Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:02]
| So I presume we know the main topic of the week and the main topic of the week.
|
Ivan:
[0:08]
| Let me see the main topic of the week would be the Kaiser permanente strike.
|
Sam:
[0:15]
| You got it.
|
Ivan:
[0:17]
| I gotta start with that. I mean, I think they got a 21% pay increase.
I mean, I think that's about, it's about the only thing that happened this week, it was so boring.
|
Sam:
[0:26]
| Yep. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[0:29]
| Um, well, I, I, I was going to say, look, we might skip like almost like any, but first I may mention something briefly, but I think that we probably should start on the, well, it's two topics.
You got, you know, basically you got the house and, and, you know, and Israel.
|
Sam:
[0:52]
| So, yes, yes, that, that's it. And I was going to say like exactly what you said, that we should probably just jump right into it and not like start with light and fluffy stuff.
Although I know you, you're like in New York or whatever. Right.
So like, I don't know if you wanted to mention anything.
|
Ivan:
[1:08]
| Oh, no, I'm in Orlando. I was in New York. I was in Orlando.
Yes. I was in New York. Now I'm in Orlando.
|
Sam:
[1:15]
| You keep moving.
|
Ivan:
[1:16]
| I know I keep moving and I, and I, and I'm not, I'm not a man.
I, I'm not built for this anymore.
|
Sam:
[1:21]
| Okay. I know. So if you, if you want to mention anything about your travels at the front, that's fine. Otherwise I'll mention something very briefly, but you know, shall we go ahead and start?
|
Ivan:
[1:36]
| Sure.
|
Sam:
[1:37]
| Okay. Here comes and I'm on live here. We go. Bye-bye.
Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for Saturday, October 14th, 2023.
It's two 11 UTC as we're starting to record.
I'm Sam mentor and Yvonne Bo is here. Hello, Yvonne. Hello.
And everybody can probably guess what our main topic is going to be today.
|
Ivan:
[2:25]
| Like I said, it's the Kaiser permanente strike. I'm telling you.
I mean, nobody could get. Nobody, nobody gets to stop talking about it all week.
|
Sam:
[2:33]
| Exactly. No, we're, we're, we're of course going to talk about what's going on in Israel.
And, and if that doesn't take the whole show by itself, then maybe we'll talk a little bit about the, the race for the house speaker, cause that's still chaotic. And that's the plan.
|
Ivan:
[2:49]
| I will say one thing. I, I, I mentioned that the kidding, but you know, I don't know if you've seen like this whole thing today, there was also an announcement regarding, and this is just a bench note.
I saw a newsflash that they were saying that a whole bunch of the pharmacy employees at Walgreens and other other chains were considering going on strike as well.
Yep, yep. Which I did see.
It is a big change in terms of labor, like right now to see, you know, we've got the we've got the automaker strike, we've got, you know, all of these, by the way, none of them are violent.
You know, we got the we got the, you know, we have those.
We had the writers that were on strike and they settled. I know the actors are still out.
|
Sam:
[3:30]
| Um, yeah, and, and their negotiations just broke down this week, actually.
|
Ivan:
[3:34]
| It's, it's quite interesting. That's a big changing dynamic.
And I, and I think that in many cases, I mean, what happens, what's happened with the wages over so long.
It's probably a good thing that because employers have been just screwing people.
|
Sam:
[3:48]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[3:49]
| And they just felt that they could get away with it.
|
Sam:
[3:51]
| So, so Yvonne, before we jump into the serious topics, we're not going to do a full like, but first on light and flop frothy things, it just doesn't seem appropriate this week, but you may have noticed Yvonne sounds a little bit different than usual. So why is that Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[4:06]
| Well, because I've been moving around all week. So now I am in Orlando.
Okay. All right. I wasn't in New York for a couple of days, but let me report one thing.
Quickly report. Yeah. Um, it's not a hellscape. We followed a part collapsing city.
|
Sam:
[4:21]
| New York is not a hellscape. You, you, you didn't have to like run for your life to escape.
|
Ivan:
[4:27]
| Amazingly enough though.
|
Sam:
[4:30]
| Oh, weird, yeah, you would think yeah, I know, I mean, I don't know, you know, I've heard, you know, Seattle is like one of those hellscapes too, yeah, and you know, maybe not quite as bad as Portland, but you know, I should be afraid for my life every time I go into the city, right?
|
Ivan:
[4:49]
| That's what I heard, but I got there and like, shit, I mean, I was walking around enjoying myself and, you know, went to found an incredible restaurant, walked through like in the streets or places there was like flowers.
I went to the new train station, the Moynihan Acela. Okay.
So, so you remember, I mean, you've been to New York by train, right? Yes.
|
Sam:
[5:15]
| But I haven't been back to New York.
|
Ivan:
[5:18]
| Like for 20 plus years, so But you remember that they had the big train station at MSG. Okay, the one that was there.
Yeah, okay There's grand said okay. Well, that was it. That was shitty.
They opened this totally brand new spanking Well, that was pencil right beside it there.
Yeah, that was Penn Station. Yeah, man, they opened out. It's called Moynihan station It's not Penn Station anymore.
|
Sam:
[5:40]
| Come on.
|
Ivan:
[5:41]
| No, but look, it looks like you're in Europe I shit you not, this thing was like all of a sudden, wait, what country am I in?
You know, it's a real fucking train station.
|
Sam:
[5:51]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[5:52]
| It's not, not, not some shitty hell. Okay. With like overflowing toilets.
You're like, what the hell? Wow.
|
Sam:
[5:58]
| You know, I remember those overflowing toilets. I, cause I used to like come in and out of the city sometimes via Penn station when I was going in for something, when I lived in, in New Jersey.
|
Ivan:
[6:09]
| Yeah. So, so, you know, so no, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing.
And the other place that I stopped at that was also amazing.
LaGuardia airport. Holy shit. I have not been to the new terminal.
Oh my God. It's like, I mean, also like what country am I in again?
|
Sam:
[6:25]
| The last time I was in LaGuardia, it was under construction. I think.
|
Ivan:
[6:30]
| Well, they, they finished that new terminal. Let me tell you, it's, it's, it's a, it's a jewel. I mean, it's just, it's just, you know.
It's amazing. I really so that was another thing.
The only other thing the brief that I'm going to mention is, you know, this summer, that all the Barbie Oppenheimer why I've seen up and I've seen either one.
The one movie that I didn't want to go see but I was too lazy to go to the theaters was the new Mission Impossible movie, dead reckoning.
Part one. And I had said it, I know that they offered an apple.
They said look pre buy when it's available, we'll let you know.
Okay. And I'm like, damn it. I want to watch this movie. I really have liked those movies.
And it came out while I was in New York.
And I was like, damn it. I want to watch this thing. Kind of, you know, I want to watch this thing.
So when I got to the hotel, I was on the iPad. And I'm like, shit, I'm gonna watch this thing.
I stayed up until way too late watching this There's probably a reason why I'm exhausted like right now and a Friday. Okay. Because I traveled on Tuesday, I traveled on Wednesday, I traveled on Thursday.
I'm like, you know, I'm not built for this shit anymore. Okay.
I'm a man.
|
Sam:
[7:47]
| I remember just like a few years ago, you were like gone more than you were at home and all over the world.
|
Ivan:
[7:53]
| Now, now, exactly. And now I've done this, like not that far.
And I'm like, Holy shit. How the hell did I do that? Okay. And, you know, it managed to be alive somehow.
So I watched the movie. I stayed up until super late.
Number one thing completely two thumbs up. Okay, it's a really good movie.
It's really well made. But here's what here's the kicker about this.
This movie was made really several years ago. Okay, right.
|
Sam:
[8:21]
| And then it was delayed because of the pandemic, right?
|
Ivan:
[8:24]
| And actually also Tom Cruise delayed it because he released Top Gun, and he didn't want to release two of his movies, one on top of the other, okay, as well.
And so they waited until the summer and they got a little bit like They wound up where they I mean it did well, but because of the other two movies it didn't do as well as they expected.
Okay But let me tell you something the movie's amazing and the other thing is that the subject matter The key of this was rogue ai Which all of a sudden i'm like thinking wait a minute now We've been like, you know, we've been going around on AI like going crazy, whatever and everybody worried about it Mm-hmm the movie was it's it's incredibly relevant to a certain extent and they did did do You know and it was well interspersed to the Into the subject matter of the movie. Now. Here's the one thing.
This is a two-part movie Okay, this is dead reckoning part one Mm-hmm.
It really didn't conclude at the end of the movie. Okay, so you have to watch that reckoning part two Which I understand is coming out next summer.
Okay But I will say listen, but I I have to say look it was late I was exhausted and whatever and that stupid movie kept me Watching the entire way until until the end.
Okay, and it was close to three hours There's two and a half hours if I remember correctly. So I will highly recommend that you can put it on your list.
And so I guess you'll watch it at some point after we've been annihilated by the AI.
|
Sam:
[10:00]
| And well, yeah, cause of course, like I'll have to do all the mission impossibles in order, even if it comes up, right.
And like when I do things like this, it's often several years between movies and a series.
|
Ivan:
[10:18]
| I have to lock you in a room one day and just say, Hey, you're watching mission.
Hey, we're doing a mission impossible festival. There you go.
|
Sam:
[10:28]
| Well, since, since we're mentioning that, I'll just, I was going to save this until I gave the review of the TV show that I finished, but I'll save that.
But suffice it to say that I finished a TV show with what Alex and I were watching together back in June.
And so I had to pick a new TV show to go into my rotation.
And of course I picked these things randomly and this is why I had this ready before, but it's the TV show that came up was one that we have discussed on this show before and said, if it ever comes up in my system, I am so absolutely screwed, because I will not finish in my lifetime, especially since I have to finish the series and then I have to like start all the spinoffs.
|
Ivan:
[11:17]
| Holy shit, Law and Order?
|
Sam:
[11:24]
| Oh my God. So yes, we have, we have started on season one of the original law and order.
