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: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 2: name is Nol.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Alexis codenamed Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: you guys, can you believe it?
Speaker 4: Barely weird?
Speaker 2: I'm not stoked.
Speaker 4: Use your date, man. Once we hit twenty twenties. Now
Speaker 4: everything just sounds like it's supposed to be megafuturistic and
Speaker 4: it's just not minus weird. Robot attacks, did you guys
Speaker 4: hear about that? Apparently happened a year ago, but U
Speaker 4: Tesla robot on a factory floor in Texas attacked and
Speaker 4: mauled an employee, and that the story just came out.
Speaker 4: But that's sort of my future. But it happened a
Speaker 4: year ago, it just now started getting reported on. I
Speaker 4: thought that it was maybe a thing that was already known,
Speaker 4: and that I just was, you know, missing the boat.
Speaker 4: But I looked it up and it does seem that
Speaker 4: it was a thing that happened. That it was a
Speaker 4: clawed assembly line sort of robot arm that basically pinned
Speaker 4: and mauled an employee who then fell down a shoot
Speaker 4: intended for scrap metal.
Speaker 3: Very willy wonka, also very margin of error kind of thing, right.
Speaker 2: But it didn't do it because it wanted to, Right,
Speaker 2: That's the.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was considering doing that as as today's strange
Speaker 4: deduce from me. But I feel like it's such a
Speaker 4: buzzy fake out kind of thing where it's like robots attacking. No,
Speaker 4: that is not that there was an emergency stop thing.
Speaker 4: It must have. It was unclear from the article exactly
Speaker 4: what caused it to target this individual, but I don't
Speaker 4: think it was out of malice.
Speaker 3: The human rates to what do we attribute, right, like
Speaker 3: like what is the motivation of a plant, of an
Speaker 3: algorithm and so on? Or the Supreme Court. We're going
Speaker 3: to get to that. We're going to talk about some
Speaker 3: big picture stuff. We're going to touch on an epidemic
Speaker 3: amid the US deer population. We're going to talk about
Speaker 3: menthol cigarettes, and we're going to talk about the US
Speaker 3: Supreme Court because America, we need to have a conversation
Speaker 3: to America.
Speaker 4: You're drunk, go home or maybe not, Ben you you
Speaker 4: brought I think for a little kind of yea to
Speaker 4: start with for the new year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's talk about good news. So we wanted to
Speaker 3: start the year off with some cool ideas. We got
Speaker 3: one in here. I don't know if it's good news,
Speaker 3: but did you guys hear that humans can make jet
Speaker 3: fuel from hoop?
Speaker 2: Now? You know what? That makes sense with all the
Speaker 2: burn pit information we've been getting lately, like burning the
Speaker 2: poops seem to have just as many bad effects as
Speaker 2: burning the jet fuel.
Speaker 4: And of course, since I'm a child, my mind immediately
Speaker 4: condures a cartoon image of someone with fire shooting out
Speaker 4: of their butt. That's just a me.
Speaker 3: Thing, No, that's I think that's an everybody thing. That'd
Speaker 3: be pretty cool if you could, if you could fart
Speaker 3: well enough.
Speaker 4: To be a jet runing that the very first South
Speaker 4: Park episode where Cartman's like, there'sh.
Speaker 3: There are some extinct animals that have been rediscovered, right,
Speaker 3: like Mark Twain said, the uh the reports of their
Speaker 3: deaths have been greatly exaggerated, So shout out to the
Speaker 3: shimmering golden mole.
Speaker 4: Which the shimmering gold that's that like the opposite of
Speaker 4: the naked It sounds shimmering golden, right, I want to
Speaker 4: catch them all. I was really having my fingers crossed
Speaker 4: for the Dodo though, No, Dodo.
Speaker 3: We got to call Lucky. We have a covenant.
Speaker 2: Toto's coming back for real, though, I remember seeing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're trying to bring Dodo back.
Speaker 4: Oh but that's a science y thing. This is okay,
Speaker 4: it's like an experiment.
Speaker 2: Guys. I just had a vision for our future. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, this talk about positivity. We've been looking for
Speaker 2: a way to get a universal basic income. If everybody
Speaker 2: is just pooping on the regular and we all do it,
Speaker 2: what if we're all just making jet fuel and the
Speaker 2: government pays us poop.
Speaker 4: Stop, It'll be a matrix situation. We'll I'll just have
Speaker 4: tubes hooked up to our butts.
Speaker 3: And Eisenhower was right, Military industrial poop complex.
Speaker 4: Matt stop it with these pithy suggestions that are just.
Speaker 3: It's ancient technology. Night soil is a real thing. It's
Speaker 3: the first fertilizer, so why can't it be the new biofuel,
Speaker 3: serious biofuel.
Speaker 4: We are the batteries, guys. We are the batteries fueling
Speaker 4: the military industrial complex from our butts.
Speaker 2: You just change up the sewer system like minorly and
Speaker 2: add in and intake. Oh my god, we can do this.
Speaker 4: Everybody, write your congress person, folks. Matt said it here first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, send a physical letters so they'll pay attention.
Speaker 3: So another piece of good news. Minimum wage is going
Speaker 3: to increase in twenty two states across the US on
Speaker 3: January first. Shout out to MPR. Shout out to everybody
Speaker 3: listening now, who is one of the nine point nine
Speaker 3: million workers who will see an increase.
Speaker 4: I'm assuming this is just as a result of a
Speaker 4: benevolent state sort of situation, right Ben, someone was just
Speaker 4: like they deserve it, give it to them, they worked
Speaker 4: for it.
Speaker 3: I don't know a lot of our fellow conspiracy realist
Speaker 3: will point out with validity that inflation has accelerated.
Speaker 4: So is this is this one of those tools right,
Speaker 4: like the FED adjusting you know, rates and such. I'm
Speaker 4: really obviously a math scientist.
Speaker 2: Well, this is this is really good news, you guys.
Speaker 2: I'm just looking at that and per article you shared, Ben,
Speaker 2: and it looks like some states are going to see
Speaker 2: almost seven dollars additionally added to the minimum wage number.
Speaker 4: That's amazing significant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's life changing, hopefully for the better. We
Speaker 3: also are one other piece of good news. Scientists have
Speaker 3: successfully destroyed cancer cells using vibrating molecules, which I don't
Speaker 3: pretend to understand, but shout out to the journalist David
Speaker 3: Neild if that's real.
Speaker 2: We've received a lot of messages and we've seen stories
Speaker 2: over the years of using vibrations to cure people of things, right,
Speaker 2: like different vibes but different different types of literal vibration
Speaker 2: just being shot through parts of the human If this
Speaker 2: is true, I want to learn more about that. So
Speaker 2: we need to do a deeper dive into that.
