Massive protests in LA (not to mention many more US cities) prompt the federal government to send in marines and activate the California National Guard -- without the consent of the governor. Japan pays people to stand still on escalators. Germany plans rapid bunker expansion amid fears of Russian attacks. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Name is Noah.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
They goal me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan to Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Folks, Welcome to Strange News.
I almost did like a FM radio voice on that one.
But anyway, if you're hearing this, it's Monday, June sixteenth.
(00:51):
Congrats to everybody. Also for any tenfoil hat fans in
the crowd. You guys, they're finally doing it. They're microchip
in the cheese. We knew it was coming. Look strange it.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Uh well, I guess how to deploy the devices into
our bodies.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
You can eat a microchip. Technically, it's probably not in,
you know, like the food pyramid, which is itself a conspiracy.
But as we know, there's been a we've talked about
in the past. There's been a lot of kerfuffle over
calling stuff, champagne or calling stuff, you know, parmesan. Italy
and France in particular, with their very rich food culture
(01:35):
and history, they're very sensitive to counterfeits. So now UH
Parmesan cheese, being one of the most counterfeited cheeses in
the world dubious distinction, UH is now going to have
its quality and authenticity assured through the use of microchips
(01:56):
on the outside of those big Parmagiano reggiano cheese wheels.
And this comes to us courtesy of the Parmagado Reggiato
Consortium or PRC, which is somehow a real thing.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Not the People's Republic of China.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
But there's something very different, yes, different kind of cheese
in there. So if you want to learn more about that,
go to CBS News. There's a great article by Emmett Leon's.
This actually happened a while ago, but we just found
out about it. So check your cheese for micro chips,
and of course also remember that you cannot use your
(02:35):
cost code card as a valid form of ID at
US airports. We're going to get into a lot of
other stuff. Obviously, those are the headlines that concerned us most.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Yeah, for sure, and nothing weird going on on the
West Coast. No, there is, and that's very concerning as well.
We're going to get to it right after this quick break.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
And we have returned or breaking story. Now again this
is live fire. Unfortunately, that is a literal truth. We
are going to give you the quick skinny, the timeline
of what's happening with the protests in Los Angeles. Now,
this has gripped a lot of headlines, but unfortunately a
(03:20):
lot of those headlines have been pushing various narratives. Here's
what you need to know, folks. On June sixth, twenty
twenty five, there were protests in Los Angeles, and these
protests have been bubbling for a while, not just in
LA but across the world here in Atlanta as well.
(03:41):
And they came about because Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or
ICE as we call them in the US, they were
conducting raids, as they have done in multiple cities, to
arrest people who are allegedly involved in illegal immigration to
the United States. Protesting is inherently American thing, right. This
(04:04):
country has founded on the idea of protesting. Several of
these protests turned violent in the opinion of law enforcement,
and it was after the Los Angeles Police Department or
LAPD and ice clashed with protesters. Now, we talked about
this a little bit off air before we continue with
(04:27):
a timeline and get to the live updates on the curfew,
and Governor Newsom and the current administration would love to
hear your initial thoughts.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Guys.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
I mean you nailed that when you said that protest
as an American right privilege, it should be encouraged and
has historically been encouraged. And when you start hearing things
like any protests will be met with force, that is real,
scary and a real not a slippery slope at all,
it's a plunge. There have been protests all over the
(05:01):
country and there was one here in Atlanta the other
night and some of my kids friends were there and
it turned violent, and a source from the inside who
I have every trust in said it was cops that
were instigating the violence and not the protesters. This notion
from the administration that these are paid agitators just sounds
(05:22):
so retrograde and like the kind of stuff that would
have been said by like a Boss Tweed type individual.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
It just freaks me out.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
It reminds us again of the old observation that every
accusation can itself be a confession and what we see
here again, please check out our earlier episodes on the
concept of agent provocateurs. That's a very real thing. We
saw it during the Black Lives Matter protest, We've seen
(05:51):
it during multiple historical protests. One of the most disturbing
things for a lot of observers here is the idea
that the California National Guard was sent in along with
Marines without the consent of California's governor, Gavin Newsom. It
(06:12):
has happened before that the National Guard would be called
in to a state or to a region without the
consent of the governor, but that's very rare. As a
matter of fact, one of the last times that happened
before now was when the schools were integrated post segregation.
(06:32):
This is the opposite, right, the governor of California is
saying we don't need the National Guard activated, and the
current administration is activating the National Guard without the consent
of the governor, which is hinky. As our pal Chuck
would say.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
If I'm not mistaken, calling for his arrest sort of
in a ingest, but not you know, I don't know right,
not in jest. I mean, you know what I mean though,
the way he says that everything's kind of veiled in
this sort of sarcasm almost. But then people start repeating it,
and he even claimed I believe that he did talk
to the governor, and the governor says that that's just
(07:12):
not true.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
The governor told the Borders are to come arrest him
and told them, hey, Newsom said, look this is where
I am. Come get me. We can play a quick
clip of Newsom's recent statements. I think it will be
worth our time. Okay, this is Governor Newsom talking just
a few hours ago, as we record on Wednesday, June eleventh.
Speaker 7 (07:36):
This is about you California maybe first, but it clearly
will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.
Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we
have feared has arrived.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
So we'll stop there. You can see newsom statements in
full online for now right there before continues. So I'm
not monologuing. What are our initial reactions to that statement.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
It's very weird and attempting to not get too political
about it is difficult right in some of these situations,
because it does feel as though this is fear is
the thing. That's what this is. It's supposed to be fear.
In my opinion, that move is to instill fear in
other people who are not at that protest. That is
(08:27):
like the reason why you do it. I've been recalling
a lot of conversations I've had with my parents. I'm
sorry to do this one more time, Guys, you know
this already. My parents in nineteen seventy on May fourth,
were at Kent State University when there was a demonstration
two thousand people on the Commons and the Ohio National
(08:47):
Guard showed up to try and bring law and order
to that situation. You had a governor that was upset
about it, and you had, you know, a president that
was upset about it, and you had a lot of
pressure from above from the authorities of people in power
trying to get trying to quell sentiment right, And it
wasn't just about the sentiment of all of those students,
(09:08):
mostly students, gathered on the commons. It was about the
national sentiment of being angry right at actions that the
federal government was taking. But in that situation, it's just
it's so crazy to me. In thirteen seconds, four students
got killed, nine got injured by National Guard members because
(09:32):
again because of the confusion, because of the fear that
everyone is feeling in those moments when there's a standoff, right,
and it just reminds me that they're in every situation
like this, when you have people who are armed, no
matter what those armaments are, with non lethal or not,
it is such a dangerous situation.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Democracy as well is fragile. And as someone who has
participated in protests and kerfuffles abroad, you know, one of
the primary things that we warn people about is not
to be involved. Right as you're saying the idea of fear,
the idea of pushing people away from a thing. It
(10:15):
is immensely and darkly hilarious to me that the NRA,
of all lobbies and associations has not weighed in with
a statement about resisting tyranny. Dare I say a bit hypocritical,
but we do have to remember again the fragility of
the social compact. Right, it seems like it works, it
(10:36):
seems ironclad until it is not roughly seven hundred marines
from a really like a real hellhole. I'm just gonna
say it. Sorry, guys, if your veterans or Marines in
the crowd to night. You know what we're talking about.
Twenty nine Palms, that's where those folks are coming from,
and those seven hundred marines estimated.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
There.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
They have a specialization in riot control and urban warfare. However,
that is turning the military upon civilians who have not
gone to court, have not been convicted of a crime.
It is a worrisome thing. As we record tonight on Wednesday,
June eleventh, once more, there are curfew. There is a
(11:23):
curfew in effect in Los Angeles. The curfew is from
eight pm to six am, which honestly is logistically improbable
just given Los Angeles traffic. Not to make a SNL
joke out of this whole thing, but LA traffic is bearable.
So how are they going to get home by eight?
Speaker 8 (11:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (11:45):
A lot of stuff that I was saying too, as
people on the highways like standing on cars and stuff
and sort of like turnipying the interstates and you know,
physically blocking blocking traffic.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And the LAPD vehicles that got run out and run
down the exchange of tear gas. There's some Black Bloc protesting.
I am certain there's some agent provocateurs This's my question.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
Can't that be employed on both sides?
Speaker 5 (12:11):
Though? And I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist here,
but it certainly seems like a plot twist in a
political machination of turning protests in the favor of the
people being protested against by delegitimizing it, perhaps by injecting
violence into it themselves.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yeah, again, check out our episodes on agent provocateurs. That's
exactly what you're describing, and it makes hellish sense. Critics
of the current administration are by and large convinced that
there is a concerted effort to some degree to push
a situation such that a member of law enforcement or
(12:53):
the military or the National Guard is injured or maybe
even maybe fatally injured, such that the Insurrection Act could
be called upon, such that there could be a declaration
of martial law rens and repeat tactic replicated in other states.
(13:14):
This is live fire. This is a serious thing, and
just for full disclosure, and I checked with him before
saying this on air. Touch base with some of our
LA friends, some of whom wish to remain anonymous, some
of whom are happy to report that they are Okay,
so want to give a shout out to our daily
(13:36):
Zeitgeist family. Jack and Miles, who are way cooler than us,
are are all right, but the tension is high and
the question is, to your point, Zal, is there a
conspiracy afoot? Is the current administration or some faction of
the federal government attempting to force an issue to create
(14:00):
causes belly to create a rationalization for the rollout of
martial law? And again, where's the NRA. Where where are
guys who are like you should always stand up against tyranny?
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I don't know where jaw rualism?