And, and Alex and I have been watching it together. We're about six or seven episodes in now out of like thousands of episodes in this franchise.
|
Ivan:
[11:40]
| Well, right. Because if you're, because you're saying you will watch all the franchise. So holy shit.
|
Sam:
[11:45]
| Now, now the way I do it, I will watch all of the original law and order first and then the next one in order will come up as a possibility.
I won't automatically start it. So it may even wait longer. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[12:00]
| All right. But here's the thing. They're making newer episodes of that.
|
Sam:
[12:04]
| Oh, I know, I know.
|
Ivan:
[12:05]
| Does that count? Yeah. So, so basically, okay. So basically now, you know, you're, you're like behind the eight ball now.
|
Sam:
[12:13]
| Yes. I have to, I have to watch law and order until I catch up with the new episodes.
|
Ivan:
[12:19]
| Holy shit. You know, holy shit. Oh, good luck with that. So yeah.
|
Sam:
[12:29]
| So we're, we're, we're like maybe what a third of the way through season one at this point of law and order.
We, and we started, we started with the pilot, which was different flavor than the actual like first series. But yeah.
|
Ivan:
[12:45]
| Look, I am pretty sure that I've watched 98% of the episodes, every once in a while an episode comes up that I realize, shit, I didn't watch this one.
So I'm not going to say that I've watched them all, but definitely in the high 90s percent of having watched those, all those episodes, including the new season, which I did watch.
All of those as well. Um, so, but, but anyway, oh boy. So you're yeah.
|
Sam:
[13:11]
| So I will, I will be watching law and order for the rest of my life.
Because we only like see, only get to watch a new episode, like maybe one or two new episodes a month, maybe three.
|
Ivan:
[13:24]
| Oh, Jesus. Oh my God.
So, yeah, so I will never finish law and order, but you know, well, you know, Maybe I'll speed up at some point, but, you know, basically, so you basically decided that you're watching what I watch about TV, which is basically, I only watch pretty much the series.
Like it's pretty close to one of the only series I watch is law and order.
So now you're, now you're my kid.
|
Sam:
[13:49]
| Yeah. Except I'm systematically starting at the beginning and working through and, you know, and you know, so far, so good.
Alex seems to enjoy it. I enjoy it. Except, you know, every time the sound comes on, Like he punches me twice, like when the sound happens, so like, so like, I like tense up when I think they're about to do the sound. So.
|
Ivan:
[14:13]
| Oh, oh, by the way, one thing that I just saw, I noticed today as I was walking outside, I saw a Falcon nine launch.
|
Sam:
[14:20]
| Oh, cool. Well, they were doing two today.
|
Ivan:
[14:23]
| I saw, I saw the one at 7 0 1 PM.
|
Sam:
[14:27]
| So yeah, I, if there was one other law and order thing I was going to say, Oh, I just, you know, because normally I would wait to talk about law and order until I finished the series, but, but given the situation, I do have one comment having started season one, is like, and, and having watched other sort of more recent police procedurals, you know, whatever, like the difference that they were actually filming on location in New York is really noticeable compared to like the newer shows that do like lots of green screen and fake sets and things like that.
The fact that like, I mean, when they started this thing, that technology didn't exist.
They didn't really have a choice. They went out with cameras and filmed scenes and the difference is really noticeable and you know, that technology is really good, but I like the authenticity of like, look, they're, they're actually there.
They're on the freaking street in New York. And I, that, that gives it a flavor that you don't get. Like some of the new things I watched, like, um, Castle.
I finished a couple of years ago. It was also set in New York.
It didn't have the same feel because you knew like there, they were on sets in Hollywood or they were on green screen or whatever they weren't.
Yeah. But like one of the things about law and order and they, like they say so in the credits and all that kind of stuff is they did a lot of the filming actually in New York and actually like on the streets, you know, I love that about that.
|
Ivan:
[16:11]
| And look, I will say this flat out if I didn't say it earlier, man, I love New York.
I still do. Damn it. I go there and it's like every time I'm like, oh.
I love that city.
|
Sam:
[16:23]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[16:24]
| It is definitely, it is definitely my favorite city.
|
Sam:
[16:29]
| I mean, it's been a long time since I've been there, but I, I enjoyed it.
Like I, the way I would, I always put it is like, I am not a city person.
I never want to live in a downtown, like major city.
That's just not me. I would not like it, but I love visiting and like, you know, I really enjoyed coming to New York city and like taking the train into Penn station and then walking around to wherever I wanted to go.
And, and I, I really only spent a lot of time in Manhattan. I haven't done the other boroughs very much, but you know, I had fun.
I enjoyed it. I liked it. It was, it had an atmosphere and I presume it still does. That's very sort of invigorating and interesting.
And you see things all the time that are fun or interesting or different, or that you're not going to see like walking down the street in a suburb, you know, but definitely, yeah, definitely not.
All right. Okay. We're going to take our first, let's take our first break and then we will jump right in to the Israel situation and go.
However long it makes sense to go. So we will be back right after this.
And we're back. Okay. So I guess let's start, you know, I don't know about you, but I, you know, I, I woke up, we, we recorded this show.
I went to sleep. And then when I woke up, the first thing I saw was the news of Hamas's attack on Israel.
And there weren't yet a lot of details, but there was enough to know already that it was one of the biggest such attacks that we'd seen in a long, long, long time.
And my first reaction was, this is not going to end well.
Not for Hamas, not for anybody.
And I think the details that we've had come out since then have just reinforced that over and over and over again.
First of all, Hamas's attack was absolutely brutal.
The more details have come out over the course of the week, the worse it has been every other day or every other hour. It seemed like for most of the week, we'd hear about new atrocities that were worse than the last thing you heard.
And it's what can you say? It's just, in terms of scale, huge, even before you do like sort of what would that be in a per capita basis compared to the United States, it's already huge. Even if you don't do that.
|
Ivan:
[21:16]
| Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. And by any metric, yes.
|
Sam:
[21:19]
| And it's much, and if you do compare it to the, to like, if you try to do that per capita thing, comparing it to the U S it's like 10 times bigger than nine 11 was in terms of the immediate impact, people killed and that kind of thing.
And, you know, Hamas sort of drove right in, apparently caught the Israelis flat-footed.
They, they weren't expecting.
|
Ivan:
[21:46]
| Well, let me be clear about that. Well, let me be clear beyond the flat footed. The one thing is that.
They had studied in much detail the Israeli defenses and how they were organized.
|
Sam:
[22:01]
| Yeah, we're finding out more and more about this as the week progressed, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[22:06]
| And they had planned this from a lot of the evidence. It's been years that they were in the planning of this.
And they had detailed intelligence of how, what, where to go, and how to blind Israel, well, blind Israeli military as to what was exactly going on, okay?
And that was a big part of the incursion.
And so it's one of those things where they went in and they were able to, to, there's not so much kind of mapping, but I mean, if they know how to get around the defense line, you and how to blind you from what's going on, then they can run rampant.
And as most people said that in the initial hours, they people were like, well, they're going to come there.
You know, the military is coming, right? But the military didn't know what exactly the hell was going on for a very long time.
So therefore they weren't exactly coming. A lot of the people that first went to the front line to do so where because they got ad hoc reports.
I mean, Israel also remember has a lot of people that are aren't just reservists that are retired military because in Israel, you have a military, there's mandatory service.
So a lot of people were were were military like that, that all of a sudden found out about a relative, somebody or something, whatever.
And they were rushing to the front, you know, to figure out what the hell was going on to try to take some action at that point.
|
Sam:
[23:40]
| And in the meantime, for like 24 hours or so, Hamas actually controlled a significant amount of Israeli territory.
And, uh, and it took a long time until, you know, Israel, of course, eventually pushed all that back, took control again, to bring us up to the present for the last few days, they've been massing huge amounts of troops on the Gaza border.
There are some, they've done some limited, small scale missions inside the Gaza strip already.
But from all indications, they're poised to do a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip at any moment.
So let me put this right out here. You know, we're recording this on Friday night U.S. time.
By the time you listen to this, the situation on the ground may have changed dramatically again.
Because this invasion could happen at any moment. In the meantime, all week long...
Oh, and you know, we're talking about the people crossing over and, you know, you know, the, the, but there was also like Hamas was doing massive rocket attacks for this whole time period as well.
There were rocket attacks. There were people coming in by air in like hang gliders.
There were people coming across on the ground and motorcycles.
There were apparently boats involved as well.
So like land, sea and air, you know, and so, but since then, you know, the Israelis have been responding by massive bombardments of the Gaza Strip already, even before any sort of land action happens.
And so, you know, we're at an all-out war scenario essentially now. And...
|
Ivan:
[25:25]
| Yeah, one of the things about, and I think it's important to point out about the tactics that Israel employs and the tactics that Hamas has employed. Okay.
So one big thing when when when Hamas came in, you know, they went and they were targeting, they targeted a lot of the military bases that were around, around the area.
Okay. And so they went there and they disabled communications, and they killed the soldiers, which all of a sudden they caught on, which didn't hear any alarms.
And so they were caught, you know, unexpected. Okay.
They were taken by surprise, by total surprise.
And one of the, one of the problems that I've read from a couple of different sources, okay.
Related to how Hamas's tactics specifically related to their, how they put away their military is that they purposely, Thank you.
A lot of their military assets in places where there are a lot of civilian people Yeah, and it's by design not not this is not Accidental no.
Well, and they do it on they do it purposely because If israel is to attack any military site, what happens is that they will inflict quite a lot of casualties and look Hamas likes the publicity of the casualties, the, the, the, the, the, it is.
It's part of why they wanted the reaction from Israel.
|
Sam:
[27:05]
| So, so let's, let's, let's get, I want to get to all that, but I want to go through this thing sort of systematically.
Um, so like just on the, uh, uh, we sort of covered the initial attack.
