Godcaster 2

Listen to this week's No Spin News Talking Point Memos and guest interviews.

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“MK Confidential” finds a fugitive at work, balancing books at an accounting firm in Richmond, Virginia. It’s Thursday, June 9, 1989, around midday. Three federal men in suits approach the receptionist’s desk and ask to speak with Bob Clark. They search the compliant accountant and ask plainly, “Are you John List?” The man denies it, but his fingerprints say otherwise. After 18 years on the run, the Westfield annihilator is found, and now in custody.

The trial of John List begins nearly a year later, in April of 1990. His defense does not dispute that he murdered his wife, mother, and children in 1971 — though List will not use the word “murder” himself. The lawyer claims his religious fervor did not allow him to consider any alternative to saving their souls. Once List decided he could send his family to heaven by shooting them to death, the defense argues, there was no turning back.

The leaders who mentored List, under whose teaching he sat on Sunday mornings and taught in Sunday School, take the stand. They demonstrate how the very faith List claims as a fortress is built on shifting sand. The jury will decide his fate. This is Episode 5 of the John List story.

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00 - THE SPOTIFY "SKIP AHEAD" BUTTON — THE BIG ONE

What it is: Spotify is testing a button that appears on the playback screen the moment it thinks you'd want to skip — an intro, a sponsorship message, or an entire ad break. It is bigger than everything else on screen. One tap drops you at the end of the break, back in the show. Premium subscribers only, selected markets including US and UK, and only when the app is in the foreground.

Who broke it: James Cridland at Pod News, 4 August 2026 — an exclusive. Spotify never announced it. Semafor and most of the trade press picked it up afterwards; Cridland noted on air this week that some of them ran it without credit.

The number that makes it different from a skip button: Cridland's arithmetic — skipping a typical ad break by hand is nine presses of the 15-second button, plus a correction tap when you overshoot. Skip Ahead is one. "Some people have said, oh, but you've been able to skip for years and this is no different. But a button that only appears when it's stuff that Spotify thinks you should be skipping is a start."

It skips other people's money: the button fires on third-party ads — Acast, Odyssey, the New York Times — and on ads inside Spotify's own shows. It even skipped Search Engine's read for its own paid tier, PJ Vogt pitching Incognito Mode. One half of Spotify sells advertisers reach; the other half hands listeners a button to leave.

Spotify's answer, and the trapdoor in it: Spotify told Cridland it is "not affecting ad delivery." True only if delivery means to the device. Cridland: "If ad delivery is to the listener's ear, which is actually what people are paying for..." — the download still counts, the ad still gets billed, the human never hears it. Spotify's other defence: the button merely shows where other listeners already skip. Cridland: "I'm not entirely sold on that, but if that's what Spotify say, I mean they wouldn't lie."

THE LINE FOR THE BOARDROOM — read the terms of service: "What's to stop them from going, you know what, people are using that skip ahead button, why don't we just turn that on automatically? I went to have a look at the terms and conditions of Spotify. There is nothing to stop them from doing that. Nothing at all. And let's be clear, that would destroy the ad-supported ecosystem that podcasting is."

Why the scale makes it existential: Spotify is 72% of all podcast downloads in the Philippines, 47% in Mexico, about a third in Australia, 75%+ in some markets. ~300 million paying subscribers plus 500 million free. Cridland on the smaller ad-strippers: "Podtastic will never be that big... they're not going to materially harm the podcast industry. This is." And it sets the precedent — if Spotify does it, every other app can say the same.

The YouTube comparison, and why it fails: YouTube also lets you skip some sponsor reads — but YouTube pays creators to be there. Spotify pays nothing for an RSS show to be on Spotify. Same behaviour, opposite deal.

Board question (Adam): if the ad is baked into the file and the file is fully downloaded, who exactly is the injured party — and is that an argument for the download metric or the final proof it's worthless?

Timing, for the cynics: Spotify's Q2 report credited "favorable podcast impacts" with pushing its profit margin to an all-time high — in the same window it built a button to strip other people's ads.

Pod News — Spotify th

Agitators under investigation, cartel smuggling profits down, Islamic foot washing stations, and Gen Z blowing their money.

Plus, the Message of the Day, on Marxism in America.

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On Marxism in America.

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Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial enters its 13th day as jurors hear digital evidence from the weeks and hours before she killed her three young children and weigh her insanity defense - MK True Crime Show co-host Dave Aronberg weighs in. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announces she will leave the administration at the end of August to spend more time with her young family. New reporting raises questions about the Israeli intelligence behind the Iranian threat that led President Trump’s security team to secretly switch him off Air Force One. Two soldiers are killed when an Army Apache helicopter crashes in Central Texas, sparking a 155-acre grass fire and forcing nearby evacuations.

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What if your child’s biggest challenge is actually their greatest strength? Dr. Kathy Koch explores life-changing insights from her book 8 Great Smarts, revealing how every child is uniquely wired with different kinds of intelligence – from the nonstop talker to the deep thinker, the music-maker to the curious questioner. Learn how to recognize your child’s natural strengths, nurture what makes them come alive, and stop unintentionally paralyzing their "smarts."
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“MK Confidential” begins with a man who is actively getting away with murder. John List arrives in Denver and politely applies for a new Social Security card, under a new name. Robert P. Clark. The people of Denver will never suspect that the quiet, fastidious man who drifted into town aboard a train is a wanted fugitive.

For weeks, while the bodies of his wife, mother, and three children lie on the floor of their family home, John builds a new life around his new name. He picks up work as a night cook line, then in a country club kitchen. Eventually, he reenters the accounting world, telling a series of half-truths about his past. He finds a Lutheran church in Denver, and meets the lovely Delores Miller, a divorcée who finds Bob Clark faithful and trustworthy. They marry in Maryland, where her parents live, and where John married the wife he would later kill.

The image of John List haunts the people of Westfield, and the legend only grows with time. Many on the police force take the case personally; two detectives take it to the TV show, “America’s Most Wanted.” After 18 years on the run, even the missing man’s face is a mystery — until now. This is Episode 4 of the John List story.

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