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 Noah.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Andrew let try Force Howard. Most importantly, you argue you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. And of course it's the top of the week. So if you are hearing this strange news the evening it publishes, let us be the first to welcome you to May twenty six. Also free El Gato, makat Yeah, free, free El Gato. Let our man go.
This is only thing I know about. Who's the cat over? We gotta let him go.
Get this over. In Costa Rica, we always like to start with something that's not immediately terrible. Over in Costa Rica, prison officials have caught a cat smuggling drugs into the facility. An officer at the boy at the Pukoki or coch prison in northeastern Costa Rica spoted the cat and it's like, hey, what's this cat doing in lock up? And why does he have a cute little saddle bag pouch?
Yeah, yeah, we heard about that with pigeons. I think once before there was something too about like illegal cell phones being smuggled into prisons attached to little pigeon feet.
That's wild industrious, I respect.
We want to give a shout out to our friends at ap news who on we're recording this on Wednesday, May twenty first. On May nineteenth, AP News showed just what is an adorable cat? Clearly like clearly rocking significant weight for a cat. They gave this poor guy a backpack of drugs. He got caught free El Gato. He's just caught up in the system. That's our first strange news story. We're also going to get to other stuff. This entire show is not going to be about El
Gatto though, Free the cat. We're gonna learn about a apocalypse. We're going to catch up on some unpleasant news related to the accuser of Prince Andrew. We're going to talk about some deep stuff. Be warned to this program will contain descriptions of self harm. This may also touch on the idea of assisted suicide. Before we do any of that. What say we take a break and come back and discuss reality shows or maybe just reality. Yeah, we've returned.
At this point, I think everybody in the US has heard the news, the scuttle but the rumors about the idea of the federal government starting a reality show pitting contestants against one another in hopes of getting their applications for legal status fast tracked.
Yuck.
Yeah, gross, Hunger Games.
Hunger game.
I mean, every time I look at the comments about this, as you can't not see people referencing the Hunger Games. And I did see actually that this was done before, I want to say, in Mexico, and it was mega unpopular and frowned upon then.
And Matt, is this familiar to you as well?
This is not familiar to me at all.
Well, well, we'll give you the roller coaster version very quickly, since we have a lot of stories to get to the most recent announcement regarding this. Well, and there's a history to it. Okay. A while back, there was a peace run in the Daily Mail, and in that piece there were it also went to Wall Street Journal. There were these signals from the US government that they would make a they were considering creating a reality show in which immigrants in the US compete for citizenship, compete to
get their paperwork, what we will call fast tracked. Most recently, the current Homeland Security Secretary, Christy nom spoke to the Senate just yesterday, as we record, and she said, look, we have no knowledge of this reality show idea. We have no idea why this is been reported. Her specific comment to the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
was the following quote. There may have been something submitted somewhere along the line, because there are proposals pitched to the Department, but me and my executive team had no knowledge of the reality show. She added, there are no plans whatsoever to do a reality show. However, you guys, if you go back to May sixteenth, Homeland Security spokeswoman
Tricia McLaughlin said on multiple occasions some weird stuff. She told The Wall Street Journal earlier that the department was considering collaborating on a TV show of exactly this nature and get this guy's deep cut. The pitch came from the same producers who made Duck Dynasty classic television.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, High Dynasty Dynasty. We got a podcast too.
What is the between Duck dynasty and people wanting to have status as an American citizen.
Hmm yeah, I mean it is a pretty right leaning crew there. I don't feel like they put Polo takes front and center. It's just more about like outdoors and stuff. But maybe they do, especially on the podcast. I couldn't say. I haven't listened, but it does seem like that's part of that brand.
We can agree though this is a rubicon too far with bread and circuses. This is dystopian. It does sound like, based on the recent conversations with the Senate, that this is not going forward. The more speculative or perhaps cynical of us in the crowd tonight will consider the possibility that this was floated as a test balloon to see how America would react, and then when they got a when they didn't get a positive reaction, they said no, yeah, no one talked about that ever.
Right, It seems like sort of part of the playbook is the floating, you know, move or the testing of boundaries.
Right.
It just it does seem to be very much part of what they're up to.
The old dish gallop right there are running another good example, Yes, shut up Stephen King via his pseudonym. Also, this makes me think of again, as we accelerate toward an increasingly surreal civilization and society, it makes me think of how many other things might become something like reality shows. If you had told us when we began this strange endeavor lo those years ago, that we would be in the current situation. I don't know if we still would have
done the show, but here we are. United Health investors, by the way, just sued the company United Health over its response to the murder of their former CEO, Brian Thompson.
Because of its effects on the stock price. I was saying, they're not being good stewards of their you know, their bored. I'm curious.
Yeah, let's go to CBS News, Kiera Frazier says, reporting here. This proposed class action lawsuit that was filed recently in the Southern District of New York is led by one of the investors in United Healthcare, Roberto Faller, and the suit alleges that United Health artificially inflated prices when the company initially forecasts their earnings per share in December. And this is strange because look, the reason they're suing or
taking legal action. Is that United Health originally said the earnings per share are going to be twenty nine dollars and fifty cents, maybe as high as thirty dollars. That's what they said in December. They said it again in January, despite the backlash of stuff we were talking about in our ev Core episode or evil Core episode. And then the investors decided to sue because United Health cut its
twenty twenty five forecasts to a lower range. Not that much lower, but I guess it matters when you have hundreds and hundreds of shares. They said, now the earning per share is going to be between twenty six dollars to twenty six dollars and fifty cents. So this company's own investors are suing it at this point.
