Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nolan.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Alexis code name Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you. You are here. That makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. We're hurtling headlong
Speaker 3: toward the end of August, and we have such wonders
Speaker 3: to show you. We're going to We're going to talk
Speaker 3: about Disney, We're going to talk about Mars. We're going
Speaker 3: to hit up Banksy before we do any of that.
Speaker 3: Matt Nol, code named dot Call, is a little bit salty. Uh,
Speaker 3: a little bit salty with me.
Speaker 4: What about your where you find yourself in the world? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm having a little foam on myself. I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: lie going on blow up your spot, but uh, let's
Speaker 4: just say mister Miyagi would be proud.
Speaker 3: Ooh nice, nice. What did you call it? Doc? Not
Speaker 3: a cold open but a heartless open.
Speaker 4: All right now, Ben, we wish you the best in
Speaker 4: your travels abroad. We really do. We're not mad at all.
Speaker 2: Here, we go for yourself because I am mad. Oh,
Speaker 2: I just think it's cool.
Speaker 4: It is cool, super cool, not like literal mad. You know,
Speaker 4: we all go a little mad sometimes code named Doc Holliday.
Speaker 3: And speaking of going, okay, this is one that just
Speaker 3: as as I mentioned that a lot of our fellow
Speaker 3: conspiracy realists have sent us, we all saw the thing
Speaker 3: about News having to hunt down all that candy with
Speaker 3: methamphetamine in it. Did you guys hear about that.
Speaker 4: Code named candy? All right? The street name, yeah it was.
Speaker 2: Was it a part of some charity or some kind
Speaker 2: of super positive thing?
Speaker 3: And then there's myth, yes, yeah, in the candy, which
Speaker 3: is like the Halloween myth.
Speaker 4: There was a similar story too about like a guitar center,
Speaker 4: if anyone like knows guitar center for you know, amps
Speaker 4: and music gear and stuff. A bunch of amplifiers were
Speaker 4: found to be stuffed with bricks of cocaine. So I
Speaker 4: thought that was a sort of an analogous kind of story.
Speaker 3: Yes, speaking of analogous. In our show's home state of
Speaker 3: Georgia as I'm sure we all saw. That's right right,
Speaker 3: Doc is on the road and this whole place falls
Speaker 3: apart without your code name Holiday because over two three
Speaker 3: hundred pounds of methamphetamine were found hidden in a celery
Speaker 3: shipment to the Georgia farmers Market out.
Speaker 4: Yeah the vegetable no one ever pays at digit.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I said forrest, You said forest Park.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on the way to my old uh stompy grounds.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So celery candy, yeah, anything else we get, guitar amps,
Speaker 2: guitar am for the.
Speaker 3: For the good, cocaine, all stuff with drugs. I want
Speaker 3: to give a shout out to before we move on,
Speaker 3: just because, uh, we'll get into this story, but conspiracy realists,
Speaker 3: we want you to know that we also we also
Speaker 3: clocked this. Uh the de e A. One of the
Speaker 3: funniest parts about the article on the Georgia meth bust
Speaker 3: was a DEA agent adding emphatically, don't worry, We're not
Speaker 3: going to let people sell the celery.
Speaker 4: So if that was a question, I mean, next thing
Speaker 4: on the list will be boar's head meat stuffed with drugs.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Are you tired of the same old listeria boar's head
Speaker 3: meat now now just a little jittery, riddled with LSD,
Speaker 3: riddled with speaking of things being riddled with, we're talking
Speaker 3: about this a little bit off air. The mouse is
Speaker 3: back in the news for a very strange situation that
Speaker 3: kind of back to a conspiracy. We talk a lot
Speaker 3: about terms and conditions, or what is it, terms of use,
Speaker 3: the fine print that the big companies would rather you
Speaker 3: not read. Disney has recently, as just a few days ago,
Speaker 3: asked a Florida court to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit
Speaker 3: filed earlier this year. A lady passed away due to
Speaker 3: an anaphylactic reaction after she ate a meal at Disney Springs.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and Disney has asked the court to dismiss this.
Speaker 3: It was filed by the victim's husband because the victim
Speaker 3: was I kid you not a Disney Plus subscriber.
Speaker 4: So I mean Disney Springs is sort of like a
Speaker 4: food court situation. I mean, it's not all like Disney
Speaker 4: branded stuff. There's like a Lego store and like other
Speaker 4: little restaurants. So I'm wondering. Obviously Disney owns the development
Speaker 4: or the facility, but like are they always going to
Speaker 4: be on the hook, like as a company. If a
Speaker 4: third party company that they lease space too has a
Speaker 4: situation like this.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. It looks like it looks like
Speaker 3: she was eating at the Raglan Road Irish Pub. And
Speaker 3: the victim, who unfortunately again is deceased, is Kennapone Tong
Speaker 3: Swan and she's a doctor up in NYU and New
Speaker 3: York City. She had a severe dairy and nut allergy,
Speaker 3: told the weight staff of the pub about this well
Speaker 3: in advance, and was, according to the lawsuit, unequivocally assured
Speaker 3: that they could be accommodated. She ordered the vegitarian broccoli
Speaker 3: and corn fritters, a sea scallop sappetizer, a vegan entree
Speaker 3: like a shepherd's pie, vegan shepherd's pie, and then onion rings.
Speaker 2: Can you please say the names of those dishes?
Speaker 4: Oh right?
Speaker 3: The vegetarian broccoli is sure, I'm frittered, the sea scallop
Speaker 3: shappetizer's scallop forest, and the the shepherd's pie is this
Speaker 3: shepherd went vegan. We're getting this. We're getting this thanks
Speaker 3: to the Worldwide Leader in Disney Park News w d
Speaker 3: W News Today.
Speaker 4: I think I was looking for a Disney pun in
Speaker 4: those names, but I don't think that's what there is.
Speaker 3: We haven't identified the Onion rings as students of their
Speaker 3: sides name.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just think it's funny that they have such cute names,
Speaker 2: right for meals in a cute place, the Disney Springs.
Speaker 4: That's the cutest place on Earth their tagline. If I'm
Speaker 4: not mistaken, you're just vegan pie on Earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and everything's it's the happiest place on Earth. Everything's
Speaker 2: great so far in this trip. What happened then?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So unfortunately, again this is tragic. Parts of this
Speaker 3: are gallows humor, but we do have to remember a
Speaker 3: person passed away. At first, first, the victim and her
Speaker 3: mother in law went shopping like you just described no
Speaker 3: Old Disney Springs as one of those live, laugh love places,
Speaker 3: right mixed, use, go buy some stuff. We'll give the
Speaker 3: food cute names to justify the price. It wasn't until
Speaker 3: later that evening that Tong Swan had this acute allergic
Speaker 3: reaction and Planet Hollywood. She administered an epipin to herself.
Speaker 3: She was taken to a hospital and that's where she
Speaker 3: passed away. On May thirty, first Disney filed a motion
Speaker 3: to move the wrongful death lawsuit out of the courts
Speaker 3: and into arbitration, and Disney's law lawyers said the following.
Speaker 3: This is a quote from our source. The journalist is
Speaker 3: brit Tuttele. Disney said quote. There's legal language within the
Speaker 3: terms and conditions for Disney Plus which requires users to
Speaker 3: arbitrate all disputes within the company. And they claim that
Speaker 3: the husband of the victim agreed to this blanket arbitration
Speaker 3: back in twenty nineteen when he signed up for a
Speaker 3: one month free trial of the streaming service on his
Speaker 3: PlayStation console dot beat me here, Are you being kidding?
Speaker 3: That's like imagine, imagine you sign up for Netflix or
Speaker 3: any other streaming service, right, and then Netflix has their
Speaker 3: version of whatever the Disney springs of Netflix would be,
Speaker 3: like the Netflix North Pole.
Speaker 4: Well, Netflix does have like a brick and mortar movie
Speaker 4: theater type of situation. Yeah, there, I'm aware. I believe
Speaker 4: that that's relatively new. I'm sorry. Let me let me
Speaker 4: try to understand. Are you saying that there's some sort
Speaker 4: of like clause in signing up that like prevents the
Speaker 4: person from suing or or like because of the language
Speaker 4: in them, you know, basically being tricked into signing up
Speaker 4: for this you know, free trial, that it gives them
Speaker 4: less of a case. I want to make sure I'm
Speaker 4: not that's misunderstanding.
