July 7, 2025 • 52 mins
Australia is astonished as a full one-third of all residents of Tuvalu apply for the new, limited 'climate visa,' sparking concerns about the future of islands nations amid the global sea level rising. Chinese manufacturers are in hot water over an international scheme to flood markets with 'used' electric vehicles. A guy commits robbery dressed as Scooby-Doo, and studies prove cheese can give you nightmares. All this and more in the week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here that makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Through the magic of editing,
we are coming to you on July seventh, twenty twenty five.
So happy a retrospective Fourth of July to everyone. You
(00:55):
had a good one? Hot dogs, fireworks.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hope everyone saw some works.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Oh yeah, We're only a couple of days into firework
cleanup time, so feeling good.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
And hope everybody's dogs had an okay weekend.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
I bought it absurd giant pack of fireworks from Leedal
back in Atlanta. I'm currently on the road and i
only have lit one of them so far, and I'm
not even gonna get to them for Fourth of July
because I'm not gonna be hoped. So I'm gonna have
to have a belated firework display of my own.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
There's always fireworks in Atlanta, you know what I mean.
There's also I'll send this to you guys offline, but
a good friend of mine recently sent video footage of
an explosion at a fireworks store, and it is exactly
as you might picture in picture. So I hope everybody
stays safe. One beautiful gift that came to the United
(01:48):
States just before July fourth. It's something we hadn't talked
about on our previous Strange News, but we had mentioned it.
Factions in the United States were about to sell as
much public land as possible to private entities in the
course of negotiations with a new very large bill that
(02:09):
may or may not be passed by the time this
comes out. Thankfully, the move to sell off all of
all of that land to private entities has been pulled
from the bill, so National Parks Soldier on kind.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Good to hear it.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Good to hear it from now talking about the BBB,
I reckon the BBB, the big beautiful bill.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Ah, yes, I thought you've met better Business Bureau and baths. Yeah, yeah,
so we are. We are always endeavoring to start with
something a little positive. If we can. In this program,
we are going to learn some interesting studies about cheese.
(02:52):
We're going to continue a little bit of our ICP
associated phase. We're going to talk EV's very excited about that.
We're going to get into some weird science, which I
think we're all very excited about. Weird weird side. So
before we do any of that, how about we pause
for a word from our sponsors, and then we travel
(03:14):
across the planet to a nation that may be unfamiliar
to a lot of people in the States, and we
have returned. Guys, do you ever mess with wiki travel?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
No? I don't know about wiki travel.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
We've mentioned it briefly on the show before, so every
we all know Wikipedia, Wiki, Wikipedia, and of course we'd
be remiss not to mention wiki fee. Wiki travel is
a as we discussed previously, it's a it's a pretty
interesting open source kind of guide to countries, regions, and
(03:55):
cities throughout the human planet. I don't know if they
have a they have a wiki travel article on the moon,
but hopefully it's on the way. If you go to
the wiki travel article for the country of Tuvalu, then
you will see you will see some interesting things. This
is a tiny island nation. Picture it like Oceania. It's
(04:20):
in the South Pacific Ocean. The closest big continent there
is going to be Australia and this archipelago has a
lot of history to it. But similar to maybe the
Marshall Islands or American Samoa, or the Solomon Islands and
especially the Maldives, this is in trouble right now as
(04:42):
we're recording, over a third of the people residing in
this island nation have applied for what Australia is calling
a climate visa, and that's because Tuvalu is sinking beneath
the waves.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
These would be considered climate refugees, right.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's It's one of the first visas of
its kind. The idea is that a climate visa, as
you mentioned, can make somebody be considered a refugee, not
for human rights issues, not for political issues, or for
religious persecution, et cetera, et cetera, but instead due to
(05:22):
being at high risk of unstoppable, inevitable consequences of climate change.
So right now tu volup against pretty small country. It
has a population of eleven thousand people on nine atolls
scattered across the Pacific between Australia and Hawaii. And if
(05:44):
you want a good primer on this, folks, then check
out Reuter's, check out NBC News. It's it's not looking good.
And even tu Vlu's own ambassador to the UN, Tapugao,
he said that he was startled by the huge number
of people vying for this opportunity, especially because we all
(06:09):
know how these kind of visas end up working, especially
in the West. Not everybody who applies gets.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
One, you know, sure, And I mean I can imagine,
with climate change being what it is, that these situations
might become increasingly common and these visas might become increasingly
in demand.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Right. You nailed it there, because the total number of
people in Tuvalu seeking this visa is right right, As
of a few days ago, it's more than four thousand people,
four thousand and fifty two of those eleven thousand residents.
The applications close on July eighteenth, so there's still time
(06:47):
to apply, but there is an annual cap of allowable
visas per the Nation of Australia. That annual cap is
two hundred and eighty. Most people are not going to
get it. And they're going to have to find something
else to do.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
That is a low number.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
That is a very low number, especially considering the higher
numbers of play. By twenty fifty, the boffins at NASA
project daily tides will submerge half of the main toll
of the biggest area in Tuvalu, the place called Funafuti,
which is home to sixty percent of the nation's inhabitants.
(07:26):
The people living there are on a strip of land
that can, at its narrowest be as small as sixty
five feet across.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
I mean, it makes me think of like all the
increasingly damaging and devastating storms hitting places in the US,
and specially places on the coast like Florida, where there's
people going to go. If these things continue apace, you know,
and worse in it just seems like they kind of
make it work and they sort of build it into
their expectations of what life in that part of the
(07:56):
country is. But I just feel like it's going to
get really really cannibal really quickly.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Right, And current estimates always caveat something like given the
information now, given what we project will happen in terms
of temperature rise and sea level rise, then the following
things will occur. Right, they plug in the variables, But
if you look at the majority of studies, especially the
newer ones, they find that those variables are themselves escalating.
(08:27):
So what was projected to be, you know, x amount
of degrees temperature wise, turns out to be a larger number,
which means that the time window will accelerate. So we
want to just first off say tu Vlu is an
amazing place. We have not personally visited. We'd love to
hear your experiences if you have ever been lucky enough
(08:48):
to spend time there. We are still let's see if
this segue works. We're still we're still going through our
cult phase. We don't know anything about possible cults on Tuvalu,
but we do know a Russian cult leader has been
sentenced to twelve years in prison, despite you know, realizing
(09:11):
he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
M I think they get him a religious persecure Yeah, yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, I don't know if you can get a visa
for that. Can you apply? Yeah, to be the like
a cult leader.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Visa, a savior visa, a Savior of Messiah visa.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
We didn't talk about this in the cult discussions, guys,
but like, are there any cults that get tax exempt status? Like,
at what point is your religion a cult or your
cult or religion and qualify for tax exemption. A lot
of people say signology as a cult and it gets
mega tax exempt status.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
So I feel like there's a little bit of a
slippery slope there, or you know, some special treatment depending.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I'm pretty sure you can register of religious entity like
an organization and get that status if you want it.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I'm Shinriko did for sure. We also know that we
also know that it is it's not particularly easy, but
almost any set of practices and beliefs can be registered
as an official religion, at least here in the United States.
Some of the big things are you know, your tenants
(10:20):
cannot include things that are clearly crimes. You can't be like, hey,
we started this religion because we are going to kill
all of the Welsh of the public, yes, and or
defraud the public. So we again, still we're going through
this cult phase. We want to hear your favorite local cults.
(10:42):
If favorites not the word, maybe the ones that fascinate
you the most. The Russian national We're mentioning his guy
named Sergey Torop. He is known to his followers as
Vision and the organization he founded in nineteen ninety one
is the Church of the Last Testament. Very humble name,
(11:03):
and he said he's a former locksmith and traffic warden,
and speaking with the Guardian in two thousand and two,
he said, it's all very complicated, but to keep thinks simple, yes,
I'm Jesus Christ, which is just such a banger line.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
It's quite the claim, guys.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Thinking about you, matt specifically, I propose that we get
to work on some sort of cult leaders you don't
know or even we'd include the ones that you do
know that are more famous. Magic, the gathering style trading
card game. We're the only power they all have is
charisma varying degrees.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
That's an interesting that's an interesting concept. How would the
mechanical unclear?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I put that to you, Mattie, I'd say it's more
of a D and D style thing where we all
get to play different characters.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I want to be.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Marshall apple Way, That's all I'm saying. I just think
he's got all the power, he's got the space powers.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
I want to be John Oliver representing our Lady of
perpetual exemption.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, that was a great episode by
Oliver and the gang. I would go with I know,
I think I'm good where I'm at.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Okay, just be one of those.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
We do have one more thing before our next break,
which is fascinating. Look, well, we can get to the
tradecraft stuff later. The Nation of Iran is threatening to
They have hacked part of the White House. They are
threatening to release one hundred gigabytes of Trump Aid emails
from people who thought they were speaking in confidence, including
(12:41):
some folks like Roger Stone. We'll wait and see if
that actually happens or if that's just smoke and mirrors.
A drug cartel has successfully hacked an FBI officials phone.
But more importantly, Brenning fans of the Tooth Fairy, we've
got some weird news. There seems that that mythological figure
(13:03):
was onto something. Now, when when did you guys stop
doing tooth fairy stuff with your kids?
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Or did you I did it a little bit. I
don't remember leaning into it super hard though, Matt.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, yeah, we did it a tiny bit, but it
was just sillies like he I think he had an
understanding that dad is kind of joking on what's going
to happen in it, and yeah, and then I showed
him the teeth. At some point he's got he's got
a little plastic container that has his baby teeth in it.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Oh, there's a cult power in that. Yeah. The tooth
fairy is an interesting thing here, especially in the West,
because it's kind of it's understood, right, not in a wink.
