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 Noel.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. If you are listening
Speaker 3: to this program on the evening it comes out Welcome
Speaker 3: to February tenth, twenty twenty five. Several of us are
Speaker 3: on the road, and we hope you are doing well
Speaker 3: and having adventures in what someone would call interesting times.
Speaker 3: Quick check in, guys, how are we all feeling?
Speaker 4: I know that old proverb, right, may you live in
Speaker 4: interesting times? Sort of the monkey's paw of it all?
Speaker 4: It's interesting, all right, I'll tell you that. Doing okay though?
Speaker 2: All in all, yeah, I definitely do my best to
Speaker 2: keep on while it feels like chaos is erupting around us.
Speaker 3: All yeah, no kidding, And we're gonna see some of
Speaker 3: this affecting the US, affecting the world abroad heads up.
Speaker 3: A lot of our conversation here is going to be
Speaker 3: about the United States tonight and related things that are
Speaker 3: happening in what you might call the United States hegemonic backyard.
Speaker 3: But I do have some good news as a setup
Speaker 3: for our future listener mail program later this week. Guys,
Speaker 3: has the concept of legal personhood gone too far? It
Speaker 3: turns out a mountain in New Zealand is now legally
Speaker 3: considered a person. I'm profound, So what it's mean?
Speaker 4: Things are great purple mountains, majesty let him have it.
Speaker 4: We talked about the tree that owns itself and after George.
Speaker 3: Georgia, Yeah, I have that note. It totally reminds me that's.
Speaker 4: Something of a form of personhood. If if one can
Speaker 4: own property, I think that implies personhood. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Has it gone too far? I mean, isn't our corporations
Speaker 4: technically considered people too? With citizens united in the US? Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think that's gone too far. That's a run of.
Speaker 3: Uck that's paved the way. Check out that story. That's
Speaker 3: just a quick mentioned as we're getting into more serious stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, I always trying to start things and end
Speaker 3: things on a good note these days, because gosh, darting
Speaker 3: guys feels like the world needs it now more than ever.
Speaker 2: Oh, I've got a good one for the opening. If
Speaker 2: you want really fast, please, there's a there's a blind
Speaker 2: man who got his concealed carry permit to like prove
Speaker 2: a point, right. Oh, I mean, well, he always wanted
Speaker 2: a gun and to be able to carry his gun
Speaker 2: with him, and he's got it now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was to prove a point just basically that if
Speaker 2: he can walk into the office with his seeing ekane,
Speaker 2: you know, and get a concealed carry permit for a gun,
Speaker 2: maybe we should do something because that's a little weird.
Speaker 3: And where was he specifically?
Speaker 2: He was out of Indianapolis. Ah, that is that is
Speaker 2: at least where the story comes to us from.
Speaker 4: The great state of Indiana.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go and shout out to Indiana. We're
Speaker 3: going to learn more about Eggs, We're going to learn
Speaker 3: more about Ai the Pentagon, and again, as we said,
Speaker 3: a lot of knock on effects of one of the stories.
Speaker 3: We have to get to this evening, which is loosely
Speaker 3: put Elon Musk either saving the USA or Elon Musk
Speaker 3: versus the USA, depending upon whom you ask.
Speaker 4: Let's hit a quickie little ad break and then we'll
Speaker 4: be right back.
Speaker 3: And we have returned. Gentlemen, I'd like to open this
Speaker 3: part of our Strange News segment with a quick recap
Speaker 3: on a story that we mentioned in passing and that
Speaker 3: it seems a lot of the mainstream media forgot. It
Speaker 3: wasn't that long ago that the news broke. The nation
Speaker 3: of China appeared very much to have hacked the United
Speaker 3: States Treasury, remember talking about this briefly. It wasn't too
Speaker 3: too long ago.
Speaker 4: No, it didn't end up being quite as horrifying as
Speaker 4: that sounded, right, It was sort of a quick event
Speaker 4: that was dealt with more or less.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what we're told, because that is a potentially
Speaker 2: catastrophic event for you know, national security. So you have
Speaker 2: to imagine that the people who allow information out would say, no,
Speaker 2: everything's fine, we're good, we're cool.
Speaker 4: That's of course true. But it was my understanding that
Speaker 4: it wasn't as deep a breach as it could have been.
Speaker 3: Well, that depends upon the reporting that we're reading too.
Speaker 3: You know, we take one particular media outlet at face value,
Speaker 3: do we take the statement of the Treasury at face value?
Speaker 3: What degree of credence do we assign to these various conversations.
Speaker 3: But it does seem like the news sort of forgot
Speaker 3: this hack until quite recently. I mean, I say recently,
Speaker 3: but it's an ongoing event here in the United States.
Speaker 3: One of the world's most well known billionaires, the world's
Speaker 3: richest man as far as documented wealth goes, is as
Speaker 3: we speak, on a bit of a crusade, which I
Speaker 3: know is a charge term these days. He is technically
Speaker 3: an unelected special government employee, his name Elon Musk. He
Speaker 3: and a team of surprisingly young people that continue trying
Speaker 3: to scrub themselves and their identities from the Internet have
Speaker 3: been gaining more and more access to some pretty pretty
Speaker 3: mission critical things here in the United States. This has
Speaker 3: led some people to speculate critics of Musk and critics
Speaker 3: of the current US President Donald Trump, to speculate that
Speaker 3: there is a coup in progress. From tech Dirt by
Speaker 3: Mike Brock, we see a title called a coup in progress.
Speaker 3: So there's you know, we know Mike Brock's angle from
Speaker 3: the jump, which I appreciate. And on February third, Brock
Speaker 3: is saying, look in just the past forty eight hours
Speaker 3: Elon Musk DOGE Commission has seized control of Treasury payment
Speaker 3: systems and granted or gained unauthorized access to classified US
Speaker 3: AID materials. And any security officials who were pushing back
Speaker 3: against this or saying hey, you know, you need a clearance.
Speaker 3: You can't just come in here and access this information,
Speaker 3: they were given the boot.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's interesting though, because I mean, the idea of
Speaker 4: it being unauthorized. It's like it's unauthorized according to the
Speaker 4: people in charge of this information directly who's charged it,
Speaker 4: as you know, with these departments to oversee this stuff.
Speaker 4: But it was authorized by the president and by the administration.
Speaker 4: The question is the legality of it. And as we
Speaker 4: know the Trump administration in past years in president have
Speaker 4: been fond of doing is kind of just throwing stuff
Speaker 4: at the wall and see what sticks, sort of ask
Speaker 4: for not even forgiveness rather than permission, just kind of
Speaker 4: doing it and then seeing how things shake out after
Speaker 4: the fact.
Speaker 3: Well, it's also part of a classic kind of old school,
Speaker 3: honestly nineteen eighties Wall Street negotiating tactic, which is do
Speaker 3: some beat me here, triforce, do some wild and crazy
Speaker 3: make a wackadu proposal of some sort, and then when
Speaker 3: people naturally react to that, you have set a baseline
Speaker 3: for what is acceptable, and then you can propose that
Speaker 3: you really want to do, and now it seems less crazy,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. We've a good example of
Speaker 3: this would be Danny DeVito and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,
Speaker 3: who runs in in one episode spoiler and tells Dennis
Speaker 3: and d Reynolds your mother is dead. And then they
Speaker 3: say what and he goes, Okay, no, she's not dead. Instead,
Speaker 3: she's giving away our money. So that's kind of the
Speaker 3: same kind of tactic, is what I'm saying for sure.
