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Notre Dame on Fire
29 Plays5 years ago
In an episode where M is drunk enough for two people, they and Josh talk about the conspiracy theories surrounding the fire in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris.
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Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
You can also contact us at: podcastconspiracy@gmail.com
Watch M’s series “Conspiracism” here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJEp7xTcFU3hc2W0kfdSvAQ
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Transcript
Introduction & Opening Banter
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. This is definitely not the second time we've trained this because I'm drunk.
00:00:26
Speaker
Yes, two people sit before you, one of them a certain Josh Edison, the other a certain Dr. M. Denter. One of these people is a little tipsy, having enjoyed themselves. Is that you? I don't think that's me. Is that you? Is that you? Do I feel tipsy? Is that you? Is that you?
00:00:51
Speaker
I don't think it is. Is it me? I don't know. How about we record the episode and it will become apparent as we go along. I don't like that kind of science. That science is terrible. Well, we'll just have to
Notre Dame Fire & Its Impact
00:01:04
Speaker
make do. We're ripping today's topic from the headlines. We're talking about the fire.
00:01:11
Speaker
that has just gone through Notre Dame Cathedral, or if you're American, Notre Dame. Yeah, I don't. Or if you're Lady Hawk, Paris is burning. I don't actually know. All I know is my delirium of Lady Hawk. Same album, different songs. No, that was the only big hit that I really paid attention to. But they did have a song called Paris is Burning, and that is entirely appropriate for this episode. And she's still a recording artist to this day. She is married to Madeleine Sami.
00:01:41
Speaker
She is indeed. Excellent. So basically, she's winning on every single front. That's entirely true. Not 100% relevant to the topic of today's episode. And indeed, for those of you outside of the nation's aid about her in New Zealand, means absolutely nothing. I'm just glad you Hawke has done well overseas. Maybe not in the States.
00:02:01
Speaker
I don't think she's done well enough that if we used her name, they'd go, oh. Exactly. They're going to think we're talking about that 80s movie with Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. And should we be talking about that 80s movie? We probably should. But unfortunately, we're booked to be talking about conspiracy theories that have erupted in the wake of the Notre Dame. Also, unfortunately, great film, terrible soundtrack. Terrible soundtrack. So bad. Alan Parsons' project did not belong there. And yet wasn't the initial soundtrack choice?
00:02:32
Speaker
Really? Yeah, they were replaced at the last minute. There's actually another soundtrack out there, which is actually much more appropriate for the film. I would like to hear that.
00:02:43
Speaker
So would Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. I imagine they would. Still, we have as well as discussions of Lady Hawk the Band and Lady Hawk the Movie, we do intend to talk about the cathedral and we have a little bit of news. So maybe we should just blast a few paragraphs into that. Large paragraphs of news. Yep, that'll be fine. Everything's going to be grand. Piano grand? Piano grand.
00:03:08
Speaker
You don't even know what that means, do you? No. Good! Let's hit the news.
Julian Assange Arrest & Extradition Issues
00:03:14
Speaker
Breaking breaking conspiracy theories in the news.
00:03:21
Speaker
In a world destroyed by Alok Nimesh, who lives in Harinke in London, it's hard to know where to start. So we might as well start with Julian Assange, who was arrested last week by the British police for, it turns out, bail jumping. This was after Ecuador withdrew his asylum status. That's Julian Assange, not Alok Nimesh.
00:03:44
Speaker
Now Sanjay spent the last few years living in Ecuadorian embassy in London who had apparently caused trouble with Ecuadorians having continued to operate WikiLeaks from inside the embassy. This had led to awkward questions about his interfering with other nation states whilst being hosted by Ecuador.
00:04:10
Speaker
There are claims that not only did he skateboard throughout the embassy, but he also smeared fecal matter on the walls. Although the Ecuadorian authorities will not confirm whose feces he actually spread.
00:04:26
Speaker
Frankly, we here at the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy would really like to know what the Ecuadorians are doing with their poop. Do they sit at home for a proper burial? Is it stored for some other reason? Why might Assange have access to someone else's toilet remnants? But!
