Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Greetings. It is starting. Okay. There it goes. Ready? Go.
|
Ivan:
[0:12]
| Ready.
|
Sam:
[0:13]
| See. Okay. I'm just going to start here. It comes. Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner, first Saturday, April 18th, 2026. It is just after 17 UTC as we are starting to record. And let's see, I'm Sam Minter, and Yvonne Bow is here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:02]
| Are you Sam Minter?
|
Sam:
[1:04]
| Sort of. Sort of sometimes.
|
Ivan:
[1:06]
| You're not some sort of agentic AI Sam Minter or something?
|
Sam:
[1:11]
| If I was, would I tell you?
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Ivan:
[1:13]
| Probably not lie to me about it and then try to steal my money or something i don't know who knows.
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Sam:
[1:18]
| That that sounds like a good plan oh yeah i'll i'll work on that put.
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Ivan:
[1:25]
| That on your your work on that one okay.
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Sam:
[1:27]
| I'll yeah i'll i'll work on that and yeah i don't know i guess i'm sam i guess i'm sam today i i can work my way up to that as usual i have only recently woken up i am still half asleep. I'm like, I should go back to sleep. But in reality, like I'd woken up like, a while and just lay there in bed thinking I should try to sleep a little bit longer, but did not succeed in sleeping a little bit longer. I was awake. And then eventually I was just like, well, damn it, I guess I'll get up.
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Ivan:
[1:59]
| Yeah.
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Sam:
[2:01]
| So.
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Ivan:
[2:02]
| Well, and that happens. Okay. Yeah.
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Sam:
[2:05]
| Anyway, our usual, we'll do light and fluffy stuff for a little while in this first segment, and then we'll do newsy stuff later. I don't know. You got a light and fluffy to start us with before I do movies and stuff?
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Ivan:
[2:19]
| Do I have a light and fluffy, fluffy meme? You know, I mean, I'm a little bit fluffy.
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Sam:
[2:28]
| Of someone taking, like, a small fluffy dog and, like, tossing it because it didn't weigh very much. Like, just toss the dog.
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Ivan:
[2:37]
| Fluffy dog. You know, at least you're not cutting off the genitals of a dog for future research.
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Sam:
[2:45]
| Uh, no, no. And I don't believe that was a dog that was referred to this week.
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Ivan:
[2:51]
| Well, no, I'm just saying, well, I know it's a different animal, but what I'm saying is that you're not going and, like, just deciding to, you know, just cut the genitals off some random animal for you to study them later. It's not part of your usual, you know, part of your usual repertoire to go and, like, do that on a regular basis.
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Sam:
[3:15]
| Well, not that I've told you.
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Ivan:
[3:18]
| That's true. Not that you've told me.
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Sam:
[3:21]
| Yeah, I mean, but, you know, when you get that urge every once in a while, you see the roadkill by the side of the road and you're like.
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Ivan:
[3:30]
| Oh my God, I've got to stop and get the genitals.
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Sam:
[3:36]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[3:36]
| Yes.
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Sam:
[3:37]
| Yes. We are, of course, talking about RFK Jr., because who else would it be?
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Ivan:
[3:43]
| No, no. It's some other, you know, it's a normal thing, Sam. It could be anybody.
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Sam:
[3:50]
| You know, one of the things that's happened this last week is TMZ, the Hollywood gossip site, has sent a team of people to D.C. And they've been harassing various people.
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Ivan:
[4:07]
| They hadn't done this before.
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Sam:
[4:09]
| Yeah, so I guess they decided in the wake of the Swalwell stuff to, you know, hey, send some people around D.C. Apparently there's some juicy stuff going on there.
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Ivan:
[4:20]
| Well, I mean, listen, you got to think back to, you know, what's his name? Gary Hart, right? Come on, man. I mean, that's how they got him.
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Sam:
[4:28]
| Now, the thing is, so far, nothing really crazy has come out of TMZ's efforts there. However, the one thing they're doing is they're chasing down people in the halls of Congress in a way that the traditional beat reporters for Congress and the White House and other stuff do not do because they are worried about they're doing this sort of access reporting where they want to keep a friendly relationship with everybody, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. But TMZ, you know, is directly doing, I mean, I saw some stuff where they were going after Ted Cruz for something, they were going after several other people. But the one I specifically remember that's relevant here is they specifically were following RFK Jr. Out of something and says, sir, sir, sir, what is it with you and roadkill? Why are you like, you had the whale, you had the bear, you had the raccoon. What's up with that? Do you have anything to say, sir? You know, et cetera.
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Ivan:
[5:34]
| You know, here's a reality. In this current era, it looks like that may be the more effective way of finding out what the fuck is going on.
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Sam:
[5:45]
| Yeah, I mean, fundamentally, and, you know, I guess this is less light and fluffy. I mean, we are talking about, you know, raccoon parts and reporting and stuff like that. But look, the whole notion of the way journalism works is you get buddy-buddy with your suspects, with your subjects. Now right you get buddy buddy with your subjects yes these.
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Ivan:
[6:14]
| Are subs suspects at this point.
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Sam:
[6:16]
| Yeah but but you know the way that the way that it's been working for like generations now almost is that you know the the reporters in washington essentially make friends with the people that they're reporting on in order to get juicy leaks of stuff and but these leaks are not juicy in the investigative reporting sense. They're just feeding you what story they want out there. And, you know, it's all very... Is collegial and it's not as adversarial as you could potentially like it. I mean, there was that thing where, you know, the Pentagon tried to kick out a whole bunch of Pentagon reporters because they wouldn't agree to some very strict rules. And that's been in the courts and the reporters have been winning.
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Sam:
[7:05]
| But at the time I was like, you know, actually it probably wouldn't be all that bad for the Pentagon reporters to not be in the building, to not be attending the press conferences, you can watch the damn, if they want to come out and make a statement about something, they can release the video themselves. And then if there's something newsworthy, you can go there. And if you want to ask, if you want to try to get to the truth of what's there, the way that's going to happen is not going to be you asking a question at a press conference. It is not going to be, you know, the secretary of defense war, whatever. Giving you some off the record statement, like when you're talking to him in the halls, it's going to be you digging in and doing actual reporting and finding people who want to tell you the story behind the story, you know, and, and.
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Sam:
[8:03]
| You know, cause the whole, I don't know, like this kind of reporting. There should be a default assumption that you can't trust anything unless you've got double, triple, independent confirmation. So not just like three people from the administration told me, you know, and, you know, go find the facts on the ground. You know, if somebody tells you that, you know, we're doing X, Y, Z, go find the low level schlub who's actually implementing it and find some confirmation, you know, etc. And I think there's, We've gotten very far away from that in most cases. There are, of course, exceptions.
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Ivan:
[8:45]
| There are exceptions, too.
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Sam:
[8:47]
| There are exceptions to that rule. And, you know, but honestly, that kind of reporting is expensive. You know, it requires making enemies, potentially, because you're revealing stuff that people don't want. You know, and the lawyers have to be involved and blah, blah, blah. And it's just messy. And so fewer people are doing that kind of stuff. I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. And certainly if a reporter, even one of the big mainstream reporters who's 100% operating in the mode that I said, if they find something really big, they're still going to report it. There's just a cost-benefit ratio of what they're going to spend time on and what they don't. I don't know. It's just—this has been a complaint for decades, so it's not like anything's significantly changed. But the thing with TMZ is they're coming in there, and they're like, we've never done DC before. We don't give a fuck. We're going to go out there, and we're going to bash some heads, and we've done it in Hollywood for a while. We're going to do it in DC now. And what's the worst case scenario they like they won't talk to us oh well they're, you know so i don't know.
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Ivan:
[10:03]
| Look the only light and fluffy thing i was going to mention outside of talking about uh cutting off genitalia is you know with you know what's been in the news about my work i'm not gonna mention my company but they uh well they had to look one of the things i'm in sales so there were a lot of deals that were uh that were being worked on by people who are no longer the company yeah so so we're having to work those but but i i will say that i was pleasantly surprised to find out that uh originally i i thought you know look you just got to work them and just help and i'm like look i'll listen regardless of what company i've been in my boss You know, I usually have a good, I've always had, I realized I've had a good relationship with my managers for the most part. It is the exception that I've had a poor relationship with my managers. Okay. For most part, I've had a good relationship. So if they're asking me, hey, help me out with this. I'm like, yeah, sure. No problem. You know, I don't have a problem with that. You know. But but they they said that we're gonna get paid for those deals which i didn't expect which.
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Ivan:
[11:23]
| I mean i i it makes sense but i'm i'm happy about it i i can't complain you know even though it is a it is a lot of work.
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Ivan:
[11:35]
| To do all this stuff but you know that was one thing well i'm just realizing that i think i did share something about this in the slack uh you know i have a lot of good friends that are not from work okay but i'm also i i i'm always baffled these people you are never make no friends with all the people at work are not your friends none of them are your for blah blah blah i'm like man some of my best friends are people that i met at work 20 30 years ago i don't know what the fuck these people are talking about and i and honestly i i have come to the conclusion that most of those people that say that really loudly are actually assholes and would be assholes in any setting because they would treat anybody in any group setting or whatever, you know, in a, in a really shitty way.
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Sam:
[12:37]
| So what you're saying is it's once again, projection. It's people talking about themselves. You know, I I've heard what you've said less often. The phrase I usually hear is that your actual employer is not your friend, you know?
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Ivan:
[12:53]
| Oh no, no, no. I've heard flat out a lot of people saying that none of the people at work are your friends. But by the way, the whole thing about a company not being family, family or not family. Let me tell you something. Have you seen how dysfunctional most families are? I mean, give me a break. Yes, a company is like a fucking family. You've got the drunk idiots. You've got the cousins that screw you over. You've got the fights, backstabbing. backstabbing people. Families are not the Hollywood ideal. Families are like what I had to do once when I had to fire my brother because unfortunately he was taking money from the company.
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Sam:
[13:41]
| Right. Yeah.
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Ivan:
[13:43]
| So, yeah, as a matter of fact, work does actually share a lot of things with family. But, you know, people need to stop using the word family. It's like, oh, whatever, man. And how many people keep talking about the crazy family reunions that they have with their drunk uncle, with their MAGA parents that they can't stand, blah, blah. People. Yeah. You know what? I'll say it. Yes. Companies are like families. It's like the normal American family, which is a dysfunctional mess in most cases. And that's what we carry over to work.
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Sam:
[14:25]
| That's lovely. it's a cool sentiment.
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Ivan:
[14:29]
| Very leaves.
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Sam:
[14:31]
| Me all warm and fuzzy inside both about families and companies and everything.
