Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:23]
| Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Tuesday, December 23rd, 2025. It's just after 18 UTC. And yeah, we're doing this only three days. Oh yeah, I'm Sam Mentor, Yvonne Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[0:41]
| Hi! How?
|
Sam:
[0:43]
| And we're doing this only three days after recording our last show, because as we alluded to during our last show, we had some scheduling to figure out. so because of holiday schedules and all that kind of stuff we're recording one show it like you know we do one show per saturday to sunday week or no sunday to saturday week sunday to saturday week there we go let's say sunday to saturday and usually we record on thursday friday or saturday wait.
|
Ivan:
[1:17]
| Wait wait no no it's monday through sunday week.
|
Sam:
[1:19]
| No no no because you push it out You push it.
|
Ivan:
[1:23]
| Out on Sunday.
|
Sam:
[1:24]
| No, no, no. If we record one show every Sunday through Saturday week. When I push it out is an entirely different story. It is when we start the recording.
|
Ivan:
[1:41]
| Yeah, but there is, we could technically record a show on Sunday.
|
Sam:
[1:45]
| Yeah, but it would count for the Sunday week, not for the week that just ended.
|
Ivan:
[1:50]
| I don't think you're right. And I believe that in the past we used to record on Sundays.
|
Sam:
[1:56]
| We did. We did. But when we shifted, I made sure the weeks were correct. We have done one show per every Sunday to Saturday week since we started. So I have been very meticulous about this. Every Sunday through Saturday.
|
Ivan:
[2:15]
| So you mean to tell me that when we switched, because when we switched the days, when we went from Sunday and started recording, that was to you, it counted as later in the week, not earlier.
|
Sam:
[2:32]
| Yes, that is correct.
|
Ivan:
[2:35]
| Okay, I will say that I have not gone through and counted, so I trust your— And there was never— I trust you. I know math isn't your strong suit, but tracking this kind of shit is.
|
Sam:
[2:48]
| We have never done a Sunday through Saturday with two shows, and we have never done a Sunday through Saturday with zero shows. We have all and and importantly, this the measure is when the moment we start recording the beginning of the show, not when the show is released, because if you count when the show is released, what I just said was not true. If you count when the show was finished recording, what I said was not true.
|
Ivan:
[3:20]
| I always kept thought about it based on release in my head.
|
Sam:
[3:26]
| No, no. And I'm very careful. Like, the website orders things by the recording date.
|
Ivan:
[3:32]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[3:33]
| I mean, I list both the recording and release date, but, like, when I divide it into months and everything for the archive, it's by the recording date, not the release date. Okay. And because, you know, there have been circumstances where I have started the recording on set. And of course, these weeks are UTC weeks as well, of course, to, you know, to be clear.
|
Ivan:
[3:56]
| Well, that's, I mean, consistent. We've got people listening into a lot of different places. So, you know.
|
Sam:
[4:01]
| But there have been weeks where I have started the recording on Saturday at the very end of the day UTC and then continued recording. Like when I don't have a guest when I'm doing a solo show, I spread the recording out. So I have started the recording on Saturday, done more recording on Sunday, and even continued recording onto Monday, and then released the damn show on Tuesday. But that still counts as the show from the Sunday to Saturday week that had ended before I released it.
|
Ivan:
[4:37]
| Okay, well.
|
Sam:
[4:39]
| So anyway, the point is, because of scheduling, the show for the December 21st through December 27th week is being recorded now on Tuesday the 23rd, and it's going to be a normal show, normal show. And then the show for the December 28th through January 3rd will be the last. We will do that on the 31st. On Wednesday the 31st. And that will be our prediction show. Now, to be clear, that's the last show we are recording in 2025. It will not come out till 2026. I will probably get that thing out somewhere on New Year's Day.
|
Sam:
[5:33]
| Unless I'm delayed, in which case it may be later. And then finally, the January 4th to January 10th week, we are going to record on Sunday the 4th, and that will be the third week, and that will be the review show of our 2025 predictions. So that is the plan for the next few weeks. Those are the dates we're going to record. I generally get it out one to two days. I usually get it out within 48 hours of recording, but, you know, things sometimes happen. You know, but usually I get it out. I try, you know, in my ideal world. I get it out, like, the same day we record it. But that often doesn't happen. So, anyway, that's our plan. And, you know, and given that we've only had three days since our last show, like, there's not a lot of new stuff that we have added to our list of things to talk about. I got a couple movies, of course, and we have had a few news items happen.
|
Ivan:
[6:39]
| We have had a few news items happen.
|
Sam:
[6:42]
| Yeah, we have. We have.
|
Ivan:
[6:44]
| So, you know, it's not like we have a dearth of content like right now, you know, things happened. So, I mean, on Friday, we just had the release of the Epstein files. We've gotten more stuff on that, for example, and other stuff. We'll go cover that in the news. But once again, my pet peeve strikes again.
|
Sam:
[7:06]
| Oh, no. Pet peeve.
|
Ivan:
[7:08]
| Dammit, this thing with no spare tires on new cars. My wife had a doctor's appointment this morning early, a recheck on her Achilles tendon surgery, okay, that she had from last year, okay? Because, you know, so she had an appointment early this morning, and when she leaves the appointment, she calls me up, hey, I think I got flat. I'm like, what? Now, this car is not five months old, okay? Okay, yep. And I'm like, what the hell? I'm like, now, one thing is that this car, okay, all new cars have TPMS in some way. But I've learned that there are two methods of tire, TPMS starts for tire pressure monitoring system. Okay, okay.
|
Sam:
[7:58]
| I was like, what the hell is that acronym? Okay.
|
Ivan:
[8:00]
| Yeah, okay. TPMS is tire pressure monitoring system. It's this little thing that pops up in your dashboard in the simplest cases that shows this little tire and a warning, you know, to try to indicate to you that you've got a problem with a tire. OK, now, the one thing is that there are simple to complicated systems. OK, so there's not one universal implementation of this. Some cars, all you get is the little icon on the dashboard, and it doesn't really tell you which tire is low or by how much. OK, so it doesn't tell you that. A further step is that some, okay, will go in a display, tell you which tire it is, but there is no tire pressure sensor on the wheel. So all it tells you, hey, it's low, this tire. But at least you know which tire they're referring to, okay?
|
Sam:
[8:57]
| But not like how much?
|
Ivan:
[8:59]
| Not by how much. My understanding is that the way that that system works is related to sensors, wheel speed sensors, and that it detects that there is something wrong with that wheel, how it's moving, compared to a stored value that you do when you fill up the tires, you hit the button for reset, you drive, it records a measurement of the tires, and then if later it the value of how it's reading that differs it tells you hey that tire has a problem but also again doesn't tell you how much the tire pressure is low i find that system annoying okay and it's weird like which car makers put that in or not i mean it's like you would think sometimes like oh well the luxury cars would have the one with all the luxury cars would have the one with the tire pressure, but no, my Audi or my Volvo depend on that one, which tells you which tire it is, but not the exact tire pressure. Now, I've noticed that, for example, here's the weird thing. Volkswagen owns Audi.
|
Ivan:
[10:10]
| In a regular run-of-the-mill Volkswagens I've had, it said the tire pressure on the fucking tire, but not the Audi, which doesn't make any fucking sense, okay? All right, I'm like, you know, wait, you took the luxury car, you didn't put that on the cheaper one? Now, thankfully, my wife's BMW not only gives you tire pressure, but I can log in from the app and it'll show that information. So lo and behold, at first when I logged in and hadn't updated, I checked and I'm like, shit, yeah, you've got, the tire is super low. It's like the normal reading is like 36 to 39 PSI, it had 16. So I was like, here's a problem. Once again, there's no spare tire.
|
Sam:
[11:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[11:02]
| She had to get towed to fucking BMW. There's no other way to fix this. annoying. This is ridiculous. This is the worst fuck. And here's the other thing. BMW used to, when they moved to removing spare tires, made a point to put run-flat tires on all their cars for many years. Many people bitched about the run-flat tires. They said they ride harder, they're more expensive, whatever. So for whatever the hell damn reason, They decide, ah, we'll stick non-run flat tires. Nobody else is anyway. We were the only idiots doing it. And we got shit from everybody for it. Yeah, well, great. She had to call fucking tow to go for a fucking tire. This is the biggest bullshit in autos ever. I, you know, having to get towed for a fucking tire is so dumb.
|
Sam:
[12:01]
| Let me ask, at this point, couldn't you have... Yeah, the people who do tires, couldn't they have the service where instead of towing you, they bring the new tire to you and do it? Like, you don't have a spare with you.
|
Ivan:
[12:16]
| As a matter of fact, the answer is yes. Okay? And as a matter of fact, I've had a mobile tire installer come and do tires at my house.
|
Sam:
[12:25]
| Okay?
|
Ivan:
[12:27]
| They come with this vehicle, the whole thing. They got the machine. They got everything. They can ride on the spot. Boom, boom, boom. Do the whole thing. But that's not very common. It's complicated. It's expensive. It's a lot of equipment.
|
Sam:
[12:39]
| Because you have to have the right kind of tires as well. You have to have the right...
|
Ivan:
[12:42]
| Exactly. Yeah. Well, you probably, I think in this tire's case, you can repair it.
|
Sam:
[12:50]
| Okay. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[12:51]
| Whatever it was, was repairable. You didn't need to replace the tire. But yeah, if it's a tire that needs full replacement, then you have to have the inventory of the tire on board and you may not be able to get that. So it takes a lay. So, but still, this is the greatest leap backwards in autos. No spare tire. And, oh, yeah, we're not going to give you a run flat tires either because people hate them for whatever reason.
|
Sam:
[13:15]
| You could always buy your own spare tire and just put it in the trunk.
|
Ivan:
[13:21]
| Yes, but that's quite a small trunk. So, basically, our trunk would be quite useless. Now, I have heard.
|
Sam:
[13:26]
| Just put it in the back seat instead.
|
Ivan:
[13:28]
| Oh, yes, of course, because I never have passengers in the backseat. Of course, why would I need the backseat either?
|
Sam:
[13:36]
| Put it in the passenger seat up front?
|
Ivan:
[13:38]
| Look, I have heard they sell this kit for some kind of like...
|
Sam:
[13:42]
| Tie it to the roof.
|
Ivan:
[13:46]
| That sounds lovely. Sounds like a great idea. By the way, they also do it because of weight reduction. You know this, right?