00:04:43
Speaker
On a more serious note, the US government has lodged its interest in extraditing Assange to the US with regards to its hacking activities. As such, the whole world seems conflicted on Assange. He did flee bail to avoid going to Sweden to answer questions about his admitted sexual predation, but the US government is also seeking to criminalise leaking, which would also be very bad for journalism.
00:05:07
Speaker
Assange and his lawyers are claiming the Ecuadorians have caved pressure from the US, something the previous president of Ecuador and the person who gave Assange asylum has also said.
00:05:20
Speaker
There are also some people insinuating that the Swedish investigation was just a honey trap, and others who think Assange and his supporters are using that story as a smokescrap. All and all, it's a mess of conspiracy and counter-conspiracy theories, where everybody claims to be the legal expert about rape, asylum status and notions of arbitrary detention.
00:05:44
Speaker
I agree entirely. That was an excellently delivered news article I just thought in one go. It took about 15 minutes. You're doing fine. I believe the plan is we're going to talk about a sound a bit in the bonus content of this episode. Oh, for the God's sake no. There is much that can be said. Well, that's not scripted though. We can say whatever the hell we want. It's true, we can.
00:06:05
Speaker
So maybe we'll get into that later. No, I should point out for listening at home. Josh has been very patient. It's taken about 35 minutes.
Dr. Katie Bowman & Black Hole Photo Controversies
00:06:13
Speaker
Taking my ass. This is gold. This is all being recorded. I'm going to edit the shit out of this. It will be the drunkest monitor. Anyway, my turn with the benefit. Let's see if I can do it without the benefit of alcohol. You are going to feel drugged now.
00:06:34
Speaker
Well, I pretty much am by osmosis. It's true, it's true. Please, pay it with your rhythm stick. Talking about so-called expertise, what about that black hole photo we saw last week? Surely no one can doubt the product of one of the greatest undertakings in science. Well, except of course, they can.
00:06:51
Speaker
Almost as soon as the photo was released to the world, two conspiracy theories quickly formed. The first is the simple one, which is that the photo is not real and thus has a fake with some kind of distraction. Most likely to draw attention away from whatever successes President Trump was announcing. Most of these theories drew from the well of, well, I could mock that image up on Photoshop, which, while probably true, doesn't mean that this particular image is fake. Intuitions and gut feels are not, we would hope, at least these days, a good guide to science.
00:07:20
Speaker
And of course, the second conspiracy theory concerns Dr. Katie Bowman, the researcher who developed the code which stitched the image together. Because sexism is still alive and well, some people immediately doubted that a woman and a young one at that could possibly be responsible for the code behind this mammoth undertaking. There was a mammoth as well. Good God, a team of scientists and a mammoth. Science is pretty impressive.
00:07:44
Speaker
Anyway, because women obviously can't code or just don't like computers, I suppose. Or because how dare a woman take responsibility for all the work of all those previous men. Whatever the case, these people then spent days harassing Dr Bowman and scraping through her work to try and prove she couldn't be the codemeister behind the image.
00:08:01
Speaker
We'd say it all got a little bit silly by the time these people used the fact that Dr Bowman's code was written using open source software coded by men, which meant men were the real heroes here. But as we said, the targeted harassment kind of removes all the humour from the equation. And it really does, because it's quite disturbing the amount of sexist activity going on in social media around Katie Bowman.
00:08:26
Speaker
Well, it actually I think it will tie into the the topic of the main topic for this episode. Just it's just anything. Are you saying that women are responsible for the burning down in Notre Dame? I'm saying Dr. Katie Bowman herself burnt down Notre Dame. No, I'm not. But it's just it seems that the whole sort of culture war bullshit that goes on, anything that happens can be pounced upon by people drawn into the city, little crusade. Silly. That's what it is. It's just silly.
00:08:53
Speaker
Do you know what's also silly? The fact that we separate news from updates and retractions.
