Afghanistan suspends chess due to religious concerns. Newark goes dark -- for just long enough to prompt serious questions. The world witnesses new escalations in the Great Game, as various corporations and countries race to acquire precious mineral resources. Since Ben and Matt always like to end on a good note, this week's strange news segment concludes with an optimistic discussion about octopus civilization, and how ethically fraught brain surgery might extend the known lifespan of that species.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is still on an adventure, but will
be returning shortly.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Friends and neighbors, fellow
conspiracy realists, if you are tuning in the evening this publishes,
let us be the first to welcome you to Monday,
(00:53):
May nineteenth. Now, our friends over at Daily Zeitgeist, the
legendary Miles and Jack often like to begin their show
by naming off a number of national days. Right, Remember
we Matt, You and I talked about this over the years.
I think we're both befuddled by how ambiguous the process
(01:19):
of creating a national day is in the United States. Right,
you just have to like catch Congress at the end
of a session and say, everybody, you guys like sandwiches?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, Yeah, it is a little weird because there are
levels of official holiday in this country.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Right, right, right, We have very few holidays where the
American worker actually gets the day off. And I do
want to give respect to reluctant but objective respect to
the United Kingdom, where they straight up have holidays that
are just called bank holidays. There's no religious implication, there's
(02:01):
no you know, nationalistic implication. It's simply that the bank
is closed.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, it's pretty cool. And we have tax holidays.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
We have tax holidays. And in the spirit of our pal,
the legendary Miles Gray, who taught us this. If you're
hearing this, the day it publishes, this is get this
Matt May nineteenth. In the United States, it's frog Jumping
Jubilee Day, It's Malcolm X Day, It's Hepatitis testing Day,
(02:34):
and it celebrate your elected officials Day. Why which one?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
All of them? But Malcolm X, all of those the
malcam X.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I'm tempted to agree with you. We also we had
a brief conversation off Mike if we whether or not
we wanted to talk about one of the largest most
expensive gifts ever given to a US president, an airplane.
You've seen the news as our as a brother. Dylan
(03:05):
pointed out, John Stewart has a hot twenty minutes on it,
so check out that story. We wanted to start this
conversation by asking ourselves if we play chess. Matt Dylan,
do you guys play chess?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Sometimes?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I thought you were going to sound like me talking
about tech and I don't play.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Hey, no, I'm not amazing at chess. I do enjoy
the game, though, but my son is getting better and
better every time we play.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Nice Dylan says, he's never learned chess, so this may
be a chance for you and me and your son
to you know, have a big win. I'm laughing because
Dylan follows up and says he's a huge fan of
checkers at Cracker Barrel. I love it too.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I just bought one of the giant ones that they
call him the carpet Chess.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah you got one.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I just got one so the kids over here can
play checkers.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Okay, yeah, it's the same board, right.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It's from I got it from Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Amazing, amazing, and I believe you can still play checkers
in Afghanistan. However, fellow chess nerds, we have some news
for you. You cannot play chess in Afghanistan anymore. It
has been officially banned in the country and this is
(04:32):
due to not criminal concerns so much as religious considerations.
So yeah, this is up there with more I think
activity or behavior policing on the part of the interim
government will go to Comma dot com by an article
(04:52):
by fidel Or Ahamati which reads the following. Officials from
the Ministry of Sports confirmed chess activities are suspended as
of Sunday, May eleventh. They had to find suitable answers
regarding religious concerns. Right.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I'm seeing images of law enforcement officers there in Afghanistan
going around like listening really closely for the sound of
the click, right, other people taking turns, yeah, or like
back rooms that you open up at some restaurant. You
creak open a door and there's just a couple of
(05:33):
guys huddled around.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Chess speak easy, yeah, exactly right in whispers. It seems that,
at least according to conversations with Western analysts who definitely
have their own bag of badgers, it seems that maybe
the concerns are regarding some of the names of the pieces.
(05:57):
I would imagine particularly the bishop. So maybe that in
some ways has spreaffed the dander of these religious authorities.
We'd love to hear more from you, folks. We're moving quickly.
Matt and I have many, many tales to tell today,
(06:19):
things to share. We're going to talk a lot about
resource extraction. We're going to talk about some legal conspiracies,
some strange arrest. We may end by talking about the
future of a non human civilization. But before we do
any of that, it is no secret that we here
(06:42):
on stuff they don't want you to know. Travel often,
which means we need airports to work. So we need
airports to new work. So we're going to pause for
a word from our sponsors, and then what do you say.
I want to dive into that one.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, let's take a fight or not and we've returned.
Let's take a little flight over to Newark, New Jersey
if anybody remembers that from SNL. But really we're going
to Philadelphia. We're going to the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach
(07:21):
Control or track on this they call it. We're heading
over there because that is the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control.
That is the outfit that handles air traffic control for
the Newark Airport, the very very large airport there in Newark,
New Jersey. There are a lot of flights that come
(07:43):
in and out of that Newark Liberty International Airport, and
when there are problems there, it's a big deal because
these are people flying in and out of New York City,
one of the most populous areas in the United States,
and also where lots of really important business gets to.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You know, sure, we've all been there.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We've all been to New York, have not lived there yet.
But Newark Airport is interesting because you've got what You've
got three airports in that immediate area. You've got JFK, LaGuardia,
and Newark. When something goes down there at one of
those three big airports, it's gonna have a knock on
effect for all of the other airports where those flights
(08:24):
fly out to. And we're talking hundreds and hundreds of
flights per day. So again, Domino's here, what happened at
Trackon is pretty scary. The air traffic controllers on April
twenty eighth lost communications with the systems that they used
to see all of the planes in the sky for
(08:46):
only ninety seconds, but ninety seconds of not being able
to know where any flight is. And what do those
air traffic controllers do, Ben.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Oh, they control air traffic for one hundred alex.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yes, yeah, they they set They work with the pilots
to set for flight plans and make sure all of
the flights don't hit each other, to make sure that
the each landing strip is only being used by one
plane at one time, and then each of the planes
then taxiing are not going to be running into each other.
It's it's huge.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
They also actively now this is not AI run as
an industry. They also actively contextualize changes that will affect
the future of their airport and pass things like delays
for weather or mechanical concerns that will affect things in
(09:43):
terms of like look, air traffic controller professionals are, in
my opinion, kind of stressed out. And you and I
and maybe Dylan we both know a few, and they're
consummate professionals. They're often in an uphill situation because circumstances
(10:04):
change so quickly. You can't really if you're atc you
do not have a day where you kick your feet
up and just have a nice like macha or something
no like. You have to be on on for a while,
and especially if you're working with antiquated equipment, you have
to be the eyes in and for the skies. So
(10:27):
that ninety seconds you mentioned, Matt, I think this is
something all of our aviator friends in the audience are
going to be nodding their heads to that ninety seconds
could be ninety seconds of disaster quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And you are the human beings at the wheel in
that case, and you are blind because the technology has
decided to crap out, or it didn't decide to you.
It crapped out for one reason or another. And that
wasn't the only problem happening at the airport that day.
Let's just get into this because we've been talking about
the FAA and changes within the federal government and you know,
(11:06):
all kinds of issues. Let's jump over to NPR. I'll
give you the title here, how archaic tech, staff shortages
and construction made a meltdown at Newark Airport. And just
to read from that first paragraph, by the way, this
is heard on morning edition there at NPR and written
by A. Martinez and Nia Dumas. So here we go.
(11:27):
The Newark Airport was dealing with bad weather, staffing shortages,
outdated infrastructure, and the airport's busiest runway was closed for
renovations until June. So all of that stuff happening together
caused such an insane situation for everybody at the airport,
not just the air traffic controllers, because their jobs then
(11:48):
end up impacting the pilots and the crews. Then those,
you know, their jobs end up impacting all the passengers
and everybody who's working out on the tarmac, and it's
just it's just becomes a mess.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
And that poor guy in like seat thirty eight, e
go eight, I have a connecting flight? Do I have
a connecting flight? Well?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, because people are in that situation, and when you're
in that moment, it is the most important thing in
the world in that moment is to get on the
next flight.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, sorry, child slavery, there are other priorities.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well, it's true. Unfortunately, I think that's maybe just how
humans function when we're in that moment. It's just that's
all that matters. So this all occurred, a bunch of
the human beings, the air traffic controllers that were there
at track on ended up taking time off after that
day on April twenty eighth, and they took because they're
(12:44):
allowed to take time off when there's something like crazy traumatic,
something big happens.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Ever, like a mental wellness day.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yes exactly, because you cannot be on the job if
you're not feeling good to go, as you were talking,
as you alluded to earlier. Ben So then that all happened.
It was all in the news everybody's writing about, including
NPR there on May seventh. Then it happens again on Friday,
May ninth, another ninety seconds that they have no access
(13:14):
to radar in the systems. That thankfully occurred at three
point fifty five am, which is a very low traffic time, right,
so not as bad, but still something's going wrong with
the radar systems there over at Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Which means that if authorities are not able to isolate
and identify wherever this hiccup is occurried, it will inevitably
sinan again.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, there you go, and guess what it did in again,
Oh my gosh, on May eleventh. Yeah, again, it was
a radar outage. So it's just a it's a scary
thing considering what we read about This was a story
where a helicopter, a Blackhawk helicopter, accidentally intercepted an incoming flight. Yes,
(14:09):
everybody died. Other issues that you know, the industry is
having with Boeing planes with other planes.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
A lot of close calls with small private aircraft like
picture your assessments as well, that's happening. We know that there.
You know, there was chaos at Heathrow not too long ago.
One thing I think we need to we need to
establish on the air right now, on the air and
(14:37):
in the air right now, is the following. At this
point in the investigation, there is no hard suspicion of
bad faith actors. This does appear to be a consequence
of legacy technology, a consequence of lack of maintenance and
updates and improvements, and our a consequence of I don't know,
(15:04):
not looking out for the ATC.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah. Well, and you can read all of the official
statements from the FAA over on the FAA dot gov website.
Check it out. They've got statements on every one of
these moments that occurred, and you know, most it's going
over basically exactly what happened here, and it has a
lot to do with staffing, but again. Their last statement
(15:29):
that they put out on May thirteenth is all about, hey,
we've got twenty two fully certified controllers, we've got five
fully certified supervisors, and twenty one controllers and supervisors in training.
