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 Nola.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. A fellow conspiracy realist, let us be the first to officially welcome you to Monday, December twenty third, twenty twenty four. This is a pretty big week for adherents of Christianity, people who celebrate Christmas. This is also a big week for cyberg cockroach armies.
Finally, yeah, Eve, with the cockroaches.
O man, I've been waiting for their arrival as our new cockroach overlords.
Well, this is just what we can do pretty quickly. You can now take a single cockroach, one of the most resilient creatures on the planet, and you can give them a little cyborg backpack. You can do it in a little less than two minutes. Now, way less than two minutes. And the reason we're talking about this is because we are not fans, but we're perhaps interested parties
in the world of global surveillance. I gotta tell you, you know, I had someone gift me with a rumba from our earlier conversations, and I'm not sure if I want it out there.
What do you guys think?
You know, I've got a sort of sub rumba, kind of bargain basement rumba and asumba, Yeah.
Exactly, I think. Yeah, there you go.
We named him something anthropomorphis him and put giant googlely eyes on, which will come up later. But he's not very smart, and I kind of just stopped using him because he kept getting stuck under this understuff.
Right, So shout out to Zoo Ahmed writing for tech Spot. Cyborg cockroach armies can now be mass produced at a rate of one every sixty eight seconds to the earlier point. Maybe that's a weird thing to lead with, but it's because we have so much other stuff to get to. We're going to learn about some uber scams. We're gonna learn, like you said, Noel, about Google eyes, googly eyes, excuse me, alphabet.
We're going to have some talks about federal rules that maybe we can all agree with some secret conspiratorial payments. So much more. Right after this break and we have returned, we're returning with two purportedly mysterious deaths which we have all separately read about, we imagine before we went to air. The first one concerns the tragic story a guy named Souchir Balaji. Have we all heard of Soucher's recent events?
Yes, yeah, unfortunately the broad strokes.
Yes, yeah, he is a former researcher for a company called open Ai. He has passed away. The authorities say he passed away due to suicide in November, So the public release of this guy's death and his cause of death didn't hit the airwaves until maybe sixteen seventeen days afterward.
Yeah. The stuff that is weird about this whole situation is the lawsuit, I think. Right, we've talked before about people who are reported in the news as having taken their own life, and they are involved in major lawsuits, right that are just imminent about to happen, and then they've taken their own life, and then it's left up to us to decide. Well, I guess you just read that in the paper and you go, Okay, I guess
that's what happened. But it feels like there's something more to the story simply because of those circumstances.
Let's go to Lloyd Lee and Katie Balavic writing for Business Insider. They're talking about the case that we're referencing. So eight days before Sucher Bilagi is found dead. At this point important to note he is a former open Ai researcher. He has left the company due to his own moral concerns. He's only twenty six years old, and a little more than a week before he is found dead,
his name appears in a lawsuit against open Ai. It's a lawsuit filed not by another tech company, but by The New York Times in December of twenty twenty three. It accuses open Ai, as well as Microsoft, of cribbing notes, cribbing journalism from New York Times without citation, without permission, without informed consent to train chat GPT, which is, you know, probably the world's most famous terrible writer at the moment. And they asked on November eighteenth to add Bilagie as
a custodian in the lawsuit. So not a defendant, right he's not going to be culpable for damages. The idea instead is that he has quote unique and relevant documents that could support the New York Times case against these organizations, against open ai and against Microsoft. It's largely a copyright infringement case. But every time someone in this situation, this guy's a proper whistleblower. Every time someone in this situation
passes away, there should be more due diligence. Right, we should look at every death with the same scrutiny the current power structure would give to say, the CEO of a healthcare company, we don't we should we be in the United States? I don't know what do you guys think, conspiracy, afoot or more information?
I would say the open AI the.
Company, yes, Sam Altman, Yes.
The company and the individuals who created it, and you know other people like I don't know how to say this person's name Ilia uh sootsgether, I think is how.
You say it.
But these people are potentially facing billions of dollars in damages if this lawsuit goes through and it's successful. So it's not hard to see that there would be reason to want the lawsuit to fail. Right, And how would you make that fail. We've all seen movies when you remove important people from a case, it kind of goes away. Sometimes that's not saying that's what's happening here, but it certainly makes you wonder.
