We are overjoyed to be joined by Mr. John Benfield, an assessor of risk by trade here to tell us about what we should be anxious about in 2025, and how we can best prepare ourselves for this risky world. Plus, Corrigan talks about the horrors of asbestos, and a D.B. Cooper enthusiast corrects the record!

[0:00] Corrigan tells John and Marko about the horrors of asbestos
[52:46] We introduce our guest, John Benfield, and briefly address that the world is getting more fashy in dumb ways
[01:02:00] Corrigan's D.B. Cooper gets scotched in the best possible way on Bluesky
[01:11:48] Mark's son has a question about villains winning in films
[01:16:20] What we watched! (Grafted, Batman Begins, A Real Pain. Class of Nuke ’Em High, Castle Freak, Nickel Boys, Emilia Perez, Beezel, Hauntology, They Live, Fail Safe,
[01:49:05] We delve into the World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Risk Assessment with John, a risk assessment expert.

• Asbestos: The Evil Dust
• VICE: Why the Deadly Asbestos Industry Is Still Alive and Well
• ‘I’m so angry, I’m wild’: the never-ending wait to clean up asbestos town Wittenoom
• ADSA: Wittenoom Overview
• The Last Days of an Outback Town Where Every Breath Can Be Toxic
• Memories of Wittenoom, a once-thriving but asbestos-riddled town that led to more than 1,000 deaths
• Last homes in asbestos-riddled Wittenoom to be demolished, but some want to stay
• U.K. Risk Register
• AI Bias in Denmark
• Tackling the growing risks of space debris in Earth orbit
• The risks of ‘space junk’ are clear: what goes up, might well come back down on top of you

Naturally, we had to take some time to reflect on David Lynch's life and philosophy. But first, Marko tells Corrigan about the Toba Catastrophe and what it might tell us about the future of humankind after we climate change ourselves to death!

[0:00] Marko tells Corrigan about the Toba Catastrophe Theory
[23:05] Mark's inscrutable bits, our special guest for next week,
[32:30] Now that Mark listens to podcasts, his latest listen brings him to a discussion of conspiracy theorists in the White House on the eve of the inauguration
[42:18] What we watched: The Man They Could Not Hang, The Straight Story, Gladiator II, Cuckoo, Twin Peaks, The People's Joker
[1:03:15] Looking back on Lynch

Corrigan tells Marko some fun stories about times people were sure telekinesis and other paranormal superpowers were a thing, we discuss what's going on with the California wildfires and why it's a problem for Marko's climate anxiety, and Mark weaves his Nightmare on Elm Street reboot idea through CoRri's attempts to talk about what she watched this week!

[0:00] Corrigan tells Marko about the U.S. government's forays into telekinetic research
[49:36] Marko has climate anxiety; Corrigan explains what's going on with the California wildfires
[1:08:00] Book club coming, we recommend Tananarive Due's The Reformatory, and a watch-along will occur February 1st!
[1:13:45] What we watched! (The Mist, Wicked, The Order, The Boys From Brazil, The Sea Wolf, To Die For, Y2k, 10 Cloverfield Lane)

• Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room
• Psychokinesis: Facts About Mind Over Matter
• ESP & Psychic Powers: Claims Inconclusive
• Inside The Montauk Project, The US Military’s Alleged Mind Control Program
• CIA's declassified documents: Highlights of the 13 million pages out now
• Spoon bender Uri Geller offers Donald Trump to use his island as US military base
• Remote Perturbation Techniques: Managerial Summary (CIA)
• MK-Ultra

In keeping with our VERY dark January, Marko tells Corrigan about a British pedophile advocacy group that got way too much legitimacy. But then we lighten things up with shout outs from The Void, bickering over Nosferatu, and a deep question about time travel.

[0:00] Marko tells Corrigan about a pro-pedophilia group in 1970s England
[35:35] Mark hates January, CoRri is terrified of caterpillars, and people are eating bugs for the planet!
[48:12] Elon Musk is "intervening" in UK politics and pretending to be a German guy on Twitch
[55:20] Lots of good stuff coming up on the Ko-Fi so sign up, ya silly geese!
[1:00:00] Shout Outs from the Void
[1:14:45] What we watched! (Timecop, Nosferatu, Evil Dead 2, Conclave, Lockerbie)
[01:50:55] Corrigan asks Marko how he would convince someone he was a time traveler

As 2025 kicks off, Corrigan tells Marko some dark tales she learned on her vacation in Rome, and we look back at our favorite things this year and forward at what's on the horizon for us this year.

[0:00] Corrigan tells Marko the dark tales of two women who've become feminist symbols in Italy
[54:34] CoRri recaps her vacation, including the many human bones she saw, Mark smells of brisket
[1:04:30] What we watched! (Nosferatu, Twister, Carry-On, Resolution, Gladiator, Werewolves, RoboCop,
[1:26:28] Looking back over what we got up to in 2024 and forward to 2025
[1:46:20] Our favorite things from 2024 -- Movies, books, TV, music, and adventures!

