From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know enough about us Part two. Yeah, and this is one of those part two's where you do not have to immediately stop and listen to part one. If you want, we can give you the quick and dirty gist right now. You see, a while back back in the day our brain Trust, which is a very high faluting name for us, we decide it that we wanted to go legit and get an actual call in number, which I think was I don't know about you guys, but it's always kind of a childhood dream of mine. Yeah, I mean, we were doing the call in show. It's just not live, and it was definitely a dreamline to do a live call in show. Yeah, we'll get there one day. Man. It's tough in the podcast space, as they like to call because you know, we record these weeks out, so we'd have to let people know when we're recording and they have to sync up. I guess it could be done, but this is the next best way of doing it. I think it becomes that Mr. Show sketch where the pre recorded college show. So we're a little bit like that. Maybe you know, who knows, Maybe one day we'll do a live call in show. Let us know if you think that's a cool idea or if you think it's the worst idea we've ever had. Seems pretty terrible. We've had some stinkers, but it's true. We created a call in number, and if you want to call the number while you're listening to to day's episode, feel free to do so. The number is one eight three three st d w t K. That's std w I t K. So. So, as we often say the best part of this show is you and your fellow listeners, we give that a lot of lip service. But as we said in our previous episode, we like to put our money where our mouth czar collective mouth, our collective mouth. Yeah, the dastardly mouths are the mouths are I like that? Like not to be confused with the Nasal emperor. Right. It always seems this is so unrelated, you guys. But a long time ago one of my friends made an observation. At least in US politics. They said, whenever someone is appointed the tsar of something, and because remember we used to be just rife with czars overflowing people who are ours of things, uh, they told me that was always a sign the policy was sinking and they were looking for a scapegoat. Oh and I don't want to ruin the illusion by googling this and finding several successful as ours, which I'm sure out there, at least in the US sense, and then maybe not so much in Russia. I also like successful as are successfuls are. So what we would like to do today is continue continue responding to some of these excellent and candidly some of these very strange messages that you and your fellow listeners have left for us, like the following listen, I need you to investigate why China keep sending people random packages from Amazon. I don't know. I know you guys are Unreddit, I know you noticed it, but keep sending people random packages for no reason. And it seems like what Reddit says is that they're doing it so they boost their numbers and get verified on amazons. Saw a post on redd at the other day where a guy got nipple covers. Guys, a guy got nipple covered randomly sent to him from China with no explanation. We need to investigate the conspiracy. Thank you. Just so everyone knows, that was an anonymous call. It sounds like my friend Brad, but I don't think it is. You can, I you can either confirm nor deny that that is Brad. I don't think. I don't think it is. What it sounded like somebody doing a Brad impression, doing an impression with somebody else, So you can either Brad firm nor Brad and I that right correct? So yeah, I also wondered if it was someone who was playing with their voice a little bit. But this is a really interesting topic. It's something that I was not aware of. Were you guys aware of this beforehand? I honestly thought it was a joke. You too, Yeah, and you know, the guy took a bit of a joking tone. And also the whole nipple covers thing, it was an emotional roller coaster very much. So um and you know, the the the scientific term for nipple covers. I believe his pasties right right, and we should we should endeavor to cleave closely to the realm of science, especially in the world of nipple coverings. Mm. So yeah, that was one of my favorite lines in that message as well, because at first he said mailing nipple covers to this guy, and I thought, well, you know, let let him do what he wants, as though the conspiracy were specifically nipple cover centric, right, But instead it's that he was not asking for these, which I think is a totally different realm. And as it turns out, a lot of other people, a lot, a lot, and we'll get into that in a second, have been receiving things that they did not ask for, everything from nipple covers to shredded newspaper and cardboard pieces to toilet paper or hair scrun cheese. In one particular case that we found in an article from Forbes by Wade Shepherd two titled Americans are receiving unordered parcels from Chinese e criminals and can't do anything to stop them. So this may reminds some of us of our previous conversation about unsolicited magazine subscriptions, which spoiler alert. We do have a great explanation for that. Is it going to show up in this episode or is it a future episode? You guys think, I think it's likely we might hear from end this episode, but don't hold us to that. Okay, alright, no promises, but there is an answer, a solution exists, and this practice is real. You are absolutely correct, caller, and thank you for hipping us to this. The term that has been thrown around a lot now is empty package scalping. Right. Yeah, it's this really weird phenomena where you'll get a package that has your real name on it, has your real address on it, and has all of your info like you would normally be receiving a package, but it comes from China most of the time, most of the time, and it's shipped literally from China to