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 the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We are joined with our guest
Speaker 3: superproducer Max the Free Train Williams.
Speaker 4: Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes
Speaker 4: this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: As you are hearing this, fellow conspiracy realist, it is
Speaker 3: August fifth. This means that we have survived through July.
Speaker 3: We're hurtling through summer. It is for reasons that may
Speaker 3: or may not be disclosed. One of our mutual I
Speaker 3: won't even say favorite, one of our mutual Mileston owes
Speaker 3: of the year is the month of August.
Speaker 5: Talking about the birthday vibes, the consecutive birth bun birthday boys.
Speaker 3: It's the only real New Year's a person gets. Birthdays
Speaker 3: are very important to us. We also have so many
Speaker 3: strange stories to talk about. First off, we were totally right,
Speaker 3: by the way, hate to be those people. We were
Speaker 3: totally right about subscription services moving into more and more industries.
Speaker 3: Logitech is floating the idea of what they call a
Speaker 3: forever mouse.
Speaker 4: That's what to say.
Speaker 5: How does one subscribe to a mouse? I don't care
Speaker 5: for this. I want to own my mouse, thank you
Speaker 5: very much.
Speaker 3: It's very HP, by which I mean Hewlett Packard and
Speaker 3: maybe HP Lovecraft Potter or maybe Harry Potter. The idea
Speaker 3: is that it would be a mouse dependent upon regular
Speaker 3: proprietary software updates, so the mouse stops just like an
Speaker 3: HP printer. Even if the mouse works, it will stop
Speaker 3: working for you if you don't pay your fee.
Speaker 5: Hot take that's dumb. What mouse is a single use function?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What else do I.
Speaker 5: Need out of a mouth that I can't get through
Speaker 5: an iPad or through some other thing that I don't
Speaker 5: Maybe they can sell me on it, but I am
Speaker 5: fully against it.
Speaker 2: It'll be so much more affordable.
Speaker 4: Guys, stop shill.
Speaker 2: You'll go for the mouse, big Mouth, local best Buy.
Speaker 2: You'll pick up a mouse. They'll give you twenty bucks
Speaker 2: for taking the mouse. All you gotta do is pay
Speaker 2: ten dollars every month for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, depending upon how you manage your subscriptions.
Speaker 3: A few months after you die as well before before
Speaker 3: your estate clears it up. We also, we also do
Speaker 3: have good news. Right earlier, we're talking about how we
Speaker 3: were trying to put in some good news in our
Speaker 3: strange news. So we do have some good news. We
Speaker 3: do have some astonishing news. We have some conspiratorial takes
Speaker 3: on the Olympics. Before we do any of that, we
Speaker 3: have to, of course give our requisite shout out to INTERPOL,
Speaker 3: both the band and the international law enforcement organization. Did
Speaker 3: you guys hear about how thoroughly they just busted in
Speaker 3: international drug conspiracy? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Interpoll never doesn't get enough wins, at least in the
Speaker 5: public sphere. You know, you don't hear much about the
Speaker 5: good works of the fine folks at Interpol. So I
Speaker 5: was happy to see them getting getting a w here.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 3: It's good to see people win.
Speaker 2: There was another thing I wanted to talk with you
Speaker 2: guys about. I can't find the story right now. Somebody
Speaker 2: just got arrested and busted. Who's like this international drug
Speaker 2: overlord guy as far as shipping drugs and using you know,
Speaker 2: speedboats to traffic them. He had a crazy name or
Speaker 2: a crazy specially.
Speaker 3: The street name. I find it Yeah, while you're looking
Speaker 3: for that, Matt, let's let's talk just briefly about the
Speaker 3: inner Pol conspiracy we're alluding to. Interpool has arrested two
Speaker 3: hundred and six individuals across Europe, North America, and the
Speaker 3: African continent. These people also came along with some accessories.
Speaker 3: Interpool got their hands on one point six US billion
Speaker 3: dollars worth of illegal drugs and chemicals used to make
Speaker 3: those drugs. This is an historic bust. Now, you know,
Speaker 3: obviously people have complicated feelings about law enforcement and knowl
Speaker 3: to your earlier point, I would say, we don't hear
Speaker 3: a lot about the times Interpool drops the ball, which
Speaker 3: does happen, Just to be.
Speaker 5: Clear, I'm certain, and I have to say, I mean,
Speaker 5: it comes up in like spy films, you know, from
Speaker 5: time to time. But I don't fully understand the jurisdiction
Speaker 5: of Interpol.
Speaker 3: Yeah, neither does Interpol.
Speaker 4: Okay, they always step out of the lane. Interpol.
Speaker 5: A quick, tiny just headline note Hamas political leader is
Speaker 5: Mali Hanayi was killed in Iran, which is I.
Speaker 3: Believe in Tehran.
Speaker 4: Deally, Yeah, exactly, a deal, quite a blow to the
Speaker 4: organ to that organization.
Speaker 3: One could argue, there are many many things happening that
Speaker 3: are are just mentioned in Western news. That's why we
Speaker 3: do this show. You might not have heard that along
Speaker 3: with this Interpol arrest, like they busted a genuine conspiracy,
Speaker 3: they also got sixty five stolen cars, they got thirty
Speaker 3: thousand military grade detonators, and then they got the classic
Speaker 3: Narco sub the homemade semi submersible submarine. It's an amazing story.
Speaker 3: It's one you can learn more about, should you wish to, Matt.
Speaker 3: Do we have the name yet?
Speaker 2: Oh, we do the title of this person whose real
Speaker 2: name is Milos Redonzik, who's thirty four. He was arrested
Speaker 2: in Italy and extradited to New York City. He is
Speaker 2: a citizen of Montenegro and he goes by Pirate of
Speaker 2: the Unknown.
Speaker 3: That's the name.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that's a pretty good message board handle. It is.
Speaker 3: It is depending on how you lead it right, how
Speaker 3: you elite speak that one. But we have so much
Speaker 3: to get to, so maybe let's take a quick break
Speaker 3: and then we'll dive right in. And we have returned.
Speaker 3: Here's a mixtape approach to the first part of our segment.
Speaker 3: This evening, we've heard from you, fellow conspiracy realist. And
Speaker 3: one thing we really appreciate is when we can and
Speaker 3: hit a lot of stories, we get a lot of
Speaker 3: responses from you, and you are the most important part
Speaker 3: of this show. We have to say it. We are
Speaker 3: adults here. Uh I thought of our earlier conversations regarding
Speaker 3: privacy and freedom on the internet when I learned that
Speaker 3: this summer, Spain is rolling out something that they are
Speaker 3: calling a porn passport. Hm, yes, they're there. They also
Speaker 3: have a pun in there with a It's called a
Speaker 3: paje porte uh p a j a p o r
Speaker 3: t e. And if you know a little Spanish, you
Speaker 3: know why that's hilarious.
Speaker 2: Wait, I don't though.
Speaker 3: It's a portmanteau of a slang word for masturbation and
Speaker 3: the passport, so it's kind of like your whackport.
Speaker 5: It's like a damn I'm trying to think of clever. No,
Speaker 5: I can't do it. It'll come out of the clear
Speaker 5: blue sky later irrelevant apropos.
Speaker 4: Of nothing in the episode.
Speaker 3: But or maybe maybe you'll wake up while you're asleep
Speaker 3: and you'll just scream it out.
Speaker 4: A jerk order like a work order.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, we're on the same They're going to have
Speaker 2: those in max really soon.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: The the idea is this, Uh. The initiative is part
Speaker 3: of something called a new digital wallet app. Let's go
Speaker 3: to Walter Finch, writing for the Olive Press over in Spain.
Speaker 3: The concept here is get this a little bit paradoxical.
Speaker 3: It's pitched as a way to preserve a user's anonymity
Speaker 3: when viewing pornography sexual content online while at the same
Speaker 3: time knowing enough about them to verify their age. So
Speaker 3: you have to use an electronic ID, a digital certificate,
Speaker 3: or something called the Clave system to enjoy pornographic sites
Speaker 3: in Spain. Once your age is verified in this system,
Speaker 3: it issues a pack of what they call thirty tokens,
Speaker 3: valid for thirty days, and then you are off to
Speaker 3: the races, so to speak, until you use all your tokens,
Speaker 3: at which point you will be required to prove your
Speaker 3: age once again. Again. This is pitched as for privacy.
