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Catching up with the Olds
26 Plays5 years ago
It's been a month since Josh and M last spoke the dreaded words "The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy" so it seems apposite to find out what has been happening in the world of conspiracy theory and conspiracy theories in the interim. Which means news and updates, but split into new and "exciting" segments.
Watch M’s series “Conspiracism” here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJEp7xTcFU3hc2W0kfdSvAQ
and learn more about their academic work at:
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You can contact us at: podcastconspiracy@gmail.com
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Transcript
Technical Issues and Plan B
00:00:00
Speaker
Plan B? Plan B. Plan A, of course, was to use our new super technology, the drone, to record the fun and exciting new series of the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. But Joshua, there's been a bit of a technological failure, hasn't there? There's been some production snafus. Would you like to tell people what's gone wrong? First of all, I won't have you say anything bad about technology and science and the drone. Apologise to the drone.
00:00:29
Speaker
I'll apologize to the drone when it's got power. At the moment it's dead. Apologizing to dead things is pointless. It's not its fault. It has a low battery life. I charged it before and then I left the charger at home and now it's just tired. It happens to all of us. This is the problem. Josh leaves things behind. Never leave a drone behind, Joshua. Never leave a drone. But don't stroke the drone. The drone knows what you've done. The drone is your friend.
00:00:55
Speaker
The drone is your friend. It's not your friend, though. That's the problem. Just take pity on the poor thing. It's out of juice. It's tired and sad. But next week it'll be energetic and happy and will be the first all drone filmed episode of the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. Probably.
Introduction to 'Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy'
00:01:12
Speaker
It'll be as good as episode 200. And more about the fact that that wasn't episode 200. Coming up in this exciting episode of the Podcaster's Guide to
00:01:22
Speaker
The... the drone? Conspiracy! Drone-spiricy. Yes, that's what I meant to say. Welcome to 2019. It's going to be fun. The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Denton.
00:01:50
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy for 2019. As is something of a tradition, we've had an array of technical slip-ups which meant that the Plan A for this episode didn't quite work out, so this is very much Plan B, but that's okay.
Debate on 'Man of Steel': Best Superman Film?
00:02:08
Speaker
It's a new year, isn't it? I mean, you failed me. You failed me twice today, once, with your drone, and the second time by making the claim that Man of Steel is the best Superman movie of all time. Man of Steel is the best Superman movie of all time. This is why this is the final episode of the podcast's Guide to Conspiracy, because even though I don't like Superman film... Superman film? Superman films, yes. Superman films? Anyway, Man of Steel is awful.
00:02:34
Speaker
It's really, really awful. It's what I wanted in a Superman film. It's super bad people kicking the crap out of each other, smashing themselves through buildings and all that stuff. It doesn't have bloody Lex Luthor bollocks like the Superman Returns, where he's... I see I've never even seen Superman Returns. That is terrible. Lex Luthor goes from... That's a Kevin Spacey film. That's the good word, exactly. And no one watches Kevin Spacey. Not anymore. But at the time, even before, even before we knew,
00:03:01
Speaker
even before I knew, anyway. His Lex Luthor is basically the same as Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor, which is one second he's slimy used Car Salesman con man, the next he's genocidal maniac, with world ending plans that make no sense at all. Superman, his superness basically extends to doing hard stuff, the climax of the film, he lifts a big heavy thing. That is all.
00:03:29
Speaker
Whereas Man of Steel, they punch each other through buildings, they pound each other into the ground. It's proper superheroes having proper superhero fights, and that's what I want.
00:03:38
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy. As usual, we're starting off with pop cult references, the way we intend to go on. But yes, maybe we should actually get into things. It's a new year. It is a new year. And there's a lot has happened since the last time we spoke.
Post-Holiday Catch-Up
00:03:53
Speaker
Yep. No, we finished up a couple of weeks before Christmas. And since then, I don't know, I've been on holidays and all that business. And I've been in my cocoon. But we're back. We're back from outer space. Something, something, something with that look upon your face.
00:04:07
Speaker
And we've got new segments. Yeah, we thought we'd try some new things. So we're going to do a Previously On, where we recap previous episodes from years ago. And actually, I'm thinking, given we've actually produced quite a lot of episodes. It's weird.
00:04:22
Speaker
It might be good to actually even go back to some of them and revisit those topics. It's easy content. It's easy content. And yeah, quite frankly, the earlier ones, I'm assuming our listenership has grown over time. I hope it has, which would mean that there are people listening now who weren't listening back at the beginning and would have missed out on a bunch of
00:04:41
Speaker
And thus have no idea where we keep on going on about MH370.
Correcting Past Mistakes
00:04:46
Speaker
And talking about MH370, we also have an update and retraction section where we update you on previous stories and also admit to errors in previous stories. Yes, not that that ever happens, except for when it does.
