TRASHFUTURE - Good to Drive, Good to Wexit feat. Liv Agar

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Liv Agar from QAA joins the gang to talk about Wexit - the hare brained scheme to create a promised land for drunk drivers all around the world in Alberta. Also, we discuss the latest evil from the TBI, the creation of the Bins Condittieri, and a new Guy enters the pantheon. Get more TF episodes each week by subscribing to our Patreon here! *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo’s tour dates here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/liveshows *TF LIVE ALERT* You can get tickets for our show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival here! Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

Further to your remark about buggery, Milo. What an opening. I'm reminded of a quote by the the famous wit, Professor Maurice Boerer, Oxford Don, who said, the thing about buggery is that it fills the awkward space between tea and cocktails. It's a weird thing to call an asshole that. Forgetting the word perineum. Didn't Winston Churchill say that you'll never get an English jury to convict for sodomy

because half of them don't think it's possible and the other half are performing it. Land of hope and glory. Jury, have you reached a verdict? Hello everybody. Welcome to this episode of the podcast. I wonder if the first stuff is going to make it into the cold open. Let's see. It's the free one. It is the free one and with us is

Making a triumphant return for the many of time. It is QAA's Liv Agar. Liv, how you doing? I'm good. Glad to be back talking more about my insane awful fake country as usual Yeah, that's right. Cuz you know what's happening right now Well, the thing about Canada is you'll never get a Canadian jury to convict of drink driving because half of them think it's impossible and the other half are doing it. Yeah. Half of them think that all there is is too sober driving. No, it's like the world capital outside of Alaska of drunk driving, Alberta, one of the

three- I love the two world capitals of drunk driving are so close to each other. That's great. It's beautiful. It's like Constantinople and Rome are later Ravenna. We were in the Molsonian zone. Yeah, yeah. A more drunk society in the lagoon.

Yeah. If Canada is really not a real country, if it's actually three mining companies in a trench coat, one of those mining companies is threatening to leave the trench coat. Oh no. And that mining company is also drunk. Yes. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. It's truly remarkable how much like Alberta separatism is just based on oil. Like it's like if they had a nation state, it would just be about oil.

What if, what if more petro states? Yeah. They want to become cold jibai. So I've been wanting to talk about Alberta separatism for a while just because like I cannot believe that another Center right well, Danielle Smith is sort of center right to right right but a center right ish like mainstream political party leader in a Global North country has decided to vent right populist anger by holding a referendum that they assume They'll win unto every nation is granted a David Cameron. I'll go wrong. It's never gone wrong. What other fake country has been destroyed by a referendum?

Just a note from Daniel Smith that says, like, cheers from the heart of the machine, buddy. Yeah. I mean, before I got some news items to go into before we get into this, but like, that's my broad view of 10 from 10,000 feet of what's going on with the Canadian separatism referendum. Liv, as someone who's there, is that like vaguely right? I think so. Yeah. I mean, an important thing to understand about Smith is that she's very

stupid. Like she's a profoundly stupid. Her political instincts are very bad. Oh, so nothing like David Cameron then. Yeah, exactly. Like, at a time where everyone, like all the premiers and the prime minister were rallying against Trump, she was at Mar-a-Lago being like, oh, I think he's kind of serious about this invasion thing. I don't know. He's kind of a funny guy.

What if Albertan separatism, like, it must be so difficult being in the CIA right now, because like, obviously all of your wokeist friends got dozed, right? And then you as the remaining chud CIA agents, you're taken out of Iran or wherever else, and you're put in Alberta to try and incite a color revolution? And the color is piss. It's like that scene in Inglourious Basterds, right? Where they can tell you're a deep cover CIA agent if upon getting up

to leave the bar grabbing your keys, they offer you a drink and if you don't take it, they have it. So we're going to get to that in a second. I have two pieces of news that I have been given. They have both been sent to me one million times. So there, do you want to start with the evil one or the sort of absurd low level evil one? I feel like this has to be the guests choice. Those are always the two options now. Yeah. Any like news podcasts. Yeah. Let's, let's start with the low level. Okay. It's working our way out.

Ease ourselves in. Yeah. So basically, so just to catch you up, uh, British local councils, especially those in England and Wales, they have had their funding cut by the government, by central government, like repeatedly for about 14 years now. I love our stupid podcast where we get guests on and say, okay, so the thing you have to know about the local government act.

Yeah, so they have to provide statutorily high levels of service, but they have less and less money to do it. This has caused them to take crazy insane gambles, like buying malls or investing with fraudsters, stuff like this. Yeah, we talked about Thorough Council just giving the, like, sort of like their pin code essentially to a guy who like took all their money and went to Dubai with it. Correct. So this is the context and so councils basically are, they have like

10 pounds to run a local government and the message from central government is good luck. Yeah, they are God's perfect mark, right? Because they are now so desperate that they have to say yes to anything that claims to save the money. So here is what has happened, which is that there is a company called Waste Investigation Support and Enforcement.

And there was recently an investigation done by the BBC on this company or WISE, right? And what they do is they work with British, with councils to say, hey, we will take over your entire, like, environmental crimes enforcement divisions, like, for, like, dumping garbage and stuff. And we won't charge you anything, but we will keep the fixed penalty notices for ourselves. We can, yeah, if you give us the authority to like issue fines and we take say half of it, you won't have to spend any money on like bin cops. This is basically like the ANCAP solution.

Yeah, I'll tell you what it's like. It's like the Cosa Nostra solution. It's Barone sanitation. Those are my fucking roots. What I was wondering, what I was wondering is, so Nova, you said this is Bin's conditieri. I think this is Bin's Roman tax collector. Kind of that too. Yeah. I really enjoy it because I think if you look at the kind of like thorough counsel thing

as the top level, right? Where if you want to make money out of a council and you can, you can set yourself up as like a hedge fund and you can just take all of their money. This is the lower level of this, where you just come in and you go, what if we just like garnished your like environmental crimes unit? What if we just did that? And obviously, of course, I am certain, absolutely confident, 100% never been more sure of anything in my life, that they adhere strictly to like ethical business practices. Oh, of course. Yeah, as does Barone Sanitation.

Of course. So, this is from the BBC investigation. Residents of Brockstow and Nottinghamshire have started to receive fixed penalty notices for alleged fly tipping, when in reality, many of them have, for example, just left a bag of waste unattended on their front garden for less than a day. If you put your groceries down for a second to unlock your front door, the one kind of crime enforcement left in Britain, the kind of Swiss Guard of Flytipping, leap out of an armored vehicle and like, flex cuff you instantly. I think it's like incredibly British in that way. You know, and it reminds me a lot of

like speeding, like, you know, sort of like guys who sort of catch cars speeding in the sense of like, it only happened to me once and I did see it because the fucker like was hiding behind the tree. Like it was like, it was so cartoonish and he came out behind a tree and he had his like, one of those things that he's looking out there and he's got his clipboard and it was just like this. I feel like I'm in a cartoon and this sort of feels like what if you did that but for bins, but also all the bin men were hard and if you put your groceries down for a second, they'll like also rob you.