Speaker 4: And this kind of stuff too, really is sort of
Speaker 4: a classic maybe Wall Street, but specifically kind of Silicon
Speaker 4: Valley approached. It's often referred to as move fast and
Speaker 4: break things. It's this idea that you know, the most
Speaker 4: important thing is incredibly rapid innovation and experimentation and growth,
Speaker 4: even if it causes issues along the way.
Speaker 3: Right this, the startup mentality right, as it's sometimes called,
Speaker 3: are the names of the people that we have seen
Speaker 3: and confirmed to be working with or working for Elon
Speaker 3: Musk in these recent controversial moves. They are the following
Speaker 3: Amanda Scales, Brian Zeld, Ricardo Biassini, Anthony Armstrong, Steve Davis,
Speaker 3: Barris Akis, Thomas shed, Edward Korstein, or Korstein, Russell Vought,
Speaker 3: Michael Peters, Josh grend Baum, and Russell mccranahan. That's rusty
Speaker 3: to his friends. Why are we naming these folks because
Speaker 3: it appears, however you feel about Musk action, that various institutions,
Speaker 3: various media outlets or media owners are actively scrubbing mentions
Speaker 3: of these specific names when they find them on the Internet.
Speaker 3: And if they can do so, that doesn't mean there's
Speaker 3: a crime being committed, but it is really suspicious, and
Speaker 3: it sounds like people who are supposed to be Internet
Speaker 3: savvy they have never heard of the stress end rule?
Speaker 4: Right? And is this coming in some part from this
Speaker 4: Wired article the young inexperienced engineers aiding Elon Musk's government takeover.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Wired article is one of the places I found it. However,
Speaker 3: it actually got for a time, it got pulled from
Speaker 3: Wired or required you to have a subscription. I think
Speaker 3: it came back up due to some outcry, but people
Speaker 3: have archived it were such that you can view it fully.
Speaker 3: The journalist there is Victoria Elliott that published on February second,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. These engineers are between nineteen and twenty four,
Speaker 3: the majority of which are linked to other Musk companies,
Speaker 3: and they're playing a big role in some of the
Speaker 3: moves that we're seeing in Musk's DOGE Department of Government Efficiency.
Speaker 3: They were tasked by EO Executive Order with quote modernizing
Speaker 3: federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.
Speaker 3: And honestly, on the surface, just that sentence, that pull quote,
Speaker 3: that doesn't sound too bad. Everybody's had to deal with
Speaker 3: antiquated government systems at sometime in the US, and who
Speaker 3: doesn't love efficiency and productivity. The problem is that they're
Speaker 3: amid the sheep of those words and that short clause,
Speaker 3: there may be wolves of ulterior motive.
Speaker 4: I mean part of what they've been given access to,
Speaker 4: things like the Social Security funds or the payment systems
Speaker 4: and Office.
Speaker 3: Of Personnel Management, General Services Administration, and of course the
Speaker 3: Treasury's payment system, the Treasury Department's payment system.
Speaker 4: And all of the corresponding data personal data. I think
Speaker 4: the issue that maybe we have and that would seem
Speaker 4: front and center, is that these are non elected officials,
Speaker 4: and that these are folks that represent private industry and
Speaker 4: the conflict of interests are just too many to name.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and well, when you look at stuff like Noah,
Speaker 2: the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and in places where they're
Speaker 2: going into and appear to be making changes that would
Speaker 2: need to be made or approved at least by Congress
Speaker 2: before major changes could happen, it does feel like they're
Speaker 2: kind of running rough shot over stuff and systems that
Speaker 2: they just shouldn't be able to right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's a pretty astute way to put it.
Speaker 3: The question that a lot of critics have is, you know,
Speaker 3: how is this legal? Where's the pushback? You know, we're
Speaker 3: we probably should mention the FBI is having issues with this.
Speaker 3: The DOJ is in back and forth lawsuit. They attempted
Speaker 3: to sue the Trump administration. The Trump administration just put
Speaker 3: a lawsuit on them the company, and this is going
Speaker 3: to be a problem. I think the CIA itself is
Speaker 3: having some issues. They got the same letter, were that yes, yes,
Speaker 3: and the thing is their real fa FO kind of dudes, spoiler.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't mess with the Latter Day Saints personally. Uh,
Speaker 3: and the I don't know, you guys probably know this already,
Speaker 3: but the company heavily recruits from there. They took all
Speaker 3: the boxes fluency and particular languages due to requisite missionary work.
Speaker 3: Not many vices allowed.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that oil. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, man s tier picks, as we would say
Speaker 3: in video games, s tier picks. So this this may
Speaker 3: come back. US aid also has been in the news
Speaker 3: as a result of this. The one of the statements
Speaker 3: that came out from the Musk side was quite recently
Speaker 3: the following they said, look, we have read only access
Speaker 3: to all this Treasury Department financial data, to all this
Speaker 3: personal information about tens of millions of US citizens and businesses.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't I think to your point, in all
Speaker 3: that doesn't really quell the concerns of the critics because
Speaker 3: they're saying because they're saying, Okay, I can't go in
Speaker 3: and legally change somebody's name to Johnny Blue Jeans at
Speaker 3: one two three Main Street in a town where they
Speaker 3: don't live, but I definitely can know where that person lives,
Speaker 3: and I can know their Social Security number, their payment histories,
Speaker 3: I can know what government programs they are affiliated with,
Speaker 3: and for people who are worried about, you know, for
Speaker 3: people who are saying there's something like a coup in progress,
Speaker 3: then that becomes very a very dangerous and scary conversation.
Speaker 4: I guess my question about the coup narrative is like,
Speaker 4: this is all sanctioned by the administration. This is all
Speaker 4: like Project twenty twenty five stuff kind of writ large
Speaker 4: like the dismantling of government or you know, agencies like
Speaker 4: the US Agency for International Development us AID that was
Speaker 4: essentially all of the employees this is an AID relief
Speaker 4: you know, organization wing branch of the government that does
Speaker 4: humanitarian work elsewhere in the world, and things like that.
Speaker 4: They were all called home and Musk recently went on
Speaker 4: a pretty significant screed against it, saying that it was
Speaker 4: a radical left you know branch of the government and
Speaker 4: they deserved to die and things like that. And this
Speaker 4: is all coming directly from my question though about the
Speaker 4: coup is like, isn't this all by design as far
Speaker 4: as the president his administration concern are concerned, or is
Speaker 4: the question here if Musk is taking it farther than
Speaker 4: he's even being given permission to do. Because truth did
Speaker 4: come out and say, you know, they can't do anything
Speaker 4: unless we give them permission, taking advantage of Trump or
Speaker 4: making him his bulldog.
Speaker 3: I'd say it's a mutually beneficial relationship. This type of symbiosis.
Speaker 3: Is it sustainable? Perhaps not for various aspects of each
Speaker 3: individual's psychological profile. However, when their aims align, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, when both people need to get across
Speaker 3: the river, the scorpion will ride the hippo proverbs.
Speaker 2: You remember that guy been in the Discovery days that
Speaker 2: came through and he was like the new sheriff in town,
Speaker 2: and he was known throughout corporate America as the guy
Speaker 2: that makes cuts. Like yeah, he gets hired by a
Speaker 2: company and just comes through and goes, what's inefficient here?
