitar amps,
guitar am for the.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
For the good, cocaine, all stuff with drugs. I want
to give a shout out to before we move on,
just because, uh, we'll get into this story, but conspiracy realists,
we want you to know that we also we also
clocked this. Uh the de e A. One of the
funniest parts about the article on the Georgia meth bust
(03:36):
was a DEA agent adding emphatically, don't worry, We're not
going to let people sell the celery.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
So if that was a question, I mean, next thing
on the list will be boar's head meat stuffed with drugs.
Oh gosh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Are you tired of the same old listeria boar's head
meat now now just a little jittery, riddled with LSD,
riddled with speaking of things being riddled with, we're talking
about this a little bit off air. The mouse is
back in the news for a very strange situation that
kind of back to a conspiracy. We talk a lot
(04:16):
about terms and conditions, or what is it, terms of use,
the fine print that the big companies would rather you
not read. Disney has recently, as just a few days ago,
asked a Florida court to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit
filed earlier this year. A lady passed away due to
(04:38):
an anaphylactic reaction after she ate a meal at Disney Springs.
And yeah, and Disney has asked the court to dismiss this.
It was filed by the victim's husband because the victim
was I kid you not a Disney Plus subscriber.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
So I mean Disney Springs is sort of like a
food court situation. I mean, it's not all like Disney
branded stuff. There's like a Lego store and like other
little restaurants. So I'm wondering. Obviously Disney owns the development
or the facility, but like are they always going to
be on the hook, like as a company. If a
third party company that they lease space too has a
(05:22):
situation like this.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
That's a good question. It looks like it looks like
she was eating at the Raglan Road Irish Pub. And
the victim, who unfortunately again is deceased, is Kennapone Tong
Swan and she's a doctor up in NYU and New
York City. She had a severe dairy and nut allergy,
(05:46):
told the weight staff of the pub about this well
in advance, and was, according to the lawsuit, unequivocally assured
that they could be accommodated. She ordered the vegitarian broccoli
and corn fritters, a sea scallop sappetizer, a vegan entree
like a shepherd's pie, vegan shepherd's pie, and then onion rings.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Can you please say the names of those dishes?
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Oh right?
Speaker 3 (06:14):
The vegetarian broccoli is sure, I'm frittered, the sea scallop
shappetizer's scallop forest, and the the shepherd's pie is this
shepherd went vegan. We're getting this. We're getting this thanks
to the Worldwide Leader in Disney Park News w d
(06:34):
W News Today.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I think I was looking for a Disney pun in
those names, but I don't think that's what there is.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
We haven't identified the Onion rings as students of their
sides name.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I just think it's funny that they have such cute names,
right for meals in a cute place, the Disney Springs.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
That's the cutest place on Earth their tagline. If I'm
not mistaken, you're just vegan pie on Earth.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, and everything's it's the happiest place on Earth. Everything's
great so far in this trip. What happened then?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah? So unfortunately, again this is tragic. Parts of this
are gallows humor, but we do have to remember a
person passed away. At first, first, the victim and her
mother in law went shopping like you just described no
Old Disney Springs as one of those live, laugh love places,
right mixed, use, go buy some stuff. We'll give the
(07:32):
food cute names to justify the price. It wasn't until
later that evening that Tong Swan had this acute allergic
reaction and Planet Hollywood. She administered an epipin to herself.
She was taken to a hospital and that's where she
passed away. On May thirty, first Disney filed a motion
(07:54):
to move the wrongful death lawsuit out of the courts
and into arbitration, and Disney's law lawyers said the following.
This is a quote from our source. The journalist is
brit Tuttele. Disney said quote. There's legal language within the
terms and conditions for Disney Plus which requires users to
(08:14):
arbitrate all disputes within the company. And they claim that
the husband of the victim agreed to this blanket arbitration
back in twenty nineteen when he signed up for a
one month free trial of the streaming service on his
PlayStation console dot beat me here, Are you being kidding?
(08:35):
That's like imagine, imagine you sign up for Netflix or
any other streaming service, right, and then Netflix has their
version of whatever the Disney springs of Netflix would be,
like the Netflix North Pole.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Well, Netflix does have like a brick and mortar movie
theater type of situation. Yeah, there, I'm aware. I believe
that that's relatively new. I'm sorry. Let me let me
try to understand. Are you saying that there's some sort
of like clause in signing up that like prevents the
person from suing or or like because of the language
in them, you know, basically being tricked into signing up
(09:12):
for this you know, free trial, that it gives them
less of a case. I want to make sure I'm
not that's misunderstanding.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Right, I had the same thing. That's what's christ That's
what Disney's lawyers are arguing, and what that's why it
feels conspiratorial because look, we're not jurists, but the jurisprudence
here could be quite dangerous if it's sets a precedent
because I think what I assume, what most of us
imagine when we sign up for a service like that
(09:39):
and we see the arbitration thing, you know, you see
whatever you download video games nowadays. Two, what they're saying
is if you have a user data issue, right like,
if that personal info gets compromised, then you're saying you
don't have a lawsuit.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
What if that DLC gives you fatal food poisoning? What then?
I mean joking, But it's like, good lord, that's a
big blanket, isn't that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, let's first talk about what arbitration means, because I
remember when I didn't know what that meant not that
long ago. It just means that instead of going to
a court of law within the United States, and you know,
going through all the legal rigmarole that you would do
if you were attempting to sue a company such as Disney,
you would instead go into a separate room, not a courtroom,
(10:25):
with a person who is an arbitrator, not a judge,
who would basically listen to the arguments of both sides
and come to an agreement together with an arbitrator.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Right. The only the only difference between that and having
you know, a sit down hang out with a mediating
buddy is that in arbitration, the decision is legally binding
and can be enforced by an actual facts court. Shout
out to our friend Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Isn't that a situation where you can opt for arbitrary
like in cases of divorce, for example, but you have
to accept the outcome like it's an option. If you
don't want to go to full on court, you can say,
let's do arbitration, but then there is a caveat that
you have to accept the ruling of the arbitrator despite
the fact they're not a judge.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Right, right, Which makes me think we might be able
to do a fun episode in the future on all
those TV court shows. Conspiracy realists, let us know if
that's something you're interested in, because a lot of those folks,
technically what they're doing is arbitration, not an actual court case.
Here's why this is terrifying, conspiratorial, and let's go to
(11:38):
I haven't said the husband's name yet. Jeffrey Piccolo is
the husband of the deceased, and his attorneys, his legal
team is saying Disney's latest legal move here is preposterous
because if everybody signs off on this, if a court
degrees this should be arbitration, then that would mean the
(12:00):
one hundred and fifty three million subscribers to Disney Plus
have waived all claims against the company and all of
its affiliates because of language buried in the terms and conditions.
Disney's lawyers say whether or not Piccolo reviewed the terms
of the agreement is immaterial, which seems just gosh, we
(12:21):
thought our cold open was cold.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, but I I guess that is kind of the
thinking behind all of those terms of service agreements that
companies put out. Right, nobody it was the joke, Right,
Nobody's going to read the actual Facebook terms of service,
the actual insert company here document. You're just going to
scroll down so you can use the thing you want
(12:45):
to use, which is very common. But my goodness, just
having a company that has it has so many different arms,
right that operate, and a lot of them have physical
interaction with you, not just virtual over a computer. You're
gonna be hanging out actually with Disney. And if something happens.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Too bad exactly, And there's the other the other question here,
and I love that you're pointing out the tendrils. It's
quite possible then that you could have agreed to this
in some form by clicking some term of condition. You know,
most people are scrolling down and just going, h where's
the agree button? I gotta watch you know, Moana or whatever,
(13:31):
and uh, and then and then they get to that's one, right.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I wana, that's one of my favorites. It's a good one.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, I thought it was one of the good ones.
So then what they're saying is the implication is that
you might have something bad and or fatal happen, and
you might not know what's a Disney subsidiary. You might
not know it's a Disney service. Disney just owns it
the way Unilever owns things. And we'll talk about monopolization later.
(13:59):
And that's fellow conspiracy realist puts you up a heck
of a creek. There's a lot of weird legal stuff
going on.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
You know, Disney owns so much though, I mean, come on,
they're essentially the Globocem of today, you know. I mean,
they're like this massive umbrella company that like owns things
you would never even realize, Like how how can they
expect that a normal person would know? And not to mention,
I can't get over the fact that this was due
(14:29):
to a free trial that was like they throw those
things at you. RSVP to an evite today and it
tried to get me to sign up for Disney Plus,
like you know, dangling the free trial, and like how
many of those actually amount to somebody actually clicking yes?
But all of a sudden you're on the hook for
this stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, and before we move on, we love a lot
of stuff about Disney. You know, we two were once
youths in America, but we would love to hear your
strange stories about the mouse and what essentially functions as
an independent nation state inside Florida. Speaking of weird legal stuff,
this is something on everybody's mind. We almost opened with
(15:11):
this the economist, not the magazine I still read for
some reason. But the economist at the Federal Reserve had
finally admitted something America has been saying for a while. Hey,
this is not really inflation. It's fake inflation. This is
price gouging. And companies are beginning to get worried, including Disney.
(15:35):
Companies are beginning to get worried that consumers are not
going to keep playing ball. We want to thank Christopher
Rugebert over at AP News with an article that came
out American's refusal to keep paying higher prices, maybe dealing
a final blow to the US inflation spike. Have you
guys been noticing inflation kind of sticking around? I feel
(15:58):
like maybe we're old cogers when we talk about it.
But I saw a I saw a twenty ounce soda
pop sold. Soda pop. Geez, let me go to the nickelodeon.
I saw a twenty out soda sold for like two
dollars and fifty nine cents at a local gas station
in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
How much could it? How much could a soda pop cost?
Michael Right, come on, I know we always make that joke.
But you also sent around on the group text, Ben,
I think it was you how like a local not local,
it's a massive grocery store chain. Kroger is flipping to
that dynamic. I mean, it is for all intents and
purposes those digital readouts, and some insider, I don't believe
(16:41):
it was someone with the company was like, yeah, on
a hot day, that soda pop could go up a
couple of cents depending on the conditions. And you know,
all the companies claim that that's not what it's for,
but it's not what it's not for. I mean, it's
certainly a thing that it could be for.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I mean, come on, right, camera, Doc and I briefly
were talking about this because it recently went viral on Instagram.
It's very much true. And hey, they called us crazy,
you guys, and they still call us crazy, and they
may be right, but we were right about that part.
Check out our surge pricing videos. There's so much conspiratorial
(17:18):
about the framing of this inflation, Like we mapped it
out before supply chains broke down during the pandemic, But
well before the pandemic, companies were already trying to squeeze
every last drop of blood from the individual financial stone
and so they always knew. I would posit that this
was a short term play. The idea on the shareholder
(17:41):
and investor side was to post pandemic. We're still in
a pandemic, but post supply chain breakdown was to ride
that wave of inflation and pretend like everything was still
broken for as long as possible. So just like in surfing,
you know, you can't ride the wave forever. You just
want to stay at the crest, right or I don't
(18:03):
know enough about surfing to use those terms, but you
want to, you know, stay on top of the board
as long as possible.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Do you think it's like an example of kind of
clawing back some of those gains, you know, like the
I don't know, I guess sale people were spending money
during the pandemic. You got to remind me now, like
I mean, there are certain industries that thrives in certain
industries that didn't. Like Amazon obviously you know, had a
mega good time during pandemic. But it's an excuse, I guess,
(18:32):
right at the very least, that we have to get
back some of those losses.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah, it's an excuse in the company's part. You're saying
that they would like recoup losses. Yeah, and we were
talking off air about this surge pricing as a response
to that. Right, people are fighting inflation, So now maybe
we can as a company target inflation toward you. Facial
recognition is again it sounded crazy when you first mentioned
(18:58):
it on air, but it will be Lloyd. The next
step also is going to be recovering public info, probably
based on zip code right, or whatever demographic info you
can get. How much is the average person in insert
zip code here willing to pay for a banana? Because
if it's ten dollars per then we're off to the races.
(19:20):
This is happening. This is stuff they don't want you
to know. There's so much more we have to get too.
Before we pause, I guess we should say several major
banks are in trouble. More on that soon as that develops.
We also have to shout out DNA evidence because we
talked briefly in the past, Matt, I believe you brought
(19:43):
up the recent purchase of ancestry dot com, So just
so everybody knows, forensic DNA is still helping us unravel conspiracies.