Speaker 4: And this isn't the first story of the year, even
Speaker 4: that's been about advances and eradicating cancer, like we are
Speaker 4: in a future. You know, I made the joke about
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four seeming so futuristic, but there are things
Speaker 4: that are happening despite my bad jokes. A cure for
Speaker 4: cancer is the kind of thing that always had this
Speaker 4: ring of like unattainability, and now it does feel like
Speaker 4: we're inching towards something resembling that. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it turns out if you shake up these aminocyanine
Speaker 3: molecules with something that's not quite infrared light, they will
Speaker 3: vibrate in sync the same way people would like dance
Speaker 3: at a wedding across the world. They'll do it like
Speaker 3: a weird line dance, and this will break out the
Speaker 3: membranes of cancer cells. This is pretty cool news. We
Speaker 3: are indeed talking about good vibrations. Shout out to that band,
Speaker 3: the Beach Boys. I really think they're going places.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard of them, dude, Amino Cionine. Never heard
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 3: This is incredible, It is incredible, right, I agree with you, guys.
Speaker 3: Like the strange thing about this is that so often
Speaker 3: on Strange News we bring you stories that don't quite
Speaker 3: get into the headlines or don't quite get the analysis
Speaker 3: they deserve, and a lot of times we don't make
Speaker 3: space to talk about the good stuff. And there is
Speaker 3: good stuff happening, right, There are uplifting things occurring in
Speaker 3: the world, and we hope that we can launch our
Speaker 3: own project twenty twenty five in a good way. Right,
Speaker 3: And speaking of segues, the amazing invention here in the US.
Speaker 3: But speaking of conversational segues, there is a group of
Speaker 3: people that will be very important to you next year.
Speaker 3: Odds are you have not spoken with these folks directly.
Speaker 3: Odds are you don't know all their names, but if
Speaker 3: you live in the United States, they are the rock
Speaker 3: stars of law and order.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have a really cool acronym. It's fun to
Speaker 4: say and sounds a lot like scrotum.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, they're they're they're the seemingly invincible characters that
Speaker 2: they live on planet Earth. Right, they they get in
Speaker 2: their position, there's nothing you could do too bad. They're there.
Speaker 2: That's it. I don't know, in a weird way, I
Speaker 2: do see them as like, I don't know, the way
Speaker 2: you're describing them and makes me see them as comic
Speaker 2: book characters.
Speaker 3: I think that's accurate, Matt. I mean, like, we're we're
Speaker 3: talking about a democracy, a democracy that is also a
Speaker 3: republic in some ways, and a lot of people get
Speaker 3: mad about the semantics of that. But in a very
Speaker 3: real process, the laws of the United States are written
Speaker 3: by Congress, right, they're co signed or derided by the President.
Speaker 3: But it's a Lord of the Rings situation. There are
Speaker 3: nine people right now who are basically ring raiths. You
Speaker 3: do not elect them as a US citizen. They do
Speaker 3: not really get fired. They have the job for the
Speaker 3: entirety of their lives. They are called to your point
Speaker 3: Noel Scotus, Supreme Court of the United States, and oh boy,
Speaker 3: we need to talk about them. We need to talk
Speaker 3: about them. This is not quite strange news for twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three. This is strange news for twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: and twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: And I guess the update ish maybe that puts it
Speaker 4: sort of in the news and for end of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three. Is this Code of Ethics thing which seems
Speaker 4: like it should have already been in place, but is
Speaker 4: seemingly relatively toothless and kind of just more symbolic than anything, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So we've talked about it in the past.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of ongoing controversy around things like insider
Speaker 3: trading laws for members of Congress. Congress on both sides
Speaker 3: of the political aisle, made a lot of money during
Speaker 3: the pandemic by short selling things like toilet paper, sanitizer,
Speaker 3: vaccination deployment.
Speaker 2: Game stop, game stop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, shout out to our stock friends right. The issue, however,
Speaker 3: rarely gets to the level of the Supreme Court, the
Speaker 3: idea of corruption, because this court is seen in American
Speaker 3: history as largely infallible. It is seen as the consciousness
Speaker 3: of the American public despite the fact that these folks
Speaker 3: are again unelected, often above reproach and don't hold themselves
Speaker 3: to the same standards that you would be held to. Congratulations, Hey,
Speaker 3: guess what if you bought a mortgage, you have to
Speaker 3: deal with stuff. But if you're in, if you're the Supremes,
Speaker 3: you can you can get some workarounds because.
Speaker 4: You have synchronized dance moves.
Speaker 3: They don't. I mean, I don't know's there's no video
Speaker 3: allowed in the court, so maybe they got a caol.
Speaker 4: They have outfits like.
Speaker 3: So let's go to the point you raised. The US
Speaker 3: Supreme Court has adopted its first ever ethics code. To
Speaker 3: be clear, Congress does have an ethics code and has
Speaker 3: for some time. I'd gallon paper.
Speaker 4: Sure, look what it took for what's his face to
Speaker 4: get ejected first first ever? Remember I believe it was
Speaker 4: he Congress or was he representative? I'm talking about of
Speaker 4: course Santas. So yeah, Santos, I mean, that guy was
Speaker 4: just doing crimes left, right and center. And even that
Speaker 4: was a remarkable feat that he was ejected. I scoff
Speaker 4: because clearly their code of ethics is pretty toothless too.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry inter out. I'm just blown away by that.
Speaker 3: Well, George Santos was ejected. I think he was his
Speaker 3: House of Representatives, so he's not his senator. He's the
Speaker 3: sixth member of the House of Reps in all of
Speaker 3: American history who was ejected. It was it was a
Speaker 3: thing where this divided country came together and said, ah,
Speaker 3: this guy. But this doesn't often happen with members of
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court. And when the Supreme Court decided that
Speaker 3: they would do some sort of ethics standard thing, they
Speaker 3: raised a lot of questions, and they raised a lot
Speaker 3: of criticism. They issued the following statement, and this comes
Speaker 3: to us from a great MPR article by Annie Gersh
Speaker 3: and Nina Totenberg. Here's the quote. The absence of a
Speaker 3: code has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that
Speaker 3: the justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in
Speaker 3: this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rule.
Speaker 3: To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this code, which
Speaker 3: largely represents a codification of principles that we have long
Speaker 3: regarded as governing our conduct. This happens in step with
Speaker 3: and folks, we hate to say it, this happens in
Speaker 3: step with growing controversy over a member of the Court
Speaker 3: who is from our state of Georgia, as Thomas No
Speaker 3: I know not critical hit.
Speaker 2: Twenty was wrote, Yeah, that gosh, man, just reading about
Speaker 2: this stuff. Well, I've got an idea. I'm gonna throw
Speaker 2: it out at the end, so let you yeah, let's
Speaker 2: keep going. I've got like a concept. I think you
Speaker 2: guys are going to be into.
Speaker 3: You got a pitch yep?
Speaker 2: Nice?
Speaker 3: All right, So we know this occurs. Nothing happens in
Speaker 3: a vacuum, right, So the US public has a very
Speaker 3: low opinion of the Supreme Court right now as of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, going into twenty twenty four, more and
Speaker 3: more where people are saying, hey, why don't these guys
Speaker 3: have consequences? Right, Like, why don't these folks have the
Speaker 3: same sort of experiences that we have to live under.
Speaker 3: For instance, you know there's the Row versus Wade overturning.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of scuttle butt occurring. Now, scuttle butt
Speaker 3: is a word I learned from the late Scalia. You
Speaker 3: guys remember Scalia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a Scotus.
