September 28, 2026 • 66 mins
Experts raise growing concerns about El Niño. An overdue library magazine is returned more than 130 years late. The rise of the far right in Germany echoes a global pattern. Toy'R'Us is back. William Shatner does metal. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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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 the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Max, the freight train Williams. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. It's our strange news program.
So if you're tuning in the evening, this comes out.
Welcome to September 28th, 2026. We've got some big news.
(00:55):
We are on video for this. This is our inaugural
strange news segment on Netflix.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah. Oh, wait, we're here? I guess we're here.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Turns out we weren't meeting the quota, guys.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
We had to all put on shirts because usually we
record this program au naturel.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I put on a whole sweater.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
I know, man.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
It's not even that chilly.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'm going to change shirts later when we record the
Listener Mail episode to make it seem as though there's
a whole different episode.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
You got a whole other.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Shirt, Pat? A whole different segment. Yeah, what I do, guys,
is I do the layers. So on Listener Mail, this
will be missing with another jacket. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We are approaching layering weather, guys, today. The high, 76 degrees.
Here in Georgia, which is incredible. Oh, my God. That's correct.
What would 76 Celsius be? That would be like a
million degrees. Not good.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
It's bad. We also, speaking of do not what and
inconvenient things, we do want to open, as always, with
some good news in our weekly strange news segment. Guys,
there was a comedian I was trying to remember, and
for the life of me, I can't quite recall this
(02:19):
comic's name, but they joked about inconvenience stores. And it
turns out that Seattle has opened an actual inconvenience store.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
What do we mean? Is this sort of like those
really impractical home implements that these artists do, where it'll
be like a spoon with a hole in it?
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Or the Japanese inventions where you have a a water
gun that uses your tears, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Oh, that's very intense.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
It's a real thing, yeah. It is kind of like that.
It's a former 7-Eleven store that has been transformed as
of September 22nd, one day before we record on September 23rd.
This inconvenience store kind of feels like, what's that thing
(03:14):
we went to in Vegas, Meow Wolf?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The Meow Wolf Omega Mart.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
That's right. Thank you. So this store, as an inconvenience store,
is kind of like that. It's like an art exhibit.
They have the stuff you would normally find at a store,
but somehow tweaked to make it very cartoonishly impractical.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Examples?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Examples.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Examples would be shoulder bags made from old Cheetos and
Lays packages, which I think could actually work, a candle
that doubles as a yardstick, keychains that look like snack foods.
But aren't actually edible. Right, but are not actually edible.
Also a landline iPhone. And when you answer it, it
(04:03):
only plays the song Vertigo by U2. So I'm sure
our pal Connell is very excited about that.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Is that on the album that they put on our
phones without our consent?
Speaker 4 (04:14):
That's a good point. I don't know. That's a good point.
I just, I got to ask you guys, do we
think an inconvenient store will work out? Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
No, no.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
We're divided.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Where is it again, man?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It is in Seattle.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
You can actually buy the stuff just like Omega Mart.
You can buy something for a dollar to up to $ 10, 000.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So I know what it's reminding me of now, and
I can't find the artist, and it might just be
more of a genre of art object, but a good
example is a fork that is like incredibly thick. Like
three inches thick.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
A fork.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah, exactly. And it also, Ben, speaking of Japan... Reminds
me of a thing that I saw because the algorithm
knows that I'm going to Japan in November, so it's
feeding me all kinds of nonsense. There is a convenience-type
store in Japan where nothing is for sale. You shoplift.
That is the whole deal. You shoplift at the store,
(05:11):
and there are clusters of microphones and sonic detectors and
things that if you set off the alarm, you don't
get anything.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Whoa.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Doesn't that sound fun?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's like a very low stakes Mission Impossible type situation.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
There's also, I want to say in that same country,
I haven't visited this bar personally, but there is a
bar that is free if you are unemployed. And what
you do is you go there and they give you
coffee or beer or snacks or whatever, and you work
on your resume.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Oh, that's kind of nice, right?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Do they help you with your AI-generated CV?
Speaker 6 (05:51):
Ooh, that's excellent foreshadowing, Matt, because we are going to
talk a lot about the John Henry moment that humanity
is facing.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Oh, yeah, but before we do that, just one last
fun thing for the top of the show here. Did
you guys hear about the Pelican and the National Oceanic
Atmospheric Administration?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I saw the headline, Matt. I saw that it requested
assistance in some fashion.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Guys, it reminds me of our conversations about birds and
intelligence and maybe this other connection that we haven't fully
grasped yet. But this pelican that had a big old
hook in it, and one of its wings was all
wrapped up with monofilament, you know, like fishing line, and
it had a bunch of cactus, like, burrs in its foot.
(06:39):
It just walked right up to the National Marine Fisheries
Service station Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Panama City Laboratory. And
there's a glass window and it started tapping on it.
People came out and it just let the people help it.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
That makes sense.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Does it though?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
You see the stories of, you know, like seals trying
to escape orcas and they just hop on a boat.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I get that, Ben. I don't disagree with you, but
this very specific satellite office, that is some very detailed information.
Do you think it just saw it while flying overhead
and knew that they were there to help, or it
had some awareness of the brand?
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Or did it go to other places that wouldn't let
it in? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
It went to human beings that specialize in dealing with
sharks and other fish to tag them, to perform... observational
tests on them and things like that, and those are
the people he went to? That is mind-blowing to me.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
It's a smart bird.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Yes, yes. The non-human animals are way smarter than they're
often given credit for, which is a subject of particular
concern to us. Check out our episode on elephants, by
the way. Guys, I would posit that we are going
to see not just more inconvenience in the near future,
(08:06):
but we were also going to see more animal to
human animal connections, especially as the weather is set to skyrocket.
How's that for a setup?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
It's a setup. Sounds good.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Okay. I'm going with what you said.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
No, no, I just mean it's not my favorite little detail,
but it is, it is a very good setup for
the segment.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
We'll be right back with our next act of this
strange news program. And we have returned El Nino. You
guys remember El Nino, right? From earlier.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
The little boy pushing and pushing. As you say, Ben.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Yes. Yes. Insist upon itself. Well, uh, This is something
we've been looking into for a while, folks. Backstage, El
Nino is, as we know, a naturally occurring climate phenomenon.
It's been around for untold amounts of time. Essentially, it's
(09:13):
when the sea surface, the temperature, gets to a warmer
point than usual. in the central and eastern parts of
the tropical Pacific Ocean. We've talked about this a little
bit off stage. You have probably heard some of the news.
El Nino is different this year. It is actually projected
(09:37):
to cause 450,000 deaths in the next six months.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
El Nino, is it a global phenomenon or is it
something that mainly affects North America?
Speaker 4 (09:48):
It will have global effects, knock-on consequences. Again, the story
begins in the Pacific, but the weather systems are interrelated.
Of course. in one place can kind of butterfly effect
another place.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Ben, I'm really glad you're talking about this because I
have been quite a bit confused with some of the reporting,
just trying to figure out which parts of the world
are going to have less moisture, which ones are going
to be inundated with water, where the crop's not going
to grow, but then the others are going to be
just flooded. Just what have you learned?
Speaker 4 (10:25):
So what we've learned here, and we're cribbing, by the way,
from some very smart climate scientists. Hold the line, you guys,
while you can. What we've learned is that It goes
back to the unpredictability, Matt, because places that would be
monsoonal areas, they would have predictable flooding periods. Places that
(10:48):
are more arid would have predictable temperature increases and decreases.
What we're seeing here is that for multiple regions of
the world now that the climate is collapsing, those predictable
seasons are no longer so steadfast. When we gave you
(11:09):
that headline, about 450,000 people dying in the next six
months due to El Nino, we're taking that from an
excellent article in The Guardian by Damian Carrington. What they're
saying is, and this is interesting going to your question earlier, Noel,
what they're saying is this El Nino virus This instance
(11:34):
may originate, obviously, in the Pacific, but it will affect
other places. Oddly enough, for those of us who are
not meteorologists, Nigeria is projected right now to lose more
than 31,000 people.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Is that because of the flooding or because of droughts
and an inability.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
To feed everybody?
Speaker 4 (11:59):
It is due to the heat.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
The heat alone.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Yeah, because El Nino is currently heating up the planet.
It's bursting through the highest temperatures ever recorded for this
weather pattern in known history. And, you know, we're going
to be on a boat going to Bermuda. Just pointing
(12:24):
that out. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
The triangle, perhaps. We're going to pass through it again?
I forget. I haven't consulted the route.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It is called the Bermuda Triangle, and we are headed
to Bermuda.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Have a good imagine.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
So if you want to learn more about this, folks,
do check out that Guardian article we recommended. Stay safe.
Give us, most importantly, your thoughts. firsthand experience with any
strange weather that you are encountering in your neck of
the global woods. If we can get the email address
here at the bottom, conspiracy at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Because one of the other things that El Nino brings
is the storms, right? But then aren't we also going
through a ridiculously low activity hurricane season?
Speaker 4 (13:14):
In the Atlantic, but not in the Pacific where we
call them typhoons.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
And I just I just mean, overall, the severe storm
thing seems to be different this year than it has been. Well,
it's obviously it's changing. Hence the term, the change globally, climactically.
But there I don't know if you guys notice here
in Georgia, we get like the Florida storms now.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Like afternoon Florida storms.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
They do feel tropical almost. It's very interesting.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I believe that the southeast is over the next like mid-future, mid-term,
next few thousand years, possibly transforming into a monsoonal plane.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Oh, God. Wasn't there a massive threat of tsunami in
Japan I read about? Like a big one, like historical,
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yeah, the typhoons have been grounding air flights. There's been
a lot of flooding in Haneda, which is, Noel, the
airport where you'll probably be landing.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
That's the one.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah. Just a heads up there, you know, and it
is strange that, Matt, you're noticing, as are we all,
you're noticing these bizarre complications, right? These unpredictable things in
our climate. We've got conspiracy realists in the Pacific Northwest
who are saying, Hey, it's September. Why am I still
(14:39):
wearing shorts and sandals? You know what I mean? Places
that are used to lower temperatures are, of course, seeing
higher temperatures. Places that are tropical nations or tropical regions,
they're going to get the brunt of the current El Nino.
And the question becomes, is this an anomaly or is
(15:01):
this the new normal?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Is this also one of those things like with the
wildfires in California, for example, where insurance companies are going
to stop insuring people's homes who live in certain regions
that are becoming more and more prone to this kind
of catastrophic weather?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Yeah, like in the Gulf of Mexico, America, whatever you wish,
or in Florida, right along the coast. It's It's a
bag of badgers, and we would love again to hear
from you folks on this one. We also have to
deliver on the John Henry moment real quick before we
(15:39):
move on. Is that all right with you guys?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Oh, my gosh. Always looking for a John Henry moment.
We've had a couple in recent strange news segments.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Can somebody explain the John Henry moment?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Well, he was a steel driving man, Matt. He was
a steel driving man.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, we have an episode about this on Ridiculous History.
It's American mythology, right? It's folklore. It's the idea that
there was a man who worked on the railroads way
back in the 1800s. All the live long day. All
the live long day. And he was employed driving steel,
(16:17):
like steel posts to burst up mountains to make tunnels
for railroad operations. And in comes a tech bro of
the day who says, we have an automated steam driving
machine and it is better than any human being. The
story goes, spoilers folks, three, two, one, spoiler alert. The
(16:42):
story goes that John Henry the human said, I'll go
toe to toe with your machine and did ultimately best
this automated steel driving mechanism and But it was a
Pyrrhic victory because he collapsed and died of exhaustion shortly thereafter.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And in the episode, I mean, he's sort of, you know,
in the vein of like a Pecos bill. Johnny Appleseed,
sort of this like American folkloric hero. And when we
looked into it for Ridiculous History, we found it was
one of those things where it was a combination of
multiple people, multiple locations where something like this may or
may not have happened and certainly not in the way
(17:22):
that the story goes. And I think there's even much
like Pecos Bill and Johnny Appleseed, there's a little Disney
short about John Henry as well. There is.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yes, Ed. We know we discussed previously how this piece
of Americana and folklore has gained a resurgence in popularity
in the age of humans versus AI.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Is it going to be like Mangione is going to
be the folk hero?
