Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:01]
| Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[0:03]
| Hello.
|
Sam:
[0:05]
| So let's see. I mean, get a thingy, but we do, we do, we do.
Okay. How do you want to structure this week?
Same as the last couple of weeks or you want to go back to just alternating things or what do you want to do?
|
Ivan:
[0:25]
| We could alternate things.
|
Sam:
[0:27]
| Okay.
That works. Let me just prepping my little notes for the show.
Okay. Bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup.
Okay. Do I have any, but firstie things though?
|
Ivan:
[0:46]
| Buttery firstie.
|
Sam:
[0:48]
| Buttery first.
|
Ivan:
[0:50]
| Buttery.
|
Sam:
[0:51]
| Buttery. Okay. So shall we just start and see what happens?
|
Ivan:
[0:56]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[0:58]
| Here we go. I'm going to take water first. Here we go.
Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for Saturday, November 4th, 2023.
It's just after two 30 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam mentor and Yvonne Bo is back. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:37]
| Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi.
Yo. Hi. Yo.
|
Sam:
[1:46]
| It's off to work. We go.
They're, they're remaking a live action version of that. And of course people are all upset because like the dwarves aren't short white guys.
And Snow White's not white either, but, you know.
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Ivan:
[2:04]
| You know, we don't you know, we you know, there's too many of us anyway.
|
Sam:
[2:11]
| I mean, seriously, we don't need, you know, you you are like a dwarf.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not not like the like the dwarf is a medical condition.
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Ivan:
[2:23]
| Just no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[2:24]
| You're like the like Tolkien's dwarves, like in the movies and as described in the book, somewhat or just sort of short, strong, stocky, but very strong.
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Ivan:
[2:34]
| Right.
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Sam:
[2:35]
| That's you. And you like this.
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Ivan:
[2:37]
| And yes, and I am pretty strong, actually.
|
Sam:
[2:39]
| So there you go. And you like to dig in the dirt to find precious gems and stones.
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Ivan:
[2:45]
| But I mean, I like to find money, so I guess that makes it actually.
Yes. Metaphorically. Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:50]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[2:51]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:51]
| There you go. Yeah. So anyway, we're just going to We're instead of having like, you know, a domestic segment and a Middle East segment, we're just going to alternate topics like we did, although domestic stuff and Middle East stuff is likely to come up, I must say, but, um, there's plenty of stuff going on.
And, and, and like, we'll try to do lighter stuff this first segment.
But I was just saying, right before we started recording, I, I don't got anything like that. So, Yvonne, maybe you start and then like, maybe you'll inspire something. I'll.
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Ivan:
[3:26]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[3:26]
| Something.
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Ivan:
[3:27]
| All right. Well, look, I have I have some.
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Sam:
[3:29]
| Of course. Yes. Yes. This is about your car.
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Ivan:
[3:32]
| No, no, no, no, no.
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Sam:
[3:34]
| Is it about travel?
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Ivan:
[3:35]
| No, no, no. Oh, it's about it's about. Okay.
I've had this thing where. So say you leave the house.
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Sam:
[3:47]
| Yes.
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Ivan:
[3:48]
| Leave the house. So my, at my place, we have an alarm. I usually kind of like an autopilot set the alarm, lock the door, go.
My wife is a little bit more forgetful about the alarm, but she's been more diligent about it.
I think it, I think the one thing that made her more diligent about it.
I kept telling her, look, I know that it's a low risk to get robbed, but believe me, but look, it happens. Right.
And so last couple of years, first week, there was a break in a friends of ours.
Not that far away where I will never put an alarm, blah, blah, blah.
They broke in through their bathroom window when they were away at work.
And the kids were scared. The kids were a little bit. They were away at daycare or school, whatever.
And they got ransacked. They got all their like all their jewelry got stolen.
She didn't have her wedding rings, stuff like that all got robbed.
You know, it was pretty bad. OK.
And, you know, they never set an alarm then. Far more recently, OK, my parents had some neighbors that moved across the street.
And they moved in, and, you know, one thing I say, any neighborhood right now down here is pricey.
I mean, the prices have gone so far up that.
So, yeah, I mean, you know, places set up pricey there. But these people came in and well, Well, you know, I always say that it always a caveat, you know, they may be in debt or to their eyeballs, but they displayed they had a lot of flashy stuff.
OK, you know, they had a Rolls Royce SUV. OK, you know, I mean, OK, this kind of level of, you know, being ostentatious.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. We're talking cars that are worth as much as that, you know, as much as the average house.
OK, kind of, you know, a median house sold in Florida, kind of a thing.
You know, and they had they had not had a security system put in.
They got broken in. And this guy had a lot of jewelry.
And I got to suspect that I don't know what the police investigation came about or whatever.
I kept saying must be an inside job, but he has a very expensive watch.
Is it another stuff or whatever?
The report said that he they stole at least $500 ,000 worth of stuff from their from their house. OK.
Now, while I probably I don't have that kind of stuff, I do have some valuables and I have some stuff that's old. It's not easily replaced.
|
Sam:
[6:19]
| Hmm. Right.
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Ivan:
[6:21]
| You know, I mean, my grandpa's watch, you know, yeah, you know, get stolen.
I'm like, you know, yeah, but sure. It's like a money back. I'm not I'm not getting that back.
You know, that kind of stuff, you know. So so I always got a little bit paranoid about forgetting to lock the door.
This door is a little bit. And there's been times where I've set the alarm And maybe I didn't lock the door, but then this other thing happened.
Every time I would go on a trip, I'd go and I'm like, Shit, did I, because I do it so automatically sometimes that I locked the door.
|
Sam:
[6:55]
| Can't you check out, lock the door, not arm the alarm. Right.
Okay. I was going to say, can't you check it from an app or something? But yeah.
|
Ivan:
[7:02]
| Okay. Okay. Here's the thing. The alarm system we had didn't allow us to check through an app.
I actually called a company that I had it through and I asked them, hey, you know what? It's connected to the internet.
Can't you like, you know, upgrade it, get me an app, something, whatever they never sent to anyone.
And so and it did happen that on a recent went on vacation.
My wife was the one that was locking the front door. Clean lady came home while we were away and found the door was unlocked.
And I was just like, you know, so I've been like, you know, I can check if my car is locked on my phone.
I can check, you know, I can check whether the alarm, you know, everything.
Why can't I do it for the house? Now there are options to do that.
The one thing is that, you know, home integration and automation is still very fragmented, okay?
Right. You got HomeKit, you've got some shit that works with Alexa, you got stuff with Google.
It's, you know, it's still a shitshow.
But OK, so ADT, the security company, is offering a package that integrates Google.
You know, so I have Nest thermostats, a Nest doorbell, Nest cameras, you know, this does door lock, everything all integrated into one package. OK.
And they have it that you pay.
Basically, it's just roll it in. But do you do you pay for the equipment monthly?
So you own the equipment you get, you get, you pay for the service, whatever. where everything's all one bundle, no money out, no money out of pocket up front, a whole bunch of cool stuff to look cool and whatnot.
And I'm like, oh, so it integrates Nest, it integrates this, it integrates that, everything is there. You don't get an app on the phone, get notifications.
I can, you know, okay, so this looks... So I got that, okay?
And so they, they, the installer was here morning and spent quite a few hours, setting up all the sensors, setting up all the stuff.
And one of the things is that when I was ordering it online, what are the, what are the things about this is, well, okay.
You got to count how many doors, windows, openings you have for sensors and stuff.
|
Sam:
[9:25]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[9:26]
| And I had double, well, the other thing I mistake I did.
I, you know, I'd looked at some, seen some newer nest thermostats that were available and they offered some nest thermostats.
And I realized that after I placed the order that those nest thermostats were worse.
They Google makes some really shitty one now that is not, they're not as good as the old one. Correct. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[9:54]
| Are they all not as good as the no, no, no, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[9:57]
| They have a model. I'm going to have one model that's like the light model.
Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, no, I fuck.
Well, that's not what I want. OK, so and I realized I talked to the technician like, look, the ones that you have, you know, the newer ones, you're not going to gain any.
And so so he swapped out some of the equipment. And one of the things that he swapped out was swapped out that for these Google Nest hubs.
And the reason why he was saying to have those is because, look, OK, You have the app, but if somebody comes to the door, you want to activate some of the home integration.
OK, it's a good place to be able to go and tap, tap and do that without it, you know, without looking at your phone or whatever, whatnot.
And it gets in the kitchen, the bedroom.
And I'm like, OK, so let's put these these boxes.
You know, these boxes are the same as it looked like the Amazon Echo.
You got this one. It's got a screen. It's supposed to do stuff, whatever, whatnot.
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Sam:
[10:53]
| You seem really impressed.
|
Ivan:
[10:54]
| Well, and, and all of these, you know, they, they sell them.
Oh, so you can chat with people and do this and whatever, what not, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You're like, I have a phone and I, and here, well, I'm like, I know I have a phone, but I was thinking more in line.
You see the screen and you think, well, yeah, you got an iPad, but if you have, so right now I've got standby mode on my new phone and I find a standby mode It works pretty decently because I can choose what I want to show up, set it over there.
I got like right now when I put my phone to bed, I got the clock, I got the thermostat, I got, I got the temperature.
So when I wake up, I, you know, get the alarm.
Hey, I know the weather, I know the time I don't have to be looking at my watch, like my watch, you could read it night, but I got to say I'm getting old and I'm having a tough time.
Reading my watch, OK, in bed.
OK, I have to when I wake up, I really so.
But now and I used to always have an alarm clock by my bed, but I've killed the last two alarm clocks I have.
OK, and the way that I killed them, OK, was that I would bring water, a glass of water to bed, and I wound up spilling the fucking water on top of them. Okay.
And I killed two of them. Okay. When I killed the last one, I was so pissed off.
I was just like, fuck this. I'm not replacing it. I was mad.
|
Sam:
[12:29]
| I haven't had an actual like separate alarm clock unit in, oh, I don't know, a couple of decades. It's been forever.
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Ivan:
[12:37]
| Oh no, no, no. I've had one of the last, I mean, the one thing is that this one integrated like a charging base for the phone and, and you know, and it had a speaker. So if you wanted to listen to it, it had a, you know, it had speakers for you to listen to the phone for music.
|
Sam:
[12:51]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[12:51]
| And I and I fucking killed it. I killed that. Listen, I killed it.
I took a glass of water. I went, I swung my arm.
Oh, just hit it. And it just died. And I was so angry that I just decided, fuck this. Damn it.
It's I was just I was so pissed at myself that I decided not to replace it.
|
Sam:
[13:11]
| So right now, I for that kind of thing, I've got double double duty.
I've got alarms on my phone and I've got alarms on a little Alexa unit that I have.
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Ivan:
[13:20]
| Well, OK, but you know, the thing is, the kind without a screen.
Right. And so but the thing is that with the phone, like right now, I'm basically, you know, I've basically replaced that.
And I've got like Bluetooth speakers in the groups.
If I want to listen to music, it's a far. So I don't need that that alarm clock anymore.
It's just, you know, it's a superfluous now. And so you get these, these things that it's, it's, it's a screen and I'm thinking it looks like an iPad and I'm thinking it's from Google.
So I'm like, you know, everybody always talks about, well, I have Android because it lets me do whatever the hell I want.
I could install whatever I want, do whatever I want, put whatever the hell I want on it.
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Sam:
[14:07]
| Unlike the super restrictive iPhones.