Speaker 3: Right, I had the same thing. That's what's christ That's
Speaker 3: what Disney's lawyers are arguing, and what that's why it
Speaker 3: feels conspiratorial because look, we're not jurists, but the jurisprudence
Speaker 3: here could be quite dangerous if it's sets a precedent
Speaker 3: because I think what I assume, what most of us
Speaker 3: imagine when we sign up for a service like that
Speaker 3: and we see the arbitration thing, you know, you see
Speaker 3: whatever you download video games nowadays. Two, what they're saying
Speaker 3: is if you have a user data issue, right like,
Speaker 3: if that personal info gets compromised, then you're saying you
Speaker 3: don't have a lawsuit.
Speaker 4: What if that DLC gives you fatal food poisoning? What then?
Speaker 4: I mean joking, But it's like, good lord, that's a
Speaker 4: big blanket, isn't that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, let's first talk about what arbitration means, because I
Speaker 2: remember when I didn't know what that meant not that
Speaker 2: long ago. It just means that instead of going to
Speaker 2: a court of law within the United States, and you know,
Speaker 2: going through all the legal rigmarole that you would do
Speaker 2: if you were attempting to sue a company such as Disney,
Speaker 2: you would instead go into a separate room, not a courtroom,
Speaker 2: with a person who is an arbitrator, not a judge,
Speaker 2: who would basically listen to the arguments of both sides
Speaker 2: and come to an agreement together with an arbitrator.
Speaker 3: Right. The only the only difference between that and having
Speaker 3: you know, a sit down hang out with a mediating
Speaker 3: buddy is that in arbitration, the decision is legally binding
Speaker 3: and can be enforced by an actual facts court. Shout
Speaker 3: out to our friend Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 4: Isn't that a situation where you can opt for arbitrary
Speaker 4: like in cases of divorce, for example, but you have
Speaker 4: to accept the outcome like it's an option. If you
Speaker 4: don't want to go to full on court, you can say,
Speaker 4: let's do arbitration, but then there is a caveat that
Speaker 4: you have to accept the ruling of the arbitrator despite
Speaker 4: the fact they're not a judge.
Speaker 3: Right, right, Which makes me think we might be able
Speaker 3: to do a fun episode in the future on all
Speaker 3: those TV court shows. Conspiracy realists, let us know if
Speaker 3: that's something you're interested in, because a lot of those folks,
Speaker 3: technically what they're doing is arbitration, not an actual court case.
Speaker 3: Here's why this is terrifying, conspiratorial, and let's go to
Speaker 3: I haven't said the husband's name yet. Jeffrey Piccolo is
Speaker 3: the husband of the deceased, and his attorneys, his legal
Speaker 3: team is saying Disney's latest legal move here is preposterous
Speaker 3: because if everybody signs off on this, if a court
Speaker 3: degrees this should be arbitration, then that would mean the
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty three million subscribers to Disney Plus
Speaker 3: have waived all claims against the company and all of
Speaker 3: its affiliates because of language buried in the terms and conditions.
Speaker 3: Disney's lawyers say whether or not Piccolo reviewed the terms
Speaker 3: of the agreement is immaterial, which seems just gosh, we
Speaker 3: thought our cold open was cold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I I guess that is kind of the
Speaker 2: thinking behind all of those terms of service agreements that
Speaker 2: companies put out. Right, nobody it was the joke, Right,
Speaker 2: Nobody's going to read the actual Facebook terms of service,
Speaker 2: the actual insert company here document. You're just going to
Speaker 2: scroll down so you can use the thing you want
Speaker 2: to use, which is very common. But my goodness, just
Speaker 2: having a company that has it has so many different arms,
Speaker 2: right that operate, and a lot of them have physical
Speaker 2: interaction with you, not just virtual over a computer. You're
Speaker 2: gonna be hanging out actually with Disney. And if something happens.
Speaker 3: Too bad exactly, And there's the other the other question here,
Speaker 3: and I love that you're pointing out the tendrils. It's
Speaker 3: quite possible then that you could have agreed to this
Speaker 3: in some form by clicking some term of condition. You know,
Speaker 3: most people are scrolling down and just going, h where's
Speaker 3: the agree button? I gotta watch you know, Moana or whatever,
Speaker 3: and uh, and then and then they get to that's one, right.
Speaker 4: I wana, that's one of my favorites. It's a good one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was one of the good ones.
Speaker 3: So then what they're saying is the implication is that
Speaker 3: you might have something bad and or fatal happen, and
Speaker 3: you might not know what's a Disney subsidiary. You might
Speaker 3: not know it's a Disney service. Disney just owns it
Speaker 3: the way Unilever owns things. And we'll talk about monopolization later.
Speaker 3: And that's fellow conspiracy realist puts you up a heck
Speaker 3: of a creek. There's a lot of weird legal stuff
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 4: You know, Disney owns so much though, I mean, come on,
Speaker 4: they're essentially the Globocem of today, you know. I mean,
Speaker 4: they're like this massive umbrella company that like owns things
Speaker 4: you would never even realize, Like how how can they
Speaker 4: expect that a normal person would know? And not to mention,
Speaker 4: I can't get over the fact that this was due
Speaker 4: to a free trial that was like they throw those
Speaker 4: things at you. RSVP to an evite today and it
Speaker 4: tried to get me to sign up for Disney Plus,
Speaker 4: like you know, dangling the free trial, and like how
Speaker 4: many of those actually amount to somebody actually clicking yes?
Speaker 4: But all of a sudden you're on the hook for
Speaker 4: this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and before we move on, we love a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff about Disney. You know, we two were once
Speaker 3: youths in America, but we would love to hear your
Speaker 3: strange stories about the mouse and what essentially functions as
Speaker 3: an independent nation state inside Florida. Speaking of weird legal stuff,
Speaker 3: this is something on everybody's mind. We almost opened with
Speaker 3: this the economist, not the magazine I still read for
Speaker 3: some reason. But the economist at the Federal Reserve had
Speaker 3: finally admitted something America has been saying for a while. Hey,
Speaker 3: this is not really inflation. It's fake inflation. This is
Speaker 3: price gouging. And companies are beginning to get worried, including Disney.
Speaker 3: Companies are beginning to get worried that consumers are not
Speaker 3: going to keep playing ball. We want to thank Christopher
Speaker 3: Rugebert over at AP News with an article that came
Speaker 3: out American's refusal to keep paying higher prices, maybe dealing
Speaker 3: a final blow to the US inflation spike. Have you
Speaker 3: guys been noticing inflation kind of sticking around? I feel
Speaker 3: like maybe we're old cogers when we talk about it.
Speaker 3: But I saw a I saw a twenty ounce soda
Speaker 3: pop sold. Soda pop. Geez, let me go to the nickelodeon.
Speaker 3: I saw a twenty out soda sold for like two
Speaker 3: dollars and fifty nine cents at a local gas station
Speaker 3: in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: How much could it? How much could a soda pop cost?
Speaker 4: Michael Right, come on, I know we always make that joke.
Speaker 4: But you also sent around on the group text, Ben,
Speaker 4: I think it was you how like a local not local,
Speaker 4: it's a massive grocery store chain. Kroger is flipping to
Speaker 4: that dynamic. I mean, it is for all intents and
Speaker 4: purposes those digital readouts, and some insider, I don't believe
Speaker 4: it was someone with the company was like, yeah, on
Speaker 4: a hot day, that soda pop could go up a
Speaker 4: couple of cents depending on the conditions. And you know,
Speaker 4: all the companies claim that that's not what it's for,
Speaker 4: but it's not what it's not for. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: certainly a thing that it could be for.
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, right, camera, Doc and I briefly
Speaker 3: were talking about this because it recently went viral on Instagram.
Speaker 3: It's very much true. And hey, they called us crazy,
Speaker 3: you guys, and they still call us crazy, and they
Speaker 3: may be right, but we were right about that part.
