Stoolpigeon or upstanding avian? A parrot in the UK helps bust a drug ring. A massive Labubu heist prompts a conversation about artificial scarcity. Speeding fines may soon be based on an offender's financial status, rather than a flat fee. A scientist argues he's solved the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle -- all this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joyed as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee hal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
you to know. It's the top of the week, fellow
conspiracy realist, which means it's time for some strange news.
We've got some heist, We've got some true crime, not
(00:53):
in the way you might think, we've got some mysteries.
We've got a lot of stuff to talk about. Actually,
we're heavy on funny crime today.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh yeah, We've even got some conundrums trying to think
about how we punish people for breaking things like traffic
breaking logs or traffic violations and things like that. How
do we do it here, how do other places do it?
And is there a better way?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
There must be at Oh, it reminds me of this
statement that stuck with me because you guys know, I'm traveling.
I'm in a very crowded place, and one of the
best statements I heard about traffic recently is whenever you're
in a jam, you have to remember you're not in traffic,
you are traffic. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Is it boneted of me just to blindly pay all
these traffic citations I get in the mail that claim
to have seen me on some sort of camera. No,
there's a lens to dispute it. But I usually missed
this window for the link. And then it's just like, well,
I guess I just have to give you my money.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Now you have to pay the fines. You do not
want a bench warrant?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
No, No, I would if you don't, because you could
get jammed up so fast with a bench warrant. We're
all gonna you know what, We're also gonna solve the
mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, just in one sitting, because
get it. I said, get it. We'll keep it. Believe
it or not, folks, or get it, folks. We have somehow,
(02:14):
after more than a decade of podcasting, not done an
episode on the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
How is this possible?
Speaker 4 (02:21):
I don't know. We've done every other imaginable variation every shape.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
We've covered all the other shapes, just not the right.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
We made a video about the Bermuda triangle and then
the Dragon's triangle right, which was an equivalent place, and
then we.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Did it an episode of the on the Dragon's Triangle
for audio. But yeah, you're right, we never did the
Peruvian rhombus. We haven't done that. Oh yeah, sorry, the
Peruvian doom. You have to make it.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Something different.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Shape.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay, I will die on that hill something.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
It's something we've made up here and we hope it
doesn't become.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
A real spirits line is a shape component? Okay, sorry,
I'm not yes ending very.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
So what if we since we're gonna cover so much
funny crime today, Uh, why why don't we just start
with parrots? Uh? You guys have heard the phrase stool pigeon, right, You.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Never fully understood where it came from.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Is it just what is that?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Is the stool referring to the seats or the excretion?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Know that.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It's a reasonable question.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I mean, we know that it's used nowadays to mean
an informer, a snitch, a spy. It used to mean
a decoy, A pigeon used as a decoy was a
stool pigeon, and now we just mean it. Now we
just use it to mean this person is snitching. So
I think bit of a Benedict Arnold, A bit of
(04:02):
a Benedict Arnold, one of the only bad bends up
there with Benito Mussolini. We don't claim those bends, which
is why they we say the full Benedict or Benito.
Try not, you know Ben Mussolini or or Ben Arnold. Uh.
This is a true story, folks. We owe a debt
(04:25):
of thanks to Mango the Parrot. Mango the Parrot said
the following in a video clip that actually helped solve
crime in the United Kingdom. I want to hear it
here it goes. I've got to keep it closed there,
replay it World War Decode.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Okay, keep it twenty five one more time.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
No hold on.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Saying that that's the parrot an accent.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Understand because he was taught by people in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Does this not seem like an Agatha Christie plot twist?
Like it would have given away the game when the
parrot like named the killer or something.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Lang. Sure, police raided some homes in Blackpool and that's
where they discovered Mango the Parrot. He belonged to the
girlfriend of a drug gang ring leader named Adam Garnet.
Love it. So the the gang members who are now
(05:33):
you know, in deep trouble. They they filmed the parrot.
Everybody in the crew loved Mango, so they would film
Mango saying drug phrases. They would film Mango playing with cash.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Parent like making it rain yes, okay.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah yeah, like litl tay from back in the day.
And this drug ring was pretty profitable until they got caught.
H They had something to the tune of a million
pounds of narcotic prophets. And this is the bring leader
in fourteen people. So fifteen people all told thanks to
(06:12):
the testimony, can you parrot, you don't have to They
love to talk. That's you don't have to. You don't
have to jam up a parrot. They're so ready to
go anyway, this drug gang, thanks to Mango the Parrot's
police work and cooperation, they have been jailed for a
combined total of more than one hundred and three years.
(06:34):
So no judgment call, folks, But if you're up to
some shenanigans, just be careful. You know how you hang
out with parrots.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Who needs brother when you got Mango the parent.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
It's only the second person that I've cared about named Mango.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
We love Mango. There's a real person in our lives
name that goes by Mango. It's true.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yes, the legendary Mangesh had a gutur. If you ever
see him involved in a podcast, check it out immediately.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Seal of quality, the Mango. Seal of quality is what
we call it.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Yes, the Mango stamp. Guys, what if we do something
a little bit different for today? Do we want to
pause for a word from a sponsor and then just
like Round Robin with stories?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I think so?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
That sounds good, Matt.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
What's some strange news on your mind?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Oh, buddy, I've got some really interesting strange news today.
If we want to get into this. We were talking
about fines. We kind of talked about it, hinted at
it in the front. Okay, in our big series we
did on diplomatic community, we talked about how there are
vastly different ways that punishments are doled out. All right, well,
let's put it this way. Theoretically, punishments are standardized when
(07:48):
it comes to finds and things.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
All people should be equal in the eyes of the law.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
But the way it less they're diplomats, yes, unless they're diplomats.
If they're not diplomats, then the way it affects every
individual person is going to be different based on things
like their income, their family, the overall wealth that they have.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Because if let's say it's a five hundred dollars fine
for speeding, Okay, yeah, it's gonna hit some people as
a devastating blow, right, but from other people it's like
going and buying a soda at the gas station or something.
And that's just the reality of it.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Oh, that's an interesting thing to bring up there, Matt,
because there is a country, I want to say, it
may be Finland. There's a Scandinavian country where you're fine
depends upon your income.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Well, thanks for scooping it, ben geez, take it.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Back, take it back, give it to us.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
What happens in Finland, well, Scandinavia.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
It doesn't seem right the way it's currently done. So
there is a potential fix for this problem, guys. And
it comes to us from countries like Switzerland, Germany and Austria,
and there are many more. By the way, the Nordic country.
There was a gentleman, a gentleman who was caught going
way too fast in a Swiss city, just on the street.
He was going seventeen miles per hour twenty seven kilometers
(09:11):
per hour over the speed limit in a place called Lazone, Switzerland.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
I know, well, fancy place.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
I don't, I don't listen it. He was going seventeen
miles over right. He is facing a fine of up
to one hundred and ten thousand dollars US US.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Equivalent Swiss run. I got it.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I got ninety thousand Swiss frogs.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Okay, first of all, ninety thousand Swiss seventeen miles over here.
That wouldn't even be considered like a super speeder ticket,
not at all.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Right, Right, it's Europe, so it's going to be more strict,
just in the baseline, that's true.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
So why are they why are they jamming this guy
up in this fashion? Well, what did he do this?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
This person is a repeat offender, at least according to
ABC News reporting on August Defender, and he he is
one of Switzerland's wealthiest people, so he will see. Yeah,
he's on a list of the top three hundred wealthiest
people in Switzerland. And so in Switzerland, when you are
(10:13):
facing a fine like this, a civil penalty, they don't
base it on some kind of standardized number if you're
going a certain mile of par over or something. They
base it on the wealth or family status, or basically
who you are as a person, and how much you've
got in.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
The bank, financial your social and financial content.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yes, oh yes, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So if you are someone who has almost no wealth,
right at least.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
For say a podcaster, Yeah, if you're a.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Podcaster, you may not face a fine at all. You
will just spend the night in jail.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Now, I am not against this idea of letting the
punishment not necessarily fit the crime, but be meaningful in
some way, you know. Otherwise, what incentives do people have
for not speeding or not breaking the law. But this
seems a little overkill, but I'm just putting that out there.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Let's also point this out that this idea, this kind
of tiered system of fines, is tremendously popular with the
vast majority of people who live in those countries. There
are some people who don't like it, and they're the
very well to do people on the far end of
the spectrum.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Well, yeah againness, what we talked about, a lot of
these fines traditionally, at least in the US, have been
treated as a slap on the hand. If you know
you're you get a even a five hundred dollars speeding
ticket or something. It's nothing to some people, but to
others it is. It has a massive effect on let's
say your monthly expenses or something. It just kind of
looms over your head. It's a really interesting way to
(11:48):
handle it, because even if you've got millions of dollars,
like this other guy who was he was riding around
in his ferrari, he is facing a ticket equal to
two hundred and ninety thousand for speeding in twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now that may smart, right, but that's not going to
keep him from eating that week. Well it won't.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
But imagine like if you're somebody on those upper echelons,
your your wealth manager coming to you.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Really, oh, we really got to knock speed.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah, this is not I'll do the wealth managure part. Okay,
Admiral von Frederick. We've got the latest Q four petty
traffic crimes reported and Admiral you're just going to have
to either stop speeding, or you'll have to stop doing
it while you're drinking hogwash. I do what I want,
all right, we'll put it in the hogwash file.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yes, it's a tax right off.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
There's another really interesting thing that happens here, as again,
if you're really trying to stop people from doing things
like speeding or any kind of punishment you would get
for you know, a public disturbance something like that, just
these small or fine things. Sure, the courts find this
one person around twelve thousand dollars up front, and then said,
(13:04):
if you violate one of these rules again in this
same similar way, we're going to find you the rest
of what you owe, which would be around ninety eight
thousand dollars, And then if you do it again, we're
just gonna double. We're gonna start increasing that number every
time you violate again.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
So it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
It does seem like a way to prevent some of
those things from happening.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It reminds me of that there's a Curb Your Enthusiasm
episode that went into this idea of scarlet letter punishments,
where like, you do a thing and you get punished
in a way that like outs you for having done
the thing like you have to like publicly wear a
sign of shame of some kind like d ui per
habitual d ui. You know, I guess convictions leading to
(13:49):
a certain kind of license plate that has like a
whiskey on it or something.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
They call them. They call I think it may be Ohio,
they're called party plates. Yeah, really yes. But a certain
judges and you created and it is up to the discretion,
of course of the judge to dish out the scarlet
letter punishments here in the United States. And so one
thing that's clever, going back to your story, Matt, one
(14:14):
thing that's clever about this system of punishment is that
it removes the trouble with a flat rate punishment, right.