Well, It's also like, you know, with this assassination of the CEO, while opening up a conversation for reasons about the state of healthcare in the United States, like killing a single CEO doesn't change that, nor it does killing a single whistleblower. You know, I just wonder sometimes the bigger picture with stuff like that.
It's the right question again, agreed. You know, if you are if you are in court, you're moving through legal proceedings, having a whistle blower die puts a target on you, you know what I mean. It raises suspicions by any measure, even if you are not directly involved.
Well, and I genuinely wonder if you remove the human being whistle blower from the situation. But that whistleblower had documents that could maybe prove certain things in a court of law. I genuinely don't know if those documents are still able to be presented in court or if it is something like I don't know the right word. But like the custody and the chain of the shame of those documents, does it change or you know, I don't know how that functions.
Yeah, the provenance of the documents seems to be your question there.
Well, yeah, who is who had the documents? And were they able to change them?
Right?
And what were any possible intervening variables. We know that this situation in court will move through, hopefully in accordance with US law. I hate that I have to knock on wood and say hopefully. But we also know that when someone has passed away, sometimes people can encounter immense stress, right that makes them check out. We have to acknowledge the human moment. This kid, he's twenty six years old, he had a family. That family has lost a loved one.
Will this affect the case going forward? That's why it's strange news. That's what we're keeping an eye on because open AI is at the center of I would advance to you guys what will be a proliferation of conspiracy theories in the very near future. Not the only mysterious death here forever. Who's reached out to us individually or as a group. We do have an episode coming out on the assassination of former CEO Brian Thompson. The primary suspect in the US court system is Luigi MANGEONI. We've
mentioned this. We're moving things around to dive deep into that case, so please stay tuned there. Speaking of mysterious deaths, you guys probably colocked it too. A guy named General Igor Kirolov from the chief of Russia's Radioactive, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces. He is very dead right now. He is very immediately dead. Him and his assistant. He was killed by a bomb apparently on a scooter on a
Moscow street quite recently. And get this, the nation of Ukraine has claimed responsibility.
Yeah, this is it. This is a particularly creepy one, at least in my mind, guys, because if you watch the footage the video has been released of this thing and where that scooter is sitting in relation to where these two guys walk out of the.
Door right, the entryway right, it's close.
But it's not that close.
So it's it's strategic, is it not. It's yeah, it implies that one knew the path these people would take.
Yeah it Ugh, I don't know, crease me out. Yeah.
An official with Ukraine's security service, which we would call the SBU. They said, Ukraine did it. We did it. We assassinated this guy. And again it's our It's one of our continual tropes that we see in these kind of reports. I'm going to quote the New York Times thinks to Anton Troyanovsky and constant mehut. Here is the official quotation. The official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive intelligence operation confirmed the details
of the assassination given by Russia. Again, an official speaking on the condition of anonymity. This is real hidden hand stuff. Yeah.
He always kind of gives you pause when you hear those kinds of things too, as far as like a name, sources and speaking under the condition of anonymity.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, we even see it in pop culture. Someone close to the conversation confirmed this.
Was talking some shit right.
A day before the general was assassinated, the Nation of Ukraine had accused him of criminal activity and said that he was responsible for the massive deployment a band chemical weaponry. However, I think I can Charlie Day a little bit of this. Let's look at the DHL, the sabotages. We'll have some fellow conspiracy realists talking about that in our listener mail segment later this week. I would also ask about the drones, some of which are clearly Poseidon program scanning for possible
incursions of asymmetric, dirty bomb or biochemical weaponry. I don't think these things are unrelated. I do have to ask you, guys, does killing a bureaucrat matter? This is different from assassinating, say a Roanian nuclear scientist, right, that's someone with the expertise and acumen to accelerate nuclear program. This guy is a guy who gives orders but does not necessarily invent this kind of weaponry himself.
I mean, it's a it's a message, clearly, right, you can be touched and in a scenario that is like, yeah, that's me accidentally quoting Ben generally occurs, but it's a It is one of those things where for me, the message is more powerful than the actual strategic action as far as how it changes the battlefield.
Yeah, I see what you're saying, Right, is there a tip for tat an escalation? Will a NATO general get touched as well?
Uh?
It's it's unclean stuff. Speaking of unclean, we can end this part of our show. On one of two things. The choice is yours, gentlemen, fellow conspiracy realist. Do we want to hear about the next wave of super soldiers or do we want to hear about super fungus. They're both super.
