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 Noel.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 3: our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you. You are here that makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. Welcome to our
Speaker 3: weekly listener mail segment where we get to hear directly
Speaker 3: from you. If you're hearing this the evening it comes out. Also,
Speaker 3: Welcome to November fourteenth. Thanksgiving. Kind of a big deal
Speaker 3: here in the US is on the way, and we
Speaker 3: wish everybody hearing this the just the absolute best when
Speaker 3: you have to hang out with your family members and
Speaker 3: your loved ones as you go toward that big dinner.
Speaker 4: And especially you know, given divisive times, we know it
Speaker 4: can be difficult if people give Thanksgiving maybe differ in
Speaker 4: opinions or politics. So I would posit that maybe just
Speaker 4: leave politics at home for the Thanksgiving holidays, if at
Speaker 4: all possible. It'll probably be good for your mental health.
Speaker 3: I will add, Yeah, that's the point one to get to.
Speaker 3: We can always feel that we are in a situation
Speaker 3: where you have to hang out with people you don't
Speaker 3: see them all that often. They've got a big info
Speaker 3: download on stuff that's been going on with them. They
Speaker 3: want to hear from you, So make sure there's some
Speaker 3: give and takee be curious. As Ted Lasso said, ask
Speaker 3: them about themselves, you know what I mean. That is
Speaker 3: the key to a good conversation. We also have an
Speaker 3: episode from back in the day about how to talk
Speaker 3: with your relatives over the holidays.
Speaker 4: We sure do. I completely forgot about that one. That
Speaker 4: is a good resource. I haven't listened to it in
Speaker 4: a minute, but I'm sure we were very smart with
Speaker 4: all the things we said.
Speaker 3: We definitely had our hearts in the right place, and
Speaker 3: so do all our fellow conspiracy realists. We're gonna hear
Speaker 3: from Wonko the saying, following up on a conversation we
Speaker 3: had over a number of years, but in previous Strange
Speaker 3: News segment as well. We're gonna hear from multiple platforms.
Speaker 3: We'll see how many letters from home we get to.
Speaker 3: There were a lot. But before we do any of that,
Speaker 3: we want to return to you yet again with a
Speaker 3: follow up on our episode regarding abuse in the Amish community.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we sure do, and we will get to that
Speaker 4: letter after a quick brief word from our sponsor, and
Speaker 4: we've returned and Ben, you're absolutely right. We had a
Speaker 4: pretty big outpouring of response to the episode on abuse
Speaker 4: in the Amish community. A lot of them from folks
Speaker 4: that live in and around parts of the country where
Speaker 4: there are significant, you know, Amish populations. And that is
Speaker 4: the case from Don Vee, who wrote into us with
Speaker 4: a very respectful and kind maybe a clarification, not even
Speaker 4: a correction. I'll just get right to it, gentlemen. I
Speaker 4: just got done listening to your episode on the horrific
Speaker 4: crimes within the Amish community, and I wanted to thank
Speaker 4: you on a fantastic job covering a little known and
Speaker 4: quite taboo subject. Thank you very much. I am a
Speaker 4: builder and welder out here in northeast slash Central Pennsylvania,
Speaker 4: and while I myself am not Amish, there are numerous
Speaker 4: intersecting communities surrounding me, and I deal with them several
Speaker 4: times a week. I get my lumber from an Amish sawmill.
Speaker 4: I buy my welding gas from an Amish supplier. The
Speaker 4: steelyard I go to is Amish owned and run. You
Speaker 4: get the idea. The one thing that I think you
Speaker 4: got slightly wrong is a little quip stuck in a
Speaker 4: line towards the beginning of the show where it was
Speaker 4: mentioned that they eschee the trappings of the outside world,
Speaker 4: including money, and that's where you're a bit off, and
Speaker 4: I don't, don Vie. I don't recall exactly who said that,
Speaker 4: sounds like something I might have said, but really really
Speaker 4: appreciate the perspective here. So don Vi goes on. The
Speaker 4: Amish not only don't regard money as evil, they are
Speaker 4: some of the most hardcore capitalists down to their marrow.
Speaker 4: Many of them will do just about anything for money.
Speaker 4: The vast majority of puppy mills being run in Pennsylvania
Speaker 4: are Amish, including ones that have been busted for breeding
Speaker 4: and grooming dogs used in dogfighting rings. There is more
Speaker 4: than one account of Amish barns going up in flames
Speaker 4: because of an exploding meth lab within. We did talk
Speaker 4: on the episode about meth production within the Amish community.
Speaker 4: A little bit near the end. What most people would
Speaker 4: be surprised to learn is the vast majority of Amish
Speaker 4: men retire millionaires. They buy up enormous swaths of land,
Speaker 4: including almost entire towns, where they then move others and
Speaker 4: from other far away communities so they can vote and
Speaker 4: install local politicians of their choosing before moving on to
Speaker 4: another town to do the same. They are extremely shrewd
Speaker 4: businessmen who hold a shocking amount of wealth, health, and
Speaker 4: political juice in rural areas. Hope this clears up a
Speaker 4: few misconceptions about this often misunderstood community. I do have
Speaker 4: some hilarious stories of cultural divides in my years of
Speaker 4: dealing with these folks. Should you ever get bored and
Speaker 4: want a good laugh, take care, guys, thanks for being realists.