you. It's not like it's a Chinese manufacturer something that has a distributor somewhere within the United States. It is they're sending packages all the way over to the US into other countries as well. Um, it's very odd, and it has something to do with the personal information, specifically addresses and names of people being either leaked to or taken by some of these more unscrupulous e commerce companies. There's a couple of loop holy elements to this story. First and foremost, I think well now that that that's not first and foremost, they're equally ranked and equally strange. Um, the United States Postal Service actually gives the Chinese a subsidized postal rate which allows them to ship these packages and not have to worry so much about eating the cost. And there's a reason they're shipping these packages that I would argue as more nefarious than giving the Chinese people a bit of a free ride. As an article also by Wade Shepherd on Forbes refers to this practice as a Chinese businesses. Just to be clear, right that's correct. Excuse everyone, not everybody. It's a it's a bundled thing that that businesses have access to, right yes. And it has to do with an algorithm of all things, uh these It's basically something that these major e commerce sites all use and it's rankings amongst themselves essentially, and it has to do with the number of packages sent. That's one of the main metrics that are looked at. So the more packages one site sends over another, the higher rank they are going to be And what's one way to game that system? Send a bunch of trash to a bunch of people. Volume, baby, we're operating at scale. Yeah, it's it's correct. It's it's tricking the online retailers. We have Amazon here, it's very very popular in China. There's Ali Baba and Talbao, which I'm probably mispronouncing. And it's exactly as you were explaining it, Matt. They're gaming this algorithm. They are not trying to scam or harm you in most cases, if it's this empty package scalping. Instead, they're trying to make it look like they're more of a player than they may actually be. The logic being that customers are able to see that a retailers making a lot of sales, and then therefore they seem more trustworthy, they seem more likely to deliver something of value, you know what I mean. Like if you're if you're looking online and you can buy, uh, you can buy lit rollers, case of twelve lit rollers or whatever, and you have two companies you can buy them from, you'll probably go for the company that has sold these hundreds of times. And it actually goes even further than that. Where you are able to get verified, like it's sort of like being verified on Twitter as like this actually is Lindsay Lohan or Ben Boland or Matt Frederick. And that's huge because then you know that you're dealing with the genuine article and people. That's a very sought after status. Um. And it very much is in the e commerce world as well. And there's a thing to Ali Baba has an an international wing called Ali Express, and that's largely it seems how some of these folks are getting on these mailing lists by placing legitimate orders on these services and then they end up in the system. And this practice is referred to as brushing, and they're actually companies that specifically do this, sort of like click farms or whatever. This is very similar to that. Whoa, this is so odd to me that okay, let's let's jump to that article again from Forbes where they're specifically talking about brushing and this tactic and uh, they stayed here that there was a team of researchers from what was it, uh a College of William and Mary, that's right, and they were tracking sales of four over four thousand sellers and they all of these sellers were using this brushing method and early some of them, I guess, and they were noticing that people using this method were able to raise their rankings. This is a quote here up to ten times faster than they could via legitimate means, which you know, unless it's illegal then and I don't see why these companies would not do this. And here's the thing. It is illegal in China, and also it's illegal in the United States. But since the shipment is happening internationally from China to the United States, it would require like extraditing these organizations to the United States to prosecute them under US law. And I guess once it leaves the Chinese jurisdiction, they don't have any control over anymore. Well, and I agreed. Check this out. Let's imagine Ben, that you received one of these packages. It's just got it's just got extra bubble packaging inside of it. That's it. That's all it's got. Um. Do you go to some authority, to the police, to the state department. Do you go like, guys, I got this package full of nothing, and it's really important and I need you to wrap me up in some legal things. Uh, and take time out of my life to do this, but surely there Well that's the thing though, like you could you could complain about a shipment that was wrong if you actually made the ship meant to Ali Express or whatever. But if you weren't a customer at all, you don't even have a recourse to complain about a thing that you didn't order. Right. Well, here's another aspect. The Chinese brushers, for lack of a better phrase, are also impersonating the people who are supposed to be receiving these packages in some in some situations, and they're impersonating them not to docks them, not to steal their credit card or financial information. They're impersonating them purely to leave reviews for these products. And in the case of Heaven McGeehan from Pennsylvania who was shipped the scrunches, I believe the reviews that were written under her profile have nothing to do with Scrunches. They're reviewing something else, the thing they want to be known for being good purveyors of Wow. Is this a conspiracy? I mean I think it is, and and