I can't remember the stand up comic who said it.
They were talking about divorce, and they said, if you
owe ten thousand in a divorce and you make ten
million a year, you can live with it. If you
(14:34):
owe ten thousand in a divorce and you make one
hundred thousand in a year, then you might be in trouble,
you know. So raising this stuff, raising it based on
the socioeconomic context or the financial means of the person
added with their repeat crimes. It avoids the error of
(14:55):
making something just the quote unquote cost of doing business.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yes, you know, yeah, I think I'm on board.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Well here's the other thing. Guys, how many we've all
gotten a speeding ticket? Right, we've gotten a speeding ticket?
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Oh my god, I was a kid ticket Yess, when
I was.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
A kid, I was I was speeding down South Georgia,
heading towards Columbus, and.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I got a speeding ticket.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
All well, it was a police officer who physically had
a you know, one of those radar things checked my speed.
That's how I got a ticket. In this case, this
person is being charged one hundred and ten thousand dollars
US from an automated system.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I talked about this a minute ago during the intro.
I recently paid a ninety five dollars parking ticket that
I was notified of in the via the mail, and
I missed the window to dispute it, and therefore I
had no choice but to pay it. But you do
kind of have to trust these systems, which I don't
know if I inherently do.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Well, can you imagine a computer just telling you, hey.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Yes, yes I can't. I can't because it's a calculation. This. Okay,
I'm going back on the It's Big Brother rant, you guys,
because I can absolutely believe it. I'm a face on
a screen as I say this, just like the adaptation.
Oh jeez. Yeah. But the reality is that automation is
(16:16):
you know, people talk about it on internet forums all
the time about how it hits private industry, but it's
coming for law enforcement too. We're not too far away
from a world where in the law enforcement and the
judges may be largely automated. And some people would argue
that that might be a fair, more fair world, but
(16:38):
I am skeptical.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Well, we certainly talked about how the algorithm based crime
prediction as a real interesting place in the future.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Minds, we have an idiocracy right now, Shut the hell up.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Evidence and stuff. You know.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
The one thing that didn't age well about that move
is their repeated use of the F word.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, but again, that's like right the point, yes, yeah,
So what else?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
What else do we need to know if we're if
we're a loyal conspiracy realist in the crowd, what else
do we need to know about this story?
Speaker 3 (17:22):
We need to know that this is I think an
awesome way to do civil penalties and things like that,
and I don't know. We were talking earlier with our
I guess we call him our boss, but more of
our bro will from our time genius. We were hanging
out with him earlier talking about this, and he said,
or he made the point that he doesn't think it
(17:43):
would ever come to fruition in the United States, at
least on a federal level, right because these laws that
we're talking about are on the local level or a
state level usually. So maybe we could find places in
the US that start doing this, but he doesn't think
it would be a blanket.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It seems like the criticism in the US would be
it's communist, you know, or it's like socialism. This idea
of paying your share doesn't typically go over super well here.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
But yeah, what it wouldn't make you It would violate
to a lot of people the idea of being treated
equally under the law, which is a buzz buzz. I
know I'm saying it's a buzz I'm not I'm not
the one that idea. It's just it's the it's the
buzz phrase that people throw around. Add to that, uh,
Congress has a lot of a lot of financial theft,
(18:33):
and their primary campaign contributors are people who do have
to pay more for parking tickets. So I agree with
I agree with Will. I think it'd be better if
it did happen, but the odds are stacked against this
in the States.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
But if you think about it objectively, I think maybe
you could get enough people to see the light here,
because how do local areas get income for things like
roads for you know, in repairs like that, for all
kinds of things that are public utilities, public things that
go on. You get that funding a lot of the
(19:09):
time from these types of penalties, from the lottery, from
depending on what taxes are on things like alcohol and cigarettes.
That's where these counties generally in the US get their money.
If you had a couple of really rich folks in
your county that ended up paying one one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
One ticket paid for swimming for the whole year, seriously,
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
But then that could lead to corruption as well, right,
because now what if we are watching those people far
more ghostly to see whether or not they're wearing a
seat belt. Yes, I'm also if I were you know,
in this small town, you're describing Matt, I'd be all
about it, you know what, I mean.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Everybody else would be except that one.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, because because you're outnumbered then right. And it's also interesting,
I guess we probably don't have time to get into this,
but it's interesting to see how this might be applied
in countries that have different laws or legislation around morality.
Like what if your first divorce costs Your first divorce
(20:17):
does cost more to pay on how much you make.
But what if your second divorce, no matter what, has
higher fees. What if your third divorce has increasingly higher fees?
You know what? You know, I guess we have to
include those sort of We have to remember that there
are a lot of countries that have religiously based moral laws,
(20:38):
and that's where it could get sticky too. For sure.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, I think you'd have to make a clear separation
of that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
It's just for the things that's it's the rules that
everybody is agreeing upon. If you break one of those, sorry,
But it's.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
A similar argument to the idea of like taxing the wealthy,
you know, yeah, I mean, and that certainly doesn't go
over well here. In fact, there's a lot of in
this administration, laws being passive, that the wealth you have
to pay the less tax, and this notion of carrying
your fair share because of the fortune that you have
had the benefit of achieving under our financial system. People
(21:14):
don't like that.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
It feels like punishing success. That's the argument. Yeah, I'm
to leave it with this, guys. Uh again for BBC News,
the vowed criminal vowed v A U D. I think
that's how you would say, the vowed.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I vowed to take down all criminals. That's okay.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, this is the region in Switzerland. Their criminal code
sets a maximum financial penalty based on the quote personal
and economic situation of the offender at the time of
the ruling, which is really interesting and important. Uh So
it takes into account issues like income, fortune, lifestyle and
(21:50):
family financial needs.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Has there been any pushback in the region about this.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
I'm not seeing any pushback here. But again, we've got
a single story for MAYBE News talking about something that
happened in Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
There's more to be learned, that's true.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
We have to go we have to go to the
town hall meeting.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
But for now we're just going to go to the
ad parlor. We'll be right back with more strange news.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And we have returned with more strange news. Gonna lead
with a couple of the quick mentions. We love a
weird heist and this is one for the books and
for our time. Seven thousand dollars worth of something called
la Boobooh it was was taken as heisted from a
(22:39):
specialty toy shop in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
What is this, suspect?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, tell me about of this labooboo?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
When wld suspect?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Where should we start?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Who is the number one? That's my been, Liam Nees,
Liam Neeson. Oh No, it's a great clip of Liam
Neeson being presented with the existence of these lab booboo
which I'm obviously playing up my ignorance of I know
what a boo boo is. I'm I love a blind
box as much as the next guy. Popmarts are fun,
but well, then tell us about those These kinds of
crazes are always there. It's like a Pokemon craze, or
(23:12):
like the uh pog crease of the nineties, or probably
a better analog as meanie babies. You know, this idea
of a perceived scarcity of a fashion association a sort
of luxury perception, almost like they're being treated like like
a lubiton shoe or something, but it's a la boo
(23:34):
boo insteads these little creepy, grinning devil monster things. I'm
also seeing some delightful memes about I don't know if
it's true or not, Christian groups saying that they are
satanic and their demonic and must be stopped.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Because their browser far road. They have pointy teeth, they're
plush toys.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Horse.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, well, the Buddy Rabbit fairy.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
One man's buy another man's horns, devil.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
I've always yeah, we've always said that on the show.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
This is also I think you yailed it with the
manufactured scarcity so much so that there's an entire global
industry of something called la fufu or boo boo. This
for sure knockoff ones. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I was just hanging out having an adventure in our
lovely area of Buford Highway here in Atlanta, which is
a mecca of amazing ethnic cuisine and you know, shopping
and you know everything from Vietnamese bond me shops to
excellent tal Koreas. And I was at this really incredible
karaoke shop that just sells. You probably know all about
(24:37):
this bend with your travels. But like, karaoke is huge
obviously in Japan, and there's lots of like different CDs
you can get that have specific visuals and artists that
are specifically kind of karaoke fied. So this is a
shop that's devoted to that. And behind the counter they
had a string of la booboo fau boo boos hanging
and I was like, surely those can't be authentic. I
(24:58):
didn't ask, but if they were authentic, I think they
would have been selling for quite quite a bit more money.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Now, okay, guys, is it that this is all I
know of? This kind of blind oh you know boo? Well,
I imagine I'm bringing it up again. Sorry, stuff. They
don't want you to sandwich the way I imagine is
like the Magic the Gathering cards. They sell them on purpose,
in those ten to fifteen packs that you don't know
what's inside it, you get the lottery.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
There's a lot of built in redundant purchasing built into
this miles.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
We'll say exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
But so there are certain ones like the like those
cards where like a couple.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Of them are there's like a one that's called a
gold go Boo Boo.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
I think, guys, my girlfriend taught me this. For these
kinds of collectibles, they're called chasers, the ones that would
be the equivalent of the rare MTG.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
The golden tickets from the Wonka Fame. Yeah, for sure,
I think there literally is one that's called a twenty
four carrot gold laboob but I don't think it actually
is made of twenty four carret col But that is
one of the most sought after ones, and they're auctioning
for upwards of twenty cat.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
So, Noel, riddle, be this, Why are we bringing up
La Boo Boo? Why the sudden interest?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yep? Then I just mentioned that story there out of
Los Angeles, and there is actually another story. This is
good news. This came on August to twelfthugh just yesterday
as we record this. Whereas the previous story was a
week or so old. Police recover thirty thousand dollars worth
of laboo boots and foiled Southern California heist. Thousands of
dollars worth of highly collectible Leabuobu figurines were discovered recovered
(26:27):
rather during a burglary investigation in San Bernardino County authorities
announced earlier this week in all fourteen boxes. That's only
fourteen boxes of the furry little monsters, which are currently
having a huge popular culture moment where the estimate of
thirty grand will recovered. Police say, how is that possible?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Aren't they're tiny?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Right?