Speaker 4: Don v as very sweet and incredibly informative. I did
Speaker 4: not know about any of that stuff, and that is
Speaker 4: the kind of thing that really would be hard to know.
Speaker 4: And this is kind of probably some of the stuff
Speaker 4: they don't want you to know unless you are like
Speaker 4: Don and doing actual business with them or living in
Speaker 4: and around those communities.
Speaker 3: And Don, thank you for taking the time to first
Speaker 3: check out our show, and thank you for writing in
Speaker 3: with firsthand experience, which we always love. We also want
Speaker 3: to give a shout out to some other folks, including
Speaker 3: the Brockness Monster who wrote in regarding the puppy mill
Speaker 3: phenomena that you pointed out there. Don It is fascinating
Speaker 3: because we're looking at the interaction between a in group
Speaker 3: and a out group. The plane or the English or
Speaker 3: however the non Amish may be referred to, still do business.
Speaker 3: They still live in a larger community. You know, you
Speaker 3: can buy Amish furniture online. A lot of people in
Speaker 3: Amish communities do have checking accounts, right, do have credit cards,
Speaker 3: do use US currency here in the United States to
Speaker 3: interact with the secular world. So it makes sense, no sense,
Speaker 3: it makes dollars and sense. We should say that there
Speaker 3: will be people in those communities who are able to
Speaker 3: reach financial success.
Speaker 2: Think about how much money the average person, let's say
Speaker 2: middle Yes, I know, I buy.
Speaker 4: All the time.
Speaker 3: I am super bullish, make.
Speaker 4: Their own cowpoop from all the cap and with you immediately, Matt, please,
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry to interrupt. You's got excited.
Speaker 2: No, no, I just I just think about recurring expenses
Speaker 2: that you know now there are companies making millions and
Speaker 2: millions of dollars and all they do is point out
Speaker 2: your recurring payments on your credit card that you forgot about,
Speaker 2: you know, like reread ads for companies that do that,
Speaker 2: and just you know, I think about the stuff that's
Speaker 2: in my house right now, that's all Like my hobbies
Speaker 2: are something to do with electronics or gaming or movies,
Speaker 2: and it's just it added up. Yeah, if you if
Speaker 2: I personally could eliminate that stuff from my life, yeah,
Speaker 2: my goodness, I would be a much wealthier man.
Speaker 3: I see what you're saying. We also that brings up
Speaker 3: a related point, which is that oftentimes people spend their
Speaker 3: income or their largess on uh on status symbols right
Speaker 3: within their community. And so the status symbols perhaps the
Speaker 3: folks in the Amish community may differ from those in
Speaker 3: the surrounding set secular communities. Like if you're not going
Speaker 3: to suffer the death of a thousand streaming cuts out
Speaker 3: of your income every month, where does your money go? Look,
Speaker 3: just because someone has a different socio religious ideology or
Speaker 3: lens through which they interact with the world, that never
Speaker 3: makes them stupid. That just means they have different priorities
Speaker 3: from you know, someone else. So there's nothing stopping people
Speaker 3: from investing in property. Right to your point, don to
Speaker 3: maybe farm implements horses, both of which can be very
Speaker 3: expensive and very lucrative and very lucrative. That's a great
Speaker 3: point now, and maybe even depending on because these communities
Speaker 3: are not monolithic, right, some are more permissive in how
Speaker 3: the secular community interacts. So maybe there are some folks
Speaker 3: who made made a bank off stocks and mutual funds.
Speaker 4: Sure, but they're likely You're not going to see anybody
Speaker 4: rolling around in a maserati in an imp community maybe.
Speaker 3: Whatever, like the Maserati version of a horse.
Speaker 4: The horse, Yeah, but that would just be for function,
Speaker 4: just to have one that would last a long time,
Speaker 4: you know, to have one that was well built. You'd
Speaker 4: be investing in the right things. And I think there's
Speaker 4: some lessons we could learn from the homage to your point, Matt,
Speaker 4: about how to like live a little more frugally and ultimately,
Speaker 4: you know, be more fruitful in the long term.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing two things here, guys. The first one is
Speaker 2: that if my hobbies weren't going around getting souls in
Speaker 2: a dark soul's game or whatever, and I'm you know,
Speaker 2: and playing drums and all that these other things that
Speaker 2: are more entertainment.
Speaker 4: Hobbies for me.
Speaker 2: I could see and if I didn't leave my like
Speaker 2: local area very often, I could totally see myself getting
Speaker 2: into like, well, there is some land over there, and
Speaker 2: I could save enough money for that, and I wonder
Speaker 2: if I could use that land for something. Oh hey,
Speaker 2: maybe I need to get in with the local commissioners.