An individual named Stephen Paul Gaale would have gotten away
with multiple sexual assaults dating back decades. He was just
apprehended with DNA evidence. So there is hope. Uh, there
(20:04):
is hope for some of the victims. And also statute
of limitation laws, particularly in places like Massachusetts, are evolving
in pace with technology. So we wanted to end on
some rough but overall positive news with this. We're going
to pause for a word from our sponsors and then
we'll be back speaking of monopolies.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
And we've returned, and we're going to stay on that
inflation tip. Oh, I know you're excited.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Oh, you're so excited, so inflated right now, dog before
they deflated.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I'm doing podcasting.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Yeah, I love it, you guys.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I saw our clip from American Psycho. It's this moment
in the club where a woman in the club asks
is it Bateman?
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Yeah? Patrick?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
See Patrick Bateman?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Like so what do you do?
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And he's like, I'm into uh, well, murders and executions mostly,
but she hears him talking about mergers and acquisitions and.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Oh did you read real quick? Did you guys read
the The discourse about American Psycho is awesome. I got
super deep into it when I was traveling for unrelated things. Apparently,
the idea is that Bateman never actually kills most of
those people and they're just his like there is dark,
twisted fantasy. Have you guys read that?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, So in that scene, my reading of the film
is that he didn't actually say murders and executions. He
said mergers and acquisitions. But in his head that's what
he's thinking.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
He's like, it's Mark Walter Mitty. Okay. You know.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
That does kind of make the metaphor of it all
a little stronger in a way, the idea that this
is all in his and and the fact that he
doesn't get caught and he sort of like completely melts
down in such a public way and yet still doesn't
get caught, or you could read it that he really
was doing it and he's at this echelon of society
that he will never get caught no matter what horrible
stuff he does. Anyway, Yes, I have derailed.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
No, it's fine. But essentially what he is doing in
his position, at his job is making all become one,
all shall become one, all will become one, and nothing
to rule them all. Yeah, And there's a lot of
power in that, and nobody can do anything about it,
because now all are one. Okay, So I'm looking at
(22:34):
a story today guys titled Mars to buy Pringles maker
kele Nova for thirty six billion dollars in twenty twenty
four's biggest deal. It's from Reuters August fourteenth of this year.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Ooh and yeah, you're right, folks, Pringles has a parent company.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yes, So we're gonna go deep into this, y'all. But
first I'm gonna read it one sentence just to really
send it home of what we're talking about here. Quote,
family owned candy giant Mars is buying cheese at maker Kelenova.
It opens a new tab in a nearly thirty six
billion dollar deal, bringing together brands from Eminem's and Snickers
(23:12):
to Pringles and pop Tarts in the year's biggest deal
to date. So before we jump in, let's talk about
these companies before they become one.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Can I just say that it's hilarious They just throw
in family owned like Mars is some mom and pop
like Corner Shop or something. I just it's good, pr
I guess, but it's super weird.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
What it's our family owned?
Speaker 4 (23:34):
No, I know, but it doesn't mean what you think
it means shit anyway.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, it means corporate monarchs.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Okay, so you said, jump in, what are these companies?
Mars is much bigger than people imagine. We'll get to that.
Kelenova may not be familiar with everybody who's not into
the creepy, weird stuff we're into. But from my understanding,
Matt Kelenova, once upon a time was good old Kellogg's.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Kellogg's was becoming a part of Kelenova because they became one,
and now they are becoming one again. So before we
get to Kelenova, we're doing Mars though. So a lot
of people know what a Mars bar is.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
You may not.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It is a candy bar, a Mars bar. It's pretty
simple one. It's one that's been around for a long
long time. They also own Eminem's. Uh they were once.
They were once called eminem Mars. I don't know if
it's not that anymore. I know it's whatever. Mars and Eminem's.
Those are the big ones. They own all the kinds,
even the peanut butter ones there are they owned three?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yeah, I like how?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
I like how? So Matt got more emphatic with its pointing.
He was like, sorry, it was like this, even the
peanut butter ones.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Is that the one with the Lady Eminem? Which one's
the the sexy Lady Eminem?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
So I know I'm the only white curtsy. It's just
it's a weird time.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
I know who was it. It was some Fox News
guy that's sort of like really the Lady Eminem with
her like her boosts. Yes, it was there we go.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
He likes the gams.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
He does like the gams.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Well, uh, you want to get some good gams, why
not also enjoy Mars offerings of three Musketeers, Milky Way, Snickers, Twigs,
Dove chocolate products, all of them. Unilever owns the soap,
by the way, the Dove soap.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Mars also no connection, zero brand connection between Dove Chocolate
and Dove Soap. I always wondered that, so I don't.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I don't think so unless somebody else has more information
on it. My understanding is that, yeah, Mars has the chocolate,
Unilever has the soap. They also owned three to four
other fancy chocolate brands, such as Hotel Chocola, which has
no E at the end. That's how you know it's fancy.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I also didn't realize that they owned the three most
popular fruit flavored candies in the United States, Life Savers, Starburst,
and Skittles.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Skittles is just like fruit flavored m and ms basically,
I mean, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Taste the rainbow of oligarchy.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Yeah. Remember when they had that spate of bizarre Skittles
commercials that were borderline like sexual. It was I'm sorry,
carry on, I just marketing. Marketing is weird.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Well, I'm gonna look that up right after this, but
I don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Well, but it's not just candy, right.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Well, basically from all of that list there, Halloween is
like a big charity event so that we can all
donate to Mars, which is weird. But I had no
idea that they have a monopoly on chewing gum. I'm serious.
They own Double Mint Gum, Winter Fresh Juicy Fruit, Big Red,
Hubba Bubba, extra Orbit Eclipse, and five Gum. You remember
(26:47):
that one five. It was so exciting back to.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
That number five as like an f It's kind of inspiring, though, Matt,
that you include Big Red there, because that shows us
that even big companies end up taking a massive loss
once in a while. Because Big read is just like
big red war crime for your mouth.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Wow, I used to really like it's a cinnamon one, right, that's.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
What they say.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Did you ever like lick the wrapper and stick it
on your forehead to try to feel something? Yeah, it's
a thing kids used to do. Maybe it is the
only one. It's a thing I didn't know exactly, because
what are you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Eat the gum?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I did you know what they also own, guys? The
thing we used to always carry around in our cargo pants,
the curiously strong mints.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
You remember those in the Altoids, Yeah, which which which
always kind of had the patina of European specialty mints.
It's sort of like craft breweries that are owned by
giant beer companies, Like they have all these little brands.
Oh yeah, like Altoids is totally made in the Swiss
Alps from unfiltered spring.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Water or something, right, I mean maybe it is, but
Mars owns whatever the factory is.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Shout out to the tenovation episodes we had to do
years bank a.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I remember those. Oh but when we're talking about the
gum here, the reason why they own all those is
because they became one with Wriggly's not too long ago.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
How did I say, it's almost like erasure where I
was like it weren't those all wrigglies? What happened to?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Well, that's the natural trends, right, mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
They also owned kind Bars and combos, the craveable pretzel
rolls filled with pizza somehow Nature's Bakery fig bars, which
again seem kind of healthy. I used to eat with
my son all the time. Nope, I'm paid extra.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
It must be healthy.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
And this really solves a mystery for me because kind
bars always had Eminem versions and Snickers versions, and it's
basically just this masquerading as healthy candy bar, you know, yeah, dude.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Oh, and that's just one of their segments, by the way,
and that's not including all the other international products that
they offer, because they offer different products in different countries
and different regions. They've also got a food and nutrition
segment that owns your brand of rice. Ben by the way,
used to be Uncle Ben's, now just Benz Rice. So congratulations.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
We should not be defined by our connections, you know
what I mean, social or familial. Also, I believe big
in the world of pet food, right is that.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Croft huge in pet food? Think of a pet food brand.
They probably own it, including the stuff you see at
the vets office that's like prescription pet food. They own
the brand, and they own most of the vets VCA vets,
Banfield vets that are popping up everywhere. We're talking thousands
of veterinary clinics.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Very specific stuff that sounds like it was made by
a pharmaceutical outfit. Like do you have an elderly epileptic parrot,
This is the only food you can feed it. Guess
what Mars makes it?
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Isn't this what they'd call vertical integration, like that kind
of stuff where like you own the pet food and
you on the vet clinics that like shill the pet
food or like prescribe it or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, So they own all that stuff already, guys, and
they just merged with Kelenova. So what did they get
from Kelenova. Let's talk about it. Pop Tarts, Aggo Waffles,
Neutral Grain Bars, Special k Cereal RX Bars, Morning Star Farms,
plant based frozen meat alternatives, Pringles, potato crisps, cheese at Crackers,
(30:29):
Club Crackers, Townhouse Crackers, Zesta Saltines, Austin Cracker Sandwiches.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
They own the whole aisle bro like, dude, the heck,
that's insane.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
They even own the crackers that are hanging out over
by the fancy cheeses, you know, the table fancy water crackers.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah, the ones that the same since the fifties, like
the packaging.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
The ones only come in the one sleeve your unit
because they're that fancy and it's Kellogg.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
So they they now own all of those Kellogg's cereal
brands that did not break off into a separate Kellogg's
company that happened pretty recently. But yeah, remember we talked
about how a lot of the cereals you can't the
American cereals you can't buy in Europe in other places
because of the ingredients. Yes, this company, Kelenova, owns the
(31:19):
manufacturing of the like European versions of what frosted flakes
would be, right, Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah? Expand so these.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Two things coming together, I feel so gross, so weird,
so awful reading this, and I don't know that I
can fully explain why, other than this feeling that when
I walk into a store, I am tricked into believing
these are all different choices that I get to make
(31:49):
absolutely with my money or you know, with what I
feed myself and my family, but really it is just
the same stuff.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
It's the illusion of choice, right, not for nothing was
our first episode ever on Edward Bernez. And from the
perspective of these entities, just like a large just like
funeral monopolies, which is an example we keep going back to.
We harp on this kind of stuff because food is
a universal need, right, People love talking about any aspect
(32:20):
of food. It's also a great business because people are
demand for certain types of food may wax and wane
and fluctuate, but demand for food in general is not
going away anytime soon. And I was reading in this
article you shared, Matt, just the stat that goes to inflation.
About how much we talked about this at length, but
(32:42):
whenever we mentioned something repeatedly, folks, it's because we feel
as mission critical. Food prices across the world have skyrocketed
no matter where you go, unless arguably if you go
to some authoritarian places where they have better price controls,
different bag badgers. But food prices in the US alone,
these journalists point out, increased by our quarter in just
(33:05):
four years, and that is far out pacing the rate
of inflation, far out pacing even fricking housing. Man. This
is so if you're an average person, you are laboring
under the illusion of choice, right, You're not really getting
to make choices. Your decision treed into giving the money somehow,
(33:25):
and then, perhaps more dangerously, specially combined with this targeting
of personal info, you are going to be paying more.
That is simply the truth. This is very good from
the perspective of the businesses because now they have something
they can take to the boardroom and say, hey, guys,
(33:47):
you like to messing with us last quarter? You know
what I mean? It reminds me. I don't know, man,
there's so much dirty stuff, Matt, I see what you're
saying about feeling weird because who was it? There was
a ceo I think of was it Starbucks who got
fired for not busting unions? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:05):
They got fired, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
And they brought in like the Chipotle CEO or something else. Right,
he is going on there?
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It was Notoriously who is apparently has a name in
the C suite community.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
For being bounty, isn't he. The guys said that they
definitely weren't making portions smaller, but then a study proved
they definitely were, and then he came out and said, sorry,
we'll do better. He's I can remember.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's kind it's kind of like, I mean, it's a
mind game, right, It's kind of like one thing I
ran into a few years ago. You know, if you're
in a different countries, sometimes they'll tell you get the
tourist tax, right, or the foreigner price, or that's language
barrier and not being from there and whatever. There was
a Japanese official and I'll find the source if anyone's
(34:52):
interested who said, oh, no, we're not charging people more,
we're not charging visitors more, we're charging local less.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Mmmming.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
But like maybe that's part of the ichiness you're feeling there, Matt.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Is all these factors, I think so.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
But it does kind of go back to Brene's. It
goes back to some of our studies on capitalism in general.