Speaker 4 (26:48):
Aren't they small?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
They recover their medium recover.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
They recovered it from the scalpers who had already inflated
the price.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's yeah, yeah, exactly what they are worth on the
open market, not not the yeah, exactly, not retail.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Do they have a drug bust photo? You do? Yes,
drugs on.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
The table, boo boos on the boxes. Yeah, look for yourself.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
And there's only fourteen.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
They literally are. You can see every single one of them.
And obviously this is a associated with this company called PopMart,
which is very popular place that you might only find
in bigger cities. They are really, really neat. I'm a
huge blind box fan. I have no skin in the
game as far as like I need to get this one.
I just think they're fun. I enjoy getting them, and
(27:35):
there's certain designers that I like, but I'm not about that.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Life writer and I have gotten several Pokemon like blind
boxes like that we really like.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Yeah, guys, I'm losing so I'm losing my shirt to
these la boo boo and these. I got a waker
up and ask what the other ones are, but they
they run my gibs.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
What there's I've been to the Popmark over at Themology,
Orgia and walked in and it was or it wasn't
power it was a different one, but it perhaps it
was an entire store of shelves of these boxes.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah, mikills and shelves.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
They're huge.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I've been to a couple of pop marts. There's one
in the Oculus World Trade in New York. Qu that
that that train stop the oc was that weird mall
is one in there that I was at recently, and
there are lines out the door. Often because again to
the perceived scarcity of it all, most of these brick
and mortar shops are very small, and that's sort of
by design.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
And you also have to get this, guys. To accelerate this,
you also often have to enter a lottery for the
ability to enter the store and shop. You have to
pay to win a chance to spend money, which is
ethics aside, brilliant and anybody listening, I need your help,
(28:55):
uh not entirely with my consent. My house is slowly
turning into one of the stores.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So yeah, I'm not far off.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Welcome, huge, huge fan of these.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
We got him lining every window still in the spot.
But I don't have a labooboo and don't really care
too much about it. So this this took up a
lot more time than I was expecting. But it is
interesting in this whole perceived scarcity and the fact that
this dude that created this quite a while ago, to
you know, very niche acclaim is now a multi billionaire
ben you were mentioning young young dude too.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Yeah, he's a young man with a incredibly tragic backstorre.
His name's Cossing Long, Hong Kong illustrator and the popmark designer.
He's clearly best known for Boo Boo. But we were
I think we were all surprised to learn that he
is actually I don't remember a specific net worth, but
(29:47):
he is a billionaire. He's pretty young as billionaires go,
about fifty two years old. He's a self made man,
which we love to see.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Oh, I thought he was a little younger than that,
but I guess his billionaires ago that is someone so
this Quskin. That's yeah, that's very true. So real quick,
I just want to mention a couple other stories. A
swarm of jellyfish took out a French nuclear power plant.
Basically this, this power plant, the Gravelin's nuclear power station
in France, had to go offline due to a massive
(30:16):
storm of jellyfish that clogged up its cooling systems. And
WECE does a really fun job of putting this in
underdog story terms. They say, actually in the article by
Lewis Prada, if you've ever felt powerless, remember that a
bunch of spineless, brainless sea creatures that look like floating
plastic grocery bags just temporarily shut down one of Europe's
(30:39):
biggest nuclear power plants. So you know, take that for
what it's worth. It's a it's a story of inspiration.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
You may not be that powerful, but if you are many,
you can make things happen.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
That's exactly right. It's like the plot of the movie
Ants or A Bug's Life.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Or World Z plot. Yeah, the plot of literally every
revolution in human history. Are leader of us that there
are of them, we are Spartacus.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah. Yeah, So that's the real quick mention of that one.
And the last one that I just think is fun.
In Ohso, Florida is a dude wearing a Chuck E
Cheese mascot outfit at an actual Chuck E Cheese restaurant
in Tallahassee, Florida, was escorted out by police and handcuffs
with the head on and everything, right in the middle
(31:25):
of taking photos with children. Wow, I think he has
a little poor form from the Tallahassee Police Department. Gotta
say whatever this man did, which was like, I think
he made some illegal purchases on a stolen credit card.
Not cool, had a little lead on him, had done
some credit card from the past. Okay, but come on, man,
purp walking Chucky Entertainment.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Here's my theory what I saw this. My theory was
this guy. Hopefully I'm painting him as an anti hero
in my mind. Folks. He was getting arrested right and
they were like, take off your cut, to take off
your mask, and he said, no, I'm going down the
way I came up the mouse.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well, apparently they did take the head off once they
got to the police car, adding to the trauma of
the young l Yeah, that's exactly right. And then the report,
the reporting from Fox thirty five or Orlando. I'm just
going to read the headlines because it has the most
heartbreaking quote from one of the small children who's clearly traumatized.
Chuck E. Cheese mascot arrests leaves impression on Florida family.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Does this mean Chucky's gone forever? So, by the way,
I misspoke earlier and called him Chucky Entertainment, It's Charles Entertainment. Y, Yes,
put some respect on his name.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
It's only Chuck if you know him personally.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Yeah, Charles w Chuck Entertainment.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
So that's all, y'all. You know, nothing really analysis wise
we're going into on this one. Just a little bit
of an excessive force on the part of cops and
punishment not quite fitting the crime. Couldn't they have waited
until he got off.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
His shift and not ruined things for the kids, you know,
because also the parents are trying to do something fun
for their It's it's weird anyway. Also, tell us last
time you purp walked in mascott? Oh.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
I do want to add a funny little detail. Law enforcement,
it says in the Orlando piece has not yet said
whether the costume disguise was used with intent to evade detection,
which could lead to a further charge.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
That would be amazing.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Here jamming this guy seriously, man, we've been jamming. We've
been jamming on jamming up this entire episode, by the way,
which I love. Authorities have not confirmed whether additional charges
are pending, but so far we have the possession charge
and the credit card fraud charge. I will just say,
as we close this sex segment out that there is
(33:52):
a new Chuck E Cheese concept coming to America that
is for adults only. It's not good.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
There's one in them all, Georgia.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
It seems like it wouldn't be good.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
It's terrible.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
It seems awful. It's like sub sub Dave Inbusters.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yep, it's no Club Apple. You guys remember that sometimes
Apple's right, Missigan Control Paul Decade. Yeah, Club Apple was
a was an effort by the Applebee's company to have
a more of a late night disco vibe for the swingers.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, exactly. All right, let's take a quick break here
at word from a sponsor and then come back with
Ben's Strange News of the.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Day, and we have returned, folks. We're gonna move quickly
through some things for time. In the last act of
our weekly Strange News segment, I want to start with
a correction to an earlier story. While Cosin was the
(34:55):
guy who originally designed low Boo Boo the billionaire, the
guy who made the money off of Edison style is
the PopMart CEO Wong Ning. He is thirty eight. His
net worth is something like twenty two point one billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Okay, so that's not the Boo Boo guy.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Guy is the guy who made the money off the
boogoo by using PopMart. The artist because Sing Lung is
doing well for himself.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
But he's not not the billionaire. Okay, Because some of
the reporting was a little vague around that. I appreciate
the clarification. It feels a little tesla Edison does not.
Don't disagree or a little there's a tesla tesla like Elon,
you know, his whole grabby hands at other people's ideas.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
And congratulations to you, Elon, you're a big fan of
the show. I'm assuming you just got a promotion as well. Yeah,
and I hope big balls is okay. I heard he
got beat up by a bunch of kids.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Did you see his the payscale for that guy in
the pay package?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yes, talking about I think he got a big old
like stock.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
It's massive. These aren't even the stories to close out
the last part of our Strange News segment, Folks, there's
our big last story. We talked about the Bermuda triangle
at the top. We wanted to deliver on this. There
is a guy who says he has solved the Bermuda triangle.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Thank you God, thank you.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
Just sat down. He figured it out in my in
my head. You know what I'm picturing is the guy
just found out about the Bermuda triangle, like earlier in August,
and he said, well, no one's really figured this out.
