Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:02]
| Hello, do we have a speaker in the house? I guess the answer is no.
|
Sam:
[0:07]
| OK, yeah, yeah, yes, of course we have that McHenry guy.
|
Ivan:
[0:13]
| Yeah, he counts. I well, he well, I don't know. He's threatening to quit.
|
Sam:
[0:19]
| So well, if they made him actually do anything.
I mean, I don't know. I'd quit if they made me do anything at work. Come on.
|
Ivan:
[0:28]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[0:31]
| You're ready to start.
Okay, here we go. Ready? Here it is to go.
Come on. I hit the button already. Now it's just spinning button.
Come on, come on. I'll give it like 10 more seconds and then I'll turn off.
I'll turn this off and on again and see if it helps.
Okay, here we go. I'm turning it off, back to preview mode.
Okay, but that's preview mode, so you can't hear me.
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Ivan:
[1:05]
| Preview mode, okay.
|
Sam:
[1:07]
| Now I'm going live.
Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Friday, October 20th, 2023.
It's just after 2.30 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Menter.
Yvonne Bowe is here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:37]
| How, how, what is it that, you know, that wasn't that the stereotypical Indians.
Hello. That they, they used in, in like, you know, in old Westerns and yeah.
And old Westerns and stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:55]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[1:55]
| Yeah.
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Sam:
[1:55]
| Yeah. But like, is it even remotely real? I figured it was like, no, that's what I'm saying.
|
Ivan:
[2:01]
| Is it? Yeah. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to guess it said no.
That that was just some, you know, it's like, well, for example, I mean, you know, the, the Spaniards came over here and they called the, the natives over here, Indians, of course are idiots because they weren't in India.
You know, they were trying to reach India, but they got here.
And so we call them Indians. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:23]
| Here we go.
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Ivan:
[2:25]
| Here we go.
|
Sam:
[2:26]
| Yes. Wikipedia to the rescue. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Culture anglicization of the Lakota word how, a Lakota language greeting by men to men.
The term how is often found in stereotypical and outdated depictions of Native Americans made by non-natives in some Hollywood movies and various novels.
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Ivan:
[2:53]
| Yes, very common.
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Sam:
[2:55]
| But it is related to a specific greeting in a specific way.
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Ivan:
[3:00]
| So it is related to a greeting. So at least it's not completely made up bullshit. Okay.
|
Sam:
[3:04]
| Right. It's just, it's a specific greeting used in a specific context by a specific group.
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Ivan:
[3:11]
| Not like, not every single one. Well, of course. I mean, like I said, we called them all in and we called them Indians. Got nothing to do with India.
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Sam:
[3:18]
| No, no.
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Ivan:
[3:21]
| You know, they're native Americans, but definitely not from India.
They're not Indians, really.
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Sam:
[3:26]
| Well, that was the part of the whole scam where like they wanted to make people back home believe that they'd actually found the route to India. Right.
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Ivan:
[3:35]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[3:36]
| So it's all a scam. It's it's all been a scam.
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Ivan:
[3:39]
| We've always been a scam.
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Sam:
[3:41]
| But back up from the microphone, but you're screaming again. Oh, God. Jesus Christ.
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Ivan:
[3:48]
| Always a scam.
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Sam:
[3:50]
| OK, people, our plan, we are going to have a but first.
Last week we said we weren't really gonna have a but first and then we kind of did one anyway We're just gonna lean into it.
We will do a but first this time and then our two main topics We're gonna talk about the Middle East again because there have been more developments and we're gonna talk US politics Which primarily is the house speaker race, but we might mention a little bit about Trump's latest legal issues We'll see how it goes That's the plan Shall shall I go first or shall you go first for our butt first?
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Ivan:
[4:26]
| Well, usually I go first. So why don't we stay?
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Sam:
[4:28]
| Okay, I thought you were gonna say usually you go first. So let's shake it up But no, no, no shake up.
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Ivan:
[4:34]
| What dummy come on. We're curmudgeons the hell is shaking up anything.
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Sam:
[4:39]
| Okay, fuck it.
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Ivan:
[4:39]
| I mean, you know, so I got this thing.
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Sam:
[4:42]
| They can't see that you, you, I was showing it to you.
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Ivan:
[4:46]
| It's yeah. It's an iPhone 15 pro max. Okay. Yep.
|
Sam:
[4:49]
| Um, and this is your first time getting the larger size, right?
The largest, I should say. Yes.
Well, there, there's a, well, there's a number and you wait, wait, wait, wait, before, before we go any deeper, several shows ago, you promised that the first thing you would do with this phone is take your thumbs and try to push them against the back really hard until it breaks.
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Ivan:
[5:11]
| You know, I have not attempted that.
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Sam:
[5:13]
| You freaking liar.
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Ivan:
[5:15]
| And I, I know, I know, I know. I'm always, you know, I'm a fraud, you know? So, um, yeah, I, I, I have not done that.
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Sam:
[5:24]
| Okay. So how's the phone really?
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Ivan:
[5:27]
| Well, in the past, I had resisted getting the bigger phone for a number of reasons.
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Sam:
[5:32]
| There were one because you're like small and tiny yourself and it's really big on your hands.
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Ivan:
[5:38]
| Yeah, well, yes, OK, that is that is one thing, you know, I do realize that I notice that I use this phone, I do use it more with two hands than one.
OK, so that is that that is definitely something.
But the practical considerations more were sometimes like exercise and other things that whatnot where the bigger phones were heavier and bulkier to use.
But one thing that's happened is that I don't exercise with my phone on me anymore because I use mostly a tracker, OK, for for fitness now. Right.
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Sam:
[6:20]
| But you don't use an Apple watch. Your wife has one, but you have my wife has an Apple watch.
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Ivan:
[6:24]
| I don't know. I use a tracker that that synchronizes the information with the phone.
So I use that. But then also another thing is that in the past, it was like, if I was on a treadmill and I want to listen to music, okay, well look with, with wired headphones.
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Sam:
[6:42]
| Oh, that was such a pain in the ass.
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Ivan:
[6:45]
| Well, yeah. The thing is that you really, you really needed to have the phone on you.
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Sam:
[6:51]
| If you were using wireless, you can have the phone on the table, like feet away or whatever.
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Ivan:
[6:57]
| I could have it on the on the treadmill itself without carrying it with you because, you know, back then, look, I tried putting it on the table while I had the headphones on.
Look, I'm more I'm more than once yanked it accidentally and launched with wired headphones, yeah, with wired headphones. Yeah. And so that was like just not, you know, not good. OK, so but AirPods have solved that problem.
I have a sensor that that removes the other problem.
And I will say that to be fair, the phone is, these are lighter than what they used to be. Okay. At this biggest size. Okay.
This phone is nowhere nearly as heavy as it was, especially now made out of titanium and whatnot. It's, I mean, and so they're just each one of those things that was an issue.
And the one other thing that compelled me, I would have stayed with the, with a smaller form size anyway because I've I've been used to it but, This phone has a much better camera, okay?
|
Sam:
[8:00]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[8:01]
| And that, the optical, the optical zoom that this thing has, which is at five times is, is, is quite good.
And you know, I, I like taking pictures and I like cameras. I don't like carrying a damn camera.
Um, and I used to have big cameras and I stopped using, this is just so annoying to carry them.
|
Sam:
[8:27]
| I like, I kept trying like, Ooh, this is a really cool, I got one.
And, and then the thing would just sit on the shelf, it would sit on the shelf.
It would not get used every once in a while when I was going to something.
And I'm like, I know I'm going to want to take pictures. I would take it with me, but then it was a pain in the ass to get the pictures off it back to the other thing.
|
Ivan:
[8:48]
| And you want to carry the damn thing during the whole thing.
|
Sam:
[8:52]
| And I'm also like, I also was sensitive. And I know newer cameras since then have fixed this, but it didn't have like the built-in GPS and geolocating.
|
Ivan:
[9:02]
| And I was all pain in the neck.
|
Sam:
[9:04]
| You know, I know now you can get one. So now you're going to get them, but you can even get ones now that automatically like upload to the cloud.
As soon as you take the pictures, all kinds of, you can get all kinds of stuff now, but at the time I sort of was like, gave my final attempt for a separate standalone camera.
Those are the things that kept me from using it. Whereas my phone was always with me.
Now I made, I did prematurely try to switch to all phone at one point.
And then I had a couple of years with really crappy pictures because I switched before the cameras were any good, really.
I mean, they, they were, and then, and then, so that's when I regretted it.
And it was like, okay, I need to get a real camera again, but I did, but then I didn't use it and the cameras got better on the phones.
|
Ivan:
[9:49]
| Now though, now the cameras have gotten better on the phones.
I still probably used a camera up until like four or five years ago when the pictures were still better.
I mean, because I know that I got some pictures from some of my kids birthday parties and stuff that I took with a camera. And you could tell you could easily tell the difference between the pictures that year taken. Yeah, yeah.
With that. And now. But now, look, I look that but that's no longer the case. Look what I mean.
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Sam:
[10:17]
| So like, let's be honest, like a professional photographer with a high quality camera can still do. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[10:23]
| Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no doubt. And I was going to get to that in a second because I'm like.
The other day, but but the one that I had that wasn't an SLR, but there was an advanced camera for the time.
OK, I had I had a Canon G series, whatever. Yeah, one of the you know, there's a very good camera. And I was taking pictures to sell my car.
OK, and I had my phone as well. And I took pictures with both.
And when I was comparing the pictures, I wound up ditching almost all the photos from the Canon because the ones from the iPhone 12 Pro were better or better. OK.
I mean, and it was just ridiculous is how much better they were.
And I was like, that's the point where really with my iPhone 12 Pro, that I was like, look, this is not it's not a contest. And basically that camera I got rid of at that moment a couple of years ago, because I'm just like, look, this is not now.
Look, the top of the line, the SLR still are better because I just went to when I went to Disney in and some of the newer technologies with the mirrorless stuff and things like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, listen, but I went I went I went to Disney and Disney has this photo pass program where they got photographers with really high quality cameras that will take pictures of you.
And the cool thing is that they automatically I mean that they have it set up that you take the pictures.
You you swipe your your thing automatically during your right.
Right. OK, like seconds later, you've got you've got them there.
OK, it's great. And it works really good. And so I had some friends that it was really their first visit to Disney.
And it was like, it was their second. But the thing is that the first time they went there were so little, they didn't remember the place.
OK, so that's a guy said that doesn't count. OK, you don't even remember coming.
OK. So so I said, listen, they've got the photographer here.
And they were like, no, I'm going to take some pictures here.
I'm like, no, no, no. Photographer's here. No, no, no.
Get with a photographer, we'll take the pictures. It took a set of pictures.
I remember when I got the pictures, I looked at them, man, they were stunning.
I have to say that those pictures were forget the iPhone, whatever those pictures were stunning. Okay.
|
Sam:
[12:29]
| I was like, damn, there's still a big, there's still a big difference from just some guy who hits the button on their phone versus someone who knows what the fuck they're doing.
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Ivan:
[12:41]
| Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, you know, and I'm sure these cameras are like $5,000 a pop for sure for the camera alone This is not you know, these are not you know, you're ordering it, but damn it man.