One of the points that you were, you were making, uh, I thought the point you were about to make is that in Hamas's attack, their, their preliminary attack, they very, very consciously, and as part of their strategy, wanted to kill as many civilians as possible as well.
|
Ivan:
[27:41]
| Oh, a hundred percent. They were going as they were driving to the military bases.
They were killing any civilians on site that they, that, that they found.
|
Sam:
[27:50]
| We had the whole attack on the music festival. We had various houses, you know, attacking houses that they came across, burning houses to the ground and keeping, they actually targeted a village.
|
Ivan:
[28:03]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[28:03]
| A few villages.
|
Ivan:
[28:04]
| And they went, yes. And a few villages and they were going house to house trying to find hostages to take and killing people.
|
Sam:
[28:10]
| Yes. And, and one of the distinctions that have been made and I, And I, to a degree, I rebel against this and say, a death is a death is a death. However...
The strategies here were very personal deaths. Like, you know, we compare this against 9-11. I just did a couple of minutes ago.
You know, with 9-11, they crashed a plane into a building, building collapsed, lots of people died.
And that's, you know, but it comes off and feels a little bit different than when you are grabbing people individually, You are potentially raping them, torturing them, and then shooting them at close range, you know, or whatever, you know, you are individually interacting with the people you're killing.
And, and it comes across differently emotionally.
|
Ivan:
[29:07]
| Look, somebody, I was about talking about the impersonality of, of aerial warfare. Yes.
And like when you're a, you're in London in the Blitz, right?
Okay. And and bombs are falling on you and you know it's it's.
And i was hearing about military aviators that would drop bombs and having sometimes them be.
Wind up crashing and then having to engage in hand to hand combat to kill someone.
And you know the thing is i'm like what is just such a complete different level of.
I got i got i got a missile i got a missile that hits my plane i get i get knocked down it's it's very impersonal where as i mean i'm thinking of night with somebody to kill the kill of that's that's very.
It's impactful in both directions, even if the other person survives, is what I'm saying as well.
|
Sam:
[30:06]
| And to be clear, like I said, I rebel against that a little bit, because in the end, like if I'm killed by a bomb versus a missile versus a knife versus a sword, either way I'm suffering and I'm dying, right?
You know, that it's not, you know, those are all going to be horrible ways to die.
But the way we react psychologically still differs in these scenarios.
And that's part of this, is what we've seen over the course of the week.
And I say seen, I've avoided most of this.
But Hamas was specifically making sure they were videoing this stuff and then distributing the videos.
In one case that was reported, They killed this lady, videoed it, and then used her phone to post the video of her death on her Facebook.
|
Ivan:
[31:04]
| On Facebook. Yep.
|
Sam:
[31:06]
| You know, and even the ones where they didn't do that, Hamas has been publishing the videos, you know, and putting them out there.
And, you know, here for the most part, like the major media has not shown these things directly or has shown very short clips of it and cut out the, the gory parts, but you know, I've, I've seen plenty of this stuff come up on my social media feeds and my own personal policy is like, I'm not going to watch that.
If I can avoid it, I want to, I want to, I need to I know that it's going on, but I don't need to watch it.
As people say, that's the kind of thing you can't unsee. Yeah.
And it can severely fuck you up mentally.
So I don't want to see it. I need to know that it's happening so I can evaluate things.
But I don't need to see that video. I don't need to see the pictures.
But the, you know, and then I guess, you know, we need to talk about the Israeli response as well.
And then we can talk about sort of the, the strategy, I guess, strategy behind it or what people are wanting.
But, you know, already, even before we have a full-scale invasion with what the Israelis have been doing to, you know, soften up Gaza with all sorts of air attacks.
Thousands of people have died already, you know, and you can completely...
|
Ivan:
[32:44]
| I'm going to sit with let me let me mention something about right now.
The information on how many are, are, are dead or injured. Look, we know a lot of people have been hurt or injured in both sides.
|
Sam:
[32:56]
| We don't know. I don't have good numbers.
|
Ivan:
[32:58]
| We don't have good numbers.
|
Sam:
[33:00]
| And I'm saying there's all fog of war stuff on, on, on all sides.
It there's, there's reasons to not have all the information yet.
And you don't, and sometimes you just don't know the information yet.
Sometimes it's double counted. Yeah. Some people want to maximize, some people want to maximize.
Yes. Yes. They're all, there are all kinds of reasons why the numbers we hear right now.
We'll moat may not stand the test of time, but also given that we're at the very beginning of this, the numbers are likely to go up anyway.
Oh yeah. You know, so I posted at one point, like after the first day, maybe 48 hours, that the most depressing thing about seeing the, the totals that were being published about dead and injured on both sides was the fact that before we're done, the numbers we've seen so far will probably appear tiny compared to where we are now.
|
Ivan:
[33:59]
| And.
|
Sam:
[34:03]
| And I was starting to say, the Israeli counter-attack, and this is where the stuff that you were talking about comes in.
Yes, Hamas's strategy from the very beginning was to intermingle their people with innocent civilians. And here's the thing, if you're looking at it from a pure strategic point of view, of course that makes sense for them.
That's probably their best shot. but at the same time, what it means is that it makes it very, very difficult for it.
You know, Israel's come in and said, you know, at this point their goal is eradicate Hamas, okay?
Now that's probably not actually possible, but they're gonna try.
But the problem is to try that, they have to go through a whole bunch of civilians and innocent people to do it.
|
Ivan:
[34:58]
| Yep. That's exactly right.
|
Sam:
[34:59]
| And, you know, and let's start with, you know, out of the adult population even, like, it's not like everybody is Hamas, like you got 2 million people in the Gaza Strip approximately.
And I've heard estimates that the number of people who are actually like members of Hamas, whatever that means, is like what, 50 or 60,000 maybe.
I may be slightly off on that, but it's, it's, it's not anywhere close to 2 million, right?
|
Ivan:
[35:32]
| And it's also worth noting. It's also worth noting that look, Hamas right now has control of Gaza.
Because they basically, I mean, they, they, they, it was a, it's by force.
|
Sam:
[35:46]
| Well, they did initially win an election, but they've held onto it by force.
|
Ivan:
[35:51]
| Exactly. That's what I mean, because they went one election and then afterwards I'm like, Oh, another election? Screw you. No, we're old. You know, everybody is eradicated. We're holding for this. Nobody's taking this away from us.
|
Sam:
[36:06]
| Now, the other thing I was going to say is like, look, like I said, even out of the adult population, only some of them are Hamas.
It's not like they're everybody there. They're in charge, but it's not like they're necessarily the majority.
But even more so, like I've heard different numbers, but somewhere between 40 and 50% of the population are children.
|
Ivan:
[36:31]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[36:32]
| And so like regardless, like, you know, and here's the thing, you know, so it's going to, I know, I don't know, Israel is doing these things like, you know, we're giving notice, right?
We want people to move out of the way.
|
Ivan:
[36:50]
| They get a million people to move in like, you know, 24 hours, four hours. Yes.
|
Sam:
[36:55]
| And well, and another example, there was some hospital where they were like, you got two hours to evacuate the hospital, okay?
Now, I heard someone talking about this. I don't know where I saw this, so apologies for the attribution.
But, you know, okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that there's a Hamas base in the basement of the hospital, okay?
They're right there. They're actually using the hospital as a human shield.
They're right there. You give the two hours to to evacuate the hospital, Hamas is going to leave the P the other people who can leave are going to leave who's going to be left in the hospital.
It's the people who can't leave, right.
Who are sick or they're being treated or whatever. So what's the actual point of that?
|
Ivan:
[37:45]
| It's not like, Oh, I know. Listen, the, the, the whole thing is that obviously Israel after such an attack is, is wants to respond.
And most of the people I'm going to guess in Israel want them to do something drastic. Okay.
|
Sam:
[38:07]
| I mean, even, even people who were sort of peaceniks before this are like, well, I guess we were wrong. Yeah, I know.
|
Ivan:
[38:17]
| But, but, but the thing is that it's just that any, anything that is a blunt instrument against this right now, it's just going to cause far more casualties of people that are innocent than actually any of the people that actually calculated or perpetrated this.
|
Sam:
[38:42]
| Don't get me wrong, they're going to kill a bunch of bad guys, too.
But at what cost? And here's the thing, too, that I keep thinking about this, is the, then what? You know?
|
Ivan:
[38:56]
| Back to the fact that, look.
When you shared this article, I shared this today. Hamas wants this.
|
Sam:
[39:05]
| This is actually like my, let's talk about this a little bit.
Cause my, my first thought when this happened was what the fuck is Hamas thinking?
There is no possible way this works out well for them.
But then as it's gone on, you see like, let's make sure I'm going to give the, the, the reference to that article that you mentioned, you shared this first on our curmudgeon's corner slack.
And then I shared it on Macedon and such it's it's from the Atlantic by Hussain Ibish.
Israel is walking into a trap. Right. And basically it says, look, of course Israel is going to react incredibly strongly to this.
And it's not really possible to believe that Hamas didn't know this.
|
Ivan:
[39:58]
| Oh, they, they did.
|
Sam:
[40:01]
| Now, there are a couple of things I have heard a couple of people say.
Hamas never expected this to go as well for them as it did, and I use well in quotes, like, you know, whatever.
But because they thought that they'd be stopped a lot sooner than they were, And this would be more like some of their other incursions over time.
And, you know, they would hit Israel, Israel would hit back, they'd take some hostages, they'd trade some hostages for some money, and then things would like, or maybe some released prisoners, and then they would move on.
But then I've heard other folks say, no, no, no.
Hamas absolutely knew this was going to be the biggest attack in 50 years, and that Israel would respond with their absolute full might and level Gaza, the Gaza Strip entirely, and that this somehow ends up good for them because of the chaos it causes, and helps Hamas in the internal struggle with the other Palestinian factions?
|
Ivan:
[41:23]
| Look, I was, I'm going to paraphrase, but not, not, not, you know, because I don't have the article in front of me, but in one, one article that I was reading, one of the things that they were talking about Hamas is that they were talking about the people that didn't want to die in Palestine, like right now, because of this attack.