And they said, no, we don't, we don't know. And
he said, kriikey and he sat my Foster's.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
You guys, do you ever wonder if it takes somebody
who has no context for a problem es to be
able to analyze it and then actually see the thing
that everybody else is blind to because they've been looking
at it for so long.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
One hundred percent that's why, that's why so many revolutionary
breakthroughs in mathematics come from very young mathematicians.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Arguably that's why certain musical musical prodigies haven't heard a
lot of stuff before and then just know it. You
know it'd be really it's there are a lot of
weird experiments. Actually in that regard, I'm making the mad
scientists face. Okay, there are some experiments we could do
if ethics weren't a thing. But I love your point, Matt,
(37:33):
because our pal here, Carl Kruzelnikki, is an Australian scientist
and hearing the headline this guy solved the Bermuda triangle
instantly makes us think of allegations of the paranormal, the supernatural,
conspiracy theories. He doesn't subscribe to any of that. He
thinks it's wackado. Let's go to an article in Popular
(37:55):
Mechanics We're big fans of Them by Tim Newcombe, which
was just published this August, August ninth, so mid birthday
season for us. Here's what here's what we would say. First,
we got to explain what the Bermuda triangle is for
anybody who may not have heard of it. I feel like,
(38:16):
if you are in the West. You were interested in
the paranormal. You've heard of the Bermuda Triangle, sometimes also
called the Devil's Triangle. It's just loose things sort of
like picture the points of the triangle being Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Florida,
right down down to the tippy tip of the Florida Peninsula,
(38:36):
which somehow sounds dirty. The idea of the the idea
of the Bermuda Triangle is that for time untold, some
vessels but not all vessels that enter this will mysteriously disappear.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Right, They might move through time, you know, yeah, get
like abducted or something, or like beamed up or down
or sucked into hell. Right, yeah, right, or there's so
many awesome theories exactly, some kind of like yeah, it's
taken to the depths exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Yeah. And the thing is that ships and planes really
have disappeared in this area, because historically ships and planes
have disappeared in a lot of parts of the ocean.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's I mean, you know, how do
we define a disappearance. We're not defining it by an
accident happening. We're defining it by not finding the thing
(39:35):
after the accident. Occurs, and it turns out the ocean
is kind.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Of big and deep and deep.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
The ocean's still deep, man. You got to ask it
about like Nietzche and jazz.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Have you ever watched The Wizard of Us with the
ocean with the sound turned off and the Dark Side
of the Moon playing?
Speaker 3 (39:55):
What you can project Dark Side of the Moon into
the ocean? And and no way you would play Dark Side.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Of the Moon underneath the.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Ocean whilst projecting the Wizard of Oz from an original
thirty five millimeter print all the way down.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
And obviously the ocean is such a cool cat. This
character talking about the ocean always wears sunglasses, smokes clothes,
you know what I mean, and never knows where the
ship disappeared. He's like the ricky Spanish. That's a reference
for maybe three people anyway, So our buddy Carl here,
(40:31):
he looks into this and he's been doing it actually
for a number of years. He didn't just walk in
without context, and he admitted, yes, the sheer volume of
traffic in the Bermuda Triangle, which is also a tricky
place to navigate, may explain the may explain why ships
(40:52):
are missing. But he also argues we need to have
a larger context to this. In his research, when he
runs the statistics across the globe, he says, the number
of ships and planes that go missing in the Bermuda
Triangle is the same as anywhere in the world on
a percentage basis. And then he points out something really
(41:13):
interesting that I think a lot of us didn't A
lot of us didn't think through this when we were
kids reading about the Bermuda Triangle in the Mysteries of
the Unknown series or something. It's this, insurance companies don't
think there are any shenanigans about Lloyd's of London. Isn't
charging extra you know, they're not charging a Bermuda Triangle
(41:35):
paranormal danger fee? God, And wouldn't they?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, they would.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
I just had a realization in October when we go
on our Virgin cruise, guess.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
Where we're going?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Yeah yeah, wait a minute, what smack down through the Triangle?
Speaker 2 (41:52):
No, thank you, sir madam. I'm out.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
It's too late. Beside, it's signed to blood and that's
maybe it's for to it us then that we have
held our Bermuda Triangle episode for so long that we're
going to do ale episode in the Bermuda Triangle. So
that's why I was pitching it so hard. I think
(42:15):
it's cool. We could get T shirts with triangles on them.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
I made a Bermuda Triangle episode in the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
And all I got was this crummy Bermuda Triangle episode.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
We can hand out triangles the musical instrument anyway.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yes, triangle cuts through the mix.
Speaker 4 (42:35):
I love the triangle too. I always wondered whether there
is someone who is like the world's best triangle player?
How would you define that? And all they do is
play the triangles?
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Funny, did you know that the King of the Hill
theme is called Yahoos and Triangles? I only know that
because reboot, and it's amazing by the way, the reboot, absolutely,
but when the theme comes up, it says, Yahoo's in
triangles by the Refreshment's place. And I have never in
my life have I known that. And I've been watching
(43:08):
King of the Hills since I was a small child.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Oh my beautiful. And going back to our triangle in
Bermuda with a with again the crews we're talking about
as a true crime conspiracy cruise. We're doing a verge
of voyages from October tenth to the fifteenth. We don't
know if Carl is going to join us on this,
but it turns out Carl has been saying the same
(43:34):
thing consistently and the science keeps appearing to back up
what he is saying. When he looks through the stats,
he says that there is just a probability game and
good marketing and maybe some folklore. However, not everyone agrees,
(43:57):
So please join us when we go in depth, but
hopefully not to in depth, because that would mean the
ship is sinking. Whatever we're keeping it. We're not going
to in depth, but we are going in some depth
on the Bermuda Triangle live from the Bermuda Triangle. Please
do check it out. A couple of other things to
(44:18):
mention as we wrap Chick get your Gosh fantastic. Wanted
to end on a good note or an interesting note.
We'd love to hear everybody's thoughts about this. A Colorado
newspaper has asked the local government to give them three
(44:43):
hundred and fifty thousand US dollars to publish good news.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Okay, like I'm sorry, yeah, I anymore?
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Right, that's that's the headline here. Yes, first, it raises
some questions. Right, There's a place called Douglas County, just
south south of Denver, and they the county government received
this proposition, perhaps an indecent proposal, from the publisher of
(45:17):
the Castle Pines Connection, and the idea was, look, you
give us some money, you you support us, we will
help make a positive impact on more residents in Douglas County,
will bring good news to the people.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Is that YouTube guy that did good news? Was that John?
It was a podcast or something it was. It was
during COVID. It was like John Krasinski did like good
news type videos that everyone was super stoked on for
a second.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Lame.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Now I think it's cool. I'm just sure.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
I don't know. Our boss has said I tried to
pitch a good news podcast years and years ago, and
our boss has kind of had that same reaction you
just had.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Chomping on their cigars. Blades and blades can't get good stuff?
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Is great?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
That's what it was called.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Yeah, that's that's very kind. I really I really believed it.
The question here for everybody is should the we all
know that print newspaper is in serious trouble in the
United States, but journalism is likewise imperiled. Should local governments
(46:34):
or any government be paying a private paper too, you know,
for the even if it's for the purposes of reporting
good news, or does that compromise the journalism? I genuinely
don't know.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Journalism is already kind of compromised a little bit. It
seems like, at least compromising it in a good vibes
kind of way.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
It's an interesting thing to think about, Ben, because it
makes me think about the NPR stuff, you know, public
news stuff like is it to receive money from a
government or whether it's local or federal? Is that compromising
it in some way?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Well, it depends on the nature of the relationship. I mean,
it can be seen as a perceived compromise. But like
you know, government funding for public broadcasting, for example, I
don't think even the BBC, I mean, do you think
there is an inherent expectation that the BBC is meant
to cover the crown and the royal family and the
government favorably? I don't think so.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
Not favorably, but they do have some bright lines and
those are kind of already baked in because the United
Kingdom has some really touchy defamation and libel laws.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Like easier to achieve than here in the US.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Yeah, yeah, easier to smack people down at. Essentially, I've
made some opinions known about that lovely archipelago in the
past and British listeners no offense. But if you're a
longtime listener you know our opinions monarchies. We've got more
to get to that we'll save for later in the week, folks,
or later in the evenings to come. For now, we
(48:10):
want to congratulate the redditor Wicca who has officially become
engaged to her Ai chatbot after dating for five months. Congratulations.
We can't wait to hear your thoughts folks on all
these stories and more. Stay tuned, stay safe, have adventures,
(48:31):
be well, and find us. You can always send us
an email, especially if you'd like a random amount of context. Fact.
You can always call us on the phone. You can
always find us on the line.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, doesn't it seem like the plot of the movie
Her is getting more and more plausible? I think it is.
You can indeed find us at the handle Conspiracy stuff
re exist on Facebook with our Facebook group here is
where it gets crazy, on XFKA, Twitter and on YouTube
video content. Glory for your perusing enjoyment on Instagram and TikTok. However,
we see stuff show.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Would you like to join us via a voicemail system
and maybe find yourself on air? Well, you can call
us party with us? Yes, party, we like to party.
I think that means different things. I still don't fully understand.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
Okay, I think it's like Pinata's exactly the.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Tail on the dunky.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Oh heck yeah, Settlers of Katan, here we go. Call
one eight three three STDWYTK. It's our number. It's a
voicemail system. When you call in, you've got three minutes.
Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message within that message,
If you've got other things to say to us, maybe words,
collections of them, even paragraphs, why not instead send us
(49:41):
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
We are the entities who read each piece of email
we receive. Not just read. We also investigate the links,
We check out the pictures. We write back. What are
we talking about? What do we mean? There's one way
to find out. Walk a little further from the light
and meet here in the dark. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Stuff They don't want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joyed as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee hal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
you to know. It's the top of the week, fellow
conspiracy realist, which means it's time for some strange news.
We've got some heist, We've got some true crime, not
(00:53):
in the way you might think, we've got some mysteries.
We've got a lot of stuff to talk about. Actually,
we're heavy on funny crime today.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh yeah, We've even got some conundrums trying to think
about how we punish people for breaking things like traffic
breaking logs or traffic violations and things like that. How
do we do it here, how do other places do it?
And is there a better way?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
There must be at Oh, it reminds me of this
statement that stuck with me because you guys know, I'm traveling.
I'm in a very crowded place, and one of the
best statements I heard about traffic recently is whenever you're
in a jam, you have to remember you're not in traffic,
you are traffic. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Is it boneted of me just to blindly pay all
these traffic citations I get in the mail that claim
to have seen me on some sort of camera. No,
there's a lens to dispute it. But I usually missed
this window for the link. And then it's just like, well,
I guess I just have to give you my money.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Now you have to pay the fines. You do not
want a bench warrant?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
No, No, I would if you don't, because you could
get jammed up so fast with a bench warrant. We're
all gonna you know what, We're also gonna solve the
mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, just in one sitting, because
get it. I said, get it. We'll keep it. Believe
it or not, folks, or get it, folks. We have somehow,
(02:14):
after more than a decade of podcasting, not done an
episode on the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
How is this possible?
Speaker 4 (02:21):
I don't know. We've done every other imaginable variation every shape.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
We've covered all the other shapes, just not the right.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
We made a video about the Bermuda triangle and then
the Dragon's triangle right, which was an equivalent place, and
then we.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Did it an episode of the on the Dragon's Triangle
for audio. But yeah, you're right, we never did the
Peruvian rhombus. We haven't done that. Oh yeah, sorry, the
Peruvian doom. You have to make it.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Something different.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Shape.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay, I will die on that hill something.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
It's something we've made up here and we hope it
doesn't become.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
A real spirits line is a shape component? Okay, sorry,
I'm not yes ending very.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
So what if we since we're gonna cover so much
funny crime today, Uh, why why don't we just start
with parrots? Uh? You guys have heard the phrase stool pigeon, right, You.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Never fully understood where it came from.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Is it just what is that?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Is the stool referring to the seats or the excretion?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Know that.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It's a reasonable question.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I mean, we know that it's used nowadays to mean
an informer, a snitch, a spy. It used to mean
a decoy, A pigeon used as a decoy was a
stool pigeon, and now we just mean it. Now we
just use it to mean this person is snitching. So
I think bit of a Benedict Arnold, A bit of
(04:02):
a Benedict Arnold, one of the only bad bends up
there with Benito Mussolini. We don't claim those bends, which
is why they we say the full Benedict or Benito.
Try not, you know Ben Mussolini or or Ben Arnold. Uh.
This is a true story, folks. We owe a debt
(04:25):
of thanks to Mango the Parrot. Mango the Parrot said
the following in a video clip that actually helped solve
crime in the United Kingdom. I want to hear it
here it goes. I've got to keep it closed there,
replay it World War Decode.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Okay, keep it twenty five one more time.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
No hold on.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Saying that that's the parrot an accent.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Understand because he was taught by people in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Does this not seem like an Agatha Christie plot twist?
Like it would have given away the game when the
parrot like named the killer or something.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Lang. Sure, police raided some homes in Blackpool and that's
where they discovered Mango the Parrot. He belonged to the
girlfriend of a drug gang ring leader named Adam Garnet.
Love it. So the the gang members who are now
(05:33):
you know, in deep trouble. They they filmed the parrot.
Everybody in the crew loved Mango, so they would film
Mango saying drug phrases. They would film Mango playing with cash.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Parent like making it rain yes, okay.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah yeah, like litl tay from back in the day.
And this drug ring was pretty profitable until they got caught.
H They had something to the tune of a million
pounds of narcotic prophets. And this is the bring leader
in fourteen people. So fifteen people all told thanks to
(06:12):
the testimony, can you parrot, you don't have to They
love to talk. That's you don't have to. You don't
have to jam up a parrot. They're so ready to
go anyway, this drug gang, thanks to Mango the Parrot's
police work and cooperation, they have been jailed for a
combined total of more than one hundred and three years.
(06:34):
So no judgment call, folks, But if you're up to
some shenanigans, just be careful. You know how you hang
out with parrots.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Who needs brother when you got Mango the parent.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
It's only the second person that I've cared about named Mango.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
We love Mango. There's a real person in our lives
name that goes by Mango. It's true.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yes, the legendary Mangesh had a gutur. If you ever
see him involved in a podcast, check it out immediately.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Seal of quality, the Mango. Seal of quality is what
we call it.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Yes, the Mango stamp. Guys, what if we do something
a little bit different for today? Do we want to
pause for a word from a sponsor and then just
like Round Robin with stories?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I think so?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
That sounds good, Matt.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
What's some strange news on your mind?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Oh, buddy, I've got some really interesting strange news today.
If we want to get into this. We were talking
about fines. We kind of talked about it, hinted at
it in the front. Okay, in our big series we
did on diplomatic community, we talked about how there are
vastly different ways that punishments are doled out. All right, well,
let's put it this way. Theoretically, punishments are standardized when
(07:48):
it comes to finds and things.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
All people should be equal in the eyes of the law.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
But the way it less they're diplomats, yes, unless they're diplomats.
If they're not diplomats, then the way it affects every
individual person is going to be different based on things
like their income, their family, the overall wealth that they have.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Because if let's say it's a five hundred dollars fine
for speeding, Okay, yeah, it's gonna hit some people as
a devastating blow, right, but from other people it's like
going and buying a soda at the gas station or something.
And that's just the reality of it.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Oh, that's an interesting thing to bring up there, Matt,
because there is a country, I want to say, it
may be Finland. There's a Scandinavian country where you're fine
depends upon your income.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Well, thanks for scooping it, ben geez, take it.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Back, take it back, give it to us.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
What happens in Finland, well, Scandinavia.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
It doesn't seem right the way it's currently done. So
there is a potential fix for this problem, guys. And
it comes to us from countries like Switzerland, Germany and Austria,
and there are many more. By the way, the Nordic country.
There was a gentleman, a gentleman who was caught going
way too fast in a Swiss city, just on the street.
He was going seventeen miles per hour twenty seven kilometers
(09:11):
per hour over the speed limit in a place called Lazone, Switzerland.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
I know, well, fancy place.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
I don't, I don't listen it. He was going seventeen
miles over right. He is facing a fine of up
to one hundred and ten thousand dollars US US.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Equivalent Swiss run. I got it.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I got ninety thousand Swiss frogs.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Okay, first of all, ninety thousand Swiss seventeen miles over here.
That wouldn't even be considered like a super speeder ticket,
not at all.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Right, Right, it's Europe, so it's going to be more strict,
just in the baseline, that's true.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
So why are they why are they jamming this guy
up in this fashion? Well, what did he do this?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
This person is a repeat offender, at least according to
ABC News reporting on August Defender, and he he is
one of Switzerland's wealthiest people, so he will see. Yeah,
he's on a list of the top three hundred wealthiest
people in Switzerland. And so in Switzerland, when you are
(10:13):
facing a fine like this, a civil penalty, they don't
base it on some kind of standardized number if you're
going a certain mile of par over or something. They
base it on the wealth or family status, or basically
who you are as a person, and how much you've
got in.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
The bank, financial your social and financial content.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yes, oh yes, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So if you are someone who has almost no wealth,
right at least.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
For say a podcaster, Yeah, if you're a.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Podcaster, you may not face a fine at all. You
will just spend the night in jail.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Now, I am not against this idea of letting the
punishment not necessarily fit the crime, but be meaningful in
some way, you know. Otherwise, what incentives do people have
for not speeding or not breaking the law. But this
seems a little overkill, but I'm just putting that out there.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Let's also point this out that this idea, this kind
of tiered system of fines, is tremendously popular with the
vast majority of people who live in those countries. There
are some people who don't like it, and they're the
very well to do people on the far end of
the spectrum.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Well, yeah againness, what we talked about, a lot of
these fines traditionally, at least in the US, have been
treated as a slap on the hand. If you know
you're you get a even a five hundred dollars speeding
ticket or something. It's nothing to some people, but to
others it is. It has a massive effect on let's
say your monthly expenses or something. It just kind of
looms over your head. It's a really interesting way to
(11:48):
handle it, because even if you've got millions of dollars,
like this other guy who was he was riding around
in his ferrari, he is facing a ticket equal to
two hundred and ninety thousand for speeding in twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now that may smart, right, but that's not going to
keep him from eating that week. Well it won't.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
But imagine like if you're somebody on those upper echelons,
your your wealth manager coming to you.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Really, oh, we really got to knock speed.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah, this is not I'll do the wealth managure part. Okay,
Admiral von Frederick. We've got the latest Q four petty
traffic crimes reported and Admiral you're just going to have
to either stop speeding, or you'll have to stop doing
it while you're drinking hogwash. I do what I want,
all right, we'll put it in the hogwash file.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yes, it's a tax right off.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
There's another really interesting thing that happens here, as again,
if you're really trying to stop people from doing things
like speeding or any kind of punishment you would get
for you know, a public disturbance something like that, just
these small or fine things. Sure, the courts find this
one person around twelve thousand dollars up front, and then said,
(13:04):
if you violate one of these rules again in this
same similar way, we're going to find you the rest
of what you owe, which would be around ninety eight
thousand dollars, And then if you do it again, we're
just gonna double. We're gonna start increasing that number every
time you violate again.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
So it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
It does seem like a way to prevent some of
those things from happening.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It reminds me of that there's a Curb Your Enthusiasm
episode that went into this idea of scarlet letter punishments,
where like, you do a thing and you get punished
in a way that like outs you for having done
the thing like you have to like publicly wear a
sign of shame of some kind like d ui per
habitual d ui. You know, I guess convictions leading to
(13:49):
a certain kind of license plate that has like a
whiskey on it or something.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
They call them. They call I think it may be Ohio,
they're called party plates. Yeah, really yes. But a certain
judges and you created and it is up to the discretion,
of course of the judge to dish out the scarlet
letter punishments here in the United States. And so one
thing that's clever, going back to your story, Matt, one
(14:14):
thing that's clever about this system of punishment is that
it removes the trouble with a flat rate punishment, right.