Speaker 5: Seems kind of counter privacy to me. There's a lot
Speaker 5: of very personal questions they're expecting you to come.
Speaker 4: Right on out with.
Speaker 5: You know, I don't know about that makes me uncomfortable
Speaker 5: just talking about it. It makes me feel like I
Speaker 5: watch way too much porn and I really don't I know.
Speaker 3: Shout out to all our fellow conspiracy realists who are
Speaker 3: doing some I say cocktail math right now in their heads, like, oh,
Speaker 3: would I go over the tokens that's on you?
Speaker 5: Have you heard there's some Republican politician who has something
Speaker 5: where he like sends his son an inventory of the
Speaker 5: porn that he watches or has a thing like, in
Speaker 5: an effort to curb his impure thoughts or to like
Speaker 5: cut down on his masturbation.
Speaker 2: The ideas you you have two users, and you both
Speaker 2: get to see the other person's.
Speaker 3: Accountabil a buddy corn pals. Yeah, yeah, and there's uh,
Speaker 3: there's also.
Speaker 6: I did oh gosh, all right, we're gonna skip some
Speaker 6: of that because we are a family show.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the family. Under this system, in Spain, heavy
Speaker 3: what are described by this journalist as heavy porn users
Speaker 3: who use up all their tokens too early are considered
Speaker 3: at greater risk of being tracked in their usage because
Speaker 3: they'll have to go back and verify their identity. Shout
Speaker 3: out to the old drug addict Dave Chappelle sketch. Someone's
Speaker 3: like scratching their neck and they got shapped lips and
Speaker 3: they're like, hey, Government of Spain, you've got any more
Speaker 3: of those porn tokens?
Speaker 4: Tokens? Yeah, yeah, it's Can you trade tokens with others?
Speaker 3: But right now the answer is no. Here is what
Speaker 3: they Here's what they say. In terms of privacy, the
Speaker 3: application will be audited and certified by Spain's National Cryptologic
Speaker 3: Center to quote ensure that there is no record of
Speaker 3: users pornography habits and can never be hacked. Here's what
Speaker 3: you have to do to enter the app. To use
Speaker 3: your token, you have to identify yourself each time with
Speaker 3: your fingerprint, facial recognition, or a code or a pattern.
Speaker 3: When you are typing the address of a what is
Speaker 3: considered a pornographic site, a QR code will appear if
Speaker 3: the user is on their computer, and then a link
Speaker 3: will appear if they're using their mobile phone. Nothing weird.
Speaker 3: I've got to say. This is disturbing. It will also
Speaker 3: be used for online gambling.
Speaker 4: Does well, that makes a little more sensing. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I know people do have crippling porn addictions that cause
Speaker 5: them real problems in their relationships and with their families
Speaker 5: and you know, all of that stuff.
Speaker 4: And I mean, hell, the term gooning is very.
Speaker 5: Popular right now amongst the youth, which is basically a
Speaker 5: form of compulsive porn.
Speaker 3: It's the only thing I met at Robert Evans forever
Speaker 3: teaching me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, it makes it, I get it. But it
Speaker 5: is very much a thing, So I guess I could
Speaker 5: see that. But it also just seems weirdly puritanical for
Speaker 5: such a you know, kind of laisse fair you know,
Speaker 5: like let your freak flag fly part of the world
Speaker 5: like Spain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm over I think it's addressing valid problems, I guess,
Speaker 3: But it also I would argue it also goes to
Speaker 3: some of the dilemmas we described earlier. Is there a
Speaker 3: good faith effort to protect the innocent or is it
Speaker 3: kind of a wolf in sheep's clothing idea wherein these
Speaker 3: good faiths are window dressing for a larger conspiracy to
Speaker 3: eliminate anonymity online.
Speaker 2: That's possible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't. I don't know if I believe in
Speaker 4: good faith when it comes.
Speaker 5: To this kind of stuff that is always suspicious and
Speaker 5: feel like there's ulterior motives I mean, you know, what
Speaker 5: have you seen right now with Facebook their whole facial
Speaker 5: recognition debacle. You know that they stopped doing several years ago,
Speaker 5: but are just now having to pay the piper for in.
Speaker 4: Terms of, you know, in l actual literal cash.
Speaker 5: You know that they owe the government after an investor
Speaker 5: gation into their I believe photo to auto photo tagging
Speaker 5: that was you know, presented like, oh, wouldn't this be
Speaker 5: fun we can identify people in your pictures for you
Speaker 5: and connect you to their accounts, But it really was
Speaker 5: just kind of like a shady way of just snatching
Speaker 5: up more data without people's consents.
Speaker 3: And Madison Square Garden also uses facial recognition to identify
Speaker 3: adversarial lawyers.
Speaker 4: M yeah, it's I make sure they're not the.
Speaker 5: Boxing matches, like like like what I don't understand.
Speaker 3: Well, they're a private entity, so they they are behold
Speaker 3: into a different set of regimes.
Speaker 2: I just want to say, I feel like this was
Speaker 2: somebody's really interesting, maybe good idea to help people recognize
Speaker 2: that they're viewing this type of material too much, And
Speaker 2: it was somebody's really good idea who's really smart, and like, oh,
Speaker 2: what if we let people see like really show it
Speaker 2: to them and make them feel at least that they
Speaker 2: could hold themselves accountable. Like, oh man, maybe I should
Speaker 2: cut down a little bit. I have to like fill
Speaker 2: out this whole process.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I gotta, you know, I gotta take my gimpsuit off
Speaker 2: to push my finger against the vague every time.
Speaker 4: Mag No, No, it's joke. I'm being silly.
Speaker 5: It's funny, But I PI posit the question does it
Speaker 5: count if you're watching ten porn videos at the same
Speaker 5: time on on on your VR headset?
Speaker 4: Does that only cost you one token? Or is that
Speaker 4: ten tokens?
Speaker 3: So I can answer this question, you can only enter
Speaker 3: I can sort of answer it. You can only enter
Speaker 3: the same website a maximum of ten times without having
Speaker 3: to use up more tokens.
Speaker 5: And that I think I might have interrupted. You's got
Speaker 5: my brain, but please please finish your point.
Speaker 7: If I did, well, I just mean I think the
Speaker 7: most of humans, once they find out what pornography is
Speaker 7: and that it exists, and that it's easily accessible, it
Speaker 7: becomes at least a fascin for a time.
Speaker 2: That's what we've kind of seen. That's the way our
Speaker 2: society has altered. We've talked in the past, how it
Speaker 2: has altered the way we think about other people in
Speaker 2: our world right now that porn exists, it's altered us
Speaker 2: a bit at least, and it's something that we uh
Speaker 2: for the most part, human beings crave that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So I do wonder if it has to be a
Speaker 2: self regulated change that has to occur somehow.
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 2: It's never going to be. Hey, guys, we have to
Speaker 2: stop making porn now, it's never going to happen, or
Speaker 2: we have to stop watching porn now.
Speaker 3: What's interesting is it's a new problem, and a new
Speaker 3: problem requires new solutions. People are trying to figure that
Speaker 3: out together. I am just pointing out there is a
Speaker 3: conspiratorial aspect here, or potential for for sure. The other
Speaker 3: conspiratorial aspect here, I would believe is largely positive and
Speaker 3: beneficial to society, which is to better track and apprehen
Speaker 3: hind proliferators of CSAM, child sexual abuse material or depictions
Speaker 3: of crime people posting sexual assaults on the Internet.
Speaker 5: Now, if that is the case, I would and it
Speaker 5: was actually helpful for that end, I might sign up
Speaker 5: for a program like this, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Like if it was an opt in situation, which I
Speaker 5: would think what's the is the is the proposal of
Speaker 5: this would be mandatory.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, I'm just making sure I'm getting there right.
Speaker 3: Because that's the only way any Yeah, it's like autonomous vehicles.
Speaker 3: It doesn't really work unless all the vehicles are autonomous.