White Supremacy at University of Auckland
00:09:08
Speaker
Back in 2016, when we talked about the European Students Association, which was active at the University of Auckland and its neighbouring tertiary institution, AUT, we remarked on how, despite claims that ESA was not a white nationalist or white supremacist organisation, it sure used the language, images and slogan of one.
00:09:29
Speaker
Well, less than a month after the terror attacks in Ototahi, the white supremacists are still operating at the University of Auckland, with some members, one of whom is a doctoral student there, threatening students of colour with gassing. Now, you would think the university would want to do something about it, but the university response was to say… Do we need an accent for this? I mean, he's a New Zealander, so I've pretty much got the right accent. Yeah, just do your sickest kiwi accent.
00:09:59
Speaker
We are aware that following events such as the Christchurch Mosque attacks, there will be an increased awareness of racism and offensive behaviour. The university will respond to concerns raised.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those things where it's kind of hard to know whether that's a really, really good accent or a really, really insulting one. Anyway, the Vice Chancellor Stuart McCutchen caught the claims, total nonsense. In essence, the university seems to be saying that not only is there a certain
00:10:31
Speaker
level of day-to-day white supremacism students should accept on campus, but everybody was just being a bit too sensitive in the wake of a terror attack, which targeted mutton. Can't even say Muslims. You just did.
00:10:45
Speaker
I did which targeted Muslims in our community and finally more local news We talked about the whole emotional junior staffer thing back when we discussed them just discussed. You've got me doing it. It's true. I do Finally finally finally your drunken spreads. Yep Finally more local news We talked about the whole emotional junior staffer thing back when we discussed the March 15th terror attacks in old Itahi and
00:11:11
Speaker
The National Party quickly took down its petition against the UN Compact on Migration in the wake of the attack, first lying about it when it was taken down and now, it seems quite clearly, lying about who took it down.
00:11:22
Speaker
Simon Bridges, the current leader of the National Party, claimed it was a junior staffer who acted in the heat of the moment. We now know it was Brian Anderton, a former ministerial press secretary, who's worked for the National Party in Parliament for six years. Not just that, but he's now being investigated for taking down the petition. This has not gone down well for Bridges. Not only was he caught out in two lies, but the investigation into Anderton is not popular with the public, given most people think removing the petition in the wake of the events of March the 15th was a good idea.
00:11:49
Speaker
old Simon Bridges, eh? Do you reckon he's for the boot? He hasn't been doing well. He seems like nobody likes him. So, given that Labor has suddenly said, no capital gains tax, which means that suddenly Simon Bridges has nothing to attack the government for, because the government is doing absolutely nothing. That was a disappointment.
00:12:13
Speaker
I know so many former Labour supporters who go, yep, sorry, can't vote for Labour anymore. Yeah, I mean, I could understand Winston, Winston's a dick, and he would have blocked the vote. So no point saying we're going to do it when they know they'd be voting. Saying I'm not going to do it for the rest of my leadership. Yeah. What if they have a Labour Greens coalition for the next government, and the Greens make it a condition, the coalition?
00:12:43
Speaker
Well that's fine because she'd like if the if the greens are the one who bring it up I'm sure they could wiggle around that. But she said not under her leadership that she kind of means if the greens say it's a condition Jacinda Ardern kind of has to step down. I don't know I'm sure they could weasel around politics. No it is a stupid thing for a leader to say not under my leadership will we do X. Well by we do did she mean the Labour Party or any government of which I am the
00:13:12
Speaker
I'm sure you could submit a sign your way around it. Nevertheless, this is not the podcasters guide to local body, not local body politics, local country politics, local national politics. Does that make sense? Local national? National, local, local national? If I say it really fast, will you lose your shit completely? Local national, local national, local national? I've lost every
Notre Dame Fire Conspiracy Theories
00:13:31
Speaker
bit of control earlier this podcast. Spectacular. So in that case, let's move on and talk about a cathedral on fire. Which one? Notre Dame or Notre Dame? Well, could be both.