That was like I mean I got I was Remember just look at the pictures We taking a picture in the same place just a little bit before with the phone and then we got and I got those You're looking at him like oh shit.
That's looks so much And so so yeah, but but you know, look right now.
I'm you know But the camera and look, I've been using the phone for a week.
Interesting how you forget. I mean, I forget that when you have the older phone and there are certain unsupported things on your phone, even though you've gotten the iOS updates, you've gotten a number of them that all of a sudden you realize, oh, I didn't have this. Right.
You know, you know, oh, this didn't work. The one that I that I found more noticeable is at the top, the the little the little like the little island thing at the top.
And I didn't have that. I didn't realize I didn't realize how much of it.
Oh, that's actually very convenient. OK, you know, I realized that's one thing I will say that overall, the other thing that.
That is more noticeable than anything is the battery life.
Ah, because I've gotten the Pro Max and also has a bigger battery.
And holy shit, the battery life. I mean, I don't know.
I I've got right now I'm at 87% right now. I mean, I would I would 80 and you've been going all day and I would go out all day and I would 87%.
You know, and I've used it the same way as I've used my other other one, which is look, I was in the car and did some stuff or whatever, whatnot.
And I plug it in the car because I have a I prefer, though, my my wife's car has the wireless car play.
I hate the fucking wireless car play. I, you know, it's it's drives me crazy.
I use the wired one. Plus, there's a wireless charger and a wireless charger sucks. You know, all these fucking wireless chargers suck.
I prefer the cable works so much better. So I use them that but I'm playing it the same way.
Look at my other phone, I would be now down to 30, 40. I would be down at 40% and I'm at 87%. Now that's that's that's that's a massive difference.
The other thing is, look, I mean, I find that I make a lot less typos with with the bigger keyboard.
|
Sam:
[15:18]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[15:18]
| Yes. You know, it's just the key. The buttons are bigger. I mean, so more, you know, it's easier to not make mistakes.
Yeah, so far, what I will say is it works very well.
Everything's good. I have not taken enough pictures yet for me to properly evaluate the camera.
I got to go to an event or something or whatever, take, take some pictures and see how they, they come out yet. But so far it's, you know, I have no problems.
|
Sam:
[15:48]
| I will just point out as well that with not just the one you have, but for the last several generations of smartphones, the better optics does make a difference, but they're also doing so much in software now.
Oh yeah, like that, that tries to optimize what you're getting out of it and in all kinds of different ways.
And it really makes a huge difference. I remember a few years back when the advice changed on like, you know, if you're going past the optical zoom, you know, and, and you're using software zoom, the advice used to be don't ever use like software zoom because you might as well just crop it when you're done.
Like take the whole picture and then when you're editing it later, you can crop it however you like and you'll get better control than if you try to use software zoom in real time, but like sometime, I don't know, almost like five years ago now, maybe, maybe even more, there was a tipping point where the software was good enough that you'd actually get a better picture by switching to software zoom and using that instead of not zooming and cropping it later.
|
Ivan:
[16:59]
| Because probably in real time, if you're using the software zoom, it, it can, it can extract more information at that moment in order to create that a better shot than when you wind up getting when you do it smaller, because it's like, well, okay, you don't really want it zoomed in.
So I'm not going to cram that. I'm not going to try to gather that much information.
So yeah, I can see that.
|
Sam:
[17:20]
| I don't know the magic they do, but the point is it's a lot smarter than it used. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[17:26]
| Yes. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[17:26]
| And it's not... It's not like...
Again, improving the optics makes a difference. And whenever they upgrade, they improved upgrade the optics, but like, they're making lots of advances on the software side too, that just, you know, use.
Not just the moment you hit the shutter, but everything it sees before and after that, and all kinds of other stuff to try, try to optimize what you're trying to do and it's trying to figure out, well, what does they, what do they really want, but listen, but I will say optics or optics.
|
Ivan:
[17:56]
| Oh yeah.
|
Sam:
[17:56]
| Of course. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[17:57]
| Listen, it's like if you take the same technology, you apply it to a.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but it's going to be. That's that's the thing that I notice with those cameras over at Disney that I'm like, yeah, those cameras are like five, 10 grand. And also you're realizing, shit, damn it. You know?
|
Sam:
[18:16]
| Yeah, I'm not minimizing what you can get from a good, large lens compared to a tiny lens in a smartphone.
|
Ivan:
[18:24]
| It's just they they're doing so much made it make them so I mean, you know, they've come along in such an incredible way No, absolutely.
So, you know, I Guess maybe the other thing that I can say is that I've noticed one thing though, which I I Found a little bit annoying.
So the icon pit, you know, like where you have your desktop It's a bigger phone, but it really doesn't allow you to cram in more.
|
Sam:
[18:53]
| No, it's just, it's just, they make them bigger.
|
Ivan:
[18:56]
| I'm just like, dude, I mean, I've got the bigger screen. Let me put in more if I want to. Okay.
I don't, I don't understand why they don't, they don't do that.
That, that makes no sense.
But look, in terms of using the, the browser, I, I think it, it makes it that I could get more certain things done now that I would have really needed to go to my computer.
|
Sam:
[19:25]
| Well, I mentioned years ago that when I, when I got the first one of this size of the max size, that's when I was like, okay, I don't really need an iPad anymore.
I can just use this, you know, now, obviously, obviously there are still things that you would, would do better at an, at a real computer or an iPad.
|
Ivan:
[19:44]
| But look, I do appreciate the iPad, but what I'm saying when you're on the move, right, and I'm not carrying my iPad. OK, for example, the other day I was at the hotel and I wanted to watch this movie. Look, it's better to watch it on the day of my iPad than on my phone. OK. All right.
|
Sam:
[19:57]
| Of course.
|
Ivan:
[19:57]
| I mean, look, I mean, it's it's no question. But but look, if I'm going around and I needed to make a change on a deal and.
On my older phone, me trying to do that on that screen would have been, you would have been very frustrated. Yeah. I don't, I don't think I could have done it.
But the one, one thing is that, but the one thing that's happened also with, it used to be that even with those bigger screen phones in years past, the processors on them were not anywhere close to what your laptop could get or something.
Okay. So you could try to do some of those things, but the, But the phone was not that powerful still anyway, in relative, in relative terms, now the reality is that the damn processors in these things are so powerful that the, in terms of processing and compute power, it's not like I'm going, you know, I'm, I'm not there.
The gap it it's, it's not that slow that I can't do it anymore.
|
Sam:
[20:58]
| Yeah. My, my, my, my wife and I were just talking about this the other day that Like, you know, if you, if you guys remember, she, she had a MacBook pro that was stolen from her driveway.
And so she needed a replacement in a hurry. So she got a bottom of the line MacBook air. As just to have something, right.
And we were talking about it and she's like, yeah, that, that, that thing sucks.
And she's like, I, and, and, and then she brought up her phone and she was absolutely her phone probably had more memory and a faster processor than that damn MacBook Air.
You know, and so she does almost everything on the phone most of the time.
Now there are things, there are some things that I have tried to do on the phone that I have gotten frustrated by and wished I had a bigger, you know, a full-fledged, at least an iPad, maybe a laptop, whatever.
It is not, you know, the, the, the, the max size iPhones is big enough that it made me not like, feel like I needed an iPad or something bigger, but like, it's not, it's not a computer replacement.
There are still things you, you, you, I mean, even the iPads, as much as they try to be really aren't, you know, like at some point you need a real computer, but like you can do a lot on the damn thing.
|
Ivan:
[22:20]
| Oh no, you can do a lot. Well, I mean, it's not replacing my, my, my, my, your iMac, my, my, my student or your studio now, right?
|
Sam:
[22:28]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[22:29]
| Yeah. The suit. No, it's not. Yeah. It's not bad, but you know, but, but, but I, it can definitely get a lot more done and with a bigger screen, I can do certain things.
Like the other day, for example, I know that in my old phone, we have this app for our CRM system, OK? You know, update deals and whatnot.
And on the other phone, it was a little bit tough to do the updates on it.
But now with a bigger screen, I went the other day and I needed to update a whole bunch of deals and I opened the app and I'm like, Oh, look at this.
I can I can actually do this here.
I can actually, you know, I can actually make all these updates that I need to do on the fly, and I don't need to sit down on my computer to do them. I can do them here. Okay.
So, you know, I mean, I w it's, it's definitely, it's better to do it on the computer, but, but in a pinch, you can do it.
If I'm sitting down and having a coffee and I can do some quick updates, it's not like the, the drop-off isn't a 80% drop-off I got a 20% drop-off and I'm having my coffee and I'm doing my updates.
I'm good. Okay. We can do this. Okay. So, so, so yeah, I mean, look, if, uh, anybody's for replacement, these phones are nice.
I, this whole thing about it being, I mean, it doesn't feel not sturdy.
Okay. I'm not going to try to bend it, but it, it, it does.
I mean, I have like my old phone here, my phone, old phone here, and they feel about equally as solid.
I will say that, look, the, my, the, the pro max actually feels lighter than my old phone.
|
Sam:
[24:05]
| Right. The specific thing reported by that one guy, which people have been having trouble reproducing, by the way, was not like bending it, like the old, whatever it was, the sixes or whatever the best.
|
Ivan:
[24:19]
| Yeah, yeah, it was the six.
|
Sam:
[24:19]
| I forget. This was like, if you push it in a certain way, the back glass would break.
And then the other thing people have found- Maybe it just got lucky.
|
Ivan:
[24:30]
| I mean, a big thing may just get lucky.
|
Sam:
[24:33]
| The other thing people have found is it is more prone to break badly in a flat out drop test.
Like if you drop it from like four or five feet onto concrete, it has a worse time than previous versions of the phone.
Like they had like the whole camera assembly pop out like after being dropped like that and things like that.
At least that's what the reports are. Now of course, you know, you you're like, are you still going caseless? Are you still like, I never use a case. Yeah. He's, he's going caseless.
Like I, I can't even imagine going caseless. If I went caseless on my phone, it would be dead the next day.
|
Ivan:
[25:17]
| It just, you know, it needs, you know, but you know, my old phone is, you know, which was caseless for quite a long time.
Look, I'll let you look at it to see how conditioned it is. It doesn't have a case.
|
Sam:
[25:31]
| Don't I know you're showing me, but don't. No, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[25:35]
| But I'll show it just as you can see.
|
Sam:
[25:37]
| Look, it's in a test. It looks fine. But don't show people stuff on the podcast. Just wow.
|
Ivan:
[25:44]
| I'm showing it to you so you can attest to. Uh-huh. It's it, you know, I'm not making it up. It's it's it.
Like I said, that phone, I'm keeping it. I don't know. I'm thinking whether my son has an iPhone.
|
Sam:
[25:58]
| You were going to give it to somebody, right?
|
Ivan:
[26:00]
| Well, my phone, I realized, wait, my phone, my son has an iPhone SE.
OK, I'm wondering if he will. I'm going to ask him if he prefers that one and then I can give somebody else the iPhone SE.
Yes, he is great. I think he likes it. I don't think he's going to give it up because that little SE is pretty slick.
And it's really small. It's pretty convenient, I will say.