Speaker 3: But there is good news, uh, be for we move on.
Speaker 3: There's a lot we can't get through right out with
Speaker 3: good news. Uh there is a new dual target drug
Speaker 3: that can make antibiotic resistance one hundred million times harder.
Speaker 3: So the ideas of we did episode back in the
Speaker 3: day about superbugs, right, and the constant race between new
Speaker 3: antibiotics and quickly evolving infections and bacteria. So bacteria very
Speaker 3: very good at this Their mutation evolution cycle is Olympic level.
Speaker 3: That's a nice setup for later. The concept here is
Speaker 3: that we could use we being humans or civilization can
Speaker 3: use multi pronged attacks to fight things that are superbugs
Speaker 3: in the making. So it's very important to hear as
Speaker 3: we get into more stories this evening that not all
Speaker 3: the news is bad. There is good news.
Speaker 5: That's a great number for a talking point. I gotta
Speaker 5: say it almost sounds made up.
Speaker 4: Like one hundred million times better.
Speaker 5: It's like some super Saiyan kind of like you know,
Speaker 5: dragonball Z power Up type stuff.
Speaker 3: And another piece of good news, researchers have recently found
Speaker 3: that oxygen is being produced on the ocean floor. One complication.
Speaker 3: The research was paid for by a deep sea mining
Speaker 3: outfit and they are not happy about the news.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we need to put a bunch of stuff
Speaker 2: down there and extract a bunch of stuff and probably
Speaker 2: put a bunch of oil on the surfaces that are
Speaker 2: I guess somehow making oxygen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were. They were so astonished. There's a multi
Speaker 3: year study. They were so astonished that Andrew Sweetman of
Speaker 3: the Scottish Association for Marine Science, the guy who led
Speaker 3: this study, he said, for eight years he just disregarded
Speaker 3: all the data they were getting about oxygen production from
Speaker 3: ancient lumps of metal. This is a true lovecrafting story.
Speaker 3: And he said, I just thought all our sensors were
Speaker 3: messed up. And then we spent another couple of years
Speaker 3: just trying to disprove it. And then we had to
Speaker 3: go go back to the Metals Company, a Vancouver based
Speaker 3: mining firm that funded this. They in the Metals Company perspective.
Speaker 3: They spent years arguing that mining in the deep ocean
Speaker 3: has a low environmental impact and that they were a
Speaker 3: green company by extracting minerals from the seafloor. But if
Speaker 3: indeed this is producing oxygen, then the the mining company's
Speaker 3: argument is somewhat fraudulent or incorrect. I shouldn't say fraudulent.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of a green mining company, just
Speaker 2: in general. How do all those machines work down, you know,
Speaker 2: in the depths of the ocean to extract minerals. That's weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're one stop fire department. We have vertical integration,
Speaker 3: so we start the fires and then we also put
Speaker 3: them out at a very reason the mole market costs
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 2: It's so weird. It's that same what is the carbon
Speaker 2: offsetting and all that stuff they got so popular. It's
Speaker 2: that there was a story about New Zealand air company,
Speaker 2: like a passenger flight company, that an airline excuse me,
Speaker 2: that's the word for it. Why not just say airline
Speaker 2: mass But there's an airline company that just you know,
Speaker 2: had to roll back on their climate goals and their
Speaker 2: carbon emission goals because they were realizing that the stuff
Speaker 2: they needed to buy the better planes, the better fuel.
Speaker 2: It was so cost prohibitive, and just they were unable
Speaker 2: to meet investor goals and meet those things at all.
Speaker 2: So they just said, we're just gonna We're just going
Speaker 2: to push back what our goals actually are. We'll do
Speaker 2: it in twenty fifty now instead of twenty thirty.
Speaker 5: Well, those things aren't like binding. They're more pr items
Speaker 5: than anything. So it's like and they probably werell them
Speaker 5: back quietly, you know what I mean. It's not like
Speaker 5: they put out a big old release saying, hey, guys,
Speaker 5: that's why I We're definitely not going to meet these
Speaker 5: goals that we announced.
Speaker 4: It's aspirational anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, aspirational is a more diplomatic phrase than greenwashing. But
Speaker 3: check out our episodes on that as well.
Speaker 5: Aspirational implies that they mean well greenwashing implies that it
Speaker 5: really is just kind of like flim flam.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Also, recycling's a scam talked.
Speaker 4: Check it out in very much a scam.
Speaker 5: I mean, it does some good, but it was created
Speaker 5: as a way of deferring the guilt.
Speaker 3: To consumers, you know, the burden onto consumers. There there
Speaker 3: are a lot of things happening in the world of
Speaker 3: tradecraft as well. Check out the news about Venezuela. That's
Speaker 3: getting pretty dicey. Shout out to everybody who's been having
Speaker 3: some offline conversations about that. US federal authorities have arrested
Speaker 3: an ex Green Beret in connection to a hilarious doomed
Speaker 3: twenty twenty attempted coup on Maduro. It's been called in
Speaker 3: certain circles the Bay of Piglets. And there are so
Speaker 3: many other things that we're not getting to yet. We're
Speaker 3: going to have to save them for later. We want
Speaker 3: to hear from you, specifically about all of the stuff
Speaker 3: we just mentioned. It makes our day when you respond
Speaker 3: to a specific story, or in some of our cases,
Speaker 3: it makes our evening. The continent of Africa is maybe
Speaker 3: forming a new ocean at a very slow rate. That's crazy.
Speaker 3: Oceans are crazy in general. But you know what else
Speaker 3: was crazy to a lot of people in the United States,
Speaker 3: France and abroad. A little game civilization likes to play
Speaker 3: every so often, something called the Olympics. We're going to
Speaker 3: pause for a word from our sponsor, and we'll be
Speaker 3: back with more strange news, because no, you got some
Speaker 3: thoughts here, right, I sure do.
Speaker 5: And we've returned to the great game, the great the
Speaker 5: big Games, the great Games.
Speaker 4: What do they call the Olympics? People love the Olympics.
Speaker 5: It's a It does present a certain opportunity for a unification,
Speaker 5: you know, globally speaking. I like that aspect of it.
Speaker 5: I'm not a sporto, you know. To coin, I guess
Speaker 5: a British or Australian maybe term that I have a
Speaker 5: big fantom. I like the term sporto. Don't really care
Speaker 5: for sports that much, but I've always been a fan
Speaker 5: of the pomp and circumstance and pageantry behind a good
Speaker 5: Olympic opening ceremony. They'll realize in discussing the story with
Speaker 5: you guys and looking into it that I've never really
Speaker 5: sat through an entire Olympics ceremony because I had no
Speaker 5: idea that they could he of.
Speaker 4: Like three hours, they're really good. Yeah.
Speaker 5: This one in Paris this year, for the twenty twenty
Speaker 5: four Summer Games was no exception.
Speaker 4: Clock in it. I believe a little more than four hours.
Speaker 5: And most of those four hours seemingly have not upset
Speaker 5: or offended anybody. But there's two particular moments that lasted
Speaker 5: literally moments a piece that have caused a real stir
Speaker 5: amongst certain I guess religious types of you know whatever.
Speaker 5: And we're not here to denigrate anybody's religion or or
Speaker 5: crap on anybody's opinion. But I do think there's something
Speaker 5: to be said about manufactured outrage, and I have to
Speaker 5: do think that intent is very important when you're getting
Speaker 5: mad at somebody for them supposedly, you know, saying something
Speaker 5: that offends you. I do think it's important to put
Speaker 5: yourself in their shoes and think, like, were they actively
Speaker 5: trying to offend you know, was that the goal? Or
Speaker 5: am I just maybe looking at this through a particular
Speaker 5: kind of lens. Ben, we talked a little bit about
Speaker 5: how in your previous life in academia studying international affairs,
Speaker 5: were required in many situations to watch the opening ceremonies
Speaker 5: because it was a way to kind of look into
Speaker 5: the culture of the country putting on the games, in
Speaker 5: terms of like what kind of technology they wanted to
Speaker 5: show off, in terms of how they wanted to kind
Speaker 5: of sneak in I guess their ideology, their political beliefs,
Speaker 5: you know, their culture into these proceedings, And I think
Speaker 5: that's a big part of what we're talking about with
Speaker 5: the Paris Games today. But could you speak a little
Speaker 5: bit about that before we get into the controversy, just
Speaker 5: how that might be a thing people don't really think about.