Speaker 6 (17:48):
Is he our new Johnny Appleseed?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
It's got to be bleak like that. I can't think
of many other examples.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Well, we've got one for you, folks. This is something
we like to call Schrodinger's sponsor. So we don't know
if there's an ad break here. Same sound the cat made.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, but was there an ad there? We don't know,
but you do.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Here we go. Coming to us from Ben Cost over
at the New York Post, an amateur fighter, human, has
taken on a humanoid robot, in a caged showdown.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Did we all see a clip of this? I heard
that there were clips, Ben. I saw the headline, but
I didn't go any further. So excited to see. Hope
he didn't end up knocked the F out and or,
you know, collapsed in a pile like John Henry.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Ben, I would just say I saw a couple kicks.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, a clip of kicks, right? Were there also punches
and or karate chops?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
There were some moves, to be sure. Here, let's play
this really quickly. This is about 45 seconds. It comes
to us from the New York Post. So here we go.
And I hope I'm not alone, fellow conspiracy realist, in
clocking what I'll call a purposeful homage to the Terminator franchise.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
For the first time in history, a human takes off
against a six-foot-tall robot.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
What weight class is this?
Speaker 4 (19:28):
Robo class. Ooh, it's got some flexes.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
It's doing the little pivot.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Oh, God.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Okay, so we got two face punches.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Oh, jeez. Ooh, that looks like it's smarted.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Yeah, got a door docking kick.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Hit him in his nuclear core.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Oh, man.
Speaker 6 (19:47):
That's how you do it.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It's like a push kick.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Yeah. You could knock a door with that one.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
That guy moved.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
He fleek.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
He got some air. By that guy, I mean the human,
by the way.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
We're video now. You can see. That is wild, man.
What kind of event is this? Is there an organization
like the UFC that's putting on these things? Are we
going to see more of this? No. Can I bet
on it?
Speaker 4 (20:16):
We may. You guys see what I'm saying about that
purposeful design homage to Terminator?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
That's the T-800.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Classic T-800. You didn't have to make the head look
like a skull, folks. This comes to us courtesy of
Frank LaPetta over on TikTok. He's been known as a
guy who does various publicity stunts. He drove a bike
into an office desk. He's played cards around rampaging bulls,
(20:46):
and he tried to fight a robot made by a
San Francisco tech firm called R.E.K., pronounced R.E.K.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Ben, do we know if if that robot was remote
controlled the way we've seen a lot of these demos
go over the years where. It looks like an autonomous robot.
Sometimes they'll say it's an autonomous robot, but it's actually
somebody in the other room wearing one of those motion
capture suits.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Like a mechanical turt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is
a great question. We know that there's definitely programming involved
as far as real-time action and whether it's directed by
humans or an algorithm. Unclear at this point. We'd have
(21:36):
to do more digging uh we just keep thinking about
john henry and if you're looking at that clip if
you're rewrite if you're re-watching it folks what you are
looking at on the mechanical side is what is called
engine ai t800 to your earlier point noel uh they're
not designed for combat but that those series of kicks
(22:00):
we saw can deliver 850 pounds of force.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
So that's a lot. And dude was wearing some padding,
but not like that much. She had a little chest
pad guys. Uh, maybe this is something that's on other
people's minds as well. Is there any copyright infringement or
trademark issues going on with all this Terminator talk? Seems like, uh,
John Cameron, um, James Cameron, rather, uh, uncle James, big James,
big Jim's what they call, um, would have that stuff
(22:26):
on lock.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Big Jim.
Speaker 6 (22:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
It's, it's, that's a great segue because it's tough to
figure out, uh, where the law lands here and it
takes us to another case in denver uh denver colorado
uh from earlier they also uh colorado recently had their
second big uh singles gathering specifically for unvaccinated people check
(22:53):
that out let us know uh if you had a
good time seems like it seems like a good time
meet like-minded folks right right and Also in Colorado, a
Waymo autonomous vehicle has driven through a Denver farmer's market,
and the good government of Colorado just figured out they
(23:17):
don't really have a law for ticketing an autonomous vehicle,
mowing down a farmer's market.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Well, that's the thing about all this AI stuff, man.
I mean, I was going to– maybe it's a better time–
as good a time as any to bring it up.
AI-led intel that caused a near-catastrophic accidental attack of the U.S.
on a Chinese vessel, if a person had made that mistake, like,
(23:48):
there's recourse, right? But with AI, there just isn't. And
then it's just kind of like, whoops, I hallucinated that.
My eye, I'm talking about the algorithm or the agent
or whatever. But is this not a situation that needs
to be contended with like to have some sort of
legal recourse for catastrophic failures of AI, or as Donald
(24:09):
Trump has rebranded it, superintelligence. Oh, nice. Did you see
his talk at the UN?
Speaker 4 (24:15):
He didn't call it gold brain?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I think he would have gone somewhere down that path.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
On his branding.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Superintelligence, however, I do believe is a term for a
higher level form of machine learning. that is sort of
sought after by all the tech bros, you know, of
the world. But it is also the kind of thing
that the existential doomsayers are the most terrified of. So
Trump's decided we're just going to call it that and
he's going to see if it sticks.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
And we're going to have, I think, some more news
about the United Nations who have been brewing on some things, uh,
including so-called artificial intelligence, uh, to go back to, uh,
this Waymo self-driving debacle really quickly in Colorado. Uh, They
didn't know what to do. The assistant manager of the
(25:02):
Pearl Street Farmer's Market is someone named Shari Wilkins. And
Shari Wilkins is relating this story from firsthand experience and said,
there's no driver. There's nobody in the car, not in
the backseat or anything. So we just sort of have
to usher it out. Kind of like all those clips
of an elephant or a rhino or a hippopotamus. strolling
(25:26):
through a local town and people just kind of lean
against the wall and think, okay, buddy, you do you.
If you want more information about this, check out 9news. com.
Excellent article by the journalist Mark Salinger. And, you know,
give us your Waymo stories because, guys, these things are
(25:48):
everywhere in downtown Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (25:51):
They are.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
And I don't think they've made it to, like, New
York State yet because, I mean, I've never really seen
one when I've been up there. But here, it is
ground zero for those guys. And we've talked about the
news story from months ago where, like, an Atlanta kind
of bedroom community was descended upon by Waymos that just
wouldn't leave. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Circled around, like you said, been a cul-de-sac and just like,
you know, blocked people in. And I think people were
even like putting little signs in the road to kind
of deter them. Right.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Yes. You nailed it. And excuse me, folks, not to
get it wrong. I believe that was a roundabout. Also, yeah,
we've got a we've got a roundabout to the next
act of this program. So in the meantime, shout out
to all those workers at Toyota who are training humanoid robots.
Management says they will not be replaced. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
And we're back. I'm just going to start off with
a little bit of a local story, local and, you know, national.
Y'all have heard of the hip hop duo of note
outcast with a K. Yeah. Well, this is funny for
me in particular, because when I was a kid, I
had a band that I formed with some members of
my present worship youth group situation at the Methodist church
(27:18):
that I grew up going to, or my parents worked.
And I just say, yes.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Is this the Cubist or before?
Speaker 3 (27:24):
No, this is previous to that. This band was called Overcast.
Speaker 7 (27:27):
Overcast.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
We called the band Overcast, not with a K. I
don't think, maybe we, I don't remember, but it was
the first time I ever was aware of the hip
hop duo Outkast because people pointed out that the name
Overcast was very similar to Outkast. Turns out the law
thinks that as well. Oh, wow. At the very least,
the lawyers of OutKast, Andre 3000 and Daddy Fat Sacks himself,
(27:55):
big boy, Atlanta local. You see him around. Really cool guys.
They are suing a guy named Silas Wilson, who uses
the stage name Overcast. O-V-R-K-A-S-T. They brought this lawsuit in
Georgia federal court. earlier this month, just last week, I believe,
accusing Mr. Wilson of trademark infringement, unfair competition, and breach
(28:20):
of contract for allegedly going back on a deal to
stop using the alias. Because the individual in question here,
the defendant, has knowingly, or he's spoken publicly about how
he's kind of capitalizing on the brand, what's the word, recognition,
or the brand confusion, I think might be the official term.
Speaker 7 (28:40):
And how is Overcast spelled? Yeah, O-V-R-K-A-S-T. So it's got
the K. It's got the. The V almost makes it
look like a U, which would be the second letter
in outcasts.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And if you look at them side by side, just
on a glance, it'd be real easy to misconstrue the two. So, yeah,
he has acknowledged publicly that this is something that he
was either aware of or maybe even capitalizing on personally.
But we'll see how that lawsuit plays out. We love
those guys. And, you know, it seems like this dude's
(29:18):
being a bit of a joker.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Yes indeed and and of course uh as as you
mentioned no this is not an atlanta native because an
atlanta native would never do.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
That oh my god no perish the thought Those guys
are Atlanta royalty and no one would step to them
in that way. I guess we'll stick with some music
news for a little bit. This kind of crosses over
into conspiracy territory just by nature of who we're talking about.
A guy that comes up not infrequently on the pod, Mr.
Willie Schatz. Nobody calls him that.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Mr.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
William Shatner. We do.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Big Willie.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Big Willie style. Did you guys know that this man
is 95 years young?
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I did not know this. He looks great. We know
he went to space. That was probably one of the
last times we talked about him. He kind of went
to space. He kind of went to low Earth orbit,
but he did talk about the overview effect, which I
think we all enjoyed the way he characterized that phenomenon.
He had some very interesting things to say. He's a
very eloquent dude and an oddball. I just love how
(30:27):
odd William Shatner is. Best cover of Rocketman ever.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Spoken word, is it? What is it? I don't even
know what it is. Well, that's exactly right, Ben. That,
if I'm not mistaken, was on his 1968 debut album,
The Transformed Man. Since that point, he's released 11 spoken
word albums. And he's got a new one coming out
very soon. Following on the heels, not very closely, of
(30:55):
his 2011 rock album, Seeking Major Tom. He's got a
new record coming out called What the F is Heavy Metal.
Where he's trying to figure out what heavy metal is,
backed up by his band. You can beep me here, Max.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
The F * * * ers. Is there like an
umlaut there or is it just straight up?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
There is an asterisk, but I think we all know
what that means.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Wait, seriously, is it like that one song, the mother uckers, uckin'
with mash?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Or is it supposed to be the hard F? Matt,
I'm looking at the way it's printed. I'm seeing the
way it's printed by consequence or by vice here. I
don't think vice has ever shied away from Ethan and Jeff.
And so I would argue they're probably being true to
his brand by printing it as asterisk E-U-C-K-E-R-S.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
So I'm going to call Willie Schatz in the. recently
appeared uh you guys might have heard of this music
festival we just had uh our own big old uh
hurrah music festival here in atlanta called shaky knees uh
second day of which well thankfully the first and third
were okay second day um got absolutely torrentially downpoured on
(32:14):
my kid got caught in that and thankfully made it
out uh you know um just a little bit moist
but unscathed Riot Fest is Chicago's yearly music fest, very
similar to what we have in Shaky Knees here. And
Willie Shatz and the Uckers performed on the Rebel stage
in Chicago's Douglas Park, doing his own spoken word treatments
(32:38):
of heavy metal classics like Ozzy's Crazy Train. Yes, the
accents on the train.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Crazy.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Have you guys seen that clip of Dave Grohl talking
about when the Foo Fighters were on SNL and the
host was Christopher Walken and he comes up to Dave
and he goes, I can't do a Christopher Walken. He's like,
is the accent on the Foo or the Fighters? And
Dave Grohl goes, it's going to be fun. It's on
the Fighters. And so Christopher.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Walken goes, ladies and gentlemen, Foo Fighters.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Foo Fighters.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Didn't they also play, didn't the Uckers and Big Willie
also play some Metallica and Motorhead?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
They did the Ace of Spades, the Ace of Spades,
the classic Lemmy Jam and Enter Sandman. You know, a
little bit of a basic, a bass. I would have
loved a little more of like a Ride the Lightning
or something like that.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
I haven't watched the clip, Noel, or the clips. I
wasn't at the concert this year, but I can already
hear this heavy bass orchestral almost swell as Big Willie
leans in and says, exit night. Enter night.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Well, you got that right, Ben, but I think we
owe it to the listeners and the viewers now on
Netflix to just see a tiny little clip taken from
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
This, I believe, is his version of the Ace of Spades. Yes.
The Ace of Spades.