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Ivan:
[14:09]
| Right. Sam, this thing is one of the most unconfigurable devices I have ever met in my life.
|
Sam:
[14:17]
| Well, it's not an actual Android tablet, right? It's a special purpose device though. Right.
|
Ivan:
[14:23]
| I mean, I'm assuming it's gotta be a fucking like this.
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Sam:
[14:27]
| I'm assuming it's Android under the hood, but it's specifically intended to be locked down. It's not like you go out and buy an Android tablet.
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Ivan:
[14:35]
| Well, correct. Okay. But, but, but Sam, yes, the level of configurability is, is, is, is like zero.
|
Sam:
[14:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[14:46]
| I mean, I, I'm thinking, okay, home screen on my standby mode, I can configure what widgets show up, right?
|
Sam:
[14:57]
| Uh -huh.
|
Ivan:
[14:58]
| I can't do that on this thing. I can't look, I've spent hours trying to figure out how to change the clock from 24 hours to a .m. p .m.
I have not. Listen, I tell the stupid Google assistant, Google changed the fucking time to on the thing to a .m. p .m. You know what it does?
It doesn't Google search off the subject. It shows me a web page.
|
Sam:
[15:26]
| Beautiful.
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Ivan:
[15:26]
| There is no setting anywhere for this.
I don't you set up the Wi -Fi. You're off. And I'm like, I can't.
There is no fucking.
Configurability. Even my car, my car has Android. OK, my car, there is a Google app store with.
But and by the way, the first whatever reason they limit the number of apps that you can download, there's restrict severely restrict the number of apps that you could download. And so you can pick, oh, look, I want this weather app. I want this thing. I want whatever I can configure.
I look about none of that shit. Nothing.
Nothing. I got I have a frog that's showing me the weather.
That's about the only option that I figured out. I've got a fucking frog.
I show you the weather. I know, you know, and it sells it. You know, the damn thing.
I looked at some online reviews that basically shared what I'm But I'm saying right now so I I realized the first it might just be it might mean, hard about this. And I'm like, it says here, let me see.
Okay. Kitchen display. So let me, let me, let me go into the, the configuration settings over here.
Okay. So I got photo frame. Okay. My options are Google photos.
Of course I don't have any photos on Google. Oh, by the way, only Google calendars.
|
Sam:
[16:57]
| Of course. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[16:59]
| I mean, not even outlook, nothing. You can't you can not look at any other fucking calendar.
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Sam:
[17:05]
| OK, why would you want to, Yvonne? Come on, of course.
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Ivan:
[17:08]
| Art gallery, curated images and artwork.
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Sam:
[17:12]
| OK, OK.
|
Ivan:
[17:13]
| All right. Full screen clock, which, by the way, doesn't let me set out the A.
I can't set the fucking clock. OK. Yeah.
And experimental. Now, experimental. Now, that sounds sexy, right?
|
Sam:
[17:26]
| OK, experimental.
|
Ivan:
[17:28]
| Try out new sources of content. Okay. The only choice is okay, an experimental is Google weather frog experience the weather with a lovable frog.
And I am like, I mean, these guys never heard a clippy.
I mean, this is like, I mean, I'm like, are you serious?
This is and it's the only option, Sam.
This is it's the only fucking option on the screen. Gotcha.
|
Sam:
[18:01]
| But is, but is it unlovable?
|
Ivan:
[18:05]
| I did not find them to be so no, I actually found Clippy a lot more level because, you know, Clippy, you would click on it. You know, it's do stuff.
Yeah, random things. This shit won't do anything.
|
Sam:
[18:20]
| Frog just sits there.
|
Ivan:
[18:22]
| Basically, as far as I can tell.
|
Sam:
[18:24]
| I'm sorry. fun. Now does the frog get wet when it rains?
|
Ivan:
[18:29]
| I think so. Yes. Now it's basic function of allowing me to control the, like the thermostats, the, it works the, the, when the doorbell comes in, so you can see who's on the, you know, who's at the door and so forth or whatever that that works. Okay.
You know, so I'm like, and, you know, and the thing that I don't realize that most people, they buy these things.
And I said, man, it's just a fucking speaker. And basically, my son started using it, you know, as what? A fucking speaker.
|
Sam:
[19:09]
| Right. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[19:11]
| And I'm like, you know, I don't know why the hell we're making all these fucking glorified speakers.
Now, what I don't understand is why the hell Android, the configurable, you get to choose everything.
Man, I am struggling to find a device.
Is so locked down I can't say I can't even reorganize the tiles.
It shows me these tiles with options that I'm like, OK, great.
I don't want to hear calm sounds. Go the fuck away.
I can't make them go away, Sam. I can't make them go away. I don't give a shit about the calm sounds.
|
Sam:
[19:55]
| You sound like you need some calm sounds.
|
Ivan:
[19:57]
| Look, I will say that I have been very stressed. Okay.
Okay. I, I, I, you know, I, I have been quite stressed far more than normal.
I will say I lost my cool a couple of times really bad this week.
|
Sam:
[20:13]
| Mm hmm.
|
Ivan:
[20:15]
| Oh, over. Well, not unimportant things.
I will say that one of them was an issue with the with the construction company that's doing this project here and it's just trying to fuck us over.
|
Sam:
[20:34]
| OK, no, we don't have to get into details.
|
Ivan:
[20:36]
| I don't have to get it, but it wasn't. It wasn't like it wasn't like, I don't know.
It wasn't like the the the kitchen was messy or something. No, right.
You know, I mean, it's something that's escalating to the level that maybe that to a legal dispute level.
OK, if I don't figure out a way to resolve it. So I did completely.
I did fucking lose it over this, okay, at one point.
And so, so yeah, I, it's just, and for whatever the hell reason, it's just a lot of things converged all at once.
|
Sam:
[21:12]
| So what you're saying is you need the calming sounds, not those fucking calming sounds.
|
Ivan:
[21:19]
| You know, why can't you just let me pick what the fuck I want on the damn screen?
Here's another thing. They sold this to people. So apparently, so you can talk like video, talk to people.
OK, yeah, it's got a camera on it, whatever. So you can do that with.
And so there's oh, you can speak to other people that have another Google Duo.
Here's the fucking problem. You can only speak to other people that have one of those devices.
You can't not even like yeah, no Not even to somebody up fucking phone No, only to somebody with one of those fucking things and I'm like, well, that's very useless, but they had zoom integration You can do zoom.
Yeah, but guess what? I just got this thing now just saw online That they are killing both the Google video feature and zoom effective, I don't know, 30, 60 days from now.
So that's not even a nice, excellent.
|
Sam:
[22:18]
| It's not like you were going to use it anyway, but I was going to use it anyway, because it's pretty fucking useless.
|
Ivan:
[22:22]
| OK, which I guess is the reason why they're killing it. But I'm just like, you know, I and it's been my thing.
And look, I'm taking this with the task, but it's just a reason why I haven't bought any of these fucking devices.
And I realize that when I got this, it's like, shit, This is the fucking reason I never bought any of these and they're pretty much fucking useless.
|
Sam:
[22:46]
| And for the most part, you can control your various connected things through your phone.
|
Ivan:
[22:52]
| It's right superfluous.
|
Sam:
[22:53]
| Yeah. I mean, I mean, I guess you do. Theoretically, you have the scenario, you don't have your phone in your hand, like the guy was telling you, and somebody comes to the door. And so you want to do it on the device.
But I mean, realistically for me, and I know this is not true of everybody, But the amount of time that my phone is not on my person is actually very small.
|
Ivan:
[23:19]
| I'm with you too. I mean, I did it not so much for me.
The reason I did it is because, you know, okay, my wife, listen, my wife can never, never knows where the hell her dm phone is. Okay.
|
Sam:
[23:31]
| I have similar issues sometimes. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[23:34]
| I mean, she never, I mean, she keeps asking me where the hell our phone is and I'm like, how the hell am I supposed to know where the hell your damn phone is?
OK, like, you know, it's so so I got it really thinking of her because I'm like, look, the door, whatever it wants to check. OK, great.
You know, she's going to be she's not going to find her phone.
So she needs to be able to look at it.
|
Sam:
[23:54]
| OK, well, maybe she'll use it every day.
|
Ivan:
[23:56]
| Well, it may well be. OK, but but my my thing is, it's just that.
Man, that's a missed opportunity is what I'm saying in terms of.
Being able to be at least somewhat more fucking useful than it is.
Because honestly, it sucks.
Really for, for what, for what it is, I mean, will it do adequate, the adequate job of that I, that I needed probably one of the things that I, I'm going to try to do it and because of what I mentioned about the lack of integration, pain in my ass with all these different companies.
And I tried some remote switches before for lighting and stuff.
I had issues with them. I got a couple of there that I basically threw away because it's just, they just didn't work. Okay. They don't work properly.
I'm going to try again. Okay.
Because I figured that if I can integrate.
The, the, the lighting and other stuff and whatever it, it, it, it gets me to where I can control like most of the home functions through there. Okay.
And so I did order some switches that they said are better than the ones that I bought several years ago. Okay.
I try that. There is one that I want to like try to regularly like control which is there's an outdoor light that we have right now that Generally right now.
I have to turn on off with a switch and I wanted to put it on a certain schedule Okay, and so I can do that with this if I automate the switch And I could and the other thing I wanted to program is like almost every time that we're gonna be away for days It's like well Which lights do we leave on?
And so I want to try to like program something because it has a setting that you go away you hit this button and it Rotate the lights, make it look like someone's home, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I can so I can do that so I can set that up and just that kind of stuff.
So I I mean, I have avoided this automation thing because it's still crappy.
I got to tell you, it's shit.
|
Sam:
[26:00]
| Your topic has in fact inspired me to have one.
|
Ivan:
[26:05]
| I've inspired you!
|
Sam:
[26:07]
| You have inspired me.
|
Ivan:
[26:09]
| I am an inspiration, people! Look! My god!
|
Sam:
[26:15]
| So I will start with saying, security -wise, we have an alarm system, and I probably shouldn't admit this online, but I'm going to anyway, like, I can't remember the last time the thing has been activated partially because like, I can't remember the damn passcode.
And my wife tells me that it's not okay to just post it on a sign next to the keypad.
|
Ivan:
[26:38]
| It does doubt that that does not very helpful.
|
Sam:
[26:41]
| We've got the dog door, like in the back that like, we would have to like fix stuff so that didn't just think the back door was open all the time.
Um, you know, and you know, the interior motion sensors, the dog would just set it off all the time, you know?
|
Ivan:
[26:57]
| So now they've got like newer sensors that are trying to tell the difference and blah, blah, blah.
|
Sam:
[27:04]
| Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We would, in any case, if we like what's in here was here when we moved in, like what, 12 years ago now, something like that.
|
Ivan:
[27:14]
| Yeah. That's very old tech. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[27:17]
| Yeah. So like we would have to upgrade if we wanted any of that stuff anyway.
So we like, I don't know, we, we, we should probably start to use it again.
I mean, cause like we had that laptop stolen from the driveway last year, you know?
And so it's not like it's, we had, we had sort of had this sense of confidence based on the fact that like we get like a thousand packages like every freaking day. Yeah.
And we, we, we have not had one missing from the porch yet in like the decade plus we've lived here. Right.
And so like, we feel pretty confident. Yeah, it's fine. It's a nice neighborhood, but, but then the laptop was stolen.
|
Ivan:
[27:56]
| I will tell you, we, we haven't had, we had, we had, oh yeah, you got the laptop.
So, well, one thing is that my, my wife recently tells me package was delivered and I go and I check it, it's not there.
