As avid fans of the Great American Roadtrip, Ben, Matt and Noel love gas stations. They're a fundamental part of US culture -- and, holy smokes, do they get weird. In tonight's episode, the guys dive into the crime, conspiracy, controversy and underground subcultures of America's filling stations and truck stops... all to discover that there's a ton of stuff Gas Stations Don't Want You To Know.
Farmed versus wild. Basement shrimp hustles. Mangrove drama. Anthropology. Animal welfare and plant-based diets. Climb aboard to meet UCSB’s super cool dude, researcher and Aquaculture Ecologist, Dr. Ben Halpern. You’ll hear about sustainable food sources, land vs. sea farming, bycatch, shellfish guilt, salmon who wear makeup, global marine populations, ditching iceberg for seaweed, and a gentle nudge toward vegetables. Progress over perfection; every little step counts.
We chat about Palantir and their role in enacting Trump’s executive order for a unified database across federal agencies and a master profile for every individual — and their larger role in bringing about the glorious new age of theocratic techno-nationalism for the West.
••• Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/technology/trump-palantir-data-americans.html
••• ICE Just Paid Palantir Tens of Millions for ‘Complete Target Analysis of Known Populations’ https://www.404media.co/ice-just-paid-palantir-tens-of-millions-for-complete-target-analysis-of-known-populations/
Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
For Peter, the father of the deceased child and a member of a Mennonite community in West Texas, the death of his child was God’s will. Many in the Mennonite communities of Texas and across the United States do not vaccinate their children, and their anti-vaccination stance is in line with their general religiously informed practice of eschewing modernity and its technological advances. But it is not merely the few sectarian Mennonite communities that still exist in the United States that have taken a stance against vaccination. Mainstream evangelical and charismatic congregations that embrace much of the modern world have also embraced anti-vaccination beliefs. This episode explores the relationship between conservative Christianity, anti-vaccination beliefs, and contemporary right-wing politics.
In December of 2019 the Denver Post began reporting a strange pattern over the night sky of northeast Colorado. Around 7pm each night, at least 17 drones -- large ones -- emerged from somewhere and flew over the region in what appeared to be a search pattern, disappearing between 9:30 and 10pm. No one, from federal agencies on down, seemed to know where these drones were coming from, who controlled them, or what they were doing up in the sky. If, that is, they existed at all.
In this episode, the Goods from the Woods Boys welcome comedian Nicole Yates back to Disgraceland as we dive headfirst into a barrel of fun! We kick this one off by paying tribute to the late great Brian Wilson and chugging an Arnold Palmer-flavored energy drink. We talk about U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s ancient belief in a magic cloud of disease and the old folks that have been posting their conversations with robots on Meta A.I. Train's "Calling All Angels" is our JAM OF THE WEEK! Give us a listen, folks. Do yourself a flavor. Follow Nicole on social media @YatesyTime and check our her food blog "DidjaEat?" here: https://didjaeat.com Follow our show @TheGoodsPod Rivers is @RiversLangley Sam is @SlamHarter Carter is @Carter_Glascock Subscribe on Patreon for the UNCUT video version of this episode as well as TONS of bonus content! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt here: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod
If you’re one of the 1.9 million people who still get a paper tax refund check from the federal government, you will need to make a change in the coming months. It’s the same for those who still count on Social Security checks in the mail rather than electronic direct deposit. A presidential executive order requires those and other transactions by the federal government to go completely electronic by September 30. The White House claims paperless transactions will save taxpayers as much as $657 million. At the same time, it poses a significant challenge for the high percentage of Native Americans who choose not to utilize conventional banks.
For many years, the threat of measles, a deadly disease that spreads more rapidly than COVID and regularly took thousands of lives a year, had been effectively eradicated in the United States due to the widespread acceptance of vaccination. The death of a child from measles in West Texas was the first in over a decade and it came as a shock to the American medical establishment that is now grappling with a disturbing reality: the chief public health bureaucrat is a bonafide anti-vaxxer. This episode will explore the genealogy of anti-vaccination beliefs in the United States and how they spread into mainstream politics.
Coming out of our Silo and we're not doing fine! The air is still toxic and we're losing our minds!
We're back at it with season two of Silo, and we're discussing the ethics and practicality of maintaining a system like this, as well as discussing the ableist implications of a common trope.
Massive protests in LA (not to mention many more US cities) prompt the federal government to send in marines and activate the California National Guard -- without the consent of the governor. Japan pays people to stand still on escalators. Germany plans rapid bunker expansion amid fears of Russian attacks. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