Speaker 3: Sure, yes, and thinking the Olympics from stemistern is a
Speaker 3: diplomatic initiative. It's what we call a soft power initiative,
Speaker 3: which is why so many countries fight to have the
Speaker 3: Olympics staged in one of their cities. Even though it
Speaker 3: is overwhelmingly a tremendous financial loss for the people who
Speaker 3: live in the country, it is a projection of power
Speaker 3: for a lot of people in the realm of you know,
Speaker 3: the policy walks and look. A lot of foreign governments
Speaker 3: are eyes on for the Olympic ceremonies, especially because in
Speaker 3: situations like the Chinese two thousand and eight Olympic ceremony,
Speaker 3: we saw evidence of some really fascinating technology, always used
Speaker 3: for peaceful purposes. With a nod and a wink the
Speaker 3: same way, like the same way we say, oh, we
Speaker 3: shot a satellite out of the sky to help space, right,
Speaker 3: to help humanity, pay no attention to the fact that
Speaker 3: also we can shoot stuff out of space from the ground.
Speaker 3: So like the drones in the two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: Olympics are a depiction of dual use technology. The cloud seeding,
Speaker 3: which is a real thing, is another depiction of that
Speaker 3: goes in China, right, yes, sir, Yeah. And the what
Speaker 3: we see in the Paris Olympics, the thing that seems
Speaker 3: to have really riled up some culture war enthusiasts was
Speaker 3: the idea that there was a mockery of certain religions
Speaker 3: or religious scenes. However, the overall thesis of it, if
Speaker 3: you ask Paris, and if you ask the IOC International
Speaker 3: Olympic Committee, was the idea that the world is too
Speaker 3: fun for war. That's basically their thesis, right.
Speaker 5: Well, the scene that you're describing, ben is I think,
Speaker 5: first and foremost what has what it's been landed on
Speaker 5: as the subject of greatest defense, you know, as you
Speaker 5: know this the.
Speaker 4: Idea to say there were two though they're two, and.
Speaker 5: I'll get it the second one later, which I think
Speaker 5: is the slightly more badass one in my personal opinion,
Speaker 5: But I think this is the one that the community
Speaker 5: that is claiming offense has landed on as like the
Speaker 5: primary source of their concern, a depiction of what they
Speaker 5: describe as the Last Supper, which is of course a
Speaker 5: tableau of Jesus and his apostles the night before Jesus
Speaker 5: is to be crucified, you know, and then all of
Speaker 5: the you know, particular hand gestures and things of that nature.
Speaker 5: And it's obviously an iconic image, so iconic in fact,
Speaker 5: that it's been parodied, it's been recreated, it's been used
Speaker 5: for like band photos. You know, I believe the Simpsons
Speaker 5: did it, because they've done it all because it's just
Speaker 5: so recognizable. So you one could argue it's so iconic
Speaker 5: and recognizable that it's kind of beyond offense in many ways.
Speaker 4: But I you know, who am I to say? You know,
Speaker 4: people can be offended by whatever they want.
Speaker 5: But the interesting thing is so so they what they've
Speaker 5: What they did in this moment in the Olympic, the
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four Olympic opening ceremonies was they depicted something
Speaker 5: very similar to this tableau, a group of trans and
Speaker 5: queer and drag queens and children as well, seated at
Speaker 5: a long table kind of again and in this very
Speaker 5: artistic kind of tableau, and then a giant serving platter
Speaker 5: with a dome and everything is lowered down, and a
Speaker 5: scantily clad, let's just say blue painted individual emerges from
Speaker 5: this dome and is kind of dressed in flowers and
Speaker 5: I believe, like fruit and things like that, but not
Speaker 5: wearing much else. And the Olympic folks, and then the
Speaker 5: people that designed this, which was an artistic collective of
Speaker 5: some kind.
Speaker 4: It was a few folks.
Speaker 5: It's a massive undertaking the amount of moving parts in
Speaker 5: a four hour incredibly highly choreographed, you know, basically the
Speaker 5: most elaborate parade one could imagine a lot of it
Speaker 5: actually takes place on water, with different boats and floating devices.
Speaker 5: I believe there's even like a water horse kind of
Speaker 5: robot thing. At some point they described this as an
Speaker 5: interpretation of the Greek god Dionysus. The individual portraying this
Speaker 5: Dionysus figure is a well known in France singer named
Speaker 5: I believe it's Philippe Caterine and again decked out in
Speaker 5: grapevines and floral kind of things and not much else.
Speaker 5: And a lot of folks that took to Twitter and
Speaker 5: various online platforms for outrage believe that this person was
Speaker 5: in some way representing Jesus some sort of blasphemous bastardization
Speaker 5: of a christ figure. But again, everyone involved in the
Speaker 5: production and the Olympic Game's official Twitter account did clarify
Speaker 5: that this was in fact a depiction of the Greek
Speaker 5: god Dionysus. The Olympic Games official account did say the
Speaker 5: interpretation of the Greek god Dionysus makes us aware, to
Speaker 5: your point, Ben, of the absurdity.
Speaker 4: Of violence between human beings.
Speaker 5: And I've seen some other discussions about this, the idea
Speaker 5: that if you're nude, you can't conceal a weapon. You know,
Speaker 5: the early Greek Olympic Games. We know the Greeks were
Speaker 5: hedonistic folks.
Speaker 4: We know this. This is not like a secret.
Speaker 5: And in the Olympic Games, you know, are are a
Speaker 5: part an extension of that history. I believe been in
Speaker 5: mant the the Olympians in the earliest games competed fully nude.
Speaker 5: I think that that's that's a f sure.
Speaker 2: And notice they were called Olympians.
Speaker 4: Mount Olympus, you know, the home of the gods.
Speaker 2: The Greek gods.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so they are calling back to the history of
Speaker 5: the Olympics themselves. France has always been, uh, you know,
Speaker 5: a very vibrant community for transness and queer culture and creativity,
Speaker 5: you know, and not to mention their history of iconoclastic
Speaker 5: kind of revolution.
Speaker 4: You know, we've heard a little thing called the French Revolution.
Speaker 5: And and to that point, they as a culture, I believe,
Speaker 5: view themselves as very a religious in terms of their
Speaker 5: depictions of religious iconography. And I don't believe that there
Speaker 5: was any intention to have this be seen as religious
Speaker 5: at all, or any of these symbols to be interpreted
Speaker 5: as religious at all. And it may well be because
Speaker 5: of that lack of kind of religious centric kind of
Speaker 5: thinking that they may have missed the boat a little
Speaker 5: bit in terms of what it might be interpreted as.
Speaker 5: But I would also argue that the point of an
Speaker 5: Olympic opening ceremony is to represent that culture their ideals
Speaker 5: and what they believe in and what they stand for,
Speaker 5: and the concept of libertais, you know, the idea of
Speaker 5: kind of like, you know, let your freak flag fly,
Speaker 5: do your own thing, march to the beat of your
Speaker 5: own drummer. That's all very French. This is all taking
Speaker 5: place in Paris, France. So I don't know some of
Speaker 5: the people that are outraged by this, or folks like
Speaker 5: Candice Cameron, who I believe that she went by when
Speaker 5: she was DJ on Full House goes by. I believe
Speaker 5: a Candice Cameron Burr now and is much more of
Speaker 5: a Christian kind of right wing activist and you know,
Speaker 5: UH pundit type individual. She posted uh in a in
Speaker 5: an Instagram reel UH that she found it to be despicable,
Speaker 5: that she said she was sickened by it and that
Speaker 5: it was, you know, offensive to all Christians.
Speaker 4: And Rob Schneider.
Speaker 5: Also took to the internet to uh to talk some
Speaker 5: serious crap about this and and said that you know,
Speaker 5: he found it to be totally offensive to Christians and
Speaker 5: he refused to participate in any Olympics that that would
Speaker 5: dare to defame.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: People of the Christian faith point out, just to mirror
Speaker 5: what the guys I love on Internet today had to say.