And I realized that she actually put down, even though we've lived here 15 years, She put down the wrong address.
|
Sam:
[28:14]
| Nice.
|
Ivan:
[28:14]
| And it was it was in the same building, but a different apartment.
Now, luckily, believe it or not, that it was empty. That it was.
Renters used to live there, and I guess they moved out. They hadn't rented it again. So the Packard sitting nicely right in front of the door.
And I'm like, damn it. You know, we've lived here 15 years.
|
Sam:
[28:36]
| Yeah. And I will get to my point eventually. But yeah, the one thing that stuff stolen, yes.
Yeah, we did get the stuff stolen from the well, I mean, it was in my wife's car, but the car was still, yes. You know?
So, so still that gives us a less of a sense of security.
The one thing that happens all the time with regard to the package going somewhere else is our house number has a repeating number, right?
It's like, you know, and at least once every couple of months, sometimes more often people just flip one of the digits and it ends up at somebody else's house.
|
Ivan:
[29:16]
| Didn't your groceries get delivered to another house?
|
Sam:
[29:19]
| Everything, everything like we we've had, like, you know, when we order dinner through delivery services, sometimes it ends up there, packages end up there.
And sometimes we get theirs, you know, it's just people flipping the numbers.
Like we have a four digit house number and they reverse two of the numbers basically.
And, but you know, years ago now we've exchanged numbers with the person at the other house. So whenever a package shows up in the wrong place, we text each other and you know, we, we take care of it. It was like, you know, there's another, there's a package.
There's one of your packages here. And I'm like, okay, I'll come over and get it.
You know, cause it's like, you know, half a block down the street.
So I just walk over and get it. But now I'm finally getting to my actual point that your whole story reminded me of, which is that a couple of times in the last month or so we have had an actual bandit in our driveway.
Recently, like two nights ago.
|
Ivan:
[30:15]
| What do you mean a bandit? What kind of bandits are we talking about?
|
Sam:
[30:19]
| We're talking about the kind of bandit that knocks over the trash can and routes through it looking for food.
|
Ivan:
[30:25]
| Oh, bear.
|
Sam:
[30:26]
| Yes. Yes. We, we have had a black bear coming in the end.
You know, I don't know. I know I've mentioned this on a convergence corner slack.
I don't know if I've mentioned it on the show. I don't remember, but the whole all summer, like this has happened previous years, but it seems like this year was more so than previous years.
Like if you, if you're on all the like local Facebook groups and now that we have the, the, the, the stupid ring camera or whatever, there's a group for that too, and blah, blah, blah, all summer long reports with, you know, from places within a few miles of here of like the black bears wandering through sometimes Bobcats and coyotes too, but usually bears.
And, and I, all summer long, I've been like, but we haven't had any.
We're we're, why aren't they visiting us?
But we've had two visits lately. I won two or three weeks ago, just are knocked over the trash in the middle of the night.
And then this week as well. And, and now that we have like the, the, I have, I have the Apple cam pointed back out to the driveway.
And you know, it's if anyone wants to listen, it's, it's, it's, or listen, It's public, abelsmay .com slash ablecam.
You can go look at the camera I have pointed out in my driveway right now.
And also we have got two ring cameras now, one on the porch and one just on the driveway.
And so now like we have a shot of seeing them.
We have, we have a shot of actually seeing them now. And the most recent time we, for, for Halloween, we always, we're always like the house that like my, my wife puts out the like big inflatable dragons and stuff.
We've got the full size candy bars.
We've got non candy alternatives for the kids who don't do sugar.
|
Ivan:
[32:13]
| But a way to do it. We didn't, by the way, this year we didn't put shit.
We'll put shit, but, but I, very, very good.
|
Sam:
[32:21]
| I'm sure neighbor, the neighbor kids love you.
|
Ivan:
[32:23]
| No, I, I didn't know we did have chocolates. We did, we did, we did have stuff for them. Yes.
|
Sam:
[32:28]
| Okay. So, so, but we're, we're the family that sort of goes all out and we have, because it sometimes rains, we have one of these little canopy things.
We put a table out, we put a canopy, like it's a whole thing.
And my wife does other little decorations and stuff. And so, and usually we have sort of, I used to keep careful track of it for a few years, but then after the pandemic, I fell out of it.
But we usually have on the order of between a hundred and a hundred and fifty people come by that includes both parents and kids. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[33:01]
| That's pretty good. That's a pretty good number. No, we have nowhere, nearly any like that.
|
Sam:
[33:05]
| Yeah. So like, I guess it didn't help that we didn't have any, but yeah, like, because we're known as the, we give out candy bars and toys and like things and you know, you, you, and we have the dragons, you have people going, you have to check out this house and can we take a picture with your dragon and all this kind of stuff.
So like lots of people come by, but the point is we have all this stuff set up, but at the, once the last trick or treaters are gone, we're done.
We're like, I can imagine.
|
Ivan:
[33:37]
| That sounds like a big endeavor.
|
Sam:
[33:40]
| We only, we only set it up because like, we're not on the street.
Like some people set up like their Halloween decorations, like, you know, a month in advance or whatever and have them out all October.
We're down this long driveway. So we, there's no point in setting anything up like that early because nobody's going to see it except I guess the delivery people who drop off the five or six packages every day that I mentioned earlier.
But the, but we have all the stuff set up by the end of the, we only set it up a few hours before the trick or treaters arrive.
And then when they're gone, we're like, okay, let's order a pizza and then we're done for the night.
And so all the stuff, we just, we leave it up. Like we take, we take, I guess we, we, this year we turned off the dragons at the end, but basically we don't bother taking much in that day.
We figure we'll do it the next day or whenever.
So we still had the, like the, what do you call it?
The tent enclosure thing. It's not really a tent. It's a canopy.
|
Ivan:
[34:43]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[34:45]
| Yeah. It's just like, you know, the things they have, like if you go to like a farmer's market or whatever, it's just like a little, yeah, it's got four legs and blah, blah, blah. Yeah.
So I was still out there along with a table full of crap underneath it and stuff like that.
We took in the candy, but in any case, after trick or treat was all over the next morning, it started to be pouring rain and it was raining all day.
So I'm like, I'll wait till it stops.
Yeah. I'll wait till it stops raining.
But then that was a mistake.
|
Ivan:
[35:32]
| Why? What happened?
|
Sam:
[35:35]
| Well, the canopy things like, well, it did not blow away, but there was enough rain on top of it that huge, like gallons and gallons of water were accumulating. Yeah.
Okay. And so when we came out, I think Thursday morning, maybe, you know, it, it, it was like half collapsed.
Oh, you know, and because there's just so much weight on top of it. I'm like, oh crap.
And I actually said not again, because we've done this before, you know, but, but then I noticed that the trash was knocked over again.
|
Ivan:
[36:21]
| Oh boy.
|
Sam:
[36:23]
| And when I went to look at all the cameras and stuff, it turns out the bear was there when it collapsed.
|
Ivan:
[36:33]
| Like now did the bear get scared by the collapse?
|
Sam:
[36:37]
| Well, see, here's the thing. Like none of my, I didn't get really good quality video of the, the Apple cam was taking pictures like once every two minutes or something, it didn't get like, you know, a nice action shot.
The ring camera caught the bear once when it was messing around. Other under the canopy.
|
Ivan:
[37:00]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[37:01]
| But when I patched together the every two minute shots from the Apple cam and looked at the clock on the ring as well, it turns out that when the thing came down, the bear was underneath.
|
Ivan:
[37:15]
| Oh.
|
Sam:
[37:16]
| So, like, I don't know. I don't know if the bear was doing something at the time.
Now, it didn't come down all the way, it just buckled, kind of.
But, you know, right after it buckles, you see the bear kind of poke its nose out from behind the thing a little bit.
And and then a few minutes later, it sort of leisurely walks away.
So you know, OK, anyway, it's just like I'm enjoying it, like because, you know, we got a nice little neighborhood bear visiting. It's cute.
Now, on the other hand, we have our bears are dangerous.
|
Ivan:
[37:53]
| He do understand, right?
|
Sam:
[37:54]
| The little, well, yeah, well, you know, the black, the black bears don't tend to mess with humans in less, unless you startle them or they're protecting cubs, right?
You know, like they're not like the brown bears and the grizzly bears and the polar bears, those are all a lot meaner.
The black bears tend to try to avoid humans whenever they can.
You know, and you know, you basically be loud and tell them no and stuff and they'll walk away.
Usually like you always say, usually, cause you never know.
You don't want to like, you know, if you like came out and startled it while it was sitting in your driveway, you might be in for trouble, you know, if you're scared, you know?
|
Ivan:
[38:43]
| And so, yeah, when my, my, Chris Pratt is that you're probably walking around and you're not expected to see the bear. So you could do that pretty easily.
|
Sam:
[38:52]
| You could now the, the two, the times it's come have always been like two, three o 'clock in the morning right now, but there are two, there are a couple of things.
One, my daughter right now is working nights and that's about when she leaves for work.
So that's one thing. But also you can't count on the nighttime thing because like there have been posts from people nearby.
There was one like, I don't know, three weeks ago maybe of some lady who was just walking in her neighborhood and she posts her cell phone video of her following a bear down the street.
And I'm like, do you really want to be following it, taking the video, you know, maybe not, maybe you want to go the other way, maybe backing up so that you could see what it's doing, you know, but do you really want to be following it?
But you know, there, there are lots of ring ring videos of people with them in their, in their yards and stuff.
There was another one, somebody posted where they were in their backyard with their granddaughter and the bear just sort of plopped over the fence.
And they're like, Oh yeah, but nobody was hurt. No, everything's fine.
But yeah. So when, when the person who comes and helps clean our house every once in a while was here the other day and was after dark, she was like, will you and the dog come out with me when I'm like putting the final trash away and leaving just because, you know, in case I'm like, you know, yeah.
So, so the dog and I came out there and we're, you know, guarding for bear, But the bear did not show up.
|
Ivan:
[40:30]
| Well, the bear did not show up. Well, sorry to disappoint everybody.
|
Sam:
[40:34]
| So it's only, it's only been to our driveway twice that we know of, you know, but, and my wife's all like, maybe we should get something to hold the trash can shut so that, you know, it can't get in quite as easily and they do make bear proof trash cans, but like, that's not the kind that our municipal people put up or whatever, but, but like, but I'm like, but if you put like something on the trashcan so it can't get in. What's it going to eat?
|
Ivan:
[41:00]
| Not your food, but.
|
Sam:
[41:05]
| You know, poor bear, like we should be putting out better food.
|
Ivan:
[41:09]
| So you're going to do like I had my, my, my sister -in -law's mom used to not cook for the kids when they were older. Okay.
You know, a teenager's older, whatnot, but not cook for them, but would cook for the dog and she would cook like filet mignon for the dog.
Daily, okay? Like seriously, this dog got, we were like, you go there, there's no food, but I kept seeing the dog get filet and I'm like, what the hell?
Right. You know, I gotta go get McDonald's.
|
Sam:
[41:49]
| I thought you were talking about like my, my mother puts out food for the stray cats in the neighborhood where she lives.
Like she, she ended up like two of them are now live in her house with her, but she puts out food for other stray cats, but the raccoons love it too.
|
Ivan:
[42:09]
| Oh, fuck.
|
Sam:
[42:10]
| So they're always by her house. So she's, she's like, she's like sending pictures the other day of the four raccoons that are busy eating the cat food off her porch, you know, now I think there are actually laws against feeding wild animals like this, you know, I believe so, and there are a number of places that that is true.