Speaker 7 (34:06):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I can't wait to see this. Guys, this is not good.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Wait. There we go.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
The ace of spades. The ace of spades. Yes. Look,
all respect to Willie Shatz and the Uckers, but I
would argue this is the very definition of what you
would call a novelty act.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
I mean, I hear you.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
The band is proper metal. He did introduce them, and
I bet you they have metal pedigrees.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
But there's something about them just owning it and ripping
and shredding while he's just kind of.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
He's 95 human years old, folks. So before we clown
the guy, and I know that he's had his controversies
in the past, we've got to ask ourselves.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
He did a terrible Esperanto film. I speak a little Esperanto.
And in our community, it is known for his specific
accent choices. Esperanto is a very easy language to learn.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
In the Esperanto community that you're in?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Yeah, yeah. I know some Esperantists.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
He's an enthusiast, Matt. He's an enthusiast. Okay.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
He's an Esperanto enthusiast. I just didn't know that was
a thing.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I've got hobbies. You know what? All respect to Willie
Shatz and the Uckers. I'm glad we got that.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
Guys, if we walked in to a random karaoke place
and there was, I'll say it, an elderly guy who
was just shouting his heart out, you know, if we
want to call it shouting instead of singing.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Sing speaking.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Sing speaking.
Speaker 7 (36:10):
Perfect.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Perfect. We would be absolutely gaga for this, right?
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Lady Gaga.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Yeah, I think it'd be a good hang.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I'd love to see him do a Lady Gaga cover.
That'd be sick.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Bad romance.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, bad romance would be good. Gaga. Ah, ah, ah.
It is I, Willie Schatz. He does have a few
originals as well in the mix. Let's see. Some names like,
let's see. Yeah, there you go. Crazy Train, Ace of Spades. No,
(36:44):
I don't know the names of the originals, but he
does have a few. And I will just give a
quote that he gave to Billboard in his heavy metal journey.
Speaking of his heavy metal journey, I began to discover
what the is heavy metal. I've been preparing for two
months now. on a scratch track on my phone, doing
the entrances and exits, which is only visible to a
trained musician. Only by counting down do you know where
(37:07):
to come in on heavy metal. Because he says... Because
he says... It all sounds alike.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Willie shits. Oh, big Willie.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
That's a little dismissive of an entire genre of music
that has a lot of nuance. Guys, if there's any
genre that has more subgenres than any other genre, it's metal, dude.
There are so many weird little niche subgenres of metal.
Black metal.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
Grunge.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Death metal. Trying to defile the metal.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
The metal was way too strong. Hair metal.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Yeah, and shout out to all our metal enthusiasts in
the crowd who have had that conversation where someone inevitably says, well,
that thing you're talking about is not actually metal.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
There's a lot of gatekeeping in metal. I think I've
talked about this before. This has come up. There is
a subgenre of metal that's called power violence.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Oh, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yep, we'll just leave that there. Guys, I know, gosh, Mr. Shatner,
what a lovely story to talk about with my buddies
Ben and Matt here. I do have to end maybe
on a slight, I don't know, should I end on
a slightly down note or a kooky note? Look, there's
malaria in Germany, guys. There's malaria in Germany. There were
(38:23):
some malaria mosquitoes that made it on a German flight
and infected some airport workers in Frankfurt. So we'll just
leave it there. We don't have to get too deep
into the weeds on that one. I will end with,
they passed away, sadly, but I will end on the
story of a man, a man of his time, out
(38:43):
of time, who returned a magazine to a library in
New Hampshire, 130 years late, and due to a measure
passed by the public library system, the Concord Public Library
in New Hampshire, he was absolved of his $ 12, 055 fine
(39:05):
for keeping this magazine. I wonder if magazine fines are
lesser than book fines.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
No, they're the same.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
No, they're the same.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
I'm sorry to report.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
It's all about materials. Yeah, John Hanson, an 84-year-old resident
of Barrington.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Returned the September 1894 issue of the Century Illustrated monthly
magazine to the Concord Public Library in New Hampshire, 132
years after it was released. checked out.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
So let's do the math real quick, everybody. Play along
at home.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Oh, right.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Yeah. John is not the person who originally took the magazine.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
That is true, Ben. That is true. But what are
we talking here, Ben? Weekly, monthly, maybe we do monthly.
Are you talking about the fees or the fine? I'm
just curious. That seems reasonable.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
Yeah. 132 years. Librarians are great. We're all huge fans.
And if you're hearing this, I'm sorry about everything. You
know what you did, but that, that is, I mean,
that is cool. We've seen, didn't we see an earlier
story you guys about a, I want to say a Dr.
Seuss book. back in the day that was returned after decades.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
It rings a bell. And Ben, I definitely wrote a
check that my brain couldn't cash in promising to drill
down into the monthly figures of these fines. That's just
not my forte. But again, kind of reasonable. This guy,
John Hanson, 84-year-old gentleman, apparently discovered the magazine during a
1966 move from one town to where he lives today
(40:41):
in Barrington. and decided to return it after learning about
a one-year fine freeze announced. What a gentleman and a scholar.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Waiting for that fine freeze.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
I'm going to return it.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Waiting for the right time.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
I wonder how that would have even worked. This obviously
makes for a fun headline. But can you imagine any
librarian that would have like, how are you going to
extract that kind of money out of a human being
who found this magazine in a dusty place? attic and
then returned it. At this point, this is more of
an archival question, and that is true because archivist Jennifer
(41:18):
Needham was surprised when he came to the circulation desk
with an envelope. She noted the edition contained an article
on urban playgrounds that was particularly interesting from the late
19th century. In theory, here we go, it would have
been a $ 12, 055 fine for being 48,000 Days overdue. So
(41:40):
we can do the math there.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
So it's by day.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Okay, it's by day. So what is that a day?
What's $ 48, 222 divided by $ 12, 055? This is important stuff. $ 48, 220
divided by $ 12, 055 equals, that's only $ 4 a day. That's
an even number.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
Yeah, but back at that time, $ 4 was a lot
of money. That's a lot, actually.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
That is a lot. Is that by today's– how much
do you– Ben, I don't frequent the library like I should.
I'll admit it. Do you know what modern library fines are?
Speaker 4 (42:14):
No, because good folks of Fulton County, I straightened my
act up. I returned the books on time.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Good job, Ben.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Thanks, man.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
Thanks, Ben.
Speaker 7 (42:24):
So proud.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
Proud.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
So proud. We got to get we we got to
fix the library late fee situation. Well, usually they'll let
you off, actually, if you're cool.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
You know, it's funny, Ben. I just did a little
bit of a search. Turns out in a lot of places,
overdue fines are now zero.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Libraries have gone fine free for late returns, though, of course,
they do still charge if an item is returned damaged
or if it's lost. I think I've shouted these folks
out on the pod before, but we are very lucky
to be one of the rare cities in the United
States that still has a video rental place.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
Videodrome.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Videodrome, which is really awesome. I love a curated selection
of film, and they do a very good job of that.
They also sell... really cool niche Blu-rays and posters and
records and stuff. Every time I rent stuff from them
with the best of intentions, I rack up significant late fees.
And I think because they just want people to keep
coming back, they often will either cut me a deal
(43:23):
on them when I get back or wipe them out entirely.
So there you go. Let's leave it at that, guys.
I think that's an optimistic one to end on. Let's
take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsors,
and then we'll come back with our last strange news
segment featuring Mr. Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
And we're back. Guys, just two quick comments. Ben, on
that robot fight, you were saying it's an amateur fighter, right?
I want to see Alexander Volkov or Robert Whitaker or
like Rampage Jackson.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Good God. That's the question, Matt. When are they going
to deploy these into the UFC for a special exhibition
fight in the octagon, right?
Speaker 4 (44:08):
We were right about the Anything Goes Olympics.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (44:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
But I do feel that Rampage would tear that robot. Absolutely.
Just the agility alone.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Just moving to the left and behind.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Bobbing and weaving. Matt, is this a boxer or a
UFC fighter? I don't know these things.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Rampage Jackson is a UFC champion, sir.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
It's not my world. It's not my world.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
His techniques sort of go cross.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Well- But he goes way before the UFC, too. Check
him out fighting. I think he was on Pride, maybe.
I don't know if he was in one or not.
But good Lord, that man wore a giant chain and
ripped people to shreds.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
That's our John Henry, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Really good news to start us off, guys. This comes
from ABC News Denver, Channel 7, The Fightin', Channel 7,
September 18th, 2026. toys r us comeback retailer opening 120
stores this holiday season guys guys the new locations will
(45:14):
bring the total number of toys r us stores in
the united states to 160 well they've been absolutely uh.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Those numbers had dwindled significantly.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
Yeah, they got ransacked by private equity.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Well, when we grew up, I just remember a trip
to Toys R Us may as well have been a
trip to frickin' Disney. They all had those colorful clay
stick looking things on the outside of the buildings. The
video games were all behind lock and key. You could
get those little Tiger, you know, e-ink type video game
systems that were super pricey. You could get some deals.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
And an old true story, when Matt and I first
teamed up, lo these many years ago, there was a
Toys R Us directly behind our original office. And as
a grown entity, I would, beat me here, Max, I
would f * * * off on my lunch break
(46:08):
and look at the Legos and just sort of pretend
I was buying something for a child.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
You were that child, Ben. Just as I do the
same thing. But now I do have children. I'm so
excited that they get the joy of walking down those
aisles like you did, looking at those things, looking at
the video game section in a Toys R Us.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
That's what I remember.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Because they were behind the glass, they were so rarefied.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
Do you guys remember seeing the little, like, this is
a weird detail, but it's strange how small things stick
with us. Do you remember seeing The video game glass
and the little fingerprints from where like.
Speaker 6 (46:51):
Kids would put their hands on the thing and then
turn back and look at it.
Speaker 4 (46:56):
Matt, Riddle is this. Are these new 120 stores, are
they the same Toys R Us of its heyday or
have they switched anything around?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Well, I don't have full information on that, Ben. And
I'm very interested to see if Toys R Us pulls
a little spirit Halloween, except for, you know, instead of Halloween,
it's Christmas. And they start popping up in all the
abandoned locations. They're like, oh, Toys R Us.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Well, Ben, I mean, in your little journeys to the back,
you know, the behind the building Toys R Us, you
probably noticed that they were already at that point starting
to look a little bit picked over and sad.
Speaker 5 (47:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
The giraffe wasn't at its best.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
No, no. Because when we were kids, they were all
shiny and new and, you know, really tip top. But
then what would happen eventually, Matt, is they kind of
became relegated to dying malls. And they were much smaller
than the big box versions that we knew.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
And just like pharmacies, the security around the shelves increased
and it stopped looking. It started looking different. less like
a paradise for children and more like a prison for toys.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Hey, speaking of a prison for things, if you are
an American and you, you know, you feel it in
your heart, you're a citizen, you know, there's only one
thing that you're supposed to do and that is consume. Well,
guess what? These Toys R Us are open again. You
can go to their store locator, find one near you.
There is one, guys, it's on Briarcliff in Atlanta. It's
(48:30):
at North Lake Mall. You can find one. We can
go there and we can consume all the live long day.
And it's going to be incredible. You don't have to
worry about the things, the imperialist moves that our country
is doing.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
We're fine.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
We're not doing anything wrong. Everything's great here. We just
need toys, toys for adults and for kids. We need
to entertain ourselves and forget all the other that we're doing.
So speaking of. We are going to pay a little
homage here. On May 15th, 2015, the late legendary comedian
(49:06):
Norm MacDonald performed on David Letterman's The Late Show.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
It was.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Quite a significant appearance by Norm as the final episode
of Dave's version of The Late Show aired on May
20th of the same year. So only five days later
after this thing we're talking about that night, Norm did
his thing. And there is one bit that has stuck
with us. We've mentioned it on this show before in passing,
we thought this would be a good opportunity to play
(49:34):
a little bit of it. We're not going to play
the whole thing. So we're not going to spoil the ending, but, uh,
The whole point here is that this is a comedian
telling a joke. It's not meant to be taken seriously.
It's meant to make you laugh and maybe think about
the next thing we're going to talk about on the show, right?
This is like a little mental segue. So here we go.
Speaker 5 (49:55):
Not Iraq, not.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
Iran, not North Korea.