There's not any kind of apocalyptic consequence, right to not
messing with the tooth fairy. It's not going to be
(13:54):
the end of the world, right that you put the tooth,
you put the baby tooth under your pillow, whatnot, and
then depending on how inflation goes or how cool your
parents are, you get some kind of financial compensation. So
it's a neat thing for kids. But it turns out, oh,
we should do a history of the tooth fairy on
ridiculous history. By the way, I think that's a pretty
(14:16):
banger idea. It turns out that the legend of the
tooth fairy may have been onto something because new research
shows that stem cells from extracted wisdom teeth are quote
medical gold and capable of treating multiple diseases. I had
no idea about this. Does anybody here still have their
(14:37):
wisdom teeth?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Yeah, I've been instructed to have them removed, and I
have put it off indefinitely, but I definitely still have them.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
It's just a group of marauding dentists in the post
apocalyptic world that just extracts those teeth and heals people.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Oh yeah, the tooth takers.
Speaker 7 (14:55):
Yeah, but they're doing it for the greater good, right,
that's right, sure, yeah, that's what people love to hear
when they're getting pieces of their mouth ripped apart.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
The reason this is fascinating is that every wisdom tooth
has a soft core within it we should call a
dental pulp. Terrible name, but pretty accurate. What we've discovered
is that of the roughly ten million wisdom teeth that
are removed in the United States every year, most go
(15:28):
to wastebends. Most go to biohazard trash piles.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
And I don't know about you guys, but I always thinking,
I remember feeling it was it was strange the way
my dentists would kind of shift their energy when I said, oh,
can I keep the tooth and then dil if we
get some weird, ominous music. There's a turn and they're
they're like, keep the two. Why would you want to
(15:57):
keep the two?
Speaker 5 (15:59):
Thinking?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
What the hell are you guys doing with the teeth.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It's a necklace, dude.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
It's from my necklace. There are companies that now are
offering preservation kits to turn your tooth into like a
long term collectible thing or a medical asset. Because dental
pulp has stem cells, and unlike embryonic stem cells or
(16:27):
blood stem cells cord blood stem cells, this stuff can
be collected and harvested with very few ethical concerns because
the argument will always be where are you gonna throw
it away? Unless you're Ben's creepy dentist. I know he
was up to something. I just can't figure out what
These stem cells though. To continue that point, they can
(16:47):
ease motor symptoms in Parkinson's because they can replace dopamine
making neurons. At least that's what recent experiments with a
rodent show. In All's Teimer's research, the same cells may
be able to create secrete growth factors that protect your synapsi's.
(17:07):
They may slow the build up of toxic proteins. You
can see already a lot of a lot of strange
bleeding edge science here from the Humble Wisdom Tooth and
the Tooth Fairy. For more information, go to earth dot com.
Jordan Joseph, the staff writer, breaks it down and gives
(17:29):
an excellent introduction to this. I could also make a
personalized medical plan for you. Like imagine you have your
wisdom teeth removed, and instead of it being tossed away
or coveted by some creepy dentists, it can now be
the stem cells within that pulp can now be used
(17:50):
to address possible medical concerns you may have down the road.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Isn't that similar to the way Peo we'll keep their placenta
or certain aspects of that.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I think that's more for you know, posthemity delicacy. No,
I'm just joking, but no, theoretically, yes, there are stem
cells present in that placenta. That's one of the main
reasons that it was, you know, viewed as a cool thing.
I think it's very different ingesting stem cells like that
versus what Ben's talking about here, where you're gonna, I guess,
(18:22):
utilize those cells to create more cultures of some kind
or do extra things with right.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yeah, it's it's weird because we're learning more and more
about how resilient the human body can be, right, and
how these things can be can be used for unforeseen
medical advantages, things we would never have pictured. It also
reminds me there's a weird exploration. We'll get to it.
(18:51):
Ridiculous history, I'm sure. It also reminds me of the
deep folklore and mythology around teeth, you know what I mean?
We all remember. I think some of those fairy tales,
like the idea that if you, for instance, had had
a bag of dragon teeth and you threw them out
in a field, then soldiers would spring up overnight. That
(19:12):
might be a little too Russian or Eastern, but I
don't know visibly. You know that awesome? Good? Okay, so
it wasn't just making that up awesome, I don't know.
Teeth are just such a weird part of the body,
and we want to hear your stories about teeth. About dentistry,
we did an episode a while ago. Stuff they don't
(19:33):
want you to know about dentist or something to that effect,
several years back. Do you guys remember that. I can't
remember it. I think one of us had to have
a root canal or something which launched a thousand ships there.
Speaker 6 (19:44):
Yes, yes, I remember that. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So we also want to hear from dentist in the
crowd right to us, what are the things more people
should know about dentistry and about the weird magic of teeth.
I'm going through toothphase, guys. I've got a horror story.
I got to send you cold the Judas tooth, and
I I don't know, man, there's something creepy about teeth, especially.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Like people keeping them.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
I don't know, Like you said, there is some sort
of like, I don't know, witchcraft vibes around keeping these
little pieces of human bone.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, Like, if it's your kid, you get a pass
right because it's your kid and you're helping the kid
build memories. But if you're you know, you're dating someone
and you say, hey, uh, you went to the dentist
recently and things are going pretty well in this relationship,
could I have that tooth?
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (20:38):
Or maybe or maybe just don't string your kid's teeth
up into like a necklace or something and like wear
it under your clothes. That'd be weird.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh. And if you disagree with that,
we would still love to hear from you. We're gonna
pause for a word from our sponsors. Please write to
us with your weird cult teeth and two blue stories conspiracy.
iHeartRadio dot com will pause for a word from our
sponsors and return with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
And we have returned with more strange news. I am
going to.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
Lead off with a bit of a ridiculous crime story
that also is a bit of a callback to a
recent discussion that you started, Matt, about the very beloved
Detroit based pop brand Fago, also beloved by juggalos the
world over.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Fans of the insane clown posse.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
A would be bank robber was foiled, I guess by
police all because of his love of the red pop
flavor of Fago. An individual went into a lending office
trying to cash a fraudulent check in the Saginaw area
(21:54):
of Michigan, and when this did not go well for him,
he took the teller hostage and essentially demanded money. The
irony here, maybe that's the wrong word in the Elanis
Morisset sense of it all is that this was not
a place that had cash on hand at all. They
couldn't have cashed the check even if it was legitimate.
(22:15):
Authorities were notified and the would be heister had his name,
by the way, it was Quentin m Allen, and the
bank in question is the Mercantile Bank. This took place
on Friday, the twenty seventh of June. When negotiators made
contact with Alan. He requested one fago Red Pop beverage,
(22:37):
which was flown into him by drone and dangled outside
of one of the bank's windows. When Alan peeked his
head outside to grab his delicious frosty beverage, a Michigan
police sniper took the shot on from the roof of
a nearby AutoZone, fatally wounding Alan, at which point police
(22:58):
entered the facility and rescued the employee who's being held hostage,
who is then treated for non life threatening injuries. An
ad oupt piece on Jelapnik that I'm reading from the
writer here, Justin Hughes ended with the question of whether
or not the Red Pop was harmed in this. In
(23:19):
these proceedings, it's not clear whether it was damaged.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
Wow, isn't that wild?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I really loved?
Speaker 6 (23:25):
Is Red Pop that brutal?
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Everything about it?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Is?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
It?
Speaker 5 (23:28):
Is off, You're right, like the dangling of it, the
like using it as a lure, you know, I mean,
it's it's funny, but it's also tragic for sure, no
question there.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah, And this is a person who is in everything
else aside. They're in a very high stress environment at
this point, so they may not be thinking as rationally.
Hostage negotiators or negotiators in general, are very talented at
leveraging that instability. It feels like you would have had
to you, I would have had to know something was
(24:02):
up right. Why are they dangling it out here? Why
do you want me to reach out and expose myself?
But this person must have been under such mental duress
that they didn't think it through.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Well, it would appear they didn't think a lot of
things through in terms of the ability for them to
cash af fraudulent check at this particular location of this
bank where it was much more of like a place
where you would meet with a banker to secure a loan,
but it was not the kind of place that had
like stockpiles of cash. I think they had an ATM
on the premises, but that was about it. So Yeah,
(24:32):
the writer here in jeloptin points that out as well,
that there was quite a bit of not thinking things
through going on. So we'll jump from that one to
another ridiculous crime story out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which is
very close to a place where I used to live, Birmingham.
My mom actually taught at a college in Tuscaloosa, a
music college, or she taught in the music program at
(24:54):
believe it was the University of Alabama, whatever the one
in tuscal Losa is.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
It's a big football school.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
In any case, police in Tuscaloosa are looking for help
and identifying a suspect who robbed a gas station there
in Duncanville while dressed as Scooby Doo, the cartoon character
brought row Indeed, that made the headline good call Ben.
This individual is seen on CCTV wearing like what you
might call a kigaroomy style costume, like a snuggie with
(25:24):
the attached hood that you know, of course, resembles Scooby
Doo the Dog.
Speaker 8 (25:29):
He was in fact only wearing the hood in certain shots,
and other shots you see him wearing a green ski
mask that the writer from CBS forty two News AJ
Holliday points out very much the same color as Shaggy's
T shirt. Scooby doos, of course, beloved master and sandwich aficionado.