Speaker 3: But oh my gosh, can we do a sound Q
Speaker 3: on that? Those excellent. So the the issue here is
Speaker 3: that for a democracy to exist, all members of the
Speaker 3: public servitude, industry or genre should be following the letters
Speaker 3: of the law that they write. And increasingly the American
Speaker 3: public regards wardless of demographic, ideology or age. The American
Speaker 3: public is increasingly cynical regarding these institutions. We have maybe
Speaker 3: heard stories about Clarence Thomas, in particular, taking big, big,
Speaker 3: weird vacations with billionaire donors. You guys remember that.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, like and you know, getting all
Speaker 4: sorts of elaborate meals and gifts and just I mean,
Speaker 4: it's it's nearly impossible to classify that stuff as anything
Speaker 4: but bribes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, when the individual, the individual that is giving these gifts, right,
Speaker 2: or these trips or these vacations, whatever you want to
Speaker 2: call them, when that individual is a huge money player
Speaker 2: in politics, it's a big deal because those justices have
Speaker 2: to come together and decide in the end what the
Speaker 2: law means.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, in a closed door session, in a vacuum, basically,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. It's unilateral to your pointment,
Speaker 4: the power that these raiths wield, so to even have
Speaker 4: the perception of that kind of compromise is outrageous.
Speaker 2: But it's not as though Clarence Thomas was the only
Speaker 2: justice that was doing this kind of stuff, right. Other
Speaker 2: people have been shown to have these meetings, trips in
Speaker 2: you know, vacations as you put it in I think
Speaker 2: that's probably the best word for it. But just hanging
Speaker 2: out with donors who run the political parties.
Speaker 4: They're supposed to be out of their reach, they're supposed
Speaker 4: to beyond reproach. It's horses. They're clearly none of those things.
Speaker 3: It's tough. It's tough also because we know from previous
Speaker 3: I almost said exercises keeping it. We know from previous
Speaker 3: examples that one of the first things you do when
Speaker 3: you overthrow a democracy is control the courts.
Speaker 4: Right. That's why that's why.
Speaker 3: Courts turn into rubber stamps under dictators of any stripe.
Speaker 3: That's why justices get harassed, exiled, or even murdered. And
Speaker 3: one of the big big controversies a few years back
Speaker 3: was the installation of Supreme Court justices and the installation
Speaker 3: of appellate justices and federal level federal level judges. And
Speaker 3: this is going to be important in the near future,
Speaker 3: sooner than perhaps any of us in the US would
Speaker 3: like to imagine, because we're in a situation where the
Speaker 3: folks who are hired by a guy have to rule
Speaker 3: for or against that guy.
Speaker 4: Even the confirmation process of justices seems largely symbolic. You know,
Speaker 4: it's basically, if the president picks the person, they're gonna
Speaker 4: get confirmed, no matter how controversial they are. I don't
Speaker 4: know that I've ever seen in my lifetime one that
Speaker 4: was rejected short of maybe, like you know, proven allegations
Speaker 4: of like sexual misconduct on the front end. Can you
Speaker 4: think of one? I can't. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I thought that just happened pretty much.
Speaker 4: Was there one? There was that one guy. No, No,
Speaker 4: that one guy got confirmed and.
Speaker 2: He got confirmed, but previously to him, there were several
Speaker 2: other or no after him, there were several okay, people
Speaker 2: that got put for.
Speaker 4: Still, it's just it's yeah, well it seems very symbolic largely,
Speaker 4: but anyway, I just the process is really creepy. I
Speaker 4: don't like it. I don't like it. It's a strange
Speaker 4: what it's going to ask you really quickly, because when
Speaker 4: when you brought us up in our group textdress, I
Speaker 4: thought you were also maybe referring to the situation with
Speaker 4: uh state supreme courts and like keeping a candidate off
Speaker 4: the ballot. I don't want to pivot too much, but
Speaker 4: I'd love to talk more about that in the coming
Speaker 4: weeks and months as we see how that process is achieved,
Speaker 4: what allows it to succeed and what causes it to fail,
Speaker 4: and maybe state supreme courts is also an interesting thing
Speaker 4: to roll into a larger episode about the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: Ah, yes, you're talking about Colorado.
Speaker 4: Eh, that's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a fantastic point, and it's something that can
Speaker 3: maybe put some folks into a snoozefest. Right, who wants
Speaker 3: to talk about who wants to talk about the weird
Speaker 3: state of courts in the United States? Well, people who
Speaker 3: go to prison, first off, are friends at Lava for
Speaker 3: Good and people who want to pull shenanigans. Again, we're
Speaker 3: being a political with this. We're pointing out a structural conspiracy.
Speaker 3: There is some stuff they don't want you to know
Speaker 3: when it comes to the idea of packing courts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the biggest deal with this whole ethics thing,
Speaker 2: and like, here's a solution, right, we will offer you
Speaker 2: an internal solution. We will sign a piece of paper
Speaker 2: that says we won't do anything bad. But there's no mechanism.
Speaker 2: There's no lever that gets pulled or a wire that
Speaker 2: gets tripped if they do something that is, you know,
Speaker 2: contrary to that agreement that they signed. So really it's toothless,
Speaker 2: doesn't mean anything, I think guys, Oh, here's the pitch.
Speaker 2: If you imagine all the surveillance that we as citizens
Speaker 2: are under, well, you know, some of it overt some
Speaker 2: of it just that's happening through third parties and applications
Speaker 2: we sign up for and sign terms of agreements with.
Speaker 2: If you imagine just how much data is collected on
Speaker 2: us individually. What if there was a special version of
Speaker 2: that kind of thing that was for publicly serving officials, right,
Speaker 2: someone who gets elected or someone who gets appointed, like
Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court, where they are monitored just a
Speaker 2: little more fully like.
Speaker 4: A rate my professor type situation.
Speaker 2: No, it's not external, right, So the information is internally
Speaker 2: to whatever this is, this you know, oversight committee, this
Speaker 2: thing that just shows every meeting like every major person
Speaker 2: that in agenda them there things like that where it's just.
Speaker 4: Calendar is what I mean by agenda? Like, you know,
Speaker 4: who are they taking meetings with that should be public?
Speaker 4: Is it not? To some degree it doesn't exist? Okay?
Speaker 3: The degree of surveillance also, I would pause, it does exist.
Speaker 3: It's not available to the public. But the justices and
Speaker 3: the alphabet are I can only imagine very aware.
Speaker 4: They might know.
Speaker 3: You know what they might know Supreme Court bowel movement schedules.
Speaker 2: Well they probably do. I mean, I'm sure they know mine,
Speaker 2: so like, why wouldn't they know theirs?
Speaker 3: Well, you got to get off that app, Matt. You
Speaker 3: gotta stop logging in.
Speaker 2: I don't even bring my phone around me when I
Speaker 2: poop anymore, and they still see me doing it.
Speaker 4: No, you gotta make your jet fuel some somehow, somehow,
Speaker 4: there we go. Making jet fuel should becoming new euphemism
Speaker 4: for pooping.
Speaker 3: By the way, I love it. Matt's a loop. What
Speaker 3: are you proposing here?
Speaker 2: I feel like, if you are going to take the
Speaker 2: great responsibility of being one of those sitting justices. There
Speaker 2: should be some kind of.
