Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Greetings.
|
Ivan:
[0:02]
| Salutations! Wait, you're wearing a shirt that has a collar. What the fuck is going to do?
|
Sam:
[0:11]
| I know. It's reprehensible. I should go change right now.
|
Ivan:
[0:23]
| I like something's not right. I'm like, wait, something's Something's up. You look combed. You look... You look... You look like they dragged you out in public.
|
Sam:
[0:41]
| If it makes you feel better, I've been wearing it for a couple days now.
|
Ivan:
[0:46]
| Wow. Damn. Okay.
|
Sam:
[0:51]
| Okay. Shall we start?
|
Ivan:
[0:52]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[0:53]
| Okay. If you need to leave early, that's fine. We can make it shorter because I started later.
|
Ivan:
[0:59]
| I was trying to make it, because Juana had some eye surgery yesterday.
|
Sam:
[1:03]
| Of all things. Oh, my.
|
Ivan:
[1:05]
| I mean, and it was, well, it was Thursday. Well, she thought it was, well, I think both of us assumed it wasn't going to be as painful as it still is.
|
Sam:
[1:18]
| Ouch. Okay. Yeah, so we'll aim at ending at when we would have ended if we'd started half an hour ago. Okay. Sound good?
|
Ivan:
[1:27]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:28]
| Okay. Here we go. Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, June 6th, 2026. It's just after 1730 UTC. I'm Sam Minter, and Yvonne Bowe is back with us yet again. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:10]
| Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Is anybody here? Oh, yes, you're here. Hi.
|
Sam:
[2:22]
| You know, I was just looking, and out of the last six shows, you've only been with me two.
|
Ivan:
[2:29]
| It's been a rough month and a half.
|
Sam:
[2:33]
| Okay? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:35]
| For various reasons, it's been a rough month and a half.
|
Sam:
[2:43]
| Yeah. I sensed that. I somehow sensed that.
|
Ivan:
[2:48]
| But I think that the best indicator of how it's finally calmed down is that I started using this health tracker, my whoop, right? It's been tracking my resting heart rate at sleep, okay? And I have, well, it's not an athlete's resting heart rate, but it's a low resting heart rate, okay? My resting heart rate, usually whenever I've measured, is in the low 60s. Okay?
|
Sam:
[3:22]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[3:22]
| So it's not, you know, it's not athlete, but it's not, you know, it's above average. Okay? It's significantly above average. So I go, but it had been showing that it had been high. It'd been, there were some nights that it was as high as 80.
|
Sam:
[3:47]
| I just, I just checked my tracker. My resting rate average is 69 to 78.
|
Ivan:
[3:56]
| Right. 69 to 78. Okay. Right. Which, which that's more like towards the average in there. Mine is usually in a low sixties. Okay. Okay. But, but, but with, but with, with all the stress, it had been higher it had been you know where the average had been let's see it had uh hang on i'll pull it up so i have it here it had been closer to 70 okay with some days where it was 80 at well i was in my average at night one night 83 one night 80 okay so finally i got the shit that i had been trying to get done done these deals that i've been killing myself finally got done my resting heart rate dropped all the way back down to 61 okay there's an improvement there I mean, but, you know, it's like to 61. And not just that, but my sleep consistency. Whereas I had been showing all these like moments that my sleep was interrupted at night. Okay. Where I would get awake. All of a sudden my sleep consistency is like, I'm sleeping.
|
Ivan:
[5:25]
| Solid like sleeping not not with 10 wake awake moments and shit no no sleep you know restful sleep so that's.
|
Sam:
[5:37]
| Good that's good.
|
Ivan:
[5:38]
| So yeah but but but the prior month had been it's just i'm just like i was what there was a day last week i don't know man i basically stayed in bed like i don't Oh, how long? At 5.30 in the morning. Well, I was trying to sleep, but I wasn't. Oh, okay. At night. And then at 5.30 in the morning, I just gave up and just said, fuck it. I'm getting up. This is, I'm not, all I'm doing is just lying awake here at bed.
|
Sam:
[6:08]
| I understand.
|
Ivan:
[6:09]
| But last night, this morning, I slept all the way until nine. No problem.
|
Sam:
[6:16]
| Very good.
|
Ivan:
[6:16]
| Like a baby.
|
Sam:
[6:18]
| Well, of course, they always say babies don't actually sleep that way.
|
Ivan:
[6:23]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.
|
Sam:
[6:24]
| Babies wake up all the time. They yell. They cry.
|
Ivan:
[6:27]
| Well, you know what? Look, Manu was actually pretty good from like a few months to sleep through the night. Pretty well.
|
Sam:
[6:37]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[6:38]
| He was, uh, that was only like the first.
|
Sam:
[6:40]
| I honestly have no memory. That was only like the first two.
|
Ivan:
[6:42]
| Three months, but afterwards he, he, he would sleep through the night. And I remember that. I, I usually, because I'm kind of like, I'll, I'll manage the day even with all those rest interruptions. But my wife would kill her. Okay. So I, I, I, I, I started because, well, she, you know, I started being. Now I'll wake up and give him the bottle because we had, we had been like, lactating for her was terrible. We, we, we, she had, she'd put some milk, but we had to supplement a lot with like bottle. I'm like, nah, nah, nah. She did it a few times and it was a disaster. I'm like, nah, I'll do this. I'll wake up. But that only had to do that for a couple of months. I mean, after like the first couple of months, he was like sleeping, sleeping through the night.
|
Sam:
[7:32]
| Yeah. I have, I have no memory of Alex as a baby. But to be fair.
|
Ivan:
[7:38]
| I have no... You have no memories of anything. So what the hell anyway?
|
Sam:
[7:41]
| That's what I was going to say. I can't remember last week either.
|
Ivan:
[7:44]
| Exactly. So that's not really much of an indicator. So... One thing to point out, I don't think I've done a show using my new headphones. I think I mentioned on the Slack that I got new AirPods.
|
Sam:
[8:00]
| You were getting new AirPods. AirPods.
|
Ivan:
[8:02]
| Yeah, because... AirPods Pro or whatever. Yeah, AirPods. Well, I don't know. These are not Pros. I don't know. What the hell? This is AirPods.
|
Sam:
[8:11]
| So it's the medium one. It's the AirPods with noise reduction, but not the AirPods Pro?
|
Ivan:
[8:18]
| Right. It does have the noise. Exactly. Because I had chosen not to get the noise reduction ones a few years back. I think for the most part, the reason, well, my reasoning in the past for not using battery operated noise reduction headphones was twofold. Number one, I don't like those big ones like the ones you have.
|
Sam:
[8:41]
| I've got the AirPod Maxes. They're called Maxes, right? AirPod Maxes.
|
Ivan:
[8:46]
| Yeah, I find all of those... I mean, the main reason I used them for was for air travel and sleeping with, and some airlines provided those, okay, especially like business class that would give you, they would give you those. If I tried to sleep with those on, it was impossible. I found that I couldn't sleep with them on. It would bother my head that they would be super annoying. I understand.
|
Sam:
[9:16]
| Just for contrast, I sleep with these on almost every night.
|
Ivan:
[9:20]
| Okay, no, no. Yeah, I found those incredibly uncomfortable to sleep with.
|
Sam:
[9:24]
| I will say, though, like there is a difference. Like the AirPod Maxes are relatively thin. Some of the other brands are like big lumps on the side that like stick out like an inch. It depends on the brand.
|
Ivan:
[9:38]
| Yeah, but it doesn't matter. If I put my head on the side, I got this big fucking headphone on it. It's just an extra pillow. No, it's not a fucking extra pillow. Okay. So, no. So I prefer earbuds and I always have, I think part of it goes back to the fact that my first like real like noise reduction headphones that I used for travel all the time were ones that I bought at the, the, the, when Apple store opened or Apple stores. Okay. Right. When they had their first Apple stores. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[10:10]
| They didn't sell headphones. They sold, and I got an iPod, and they had these Sony noise reduction earbuds, which it's very obvious that I am sure because Steve Jobs curated a lot of the stuff. He must have, like, gone through, like, a bazillion different, like, individual items, and he tried those, and he said, okay, these are the best. We're selling these. And Steve had always shown, Apple had always shown a kind of like a predilection for like certain Sony products that they actually put in their devices. Like they used, I remember for a while on my Mac 2Xs, they had Sony power supplies. They used the color displays that they used for a long time were Sony Trinitron tubes. So they would buy Sony parts very regularly. OK, so I'm guessing that one day they were going to open the Apple store and the only noise reduction earbuds they had were these Sonys. They were fantastic. They were the best at the time. They used a couple of double A batteries.
|
Ivan:
[11:08]
| They lasted a long time. And the one thing is that if I went on because I went on a lot of overnight flights, they were really good to keep in my ears to sleep to get the noise reduction effect. because on an airplane, it does make a huge difference. You will sleep a lot better on an airplane if you're wearing earplugs, noise reduction, something to muffle the noise from the engines, okay? It just helps your sleep. And so I use those a lot. And I use those wired ones for, and then even when they went to Lightning, I found some Lightning ones that I used for a long time.