Speaker 2: You're going, You're gone, You're gone, You're gone. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: what it feels like to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you and appreciate that. Gosh, that
Speaker 3: shout out to a war story we don't off to.
Speaker 3: But folks, Matt is telling the true story there, and
Speaker 3: we see further conflicts of interest. Okay, this is why
Speaker 3: we're introducing the China aspect of this. China aspect of
Speaker 3: this It's because Musk is in deep with the government
Speaker 3: of China, that in itself is not criminal in any
Speaker 3: way whatsoever. To be clear, China's an economic juggernaut. A
Speaker 3: lot of people want to do business there, and the
Speaker 3: government has very specific rules about how a private company
Speaker 3: interacts with their whole thing. That's the technical that's the
Speaker 3: technical definition for the geopolitics walks. So concerns, again, we're
Speaker 3: trying to be very fair here. Concerns from critics are
Speaker 3: that this will lead to a conflict of interest, that
Speaker 3: on the far side of the spectrum. What they're arguing
Speaker 3: is that Trump is a Russian asset and that Elon
Speaker 3: Musk may be a Chinese asset, or they at the
Speaker 3: very least owe so many favors to those different tables
Speaker 3: in the lunch room that they're taking sandwiches from our
Speaker 3: table on purpose. Because again, regardless of our regardless of
Speaker 3: any political ideology, and nowhere time want to sew this up.
Speaker 3: Regardless of any political ideology, or whom you did or
Speaker 3: did not vote for, et cetera, et cetera, if you
Speaker 3: voted in the United States, it is undeniable that previous propositions.
Speaker 3: I want to be careful how I say this by
Speaker 3: rival foreign governments suggested or dreamed of the exact same
Speaker 3: policy movements that are happening in the United States today.
Speaker 3: You can say, maybe those rival governments were off base.
Speaker 3: Maybe this is actually good for a country. You can say,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe these folks on the other side are Maybe
Speaker 3: the critics are wrong. Maybe the current administration and this
Speaker 3: billionaire who is not getting any rules and again is
Speaker 3: not a permanent or elected or paid government employee. Maybe
Speaker 3: he's doing what he feels in his heart o hearts
Speaker 3: is correct. But you cannot deny this is what historically,
Speaker 3: rival foreign governments have desired.
Speaker 2: Right, well, yeah, what what have we learned? What do
Speaker 2: those governments do before you try and destabilize a state
Speaker 2: or a nation? What do you do before you go
Speaker 2: into a country? Right, we've learned this on the show.
Speaker 2: The first thing you do is destabilize it. And I
Speaker 2: don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling some instability
Speaker 2: happening right now. And if you know, if you're looking
Speaker 2: at a different way, maybe it's it's right sizing things,
Speaker 2: it's getting things where they should be if you're viewing
Speaker 2: it from that angle. But I think if you look
Speaker 2: at it overall, from every angle. It's a destabilization that's
Speaker 2: occurring right now.
Speaker 4: I just wanted to really quickly bring up a quote
Speaker 4: that came out of from recently from a former close
Speaker 4: friend and investment partner of Elon's, a guy named Philip Lowe,
Speaker 4: founder of Neurovigil, which is a company that Musk invested in,
Speaker 4: and I just think he kind of sums up what
Speaker 4: we're talking about here to a degree. From the perspective
Speaker 4: of someone who's known this guy for fifteen years. Elon
Speaker 4: believes he is above everyone else. He used to think
Speaker 4: he worked on the most important problems. When I met him,
Speaker 4: he did not presume to be a technical person. He
Speaker 4: would be the first to say that he lacked the
Speaker 4: expertise to understand certain data that happened later. Now he
Speaker 4: believes he has all the solutions. And last thing, he
Speaker 4: says that is why he likes far right parties because
Speaker 4: they are easier to control.
Speaker 3: And I would like to there's so much more to
Speaker 3: get to. We'll probably follow up on this because it
Speaker 3: is an ongoing story of folks. Would love to hear
Speaker 3: your thoughts conspiracy at iHeartRadio Com. No judgment Again, As
Speaker 3: I said earlier, and repeatedly. We are experiencing this with you.
Speaker 3: We're not working from us right, we have not been hired.
Speaker 3: We don't know what the next steps are, but we
Speaker 3: know this is a very scary time for people. So
Speaker 3: before we go to an ad break, I would like
Speaker 3: to end on a quote often attributed to a former
Speaker 3: amateur wrestler who was also president once upon a time,
Speaker 3: named Abraham Lincoln. America will never be destroyed from the outside.
Speaker 3: If we lose our freedoms, it will be because we
Speaker 3: have destroyed ourselves from within. With that, we'll take a
Speaker 3: quick break for a word from our sponsors. If you
Speaker 3: want to pause and write to us well this is
Speaker 3: fresh in your mind, please we invite you to do so,
Speaker 3: and then we'll return with more strange news.
Speaker 2: And we've returned, jumping to a quick update from a
Speaker 2: story that Noel brought to us last year in April.
Speaker 2: Do you guys remember the name Matthew David Kierans.
Speaker 3: Not Tink David Kurans.
Speaker 2: It's probably too obscure for any of us to remember.
Speaker 2: I didn't remember it at all, But this gentleman was
Speaker 2: an IT expert fifty nine years of age in Heartland, Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: and he he pled guilty back in April to some
Speaker 2: pretty serious federal charges of aggravated identity theft and making
Speaker 2: false statements to a National Credit Union Administration insured institution.
Speaker 2: As the end of that sentence, well, this was I
Speaker 2: think noa. You titled it in the doc the craziest
Speaker 2: identity theft story I've ever heard.
Speaker 4: It was such a long con.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is a gentleman who stole another man's wallet,
Speaker 2: mister William Woods wallet back in nineteen eighty eight, at
Speaker 2: least according to Woods, and then returned it. But before
Speaker 2: returning it, he took in infa out of that wallet,
Speaker 2: including the social Security number of mister Woods. Then mister
Speaker 2: Kiern's went ahead and got a driver's license with the
Speaker 2: name William Woods. And then he went on to assume
Speaker 2: the identity of mister Woods for decades. He got married
Speaker 2: under that name, he had a child under that name,
Speaker 2: and he got hired at the University of Iowa hospital
Speaker 2: with that ID, and under that name, got himself a
Speaker 2: ton of loans totally more than two hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: under that name. And the biggest thing he did is
Speaker 2: that when the actual William Woods tried to figure out
Speaker 2: what the heck was going on in his life and
Speaker 2: why someone's racking up all this debt, and just what
Speaker 2: the heck is going on. When he tried to go
Speaker 2: into a bank and clear the whole thing up, he
Speaker 2: was arrested because he didn't have the security information for
Speaker 2: the bank accounts that Kiern set up as would. So
Speaker 2: then he ended up being forced to go to jail
Speaker 2: for four hundred and twenty eight days, and then he
Speaker 2: spent one hundred and forty seven days in a mental
Speaker 2: hospital because he was considered not fit for trial. Remember
Speaker 2: this whole crazy thing. Yeah, anyway, the story here, or
Speaker 2: the update is that mister Kearn's was just sentenced to
Speaker 2: twelve years in prison for doing all that heinous stuff.
Speaker 3: Which is pretty light, it would seem.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I do agree there. But at least
Speaker 2: he is in prison for a bit and that'll change
Speaker 2: his life.