Speaker 3: Check out our surge pricing videos. There's so much conspiratorial
Speaker 3: about the framing of this inflation, Like we mapped it
Speaker 3: out before supply chains broke down during the pandemic, But
Speaker 3: well before the pandemic, companies were already trying to squeeze
Speaker 3: every last drop of blood from the individual financial stone
Speaker 3: and so they always knew. I would posit that this
Speaker 3: was a short term play. The idea on the shareholder
Speaker 3: and investor side was to post pandemic. We're still in
Speaker 3: a pandemic, but post supply chain breakdown was to ride
Speaker 3: that wave of inflation and pretend like everything was still
Speaker 3: broken for as long as possible. So just like in surfing,
Speaker 3: you know, you can't ride the wave forever. You just
Speaker 3: want to stay at the crest, right or I don't
Speaker 3: know enough about surfing to use those terms, but you
Speaker 3: want to, you know, stay on top of the board
Speaker 3: as long as possible.
Speaker 4: Do you think it's like an example of kind of
Speaker 4: clawing back some of those gains, you know, like the
Speaker 4: I don't know, I guess sale people were spending money
Speaker 4: during the pandemic. You got to remind me now, like
Speaker 4: I mean, there are certain industries that thrives in certain
Speaker 4: industries that didn't. Like Amazon obviously you know, had a
Speaker 4: mega good time during pandemic. But it's an excuse, I guess,
Speaker 4: right at the very least, that we have to get
Speaker 4: back some of those losses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an excuse in the company's part. You're saying
Speaker 3: that they would like recoup losses. Yeah, and we were
Speaker 3: talking off air about this surge pricing as a response
Speaker 3: to that. Right, people are fighting inflation, So now maybe
Speaker 3: we can as a company target inflation toward you. Facial
Speaker 3: recognition is again it sounded crazy when you first mentioned
Speaker 3: it on air, but it will be Lloyd. The next
Speaker 3: step also is going to be recovering public info, probably
Speaker 3: based on zip code right, or whatever demographic info you
Speaker 3: can get. How much is the average person in insert
Speaker 3: zip code here willing to pay for a banana? Because
Speaker 3: if it's ten dollars per then we're off to the races.
Speaker 3: This is happening. This is stuff they don't want you
Speaker 3: to know. There's so much more we have to get too.
Speaker 3: Before we pause, I guess we should say several major
Speaker 3: banks are in trouble. More on that soon as that develops.
Speaker 3: We also have to shout out DNA evidence because we
Speaker 3: talked briefly in the past, Matt, I believe you brought
Speaker 3: up the recent purchase of ancestry dot com, So just
Speaker 3: so everybody knows, forensic DNA is still helping us unravel conspiracies.
Speaker 3: An individual named Stephen Paul Gaale would have gotten away
Speaker 3: with multiple sexual assaults dating back decades. He was just
Speaker 3: apprehended with DNA evidence. So there is hope. Uh, there
Speaker 3: is hope for some of the victims. And also statute
Speaker 3: of limitation laws, particularly in places like Massachusetts, are evolving
Speaker 3: in pace with technology. So we wanted to end on
Speaker 3: some rough but overall positive news with this. We're going
Speaker 3: to pause for a word from our sponsors and then
Speaker 3: we'll be back speaking of monopolies.
Speaker 2: And we've returned, and we're going to stay on that
Speaker 2: inflation tip. Oh, I know you're excited.
Speaker 4: Oh, you're so excited, so inflated right now, dog before
Speaker 4: they deflated.
Speaker 3: I'm doing podcasting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love it, you guys.
Speaker 2: I saw our clip from American Psycho. It's this moment
Speaker 2: in the club where a woman in the club asks
Speaker 2: is it Bateman?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Patrick?
Speaker 2: See Patrick Bateman?
Speaker 4: Like so what do you do?
Speaker 2: And he's like, I'm into uh, well, murders and executions mostly,
Speaker 2: but she hears him talking about mergers and acquisitions and.
Speaker 3: Oh did you read real quick? Did you guys read
Speaker 3: the The discourse about American Psycho is awesome. I got
Speaker 3: super deep into it when I was traveling for unrelated things. Apparently,
Speaker 3: the idea is that Bateman never actually kills most of
Speaker 3: those people and they're just his like there is dark,
Speaker 3: twisted fantasy. Have you guys read that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in that scene, my reading of the film
Speaker 2: is that he didn't actually say murders and executions. He
Speaker 2: said mergers and acquisitions. But in his head that's what
Speaker 2: he's thinking.
Speaker 3: He's like, it's Mark Walter Mitty. Okay. You know.
Speaker 4: That does kind of make the metaphor of it all
Speaker 4: a little stronger in a way, the idea that this
Speaker 4: is all in his and and the fact that he
Speaker 4: doesn't get caught and he sort of like completely melts
Speaker 4: down in such a public way and yet still doesn't
Speaker 4: get caught, or you could read it that he really
Speaker 4: was doing it and he's at this echelon of society
Speaker 4: that he will never get caught no matter what horrible
Speaker 4: stuff he does. Anyway, Yes, I have derailed.
Speaker 2: No, it's fine. But essentially what he is doing in
Speaker 2: his position, at his job is making all become one,
Speaker 2: all shall become one, all will become one, and nothing
Speaker 2: to rule them all. Yeah, And there's a lot of
Speaker 2: power in that, and nobody can do anything about it,
Speaker 2: because now all are one. Okay, So I'm looking at
Speaker 2: a story today guys titled Mars to buy Pringles maker
Speaker 2: kele Nova for thirty six billion dollars in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four's biggest deal. It's from Reuters August fourteenth of this year.
Speaker 3: Ooh and yeah, you're right, folks, Pringles has a parent company.
Speaker 2: Yes, So we're gonna go deep into this, y'all. But
Speaker 2: first I'm gonna read it one sentence just to really
Speaker 2: send it home of what we're talking about here. Quote,
Speaker 2: family owned candy giant Mars is buying cheese at maker Kelenova.
Speaker 2: It opens a new tab in a nearly thirty six
Speaker 2: billion dollar deal, bringing together brands from Eminem's and Snickers
Speaker 2: to Pringles and pop Tarts in the year's biggest deal
Speaker 2: to date. So before we jump in, let's talk about
Speaker 2: these companies before they become one.
Speaker 4: Can I just say that it's hilarious They just throw
Speaker 4: in family owned like Mars is some mom and pop
Speaker 4: like Corner Shop or something. I just it's good, pr
Speaker 4: I guess, but it's super weird.
Speaker 3: What it's our family owned?
Speaker 4: No, I know, but it doesn't mean what you think
Speaker 4: it means shit anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it means corporate monarchs.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you said, jump in, what are these companies?
Speaker 3: Mars is much bigger than people imagine. We'll get to that.
Speaker 3: Kelenova may not be familiar with everybody who's not into
Speaker 3: the creepy, weird stuff we're into. But from my understanding,
Speaker 3: Matt Kelenova, once upon a time was good old Kellogg's.
Speaker 2: Kellogg's was becoming a part of Kelenova because they became one,
Speaker 2: and now they are becoming one again. So before we
Speaker 2: get to Kelenova, we're doing Mars though. So a lot
Speaker 2: of people know what a Mars bar is.
Speaker 4: You may not.
Speaker 2: It is a candy bar, a Mars bar. It's pretty
Speaker 2: simple one. It's one that's been around for a long
Speaker 2: long time. They also own Eminem's. Uh they were once.
Speaker 2: They were once called eminem Mars. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's not that anymore. I know it's whatever. Mars and Eminem's.
Speaker 2: Those are the big ones. They own all the kinds,
Speaker 2: even the peanut butter ones there are they owned three?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like how?
Speaker 3: I like how? So Matt got more emphatic with its pointing.
Speaker 3: He was like, sorry, it was like this, even the
Speaker 3: peanut butter ones.
Speaker 4: Is that the one with the Lady Eminem? Which one's
Speaker 4: the the sexy Lady Eminem?
Speaker 3: So I know I'm the only white curtsy. It's just
Speaker 3: it's a weird time.