That's really all we've got on that one, guys. It
(25:49):
was a funny one to mention and follow up and
maybe a little less tragic at this point because no
one was injured. This individual was just reportedly responsible for
taking cash and coins. He stands about five foot nine,
it's about six feet tall. This took place at the
quick stop on Highway eighty two at around three forty
five am, but no one was harmed, and this individual
(26:11):
was not taken out by snipers from a nearby rooftop
or lured with a Scooby snack, that is what they
would have lured him with, not a red pop.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
So finally, let's move on to my main story, which
I think y'all will find interesting. This is certainly something
that we have discussed adjacent Lee, the idea of how
food and different things that we consume may may affect
our dreams and or nightmares. There's a couple of organizations
in this story that I think are named incredibly. First off,
we've got Canada's McEwan University and their lab there let's
(26:44):
see Dream and Nightmare Lab at the Center for Advanced
Research in Sleep Medicine, a doctor Tor Nielsen, who is
the head researcher for a study looking at how cheese
and dairy and sweets and various the kind of snacks
can affect our sleep quality and the severity of nightmares
(27:07):
and this may be as a result of varying degrees
of lactose intolerance. The researchers point out that lactose intolerance
is very much a spectrum, and really the only folks
that maybe identify themselves as being lactose intolerant are the
ones that have extreme versions of it that can absolutely
upend their digestion and cause all kinds of really nasty
(27:28):
problems that are unignorable, and they may have to take
a lactate if they want to try some ice cream
or drink some milk or what have you. But there
are many other folks that exist somewhere on the less
severe side of that spectrum and may have no idea
that that's the case. The head researcher of this project
to this the first one in terms of what they
(27:49):
were looking at here was that people who had lactose
intolerance were reporting more nightmares and the severity of their
symptoms associated with the severity of the nightmares, so a
linear relationship is there. He also reported that food allergies
are generally are also associated with nightmares in a very
similar way, also finding that an unhealthy diet, specifically referring
(28:10):
to snacking before bed can cause these kinds of problems,
including restless.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Nights and poor quality sleep.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
By unhealthy, he says, I mean eating very close to bedtime,
but also not depending on your internal signals or when
you're hungry and when you're full. So it is kind
of mindless, food noise based snacking that I think a
lot of folks out there can probably identify with something
I've certainly struggled with myself and not gonna lie. I
have noticed that if I have like a sweet treat
(28:39):
or something I really like those little kinder chocolate bars
before bed, I do sometimes have kind of more wacky
nightmares or more vivid dreams that would probably border on
what you might call a nightmare. Sometimes a dream that's
just super weird and distressing. Maybe it's not horrific, but
I do wake up in some somewhat of an uneasy state.
(29:01):
Let's just wrap it up with this and then we'll
pass it around to the group. Many people don't know
their status when it comes to lactos intolerance. I mean
it's a kind of spectrum, right. There's very severe cases
of lactics intolerance and then very you know, mild cases.
The problem is that people will dose themselves with dairy.
I love that concept according to their symptoms. You know,
the doctors in fact tell people don't just quit entirely
(29:22):
if you have a mild case. People don't always judge
this accurately or adhere to a strict enough diet, so
they do end up getting these symptoms when they're sleeping,
as they do end up affecting their dreams. The other
organization I wanted to point out that I think has
an incredible name is the British Cheese Board. I mean,
is it a pun on purpose? Because it is and
it should be, and if it's not on purpose, then
(29:43):
I love it. The British Cheese Board published a study
many years ago. He said, I'm the researcher that looked
at different kinds of cheeses and they claimed in their
cheese study that they saw different patterns in dreams depending
on the type of cheese that had been consumed when
in particular, in particular that they noted cheddar maybe they
(30:05):
said might triggered dreams about celebrities. However, there's a conflict
of interest here in that the cheeseboard itself ran the
study and it was never published in any kind of
scientific journals. So pop probably takes some of that with
a bit of a grain of salt. But they do,
you know, encourage folks out there who are consuming cheese
products before bed to keep a little pad of paper
(30:27):
by the bed and record your dreams and see how
these cheesy delights may affect your dreams and quality of sleep.
And also maybe make a notice to what kind of
cheeseyate and see if it made different types of entities appear.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
What do you guys think?
Speaker 4 (30:41):
I think this is a fun one.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Honey, we're gonna get weird break out the camember.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah, you should do that anyway, Keeping keeping a dream
journal is an invaluable psychological tools, especially creativitating with anything
you eat. Yeah, and lactose intolerance, by the way, I
appreciate that the all you're pointing to are acknowledging this
lactose intolerance as a spectrum is a very real thing.
(31:08):
It's also a mutation of the human species. Most comparable
organisms are not drinking milk or consuming dairy products into adulthood.
So that's a fascinating superpower of the human species. And
part of the reason that lactose tolerance in adulthood is
not universal is because in the grand context, it's quite
(31:34):
a recent mutation.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
Do you think it works with vegan cheese.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Vegan cheese is nut based, right, so you may.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
I mean, I can't imagine if you have nut allergies
that that could cause some disruption, but maybe not the
same ones that are caused by the lactose. Okay, I
mean there are other types of vegan cheese that don't
use nuts, but I think the most popular type it
uses nuts nut cheese, which is really fun to say
and kind of gross, but that's what it's called.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
What's great on popcorn from back when I was vegan
has a terrible name, nutritional geek nutritional yeasts actually really yeah,
a terrible name. Aside, it's a great topping for popcorn.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
And liquid aminos is another vegan topping that's like a
very popular choice for seasoning, and I just think that's
such like a weird clinical name. But yeah, nutritional yeast
is always giving me a bit of the ick, but
it is really.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Really good and yeah, yeah name aside again, and popcorn
by itself often gets vilified. It's not popcorn the product
on its own that's bad for you. It's the murderous
amount of butter we add to it, and of course
the lovely little lighting on the microwave plastic bag, and
also the bits that can get lodged so deep in
(32:45):
your crevices of your.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
Teeth that you may never get them out again. That
is my biggest qualm with popcorn. But I have recently
switched to using a water pick, and that'll get those out.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
It'll get those out right away.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Water picks are pretty magical, nice, highly recommend I don't know, guys,
I guess I can keep my segment short. These were
all pretty light and fun, except for the poor individual
who got sniped by the police for reaching for a
delicious soda. I don't know, if you guys don't have
anything a tad, I think we could probably pop to
a break and then come back with our last strange
(33:16):
news segment.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
What do you say, Well, yes, but please I've recently
discovered something that we are not sponsored by, but it
is one of my favorite things to add to stuff,
especially vegetables. It's from some company called Kinders that make spices,
and they have like a butter, I don't know, a
seasoning that you can pour over the tops like powdered,
(33:39):
but it's like it almost tastes like mildly charred butter,
like butter that's.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Been on a grill.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
Round favor.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yes, that's what it Just you hit it on some
vegetables or something and.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
That sounds good. Sweet sweet. I've been really into seasonings lately,
so I'm gonna try that out. Man, that's great.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
I also like everything but the bagel, which is everything
bagels without the bagels, some of the American and ridiculous,
and I just love it. It's one of those you know,
you see weird, the weirdest, smallest things that make you
think only in America and everything but the bagel is
(34:16):
one of those.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
Is it is it too much on?
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Like?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Because I because it's we're talking sesame, garlic, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
All the hits, all the good ones all, yeah, a good.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Amalgam of spices. It actually does quite work, man. It
doesn't immediately put you in bagel down.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
Got you? Okay, okay, well that's all I got you all.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Let's take a quick break here, another word from our sponsor,
and then come back with mister Matt Frederick for sure.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
And we're back, guys. Quick confession. I've been in car
world again a little bit, and every time I go there, Ben,
I think about your time on car stuff. Just how
any awesome episodes in Scott made. And I was looking
specifically at Auto Shanghai twenty twenty five and just in
(35:10):
awe of the sheer number of auto manufacturers in China.
It just how many different companies are making incredible electric
vehicles that if they were here in the US market,
I feel like people would not buy Tesla's anymore. They
would not buy any of the expensive electric vehicles out
(35:33):
there because these things you can get them for like
a quarter of the price. I'm not kidding, it's true,
and they have incredible luxury stuff inside. Yeah, It's just
I was salivating looking at some of these amazing cars. Anyway,
I was, I was doing that, going down that route
(35:53):
and just thinking about all this stuff and why the heck,
like aren't they aren't they here, and obviously there's terrif
issues there, tension issues there are you know, US auto
manufacturers don't want a whole bunch of other car companies
coming in and selling cars where you could be selling
a Ford or Japan with Toyota and Honda. Don't want
(36:13):
a bunch of other cars in the US market. Makes sense,
But dang, dang, they're cool. And I didn't know there
was a company. I think they're called Great Wall Motors
or something like that. It's like the Great Wall of
China Motors. What okay? As I as I went a
little deeper into some of these specific manufacturers, specific vehicles
(36:36):
that seem way too cheap, I found something strange. It's
a story that was written by Rob Stump for Inside
EV's was written on June twenty fourth of this year.
Here's the title, China's zero mile used evs are flooding
(36:56):
global markets. And I was curious, what is that mean?
A zero mile used electric vehicle? What the heck is
that right?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
If you are how can it be considered used if
no one has actually run up the no one has
driven it, right a single mile, not a single mile,
So maybe then we could rightly or we could with
validity make an assumption like, oh, maybe this was maybe
it counts as used because it was part of a
(37:26):
promotion or it was in the background of a movie
or something like that. But that's not the case, is it, Matt.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
So I think the best way to talk about and
answer that question, Ben is to break this down a
little bit and discuss what is being called the zero
mile scam. Okay, here's this is really weird. Nobody's ever
driven these vehicles. They get manufactured, they come off the line,
they are you know, theoretically on a truck.
Speaker 6 (37:50):
Bed or something. For all of this.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
The vehicle comes off the line, it gets registered immediately
with a Chinese license plate. So think about that process.
If you've ever purchased a car, or if you like anywhere,
or you've ever even had to get a new license
plate or a new registration. Sure it is because you
are an individual owner of a vehicle, right, So it
(38:14):
gets registered in your name, your address, your private information
gets linked to that vehicle with a registration that you
can then show to a very kind police officer when
they come up to your window and say license and
registration please.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
Uh, They don't ask for the proof of insurance hardly
at all anymore, it would seem maybe they can look
it up when they paying your stuff, but usually all
on the license.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Right, it'll show up on your renord if you haven't
shut its.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, And generally that process makes sense. They are linking
you as an individual human to the vehicle and if
you're not linked, why are you not linked?