Speaker 3: Oh maybe he'll get deported to El salvador.
Speaker 2: Ooh, they will accept.
Speaker 4: For sure, any nationality.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Hey, speaking on things like that, let's talk about reporting
Speaker 2: that comes from various institutions via the Pentagon. Here's a
Speaker 2: little story for you from Business Insider. It was posted
Speaker 2: on February first, the Pentagon is changing, which me media
Speaker 2: outlets have the closest access hmm or rotations. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a brand new thing. It's a new institutionalized, annual
Speaker 2: thing that's going to happen. Here's from that article. The
Speaker 2: Defense Department said it's implementing a new quote annual media
Speaker 2: rotation program, which means some legacy media outlets will lose
Speaker 2: their longtime Pentagon workspaces to a slate of new publications. Now,
Speaker 2: according to the Pentagon and Little the post that they
Speaker 2: made as a blog post, actually this is going to
Speaker 2: be an annual thing. So every year, one news organization
Speaker 2: will get kicked out and then another news organization will
Speaker 2: get to come in. This doesn't mean that any news
Speaker 2: organization will lose access to the Pentagon, right, They'll all
Speaker 2: be able to come and go as they please, report
Speaker 2: on whatever they like. But these specific workstations as they're
Speaker 2: calling them, are very close. They're actually inside the Pentagon,
Speaker 2: and so you know, a journalist or a team of
Speaker 2: journalists can go into the Pentagon, stay there and work
Speaker 2: and report from inside the Pentagon. That's a big deal,
Speaker 2: especially when there's a huge story coming out there's a
Speaker 2: lot of information being disseminated by the Pentagon. Having that
Speaker 2: access means you're going to get the fastest information, hopefully
Speaker 2: the most accurate information, and get it out as quickly
Speaker 2: as you can. That's not going to be the case
Speaker 2: any longer for these four organizations, The New York Times, NBC,
Speaker 2: National Public Radio or NPR, and Politico.
Speaker 4: Imagine that.
Speaker 2: Isn't that strange those things have anything in common?
Speaker 4: Do we think? Sure? They sure?
Speaker 3: They have a history of their proponents would say speaking
Speaker 3: truth to power, that's one. They also they also have
Speaker 3: gone on record with various editorial statements at times that
Speaker 3: seem to support maybe more Democratic Party affiliated politicians and
Speaker 3: object to more Republican affiliated politicians.
Speaker 4: And their opponents would argue, I think they have all
Speaker 4: been critical of right leaning administrations and specifically this administration,
Speaker 4: and you know, it just seems like the first step
Speaker 4: towards a real information control, iron fisted approach.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I would add to that. You know,
Speaker 3: there's been a lot of criticism, especially about the big
Speaker 3: fancy New York Times, that they had not been critical
Speaker 3: enough in certain aspects, and it turns out that maybe
Speaker 3: that may have been correct. Because they lost a This
Speaker 3: is a huge loss for them and Matt We've got
Speaker 3: to I think we've got to get to the replacements, right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, all the replacements coming in are the New
Speaker 2: York Post, So out with the Times, in with the Post. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Huffington Post interesting.
Speaker 3: Which is pretty less log isn't it?
Speaker 4: Kind of? I guess it is, But isn't it. It's like,
Speaker 4: maybe I've always been a little confused as to what
Speaker 4: the nature of the Huffington Post is. I always thought
Speaker 4: it was kind of crowdsourced in some fashion.
Speaker 3: Now it's I think nowadays or in the modern parlance,
Speaker 3: it would be considered it would consider itself an online
Speaker 3: news source.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, okay, And that is very much in line
Speaker 2: with the goals, at least the stated goals of the
Speaker 2: Pentagon in the administration about who is going to get
Speaker 2: access in the future. So in the long long term, well,
Speaker 2: let's continue on the list though, you've also got Breitbart
Speaker 2: News and One America News Network. Uh yeah, so these
Speaker 2: are definitely more let's say they're going the these without trying,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't it's so weird to talk about
Speaker 2: bias in this way without sounding bias but these are
Speaker 2: organizations that appear to be a little more biased towards
Speaker 2: uh an administration that is more conservative. That's what it
Speaker 2: feels like.
Speaker 3: Sure, the three of the four new ones, but to
Speaker 3: be fair, we also need to point out that they're
Speaker 3: just all considered more extreme in these directions. Right.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a really good way to think about it,
Speaker 2: because according to the statements that have been coming out
Speaker 2: of the Pentagon regarding this stuff the Defense Department. This
Speaker 2: is from the article. This move comes as the White
Speaker 2: House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt announced earlier this week that
Speaker 2: the administration would be granting access to the White House
Speaker 2: Press Briefing Room to quote new media, which would include
Speaker 2: things like podcasters, YouTubers, TikTokers. So you know that is
Speaker 2: that feels progressive and really good, like let's get you know,
Speaker 2: independent organizations and individuals in there reporting on it. But
Speaker 2: it also feels like you could taylor who the individuals
Speaker 2: you allow in to really project your message and you know,
Speaker 2: shout down to other people who are critics of.
Speaker 4: That, and then there aren't any there's an the oversight
Speaker 4: over like YouTubers and TikTokers. And not to say that
Speaker 4: like the code of journalistic ethics is like at its
Speaker 4: peak right now. I mean, with the Internet being the
Speaker 4: main competition for like traditional media. You know, we know
Speaker 4: things get rushed, and we know that you know, standards
Speaker 4: and things like that have certainly slid, you know, over
Speaker 4: the past few decades. But with that you can literally
Speaker 4: have these influencers who there's really no rules against quote
Speaker 4: unquote paying them off or giving them certain privileges in
Speaker 4: order to get a favorable report. There's absolutely no expectation
Speaker 4: of unbiased coverage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, unless you're talking about TikTok well, you know
Speaker 3: which reports to China point that out. But sure, I
Speaker 3: will also note though this is this is I love
Speaker 3: that we're bringing this up because this is exactly what
Speaker 3: I was alluding to in an earlier conversation with podcasters.
Speaker 3: That was the big headline for us podcasters could be
Speaker 3: pretty much in the press club.
Speaker 4: Now and where do we sign up?
Speaker 3: Thank you to everybody who politely asked if we were
Speaker 3: going to join the party. Ooh yeah, no, that's an
Speaker 3: accidental pun. Not to be too or Wellian over there.
Speaker 3: I'm sure we'd love to check it out, but to
Speaker 3: be very clear, we have not received our our walka
Speaker 3: esque golden tickets. Just yet.
Speaker 2: Well, put me in, coach, I've got a journalism minor.
Speaker 2: I'll do that all day. Put me in. I'll report
Speaker 2: to these guys and then we'll just we'll discuss that
Speaker 2: all go together.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I'm down.
Speaker 2: All right into it. Okay, Well tell us how you
Speaker 2: feel about all that stuff. One last story and then
Speaker 2: we'll move on to another ad break. Guys. Google just
Speaker 2: appears to have lifted its ban on using artificial intelligence
Speaker 2: for weaponry and surveillance tools.
Speaker 4: I don't understand what does Google have to do with weaponry.
Speaker 4: I was immediately a little flummoxed by that headline.