I'm going to read from this article again, this Reuter's
article from August fourteenth. This is a quote. The deal
is a bet on consumers continuing to indulge in branded snacks,
and comes as packaged food companies face stalling growth after
(35:32):
years of price hikes to cover skyrocketing inflation, which is
a whole other thing, because there's an investigation right now
into food companies and how they've altered their prices to
quote counteract inflation, and to see how much of that
is actually price gouging to make the consumers pay for
it rather than you know, absorbing some of the costs
(35:54):
of inflation like that.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
But it is.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
It creeps me out because the current mars CEO, Paul
way Reich or yates why rash maybe w E I
R W E I H R A U c H.
He says, quote, we hope to be able to absorb
more costs in our structure and help alleviate the issues
we have in an inflationary environment.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Oh, I gotta have what the though? Yeah, I love this,
but we need a positive out lighting because this is
terrible news. But positive lighting. Folks. If you are singularly
ready tomingle to find yourself already in a in a
stranger bad romance, may we suggest your new pickup live
for your partner darling, please join me. Let us indulge
(36:41):
in some branded snacks.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Oh well, so are they basically saying that, like the
merger is necessary in order to keep them from continuously
passing on that burden to customers. It sounds like bull
to me. I mean in terms of they're basically saying, like,
we refuse to ever make less. We have to grow, grow, grow,
because that's what stakeholders, you know, in the market and
(37:03):
all that expect. But isn't that kind of the argument
they're making. They're like, no, you should be okay with
it because that means savings for you kind of.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
But ultimately they're competing with the what they call private
label like off brand versions, the generics of your townhouse whatever,
or pop tarts, straight.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Up bags of cereal at the bottom of the grocery aisle.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Clowny yuffs, you know, because all of us US consumers
we're feeling this inflation. We're the ones who are actually
dealing with inflation, and we are having to just grapple
with Oh, well, I guess I can't buy that anymore, right, Oh,
I guess I can't afford that or indulge in that
snack anymore when I go on that date to pick
(37:49):
somebody to end gets yes, And this is this is
what the article says. The US packaged food sector as
an entirety thing is seeing robust deal making as companies
seek to scale to weather the impact of inflation, weary
customers cutting back and shifting their purchases to private label
(38:10):
label brands. So what they're betting is that if they
have enough brands on the shelves, they are going to
have enough overall sales so that their their money keeps
going up.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Isn't that what a monopoly is. Yeah, that's what it
feels like to me.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
But not yet, because there's I would advance. Uh, there
is a final step, and it's a step that they're
going to have to reckon with at some point. What
happens when there is no more nestley? What happens you know,
what happens to coke when there is no more pepsi?
What happens when there's nothing left to buy, to merge
(38:47):
and acquire, to murder and execute. Then they when that's
not when the rural domination. No, that's when the rubber
hits the road. That's the thing that capitalism is scared of.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
That's when the graph that's going up can no longer go.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
Well, you gotta have someone to fight against. It's perpetual war.
I mean, it's basically isn't that right?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's scary. Oh you know what,
they're also scared of people who make snack branded snacks.
They're afraid of wigovy and ozempic. Apparently investors at least
are worried about that, because this is what it says, quote,
investors are worried about a decline in sales from the
greater adoption of drugs such as ozempic and wigovy for
weight loss, which curb appetites and lead to feelings of fullness.
(39:31):
The investors are afraid of you being full, so you
won't shove cookies and candy in your face.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Now, just buy the Kelenva branded ozempic. You know, get
the money there. That's how it works. I feel like
I'd be good at a boardroom even we've.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Seen you've done it, we've worked. There's there's video, there's
there's footage. But I mean, great success isn't The whole
idea though, of diversification is heading off stuff like that
at the past where you got your health conscious brand.
So no matter what side of the aisle, health flies,
snacking wise, people fall, there's going to be something for
them that you are selling them. But I guess the
(40:09):
issue with ozempic is that you're not selling them anything
because they're not hungry anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Well, actually several companies I can't find it in here
right now, several companies, Oh, Nestle, specifically guys Nestley is
developing brand new products, specifically for people who use those drugs.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Right, Yeah, the next step. I can't wait. Somebody really
needs to do this. All right, You don't have to
write to us. I know I keep interrupting here, but
don't have to write to us. But just so you know,
if you happen to be a c suite dude in
the right industry or do debt, I feel dude is
a gender neutral term now, But if you happen to
be up there in the upper echelons of corporate America,
(40:52):
whatt something? Put something that's a low like slow burned,
mild dire redick into some popular foods, and then before
you do that, buy up you know, the ripe medicines
and then brand them and make them sexy and tell
no one except for the investors.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Hey, there you go, There you go, because that's all
that matters. Last quote from the article before we end
the segment, y'all. Mars said on Wednesday, that's Wednesday. As
we're recording this on October fourteenth, so today it will
pay eighty three dollars and fifty cents per share for
Kelen Nova, representing about a thirty three percent premium to
its closing price on August second. Isn't that nice? Guys?
(41:37):
The investors made big and that's all that matters.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Get on them and for anybody who's wondering if there's
justice in this wide, dangerous world of ours. Some of
those guys probably subscribe to Disney Plus.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Uh oh, watch out. Arbitration is a come in. Hey,
we'll be right back with more Strange News after a
word from our sponsors.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
And we're back. And before I get into the main
story that I brought for today's Strange News, I just
wanted to mention a couple of shorties. One that hit
close to home for me being a person who snores,
and really gave me pause in terms of what might
become of me at the hands of my partner.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
I have to recuse myself for this one, guys, because
the newsophonia that I suffer from. I don't think anybody
should kill anybody, just be clear, but I cannot handle
snoring their mouth noises.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
I'm glad we haven't ever had to share a hotel room.
It was a road trip. There was a road trip
that got close. Okay, fair enough, close to you stabbing
me to death in my sleep, recusing myself by friend. Okay,
fair enough. There's a little bit of confusion here in
the story. Guys, I'm going to read you the headline.
I think you get the just thus far. Philadelphia man
pleads guilty the stabbing neighbor to death over snoring. In
(42:59):
my mind, I picture it's the person who is upset
by the snoring stabbing the snorer to death as a
result of said, you know, inconvenience. Apparently quite the opposite.
Christopher Casey, fifty six years old, was recently handed a
relatively short prison sentence after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter
(43:23):
when his neighbor, Robert Wallace, sixty two, busted through his
window to potentially do him harm. I guess that's the
only way you get involuntary manslaughter out of this, right,
But it led to an altercation that involved Casey stabbing
Wallace to death. He also pleaded guilty to possessing an
instrument of crime, being a knife.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Which is like the non branded snack.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Yeah. But the interesting thing is apparently Wallace had been
dealing with this for so long that he was over it,
and he said, look, I'll help you get a surgery to,
you know, take care of this problem. I'll help you
pay for it. It would benefit us both. But Casey
did not believe him and declined.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
I think there's a past here too. Usually in these
kind of situations, they don't come out of that.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Well, that's why I mentioned these kind of simmering resentments
usually don't happen overnight. No, guys.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Imagine your neighbor busts down your window and says, hey,
I will pay for surgery to get you fixed.
Speaker 4 (44:29):
Now what, I would assume that that conversation took place,
perhaps a little more civilly, at another time, and this
was the result of him having declined the offer.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Maybe it was probably I'll tell you if we're guessing here,
and we'd have to go to the full Philadelphia Inquirer article.
But what it sounds like, again, simmering intensions. And it
might be because they share a wall in a duplex.
It might be a thing where Wallace is there at
three in the morning or something or let's say I
(45:00):
nine am and is just cop knocking on his neighbor's
door and says, you know, dude, I will help you,
but maybe in like a really rude, confrontational agro way,
an offensive way. So like to your point, no, it
does it. I don't know if it was the gentleman
with cravats in the drawing room, you know, so like
(45:22):
pashing it out, yeah, decanting brandy, And I would think
perhaps the respiratory system.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
Indeed, it is a it is a sticky wick at
that respiratory system, a complex network of tubes. Indeed, yeah, literally,
and uh, I guess you know, metaphorically this sounds pretty rife.
Either to move on from this one, if you guys
are okay, unless Matt, you had anything else you had
to you wanted to add about this.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I would just say his neighbor broke in because he
was snoring, and he ended up, in an act of
involuntary manslaughter, killed his neighbor that broke into his house.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
And he got.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Eleven and a half months, no between eleven and a
half to twenty three months in prison for doing that
and three years of probation.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
Not for nothing. But you know, it's not what you
get for a cold blooded murder, most foul you know,
I mean.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Right, and it wasn't. Again, this is not a Brandy
and Decanters and Cravat situation. There weren't epistols at dawn.
There is a cold ending though, where he Casey does
apologize to the family and he uses a word I
don't like where he says, this is unfortunate. That's not
what you say when you kill someone, even actually.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
Don't have a non apology.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
It also notes that his attorney told the newspaper that
they were speaking with there in Philadelphia. That quote Casey's
autism makes it difficult to navigate confrontation. He was terrified
of this guy, and he believed he had no option.
So I'm just when I'm thinking that might be a choice.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Through your window. Isn't that tech? I mean, there are
certain states that would stand your ground, would would come
into play there.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
So that attorney is James Lyons.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Gosh, a lot more at play in that one than
I even realized, more complex story than I would have
thought upon reading the headline. So thank you guys for
adding some additional context and detail to that one. The
second one, the really short. I just want to keep
this one as short as possible, because I'm pretty excited
about this bigger one. NASA is apparently using glitter on Mars,
(47:21):
more or less glitter bombing Mars to potentially make it
more habitable for humans. You know, we obviously here stuff
that I want you to know. Have a fascination for glitter?
Where does it come from, who's buying it? What are
the military uses for it? I mean, glitter is sort
of a pop cultural term. I guess this is really
(47:43):
more of a heat trapping particulate. I guess it's an
aluminum based sort of like dust that if shot into
the atmosphere of Mars could potentially soak up some of
the heat over time and make Mars more habitable. This
is a.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
True story of felly conspiracy realist. And maybe it's the
sleep deprivation, but I'm I'm chuckling building out this increasingly
elaborate scenario in my head. Come dotting, indulge in some
branded snacks, and let us explore our fascination of Martian glitter.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
I love it. Yeah, well, and it is essentially I
guess forced global warming, right, I mean, it's a it's
a form of that, it's climate control, and you know
the idea is I'll just read from that. There was
a this This is coming as a result of a
paper that was released from the University of Chicago. A
(48:39):
planetary scientist by the name of Edward Kite helped lead
this study that was published in the journal of Science Advances.
He talks about how there's you know, obviously interest in
terraforming Mars, the idea of making it similar to Earth
in terms of like, you know, habitability, and for Mars,
he says warming the planet is a necessary but insufficient
(48:59):
for Previous concepts have focused on releasing greenhouse gases, but
these require large amounts of resources that are scarce on Mars.
The key elements of our paper are a novel proposal
to use engineered nanoparticles to warm Mars's atmosphere and climate
modeling that suggests this approach could be much more efficient
than previous concepts. So glitter bomb Mars, I guess why not.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
I can already see it. They're just gonna cause accidental
runaway global warming on Mars before we even get there.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
Yeah, why not, let's just head it off with the past. Guys,
they're gonna do it anyway, let's just nip in the button,
get it done quick again.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Sounding like an old curmudgeon, I'm building two long form
improv scenes, so I like an old curmudget. We have
Earth at home, you know what I mean? Maybe fix that.
We've also got out of control glitter on Earth. Maybe
maybe fix that. But Noil, I'm glad you brought this
up because the idea of terraforming or modifying the Martian
climate is the long term goal, because otherwise is uh
(50:01):
You're I don't know. Man Mars is so appealing, but
there are so many problems with living there long term,
even if you have a subterranean metropolis. So maybe this
will be an answer. But right now it seems like
a broad theoretical brush, does it not.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
Oh, it's absolutely in the realm of like you know, uh,
conceptualization at this point. How how it would actually be
rolled out? I have not read the full paper. Maybe
they get right into it A through Z. But you know,
I'm it's not very clear from what I'm reading here.
Uh in uh Fast Company by the way, this article
if you want to read a little bit more about this, well,
(50:38):
actually it's published in Fast Company, but it's written by
Reuter's staff, So maybe those companies are.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Kind of company.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
Yeah, and Little Too Fast guys fast too little, too fast,
too fast for class my my final and I think
a little juicier this are both pretty juicy. But this one,
I just this tickled my brain in particular. I know
you guys are familiar with the street artist Banksy. A
lot has been made of like who this individual is.