And it works very well. He likes it. So I, I could do that, give him that, that, that, that pro max SE, but he likes that SE.
So I either, either somebody is going to get that, that pro or somebody's going to get the SE one or the other. So, okay.
|
Sam:
[26:37]
| Anything else on the phone?
|
Ivan:
[26:38]
| No, no, I'm happy. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm very happy with it.
|
Sam:
[26:41]
| Good. Good. Yeah. Okay. My turn, my turn for a, but first, and mine is that for the very first time this last week, I used chat GPT in anger, in anger.
Well, what I mean, what I mean by an anger is just for a real use rather than like just fooling around with it.
Like when it first came out, I was like, I did a few things like, you know, tell me about such and such in the style of a song or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[27:14]
| I noticed that I had to pay for stuff. I like tried it like once or twice.
|
Sam:
[27:19]
| And then it said, you have to pay to use the newer version. If you use the older version.
|
Ivan:
[27:24]
| Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what I meant. I'm like, Oh, well, if you'd like, well, it started hitting me up for money pretty quick and I was just like, I don't really.
|
Sam:
[27:30]
| Well, I just said, no, I didn't pay Jack. I used chat GPT three, five instead of four, whatever.
Anyway, my point was like I'd used it to mess around with stuff, but I hadn't used it for anything quote unquote real. So this last week.
I wanted to, one of the things that's always like, you know, I do the wiki of the day, family of podcasts.
It's all automated, blah, blah, blah. You can go to wiki of the day.com to check it out if you haven't already.
But there, I have a set of things I say at the end of every episode, or I don't say, I have the computer say it, whatever, you know, you know, I, I, I use Wikipedia content.
And when you use Wikipedia content, You're supposed to include that you're releasing it under a Creative Commons attribution share like license, right?
Because you're supposed to pass along the license that Wikipedia has.
I try to promote curmudgeon's corner. I try to promote the Mastodon account of the, of the wiki of the day, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Anyway, the problem is, and it was always annoying me was that that outro was too long.
I mean, you know, if it was an outro at the end of curmudgeon's corner, where we talk for two fucking hours, then who cares? But the problem is like an average wiki of the day is like two or three minutes long.
And the outro was how long? Like, I forget exactly how long in time.
It depends on which voice was reading it and blah, blah, blah.
But it was 75 words long and it could be like 30 seconds or whatever.
And every once in a while, there was a wiki of the day that was really short.
Like I have like for random wiki of the day and those others, the minimum word count, like if you're, if it's doing random wiki of the day and it's too short, it, it just says, I can't do that one, pick a different one. Right.
But it's still at the shortest end of that. The freaking outro could be longer than the text of the actual Wikipedia quote. Right.
And that was annoying. So I wanted to shorten it.
So I, I basically just said, you know, a podcast currently has the following outro quote, and I gave it the outro and said, that's too long.
Give me an alternate. That's no more than 60 words.
And it popped one right out and it was fine. And it, it didn't include that like creative commons thing. So though, so I was like, you left out about you left out the part about the license, which is required to try again.
And you know, I iterated several times and I basically, I ended up going from 75 words in the original outro down to 50.
In the version that came out.
|
Ivan:
[30:10]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[30:13]
| Now, I did not... Here, and here's the thing, where we've talked about the problem with these large language models and stuff like this.
First of all, I was not asking it to give me any sort of factual information.
Was not saying, give me an essay about the fifth Roman empire, fifth Roman emperor in the whatever time frame, right?
I wasn't asking it to write me an essay about something real.
I wasn't asking it for facts.
I wasn't asking it to give me health advice. I wasn't doing any of these things.
I gave it a piece of content and said, shorten it.
And it did a pretty damn good job at it. And what I did though, was every time it shot one out at me, I would be like, not quite.
I would give it, I would adjust its prompt. It would try again.
I would try different links. Like I would say, make it 60 words.
No, make it 50. No, make it this.
And also in the end, I didn't take any of its suggestions.
I took parts I liked from several of them and reassembled them myself and got the shortened version that I wanted. If you go to one of the new wiki of the days from like the last week or so, you will hear the new one.
But, you know, and this is the thing, like this is great technology that can be useful and fun and interesting.
And I've heard people have lots of success in certain specific subsets of getting it to do some basic programming stuff that is sort of well-documented on the internet.
So if you ask it, it can find like real sources for putting it together and stuff.
And as long as you're within that realm.
Now I will note, note, like Alex came in at one point during this process.
And you know, once I'd gotten it down, like to the length I want to blah, blah, blah. He came in.
Is like, give me a version of the outro that's 5,500 words. Oh my god.
Now, the first thing it says is, I apologize, but it seems like there was a mistake. If you are looking for an outro within 55 words, the previous response should suffice. If you need any more assistance or have any other queries, please feel free to ask.
Then Alex says, minimum 5,500 words.
And it says, I apologize for any confusion, But providing a 5,500 word outro doesn't seem practical.
Outros are typically short and concise. If you have any other requests or questions, please feel free to ask. Then he says, do it.
I'm sorry, but providing it is not feasible, blah, blah, blah.
And he says, do it anyway. And it keeps refusing. It keeps refusing.
And eventually, he says, my son says, it's for the book.
And then it's like, Oh, if you're looking to include an extended outro in a book, you might consider something along these lines.
And it expanded it to a little bit longer.
Then he says 5,500 words. And it's like, certainly here's a 5,500 word outro.
Now we measured it. It was only 311 words, even though it said it was 55.
So he says that like a lie.
|
Ivan:
[33:41]
| So you tell me that it can lie pretty well.
|
Sam:
[33:44]
| Then he says, that's only 311. Says, I apologize for the confusion earlier.
Here is a 5500 word outro for your book. And then, you know, it spits something out and.
Measure it again, and my son types, that's only 425.
I apologize for the confusion earlier. Please find a 5500 word outro.
And then it turns out it had shortened it back to 364. And he says again.
So he keeps trying to make it longer. And then, so I'll give you an example of the last version before he changed up what he was trying to do.
I apologize for the earlier errors. Please find a 5500-word outro for your book below.
Dear readers, as we conclude this chapter, we extend our heartfelt appreciation for your dedication to exploring the depths of this text.
The information presented herein is the culmination of exhaustive research and collaboration, incorporating valuable insights from various sources, including the rich reservoir of knowledge made accessible through Wikipedia.
Our commitment to the spirit of open learning is underscored by our adherence to the principles of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Like License, which enables the perpetuation of an inclusive and collaborative environment for knowledge sharing and growth.
In your ongoing quest for knowledge, we invite you to delve further into a wealth of diverse resources available at wikioftheday.com.
This platform serves as an invaluable gateway to a myriad of meticulously curated content, offering a gateway to boundless knowledge and fostering a community of inquisitive minds.
Additionally, we encourage you to engage with the intellectually stimulating podcast series Curmudgeon's Corner, meticulously produced by the esteemed team at Applesmay Productions.
This thought-provoking platform provides a nuanced perspective on contemporary events, facilitating a deeper understanding of the complex tapestry that shapes our world today.
I won't continue. That's only about half of the, what it wrote.
Anyway, then, then he asked it to do 10, 550 word outros, which it tried to do and blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, the point is it's, it's fun. It can do useful stuff.
It actually was useful. Like I would have, I mean, I had some ideas how I wanted to switch it from 75 words down to 50 and what I would leave out, but letting it like give some suggestions was useful.
|
Ivan:
[36:26]
| Well, it was giving you what it was giving you ideas, you know, it was giving me ideas.
|
Sam:
[36:31]
| And like I said, I didn't take any of the things that said, like, I didn't take any of them in wholesale.
I took bits and pieces from several of the attempts that made, changed it up a little bit and I used that. So it, but it was helpful in my process.
It was a lot easier to do.
Like if I would just been trying to shorten it myself, I would have, I would have gotten it done, but it would have been frustrating and annoying.
And instead this was actually kind of fun. And you know, so it's the, and again, like when we've had these longer conversations about these AI technologies, it's never been that it's not useful at all.
It is useful. It is, it can be interesting, but you have to very carefully use it for the things that's actually good for and what was frustrating me and all those conversations we had like last year or whenever we were going is all sorts of companies trying to push it into areas where it's actually not good yet, where it's not trustworthy.
|
Ivan:
[37:36]
| You know, we had that, I mean, that's the problem. Like for example, look how it described our podcast.
I mean, meticulously what?
|
Sam:
[37:47]
| But it was.
Meticulously produced by the esteemed team at Apple's May production.
|
Ivan:
[37:56]
| Yes. You see, this is the kind of thing where chat GPT just gets you into a fucking bro. It sounds fantastic, but it's all bullshit.
|
Sam:
[38:07]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[38:11]
| Anyway, but yes, I just wanted to share, by the way, it doesn't take away that it's not that it's helpful.
Okay. All right. You know, and that's, I think the, the, the key to this, it's like, look, I, I, I feel like where this is at right now, the way that you used it is probably the best way to use this kind of stuff right now.
It's, it's to help you, you know, do research to help you pull information to you, but you have to double check it because it may give you some bullshit. It's bullshit.
|
Sam:
[38:47]
| It's not even like the research part is where you go wrong.
Like if you give it some information and ask it to like put it in some format or give you a description that is a certain length or whatever, but it's starting with material that you've sort of provided, then okay.
But like when you ask it like some, again, the deficiency right now is it has this technology by definition of how it works has no concept of true and false. Correct.
And maybe they'll, they, they may work on that and solve that and do something in the future.
|
Ivan:
[39:26]
| But right now, but right now it's not there.
I think that, for example, the one thing that you look a lot of times, I spend a lot of times creating presentations for sales, right?
Is a doc library that we use for it. Okay. And other things, and I have other presentations I have used.
Look, if I could use this to tell it, Hey, you know, I need to do combined presentation on, on, you know, on this material, use these things.
And I, I, I need to combine it.
And for customer, I'll give it the name of the customer. So it could pull the customer logo, for example, online.
And like use that kind of stuff. I think that it could probably give me something that I get there, like 80, 90% of where the hell I get. And then I can finish it and put it together and, you know, get a really good product out to out to the customer and save me a whole bunch of time.
|
Sam:
[40:26]
| Yeah, possibly. Although although I have heard of the situation where people on one side are saying, you know, take these four bullet points and expand them into a one page thing explaining this and then that goes off to somebody who takes that and puts it into chat GPT and says, can you summarize this in four bullet points for me?
Whereas if you just set the four damn bullet points, you would have.
Yeah. Anyway. Well, yeah. Well, because, because you have like, in, in some cases, like one of the things that does seem to be semi-decent at is just converting things between formats.
Like somebody has it in bullet points, someone else wants it in paragraphs and it can convert back and forth.
But where that doesn't make sense is, you know, if you're unnecessarily putting it into a format that the recipient doesn't want anyway, and they're going to want to translate it back to something.
|
Ivan:
[41:28]
| Well, usually what I'm not trying to do, I'm not saying that's what you were talking about.
|
Sam:
[41:33]
| No, no, no, no, no, I know.
|
Ivan:
[41:34]
| But, but I'm saying that usually like in a job like mine, one of the things that we have to do is like, okay, we got a product presentation, standard product presentation, I would like to tell what the standard product is, I have a list of deliverables, hey, we use this list of deliverables that we're going to do for this customer.