Speaker 4: I know who was it. It was some Fox News
Speaker 4: guy that's sort of like really the Lady Eminem with
Speaker 4: her like her boosts. Yes, it was there we go.
Speaker 3: He likes the gams.
Speaker 4: He does like the gams.
Speaker 2: Well, uh, you want to get some good gams, why
Speaker 2: not also enjoy Mars offerings of three Musketeers, Milky Way, Snickers, Twigs,
Speaker 2: Dove chocolate products, all of them. Unilever owns the soap,
Speaker 2: by the way, the Dove soap.
Speaker 4: Mars also no connection, zero brand connection between Dove Chocolate
Speaker 4: and Dove Soap. I always wondered that, so I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think so unless somebody else has more information
Speaker 2: on it. My understanding is that, yeah, Mars has the chocolate,
Speaker 2: Unilever has the soap. They also owned three to four
Speaker 2: other fancy chocolate brands, such as Hotel Chocola, which has
Speaker 2: no E at the end. That's how you know it's fancy.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: I also didn't realize that they owned the three most
Speaker 2: popular fruit flavored candies in the United States, Life Savers, Starburst,
Speaker 2: and Skittles.
Speaker 4: Skittles is just like fruit flavored m and ms basically,
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: Taste the rainbow of oligarchy.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Remember when they had that spate of bizarre Skittles
Speaker 4: commercials that were borderline like sexual. It was I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: carry on, I just marketing. Marketing is weird.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna look that up right after this, but
Speaker 2: I don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Well, but it's not just candy, right.
Speaker 2: Well, basically from all of that list there, Halloween is
Speaker 2: like a big charity event so that we can all
Speaker 2: donate to Mars, which is weird. But I had no
Speaker 2: idea that they have a monopoly on chewing gum. I'm serious.
Speaker 2: They own Double Mint Gum, Winter Fresh Juicy Fruit, Big Red,
Speaker 2: Hubba Bubba, extra Orbit Eclipse, and five Gum. You remember
Speaker 2: that one five. It was so exciting back to.
Speaker 3: That number five as like an f It's kind of inspiring, though, Matt,
Speaker 3: that you include Big Red there, because that shows us
Speaker 3: that even big companies end up taking a massive loss
Speaker 3: once in a while. Because Big read is just like
Speaker 3: big red war crime for your mouth.
Speaker 2: Wow, I used to really like it's a cinnamon one, right, that's.
Speaker 3: What they say.
Speaker 4: Did you ever like lick the wrapper and stick it
Speaker 4: on your forehead to try to feel something? Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: a thing kids used to do. Maybe it is the
Speaker 4: only one. It's a thing I didn't know exactly, because
Speaker 4: what are you gonna do?
Speaker 3: Eat the gum?
Speaker 2: I did you know what they also own, guys? The
Speaker 2: thing we used to always carry around in our cargo pants,
Speaker 2: the curiously strong mints.
Speaker 4: You remember those in the Altoids, Yeah, which which which
Speaker 4: always kind of had the patina of European specialty mints.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like craft breweries that are owned by
Speaker 4: giant beer companies, Like they have all these little brands.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, like Altoids is totally made in the Swiss
Speaker 4: Alps from unfiltered spring.
Speaker 2: Water or something, right, I mean maybe it is, but
Speaker 2: Mars owns whatever the factory is.
Speaker 3: Shout out to the tenovation episodes we had to do
Speaker 3: years bank a.
Speaker 2: I remember those. Oh but when we're talking about the
Speaker 2: gum here, the reason why they own all those is
Speaker 2: because they became one with Wriggly's not too long ago.
Speaker 4: How did I say, it's almost like erasure where I
Speaker 4: was like it weren't those all wrigglies? What happened to?
Speaker 3: Well, that's the natural trends, right, mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: They also owned kind Bars and combos, the craveable pretzel
Speaker 2: rolls filled with pizza somehow Nature's Bakery fig bars, which
Speaker 2: again seem kind of healthy. I used to eat with
Speaker 2: my son all the time. Nope, I'm paid extra.
Speaker 3: It must be healthy.
Speaker 4: And this really solves a mystery for me because kind
Speaker 4: bars always had Eminem versions and Snickers versions, and it's
Speaker 4: basically just this masquerading as healthy candy bar, you know, yeah, dude.
Speaker 2: Oh, and that's just one of their segments, by the way,
Speaker 2: and that's not including all the other international products that
Speaker 2: they offer, because they offer different products in different countries
Speaker 2: and different regions. They've also got a food and nutrition
Speaker 2: segment that owns your brand of rice. Ben by the way,
Speaker 2: used to be Uncle Ben's, now just Benz Rice. So congratulations.
Speaker 3: We should not be defined by our connections, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, social or familial. Also, I believe big
Speaker 3: in the world of pet food, right is that.
Speaker 2: Croft huge in pet food? Think of a pet food brand.
Speaker 2: They probably own it, including the stuff you see at
Speaker 2: the vets office that's like prescription pet food. They own
Speaker 2: the brand, and they own most of the vets VCA vets,
Speaker 2: Banfield vets that are popping up everywhere. We're talking thousands
Speaker 2: of veterinary clinics.
Speaker 3: Very specific stuff that sounds like it was made by
Speaker 3: a pharmaceutical outfit. Like do you have an elderly epileptic parrot,
Speaker 3: This is the only food you can feed it. Guess
Speaker 3: what Mars makes it?
Speaker 4: Isn't this what they'd call vertical integration, like that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff where like you own the pet food and
Speaker 4: you on the vet clinics that like shill the pet
Speaker 4: food or like prescribe it or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they own all that stuff already, guys, and
Speaker 2: they just merged with Kelenova. So what did they get
Speaker 2: from Kelenova. Let's talk about it. Pop Tarts, Aggo Waffles,
Speaker 2: Neutral Grain Bars, Special k Cereal RX Bars, Morning Star Farms,
Speaker 2: plant based frozen meat alternatives, Pringles, potato crisps, cheese at Crackers,
Speaker 2: Club Crackers, Townhouse Crackers, Zesta Saltines, Austin Cracker Sandwiches.
Speaker 4: They own the whole aisle bro like, dude, the heck,
Speaker 4: that's insane.
Speaker 2: They even own the crackers that are hanging out over
Speaker 2: by the fancy cheeses, you know, the table fancy water crackers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the ones that the same since the fifties, like
Speaker 4: the packaging.
Speaker 3: The ones only come in the one sleeve your unit
Speaker 3: because they're that fancy and it's Kellogg.
Speaker 2: So they they now own all of those Kellogg's cereal
Speaker 2: brands that did not break off into a separate Kellogg's
Speaker 2: company that happened pretty recently. But yeah, remember we talked
Speaker 2: about how a lot of the cereals you can't the
Speaker 2: American cereals you can't buy in Europe in other places
Speaker 2: because of the ingredients. Yes, this company, Kelenova, owns the
Speaker 2: manufacturing of the like European versions of what frosted flakes
Speaker 2: would be, right, Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Expand so these.
Speaker 2: Two things coming together, I feel so gross, so weird,
Speaker 2: so awful reading this, and I don't know that I
Speaker 2: can fully explain why, other than this feeling that when
Speaker 2: I walk into a store, I am tricked into believing
Speaker 2: these are all different choices that I get to make
Speaker 2: absolutely with my money or you know, with what I
Speaker 2: feed myself and my family, but really it is just
Speaker 2: the same stuff.
Speaker 3: It's the illusion of choice, right, not for nothing was
Speaker 3: our first episode ever on Edward Bernez. And from the
Speaker 3: perspective of these entities, just like a large just like
Speaker 3: funeral monopolies, which is an example we keep going back to.
Speaker 3: We harp on this kind of stuff because food is
Speaker 3: a universal need, right, People love talking about any aspect
Speaker 3: of food. It's also a great business because people are
Speaker 3: demand for certain types of food may wax and wane
Speaker 3: and fluctuate, but demand for food in general is not
Speaker 3: going away anytime soon. And I was reading in this
Speaker 3: article you shared, Matt, just the stat that goes to inflation.