Speaker 5 (49:58):
The only country that really worries me is the country
of Germany. I don't know if you guys are history
buffs or.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Not, but.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
I remember this show.
Speaker 5 (50:13):
In the early part of the previous century, Germany decided
to go to war. And who did they go to
war with?
Speaker 3 (50:21):
The world.
Speaker 5 (50:22):
That had never been tried before. And so you figure
that would take about five seconds for the world to win,
but no, it was actually close. Then about 30 years pass,
(50:45):
and Germany decides again to go to war, and again
it chooses as its enemy the world.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Okay, we'll stop it right there.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I mean, it resonates what's going on in Germany, though.
It seems like they're having some issues over there similar
to ones we're seeing over here.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Yeah, so why would we be talking about that? Well, guys,
we just had a conversation with somebody, Antonia, and you
will hopefully be seeing that episode very soon. We're talking
about some things that have gone down. It's talking about
the past in Germany and, you know, some specific issues
(51:27):
that have occurred within that country. And we also happen
to have a bit of conversation about political moves currently.
political moves and happenings, elections in Germany. And it made
us take a look at the news one more time.
So we're going to share a couple of pieces from
September of this year. The first one is from September 6th.
This is out of The Guardian. Here's the title. Far-right
(51:50):
AFD wins key German state election but falls short of majority.
Here's why it feels like it's important. We're going to
read a bit of verbatim from this article. The alternative
for Deutschland surges to victory in Saxony-Anhalt, a state in
Germany that is west of Brandenburg. Brandenburg has Berlin kind
(52:13):
of in the center of it. The populist far-right anti-immigration
alternative for Deutschland, AFD, has surged to a resounding victory
in a crucial state election in Germany, but fell just
short of winning a majority in its quest to form
the country's first far-right state government. Since the Second World War.
(52:37):
Sounds fine, right? Guys, we don't need to worry about
any of this.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Matt, I think when you say things like that, you're
being facetious.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Well, I can't tell.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
I'm worried.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Everything is so crazy now. It just seems as though
we see a pattern like this or appears to be
a pattern like this and you go, oh, that does maybe,
I don't know, something is ringing a bell here, but
The rest of the stuff is on fire, so maybe
it doesn't matter that much.
Speaker 4 (53:05):
And maybe it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
The fascinating thing about Germany, and we talked about with
Antonia Woloshin regarding her podcast investigating far-right extremism in Germany
in the 2000s, is that there's this sense that Germany
kind of sorted it all out, you know, that they
learned their lesson. from the horrific events of the Holocaust
(53:27):
and the rise to power of the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.
But what the reality of that is, much like this
notion that the United States sort of learned our lesson
in the face of, you know, what's the word I'm
looking for? Post Jim Crow, you know, reconstruction, all of
that stuff. It all just kind of went underground. And
(53:48):
all it takes is the right kind of mainstreaming of
that underground hatred to to bring it above ground again.
Speaker 4 (53:57):
Especially like the rise in the far right in Germany
and other parts of Eastern Europe, especially when it is
aided and abetted by outside influence. Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Oh, and Elon Musk.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
Yes, and Musk.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Well, I think that's one of the major parts that
we need to be thinking about as we hear more
of this. It's not just one state in Germany that's
interested in this kind of movement. It's not just in
the U S it's not just in the UK does
appear that there is a resurgence of whatever this sentiment is.
And that thing is gaining a lot of power, but
(54:36):
it is being offset in other places and even sometimes
in the same country. So we're going to, we're going
to do one more story after this that kind of
evens it out and let's figure out how we feel
after that. But first, just a bit more from this article.
The AFD was seeking an absolute majority in the state
legislature to govern alone and overcome the so-called firewall of
(54:58):
mainstream parties because they are refusing right now to work
with the AFD. So there are several other parties. There's
like the Christian Democrats, which is, I think, the primary
party now. Many of them that are in control now
are considered center-right or center-left parties, like the center, right?
Parties that tend to find a middle ground a little
(55:21):
better than maybe the far extremes on either side of politics.
But those folks in the middle were refusing to work
with AFD. The final results of this election showed AFD
falling three seats short, guys, just three seats short with
the 30 with 39 lawmakers in an 83 member parliament.
(55:44):
It's that kind of situation where you kind of have
You make a government work together by all of these
elected people from different parties coming together and working in
some kind of coalition. It's not the way we understand
politics to work within, like, let's say, Congress or something.
Speaker 4 (55:57):
Which is two parties in a binary all-or-nothing match.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
Just fun little, you don't get to do anything. No,
you don't get to do anything.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
Right.
Speaker 4 (56:08):
You don't have a coalition. Like, European countries, folks, often
will have– Coalition parties. You see this in Israel as well,
where you have to you have to make friends with
people based on the Venn diagrams of your party's agenda.
So you can you can be in the UK and say, hey,
(56:29):
you Green Party people are crazy, but. Do you want
to co-run parliament for a little bit? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:35):
Your Green Party do have a point in, you know,
we need to breathe air, I guess. So let's do that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
I don't dislike the sound of that, guys. That makes
a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 4 (56:46):
It is a superior system.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
It feels that way to me.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
Making sure I wasn't missing the secret bad thing. Okay, cool.
Speaker 4 (56:54):
You're spot on. The secret bad thing here is the
forced two-party system of the United States.
Speaker 3 (56:59):
It's rough.
Speaker 5 (56:59):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (57:00):
Are they here, but not in Germany? What you're talking about, Matt,
is a whole different, very troubling global pattern. Yes.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Just a reminder, 39 out of 83 members of parliament
they secured for the far-right party for the first time
since World War II. AFD won 43.8% of the vote,
more than double its showing five years ago in the
region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin. Again, reminder,
this is a state within the country of Germany. There
(57:30):
are many states within Germany.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
This is one of them.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
And this is just another little reminder here from the article.
This is verbatim. AFD and Saxony-Anhalt has been classified as, quote,
right-wing extremist, unquote, by Germany's domestic intelligence agency. By their FBI,
the group that now has won this much Power in
(57:55):
a state is classified as right-wing extremist, which, who's to
say what that really means or what they might do
with the power?
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Let's move on.
Speaker 2 (58:07):
Guys, Reuters, September 20th, 2026. We're switching sides here, ready?
Far-left party wins Berlin election pledging to nationalize housing.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
What?
Speaker 4 (58:21):
What?
Speaker 5 (58:22):
What?
Speaker 3 (58:23):
I'm cool with that.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Well, again, some of the things you might feel for
or against, but it is weird that you've got the
extremes that are now calling the shots or beginning to
call the shots.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
Well, when you were talking about the center earlier, the
phrase the center cannot hold sort of popped through my mind.
And I think that's appropriate here because it's tough. The
center has a hard time holding when there's so much
pull involved. To the hard left or the hard right,
you know, in various situations.
Speaker 7 (58:56):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
And when the algorithms push us in those directions because
it gets the most engagement. Here's from the article. While
the AFD has attracted most attention, the left party or Delinke, D-I-E-L-I-K-E.
has also benefited from a general turn against the mainstream
parties of the center-left and center-right. The Left Party, which
(59:18):
grew out of the former East German Communist Party following
the reunification of the country 36 years ago, that is
a really interesting context for that party, And we've mentioned
that on this show not long ago as well, the
reunification of Germany.
Speaker 3 (59:34):
That's the East Germany, East Berlin, West Berlin, the communist
side versus the, you know, quote unquote, democratic side. And
I've been working on a podcast about that very subject
that comes out in January. I'm looking forward to you
guys checking it out. But it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 4 (59:48):
Nice. Yep.
Speaker 2 (59:50):
There's all kinds of things to learn here, and we
recommend you at least diving in a little bit if
you are not from Germany and already inundated with this
kind of reporting and thinking. It's interesting to remember that
there are a lot of other countries in the world
doing their own thing, and their own thing might eventually
have an effect on some of us.
Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Like El Nino.
Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Full circle. Or like this last thing. From The Guardian,
September 21st, 2026.
Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
U.S.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Strikes on alleged drug boats may constitute crimes against humanity, U.N.
expert says. There's been a lot of hubbub, as we're
recording right now, about the president of the United States
visiting the old United Nations to give lots of talks
and have lots of meetings about all kinds of great
things that are happening and boastful sentences about how wonderful
stuff is.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Was that where he called the International Criminal Court evil?
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Well... Yeah. It's weird to think about Germany in these contexts.
Speaker 6 (01:00:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
About about the country that is in many ways vilified
for the actions that it took. And probably rightly so.
I think rightly so for the actions that it took
in the first two world wars. But then we also
have this country called the United States that is doing
all kinds of weird stuff that, you know, doesn't seem
to be great. And there, this is the article, a
(01:01:11):
special rapporteur for the UN Human Rights Council has concluded
that there are, quote, reasonable grounds to believe, unquote, that
the United States attacks on boats allegedly carrying drugs in
the Pacific and Caribbean, quote, constituted crimes against humanity, unquote.
The boat strikes carried out since September 2025 on the
stated grounds of stopping drugs being trafficked by sea to
(01:01:31):
the US have killed more than 230 people. The latest
on Saturday, that is, again, Saturday, as of the reporting
on the 21st of September, killed four people in the Caribbean.
Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Well, that's why I'm saying it ain't for nothing that
Trump's distancing himself from the ICC and, you know, trying
to discredit it. And I know that it's had its issues,
but if I'm not mistaken, guys, that is the body
that prosecutes war criminals, right? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
It's like he's basically, you know, demonizing them in advance
of likely charges being levied Against him and his administration.
Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
The United States has never been a signatory to the
ICC precisely because of what you're outlining there, Noel. And
across the board, across the political divide, U.S. presidents have
always told the ICC to buck off.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
OK, see, I wasn't really familiar with that aspect of it.
So it's not even that unusual or particularly controversial what
Trump's doing.
Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
No, but it is disrespectful to the world order.
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Hear, hear.
Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Last thing you should read. We're not going to read
it here, but you can. Al Jazeera, September 22nd. Why
United Nations says U.S. boat strikes may be, quote, crimes
against humanity. It's a great read. Just gives you some
more of the context on why these actions could be
considered that. Considering all the different types of law that
govern the oceans and all of the various countries that
(01:03:00):
we find ourselves in.
Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Well, guys, if I'm not mistaken, there's also been a
lot of talk about how extracting resources from Venezuela and
bragging about it and talking about putting that on our
balance sheets. That's also a no-no based on the rules
of engagement and war crimes and such. So, you know,
a lot of this kind of thing happening kind of
right out in the open. It'd be interesting to see
how these types of investigations and potential charges go as
(01:03:23):
far as the world.
Speaker 6 (01:03:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
And folks, please, please, please check out our earlier episode
on the rise of the far right in Japan. And
look into foreign influence on some of those movements. It's
deeper than rap.
Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
Yes, yes, yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
It's almost as deep as the non-denominational praise band, Noel,
that I was in, which became a DMB cover band,
which became a high school acoustic rock band.
Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
DMB being Dave Matthews of bands.
Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
Yes, called Broken Poets. And this is just a shout
out to those fellas, because you mentioned your praise band group.
Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
Outcast. No.
Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
Overcast.
Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Don't sue me, guys.
Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
Don't sue me, big boy. I'm really sorry.
Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
It was a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
That's it for me, guys.
Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
And that's it for us, folks. Thank you so much
for tuning in to our strange news program on Netflix
or on your podcast platform of choice. We cannot wait
to hear from you. So please, please, please hit us
up there. This is an ongoing mission. To boldly go
where no critical thinking has gone before, we'd love you
(01:04:32):
in the crew. So there are a number of ways
to contact us.
Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
You can find us all over the internet at either
Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your favorite
social media flavor.
Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
If you want to give us a call, our number
is 1-833-STDWYTK. I'm pointing at the number here, not anything
else below the screen. When you call it, give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. Do please
try and find a good sound environment before you call in.
It just makes our lives a little bit easier and
(01:05:05):
you'll be better understood when you call it. And hey,
you might get a call back. You never know, no, no, no, no. Ben,
there's one last amazing way to contact us.
Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
And before we get to that, we've got to do
a quick gut check with our super producer Freight Train,
one of the biggest Star Trek companies. aficionados that I
have ever personally met. Max, where are you at on
the music of William Shatner, of Big Willie?
Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Essential classic. Hell yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:05:34):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
All right.
Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
And that is from an expert, folks. So please do
write in to us. Get weird with it. Send us links.