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Ivan:
[14:38]
| Think about you know the the uh you know i've met the you know the crazy parents that don't let the kids do anything you know and never listen to them talk that's exactly like a lot of managers are if you think about it okay they won't listen to anything that they say. Everything is all these bullshit orders. You're like being told like nonsense. You're not allowed to speak up. Sounds pretty much like a lot of managers. I have seen a no.
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Sam:
[15:06]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[15:08]
| But yeah, but no, I have heard from so many people that, you know, you never, all those people from work are never friends. And let me tell you something, I've been at companies where I, you know, at some workplaces and like not most, where most of the people like I, you know, when I left that group didn't speak to me again afterwards. Awards okay all right in some groups but then there are other places like when i worked at hb for a long time where you know we're all like i mean we haven't you know we've been gone for so long and we all still talk all the time you know okay i mean all of us i mean regularly when somebody died like recently uh somebody that worked with us died we're all like sharing about it and talking about it and you know a lot of the a lot of them i unfortunately wasn't possible to to go to that the the memorial service room but i would have if i would have been if i would have been here i would i would have gone to the memorial service but it happened when i was traveling so okay.
|
Sam:
[16:14]
| Well i'll tell you just in terms of like former workplaces you know and and yeah this Robin letter thing I've been doing. I have one that I made for the place I worked with, 20-plus years ago when I worked at Merrill Lynch, okay?
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Ivan:
[16:31]
| Oh, okay.
|
Sam:
[16:32]
| I have, you know, a Robin made for them that currently has, let's see, 18 people have joined so far.
|
Ivan:
[16:41]
| Cool.
|
Sam:
[16:42]
| And something like, and most of them, the vast majority have done meaningful updates and added them, okay?
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Ivan:
[16:51]
| Cool.
|
Sam:
[16:51]
| I, in contrast, I made one, well, I'll call it Amazon people for the moment, but then I'll add some caveats why it's a little bit different. But I made an Amazon one also has like 18 people on it.
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Ivan:
[17:13]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[17:14]
| But so far, including myself, only four people have done meaningless updates, meaningful updates. OK, and then I have like one week timeouts on this one, two, three, four, five, six, six people have timed out without doing any updates.
|
Ivan:
[17:37]
| Updates yet happens like.
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Sam:
[17:38]
| They just they they they.
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Ivan:
[17:40]
| Accepted the invite but then didn't when they it was their turn they didn't update i will say something that we've got to do so you know the one thing about not having an app and like reminders and notifications i know it it does get a little bit tricky we're even like you.
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Sam:
[17:57]
| Have to see the email.
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Ivan:
[17:57]
| Yeah and people.
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Sam:
[17:59]
| Don't do email the way they used to.
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Ivan:
[18:00]
| Yeah i know i know i know.
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Sam:
[18:02]
| It it is it is on the damn list it's just i i recognize that's a relatively complicated step to jump over. So I'm not trying to hit it too soon. But here's the other thing on that. The difference, I think, part of it may just be, you know, First of all, I will say that the one for Amazon, I actually diluted a little bit because I wanted to include some other Seattle area people that weren't strictly Amazon. OK, so animal you. I know. So there are like some people in it who aren't Amazon. Also, I was at Merrill Lynch about eight years. I was at Amazon about 20.
|
Ivan:
[18:45]
| How was it that long? Merrill? Fuck.
|
Sam:
[18:48]
| Yeah, something like that.
|
Ivan:
[18:49]
| Damn.
|
Sam:
[18:50]
| Um, you know, and, and the thing is the people, when I was at Merrill, there was turnover, but there was also a lot of continuity. So like, even people sort of towards the end of my Amazon stay knew some of the people from the beginning and whatever. So the ratio was high, but on Amazon, the people I worked with at the beginning of the 20 years have no overlap whatsoever with the people at the end of the 20 years. Well very little and and then certainly none with the people outside of amazon that i brought into this and made it a seattle area thing instead so the difference is like they they get in there and they're like i don't know these people why do i want to share with them whereas the merrill one even though it's spanned eight years most of the people would know a significant fraction of the other people on there but but anyway i i was now that i've explained the reasons why there might be timing out i i it it's not as good as a joke because my point of the i was trying to make a joke that the merrill folks were all chummy and good and participated and shared all kinds of information and we're being personal and we're like friends whereas the amazon people are like What the hell is this? I'm not going to...
|
Ivan:
[20:08]
| I don't... You know, let me tell you something.
|
Sam:
[20:10]
| With a few exceptions.
|
Ivan:
[20:10]
| I, you know, I do think that there has been some change in the workplace dynamic. And I think it also has to do a lot with... Working in person or remote work i mean you're more likely to make friends with people at the if you're going to the office you're going having lunch with them and hanging out and coffee or whatever then then if you're doing it remotely it doesn't i'm not.
|
Sam:
[20:36]
| Saying you can't do it.
|
Ivan:
[20:37]
| But it's more likely to do.
|
Sam:
[20:39]
| And i know most of my most of my amazon time was in person but like here here's the thing i i think there's other differences in that one of which i and i'll speak for myself here this may not apply to you because you you operate a bit differently than i do but like frankly i was at a different stage in my life when i was in my 20s you know i did not have a family at home and so like i was you know i i would hang out with people from work after work they work day would be over and they'd be like well that's true and i was you want to go out I totally agree.
|
Ivan:
[21:17]
| I mean, that was a big thing because when I was younger, too, when I was at HP, and I think that that was an influence, I'm like, yeah, I was younger. I'm like, whatever, whatnot. I'm like, yeah, come on, let's go out, whatever. We would hang out, you know, all the time.
|
Sam:
[21:29]
| And I must say, I never did that at Amazon because by the time I was at Amazon, I had a family. I was like, no, dude, I got to get home. I got a wife and kids. You know, and later wife and kids.
|
Ivan:
[21:43]
| Kids.
|
Sam:
[21:44]
| And I've got stuff. I've got obligations. I've got things to do. And, you know, and I never, you know, I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy, you know, I was going to say I didn't really like doing that stuff anyway. But that's not true. When I did it at Merrill, you know, I had to be dragged out to it. It was never something I like picked.
|
Ivan:
[22:06]
| But you wound up having fun in the end. It wasn't like your natural instinct, but you wound up having fun.
|
Sam:
[22:11]
| Yes. I would say so. And, you know, people, you know, but I never. Yeah. Like, but and again, that may be a time of life thing like as well.
|
Ivan:
[22:23]
| No, I do agree. I mean, it does make a big difference. Yes. I mean, yeah, because, you know, you know, like it was like when I when I was like younger and like say one, I worked retail and she worked late. Right. Many times. And I'm like, I would get out of the office at five or six. She wouldn't get home until one in the morning. I'm like, guys, you're saying, hey, come on, let's go. Let's go do something. I'm like, sure, let's go. The heck? I got nothing better. You know, I'm not going home to anybody right now. Let's go.
|
Sam:
[22:50]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[22:50]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[22:52]
| No, so I don't know. I mean, some of it may be company culture. Some of it may be time of life. Some of it may be work from home, like versus in person. Like you said, there are a whole bunch of factors, but, but yeah, like, I don't know. You know, but yeah, like I've been hearing from the people I worked with at Merrill Lynch, all kinds of updates on people's lives on this, on Robin Letter. And it's been cool. Like, I mean, some of these people I hadn't heard from in 20 years.
|
Ivan:
[23:22]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[23:23]
| Yeah, more than 20 years at this point. And it's like, oh, okay, that's what they've been up to. That's cool.
|
Ivan:
[23:29]
| Yeah, you know.
|
Sam:
[23:31]
| Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[23:31]
| All right. So let's go to your movies, Sam.
|
Sam:
[23:34]
| Movies. Movies. Are we going to do movies? Yay! Movies. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[23:42]
| I got two movies. I'm imitating a William Shatner clap from a movie. Now you got to find.
|
Sam:
[23:49]
| Okay. Yeah, yeah. William Shatner clap. Okay, well, tell me the movie so I can add it to my stupid thing.
|
Ivan:
[23:59]
| God, now I got it. I think it was from Dodgeball.
|
Sam:
[24:02]
| Dodgeball. Okay. Dodgeball movie. You know, now you're going to make me watch this stupid dodgeball movie.
|
Ivan:
[24:11]
| It's a funny movie.
|
Sam:
[24:13]
| Sure. Dodgeball, a true underdog story?
|
Ivan:
[24:17]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[24:18]
| Okay. I've added 2004 sports comedy movie. Now, of course, this is added to my list of thousands, so who knows if I'll ever see it. But, you know, anyway, the first thing on my list, I think is, may have some commonalities with the Dodgeball movie. This is the movie Spy from 2015.
|
Ivan:
[24:41]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[24:42]
| Have you heard of it?
|
Ivan:
[24:43]
| No. Well, I am...
|
Sam:
[24:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[24:46]
| I don't recall this movie.
|
Sam:
[24:50]
| Okay. So here's what it is. Dodgeball is, you know, I've only read the first sentence of the Wikipedia description of Dodgeball, but it's a sports comedy movie, whatever, which makes me feel like it's a spoof of more serious sports movies. And just, you know, whatever. Anyway, Spy is a spy action comedy film. Which basically is a spoof on spy movies. So like, you know, you've got your James Bond movies, you've got your, what's the Bourne ones, you've got whatever. There are a whole bunch, you know, it's a whole genre. They're spy movies, right? And so this is basically a take-up on those, okay? It's got Melissa McCarthy as the star in it and a bunch of other people. uh.
|
Sam:
[25:47]
| So, let me read the first couple paragraphs of the plot, as I usually do. Susan Cooper is a desk-bound CIA employee who remotely assists her partner, field agent Bradley Fine, on his missions. Fine accidentally kills arms dealer Theomar Boyanov before Boyanov can tell Fine where a suitcase nuke is hidden.
|
Sam:
[26:11]
| Susan discovers Boinov's daughter, Reyna, has contracted terrorist middleman Sergio DeLuca, so Fein infiltrates her home. She reveals she knows the identities of the agency's field agents, including Rick Ford and Karen Walker. Reyna then shoots Fein, apparently fatally. Since Susan is an agent but has never been in the field and is therefore unknown to Reyna, she volunteers to track Reyna herself. When Susan's boss, Elaine Crocker, reluctantly agrees, Ford objects due to Susan's inexperience and quits in protest. And then basically this dustbound CIA agent ends up going out in the field and executing this mission, encountering all kinds of things. And you get, you get like takes on all of the standard tropes. You've got car chases. You've got like, you know, hidden weapons. You've got like the brief, the, you know, the things that like Q gives James Bond, these gadgets and stuff like that. You've got equivalents to all of these, but it's a comedy. And it's also like one of these over the top comedies where it's not like this is really subtle humor all the way through. There's like gags like all the time. And, you know, bottom line, it actually got some good reviews and stuff. It made some money. But I'm going to give it a thumb sideways.
