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
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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nola.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly are you.
Speaker 3: You are here that makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know? And oh geez, friends and neighbors,
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realists. It feels so good to be back
Speaker 3: to the best part of the show. You and all
Speaker 3: of your fellow listeners. I like you guys, stick around,
Speaker 3: Oh please do you might be on the show this evening.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk with several people. We don't know
Speaker 3: how much we'll be able to get to. We had
Speaker 3: some excellent conversations we alluded to about the our episode
Speaker 3: on the Manchester Pusher. Because again, props to props to you, Matt,
Speaker 3: that's one of the many ideas I was digging up
Speaker 3: through the trenches and I originally didn't want to do it,
Speaker 3: and you said we had to, so credit where it's due.
Speaker 3: You were absolutely correct. We actually had some law enforcement
Speaker 3: right back about that one, we're going to hear from. Additionally,
Speaker 3: we're gonna hear about some Hulla Blues internationally. Let's see
Speaker 3: what else we got here. We got we got a
Speaker 3: Randy of the bigger variety. Then we also have a
Speaker 3: little bit of a Dey project and we have some Oh,
Speaker 3: we have such wonders to show you. Is that the
Speaker 3: line is that the line bound.
Speaker 4: Heard email it every time? Or you know the hell Raiser,
Speaker 4: the movie, the ride and the adaptation. Yes, sir, yes sir.
Speaker 4: So what do you what do we say?
Speaker 3: Gens? What if we what if we pause for a
Speaker 3: second for a word from our sponsors? Full disclosure. By
Speaker 3: the way, Nolan and I have not really had a
Speaker 3: chance to super kick it with you, Matt or with
Speaker 3: you Dylan post travel, So making some space there to see.
Speaker 3: How are you doing? Man?
Speaker 2: Just upset you're spending time with another Matt when I'm
Speaker 2: not around.
Speaker 4: Stillo is the matted question. I like him too, but
Speaker 4: he can never replace our Matt. You're you're the og
Speaker 4: Matt Matty. Two hands, Mattie, both hands, Mattie.
Speaker 2: All right? Well, yes, uh doing good? Dylan, you doing fine.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Dylan the audio engineer, by the way, has
Speaker 4: been doing more than I'm sorry. What I'm describing is
Speaker 4: Dylan's ability is to engineer miraculous audio. We've got this
Speaker 4: saying that we use when we start recording talking about Dylan.
Speaker 5: Yea, Dylan created in the first place. What is it, guys?
Speaker 5: Digging up to dig up?
Speaker 4: Time to dig up through to Vegas and somehow it's
Speaker 4: just loned into this. Every single week we do listener mail,
Speaker 4: Dylan has contributed a new dig up the Rude Begas
Speaker 4: sound c And I think we're gonna make space here
Speaker 4: at the beginning of listener Mail to hear.
Speaker 3: Those further further behind the scenes while we're peeking. Uh, Dylan,
Speaker 3: I want to give credit where it's due that you
Speaker 3: have You have done a tremendous job of approaching and
Speaker 3: interrogating genre. Yes, praise dig Up the Ruta bagas Dylan.
Speaker 3: Can you bless us and our fellow conspiracy realist playing
Speaker 3: along at home with tonight's clip time. I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it. Dylan. Huge jazz, which I think we
Speaker 3: all we all need a little more smooth jazz in
Speaker 3: our lives.
Speaker 4: It sounds like a public radio like Pledge drive bumper.
Speaker 4: There's the music you just that kind of smooth am
Speaker 4: gold vibe that you that you found there.
Speaker 5: Good good job, sir.
Speaker 3: And with that, we're going to pause for a word
Speaker 3: from our sponsors and we'll return to hear from you.
Speaker 2: And we are back. We are jumping to the phone
Speaker 2: lines to hear from Alpha Flight, who called on February fourth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. That date is important because the day
Speaker 2: before there was a certain NBA game that was played
Speaker 2: that we're going to hear about and then we're gonna
Speaker 2: have some further discussion. So here's Alpha Flight.
Speaker 6: Hey guys, Alpha Flight here calling in regards to this
Speaker 6: pullabaloo between the tariff with the US and Canada. Realize
Speaker 6: it kind of seems a little bit benign. In addition
Speaker 6: to all the craziness is happening on your end of
Speaker 6: the border, just a couple crazy things that happened even
Speaker 6: just today, specifically the fact that within the span of
Speaker 6: about four hours here in Ontario are pre here Doug Ford,
Speaker 6: who is the brother of former Toronto mayor and KRACK
Speaker 6: enthusiast Rob Ford, with the LCBO to the liquor Control
Speaker 6: Board of Ontario where they took all of the American
Speaker 6: alcohol off the shelves, which is apparently yearly a roughly
Speaker 6: one billion dollar industry. Also paused a one hundred million
Speaker 6: dollars deal with Starlink as well as blocked and they
Speaker 6: did illegal for American companies to have provincial contracts within Ontario.
Speaker 6: And my understanding is a lot of the other provinces
Speaker 6: followed suit with this. Now, the crazy thing that happened
Speaker 6: is all that seems to be off the table now
Speaker 6: because President Trump recanted his his tariffs for at least
Speaker 6: thirty days. So it was great, but whole feeling of
Speaker 6: uneasiness here between Canada and the States, I just kind
Speaker 6: of wanted to get your take on it. Just feeling
Speaker 6: a little a little weird between us. Uh, this this
Speaker 6: relationships feeling a little strained. I was actually at a
Speaker 6: Raptors game yesterday and the national anthem, the US national anthem,
Speaker 6: i should say, was booed very loudly. It was cheered immensely.
