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So Sue Me · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of curiosities. Evolution is nature's way of
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  Speaker 1: upgrading biological hardware so animals can continue to thrive in
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  Speaker 1: a changing environment. When swallows in Nebraska sauthern nests blown
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  Speaker 1: off cliff faces during storms, they started building them on
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  Speaker 1: highways and bridges instead. Unfortunately, passing cars and trucks would
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  Speaker 1: flatten them before the birds had a chance to escape.
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  Speaker 1: Nature's answer shorter wings. The cliff swallows wings eventually shrunk
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  Speaker 1: by a few millimeters to make its liftoffs faster, allowing
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  Speaker 1: it to escape imminent death from oncoming track think. African
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  Speaker 1: elephants have also changed, but not due to cars. Poachers
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  Speaker 1: have decimated the elephant populations in some areas in pursuit
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  Speaker 1: of their tusks. Those tusks are used by the males
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  Speaker 1: to fight off competition when looking for a mate. But
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  Speaker 1: because the long tusked elephants have been hunted to near extinction,
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  Speaker 1: short tusked elephants have prospered. How so they're passing down
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  Speaker 1: their genes to their offspring, many of which will grow
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  Speaker 1: up to not have tusks at all. A tuskless elephant
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  Speaker 1: used to be an anomaly. Now they make up almost
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  Speaker 1: half the elephant population in parts of Africa. Nature took
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  Speaker 1: away what made them valuable to poachers, and I think
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  Speaker 1: that's pretty darn cool. And then there's the common duck.
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  Speaker 1: It flies, it floats, it eats bread in the park.
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  Speaker 1: Female ducks have evolved to prevent let's just say, persistent
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  Speaker 1: males from engaging in unwanted mating, but the males have
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  Speaker 1: also evolved in unique ways. One particular duck in eighteenth
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  Speaker 1: century France had advanced beyond all others to become a
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  Speaker 1: big part of history, and it was all thanks to
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  Speaker 1: a man named Jacques du Vocuson. Vocus On was one
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  Speaker 1: of ten children born to an impoverished glovemaker. He had
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  Speaker 1: wanted to become a clockmaker, but chose to pursue a
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  Speaker 1: life within the church instead. It was only after an
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  Speaker 1: encounter with French surgeon Claude Nicola Luquette that he rediscovered
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  Speaker 1: his love of engineering and mechanics. Lecatte taught vocus In
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  Speaker 1: about anatomy, which gave the aspiring clockmaker ideas about blending
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  Speaker 1: the human body with the mechanical. For example, musicians were
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  Speaker 1: known to be well trained experts in the art of
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  Speaker 1: playing a particular instrument, but what if someone could play
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  Speaker 1: music without ever having touched a violin or a guitar before.
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  Speaker 1: In seventeen thirty seven, Vocusan got to work assembling bladders
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  Speaker 1: to act as lungs that would blow air into a flute,
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  Speaker 1: while gears and levers would move the players fingers over
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  Speaker 1: the holes, creating the individual tones. There was a modern marvel,
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  Speaker 1: but only a precursor to his next subject. The duck.
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  Speaker 1: Focus On built an apparatus comprised of moving gears that
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  Speaker 1: would allow a duct to bend its head down and
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  Speaker 1: eat pellets, then digest those pellets into excrement. The duck
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  Speaker 1: could also drink water, splash around with its bill, and
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  Speaker 1: make a gurgling sound. You're probably wondering why Vocusan had
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  Speaker 1: to get involved when the duck didn't do anything other
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  Speaker 1: ducks couldn't already do, And that's because his duck only
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  Speaker 1: looked like it was alive. In fact, neither the duck
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  Speaker 1: nor the flute player had ever lived before they were automatons.
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  Speaker 1: When it wasn't moving, the flute player looked like a
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  Speaker 1: well crafted marble statue, but as soon as Vocusan got
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  Speaker 1: its gears turning, the statue took on an incredibly lifelike appearance.