This is the funniest thing is for Britain to be a police state that only has two kinds of police. The Met, which don't really do anything except the bad stuff and bin cops, right? And so what's going to happen? Who do like way too much. Yeah, exactly. So like, you're going to be like in Trafalgar Square with a placard saying like, I support the right to freedom of speech, right? You get tackled by a bunch of Met cops for that and arrested on suspicion of terrorism. And then because your placard has fallen to the ground, you also then get tackled by a bunch of bin cops for flighting.

Fucking vigiles have been at me beans again. Wouldn't have happened under Sulla. Can't she's got other dogs. So other cases include a man in nearby Bramcoat who was asked to pay a thousand pounds because he left a bag of garden waste on a grass verge before loading it into his car to take it to the tip. This is, this is like so funny as well because those people, we're talking about suburban areas, these are natural reform voters, and every reform policy prescription is, yeah, I think these

people should be killed. So I look forward to that, I look forward to the mortars being fired at this guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think this is the only thing that could motivate the British people to violent revolution. You start imposing fines on boomers that relate to their bins, they will arm themselves. They will build their own makeshift firearms. You think the guys in Texas are fucking 3D printing lower receivers? They have got nothing on Dave and Sheshear when some fucking private renter cop starts finding him a grand over how he uses his bin.

That man will go full Shay Guevara. ALICE Seeing a live leak video on a couple of years of Captain Gatso decapitating a bin cop. NICHOLAS I do feel like somewhere up in heaven, France Finau is looking down and smiling. Like, this is just like, the karma for the centuries of imperialism. But it is cool to see Britain begin to transition into a member of the JDPON. ALICE These are our Red Guards! Yeah. I mean, people

can also like the Red Guards, right? They've given themselves uniforms, and they'll just kind of detain you and just start bullying you at random it seems like. TRO Oh, if you go onto the notes that I shared and you scroll down, I have a picture of them. They're all wearing like the Oakley military contractor boots. NARES Why do you need stab vests? Okay, you do need stab vests. Captain Gatso is going to detonate an IED next to your van. GATSO Yeah. Booby-trapped bins. It's going to be like fucking South Armour in the 80s. Just driving into Brockstow, there's a sniper at work sign.

But the other thing is I've actually, I've been reading about this and I would like to talk to someone about it for the show as well, which is there's this concept that's cut, that's like really taken a hold in Britain of predatory municipalities Yeah, right and this will happen like for example There are certain combinations of train tickets you could buy on train line that it will sell you that are cost like four pounds And involve one change in like Manchester, right? The train and the train provider will be like, oh that's actually an illegal combination of tickets Even though you can buy it for this journey. In fact, you were defaulted into buying it. So we're going to

find you 150 pounds. There's no appeal for it. Oh, your rail card was expired by 10 minutes. A guy in a stamp vest who is not a cop has just fined you 15 billion quid. Yeah, exactly. And it's just that in order to, in order to sustain themselves, councils are basically getting a more adversarial relationship with the people who live in them. Yeah, it has to be intimidatory, right? Because that drives the returns. If they make you sign, if they bully you into signing a statement that's like, I agree to pay 15 billion pounds for putting my groceries on the floor, and if I don't pay in a week, it goes up to 20

billion pounds, that's not legally enforceable. But you're not going to go to court against the bins guys? It also, it does feel a bit like the Mitchel and Webb, are we the baddies? sketch. Like, where the two SS guys looking at the skulls on their hats. And it's a bit like, if you work on a train, or you work doing bins stuff and you're wearing a stab vest, you have to ask yourself, what is it about what I'm doing that means I need to wear a stab vest? Like, what is it about this supposedly regular job that I'm doing, which will make supposedly regular people want to stab me to death? And am I therefore the bad

guy? So the other thing is they say, oh, we are using surveillance technology. We're partnering with all these local authorities. We're using AI. Palantir involved. Well, they They used AI to make that fucking picture. Yeah, they used AI to make a true cost of littering broken windows, private policing picture. Broken glass bottle policing. I think it's cool how on the no littering side, which is also strewn with litter, there's

a smart car comprised of two back halves of a smart car parked on the pavement. Not technically littering. Blurry shops. Very strange. I like the fact also that this basically has the politics of like a primary school assembly, where like a teacher just lectures you about how bad littering is for an hour and you're like, what was the point of that? It has the politics of New York in the 1990s under Giuliani. Yeah.

But we privatized it. Yeah, Giuliani's Montessori Academy, who could forget? Also like, why is it worse? Like the true cost of littering is that it's dark outside. Like the other side is a little bit worse. Yeah, it's just, it's mostly similar. It's just, there's also cops on the, on the littering side. And there's a phone box, but not a phone box on the non littering side.

Yeah, it makes it the 90s. They need to learn how to look if you're going to use mid journey, at least learn how to prompt. Yeah. All right. All right. Look, I want to talk about the other thing because we want to talk about Wexit. And then there is no way that I'm I'm going to allow us to miss the final segment I have today because I love a guy. I love it. And I'm interested in him.

So this is going to be a brief second bit of news This is the evil one. Okay, mmm has also been sent to me 1 million times This is the true cost of littering right here. And this is of course the Tony Blair Institute participated in the Trump Riviera Gaza reconstruction quote-unquote reconstruction project Wouldn't you know it? It's very apt for the TBI in that it is like very evil, but also impossible to ever make happen. It takes all the same boxes as ID cards. Yeah. Yeah.

And also Neom. Also, okay, another thing. I think this is just a broad, a broad marker I'm putting down. You can't have an institute named after a guy who's still alive. You can't have the Tony Blair issue when he's still like kicking kicking around like, this is my institute. Well, like you're fucking Monsieur Garnier, the Laboratoire Blair. What is this? You have to be a dead guy to have

an institute. So here's what he said. And this is basically done by the Boston Consulting Group Deniable Activities Division. Black Ops. Yeah. I've got a consultancy challenge coin. Remember, no corporate buzzwords. So it basically is like, everybody is now, everybody involved, Tony, the Tony Blair Institute saying we did nothing to do with this.

They're lying. It's just like five or six different guys who will work for one of the like big four consulting firms trying to do no Russian. But as they get out of the lift, their lanyards get stuck in the door. They realized that they'd sold all the bullets. They're all wearing McKinsey lanyards to try and throw people off the set. It was like Mission Impossible. The secretary denied all knowledge of their involvement. So the Tony Blair Institute they say, oh we didn't author endorse the final slide deck. Two staff

members of the Institute participated in the message groups and calls of the project developed one lengthy document on post where Gaza written by a TBI staff member was shared within the group for consideration, which included the idea of the Gaza Riviera with artificial islands off the coast akin to those in Dubai, blockchain based trade initiatives, a deep water port to tie Gaza into the India Middle East Europe economic corridor and a low tax Elon Musk smart manufacturing zone. Yeah. I wish that they, you know what?

I wish Elon Musk would manufacture a low tax. I do think Elon Musk may be the only man who could blow up more cars and Gaza than the IDF. So the BCG said this work was not a BCG project and BCG categorically told the lead partner not to do the work. It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. Was this fucking James Jesus Angleton that did this?" Doing the church committee on them.