00:05:00
Speaker
And when it does, we admit to it, because we are... Stirling podcasters of 2019. And so, yeah, so we've got a couple of new sections, then this year, the main bit of this episode is basically going to be catching up on all the stuff we missed, which is kind of like one big update anyway. Yeah, basically. How did you delineate between what goes in the updates and what goes in the main bit for this episode?
00:05:24
Speaker
I'm kind of going have we mentioned this in as main content before or has it been a running news thing at which point we should make the news things which is actually new allow the word news and update to things which add to previous news coverage right well that sounds like it would work oh and of course the other thing is um we're gonna try to cut back on the trump
00:05:50
Speaker
Nobody likes the Trump news. Trump supporters don't like it when we go on about things that Trump did. Trump haters are all the talking about Trump. Trump haters are sick of hearing about Trump. What we're interested in is what's happening in the future of Mr Andy Bichago. Yes, 2020's not long away now.
00:06:07
Speaker
According to Google, someone has registered Andy Bishago 2020. Could our favourite presidential candidate be making a run for president? Will we be there to support him? You know we will. We so will. I hope there's 200 new promises. Yes, there are. There'd have to be. There should be more.
Reflecting on Past Content
00:06:28
Speaker
He said he's another four years to think up some new ones. Precisely. And Andy's not the kind of person just recycle material like being a time traveller who goes to Mars all the time. He breaks boundaries. But speaking of recycling old material, why don't we do some of that right now?
Revisiting Medical Conspiracies
00:06:43
Speaker
Indeed. Let's go to our first new segment. Previously on the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy.
00:06:54
Speaker
The year 2015. The episode 32. We're discussing medical conspiracy theories. A perennial topic on the show. Well, they keep coming back. The autism thing never goes away. Vaccines, all that bizzou.
00:07:08
Speaker
Big pharma? I think we looked more at the sort of the cancer cures that the man doesn't want you to know about in AIDS being invented by the US government to depopulate Africa and all that sort of business. Good times. Good times. Then in 2016, in episode 82, we're doing what we're doing this week.
00:07:46
Speaker
A week previously in 2015, we were doing this thing that we must have... Must have not been the 2016 as well, no. 2017, episode one, two, three, we talked about speculating about future conspiracies. Based on something clever I said, from what I recall, inadvertently. Yes, yes. I asked an innocent question that turned out to be quite an interesting question. But I did good. Fortunately, we have you on hand to let me know that I'm clever.
00:07:59
Speaker
catching up on news.
00:08:13
Speaker
Sometimes I try to claim the clever things you say are mine, but sometimes you make such a fuss about them on the show that I have to acknowledge they're actually yours. Yes, so it was an interesting thing to talk about, the idea of
00:08:29
Speaker
conspiracy theories that we speculate might happen in the future. It was all, you know, if this certain thing applies, if the situation applied, then these people would probably try to do this conspiratorial thing. And is that actually conspiracy theorizing in and of itself? I think we decided no.
00:08:47
Speaker
No, although it is going to be interesting to look back on predictions made about the Trump presidency and exactly what does or doesn't come out in that Mueller report. That's going to be interesting. We looked forward. Now we look back at looking forward to find out who got it right and who got it wrong.
Polybius Conspiracy Theory
00:09:08
Speaker
And of course, this time one year ago, we were talking Polybius. We were the great computer game conspiracy theory about a conspiracy which didn't actually exist. Completely made up apparently by someone who was basically trying to draw attention to their arcade game database. Yes, the supposed government experiment arcade game that caused all sorts of seizures and stuff.
00:09:33
Speaker
which has then since been jumped on by various shows and stories to do that. And in fact, I haven't watched Bandersnatch, have you? No, because the Netflix subscription on the TV upstairs has expired. And I actually just can't be bothered re-unexpiring it, because that's a word.
Netflix's Bandersnatch and Adventures
00:09:52
Speaker
It's a shame. You know, I haven't watched it yet either. Although it's, I understand, sort of a parody and commentary on sort of the choose your own adventure branching story. Which they're being sued for.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yes, yes they are, but nevertheless there's a story about a guy working on a computer game that does wacky things to his mind, so it's still going. So there you go, four previous episodes, because as I recall we first started
00:10:17
Speaker
releasing episodes in May of 2014. So when it gets to May of 2019, we'll have five years to look back on as we get the 2014 episodes. I think we might need to find a way to streamline this. We might, yes. So we don't need to take 15 minutes to talk about previous glories. Well, no, no, no. But there you go. So if you're interested, that's what we were talking about this time in 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015.