|
Ivan:
[27:39]
| I was going to say this doesn't sound like your kind of movie.
|
Sam:
[27:43]
| Exactly. Like, I can recognize that, I mean, I didn't hate it. But it's just not my kind of movie, like you said. It's, like, not my kind of comedy. You know, there are the physical gags. There's, like, you know, there's some gross-out humor. There's some sex humor. There's whatever. And, you know, it's just, like, I don't know. Maybe it's just a little too unsubtle for me. Like it is it's just like it clearly organized as we're gonna have a gag then we're gonna have another gag then we're gonna have a joke then we're gonna have another gag then we're gonna have a you know and you know it was fine for what it was and you know i i'm looking it it was nominated for a whole bunch of best comedy kind of things it it it didn't win them i don't think but it was nominated for a bunch. And, you know, Melissa McCarthy can be funny, but, you know, again, this was sort of, it was too over the top for me. But, you know, it was fine. It is what it was.
|
Ivan:
[28:56]
| But you didn't hate it.
|
Sam:
[28:57]
| I didn't hate it. And if you like this kind of movie, you will probably enjoy it.
|
Ivan:
[29:05]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[29:05]
| Like, you know, so, I don't know, you might enjoy it, Yvonne, I don't know, but it's uh it's just not my my kind of thing i would say but you know it was fine it was fine you know whatever that's it that's all i got on this one any thoughts yvonne before i move on no.
|
Ivan:
[29:23]
| No no i i just think you know it's it sounds like it's probably a good comedy it's just like i just when i heard you describe it i was pretty confident that this is just not your kind of movie.
|
Sam:
[29:34]
| Right. And you are correct. And I don't dislike all comedies.
|
Ivan:
[29:38]
| No, no, no. I like some comedies.
|
Sam:
[29:40]
| Just not this kind.
|
Ivan:
[29:41]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[29:42]
| Not this kind. Yeah. Okay. Next up. Oh, and I should have brought up the stupid. Hold on. Hold on. I got to bring up. There we go. There we go. Number four in the 1998 AFI 100 Years 100 Movies list.
|
Ivan:
[30:02]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[30:03]
| Gone with the Wind from 1939.
|
Ivan:
[30:06]
| You know that I have no idea if I've ever watched this movie you.
|
Sam:
[30:10]
| Know it used to come on TV every year like.
|
Ivan:
[30:13]
| Back when we were kids so it's possible that I didn't which is a reason why I can't you know like I know I have not watched Spy, But I cannot for certain say that I have not watched Gone with the Wind. I'm just not sure. Now, if I didn't watch it, it's been so long, I don't remember. I barely remember it.
|
Sam:
[30:35]
| Well, the other thing with that is I know before I sat down to watch it this time, I had most certainly seen extensive bits of Gone with the Wind. Because as I said, it came on TV all the time. But, you know, it is 221 minutes, 238, including the overture, intermission, and all that kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[31:02]
| Nice.
|
Sam:
[31:03]
| Okay? And so, wait, what's the quick math? 2, 2, 1, divided by 60. That is over three and a half hours long. Okay? That is a long freaking movie. and you know and if i was watching on tv with commercials i mean with with everything yeah i mean yeah like you know i imagine my previous attempts to watch this were basically flipping channels back when flipping channels was what you did stumbling across it in the middle right watching part of it and then getting up and not seeing the rest well yeah it's a long movie I mean and I know I know I'd seen the very end of it it's got a classic ending that is famous I know I'd seen various parts in the middle, I'd seen you know there were send ups of part of it you know that I've seen like there was a very famous Carol Burnett skit that made fun of one of the scenes in this movie Okay.
|
Sam:
[32:13]
| You know, things like that. But I am not sure. I imagine I'd probably seen the whole thing at least once before. But I, like you, I couldn't tell you for sure. This time, watched the whole thing. We did not watch it in one sitting. Again, one of the advantages of the modern way of doing things, you're not just shackled to whatever is being broadcast on CBS that day or something. But anyway, I think most everybody knows basically what it is. It's a historical romance set in the Civil War from the point of view of people in the South. I'll read the first couple of paragraphs from the Wikipedia plot description again, and then I'll talk a little bit about it.
|
Sam:
[33:03]
| In 1861, on the eve of the American Civil War, Scarlett O'Hara lives at Tara, her family's cotton plantation in Georgia. With her parents, two sisters, and their black slaves. Scarlett is deeply attracted to Ashley Wilkes and learns he is to be married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. At an engagement party the next day at Ashley's home, 12 Oaks, a nearby plantation, Scarlett makes an advance on Ashley but is rebuffed. However, she catches the attention of another guest, Rhett Butler. The party is disrupted by news of President Lincoln's call for volunteers to fight the South. In response, the Southern men rush to enlist. Scarlett marries Melanie's younger brother, Charles, to arouse jealousy in Ashley before he leaves to fight.
|
Sam:
[33:53]
| Following Charles' death while serving in the Confederate Army, Scarlett's mother sends her to the Hamilton home in Atlanta. She creates a scene by attending a charity bazaar in mourning attire and waltzing with Rhett, now a blockade runner for the Confederacy. The tide of war turns against the Confederacy after the Battle of Gettysburg. Many of the men of Scarlett's town are killed. Eight months later, as the Union army besieges the city in the Atlanta campaign, Melanie gives birth with Scarlett's aide, and Rhett helps them flee the city. Rhett chooses to go off to fight, leaving Scarlett to make her own way back to Tara. She finds Tara deserted, except for her father, sisters, and former slaves Mammy and Pork. Work scarlet learns that her mother has just died of typhoid fever and her father has lost his mind with tara pillaged by union troops and their fields untended scarlet vows to ensure her and her family's survival dot dot dot that's probably the first like hour and a half of the movie and then there's a lot more basically there's scarlet likes the one guy and then she likes the other guy, and she marries the other guy to make the other guy jealous, and then there, you know, all this stuff. And then Rhett Butler, who's played by Clark Gable.
|
Sam:
[35:15]
| You know, is in and out and is like the one that you always think that Scarlet should be with, it would make the most sense. At some point, you know, they are together for a little while. And then and throughout this whole thing is the south getting destroyed by the north as the north wins the civil war you know it's yeah it's gotten modern day some of the criticism is the sort of, And revering the South in the Civil War and being sort of like the sort of lost cause narrative of it being such a tragedy that the South was destroyed and the destruction of that culture and all that kind of stuff. And sort of a look how wonderful it was when they had their plantations and their slaves and all that kind of stuff. And the North just destroyed it.
|
Sam:
[36:14]
| But you know having said that and put that out there i mean it's it's a grand spectacle this is like the you know the whole thing is is and we talked about this a few weeks ago with like they don't make movies like this anymore like where their crowd seems that actually have you know hundreds of extras doing battles and doing their things and all this kind of stuff you know these days it would all be cgi here we've got real sets we've got real people we've got like you know things that are on location things that are you know recorded they're recorded in a studio but with well-built sets that you know are convincing and all this kind of stuff and you know i i i do have to give it a thumbs up i mean it's it's long if if i had to redo this to you know Does it have to be nearly four hours? No. You could probably put an editor on this thing and get it down to two and get most of the main point. But the fact that it is so long and so grand is part of the point of it. It's sort of big and sweeping and goes through years of action. And of course it was, it was, it was built, you know, based on a novel.
|
Sam:
[37:32]
| An earlier novel, but thumbs up. I like it. It is a bit long and, and, you know, the, the, the, the very end is classic spoilers for anybody, you know, Scarlet is amazing. Tara and, and Rhett Butler visits and, you know, he's decided to go off and leave. And she's like, but what will I do? And he's like, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn and walks out. And that's the end of the movie.
|
Sam:
[38:07]
| But yeah, I guess it, it deserves it. It did want a bunch of things. It won, it won like dozens of Academy Award, not dozens. One outstanding production, best director, best actress, best screenplay, best supporting actress, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All kinds of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[38:34]
| Thumbs up.
|
Sam:
[38:34]
| You weren't sure you've seen the whole thing. Any thoughts?
|
Ivan:
[38:37]
| I'm pretty sure I haven't. Based on the description you gave me.
|
Sam:
[38:41]
| Yeah. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[38:42]
| So I can't. I have no good opinion on this movie.
|
Sam:
[38:49]
| You know, and I will say, if you have not seen it, it is probably worth at least once taking the time to see it. I mean, it is clearly an old-fashioned movie. You know, in 1939, okay, this thing is not... you know what almost 90 years old.
|
Ivan:
[39:06]
| It's not new.
|
Sam:
[39:07]
| It's not new it is does not have modern pacing it you know whatever but it it's uh it's a good movie it's a it's a good movie so okay that's all i got okay.
|
Ivan:
[39:22]
| Well then i guess we're moving on to.
|
Sam:
[39:26]
| Next week next week yeah the two movies will be cars from 2006 i know you've seen that yeah.
|
Ivan:
[39:35]
| I've seen that.
|
Sam:
[39:35]
| Okay and then another movie that you can probably from our discussion earlier today guess my opinion of from 1983 national lampoon's vacation oh.
|
Ivan:
[39:48]
| My god okay i've watched both of those.
|
Sam:
[39:51]
| Okay, Can you guess my opinion of vacation?
|
Ivan:
[39:56]
| I'm going to guess it's a thumbs down.
|
Sam:
[40:02]
| You'll have to wait for next week to find out. Anyway, let's take a break and we will be back and we'll talk about actual news. But first, and this actually does relate to actual news. The first break will be a popular wiki of the day that involves someone who was in the news this week. okay so here goes.
|
Break:
[40:25]
| To do do hello this is standard kimberly I'm here to let you know about sam the curmudgeon's other podcasts the wiki of the day podcasts wiki of the day comes in three varieties popular random and featured each highlights a new wikipedia article each day they just pick the articles differently this week on popular wiki of the day you would have heard this summary for Justin Fairfax.
|
Break:
[40:52]
| Justin Edward Fairfax, February 17, 1979, April 16, 2026, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 41st Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 2018 to 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second African-American elected statewide in Virginia, following Douglas Wilder. In 2019, he faced sexual assault allegations dating to 2000 and 2004, which he denied. Fairfax was a Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia in the 2021 election. He finished fourth in the Democratic primary with 3.54% of the vote. On the morning of April 16, 2026, Fairfax murdered his wife, Serena Fairfax, before killing himself in a murder-suicide. That's all there is to it. See? Fun, entertaining, educational, and short. Okay, now look for and subscribe to the Wiki of the Day family of podcasts on your podcast playing software of choice, or just go to wikioftheday.com to check out our archives. Now back to Grimudgeon's Corner. Do do do.
|
Ivan:
[42:08]
| Oh, so much fun to hear about the story of a sexual assault or to commit murder-suicide, Sam.