Speaker 5: Dude did dress and drag a lot throughout his career,
Speaker 5: and he was in a movie called Little.
Speaker 3: Nikki about the literal devil when the Sun of the
Speaker 3: dak Giuliani. I mean, he couldn't score a role in
Speaker 3: Little Nikki. But you know, life is not life is
Speaker 3: not measured in one hundred percent wins. I have a
Speaker 3: proposition for you guys and all our fellow conspiracy realists,
Speaker 3: do consider context. Let us also remember that the nation
Speaker 3: of France narrowly avoided descending into far right fascism only
Speaker 3: months ago, not even months very recently, and so it
Speaker 3: is quite possible, if not probable, it is quite possible
Speaker 3: that this is in some ways a reaction to that threat,
Speaker 3: or a celebration of surviving that ideological fire. Would I
Speaker 3: would also posit I would also posit this the people
Speaker 3: propagating this as a attack on religion are trying to
Speaker 3: fill the slow news day of the culture war. Because
Speaker 3: the US election cycle encountered some Shyamalan plot twist here,
Speaker 3: people who need outrage for their machines to function had
Speaker 3: to find some new gas, and so this is perfect
Speaker 3: for that, especially if it is just a picture that
Speaker 3: seems very theatrical, a headline about a threat something. You know,
Speaker 3: we used to call it a nugget, right, a nugget.
Speaker 3: How stuff works. You don't have to read much, you'll
Speaker 3: have to go the context. You can just share it, right,
Speaker 3: you can just retweet that or whatever. And I think
Speaker 3: that's it. I think it's because the pre planned outrage
Speaker 3: cycles were rendered moot due to some election shenanigans, some electionanagans,
Speaker 3: and so now that thank you sir. Now this is
Speaker 3: slotted in where the earlier stuff was supposed to be,
Speaker 3: and I think it'll be ephemeral.
Speaker 5: Resolutely is highly ephemeral because it's sort of a non issue.
Speaker 5: I am bummed though, that the Olympic Committee, which has
Speaker 5: an ironclad grasp on all footage and logos and branding
Speaker 5: related to the Olympics, they'll they'll issue a copyright claim
Speaker 5: against you. Make your head spin has fully removed footage
Speaker 5: of this from all accounts. Marvelous ceremony that seemed really
Speaker 5: artistic and fascinating, and I didn't catch it, so I've
Speaker 5: only seen little clips here. I just want to end
Speaker 5: with the other candidate for outrage that quickly took back
Speaker 5: seat to the Dionysus thing.
Speaker 4: A French metal band called Gojiro, who are awesome.
Speaker 5: They performed on these like parapets, like on this incredible
Speaker 5: French castle that I believe used to be a prison
Speaker 5: that was even involved in the French Revolution itself. Paris
Speaker 5: is a conciergerie palace, and they did a French language
Speaker 5: rendition of an anthem, a nineteenth century French anthem ah
Speaker 5: ca irah, I believe, and I'm not a native French speaker,
Speaker 5: so forgive mispronunciation there. But some of the other windows
Speaker 5: are all filled with images remind me of the Haunted
Speaker 5: Mansion and Disney of this decapitated Marie Antoinette's all singing
Speaker 5: along operatically to this. It's an incredible feat of production.
Speaker 5: There's flames everywhere. It's really badass. There's even an opera
Speaker 5: singer that floats by on the mast of a ship
Speaker 5: as part of that other the water kind of parade
Speaker 5: we were talking about. And I just want to leave
Speaker 5: the last word to some actual French people. One of
Speaker 5: the singer, I believe, Joe Duplantier of Gorgeiro, had this
Speaker 5: to say of the notion that what they were doing
Speaker 5: was satanic. He goes, it's none of that. It's French history.
Speaker 5: It's French charm, you know, beheaded people, red wine and
Speaker 5: blood all over the place. It's romantic, it's normal. There's
Speaker 5: nothing satanic. France is a country that made a separation
Speaker 5: between the state and religion during the Revolution, and it's
Speaker 5: something very important, very dear to the found foundation of
Speaker 5: Republican France.
Speaker 4: We call it la cite.
Speaker 5: It's when the state is not religious anymore, so therefore
Speaker 5: it's free in terms of expression and symbolism.
Speaker 4: It's all about history and facts.
Speaker 5: We don't look too close at symbolism in terms of religion.
Speaker 5: Bottom boom. I think that's a great last word. You
Speaker 5: guys have anything to add on, that's I yield my time.
Speaker 5: I think it's a fascinating story and a great example
Speaker 5: of that. What are they trying to bring back the
Speaker 5: Satanic panic and to what end? To your point, Ben,
Speaker 5: I think it is just lazy attempt to fill the
Speaker 5: news cycle with outrage.
Speaker 2: I would just point out, boys, I was a part
Speaker 2: of that weird ceremony in the year two thousand, remember,
Speaker 2: and the preparations for that were a year long minimum.
Speaker 2: So like this thing has been in the works for
Speaker 2: a long time, that.
Speaker 4: A fascist party has been bubbling for a long time.
Speaker 2: As well, so that I'm with been there on that
Speaker 2: idea that this is. You know, it's a way to
Speaker 2: make a through culture and art, make a statement right
Speaker 2: doing that, and you've been planning it that long and
Speaker 2: it really does feel to me again kind of as
Speaker 2: you said, there have been. It's the kind of thing
Speaker 2: that gets a lot of attention and hopefully gets viewers
Speaker 2: watching the Olympics and not boycotting the Olympics. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I caught. I glimpsed up at a screen where I
Speaker 2: was when those were going on, and I saw that
Speaker 2: tableau one of those shots, and I just went huh.
Speaker 2: And then I didn't watch any more of it. And
Speaker 2: I wonder how many people had that happen before they
Speaker 2: got caught in this hole, as you guys said, the retweeting,
Speaker 2: re sharing, reposting thing. It's like, look at this, how
Speaker 2: dare they?
Speaker 5: Well, let's take a quick break or a word from
Speaker 5: our sponsor and then come back with one more piece
Speaker 5: of strange news.
Speaker 2: And we've returned. We're going to hit a couple of
Speaker 2: stories here. We had prepared something about climate and some
Speaker 2: potentially catastrophic stuff that is coming our way, but it's
Speaker 2: coming our way anyway, and if we want to talk
Speaker 2: about it, maybe we do a larger piece on this
Speaker 2: specific thing. You can look it up if you want to.
Speaker 2: It's called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which is a
Speaker 2: current system that goes across the oceans, and it basically
Speaker 2: moves warm and cold water around. It sends warm water
Speaker 2: to places that it needs to go. It's a huge
Speaker 2: interconnected system that's beneath the oceans, and it might be
Speaker 2: slowing down. It does seem to be slowing down. It
Speaker 2: does seem to be potentially the kind of thing that
Speaker 2: stops crops from being able to be grown on planet
Speaker 2: Earth in large areas.
Speaker 4: That's not good.
Speaker 2: It sucks and I don't want to talk about that
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 4: Cool, what else you got?
Speaker 2: I want to talk about something nicer. But if you
Speaker 2: do want to look up the story about that, you
Speaker 2: can find it in Wired. It was posted on July
Speaker 2: twenty fifth, written by Sandra Upton. The title is how
Speaker 2: soon might the Atlantic Ocean break? Two siblings? Scientists found
Speaker 2: an answer and shook the world. Very good read, very
Speaker 2: long and depressing, but you should probably learn about it.
Speaker 4: Go for it.
Speaker 2: But for now, let's turn our eyes to the country
Speaker 2: of China and an awesome breakthrough that they just had
Speaker 2: that very well could affect all of us, because this
Speaker 2: could be a new technology or a new way to
Speaker 2: generate electricity and power that is green and would be
Speaker 2: a lot safer, even than a coal burning power plant,
Speaker 2: allegedly according to the folks that have created the factory
Speaker 2: and are vetting it at this time. Let's go to
Speaker 2: the Independent dot co dot uk. They've got an article
Speaker 2: titled China unveils meltdownproof nuclear power plant in clean Energy
Speaker 2: Breakthrough Clean Nuclear. You said, melt down proof. That sounds great.