|
Ivan:
[11:46]
| And the one thing is that when they came out, most of the most of those earbuds don't last enough on batteries for the type of lights that I normally took.
|
Sam:
[11:57]
| Just as an obvious physical thing. There's less room for a battery if you're sticking it in your ear.
|
Ivan:
[12:04]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[12:05]
| You can put a bigger battery in bigger headphones.
|
Ivan:
[12:09]
| Exactly. And so, like, your headphones, I think, have, like, 30-hour battery life or something like that. Something like that, yeah. It's a very long battery life.
|
Sam:
[12:16]
| And there are other brands that beat these. Like, battery life is not one of the things the Apple ones are best at.
|
Ivan:
[12:24]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah and then and then you know it's like but most of the airpods like they max out like at five hours okay something.
|
Sam:
[12:30]
| Like that yeah and.
|
Ivan:
[12:32]
| So so you know but you hey but when you take them out you put them back in the i mean the thing is that you're normally when you take them off you're putting them in the case so they're charging automatically so that's.
|
Sam:
[12:41]
| Not usually.
|
Ivan:
[12:41]
| A big deal um.
|
Sam:
[12:42]
| Well you have to remember to charge the case but yes well.
|
Ivan:
[12:45]
| Yeah so well i i know that could be difficult for some people but anyway.
|
Sam:
[12:49]
| I i've said before my the reason i i used to do earbuds earbuds and earbuds i used to use bud air.
|
Ivan:
[12:59]
| Bud was a movie.
|
Sam:
[13:00]
| Yes yes i i used to have all i i used to do bud style headphones all the time back in the wired days i i switched you know but i i very quickly, even with the wired ones switched from getting, I never got the super expensive ones but I got mid-range but then I switched to get the cheapest damn ones I could possibly get because inevitably I would lose the damn things or send them through the laundry, every single time. Like the average length of time a pair of earbuds would last for me was like one to two months and I would be lucky, you know? And so I moved to like, okay, I'm getting the $10 earbuds because I know they're going to be gone in a few weeks anyway, you know? And, and, and, but then, then I got smart and I'm like, you know, let's just switch to the bigger ones.
|
Ivan:
[13:58]
| And that way they won't, they won't go through the laundry.
|
Sam:
[14:00]
| They won't go through the laundry, and I have yet to lose one. Now, back when I was going into the office regularly, I did on one or two occasions accidentally leave them in a conference room and not know where they were for a while. But then, like, a few days later when I realized they weren't turning up— Did you do a Find My thing? They didn't have them back. Well, this was pre-Apple, pre-these, okay?
|
Ivan:
[14:27]
| Oh, okay, okay.
|
Sam:
[14:27]
| Like it was just other brands of headphones, but I would go through my calendar and go to and actually go visit all the conference rooms I'd been in. And inevitably they were still there. Somebody nice and put them in the corner or whatever. And, you know, so I never have lost one this size, you know, so.
|
Ivan:
[14:47]
| So I go, and I'm like, when Lightning had, when they stopped putting headphone jacks on, Pioneer was selling these called Pioneer Rays that I liked that allowed you to have the noise reduction earbuds in. But they also had a little charging port, okay, on the side. So you could put in the, you could connect to the Lightning port, but you could also be charging the phone at the same time, which is a thing. especially when I'm traveling, like on a 15 hour flight, you know, that would be a need.
|
Sam:
[15:21]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[15:22]
| And so it solved both problems. I could be charging. Well, at the same time I had my noise reduction and so that, but here's a reality. I don't travel like that anymore. I mean, I haven't done a, you know, 10-plus-hour flight in— Right.
|
Sam:
[15:39]
| By length, you still travel a lot, but they're shorter flights.
|
Ivan:
[15:43]
| But they're shorter flights. I don't have to take, you know, 14-hour flights to Hong Kong.
|
Sam:
[15:50]
| You're not going to Asia anymore, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[15:51]
| I'm not going to Asia anymore, no. Not regularly. And so, you know, so since I don't have that need now, for a bit, I had been gifted these noise reduction Beats headphones. I got them free. Okay. So I've been using those. Sound quality was meh. And the battery life was also kind of meh. Okay. All right. But they worked and they were free. Okay. So I was using them for a couple of years. Okay. And I had some AirPods that I used whenever I was in a situation that was not noise reduction. The AirPods, I don't know, something, I've had them for three years. I'd actually had them repaired, replaced once. I don't know. One of them was failing. And I had not gotten AppleCare for those. Well, no, I did, but I didn't get the one that continued. It expired already.
|
Sam:
[16:47]
| Right, okay.
|
Ivan:
[16:48]
| And I'm like, you know, those beats kind of suck, okay? You know, I've been using them because they were free, but they kind of suck. Okay? Let me just buy the Apple noise reduction AirPods. Okay? Let me just say this. I am right now kind of like kicking myself I didn't buy these before, right, for two reasons. Number one, the battery life is definitely good enough for what I need right now. But the second thing is, the noise reduction on these things blows away any of the other noise reduction I have had on any fucking headphones I have ever owned with noise reduction capability. It's in terms of how it's just very... I feel like some of the noise reduction in others was very blunt. versus this one feels like it's very adaptive to whatever the annoying noise is that you want to get out, but at the same time allow the right noises to get to you when you need to.
|
Sam:
[18:02]
| Let me ask a question then. If that was the most important feature for you, why did you get the AirPods with noise reduction instead of the AirPods Pro, which are supposed to have even better noise reduction?
|
Ivan:
[18:14]
| No, no, no. Remember, Oh, because I saw the AirPods Pro, and I remember that the AirPods Pro that came out a little bit earlier, they had, like, I didn't, I don't know. I wasn't, like, really convinced about the shape of them for some reason. I don't know. Because those had, whatchamacallit, the first version, they had the little rubber thingies, okay, that you have to put.
|
Sam:
[18:45]
| They do have the rubber thingies.
|
Ivan:
[18:47]
| But these don't.
|
Sam:
[18:49]
| Okay. That's legitimate. I mean, I'm looking at the Apple site right now in the comparison chart. And for the AirPods Pro 3, they say up to four times more active noise cancellation than the AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation, which is the current AirPods 4 with noise cancellation. It's the current one. And so, you know, I'm just surprised. It's because you don't like the little rubber thingies.
|
Ivan:
[19:16]
| I didn't like the rubber thingies. I always had like those with the damn rubber thingies. And they were always a pain in my ass to get the right one, the thing or whatever. I was like.
|
Sam:
[19:25]
| And then those come off and then you have to. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[19:28]
| So, so, so these don't have the rubber thingy, but they are better than the beats that I had with the rubber thingy at the noise reduction thing.
|
Sam:
[19:41]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[19:42]
| Okay. And they're far more comfortable. The sound quality is way better. The noise reduction is better. I mean, overall, I will say that flat out, these are the best headphones I've ever had right now, period. And I've had some expensive headphones.
|
Ivan:
[20:04]
| But, yeah, but, but, but, and, and let's be clear, these aren't that expensive in the headphone space like right now. There, there are a lot more expensive ones, but, but, but for the price.
|
Ivan:
[20:19]
| Damn, I'll tell you something. There is a number of things that Apple has released lately that the price performance of them has been, you know, Apple keeps the whole dig for decades is that they're more expensive than everybody else. else but there are a number of products that apple released lately that the price performance blows away everybody else in the water okay all right buy a lot you know i think dell tried to launch a macbook neo competitor but let's let's be fair okay dell launched a fucking windows laptop that has 8 gigs of RAM. If anybody has ever experienced Windows in the last couple of decades, I'd say since 2010, with less than 16, you know, gigs of RAM, you know that it's about, it's torture. It is torture, okay, to run Windows with under 16. I mean, it's as slow as a turtle. It's awful. It's a barely usable user experience. Okay?
|
Ivan:
[21:30]
| So Dell's saying, hey, we launched the Neo competitor, and, you know, it's got 8 gigs of RAM, but hey, the keyboard's backlit. I'm like, well, that's great. So what? So I can see the keyboard as I'm trying to bash it with my hand, as pissed off I am because nothing I'm trying to run works? That's the whole point of this? No thanks, Dell.
|
Sam:
[21:55]
| Well, speaking of that sort of thing, My mom has decided that it is finally time to replace her 10-year-old Mac laptop. And I am not exaggerating when I say 10 years.
|
Ivan:
[22:10]
| But look, 10-year-old Mac laptops aren't such a crazy thing. Look, my wife's MacBook Air right now is six years old.
|
Sam:
[22:21]
| Yeah, no, look, I mean, it basically met her needs up to this point. the thing is that finally is doing it is the battery has finally gotten to the point where even if you leave it plugged in it doesn't charge up properly okay so like she like if you unplug it the battery life is like measured in minutes now not not even hours okay you can't talking to somebody.
|
Ivan:
[22:51]
| A co-worker by that has a windows laptop that they decided that uh that they're going to order a Mac because they allowed their country to order Macs. And he was telling me that after four years, that his battery life right now is down to like 30 minutes. Yeah. I mean, it's like, yeah.
|
Sam:
[23:06]
| And at 10 years old, it's not even worth exploring any fix options.
|
Ivan:
[23:12]
| No.