Speaker 6 (38:50):
And what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (38:54):
But in this case, the car manufacturer, the people who
made it, registers that vehicle essentially with them as being
sold to them or an owner. They are the owner
of that vehicle, so they can then immediately de register,
get rid of the license plate, and then ship it
to another country usually and say hey, this is a
(39:17):
used vehicle, which means they can mark the price of
that vehicle down significantly from a brand new electric vehicles price.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Sure, yeah, okay, So to make sure all of us
are playing along at home, get it. It is not
a specific individual like Johnny Blue Jeans or Carol Beijing
or whatever that's registering the vehicle. It is the manufacturer
registering with the government to get that to account as
a sale and then de registering and pushing it out
(39:48):
to the export market.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
Yes, exactly, Well, it's like turn them back theodometer type stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
I mean, not quite, but it's like it's a scam
in a similar fashion.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
But it's weird though because it is a scam. But
ultimately the car manufacturer is going to lose a lot
of money, right because they're going to sell it for
a lot less money than they would have gotten if
they sold it new. So where refined? The issue here
is that the Chinese market is manufacturing way too many
(40:20):
electric vehicles for the domestic market, so then they have
to get a bunch more out to other countries. So
to make the markets in those other countries view their
vehicles as more enticing, they mark the price way way
way down. So why would you get a much more expensive,
let's say, Russian made vehicle if you're a resident of Russia,
(40:40):
when you could get one of these Chinese manufacturer vehicles
that's brand new for all intents and purposes, but at
a crazy markdown price.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
It's a loss leader, right. That could be part of
the tactic here. Now we're normalizing the export. We're getting
a chance to showcase the technology and the affordability, even
though the ability is a product of some financial parkour
that there definitely seems to be more to the story
on this when because the logic from the outside, as
(41:12):
we've described, which is accurate, does beg the question what's
in it for the manufacturers. The answers can be found
in stuff like massive government subsidies, because there's a very
different relationship between business and state in China as opposed
to a lot of the West outside of the decayed monarchies.
Oh exactly, Sorry, I walk down the street for that last. Okay,
(41:38):
we accept your journey and we appreciate it. Yes, Ben,
that is a huge deal, the subsidies and how these
these manufacturers are essentially getting government money to make more cars, right,
and then you're turning that money into profits all along
the chain. So the local government ends up tallying a
(41:58):
car sale in their life local vicinity, Right, the car
manufacturer of the brand logs revenue because hey, they've officially
got they've exported a car and it's already been sold.
Speaker 6 (42:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
The exporter themselves pockets a little profit per vehicle. There's
a Reuter's investigation that says the revenue was quote so
good that exporters were able to earn around one four
hundred dollars US and profit per car back in twenty
twenty two to twenty twenty three. And this is what
it says, quote a major markup given the exporter purchased
(42:35):
the car. So the person buying this new used car
paid around five thy four hundred.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
Dollars US on average.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
It's just you hear how low that is. The exporter
bought a car for five four hundred dollars brand new electric.
I mean, think about what what brand new electric vehicle
here in the US could you buy for five four
hundred dollar scooter?
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Maybe a couple of scooters, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
An electric riteable lawnmower maybe.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Right right? That's yeah, this is this is fascinating because
it shows us that the model we always assume to
be most functional for these kinds of sales is not
necessarily the only game in town, right globally and I
imagine I'm guessing here, but my spidey sense would tell me,
(43:30):
guys that other countries who are still receiving these imports
have started to push back, right.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, oh yeah, I think Russia in particular has you know,
tried to put the kabasha on this and stop it
from happening. And because they changed, they changed the way
quote used as a term is used. Right, what does
what does the word used mean? And there's basically saying yeah,
(44:00):
it didn't have an actual owner and it has no
miles on it. It's not used and China's like, yes it is.
Speaker 6 (44:08):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
It's really interesting. It goes into it just really quickly.
Just I want to talk about the tactics that the
local governments are using, because it is weird. They are
local governments in China and specific provinces as you go throughout,
are attempting to curb the number of vehicles on the
road because of congestion. They're trying to slow down pollution
from vehicles that are not evis. There's all kinds of
(44:33):
you know, and it's province by province, but they've all
got essentially rules in place for the number of vehicles
that can be registered on a yearly basis. Well at
least twenty local governments were found to be essentially granting
an extra lot of licenses and registrations specifically for these
(44:54):
cars to be quick registered and licensed and then you know,
thrown out they're even yeah, and I just.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Have to say, I immediately sense some red envelopes changing
hands at the local dim sum place.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Oh yeah, just just a little oh oh, here's your cut. Hey, awesome, thanks,
really appreciate that. The other thing they're doing are making
huge warehouses available for specific manufacturers to hold electric vehicles
for a certain amount of time until they can be exported.
So essentially, manufacture the car, get it licensed, registered, and
(45:32):
all that stuff, throw that stuff out, and then take
it via some large truck to a holding facility one
of these warehouses and let it sit. But it's it's
a brand new use car and it just needs to
head to some other country now.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
And then also we have to say, yes, there very
much does seem to be a grift, a scam, as
you said, or a conspiracy afoot. But for the other
side of the argument, you know, you're someone in Jordan,
you're someone in Russia. You could not usually afford an
ev especially not one with all these bells and whistles.
So the argument in support of this would be something like,
(46:08):
we're just giving people what they want. We're making things
more affordable, right, We're helping folks enter the higher echelons
of society, the middle class, the upper middle class, and
so on. That's a difficult argument to refute because there
is validity to it. And on the other side, it
does feel I don't want to sound cenophobic, but it
(46:30):
does feel like the government of China is desperately trying
to push clean money, right, or you like, to wash
their money to get stuff going in a way that
supports tech and innovation and greater mercantile aims. It reminds
me a lot of the ghost towns constructed right the
(46:53):
real estate market.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, we got to keep building. We have to show
that we're growing as a company. Right, exactly what all
these manufacturers are doing? Some of them, Some of these
manufacturers that show up at Auto Shanghai are so niche
and so small and have so few sales, But then
they're still getting a ton of government subsidies and they're
still making a ton of different cars.
Speaker 6 (47:15):
How are you guys doing this? It's it's government subsidies.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
So this isn't illegal. It's just a little bit sketch.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
It's it's sketch. Yeah, it's it's as of right now,
it's not illegal. And I did get it wrong. Jordan
is the country that is tweaking the definition of used.
Russia is the country that's effectively banning this practice. So
that's interesting that those two countries are doing that. Anyway, guys,
just a weird thing, not illegal, just a way to
(47:47):
change the rules a little bit of the system to
make it for you.
Speaker 6 (47:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Yeah, Bid is one of the companies right we're talking about,
isn't that one of the big that They're the company
that I've seen that has a really cool line of
cars that would be rad if we could get over here.
But I guess that the competition does not want that
to happen.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
I want it to happen, but there's not a there's
not a Chinese auto manufacturer lobby that could mess with
the Big three yet. So guys, if we're gonna be corrupt,
no half measures. I want all the way corruption, you
know what I mean. I want that, I want that lobby.
I want those red envelopes in Washington.
Speaker 8 (48:23):
Just get some of those zero mile cars over here.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
You know it'd be sold on the black right, right, come.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
On, Yeah, this is the home of everything but the bagel.
We can make this happen. Think you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (48:32):
Together, our powers combined.
Speaker 6 (48:35):
Guys, have you seen the jatour G nine hundred.
Speaker 5 (48:39):
But I've seen some that like have robo suspension that
can like bump, make the car like bounce to music,
and have.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
Like lights and crazy stuff.
Speaker 4 (48:47):
What is the one you're talking about, matt.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Uh, It's just it's a one of these luxury SUVs.
It looks like a cooler range Rover to me, you know,
but it's it's got stuff that like a Rolls Royce has.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
It's so gar.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
It really is spoke aff.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
The reason aside from yes, there is a point to
saying protectionism and maybe the Big three don't don't want
the new guys rolling in and outperforming them. But aside
from that, there are I hate that we have to
say this, but it's true. They're also serious concerns about
the technology that may be sliding under the radar in
(49:30):
these cars manufactured right So what yeah, yeah, I mean
you gotta be careful. Two more two more Chinese nationals
just got busted for spying in the US. It's like
it's these folks on both sides, very paranoid and sometimes
with cause still be sick. Though it'd be sick to
(49:52):
have one of these vehicles, you know what I mean,
like it it'll say your name when you hop in. Yes, right,
and it probably will already know too much about you.
But that's most cars manufactured in the US today already.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Say my name car, It's Marry.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Walter White night rider stuff over here?
Speaker 6 (50:14):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Did I ever tell you, guys about the time when
when the celebrity voices were rolling out for GPS directions?
I was using an early adopter model of it, and
I accidentally had I actually had Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice giving
me directions, and I couldn't figure I couldn't figure out
(50:39):
how to switch it out, and it got.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
Old a few minutes. That's true.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, Yeah, guys, I had a whole story in here.
We'll talk about next week about the human genome and
synthesizing all kinds of fun things like chromosomes and stuff
that will have a nice little discussion about. I'm gonna
save that. We'll talk about that next week. Just know
that it is news right now if you want to
check it out for yourself.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yeah, woo, just the beginning, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Shout out to the welcome trust in their infinite wisdom.
We'll see what happens there. Yeah, that's all I've got
this week.
Speaker 4 (51:17):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
That's amazing and thank you guys. We've gone on quite
a journey here. We hope July finds everybody well. We
hope that you join us in the interim between our episodes,
our upcoming listener mail and more strange news. As always,
tell us about two VLU, tell us about teeth, tell
us about your Chinese ev and what you would do
(51:39):
for FAGO. You can find us online. You can hit
us on the email. You can also give us a
call at our phone number.