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  Speaker 1: Rumor had it that in order for its fingers to
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  Speaker 1: properly cover the holes, they were covered in human skin,
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  Speaker 1: but such claims have never been confirmed to be true.
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  Speaker 1: The digesting duck, though, was even more realistic. Vocusan modeled
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  Speaker 1: its movements on those of a real duck and worked
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  Speaker 1: tirelessly to make it replicate actions like eating and digesting
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  Speaker 1: as accurately as possible. When it ate a pellet, the
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  Speaker 1: morsel would travel through the digestive system until it was
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  Speaker 1: expelled as feces out the other end, just like a
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  Speaker 1: living creature. Vocus On created a third automaton, dubbed the
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  Speaker 1: Tambourine Player, that was much like the flute player built previously,
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  Speaker 1: but the duck seemed to be the real star of
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  Speaker 1: the show. Focus On presented his creations to the French
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  Speaker 1: Academy of Sciences as well as to the public in
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  Speaker 1: seventeen thirty eight. Those who witnessed their movements and heard
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  Speaker 1: their music were thrilled by such miraculous feats of mechanical engineering. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: the machines made their way to various museums, but were
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  Speaker 1: lost over time. The duck was presumed to have been
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  Speaker 1: consumed by a fire at a museum and crack how
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  Speaker 1: Poland in eighteen seventy nine. However, half a century later,
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  Speaker 1: an employee at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in
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  Speaker 1: Paris discovered photographs taken some time during the nineteen twenties
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  Speaker 1: or thirties of a mechanical duck sitting on top of
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  Speaker 1: a large gear filled box. Someone had written images of
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  Speaker 1: Vocusan's duck received from Dresden on them, but their origin
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  Speaker 1: was unknown. All we have left of the inventors three
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  Speaker 1: creations are a set of questionable photographs, as well as
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  Speaker 1: illustrations from the nineteenth century of the machines assembled all
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  Speaker 1: together on stage. One thing is certain, though Bocusan may
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  Speaker 1: have figured out how to replicate a duck's movement, but
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  Speaker 1: he couldn't give it a real digestive system. A magician
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen forty four managed to restore the digesting duck
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  Speaker 1: to its former glory and discovered that the feces was
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  Speaker 1: not comprised of digested pellets after all, it was made
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  Speaker 1: of little pieces of bread dyed green that were then
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  Speaker 1: dropped out of a separate compartment at the rear. Still,
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  Speaker 1: despite his inability to create life from mechanical parts, Jacques
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  Speaker 1: Duvocusan had managed to wile the world with the next
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  Speaker 1: best thing, proving that he wasn't completely full of it,
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  Speaker 1: even if his duck was. We have become quite the
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  Speaker 1: litigious society. Modern history is rife with frivolous lawsuits brought
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  Speaker 1: on by people who thought they could exploit a legal
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  Speaker 1: loophole for a quick buck. Take Richard Harris, who in
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  Speaker 1: sued Anheuser Bush for ten th dollars. His reason false advertising.
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  Speaker 1: It seems that Harris didn't appreciate how the men and
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  Speaker 1: beer commercials had success with beautiful women while he floundered
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  Speaker 1: in the dating department while he drank. He also blamed
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  Speaker 1: the company for getting him sick when drinking excessively. The
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  Speaker 1: courts had no problem ruling on such an important legal case.
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  Speaker 1: They tossed it out almost immediately. Another case of false
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  Speaker 1: advertising hit the docket in twenty one year old John
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  Speaker 1: Leonard sued Pepsi over its bi Pepsi Gets Stuff campaign. Leonard,
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  Speaker 1: like millions of others around the country, had watched an
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  Speaker 1: ad that showed the kinds of products that could be
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  Speaker 1: one if an individual earned enough points by buying Pepsi products.