Speaker 2: Maybe we should actually work on local election and start
Speaker 2: doing that stuff. And the second thing I see here
Speaker 2: is we're talking raw materials for construction that are being
Speaker 2: pointed out here right steal lumber and welding gas. Yes,
Speaker 2: those are crazy lucrative because any of these other companies
Speaker 2: that want to come through and build things can get
Speaker 2: their supplies from you. It's brilliant.
Speaker 4: I think so too. Oh Man, thank you so much,
Speaker 4: don Vie for that perspective. I think it's something that
Speaker 4: really clicked with all three of us. So I know, Ben,
Speaker 4: Did you have anything else to have before we go
Speaker 4: to a little quick break.
Speaker 3: If you are a member, a current or former of
Speaker 3: an Amish community or some related belief system, we would
Speaker 3: love to hear from you directly. We will tell you
Speaker 3: how to get to us online or through any other
Speaker 3: method of communication. At the end of tonight's listener mail segment,
Speaker 3: please stay tuned and again, as you said, Noel, thank
Speaker 3: you so much to don Vie, and thank you to
Speaker 3: everybody who wrote in or otherwise contacted us regarding these experiences. Also,
Speaker 3: if you're one of the folks from the Mennonite community
Speaker 3: I used to mess with in Guatemala, I hope you
Speaker 3: guys are okay. I hope the bakery is still open.
Speaker 4: That place was awesome, lovely Mennonite community in my hometown
Speaker 4: of Augusta, Georgia, and a great bakery, absolutely wonderful little
Speaker 4: ham roll things. Well, let's see a quick pause for
Speaker 4: the cause that keeps the lights on here, and we'll
Speaker 4: come back with another message from you.
Speaker 2: And we've returned. Guys, we've got a doozy, and by doozy,
Speaker 2: I mean a very deep topic that I don't think
Speaker 2: we're going to be able to handle in this fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: So let's imagine perhaps making a full episode on this
Speaker 2: specific topic, because it goes deep and there's a twist
Speaker 2: in here that we're going to get too that I
Speaker 2: think is the reason for a lot of the forward
Speaker 2: facing response to what we're going to talk about. So
Speaker 2: with all that said, let's listen to a message we
Speaker 2: received from Wonko Hi.
Speaker 5: This is Wonko, the same longtime listener, first time ever
Speaker 5: calling her right into you guys, and you guys were
Speaker 5: talking about the ban of Chinese software and hardware, and
Speaker 5: I just wanted to point out that China has already
Speaker 5: managed to infiltrate our pipeline. If you look up, I
Speaker 5: believe it was Wired who had a fantastic episode about it.
Speaker 5: A little micro chip smaller than the size of the
Speaker 5: tip of a pencil that was basically able to take
Speaker 5: complete control of massive numbers of servers. We're talking governments,
Speaker 5: we're talking Apple, we're talking Microsoft. They had this tiny
Speaker 5: little chip on all of these main boards that essentially
Speaker 5: allowed them to duplicate and copy any data they wanted.
Speaker 5: They could take control at any time. So as far
Speaker 5: as Chinese made software and hardware, you never know when
Speaker 5: the next attack is going to come through. And they
Speaker 5: were listening in on embassies, they were listening in on
Speaker 5: virtually every aspect of tech. They had their fingers in
Speaker 5: there pretty deep. So as far as the ban is concerned,
Speaker 5: long before the ban on Chinese hardware or software really
Speaker 5: comes into play. We need to reevaluate our pipelines as
Speaker 5: far as where our hardware comes from and actually start
Speaker 5: to build things in country. Anyways, just my two thoughts
Speaker 5: on the band and potential ban anyways, and how little
Speaker 5: a band would have effect if we ignore our pipelines. Anyways,
Speaker 5: you guys have great episodes. Hope you have a good one.
Speaker 3: Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 4: Wonka wait a minute, so yes, thank you. So that
Speaker 4: chip is this is like industrial espionage or this is
Speaker 4: like part of existing hardware and people, and it is known,
Speaker 4: it goes, it goes happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it goes deep, and it goes back in time
Speaker 2: to twenty eighteen. So at least that's when we found
Speaker 2: out about it because Bloomberg started talking about it. And
Speaker 2: this is important. The publication, the outfit Bloomberg, they did
Speaker 2: their own investigation and then it created a bunch of
Speaker 2: other writing about this investigation. You can go directly to
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg source if you want to. We'll go ahead
Speaker 2: and tell you that so you can learn about this
Speaker 2: as well. You will have to I think subscribe or
Speaker 2: get one of those things, you know, sign up for
Speaker 2: whatever to read the article. It is titled The Big
Speaker 2: Hack How China used a tiny chip to infiltrate US companies.