• Toxicology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
• Ghost & Crimes of Rome Tour - Ask for Yash!
• The tragic story of Beatrice Cenci
• Violence Begets Violence: The Cruel Death of Beatrice Cenci
• This Aristocratic Family Turned on its Abusive Patriarch
• Meet Giulia Tofana: The 17th-Century Professional Poisoner Said To Have Killed 600 Men
• Giulia Tofana, Italy’s most notorious poisoner
• Le donne silenziate: the foundations of the Italian patriarchy
• Italy confronts its toxic culture of violence against women
• Make noise! A murder and a movie stir Italians to loudly demand an end to violence against women
• Femicide in Italy: A modern phenomenon deeply rooted in country’s cultural past
• Italy grapples with its patriarchal history as femicide cases shock the nation
• Giulia Tofana: poisoner, murderer, saviour?

It's a truth universally acknowledged that Christmas is a time for ghosts. We don't make the rules. So, Marko opens us up with a spooooky tale of a perhaps misunderstood monk in West Yorkshire before we dive into the world of prepping, doomsday and otherwise.

[0:00] Mark tells Corrigan
[33:36] We talk about how good you look, The Void is coming so sign up on our Ko-Fi to secure your personal message, Mark updates us on what it's like to be 46
[45:22] There are DRONES MAYBE in New Jersey
[56:39] What we watched!: Violent Night, Speak No Evil (2024), The Santa Clause 3, Venom: The Last Dance, Heretic, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, The Endless
[01:37:16] What are doomsday preppers and do we want to be them?

• What is Prepping and What is a Prepper?
• Doomsday Desperation
• Millennial utopians and prepper subcultures: Contemporary utopianism on the left and right
• The Americans Prepping for a Second Civil War
• Preparing for the Apocalypse: A Look at the Rise of Doomsday Preppers
• Why 'preppers' are going mainstream
• 7 Assumptions That Can Get You Killed When SHTF
• Practice Combat Without Getting Killed

What a week it's been to live on this spinning rock, right? This week Corrigan tells Marko the story of the only unsolved highjacking case in American history, and we talk about the assassination of a healthcare CEO, and what the response says about the state of the U.S.

[0:00] Corrigan tells Marko about the mystery of famous highjacker D.B. Cooper, and about new revelations that might finally tell us for sure who he was!
[45:28] It has been a CRAZY week to be alive, Mark doesn't like Corrigan's accent work, book club will be Dec. 28th
[53:30] A discussion of Corrigan's upcoming resolutions leads to some deep philosophical tangents about morality
[01:11:38] What we watched! (Nazi Town, USA, Wicked, Trapped in the Rocky Mountains, Arctic Void, History of the Occult, Three Wiser Men and A Boy, Sugarplummed, The Christmas Quest, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Suicide Squad, Targets, Nightbeast, The Burrowers
[01:45:22] We talk about the assassination of United Healthcare and what we can take from the discourse about the killer

• D.B. Cooper Update: Why FBI Reopened The 53-Year-Old Plane Hijacking Case
• A Staggering New Clue on D.B. Cooper's Tie Has Blown the 52-Year-Old Case Wide Open
• D.B. Cooper
• Who is D.B. Cooper? New Evidence May Crack One Of America’s Greatest Mysteries
• D.B. Cooper skyjacking: Boy, 8, unearths ransom notes
• $5,800 of airplane hijacker D. B. Cooper’s ransom money is found near the Columbia River on February 10, 1980.
• UnitedHealth uses faulty AI to deny elderly patients medically necessary coverage, lawsuit claims
• Insurance company halts plan to put time limits on coverage for anesthesia during surgery
• Competing Companies Scrub Online Leadership Bios …Fear Of Being Next?

There will be oversharing, friends, as Mark deals with his approaching 46th birthday by exploring what science says is happening to his body. Plus our regular chat about AI, a revisit of the Lady of the Dunes case, and Marko's final appraisal of Scream VI! Has he changed his tune, or are we doomed to fight forever?

[0:00] Mark talks about some of the ways he can expect his body to break down now in his mid-40s
[39:39] We discuss neurodivergent safe foods, CoRri's impulsive haircut and tattoo, and how Mark has been burned by his impulses before
[55:27] CoRri learns to put less pressure on herself, we mention upcoming things, and we watched a very unusual version of Metropolis for the Ko-Fi
[1:01:00] What we watched! (Xtro, Giorgio Moroder’s Metropolis, Targets, True Stories, Lady of the Dunes [Oxygen True Crime], My Old Ass, Scream VI, Love Death & Robots)
[1:38:10] We check in on generative AI and how quaint our past discussions of deepfakes seem now that AI is being trained on US
[1:44:00] A quick revisit of the Lady of the Dunes