Speaker 3: About how much we talked about this at length, but
Speaker 3: whenever we mentioned something repeatedly, folks, it's because we feel
Speaker 3: as mission critical. Food prices across the world have skyrocketed
Speaker 3: no matter where you go, unless arguably if you go
Speaker 3: to some authoritarian places where they have better price controls,
Speaker 3: different bag badgers. But food prices in the US alone,
Speaker 3: these journalists point out, increased by our quarter in just
Speaker 3: four years, and that is far out pacing the rate
Speaker 3: of inflation, far out pacing even fricking housing. Man. This
Speaker 3: is so if you're an average person, you are laboring
Speaker 3: under the illusion of choice, right, You're not really getting
Speaker 3: to make choices. Your decision treed into giving the money somehow,
Speaker 3: and then, perhaps more dangerously, specially combined with this targeting
Speaker 3: of personal info, you are going to be paying more.
Speaker 3: That is simply the truth. This is very good from
Speaker 3: the perspective of the businesses because now they have something
Speaker 3: they can take to the boardroom and say, hey, guys,
Speaker 3: you like to messing with us last quarter? You know
Speaker 3: what I mean? It reminds me. I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: there's so much dirty stuff, Matt, I see what you're
Speaker 3: saying about feeling weird because who was it? There was
Speaker 3: a ceo I think of was it Starbucks who got
Speaker 3: fired for not busting unions? Yeah?
Speaker 4: They got fired, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: And they brought in like the Chipotle CEO or something else. Right,
Speaker 2: he is going on there?
Speaker 3: It was Notoriously who is apparently has a name in
Speaker 3: the C suite community.
Speaker 4: For being bounty, isn't he. The guys said that they
Speaker 4: definitely weren't making portions smaller, but then a study proved
Speaker 4: they definitely were, and then he came out and said, sorry,
Speaker 4: we'll do better. He's I can remember.
Speaker 3: It's kind it's kind of like, I mean, it's a
Speaker 3: mind game, right, It's kind of like one thing I
Speaker 3: ran into a few years ago. You know, if you're
Speaker 3: in a different countries, sometimes they'll tell you get the
Speaker 3: tourist tax, right, or the foreigner price, or that's language
Speaker 3: barrier and not being from there and whatever. There was
Speaker 3: a Japanese official and I'll find the source if anyone's
Speaker 3: interested who said, oh, no, we're not charging people more,
Speaker 3: we're not charging visitors more, we're charging local less.
Speaker 4: Mmmming.
Speaker 3: But like maybe that's part of the ichiness you're feeling there, Matt.
Speaker 4: Is all these factors, I think so.
Speaker 2: But it does kind of go back to Brene's. It
Speaker 2: goes back to some of our studies on capitalism in general.
Speaker 2: I'm going to read from this article again, this Reuter's
Speaker 2: article from August fourteenth. This is a quote. The deal
Speaker 2: is a bet on consumers continuing to indulge in branded snacks,
Speaker 2: and comes as packaged food companies face stalling growth after
Speaker 2: years of price hikes to cover skyrocketing inflation, which is
Speaker 2: a whole other thing, because there's an investigation right now
Speaker 2: into food companies and how they've altered their prices to
Speaker 2: quote counteract inflation, and to see how much of that
Speaker 2: is actually price gouging to make the consumers pay for
Speaker 2: it rather than you know, absorbing some of the costs
Speaker 2: of inflation like that.
Speaker 4: But it is.
Speaker 2: It creeps me out because the current mars CEO, Paul
Speaker 2: way Reich or yates why rash maybe w E I
Speaker 2: R W E I H R A U c H.
Speaker 2: He says, quote, we hope to be able to absorb
Speaker 2: more costs in our structure and help alleviate the issues
Speaker 2: we have in an inflationary environment.
Speaker 3: Oh, I gotta have what the though? Yeah, I love this,
Speaker 3: but we need a positive out lighting because this is
Speaker 3: terrible news. But positive lighting. Folks. If you are singularly
Speaker 3: ready tomingle to find yourself already in a in a
Speaker 3: stranger bad romance, may we suggest your new pickup live
Speaker 3: for your partner darling, please join me. Let us indulge
Speaker 3: in some branded snacks.
Speaker 4: Oh well, so are they basically saying that, like the
Speaker 4: merger is necessary in order to keep them from continuously
Speaker 4: passing on that burden to customers. It sounds like bull
Speaker 4: to me. I mean in terms of they're basically saying, like,
Speaker 4: we refuse to ever make less. We have to grow, grow, grow,
Speaker 4: because that's what stakeholders, you know, in the market and
Speaker 4: all that expect. But isn't that kind of the argument
Speaker 4: they're making. They're like, no, you should be okay with
Speaker 4: it because that means savings for you kind of.
Speaker 2: But ultimately they're competing with the what they call private
Speaker 2: label like off brand versions, the generics of your townhouse whatever,
Speaker 2: or pop tarts, straight.
Speaker 3: Up bags of cereal at the bottom of the grocery aisle.
Speaker 2: Clowny yuffs, you know, because all of us US consumers
Speaker 2: we're feeling this inflation. We're the ones who are actually
Speaker 2: dealing with inflation, and we are having to just grapple
Speaker 2: with Oh, well, I guess I can't buy that anymore, right, Oh,
Speaker 2: I guess I can't afford that or indulge in that
Speaker 2: snack anymore when I go on that date to pick
Speaker 2: somebody to end gets yes, And this is this is
Speaker 2: what the article says. The US packaged food sector as
Speaker 2: an entirety thing is seeing robust deal making as companies
Speaker 2: seek to scale to weather the impact of inflation, weary
Speaker 2: customers cutting back and shifting their purchases to private label
Speaker 2: label brands. So what they're betting is that if they
Speaker 2: have enough brands on the shelves, they are going to
Speaker 2: have enough overall sales so that their their money keeps
Speaker 2: going up.
Speaker 4: Isn't that what a monopoly is. Yeah, that's what it
Speaker 4: feels like to me.
Speaker 3: But not yet, because there's I would advance. Uh, there
Speaker 3: is a final step, and it's a step that they're
Speaker 3: going to have to reckon with at some point. What
Speaker 3: happens when there is no more nestley? What happens you know,
Speaker 3: what happens to coke when there is no more pepsi?
Speaker 3: What happens when there's nothing left to buy, to merge
Speaker 3: and acquire, to murder and execute. Then they when that's
Speaker 3: not when the rural domination. No, that's when the rubber
Speaker 3: hits the road. That's the thing that capitalism is scared of.
Speaker 2: That's when the graph that's going up can no longer go.
Speaker 4: Well, you gotta have someone to fight against. It's perpetual war.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's basically isn't that right?
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's scary. Oh you know what,
Speaker 2: they're also scared of people who make snack branded snacks.
Speaker 2: They're afraid of wigovy and ozempic. Apparently investors at least
Speaker 2: are worried about that, because this is what it says, quote,
Speaker 2: investors are worried about a decline in sales from the
Speaker 2: greater adoption of drugs such as ozempic and wigovy for
Speaker 2: weight loss, which curb appetites and lead to feelings of fullness.
Speaker 2: The investors are afraid of you being full, so you
Speaker 2: won't shove cookies and candy in your face.
Speaker 3: Now, just buy the Kelenva branded ozempic. You know, get
Speaker 3: the money there. That's how it works. I feel like
Speaker 3: I'd be good at a boardroom even we've.
Speaker 4: Seen you've done it, we've worked. There's there's video, there's
Speaker 4: there's footage. But I mean, great success isn't The whole
Speaker 4: idea though, of diversification is heading off stuff like that
Speaker 4: at the past where you got your health conscious brand.