|
Sam:
[13:53]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[13:55]
| It's so dumb. I want, you know, fucking cars. If you're not going to have a fucking spare tire, you should be mandated to put run flat tires. It's just the dumbest thing. I hate this.
|
Sam:
[14:09]
| Okay, then.
|
Ivan:
[14:10]
| So this morning, yeah, you know, she just, but literally, Sam, this happened at 930 in the morning. It took her three and a half hours to get this thing resolved.
|
Sam:
[14:23]
| Very nice.
|
Ivan:
[14:24]
| So, yeah. Again, I rant. I hate no spare tires.
|
Sam:
[14:31]
| I understand. I mean, yeah. Look, I'll be honest. If I had a flat, I wouldn't want to be... I probably would call AAA over changing the tire myself.
|
Ivan:
[14:44]
| But they would come in and change the tire for you right there.
|
Sam:
[14:47]
| Exactly. Like, if you had one.
|
Ivan:
[14:49]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[14:50]
| And obviously, my new car doesn't have one either. I don't think my one before this had one. You know? It's just... I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[14:58]
| But they would come over and fucking change the tire for you. That's what they used to do when people didn't know how to change a spare tire. And that got you going, like, real quick. You didn't have to be there for three and a half hours to fucking, like, deal with the damn tire. Pain in my ass.
|
Sam:
[15:12]
| Okay, you got anything else for this segment? Or should I jump right into it?
|
Ivan:
[15:16]
| I will say that I, at changing spare tires, was pretty adept at it, okay? I still remember this one time that I had this Honda Accord. We were driving to the airport. I was driving to the airport to take a friend of mine. And I had a flat on the way. And it's not like this was the pre-TSA days. So it's not like we had, I was like, I built in like, it's not like I was heading over there to drop them off like an hour and a half in advance or something. No, we were going there tight on time. I was able to pull over and change the tire in less than 10 minutes and get to the airport without, without any issues. I got it done in less than 10 minutes. Boom.
|
Sam:
[15:56]
| I'm in, you know, I'm impressed, Mr. Bo.
|
Ivan:
[15:58]
| Yeah. So, you know, I could do that. Fuck. you know anyway all right it's moving on sam movies.
|
Sam:
[16:06]
| Movies well before movies i just want to mention one thing like the last few days since the last show i've been running an annoying fever in the afternoons and at night like no no i i am nearly 100 sure it is a uh a uti i.
|
Ivan:
[16:26]
| Was gonna say Don't tell me you got kidney stones again.
|
Sam:
[16:29]
| Well, it might be. I don't know. Like the symptoms are consistent whenever I, for those who haven't listened long enough, I have had recurrent kidney stones since I was 25 years old. Like, you know, like once a year, maybe something like that. Anyway, like it's consistent with that. Like a couple of weeks ago, I had some, some lower back pain that's consistent with where the kidneys are. and then a couple weeks after that I'll often get like, a UTI as the stone works its way out. But every once in a while, I'll have a UTI without and noticing that I've passed anything. But anyway, so like the last few days, I've been like spiking till like last night, like I was at 103.5 for a while.
|
Ivan:
[17:17]
| Jesus Christ, I would have gone to the ER.
|
Sam:
[17:19]
| I was like, we were considering it. We were like, if this doesn't go down, and, you know, I took some more ibuprofen. I drank a bunch of cold water. It went down a little bit and then started heading down. And then by the time I woke up in the morning, it was normal again, but it's inching its way back up now.
|
Ivan:
[17:39]
| Okay, tip, tip.
|
Sam:
[17:42]
| Yes, tip.
|
Ivan:
[17:43]
| Acetaminophen is better for a fever than ibuprofen.
|
Sam:
[17:46]
| I have heard such. It's just that's the one that I knew where the jar was.
|
Ivan:
[17:52]
| Okay, well, you should go find the acetaminophen because it is better for a fever. And by the way, you could take them concurrently, by the way.
|
Sam:
[18:00]
| You don't have to. The other thing, though, is the fever is presumably doing its job. You reduce the fever in order for comfort.
|
Ivan:
[18:12]
| What, you think you're heating off? That's not the way it works. That's not the way it works. What the hell? You're listening to RFK Jr. for fucking, you know, healing tips? That's not the way it works. It's not like you're heating off, killing the bacteria with the heat. No. The fever is a sign of an infection that needs to be treated, not the fever is killing the infection.
|
Sam:
[18:42]
| Well, the fever is your body's immune response kicking into the antibiotics.
|
Ivan:
[18:47]
| No, no, no, no, no. The fever is a sign that your body is fighting something, okay?
|
Sam:
[18:54]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[18:54]
| It's like your car is overheating. The overheating isn't fixing the engine. It's a sign that there is something wrong with the engine.
|
Sam:
[19:03]
| That's why I have to go to the auto parts store and try to put that like hose on.
|
Ivan:
[19:09]
| Yes. Right.
|
Sam:
[19:12]
| Anyway, I just want to mention.
|
Ivan:
[19:17]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[19:19]
| Anyway, I just wanted to mention, I've kind of felt like crap the last few days. Like better in the mornings and then getting worse in the evenings.
|
Ivan:
[19:26]
| You know, I'm surprised it's not the flu because my direct boss at the company is in the hospital with the flu.
|
Sam:
[19:35]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[19:36]
| Okay. And our friend who is on the Slack, but come on, she's not listening. You know, I know Kathy. I mean, you know, it's probably on her list of things to do. Like it would be on your list of things to do and it will get to her list of things to do by the time we die. Okay. So Kathy also had the flu.
|
Sam:
[19:56]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[19:57]
| And this flu going around is bad. So if any of you have not gotten your flu shots, okay?
|
Sam:
[20:04]
| I have gotten my flu shot. I got flu and COVID.
|
Ivan:
[20:06]
| I highly recommend that you go get them because this flu going around right now is bad.
|
Sam:
[20:13]
| Okay. Very well. Anyway, you know, and yet there might be an, like, just like UTIs and, and kidney stones don't always come together, but like my personal pattern has always been that I end up with a UTI around the same time as I'm about to pass a kidney stone. But again, not always, who knows? Anyway, I've felt like crap and we probably, if it continues, I probably will make a trip to the doctor. Last night, we were like, okay, if it stays over 103, we'll go to the ER. If it goes over 104, we're not even, like, pausing. We're going straight to the ER. But it started going down again, and, you know, so anyway. Okay, movies. I just wanted to give that up. Not like anybody cares. That's probably TMI. Too much information.
|
Sam:
[21:10]
| But you know it has been a part of my life the last three days I felt like you know, I had all these things that I wanted to do and I've ended up during the mornings and days I felt like okay I can still do stuff at my computer I'm not going to do like heavily physical things but I can still do stuff at my computer and then by the time I got to evening I felt, Bad enough that all I did was sit and watch TV with Alex. I was trying to remember his name. I was having trouble remembering his name.
|
Ivan:
[21:48]
| You're doing great, Sam. You're doing awesome.
|
Sam:
[21:51]
| I almost called him Chad. I almost called him Yvonne. And then I figured out, oh, yeah, it's Alex.
|
Ivan:
[21:56]
| Chad? Chad? You what? You reached for Chad?
|
Sam:
[21:59]
| I reached for Chad.
|
Ivan:
[22:02]
| He kind of, you know what? He does remind me of Chad physically for some reason. Someone we knew in college. Yes, yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[22:10]
| Anyway. Movies. First movie. And this was watched in February 16th of this year is the 2023 movie named Wish. Have you heard of this movie?
|
Ivan:
[22:31]
| No.
|
Sam:
[22:32]
| Okay. It's an animated Disney movie. It is one that they put out as, it was like one of their, what was it? Was it Disney 100? Disney was 100 years old. Anyway, it was part of what they put out by that. And I'll give the first couple paragraphs, our first three paragraphs of the plot summary from Wikipedia.
|
Sam:
[22:57]
| King Magnifico and his wife, Queen Amaya, established the kingdom of Rosas on an island in the Mediterranean Sea. Having studied sorcery, Magnifico is able to grant the greatest desires of his subjects, but they have to give up the memory of their wishes to be sealed away and protected by the king until he can grant them. Once a month, at a ceremonial event, Magnifico chooses one wish to be granted. Years later, 17-year-old Asha prepares to interview for the job of Magnifico's apprentice on the day of her grandfather Sabino's 100th birthday, hoping that Magnifico will grant Sabino's wish to inspire people. The interview goes well until Asha requests for Sabino's wish to be granted, which Magnifico declines, seeing the wish's elusiveness as a potential threat to his power. Asha realizes Magnifico never intends to return the ungranted wishes to their owners, and when she questions his methods, Magnifico refuses to accept her apprenticeship or grant any of her family's wishes.
|
Sam:
[24:12]
| Asha tries but fails to convince Sabino and her mother Sakina that Magnifico is deceiving them. Distraught, she makes her own wish on a star, and to her surprise, the star descends from the sky in the form of an anthropomorphic ball of light, which Asha names Star. Star's magic gives the forest animals, including Asha's pet goat Valentino, the ability to talk, and they tell her that all life is made of stardust. Encouraged, Asha enlists Star's help in retrieving her family's wishes. Everyone in the kingdom senses Star's presence, and Magnifico feels intimidated by it. Despite Amaya's pleas, he turns to forbidden dark magic to maintain his position of power as his subjects begin to doubt his way of ruling. Dot, dot, dot. It continues. It continues. Bottom line, I'm going to give this one a thumb sideways. It was an entertaining movie. It was fine. It wasn't horrible. It wasn't too long. It's 95 minutes. But it was not memorable at all.
|
Ivan:
[25:17]
| I had no idea this movie existed. I just had to look it up. I completely blanked on apparently 2023 movies. I had no clue it existed at all. I just heard about it. I just looked it up. I saw that a lot of people didn't like it either.
|
Sam:
[25:38]
| Mm hmm.
|
Ivan:
[25:39]
| So this is a rare Disney flop because most Disney, you know, Disney has a good record of making this kind of movies that people like. And this was this was a flop.
|
Sam:
[25:51]
| Yeah. I mean, it, and like I said, it wasn't bad. It just wasn't memorable. It's like, okay, it's generic animated, you know, sort of standard story that proceeds in the ways you would expect it to proceed. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't regret watching it or anything, but you know, You know, when this came up on my list, as the next one I was going to talk about, I could not for the life of me remember what the hell it was about until I looked up the Wikipedia page. And in fact, I believe...