Speaker 5 (51:44):
Yeah, if you wish to find us on the internet,
you can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group, on AXFKA,
Twitter and on YouTube video content glor for your perusing
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Speaker 2 (51:58):
Show you have a phone number, it is one eight
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yourself a cool nickname and let us know in the
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Speaker 3 (52:13):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
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Speaker 2 (52:44):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here that makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Through the magic of editing,
we are coming to you on July seventh, twenty twenty five.
So happy a retrospective Fourth of July to everyone. You
(00:55):
had a good one? Hot dogs, fireworks.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hope everyone saw some works.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Oh yeah, We're only a couple of days into firework
cleanup time, so feeling good.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
And hope everybody's dogs had an okay weekend.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
I bought it absurd giant pack of fireworks from Leedal
back in Atlanta. I'm currently on the road and i
only have lit one of them so far, and I'm
not even gonna get to them for Fourth of July
because I'm not gonna be hoped. So I'm gonna have
to have a belated firework display of my own.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
There's always fireworks in Atlanta, you know what I mean.
There's also I'll send this to you guys offline, but
a good friend of mine recently sent video footage of
an explosion at a fireworks store, and it is exactly
as you might picture in picture. So I hope everybody
stays safe. One beautiful gift that came to the United
(01:48):
States just before July fourth. It's something we hadn't talked
about on our previous Strange News, but we had mentioned it.
Factions in the United States were about to sell as
much public land as possible to private entities in the
course of negotiations with a new very large bill that
(02:09):
may or may not be passed by the time this
comes out. Thankfully, the move to sell off all of
all of that land to private entities has been pulled
from the bill, so National Parks Soldier on kind.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Good to hear it.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Good to hear it from now talking about the BBB,
I reckon the BBB, the big beautiful bill.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Ah, yes, I thought you've met better Business Bureau and baths. Yeah, yeah,
so we are. We are always endeavoring to start with
something a little positive. If we can. In this program,
we are going to learn some interesting studies about cheese.
(02:52):
We're going to continue a little bit of our ICP
associated phase. We're going to talk EV's very excited about that.
We're going to get into some weird science, which I
think we're all very excited about. Weird weird side. So
before we do any of that, how about we pause
for a word from our sponsors, and then we travel
(03:14):
across the planet to a nation that may be unfamiliar
to a lot of people in the States, and we
have returned. Guys, do you ever mess with wiki travel?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
No? I don't know about wiki travel.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
We've mentioned it briefly on the show before, so every
we all know Wikipedia, Wiki, Wikipedia, and of course we'd
be remiss not to mention wiki fee. Wiki travel is
a as we discussed previously, it's a it's a pretty
interesting open source kind of guide to countries, regions, and
(03:55):
cities throughout the human planet. I don't know if they
have a they have a wiki travel article on the moon,
but hopefully it's on the way. If you go to
the wiki travel article for the country of Tuvalu, then
you will see you will see some interesting things. This
is a tiny island nation. Picture it like Oceania. It's
(04:20):
in the South Pacific Ocean. The closest big continent there
is going to be Australia and this archipelago has a
lot of history to it. But similar to maybe the
Marshall Islands or American Samoa, or the Solomon Islands and
especially the Maldives, this is in trouble right now as
(04:42):
we're recording, over a third of the people residing in
this island nation have applied for what Australia is calling
a climate visa, and that's because Tuvalu is sinking beneath
the waves.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
These would be considered climate refugees, right.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's It's one of the first visas of
its kind. The idea is that a climate visa, as
you mentioned, can make somebody be considered a refugee, not
for human rights issues, not for political issues, or for
religious persecution, et cetera, et cetera, but instead due to
(05:22):
being at high risk of unstoppable, inevitable consequences of climate change.
So right now tu volup against pretty small country. It
has a population of eleven thousand people on nine atolls
scattered across the Pacific between Australia and Hawaii. And if
(05:44):
you want a good primer on this, folks, then check
out Reuter's, check out NBC News. It's it's not looking good.
And even tu Vlu's own ambassador to the UN, Tapugao,
he said that he was startled by the huge number
of people vying for this opportunity, especially because we all
(06:09):
know how these kind of visas end up working, especially
in the West. Not everybody who applies gets.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
One, you know, sure, And I mean I can imagine,
with climate change being what it is, that these situations
might become increasingly common and these visas might become increasingly
in demand.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Right. You nailed it there, because the total number of
people in Tuvalu seeking this visa is right right, As
of a few days ago, it's more than four thousand people,
four thousand and fifty two of those eleven thousand residents.
The applications close on July eighteenth, so there's still time
(06:47):
to apply, but there is an annual cap of allowable
visas per the Nation of Australia. That annual cap is
two hundred and eighty. Most people are not going to
get it. And they're going to have to find something
else to do.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
That is a low number.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
That is a very low number, especially considering the higher
numbers of play. By twenty fifty, the boffins at NASA
project daily tides will submerge half of the main toll
of the biggest area in Tuvalu, the place called Funafuti,
which is home to sixty percent of the nation's inhabitants.
(07:26):
The people living there are on a strip of land
that can, at its narrowest be as small as sixty
five feet across.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
I mean, it makes me think of like all the
increasingly damaging and devastating storms hitting places in the US,
and specially places on the coast like Florida, where there's
people going to go. If these things continue apace, you know,
and worse in it just seems like they kind of
make it work and they sort of build it into
their expectations of what life in that part of the
(07:56):
country is. But I just feel like it's going to
get really really cannibal really quickly.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Right, And current estimates always caveat something like given the
information now, given what we project will happen in terms
of temperature rise and sea level rise, then the following
things will occur. Right, they plug in the variables, But
if you look at the majority of studies, especially the
newer ones, they find that those variables are themselves escalating.
(08:27):
So what was projected to be, you know, x amount
of degrees temperature wise, turns out to be a larger number,
which means that the time window will accelerate. So we
want to just first off say tu Vlu is an
amazing place. We have not personally visited. We'd love to
hear your experiences if you have ever been lucky enough
(08:48):
to spend time there. We are still let's see if
this segue works. We're still we're still going through our
cult phase. We don't know anything about possible cults on Tuvalu,
but we do know a Russian cult leader has been
sentenced to twelve years in prison, despite you know, realizing
(09:11):
he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
M I think they get him a religious persecure Yeah, yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, I don't know if you can get a visa
for that. Can you apply? Yeah, to be the like
a cult leader.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Visa, a savior visa, a Savior of Messiah visa.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
We didn't talk about this in the cult discussions, guys,
but like, are there any cults that get tax exempt status? Like,
at what point is your religion a cult or your
cult or religion and qualify for tax exemption. A lot
of people say signology as a cult and it gets
mega tax exempt status.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
So I feel like there's a little bit of a
slippery slope there, or you know, some special treatment depending.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I'm pretty sure you can register of religious entity like
an organization and get that status if you want it.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I'm Shinriko did for sure. We also know that we
also know that it is it's not particularly easy, but
almost any set of practices and beliefs can be registered
as an official religion, at least here in the United States.
Some of the big things are you know, your tenants
(10:20):
cannot include things that are clearly crimes. You can't be like, hey,
we started this religion because we are going to kill
all of the Welsh of the public, yes, and or
defraud the public. So we again, still we're going through
this cult phase. We want to hear your favorite local cults.
(10:42):
If favorites not the word, maybe the ones that fascinate
you the most. The Russian national We're mentioning his guy
named Sergey Torop. He is known to his followers as
Vision and the organization he founded in nineteen ninety one
is the Church of the Last Testament. Very humble name,
(11:03):
and he said he's a former locksmith and traffic warden,
and speaking with the Guardian in two thousand and two,
he said, it's all very complicated, but to keep thinks simple, yes,
I'm Jesus Christ, which is just such a banger line.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
It's quite the claim, guys.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Thinking about you, matt specifically, I propose that we get
to work on some sort of cult leaders you don't
know or even we'd include the ones that you do
know that are more famous. Magic, the gathering style trading
card game. We're the only power they all have is
charisma varying degrees.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
That's an interesting that's an interesting concept. How would the
mechanical unclear?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I put that to you, Mattie, I'd say it's more
of a D and D style thing where we all
get to play different characters.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I want to be.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Marshall apple Way, That's all I'm saying. I just think
he's got all the power, he's got the space powers.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
I want to be John Oliver representing our Lady of
perpetual exemption.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, that was a great episode by
Oliver and the gang. I would go with I know,
I think I'm good where I'm at.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Okay, just be one of those.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
We do have one more thing before our next break,
which is fascinating. Look, well, we can get to the
tradecraft stuff later. The Nation of Iran is threatening to
They have hacked part of the White House. They are
threatening to release one hundred gigabytes of Trump Aid emails
from people who thought they were speaking in confidence, including
(12:41):
some folks like Roger Stone. We'll wait and see if
that actually happens or if that's just smoke and mirrors.
A drug cartel has successfully hacked an FBI officials phone.
But more importantly, Brenning fans of the Tooth Fairy, we've
got some weird news. There seems that that mythological figure
(13:03):
was onto something. Now, when when did you guys stop
doing tooth fairy stuff with your kids?
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Or did you I did it a little bit. I
don't remember leaning into it super hard though, Matt.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, yeah, we did it a tiny bit, but it
was just sillies like he I think he had an
understanding that dad is kind of joking on what's going
to happen in it, and yeah, and then I showed
him the teeth. At some point he's got he's got
a little plastic container that has his baby teeth in it.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Oh, there's a cult power in that. Yeah. The tooth
fairy is an interesting thing here, especially in the West,
because it's kind of it's understood, right, not in a wink.