Speaker 4: So no matter what side of the aisle, health flies,
Speaker 4: snacking wise, people fall, there's going to be something for
Speaker 4: them that you are selling them. But I guess the
Speaker 4: issue with ozempic is that you're not selling them anything
Speaker 4: because they're not hungry anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, actually several companies I can't find it in here
Speaker 2: right now, several companies, Oh, Nestle, specifically guys Nestley is
Speaker 2: developing brand new products, specifically for people who use those drugs.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, the next step. I can't wait. Somebody really
Speaker 3: needs to do this. All right, You don't have to
Speaker 3: write to us. I know I keep interrupting here, but
Speaker 3: don't have to write to us. But just so you know,
Speaker 3: if you happen to be a c suite dude in
Speaker 3: the right industry or do debt, I feel dude is
Speaker 3: a gender neutral term now, But if you happen to
Speaker 3: be up there in the upper echelons of corporate America,
Speaker 3: whatt something? Put something that's a low like slow burned,
Speaker 3: mild dire redick into some popular foods, and then before
Speaker 3: you do that, buy up you know, the ripe medicines
Speaker 3: and then brand them and make them sexy and tell
Speaker 3: no one except for the investors.
Speaker 2: Hey, there you go, There you go, because that's all
Speaker 2: that matters. Last quote from the article before we end
Speaker 2: the segment, y'all. Mars said on Wednesday, that's Wednesday. As
Speaker 2: we're recording this on October fourteenth, so today it will
Speaker 2: pay eighty three dollars and fifty cents per share for
Speaker 2: Kelen Nova, representing about a thirty three percent premium to
Speaker 2: its closing price on August second. Isn't that nice? Guys?
Speaker 2: The investors made big and that's all that matters.
Speaker 3: Get on them and for anybody who's wondering if there's
Speaker 3: justice in this wide, dangerous world of ours. Some of
Speaker 3: those guys probably subscribe to Disney Plus.
Speaker 2: Uh oh, watch out. Arbitration is a come in. Hey,
Speaker 2: we'll be right back with more Strange News after a
Speaker 2: word from our sponsors.
Speaker 4: And we're back. And before I get into the main
Speaker 4: story that I brought for today's Strange News, I just
Speaker 4: wanted to mention a couple of shorties. One that hit
Speaker 4: close to home for me being a person who snores,
Speaker 4: and really gave me pause in terms of what might
Speaker 4: become of me at the hands of my partner.
Speaker 3: I have to recuse myself for this one, guys, because
Speaker 3: the newsophonia that I suffer from. I don't think anybody
Speaker 3: should kill anybody, just be clear, but I cannot handle
Speaker 3: snoring their mouth noises.
Speaker 4: I'm glad we haven't ever had to share a hotel room.
Speaker 4: It was a road trip. There was a road trip
Speaker 4: that got close. Okay, fair enough, close to you stabbing
Speaker 4: me to death in my sleep, recusing myself by friend. Okay,
Speaker 4: fair enough. There's a little bit of confusion here in
Speaker 4: the story. Guys, I'm going to read you the headline.
Speaker 4: I think you get the just thus far. Philadelphia man
Speaker 4: pleads guilty the stabbing neighbor to death over snoring. In
Speaker 4: my mind, I picture it's the person who is upset
Speaker 4: by the snoring stabbing the snorer to death as a
Speaker 4: result of said, you know, inconvenience. Apparently quite the opposite.
Speaker 4: Christopher Casey, fifty six years old, was recently handed a
Speaker 4: relatively short prison sentence after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter
Speaker 4: when his neighbor, Robert Wallace, sixty two, busted through his
Speaker 4: window to potentially do him harm. I guess that's the
Speaker 4: only way you get involuntary manslaughter out of this, right,
Speaker 4: But it led to an altercation that involved Casey stabbing
Speaker 4: Wallace to death. He also pleaded guilty to possessing an
Speaker 4: instrument of crime, being a knife.
Speaker 3: Which is like the non branded snack.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But the interesting thing is apparently Wallace had been
Speaker 4: dealing with this for so long that he was over it,
Speaker 4: and he said, look, I'll help you get a surgery to,
Speaker 4: you know, take care of this problem. I'll help you
Speaker 4: pay for it. It would benefit us both. But Casey
Speaker 4: did not believe him and declined.
Speaker 3: I think there's a past here too. Usually in these
Speaker 3: kind of situations, they don't come out of that.
Speaker 4: Well, that's why I mentioned these kind of simmering resentments
Speaker 4: usually don't happen overnight. No, guys.
Speaker 2: Imagine your neighbor busts down your window and says, hey,
Speaker 2: I will pay for surgery to get you fixed.
Speaker 4: Now what, I would assume that that conversation took place,
Speaker 4: perhaps a little more civilly, at another time, and this
Speaker 4: was the result of him having declined the offer.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was probably I'll tell you if we're guessing here,
Speaker 3: and we'd have to go to the full Philadelphia Inquirer article.
Speaker 3: But what it sounds like, again, simmering intensions. And it
Speaker 3: might be because they share a wall in a duplex.
Speaker 3: It might be a thing where Wallace is there at
Speaker 3: three in the morning or something or let's say I
Speaker 3: nine am and is just cop knocking on his neighbor's
Speaker 3: door and says, you know, dude, I will help you,
Speaker 3: but maybe in like a really rude, confrontational agro way,
Speaker 3: an offensive way. So like to your point, no, it
Speaker 3: does it. I don't know if it was the gentleman
Speaker 3: with cravats in the drawing room, you know, so like
Speaker 3: pashing it out, yeah, decanting brandy, And I would think
Speaker 3: perhaps the respiratory system.
Speaker 4: Indeed, it is a it is a sticky wick at
Speaker 4: that respiratory system, a complex network of tubes. Indeed, yeah, literally,
Speaker 4: and uh, I guess you know, metaphorically this sounds pretty rife.
Speaker 4: Either to move on from this one, if you guys
Speaker 4: are okay, unless Matt, you had anything else you had
Speaker 4: to you wanted to add about this.
Speaker 2: I would just say his neighbor broke in because he
Speaker 2: was snoring, and he ended up, in an act of
Speaker 2: involuntary manslaughter, killed his neighbor that broke into his house.
Speaker 4: And he got.
Speaker 2: Eleven and a half months, no between eleven and a
Speaker 2: half to twenty three months in prison for doing that
Speaker 2: and three years of probation.
Speaker 4: Not for nothing. But you know, it's not what you
Speaker 4: get for a cold blooded murder, most foul you know,
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 3: Right, and it wasn't. Again, this is not a Brandy
Speaker 3: and Decanters and Cravat situation. There weren't epistols at dawn.
Speaker 3: There is a cold ending though, where he Casey does
Speaker 3: apologize to the family and he uses a word I
Speaker 3: don't like where he says, this is unfortunate. That's not
Speaker 3: what you say when you kill someone, even actually.
Speaker 4: Don't have a non apology.
Speaker 2: It also notes that his attorney told the newspaper that
Speaker 2: they were speaking with there in Philadelphia. That quote Casey's
Speaker 2: autism makes it difficult to navigate confrontation. He was terrified
Speaker 2: of this guy, and he believed he had no option.
Speaker 2: So I'm just when I'm thinking that might be a choice.
Speaker 4: Through your window. Isn't that tech? I mean, there are
Speaker 4: certain states that would stand your ground, would would come
Speaker 4: into play there.
Speaker 3: So that attorney is James Lyons.
Speaker 4: Gosh, a lot more at play in that one than
Speaker 4: I even realized, more complex story than I would have
Speaker 4: thought upon reading the headline. So thank you guys for
Speaker 4: adding some additional context and detail to that one. The
Speaker 4: second one, the really short. I just want to keep
Speaker 4: this one as short as possible, because I'm pretty excited
Speaker 4: about this bigger one. NASA is apparently using glitter on Mars,
Speaker 4: more or less glitter bombing Mars to potentially make it
Speaker 4: more habitable for humans. You know, we obviously here stuff
Speaker 4: that I want you to know. Have a fascination for glitter?
Speaker 4: Where does it come from, who's buying it? What are
Speaker 4: the military uses for it? I mean, glitter is sort
Speaker 4: of a pop cultural term. I guess this is really
Speaker 4: more of a heat trapping particulate. I guess it's an
Speaker 4: aluminum based sort of like dust that if shot into
Speaker 4: the atmosphere of Mars could potentially soak up some of
Speaker 4: the heat over time and make Mars more habitable. This
Speaker 4: is a.