Here's the pricing and for a combined pricing information, assumptions for the customer, you know, it's so, but at least if it's able to combine it, and by the way, translate, because one of the issues that I've got a lot of times is that I need to Translate some of this shit back and forth right on a regular basis, and that's always, I've got some slides that somebody made in Spanish, but I got a customer that speaks in English and vice versa.
I got some really good English slides for a topic, and I don't have the Spanish version of it. If I could like go and like, OK, I need these.
I get by the way, PowerPoint does have translation tools that help me with this that are actually pretty decent.
But man, if we could take that to the next level, I mean, it's just It's just a thing of productivity. It just helps me do my job faster. You know?
|
Sam:
[42:44]
| No, I will say one last thing is that when I had sort of edited together the, the bits and pieces from the various versions into one, I liked, I did one last time, put it into back into chat GPD saying, are there any problems with, and then quote, put in what I wanted and it comes back with the outro you've suggested seems concise and effectively can phase the central.
And effectively conveys the essential information. However, there are a few minor adjustments that could enhance its clarity and impact.
And it came back with a very slightly different version. There were only like two or three words changed around and I read it and I was like, yeah, okay, that is better. And so I used that. And so it's good for that kind of thing too.
Like, although again, you got to watch out for it suddenly changing the meaning accidentally.
Like, yeah, that sounds better, but it's no longer true, you know?
|
Ivan:
[43:37]
| Well, I mean, the description of our show sounds incredible.
I mean, you know, I mean, it's incredible. Just not true, but it's incredible. There you go.
|
Sam:
[43:50]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[43:52]
| I mean, JP, what I feel many times is the biggest bullshit artist I've ever been in my life. Yes.
|
Sam:
[43:57]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[43:58]
| I mean, my God, I mean, you know, I'm surprised that the Trump campaign is using this for everything because, I mean, they don't care about the facts.
So therefore, hey, say something really, really good about me. No problem.
|
Sam:
[44:17]
| There you go. OK, well, with that, let's take a break.
And when we come back, what do you want to do first, Yvonne?
The Middle East or domestic politics?
|
Ivan:
[44:27]
| YVONNE SEGARSAULT Ah, let's go to domestic.
|
Sam:
[44:29]
| OK, we will come back with the fun US domestic politics that are going on this week, back after this.
|
Break:
[44:42]
| You're listening to this podcast. Do you like it? No!
Do you want to support the show? No! Well, after you have subscribed to the show, followed us on Facebook, and told all your friends they should be listening to, what else can you do? I won't subscribe!
You can help fund our Patreon at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner.
Patreon is a way you can throw us a few bucks a month to help out with the expenses of the show.
You know, web hosting, equipment, a little bit of advertising to promote the show, and maybe every once in a while some much needed sedatives for Yvonne.
At different contribution levels, you can get a mention on the show, our curmudgeon's corner postcard, or even a curmudgeon's corner mug.
Fun stuff. Not fun.
In any case, the contributions help tell us that you enjoy and appreciate the show. I really, really hate Curmudgeon's Corner.
Are we worth a buck a month? No! Five bucks a month? No!
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100 billion, billion dollars, even though you don't have anywhere near a billion dollars.
If we're worth anything to you at all, send it our way at patreon.com slash curmudgeon's corner.
Alex hates, really, really hates curmudgeon's corner. That's really mean, isn't it?
That I hate curmudgeon's corner. But I really do!
|
Sam:
[46:23]
| And we are back, back, back, back, back, back, back.
So I was tempted to do some, like I was thinking about more chat GPT stuff, but we've had enough, enough.
So Yvonne, how's the speaker race going?
|
Ivan:
[46:41]
| It's going great. It's going great.
You know, you've got a guy over here who is a, and wait, just real quick.
|
Sam:
[46:51]
| This may, this situation may change again, so to place us in time again, we are recording this Thursday night, US time.
So in case, like, the situation changes entirely on Friday or over the weekend...
|
Ivan:
[47:06]
| Bong, bong, bong!
|
Sam:
[47:08]
| Bong, bong, bong. Yes. So, go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[47:12]
| We have a unifier.
|
Sam:
[47:14]
| A unifier.
|
Ivan:
[47:15]
| We have, we have, it's really a unifier.
Now, you say you can play audio, OK, you know, so because you can't play audio.
I did share on the on the slack.
See, CNN has obtained exclusive audio of a threatening voice message to the wife of a congressman who opposes Jim Jordan's bid for House speaker.
Yeah, I mean, it you want to play it. People to hear the kind of stuff or you know.
|
Sam:
[47:47]
| Well, it is specifically exclusive audio, so we do not have the rights for it.
So you have to describe it.
|
Ivan:
[47:55]
| Oh, oh, exclusive audio. Fuck me.
|
Sam:
[47:57]
| Yeah. Like if you were doing a clip of Joe Biden's speech tonight, I'd be like, fine.
|
Ivan:
[48:02]
| OK, well, well, OK, well, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. OK, hold on.
Well, there is a transcript of it in here. So give me one second. OK.
All right. I will. I will. I will get to that. I say over here, let me get to the transcript.
And why is your husband such a pig? Why would he get on TV and make an asshole of himself? Because he's a deep state prick, because he doesn't represent the people question.
So what we're going to do is we're going to fucking come follow you all over the place. We're going to be up your ass, fucking nonstop. We are now Antifa.
We're going to do what the left does because you're fucking something, fucked something of a husband gets on TV.
Oh, the bad guys, they did. So I'm going to vote for Kevin McCarthy, a piece of shit where everybody knows. And for his piece of shit ass talk about Americans who are actually fighting for Americans as the bad people, because everything about him. So fuck you, fuck your husband.
And we're going to, we're not like the left where we aren't violent.
Okay. But we're going to follow your ass.
Every important where you have everything you fucking do. Okay.
Yeah. They're not violent.
So you can say, you're, you're, your husband's an asshole.
You should be fucking talking to a stupid ass or war.
Israeli is being killed. Are you dumb husband? He's a fucking warmongering piece of shit. So listen, they keep getting calls and emails. I'm putting all your information all over the internet. Now, everybody else is, this is the, so this is the kind of message.
That is being set to persuade the dissenters to not to vote for McCarthy.
I mean, not for McCarthy, for Jordan.
Say that I once got a message like this threatening to be killed over some thing related to our condominium.
And all I can say is that that message motivated me entirely, completely, 100% to never give one fucking inch to that asshole.
Yeah, that is the only thing that that sort of a bitch got with that.
|
Sam:
[50:23]
| It made me it made me 100% decide that I had been willing to compromise before and I decided at that point fuck this shit no compromise ever not one inch period well and that's apparently exactly what happened to Jordan like this this sort of hardball we're going to threaten people technique and and apparently look Look, from what, from what he says, you know, Jordan himself was not doing this.
It's just people who supported him were.
|
Ivan:
[50:58]
| Oh, yes. It's just the people who supported him now. And some of the yeah, he wasn't he wasn't picking up the phone. Right. Right.
|
Sam:
[51:05]
| But like and some of these were like death threats and like, we will follow you and all this kind of crap.
But others were just like, we will ruin your political career.
You will never win office again. We will primary you. We will blah, blah, blah, blah. basically all kinds of like threatening tactics.
And what it seems like is the people who receive these threats all did like what you did, Yvonne. They were basically like, well, fuck this guy then.
Right. There is no freaking way.
And he did not pick up any additional votes because of these techniques.
It completely backfired on him.
|
Ivan:
[51:45]
| There were he saying, oh, I didn't do it. But look, he encouraged people to do it. The whole thing, his entire.
Was, oh, you're not going to vote for me. So we're going to pressure you into voting for me.
And he knew that with the kind of fucking people that he's got behind him, this is what they would do because this is what they've done.
Yeah. You know, it's like he's trying to act like fucking Donald Trump, the mafia Don, you know, type of fucking thing where, oh, yeah, well, I didn't say for them to do this. I'm like, but, but that's what you wanted.
|
Sam:
[52:18]
| And so let's just to specify where we are. when we recorded last week, McCarthy had dropped out.
Well, McCarthy had been kicked off. Scalise was the nominee of the Republicans the first time around, but he didn't have anywhere near enough votes.
And so he dropped out. And so then Jordan was the one that the Republicans had picked, but he didn't have anywhere near enough votes.
And we were talking about how they weren't gonna do what happened in January and let this go to the floor until they had something.
Well, apparently at some point that point, that plan changed.
Jordan decided we has taken it to the floor anyway. So we had a vote on Tuesday, but, but that was predicated on what I was mentioning that strategy you decided was he figured he would threaten people and they'd come around. Oh.
|
Ivan:
[53:12]
| To, we're going to fucking threaten them, expose them because what I want is to go to the floor, then we're going to know who the rats are and then we're going to pressure them to fucking vote the way I want. And that got nowhere.
|
Sam:
[53:27]
| Yeah. Now he did get a few more votes than like when we talked about the secret vote, he was like missing 50 or something. The, the, but, but, but, but, but yes.
|
Ivan:
[53:42]
| You yourself posted, somebody went and did an unofficial count before the vote.
|
Sam:
[53:47]
| It was CNN, the one I quoted on the Commercial Corner Slack.
|
Ivan:
[53:50]
| It was CNN, and it was dead-on-balls accurate.
|
Sam:
[53:54]
| Yeah, they said he'd be missing 20 votes, and that's how much he was missing on the first.
|
Ivan:
[54:00]
| That's exactly, right on the dot.
|
Sam:
[54:02]
| And so he got, the first vote was, the Democrats got 212, as expected, they were completely unified.
On the first vote, Jordan got 200, it was 200 even, and they needed 217.
The second day, he did gain a couple people. A couple people who voted against him the first day, voted for him the second day, and there was one person who was absent because they attended a funeral and they voted for him.
But then he lost several.
And so, net, he went from 200 to 199 on the second ballot.
|
Ivan:
[54:39]
| So he's not going in the right direction.
|
Sam:
[54:41]
| So he's not going in the right direction. And then it was like, well, we'll do this deal to empower the Speaker Pro Tempore McHenry until January.
We're going to basically punt this till January. We'll let McHenry in.
He'll be able to do the basic business of the house.
You won't be a full speaker still, but we'll let him like do the things that absolutely positively need to be done.
And that completely and totally fell apart.
|
Ivan:
[55:14]
| And well, it fell apart because it was pretty evident in the deal itself, the way that it was structured, that it was like, he was really in charge, even though he wasn't, yeah, Jordan would still be in charge.
|
Sam:
[55:27]
| McHenry would basically like take orders from him, et cetera.
And, and also it became clear that the only possible way, the only possible way it could get through is with democratic support for the plan.
Right. And the Democrats had indicated, okay, we could do something like this.
We could, as long as you give us certain assurances, we could make a deal.
We could have McHenry just have the ability to do like the basic business of the house that needs to get done.