So they are doing their best, as you know, a company,
as a group an organization, to bring up more people
to be in that position to fill in when something
goes wrong on the human side. But when it comes
(15:52):
to the test system, yeah, they need huge updates and
they need funding to make those huge updates. So we'll
see how all of that plays out politically over the
next year.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Or so, which is a bummer because tech has no
religion nor ideology just yet, depending on how agi goes
and how it feels about itself, I imagine. But I
appreciate that point, and I think it's I think it's
crucial that we make that point now. US Transportation Secretary
Sean Duffy was talking on May twelfth to reporters and said, look,
(16:31):
we know what went wrong to the earlier point. He said,
there's a relay system feeding data from New York to Philly,
and that relay system failed and that is part of
this domino effect, this chain of suss tech. Right, SUSTech
sounds like it should be a word, but anyway, it's
(16:54):
the new SPI kids. So right now, as I'm catching
up with all this to actually delaying a flight to
the northeast Newark Airport is under a ground delay now
as we record on Wednesday, May fourteenth, but it's due
this time to weather. They're low cloud ceilings.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, you know, whether they're a low cloud seating is
what I heard too. But I like it.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I like it. This is why we hang out, all right, dude.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Last thing, Ben, I just want to put in here.
This is more stuff from who is this? This is
from the FAA specifically, but Secretary Duffy. Transportation Secretary Duffy
has stated there's all kinds of things that need to happen.
They're going to add new high bandwidth telecommunications connections being
(17:50):
these things called the STARS system. I don't understand exactly
what the STARS system is at this moment. I'm sure
we can look that up. They're going to replace copper
telecommunications connections with updated fiber optic tech. Hey, that's a
good idea, sure, And they're putting in a temporary backup system,
which is kind of cool.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, And it's also one of those things where you
know it's announced is good news, but the implication is
a little bit spoopy. Doup rights. It's like hearing local
fire department to have hoses installed on trucks and you're like, great, guys,
(18:32):
that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Also, what we just had a bunch of straws before, right.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Right, we have no backup system. We do also know,
of course, that current civilization depends upon safe air travel.
It depends upon safe air transit. If people don't care
for the travel aspect of it, I imagine that we are
(19:02):
going to see more more work in this case. And
I'm going to be cynical about why I believe these
problems will be fixed. Would you like to hear it?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Because wealthy people use planes.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Ah, you're right. But do they fly out of Newark?
Is the question?
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I mean, right, do they fly? Do they do they
fly commercial?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Uh? Maybe not? But the truly wealthy own a big
interest in the function of commercial airlines. And from a
defense perspective, which we don't really talk about, the United
States will never abandon its own ability to manufacture aircraft,
(19:50):
you know, I mean and to and to hold that
infrastructure sacroo sainct.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Well, less we just start ordering them all from Qatar.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Oh boy, they'll still be though they'll still be they'll
be about thirteen years old if I'm if I'm read
up on that. But then you have to you have
to consider, we're gonna move on. We're gonna hear. We're
gonna hear later from a couple fellow conspiracy realists in
the aviation field who have their own thoughts on UH
(20:23):
air traffic control in particular. So please tune in later
this week. In the meantime, Matt Dylan, before we uh
head off to catch a flight to Newark, should we
do an ad? Yeah, we have returned and we are
(20:45):
going to stay in Newark for the moment. We're going
to run through several stories quickly.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
But while we're While we're doing this, we're gonna follow
kind of a thematic thread that is very important to
Matt Dylan and your truly. Our first story is the following.
This happened pretty recently. Earlier this month, the mayor of Newark,
a town we just mentioned, was arrested at an immigration
(21:13):
detention facility where he was According to various perspectives, he
was protesting. So the idea is that the mayor ros
Baraka was arrested Friday and he had been protesting the
opening of this immigration detention center. We'll give you more
(21:34):
details in a second, but we need to understand that
the narrative diverges very quickly because this ice detention facility,
immigration detention facility was It's not its first rodeo. It
was reopened. It's Delaney Hall if you want to look
(21:56):
it up. D E. L. An Ey and and supporters
of investigating this facility. Notice the diplomatic language there are
saying that the mayor was not protesting, that the mayor
was legally investigating this structure, this compound. And right now
(22:22):
Braka is running to succeed Governor Phil Murphy, so he
has higher political ambitions. He has been involved with the
great state by state contention, I would say, over the
immigration issue. And he aggressively pushed back on the idea
of opening or reopening this center. He said it doesn't
(22:47):
square with building permits, which is kind of a matrix
dodge of larger moral contentions. He he was literally arrested.
Officials blocked his entry when he went in with three
other members of a congressional delegation from New Jersey. That
(23:10):
would be representatives, respectfully, Robert Menendez, Lamonica mc iver, and
Bonnie Watson Coleman. So the fads say you can't come
in here. There is what corporate America would call a
healthy conversation and what everyone else would call people shouting
at each other and yelling and pushing. And then this
(23:34):
is reported by Very Martinez, who is an activist associated
with New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. Martinez says, there
was yelling and pushing quote. Then the officers swarmed Baraka.
They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They
put Baraka again the mayor of Newark, in handcuffs and
put them in an unmarked car. Look, this is his Historically,
(24:01):
nobody wants to hear this, but this is historically not
the first time a mayor in a city in the
United States has been arrested. However, I want to throw
to you here, Matt for your thoughts. However, we can
see why this might give some people the jimmies. You
(24:22):
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, Oh, you don't go after the mayor, you say,
mister mayor, Please, we need you to stop doing this. Please,
mister mayor, as in you're talking to an authority figure.
But if when you've got federal agents or people working
at a federal level who come out and arrest a city's,
(24:45):
a major city's mayor, it just the picture it paints
is that I don't know what. Ah.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
So that's that's that's the issue, because okay, let's a
politically just with the with some critical thought.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Let's walk through this. As we said earlier, there are
four what you say, authority figures, right, a mayor, three reps.
So why is only the mayor arrested? Why did the
narratives differ? If we look toward a statement by Department
(25:23):
of Homeland Security, they said the lawmakers had not asked
in advance for a tour of the facility. They also
did not respond to that question about why only the
mayor was arrested. They did, however, say the following quote
or through a spokesperson quote, Members of Congress are not
(25:45):
above the law. We can agree with that and cannot
illegally break into detention facilities. Okay, sure, fine, no one can.
Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated
a tour. So it's kind of like I guess in
their logic, it's like a fancy restaurant that doesn't take walkins.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, well, it is kind of true, right, if you
have a detention center, you don't want people just anybody
coming in and out of it, like if it's on
a if it's a federal detention center, I can imagine
you want to lock that place down because of the
very nature of the place that it is. Right.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
But but.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
These are important individuals, you know, who operate the city
and this, you know, the state that this facility is
operating within. So it does feel like you wouldn't I
don't know, man, it makes me think of I think
it was listener mail the other day. We were talking
about one of the one of the executive orders that
(26:49):
was put out about strengthening and unleashing the law enforcement
in America, Right, and there's that one little piece in
there about local leaders and when local leaders demonizes or
cast dispersions or prevent law enforcement from being able to
operate the way we want them to on a federal level,
(27:10):
they will be prosecuted essentially.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It makes me think of that, like maybe the very
protest or the very yeah, the very concept of protesting.
It and ice facility like that. You know, doesn't matter
who's operating it, what private company is like in charge there,
It's going to be seen as an act of aggression
against probably the administration.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Sure. Yes. Also the logical conundrum, right the bag of
badgers here is what is what counts as a protest
versus what counts as not only the legal rights but
the legal duties of representatives of the people. Right, all
of these folks, the mayor and the reps, they were
elected by their constituents, which means that they have beat
(27:59):
me here, and they have certain they are required to do. Theoretically,
it's no secret that politicians often fall short of doing
what they are supposed to be doing. But this I
think exists to your point, Matt, your beautiful point earlier.
This exists in a larger context because at the same time,
(28:22):
the United States has seeing signals that are kind of
anti habeas corpus. Remember habeas corpus.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Huh sounds familiar, something about a body.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah, if you have the body. Right, So, the idea
is that if you are locked up, you are imprisoned,
you are able to I guess the diplomatic way to
put it, we are not lawyers. The diplomatic way to
put it is, in this country, you have a right
to appear in a court. You have a right to
(28:57):
go to a judge because they have your body. In
every sense, you have a right to go like, hey,
you know, why why am I here?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Why me? What I do?
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Right?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Did I like spit out chewing gum in Singapore because
I thought this was America? And then the judge is like,
oh awesome, sick line, Yes this is America. Right. So
people are also this is the next story. People are
also worried by what they see as signals that the
(29:28):
current administration is going to suspend the writ of habeas corpus,
the protection against unlawful detention or imprisonment, which is enshrined
in the Constitution.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
This is new to me.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah, there's a guy from earlier named Stephen Miller who
got into the news with some of this stuff and
their idea. Here will give you a quote from Miller
when he's talking to reporters outside of the White House
quite recently. He says, quote, the Constitution is clear the
privilege right, the privilege of the rid of habeas corpus,
(30:06):
can be suspended in a time of get this mat invasion,
So to say it's an option we're actively looking at.
A lot of it depends on whether the courts do
the right thing or not.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Oh god, it's a nice constitution you have there.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
It'd be a shamed something happened to it.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
It's what it feels like the language in there. You
don't have to have a character, you don't have anything,
just the language.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, privilege option.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
We're actively looking at whether the courts do the right
thing or not.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
A time of invasion. You clocked to that man that
is who Okay.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, yeah, And of course you know Steven Miller is
not himself the president of the United States, so that
that is a high level political official saying something on
behalf of the administration. But it's not the same thing
as you know, the current president saying, what's all this
(31:11):
complicated language?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Dude?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I just it's got the Yeah, we're both kind of
doing the stink face and not the cool stink face
that you do when you hear.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Good rap no, no, no, as a distinct stink face.
This is this feeling gross. Well, we should we connect this?