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Where is jaw I'm sorry, it's I yelled.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's a really tough situation because you've You've got a
battalion of marines, right, seven hundred dudes who are following
their orders because they have to right to some extent,
and if they choose not to, there are repercussions, right,
like pretty serious repercussions. If you say no, I'm not
going to do that. How many times can that happen? Before,
(14:45):
you know, first small groups of marines say no or
you know, fight back against it. It just it worries
me that we if this kind of thing continues, and
the US military is continually aimed at itself, you know,
at its own citizens. How long before we have those
simple sabotaged things happening, And how long before, you know,
(15:10):
the thing that's supposed to protect the United States starts
dismantling itself.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Right, and ora boros? What occurs when it begins to
eat its own And that's always been a that's always
been a structural or systemic possibility, right with the way
the US government is created, right the way the ORG
chart works. You know, governors have beefed with the FEDS before. However, again,
(15:37):
not to sound like a broken record, when these elephants
make war, it is the grass that suffers. And if
you are an active member of the armed forces, the
US military law enforcement would love to hear we would
love to hear, I hope, not just me. We would
love to hear your input, your first hand experience, because
(15:58):
I'll tell you this, every single marine, active or out
of the service that I have spoken with regarding this specifically,
everyone knows that if you're a marine, you have way
more in common with the people on the ground protesting
in Los Angeles or in Texas or in other cities
(16:19):
to come you have, you have way more in common
with them than you do with those folks in DC.
That's just demographically true communitis.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Also to state maybe the obvious or maybe it's not
so obvious, that there are people on both sides of
the political divide that have a real problem with this,
you know, I mean, this is not a hot take
or a political take. This is stuff that matters and
stuff that is very scary. And there are certainly people
who voted for this administration that also are not cool
with this because it's inherently kind of not cool.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Well, it's inherently a danger, existential danger to democracy. I
appreciate that point that it is a political The idea
of differing political parties is a beautiful aspect of the
American experiment. It's tight to protest, it's dope to disagree.
The thing is, we cannot injure the vehicle that allows
(17:11):
that discourse to continue. If that makes sense.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
It does, and I mean the proposed goal here of
the policies that are being protested is to remove murderers
and all of this stuff and this rhetoric that you
know came along with the political campaigns, but we've seen
multiple very very clear cases of overreach.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And that's the problem.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
Like, I don't think anyone has any problem with dealing
with criminals in an even handed way, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Dealing with folks who intend to do harm.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
But there's this baby out with the bathwater thing that's
going on, and it really starts to feel like the
on the surface reasoning behind doing some of these deportations
and sweeps is really just a cover story for doing
whatever they want.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
And we also want to shout out the Los Angeles
mayor Karen Bess. Karen Bass earlier criticized these ice raids
leading to the protest. It's got to be a weird
day to be a weird time to be home. Depot
PR Right Public Relations. Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles, said,
(18:16):
as mayor of a proud city of immigrants who contribute
to our city in so many ways, I am deeply
angered by what has taken place. These tactics so terror
in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in
our city. The folks deployed have military training, the protesters
(18:36):
do not. And I love the point about the broad
brush danger. You cannot and should not paint everybody as
a criminal, you know what I mean? Like, I hang
out with people who like Doctor Pepper. I don't think
they're all terrorists.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I like diet doctor Pepper. Does that make me a terrorist?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
No, you're your own man.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Guys, had a conversation. Don't mean to derail us here
on sodas, but we're talking about them. Fago. I've learned
about a thing called rock and Rye. I never heard
of that before. Did we can talk that?
Speaker 5 (19:08):
It's a cream kind of situation, right, It's a spicy
cream stell. It's something it's very popular and very regional.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
People in Detroit love it.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
But get it in the twenty four ounce version.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
But did we talk about that on the show?
Speaker 5 (19:21):
I don't remember having a rock I know moon messs
we've talked about, but maybe not rock and rye.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
What's the deal with rock and Rye?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I didn't know. It was based on a prohibition drink
that was very popular back in the time, a rock
and rye whiskey. Very interesting stuff. Okay, sorry, that's it.
Hurt is delicious, folks. Look, we know this is important.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
We're running a little bit over in the first act
of our weekly segment here because we want to hear
from you. We hope that we are shared just the facts, right,
not opinions, the objective facts, the controversies on both sides,
the worries of the critics. We will say that people
(20:02):
who are supportive of the actions of Ice, of the
actions of the federal government, do seem to genuinely believe that,
to Nole's point, there is some kind of criminal compromise occurring. However,
any other statistics you look at, any other prove incredible
(20:24):
quantitative analysis shows that is not the case. This is
going to be something that I imagine or I hope
we return to in an episode in the future, because
as you're hearing this the evening it publishes, a lot
more will have transpired. So is stay tuned for an
upcoming episode. We're going to give you the timeline, We're
(20:47):
going to give you the implications, the add on consequences,
and the conspiracies at play. For now, we're going to
pause for a word from our sponsors. Be safe out there.
La returned with some more strange.
Speaker 8 (21:01):
News, and we returned with strange news and a story
that I've been kicking around the dock for a couple
of weeks now and just kept not getting to.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
But I think though it's maybe a couple weeks old.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
It's worth discussing.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
Is it's something that we feel very passionately about, which
is the implementation of AI, the future of AI.
Speaker 6 (21:25):
This idea of an.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
AI bubble, the term being grossly overused in and of itself,
and this is just I think a really telling example
of AI overreach. Literally, there's a company that was called
Builder or called Builder dot ai that has collapsed under
the weight of its AI scamming. Essentially the billion dollar
(21:49):
company that received some investment money from the likes of Microsoft.
Valued at one point five billion, the startup essentially mass
crated manual labor programmers, developers, whatever, freelancers doing this kind
(22:10):
of manual work as machine learning for quite some time,
you know, totally bilking its investors and the public into
believing that they had this entirely AI driven platform that
could I believe their goal was creating software like essentially
(22:30):
building platforms. They described its AI system AI and hard
quotes there as a fully autonomous tool that could build
software quote as easy as ordering pizza.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
But I believe it.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Was Bloomberg who did an expose showing that engineers in Noida,
I believe, and Bengalore were actually the ones behind the
work that was being done that was being passed off
as machine learning. And it refers to this concept the
guys that I haven't heard until very recently called AI washing.
(23:04):
It's this idea that it's so popular and the hot
new thing now that people are doing this very thing
past AI affying things when it actually isn't that, or
using it as sort of a buzzy way of you know,
making some headlines or whatever.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
And this is obviously the beyond the pale, total scamster
version of that.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
By it it's like when you put digital in front
of every piece of technology in the nineteen ninety million percent.
Now I've got a digital toaster totally. Now an AI toaster.
Oh my AI crypto backed toaster will make artificial organic
toast for you.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Organics.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Another book, it's all computer and I think were we
talking about this, No, I can't remember if it was
on air previously or just an off air conversation. This
shows the the the bubble of AI being burst, like
the valuation goes crazy. Also, these folks were backed by Microsoft.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Exactly right, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
I mentioned that as well. As you know, other venture
capitalists that were involved. At one point five billion dollar valuation,
it's a big deal. A former engineer for the project
from Bangalore had this to say, this is a piece
on tech spot that I think is jumping off of
a lot of that Bloomberg reporting. We were told to
never mention our location or use Indian English phrases, so
(24:28):
they were basically instructed to pretend to be AI. And
it's another thing we see too with companies like Tesla
that are pushing and pushing and pushing this automated stuff
that actually is people remote controlling things behind the scenes,
like these robots that were you know, trotted out at
this big public you know, kind of event, this Gala
(24:49):
thing as being these autonomous creations, but then it was
exposed that they actually had people in other rooms controlling
them with remote like puppeteering these things, which made them
essentially animatronic and not AI at all. So that's an
early example of this, and I think we're it's going
to keep seeing more of it. But yeah, I don't know, guys,
any any thoughts here. It does feel like I'll just
(25:11):
wrap up my part of this by saying that the
Bloomberg reporting indicated that this artificially inflated builder dot AI's
revenue buy up to three hundred percent. Audits later revealed
twenty twenty four revenues totaled around fifty five million dollars,
a fraction of the two hundred and twenty million projected
to investors. So frauds within frauds with this one, y'all.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
But yeah, thoughts sounds like standard practice to me. No,
not really. It is one of those things where when
you've got a big company like that and you're trying
to get investors, you do anything and everything you can,
and if you can. I look, I don't know. It
feels like if you can pull off a grift like that,
people are going to be doing it. Whether it's just
(25:57):
goosing numbers or an entire thing. Yeah, I don't know.
I'm not saying everybody's doing that. It just feels common.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Yeah, but it does feel like the kind of thing
that is eventually going to catch up to you. The
last bit that I want to mention from the article
is Microsoft invested four hundred and fifty five million dollars
back in twenty twenty three, and they actually included plans
to like on board this technology with some of their
platforms in their suite. And you know, say what you
will about the quality of Microsoft's tools in their suite,
(26:27):
not great, but they're very widely used, you know in
business and corporations that have these you know, enterprise versions
of these tools. What really led to the collapse was
when Viola Credit, a creditor involved in the project, sees
thirty seven million dollars from their accounts after it uncovered
inflated financials, leaving just around five million in restricted funds.
(26:52):
And they also owe eighty five million dollars to Amazon
for cloud services, so that's just like their cloud storage
bills or something that It's not clear to me whether
Amazon was an investor because they also list thirty million
to Microsoft, but it does say it for cloud services,
so I guess they were using both of those enterprise
solutions or whatever.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
So yeah, I don't know. It's pretty wild.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
They've had records subpoenaed and it is a real show
and really points to this whole concept of AI washing
that I think is super interesting. Really quickly, I just
want to move on to another sort of more lighthearted
story band that I think you'll appreciate.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
And now I'm curious as to whether you've seen this.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
It's pretty new in your.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
Travels in Japan.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
For quite a few years now, there's been a bit
of a battle about as escalator etiquette in Japan in
different areas. Apparently in some areas you're supposed to walk
on the left and stand on the right, and on
others you're supposed to stand on the right walk on
the left, and so I guess they're but there's a
lot of government kind of finger wagging at walking on
(27:53):
escalators at all. So now there's this new government initiative
that is designed to encourage people to stand still un escalators.