There's not any kind of apocalyptic consequence, right to not
messing with the tooth fairy. It's not going to be
(13:54):
the end of the world, right that you put the tooth,
you put the baby tooth under your pillow, whatnot, and
then depending on how inflation goes or how cool your
parents are, you get some kind of financial compensation. So
it's a neat thing for kids. But it turns out, oh,
we should do a history of the tooth fairy on
ridiculous history. By the way, I think that's a pretty
(14:16):
banger idea. It turns out that the legend of the
tooth fairy may have been onto something because new research
shows that stem cells from extracted wisdom teeth are quote
medical gold and capable of treating multiple diseases. I had
no idea about this. Does anybody here still have their
(14:37):
wisdom teeth?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Yeah, I've been instructed to have them removed, and I
have put it off indefinitely, but I definitely still have them.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
It's just a group of marauding dentists in the post
apocalyptic world that just extracts those teeth and heals people.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Oh yeah, the tooth takers.
Speaker 7 (14:55):
Yeah, but they're doing it for the greater good, right,
that's right, sure, yeah, that's what people love to hear
when they're getting pieces of their mouth ripped apart.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
The reason this is fascinating is that every wisdom tooth
has a soft core within it we should call a
dental pulp. Terrible name, but pretty accurate. What we've discovered
is that of the roughly ten million wisdom teeth that
are removed in the United States every year, most go
(15:28):
to wastebends. Most go to biohazard trash piles.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
And I don't know about you guys, but I always thinking,
I remember feeling it was it was strange the way
my dentists would kind of shift their energy when I said, oh,
can I keep the tooth and then dil if we
get some weird, ominous music. There's a turn and they're
they're like, keep the two. Why would you want to
(15:57):
keep the two?
Speaker 5 (15:59):
Thinking?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
What the hell are you guys doing with the teeth.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It's a necklace, dude.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
It's from my necklace. There are companies that now are
offering preservation kits to turn your tooth into like a
long term collectible thing or a medical asset. Because dental
pulp has stem cells, and unlike embryonic stem cells or
(16:27):
blood stem cells cord blood stem cells, this stuff can
be collected and harvested with very few ethical concerns because
the argument will always be where are you gonna throw
it away? Unless you're Ben's creepy dentist. I know he
was up to something. I just can't figure out what
These stem cells though. To continue that point, they can
(16:47):
ease motor symptoms in Parkinson's because they can replace dopamine
making neurons. At least that's what recent experiments with a
rodent show. In All's Teimer's research, the same cells may
be able to create secrete growth factors that protect your synapsi's.
(17:07):
They may slow the build up of toxic proteins. You
can see already a lot of a lot of strange
bleeding edge science here from the Humble Wisdom Tooth and
the Tooth Fairy. For more information, go to earth dot com.
Jordan Joseph, the staff writer, breaks it down and gives
(17:29):
an excellent introduction to this. I could also make a
personalized medical plan for you. Like imagine you have your
wisdom teeth removed, and instead of it being tossed away
or coveted by some creepy dentists, it can now be
the stem cells within that pulp can now be used
(17:50):
to address possible medical concerns you may have down the road.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Isn't that similar to the way Peo we'll keep their placenta
or certain aspects of that.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I think that's more for you know, posthemity delicacy. No,
I'm just joking, but no, theoretically, yes, there are stem
cells present in that placenta. That's one of the main
reasons that it was, you know, viewed as a cool thing.
I think it's very different ingesting stem cells like that
versus what Ben's talking about here, where you're gonna, I guess,
(18:22):
utilize those cells to create more cultures of some kind
or do extra things with right.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yeah, it's it's weird because we're learning more and more
about how resilient the human body can be, right, and
how these things can be can be used for unforeseen
medical advantages, things we would never have pictured. It also
reminds me there's a weird exploration. We'll get to it.
(18:51):
Ridiculous history, I'm sure. It also reminds me of the
deep folklore and mythology around teeth, you know what I mean?
We all remember. I think some of those fairy tales,
like the idea that if you, for instance, had had
a bag of dragon teeth and you threw them out
in a field, then soldiers would spring up overnight. That
(19:12):
might be a little too Russian or Eastern, but I
don't know visibly. You know that awesome? Good? Okay, so
it wasn't just making that up awesome, I don't know.
Teeth are just such a weird part of the body,
and we want to hear your stories about teeth. About dentistry,
we did an episode a while ago. Stuff they don't
(19:33):
want you to know about dentist or something to that effect,
several years back. Do you guys remember that. I can't
remember it. I think one of us had to have
a root canal or something which launched a thousand ships there.
Speaker 6 (19:44):
Yes, yes, I remember that. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So we also want to hear from dentist in the
crowd right to us, what are the things more people
should know about dentistry and about the weird magic of teeth.
I'm going through toothphase, guys. I've got a horror story.
I got to send you cold the Judas tooth, and
I I don't know, man, there's something creepy about teeth, especially.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Like people keeping them.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
I don't know, Like you said, there is some sort
of like, I don't know, witchcraft vibes around keeping these
little pieces of human bone.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, Like, if it's your kid, you get a pass
right because it's your kid and you're helping the kid
build memories. But if you're you know, you're dating someone
and you say, hey, uh, you went to the dentist
recently and things are going pretty well in this relationship,
could I have that tooth?
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (20:38):
Or maybe or maybe just don't string your kid's teeth
up into like a necklace or something and like wear
it under your clothes. That'd be weird.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh. And if you disagree with that,
we would still love to hear from you. We're gonna
pause for a word from our sponsors. Please write to
us with your weird cult teeth and two blue stories conspiracy.
iHeartRadio dot com will pause for a word from our
sponsors and return with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
And we have returned with more strange news. I am
going to.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
Lead off with a bit of a ridiculous crime story
that also is a bit of a callback to a
recent discussion that you started, Matt, about the very beloved
Detroit based pop brand Fago, also beloved by juggalos the
world over.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Fans of the insane clown posse.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
A would be bank robber was foiled, I guess by
police all because of his love of the red pop
flavor of Fago. An individual went into a lending office
trying to cash a fraudulent check in the Saginaw area
(21:54):
of Michigan, and when this did not go well for him,
he took the teller hostage and essentially demanded money. The
irony here, maybe that's the wrong word in the Elanis
Morisset sense of it all is that this was not
a place that had cash on hand at all. They
couldn't have cashed the check even if it was legitimate.
(22:15):
Authorities were notified and the would be heister had his name,
by the way, it was Quentin m Allen, and the
bank in question is the Mercantile Bank. This took place
on Friday, the twenty seventh of June. When negotiators made
contact with Alan. He requested one fago Red Pop beverage,
(22:37):
which was flown into him by drone and dangled outside
of one of the bank's windows. When Alan peeked his
head outside to grab his delicious frosty beverage, a Michigan
police sniper took the shot on from the roof of
a nearby AutoZone, fatally wounding Alan, at which point police
(22:58):
entered the facility and rescued the employee who's being held hostage,
who is then treated for non life threatening injuries. An
ad oupt piece on Jelapnik that I'm reading from the
writer here, Justin Hughes ended with the question of whether
or not the Red Pop was harmed in this. In
(23:19):
these proceedings, it's not clear whether it was damaged.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
Wow, isn't that wild?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I really loved?
Speaker 6 (23:25):
Is Red Pop that brutal?
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Everything about it?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Is?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
It?
Speaker 5 (23:28):
Is off, You're right, like the dangling of it, the
like using it as a lure, you know, I mean,
it's it's funny, but it's also tragic for sure, no
question there.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah, And this is a person who is in everything
else aside. They're in a very high stress environment at
this point, so they may not be thinking as rationally.
Hostage negotiators or negotiators in general, are very talented at
leveraging that instability. It feels like you would have had
to you, I would have had to know something was
(24:02):
up right. Why are they dangling it out here? Why
do you want me to reach out and expose myself?
But this person must have been under such mental duress
that they didn't think it through.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Well, it would appear they didn't think a lot of
things through in terms of the ability for them to
cash af fraudulent check at this particular location of this
bank where it was much more of like a place
where you would meet with a banker to secure a loan,
but it was not the kind of place that had
like stockpiles of cash. I think they had an ATM
on the premises, but that was about it. So Yeah,
(24:32):
the writer here in jeloptin points that out as well,
that there was quite a bit of not thinking things
through going on. So we'll jump from that one to
another ridiculous crime story out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which is
very close to a place where I used to live, Birmingham.
My mom actually taught at a college in Tuscaloosa, a
music college, or she taught in the music program at
(24:54):
believe it was the University of Alabama, whatever the one
in tuscal Losa is.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
It's a big football school.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
In any case, police in Tuscaloosa are looking for help
and identifying a suspect who robbed a gas station there
in Duncanville while dressed as Scooby Doo, the cartoon character
brought row Indeed, that made the headline good call Ben.
This individual is seen on CCTV wearing like what you
might call a kigaroomy style costume, like a snuggie with
(25:24):
the attached hood that you know, of course, resembles Scooby
Doo the Dog.
Speaker 8 (25:29):
He was in fact only wearing the hood in certain shots,
and other shots you see him wearing a green ski
mask that the writer from CBS forty two News AJ
Holliday points out very much the same color as Shaggy's
T shirt. Scooby doos, of course, beloved master and sandwich aficionado.