|
Ivan:
[26:36]
| That's a bad, bad, bad, bad sign.
|
Sam:
[26:40]
| And I believe I had it confused in my head with another movie. You know? that's not good now it was nominated for a few awards but I don't think it won any well there's a section on what let's see yeah but.
|
Ivan:
[26:59]
| Let's see what the awards are because.
|
Sam:
[27:01]
| They may not.
|
Ivan:
[27:01]
| Be about the plot or anything could be.
|
Sam:
[27:03]
| The most notable one I think is Golden Globe for best animated feature it was nominated it did not win I guess my.
|
Ivan:
[27:15]
| Question is was 2023, given the pandemic, a year where very few of these got released.
|
Sam:
[27:24]
| Maybe.
|
Ivan:
[27:25]
| Yeah, so it's like, hey, you know, if you, hey, we were in the top three. Well, there are only three, so what the fuck, you know? I mean, that's not really great, you know, when that's the case.
|
Sam:
[27:40]
| It was nominated for Best Animated Female by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. Best voiceover.
|
Ivan:
[27:48]
| That's a group that I'm always, like, looking for, you know, their annual rankings. I know there's watch parties for when they release those, I'm sure.
|
Sam:
[27:59]
| Best voiceover performance by the Astra Film Awards. Best Original Song by Astrofilm Awards, too. Outstanding Voice Performance by Black Real Awards. Best Animated Feature by the Critics' Choice Movie Awards. Best Song by the Critics' Choice Movie Awards. I mentioned the Golden Globes. Best Original Song in an Animated Film by Hollywood Music and Media Awards. Emerging Technology Award by the Visual Effects Society. and, importantly, favorite female voice from an animated movie by the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.
|
Ivan:
[28:37]
| Okay, well, that one...
|
Sam:
[28:38]
| It was nominated for all of those and did not win any of them.
|
Ivan:
[28:42]
| I mean, that's not a terrible one. Okay. You know, I'm looking at the list of what were the top movies from 2023 animated, and I will tell you that it's not a memorable list.
|
Sam:
[28:58]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[28:59]
| Which is what I suspect.
|
Sam:
[29:00]
| Tell me the rest. I don't have this.
|
Ivan:
[29:02]
| So, box office hits. The Super Mario Brothers movie, which I keep forgetting existed.
|
Sam:
[29:08]
| Apparently people really liked that.
|
Ivan:
[29:11]
| Yeah, so that was the biggest hit. But it's not a movie that I see that, You know, there's these big animated movies that have this cultural resonance, like Frozen, for example, and some others like that. I don't think the Super Mario Brothers movie is one of those. Okay. It's not like that. Elemental was the second one. That was a Pixar one.
|
Sam:
[29:38]
| I think.
|
Ivan:
[29:38]
| Yeah, that was a Pixar one. And that also, people considered that it wasn't, well, that's the thing. People considered that it wasn't like a great movie. Then the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Zazoom, Chicken Run, Dawn of the Nugget, and Blue Giant. Basically, not a list of movies that—I just read all those to you, and you were like, huh, that happened? Not a great year for animated movies.
|
Sam:
[30:09]
| Probably not a great year for movies, period.
|
Ivan:
[30:11]
| Period, yeah, probably, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[30:15]
| Okay. So, ready for a giant tonal shift from the animated Fluffy Wish movie? Are you? Are you ready?
|
Ivan:
[30:26]
| I'm ready. I'm prepared. I'm preparing.
|
Sam:
[30:29]
| The next movie. 1993, Schindler's List.
|
Ivan:
[30:34]
| Fuck. Look.
|
Sam:
[30:38]
| So, first of all.
|
Ivan:
[30:39]
| I have the book over here, too. First of all.
|
Sam:
[30:42]
| Let me just say this.
|
Ivan:
[30:43]
| I watched that movie. Back in the year when it came out. It was released.
|
Sam:
[30:49]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[30:50]
| I haven't watched it again, not because it wasn't an excellent movie. It was an excellent movie. It was made very well.
|
Sam:
[30:58]
| And this, by the way, was on the AFI list number nine.
|
Ivan:
[31:04]
| And deservedly so. Deservedly so. But it's quite a depressing movie.
|
Sam:
[31:12]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[31:13]
| It's not. You remember we were talking about last week about how they fucked up the ending of that Wall Street Money Never Sleeps movie by making it a Hollywood ending. Let me guarantee you something for those of you that don't know or haven't watched Schindler's List. It doesn't have a Hollywood ending.
|
Sam:
[31:33]
| First of all, if you haven't watched Schindler's List, go watch it.
|
Ivan:
[31:38]
| Go watch it. The one thing, of course, that you bring up this movie, as we now have this revival of people really glorifying Nazis. is and literally trying to imitate many of the worst things of it in many ways, including our government directly with how it's treating immigrants. Okay. After, of course, you know, we've had this whole 60 minutes saga related to specifically one of those things. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[32:14]
| I mean, we may talk about that later. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[32:16]
| And. Yeah. You know, people just, I don't know, people forget history. It doesn't matter how brutal it was. They always forget it. They always just fucking forget it. You know?
|
Sam:
[32:29]
| So, first of all, big thumbs up for Schindler's List. Like you said, excellent movie deserves its place. But watching this once every 20 years is probably enough for me.
|
Ivan:
[32:45]
| Yeah. I don't have the strength to watch that movie again.
|
Sam:
[32:50]
| I mean, I am tearing up just talking about it like I am now. Without, like, getting into the details of anything that happened. So, I won't read the whole Wikipedia plot summary or anything like that. But just at a high level, this is a Holocaust movie. It is about, you know. Jews getting rounded up during World War II and sent to the death camps and all of this kind of stuff. Schindler was an industrialist who ended up basically providing cover to keep a whole bunch of people safe. And it goes through how he did that, what he did, and that whole thing. And you see, they don't shy away from the violence of what was going on.
|
Sam:
[33:49]
| And, you know, there's a certain point, you know, there are parts of the movies where things seem to be going almost normally. You see the guy going around, he's doing the thing. And then, you know, you got the Nazis, like, arbitrarily shooting people, torturing people. very famously there's one one girl who like there's like there's segments where everything's in black and white except one girl's dress is in red, and you see her doing stuff and then later you see her body.
|
Ivan:
[34:25]
| All right, let's not keep going on the plot.
|
Sam:
[34:29]
| It's just, it's a devastating movie.
|
Ivan:
[34:34]
| Yes. I don't know how the hell Steven Spielberg was able to finish making that damn movie.
|
Sam:
[34:42]
| But it's an important movie.
|
Ivan:
[34:43]
| Oh, no, no, no. But I agree. I'm talking more about the emotional fortitude to go through that is what I'm referring to. And by the way, I'll make a somewhat small, funny aside.
|
Sam:
[35:00]
| Okay. Let's lighten it up.
|
Ivan:
[35:02]
| Lighten it up. Because, you know, people don't realize that Liam Neeson was the star of that movie and that Liam Neeson was, this is the kind of movies that he used to make. And then you tell people that, well, I never imagined Liam Neeson as a younger people, some kind of action star. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's always, no, no, this is the kind, this is what we do Liam Neeson kind of movies for making, making that kind of movie. Not being like James Bond, like, I don't know, some kind of like, you know, secret agent, you know, assassin guy. No.
|
Sam:
[35:45]
| Yeah. And also, in terms of, like, how did Steven Spielberg pull it off, he released two movies in 1993. This was one of them. You know what the other one was?
|
Ivan:
[35:56]
| Saving Private Ryan.
|
Sam:
[35:58]
| No, Jurassic Park.
|
Ivan:
[35:59]
| Oh, Jurassic Park. Oh, Jesus Christ.
|
Sam:
[36:03]
| So, you know, they were both released in 1993. You know, at least in part, they had to be overlapping working on them. So can you imagine, like, in the morning, you're working in Jurassic Park, dinosaurs, special effects. In the afternoon, oh, let's flip over to Schindler's List.
|
Ivan:
[36:19]
| Jesus Christ. Talk about, you know, maybe, you know, I haven't seen him in an interview asked about that. I'm going to guess that it was probably a relief.
|
Sam:
[36:31]
| It may have been. Now, I don't know the exact scheduling. Maybe he did a few months of one and a few months of the other, as opposed to, like, intermingling on a single day. But, like, but still, they were in close proximity.
|
Ivan:
[36:43]
| Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[36:45]
| Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[36:45]
| I did mention that I did meet Steven Spielberg once, right?
|
Sam:
[36:52]
| Oh, I don't think I remember this. Tell us about your encounter with Mr. Spielberg.
|
Ivan:
[36:56]
| Okay, my brief, brief, brief, brief encounter with Steven Spielberg. Okay.
|
Sam:
[37:03]
| Wasn't it an airport?
|
Ivan:
[37:04]
| No, it was not. At an airport. Come on. You think he, he travels private. What are you, what are you doing? I don't travel private. What are you, what are you doing? No, it's not at an airport. It was not at a restaurant, but it isn't a place where you would, it was, I went back when I had, when I had a yacht.
|
Sam:
[37:23]
| Was it at the premiere of one of your big movies?
|
Ivan:
[37:26]
| No, it was when I had a yacht that I went to this, this, this island, the Bahamas. That's a very like, It's an island that only people usually a lot richer than I do go, but I was with the right captain that knew how to get to places, and he got us there. When I got off the boat, well, yeah, that wasn't the boat. It's a yacht. When I got off, and I was walking down the marina, Steven Spielberg was docked near where I was, and we crossed paths walking. past each other down the marina. That's how much I met Steven Spielberg. I didn't even have the, I actually froze. I couldn't even say, like, I think I may have said, I didn't recognize him. It took me a little bit like, oh, hi. So I did say, I think he said hi to me too. So I got Steven, Steven Spielberg said hi to me, Sam.
|
Sam:
[38:22]
| Very good. Very good.
|
Ivan:
[38:25]
| So that was my brief, brief, brief, brief, brief, brief meeting.
|
Sam:
[38:29]
| So, so about what year was that? We can see like, Like which of his movies you inspired?
|
Ivan:
[38:34]
| 2006.
|
Sam:
[38:35]
| Okay, 2006. So it's...
|
Ivan:
[38:36]
| Summer of 2006.