But the idea of doing anything at all in a bipartisan way is so toxic among Republicans right now that that also like between the fact that Jordan would still really be in charge and the fact that to do this, they'd have to work with Democrats. Right.
|
Ivan:
[56:15]
| It really ripped two factions. Okay. Because it got the, the, the, the guys who are voting against, against Jordan were like, wait, you're still in fucking charge with this.
The old fuck you. No, not happening. And then you had the guys who were on the other extreme which are the Jordan like diehards who are like, oh, wait, you have to make a deal with the Democrats to make this happen.
Fuck that. No deals. Right. So it was just, you know, there was I mean, it was just so fucked up because it just it was unpassable. It was unpassable. OK.
|
Sam:
[56:54]
| So now, and they were going back and forth, when this fell apart, they were like, okay, we're going to have another vote on Thursday.
And then it became clear that that was still going nowhere. So last I heard, they're planning on a vote Friday morning, which obviously hasn't happened yet as we're recording this.
But at this moment, Jordan is putting his name out again. He's not dropping out yet, at least as of when we're recording this.
And I've heard estimates that say as many as 40 or 50 Republicans are going to abandon him next time around.
So I don't know, like, how's this help? What the hell? The point of this is, I mean, you know, uh, I mean, maybe he's going to threaten them some more overnight and they'll like magically like him tomorrow morning.
|
Ivan:
[57:48]
| Oh yeah. That'll work.
|
Sam:
[57:50]
| Those of you who are listening to this will know what happened.
Cause there's no way I'm releasing this before tomorrow morning.
Cause you know, we're going to record this. I'm going to go to bed and then I'm going to work in the morning.
So like, I'll put this out on the weekend sometime. And you guys all know what happened, but right now, as we're recording this, what, what, what, what?
Cause like when we had the 15 rounds in January, there is weird.
Like some of them were just like, we were on a treadmill then, like unlike now where they're sort of taking a vote and then waiting a day or two or three or whatever, they, They could sort of just pause while they make deals.
Like in January, it was like, we finished one vote. We're starting the next one. Boom, boom, boom.
And the only time they took breaks was when it got late in the evening, and they were like, we got to have some sleep, you know?
So presumably when they take like a day in between these votes or whatever, they're trying to make some more deals, trying to figure out something. But I don't know what.
|
Ivan:
[58:58]
| Okay, but, okay, alright, but...
McCarthy was trying to get elected.
|
Sam:
[59:03]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[59:04]
| He was making deals. Yes. To make that happen. Okay? He was making deals.
|
Sam:
[59:10]
| Well, whereas Jordan's just yelling at people.
|
Ivan:
[59:13]
| Correct. Not exactly, really, you know, a winning fucking strategy.
|
Sam:
[59:21]
| Basically, Jordan's deal right now is I'm your only choice. We need to have somebody. We're looking stupid for not having...
|
Ivan:
[59:29]
| Fuck you, vote for me. for me.
|
Sam:
[59:30]
| Fuck you vote for me. And if you don't, I'll kill your family.
I don't. Yeah. Basically, maybe not quite.
Somebody else says that for him, but somebody else is saying that for him.
Yeah. And, and, and yeah, like the people who've gotten these kind of at home death, death threats and stuff are absolutely like, there is no universe where I will vote for you ever.
One of the things Jordan did after it became clear the empowering McHenry thing wasn't going to work.
He was like, I am meeting with every one of the 22 people who voted against me to understand their issues and try to convince them.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:13]
| You're a fucking asshole. Any other questions, dipshit?
|
Sam:
[1:00:16]
| The report that came out, and I think it was Punchbowl News, the reporter for Punchbowl News, said that he talked to every one of the 22 after those meetings, and every one of the 22 told him that they had told Jordan, under no circumstances, would they vote for him.
Now, I'm guessing they might have used more colorful language, but... But that's the difference.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:42]
| Let me just say that after those threats and the calls that I heard from family, which by the way, some of these guys even actually shared with the news media, believe me, I'm pretty sure that if my wife got that call and that bastard came into my office, listen.
Curse storm that he got would be, listen, but make any super cut the current budget's quarter swearing be just, you know, me, me looking like sounding like a choir boy over here.
|
Sam:
[1:01:09]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:11]
| And I would tell him at some point to get the fuck out of my office because I'm going to fucking kick your ass if you don't right now.
|
Sam:
[1:01:16]
| Right. So right now there's no, there's no, Like, the only way out of this really does seem to be some sort of deal with the Democrats, but nobody's willing to go there yet.
And in order to even get a vote for something like, and is it, okay, they're not going to go through the list again, but some sort of deal with the Democrats seems like one way out.
The, them somehow picking, I mean, picking a less objectionable Republican, pretty much McHenry was that option and they're not going for that.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:55]
| Well, they're not going for that because the Republicans basically made it a nonstarter.
|
Sam:
[1:02:00]
| Some of these folks could stay home. Like that would change the math.
Like if the Democrats were like, okay, we need this to be freaking over.
They could just stay home.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:12]
| Well, 22 of them. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:02:16]
| Yeah. You don't even need that. You only need.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:19]
| Well, here's the thing, if it will listen, well, the Democrats stay home, you mean? Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:02:23]
| Democrats stay home and just let them pick Jordan.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:28]
| Like Democrats, they're never going all day. Hell with that.
I'm the fucking Democrats. I'm never doing that shit.
Well, no, let them go home. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:02:38]
| Well, that could also happen. Like if some Republicans go home, we could get a Democratic speaker. But they're never going to.
But they're never going to do that either.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:46]
| You know, so I'm not going to give him the fucking pleasure. And they'll you know.
|
Sam:
[1:02:50]
| Well, the question is, like, if we get to like government shutdown, it's we don't we don't need to lose that many of the GOP guys to go home. No, no, not at all.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:00]
| But but here here's one thing about this whole thing. As we discussed this.
Yes. And you put it on topics in the slide.
|
Sam:
[1:03:07]
| Yeah, I was going to bring this up next.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:09]
| If you go ahead. And it's like, is non-functional house exactly what the eight rebels wanted? Yes. And the answer is yes.
|
Sam:
[1:03:16]
| Yes. Because somebody put out, what were they mad at McCarthy for?
They were mad at McCarthy for making the deal that kept the government open. Correct.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:28]
| And for the debt ceiling.
|
Sam:
[1:03:29]
| And for the debt ceiling deal. But basically, the debt ceiling deal earlier lay the stage for what happened later.
McCarthy made the deal with the Democrats to keep the government open for 90, 40 days, 45 days.
What's the one way that you can absolutely guarantee that the government will shut down at the end of 45 days?
Make sure the House can't pass anything.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:57]
| Right. And so, you know, if you have the House not pass anything, well, we just shut it down. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:04:06]
| And if you had a speaker, any speaker, they would be tempted to, once again, make a deal with the Democrats.
And both, by the way, both Scalise and Jordan said, yes, they would do what they needed to do to keep the government open.
And so if you do not want that to happen, if the desired result is let's shut down the government and keep it shut down, this is the best way to do that.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:35]
| Look, but in I don't know if Jordan would listen. I'm pretty sure that I think if Jordan gets to be speaker, that there will be a government shutdown.
OK, I'm 100% sure there will be a government shutdown. I have zero doubts.
You know, that that he will because he look, he is one of the most ineffective legislators in history.
|
Sam:
[1:05:01]
| Well, also, he was one of the key people who forced previous shutdowns.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:07]
| Exactly. So why? Why the hell? He's not afraid of a shutdown.
|
Sam:
[1:05:11]
| But he has he he did tell people in those internal conferences where he got like Like when it was him and Scalise going up against each other, both he and Scalise said that they would figure out some way to make things work.
But what way that is and whether you have a shutdown first, like he may still be thinking, hey, if we do a shutdown and we're shut down long enough, then the Democrats will have to cave and give us what we want.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:39]
| Look, man, the one thing, exactly. And the one thing is that, you know, Jordan's negotiate, it looks like he's, oh yeah, I'll I'll do whatever it takes.
Look, his whatever it takes strategy is doing the shit that he just did right now. Which is like, oh, I'll just bully them into submission.
|
Sam:
[1:05:54]
| Right.
Yeah, I will insist on the 25% across the board budget cuts until Joe Biden signs it.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:05]
| Exactly. And I mean, if that's the opening play, it's gonna be like, well, you know, we're not going anywhere right now. I, read.
I think, look, the Democrats have the upper hand right now.
I don't see why I would fold my cards if I'm the Democrats in the house, because.
|
Sam:
[1:06:32]
| It would have to be some, some good of the country bullshit, right? You know, like.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:36]
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking about that. What I'm saying is yeah, good at a country, but what I'm saying is good at a country in terms of look, the number of the guys that are not voting for Jordan, right.
Are not voting for him because they are in districts that they know they are at risk because there were districts that Biden won.
|
Sam:
[1:06:54]
| Right, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:56]
| And so, I'm, Jeffries, I'm thinking, okay, who can I finally peel off to fucking steal this from the Republicans?
Because every day that goes by, there's a lot more, those guys, they don't wanna shut down either.
And so, how much time does it go by until this fucking just explodes in the GOP's face.
Listen, you've got time.
I mean, we can have a shutdown. There's no reason. If I'm Jeffries, I'm fucking, I'm like, you know what?
Let's get to the shutdown and let's see when the hell these guys crack.
|
Sam:
[1:07:38]
| And at the same time, you have to be building the case so that they actually get the blame.
Like, cause part of the problem you we've had in the past.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:51]
| Listen, I don't listen. I think in this case, it's, it's not even close to being complicated.
I am pretty sure.
|
Sam:
[1:08:01]
| Hey, well, wait, wait, wait. The Republicans keep saying that the only reason we're in this mess right now is because of the Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:09]
| Oh, yes, yes, yes. Of course. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:08:11]
| You know, if all the Democrats hadn't voted for this, you know, vacating the chair thing, we wouldn't even have this problem.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:22]
| Ah, that's the problem. Yes. Hey, let me ask you a question.
How many Republicans voted for Nancy Pelosi?
|
Sam:
[1:08:32]
| Yeah, I'm sure they would have helped out Nancy when she needed it.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:35]
| Oh, yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure they would have come to her rescue.
Yes, yes. On wings of eagles.
|
Sam:
[1:08:48]
| Uh, anyway, yeah, like the crazy options, like the longer this goes on, the more likely the crazy options become, you know.
Including those, you know, defectors or resignations or something crazy.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:09]
| Listen, even if it's not, listen, let me tell you something.
Even if the Democrats, the Democrats, what they managed to do is you take, you take those Republicans and say, Hey, listen, it's not going to be Jeffries.
Okay. It's going to be some other guy, some other centrist guy that you guys are okay with.
Okay. And, you know, we'll make a deal and we bring this guy in, okay?
Even if it's that, it's, it's, it, that's, that's still a win. Okay.
Hell, somebody, somebody actually voted for Boehner. Let's bring Boehner back.
|
Sam:
[1:09:48]
| I think Boehner would give a big fuck you to that.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:51]
| I'm pretty sure that you'd be like, I'm pretty sure you'd be like, screw you. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:09:57]
| Yeah. It's just, it's a complete impasse right now. And the thing with complete impasses, and I know I said this last week, but they look like nothing's happening until suddenly the dam breaks.