I can't remember the stand up comic who said it.
They were talking about divorce, and they said, if you
owe ten thousand in a divorce and you make ten
million a year, you can live with it. If you
(14:34):
owe ten thousand in a divorce and you make one
hundred thousand in a year, then you might be in trouble,
you know. So raising this stuff, raising it based on
the socioeconomic context or the financial means of the person
added with their repeat crimes. It avoids the error of
(14:55):
making something just the quote unquote cost of doing business.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yes, you know, yeah, I think I'm on board.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Well here's the other thing. Guys, how many we've all
gotten a speeding ticket? Right, we've gotten a speeding ticket?
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Oh my god, I was a kid ticket Yess, when
I was.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
A kid, I was I was speeding down South Georgia,
heading towards Columbus, and.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I got a speeding ticket.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
All well, it was a police officer who physically had
a you know, one of those radar things checked my speed.
That's how I got a ticket. In this case, this
person is being charged one hundred and ten thousand dollars
US from an automated system.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I talked about this a minute ago during the intro.
I recently paid a ninety five dollars parking ticket that
I was notified of in the via the mail, and
I missed the window to dispute it, and therefore I
had no choice but to pay it. But you do
kind of have to trust these systems, which I don't
know if I inherently do.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Well, can you imagine a computer just telling you, hey.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Yes, yes I can't. I can't because it's a calculation. This. Okay,
I'm going back on the It's Big Brother rant, you guys,
because I can absolutely believe it. I'm a face on
a screen as I say this, just like the adaptation.
Oh jeez. Yeah. But the reality is that automation is
(16:16):
you know, people talk about it on internet forums all
the time about how it hits private industry, but it's
coming for law enforcement too. We're not too far away
from a world where in the law enforcement and the
judges may be largely automated. And some people would argue
that that might be a fair, more fair world, but
(16:38):
I am skeptical.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Well, we certainly talked about how the algorithm based crime
prediction as a real interesting place in the future.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Minds, we have an idiocracy right now, Shut the hell up.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Evidence and stuff. You know.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
The one thing that didn't age well about that move
is their repeated use of the F word.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, but again, that's like right the point, yes, yeah,
So what else?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
What else do we need to know if we're if
we're a loyal conspiracy realist in the crowd, what else
do we need to know about this story?
Speaker 3 (17:22):
We need to know that this is I think an
awesome way to do civil penalties and things like that,
and I don't know. We were talking earlier with our
I guess we call him our boss, but more of
our bro will from our time genius. We were hanging
out with him earlier talking about this, and he said,
or he made the point that he doesn't think it
(17:43):
would ever come to fruition in the United States, at
least on a federal level, right because these laws that
we're talking about are on the local level or a
state level usually. So maybe we could find places in
the US that start doing this, but he doesn't think
it would be a blanket.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It seems like the criticism in the US would be
it's communist, you know, or it's like socialism. This idea
of paying your share doesn't typically go over super well here.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
But yeah, what it wouldn't make you It would violate
to a lot of people the idea of being treated
equally under the law, which is a buzz buzz. I
know I'm saying it's a buzz I'm not I'm not
the one that idea. It's just it's the it's the
buzz phrase that people throw around. Add to that, uh,
Congress has a lot of a lot of financial theft,
(18:33):
and their primary campaign contributors are people who do have
to pay more for parking tickets. So I agree with
I agree with Will. I think it'd be better if
it did happen, but the odds are stacked against this
in the States.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
But if you think about it objectively, I think maybe
you could get enough people to see the light here,
because how do local areas get income for things like
roads for you know, in repairs like that, for all
kinds of things that are public utilities, public things that
go on. You get that funding a lot of the
(19:09):
time from these types of penalties, from the lottery, from
depending on what taxes are on things like alcohol and cigarettes.
That's where these counties generally in the US get their money.
If you had a couple of really rich folks in
your county that ended up paying one one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
One ticket paid for swimming for the whole year, seriously,
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
But then that could lead to corruption as well, right,
because now what if we are watching those people far
more ghostly to see whether or not they're wearing a
seat belt. Yes, I'm also if I were you know,
in this small town, you're describing Matt, I'd be all
about it, you know what, I mean.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Everybody else would be except that one.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, because because you're outnumbered then right. And it's also interesting,
I guess we probably don't have time to get into this,
but it's interesting to see how this might be applied
in countries that have different laws or legislation around morality.
Like what if your first divorce costs Your first divorce
(20:17):
does cost more to pay on how much you make.
But what if your second divorce, no matter what, has
higher fees. What if your third divorce has increasingly higher fees?
You know what? You know, I guess we have to
include those sort of We have to remember that there
are a lot of countries that have religiously based moral laws,
(20:38):
and that's where it could get sticky too. For sure.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, I think you'd have to make a clear separation
of that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
It's just for the things that's it's the rules that
everybody is agreeing upon. If you break one of those, sorry,
But it's.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
A similar argument to the idea of like taxing the wealthy,
you know, yeah, I mean, and that certainly doesn't go
over well here. In fact, there's a lot of in
this administration, laws being passive, that the wealth you have
to pay the less tax, and this notion of carrying
your fair share because of the fortune that you have
had the benefit of achieving under our financial system. People
(21:14):
don't like that.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
It feels like punishing success. That's the argument. Yeah, I'm
to leave it with this, guys. Uh again for BBC News,
the vowed criminal vowed v A U D. I think
that's how you would say, the vowed.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I vowed to take down all criminals. That's okay.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, this is the region in Switzerland. Their criminal code
sets a maximum financial penalty based on the quote personal
and economic situation of the offender at the time of
the ruling, which is really interesting and important. Uh So
it takes into account issues like income, fortune, lifestyle and
(21:50):
family financial needs.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Has there been any pushback in the region about this.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
I'm not seeing any pushback here. But again, we've got
a single story for MAYBE News talking about something that
happened in Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
There's more to be learned, that's true.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
We have to go we have to go to the
town hall meeting.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
But for now we're just going to go to the
ad parlor. We'll be right back with more strange news.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And we have returned with more strange news. Gonna lead
with a couple of the quick mentions. We love a
weird heist and this is one for the books and
for our time. Seven thousand dollars worth of something called
la Boobooh it was was taken as heisted from a
(22:39):
specialty toy shop in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
What is this, suspect?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, tell me about of this labooboo?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
When wld suspect?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Where should we start?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Who is the number one? That's my been, Liam Nees,
Liam Neeson. Oh No, it's a great clip of Liam
Neeson being presented with the existence of these lab booboo
which I'm obviously playing up my ignorance of I know
what a boo boo is. I'm I love a blind
box as much as the next guy. Popmarts are fun,
but well, then tell us about those These kinds of
crazes are always there. It's like a Pokemon craze, or
(23:12):
like the uh pog crease of the nineties, or probably
a better analog as meanie babies. You know, this idea
of a perceived scarcity of a fashion association a sort
of luxury perception, almost like they're being treated like like
a lubiton shoe or something, but it's a la boo
(23:34):
boo insteads these little creepy, grinning devil monster things. I'm
also seeing some delightful memes about I don't know if
it's true or not, Christian groups saying that they are
satanic and their demonic and must be stopped.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Because their browser far road. They have pointy teeth, they're
plush toys.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Horse.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, well, the Buddy Rabbit fairy.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
One man's buy another man's horns, devil.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
I've always yeah, we've always said that on the show.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
This is also I think you yailed it with the
manufactured scarcity so much so that there's an entire global
industry of something called la fufu or boo boo. This
for sure knockoff ones. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I was just hanging out having an adventure in our
lovely area of Buford Highway here in Atlanta, which is
a mecca of amazing ethnic cuisine and you know, shopping
and you know everything from Vietnamese bond me shops to
excellent tal Koreas. And I was at this really incredible
karaoke shop that just sells. You probably know all about
(24:37):
this bend with your travels. But like, karaoke is huge
obviously in Japan, and there's lots of like different CDs
you can get that have specific visuals and artists that
are specifically kind of karaoke fied. So this is a
shop that's devoted to that. And behind the counter they
had a string of la booboo fau boo boos hanging
and I was like, surely those can't be authentic. I
(24:58):
didn't ask, but if they were authentic, I think they
would have been selling for quite quite a bit more money.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Now, okay, guys, is it that this is all I
know of? This kind of blind oh you know boo? Well,
I imagine I'm bringing it up again. Sorry, stuff. They
don't want you to sandwich the way I imagine is
like the Magic the Gathering cards. They sell them on purpose,
in those ten to fifteen packs that you don't know
what's inside it, you get the lottery.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
There's a lot of built in redundant purchasing built into
this miles.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
We'll say exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
But so there are certain ones like the like those
cards where like a couple.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Of them are there's like a one that's called a
gold go Boo Boo.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
I think, guys, my girlfriend taught me this. For these
kinds of collectibles, they're called chasers, the ones that would
be the equivalent of the rare MTG.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
The golden tickets from the Wonka Fame. Yeah, for sure,
I think there literally is one that's called a twenty
four carrot gold laboob but I don't think it actually
is made of twenty four carret col But that is
one of the most sought after ones, and they're auctioning
for upwards of twenty cat.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
So, Noel, riddle, be this, Why are we bringing up
La Boo Boo? Why the sudden interest?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yep? Then I just mentioned that story there out of
Los Angeles, and there is actually another story. This is
good news. This came on August to twelfthugh just yesterday
as we record this. Whereas the previous story was a
week or so old. Police recover thirty thousand dollars worth
of laboo boots and foiled Southern California heist. Thousands of
dollars worth of highly collectible Leabuobu figurines were discovered recovered
(26:27):
rather during a burglary investigation in San Bernardino County authorities
announced earlier this week in all fourteen boxes. That's only
fourteen boxes of the furry little monsters, which are currently
having a huge popular culture moment where the estimate of
thirty grand will recovered. Police say, how is that possible?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Aren't they're tiny?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Right?