That's nuts.
Not a good look.
I don't know.
I mean, how often does that happen? Are the investors trying to get on the right side of history. They also talk about aggressive anti consumer tactics in their suit.
Interesting, Yeah, I guess I thought of it more as a bottom line kind of move, Like I know that you can certainly remove like stockholders of a certain level, like have the ability to vote. They have some level of control they can exercise, and they could potentially, you know, petition, I guess, to have an executive.
Removed for like failure to be good steward of the stock. Right, Sure this is different than that.
Yeah, yeah, it feels like this is okay, it feels like obviously there is an issue with projected profits which always comes up with shareholders and with investors, but it is inextricable from the context of that earlier murder, right, the murder for which Luigi Mangioni remains incarcerated today, although he has not been convicted in court.
Yeah, it's interesting sign of the times, I guess, right, Yeah, and you got.
To wonder where that's going. Speaking of class action lawsuits, twenty three and Me has entered the chat. We talked about this at length in the past in some strange news and some listener mail in some episodes. We also learned recently that twenty three and Me went bankrupt, so they are out searching for a suitor. Yet they have found true love. In corporate terms, a company named Regenerod is going to buy twenty three and Me for two hundred and fifty six million dollars.
They should get together with Evil Core Regeneron.
These guys sound more and more like Captain Planet villains, you know what I mean. Here's the quick scoop. Let's go to Reuters and c in who are noting that Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which itself is a drug maker, it's not
just a venture capital outfit. They are buying the they're buying twenty three and ME through a bankruptcy auction, and they've already come forward in various public statements and said, look, twenty three in me customers, we are going to abide by the existing privacy policies that twenty three and ME created, and we're going to comply with applicable laws regarding consumer data, which gets tricky because those laws change country to country
and indeed state to state. I don't know. They're getting pretty much everything from twenty three and me except where a telehealth service they have called Lemonade Health, and they're going to I think the plan is the sunset that one. But I'd never heard of Lemonade Health.
No.
Also it's spelled ai D get it, lemon aid.
Okay, yeah, let's let's let's make lemons and the lemona.
Are you a lemon, maybe we can aid you.
We can aid you because you're you got a bad ticker?
Is this the lemon equivalent of help of support and help?
Yeah?
Exactly. The reason we're mentioning this is because for many of us in the audience who may have played with twenty three and Me or other consumer DNA genetic info companies. Your next immediate question, maybe, how do I get control of my data? How do I how do I remove it from the system? How do I ensure that I feel safe and protected to do that? You're going to want to get some advice straight from the New York
Times wirecutter. They've got a bonus episode on how to delete your data from twenty three and Me and Reports on the ground. We'll walk you through this in a second, but Reports on the ground, just so you know, folks are showing us that getting that data removed is a little more tricky than the company may imply. It's kind of like anybody who's ever had a gym membership that was really tricky to get out of. Has that ever happened to you, guys?
I haven't had dealt with it yet, but I am a little gym membership rich, right, now and I need to dump one and so I'm looking forward to that bureaucracy.
Right right, Yeah, just stay out your p's and q's across the t's dot. Theis to delete your twenty three and meter data, says Wirecutter. All you have to do is log into your account, go to settings, select twenty three and me data, which is way down at the bottom of the page. Then hit view download a copy of it, then select delete data, then permanently delete data.
You can also opt to have the genetic material you submitted destroyed, and then you have to go to the Research and Product can sense section to remove permission to allow your material to be used for other stuff. Notes that doing this only revokes their ability to use your material in future research. So everything that has already been done with whatever you gave twenty three and meters that's still there, that's going to be a real thing going forward.
I don't know.
Whether I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill here, but it does feel like this is important information for a lot of our listeners.
What do you guys think, Well, it's certainly something we've been talking about, and this seems like a natural escalation of a lot of the privacy issues that we've discussed kind of ad nauseum.
On the show.
Mm, yeah, agreed. We don't know. It's not that we're accusing these companies of participating an insidious or nefarious or conspiratorial things, but we simply do not know what will happen with that information. So if you have the concern about that, and again, in full transparency, we worked with twenty three and meter in the past. If you have a personal concern, then now is the time to go in and you sort of get your head around what
may be happening and the implications. Last story here before we move on to the next part of our weekly Strange News segment. There was speaking of conspiracies, a secret deal between members of Mexican cartels and the United States government. This deal allowed cartel family members to enter the United States. This is not coming to us from internet gossip and rumor. This is coming from the security chief of Mexico, thanks
to our friends at the AP. Just last week, Mexican authorities confirmed that seventeen family members of various cartel leaders crossed into the United States. It was part of a deal between a son of the former head of the Snola cartel and the Trump administration. Gonna be honest, Mexico is pissed.
Well, it also doesn't It kind of flies in the face of the Trump administration's whole like shutting down the cartels, you know, their whole narrative about the closed borders. It's all kind of using the cartels as like the main impetus for stuff like that, you know, all the pentanyl being trafficked across the border and things like that.
So it does feel a little bit maybe a lot of hypocrite.