The name of the initiative and the folks that are
working to spread its message is the Stop and Stand Squad,
which is essentially paying Japanese citizens.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
A pretty respectable wage.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Based on some reporting that I saw, it was like
above the average that an individual might make working at
like a cafe or a restaurant or something like that,
or a bar, and team members are paid for six
hours of daily work standing on these escalators. You could
look at it as preventing folks from actually walking up
the escalators, or you could just say that they're encouraging
(28:36):
this etiquette, but they actually have these giant stop hands,
like foam hands on their backs, and they're wearing I
don't know if this is a uniform, but it looks
like they're wearing like a red kind of parka and
some light pants. But that could well be this individual's,
you know, personal fashion choice. But just says stop in
two different text styles. It just says stop in the
(28:57):
English in the middle, real big, and then it has
one version up and the other.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
On the bottom.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
I just think it's funny and interesting, and I don't
really see what the issue is with the stand on
the right, walk on the left. But is it maybe
a product of not being kind of universal across the
area you tell me, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It's funny, guys, Yeah, city by city, which toier point
can be confusing. I think the first version I heard
of this was in Nagoya a few years back, And
to your question, there no the from this is my understanding.
I don't have the research on this, but from what
I remember, a part of the issue was that there
(29:37):
were a lot of people with disabilities and elderly people.
As Japan's demographics continue to shift, elderly people were worried
because they were getting they were getting hit. There might
be accidents on the escalators. I think the Japanese government
or the municipalities call it improper use, and hundreds of
(29:58):
folks where Look, if you've been in an airport, you've
been in a new public space with a big escalator,
you know that there is a higher than average likelihood
of somebody running to something right. Excuse me, excuse me,
I get my plane, excuse me, excuse me. You know
this illegal fungus I smuggled is gonna die if I
don't sneak it past customs. So there is there is
(30:20):
a real need. But I love your I love your
description of paying people to make folks stand still. This
comes along with a wave of other what are sometimes
called wacky Japanese laws. I don't know if you heard this,
but Japan has also banned flashy baby dames.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
I was gonna mention that, like and the things that
are Nike, Yeah, that are more like brand centric. And
then you know, I mentioned the podcast that I enjoy.
It is called weird af News with Jonesy. He just
finds some really fun stories and so shout out to
him and his podcast, But he also, in talking about
that very story, mentioned that I want to say, somewhere
(31:02):
in Scandinavia, I think maybe Sweden, there is like or
maybe in Norway, an approved list of baby names, so
they go even further than that.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
I just thought that was very interesting.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Thou shalt not name your kid uh Zanzibar.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
It is really funny to me. I remember being warned
against the escalators as a as a wee boy, and
then actually falling down one a little bit garry and realizing, oh, okay,
I will be careful on these escalators.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Have you ever seen under the hood of an.
Speaker 6 (31:31):
Escalators killing machine? It's Mary's deeper than it. It'll grind
you up. It takes you into the for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
But at the same time it does Ben. I'm just
I keep getting an image now of an aging population
and just being like, yeah, God, be careful with the
escalators please.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
But it's real.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, it does feel like, well, you know, maybe let's
invest in more elevators or lifts of different kinds.
Speaker 6 (31:58):
It is an aging infrastructure. I mean, when you guys
argue that the escalator is.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
A little dated in general, it's just like, have you
ever been to like malls where like the escalators just
aren't don't even work, and then you're basically just climbing
up really sharp scary stairs.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Shout out to Mitch Hedberg. Yeah, escalators never break, they
become stairs, as he says, it's true.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
You know, I get it. I get where we're coming from.
It's also it's also I think, a parable about how
governments can try their best to help a population. But
it's all in the approach, right, and it's all in
the bedside banner. Are like if you there was another
thing where you know, Japan has a quite punishing work
(32:42):
schedule or cultural expectations of work hours, and any time
the government has tried to mitigate that, the culture just
says no. So if you are, let's practice sympathy. If
we're the guy in a hurry, right, we got to
get these documents, you know we always get We got
our briefcase of documents or whatever, and we got to
(33:03):
get them to the drop off point. Oh snap, there's
an escalator. There are a bunch of elderly people on
it and they're not moving, and some of them have
signs on their backs. Is that going to stop you?
As an individual or are you more likely to say, well,
just me because my thing is really important. Yeah, I'm
going to barrel through that.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
Being said though, and I haven't been, but it does
seem to me that the Japanese people do value decorum
and value those standardizations and sort of expectations, maybe more
so than we do over here. But maybe that's a
great generalization, but it does feel that way.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
No, you're right, that is true, and part of that
is the larger homogeneity of the population. But look, you know,
if you want to see another example of trying to
trying to get people to practice social compact through legislation
or through mandates, look at all the smoking laws that
(33:59):
have changed. There are a ton of people in France
that are super pissed off right now, and Japan itself,
city by city is still struggling with smoking bands.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
M I didn't know that. I know people have to
smoke in Japan. I mean in China maybe more so
or at least gets that rap. But it's it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
So what would you do do you have do we
then have if we're trying to stop the escalator of
something like secondhand smoke? Do we have people who wear
t shirts with no smoking sides and make them stand
directly outside.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Of a bar. Well, you know, those tactics don't work.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
It certainly didn't work over a year, or I guess
maybe arguably like truth campaigns and the anti drug you know,
propaganda type campaigns, or whatever your mileage may vary. I
will say this, Japan sure does have an amazing reputation
for incredible mascot costumes and just sort of like the
maybe over here we would the closest equivalent would be
(34:57):
Signed Spinners, but over there they go hard, hard in
the paint on those. And this is another example, these
giant foam hands and people just hanging out on these
escalators for hours at a time.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
So I like that Sign Spinner comparison. That's probably one
of the best comparisons I've heard.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Nice.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
It's much more of a cultural thing over there, and
it feels like it gets a budget. Over here, you
just see like really shoddy stuff and like kind of
you know, low rent statue of liberty costumes and stuff.
But over there it's sort of an art form. And
I actually follow you may as well, and I can't
remember the name off hand, but it's an Instagram account
that just highlights those many of those you know happening
out in the wild, those types of elaborate advertising costumes.
Speaker 6 (35:38):
Well, guys, this went on a bit longer than I thought.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
I know, we've got more to get to.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
There's a couple of stories that I didn't mention that
I think I will just save for next time, including
a weed dispensary in I want to say Michigan is.
Speaker 6 (35:54):
Offering but a single pre roll joint and in exchanged
for proof of big Foot seems a little bit stingy
to me. I think you should.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
Get, like, you know, a quarter or something, or at least,
you know, a pack of pre rolls again to credit
where credit is due. Jonesy un weird af News made
that point that I was thinking, as well, let's take
a quick break here worth from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
I will be back with more strange.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
News, and we've returned, guys up top. I have two
equally important vital updates that are coming out in the
news right now. The first one is checking back in
with the private companies attempting to land on the Moon.
We last talked about it in early March. I think
(36:41):
maybe we recorded it in late February, but I think
it was March when it came out. We talked about
several other companies and updates to their attempts to make
lunar landings happen. Well, one of those companies was I
Space that's no space is just the letter I and
then Space. They had a lander that was on its
way to the Moon when we were talking about it.
(37:02):
It was, you know, the company was very excited because
they were going to get to try again because they
had previously attempted to make it happen. But it crashed
into the moon. As many of these have, only a few.
I think Firefly is the only company that we talked
about that actually made a successful landing since then. But
this one, High Space unfortunately failed because communication was lost
(37:27):
between the team at I Space, which is Tokyo based,
and the lander itself as it was about it was
about to happen, you guys, and they lost comms with it.
A very very sad situation there, because it had a
mini rover on it, it was gonna do all kinds
of cool stuff. Just if you think about the hundreds
and hundreds of hours of you know that all of
(37:48):
these engineers put in and then it was all unfortunately
for not. Well it wasn't for not because there's learning,
right just in every time you fail, you learn. That's
just what I can tell that my son.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Yeah, that's how science works. Yeah, we talked about that
too previously, you know, in state supported initiatives as well.
Just getting out of the atmosphere is tough. We I
believe we were all collectively baffled and humbled by our
our even our our bare top line understanding of the
(38:23):
math that goes into taking off from an object like
Earth moving so quickly and then somehow, somehow landing on
another thing moving around that planet. It's it's great, you
know what I mean, Like even crash landing on the
Moon is an enormous success.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
You hit you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Yet there you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, it really is like dartsy, you at least
hit the board. So yeah. In in this instance, it
appears that the laser system that there were that I
Space was using on this particular lander to estimate the
altitude of the lander, like basically a distance away from
the Moon, it didn't work properly, so it crashed right
(39:09):
into it, which made me think about those way most
systems that use lasers, and you know all these other
self driving systems that use lasers to detect how close
something is.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
They're like the Kaiju Jaegers in Pacific Rim the sequel
Pacific Rim Uprising. I don't trust them, the Kaiju Jaegers
in the Big mechs in Pacific Rim Uprising spoiler. They're
supposed to be autonomous, but it turns out that they
are instead the spoiler three to one. They're operated by
(39:39):
these eldritch, evil cosmic entities. So maybe that's what we
need for the Moon. Maybe we need to take some
of the research in resurrecting brain cells or turning dead
spiders into cyber zombies. Those are true stories, and maybe
we put their brains, you know, in a little in
(40:01):
a little compot, a little operating center for these lunar landers.
Japan get at US conspiracy adiheartradio dot com.
Speaker 6 (40:09):
Yes, well yeah, thoughts please please.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
It is actually kind of a really tragic, sad story,
you guys, because they're the same SpaceX launch sent up
this lander and Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which is the
one that made it successfully the same launch. Both of
these were on that launch, and then I Space's lander
(40:32):
just kind of took a different route, a different way
to get to the moon and took a lot longer
than spent a whole month orbiting around the Moon before
it attempted landing. But it is kind of sad they
both went up, one of them worked, and then the
other one just lost.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Comms pooped out.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
I can't remember we were talking about this on some show,
but it reminds me of you know, what we were
talking about with the discovery of morning routines on Ridiculous History.