Speaker 3: Logistics algorithms processing so much of so much of modern warfare,
Speaker 3: I'll say the W word. So much of modern warfare
Speaker 3: is informatic at this point. Like right now, as we're speaking,
Speaker 3: we're seeing some an interesting development of drone on drone
Speaker 3: warfare out in the Ukraine theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're talking integrated tracking systems. You're talking, you know,
Speaker 2: drones that are able to potentially very soon autonomously figure
Speaker 2: out who's a combatant, you know, according to the people
Speaker 2: who operate that drone, and who is a civilian according
Speaker 2: to that drone. Right, there's all kinds of stuff. The
Speaker 2: big deal here, guys, is at Alphabet, the parent company
Speaker 2: of Google, changed the guidelines and it was this tiny
Speaker 2: little section that they've altered and it mentioned, you, you know,
Speaker 2: don't use AI applications for anything that would quote likely
Speaker 2: cause harm. And that's that's out. And in this another
Speaker 2: is a blog post, Google said, Hey, democracies should lead
Speaker 2: an AI development guided by this thing they call core
Speaker 2: values like freedom, equality and respect for human rights leged ego. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it reminds me of that politicians video we made way
Speaker 2: back in the day.
Speaker 3: Ben Oh, I love that one.
Speaker 2: Equality, respect for human rights.
Speaker 3: Yeah, please watch that one.
Speaker 4: That was great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they said, quote and we believe that companies, governments,
Speaker 2: and organizations sharing these values should work together to create
Speaker 2: AI that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and everybody, we're we're doing these amazing hand gestures here.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately we're an audio podcast. You'll have to check out
Speaker 3: You'll have to check out that video. But it does.
Speaker 3: It does always come the iron It's so weird. In
Speaker 3: the modern day, the iron fist so often comes disguised
Speaker 3: as an open hand, does it not?
Speaker 4: Yep, yep, yeah, Well an open hand though when close
Speaker 4: turns into a fist.
Speaker 2: Right, oh, that hand, and it's connected to an arm,
Speaker 2: connected to a torso to another arm in another hand,
Speaker 2: and you never know which hand is which.
Speaker 3: Right, right, and the fingers appear to be independent, independent,
Speaker 3: separate entities.
Speaker 4: From far enough away you see the hand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe we're far away. But there's there is
Speaker 3: another point I think we should we should make here map,
Speaker 3: which is their argument is very similar to earlier arms
Speaker 3: race arguments, like you guys remember hearing about you know,
Speaker 3: nuclear breakthroughs at the end of World War two and
Speaker 3: the idea that the the idea that won the day
Speaker 3: out in DC over an oak ridge out in Los
Speaker 3: Alamos was always something like was always this, Hey, we
Speaker 3: know you're a science you know you're working for peace, right,
Speaker 3: do good, don't be evil, advance human progress. However, if
Speaker 3: we don't build this, the bad guys will. Therefore, right,
Speaker 3: we know, we know something dangerous looms on the horizon,
Speaker 3: and who gets to put the collar on this monster first,
Speaker 3: this dog of war? And that's the argument here, so
Speaker 3: or alphabet I should say, probably internally is having that
Speaker 3: kind of philosophical debate with itself and its government attachments,
Speaker 3: and they're saying, look, yes, is this stinky? Sure, but
Speaker 3: in this case we want to be the ones with
Speaker 3: the bag of poop that might destroy the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I slipped up on the analogy at the end, but the.
Speaker 2: Rest of what we get it, we're with you.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: So just to connect those last two stories, does anybody
Speaker 2: remember the Pentagon's project called Project.
Speaker 4: I don't think I do. Right off, Remind me.
Speaker 2: It was a big deal when Alphabet first announced that
Speaker 2: they would be working on this thing, Project Maven. Twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: I think is the time when Maven really took off.
Speaker 2: This is the thing I had to do with automated
Speaker 2: weapons systems and using AI to identify targets, and a
Speaker 2: bunch of people at Google said, hey, that's not what
Speaker 2: we do here. Did anybody read the guidelines, you know,
Speaker 2: the employee manual. It was a big deal. It's still
Speaker 2: going on. Project Maven is still occurring. Intelligence agencies took
Speaker 2: over for a while there. It's getting weirder and weirder,
Speaker 2: and Alphabet seems to have just relaxed a bit of
Speaker 2: their internal controls on what they will or won't produce
Speaker 2: as part of that project.
Speaker 3: Oh and Palanteer is in there as well, right, as
Speaker 3: part of that one, as Maven.
Speaker 2: I don't remember that one. What is that one?
Speaker 4: Pallanteer?
Speaker 3: Oh, this ties back to our first story with Musk
Speaker 3: and Doge. They're big data analytics. We've talked about them
Speaker 3: in episodes in the past. They are, uh, they are
Speaker 3: the ones who were founded by Peter Thiel, which the
Speaker 3: name should be familiar. He's a kind of a power
Speaker 3: behind the throne for Elon Musk or a big proponent
Speaker 3: of technocratic oligarchy.
Speaker 4: Also, wasn't he a guy?
Speaker 2: That was he the Gawker guy?
Speaker 4: Feals like, didn't he have something to do with bringing down.
Speaker 3: Gawker because they ran an unfavorable story about him?
Speaker 4: He?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, right now?
Speaker 4: He they published he.
Speaker 3: Funded a movement or he funded Hulk Holgan. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: Gawker had outed feel about several things related to business
Speaker 3: in his personal.
Speaker 4: Life and the sexuality that's right, exact right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then eventually he was wealthy enough that he
Speaker 3: was able to bankrupt Gawker.
Speaker 4: I only bring that up because that kind of thinking,
Speaker 4: that sort of like you know, moral authority on the
Speaker 4: part of these these technocrats is something that really concerns
Speaker 4: me because you know, to that to that quote about
Speaker 4: Elon from the friend the former associate, that it's a
Speaker 4: they think they're above everyone and that after a certain point,
Speaker 4: with a certain amount of wealth, there is no real
Speaker 4: rubric for morality anymore. It's just kind of this God
Speaker 4: complex where like you believe that you are the ultimate
Speaker 4: moral authority.
Speaker 3: And perhaps Alphabet's doing doing something similar, or perhaps they
Speaker 3: see it as not just like a moral superiority, but
Speaker 3: perhaps they see it as an an ethically fraught existential necessity.
Speaker 3: Right again, do you want do you want Alphabet at
Speaker 3: the wheel or do you want whomever controls deep Seek?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Boy.
Speaker 2: By the way, this this announcement from Alphabet came right
Speaker 2: after they just put out their financial report which said
Speaker 2: they were up ten percent, but it was not what
Speaker 2: the market expected, so their share price went down. So
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, we need more money, and I'm just
Speaker 2: imagining the defense stuff. Is the the fit.
Speaker 4: Take the guardrails off, Yeah, open up a little bit
Speaker 4: more cash flow revenue streams.
Speaker 3: Yes, the market is getting wild, you guys. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: whole thing.
Speaker 2: Doge coin is going whatever. I'm just kidding, is it really?
Speaker 2: I don't know, doche I'm gonna buy just a craft
Speaker 2: ton of doge coin. Besides, that's the new currency.
Speaker 4: I have a handful as a joke, but I will
Speaker 4: say that in general, the stock market is booming right now.
Speaker 4: It's kind of intriguing. I mean, it seems like almost
Speaker 4: like too good to be true, and that like a
Speaker 4: crash is eminent. But whatever, it's interesting to behold.