And, you know, the Hamas philosophy is that if you die for for this, that's good. Right.
More people to die for it is good. I mean, that's, it is the whole.
|
Sam:
[41:54]
| Well, and the thing to remember, and this is the, this is a comparison with ISIS in the places they took over and the Taliban and all of these folks, like the true extremists here really are a small portion of the population.
They just happen to be the ones that have the power, have the guns, have the weapons, are able to do this.
You pick a random person off the street and they're like, they're, yeah, the, the random person off the street is not going to be thinking that way. Most likely they're going to be thinking, you know, I just want to live my life.
|
Ivan:
[42:32]
| But look, but also take the flip side. Okay. And, and, and I understand why.
Okay. We, they elected an organization to leave their geography, That their charter is the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of all the Jews Yeah But there is no two-state solution that there is none of this that is and and that they have said that they are going to Take it back by jihad that there is no other Option that they will do it by blood that that is that is true back in 2006.
They won that election I'm not saying there aren't a lot of people who sympathize with them I mean, you know I'm like, look, man, if it's like, it's like if I went and I voted for the KKK as a fucking, you know, to be the, you know, to lead the United States and I'm saying, oh, well, I'm surprised they're lynching black people on the streets on a regular basis.
|
Sam:
[43:19]
| Well, I don't know. A whole bunch of people did that a few years back, but you essentially.
|
Ivan:
[43:25]
| What I'm saying is that, and no, but I'm saying that as a result, you know, if that, those are the leaders that I elected and they start lynching, oh, well, lynchings were happening every week.
Like, well, I really wasn't voting for that. But listen, you voted for an organization that, I mean, that is part of their existence.
|
Sam:
[43:45]
| All I, all I'm saying is I've heard a lot of exactly what you just said out of some ex-Republicans after 2016.
|
Ivan:
[43:50]
| Well, no, I know that as well. Well, she's great. But anyway, but but my whole thing is the whole.
Situation right now really puts Israel in a really bad corner as to how to respond anyway, related to this, because I, and and that was Hamas's point.
It really was. And they wanted to bring attention to the Palestinian plight, which has been dropping in the radar. But I was also reading, by the way, here's an interesting thing.
I was reading, you know, we haven't really been talking about what's been going on in Gaza in recent times.
And one of the things I was reading is that the situation in Gaza in recent years have been improving substantially, that actually even away from all the glare and everything, that they have been getting far many more Israeli work permits, that it seemed that relations were normalizing with them, that it seemed like Hamas was more focused on running the country.
And that is one of the reasons, by the way, that he got voted in, in the first place, because, well, they're providing hospitals, they're providing care, they're doing this, they're doing that.
It seems like they're more interested in that than in the whole, you know, in the violence.
And, you know, they had also been, by the way, I was, a lot of projects had been done in Gaza that had improved the livelihood of the people there.
And by the way, a lot of the money had been coming from Qatar.
You know, I had spoken, I think I'd been very disparaging about all the other Arab countries that had not been providing any aid really in terms of building infrastructure and helping in recent years.
But it seems that the Qataris have actually given them a ton of money to be able to carry those projects. Okay.
And so it's, and some people I think in Israel, why maybe the posture itself around security around there wasn't such a stat was was like, well, you know what, maybe they're just really going to run just.
You know, run the place, you know?
|
Sam:
[45:56]
| Yeah, I mean, this is one of the, you know, I mentioned sort of the theory of the case for Israel was we can sort of just wall off this problem and it will slowly go away.
Like, you know, because we'll let some money come in there. Yeah, we've got a lot of things locked down. And there's no question Israel had a lot of things locked down on the Gaza Strip, as West Bank too, but even more so on the Gaza Strip.
But we'll let the Kataris help. And some of the Katari help was part of the deals that were made for ceasefires in previous flare-ups.
Part of the deal that was made to get the ceasefire was the Kataris would throw in some more money, et cetera. There were other things that were happening.
But the idea being, yeah, we can sort of contain this problem.
And we can let things develop in there and we'll have a nice wall around it.
And so we won't really have to worry about it.
And I heard multiple people interviewed this week saying, this has proven that containment was bullshit.
We just have to raise the place to the ground.
|
Ivan:
[47:11]
| I mean, I mean, both, both are bad solutions.
And the one thing is, look, the reality is that the only solution that exists is the one that we've been around for like 30 years, which is a fucking two, a true two state solution.
|
Sam:
[47:26]
| That's the only thing that really, and a real and a real one where you have a Palestinian state that's actually viable, that can actually control its own destiny and like everything, the Israelis have offered any time in the last couple of decades has been incredibly limited with Israel still controlling all of the, well, it really depended on who was a leader as well.
|
Ivan:
[47:56]
| We got our, that's true. I mean, I was going to say as well, I mean, most in favor of, of such a board was murdered in Israel.
|
Sam:
[48:07]
| Yes. Yes. And what I was going to say is essentially since, since that murder, that was the big turning point.
Like up until that point, it seemed like things had a chance of going in the right direction.
There was, it was still a tough situation. Let's be honest. It wasn't like there was a clear path to peace, but it seemed like things might be heading in that direction.
After that, things have been consistently going in the wrong direction ever since.
|
Ivan:
[48:35]
| It's going in the wrong direction in both sides. I mean, you know, Israel with Bibi, who, look, let's be clear about this.
|
Sam:
[48:42]
| I mean, Bibi's aggressive, aggressive, you know, settlement policy.
|
Ivan:
[48:45]
| Bibi has been horrible. Look, let's be clear. Over the last couple of decades, one of the things that we're talking about, well, you You know, you see the attack and why?
Terms of people reacting to it.
Why has reaction has been so divided is because, in large part, because of the policy that Israel has been pursuing with these territories, since you know, the mid 2000s.
Okay. You know, and especially with Netanyahu in charge, who has been just absolutely just marginalizing them, bullying them doing this in a way that He's alienated that he's alienated himself against many Western countries, including the United States leadership okay, for the most part for the last, you know, 15 plus years and It's been that and then on the Palestinian side They also elected a whole bunch of leaders that basically alienated themselves to everybody to well You pretty much like shit both On the Gaza side, you end up with Hamas.
|
Sam:
[49:54]
| In the West Bank side, you end up with a bunch of corrupt people who are only out for themselves.
|
Ivan:
[49:58]
| Yep. And Bibi is another corrupt little piece of shit. Yes.
|
Sam:
[50:05]
| He's corrupt. He's on trial right fucking now.
But you know, even policy-wise, like every single thing that he did, it seems, was, how can we take more stuff from the Palestinians?
|
Ivan:
[50:24]
| I mean, how can we bully them and treat them more like shit and not do anything, anything that would create some long lasting solution? Just me bullying them into the ground.
|
Sam:
[50:35]
| Right. And this is part of what I see here too that like makes me despair is like, okay, what's the, what's the best case scenario here, you know, or what's the, what's the plan that Israel.
Like, you know, are you going to go through and like, kill like huge numbers of people and then take full control.
And I mean, you were already, they've, they've been destroying practically every building higher than two stories tall already this week.
Right. You see video after video of like apartment complexes being leveled and stuff like this.
Okay. Let's say you succeed and you kill every single person who's actually involved in Hamas.
|
Ivan:
[51:27]
| Well, the rest of the population is going to be pretty pissed about how you went about doing it. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[51:32]
| Well, because you, you, you're, you've killed, you will kill in that process, all kinds of innocence as well.
And, and even like, you know, even the people in Hamas, I mean, they have kids, they have mothers, they have brothers who aren't Hamas.
And you're going to have this entire generation with a formative memory of all these people being killed and their country being destroyed.
And do you think they're going to come out of that being, hey, let's live happily side by side with Israel? No. You are creating the next generation of jihadis right now.
|
Ivan:
[52:11]
| Look, I was, you know, I was going back and just remembering, you know, just refreshing my memory and all the different wars that happened between Israel and all, all its neighbors for go back, you know, what, 60, 70 plus years.
And look, if you go back, you know, let's rewind it back to the eighties, for example, when Israel had invaded Lebanon. Okay. And they occupied Lebanon. How well did that go?
It was a fucking disaster. Okay. Yeah. It was a complete disaster. Okay.
|
Sam:
[52:48]
| All of them, but go ahead and keep going.
|
Ivan:
[52:51]
| And I'm just like, you know All the times that all the Arab countries got together and attacked Israel was a fucking unmitigated disaster for all of them brought down many governments You know, but also at the same time look the few guys that tried to pursue peace Usually one of them getting killed anyway, I I mean, you know, look, Sadat signed a peace deal with Israel. What did that get him?
They got him fucking killed by his own military, no less.
|
Sam:
[53:24]
| So and and and you mentioned the assassination of the Israeli prep. What was that?
|
Ivan:
[53:30]
| Sure on parents was always Perez Perez Perez Yeah, I mean It's all on either side anybody that has gone and like tried to actually do the reasonable thing That's wound up getting killed Mm-hmm.
Look we have been on this podcast for a longest time Every time that everything happened here we really didn't want to discuss it because we just want to open this the spare related to the situation because it's like.
Is fuckers just keep you know doing this over and over and over again and you know right now we're in a situation where we have both sides being populated by absolute hardliners.
Okay. In a situation which don't, don't want to budge on any reasonable solution and let's be honest at a time like this, it's hard to even contemplate. No, of course.
|
Sam:
[54:30]
| You know what, what do you think that, that, that, that, I mean, it might act, it might actually be the smart thing to do for the Israelis to like turn the other cheek and ignore it.
But there is no universe where that happens.
|
Ivan:
[54:46]
| Oh God. No, not that. Listen, the political. Listen, if, if, if, if BD said that to the Israeli public, he'd be probably dragged out of the, of his presidential.