I know there's more to talk about there, but should
we connect it to the recent Department of Agriculture thing.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
We absolutely should you mind, reader, We've got to talk
about Department of ag and I think that'll get us
into some resource conversations that you and I are very
much looking forward to.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Oh my gosh, yes, all right, well let's jump into
it again, jumping to NPR, who is actively losing their
federal funding as we speak, which is an interesting that's
a whole other discussion to have just that concept that
their state sponsored media in some way, even though there
are mostly donations, but it is a potential conflict of
(32:12):
interest and always has been with NPR. And however they
always have PBS and PBS yes exactly. They do always
seem to be i don't know, independent dish with a
little bit of slant anyway.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Okay, so wait, wait, wait wait, also, folks behind the curtain,
cut to several years earlier when Matt and I used
to party and we're like three beers deep and one
of us is going.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Big bird is propaganda.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yes, but then also quoting stuff that's on morning Edition,
you know, and we're just like, eh, we're just trying
to we're trying to do our best, just like everybody else,
just to figure out what the heck is happening at
any time? So what is happening now? At least according
to NPR and some some let's say, some internal stuff
(33:00):
that keeps getting leaked. I don't know if we've all
noticed this, but internal machinations that are occurring within the
administration get leaked all the time, internal emails. According to
a person who can't be named, it's all happening right now.
There's a ton of leaked information.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
An anonymous source familiar with the conversation.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yes, the record said, talking about the Department of Agriculture,
quote demanding states handover personal data of food assistance recipients,
including social Security numbers, addresses, and an at least one
state citizenship status. These are according to emails shared with
NPR by an official who quote was not allowed to
(33:41):
speak publicly.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Cool but was clearly allowed to speak to a reporter.
This is such a leaky boat man right now, just
on the op SEC. This is wild. It's also you know,
it's an interesting contradiction, is it not, Because the the
existing ideology would argue that every citizen has a degree
(34:06):
of privacy and liberty right, the art of small government
and so on. You know, your jurisdiction stops where my
nose begins. That kind of thing. However, we can understand
why people would see this as counterintuitive to request a new,
(34:28):
more invasive wave of personal information from people who did
not have to provide that in the beginning. Or I
guess you know what. No, let's be fair, let's be objective.
If you receive food assistance like EBT or whatever the
program may be, Wick vouchers and so on, snap and
(34:51):
all that, Yeah, you already have to jump through many
hoops to get there, you know what I mean. You
can't just walk into the snapshack and say I want
SNAP and they're like, oh cool, thanks for coming. No,
they want to know stuff about you already. You have
to prove that you need it. And sometimes those standards
(35:14):
state by state are already extremely rigorous. Right, some would
say unfairly so based on inflation data. So what what
is the what is the concern here? And oh, also, Matt,
we have to mention it's not just the USDA. There's
a there's another hand to play, right, one of the
newest initiatives agency wise.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Oh wait, which one? I know? USDA? What's the other one?
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Oh, it's the it's the Department of Governmental Efficiency. The
Government Efficiency can't we can't dodge it. We can't dog it. Man.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Oh jeez, okay, yeah, that would make sense why they're
looking for so uh, let's talk about why it's a
big deal. The SNAP program or Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program
is administered on a state by state basis, which means
Georgia here where we are, controls all of all of
the SNAP money that goes out to people who qualify
(36:11):
in Georgia, and it goes the same all the way
across all the states. For a federal program to come in,
federal organization to come in, specifically DOGE, to be asking
questions about citizenship status feels off considering all of the
other stuff that is happening right now with immigration with
(36:31):
citizenship status, with deporting people to places like Libya and
or that may have been shut down who knows just
all with all of the stuff happening, having that specific
organization DOGE looking at that stuff feels like a red
flag like look out. They're looking for people, for more
people to just launch out of the United States. It
(36:57):
is one thing that that should be known here is
that someone who does not have official citizenship status within
the US cannot qualify for SNAP in any of the states,
but if you are a non citizen parent of a
child who is a US citizen, you can qualify, which
makes me think that that is specifically what the organization
(37:20):
is looking for.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Okay, so that's sort of the chain of operation is
to identify those people.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I mean, And that's my that's my take on looking
at it in the wider picture.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I don't think it's I don't think it's a bridge
too far, And I can see the the argument there
and without sounding you know, reductive, and without at the
same time sounding high faluting. The hard reality of the
situation here is that every human being is reliant upon
(37:56):
nutrition and sustenance such that it should, in a better world,
be considered a human right. And from what I understand,
the argument against guaranteeing those rights for people in these
United States is saying that they are not a part
(38:17):
of the United States, which I find similarly weird. I
would just you know what, Checkers had it right. The
guys who wrote you Gotta Eat an amazing tagline that's
quite honest about the quality of Checkers as a fast
food institution. Maybe they should have had a hand in
writing some of the Constitution. You know what I mean,
(38:38):
it's an inescapable fact that if a population starves, then
instability spikes, and we see that again and again. So
the question is this a good thing long term? Is
this a shortsighted look at us we're doing something getting
(38:59):
a headline kind of thing? You know?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Maybe I want to point to one thing the MPR
points to as well, and that is an executive order
that was put forward on March twentieth titled Stopping waste,
fraud and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos. And you know,
we've talked about siling of information on the show before,
a lot of it in the context of the black
(39:25):
budget programs, the programs that you know are special access
those things where only only a few people actually know
what's happening in that area. But there's still a bunch
of money that gets allocated to that area. Nobody gets
to see what happens to that money, but a.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Few unless you're on the list for the admission into
those underground cities.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, yes, and undersea basis. I'm joking a little bit
about that maybe, but.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yeah, I know you well, but in this case, it would.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
It could be seen as the SNAP programs, on a
state by state basis receive federal funding to the tune
of around one hundred billion dollars a year. So that's
not every state, that's all states combined. It could be
seen that the federal government wants to see where that
money goes and how it is spent.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Sure, And I think that's I think that's quite objective
to say there is nothing wrong with accountability here. We also,
at the same time acknowledge fairly valid concerns that this
would have an ulterior motive. It's already the language is
already what we call dog whistley. And you know, the
(40:39):
funny thing about this is at Dylan Friends and neighbors.
The funny thing about this is that if we're so
worried about spending money in one place, and we're so
profligate right spending money on foolish errands in other parts
of expenditure or the federal budget, the good news is
(41:03):
that the US might come into a lot of money
that has just been sitting in the ground. So why
are we so worried right about about buying some poor kid?
You know, I'll say it not not great cheese and milk,
and you know not Look, it's not the top tier groceries,
(41:26):
is all I'm saying. These kids aren't eating crab legs,
but the like. If we are so worried about money,
then shouldn't we as a nation be excited about the
one point five trillion estimated dollars worth of lithium recently discovered.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Oh, we should be so excited. Were so that we
probably should take an ad break to celebrate, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
A celeb break. And we're in fact, there are some
things that we have been tracking over a series of years.
You may have heard us mention it recently we were
talking off air. We couldn't remember if this was one
of our on air conversations or just us hanging out,
(42:15):
but we are both over the moon, over the mountain,
over the moon, to again explore the one point five
trillion US dollars estimated of lithium discovered right here in
these United States, occurring at a time when China and
(42:38):
the US are super beefed up and conspiring against each other,
clearly to figure out who helms the wheel of power.
Right now, just you know, if you're talking about resources
and you're talking about rare earth minerals and other things
that make your electronics go elect Then you are going
(43:00):
to see that China is the clear winner, not just
for resource access but for processing. So, Matt, can we
talk a little bit more about I love the line
you had there. Volcanic white Gold used to be used
to be Dylan's street name back in Knoxville.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Volcanic white Gold.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah, it was a different genre.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Okay, yeah, okay, So let's talk about it. There are
we talked about the value of these deposits or this
deposit The volume is thought to be somewhere between twenty
and forty million metric tons. That's a lot of lithium,
and that can make a lot of electronics, or at
(43:42):
least it can be helpful in making a lot of electronics,
specifically batteries. How many pounds of lithium are in a
Tesla model S? Ooh?
Speaker 3 (43:55):
How many? How many?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Around one hundred and thirty eight? Yes, and that's a
model S that is not the most common one you're
going to see on the roads. That that is the
amount you will find in Dan's car. So you know,
if he's listening still probably not, but if he is,
(44:17):
that's how many pounds of lithium are in your car, Dan.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Now I remember because that's the first thing he said
about that car. You guys like lithium. Check this out.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Oh but you know, all electric vehicles, anything that uses
a lithium ion battery has a certain amount of lithium
in it. And nowadays that's a lot of things in
our lives.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Sure, yes, that is why this is as mission critical
as a petroleum or fossile fuel supply or a uranium supply.
The issue is the pickle the back of Badger's a
plate that we mentioned earlier. This will be familiar to
anybody in oil or nuclear processing industries. It is important
(45:06):
to have access to the raw material right and wars
have been launched and probably will launch in the future
for access to any raw resource. However, the more important
step is processing, or the equally important step. So the
reason that China is by all metrics the world leader
(45:28):
in rare earth minerals, it's about fifty percent because of
access to raw materials through various agreements with other countries,
but it is the other fifty percent is the lack
of environmental regulation here in the US. Hard environmental regulation
and conservation policies prevent the cheap processing of these materials, right,
(45:55):
I mean, right now, if you dig into this, because
we're fun at parties, right, we know that the US
is fast tracking permits for new uranium mining operations in Utah.
Mining the uranium is not the same thing as processing
or enriching. It's just getting that stuff out of the ground.
(46:20):
And the United States has some surprising blind spots when
it comes to processing rare earth minerals nuclear materials. Right,
they often are going to be functioning in concert with
foreign owned consortiums. We've got like off few maybe deals
(46:44):
with the mission critical need to process uranium. We also
know that there is a hidden history to the United
States regarding how best to access and control resources in
this huge country. I mean, if you haven't been here,
(47:07):
no offense. I hate when people say this, but if
you haven't been here, if you haven't taken a road
trip to the US, you don't get it. This place
is spooky, huge, and it's arguably a haunted house. There's
a lot of stuff here. And for the indigenous peoples
who were living happily for thousands and thousands of years
(47:28):
before the US became a thing, the presence of precious
materials like fossil fuels or uranium has long been seen
as the impetus toward evil actions on behalf of the government.