Speaker 2: It was written by Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley on
Speaker 2: October fourth, twenty eighteen. It's a huge piece, a big
Speaker 2: old feature. And then what we're going to do just
Speaker 2: because it's what was mentioned by Wonko the Saine there
Speaker 2: and yes, thank you so much for this Wonko. We're
Speaker 2: going to go to Wired because they then wrote about
Speaker 2: it on October fourth, Lily Hey Newman wrote about it,
Speaker 2: so we're going to jump to that article in the
Speaker 2: same year, right, same year, Yeah, same time. So, like
Speaker 2: I said, Bloomberg starts the waterfall and then Wired catches it.
Speaker 2: So that's where we're going right now. Wired's article is
Speaker 2: titled There's no good fix if the supply chain gets hacked,
Speaker 2: And I'm just going to read a little bit from
Speaker 2: this to answer your questional because I guess we can
Speaker 2: just say at the top before we get into it.
Speaker 2: This tiny little microchip that Wonko is describing is an
Speaker 2: extra microchip, like an extra CPU type situation that is
Speaker 2: applied to a motherboard. I think we're all familiar with
Speaker 2: what a motherboard is. It's the larger piece of silicon
Speaker 2: that has a bunch of the components.
Speaker 4: Printed circuit kind of situation.
Speaker 2: It's a printed circuit that components get plugged into, right,
Speaker 2: and then that operates your computer or your server, right.
Speaker 2: And you would have a bunch of these in a
Speaker 2: huge array if you're talking about somebody like Apple or
Speaker 2: Microsoft as Wanko mentioned, or Amazon. So here we go.
Speaker 2: These are Lily's words. A major report from Bloomberg describes
Speaker 2: an infiltration of the hardware supply chain allegedly orchestrated by
Speaker 2: the Chinese military that reaches an unprecedented geopolitical scope and
Speaker 2: scale and may be a manifestation of the tech industry's
Speaker 2: worst fears. If the details are correct. That's important because
Speaker 2: it's if Bloomberg's investigation is correct, it could be a
Speaker 2: nearly impossible mess to clean up. So let's just get
Speaker 2: into this. The chips that we're talking about here are
Speaker 2: from a US based company called super micro Computer Inc.
Speaker 2: Also known as super Micro. This is a San Jose
Speaker 2: based company. The reason why we're talking about you heard
Speaker 2: me say it's a US based company, right, But.
Speaker 3: The assemble things from other places into end user products exactly.
Speaker 2: So again, just use the Boeing example because in my mind,
Speaker 2: it's the easiest thing in my mind to see, like
Speaker 2: the parts of a plane that get manufactured a bunch
Speaker 2: of places then come together at one place and become
Speaker 2: an airplane.
Speaker 4: Same thing, or like that middleman company involved in the
Speaker 4: exploding pagers story.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah right, but more like for another thing that
Speaker 3: will be familiar to people, the way that an article
Speaker 3: of clothing can say made in the USA. Yes, if
Speaker 3: the origin materials are not indeed from the United States.
Speaker 2: And made with slave or child labor. Whoo uh okay,
Speaker 2: so here we go. This is back to Lily's words.
Speaker 2: Cybersecurity experts often describe supply chain attacks as worst case
Speaker 2: scenarios because they taint products or services at the time
Speaker 2: of their creation. The Bloomberg report raises a much more
Speaker 2: alarming specter that Chinese government actors compromised for so ubcontractors
Speaker 2: of that super micro Computer Inc. To hide these tiny
Speaker 2: microchips on super micro boards, so the official boards that
Speaker 2: super Micro is putting out, and those things are crazy
Speaker 2: popular guys with the big companies and with small companies
Speaker 2: and medium companies. They are just one of the big players.
Speaker 2: If you imagine going out to buy a new phone
Speaker 2: right now. In your mind, you're probably thinking an Apple phone,
Speaker 2: a Samsung phone, a Google phone. Right those are like
Speaker 2: the three, and then there's a bunch of other stuff
Speaker 2: you could go to microcenter to get or order online.
Speaker 2: Super Micro is one of these companies if you're buying
Speaker 2: server arrays. Yes, these chips, according to Bloomberg, offered a
Speaker 2: fundamental backdoor into the devices they were hidden in, ultimately
Speaker 2: helping the Chinese government access the networks of more than
Speaker 2: thirty US companies, including Apple and Amazon, and they could
Speaker 2: use them to gather intelligence on plans, communications, and intellectual property.
Speaker 2: Here's why why the Bloomberg investigation is a bit called
Speaker 2: into question here. As soon as this came out, right
Speaker 2: as soon as this news hit, and even before because
Speaker 2: these big companies like Apple and Amazon were reached out
Speaker 2: to before publication. Those big companies refuted this report completely.
Speaker 2: They said, no, this is not true, This did not happen.
Speaker 2: They have never found any evidence that anything like this
Speaker 2: has ever occurred. There's no attack on our infrastructure. Everything's good,
Speaker 2: we're good. There are no malicious ships. Here's a quote.