|
Sam:
[42:18]
| I know. See, it's fun, exciting, educational, you know? Yeah, I listened to that when I was preparing it to put it on the show today, and I'm like, yeah, maybe I should adjust that wording because, you know, that's just the wording that I use for these curmudgeons corner inserts. It's not on the actual Wiki of the Day podcast. But still, it's like...
|
Ivan:
[42:45]
| Fun! Fun! Fun!
|
Sam:
[42:48]
| Woo!
|
Ivan:
[42:50]
| Your suicide is so much fun.
|
Sam:
[42:55]
| Yes. Well, anyway. So as I said, that was in the news this week.
|
Ivan:
[43:02]
| That was in the news this week, yes.
|
Sam:
[43:04]
| I don't know that there's much else to say about it.
|
Ivan:
[43:07]
| There is one thing to say, and I'm going to, I may create a quote based on the language of Pete Berger. where, let me see if I can find it. Hold on. But, oh gosh. So much stuff this week going on. Or basically he said, well, I can't find it exactly. He said that this is the kind, you know, this is the extent that a man will go to to avoid going to therapy. They would rather commit murder-suicide than go to fucking therapy.
|
Sam:
[43:46]
| Yes, apparently this was in the midst of the couple was getting divorced. They were still living together, but they were in the midst of a divorce.
|
Ivan:
[43:54]
| And there was an order against them and everything, I understood. You know. Yeah, using the quote, I found it. Men will literally destroy their lives and family rather than go to therapy. Yes, that was like.
|
Sam:
[44:08]
| Yeah. And his teenage kids were in the house. His son is the one who found them after this happened. Like, I don't know. It's horrible. It's horrible. It's, you know, for his wife, for the kids who found, I mean, look, I don't know. And I realize he apparently immediately regretted it and killed himself. But, like, what you...
|
Ivan:
[44:37]
| Yeah, that fixes it.
|
Sam:
[44:39]
| Yeah. It does not fit.
|
Ivan:
[44:41]
| Look, having somebody die with you is hard. My brother, you know, was telling me how he was in the room when he was with my grandfather on my dad's side. When all of a sudden he passed and they tried to revive him. And he was the one that was there when this happened. and how it really was very traumatizing for him to experience that. He was 21, 22 years old. Fuck, but even at that where it wasn't a murder, it was very hard. And I'm like, you know, I can't imagine those guys finding that scene where you've got both mom and dad. Right in that so anyway okay.
|
Sam:
[45:40]
| Well what other newsy thing would you like to talk about this week yvonne we i i didn't actually put very much.
|
Ivan:
[45:47]
| On the list is a you know i i was as i mentioned earlier i've been like ridiculously busy at work my volume of email has like tripled i noticed the other day uh-huh because you know everybody seems to be just going to me to ask well you know the answer, right? I'm like, fuck. Yeah. Well, give me a second. I'm putting you on the cuke, okay? Hey, Sam, the Iran war is over. Oil is flowing. It's an unmitigated victory for America. Iran has been vanquished. We, well, you know, Trump has taken the Obama deal that he canceled because obviously it was the worst deal ever and now made an even better deal, okay, than we've ever could have possibly had. And oil is free and free-flowing and energy and gas is going to be at a dollar a gallon anytime soon and oil will be flowing out of all our orifices or something. That's not the way it works.
|
Sam:
[46:57]
| Did I need to have that vision?
|
Ivan:
[46:58]
| Is that how it works?
|
Sam:
[47:01]
| Now I have pictures in my head that I do not want.
|
Ivan:
[47:07]
| Was that an accurate description of the events of the past week?
|
Sam:
[47:11]
| Not even remotely.
|
Ivan:
[47:12]
| Would that be a description that Donald Trump gave about the events this week?
|
Sam:
[47:18]
| Oh, yes. He has declared victory several times in the last week. Most often, half an hour to an hour later, the Iranians are like, what the fuck is he talking about? You know we have a deal and.
|
Ivan:
[47:35]
| It's done it's whatever the iranians right after is like what is he talking about we have no deal.
|
Sam:
[47:41]
| Yeah i mean in some cases to be fair the iranians have said okay we are going to do xyz it's not quite what he said but we are going to do xyz as long as they do q right and then then.
|
Ivan:
[47:53]
| We don't do.
|
Sam:
[47:54]
| We don't do q and so then just within the last few hours. The Iranians had been, you know, the Iranians had been letting some shipping through the Straits of Hormuz with a toll and under their supervision and with their approval only of countries that are not their adversaries, so not U.S. Gulf affiliated.
|
Ivan:
[48:18]
| But that's better than we had before, right?
|
Sam:
[48:20]
| That is better than what we had before.
|
Ivan:
[48:22]
| No, no, no, no, no, no. That's better than what we had before the war, right?
|
Sam:
[48:25]
| Oh, no, no. But here's the thing. Just a few hours before we started recording the show, the Iranians are like, well, but we were going to do this on the condition that the U.S. Stopped their blockade of Iranian ports. They have not. So, therefore, we're closing the strait again. And so we're once again closed.
|
Ivan:
[48:51]
| Right, because we keep blocking. They want the, you know, it's the bizarre thing where he keeps talking about, oh, we've got a deal to reopen the strait, but then he's blockading the ports. I don't know. Figure it out, dickhead. I mean, seriously.
|
Sam:
[49:06]
| The fundamental thing is all of our negotiating offers essentially boil down to Iran has to surrender completely to absolutely everything that we have ever asked any time in the last 20 years. And that's the end of our negotiations. We're not actually negotiating.
|
Ivan:
[49:26]
| Which is.
|
Sam:
[49:27]
| Which is by the way similar to when trump has been involved in negotiations with ukraine basically and said we'll give putin everything he wants and then this will be over.
|
Ivan:
[49:38]
| Well let me ask you a question sam uh how motivating is it to be off i mean you know i mean but this is such a great deal for iran right i mean they gotta be just chopping at the bit of doing this right no no i mean i don't know the thing is if anything.
|
Sam:
[49:58]
| This if anything the status quo is what's good for them.
|
Ivan:
[50:02]
| Oh they love this here you know he has done nothing that would motivate them to make a deal and they have zero incentive to make a deal at this point right.
|
Sam:
[50:14]
| I mean, if nothing else, because he has shown he does not respect deals. And the last two times they've been in negotiations, in the middle of the negotiations, he's bombed them more and killed more of their leadership.
|
Ivan:
[50:31]
| You know what I think? You know, look, I will gamble that the best approach, and this is, you know, from Iran's perspective, is to wait for him to get bored and get distracted by something else.
|
Sam:
[50:44]
| He's already indicated multiple times that he is effectively bored. He wants this to be over. He's said over and over, yeah, Iran's over. Can we go ahead and invade Cuba now?
|
Ivan:
[50:56]
| Right. So that's the thing. It's just for him to completely lose interest and get distracted by some other...
|
Sam:
[51:04]
| Frankly yes that that for sure he'll get distracted but also frankly not just for iran but it's got to be for like almost every other country on the planet at this point it seems like the right strategy is just hunker down and try to mostly ignore donald trump as much as you can until he's not president anymore.
|
Ivan:
[51:29]
| Yeah yeah i mean it's just it's just pointless to do any deals with this.
|
Sam:
[51:34]
| Guy.
|
Ivan:
[51:35]
| It's pointless to do any deals because he will not honor any deals. Okay? Any deal that you make with always winds up... Look, he was just this week. We keep talking about tariffs with Canada and then, you know, Nutlick calling Canada losers, I think it was, or percent. What are those fuckers? You know, but making any deal on trade. I just heard yesterday they were bantering around about ramping up auto tariffs again, okay, in order to supposedly bring manufacturing closer to the U.S. And I've said that the lack of a commercial strategy, industrial strategy in any way is one, you know, there is no way that anybody's going to bring auto manufacturing over here. Hell, let me put it this way. The biggest investors in auto manufacturing in the U.S. Were the Koreans. And you went and you fucking arrested them in an ice raid.
|
Ivan:
[52:34]
| And I'm like, what the, you know, the total incoherence. Of, I mean, incoherence to everybody else, okay, trying to make a business decision, okay, to the strategy, to this, you know, in the face of this administration, is the biggest demotivator of investment, okay, of any kind in the United States of manufacturing or anything. Nobody's going to want to do that unless there is a semblance of coherence. And the one thing that you know is that under disadministration that's never happening you're never getting that it is the biggest preventer of any serious investment okay that you want to do and it's the biggest preventer of making any long-term deal on anything and so yeah i mean if i'm the iranians i'm like you know what i'm not we're not we're not fucking agreeing to anything Fuck you And every other country probably will make a deal With Iran in some way To get around this shit Okay, And be able to To get what they need And just ignore whatever the fuck Trump is doing.
|
Sam:
[53:55]
| I mean, the, I guess, theoretic goal of this war happening was, well, it's changed all the time, but just at an abstract level, it was an opportunity for Trump to try to look strong again.
|
Ivan:
[54:11]
| Right?
|
Sam:
[54:12]
| By beating up another country, having another win under his belt, following off on Venezuela with, okay, now we're going to do the same thing in Iran. But the actual reality is it's showing just how impotent this kind of use of force is. You know, did it, you know, yeah, we killed some people. Yeah, we broke some stuff. Did it result in any valuable strategic objectives at all? No. In fact, the opposite. And, you know, Trump just keeps yelling, open the straits, open the straits, open the straits. And he can't make it happen.
|
Ivan:
[54:50]
| Right. He can't make it happen.
|
Sam:
[54:51]
| You know, and yeah, it's just, it's, it's makes us look weak. It makes us look stupid. And I say us because it, it collectively reflects on the whole country, even though it's really just, you know, Trump and Hegseth and a few other people that are making some of these decisions. But yeah, it's, it's going well. It's going well. But you know i do see that is still every time even though every single time donald trump has given one of these like middle of the night tweets saying everything is resolved everything is great blah blah blah you know every single time it's turned out not to really be true like apparently the markets still like it every single time and they're always insider traders making a huge amount of money every single time. Like 15 minutes before the announcement, there's always a big spike of something and somebody's making money.
|
Ivan:
[55:53]
| Listen, I think that the main thing, and I had shared some details, this week related to this and the stock market itself. The reason why the stock market is reacting the way it is is because even the stock market is a K-shaped stock market. And that's what's going on. You know, even as the S&P tracks highs, you see that you've got certain sectors that are doing great, And some of those are overwhelmingly large in terms of stock market capitalization, in terms of the percentage of what weight they have on the stock market versus how other sectors are getting killed, okay? And I had shared this where you see that outperforming stock market sectors are like data centers. Yes, I've mentioned that it's the biggest thing right now. Semiconductors, which this is all related to the AI explosion. Cruises, hotels, luxury retail, online travel. All of this where we've had this huge surge of travel and tourism in recent years that even like the... The high price, even higher prices have not dissuaded this. OK, as a matter of fact, it's really being fed off the fact that hotel rates right now.
