Sloth inspires a round-up of recent news stories from the world of birds. Fae shares a story of real-life bars inside gas stations. Kevin prompts an exploration of hidden history -- the earth shaking Battle of Blair Mountain, and the resulting cover-up from the Powers That Be. Plus puns. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
In which butter substitutes have to overcome scientific hurdles, dairy-friendly laws, and bad news about trans fats, and Ken thinks Germany is trying to control olive oil. Certificate #34384.
In this episode, Rivers is joined at Disgraceland Studios by THREE hilarious people, comedians Keith Carey, Kyle Clark, and the INCREDIBLE visual artist Jordan Williams for our annual tradition of trying to find the funniest year of all time. This time, it's all about THE YEAR 2009. In Part 1, we go into absolutely everything from the first six months of this year: movies, music, TV, and politics. We also get pretty drunk on Four LOKO. This was an absolutely crazy year for news and pop culture and we hope y'all have as much fun listening to it as we did recording it. Follow Keith and Kyle on all forms of social media @KeithTellsJokes and @KyleClarkIsRad respectively. Check out Jordan's incredible art on Instagram @GooneyBirdCrafts. Rivers is @RiversLangley Sam is @SlamHarter Carter is @Carter_Glascock Subscribe on Patreon for an UNCUT video version of the show as well as HOURS of bonus content! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod
It's an open secret that not everything is as it seems in the world of diplomacy -- a great many individuals operate with some degree of subterfuge and invisibility. So what happens when things go wrong, and these often disturbing, unseen things become visible? Tonight's story takes us to Lahore, Pakistan: on January 27, 2011, CIA contractor Raymond Allen Davis found himself in a brutal firefight in traffic. What follows becomes an international scandal reaching all the way to the President of the United States. Join Ben, Matt and Noel to learn more.
President Donald Trump’s earlier executive orders and the comprehensive spending bill he just signed mark the end of dozens of tribal green energy initiatives. They mark a major shift in direction away from solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources championed during the Biden administration. Those projects aimed at energy sovereignty that can’t find new, private-sector funds will halt or scale back their original scope.
And, an Alaska tribal village is hoping a transition away from oil-fueled energy will both save money and help the environment.
Soft. Hard. Fresh. Aged. Stinky. Illegal. Let’s talk cheese with Certified Cheese Professional (CCP) and Fromologist, Kyra James. We chat about proprietary bacterial slurries, basement caves, cheese knife etiquette, rind eating, vegetarian versus vegan cheeses, cheese history, different warm-blooded animals whose milk is used for cheese, American cheese side-eye, shoe deodorizers, and how to chat up a monger.
And come back next week to learn more about plant-based cheese options, how to properly store cheese, the difference between orange and white cheddar, the grilled sandwich debate, DIY cheese, pricey varieties, squeaky curds, the moon’s composition, how cheese changes your brain chemistry, and the ultimate charcuterie board. Plus: holes and crystals and maggots, oh my!
[Content warning: we discuss dairy and do make acknowledgments of animal rights concerns, and next week we discuss vegan options in more depth. However this episode and expert’s focus isn’t the ethics of dairy farming as a whole, but rather the process of cheesemaking. We do have a future episode planned about plant-based diets.]
We chat with Alice Marwick — director of research at Data & Society — about a new report she co-authored on how generative AI is now unleashing a new world of scams and fraud. AI is supercharging the business of scamming by making it easier and cheaper than ever to deploy sophisticated scams at scale. Scams are now automated, ubiquitous, and dynamic. The victims of AI-fuelled fraud are not just traditional demographics like older people. We get into types of fraud like pig butchering and harpoon whaling, and what we can do to defend against the automation of fraud. Then we discuss how these technical infrastructures are compounded by social conditions (and societal crises) that are making more people vulnerable to scams—but also to high risk behaviors like gambling, forms of financial exploitation like multi-level marketing, and misinformation like conspiracy theories.
••• Data & Society | Research https://datasociety.net/research/
••• Scam GPT: GenAI and the Automation of Fraud https://datasociety.net/library/scam-gpt/
••• The Future of Conspiracy Theory Scholarship https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19331681.2025.2491687
••• Mountains of Evidence: Processual “Redpilling” as a Socio-Technical Effect of Disinformation https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21934
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)
James talks to Theo Henderson, host of We The Unhoused, about the impact of protests in LA on the unhoused community, and how people at the intersection of the undocumented and the unhoused community are coping with federal, state, and local crackdowns.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the spending bill just signed by President Donald Trump will increase the number of people without health insurance by 16 million over the next ten years. The $1.1 trillion cuts to Medicaid will also affect Native Americans who rely on it to pay for health care through the Indian Health Service and threatens rural hospitals with a high rate of Medicaid-dependent patients. The new spending plan also substantially reduces the number of people who will collect food assistance through the federal government. We’ll get insights on what these numbers mean for Native Americans who disproportionately rely on these two federal government programs.
We’ll also find out about the significance of the new Indigenous head of Mexico’s Supreme Court.
GUESTS
A.C. Locklear (Lumbee), CEO of National Indian Health Board
Aaron Payment (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians), tribal councilman and former chairperson for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
Kelli Case (Chickasaw), senior staff attorney for the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative
