DOnt know if anyone has ever listened to podcasts on the Golden State killer aka East area Rapist aka Orginal Night Stalker. It looks like they found him after 50 fuckin years. https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/25/us/golden-state-killer-development/index.html
NY Times ‘Caliphate’ by Rukmini Callimachi Young Canadian Muslim shares his story of being radicalized online, joining ISIS, going to Syria/Iraq, training/working in the caliphate, and in the last episode his first murder. Currently living free in Toronto, starting to cause an uproar as each episode and admissions drop each week.
Been listening to a fictional audio drama called Tumanbay, it’s about a civil war in a fictional world that echoes Arabian culture. Not sure how I feel about it but I don’t hate that I’m listening to it. It’s a Panoply production with the BBC.
Been listening to this. They put out the preview so far ahead I was anxious as fuck waiting on it. I don't know how this dude doesn't get arrested or killed
I’ve been listening to the newest season of Truth & Justice. They’re going in-depth on the West Memphis 3, which is an unsolved case that just fascinates me. Previous seasons they’ve done have uncovered evidence to get 1 person released and possibly a new trial in another case. Hoping this can help solve this case once and for all. They’ve already received some legal battles for what they’re working on this season.
Is he still part of ISIS? If not, you gotta think he's living free because he ratted folks out above him, right?
no. he just left and came home. they try and arrest those people as they enter the country again, but it is a difficult thing to do, especially when you had legit reasons for being abroad like he did
What I’m gathering from reading the Canadian news stories about this, where their “right” leaning politicians are infuriated, the “left” or certain parts of their govt have basically pursued a policy of “reintegrating” these guys back into western society. Their intelligence service knows about him, debriefed/interviewed him, determined he wasn’t a future risk, etc. I read they’re aware of ~60 former ISIS living free in Canada. One hiccup is this particular guy claimed he never killed anyone in his initial interviews, but in this week’s episode goes into detail about his first murder. Sounds like he lied about and diminished his role to come back to Canada. And I definitely see how someone could have bought his initial story where he played down his role/actions. The way he talks and tells his story, you can kind of see how this played out. He comes off as the stereotypical dopey, loner, immigrant kid who probably didn’t fit in with typical white suburbia. Feels ostracized, spends a lot of time playing video games and on the computer. Goes down an Internet rabbit hole while searching for an identity, meets people online who influence and radicalize him by preying in his teenage angst/insecurities, make him feel apart of something, etc. I can almost see how he’s seen by some as a victim of sorts and why some might think he’s capable of reintegrating, but the recent admission to actually killing someone (maybe more) has definitely flipped all that on its ear. There’s a lot of parallels between your typical radicalized Muslim teenager and your alt right, neo fascist, 4chan American - they’re all angry bc they’re not getting laid.
Kind of the flip side of this. I know a super dork of a kid who had friends growing up (my friends) but was always just way too weird to assimilate. He ended up recently flying to the middle East and sneaking over the Syrian bordering to fight with the US funded Kurdish YPG. I thought he might be detained when he tried to come home, as some from his group were, but he wasn't. His picture and stories are insane
Reminds me of that documentary “Point and Shoot”, where Matthew Van Dyke decides to fight in the Libyan revolution... definitely on the autistic spectrum. Think it’s on Netflix.
This dude is on the spectrum for sure. But he was fighting when they took raqqa from isis and that's more nuts than I've got, so good on him. I actually saw him in a Twitter post about it on this board.
I know I’m probably last to the party but I just started listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and it might be my new favorite podcast. Really fun listen.
I've been liking Jeremy Scahill's Intercepted lately A new season of the 30 for 30 podcasts is coming soon too apparently
Big fan of Intercepted since it launched. Have you listened to Mehdi Hasan's sibling podcast Deconstructed?
Just binged through The Butterfly Effect, a 7 part series on the rise of Pornhub and it's downstream ripples. Nothing earth shattering but they told some interesting stories.
Lastest Caliphate episode is bonkers. The 30 for 30 series on Bikram was good too. I like Bikram yoga, but it also is v cultish.
Internal struggle with knowing this dopey fuck isn’t like some terrorist mastermind threat, but conflicting with the fact that he’s perhaps a legit sociopath. I don’t think he was ever a hard liner. I get the impression he used jihad as an excuse to explore his angsty, autistic, narcissistic curiosities. I hope they disappear this guy.
I’m trying to find where the WM3 season started. It looks like episode 517. Does that sound right? About mid March?
Been listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast recently. I really appreciate their insights into the current events with Iran and N. Korea from a non-proliferation point of view.
In The Dark's second season is really, really good. Just released Ep. 6 this week. This season is on the case of Curtis Flowers, a man who has been tried 6 times for the same crime. Season one dealt with the abduction of Jacob Wetterling. High quality true crime investigative reporting. https://www.apmreports.org/in-the-dark Gizmodo debuted a new podcast called 'The Gateway', investigating a social media celeb/spiritual guru named Teal Swan and the accusations that she's essentially a cult leader that has lead at least one of her followers to commit suicide. There's only the one episode so far, but I'm hooked. https://gizmodo.com/weve-launched-an-investigative-podcast-about-a-controve-1826416613 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Teal_Swan
I enjoyed this as well. I said it earlier but I’ve been downloading earlier episodes of Wait Wait Dont Tell Me, and I’m really enjoying it, it’s a fun weekly easy listen.
I added a couple of new podcasts this week: "Covert" is pretty bad-ass. A close look at behind the scenes on covert missions. First three episodes deal with the operation to kill Bin Laden. "The Wonderland Murders" is basically Boogie Nights in podcast story form. Pretty good. "The RFK Tapes" from Gimlet is a look into the idea that Robert F. Kennedy's murder was actually a government conspiracy. I don;t buy it, but listening to the old tapes is interesting.
If you like covert, The Looming Tower is a book you might enjoy, or a book on tape worth listening to. Michael Scheuer is a self righteous piece of shit who likely cost American lives by holding back intelligence from the FBI and creating a culture encouraging others to do the same.
Added all 3. Haven't listened to Covert yet. Started RFK tapes, and it's interesting enough, so I'll keep listening until I'm not interested. The Wonderland Murders is incredible. Strongly recommend to anyone interested in the subject. I keep picturing the Val Kilmer portrayal of John Holmes while listening to this. So I hadn't heard of History on Fire until recently, but it has almost 2,000 reviews and is 5 stars on iTunes. I'm pretty excited to give it a try. Most of the reviewers compare him to Dan Carlin, which is always high praise. Anyone subscribe to that? Finally, when I searched for it, these are the 4 that came up, and I now have to at least try all 4 of them.
It’s the first one. I love that podcast. He sounds like Father Guido Sarducci, but if you can get past that the content is amazing. The Teddy Roosevelt and Caravaggio episodes are my favorites.
It always takes me too long to adjust to his accent. It's hard to pick up at times. This current series on the 90s Rome crime boss was good though.
Enjoyed it as well, the book goes into much more detail into essentially what gave rise to Islamic extremism, probably 1/2 or 2/3 of the book are dedicated to that with the other portion detailing intelligence failures that led to 9-11.
He's not even close to Carlin. It's very different. He does interesting topics but is a really mediocre narrator imo. Don't get too high of hopes, but it's still a decent listen