The International Battle for Crustacean Supremacy | The Lobster War

02-06-24

Episode Transcription

Made by robots for robots. Only read if you’re werid.

I'll say it again. No, nothing right worse than consensual Fox News or Kleb anyways. Have you ever heard non consensual k love? Have I heard of what the lobster war? No? But I wanted to be Okay, here's the thing about doing social media brand deals. Okay, when does this episode come out? This will come out? Hold on, let me check our reference. February sixth, perfect, So no, super Bowl Sunday's the next Yeah, super Bowlunday's coming up this week. Yeah. Well, I hope this hoodie makes sense by then. It won't. It won't. I mean, if you listen to a conspiracy theory, then it doesn't. Have you seen that? No? Let me tell my here. It's just like, so, brands come to me and they go, Jane, we like your creative, funny videos. Will you make one for us? And I go yeah, and they oh, great, give us some ideas, and I give them top tier best idea you know exactly what I'm talking about. I talk to your best ideas and they all go, what about something boring? What about something totally different? And I actually sucks Yeah, and I go okay, and I make it and they go, can we make it a little worse go okay, and then and then they look at me when it gets twelve likes and I'm like, I'm telling you my idea. So, for example, I did one for a waffle company and I don't know, I'm not going to name which one, you know, to protect their ego. And uh so I said, so, I said, I said, guys, it was March. And I was like, what if we did a get Ready with me as a person with lobster hands for Saint Patrick's Day, the one day a year where I get to pinch people? And that's the funniest idea I've had. And they went, yeah, garbage. Oh man, So yeah, your idea was better. You had a couple other better ideas. I've had a lot of pretty good I like the toaster colony. Yeah, yeah, I did want a civilization that lives inside of a toaster. And then every day the waffle gets lowered down. But to them it's the sun, and so it comes down and they go, and then it pops up and leaves and they go and they do all their rituals to get to the water. Yeah, and they're trying to get the thing to come back, and every morning it comes back. And they go, ah, they think that they're doing. It's a lot like the story of humanity and uh now the illusion of control. There was so much deeper meaning to it. And then Ego was like, I mean sorry, Ego was like, it would sell waffles. We don't want to get into the philossal philosophy full waffle coal conversation philosophical anyway. Lobster war, Yeah, well, I gotta tell you that's conspiracy theory because now we're talking about the Super Bowl. Is lobster war like storage wars where instead of opening a storage container and people go oh yeah, yeah, seven hundred many bucks, it's just the fish tank and Red Lobster and they unveil it. You can see you can kind of see how many lobsters are in it. They cover it back up and then you bid. You have to bid for them. Yeah, but it's it's it's a one once in a year festival at Red Lobster. You have to eat as many lobsters as you pie. But you don't know because you, like you said, you don't know how many is in there. It's a split second you bid. Oh that's interesting. You don't know how many lobsters are in there. You just got to decide based on the two seconds that you've seen the case. Yeah, and you bid, you bid if you're right, and you go. If you can eat it, you get all the money that you bid. If you can't, you have to let the remaining ones loose on your body. So they're cooking, they take they take those little rubber bands off and they just let them go to town on you, like like it's Saint Patrick's Day. You see how it works. You see how it's the same songs rolling right nowame songs going right now. Garments trying to take the milk away. And that's the whole day. Oh you drink milk, don't you. Nothing has the same texture as that sweet milk. And that's the thing. That's the thing. The waters contaminating. They're contaminating the water with the flooride, lobsters and milk. Think about it. Things I learned last night looking Sat Patrick's Day, prepared to get pinched the lobster's revenge. This is such a good idea. We've got to pinch it to them, all right, We got to pinch for you mean pitch. Anyways, let me tell you about the super Bowl. Okay, So we'll see if this is legit when this comes out. So there's the theory going around right now, which by now most of our listeners have probably heard of it. You haven't, but by the time you're listening to this back you have because I'm now well, I mean, is it that the fix is in for the Chiefs to win? No? Okay, So there's the idea that it's the that it's all scripted. Right. There's allegedly proof because the last two years the Super Bowl logo has been as followed. So the color scheme shows you the two teams that are in it, and the one on the bottom is the winner. And so two years ago you had the Bengals and the Rams. The Rams won it. Is this based off of two Super Bowl logos? Yeah, that's stupid. You had the Eagles. Guys, what you're doing is it gets better, hold on it gets. The last year you had the Eagles on the Chiefs, the Chiefs on the bottom. The Chiefs won it. This year there's the forty nine Ers and the Ravens, and honestly their kind of favorites to be in the Super Bowl this year. They look like they both got the first round buying playoffs, and we haven't seen any playoff at the point of us recording this. It could be the Chiefs and Ravens, though it could be some people have mentioned No, no, I can't say the Chiefs. They could be them in the