Speaker 3: True story of felly conspiracy realist. And maybe it's the
Speaker 3: sleep deprivation, but I'm I'm chuckling building out this increasingly
Speaker 3: elaborate scenario in my head. Come dotting, indulge in some
Speaker 3: branded snacks, and let us explore our fascination of Martian glitter.
Speaker 4: I love it. Yeah, well, and it is essentially I
Speaker 4: guess forced global warming, right, I mean, it's a it's
Speaker 4: a form of that, it's climate control, and you know
Speaker 4: the idea is I'll just read from that. There was
Speaker 4: a this This is coming as a result of a
Speaker 4: paper that was released from the University of Chicago. A
Speaker 4: planetary scientist by the name of Edward Kite helped lead
Speaker 4: this study that was published in the journal of Science Advances.
Speaker 4: He talks about how there's you know, obviously interest in
Speaker 4: terraforming Mars, the idea of making it similar to Earth
Speaker 4: in terms of like, you know, habitability, and for Mars,
Speaker 4: he says warming the planet is a necessary but insufficient
Speaker 4: for Previous concepts have focused on releasing greenhouse gases, but
Speaker 4: these require large amounts of resources that are scarce on Mars.
Speaker 4: The key elements of our paper are a novel proposal
Speaker 4: to use engineered nanoparticles to warm Mars's atmosphere and climate
Speaker 4: modeling that suggests this approach could be much more efficient
Speaker 4: than previous concepts. So glitter bomb Mars, I guess why not.
Speaker 2: I can already see it. They're just gonna cause accidental
Speaker 2: runaway global warming on Mars before we even get there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, why not, let's just head it off with the past. Guys,
Speaker 4: they're gonna do it anyway, let's just nip in the button,
Speaker 4: get it done quick again.
Speaker 3: Sounding like an old curmudgeon, I'm building two long form
Speaker 3: improv scenes, so I like an old curmudget. We have
Speaker 3: Earth at home, you know what I mean? Maybe fix that.
Speaker 3: We've also got out of control glitter on Earth. Maybe
Speaker 3: maybe fix that. But Noil, I'm glad you brought this
Speaker 3: up because the idea of terraforming or modifying the Martian
Speaker 3: climate is the long term goal, because otherwise is uh
Speaker 3: You're I don't know. Man Mars is so appealing, but
Speaker 3: there are so many problems with living there long term,
Speaker 3: even if you have a subterranean metropolis. So maybe this
Speaker 3: will be an answer. But right now it seems like
Speaker 3: a broad theoretical brush, does it not.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's absolutely in the realm of like you know, uh,
Speaker 4: conceptualization at this point. How how it would actually be
Speaker 4: rolled out? I have not read the full paper. Maybe
Speaker 4: they get right into it A through Z. But you know,
Speaker 4: I'm it's not very clear from what I'm reading here.
Speaker 4: Uh in uh Fast Company by the way, this article
Speaker 4: if you want to read a little bit more about this, well,
Speaker 4: actually it's published in Fast Company, but it's written by
Speaker 4: Reuter's staff, So maybe those companies are.
Speaker 3: Kind of company.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Little Too Fast guys fast too little, too fast,
Speaker 4: too fast for class my my final and I think
Speaker 4: a little juicier this are both pretty juicy. But this one,
Speaker 4: I just this tickled my brain in particular. I know
Speaker 4: you guys are familiar with the street artist Banksy. A
Speaker 4: lot has been made of like who this individual is.
Speaker 4: There's a really cool documentary if you're not familiar, called
Speaker 4: Exit through the Gift Shop that in and of itself
Speaker 4: is a sort of work of art, Like it's got
Speaker 4: this kind of like unreliable narrator thing where banks He
Speaker 4: basically like creates this like street artist star mister brainwash
Speaker 4: or whatever out of nowhere, and it's called into question
Speaker 4: as to whether that's real or not, whether he actually
Speaker 4: did that, or whether the guy was in on the game.
Speaker 4: Banks he is very much almost like a Andy Kaufman
Speaker 4: type figure, but instead of comedy, he does it with
Speaker 4: street art, and his works have garnered massive global attention.
Speaker 4: He's English, we know that much, and to the point
Speaker 4: where these unauthorized most of the time works of art
Speaker 4: are worth a lot of money and actually caused properties
Speaker 4: that they're done on to like appreciate and value or
Speaker 4: become like tourist destinations or whatever. And anytime a Banksy
Speaker 4: pops up on so and that's like not nailed down,
Speaker 4: you know, or even if it is nailed down, half
Speaker 4: the time there's always concern that it's going to be stolen.
Speaker 4: He's done all kinds of cool things, like there was
Speaker 4: this piece of his that was auctioned off at Christie's
Speaker 4: I want to say, are one of the big election houses,
Speaker 4: and he or whomever he they multiple individuals. Some people
Speaker 4: think banks He is like a collective, you know, posted
Speaker 4: a video from inside the auction where the moment the
Speaker 4: thing was auctioned for over a million pounds, he triggered
Speaker 4: a button that caused the ready special made frame around
Speaker 4: the piece to shred the work of arts in front
Speaker 4: of you know, all the onlookers. And crazily enough, the
Speaker 4: fact that he actually interacted with that piece made it
Speaker 4: more valuable after it was already sold for a certain price.
Speaker 4: So this really does call into questions there bring up
Speaker 4: an interesting point, I guess about the nature of art
Speaker 4: and value and intellectual property. And another irony is really
Speaker 4: showing itself and this story. Banksy's recently unveiled nine animal
Speaker 4: themed pieces in and around London. His organization that represents them,
Speaker 4: which I believe is called Like Pest Control, have said
Speaker 4: that the works don't mean anything, but his works are
Speaker 4: almost always politically motivating, as a lot of stuff about
Speaker 4: refugees and various conflicts around the globe. I just think
Speaker 4: it's really interesting that his representation says these don't mean anything,
Speaker 4: be as to me, they're very much in line with
Speaker 4: this notion of like the animal kingdom coming for us.
Speaker 4: We've done all these stories about orcas attacking boats, and
Speaker 4: a lot has been made of this idea of like
Speaker 4: animals have had enough and they're like revolting against humans.
Speaker 4: Because one of these is near the London Zoo and
Speaker 4: it's like painted on a roll up kind of security
Speaker 4: gate and it's a gorilla lifting the gate up as
Speaker 4: if it were made of cloth, and then there are
Speaker 4: birds and a seal, and in the background you see
Speaker 4: other glittering eyes escaping, you know, from the zoo. The
Speaker 4: one that pertains to the story in particular is a
Speaker 4: rhinoceros painted on the side of a building that appears
Speaker 4: to be mounting. Let's just say or family show a
Speaker 4: broken down car that has a safety cone on its bonnet.
Speaker 4: They would call it in the UK it's hood, making
Speaker 4: it kind of look like a weird anthropomorphic animal car.
Speaker 4: So this idea that like animal kingdom is coming back
Speaker 4: to f technology and then like we can't do anything
Speaker 4: about it. But yeah, his people say they don't mean anything.
Speaker 4: But I guess part of the cool thing about ours
Speaker 4: you can take whatever meaning you wish, whatever the artist's
Speaker 4: statement or representatives might say. The thing that brings this
Speaker 4: story up today is that that particular piece was vandalized
Speaker 4: by somebody wearing what are those little hats called ben
Speaker 4: with the eyes in the mouth in them, the.
Speaker 3: Little ski masks, balaclavas.
Speaker 4: That's it. Yeah, someone wearing a balot clava.
Speaker 3: Stuff they will want, you know, brought to you by Balaklava,
Speaker 3: the number one least shady thing to bear to your
Speaker 3: favorite financial institution.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or just you know the store, but you know
Speaker 4: onlookers because I don't know. These pieces get announced and
Speaker 4: then the moment they're announced, like on the official Banksy
Speaker 4: Instagram or whatever through other channels, immediately people are trying
Speaker 4: to find them. There's a lot of attention being paid.