That's really all we've got on that one, guys. It
(25:49):
was a funny one to mention and follow up and
maybe a little less tragic at this point because no
one was injured. This individual was just reportedly responsible for
taking cash and coins. He stands about five foot nine,
it's about six feet tall. This took place at the
quick stop on Highway eighty two at around three forty
five am, but no one was harmed, and this individual
(26:11):
was not taken out by snipers from a nearby rooftop
or lured with a Scooby snack, that is what they
would have lured him with, not a red pop.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
So finally, let's move on to my main story, which
I think y'all will find interesting. This is certainly something
that we have discussed adjacent Lee, the idea of how
food and different things that we consume may may affect
our dreams and or nightmares. There's a couple of organizations
in this story that I think are named incredibly. First off,
we've got Canada's McEwan University and their lab there let's
(26:44):
see Dream and Nightmare Lab at the Center for Advanced
Research in Sleep Medicine, a doctor Tor Nielsen, who is
the head researcher for a study looking at how cheese
and dairy and sweets and various the kind of snacks
can affect our sleep quality and the severity of nightmares
(27:07):
and this may be as a result of varying degrees
of lactose intolerance. The researchers point out that lactose intolerance
is very much a spectrum, and really the only folks
that maybe identify themselves as being lactose intolerant are the
ones that have extreme versions of it that can absolutely
upend their digestion and cause all kinds of really nasty
(27:28):
problems that are unignorable, and they may have to take
a lactate if they want to try some ice cream
or drink some milk or what have you. But there
are many other folks that exist somewhere on the less
severe side of that spectrum and may have no idea
that that's the case. The head researcher of this project
to this the first one in terms of what they
(27:49):
were looking at here was that people who had lactose
intolerance were reporting more nightmares and the severity of their
symptoms associated with the severity of the nightmares, so a
linear relationship is there. He also reported that food allergies
are generally are also associated with nightmares in a very
similar way, also finding that an unhealthy diet, specifically referring
(28:10):
to snacking before bed can cause these kinds of problems,
including restless.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Nights and poor quality sleep.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
By unhealthy, he says, I mean eating very close to bedtime,
but also not depending on your internal signals or when
you're hungry and when you're full. So it is kind
of mindless, food noise based snacking that I think a
lot of folks out there can probably identify with something
I've certainly struggled with myself and not gonna lie. I
have noticed that if I have like a sweet treat
(28:39):
or something I really like those little kinder chocolate bars
before bed, I do sometimes have kind of more wacky
nightmares or more vivid dreams that would probably border on
what you might call a nightmare. Sometimes a dream that's
just super weird and distressing. Maybe it's not horrific, but
I do wake up in some somewhat of an uneasy state.
(29:01):
Let's just wrap it up with this and then we'll
pass it around to the group. Many people don't know
their status when it comes to lactos intolerance. I mean
it's a kind of spectrum, right. There's very severe cases
of lactics intolerance and then very you know, mild cases.
The problem is that people will dose themselves with dairy.
I love that concept according to their symptoms. You know,
the doctors in fact tell people don't just quit entirely
(29:22):
if you have a mild case. People don't always judge
this accurately or adhere to a strict enough diet, so
they do end up getting these symptoms when they're sleeping,
as they do end up affecting their dreams. The other
organization I wanted to point out that I think has
an incredible name is the British Cheese Board. I mean,
is it a pun on purpose? Because it is and
it should be, and if it's not on purpose, then
(29:43):
I love it. The British Cheese Board published a study
many years ago. He said, I'm the researcher that looked
at different kinds of cheeses and they claimed in their
cheese study that they saw different patterns in dreams depending
on the type of cheese that had been consumed when
in particular, in particular that they noted cheddar maybe they
(30:05):
said might triggered dreams about celebrities. However, there's a conflict
of interest here in that the cheeseboard itself ran the
study and it was never published in any kind of
scientific journals. So pop probably takes some of that with
a bit of a grain of salt. But they do,
you know, encourage folks out there who are consuming cheese
products before bed to keep a little pad of paper
(30:27):
by the bed and record your dreams and see how
these cheesy delights may affect your dreams and quality of sleep.
And also maybe make a notice to what kind of
cheeseyate and see if it made different types of entities appear.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
What do you guys think?
Speaker 4 (30:41):
I think this is a fun one.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Honey, we're gonna get weird break out the camember.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah, you should do that anyway, Keeping keeping a dream
journal is an invaluable psychological tools, especially creativitating with anything
you eat. Yeah, and lactose intolerance, by the way, I
appreciate that the all you're pointing to are acknowledging this
lactose intolerance as a spectrum is a very real thing.
(31:08):
It's also a mutation of the human species. Most comparable
organisms are not drinking milk or consuming dairy products into adulthood.
So that's a fascinating superpower of the human species. And
part of the reason that lactose tolerance in adulthood is
not universal is because in the grand context, it's quite
(31:34):
a recent mutation.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
Do you think it works with vegan cheese.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Vegan cheese is nut based, right, so you may.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
I mean, I can't imagine if you have nut allergies
that that could cause some disruption, but maybe not the
same ones that are caused by the lactose. Okay, I
mean there are other types of vegan cheese that don't
use nuts, but I think the most popular type it
uses nuts nut cheese, which is really fun to say
and kind of gross, but that's what it's called.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
What's great on popcorn from back when I was vegan
has a terrible name, nutritional geek nutritional yeasts actually really yeah,
a terrible name. Aside, it's a great topping for popcorn.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
And liquid aminos is another vegan topping that's like a
very popular choice for seasoning, and I just think that's
such like a weird clinical name. But yeah, nutritional yeast
is always giving me a bit of the ick, but
it is really.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Really good and yeah, yeah name aside again, and popcorn
by itself often gets vilified. It's not popcorn the product
on its own that's bad for you. It's the murderous
amount of butter we add to it, and of course
the lovely little lighting on the microwave plastic bag, and
also the bits that can get lodged so deep in
(32:45):
your crevices of your.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
Teeth that you may never get them out again. That
is my biggest qualm with popcorn. But I have recently
switched to using a water pick, and that'll get those out.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
It'll get those out right away.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Water picks are pretty magical, nice, highly recommend I don't know, guys,
I guess I can keep my segment short. These were
all pretty light and fun, except for the poor individual
who got sniped by the police for reaching for a
delicious soda. I don't know, if you guys don't have
anything a tad, I think we could probably pop to
a break and then come back with our last strange
(33:16):
news segment.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
What do you say, Well, yes, but please I've recently
discovered something that we are not sponsored by, but it
is one of my favorite things to add to stuff,
especially vegetables. It's from some company called Kinders that make spices,
and they have like a butter, I don't know, a
seasoning that you can pour over the tops like powdered,
(33:39):
but it's like it almost tastes like mildly charred butter,
like butter that's.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Been on a grill.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
Round favor.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yes, that's what it Just you hit it on some
vegetables or something and.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
That sounds good. Sweet sweet. I've been really into seasonings lately,
so I'm gonna try that out. Man, that's great.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
I also like everything but the bagel, which is everything
bagels without the bagels, some of the American and ridiculous,
and I just love it. It's one of those you know,
you see weird, the weirdest, smallest things that make you
think only in America and everything but the bagel is
(34:16):
one of those.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
Is it is it too much on?
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Like?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Because I because it's we're talking sesame, garlic, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
All the hits, all the good ones all, yeah, a good.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Amalgam of spices. It actually does quite work, man. It
doesn't immediately put you in bagel down.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
Got you? Okay, okay, well that's all I got you all.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Let's take a quick break here, another word from our sponsor,
and then come back with mister Matt Frederick for sure.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
And we're back, guys. Quick confession. I've been in car
world again a little bit, and every time I go there, Ben,
I think about your time on car stuff. Just how
any awesome episodes in Scott made. And I was looking
specifically at Auto Shanghai twenty twenty five and just in
(35:10):
awe of the sheer number of auto manufacturers in China.
It just how many different companies are making incredible electric
vehicles that if they were here in the US market,
I feel like people would not buy Tesla's anymore. They
would not buy any of the expensive electric vehicles out
(35:33):
there because these things you can get them for like
a quarter of the price. I'm not kidding, it's true,
and they have incredible luxury stuff inside. Yeah, It's just
I was salivating looking at some of these amazing cars. Anyway,
I was, I was doing that, going down that route
(35:53):
and just thinking about all this stuff and why the heck,
like aren't they aren't they here, and obviously there's terrif
issues there, tension issues there are you know, US auto
manufacturers don't want a whole bunch of other car companies
coming in and selling cars where you could be selling
a Ford or Japan with Toyota and Honda. Don't want
(36:13):
a bunch of other cars in the US market. Makes sense,
But dang, dang, they're cool. And I didn't know there
was a company. I think they're called Great Wall Motors
or something like that. It's like the Great Wall of
China Motors. What okay? As I as I went a
little deeper into some of these specific manufacturers, specific vehicles
(36:36):
that seem way too cheap, I found something strange. It's
a story that was written by Rob Stump for Inside
EV's was written on June twenty fourth of this year.
Here's the title, China's zero mile used evs are flooding
(36:56):
global markets. And I was curious, what is that mean?
A zero mile used electric vehicle? What the heck is
that right?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
If you are how can it be considered used if
no one has actually run up the no one has
driven it, right a single mile, not a single mile,
So maybe then we could rightly or we could with
validity make an assumption like, oh, maybe this was maybe
it counts as used because it was part of a
(37:26):
promotion or it was in the background of a movie
or something like that. But that's not the case, is it, Matt.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
So I think the best way to talk about and
answer that question, Ben is to break this down a
little bit and discuss what is being called the zero
mile scam. Okay, here's this is really weird. Nobody's ever
driven these vehicles. They get manufactured, they come off the line,
they are you know, theoretically on a truck.
Speaker 6 (37:50):
Bed or something. For all of this.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
The vehicle comes off the line, it gets registered immediately
with a Chinese license plate. So think about that process.
If you've ever purchased a car, or if you like anywhere,
or you've ever even had to get a new license
plate or a new registration. Sure it is because you
are an individual owner of a vehicle, right, So it
(38:14):
gets registered in your name, your address, your private information
gets linked to that vehicle with a registration that you
can then show to a very kind police officer when
they come up to your window and say license and
registration please.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
Uh, They don't ask for the proof of insurance hardly
at all anymore, it would seem maybe they can look
it up when they paying your stuff, but usually all
on the license.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Right, it'll show up on your renord if you haven't
shut its.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, And generally that process makes sense. They are linking
you as an individual human to the vehicle and if
you're not linked, why are you not linked?