|
Sam:
[38:38]
| Well, that makes sense then. His next movie after that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
|
Ivan:
[38:43]
| Oh, there you go.
|
Sam:
[38:44]
| Which clearly is all about you.
|
Ivan:
[38:47]
| Because of your crystal skull. That's why that movie flopped. That's why that movie was a disaster. Look, you see? Who bumps into me and his movie producing skills go into the shitter. Yes, this makes total sense. Absolutely. Jesus Christ, that blew me shit. How could we go from like Jurassic Park and Schindler's List to making that piece of shit?
|
Sam:
[39:11]
| Anyway, reiterate, thumbs up for Schindler's List. If you have not watched it, you should watch it. If you watched it once in the 1990s like Yvonne did, it might be worth watching again. It is hard, though. It is not a fun movie at all. It is a hard, serious movie, but it is well worth watching. Like I said, I don't think I could stand to do it more than once every 20 years. But if it's been more than 20 years since you've seen it, or if you've never seen it, go get, have yourself watch Schindler's List.
|
Ivan:
[39:48]
| 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. 93% liked this movie. I guess the Nazis didn't like it, so that's why it didn't get 100%.
|
Sam:
[39:59]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[40:02]
| By the way, a budget, only $22 million.
|
Sam:
[40:06]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[40:07]
| He made it on a shoestring comparatively to what movies cost. Yeah. Anyway. All right.
|
Sam:
[40:16]
| Yeah, and I have heard him interviewed about this being a movie that he felt he had to make.
|
Ivan:
[40:21]
| To make, yeah. I definitely heard him say that. And he was right.
|
Sam:
[40:26]
| Okay, let's take a break, and then we'll talk about newsy stuff. Back after this.
|
Break:
[40:32]
| Okie dokie. Here it comes. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. It's just my internet being stupid. My internet being stupid is a new song we will make. do you believe Come on, come on, come on. I'm tired. What's wrong? I'm really tired. It's amazing to get the show on the road. There's a road? There's a road? Oh my god, there's a road!
|
Sam:
[41:38]
| Okay, we're back. So, Yvonne, where would you like to start?
|
Ivan:
[41:41]
| Where would I like to start? Where would I like to start? Where would I like to start?
|
Break:
[41:48]
| Ahhhh.
|
Ivan:
[41:56]
| Let's talk about the more more the epstein shenanigans.
|
Sam:
[42:04]
| Epstein shenanigans okay how so hey.
|
Ivan:
[42:09]
| Hey sam how's that redaction process going.
|
Sam:
[42:12]
| So they have again screwed up in the way everybody knows redactions can screw up.
|
Ivan:
[42:21]
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sam, Sam, I'm sorry. If you have competent people doing redacting, okay, okay, all right, there is no screwing it up. You can't, you don't, you don't screw up redactions. You just have people that have no idea, that have no idea how to redact.
|
Sam:
[42:47]
| Yes, well, although I've heard people speculate that maybe it's people who are intentionally doing this.
|
Ivan:
[42:56]
| Okay, that could be, but no, but I've seen them, no, no, no, but I've already seen them do this in the past. They keep hiring people to do shit where they have no idea how to do redactions, okay? and they i can't remember which documents they they've done before they were supposed to be redacted and they did the same thing and when people don't know what redaction is they keep thinking is oh we just go in a pdf and we just mark it in black right not realizing that if that's what you do that's removable so.
|
Sam:
[43:31]
| To be clear the what people discovered because of course people checked for this, is that on a subset of the documents, so some of them were redacted correctly, even a majority of them were were redacted correctly. But on a subset of them, if you went into the document, into the PDF and, you know, did a select and copy paste into a new document, you would get the text that was under the black bars.
|
Ivan:
[43:59]
| Well, yeah, because what what what's happening is, look, people are going and like instead Instead of the redaction feature, okay, when you use it in, when you use the redaction feature in most, PDF tools or that you're using actually permanently removes that information from there. OK, it's it's not reaccessible. You can't it's gone. OK, the copy that you're sending out does not have the content there. OK, there is no way to undo it. OK, so what but what they are doing is because they don't understand that there is such a redaction feature and they see redactions, people market in black, they will go, oh, look, there's the paint tool. Let me paint this over in black. Well, painting over in black and then sending the document means that I can select that and delete and get rid of it.
|
Sam:
[44:51]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[44:52]
| You're using highlighting instead of redaction. And that's what happens when you get stupid people.
|
Sam:
[44:58]
| Now, from what I've heard, people have started to go through like, Is there anything significant under these redactions? And mostly, they haven't found any smoking guns or anything under redactions. However, other than them saying most of the redactions have nothing to do with protecting the victims. They are just embarrassing to other people, whatever, but have nothing to do with actually protecting the victims, which is the one thing that was authorized by the law for redaction. I mean, it was protecting victims, national security, and ongoing investigations, I believe, were the only three things. And basically, people found, like, this isn't any of those. And in some cases, they've actually found, even independent of the redaction error, they found that some of the things they'd redacted had actually already been released publicly in unredacted form. You know, so yes, they are once again showing their incompetence or, or again, there's like some sort of mole in the investigation who's like doing this intentionally with the precise idea that somebody will get through the redaction and, and see something, you know, but.
|
Ivan:
[46:26]
| Yeah, no, no, no. And that's, you know, those are the two things that it could be. I think that, but they also released stuff that they didn't want released that then all of a sudden made disappear.
|
Sam:
[46:40]
| Yes, and some of that's come back. They've done, some things disappeared, then some things came back. Sometimes they came back with different redaction. Oh yeah, after people like...
|
Ivan:
[46:53]
| It's after, listen, after they got discovered, oh, well, they put it back, Sam. If it wasn't discovered, they wouldn't have. I mean, come on. Give me a break.
|
Sam:
[47:05]
| And of course, people noticed instantly. And of course, people have made archival copies of all this. So like if they remove something after the fact, I'm sorry, it's already out. You already released it, you know. so yes, and it's it's just a they're showing their and of course all of this is late and not you know the requirement was on Friday they release everything they didn't release everything on Friday so far they've released three tranches the one on Friday with what.
|
Ivan:
[47:42]
| The law ordered so far basically they've they have they have, They have released Epstein stuff, but they didn't comply with what the law demanded in full.
|
Sam:
[47:57]
| And a lot of the specific documents that people are waiting for have not come out yet. Like they interviews with with victims, for instance, the FBI interviewed notes because like the FBI like is archaic. They don't record their interviews. They don't take transcripts of their interviews. They just have an agent take notes. But they want the notes of those interviews, and the victims themselves have been clamoring for those with their names redacted, of course. But that has not come out yet. The three tranches were Friday, Saturday, and now there's one Tuesday, a few hours before we're recording. The most significant thing that's come out of the last one is a, and I'll be careful how I say this, because apparently there is some question as to its authenticity, that it hasn't been validated. There's a handwritten note that was apparently sent from Epstein to another sex offender.
|
Ivan:
[49:11]
| Larry Nassar.
|
Sam:
[49:13]
| Larry Nassar, whose name I don't remember, but I...
|
Ivan:
[49:17]
| Larry Nassar was this... Well, Larry Nassar was this guy who... Was the gymnastics team doctor.
|
Sam:
[49:26]
| Oh, is that guy?
|
Ivan:
[49:27]
| Yes. Okay. And it said, we shared one thing, our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they reached their full potential. The letter also claimed that about our president and young girls.
|
Sam:
[49:45]
| So let me.
|
Ivan:
[49:47]
| Here, I got the note.
|
Sam:
[49:49]
| I've got it up. Let me read it. Let me just read the whole thing.
|
Ivan:
[49:52]
| You read the note because it's not very long.
|
Sam:
[49:54]
| It's not very long. Dear L.N., As you know by now, I have taken the short route home. And by the way, this apparently was written right before the suicide. He committed suicide. And sent right after. So it was postmarked like two days after his suicide. I have taken the short route home. Good luck. We shared one thing, our love and caring for young ladies, and the hope they'd reach their full potential, our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls. When a young duty walked by, he loved to grab snatch, whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system. Life is unfair. Yours, Jay Epstein. Now, the controversy here is apparently like, this letter is in the files, but there's nothing authenticating, did Epstein really write this? Or did somebody else write something to try to set this up? Now, the other thing is, of course, even if Epstein wrote this, it's not proof of jack shit. You know, Epstein could say whatever he wanted, but it does not look good.
|
Ivan:
[51:24]
| Yes, you're right, Sam. It's not proof. We don't have a smoking gun here. Okay. But come on. Come on, man.
|
Sam:
[51:36]
| Look, there is so much smoke here.
|
Ivan:
[51:39]
| I mean, there's so much smoke that I need my oxygen mask.
|
Sam:
[51:43]
| I mean, even without the stupid letter. I mean, it's been obvious Donald Trump is a sexual predator for his entire damn life. Now, whether or not that included going after young girls, slightly less clear. But there's been plenty of smoke around that, too. Wait, slightly less clear? The whole thing about him walking in on the models and saying that he could just walk in whenever he wanted.
|
Ivan:
[52:14]
| The rape accusations, the repeated rape accusations.
|
Sam:
[52:19]
| I know. Yeah. I mean, most of the public accusations against Donald Trump have been of legal adults. However, there was that one from right before the 2016 elections of the person who claimed that he raped her when she was 14. and there have been plenty of you know other.
|
Ivan:
[52:41]
| There was something else in the recent release there was something related to a conversation that I think that I saw that was overheard by somebody I mean somebody saying specifically a young woman claiming specifically that that, that they were raped by Trump. But again, you know, yeah, here's the problem. There's a preponderance of evidence, Sam.
|
Sam:
[53:11]
| But not beyond a reasonable doubt.
|
Ivan:
[53:13]
| Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm sorry. I didn't say that. I think it's beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a preponderance. Sam, there's just so much of it. I'm sorry. We are beyond that there is a doubt.
|
Sam:
[53:32]
| The thing is, for a crime, it needs to be something specific, not just a general tendency. And like what I said...
|
Ivan:
[53:40]
| A general tendency. Sam, I mean, you've had...
|
Sam:
[53:42]
| Look, what I said a couple months ago on these Epstein files was that the likelihood, as far as I could tell, is, look, if there had been stuff in here that they felt was good enough for a prosecutable case against any of these men other than Epstein, they probably would have done it. I feel like they think there's not enough to make the legal case.