It's a little uh, it's counterintuitive, is it not that too? Yeah? Like, what what is the end goal?
Yeah, well, he's the guy's functioning as an informant, Right.
That's the idea, But they haven't if that that is the idea. However, Mexican prosecutors say that the current administration has shared no information about this.
Oh why is it so public too? It doesn't seem like a very good tactic for an.
Informant, Right it came from an independent journalist that we need to shout out, Luise Chappato.
Well, I'll tell you why, guys. It's because they're worried about the little corruption thing going on. Between government officials and cartels in Mexico. Right, so if they shared all that information, there would be an early warning likely to cartel members and the people they need. That's going.
Yeah, so I think it's not necessarily I don't know. We can't jump to conclusions as we don't have enough information just yet.
I just really quickly been just wanted to add, like I know, I jumped immediately to like, oh, it's a payoff thing.
It it's hypocritical, et cetera.
I guess it just makes me think of this whole notion of the gold card, of this idea of like paying a bunch of money to get citizenship, et cetera, that the administration floated, and how you know, if you have enough money you can get into the country. And there was a lot of talk about how, well, who are the people that are going to maybe use that? It would be like carteli leaders with lots of money to potentially try to take advantage of a program.
Yeah, but god, I hear you, But you would you who would not want a couple of investor passports. I regularly go through the countries that offer.
That, and.
I'll tell you some of them are more affordable than you might assume.
It's like it's like a temporary visa, you get a citizenship.
You give them that because of your ability to invest, because of your ability to do business.
You jump in front of the line, just like you have a Disney fast pass or something. But the ride is you know, legal residents, commerce, residency in a country. Uh. Yes, we have much more to get to. We would love to hear your thoughts regarding all of these stories. We're going to pause for a word from our sponsors. But folks, spoiler listen to the very end of tonight's program, because we're also going to give you a guide to locating spies. That's the spoiler, that's the foreshadowing.
Will be right back, and we're back, and I'm gonna jump right in with I'm gonna do the bummer story up front. Well, it's not inherently a bummer. We've certainly
done episodes in the past. But the idea of assisted suicide, I'm not gonna say unalive, that's what it was historically referred to as going to use those terms for the sake of this discussion, you know, and on a lot of the issues behind it in terms of people that are against things like that typically come from a place of religiousness, typically come from a place of the sanctity of life, maybe similar arguments to people who might be
anti abortion. And there are a handful of states in the United States that I believe have this available, you know, as a legal option, which certainly no one needs as a legal option, But there is something to be said of a humane, overseen, you know, option for ending one's life, not because you're depressed because you have a terminal illness, because you have something that is determined to be irreversible and you are suffering, and you are living in a
state of pain and anxiety. And this is a way of kind of helping put agency into the hands of people going through things like that and not having to take matters, say, into their own hands, which we also hear very sad stories about often you know, people doing that themselves behind closed doors, whereas in this situation, it's almost like you could be surrounded by family, Like it could be a conversation that you're having with your loved
ones and they can all be there potentially. So New York State has made some strides towards this as well, and it is the New York legislature that has passed a bill called the Medical Aid in Dying Measure, or rather, I guess it's yeah, it's a bill which passed eighty one to sixty seven after four hours of debate in
the New York State legislature. This is coming from Gothamist article that is attributed to Yeah Jimmy volkand saying that the Medical Aid and Dying Measure passed eighty one sixty seven after more than four hours debate, with more than ten Democrats joined the minority Republicans in voting no. So it would appear that it is not entirely down the aisle, you know, kind of split issue.
It's still unclear.
The article says whether it will be considered by the state Senate or whether Governor Kathy Hochel HOCl supports it. Ten other states allow similar practices, including Oregon, which legalized
medically assisted suicide in nineteen ninety seven. Folks that are in support of this, like I mentioned, which you know is my perspective, say this is a compassionate choice for folks who are in pain at the end of their lives, advocating making this a safe sort of a I guess loaded term here maybe doesn't really apply, but a humane process involving oversight from physicians with terminally ill individuals such as cancer patients, as well as folks whose spouses and siblings have also suffered.
You know, in them some of these final moments.
So one of the sponsors of the bill, Amy who's a Democrat from Westchester County, said, the last thing memory I have of my sister is shouting in pain. She might have chosen this or not, but she would have had a choice. And then on the other side of that, we have some folks commenting from I guess the state's
Roman Catholic Bishops organization. So Robert Bellafiore, who's spokesperson for the New York State Catholic Conference, said this was referring to this in I believe a pretty hyperbolic way as state sanctioned suicide. Guys, what do you think about that term sanctioned? I feel like it's weaponized so much, and especially in this situation.
They're not saying you should do this.
Yeah, we're forcing you to do this, right, But it's like what here in the West, in the US, especially, you never hear state sanctioned as a modifier to something good. No one's ever like, oh, I've got to go to the state sanctioned library.
It implies government overreach, free.
Books, it's always right state sanctioned death squads or suicide death panels exactly. You know, this reminds me of I mean, obviously the shadow of Cavorkian, but it also reminds me of the sarcopod Street named the suicide pod, the euthanasia device that came out a while back. It was invented by a guy named Philip Nietzski, and it it also like Cravorkians work. It ruffled a lot of feathers on a very sensitive topic. But there are some things to unpack.