This is the knee science and invention. I agree with you, Matt,
it's a really sad story. It also reminds me of
what we're talking about on that show. Imagine, if you will,
(41:10):
fellow conspiracy realist, how many people tried to invent a
plane or a method of flight and immediately died before
a plane was finally invented. This is the era we
are in right now. So not all of these initiatives
are going to meet their own metrics of success, but
(41:32):
each one contributes right to the ultimate success, so there
will there shoulders of giants.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Let's talk about the ultimate success, which is our second
equally vital important update. Back in nineteen eighty seven, a
little company called Square invented a game called Final Fantasy. Okay,
and there was just you know. Several years later, in
(42:01):
the early nineties, another organization called Wizards of the Coast
invented a little game called Magic the Gathering. And guess what, guys,
As of today, when you're hearing this, it's been two
or three days since the launch of Magic the Gathering
Final Fantasy. WHOA. Yeah, Now you may be thinking, oh,
(42:22):
that's another one of those MTG releases. It's just like, oh,
it's happy. It's just over here on the side. I'll
get those. I could collect them.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
No, that's just another one of those MTG releases. That's
over there on that side, and it's happy. It's fun.
I'll collect them.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
No, you're wrong, Ben. You can play with these. They
are tournament legal. It is a new set that you
could play Magic the Gathering movie and you can do
things like play Sid or Tifa or Cloud or there's
separa you can summon Odin or Leviathan, Omega, King mag
(42:56):
there's even a traveling chocobo. Now we're not sponsored Wizards
of the Coast, War Square, Onyx or any of these companies,
but this is the most exciting and vitally important thing
to happen in a long time.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
Yes, sorry, North Korean warship. That's capsize.
Speaker 5 (43:15):
Take that point though, And we talked about this a
little bit off air if you're into that stuff and
Final Fantasy and JRPG kind of term based stuff, and
I'm sure you've heard about it if you're in that sphere.
This new French game, Clear Obscure Expedition thirty three is
absolutely next level and people are loving it all over
the place, and for good reason. It sort of like
(43:36):
updates those turn based mechanics and that Final Fantasy type
storytelling lore, and it's I think it's neat too, because
it's these this a lot of folks that got laid
off from Ubisoft, another giant French company that makes the
Assassin's Creed series, and you know them get a lot
of flack for kind of doing the same thing year
over year, and this company just shows that scrappy. I mean,
(43:57):
it is a big budget relatively speaking, but it is
still I think thirty people to the core team. It
just shows that that's when a game is great, that's
what people want. Sorry, end of rant.
Speaker 6 (44:07):
The game, that's great, it's great.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
We're unanimous on this.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Hey, uh, we're putting us on it for sure.
Speaker 7 (44:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Max Williams, uh first of his name. We think we're
not going to check for other Max Williams. We picked
one and we're doing Highlander rules with that. This reminds me, guys,
I have here, Oh, I still have the Boy Scout
textbook there. I have here Magic the Gathering Kamigawa Neon
Dynasty set booster. Is this familiar to either you?
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Guys? It's a killer set?
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Is it a killer set?
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Yeah? Shore we open it now if you want?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
Yeah, baby, all right, what's the good ones?
Speaker 6 (44:46):
Like the shiny ones? You like the shiny ones?
Speaker 8 (44:48):
Right?
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Is that what you want? Is that in magic or
just Pokemon?
Speaker 2 (44:51):
You want that mythic alter alt art rare, baby, that's
what you're.
Speaker 4 (44:55):
Looking for, mythic altart.
Speaker 5 (44:57):
Folks out there having like repeated Nerd game right now,
I'm just saying, okay, so just turn it off the show.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
No, no, no, stay with us, folks. Uh, this is okay.
So there's a card here that doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
I think it's.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
Art card, just art card.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
By the way, folks, Matt and Nolan are getting all
of these after the show. Uh, there's this basic land
we are going to be.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
Doing video against in this so we got maybe we
got this is good practice and visual aids.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
I like, so this is an imperial subduer. Okay, Okay,
I don't know if that's good. Wait, you said Nolan,
I'm supposed to look for foiling in.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
The in the middle right hand side. You're going to
find the set icon. Okay, Okay, you're black ones. If
it's black, it is a common. If it's silvery, it's uncommon.
If it's gold, it's it's rare. If it's like a
goldish red color, then it's mythic. Bro.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
I'm so sorry. I kind of I can see some
of them are black. Is that helpful? No, Okay, we're
gonna save this for the Uh, We're gonna save this
for whatever we hang out off air. There's a cool
and Cold suit up that has foil to Nol's question,
and then there's something called Life of Toshiro Umizawa, which
(46:17):
is something about sagas. This looks really complicated.
Speaker 6 (46:19):
Actually, uh, it's like an educational card.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
As this saga enters and after your drawstep at a
lore counter, I'm over my head. Okay, okay, all right,
I'll just you know what, I'll take a picture of
this and send it in the group.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Let's get back to get back to strange news stuff
that's not as vitally important, but we should be thinking about, guys.
Germany is preparing for World War three. Yes, full on god.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
They've been spinning up for a while because the US
has abandoned NATO and Germany is the next, you know,
the next best thing.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
There you go. Well, they are drawing up plans to
wrap expand their network of bomb proof bunkers and shelters.
They are currently warning at least several major important officials
within the country are warning that the state needs to
be prepared for an attack from Russia within the next
four years.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
Fun, you'd love to see it.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Well, and they're also saying it will cost way too
much money to build like brand new facilities of these
types across the country. So what they're looking at is
pinpointing tunnels, metro stations, underground garages, car parks, and sellers
of public buildings to turn those into bomb shelters, and
then trying to come up with a way to alert
(47:39):
citizens of which bomb shelters are closest to them in
the event of literally, I mean you have to imagine
a nuclear attack. That's what these are.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
For entering a wartime economy and infrastructure. Right, it's a
new kind of gentrification. Well, it's not really a new
kind of gentrification. The US and Europe did it in
the past, but it is concent learning because Matt, from
my understanding, there's a lot of money going into this
with a pretty aggressive timeline.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Well, yeah, these are estimates from government officials. Okay, this
guy named Tisler, he has said that roughly ten billion
euros would be needed over four years to basically cover
all the civil defense needs that they've got, and around
thirty billion euros over the course of ten years.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
Well, Germany's nothing if not prepared. That's sort of a
thing that they're historically, i mean, just in general they're
all about.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yeah, they're also tying here about building up a and
establishing a compulsory slash maybe voluntary civil protection service, and
they urged all citizens to contribute to making the country
more resilient by stocking up on emergency supplies in the
case of power and water shortages. Again, the thinking here
is if there's an attack in a neighboring country really
(48:58):
close by, and water or power gets disrupted for one
reason or another, and then you know, if there's an invasion.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
It's a little posse comitatas uh, like we have here
in the US. But the yeah, and also to that point,
note what Matt is saying, their folks, is not the
same as compulsory military service. This is a CPS civil
protection Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, just training training people for things that or may
not happen in the end. It's muscle memory, right, Okay.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Guys, we are just some folks who hang out and
have fun on the weekends.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
May guys, the last thing I wanted to talk about,
we don't. I'm not going to go into all the
details here, but a very interesting thing occurred in central Florida,
right around the area that we've talked about many a
time on this show.
Speaker 8 (49:49):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
I don't know how you say it, Osacola, Osaciola County,
I don't kid. It's south of Orlando, it is part
of it is partly owned by Waltsney or Disney and
all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (50:02):
The Creek Improvement District with.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Some interesting stuff down there. Well, guys, a sheriff in
this part of town was arrested recently, I think last week,
on charges of racketeering and conspiracy of what the state
described as a massive gambling operation. Guys, let's just talk
about this. This gentleman, Sheriff Marcos Lopez, he allegedly took
(50:28):
campaign contributions and personal payments like to do this whole thing,
as well as protected the gambling operation, you know, with
the Sheriff's office, which is generally looked down upon. They're
saying that this was a lottery situation they were running.
They're running slot machines and a quote gambling house out
(50:49):
of a business called Fusion Social Club in Kissime, Florida,
which if you've ever traveled down in those ways, like
to maybe visit parts of Orlando for some dizzy stuff,
you've probably been through. Kissing me again. We've talked about
many a time. The organization, according to officials, took in
twenty one point six million dollars in illicit proceeds. Pretty nice,
(51:14):
but that's really it, guys. Just see if there's any
updates there, see what's going on. Always nice when the
local law enforcement is in cahoots with some kind of
some kind of organized crime.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Who hasn't had some hot dice, you know what I mean,
who hasn't been at the table, had a seventeen and
just said hit me.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Snake Eyes is bad, right, you don't want to sack guys?
Speaker 4 (51:35):
Well, depends on the game, you know, right, Like the
action figure Snake Eyes from gi Jo is pretty dope. Anyway,
that's our show, folks. Thank you so much for tuning in.
We appreciate your time. We would love for you to
join us in our future episodes. Let's see, we'll have
the stuff gas stations don't want you to know coming
out soon. We're all very excited for that, and thank
(51:57):
you for the correspondence in advance. The most importantly, folks
in Europe, in Los Angeles and so many more American
cities to come, please stay safe, Please let us know
what's happening in your neck of the Global woods. You
can find us online. You can call us on the telephone.
You can give us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
You certainly can.
Speaker 5 (52:16):
You can find us online at the handle conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist, on XFKA, Twitter, on Facebook with our
Facebook group here is where it gets crazy, and on YouTube,
where we have video content all day long for your
enjoyment and soon to be adding.
Speaker 6 (52:29):
More to that catalog on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
However, we're Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. When you call in, you'll find yourself
amongst three minutes of your time. Within that time, please
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you've got words you want to send to us,
perhaps type to words. Why not send us an email?
Speaker 4 (52:55):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well, where yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back and is going to be following up, in
fact with several of our listeners right after this show.