|
Sam:
[23:13]
| No.
|
Ivan:
[23:13]
| No.
|
Sam:
[23:13]
| No. And so, you know, we're basically going to, I'm going to go with her to the Apple store before too long. But I think the choice is basically between the new Neos, the MacBook Neos, or a MacBook Air. And the only reason that I... would even consider a macbook air is the macbook neo the internal storage max is out at 512 and she's already using nearly that much on her computer and that's and that's after turning on optimization uh so a lot of stuff is in iCloud yeah so that that yeah that's so yeah.
|
Ivan:
[23:54]
| That that would be the yeah that would be if you're.
|
Sam:
[23:57]
| Using that.
|
Ivan:
[23:57]
| Much storage then yeah.
|
Sam:
[23:58]
| Yeah because otherwise I think a MacBook Neo would be perfect for her, you know, in terms of what she actually uses the computer for. But there's a bunch of storage, you know, there's things. And yeah, she could probably just barely get away with it, given a whole bunch of stuff stored in iCloud. But, you know, a MacBook Air might be the right way to go. So a little bit more, but, you know.
|
Ivan:
[24:26]
| I'll tell you another story. So last week, one of the things, well, my travel schedule last week got so fucked up. I mean, because I was supposed to be in El Salvador all week and I wasn't, I was only there for a day. Things went so sideways that after I left the meeting I was in, I actually called the travel agency. This was like at 7.30 PM the night after the meeting. And I was like, get me the fuck out of here. And I, as I, as I, they, they booked me, there was a 7 AM flight the next day and I'm like, fuck it.
|
Ivan:
[24:57]
| Whatever. Now you wonder why my sleep was not, you know, my sleep pattern is not so great. When I, one day I took a flight already that I had already had to wake up at five in the morning to go to the airport. And then the next day I'm already on a 7 a.m. flight flying somewhere else. And, and, you know, uh, but yeah, but you wonder why my sleep may have been problematic. So, so anyway, so I go and I, I got into 7 a.m. as I'm flying to, as I'm flying to Miami, I realized that I got some issues in Puerto Rico with something. And my family had all decided that week to be in Puerto Rico for vacation. Like my brother, my nephews, everybody. And I'm like, oh, fuck this. I'm going to Puerto Rico. The hell with it. Okay. So as I was flying to Miami, I booked myself to continue flying to, to go to, to, to go to Puerto Rico. So I was there with my brother that week and he, he's, he, um, he, he had, you know, I was working there and he has a MacBook pro and, you know, he had left the charging and we had, you know, Puerto Rico as has been known we've had power issues okay right problem power so one night we were sitting out in the on the deck uh at the at the house we were at this beach house with my cousin and and um.
|
Ivan:
[26:08]
| There was a power, there was a, there was a brownout, power flickered. It was like, it was really fucked up, how it happened. It was brief. And he had his laptop charging. Well, we didn't think nothing of it. And he didn't use it again. So we were leaving the next day. He went and he, he unplugged the laptop and put it in his briefcase. And we, we, he flew back. He didn't touch it until the next day. He, he, he, he goes to use it the next day at home. And he's like, it's not turning on. And when he plugged in the charger, the charger was blinking all weird. And I'm like, what the fuck? So I'm like, hey, well, try to press the power button 10 seconds to see if it turns up. Nothing. Does nothing. Nothing. And I'm like, shit.
|
Sam:
[27:00]
| A power surge fried it.
|
Ivan:
[27:02]
| Yeah. That's one I hadn't seen in a long time. but that power surge fried the laptop.
|
Sam:
[27:09]
| So not just the power supply. It fried the laptop too.
|
Ivan:
[27:13]
| It fried the laptop.
|
Sam:
[27:15]
| That's a shame.
|
Ivan:
[27:17]
| That one, I hadn't seen that happen in a long time. But look, it is something that is many people in Puerto Rico have pending claims against a power company precisely for this. There is a docket of Tens of thousands of claims, basically, my refrigerator, my TV, my this, my that, basically have been fried. Okay. And it's one of the things that people are really pissed off about in Puerto Rico is this kind of shit. But yeah, the power... The power surge fried his MacBook Pro. It was totally dead. And, you know, it was already over three years old. His AppleCare Plus had expired. He told them, they told him, well, we can fix it for $1,200. I'm like, yeah, fix it for $1,200. He bought a brand new one right there in the spot. Whatever. There's nothing to do. There's nothing to do.
|
Sam:
[28:23]
| Understood.
|
Ivan:
[28:24]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[28:24]
| So let's move on real quick. I got two things. One, I meant to mention this at the very beginning of the show, but of course we got right into it, so I didn't. But this show is our 19th anniversary show. We're not quite at 20 yet. We'll have a bigger celebration at 20. We're not quite at 1,000 yet. This is episode 991. Damn! So we're getting really close to 1,000. But yeah, June 3rd, 2007 was our first podcast version of Curmudgeon's Corner. So I just wanted to call out, it's been 19 years as of this show, as of a couple days ago, but you know, whatever in terms of when we do the show. It's been 19 years and, you know, in a few more episodes, we're going to hit a thousand episodes. So it's getting up there. Well, I figure I figure the real time snow. I'm just doing a passing thing for 19 because it's an odd number and all that. But we should note a thousand episodes and I don't know, do something. And we should note 20 years next year and do something. Those are two like milestones that seem like they should make sense. And we should.
|
Ivan:
[29:45]
| Well, I should try because this year I was going to go. So, well, we were, I'm still, I'm still trying to figure out when the fuck to fly up to Seattle to go to one of the podcast mixer things because I had planned to be there next month.
|
Sam:
[30:01]
| Let me plug them since you mentioned them.
|
Ivan:
[30:03]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[30:04]
| The Snohomish Podcast Network. They're a bunch of local podcasts with people who make them in my county here, Snohomish County, Washington. And you can Google them, check out the site. There's about a dozen podcasts at this point in the network, and they're all worth checking out. Okay, go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[30:21]
| So I went and I'm like, I mean, I was going, we were going to go to Seattle. We were going to be in the Seattle area. And, you know, we, well, we changed, my wife changed her mind.
|
Sam:
[30:36]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[30:38]
| She, because first we're going to go to Long Beach on the Pacific coast, which is a beach, but it's not a tropical beach.
|
Sam:
[30:49]
| No, the beaches here are very different than the beaches where you are or in the Caribbean.
|
Ivan:
[30:55]
| So my wife completely, completely, at some point decided, you know what? I don't want to be at a, I don't want to be at that kind of beach. I want to be at like a real beach. And I'm like, OK.
|
Sam:
[31:10]
| It's just a different experience.
|
Ivan:
[31:12]
| So so I'm going to send to Sam for reference. What where I just finished booking where the beach that we're going to. OK, instead, see if Sam, I'm going to send him the link. See, how different is this from Long Beach, Sam? There you go. OK, so this is where we booked.
|
Sam:
[31:33]
| I see the picture. It looks like the water's very blue. Now, I have not been to Long Beach, so I can't compare directly, but yeah.
|
Ivan:
[31:42]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[31:43]
| I'm just looking at the picture.
|
Ivan:
[31:44]
| But you know the beaches off of your estate.
|
Sam:
[31:47]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[31:48]
| How does that look compared to the beaches off the state of Washington?
|
Sam:
[31:53]
| Different. I've actually only been to a Washington state, like actual ocean beach, as opposed to something off the sound once since I've been here. And it was my main memories that we flew kites, we did some stuff, but we went, it was, it was like 50 degrees and foggy. you could the the tide was out and the the difference between high tide and low tide was very long and so there is a huge sort of sandy area exposed but still sort of wet sand and i remember the the cultural thing different from the east coast was apparently the thing to do was everybody drove their vehicles directly onto the onto the.
|
Ivan:
[32:43]
| Beach which i always find oh god.
|
Sam:
[32:45]
| People do.
|
Ivan:
[32:47]
| It sometimes people don't do it down here in south florida but they do it in northern florida and every time i fucking like see people uh doing it i'm just like oh fuck what the fuck is wrong with you.
|
Sam:
[32:57]
| So it's like you know the the beach is just full of like vehicles and people hanging out in their cars or trucks or whatever's and you know and and of course it is it is it was cooler when we were there and you know so we we did run into the water for a few seconds but you're not going to stay in there and uh it was windy so we we we flew we flew a kite oh flying a kite at the beach is cool it was fun listen.
|
Ivan:
[33:27]
| Fly flying a kite at the beach is always a lot of fun i haven't done it a long time but but i used to do it a lot when we were when we were a kid and it was always a lot of fun. I will say that, look, when I was younger and we did kite flying, I would like have the kites. I would usually... Keep adding string to it to get it, like, at really, really, really, really high altitude. I know that on instances, I would use at least over 1,000 feet of string and get the kite to such an altitude that basically people would say, hey, so where's your kite? Well, if you looked up there very, very far, you see that little tiny? Oh, yeah, I could barely see it. you can get you get a kite to go up really really high okay like.