You know. First, logically, if you believe in bodily autonomy, then your idea must be that if other if you're not, if someone is not harming someone else with their actions, they should be able to do what they want with
their person habeas corpus and all that. However, it feels like there does need to be some nuanced legislation because it reminds me of those studies that show people who attempt suicide by say, jumping off a bridge, the vast majority of folks who survived that attempt regret doing it right. So a terminal illness feels like a very, very much
a mission critical qualifier. But we also have to remember there are a lot of people who are going through very difficult times in their lives and may impulsively wish for self harm only to regret it regret it later. So how would we square a person's right to autonomy with like, I guess you have to make the barrier of entry pretty high at this point.
Tell you, yeah, one hundred percent. Man, those are all really great points.
And you know, the opposition coming from the New York State Catholic Conference sort of addresses to some of these things, saying it tells young people who everyone knows are in the midst of an unprecedented mental health crisis, that life is disposable and that it's okay to end your life if you see no hope. It turns medicine on its head from a healing profession into a killing one. Again, I find this to be incredibly hyperbolic and sort of weaponized language.
Load Yeah, for sure.
Loadedly miss the point which is addressed in the bill itself, which requires two physicians to certify that a patient has an irreversible incurable illness or condition with a prognosis of six months or less to live. Two witnesses who aren't related to the patient, aren't in line for any inheritance and don't work for a nursing home where a patient receives care also have to sign as witnesses to the
patient's written request. So it feels to me like that's a pretty high barrier to entry, you know, to your point, man, yeah, I hear you be Yeah, And advocates going to say that it's all about the patient's control and that there is that level, you know, pretty strict level of oversight. There is this concept of coercion that comes up a lot, like this idea of potentially nursing home.
The staff, yeah, you.
Know, taking compromised in their faculties, that's right.
Yeah, And so it does feel like there are reasonable measures in place to prevent that. But I do feel like that term coercion that comes up a lot is also often a little bit loaded, the idea of and it just seems to me like nobody, Okay, let's talk about the conspiratorial ang a little bit.
I think it's an.
Elephant, sure, Like it doesn't it doesn't particularly benefit big pharma and the healthcare industry if people have the choice to in.
Their own lives. Because I didn't know there's a lot of money to be made an end of life care. I'm just saying, so, yeah, discuss. Yeah, that's right.
I just had sorry being quite on this this part, guys. I literally just had a conversation this morning with my son's mother about a family member of hers that just went into hospice and is, you know, on her way out. And it's one of those things when there's a lot of pain there, there is a discussion with that person, you know, like that potentially they might want to just have it be over. That would be really great if
it could just be over, but nobody wants that. And then also being in someone's shoes who is not cognitively there, how do you have that discussion with them? And it is such a I'm just putting this out here to say, it is such a complicated situation right at any time, somebody is trying to choose, or a family is trying to choose if it's time to let someone go.
Agreed. I don't say much personal stuff on the show, but I completely understand what you're saying, Matt, one of my grandmothers many years ago, that was the last conversation we had with her, and she wasn't all there. So it's not really a clean answer to a lot of these things.
Certainly not.
But it's also interesting how, you know, my mother passing, I had to make the choice to end her life, and it was paperwork that was laid out and gave me that right, and she I was advised by the doctors that there was no coming back from the state that she was in and issues intubated and there are all these factors and boxes that had to be checked, and that you know, art lungs were full of fluid. It just wasn't it was it wasn't any coming back, and that's what I was advised, and that is what
I did. But I don't see how, like, why do you have to get to such a place? Yeah, before that conversation happens, is what I'm saying.
I had this one thought in my head the other day. And but and I think that is almost a point against the conspiratorial fact right, because those are metal medical professionals talking to you, nol and saying that is true. We could we could sustain her life for you know, however long you want, and then the medical bills would just pile and pile and pile and pile, or we can do this, which is the theoretically the mission of
all medical professionals, right when you go into that field exactly. So, I.
It is interesting, though I do no harm, and the way this language is weaponized kind of conflicts with the idea of ending someone's life. But sometimes that is the humane thing to do, and that is a form of doing no harm, because you're doing more harm by letting an individual live in a substandard dare we even say hellish state?
It's a lot, guys, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get personal doubt of it.
It is something that that you know, I do feel connected with, and it's interesting and it's it's a very complex thing, but I do think people should have the right to do something like this, and you know, because also, I mean I had I had another family friend who had terminal cancer and took his own life with a weapon.
H that's a very violent death. That's a violent way to go. You're alone and tear. I mean, can you imagine the someone's state of mind in that situation.
But that's the way it goes. Now, if you live in a in a place that does not allow for some way to to end your life, you know, peacefully, then you take it if you're if you're in that position and you make that decision right, and that's a reality. I guess that we're we're all kind of facing Uh. I don't know.
Yeah, for sure, it's definitely complex. I'll leave that one there.
Maybe maybe should have led with the weird mystery bird apocalypse story instead of that one, But I guess maybe it's also just ripping the band aid off. In California, in a town not too far from San Francisco in the Bay Area called Richmond, residents are reporting sightings of exploding birds and just a rash of dead birds falling from the sky, some of which are appearing to explode in mid air. There are security camera footage, there's ring
camera footage. Residents have said they've found as many as fifty dead birds in the area over the last few months, and this was initially reported by ABC seven there in the Bay Area. I'm pulling a lot of this from a Guardian article California town investigates mystery of exploding dead birds.