Two stories we didn't get to. There's a Kentucky man
rested for releasing a raccoon into a business several months
after he fled police on a mule, and the leaders
(53:17):
of an orgasmic meditation women's wellness company have been convicted
in a trial over forced labor. So tune in to
colts who've never heard of Part three coming soup Conspiracy
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Name is Noah.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
They goal me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan to Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Folks, Welcome to Strange News.
I almost did like a FM radio voice on that one.
But anyway, if you're hearing this, it's Monday, June sixteenth.
(00:51):
Congrats to everybody. Also for any tenfoil hat fans in
the crowd. You guys, they're finally doing it. They're microchip
in the cheese. We knew it was coming. Look strange it.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Uh well, I guess how to deploy the devices into
our bodies.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
You can eat a microchip. Technically, it's probably not in,
you know, like the food pyramid, which is itself a conspiracy.
But as we know, there's been a we've talked about
in the past. There's been a lot of kerfuffle over
calling stuff, champagne or calling stuff, you know, parmesan. Italy
and France in particular, with their very rich food culture
(01:35):
and history, they're very sensitive to counterfeits. So now UH
Parmesan cheese, being one of the most counterfeited cheeses in
the world dubious distinction, UH is now going to have
its quality and authenticity assured through the use of microchips
(01:56):
on the outside of those big Parmagiano reggiano cheese wheels.
And this comes to us courtesy of the Parmagado Reggiato
Consortium or PRC, which is somehow a real thing.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Not the People's Republic of China.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
But there's something very different, yes, different kind of cheese
in there. So if you want to learn more about that,
go to CBS News. There's a great article by Emmett Leon's.
This actually happened a while ago, but we just found
out about it. So check your cheese for micro chips,
and of course also remember that you cannot use your
(02:35):
cost code card as a valid form of ID at
US airports. We're going to get into a lot of
other stuff. Obviously, those are the headlines that concerned us most.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Yeah, for sure, and nothing weird going on on the
West Coast. No, there is, and that's very concerning as well.
We're going to get to it right after this quick break.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
And we have returned or breaking story. Now again this
is live fire. Unfortunately, that is a literal truth. We
are going to give you the quick skinny, the timeline
of what's happening with the protests in Los Angeles. Now,
this has gripped a lot of headlines, but unfortunately a
(03:20):
lot of those headlines have been pushing various narratives. Here's
what you need to know, folks. On June sixth, twenty
twenty five, there were protests in Los Angeles, and these
protests have been bubbling for a while, not just in
LA but across the world here in Atlanta as well.
(03:41):
And they came about because Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or
ICE as we call them in the US, they were
conducting raids, as they have done in multiple cities, to
arrest people who are allegedly involved in illegal immigration to
the United States. Protesting is inherently American thing, right. This
(04:04):
country has founded on the idea of protesting. Several of
these protests turned violent in the opinion of law enforcement,
and it was after the Los Angeles Police Department or
LAPD and ice clashed with protesters. Now, we talked about
this a little bit off air before we continue with
(04:27):
a timeline and get to the live updates on the curfew,
and Governor Newsom and the current administration would love to
hear your initial thoughts.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Guys.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
I mean you nailed that when you said that protest
as an American right privilege, it should be encouraged and
has historically been encouraged. And when you start hearing things
like any protests will be met with force, that is real,
scary and a real not a slippery slope at all,
it's a plunge. There have been protests all over the
(05:01):
country and there was one here in Atlanta the other
night and some of my kids friends were there and
it turned violent, and a source from the inside who
I have every trust in said it was cops that
were instigating the violence and not the protesters. This notion
from the administration that these are paid agitators just sounds
(05:22):
so retrograde and like the kind of stuff that would
have been said by like a Boss Tweed type individual.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
It just freaks me out.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
It reminds us again of the old observation that every
accusation can itself be a confession and what we see
here again, please check out our earlier episodes on the
concept of agent provocateurs. That's a very real thing. We
saw it during the Black Lives Matter protest, We've seen
(05:51):
it during multiple historical protests. One of the most disturbing
things for a lot of observers here is the idea
that the California National Guard was sent in along with
Marines without the consent of California's governor, Gavin Newsom. It
(06:12):
has happened before that the National Guard would be called
in to a state or to a region without the
consent of the governor, but that's very rare. As a
matter of fact, one of the last times that happened
before now was when the schools were integrated post segregation.
(06:32):
This is the opposite, right, the governor of California is
saying we don't need the National Guard activated, and the
current administration is activating the National Guard without the consent
of the governor, which is hinky. As our pal Chuck
would say.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
If I'm not mistaken, calling for his arrest sort of
in a ingest, but not you know, I don't know right,
not in jest. I mean, you know what I mean though,
the way he says that everything's kind of veiled in
this sort of sarcasm almost. But then people start repeating it,
and he even claimed I believe that he did talk
to the governor, and the governor says that that's just
(07:12):
not true.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
The governor told the Borders are to come arrest him
and told them, hey, Newsom said, look this is where
I am. Come get me. We can play a quick
clip of Newsom's recent statements. I think it will be
worth our time. Okay, this is Governor Newsom talking just
a few hours ago, as we record on Wednesday, June eleventh.
Speaker 7 (07:36):
This is about you California maybe first, but it clearly
will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.
Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we
have feared has arrived.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
So we'll stop there. You can see newsom statements in
full online for now right there before continues. So I'm
not monologuing. What are our initial reactions to that statement.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
It's very weird and attempting to not get too political
about it is difficult right in some of these situations,
because it does feel as though this is fear is
the thing. That's what this is. It's supposed to be fear.
In my opinion, that move is to instill fear in
other people who are not at that protest. That is
(08:27):
like the reason why you do it. I've been recalling
a lot of conversations I've had with my parents. I'm
sorry to do this one more time, Guys, you know
this already. My parents in nineteen seventy on May fourth,
were at Kent State University when there was a demonstration
two thousand people on the Commons and the Ohio National
(08:47):
Guard showed up to try and bring law and order
to that situation. You had a governor that was upset
about it, and you had, you know, a president that
was upset about it, and you had a lot of
pressure from above from the authorities of people in power
trying to get trying to quell sentiment right, And it
wasn't just about the sentiment of all of those students,
(09:08):
mostly students, gathered on the commons. It was about the
national sentiment of being angry right at actions that the
federal government was taking. But in that situation, it's just
it's so crazy to me. In thirteen seconds, four students
got killed, nine got injured by National Guard members because
(09:32):
again because of the confusion, because of the fear that
everyone is feeling in those moments when there's a standoff, right,
and it just reminds me that they're in every situation
like this, when you have people who are armed, no
matter what those armaments are, with non lethal or not,
it is such a dangerous situation.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Democracy as well is fragile. And as someone who has
participated in protests and kerfuffles abroad, you know, one of
the primary things that we warn people about is not
to be involved. Right as you're saying the idea of fear,
the idea of pushing people away from a thing. It
(10:15):
is immensely and darkly hilarious to me that the NRA,
of all lobbies and associations has not weighed in with
a statement about resisting tyranny. Dare I say a bit hypocritical,
but we do have to remember again the fragility of
the social compact. Right, it seems like it works, it
(10:36):
seems ironclad until it is not roughly seven hundred marines
from a really like a real hellhole. I'm just gonna
say it. Sorry, guys, if your veterans or Marines in
the crowd to night. You know what we're talking about.
Twenty nine Palms, that's where those folks are coming from,
and those seven hundred marines estimated.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
There.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
They have a specialization in riot control and urban warfare. However,
that is turning the military upon civilians who have not
gone to court, have not been convicted of a crime.
It is a worrisome thing. As we record tonight on Wednesday,
June eleventh, once more, there are curfew. There is a
(11:23):
curfew in effect in Los Angeles. The curfew is from
eight pm to six am, which honestly is logistically improbable
just given Los Angeles traffic. Not to make a SNL
joke out of this whole thing, but LA traffic is bearable.
So how are they going to get home by eight?
Speaker 8 (11:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (11:45):
A lot of stuff that I was saying too, as
people on the highways like standing on cars and stuff
and sort of like turnipying the interstates and you know,
physically blocking blocking traffic.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And the LAPD vehicles that got run out and run
down the exchange of tear gas. There's some Black Bloc protesting.
I am certain there's some agent provocateurs This's my question.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
Can't that be employed on both sides?
Speaker 5 (12:11):
Though? And I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist here,
but it certainly seems like a plot twist in a
political machination of turning protests in the favor of the
people being protested against by delegitimizing it, perhaps by injecting
violence into it themselves.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yeah, again, check out our episodes on agent provocateurs. That's
exactly what you're describing, and it makes hellish sense. Critics
of the current administration are by and large convinced that
there is a concerted effort to some degree to push
a situation such that a member of law enforcement or
(12:53):
the military or the National Guard is injured or maybe
even maybe fatally injured, such that the Insurrection Act could
be called upon, such that there could be a declaration
of martial law rens and repeat tactic replicated in other states.
(13:14):
This is live fire. This is a serious thing, and
just for full disclosure, and I checked with him before
saying this on air. Touch base with some of our
LA friends, some of whom wish to remain anonymous, some
of whom are happy to report that they are Okay,
so want to give a shout out to our daily
(13:36):
Zeitgeist family. Jack and Miles, who are way cooler than us,
are are all right, but the tension is high and
the question is, to your point, Zal, is there a
conspiracy afoot? Is the current administration or some faction of
the federal government attempting to force an issue to create
(14:00):
causes belly to create a rationalization for the rollout of
martial law? And again, where's the NRA. Where where are
guys who are like you should always stand up against tyranny?
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I don't know where jaw rualism?