We've already heard about sentient cockroach super soldiers, so maybe fungus.
Oh man, I'm so glad you asked. I know you're gonna love this one. There is a species of fungus that has been discovered in Chernobyl, in the space of you know, that nuclear disaster, which is still rendered the soil sala. A species of black fungus named Oh help me out here, guys, claudos Sporium spherospermum.
Sounds sounds right, yea real name.
It was found at the Chernobyl disaster site. It has apparently adapted to not only survive, but to feed off nuclear radiation. It's literally growing on the walls of reactor for and it takes the radiation and the radiation just makes it stronger. Like hitting you know, the Incredible Hulk with a GM or ray. The whole turn green when the rays get gamma.
That's sick. But is this potentially a thing that can be used to, you know, mitigate places that are infected with ye radiation.
What a great question. That's what I'm hoping as well do because we know that there have been multiple reports in the wake of Chernobyl arguing that the wildlife is adapting, right, that Earth will continue on its merry go round despite any disaster. We have to bust a myth. Yes, there are wild dogs descended from human pets that do survive in Chernobyl today. However, they are not evolving to resist radiation. They're certainly not evolving to feed from it. They're evolving
to reproduce younger at a younger and younger age. It's quite a tragic story.
Potentially, this fungus would like soak up radiation, right.
Is that the idea?
Yes, yeah, you're exactly right. The fungus is able to do so due to melanin. That's the pigment that gives people like Matt Frederick and yours truly an agglomeration of the non consensual tattoos we call freckles.
Got a few of those whoa, well, that's the stuff that gives us cancer too, right, because it's absorbing that radiation real good, but it kind of hangs out in our skin.
Yeah, time to contact our dermatologists through a very cool thing called radio synthesis. I was going somewhere with this incredible hulk reference. You guys, melanin absorbs gamma radiation in this fungus, so this fungus can soak up the stuff. To the earlier idea, to the question of whether this could be maybe, well, you can't really domesticate fungus too much smart, but could we perhaps deploy this as a biological scrubber in the wake of another nuclear disaster.
Well, they're talking about using it in space missions as a space radiation shield.
Yeah, fungus.
That's come on, guys, if that's not some of these books I've been mentioning recently about using fungus in fun ways and outer space and not so fun ways.
Yeah, we had a story not terribly long ago about fungus that kind of took over or like mold that took over space ships and that thrived in the vacuum of space and actually got into electronics and caused all kinds of you know, gremlin like chaos.
Well shenanigans for sure. And I hold that we were correct when we said fungus is probably the best terrestrial life form for an astronaut. It's the best astronaut candidate.
Yes, it makes me think of the character Venom. I know those movies are supposed to not be super great, but like the character is kind of made up of this alien black mold type material that you know, I mean, or like the black goo from alien franchise films. Just I don't know, Like that's that to me is interesting use of like fungus or mold or this type of material as stand in for alien life.
One hundred percent we have. We've got to move on you guys again. There's so much stuff happening. Look, you need to know that DARPA is currently in serious conversations to modify the red blood cells of human beings to
adapt them to various conditions in war. And it gets so crazy that we might need to do a Super Soldier episode as an update because the stuff I'm reading is nuts, And the scariest thing is it's not as crazy as it sounds when we did our first Super Soldier episode lo those many years ago.
Yeah, I want to know how blood's getting changed to be super I want some of that.
Yes, I think in the notes. I have the actual PDF from DARPA. I can't link it directly, but I think I can send the file to you guys. In the meantime, will pause for a word from our sponsors, and we'll return with war strange news.
And we're back with more strange news, and guys, I'm just going to rip the band aid off and lead with a quick discussion of a very disturbing case that's been taking place in France. And so just trigger warning here for anyone listening. This describes I'm not going to be graphic or anything, but some of the most horrific
acts of sexual assault that I could possibly imagine. And I only bring this up because I found the verdict in this trial that I'm about to discuss is supposed to be announced tomorrow, that's December the nineteenth, Thursday, December the nineteenth, but it's not something that we've discussed, and honestly, I only bring it up today, you know, in advance of the verdict coming down, because in PR had a really thoughtful piece about it and essentially talking about how
there are things about this case that are potentially going to change the narrative around sexual assault.
So we'll just get right to.