There are theories, y'all.
A lot of people are pointing fingers at the power company because a lot of these birds apparently have been like birds want or want to do sit on these power line. Officials for the California Department Officient Wildlife told The Guardian that the Department of Wildlife's health lab received two dead birds for evaluation that had been collected by the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric. One of the birds was a mourning dove, and another eight European starlings,
like migratory birds. The lab found no signs of electrocution, however, in these collective birds, but the creatures did show injuries that could have been caused by a pellet gun, a BB gun, or a slingshot.
They said in a statement.
The exact cause of the trauma to all of these birds could not be determined. The investigation came as some neighbors blame Pacific Gas and Electric for faulty cable lines and urged the utility to take a look into the incident. A spokesperson from PG and E, who also again led the the what do you call it? Autopsy kind of a charge there seemingly maybe in a way of exonerating themselves. But you know whatever, we appreciate the concern of our
customers Richmond about the recent series of bird deaths. PG and E does not believe that there was an issue with our electrical equipment and agrees that these birds were not electrocuted.
So there you go.
It is being described as a very traumatic and violent thing to witness. A local resident named Maximilian Bowling told ABC seven, So, when they land, then it happens. They just quickly explode, and it's really violent. It's very traumatic, super traumatic to see this. You know, I've got my bird issues, guys, but I don't wish them this kind of ill. There's a horrible thing to happen to birds. We must get to the bottom of what's happening to
these birds. There is another piece in the La Times the mystery of Northern California's exploding birds is being solved, and that was from May the fourteenth, and I believe it mainly refers to the autopsy that PG and E has performed.
Let's see.
Yeah, it does show that they weren't electrocuted, so I wonder what's next. Further, Yeah, it shows that weren't electrocuted is what the But again I'm a little suspicious because it's two birds, a mourning dove in a European starling, and it's the power company themselves that conducted these tests, and they're the ones say.
No, no, it's cool. See we checked it out to the cat with a gun. Yes, yeah, cat. Can you imagine? So it really is a mini bird apocalypse yall?
Yeah?
Oh wow, that's a that's a terrifying image. Cats are the scourge of the bird world, you know.
That's why they say if you let your cats outside, put a bell on them, not for you finding the cat, but to give the birds a fighting chance. Wow.
Mm hmm.
It's really puzzling. I don't know how would it so? Okay, just theoretically, how would it be an electrical Problemly, the shielding isn't correct on some of the ulins.
It would have to be.
They have to be like ungrounded, right, it would like be to cause that level of violent explosion. There have to be significant grounding problem that would also be very for humans, potentially some sort of serious flaw.
Yeah, and apparently all.
There is something called or a safeguard or a company that creates standards in place called the Avian power Line Interaction Committee, and there is apparently a standard that is to be complied with for Avian safety around power lines. And another spokesperson Matt Neuman from PG and he said the poll at issue is compliant with Avian safeguidees.
So it's a good question, Ben, You got any theories.
I think there's a a a Dennis the Menace type figure, exploding birds, an anti bird vigilante.
I like your cat with a gun theory. That's good image.
Yeah, a cat with a gun is probably the most plausible thing. Group of cats, maybe cartel related.
Well, let's stop here for now. I think I've run over on time a little bit.
But let's take a quick break here a word from our spot, and then we'll come back with a little bit more strange news from mister Matti Fred's.
And we've returned. Do we all remember the cybersecurity company crowd Strike. Do you guys remember talking about them last year? The company was responsible for a massive global server outage. They pushed out an update had some issues with it to its software that's used by a lot of people. When they put out that software, which is designed to detect cybersecurity threats. It brought down eight and a half
million Windows systems across the globe. Who well that outage, as is stated here by the Guardian that we will talk about in just a moment. It caused chaos at airports, took down computers in hospitals, which is not great, TV networks, payment systems, and personal computers even well, guys, they just announced earlier in May that they are gonna cut five percent of their workforce because guess what they're putting in instead of humans?
Oh gosh, is it cats with guns?
Yes?
I think I that would probably be preferable. Uh, yeah, it's they have some insuation. It's a I, isn't it.
Nope, it's Chuck Testa. Uh he's a taxidermy badass. Should look him up at Chuck Testa. Anyway, I didn't know there were.
Bases in the Field's kind of the lebron of taxider.
I learned something today.
No, it's it's it's a I, guys, which.
Is also just a fraudulent term. And often this year, I'm going to be a broken record every time that comes.
Now, you're right, then, But much like you know, unliving versus like assistant suicide or something. It is the term that is being thrown around, but you're right. I think it is worth that qualifier nearly every time because it is.
I appreciate that. Also, crowd Strike then joins multiple other tech companies and also companies in other spaces, like Duo Lingo being another recent example.
It's funny my kids said, Duolingo is canceled because they're using all AI. So that generation is even to keyt in on this and they.
Don't like it. No, no, why would they?
You know?
Also, what are the more interesting conversations that's going to come up in the near to mid future is going to be what happens when you replace c suite level decisions with a large language model or some kind of AI.
We got computer computer CEOs. The CEO of CrowdStrike.
Yeah, who was a human being, George.