I don't know if he had, I don't know if they have an official residence, whatever, you know, just dragged down by in his BJs out on the street.
|
Sam:
[55:04]
| I mean, it's like, again, I'm going to keep coming back to this because it's the American touchstone that's like this.
If you remember the weeks after 9-11, you know, there, is...
Of course we were going to retaliate. The only question was where, what, and how much, you know, and, and, and the American public was out for blood, you know, um, let's be clear about this.
|
Ivan:
[55:32]
| The initial reaction. Wasn't the problem. Okay.
|
Sam:
[55:36]
| No, no, it got, it got worse over time. Right.
|
Ivan:
[55:39]
| I mean, you know, the initial reaction was actually targeted specifically at the, at these people and it wasn't like going and like attacking civilian populations.
I mean, it was mostly targeted at them.
|
Sam:
[55:51]
| No, no, it was, but even there, like the, I don't want to go through all the history.
There were some indications that there were deals that could have been made with the Taliban that we did not consider.
There was indications that Bin Laden very quickly left Afghanistan.
And of course, we expanded it to Iraq, who wasn't involved at all.
|
Ivan:
[56:14]
| But, but that's my point. My point is that when it remained surgical like that, that was like, we had a lot of support.
And then when it went into that idiocy in Iraq, then it's just hell.
I mean, nobody was, I mean, it was just ridiculous. I mean, when we wound up alienating everybody, including the American public.
|
Sam:
[56:35]
| Well, I'll say even, even taking Iraq off the table, we've very quickly started, you know, saying we captured people and set up Guantanamo and we started torturing people and we started doing this.
|
Ivan:
[56:51]
| And I said the initial part. Okay. I know, I know, I know, but I'm saying, there was a lot of, yes, of course, that entire thing. Well, we were like, well, this is, you know, yeah, that was not good either. Okay. Yes.
|
Sam:
[57:01]
| The whole thing, the whole thing is that, and I remember years after this continuing to use the analogy of like an allergic reaction where yes, there was some sort of, there was a provocation, there was something that happened, but then our reaction to that thing ended up causing much more damage than the thing itself. Yes, it did.
You know, in terms of, I mean, everything from like the, the, the crazy security theater at airports, which still exist to this day, to the, the countries we invaded to us doing all kinds of surveillance stuff to us doing torture, all of the stuff, you know, and it's just, and this is the kind of trap, you know, that Israel might be falling into now.
|
Ivan:
[57:54]
| Well, by the way, let me, let me correct you on one thing. At first it was the security theater.
They have actually evolved this right now into where it's far more sophisticated than the idiotic security theater that we were doing before.
In terms of what they're using for detection, in terms of what they're using for screening and how they select screening.
They how they check, how they check luggage, specifically, the technologies are there.
They're using this. There, there is still a lot of stuff there in terms of But it's, but it but it's originally at first it was theater.
They've actually evolved it is now where it's that it's evolved a lot from I've heard people still complain about theater aspects more recently.
|
Sam:
[58:37]
| But my point is, even if it's all effective, even if if it all works, even if it all works great.
There's a cost benefit thing where you've ended up putting all of this stuff on that, you know, the protections you've put in place may end up harming more like, and again, there's the beginning versus the end.
But the point is, the point is, we could argue about all the details.
The point is it's very easy to, in the heat of the moment, moment in your sort of bloodlust to get revenge because you're not thinking, you're not that you're that that the reaction is not about what will actually be effective at preventing future harm.
It's about revenge and which may in fact cause more damage in the long term.
|
Ivan:
[59:33]
| And I think that this right now is 100 percent revenge, what the Israelis are looking at right now, which is why I'm just like, how is this once again, but again, and this plays directly into Hamas wanted the revenge.
I mean, I really think at the size of the scope of of what they planned.
I mean, they had to know that this was going to happen.
They had to know because this was unprecedented in scale from their side of preparation.
I don't buy this whole story that it was just a lot more effective than they expected. Man, look, they amassed far more weapons, they had far more planning, far more people, more of everything, okay?
It's complete bullshit that they didn't know this was the reaction.
And so the only thing that I conclude is that they wanted this reaction.
Because to them, this is advantageous.
When you don't really give a shit about people's lives.
Oh, oh, this is going to get what I want. And 20, 30, 40, 50,000 people.
I don't care if they're Israelis. I don't, nevermind. I'm going to die. Oh, good. I do. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:00:45]
| I, and you know, I, on the curmudgeon's corner slack, I mentioned sort of the, the old proverb of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind that I feel like that's the, that's the trap that the Middle East has been in for generations, is that you have the cycle of violence where, you, know, somebody does something horrific and then it gets responded to by something that's horrific.
And then that gets responded to by something that, and it never ends.
How do you get out of the cycle? How do you make it end? And I, you know, if I knew I would be winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I don't know. I don't know how to get out of this.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:32]
| You're not getting the Nobel Prize prize. Did they call you?
|
Sam:
[1:01:36]
| No, somebody else won it. I don't know. I was expecting the call, but no, I, but you know, it is not easy.
Obviously it is a hard problem, but like it, it is like you said, it's just, we get, every time we talk about it, it's just depressing and this is the most depressing it's been since we've had a show.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:58]
| Yes. That's, that's, listen, I've been, listen, I've been, I've been despondent about this. Okay. I have been despondent because I, I just don't want all these innocent people killed for no good fucking reason whatsoever. Because that's exactly what we what's happened here right now.
These are the people didn't get killed to defend something or there's just No, I mean, there is other than just let me create a situation where I can get publicity and get political advantage.
Let me kill a whole bunch of innocent people. It's just, I...
Sickens me.
|
Sam:
[1:02:39]
| And, and look, there is a difference between Hamas intentionally targeting civilians versus the Israelis trying to hit Hamas and hitting civilians while they do it.
But in the end, the innocent people die anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:57]
| That's exactly right. Even if it's different, it's still a whole bunch of innocent people getting killed.
|
Sam:
[1:03:02]
| And, and I, and I want to, I want to transition a little bit to some of what I've heard people saying and some of the rhetoric that I've heard.
I've heard awful things on all sides here.
I'll start with some of the Israeli government officials when talking about this.
I mean, they've said things like, Like, we have to think of them as animals, you know.
We've had people saying, you know, basically we're going, I've heard people being interviewed talking about how at this point we just have to like destroy all of Gaza.
That's it. We just kill them all.
You know, and that's horrifying, the minimization of those lives.
But I've also heard people justifying the Hamas attack, being like, well, what do you expect?
It's fighting back against the colonizers, and it's a justified response to the oppression, and blah, blah, blah.
And then I've heard people minimizing the Israeli response as well, being like, we can't think about those civilians. If civilians die, it's Hamas's fault. We're not going to worry about it. No, God. So, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:38]
| No, I know.
Look, I really, I see.
My wife had asked me about this. She doesn't know a lot about the context in the past about a lot of this.
And what I, the one thing is, the question that she asked me is, what do you think about all these people that are putting on their profile the Israeli flag.
Lot of people have been showing their support in that way.
And I, you know, my thing is, and I'm like, well, my whole thing is that I, I support the people. I support, you know, I don't, this this attack was horrible.
But, you know, look, Netanyahu is as a government has alienated everybody on this issue for the last 15 years.
And I don't think it's a good I don't think that the response that they have planned is a good idea. I just don't think in it.
And at the same time, what Hamas did is the plural.
And so, I'm just like, and I see people that think that they need to take a side.
You know, there's somebody, one of our friends from J and Chicago saw that Black Lives Matters Chicago, which by the way, the Black Lives Matters organizations are very splintered. So it's not like, there's not like there's a universe. Yeah, no.
But the one in Chicago is very radical. And They, they posted a picture, like basically praising the attack on Israel, you know, like, like, like it is somewhat in a way that was like, it was like they were, uh, romanticizing it in a way. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:06:20]
| I'm not sure it was quite praising, but it was, it was definitely tilted in the way of like, you know, they're fighting for their freedom to kind of thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:30]
| But, but it's still, I'm like, you know, Puerto Ricans for a long time.
You know, our country is a colony of the United States and many people in Puerto Rico fought for independence and did some violent attacks.
|
Sam:
[1:06:50]
| Your guys were the last attack of the Capitol before January 6.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:53]
| But that's my point. Exactly. Yeah, you know, we weren't going out and like murdering civilian, you know, civilians on the street.
They targeted the capitol. They targeted post offices. They targeted military installations They targeted the the parts of the government that the word of ones that were oppressing The united states.
I mean the oppressing puerto rico not go out and like do something like this and then Have people like go and like Praise it. It's disgusting.
I don't give it. You know, I don't No No, I don't care what the fuck oppression you're, you're talking about.
It doesn't justify that this is the response and the same in the other side. So, you know what? No.
|
Sam:
[1:07:43]
| I mean, one of the things that we, as people have talked about hostages and everything else like that, I mean, there were, there were a lot of people just like at the music festival having a good old time, they were not doing anything to anybody.
But like one of the people taken hostage apparently is someone whose whole career has been advocating for the Palestinians, you know, as, as like, as like trying to find peaceful solutions and ways that people can work together and try to smooth over differences and stuff. And that's like what she did.
And now she's one of the people who's been taken captive and may or may not still be alive right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:19]
| You know, and that's, and that's that. And that's my point. I mean, it's like, you know, they, listen, it's no, there's nothing to be praised here by anybody.
And there was nothing that excuses it, period.
So how this thing about, you know, look, I have been one that has always supported the rights of the Palestinians to have their own government and to have their own land and to not be in this situation.
|
Sam:
[1:08:49]
| And not have all of the stuff that's continuously been taken away from them.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:53]
| But the fucking, but the fucking appendix is bullshit.
|
Sam:
[1:08:59]
| And like I said, I've heard it in both directions, like the sort of people saying that, you know, we don't – again, I said it already.
There are people on both sides minimizing this whole thing, justifying one side and saying the other side is absolute evil.
It's a really complicated scenario here, and there's a lot of bad to go around.