It's fucking James Jesus Bonds. They're outside of MI6 for this one, Bon. It's also, I know that the TVI document here in the note says that the war in Gaza created a once-in-a a century opportunity to rebuild Gaza from first principles as a secure modern prosperous society. If you can think of the TBI as like a kind of institute for not getting over it, right, whether that's ID cards or any of the other stuff that Blair wanted to do in his term, this is some real like 2.33am going back for more Middle Eastern regime change shit, right? Like that's shit. I remember the actual guy, Tony Blair, who's still walking around, as you say, Milo, saying about Iraq.

And I don't know. Well, that turned out fine. Yeah. I don't know if it is a secure, modern, prosperous society. It's quite interesting. And I say interesting in a sort of like, it's not actually as interesting as like, I think it is. But we have like two people, these sort of like two sort of main figures of the sort of Britain's involvement in Iraq, like a Madhaji dossier and everything. And one of them is trying to build like this weird mega-city. And the other one is like a now a successful podcaster who seemingly has like a more left-wing take because of the situation than the guy he was working

for. Well, it's because he didn't actually do any of it. He just did the cons for it, which makes him less complicit, I think. I mean, it's not good. It's incredibly grim. I mean, I'm not sure actually what the conclusion of all this will be with relation to Gaza. Like I don't think any of this will come to fruition. I mean, regardless of the absurdly large amount of death and destroy. Yeah, the attempts, especially the addition of blockchain stuff, it almost feels like

we need to add... The word Reddit doesn't work anymore. I feel like there needs to be a replacement of it with the idea of X or Twitter. This sort of online internet, not like Brain Rot, but like awful copy paste, you know, like science guy culture that's even more directly harmful and evil. It's like if like during the invasion of Iraq, people were doing like epic bacon memes. I think they, I'm just about old enough to think that they may well have been. Yeah. You're talking about Christian Ham magic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I do also note here in the document that, um, that they're going to name a super highway after MBS and then another one after, after MBC, the, the, the like, uh, leader of the UAE. Motorway Bin Salman. I really do think though that like the Tony Blair Institute carrying water for this is sort of more egregious than them carrying water for the Iraq war because like the Iraq war at least notionally wasn't ethnic cleansing. Like it was dumb as fuck but it was like all of the pretenses were like yeah

we're gonna build like a democratic Iraq for the Arabs that live there. Now I don't think any of them really believe that, but this is the reading between the lines. This is fully like, yeah, we're going to build a prosperous Gaza with no Arabs in it because they'll all be dead or at least deported to somewhere else indeterminate. Yeah. And it's like, that's crazy. Even for like British liberals as like, as flawed as they may be to just be going along with that. Like that's even for Tony Blair. That's crazy. Yeah. Well, I mean, the Iraq war, like it started some ethnic cleansing accidentally is the thing because everybody involved wrote down, oh yeah, prosperous Iraq for the Arabs

that live there and then forgot Kurds existed for instance. Right. But like, yeah, explicitly Saddam Hussein never did. That's true. It's like 86 year old Iraqi grandmother being like, listen, say what you like about Saddam. Never forgot the Kurds existed. He was trying to do something about it, but he never forgot. Liv, I think what something you said earlier was like that there is these kind of almost leitmotifs, these memes that come back again and again, like we're going to use blockchain, we're going to have the smart manufacturing zone, low tax zones, these things that just come up again and again. And for me, what they always indicate is we are trying to put a smoke screen around an impossible thing. Yeah, it's just it's all completely fake. None of it's real. None of it would actually be implemented.

It's just like a smoke screen for incredible violence, you know, industrial profit in some sort of way. We're going to take this land and like squeeze it dry for as much money as we can possibly try to get out of it. Yeah, exactly. And they even say like, you know, again, the Boston Consulting Group, oh, sorry, a splinter cell of the Boston Consulting Group. Mark Wahlberg's deniable Boston Consulting Group. Yeah, yeah. The fifth echelon Boston Consulting Group. That meeting would have gone down a little differently if I was there. So, uh, assume 25% would leave voluntarily.

Yeah, they called them the departed. Yeah, well 25% would leave voluntarily and would hand over their property for a blockchain token that would leave them, that would then allow them access to a home at some point in the future. You know, you know those Palestinian families that still have the key to their old house in Jerusalem or whatever, right? Well instead of that, thanks to progress, now we can have the Palestinian family that still has the orb that they got in trade for their old house. They have a link to a dead image.

That they signify they're on a ship. And also, I know this isn't the point, but give them a fucking deed. Give them a fucking government document Why does it have to be a fucking crypto currency? Like it's so stupid Like all of us is like we're gonna do it with AI why can't how will that help the future? Yeah It's it's to try I think it's a lot of these things are to try to Generate a feeling in the reader that things are gonna be fine. It's it's Thank you. Thank you again to the Traumatic Brain Institute.

Very cool. Yeah, it generates a feeling in this reader that Tony Blair should probably be issued with a stab first. So I want to start on talking about Alberta separatism, though, and I want to start on something totally unrelated or seemingly unrelated. This is from a couple of years ago. A prominent member of Take Back Alberta's grassroots organization painted a bleak picture of Alberta's future under the NDP during a small event hosted at the Athabasca Senior

Centre on May 11th. This is the Athabasca Senior Centre fear mongering about the NDP and then this one guy, Mitch Sylvester, who runs a sporting goods store in Bonneyville, Alberta. Yes. Can I just say fear mongering about the future at an old folks home is very funny. It's like they don't care. That's the one thing they don't have to fucking worry about. Yeah.

Told the crowd of 21 people that the NDP would take your guns, take your jobs and take your freedoms unless the UCP and Premier Danielle Smith are re-elected. I love these bits of Canada because they think they're in America. It's very fun to just be like guns. Why are you yelling about guns? Yeah, what's going on? They're going to take away our guns that we have in Canada. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're going to take away my bolt action hunting rifle. Yeah. So of course, and he says, there's no doubt in my mind that the NDP wins this election are going to take away our rights and freedoms. And Sylvester walked through a specific story where he became like, quote unquote,

radicalized, which interlaced with fanciful claims about climate change, the United States, and vaccines. Sylvester told the audience how before the COVID-19 pandemic, which he referred to only as the darkness, he was a man who didn't care about politics, but felt something just wasn't right once the restrictions were enacted. He talked about his journey from attending a two under person meeting right after the lockdown was put in place to starting Lakeland United, a community-focused group that aimed to pull the region together and resist pandemic restrictions. Now as I've been reading about this over and over and over again, the Alberta separatist movement seems to have had its real germ in COVID vaccine protests and the trucker protest.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, every once in a while I feel like a really awful political thing comes out of Alberta and everyone has to deal with it nationally. And then especially the Alberta right just kind of rides that high. This happened with the Reform Party in the 90s, which is, for those who are unaware, basically exactly what Farage is trying to do. Had already been... Farage is just copying the Canadian model. Oh, he thought he was copying America, but actually he was copying Canada. Big, big L for Farage is just copying the Canadian model. Oh, he thought he was copying America, but actually was copying Canada.