That's far's technically physiologically, yes, exactly.
Yeah, we talked about, well, no offense CEOs. If you're out there.
Listening, but human is a relative.
There is a higher chance that you may exhibit some sociopathic psychopathic things. But it's fine. Just due to the nature of the success you've had in the businesses you front anyway, but that's fine. Yeah. George Kurtz, human Being, chief executive of CrowdStrike, said that it's about five hundred positions,
or again five percent of its workforce. It's going to be cut globally and it is due to not just AI, but AI efficiencies that are being created right now, which, as you said, Ben, all the companies are attempting to find ways to do this, make it a little more efficient, save a little bit more money, and then everybody's feeling good in the investor side, which is really what it's all about.
Until the next year when there's a new profit target. Yes, goalposts between goal posts.
Yes, exactly the old quarters. You can read this in the Guardian. It was posted May ninth, twenty twenty five. Title is tone deaf us company responsible for global IT outage to cut jobs and use AI and just a heads up. Everything I'm going to be talking about comes from like late April, early May. It's stuff that kind of fell through the cracks on my end at least where I'd written down that we should talk about this
and then I totally forgot. But that's one. There are several people in that article just citing, hey, why not take that five percent and put them into to like an emergency team. Turn that five percent of workforce into an emergency team to handle stuff like when eight and a half million machines go down because your software screwed up. Or maybe a QA team that looks at updates before your updates come out.
Some sort of thing that could strike a crowd of problems.
Hmmmm, like five hundred strong.
CrowdStrike. Doesn't that sound like a like a full party move and a JARPG like it really good?
Strike?
Really was those names? A lot of the big companies have these. I don't know, maybe maybe I'm just being pretentious, but they sound they don't sound like what they do is the issue.
Yeah, well, hey, but in a victory for the people who are losing their jobs, the company expects to incur up to fifty three million dollars in costs as a result of the cuts, and we're assuming that's severance packages. That's why I say it's sure at least, hey, at least they're gonna get a nice hopefully.
Well yeah, and then you also, I mean, instead of paying out into the privatized insurance system for human employees, that cost gets replaced by maintenance for servers. That's their insurance.
What CrowdStrike needs to do is come up with some kind of healthcare system for the AI supercomputer systems.
It's funny you say that, Matt, because I was having a conversation with a friend offline. Do you guys ever accidentally reinvent something like I was? I was saying, you know, would be really smart. There's a three year time window right now, because we were talking about increasingly monopolistic telecom and cable services and how you know, if you have enough streaming services that all want to be their own precious little boys, you all together, you're basically paying a
cable bill. So my pitch was, so, yeah, my pitch was, let's get a third party middle band character and it will it will negotiate with the streaming services to get ice breaks at scale, so a lower cost for the end user. And then I realized I had accidentally reinvented what cable was in the beginning.
Yeah, totally so, because remember when you had to get packages, yeah, ye, for like the different you know, ESPN or whatever, that was the premium.
And you always had to accept you had to take an l on a couple of channels that you didn't want, like ESPN fourteen or or whatever. Were so many.
Is it just a matter of now under the new model, that the individual networks are just getting the revenue directly, and that's better for the networks.
Yeah, that's what.
In related news, Charter Communications is acquiring Cox Communications.
That's exactly the conversation.
Four and a half billion, I'm talking millions.
Oh my god, why ones? I remember from my youth Cox and they all tons of radio stations.
You guys to quote idiocracy, I like money.
Well, the cable companies have just become Internet service providers.
Yeah, it's the reshuffling of the dead.
I know this is not in scope of the story we're discussing, but I think it does speak to the larger trends at play because of course CrowdStrike, yes, fumble the bag hard on that I outage, but they are not unique in seeking to seeking to leverage various forms of automation. And the problem then, as we as we often explored in years past, we're weirdly prescient with this. The problem then becomes that before you reach that halcyon post work economy that informs star Trek, you have a
post worker economy. So the question then, and they have to ask this, please be rational actors, CEOs and decision makers. At what use is having streamlined, majority automated company making products if the people can't buy the products because everybody got fired, you know what I mean. We found the fastest way to make the coolest car, but no one can afford gas because we fired all the people who worked at the factory.
The crap, oh crap, sort of.
It's indicative of that general shortsightedness around like move fast and break stuff mentality. Right, It's like you basically move fast and break stuff to the point where you don't have any consumers anymore or I don't know, it's.
At some point you're just breaking.
That's exactly, thank you man.
That's live fast, die young guys, just die, you know, all right. So I don't know, I don't know. We got to move on. I'm so sorry, guys. But we we talked pretty recently, I think earlier this year, maybe even late last year about a little company called Bayer b A Y E R. You might remember them from
your aspirin. Well, uh, they we talked about them because they're doing an intense public relations, lobbying and legal campaign, and it has to do with this little thing that they acquired fairly recently in the span of the company's history at least. Uh, this thing called round Up that they acquired when they bought Monsanto.
Yeah, heard of it.
That was the last thing we talked about beer, Yes, regarding Yeah, I think I didn't even realize how diversified they were.
A good example too, yep.
Uh.
And the whole the campaign is all about round up or you know, round up ready products, round up, the actual chemical that is an herbicide, and it's all about whether or not. Actually no, it's all about the fact they say that roundup is safer use and it definitely doesn't cause cancer, and if it did cause cancer, it's not their.