00:13:45
Speaker
So it could be said that the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
00:13:51
Speaker
Burn that mother down. The roof of Notre Dame Cathedral, of course. And when I say is, I mean, what? Because I'm finished and I put the fines out. 12th century wood, you know what I mean? Ooh la la. Ooh la la, isn't it? Yeah, so you've watched the news. You know what happened earlier this week. Notre Dame Cathedral in France, which was being restoration work was underway on it. Restored, I believe it was a technical term.
00:14:17
Speaker
Well, but it hasn't been restored. It was in the process of being restored. It was being restored. A hell of a lot more restoration. It's kind of very, very unrestored right now. So yes, the wooden bits of it caught on fire. And being an old building built several centuries before modern fire safety standards, the fire just spread right the way through. Having said, it had actually survived from the 12th century.
00:14:45
Speaker
And yes, so it's not like the building's been demolished, but it has been heavily damaged and they're going to have to do a whole lot of reconstruction on it now. Luckily, they've got 600 million euros donated to make it better. Because why close the homeless and feed the hungry? Yeah, precisely. When you can build a big cathedral. Catholic Church can't afford to fix Notre Dame. No, living in there. And certainly you couldn't use that 600 millions to look after the poor elsewhere in the world. Most
00:15:15
Speaker
Sorry, indeedy. Anyway, we're not here to talk about socialism.
00:15:23
Speaker
It's a bit of a lie. But we're here to talk about conspiracy theories and basically the instant that news of this fire got out, conspiracy theories started forming. It seemed to be the usual thing that we always talk about. The whole big events need big explanations. It's like the official explanation, which appears to be perfectly plausible, is just that it was part of the restoration work. Somebody was lazy with a
00:15:50
Speaker
welding torch or a lighting rig or something that gets hot essentially. Heat was applied to wood where it should not have been and a fire resulted but no that's not good enough. Not really good enough. It's not unreasonable in the wake of a major fire at a very large
00:16:14
Speaker
building? Yes, I was trying to work out what the right term to use here. It's not unreasonable to think that when you have a major fire, a edifice of such renown as say, Notre Dame, to go, is it really an accident? Or is it something else? It's quite clear, given the available information we have,
00:16:40
Speaker
us and is not the right answer. As we'll kind of get into in this episode. That hasn't stopped people at all.
00:16:52
Speaker
Initially, there was a lot of sort of supposition and the immediate assumption among these conspiracy theorists was no, obviously it wasn't an accident because it just wasn't. It wasn't an attack, Josh, on Western civilization. But, well, exactly. Or, if you're not mangling your words, Western civilization. I think you said it perfectly well the better time.
00:17:15
Speaker
I believe a weird civilization. Well, close up. So, I mean, there are a few theories. I think the attack on Western civilization is the one that's that it sort of condensed mostly into. Who's attacking Western civilization? Well, who isn't? I assume it's those wacky Muslims.
00:17:30
Speaker
They seem to be up to everything. That does seem to be the major theory here, Muslims. Muslims hate Notre Dame. Despite the fact that on the same day, El Nour Mosque actually suffered major fire damage at the same time.
00:17:47
Speaker
and a bunch of churches been down in America. But anyway. Yeah, but that wasn't Louisiana. I mean, no one cares about African Americans, Joshua. That's satire. People actually should care and do care. Yes, I mean, we have the whole cultural thing. I mean, there's a bit of
00:18:07
Speaker
The more prosaic conspiracy theory was something that it was some sort of insurance fraud that the restoration work was going to cost too much money. But I mean, insurance fraud on Notre fucking Dame Cathedral seems like a bit of a reach. It's not exactly
00:18:25
Speaker
you know, torching your caravan to make a few bucks. It's burning down a national monument. So I don't know about that, but there's, some people said it was a cover for destroying secret churchy documents that were stored inside. Although no one actually made any claims as to what those documents were or what those documents might actually say. Some said it was a distraction.