Big, big L for Farage. But the center of gravity among Canadian conservatives shifted over to Alberta, basically, and it became an American style of political conservativism. And then a similar thing happened with the Ottawa convoy, which really came out of Alberta. A lot of it was separatism and conspiracy theories. Obviously, this right-wing or this American style of right-wing conservatism that became not just a national thing, but a thing that Americans were paying attention to, which especially for the Canadian right, is the most that they could hope for.

Because all they watch is just Canadian news media or American news media stuff And so if Americans are talking about it means it's actually like important and so they're riding this high of like oh Our insane conspiracy January 6th south politics is like being paid attention to let's do some more with this Let's do what else do we want to do like become independent? I guess well It's because like basically politics specifically in Alberta. And this is so reminiscent of like how mainstream right wing parties try to like manage the populist right and just to get taken over by them that you say, OK, I can only harness popular excitement if I'm willing to be extreme enough to like keep these people on board.

And so, you know, if you're like Daniel Smith, you're like, yeah, maybe Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro's son. And maybe he is going to like if you had a gun, he would take it. We should get away from him. But stay in Canada. I'm just going to do the better negotiating with him. He's going to give you a gun just so we can take it away. Yeah. And genuinely, I've seen this.

I've seen this movie before. You know what I mean? And Daniel Smith is like particularly bad, I think, at managing this. She is really someone who is completely caught up within the kind of inertia. She has no clue on how to handle it at all or alter it in any way. She's just like, I have to be a part of this. I have to situate myself between like kind of mainstream politics that I'm completely beholden to these insane people. And it's very funny. ALICE It's also funny considering how loose a

union Canada is of mining companies. It's a big trench coat, it's an oversized trench coat, and it's really funny to be like, Justin Trudeau has personally assassinated me by implementing some things that really don't impinge on, like, provincial sovereignty that much. So, a really big asymmetrical rico in Strench Co. Say what you will about Canada's mining companies. They really got that shit on. I thought that Jason Kenney was going to be the dumbest Alberta Premier of this century, and yet here's Danielle Smith coming from behind.

Jason, 60 million dollars and the victims of communism. Memorial Kenny. Yeah, I mean, he's had he's had a busy career since winning all of those gold medals in track cycling. I'll say that much. So a couple of years after this, this was in 2023. The Take Back Alberta movement has grown and metastasized. And what, as I understand it, was a relatively fringe political sort of position, which is Alberta should secede from Canada. That has

managed to actually become very popular. Pierre Polyev is now trying to get reelected to parliament in a separatist riding, which is hilarious that he has to put on the cowboy hat and pretend that he is a, this what he is not, which is like a sort of shit kicker. But this is now a referendum issue that is constantly being talked about, which means, I don't know, I think it might be likely to pass. But where did it start? It's interesting.

The Alberta separatism is a thing when you read the history of it, it's kind of confusing. It's like, really? You guys want to leave? Why? And I feel like overwhelmingly the answer does relate to oil. I think that there is like a much older culture with relation to the fact that we're a confederation. And it's funny, you get taught this in schools of like, what if the small provinces get beaten up by the big provinces? There's some sort of older culture of that, but it really does come down to oil

and anxieties with relation to any amount of federal government imposing on our ability to just drill unrelentingly, just completely destroy the environment and get rich based off of it. Which I think generally begins with Trudeau Sr. having some sort of environmental policy. It felt like Asperger, yeah. Yeah. I mean, some sort of environmental policy. But then it's like, oh, we're doing it again with Trudeau Jr. I think there is another because I think one of the bigger surges

actually was when Carney got elected. So when it was clear that the supposed conservative sweep that was supposed to happen in the polls didn't actually happen in the liberals. It was clear they're gonna, you know, govern for the next five or so years. Which is an oddly like ideological thing that just turns down to like Canadian national identity is fake and a lot of it's built around like, well, we're not America. We're kind of liberal. We like multiculturalism a bit more. And then Albertans are like, but we're not liberal and we don't like multiculturalism, so let's become America or let's become independent. It's like two layers, it's like a simulacrum of nationality. Canadians are kind of copying Americans,

and the Albertans are trying to copy Canadians with their national identity. This is all to say that it's completely absurd. It's more absurd than Brexit stuff. The actual material cause driven by this is completely hyperreal. Alberta is a land of both three arts. They're fighting demons. They're fighting ghosts. ALICE Is Alberta real? Did Alberta even happen? ZOE It might not. It might not have. ZOE Check out my new book, Fort McMurray Did Not Occur.

ZOE It's gonna be the first ever drunk driving state. The Israel for drunk driving. Drunk drivers from all over the world can go on like birthright trips to the truly independent Alberta and drive as drunk as they want. Yeah. It's like in that, in the moment where you cross the international line, you can open the beer in the car. It's a rite of passage.

So this guy, Mitch Sylvester, is a major figure, is a figure in the Alberta Prosperity Project, which has just filed a petition for a referendum that looks like it will be posed. It's not there yet. They're still gathering signatures, but I see no reason they wouldn't gather the like 161,000 signatures they need

to ask the very broad question, should Alberta remain a province of Canada, basically? Yeah, and I do think it's not, like I don't think that they're actually going to, ask the very broad question, should Alberta remain a province of Canada? Basically. Yeah. And I, I do think it's not like, I don't think that they're actually going to, if they get a referendum, I don't think it will pass. I think it's polling at like, is it 30 or 40%? I'm not sure what it was. Oh no, I'm having bad flashbacks here, Liv.

I hate to tell you this, but I remember having this conversation in 2016. There's no way it's polling at 30%. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, it all like hinges on how many Turkish people live in Alberta. Right. If they do succeed, we should like get Edmonton and like East West Berlin sort of thing. Yeah. It has to be like air dropped resources.

They have to be air dropped, non alcoholic drinks. If the business is true and you can't get a sick fade anymore in Alberta. That's a Toronto accent. It's a different part of the country. But yeah, that's the thing is, OK, well, it's 30 percent. But what was it like two years ago?

It certainly wasn't 30 percent. It's three guys. It was definitely lower. It's definitely like you get a lot of the kind of American style conservatives being like if we're doing liberalism, like the liberal party for another five years, like it's kind of like what people said, you know, when like it's Trump and then also when Biden got elected initially of like I'm going to leave to Canada. I can't be here.

They're kind of doing that. But like, I mean, I guess the difference is that like those people other than moving didn't really have any way of expressing that dissatisfaction Whereas people in Alberta, I guess they can just vote yes to the That's the thing right there is this thing where the the Daniel Smith or the David Cameron or whoever Keir Starmer even thinks I'll be able to harness this right wing reactionary energy and And then people, when faced with that question, are asked, really the question isn't, do you want Alberta to stay in Canada? The question is, do you want things to remain the same or change? In a very radical way.

And I honestly, I can't see, I don't understand why people who are living in Alberta, exposed to what they're exposed to on a regular basis would choose stay the same in like a year's time. It's the roll the dice thing again, whether that's like labor or reform, right? It's that like, you're not necessarily voting for the actual thing, you're voting to send a message and the message is, I am miserable. Look, David Cameron had a very solid plan. He was like, look everyone, if there's one thing I hate in this life, it's being hoisted.