Fault, like the narcissist prayer.
Oh a little bit, a little bit. Well, guys, they just had a massive victory here in our state of Georgia because we have become the second state to pass legislation that shields Bear and you know, round Up in Monsanto and all that stuff from any lawsuits that claim that Bear itself failed to warn customers about the potential dangers of using the herbicide round up, right, And this goes.
Back to the wildly differing opinions from European authorities and US authorities.
The ep European authorities tend to be a little more conservative about these types of things, like literally in the favor of the humans.
Well more protective. That's the concept of healthy humans. And I guess we should also note that Bear, being a global corporation, is not headquartered in the US, right.
No, they are in Germany, which changes things a little bit legally. And it is interesting that, you know, a company based in another country can spend so much money on public relations and lobbying here and all kinds of stuff. But again, it just makes you think about the system
that the way that thing's supposed to go. But at the state level, I don't know, it hits a little different to me, just thinking about, you know, governors of different states being influenced so much, and then the actual legislators state of each individual state being lobbied as hard as the folks are in Washington, d C. It's a bit weird. What insights do you find there been with it being based in Germany.
Well, I think it's stuff that you KNOWL and I have talked about in the past, Right, You already nailed it, Matt. The tricky patchwork legislation in the United States, especially for corporate entities of this size, action taken in the US might just hit I don't know, their US subsidiary, Like, I don't think any body is going to fly over to Germany and slap handcuffs on the c suite of Bear.
Yeah, agreed.
Also, also, Bear didn't invent Roundup, right, they bought the company. So it's kind of like, you know, if you buy a used car that was involved in car accidents. That's not a perfect analogy because in this analogy the car you buy is still hurting people.
Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, it should be noted that they acquired I think it was twenty eighteen when they when Bear acquired Monsanto, which is, you know, when they took on all the legal responsibilities right, all of the I don't know, they bought the car, the car that had some serious legal issues. There was a you remember when we talked about this last there was a two point one billion dollar award to a single human being who alleged round Up caused his cancer, and a lot of.
It went to his legal team.
Just to be clear. Oh yeah, that is how it goes.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, because he he made a pretty solid case that live fass eight or live fascate.
How do you say it?
I think that's it. G L y P h O s A t e ah.
Yes, Live fasse eight.
You know it.
You know it.
Various courts have agreed it is carcinogenic, despite the EPA here in the US disagree.
That's interesting.
I do want to say too, because I kind of jumped in to be like, oh, you're up in there, human I need to focus on human rights and the you know, the safety of their citizens. That does not preclude them from having evil corporations. I just do that, clear, come and I can't not. I just finished it, guys, and I'm pretty sure Ben you've seen it.
Matt.
I don't remember if we talked about this, but the show Common Side Effects on Adult Swim is about this very thing, the idea of like how evil corporations would keep people from having, you know, cures, They keep wanting to keep people sick, et cetera. But it has taken to the most extreme and psychedelic degree. It's a really great show.
Not a cure, thank you, solve a symptoms.
That's exactly in a way where they they could even take something that might be a cure.
Let's just let's let's nerf it alone, you know what I mean. We don't want to give them the whole thing. Right.
Let's get a quote from Brian Naghbor, president of Bear's Crop Sciences in both North America, Australia and New Zealand.
It's not spelled neighbor the way it should be, though, folks. That would be too cool of a name. It's in a e er. Sorry, Brian got so close man.
Well. He says that this new law quote demonstrates that Georgia stands with its farmers who work tirelessly to produce safe and affordable food. We agree. We're on the side of humble farmer all day long. We get it here.
Rebel Moon got canned. Not no more Rebel Moon, No more humble farmer. They're not.
They gave up on it. Sorry, it'll come back with the power of belief. We'll keep the humble farmer mythos alive on this show alone.
Yes, once Netflix gets acquired by Charter again, it'll come back for another.
And then they all get bought by Unilever, and then all programs become about soap.
Yes, and of course ultimately this is great for the consumer. Matt, I'd love to hear a little bit more and then we're going to play not quite Devil's Advocate. But I suggest we we walk through some knock on context that a lot of people aren't thinking about when they hear these uh, you know, infuriating reports.
Well, let's jump to it.
I tell me, okay, So Brian says that you know, this is a move to show that Georgia, which is an agricultural state, supports the people growing food right and produce. That is that is the public statement. Critics will say, you know, you are not protecting farmers you are or humble farmers. You are protecting large corporate interests. However, the peace of the puzzle that doesn't get reported as often
is the accelerating deterioration of arable land. There is a world very much on the horizon, and some of us in the crowd listening tonight are going to be alive to see it. There is a world wherein humanity will need incredibly a rollout of much more sophisticated farming methods and a lot of the traditional methods simply aren't going
to work where they work today. So you can make an argument that if not now here in the near future, companies will say they need these pesticides just to create basic food, not evel fancy stuff.
Well, yeah, they're protecting round up ready crops, which is a whole other episode that we did way back in the day.
Terminal seed lines.
Well, yeah, because back in the day, in the nineties ninety six, to be exact, round up at Monsanto using their round Up herbicide, created genetically modified crops like soybeans, corn, sugar beets, cotton, alfalfa that were genetically modified to be resistant to round up. So you could just douse those babies in round up and they're not going to die, but all the other things that grow in the soil will die, all the bad stuff that you don't want.