Speaker 2: Apple has never found malicious chips. Hardware manipulations or vulnerabilities
Speaker 2: purposefully planted in any server. Cool, okay, sure, So then
Speaker 2: of course it's on the journalists. They're at Bloomberg, and
Speaker 2: for them they either have to say, hey, that's our bad,
Speaker 2: we'll retract parts of our report or something like that.
Speaker 2: That is not what they did. Those journalists said, no,
Speaker 2: we've done our due diligence, We've verified everything before we
Speaker 2: publish the story. We know it happened and it's true.
Speaker 2: And the companies were like, no, it's not. And then
Speaker 2: it just becomes Okay, who do you believe the investigative
Speaker 2: journalists and like private investigators and people who are actually
Speaker 2: you know, getting quotes from individuals from within some of
Speaker 2: the operations, and.
Speaker 3: The independent white hats who also confirmed it.
Speaker 2: Yes, or do you listen to the big corporation that
Speaker 2: has a lot to lose if like, think about what
Speaker 2: we're talking about here, Apple servers, Amazon servers, just those
Speaker 2: two companies, right, What does Amazon own Amazon Web services?
Speaker 2: What types of information do they run through their servers?
Speaker 4: All of it, all of the things.
Speaker 2: Most of it, I mean same with Apple, right, and
Speaker 2: with personal information that you back up in the cloud.
Speaker 2: Massive deal. But Guys, here's where it gets crazy, and
Speaker 2: this is where I think we end the segment because
Speaker 2: this is what we need to explore in full. A
Speaker 2: couple of years later, after all of this was reported,
Speaker 2: more information came out and it got weirder. Guys, it
Speaker 2: got weirder.
Speaker 3: Can I talk about, well, we'll hold it for an episode.
Speaker 2: We can hold it for an episode, Okay, but let's
Speaker 2: say this. More details came out in like twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: But I think their wrinkle and why this is such
Speaker 2: a massive deal is because one of the journalists who
Speaker 2: wrote this article went on All Things Considered, It's an
Speaker 2: NPR show on the day basically on October fourth, when
Speaker 2: all of this is coming out, and he made the
Speaker 2: statement which is also included in the Bloomberg article. But
Speaker 2: he made the statement that the chip was also found
Speaker 2: in servers of the Pentagon and the CIA, which would
Speaker 2: might be a problem. I don't know, maybe.
Speaker 3: Ed just last month the FBI got that court order through. Yes, yeah, okay, spoilers.
Speaker 2: Folks, dude, there's stuff that we got to dig in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wonko the same, thank you again. Yeah, this is
Speaker 3: an episode we should go ahead and do it because
Speaker 3: it's just going to get stranger the longer we hold
Speaker 3: off on it.
Speaker 2: Agreed, Wonco, You're the best. We will be right back
Speaker 2: with more messages from you.
Speaker 3: And we have returned with just some letters from home.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: I mentioned in a previous program we would share stories
Speaker 3: of some fellow conspiracy realist in the education space. We
Speaker 3: are going to share those in the future. And speaking
Speaker 3: of hardware and software and the interaction with the human mind,
Speaker 3: we have a quick letter from home from our pal Flounder. Flounder,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for calling, and also Matt, thank
Speaker 3: you for hurting the voicemails.
Speaker 4: Here we go.
Speaker 3: Quick reaction to a statement I made earlier asking why
Speaker 3: there isn't more positive social media.
Speaker 6: Gentlemen, good morning. Your most recent episode, you made the
Speaker 6: comment that how come we do not have a positive
Speaker 6: social media? I think the problem is the word social.
Speaker 6: Problem is us people are what makes it bad, not
Speaker 6: the technology. The call is coming from inside the house.
Speaker 6: You can call me flounder a pH.
Speaker 3: Oh, flounder. You told us how to spell it bird
Speaker 3: the persona the handle is compromised. But also that is
Speaker 3: a pretty good point, is it not. I think that
Speaker 3: we use that as you know, I said that was
Speaker 3: kind of a throwaway thing. In the conversation. We didn't
Speaker 3: talk too much about it, but we did hit on
Speaker 3: the idea, right, Like, it seems that the we're in
Speaker 3: a chicken and egg situation. Is the algorithm pushing you
Speaker 3: toward things arguable or is the algorithm showing you things that, uh,
Speaker 3: just exacerbate your natural inclinations. What do you guys think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the things that we become fascinated by, the
Speaker 2: things that are pleasurable to view the thing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it's all of those things that No, it is us.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I keep thinking just that idea.
Speaker 3: It's a pickle, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's it's so many pickles dancing around.
Speaker 3: My algorithm is just pickles. It's pickles and this one
Speaker 3: armed monkey from China, and it's yes, thank you for
Speaker 3: bringing that up. You were perfect on it. That's great.
Speaker 3: Everybody look up, jan.
Speaker 4: Have you seen that one about the pickle ice cream? No,
Speaker 4: thank you, sir, No, thank you.