But hear me out. I've got this huge petard. Yeah. And I'm lighting the touch paper and I don't see how this could possibly go wrong. Well, so if you want to do the David Cameron comparison, David Cameron went to the EU. It's what he said, went to the country and said, I'm going to use this threat of roughly of seceding to go to the EU and secure a better deal. But what Danielle Smith said, speaking Thursday to reporters in Calgary, Smith said Albertans feel deeply frustrated and angry with Ottawa. She cited a separatist candidate who guarded 18% of the vote in a by-election earlier this

week saying, I've never seen such a high level of separatist sentiment. Ottawa can work with me to cause that separatist sentiment to subside. We can materially address the bad laws that have created a negative investment climate here. They make the changes they're requesting I suspect we can take the air out of that movement. I've heard I've seen this movie She's doing the same thing that David Cameron did sales of beer at gas stations are way down and we need to sort that out Yeah, but I don't know if we have a that's got a hurt drop, but we can use it for this

Speaking alongside Danielle Smith was federal internal trade minister, Christian Freeland. That's got a hurt. Ooh boy. That is... Oh. How's the consolation prize tracing you? That's the consolation prize to the consolation prize.

Alberta's going to secede and join Ukraine. And yeah, we have sent you out to go and talk to the woman who thinks, or has to pretend to think that chemtrails are real, about why her province shouldn't secede. Yeah. So I knew you were gonna be Prime Minister. You're not even gonna get to meet Zelensky or do any of the stateswomen stuff. You just have to do this now. You have to meet Albertan Zelensky, I'm afraid. It's weird that Daniel Smith wears the like, polo shirt everywhere, but she's actually

doing that to like, honour Albertans who, you know, are fighting. So, you know. Yeah. And do not ask her why her grandfather was fighting the British during World War II. Anyway. ask her why her grandfather was fighting the British during World War II. Anyway, Christopher Eland doing the like, have you even said thank you once? Have you even said sorry once? So, I've also read the actual document, which talk about it a moment and then it's guy time, which means we're talking about a guy, not like it's guy time. Ladies goodbye.

We're coming off as fine. To be clear, I also have this barometer, which I call the KUK barometer, where there's this real moment of radicalization that the more people who get interviewed who are saying, oh yeah, chemtrails, basically. The more people who get interviewed and say something on the equivalent of chemtrails, the more certain I am that, worried I am even, that the thing that they're for is going to happen. I really hope it doesn't. But the CBC interviewed a guy called Gord Larson, which is one of the most Canadian

names going. And he says- Gord. Yeah. Are you in there? No, G-O-R-D. It's a really popular name for Canadians. Wow.

It's like a Gordon shortens to Gord in Canada. There are so many Gords. Like, I'm not wrong, right Liv? No, yeah. It's very funny. Wow. It's like a Gordon shortens to gourd in Canada. There are so many gourds. Like I'm not wrong, right Liv? No, yeah, it's very funny. Yeah. Yeah. Guy on a plantation in Western Africa. God, there are so many gourds. Yeah. So it says, so this is Gourd Larson. I still had hope for change and was loyal to Canada. In a referendum to separate, I wouldn't have checked the box to leave the country, but that changed. COVID-19 hit hard. I watched my personal rights erode. I was shocked at the pressure I felt to get vaccinated and how I'd be verbally attacked if I refused. COVID coked so many people. Yeah. Yeah. In the most literal sense.

The convoy and the border protests were in our effort to be heard. And I followed the developments from Ottawa closely, checking all my favorite conservative news blogs every morning. I would have been with the trucker convoy if I could have taken the time off my chop. Or if I'd have had a truck. Very revealing. Very revealing of the trucker convoy. Yeah, that those are the people who could spare the time to like drive around.

I do like the idea that the trucker convoy is like Albert and Mao Long March. Like I would have been there. The the long fucking drive, the long doughnut. The great pull forward. Which is the opportunity to vent frustration is another one. Paulette McCullough said she started understanding the case for Alberta to just join the United States. McCullough, 83, moved into a motorhome after her husband's death. And since the pandemic has been driving around shopping plazas around the province, selling

Alberta USA mugs, baseball caps, flags and bumper stickers. Liv, what you said earlier about the Baudrillard province is exactly right, because this is just purely demons of the imagination fighting one another. And it's driven all of these people insane. The shit that Timothy McVeigh was doing before he decided to do some other shit. And that is true, by the way. Yeah. McCullough 83 was really the bit of that paragraph that sent me.

That was when I stopped listening. It's like, oh, just when you're over 80, just the way. Yeah. McCullough 83 was really the bit of that paragraph that sent me. That was when I stopped listening. It's just when you're over 80, just fuck off, man. It doesn't matter what you think. It just doesn't. Like, it's not going to happen in your lifetime. But just go just go like play cards or whatever. Like, why do you give a fuck? And why do you always give a fuck in such a negative way

that's going to fuck everyone else over? Just fuck off, man. Go and eat soft food. Like, why? Yeah. But like so, Liv, I mean, I want to go back to this thing you said about this being like the Baudrillard moment for the Baudrillard province, right? This is every single person that I've read profiled or the Alberta Prosperity Project's documents themselves that I've read and will read from a bit in a moment. Like, this is all just fictional. It's just fiction's about fiction.

Yeah. Like the cultural grammar that these people have to like explain their situation is just purely based on like the most melted, also absurdly incredibly American sort of frame of reference. So I mean I guess that is the conclusion is like we should just become American. Like I'm already watching you know Tucker Carlson or whatever probably more right-wing than that on average. Like why don't we just join that country? Maybe you've convinced me. I think maybe this is gonna happen. Oh, shit. Yeah. If you see the world, if you exist purely via media, right?

And your media diet has gotten so big that you have been basically cooked by the bigness of it. And you just keep taking in information and you just have these frames of reference, this social and cultural language of like COVID conspiracy theories or whatever that you just stick everything to. Of course, what you're going to do is just, you're just going to turn in the direction of who you watch the most on TV. It's so simple. Yeah, I like the idea of like American cultural imperialism, like landing them like a state that has just an insane amount of oil. That's like the idea of American cultural imperialism landing them a state that has just an insane amount of oil. That's the biggest win for American cultural influence, probably, if that happens.

And it'll be a big loss for Alberta because then suddenly drink driving will be illegal again. Yeah, they have a two-year period where they can drink drive legally and then they have to join America. Yeah, it's like the handover of Hong Kong. A treaty will be signed about Albert and drink driving. So Jeff Rath, the co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Pro... Jeff Rath?

Yes, excuse me. Jeff Rath. Sorry, I didn't actually realize his name was funny until I said it. Vignardo, Jeff Rath. Yeah, sorry. Jeff Rath, the co-owner of the, co-runner of the Alberta Prosperity Project said... Very calm man. Alberta can literally become the most prosperous country in the world with the highest GDP

per capita of any country in the world. Speaking at a hotel in downtown Calgary, Rath said, I can't stop laughing when I say his name, said his group's research shows a surplus of between $23 and $46 billion per year, assuming the price of oil stays high enough that it makes tar sand extraction, which is one of the most expensive and energy intensive ways to get oil, economical, or that it doesn't just get tariffs when it gets exported to the United States. That should be fine. Yeah, it should be fine.