00:18:45
Speaker
from whatever either we're distracting so we don't we're distracting us from the good things that Trump is doing though they're distracting us from the bad things that the evil deep state is doing did you know Michelle Obama was just in Paris she joined the dots people just only two days ago it's a factor Michelle Obama bit down
00:19:06
Speaker
Barack Obama and Notre Dame. Yes, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros. They were all there together. Soros brought the can full of petrol. Soros is very dry. I imagine he would catch fire. So you're saying George Soros was the kindling. I'm certainly not saying he wasn't. Excellent. Some people said it was revenge against Pope Benedict for doing stuff, even though he's not Pope anymore. I don't know why Benedict.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, it seems weird. That wasn't a weird one. Which is coming from Francis. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the people who came up with this theory haven't been paying attention and think Benedict is still the Pope. Maybe they think because he stood down and didn't die that he's still the true Pope. It is true. There are certain people who go, well, you know, Benedict has actually died. So frankly, Francis is an anti-Pope. Benedict's the only true Pope.
00:19:55
Speaker
So, well, maybe that was revenge against them anyway. But yeah, so there have been a few, but I think the main one that seems to have coalesced into is the, yes, it's a culture war, you know, the whole Western civilization, Christianity cornerstone of Western civilization. There's been a bit of debate about the term Judeo-Christianity, which basically means not Muslims, and saying that the history of Europe
00:20:23
Speaker
put lumping Jews and Christians together on the same side, kind of at odds with the most of the history. So here in lies the issue. So Jews, Christians and Muslims all basically share the same notion of who the central one God of all creation is.
00:20:46
Speaker
But depending on the day of the week, Jews and Christians are against Muslims, Muslims and Jews are against Christians, Christians and Muslims are against Jews. It just seems that we've got this one God, but we're willing to demarcate that one God to go, no, no, on this particular day. This God is only in coalition with two of the three sources.
00:21:14
Speaker
and then they get used as some kind of, wow, episode factor. It turns out the Jews, all the Christians, all the Muslims are against blah, blah and blah. Yes, so it's basically been all the usual suspects, all your alt-right people. I can't be bothered thinking of a description for them. Stephen Molyneur immediately, I believe, started
00:21:42
Speaker
without any sort of... first just sort of started saying well it obviously wasn't an accident just because and started coming up with various reasons why it couldn't be an accident and was told no those are silly reasons then came up with other ones and that process repeated itself a few times from what I can see. A few people, your Paul Joseph Watson's and which one's Matt Walsh?
00:22:03
Speaker
whoever the hell he is anyway, did a lot of the just asking questions sort of thing. Which also Stephen Molyneux did as well. I'm not saying Muslims cause issue, but I'm just asking questions about what do Muslims believe. What do we know? QAnon got onto it straight away. I think they were the ones who first popped up with them. Michelle Obama was just in, just in Paris, you know. Did you see that tweet? Someone retweeted a guy
00:22:30
Speaker
a New Zealander who tweeted at Donald Trump saying that 4chan and 8chan have just been blocked in New Zealand, please let Q know, which I think means this guy's internet was down or something and couldn't access those sites. And people laughing at it, I kind of, I read, I actually felt sorry for the guy. He's obviously, he's just a bit, a bit sad and out of touch that he thinks he can, that he thinks Q is the president's special friend.
00:22:59
Speaker
and he can tweet at the president when his internet goes down because he can't look at his agent. That's kind of what Q says. They're a special character. They're able to, I don't know, I'm an old person. They're able to, Joshua. I don't know what you understand, but Q is able to get in contact with President Trump because that's what they're kind of doing. Has anyone said that Q is President Trump? Some people, yeah. Surely that would have to be a thing.
00:23:29
Speaker
But yes, so evidence, evidence? Why even look at it? Yes, okay, fine. There was a little bit of, quote unquote, evidence offered for some of these things. Some people appeal to the fact that there have been Muslim terror attacks in France. Nothing on the scale. France does suffer more from Islamic terrorism than other parts of the EU, in part because
00:23:57
Speaker
France is a colonial power which still has colonies in the north of Africa and ipsofacto is more likely to be threatened by people from the north of Africa than other parts of the EU.