Speaker 4: Scrutiny, high level scrutiny.
Speaker 2: Like when you choose to do that, you were going
Speaker 2: to make quite a bit of money. You're not going
Speaker 2: to be, you know, a billionaire, but you're gonna make
Speaker 2: quite a bit of money in that position, and you're
Speaker 2: going to wield a ton of power. I think there's
Speaker 2: got to be some kind of mechanism set up there
Speaker 2: that make sure you are actually doing what that position
Speaker 2: is supposed to do, rather than serving yourself or your
Speaker 2: family or whatever other thing it is that you hold
Speaker 2: up higher than the public good.
Speaker 4: But if there's not, which there's not, you have to
Speaker 4: ask yourself, is this by design? Is this the nature
Speaker 4: of this system? You know there? I think it is
Speaker 4: to a large degree. I don't think. I think people
Speaker 4: want to be able to have that opportunity to work
Speaker 4: their way to that level of power. That's the dream.
Speaker 4: Then you can, you know, get whatever you want for
Speaker 4: your family and your cronies and your connections for life.
Speaker 4: That's the reason a lot of people get into politics.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, and I don't think it should
Speaker 4: be that. I don't think it should be that at all.
Speaker 3: Shout out to the Taft family. One of the biggest
Speaker 3: US presidents in many ways on many levels, also served
Speaker 3: in the Supreme Court. So do you guys think it's
Speaker 3: worth it to do an episode about the Supreme Court?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and maybe we throw in a little bit of
Speaker 4: stuff about some of the state stuff as well. I
Speaker 4: think it's great, Ben, and I think this is a
Speaker 4: great primer and really valuable information to start us off strong.
Speaker 4: Give our paranoia a kick, a shot in the arm.
Speaker 3: There we go. So shout out to our fellow conspiracy
Speaker 3: realist folks. We would love to hear your opinions on
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court of the United States, especially if you
Speaker 3: have spent time in countries other than the US. Let
Speaker 3: us know conspiracy Diehart Radio dot com what eight three
Speaker 3: three s T d W y t K. We're going
Speaker 3: to pause for a word from our sponsors, and then
Speaker 3: we are going to return with a story from the
Speaker 3: natural world. Not super pigs, but another you know, another situation.
Speaker 2: Wake up, grab a human thrown down the way chute.
Speaker 2: Sorry sorry, robot chops.
Speaker 4: Say, actually that's kind of weird. I am serious.
Speaker 2: It was referenced in some podcast I was listening to
Speaker 2: over the holiday break. So that's sorry about that.
Speaker 4: A voice that got really cool, great operatic pipes on
Speaker 4: that guy.
Speaker 2: Dude, seriously, system of a down if you didn't catch
Speaker 2: a reference. Okay, so we were back, and guys, let's
Speaker 2: start out by talking about mad cow disease. We lived
Speaker 2: through that whole thing when we were slightly younger. What
Speaker 2: was that? What causes mad cow disease? Why is it dangerous?
Speaker 3: Prions?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Yes, I always say prions. I think it might be wrong,
Speaker 2: but p R I O N s. I'm gonna say
Speaker 2: prions because that's just the way my brain works around
Speaker 2: that thing.
Speaker 4: But not to be confused with prawns, which are delightful
Speaker 4: shrimp esque crustaceans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, none, spongefore sponge offm in cephalopathy.
Speaker 2: That's wow. That's it, Ben, Yes, that is the thing
Speaker 2: that we all heard about. It was in popular media
Speaker 2: all over the place. It was in the news. Thousands
Speaker 2: and thousands of cows lost their lives because they were
Speaker 2: potentially exposed to the prions that caused this thing. It
Speaker 2: was a horrible, big deal not that long ago here
Speaker 2: in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and several
Speaker 2: other places in the world. And the reason why it
Speaker 2: was so dangerous. It's because these weird malformedes called prions
Speaker 2: infect an animal and then slowly change that animal and
Speaker 2: spread throughout that animal till it gets to their brain.
Speaker 2: And there is no medicine you can give an animal
Speaker 2: infected with these things these prions, no way to cure
Speaker 2: this thing. And there's also well, let's just say it's
Speaker 2: extremely difficult to eradicate these prions once they're out in
Speaker 2: the environment, and they can exit an infected animal in
Speaker 2: all kinds of ways, like through their saliva, through their waste,
Speaker 2: through their dead, decaying body. It's really really dangerous stuff,
Speaker 2: and it can stay in the soil, kind of like
Speaker 2: the way those potential fungal infections can occur, and they
Speaker 2: just hang out in the soil for long periods of time.
Speaker 2: Really scary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't eat the flesh, or you shouldn't eat
Speaker 3: the flesh as well. You're absolutely right on multiple accounts. Prions, pons,
Speaker 3: prions is the way ions. You're right. I think it's prions.
Speaker 2: Well that's a whole thing. Now we're going to introduce
Speaker 2: to you something that you may not have heard of,
Speaker 2: called chronic wasting disease or CWD.
Speaker 3: Is that like a Dungeons and dragons.
Speaker 2: Definitely, Oh, definitely, yes, it's a spell that is cast. No. No,
Speaker 2: this is another disease caused by similar prions, but in
Speaker 2: a different class of animals, different species. So matt cow,
Speaker 2: it's cows, right, bovines in CWD. It is in animals
Speaker 2: like deer, elk, moose, caribou and rein deer and this
Speaker 2: thing it acts very much in the same way. And
Speaker 2: it's also called the zombie deer disease.
Speaker 4: Ohikes.
Speaker 2: Now there's a reason for that because when an animal
Speaker 2: is infected with this stuff, and it can take, by
Speaker 2: the way, up to a year to potentially two three
Speaker 2: years to actually see the effects of an infection in
Speaker 2: an animal.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: The animals become drooling, lethargic, emaciated like they're not eating enough,
Speaker 2: stumbling around and they have this uh The Guardian. Todd Wilkinson,
Speaker 2: writing in The Guardian on December twenty second, he describes
Speaker 2: it as a telltale blank stare like just like like
Speaker 2: a zombie.
Speaker 4: And then they crave brains.
Speaker 3: No doubt that thousand league stare the double zeros. Stephen
Speaker 3: King talks about eyes when looking at a serial killer.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, dead eyes like Kirsten Dunst in literally every Man,
Speaker 3: My God, I said it, It's true. Watch even and
Speaker 3: bring it on, dude, watch the eyes.
Speaker 4: Actually in Fargo season two, she's a classic blank character choice.
Speaker 2: Guys, it's a character choice.
Speaker 4: I'm with you, Matt, I'm with you. I'm with you.
Speaker 4: Come on, all right?
Speaker 3: So yes, yes, walk down the street that one. But this,
Speaker 3: you know, Matt, this story reminds me a little bit
Speaker 3: of the dolphin atavism that we discussed earlier. It reminds
Speaker 3: me a little bit of the hybrid super pig. Definitely
Speaker 3: reminds me of our Cortyceps episodes. This zombie deer disease, right,
Speaker 3: how is it spreading? Is it zoonotic?
Speaker 2: What do you mean zoonotic?
Speaker 3: Can it go to humans?