Send us some photos. Tell us what you think the
next John Henry moments will be. We love to know
more about what's going on in your neck of the
global woods. conspiracy at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Max, the freight train Williams. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. It's our strange news program.
So if you're tuning in the evening, this comes out.
Welcome to September 28th, 2026. We've got some big news.
(00:55):
We are on video for this. This is our inaugural
strange news segment on Netflix.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah. Oh, wait, we're here? I guess we're here.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Turns out we weren't meeting the quota, guys.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
We had to all put on shirts because usually we
record this program au naturel.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I put on a whole sweater.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
I know, man.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
It's not even that chilly.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'm going to change shirts later when we record the
Listener Mail episode to make it seem as though there's
a whole different episode.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
You got a whole other.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Shirt, Pat? A whole different segment. Yeah, what I do, guys,
is I do the layers. So on Listener Mail, this
will be missing with another jacket. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We are approaching layering weather, guys, today. The high, 76 degrees.
Here in Georgia, which is incredible. Oh, my God. That's correct.
What would 76 Celsius be? That would be like a
million degrees. Not good.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
It's bad. We also, speaking of do not what and
inconvenient things, we do want to open, as always, with
some good news in our weekly strange news segment. Guys,
there was a comedian I was trying to remember, and
for the life of me, I can't quite recall this
(02:19):
comic's name, but they joked about inconvenience stores. And it
turns out that Seattle has opened an actual inconvenience store.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
What do we mean? Is this sort of like those
really impractical home implements that these artists do, where it'll
be like a spoon with a hole in it?
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Or the Japanese inventions where you have a a water
gun that uses your tears, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Oh, that's very intense.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
It's a real thing, yeah. It is kind of like that.
It's a former 7-Eleven store that has been transformed as
of September 22nd, one day before we record on September 23rd.
This inconvenience store kind of feels like, what's that thing
(03:14):
we went to in Vegas, Meow Wolf?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The Meow Wolf Omega Mart.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
That's right. Thank you. So this store, as an inconvenience store,
is kind of like that. It's like an art exhibit.
They have the stuff you would normally find at a store,
but somehow tweaked to make it very cartoonishly impractical.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Examples?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Examples.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Examples would be shoulder bags made from old Cheetos and
Lays packages, which I think could actually work, a candle
that doubles as a yardstick, keychains that look like snack foods.
But aren't actually edible. Right, but are not actually edible.
Also a landline iPhone. And when you answer it, it
(04:03):
only plays the song Vertigo by U2. So I'm sure
our pal Connell is very excited about that.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Is that on the album that they put on our
phones without our consent?
Speaker 4 (04:14):
That's a good point. I don't know. That's a good point.
I just, I got to ask you guys, do we
think an inconvenient store will work out? Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
No, no.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
We're divided.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Where is it again, man?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It is in Seattle.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
You can actually buy the stuff just like Omega Mart.
You can buy something for a dollar to up to $ 10, 000.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So I know what it's reminding me of now, and
I can't find the artist, and it might just be
more of a genre of art object, but a good
example is a fork that is like incredibly thick. Like
three inches thick.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
A fork.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah, exactly. And it also, Ben, speaking of Japan... Reminds
me of a thing that I saw because the algorithm
knows that I'm going to Japan in November, so it's
feeding me all kinds of nonsense. There is a convenience-type
store in Japan where nothing is for sale. You shoplift.
That is the whole deal. You shoplift at the store,
(05:11):
and there are clusters of microphones and sonic detectors and
things that if you set off the alarm, you don't
get anything.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Whoa.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Doesn't that sound fun?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's like a very low stakes Mission Impossible type situation.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
There's also, I want to say in that same country,
I haven't visited this bar personally, but there is a
bar that is free if you are unemployed. And what
you do is you go there and they give you
coffee or beer or snacks or whatever, and you work
on your resume.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Oh, that's kind of nice, right?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Do they help you with your AI-generated CV?
Speaker 6 (05:51):
Ooh, that's excellent foreshadowing, Matt, because we are going to
talk a lot about the John Henry moment that humanity
is facing.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Oh, yeah, but before we do that, just one last
fun thing for the top of the show here. Did
you guys hear about the Pelican and the National Oceanic
Atmospheric Administration?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I saw the headline, Matt. I saw that it requested
assistance in some fashion.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Guys, it reminds me of our conversations about birds and
intelligence and maybe this other connection that we haven't fully
grasped yet. But this pelican that had a big old
hook in it, and one of its wings was all
wrapped up with monofilament, you know, like fishing line, and
it had a bunch of cactus, like, burrs in its foot.
(06:39):
It just walked right up to the National Marine Fisheries
Service station Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Panama City Laboratory. And
there's a glass window and it started tapping on it.
People came out and it just let the people help it.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
That makes sense.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Does it though?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
You see the stories of, you know, like seals trying
to escape orcas and they just hop on a boat.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I get that, Ben. I don't disagree with you, but
this very specific satellite office, that is some very detailed information.
Do you think it just saw it while flying overhead
and knew that they were there to help, or it
had some awareness of the brand?
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Or did it go to other places that wouldn't let
it in? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
It went to human beings that specialize in dealing with
sharks and other fish to tag them, to perform... observational
tests on them and things like that, and those are
the people he went to? That is mind-blowing to me.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
It's a smart bird.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Yes, yes. The non-human animals are way smarter than they're
often given credit for, which is a subject of particular
concern to us. Check out our episode on elephants, by
the way. Guys, I would posit that we are going
to see not just more inconvenience in the near future,
(08:06):
but we were also going to see more animal to
human animal connections, especially as the weather is set to skyrocket.
How's that for a setup?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
It's a setup. Sounds good.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Okay. I'm going with what you said.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
No, no, I just mean it's not my favorite little detail,
but it is, it is a very good setup for
the segment.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
We'll be right back with our next act of this
strange news program. And we have returned El Nino. You
guys remember El Nino, right? From earlier.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
The little boy pushing and pushing. As you say, Ben.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Yes. Yes. Insist upon itself. Well, uh, This is something
we've been looking into for a while, folks. Backstage, El
Nino is, as we know, a naturally occurring climate phenomenon.
It's been around for untold amounts of time. Essentially, it's
(09:13):
when the sea surface, the temperature, gets to a warmer
point than usual. in the central and eastern parts of
the tropical Pacific Ocean. We've talked about this a little
bit off stage. You have probably heard some of the news.
El Nino is different this year. It is actually projected
(09:37):
to cause 450,000 deaths in the next six months.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
El Nino, is it a global phenomenon or is it
something that mainly affects North America?
Speaker 4 (09:48):
It will have global effects, knock-on consequences. Again, the story
begins in the Pacific, but the weather systems are interrelated.
Of course. in one place can kind of butterfly effect
another place.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Ben, I'm really glad you're talking about this because I
have been quite a bit confused with some of the reporting,
just trying to figure out which parts of the world
are going to have less moisture, which ones are going
to be inundated with water, where the crop's not going
to grow, but then the others are going to be
just flooded. Just what have you learned?
Speaker 4 (10:25):
So what we've learned here, and we're cribbing, by the way,
from some very smart climate scientists. Hold the line, you guys,
while you can. What we've learned is that It goes
back to the unpredictability, Matt, because places that would be
monsoonal areas, they would have predictable flooding periods. Places that
(10:48):
are more arid would have predictable temperature increases and decreases.
What we're seeing here is that for multiple regions of
the world now that the climate is collapsing, those predictable
seasons are no longer so steadfast. When we gave you
(11:09):
that headline, about 450,000 people dying in the next six
months due to El Nino, we're taking that from an
excellent article in The Guardian by Damian Carrington. What they're
saying is, and this is interesting going to your question earlier, Noel,
what they're saying is this El Nino virus This instance
(11:34):
may originate, obviously, in the Pacific, but it will affect
other places. Oddly enough, for those of us who are
not meteorologists, Nigeria is projected right now to lose more
than 31,000 people.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Is that because of the flooding or because of droughts
and an inability.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
To feed everybody?
Speaker 4 (11:59):
It is due to the heat.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
The heat alone.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Yeah, because El Nino is currently heating up the planet.
It's bursting through the highest temperatures ever recorded for this
weather pattern in known history. And, you know, we're going
to be on a boat going to Bermuda. Just pointing
(12:24):
that out. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
The triangle, perhaps. We're going to pass through it again?
I forget. I haven't consulted the route.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It is called the Bermuda Triangle, and we are headed
to Bermuda.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Have a good imagine.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
So if you want to learn more about this, folks,
do check out that Guardian article we recommended. Stay safe.
Give us, most importantly, your thoughts. firsthand experience with any
strange weather that you are encountering in your neck of
the global woods. If we can get the email address
here at the bottom, conspiracy at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Because one of the other things that El Nino brings
is the storms, right? But then aren't we also going
through a ridiculously low activity hurricane season?
Speaker 4 (13:14):
In the Atlantic, but not in the Pacific where we
call them typhoons.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
And I just I just mean, overall, the severe storm
thing seems to be different this year than it has been. Well,
it's obviously it's changing. Hence the term, the change globally, climactically.
But there I don't know if you guys notice here
in Georgia, we get like the Florida storms now.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Like afternoon Florida storms.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
They do feel tropical almost. It's very interesting.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I believe that the southeast is over the next like mid-future, mid-term,
next few thousand years, possibly transforming into a monsoonal plane.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Oh, God. Wasn't there a massive threat of tsunami in
Japan I read about? Like a big one, like historical,
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yeah, the typhoons have been grounding air flights. There's been
a lot of flooding in Haneda, which is, Noel, the
airport where you'll probably be landing.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
That's the one.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah. Just a heads up there, you know, and it
is strange that, Matt, you're noticing, as are we all,
you're noticing these bizarre complications, right? These unpredictable things in
our climate. We've got conspiracy realists in the Pacific Northwest
who are saying, Hey, it's September. Why am I still
(14:39):
wearing shorts and sandals? You know what I mean? Places
that are used to lower temperatures are, of course, seeing
higher temperatures. Places that are tropical nations or tropical regions,
they're going to get the brunt of the current El Nino.
And the question becomes, is this an anomaly or is
(15:01):
this the new normal?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Is this also one of those things like with the
wildfires in California, for example, where insurance companies are going
to stop insuring people's homes who live in certain regions
that are becoming more and more prone to this kind
of catastrophic weather?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Yeah, like in the Gulf of Mexico, America, whatever you wish,
or in Florida, right along the coast. It's It's a
bag of badgers, and we would love again to hear
from you folks on this one. We also have to
deliver on the John Henry moment real quick before we
(15:39):
move on. Is that all right with you guys?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Oh, my gosh. Always looking for a John Henry moment.
We've had a couple in recent strange news segments.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Can somebody explain the John Henry moment?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Well, he was a steel driving man, Matt. He was
a steel driving man.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, we have an episode about this on Ridiculous History.
It's American mythology, right? It's folklore. It's the idea that
there was a man who worked on the railroads way
back in the 1800s. All the live long day. All
the live long day. And he was employed driving steel,
(16:17):
like steel posts to burst up mountains to make tunnels
for railroad operations. And in comes a tech bro of
the day who says, we have an automated steam driving
machine and it is better than any human being. The
story goes, spoilers folks, three, two, one, spoiler alert. The
(16:42):
story goes that John Henry the human said, I'll go
toe to toe with your machine and did ultimately best
this automated steel driving mechanism and But it was a
Pyrrhic victory because he collapsed and died of exhaustion shortly thereafter.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And in the episode, I mean, he's sort of, you know,
in the vein of like a Pecos bill. Johnny Appleseed,
sort of this like American folkloric hero. And when we
looked into it for Ridiculous History, we found it was
one of those things where it was a combination of
multiple people, multiple locations where something like this may or
may not have happened and certainly not in the way
(17:22):
that the story goes. And I think there's even much
like Pecos Bill and Johnny Appleseed, there's a little Disney
short about John Henry as well. There is.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yes, Ed. We know we discussed previously how this piece
of Americana and folklore has gained a resurgence in popularity
in the age of humans versus AI.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Is it going to be like Mangione is going to
be the folk hero?