|
Ivan:
[54:09]
| All right. I think that you are right in terms of meeting the legal threshold in a court of law.
|
Sam:
[54:15]
| Okay?
|
Ivan:
[54:16]
| Because of how the evidence needs to be presented. But one of the things is that Many times we have rules of evidence that make, you know, certain cases far more difficult than what it is for an objective observer, looking at all of the information that you're getting and what your conclusion is. To me, if I'm just looking at this, not from the point of view of getting a criminal conviction, which is a higher bar, okay, versus me going and looking at this and seeing, hey, what does this tell me?
|
Sam:
[54:48]
| Yes, I agree.
|
Ivan:
[54:49]
| There is no objective observer that could come away to the conclusion that this guy was not abusing underage girls. Everything points towards it. And here's the worst thing. The Justice Department is trying so hard to cover up shit in these documents, that all they are communicating is it's bad for him.
|
Sam:
[55:19]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[55:20]
| With every action that they have done so far.
|
Sam:
[55:23]
| Meanwhile, Bill Clinton has said, please release the rest. Release everything with my name in it. You don't have to redact my name. You don't have to do anything. Just release it because I have nothing to worry about.
|
Ivan:
[55:36]
| And even if it was, apparently, he thinks that even if it was something that maybe, like, didn't look good, it's not that bad. Or at least something that might piss off Hillary right now. Probably Hillary told him, for the love of God, dude, I already put up with all this shit. Whatever. Tell him to fucking release it.
|
Sam:
[55:54]
| Yes. Well, and also, like, you know, he's not doing anything else politically. He's just, you know.
|
Ivan:
[56:02]
| But here's the other thing. If I remember, both Bill and Hillary studied law, right? So, one thing that somebody like that does, especially in a situation like this, you don't make a statement like that unless you know the answer. You don't ask a question like that. Get something unless you know the answer.
|
Sam:
[56:21]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[56:23]
| So, they already know. They're like, fuck, we know. Fuck you. You want to play games? Go release everything.
|
Sam:
[56:29]
| Yeah. So, I don't know. More to come, I guess. They're not done. They said they'd be trickling these things out over a few weeks. And I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[56:40]
| Trump thinks it's over.
|
Sam:
[56:42]
| Trump thinks it's over. He said, like, I don't know why they're still asking me questions about this. Look, and frankly, if you wanted to make it go away as quickly as possible, I don't see how stretching it out. Release it all in one shot? Yeah. Like, how does stretching it out help?
|
Ivan:
[57:00]
| Why would you be stretching it out?
|
Sam:
[57:03]
| You want to delay the worst stuff for as long as possible. You're probably going to release it on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or New Year's Eve.
|
Ivan:
[57:12]
| This is going to be my Christmas present?
|
Sam:
[57:18]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[57:19]
| Fuck.
|
Sam:
[57:20]
| Because you're going to try to release it at a time when nobody's paying attention and hope that everybody forgets by the time they get back from vacation.
|
Ivan:
[57:29]
| I see. Well, that makes a lot of sense.
|
Sam:
[57:33]
| And meanwhile, they'll try to figure out better ways to redact.
|
Ivan:
[57:38]
| But this is, you know, the whole thing with the redactions. This is what happens every time to these idiots when what they do is, when you hire for loyalty instead of competence, this is what you get. Idiots.
|
Sam:
[57:54]
| Yeah. Okay. You got any more on Epstein?
|
Ivan:
[58:01]
| No.
|
Sam:
[58:02]
| You got any more on anything you want to bring up before we take a break and I pick something?
|
Ivan:
[58:07]
| Let's take a break.
|
Sam:
[58:08]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[58:09]
| Or I can bring up the, well, because I don't have any details on it. I didn't really dive in deep because I must admit that I have been, like, checked out from everything. I've been trying not to do shit the last few days.
|
Sam:
[58:23]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[58:23]
| They released a q3 gdp report like a couple of months late and the numbers are incredible literally incredible sam they're not believable i.
|
Sam:
[58:35]
| Heard this is the best growth the u.s has had in like forever or.
|
Ivan:
[58:41]
| Something the numbers are literally not believable now tell me tell me what.
|
Sam:
[58:46]
| Why what and why.
|
Ivan:
[58:47]
| Well they they released it and said the gdp growth as as was at 4.3 percent OK, and they said that this did not include like that, that, you know, consumer spending was not a driver of this. Now, once again, they said that the biggest driver was AI spending. OK, but they said given what is going on with labor and everything else, it's just not a believable report. Because the one thing I thought that maybe could have pushed up spending, OK, was consumer. But, you know, they said no, it's just. It's not a believable number. And as many of these, you know, right now, you can't believe our government's economic statistics. We are at that point where our statistics are no better than those of a third-rate government.
|
Sam:
[59:53]
| Right. Which, like, one of the things that has led to this country being an economic leader all over the world, et cetera, among other things, but is that you could trust stuff like this.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:08]
| Yes. And right now we can't trust any of it.
|
Sam:
[1:00:11]
| Because it's being manipulated for the political effect, or at the very least, there's enough uncertainty that you can't be sure it's not being. at the very least.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:25]
| A Fed governor recently stated, you know, that numbers were distorted due to many one-time items and things that they put in that usually they will call out in order to show what the true numbers are. So it's just, you know, I don't believe the number. Given what's going on with jobs and hiring and whatever, what they are saying versus what is happening in the labor market.
|
Sam:
[1:00:55]
| And it was multiple months late anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:57]
| And it was multiple months late. Anyway, they don't not, they are not, the data is not jiving. It just isn't.
|
Sam:
[1:01:07]
| So, I don't know, what do you think? If you can't trust the numbers, you can't trust. Are there alternate sources of this kind of information that are more trustworthy from the private sector? Like, what do we think is really going on?
|
Ivan:
[1:01:21]
| Well, we know what is going on. We know the one thing is that we know that the labor market is stagnant because we know that from private sector data. So we know that. We know that wages are not growing. And if the economy was expanding at such a rate, you wouldn't be getting that. This is not compatible with that picture that's happening in the labor market. There's a huge disconnect there.
|
Sam:
[1:01:50]
| That's.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:51]
| That i mean there there is your disconnect they just don't they the labor market and that data don't agree.
|
Sam:
[1:02:00]
| Okay so you do not believe that this is a huge growth quarter because i mean everybody else has been saying we've got all sorts of flashing red lights that we are heading into recession or maybe already are in one.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:17]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:02:17]
| And this is like completely the opposite direction of that.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:20]
| Exactly. There are so many other indicators that indicate the opposite thing. Let me give you an example. Right now, auto loan defaults. Nerd records. Okay? The labor market. That's bad. Real estate. Residential real estate. It's in the shitter. Commercial real estate is not doing great. You know, you have all of these metrics that point towards bad, bad, bad, bad. Oh, no, GDP is growing. You're like, how?
|
Sam:
[1:02:59]
| So I just saw that the Department of Justice has responded to that letter that we read. What they've said so far, the Department of Justice is currently looking into the validity of this alleged letter from Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Nassar, and we will follow up as soon as possible. In the meantime, three facts stand out. Bullet. The postmark on the envelope is Virginia, not New York, where Jeffrey Epstein was jailed at the time. Bullet. The return address listed the wrong jail where Epstein was held and did not include his inmate number, which is required for outgoing mail. Bullet. The envelope was processed three days after Epstein's death.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:48]
| That doesn't mean anything.
|
Sam:
[1:03:52]
| So as i said like the question on that is like it was it really from epstein or did somebody like throw this it did somebody else make this up and it's.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:05]
| A very simple thing you've got the handwriting go compare.
|
Sam:
[1:04:07]
| Yeah go.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:08]
| Do do the handwriting comparison start off with that.
|
Sam:
[1:04:11]
| Yep i and that should and that should be easily resolved by third parties like you don't have to trust the DOJ. Somebody out there has got to have like actual...
|
Ivan:
[1:04:20]
| Yeah, we got the Epstein State Files. We got his handwriting. Go compare it. See if that matches up.
|
Sam:
[1:04:27]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:27]
| Start off with that.
|
Sam:
[1:04:29]
| Okay. Shall we take a break? Okay, we're going to take this break and then I'll come back and spoilers, I'm going to do the 60 minutes Seacott story. Back after this.
|
Break:
[1:04:41]
| You're supposed to say do do do. Do do do Alex Emzela. Alex Emzela is awesome. Its videos are fun. And today, once again, we have one of our most loyal subscribers here to tell you how awesome Alex Emsola is. I'd say on a rate from 1 to 10, Alex Emsola is awesome at, I don't know, 37, 82. He's pretty radical. His videos are phenomenal. They're full of creativity. And they're so funny and exciting to watch. Wow, what happened to your voice then, Amy? Was that Dad pretending to be you because the audio was distorted when it really wasn't because I told him to? Yes. Good job on remembering, Dad. Do, do, do!
|
Sam:
[1:05:40]
| Okay, we are back. And so, 60 Minutes. Barry Weiss.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:47]
| Did they handle that well, Sam?
|
Sam:
[1:05:49]
| Them they handled it in about the worst way you could possibly handle it okay so here's the deal, For a while, the 60 Minutes reporting staff group, whatever it is, they had been working on a story on the conditions inside the Seacott prison, which is where the place in El Salvador where the administration had been.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:16]
| By the way.
|
Sam:
[1:06:17]
| I. No.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:19]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:06:21]
| I have not yet watched it. I watched something similar on Frontline a while ago, but no, I have not yet. Why not?
|
Ivan:
[1:06:32]
| It's 15 minutes, not like three hours.
|
Sam:
[1:06:34]
| I know it's 15 minutes. I promise I will watch it. So bottom line, they'd been working on this for a while. It had gone through all of the approval processes that it was supposed to go through, from legal, from standards and practices, from whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:54]
| And it was already announced that it was going to be on the next newscast.
|
Sam:
[1:06:58]
| It was announced. There were promos running. There was all this kind of stuff. Three hours before the broadcast, Barry Weiss pulled it. She'd apparently previewed it a couple days earlier, but didn't pull it until three hours before, saying that basically there was an inadequate amount of the administration's perspective in the story. And she said some things that were just not true in terms of it not including the administration's justification. They did include that. It may be not enough for her, but they included some of it. And, uh, and they had asked them for.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:43]
| For, for, you know, you guys want to comment, you guys want to talk, you guys want to send anybody to the interview and they refused.