Speaker 2: Oh, but of it is kind of salty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what about the pickle juice and doctor pepper? That's
Speaker 4: a big online turn. I'm sorry, we're not talking about
Speaker 4: actual pickle stuff.
Speaker 2: Dude, pickle juice ever since Hannibal I flick pickle juice on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, get up there. We're talking about Hannibal Burris,
Speaker 3: the legendary regiment, the late great doctor hanniballect Handle Elector
Speaker 3: would also vibe with that if you told them, hey, man,
Speaker 3: before you kill me, quick pro tip on the sandwiches,
Speaker 3: fling a little pickle juice on the innards when you
Speaker 3: eat them, And hannih will be like, thank.
Speaker 2: You, yeah man, breditwards do I seriously, I've got I
Speaker 2: buy those devil spit pickles that you can find at
Speaker 2: your local pickle dealer, and they are so hot and
Speaker 2: delicious and you can use that juice on anything.
Speaker 3: And I would say further that algorithms, while they may
Speaker 3: while they may just exacerbate natural tendencies of the participant,
Speaker 3: there are definite moves on social media platforms to push
Speaker 3: you toward certain beliefs. And it's very difficult to be
Speaker 3: cognizant of those pushes because they're they're pretty subtle. For
Speaker 3: anybody who was still messing around with Facebook in this
Speaker 3: evening and age, you'll notice that the bulk of your
Speaker 3: feed has now become advertisements. I don't know why I'm
Speaker 3: saying that, Like, I don't speak English. Listen to you
Speaker 3: pickle dunce. So they've been sending that around. Also, AI
Speaker 3: posts are proliferating, and often they are meant to learn
Speaker 3: more about you and steer you toward certain decisions, which
Speaker 3: is why, for instance, if you go to Twitter, oh
Speaker 3: I didn't tell you. Guys almost texted you. It wasn't
Speaker 3: important enough.
Speaker 4: Did you know?
Speaker 3: There's a war on Wikipedia right now on the Twitter
Speaker 3: page about how Wikipedia has decided they're not going to
Speaker 3: call it X.
Speaker 4: What Okay, they're gonna die on that hill huh if.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the hill they chose out of all the
Speaker 3: other stuff. Forget the Middle East. They're fighting about Twitter.
Speaker 3: If you go to the talk tab on the Twitter
Speaker 3: entry for Wikipedia, you'll see that it's a bunch of
Speaker 3: people trying to update it to X, and then a
Speaker 3: bunch of other people saying, nah, a player.
Speaker 2: That's really funny, that's really.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, they're slapping it down. We are going to keep
Speaker 3: it brief here, as many of our fellow American conspiracy
Speaker 3: realists may well understand, We've got a lot of stuff
Speaker 3: going on right now. We've got many things to do,
Speaker 3: but we did want to do something I thought all
Speaker 3: five of us would enjoy Tennessee, and Noel and Matt
Speaker 3: and yours truly and you listening at home. What if
Speaker 3: we give somebody a little bit of travel advice? Does
Speaker 3: that a jolly good Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Can I give some travel advice? That my son and
Speaker 2: I are obsessed with this travel Instagram account and it's
Speaker 2: just it's getting the social media thing in and it
Speaker 2: is travel. It's called unlikely Gems. Have you guys ever
Speaker 2: seen this?
Speaker 4: Heard of?
Speaker 3: But I don't think I followed that one. It less
Speaker 3: as Jingjing, the one armed monkey on it.
Speaker 2: No, it does not, it does not.
Speaker 3: I'm missing out, all right, but it sounds it's I
Speaker 3: feel like I have seen this, but I don't know
Speaker 3: much about it.
Speaker 2: Well, check it out specifically on Instagram. That's where I
Speaker 2: saw it. At least it's called unlikely Gems. I do
Speaker 2: not know the name of this human being that is
Speaker 2: one of my it's one of my favorite human beings
Speaker 2: in the world right now. It's like a reporter doing
Speaker 2: the field, but with a very specific cadence, and he
Speaker 2: does things like this and says that, and he just
Speaker 2: points he goes to these places across California and points
Speaker 2: out like a small rock that happens to be in
Speaker 2: a very specific place or a stop sign. Uh, and
Speaker 2: it is delightful. I cannot do it justice here, but
Speaker 2: I just found out it's a part of the upstate
Speaker 2: California Creative Core, Like it's a grant program for California's tourism.
Speaker 3: Stuff like that. Well that's smart. That doesn't make it
Speaker 3: necessarily bad nor sinister.
Speaker 2: Oh dang, okay, I don't think so. It just head
Speaker 2: over to Modoc County. That's all I know.