Speaker 6 (38:50):
And what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (38:54):
But in this case, the car manufacturer, the people who
made it, registers that vehicle essentially with them as being
sold to them or an owner. They are the owner
of that vehicle, so they can then immediately de register,
get rid of the license plate, and then ship it
to another country usually and say hey, this is a
(39:17):
used vehicle, which means they can mark the price of
that vehicle down significantly from a brand new electric vehicles price.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Sure, yeah, okay, So to make sure all of us
are playing along at home, get it. It is not
a specific individual like Johnny Blue Jeans or Carol Beijing
or whatever that's registering the vehicle. It is the manufacturer
registering with the government to get that to account as
a sale and then de registering and pushing it out
(39:48):
to the export market.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
Yes, exactly, Well, it's like turn them back theodometer type stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
I mean, not quite, but it's like it's a scam
in a similar fashion.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
But it's weird though because it is a scam. But
ultimately the car manufacturer is going to lose a lot
of money, right because they're going to sell it for
a lot less money than they would have gotten if
they sold it new. So where refined? The issue here
is that the Chinese market is manufacturing way too many
(40:20):
electric vehicles for the domestic market, so then they have
to get a bunch more out to other countries. So
to make the markets in those other countries view their
vehicles as more enticing, they mark the price way way
way down. So why would you get a much more expensive,
let's say, Russian made vehicle if you're a resident of Russia,
(40:40):
when you could get one of these Chinese manufacturer vehicles
that's brand new for all intents and purposes, but at
a crazy markdown price.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
It's a loss leader, right. That could be part of
the tactic here. Now we're normalizing the export. We're getting
a chance to showcase the technology and the affordability, even
though the ability is a product of some financial parkour
that there definitely seems to be more to the story
on this when because the logic from the outside, as
(41:12):
we've described, which is accurate, does beg the question what's
in it for the manufacturers. The answers can be found
in stuff like massive government subsidies, because there's a very
different relationship between business and state in China as opposed
to a lot of the West outside of the decayed monarchies.
Oh exactly, Sorry, I walk down the street for that last. Okay,
(41:38):
we accept your journey and we appreciate it. Yes, Ben,
that is a huge deal, the subsidies and how these
these manufacturers are essentially getting government money to make more cars, right,
and then you're turning that money into profits all along
the chain. So the local government ends up tallying a
(41:58):
car sale in their life local vicinity, Right, the car
manufacturer of the brand logs revenue because hey, they've officially
got they've exported a car and it's already been sold.
Speaker 6 (42:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
The exporter themselves pockets a little profit per vehicle. There's
a Reuter's investigation that says the revenue was quote so
good that exporters were able to earn around one four
hundred dollars US and profit per car back in twenty
twenty two to twenty twenty three. And this is what
it says, quote a major markup given the exporter purchased
(42:35):
the car. So the person buying this new used car
paid around five thy four hundred.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
Dollars US on average.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
It's just you hear how low that is. The exporter
bought a car for five four hundred dollars brand new electric.
I mean, think about what what brand new electric vehicle
here in the US could you buy for five four
hundred dollar scooter?
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Maybe a couple of scooters, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
An electric riteable lawnmower maybe.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Right right? That's yeah, this is this is fascinating because
it shows us that the model we always assume to
be most functional for these kinds of sales is not
necessarily the only game in town, right globally and I
imagine I'm guessing here, but my spidey sense would tell me,
(43:30):
guys that other countries who are still receiving these imports
have started to push back, right.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, oh yeah, I think Russia in particular has you know,
tried to put the kabasha on this and stop it
from happening. And because they changed, they changed the way
quote used as a term is used. Right, what does
what does the word used mean? And there's basically saying yeah,
(44:00):
it didn't have an actual owner and it has no
miles on it. It's not used and China's like, yes it is.
Speaker 6 (44:08):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
It's really interesting. It goes into it just really quickly.
Just I want to talk about the tactics that the
local governments are using, because it is weird. They are
local governments in China and specific provinces as you go throughout,
are attempting to curb the number of vehicles on the
road because of congestion. They're trying to slow down pollution
from vehicles that are not evis. There's all kinds of
(44:33):
you know, and it's province by province, but they've all
got essentially rules in place for the number of vehicles
that can be registered on a yearly basis. Well at
least twenty local governments were found to be essentially granting
an extra lot of licenses and registrations specifically for these
(44:54):
cars to be quick registered and licensed and then you know,
thrown out they're even yeah, and I just.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Have to say, I immediately sense some red envelopes changing
hands at the local dim sum place.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Oh yeah, just just a little oh oh, here's your cut. Hey, awesome, thanks,
really appreciate that. The other thing they're doing are making
huge warehouses available for specific manufacturers to hold electric vehicles
for a certain amount of time until they can be exported.
So essentially, manufacture the car, get it licensed, registered, and
(45:32):
all that stuff, throw that stuff out, and then take
it via some large truck to a holding facility one
of these warehouses and let it sit. But it's it's
a brand new use car and it just needs to
head to some other country now.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
And then also we have to say, yes, there very
much does seem to be a grift, a scam, as
you said, or a conspiracy afoot. But for the other
side of the argument, you know, you're someone in Jordan,
you're someone in Russia. You could not usually afford an
ev especially not one with all these bells and whistles.
So the argument in support of this would be something like,
(46:08):
we're just giving people what they want. We're making things
more affordable, right, We're helping folks enter the higher echelons
of society, the middle class, the upper middle class, and
so on. That's a difficult argument to refute because there
is validity to it. And on the other side, it
does feel I don't want to sound cenophobic, but it
(46:30):
does feel like the government of China is desperately trying
to push clean money, right, or you like, to wash
their money to get stuff going in a way that
supports tech and innovation and greater mercantile aims. It reminds
me a lot of the ghost towns constructed right the
(46:53):
real estate market.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, we got to keep building. We have to show
that we're growing as a company. Right, exactly what all
these manufacturers are doing? Some of them, Some of these
manufacturers that show up at Auto Shanghai are so niche
and so small and have so few sales, But then
they're still getting a ton of government subsidies and they're
still making a ton of different cars.
Speaker 6 (47:15):
How are you guys doing this? It's it's government subsidies.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
So this isn't illegal. It's just a little bit sketch.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
It's it's sketch. Yeah, it's it's as of right now,
it's not illegal. And I did get it wrong. Jordan
is the country that is tweaking the definition of used.
Russia is the country that's effectively banning this practice. So
that's interesting that those two countries are doing that. Anyway, guys,
just a weird thing, not illegal, just a way to
(47:47):
change the rules a little bit of the system to
make it for you.
Speaker 6 (47:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Yeah, Bid is one of the companies right we're talking about,
isn't that one of the big that They're the company
that I've seen that has a really cool line of
cars that would be rad if we could get over here.
But I guess that the competition does not want that
to happen.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
I want it to happen, but there's not a there's
not a Chinese auto manufacturer lobby that could mess with
the Big three yet. So guys, if we're gonna be corrupt,
no half measures. I want all the way corruption, you
know what I mean. I want that, I want that lobby.
I want those red envelopes in Washington.
Speaker 8 (48:23):
Just get some of those zero mile cars over here.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
You know it'd be sold on the black right, right, come.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
On, Yeah, this is the home of everything but the bagel.
We can make this happen. Think you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (48:32):
Together, our powers combined.
Speaker 6 (48:35):
Guys, have you seen the jatour G nine hundred.
Speaker 5 (48:39):
But I've seen some that like have robo suspension that
can like bump, make the car like bounce to music,
and have.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
Like lights and crazy stuff.
Speaker 4 (48:47):
What is the one you're talking about, matt.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Uh, It's just it's a one of these luxury SUVs.
It looks like a cooler range Rover to me, you know,
but it's it's got stuff that like a Rolls Royce has.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
It's so gar.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
It really is spoke aff.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
The reason aside from yes, there is a point to
saying protectionism and maybe the Big three don't don't want
the new guys rolling in and outperforming them. But aside
from that, there are I hate that we have to
say this, but it's true. They're also serious concerns about
the technology that may be sliding under the radar in
(49:30):
these cars manufactured right So what yeah, yeah, I mean
you gotta be careful. Two more two more Chinese nationals
just got busted for spying in the US. It's like
it's these folks on both sides, very paranoid and sometimes
with cause still be sick. Though it'd be sick to
(49:52):
have one of these vehicles, you know what I mean,
like it it'll say your name when you hop in. Yes, right,
and it probably will already know too much about you.
But that's most cars manufactured in the US today already.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Say my name car, It's Marry.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Walter White night rider stuff over here?
Speaker 6 (50:14):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Did I ever tell you, guys about the time when
when the celebrity voices were rolling out for GPS directions?
I was using an early adopter model of it, and
I accidentally had I actually had Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice giving
me directions, and I couldn't figure I couldn't figure out
(50:39):
how to switch it out, and it got.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
Old a few minutes. That's true.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, Yeah, guys, I had a whole story in here.
We'll talk about next week about the human genome and
synthesizing all kinds of fun things like chromosomes and stuff
that will have a nice little discussion about. I'm gonna
save that. We'll talk about that next week. Just know
that it is news right now if you want to
check it out for yourself.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yeah, woo, just the beginning, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Shout out to the welcome trust in their infinite wisdom.
We'll see what happens there. Yeah, that's all I've got
this week.
Speaker 4 (51:17):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
That's amazing and thank you guys. We've gone on quite
a journey here. We hope July finds everybody well. We
hope that you join us in the interim between our episodes,
our upcoming listener mail and more strange news. As always,
tell us about two VLU, tell us about teeth, tell
us about your Chinese ev and what you would do
(51:39):
for FAGO. You can find us online. You can hit
us on the email. You can also give us a
call at our phone number.
Speaker 5 (51:44):
Yeah, if you wish to find us on the internet,
you can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group, on AXFKA,
Twitter and on YouTube video content glor for your perusing
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Speaker 2 (51:58):
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Speaker 3 (52:13):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
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Speaker 2 (52:44):
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