We talked about this in our conversations with Leonard Peltier.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
We did, we did.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Sorry, I ted talked there. I just feel like we
have to establish that stuff.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Yeah, it was great. I am thinking about what happens
to this area. I just looked up McDermott, Nevada, uh
and uh Malua County, Oregon and like where this is,
so it's in. Yeah, we're sorry. I'm still on lithium.
I'm like kind of focused in on this because the
concept of this rather open area where there's not a
(48:15):
lot of civilization going on out there. There aren't even
many roads at all. So in order to set up
the stuff that we're talking about, to get the lithium
out to then go into the processing, to then you know,
going into specific lands and all of these things, there's
going to be so much development that has to occur
before anything else can occur. And it's gonna change. Yeah,
(48:36):
it's going to change everything, and it's going to impact everyone,
and it's just it's that tough thing, right, you need
the resources that you're talking about. But then it affects
so many things.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Yeah, it affects biodiversity, which you know, some people care
about more than others. But it also affects things like
access to clean water, yes, which becomes very dangerous very quickly.
And we see precedent for this both in uranium processing
and indeed in lithium processing earlier in Nevada, Nevada, Nevada.
(49:12):
You say Nevada if you're in Nevada.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Now, I always say Nevada.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
I don't know why, We're just gonna say envy. Yeah,
you guys know what it is, Vegas rules, baby. But yeah,
this is this is a game changer, and it seems
that the economic and security advantages on the table make
it easy to say yes to conditions that would ordinarily
(49:39):
be a deal breaker for pretty much any presidential administration.
It's easy to dismiss folks you might not agree with
and call them entirely villainous. But we have to understand
the principal axiom of game theory and resource extraction is
that everyone in involved, whether you like them or not,
(50:01):
is a rational actor. So the best way to approach this,
especially if anybody's got some political ideology or preconceptions in
the conversation, we get it, We respect you. The best
way to approach this is to consider the counter factual.
What if this is not extracted? What if these resources
(50:27):
are not exploited? What happens when you can't get your
new phone?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Bro?
Speaker 3 (50:32):
What happens when the jets don't fly?
Speaker 2 (50:35):
We get all we all get super cranky. Is what happened.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
Which is going to be funny because in a future
Lister Bail conversation we're going to introduce something called the
hungry judge effect. Oh yeah, it's a good it's a
good teaser.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Right. We we do need to I think, not to
do too much Black Monday murder stuff, but we we do.
You have an episode ahead maybe about the new wave
of resource extraction.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
It carved out the insidious boundaries of colonial North Africa
and the Middle East. It carved out a great deal
Southeast Asia and indeed Latin America. So this is a conspiracy,
a nest of conspiracies, a rat king of conspiracies that
(51:27):
continues in the modern day. And it's crazy how it's
not more widely reported.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Yeah, I agree. Before we get out of here, Ben,
let's just touch on the other two that we found.
I think it was two other specific mineral deposits that
were located recently or that are in the news. The
uranium one. The uranium one freaks me out a little
bit because, as we all know, radioactive materials when they're
(51:53):
in the earth pretty safe. Deep in the earth. We're
not going to harm anybody. They've already kind of got
their own thing going on. Water moves around in different ways,
not a big deal. But as soon as you start
drilling a bunch of uranium out of the earth, humans,
then wildlife, we all got problems. We all got problems.
Why do we need all that uranium?
Speaker 3 (52:15):
I'd like to quote a good friend of ours. They
delved too greedily and too deep and disturbed that from
which they fled, Duran Spade. So shout out to our
buddy Gandolf. But there's truth in that parable, even though
again it's Lord of the Rings. Is not about nuclear power.
(52:37):
You're absolutely right, Matt, what a pickle, because is the
worst possible outcome not having uranium? I mean, what happens
to the people on the ground, right, Like the same
question with indigenous people who had their rights promised and
(52:59):
then betrayed all all for resource access by the way,
like not like political ideology was the what was the
cape and the cap that they put over resource extraction?
I don't know, man, We also we have to talk
about it, dude before we go. We promise we're going
to end on one good or interesting thing we need
(53:22):
your thoughts on. But before we get to that light
at the end of the tunnel, man, have you looked
up the Wiki travel or the CIA World Factbook entry
for Somalia.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
I have a fact book. I need to go look
it up. But I heard a thing, a little rumor
that maybe somebody else found a bunch of something in Somalia.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
I like how we're setting it up like the beginning
of a board game of clue.
Speaker 4 (53:49):
Right, yeah, so okay, all right, yeah, man, give us
the quick skinny.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
As we're heading now. Our friends at Turkey A have
that they've always had, honestly a little bit of interest
in Somalia, as have you know, the US, Russia, and
to a lesser degree, China. But could you tell us
a little bit about what Turkyer found as they started digging.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yep, they found twenty billion with a b billion barrels
of crude oil there in Somalia. We have seen and
discussed for about oil drilling and oil extraction in many
(54:36):
parts of Africa and what that actually looks like, the
human labor and the sites, and you know, the devastation
to surrounding areas that occur. And again not not specifically
in Somalia, but in many parts of Africa where a
third party comes in, let's say, with a little less
(54:58):
regard for the humanity and life that's there, and just
pulls oil out of the ground as quickly and kind
of as roughly as possible, it is pretty worrisome. It
is also strange to think about what other powers might
be thinking when they see twenty billion barrels of oil
(55:18):
just sitting there in the ground that anybody could take
if they were in control.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
Uh huh yeah, yeah, just make the deal with the
right pirates and warlords. Right. And also what role does
Somaliland play, which is yet to be is more stable
and is yet to be acknowledged by the United Nations,
arguably because it is more convenient to Western powers for
chaos to rain. You know, this also happens on the
(55:45):
heels of an earlier agreement in twenty twenty four. We're
going to do some red string theory here. Turkey signed
two major deals with Somalia. They have also been they
have also been putting their hands in the cookie jar
with the resource conflict in Rwanda and the DRC Democratic
(56:07):
Republic of Congo. As a matter of fact, we just
learned two weeks ago, but I think it I think
it got publicly announced after that that Turkey wanted to
meet mediate quote unquote between those two countries, and both
of those countries said, heck no, you know, for whatever
(56:33):
reasons they may have. But the the reason we're bringing
up without getting to into the weeds here, the reason
we're bringing this stuff up is because it's important to
realize when we're talking about this level of resource, this
threshold of economic potential, the news is announced far after
(56:54):
those conversations begin, like way far after. Yep, maybe that's
what we should do. What if the next headline is
something like stuff they don't want you to know. The
podcast discovers three trillion dollars worth of what's an obscure
but valuable element.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
I don't know, vanadium, vanadium, that is one. I think
it's obscure for sure, used in battery production, a bunch
of other stuff.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
Okay, so that's what we're gonna do if this show
doesn't work out, and while civilization is falling, we promised
you we'll have more on this. I do think it's
an episode. I think we're on board with that. We
wanted to tell you one cool thing, one future thing
as we end Tonight's Strange News program. We talked about
(57:47):
it over low these many years, and we always talked
about it kind of as a thought experiment. But Matt,
great news, Dylan, great news, you playing along at home news.
Some actual scientists have also started asking whether octopuses could
create the next iteration of civilization. So now it's not
(58:11):
just us now, it's like an actual biologist, Tim Coulson, PhD,
University of Oxford. We don't know if he listens to
the show, but he was thinking about this too. Well.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
I love it the idea that they can live in
a range of different environments. They come in so many varieties.
They live in deep ocean, they live in coastal shallows.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
They use tools. Yeah, oh, there's that really fascinating. Okay,
So the big problem with this and longtime listeners. You
know this. The big problem with the octopus replacing humans
in a civilization, like in a post human world is
going to go down to two primary things. The first
(58:56):
thing is they have very short lifespans, quite attenuay, and
that's partially due to a kill switch that occurs when
they reproduce. There was very interesting research in the nineteen
seventies that found you can extend the lifespan of an
octopus with the following caveats. It has to be a
(59:19):
female octopus, and you have to conduct essentially a kind
of lobotomy, a kind of brain surgery. You have to
remove the part of the organism that induces that kill switch.
But if you do that, you can allow the octopus
to live longer, apparently without too many terrible effects on
(59:40):
this cognition. The second issue that has always bedeviled water
born organisms is that chemistry, chemical discoveries, you know, all
the hits like fire and acid and all that stuff.
Fire in particular is a very difficult proposition for an
(01:00:02):
underwater society to discover. All to say, I think it
would be cool, But you know, those are the two
big issues that our octopus friends need to figure out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
They need to figure out how to work together too, right,
that was a big deal. That's a big deal, pretty
solitary and believe and cannibalize each other every once in
a while.
Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Yeah, But they also they have been found using tools
and creating little octopus suburbs.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
That's pretty different parts.
Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
But again to your excellent point about the environment, surviving
in an environment is not the same as thriving in
an environment. I'm all for more octopus brain surgery, and
I think I'm going to go ahead on record. I
think everybody else should be on board with this too.
I am making a greater good argument. I am aware
(01:00:52):
of how dangerous those arguments become, and I'm kind of kidding,
because you know there are are ethical boundaries against that
kind of experimentation.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Well, I don't think we're gonna have to. I think
we're talking about timescale stuff here, Ben. I think nuclear
winter sets in I don't know, twenty thirty ish, something
like that. Then you know, humanity slowly dwindles out, and
then those octopuses they got millions and millions and millions
of years to get where they need to get, build
(01:01:24):
those underwater metropolises that then get discovered by some other
species that has USO technology.
Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
There we go, There we go. There's so much more
to get to. We are running at times. So before
Dylan the Tennessee pal goes full volcanic white gold on us,
we are going to call it an evening. We can't
wait to hear from you. Please tune in later this week.
We're following up in some of these conversations with your
(01:01:53):
fellow conspiracy realist on our listener mail program in the meantime.
If you'd like to be part of the show, if
you happen to be an octopus listening to podcasts, we
would love to hear from you. You can find us
online on Instagram, YouTube, etc. All the social medis. People
sip we are conspiracy Stuff, conspiracy Stuff show, or some
(01:02:14):
derivation thereof. You can also give us a line at
our good old fashioned email address or call us on
the phone.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Our phone number is one eight three three st d WYTK.