Speaker 2: Okay? So before with mad cow disease, the big fear
Speaker 2: was that this disease would somehow jump to humans, right
Speaker 2: as we've seen other diseases like a covid you know,
Speaker 2: a bird disease jumping to humans. They were nervous that
Speaker 2: mad cow disease. If you ate the meat, you might
Speaker 2: get it as a human. There was a potential danger
Speaker 2: for that. But there wasn't a lot of danger for that.
Speaker 2: It was mostly we don't want to spread any of
Speaker 2: this around, right.
Speaker 4: Things like mad cow disease mainly come from press coverage
Speaker 4: or was that like some sort of official designation.
Speaker 2: Well, it was a real disease caused by that's.
Speaker 4: Not the official name for the disease. There's like a
Speaker 4: scientific name for a mad cow is more of a
Speaker 4: shorthand sort of like serial killer names.
Speaker 3: Bovine sponge of form.
Speaker 4: I'm just asking like, does something like calling it mad
Speaker 4: cow come from scientific community or is that more just
Speaker 4: like some you know, reporter coins it.
Speaker 2: I'm just I don't know. I assume it's from probably
Speaker 2: farmers who began seeing the disease and began calling it
Speaker 2: that cow got mad well before they knew what it was,
Speaker 2: because he caused some of the same stuff in the cows.
Speaker 2: But ben right now, there's a lot of fear about
Speaker 2: this chronic wasting disease spreading, right because these are deer
Speaker 2: and there are a lot of hunters out there who
Speaker 2: kill a lot of deer, and more and more hunters
Speaker 2: are seeing animals with this disease, and they're trying to
Speaker 2: harvest the meat and it's you know, it's kind of
Speaker 2: the questionable. Can I actually eat this meat? Is it
Speaker 2: gonna affect me the way these animals were affected. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of questions about that. Still. Right now,
Speaker 2: there are no confirmed cases of chronic wasting disease transferring
Speaker 2: to humans, either by the saliva of a deer, the
Speaker 2: waste of a deer, or eating the meat of a
Speaker 2: killed deer. But it is a potential thing that could occur.
Speaker 2: Right there could be some kind of mutation in those
Speaker 2: prions that allows it to jump to humans somehow at
Speaker 2: some point, and likely it will happen at some point
Speaker 2: in the future. It hasn't happened yet. It is likely
Speaker 2: that there's going to be a mutation of some sort
Speaker 2: that it'll just jump to whatever. Right, given enough time, yeah,
Speaker 2: give enough time, it's probably gonna happen, as we've seen
Speaker 2: in the past.
Speaker 3: What about other animals that eat deer.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's a fear, right anything living out in
Speaker 2: let's say, the northwest of the United States, there are
Speaker 2: creatures that consume deer. There is a worry about that. Cougars, coyotes, wolves, bears,
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff are eating deer all the time,
Speaker 2: there's a potential for that, but again it's not known yet,
Speaker 2: at least from the writing I've seen. The reason why
Speaker 2: we're talking about it today is because this chronic wasting
Speaker 2: disease has been observed for a long time, since two
Speaker 2: thousand and five, I think is really the start of
Speaker 2: major United States wide monitoring for this disease in deer populations,
Speaker 2: but it is. I'm just going to name off some
Speaker 2: states right now that I saw over the past basically
Speaker 2: two months of news stories. Kentucky, Idaho, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama,
Speaker 2: and Wyoming have all reported new cases of chronic wasting
Speaker 2: disease animals in various parts of those states.
Speaker 3: Interesting because they're not contiguous, so no, we could assume
Speaker 3: maybe like maybe there are states, you know, adjacent to
Speaker 3: the reporting states that just haven't found a case.
Speaker 2: It's very likely because the only way currently that the CDC,
Speaker 2: which is one of the organizations monitoring this stuff, local
Speaker 2: fish and Game, wildlife organization, parks organizations, they're all looking
Speaker 2: at this stuff, and they're all kind of independently reporting.
Speaker 2: When a hunter finds a potentially infected animal and sends
Speaker 2: in a sample to be tested, that's the only way
Speaker 2: they know when there are animals with chronic wasting disease.
Speaker 2: Unless an individual hunter who was out there and scoped
Speaker 2: an animal that was clearly suffering from this thing and
Speaker 2: then reports it, they don't know. And remember, this disease
Speaker 2: can take years to manifest, so you could actually see it.
Speaker 2: So you may shoot a buck as a hunter, let's
Speaker 2: say somewhere in Georgia, and you think that animal's fine,
Speaker 2: you take it, You take it to a tax dermis
Speaker 2: or whatever, you clean it, you get all the meat,
Speaker 2: and then you're eating that meat over the course of
Speaker 2: a year, right, all that venison. It may be infected
Speaker 2: with these prions. You just don't know it unless you
Speaker 2: send us sample to a participating taxidermist or another you
Speaker 2: know group within your state or county that may send
Speaker 2: it to the CDC.
Speaker 4: Are places where maybe hunting is more prevalent and consuming
Speaker 4: this type of game meet more common. Are they are
Speaker 4: they more at risk for this kind of thing? Because
Speaker 4: actually I was talking with my partner and people over
Speaker 4: Christmas about eating venison, and it really is. It seems
Speaker 4: to be something that some people just have never done
Speaker 4: in their entire lives.
Speaker 2: I think it's more discovered in places that have large,
Speaker 2: like let's say, deer or elk populations that are actively
Speaker 2: hunted only because you're you have more human beings interacting
Speaker 2: with that large population and seeing the effects. Right, there
Speaker 2: are way more cases being seen actively in hunting season,
Speaker 2: which gosh, it's been going I guess for a bit now,
Speaker 2: and it lasts until usually like January or February, depending
Speaker 2: on which state you're in. The reason why we're talking
Speaker 2: about today though, is because Yellowstone National Park in the
Speaker 2: northwest corner of Wyoming had their first ever known case,
Speaker 2: let's say, of chronic wasting disease in a deer, which
Speaker 2: means the CDC and other organizations are calling for every
Speaker 2: single hunter that's going out there every time you bag
Speaker 2: a deer. It's the term they use every time you
Speaker 2: kill a deer, whether it's a dough or a buck,
Speaker 2: no matter where it is, take a sample and send
Speaker 2: it in to check to see if that deer was infected,
Speaker 2: and that way there can be a large enough sample
Speaker 2: size that we can really get an understanding of where
Speaker 2: these I think they're called chronic wasting zones that are
Speaker 2: they're being called that by the CDC and other organizations
Speaker 2: to say, hey, chronic wasting disease exists here in this
Speaker 2: corner of this county, or is found here in this
Speaker 2: specific part of Yellowstone National Park. Because as I said,
Speaker 2: those primes can last for like a year in the
Speaker 2: soil on a rock where a deer just got a
Speaker 2: little bit of spittle as it's walking around emaciated and
Speaker 2: with its mouth hanging open, another deer can come by
Speaker 2: and mess with that, get it on their hoof, even
Speaker 2: there's all there. It's crazy how infectious this is and
Speaker 2: how difficult it is to eradicate it. I want to
Speaker 2: read this tiny section from that same Guardian article quote,
Speaker 2: once this environment is infected, any environment where this stuff is,
Speaker 2: the pathogen is extremely hard to eradicate. It can persist
Speaker 2: for years in dirt or on surfaces, and scientists report
Speaker 2: it is resistant to disinfectants, formaldehyde, radiation and incineration at
Speaker 2: six hundred degrees celsius or one hundred degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 3: Holy smooks.