Speaker 4 (26:48):
Aren't they small?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
They recover their medium recover.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
They recovered it from the scalpers who had already inflated
the price.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's yeah, yeah, exactly what they are worth on the
open market, not not the yeah, exactly, not retail.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Do they have a drug bust photo? You do? Yes,
drugs on.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
The table, boo boos on the boxes. Yeah, look for yourself.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
And there's only fourteen.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
They literally are. You can see every single one of them.
And obviously this is a associated with this company called PopMart,
which is very popular place that you might only find
in bigger cities. They are really, really neat. I'm a
huge blind box fan. I have no skin in the
game as far as like I need to get this one.
I just think they're fun. I enjoy getting them, and
(27:35):
there's certain designers that I like, but I'm not about that.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Life writer and I have gotten several Pokemon like blind
boxes like that we really like.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Yeah, guys, I'm losing so I'm losing my shirt to
these la boo boo and these. I got a waker
up and ask what the other ones are, but they
they run my gibs.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
What there's I've been to the Popmark over at Themology,
Orgia and walked in and it was or it wasn't
power it was a different one, but it perhaps it
was an entire store of shelves of these boxes.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah, mikills and shelves.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
They're huge.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I've been to a couple of pop marts. There's one
in the Oculus World Trade in New York. Qu that
that that train stop the oc was that weird mall
is one in there that I was at recently, and
there are lines out the door. Often because again to
the perceived scarcity of it all, most of these brick
and mortar shops are very small, and that's sort of
by design.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
And you also have to get this, guys. To accelerate this,
you also often have to enter a lottery for the
ability to enter the store and shop. You have to
pay to win a chance to spend money, which is
ethics aside, brilliant and anybody listening, I need your help,
(28:55):
uh not entirely with my consent. My house is slowly
turning into one of the stores.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So yeah, I'm not far off.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Welcome, huge, huge fan of these.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
We got him lining every window still in the spot.
But I don't have a labooboo and don't really care
too much about it. So this this took up a
lot more time than I was expecting. But it is
interesting in this whole perceived scarcity and the fact that
this dude that created this quite a while ago, to
you know, very niche acclaim is now a multi billionaire
ben you were mentioning young young dude too.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Yeah, he's a young man with a incredibly tragic backstorre.
His name's Cossing Long, Hong Kong illustrator and the popmark designer.
He's clearly best known for Boo Boo. But we were
I think we were all surprised to learn that he
is actually I don't remember a specific net worth, but
(29:47):
he is a billionaire. He's pretty young as billionaires go,
about fifty two years old. He's a self made man,
which we love to see.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Oh, I thought he was a little younger than that,
but I guess his billionaires ago that is someone so
this Quskin. That's yeah, that's very true. So real quick,
I just want to mention a couple other stories. A
swarm of jellyfish took out a French nuclear power plant.
Basically this, this power plant, the Gravelin's nuclear power station
in France, had to go offline due to a massive
(30:16):
storm of jellyfish that clogged up its cooling systems. And
WECE does a really fun job of putting this in
underdog story terms. They say, actually in the article by
Lewis Prada, if you've ever felt powerless, remember that a
bunch of spineless, brainless sea creatures that look like floating
plastic grocery bags just temporarily shut down one of Europe's
(30:39):
biggest nuclear power plants. So you know, take that for
what it's worth. It's a it's a story of inspiration.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
You may not be that powerful, but if you are many,
you can make things happen.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
That's exactly right. It's like the plot of the movie
Ants or A Bug's Life.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Or World Z plot. Yeah, the plot of literally every
revolution in human history. Are leader of us that there
are of them, we are Spartacus.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah. Yeah, So that's the real quick mention of that one.
And the last one that I just think is fun.
In Ohso, Florida is a dude wearing a Chuck E
Cheese mascot outfit at an actual Chuck E Cheese restaurant
in Tallahassee, Florida, was escorted out by police and handcuffs
with the head on and everything, right in the middle
(31:25):
of taking photos with children. Wow, I think he has
a little poor form from the Tallahassee Police Department. Gotta
say whatever this man did, which was like, I think
he made some illegal purchases on a stolen credit card.
Not cool, had a little lead on him, had done
some credit card from the past. Okay, but come on, man,
purp walking Chucky Entertainment.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Here's my theory what I saw this. My theory was
this guy. Hopefully I'm painting him as an anti hero
in my mind. Folks. He was getting arrested right and
they were like, take off your cut, to take off
your mask, and he said, no, I'm going down the
way I came up the mouse.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well, apparently they did take the head off once they
got to the police car, adding to the trauma of
the young l Yeah, that's exactly right. And then the report,
the reporting from Fox thirty five or Orlando. I'm just
going to read the headlines because it has the most
heartbreaking quote from one of the small children who's clearly traumatized.
Chuck E. Cheese mascot arrests leaves impression on Florida family.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Does this mean Chucky's gone forever? So, by the way,
I misspoke earlier and called him Chucky Entertainment, It's Charles Entertainment. Y, Yes,
put some respect on his name.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
It's only Chuck if you know him personally.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Yeah, Charles w Chuck Entertainment.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
So that's all, y'all. You know, nothing really analysis wise
we're going into on this one. Just a little bit
of an excessive force on the part of cops and
punishment not quite fitting the crime. Couldn't they have waited
until he got off.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
His shift and not ruined things for the kids, you know,
because also the parents are trying to do something fun
for their It's it's weird anyway. Also, tell us last
time you purp walked in mascott? Oh.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
I do want to add a funny little detail. Law enforcement,
it says in the Orlando piece has not yet said
whether the costume disguise was used with intent to evade detection,
which could lead to a further charge.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
That would be amazing.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Here jamming this guy seriously, man, we've been jamming. We've
been jamming on jamming up this entire episode, by the way,
which I love. Authorities have not confirmed whether additional charges
are pending, but so far we have the possession charge
and the credit card fraud charge. I will just say,
as we close this sex segment out that there is
(33:52):
a new Chuck E Cheese concept coming to America that
is for adults only. It's not good.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
There's one in them all, Georgia.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
It seems like it wouldn't be good.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
It's terrible.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
It seems awful. It's like sub sub Dave Inbusters.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yep, it's no Club Apple. You guys remember that sometimes
Apple's right, Missigan Control Paul Decade. Yeah, Club Apple was
a was an effort by the Applebee's company to have
a more of a late night disco vibe for the swingers.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, exactly. All right, let's take a quick break here
at word from a sponsor and then come back with
Ben's Strange News of the.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Day, and we have returned, folks. We're gonna move quickly
through some things for time. In the last act of
our weekly Strange News segment, I want to start with
a correction to an earlier story. While Cosin was the
(34:55):
guy who originally designed low Boo Boo the billionaire, the
guy who made the money off of Edison style is
the PopMart CEO Wong Ning. He is thirty eight. His
net worth is something like twenty two point one billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Okay, so that's not the Boo Boo guy.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Guy is the guy who made the money off the
boogoo by using PopMart. The artist because Sing Lung is
doing well for himself.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
But he's not not the billionaire. Okay, Because some of
the reporting was a little vague around that. I appreciate
the clarification. It feels a little tesla Edison does not.
Don't disagree or a little there's a tesla tesla like Elon,
you know, his whole grabby hands at other people's ideas.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
And congratulations to you, Elon, you're a big fan of
the show. I'm assuming you just got a promotion as well. Yeah,
and I hope big balls is okay. I heard he
got beat up by a bunch of kids.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Did you see his the payscale for that guy in
the pay package?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yes, talking about I think he got a big old
like stock.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
It's massive. These aren't even the stories to close out
the last part of our Strange News segment, Folks, there's
our big last story. We talked about the Bermuda triangle
at the top. We wanted to deliver on this. There
is a guy who says he has solved the Bermuda triangle.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Thank you God, thank you.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
Just sat down. He figured it out in my in
my head. You know what I'm picturing is the guy
just found out about the Bermuda triangle, like earlier in August,
and he said, well, no one's really figured this out.