Speaker 6: So it's just things like that that are It just
Speaker 6: seems so Uncanadian for us to be in this kind
Speaker 6: of sad hella baloop before. But I'll say all up
Speaker 6: and upgrade into a full blown kerfuffle between the So
Speaker 6: uh yeah, I just wanted your your takes on it. Anyway,
Speaker 6: I love the show, love hearing from you guys, and U.
Speaker 6: I won't bring up that saying Ben, don't worry in
Speaker 6: my nose is in the you know your seekers safest me.
Speaker 6: All right, take your guys.
Speaker 5: Oh good god man, all right, guys.
Speaker 4: Prime Man of Canada Justin Trudeau just echoed most of
Speaker 4: that sentiment in a public statement or a public press conference.
Speaker 4: So he talked about, you know, we're hurt over here.
Speaker 4: We don't understand why our partners would do something that
Speaker 4: would try to hurt us. It feels as though the
Speaker 4: administration of the United States trying to collapse the or
Speaker 4: you know, injure the economy of Canada. And he said
Speaker 4: the thing about booing the national anthem. But then he
Speaker 4: also talked to individual humans who are Americans, saying we're
Speaker 4: not mad at you, are still your brothers and sisters
Speaker 4: and all of that.
Speaker 5: So I don't know, Yeah, we feel bad, we feel
Speaker 5: weird about it too.
Speaker 2: Before we get into the full kerfuffle here for a discussion,
Speaker 2: let's hear from that national anthem instance at the Toronto
Speaker 2: Raptors game played on February third, I believe it was
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. This is just a quick little snippet
Speaker 2: just so we hear exactly what Alpha Flight's talking about.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel good at all.
Speaker 3: Well, it's not you, guys fault. You're not the we're
Speaker 3: not at the at the helm of the wheel of
Speaker 3: power here. But it is understandable. And if I could
Speaker 3: just take a moment and say, first Alpha Flight, thank
Speaker 3: you h for referencing one of the best superhero teams
Speaker 3: in all of comicdom. And then secondly, yeah, thank you
Speaker 3: for your confidentiality. Let's keep that incident.
Speaker 4: What was the super team? I might I might have
Speaker 4: missed that. Alpha I don't know about it. Tell us
Speaker 4: Alpha Flight is awesome.
Speaker 3: It's I don't want to derail z. I'll send you
Speaker 3: way too many things. I also have some graphic way universe.
Speaker 3: Is this from Alpha Flight is market making?
Speaker 2: Just to make a quick point that it it's certainly
Speaker 2: there's no responsibility felt when it comes to just feeling
Speaker 2: bad hearing the national anthem boot I think it's just
Speaker 2: generally a.
Speaker 5: Be an American.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what it means right now, whether you're complicit in
Speaker 4: it directly or not, we are seen as Americans, we
Speaker 4: are seen as party to this kind of stuff, and
Speaker 4: it feels bad.
Speaker 2: Well, it makes you understand why Alpha Flight is just
Speaker 2: feeling personally so uncomfortable with it. Right on a personal level.
Speaker 2: It just stings in some way, all of this stuff,
Speaker 2: So gosh, I guess let's get there's so much to
Speaker 2: discuss here. We're going to be discussing tariffs at length
Speaker 2: very soon in an episode. But this is just getting
Speaker 2: us up to date on some of the real time
Speaker 2: stuff that's happening. Even today on March seventh, as we're
Speaker 2: recording this, there are live updates occurring where there are
Speaker 2: just back and forth essentially retaliations that are occurring, where
Speaker 2: tariffs are going up against Canada. Canada is retaliating with
Speaker 2: tariffs against the United States, and then threats about further
Speaker 2: tariffs against Canada are being made by the President of
Speaker 2: the United States, and it is just going back and
Speaker 2: forth and back and forth, and nobody is happy. I
Speaker 2: don't think at least the human beings that are going
Speaker 2: to be affected by these decisions and statements are. We're
Speaker 2: not happy. Russia is super Yeah, anybody that wants to
Speaker 2: destabilize maybe allies that couldn't.
Speaker 4: Be a been feeling a little destable guys just as
Speaker 4: a citizen, you know.
Speaker 3: Huh, well consider you know, we saw the some of
Speaker 3: the correspondents via conspiracydiheartradio dot com regarding the attitudes of
Speaker 3: what the media is selling to the public. Right In
Speaker 3: our earlier episodes, we explored the the works like Foundations
Speaker 3: of Geopolitics by Alexander Dugan and how this is step
Speaker 3: in step the current US policies are indeed step in
Speaker 3: step with some of the goals outlined in that work.
Speaker 3: Please do check out our previous episode. I do also
Speaker 3: just want to point out this has already held immediate
Speaker 3: consequences for the economy of certain states, particularly the economy
Speaker 3: of Kentucky, which is reliant upon selling alcohol to the north,
Speaker 3: you know, up north, and you can you can find
Speaker 3: many viral clips now of Canadian institutions or stores, grocery stores, whatever,
Speaker 3: pulling American products up to an including the hard liquor
Speaker 3: from the shelves because they are American.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the Liquor Board officially said you cannot sell
Speaker 2: American liquor anymore. So it's gone off the shelves. It's
Speaker 2: too bad. And then you can go to Canada dot
Speaker 2: c A and you can find a quote list of
Speaker 2: products from the United States subject to twenty five percent
Speaker 2: tariffs effective March fourth, twenty twenty five. And guys, when
Speaker 2: I say this one's a scroller, this one's a scroller.