|
Sam:
[34:19]
| So before we get to movies i do have one note we actually have a comment on our live stream about the beaches yeah from from club exile who by the way is one of the snow homish podcast network they have oh they have a youtube channel rather than a traditional podcast but uh he mentions that he got his car stuck in the sand doing that.
|
Ivan:
[34:42]
| He got his what stuck in the sand?
|
Sam:
[34:44]
| His car.
|
Ivan:
[34:45]
| Of course he did. Yes. That's what happens. It's not good.
|
Sam:
[34:52]
| Exactly. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[34:53]
| But by the way, the island that we are going to, which is North Eleuthera, to be precise.
|
Sam:
[35:00]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[35:00]
| As a total population of 3,893 people.
|
Sam:
[35:04]
| Not bad.
|
Ivan:
[35:05]
| Okay. It's very, very, very. And the whole point was, let's go somewhere that's very like you know isolated.
|
Sam:
[35:15]
| You should have just you know undercut and bought that island that jared kushner and ivanka trump are buying in albania in.
|
Ivan:
[35:24]
| Albania well yeah so so that way they would be protesting me in albania that'd be great.
|
Sam:
[35:28]
| Sounds awesome anyway anyway movies real quick because you know movie number one, You're going to love this, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[35:37]
| Oh, boy.
|
Sam:
[35:37]
| I know it's one of your favorite artists.
|
Ivan:
[35:40]
| Oh, boy.
|
Sam:
[35:41]
| Under Siege 2, Dark Territory.
|
Ivan:
[35:44]
| Fuck. I have watched this movie.
|
Sam:
[35:47]
| From 1995.
|
Ivan:
[35:49]
| Yeah. There's no wonder he's on a train.
|
Sam:
[35:52]
| He's on a train. Steven Seagal is on a train.
|
Ivan:
[35:56]
| Is there a nuclear bomb on the train, I think, or something?
|
Sam:
[36:00]
| They're going to blow up the train in some way, shape, or form. Yeah, something. What was the, they've, no, no, there's not a bomb on the train. The terrorists on the train are going to control satellites to target a nuclear reactor under the Pentagon.
|
Ivan:
[36:21]
| Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, was that some stupid thing, right?
|
Sam:
[36:27]
| And they've got, you know, and his brother's daughter is on the train too. And so there's a thing. And so he has to get from one end of the train to the other and, you know, do stuff with the terrorists and blah, blah, blah. And you can imagine how this all goes.
|
Ivan:
[36:46]
| Listen, the one thing I never understand is why they do these movies on trains that are in the U.S. where we don't fucking go on trains. We barely do. You know, if this was a movie about something like this happening, say, on a bullet train in Europe.
|
Sam:
[37:07]
| Or Japan or or in a part of American history where trains were more often.
|
Ivan:
[37:14]
| Exactly. Then, OK. But, you know, seriously.
|
Sam:
[37:17]
| I mean, having said that.
|
Ivan:
[37:21]
| Though, I know that Greg. Well, Greg, Greg, who one of our show, one of our listeners, I know that he's traveled extensively by train. But but it's not it's not the no. Listen, most people are not doing.
|
Sam:
[37:34]
| No, most people are not. However, they do exist, you know, and people do take trains.
|
Ivan:
[37:40]
| People and often there's going to be the hijacking of something to detonate some thing or whatever. You know what? It's going to be in America. It's going to be a fucking airplane, as has happened, unfortunately, not a fucking train.
|
Sam:
[37:54]
| Or why do you look in this particular case? Why do you need a vehicle at all?
|
Ivan:
[38:01]
| I'm not sure why they explained it.
|
Sam:
[38:05]
| They're hijacking some satellites and trying to control the satellites to do something.
|
Ivan:
[38:10]
| And what does a train have anything to do? I don't know.
|
Sam:
[38:13]
| You'd think being on the train would actually make that more difficult. Yeah. You know?
|
Ivan:
[38:18]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[38:18]
| So, anyway, I will say, like, it was not horrible.
|
Ivan:
[38:23]
| It's not a horrible flick. In retrospect, it's not a horrible flick. I mean, the concept was dumb, but it wasn't that bad a movie. I mean, the only thing that really just it's one of these things where things are ruined to me now in the past because of who the people involved are. And it's just because Steven Seagal's in it. I'm just, you know what? Fuck Steven Seagal. I mean, really, just just it's like my whole thing that this week somebody was asking who and who. Who is a famous person that's been ruined, that really gets to you? And you know what? The right answer, after going through it, is Bill Cosby.
|
Sam:
[39:05]
| Hmm. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[39:06]
| I, you know, fuck you, Bill. I mean, really. You know, the other day I was a dentist, and the funniest skit ever I've ever said, a comedy routine about a dentist that exists is what Bill Cosby did a long time ago. And I can't repeat it because that motherfucker did it. I hate you, Bill.
|
Sam:
[39:29]
| Ah, yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[39:32]
| Why did you have to be? You could fuck whoever the hell you wanted. Why the hell did you think it was such a great idea to fucking drug and rape women? You fucking psycho bastard.
|
Sam:
[39:50]
| Indeed. There are other people as well, but Bill Cosby is a prime example.
|
Ivan:
[39:56]
| He was our commencement speaker, which I know you don't remember because you don't remember anything. He was our fucking commencement speaker, Sam.
|
Sam:
[40:04]
| I know, but I think one of the reasons why Bill Cosby stands out is the huge delta between his previous reputation.
|
Ivan:
[40:17]
| Oh, my God.
|
Sam:
[40:18]
| You know, cause it's, there are all kinds of people who like, you know, if something bad happened, you'd be like, man, that's a shame. That kind of sucks. But like where they were to start with wasn't elevated in the way that he was. Cause he, and not only elevated in like he was big and famous, but he had a reputation as family friendly and, you know, the Cosby show that the Fat Albert, you know, all of this stuff. And I recognize some of his comedy was more off-color than his family-friendly stuff. But nevertheless.
|
Ivan:
[40:52]
| But he had comedy that was off-color that he did to adults. But then he also did family comedy. And he did kids' comedy as well. It's not like he would go and insert the adult comedy into the kids' show. No, he would go and say, hey, I'm going to do a show for adults. And I'll do the comedy for adults. So it was all segregated. Why'd you have to fuck all that up, Bill? You stupid son of a fucking bitch!
|
Sam:
[41:22]
| And he was doing it in the beginning. We have a comment from the Peanut Gallery as well. He used to do kids' television like picture pages as well.
|
Ivan:
[41:30]
| Yes!
|
Sam:
[41:31]
| From Captain Kangaroo.
|
Ivan:
[41:32]
| Yes!
|
Sam:
[41:33]
| Yeah. I remember picture pages. Picture pages, picture pages. Gotta have your pencil. Anyway. I did. Anyway. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[41:44]
| I agree. Eat.
|
Sam:
[41:49]
| Very good. Okay. And the second one, which I think we can breeze past pretty quickly, because we did a whole show dedicated to this, but I finally reached it in order, which is the 2025 Superman movie. Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[42:06]
| Right, because we did a whole show on it.
|
Sam:
[42:08]
| Yeah, I will refer people back to episode 950, which was recorded.
|
Ivan:
[42:14]
| Our resident listener expert, Pete Berger, gave his insights on it.
|
Sam:
[42:20]
| He joined us. Yes. Yeah, that was recorded August 23rd, 2025 and put out on August 25th, 2025. You can go back and look at it. But we basically spent more than half of the show talking about Superman, the new movie, and other older Superman movies. and all kinds of related stuff. Oh, Under Siege, thumbs sideways for Under Siege. It was fine, nothing special, but it was fun.
|
Ivan:
[42:47]
| Yeah, now I'll fucking watch that shit again.
|
Sam:
[42:50]
| And for the Superman movie, I gave it a thumbs up then. I'll give it a thumbs up again now. I believe you liked it as well, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[42:58]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[42:59]
| And, you know, I'm sure if Pete was listening right now, he would want us to point out that the Supergirl movie is coming out very soon. In a few weeks, I think. Let me check when its premiere is. Supergirl 2026. June 26th, so a few more weeks, but it's coming out June 26th, and I know Pete has been looking forward to that very much so, and yeah, so we both gave thumbs up to it. We liked it. It was a good adaptation of Superman, probably the best since the originals, well, the 1970s versions, not the 1940s versions. And although, as Pete pointed out when we talked about it last year, the originals, the 1970s versions, there's some ways they don't hold up, you know, in other ways they do. And specifically, we're talking about Superman 1 and 2. They fall apart after that. Like Superman 3, three, four, five. No. There were five, right? There were five overall.
|
Ivan:
[44:10]
| I don't know.
|
Sam:
[44:11]
| I can't remember.
|
Ivan:
[44:12]
| Superman 5, question of peace, it could be the same thing as me keeping track of fucking Batman movies.
|
Sam:
[44:22]
| Yes. Anyway, that's that. Let's take a break, and then we'll start hitting the newsy stuff. And, you know, the shows I've been doing without Yvonne have been a little bit lighter on the news stuff, although I did do a bunch of it last week. But we have a bunch of things to potentially talk about there. So we're going to get into that in just a minute. Let me find five... Okay, here's the break we're going to do, and back after this. Bum, bum, bum, bum.