Speaker 2: We know nuclear energy is a great way to generate
Speaker 2: lots and lots of power pretty quickly. It's the safety thing.
Speaker 2: It's always been that issue. Huh And oh yeah, what
Speaker 2: do you do with it once it's done making all
Speaker 2: the electricity.
Speaker 4: Airan in the desert?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, Well, look, if if you're to believe what's
Speaker 2: being written about this, this could be a technology that
Speaker 2: would prevent something like what happened at Fukushima, where the
Speaker 2: rods of materials that are generally dipped down into water,
Speaker 2: which you know, produce all the bubbling water and the steam.
Speaker 2: Those rods would go away, those things that melt down,
Speaker 2: it would go away in this new system because they
Speaker 2: have designed this weird they call it a pebble bed reactor.
Speaker 2: Sounds a little bit weird. They are basically small amounts
Speaker 2: of the same like uranium whatever you're gonna use, whatever
Speaker 2: nuclear material you're going to use for this uranium. They're
Speaker 2: inside these poolball sized graphite things that then all sit
Speaker 2: down and instead of in water, they at least in
Speaker 2: water because water is what you know generates the steam
Speaker 2: to create the electricity. Water is also the cooling mechanism
Speaker 2: for these rods to keep them at a steady temperature.
Speaker 2: If they get too hot, that's when you have the meltdown.
Speaker 2: They then literally melt through the concrete and all the
Speaker 2: other the structure that is your power plant. These pebbles,
Speaker 2: apparently because of the way they're formed, do not get
Speaker 2: as hot when they operate, and they are using helium
Speaker 2: to cool them rather than just water helium, it can
Speaker 2: get to a much higher temperature before there are major
Speaker 2: issues with it. This is potentially a huge breakthrough, guys,
Speaker 2: when I think about it being you know, potentially put
Speaker 2: across the world in places where you can now have
Speaker 2: this type of nuclear reactor rather than a coal burning
Speaker 2: power plant. I really quickly wanted to talk with you
Speaker 2: guys about this. We've mentioned many times on this show.
Speaker 2: One of the problems with technology like nuclear technology and
Speaker 2: power generation is that countries that don't have the amount
Speaker 2: of money to put into research, to put into development,
Speaker 2: to then have engineers go through and build giant nuclear
Speaker 2: power plants. They have to rely on other technology that's
Speaker 2: just a couple of steps behind, maybe a ton of
Speaker 2: steps behind, to generate the power they need, which would
Speaker 2: be more pollute, exactly, way more polluty. If I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, what do you guys think? You think
Speaker 2: there's going to be a larger impact the world over
Speaker 2: with this kind of thing?
Speaker 5: The problem is, I mean, this is, first of all,
Speaker 5: I'm blown away that there haven't been this kind of
Speaker 5: advancements in nuclear technology for as long as we've been
Speaker 5: using nuclear technology. Like I'm sure there have been some
Speaker 5: subtle changes and infrastructure, you know, I guess workflow, you know,
Speaker 5: streamlinings and things like that, but largely, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 5: the technology that's used to generate power through a nuclear
Speaker 5: reactor has largely stayed the same. The big problem that
Speaker 5: I see here is a Southern company here in Georgia
Speaker 5: have been building an additional reactor at Plant Vogel near
Speaker 5: Augusta for like going on a decade now, if not more,
Speaker 5: And it's just it keeps being slowed down by regulatory stuff.
Speaker 5: It keeps being slowed down by overages, and it's just
Speaker 5: like to now say, oop, sorry, guys, we've got to
Speaker 5: start over with this new pebble stuff. I would be
Speaker 5: interested to see what the costs for retrofitting and existing
Speaker 5: plant would be, because it's it's impossible. The reactor is
Speaker 5: made by Westinghouse and you buy the reactor, so you're
Speaker 5: you're in it, baby. Once you got that reactor and
Speaker 5: you spent the money and installed it and developed it
Speaker 5: over the span of decades, you know, years and years
Speaker 5: and years and years.
Speaker 4: You're invested and you're all in, and I don't know
Speaker 4: how you can walk that back.
Speaker 3: The fancy term for that would be path dependency, right,
Speaker 3: That's what a lot of oil dependent countries have run
Speaker 3: into as well as oil well. By path dependency, here
Speaker 3: we're seeing a multi variable pickle.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It's a real bag of badgers because you could take
Speaker 3: something like KSA Saudi Arabia. They're dependent largely on fossil
Speaker 3: fuels for domestic energy production, but they're also economically dependent
Speaker 3: upon exportation of fossil fuels, meaning that to a country
Speaker 3: with all of its petroleum eggs in one basket. Is
Speaker 3: something like nuclear technology could be seen as an enormous
Speaker 3: threat to your point and no, yes, excellent question. Maybe
Speaker 3: throw to you here, Matt. From my understanding the current
Speaker 3: first we have to know China's new project, or the
Speaker 3: new revelations about it, I should say, are our best
Speaker 3: in class as far as we can tell from the claims. However,
Speaker 3: they are not the only thing out there using an
Speaker 3: alternative to water as a cooling mechanism. I think of Wyoming.
Speaker 3: There's another. There's a plant that they're refitting the old
Speaker 3: footprint of a fossil fuel plant, a coal plant, to
Speaker 3: use liquid sodium as a coolant. This is an exciting thing.
Speaker 3: I think you're right, Matt when you point out that
Speaker 3: this is reporting coming through several filters. We can file
Speaker 3: this as big if true, but we also know it
Speaker 3: seems pretty legit at this point. The main problem production
Speaker 3: wise is that you run into path dependency. We can't
Speaker 3: make those old or current reactors, we can't make them
Speaker 3: into that this is a new thing.
Speaker 4: Yep, really quickly they broke ground.
Speaker 5: There's two new units at Plant Vogel in Burt County, Georgia.
Speaker 4: In June of two thousand and nine.
Speaker 5: It was supposed to be done two units by twenty seventeen,
Speaker 5: but because of the delays and overruns, it.
Speaker 4: Reached the billion thirty billion dollars.
Speaker 5: Unit three only just started operation July thirty first of
Speaker 5: last year, and Unit four isn't scheduled to start commercial
Speaker 5: operation until actually supposedly was April twenty ninth of twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four.
Speaker 4: So that's yeah, you can't turn back the clock on that.
Speaker 5: And there are other companies that make what are called
Speaker 5: small modular reactors and things that are a little less
Speaker 5: you know, all in kind of.
Speaker 4: But even those you know, you say, small modulu rected.
Speaker 4: It's not like you can put in your garage, but
Speaker 4: it's so cool, Matt, And I hate to poo poo
Speaker 4: all of this. I hate that any of us.
Speaker 5: It's just like, how do you restart the clock, you
Speaker 5: know on these giant projects that are already so far along,
Speaker 5: And like, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think you can because ultimately that becomes profit motive
Speaker 2: for the companies building the reactors, and the states and
Speaker 2: countries that are gonna you know, buy the power from
Speaker 2: the power generation. You can't. You just got to build
Speaker 2: new ones. If you then look a little deeper, it
Speaker 2: does seem like this is one play by trying to
Speaker 2: wean itself off of coal at least in the long term, right,
Speaker 2: and hopefully it's going to be another way forward. Even
Speaker 2: if we do have dangerous nuclear reactors. You just got
Speaker 2: to hope that the operators of those are really careful
Speaker 2: and some natural disaster like in the case with Fukushima,
Speaker 2: doesn't come through and you know, knock power out to
Speaker 2: all the systems that cool your stuff Downright, Yikes.
Speaker 3: It works great, so long as it works, which is
Speaker 3: a quote from one of my old professors.
Speaker 5: Totally yes, Not to mention that the cost of this
Speaker 5: kind of stuff will almost inevitably get passed on to
Speaker 5: rate hikes for the end users.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's another story we didn't get to about
Speaker 3: a US. A part of the US is going to
Speaker 3: start charging customers for not using electricity. Yes, they have
Speaker 3: their own off the grid alternative sources.