Speaker 2: Check out history boo what happened before? Okay, anyway, Alphabet
Speaker 2: said in its earnings report the company would spend seventy
Speaker 2: five billion dollars on AI projects this year. That's twenty
Speaker 2: nine percent more than Wall Street analysts had expected. And
Speaker 2: with that, we'll be right back with more strange news.
Speaker 4: And we've returned. I'm gonna lead with another economic story
Speaker 4: involving the price of goods that many Americans and citizens
Speaker 4: of the world quite enjoy and rely on for sustenance.
Speaker 4: We're talking, of course, about the humble chicken egg, which
Speaker 4: came first. That the chicken or the chicken egg. I
Speaker 4: still don't know. I don't think anybody doesn't.
Speaker 3: Technically, the chicken had to come first. For the egg
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 4: That's really right, Ben No, No, I've day you're not cutting.
Speaker 3: Noll you the devil, you all.
Speaker 2: It's got egg fertilization jokes.
Speaker 4: I know, Come on, bad come, I'm going to repeat
Speaker 4: it if you don't cut I'm going to repeat it
Speaker 4: and credit you for it if you cut it. AnyWho,
Speaker 4: the price of eggs are through the roof. I don't
Speaker 4: know if you guys remember there was an old Tim
Speaker 4: and Eric sketch starring Oh gosh, I'm forgetting his name,
Speaker 4: the guy who played Bobby Bacola in The Sopranos, who
Speaker 4: does that Sopranos podcast with, or at least did for
Speaker 4: a while with Michael imperially, And I'm totally forgetting his name.
Speaker 4: But he's also in that show Blue Blood. He did
Speaker 4: a sketch on Tim and Eric where it was basically
Speaker 4: a kit that would allow you to lay your own eggs,
Speaker 4: you know. In the line is with the price of
Speaker 4: eggs going through the roof. I just passed a dozen
Speaker 4: eggs through my rea, you know. And it's just it
Speaker 4: makes me think of that because it's true, the price
Speaker 4: of eggs are indeed through the roof, not because of
Speaker 4: tariffs or anything like that, which to a listener point
Speaker 4: writing in Ben, I'm sure you agree. Definitely worth the discussion,
Speaker 4: a larger discussion just on the nature of tariffs, the
Speaker 4: history of tariffs, and we could talk about that Star
Speaker 4: Wars movie everyone hated about tariffs. That seems weirdly prescient now.
Speaker 2: We brought it up a little while ago, the Smooth
Speaker 2: Holly Act.
Speaker 3: I think that's correct, Haley, which we'll have an episode on.
Speaker 3: I think we have to right.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. But because of not tariffs or other
Speaker 4: you know, economic considerations, but rather bird flu, the bird
Speaker 4: flu epidemic. The price of eggs are indeed true to roof,
Speaker 4: and this was just causing them to be treated as
Speaker 4: pretty hot commodities, as evidenced by the fact that one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand of those little fellas were stolen from a
Speaker 4: US grocery company worth in the neighborhood of forty thousand
Speaker 4: dollars in the state of Pennsylvania off the back. They
Speaker 4: fell off the back of a truck at Pete and
Speaker 4: Jerry's Organic in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, on the first of February.
Speaker 4: According to police.
Speaker 3: That's right, folks, it's time for another sound c high story.
Speaker 3: We couldn't leave you without a Gopis this step two?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Indeed, so you know, there is a government data
Speaker 4: showing that the price of eggs are up nearly more
Speaker 4: more than rather sixty five percent in the last year.
Speaker 4: The Department of Agriculture has predicted further increases of around
Speaker 4: twenty percent in the year twenty twenty five, in which
Speaker 4: we currently reside. Another kind of we talk about the
Speaker 4: waffle House index, right Ben, when it comes to predicting
Speaker 4: how bad weather events are, well, there's another waffle House index,
Speaker 4: and that is about how bad the price of eggs
Speaker 4: have become. We know, Ben and I actually recently had
Speaker 4: the pleasure of touring the waffle House Museum here in
Speaker 4: in Decatur, Georgia. Waffle Houses, of course a Georgia based company,
Speaker 4: and we know that they have a history of being
Speaker 4: very reasonable with their prices and their accommendations and really
Speaker 4: treating the customer as the most important part of the equation,
Speaker 4: and they don't like to raise prices. But waffle House
Speaker 4: recently announced a fifty cent per egg surcharge for everyone
Speaker 4: of their US location. They're referring to it. I know
Speaker 4: they're referring to it as temporary targeted surcharge tied to
Speaker 4: the unprecedented rise in egg prices. If anyone who's maybe
Speaker 4: from a part of the country that doesn't have waffle houses.
Speaker 4: One of the features of their open kitchen kind of
Speaker 4: diner situation is just giant stacks of eggs, you know,
Speaker 4: in these like metal wire baskets, like on top of
Speaker 4: like on a shelf above where the grill, the flat
Speaker 4: top grill is. Eggs are huge. They have many classic
Speaker 4: breakfast items where eggs are the staple. In fact, there
Speaker 4: are two egg breakfast that comes with a side as
Speaker 4: well as a piece of toast. I believe it can
Speaker 4: be raisin, rye or wheat or white from not mistaken. Yeah,
Speaker 4: not a f mass.
Speaker 3: This is our biggest This remains our deepest division. And
Speaker 3: we beat me again here, Andrew. We argue all the
Speaker 3: time with each other, and this is the main argument
Speaker 3: that is going to tear our show apart. I respect,
Speaker 3: I respect your choices, I have your back, but I
Speaker 3: am not participating. And and look, this is just to
Speaker 3: interject here, fifty cents per egg sounds wild. And we
Speaker 3: are not paid by waffle House. We're just fans.
Speaker 4: We're sounds really cool. You can get your guided tour
Speaker 4: if you can reach out. It's actually they're really really accommodating.
Speaker 3: They're super nice. And also we have to point out
Speaker 3: we are not paid to be like waffle House ops
Speaker 3: or anything of that sort. But just just to understand
Speaker 3: the impact, because what I was I was on the road,
Speaker 3: was reading this story and uh, and my girlfriend shared
Speaker 3: it with me, and at first I thought, Okay, maybe
Speaker 3: this is a fact roll headline of some sort or another.
Speaker 3: But no, fifty cents is quite steep too for waffle House,
Speaker 3: and we know that they don't want to do it.
Speaker 3: They're not They're not like a villainous copy.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I truly believe them when they say that their
Speaker 4: customers are very important to them and they do treat
Speaker 4: them with respect. And I think most people that frequent
Speaker 4: waffle Houses are are fans because they have a good product.
Speaker 4: It's a reasonable price. But I was just mentioning that
Speaker 4: two egg breakfast with the toast and the side, whichever
Speaker 4: toast you what. Indeed, Mania has as of Tuesday been
Speaker 4: listed at seven seventy five, which you know, to me
Speaker 4: still seems relatively reasonable. But you know, inflation is crazy,
Speaker 4: and it used to be that the breakfast like that
Speaker 4: would just be like a couple of bucks. And we
Speaker 4: when we went to the waffle House Museum, they actually
Speaker 4: it's in one of the original waffle House locations and
Speaker 4: they have a model of you know, the old school,
Speaker 4: original open kitchen diner design, and they have some of
Speaker 4: the old prices, and I was just amazing with inflation,
Speaker 4: Like I think the most expensive item was like a filmnion.