|
Sam:
[1:07:53]
| Correct. And so the excuse here is we're holding it for release at a later date so that we can do more reporting and we can get some of that kind of stuff. But the bottom line is if you follow that logic, then the administration basically has a veto.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:10]
| Exactly. All they have to do is not answer any questions on any story out there and they're just not going to publish them.
|
Sam:
[1:08:18]
| Well, and this is the thing. It's a preposterous standard.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:21]
| People.
|
Sam:
[1:08:22]
| Have speculated from the beginning that this is actually why Barry Weiss is there you know that she was well known worked at like a conservative online thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:37]
| But there's one thing about it I'd read up where she was working at one thing that I had read about her okay and read about the, reporting at the place was that at least based on, they were pretty factual. So whatever they published as stories, it was not the type of coverage where you could say, oh, these people are just making up the news stories. So they were factual. Okay, so I, you know, the one thing that I could see was that there were certain specific areas, more related to Israel than anything else where she had done a column in the New York Times and some other places that a lot of people vehemently disagreed with her. That was pretty much it that I had read. There wasn't really much. But the one thing that was very evident is she did not have the background or experience in running such a large organization ever. Like not even close. She had, she did not have the, she just didn't have the background at all.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:52]
| And I think that it was telling that Scott Pelley went and said, and he's been quoted as saying that this is not a part time job, you know, because what it felt like was that she, as I've seen many managers do. Was kind of like, you know, she's been like meddling, but not involved in strategy and stuff or whatever. And then all of a sudden at the last minute, she caught something she didn't like and then just arbitrarily pulled it without having been involved in the process where she should have been.
|
Sam:
[1:10:28]
| You know, I my from my understanding, like most of the criticism of Barry White. Barry White?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:38]
| Barry White? You never.
|
Sam:
[1:10:40]
| Barry White's a little bit different.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:43]
| I mean, I think that, you know, that's a totally different subject. We can cover Barry White.
|
Sam:
[1:10:48]
| Totally different subject. Barry Weiss. I have certainly heard what you've been concentrating on, which is like inexperienced, doesn't know what she's doing, et cetera, et cetera. But also very much like, look, she was brought in because of her political views as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:09]
| I'll tell you the one thing CBS News.
|
Sam:
[1:11:12]
| But but to be more friendly to Republicans and more friendly to MAGA specifically.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:17]
| But you know what? Listen, I think this can be done in many different ways. If you think about it and I think that's the whole problem here, because I think about, say, the Wall Street Journal. Right. OK. Obviously, the owners are conservative. OK. But the one thing that they don't fuck with is the facts.
|
Sam:
[1:11:37]
| Well, the thing is that there there's a very—you can tell the conservative nature of the Wall Street Journal through the editorial page.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:46]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:11:46]
| But they, for the most part, leave the news alone.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:48]
| And that's the point, right? And that's the thing.
|
Sam:
[1:11:51]
| But it hasn't felt like that's what they're doing here. No, no.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:55]
| She has been injecting opinion. She has been directly going and—, Injecting what seems to be opinions into what's shaping the coverage of the news. I actually I was seeing somebody yesterday in the bulwark specifically saying that it feels like she got the job more because the new owners really wanted to put somebody there that other people like because they really didn't buy Paramount CBS for this. they didn't really want this okay they wanted the movies they wanted the entertainment that was the the part that they bought and this was yesterday in the bull war I just caught this yesterday I said look when they're buying this this is an extra thing that was like came with it that they really didn't want it so they wanted to put somebody there who you know, hey you know we need Washington to be happy with us let's just put somebody there who keeps us happy and that's the name that they came up with.
|
Sam:
[1:13:09]
| Well right and this is what a lot of I mean you've seen similar moves at CNN um you know where it's what can we do to keep Donald Trump from getting.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:25]
| Exactly. That's right.
|
Sam:
[1:13:41]
| If at any moment in your thought process, the question, how do we keep from pissing off the president, is part of what you are doing, then you cannot do your job properly.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:57]
| No, you can't. And, but, you know, this entire thing goes back and several people actually brought up that it's been almost like 30 years precisely to the day when CBS went through the crisis that I had mentioned related to Jeffrey Weingand, which is very aligned to a lot of what's going on right now.
|
Sam:
[1:14:17]
| Because I've heard a couple of people mention it, but I don't remember it. So what was that?
|
Ivan:
[1:14:22]
| Listen, this was the story related to Brown and Willis and Tobacco and the testimony against the tobacco companies where the story was pulled in the same way. And the reason was, by the way, a big part of it was because Westinghouse was going to buy CBS from Larry Tish. Okay. and they needed this story. The thing is that there was all this litigation and this lawsuit and whatever that could potentially involve a lot of money and they needed the litigation to go away in order for the merger to close. So even though it wasn't the government, there was a deal, there was a merger, there was something happening and they just went, they said, no, you know what, let's just, you know, let's just kill the story. Over the, you know, similar, you know, back then they said the, the, the, the, what legal went and said that it was because they thought that CBS could be sued out of business for false accusations because there was a, because Jeffrey Weigand had a non-disclosure agreement, which he was violating in order to reveal that the tobacco executives at the time were lying.
|
Sam:
[1:15:45]
| Right. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:47]
| And so it was a lot of a similar dynamic with this. And by the way, the newsroom also revolted. They rebelled the same way. And you've got this merger sitting out there right now that they're trying to do again. And you've got the president that has been meddling with all these media mergers now.
|
Sam:
[1:16:15]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:16]
| And so they're all trying to just, you know, satisfy him like like right now because of this. But this is what you get with. I mean, this is the abuse of power that you've got like right now from a presidency that is willing to to basically put their fingers into every aspect of business. which.
|
Sam:
[1:16:41]
| Major news organizations at this point can you still mostly trust like.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:48]
| Because i feel like bloomberg doesn't give a shit he's been like oh my god he's been shitting on uh on trump like you know like with with no no qualms i.
|
Sam:
[1:16:59]
| Know you're a big bloomberg fan.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:01]
| But he's but but have you but they're not pulling any punches and like michael bloomberg referred to him as like You know, what he said, you know, I'm a real billionaire, not like Donald.
|
Sam:
[1:17:14]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:15]
| So he could give a rat's ass if fucking Donald's gonna go after him.
|
Sam:
[1:17:19]
| But like, I think this, this instant, Sort of is another nail in the coffin of CBS. It's like, okay, you know, I feel like you're going to end up with a lot of people leaving. You're good. And it's like, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:34]
| Here's the one thing. One thing about this was that Barry Weiss was put there also in order to take care of things. I have a feeling that she's going to wind up out of a job because of how clumsy this whole thing was handled.
|
Sam:
[1:17:50]
| Oh, because we didn't get to the point. Like, it was pulled from the U.S. broadcast. They neglected to pull it from international. So it aired in Canada. And then, of course, a lot of people ripped a copy off the airing in Canada and started distributing online. It's been a game of whack-a-mole.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:08]
| 60 Minutes, CBS sells this internationally.
|
Sam:
[1:18:11]
| Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:11]
| And so they had sold the story already, and they already had it ready to go, you know, because there are 60 Minutes international newscasts in other places, or 60 Minutes Australia, whatever. So, yeah, so they had that, you know, yeah, they pulled the story in the U.S., but they already sold the fucking story.
|
Sam:
[1:18:28]
| Yeah, so, and they didn't pull, they didn't bother to pull it internationally. I've seen speculation of, like, nobody bothered to tell Barry about that.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:38]
| I'm sorry. You know what? You are the head of the news organization. You have been the head for many months. You should know.
|
Sam:
[1:18:49]
| Anyway, it's a bit of whack-a-mole because CBS is trying to get it removed from everybody who posts it. But it's not working. It is 100% Streisand effect here. In fact, I've seen people say this puts the original Streisand effect to shame. Like, so many more people have seen this than would have if she just left it alone.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:14]
| Exactly. Listen, I guarantee you one thing. I would not have watched this if this didn't happen.
|
Sam:
[1:19:20]
| Right. And so, look, it is Whack-A-Mole. They are taking them down sometimes, but it is widespread enough. And for every one they take down, there are three new ones that are put up. So if you want to see this, I am sure you can find it.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:37]
| It is freely available.
|
Sam:
[1:19:38]
| It's freely available.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:39]
| I checked the link, the one I shared, and that one is working no problem. I checked right before the start of the podcast.
|
Sam:
[1:19:46]
| The first one that was put up, there was some Canadian who put it up on YouTube. That one disappeared a few hours later. But by the time it disappeared, there were a half dozen others.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:58]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:19:58]
| You know, and so, you know, it's all over the place now.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:03]
| I grabbed it from somewhere on Substack. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:20:06]
| Okay. Yeah. No, it was put on archive.org. The Mueller She Wrote folks posted it.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:14]
| That's where I grabbed it from. Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:20:15]
| That that's the one where you grabbed it um there was the original guy who put it on youtube it's available on on torrents for those of you who remember like torrenting things from like 15 years ago you know it's all over the place it's it's all over the place and every every time they take some down more come up so i checked and.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:38]
| Uh this one is yeah mueller she wrote yeah that one's still up. They haven't.
|
Sam:
[1:20:44]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:44]
| I don't think they'll be able to get to that one. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:20:47]
| And, and look with all of these, the, it'll be interesting to see if they ever do. Like Barry Weiss has said, We'll do more reporting. We'll air it later. It'll be interesting to do a comparison, if they ever do. There's been enough pressure on it that it seems like maybe they actually will, because they were caught. Otherwise, I would assume it's just been spiked permanently. But the thing is, what this tells you is, okay, this one was pulled at the last moment, but what things aren't getting greenlit at all?
|
Ivan:
[1:21:23]
| But that's the thing that I talk about, the clumsiness of this whole damn thing, okay? Because that's, I think, that if you're expecting somebody to be doing what they're doing, it's you're expecting them to be doing it in that more, how do I say, artful way that it's like, well, you're just steering it and you're not going and like going three hours before a fucking news report is going up and then making it a bigger deal, which is the stupidest thing about this, okay? you know which is what again this is the same thing that happened with the with the with Jeffrey Wang and 30 years it's ridiculous how much deja vu there is in this whole damn thing and once again I tell people that if you guys haven't watched the movie The Insider which covers this you know from completely it's a great number it's a very good movie there are some artistic licensing in it a little bit not that much you know as far as I as far as I've heard there are just certain things that are that are obviously not not not exactly the real but the movie's very entertaining and it's and it covers it quite well so so watch that it's russell crow and now pacino and that movie they did a they did an excellent job in that movie so go check it out but i but it's just here but here's the one thing sam look this wasn't honestly that big a deal, you mentioned before that frontline had covered this yeah they had already this this story already even done you know and.