Speaker 2: It goes everything from meat and edible offal of the
Speaker 2: poultry heading zero one zero five fresh chilled or frozen,
Speaker 2: all the way down to rice, all the way down
Speaker 2: to cane or beet, sugar pastas at. Literally everything and
Speaker 2: anything that you can imagine that is a product that
Speaker 2: could be imported from the United States is on here,
Speaker 2: including lighting fixtures and lighting fittings, seats, other furnitures, firearms,
Speaker 2: other firearms, refrigerators, glassware, it's literally everything.
Speaker 3: You gotta love firearms and arms because I love you know,
Speaker 3: it's like reading between the lines and these statements. Somebody goes, okay, yeah, firearms,
Speaker 3: and then someone got in front of it and said,
Speaker 3: now the other ones too, smart guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah. And then just ten hours ago, the
Speaker 2: BBC wrote about how Donald Trump, or you know, the
Speaker 2: United States government has expanded some exemptions from Canada and
Speaker 2: Mexico from the tariffs. And then there were official statements
Speaker 2: made literally moments ago before hitting the record button where
Speaker 2: President Trump is threatening two hundred and fifty percent taxes
Speaker 2: on dairy that's coming from Canada, as well as major
Speaker 2: taxes on lumber that's coming from Canada, which is something
Speaker 2: that has been disputed for a long time, the basically
Speaker 2: trade of lumber and dairy from Canada to the United States.
Speaker 2: And then you've got the Starlink contract, which was in
Speaker 2: fact canceled, and then a proposal for one hundred percent
Speaker 2: tariff on Tesla made vehicles, and it just feels like
Speaker 2: an unending, at least currently unending, perpetual fight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the word would be brinksmanship, because a lot of
Speaker 3: these things are. This is classic nineteen eighties Wall Street
Speaker 3: negotiation kind of tactics. You start off with something crazy
Speaker 3: so and I mentioned this in something previous. You start
Speaker 3: off with something crazy, right and bellicos and threatening, and
Speaker 3: then you pull it back so that the real crazy
Speaker 3: thing you want looks normal, right, like if you were
Speaker 3: talking to your significant other, your parents, your kids, your
Speaker 3: roommates or something. And let's say you wanted five parakeets.
Speaker 3: Five parakeets is a crazy thing to get. So the
Speaker 3: way that you get five parakeets is you say we're
Speaker 3: getting forty parakeets or I'm burning down the house, and
Speaker 3: then you wait for them to say that's crazy, and
Speaker 3: then you step it down slowly to five parakeets, which
Speaker 3: is still crazy, but now it looks normal. That is
Speaker 3: similar to what's happening now. A lot of these proposed
Speaker 3: tariffs are not going to come to pass in the
Speaker 3: same way that they are loudly proclaimed, but we.
Speaker 4: Already have like a stay of at least one of
Speaker 4: them with Mexico and a tweet or a truth or
Speaker 4: whatever that came out kind of I don't know. It
Speaker 4: felt like somebody else wrote it first of all, but
Speaker 4: just basically saying, oh, we got we came to an understanding.
Speaker 4: Everything's cool now only certain types of classifications of goods
Speaker 4: will be subject to tariff. And I just felt like
Speaker 4: a full walk back. And I guess on the last
Speaker 4: episode we just recorded, I mentioned a lot of chatter
Speaker 4: on the Internet and elsewhere it seems to.
Speaker 5: Be accusing the President of.
Speaker 4: Market manipulation with this kind of stuff. I just wonder
Speaker 4: what you guys thought about that.
Speaker 2: Ah, potentially, but I don't know. I don't know enough about.
Speaker 4: Well just walking just doing like a you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: obviously the markets react to this idea of things being
Speaker 4: more expensive and then to like, you know, now instead
Speaker 4: it's happening, and then the eleventh hour pull back on it,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of allows your rich buddies to buy
Speaker 4: low and sell when it comes back up.
Speaker 5: I don't know, It's just it could be a move,
Speaker 5: that is all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a nice follow up to what
Speaker 3: it was just saying a few months ago. Like, the
Speaker 3: idea is that you you deconstruct the concept of normal, right,
Speaker 3: you rephrase or re reframe what should be considered acceptable activity.
Speaker 3: You know, you walk in and you say, this thing
Speaker 3: that has always been fifty dollars is going to cost
Speaker 3: two hundred dollars for you now, and you say, no,
Speaker 3: that's crazy, and then you keep making outsize threats and
Speaker 3: eventually you get to what you really want, which is
Speaker 3: to charge sixty dollars. This assumes, of course, a somewhat
Speaker 3: rational actor.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's another tactic we learned about within
Speaker 2: the real estate world where you'll allow a swath of
Speaker 2: a city, let's say, or a suburban area to lose
Speaker 2: a lot of funding or you know, remove some funding
Speaker 2: from it. You destabilize that area, You let it, You
Speaker 2: let the prices in that area fall and fall and
Speaker 2: fall and fall, and the value of it to fall,
Speaker 2: so that the wealthy individuals, often investment groups, can come
Speaker 2: through and cut it up, and a bunch of groups
Speaker 2: can come in and buy it for real, real cheat,
Speaker 2: and then you put the investment back in and now
Speaker 2: it's you know, super expensive again. I just I wonder
Speaker 2: if something like that is happening on a massive scale
Speaker 2: for purposes we are yet to know.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of players in the game. You know,
Speaker 3: the the US national parks may well end up being
Speaker 3: sold off in an unprecedented way. That is on the table. Now.