Speaker 4: It's for a buck fifty, and that was like by
Speaker 4: far the most expensive item at that time that would
Speaker 4: have been considered like a luxury item. Most other things
Speaker 4: were about twenty five cents, and I wish we had
Speaker 4: in front of us. But the price of eggs, you know,
Speaker 4: in the in the fifties, when this diner chain first opened,
Speaker 4: I think they were like, you know, ten ten cents
Speaker 4: or something like that per egg. So a fifty cent
Speaker 4: per egg surcharge is historically nothing to sneeze at and just.
Speaker 3: Dolls extra for every every dish you order. Two years,
Speaker 3: we're going to have a minimum.
Speaker 4: Of two right, that's exactly right. There have to date
Speaker 4: been sixty seven confirmed bird flu infections since twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four rather to date since twenty twenty four, and that's
Speaker 4: according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We
Speaker 4: do also know that the center for Disease Control and
Speaker 4: Prevention have recently been more less gagged from, you know,
Speaker 4: communicating with the public about these matters for the time
Speaker 4: being as transitions take place. So TBD on that. But
Speaker 4: we do know that this H five and one bird
Speaker 4: flu strain has been spreading among birds, wild birds, cows, poultry,
Speaker 4: and other animals, and it is giving a lot more
Speaker 4: opportunities for exposure to human people, this being of course
Speaker 4: a zoonautic virus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we see also we see great concern in
Speaker 3: the knock on consequences for the supply chain. It's interesting
Speaker 3: if you're on local social media, you will probably depending
Speaker 3: on where you live in the US, who will probably
Speaker 3: run into people who say, hey, I know a local farmer, right,
Speaker 3: I know someone who's not part of Big Chicken or
Speaker 3: Big egg loosely put, and that seems to be where
Speaker 3: more and more people are finding eggs that sometimes are
Speaker 3: more affordable than what you see at the grocery store.
Speaker 3: It's it's just weird because it's such an economic reverse
Speaker 3: of the usual status quo.
Speaker 4: That is a good point, Ben. It does make you wonder,
Speaker 4: are we going to start seeing more backyard chicken coops?
Speaker 4: And if that is the case, are we going to
Speaker 4: start seeing more regulations of said backyard chicken coops.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: That would be a tough one to pull off. That
Speaker 3: would take some real or welly and double think for
Speaker 3: the current to crack down. Yeah, for the yes to
Speaker 3: crack up.
Speaker 4: But I mean technically you have to be zoned appropriately
Speaker 4: to have livestock, and I mean chickens are still aren't
Speaker 4: they considered that? Can anybody just have a chicken coop?
Speaker 4: It is my understanding that there are some restrictions around that.
Speaker 4: Growing your own food and having you know, animals, farm animals,
Speaker 4: you know, on a residential property.
Speaker 3: Yes, but yes, you're absolutely right, state by state, municipality
Speaker 3: by a municipality. If you have a real persnickety, power
Speaker 3: hungry hoa person, then your results may vary. But also
Speaker 3: in the larger context and the precedent of things. This
Speaker 3: is kind of what you guys remember the Great Depression.
Speaker 3: This is what happened during a previous economic collapse. People
Speaker 3: were forced to have gardens like victory gardens. During the
Speaker 3: World Wars, people were forced to grow as much of
Speaker 3: their own stuff as they could. So if you ever consider,
Speaker 3: not to be alarmist, but if you ever consider a
Speaker 3: survival situation, please remember the stuff you need to learn
Speaker 3: and know is not the stuff that looks cool in movies.
Speaker 4: It's things like how to find.
Speaker 3: And purify water and how to raise chickens so that
Speaker 3: you have food. I don't know, should we get chickens?
Speaker 4: It certainly seems like a good forward thinking move at
Speaker 4: this plant.
Speaker 2: So I'm saying we need to go back to that
Speaker 2: chicken dead and get some chickens. Find out how we
Speaker 2: do it, let's make it happen. Made me think about
Speaker 2: the price of mayonnaise, with all the eggs that go
Speaker 2: into mayonnaise, A gallon of Duke's mayo about thirty three
Speaker 2: bucks right now.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, that's amazing. Is this Whole Foods? Is that
Speaker 3: where these numbers are coming from?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm just making stuff up there that it comes from
Speaker 2: the webstaurant store.
Speaker 4: I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2: You can get a thirty pound tub of restaurant Duke's
Speaker 2: mayo for one hundred bucks. I don't know if that's
Speaker 2: good or bad.
Speaker 3: I bet that's a man. Life at the top must
Speaker 3: be crazy. I bet Musk is ordering one right now.
Speaker 3: So it's true too. It's baffling and the fuddling because
Speaker 3: this brings us to another conspiracy that I would say
Speaker 3: is diving and conspiracy theory. It's a proven thing. Corporations
Speaker 3: did have to raise prices during the pandemic right due
Speaker 3: to supply chain collapse, but then realize they didn't have
Speaker 3: to immediately drop them. There's no one making them go
Speaker 3: back to quote unquote normal, So they took that slow ride,
Speaker 3: that slow boat, and then ate there as much of
Speaker 3: their vigoroush as they could along the way. And I
Speaker 3: would say that you know part of this like yeah,
Speaker 3: like you said, Noel, it's definitely due to it's definitely
Speaker 3: due to those zoonotic concerns and av and flu. But
Speaker 3: once even if that gets solved without a huge outbreak,
Speaker 3: I don't think the prices are going to go down
Speaker 3: as quickly as they should to just the raw economics
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 4: Well, and I know, I know this is outside the
Speaker 4: scope of this particular topic and something that we're going
Speaker 4: to discuss some more detail later, but with these tariffs
Speaker 4: and the corresponding price hikes that are going to get
Speaker 4: clearly passed on to the consumer, how do you see
Speaker 4: that shaking out? Especially given that a big, you know,
Speaker 4: thing that the Trump administration campaigned on was like bringing
Speaker 4: down the price of groceries. A big reason a lot
Speaker 4: of people apparently voted for for the man it was
Speaker 4: because they felt like Biden had failed them or their
Speaker 4: Democrats had failed them in terms of just normal everyday
Speaker 4: concerns for everyday people, Like, how do you see all
Speaker 4: that shaking out?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Matt, we might have different opinions on this, but
Speaker 3: I suspect that all three of us, I think, will
Speaker 3: have the same analysis. The goal to controlling a narrative
Speaker 3: at a wide scale like this is you one you
Speaker 3: control the problem, which means you create the problem, and
Speaker 3: then two you solve the problem you created. If you
Speaker 3: cannot solve the problem you created, you find a scapegoat.
Speaker 3: And the scapegoat could be any number of things. In
Speaker 3: this case, I think what we'll properly see if a
Speaker 3: scapegoat is needed, is going to be other countries.
Speaker 4: Quite honestly, no question about it. Yeah, and then it's
Speaker 4: such a classic move too, is to create the problem
Speaker 4: and then sell the solution to the people and click
Speaker 4: credit for that as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's raisin toast. It's basically rap.
Speaker 4: It is mega raisins. I think we're going to use
Speaker 4: that as a stand in for all things bad. I'm sorry, Matt.
Speaker 4: I want you to enjoy the things that you enjoy. Guys,
Speaker 4: I was going to talk about all the microplastics in
Speaker 4: our brains, and I guess I just have because that
Speaker 4: is absolutely a story that has has hit the news.
Speaker 4: A recent study from a serious scientific journal, Nature Medicine.