Speaker 2: Louisiana like, we'll get you with a power bill anyway.
Speaker 3: Bump up. But that's the world we lived. I will
Speaker 3: say that this technological breakthrough is a net positive something
Speaker 3: being meltdown proof quote unquote, does address one of the
Speaker 3: primary dangers of nuclear technology, not the not the only
Speaker 3: primary danger, because there's still nuclear weaponry and they're kind
Speaker 3: of the same thing, so you got to keep you
Speaker 3: an eye on that. But I would say, Matt, this
Speaker 3: is this is a breakthrough on the level of the
Speaker 3: boneless chicken wing.
Speaker 5: It's not a chicken wing, it's a chicken nugget. I
Speaker 5: will die on this head.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about that. I want to know how
Speaker 2: you guys feel about boneless boneless wings. I remember when
Speaker 2: I was a younger lad when boneless wings became an
Speaker 2: option at some of my favorite places to get chicken wings.
Speaker 2: I was elated when I don't got to deal with
Speaker 2: the bones anymore. Heck, yeah, this is amazing.
Speaker 4: Because kids like chicken nuggets.
Speaker 2: Matt, So tell me, tell me, how do you guys
Speaker 2: feel about a boneless wing.
Speaker 4: I've made my position clear.
Speaker 3: In terms of.
Speaker 2: What I don't know. What are your thoughts, any terms
Speaker 2: you you give them to me, any term you got.
Speaker 3: An abiding interest in the international economics of the chicken
Speaker 3: trade would be the first and most unfun way to
Speaker 3: say it. But it is true because there is this
Speaker 3: There are so many things that happen to chicken in particular.
Speaker 3: Before these things get to the plate, right, or get
Speaker 3: to your local chicken spot, shout out to the local
Speaker 3: the wings advertised as boneless. It strikes me, Matt and
Speaker 3: nol and fellow conspiracy realist, it strikes me as one
Speaker 3: of those somewhat fatuous terms, like you know, when you
Speaker 3: see all natural on a cereal box, there's not really
Speaker 3: a way like it's. It seems dumb and maybe a
Speaker 3: little legalistic, But you could say, hey, we're selling, to
Speaker 3: Nole's point, we're selling this process leftover chicken that has
Speaker 3: been mushed up into the shape of something vaguely winged like,
Speaker 3: and we can call it a chicken wing boneless, and
Speaker 3: that may be operationally different from a de boned chicken wing. However,
Speaker 3: you know, chicken wing itself is already a little bit
Speaker 3: a little bit dicey in terms of how it's sold
Speaker 3: because what there are, flats and drums and drumsticks are
Speaker 3: not wings, but they're sold as wings. So I think
Speaker 3: they're playing with the terms of definition here is.
Speaker 2: That Yes, I think I think that's what we're dealing with. Uh,
Speaker 2: this is what the Ohio Supreme Court had to say
Speaker 2: in a four to.
Speaker 3: Three thank God, great God, I feel like a weight
Speaker 3: has been lifted.
Speaker 4: Thank you. All right next to ja rule things, but
Speaker 4: please well is.
Speaker 3: Jaw Rule the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: He's the power behind the throne.
Speaker 3: There's always room from home lifting, Matt, Sorry, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: what is it?
Speaker 2: I anyway, I just returned from Ohio. That's where I
Speaker 2: was when I wasn't on those episodes, guys, and I
Speaker 2: did take a little dip in Lake Erie, and I'm
Speaker 2: happy to report that I only saw two very dead
Speaker 2: perch hanging out, very large fish, all white and dead,
Speaker 2: right in the area where I was swimming with my son,
Speaker 2: and that was.
Speaker 3: Where they were floating. They were.
Speaker 2: They were floating vertically.
Speaker 4: Belly were no not belly up.
Speaker 2: One of them was belly up, one of them was
Speaker 2: belly down. One of them looked a lot I wish
Speaker 2: as the waves moved it closer and closer to shore.
Speaker 2: Not fun anyway, The Ohio Supreme Court said in a
Speaker 2: four to three ruling that quote boneless wings refers to
Speaker 2: a cooking style, and anyone who is eating a boneless
Speaker 2: wing should be on guard against bones. Since it's common
Speaker 2: knowledge that chickens indeed have bone. You have bones.
Speaker 5: They haven't yet invented the boneless chicken. I know they've
Speaker 5: been trying. You know, remember those conspiracy theories about there
Speaker 5: being like a boneless chicken or like this chicken bread
Speaker 5: for its nuggets.
Speaker 3: It's like a centipede. Yeah, yeah, the future is ours. Also,
Speaker 3: I want to if okay with you guys, I want
Speaker 3: to give a shout out to a sho that our
Speaker 3: old discovery alum Trace Dominga's does called that's absurd. Please elaborate.
Speaker 3: They have an episode coming out about what a human
Speaker 3: life would be like if humans had no bones, and
Speaker 3: maybe this this is a similar thing though, because the
Speaker 3: Ohio is okay, First, I have so many questions and
Speaker 3: I know we've got a I want to be respectful
Speaker 3: of your time here, Matt. But also, how did this
Speaker 3: get to the Supreme Court of Ohio?
Speaker 7: Ah?
Speaker 2: Well, it went through the lesser courts. This thing that
Speaker 2: happened with this guy named Michael Berkheimer who was hanging
Speaker 2: out in Hamilton, Ohio. He got boneless wings with parmesan
Speaker 2: garlic sauce.
Speaker 3: It's just the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he.
Speaker 2: Got a little choked up on a piece of one
Speaker 2: of his boneless wings, got it out of his throat,
Speaker 2: I guess. And then three days later came down with
Speaker 2: a fever and he was feeling really sick. He was
Speaker 2: trying to understand what's going on. He couldn't keep any
Speaker 2: food down, so he went to the er and a
Speaker 2: doctor found a long, thin bone that torres esophagus and
Speaker 2: caused an infection.
Speaker 3: Have fun in your nightmares tonight, now, do you guys?
Speaker 4: Remember?
Speaker 5: Yes, I ate a fish and I got a bone stuck.
Speaker 5: It was like we were on tour doing live shows
Speaker 5: and it was there. I felt it for days.
Speaker 4: I think it got into my head bad. I have
Speaker 4: a very sensitive gag Reeflece.
Speaker 5: I think it scratchedus a little bit, and I.
Speaker 4: Was just feeling the scratch. But y'all, that is no joke.
Speaker 5: Do not mess with with bones if you if you've
Speaker 5: swallowed one, because they really could just stick around there
Speaker 5: and then an infection would be inevitable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what happens to our guy in Ohio.
Speaker 2: Well Berkheimer. Three days after after the doctor's stuff, He's like,
Speaker 2: what the heck happened? Oh, it must have been that time.
Speaker 2: I choked and that was a boneless wing. Howld there
Speaker 2: was boneless hell. So we sues the restaurants on Brookwood.
Speaker 2: You're sued, he said, Oh jeez. He said they failed
Speaker 2: to warn him that the boneless wings, which are you know,
Speaker 2: nugg a boneless skinless breast meat, contain bones and it.
Speaker 2: He named the supplier as well, the person who actually
Speaker 2: like sold that restaurant the boneless wings there, Purdue or whatever, yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: said they were negligent. You're all negligent. You're gonna pay me.
Speaker 2: And it went through the lower courts, it got dismissed,
Speaker 2: got to the Supreme Court, and it basically got dismissed again.
Speaker 5: Now, now with within these proceedings, did it come to
Speaker 5: light as to how these bones? Is there a different
Speaker 5: process for boneless wings than there is for chicken nuggets?
Speaker 5: And I hate that I am harping on that, But
Speaker 5: the implication there would be, to Ben's point, that it
Speaker 5: is in some way deboned as opposed to some slurry
Speaker 5: that is then formed into a shape and deep fried.
Speaker 2: It depends because different suppliers and different products. There's a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of different things. Right, we learned about the
Speaker 2: pink slime chicken stuff that becomes really nuggets that we've seen, right.
Speaker 3: Sure check out our earlier episodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you bit into one of those, and it's this.