Wouldn't worry about it that much. I don't want to anger James Raff. No, absolutely not. Yeah. It's kind of like Al Gore saying the oceans are boiling, he said, referencing comments the former US vice president made several years ago about climate change. Every five years, someone says the end of the world is coming and nobody has come up with an economic alternative to oil and gas.

Alberta will be fine. How do you campaign against that? Especially if you're Danielle Smith, you don't and you can't. Yeah. I mean, the irony is that like the main actual material interest here for Albertans is like, yeah, like the tar sand jobs, you can just right out of like high school, you can go and make a shit ton of money with like fairly low qualifications, relatively speaking at least.

And like they want to keep doing that and they want to do it more. They're like, well, climate change is probably fine, whatever it cares. We want to do that more. We want to turn the knob up, like intensify that. It's like, what if Western Australia sucked? Another place that has a separatist movement that's led by insane people. We'll look at that another time for sure. They have this document where they're like, we assume that we're going to have these big budget surpluses. We assume that we're going

to be able to be like Singapore. We assume that we're going to be able to keep using the Canadian dollar before we transition to an Albertan dollar, which is backed by Bitcoin. Drink driving is so illegal in Singapore. Practically driving is illegal in Singapore. They would hate to be Singapore. Yeah. Well, they say, yeah, we've deliberately said, well, we're going to use AI. We're going to use blockchain. We're going to do in Alberta, in an independent Alberta,

all of the right-wing stuff that, you know, Carney and Trudeau and Trudeau senior and everyone has prevented us from doing. It's going to be like the Canadian Gaza Riviera. Yeah. You mean the author we talked about and left on rants? It's the same thing of like everyone is talking in fantasy terms. Danielle Smith is fantasizing that she's going to be able to get through to these people.

And then these people are fantasizing about what life outside Canada would be and how easy it would be and simple it would be to like continue just extracting oil to sell to like anybody and they're fantasizing about the idea that there's gonna continue to be no problems with taking the oil out of the ground. It is just I just keep going back to this like these are fictions about fictions about fictions about fictions and unfortunately in our entirely like self-referential casino of a political world, I just don't see that failing. That's a winning strategy, unfortunately. Well, you know what?

In a very ominous way, this sounds a lot like Brexit, but in a much less ominous way, it sounds a lot like Scottish independence, which famously failed. So it could go either way. Yeah. And it was based on oil. If you just try and make the woke petro state, that's what guarantees failure. Well, yeah, that's what I mean. It was all predicated on that. Well, we assume oil will be around forever and also that getting out will be

cheap and easy forever and that it won't run out and then no problems. Okay. All right. It's time to talk about Samueli Landi. Samueli Landi. Sometimes unto us, often from the financial times, curious is delivered a guy. More like the financial guys. Yes, it's the financial guys. So and this is what a fella, what a fella this is.

This I'm reading from an article from the Financial Times here, or summarizing a little bit and reading about a well, I'm going to save the ending of the story until the actual end so we can see how it goes. Samuel A. Landy, a telecoms entrepreneur with a sideline in a phone sex operation, turned fraudster, fled the law through Africa and the Middle East, has been an advisor to sheikhs, who eventually landed himself living as a fugitive on a barge, and I quote, with a quixotic

dream of mining bitcoin by solar power on a flotilla held together with giant rubber bands. Awesome. Ideal. Absolutely ideal. It takes so many boxes of ours. Like, Fugitive from the Law, Seasteading, Bitcoin, Italian, like, that's... Porn. Yeah. Giant. It's like, most of the stuff we're interested in. He's literally trying to mine a less equitable society in

a lagoon. Yeah. Italian porn telecoms guy advising Neom Shake is such an amazing business. Like, OK, you're running out of money for the big city. But there is this one local mom who makes five hundred dollars a week from home with a one-week trick.

So Landy, profile of Landy, he's born into a wealthy family in Tuscany in the village of Arezzo. He made his early fortunes with a company called Plugit, which sold dial-up internet with a side hustle and erotic chat rooms, and then had a hobby of doing rally car racing in Africa where he made connections in Liberia. Mark Thatcher coded. Yes, yes indeed.

Marco Thatcher Miglia. In 2004, the company changed its name to Utelia following the acquisition of a rival, with Landy serving as chief executive officer and director, but that was very quickly investigated for fraud. Oh, in Italy. How much fraud do you have to be doing to get investigated for fraud in Italy? Oh my goodness. That's the whole economy. Yeah. So prosecutors said that millions of euros were lost in a Liberian quote, accounting

desert, including for the purchase of a plane. Liberia is also where Utelia ran part of an operation to inflate its telephone traffic. Again, basically like Wirecard did the Wirecard thing. Right. And you know, and this is also just like Wirecard as well. He was in like the porn business, which also is how Wirecard made a lot of its money. Amazing. I also love the idea of this guy just getting a load of people in Liberia placing fake phone calls to make money somehow. There's just something inherently funny about that. Yeah. You've got to make more phone calls. You've got to follow this sex line.

Yeah. So at this point, this is all introduction. The past is prologue. Landy was sentenced to eight years in prison in Italy where he made one last public appearance in 2009 for the express purpose of firing everyone who worked for him and he then disappeared. Awesome. Yeah. Just every interaction you have with this guy seems like you end it by going like, what

the fuck was that? Like a wealthy Roman before death, freeing all of his slaves, announcing to everyone that you don't work for him anymore and then disappearing. If you're going to disappear anyway, why do you need to fire everyone? Yeah. So, I want to share an image of this man in the chat. I just saw a quick preview of the image and it's beautiful. I have to show this.

Is he holding a knife in his mouth? Like a dagger in his mouth? I haven't seen that type of like guy for a long time. It's all M son of the century when you get down to it, isn't it? I was about to say is that an Oakland Raiders hat, but it's just a pirate hat? It's just a pirate hat, yeah. But it's a pirate baseball cap? As though like this is like modern day pirate ship, like Somali pirates wearing like the fucking the pirate baseball cap. Yeah.

Are you fun to give Somali pirates tricorn hats in a bid to make them more historically fitting? Give him a parrot for fuck's sake. EU fund to give Somali pirates tricorn hats in a bid to make them more historically fitting. Give him a parrot for fuck's sake. Basically what he did is he ran away from Italy, fired all of his employees, then promptly took that picture holding a knife in his mouth. Awesome. So what's the deal with the pirate hat as well? I'm so confused. You're going to figure what that we're going to don't worry.

Seasteading is why. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Pirates are a nightmare don't worry. Seasteading is why. Yes. Oh. Yeah, that's right. Pirates are a nightmare if you're a seasteader. Go to the sea. By the summer of 2010, Utelio is officially bankrupt. His call center in Monrovia shut down abruptly.

He dumped all of the computers in a seaside villa. Then he told prosecutors that they were stolen. Sorry, I dumped all the evidence in a crumbling villa and then I guess someone must have stolen it. This is very Emperor Nero coded. By that time, Landy had fled to Dubai and was declared a fugitive by the Italian court system. So he's living in Dubai, which doesn't have extradition with Italy, right? However, in 2018, George Weah, an international football star who played for AC Milan in Italy,

who knows this guy, who knows Landy, becomes president of Liberia around the same time that Dubai is signing an extradition treaty with Italy. So if you know the president of another country and the country you're living in is about to sign an extradition treaty with the country you're a fugitive of the law from, and you have one call to place. What call do you place? Obviously, I'm calling my friend the president to see how he feels about this. Phone sex line. Yeah.