And like I said, yes, it is different if the Israelis go in targeting Hamas and kill innocents as a side effect, as opposed to targeting the innocents in the first place.
There is a difference there, but the innocents still die.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:44]
| Exactly. The innocents still die. And that's the problem. need to be aware of that. You need to be the consequences of that.
|
Sam:
[1:09:53]
| Okay. And you have to own it as well. Like one of the things that I've seen a number of people point out that a few major news outlets, I remember BBC for sure, but I think New York times did.
And a couple others I forget, but like people were pointing out instances where, where, when they in the headlines and in the texts of the articles, for instance, they would say say, the Israeli was killed, whereas the Palestinian died.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:24]
| Well, okay, I see what you're saying.
|
Sam:
[1:10:29]
| The difference being, in the case of saying the Israeli was killed, you are making it an active thing.
Hamas killed the Israeli. Correct, correct. Now I hear what you're saying.
Because when you say the Palestinian died, well, how did they die exactly?
It just magically happened. They just died. No one did that.
Yes. As opposed to, yeah, they were killed too. They were killed by a bomb.
They were killed by a bullet. They were killed by an Israeli soldier, right?
And maybe you can justify that and say, okay, here's the reason why they had to die.
Maybe they were, maybe they were a Hamas person and they were a bad person.
And, you know, it's just war or maybe it's the five-year-old who was buried under the rubble of the building you destroyed, yes, you killed that person.
Yeah. And you should own it. Don't, don't try to like sanitize the language. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:31]
| I'm going to say this again. I think that the bottom line is this.
I remember watching a documentary movie about the annuarus of that a long time ago.
I know our Sadat sued for peace after his his child got killed in one of the wars.
He was in the Air Force, if I remember correctly. And, you know, Sadat said that he was going to do anything in his power to stop the killing.
And he's going to go for peace and talk to anybody, no matter what and who they were.
And I really wish I really wish somebody had the strength to do that right now, Instead of just going to a bigger war and just killing more people.
|
Sam:
[1:12:16]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:18]
| And that's all I want. I mean, I want everybody to have a, they have the right to self-determination.
They have the right to live. I really wish that they, you know, they were able to live in peace, but you know what, I know I'm a fucking stupid idealist look like right now.
I mean, I'm, I'm an optimist and I'm like, you know, this, this, this, this week tested my optimism.
I will say, you know, with this happening, you know, we've had the war in Ukraine going on right now. It's almost two years now, next year.
And now we've got this going on.
And I have to remind myself that if you go back to the 1960s, not only do we have the Vietnam war raging, but we got regular wars between all the countries at least in Israel at the same time right now, and in Angola, and in Africa, and in I don't know, at all your damn places.
|
Sam:
[1:13:19]
| You had the troubles in Northern Ireland going on. You had all kinds of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:23]
| And Northern Ireland. And we were like threatening each other with like nuclear annihilation. You know.
|
Sam:
[1:13:29]
| Oh yeah, that.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:30]
| And you know, that little detail. Yes. You know, that we forget about. But yeah.
It seemed that 20, 25 years ago, we had, it seemed within our grasp that maybe we could have a more peaceful planet than the one that we have right now.
And it really sucks that it isn't.
|
Sam:
[1:13:52]
| And it's, it's, it, it all seems like it's slipping away. And places that were getting more democratic and more free are retrenching into authoritarianism and all kinds of restrictions of liberty and et cetera.
And yeah, I mean, we've talked about this in other contexts domestically, but worldwide, it also seems like, hey, the last decade, maybe a little bit more, we've stopped going in a positive direction and started going in a negative direction.
Oh yeah, totally. And accelerating it seems like, but you know, I don't know. They're there. Maybe they're glimpses of hope here and there.
I don't know, but it's a, it's a distressing time.
I think you're absolutely right. I remember like the, there, there were portions of time where it seemed like optimism was winning. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:54]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:14:55]
| And it does not seem like that is the case right now. So now, but I, I agree with you. I still hope for the best, but I, it's so damn depressing.
It's so hard to see a path to the, a good solution here.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:11]
| So it would take it would take some serious leadership on both sides to bring that out. And I don't think the problem is, as we mentioned, the leaders on both sides right now that are there are shit.
|
Sam:
[1:15:25]
| Yeah. On that optimistic note, we should take a break and maybe talk about the whole way to talk about something more.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:37]
| Oh, it's something more optimistic. God.
|
Sam:
[1:15:39]
| Okay. Well, here comes a break. It's a, it's the, a wiki of the day one.
So enjoy. We'll be back after this.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:22]
| Have you learned a lot of on what's on i have and the other day for some reason.
Is i was on a phone call on my my phone which by the way i phone up.
Yeah why they attempted to once again deliver apple deliver something to me while i'm not home.
Nice i tried to stop them from doing so to no avail so it's gonna get one day but i was on a phone call.
For some reason, Wiki of the Day started playing podcasts on the background, and I am like listening to this fucking Wiki of the Day in the back, and I'm like, what the hell?
I think I was on a Zoom call or some call of some kind, and a fucking Wiki of the Day is blasting in the background.
I'm like, why the fuck is a Wiki of the Day playing right now?
And I wasn't figuring out, at first, I wasn't sure because the volume was low, so it's only to figure out a little bit until I, Oh, it's a fucking wiki today.
It was a random wiki of the day. That's right.
Uh, the John Steigerwald episode. Okay. Random wiki of the day.
|
Sam:
[1:18:30]
| Oh, I, I, I had included that in our, I sent you that link on Slack or something.
Cause it was a sports thing from Pittsburgh and I thought you'd like it.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:39]
| Oh, so that's why, so that's why all of a sudden it started playing on my damn bone.
|
Sam:
[1:18:45]
| Well, like I, I couldn't hit play for you. I just sent it to the Slack.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:49]
| Well, I don't know what the hell happened, but all of a sudden I'm like, I'm working all of a sudden. I got a wiki of the day blasting somewhere and I'm like, Oh, what the hell's going on? Anyway.
So, yeah, so beautiful, beautiful.
|
Sam:
[1:19:02]
| I, I, I, I, I live to insert wiki of the day into random moments in people's lives.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:11]
| Sounds great. Honestly, it was hilarious. I was thinking about it later. I like my pal.
|
Sam:
[1:19:16]
| You know, I'm going to go around looking for open Bluetooth speakers and just insert wiki of the day there.
And you know, somebody will be like the wedding music is coming on and boom wiki of the day.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:31]
| There you go. That sounds great.
|
Sam:
[1:19:34]
| So we have it. We have a new speaker, right? We have a new speaker.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:38]
| Ah, yes. I mean, this election, this looks like a slam dunk.
|
Sam:
[1:19:41]
| Yeah. Like, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:44]
| So let's see. The lease is already out.
|
Sam:
[1:19:49]
| We, we had an initial vote, like since last time, you know, last time we talked, they had gotten rid of their speaker and then we recessed for a week or whatever.
They came back, they had an initial vote. It was Scalise versus Jordan.
Scalise won, but he did, you know, the Republican caucus was divided close to in half on that.
So Scalise started trying to round up enough votes to actually win the vote in the house.
Because of course, the vote in the house is of the whole house.
You have to have 217 votes to have more than 50, assuming everybody votes.
And it would be 218, but I think there's one seat vacant or something, blah, blah, blah. So it's 217 at the moment.
And anyway, they, yeah, Ah, the, he, he spent like 24 hours trying to round up enough votes to vote for him, but he couldn't get there.
He couldn't get there. He couldn't get anywhere close to 217.
So he was like, he was about what, how many votes short? Like 14, 14. Right. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:00]
| That's what I was done. What? No, no, no. Wait.
|
Sam:
[1:21:04]
| The first, the first whip count I had had 14, but then that got worse.
Like as he went on, like there were more people who were saying they would say no. So I think it was more like 20 at the end, but I still thought that he was going to, I mean, soldier on.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:21]
| I mean, he wouldn't give up so quickly. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:21:24]
| Well, and look, there was no official second vote there.
And by the way, these are all votes within the caucus, closed door, secret ballot, blah, blah, blah.
This is not, again, the Republicans this time are in a position where they do not have to go to the House floor and vote over and over and over and over again until they get something.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:43]
| You just said secret ballot. And I, I, I don't remember.
All I remember is peanuts. Peanuts? There, yeah, there, there is a, there's a, there's a peanuts cartoon where, or all of a sudden I think it's Lucy is running this, this group at the, at summer camp.
And what she's doing is passing every time that they're going to make a decision, they, she passed a secret ballots to, to everybody in order to make a vote.
Okay. and Marcy would run to vote, and then she would count the ballots, and then we would go from there.
So when I hear the word secret ballot, I just think of Marcy handing out ballots.
I mean, that would be great if we had Marcy from Peanuts handing out ballots and turn to the GOP I'm counting them.
|
Sam:
[1:22:26]
| Okay. Okay. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:27]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[1:22:30]
| Marcy Taylor green.
You know, get her a disguise, you know, anyway, sorry. Anyway, the point is, after 24 hours, he realized he was not going to be able to get enough. There were enough people who were like, no Scalise under any circumstances, no matter what.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:51]
| But he had Gates, it is bad.
|
Sam:
[1:22:54]
| So anyway, he dropped out. He said, I'm out, forget it. And so we had a second day where we had, you know, Jordan was going to try again.
And then we, who is this guy? Who is this guy?
I don't, some, some random representative backbencher.
I'm just scrolling up looking. It's Austin Scott was his name.
Yeah. And well, and you, you remember, I had mentioned the other last week, I guess it was how one of the possibilities of a way we come out of this is that somebody we've never heard of, who hasn't yet made enemies on any faction of the Republican Party, could show up as some sort of compromise candidate.
That was not who this guy was.
This guy was one of, you know, a hardcore Scalise person who was basically just like, I'll do it. I will run. I will be the anti-Jordan.
So Jordan, this time, second time around, won his ballot um come on he's got a hundred but he's got the Jordan.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:07]
| Okay, if I'm reading this right, the Jordan vote was 124 to 81. Yes. Okay.