The case involves a woman named Giselle Pelicot who for over a decade was drugged and sexually assaulted by her husband and many many other men who her husband organized through various chat rooms involving the trading and proliferation of you know, illegal sexual material, often sexual assault related material. He essentially was using his wife in this way and
making videos of it. And due to another case or another infraction, that this man, Dominique Pellicott, was caught in the act of essentially some upskirt photographs that he was taking at a local supermarket where they lived in a small village in France. This led police to confiscate his phone and laptop, and in doing so they found what's being described as more than twenty thousand videos of sexual
assault on his wife. And when his wife was essentially shown a still frame of one of these, she didn't even know what she was looking at at first, and apparently he would even dress her up and lingerie that she would not have normally worn, you know, he would at first it was just him doing the assault, and he would do sexual acts that she was not comfortable with.
In the course of their marriage, and then it escalated to you know, having all of these outside parties coming in and organizing this coordinating this kind of fine tuning the cocktail of drugs that he was giving her, and then creating this material that was then found by police. Giselle understandably was absolutely shattered, you know, her entire world. She'd been married to this man for I think thirty
eight years. Just I can only imagine the realization in that moment of that level of betrayal and just how that could just literally shatter one psyche. But I think the reason that I wanted to bring it up because this NPR piece just points out very astutely that you know, she actively decided to not lean on anonymity and to become a public face for this kind of sexual assault. I mean, this is obviously just unspeakably horrific and just the most extreme example that I've ever seen of something
like this. But in you know, in not being anonymous and becoming this kind of face of this type of crime, I think she has reached a lot of women who who have experienced similar things, because you know, rape and sexual assault is often most often perpetrated by partners, by people who you know, are known to an individual who is being assaulted, and that is sadly something that maybe gets overlooked a lot. And then this is something that Giselle is very you know, actively sort of shining the
light on. I guess, let's just say she has decided to change her name to her maiden name and moved to an undisclosed location to restart her life. But during the course of the trial, she was identified by her married name, you know, with this man, this man who allegedly and almost certainly you know, did these horrible acts
to her. And they have two grown children who had to find out about this, and you know, the family has basically purged all remnants of this man from their lives, in terms of photographs, in terms of keepsakes, anything like that. One of his own children described him as the worst sexual predator in the history of France. And another thing that the MPR piece and I should actually mention what it is by Eleanor Beardsley that a mass rape trial
in France has changed the conversation about sexual assault. This came out on December seventeenth, which was yesterday, as we recorded. This just points out that France, I mean this isn't the only place. This certainly isn't unique to France, but in visiting there, I've kind of witnessed it firsthand. I've only been once in my adult life. I've spent some time in Paris, and there is a culture of really
toxic masculinity that's very open and unapologetic. And you know, I literally was at a bar with people and I saw a man yanko woman out of the toilet, you know, by her arm. Whether she was his partner or whatever, or a stranger or whatever, it was irrelevant, but it was just the level of open misogyny and just you know,
physical assault essentially. That was just kind of laughed off by a lot of the people that were there, and I was really taken aback by that, And in talking about that to other people that I know, they kind of pointed out that, yeah, this is a real problem
in France. So there are some details in this case that are beyond heartbreaking, and I think it may well be something that when there are more information comes out after the dust has settled in the case, a little bit may well be worth exploring in a difficult but I think important full episode potentially, So I know that's a massive bomber, guys. I didn't know if there's anything in bet I know you've been following this case as well, Matt.
Not sure how much you're familiar with this or have seen it.
It was honestly something that had kind of sadly slipped under my radar, and I had not seen it reported a ton in Western media. And you know, we do these strange news episodes every week, and I'm constantly looking at looking for and I just really didn't seem like it was getting a whole lot of attention until now that the you know, the verdict is coming down, and certainly this has been an ongoing case for a long time.
But yeah, I just in our throats to you, guys, if there's anything about this piece or about this case that you'd like to comment on.
Well, Noel, I appreciate you bringing this to our fellow conspiracy realist, especially if anyone in the audience tonight is unaware of the sheer depravity and degradation that occurred here. Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this story is that Giselle Pellicotte is heroic because it in a conspiracy of silence, and you know, I've spent some time in France as well in a conspiracy of silence.
The most powerful tool someone has is transparency. So transparent about this will hopefully empower other survivors whom I will not call victims. And it's heavy, you know, it's beyond words, both the unclean nature of these crimes, wherein I believe, as you said, fifty different individuals were charged. I think equally heavy and powerful. And beyond words is this year heroism of this person who is raising a clarion call to other people who may have been in similar situations.