|
Ivan:
[45:33]
| Bum, bum. Back when Alex spoke.
|
Sam:
[45:35]
| Back when Alex spoke, yes. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[45:38]
| I mean, he still speaks. He just doesn't speak willingly to others. He did send me, he did create this very passive-aggressive message to me. Mandated you to create an entire website about it.
|
Sam:
[45:54]
| Yes. Well, yes. So, I guess I should point people to it. It's embryoturret.com, you know, and I am still supposed to approve that.
|
Ivan:
[46:07]
| He hasn't spoken to me. He hasn't spoken to me and yet sets me apart the most passive-aggressive message that he can send by mad-taking you to create a website, okay? Basically, you know, trying to—what did I say? Oh, showing his intent to try to destroy my employer.
|
Sam:
[46:26]
| Well, you know, to be fair—, Creating the website was a compromise on my part. The mission he actually gave me.
|
Ivan:
[46:35]
| Oh, was to actually do it.
|
Sam:
[46:36]
| Was to actually do it, yes.
|
Ivan:
[46:38]
| Oh, okay.
|
Sam:
[46:39]
| But my mission was to create within the space of, I don't know, a few days, a few hours, a multi-trillion dollar company to compete with your employer.
|
Ivan:
[46:54]
| Oh, that's the... And you're negotiating. You negotiated him down to a website. Hey, tell him he's matching Donald Trump's negotiating skills in Iran at this point. That's basically where he's at. It's a very similar negotiation that I can see here.
|
Sam:
[47:16]
| Although supposedly this was still just the first step. I'm supposed to periodically work on this and improve it until this does knock your company out of existence.
|
Ivan:
[47:27]
| Okay, I'll be watching further developments in this space.
|
Sam:
[47:35]
| So, embryoturret.com, you know, I will be working on that, and apparently over time, this will become one of the biggest corporations on the planet. You just have to give me a few weeks. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[47:50]
| A few weeks, okay. All right, good. Okay, you know, yeah.
|
Sam:
[47:54]
| Yeah, that's all it takes, right?
|
Ivan:
[47:56]
| Yeah, sure. No problem.
|
Sam:
[47:59]
| Okay. Anyway. And, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[48:06]
| News.
|
Sam:
[48:07]
| News.
|
Ivan:
[48:08]
| Yes. Okay. Well, speaks as I mentioned it. Hey, Sam.
|
Sam:
[48:12]
| I guess it's only four Superman movies. I'm trying to check. Superman 4, The Quest for Peace, was the last of the Christopher Reeves ones. There wasn't a fifth. It was just four.
|
Ivan:
[48:25]
| Getting back to the news.
|
Sam:
[48:26]
| Unless you can't. The Richard Donner cut as a separate version of Superman 2.
|
Ivan:
[48:31]
| No.
|
Sam:
[48:32]
| No. Okay. Okay. Go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[48:35]
| Sam, how is the Iran war and peace negotiations going? Has Trump finally secured his goal? Which it's become crystal clear now. Now, the main goal that he has is to, have a deal that people will say is better than the one Obama did. That is the only goal that I can see right now that exists. How's he going on that front.
|
Sam:
[49:13]
| Sam? Well, the confirmation, I should say, of that, because I think everybody's known that that was known that but now it's been it's sort of been reported well uh came since last week but last week i did talk about iran a bit and i don't think the situation has changed much since last week which is as usual we are nowhere the status quo continues donald trump every few days starts talking about how close we are to a deal and every few days a few minutes after donald trump says that. The Iranians are like, we don't know what he's talking about. And, you know, that's where we are. You know, and we've still had we have occasional like live fire going on within the last couple of days. The Iranians attack some stuff. The U.S. attack some stuff. So we have a we have a ceasefire, but it's not really a cessation of firing. I saw you have a ceasefire.
|
Ivan:
[50:17]
| But it's not a cessation of firing.
|
Sam:
[50:20]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[50:20]
| This is like I am in a monogamous relationship, but I'm fucking everybody I meet.
|
Sam:
[50:27]
| Well, you know, my wife actually...
|
Ivan:
[50:30]
| I mean, what does that mean?
|
Sam:
[50:32]
| Yes, yes. My wife actually played to me a clip of Donald Trump that I had not heard elsewhere at some meeting where he was actually quoted directly as saying, well ceasefire doesn't mean there's no shooting it just means there's less and.
|
Ivan:
[50:51]
| Huh? What? So what, so what is he? So the word cease means what?
|
Sam:
[50:59]
| Less. There's less.
|
Ivan:
[51:01]
| Oh.
|
Sam:
[51:02]
| It just means there's less.
|
Ivan:
[51:04]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[51:06]
| And look, it's good that there's less. I'm not going to say it's not. I mean, it's better than, you know, the full-fledged stuff that we had at the beginning. Donald Trump, of course, keeps threatening every few days, again, to escalate further.
|
Ivan:
[51:21]
| Well, he was also threatened to blow up Oman, right?
|
Sam:
[51:26]
| Or something. Yeah, yeah. And look, I mentioned this last week, but it's worth repeating again. Your basic scenario here, and it's made even clearer by the fact that fundamentally, he wants everybody to be validating him as this is so much better than what Obama did. given that goal first first of all there's there's no path to that there there's no real path to that you know he and you end up with two scenarios both of which are unpalatable to donald trump scenario one is that you accept a deal that everybody says we were better off with the Obama deal. What a disaster. And not only that.
|
Ivan:
[52:17]
| And that's the corner that he's boxed himself into is the problem.
|
Sam:
[52:21]
| And not only that, probably we're worse off than we were before he attacked in February. Or the other choice, the other choice is to go out into a full all-out war where we commit everything. And he doesn't want to do that either because he knows that's also a morass. and so both possible options are ones that look bad for him so he's going to continue to rant and rave and hem and haw and he keeps hoping that at some point the iranians will say oh you know what let's just give them everything they want and of course that's not going to happen but.
|
Ivan:
[53:01]
| I i listen the the biggest problem that he's got is that, He has deteriorated the situation so drastically that there is no way to get to a point now that any deal would be better than what Obama negotiated. Okay? There's just no... There is no deal that you could reach right now that would do that. It's just not there.
|
Sam:
[53:33]
| Right. Right.
|
Ivan:
[53:34]
| So now I know that he has a thing about declaring victory and saying something is better, you know, regardless of him having lost. I mean, that's his M.O., but the thing is that what he said is that he's but he went beyond that. He said he wanted people to say it was better than the Obama deal. He wants people to truly go out and when he blows it and say, hey, it's a better deal. And he finds that, you know, that he everybody's like, well, we've got no way of doing that.
|
Sam:
[54:14]
| Well, and he he tried a few weeks ago to do that, to declare victory and go home and blah, blah, blah. And the problem is that the neocon right flank in the U.S. and Netanyahu in Israel were like, what the fuck are you doing? We can't possibly leave it here. This isn't the scenario. This is not acceptable.
|
Ivan:
[54:38]
| But that's not a way he started clashing against Bibi, too.
|
Sam:
[54:42]
| Yeah, he was ready. You know, Trump was ready to sign on to a deal that basically froze the status quo, including letting Iran charge tolls for going through the Straits of Hormuz. And defer until later further talks about Iran's nuclear program. And basically, the neocons in the Senate here and Netanyahu were like, no, absolutely not. And so Trump backed off because they were coming out and saying this deal is a loser. He looks awful. And like this is this is exactly the kind of thing that Trump can't stand. He can't stand his own theoretical supporters saying he screwed this up. He lost. This is awful. This is a bad deal. Blah, blah, blah. He does not want that. And Netanyahu was basically saying, well, we're going to continue whether you do or not. And so, you know, he is he is stuck. He is in a stuck scenario with basically the only way out is to admit defeat. And he cannot do that.
|
Ivan:
[55:59]
| Right. That's right. That is the only way out. The problem, I mean, the only way to end it, okay, you keep dragging it on so you don't have to declare that you lost.
|
Sam:
[56:11]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[56:12]
| But the reality is that he lost.
|
Sam:
[56:15]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[56:16]
| He lost.
|
Sam:
[56:17]
| He screwed this thing up.
|
Ivan:
[56:18]
| He screwed this thing up so badly, poorly planned, poorly thought out, poorly executed.
|
Sam:
[56:25]
| And I saw someone point out the other day, by the way, lately, J.D. Vance has been on the outs. and people had initially blamed it on, well, he disagreed on Iran. But someone put it very clearly, and I wish I could remember the name so I could properly attribute, but they said, no, no, it's not that he disagreed on Iran before the invasion. The problem is he was right.
|
Ivan:
[56:52]
| Right! Ha ha ha ha ha! Exactly.
|
Sam:
[56:58]
| And so J.D. Vance is getting freezed out of everything at this point because he disagreed and he was right.
|
Ivan:
[57:05]
| He was right. You know, this is the one thing about how almost anybody that would replace Trump winds up being better than Trump.
|
Sam:
[57:17]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[57:18]
| Because it takes a certain, I mean, the level of his hubris is un-fucking-matched from anybody, I mean, that I have seen at that kind of level of leadership other than Putin himself. himself was also it was very similar i mean he that is his model that is his idol that is trump's idol and the reality is that putin is also getting his ass kicked in ukraine yes and the tide has.