That's not anywhere close.
And then it said, will you vote for me to go? Will you vote for me on the floor?
152 to 55. I mean, that's catastrophic. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:24:27]
| So he's nowhere close to 217 either.
And so what they've been doing, like I said, the Republicans are not in a position where they have to do vote after vote after vote on the floor.
They have these secret ballot things.
And basically, the next order of business on the House floor is the speaker vote. But what they've been doing is every day, gaveling in, having a pro forma session, and then going right back into recess.
They're basically kicking it back day by day by day.
And so after these votes, they once again went into recess for the weekend.
And so we'll see where we are Monday, Presumably over the course of the weekend, there'll be all kinds of lobbying and deal-making trying to happen, but like, but listen, all I'm saying is if, if Scalise missing 20, thought it was impossible to get them, how the hell does fucking Georgian with 55 to go, right.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:26]
| Get me even like a snippet. It's not, it's not happening.
|
Sam:
[1:25:32]
| So, we once again had all kinds of Republicans coming out of this caucus meeting, talking about how fucked they are, and how it makes them look like fools, and this is idiotic, and they can't do anything, and blah, blah, blah.
This is Republicans saying this stuff, okay?
One of them was quoted somewhere, and I wish I knew which one it was.
I saw the quote and lost it again.
They said, I don't think if Jesus came and ran that he could get 217 Republican votes.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:08]
| He's not wrong either.
|
Sam:
[1:26:10]
| Well, Jesus would be completely rejected by the Republicans at this point, given like what he stands for. But anyway, so they're nowhere they're, they're fucking nowhere.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:24]
| Oh shit. Well now what is this thing? We're four Democrats centrist to McHenry.
Let's make a deal. I did not read this. Okay, but what are they trying to do?
|
Sam:
[1:26:40]
| Okay, so what they are trying to do, and I don't think this has any traction yet. This goes back to one of the other possibilities we talked about last week.
But basically, four Democrats from the Problem Solvers Caucus have basically, they are not talking about one of these deals we talked about last week where where some Republicans flip to the Democrats or we have some sort of compromise speaker and power sharing, blah, blah, blah.
No, what they are saying is they might agree to a rule change to let McHenry do very limited things. They want him to be able to bring up emergency aid bills for Ukraine and Israel.
They want him to be able to do short-term bills to extend government funding further than the deadline, or they want general consideration of anything that's fiscal 2024 spending bills. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:40]
| And so how did that, how did that negotiation, how did that, you know, is that, that's just going to fall flat, right? That's not happening.
|
Sam:
[1:27:51]
| Yes. Yes. And it was also like, we'll do this in 15 day increments with possible extensions, as long as there's no speaker, blah, blah, blah.
As far as I can see.
Nothing in this article specifically saying that McHenry has responded to this letter in any way.
And I would also say the fact that there is an article in Politico about this offer means it's dead on arrival.
The Democrats did this letter to get into press about doing this letter as opposed to really making a deal. If they really wanted to make a deal, there would be private discussions that we would not be reading about, at least initially.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:37]
| Well, so, all right. So one thing that I've got, like, all right.
So my, my key question to you, Sam is yeah, it's October 13.
And we passed the spending bill. How long ago was it for 45 days?
|
Sam:
[1:28:50]
| 10 days ago, 10 days, maybe 11, maybe 11. Okay. Maybe 11. Okay.
So we've had 10 days without a speaker and this happened like a day or two before that.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:00]
| So we got 34 more days. So basically we were talking about a shutdown right at Thanksgiving. Yes. Perfect.
|
Sam:
[1:29:08]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:09]
| Perfect. So how, I mean, I, okay.
I have my odds or percent, I'd say what's percentage chance we're going to have a shutdown in November?
|
Sam:
[1:29:24]
| Well, I thought there was a nearly 100% chance we'd have a shutdown like a couple of weeks ago and we were wrong. I mean, but I, I, I'd put it very high.
I'd still have it like 90% plus chance of it.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:36]
| I mean, I, right now, I mean, I, I mean, I, right now I'm saying it's 99% because I kind of held, do we not have a shutdown?
If they, most of the damn Republicans are nowhere, even close to sniffing, figuring out who the hell to make speak.
|
Sam:
[1:29:52]
| Right. But this, again, this is the kind of thing though, that will seem like it's nowhere until all of a sudden, out of the blue, there's a deal.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:01]
| Here's the thing about this though. We've never had this happen.
|
Sam:
[1:30:06]
| No, we're, we are in uncharted territory.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:08]
| This is completely uncharted territory. We didn't have, you know, some asshole, you know, just come up and just basically just torpedo his own caucus. Okay.
Before, you know, a presidential election. Okay. I mean, it's, it's so insane. I mean, I was like wondering, I'm like, what, what is he working for the Democrats? What the fuck is he doing?
|
Sam:
[1:30:30]
| Well, here's what I've heard. Some other people predict is that even like, well, we went through all the options last week, so I'm not going to go through the list again, but I could see something happen that people, people have suggested where they do vote for a speaker.
They somehow come out with a candidate that gets the votes.
The first thing that speaker does is do some sort of financial deal to relieve the government shutdown.
And they immediately get removed again because they made a deal with the Democrats to avoid the government shutdown.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:08]
| So we have a, well, I expected that to happen with Scalise. That was like what I, what I expected.
I explained that, oh, Scalise gets in, he makes another deal, averts shut down and then they pulled, you know, they, they execute him too.
|
Sam:
[1:31:22]
| And, you know, I mean, this is all sad, but it's also funny.
I mean, there's no way, you know, and, and again, seeing the Republicans come out of these meetings, talking about how, how they are unable to govern and saying that out loud, it's like, that's going on an ad.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:44]
| I mean, we've been saying this for I don't know how long, but we, you know, it's like guys can't do, you know, so, but what about, well, okay, well, the other one that of course, all of a sudden, you know, he, because he said he was out, right, but what's his name?
McCarthy. What, and like was saying, well, maybe I can do it again.
|
Sam:
[1:32:07]
| Well there was a whole little movement there to try to get him back, including people who who are like, you know, this can be temporary, but, you know, let's get it back.
Cause he could actually do something. And then like, you know, we can talk about it again, I guess. But I, and there was the whole thing where it was reported for a little while that he was going to resign after they picked a speaker.
And then it was like, no, no, no, I'm, I'm not going anywhere.
In fact, I'm running for reelection, blah, blah, blah.
I don't know what the truth is there, but it's, it's certainly of those things where even if he is going to resign, it's kind of important for him to not admit that until there's a new speaker in place.
I don't know there, you know, I, I, I will say, I wish that they did have to just do the public votes here. We'd probably be on the seventh vote already.
And then we'd be breaking for the soul.
Can you imagine if Wednesday, we had already started with three votes a day and we'd had nine ballots and still nothing. And now they're going to come back Monday for more, you know, glorious.
That would be incredible. That would be incredible. But no, instead we've got these private meetings and we, man, I wish, yeah, because we don't have video on them or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:31]
| Hell listen, the last time he almost came to blows. Yeah.
I mean, they're all good themselves. Almost came to blows. I mean, it really took some people separating people before some people started, you know, they get the shit out of that gates that the last one.
|
Sam:
[1:33:48]
| Yeah. I mean, So it's sad that we don't have that. I mean, this is still amusing, but the fact that they've sort of decided as a caucus that they're not going to bring anything to an actual vote on the House floor until they have 217 means we won't get quite that repeat.
But it sounds like instead what we're going to have is a private Republican meeting every afternoon for the next month, with, with like different candidates running, and the caucus split down the middle.
And, and like, you know, at some point, and, and neither one willing to work with the Democrats yet.
Like it's, it seems like, you know, at some point, the Republicans should just go ahead and fucking break into two parties.
I mean, yeah, you know, just go now, of course, they couldn't have a majority that way, then somebody would have to coalition with the Democrats, but I mean...
I don't believe we're going to stay with no speaker until, you know, 2025, when the next Congress is sworn in, we're not going to go a year plus with no speaker.
This will get resolved one way or another. But at this point, damned if I know how.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:02]
| Look, I mean, if this were to drag on, there is a certain point, like I mentioned Thanksgiving and that like, think about Christmas later, look, man, the pressure on some of these people is going to to go through the roof.
Yeah. I mean, right now, it's not that bad. But look, man, once we get into November, that pressure is going up 1000 fold.
|
Sam:
[1:35:28]
| Yeah, because remember, until well, unless you do this thing with giving McHenry more power, which may be one way out of this right to let let him do just enough to get the the mandatory required things to keep government running. Let him do those things.
Maybe that's a way that you just you just have McHenry being the temporary speaker.
Maybe that does last like a year and a half or whatever.
But in order to do that, you have to let him do something other than call the vote for speaker. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:03]
| You do understand, right? That, that, that, if that's that, that, that, I mean, look, you know, the guys that just left the caucus saying that we can't govern.
I mean, you want to know, look at the great campaign, great campaign material, you're giving the Democrats from the next election day.
Why the hell do you want to vote for these guys? They can't even like, you know, they can't even elect the speaker. Right. They, they, they don't, they have no interest in governing. Let us do something.
|
Sam:
[1:36:30]
| Yeah, I I feel like I, can't, I don't know, I don't know how it's going to resolve.
I know it has to resolve. And as you said, the pressure will be increasing and increasing, increasing. And maybe at some point you do get like 10 Republicans who decide they will make a deal with the Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:51]
| And listen, the one thing is that obviously to those people, man, just like Gates was able to extract quite a lot from McCarthy to, to be speaker, I mean, come those 10 guys, I mean, you can't be that stupid and not know that you can probably get a King's ransom for that.
Okay. Yes. Yes. I mean, you can't, I mean, you have to be insane not to see that. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:37:21]
| And, and you don't, and look, we're talking about deals here.