Your one phone call. You've got to think this guy is Italian. I know you're thinking it's not logical to call the phone sex line from the police station, but this man has a culture that he must uphold asking the newly elected president of Liberia what he's wearing You know what you do, you know the call you place the newly elected prime minister president of Liberia Can you please make me a diplomat for Liberia to the United Arab Emirates. Oh, it's Dario item time. Let's go. And the mother...

Item. The motherfucker says yes. To be fair, to be absolutely fair. Italian bash. If one of my friends was elected president of anywhere, that would be my first call. I wouldn't even be in trouble. I would still be like diplomatic passport to Night King. I just want one, I think it would be cool. Yeah, your diplomatic passport which will be like really useful when you go to like the free democratic state of

Alberta. You're changing your passport color by Brexiting. I, Chad, am changing my passport color by becoming honorary consul of somewhere. Yeah. When Liv is president of the People's Republic of Alberta, she will make us all diplomats official representatives. I do like how like this, you know, it's very sort of like 18th, 19th century, like British empire type of deal. There's an author that like I'm struggling to remember, but he like got a job at like a consulate in Egypt just by sort of like asking one of his mates. Like

he just wrote a letter to being like, yeah, I'm sort of bit at like a dead end and I have nothing else to do. Can you just like get me a job at like the Egyptian, like the high commission? And he was like, yeah, sure. Like, here you go. And like, basically he became a diplomat because he asked one of his friends. Dearest Binti, how goes it in the decadent East? And it's what a bother in old Blighty. Yeah. Basically Landy now owes Liberia because they can just revoke his diplomatic immunity at any time and then he'll get ex-traded to Italy and go to Tokyo. You don't want to owe the Liberians.

Like in Lethal Weapon 2? Yes, exactly. He did the plot of Lethal Weapon 2. He's the only guy who can crash into an Emirati in Dubai. So Landy was a lobbyist for the country as a whole, said one diplomat who worked with him. He was in charge of licensing the use of Liberia's flags to ships based around the Middle East and part of the Mediterranean, including Greece and Turkey.

So yeah, if there's like a ship that's like, you know, coming to dock, like loading up a bunch of stuff that comes on a train from, let's say quote unquote Kyrgyzstan, and then it's flagged Liberia, this is the guy you call. I love that he, in order to prevent being imprisoned for one crime, he has a secure diplomatic community from one of the dodgier governments in Africa, I think we can say, and is now in the process of committing another crime. Like a different, and probably more serious crime. Yeah, doubling down.

Love that. Every, it's just like, along with Jan Marcel, this is such a like spy adjacent type of guy we're discovering. And what I'm learning from this is that you can always, this is, if you work in like financial services or even claim to, you can always go off the reservation. You can always just like grab that steering wheel and go hard into I'm going to be a supporting character in a late John LeCarrée novel. This guy has real Il Grindo di Setteo, because he's like, you know,

I have broken a lot of national laws, but now I'm looking to level up and break some international laws. Yeah. I want to be unexpredictable because what I did was illegal everywhere. Yeah. Where do you see yourself in five years time?

Yeah. Like. I like the idea that he's like trying to make water world real. Like Bitcoin, he's trying to destroy the environment and then like when the water rises, he's like ready for it on the raft. Yeah. I see this man. He's drinking his own piss. I say wow.

Waterborne sex world. In 2018, Landy had become the sole shareholder of a company called Liberia Energy Green, a renewable energy distributor. Okay. Liberia known for its green energy initiatives. The following year, because what he would do is he would sell carbon credits in Liberia to Emirati companies based in the Emirates. So Liberia Energy Green existed to trade carbon credits and like basically say,

hey, we're not going to cut down this bit of forest in Liberia if you, so you can continue like extracting this much oil, right? It's so funny for like one scam country, the UAE to be trading scams with another scam country, Liberia. I love that. This is beautiful. It's like a whole economy. So it's a good opportunity.

And yeah, absolutely. The following year, he appeared in a photo taken to confirm that the Abu Dhabi Stakeback Renewable Energy Company would grant four million to Liberia alongside the UAE government. Right. So he proclaimed also his innocence to anyone who would listen, including in an appearance by a video call on a tablet held by a lawyer at a press conference in his hometown's town square in 2019. What's Italian for four seasons total landscaping?

Quattro stagioni. Four cheese. No, quattro stagioni means four seasons. Yeah, but it's the four cheese pizza. No, no, that's quattro formaggi. Quattro formaggi only eats four seasons. Yeah, but it's the four cheese pizza. No, no, that's Quartra Formaggi. Quartra Formaggi landscaping. So I don't feel like a fugitive, he says.

I feel exiled. Few people know it, but even before the... Because you are exiled! You exiled yourself! In the meantime, he announces that he's... This is not from the FT article even. I went to a rezzo local news and translated this. Beautiful.

He says, Utalia never failed and today she has over 70 million euros in liquid cash. He then throws around accusations claiming to have documents that would prove he has 70 million euros in liquid cash, which he then said he was not able to present at this date. You see, when I say the cash is liquid, I mean it in the most literal sense. You see, the cash fell into a blender and then it drained through a grate in the floor. Yeah, so yeah, he's basically like,

I have $70 million, I've been exiled unfairly, everyone hated me because of my awesome company, I'm still living in Dubai, I'm Liberia's Consular General. I'm now involved in five more scams. I'm innocent. So amazing. In 2022, Liberian embassies received orders to review the allocation of diplomatic passports and deny honorary positions to people under criminal investigation. Let you have fun anymore. This is bullshit. You hate to see woke spreading to Liberia. That really is a shame. So basically, Landy, because also like George Weah was no longer president at this time, his friend got like lost in election. And then he was like, hey,

Put him on the victims of communism memorial. So what he does is he flees in the night to a second hand barge where he lives off the coast. A second hand barge? He's a saint! He's a saint! You can- this man has never met a problem he cannot solve by going to sea. Yeah.

He's Jack Aubrey. He's Italian Jack Aubrey. Yeah. Giacomo Albro. So he starts working from there, joking that anyone who was the Liberian consulate would have to swim for it when he shut down the office and fired everyone who worked there. The Liberian consulate, this barge full of sex lines. So they also, he said like, for example, you seem to never bother to negotiate on behalf

of Liberian workers who overstay their visas in Dubai, and you're too afraid of being arrested to go visit the police station to act as a console. You're not doing anything. Just just unmooring my consulates and floating away. Yeah. He asked that he responded to those. OK. You know how he responded to those concerns. It was like, hey, you seem to never do your job. And like you can take and you never interact with any Liberians.

You never talk to the police on our behalf. He responded to that accusation by requesting to be promoted to ambassador from. I want to be ambassador to international. I'm just not being challenged enough. Ambassador and international permanent representative to the sea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically- Like fucking King Canute.