Yeah. So like intentionally feeding like bears and raccoons and things like that.
|
Ivan:
[42:33]
| Is he will attract more of them?
|
Sam:
[42:35]
| Yes, yes, yes. So, but yeah, so we can accidentally feed the bear.
That's okay though. Right.
|
Ivan:
[42:42]
| Accidentally. I'm sure it's not a problem, but yeah, but you, but you can't like set up like a, like a bear feeding area that would, I think that you would be losing a lot of friends, but we can make sure the trash includes better quality food so that when the bear comes by accidentally, it'll be happier.
Okay.
|
Sam:
[43:05]
| No? No.
|
Ivan:
[43:08]
| To, you got to go to KFC, buy a bucket, just fresh bucket. Love like here bear, bear, having that nice chicken.
|
Sam:
[43:17]
| Get the boneless kind though. Cause like the actual bones cause like, okay, so get the boneless one.
|
Ivan:
[43:22]
| Yes. Yes. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[43:23]
| Get the chicken sandwiches or chicken fingers or tenders or something, you know, get that Popeye's chicken sandwich.
|
Ivan:
[43:31]
| Yeah, exactly.
|
Sam:
[43:32]
| You know, if you're gonna get the chicken sandwich for the bear, you might as well get the good one.
|
Ivan:
[43:38]
| That's right. Yes, of course.
|
Sam:
[43:41]
| But no pickle because the bear's not like the pickles.
|
Ivan:
[43:44]
| I hate pickles. Jesus Christ. I hit him with a passion.
|
Sam:
[43:48]
| Okay. Well enough of that. Uh, let's take a break and when we come back, we'll do our more serious topics with Yvonne picking next. So you have the break to prepare Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[43:58]
| Fuck me.
|
Sam:
[44:01]
| I'd rather not.
|
Ivan:
[44:02]
| No. Yeah. I'd rather you not either.
|
Sam:
[44:04]
| There we here's the break.
What? What? No, that was bad.
Okay, we are back. So Yvonne, what have you chosen?
|
Ivan:
[44:53]
| Okay. Well, before we go into the subject, I think I was going to mention, I think we got an email from a listener.
|
Sam:
[44:59]
| We did?
|
Ivan:
[45:01]
| Yes, we did. I think I was a little bit like I was so as I mentioned, I actually I was working up until like about 30 minutes before this podcast, which is 10 p .m. Eastern.
So I did see it. Oh, there it is. OK, and and the thing is, it got buried on my email because.
When did this come in? This the email came in at one fifty nine p .m.
Eastern. So at six, you know, today, today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eighteen hundred UTC. OK.
|
Sam:
[45:30]
| I'm opening my mail.
|
Ivan:
[45:31]
| I haven't seen and there's a two feet back or much's corner calm. Okay, is from Peter B.
|
Sam:
[45:39]
| Oh, yes, yes. He he he messaged me on Mastodon about this.
|
Ivan:
[45:44]
| Ah, OK. Why is he the Mastodon post? So so he said, you know, he sent a contact information, you know, for for him for some reason.
So what what was what was going on? What were the training and no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[45:56]
| This is just like because last week I once again complained about like when I send out the call for potential co -hosts, you know, we've only got the two people who respond all the time. Although last week I got a couple of maybe next time.
|
Ivan:
[46:09]
| Yeah. Chad, Chad said, yeah, maybe next time. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[46:12]
| Chad and Shelly. Okay. Um, but Peter just said, Hey, put me on the list too.
Okay. So I told him to send his email. That's all.
|
Ivan:
[46:21]
| Okay. So that's what, okay. So I was like, I saw this and I'm like, there's no other message.
And I'm like, what, what, okay. So Pete, we got your message. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[46:30]
| So my, my, you know, my aim, my email has been sucky lately.
So like, I actually don't have it still. But I will find it eventually, or I'll get it from Yvonne. So, okay. All right.
Well, I will, I will try like all kinds of real stuff is ending up in my spam folder.
It's really pissing me off. You know, I have to like, I'm thinking that I have to change who I get, you know, my apples may .com email.
Like I I'm feeling like I have to change who I get that service from because the way it deals with spam is just like sucky because lots of actual spam goes in my inbox and lots of non -spam goes in my spam folder and that's not a good combination.
|
Ivan:
[47:13]
| Well, that's totally the opposite of what the hell, you know, as far as I can tell, it's just fucking random.
|
Sam:
[47:21]
| Any given male could end up in either place.
|
Ivan:
[47:25]
| But that's what they, you know, you know, I love this is like, hey, you know what? Hey, we don't have any good spam algorithm.
You know what? Hey, let's make a fake. We do. Let's just fucking do it random.
|
Sam:
[47:37]
| Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[47:38]
| Oh, no, no, our filters are confused. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your people, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
But no, they just put a random thing.
|
Sam:
[47:47]
| Yeah, it's just so obnoxious. And also, by the way, and I, I, I, we should get to our real topics, but I also now, like, I, it's so, I have so much spam all the freaking time.
I now very rarely check my, my personal email at all. I have to sort of force myself to remember.
And, and also lately I have not updated Mac OS to the latest version yet.
I'm behind. I know. I'm sorry.
I just haven't sat down and taken the time to do it yet.
And the mail program as it is just gets stuck all the time in the old version I'm sure it is partially related to the fact that I have millions and millions of emails in there Is it really millions?
Yes, last time I last time I had to like Reinstall from time machine or whatever and I had to process the emails.
I forget it's like 2 .5 million emails or Holy shit.
Anyway, so I'm sure that's something to do with it. Plus the fact I'm on an underpowered Mac mini, but like the stupid thing gets stuck downloading messages.
And so like stuff that I know has gotten there because I can see it on my phone.
Never shows up on my desktop. It's just a mess. Anyway, enough.
I'm getting distracted.
I'm getting Yvonne. What's your topic?
|
Ivan:
[49:09]
| All right. Okay. So, okay. What's my topic. Okay. So let's start with...
Oh God, it's just that this, you know, I'm going to start with something innocuous.
You know what? I'm going to start with something more innocuous. Okay.
|
Sam:
[49:25]
| Because I have to say that because you don't want to deal with Israel, Palestine and antisemitism and all that kind of fun stuff, based basically.
|
Ivan:
[49:33]
| Yes. Okay. So I'm going to talk about Dean Phillips for president.
Yes. So what the hell is going, is he thinking? Yeah. You know, plus apparently he did.
So he said he's doing 100 plus town halls of some kind.
|
Sam:
[49:51]
| So here's the, here's the thing that this is further complicated.
You remember last time around in 2020, first of all, Iowa had this like absolute mess in terms of figuring out who won their caucuses.
You remember this? God.
|
Ivan:
[50:10]
| Oh my God. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, but that they couldn't tabulate the results that it took for our, yes, yes, yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[50:17]
| And so this ended up with a big debate once again coming up about like, should we not have Iowa and New Hampshire first? Right.
Okay, now the Republicans are perfectly happy keeping things how they always were.
|
Ivan:
[50:35]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[50:35]
| The states of Iowa and New Hampshire want to keep things how they always were because they get a lot of attention and it's a privileged position.
|
Ivan:
[50:44]
| Right, right, right.
|
Sam:
[50:45]
| So the DNC though decided that they were going to change the calendar around and they wanted like South Carolina and Nevada and some others to go first and they did not want Iowa and New Hampshire to go first.
Okay. But the problem is to change the dates of Iowa and New Hampshire, the state legislatures in those states have to change the dates and they were not about to because you also need like Republican support because those are, yeah, it, you know, because they don't, they don't hold the primary separate in most places, right?
|
Ivan:
[51:16]
| All at the same time.
|
Sam:
[51:17]
| Yeah. Jen, generally speaking, and definitely for those two.
And so what the DNC can do though, is say, if you go before this date, we're going to penalize you in terms of delegates, potentially including no delegates at all.
So right now, like I, Iowa apparently doesn't give a shit.
I don't know what's going on in Iowa. I have to look this up.
Like I haven't set up my delegate race, part of election graphs .com yet.
I'll probably do that in December sometime, but.
Part for this conversation is New Hampshire. New Hampshire apparently is still going to have the New Hampshire primary, but on the Democratic side, there will be no delegates awarded from New Hampshire.
|
Ivan:
[52:02]
| Okay. Well, that's really helpful.
|
Sam:
[52:04]
| Because the DNC is saying, your primary doesn't count because you're breaking the rules.
|
Ivan:
[52:10]
| Okay.
|
Future Sam:
[52:12]
| Do, do, do. Hey, it's Sam from the future again. What I just said is not quite right, at least not yet.
So the DNC has declared New Hampshire out of compliance with the delegate selection plan because as of now they still haven't actually set a date for their primary.
Because New Hampshire state law says they have to be first and the blah blah blah and the DNC doesn't want them to be first and so there is not actually a date for the New Hampshire primary at all yet.
So the DNC declared them out of compliance and therefore Biden said he wasn't going to register to be on the ballot in New Hampshire and but his campaign is I guess going to do a write -in campaign but in any case what exactly the penalties will be is still actually up in the air.
So whether or not New Hampshire will have delegates or for that matter even when New Hampshire's primary really is going to be, is still like, who the hell knows?
Also in past years, even when the DNC has penalized one state or another for, with, with taking away delegates because they haven't done the delegate selection properly in a way that the DNC was happy with, they've given them back before the convention.
Like they've taken them away up front but then like when you actually get to the convention they'll be like oh you know never mind you can have them back but that generally happens only once it is clear that it doesn't make a difference to anything.
Now of course this year Mr.
Phillips aside Joe Biden doesn't have any serious competition here so we will probably end up with him having most, if not all of the delegates anyway.
But anyway, so it's complicated. But the point is that Joe Biden is officially skipping New Hampshire for the moment. Who knows?
Well, there, but there's a write in anyway, it's, it's, it's a mess, but he's not going to be on the ballot except perhaps is right in.
So Phillips thinks he has a chance.
I guess that's it. but the but they might have delegates i guess that's what the correction was anyway back to whatever i said about it the first time doo doo doo so.
|
Sam:
[54:47]
| Biden is not going to New Hampshire at all.
And he's not on the ballot. We have missed. We have passed the deadline to get on the ballot in New Hampshire. Biden is not on the ballot.
Phillips is okay. Now the Biden folks are now saying, oh, well, we'll have a write in campaign for Biden too.
Just because otherwise Phillips will win New Hampshire by default because he's the only one running in New Hampshire, aside from no name people that no one's ever heard of, like, because there's always like 30 people or 40 or 50 people on the ballot in New Hampshire, because it costs like 1000 bucks to get on the ballot. And that's all.
So, you know, anyway, so Phillips is on the ballot in New Hampshire.
So his strategy is to break into this race by campaigning heavily in New Hampshire, where Biden is not setting foot because of the DNC penalties for New Hampshire.
So his idea is he's going to make a big pop with, Oh my God, Phillips won New Hampshire.
|
Ivan:
[55:54]
| Yeah. Well, whatever. Great.
|
Sam:
[55:59]
| And then like somehow use that momentum to do stuff else.
|
Ivan:
[56:03]
| Look, I, it's moronic. I mean, because historically.
|
Sam:
[56:09]
| By the way, just for those who haven't followed Phillips is a member of Congress, his whole thing, he's been advocating for months and months now that there should be a primary challenger for Biden because Biden is too old.