10-Year Photo Meme and Facial Recognition
00:10:40
Speaker
Because we didn't exist prior to 2014. No, no one did. No. That's what they don't want you to know. I mean, all of those 10 years ago photos, I mean, that's quite obviously a government plan to make us think. Have you heard the conspiracy theory about that? No, I have not. Tell me about the 10 years ago conspiracy theory. So you've seen, you probably have seen there's the big meme going around of people taking photographs of themselves 10 years ago and now, and then lots of people having funny jokey things about it. But people have pointed out,
00:11:09
Speaker
If you were wanting to do a sort of facial recognition algorithm that could model aging and how people's faces change over time, you could do a lot worse than a massive pool of people uploading photographs of themselves and themselves from 10 years ago.
00:11:28
Speaker
All in one go. Especially since Facebook likes to also tag people in photos. So yeah, people have suggested Facebook or Google or someone could have started this meme specifically so that they could harvest a ton of photograph data that they could train facial
CAPTCHA and AI Training
00:11:43
Speaker
recognition. I mean, that's one of the interesting things behind most captures you get on website where identify a word or find audiences of cars in this particular photo.
00:11:55
Speaker
And that is part of training neural nets to be able to recognise objects and letter forms. So every time you're doing that, you are aiding the singularity coming into existence, and thus, of course, to demise the human race when Skynet takes control and wipes us all out. What got Billy so spooked? Everything. Good. Anyway, I think maybe we're stalling now because the next section is where we have to admit we've got things wrong from time
Episode Numbering Mistake
00:12:23
Speaker
to time.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yes. But I think we should rip the bandage off that one, so we get straight into the next section on updates and retractions. Indeed. Updates. And retractions. So, we start with an embarrassing update slash retraction. Is it? Episode 200 was not episode 200. How do you figure?
00:12:47
Speaker
Because one of the things we've done over the break is compiled a database of previous episodes so we can do the one year ago, two years ago thing. As I was going back through that database and checking off episodes versus the episode numbers, turns out that before we got to even episode 100, we managed to repeat the same number. Oh.
00:13:12
Speaker
So this is actually episode, I actually now can't recall, but this is actually episode 202. Well, how about that? And so the last episode, episode 200, the one that some people described as experiencing a heart attack was actually episode 201. Well, how about that?
00:13:28
Speaker
I mean it's a little bit because obviously you may be well aware that we've uploaded more than 200 in general because there's been the little updates, your little travelogues from when you've been overseas and things like that. So there have certainly been more than 200 uploads. I think it's getting close to 250 now. I don't know if that's including the Patreon-only ones.
00:13:50
Speaker
So, I mean, it was always all a little bit fishy, but we did have an official numbering system. But I think it's a little bit like the... What's the current calendar? Gregorian, George...? Yeah, Gregorian calendar. It's like that. It's subject to revision. We change it over time. Maybe that episode was a leap episode to keep us up with the current space-time continuum.
00:14:11
Speaker
Yes, you make up all sorts of explanations for the fact that one of us managed to misnumber an episode. My suspicion is it occurred when we transitioned from using Evernote to Google Docs. Quite possibly, yes. I think we may have got the numbering wrong there. And that has led to us being wrong by one episode four.
00:14:28
Speaker
quite some time. Well there you have it. So moving on quickly as though nothing had ever happened.
MH370 New Witness Claims
00:14:34
Speaker
So you mentioned MH370, the thing we talked about in one of our first ever episodes, the topic that just will not go away and fair enough because it's never been found. It's about episode four I believe. So there's been another, other, other, other, other
00:14:50
Speaker
revelation slash update about MH370. What's going on now? A 42-year-old Malaysian man by the name of Rusli Khuzmim says that he and his crew witnessed the disaster and that they actually saw MH370 crash into the ocean.
00:15:10
Speaker
There's no explanation as to why it's taken him five years to actually reveal this to the authorities. And it's not, I mean, he's quite specific. He says we saw it go down. They had a geolocation thingy on their boat and they took a note of the coordinates. And now he's come out and given these coordinates to the government. But yeah, it's been five years, dude. Why, what?
00:15:33
Speaker
Maybe he had other things to do, you know, a rolling set of crises that meant that he just didn't get around to it. Yeah, so I don't know. I mean, I hope it's good. It would be awesome if it is and they finally actually managed to
00:15:47
Speaker
You know, get a bit of closure, that would be lovely, but I'm a little bit suspicious. Yeah, so am I. We'll have to see. Now, David Icke and Jimmy Savile, what's the deal there?
False Claims about Jimmy Savile
00:15:58
Speaker
So for a very long period of time, you and I have been saying, well, you know, Icke might be wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about Jimmy Savile being a necrophiliac and a pedophile.
00:16:11
Speaker
Except that as someone corrected me on Twitter, all of Ike's claims about having said Jimmy Savile is a pedophile occur after it was revealed by the authorities that David Ike is a pedophile.
00:16:28
Speaker
Jimmy Savile. The defamatory stuff. David Eich is not a pedophile as far as we are aware. Jimmy Savile definitely was. No one disagrees about that. So it seems like David Eich has been talking about pedophiles in elites for a long time.