Speaker 3: We'll also see what the rise. Look, we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about this. As you said, Matt a lot in
Speaker 3: our episode on Terraffs. What we see is that protectionism
Speaker 3: is a real tricky it's a real tricky beast to ride,
Speaker 3: and in some cases it can benefit the people, the public,
Speaker 3: individuals and the private industries of a nation, but it
Speaker 3: can often come back. Like the pendulum swings in very
Speaker 3: small increments, and it's very easy to go too far
Speaker 3: to one side of the pendulum, especially when you're looking
Speaker 3: at when you're looking at products, goods and services that
Speaker 3: a country has to import. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking in particular of very sensitive things like chips, right,
Speaker 3: computer chips or just regular chips. As fans of snacks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, food, food is important, and if you get most
Speaker 2: of it from outside, then how you get that food
Speaker 2: and how much you pay for it is pretty important.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, guys, there's way more to discuss here,
Speaker 2: but we're gonna leave it at that. Let us know
Speaker 2: what you think about the situation, how it's affecting you,
Speaker 2: how much that dodge rim is going to cost that
Speaker 2: you once had as a pipe dream but now is unattainable.
Speaker 2: You know that's a thing. Now. Anyway, we'll tell you
Speaker 2: how to contact us at the end of the episode,
Speaker 2: And for now we will hear a word from our
Speaker 2: sponsors and we'll be right back.
Speaker 4: And we have returned with more messages from you. Yes,
Speaker 4: you got a couple of real strong ones today, y'all.
Speaker 4: They're always strong. But first off, let's talk to Big Shucks,
Speaker 4: who wrote in with the following missive, how illegal is
Speaker 4: it to scam people who are trying to do something illegal?
Speaker 4: My idea borrowed from a podcast which I think he
Speaker 4: later determined to be our podcast, make a dot Onion
Speaker 4: dark Web murder for higher sight, take their money, but
Speaker 4: don't do that murder.
Speaker 5: Where do I stand legally?
Speaker 4: This is such a good question, right, Because I mean,
Speaker 4: I guess, guys, if you're getting wind of a crime
Speaker 4: that is potentially going to be committed, it is your
Speaker 4: duty to report that crime and not profit from it
Speaker 4: and then not tell anyone.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of our conversation with Carl about the
Speaker 2: killst because that's precisely what happened.
Speaker 3: Spoiler Yeah, yeah, we had this. We had this fantastic
Speaker 3: interview with guys Narra Carl Miller wherein he explores a
Speaker 3: real life example of this, which perhaps inspired you Shucks
Speaker 3: to write to us there. As far as I can
Speaker 3: tell in conversations Carl, this is somewhat of a legal
Speaker 3: gray area with light spoilers. In at least one instance,
Speaker 3: law enforcement was in contact and I wrote to Big
Speaker 3: Chucks about this. Law enforcement was in contact with someone
Speaker 3: doing exactly what Shucks describes, and they didn't rest him,
Speaker 3: They did not put the guy in jail, They did
Speaker 3: not find him no civil nor criminal action. Perhaps it
Speaker 3: was a greater good argument, but legally icy well.
Speaker 4: So law enforcement discovered this individual on their own. He
Speaker 4: didn't like come to them to try to be a
Speaker 4: good samaritan and report this, you know, evil doer.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: I believe the latter is true if I recall correctly.
Speaker 3: But again this is not us recommending anything but checking
Speaker 3: out Karl.
Speaker 4: kN absolutely, But I guess the question being like, if
Speaker 4: you did scam somebody they took through their took their
Speaker 4: money and then reported them, are the cops gonna like
Speaker 4: look at your bank account or question you know, whether
Speaker 4: or not you took money from this individual? Is that
Speaker 4: even because I guess that's where it's maybe it's less
Speaker 4: of a legal gray area more just like a well
Speaker 4: we're just happy to have the tip.
Speaker 3: Maybe, But then also we get to things about the
Speaker 3: provenance of profit. For instance, if you were if you
Speaker 3: were engaging in human trafficking or those other unclean endeavors,
Speaker 3: and then you were saying you were saying, okay, I'll
Speaker 3: take your money I'm pretending, you know, to sell you
Speaker 3: human beings. And then law maybe it's an order of
Speaker 3: operations thing. Maybe do go to your local law at
Speaker 3: first and say I found these people. But the question
Speaker 3: I didn't really get to this with shucks. But the
Speaker 3: question is then like why, you know, like does law
Speaker 3: enforcement not have this? One of the questions would be
Speaker 3: is a vigilante or is a civilian active of their
Speaker 3: own volition? Are they therefore somehow indemnified from the laws
Speaker 3: we have regarding the concept of I.
Speaker 4: Was gonna ask the same question Ben Trapman seems to
Speaker 4: be a big part of it, like, because you could
Speaker 4: certainly like to catch a predator for example, that TV
Speaker 4: show you know, I mean, you are lying to someone
Speaker 4: and you are coercing them to a place, to a
Speaker 4: location under fault pretenses, but it is in the interest
Speaker 4: of catching them in the commission of a crime, and
Speaker 4: I guess that is entrapment.
Speaker 5: But they still those end up on TV. How does
Speaker 5: that work, guys, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, there were two websites discussed in kill List. The
Speaker 2: first one was the main one that was on the
Speaker 2: dark web that was used, you know, and people paid
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of dollars sometimes to put out multiple yeah,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you know, five thousand dollars, two thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: But to put out a hit on somebody. That was
Speaker 2: what the kill this followed primarily, But there was a
Speaker 2: second one called rent a Hitman dot com. That was
Speaker 2: a it was a it was a it became a
Speaker 2: satirical thing at first. I think it was rent somebody
Speaker 2: who I can't remember the specifics, but it was meant
Speaker 2: for a different purpose, and it was a fun title.
Speaker 2: It was a fun web page domain right that they used.