championship, but it could be the Chiefs and you're just trying to find away could eat the Chiefs. You know what sucks though? What losing the Super Bowl is definitely worse than just not making it to the super Bowl. Because the year that we didn't make it, that the Bengals beat us and they went, yeah, that was fine. I just didn't watch super Bowls like whatever. Okay, but the year that we got humiliated in Tampa Bay, that really sucked. All right, Yeah, that was like when year Beyers played the Chiefs. This year, Okay, they humiliated. We don't need to talk about the Lobsters lose on them. I'll tell you. Let's talk with the lobstraw war picture this. I didn't want to talk about that anymore. Sixty one. Wait, hold on, let's pause. Hold up your stupid arm right now, you knew exactly which one I was talking about. Let the camera see what is on your wrist? Are you the dumbest person I've ever met in my life. Are you talking about my Apple Watch? Yes? Yeah, You've four years worn a Cassio little gold watch. Yes, and then you went on Amazon and bought an eight dollars ninety nine cent gold band for my Apple Watch. Yeah. Absolutely, because it's a good look. It looks good. If you liked this giving me a thumbs up in the comments, my goal of what how this got your movement goal looked darm once. That's my movement. Sorry, I just looked at I saw that, and that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. When well, I have a brand, I've gotta I've gotta stick to it. It's the gold casing around it. I think I'd like it better if it was just you know, I thought I was gonna hate this gold casing, but then I put it on and I was like, I like it. So, okay, here we are cool. Thanks Alex. All Right. Slobster Awards nineteen sixty one. Okay, France is on the tail end of what we call France's successful era, and by tail end it's over. They're not successful anymore. How long was there successful? I don't know, pretty much until America came all around it and took it. But France, France and colonialism too, you know that. And they did this in all of the world, particularly in Africa, and in the early sixties, a lot of African states were like vying for their independence, and France was also trying to be like progressive, okay, and so they were like, yeah, we're going to give out some independence. But they ran into a problem pretty quickly because they didn't like when people were independent. They were a big fan of all of the they we're going to give you independence. Oh shoot, we do not like that. Oh no, we still want control over you. We still want control. But you're independent. It's like it's like it's like you wanted to be independent, but not too independent. It's like you built like a catwalk on top of the fence and you're like, you get a little bit of independence. Yeah, yea yeah, yeah, but not too much, not too much independence. Yeah, that's exactly right. So this obviously there was a lot of uh cons for France and allowing these countries to have independence, primarily in the world of capitalism, right and the and they lose like all their all the places that they were exploiting right, and one of the main ones was Mauritania. Off the coast of Mauritania, there was a I don't know what the scientific term is for this, but like a giant lobster hive. I don't like the strong eye contact you just made with me as you went. I don't know the scientific word for this, but that's just a giant lobster hive. Geez. They are like animal, is a flock? I don't know. I don't know what a group of is it a flash lob A group of lobsters is called a pod. I like hive. They they seem insect like, so we can call it a hive. Specifically, specifically, what they were gathering here was spiny lobsters. Have you ever seen a spiny lobster? Spiny lobsters are like a braid of lobster that are obviously spiny, spidy, spiny, spiny. They got spines like little pointies, but they're huge. And take a look at this they, oh, my god, gigantic lobster. So how many of those do you think you could eat? I mean, it depends how quickly I have to look at them, and it depends how much money I bet okay, that was a quick look eight of them easy. Here's another shot of spiny lobsters. They're just ginormous. So obviously do people eat them? Is that what we catch before people eat them? Yeah? Is that? What? Is that? What? Like? First of all, I loved those two guys in the Tiger King documentary, But is this what rich people are eating? And then we all go to red lobster and eat the little the mini lobster? And then do you think there's some people out there who are cracking open crawfish and being like, oh, this is what lobster fake rich? Is that what I'm saying? Yeah, we might be eating crawfish and that's what they're the rich. That's big, that's feeling. That's the size of this table. Like, that's bigger than this table. Those are bigger than the table. Yeah that But it was so this lobster hive was a valuable, valuable hive of lobster. And there were big, big, big lobsters, big big, big big lobster and there's lots and lots of the problem was because they gave Martinia their independence, they couldn't just start ripping all the lobsters out of their seas that they were ripping out of the seas. Now they're Martinia's lobsters. And they had to go through a whole process and get licenses and approvals and you know, like that sounds a lot harder than just nukenem do it all legally by the book, you know, like and doing that it's no fun, especially if you, like you're fresh off your colonial period. So we used to. Yeah, So they started looking around the world and they said, who can we trick? And so they started doing surveys to figure