When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and
let us know in the message if we can use
your name and message on the air. If you'd like
to send us an email, we are.
Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive
be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void rights back
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Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is still on an adventure, but will
be returning shortly.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Friends and neighbors, fellow
conspiracy realists, if you are tuning in the evening this publishes,
let us be the first to welcome you to Monday,
(00:53):
May nineteenth. Now, our friends over at Daily Zeitgeist, the
legendary Miles and Jack often like to begin their show
by naming off a number of national days. Right, Remember
we Matt, You and I talked about this over the years.
I think we're both befuddled by how ambiguous the process
(01:19):
of creating a national day is in the United States. Right,
you just have to like catch Congress at the end
of a session and say, everybody, you guys like sandwiches?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, Yeah, it is a little weird because there are
levels of official holiday in this country.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Right, right, right, We have very few holidays where the
American worker actually gets the day off. And I do
want to give respect to reluctant but objective respect to
the United Kingdom, where they straight up have holidays that
are just called bank holidays. There's no religious implication, there's
(02:01):
no you know, nationalistic implication. It's simply that the bank
is closed.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, it's pretty cool. And we have tax holidays.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
We have tax holidays. And in the spirit of our pal,
the legendary Miles Gray, who taught us this. If you're
hearing this, the day it publishes, this is get this
Matt May nineteenth. In the United States, it's frog Jumping
Jubilee Day, It's Malcolm X Day, It's Hepatitis testing Day,
(02:34):
and it celebrate your elected officials Day. Why which one?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
All of them? But Malcolm X, all of those the
malcam X.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I'm tempted to agree with you. We also we had
a brief conversation off Mike if we whether or not
we wanted to talk about one of the largest most
expensive gifts ever given to a US president, an airplane.
You've seen the news as our as a brother. Dylan
(03:05):
pointed out, John Stewart has a hot twenty minutes on it,
so check out that story. We wanted to start this
conversation by asking ourselves if we play chess. Matt Dylan,
do you guys play chess?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Sometimes?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I thought you were going to sound like me talking
about tech and I don't play.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Hey, no, I'm not amazing at chess. I do enjoy
the game, though, but my son is getting better and
better every time we play.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Nice Dylan says, he's never learned chess, so this may
be a chance for you and me and your son
to you know, have a big win. I'm laughing because
Dylan follows up and says he's a huge fan of
checkers at Cracker Barrel. I love it too.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I just bought one of the giant ones that they
call him the carpet Chess.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah you got one.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I just got one so the kids over here can
play checkers.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Okay, yeah, it's the same board, right.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It's from I got it from Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Amazing, amazing, and I believe you can still play checkers
in Afghanistan. However, fellow chess nerds, we have some news
for you. You cannot play chess in Afghanistan anymore. It
has been officially banned in the country and this is
(04:32):
due to not criminal concerns so much as religious considerations.
So yeah, this is up there with more I think
activity or behavior policing on the part of the interim
government will go to Comma dot com by an article
(04:52):
by fidel Or Ahamati which reads the following. Officials from
the Ministry of Sports confirmed chess activities are suspended as
of Sunday, May eleventh. They had to find suitable answers
regarding religious concerns. Right.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I'm seeing images of law enforcement officers there in Afghanistan
going around like listening really closely for the sound of
the click, right, other people taking turns, yeah, or like
back rooms that you open up at some restaurant. You
creak open a door and there's just a couple of
(05:33):
guys huddled around.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Chess speak easy, yeah, exactly right in whispers. It seems that,
at least according to conversations with Western analysts who definitely
have their own bag of badgers, it seems that maybe
the concerns are regarding some of the names of the pieces.
(05:57):
I would imagine particularly the bishop. So maybe that in
some ways has spreaffed the dander of these religious authorities.
We'd love to hear more from you, folks. We're moving quickly.
Matt and I have many, many tales to tell today,
(06:19):
things to share. We're going to talk a lot about
resource extraction. We're going to talk about some legal conspiracies,
some strange arrest. We may end by talking about the
future of a non human civilization. But before we do
any of that, it is no secret that we here
(06:42):
on stuff they don't want you to know. Travel often,
which means we need airports to work. So we need
airports to new work. So we're going to pause for
a word from our sponsors, and then what do you say.
I want to dive into that one.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, let's take a fight or not and we've returned.
Let's take a little flight over to Newark, New Jersey
if anybody remembers that from SNL. But really we're going
to Philadelphia. We're going to the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach
(07:21):
Control or track on this they call it. We're heading
over there because that is the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control.
That is the outfit that handles air traffic control for
the Newark Airport, the very very large airport there in Newark,
New Jersey. There are a lot of flights that come
(07:43):
in and out of that Newark Liberty International Airport, and
when there are problems there, it's a big deal because
these are people flying in and out of New York City,
one of the most populous areas in the United States,
and also where lots of really important business gets to.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You know, sure, we've all been there.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We've all been to New York, have not lived there yet.
But Newark Airport is interesting because you've got what You've
got three airports in that immediate area. You've got JFK, LaGuardia,
and Newark. When something goes down there at one of
those three big airports, it's gonna have a knock on
effect for all of the other airports where those flights
(08:24):
fly out to. And we're talking hundreds and hundreds of
flights per day. So again, Domino's here, what happened at
Trackon is pretty scary. The air traffic controllers on April
twenty eighth lost communications with the systems that they used
to see all of the planes in the sky for
(08:46):
only ninety seconds, but ninety seconds of not being able
to know where any flight is. And what do those
air traffic controllers do, Ben.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Oh, they control air traffic for one hundred alex.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yes, yeah, they they set They work with the pilots
to set for flight plans and make sure all of
the flights don't hit each other, to make sure that
the each landing strip is only being used by one
plane at one time, and then each of the planes
then taxiing are not going to be running into each other.
It's it's huge.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
They also actively now this is not AI run as
an industry. They also actively contextualize changes that will affect
the future of their airport and pass things like delays
for weather or mechanical concerns that will affect things in
(09:43):
terms of like look, air traffic controller professionals are, in
my opinion, kind of stressed out. And you and I
and maybe Dylan we both know a few, and they're
consummate professionals. They're often in an uphill situation because circumstances
(10:04):
change so quickly. You can't really if you're atc you
do not have a day where you kick your feet
up and just have a nice like macha or something
no like. You have to be on on for a while,
and especially if you're working with antiquated equipment, you have
to be the eyes in and for the skies. So
(10:27):
that ninety seconds you mentioned, Matt, I think this is
something all of our aviator friends in the audience are
going to be nodding their heads to that ninety seconds
could be ninety seconds of disaster quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And you are the human beings at the wheel in
that case, and you are blind because the technology has
decided to crap out, or it didn't decide to you.
It crapped out for one reason or another. And that
wasn't the only problem happening at the airport that day.
Let's just get into this because we've been talking about
the FAA and changes within the federal government and you know,
(11:06):
all kinds of issues. Let's jump over to NPR. I'll
give you the title here, how archaic tech, staff shortages
and construction made a meltdown at Newark Airport. And just
to read from that first paragraph, by the way, this
is heard on morning edition there at NPR and written
by A. Martinez and Nia Dumas. So here we go.
(11:27):
The Newark Airport was dealing with bad weather, staffing shortages,
outdated infrastructure, and the airport's busiest runway was closed for
renovations until June. So all of that stuff happening together
caused such an insane situation for everybody at the airport,
not just the air traffic controllers, because their jobs then
(11:48):
end up impacting the pilots and the crews. Then those,
you know, their jobs end up impacting all the passengers
and everybody who's working out on the tarmac, and it's
just it's just becomes a mess.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
And that poor guy in like seat thirty eight, e
go eight, I have a connecting flight? Do I have
a connecting flight? Well?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, because people are in that situation, and when you're
in that moment, it is the most important thing in
the world in that moment is to get on the
next flight.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, sorry, child slavery, there are other priorities.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well, it's true. Unfortunately, I think that's maybe just how
humans function when we're in that moment. It's just that's
all that matters. So this all occurred, a bunch of
the human beings, the air traffic controllers that were there
at track on ended up taking time off after that
day on April twenty eighth, and they took because they're
(12:44):
allowed to take time off when there's something like crazy traumatic,
something big happens.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Ever, like a mental wellness day.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yes exactly, because you cannot be on the job if
you're not feeling good to go, as you were talking,
as you alluded to earlier. Ben So then that all happened.
It was all in the news everybody's writing about, including
NPR there on May seventh. Then it happens again on Friday,
May ninth, another ninety seconds that they have no access
(13:14):
to radar in the systems. That thankfully occurred at three
point fifty five am, which is a very low traffic time, right,
so not as bad, but still something's going wrong with
the radar systems there over at Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Which means that if authorities are not able to isolate
and identify wherever this hiccup is occurried, it will inevitably
sinan again.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, there you go, and guess what it did in again,
Oh my gosh, on May eleventh. Yeah, again, it was
a radar outage. So it's just a it's a scary
thing considering what we read about This was a story
where a helicopter, a Blackhawk helicopter, accidentally intercepted an incoming flight. Yes,
(14:09):
everybody died. Other issues that you know, the industry is
having with Boeing planes with other planes.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
A lot of close calls with small private aircraft like
picture your assessments as well, that's happening. We know that there.
You know, there was chaos at Heathrow not too long ago.
One thing I think we need to we need to
establish on the air right now, on the air and
(14:37):
in the air right now, is the following. At this
point in the investigation, there is no hard suspicion of
bad faith actors. This does appear to be a consequence
of legacy technology, a consequence of lack of maintenance and
updates and improvements, and our a consequence of I don't know,
(15:04):
not looking out for the ATC.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah. Well, and you can read all of the official
statements from the FAA over on the FAA dot gov website.
Check it out. They've got statements on every one of
these moments that occurred, and you know, most it's going
over basically exactly what happened here, and it has a
lot to do with staffing, but again. Their last statement
(15:29):
that they put out on May thirteenth is all about, hey,
we've got twenty two fully certified controllers, we've got five
fully certified supervisors, and twenty one controllers and supervisors in training.