|
Ivan:
[57:23]
| Double what they were pre-pandemic. Okay? People are willing to pay twice as much. I mean, hell, airlines. Look, United was experimenting with an aircraft to fly to Europe that had more premium seats than economy seats. It had more business class. It had a tiny economy section because that's how demand is right now. Where the people with money, you've got so many of them that want to travel and like the people on a budget, I'm like, oh, there's not that many of them. So fuck it. We'll make the plane more business class and premium economy and less coach. Okay? And then what's suffering, Sam? Discount retails. Office space. By the way, there is a big office space collapse coming because even with all the mandates It seems like.
|
Sam:
[58:19]
| We've been talking about this since covid.
|
Ivan:
[58:21]
| But it's fine you know what happened a lot of banks went they did a lot of things in the back to push off a lot of this somehow okay they they've really been you know pushing it off and it's it's it's really starting to happen right now which that that's an underperforming sector where real estate investment trusts which hold you know these office space and their as their assets, they're getting killed, okay? Automakers are getting killed because of all the shit with, EV strategy and tariffs and shit, they're getting killed. And a lot of people that, you know, buy cars are in the lower strata of income. Apparel. Cash-hole dining. Which that's, this is not like steakhouses, whatever. The cash-hole dining is getting, exactly. Cash-hole dining is getting killed, okay? Big box retail is getting killed, okay? Fast food is getting killed, okay? And you can see the dichotomy. This is it's yes, the stock market keeps reaching highs based on these sectors that are really feeding off the people that are doing well. But the sectors in the stock market for people that are, you know, at the lower half of the income scale, they're getting killed.
|
Sam:
[59:42]
| That's lovely.
|
Ivan:
[59:43]
| That's it's what it's the Trump ideal.
|
Sam:
[59:46]
| Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I don't know. They're almost explicit about it. I mean, it seems like they used to pretend, you know, the whole trickle down thing, you know, help the people at the top. It'll help everybody. I mean, I hardly ever hear anybody even make that case anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:07]
| Fuck trickle-down.
|
Sam:
[1:00:08]
| Yeah. Like, I mean, trickle-down has never worked. I mean, we've got many decades showing that at this point. But at this point, they don't even pretend. It's like, oh, no. Screw those. Fuck those guys. We're going to help, you know, these folks. You know? And as long as the stock market is going up, as long as we got tax cuts for, you know, the folks who are already near the top, we're good.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:37]
| We're good and we have right regulations the the the worst consumer sentiment we've had in it's actually at an all-time low yeah it's it's a i mean trump has driven consumer sentiment to an all-time low and you know what i'm even hearing there's that trump guy that was at the I love these gas station interviews that MS Now is doing where the guy was like that. He admitted that he voted for Trump, but it's like, I miss Uncle Joe. I had money in my pocket with Uncle Joe. Now I'm fucked. But you assholes voted for this shit. You see, the thing.
|
Sam:
[1:01:24]
| Yvonne, I keep hearing them say, this isn't what we voted for.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:27]
| No, this is exactly what you assholes voted for. They had telegraphed it and told you. All these assholes on the whole economy thing, okay, back then. The reason why they were pissed at the Democrat Joe Biden is like the usual bullshit. Oh, he hasn't gotten it back to where it was.
|
Sam:
[1:01:51]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:53]
| And I'm like, Jesus Christ. I mean, it's one term as a president. How fast, you know, and hell, even two terms, if you think about the massive economic disaster that was the post-W. Bush administration into Obama, for God's sakes, okay? I mean, that was like one of the worst economic crises we've had since the Great Depression. You know, you think in eight years, everything's going to be back to what? I mean, like the 90s, which, you know, look, economically, the best era that you and I have lived was the 90s. Fact.
|
Sam:
[1:02:38]
| Right. And before that, the 1950s would be the big spike as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:43]
| But it was the 90s. And it was fucking Democrats. They fucking voted. The Republicans, they destroyed. I mean, man, W destroyed it. He took, I mean, an economy that was booming. He took incomes rising, everything. I mean, the fucking budget deficit. There was no deficit, okay, budget deficit. And he fucking broke it in half over his knee. It's insane. And Obama did a lot to fix a lot of it. But, again, Trump, you know, delivered an economy with an inflation that was through the roof. He had set everything with the pandemic and everything, whatever. Look, all the—everything was set for inflation to go through the roof, okay? And, you know, Biden had everything heading back in the right direction.
|
Sam:
[1:03:48]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:49]
| Every economic metric you could look at was heading back in the right direction, okay? And then you vote for this psychopath who literally, I mean, even W wasn't as bad at turning things to shit as fast as this guy.
|
Sam:
[1:04:08]
| Yvonne, Yvonne, the price of eggs.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:10]
| Oh, the price of eggs. Right now, everything is so much more expensive. I mean, like beef. like you know, car affordability okay.
|
Sam:
[1:04:23]
| Just wait just just here average price of per dozen for eggs is is actually down to 22 cents a dozen which appears to pretty much be no not 22 the lowest 22 cents per.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:44]
| Egg in a dozen.
|
Sam:
[1:04:45]
| Wait no this says 20 21 cents a dozen no.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:49]
| No no no sam.
|
Sam:
[1:04:50]
| That's lowest Just average price. I'm looking at egg prices.org.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:55]
| It's got to be per egg in a dozen. A dozen does not cost 20 cents.
|
Sam:
[1:05:02]
| I'm just saying what it's saying. Maybe it's wrong. Look at egg prices.org. It has it maxing out at $8 or so, a little bit over $8 in February of this year. And down to... It can't be for $8. This site must have their data screwed up at this point it's also like cycling from like a buck and something down to 20 cents over and over again so their data is broken now oh well i was gonna say it's like a 10 year low 258.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:34]
| Okay is what i found.
|
Sam:
[1:05:36]
| 258 yeah in march okay yeah this site in march has it at like a buck 50 or something like that but then something clearly broke see.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:44]
| I found the Trading.
|
Sam:
[1:05:45]
| Economics. Okay, so eggprices.org. Don't trust it anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:49]
| For some reason, egg prices are down. Okay. They're actually way down. They're like at about the lowest price they've been in a little while. But that is accurate. But okay, great. So you got cheap eggs. But in exchange for that, you've got gasoline at over $4 a gallon regular. Yay! You've got, listen, one thing that people keep forgetting about in terms of affordability, which is a big one, okay, is where mortgage rates are, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:06:21]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:21]
| And how that has seriously impacted the housing market. Because back in 2021, 2022, mortgage rates were around 3% to 4%, okay? And now, they're 6.3 to 6.7, which means that a typical housing payment, okay, went up, is up 40%. Four, zero percent, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:06:48]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:49]
| And one thing is that rates have been trending down before. But since Trump took over, rates have gone up. And rates have gone up because of the tax bill, the tariffs. But listen, the biggest reason was the tariffs. You're like, why the hell that happened? Because foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries, when this asshole launched this entire tariff barrage, started dumping U.S. Treasuries. And when you start selling off the damn bonds, it means that interest rates go up. And it doesn't matter what the fuck the Fed does. They can't push that rate back down right now. You know, it is just mind-boggling how much we have been fucked by this guy. And you know what? The worst thing is, it's most likely going to get worse.
|
Sam:
[1:07:59]
| Now, having said that, you've been predicting recession for a while. It still hasn't materialized.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:08]
| Look, so right now.
|
Sam:
[1:08:09]
| I am a— You think we're already in recession, and it's just the numbers are being propped up artificially.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:16]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:08:17]
| There's a delay or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:19]
| Listen, they're cooking the books. Sam, they're cooking the books.
|
Sam:
[1:08:24]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:25]
| Fourth quarter GDP got revised down from like an increase of 3% down to 0.5.
|
Sam:
[1:08:30]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:32]
| Every fucking labor report we've gotten for new jobs all of a sudden gets revised down with 66%. We get the headline the day that it comes out, and then later, oh! well, wait, no, no, no. We're wrong by...
|
Sam:
[1:08:45]
| If they were cooking it, why would they bother revising it? Like, revise it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:49]
| I'm not sure why they're... Eventually, they're... Maybe because even the statisticians, I'm like, because there is this... There is a statistical calculation that they do at the beginning, which doesn't have all the information in. And then there is later the actual count. And I guess that even the people that are working there.
|
Sam:
[1:09:08]
| There's more flexibility in the first one.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:09]
| Exactly. There's a lot more wiggle room. Well, you have to actually publish it when all the data comes in. Then you're starting to be really fraudulent. You don't understand what I'm saying? So you're taking a...
|
Sam:
[1:09:22]
| Okay, so the basic stance is the first time around, you are making an estimate. You are making an estimate, and there are parameters in that estimate, and you could make some sort of argument that you were optimistic or whatever, but it was still a good faith estimate. But once all the data comes in, you have a number that, at least in theory, is auditable based on underlying facts, and it's harder to manipulate that. You would have to essentially outright lie.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:53]
| You would have to essentially outright lie.
|
Sam:
[1:09:54]
| And they're not quite willing.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:57]
| Yeah, they haven't been able to get them to cross that threshold.
|
Sam:
[1:10:00]
| Yet.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:01]
| Yet.
|
Sam:
[1:10:02]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:03]
| Well, one of the things is the same thing as with this administration, how they keep trying to indict people. Like, there was this case with, like, Brennan, where apparently they keep going through prosecutors because everybody keeps going, well, we can't find what the fuck to prosecute this guy over. You keep telling us to find it. And so they keep switching and firing prosecutors. And then you wind up to the step where you try to, okay, great. No, okay, we found somebody stupid enough to do this. Okay? Like Halligan, for example, right? Okay, let's go up to the grand jury. Let's go. And so then it winds up either being torpedoed by the grand jury or the judge is like, the fuck is this? Case dismissed. It's like this thing where, you know, I know we talk about how sometimes unresilient our system is, but there are a lot of examples where it's showing that it is more resilient than sometimes we give it credit, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:11:02]
| It's certainly doing better than the worst case scenario. Like it's not necessarily doing great, but, and we have the general problem that, you know, our justice system is very slow. And at the very top of it, we have a Supreme Court that's like not necessarily doing the right thing all the time, but sometimes, sometimes still.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:28]
| Hey, but Sam, we've got an FBI director who is a man of stability, a man of sobriety, a sober man that looks at justice and makes sure that America is being protected, okay, and taken care of, right?
|
Sam:
[1:11:52]
| Beautiful, Yvonne. That's why when they couldn't get him to come out of his room for like a long time, they had to call in the specialized like hostage breaching squad or whatever to try to potentially break in because... From what I understand, he was basically completely passed out drunk and missing for, like, an extended length of time, and they had to go and find him and see if he was okay, I guess.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:30]
| And who has his email hacked by the Russians?