Speaker 4: So people were looking on while this person did this
Speaker 4: and say, hey, knock it off, don't do that. So
Speaker 4: The Guardian reports in a piece by their staff, Banksy
Speaker 4: Rhino artwork in London defaced with graffiti tag. One of
Speaker 4: the nine murals animal themed murals put up by Banksy
Speaker 4: in London in as many days has been defaced. And
Speaker 4: actually the gorilla one that I mentioned was put up
Speaker 4: after this one and after this event reading from The Guardian,
Speaker 4: an image of a rhino appearing to mount a clapped
Speaker 4: out silver Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on its
Speaker 4: bonnet appeared in southeast London on Monday and was confirmed
Speaker 4: as a bank see on the artist's Instagram account by
Speaker 4: Tuesday morning. After the vandalization. Uh Tuesday morning, the car
Speaker 4: had also been removed. A spokespression for the Royal Borough
Speaker 4: of Greenwich, the local authority where the Rhino muro was located,
Speaker 4: said it's a real shame that a mindless vandal has
Speaker 4: defaced the mural which has already drawn visitors and brought
Speaker 4: so much joy to many. Okay, I like Banksy a lot.
Speaker 4: I really liked executing the gift shop. I think what
Speaker 4: he does is really interesting, but it's it isn't it isn't.
Speaker 4: I just think it's so fascinating. None of these are
Speaker 4: like like sanctioned by said organization Burrow Royal Borough of Greenwich.
Speaker 4: He doesn't ask permission, They don't ask permission to do
Speaker 4: these on these buildings that are presumably owned by people.
Speaker 4: And yet because of the nature of this, the absolute
Speaker 4: craze around banks see in his work, it's like he
Speaker 4: gets a pass and the article is like, it's like
Speaker 4: vanned defaces vandalism, you know what I mean, Because one
Speaker 4: person's vandalism is another person's art. And we know taggers
Speaker 4: and stuff, they get arrested all the time. And it's
Speaker 4: just very interesting to me the kind of double standard here.
Speaker 4: And I'm not trying to be a poopooer of this
Speaker 4: type of culture, jamming art. It's really really interesting, but
Speaker 4: it did cause me to kind of think about the
Speaker 4: irony of this. And I found a really cool piece
Speaker 4: on like a marketing brand, like a marketing consultancy website
Speaker 4: of the UK, Harper McLoud Banksy's complicated relationship with intellectual property,
Speaker 4: and it points out the writer Sam Dillon, I'm just
Speaker 4: gonna read from it because I think it's really smart.
Speaker 4: The topic of Banksy's anonymity has once again been in
Speaker 4: the news recently due to the decision of US Fashion
Speaker 4: Giant Guests to use several of the artist's works in
Speaker 4: the online and in store promotion of a new line
Speaker 4: of clothing, including his famous flower thorerstencil. This is the
Speaker 4: one where it looks like someone's throwing a Molotov cocktail,
Speaker 4: but it's like a bouquet of flowers. Super iconic stuff.
Speaker 4: This induced the artist himself to take to Instagram to
Speaker 4: encourage his almost twelve million million strong followers to engage
Speaker 4: in retaliatory shoplifting at guests guesses Regent Street branch in London.
Speaker 4: He alleged that Guests has seen it fit to quote
Speaker 4: help themselves to the use of his artwork for the
Speaker 4: purposes of their brandalized collaboration without obtaining prior permission to
Speaker 4: do so. What do you guys think? I think it's
Speaker 4: such an interesting double standard and like he kind of
Speaker 4: wants to have it, they whatever want want to have
Speaker 4: it both ways.
Speaker 3: Hypocrites in the art community say it, and so also
Speaker 3: bonus points for brandalized. That's that's it's.
Speaker 4: Funny, but almost kind of cringe. Is it not a
Speaker 4: little cringe?
Speaker 3: My favorite new portmanteau.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty funny. Let's go on a little
Speaker 4: bit more. Uh, it says Banksy's aforementioned aversion to intellectual
Speaker 4: property rights, which he has made very very clear, like
Speaker 4: he openly asked people to copy his style, to reproduce it, whatever.
Speaker 4: But it's almost this unspoken caveat of like as long
Speaker 4: as you're not making money off of it. Has also
Speaker 4: been a contributory factor to his difficulties in obtaining trademark
Speaker 4: protection over his work. Over the past few years, several
Speaker 4: of his trademark registrations filed in the name of Pest
Speaker 4: Control Office Limited, have been subjected to successful cancellation actions
Speaker 4: on the basis of bad faith at the EUIPO, which
Speaker 4: is the European Union Intellectual Property Office. The article goes
Speaker 4: on somewhat surprisingly, these rulings have repeatedly made direct reference
Speaker 4: to Banksy's opinions on ip referencing both his decision to
Speaker 4: be quote very vocal regarding his disdain for intellectual property
Speaker 4: rights and a comment that copyright is for losers from
Speaker 4: his two thousand and six book wall and piece. While
Speaker 4: such statements were confirmed not to preclude an artist from
Speaker 4: accruing such rights, the eu IPO's reasoning centered on its
Speaker 4: findings that Banks he possessed no genuine intention to use
Speaker 4: the artworks as trademarks in relation to the goods and
Speaker 4: services listed. So a lot to unpack here. I don't
Speaker 4: want to make this an overly long segment, but I
Speaker 4: didn't think it was an interesting immediately, like was like, huh,
Speaker 4: you know, somebody tagged what's essentially a really really expensive
Speaker 4: and sought after tag like one of the other pieces,
Speaker 4: a wolf on a satellite dish was immediately stolen, and
Speaker 4: that's kind of But then what happens if you steal
Speaker 4: something like that and then try to sell it, Like
Speaker 4: there's no artist to come after you because they're anonymous,
Speaker 4: So it's like, it's not like stealing a painting from
Speaker 4: a museum, but it's worth as much money. These pieces
Speaker 4: go for millions of pounds, millions of dollars.
Speaker 2: You put it in your five million dollar London flat,
Speaker 2: and then when your fancy friends come over, you say,
Speaker 2: that's a Banks, that's a Banks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I'm not as elitist, as people may
Speaker 3: lead you to believe. Darling observed of my Banksy stolen
Speaker 3: here from the streets of London.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then banks he shows up to the party
Speaker 2: when it burns in Yeah, yeah, like someone burned the bank, see,
Speaker 2: and then there's a whole movie made about it.
Speaker 4: That's yeah. I mean, that's why I Exit through the
Speaker 4: Gift Shop is such a neat film, because it is
Speaker 4: it's kind of like a work of art in itself.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like an anti documentary. And I'm a
Speaker 4: big fan of like, you know, sampling and like other
Speaker 4: kinds of culture jamming, like everything is terrible. Folks who
Speaker 4: take like weird Christian VHS tapes that are technically copywritten
Speaker 4: but use them to create mashups and all kinds of
Speaker 4: weird internet art, and I think that stuff is fascinating.
Speaker 4: And like bands like Negative Land that take copyrighted material
Speaker 4: and smash them up into weird audio collages. So I'm
Speaker 4: all about this stuff, but I do think when you
Speaker 4: start making copyright claims for your illegal art, it does
Speaker 4: sort of put a little bit of a damper on
Speaker 4: like your philosophy as a culture jamming, you know, kind
Speaker 4: of iconoclass or whatever, and maybe let us know what
Speaker 4: you think. Am I being too hard on banks? I don't.
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to be, because I really do think
Speaker 4: this stuff is cool, but I think it's very sticky
Speaker 4: in terms of the legalities of it and like wanting
Speaker 4: to have it both ways.
Speaker 3: That's it, agreed, And that's a great question here, folks,
Speaker 3: to to you, we pass the torch, right, because this
Speaker 3: is Noel. I would argue, this is an inherently philosophical question, right.
Speaker 3: It goes beyond maybe the idea of double standards into
Speaker 3: what is art? What is ownership? We also want to know.
Speaker 3: We want to know your favorite Mars bar. We want
Speaker 3: to know, oh jeez, we want to know what you
Speaker 3: think the end result of all these monopolies will be.
Speaker 3: And can anybody like, can any of us really understand
Speaker 3: what thirty six billion dollars is? I'm not sure. My
Speaker 3: head rocks it.
Speaker 2: Imagine all the cheese it's in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there we go. There's also check out cheese conspiracy.
Speaker 3: Ed tell us how long do you think it would
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