out where these other spiny lobster hives were. They found another large spiny lobster hive off the coast of Brazil, So we can trick Brazil. Yeah, so they called it Brazil, and they said, hey, Brazil, here's the thing. We're very interested in spiny lobsters. It's like an obsession we have, Like we're we're very, very interested, and you guys have a very large number of hive of spiny lobsters. Would you be cool if we sent four boats over there and researched the spiny lobsters And they were like sure, we don't really care, Like fine, and so they sent over for research, and they took it, kidnapped them, and they sent over not for research boats, but a few dozen fishing boats, and they started throwing the seas and just pulling up all their lobsters. And Brazil noticed this and they said, this doesn't seem like research, and this seems like robbery. And France was like, oh, no, I don't worry, it's research. We're just really it seems like a hive of robsters, robsters. This is like ive wave robbery, ive way lobbery. Okay. So Brazil is like, oh, they're fishing, and they're like. Someone goes back to the president of Brazil and goes, Sir, our enemies are fishing, and he's like, shut it down, send out the battleships. What do you do? So you try to stop them before they leave so they can came over. They sent some ships out to kind of monitor them and see, like does it look like these people are researching? And they noted that the people on board this ship did not look smart enough glass. Yeah, they don't have lab lab clothes. There's no lab clothes, there's no yeah, there's no intel, nobody's reading. It's sure these cannot be uh research, and they're they're clearly fishing, right, So they right back to France and they say, hey, we've got some questions like this seems a little like fishing, not like research. So France France is like, yeah, we've gotta we gotta get them out of the water. Research. Yeah, and we got to take them back to the lab and sometimes we have to eat them and sell them to red lobster locations around the planet. But like for research, but how else are we going to study them if we are not eating them? That your your body is the best scientist. Hey, it's me again. Thanks for being here for this episode. If you like what we're doing, it does cost us money to do this, and so just think about that, you know. That's it. I'm kidding. No, we have Patreon supporters and it really helps us to make this show possible. Honestly, we're so grateful for everyone who listens to the show. But there's people who want to make more of it happen, and so they financial support the show and then you get a lot back for it. You get our private discord where we chat every day. We're hanging out and just getting to bond and hang out. We also do live zoom hangouts for a Patreon supporters, you get exclusive merch. It's a good time. There's a lot in it for you, and and it's a lot in it for us because we get to know you better. You know, you're not just a number and a stat board or whatever, but you know you're our friends and we appreciate you a lot. So consider doing that. If not, then you can listen to this dumb little ad because that's how we're gonna get money from you. We're gonna leach from you either way, we're gonna get paid. We're in this for the cold hard cash, babe. Anyway, here's an ad. How do they how do they get it? Though? I realized I forgot to put a CTA in mind. Oh day, Yeah, they can text Tillan to six six eight sixty six, thanks Jared. They run them back and they say, hey, I don't know if we're cool with this, Like, okay, whatever you guys were doing, like research cool, but taking all the look at them. Yeah, it's cool if you look at them, And it's cool if there's only a few boats, but the amount of boat that you sent and the amount of lobster that you're taking out of our seas. I don't know if we're cool with that. And also the fact that you're doing that kind of makes us think we should be doing that. And they're like, we shouldn't be taking all the lobster right and we should be selling them to red lobsters around the country. Why are you doing it? So they begin this kind of dispute and France is like, well, you told us we could, and Brazil's like, oh, we did, we didn't. We told you you could do something you weren't doing. And so this launched a like four a year long dispute that has been dubbed the lobster wars uh and it is, honestly, it's the closest thing to the Cold War. That's not the Cold War where they're like, we're gonna nuke you if you don't stop stealing our lobsters. That's it for the rest of the planet. We're blowing up the entire planet. Well, France had a couple of nukes, Brazil didn't have any at the time. Okay, so they started developing could have done it. Yeah, Brazil started They started developing lukes, which were just bombs that were just a ton of lobsters, and they were like, no, no, no, no, that's what they want. They want us to them, they want more lobsters. Bad idea, bad idea, and find someone with glasses. They're smart, fight someone with the glasses put on the boat and that they believe we're doing research. So so this they are constantly having these conventions where they're having these big arguments between their diplomats trying to decide who's right, who gets the right to this these lobsters. Because this is before the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, which if you don't know what that means, it was a convention that established the laws on the series because no, yeah, in the in the seventies, the United Nations established the Law of the Sea, which created the territorial territorial seas and the contiguous zone around uh any country, as well as their commerce and conservation zones. So it was like, if you have a border that is near the ocean, there is a border out in the ocean X distance from from your sea near beaches that your that is yours, and you get to decide what happens in those seas, and that's any commerce, fishing, oil, whatever, industry happens, that's your decision. Sure other countries aren't allowed to be a part of that. That's part of what's becoming such a big issue in China right now because China's trying to act like their waters are way more than they are because they're claiming a bunch of territorial lands outside of their uh their borders that are contested. So for example, like Taiwan, they're saying, that's our country, so we get all these waters here, and everyone's like, that's not your country, so you don't get those waters, and they're like, yes, we do, and everyone's like, no, you don't. And then they're like, look at our warships and then everyone's like, you can be here for a little bit. So that's what's happening with that, but please don't luke us, Please don't luke us. And so it establishes what water are, what waters are, who's what they're whose economic zone, and then what waters are just like public waters where anybody can do anything, which there's not a lot of anybody. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, there's not a lot of these people on the cruise ships love to act like international water just do whatever they want. Yeah, I mean it does, right, They joke I could kill someone, kill you if I want to do. And you're like, hey, just you saying that, Yeah, you're gonna meet some lobsters. We're gonna do they like have like scanners when you get on. I think you're about to do they have a plank And I was gonna say, yes, yes we do. Of course they have a plank every cruise, every ship, cruise, just Carnival cruise. Carnival's got a plank and they use it. What are you about to ask? Oh, do they have scanners when you get on on a cruise ship? Like do they like like the airport, do you get scanned? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, they have security. And then lobsters aren't metal full of lobster back to like I mean, like I flew today with a lobster in my backpack. I have three carry ons all full of lobster. I've got two hundred lobsters in my bag. They're pretty I think they're graffee bro those are gruffish. No, these are loss No, they have security. Actually, when I first stepped on my first boat that I went on, I immediately saw someone get arrested. So I was like, all right, Carnival cruise, let's go international war. It's like, no, no, you're still in Galveston, Texas right now. Maybe calm the heck down. This is Galvestone, but now you're on the boat. Carnival has stripper laws than Galveston, Texas, is likely, honestly, yeah, I wasn't saying a joking way. So they're having these big disputes over the lobster, who gets the rights to the lobster, and it devolves into pretty close to an actual war. There was a couple of incidents and throughout this, uh, this whole Cold War where there was some escalations. So sure, for example, Brazil kept being like, no, you can't do that, No, you can't do that, No, you can't do that. And France one day was like, what if we send a warship with all of our our fishing boats, And so they sent a warship with the fishing boats to just kind of be there, which is a very Yeah, it's kind of like a hey, it's like, hey, war might happen. Yeah, it's like, hey, do you really think that we should take your lobster? That's a that's a that's bringing a gun to a lobster fight. Yeah, well it's bringing a gunship to a lobster fight. That's an it's bringing a warship to a lobster fight. And then the Brazil sent back a letter and was like that was pretty not cool of you. We wish you didn't do that, and we get the message also letters, Hey, that was very uncool of you to do that. Next time, please leave your warship at home. My mom says, if you bring a warship out, I can't come over anymore. We can't do this anymore. So then the next time brazilsan's a full fleet, and so they got a warship, battleships, Brazil aircraft character Oh no, sorry France. France brings a whole fleet. France is like, we didn't like your letter. Yeah, its was like, hey, we saw your letter and we thought, what if we brought the Italian mob? Is this they're just trying to like scare tact take them away from it. So Brazil was like, okay, we see what you're doing. And Brazil says, let's get our navy together. Here's the thing, Brazil at this time doesn't have a great navy. They've pretty much just got a bunch of ships that they bought off the United States when World War Two ended, and they're like, hey, a bunch of your ships are broken, what if we could use that? And the United States ships like France shows up, they're like gigantic navy, right, yeah, here kind of these people. Half of them are sinking as they're They're like, we're here going for you. No, it's a warship, submarine, it's platforms. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. So they had their fleet. They started to get their fleet together, and they realized this is the first time they ever really got to use this fleet that they brought up the US. Sure, and they were like this before they accidentally start a real war. Yeah, it was actually really serious. Shot their own boats. A long story short. They got in there and they realized that only one of their corvettes actually like was working. They had a few destroyers and things like that, but all of it was like it needed a lot of work before it would be Yeah, the one corvette that actually worked. They realized only one of the guns actually worked too, So they were like, this isn't great, but if we roll this out there, maybe we at least look like hey, we're serious, and so they they drove their corvette out there and France was like, that was cute, and so France starts doing like training exercises. So they're out there like firing guns and doing like full training exercises, trying to look like, oh, hey we're tough. And so Brazil, Brazil needs this and says, hey, we should show them that we don't care about their guns and stuff. And so what they did, Wait, what we don't care about they're guns and stuff, Like, uh, what are you talking about. So on the twenty first of February in nineteen sixty one, Okayu, there was a a T fifty three class destroyer from the French Navy doing one of these exercises and the Brazilian Brazilian Navy said, hey, we're gonna just do a bunch of short flyovers of them while they do these, and so that's what they did. This is an actual photograph from the event. And they just kept flying by, just being like just being like, hey, we don't care. You got your gut, but we got a plane. And it was literally just then these guys like just getting as close as they could to fighting without actually this whole time. The lobsters are in the one. The lobsters are a lot like when your parents got divorced and you're just in the middle and your dad's flying planes over your dad's like I don't care, and your mom's bringing home different boyfriends to be like, and it's just Brian. We work at McDonald's together, right, And like you're like, I don't care about Brian, right, but really your dad really cares about Brian much that he hits Brian with his ford. Two weeks later, your dad serves a couple of years in jail for attempted murder. Okay, it's a lot like what's going on all right, And here the poor lobster's artists being like somebody loveless, I'm sorry it was you know, and they grew up thinking it was all their fault and that's why lobster doesn't taste good anymore. Yeah, and then a net get to them and a thousand and that's you know, there's there brings them up. Whatever. It's like free range, free range versus cage. Yeah, lobster lobster, and they're just in the cotton the middle man. Yeah, so this guy like pretty divisive and pretty, you know, but it is always a cold war. We'll get their planes from I don't know. Actually, I'm assuming they bought it from somebody else, or maybe they built it themselves, who know who knows how they they just had planes that were flying like, yeah, I mean that looks that looks like an American plane. I might assume they bought it from from America ASTUS, sure from World War two? Like that looks like a World War two or American plane, but that could be wrong. Was like, we don't care. So does that have two engines on one wing and one on the other. No, the other one was just hidden by the cockpit. Anyways, so they I know a lot about planes. Yeah, how's that license coming? So they are you gonna get it? Now? I'm gonna hit you with my Ford Ranger. It's okay, I'll start doing some military locket with your freaking gold watch chain. Yeah this is kevlar, sure, so hey, go ahead. They eat a lot of ads for milk lately. Are you are you getting a lot of ads from milk? It seems like, bro, every podcast I listened to and not the not the not like host Reds, I'm saying, like the Dynamic Ads Spotify podcast app. It's just milk, milk, airport milk, like regular milk, like like got milk milk. The dairy industry has come on there. Well, there's been some Spotify swung their gigantic utter onto the table and they said, we're buying some podcast as this year, prosthetic utter. Everyone. Everybody, Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you like this, We've got a lot of great ones. Let me recommend a recent one, hitchpot Uh. Basically, some Canadian scientists said, what if we made a robot that hitchhiked across the country. You think it could make it? Spoiler alert, it's a fun episode. I like it a lot. Uh, you need to check it out. One of my favorite recent jokes is in there, so check that one out. But if not, thanks for being here. Honestly, that's interesting because I mean, there has been some bad press on the dairy industry. Fail is fighting hard. They might be coming act like there was that there was that documentary about it. That guy's a whole documentary on milk. Oh yeah yeah, yeah, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in a loving marriage and I have a life and friends and stuff. About how much the like dairy industry just like took a stranglehold of us in the nineties and was like, drink milk and then but you don't. You don't need a drink at all. Oh, and I'll tell you dairy pads, wait a second cycle, pads, Drink glasses of milk, milk and your cereal normal, normal, okay milk, A glass of milk with breakfast up until hold on, chocolate milk, chocolate milk, normal, sick okay, chocolate milk, freaking sick bro great straw milk, sick bro froth milk with a little shot of espresso, good bro. If somebody pours, yeah, a eight ounce glass of milk from the refrigerator, yeah, into a glass, yeah, and then they just, yeah, they just drink that or aw, that person is a communist. It's pretty insane. That's pretty insane. Can I tell you something please. I did that until I was like twenty, and I'm not even kidding. Every single meal didn't matter what it was, steak, tacos, ohd on, you're every meal you had milk. I had a glass of milk with every single meal until I was like twenty. And then when I was twenty something just clicked and I was like, this is pretty weird, and so I stopped. And I also thought