|
Sam:
[57:51]
| Turned there not.
|
Ivan:
[57:52]
| Not in.
|
Sam:
[57:53]
| Terms of like the amount on the ground that is controlled by both parties yet but but you know ukraine has been inflicting damage within russia itself on a regular basis.
|
Ivan:
[58:05]
| And the public opinion in Russia about it, that has turned that as well, because people were isolated from what the fuck is happening. And, you know, Putin kept saying, oh, everything's great, it's fine, a special operation, whatever. And now all of a sudden they're waking up to getting bombed.
|
Sam:
[58:23]
| And some of Putin's advisers have apparently started telling him, you know, this is not sustainable. We need to figure out something.
|
Ivan:
[58:35]
| And all his exit strategies are the same as—he has the same issue that Trump has with Iran, which is basically that whatever exit strategy ends for him is worse than what he had before.
|
Sam:
[58:53]
| Yes. And fundamentally, you essentially, no matter how you sugarcoat it, end up declaring you failed.
|
Ivan:
[59:04]
| Yep. And so, I mean, so Putin is doing the exact same thing all of a sudden jump his face with. Why doesn't Putin end the Ukraine thing? Because he has to declare that he lost.
|
Sam:
[59:17]
| Yeah. And that, of course, has internal implications, you know, in terms of...
|
Ivan:
[59:22]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[59:22]
| You know, for the wannabe dictator in Donald Trump and the actual dictator in Putin, either way, it's your domestic situation deteriorates greatly. And, you know, we're already seeing it with Donald Trump. This has been hurting him. You know, this and Epstein have hurt him more than anything else so far.
|
Ivan:
[59:46]
| Yeah. And, of course, the economic fallout from the Iran incursion.
|
Sam:
[59:51]
| Yes. Tied together. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Moving on for Iran. You got another one? I know. By the way, folks, we're going to try to leave this a little bit shorter than two hours this time. Because we started late. And Yvonne and his wife have places to go and things to do.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:10]
| Well, no, no, no. Not places to go, things to do. My wife had surgery.
|
Sam:
[1:00:14]
| Oh, right. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:15]
| So she's over there.
|
Sam:
[1:00:17]
| That's a place to go, a thing to do?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:18]
| Well, yeah, I guess.
|
Sam:
[1:00:24]
| Anyway, Yvonne has to take care of his wife. There you go. Is that about it?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:27]
| That's, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:00:28]
| That's the place to do the thing to do, the thing to go, the thing whatever. Anyway, what's next on the agenda, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:36]
| Or shall I take it? That one you picked. Yeah, I picked that one.
|
Sam:
[1:00:41]
| Okay. I won't take a break until after this one. But, okay, I do want to hit some politics before we're done. But, okay, I'll do the politics now, because it's more adjacent to what we did, and then I'll end up with something else. Okay, we got a few things on this. Let me start with, I did talk about the California primary a bit last week. It still looks kind of like what I talked about last week. It looks like we are going to get a Republican versus a Democrat, probably. But as the votes continue to trickle in, you guys know how slow California is. We still have the possibility of a Democrat versus Democrat race instead. But I'd say if you had to bet right now, you'd still say it's Becerra versus Hilton is probably your best bet. Becerra. Becerra. Let me roll my R's.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:38]
| Becerra.
|
Sam:
[1:01:39]
| Becerra.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:41]
| Becerra.
|
Sam:
[1:01:41]
| Too much. Sorry. There you go. Okay. Anyway, Mr. B.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:46]
| Mr.
|
Sam:
[1:01:47]
| B.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:49]
| I think we're going to hear a lot more of Mr. B.
|
Sam:
[1:01:52]
| Versus Hilton, which, what's his actual first name? I saw one poll, one polling aggregator who was, well, one, it was a Blue Sky account who posts poll results. And they screwed up and said Paris Hilton when they were reporting the poll results. It is not Paris Hilton.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:17]
| That would be an interesting matchup. By the way, I, you know, something, I'll say this about Paris Hilton. A number of people I read online, I can't remember, there was something that she did that was helpful to the community or something.
|
Sam:
[1:02:33]
| She's done a variety of things at this point, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:36]
| But somebody had said that, one of the people talking about that, somebody had mentioned that, Man, she really plays up the dumb blonde public persona a lot on purpose, that almost every time that they've been with her, that she is actually quite thoughtful and smart and shit and whatever. But the reality is that she's made her brand on being the dumb blonde and she plays it up.
|
Sam:
[1:03:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:02]
| And so I so so to be fair to her that anybody that gives that impression, apparently in private, she is quite smart and probably maybe even I'm sure that if it's a GOP, the usual GOP standard, substandard idiot, I'm sure that she would probably be a better choice by a lot.
|
Sam:
[1:03:21]
| Yes. But yeah, I mean, she's been highly, obviously she started out rich. Her last name is Hilton. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:31]
| And it's not by coincidence. It is Hilton by being related to Hilton, Conrad.
|
Sam:
[1:03:38]
| Yes. So obviously she started out rich, but she's done quite good. She's done quite well on a variety of business ventures, But she's also been doing all kinds of philanthropic, activist kind of things, pushing for various causes, etc. She's done well. And like you said, her public persona of the dumb blonde is not the reality.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:08]
| Is not the reality.
|
Sam:
[1:04:10]
| And also, of course, age comes into this thing, too. Like, a lot of people's public vision of her was wild party girl when she was in her late teens and early 20s.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:22]
| Now, that part's true. She was a wild party girl. Let's not argue that. Okay? All right.
|
Sam:
[1:04:26]
| No, that's true. But the point is, you know, she grew up.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:34]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:04:35]
| She's 45 now.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:37]
| Look.
|
Sam:
[1:04:38]
| You know, and she's a serious adult woman now.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:42]
| I'll go into details, but I was not exactly the calm and collected non-party-er myself. Sam knows this. So, yeah. But I'm not that crazy anymore.
|
Sam:
[1:04:56]
| But yet you recall your party days with Paris Hilton. You hung out a lot.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:01]
| Not with Paris Hilton. No, no, no, no. My memory is better than yours, Sam. No, I did not party with Paris Hilton.
|
Sam:
[1:05:08]
| But you've just blacked it out, obviously.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:11]
| You know what? Of all the drinking I've done, I never actually, like, blackout that i don't remember now that i that i that i got drugged that i was like, belligerently stupid happened on three occasions to be specific okay that i remember because i i did not like that but but blackout like i don't remember no no not that i unfortunately the times that i was belligerently stupid i actually remember and regret that i was so which is why i never did it, which is, well, no, I never did it again that way. That's right. Yes, that's true. Yeah, right.
|
Sam:
[1:05:51]
| So anyway, I was just saying California hasn't changed much since I talked about it last week. The next one to talk about, however, is Maine. The Maine Senate primary is, I believe, next week. Let me check. Maine Senate primary. Google, real quick. June 9th. So yes, it's this coming Tuesday. And this is the one where we have, first of all, we're trying to get rid of Susan Collins.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:23]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:06:24]
| And we've got a primary for the Democrats. Graham Plantner is way, way ahead. Looks like he will almost certainly win. Like, you know, aggregate polling right now in the primaries, he's ahead by like 20 percent like you know no one else is even close if you remember we had a whole blow up because he had some nazi tattoos i guess a nazi tattoo which he has since had covered up he claims he had no idea what it was and once he found out he got it covered this last week has been a whole bunch of new revelations about him basically being shitty to women in one way or another. First up was revelations of, you know, in the first few months of his current marriage, him doing a lot of sexting online with other women, apparently all consensual, just to be clear. But he was sexting other women besides his wife. Now, the person who revealed this was his wife, who, like, told the campaign this, like, months and months and months ago, so they have a heads up.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:40]
| Well, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:07:41]
| But then someone from the campaign leaked it to the press. And then more recently, just in the last few days, the New York Times and Washington Post both put out about stories where they basically went out and interviewed a whole bunch of his ex-girlfriends. And you had a mix of reports. Several of his ex-girlfriends were like, he was a fine boyfriend. He was nice. He was good. He was whatever. A couple of ex-girlfriends were like, yeah, he was kind of creepy, and that's why we broke up. And then one ex-girlfriend, who happens also to be a Republican operative, says that he was physically violent with her as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:24]
| Gee, what a coincidence that the Republican operative is the one that actually claims this, unlike everybody else.
|
Sam:
[1:08:33]
| Well, you know, what she claims— But this has happened before with Republican operatives.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:40]
| Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:08:41]
| Yeah, yeah. Just to be clear, just to be clear, she very specifically says, he didn't hit me. He didn't beat me. I was not injured. However, he violently pulled me out of a cab. He grabbed my arm. He pulled me out of a cab. It hurt. I was very uncomfortable with it, et cetera. Now, here's the thing. Now, Plantner denies that happened at all. He says, you know, I was very shitty. I admit being shitty. Like, I've talked before. Like, his whole campaign, a big part of the theme has been his redemption arc. That he went out with the military to Iraq and Afghanistan. I forget which. He came back with PTSD. He had all kinds of issues. He was an asshole. That's when the tattoo happened. And he's like, yeah, I was an asshole to people, but I'm better now. I have, you know, I have realized the error of my ways. I have done a variety of things in order to improve my life. I'm now happily married, you know, and the issue is with some of these things. How credible is, well, two things. First of all, how credible are his denials? Like, the I didn't know that it was a Nazi tattoo.