|
Sam:
[1:12:34]
| Takes the Jets to see his girlfriend and watch some stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:37]
| And to go to F1 races and to the Olympics.
|
Sam:
[1:12:41]
| Only the best, Ivan.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:43]
| Only the best.
|
Sam:
[1:12:44]
| Only the best.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:45]
| And then Pete Hagstad has this weird religious service in which he decides that, I guess there is some weird Christian cult that he participates in that, I guess, is based on the movie Pulp Fiction.
|
Sam:
[1:13:03]
| Well, okay. Yes. So, theoretically, he was quoting a prayer used by the group that did Search and Rescue, and then that group's prayer was based on the one in Pulp Fiction, which is loosely based on an actual scripture in Lyssa. But was actually more made up for the movie than for the real Bible. And then what he read was clearly much closer to the Pulp Fiction version than the Bible version. But, you know, look, whatever, you know, he's... Anyway, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:13:48]
| And apparently the pentagon had like a monthly prayer service that has of some sort that but now that is not only is the only version going on now the christian version but it's only protestants catholics not allowed as well what yes that came out a few weeks ago there's a a prayer service thing and they're only having a protestant one they're not having a a catholic one and certainly oh forget those jews and muslims yeah fuck those guys you know so anyway fun stuff shall we take a break yeah and then uh let's take a break and then we we got orban and speaking of you know So Hegseth and religion and all got the stuff. We got the Pope versus Donald Trump. So coming soon to pay-per-view. Okay. Break time. Which one?
|
Sam:
[1:14:52]
| Here we go. Break. Someday I got to make some more breaks. But.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:15]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:15:16]
| Yeah. Anyway. So. Orban in Hungary. Lost.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:22]
| That's a shame.
|
Sam:
[1:15:23]
| Lost by. He got obliterated. It was a huge margin.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:27]
| He got crushed. He got crushed. It's not even close.
|
Sam:
[1:15:31]
| I thought this was supposed to be inevitable. Like, because he's like, you know, took charge of everything. And, you know, there's no coming back from this. And then, boom. You know, look. The actual deal is apparently the opposition has been working really hard for the last few years, getting organized, getting structured. The person they fell in behind was somebody who used to be in Orban's party and moved away from it when he saw Orban being so anti-democratic, apparently. I've heard people—the description that I liked, that apparently was based on a Reddit post initially, is the situation would be similar to what would happen if the Republicans in the U.S. Had run and won several times in a row with Donald Trump-type people. And then the Democrats, in order to fight back, went and nominated Mitt Romney. And then Mitt Romney won. You know, so this is not...
|
Ivan:
[1:16:40]
| And not just won. He won by, I mean, like you said, it was like overwhelming.
|
Sam:
[1:16:46]
| Right. And this sort of goes to, you know, the debates that the Democrats have been having too in terms of like, do you move to the middle? Do you double down on more progressive things? What do you do? And what Hungary did is they doubled down in the middle. Essentially, what you get is what would happen if the Democrats nominated a centrist Republican in order to combat the next generation of Donald Trump. And it worked for them. I don't know if the same thing would work here or if that's the direction we would want to go, but it worked. And Orban got crushed. And also, it was such a big delta. I mean, I think people were kind of expecting that Orban would play Donald Trump games about, oh, it was stolen. There were malfeasances. Maybe I should fight back. But it was so overwhelming that that would have been untenable. Like, you can do that when it's kind of close. I mean, you know, when...
|
Ivan:
[1:17:50]
| No, but it was like, I mean, it's one of those like old... I mean, you know, we talk about a landslide. This is a landslide. It was like almost like 70 to 30.
|
Sam:
[1:18:03]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:04]
| It's insane.
|
Sam:
[1:18:06]
| And, you know, look, I've seen a number of people saying, you know, hey, is this our first indication that globally the tide is turning? You know, I do think so.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:17]
| And there are indicators that that show that there was there was an election, I think, in New Jersey that we recently had where there's a district that Harris had, I think, won by eight.
|
Sam:
[1:18:29]
| Eight points.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:31]
| And the guy that they put in now won by over 30 points. I mean, just, just, just a ridiculous, you know, it just ridiculous. It's just a ridiculous arm.
|
Sam:
[1:18:45]
| And that's what we've been seeing on all of these special elections, almost without fail, is like, you know, huge upswings for the Democrats. Win or lose. Like we mentioned the other week, the Marjorie Taylor Greene seat in Georgia. The Republicans still won, but the margin went from like 30 something down to single digits.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:09]
| Yeah, yeah. And that is a deep, deep. Deep red district. Okay. You know where MTG was. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:19:18]
| Now special elections are special elections. People will always point out there's lower turnout. It's more motivated people only. You generally in the big general elections don't see quite the same level that you see in the specials, but they are an indicator.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:35]
| They are an indicator and it's just that you've got so many signs pointing. Just let me tell you something. It's just, listen, this whole gas price thing. This isn't going away in a time soon. And, you know, look, gas prices got the Democrats with the Ukraine war when it went off in 2022. It really hurt them bad. These gas prices are worse. They're longer lasting. And the reality is that unlike them, then where you could say, hey, well, it's not our fault that Russia launched a war, you know, against Ukraine. This is totally self-inflicted. You could clearly, you could just say 100% truthfully that Trump did this.
|
Sam:
[1:20:25]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:26]
| This isn't exaggeration. Trump gave you this gas price you're paying right now.
|
Sam:
[1:20:33]
| And it's not one of these major delayed reaction things where cause and effect are separated by years. Nope. This is like Donald Trump initiated a war, which a lot of his supporters were like, one of the reasons we voted for you is you said no more wars.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:52]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:20:52]
| And he initiated a war, and literally within moments, within days, the gas prices were going up.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:00]
| Yeah. It's one of those that, thankfully, we're not trying to explain a delay cause and effect, thank God. Okay? You got action. You got reaction. Both. and you got blamed.
|
Sam:
[1:21:12]
| Right. And yes, because there's so much that is that delayed effect and people just don't get it. And, and, and like, you know, going back to that, like, so right now, the ideological split is so even that what makes the difference really is, I mean, and you can argue it's usually this way, but the people who vote just on vibes, right? That the bottom line is, do I feel good about how my life is going?
|
Ivan:
[1:21:47]
| The vibes are, like you said, the super sentiment, the worst ever.
|
Sam:
[1:21:53]
| Well, and a lot of those voters, it's just simply if I like how my life is going, I will vote to keep whoever's in charge in charge longer. And if I don't like the way my life is going, I'll vote for whoever's against them. End of story. End of story. It does not go any deeper than that. And, you know, so the question is, are people voting for incumbents or are people voting for their opponents? And obviously there there's a whole bunch of people on either side of the spectrum that would never switch like you're you're gonna vote republican no matter what you're gonna vote for democrat no matter what it's these people in the middle who slosh around who are you know a lot of it is just what i just said and if if it is deeper than that it's often sort of well what's the social media vibe you know what are they saying most recently on whatever news channel I tune into every once in a while you know so yeah, i don't know or the the news channel people are dying off quickly it's it's mostly like you know what what did i see most recently on tiktok or whatever but right right or instagram or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:16]
| The hell uh it's well there's another thing about that orban election.
|
Sam:
[1:23:23]
| Yes i don't want to forget before we move on yes oh the the cpac stuff and all the corruption yes okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:31]
| How about that?
|
Sam:
[1:23:33]
| So for those who aren't following it, the new prime minister of Hungary, what's his name? Oh, it's Magyar. Magyar.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:44]
| I actually failed that question. The pointed news quiz had that as a question.
|
Sam:
[1:23:48]
| And I answered it wrong. The same Reddit post that mentioned the comparison to Mitt Romney also mentioned this guy's name is Petar Magyar. Magyar is a Hungarian name for Hungary. And so they mentioned it would be like the person who ends up winning over the illiberal person in the U.S. being named Pete America.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:15]
| Nice!
|
Sam:
[1:24:16]
| You know? Anyway, he has come in, and this is something I really hope the Democrats will take a proper lesson for. He has promised outright, we are going to investigate, we are going to prosecute, we are going to dig into all the abuses of the previous government. We're going to reverse this, we're going to reverse that, we're going to reverse this. One of the first things he came out with is, oh, by the way, Hungarian tax dollars have been going to subsidize CPAC and a whole bunch of American conservative influencers. And that's going to stop today. And we're going to investigate it further.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:00]
| Nice.
|
Sam:
[1:25:00]
| And we know CPAC had held events in Hungary, and we know they'd been basically holding out Orban as a model of what they wanted to do. But yeah, no, apparently Hungarian tax dollars have been subsidizing the American conservative media ecosystem for years now. And, you know, the Hungary side of that is now shutting it down.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:29]
| Isn't that lovely?
|
Sam:
[1:25:30]
| And this, by the way, is another one of those things where, you know, one of the things Trump did in his first term and again in his second term is basically shut down any enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Foreign Agent Registration Acts, which require disclosure of some of these type of transactions. And basically was like, ah, we don't care about that stuff. Oh, I wonder why.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:56]
| You wonder why, Sam, huh? Huh?
|
Sam:
[1:26:00]
| Exactly. But fundamentally, I think this attitude of, yeah, we, If the Democrats take over again, either after this coming election in 2026 or the one in 2028, and come in and repeat Obama's we're going to look forward, not back type of attitude.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:21]
| Obama's. Obama's.
|
Sam:
[1:26:22]
| Yes, Obama's. He came in.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:24]
| Biden.
|
Sam:
[1:26:25]
| Biden. No, I'm talking Obama first. Obama specifically made the statement, we're going to look forward, not back, in terms of whether or not he was going to look into, you know, torture and other abuses that were done during the George W. Bush administration. And was basically like, we're not going to – I've got my own agenda. I'm not doing that. And, you know, and Biden's administration was also slow on that. But they eventually got to it a little too late. But they eventually got to it.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:55]
| Yeah, my whole point is that they've got a, unlike the Biden method, which they did start looking into it, but it took too long. This has to be aggressive, early, fast. I mean, they cannot, they cannot track their feet.
|
Sam:
[1:27:12]
| Well, and apparently that's what they are doing in Hungary. And I just hope the same thing happens. Like the, I would be so upset, you know, if a Democrat goes down to the election.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:23]
| I think the mood has changed. And I don't think that any of the ones that are potentially like front runners for the nomination.
|
Sam:
[1:27:31]
| This is one of the things that people are going to be looking at in the nomination process too. It's like, are you going to go after these assholes?
|
Ivan:
[1:27:39]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:27:40]
| You know, and people talk about, like, weaponization and like, well, we don't want to be like them. They're trying to weaponize. We're not. Look.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:47]
| This isn't weaponizing. I'm sorry.