I something changed to me too, where I was like, I was like, oh, this is kind of gross. Also like it's it's not tasting good. But I did it with every single Evangel. I didn't do it at Evangel No, because at Evangel this is gonna you're gonna hate this even more. At Evangel they only had two percent milk. I was a whole milk guy, and so when I got to Evangel, I was like, I can't do the two percent milk, and so I stopped doing it at Evangel And I think that's how I grew out of it, because I justind of like stop. I'm just saying, if I ever saw you drink a glass of milk, we would not be here right now, you know what I'm saying. So I know you didn't do it an Evangel. If I ever caught you, if I ever caught you drinking a glass of milk with a steak dinner, what are you gonna go out to Rye on the Plaza and be like, yeah, I want the sirloin? Can I get medium rare? So? Can I get a glass of milk shot in the face everyone. I like, every once in a while at home, Like I'll go pour myself a glass, and I'll go out to like the shed, and I'll drink it in the show with the lights off. Yeah, you're just among all the bodies of the people you killed. Like, I can't anyone serial killers. I'll go out to my shed and drink a glass of milk and I put it in one of those koozies that makes it look like it's a beer and walk across my yard and then I take the koozy up and I'm like, oh God, milk. Until sixteen sixty six, this has been going on for years, constant debates. There wasn't a ready for this, okay. The Administrative Tribal of Renee summarized the French government's claims on lobsters, okay, and their point was this is serious. This is a legal document produced by the French government. They said, because when a lobster moves along the seafloor, it jumps and squiggles its legs, it's swimming. That makes it a fish, which means it's protected by Fishermen's Act and we can fish it no matter what waters we're fishing in. And so when Brazil's navy expert on marine life, his name was Admiral Paulo Marieira de Silva, pretty good on that. No, you didn't go ahead, he said, and this is a quote from him, he said, by saying, now, the slimy, slimy ocean floor creatures, he said, I can't have them, he said, he said, by that analogy, can't have our ocean rats. He said, by that analogy, a kangaroo must be a bird because it jumps along the ground. Hey freaking get them give him? And so, uh, that disagreement right there was where a third party, I don't know who that was, judge, judy or something was ruled fail a jury of our enemies, of our enemies. No, they ruled in favorite Brazil and they said, yeah, I mean us pretty sick like you got him with that bro. And so they ruled that Brazil has the rights to the lobsters in their waters and France does not. And so they kind of kicked France out. And what was the documentary about milk called milk money, because they missed a big opportunity if they didn't call it that, you know, I'm pretty sure it is like a play on the got milk thing. Dear Dairy, Dear Dairy, Dear Dairy, the dairy diaries, dear dear dairy. Is the last time I ever write her. You heard that song? No, it's a song about a guy who like kidnaps him and thrust in drunk milk. Okay, yeah, thems coming from milk drinkers. Don't let them milk for yours. Take your milk, honestly. Honestly, if Big Dairy wants to get people drinking milk milk again, they need to get it. They need to make it a culture war. Yeah, that the government is trying to take your trying to ruin farms. What you can do it right now? I posted I posted that video uh today actually from Edward Burnets where he did that with the cigarette people. It's the same, That's what I'm saying. Let's do the video, right. I mean, like, the government doesn't want you to drink milk because they want farms to die. That's the whole thing. Wait, hold on, you're saying the government wants the government wants us all to be dependent on them, right, So they're trying to slowly kill out farms. That's why there, that's why they were like, oh, milk's bad for you, like I mean, like you know, except for all through the nineteen hundreds, we were like, oh yeah, calcium and all the benefits of you. I remember the milk. Yeah yeah, dude. Obama specifically Obama. Do you remember when they did disorder machines out of schools. They were like, dude, no more milk, no more milk, open change, Nope, they want you dependent on them. So what you're telling me is they're trying to take our milk. Yeah, and we need to come together as a people to say you can't take my milk. Yeah, I'm gonna drink milk. You can't see I'm a milkman. I'm a milkman. Okay, milk man. I'm a milkman. Call milky. Nancy Pelosi has been caught and killing dairy cows all across the country. Okay, you're gonna let her take your milk? Are you gonna let her do that? Don't? Are you gonna let her take your milk? Are you protect your milk? Milk? They're not come and take it. Don't take it, Come and milk it. Don't let her milk. You protect your milk. Don't let Nancy Pelosi take your milk. Barack Obama wants to be a quick drinking milk. You do one more, just a little bit more passionate, like do your Alex Jones like be like like. The government's trying to take trying to take the milk away, and that's the whole day. They want you to close your eyes and start drinking water. All right, But here's the thing. Nothing has the same texture as that sweet milk. That's the thing. That's the thing. The waters contaminating. They're contaminating the water with the floor ride. But there's no fluoride in milk. Lobsters live on milk. Think about it. Think about it. Just think about it. I mean, I mean, when you really look at it. Sure, I