|
Sam:
[1:10:08]
| You know, I don't know how many people actually believe that. Because there are Reddit posts where he talks about the symbol that was on there. One of these ex-girlfriends talks about how he talked about it even then, for instance.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:23]
| That sounds like bullshit.
|
Sam:
[1:10:25]
| It sounds like bullshit. In the case of this woman, given the rest of his history, can you believe that at one point he yanked her out of a cab when he was angry?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:37]
| I can believe that.
|
Sam:
[1:10:38]
| Probably.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:39]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:10:40]
| So he's quite possibly lying about both of these things. And that lets you think, well, okay, so what else might he be lying about? And is there more to drop after he wins this primary in the general election? Right now, general election polls have him beating Susan Collins, but not by a huge margin. So what if the things that we've seen so far are actually the tip of the iceberg? And more comes out in October, you know, and he fucks this thing up with Collins. Now, the problem is right now, Susan Mills, the governor of Maine.
|
Sam:
[1:11:26]
| Jumped in for a while, but was doing so badly, she jumped back out again. But apparently over the last few days, she's pointed out to a couple of people, you know, I am still actually on the ballot. You know, and there are a few other, there are a few other people on the ballot as well, but they're all less known and they're all way far behind. So basically, you know, unless something huge comes out in the next two or three days and he actually drops out two or three days before the end of voting and early voting and stuff has already been happening, you know, he's going to win. And apparently also I've heard most, when people interview people in Maine, most of them seem to be, Democrats in Maine, most of them seem to be, we don't give a fuck. We want to beat Susan Collins. Bottom line. We don't give a fuck. We want to beat Susan Collins. And half of this stuff is probably trumped up anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:28]
| Listen, I will say this.
|
Sam:
[1:12:29]
| And also, by the way, his whole redemption thing resonates with people. They're like, we don't need somebody to be squeaky clean their entire fucking life. If he did stuff bad in the past and he says he's sorry, that's good enough for now.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:42]
| For whatever reason, this guy resonates with the main voters. Okay. That's the reality. Look, I haven't, you know, I I'm unlike some other candidates in other states where I have like gotten closer to understanding the the person. I haven't done that with them. But the reality is that when you hear the people that are voting for him and why they like him, there is a lot of they have a lot of reasons that they are passionate about him. right and i mean and look like you mentioned about the governor the governor who was very pot we thought was very popular jumped into the fray and this guy was beating our ass right you know and the other people by the way like.
|
Sam:
[1:13:32]
| David costello is apparently the the next most popular one. He's a former deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:43]
| Is that Abbott's brother?
|
Sam:
[1:13:46]
| I don't think so.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:47]
| No?
|
Sam:
[1:13:48]
| No, it's not. It was Abbott and Costello. It wasn't Abbott-Costello. Two different people.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:56]
| Oh, right. Exactly. Yeah, they're not brothers. But I don't know why for some reason I thought they were brothers. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:14:05]
| Anyway, he was a nominee for Senate in 2024, somewhere else, I guess, in Maine, in Maine. But, you know, he's way behind, way, way, way behind. And, like, we literally are days away from the end of voting in Maine. I mean, this guy's going to win. You know, so at this point, you know, a lot of people suck it up. He's going to be better than Collins, even if it's not perfect. You hear all kinds of other people saying, this smells like a Fetterman. He's going to turn into somebody like Fetterman once he's actually in office. He doesn't actually, he just says what he's trying. He picks his message based on what he thinks is going to win. It's not truly held convictions. He's going to, you know, do whatever. and okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:56]
| To be fair there is a big delta of what fetterman thought before his stroke and after his stroke i.
|
Sam:
[1:15:05]
| Understood understood and a lot of people have actually pointed out that he has even himself said the stroke took the woke out of me okay but you know even in the fetterman case, was Dr. Oz better?
|
Ivan:
[1:15:21]
| No!
|
Sam:
[1:15:22]
| You know, I'd still rather have Fetterman than Dr. Oz.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:26]
| Agreed. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:15:27]
| You know, I mean, I'm not happy with Fetterman. I don't like Fetterman, but was he better than the alternative? Now, I forget who Fetterman was up against in the primaries. One of them probably would have been better. But who knows if they would have won? You know? So, anyway. Maine is a freaking mess. I have... I have a bad intuition about this guy, too. I feel like, given everything we've learned about him so far, in one way or another, he's going to be trouble. Whether it's more revelations that cause him to lose against Collins, or whether it's he's not going to live up, whether he's going to be like another Fetterman once he gets into office, or something else, he's going to be trouble in one way or another. Or maybe he'll do new bad things. You know, I don't know. But nevertheless, he's what you got right now. And, you know, I think it's better to have him than to have Collins. I was listening to some people talk about this before. You know, we are in a position now where...
|
Sam:
[1:16:38]
| The Senate is within reach. It looks like the Democrats are probably going to get the House, but the Senate is in play, whereas a few months ago, it did not look like it was in play at all. It is by no means guaranteed. We could very easily end up with the Republicans retaining the majority or with a 50-50 split where Pence, I'm a few years behind, where J.D. Vance breaks the tie and so it's still Republican. We could very well end up with one of those scenarios.
|
Sam:
[1:17:12]
| So Dems grabbing the Senate is within reach, but barely. And Maine is one of the places that you have to win. And so what do you do? You have to back the guy that's there because it's too late to change horses. And let's hope for the best.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:35]
| Let me be clear again. I'm going to say this again. I know people don't agree, but I still totally 100% believe that the whole Biden thing was a mistake. You know, history has always shown that sticking with the incumbent is the better strategy. All these fucking people saying that Biden was in a wheelchair, Biden isn't a thing, Biden wasn't a that. Is he in a fucking wheelchair right now, Sam?
|
Sam:
[1:18:03]
| No, he's not.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:05]
| Does he look like he is about to, as a matter of fact, does he look far more competent right now and cogent than the current president?
|
Sam:
[1:18:12]
| Oh, absolutely.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:15]
| So I go back to what I said, that the fucking people around Biden, in the Democratic Party. actively sabotaged him, they did him, instead of coalescing against the guy who fucking beat this asshole before, they decided to fucking start fighting amongst themselves and doing the same in this case right now with this guy in Maine could lead to a similar result. So I am like right now, I get that there are questions, but the reality is that this guy, If I go, is he the perfect candidate again? No, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt right now based on where we are.
|
Sam:
[1:19:01]
| Yeah. So I don't want to spend a lot of time relitigating 2024, but I will say I partially disagree with you, but only partially, in that I believe that the damage was caused by the Democratic effort to push him out. But if Biden had himself decided a couple months earlier, I'm getting out and throwing- Oh.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:28]
| If he had decided in January, listen, if he went in January and said, listen, this is the plan, I'm going to pull out and we're going to do this, you know, let's do this now. The reality is that the decision point was earlier in the year. And if you as a Democrat didn't talk to him into it in January, then you had to say, fuck it. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:19:49]
| Because I actually like from what I did on Election Graphs, you did get a significant bump in the polls when you switched from Biden to Harris. But the Biden numbers at that point where you got that bump were depressed by a month and a half of the Democrats slamming on Biden themselves.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:11]
| Yep, exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:20:12]
| You know, so you did get a significant bump.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:16]
| All these people saying that Biden was, all these people inside the party questioning his mental capacity. Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:20:31]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:32]
| And I will say again that when you see him now, because he has been a lot in public talking right now. It is quite evidently clear that all of that was bullshit, that about the only thing that he had at that time was that he was tired and he had been sick. That's it.
|
Sam:
[1:20:52]
| I'd go. I mean, he still wasn't what he was a few years earlier, but he was still.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:57]
| No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:20:57]
| He was still better than Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:00]
| Exactly! But he had been... But he had been... Aside from... Yes, he was older and he declined. He was tired and he was sick.
|
Sam:
[1:21:11]
| So I was going to save this for later, but since you're talking about tired and sick, let's spend a few minutes on Donald Trump being tired and sick.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:23]
| Holy shit. This guy is completely Sam. I mean, every fucking meeting he's sitting in public, he's fucking asleep. Every single one. He makes Reagan look awake.
|
Sam:
[1:21:40]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:41]
| And holy shit.
|
Sam:
[1:21:45]
| And people people are pointing out the various other externally visible physical signs of, you know, seem to be getting worse as well. You know, people people keep pointing out.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:59]
| Third annual, Sam, his third annual, the third annual. Look, and by the way, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, but the thing is, that's the third checkup that we know of, Sam, because I am sure that they have been treating him. Well, no, but he has been treated repeatedly in the White House.