There's a really cool documentary if you're not familiar, called
(51:08):
Exit through the Gift Shop that in and of itself
is a sort of work of art, Like it's got
this kind of like unreliable narrator thing where banks He
basically like creates this like street artist star mister brainwash
or whatever out of nowhere, and it's called into question
as to whether that's real or not, whether he actually
did that, or whether the guy was in on the game.
(51:29):
Banks he is very much almost like a Andy Kaufman
type figure, but instead of comedy, he does it with
street art, and his works have garnered massive global attention.
He's English, we know that much, and to the point
where these unauthorized most of the time works of art
are worth a lot of money and actually caused properties
(51:51):
that they're done on to like appreciate and value or
become like tourist destinations or whatever. And anytime a Banksy
pops up on so and that's like not nailed down,
you know, or even if it is nailed down, half
the time there's always concern that it's going to be stolen.
He's done all kinds of cool things, like there was
this piece of his that was auctioned off at Christie's
(52:14):
I want to say, are one of the big election houses,
and he or whomever he they multiple individuals. Some people
think banks He is like a collective, you know, posted
a video from inside the auction where the moment the
thing was auctioned for over a million pounds, he triggered
a button that caused the ready special made frame around
(52:35):
the piece to shred the work of arts in front
of you know, all the onlookers. And crazily enough, the
fact that he actually interacted with that piece made it
more valuable after it was already sold for a certain price.
So this really does call into questions there bring up
an interesting point, I guess about the nature of art
(52:56):
and value and intellectual property. And another irony is really
showing itself and this story. Banksy's recently unveiled nine animal
themed pieces in and around London. His organization that represents them,
which I believe is called Like Pest Control, have said
(53:16):
that the works don't mean anything, but his works are
almost always politically motivating, as a lot of stuff about
refugees and various conflicts around the globe. I just think
it's really interesting that his representation says these don't mean anything,
be as to me, they're very much in line with
this notion of like the animal kingdom coming for us.
We've done all these stories about orcas attacking boats, and
(53:39):
a lot has been made of this idea of like
animals have had enough and they're like revolting against humans.
Because one of these is near the London Zoo and
it's like painted on a roll up kind of security
gate and it's a gorilla lifting the gate up as
if it were made of cloth, and then there are
birds and a seal, and in the background you see
other glittering eyes escaping, you know, from the zoo. The
(54:03):
one that pertains to the story in particular is a
rhinoceros painted on the side of a building that appears
to be mounting. Let's just say or family show a
broken down car that has a safety cone on its bonnet.
They would call it in the UK it's hood, making
it kind of look like a weird anthropomorphic animal car.
(54:25):
So this idea that like animal kingdom is coming back
to f technology and then like we can't do anything
about it. But yeah, his people say they don't mean anything.
But I guess part of the cool thing about ours
you can take whatever meaning you wish, whatever the artist's
statement or representatives might say. The thing that brings this
story up today is that that particular piece was vandalized
(54:49):
by somebody wearing what are those little hats called ben
with the eyes in the mouth in them, the.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Little ski masks, balaclavas.
Speaker 4 (54:57):
That's it. Yeah, someone wearing a balot clava.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Stuff they will want, you know, brought to you by Balaklava,
the number one least shady thing to bear to your
favorite financial institution.
Speaker 4 (55:08):
Yeah, or just you know the store, but you know
onlookers because I don't know. These pieces get announced and
then the moment they're announced, like on the official Banksy
Instagram or whatever through other channels, immediately people are trying
to find them. There's a lot of attention being paid.
So people were looking on while this person did this
and say, hey, knock it off, don't do that. So
(55:29):
The Guardian reports in a piece by their staff, Banksy
Rhino artwork in London defaced with graffiti tag. One of
the nine murals animal themed murals put up by Banksy
in London in as many days has been defaced. And
actually the gorilla one that I mentioned was put up
after this one and after this event reading from The Guardian,
(55:51):
an image of a rhino appearing to mount a clapped
out silver Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on its
bonnet appeared in southeast London on Monday and was confirmed
as a bank see on the artist's Instagram account by
Tuesday morning. After the vandalization. Uh Tuesday morning, the car
had also been removed. A spokespression for the Royal Borough
(56:11):
of Greenwich, the local authority where the Rhino muro was located,
said it's a real shame that a mindless vandal has
defaced the mural which has already drawn visitors and brought
so much joy to many. Okay, I like Banksy a lot.
I really liked executing the gift shop. I think what
he does is really interesting, but it's it isn't it isn't.
(56:32):
I just think it's so fascinating. None of these are
like like sanctioned by said organization Burrow Royal Borough of Greenwich.
He doesn't ask permission, They don't ask permission to do
these on these buildings that are presumably owned by people.
And yet because of the nature of this, the absolute
(56:52):
craze around banks see in his work, it's like he
gets a pass and the article is like, it's like
vanned defaces vandalism, you know what I mean, Because one
person's vandalism is another person's art. And we know taggers
and stuff, they get arrested all the time. And it's
just very interesting to me the kind of double standard here.
And I'm not trying to be a poopooer of this
(57:16):
type of culture, jamming art. It's really really interesting, but
it did cause me to kind of think about the
irony of this. And I found a really cool piece
on like a marketing brand, like a marketing consultancy website
of the UK, Harper McLoud Banksy's complicated relationship with intellectual property,
and it points out the writer Sam Dillon, I'm just
(57:39):
gonna read from it because I think it's really smart.
The topic of Banksy's anonymity has once again been in
the news recently due to the decision of US Fashion
Giant Guests to use several of the artist's works in
the online and in store promotion of a new line
of clothing, including his famous flower thorerstencil. This is the
one where it looks like someone's throwing a Molotov cocktail,
but it's like a bouquet of flowers. Super iconic stuff.
(58:00):
This induced the artist himself to take to Instagram to
encourage his almost twelve million million strong followers to engage
in retaliatory shoplifting at guests guesses Regent Street branch in London.
He alleged that Guests has seen it fit to quote
help themselves to the use of his artwork for the
purposes of their brandalized collaboration without obtaining prior permission to
(58:25):
do so. What do you guys think? I think it's
such an interesting double standard and like he kind of
wants to have it, they whatever want want to have
it both ways.
Speaker 3 (58:36):
Hypocrites in the art community say it, and so also
bonus points for brandalized. That's that's it's.
Speaker 4 (58:42):
Funny, but almost kind of cringe. Is it not a
little cringe?
Speaker 3 (58:45):
My favorite new portmanteau.
Speaker 4 (58:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty funny. Let's go on a little
bit more. Uh, it says Banksy's aforementioned aversion to intellectual
property rights, which he has made very very clear, like
he openly asked people to copy his style, to reproduce it, whatever.
But it's almost this unspoken caveat of like as long
as you're not making money off of it. Has also
been a contributory factor to his difficulties in obtaining trademark
(59:10):
protection over his work. Over the past few years, several
of his trademark registrations filed in the name of Pest
Control Office Limited, have been subjected to successful cancellation actions
on the basis of bad faith at the EUIPO, which
is the European Union Intellectual Property Office. The article goes
(59:31):
on somewhat surprisingly, these rulings have repeatedly made direct reference
to Banksy's opinions on ip referencing both his decision to
be quote very vocal regarding his disdain for intellectual property
rights and a comment that copyright is for losers from
his two thousand and six book wall and piece. While
such statements were confirmed not to preclude an artist from
(59:52):
accruing such rights, the eu IPO's reasoning centered on its
findings that Banks he possessed no genuine intention to use
the artworks as trademarks in relation to the goods and
services listed. So a lot to unpack here. I don't
want to make this an overly long segment, but I
didn't think it was an interesting immediately, like was like, huh,
(01:00:14):
you know, somebody tagged what's essentially a really really expensive
and sought after tag like one of the other pieces,
a wolf on a satellite dish was immediately stolen, and
that's kind of But then what happens if you steal
something like that and then try to sell it, Like
there's no artist to come after you because they're anonymous,
(01:00:36):
So it's like, it's not like stealing a painting from
a museum, but it's worth as much money. These pieces
go for millions of pounds, millions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
You put it in your five million dollar London flat,
and then when your fancy friends come over, you say,
that's a Banks, that's a Banks.
Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Yeah, you know, I'm not as elitist, as people may
lead you to believe. Darling observed of my Banksy stolen
here from the streets of London.
Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Yeah, and then banks he shows up to the party
when it burns in Yeah, yeah, like someone burned the bank, see,
and then there's a whole movie made about it.
Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
That's yeah. I mean, that's why I Exit through the
Gift Shop is such a neat film, because it is
it's kind of like a work of art in itself.
It's sort of like an anti documentary. And I'm a
big fan of like, you know, sampling and like other
kinds of culture jamming, like everything is terrible. Folks who
take like weird Christian VHS tapes that are technically copywritten
(01:01:35):
but use them to create mashups and all kinds of
weird internet art, and I think that stuff is fascinating.
And like bands like Negative Land that take copyrighted material
and smash them up into weird audio collages. So I'm
all about this stuff, but I do think when you
start making copyright claims for your illegal art, it does
sort of put a little bit of a damper on
(01:01:57):
like your philosophy as a culture jamming, you know, kind
of iconoclass or whatever, and maybe let us know what
you think. Am I being too hard on banks? I don't.
I'm not trying to be, because I really do think
this stuff is cool, but I think it's very sticky
in terms of the legalities of it and like wanting
to have it both ways.
Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
That's it, agreed, And that's a great question here, folks,
to to you, we pass the torch, right, because this
is Noel. I would argue, this is an inherently philosophical question, right.
It goes beyond maybe the idea of double standards into
what is art? What is ownership? We also want to know.
(01:02:34):
We want to know your favorite Mars bar. We want
to know, oh jeez, we want to know what you
think the end result of all these monopolies will be.
And can anybody like, can any of us really understand
what thirty six billion dollars is? I'm not sure. My
head rocks it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Imagine all the cheese it's in the world.
Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Yeah, yeah, there we go. There's also check out cheese conspiracy.
Ed tell us how long do you think it would
take to count to a billion? We do have the answer,
we'll give it to you later. Our weekly listener veil segment.
In the meantime, go forth, folks, prosper have adventures. Most importantly,
(01:03:19):
let us know what you think. We try to be
easy to find online.
Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
That's right. You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist on Facebook, where we have our Facebook
group Here's where it gets crazy, on x fka, Twitter,
and on YouTube where we have video content galore. We
are Conspiracy Stuff Show. However, on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
You can call us directly. Our number is one eight
three three st d WYTK. When you choose to make
that phone call, you're gonna get three minutes. Give yourself
a cool nickname. That's mandatory. Then let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
The rest is yours. Have fun with it. Make your
(01:03:57):
own verbal banksy on our voice machine. If you've got
more to send, then you can fit in that three
minute message. Why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, and perhaps Matt, you saw me typing during
part of this evening's program. We would like you to
write us a little bit of art, a poem. Should
you feel so inspired. Here is one example. Come, my
(01:04:31):
little darling skittlebag. Let our inflation be not fake. Taste
this evening rainbow with me, Join me in this adjacent duplex.
Snore to me branded snacks and monopolies. Spread your glitter
to the stars. May all your objections be dismissed, for
you agreed to these conditions in advance. A love letter
(01:04:52):
from Disney to Mars Wow Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Stuff they Don't Want you to Know 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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Alexis code name Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here. That makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. We're hurtling headlong
toward the end of August, and we have such wonders
to show you. We're going to We're going to talk
(00:51):
about Disney, We're going to talk about Mars. We're going
to hit up Banksy before we do any of that.