Speaker 3: All right, could you spell it for us? M O
Speaker 3: doc there we go, not to be confused with the
Speaker 3: absolute legend from Marvel Comics. Right, So, our our letter
Speaker 3: from home here going back to you, our listener, We're
Speaker 3: just gonna call you DuPont Dave. You wrote to us
Speaker 3: earlier this weekend and you said, hey, longtime listener, first
Speaker 3: time emailing or even contacting you all. Later this month,
Speaker 3: I'm planning a trip to Washington, d C. I was
Speaker 3: wondering if you all have any suggestions to go to restaurants, bars, attractions.
Speaker 3: I'm planning on going to the International Spy Museum and
Speaker 3: one or two Smithsonians also museums in the area. If
Speaker 3: you happen to be in DC, regardless of where you're from,
Speaker 3: you're gonna dig the Aerospace Museum. Promise anyway, DuPont Dave says,
Speaker 3: was hoping you all know any more fun or even
Speaker 3: educational spots. And I thought this would be an opportunity
Speaker 3: for us to really let the rubber hit throad. When
Speaker 3: we say listener mails focus on our fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 4: We know d C.
Speaker 3: We've all been to d C right, never lived there,
Speaker 3: but we visited.
Speaker 4: I haven't been a ton and I've said it before,
Speaker 4: I've never been to any of the Smithsonians, So I
Speaker 4: really I'm right there with you asking for Rex. I
Speaker 4: haven't experienced a ton of DC at all. Dude.
Speaker 2: What you need to do right now is reserve a
Speaker 2: Pentagon tour because they offer them. You can get them,
Speaker 2: and you can tour the Pentagon.
Speaker 3: Yes, and you may. I love that, Matt. You may
Speaker 3: have just enough time to do so. Also, you have
Speaker 3: to report back. Okay, this is a covenant. DuPont Dave.
Speaker 3: By hearing this, you have just shaken some hands, right.
Speaker 3: So to Matt's point, further on Matt's point, there's a
Speaker 3: place called DuPont Underground. It's an abandoned train station. It
Speaker 3: used to be pretty difficult to get inside. You would
Speaker 3: have to just know the right people to go to
Speaker 3: this abandoned trolley station low DuPont Circle. But now it's
Speaker 3: a pretty cool art exhibit spot. Like, now you can
Speaker 3: walk through this abandoned area and you can you're almost
Speaker 3: guaranteed to see some amazing art.
Speaker 2: Dude, Hey, guys, can you guess the date the not
Speaker 2: the year, but the month and day when ground was
Speaker 2: broken on construction of the Pentagon? Just a wild guess
Speaker 2: what month and day?
Speaker 4: Oh Jesus is six six?
Speaker 2: Ground was broken on September eleventh. Oh, No, nineteen forty one.
Speaker 4: I thought you were going for more of like a
Speaker 4: diabolical numerology kind of situation.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: Forty one is interesting, just a weird coincidence.
Speaker 5: That's a little weird.
Speaker 3: I mean it's a one out at three hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty something chance, right, Yeah, but that is a big
Speaker 3: It's a lot different from guessing someone's zodiac si. You
Speaker 3: know what I mean. We still haven't done an astrology episode.
Speaker 3: Let us know if that feels like it bags your badgers.
Speaker 3: We also want to recommend for you DuPont Dave. We
Speaker 3: want to recommend things like, well, it depends on what
Speaker 3: you go what you go for, and how you're feeling.
Speaker 3: If you want something peaceful, there's really kick ass Bonzai Museum,
Speaker 3: the National Bonzeye Museum. One of the I think one
Speaker 3: of the oldest trees there, if it's still alive, dates
Speaker 3: back to the seventeenth century, early seventeenth century. I still
Speaker 3: have no idea how bonds I can live that long.
Speaker 3: You guys remember the movie The Exorcist.
Speaker 4: Yeah, guys, I recall it vaguely. Also the Karate Kid
Speaker 4: Part two. There's Bonzie trees in that one.
Speaker 3: That's all Oh, okay, yeah, okay, I'm back, We're We're back.
Speaker 3: The Exorcist the Fame. No spoilers, folks. It is one
Speaker 3: of the scariest films. If you recall, there is a
Speaker 3: pivotal moment where a protagonist encounters some stairs. Those stairs
Speaker 3: are in Washington, DC. You can see them. It is
Speaker 3: an historic landmark. I feel like you have to very
Speaker 3: much care about The Exorcist to go out of your
Speaker 3: way to look at some stairs.
Speaker 4: I'm a bit of a pop culture stair tourist. You know,
Speaker 4: I've been to the ones in Philly, that rocky exercise.
Speaker 4: I have seen them. But I think that could be fun.
Speaker 4: Someone should put together a list of historical and or
Speaker 4: pop culturally important stairs.
Speaker 3: That's a good idea. Yeah, I agree. You can also,
Speaker 3: if you're feeling kind of creepy, you can go to
Speaker 3: a facimile catacomb complex. Yeah yeah, so all right, cast
Speaker 3: your memory back. You're it's the SubTime of the early
Speaker 3: nineteen hundreds. You're a bunch of Franciscan monks, and you say,
Speaker 3: we need to show people the Holy Land. But a
Speaker 3: lot of folks can't afford to get over the Atlantic
Speaker 3: and visit that area. So if they can't afford the
Speaker 3: trip overseas, what do we do? We make it at home.