So they are doing their best, as you know, a company,
as a group an organization, to bring up more people
to be in that position to fill in when something
goes wrong on the human side. But when it comes
(15:52):
to the test system, yeah, they need huge updates and
they need funding to make those huge updates. So we'll
see how all of that plays out politically over the
next year.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Or so, which is a bummer because tech has no
religion nor ideology just yet, depending on how agi goes
and how it feels about itself, I imagine. But I
appreciate that point, and I think it's I think it's
crucial that we make that point now. US Transportation Secretary
Sean Duffy was talking on May twelfth to reporters and said, look,
(16:31):
we know what went wrong to the earlier point. He said,
there's a relay system feeding data from New York to Philly,
and that relay system failed and that is part of
this domino effect, this chain of suss tech. Right, SUSTech
sounds like it should be a word, but anyway, it's
(16:54):
the new SPI kids. So right now, as I'm catching
up with all this to actually delaying a flight to
the northeast Newark Airport is under a ground delay now
as we record on Wednesday, May fourteenth, but it's due
this time to weather. They're low cloud ceilings.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, you know, whether they're a low cloud seating is
what I heard too. But I like it.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I like it. This is why we hang out, all right, dude.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Last thing, Ben, I just want to put in here.
This is more stuff from who is this? This is
from the FAA specifically, but Secretary Duffy. Transportation Secretary Duffy
has stated there's all kinds of things that need to happen.
They're going to add new high bandwidth telecommunications connections being
(17:50):
these things called the STARS system. I don't understand exactly
what the STARS system is at this moment. I'm sure
we can look that up. They're going to replace copper
telecommunications connections with updated fiber optic tech. Hey, that's a
good idea, sure, And they're putting in a temporary backup system,
which is kind of cool.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, And it's also one of those things where you
know it's announced is good news, but the implication is
a little bit spoopy. Doup rights. It's like hearing local
fire department to have hoses installed on trucks and you're like, great, guys,
(18:32):
that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Also, what we just had a bunch of straws before, right.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Right, we have no backup system. We do also know,
of course, that current civilization depends upon safe air travel.
It depends upon safe air transit. If people don't care
for the travel aspect of it, I imagine that we are
(19:02):
going to see more more work in this case. And
I'm going to be cynical about why I believe these
problems will be fixed. Would you like to hear it?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Because wealthy people use planes.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Ah, you're right. But do they fly out of Newark?
Is the question?
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I mean, right, do they fly? Do they do they
fly commercial?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Uh? Maybe not? But the truly wealthy own a big
interest in the function of commercial airlines. And from a
defense perspective, which we don't really talk about, the United
States will never abandon its own ability to manufacture aircraft,
(19:50):
you know, I mean and to and to hold that
infrastructure sacroo sainct.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Well, less we just start ordering them all from Qatar.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Oh boy, they'll still be though they'll still be they'll
be about thirteen years old if I'm if I'm read
up on that. But then you have to you have
to consider, we're gonna move on. We're gonna hear. We're
gonna hear later from a couple fellow conspiracy realists in
the aviation field who have their own thoughts on UH
(20:23):
air traffic control in particular. So please tune in later
this week. In the meantime, Matt Dylan, before we uh
head off to catch a flight to Newark, should we
do an ad? Yeah, we have returned and we are
(20:45):
going to stay in Newark for the moment. We're going
to run through several stories quickly.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
But while we're While we're doing this, we're gonna follow
kind of a thematic thread that is very important to
Matt Dylan and your truly. Our first story is the following.
This happened pretty recently. Earlier this month, the mayor of Newark,
a town we just mentioned, was arrested at an immigration
(21:13):
detention facility where he was According to various perspectives, he
was protesting. So the idea is that the mayor ros
Baraka was arrested Friday and he had been protesting the
opening of this immigration detention center. We'll give you more
(21:34):
details in a second, but we need to understand that
the narrative diverges very quickly because this ice detention facility,
immigration detention facility was It's not its first rodeo. It
was reopened. It's Delaney Hall if you want to look
(21:56):
it up. D E. L. An Ey and and supporters
of investigating this facility. Notice the diplomatic language there are
saying that the mayor was not protesting, that the mayor
was legally investigating this structure, this compound. And right now
(22:22):
Braka is running to succeed Governor Phil Murphy, so he
has higher political ambitions. He has been involved with the
great state by state contention, I would say, over the
immigration issue. And he aggressively pushed back on the idea
of opening or reopening this center. He said it doesn't
(22:47):
square with building permits, which is kind of a matrix
dodge of larger moral contentions. He he was literally arrested.
Officials blocked his entry when he went in with three
other members of a congressional delegation from New Jersey. That
(23:10):
would be representatives, respectfully, Robert Menendez, Lamonica mc iver, and
Bonnie Watson Coleman. So the fads say you can't come
in here. There is what corporate America would call a
healthy conversation and what everyone else would call people shouting
at each other and yelling and pushing. And then this
(23:34):
is reported by Very Martinez, who is an activist associated
with New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. Martinez says, there
was yelling and pushing quote. Then the officers swarmed Baraka.
They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They
put Baraka again the mayor of Newark, in handcuffs and
put them in an unmarked car. Look, this is his Historically,
(24:01):
nobody wants to hear this, but this is historically not
the first time a mayor in a city in the
United States has been arrested. However, I want to throw
to you here, Matt for your thoughts. However, we can
see why this might give some people the jimmies. You
(24:22):
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, Oh, you don't go after the mayor, you say,
mister mayor, Please, we need you to stop doing this. Please,
mister mayor, as in you're talking to an authority figure.
But if when you've got federal agents or people working
at a federal level who come out and arrest a city's,
(24:45):
a major city's mayor, it just the picture it paints
is that I don't know what. Ah.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
So that's that's that's the issue, because okay, let's a
politically just with the with some critical thought.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Let's walk through this. As we said earlier, there are
four what you say, authority figures, right, a mayor, three reps.
So why is only the mayor arrested? Why did the
narratives differ? If we look toward a statement by Department
(25:23):
of Homeland Security, they said the lawmakers had not asked
in advance for a tour of the facility. They also
did not respond to that question about why only the
mayor was arrested. They did, however, say the following quote
or through a spokesperson quote, Members of Congress are not
(25:45):
above the law. We can agree with that and cannot
illegally break into detention facilities. Okay, sure, fine, no one can.
Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated
a tour. So it's kind of like I guess in
their logic, it's like a fancy restaurant that doesn't take walkins.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, well, it is kind of true, right, if you
have a detention center, you don't want people just anybody
coming in and out of it, like if it's on
a if it's a federal detention center, I can imagine
you want to lock that place down because of the
very nature of the place that it is. Right.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
But but.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
These are important individuals, you know, who operate the city
and this, you know, the state that this facility is
operating within. So it does feel like you wouldn't I
don't know, man, it makes me think of I think
it was listener mail the other day. We were talking
about one of the one of the executive orders that
(26:49):
was put out about strengthening and unleashing the law enforcement
in America, Right, and there's that one little piece in
there about local leaders and when local leaders demonizes or
cast dispersions or prevent law enforcement from being able to
operate the way we want them to on a federal level,
(27:10):
they will be prosecuted essentially.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It makes me think of that, like maybe the very
protest or the very yeah, the very concept of protesting.
It and ice facility like that. You know, doesn't matter
who's operating it, what private company is like in charge there,
It's going to be seen as an act of aggression
against probably the administration.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Sure. Yes. Also the logical conundrum, right the bag of
badgers here is what is what counts as a protest
versus what counts as not only the legal rights but
the legal duties of representatives of the people. Right, all
of these folks, the mayor and the reps, they were
elected by their constituents, which means that they have beat
(27:59):
me here, and they have certain they are required to do. Theoretically,
it's no secret that politicians often fall short of doing
what they are supposed to be doing. But this I
think exists to your point, Matt, your beautiful point earlier.
This exists in a larger context because at the same time,
(28:22):
the United States has seeing signals that are kind of
anti habeas corpus. Remember habeas corpus.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Huh sounds familiar, something about a body.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah, if you have the body. Right, So, the idea
is that if you are locked up, you are imprisoned,
you are able to I guess the diplomatic way to
put it, we are not lawyers. The diplomatic way to
put it is, in this country, you have a right
to appear in a court. You have a right to
(28:57):
go to a judge because they have your body. In
every sense, you have a right to go like, hey,
you know, why why am I here?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Why me? What I do?
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Right?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Did I like spit out chewing gum in Singapore because
I thought this was America? And then the judge is like,
oh awesome, sick line, Yes this is America. Right. So
people are also this is the next story. People are
also worried by what they see as signals that the
(29:28):
current administration is going to suspend the writ of habeas corpus,
the protection against unlawful detention or imprisonment, which is enshrined
in the Constitution.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
This is new to me.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah, there's a guy from earlier named Stephen Miller who
got into the news with some of this stuff and
their idea. Here will give you a quote from Miller
when he's talking to reporters outside of the White House
quite recently. He says, quote, the Constitution is clear the
privilege right, the privilege of the rid of habeas corpus,
(30:06):
can be suspended in a time of get this mat invasion,
So to say it's an option we're actively looking at.
A lot of it depends on whether the courts do
the right thing or not.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Oh god, it's a nice constitution you have there.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
It'd be a shamed something happened to it.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
It's what it feels like the language in there. You
don't have to have a character, you don't have anything,
just the language.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, privilege option.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
We're actively looking at whether the courts do the right
thing or not.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
A time of invasion. You clocked to that man that
is who Okay.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, yeah, And of course you know Steven Miller is
not himself the president of the United States, so that
that is a high level political official saying something on
behalf of the administration. But it's not the same thing
as you know, the current president saying, what's all this
(31:11):
complicated language?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Dude?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I just it's got the Yeah, we're both kind of
doing the stink face and not the cool stink face
that you do when you hear.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Good rap no, no, no, as a distinct stink face.
This is this feeling gross. Well, we should we connect this?