Matt Nol, code named dot Call, is a little bit salty. Uh,
a little bit salty with me.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
What about your where you find yourself in the world? Yeah, yeah,
I'm having a little foam on myself. I'm not gonna
lie going on blow up your spot, but uh, let's
just say mister Miyagi would be proud.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Ooh nice, nice. What did you call it? Doc? Not
a cold open but a heartless open.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
All right now, Ben, we wish you the best in
your travels abroad. We really do. We're not mad at all.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Here, we go for yourself because I am mad. Oh,
I just think it's cool.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
It is cool, super cool, not like literal mad. You know,
we all go a little mad sometimes code named Doc Holliday.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
And speaking of going, okay, this is one that just
as as I mentioned that a lot of our fellow
conspiracy realists have sent us, we all saw the thing
about News having to hunt down all that candy with
methamphetamine in it. Did you guys hear about that.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Code named candy? All right? The street name, yeah it was.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Was it a part of some charity or some kind
of super positive thing?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And then there's myth, yes, yeah, in the candy, which
is like the Halloween myth.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
There was a similar story too about like a guitar center,
if anyone like knows guitar center for you know, amps
and music gear and stuff. A bunch of amplifiers were
found to be stuffed with bricks of cocaine. So I
thought that was a sort of an analogous kind of story.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, speaking of analogous. In our show's home state of
Georgia as I'm sure we all saw. That's right right,
Doc is on the road and this whole place falls
apart without your code name Holiday because over two three
hundred pounds of methamphetamine were found hidden in a celery
shipment to the Georgia farmers Market out.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yeah the vegetable no one ever pays at digit.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah yeah, I said forrest, You said forest Park.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, on the way to my old uh stompy grounds.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So celery candy, yeah, anything else we get, guitar amps,
guitar am for the.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
For the good, cocaine, all stuff with drugs. I want
to give a shout out to before we move on,
just because, uh, we'll get into this story, but conspiracy realists,
we want you to know that we also we also
clocked this. Uh the de e A. One of the
funniest parts about the article on the Georgia meth bust
(03:36):
was a DEA agent adding emphatically, don't worry, We're not
going to let people sell the celery.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
So if that was a question, I mean, next thing
on the list will be boar's head meat stuffed with drugs.
Oh gosh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Are you tired of the same old listeria boar's head
meat now now just a little jittery, riddled with LSD,
riddled with speaking of things being riddled with, we're talking
about this a little bit off air. The mouse is
back in the news for a very strange situation that
kind of back to a conspiracy. We talk a lot
(04:16):
about terms and conditions, or what is it, terms of use,
the fine print that the big companies would rather you
not read. Disney has recently, as just a few days ago,
asked a Florida court to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit
filed earlier this year. A lady passed away due to
(04:38):
an anaphylactic reaction after she ate a meal at Disney Springs.
And yeah, and Disney has asked the court to dismiss this.
It was filed by the victim's husband because the victim
was I kid you not a Disney Plus subscriber.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
So I mean Disney Springs is sort of like a
food court situation. I mean, it's not all like Disney
branded stuff. There's like a Lego store and like other
little restaurants. So I'm wondering. Obviously Disney owns the development
or the facility, but like are they always going to
be on the hook, like as a company. If a
third party company that they lease space too has a
(05:22):
situation like this.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
That's a good question. It looks like it looks like
she was eating at the Raglan Road Irish Pub. And
the victim, who unfortunately again is deceased, is Kennapone Tong
Swan and she's a doctor up in NYU and New
York City. She had a severe dairy and nut allergy,
(05:46):
told the weight staff of the pub about this well
in advance, and was, according to the lawsuit, unequivocally assured
that they could be accommodated. She ordered the vegitarian broccoli
and corn fritters, a sea scallop sappetizer, a vegan entree
like a shepherd's pie, vegan shepherd's pie, and then onion rings.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Can you please say the names of those dishes?
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Oh right?
Speaker 3 (06:14):
The vegetarian broccoli is sure, I'm frittered, the sea scallop
shappetizer's scallop forest, and the the shepherd's pie is this
shepherd went vegan. We're getting this. We're getting this thanks
to the Worldwide Leader in Disney Park News w d
(06:34):
W News Today.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I think I was looking for a Disney pun in
those names, but I don't think that's what there is.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
We haven't identified the Onion rings as students of their
sides name.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I just think it's funny that they have such cute names,
right for meals in a cute place, the Disney Springs.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
That's the cutest place on Earth their tagline. If I'm
not mistaken, you're just vegan pie on Earth.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, and everything's it's the happiest place on Earth. Everything's
great so far in this trip. What happened then?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah? So unfortunately, again this is tragic. Parts of this
are gallows humor, but we do have to remember a
person passed away. At first, first, the victim and her
mother in law went shopping like you just described no
Old Disney Springs as one of those live, laugh love places,
right mixed, use, go buy some stuff. We'll give the
(07:32):
food cute names to justify the price. It wasn't until
later that evening that Tong Swan had this acute allergic
reaction and Planet Hollywood. She administered an epipin to herself.
She was taken to a hospital and that's where she
passed away. On May thirty, first Disney filed a motion
(07:54):
to move the wrongful death lawsuit out of the courts
and into arbitration, and Disney's law lawyers said the following.
This is a quote from our source. The journalist is
brit Tuttele. Disney said quote. There's legal language within the
terms and conditions for Disney Plus which requires users to
(08:14):
arbitrate all disputes within the company. And they claim that
the husband of the victim agreed to this blanket arbitration
back in twenty nineteen when he signed up for a
one month free trial of the streaming service on his
PlayStation console dot beat me here, Are you being kidding?
(08:35):
That's like imagine, imagine you sign up for Netflix or
any other streaming service, right, and then Netflix has their
version of whatever the Disney springs of Netflix would be,
like the Netflix North Pole.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Well, Netflix does have like a brick and mortar movie
theater type of situation. Yeah, there, I'm aware. I believe
that that's relatively new. I'm sorry. Let me let me
try to understand. Are you saying that there's some sort
of like clause in signing up that like prevents the
person from suing or or like because of the language
in them, you know, basically being tricked into signing up
(09:12):
for this you know, free trial, that it gives them
less of a case. I want to make sure I'm
not that's misunderstanding.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Right, I had the same thing. That's what's christ That's
what Disney's lawyers are arguing, and what that's why it
feels conspiratorial because look, we're not jurists, but the jurisprudence
here could be quite dangerous if it's sets a precedent
because I think what I assume, what most of us
imagine when we sign up for a service like that
(09:39):
and we see the arbitration thing, you know, you see
whatever you download video games nowadays. Two, what they're saying
is if you have a user data issue, right like,
if that personal info gets compromised, then you're saying you
don't have a lawsuit.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
What if that DLC gives you fatal food poisoning? What then?
I mean joking, But it's like, good lord, that's a
big blanket, isn't that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, let's first talk about what arbitration means, because I
remember when I didn't know what that meant not that
long ago. It just means that instead of going to
a court of law within the United States, and you know,
going through all the legal rigmarole that you would do
if you were attempting to sue a company such as Disney,
you would instead go into a separate room, not a courtroom,
(10:25):
with a person who is an arbitrator, not a judge,
who would basically listen to the arguments of both sides
and come to an agreement together with an arbitrator.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Right. The only the only difference between that and having
you know, a sit down hang out with a mediating
buddy is that in arbitration, the decision is legally binding
and can be enforced by an actual facts court. Shout
out to our friend Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Isn't that a situation where you can opt for arbitrary
like in cases of divorce, for example, but you have
to accept the outcome like it's an option. If you
don't want to go to full on court, you can say,
let's do arbitration, but then there is a caveat that
you have to accept the ruling of the arbitrator despite
the fact they're not a judge.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Right, right, Which makes me think we might be able
to do a fun episode in the future on all
those TV court shows. Conspiracy realists, let us know if
that's something you're interested in, because a lot of those folks,
technically what they're doing is arbitration, not an actual court case.
Here's why this is terrifying, conspiratorial, and let's go to
(11:38):
I haven't said the husband's name yet. Jeffrey Piccolo is
the husband of the deceased, and his attorneys, his legal
team is saying Disney's latest legal move here is preposterous
because if everybody signs off on this, if a court
degrees this should be arbitration, then that would mean the
(12:00):
one hundred and fifty three million subscribers to Disney Plus
have waived all claims against the company and all of
its affiliates because of language buried in the terms and conditions.
Disney's lawyers say whether or not Piccolo reviewed the terms
of the agreement is immaterial, which seems just gosh, we
(12:21):
thought our cold open was cold.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, but I I guess that is kind of the
thinking behind all of those terms of service agreements that
companies put out. Right, nobody it was the joke, Right,
Nobody's going to read the actual Facebook terms of service,
the actual insert company here document. You're just going to
scroll down so you can use the thing you want
(12:45):
to use, which is very common. But my goodness, just
having a company that has it has so many different arms,
right that operate, and a lot of them have physical
interaction with you, not just virtual over a computer. You're
gonna be hanging out actually with Disney. And if something happens.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Too bad exactly, And there's the other the other question here,
and I love that you're pointing out the tendrils. It's
quite possible then that you could have agreed to this
in some form by clicking some term of condition. You know,
most people are scrolling down and just going, h where's
the agree button? I gotta watch you know, Moana or whatever,
(13:31):
and uh, and then and then they get to that's one, right.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I wana, that's one of my favorites. It's a good one.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, I thought it was one of the good ones.
So then what they're saying is the implication is that
you might have something bad and or fatal happen, and
you might not know what's a Disney subsidiary. You might
not know it's a Disney service. Disney just owns it
the way Unilever owns things. And we'll talk about monopolization later.
(13:59):
And that's fellow conspiracy realist puts you up a heck
of a creek. There's a lot of weird legal stuff
going on.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
You know, Disney owns so much though, I mean, come on,
they're essentially the Globocem of today, you know. I mean,
they're like this massive umbrella company that like owns things
you would never even realize, Like how how can they
expect that a normal person would know? And not to mention,
I can't get over the fact that this was due
(14:29):
to a free trial that was like they throw those
things at you. RSVP to an evite today and it
tried to get me to sign up for Disney Plus,
like you know, dangling the free trial, and like how
many of those actually amount to somebody actually clicking yes?
But all of a sudden you're on the hook for
this stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, and before we move on, we love a lot
of stuff about Disney. You know, we two were once
youths in America, but we would love to hear your
strange stories about the mouse and what essentially functions as
an independent nation state inside Florida. Speaking of weird legal stuff,
this is something on everybody's mind. We almost opened with
(15:11):
this the economist, not the magazine I still read for
some reason. But the economist at the Federal Reserve had
finally admitted something America has been saying for a while. Hey,
this is not really inflation. It's fake inflation. This is
price gouging. And companies are beginning to get worried, including Disney.
(15:35):
Companies are beginning to get worried that consumers are not
going to keep playing ball. We want to thank Christopher
Rugebert over at AP News with an article that came
out American's refusal to keep paying higher prices, maybe dealing
a final blow to the US inflation spike. Have you
guys been noticing inflation kind of sticking around? I feel
(15:58):
like maybe we're old cogers when we talk about it.
But I saw a I saw a twenty ounce soda
pop sold. Soda pop. Geez, let me go to the nickelodeon.
I saw a twenty out soda sold for like two
dollars and fifty nine cents at a local gas station
in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
How much could it? How much could a soda pop cost?
Michael Right, come on, I know we always make that joke.
But you also sent around on the group text, Ben,
I think it was you how like a local not local,
it's a massive grocery store chain. Kroger is flipping to
that dynamic. I mean, it is for all intents and
purposes those digital readouts, and some insider, I don't believe
(16:41):
it was someone with the company was like, yeah, on
a hot day, that soda pop could go up a
couple of cents depending on the conditions. And you know,
all the companies claim that that's not what it's for,
but it's not what it's not for. I mean, it's
certainly a thing that it could be for.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I mean, come on, right, camera, Doc and I briefly
were talking about this because it recently went viral on Instagram.
It's very much true. And hey, they called us crazy,
you guys, and they still call us crazy, and they
may be right, but we were right about that part.
Check out our surge pricing videos. There's so much conspiratorial
(17:18):
about the framing of this inflation, Like we mapped it
out before supply chains broke down during the pandemic, But
well before the pandemic, companies were already trying to squeeze
every last drop of blood from the individual financial stone
and so they always knew. I would posit that this
was a short term play. The idea on the shareholder
(17:41):
and investor side was to post pandemic. We're still in
a pandemic, but post supply chain breakdown was to ride
that wave of inflation and pretend like everything was still
broken for as long as possible. So just like in surfing,
you know, you can't ride the wave forever. You just
want to stay at the crest, right or I don't
(18:03):
know enough about surfing to use those terms, but you
want to, you know, stay on top of the board
as long as possible.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Do you think it's like an example of kind of
clawing back some of those gains, you know, like the
I don't know, I guess sale people were spending money
during the pandemic. You got to remind me now, like
I mean, there are certain industries that thrives in certain
industries that didn't. Like Amazon obviously you know, had a
mega good time during pandemic. But it's an excuse, I guess,
(18:32):
right at the very least, that we have to get
back some of those losses.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah, it's an excuse in the company's part. You're saying
that they would like recoup losses. Yeah, and we were
talking off air about this surge pricing as a response
to that. Right, people are fighting inflation, So now maybe
we can as a company target inflation toward you. Facial
recognition is again it sounded crazy when you first mentioned
(18:58):
it on air, but it will be Lloyd. The next
step also is going to be recovering public info, probably
based on zip code right, or whatever demographic info you
can get. How much is the average person in insert
zip code here willing to pay for a banana? Because
if it's ten dollars per then we're off to the races.