Speaker 2: So like, once it's there, it's there, right, So they
Speaker 2: have to designate areas chronic wasting disease zones and then
Speaker 2: monitor all populations of all potentially infected animals that move
Speaker 2: through that in part of their regular migration.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty four Zombie Dear and super pigs. We're doing
Speaker 3: like a universe thing, Matt. One question I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people will have in the audience tonight, how
Speaker 3: would you, the average person, identify a deer that had
Speaker 3: this infection? Would you? Would it be strange behavior? Is it?
Speaker 2: Like generally, any hunter would probably be able to tell
Speaker 2: because you get you when you're hunting, you can understand,
Speaker 2: You begin to understand the normal activities of especially let's
Speaker 2: say a white tailed deer. You understand kind of how
Speaker 2: they move. Do you understand why they make movements and
Speaker 2: what they alert to and all those things. A deer
Speaker 2: that's infected by this, that is showing symptoms is going
Speaker 2: to act very abnormally and different to that kind of
Speaker 2: going to be again, imagine a zombie deer. If you
Speaker 2: see one, a deer that looks like a zombie kind
Speaker 2: of that's probably that's what's going on.
Speaker 4: Red flag for sure.
Speaker 2: But because of that time it takes, you never know
Speaker 2: if a normal looking deer is actually infected by this,
Speaker 2: it just hasn't shown any symptoms yet.
Speaker 4: Now I'm sorry if I missed it, and I realized
Speaker 4: earlier I may have asked sort of a silly question
Speaker 4: about places where hunting and consumption of venison is more common.
Speaker 4: If those are places more to be concerned about. Does
Speaker 4: this have any effect on humans if they consume the meat?
Speaker 2: Unknown currently doesn't seem to have any effect on humans
Speaker 2: because humans have undoubtedly ingested this stuff and we haven't
Speaker 2: noticed anything with you know, a human coming down with
Speaker 2: chronic human wasting disease or whatever. The worry is that
Speaker 2: like swine flu or you know, a bird flu, it
Speaker 2: could jump species the way those did, right, becomes zoonotic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so just be aware, that's all. That's really all. And
Speaker 2: I would say, if you are actively hunting, do send
Speaker 2: in samples, like, find out who you can send a
Speaker 2: sample into, and then just do it.
Speaker 3: Please, please do it. You're absolutely right. Sounds like maybe
Speaker 3: it's a it's a pain to deal with bureaucracy which
Speaker 3: is often slow moving. But let's not forget that doctor
Speaker 3: Michael Osterholm, the US epidemiologist who first tipped Britain to
Speaker 3: mad cow disease, Let's not forget that he said, this
Speaker 3: chronic wasting disease and deer could become a quote slow
Speaker 3: moving disaster.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and here's a quote from that same Guardian article.
Speaker 2: This one's from doctor Corey Anderson. This freaked me out.
Speaker 2: That's why he said quote, We're dealing with a disease
Speaker 2: that is invariably fatal, incurable and highly contagious, made into
Speaker 2: the worries that we don't have an effective way to
Speaker 2: eradicate it, neither from the animals it infects nor the
Speaker 2: environments it contaminates. Just think about that for a while
Speaker 2: while you listen to these ads. We'll be right back
Speaker 2: with more strange news.
Speaker 3: Eight deer bray smokement thal cigarettes, two crimes.
Speaker 4: No wait what, I didn't mean.
Speaker 5: It, And we're back with one more piece of strange
Speaker 5: news for this your first day of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: This one's a doozy. We talked a bit about this
Speaker 4: off air, and I think we've mentioned the idea of
Speaker 4: a ban on menthol cigarettes coming down from the United
Speaker 4: States federal government that has been postponed into twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: Unknown as to exactly when it will happen, but it
Speaker 4: most likely will unless some of the measures we're going
Speaker 4: to talk about in this news bit kind of do
Speaker 4: what they're setting out to do. During the second Republican
Speaker 4: presidential debate, there was an advertisement that played on Fox
Speaker 4: Business that talked about how Biden's ban on menthol cigarettes
Speaker 4: could This is quoting the ad fuel an illicit market
Speaker 4: lining the pockets of the Mexican cartels, featuring some very
Speaker 4: inflammatory imagery of border fences and stacks of one hundred
Speaker 4: dollars bills and men carrying coffins and such. And this
Speaker 4: ad was paid for by something called the Border Security Alliance.
Speaker 4: And I read a really great article on Mother Jones
Speaker 4: by Dan Friedman and Isabella Diaz from just about a
Speaker 4: week ago this past in twenty twenty three, in December
Speaker 4: twenty first of twenty twenty three. You can find it yourself.
Speaker 4: It's a pretty deep dive, much more than we can
Speaker 4: get to in this segment. But I did want to
Speaker 4: talk a bit about how the idea of these tobacco companies,
Speaker 4: you know, R. J. Reynolds, you know, being first and
Speaker 4: foremost on that list and their parent company, Altria, are
Speaker 4: having to kind of pivot with all of the you know,
Speaker 4: science behind cigarettes and all of the horrible health conditions
Speaker 4: that they can cause, and also some of the issues
Speaker 4: surrounding vapes and also knowing how a lot of these
Speaker 4: vapes are coming from places like China, places like you know,
Speaker 4: other other countries, and there is a certainly a black
Speaker 4: market of some sort to be talked about, to be
Speaker 4: to be addressed with this kind of stuff, and that
Speaker 4: of course, organized crime organizations have often looked to changes
Speaker 4: in regulations, you know, by the FDA around certain things
Speaker 4: to pivot their business models into, you know, what they
Speaker 4: decide they want to smuggle into this country. So again
Speaker 4: I'm just saying a lot of those things are true.
Speaker 4: What is very interesting is how the tobacco companies are
Speaker 4: kind of spinning it here, right, the idea that and
Speaker 4: like who they're referencing, the kind of fear mongering behind
Speaker 4: a lot of this stuff, And what is the Border
Speaker 4: Security Alliance? A tweet from the bsa underscore US official
Speaker 4: Twitter x whatever account Border Security Alliance says, our border
Speaker 4: is at a crisis point. We are battling ruthless cartels
Speaker 4: on a daily basis. And now in the Biden administrations
Speaker 4: is considering a ban on menthol cigarettes. That's irresp The
Speaker 4: president's ban will fuel an illicit market lining the pockets
Speaker 4: of Mexican cartels and throughout the life of this kind
Speaker 4: of talking point, which is relatively recent, as we've seen,
Speaker 4: you know, the conflicts between Israel and Gaza. UH now
Speaker 4: terrorist organizations has kind of they has joined the chat
Speaker 4: and even referencing, you know, stuff like groups like Hamas
Speaker 4: and Hezbollah, and of course in political rhetoric, those are
Speaker 4: things that get people's dander up nice and good. So
Speaker 4: I don't know, I just wanted to see what you
Speaker 4: guys thought about this kind of politicization of something seemingly
Speaker 4: as innocuous as banning menthol cigarettes, which, as we know,
Speaker 4: based on some studies, you know, would help prevent a
Speaker 4: lot of young people from starting to smoke. Menthol cigarettes
Speaker 4: are kind of considered a gateway cigarette because they taste
Speaker 4: nice or whatever. They've got a minty flavor. I don't
Speaker 4: know how much I necessarily believe that, But what do
Speaker 4: you guys think? What's at play here? And is this
Speaker 4: a shadowy lobbying effort or is this just a company
Speaker 4: trying to keep other countries from eating their lunch.