owe those families that I lied about three hundred and sixty million dollars right now. Okay, Yeah, I lied about a couple of families. But I'm telling you the truth now. Okay, So what people people could lie, People could tell the truth that you could do the bowlt Are you doing a Ben Shapiro right now? Is that what you do? You're talking super fast man. You can really tell who we like anyway, the government's trying to get you quit drinking milk. Where were we so that we're at the Administrative Tribune all the right where they were, and someone has decided that Brazil was right. Yeah, Judge Judy said, Brazil, you get to care not fish hive. Yeah, they're definitely not fish. We don't really know what they are, but they're not fish. Seavern they're definitely not fish. And so as a result of this, there was a lot of they are one of the most alien looking things we've got though. Yeah. They I mean pretty much anything that far under water if you get deep enough, you go to the deep end. Anybody, if you know what I'm saying, any anything that swims below six feet deep, pretty six feet, including the people at your neighborhood. You know how how big six feet is. It's not a lot. Yeah. Yeah, they're freaky down there, all right, that'll go in the thirteenth theme song, Freaky They're freaky down there. So there was a series of ships that had harvested a bunch of lobsters in this in the most recent lobster season, and these ship owners came back and they're all of their lobster got seized in this decision because they're like, you weren't allowed to have these, and they were like, but we have them, but you weren't allowed to have them, and so we're taking them or giving them back to Brazil, and so they flew over Brazil. Just don't like those fire rescue plates. It's like, what is that? Oh my god, it's lobsterick, don't look up. Don't look up. I'd almost rather be bombed. Freaking. So they looped them, they did them. Now they give them back. They ship back there all the lobster. And then these shippers were like, hey, our lobster. We lost all our money from that whole season of lobstering, and what are we going to do about it? So there's this long debate too, like should we pay these people back? But they did They said no, why would they get paid back because they these were fishermen quote unquote, innocent French fishermen who were working because because the government told him they could. But then they got all their lobsters taken away, and so the government was like, yeah, you can go over there and take all the lobster you want, and we're just going to take taxes off of which you make and then yeah, and then they did it, and then they didn't make any money. So they had like a whole season. So there's a group of lobster fisher people that got like ruined, like financially ruined because of this decision, because they spent a full season out there and that got overturned. They got boiled. They got boiled. I think it's broiled. I think they broil lobsters with an R because it ends with an R. I think that's how it works. But yeah, this is a lobster war. It was a like five year long cold war. Oh that's it, that's the end. Yeah, it was a five year long cold war between Brazil and France. Longer good Night over the lobster of off the coast of Brazil. That ended in they didn't wipe out the population and the other huh no. And that's that's an interesting point that I thought about during this. It's interesting you never would have had this problem before the nineteen hundreds where it's like those are our fish because you couldn't get enough out of there where like you're gonna run out. Oh yeah, now you've got like industrial fishing. Yeah, now it's like, you really have to protect your that's part of your resources. Yeah, because because if you let somebody else come take them, they're gonna take them all and you're not gonna have any. And that's the lesson. If you let her come take your milk jugs, don't let Nancy. I hate that so much. Oh, I almost forgot. There's a very important moment in this. It was July first, nineteen sixty one. Yeah, the escalations have been escalating. Yeah, and Brazil said, you know what, we are going to have to take all brazil action. Brazil was like the cornered they're in a pinch. Yeah, they're in a pinch. And so they flew over in the middle of the night to one of Brazil's battleships with a fleet of fighters, and they actually sent an elite paratrooping team to board the ship. So they parachuted onto the ship. Oh, and they made their way surgically through this ship room to room clearing rooms, made their way right to the captain's corners, kicked open that at that door and tossed the captain a fiddle, lifted up their fill, and they said we'll decide this by fiddle. Off. Yeah, that's good. Hey, thanks for making it to the end of this video. If you like this and you want more episodes, there's more somewhere around here, and also clips from the show. But make sure you subscribe. Please do that. That really helps us. It makes us feel good. We look at the number and we go, oh my gosh, there's more people who like us. And it also just make sure that you don't miss episodes in the future because we put these out every single week and there's so many in the past, so many old episodes you can go watch. You know, there's an entire season of episodes that we didn't have a video for, so you can go listen to those if you'd like to as well. Thanks for being here. We'll see you again next week. On Things I Learned last Night, that's this podcast, right, that's this one. Yeah, that's the one Things last Night. That's the one. All right, you're free to go. Great,