(19:20):
This is happening. This is stuff they don't want you
to know. There's so much more we have to get too.
Before we pause, I guess we should say several major
banks are in trouble. More on that soon as that develops.
We also have to shout out DNA evidence because we
talked briefly in the past, Matt, I believe you brought
(19:43):
up the recent purchase of ancestry dot com, So just
so everybody knows, forensic DNA is still helping us unravel conspiracies.
An individual named Stephen Paul Gaale would have gotten away
with multiple sexual assaults dating back decades. He was just
apprehended with DNA evidence. So there is hope. Uh, there
(20:04):
is hope for some of the victims. And also statute
of limitation laws, particularly in places like Massachusetts, are evolving
in pace with technology. So we wanted to end on
some rough but overall positive news with this. We're going
to pause for a word from our sponsors and then
we'll be back speaking of monopolies.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
And we've returned, and we're going to stay on that
inflation tip. Oh, I know you're excited.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Oh, you're so excited, so inflated right now, dog before
they deflated.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I'm doing podcasting.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Yeah, I love it, you guys.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I saw our clip from American Psycho. It's this moment
in the club where a woman in the club asks
is it Bateman?
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Yeah? Patrick?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
See Patrick Bateman?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Like so what do you do?
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And he's like, I'm into uh, well, murders and executions mostly,
but she hears him talking about mergers and acquisitions and.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Oh did you read real quick? Did you guys read
the The discourse about American Psycho is awesome. I got
super deep into it when I was traveling for unrelated things. Apparently,
the idea is that Bateman never actually kills most of
those people and they're just his like there is dark,
twisted fantasy. Have you guys read that?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, So in that scene, my reading of the film
is that he didn't actually say murders and executions. He
said mergers and acquisitions. But in his head that's what
he's thinking.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
He's like, it's Mark Walter Mitty. Okay. You know.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
That does kind of make the metaphor of it all
a little stronger in a way, the idea that this
is all in his and and the fact that he
doesn't get caught and he sort of like completely melts
down in such a public way and yet still doesn't
get caught, or you could read it that he really
was doing it and he's at this echelon of society
that he will never get caught no matter what horrible
stuff he does. Anyway, Yes, I have derailed.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
No, it's fine. But essentially what he is doing in
his position, at his job is making all become one,
all shall become one, all will become one, and nothing
to rule them all. Yeah, And there's a lot of
power in that, and nobody can do anything about it,
because now all are one. Okay, So I'm looking at
(22:34):
a story today guys titled Mars to buy Pringles maker
kele Nova for thirty six billion dollars in twenty twenty
four's biggest deal. It's from Reuters August fourteenth of this year.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Ooh and yeah, you're right, folks, Pringles has a parent company.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yes, So we're gonna go deep into this, y'all. But
first I'm gonna read it one sentence just to really
send it home of what we're talking about here. Quote,
family owned candy giant Mars is buying cheese at maker Kelenova.
It opens a new tab in a nearly thirty six
billion dollar deal, bringing together brands from Eminem's and Snickers
(23:12):
to Pringles and pop Tarts in the year's biggest deal
to date. So before we jump in, let's talk about
these companies before they become one.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Can I just say that it's hilarious They just throw
in family owned like Mars is some mom and pop
like Corner Shop or something. I just it's good, pr
I guess, but it's super weird.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
What it's our family owned?
Speaker 4 (23:34):
No, I know, but it doesn't mean what you think
it means shit anyway.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, it means corporate monarchs.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Okay, so you said, jump in, what are these companies?
Mars is much bigger than people imagine. We'll get to that.
Kelenova may not be familiar with everybody who's not into
the creepy, weird stuff we're into. But from my understanding,
Matt Kelenova, once upon a time was good old Kellogg's.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Kellogg's was becoming a part of Kelenova because they became one,
and now they are becoming one again. So before we
get to Kelenova, we're doing Mars though. So a lot
of people know what a Mars bar is.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
You may not.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It is a candy bar, a Mars bar. It's pretty
simple one. It's one that's been around for a long
long time. They also own Eminem's. Uh they were once.
They were once called eminem Mars. I don't know if
it's not that anymore. I know it's whatever. Mars and Eminem's.
Those are the big ones. They own all the kinds,
even the peanut butter ones there are they owned three?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yeah, I like how?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
I like how? So Matt got more emphatic with its pointing.
He was like, sorry, it was like this, even the
peanut butter ones.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Is that the one with the Lady Eminem? Which one's
the the sexy Lady Eminem?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
So I know I'm the only white curtsy. It's just
it's a weird time.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
I know who was it. It was some Fox News
guy that's sort of like really the Lady Eminem with
her like her boosts. Yes, it was there we go.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
He likes the gams.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
He does like the gams.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Well, uh, you want to get some good gams, why
not also enjoy Mars offerings of three Musketeers, Milky Way, Snickers, Twigs,
Dove chocolate products, all of them. Unilever owns the soap,
by the way, the Dove soap.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Mars also no connection, zero brand connection between Dove Chocolate
and Dove Soap. I always wondered that, so I don't.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I don't think so unless somebody else has more information
on it. My understanding is that, yeah, Mars has the chocolate,
Unilever has the soap. They also owned three to four
other fancy chocolate brands, such as Hotel Chocola, which has
no E at the end. That's how you know it's fancy.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I also didn't realize that they owned the three most
popular fruit flavored candies in the United States, Life Savers, Starburst,
and Skittles.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Skittles is just like fruit flavored m and ms basically,
I mean, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Taste the rainbow of oligarchy.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Yeah. Remember when they had that spate of bizarre Skittles
commercials that were borderline like sexual. It was I'm sorry,
carry on, I just marketing. Marketing is weird.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Well, I'm gonna look that up right after this, but
I don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Well, but it's not just candy, right.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Well, basically from all of that list there, Halloween is
like a big charity event so that we can all
donate to Mars, which is weird. But I had no
idea that they have a monopoly on chewing gum. I'm serious.
They own Double Mint Gum, Winter Fresh Juicy Fruit, Big Red,
Hubba Bubba, extra Orbit Eclipse, and five Gum. You remember
(26:47):
that one five. It was so exciting back to.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
That number five as like an f It's kind of inspiring, though, Matt,
that you include Big Red there, because that shows us
that even big companies end up taking a massive loss
once in a while. Because Big read is just like
big red war crime for your mouth.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Wow, I used to really like it's a cinnamon one, right, that's.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
What they say.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Did you ever like lick the wrapper and stick it
on your forehead to try to feel something? Yeah, it's
a thing kids used to do. Maybe it is the
only one. It's a thing I didn't know exactly, because
what are you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Eat the gum?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I did you know what they also own, guys? The
thing we used to always carry around in our cargo pants,
the curiously strong mints.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
You remember those in the Altoids, Yeah, which which which
always kind of had the patina of European specialty mints.
It's sort of like craft breweries that are owned by
giant beer companies, Like they have all these little brands.
Oh yeah, like Altoids is totally made in the Swiss
Alps from unfiltered spring.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Water or something, right, I mean maybe it is, but
Mars owns whatever the factory is.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Shout out to the tenovation episodes we had to do
years bank a.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I remember those. Oh but when we're talking about the
gum here, the reason why they own all those is
because they became one with Wriggly's not too long ago.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
How did I say, it's almost like erasure where I
was like it weren't those all wrigglies? What happened to?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Well, that's the natural trends, right, mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
They also owned kind Bars and combos, the craveable pretzel
rolls filled with pizza somehow Nature's Bakery fig bars, which
again seem kind of healthy. I used to eat with
my son all the time. Nope, I'm paid extra.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
It must be healthy.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
And this really solves a mystery for me because kind
bars always had Eminem versions and Snickers versions, and it's
basically just this masquerading as healthy candy bar, you know, yeah, dude.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Oh, and that's just one of their segments, by the way,
and that's not including all the other international products that
they offer, because they offer different products in different countries
and different regions. They've also got a food and nutrition
segment that owns your brand of rice. Ben by the way,
used to be Uncle Ben's, now just Benz Rice. So congratulations.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
We should not be defined by our connections, you know
what I mean, social or familial. Also, I believe big
in the world of pet food, right is that.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Croft huge in pet food? Think of a pet food brand.
They probably own it, including the stuff you see at
the vets office that's like prescription pet food. They own
the brand, and they own most of the vets VCA vets,
Banfield vets that are popping up everywhere. We're talking thousands
of veterinary clinics.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Very specific stuff that sounds like it was made by
a pharmaceutical outfit. Like do you have an elderly epileptic parrot,
This is the only food you can feed it. Guess
what Mars makes it?
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Isn't this what they'd call vertical integration, like that kind
of stuff where like you own the pet food and
you on the vet clinics that like shill the pet
food or like prescribe it or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, So they own all that stuff already, guys, and
they just merged with Kelenova. So what did they get
from Kelenova. Let's talk about it. Pop Tarts, Aggo Waffles,
Neutral Grain Bars, Special k Cereal RX Bars, Morning Star Farms,
plant based frozen meat alternatives, Pringles, potato crisps, cheese at Crackers,
(30:29):
Club Crackers, Townhouse Crackers, Zesta Saltines, Austin Cracker Sandwiches.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
They own the whole aisle bro like, dude, the heck,
that's insane.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
They even own the crackers that are hanging out over
by the fancy cheeses, you know, the table fancy water crackers.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah, the ones that the same since the fifties, like
the packaging.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
The ones only come in the one sleeve your unit
because they're that fancy and it's Kellogg.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
So they they now own all of those Kellogg's cereal
brands that did not break off into a separate Kellogg's
company that happened pretty recently. But yeah, remember we talked
about how a lot of the cereals you can't the
American cereals you can't buy in Europe in other places
because of the ingredients. Yes, this company, Kelenova, owns the
(31:19):
manufacturing of the like European versions of what frosted flakes
would be, right, Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah? Expand so these.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Two things coming together, I feel so gross, so weird,
so awful reading this, and I don't know that I
can fully explain why, other than this feeling that when
I walk into a store, I am tricked into believing
these are all different choices that I get to make
(31:49):
absolutely with my money or you know, with what I
feed myself and my family, but really it is just
the same stuff.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
It's the illusion of choice, right, not for nothing was
our first episode ever on Edward Bernez. And from the
perspective of these entities, just like a large just like
funeral monopolies, which is an example we keep going back to.
We harp on this kind of stuff because food is
a universal need, right, People love talking about any aspect
(32:20):
of food. It's also a great business because people are
demand for certain types of food may wax and wane
and fluctuate, but demand for food in general is not
going away anytime soon. And I was reading in this
article you shared, Matt, just the stat that goes to inflation.
About how much we talked about this at length, but
(32:42):
whenever we mentioned something repeatedly, folks, it's because we feel
as mission critical. Food prices across the world have skyrocketed
no matter where you go, unless arguably if you go
to some authoritarian places where they have better price controls,
different bag badgers. But food prices in the US alone,
these journalists point out, increased by our quarter in just
(33:05):
four years, and that is far out pacing the rate
of inflation, far out pacing even fricking housing. Man. This
is so if you're an average person, you are laboring
under the illusion of choice, right, You're not really getting
to make choices. Your decision treed into giving the money somehow,
(33:25):
and then, perhaps more dangerously, specially combined with this targeting
of personal info, you are going to be paying more.
That is simply the truth. This is very good from
the perspective of the businesses because now they have something
they can take to the boardroom and say, hey, guys,
(33:47):
you like to messing with us last quarter? You know
what I mean? It reminds me. I don't know, man,
there's so much dirty stuff, Matt, I see what you're
saying about feeling weird because who was it? There was
a ceo I think of was it Starbucks who got
fired for not busting unions? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:05):
They got fired, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
And they brought in like the Chipotle CEO or something else. Right,
he is going on there?