Speaker 2: But then it ended up several times. There were there
Speaker 2: were several instants is where versions of this hitman for
Speaker 2: higher website was taken over by law enforcement and the
Speaker 2: exact same thing, the scenario you're describing their null happened
Speaker 2: where it was actually the authorities watching you try and
Speaker 2: pay five thousand dollars to put a hit out on somebody.
Speaker 3: Happens a lot with CSAM, which is the acronym for
Speaker 3: child sexual abuse sources.
Speaker 4: Now, that makes a lot of sense, and I think
Speaker 4: it should be something that is permitted. Yeah, I do
Speaker 4: just wonder maybe where the legal gray area comes in
Speaker 4: when it comes to individuals doing this.
Speaker 5: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for law enforcement, though, we need to make this point.
Speaker 3: For law enforcement, one of the primary concerns is, first off,
Speaker 3: making a case clean and having incontrovertible proof. And the
Speaker 3: second aspect, obviously is going to be the possibility of
Speaker 3: causing further harm even with the best of intentions. So
Speaker 3: there are real reasons that these laws ex and the
Speaker 3: tough thing is that often, you know, if you look
Speaker 3: at the way of the world, often law enforcement is
Speaker 3: at a disadvantage because they are obeying a rubric of
Speaker 3: behaviors and rules that criminals are simply not beholden to.
Speaker 3: So I'm on the side of catching bad guys.
Speaker 2: If you want to read more about this really quickly,
Speaker 2: you can head over to Rolling Stone. There's a twenty
Speaker 2: twenty article titled how a fake rent a hitman's site
Speaker 2: became an accidental murder for hire sting operation.
Speaker 4: There you go, Thanks Matt, and thanks big Shucks. Next,
Speaker 4: we got a quick one from Dave Hi. Guys, I
Speaker 4: enjoyed the two part podcast. Yes, the CIA hired magician
Speaker 4: thought you might get a kick out of this project
Speaker 4: bug in a book that I developed for the Spy
Speaker 4: Tech edition of Make magazine and subsequently delivered as a
Speaker 4: workshop at the International Spy Museum in Washington, where I
Speaker 4: met Bob Wallace. He sends a link to Covert dash
Speaker 4: team dot net where you can see this DIY build
Speaker 4: a bug literally in a we're listening device inside of
Speaker 4: a hollowed out book project. And uh, I don't know,
Speaker 4: I'm super into this kind of wiring and soldering and
Speaker 4: sound capture and stuff, but this is be a pretty
Speaker 4: cool project to take home, maybe even like with a
Speaker 4: with a young tech enthusiast in your family.
Speaker 3: I do love that point, And thank you Dave for this, agreed.
Speaker 3: Uh it's new Crystal radio, you know, it's new little
Speaker 3: Pinewood Derby kind of project. Uh, It's it reminds me
Speaker 3: very much, and Dave, you'll doubtlessly know about this. It
Speaker 3: reminds me of a series of toys we talked about
Speaker 3: back in the day hi tech. It was a different time.
Speaker 4: I had the sunglasses that will let you see behind you.
Speaker 4: I remember those. I don't know if I ever And
Speaker 4: then they had like some walkie talkies and stuff too,
Speaker 4: But there were tons of cool little little kits that
Speaker 4: you could get. But it was you know toy level
Speaker 4: for sure. And this what what's what's being described here?
Speaker 4: It actually it really is if you look at the website.
Speaker 4: It is an Amplify shirt pocket, amplified listener hearing aid
Speaker 4: with an in car FM transmitter. These are the devices
Speaker 4: that were combined to create a wireless bug that you
Speaker 4: can then tuck into a hollowed out book, a bible whatever.
Speaker 4: It's got to be thick enough, and then you can, yeah,
Speaker 4: use it concealed, just slide it into the bookshelf of
Speaker 4: whoever you want to surveil or don't you know, without
Speaker 4: their consent. That's not a good thing to do, but it's.
Speaker 3: Well, it depends on your state. It depends on your state.
Speaker 3: If you're a one party consent in the US, you
Speaker 3: can monitor without consent.
Speaker 5: So that's yeah, thanks for the tip on that. And
Speaker 5: would love to get a hold of one of these.
Speaker 4: And lastly, maybe this one is what I should have
Speaker 4: led with, but it maybe is outside the scope of
Speaker 4: what we have time for today, but I do think
Speaker 4: it's worth mentioning this message that came from.
Speaker 5: Aaron a Aaron Zen.
Speaker 4: And I'm just gonna among multiple things that Aaron A. Aaronson
Speaker 4: contacted us about I'm a big fan of this revelation.
Speaker 4: That was something that I wasn't aware of. Amongst all
Speaker 4: the stuff that's happening with Trump trying to turn the
Speaker 4: world upside down with his cronies, one thing was announced
Speaker 4: that got lost in the volume of announcements, the creation
Speaker 4: of a sovereign wealth funds WF. What is a sovereign
Speaker 4: wealth fund, you ask? It is a national fund owned
Speaker 4: by the government that uses money to invest in anything
Speaker 4: and everything to grow wealth for the country. They trade
Speaker 4: openly and are more common than people think, with many
Speaker 4: nations around the world setting up these funds to act
Speaker 4: independently of their government with the sole purpose of making money.
Speaker 4: Some of the most famous ones are the national funds
Speaker 4: of oil rich Arab states, where they are investing any
Speaker 4: oil profits as to be able to diversify their economy
Speaker 4: and or have a source of income once the oil
Speaker 4: runs out. It's their sole income generator. Other nations have
Speaker 4: these funds set up so as to create a piggy
Speaker 4: bank for future liabilities that might not be able to
Speaker 4: be met and or would place undue pressure on the
Speaker 4: tax payer. Our listener here is from Australia, and talks
Speaker 4: about how in two thousand and six they set one
Speaker 4: up to meet the unfunded pension requirements of public servants.