Speaker 2: Let me put this out there, at risk of being
Speaker 2: gross to most people listening to this right now, at
Speaker 2: one point in my life, I smoked mentalated cigarettes. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's right disgusting, and I'm sorry, but I did.
Speaker 4: A lot of people do, Matt, I mean it's they're popular.
Speaker 2: Well, at the time when I did, that was the
Speaker 2: only type of smoke that I would use, right, that
Speaker 2: I would purchase in that state of mind that I
Speaker 2: was in at the time. When I was smoking those,
Speaker 2: I would I would drive twenty minutes if I knew
Speaker 2: I could get them somewhere, right Like, if I couldn't
Speaker 2: find them my local gas station, I would drive out
Speaker 2: of my way to go and get them because I
Speaker 2: needed them, and I felt like I needed them, and
Speaker 2: in many ways I felt help addicted to that specific
Speaker 2: type of cigarette.
Speaker 4: Dude, now that I think back on it, I started
Speaker 4: smoking by smoking menthol cigarettes when I was very young.
Speaker 4: Just putting that out there, absolutely true.
Speaker 2: I think that it's true potentially that if you ban
Speaker 2: this specific type of thing, there would be a black
Speaker 2: market for it that may open up, or at least
Speaker 2: a spin on it that would end up being legal,
Speaker 2: but it would taste kind of the same, But there
Speaker 2: would be something that would fill in that market space, right,
Speaker 2: because there are going to be millions of people that
Speaker 2: smoke them right now that are going to need them,
Speaker 2: but they're going to feel like they need them, right,
Speaker 2: But is.
Speaker 4: It coming from the cartels? Is it coming from hesba lah? Like,
Speaker 4: that's my question. It seems like an over complication of
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, there's a black market for freaking raw milk,
Speaker 4: you know, if you if you can't get it legally.
Speaker 4: Black markets come up during any kind of prohibition. But
Speaker 4: is this funding terrorism and you know, weakening our border security.
Speaker 3: I'll come in after you met. I think I would
Speaker 3: just say.
Speaker 2: I got you. I think it would fund either market innovation,
Speaker 2: right or organized crime, which doesn't mean terrorism, doesn't mean cartels,
Speaker 2: It means like prohibition era stuff, right. I mean, in
Speaker 2: my mind that's what it is.
Speaker 4: Speakeasys flappers, but meilated.
Speaker 3: Cigarettes selling Lucy's selling selling a square.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess what I mean is I just don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that is the same thing, right,
Speaker 2: And I don't know how you would prove that that
Speaker 2: is the same thing as terrorists and car Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a bit rich, I think, especially in
Speaker 3: a land where the or in a ecosystem where tobacco
Speaker 3: legacy companies immediately pivoted to vapes that are essentially Halloween
Speaker 3: candy flavored at all times. Like that, that is the still,
Speaker 3: that is the menthilation, the gateway that you're talking about, NOL.
Speaker 3: The idea of equating it to terrorism makes a lot
Speaker 3: of sense because you can easily get more funding. I'd
Speaker 3: like to shout out the allies of the Border Security Alliance,
Speaker 3: which is not a governmental organization, right right, So shout
Speaker 3: out to the Arizona Police Association, Combined Law Enforcement Associations
Speaker 3: of Arizona, Glendale Police Officer Association, Arizona Probation Officer Association,
Speaker 3: Tucson Police Officer Association, and some friends in Albuquerque. Like
Speaker 3: the list goes on. What I'm saying is there are
Speaker 3: people with a horse in the race. It is very
Speaker 3: good not to not to light up a Cadillac Newport
Speaker 3: if you if you can avoid it, it'll cost you
Speaker 3: a lot of money, either either at a gas station
Speaker 3: or later in a hospital.
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 3: Cadillac is a street term for the longer new Ports.
Speaker 4: Okay, like a like a like a one hundred yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: just so can I add to that really quickly, But
Speaker 4: just to just to get this out there, Another divisive
Speaker 4: use of the divisive piece of rhetoric is the notion
Speaker 4: that this ban is inherently racist because black people disproportionately
Speaker 4: prefer smoking menthol cigarettes to non menthol cigarettes. Again, don't
Speaker 4: know if that's true. Kind of almost feels like a
Speaker 4: like an unfair stereotype. But maybe there's data to back
Speaker 4: that up. But it doesn't stop people from throwing that around,
Speaker 4: you know, as if to mean or to malign this
Speaker 4: this action.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting too, because putting the terrorism idea aside,
Speaker 3: the like just bracketing that for a second. We know
Speaker 3: that banning tobacco has worked in various countries, right there
Speaker 3: are countries where you can, as a visitor bring in
Speaker 3: a set amount of tobacco, whether it's measured by weight
Speaker 3: or in the case of cigarettes, it's i should say,
Speaker 3: in the carton of cigarettes, it's measured by a number
Speaker 3: of coffin nails. But the thing is here, we're looking
Speaker 3: at something that may simply fade away. Indeed, the best
Speaker 3: propaganda for cigarettes, for what the kids are calling old
Speaker 3: school cigarettes now instead of apes, it's going to be Hollywood.
Speaker 3: It's going to be all those old films, all the
Speaker 3: old TV series where in the coolest or most mysterious
Speaker 3: or most dangerous person you know, all of a sudden
Speaker 3: has a cigarette whatever they're doing. So I think that
Speaker 3: you have to beat propaganda before you clamp down on
Speaker 3: this stuff and call it terrorism. Also, how much money, no,
Speaker 3: how much money would terrorist groups make off selling Lucy's I.
Speaker 4: Good question, Ben. What I do know though, is that
Speaker 4: tobacco use is way down in the United States, like
Speaker 4: in a pretty significant way, and also among young people,
Speaker 4: you know, who aren't starting to smoke combustible cigarettes, you know,
Speaker 4: and that maybe doesn't necessarily always wrap in the vape stuff,
Speaker 4: which we also know have their own problems, And it's
Speaker 4: one of those things where long term the effects of
Speaker 4: vapes are yet to really they're kind of TBD. Which
Speaker 4: is wild to me that any form of vape is
Speaker 4: FDA approved or is able to be acquired legally. But now,
Speaker 4: I mean, anytime you go to a gas station or
Speaker 4: like a smoke shop, a tobacco you know, headshop, whatever
Speaker 4: you call it, and you see these little disposable guys,
Speaker 4: like these elf bars or whatever, it's my understanding that
Speaker 4: those aren't entirely legal because they taste like mango and afriking,
Speaker 4: you know, papaya and stuff, and they're pretty colors, and
Speaker 4: I just I don't quite understand how those are able
Speaker 4: to be sold, if that's a black market thing or
Speaker 4: if it's just a loophole thing. Because Jewel got pilloried
Speaker 4: for all of this stuff. They kind of became the
Speaker 4: whipping boy for a lot of this debate, and they
Speaker 4: aren't allowed to sell anything that has a you know,
Speaker 4: fruity flavor anymore. Right, I don't quite understand where these
Speaker 4: elf bars are coming from.