and here's the thing. This is why it's probably not going to change unless somebody really really points it out, say like I don't know prominent conspiracy podcast to be like, did Joe Rogan? Yeah, yeah, Like if Joe Rogan talks about it, maybe Joe, come on, get on this check this out. Remember that William and Mary study from the tract over four thousand people. They found that there's very there's not much of a risk at all to the actual sellers, like the smaller sellers that are doing this. They found that only eighty nine out of the four thousand plus um sellers were actually penalized in any way. It's like two yeah, so it's not going to change. This is just an easy way to do it. You take the risk and and you raise your rankings so you can make legitimate sales. And then there are a couple of other different forms of this. First, I completely agree it's a conspiracy. It's a textbook definition. People are cooperating in secret to pull the wool over some other group's eyes. Some of the brushing just involves spots, it's automated. Some of it will hinge more on hiring people, like we said earlier, like a bot farm hiring people to buy these products and then leave reviews. And then the other one, the one we've been talking about hacking otherwise legitimate accounts. It's a very it's a very strange hustle, and as long as no one's being hurt, it's I mean, it's clearly fraud. But but they're not shipping anthrax. They're not stealing people's It's weird because they're stealing their identities in many cases, but they're not stealing their money. But are some of these read these online retail retailers in China kind of notorious for having counterfeit products? Oh yeah, So wouldn't you think that maybe some of the company or the you know, the sellers that are trying to up their status might three illegal means, might also be conducting business illegally in the first place. We cannot prove or deny that right now, at this moment, it is the Schrodinger's package. There we go. That's nice, and we could also we could also go a step further and say the people that are the ultimate marks of this con the people who are you know, a business in China or another consumer who says I'm gonna go with this trusty company that shipped hundreds of thousands of these lent rollers or whatever, those are going to be the ultimate victims, right, and it's quite possible that they would get some kind of counterfeit, uh substandard thing, a substandard lent roller. Yeah, you know it. It leaves more lens exact, it actually just rules the lent out on. Yeah, or heaven forbids some kind of second rate nipple covers. Oh my gosh, the war wardrobe malfunctions happening left and right. The shame, the ignomy. You can't go back to Dave and Busters if you show up with some busted nipple covers. You haven't even mentioned the chafing. The chafing. So there's also another thing that we should mention here, and that's when you receive unsolicited mail. Of course, as you said, Matt whose most people aren't going to take the time out of their day to go back to the post office and say, this is not my case of scrunch ees, how dare you? My address is not to be trifled with. But it's worth looking into and being aware of what hits your mailbox, your doorstep, or your PO box because it can be used by someone else. You might accidentally be on the receiving end of some drugs from the silk Road. You don't know. You don't know it goes to your address, it doesn't have your name on it. Just don't open it. What's the law there though? I've always wondered that, like, if someone does send you something that's illegal and it comes to your address but it's not addressed to you as an individual, are you liable for something someone sends to your address. I guess it depends. We're not lawyers, but it depends largely on whether or not you open it, because if you open mail that's addressed to someone else, it is a crime. Yeah, but what if it is addressed to you? Huh? Okay, entrapment. We need to probably move on. But I got it one one last thing I should I once received a jeans jacket in the mail from Levi as a gift from Hillary Clinton. Yeah, and I have and I have no idea why. It was postmarked from a place that I had been at an event in Durham. And but I have no idea why I got this jacket. And it was too small, so I tried to fill out the form to like get a replacement because it was addressed to me, and there was like a way of like filling out a gift return thing, but I I sent it back in the mail hoping they would send me the right size, and I never got the right size, So I don't know what that was about. That was probably my friend Kane. I think he ran her campaign there for a little while. Yeah, and he was randomly sending people denim, just a classic, I mean, good guy. He liked sending denim to two people. I mean, who doesn't like a free denim jacket. It was a black denim trucker jacket. It was super cool. I'm really bad it wasn't the right size. Man, I'm sorry. That's how she lost the vote. Huh, that was it? You know how. The biggest victim in all of this, though, who's that? It's Mother Earth? Think of all the waste that's being generated by this practice. Absolutely because um the heaven mcgehan from the Forbes article, I believe received um dozens of these shipments. So you gotta wonder how are they picking their how are they placing their bets, you know, because they have to know that if they send too many to one address, they're much more likely to raise the red flag. There's probably a scout thing to you send a couple first, and then if those don't get reported, it's Katie bar the door. If for anyone else wants to be more on this, there's an excellent Wall Street Journal article by Jillian Wong. There are also anonymous color You are correct, there's some great Reddit threats about this. What we did not do is establish a timeline. So this