Speaker 4: And Yeah, I was definitely familiar with the UH. These
Speaker 4: type of funds used in Arab nations to invest in
Speaker 4: things like infrastructure and like all kinds of you know,
Speaker 4: UH economic development programs and things of Ben and when
Speaker 4: when Ben and I were in Qatar recently at a
Speaker 4: big giant tech conference, we were certainly seeing all kinds
Speaker 4: of startups that were likely benefiting from this setup and
Speaker 4: getting funded, you know, everything from laying fiber by telecom
Speaker 4: companies to even.
Speaker 5: Like apps like food delivery type stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed. The sovereign wealth fund or sovereign investment fund
Speaker 3: is there are sometimes also called It's a thing where
Speaker 3: you have a you have a bunch of money that
Speaker 3: your local nation state has made and they want to
Speaker 3: take in theory collective responsibility to engage with money management
Speaker 3: for the betterment of the nation, however that may be defined.
Speaker 3: And as you described, NOL, we appen in areas of
Speaker 3: the world where this stuff occurs. Personally, I have an
Speaker 3: abiding interest in these sorts of funds what I would
Speaker 3: call in correspondence with the Aaron, what I called the
Speaker 3: least harmful SWF was Norway's or is Norway's, because Norway
Speaker 3: has made quite a bit of scratch off their fossil
Speaker 3: fuel industry. However, they are at a certain point, as
Speaker 3: you point out as well, Aaron, they're past a certain
Speaker 3: threshold of size financially such that if they put too
Speaker 3: much money into a domestic thing at once, then they
Speaker 3: can distort the market in a way that weirdly enough,
Speaker 3: ends up hurting people. So there's definitely more to explore
Speaker 3: to this story, and so much got lost with all
Speaker 3: the all of the I'LB diplomatic all the strident declarations
Speaker 3: or pitches coming from the current presidential administration. It's hard
Speaker 3: to know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it also points out that since the US,
Speaker 4: unlike some of the other nations that we mentioned that
Speaker 4: you mentioned, doesn't have nationalized businesses that have value that
Speaker 4: can be sold, you know, like profit oil profits or whatever,
Speaker 4: you know, to fund this kind of stuff, the idea
Speaker 4: would be that all of this stuff would have to
Speaker 4: be borrowed. And also one thing that I've heard is
Speaker 4: that within this portfolio, you know, it could involve investing
Speaker 4: in things like crypto, like cryptocurrency and certain what would
Speaker 4: be considered like almost meme coins, you know, I mean
Speaker 4: that with the lack of transparency in that type of investment.
Speaker 4: So that was interesting to me as well, because there's
Speaker 4: a lot of talk in Washington about you know, crypto
Speaker 4: reserves and all that, but we also know that stuff
Speaker 4: historically has been pretty risky.
Speaker 3: But it has a recent history to be fair, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. Crypto hasn't been around forever, and
Speaker 3: neither has sovereign wealth fund. One of the most surprising
Speaker 3: things we learn about it in our research is the
Speaker 3: at least the language of it. The name only comes
Speaker 3: about in like two thousand and five, right shortly before
Speaker 3: this show began, and the actual what we call the
Speaker 3: entry point for something like a sovereign wealth fund in
Speaker 3: this concept, I don't know. I mean, obviously something like
Speaker 3: this existed before there was a name put on it.
Speaker 3: Mansa Musa in Evenings of Old absolutely broke multiple economies
Speaker 3: of Northern Africa just because he was too rich. It
Speaker 3: had too much money, in this case literally gold. The
Speaker 3: problem is still the same, but please check out our
Speaker 3: episodes on the US Treasury and it'll tie into our
Speaker 3: tariff episode as well, because the money moves and sometimes
Speaker 3: more money makes more problems. Shout out to you so.
Speaker 4: Huge thanks to Big Shocks, Dave and Aaron a Aaron Son.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate you writing in and giving us some
Speaker 4: stuff to think about and talk about. Let's take a
Speaker 4: quick break here aware from our sponsor, and then we'll
Speaker 4: come back with our last bit of a listener mail.
Speaker 4: In today's Listener Mail episode.
Speaker 3: We have returned with the vital act of our weekly
Speaker 3: Listener Male segment. This would well, we'll keep it kind
Speaker 3: of short, but I think it's something that is of
Speaker 3: interest to all of us. Not too long ago, we
Speaker 3: received an excellent piece of correspondence from someone going by
Speaker 3: check out this name you guys, the Wondering Wizard. I
Speaker 3: kind of like it. I think it refers to maybe
Speaker 3: those memes that have been going around where it's a
Speaker 3: picture or wandering. I think they're both the same. You know,
Speaker 3: so have you again? Have you all seen the the
Speaker 3: those excellent memes of like old school paintings of a wizard.
Speaker 3: They say, I never see you at the club. You
Speaker 3: say you never see me at the club. I never
Speaker 3: see you at the sky. Fortress exactly.
Speaker 5: Yes, I love those.
Speaker 4: I've sent them to a few bros, including yourselves. I
Speaker 4: could swear that I've sent you guys some Wizard memes
Speaker 4: at some point. I've been a big fan of the
Speaker 4: format for sure.
Speaker 3: Man, we are big fans of wandering and wandering Wizards.
Speaker 3: And just to get in front of this, we can
Speaker 3: confirm to you guys, our pals from this is Important
Speaker 3: have absolutely nothing to do with the wizards wrapping that
Speaker 3: has been confirmed to be a common misapprehension.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those those guys that know the workaholics dudes, that's it.