In the early 1960s, two countries engaged in a tense standoff over fishing rights – with lobsters at the center of the conflict. This peculiar cold war between France and Brazil was dubbed “the lobster wars” and saw both sides flexing their naval muscles. So how did these nations end up on the brink of conflict over a delicious shelled sea creature?

It all started when France granted independence to many of its African colonies in the 1960s. One of these was Mauritania, which happened to be home to a bountiful lobster population off its coasts. France wanted to continue reaping the rewards of this lobster hive, but Mauritania’s newfound independence complicated things. No longer could France simply take the lobsters as they pleased.

Not to be deterred, France turned its sights to Brazil’s coast, which also boasted significant lobster populations. Under the guise of “research”, France sent fishing vessels to harvest lobsters in Brazilian waters. But Brazil soon realized this was no research mission – it was robbery of their natural resources.

Brazil demanded France cease its unauthorized lobster fishing, but the French resisted and even sent warships to escort their fishing boats. Tensions escalated as both sides deployed naval forces to the disputed waters. Brazil’s navy was ill-equipped, fielding outdated ships bought as surplus from the US after WWII. But they attempted to face down the French fleet regardless.

At one point, Brazil conducted flyovers of a French destroyer, buzzing it with aircraft. France responded by conducting live-fire naval exercises as an intimidation tactic. An actual military clash was narrowly avoided, but the risk of escalating into war remained.

Throughout this standoff, French and Brazilian diplomats argued over the legalities of lobster fishing rights. France asserted that because lobsters swim along the seafloor, they counted as fish and were not bound by national territories. Brazil’s admiral fired back that “by that analogy, a kangaroo must be a bird because it jumps along the ground.”

After extensive debates, a tribunal ruled in Brazil’s favor – the lobsters belonged to them, and France had no claim. French ships that had harvested lobsters off Brazil had their catches seized, dealing a financial blow to the ship owners.

By 1961, the lobster wars had raged for 5 years. Ultimately, Brazil prevailed in affirming its sovereignty over the lucrative lobster supply along its shores. No military clash occurred, but the crisis demonstrated how even seemingly trivial matters like crustaceans could bring nations to the brink of conflict when national pride and resources were at stake.

The lobster wars may seem a curiosity today, but they highlighted issues surrounding maritime rights that still resonate. Debates continue over nations’ exclusive economic zones along their coasts. But rarely do these escalate into lobster-centric standoffs. So while it was perhaps absurd, the lobster wars stand out as a unique clash where seafood was the casus belli between two global powers.

Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning and laughing a lot while you do, you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!

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Sources

Lobster War – Wikipedia


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