stuff goes back to yeah, probably before it really blew up when it was reported by the Beijing News. Um, yeah, number of years ago. So this just been going on for a while. Just be careful, you know what. I feel like we can we can end it on that. Like if a package shows up at your door and it doesn't have your name on it and it's not an ipsy, so like it definitely is not in some kind of pink bubble wrap. It looks all pretty. What is an ipsy? I don't know something my wife subscribes to Okay, well, if it is not an ipsy, you know what what, No matter what it is, if it doesn't have your name on it, it's a sign from the universe that you should not open this. And even if it does have your name on it, it's a sign from the universe. Just don't open any packages anymore, never open mail, get an assistant, have them open all your mail. But fascinating, true and ongoing. If you have had an experience with this, please write to us. Let us know. You can find us on our usual internet haunts, or of course you can call us one more time. One eight three three st d w y d k T e K. So what's next an AD break? All right, we're back. Should we listen to another message? Oh? Yes, let's this one comes from another anonymous source. Hi, Ben, Matt and Noll. I'm calling to tell you a little bit about my job and UM, kind of a weird thing that I've noticed so um. Currently I live in the European Union, UM, and the EU has over the last year gotten new legal EU data protection policies. Now, I work for a company called i d G that's International Data Group. And basically what we do is we call compacts off of our massive database and tell them about our It's basically UM the market research and lead generation. So like if we have a like, Dell will call a bunch of I T people and say, hey, Bob, you know, here's some stuff from Dell. You want to answer A couple of really creepy. I promise they're not like probing questions and you know, so we that's what I do basically. Um. The reason for my call is that the other day I realized that there's a little loophole um within our company that basically, because of data protection, we're not allowed to enter anyone onto our database unless we've actually spoken to them on their permission, except for in the case that if we can find that information online then mechanetics for database. So we actually add a lot of people to our database who have never spoken to us, who don't know who we are, and you know, you could not want to be there, but we will go out and find you. Um, And it's actually kind of great being shady. But I was just wondering you guys could do an episode on the new you um the Protection Moss because honestly, like everybody thinks that they're really you know, iron clads, but they're actually not, and you can your data is still not as safe as people think it is. But that's all. I love the show and thanks for listening. Bye, guys. Okay, well, that's unsettling, So perhaps the call you just heard sounded a little odd of that's uh, that was Paul's fault. That was all Paul. Thank you Paul, by the way, and thank you Paul. So this is this is a huge concern. We know that in the years leading up to this new data privacy law that a lot of people were very bully on this. You know, they thought this was the next natural step to protect individuals against the huge vacuum cleaner approach the businesses and government's use when it comes to your personal information. Right, So it is distressing to hear that maybe this is not this new law is not all it's cracked up to be. But honestly, is anyone surprised, you know? Yeah? Not I um a surprise and outrage or different things, though, right, yes, I guess we can all be um upset that these practices continue to happen. We knew, we've known that this kind of thing, this vacuum approach to data mining, to literally just pulling anything and everything that is available from varying sources. It's been happening for years. And we know that some companies who collect a bunch of data just through the use of some platform that they have, some app, some website, um a search perhaps a large search browser or something that let's use an omnibox. Yeah, we're free with the Uh. The only thing, the only catch being that they keep every key strokey type yeah, something like that. Um. We we know that they've been collecting and sometimes selling that data to third parties, and who knows what that third party is going to do with it. Um, And even through lawsuits and everything does take a lot of time. So our information really isn't safe anywhere. And that is illustrated by something that happened recently. Yeah, I mean, I you know, it's sort of what happens when a big giant company that's used to doing business as usual is met with a new set of regulations and then they kind of have to do a bit of a U turn. Um. Whether it means finding some of the loopholes like our caller was talking about, or whether it means that they've kind they kind of keep going the normal course until someone flags them and they kind of figure things out as they go. Uh. Seems to kind of be the case with a certain company called Google, who were fined fifty seven million dollars under the new European Data Privacy Law, which, among other things, is supposed to require companies to get consent, as the callers said her company is technically required to do, and also provide individuals with copies of their personal data, which does seem revolutionary given what we know about the way Facebook has kept these files on people and all of that and the whole stink that came up around that practice. And they're supposed to be able to report any breaches of data within seventy two hours. But Google apparently did not meet this obligation for this transparency, and they did not present this information in a transparent fashion that fell in line with these new standards. Apparently it