|
Sam:
[1:27:50]
| Is there something real?
|
Ivan:
[1:27:51]
| There's a difference between me making up, hey, go after that guy I hate him. Right?
|
Sam:
[1:27:58]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:58]
| Versus, hey, go addictive because we know all these illegal things happened. Go and investigate them and find the responsible ones.
|
Sam:
[1:28:08]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:09]
| Totally different thing.
|
Sam:
[1:28:11]
| And I think it has to be widespread. It has to be abuse of government powers, even though the Supreme Court has basically said the president can abuse his power as much as he wants, as long as it's an official act. But not true of all the underlings. But also corruption. I mean, oh my God, the rampant. And again, they're not even hiding it. So it shouldn't be hard to go after it.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:35]
| You know, I was just reading something. There was an article in The Economist about Rio de Janeiro. And one of the things that they were talking about that I liked is that apparently every mayor, here, all of Rio's elected governors. Okay, because Rio de Janeiro is actually a state, not just a city. All of Rio's elected governors in the 21st century have been jailed or impeached on charges related to corruption.
|
Sam:
[1:29:04]
| All of them. Nice.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:06]
| All of them. And at least the one thing about that, as it shows, is that the legal system works. Certainly said, I mean, yes, okay, so we think...
|
Sam:
[1:29:15]
| Apparently it doesn't have a deterrent effect.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:18]
| Doesn't have that much of a deterrent effect, but at least they're fucking, like, you know, arresting them and jailing them.
|
Sam:
[1:29:23]
| Uh-huh.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:24]
| Actually, they did say that it's gotten better.
|
Sam:
[1:29:27]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:27]
| I think at some point...
|
Sam:
[1:29:29]
| They steal less.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:30]
| I think... No, no, no. I think they said that, you know, that... I think it's having a turn effect. After every single one is going to jail, the next one, I'm like, maybe, you know, this is such a great idea.
|
Sam:
[1:29:44]
| I guess we'll have to watch the current one to see what happens next.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:48]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:29:51]
| Shall we talk about the Pope?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:54]
| Oh my God, I forgot that this happened. This is the fucking Pope. I love it. Listen, I like the current Pope very much. Okay, all right. I, I, I, he has given me hope for a significant reform at a Catholic church, which was badly overdue. And he has taken a lot of steps towards that. And, uh.
|
Sam:
[1:30:16]
| And just for anybody new listening, this is for you. You grew up Catholic.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:21]
| Yes. Yes, indeed. And I'm not religious. I mean, I don't, you know, I'm agnostic. Okay, let's be clear about this. But the one thing is that, look, we're having this conversation. I got brought up and raised by people that taught more liberation theology. That basically, you know, it was the conservative Catholics at any extent. And a big focus was being kind to people.
|
Sam:
[1:30:51]
| Oh, shocker.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:53]
| Like all of them. It doesn't matter what religion or who they are. That was just like the core thing.
|
Sam:
[1:31:01]
| You know, one of the things that's been funny about the back and forth between the Pope and Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:08]
| Yes, let's explain. What are our dear leaders saying?
|
Sam:
[1:31:12]
| Well, look, basically the gist of it.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:15]
| The Pope's not tough. I'm crying, Sam.
|
Sam:
[1:31:17]
| No, no, wait, wait, wait. The gist of it is like the Pope will come out in a sermon and say, war is bad. We need to be nice to people. God doesn't listen to the prayers of people who, you know, are out there killing people, whatever. But basically, war is bad. Be nice to people. And Donald Trump's reaction to this is, he's attacking me. And then you know goes on to say he's weak on crime and the Pope doesn't know what he's doing and hey and the Pope wants.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:52]
| Iran to have nuclear weapons.
|
Sam:
[1:31:54]
| And Pope wants Iran to have nuclear weapons and J.D. Vance is like trying to lecture the Pope on just war theory you know and it's like which by for anybody who doesn't know that is the that is the, The doctrine basically says that, okay, maybe there are some kinds of wars that are justified from a religious point of view, but lays out some very strict guidelines for what that would have to be. And I don't have them in front of them, but it's basically like it's a last choice beyond everything else. You are trying to prevent greater harm, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah and you know the thing is the I think some differences between previous popes and this is like previous popes have also given anti-war messages and things like that one difference here this pope is American English is his native language he sounds like he's from Chicago you know he is.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:07]
| From Chicago I go.
|
Sam:
[1:33:08]
| I know, I know. And, and so like when he says this kind of stuff, it's not like in translation from Italian or through a heavy Polish accent or whatever, you know, it's, it's direct. And somebody like Donald Trump can see the video of him making the statement. And, and so it resonates a little bit more. And then also of course you got Donald Trump who's got a thin skin like you know previous presidents you don't say, previous presidents would make if they would respond at all to it they most likely would have just ignored it but if they responded at all would make some sort of, diplomatic response that was, you know, measured and whatever. Donald Trump comes out swinging against the Pope, posts an AI video of him, or picture of him as Jesus, healing Jon Stewart, apparently. And, you know...
|
Ivan:
[1:34:13]
| Or Jeffrey Epstein.
|
Sam:
[1:34:15]
| Or Jeffrey Epstein, you know. But...
|
Ivan:
[1:34:19]
| And then he said that it was a doctor. Sam, I didn't realize, I asked some people that I know that are in the medical profession, if when they graduate they get these like light orbs that come out of their hands and i i haven't been to that kind of doctor i.
|
Sam:
[1:34:32]
| Would like that kind of doctor but wait people have pointed out that on the same day that donald trump said i was a doctor in this the talking points among some of the other administration including his press secretary were to say that the image had been doctored. So it is quite possible that Donald Trump heard that.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:00]
| He's such a moron. I said it. Jesus Christ. How could this be our president? He's such a fucking moron. God sakes. Oh my God.
|
Sam:
[1:35:15]
| This is just like our forces going on an excursion to Iran. And the people come and the other countries emptying their insane asylums.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:31]
| Right. They're emptying the insane asylums. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:35:34]
| Right. Cause he doesn't know what words mean. Like people coming for asylum, you know, um, fuck.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:45]
| What the fuck? What do we do? Wow. How, You know, I was mentioning in a post on Raman Letter that, you know, my concern in the 1980s was that we all mean by now, maybe we would have been in World War III, we would have been in some kind of nuclear, global, thermonuclear war. And instead, we get this. I guess we're not dead from global thermonuclear war, so I guess that's a plus.
|
Sam:
[1:36:18]
| Once again, I have to say, yet.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:21]
| Yet. no but i thought by now i.
|
Sam:
[1:36:24]
| Understand i understand because you.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:27]
| Know by now because.
|
Sam:
[1:36:28]
| In the 80s everybody was thinking we wouldn't make it to the 90s you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:32]
| So well i thought we'd make it to the 90s but you know there was somebody talking about there was this show on hbo in the 1980s about nostradamus's predictions okay all right that it was you know that it was just this show that i i know some people are talking about it online how if you were a teenager you watch this This thing left you scared shitless, okay, in some way. And it talked about, and it did talk about a global, you know, nuclear war that happened, like, sometime in the 2010s.
|
Sam:
[1:37:05]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:07]
| And so, but, you know, I said that most people were left scarred by that in the 1980s, fearing, you know, a global thermonuclear war, you know, would have happened already. But, you know, thankfully, we haven't had it yet, okay? Now, instead, we've been, you know, our president has threatened, What would seem like basically to annihilate, you know, like a country which would seem to be like by nuking them in recent recent days, but thankfully has not done so.
|
Sam:
[1:37:42]
| Okay, back back to the Pope real quick. The one thing I want to say is that most recent Trump comments on the Pope were basically saying, I'm not in an argument with the Pope. I don't know what you're talking about, which indicate that he seems to be backing off a little bit because he realizes he has not been winning this PR battle. Like, you know, the Pope has been coming off as a reasonable person advocating for peace and democracy and diplomacy.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:19]
| That bastard.
|
Sam:
[1:38:20]
| And, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:22]
| Advocating for peace. What the fuck is wrong with that bastard, huh? I'll show him.
|
Sam:
[1:38:29]
| And Donald Trump has been just raving and looking more and more out of his mind every day. You know, and we talked about that last week. So we don't have to repeat, but like, this guy is not doing well. He just isn't. I mean, even compared to his previous self, which was already not well. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't know. And, you know, and... I don't know. J.D. Vance has also not come off well.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:07]
| Well, let's be clear. J.D. Vance is like a professional idiot right now, okay? He's a professional couch-fucking idiot that we deploy to situations like, hey, let's send him over to negotiate with Iran peace.
|
Sam:
[1:39:21]
| Yeah, well, here's the thing. I mean, people have been talking about J.D. Vance as the natural successor for the next time around. But Trump has almost intentionally been sending him into no-win situations where he looks bad. And Trump has actually talked up Rubio a little bit and maybe some other folks. I don't know. But meanwhile, Rubio was at, like, what, a wrestling match while Vance was negotiating?
|
Ivan:
[1:39:50]
| And he looked drunk or high. Listen, whatever the fuck it was. He looked stoned, drunk, something. Okay? What? Well, I mean, I guess in order, if you're in that fucking administration, you have to be on one of those, on something. There's no way to fucking live through this whole fucking administration if you're not like consuming some kind of substance in large quantities.
|
Sam:
[1:40:21]
| Well, remember in the first Trump administration, that White House doctor.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:28]
| Oh, my God. Yeah, that's right. they said that he was like Mr. You know, I mean, it was like he would give anybody any pills that they wanted. He was just, you know, he was just handing them out like candy.
|
Sam:
[1:40:39]
| Now, he's out of there, but I presume they've got somebody else who's willing to do that, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:40:44]
| Obviously, of course.
|
Sam:
[1:40:45]
| Yeah. So, you know, whatever candy you want.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:51]
| Oh, fuck. Yeah, he... That was, you know... I mean, Marco has usually been, like, looking more as, okay, I had not seen him in a scene like Headseph or Cash, but now, you know, yeah, fuck, he looked high as a kite.
|
Sam:
[1:41:13]
| Interesting. Okay. Okay, we got anything else newsy before we start wrapping things up, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:41:20]
| Anything else newsy that happened? Let me see. I don't know. Did you miss anything? cash is fucked up nut lick I'm saying Canada they suck I mentioned Brennan well one thing it's not so newsy it's more hilarious okay apparently that MAGA is increasingly convinced that the Trump assassination attempt was fake okay, How about that?
|
Sam:
[1:41:49]
| You know, look, it's not surprising. The whole MAGA universe seems to really love their conspiracy theories. So when they start turning on Donald Trump because he's not cooperating on Epstein file, he's attacking Iran, he's attacking whatever. It seems like, OK, they'll grab onto these things. I mean, like, the left conspiracy— Well.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:17]
| There's a lot of Democrats that actually believe it.