00:16:45
Speaker
And then when the Savile thing came out, you know, I've been talking about that privately with lots of people. And it turns out people like me have gone, oh, he must have said that. Actually, it turns out if you go through his books and his lectures prior to that date, Jimmy Savile does not get mentioned at all. David Icke has jumped upon a bandwagon to then claim he was right the entire time. And of course, I mean,
Sokal Squared Hoax Scrutiny
00:17:11
Speaker
in his defence slightly, the rumours around Jimmy Savile had been around for a long, long time, but they were never given enough credence to be investigated or nobody wanted to look into them too much. So it is entirely possible he'd heard rumours and possibly spread rumours himself prior to that. But not in print? Not in print, not officially, no. No. So it seems like David Eich might have actually just jumped onto a bandwagon to push his conspiracy theory, shock horror.
00:17:38
Speaker
Right, so, grievance studies hoax. Remind me what that one was? So this was the Sokal squared hoax. So the Sokal hoax is the famous one where a postmodernist physics article was published, which was effectively gibberish by Alan Sokal.
00:17:57
Speaker
Then last year, three people led by a university professor, Peter Bogosian, did what's called the SoCal Hoax, SoCal Squared Hoax, where they tried to publish 20 papers in different journals they consider to be part of grievance studies, i.e. leftist things which take identity politics into account when you're doing your analysis.
00:18:26
Speaker
And now he's being investigated by his university because they're going actually probably should have got ethics approval for this particular study because it does actually have an effect on human research subjects, i.e. the editors of the journals. And there's been a lot of aji-baji in the academic community about whether he's being persecuted by left-wing academics or whether there's actually justification here
00:18:55
Speaker
And now most people are going actually looking at the rules around what's called the IRB system. It actually does seem as if he probably should have got permission to do the study in the first place, which would have been good for the study, because it probably would have pointed out the flaws in the research design, which would lead to most people saying, actually, this study into grievance studies doesn't actually prove what the hoaxes thinks it proves.
00:19:23
Speaker
So this is an update on a story we had told previously. Well, there you go.
JonBenét Ramsey Case Confession
00:19:28
Speaker
Speaking of older stories, Jambanae Ramsey, we talked about her. I think the last we spoke of her was there had been that documentary or was it 60 Minutes or something like that? There had been a documentary which hypothesized that she was accidentally killed or possibly even deliberately killed by her jealous brother and the family had covered that up. But they
00:19:49
Speaker
The family obviously denied that strenuously, but there's been a new development in that a man called Gary Oliver, who is a convicted pedophile currently in jail, the Daily Mail, which is a British newspaper, isn't it? And not a very reliable source. No. Claims to have letters written by this guy who claimed that he accidentally is the one who accidentally killed John Monet Ramsey, that he
00:20:18
Speaker
He was obsessed with her as a pedophile and that he accidentally killed her. What does he say in his letter? He allegedly writes, I never loved anyone like I did, John Bonet, and yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half and I watched her die. So he claims that he is the killer.
00:20:36
Speaker
Now, I don't believe it's got any further than that. Obviously, you know, it's a serious thing and it would be a massive deal if it's true. But I think, yeah, as you say, it's the Daily Mail. Has anything more come of it? Not that I've heard. So we'll have to keep an eye on it. But yeah, another one, much like MH370, would be really nice to get some closure. But who knows? I just
Crickets and US Embassy Sounds
00:21:02
Speaker
have to say.
00:21:02
Speaker
Now talking about things which aren't actually closed but sound like they might be, you'll recall that in an episode quite some time ago we talked about the mysterious sonic attacks against American personnel at the embassy in Cuba. And now we have a partial solution to that problem because scientists have been listening to the unusual noise that was detected outside the embassy taken to be part of the attack on the personnel
00:21:31
Speaker
And they've found out who the culprit is for at least one of the sounds. Right, was it the Russians? Try again. Was it Martians? Not even actually further away. Further away. Yeah. Was it just something to do with Trump? He's behind everything these days. No, it was crickets. Crickets!
00:21:52
Speaker
Yeah. The animals, not the sports. The insects, yeah. Because the sport does make a lot of noise sometimes when the guy, when the bowler and he bowls it and he goes, ha-da! And the referee. Well, they're Australians. It would be definitely Australians if it was cricket. So, no, lots of crickets. Yeah. So this is only a partial explanation. It explains some of the noise. It's certainly not been taken that crickets have been attacking the personnel at the Cuban embassy that the Americans run.
00:22:20
Speaker
the embassy in Cuba, the American embassy in Cuba. It certainly doesn't explain what's been happening in China, but at least part of the sound that was recorded, crickets. I mean, but there were a range of symptoms exhibited by these people. I don't think anyone said that loud cricket noises could have caused them. No, although it's been reported the embassy attack was due to crickets. But actually, if you read the report, it goes, no, we've isolated that some of the noise associated with the attacks.