Right, And Monsanto would crack down hard on anybody who happened to have an adjacent farm where in seeds or you know, some part of that substance transmitted to their land, and Monsanto would accuse them of IP theft and things like that. Also terminal seed lines. Ooh in Citi is talking about you know, Tenol's really you're point about selling a service rather than a cure.
Yeah, you got to buy the seeds for that crop, and then you got to buy more seeds for the next crop. You can't take seeds out of what you're pulling out of the ground because they don't do that no more. Now you got to just continually buy in this weird subscription model all your crops from on Santo slash now bear. So that's really what we're talking about here.
I also will argue or posit. I don't want it to be an argument, folks. I will also posit that there is a great deal of efficiency and wisdom to be learned from older indigenous farming techniques, and they could be the answers.
Rotation right, things like the three sisters and so on.
There could be answers in that old technology that are being ignored, perhaps because of path dependency on the part of big agriculture. But it is a problem humanity is going to have to wrestle. But things aren't going to get serious as not even the race for clean water escalates, but as the race for arable land escalates. Everybody by MRIs. Make sure to change your MRI's out when the expiration date hits.
The good thing about sponsored by MRIs even after the here's.
The brilliant thing about MRIs though, guys, even after the expiration date, you can usually eat them because the secret is they never start off good.
It does get worse over time.
Well, yeah, I mean we I just had that conversation here. I had a bunch of giant cans of things as like an emergency if there's just a tornado or something, you know, whatever just happened.
Smart.
Well, I got those back in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, and the canned foods just went bad. So it was a discussion of well, how do we actually because the food isn't bad in these yet, they're still good to go. They're sealed in that can, baby, right, do we just keep it around? Do we just get some new ones? I don't know what's the deal.
What do we do?
Can we donate them? And I found out a lot of food shelters and food banks will receive you've, especially a larger can of food that is expired, as long as it's within a certain time period after expiration, because the food is still violent it's still good to you know.
Those are sell by dates.
I mean even like on like non can stuff you can usually I'm not, you know, giving medical advice here, like you know, air on the side of a couple of weeks past it.
At the very least, it's just about selling.
This is official medical advice from doctor Noel Brown.
Please, if you have eat that month old yogurt.
If you have any issues, please, of course don't hesitate to reach out to our complaint department. Jonathan Strickland at iHeartMedia dot com twenty four hours a night, seven nights a week. I'd love to hear from you and really walk them through it.
Oh yeah, step by step? Uh, step by step? What is it? How does that song got a Day back?
Yeah, it's not quite as good as the Perfect Stranger's theme song, but.
Don't even get me started. We love that one. We still love that one.
Wow, it's so much better than the actual show. But that's how sitcoms went back then, and we have, I think mutually a lot we did not get to yet, some of which may have to occur at a later date.
Yeah, we don't have time for a few of these stories. We'll bring them back next time. One in particular, the second one guys, I think we have to do a full update episode, like a proper episode on Virginia Jeoffrey, who recently, at least according to reports and her family, took her own life, although there are other members of
her family who say she did not. So I'm afraid we're having a bit of a situation within the Jeffrey Epstein saga of another person who has taken their own life, and there are a lot of questions around it.
So agreat yeah, sort of. We've got other episodes coming up that we have to cover that one. I think we should also do an update on the JFK recent declassifications, and then I hate you guys up off air. Do you think pheromones work on people?
You work on me, baby.
My pheromones are powerful.
Your musk is strong, Matt, I've always said that you got a strong man.
Nusson, and we want to hear from you folks on all these and other stories. Also, what do you think of Matt's man? We also might have Abercrombie and Fitch episode on the way. In the meantime, we can't thank you enough for tuning in. We also want to thank our super producers try Force in the Tennessee pal, and we would love to hear from you. You can call us on the phone, you can meet us on the social needs should thou sip, and you can give us
a good old fashioned email. But hey, you're already on the internet until that CME hits, so why not find us there?
That's right.
You can find us at the handle conspiracy stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group here's where it gets crazy, on YouTube where we have video content glory for your perusing enjoyment, and on xfka Twitter, on Instagram, man TikTok.
Where can spiratcy stuff show guys?
Quick interlude here Ben on the CME tip. Did you see the news about the X class solar flares that actually took out communications in parts of the world. It just happened like solar flares though not even CMEs flares that didn't Yikes, Okay, holy schnikes. Okay. Our phone number is one eight three three std WYTK. When you call in, it's a three minute voicemail. Leave your name a cool nickname if you wish, and let us know within the message if we can use your name and message on
the air. If you want to reach out with us via textings of some sort. We're not instead send us an email.
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence we received. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back, if you listened to the end, here is the thing we teased. It's an excellent read, and we hope that it does help you in your day to day life. But if it does, good luck. Have you ever thought is that a hiker or a vagrant or
a spy? Well, Latvia is very worried about that, and in their recent threat assessment, their Defense Intelligence and Security Service gave the public pointers on how to identify or how to differentiate between a scraggly little scamp and a spy in disguise. So shout out to Eve Sampson, writing for The New York Times. We'd love to hear other stories that capture your fancy, or your curiosity or your interest 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 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.