108 - Lizzie Borden Took an Axe...

Blackwater. Now known as Academi. Once known as Xe Services. A private military company. One of many PMCs very active in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first decade of this century. One of many employers of "security contractors" contracted by the Department of Defense, or State Department, or the CIA to work alongside - or sometimes in place of - active military personnel in war zones around the world. What, exactly, do companies like Blackwater do? Is it a good or bad idea to privatize the military? Are PMCs a new thing? When did they become part of the military-industrial complex? We explore these questions and more and also dig into the life of Erik Prince and his family. Erik launched Blackwater, and he and his family seem to be just as controversial as the PMC he ran. A LOT to unpack here today. Hope you find it as interesting as I do. Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions give $12,500 this month to the USC Shoah Foundation. Click the link to learn more: https://sfi.usc.edu/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/etGJgW9ekTU Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

1 Mars 20212h 23min

The Great Emu War! Such a weird and fun tale to tell. What an odd historical period. As World War I came to an end, Australia - whose economy was tanking, tried to figure out what to do with their returning veterans. They decided to give many of them parcels of land in Western Australia where they could grow wheat. And then the Great Depression hit. It hit countries all over the world, and few harder than Australia, and it hit few Australians harder than many of those veteran farmers. They now struggled to sell their wheat. And then, the emus started showing up and eating what little wheat they had left! Lots of emus. Around 20,000 of them. Australia’s national bird became a national pest, and desperate farmers reached out to the Australian government for help. They reached out to the Ministry of War. And the government sent them three soldiers, armed with two machine guns and a film crew. Probably should’ve sent in a lot more troops and a lot more guns - the emus were a much more formidable foe than anticipated. We return to the land down under today to suck Australia’s Great Emu War - on this bird-brained, machine gun, invasive creature edition, of Timesuck.Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions give $12,200 this month to No Kid Hungry https://www.nokidhungry.org/ Click the link to learn more. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0xFoD4MAMsY Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

22 Feb 20212h 6min

Dante's Inferno! One of the most influential literary works ever written. Put to parchment in the early 14th century, Dante's opening third of the Divine Comedy presented a clear vision of Christian Hell, wherein nine descending circles, Dante, guided by the ancient Roman poet, Virgil, witnesses various types of sinners receiving poetically fitting forms of punishment. In today's Suck, we learn about the nature of epic poems, layout several examples of epic poems that came before Dante, and learn about who Dante the man was, before accompanying him, circle by circle, on his descent into the underworld where he will eventually meet Lucifer. We also summarize what Dante will encounter in the second and third portions of his Divine Comedy. Getting literary today, on a fire and brimstone, gnashing teeth edition, of Timesuck. Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions give $12,200 this month to No Kid Hungry https://www.nokidhungry.org/ Click the link to learn more. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0O42keSWx2Y Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

15 Feb 20212h 33min

This might be the first episode to get me death threats. The Turkish government does NOT like being accused of genocide, and neither do many of its citizens. But during WW1, genocide is exactly what the Young Turks orchestrated. Roughly 1.5 million Armenians were killed. And between 1900 - 1923, up to 4.3 million Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, and other smaller ethnic groups of Christian were massacred by the Ottoman Empire and their successors committed to the racist and xenophobic ideology of Pan-Turkism. Today's story is a crazy one. The craziest part about it is that it is not more well known. And it is not well known primarily because of Turkey's consistent and constant denial that it ever happened. It is literally illegal in Turkey to accuse the Turkish government of having committed genocide. They have cut off relations with other nations for accusing them of genocide. It's a topic that needs to be talked about more and I hope you are as fascinated by today's information as I am. Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions give $12,200 this month to No Kid Hungry https://www.nokidhungry.org/ Click the link to learn more. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Cj6OtU58AQg Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

8 Feb 20212h 28min

The Denver Airport was built by the New World Order. The Denver Airport contains the international headquarters of the Illuminati. Collectively, the Satanic art installations of the Denver International Airport point towards an impending planned apocalypse. The Denver International Airport is built atop a massive underground city built to house the global elite after the lizard Illuminati brings about the apocalypse. These are just SOME of the conspiracies that have floated around on the web regarding DIA since it opened in February 1995. Today on Timesuck, I address these conspiracies and others and then walk through how the accusations are either simply not possible or how there are perfectly reasonable explanations behind aspects of DIA that have been accused of being nefarious in nature. I poke logic holes in many of the conspiracies because I am ONE OF THE REPTILIAN ELITE! JOIN ME WHEN WE SOON GATHER UNDER THE DENVER AIRPORT TO BRING ABOUT A NEW WORLD ORDER! Jk? Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LXLBKybeuXs Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

1 Feb 20212h 13min

Possibly the most meticulous Serial Killer the world has ever known, Israel Keyes spent years planning murders all across North America. Burying what he dubbed “murder kits” in various locations across the United States, he would travel thousands of miles to uncover a kit, racking up lots of frequent flier and rental car miles - before picking a random victim to slaughter. This careful planning, and the extreme lengths to distance himself from any connection to the disappearances of his victims, kept him from being captured for years. But then, in 2012, he got sloppy and attempted to get $30,000 in ransom money for the safe return of a young barista who lived just a few miles from his house. A barista he'd already raped and murdered. Today's tale is a crazy one. And Israel's murders and other crimes may be the least interesting aspect of his story. He was raised by paranoid, anti-government, white supremacists spiritual seekers and he spent most of his childhood living in a one-room cabin with no electricity or running water, being homeschool by zealots. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RVS-50M_Cjw Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

25 Jan 20212h 16min

In the final days of World War II and in the next few years after the war was over, the U.S. government helped hundreds and hundreds of Nazi Scientists whose knowledge and expertise was deemed crucial to the development of advanced weapons - no matter HOW complicit they were in heinous Nazi activities - to relocate to the States and become integral pieces of the US military-industrial complex. The US wanted them to continue their work on creating atomic bombs, weaponizing plagues, making chemical weapons, and sometimes, even medically experimenting on people in ways that certainly violate the “do no harm” oath that doctors take, to find out either how enemies would be affected by weapons, how US soldiers and civilians might best recover from the devastating effects of their attacks, and more. Evil stuff. We look into who some of the Nazi scientists were today, and also into how the US was crossing plenty of moral lines without their help before and after WW2. Does being really good at science and making important medical and military progress justify committing crimes against humanity? Operation contributions likely changed the outcome of the Cold War - but does that make it right? Treading some murky waters today, as we dive into a morally ambiguous, top-secret, declassified Nazi history edition of Timesuck.Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Aumvi_h-WkQ Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

18 Jan 20212h 20min

Shaka Zulu! I'm guessing you've heard the name. Also guessing you know very little about his story. Most don't seem too. Which is a shame because it's such a great story! Shaka took the small Zulu tribe from less than 2,000 members to around 250,000 in just a dozen years. He took them from being one of many militarily inconsequential bands of Africans living in what is now South Africa to the powerful Zulu Nation - one of the mightiest African military powers on the entire continent. He was a brilliant military tactician who changed the way his people - and many other people - would fight, not only during his reign, but for long after his death. He also seems to have been a sadistic madman who did crazy things like kill thousands of people for not grieving the death of his mother hard enough. And have others killed just for getting pregnant while he grieved. His tale is a wild one. And we use it as an excuse to not just learn a lot about him, but also about the history of South Africa. So much info today - and hopefully also a lot of fun, on another historical edition of Timesuck. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0rdaS70r3jI Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

11 Jan 20212h 22min