Yes, hundred percent, completely agree.
Man, Anything anything that occurs to you about this before I move on to something maybe a little lighter.
Just quickly. There's a striking thing at the end of a BBC News article written by Laura Gauzi.
Excellent piece as well.
Yeah, you can look it up, titled new Name, No Photos. Giselle Pelicott removes all trace of her husband and if you go all the way to the bottom of the art article, it's part of the trial.
There.
They had one of the family members go up on the stand who was not, you know, immediately in the family, but was pretty closely related somebody who helped Giselle go to you know, doctor's visits, and one of the attorneys, the defense attorney says basically, well, how could you not have known that this was happening? And this person says, and this is just a crazy powerful quote quote, you're
forgetting one thing. You cannot imagine the unimaginable, which is what this entire thing feels like to me.
I mean, you know, I recently this is a different type of story, but it's in this fiction. But I recently, I think I mentioned on the show a film that came out last year and really just started getting attention this year called Red Rooms. And it's a French Canadian film about a trial involving a man who allegedly committed horrific murders on camera. What are kind of these fabled red rooms of sort of like dark web lore, you know,
the idea of these like snuff films. Yeah, for the Internet, And I can't in my mind this is you know, a sexual assault version of that.
There are websites that trade in this kind of material.
It's a chat room that's referencing that BBC article called Without her Knowledge. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that does exist. This is currency, you know, on the internet, in these dark, depraved kind of corners of.
The Internet and the dark web and all of that.
And so I just couldn't help but think of that film, because it is an excellent, excellent film, by the way, and it's a different type of crime, but it does ring similarly in my ears as far as like the level of meticulousness of cataloging these videos and like potentially selling them or streaming them or what have you. It's just the just the mind kind of recoils in horror
at this sort of stuff. And you know, and I think another point that the BBC and the Public Radio Peace make that I think is really important here is that the men that are on trial here seventy one men in fact, many of whom are named and on trial.
I think it's fifty that are actually on trial.
I'm sorry if I'm getting some details not quite right, but it's in that neighborhood. I don't think every single one of them was found, but they're all on trial for up to twenty years imprisonment. But the point is that these are not people you would look at and say these are monsters.
These are boogeymen. You know, these are pure evil.
These are working class French Men, and many of them are part of this misogynist kind of culture. And there's even you know, a historical, you know thing in French culture that I think was only sort of overturned legally speaking, the idea of the man being established as the head of the household. And a lot of these people who were you know pulled in and you know, put on trial for these crimes. Their argument was that they didn't
rape her because her husband gave them permission. I mean, come on, like, that's it's wild that someone would think that that's an argument.
Yeah, it's clearly it's an argument, but it is a
morally fraudulent and insidious attempt at an argument. It reminds me, Nolan, I think many of our fellow conspiracy realists of the related cases involving widespread sexual abuse in the in room, the Inthroom affair in South Korea, a criminal case involving cybersex trafficking sexually exploitative videos, often with the victims drugged, as we're describing in this French case, across multiple demographics, and the reason this calls to mind a relationship between
these same abominable things. Is how you have, like how you've described or chosen to describe the criminals, the monsters doing this stuff. You know, it's important to know again, it's important to know that the monsters may move amid you. You know, they don't always have a big sign that says sexual assaulter on them. That's why Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear is a must read book, and it's a really important point, I think beyond just France. It's a human experiential point.
Yeah, the whole banality of evil kind of thing. And then I know this is not like some sort of new point. And then we all know that monsters move among us, and that serial killers are often described as being Oh he was so nice, he's quiet, he kept to himself. So this isn't some sort of like hot take. But I do think that the the interesting angle on this sort of cultural thing that is pretty strong in
France and other places. To your point, Ben, but I see the conversation around this particular part of the world is particularly interesting and heartbreaking. So I don't know, guys, I feel kind of dumb following this up with a story about a Google eye bandit in Oregon.
It would make us feel better maybe.
Well, okay, fair enough, I'll yeah, please, Matt, please.
Before you do that, I'm gonna do a shameless plug because we're talking about monsters coming in January. There's a new season of Monster following Atlanta Monster, The Zodiac Killer, d C Sniperla Monstra, Freeway, Phantom, all those, so look for that. And it's about a very particular fellow that walked among us and nobody expected.
Can we say the name for the people.
That no, we cannot not yet?
All right, you keep your secrets, Matt Frederick, you keep your No, it's true, and all these high quality reporting in those series. So yeah, I'll just really briefly, you know, button that one up, and I think there is more to discuss moving forward, but end with just a diametrically opposing fun story out of Oregon. Public works of art all throughout the city of Bend, Oregon have been being
defaced by a googly eye bandit. That's so I'm describing him who was taking googly eyes of varying sizes and putting them on these public works of art. There's some pretty fun ones, one called big Ears. That's like a deer. It really looks cute with those big Google eyes. There's this like orb this kind of sphere. Let's see a public sculpture that is the sort of like porous sphere that's sitting on top of a rock.
It's got these Google eyes on.
It reminds me of the rocks from everything everywhere all at once. So, you know, a bit of mischief seems relatively harmless, but the powers that be in Bend, Oregon are saying that this not only costs money, you know, from the city from the taxpayers to remove, but it has the potential to actually damage.
Some of these works of art.
Outdoor art, whether they be made of bronze or other types of materials, are often coated with kinds of lacquer that protect them from the elements. And when you use adhesives on that, it can pull the lacquer off, and that can cause areas that could be prone to rust and potentially, you know, damaging the sculpture on a larger scale.
And there's a couple of different perspectives.
Because you know, there's a Facebook post that gets referenced in this piece from the ap mysterious Google eyes go viral after appearing on Public Art in Oregon by Claire Rush, and she cites this Facebook user saying, my daughter and I went past the Flaming Chicken today and shared the biggest laugh. This comes from a user with the name Phoenix Rising. We love the googly eye. The town is
getting to be so stuffy. Let's have fun. This actually also made it to a segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where he kind of poked fun at this and maybe poked fun a little bit at the city officials who are sort of poopooing the whole thing. So let's just end with a quote or a statement from some of these city officials, including Renee Mitchell, Ben's communications director, and she had this to say, we really encourage our community to engage with the art and have fun.
We just need to make sure that we can protect it and that it doesn't get damage. There was no intent to be heavy handed, and we certainly understand maybe how that was taken. We own this large collection of public art and really want to bring awareness to the
community that applying adhesives does harm the art. So as stewards of the collection, we want to share that on social media, and so far the city spent about fifteen hundred bucks removing these googly eyes from seven of the eight public sculptures that they were placed on.
Well, that's a shame. This is an exciting new silly Banksy artist that is emerging. Have we thought that maybe this is the work of the production team at last week tonight for some episode that's gonna come out later.
You know, you said you were gonna be cool. You know, it's it's a good theory, Matt, It's a good theory.
But let's let's close up this segment of strange news from me. I hear a word from our sponsors, and then come back with one final bit of strange news for.
You breaking news guys. This just came in. I didn't even put it into the dock. Remember disease X that we briefly mentioned.
The DRC, And again I object to the postcolonial shadow of calling something disease X.
But I get it. I get it.
There was there was a mystery you brought this story.
Uh yeah, I don't know what you mean by that, the postcolonial disease X. I think it was just saying it's there. It's unknown what disease it is.
I feel like they call it disease X more often on the African continent, especially when Western authorities are reporting it is that's what I'm saying.
Okay, yeah, I didn't know that. Well, the thing that they are calling disease acts. There was an unknown thing that had affected hundreds of mostly children. When we talked about it, it was identified at least several of I think two dozen roughly of the children to be malaria. Well now, according to Congo's Health ministry, who declared in a statement yesterday as we're recording this that quote, the
mystery has finally been solved. It's a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory illness, which is still sounds really scary to me. You don't want that. You never want to get that. And it was there were five hundred and ninety two cases when the alert was first raised, and that was back in October, like late October. So this is just a messed up thing, this happening. But at least the disease has been somewhat identified, so it can now be treated at least better than
it has been for the past several months. So there you go. Oh, guys, did it? There's more stuffs coming in. This is from This is a story about someone we mentioned recently, Hanna Kobayashi. This is a young woman who went missing after she flew from Maui to Los Angeles. Her family lost contact with her. She was supposed to fly to New York City in a connecting flight. She didn't. Then we saw that there was footage of her walking
into Mexico via the border there at San Diego. We heard a terrible and tragic story about her father flying to Los Angeles searching for her, who was found appeared to be that heat had taken his own life. Horrible stuff. Well, as of right now, guys, she is back. She is back in the United States. As of December fifteenth, she has returned earned That is according to a letter that she wrote and gave to her aunt, who then distributed
it out to media. And everything appears to be okay, other than, of course, the tragedy that occurred with her father. But the family is now recovering and figuring everything out. It's one of these stories, guys, that feels like there's way more to it, Like there's a puzzle that needs to get solved. Still, Like what happened? Why did she go no contact, you know.