Speaker 6 (17:48):
Is he our new Johnny Appleseed?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
It's got to be bleak like that. I can't think
of many other examples.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Well, we've got one for you, folks. This is something
we like to call Schrodinger's sponsor. So we don't know
if there's an ad break here. Same sound the cat made.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, but was there an ad there? We don't know,
but you do.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Here we go. Coming to us from Ben Cost over
at the New York Post, an amateur fighter, human, has
taken on a humanoid robot, in a caged showdown.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Did we all see a clip of this? I heard
that there were clips, Ben. I saw the headline, but
I didn't go any further. So excited to see. Hope
he didn't end up knocked the F out and or,
you know, collapsed in a pile like John Henry.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Ben, I would just say I saw a couple kicks.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, a clip of kicks, right? Were there also punches
and or karate chops?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
There were some moves, to be sure. Here, let's play
this really quickly. This is about 45 seconds. It comes
to us from the New York Post. So here we go.
And I hope I'm not alone, fellow conspiracy realist, in
clocking what I'll call a purposeful homage to the Terminator franchise.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
For the first time in history, a human takes off
against a six-foot-tall robot.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
What weight class is this?
Speaker 4 (19:28):
Robo class. Ooh, it's got some flexes.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
It's doing the little pivot.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Oh, God.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Okay, so we got two face punches.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Oh, jeez. Ooh, that looks like it's smarted.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Yeah, got a door docking kick.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Hit him in his nuclear core.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Oh, man.
Speaker 6 (19:47):
That's how you do it.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It's like a push kick.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Yeah. You could knock a door with that one.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
That guy moved.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
He fleek.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
He got some air. By that guy, I mean the human,
by the way.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
We're video now. You can see. That is wild, man.
What kind of event is this? Is there an organization
like the UFC that's putting on these things? Are we
going to see more of this? No. Can I bet
on it?
Speaker 4 (20:16):
We may. You guys see what I'm saying about that
purposeful design homage to Terminator?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
That's the T-800.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Classic T-800. You didn't have to make the head look
like a skull, folks. This comes to us courtesy of
Frank LaPetta over on TikTok. He's been known as a
guy who does various publicity stunts. He drove a bike
into an office desk. He's played cards around rampaging bulls,
(20:46):
and he tried to fight a robot made by a
San Francisco tech firm called R.E.K., pronounced R.E.K.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Ben, do we know if if that robot was remote
controlled the way we've seen a lot of these demos
go over the years where. It looks like an autonomous robot.
Sometimes they'll say it's an autonomous robot, but it's actually
somebody in the other room wearing one of those motion
capture suits.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Like a mechanical turt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is
a great question. We know that there's definitely programming involved
as far as real-time action and whether it's directed by
humans or an algorithm. Unclear at this point. We'd have
(21:36):
to do more digging uh we just keep thinking about
john henry and if you're looking at that clip if
you're rewrite if you're re-watching it folks what you are
looking at on the mechanical side is what is called
engine ai t800 to your earlier point noel uh they're
not designed for combat but that those series of kicks
(22:00):
we saw can deliver 850 pounds of force.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
So that's a lot. And dude was wearing some padding,
but not like that much. She had a little chest
pad guys. Uh, maybe this is something that's on other
people's minds as well. Is there any copyright infringement or
trademark issues going on with all this Terminator talk? Seems like, uh,
John Cameron, um, James Cameron, rather, uh, uncle James, big James,
big Jim's what they call, um, would have that stuff
(22:26):
on lock.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Big Jim.
Speaker 6 (22:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
It's, it's, that's a great segue because it's tough to
figure out, uh, where the law lands here and it
takes us to another case in denver uh denver colorado
uh from earlier they also uh colorado recently had their
second big uh singles gathering specifically for unvaccinated people check
(22:53):
that out let us know uh if you had a
good time seems like it seems like a good time
meet like-minded folks right right and Also in Colorado, a
Waymo autonomous vehicle has driven through a Denver farmer's market,
and the good government of Colorado just figured out they
(23:17):
don't really have a law for ticketing an autonomous vehicle,
mowing down a farmer's market.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Well, that's the thing about all this AI stuff, man.
I mean, I was going to– maybe it's a better time–
as good a time as any to bring it up.
AI-led intel that caused a near-catastrophic accidental attack of the U.S.
on a Chinese vessel, if a person had made that mistake, like,
(23:48):
there's recourse, right? But with AI, there just isn't. And
then it's just kind of like, whoops, I hallucinated that.
My eye, I'm talking about the algorithm or the agent
or whatever. But is this not a situation that needs
to be contended with like to have some sort of
legal recourse for catastrophic failures of AI, or as Donald
(24:09):
Trump has rebranded it, superintelligence. Oh, nice. Did you see
his talk at the UN?
Speaker 4 (24:15):
He didn't call it gold brain?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I think he would have gone somewhere down that path.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
On his branding.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Superintelligence, however, I do believe is a term for a
higher level form of machine learning. that is sort of
sought after by all the tech bros, you know, of
the world. But it is also the kind of thing
that the existential doomsayers are the most terrified of. So
Trump's decided we're just going to call it that and
he's going to see if it sticks.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
And we're going to have, I think, some more news
about the United Nations who have been brewing on some things, uh,
including so-called artificial intelligence, uh, to go back to, uh,
this Waymo self-driving debacle really quickly in Colorado. Uh, They
didn't know what to do. The assistant manager of the
(25:02):
Pearl Street Farmer's Market is someone named Shari Wilkins. And
Shari Wilkins is relating this story from firsthand experience and said,
there's no driver. There's nobody in the car, not in
the backseat or anything. So we just sort of have
to usher it out. Kind of like all those clips
of an elephant or a rhino or a hippopotamus. strolling
(25:26):
through a local town and people just kind of lean
against the wall and think, okay, buddy, you do you.
If you want more information about this, check out 9news. com.
Excellent article by the journalist Mark Salinger. And, you know,
give us your Waymo stories because, guys, these things are
(25:48):
everywhere in downtown Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (25:51):
They are.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
And I don't think they've made it to, like, New
York State yet because, I mean, I've never really seen
one when I've been up there. But here, it is
ground zero for those guys. And we've talked about the
news story from months ago where, like, an Atlanta kind
of bedroom community was descended upon by Waymos that just
wouldn't leave. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Circled around, like you said, been a cul-de-sac and just like,
you know, blocked people in. And I think people were
even like putting little signs in the road to kind
of deter them. Right.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Yes. You nailed it. And excuse me, folks, not to
get it wrong. I believe that was a roundabout. Also, yeah,
we've got a we've got a roundabout to the next
act of this program. So in the meantime, shout out
to all those workers at Toyota who are training humanoid robots.
Management says they will not be replaced. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
And we're back. I'm just going to start off with
a little bit of a local story, local and, you know, national.
Y'all have heard of the hip hop duo of note
outcast with a K. Yeah. Well, this is funny for
me in particular, because when I was a kid, I
had a band that I formed with some members of
my present worship youth group situation at the Methodist church
(27:18):
that I grew up going to, or my parents worked.
And I just say, yes.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Is this the Cubist or before?
Speaker 3 (27:24):
No, this is previous to that. This band was called Overcast.
Speaker 7 (27:27):
Overcast.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
We called the band Overcast, not with a K. I
don't think, maybe we, I don't remember, but it was
the first time I ever was aware of the hip
hop duo Outkast because people pointed out that the name
Overcast was very similar to Outkast. Turns out the law
thinks that as well. Oh, wow. At the very least,
the lawyers of OutKast, Andre 3000 and Daddy Fat Sacks himself,
(27:55):
big boy, Atlanta local. You see him around. Really cool guys.
They are suing a guy named Silas Wilson, who uses
the stage name Overcast. O-V-R-K-A-S-T. They brought this lawsuit in
Georgia federal court. earlier this month, just last week, I believe,
accusing Mr. Wilson of trademark infringement, unfair competition, and breach
(28:20):
of contract for allegedly going back on a deal to
stop using the alias. Because the individual in question here,
the defendant, has knowingly, or he's spoken publicly about how
he's kind of capitalizing on the brand, what's the word, recognition,
or the brand confusion, I think might be the official term.
Speaker 7 (28:40):
And how is Overcast spelled? Yeah, O-V-R-K-A-S-T. So it's got
the K. It's got the. The V almost makes it
look like a U, which would be the second letter
in outcasts.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And if you look at them side by side, just
on a glance, it'd be real easy to misconstrue the two. So, yeah,
he has acknowledged publicly that this is something that he
was either aware of or maybe even capitalizing on personally.
But we'll see how that lawsuit plays out. We love
those guys. And, you know, it seems like this dude's
(29:18):
being a bit of a joker.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Yes indeed and and of course uh as as you
mentioned no this is not an atlanta native because an
atlanta native would never do.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
That oh my god no perish the thought Those guys
are Atlanta royalty and no one would step to them
in that way. I guess we'll stick with some music
news for a little bit. This kind of crosses over
into conspiracy territory just by nature of who we're talking about.
A guy that comes up not infrequently on the pod, Mr.
Willie Schatz. Nobody calls him that.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Mr.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
William Shatner. We do.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Big Willie.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Big Willie style. Did you guys know that this man
is 95 years young?
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I did not know this. He looks great. We know
he went to space. That was probably one of the
last times we talked about him. He kind of went
to space. He kind of went to low Earth orbit,
but he did talk about the overview effect, which I
think we all enjoyed the way he characterized that phenomenon.
He had some very interesting things to say. He's a
very eloquent dude and an oddball. I just love how
(30:27):
odd William Shatner is. Best cover of Rocketman ever.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Spoken word, is it? What is it? I don't even
know what it is. Well, that's exactly right, Ben. That,
if I'm not mistaken, was on his 1968 debut album,
The Transformed Man. Since that point, he's released 11 spoken
word albums. And he's got a new one coming out
very soon. Following on the heels, not very closely, of
(30:55):
his 2011 rock album, Seeking Major Tom. He's got a
new record coming out called What the F is Heavy Metal.
Where he's trying to figure out what heavy metal is,
backed up by his band. You can beep me here, Max.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
The F * * * ers. Is there like an
umlaut there or is it just straight up?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
There is an asterisk, but I think we all know
what that means.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Wait, seriously, is it like that one song, the mother uckers, uckin'
with mash?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Or is it supposed to be the hard F? Matt,
I'm looking at the way it's printed. I'm seeing the
way it's printed by consequence or by vice here. I
don't think vice has ever shied away from Ethan and Jeff.
And so I would argue they're probably being true to
his brand by printing it as asterisk E-U-C-K-E-R-S.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
So I'm going to call Willie Schatz in the. recently
appeared uh you guys might have heard of this music
festival we just had uh our own big old uh
hurrah music festival here in atlanta called shaky knees uh
second day of which well thankfully the first and third
were okay second day um got absolutely torrentially downpoured on
(32:14):
my kid got caught in that and thankfully made it
out uh you know um just a little bit moist
but unscathed Riot Fest is Chicago's yearly music fest, very
similar to what we have in Shaky Knees here. And
Willie Shatz and the Uckers performed on the Rebel stage
in Chicago's Douglas Park, doing his own spoken word treatments
(32:38):
of heavy metal classics like Ozzy's Crazy Train. Yes, the
accents on the train.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Crazy.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Have you guys seen that clip of Dave Grohl talking
about when the Foo Fighters were on SNL and the
host was Christopher Walken and he comes up to Dave
and he goes, I can't do a Christopher Walken. He's like,
is the accent on the Foo or the Fighters? And
Dave Grohl goes, it's going to be fun. It's on
the Fighters. And so Christopher.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Walken goes, ladies and gentlemen, Foo Fighters.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Foo Fighters.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Didn't they also play, didn't the Uckers and Big Willie
also play some Metallica and Motorhead?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
They did the Ace of Spades, the Ace of Spades,
the classic Lemmy Jam and Enter Sandman. You know, a
little bit of a basic, a bass. I would have
loved a little more of like a Ride the Lightning
or something like that.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
I haven't watched the clip, Noel, or the clips. I
wasn't at the concert this year, but I can already
hear this heavy bass orchestral almost swell as Big Willie
leans in and says, exit night. Enter night.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Well, you got that right, Ben, but I think we
owe it to the listeners and the viewers now on
Netflix to just see a tiny little clip taken from
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
This, I believe, is his version of the Ace of Spades. Yes.
The Ace of Spades.