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Where is jaw I'm sorry, it's I yelled.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's a really tough situation because you've You've got a
battalion of marines, right, seven hundred dudes who are following
their orders because they have to right to some extent,
and if they choose not to, there are repercussions, right,
like pretty serious repercussions. If you say no, I'm not
going to do that. How many times can that happen? Before,
(14:45):
you know, first small groups of marines say no or
you know, fight back against it. It just it worries
me that we if this kind of thing continues, and
the US military is continually aimed at itself, you know,
at its own citizens. How long before we have those
simple sabotaged things happening, And how long before, you know,
(15:10):
the thing that's supposed to protect the United States starts
dismantling itself.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Right, and ora boros? What occurs when it begins to
eat its own And that's always been a that's always
been a structural or systemic possibility, right with the way
the US government is created, right the way the ORG
chart works. You know, governors have beefed with the FEDS before. However, again,
(15:37):
not to sound like a broken record, when these elephants
make war, it is the grass that suffers. And if
you are an active member of the armed forces, the
US military law enforcement would love to hear we would
love to hear, I hope, not just me. We would
love to hear your input, your first hand experience, because
(15:58):
I'll tell you this, every single marine, active or out
of the service that I have spoken with regarding this specifically,
everyone knows that if you're a marine, you have way
more in common with the people on the ground protesting
in Los Angeles or in Texas or in other cities
(16:19):
to come you have, you have way more in common
with them than you do with those folks in DC.
That's just demographically true communitis.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Also to state maybe the obvious or maybe it's not
so obvious, that there are people on both sides of
the political divide that have a real problem with this,
you know, I mean, this is not a hot take
or a political take. This is stuff that matters and
stuff that is very scary. And there are certainly people
who voted for this administration that also are not cool
with this because it's inherently kind of not cool.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Well, it's inherently a danger, existential danger to democracy. I
appreciate that point that it is a political The idea
of differing political parties is a beautiful aspect of the
American experiment. It's tight to protest, it's dope to disagree.
The thing is, we cannot injure the vehicle that allows
(17:11):
that discourse to continue. If that makes sense.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
It does, and I mean the proposed goal here of
the policies that are being protested is to remove murderers
and all of this stuff and this rhetoric that you
know came along with the political campaigns, but we've seen
multiple very very clear cases of overreach.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And that's the problem.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
Like, I don't think anyone has any problem with dealing
with criminals in an even handed way, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Dealing with folks who intend to do harm.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
But there's this baby out with the bathwater thing that's
going on, and it really starts to feel like the
on the surface reasoning behind doing some of these deportations
and sweeps is really just a cover story for doing
whatever they want.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
And we also want to shout out the Los Angeles
mayor Karen Bess. Karen Bass earlier criticized these ice raids
leading to the protest. It's got to be a weird
day to be a weird time to be home. Depot
PR Right Public Relations. Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles, said,
(18:16):
as mayor of a proud city of immigrants who contribute
to our city in so many ways, I am deeply
angered by what has taken place. These tactics so terror
in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in
our city. The folks deployed have military training, the protesters
(18:36):
do not. And I love the point about the broad
brush danger. You cannot and should not paint everybody as
a criminal, you know what I mean? Like, I hang
out with people who like Doctor Pepper. I don't think
they're all terrorists.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I like diet doctor Pepper. Does that make me a terrorist?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
No, you're your own man.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Guys, had a conversation. Don't mean to derail us here
on sodas, but we're talking about them. Fago. I've learned
about a thing called rock and Rye. I never heard
of that before. Did we can talk that?
Speaker 5 (19:08):
It's a cream kind of situation, right, It's a spicy
cream stell. It's something it's very popular and very regional.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
People in Detroit love it.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
But get it in the twenty four ounce version.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
But did we talk about that on the show?
Speaker 5 (19:21):
I don't remember having a rock I know moon messs
we've talked about, but maybe not rock and rye.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
What's the deal with rock and Rye?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I didn't know. It was based on a prohibition drink
that was very popular back in the time, a rock
and rye whiskey. Very interesting stuff. Okay, sorry, that's it.
Hurt is delicious, folks. Look, we know this is important.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
We're running a little bit over in the first act
of our weekly segment here because we want to hear
from you. We hope that we are shared just the facts, right,
not opinions, the objective facts, the controversies on both sides,
the worries of the critics. We will say that people
(20:02):
who are supportive of the actions of Ice, of the
actions of the federal government, do seem to genuinely believe that,
to Nole's point, there is some kind of criminal compromise occurring. However,
any other statistics you look at, any other prove incredible
(20:24):
quantitative analysis shows that is not the case. This is
going to be something that I imagine or I hope
we return to in an episode in the future, because
as you're hearing this the evening it publishes, a lot
more will have transpired. So is stay tuned for an
upcoming episode. We're going to give you the timeline, We're
(20:47):
going to give you the implications, the add on consequences,
and the conspiracies at play. For now, we're going to
pause for a word from our sponsors. Be safe out there.
La returned with some more strange.
Speaker 8 (21:01):
News, and we returned with strange news and a story
that I've been kicking around the dock for a couple
of weeks now and just kept not getting to.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
But I think though it's maybe a couple weeks old.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
It's worth discussing.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
Is it's something that we feel very passionately about, which
is the implementation of AI, the future of AI.
Speaker 6 (21:25):
This idea of an.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
AI bubble, the term being grossly overused in and of itself,
and this is just I think a really telling example
of AI overreach. Literally, there's a company that was called
Builder or called Builder dot ai that has collapsed under
the weight of its AI scamming. Essentially the billion dollar
(21:49):
company that received some investment money from the likes of Microsoft.
Valued at one point five billion, the startup essentially mass
crated manual labor programmers, developers, whatever, freelancers doing this kind
(22:10):
of manual work as machine learning for quite some time,
you know, totally bilking its investors and the public into
believing that they had this entirely AI driven platform that
could I believe their goal was creating software like essentially
(22:30):
building platforms. They described its AI system AI and hard
quotes there as a fully autonomous tool that could build
software quote as easy as ordering pizza.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
But I believe it.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Was Bloomberg who did an expose showing that engineers in Noida,
I believe, and Bengalore were actually the ones behind the
work that was being done that was being passed off
as machine learning. And it refers to this concept the
guys that I haven't heard until very recently called AI washing.
(23:04):
It's this idea that it's so popular and the hot
new thing now that people are doing this very thing
past AI affying things when it actually isn't that, or
using it as sort of a buzzy way of you know,
making some headlines or whatever.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
And this is obviously the beyond the pale, total scamster
version of that.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
By it it's like when you put digital in front
of every piece of technology in the nineteen ninety million percent.
Now I've got a digital toaster totally. Now an AI toaster.
Oh my AI crypto backed toaster will make artificial organic
toast for you.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Organics.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Another book, it's all computer and I think were we
talking about this, No, I can't remember if it was
on air previously or just an off air conversation. This
shows the the the bubble of AI being burst, like
the valuation goes crazy. Also, these folks were backed by Microsoft.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Exactly right, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
I mentioned that as well. As you know, other venture
capitalists that were involved. At one point five billion dollar valuation,
it's a big deal. A former engineer for the project
from Bangalore had this to say, this is a piece
on tech spot that I think is jumping off of
a lot of that Bloomberg reporting. We were told to
never mention our location or use Indian English phrases, so
(24:28):
they were basically instructed to pretend to be AI. And
it's another thing we see too with companies like Tesla
that are pushing and pushing and pushing this automated stuff
that actually is people remote controlling things behind the scenes,
like these robots that were you know, trotted out at
this big public you know, kind of event, this Gala
(24:49):
thing as being these autonomous creations, but then it was
exposed that they actually had people in other rooms controlling
them with remote like puppeteering these things, which made them
essentially animatronic and not AI at all. So that's an
early example of this, and I think we're it's going
to keep seeing more of it. But yeah, I don't know, guys,
any any thoughts here. It does feel like I'll just
(25:11):
wrap up my part of this by saying that the
Bloomberg reporting indicated that this artificially inflated builder dot AI's
revenue buy up to three hundred percent. Audits later revealed
twenty twenty four revenues totaled around fifty five million dollars,
a fraction of the two hundred and twenty million projected
to investors. So frauds within frauds with this one, y'all.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
But yeah, thoughts sounds like standard practice to me. No,
not really. It is one of those things where when
you've got a big company like that and you're trying
to get investors, you do anything and everything you can,
and if you can. I look, I don't know. It
feels like if you can pull off a grift like that,
people are going to be doing it. Whether it's just
(25:57):
goosing numbers or an entire thing. Yeah, I don't know.
I'm not saying everybody's doing that. It just feels common.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Yeah, but it does feel like the kind of thing
that is eventually going to catch up to you. The
last bit that I want to mention from the article
is Microsoft invested four hundred and fifty five million dollars
back in twenty twenty three, and they actually included plans
to like on board this technology with some of their
platforms in their suite. And you know, say what you
will about the quality of Microsoft's tools in their suite,
(26:27):
not great, but they're very widely used, you know in
business and corporations that have these you know, enterprise versions
of these tools. What really led to the collapse was
when Viola Credit, a creditor involved in the project, sees
thirty seven million dollars from their accounts after it uncovered
inflated financials, leaving just around five million in restricted funds.
(26:52):
And they also owe eighty five million dollars to Amazon
for cloud services, so that's just like their cloud storage
bills or something that It's not clear to me whether
Amazon was an investor because they also list thirty million
to Microsoft, but it does say it for cloud services,
so I guess they were using both of those enterprise
solutions or whatever.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
So yeah, I don't know. It's pretty wild.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
They've had records subpoenaed and it is a real show
and really points to this whole concept of AI washing
that I think is super interesting. Really quickly, I just
want to move on to another sort of more lighthearted
story band that I think you'll appreciate.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
And now I'm curious as to whether you've seen this.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
It's pretty new in your.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
Travels in Japan.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
For quite a few years now, there's been a bit
of a battle about as escalator etiquette in Japan in
different areas. Apparently in some areas you're supposed to walk
on the left and stand on the right, and on
others you're supposed to stand on the right walk on
the left, and so I guess they're but there's a
lot of government kind of finger wagging at walking on
(27:53):
escalators at all. So now there's this new government initiative
that is designed to encourage people to stand still un escalators.