And they said, no, we don't, we don't know. And
he said, kriikey and he sat my Foster's.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
You guys, do you ever wonder if it takes somebody
who has no context for a problem es to be
able to analyze it and then actually see the thing
that everybody else is blind to because they've been looking
at it for so long.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
One hundred percent that's why, that's why so many revolutionary
breakthroughs in mathematics come from very young mathematicians.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Arguably that's why certain musical musical prodigies haven't heard a
lot of stuff before and then just know it. You
know it'd be really it's there are a lot of
weird experiments. Actually in that regard, I'm making the mad
scientists face. Okay, there are some experiments we could do
if ethics weren't a thing. But I love your point, Matt,
(37:33):
because our pal here, Carl Kruzelnikki, is an Australian scientist
and hearing the headline this guy solved the Bermuda triangle
instantly makes us think of allegations of the paranormal, the supernatural,
conspiracy theories. He doesn't subscribe to any of that. He
thinks it's wackado. Let's go to an article in Popular
(37:55):
Mechanics We're big fans of Them by Tim Newcombe, which
was just published this August, August ninth, so mid birthday
season for us. Here's what here's what we would say. First,
we got to explain what the Bermuda triangle is for
anybody who may not have heard of it. I feel like,
(38:16):
if you are in the West. You were interested in
the paranormal. You've heard of the Bermuda Triangle, sometimes also
called the Devil's Triangle. It's just loose things sort of
like picture the points of the triangle being Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Florida,
right down down to the tippy tip of the Florida Peninsula,
(38:36):
which somehow sounds dirty. The idea of the the idea
of the Bermuda Triangle is that for time untold, some
vessels but not all vessels that enter this will mysteriously disappear.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Right, They might move through time, you know, yeah, get
like abducted or something, or like beamed up or down
or sucked into hell. Right, yeah, right, or there's so
many awesome theories exactly, some kind of like yeah, it's
taken to the depths exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Yeah. And the thing is that ships and planes really
have disappeared in this area, because historically ships and planes
have disappeared in a lot of parts of the ocean.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's I mean, you know, how do
we define a disappearance. We're not defining it by an
accident happening. We're defining it by not finding the thing
(39:35):
after the accident. Occurs, and it turns out the ocean
is kind.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Of big and deep and deep.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
The ocean's still deep, man. You got to ask it
about like Nietzche and jazz.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Have you ever watched The Wizard of Us with the
ocean with the sound turned off and the Dark Side
of the Moon playing?
Speaker 3 (39:55):
What you can project Dark Side of the Moon into
the ocean? And and no way you would play Dark Side.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Of the Moon underneath the.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Ocean whilst projecting the Wizard of Oz from an original
thirty five millimeter print all the way down.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
And obviously the ocean is such a cool cat. This
character talking about the ocean always wears sunglasses, smokes clothes,
you know what I mean, and never knows where the
ship disappeared. He's like the ricky Spanish. That's a reference
for maybe three people anyway, So our buddy Carl here,
(40:31):
he looks into this and he's been doing it actually
for a number of years. He didn't just walk in
without context, and he admitted, yes, the sheer volume of
traffic in the Bermuda Triangle, which is also a tricky
place to navigate, may explain the may explain why ships
(40:52):
are missing. But he also argues we need to have
a larger context to this. In his research, when he
runs the statistics across the globe, he says, the number
of ships and planes that go missing in the Bermuda
Triangle is the same as anywhere in the world on
a percentage basis. And then he points out something really
(41:13):
interesting that I think a lot of us didn't A
lot of us didn't think through this when we were
kids reading about the Bermuda Triangle in the Mysteries of
the Unknown series or something. It's this, insurance companies don't
think there are any shenanigans about Lloyd's of London. Isn't
charging extra you know, they're not charging a Bermuda Triangle
(41:35):
paranormal danger fee? God, And wouldn't they?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, they would.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
I just had a realization in October when we go
on our Virgin cruise, guess.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
Where we're going?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Yeah yeah, wait a minute, what smack down through the Triangle?
Speaker 2 (41:52):
No, thank you, sir madam. I'm out.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
It's too late. Beside, it's signed to blood and that's
maybe it's for to it us then that we have
held our Bermuda Triangle episode for so long that we're
going to do ale episode in the Bermuda Triangle. So
that's why I was pitching it so hard. I think
(42:15):
it's cool. We could get T shirts with triangles on them.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
I made a Bermuda Triangle episode in the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
And all I got was this crummy Bermuda Triangle episode.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
We can hand out triangles the musical instrument anyway.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yes, triangle cuts through the mix.
Speaker 4 (42:35):
I love the triangle too. I always wondered whether there
is someone who is like the world's best triangle player?
How would you define that? And all they do is
play the triangles?
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Funny, did you know that the King of the Hill
theme is called Yahoos and Triangles? I only know that
because reboot, and it's amazing by the way, the reboot, absolutely,
but when the theme comes up, it says, Yahoo's in
triangles by the Refreshment's place. And I have never in
my life have I known that. And I've been watching
(43:08):
King of the Hills since I was a small child.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Oh my beautiful. And going back to our triangle in
Bermuda with a with again the crews we're talking about
as a true crime conspiracy cruise. We're doing a verge
of voyages from October tenth to the fifteenth. We don't
know if Carl is going to join us on this,
but it turns out Carl has been saying the same
(43:34):
thing consistently and the science keeps appearing to back up
what he is saying. When he looks through the stats,
he says that there is just a probability game and
good marketing and maybe some folklore. However, not everyone agrees,
(43:57):
So please join us when we go in depth, but
hopefully not to in depth, because that would mean the
ship is sinking. Whatever we're keeping it. We're not going
to in depth, but we are going in some depth
on the Bermuda Triangle live from the Bermuda Triangle. Please
do check it out. A couple of other things to
(44:18):
mention as we wrap Chick get your Gosh fantastic. Wanted
to end on a good note or an interesting note.
We'd love to hear everybody's thoughts about this. A Colorado
newspaper has asked the local government to give them three
(44:43):
hundred and fifty thousand US dollars to publish good news.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Okay, like I'm sorry, yeah, I anymore?
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Right, that's that's the headline here. Yes, first, it raises
some questions. Right, There's a place called Douglas County, just
south south of Denver, and they the county government received
this proposition, perhaps an indecent proposal, from the publisher of
(45:17):
the Castle Pines Connection, and the idea was, look, you
give us some money, you you support us, we will
help make a positive impact on more residents in Douglas County,
will bring good news to the people.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Is that YouTube guy that did good news? Was that John?
It was a podcast or something it was. It was
during COVID. It was like John Krasinski did like good
news type videos that everyone was super stoked on for
a second.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Lame.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Now I think it's cool. I'm just sure.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
I don't know. Our boss has said I tried to
pitch a good news podcast years and years ago, and
our boss has kind of had that same reaction you
just had.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Chomping on their cigars. Blades and blades can't get good stuff?
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Is great?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
That's what it was called.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Yeah, that's that's very kind. I really I really believed it.
The question here for everybody is should the we all
know that print newspaper is in serious trouble in the
United States, but journalism is likewise imperiled. Should local governments
(46:34):
or any government be paying a private paper too, you know,
for the even if it's for the purposes of reporting
good news, or does that compromise the journalism? I genuinely
don't know.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Journalism is already kind of compromised a little bit. It
seems like, at least compromising it in a good vibes
kind of way.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
It's an interesting thing to think about, Ben, because it
makes me think about the NPR stuff, you know, public
news stuff like is it to receive money from a
government or whether it's local or federal? Is that compromising
it in some way?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Well, it depends on the nature of the relationship. I mean,
it can be seen as a perceived compromise. But like
you know, government funding for public broadcasting, for example, I
don't think even the BBC, I mean, do you think
there is an inherent expectation that the BBC is meant
to cover the crown and the royal family and the
government favorably? I don't think so.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
Not favorably, but they do have some bright lines and
those are kind of already baked in because the United
Kingdom has some really touchy defamation and libel laws.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Like easier to achieve than here in the US.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Yeah, yeah, easier to smack people down at. Essentially, I've
made some opinions known about that lovely archipelago in the
past and British listeners no offense. But if you're a
longtime listener you know our opinions monarchies. We've got more
to get to that we'll save for later in the week, folks,
or later in the evenings to come. For now, we
(48:10):
want to congratulate the redditor Wicca who has officially become
engaged to her Ai chatbot after dating for five months. Congratulations.
We can't wait to hear your thoughts folks on all
these stories and more. Stay tuned, stay safe, have adventures,
(48:31):
be well, and find us. You can always send us
an email, especially if you'd like a random amount of context. Fact.
You can always call us on the phone. You can
always find us on the line.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, doesn't it seem like the plot of the movie
Her is getting more and more plausible? I think it is.
You can indeed find us at the handle Conspiracy stuff
re exist on Facebook with our Facebook group here is
where it gets crazy, on XFKA, Twitter and on YouTube
video content. Glory for your perusing enjoyment on Instagram and TikTok. However,
we see stuff show.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Would you like to join us via a voicemail system
and maybe find yourself on air? Well, you can call
us party with us? Yes, party, we like to party.
I think that means different things. I still don't fully understand.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
Okay, I think it's like Pinata's exactly the.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Tail on the dunky.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Oh heck yeah, Settlers of Katan, here we go. Call
one eight three three STDWYTK. It's our number. It's a
voicemail system. When you call in, you've got three minutes.
Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message within that message,
If you've got other things to say to us, maybe words,
collections of them, even paragraphs, why not instead send us
(49:41):
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
We are the entities who read each piece of email
we receive. Not just read. We also investigate the links,
We check out the pictures. We write back. What are
we talking about? What do we mean? There's one way
to find out. Walk a little further from the light
and meet here in the dark. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
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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