Speaker 7 (34:06):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I can't wait to see this. Guys, this is not good.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Wait. There we go.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
The ace of spades. The ace of spades. Yes. Look,
all respect to Willie Shatz and the Uckers, but I
would argue this is the very definition of what you
would call a novelty act.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
I mean, I hear you.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
The band is proper metal. He did introduce them, and
I bet you they have metal pedigrees.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
But there's something about them just owning it and ripping
and shredding while he's just kind of.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
He's 95 human years old, folks. So before we clown
the guy, and I know that he's had his controversies
in the past, we've got to ask ourselves.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
He did a terrible Esperanto film. I speak a little Esperanto.
And in our community, it is known for his specific
accent choices. Esperanto is a very easy language to learn.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
In the Esperanto community that you're in?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Yeah, yeah. I know some Esperantists.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
He's an enthusiast, Matt. He's an enthusiast. Okay.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
He's an Esperanto enthusiast. I just didn't know that was
a thing.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I've got hobbies. You know what? All respect to Willie
Shatz and the Uckers. I'm glad we got that.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
Guys, if we walked in to a random karaoke place
and there was, I'll say it, an elderly guy who
was just shouting his heart out, you know, if we
want to call it shouting instead of singing.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Sing speaking.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Sing speaking.
Speaker 7 (36:10):
Perfect.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Perfect. We would be absolutely gaga for this, right?
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Lady Gaga.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Yeah, I think it'd be a good hang.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I'd love to see him do a Lady Gaga cover.
That'd be sick.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Bad romance.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, bad romance would be good. Gaga. Ah, ah, ah.
It is I, Willie Schatz. He does have a few
originals as well in the mix. Let's see. Some names like,
let's see. Yeah, there you go. Crazy Train, Ace of Spades. No,
(36:44):
I don't know the names of the originals, but he
does have a few. And I will just give a
quote that he gave to Billboard in his heavy metal journey.
Speaking of his heavy metal journey, I began to discover
what the is heavy metal. I've been preparing for two
months now. on a scratch track on my phone, doing
the entrances and exits, which is only visible to a
trained musician. Only by counting down do you know where
(37:07):
to come in on heavy metal. Because he says... Because
he says... It all sounds alike.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Willie shits. Oh, big Willie.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
That's a little dismissive of an entire genre of music
that has a lot of nuance. Guys, if there's any
genre that has more subgenres than any other genre, it's metal, dude.
There are so many weird little niche subgenres of metal.
Black metal.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
Grunge.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Death metal. Trying to defile the metal.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
The metal was way too strong. Hair metal.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Yeah, and shout out to all our metal enthusiasts in
the crowd who have had that conversation where someone inevitably says, well,
that thing you're talking about is not actually metal.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
There's a lot of gatekeeping in metal. I think I've
talked about this before. This has come up. There is
a subgenre of metal that's called power violence.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Oh, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yep, we'll just leave that there. Guys, I know, gosh, Mr. Shatner,
what a lovely story to talk about with my buddies
Ben and Matt here. I do have to end maybe
on a slight, I don't know, should I end on
a slightly down note or a kooky note? Look, there's
malaria in Germany, guys. There's malaria in Germany. There were
(38:23):
some malaria mosquitoes that made it on a German flight
and infected some airport workers in Frankfurt. So we'll just
leave it there. We don't have to get too deep
into the weeds on that one. I will end with,
they passed away, sadly, but I will end on the
story of a man, a man of his time, out
(38:43):
of time, who returned a magazine to a library in
New Hampshire, 130 years late, and due to a measure
passed by the public library system, the Concord Public Library
in New Hampshire, he was absolved of his $ 12, 055 fine
(39:05):
for keeping this magazine. I wonder if magazine fines are
lesser than book fines.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
No, they're the same.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
No, they're the same.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
I'm sorry to report.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
It's all about materials. Yeah, John Hanson, an 84-year-old resident
of Barrington.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Returned the September 1894 issue of the Century Illustrated monthly
magazine to the Concord Public Library in New Hampshire, 132
years after it was released. checked out.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
So let's do the math real quick, everybody. Play along
at home.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Oh, right.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Yeah. John is not the person who originally took the magazine.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
That is true, Ben. That is true. But what are
we talking here, Ben? Weekly, monthly, maybe we do monthly.
Are you talking about the fees or the fine? I'm
just curious. That seems reasonable.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
Yeah. 132 years. Librarians are great. We're all huge fans.
And if you're hearing this, I'm sorry about everything. You
know what you did, but that, that is, I mean,
that is cool. We've seen, didn't we see an earlier
story you guys about a, I want to say a Dr.
Seuss book. back in the day that was returned after decades.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
It rings a bell. And Ben, I definitely wrote a
check that my brain couldn't cash in promising to drill
down into the monthly figures of these fines. That's just
not my forte. But again, kind of reasonable. This guy,
John Hanson, 84-year-old gentleman, apparently discovered the magazine during a
1966 move from one town to where he lives today
(40:41):
in Barrington. and decided to return it after learning about
a one-year fine freeze announced. What a gentleman and a scholar.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Waiting for that fine freeze.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
I'm going to return it.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Waiting for the right time.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
I wonder how that would have even worked. This obviously
makes for a fun headline. But can you imagine any
librarian that would have like, how are you going to
extract that kind of money out of a human being
who found this magazine in a dusty place? attic and
then returned it. At this point, this is more of
an archival question, and that is true because archivist Jennifer
(41:18):
Needham was surprised when he came to the circulation desk
with an envelope. She noted the edition contained an article
on urban playgrounds that was particularly interesting from the late
19th century. In theory, here we go, it would have
been a $ 12, 055 fine for being 48,000 Days overdue. So
(41:40):
we can do the math there.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
So it's by day.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Okay, it's by day. So what is that a day?
What's $ 48, 222 divided by $ 12, 055? This is important stuff. $ 48, 220
divided by $ 12, 055 equals, that's only $ 4 a day. That's
an even number.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
Yeah, but back at that time, $ 4 was a lot
of money. That's a lot, actually.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
That is a lot. Is that by today's– how much
do you– Ben, I don't frequent the library like I should.
I'll admit it. Do you know what modern library fines are?
Speaker 4 (42:14):
No, because good folks of Fulton County, I straightened my
act up. I returned the books on time.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Good job, Ben.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Thanks, man.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
Thanks, Ben.
Speaker 7 (42:24):
So proud.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
Proud.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
So proud. We got to get we we got to
fix the library late fee situation. Well, usually they'll let
you off, actually, if you're cool.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
You know, it's funny, Ben. I just did a little
bit of a search. Turns out in a lot of places,
overdue fines are now zero.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Libraries have gone fine free for late returns, though, of course,
they do still charge if an item is returned damaged
or if it's lost. I think I've shouted these folks
out on the pod before, but we are very lucky
to be one of the rare cities in the United
States that still has a video rental place.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
Videodrome.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Videodrome, which is really awesome. I love a curated selection
of film, and they do a very good job of that.
They also sell... really cool niche Blu-rays and posters and
records and stuff. Every time I rent stuff from them
with the best of intentions, I rack up significant late fees.
And I think because they just want people to keep
coming back, they often will either cut me a deal
(43:23):
on them when I get back or wipe them out entirely.
So there you go. Let's leave it at that, guys.
I think that's an optimistic one to end on. Let's
take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsors,
and then we'll come back with our last strange news
segment featuring Mr. Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
And we're back. Guys, just two quick comments. Ben, on
that robot fight, you were saying it's an amateur fighter, right?
I want to see Alexander Volkov or Robert Whitaker or
like Rampage Jackson.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Good God. That's the question, Matt. When are they going
to deploy these into the UFC for a special exhibition
fight in the octagon, right?
Speaker 4 (44:08):
We were right about the Anything Goes Olympics.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (44:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
But I do feel that Rampage would tear that robot. Absolutely.
Just the agility alone.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Just moving to the left and behind.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Bobbing and weaving. Matt, is this a boxer or a
UFC fighter? I don't know these things.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Rampage Jackson is a UFC champion, sir.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
It's not my world. It's not my world.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
His techniques sort of go cross.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Well- But he goes way before the UFC, too. Check
him out fighting. I think he was on Pride, maybe.
I don't know if he was in one or not.
But good Lord, that man wore a giant chain and
ripped people to shreds.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
That's our John Henry, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Really good news to start us off, guys. This comes
from ABC News Denver, Channel 7, The Fightin', Channel 7,
September 18th, 2026. toys r us comeback retailer opening 120
stores this holiday season guys guys the new locations will
(45:14):
bring the total number of toys r us stores in
the united states to 160 well they've been absolutely uh.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Those numbers had dwindled significantly.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
Yeah, they got ransacked by private equity.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Well, when we grew up, I just remember a trip
to Toys R Us may as well have been a
trip to frickin' Disney. They all had those colorful clay
stick looking things on the outside of the buildings. The
video games were all behind lock and key. You could
get those little Tiger, you know, e-ink type video game
systems that were super pricey. You could get some deals.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
And an old true story, when Matt and I first
teamed up, lo these many years ago, there was a
Toys R Us directly behind our original office. And as
a grown entity, I would, beat me here, Max, I
would f * * * off on my lunch break
(46:08):
and look at the Legos and just sort of pretend
I was buying something for a child.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
You were that child, Ben. Just as I do the
same thing. But now I do have children. I'm so
excited that they get the joy of walking down those
aisles like you did, looking at those things, looking at
the video game section in a Toys R Us.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
That's what I remember.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Because they were behind the glass, they were so rarefied.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
Do you guys remember seeing the little, like, this is
a weird detail, but it's strange how small things stick
with us. Do you remember seeing The video game glass
and the little fingerprints from where like.
Speaker 6 (46:51):
Kids would put their hands on the thing and then
turn back and look at it.
Speaker 4 (46:56):
Matt, Riddle is this. Are these new 120 stores, are
they the same Toys R Us of its heyday or
have they switched anything around?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Well, I don't have full information on that, Ben. And
I'm very interested to see if Toys R Us pulls
a little spirit Halloween, except for, you know, instead of Halloween,
it's Christmas. And they start popping up in all the
abandoned locations. They're like, oh, Toys R Us.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Well, Ben, I mean, in your little journeys to the back,
you know, the behind the building Toys R Us, you
probably noticed that they were already at that point starting
to look a little bit picked over and sad.
Speaker 5 (47:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
The giraffe wasn't at its best.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
No, no. Because when we were kids, they were all
shiny and new and, you know, really tip top. But
then what would happen eventually, Matt, is they kind of
became relegated to dying malls. And they were much smaller
than the big box versions that we knew.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
And just like pharmacies, the security around the shelves increased
and it stopped looking. It started looking different. less like
a paradise for children and more like a prison for toys.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Hey, speaking of a prison for things, if you are
an American and you, you know, you feel it in
your heart, you're a citizen, you know, there's only one
thing that you're supposed to do and that is consume. Well,
guess what? These Toys R Us are open again. You
can go to their store locator, find one near you.
There is one, guys, it's on Briarcliff in Atlanta. It's
(48:30):
at North Lake Mall. You can find one. We can
go there and we can consume all the live long day.
And it's going to be incredible. You don't have to
worry about the things, the imperialist moves that our country
is doing.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
We're fine.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
We're not doing anything wrong. Everything's great here. We just
need toys, toys for adults and for kids. We need
to entertain ourselves and forget all the other that we're doing.
So speaking of. We are going to pay a little
homage here. On May 15th, 2015, the late legendary comedian
(49:06):
Norm MacDonald performed on David Letterman's The Late Show.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
It was.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Quite a significant appearance by Norm as the final episode
of Dave's version of The Late Show aired on May
20th of the same year. So only five days later
after this thing we're talking about that night, Norm did
his thing. And there is one bit that has stuck
with us. We've mentioned it on this show before in passing,
we thought this would be a good opportunity to play
(49:34):
a little bit of it. We're not going to play
the whole thing. So we're not going to spoil the ending, but, uh,
The whole point here is that this is a comedian
telling a joke. It's not meant to be taken seriously.
It's meant to make you laugh and maybe think about
the next thing we're going to talk about on the show, right?
This is like a little mental segue. So here we go.
Speaker 5 (49:55):
Not Iraq, not.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
Iran, not North Korea.
Speaker 5 (49:58):
The only country that really worries me is the country
of Germany. I don't know if you guys are history
buffs or.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Not, but.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
I remember this show.