Speaker 3: That's the only relationship they have. Our Wandering Wizard writes
Speaker 3: to us and says, have you guys done a show
Speaker 3: on the prophecy of the Popes? The current pope, Pope Francis,
Speaker 3: is the one hundred and twelfth pope that we know of,
Speaker 3: and the prophecy has only listed one hundred and twelve.
Speaker 3: Thought it might make for an interesting episode or deep
Speaker 3: dive either way, love the show. You guys and your
Speaker 3: team are pretty great. Keep up the good work. I
Speaker 3: added the pretty so that we didn't sound you know,
Speaker 3: we have to copy on it a little bit.
Speaker 6: Yes, big.
Speaker 3: So big. Have you guys heard of the Prophecy of
Speaker 3: the Popes? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember this from a while back, because this
Speaker 2: has been around for a minute.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, you are correct, mister Frederick. It is a
Speaker 3: series of i would say, free verse poetry in Latin
Speaker 3: that claims to predict the future holders of the of
Speaker 3: the papal office. It was first published by a monk
Speaker 3: back in fifteen ninety five, his name Arnold Won maybe
Speaker 3: by on w Io and this guy. When he published it,
Speaker 3: he said, look, I'm getting this from another dude from
Speaker 3: back in the eleven hundred. It's his name is Saint Malachi. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, if it doesn't work out, it's not me
Speaker 3: I'm quoting, you know, big Mallie.
Speaker 2: If you're searching it, it doesn't look like Malachi the
Speaker 2: way I know it to be spelled. It's m a lacy.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, a state of pure Malichi. Look, there's
Speaker 3: the alleged original prophecy, and then there's an interpretation of
Speaker 3: the prophecy. And the interpretation is really when we run
Speaker 3: into what I would call the Nostradamus problem. Did you
Speaker 3: guys ever really get into those Nostradamus quatrains?
Speaker 2: Yeah, when we talked about him.
Speaker 3: Exactly we did, we did, all right? All right, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: that's a good point. We talked about Nostradamus, and the
Speaker 3: problem with prognostications so often, especially through the great telephone
Speaker 3: game of history, is that people will kind of read
Speaker 3: what they want to hear when they see these prophecies
Speaker 3: nostro Damas. For instance, I remember there was an old
Speaker 3: book we picked up where they said they had some
Speaker 3: very like vague thing, and the author tried to assure
Speaker 3: us it was entirely about the nineteen ninety six attack
Speaker 3: at the Atlanta Olympic Games. O kick, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? Right, Okay, So let's learn really briefly a
Speaker 3: bit about Saint Malachi or Malachi just to set this up.
Speaker 3: This guy lives from like ten ninety four to eleven
Speaker 3: forty eight CE, so after the time of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: He is from modern day Ireland. And his final prediction
Speaker 3: is the following. We're going to read this in English,
Speaker 3: so we may lose a little bit in translation. In
Speaker 3: the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will
Speaker 3: reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock amid
Speaker 3: many tribulations, after which the seven, hilled city will be destroyed,
Speaker 3: and the dreadful judge Capital j will judge the people
Speaker 3: the end. Indeed, yes, yeah, they had a hard period
Speaker 3: on that. So the idea is the way people are
Speaker 3: trying to confirm this is by arguing that Pope Francis,
Speaker 3: as he's known now, he chose his papal name in
Speaker 3: the honor of Saint Francis ASSISI. He was born pre
Speaker 3: papacy Jorge Mario Burgoglio or jog.
Speaker 5: Leo Good So, yeah, I think somewhere in between.
Speaker 3: Yes, apologies for pronunciations spelled b E r go O
Speaker 3: g l Io. And some of the folks who really,
Speaker 3: you know, put a full brunt of credence in this.
Speaker 3: They say this prophecy from Saint Malachi is referring to
Speaker 3: the fact that the father of Saint Francis, Pope Francis's namesake,
Speaker 3: is named Pietro, which translates to Peter. Feels like a
Speaker 3: little bit of walk. Just gonna be honest, feels like
Speaker 3: a little bit of a stretch. Matt's doing a great
Speaker 3: shrug and clap.
Speaker 2: What if uh huh, Peter, Yeah, is the next pot
Speaker 2: because you know about the you know, the health issues
Speaker 2: going on? Right now? What if the next boat that
Speaker 2: comes in is Peter, what happens then? What do we do?
Speaker 2: Because then the prophecy is fulfilled?
Speaker 3: Right right? And what is what is the end? The
Speaker 3: Seven hild City, by the way, is it is a
Speaker 3: description of Rome of the Vatican on the famous seven
Speaker 3: hills there. So I feel like that when we can
Speaker 3: safely interpret. But just yesterday before we came into record
Speaker 3: this evening, the Vatican issued a statement on the health
Speaker 3: of Pope Francis. As we know, he's been battling pneumonia,
Speaker 3: respiratory issues. He is eighty eight years old right now,
Speaker 3: he has severe bronchitis. The statement that was released said
Speaker 3: that he well, they didn't say much. They said that
Speaker 3: he has had to cancel some events. Mainly they're breaking
Speaker 3: the silence for millions and millions of faithful adherents of
Speaker 3: Catholicism who are worried about this guy. They said, essentially,
Speaker 3: like this is how terse this is. You guys ready,
Speaker 3: we'll read the statement in full, do it all right?
Speaker 3: The full statement is the Pope had a quiet night
Speaker 3: and is resting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But then he did record an audio message.