I know there's more to talk about there, but should
we connect it to the recent Department of Agriculture thing.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
We absolutely should you mind, reader, We've got to talk
about Department of ag and I think that'll get us
into some resource conversations that you and I are very
much looking forward to.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Oh my gosh, yes, all right, well let's jump into
it again, jumping to NPR, who is actively losing their
federal funding as we speak, which is an interesting that's
a whole other discussion to have just that concept that
their state sponsored media in some way, even though there
are mostly donations, but it is a potential conflict of
(32:12):
interest and always has been with NPR. And however they
always have PBS and PBS yes exactly. They do always
seem to be i don't know, independent dish with a
little bit of slant anyway.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Okay, so wait, wait, wait wait, also, folks behind the curtain,
cut to several years earlier when Matt and I used
to party and we're like three beers deep and one
of us is going.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Big bird is propaganda.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yes, but then also quoting stuff that's on morning Edition,
you know, and we're just like, eh, we're just trying
to we're trying to do our best, just like everybody else,
just to figure out what the heck is happening at
any time? So what is happening now? At least according
to NPR and some some let's say, some internal stuff
(33:00):
that keeps getting leaked. I don't know if we've all
noticed this, but internal machinations that are occurring within the
administration get leaked all the time, internal emails. According to
a person who can't be named, it's all happening right now.
There's a ton of leaked information.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
An anonymous source familiar with the conversation.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yes, the record said, talking about the Department of Agriculture,
quote demanding states handover personal data of food assistance recipients,
including social Security numbers, addresses, and an at least one
state citizenship status. These are according to emails shared with
NPR by an official who quote was not allowed to
(33:41):
speak publicly.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Cool but was clearly allowed to speak to a reporter.
This is such a leaky boat man right now, just
on the op SEC. This is wild. It's also you know,
it's an interesting contradiction, is it not, Because the the
existing ideology would argue that every citizen has a degree
(34:06):
of privacy and liberty right, the art of small government
and so on. You know, your jurisdiction stops where my
nose begins. That kind of thing. However, we can understand
why people would see this as counterintuitive to request a new,
(34:28):
more invasive wave of personal information from people who did
not have to provide that in the beginning. Or I
guess you know what. No, let's be fair, let's be objective.
If you receive food assistance like EBT or whatever the
program may be, Wick vouchers and so on, snap and
(34:51):
all that, Yeah, you already have to jump through many
hoops to get there, you know what I mean. You
can't just walk into the snapshack and say I want
SNAP and they're like, oh cool, thanks for coming. No,
they want to know stuff about you already. You have
to prove that you need it. And sometimes those standards
(35:14):
state by state are already extremely rigorous. Right, some would
say unfairly so based on inflation data. So what what
is the what is the concern here? And oh, also, Matt,
we have to mention it's not just the USDA. There's
a there's another hand to play, right, one of the
newest initiatives agency wise.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Oh wait, which one? I know? USDA? What's the other one?
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Oh, it's the it's the Department of Governmental Efficiency. The
Government Efficiency can't we can't dodge it. We can't dog it. Man.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Oh jeez, okay, yeah, that would make sense why they're
looking for so uh, let's talk about why it's a
big deal. The SNAP program or Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program
is administered on a state by state basis, which means
Georgia here where we are, controls all of all of
the SNAP money that goes out to people who qualify
(36:11):
in Georgia, and it goes the same all the way
across all the states. For a federal program to come in,
federal organization to come in, specifically DOGE, to be asking
questions about citizenship status feels off considering all of the
other stuff that is happening right now with immigration with
(36:31):
citizenship status, with deporting people to places like Libya and
or that may have been shut down who knows just
all with all of the stuff happening, having that specific
organization DOGE looking at that stuff feels like a red
flag like look out. They're looking for people, for more
people to just launch out of the United States. It
(36:57):
is one thing that that should be known here is
that someone who does not have official citizenship status within
the US cannot qualify for SNAP in any of the states,
but if you are a non citizen parent of a
child who is a US citizen, you can qualify, which
makes me think that that is specifically what the organization
(37:20):
is looking for.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Okay, so that's sort of the chain of operation is
to identify those people.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I mean, And that's my that's my take on looking
at it in the wider picture.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I don't think it's I don't think it's a bridge
too far, And I can see the the argument there
and without sounding you know, reductive, and without at the
same time sounding high faluting. The hard reality of the
situation here is that every human being is reliant upon
(37:56):
nutrition and sustenance such that it should, in a better world,
be considered a human right. And from what I understand,
the argument against guaranteeing those rights for people in these
United States is saying that they are not a part
(38:17):
of the United States, which I find similarly weird. I
would just you know what, Checkers had it right. The
guys who wrote you Gotta Eat an amazing tagline that's
quite honest about the quality of Checkers as a fast
food institution. Maybe they should have had a hand in
writing some of the Constitution. You know what I mean,
(38:38):
it's an inescapable fact that if a population starves, then
instability spikes, and we see that again and again. So
the question is this a good thing long term? Is
this a shortsighted look at us we're doing something getting
(38:59):
a headline kind of thing? You know?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Maybe I want to point to one thing the MPR
points to as well, and that is an executive order
that was put forward on March twentieth titled Stopping waste,
fraud and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos. And you know,
we've talked about siling of information on the show before,
a lot of it in the context of the black
(39:25):
budget programs, the programs that you know are special access
those things where only only a few people actually know
what's happening in that area. But there's still a bunch
of money that gets allocated to that area. Nobody gets
to see what happens to that money, but a.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Few unless you're on the list for the admission into
those underground cities.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, yes, and undersea basis. I'm joking a little bit
about that maybe, but.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yeah, I know you well, but in this case, it would.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
It could be seen as the SNAP programs, on a
state by state basis receive federal funding to the tune
of around one hundred billion dollars a year. So that's
not every state, that's all states combined. It could be
seen that the federal government wants to see where that
money goes and how it is spent.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Sure, And I think that's I think that's quite objective
to say there is nothing wrong with accountability here. We also,
at the same time acknowledge fairly valid concerns that this
would have an ulterior motive. It's already the language is
already what we call dog whistley. And you know, the
(40:39):
funny thing about this is at Dylan Friends and neighbors.
The funny thing about this is that if we're so
worried about spending money in one place, and we're so
profligate right spending money on foolish errands in other parts
of expenditure or the federal budget, the good news is
(41:03):
that the US might come into a lot of money
that has just been sitting in the ground. So why
are we so worried right about about buying some poor kid?
You know, I'll say it not not great cheese and milk,
and you know not Look, it's not the top tier groceries,
(41:26):
is all I'm saying. These kids aren't eating crab legs,
but the like. If we are so worried about money,
then shouldn't we as a nation be excited about the
one point five trillion estimated dollars worth of lithium recently discovered.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Oh, we should be so excited. Were so that we
probably should take an ad break to celebrate, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
A celeb break. And we're in fact, there are some
things that we have been tracking over a series of years.
You may have heard us mention it recently we were
talking off air. We couldn't remember if this was one
of our on air conversations or just us hanging out,
(42:15):
but we are both over the moon, over the mountain,
over the moon, to again explore the one point five
trillion US dollars estimated of lithium discovered right here in
these United States, occurring at a time when China and
(42:38):
the US are super beefed up and conspiring against each other,
clearly to figure out who helms the wheel of power.
Right now, just you know, if you're talking about resources
and you're talking about rare earth minerals and other things
that make your electronics go elect Then you are going
(43:00):
to see that China is the clear winner, not just
for resource access but for processing. So, Matt, can we
talk a little bit more about I love the line
you had there. Volcanic white Gold used to be used
to be Dylan's street name back in Knoxville.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Volcanic white Gold.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah, it was a different genre.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Okay, yeah, okay, So let's talk about it. There are
we talked about the value of these deposits or this
deposit The volume is thought to be somewhere between twenty
and forty million metric tons. That's a lot of lithium,
and that can make a lot of electronics, or at
(43:42):
least it can be helpful in making a lot of electronics,
specifically batteries. How many pounds of lithium are in a
Tesla model S? Ooh?
Speaker 3 (43:55):
How many? How many?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Around one hundred and thirty eight? Yes, and that's a
model S that is not the most common one you're
going to see on the roads. That that is the
amount you will find in Dan's car. So you know,
if he's listening still probably not, but if he is,
(44:17):
that's how many pounds of lithium are in your car, Dan.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Now I remember because that's the first thing he said
about that car. You guys like lithium. Check this out.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Oh but you know, all electric vehicles, anything that uses
a lithium ion battery has a certain amount of lithium
in it. And nowadays that's a lot of things in
our lives.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Sure, yes, that is why this is as mission critical
as a petroleum or fossile fuel supply or a uranium supply.
The issue is the pickle the back of Badger's a
plate that we mentioned earlier. This will be familiar to
anybody in oil or nuclear processing industries. It is important
(45:06):
to have access to the raw material right and wars
have been launched and probably will launch in the future
for access to any raw resource. However, the more important
step is processing, or the equally important step. So the
reason that China is by all metrics the world leader
(45:28):
in rare earth minerals, it's about fifty percent because of
access to raw materials through various agreements with other countries,
but it is the other fifty percent is the lack
of environmental regulation here in the US. Hard environmental regulation
and conservation policies prevent the cheap processing of these materials, right,
(45:55):
I mean, right now, if you dig into this, because
we're fun at parties, right, we know that the US
is fast tracking permits for new uranium mining operations in Utah.
Mining the uranium is not the same thing as processing
or enriching. It's just getting that stuff out of the ground.
(46:20):
And the United States has some surprising blind spots when
it comes to processing rare earth minerals nuclear materials. Right,
they often are going to be functioning in concert with
foreign owned consortiums. We've got like off few maybe deals
(46:44):
with the mission critical need to process uranium. We also
know that there is a hidden history to the United
States regarding how best to access and control resources in
this huge country. I mean, if you haven't been here,
(47:07):
no offense. I hate when people say this, but if
you haven't been here, if you haven't taken a road
trip to the US, you don't get it. This place
is spooky, huge, and it's arguably a haunted house. There's
a lot of stuff here. And for the indigenous peoples
who were living happily for thousands and thousands of years
(47:28):
before the US became a thing, the presence of precious
materials like fossil fuels or uranium has long been seen
as the impetus toward evil actions on behalf of the government.
We talked about this in our conversations with Leonard Peltier.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
We did, we did.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Sorry, I ted talked there. I just feel like we
have to establish that stuff.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Yeah, it was great. I am thinking about what happens
to this area. I just looked up McDermott, Nevada, uh
and uh Malua County, Oregon and like where this is,
so it's in. Yeah, we're sorry. I'm still on lithium.