Debunking False Claims on Notre Dame Fire
00:24:13
Speaker
Also I remember in the past people have talked about the fact that the French riot at the drop of a hat quite frankly anything anything will set them off so
00:24:21
Speaker
Muslim people taking to the streets and making a fuss kind of shows just how well they're integrating with French. Yeah, it shows that they are as French as French can be. Anyway, so there have been apparently some faked videos of people chanting Allahu Akbar
00:24:40
Speaker
supposedly in response to this, which you can tell a fake because these multiple different videos all appear to be using the same, the exact same audio. And in some countries, they're not even saying Aloha Akbar, they're saying Alois, Alavant.
00:24:58
Speaker
even better which means please move along. Mmm. Supposedly there was video showing an imam in the building but on closer inspection it was a guy in a high-vis vest and a helmet. Yeah. So it turns out that apparently the kind of skullcap you expect to imam to wear is also from a distance looks like the kind of helmet that a high-vis worker might be using whilst actually doing restoration work on Notre Dame.
00:25:28
Speaker
And there's been a little bit of the sort of jet fuel can't mount steel beam stuff. Some people have claimed that, oh, welder sparks couldn't burn 12th century wood, although there was more than just welding gear going on there, I'm sure. So who the hell knows? And also, 12th century wood, I imagine, is pretty damn dry. So I kind of imagine welder sparks actually properly can melt.
00:25:54
Speaker
Or set fire to. Set fire to wood. Although I did see one person saying, look, the fire burnt down, but look, this golden cross in the middle of it is completely untouched. Now, how can you not believe in God to which the reply was, you know, wood burns at 600 degrees and gold melts at 1000 degrees. So that's the laws of physics. Don't talk to me about your laws of physics. That's just nonsense. So jet fuel may or may not be able to melt steel beams, but wood fires cannot melt gold.
00:26:24
Speaker
I think we're all in agreement there. Are we? Are we really? No. Or are you just making things up to make the 9-11 truth look bad? Well, I don't even know anymore. So what is there to say?
00:26:40
Speaker
Arsen is a thing that happens. Fires are deliberately lit. So it's not like saying aliens did it, or that you don't need to involve holograms or nanothermite or magical technologies to come up with a theory that a fire might have been started deliberately. But there doesn't appear to be any actual evidence of that, and there is perfectly good cause to believe that it happened. All right, so this is my point here.
00:27:08
Speaker
It is not unreasonable when you hear about a major fire at a national icon like Notre Dame to suspect maybe it was set deliberately because
00:27:23
Speaker
arsonists do exist. The whole point about the 20th century is the realization that there are some people out there who set fires deliberately. So it is reasonable to think when a major fire is set, maybe an arsonist is responsible. It's just that given the available information we have, including the restoration work and the fact that the arc welders working on the day of the fire,
00:27:54
Speaker
it seems quite likely, given the available evidence, the most likely cause of the fire was arc welding. So it's fine to go, maybe it was set by someone, but in the face of the evidence, you have to provide pretty good evidence against the thesis it was an accident to show that there's something else going on here. And really, it's all just been a lot of
00:28:23
Speaker
A lot of reckons, a lot of askings of questions, a lot of... A lot of Muslims are bad. Not being able to imagine accidents happen. And yet they do. For instance, you quite accidentally got yourself thoroughly sourced this afternoon. Not planned? I went out for a drink with my friends Jamie and Nick on the notion I'd have a few drinks and then come back here.
00:28:54
Speaker
And then drinks just kept on being bought and maybe I continued to drink those drinks and maybe there was some inappropriate sourcing going on at 5pm in the afternoon and a phone call being made to a Russian on a bus. I can't say anything wrong. Probably guess that you don't.
00:29:19
Speaker
What's the YouTube thing though? YouTube's algorithm was at it again, was it? Well, yeah, so this is a weird thing. So people were doing live streams about the Notre Dame fire and YouTube was identifying these using its AI algorithm as being misinformation and thus evidence of a false tag event.