required users to use five or six clicks to get the information, so going through a different page and end user agreement or what have you. And the whole point of this UM legislation is to make it more transparent. But as you know, anytime there's new legislation, that's going to be new loopholes in our caller seems to have hipped us to one. And just to clarify, I think what she's saying is, um, if it's out there, whether it's on an easily accessible, non private Facebook page or whatever, or if maybe you have an old Google business account or something like that with your phone number and name or an address or something like that, then they can use that if they This only really governs kind of cookie type, the data mining, right, so like the way it would monitor your browsing habits. But if it's out there on the Worldwide Web, able to be accessed by anybody, then it's fair game. I think that's what she's saying. Yan who knows how much of that information has been placed online somewhere, even if it's in a dark a dark web corner, not necessarily dark web, the deep web, just sitting there somewhere and it gets accessed in one way or another. Three things, three huge, crazy disturbing things, in reverse order and no particular order of importance ascending or descending. But first, the problem with calling some stuff public and some stuff private is that those are goalposts that can move. They are mutable. So it doesn't take uh too much to decide that in the interest of a public good, information that our generation would consider private should in the future be considered public. So this this is there's a little bit more leeway than it might sound initially. Uh. Secondly, I think I think it hit on the the exact point. Nell It's something that I have always ardently believed in. Technology outpaces legislation every single time, from the days of ancient civilizations to the civilizations that will be here thousands of years after. We are all you know, stardust and weird myths based loosely on our lives. There's there's not a bureaucracy or a government meant agency yet that is able to, at least for the good of consumers, keep up with technology. Right. There are a lot of intelligence agencies that are cutting edge, and they're not operating they're operating in the interests of the state, which is maybe not always the interests of the people living within the state. The last thing that I think is crucial here is that Google also got in trouble because they didn't say why they were taking this data. They were too vague. According to the the French National Data Protection Commission, they were too vague about what they were actually doing with it. And there's a thing this reminds me of the thing that happens with smartphones. So let's say you get an app, right, a really cool app and um and for sticking with lint rollers, it just tells you where the closest limp roller is whatever, and to do that it needs access to your GPS, and then it also requires you to make a profile. It also has require is you'd have to continual uh internet connection, right, the data connection of some sort. That app when you when you agree to the terms of service, it may ask you for those things or those requirements and then say we promise we will never use your information. But then also this agreement can change at any time without notice, you know what I mean. And then all it takes is for some other company to purchase that app. And when they purchase that app, they get all the data and they can change the permissions to whatever they wish. This explains a lot. Have you guys heard of the concept of the right to be forgotten? Yes, that was the one of the EU changes, right. Well, I think it's I think it's been bandied around for some time now that it is definitely codified in the legislation known as g d p R or General Data Protection Regulation, And it's just the notion that you should be able to request that any information about you on the Internet. I I might be simplifying it a little bit. I think it also UM determines how long companies are supposed to hold onto your data. Once they've achieved their goal of what they had it for in the first place, based on the terms of service that you agree to, then they should automatically scrub it. But again, technology outpacing legislation. Can you imagine a world where you could you would take the time to go to every place your data might be and send a nice email and say, please, sir, will you erase my stuff? Like? How does that you know? I mean, I know there are companies that that will supposedly do this for you and erase stuff, embarrassing stuff off the internet. But even then, it's like a game of whac a mole, right, Yeah, it's Pandora's jar Man. You can't put the lid back on. The right to be forgotten is in practice in the EU and in Argentina now, but I think those are the only places that are trying to make a go of it. I'm I'm in favor of the right to be forgotten. I don't think that's especially surprising, right, But it's tricky. It touches on some some very important things, like people who are victims of revenge pornography. You know, the right to be forgotten is crucial to people who are victims of that. Right. And then there's there's the idea that some of this information could unduly influence your future job prospects, right. Or the more dangerous thing that if you were in an autocratic regime. Let's say we all get a wild hair and uh, the five of us, you know, us and Paul and you listening, we all say, hey, let's just let's let's go to uh North Korea. Uh, let's go to uh, let's go to Tehronto, or let's go to Turkmenistan. But before we do, years before we do, let's talk a lot of trash about them, like specifically, you know what I mean. And then all they have to do is Google search your name or run your passport through something right when you're at the