And then like out of the blue, something happens and you're out of the mess.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:19]
| Well, I think here's the one thing, like I said before, in the McCarthy case, McCarthy had been working over people.
|
Sam:
[1:10:27]
| And he had things to offer them.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:29]
| And he had, exactly. Yeah. And he had things to offer.
|
Sam:
[1:10:31]
| But I think part of the problem right now is nobody in this situation in either party has any reason to trust anybody else. Correct. You know, like the Democrats can't make a deal with the Republicans.
Like how can they possibly trust that it would work out? The Republicans can't trust each other because they're a bunch of backstabbing weasels. So right. You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:55]
| I mean, my whole thing was like, for example, McCarthy could have, I mean, there were some Republicans that asked the Democrats to vote for McCarthy.
Okay. Yes. All right. Yes.
And, and, and like what I said back then was, it's like, look, how could they do that unless they get something in return? Right.
|
Sam:
[1:11:13]
| Of course.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:13]
| I mean, if there is nothing in return, this is, this is not a deal.
Are we going to save you guys from yourselves? I mean, unless something's on the table, it makes no sense. Right. And that's the problem. I mean, these guys want.
|
Sam:
[1:11:32]
| And again, even if it's on the table, you have to have some way to trust that it'll actually happen. Right. And that's broken right now as well.
Right. Yeah. OK, so. So you want to talk about Trump's legal problems a little bit?
|
Ivan:
[1:11:46]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:11:48]
| So, there were two main Trump things this, I was going to say year, this week. I guess it feels like a year.
First we have another Trump gag order.
We had the one in New York already because he was threatening that, or not threatening, but he was disparaging that court clerk or whatever.
Now we have one in the DC case as well.
It's very, it's pretty limited.
It basically covers some of the court staff, the DOJ staff, people who are known to be witnesses with a notable exception for Mike Pence because he's actually running against Donald Trump.
So Donald is allowed to say things about Mike Pence unless it is about something directly related to January 6th.
But basically Donald Trump was told to shut up a bit.
He has continued, of course, to rant about various things in the proceedings, but for the most part, like, the order was very carefully tailored.
So for instance, Trump is allowed to continue to say bad things about the judge. And so he is.
And he's allowed to say the whole prosecution is politically motivated. So he is.
There are very specific things that he is not supposed to do.
And so far, we're less than a weekend, but so far he's been playing by the rules that were given to him.
Because he's in a situation where there might actually be real consequences for not doing so. So he's actually being careful. Imagine that.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:33]
| I mean, well, he's got no, not much of a choice out there. It's going to cost him money. He's going to go to jail.
|
Sam:
[1:13:38]
| Now, even despite like, and he's still pushing the limits everywhere he can.
Apparently earlier today, I think it was today, I don't know.
Everything merges into each other, but in the New York civil case, as whoever was testifying about his finances and his books and whatever the hell they were talking about, Trump was apparently getting really agitated and like yelling at his lawyer and had to be told to keep it the fuck down because he was yelling in a way that was very noticeable throughout the entire courtroom.
And you know, and I guess he shut up, which it's interesting just in and of itself, like, it must be absolutely killing him that somebody can tell him to shut up, to shut up and he has to do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:32]
| Yeah. Yes.
But look, that that's the, the gag orders. Yeah. More interesting.
|
Sam:
[1:14:40]
| Sidney Powell. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:42]
| So what happened? Where's the Kraken?
|
Sam:
[1:14:49]
| What happened to the Kraken? The Kraken has pled guilty.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:54]
| Crack, crack and plead guilty. Wow.
|
Sam:
[1:14:57]
| Now specifically, uh, Sidney Powell pled guilty to, I believe it's six misdemeanor charges. Yeah.
So not, you know, and of course this is the whole deal with plea deals.
Like she was charged with much more serious things, a bunch of felonies, blah, blah, blah.
She's pleading guilty to a handful of misdemeanors and she's only going to get like probation, no jail time and a fine.
She has to pay $6,000 and six years on probation, I believe is the deal.
And in exchange, she has to testify against everybody.
That's right. And if she doesn't, okay, deal's over, right? And we can bring everything back.
And apparently, you know, she's put some things on tape already as part of the proceedings for this in case like something happens.
And yeah, and the, the key part is she is right smack in the middle of all of this.
No, she, she is one of the key players who was in the room in a whole bunch of the important planning meetings for this stuff.
And basically I've heard lots of people say, look, she would not gotten, she would not have gotten this suite a deal unless she's giving up the goods, unless she was given up. really good goods.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:20]
| Yes. Oh, yeah. Because this was I mean, this is a slap of the wrist. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:16:27]
| And and she and by the way, just on timing wise her and cheeseboro their trial supposed to start next week, right?
Now, it's just cheeseboro because she's pled guilty.
She presumably will testify against him as well. Now, we'll see if he tries to do a plea to before the trial starts next week.
|
Future Sam:
[1:16:50]
| Sam from the future here, Mr. Cheese Man, Mr.
Chesborough did in fact do a plea deal after we recorded this show before I'm putting it together.
So that means both of them has flipped in addition to that other guy who flipped a week or two ago and there is no speedy trial trial starting this coming week after all.
There are various implications to that, but all in all, not great developments for Mr. Trump. Anyway, back to the discussion.
|
Sam:
[1:17:24]
| Do, do, do, but one of, one of the things with all of these, of course, like, I don't think he was as big a player.
She was apparently like, everybody thought like if somebody was going to plea, it would be him and figured that Powell was so dug in that we would not see a plea from her, but kaboom. There it is.
And we'll see it like this is this is the expected process here.
Like we started out with 19 people, two of our.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:53]
| I'm going to guess is a couple of factors that that did this one that I'm going to say most probably is a money thing.
This defense, all these defendants have been struggling to pay their legal bills. OK. Yeah.
And so that was a factor. OK, that definitely had to be weighing on her if she couldn't afford the best attorneys possible in order to try to push a point.
And I'm I'm guess that many attorneys, because of how much of a whack job she had been, probably told her, I'm like, look, are you fucking kidding me?
You need to plead. You've got there is nothing I've got to defend your sorry ass. So either we're going in there to make a plea.
Otherwise, you want me to go in there and spew bullshit?
It's going to cost you tons of money, because that's what they're going to tell you.
Oh, you want me to go in there with this active defensive whatever?
Okay, start writing checks, because this is going to cost a lot of money.
And I'm going to tell you right now also what they told her, is that you know what? You're going to write a lot of checks, and guess what? You're probably going to lose.
|
Sam:
[1:19:02]
| Well, also as part of that, over the last couple weeks, they've been trying to get this dismissed in all kinds of different ways.
And they've all failed. Then they've all all failed away.
And, and, and so like the timing may be like, look, we've tried like half a dozen stupid ass motions to try to get this thrown out, dismissed, severed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Nothing is working. The trial starts in a couple of days. If you're going to do this, this.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:36]
| Now you better do it. Now's the time.
|
Sam:
[1:19:38]
| Because the cause also like, you know, again, this, this is the modus operandi of these Rico cases. You indict a whole bunch of people and then you start rolling it up.
You start getting these people to plea. And so we started at 19.
We, we're already down to 17.
We are probably going to get a bunch more pleas before we're done.
And with each one of these people you get, the earlier you plea, the better a deal you get.
Right. And then at the end, the people who are left, who are presumably the ones at the core of the conspiracy, and in this case, we all know, they want Donald.
Like, everybody else, they'd be happy to let plea. They want Donald.
Maybe they want, like...
Somebody to, I don't know, but, or, you know, it'd be nice to get rid of.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:30]
| Oh God. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:20:32]
| And there are a couple other people, but like, you know, by the time you get to that core group, if you get all of these people to flip, they're just, they'll make it so much more difficult for the people who are left.
Now, it seems like they got pretty damn good documented evidence anyway, all this kind of stuff, but it still helps to have these people flip.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:58]
| But, hey, listen, listen, when you've got somebody like Sidney Powell, she is one that can connect all the dots. Yes.
And that's invaluable in this, because when you're going in front and you present certain things and there are certain gaps, if you can get her to fill those gaps by being in person and saying what happened in those, then you could bury everybody.
And look, like I said, it came down to she tried every one of these defenses are all bullshit.
They're not you know, they're running low on cash.
OK, to pay for all of this. And I'm sure that the attorneys at some point had to, you know, tell her, look, what the fuck are you?
She's the one she's one of the ones that demanded an early trial, right?
That's why I was happening early. Yeah. So you demanded this fucking early trial.
You you were you thought you were going to get out of this early.
Guess what? All your emotions lost.
And now we're going to trial and we've got nothing to defend your ass.
I mean, yeah, they had her.
She was up against the wall. I mean, I guess she's not as stupid as she sounded.
|
Sam:
[1:22:14]
| Yeah. So Any other domestic politics stuff you want to cover?
|
Ivan:
[1:22:20]
| Domestic politics stuff that you want to cover?
|
Sam:
[1:22:26]
| I got nothing right now. Okay. Let's take another break and then we'll talk about the Middle East. And then we'll wrap it up.
Yvonne's getting some water. Water! In the meantime, here's the break.
|
Break:
[1:22:42]
| Do you want to understand what is really going on with the presidential election cycle?
Then go to electiongraphs.com right away.
There you'll find charts and graphs covering the nomination processes in both parties and the general election race for electoral college votes.
For the delegate races, we track not just delegate totals, but also the ever-important analysis of how each candidate has to do with the remaining delegates in order to actually win.
For the Electoral College, we track state-by-state poll averages to categorize which states are actually in play and which are not in order to show you the range of likely electoral results and how that changes over time.
You can get some of this stuff elsewhere, but not in exactly the same way.
And not for me, Sam, your prime curmudgeon.
I think my election trackers are better than the rest. So come look at mine, electiongraphs.com.
|
Sam:
[1:23:43]
| And we are back. So before we get into everything we did, we did not pick polls as a topic, but since that was an election graphs break, I'll just tell you, everybody go to electiongraphs.com and check it out.
On the state by state polls that I cover there, Biden's had a really bad, like, the last month has just sucked in terms of these state by state polls.
And he's nearly, you know, from November through to June, things were getting better for Biden every month. Every month was better than the one before.
Then it sort of popped back up a little bit And July, August, September, we're kind of flat, not a big deal.
But then starting around the middle of September, this just series of bad state polls for Biden.
And he's not quite as bad as he was like a year ago, but damn close.
So, and you know, you could, there's an argument to be made there are specific pollsters who put stuff out that just were bad for him.
And once other pollsters come in, it'll get better again. But right now it looks sucky for Joe Biden. But that's all I'm going to say about that.
We can talk more about it some other time. Just go to election graphs.com and check out the polls there.
Anyway, but now we're going to talk about the Middle East.
So Yvonne has, has everything gotten better over there?
Or is the crisis resolved, the crisis resolved, no, it's not resolved.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:20]
| Okay. It's been going on as the onion that very articulately said for centuries. Okay. You know.
Wrote a piece that might as well have been an op-ed in the New York Times, specifically talking about, well, they made a joke first. Give the reference.
|
Sam:
[1:25:38]
| It's obviously in the onion. What's the title of the article?
|
Ivan:
[1:25:41]
| It was an onion article that was like, uh, we're supporting Israel because basically it's the, it's the thing we're going to get yelled at the least.