Speaker 3: We have catacombs at home, I mean yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 3: they do have a papal endorsement. They do have a
Speaker 3: very real skeleton in there. It's over at fourteen hundred
Speaker 3: Quincy Street, Northeast. I don't know if it's it's kind
Speaker 3: of a tourist trap, I think, but I like catacolm.
Speaker 3: I think catacombs are cool.
Speaker 2: They feel like, you know, and while you're in the catacombs,
Speaker 2: do yourself a favor and look for some old currency
Speaker 2: that is no longer functional, because guys, in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: At fourteenth and C Streets you can find the Mutilated
Speaker 2: Currency Division finally, and you can go walk up and say, hey,
Speaker 2: can I check this out?
Speaker 3: We also have to recommend they'll probably just be interested
Speaker 3: that you're interested, you.
Speaker 2: Know, exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: We can also recommend look even the stuff that sounds
Speaker 3: I guess very on the map and it's very touristy.
Speaker 3: We promise you a lot of it is amazing. Right,
Speaker 3: There's a certain it doesn't matter whether or not you're
Speaker 3: from the US, there's a certain gravitas and grandeur to
Speaker 3: the construction of the city, to the monuments and edifices
Speaker 3: that have been built there. One of the ones that
Speaker 3: I think always interested us were the Freemason the Freemason Complex,
Speaker 3: and of course the Washington Monument, which started out as
Speaker 3: something that looked way more understandable and ended up being
Speaker 3: an obelisk.
Speaker 2: Dude, I want to ask you, guys, is the is
Speaker 2: this just a fake thing? The idea that the Washington
Speaker 2: Monument was built around an old tree. That's just a
Speaker 2: right the quote quote special tree.
Speaker 4: I haven't heard about that.
Speaker 3: I do like the pun of special tea special tree.
Speaker 3: But I'm not. I wasn't. I wasn't on scene when
Speaker 3: they were building. It's I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, it's a it's that's good. Well you were around,
Speaker 2: you just weren't there.
Speaker 3: I wasn't.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a TikTok thing or you know,
Speaker 2: one of those like creepypasta things, like this idea that
Speaker 2: there's this mythical tree with special powers that the monument
Speaker 2: was built around.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do love a Washington legend. We also we
Speaker 3: also recommend that you check out the Washington National Cathedral.
Speaker 3: There is a crypt there that has the marble tomb
Speaker 3: of Woodrow Wilson. Also Helen Keller's ashes are interred in
Speaker 3: the area. It's a it's a nice way to encounter history.
Speaker 3: There's so much stuff to do. You cannot throw a
Speaker 3: stone or a bouncy ball without hitting something really cool
Speaker 3: that you should check out in Washington, d C. I
Speaker 3: almost said Deac because I just remembered you guys, the
Speaker 3: DEA has a small museum in their lobby and one
Speaker 3: of the weirdest things they have is their exhibit of bongs.
Speaker 4: What cool? Tell me more?
Speaker 3: Right right now?
Speaker 4: I got you back in Yeah, man, you're talking about
Speaker 4: stairs right.
Speaker 3: They have a I think it's back open out closed
Speaker 3: temporarily in twenty nineteen, but years of past. So if
Speaker 3: you're cool and you're comfortable visiting the DEA, you could
Speaker 3: check out their museum. As a matter of fact, a
Speaker 3: lot of those agencies in DC and in Virginia have
Speaker 3: little like at home museums.
Speaker 2: You can visit, dude, And when you get a little
Speaker 2: a little hungry and you want to slice a pizza,
Speaker 2: maybe we recommend comet ping pong.
Speaker 4: That's funny, Matt, check out the basement.
Speaker 2: Sorry, we're joking. Sorry, but it is on Connecticut Avenue though.
Speaker 3: And we do hope that you report back. Furthermore, we
Speaker 3: hope that any of our fellow conspiracy realists residing in
Speaker 3: the area have their own recommendations, so please send them
Speaker 3: to us. Is what are the hidden parts of DC
Speaker 3: Caveat that a normal person can visit without getting in trouble.
Speaker 3: We would love to hear more. We know it's a
Speaker 3: very interesting time to visit the nation's capital. It's just true.
Speaker 3: But there's amazing history here and you will not regret
Speaker 3: checking out any of the weird things. We just recommend it,
Speaker 3: So tell us your thoughts. Thank you to everybody who
Speaker 3: wrote in. We can't wait to hang out with you
Speaker 3: on the air later in a future evening. We have
Speaker 3: so many explorations ahead. We want you to be part
Speaker 3: of the team, so join up with the call. You
Speaker 3: can find us via email, you can find us on
Speaker 3: the phone. You can even reach out to us online.
Speaker 4: That's right. We exist at the handle Conspiracy Stuff all
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