|
Sam:
[1:22:46]
| That's also one of the reasons she said we're not treading new ground here.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:50]
| That's one of the excuses but that's my point so why'd you pull it, I mean, it did do some, it did do, they did have certain interviews with.
|
Sam:
[1:23:03]
| So let's step back a second because I have not watched it. You have. And I, I technically watched the front line that covered this. It was also only a 15. It was like the last 15 minutes of a longer front line. And I'll be honest, I think I might've fallen asleep. But.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:23]
| Number one is they cover that. Listen, they showed how they were flown there, how they were treated, how they first got told they were going to Venezuela, and then they wound up in El Salvador. They showed the entire treatment of how they were dragged off in shackles, how they were abused and tortured, the horrible conditions at the prison. They showed that in detail because the place is just it is it is absolutely an inhumane prison. It is, you know, already many human rights organizations have decried that it does not meet any minimum standards for treatment of prisoners anywhere. I mean, they have their lights on 24 hours. They don't give people proper places to sleep. It is just they deny food. They were making people drink dirty water. They wouldn't even give them fresh, clean water or food. Okay. There were beatings and torture. They denied them health care during the stay there. And the interviews with the people that were sent there, which is basically, they got sent there. Why? Because they had tattoos. And I'm like, that's it.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:38]
| When, by the way, it was very well known by ICE that they claimed they were Trenderagua. Trenderagua, they don't use tattoos to identify people. That the picture where Kristi Noem was standing in front of a whole bunch of prisoners, all the ones behind her, They were all Salvadorans. MS-13, they were not the people from the flight at all. That they didn't, you know, they sent them there, that they have a list that shows that less than 2% of the people that were sent there had violent criminal records. That the others that they said that 50% were criminals were basically people that they were criminalizing because simply they entered the U.S. according to them illegally. Which, by the way, in many instances, people were illegal, but then they turned them into illegal. So that's their only offense. And that they were just brutalized for four months until finally, amazingly enough, the guy who freaking got them out of there was the president of Venezuela. Not exactly a warm and cuddly guy either. Another fucking asshole. and it was in a trade for some Americans that had been imprisoned in Venezuela.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:58]
| So, you know, the detail of how badly they were mistreated and the kind of abuse that they were endured is really gut-wrenching. Sam, these people are being made to... They weren't being given not even water. They were being told that they needed to drink the same water they bathe with. That's the water they should be drinking. Right?
|
Sam:
[1:26:19]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:20]
| So, yeah, so it was the part. It's pretty damning. But again, I think, you know, one of the things they highlighted there also was that the president of El Salvador had been allowing a lot of like social media people and tours to to go visit the place. And so, by the way, a lot of the facts there to gather who it was, where they were located, how they were treated, and corroborate all the information was compiled by not just the interviews, but so many social media people have been allowed there to visit and take a look that they were able to build a composite and figure out who the people were, where they were being held, what was the criminal record. They were able to reconstruct just about all the details about the group and come to the conclusion, like I mentioned, that basically less than 2% of the people that got sent there had violent criminal records.
|
Sam:
[1:27:18]
| Right. And look, I just, while we were talking about that, I saw a blue sky thing with Representative McIver coming out of— Now I got McIver? Not McIver. Not McIver. McIver.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:38]
| McIver. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:27:39]
| McIver.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:40]
| Not McIver. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:27:41]
| Yeah. She just did a tour of an ice facility in Newark, New Jersey, and was talking about how conditions there were horrible. So I feel like we're missing—I mean, there's been some reporting on how bad the domestic camps are, but I think we need more of that and more visibility on that as well. Yes. Because I think we're going to find that we got some pretty bad stuff going on domestically, too, without even sending the telephones on.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:14]
| Yeah, and there has been coverage on those as well.
|
Sam:
[1:28:18]
| There has been.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:19]
| But but again, the whole damn problem is people are people are there's so much bad news coming out with this shit that people are being desensitized. And the only reason they paid attention to it now is because of what happened when they pulled a story.
|
Sam:
[1:28:32]
| Yes. Because, you know, it's very easy to ignore the latest piece of bad news. This gives us a different spin because it's more, oh, they're trying to hide it. You know, we've said before, even with all of Trump's obvious corruption and such, the fact that he just does it out in the open without even trying to hide it. like makes people automatically dismiss it to a degree. Well, it can't be that bad. He's not even trying to hide it.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:08]
| Well, you know, and now we are going to be made safe by the, whatchamacallit?
|
Sam:
[1:29:14]
| The Golden Fleet? The Golden Fleet.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:16]
| Yes. I mean, that's how we're going to be safe and secure, with the Golden Fleet, the Golden Shower Fleet.
|
Sam:
[1:29:22]
| Bring back the battleship.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:24]
| Bring back the battleship, yes. It's going to be, I think he said, a thousand times more powerful than any other ship. A thousand times.
|
Sam:
[1:29:35]
| And it'll be a 6,000% reduction as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:40]
| Yes, there will be a 6,000% reduction in cost, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:29:44]
| Yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:45]
| And with a thousand times more power. Numbers are amazing.
|
Sam:
[1:29:50]
| Okay, I think we're running out of steam here. Should we wrap it up?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:53]
| We're out of steam. Yeah, let's...
|
Sam:
[1:29:55]
| Oh, will the Golden Fleet be steam-powered? Because we can't trust all that modern, newfangled, like, diesel or nuclear or whatever. It should be steam.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:07]
| It's coal and steam. It's going to be all coal-powered. Coal-powered.
|
Sam:
[1:30:11]
| Clean coal. Clean coal.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:12]
| Yeah, clean coal. we're going to have we're going to use illegal immigrants to go and like you know be shoveling the coal into the furnaces no.
|
Sam:
[1:30:20]
| No no no we have to go back farther.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:23]
| Slaves ores oh the ores slaves with ores slaves with ores yes yes yes unlimited power yes.
|
Sam:
[1:30:33]
| Unlimited okay let's wrap this up oh I should before before I do the standard rappy-up-y-up-y stuff. Next week will most definitely be the 2026 Predictions show. We have...
|
Ivan:
[1:30:56]
| We have things.
|
Sam:
[1:30:57]
| Okay. So we have the thing, the tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:06]
| Yeah, and post it on the Slack. I thought you had posted it on the Slack for some reason, but yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:31:12]
| No, no. I had only mentioned it on the show. Somebody on the Slack asked for it. You asked for it. So I posted it twice on the Slack as well. I will mention I just opened it up. We do have input from somebody. The other, we do have some things that are added onto there by my son. My son is the only one who has added things for us to predict. So far, he has added, in economy numeric, he has added, will one plus one equals two?
|
Ivan:
[1:31:43]
| Whoa! Good question.
|
Sam:
[1:31:47]
| In hodgepodge medical, he has added, will Yvonne die? So, very nice of him.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:55]
| Nice of him to be so concerned with my health.
|
Sam:
[1:31:59]
| In HodgePodge Sports slash Abelsmay, he has added, will Abelsmay become an athlete? And there are a couple others. Excellent.
|
Sam:
[1:32:11]
| Anyway, everybody, look, you got one week. We are recording on the 31st. So get your stuff in by like the 30th, okay? Like we're recording earlier in the day on the 31st. So get your stuff in. I will start adding my own stuff to this list probably on the 30th. but go there for suggestions for us to do predictions of tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026 add in your suggestions we will prioritize anything that we have been asked to predict over other stuff and i will just fill in the blanks with our own ideas of things similar to what we've done in previous years if you know if they're not enough and of course yvonne feel free to add your own as well. And, but yes, we would prefer to be predicting all things that people have asked us to predict. So get in there, do this. Okay. With that said, curmudgeons-corner.com, go there for our archives, go there for all the ways to contact us, go there for transcripts, go there to buy mugs, go there for.
|
Sam:
[1:33:33]
| You know, to have fun. You'll listen to all our old shows. You know, there's no better way to spend a relaxing Saturday afternoon than picking, say, you know, 2003. And just checking out what we had to say in 2003. Right? Did we start in 2000? We started in 2007, didn't we?
|
Ivan:
[1:34:01]
| 2007, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:34:03]
| So don't look at 2003. That won't work.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:05]
| Yeah, that would be, that won't work.
|
Sam:
[1:34:07]
| But, you know, pick a random year, 2012. Let's say 2012. See what we were talking about in 2012. Pick a random episode from a random month in 2012. See how it was. Give us your feedback on that. And, of course, you can go to our Patreon and give us money at various levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug. And, importantly, for $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, We will invite you to the Cummudgeons Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and all sorts of others are hanging out throughout the week, sharing links, chatting, all that sort of stuff. So, Yvonne, what's a highlight from the Slack that we have not talked about on the show?
|
Ivan:
[1:34:51]
| I got I got I got three tidbits. One was back in 1982. Neiman Marcus used to send out this catalog once a year for Christmas that they always had some kind of like outrageous, expensive item that was like available that year for sale. OK, and, you know, it was like this this super special expensive car or something in 1982. They had this recliner pod, OK, that looked like you were sitting in some kind of spaceship, OK, from like some 1980s, 70s sci-fi movie. And in it, you had like a TV, a phone thing, all these flashing lights and rotated electrically and rotated $32,000. Okay. For your nice little rotating pod where you could like basically just get in there and like feel like you're in some kind of space capsule. Okay. So that was like, I thought that was pretty cool. It could be actually, if you look at the video on the link, I mean, actually with some updates, it would be kind of cool to be sitting on right now. You know, if you can get one. The second one.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:02]
| Rescued owl was too fat to fly, Suffolk Century says. An owl rescued from a ditch and thought to be injured was in fact just too fat to fly, a bird rescue center has said. I had never seen this in my life, where a bird managed to get themselves too fat to fly. That's a new one, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:36:29]
| Well, that's kind of what happens to all ostriches.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:32]
| It does? Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:36:35]
| All right.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:35]
| But I never saw that with an owl.