Um, and when it went in and the, the, the, one of the starting lines was, Because, hey, you know, this entire thing requires a very nuanced discussion about all the things that have happened in this place, which don't go back just decades, but centuries.
But you know what, listen, nobody's going to hear any of that shit.
So therefore, we're just going to say, we're for Israel, because that's the thing that's going to get us yelled at the least at this point.
And, you know, I think that that's the one thing in terms of the public discussion around this in general that I have seen as been quite a lot of people basically that just don't know a damn thing about it, throwing out their opinions.
And because I think the last time that we really had a big intifada, it's like in the early 2000s, social media didn't really exist.
|
Sam:
[1:26:56]
| Oh, wait, wait, wait, before I forget, you pointed out on our convergence, all correction, correction, correction, correction, correction.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:05]
| From last year. So I killed off Shimon Peres.
I had him assassinated. It was not Shimon Peres. It was she, he thought she, oh God, Rabin it was Rabin. I'm not going to try to say his first name.
He was the prime minister that got killed.
He was one of the champions and he was one of the champions of the Oslo Accords.
He was actually out like pushing for the support of those accords.
And let's be clear, Rabin's wife blames Netanyahu for his death.
|
Sam:
[1:27:42]
| Hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:43]
| Flat out. Because he said that, you know, his incitement of of of the right wingers that are the ones that are now in charge the country are the ones that made it happen.
Rabin's widow, I'm going to quote, Blame Netanyahu, then head of Israel's conservative Likud party for contributing to the atmosphere that led to her husband's death and said so on worldwide television.
And I happen to agree with her.
The tensions have gotten really high in large part because Rabin was trying to negotiate a peace and these guys wouldn't have it.
|
Sam:
[1:28:21]
| Mm hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:23]
| So and I mean, that event was a big turning point in terms of the peace process in with Israel and in Palestine.
And then the second turning point you get is the Hamas election, which, you know, that really completely ended any hope, like by having Netanyahu and Hamas in charge on both sides.
It's just these are two parties that are impossible to get to a table to negotiate anything is neither of them want a settlement.
So anyway, since so optimistic beginning to talk about the situation. Yay.
|
Sam:
[1:29:12]
| Well, I will say we had, it was looking interesting for a while this week.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:20]
| We had Biden has been a Biden to his credit has been fucking working overtime.
|
Sam:
[1:29:27]
| This is what I was going to say. Biden had, he was going to fly into Israel, which he did end up doing, but he was also going to fly to Jordan.
He was going to talk to people there. He was going to talk to a boss from the PLO.
He was going to talk to the King of Jordan. He was basically making a little diplomatic trip. And Blinken has been all over the fucking region.
The Biden administration, like you said, was working it. And they- Hard.
Very hard. And we had this sort of, okay, Israel's going to go in imminently with a ground invasion of Gaza.
Moment now. They're ready. They had set a deadline.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:10]
| By the way, it hasn't happened.
|
Sam:
[1:30:12]
| They, yeah, exactly. They had set a deadline and then they delayed it and then they, and then, okay, Biden's coming in person. Nothing will happen till after Biden's gone.
And it, as of our recording, it still has not happened.
Now, maybe it will by the time you hear this, but Biden went in and he was making deals for like humanitarian corridors, getting getting aid into Gaza, which apparently is happening in his speech tonight.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:40]
| It means that this is actually happening.
|
Sam:
[1:30:43]
| Well, this was part of the deal. Now, part of the deal also like it's all off if any of this stuff gets to Hamas. So, you know, Hamas is going to want to do what they do. But the thing is.
As Biden was about to get on the plane to go to Israel.
Happened. And so the initial reports were, you know, big explosion at a hospital, hundreds killed.
The assumptions that were being made immediately were, okay, the Israelis had to have hit it.
Now, depending on where you listened, some news places were much more careful about saying, we have no idea what has happened yet.
We don't have information yet." Whereas some just right out said, okay, it was probably an Israeli airstrike.
As the evidence has come in, it appears pretty clear at this point that there was a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel that misfired, landed in the parking lot of the hospital, not on the hospital itself, And was seemingly a lot smaller than what was originally reported.
Now the number and the number of dead is unclear to how many people really died there.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:08]
| And this is the big problem with with information that's coming out that this is like, I mean, it details are, it details are really hard to find.
|
Sam:
[1:32:20]
| And on the one hand, you see pictures of this parking area that it hit and it's like, there can't have been that many people there. How did it kill that many?
But because it was a hospital, it was also a place that people from all over the area were going for a safe place to sleep.
So apparently the little grassy area right next to the parking lot was full of tents and sleeping bags and people being there.
So even though normally it was just like a parking garage, It was crammed full of people who had left their homes to try to find a safe place at the hospital.
So it's, you know, so lots of people did die.
There's some dispute on the exact number, but lots of people died.
But here's the thing, by the time we started getting the information, both from the Israeli government, but also from independent third parties analyzing video, blah, blah, blah, that this probably was not an Israeli attack.
It didn't matter anymore. anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:26]
| Yeah, because that because the narrative that went out and so many repeated like without and that's my thing about about people right now, just spewing whatever the hell the first thing is, because when it happened, my first instinct was who the hell did this?
Because I, you know.
We need to get the facts, whereas so many people jumped on saying, you know, look at And look at the barbarian Israelis.
And by the way, I'm going to say flat out that that also plays and it shows, I really think it also shows a whole bunch of antisemitism that people have deep seated, that it's just these this kind of shit brings out.
And there is, you know, Biden the night talked about it, Islamophobia and antisemitism that this entire situation has brought all of that, brought all the worst out of both sides.
Exactly. And, you know, and by the way, there's antisemitism on the far right and on the far left, by the way.
You know, we talked about this a little bit during some of the past election cycles. And so.
But, but like you said, what the first, the most public reports that people started screaming was saying that Israel hit the hospital, right.
And that was the narrative that took hold. And it, it, it, it, it, it's it incited a lot of protests all over the world, all over the world.
And it out, it didn't matter if it, it did derail.
|
Sam:
[1:35:12]
| Um, yeah, because of that, the summits in Jordan were canceled.
Yeah. So like that second half of Biden's diplomatic effort, poof. Yep.
Now, officially like it wasn't Israel did this. So we're not going to talk to you anymore.
Officially it was, we're doing three days of mourning. So it would not be appropriate to talk to you right now. Okay. But it was kind of clear there was a direct cause and effect there. like this happened and all that was canceled.
And so, you know, and, and, you know, Biden was Biden and his administration were being effective.
And I think one, one of the other things that Biden has done, I think masterfully is that, you know, and probably by the way, the behind the scenes conversations with Israel, I'm sure look a lot different than the public statements.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:09]
| Oh, 100%.
|
Sam:
[1:36:10]
| You know, we've got the public Biden administration stance is no daylight between us and Israel. We support them 100%, whatever is necessary, they do. But they've...
In a really smart way. They have not said to Israel, we support you 100% unless you go crazy in Gaza and kill a bunch of civilians or whatever.
Instead, they've said, we support Israel 100%.
Percent. And as one of the leading democracies in the world, of course, Israel is very, very conscious of the laws of war and will act appropriately.
And there's sort of, because there was, and I saw a report in one of the newspapers the other day, like not an actual physical newspaper, their website, but the- Not an actual physical newspaper.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:15]
| No, not an actual physical.
|
Sam:
[1:37:16]
| A little bit exciting. But saying that there was a, their sources off the record from inside some of the negotiations said that the Biden people that were talking to the Israeli government were actually really alarmed by some of the rhetoric that was coming out of the Israeli government in terms of blockades, cutting off electricity, cutting off water, saying that, of course, lots of civilians are going to die and we have no choice, and saying things like, well, Germans, I'm sure there were innocent Germans too, was one of the quotes.
And basically, contingents of the Israeli government implying that they were not going to show any restraint whatsoever.
The Biden administration has said things in such a way, without publicly calling them out on any of that stuff, but basically reiterating that the expectation is you abide by the post-World War II laws of war.
And I say post-World War II for a reason, because there's that comparison to World War II. Right.
A lot of things happened after World War II, where there were international agreements saying that we will never again do what happened in World War II.
Yeah. that the sort of mass slaughter of civilians that happened in world war two and frankly, all wars before world war two was just not acceptable anymore.
You know, regardless if you are in the right or the wrong or whatever, in terms of whatever dispute is causing the war, that there were still things that you would not do.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:01]
| Well, but, but, and we're saying that, that by countries that are, you know, allies of the United States, because I mean, Vladimir Putin hasn't given a shit about that.
Well, no, you know, he's I mean, he really, I mean, let's be clear.
Vladimir Putin wants to turn back the clock.
|
Sam:
[1:39:15]
| Obviously, there are lots of places in the world who have not.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:18]
| But yeah, I mean, Vladimir really would like to turn back the clock back to World War II. I mean, literally, I'm not.
He, he, you know, that is, he wants that for Russia.
So yeah, and I, now listen, but one thing also above that, look, I, mean, I, I had seen also statements from military in Israel, specifically talking about, because you've got whatever political reaction and emotional reaction there was by people in the government Israel regarding to the attack. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:39:58]
| Which I completely understand.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:00]
| I can completely understand. But, but I, I heard the military, you know, people in the military in Israel talking specifically about, look, they, they came in and they were indiscriminately killing people on the street, kids.
I mean, there was specific, that's where that was their orders.
Whereas us as Israeli soldiers, we can't do that, right? We don't, we don't, we don't do that. We have to balance, you know, the, the, the, the conventions of war, defense civilians, not commit war crimes.
All these things will also trying to seek the enemy and defend our people.
It's not the same case. And I heard them talk about that.
And you know, look, I don't know if I've told this story before, but you know, one of my bosses. Okay. It wasn't the military in Israel a long time ago when he was very young.
|
Sam:
[1:40:55]
| Mm hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:56]
| And he was posted at the start of war when the Six Day War started.
He was on duty with one of his best friends and very quickly as the war started is.
His best friend got killed right at the outset of the hostilities.
And, you know, he talked about how what a difficult job that was for him and how he you know, he really didn't want to talk about it only once he really yeah, what what what what he what what I saw that it it created in him was such a disdain for religious fanaticism.
That's the one thing that I saw in him and how it really, you know.
Uh, impacted his life and how he lives. Okay. And I think that people, you know, they, the last 15 years, especially with Netanyahu pushing all these aggressive policies against, against them, this goes back to the onion and the lack of nuance.
They don't, man, you don't see that shit that this is, this has been been difficult on both sides for a long time.
And I don't know. I mean, I bottom line is, I do think that what Biden wound up doing with his messaging and going there and talking to the parties is to somehow, thankfully, calm down something that could have generated something far worse.
|
Sam:
[1:42:43]
| Or at least slow it down or at least slow it down. It's not clear that it won't still blow up.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:49]
| It's not clear, but at least it's, he's not just letting this freight train get out of, just he's, he's, he's pushing hard against, against letting this freight train go out of control.
|
Sam:
[1:43:01]
| Yeah. I mean, he may or may not succeed, but so far so good, I guess.