00:22:49
Speaker
Crickets. There you go. Crickets. Something to watch for this year. Will they turn out to be behind everything? And will they take the Ashes?
Cricket Matches: Exciting or Long?
00:22:56
Speaker
Who cares? No, not me. No, not I. I actually really, really can't stand cricket. It's a boring sport. Yes. I enjoy the last 10 minutes of a cricket match, usually, because it is surprising that these teams will play for a day at a time or five days at a time or something, and yet it can still come down to the last few balls who actually wins. That can be genuinely exciting.
00:23:18
Speaker
But the, you know, 24 hours beforehand, yes, definitely. Not an interesting sport. No. Five days. A test match is five days long, for God's sake.
00:23:33
Speaker
such a British sport even though actually it was really popular in America just after the revolution. How about that? I know. So that's it for our updates and and retraction section. We're now going to move on to the main section which is probably going to sound exactly like the updates and retraction.
00:23:48
Speaker
Once we're into the flow of episodes again, these sections will be short. We've had a month off and so many things have happened. People should be more sedate over Christmas and New Year.
Australia's Extreme Heat
00:24:03
Speaker
I know it's winter in the Northern Hemisphere and you've got nothing to do apart from set people on fire, but in the Southern Hemisphere we like things to be relaxed. Although at times when you step outside people do tend to catch on fire.
00:24:15
Speaker
Particularly in Australia. Damn hot. Oh god, Australia. I don't understand. Why would anyone live there? I don't understand. Australians, sort yourselves out. For God's sake. 40 degrees? What's wrong with you? Yeah. Scott Morrison should be dealing with that. Put yourselves together. Anyway, enough about Scott Morrison in Australia. Let's move on to the news. Oh
Transitioning Podcast Segments
00:24:36
Speaker
god, yes, please. So to speak. Breaking, breaking. Conspiracy theories in the news.
00:24:45
Speaker
So here we are. Be interesting when we're putting this together to decide exactly which sting to put in front of the section. Is it the news? Is it the main topic? It's both. At the same time. We don't really have a stench of the main topic. Well, no, it's just a normal chime, so who knows. Anyway, welcome to the main part of this episode, which is also the news part of this episode. It's a wacky, twisty, turvy, upside-down world we live in.
00:25:07
Speaker
It's true, we have to catch up with things so we can then move on with our lives. You have to do it, we have to do it. We all have to do it. We have to suffer together. So, big news, apparently 2019 is the year that the Deep State is finally going to crumble. Yeah, I mean it was meant to crumble last year, and it was meant to crumble the year before, but apparently this is the year where the arrests are going to be made, the Deep State will crumble, and Donald Trump will be revealed,
00:25:36
Speaker
to be the mastermind who has destroyed the world pedophile network, and all of the other corrupt politicians around the world. Now, if the arrests don't occur, it's fine, because people are going to be arrested spiritually, at least that's according to prophet Mark Taylor, who basically is trying to explain the fact that his predictions from last year didn't come to pass, so there's a kind of herald camping, oh no, it's happening spiritually right now.
00:26:06
Speaker
So the spiritual rest will occur before the actual physical rest? Because that's how jurisprudence works. Yes, is this guy, is he related to QAnon? Is he parroting QAnon or is he a whole separate?
00:26:17
Speaker
At this stage QAnon and all the other conspiracy theories are in a kind of amorphous loving embrace and becoming one big theory. So QAnon people are citing Mark Taylor. Mark Taylor may not actually be part of the QAnon movement but his work is being used by QAnon to show that the arrests are definitely happening and they're happening this year.
Spiritual Arrests and Deep State
00:26:40
Speaker
Right, because I mean we had had the stories previously where they claimed that Israel people had been arrested and tried but secretly in secret courts.
00:26:48
Speaker
So because they don't want you to know about it for some reason. John McCain apparently was wearing an ankle monitor. And then yes, any time someone wore baggy trousers or big boots or something, it was proof that they'd been arrested and were serving out a sentence with an ankle monitor on them. See, this is a theory which will backfire because Donald Trump wears very ill-fitting. He does. Which does make you wonder just how many ankle monitors he's wearing at any given time.
00:27:13
Speaker
Now, the other big, dominating news story of the last couple of years that doesn't have anything to do with Trump, probably, of course, it's been Brexit and we haven't really talked about Brexit, but there's kind of a reason for that, isn't there? Is there? Well, it's not really conspiratorial. Well, except for the whole, the whole league campaign basically using money that they weren't meant to use to campaign on
00:27:40
Speaker
allegations of leaving the EU safely which aren't actually true, there does appear to be some pretty nasty covering up of this form of motivations there. There was talk of similar wonkiness happening with the Brexit vote that happened with the US election. Oh yeah, there are talks about Russia being involved. But Brexit itself
00:28:01
Speaker
isn't much of a conspiracy, it's just a bit of a mess. It's just an almighty cock up. It's a continuing one. So yesterday they had the vote on Brexit, and Theresa May had a historic loss in the Commons, the biggest loss ever in English parliamentary history, where a government has lost a vote by a margin of 236 votes, which is gigantic.