And eventually because no other viable candidates are out there, you know, Kennedy was trying, I don't think that Phillips liked Kennedy anyway, but Kennedy was trying, but decided it wasn't working. And so it was now running as an independent.
So Phillips said basically, okay, then I'll do it myself. I'll put my money where my mouth is and I will run against Biden.
|
Ivan:
[56:42]
| Okay, but.
As ever, for the most part, given a flying fuck about who the hell is running in the primary against the.
Incumbent president, unless the incumbent president has some massive problem.
I will say that I remember like an 80.
|
Sam:
[57:11]
| Remember Kennedy running against Carter.
|
Ivan:
[57:13]
| Yeah, I remember that. Okay. And the thing is that.
|
Sam:
[57:16]
| And Buchanan against Bush. Yeah, but.
|
Ivan:
[57:18]
| H .W. Bush. Yeah, but even that one, that one, but it didn't, they didn't even get, you know, it was, it was bullshit.
It was just, it just didn't, it didn't do anything.
|
Sam:
[57:34]
| No, it did do something. It weakened the incumbent. They had no chance of winning, but in each of those cases, in the case of both Kennedy running against Carter and again, and, and the now Carter may have lost anyway, but it certainly didn't help.
Um, and against HW Bush in both cases, it left the incumbent somewhat damaged coming into their general election.
|
Ivan:
[58:03]
| I, I, I, I guess, but I just think, I mean, it's just look.
He is that objectively, take aside the stupid age thing.
Objectively, Biden's done a really good job by any measure that you could do as a, as a, as a, as a Democrat, he has done a really good job.
|
Sam:
[58:31]
| Look, I agree with you on that, but here's the thing you mentioned it in less than some big major problem.
Here are the weaknesses that Phillips gives Phillips the opportunity.
Now, I don't think he's going to succeed unless like something happens to Biden, but here's the thing.
He says there over and over and over again, there are polls that a majority of Democrats wish they had somebody who wasn't Biden.
|
Ivan:
[58:55]
| Okay. I, I, I'm going to, okay, wait, wait, wait. Can I, okay.
No, no, go, go react to that one. Because do you remember the last primary, how it went related to this?
|
Sam:
[59:09]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[59:10]
| I, what, what happened related to this point?
|
Sam:
[59:14]
| What happened is that in Iowa and New Hampshire, various other people were running ahead and then South and then Biden wiped the floor with everybody in South Carolina and everyone else dropped out.
|
Ivan:
[59:27]
| Right. And it was like, they all coalesced all of a sudden, even though all the polls show, ah, he's weak, he's not going anywhere. Bop, bop, bop.
And then all of a sudden, OK, we're all out. Bye.
And I don't know why the hell. Well, I do know why they say, look, he's an old white guy.
I get it. Yeah, that's it. That's the only knock that they have on him.
He's an old white guy. But you know what? He's my old fucking white guy who's actually doing a pretty damn good fucking job.
So you know what? You know.
You know, defending better than, can I say, than just about anybody?
The fucking people that he said he wants to defend.
|
Sam:
[1:00:13]
| So let me also just throw this out here.
If tomorrow, Joe Biden came out and said, you know what, I'm not running after all.
Dean Phillips would not be the Democratic nominee.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:27]
| Correct. That is correct. Yes. No fucking way. Like not in 1 billion fucking years.
|
Sam:
[1:00:34]
| Exactly. Like a bunch of people would come out and throw their hats into the ring. I think Harris would be the front runner just because she's vice president.
But a bunch of people would come out.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:46]
| That people know who the fuck he is.
|
Sam:
[1:00:49]
| He would not even be in the top 10 in terms of possibilities here.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:53]
| No, no, no. And here's the other thing. It seemed that, look, he's doing these campaign appearances. He did one.
OK, apparently the this whole thing and it turned into a shit show.
OK, and it turned into a shit show because he really pissed off the audience really bad on certain issues.
And it just and I'm like, well, I was like, this is not starting very well.
But when you're winding up, I mean, because he can't be drawing like that many people, right?
And so if you're already in a small group, but you're already, you're, you know.
Using you, you're being tone deaf, you're being whatever you're, you're, I mean, that that's, that's not going really well.
|
Sam:
[1:01:45]
| Right.
So yeah. So I, I guess anything else to say about Phillips or I'll pick up my topic. I'll just riff off yours onto something slightly related.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:57]
| Well, anything else to say about Phillips? I mean, what I can say about Phillips is that.
I'm sick and tired of these fucking people that are going after Biden.
Over well this is what I'm really over age specifically over age specifically.
I'm getting really fucking, you know.
I mean, it's almost like right now ageism in the other opposite way.
I mean, he's been doing a really good fucking job and you're just coming up.
I don't like him. Why? He's too old. That's it. That's all you got.
|
Sam:
[1:02:31]
| Well, let me move on to mine, then, which is the other things that they are now bringing up besides his age. Okay.
Now, first of all, I will not repeat, like last week, I did an election graph segment where I talked about that stuff and how badly he's doing in the polls lately.
I'm not going to talk about that specifically, but what I am going to say is especially, and this is tangential to the Israel Palestine stuff, but over the last two weeks, I cannot tell you how many comments I've seen on Mastodon and videos on Tik TOK and other comments elsewhere from people on the left basically saying that they are, first of all, they were disappointed in Biden anyway.
He hasn't achieved, you're saying all the things he's achieved.
There are all these people saying, well, he hasn't come through with all the stuff I wanted, but now they're like, but now it's past the breaking point with the Israel Palestine stuff.
And because of his wholehearted support of Israel, he is clearly supporting genocide, and therefore I can't vote for him no matter what.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:45]
| You know what?
|
Sam:
[1:03:47]
| And look, I have seen, there's so many people on this line, and look, we may or may not end up talking about Israel -Palestine later in the show, but there are, you can legitimately criticize his approach and say he should be stronger and he should be more taking the Palestinian side. I don't know.
That's not exactly my position, but you can make that policy choice.
But there is. But if you believe that, if you believe Joe Biden is being.
Much in favor of more war there and is bad for supporting the Israelis, then in what universe does helping Donald Trump win instead make that better?
|
Ivan:
[1:04:39]
| Yeah, that, that, that's, that's the biggest point about this.
Look, but it's the point that goes with them. Well, fuck, these people helped Donald Trump win in the first place. Yep.
Because Hillary was a warmonger. So I'm just you know, these are the same folks on that on that train.
|
Sam:
[1:04:58]
| Now, I know I have new ones who were too young to vote in 2016.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:02]
| And I know that I heard those complaints and stuff. But but the reality is that from what I saw in terms of opinion surveys. OK.
|
Sam:
[1:05:12]
| Yeah, I was going to mention this. Go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:14]
| Most of the polling actually supports what what Biden has been doing in Israel.
So in terms of general.
|
Sam:
[1:05:22]
| I was going to mention this if you hadn't, which is that while I am seeing a lot of people yelling this kind of stuff on social media, I do not see it in the polls.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:36]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:05:38]
| I did mention that he's doing badly in some of the state polls that I track on election graphs, But this, this specific issue, I don't know, is the polling is, has not yet reflected changes after the Israel -Palestine thing came on board.
But I don't think this is that tipping point.
However, the thing is, like you said, comparing it to 2016, if it is close and it looks like it's going to be fucking close again, small numbers of people deciding not to vote or to vote for some stupid, like third party rando on the ticket, whether it's, whether it's Kennedy or West or somebody else can be enough to make a difference in crucial States.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:30]
| No, I get that.
|
Sam:
[1:06:31]
| And I get that, you know, it's like the, it's like the stupid, what, what you call the, who, who is the guy, the, the, the, the guy in Florida in 2000.
Nader Nader. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:46]
| Buchanan. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:06:47]
| Nader and Buchanan. And like, when do people like, I mean, we said there were, there were some polls that showed, okay, people learn their lesson, but I'm starting to wonder, did they really, look, I, I, I think that a lot of the.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:04]
| Are people that are on the left that have never been on the on support of Biden.
Yes. That they don't they. And so so I mean, that's that that those people have been consistently there.
The reality is that if you look at what happened in the last election, I was seeing some article about a town in Ohio that has actually this town is Washington Post article related to this town in Ohio that has consistently been accurate on every election since 1980. Every single one.
|
Sam:
[1:07:36]
| Okay. Okay. Yup.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:37]
| And the one thing is that those, this is which is more middle of America, you know, line.
The people that got Biden in was not those guys that left that much coming in.
It was people in the middle.
It was really the ones that we keep not saying that we know who the hell they are, but it's probably people in the middle that stayed at home.
That thought it wasn't important that, that, that, you know, well, I got work, it's okay.
The polls say he's going to win that kind of shit.
I'll vote Nader, but, but I, I think that those are a lot more.
|
Sam:
[1:08:14]
| Well you also hear things this time about like, like Muslim Arab Americans in Michigan, for instance, and the Democrats losing their support and that's a close state and they make a difference there. You know, things like that. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:27]
| I, I, but here's, look, I had shared an onion piece a couple of weeks ago that, that, that, that basically the, it was, it was a, it was an onion piece that was, was an op -ed.
|
Sam:
[1:08:44]
| You mentioned this on the show, right? The one that the best thing to do is just say you support Israel cause you'll get less pushback.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:50]
| Basically. Yes, that you'll get no, you get less, you get the scream that less.
And, and, and it's almost like, you know, that's basically part of like the Biden position, because let's be clear about this.
I can't stand fucking Netanyahu. Okay. All right.
Listen, I have directly and I will say to that, and I forgot to directly blame Netanyahu for being the guy who completely fucking destroyed the peace process in the Middle East.
Okay, him and Hamas, both of them, okay, both of them are guilty for completely destroying that peace process.
Okay. And he is, and he is equally as guilty. Okay.
If not more, because he incited the murder of that. I mentioned who was the wrong guy, which is Rabin. Okay.
Look, his widow basically blames Netanyahu for getting him killed. Okay.
And I actually agree because he had inflamed people so much against them that this one guy went out and murdered him. OK.
And so I'm I'm not for this fucking asshole.
But right. But at the same time, the other guys are being led by fucking Habas. Not exactly. OK.
The warm and fuzzy, you know, of anything out there and organization.
And the one thing that this week drive me crazy, I had one of our friends who's Jewish, okay, from college, Jay, talking about seeing these people carrying these fucking slogans in their hands, that they have no idea what the fuck they mean, that basically are inciting for Jewish genocide.
And by the way, a lot of these people that are doing this right now have no fucking clue about any of it. No clue.
And so so here's the situation. So Biden winds up in the situation where, what the fuck is it that I could do?
You've got him saying, okay, we support Israel because they're one of the few democracies that exist there, even as fucked up as it may be, okay?
And with all the issues it has, but we're trying to work for peace, okay? Very hard.
|
Sam:
[1:11:01]
| Well, this is a couple of things here that I was gonna say.
First of all, before I hit, yeah, it, the amount of hate speech in both directions has been horrendous.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:17]
| Oh, it's been through the roof.
|
Sam:
[1:11:19]
| Both directions. I just want to say, cause you, Oh God, Oh, totally agreed.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:23]
| Agreed.
|
Sam:
[1:11:24]
| You, you, you pointed out all the antisemitic comments and things like that, and their problems at universities in the U S.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:31]
| Oh shit. Oh, anti -Palestinian. Oh my God. Yes, listen, we talked about the murder of that kid. Fuckin' Chicago, for God's sakes.
|
Sam:
[1:11:42]
| Yeah, and there's been plenty of rhetoric in Israeli people in government essentially talking genocidal comments about genocide as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:56]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Oh, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:11:58]
| And you know, the whole, anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:00]
| It's bad.
|
Sam:
[1:12:04]
| It's bad in both directions. But bringing this back to the sort of the Biden thing, I just want to say, like, yes, he has been very actively saying publicly, we support the Israelis, we support the Israelis, they have a right to self -defense, and all of those kinds of stuff, as his loud public statements.