|
Sam:
[1:36:37]
| I guess, though, with an ostrich, even when they're little, they can't fly.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:42]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:36:42]
| They just never fly.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:43]
| There are some birds like, well, you know, like turkeys. As WKRP.
|
Sam:
[1:36:47]
| Turkeys can fly.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:48]
| Apparently not.
|
Sam:
[1:36:49]
| As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:53]
| Yes. That is what happened. And if you need to go back, review the WKRP in Cincinnati episode related to this. Okay. All right. And the next.
|
Sam:
[1:37:02]
| Apparently, turkeys actually can fly a little bit, just like chickens can.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:07]
| They're just not good for it. Not when dropped from a helicopter.
|
Sam:
[1:37:09]
| Well, that's a whole different story. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:11]
| Right. Okay. And the last one. Back in the day. And actually, you can still get this service for iPods. You know, when you order an iPod, you can get it engraved. I don't know if you can get the iPhones still engraved. I know that I got some engraving on the iPad for my wife, and I got them on the AirPods. But apparently some guy was trying to order an iPod, and so they asked for the engraving. And he didn't want the engraving, okay? But he didn't understand how the box worked. So he ordered the iPod and in the back and said, no thanks. I don't want my iPod engraved.
|
Sam:
[1:37:53]
| Very good.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:54]
| Yes, So, yeah, that was, you know, that's an interesting way to get your iPod engraved. No thanks. You know, I don't want my iPod engraved.
|
Sam:
[1:38:08]
| I think very early on, like I had a couple of my Apple devices engraved like that. But then I just realized through experience that eventually I'm going to have an issue with that item and I'm going to take it in under AppleCare. and they're going to swap it out with the refurbished one anyway. And the refurbished one isn't going to have my engraving.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:31]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:38:31]
| So what's the point? Maybe, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:38:34]
| Well, I got my wife's like a little... Well, one thing is that it was useful. And actually, I have my wife's iPad Pro here. Let's see. Did I get it engrained? I think so. Of course, it's got the case on. You can't.
|
Sam:
[1:38:50]
| There's another reason.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:52]
| Yeah, there it is. I put her initials in the back. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:38:56]
| I think I'd put like, you know, my email address or something if it was lost or I don't remember what I put like.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:05]
| For example, for the AirPods, kind of like, you know, because we have both AirPods, so I could tell which one is which.
|
Sam:
[1:39:11]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:13]
| So anyway, interesting. It would have been more fun, I guess, if I had said, no, thanks. I don't want... I'd have been great. And last but not least...
|
Sam:
[1:39:24]
| Those forums can be confusing. And last but not least.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:28]
| A do-not-miss television extravaganza tonight at 8 o'clock. The Trump-Kennedy Center Honors will be broadcast tonight on CBS at 8 p.m. and Trump will be the masters of ceremony. I think the one thing that we don't get, unfortunately, is that this isn't live. Because I guess with quite a lot of heavy editing, this will not have Trump looking like a complete idiot. But if he tried to do this live, this probably would have turned into the most amazing fiasco in television history. And God only knows.
|
Sam:
[1:40:09]
| It's not.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:10]
| Going to be a disaster.
|
Sam:
[1:40:10]
| Is there an audience though it's it's like a live event though yeah so but they'll edit it for television yes but but if it's a disaster you'll hear from some of the people who are physically there you'll i'm sure well.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:25]
| It depends who got invited i mean.
|
Sam:
[1:40:27]
| Well that's true it's probably a very select audience yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:31]
| I mean i imagine it was extremely select now you know So this is another thing that, you know, like the stupid story on 60 Minutes. I mean, I don't think I've ever watched a Kennedy Center Honors. Have you?
|
Sam:
[1:40:51]
| Yeah, I don't think I have either. No, no, I don't. I'm pretty sure not.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:56]
| It's one of these shows that I'm just like, who the fuck watches this?
|
Sam:
[1:41:00]
| There are people who are fans of this type of show.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:03]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I just don't just, you know, like me, my family. We don't. I don't. I'm trying to figure out what the audience is because I don't think that I have, like I know or my friends, any of us which watch a show like this. I'm trying to figure out who the heck the audience is. Is it people that are still stuck in TVs from the, TV, like the 1960s. And they're like, they're going to watch whatever CBS puts on.
|
Sam:
[1:41:33]
| There's a lot of that, but there's, you know, these kinds of shows were much bigger, you know, in Trump's heyday.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:43]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:41:43]
| Like if you go back to the seventies and eighties and stuff like this kind of show was a popular kind of show and people like.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:50]
| There was only three channels to watch. I mean, you know, and somebody put. this on for like two hours. Yeah. I mean, what the fuck else? It was an event. I mean, what else are you going to do?
|
Sam:
[1:41:59]
| You know, and no, and I was about to say, you know, attendance at the Kennedy Center has apparently dropped like a rock since Trump did his hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center board.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:15]
| Oh, let me get this straight. So, so MAGA folks aren't really patrons of the arts.
|
Sam:
[1:42:23]
| Hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:25]
| Who could have guessed?
|
Sam:
[1:42:27]
| And all of the non-MAGA folks are like, there's no way we're participating in this.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:34]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:42:35]
| Yo, they killed our thing. And this is one of the ongoing permanent or semi-permanent damage of this Trump second administration. is how many things are just dying. You know, we're killing the Kennedy Center. We're killing CBS. We're killing CNN. We're killing, you know, we're killing the rule of law.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:05]
| Here, to be fair, on a number of things, okay, a number of these things had become less relevant over time, and like it just was mentioned.
|
Sam:
[1:43:13]
| Yes, yes. These are things that he is— They were due for killing. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:22]
| But, you know, the one thing is that because a show like the Kennedy Center Honors, I'm guessing that's the only reason he wanted to take over this in order to be able to take control of the show. It seems like that is very clearly the case, because I'm sure that, you know, the regular plays and things and other stuff that's going on, that never interested him anyway. You know, so, so yeah, it seems this was like the goal, but like, as one of the Kennedy said, and I, I was in wholehearted agreement is like, they can't wait until Trump's out of office and that they will climb up on a ladder and fucking rip his stupid name off of there. And there will be a certain level of satisfaction, by the way, to be a, you know, the fact that he's doing this with so many things, I will take great pleasure. And getting all this shit renamed again without his fucking name.
|
Sam:
[1:44:21]
| Well, I heard one person commenting on this this week, basically saying, Donald Trump, does he not realize that he is handing a big PR thing to whoever comes next?
|
Ivan:
[1:44:36]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:44:36]
| Where they have the ceremonial, like, restoration of things to how they were. Right. Like, all that gold shit in the Oval Office.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:47]
| Ripped off immediately.
|
Sam:
[1:44:50]
| Immediately. Gone.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:51]
| I mean, unfortunately— All those plaques disparaging the president's gone. Unfortunately, they can't— I'll fucking make sure that, you know, what we have is a picture of a fucking orange instead of him in the White House, okay, for a few years.
|
Sam:
[1:45:06]
| Years now unfortunately they can't just bring back the east wing now so someone someone the other day was talking about like some movie and on fox news there was a conversation about some movie and whether donald trump had watched it or not and somebody asked is there a movie theater in the white house and of course the answer is there was there was it was in the east wing It's gone now.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:31]
| It's gone.
|
Sam:
[1:45:32]
| You know, but all of these things, it's just like... Some things will be easily restored, like taking Trump's name off the Kennedy Center will happen nearly instantly.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:47]
| Repainting Air Force One. By the way, I think that at this point, you do realize that right now they went and they bought two more 747-8s used from Lufthansa. Okay. All right. To add to the fleet, aside from the Qatari plane that we've got and the two that we're building. So right now we have five 7478s being tried to convert into Air Force One. And I'm going to bet you my bottom dollar.
|
Sam:
[1:46:16]
| Not a single one is ready before he leaves.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:19]
| Exactly right.
|
Sam:
[1:46:20]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:21]
| He will never get to fly on him.
|
Sam:
[1:46:23]
| I will also bet you that the ballroom ain't done by the time he leaves either.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:29]
| That's right. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:46:31]
| You know, maybe they'll have some sort of ceremonial groundbreaking, but they're not going to.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:37]
| Like— They're not going to— It's not going to be done. It's not going to be done.
|
Sam:
[1:46:40]
| It's not going to be done. And, you know, and hopefully it's not too far along so it can be stopped. Right. And something reasonable put there instead. Like, you know, and people have talked about, like, you know, for the East Wing, apparently people have talked for a long time. You know, the building is out of date. There are things that could be updated. There are reasonable arguments for, in a controlled way, renovating and doing something different with that space. Knocking the whole damn thing down and building a jimongous ballroom ain't it.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:19]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:47:20]
| Now, people have said, you know, hey, what's stopping him from knocking down the rest of the White House? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:26]
| Well, I guess he won't have any place to stay.
|
Sam:
[1:47:32]
| He could do it all from Mar-a-Lago.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:34]
| Oh, God, please. No, I don't want him down here more than he is already.
|
Sam:
[1:47:39]
| Yeah, well, anyway, I think we're done here, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:44]
| We're done.
|
Sam:
[1:47:45]
| Thanks, everybody. Once again, go to tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026. Give us stuff to predict. We'll be recording that show at 1800 UTC on the 31st. So get your stuff in by the 30th. Okay? Okay? You got it? And we'll do our annual prediction show, which is often one of our longest shows of the year. So we'll have fun with that. And in the meantime, you know, I know we said it last time, but Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah. is Hanukkah still going on? I, I, I always forget dates. I'm sorry. I know it's in progress or was recently or something. Happy Festivus, happy Kwanzaa, happy solstice, happy whatever winter break thing you happen to be doing. Enjoy it all. Have a good time with family. And, you know, and before, you know, we'll record on the 31st, but it probably won't be out till the 1st. So Happy New Year, too, because this is probably the last time you'll hear from us before then.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:58]
| So anyway, Happy New Year. Merry Christmas.
|
Sam:
[1:49:03]
| Happy Hanukkah. Happy Holidays. Let's be forgot. I think I better just, like, start the music. Goodbye, everyone.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:20]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[1:49:52]
| 98.9. Fever hasn't spiked again yet. Now, last couple days it hasn't spiked till a few hours later than this in a day, so we'll see. Take some more meds. Okay, bye. Hitting stop.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:07]
| Bye.
| |
|