A timeline at the very least.
Yeah, it feels that way. But I guys, I wonder if, like personally for me, if that's how my brain has been primed for these kinds of things. And what happens when a giant media spotlight gets shown on any individual life? Right?
You find too many things, is what happens.
But you're cherry picking circumstances, right, So narrative, Yeah, exactly, So I think I feel like shining on anybody's life, there's stuff going on that that person probably would rather not everybody know about. So then it becomes this miss of, oh, well, what's actually happening? We have to find out, And then it becomes more and more and more and more, and it snowballs into what we saw here with Hanna Kobayashi, where the media appeared to be obsessed with it, and
I know that I was thinking about it. There were YouTube and TikTok videos coming out all over the place about this, speculating on every possibility of what could be happening. We talked about some of the speculation even when we just mentioned it. And then she comes back and here's the quote from Hannah herself. I was unaware of everything that was happening in the media while I was away, and I'm still processing it.
All.
My focus is now on my healing, my peace, and my creativity. I'm deeply grateful to my family and everyone who's shown me kindness and compassion during this time. And then basically, but also leave us alone, please. And that's not a direct quote, but that's like a it's the feeling. Well, yeah, and I can imagine that feeling. But I can also imagine the families feeling of we can't get in contact
with this person that we love and we're terrified. I can imagine the police officers who are out there searching and you know, hunting down leads to figure out what the heck happened. It's something that becomes a media storm that I think is probably disruptive and destructive. All attractive, oh very much.
And this is There's there's one interesting wrinkle I'd like to share here, which is very small. I don't think it matters. But Kobyashi is also also very well known in the West for two things. First, the Kobyashi Maru, the famous unwinnable scenario and Star Trek, and then second Kobyashi has a made up name in usual suspects. We're not going to spoil it more. But it's another investigatory
or investigative missing person's case. Just leaning on fiction a little bit to argue the name Kobiyashi pops in certain areas of the brain in the Western world. Right, if the person's name had been different, would as much attention have been paid? Had their socioeconomic or their demographic makeup been different, would as much attention have been paid. It's a troubling question.
It is. It appears that it was the family's tenacity that got the media attention rolling. They didn't. They didn't stop raising their hand and saying, hey, we need help, Hey we need help. Something is wrong. We don't know what's happening.
We need help, reaching out to the law, reaching out to media, perhaps even more importantly, to push the law to do more arguably than they might in other similar instances.
Yeah, but it is weird because this, Eh God, I don't even want to say it out loud. I had the thought that this is a viable way to make yourself extremely famous, and then let it calm down, And especially if you're an aspiring artist or someone who is
going to use their talents to make money in the future. Now, everybody knows your name, and if you you are putting let's say you've put together some art and you want to do an art show, you put your name to you know, somebody who has a gallery and they're like, oh, I know that is Yeah, we're doing an art show.
Quite possibly.
Yeah.
Other people come in and go, oh, I can get a I can get a an h. Kobayashi and you like, I don't look. And that's I'm not saying that's what she did. I'm just saying this is a troubling way, a potential way to get that kind of attention.
Yeah, guys, my palm Matt here is not ascribing motive. We are gaming through what, to your point, Matt, is quite viable strategy, Uh, one that historically has occurred in the past. Just saying and this is again, in no way at any point are we alleging that conspiracy. I feel like what you're saying.
No, I am not alleging that conspiracy. Matt Frederick is not saying that. Matt Frederick is exploring ideas. But hey, we just wanted to put out there because it did seem like a possibility. Uh, not in this case, but in maybe the future, because I couldn't find any specific instances of that occurring in the past, where like somebody disappeared on purpose for fame and eventual fortune or something
like that. Moving on, guys, there is an exciting new federal regulation that we just have to talk about federal regulations. There's really I don't know that if there's a positive thing, they have the potential to be very helpful, especially for human beings that do things like consume products or use services like oh, I don't know, healthcare, or go to concerts or get a hotel room. So in this case, we're talking about us, the folks who buy things and
do things well. On Tuesday, December sixteenth, the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, has finalized a rule that will ban quote junk fees for live events, hotels, and vacation rentals. I believe we've mentioned this before that there was talk of this occurring. It is now finalized. You can go to ABC News and read the writing of Elizabeth Schulez.