The name of the initiative and the folks that are
working to spread its message is the Stop and Stand Squad,
which is essentially paying Japanese citizens.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
A pretty respectable wage.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Based on some reporting that I saw, it was like
above the average that an individual might make working at
like a cafe or a restaurant or something like that,
or a bar, and team members are paid for six
hours of daily work standing on these escalators. You could
look at it as preventing folks from actually walking up
the escalators, or you could just say that they're encouraging
(28:36):
this etiquette, but they actually have these giant stop hands,
like foam hands on their backs, and they're wearing I
don't know if this is a uniform, but it looks
like they're wearing like a red kind of parka and
some light pants. But that could well be this individual's,
you know, personal fashion choice. But just says stop in
two different text styles. It just says stop in the
(28:57):
English in the middle, real big, and then it has
one version up and the other.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
On the bottom.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
I just think it's funny and interesting, and I don't
really see what the issue is with the stand on
the right, walk on the left. But is it maybe
a product of not being kind of universal across the
area you tell me, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It's funny, guys, Yeah, city by city, which toier point
can be confusing. I think the first version I heard
of this was in Nagoya a few years back, And
to your question, there no the from this is my understanding.
I don't have the research on this, but from what
I remember, a part of the issue was that there
(29:37):
were a lot of people with disabilities and elderly people.
As Japan's demographics continue to shift, elderly people were worried
because they were getting they were getting hit. There might
be accidents on the escalators. I think the Japanese government
or the municipalities call it improper use, and hundreds of
(29:58):
folks where Look, if you've been in an airport, you've
been in a new public space with a big escalator,
you know that there is a higher than average likelihood
of somebody running to something right. Excuse me, excuse me,
I get my plane, excuse me, excuse me. You know
this illegal fungus I smuggled is gonna die if I
don't sneak it past customs. So there is there is
(30:20):
a real need. But I love your I love your
description of paying people to make folks stand still. This
comes along with a wave of other what are sometimes
called wacky Japanese laws. I don't know if you heard this,
but Japan has also banned flashy baby dames.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
I was gonna mention that, like and the things that
are Nike, Yeah, that are more like brand centric. And
then you know, I mentioned the podcast that I enjoy.
It is called weird af News with Jonesy. He just
finds some really fun stories and so shout out to
him and his podcast, But he also, in talking about
that very story, mentioned that I want to say, somewhere
(31:02):
in Scandinavia, I think maybe Sweden, there is like or
maybe in Norway, an approved list of baby names, so
they go even further than that.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
I just thought that was very interesting.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Thou shalt not name your kid uh Zanzibar.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
It is really funny to me. I remember being warned
against the escalators as a as a wee boy, and
then actually falling down one a little bit garry and realizing, oh, okay,
I will be careful on these escalators.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Have you ever seen under the hood of an.
Speaker 6 (31:31):
Escalators killing machine? It's Mary's deeper than it. It'll grind
you up. It takes you into the for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
But at the same time it does Ben. I'm just
I keep getting an image now of an aging population
and just being like, yeah, God, be careful with the
escalators please.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
But it's real.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, it does feel like, well, you know, maybe let's
invest in more elevators or lifts of different kinds.
Speaker 6 (31:58):
It is an aging infrastructure. I mean, when you guys
argue that the escalator is.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
A little dated in general, it's just like, have you
ever been to like malls where like the escalators just
aren't don't even work, and then you're basically just climbing
up really sharp scary stairs.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Shout out to Mitch Hedberg. Yeah, escalators never break, they
become stairs, as he says, it's true.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
You know, I get it. I get where we're coming from.
It's also it's also I think, a parable about how
governments can try their best to help a population. But
it's all in the approach, right, and it's all in
the bedside banner. Are like if you there was another
thing where you know, Japan has a quite punishing work
(32:42):
schedule or cultural expectations of work hours, and any time
the government has tried to mitigate that, the culture just
says no. So if you are, let's practice sympathy. If
we're the guy in a hurry, right, we got to
get these documents, you know we always get We got
our briefcase of documents or whatever, and we got to
(33:03):
get them to the drop off point. Oh snap, there's
an escalator. There are a bunch of elderly people on
it and they're not moving, and some of them have
signs on their backs. Is that going to stop you?
As an individual or are you more likely to say, well,
just me because my thing is really important. Yeah, I'm
going to barrel through that.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
Being said though, and I haven't been, but it does
seem to me that the Japanese people do value decorum
and value those standardizations and sort of expectations, maybe more
so than we do over here. But maybe that's a
great generalization, but it does feel that way.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
No, you're right, that is true, and part of that
is the larger homogeneity of the population. But look, you know,
if you want to see another example of trying to
trying to get people to practice social compact through legislation
or through mandates, look at all the smoking laws that
(33:59):
have changed. There are a ton of people in France
that are super pissed off right now, and Japan itself,
city by city is still struggling with smoking bands.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
M I didn't know that. I know people have to
smoke in Japan. I mean in China maybe more so
or at least gets that rap. But it's it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
So what would you do do you have do we
then have if we're trying to stop the escalator of
something like secondhand smoke? Do we have people who wear
t shirts with no smoking sides and make them stand
directly outside.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Of a bar. Well, you know, those tactics don't work.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
It certainly didn't work over a year, or I guess
maybe arguably like truth campaigns and the anti drug you know,
propaganda type campaigns, or whatever your mileage may vary. I
will say this, Japan sure does have an amazing reputation
for incredible mascot costumes and just sort of like the
maybe over here we would the closest equivalent would be
(34:57):
Signed Spinners, but over there they go hard, hard in
the paint on those. And this is another example, these
giant foam hands and people just hanging out on these
escalators for hours at a time.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
So I like that Sign Spinner comparison. That's probably one
of the best comparisons I've heard.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Nice.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
It's much more of a cultural thing over there, and
it feels like it gets a budget. Over here, you
just see like really shoddy stuff and like kind of
you know, low rent statue of liberty costumes and stuff.
But over there it's sort of an art form. And
I actually follow you may as well, and I can't
remember the name off hand, but it's an Instagram account
that just highlights those many of those you know happening
out in the wild, those types of elaborate advertising costumes.
Speaker 6 (35:38):
Well, guys, this went on a bit longer than I thought.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
I know, we've got more to get to.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
There's a couple of stories that I didn't mention that
I think I will just save for next time, including
a weed dispensary in I want to say Michigan is.
Speaker 6 (35:54):
Offering but a single pre roll joint and in exchanged
for proof of big Foot seems a little bit stingy
to me. I think you should.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
Get, like, you know, a quarter or something, or at least,
you know, a pack of pre rolls again to credit
where credit is due. Jonesy un weird af News made
that point that I was thinking, as well, let's take
a quick break here worth from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
I will be back with more strange.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
News, and we've returned, guys up top. I have two
equally important vital updates that are coming out in the
news right now. The first one is checking back in
with the private companies attempting to land on the Moon.
We last talked about it in early March. I think
(36:41):
maybe we recorded it in late February, but I think
it was March when it came out. We talked about
several other companies and updates to their attempts to make
lunar landings happen. Well, one of those companies was I
Space that's no space is just the letter I and
then Space. They had a lander that was on its
way to the Moon when we were talking about it.
(37:02):
It was, you know, the company was very excited because
they were going to get to try again because they
had previously attempted to make it happen. But it crashed
into the moon. As many of these have, only a few.
I think Firefly is the only company that we talked
about that actually made a successful landing since then. But
this one, High Space unfortunately failed because communication was lost
(37:27):
between the team at I Space, which is Tokyo based,
and the lander itself as it was about it was
about to happen, you guys, and they lost comms with it.
A very very sad situation there, because it had a
mini rover on it, it was gonna do all kinds
of cool stuff. Just if you think about the hundreds
and hundreds of hours of you know that all of
(37:48):
these engineers put in and then it was all unfortunately
for not. Well it wasn't for not because there's learning,
right just in every time you fail, you learn. That's
just what I can tell that my son.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Yeah, that's how science works. Yeah, we talked about that
too previously, you know, in state supported initiatives as well.
Just getting out of the atmosphere is tough. We I
believe we were all collectively baffled and humbled by our
our even our our bare top line understanding of the
(38:23):
math that goes into taking off from an object like
Earth moving so quickly and then somehow, somehow landing on
another thing moving around that planet. It's it's great, you
know what I mean, Like even crash landing on the
Moon is an enormous success.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
You hit you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Yet there you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, it really is like dartsy, you at least
hit the board. So yeah. In in this instance, it
appears that the laser system that there were that I
Space was using on this particular lander to estimate the
altitude of the lander, like basically a distance away from
the Moon, it didn't work properly, so it crashed right
(39:09):
into it, which made me think about those way most
systems that use lasers, and you know all these other
self driving systems that use lasers to detect how close
something is.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
They're like the Kaiju Jaegers in Pacific Rim the sequel
Pacific Rim Uprising. I don't trust them, the Kaiju Jaegers
in the Big mechs in Pacific Rim Uprising spoiler. They're
supposed to be autonomous, but it turns out that they
are instead the spoiler three to one. They're operated by
(39:39):
these eldritch, evil cosmic entities. So maybe that's what we
need for the Moon. Maybe we need to take some
of the research in resurrecting brain cells or turning dead
spiders into cyber zombies. Those are true stories, and maybe
we put their brains, you know, in a little in
(40:01):
a little compot, a little operating center for these lunar landers.
Japan get at US conspiracy adiheartradio dot com.
Speaker 6 (40:09):
Yes, well yeah, thoughts please please.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
It is actually kind of a really tragic, sad story,
you guys, because they're the same SpaceX launch sent up
this lander and Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which is the
one that made it successfully the same launch. Both of
these were on that launch, and then I Space's lander
(40:32):
just kind of took a different route, a different way
to get to the moon and took a lot longer
than spent a whole month orbiting around the Moon before
it attempted landing. But it is kind of sad they
both went up, one of them worked, and then the
other one just lost.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Comms pooped out.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
I can't remember we were talking about this on some show,
but it reminds me of you know, what we were
talking about with the discovery of morning routines on Ridiculous History.