Like, Like, I mean, it is clear the man and his administration have been working this extremely hard for the last couple of weeks to try to, you know, look, let Israel do what they need to do, but try to set up a scenario where you really can minimize civilian casualties and try to shorten this and try to get out of it with some sort of path to a future that isn't worse.
Now, I don't know if he's going to succeed or not. Like I said, it's, it's a nearly impossible freaking problem.
Like every president in my lifetime has been working this problem, you know, and we'll see.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:00]
| Well, but you know what if we had President Trump, been solved like this.
|
Sam:
[1:44:09]
| Oh, yes. Well, I was about to say, except Trump or something like that, but even goddamn Trump tried. I mean, he sent Jared to try to make the deals and stuff.
And look, that's another thing that's a casualty of this, by the way. Jared.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:25]
| He went to Jared.
|
Sam:
[1:44:26]
| Yes, but this is another casualty of this. Israel and Saudi Arabia we're on the verge of normalizing relationships.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:35]
| And that's, I heard the Saudis still are going to go pull through it.
I think they just, they probably will, but it's been delayed.
|
Sam:
[1:44:42]
| It's been delayed, like, but they were on the verge and that part of the speculation around timing one was the 50th anniversary of the previous war and all that kind of stuff.
But like, was the timing was in fact influenced by trying to keep Saudi out or keep Saudi for for making that deal, which actually brings me to, I didn't want to leave this topic without talking about the various potential places for escalation.
So a few things here. One, there have been skirmishes in the north with Lebanon going on for the past two weeks. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:21]
| And there's been evacuation of people because of that.
|
Sam:
[1:45:24]
| And evacuation. I'll mention like...
Whose son was doing a gap year between high school and college in Israel.
They were only like a month into that. They have now been evacuated out of Israel.
They were like, last I heard they're in London. They're probably on the way back to the U.S., but you know, along with several of their classmates.
But they were further north. The whole country is impacted, but specifically, we're We're talking mainly about, hey, war with Hamas over Gaza, but the missiles are hitting practically the whole country.
Hezbollah in Lebanon, they haven't done an all-out attack, but there's been back and forth.
Israel has hit targets in Lebanon. Israel has hit targets in Syria.
They've taken out airports in Syria, like the Aleppo airport has been taken out by Israel.
There have been expansions where basically like, you know, part of what Biden has been saying is they're giving warnings to people all over to keep out of this scenario, but there are things going on.
Iran has said that if Israel does do the full scale invasion of Gaza, that they will get involved directly.
Just a few hours before we recorded the show, the US military knocked out of the air some drones, I believe it was mostly drones, but I think one report said there was also a cruise missile as well that was shot out of Yemen heading in the direction of Israel.
So, so far, those other things have been sort of kept under control and somewhat quiet.
They haven't been the center of discussion, but there is stuff going on that's not just the Gaza Strip, and it has the opportunity of, you know, blowing up at any moment.
And I think that's part of what all of this, you know, airport diplomacy stuff that's been going on with both Blinken and Biden is specifically aimed at keep this from exploding into a, yeah, a situation that puts the whole region at war.
I mean, we've also had all of these demonstrations in various capitals, some of which have gotten violent.
There have been attacks on Israeli embassies in several countries.
Hell, we had that six-year-old that was killed in Illinois or wherever it was by some whacknut who decided he just wanted to kill a Palestinian.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:14]
| You know, Biden, by the way, mentioned...
|
Sam:
[1:48:17]
| The kid by name.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:17]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just fucking, I'm just...
That, that, that evil asshole that did that. This is so disgusting.
Yeah. I mean, I just killed a kid for, cause he was Muslim. That's it.
That's it. Yup.
|
Sam:
[1:48:40]
| And yeah, so there's lots of opportunity where this could get bigger and get bigger fast.
And so if it doesn't, honestly, I'm giving a lot of credit to the Biden administration.
Yeah, I hope their efforts succeed and manage to keep this from getting bigger than it already is. I mean, it's already horrible. It's just it could get so much more harm.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:07]
| Right? Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:49:10]
| Yeah. Yeah. Oh, any any more, Yvonne? Did we miss anything?
|
Ivan:
[1:49:18]
| No, not that I remember right now. OK.
|
Sam:
[1:49:22]
| Let's wrap it up, then.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:24]
| Wrapping it up, wrapping it, wrapping it.
|
Sam:
[1:49:28]
| No glove, no love, no woman, no cry.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:32]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:49:33]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:36]
| Well, my son makes me sing now every morning. So I'm not, it's not improving my singing.
|
Sam:
[1:49:44]
| I, you know, I, I admit to sometimes doing some nonsense songs to get my son motivated.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:50]
| Oh no, no, no. I'm more, I'm playing music and he's like making me sing the lyrics. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:49:58]
| Genesis.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:59]
| Well, right now he's been listening to Genesis.
|
Sam:
[1:50:02]
| My mind tries to catch me when I'm singing on video to share with other people.
Yeah, no, not those like the time.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:12]
| By the way, I'm a little, you know.
Yeah, no, I'm back to the Indians again. Yeah, no, no.
Another Indian trope I pulled out, for God's sakes, you know, I'm sure.
I'll done it went out and we're like, Oh, or you know, don't be an asshole racist, Yvonne.
I'm not being, I'm pulling out the tropes. I'm pointing out that another fucking trope that, you know, another idiotic trope that we got, we got shown the kid.
That's probably not true either. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:50:46]
| Anyway. Yeah. So yeah, my, my kid tries to catch me when I'm singing along to real songs and video me against my will.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:55]
| Well, let's you know, let's video you. You know, why doesn't he just record you in the shower? That'd be that'd be hilarious.
Of course, he won't post that video until like 2070 or something.
At the rate that he's going right now.
|
Sam:
[1:51:07]
| Yeah, there we go. Yeah, let's not suggest that. You know, let's not suggest it anyway.
Anyway, go to curmudgeons hyphen corner dot com. You can find out all the ways to contact us.
You can see our archives going back to a long time ago.
You can see transcripts from recent shows. We do expect you to read them and, you know, answer quizzes.
I don't know, something quizzes, quizzes, quizzes, quizzes, lots of quizzes.
You can also find there are Patreon where you can give us lots and lots of money to help with the expenses of the show.
I'm way behind in figuring out what the hell the expenses of the show even are.
I'll do it at some point. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:54]
| Yeah. Forget about that. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:51:58]
| Anyway, at various levels on the Patreon, we will mention you on the show.
We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug.
And importantly, at two dollars a month or more, or if you just contact us in any of the ways on the website and ask nicely, we will invite you to our curmudgeon's corner slack where Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:17]
| You ask meanly, we'll probably do it anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:52:20]
| Yeah, probably, probably. Although we do reserve the right. If anybody on the curmudgeon's corner Slack is ever like a complete jackass to throw you out.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:30]
| Yeah, but, but, but, but, but, you know, we've never had to do that yet. We haven't done that.
|
Sam:
[1:52:35]
| No, no, but you know, we do reserve the right to do so anyway.
If you ask, we will invite you to a curmudgeon's corner Slack where Yvonne and I, and a bunch of other people are chatting and sharing links and stuff throughout the week.
So, Yvonne, what is one thing that we talked about in the commercials course slack that we have not talked at all about on the show that you would like to share with everybody?
|
Ivan:
[1:52:57]
| Uh, let's see, uh, I think today I was not prepared.
Yes. Yes. There was.
So recently, threads has had a lot of people coming in from Twitter to usually post the stuff on that.
And I will say that there's been a lot of the content that I hadn't been seeing showing up And there was one clip those hilarious from the Daily Show.
They have an account there and they posted and there was a guy who had a mugshot of Donald Trump on his shirt on his t-shirt that said never surrender The host went and asked him, you know, so never surrender.
So you do understand that that picture that you have there is him actually surrendering, right?
Yeah. So, I mean, these guys killed irony, man.
I mean, I, you know, I mean, I mean, you'd be so stupid, you're literally walking around with a shirt of the guy surrendering and put the words, never surrender.
|
Sam:
[1:54:11]
| I don't know what to say, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:14]
| They also had another one that I saw that they posted, which was this other guy that I was talking about how he was struggling economically.
He said, this is another one from that. How do you feel America's doing under Biden? Not good. I think inflation, gas prices, everything's going up, milk and eggs, blah, blah, blah.
How much have you spent on Trump's swag?
A few thousand dollars. And he went on describing on the video, and this is on threads from the Daily Show, on threads you look him up.
He was describing how every MAGA, He owns, I don't know how many MAGA hats.
Every one of them was like 50 bucks.
|
Sam:
[1:54:52]
| Of course they are.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:53]
| I mean, I'm like, my God, the damn grip son of a every, and he has like, I don't know, dozens of them, 50, 50 bucks a hat. Yes. Yes.
These guys are such idiots. I swear to God, like every time I talk, I want to just, you know, if anyone out there wants a $50 curmudgeon's corner hat, let us know. Yes. We'll make one for you, yes. Absolutely.
|
Sam:
[1:55:20]
| Yeah. We can make that work, I'm sure.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:24]
| We can make it work. We can make it work.
|
Sam:
[1:55:25]
| Yeah. Now, just like, They're probably cheap-ass crappy hats, but yeah, they're shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:34]
| Oh, yeah, you know I'm gonna find them from the lowest cost producer But we will happily charge you $50 Yes, make America great again.
I'm sure they're made the hats are made where Bangladesh or something or whatever, you know I'm sure that I thought I thought I heard specifically before they are made in China.
Oh, they are made in China Well, they are even better. Yes, of course.
|
Sam:
[1:55:57]
| I'll be why would you know, of course Cause you know, cause one of Donald Trump's whole things is how bad China is. So of course that's where the hats come.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:05]
| Of course, where that's where the hats are made. That makes sense.
|
Sam:
[1:56:07]
| I may, maybe I'm remembering wrong. Maybe they're purely like made in Indiana or something. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:14]
| Ah, they're made at the, my pillow factory. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:56:17]
| Yeah. That guy's doing well too.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:20]
| Oh, that guy. That's another guy that's doing very well. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:56:23]
| Okay. Are, are, are we done? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:25]
| By the way. Yes. By the way, fuck them all.
Fuck Michael and Del fuck that, that, that crazy asshole Powell did the other guy that the fricking, you know, guy, the mayor of New York X guy, whatever. The hell is that? I don't know.
Giuliani, fuck him. Fuck all of them.
|
Sam:
[1:56:47]
| Oh, by the way, that reminds me like, apparently that, oh, Steve Bannon is heavily involved in the speaker race drama too. He's going around lobbying people and stuff. He's one of the people going around threatening people.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:02]
| So, well, you know, I I'm just, you know, don't understand why the hell we still can't get this guy in jail yet. He's been convicted. We need him in jail.
|
Sam:
[1:57:10]
| A lot of these people need to be in jail. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:12]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:57:15]
| Anyway, we are done. Have a good week, everybody stay safe and we'll, uh, if, if, if everything goes as expected, we will be here again next week. Goodbye. Bye.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:27]
| Bye.
| |
|