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It was Notoriously who is apparently has a name in
the C suite community.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
For being bounty, isn't he. The guys said that they
definitely weren't making portions smaller, but then a study proved
they definitely were, and then he came out and said, sorry,
we'll do better. He's I can remember.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's kind it's kind of like, I mean, it's a
mind game, right, It's kind of like one thing I
ran into a few years ago. You know, if you're
in a different countries, sometimes they'll tell you get the
tourist tax, right, or the foreigner price, or that's language
barrier and not being from there and whatever. There was
a Japanese official and I'll find the source if anyone's
(34:52):
interested who said, oh, no, we're not charging people more,
we're not charging visitors more, we're charging local less.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Mmmming.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
But like maybe that's part of the ichiness you're feeling there, Matt.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Is all these factors, I think so.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
But it does kind of go back to Brene's. It
goes back to some of our studies on capitalism in general.
I'm going to read from this article again, this Reuter's
article from August fourteenth. This is a quote. The deal
is a bet on consumers continuing to indulge in branded snacks,
and comes as packaged food companies face stalling growth after
(35:32):
years of price hikes to cover skyrocketing inflation, which is
a whole other thing, because there's an investigation right now
into food companies and how they've altered their prices to
quote counteract inflation, and to see how much of that
is actually price gouging to make the consumers pay for
it rather than you know, absorbing some of the costs
(35:54):
of inflation like that.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
But it is.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
It creeps me out because the current mars CEO, Paul
way Reich or yates why rash maybe w E I
R W E I H R A U c H.
He says, quote, we hope to be able to absorb
more costs in our structure and help alleviate the issues
we have in an inflationary environment.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Oh, I gotta have what the though? Yeah, I love this,
but we need a positive out lighting because this is
terrible news. But positive lighting. Folks. If you are singularly
ready tomingle to find yourself already in a in a
stranger bad romance, may we suggest your new pickup live
for your partner darling, please join me. Let us indulge
(36:41):
in some branded snacks.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Oh well, so are they basically saying that, like the
merger is necessary in order to keep them from continuously
passing on that burden to customers. It sounds like bull
to me. I mean in terms of they're basically saying, like,
we refuse to ever make less. We have to grow, grow, grow,
because that's what stakeholders, you know, in the market and
(37:03):
all that expect. But isn't that kind of the argument
they're making. They're like, no, you should be okay with
it because that means savings for you kind of.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
But ultimately they're competing with the what they call private
label like off brand versions, the generics of your townhouse whatever,
or pop tarts, straight.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Up bags of cereal at the bottom of the grocery aisle.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Clowny yuffs, you know, because all of us US consumers
we're feeling this inflation. We're the ones who are actually
dealing with inflation, and we are having to just grapple
with Oh, well, I guess I can't buy that anymore, right, Oh,
I guess I can't afford that or indulge in that
snack anymore when I go on that date to pick
(37:49):
somebody to end gets yes, And this is this is
what the article says. The US packaged food sector as
an entirety thing is seeing robust deal making as companies
seek to scale to weather the impact of inflation, weary
customers cutting back and shifting their purchases to private label
(38:10):
label brands. So what they're betting is that if they
have enough brands on the shelves, they are going to
have enough overall sales so that their their money keeps
going up.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Isn't that what a monopoly is. Yeah, that's what it
feels like to me.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
But not yet, because there's I would advance. Uh, there
is a final step, and it's a step that they're
going to have to reckon with at some point. What
happens when there is no more nestley? What happens you know,
what happens to coke when there is no more pepsi?
What happens when there's nothing left to buy, to merge
(38:47):
and acquire, to murder and execute. Then they when that's
not when the rural domination. No, that's when the rubber
hits the road. That's the thing that capitalism is scared of.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
That's when the graph that's going up can no longer go.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
Well, you gotta have someone to fight against. It's perpetual war.
I mean, it's basically isn't that right?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's scary. Oh you know what,
they're also scared of people who make snack branded snacks.
They're afraid of wigovy and ozempic. Apparently investors at least
are worried about that, because this is what it says, quote,
investors are worried about a decline in sales from the
greater adoption of drugs such as ozempic and wigovy for
weight loss, which curb appetites and lead to feelings of fullness.
(39:31):
The investors are afraid of you being full, so you
won't shove cookies and candy in your face.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Now, just buy the Kelenva branded ozempic. You know, get
the money there. That's how it works. I feel like
I'd be good at a boardroom even we've.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Seen you've done it, we've worked. There's there's video, there's
there's footage. But I mean, great success isn't The whole
idea though, of diversification is heading off stuff like that
at the past where you got your health conscious brand.
So no matter what side of the aisle, health flies,
snacking wise, people fall, there's going to be something for
them that you are selling them. But I guess the
(40:09):
issue with ozempic is that you're not selling them anything
because they're not hungry anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Well, actually several companies I can't find it in here
right now, several companies, Oh, Nestle, specifically guys Nestley is
developing brand new products, specifically for people who use those drugs.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Right, Yeah, the next step. I can't wait. Somebody really
needs to do this. All right, You don't have to
write to us. I know I keep interrupting here, but
don't have to write to us. But just so you know,
if you happen to be a c suite dude in
the right industry or do debt, I feel dude is
a gender neutral term now, But if you happen to
be up there in the upper echelons of corporate America,
(40:52):
whatt something? Put something that's a low like slow burned,
mild dire redick into some popular foods, and then before
you do that, buy up you know, the ripe medicines
and then brand them and make them sexy and tell
no one except for the investors.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Hey, there you go, There you go, because that's all
that matters. Last quote from the article before we end
the segment, y'all. Mars said on Wednesday, that's Wednesday. As
we're recording this on October fourteenth, so today it will
pay eighty three dollars and fifty cents per share for
Kelen Nova, representing about a thirty three percent premium to
its closing price on August second. Isn't that nice? Guys?
(41:37):
The investors made big and that's all that matters.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Get on them and for anybody who's wondering if there's
justice in this wide, dangerous world of ours. Some of
those guys probably subscribe to Disney Plus.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Uh oh, watch out. Arbitration is a come in. Hey,
we'll be right back with more Strange News after a
word from our sponsors.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
And we're back. And before I get into the main
story that I brought for today's Strange News, I just
wanted to mention a couple of shorties. One that hit
close to home for me being a person who snores,
and really gave me pause in terms of what might
become of me at the hands of my partner.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
I have to recuse myself for this one, guys, because
the newsophonia that I suffer from. I don't think anybody
should kill anybody, just be clear, but I cannot handle
snoring their mouth noises.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
I'm glad we haven't ever had to share a hotel room.
It was a road trip. There was a road trip
that got close. Okay, fair enough, close to you stabbing
me to death in my sleep, recusing myself by friend. Okay,
fair enough. There's a little bit of confusion here in
the story. Guys, I'm going to read you the headline.
I think you get the just thus far. Philadelphia man
pleads guilty the stabbing neighbor to death over snoring. In
(42:59):
my mind, I picture it's the person who is upset
by the snoring stabbing the snorer to death as a
result of said, you know, inconvenience. Apparently quite the opposite.
Christopher Casey, fifty six years old, was recently handed a
relatively short prison sentence after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter
(43:23):
when his neighbor, Robert Wallace, sixty two, busted through his
window to potentially do him harm. I guess that's the
only way you get involuntary manslaughter out of this, right,
But it led to an altercation that involved Casey stabbing
Wallace to death. He also pleaded guilty to possessing an
instrument of crime, being a knife.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Which is like the non branded snack.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Yeah. But the interesting thing is apparently Wallace had been
dealing with this for so long that he was over it,
and he said, look, I'll help you get a surgery to,
you know, take care of this problem. I'll help you
pay for it. It would benefit us both. But Casey
did not believe him and declined.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
I think there's a past here too. Usually in these
kind of situations, they don't come out of that.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Well, that's why I mentioned these kind of simmering resentments
usually don't happen overnight. No, guys.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Imagine your neighbor busts down your window and says, hey,
I will pay for surgery to get you fixed.
Speaker 4 (44:29):
Now what, I would assume that that conversation took place,
perhaps a little more civilly, at another time, and this
was the result of him having declined the offer.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Maybe it was probably I'll tell you if we're guessing here,
and we'd have to go to the full Philadelphia Inquirer article.
But what it sounds like, again, simmering intensions. And it
might be because they share a wall in a duplex.
It might be a thing where Wallace is there at
three in the morning or something or let's say I
(45:00):
nine am and is just cop knocking on his neighbor's
door and says, you know, dude, I will help you,
but maybe in like a really rude, confrontational agro way,
an offensive way. So like to your point, no, it
does it. I don't know if it was the gentleman
with cravats in the drawing room, you know, so like
(45:22):
pashing it out, yeah, decanting brandy, And I would think
perhaps the respiratory system.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
Indeed, it is a it is a sticky wick at
that respiratory system, a complex network of tubes. Indeed, yeah, literally,
and uh, I guess you know, metaphorically this sounds pretty rife.
Either to move on from this one, if you guys
are okay, unless Matt, you had anything else you had
to you wanted to add about this.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I would just say his neighbor broke in because he
was snoring, and he ended up, in an act of
involuntary manslaughter, killed his neighbor that broke into his house.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
And he got.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Eleven and a half months, no between eleven and a
half to twenty three months in prison for doing that
and three years of probation.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
Not for nothing. But you know, it's not what you
get for a cold blooded murder, most foul you know,
I mean.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Right, and it wasn't. Again, this is not a Brandy
and Decanters and Cravat situation. There weren't epistols at dawn.
There is a cold ending though, where he Casey does
apologize to the family and he uses a word I
don't like where he says, this is unfortunate. That's not
what you say when you kill someone, even actually.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
Don't have a non apology.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
It also notes that his attorney told the newspaper that
they were speaking with there in Philadelphia. That quote Casey's
autism makes it difficult to navigate confrontation. He was terrified
of this guy, and he believed he had no option.
So I'm just when I'm thinking that might be a choice.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Through your window. Isn't that tech? I mean, there are
certain states that would stand your ground, would would come
into play there.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
So that attorney is James Lyons.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Gosh, a lot more at play in that one than
I even realized, more complex story than I would have
thought upon reading the headline. So thank you guys for
adding some additional context and detail to that one. The
second one, the really short. I just want to keep
this one as short as possible, because I'm pretty excited
about this bigger one. NASA is apparently using glitter on Mars,
(47:21):
more or less glitter bombing Mars to potentially make it
more habitable for humans. You know, we obviously here stuff
that I want you to know. Have a fascination for glitter?
Where does it come from, who's buying it? What are
the military uses for it? I mean, glitter is sort
of a pop cultural term. I guess this is really
(47:43):
more of a heat trapping particulate. I guess it's an
aluminum based sort of like dust that if shot into
the atmosphere of Mars could potentially soak up some of
the heat over time and make Mars more habitable. This
is a.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
True story of felly conspiracy realist. And maybe it's the
sleep deprivation, but I'm I'm chuckling building out this increasingly
elaborate scenario in my head. Come dotting, indulge in some
branded snacks, and let us explore our fascination of Martian glitter.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
I love it. Yeah, well, and it is essentially I
guess forced global warming, right, I mean, it's a it's
a form of that, it's climate control, and you know
the idea is I'll just read from that. There was
a this This is coming as a result of a
paper that was released from the University of Chicago. A
(48:39):
planetary scientist by the name of Edward Kite helped lead
this study that was published in the journal of Science Advances.
He talks about how there's you know, obviously interest in
terraforming Mars, the idea of making it similar to Earth
in terms of like, you know, habitability, and for Mars,
he says warming the planet is a necessary but insufficient
(48:59):
for Previous concepts have focused on releasing greenhouse gases, but
these require large amounts of resources that are scarce on Mars.
The key elements of our paper are a novel proposal
to use engineered nanoparticles to warm Mars's atmosphere and climate
modeling that suggests this approach could be much more efficient
than previous concepts. So glitter bomb Mars, I guess why not.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
I can already see it. They're just gonna cause accidental
runaway global warming on Mars before we even get there.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
Yeah, why not, let's just head it off with the past. Guys,
they're gonna do it anyway, let's just nip in the button,
get it done quick again.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Sounding like an old curmudgeon, I'm building two long form
improv scenes, so I like an old curmudget. We have
Earth at home, you know what I mean? Maybe fix that.