We're not necessarily talking about like make Jeffrey's speaker or put their Democrats in charge.
Like the right set of Republicans could broker a deal where, you know, yeah, yes, you have to give the Democrats something, but you set up some sort of power sharing arrangement where both the Democrats and Republicans get to bring their priorities to the floor and you just vote on them.
Right. right? And some win and some don't. And, and at the end, the Democrats will get some stuff and the Republicans will get some stuff. And right.
But but the deal would have to be like these sort of spending bill things that are going to have, you know, most Democrats plus a few Republicans, those go through.
I mean, basically, the path to some sort of solution here is, I mean, my god, I know it's controversial, but it's let things go through that actually have a support of more than half of the of the house, you know? Oh my god.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:27]
| But I mean, what kind of like a heretical bastard are you for the love of God?
|
Sam:
[1:38:31]
| I mean, and not, and not worry about the whole, the so-called Hastert rule of nothing gets to have a vote unless it has a majority of the majority, you know, let that go.
I mean, why are you naming things after the child molester anyway? Come on.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:47]
| Yeah. I just realized that I was like, why the hell do we have a rule named after that guy?
|
Sam:
[1:38:52]
| And you know, so if something has.
All the Democrats plus a few Republicans, great, goes through.
If something has most of the Republicans plus a few Democrats, hey, great, that goes through too, you know?
And you look for sort of these consensus things.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:09]
| Hey, maybe we can bring back Boehner.
|
Sam:
[1:39:15]
| Yeah, you know, those kinds of things are possibilities too.
We keep hearing, oh, the Speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:22]
| I mean, okay, bring me back Boehner. I mean, okay, you know, Boehner was reasonable.
|
Sam:
[1:39:29]
| Bringing back Boehner might be okay. He, like, after he was out, he was a funny guy.
He did some things with Obama. He did some things. He spent a lot of time.
He called Jordan a legislative terrorist.
Like, he's, you know, he's got a lot of, he's an interesting guy.
But, you know, but don't give them any ideas about bringing back him because they might incite instead to bring bring back Gingrich or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:58]
| Oh God, no, please. Jesus Christ.
|
Sam:
[1:40:01]
| There's your compromise candidate, Newt Gingrich. Fuck him.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:04]
| Fuck him. Jesus.
|
Sam:
[1:40:06]
| Well, at least they, I mean, and look, they talk Donald Trump out of it for now, but if this chaos goes on, maybe he'll come back. Speaker Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:14]
| Look, if Jordan is short 55 votes, I can't imagine that, that, that, that Trump would be any closer.
|
Sam:
[1:40:22]
| Well, that that's the whole problem is so far. Nobody can imagine anybody who can actually get to do 17. Anybody!
It's fucking so stupid, and I mean, the Republicans. Look, the normal way this has worked up until these last couple of things is that, and I guess, there have been occasional smatterings of rogue votes, but generally the way speaker votes have worked all of the way along is that the party who has the majority would hold an internal private vote on who they wanted to be the speaker, and then no matter what that internal vote was, whoever won that vote would get 100% of that party's vote on the floor, and therefore that person would win.
But we had a few people not vote for Pelosi, but not enough to cause a problem.
And then we had this whole disaster with McCarthy, and now we have this.
That norm, like, especially on the, I mean, the Democrats did it a little bit last time around, but this time around, you know, the Republicans thrown that completely out the window.
It's like, you know, they're not saying, okay, you won the internal Republican vote. Therefore, everybody's going to vote for you. Not even close.
Not even close. Not even close.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:51]
| Not even close. All right. So fun stuff. I know we should wrap it up. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:41:59]
| Was there something else? Was there something?
|
Ivan:
[1:42:01]
| No, no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:42:02]
| Okay. Okay. So, you know, the stuff we end with go to curmudgeon-corner.com.
You can look at our archives, listen to all our old shows, read the transcripts of the recent ones. You can find all the ways to contact us, Facebook, email, Mastodon.
And we would love to hear from you. And you can go to our Patreon to give us money at various levels.
We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard.
We will send you a mug, all those kinds of fun things, depending on what you send us and at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask nicely, we will invite you to our commensals corn slack where Yvonne and I and other listeners are chatting throughout the week, sharing links, sharing stuff, whatever things.
Yeah. And yeah, so Yvonne, anything strike your fancy from the last week on the curmudgeon's corner slack that you would like to share with people? Oh yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:02]
| Hamas.
The pool movie shown to Miami Springs schools children. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:43:11]
| Now, before you saw this article, did you know about this movie?
Because I've known about this movie for years, I had no idea about this.
So the thing is, here's the deal, everybody just as background information.
Winnie the Pooh went public domain last year, like it reached the expiration of its US copyrights.
Okay, now this is very careful this. This is the original book version of Winnie the Pooh, the Disney version is still under copyright.
So like, if you make it look like the Disney Winnie the Pooh, you're screwed.
But if you base something off the original Winnie the Pooh book, then fair game.
You can use those characters and other contexts and stuff. And there were a whole bunch of people doing projects like this.
And one of them, Which I remember reading a lot of articles about while it was under development when it first got released blah blah blah I watch a YouTube guy who does channel called film theory.
He did an episode on it but anyway, there was a horror movie based on Winnie the Pooh and the basic premise is Winnie the Pooh and piglet. Oh good.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:21]
| You can read okay In Winnie-the-Pooh, Blood and Honey, the once-lovable honey-obsessed bear turns ferocious after his bestie, Christopher Robin, leaves for college.
Enraged by Robin's abandonment, Pooh and Piglet develop a seething hatred for humanity and go on a feature-length killing spree during which they slay a group of female university students who have the misfortune of renting a cabin in the hundred-acre wood.
Other other things depicted contains kill scenes in which you Poo and piglet smash a victim's head with a sledgehammer the captain a person and feed a lady into a wood chipper This was shown to a bunch of fourth graders.
Okay The article talks about how the fourth graders got counseling Yes, counseling was offered to fourth grader students after a teacher showed them a slasher pic of the beloved children's book.
You know, let's see. As first reported by Ivan Taylor with CBS News Miami, of course it happened in Miami where else, parents of Shelby's setter twins were traumatized after watching the movie in class on October 2nd at Academy for Innovative Education, very innovative indeed, a public charter school in Miami Springs.
She told the outlet the movie continued to play even after students complained that they were not enjoying the gore.
I mean, you know, I think that, you know, when you're seeing a lady like, you know, being fed into a wood chipper, you know, that's pretty bad.
There's also a stabbing, face ripping, neck slicing, arm snapping, whipping, eyeballs popping out, and much, much more.
|
Sam:
[1:46:01]
| Topless lady.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:02]
| Oh, yes, a woman's breasts are visible after a top comes off of being attacked.
According to common sense, the group also don't spread a use of the word fucking shit.
Yeah. The movie's tagline is this ain't no bedtime story.
No shit Sherlock. The characters are of course based on a bones home some 1926 classic, Winnie the Pooh, which entered the public domain in January 22 after the 2022 after its copyright expired.
You know, as soon as the teacher realized was being shown the movie was turned off as soon soon.
|
Sam:
[1:46:37]
| Which took like half an hour. Yes, apparently.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:40]
| I mean, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:46:41]
| Now the article does mention that the movie apparently starts out slow and most of the blood and gore is at the end.
So I have not seen the movie. It is on my list.
It is on my list. But I have not seen it. But I imagine it sort of starts out sort of normal Winnie the Pooh-ish and then Christopher Robin leaves and they go insane and then this stuff starts, you know.
So maybe the beginning wasn't that bad. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:08]
| I think I'm going to guess that what happened is, I think this was a substitute teacher, I think. Probably. Probably. and probably That's, You know, they were just like, I don't know. I need to show us all Winnie the Pooh.
Look at this. There we go Let's let's show it sounds good, right?
Probably I don't know what the hell it was It's just not even paying attention to the damn movie probably reading a book. I'm like, I don't About this movie.
I mean like whatever and the kids were coming up. Hey Is that a girl's tits on the TV?
We're like, ah, no, no, you're fine. You're good. Don't worry about it alone I was like, oh shit, they just lit that throat.
|
Sam:
[1:47:49]
| Well, I think you can imagine the fourth graders, like they, it starts getting violent and you can see like kids crying.
Why is Winnie the Pooh doing this?
Winnie the Pooh's my friend. And then they go home and they're Winnie the Pooh dolls staring at them.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:09]
| Yes. Yes. And then of course they're telling their parents. I mean, I'm like, okay, I'll, for the love of God, you know, TV. Anyway.
So, yeah, so that's, you know, that's the kind of shit that happens where I live.
|
Sam:
[1:48:25]
| Oh, that, that, that made me laugh so hard when I saw it.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:28]
| It's ridiculous. You know, it was good. We needed a good laugh for the week, you know?
|
Sam:
[1:48:34]
| And I mean, I guess I feel bad for the kids, but come on, you know, What the hell?
|
Ivan:
[1:48:41]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:48:42]
| Uh, I think we're done. I think we're done. Yes. Hey everybody.
Have a great week. Uh, if all goes as expected, we will be back next week to talk about all the latest developments.
I am presuming that both of the big stories we've talked about this week will have significant new developments between before our next show.
And who knows, maybe the Trump stuff will too or something else entirely.
And you know, maybe, maybe China will invade Taiwan just to wrap off the month.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:14]
| Jesus, no, for God's sake, you know, I just, you know, let's just all just let's not let's Yeah, let's not and let's just let's just, let's just all you know, look, you don't need to be religious to pray.
I'm not exactly that religious, but without getting hurt, just hope for peace. Just pray for peace.
|
Sam:
[1:49:36]
| Yeah, that's a good note to close on. Hope, hope the worst doesn't happen and instead things get better quickly. Somehow, somehow. Okay. Bye everyone. We'll see you next time.
Goodbye. Bye. Okay, that's it. I'm hitting stop.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:24]
| Okay, let's see. I'm sure there's more than 99%.
| |
|