But you'll also notice that both he and his Secretary of State have been very, very ostentatiously trying to do all kinds of diplomatic things to bring the temperature down and slow things down and get relief into Gaza and, you know, looking for a ceasefire, get up, get up, pause.
Well, they, the administration won't use ceasefire.
It's a pause, but yes, it's a pause, but it's a fucking ceasefire, you know, and at the same time and trying, they are very clearly.
And, you know, I was, I'm almost saying like privately, but it's not so much private anymore.
It's pretty much public at this point that the administration is very strongly pressuring the Israelis to tone it down.
Now the Netanyahu saying, no, I'm going ahead and doing this anyway, but the Biden administration is.
Everything that is I can see is actually working really damn hard to try to keep a lid on this situation and try to bring it to a conclusion as soon as possible now are they going to the UN and condemning Israel no are they and yes we're gonna send them weapons and stuff and I see that and you know I understand Now people can interpret that as supporting genocide in Gaza because like, you know, we hear more atrocities out of Gaza, like practically every day.
And like, you know, I said this on the show last week as well, like at a certain point, you know, the fact that they committed war crimes against you does not give you license to commit war crimes against them.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:14]
| Right. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:14:15]
| And I don't buy the whole, like, is it really okay to kill them to protect yourself at a 10 to 1 ratio?
I don't know, and I'm not saying there's a magical ratio that's correct that, you know, they kill Andred, you can kill Andred.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:30]
| I know, that's the fucking problem. Yeah, that's the whole problem with this.
Yeah, it's like, at what ratio are you okay that we can kill people? You know?
|
Sam:
[1:14:38]
| Yeah, I mean, I don't think, you know, but I do look at it and say like, okay, they killed X.
Does that mean it's okay for you to kill 10 X or 20 X?
I feel like no, but I, at the same time, I understand you try to do whatever you can to like, anyway, it's a complicated, messy, horrible situation.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:03]
| Exactly. I think, and my whole point is that, you know, listen, there is no position.
Administration that could be had that was going to make everyone happy. Okay.
I mean, no, no, not, not at this situation.
No, not by a billion fucking years. Look, I mean, and what I said is that they have handled it.
About as best as you can. I, I will say, listen, I I'm, I will flat out say I had no better ideas than what they've been doing.
|
Sam:
[1:15:45]
| Mm hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:47]
| And I I welcome anybody who thinks that they've got a better fucking way of dealing with this.
|
Sam:
[1:15:53]
| Oh, oh, you know, I bet who I bet who would raise their hand and say, Donald Trump, certainly he'll he'll come in and Trump will come in and have the whole thing solved in a couple of days. Yes. You know, because that's what he does.
Right. I mean, it just bring Jared back to the table. Right.
You know, he'll he'll take care of it.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:09]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:16:10]
| Oh, for God Kushner, the chief Middle East negotiator, of course, you know, and you know who else could fix it really quick? Elon.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:18]
| Oh, Elon, of course. Yes. Elon can fix it very, very quickly. Yes, absolutely.
|
Sam:
[1:16:22]
| Yes. Yes. No, obviously not.
But like, I agree with you. I feel like the the Biden.
This is a no win situation all over.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:34]
| It's a no fucking wood situation.
|
Sam:
[1:16:53]
| I don't know, like you, you think Netanyahu is going to just wake up and say, Oh, okay. You're right.
I'm going to not do anything more. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:02]
| Of course. I mean, that, yeah. So, I mean, he always listens.
|
Sam:
[1:17:05]
| Now he he's in very deep political danger within Israel, but yeah, he is, he isn't, he isn't shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:13]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:17:14]
| Because they blame him for this happening in the first place.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:17]
| Well, they're right to blame him for this happening in the first place. A hundred percent.
|
Sam:
[1:17:21]
| And you know, one, the kind of stuff you were talking about, he, for the last decade plus, he's been doing crap that just makes the situation worse in general, but also just specifically, you know, he had the defense forces look in the wrong way and not thinking Hamas was going to do this and, and all kinds of other stuff.
And so, and, and polls within Israel show really split right down the middle public opinion on whether they should even be doing this massive, like everybody agrees they should do something.
You know, it's not like people are saying we should turn the other cheek, but the specifics of the all -out invasion of Gaza that is now underway, the public is split, like on whether that's the right approach or not, what they should be doing about hostages, all kinds of stuff.
So Netanyahu's in trouble here. But back to Biden, you're absolutely right.
I think he's doing about the best that he could possibly do here.
And there was no way he'd make everybody happy.
It's just whenever I hear these people like going back to the 2016, 2020.
And now, now when I hear these people saying, you know, and it is not always just Biden, it's the Democrats in general are like doing this stuff and they're not delivering.
And therefore, there's no way I can vote for a Democrat. at.
And, you know, maybe Trump isn't all that bad.
It's like, if you look at the things that you're actually advocating for and you want to happen in the universe, like a.
Voting and therefore helping elect Trump, which is exactly what it would do.
Not voting or voting for some of these third parties only helps Trump is not going to get you closer to that utopia that you wish you were getting.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:14]
| Like I think that also you've got a whole bunch of people that on the left that are kind of like also let Matt Gaetz on the right.
|
Sam:
[1:19:23]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:23]
| Which is basically no compromise now. And no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Gates doesn't look, but you see, no, this is different.
|
Sam:
[1:19:33]
| Oh, just the, the grifting and attention.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:35]
| And that's all well, well, the grifting of attention on his end, but it's also the creation of the chaos itself. Yeah.
Okay. It's just the chaos. And so it's like, you know, that's what they want.
They, they, they, they think they, they, they, they think that the chaos is better for everybody. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:19:55]
| You, you definitely have seen the argument and this is very much like what Bannon says as well on the right, but you've heard the argument that having someone like Trump in who's a complete total fascist, whatever, destroys everything actually will make it so that we can get to, I don't know, whatever socialist ideal they want faster, because then people will realize that this is what they should have been doing all along, you know, rather than this sort of Nandy Pamby corporatist, Democrat, middle people who they look down upon.
You know, like me, like you and me and you, I mean, I just to be clear, a lot of the stuff that like progressives want, I want to, but I'm, I'm a realist.
I look at the situation and I'm like, you know, you have to be somewhat incremental and you have to recognize the reality that in order to get things done, you have to work, you have to gain a consensus.
You have to get a certain amount of people to go along with you and in our system, you have to do a bunch of stuff and I know a lot of people are like, well, burn down the fucking system then so that we can get what we want.
But if you look at history, whenever you have super radical, really quick change, a lot of suffering goes along with that too.
Revolutions are not pretty.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:34]
| By the way, who gets fucked the most in those?
|
Sam:
[1:21:40]
| Everybody, but who do you have in mind?
|
Ivan:
[1:21:41]
| Dude, the people with money always figure out a way to survive pretty well, these fucking things. OK.
|
Sam:
[1:21:49]
| Except the ones who get beheaded.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:52]
| But yeah, yeah, these guys usually get out, man. Look what happened in Cuba.
You know what? Most of those people that had money left, they didn't wait around, you know, and they did perfectly fine.
Well, right now people in Cuba are suffering through some of the worst shortages of everything possible. Okay.
And they have taken the brunt of living like shit for fucking 50, 60, 70 years, 60 years now.
|
Sam:
[1:22:20]
| Well, I do, I do notice Obama tried to reverse some of that, then Trump put it back and then Biden has not re reversed it in terms of like, you know, embargoes and sanctions.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:31]
| There's been loosening, but not a complete reversal.
|
Sam:
[1:22:35]
| Not back to where Obama put it, let alone lifting entirely.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:39]
| Not not but not not back to where Obama had it.
But there's certainly been some loosening again, a whole bunch of things like in terms of travel and other stuff that that that Trump had put in.
Definitely, they got loosened again. And a lot of direct flights that were cut were reestablished.
But but the thing is, it's just that they wind up hurting the people.
They hurt more the people that they want than anybody else. Look, case in point, going back to the issue in Palestine.
Yes, there's been plenty of evidence that Hamas has been actually blocking people from evacuating from safe areas.
Yes, they have cut off access because their whole thing is we don't Oh, we don't care about how many lives we sacrifice to keep an inch of soil.
And it's just, you're, you're, you're here that you're like.
I mean, it's just, oh my God, you know, it's just.
For the love of god you're okay with leaving women kids whatever out there because you know what they gain propaganda value.
And this and a lot of this man sam this is so much being done by the listen i'll tell you something that day they.
They expected that this kind of vitriol we were talking about earlier between you know.
People hating anti -semitic, you know, exacerbating this anti -semitism, anti -anti -Muslim, just anti -racist stuff all over the place.
This entire clash. They wanted this.
This is how they get attention to their plight. How?
|
Sam:
[1:24:29]
| Success beyond their wildest dreams.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:31]
| Success beyond their wildest dreams.
You've got people on the streets in America clashing, you know, over doing anti -Semitic racist shit all over the world in public.
And the opposite as well. I mean, and they want that clash. They feed off that clash.
|
Sam:
[1:25:03]
| I forget who did the article, but I remember there was an article right after this happened titled something along the lines of Israel is walking right into Hamas's trap with how they're reacting.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:14]
| It was in the Atlantic. Yes. Yeah. And that was the whole thing. Yes. This was the trap.
They did this on purpose. And they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
|
Sam:
[1:25:27]
| So to close up by wrapping around to the beginning, like I worry that part of the collateral damage of this is to damage Biden politically and strengthen Trump going into 2024.
We'll see if it plays out or not, but I definitely have that worry.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:45]
| I will say this and I'll go back to some of this stuff about supporting Trump, Supporting Biden or whatever, whatnot.
I, you know, almost all of this same shit, but for different reasons, the same shit that these people said about Obama, he didn't, you know, he's, he hasn't done anything for us, he didn't deliver blah, blah, blah, man.
It's like, you know, to this day, Obama delivered the fucking affordable care act.
Look, Matt, let me tell you something. To this day, so many millions, tens of millions of people, no, hundreds of millions of people, have benefited in one way or another for this in ways that are unimaginable.
Do you realize that finally in a lot of places, what thought was impossible is happening?
As inflation is surging, healthcare costs are flattening.
|
Sam:
[1:26:42]
| Now, Yvonne, that wasn't Obamacare, That was Mitch McConnell doing Kentucky care.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:51]
| Kentucky cares. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:26:53]
| Yeah. Hey, you know, I think there, there are several things around this.
One is people point out over and over again, the Democrats aren't really that great at claiming their victories is one part of it, but also it's just fundamentally people don't understand the mechanisms of government period, end of story.
And so they, they do expect like the, the expectation is of a dictatorship.