|
Sam:
[1:42:19]
| I know. That's what I was going to say. The left conspiracy folks were on this from the moment it started. Oh, he clearly faked it. He wasn't actually hit. That's like—it's a ricochet. Or even, like, there were people saying he put fake blood on his ear. You know, he had a little packet, you know. And I think— I don't believe it. I don't believe that either. I believe it was real. I believe it was real. I believe, based on the evidence, he probably was hit by some sort of ricocheting shrapnel, not the actual bullet itself, because the actual bullet itself would probably have done a lot more damage. But I think there was an actual attempt, and it probably was not organized by Donald Trump. It was, you know, one of the, you know, he attracts crazy people, okay? Okay. And, you know, so one that was a little disappointed when it went after him, I think we have not had a lot of deep investigation at this point into like, well, what was that guy's motives? What exactly, what is he doing? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, but yeah, I believe it was an actual assassination attempt and they actually did not hit him, but he was hit by some shrapnel or something. It was not a serious injury. But so I don't buy the people who are like, it was complete setup.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:44]
| Now, I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:43:45]
| Now, people pointed out there was. Was it Hungary or was it one of the others where there was an uncovered plot by the Russians to do a failed assassination attempt in order to boost the candidate they wanted to? And so people pointed out, well, that sounds a lot similar to what happened to Donald Trump. Maybe the blah, blah, blah. And we just haven't seen evidence. Like, you can speculate your ass off about all kinds of different things. But I think you got to be like, okay, well, what do we actually have any real information on? And as far as we can tell, this is another case of like, you know, just a guy who decided to go off and do it. And this whole stochastic terrorism thing that we've talked about before and has gotten more attention over the last few years is that you don't need, like, you know, a big organization with cells that plan things and do major attacks. Instead, a very common technique now is just to generally foster a media environment where people are saying, hey, this is urgent. Somebody's got to take care of it. And then somebody, some random somebody, decides that they're the one who's going to do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:11]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:45:11]
| And they make an attempt. And there was no coordination. There was no nothing. It's just you take advantage of the fact that, you know, there are a lot of unstable people out there. There are a lot of very gullible people out there. And if you put the right messaging out into the world, somebody's going to try something.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:31]
| That is totally true.
|
Sam:
[1:45:33]
| You know? So.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:35]
| All right. So let's wrap this puppy up.
|
Sam:
[1:45:38]
| Puppy. Wrap the puppy up. I started with taking the fluffy dog and throwing them near the beginning of the show. And now we're going to wrap up the puppy.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:47]
| We're going to wrap. We're going to wrap. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:45:49]
| We are not, however, going to remove the puppy's genitalia.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:54]
| No. No.
|
Sam:
[1:45:55]
| We will leave that to properly trained veterinarians.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:59]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:46:02]
| Or researchers who are you know they're they're gonna remove the genitalia from 100 puppies 100 dead puppies and do some clinical comparisons or something no.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:14]
| Let's let's not no no no no no cutting off anybody's genital.
|
Sam:
[1:46:19]
| Okay i guess not not today not today not us not us definitely Again, we can leave it to the trained professionals who know what they're doing, which also, by the way, is not RFK Jr. He does not, does not qualify. And somebody should, TMZ should just tail him and wait for the next time he spots some roadkill. Cause you know, he apparently can't leave that shit alone.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:50]
| Apparently not.
|
Sam:
[1:46:51]
| Like, you know, you see something by the side of the road and you're like, I gotta have that.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:57]
| I mean, that's apparently the guy's MO. I just, it's so bizarre.
|
Sam:
[1:47:03]
| Okay. That's enough. Curmudgeons-corner.com. Go there, see all the ways to contact us, see our archives, see transcripts, all that fun stuff. We got a link to our YouTube. We had one viewer for about 10 minutes who was watching our live stream. They're gone now. But welcome to whoever that was. And I've never linked the TikTok, and I haven't posted anything new on the TikTok in months. Basically, since I got sick in January, not a damn thing. Or maybe one, I don't know. But like, so now, I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever go back, because, like, you know, we would get views on the TikTok clips, but I saw no evidence whatsoever that was resulting in more actual listeners to the podcast, which would be the point of that. So, I don't know. Should I bother? Should I not? I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:54]
| I liked the TikToks.
|
Sam:
[1:47:57]
| There were a few. They were nice. Maybe I'll do it again. I don't know. Anyway also linked from curmudgeons-corner.com is a link to our patreon where you can give us cash money at various levels we will mention you on the show we will ring a bell we will send you a postcard we will send you a mug all that kind of fun stuff if you want it and importantly, $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you I always get blubbery at that part. It's so emotional and compelling. Anyway, at $2 a month or more or if you just ask us, we will invite you to our Curmudgeons Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and a bunch of our listeners and friends are sharing links and chatting throughout the week. So, Yvonne, what is a highlight this week of something from the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack that is so exciting it would make people want to join the Slack who aren't already on there? And, importantly, something we have not talked about on the show.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:03]
| Well, yeah, because I had to skip a couple of things that we didn't talk about on the show. Yeah, but there is one that we did talk about, which is scientists have made a French fry breakthrough. Researchers have developed a method of making french fries that results in a healthier bite without sacrificing crispiness. Apparently, it involves a combination of traditional frying and microwave heating. Then apparently, the microwave step could reduce the amount of oil used in the process, meaning you would absorb less fat with each bite. All the secrets of being able to cook fries is way up and laid out in two studies. Studies! Published in Current Research in Food Science and the Journal of Food Science.
|
Sam:
[1:49:44]
| But isn't it the oil and fat that makes it taste good in the first place?
|
Ivan:
[1:49:48]
| Look, I don't actually agree. I have, for a long time, cooked fries both in just straight up putting them in an oven, okay, or an air fryer, okay? And instead of like dipping them completely in a vat of oil, which is the traditional way, by spraying olive oil on them or something like that, they actually come out quite good. And I got to say, I actually prefer them that way now. Okay. So I do think that there are alternatives. This one, very interestingly, it apparently leaves most of the flavor intact. It just removes the fat.
|
Sam:
[1:50:33]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:34]
| And, I mean, so why not? You can do it. I mean, so I love fries.
|
Sam:
[1:50:40]
| I love some fries. But I do like the crispy. I do like the thin. I don't like thick fries.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:48]
| Oh, I love thick fries. You know what the worst thing is? I'll tell you one thing. I know this sounds insane. But I have one that I'll eat soggy fries. Say you take like fries and that you went to McDonald's. And you stuck them in a refrigerator the next day like cold like that.
|
Sam:
[1:51:10]
| I'll eat them that way too. I know. You are perverted. This is worse than the raccoon penises.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:19]
| I don't know about that, but okay. But yeah, it is pretty bad. I will eat those. Yeah, I like them. I don't know why. It's a different flavor. It's a different, you know, it's a totally different, you know, obviously experience. Listen, I used to do, and I haven't done those in a while.
|
Sam:
[1:51:35]
| The way I put it is if I can taste potato, I don't like it anymore. Oh, God.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:41]
| I love the potato.
|
Sam:
[1:51:42]
| I like other potato dishes. But for French fries specifically, what I'm in it for is the crispy golden crust. I don't care about the interior. I don't, I could do without the interior.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:54]
| What about a potato wedge? You know, no potato wedges for you then?
|
Sam:
[1:51:57]
| No, no. I mean, they're fine. They're okay. But I would never prefer them over a thin fry.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:04]
| I will say that I like the, my favorite is the thicker steak cut fry.
|
Sam:
[1:52:12]
| Yeah, I like that. I'm not a fan of, I mean, I'll eat them if they're what's there. I'm not going to be like, I hate it. Oh, that is my favorite.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:20]
| I used to do the fries where I would like go and like put a whole bunch of like milk, milk, she put them in the oven. Okay. With olive oil and melt a whole bunch of cheese and on top of them. So you can get some nice cheese fries. Those came out pretty good.
|
Sam:
[1:52:38]
| I've never been too excited about fries with toppings either. I usually just fries and salt.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:44]
| The curly fries.
|
Sam:
[1:52:45]
| I like some of the flavored ones. Like you said, curly fries usually have some additional spices and things.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:51]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:52:51]
| That's okay. But I haven't been.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:53]
| And they're very crispy. They're like the one. Yeah, they're very crispy.
|
Sam:
[1:52:57]
| I like those. But, like, I've never been a fan of, like, cheese on top or bacon on top or things like that. It is. Yep. You know, I don't know. And I'm a fan of bacon. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:10]
| I don't know. And you like cheese?
|
Sam:
[1:53:11]
| And I like cheese, but not those things together. You know? I don't know. And also, one last thing on fries. Like, I know some people who really love, like, if you go to, like, a state fair or something, And they have those big tubs of like, you get like this big container full of fries. That's like, yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:33]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:53:33]
| I've never liked them. They have just been a little too soft for me usually. And like I said, I like the crispy ones.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:41]
| Man, I'm trying to remember the last time I was ever at a state fair. I know I've been to one, but I don't, I don't, I'm not sure when it was the last time.
|
Sam:
[1:53:51]
| We usually go every year on one day to the Evergreen State Fair near here. But my pattern and my son's pattern for the last few years, originally we would look at more. But for the last few years, it's basically been, we go, there's a specific spot where we sit under a specific tree and eat some food. Usually some corn, some hot dogs, have a couple sodas, and we sit there for a couple hours then leave. Like, we're not doing the rides. We might do one pass through, like we'll walk through where all the animals are. The place where we sit is within sight of a place where they do like a lumberjack show. So we'll sort of see the lumberjack show from a distance. But that's it. We don't do most of the actual fair stuff. And there are usually all kinds of booths where people are selling stuff and things like that. And my wife will go visit all those booths and things like that. But my son and I, we just sit there, we eat, we leave.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:02]
| Sounds like a plan.
|
Sam:
[1:55:04]
| Which probably isn't actually worth the price of getting in, but it's a tradition at this point.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:09]
| Well, but if you like doing that, then why not? Whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:55:13]
| You know, we have some junk food that's slightly different from the junk food we usually eat.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:18]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:55:18]
| I mean, it's not healthy, but neither is what we eat normally, but it's different junk food, you know? So that's all that matters, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:55:28]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:55:29]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:29]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[1:55:30]
| I think we're done, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:31]
| Yes, we're done.
|
Sam:
[1:55:33]
| Thanks, everybody, for joining us yet again on another Curmudgeon's Corner. Stay safe. Have fun. Not too much fun. Have a good week and we'll talk to you next time goodbye bye, Okay, that's it. Goodbye, Yvonne. Have a great rest of your weekend.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:22]
| Bye.
| |
|