border, and you might be detained. Uh. This isn't just something for the typical boogeyman countries that are trotted out in Western propaganda. This also could occur in places like Thailand, which has very strict laws about how you are allowed to talk about the monarchy, what you can and cannot say about them. Yes, that's a not a fun thing. I I know, I think the right to be forgotten is um. First off, it's it's a net positive for people who are just regular Internet users. But it's also very difficult to convince companies and especially governments to to do that sort of stuff. And where does it stop? You know, if you're convicted of murder five years ago, should people not be able to know that you killed someone? I've got something for you, though, what's that? Imagine this guy, Um, let's just say he's a probably a billionaire. He's probably he loves massages, and um, one day it's you know, he gets in trouble with the law because he was getting these massages from underage women and uh ends up getting in a little bit of trouble for it, and then he wants to have all that information expunged after he, let's say, does his time or at least gets away with a slap on the wrist, and then he wants all that information to be forgotten because he has the right to be forgotten. How do you feel about that? It can't extend to serious crimes. It surely cannot. It surely cannot. Like what Okay, so what if someone let's say this person again hypothetically will call him Jepstein is let's say that person, uh, instead of getting a cartoonishly legal non prosecution agreement, let's say they actually do get convicted of the crimes, which, if we're being honest, they totally committed, then they they shouldn't have that right to be forgotten like they would be on the sex offender register. That's different than if they were going around the internet, right right, right right. It is stored on the internet. People are supposed to be a check the sex offender Register's probably a paper copy of it somewhere. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that guy, that guy should not be able to First off, he shouldn't have ever been out of jail. But that a guy, hypothetically again should not be able to erase that sex offender status. You know what I mean, And I know sex offender status. This is probably a different episode, but I know, uh, here in the US, that can get really tricky if it's an action between teenagers. Have you guys heard the horror stories about kids like texting each other nudes and getting arrested. I actually, when I worked for public radio years ago, did a piece about a girl here from Georgia, UM who was with an underage boy by a year's time and did an act that is very bizarrely referred to as sodomy um. It was moral sex and it was on school grounds, which is neither here nor there for the actual crime she got convicted of, but she got she got on the sex offenders list, and she was like six teen and he was fifteen or fourteen or something like that. I think at the time that was the age of Now it was must have been seventeen. Isn't that the age of consent in Georgia? Seventeen? You know, I have never been in a situation where I had to worry about it. I haven't either, and that's why I always get confused because this did. I actually was talking about about this to my girlfriend. And in some states it's much higher, and in some states it's much lower. And I believe in Georgia it's seventeen. But then a relationship between a fifteen year old and a seventeen year old certainly isn't the same as a relationship between the seven two year old and a thirty five year old exactly. Yeah, I completely agree. Also side note for anyone listening outside of the States. In many in many states, here in the US. Uh, the age of consent is several years lower if the people get married. Okay, well, that's at least it's good because do we here in the States, and not that we were going off the rails a little bit, but do we have a minimum age for marriage? I bet it's sixteen? In some states you can get married at fourteen, which I think is egregious. In virgin you know, marriages, it's unlawful. Did you guys know that it's illegal to get married in Virginia. I'm just kidding, Okay, I just giving you this straightest look. It's just so backwards in Virginia right now. It's it's rough. Yeah, it seems to be sixteen pretty pretty much across the board. Some there's one in Massachusetts apparently it's fourteen for a male and twelve for a female. Yeah. New Hampshire it's fourteen for a male versus thirteen for female. We should say before this sounds like a total dystopian Mad Max nightmare. Uh, those those underage marriages are allowed with parental consent, that's right, So the parents have to at least say, you know what, you're fourteen, but you've got a great head on your shoulders, and I'm sure this decision will work out for the rest of your life. And without parental consent, it seems to actually be eighteen. Pretty well. Now there's one that's Mrs Hippie seventeen male fifteen female without parental consent, then it's largely eighteen nineteen eighteen. Yeah, I'm looking down the list pretty much eighteen. So this we I think we did, uh fear into some different corners. But this is an incredibly and profoundly important call. And if you are hearing about this sort of stuff for the first time and you live in the US, really, if you live outside of the EU, you need to be very much aware, and I'm sure everybody has a little bit of an inkling of this already, need to be very much aware that you do not have control over the information that you put online. Every everything you do. You should consider that, uh something that later people will know about you. Very good point, pen uh last thing before we escape this one, by the way, if you have if you deal with data mining at your job, feel free to call and leave