Yes. The expectation is we elected you president and therefore you can wave a magic wand and, and boom.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:30]
| Voila! It's all done.
|
Sam:
[1:27:31]
| Everything you said in the campaign will magically happen.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:35]
| You, you, you saved abortion rights. You gave us healthcare, you gave us all salary increases and And you know, it's all done tomorrow.
|
Sam:
[1:27:45]
| Now, yeah, whereas the fact that you have to get everything through Congress, there's dynamics in the House, there's dynamics in the Senate, there's the filibuster, and then you have to get it past the courts, and the courts have their own dynamics, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
This is completely beyond most people, what most people bother to learn about the process. They just assume we, we'll, we elected Biden and he didn't do shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:15]
| Look, it's like the day I was seeing something by Susie Orman just talking about financial literacy. Okay.
Where, but she said, look, you do, you really do the analysis.
You ask people, 95 % of people have no idea.
They, they, they, they are just financially literate. They have no clue.
You ask them what is a Roth IRA?
What is, what is a five, you know, five 29 plan? When 95 % of people cannot answer a whole bunch of basic questions about finance.
And the same thing goes to policies like this or whatever, or what actual policies have happened and what accomplishments have done.
And the one thing that Trump has found that is effective is that, look, you can just lie through your teeth and just say you did something, even if you didn't do shit and just because you lie so loudly, they, these people will believe them.
Yeah, that's it. Don't do anything, just lie about it. That's it.
|
Sam:
[1:29:10]
| And we do have to wrap it up. Another thing that we have talked about repeatedly on here is also the time delay of these things.
Like you pass a law today, people don't feel it tomorrow.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:21]
| It took decades. It took years and years and years for the effects of that.
It's just kind of like the inflation reduction, like with the energy credits and all this stuff, this doesn't happen like overnight.
|
Sam:
[1:29:33]
| And by the time people feel it, they don't associate it with whatever happened that started at five, 10 years earlier, they associate it with whoever's around at that point, you know, like, so I joked about Kentucky care, but that people showed that over and over again, like all the States had their own names for it.
And in red States, people had no idea that the benefits they were getting were because of Obamacare.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:59]
| Yep. Well, they don't know.
They We do already.
|
Sam:
[1:30:10]
| We've only done the but first and two topics.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:13]
| Wow.
|
Sam:
[1:30:15]
| OK, let's take a quick break and then we'll whiz through something else.
We'll be back after this.
If the button works. God damn it. One thing that doesn't work.
Hold on. Hold on. Do I have to sing? Wait, wait.
No, no. Come on. Pause. Yvonne, are you still there?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:36]
| I am still here. I am still here.
Kermodge's corner. Break, break, break. Break, break, break, break, break, break.
|
Sam:
[1:30:47]
| Okay, I'll add the break in and pause. Oh, wait. There it is.
Back. So Yvonne, what's your topic?
And we should try for about 15 minutes each for our two topics to come out with the show about the right one. Gosh.
So no, no like 20, 30 minute conversation on this one.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:52]
| When we got, we have anything. Okay.
All right. Oh, Apple lovers will hate this cell phone reception.
My 15 cell phone reception.
|
Sam:
[1:33:04]
| Okay. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:04]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[1:33:05]
| So, going a completely different direction, going a completely different direction.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:09]
| So one of the things I talked recently that I got the new iPhone 15 Pro Max, you know, one of the things is, I mean, the phone is work perfectly fine.
I mean, I've got complaints about bends, things, whatever.
I don't know what the hell to think about the bending. This thing feels sturdy, solid. I, I, I don't.
|
Sam:
[1:33:27]
| All I'm saying is until you actually actively try to break it, I don't think you can say that.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:33]
| OK, all right, fair enough. OK, and I will not try to actively break it.
I have had no issues with it. But one thing that I did notice that is pretty, pretty darn noticeable is both its Wi -Fi speed and cell phone reception are way improved.
And what I the Wi -Fi speeds.
I've done the speed test in places where I've noticed at least 50 % improvement on the Wi -Fi speed.
Okay, like in the house where I would get like, maybe 200 megabits, how to 50 % like double getting like 400 megabits in places.
Okay, at least, you know, around the house.
But the one thing I noticed is there are these places.
Now, my old phone and even like with some other devices that I used to go to are dead spots for.
For my cell phone reception, and I'm not sure, because I know that they liberated certain frequencies and they change the radios that add certain frequencies to to the phone. Other things.
But whatever the hell the reason is that there is this place that I go to for plane spotting all the time. That's always a shitty cell phone reception.
And I went the last couple of times and it was perfect.
I mean, I wasn't able to to to stream stuff or whatever.
I was like, sometimes I'll be there plane spotting. There might be a game on.
And so I would just put the game on, try to put the game on.
And it was like a very I mean, I mean, sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. They would start, would stop, whatever.
Well, last time I went, I fucking put the game on one. Oh, no problems.
And I noticed that my car that has an LTE, you know, radio.
When I went and got in the car, it was flashing. Oh, I've got no reception.
OK, but the phone had no problems with it. So I don't know what the hell they did.
But I.
Getting a hell of a lot better reception on the phone and, and wifi connectivity.
So that that's something that definitely made me very happy.
So there, that's all I have to say on that.
|
Sam:
[1:35:42]
| That was a lot less than 15 minutes. Sorry. Cause I have nothing to add to it.
Cause you know that well, well, my, my cell phone reception is fine. It's the same as it always was because I haven't changed anything.
So, there you go. There's my response. So, I guess I should pick one last thing to talk about then.
I am tempted to talk about all the miscellaneous Trump legal stuff, but we've done that a bunch and it's just, it's ongoing.
Instead, I will mention the attempt to expel George Santos from the House of Representatives.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:24]
| Yeah, they didn't get to do it, it failed.
|
Sam:
[1:36:27]
| So, to be clear, expelling someone from the House takes a two -thirds majority in the House. Nobody expected it to actually happen.
This effort was led by... This is the second effort.
There was an effort that was headed by Democrats a little while ago.
That failed on pretty much party line, I don't know.
It failed. I forget the details. But this effort was run by New York Republicans.
Basically, the entire New York Republican Congressional Caucus, which is the state Santos is in, of course, now hates the guy and wants him gone.
Okay? Now, part of this is because all of these guys potentially have hard races.
And so making... He's not helping! He is a, He is not making them look good. So putting up an effort and saying, well, we tried to get him out, potentially helps them in their own congressional races.
But the interesting thing, like, so they all voted to get rid of him.
A bunch of Democrats voted to get rid of him, but enough Republicans voted against him and 31 Democrats. Democrats.
Now, what I found interesting is the 31 Democrats.
Now, my initial reaction to hearing that the 31 Democrats had voted not to expel Santos is that someone which should immediately open ethics investigations into these 31 Democrats because they're probably like, well, we don't want him to be kicked out for this kind of stuff because we've got stuff in our closets too.
Okay. But, okay. And maybe I, maybe I feel like that a little bit still.
I've heard a number of them now try to explain their votes.
The one who gave the lengthiest explanation was actually Jamie Raskin, who is involved in a lot of the impeachment stuff previously, but it all comes down to like, look, that's underway. He has not yet been convicted.
And there is a House ethics investigation underway that has not yet completed.
If we follow previous precedents, then at least one of those two things should have happened.
He either should have actually been convicted or the ethics committee comes through with an out -and -out recommendation to expel him.
Apparently in the entire history of this country, only five members of the house have ever been expelled.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:22]
| When was the last time that we expelled somebody?
|
Sam:
[1:39:26]
| I, you're catching me unprepared. Oh God.
It was pro, if I had to guess, if I had to guess, I'd say Civil War era, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was something in the early 20th century.
Okay, let me see. No, wait, wait.
I think I heard somebody say it happened in 1980.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:42]
| Oh wait, wait, no, no, no, no, more reason. Okay, tell me, tell me. Oh my God.
And it's a guy that we all know and love.
|
Sam:
[1:39:53]
| Trafficking.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:54]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:39:57]
| What year was that?
|
Ivan:
[1:39:58]
| 2002.
|
Sam:
[1:40:00]
| Okay. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:02]
| Convicted of 10 counts, including bribery, conspiracy to defraud the U S U S corruption of structure, justice, tax evasion, and racketeering.
So basically that's what it's going to take. It's going to take, because I believe the traffic at the not get expelled until he got until after he got convicted.
So what is that saying is he'll get Santos will get convicted and then they'll get rid of it unless he loses reelection.
|
Sam:
[1:40:28]
| Well, that's the thing. His trial has been scheduled for like next October or something like right.
So he is very unlikely, like even if he gets convicted, he will between sentencing and inevitable appeals. The process won't be done by the election.
Yeah, he might be convicted before the election just barely.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:51]
| Yeah But by the way traffic that's dead.
|
Sam:
[1:40:54]
| Yeah Okay, I forgot so here's the thing though like I don't I understand they're saying like, you know, we want to have some sort of process and at least the Maybe you don't, conviction but at least wait for the ethics committee to be done.
Now from what I understood the whole process in the ethics committee was basically just the republicans way of punting this and adding extra time and so I don't necessarily buy that but there's some indication that maybe the ethics committee is only a few weeks away from presenting their report.
I could see waiting a few weeks, but like, I also wouldn't be surprised if the ethics committee comes back with wait for the conviction too.
But the whole point of this though is, yeah, you want to have some sort of process, but the process is the fact that you are having this vote.
Like this is not, this is not a criminal proceeding.
This is essentially firing the guy for being unacceptable as a public servant.
And you don't need a big, long investigation. You don't need a big, long criminal conviction.
There has been enough about this person made public since he was elected that it should be clear.
So I feel like it's somewhat, I feel like the Democrats who voted not to do this are actually being somewhat cowardly.
Now they say, we don't want to set the precedent where the Republicans just do this to us whenever they have somebody they don't like.
There were things with censures for Tlaib and someone else that were on the table, and they made a little deal to make those go.
Oh, Marjorie Taylor Greene or somebody, or Bonert. I always get her in there.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:43]
| Bonert. Bobert.
|
Sam:
[1:42:44]
| Bobert. One of them. There was a little deal to make those go away, but I feel like, look, this is a pretty clear -cut case.
Come on. just, and it wasn't going to pass anyway.
So what really is the point for these 31 Democrats who voted not to?
It just it just kind of annoyed me.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:06]
| I did find it very annoying myself. But, you know, but but, you know, I can't say I'm totally surprised because the House and the Senate are usually, you know, they look, it's only happened six times. I looked up the list.
|
Sam:
[1:43:25]
| Oh, it's six not five.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:27]
| Yeah, it's only happened like six times so Not exactly like they have been, See no five five five by the way all Democrats.
|
Sam:
[1:43:40]
| I was right Well, you know cuz Democrats are the you know, they're all the immoral ones Three four.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:49]
| So well the first three happened in 1861 because they supported the Confederate, rebellion Sounds sensible. Okay. All right.
Okay. Uh, then there was a Democrat in 1980, Michael Myers of Pennsylvania.
Oh, my God, I can't. I remember the same, but I can't remember what the the this this the convict.
|
Sam:
[1:44:10]
| He was on Saturday Night Live, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:44:14]
| Not that guy or serial killer.
|
Sam:
[1:44:17]
| He was a serial killer, maybe, but abscam.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:21]
| Oh, he's asked Christ. I hadn't heard that that term in such a long time.
|
Sam:
[1:44:28]
| And look, I'm having it because I'm John McCain involved in that one too.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:32]
| I see. I'll read what Abscam is because I'm even have to refresh my memory.
I remember the term and I know it was a big scandal.
Abscam, sometimes written Abscam, this is from Wikipedia, was an FBI sting operation in the late seventies and early eighties that led to the convictions of seven members of U .S.
Congress and others for bribery and corruption.