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  Speaker 1: A T shirt, for example, cost eight points earned by
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  Speaker 1: drinking forty two liter bottles of Pepsi. However, among the
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  Speaker 1: toys and clothes that the company was offering was something
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  Speaker 1: that was never meant to be purchased, a Harrier jet.
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  Speaker 1: It appeared at the end of the commercial as a
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  Speaker 1: gag with a cost of seven million points. Pepsi had
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  Speaker 1: never considered someone might actually earn that many points, nor
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  Speaker 1: did they do the math on how much money seven
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  Speaker 1: million points were worth. But John knew. He learned that
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  Speaker 1: points could be purchased for ten cents apiece as long
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  Speaker 1: as he had at least fifteen original points earned through
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  Speaker 1: Pepsi cola. So he sent in a check for just
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  Speaker 1: over seven hundred thousand dollars as well as his fifteen points,
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  Speaker 1: and waited for his plane to be delivered. But Pepsi
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  Speaker 1: refused to pay up. Leonard took them to court, arguing
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  Speaker 1: that the company had committed fraud. A New York judge
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  Speaker 1: felt differently, stating that no reasonable person could have assumed
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  Speaker 1: that such an offer was realistic. The Pentagon also got involved,
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  Speaker 1: explaining that their thirty four million dollar Fighter jet planes
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  Speaker 1: could not be sold in flying shape to the public.
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  Speaker 1: So John Leonard and his dreams of flying to class
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  Speaker 1: were grounded for good. But Gerald Mayo of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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  Speaker 1: didn't have a beef to settle with a big evil company.
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  Speaker 1: His complaint veered more into the ethereal territory. He wanted
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  Speaker 1: to sue evil itself. In nineteen seventy one, the twenty
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  Speaker 1: two year old Mayo was an inmate at Pennsylvania's Western Penitentiary.
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  Speaker 1: But it wasn't his fault, you see, according to the
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  Speaker 1: claim he filed with the courts, it was Satan who
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  Speaker 1: was responsible for his downfall. He alleged that Satan had
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  Speaker 1: caused him misery and placed deliberate obstacles in his path
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  Speaker 1: to eat him down. Therefore, it was the devil himself
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  Speaker 1: who had and my quote, deprived him of his constitutional rights.
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  Speaker 1: But he didn't just slap a lawsuit on the prince
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  Speaker 1: of Evil, but complaints included both Satan and his minions.
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  Speaker 1: The court could have immediately thrown the case out on
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  Speaker 1: the basis that you can't sue a spiritual being, but
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  Speaker 1: Judge Gerald Weber took the complaints seriously. It was literally unprecedented,
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  Speaker 1: as no one had ever formally sued the Devil before,
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  Speaker 1: nor had Satan ever brought a case against anyone else.
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  Speaker 1: It was possible. The judge argued that Satan could be
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  Speaker 1: considered a foreign prince given his title and place of residence.
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  Speaker 1: If he did appear, he could claim sovereign immunity and
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  Speaker 1: therefore avoid all charges. That still wasn't enough to get
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  Speaker 1: the case tossed out, though surprisingly, Mayo had fulfilled three
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  Speaker 1: of the four requirements needed in order to file a
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  Speaker 1: class action lawsuits. He was suing on behalf of a
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  Speaker 1: large enough population that individual suits would be impossible, His
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  Speaker 1: claims could easily be applied to all other members of
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  Speaker 1: the class, and there were questions of law and fact
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  Speaker 1: that were common to the class as a whole. There
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  Speaker 1: were only two things holding Mayo back. First, the court
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  Speaker 1: couldn't determine whether he was an adequate representative for the
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  Speaker 1: class named in the complaint, and second, the U S.
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  Speaker 1: Marshals had no way to serve Satan with notice of
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  Speaker 1: the suit. For those two reasons alone, a claim was
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  Speaker 1: denied from proceeding further. It seemed that the devil really
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  Speaker 1: was in the details. Gerald Mayo just couldn't find him.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over the world
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot Come and until next time, stay curious.