a message. We will treat your voice the same way we did this caller and protect your identity. UM if you feel like it's something important for the rest of us to hear, including everybody listening right now. Um, just an update, guys. We we got this on our Twitter and I think on our Here's where it gets crazy page the Efrey Jepstein case. It is currently as of last week when we're recording this, there's a new investigation into the plea deal that was that was went into or that he got into thousand seven right, non prosecution agreement, not even a plea deal. Okay, yes, that that's exactly what it is. That basically mean we agree to not prosecute you pretty much. Yeah, I mean it is. It is a plea deal. I just keep using the phrase, uh, non prosecution agreement because that sounds just so far out of bounce. Apparently it came from, let's see this, this inquiry that's happening right now into the plea deal came from UH Senator Ben Sass of Nebraska who posted this letter on his website that just discussed it like what it is, and hey, we're gonna we're gonna be looking into this. Oh I thought you he posted it on our community page. No, I wish Ben Sass, if you're listening. That's pretty cool. A way to bring the sassa Ben Sass and sass. He paid for that name. He earned it. He lived through elementary school with that name. He did, he really did in sass. All right, well, uh, let's get to one of these ads. Let's do it. Hello. My name is Anthony in Philadelphia, and I have something I don't want anyone to know. I failed to lift the toilet last night. Wind No, actually that's not what I'm talking about. I believe. All right, guys, I'm gonna come clean. I put two and two together. I believe. All right, Here it comes David Blaine. He's a magician. He's fantastic. I love that man. Besides that, he's able to hold his breath for more than eighteen minutes. It is physically impossible to do that. Your body matter will begin to do very bad things. I believe that he has attained this world record from using some type of serum from the Naked Mole Rack. The Naked mole rat is able to hold his breath for up to nineteen minutes underground during a collapse. Fascinating creature, completely naked. Anyway, I think there's something to this, but I don't want it to affect Mr Blaine's career, but I think he does not want us to know this. Please look into this. Excuse me. First of all, shame on you for your toilet habits, any female or male. Okay, I'm gonna come clean. I have something I don't want you to know. I I piece it in down every time. You know, occasionally sometimes I just want to take a minute, read an article on your phone. Maybe I only have to pee, understood, You know you have you had your break today. Sometimes my break is is taking a piece. But at night with the lights off, I would fall in. I'd fall in like in that curb your enthusiasm. You don't have a toilet light. We'm about to change your world, SERI. Yeah, I've got a really cool it's like a light that clips in. I go for electric blue because I think it's a classy. Look. Uh, it fits inside your toilet bowl like ground effects for your toilet, kind of at the bottom of those bird scooters. I got a static one because you know, when when I am I in a late night scenario, I don't want to get spooted. I don't want to introduce new variables into the equation. So I've got you know what. I know what you guys are getting for stocking stuffers, and I bet you will forget by the time this year draws to a close. That sounds pricey bend, but I'll take it. Nothing like potty Swag. Yes, Potty Swag the new sponsor of stuff. They don't want you to go so first, you are correct, Sir David Blaine, and as of at least two thousand and eight, does have the world record for longest time spent holding his breath was seventeen minutes and four seconds allegedly holding his breath allegedly. We don't know if he was doping with that. Naked mole rats serum. Naked mole rats are a real creature. They can survive eighteen minutes without oxygen. They're also very, very different in comparison to most mammals. Yeah, it's true. There's an article on NPR researchers find yet another reason why naked mole rats are just weird, and a researcher by the name of Thomas park Is, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, says that they've evolved under such to a different environment that it's like studying an animal from another planet. Um, that environment being deep underground, I imagine. Yeah, they live in ant like social structures. They have they have a dominant breeder. Uh. They also have very slow metabolism, so they live for a very very long time. And uh they are no slouch when it comes to fighting cancer. So, sir, if your supposition is correct, if David Blaine is doping with naked mole rat derived serum to hold his breath for frankly superhuman amounts of time, what else has he what else has he gained from the mole rats? So what if David Blaine was in fact bitten by a naked a radioactive from fallout? Exactly? Those are Those are the pesky critters. They're quite large and they come at you and you can usually just stomp on them. Um, but some of them are irradiated ones will mess you up. Um. I will further postulate, has anyone seen Mr David Blaine pierced his own arm with a metal poker? Was that on one of the specials? It was where he's doing it for Will Smith and his family and Kanye West and all these people, like putting it through his hand or his arm or something, and then he pulls it out and there's no wound there. It's just gone. I think perhaps he's taken an octopus serum can regenerate. It's like an evil doctor Doolttle mainly mainly gets his magic abilities from animal juice, which potions potions. But then potions have a limited uh a limited durations. Some of them do some of them will infect your entire character sheet. Have you seen the one where he