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