Speaker 2: It's definitely not the same tissue that you would find
Speaker 2: if you cooked a whole chicken or something.
Speaker 6: It's I like the little tumory things, right, you guys
Speaker 6: know when you get a good it's like a juicy,
Speaker 6: evil booger.
Speaker 2: Oh god, God.
Speaker 4: Chicken nugs for a lot of us.
Speaker 3: Please message me if you want some notes on your
Speaker 3: nightmares face. Okay, but some, as you're saying.
Speaker 2: Some other chicken products are actually breast meat or the
Speaker 2: tenderloin or.
Speaker 5: Usually say that meat or something like it'll say that
Speaker 5: on the packet, or you know, if you're buying it frozen, for.
Speaker 3: Example, mechanically separated boneless wings.
Speaker 2: Yes, which which could be this kind of stuff. Like
Speaker 2: a lot of places use. It's not rib meat of
Speaker 2: a chicken. It's the it and it's not wing meat
Speaker 2: either's the thy meat generally that gets used. That piece
Speaker 2: of thy meat is then kind of just turned into
Speaker 2: a shape with some of the same chemicals and substances
Speaker 2: they used to smash that meat together. Which is kind
Speaker 2: of like that listeria thing with boar's head when they
Speaker 2: when you get that packaged meat like ham, that's really
Speaker 2: nice shape every time. Somehow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. That's the story you did get to.
Speaker 3: I love You're sorry that out I had that in
Speaker 3: the notes as Bay of Piglets. One ushead has recalled
Speaker 3: seven million more pounds of Deli meat due to a
Speaker 3: huge listeria outbreak.
Speaker 2: Oh that came up while we were on vacation and
Speaker 2: we had I had boar's head ham sitting in my
Speaker 2: house and I also had some on the way to
Speaker 2: feed my kid up there in Ohio.
Speaker 3: H Yeah, but this okay, So how how does this
Speaker 3: all work out? The like you said at the Ohio
Speaker 3: Supreme Court, their version in Diana Ross and the Supremes
Speaker 3: found that chicken wings can have bones, even if advertised
Speaker 3: as boneless, because they're already not technically chicken wings, and
Speaker 3: boneless is a cooking method.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it's not standardized though you literally asked that
Speaker 5: question and you said it depends. So it's almost more
Speaker 5: like it's not describing a process that is regulated. It's
Speaker 5: just an advertising mechanism and it doesn't mean a damn thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a silly thing. If you're buying meat that
Speaker 2: came from an animal, that probably.
Speaker 4: Boneless wings gets a gimmick and total.
Speaker 2: It just depends on how much you trust the factory
Speaker 2: that is producing that product, and how much you trust
Speaker 2: the company I guess that owns that factory and all
Speaker 2: that other stuff. We're going to talk about another factory
Speaker 2: thing in our listener mail this week, so this is
Speaker 2: a whole other thing we can get.
Speaker 3: I'm excited about that one. I've been pretty deep in
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, dude, I am just learning about it, but
Speaker 2: it's fascinating. I'm going to read this one quote from
Speaker 2: Justice Joseph T. Dieters, who wrote for the majority. Here
Speaker 2: he says, see if you guys can decode this a
Speaker 2: little better than I can. He says, a diner reading
Speaker 2: boneless wings on a menu would no more believe that
Speaker 2: the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the
Speaker 2: items then believe that the items were made from chicken wings,
Speaker 2: just as a person eating chicken fingers would know that
Speaker 2: he had not been served fingers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, makes sense.
Speaker 5: It's referring to a shape or like a style of
Speaker 5: presentation more than anything. And I just googled boneless wings
Speaker 5: and your story came up more than anything. But I
Speaker 5: believe there are some contest or something and Popeye's boneless
Speaker 5: wings one.
Speaker 4: Pig and a lot of people dropping arms about that.
Speaker 5: But I came up with this article from ap from
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three around the Super Bowl time, how the
Speaker 5: boneless wing became a tasty culinary lie. So that's the
Speaker 5: headline that I think it's the bill for this entire discussion.
Speaker 6: To the point of again, I know I'm I do,
Speaker 6: I'm freestyling here, But to the point of your question
Speaker 6: at unpacking the legal opinion, there is a bit of
Speaker 6: a semantic stretch there by saying, hey, you know, chicken
Speaker 6: fingers aren't really the.
Speaker 3: The filangies of chickens, right talent, Yeah, you know, they're
Speaker 3: not the talons. Chicken feet are an entirely different product. Sure,
Speaker 3: but you really enjoy once you get past the gelatinous bones.
Speaker 3: But there cartilogenous bones, I should say, but once. But
Speaker 3: the stretch there, I guess the part that makes it
Speaker 3: an opinion is the idea that because people know chicken
Speaker 3: fingers are not chicken fingers, they should therefore be assumed
Speaker 3: to know that chicken wings are not always chicken wings,
Speaker 3: which is a little bit it's a little bit of
Speaker 3: a linguistic right there.
Speaker 2: But the word boneless is in there, and that's how
Speaker 2: it's advertised, which is it's the thing that I think
Speaker 2: that's the reason why the dissenting judges called that reasoning
Speaker 2: quote utter jabberwockee.
Speaker 5: I've never seen that one good poppy cock.
Speaker 4: Indeed, jabberwakie, that's fabulous. No, it's a style.
Speaker 5: It's a it's a stylistic choice, you know, it's like
Speaker 5: a menu item, kind of bit of trickery. I'm trying
Speaker 5: to think of other can you guys think of other
Speaker 5: examples of that? Like shoe string fries aren't made of.
Speaker 4: The strings, you know, boneless.
Speaker 3: Lady fingers, the lady fingers are not lady fingers.
Speaker 2: Well, for for me, it's like buying a lot of
Speaker 2: let's say, fish, like fish filets that have been prepared
Speaker 2: to buy at a grocery store. Every one of those
Speaker 2: fish has bones in it, right, it's been deboned by
Speaker 2: somebody somewhere.
Speaker 4: You might catch one, though, bro, you might from experience.
Speaker 2: You might and if if this is, in fact a
Speaker 2: meat product that had a bone in that piece of
Speaker 2: chicken that was used to create the wing, the boneless wing.
Speaker 2: Then that's one thing. If it's a whole other, you know,
Speaker 2: system of producing whatever that piece of meat is, it's
Speaker 2: another thing.
Speaker 3: The FDA is compromised. There is a difference between d
Speaker 3: boned and boneless. As it's being sold. Again, I don't
Speaker 3: want to lose that joke. But if you have never
Speaker 3: tried Lady Fingers, let me just manage some expectations. It
Speaker 3: is a dessert. It does not contain human flesh.
Speaker 5: Oh oh, and speaking of witch, just last last thing
Speaker 5: for me, the purported inventor of Taram Sue, the delightful
Speaker 5: Italian dessert which is made of Lady fingers soaked in espresso, mascarpone,
Speaker 5: cheese and cocoa powder.
Speaker 4: And I believe one other thing passed away.
Speaker 5: I didn't even realize it was like a modern, relatively
Speaker 5: modern invention and tear me Sue, one of my favorite
Speaker 5: desserts of all time.
Speaker 3: The future is now.
Speaker 4: The future is every.
Speaker 2: No, sorry, it's boneless.
Speaker 4: It's boneless. That's what the future is.
Speaker 2: Bless ed.
Speaker 3: This is where we pass it to you folks. We
Speaker 3: cannot wait to hear your thoughts. Of course, we love
Speaker 3: food and food history and food conspiracy. Please please look
Speaker 3: up that story about the slowly forming ocean. Let us
Speaker 3: know your thoughts, the Olympic ceremony, culture wars, and of
Speaker 3: course Spain's pornography passport if you got if you got
Speaker 3: wrapped up in that interpool bust, we'd love to hear
Speaker 3: that story too. We'll be back later this week with
Speaker 3: more strange things, and we'll be back next week with
Speaker 3: more strange news. In the meantime, join the conversation. We
Speaker 3: can't wait to hear from you, and.
Speaker 4: Welcome back Matt from Skimbity, Ohio. That's just lovely to
Speaker 4: have you back.
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