This is, and this is what's coming now, is a no gods, no mayors moment. Specifically, in the episode of no gods, no mayors that's coming out in two days, this relates to, so, Landy's time living on a barge kindled an interest in seasteading. He had helped build a blockchain ledger for the self-proclaimed European micronation of Liberland, a libertarian settlement based on a floodplain island between Croatia and Serbia. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is like something Tobias Funke would do. It's something a guy called Wit Jedlicka would do.

Yeah. And we're going to talk about him. What a name. What a guy. That is coming out soon. so do look out for that. But in 2023, Yedlichka, the guy who like invents this country on a floodplain island, visits Landy's floating embassy off the coast of Dubai. Have we all seen the Phoenician scheme yet? As men of the float, I think we have much to discuss.

The waters were choppy and two fishermen and a yacht salesman all refused to sail Yadlichka there. In the end, he hitched a ride. This guy, how far off the coast is this barge? International waters. Actually? Unbelievable. Literally this guy.

How do you have a barge that far off the coast? Does it have a motor by definition? Surely a barge has to be moored. With Yadlichka, a man like chronically unable to cross large bodies of water, tormented by them, but also, like, the idea that he gets on there and they're gonna negotiate, like, well, we're both libertarian men of equal dampness. You and I have both experienced some brackish water lapping at our ankles, Mr. Bond. M- Ah, I see you've moored yourself somewhere where the age of consent does not apply.

You're a true libertarian. We've both tasted the brackish water of statism. So in the end, he had hitched a ride on the speedboat that kept the barge supplied with fruit and vegetables. Landy's long-term plan was to move to a different and better barge out through the Gulf of Oman and then thousands of miles through the Indian Ocean on a sand bank where you'd use giant rubber bands to tie a network of barges together, creating a floating city that mined Bitcoin through solar power.

To which our boy, Yadleesh, could presumably said, yeah, okay. Yeah, 100%. 100%. For sure, man. I mean, this goes back to like what we're talking about, even about Alberta separatism. These are just two guys telling fictions about fictions to one another. This guy's got like barge madness, clearly. Like he's spent too long on the barge.

Argy bargy. Yeah. Yadlichka, who hoped this would act as a quote backup territory in case of any trouble for Liberland in Europe, said Landy promised to fly the flag of Liberland on his barge. He's had control, sort of, of like a square mile island of like mostly swamp in the middle of the Danube for six months and he's already embarking on like a Middle Eastern colonial program. So the two men talked through the afternoon, high on what Jadlicka called the sex appeal of creating their own government at sea, even considering Dubai to be too statist and tax heavy.

Wait, he's going to start the international babe station, but in international waters. So meanwhile, two crew members were working constantly underwater to weld shut holes in air tanks that a storm earlier in the year had caused. Less definition scheme and more the life aquasic. Yeah. Yadlichka said his goodbyes knowing that Landy had stayed longer than planned on a boat that was becoming increasingly difficult to fix. Great.

So I'm just trying to workshop something about shooting down the international babes. Yeah, I love that this guy's living on a metaphor. That's so fun. Like my sinking boat in the middle of the ocean. So basically, Landy's plans to get various bribes to everybody important by selling carbon sequestration rights in Liberia have foundered, no one takes him seriously, and he's increasingly unable to leave his sinking barge. And surprisingly, the libertarian community does not rush to help him.

In February 2024, a storm whips the coast of Dubai. A body found by coast guards at Um Al Quwain up the coast from Dubai was registered as Landy despite being totally unrecognizable due to missing skin and facial features, according to a person who has seen the initial autopsy report. People close to Landy note that he has faked his own death twice before. So he's dead. Unless. In a lot of things, doing it more than once is generally an indicator

of like honing your honing your technique and like, you know, the commitment to the craft. But I really think when it comes to faking your own death, having done it more than once really implies that you've not done it effectively. Yeah. Well, also after a while, it's just like, you know, you run the risk of people just getting tired of your shit, right? You're just like, you hear him actually dying, like everyone's just groaning just like, oh for fuck's sake. He's, you know.

You have to go to so many funerals. He's doing a bit again. Constantly your own death, like everyone's like, yeah, whatever. Like the one time you really die, everyone's like, yeah, where's he going to pop out of the coffin this time? God, he's going to hang glide in to the wake. It's the shit that James Bond is doing. Like this guy is the closest thing to real James Bond, brackets derogatory I've ever

heard. Giacomo Bondini. Giacomo Bondini, yes. Would have been cool if he did like the Mac everything or he like probably tweets out like I have secrets that will destroy Jeffrey Epstein. I have no intention of killing myself. And the next thing is my bloated body washes ashore. A man with a knife in his mouth is seen running away from the beef.

So the libertarians who followed Landy's seasteading journey, there was a simple explanation for his disappearance, his cavalier attitude to safety and sea. He was so bad at living on the barge, even though he was mostly about living on the barge. Yeah. Now the body was sent for forensic analysis and a DNA test order by the Florence public prosecutor's office says it was Landy's, but like, I actually don't know. This guy seems unkillable to me. I sort of buy that. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, anyway, I was very happy. Sometimes I read an article, right? Not often for this show. Usually when it's about a guy like this, I will start with a smile and my smile will grow as I get through it. And the information that he faked his own death twice was the climax of the smile. Oh, it was so good. I read that in the notes earlier and I was like perfect virtuoso stuff. You love to see it. You do. A true champion. Anyway

anyway I think that's probably all the time we have for today but Liv as ever I want to thank you for coming and hanging out today. Yeah thanks for having me on. And I want to remind everybody that there is a Patreon, you can't subscribe to it. It's allowed, right? You know, these days. If you already subscribe, you can fake your own death and then subscribe again. That's right. Go live in a barge.

I'm looking at our internal demographics and it does seem like we've got one listener from a barge offshore of the United Arab Emirates. He stopped listening in 2024. Must have been something we said. But then a new user, KnifeMouthGuy, logged on somewhere in Central Africa. I was so excited for the Dubai live show, but now there's no reason to do it. And just a thousand compelling reasons not to. Yeah.

I mean, we had that barge rented. It was all coming on with perfect teeth. The first international waters live show. Yeah, we could do it. No, it's we could be hired on the Queen Mary, too, to do an international waters North Atlantic live show. That is that is the sort of the sort of request. Like one person would make in the discord.

Like, what about all of the people who can't travel to any jurisdiction of the international criminal court? You have to think about that when planning a live show. Anyway. All right. Look, Liv, once again, thank you very much for coming on. People should check out QAA where you've got a new series coming out soon. Yeah.

It's called Science in Transition. It's about the history of transphobia and the recent anti-trans backlash. And so that's going to be on QAA. But otherwise... Live shows. Live show. We have one in... Trash Shoot You Live at the Fringe, 31st of July. Also, I'm going to be at the Fringe doing stand-up, 31st of July, 4th of August.

For me, also, Work in Progress in Berlin, 18th of July. We've added an extra show due to demand. And I think Manchester's just been announced on the 22nd of July. Get after that. And my special taping on the 27th of September comes from that. Sentimental. Why not? That is right. All right. All right. Thank you. Thanks everybody. And we'll see you in a couple of days. Bye. Thanks for watching!