00:28:23
Speaker
and today only barely survived a no confidence vote by 18 votes, which is pretty nice edge if you are the government, and is now going to renegotiate Brexit with the leaders of the opposition parties, but has laid down red lines that basically mean the Scottish National Party and the Labour Party in the UK
00:28:45
Speaker
are not going to be able to work with Theresa May because her red lines basically exclude the things that Labour and SMP have said are essential to get their agreement on a Brexit deal. So that's the whole thing's just a mess and it's possibly fitting that the one person who's managed to summon up best has been Danny Dyer, I believe.
00:29:06
Speaker
Who actually turns out to be a fairly good political commentator on Brexit? Not something I was expecting to say in 2019, but Danny Dyer, you are doing excellent work. So, yeah, I mean, maybe something will happen that will actually make it legitimate for us to talk about properly in this podcast. But for now, it's just something we're trying to look away from, much like a car crash, really.
00:29:32
Speaker
And it just keeps going and going and going like climate change. Yes, the other big story over the last few years.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, and this one's interesting. So, Exxon are basically being sued by the state of Massachusetts in the US, and the state of Massachusetts wants to know what did Exxon know about anthropogenic climate change back in the 1970s. They want to do discovery. Now, Exxon's reply to that is, oh,
00:30:03
Speaker
We do business in Massachusetts, but we don't operate out of Massachusetts, so state law doesn't apply to us, go fish elsewhere, and the Attorney General in Massachusetts has quite rightly pointed out that that's a meaningless distinction
00:30:23
Speaker
And if they're doing business in Massachusetts, then they are liable to be compelled in court to reveal what they know about the business they do in Massachusetts.
Exxon's Climate Change Revelations
00:30:34
Speaker
So Exxon is going to be at this stage unless they appeal it again to a higher court.
00:30:39
Speaker
forced to pass over information to the Attorney General and the state of Massachusetts about what they knew about anthropogenic climate change back in the 70s. And it's been a long-standing suspicion that most of the major petroleum producers
00:30:55
Speaker
have been very aware that their industry adversely affects the climate, and have known that for quite some time, and has spent a lot of money to basically obfuscate that fact. So there could be some embarrassing revelations for Exxon this year, which may show a cover up.
00:31:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is something I'm sure we've touched on in the past. There's long been the idea that these companies commission their own studies to see what the environmental impact of their products will be so that they can, you know, so they can't get blindsided or what have you. And then when it's found out that yes, we are actually adversely affecting the climate, they cover it right the hell up. They do. Guess who else covers things up? Is it me? Do you work for Chrysler? No.
00:31:45
Speaker
then you may be covering things up, but you are not the story I'm thinking of. Right, now Christa, that's a car manufacturer, isn't it? It is, yes. Covering up stuff. We've talked about other car manufacturers covering up stuff. I wonder...
00:32:00
Speaker
I wonder if this is quite similar to the other cases of car manufacturers covering up stuff. It's very similar to the VW emission scandal from a few years ago. So yes, Chrysler basically has been caught using cheap devices in their cars.
00:32:16
Speaker
to make their cars pass environmental tests when they actually aren't as environmentally friendly as the cars are alleged to be. And basically they've done almost exactly what VW did, the only difference being they came up with their own technological solution and didn't use one that's been used by another automobile manufacturer in the past. So well done Chrysler, innovating and cheating. Well done.
00:32:45
Speaker
One almost has to assume that they're all lettered.
00:32:49
Speaker
Well, basically the history of automobile manufacturers, they are almost, I think, I say almost, I think every large scale car manufacturer has been caught out using cheap devices at some point in the last three decades to make their cars appear to succeed on tests when they actually fail. So I guess it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but it is nice to see it like officially confirmed and being investigated.
Sandy Hook and Infowars Lawsuit
00:33:18
Speaker
Now now Sandy Hook obviously something we've talked about a lot Alex Jones Something we've talked about a lot the relationship between Sandy Hooks and Alex Jones something we've talked about a lot But um there's been quite a quite a significant development there hasn't there yes, so
00:33:34
Speaker
Six families of victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have basically been trained to sue Alex Jones for things he said about them. And things he said about them is that the parents' children didn't die, that they're crisis actors, etc. etc.
00:33:52
Speaker
they've actually won a legal victory against Jones, granting them discovery requests, which will allow them access to Infowars internal marketing and financial documents. So Jones is going to be compelled to give over copies of the
00:34:14
Speaker
financial and marketing documents used at Infowars, which means we may be about to find out A, who he markets things towards and B, who gives him money. This could be a very interesting Qui Bono experience.