Speaker 4: I'll just read you a quick excerpt from from the
Speaker 4: from the abstract. This is by a massive cavalcade of
Speaker 4: serious researchers. I went too long, list too long to
Speaker 4: name here. Rising global concentrations of environmental microplastics and nanoplastics
Speaker 4: drive concerns for human exposure and health outcomes. Complimentary methods
Speaker 4: for the robust detection of tissue MNPs, including cyroholysis, gas chromatography,
Speaker 4: mass spectrometry, attenuated total reference forty trans form infrared spectroscopy,
Speaker 4: and electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy confirm the presence
Speaker 4: of MNPs in human kidney, liver, and brains. And to
Speaker 4: put it in slightly more Layman's terms here real quickly
Speaker 4: will refer to an article from CBS by Sarah Monezuko.
Speaker 4: Human brains contain higher concentrations of microplastics than other organs,
Speaker 4: according to a new study, and the amount appears to
Speaker 4: be increasing over time. So I think, look it up.
Speaker 4: There's definitely something to be gleaned from the abstract of
Speaker 4: the document itself, of the study itself. We'll leave you
Speaker 4: with microplastics being of course, these tiny microscopic There are
Speaker 4: of course also nano plastics of degraded polymers that are
Speaker 4: found the environment, including air, water, and soil. And the
Speaker 4: most common version of this that is being found in
Speaker 4: human brains through autopsies through sections that have historically shown
Speaker 4: increases of this over time is polyethylene, which is a
Speaker 4: material that is used in plastic bags and tupperware and
Speaker 4: things like that. It also seems to be part of
Speaker 4: a cycle wherein these things are found in water, which
Speaker 4: is then used to irrigate fields, which is then used
Speaker 4: to you know, water livestock, which are then you know,
Speaker 4: excreting manure that is then also used to fertilize crops,
Speaker 4: and it's just a kind of self feeding system. These
Speaker 4: micro and nanoplastics, by the way, measure two hundred nanometers
Speaker 4: or less and therefore are able to cross the blood
Speaker 4: brain barrier. Yeah, and just to put it in like
Speaker 4: you know, quantitative terms, apparently many human brains may contain
Speaker 4: as much as what would physically resemble a spoonful of
Speaker 4: this stuff. Oh yes, sorry to leave with such a
Speaker 4: bomber guy. And then I hope you guys have something
Speaker 4: to add to bring it home. But I did think
Speaker 4: this was worth mentioning. I don't think we need to
Speaker 4: go into a much deeper I don't want to doom
Speaker 4: and gloom the hell out of us, but it is
Speaker 4: something that people should be aware of. And you know,
Speaker 4: are we all going to die of cancer tomorrow from
Speaker 4: this stuff? No, but it's just, you know, it's just
Speaker 4: scary and an example of the way the knock on
Speaker 4: effects of innovation and things that were not done with
Speaker 4: that like this is this, like asbestos was not the
Speaker 4: end of this kind of thing of materials that were
Speaker 4: just used so prominently, only then to be realized we're
Speaker 4: toxic long term. You know, we're still living in an
Speaker 4: age where we're going to keep seeing stuff like that.
Speaker 4: That's that's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, microplastics, the new B two B right, brain to
Speaker 3: balls and.
Speaker 4: Yeah that was the last one, right, was not the last?
Speaker 4: The surprise that we're in your testicles?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the wombs are more concerning, honestly, the
Speaker 3: fetal transfer because of the effects that we'll have on
Speaker 3: neural logical development. But please keep in mind that these
Speaker 3: stories go viral.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The science is there, The science is credible, but it
Speaker 3: also maybe makes us focus too much on one hand
Speaker 3: when we have to remember the other hands at play.
Speaker 3: I'm doing a really cool hand thing. Hey whatever, we're
Speaker 3: an audio podcast. But like, lead exposure is still real. Right,
Speaker 3: there's a reason why smoking rates are higher in parts
Speaker 3: of Western Europe or parts of Asia, and people also
Speaker 3: have lower rates of cancer.
Speaker 4: That's right, you know what, Ben, that's really well said.
Speaker 4: I never really quite made that connection, but I think
Speaker 4: you're absolutely right. I mean, I'm sure you've got the
Speaker 4: data to back then there's more stuff than the tracks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but a spoonful huh, spoonful of sugar?
Speaker 2: Now, What would Steve Sharippa have to say about that? Noel,
Speaker 2: that's his name. Yeah, I just passed. I just passed
Speaker 2: a half. But does an egg through my rea?
Speaker 4: He would say that that's the only thing he knows
Speaker 4: how to say with.
Speaker 3: A catch with little plastic spects.
Speaker 2: They looked eggs an egg for you exactly on top of.
Speaker 4: The base price. Yeah. I do have one unrelated silly
Speaker 4: thing to add. I was hanging out with a friend
Speaker 4: at an event that I was part of here in
Speaker 4: New York yesterday, and he has I think we all
Speaker 4: have a mavericky, you know, hustler friend like this that
Speaker 4: we grew up with who always sort of like had
Speaker 4: their finger on the pultse and was trying to hustle
Speaker 4: and make a little extra coin. This is a guy
Speaker 4: who apparently ran like illegal card games for a while,
Speaker 4: and his new hustle has been selling counterfeit Donald Trump
Speaker 4: autographs on eBay and he apparently is absolutely cleaning up.
Speaker 4: I posit to you, guys, who propose to you? Guys?
Speaker 4: How long can a con like that go on before
Speaker 4: the powers that be catch up to you. I mean,
Speaker 4: all of these transactions are clearly trackable, Like I just
Speaker 4: I'm curious what you guys think about that.
Speaker 3: It depends, to be honest with you, it depends upon
Speaker 3: the financial threshold. That's what grand that's what's bigger. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's great for now. I would just be very careful
Speaker 3: about how the how the frequency works, and how the
Speaker 3: distribution and withdrawal works, because uh, eBay eBay is kind
Speaker 3: of like the FEDS with bank with with bank deposits,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, there's a reason why. Back
Speaker 3: in the day, and not accusing anybody in the crowd,
Speaker 3: but this doesn't work anymore. Okay, Back in the day,
Speaker 3: if you had some money you needed to clean and
Speaker 3: you wanted to go to the bank. Let's see, you
Speaker 3: had one hundred thousand dollars, then you went to ten
Speaker 3: different banks and made sure to deposit less than ten
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in each one of them.
Speaker 4: That is not going to work. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: And so so there I would just I would just
Speaker 3: diplomatically consult your friend, don't do advice, don't get evolved,
Speaker 3: but just observe with them. Call it an observation that
Speaker 3: there are certain triggers and thresholds. That's what's going to
Speaker 3: do it I don't think. I genuinely don't think the
Speaker 3: Trump administration itself, or the Trump campaign or the many
Speaker 3: Trump companies would care until it gets past a certain threshold.
Speaker 4: Beware the gaze of Doge. It's easily they're coming for you. Well,
Speaker 4: that's all I got for today, guys.
Speaker 3: And with that, we want to hear what you've got,
Speaker 3: Show me what you've got. We know we encountered a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff. We're bringing some levity to this because
Speaker 3: it is regardless of where you follow, ideologically, it is
Speaker 3: a very uncertain time for the United States, which means
Speaker 3: therefore it is a very uncertain time for the world overall.
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Speaker 3: like this and other episodes we've recorded earlier, and see
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