Speaker 3: He did record an audio message. We also have a
Speaker 3: longer statement. Right in his longer statement, they said he's
Speaker 3: resting Wednesday morning, or people are quoting the Holy See
Speaker 3: Press Office. Reports are showing that he went through a
Speaker 3: scheduled CT scan to monitor his bilateral pneumonia. For all
Speaker 3: of us non doctors, that's pneumonia in both looks, that's
Speaker 3: double pneumonia. And I don't know. He's been in the
Speaker 3: hospital for thirteen fourteen days. Now, what'd you make of
Speaker 3: the recorded statement there, Matt, Well, just.
Speaker 2: Give it to you. He said, quote, I thank you
Speaker 2: from the bottom of my heart for your prayers for
Speaker 2: my health. From the square, I accompany you from here,
Speaker 2: May God bless you and the version protect you. Thank you.
Speaker 2: And that was it.
Speaker 5: That's all he was able to say, basically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And medical experts have described his condition as a
Speaker 3: complex clinical picture. It's not looking amazing like. It still
Speaker 3: seems to be an uphill journey. Apparently the Pope himself
Speaker 3: has told some of his confidants that he is not
Speaker 3: one hundred percent certain about his chances for recovery, and
Speaker 3: that's perhaps why Wandering Wizard the idea of the prophecy here,
Speaker 3: the prophecy of the popes has come back into the
Speaker 3: public eye. I don't know, because we talked about other
Speaker 3: prophecies that are incorporated into Catholicism, and I have to
Speaker 3: ask you, guys, what do we make of this? Is
Speaker 3: this is there legitimacy or people reading tea leaves? Is
Speaker 3: this something we should keep a closer eye upon.
Speaker 2: I blug man, We've got a lot of stuff going
Speaker 2: on right now. At every time in history that we've
Speaker 2: had this kind of discussion, it's felt like, oh, we're
Speaker 2: probably on the precipice, the old doomsday clock is where
Speaker 2: it is, the you.
Speaker 3: Know, the Mayan calendar got misinterpreted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but just everything, you know, it feels there's enough
Speaker 2: turmoil to make it feel as though, oh, the end
Speaker 2: is certainly nigh, and oh this this is just another
Speaker 2: prophecy that says it's it's happening, and it already feels
Speaker 2: like it's happening. So I think there's just that reoccurring
Speaker 2: confirmation that we continually have been getting over the past
Speaker 2: what twenty years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is something I don't want to say self important,
Speaker 3: but there's something devilishly tempting that we see in every
Speaker 3: iteration of human civilization, which is the people living at
Speaker 3: the time seem pretty convinced they're living in the end times.
Speaker 3: They're like, there, there's not a historical record of a
Speaker 3: civilization going this is great, it's amazing, nothing's going wrong,
Speaker 3: and nothing will go wrong. We're starting from square one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but not often has the world been on the
Speaker 2: precipice of the next World war? Right, That's only happened
Speaker 2: two times, And the third one is.
Speaker 3: If we're not counting the Bronze Age Collasse.
Speaker 2: Oh, no, correct, you're absolutely right there. I guess in
Speaker 2: maybe modern history, and I guess that's there.
Speaker 3: Yeh, yeah, I feel you. Yeah, I mean there's another thing.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of people arguing, more skeptical folks
Speaker 3: in the crowd, arguing that just like the Shroud of Turin,
Speaker 3: the Prophecy of the Popes is a forgery, and that
Speaker 3: it was actually it was not rediscovered in some ancient
Speaker 3: Roman ruins, but that it was instead composed around fifteen ninety.
Speaker 3: And the timeline makes a little bit of sense, because
Speaker 3: we have to remember this is back when people were
Speaker 3: you know, selling a bunch of relatieries left and right,
Speaker 3: and little shards of the true cross. People were joking
Speaker 3: about this, especially the skeptics centuries ago. But maybe maybe
Speaker 3: we should pay closer attention to these things, or at
Speaker 3: least to an episode about it, because look, we're in
Speaker 3: the moment, we're here with you, folks, and as Matt
Speaker 3: was saying, it does feel like we're you know, we're
Speaker 3: at the NYE point. We're at defcon NYE.
Speaker 2: Yep, I mean pretty much. Oh wait, what was that
Speaker 2: other thing? Is there an asteroid headed towards Earth?
Speaker 4: No, they said that was going to be fine, right,
Speaker 4: that's where We're's.
Speaker 5: A positive news it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was at three point one percent for a second,
Speaker 3: and I was like, hey, maybe I should, you know,
Speaker 3: get back into cannabis, because what does it matter?
Speaker 2: Get to the moon, baby, That's what I say. I'm playing.
Speaker 2: I'm just playing. I'm joking over.
Speaker 3: I feel also, to be clear, the world is ending
Speaker 3: for someone somewhere every day right as we record, and
Speaker 3: we have to exercise empathy. We'll keep this part short.
Speaker 3: Tell us what you think about the idea of a
Speaker 3: prophecy of the popes for our adherents of Catholicism in
Speaker 3: the audience tonight. We support you. We know this is
Speaker 3: a incredibly scary time and the only way that all
Speaker 3: of us get through these our present days is by
Speaker 3: moving together. With that being said, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for tuning in. We would love to hear from you.
Speaker 3: Big thanks to Alpha Flight, Big thanks to Big Shucks,
Speaker 3: Big thanks to Dave, nice one on the nice one
Speaker 3: on the bugs in the books there Dave, Big thanks
Speaker 3: of Wandering Wizard, everyone else that we didn't get to,
Speaker 3: including you, mister Aaronson. We will be back soon. In
Speaker 3: the meantime, join us out here in the dark. Find
Speaker 3: us on the emails, find us on the telephones, find
Speaker 3: us on the lines.
Speaker 5: Correct.
Speaker 4: You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where
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