The two year investigation initially targeted trafficking and stolen property and corruption of prominent business people, but later evolved into a public corruption investigation. Let's see, people involved, who was, uh, buh, buh, buh, convictions, U .S.
Senator Harrison Williams, Frank Thompson, John Genrette, one senator, Harrison Williams, these are reps, Frank Thompson.
|
Sam:
[1:45:17]
| McCain was the Keating Five.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:18]
| Right, right, the Keating Five. Frank Thompson, John Genrette, Raymond Letterer, Michael Ozymire, John Murphy, and Richard Kelly, the mayor of Camden, New York, and some other, you know, some other figures.
Nobody that I recognize their name by any way.
So, so yeah.
Yeah. So that was like abs cam in 1980 and then traffic can't.
Okay. So that's it. Now, basically, I mean, so not, you know, twice in our lifetime, basically.
|
Sam:
[1:45:55]
| Yeah. I mean, look, I can understand the reluctance, but at the same time, Santos is such a clear fucking case.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:03]
| I mean, I agree. I mean, Santos, I mean, you know, but this isn't a close call, you know? No, it's not a close call with Santos.
I mean, this guy is just a complete scam artist.
So I guess they're just like, let the courts and things, there's an election coming up.
I mean, his odds of winning reelection are slim to none.
|
Sam:
[1:46:25]
| He did announce like after this, that he is running for reelection.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:29]
| Of course. I mean, yeah. I mean, would you expect anything else?
|
Sam:
[1:46:35]
| If he wins, he can pardon himself just like Donald Trump, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:46:38]
| Uh, that doesn't work that way.
|
Sam:
[1:46:41]
| No, it doesn't.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:42]
| No, there's also not no immunity as much as trumping series that, you know, because that is a very common thing in other countries, you know, is immunity for people in government.
Well, more specifically for elected, like congressmen, senators, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, that's one way to stay out of jail.
|
Sam:
[1:47:03]
| There, there is immunity for certain things done as part of your duties, but it's very limited.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:09]
| It's very limited. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:47:11]
| Okay. I guess we're done.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:13]
| I think we are.
|
Sam:
[1:47:15]
| And the Keating five was Alan Cranston, Dennis DeCassini, John Glenn, John McCain, and Donald Regal.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:26]
| Now to be fair, okay. This was more, I like none of them were criminally, you know, prosecuted.
It was more, how do I say, they were, they got a lot, Like from Charles Keating, who was the head of this SNL that was basically found out to be a massive, you know, fraud Okay And they helped certainly helped them, Helped his business substantially and it's taken substantial donations and stuff.
But Yeah, I don't I don't think that they they got convicted of anything criminal Uh related.
|
Sam:
[1:48:02]
| No, no, there was a whole scandal, but there was the it didn't it didn't it wasn't didn't make it to prosecutions. Correct. Yeah.
Well, you know, maybe there's something criminal, but they were, they were not con they, they were not indictments.
There were no indictments. There was a, an ethics committee thing, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:20]
| There was no evidence. Well, well, right now today, I mean, unless you're basically just, you know, uh, writing a contract that says, Hey, here's a million dollars in exchange for you to make legislation for me or change your vote or something, unless it's written down in a contract with the cash, actually hands on video, none of these fucking people are going to convicted for bribery. Right now.
|
Sam:
[1:48:46]
| Yeah. Well, I mean, this was before they loosened up that.
That's right. Yeah, I know. Still. Yeah. But but. But even then, it's not like these were ironclad. No, no, no.
But now it's like, you know, the corruption in politics has a long, long history.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:01]
| No, you don't say really. Hey, look, you know, this, I did mention.
So this week, some, some, you know, state department, like public, public affairs guy went, went and said that he, he, he quit because he couldn't believe that the United States sold weapons to a country that would use a, use it against innocent people.
And what I said, dude, what rock have you lived on your entire fucking life, because we have done that for ever directly, directly, not even selling the weapons.
|
Sam:
[1:49:34]
| We do it. I mean, like, yes. Oh, yes. I have you paid attention at all?
|
Ivan:
[1:49:43]
| Time that you're taking the stand dude let me tell you you missed a lot of shit happening okay, a lot but now i'm taking a stand this time this country does not have clean hands, no i mean we sold weapons to pinochet to all the fucking military dictatorships to saddam Fuck!
The Saudis! They've been using the weapons on the Yemenis, fuckin' slaughtering them for I don't know how fuckin' long!
|
Sam:
[1:50:17]
| Oh, forget it.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:18]
| Even the sales, like, just talk about Afghanistan and Iraq, and it - Oh no no, and add the stuff that we did, no no no, I know, I know!
|
Sam:
[1:50:27]
| Innocent civilians in those two countries alone, and we don't - or go back to like, Vietnam and Cambodia and all those kinds of - no - Jesus.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:37]
| Fuck.
|
Sam:
[1:50:38]
| Yeah, no.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:39]
| Yeah. This guy, I, I, I mean, I'm like that, that, that, that's the reason you're now you're doing it.
Now you, now they crossed the line now, now they cross the line. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:50:52]
| Well, well, of course that's, that's something that, you know, in, in the defenses for what's happening in Gaza comes up all the time.
Well, you did all these things. I mean, it's like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you know, fuck killed civilians there. Why can't we?
|
Ivan:
[1:51:12]
| This is what? Listen, I what I will say is that, look, the reason I'm bringing it up, it's not because I am for doing those things. OK, all right.
It's just that, unfortunately, our, you know, we have done those things, unfortunately, many times in the past.
And I think that I do think that the United States has tried imperfectly, very imperfectly to do better with a lot of this stuff compared to how it was done back 50, 60, a hundred years ago.
Now that it's not, listen, by no means, it doesn't mean that, you know, support for any of these things have stopped and things that have happened that are appalling, but, you know, I've always said to people, it's like, you know what, man?
I'm glad I'm not fucking president because I don't know how I would sleep a whole bunch of times with fucking decisions that you wind up making that wind up costing so many lives that.
And and, you know, you feel like, fuck, this is what I got to do.
And I don't this is the best decision I got. And it sucks.
|
Sam:
[1:52:26]
| I mean, especially with like the war and peace kind of decisions.
But when you think about it, even like deciding on health policy, A or health policy B policy B regulation, a or B, are you any of the chemicals?
|
Ivan:
[1:52:42]
| Are you, you know, pollutants? Any one of those things, the rules will kill those a lot of people.
|
Sam:
[1:52:50]
| People will die one way or the other, and you're trying to balance off who will die or who will get the benefit or whatever.
And should should this group do better or should that group Every single decision you make is cost lives, lives will dramatically impact people's lives.
Sometimes with death, sometimes we're just with higher or lower quality of life, but it makes huge differences to them.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:19]
| And I'm glad I'm not the person doing them.
|
Sam:
[1:53:22]
| Yeah. So now weren't we trying to wrap it up?
|
Ivan:
[1:53:25]
| Yes. Let's wrap it up.
|
Sam:
[1:53:27]
| Okay. So I guess we're finally wrapping it up. you know, the usual things at the end, go to curmudgeons -corner .com and you will find all our contact information and you will find the thing and the thing and the other thing, the archive and the transcripts and oh yeah, the Patreon where you can give us money. Please give us money.
And at various levels, we'll send you postcards, mugs, mention you on the show, all that kind of stuff.
And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to the Curmudgeons Corner Slack We're all through the day and night and week and day and month and stuff, Yvonne and I, and some of our listeners are chatting about all kinds of things and sharing links and blah, blah, blah.
So Yvonne, what is the best thing?
Well, from the last two weeks, cause I didn't do it last week cause you were out.
What is the best thing from the last two weeks that we have talked about in the convergence corner Slack that we have not mentioned on the show?
|
Ivan:
[1:54:25]
| Well, since it's two weeks, I got two. One is, okay, a Washington Post article that says, a plurality of Americans believe God created humans without evolution.
What story number two? Ron DeSantis is confronted today on why he wears cowboy boots with lifts in the heels so he can appear taller.
|
Sam:
[1:54:50]
| Well, you just answered the question. It's to appear taller.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:55]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:54:56]
| It's like your question is answered.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:58]
| Well, well, he says, well, he says, well, he says they're not.
He says they're not that that it's not. Yeah. OK.
|
Sam:
[1:55:07]
| Yeah. Uh, what are they, are they orthopedic in some way? He's got bad feet.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:12]
| That he has been show it has been showed that he is wearing these, these, he keeps going around wearing a suit, but wearing boots. Okay.
Right. And it's these boots and you know, people, you know, some people know boots started looking at them closely.
It's like, it looks like a fucking clown shoe because the front, the there's no feet in it.
Okay. You can tell that it's bending, like the feet isn't in there.
|
Sam:
[1:55:39]
| Oh, like they're longer than his actual foot by a significant.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:42]
| Correct. Okay. And so, by the way, this guy who is a conservative host, but, you know, he went on the show and bought him a pair of shoes.
|
Sam:
[1:55:54]
| Uh -huh.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:56]
| And, and what, and offered him the damn shoes and said, okay, Ron, you're saying that you're not that tall here.
Look, he went and he bought. By the way, a pair of shoes that I happen to own a few, okay.
A Ferragamo shoes, by the way, bought him a pair of $700 shoes. Okay. All right.
Okay. What other show has said, listen, I went shopping and look, I got you these really nice shoes and I think I want to see how you look at them.
And by the way, he said, Oh no, no, I can't accept the gift.
|
Sam:
[1:56:27]
| Well, there, there are actually rules about that, but yeah, like, yeah.
He could still try them on to show, even if he can't keep the shoe.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:40]
| Yeah, well, you know, he did. He refused to, he refused the shoes.
|
Sam:
[1:56:45]
| So, so what's his, if it's not about being taller, what's he say?
The reason is he just likes the shoe.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:51]
| No, no, no, no. He just likes boots.
|
Sam:
[1:56:54]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:56]
| Yeah. Boots with a suit. I mean, always a look.
|
Sam:
[1:56:59]
| Well, but, but specifically the high heel boots.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:01]
| The thing is that they are kind of made to try to appear like they aren't high heeled. Okay.
But they are, but they are right. They are because of the length that you can tell, because the main telltale is the front of the feet where you can tell that, look, there is no foot there.
It's just, you know, it's bending too much.
There can't be a foot there.
|
Sam:
[1:57:29]
| You know, the guy can wear the shoes he likes.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:36]
| A hundred percent that a guy could wear a shoe, a shoes he liked.
But what I what I mentioned the other day is I don't understand why the fuck do Republicans love these insecure narcissists?
What the fuck? Good Lord. They love them.
|
Sam:
[1:57:58]
| Apparently so.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:59]
| Hey, anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:58:02]
| Okay, well, with that, I guess we're done. Hey, everybody, thanks for listening as usual.
Stay safe. Have a great week. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I've been saying blah, blah, blah a lot, but stay safe, stay happy, have a good week.
And if everything happens as expected, we'll be back next time. So goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:27]
| And I hope there's more peace by next week.
|
Sam:
[1:58:29]
| Cause you know, I, I still feel like chances are it'll be worse, not better, but no, every day we still get, we get more bad news.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:42]
| I get wish I can, I can, I can wish you can wish you can wish.
|
Sam:
[1:58:49]
| And, and I wish to, that would, that would be very nice, but okay, everybody. Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:58]
| Bye everybody.
|
Sam:
[1:59:30]
| Okay, hit and stop. We'll see if it works smoothly this time. Blah blah blah.
| |
|