This is the knee science and invention. I agree with you, Matt,
it's a really sad story. It also reminds me of
what we're talking about on that show. Imagine, if you will,
(41:10):
fellow conspiracy realist, how many people tried to invent a
plane or a method of flight and immediately died before
a plane was finally invented. This is the era we
are in right now. So not all of these initiatives
are going to meet their own metrics of success, but
(41:32):
each one contributes right to the ultimate success, so there
will there shoulders of giants.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Let's talk about the ultimate success, which is our second
equally vital important update. Back in nineteen eighty seven, a
little company called Square invented a game called Final Fantasy. Okay,
and there was just you know. Several years later, in
(42:01):
the early nineties, another organization called Wizards of the Coast
invented a little game called Magic the Gathering. And guess what, guys,
As of today, when you're hearing this, it's been two
or three days since the launch of Magic the Gathering
Final Fantasy. WHOA. Yeah, Now you may be thinking, oh,
(42:22):
that's another one of those MTG releases. It's just like, oh,
it's happy. It's just over here on the side. I'll
get those. I could collect them.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
No, that's just another one of those MTG releases. That's
over there on that side, and it's happy. It's fun.
I'll collect them.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
No, you're wrong, Ben. You can play with these. They
are tournament legal. It is a new set that you
could play Magic the Gathering movie and you can do
things like play Sid or Tifa or Cloud or there's
separa you can summon Odin or Leviathan, Omega, King mag
(42:56):
there's even a traveling chocobo. Now we're not sponsored Wizards
of the Coast, War Square, Onyx or any of these companies,
but this is the most exciting and vitally important thing
to happen in a long time.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
Yes, sorry, North Korean warship. That's capsize.
Speaker 5 (43:15):
Take that point though, And we talked about this a
little bit off air if you're into that stuff and
Final Fantasy and JRPG kind of term based stuff, and
I'm sure you've heard about it if you're in that sphere.
This new French game, Clear Obscure Expedition thirty three is
absolutely next level and people are loving it all over
the place, and for good reason. It sort of like
(43:36):
updates those turn based mechanics and that Final Fantasy type
storytelling lore, and it's I think it's neat too, because
it's these this a lot of folks that got laid
off from Ubisoft, another giant French company that makes the
Assassin's Creed series, and you know them get a lot
of flack for kind of doing the same thing year
over year, and this company just shows that scrappy. I mean,
(43:57):
it is a big budget relatively speaking, but it is
still I think thirty people to the core team. It
just shows that that's when a game is great, that's
what people want. Sorry, end of rant.
Speaker 6 (44:07):
The game, that's great, it's great.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
We're unanimous on this.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Hey, uh, we're putting us on it for sure.
Speaker 7 (44:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Max Williams, uh first of his name. We think we're
not going to check for other Max Williams. We picked
one and we're doing Highlander rules with that. This reminds me, guys,
I have here, Oh, I still have the Boy Scout
textbook there. I have here Magic the Gathering Kamigawa Neon
Dynasty set booster. Is this familiar to either you?
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Guys? It's a killer set?
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Is it a killer set?
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Yeah? Shore we open it now if you want?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
Yeah, baby, all right, what's the good ones?
Speaker 6 (44:46):
Like the shiny ones? You like the shiny ones?
Speaker 8 (44:48):
Right?
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Is that what you want? Is that in magic or
just Pokemon?
Speaker 2 (44:51):
You want that mythic alter alt art rare, baby, that's
what you're.
Speaker 4 (44:55):
Looking for, mythic altart.
Speaker 5 (44:57):
Folks out there having like repeated Nerd game right now,
I'm just saying, okay, so just turn it off the show.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
No, no, no, stay with us, folks. Uh, this is okay.
So there's a card here that doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
I think it's.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
Art card, just art card.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
By the way, folks, Matt and Nolan are getting all
of these after the show. Uh, there's this basic land
we are going to be.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
Doing video against in this so we got maybe we
got this is good practice and visual aids.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
I like, so this is an imperial subduer. Okay, Okay,
I don't know if that's good. Wait, you said Nolan,
I'm supposed to look for foiling in.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
The in the middle right hand side. You're going to
find the set icon. Okay, Okay, you're black ones. If
it's black, it is a common. If it's silvery, it's uncommon.
If it's gold, it's it's rare. If it's like a
goldish red color, then it's mythic. Bro.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
I'm so sorry. I kind of I can see some
of them are black. Is that helpful? No, Okay, we're
gonna save this for the Uh, We're gonna save this
for whatever we hang out off air. There's a cool
and Cold suit up that has foil to Nol's question,
and then there's something called Life of Toshiro Umizawa, which
(46:17):
is something about sagas. This looks really complicated.
Speaker 6 (46:19):
Actually, uh, it's like an educational card.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
As this saga enters and after your drawstep at a
lore counter, I'm over my head. Okay, okay, all right,
I'll just you know what, I'll take a picture of
this and send it in the group.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Let's get back to get back to strange news stuff
that's not as vitally important, but we should be thinking about, guys.
Germany is preparing for World War three. Yes, full on god.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
They've been spinning up for a while because the US
has abandoned NATO and Germany is the next, you know,
the next best thing.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
There you go. Well, they are drawing up plans to
wrap expand their network of bomb proof bunkers and shelters.
They are currently warning at least several major important officials
within the country are warning that the state needs to
be prepared for an attack from Russia within the next
four years.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
Fun, you'd love to see it.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Well, and they're also saying it will cost way too
much money to build like brand new facilities of these
types across the country. So what they're looking at is
pinpointing tunnels, metro stations, underground garages, car parks, and sellers
of public buildings to turn those into bomb shelters, and
then trying to come up with a way to alert
(47:39):
citizens of which bomb shelters are closest to them in
the event of literally, I mean you have to imagine
a nuclear attack. That's what these are.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
For entering a wartime economy and infrastructure. Right, it's a
new kind of gentrification. Well, it's not really a new
kind of gentrification. The US and Europe did it in
the past, but it is concent learning because Matt, from
my understanding, there's a lot of money going into this
with a pretty aggressive timeline.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Well, yeah, these are estimates from government officials. Okay, this
guy named Tisler, he has said that roughly ten billion
euros would be needed over four years to basically cover
all the civil defense needs that they've got, and around
thirty billion euros over the course of ten years.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
Well, Germany's nothing if not prepared. That's sort of a
thing that they're historically, i mean, just in general they're
all about.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yeah, they're also tying here about building up a and
establishing a compulsory slash maybe voluntary civil protection service, and
they urged all citizens to contribute to making the country
more resilient by stocking up on emergency supplies in the
case of power and water shortages. Again, the thinking here
is if there's an attack in a neighboring country really
(48:58):
close by, and water or power gets disrupted for one
reason or another, and then you know, if there's an invasion.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
It's a little posse comitatas uh, like we have here
in the US. But the yeah, and also to that point,
note what Matt is saying, their folks, is not the
same as compulsory military service. This is a CPS civil
protection Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, just training training people for things that or may
not happen in the end. It's muscle memory, right, Okay.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Guys, we are just some folks who hang out and
have fun on the weekends.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
May guys, the last thing I wanted to talk about,
we don't. I'm not going to go into all the
details here, but a very interesting thing occurred in central Florida,
right around the area that we've talked about many a
time on this show.
Speaker 8 (49:49):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
I don't know how you say it, Osacola, Osaciola County,
I don't kid. It's south of Orlando, it is part
of it is partly owned by Waltsney or Disney and
all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (50:02):
The Creek Improvement District with.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Some interesting stuff down there. Well, guys, a sheriff in
this part of town was arrested recently, I think last week,
on charges of racketeering and conspiracy of what the state
described as a massive gambling operation. Guys, let's just talk
about this. This gentleman, Sheriff Marcos Lopez, he allegedly took
(50:28):
campaign contributions and personal payments like to do this whole thing,
as well as protected the gambling operation, you know, with
the Sheriff's office, which is generally looked down upon. They're
saying that this was a lottery situation they were running.
They're running slot machines and a quote gambling house out
(50:49):
of a business called Fusion Social Club in Kissime, Florida,
which if you've ever traveled down in those ways, like
to maybe visit parts of Orlando for some dizzy stuff,
you've probably been through. Kissing me again. We've talked about
many a time. The organization, according to officials, took in
twenty one point six million dollars in illicit proceeds. Pretty nice,
(51:14):
but that's really it, guys. Just see if there's any
updates there, see what's going on. Always nice when the
local law enforcement is in cahoots with some kind of
some kind of organized crime.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Who hasn't had some hot dice, you know what I mean,
who hasn't been at the table, had a seventeen and
just said hit me.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Snake Eyes is bad, right, you don't want to sack guys?
Speaker 4 (51:35):
Well, depends on the game, you know, right, Like the
action figure Snake Eyes from gi Jo is pretty dope. Anyway,
that's our show, folks. Thank you so much for tuning in.
We appreciate your time. We would love for you to
join us in our future episodes. Let's see, we'll have
the stuff gas stations don't want you to know coming
out soon. We're all very excited for that, and thank
(51:57):
you for the correspondence in advance. The most importantly, folks
in Europe, in Los Angeles and so many more American
cities to come, please stay safe, Please let us know
what's happening in your neck of the Global woods. You
can find us online. You can call us on the telephone.
You can give us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
You certainly can.
Speaker 5 (52:16):
You can find us online at the handle conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist, on XFKA, Twitter, on Facebook with our
Facebook group here is where it gets crazy, and on YouTube,
where we have video content all day long for your
enjoyment and soon to be adding.
Speaker 6 (52:29):
More to that catalog on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
However, we're Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. When you call in, you'll find yourself
amongst three minutes of your time. Within that time, please
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you've got words you want to send to us,
perhaps type to words. Why not send us an email?
Speaker 4 (52:55):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well, where yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back and is going to be following up, in
fact with several of our listeners right after this show.
Two stories we didn't get to. There's a Kentucky man
rested for releasing a raccoon into a business several months
after he fled police on a mule, and the leaders
(53:17):
of an orgasmic meditation women's wellness company have been convicted
in a trial over forced labor. So tune in to
colts who've never heard of Part three coming soup Conspiracy
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.