00:34:30
Speaker
Although what you two have to do with this, I don't know. No, exactly. And that's the second time I've used that joke with Hector Q. Both known quite some time. It's crazy. And I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it at all. If it works, it works. Does it work though? Well, on a comedic level, yes. I suppose like any joke, the more you use it, the less effective it is. I mean, you are someone who thinks Man of Steel is the best Superman film, so your aesthetic appreciation here is probably meaningless.
00:34:56
Speaker
I will dance on your grave now what um you can't dance what what will i mean obviously it'll be interesting for people such as ourselves and anyone else um to see the sort of yeah where the money's going where it's coming from i don't have you but what do the sandy hook victims families expect to find that is it is it
00:35:17
Speaker
they want to find out how much money he's been making, how much money he's been making off of the back of saying horrible things about them and therefore how much to sue him for? Or did they just want to prove that he has been profiting? I'm speculating here, but I think A, yes, they want to see how much money he's made from these particular broadcasts, but B, I think they're looking to see, is he saying these things?
00:35:43
Speaker
because he's being paid to. So is there a demographic that's trying to get a particular message out there? And this is kind of supported by when Alex Jones was sued by that yogurt company a year and a bit ago, where his defense in court is on Alex Jones, the
00:36:02
Speaker
celebrity slash personality is in fact a character that i play and you can't assume that what i believe is what alex jones the performer believes so this is going to kind of well if you're making that claim and you're performing then we need to know who's writing your script and who's paying your checks hmm right well i mean yet another thing
00:36:30
Speaker
to watch the space on, I guess. Yeah, basically. There's going to be an update on that, I'm sure. And probably also, we've had another African election.
Congo Election Controversy
00:36:40
Speaker
It almost feels a little bit dodgy from a prejudicial racial sense to look at an African election and assume that it's all dodgy and third world-ish, but does appear to be the case here though, so I think we're on, at least factually, on firm ground. Yes, although our factual support for this does come from the Catholic Church, so that does make things interesting. So there was an election in the Conga, in the
00:37:08
Speaker
Democratic Republic. Yeah, I would say the People's Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the governmental candidate was not popular. So the two popular candidates were the leader of the opposition and a third party candidate. Now, you'll note that I'm not using anyone's names here because famously I mispronounce names and so I don't want to cause any embarrassment here. Now, according to most polls, the third party candidate
00:37:37
Speaker
was the person most likely to win the election, except that on the day the opposition leader won the election. But the Catholic Church, which was observing, for some reason, I don't think that was a real word, you're about to say observing, weren't you? I was about to say observing. They were observing and observing the election.
00:38:00
Speaker
claim that according to their count, the third party candidate won by 20 points. And the theory going around now is that to stop the third party candidate from winning, the government made a deal with the opposition to throw the election in favor of the opposition candidate. So the third party candidate has not conceded. He's going, look, the observers have said I won the
00:38:28
Speaker
Electoral Commission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Say, no, everything is fine. Once again, watch the space. But there could be a dodgy election having occurred. And there may need to be some kind of electoral interference slash intervention to sort things out. Yeah, so I mean, I'm completely ignorant when it comes to the Democratic Republic of Congo. We all know about Zimbabwe and Mugabe.
00:38:55
Speaker
We all know about EDMN. There is a history of dictatorial people in Africa, but I don't know if Congo has a similar history. So we'll just have to see how things happen. And maybe I should go and educate myself.
'Tintin in the Congo' Discussion
00:39:09
Speaker
And also, as part of education, don't read Tintin in the Congo. Yeah. It's one of the Tintin books they don't read prints because it's very, very, very racist. Much like, were we talking about this before with the famous five books? Oh, because they've had to rename characters. Fanny is now Franny.
00:39:29
Speaker
Well not just that, there was Cal Wilson who is a comedian, New Zealander now based in Australia. I was listening to a thing she did a while ago and she talked about how she loved all the famous five books and so got them all for her son and then found out one of them was missing from when she went to buy the whole collection. There's one she remembered reading but it wasn't available for purchase in the series that she got and then she found out yeah it was because it was the one that had the black character. The black character's name was
00:39:59
Speaker
Sooty, I think. Sooty... The last name was Linua. Sooty Linua, which is French for black. That's five go to... Not demons. Smuggler's top. Which is actually one of my favourites. But there is a whole bunch of all dark people. They're a bit suspicious. Although the twist is...
00:40:20
Speaker
It turns out not to be a bad guy but that is a twist in the story because you're made to think that because he's dark-skinned he's actually the villain of the past. Ah the past, what are you gonna do? So one more one last one last story in our content slash news of the world of the last
Blogger Jailed for False Claims
00:40:41
Speaker
How many weeks has it been? Four weeks. So it's Sabine McNeil. Who's Sabine McNeil? Sabine McNeil is a former scientist slash worker at CERN, who now lives in Hampstead in North London.