pukes up frogs? Oh? Yeah, that was pretty cool. I think he's just managed to kind of like train his body in weird ways. But think too. I guess with the World Record they check and make sure you're not wearing some kind of device. I mean, but then again, how strict do you think the the oversight for the Guinness World Records actually is? They would at least need to measure the oxygen levels in his blood. One would assume um and then make sure that the seals on whatever device is keeping him from unconsciously breathing work. But if you enter a meditative state, you can go quite a long time appearing not to breathe at all, like those people who freeze very quickly and appear to be dead and then just can kind of get jumped like a car battery a White Walkers. So so I think this is fascinating. I can't believe we did two episodes on real life superpowers. We didn't mention David Blaine. We also didn't mention Harry Houdini, who we could consider sort of a predecessor of blame absolutely or the the David Blaine two point Oh, Chris Angel, he's he's more like a poor man David Blaine with like is he strad letting? You know from Molly Crue. Our next episode is going to have a h an incredibly furious call from Chris Angel. All I know is I stepped into somewhere when I was in I was in Las Vegas one time when I was much younger. I just walked into some theater somehow and it happened to be a Chris Angel show that was at like a bar setting, and it was fantastic. How old do you think he is? Oh, he's welled into his two hundreds, his human ages fifty one. You can't be that good at illusions, Michael, if you know you're a young person, if you're less than a hundred and fifty right, that's the entry. And in a Time magazine article, Dr Ralph Potkin does say the body can be trained to do this kind of thing, and that you can train your body to um ignore some of the spas that it would naturally do to get you to gasp for breath. Uh, and that, like you're saying, Ben, you could probably train your mind to go into a meditative state. But to the College point, I mean, I can't imagine there there must be a limit to that physically where your body would just start to like convulse in on itself or something. You know, there's it's it is fascinating if you haven't checked out our real life superpowers up, so please to We should also do an episode on meditation in general. This Uh, this is a related point if you haven't heard it before, this is a baffling fact. Due to a study of London cab drivers. Of all things, we do know that mind over matter is real in that the type of thinking and cognition you practice will affect the growth of your brain. Uh. There's a test that all black cab drivers in London had to take for a long time was called the knowledge with the capital K, and at we say, black cabs, I mean the traditional black cabs in London, kind of like the yellow taxis you'll see in big cities here in the States. The problem with taking the knowledge is that you couldn't use a GPS, and you had to build a mental map of London. You had to know all the fastest roots, and you had to know how to modify those roots according to traffic in different you know, public events and so on. And people generally don't pass this test, especially now the first time. But they've found in these studies that drivers who had put in decades after passing the knowledge, they have been practicing the knowledge as cab drivers. The parts of their brain that involve spatial awareness and that sort of cognition were physically larger than normal brains. So so you can meditate your way into superpowers. It just takes a long long time. It's not a not a fifteen minute or afternoon profession. But I would love to do it. Well what you guys do if you could, If you could learn one meditative power, would you learn this sort of super hibernation to slow your nervous system. I just want to be able to control things with my mind. Man, tell the kinesis. Yeah, dig it. Yeah, I think I keep going back to it. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I want to have the iceman's powers and then the trauma guy. Yeah. I want to be able to withstand like seriously freezing temperatures and just be just be cool about it. I actually, in desperation, resorted to trying to do that last week. Yeah. Yeah, I was very very cold. I was Circumstances led me to be locked out of a place for a few hours, wandering in a town where I didn't know anyone, I didn't speak the language, and everything was closed, and I was like, I'm gonna try to breathe the way that guy did. Limited success, have you had some, though? I don't know, Matt, I I would need to practice a lot more. But I also didn't have naked mulerat serum to bring us back around. Right, Okay, I got I don't think we have time for anymore. We have plenty of voicemails, uh, hundreds in facts. What do you say we do another one of these? Maybe not sequentially, but we like scound the road, down the road, down the road. Yeah, because these are really good conversations and like, we always kind of go into these thinking they're gonna be a little clip shows, but they're really not. Like I mean, there's so much good stuff here. Maybe not worth an entire episode, but definitely worth a cool, you know, twenty minute conversation sometime before the end of the year. And we we may not be able to air every phone call we get, but we do listen to all of them eventually. That's the part of the asterisk. So please let us, and more importantly, your fellow listeners know the strange stories that you have found in your personal life or in your neck of the global woods. You can do that immediately by going to our Facebook page. Here's where it gets crazy. You can find us on m Amazon. You can find us on Amazon, but you can find us and talk to us on Instagram and Twitter as well. 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