Speaker 5 (50:13):
In the early part of the previous century, Germany decided
to go to war. And who did they go to
war with?
Speaker 3 (50:21):
The world.
Speaker 5 (50:22):
That had never been tried before. And so you figure
that would take about five seconds for the world to win,
but no, it was actually close. Then about 30 years pass,
(50:45):
and Germany decides again to go to war, and again
it chooses as its enemy the world.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Okay, we'll stop it right there.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I mean, it resonates what's going on in Germany, though.
It seems like they're having some issues over there similar
to ones we're seeing over here.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Yeah, so why would we be talking about that? Well, guys,
we just had a conversation with somebody, Antonia, and you
will hopefully be seeing that episode very soon. We're talking
about some things that have gone down. It's talking about
the past in Germany and, you know, some specific issues
(51:27):
that have occurred within that country. And we also happen
to have a bit of conversation about political moves currently.
political moves and happenings, elections in Germany. And it made
us take a look at the news one more time.
So we're going to share a couple of pieces from
September of this year. The first one is from September 6th.
This is out of The Guardian. Here's the title. Far-right
(51:50):
AFD wins key German state election but falls short of majority.
Here's why it feels like it's important. We're going to
read a bit of verbatim from this article. The alternative
for Deutschland surges to victory in Saxony-Anhalt, a state in
Germany that is west of Brandenburg. Brandenburg has Berlin kind
(52:13):
of in the center of it. The populist far-right anti-immigration
alternative for Deutschland, AFD, has surged to a resounding victory
in a crucial state election in Germany, but fell just
short of winning a majority in its quest to form
the country's first far-right state government. Since the Second World War.
(52:37):
Sounds fine, right? Guys, we don't need to worry about
any of this.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Matt, I think when you say things like that, you're
being facetious.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Well, I can't tell.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
I'm worried.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Everything is so crazy now. It just seems as though
we see a pattern like this or appears to be
a pattern like this and you go, oh, that does maybe,
I don't know, something is ringing a bell here, but
The rest of the stuff is on fire, so maybe
it doesn't matter that much.
Speaker 4 (53:05):
And maybe it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
The fascinating thing about Germany, and we talked about with
Antonia Woloshin regarding her podcast investigating far-right extremism in Germany
in the 2000s, is that there's this sense that Germany
kind of sorted it all out, you know, that they
learned their lesson. from the horrific events of the Holocaust
(53:27):
and the rise to power of the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.
But what the reality of that is, much like this
notion that the United States sort of learned our lesson
in the face of, you know, what's the word I'm
looking for? Post Jim Crow, you know, reconstruction, all of
that stuff. It all just kind of went underground. And
(53:48):
all it takes is the right kind of mainstreaming of
that underground hatred to to bring it above ground again.
Speaker 4 (53:57):
Especially like the rise in the far right in Germany
and other parts of Eastern Europe, especially when it is
aided and abetted by outside influence. Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Oh, and Elon Musk.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
Yes, and Musk.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Well, I think that's one of the major parts that
we need to be thinking about as we hear more
of this. It's not just one state in Germany that's
interested in this kind of movement. It's not just in
the U S it's not just in the UK does
appear that there is a resurgence of whatever this sentiment is.
And that thing is gaining a lot of power, but
(54:36):
it is being offset in other places and even sometimes
in the same country. So we're going to, we're going
to do one more story after this that kind of
evens it out and let's figure out how we feel
after that. But first, just a bit more from this article.
The AFD was seeking an absolute majority in the state
legislature to govern alone and overcome the so-called firewall of
(54:58):
mainstream parties because they are refusing right now to work
with the AFD. So there are several other parties. There's
like the Christian Democrats, which is, I think, the primary
party now. Many of them that are in control now
are considered center-right or center-left parties, like the center, right?
Parties that tend to find a middle ground a little
(55:21):
better than maybe the far extremes on either side of politics.
But those folks in the middle were refusing to work
with AFD. The final results of this election showed AFD
falling three seats short, guys, just three seats short with
the 30 with 39 lawmakers in an 83 member parliament.
(55:44):
It's that kind of situation where you kind of have
You make a government work together by all of these
elected people from different parties coming together and working in
some kind of coalition. It's not the way we understand
politics to work within, like, let's say, Congress or something.
Speaker 4 (55:57):
Which is two parties in a binary all-or-nothing match.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
Just fun little, you don't get to do anything. No,
you don't get to do anything.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
Right.
Speaker 4 (56:08):
You don't have a coalition. Like, European countries, folks, often
will have– Coalition parties. You see this in Israel as well,
where you have to you have to make friends with
people based on the Venn diagrams of your party's agenda.
So you can you can be in the UK and say, hey,
(56:29):
you Green Party people are crazy, but. Do you want
to co-run parliament for a little bit? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:35):
Your Green Party do have a point in, you know,
we need to breathe air, I guess. So let's do that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
I don't dislike the sound of that, guys. That makes
a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 4 (56:46):
It is a superior system.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
It feels that way to me.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
Making sure I wasn't missing the secret bad thing. Okay, cool.
Speaker 4 (56:54):
You're spot on. The secret bad thing here is the
forced two-party system of the United States.
Speaker 3 (56:59):
It's rough.
Speaker 5 (56:59):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (57:00):
Are they here, but not in Germany? What you're talking about, Matt,
is a whole different, very troubling global pattern. Yes.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Just a reminder, 39 out of 83 members of parliament
they secured for the far-right party for the first time
since World War II. AFD won 43.8% of the vote,
more than double its showing five years ago in the
region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin. Again, reminder,
this is a state within the country of Germany. There
(57:30):
are many states within Germany.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
This is one of them.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
And this is just another little reminder here from the article.
This is verbatim. AFD and Saxony-Anhalt has been classified as, quote,
right-wing extremist, unquote, by Germany's domestic intelligence agency. By their FBI,
the group that now has won this much Power in
(57:55):
a state is classified as right-wing extremist, which, who's to
say what that really means or what they might do
with the power?
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Let's move on.
Speaker 2 (58:07):
Guys, Reuters, September 20th, 2026. We're switching sides here, ready?
Far-left party wins Berlin election pledging to nationalize housing.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
What?
Speaker 4 (58:21):
What?
Speaker 5 (58:22):
What?
Speaker 3 (58:23):
I'm cool with that.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Well, again, some of the things you might feel for
or against, but it is weird that you've got the
extremes that are now calling the shots or beginning to
call the shots.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
Well, when you were talking about the center earlier, the
phrase the center cannot hold sort of popped through my mind.
And I think that's appropriate here because it's tough. The
center has a hard time holding when there's so much
pull involved. To the hard left or the hard right,
you know, in various situations.
Speaker 7 (58:56):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
And when the algorithms push us in those directions because
it gets the most engagement. Here's from the article. While
the AFD has attracted most attention, the left party or Delinke, D-I-E-L-I-K-E.
has also benefited from a general turn against the mainstream
parties of the center-left and center-right. The Left Party, which
(59:18):
grew out of the former East German Communist Party following
the reunification of the country 36 years ago, that is
a really interesting context for that party, And we've mentioned
that on this show not long ago as well, the
reunification of Germany.
Speaker 3 (59:34):
That's the East Germany, East Berlin, West Berlin, the communist
side versus the, you know, quote unquote, democratic side. And
I've been working on a podcast about that very subject
that comes out in January. I'm looking forward to you
guys checking it out. But it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 4 (59:48):
Nice. Yep.
Speaker 2 (59:50):
There's all kinds of things to learn here, and we
recommend you at least diving in a little bit if
you are not from Germany and already inundated with this
kind of reporting and thinking. It's interesting to remember that
there are a lot of other countries in the world
doing their own thing, and their own thing might eventually
have an effect on some of us.
Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Like El Nino.
Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Full circle. Or like this last thing. From The Guardian,
September 21st, 2026.
Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
U.S.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Strikes on alleged drug boats may constitute crimes against humanity, U.N.
expert says. There's been a lot of hubbub, as we're
recording right now, about the president of the United States
visiting the old United Nations to give lots of talks
and have lots of meetings about all kinds of great
things that are happening and boastful sentences about how wonderful
stuff is.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Was that where he called the International Criminal Court evil?
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Well... Yeah. It's weird to think about Germany in these contexts.
Speaker 6 (01:00:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
About about the country that is in many ways vilified
for the actions that it took. And probably rightly so.
I think rightly so for the actions that it took
in the first two world wars. But then we also
have this country called the United States that is doing
all kinds of weird stuff that, you know, doesn't seem
to be great. And there, this is the article, a
(01:01:11):
special rapporteur for the UN Human Rights Council has concluded
that there are, quote, reasonable grounds to believe, unquote, that
the United States attacks on boats allegedly carrying drugs in
the Pacific and Caribbean, quote, constituted crimes against humanity, unquote.
The boat strikes carried out since September 2025 on the
stated grounds of stopping drugs being trafficked by sea to
(01:01:31):
the US have killed more than 230 people. The latest
on Saturday, that is, again, Saturday, as of the reporting
on the 21st of September, killed four people in the Caribbean.
Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Well, that's why I'm saying it ain't for nothing that
Trump's distancing himself from the ICC and, you know, trying
to discredit it. And I know that it's had its issues,
but if I'm not mistaken, guys, that is the body
that prosecutes war criminals, right? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
It's like he's basically, you know, demonizing them in advance
of likely charges being levied Against him and his administration.
Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
The United States has never been a signatory to the
ICC precisely because of what you're outlining there, Noel. And
across the board, across the political divide, U.S. presidents have
always told the ICC to buck off.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
OK, see, I wasn't really familiar with that aspect of it.
So it's not even that unusual or particularly controversial what
Trump's doing.
Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
No, but it is disrespectful to the world order.
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Hear, hear.
Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Last thing you should read. We're not going to read
it here, but you can. Al Jazeera, September 22nd. Why
United Nations says U.S. boat strikes may be, quote, crimes
against humanity. It's a great read. Just gives you some
more of the context on why these actions could be
considered that. Considering all the different types of law that
govern the oceans and all of the various countries that
(01:03:00):
we find ourselves in.
Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Well, guys, if I'm not mistaken, there's also been a
lot of talk about how extracting resources from Venezuela and
bragging about it and talking about putting that on our
balance sheets. That's also a no-no based on the rules
of engagement and war crimes and such. So, you know,
a lot of this kind of thing happening kind of
right out in the open. It'd be interesting to see
how these types of investigations and potential charges go as
(01:03:23):
far as the world.
Speaker 6 (01:03:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
And folks, please, please, please check out our earlier episode
on the rise of the far right in Japan. And
look into foreign influence on some of those movements. It's
deeper than rap.
Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
Yes, yes, yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
It's almost as deep as the non-denominational praise band, Noel,
that I was in, which became a DMB cover band,
which became a high school acoustic rock band.
Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
DMB being Dave Matthews of bands.
Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
Yes, called Broken Poets. And this is just a shout
out to those fellas, because you mentioned your praise band group.
Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
Outcast. No.
Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
Overcast.
Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Don't sue me, guys.
Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
Don't sue me, big boy. I'm really sorry.
Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
It was a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
That's it for me, guys.
Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
And that's it for us, folks. Thank you so much
for tuning in to our strange news program on Netflix
or on your podcast platform of choice. We cannot wait
to hear from you. So please, please, please hit us
up there. This is an ongoing mission. To boldly go
where no critical thinking has gone before, we'd love you
(01:04:32):
in the crew. So there are a number of ways
to contact us.
Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
You can find us all over the internet at either
Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your favorite
social media flavor.
Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
If you want to give us a call, our number
is 1-833-STDWYTK. I'm pointing at the number here, not anything
else below the screen. When you call it, give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. Do please
try and find a good sound environment before you call in.
It just makes our lives a little bit easier and
(01:05:05):
you'll be better understood when you call it. And hey,
you might get a call back. You never know, no, no, no, no. Ben,
there's one last amazing way to contact us.
Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
And before we get to that, we've got to do
a quick gut check with our super producer Freight Train,
one of the biggest Star Trek companies. aficionados that I
have ever personally met. Max, where are you at on
the music of William Shatner, of Big Willie?
Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Essential classic. Hell yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:05:34):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
All right.
Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
And that is from an expert, folks. So please do
write in to us. Get weird with it. Send us links.
Send us some photos. Tell us what you think the
next John Henry moments will be. We love to know
more about what's going on in your neck of the
global woods. conspiracy at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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