The title of the article is new federal rule bands junk fees on hotels, live event tickets, and the new regulation that comes forward or will see the effects of it in April, basically makes companies put the full price up front, so you won't get a resort fee hidden in your whatever it is air not an AIRBNBA would be a probably hotel in a city somewhere, or you won't get at the end of your live event ticket purchasing a little thing that says, here's an extra five
dollars that has to go on there for stuff.
Convenience, yeah, service, stuff like that.
But you're it doesn't mean you're going to be saving any money. Those prices now will just be worked into the official sticker price that you see when you click on the first link basically to buy that ticket. Who knows if it's actually gonna help anybody out, but it's nice, an it's a nice form of bringing a little more transparency to some of those transactions that we do online.
That's super cool too, because you know what this could be, Matt. This could signal a precedent for one of the most confusing things about physical stores here in these United States. One of the things that constantly bedevils by otherwise incredibly intelligent contacts when they go to the US is They always ask me, why is the price on the shelf not the price that I pay? And I have to say, well, yeah,
you know, they bring up some state taxes. Then, you know, depending your mileage may vary geographically, there might be some local taxes, there might be some tourist stuff, you know. And then the question, which is a very good question, is why don't you just tell me how much it is?
Yeah?
Like what? Why not?
Why you're not paying any more for the sticker with the price tag on it?
You know what I mean?
Just do the right price at the top, dude.
Like so many things in this world that we encounter, it's a form of weaponized psychology because when you see it and it looks nice and affordable, you go, oh, this is good.
Twelve ninety nine. That's not fifteen dollars exactly.
Yeah, yay.
But you know, I don't honestly, guys, I don't know how helpful this this new thing is going to be. But I did want to give a very special and I'm doing this on purpose. Shout out to current FTC chair Lena Kahan, who, throughout her tenure there has really been pushing for quote, a new era of antitrust regulation challenging the business models of major corporations in industries ranging from big tech to pharmaceuticals. CON agreed, dude, Con uh,
we we dig all of that stuff. But CON is going to get replaced as soon as the nude administration comes in.
So if you're hearing us, Con, go fricking nuts right now. All the all the stuff, all the stuff. Push it through, Push it through. Don't save anything for the swim back. Hear me before they cut off the mic.
Oh man, there's a there's there's a piece at the end of this ABC News article that it's a quote from Con. And you know people have been asking you, well, you're you know, you're basically a lame duck FTC chair now because you're about to be out the door, like what are you doing? And she's like, oh, I'm using every second I got in here. I was just like, it's just awesome, guys. I'm right at the end here, I'm gonna I'm gonna say one more thing, one more
note that I think is worth our time. This is on you, though, ye who hear this, check this out on your own time if you can. BBC published an article by Andy Verity title is Jaguar land Rover electric car whistleblower sacked. This is a huge story that we all need to be aware of. It is very important. It has to do with if it's similar to the Boeing story, has to do with a whistleblower coming forward
within the companies that manufacture electric vehicles. It's for several companies, but they mentioned Jaguar land Rover, and I always say Jaguar because of those commercials Bagulina Jaguar.
Fancy. I always want to one just for the hood ornament, you know, yes.
But there are several other companies involved here, including a Vietnamese car maker named vin Fast vin Fast, And it's specifically about electric vehicles that they are manufacturing that this whistleblower is saying have faulty parts, faulty manufactured parts on them, very important parts, specifically the shocks on these vehicles and the systems attached to those shocks, which as this whistleblower is saying and posted some stuff on Reddit and then
that's why you got fired about how they will fall apart mid driving, like going very fast, especially going fast and you hit a small pothole or something. They have the potential to break apart completely to where the tires get so misaligned that the person driving that vehicle loses complete control. One family of four has been killed due to this faulty manufacturing, and there are several dozens of
other crashes reported to this stuff. But of course the companies want to keep it quiet, and this guy is trying very hard not to keep it quiet. So do look this up, check it out, and I guess, tell us what you think. That's it.
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