00:40:58
Speaker
who likes to blog. I mean she really likes blogging. At the age of 72 she's a really really prolific blogger. She knows her way around the internet, she can code the whole shebang. Unfortunately Sabine McNeil also
00:41:13
Speaker
believes that there's a large-scale satanic pedophile network in Hampstead, and has been blogging about this for quite some time, revealing the names of the children who are being predated upon with their photos, and also the addresses of the parents and the like, and has now been sentenced to 9 years in prison at the age of 72 for this, because basically
00:41:40
Speaker
She was making these claims, the parents made complaints to the police, the police investigated them, found no evidence of any kind of abuse network operating in Hampstead. Sabine McNeil went to court, admitted that she shouldn't be doing it, promised to stop, and then within three days started again and basically was in breach of her conditions. And she was told the first time round, if you do this again, we will have to give you a custodial sentence.
00:42:07
Speaker
did it again and is now going off to prison for persecuting a conspiracy theory which has affected families to the point where families have had to move out of Hampstead and change their names because their details are on numerous websites across the internet. Listing them as pedophiles. Yes, and the children as victims of pedophilia. Well, that's almost a bit of a shame really. I mean does
00:42:36
Speaker
I haven't read the content myself, but it sounds like obsessive behaviour one wonders about her mental state and whether or not being put in jail will make things better. Well yes, a custodial sentence is never a good idea at the best of times.
00:42:52
Speaker
Although why this is interesting is, of course, we had that interview with Pat Stokes at the end of last year. And Pat does have an interesting point about when you engage in conspiracy theorizing, you do need to have a certain resistance when it comes to making accusations. And of course, historically, I've gone, well, you know, if we investigate these things properly, we can track things down without being public about it. But the problem with this being McNeil thing
00:43:21
Speaker
is that she made those accusations in public without good evidence. And even when given evidence that her claims were false, continued to believe and prosecute them. And what's interesting about the so
00:43:36
Speaker
the judge, the court summary is out. And what's interesting is that even her lawyer says, well, she still thinks that the children were abused in some way, she just accepts that her version of the story is false. So she's still holding on to, I was essentially right, despite the fact there's no evidence whatsoever. So it's quite clear that let her go, she was very likely to start persecuting the children and the parents again.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, well that's just a damn shame all around really. Yes, it's one of the things which when you're dealing with the defense of conspiracy theorizing, these are the kind of stories that you sometimes have to confront and go, yeah, this is a bad situation. What can we do to try to mitigate against stories of this type?
00:44:25
Speaker
And that's it.
Episode Wrap-Up
00:44:27
Speaker
We're at the end of our news slash content slash whatever you want to call it section and rightly so, quite frankly. We'll be back to real topics next week. We will. I'm sure there'll be a bit of tinkering because we don't want the episodes to start getting too long again. We did try to get them a bit shorter and easier to listen to and also easier to film and watch.
00:44:46
Speaker
So we'll have to see what effect our new segments have on things and there'll be some fine-tuning ideas. There will be, although of course next week those segments will be shorter. Apart from the previously on, that's something I think we need to work on because the updates and attractions will probably be occasional and quite brief just that there were a lot of updates this week. Yep, so we shall see. So next week we'll be back with a real talk. Are we going to talk about
00:45:13
Speaker
Maybe I shouldn't spoil it for this week's listeners. But are we going to talk about that RFK podcast? Well, that was what I was hoping we would talk about next week. This might be a sneak peek.
00:45:23
Speaker
into next week's topic and if you want more sneaky interesting stuff of course then then you should be a contributor to one of our our patronage campaigns because of course we still have the the bonus content coming up who knows well actually what we'll be talking about are drones at Gatwick claims about Julian Assange's public high jam and why is it that old people share fake news more than young people
00:45:52
Speaker
If you want to know the answers to those questions, pony up the doe. Also, what is public hygiene? Public hygiene? Your hygiene in public? Maybe your pubic hygiene that you accidentally misspelled? Well, except that doesn't say pubic or public anywhere. Well, then you've just got pubic on the mind, I'm afraid, and also the letter L. More about that in our bonus content, but until then, la riva de re. And indeed, goodbye.
00:46:22
Speaker
you
00:46:28
Speaker
You've been listening to the podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy, starring Josh Addison and Dr. M.R. Extended, which is written, researched, recorded and produced by Josh and Em. You can support the podcast by becoming a patron, via its Podbean or Patreon campaigns. And if you need to get in contact with either Josh or Em, you can email them at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com or check their Twitter accounts, Mikey Fluids and Conspiracism.
00:47:29
Speaker
And remember, it's just a step to the left.