I'm like kind of focused in on this because the
concept of this rather open area where there's not a
(48:15):
lot of civilization going on out there. There aren't even
many roads at all. So in order to set up
the stuff that we're talking about, to get the lithium
out to then go into the processing, to then you know,
going into specific lands and all of these things, there's
going to be so much development that has to occur
before anything else can occur. And it's gonna change. Yeah,
(48:36):
it's going to change everything, and it's going to impact everyone,
and it's just it's that tough thing, right, you need
the resources that you're talking about. But then it affects
so many things.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Yeah, it affects biodiversity, which you know, some people care
about more than others. But it also affects things like
access to clean water, yes, which becomes very dangerous very quickly.
And we see precedent for this both in uranium processing
and indeed in lithium processing earlier in Nevada, Nevada, Nevada.
(49:12):
You say Nevada if you're in Nevada.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Now, I always say Nevada.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
I don't know why, We're just gonna say envy. Yeah,
you guys know what it is, Vegas rules, baby. But yeah,
this is this is a game changer, and it seems
that the economic and security advantages on the table make
it easy to say yes to conditions that would ordinarily
(49:39):
be a deal breaker for pretty much any presidential administration.
It's easy to dismiss folks you might not agree with
and call them entirely villainous. But we have to understand
the principal axiom of game theory and resource extraction is
that everyone in involved, whether you like them or not,
(50:01):
is a rational actor. So the best way to approach this,
especially if anybody's got some political ideology or preconceptions in
the conversation, we get it, We respect you. The best
way to approach this is to consider the counter factual.
What if this is not extracted? What if these resources
(50:27):
are not exploited? What happens when you can't get your
new phone?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Bro?
Speaker 3 (50:32):
What happens when the jets don't fly?
Speaker 2 (50:35):
We get all we all get super cranky. Is what happened.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
Which is going to be funny because in a future
Lister Bail conversation we're going to introduce something called the
hungry judge effect. Oh yeah, it's a good it's a
good teaser.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Right. We we do need to I think, not to
do too much Black Monday murder stuff, but we we do.
You have an episode ahead maybe about the new wave
of resource extraction.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
It carved out the insidious boundaries of colonial North Africa
and the Middle East. It carved out a great deal
Southeast Asia and indeed Latin America. So this is a conspiracy,
a nest of conspiracies, a rat king of conspiracies that
(51:27):
continues in the modern day. And it's crazy how it's
not more widely reported.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Yeah, I agree. Before we get out of here, Ben,
let's just touch on the other two that we found.
I think it was two other specific mineral deposits that
were located recently or that are in the news. The
uranium one. The uranium one freaks me out a little
bit because, as we all know, radioactive materials when they're
(51:53):
in the earth pretty safe. Deep in the earth. We're
not going to harm anybody. They've already kind of got
their own thing going on. Water moves around in different ways,
not a big deal. But as soon as you start
drilling a bunch of uranium out of the earth, humans,
then wildlife, we all got problems. We all got problems.
Why do we need all that uranium?
Speaker 3 (52:15):
I'd like to quote a good friend of ours. They
delved too greedily and too deep and disturbed that from
which they fled, Duran Spade. So shout out to our
buddy Gandolf. But there's truth in that parable, even though
again it's Lord of the Rings. Is not about nuclear power.
(52:37):
You're absolutely right, Matt, what a pickle, because is the
worst possible outcome not having uranium? I mean, what happens
to the people on the ground, right, Like the same
question with indigenous people who had their rights promised and
(52:59):
then betrayed all all for resource access by the way,
like not like political ideology was the what was the
cape and the cap that they put over resource extraction?
I don't know, man, We also we have to talk
about it, dude before we go. We promise we're going
to end on one good or interesting thing we need
(53:22):
your thoughts on. But before we get to that light
at the end of the tunnel, man, have you looked
up the Wiki travel or the CIA World Factbook entry
for Somalia.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
I have a fact book. I need to go look
it up. But I heard a thing, a little rumor
that maybe somebody else found a bunch of something in Somalia.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
I like how we're setting it up like the beginning
of a board game of clue.
Speaker 4 (53:49):
Right, yeah, so okay, all right, yeah, man, give us
the quick skinny.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
As we're heading now. Our friends at Turkey A have
that they've always had, honestly a little bit of interest
in Somalia, as have you know, the US, Russia, and
to a lesser degree, China. But could you tell us
a little bit about what Turkyer found as they started digging.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yep, they found twenty billion with a b billion barrels
of crude oil there in Somalia. We have seen and
discussed for about oil drilling and oil extraction in many
(54:36):
parts of Africa and what that actually looks like, the
human labor and the sites, and you know, the devastation
to surrounding areas that occur. And again not not specifically
in Somalia, but in many parts of Africa where a
third party comes in, let's say, with a little less
(54:58):
regard for the humanity and life that's there, and just
pulls oil out of the ground as quickly and kind
of as roughly as possible, it is pretty worrisome. It
is also strange to think about what other powers might
be thinking when they see twenty billion barrels of oil
(55:18):
just sitting there in the ground that anybody could take
if they were in control.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
Uh huh yeah, yeah, just make the deal with the
right pirates and warlords. Right. And also what role does
Somaliland play, which is yet to be is more stable
and is yet to be acknowledged by the United Nations,
arguably because it is more convenient to Western powers for
chaos to rain. You know, this also happens on the
(55:45):
heels of an earlier agreement in twenty twenty four. We're
going to do some red string theory here. Turkey signed
two major deals with Somalia. They have also been they
have also been putting their hands in the cookie jar
with the resource conflict in Rwanda and the DRC Democratic
(56:07):
Republic of Congo. As a matter of fact, we just
learned two weeks ago, but I think it I think
it got publicly announced after that that Turkey wanted to
meet mediate quote unquote between those two countries, and both
of those countries said, heck no, you know, for whatever
(56:33):
reasons they may have. But the the reason we're bringing
up without getting to into the weeds here, the reason
we're bringing this stuff up is because it's important to
realize when we're talking about this level of resource, this
threshold of economic potential, the news is announced far after
(56:54):
those conversations begin, like way far after. Yep, maybe that's
what we should do. What if the next headline is
something like stuff they don't want you to know. The
podcast discovers three trillion dollars worth of what's an obscure
but valuable element.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
I don't know, vanadium, vanadium, that is one. I think
it's obscure for sure, used in battery production, a bunch
of other stuff.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
Okay, so that's what we're gonna do if this show
doesn't work out, and while civilization is falling, we promised
you we'll have more on this. I do think it's
an episode. I think we're on board with that. We
wanted to tell you one cool thing, one future thing
as we end Tonight's Strange News program. We talked about
(57:47):
it over low these many years, and we always talked
about it kind of as a thought experiment. But Matt,
great news, Dylan, great news, you playing along at home news.
Some actual scientists have also started asking whether octopuses could
create the next iteration of civilization. So now it's not
(58:11):
just us now, it's like an actual biologist, Tim Coulson, PhD,
University of Oxford. We don't know if he listens to
the show, but he was thinking about this too. Well.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
I love it the idea that they can live in
a range of different environments. They come in so many varieties.
They live in deep ocean, they live in coastal shallows.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
They use tools. Yeah, oh, there's that really fascinating. Okay,
So the big problem with this and longtime listeners. You
know this. The big problem with the octopus replacing humans
in a civilization, like in a post human world is
going to go down to two primary things. The first
(58:56):
thing is they have very short lifespans, quite attenuay, and
that's partially due to a kill switch that occurs when
they reproduce. There was very interesting research in the nineteen
seventies that found you can extend the lifespan of an
octopus with the following caveats. It has to be a
(59:19):
female octopus, and you have to conduct essentially a kind
of lobotomy, a kind of brain surgery. You have to
remove the part of the organism that induces that kill switch.
But if you do that, you can allow the octopus
to live longer, apparently without too many terrible effects on
(59:40):
this cognition. The second issue that has always bedeviled water
born organisms is that chemistry, chemical discoveries, you know, all
the hits like fire and acid and all that stuff.
Fire in particular is a very difficult proposition for an
(01:00:02):
underwater society to discover. All to say, I think it
would be cool, But you know, those are the two
big issues that our octopus friends need to figure out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
They need to figure out how to work together too, right,
that was a big deal. That's a big deal, pretty
solitary and believe and cannibalize each other every once in
a while.
Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Yeah, But they also they have been found using tools
and creating little octopus suburbs.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
That's pretty different parts.
Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
But again to your excellent point about the environment, surviving
in an environment is not the same as thriving in
an environment. I'm all for more octopus brain surgery, and
I think I'm going to go ahead on record. I
think everybody else should be on board with this too.
I am making a greater good argument. I am aware
(01:00:52):
of how dangerous those arguments become, and I'm kind of kidding,
because you know there are are ethical boundaries against that
kind of experimentation.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Well, I don't think we're gonna have to. I think
we're talking about timescale stuff here, Ben. I think nuclear
winter sets in I don't know, twenty thirty ish, something
like that. Then you know, humanity slowly dwindles out, and
then those octopuses they got millions and millions and millions
of years to get where they need to get, build
(01:01:24):
those underwater metropolises that then get discovered by some other
species that has USO technology.
Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
There we go, There we go. There's so much more
to get to. We are running at times. So before
Dylan the Tennessee pal goes full volcanic white gold on us,
we are going to call it an evening. We can't
wait to hear from you. Please tune in later this week.
We're following up in some of these conversations with your
(01:01:53):
fellow conspiracy realist on our listener mail program in the meantime.
If you'd like to be part of the show, if
you happen to be an octopus listening to podcasts, we
would love to hear from you. You can find us
online on Instagram, YouTube, etc. All the social medis. People
sip we are conspiracy Stuff, conspiracy Stuff show, or some
(01:02:14):
derivation thereof. You can also give us a line at
our good old fashioned email address or call us on
the phone.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Our phone number is one eight three three st d WYTK.
When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and
let us know in the message if we can use
your name and message on the air. If you'd like
to send us an email, we are.
Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive
be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void rights back
conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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