We've also got out of control glitter on Earth. Maybe
maybe fix that. But Noil, I'm glad you brought this
up because the idea of terraforming or modifying the Martian
climate is the long term goal, because otherwise is uh
(50:01):
You're I don't know. Man Mars is so appealing, but
there are so many problems with living there long term,
even if you have a subterranean metropolis. So maybe this
will be an answer. But right now it seems like
a broad theoretical brush, does it not.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
Oh, it's absolutely in the realm of like you know, uh,
conceptualization at this point. How how it would actually be
rolled out? I have not read the full paper. Maybe
they get right into it A through Z. But you know,
I'm it's not very clear from what I'm reading here.
Uh in uh Fast Company by the way, this article
if you want to read a little bit more about this, well,
(50:38):
actually it's published in Fast Company, but it's written by
Reuter's staff, So maybe those companies are.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Kind of company.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
Yeah, and Little Too Fast guys fast too little, too fast,
too fast for class my my final and I think
a little juicier this are both pretty juicy. But this one,
I just this tickled my brain in particular. I know
you guys are familiar with the street artist Banksy. A
lot has been made of like who this individual is.
There's a really cool documentary if you're not familiar, called
(51:08):
Exit through the Gift Shop that in and of itself
is a sort of work of art, Like it's got
this kind of like unreliable narrator thing where banks He
basically like creates this like street artist star mister brainwash
or whatever out of nowhere, and it's called into question
as to whether that's real or not, whether he actually
did that, or whether the guy was in on the game.
(51:29):
Banks he is very much almost like a Andy Kaufman
type figure, but instead of comedy, he does it with
street art, and his works have garnered massive global attention.
He's English, we know that much, and to the point
where these unauthorized most of the time works of art
are worth a lot of money and actually caused properties
(51:51):
that they're done on to like appreciate and value or
become like tourist destinations or whatever. And anytime a Banksy
pops up on so and that's like not nailed down,
you know, or even if it is nailed down, half
the time there's always concern that it's going to be stolen.
He's done all kinds of cool things, like there was
this piece of his that was auctioned off at Christie's
(52:14):
I want to say, are one of the big election houses,
and he or whomever he they multiple individuals. Some people
think banks He is like a collective, you know, posted
a video from inside the auction where the moment the
thing was auctioned for over a million pounds, he triggered
a button that caused the ready special made frame around
(52:35):
the piece to shred the work of arts in front
of you know, all the onlookers. And crazily enough, the
fact that he actually interacted with that piece made it
more valuable after it was already sold for a certain price.
So this really does call into questions there bring up
an interesting point, I guess about the nature of art
(52:56):
and value and intellectual property. And another irony is really
showing itself and this story. Banksy's recently unveiled nine animal
themed pieces in and around London. His organization that represents them,
which I believe is called Like Pest Control, have said
(53:16):
that the works don't mean anything, but his works are
almost always politically motivating, as a lot of stuff about
refugees and various conflicts around the globe. I just think
it's really interesting that his representation says these don't mean anything,
be as to me, they're very much in line with
this notion of like the animal kingdom coming for us.
We've done all these stories about orcas attacking boats, and
(53:39):
a lot has been made of this idea of like
animals have had enough and they're like revolting against humans.
Because one of these is near the London Zoo and
it's like painted on a roll up kind of security
gate and it's a gorilla lifting the gate up as
if it were made of cloth, and then there are
birds and a seal, and in the background you see
other glittering eyes escaping, you know, from the zoo. The
(54:03):
one that pertains to the story in particular is a
rhinoceros painted on the side of a building that appears
to be mounting. Let's just say or family show a
broken down car that has a safety cone on its bonnet.
They would call it in the UK it's hood, making
it kind of look like a weird anthropomorphic animal car.
(54:25):
So this idea that like animal kingdom is coming back
to f technology and then like we can't do anything
about it. But yeah, his people say they don't mean anything.
But I guess part of the cool thing about ours
you can take whatever meaning you wish, whatever the artist's
statement or representatives might say. The thing that brings this
story up today is that that particular piece was vandalized
(54:49):
by somebody wearing what are those little hats called ben
with the eyes in the mouth in them, the.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Little ski masks, balaclavas.
Speaker 4 (54:57):
That's it. Yeah, someone wearing a balot clava.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Stuff they will want, you know, brought to you by Balaklava,
the number one least shady thing to bear to your
favorite financial institution.
Speaker 4 (55:08):
Yeah, or just you know the store, but you know
onlookers because I don't know. These pieces get announced and
then the moment they're announced, like on the official Banksy
Instagram or whatever through other channels, immediately people are trying
to find them. There's a lot of attention being paid.
So people were looking on while this person did this
and say, hey, knock it off, don't do that. So
(55:29):
The Guardian reports in a piece by their staff, Banksy
Rhino artwork in London defaced with graffiti tag. One of
the nine murals animal themed murals put up by Banksy
in London in as many days has been defaced. And
actually the gorilla one that I mentioned was put up
after this one and after this event reading from The Guardian,
(55:51):
an image of a rhino appearing to mount a clapped
out silver Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on its
bonnet appeared in southeast London on Monday and was confirmed
as a bank see on the artist's Instagram account by
Tuesday morning. After the vandalization. Uh Tuesday morning, the car
had also been removed. A spokespression for the Royal Borough
(56:11):
of Greenwich, the local authority where the Rhino muro was located,
said it's a real shame that a mindless vandal has
defaced the mural which has already drawn visitors and brought
so much joy to many. Okay, I like Banksy a lot.
I really liked executing the gift shop. I think what
he does is really interesting, but it's it isn't it isn't.
(56:32):
I just think it's so fascinating. None of these are
like like sanctioned by said organization Burrow Royal Borough of Greenwich.
He doesn't ask permission, They don't ask permission to do
these on these buildings that are presumably owned by people.
And yet because of the nature of this, the absolute
(56:52):
craze around banks see in his work, it's like he
gets a pass and the article is like, it's like
vanned defaces vandalism, you know what I mean, Because one
person's vandalism is another person's art. And we know taggers
and stuff, they get arrested all the time. And it's
just very interesting to me the kind of double standard here.
And I'm not trying to be a poopooer of this
(57:16):
type of culture, jamming art. It's really really interesting, but
it did cause me to kind of think about the
irony of this. And I found a really cool piece
on like a marketing brand, like a marketing consultancy website
of the UK, Harper McLoud Banksy's complicated relationship with intellectual property,
and it points out the writer Sam Dillon, I'm just
(57:39):
gonna read from it because I think it's really smart.
The topic of Banksy's anonymity has once again been in
the news recently due to the decision of US Fashion
Giant Guests to use several of the artist's works in
the online and in store promotion of a new line
of clothing, including his famous flower thorerstencil. This is the
one where it looks like someone's throwing a Molotov cocktail,
but it's like a bouquet of flowers. Super iconic stuff.
(58:00):
This induced the artist himself to take to Instagram to
encourage his almost twelve million million strong followers to engage
in retaliatory shoplifting at guests guesses Regent Street branch in London.
He alleged that Guests has seen it fit to quote
help themselves to the use of his artwork for the
purposes of their brandalized collaboration without obtaining prior permission to
(58:25):
do so. What do you guys think? I think it's
such an interesting double standard and like he kind of
wants to have it, they whatever want want to have
it both ways.
Speaker 3 (58:36):
Hypocrites in the art community say it, and so also
bonus points for brandalized. That's that's it's.
Speaker 4 (58:42):
Funny, but almost kind of cringe. Is it not a
little cringe?
Speaker 3 (58:45):
My favorite new portmanteau.
Speaker 4 (58:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty funny. Let's go on a little
bit more. Uh, it says Banksy's aforementioned aversion to intellectual
property rights, which he has made very very clear, like
he openly asked people to copy his style, to reproduce it, whatever.
But it's almost this unspoken caveat of like as long
as you're not making money off of it. Has also
been a contributory factor to his difficulties in obtaining trademark
(59:10):
protection over his work. Over the past few years, several
of his trademark registrations filed in the name of Pest
Control Office Limited, have been subjected to successful cancellation actions
on the basis of bad faith at the EUIPO, which
is the European Union Intellectual Property Office. The article goes
(59:31):
on somewhat surprisingly, these rulings have repeatedly made direct reference
to Banksy's opinions on ip referencing both his decision to
be quote very vocal regarding his disdain for intellectual property
rights and a comment that copyright is for losers from
his two thousand and six book wall and piece. While
such statements were confirmed not to preclude an artist from
(59:52):
accruing such rights, the eu IPO's reasoning centered on its
findings that Banks he possessed no genuine intention to use
the artworks as trademarks in relation to the goods and
services listed. So a lot to unpack here. I don't
want to make this an overly long segment, but I
didn't think it was an interesting immediately, like was like, huh,
(01:00:14):
you know, somebody tagged what's essentially a really really expensive
and sought after tag like one of the other pieces,
a wolf on a satellite dish was immediately stolen, and
that's kind of But then what happens if you steal
something like that and then try to sell it, Like
there's no artist to come after you because they're anonymous,
(01:00:36):
So it's like, it's not like stealing a painting from
a museum, but it's worth as much money. These pieces
go for millions of pounds, millions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
You put it in your five million dollar London flat,
and then when your fancy friends come over, you say,
that's a Banks, that's a Banks.
Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Yeah, you know, I'm not as elitist, as people may
lead you to believe. Darling observed of my Banksy stolen
here from the streets of London.
Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Yeah, and then banks he shows up to the party
when it burns in Yeah, yeah, like someone burned the bank, see,
and then there's a whole movie made about it.
Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
That's yeah. I mean, that's why I Exit through the
Gift Shop is such a neat film, because it is
it's kind of like a work of art in itself.
It's sort of like an anti documentary. And I'm a
big fan of like, you know, sampling and like other
kinds of culture jamming, like everything is terrible. Folks who
take like weird Christian VHS tapes that are technically copywritten
(01:01:35):
but use them to create mashups and all kinds of
weird internet art, and I think that stuff is fascinating.
And like bands like Negative Land that take copyrighted material
and smash them up into weird audio collages. So I'm
all about this stuff, but I do think when you
start making copyright claims for your illegal art, it does
sort of put a little bit of a damper on
(01:01:57):
like your philosophy as a culture jamming, you know, kind
of iconoclass or whatever, and maybe let us know what
you think. Am I being too hard on banks? I don't.
I'm not trying to be, because I really do think
this stuff is cool, but I think it's very sticky
in terms of the legalities of it and like wanting
to have it both ways.
Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
That's it, agreed, And that's a great question here, folks,
to to you, we pass the torch, right, because this
is Noel. I would argue, this is an inherently philosophical question, right.
It goes beyond maybe the idea of double standards into
what is art? What is ownership? We also want to know.
(01:02:34):
We want to know your favorite Mars bar. We want
to know, oh jeez, we want to know what you
think the end result of all these monopolies will be.
And can anybody like, can any of us really understand
what thirty six billion dollars is? I'm not sure. My
head rocks it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Imagine all the cheese it's in the world.
Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Yeah, yeah, there we go. There's also check out cheese conspiracy.
Ed tell us how long do you think it would
take to count to a billion? We do have the answer,
we'll give it to you later. Our weekly listener veil segment.
In the meantime, go forth, folks, prosper have adventures. Most importantly,
(01:03:19):
let us know what you think. We try to be
easy to find online.
Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
That's right. You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist on Facebook, where we have our Facebook
group Here's where it gets crazy, on x fka, Twitter,
and on YouTube where we have video content galore. We
are Conspiracy Stuff Show. However, on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
You can call us directly. Our number is one eight
three three st d WYTK. When you choose to make
that phone call, you're gonna get three minutes. Give yourself
a cool nickname. That's mandatory. Then let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
The rest is yours. Have fun with it. Make your
(01:03:57):
own verbal banksy on our voice machine. If you've got
more to send, then you can fit in that three
minute message. Why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, and perhaps Matt, you saw me typing during
part of this evening's program. We would like you to
write us a little bit of art, a poem. Should
you feel so inspired. Here is one example. Come, my
(01:04:31):
little darling skittlebag. Let our inflation be not fake. Taste
this evening rainbow with me, Join me in this adjacent duplex.
Snore to me branded snacks and monopolies. Spread your glitter
to the stars. May all your objections be dismissed, for
you agreed to these conditions in advance. A love letter
(01:04:52):
from Disney to Mars Wow Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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