00:29:44
Speaker
Right. Which YouTube has now gone, yeah, maybe that was not the right way to go about this. It's a bit of tuning, tune up the old algorithms there, twiddle some knobs. But yeah, YouTube was going, oh, obviously these live streams are insinuating false flag. Let's put some videos up about how 9-11 was not a false flag event. Right. So at least they haven't been spreading videos saying 9-11 was a false flag event.
00:30:14
Speaker
Right, I've been doing plenty of that in the past as well. That 9-11 was. Yes, so YouTube algorithm, eh? A little bit cack? Well, my theory is if your algorithm doesn't work, don't use it. Well, that's just crazy talk. Then they wouldn't be able to wank on about how clever their algorithms are.
00:30:39
Speaker
and plot to eliminate human beings entirely. If YouTube wants to work they can work on their own time. I assume they do.
00:30:52
Speaker
quite clearly they do. So I think that's about all we've got. Notre Dame, conspiracy theories, like I said earlier, it was just one of those issues that was easy for people to pounce upon and use for their own purposes, co-opt into their culture wars that they think are going on. But it's all a little kind of a big bunch of us, really.
00:31:16
Speaker
Here's one of the situations where we've got a major event. People want to know exactly what happened behind it. It's quite obvious that people are going to start suspecting maybe it was a conspiracy. There's a very good rival official explanation, which is it's probably an accident due to the arc welding. The French government had not confirmed that at this stage, but it seems the most reasonable explanation to take, given the available evidence. But people are going,
00:31:47
Speaker
Big event needs a big cause, episode factor. It must have been a threat to Western civilization, which is what Stephen Molyneux and Koh have made. And frankly, seems much more likely it was just an accident. And the kind of accident you expect when you have
00:32:13
Speaker
very large monuments that have not been well looked after for quite some time. So there you go. I think the only other thing that's worth mentioning is that as part of the recording, part of the reporting around the event, much has been made of the fact that Notre Dame is home to the largest organ in France.
Fun Fact: Notre Dame's Largest Organ
00:32:34
Speaker
It's the largest organ in France. Tell me about the largest organ in France, Josh. It's in Notre Dame Cathedral.
00:32:43
Speaker
What kind of organ is it? I don't know, pipe organ I guess. Would you like to play it? I would love to get my hands on the largest organ in France. I'm sure you would. What kind of tune would you play in the largest organ in France?
00:32:57
Speaker
I don't know, I can't think of decent sexual euphemism to answer that question, I'm afraid. Organism, euphemism for penis. It's true. That's the joke. That's why we're laughing. And Josh cannot think any far beyond a penis to think of decent metaphors for manipulating penises, particularly around the French. Well, in my defence, I am very drunk right now. That's me, you idiot.
00:33:24
Speaker
Well, I think maybe it's time to time to call it quits on this particular episode Although of course we now have the fun of the patron bonus content recording, which is not scripted
Teasers for Bonus Content
00:33:34
Speaker
It's true, and we actually have great interesting content here. We've got what we actually think about Julian Assange, which is an attempt to see whether our patrons will stay with us. We actually express what we actually believe. We have the curious case of people misinterpreting US Representative Elan Umar,
00:33:57
Speaker
And of course the problem of UK's anti-Semitism problem... UK Labour in particular. Well precisely. Is UK Labour anti-Semitic? Some evidence says yes it is. We'll talk about that in some detail. Spoilers. Come the bonus content. The bonus content which is of course available to our patrons who patronise us with their patronage for which we are massively grateful. The rest of you can go eat a balls.
00:34:26
Speaker
Eat the balls. Indeed. Not eat balls. Not eat a ball. Eat the balls. I'm very drunk right now. I'm soon to get what Josh said, because whatever I was going to say would sound just as stupid. It sure would. And also be hard to announce yet. So until next week, good balls. Bye!
00:34:56
Speaker
you
00:35:02
Speaker
You've been listening to the podcaster'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.
00:36:03
Speaker
And remember, they're coming to get you, Barbara. You sound like a dying manatee. You're a dying manatee? I can't back that up, I don't know what dying manatee sounds like.