Speaker 3: Well, I suspect, I'm sure I suspect the legacy tobacco
Speaker 3: companies again have their hand in the cookie jar here,
Speaker 3: or have their hand in the tobacco barn, because that
Speaker 3: can replace the market demand. Right, you get a candy
Speaker 3: flavor nicotine substance that replaces the your earlier experience as
Speaker 3: a child with mentallyated cigarettes, as you call them, Matt.
Speaker 3: The idea though that I don't know. I sound like
Speaker 3: I'm cracking on the the ulterior motives of the border
Speaker 3: alliance here, But just to be fair, you have to
Speaker 3: point out our earlier conversation in a previous Strange News
Speaker 3: segment when the cartel took over the avocado trade just
Speaker 3: so they could, you know, make some money. So maybe
Speaker 3: maybe they are in.
Speaker 4: The way overthrew the government to sell pineapples or whatever whatever,
Speaker 4: like with the was it Jaquita? Remember there was a
Speaker 4: whole coup like to sell bananas.
Speaker 3: Oh in nineteen fifty four, the free of Throw of Guatemala.
Speaker 4: Correct, yes, yes, I'm saying like this is yeah. Sorry, man,
Speaker 4: you're absolutely right. I'm just thinking of other examples.
Speaker 3: You're right, yeah, I mean also, that's the thing I'm
Speaker 3: looking at this in some of the notes who provided
Speaker 3: us here. No, I'm looking at the Management of Border
Speaker 3: Security Alliance, And if you go to their about section,
Speaker 3: you see that there's a lot of Arizona Arizona Area
Speaker 3: l eos who are on their board or managing the place,
Speaker 3: and they're primarily concerned with what they call border security.
Speaker 3: They're primarily concerned with emigration and drug seizures.
Speaker 4: So is this.
Speaker 3: Really one of their core missions or is this something
Speaker 3: to get into the headlines and then further push the
Speaker 3: Overton window of what they want the conversation to be.
Speaker 4: To be fair, our j. Reynolds was reached out to
Speaker 4: by Mother Jones and asked to give a comment, they
Speaker 4: said the following. Like many other companies, Reynolds supports organizations
Speaker 4: that contribute to the debate on issues that are important
Speaker 4: to our consumers. Reynolds has been clear on where it
Speaker 4: stands on this topic. We strongly believe there are more
Speaker 4: effective ways to deliver tobacco harm reduction than banning products.
Speaker 4: Banning products often leads to a tended consequences, such as
Speaker 4: the increase of illegal, unregulated products flooding the market.
Speaker 3: Ooh, you gotta admire that linguistic park wore though, huh
Speaker 3: a couple of matrix dodges. They did a backflip.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not bad. And then you know, there are
Speaker 4: other organizations mentioned in this this article to your pointment.
Speaker 4: Another one is the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives,
Speaker 4: which is a group that until very recently listed R J.
Speaker 4: Reynolds as being one of their major supporters and now
Speaker 4: just decided to pivot to mentioning Altria, which is that
Speaker 4: parent company of Philip Morris. You know, so it's a
Speaker 4: little better optics, but there's skin in the game for
Speaker 4: this stuff, and the idea of linking it to hot
Speaker 4: button issues certainly isn't a new technique, but I find
Speaker 4: it to be disingenuous and a little on the creepy side.
Speaker 4: I think it's something to look into further, especially as
Speaker 4: we see developments in this kind of thing, because prohibition
Speaker 4: of any kind does always have I will totally agree.
Speaker 4: I think we all will have unintended consequences that can
Speaker 4: oftentimes be predicted. And I think maybe banning mental cigarettes
Speaker 4: is not even that is it going to make that
Speaker 4: big of an impact. But I could be wrong, because
Speaker 4: you're right, Matt. I do remember a lot of young
Speaker 4: people I knew that started smoking started smoking by smoking
Speaker 4: like cools or something that like had that it was easier,
Speaker 4: It was a gateway because you know, Marlborough Reds are
Speaker 4: gross but freaking you know, cools or Newports or whatever
Speaker 4: they've got this they are there's a certain candy quality
Speaker 4: to them. That's that's you're not wrong.
Speaker 3: Oh and prohibition. Another way to phrase prohibition. I agree
Speaker 3: with your points here. I think that's brilliant astute. Another
Speaker 3: way to phrase prohibition is the perverse incentive concept. So
Speaker 3: you know, especially here in the States, you tell people
Speaker 3: they can't have a thing, right, Remember, even you don't
Speaker 3: tell I can right, right right, And lest we sound
Speaker 3: too political, let's remember in New York when someone banned
Speaker 3: large sodas right at your local bodega. People were up
Speaker 3: in arms, even John Stewart, who clearly have better things
Speaker 3: to do. Uh, soda is different because it will it
Speaker 3: will have us health effects less less immediately damaging averse
Speaker 3: health effects. But gosh, selling cigarette selling Lucy's the mother
Speaker 3: Jones article you mentioned here. Noel also talks about UH
Speaker 3: terrorist groups in the Middle East, not just Mexican cartels.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was, and that was sort of added
Speaker 4: later in terms of the language. And I think a
Speaker 4: lot of that had to do with UH some of
Speaker 4: the you know, the conflicts going on, you know with
Speaker 4: Gaza and stuff that are very much in the news
Speaker 4: right now. As a way of like tying it to
Speaker 4: something that people understand as PoTA, that people divisively understand
Speaker 4: as a threat. It's just weird. It's all just lobbying
Speaker 4: and marketing, and it's a bunch of bulls. But it's
Speaker 4: very fast episode. Uh, I think so too, Yeah, And
Speaker 4: I think we leave it there today. This one has
Speaker 4: run long, but I think, man, what a great way
Speaker 4: to kick off the new year, and hey, at least
Speaker 4: we started off with some positive stuff. Guys, right, Thank
Speaker 4: you for that, Ben, I gotta say, and.
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Speaker 3: off to a rollicking start for twenty twenty four. We
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Speaker 4: So yeah, Still, we're still conspiracy stuff on Twitter x
Speaker 4: whatever you want to call it. This year. We'll see
Speaker 4: interesting things developing with that Elon Muskfellow too, that we
Speaker 4: should probably cover at some point. We are also conspiracy
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Speaker 4: to come this year, excited to make. I think we
Speaker 4: all enjoy and we appreciate your comments on them. We
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Speaker 2: Ben what is winter sins or winter counterclockwisewise? Yeah, okay, cool?
Speaker 4: Say anti clockwise, which I recently learned w I D
Speaker 4: D E.
Speaker 3: R shins got it?
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