|
Sam:
[1:22:26]
| Yes, yes. Now, and people have pointed out patterns. Like the times where he disappears for several days, like he just did, tend to be around the beginning of the month. And so people are speculating, and it is pure speculation, that he's getting some sort of monthly treatment that makes him... not want to be in public for a few days, either because it's physically obvious in some way, or it makes him feel sick for a few days or whatever. And this is all speculation. And, you know, people keep pointing out the bruising on his hands and stuff. And as you and I have both pointed out, lots of people in that age group- Well, that's normal.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:11]
| Yeah, that is a normal thing at that age, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:23:13]
| But people have pointed out that it is getting worse.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:17]
| But Sam, that recent holiday week, listen, let me tell you something. You want to know how I tell you that something is seriously wrong? What the hell weekend? Was it Memorial Day weekend that he went to Camp David instead of going to play golf?
|
Sam:
[1:23:32]
| Well, no, that was canceled. He was going to go to Camp David, but he didn't end up going. There was going to be a cabinet meeting at Camp David.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:40]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, didn't they make it there and then he came back early? He never, or he never went.
|
Sam:
[1:23:46]
| I don't think they ever went. They canceled it and stayed in Washington.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:50]
| Okay, Sam, it was a long holiday weekend. He didn't go golfing. Sam, this is a guy that has spent every fucking available opportunity to go golfing. And he didn't go.
|
Sam:
[1:24:09]
| So here's the thing, though, on this. And I, you know, if you flip through the standard social media places, You have lots of people claiming, oh, this means he's actually on death's door. It could be any minute.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:29]
| I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is, Sam, that this guy has never, ever passed up an opportunity to go golfing. And all of a sudden he's passing them up.
|
Sam:
[1:24:40]
| I think here's where you have to do. I think the people who are just going on and on about like, oh, he's clearly terminal. Like he's a few weeks away from dying, maybe a couple months. The people who are doing that are, they're just trying to get the clicks from people who are like, oh, that's awesome. I hope that's true, right? They are trying to go well beyond what the public evidence shows. However, I think it is absolutely clear, that his age and his health are both weighing on him significantly. And he is, you know, the difference between even six or 12 months ago is significant. And does that mean that, you know, his time left is measured in minutes? No, not necessarily. He could go on for years and years like this. Some, you know, some people deteriorate quickly. some people deteriorate over the course of many years you know but you know it's clear that you know these things are excellent and look it happens to everybody unless you get hit by a car or something first and die that i'm gonna give you look.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:01]
| There is somebody that has golf tracker for.
|
Sam:
[1:26:04]
| How many days.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:05]
| Trump went golfing last may golf trump went one two three four five six seven eight days golfing last May. Let's see. This year, in May... He went only five days. And he hasn't gone golfing since May 17th. That is like the longest stretch that he's gone. Like, yeah, that is like his longest stretch.
|
Sam:
[1:26:36]
| I mean, look, it's clear to me that whether it's some specific sickness or it's just age or it's whatever, However, he is not up to doing the things he was up to doing earlier. And I think you can also sense this in his mental acuity as well. I mean, he was always dumb. You know, we've said before, he's got certain instincts on how to manipulate people that he is a genius at.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:08]
| Yeah, the instincts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:27:11]
| The instincts.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:11]
| But factual content, he is devoid of.
|
Sam:
[1:27:17]
| Yes. And that has always been true. But his ability, his abilities have been declining noticeably in the last few months. I mean, look, we've been talking about this repeatedly since 2015. But it's, it's accelerated. It's accelerated. And whether you can do some sort of clinical diagnosis or not, I have no idea. Lots of people are claiming yes, other people are claiming no, whatever. Whether or not there's a clinical diagnosis here, it's clear he's losing steps all the time. And, you know, he and it also, by the way, people keep talking about the fact that, you know, all he's doing is talking about his damn ballroom and the Lincoln Memorial.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:06]
| Oh, did you see that he showed this chart that apparently the reflecting pool is bigger than some skyscrapers?
|
Sam:
[1:28:17]
| Yes, it is longer than various skyscrapers are tall.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:22]
| Oh, I see. I mean, if that is not the sign of somebody that is completely insane.
|
Sam:
[1:28:30]
| What the fuck is? Here's the thing. Not only did he make that sign, which, you know, 2015 Trump could have made that sign or shown that sign. He has shown that sign three or four times over the course of three or four days. At almost every meeting he attends, he pulls that thing out and talks about it and says the same things about it. with seemingly no, no acknowledgement that he's done it before. You know, it's sort of, he pulls it out and says the same things and talks about how cool that is. You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:09]
| It's just, it's just the strangest, I mean, he's, you know. By the way, here's an interesting one, though, of all the crazy things. He folded the, Rather easily on the Kennedy Center.
|
Sam:
[1:29:30]
| Yes. He's like, well, screw it. That's a dying, stupid thing anyway, and I want nothing to do with it anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:39]
| And apparently the Kennedy Center's lawyers already instructed the staff to fucking take his name down and everything.
|
Sam:
[1:29:47]
| Yeah. It hasn't actually happened yet, but it's about to.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:51]
| Yeah, it's about to. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:29:53]
| And he's not fighting it. Like, I expected him to go through the whole appeals process and blah, blah, blah. Apparently, he just threw up his hands and was like, fuck it. I'm out.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:03]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:30:04]
| And, you know, but, you know, honestly, all of these things, too. I mean, I think part of it is this is just what he's drawn to. And look, he honestly cares more about the fucking ballroom than he does about Iran.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:18]
| Of course.
|
Sam:
[1:30:20]
| He's been quoted multiple times as saying he's bored of the Iran thing. He just wants it to be done. Literally. Bored is the word. And, you know, and frankly... He can do less damage if he's obsessing about this kind of bullcrap than if he's meddling in everything else. I mean, his advisors who are running everything else are horrible, too. And so it's not like, you know, things I would approve of would be happening. But, you know, if Donald Trump has to be obsessing all of his attention into something, better it be these cosmetic things than places where he could do other kinds of damage, I guess. Although, there was a note, apparently, his lawyers that are going back and forth on the ballroom situation, in some sort of hearing that happened a couple days ago, were asked about the limits of presidential power. in terms of, you know, what could, what can the president do without congressional authorization and what can't they, et cetera. And they asked him, well, if he wanted to, could the president just decide to like demolish the Statue of Liberty? And the Trump lawyers said.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:40]
| Yes, of course he could. Yes, of course.
|
Sam:
[1:31:42]
| Of course he could, if he wanted to. Yeah, that wouldn't be a problem.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:46]
| Even though it's, I mean, isn't the Statue of Liberty owned by a private foundation, the Ellis Island Foundation?
|
Sam:
[1:31:52]
| I thought it was owned by New York and New Jersey in a joint trust or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:56]
| Something like that, right?
|
Sam:
[1:31:57]
| But it was the states, not federal. Or no, the island is, but maybe the statue itself.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:05]
| Now I'm curious.
|
Sam:
[1:32:06]
| Now you're going to have to look it up. The statue itself was gifted to the United States.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:09]
| Right, by France. Yeah, okay, that part I know.
|
Sam:
[1:32:12]
| The island, there was a border dispute about whether the island was owned by New York or New Jersey for years and years and years. But I think they resolved that in some sort of amicable way where they both have some involvement at this point. Something, something.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:26]
| Okay. So the U.S. federal government owns both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Both locations are operated and maintained by the National Park Service as a single national monument.
|
Sam:
[1:32:36]
| And let's see, I have to look up Liberty Island. Liberty Island is also federally owned, and it is, I guess it's officially New York now? There was a border dispute with New Jersey. Let's see how was that resolved. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the state jurisdiction of Ellis Island in New Jersey versus New York. New Jersey had argued, blah, blah, blah. Thus, it was agreed that the parts of the island made a filled land below—OK, Ellis Island was split. But that proved impractical to administer, and New Jersey and New York subsequently agreed to share jurisdiction of Ellis Island. Special situation only applies to Ellis Island and part of Shooter's Island. But looks like Liberty Island is New York. So, anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:27]
| Okay, apparently it is regulated by the Antiquities Act of 1906. A U.S. law passed to protect importunct cultural, scientific, and natural resources on federal lands for the benefit of the American public. The act gives the U.S. president authority to designate national monuments. Actually, he may not be wrong.
|
Sam:
[1:33:53]
| So, we know what's happening next year, once he's done with the White House.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:59]
| He's demolished in the White House.
|
Sam:
[1:34:01]
| Wait. Statue of Liberty needs to be gold-plated.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:06]
| Oh, yeah. I saw that they were gold-plating some lions and things around Washington.
|
Sam:
[1:34:13]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:14]
| God the fuck, no.
|
Sam:
[1:34:16]
| With real gold, so I'm sure that's going to last a long time.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:21]
| They were using real gold leaf? Bullshit.
|
Sam:
[1:34:25]
| That, that, well... That's what they said the plan was.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:30]
| Oh, bullshit. Yeah. Fuck, no. The man is the master of fake gold. Oh, Lord.
|
Sam:
[1:34:38]
| Okay. You know, I was going to bring up a couple other things, but I think we're out of time, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:44]
| Yeah, we're out of time. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:34:46]
| Man, I was going to ask you about SpaceX going public. I was going to talk about Hunter Biden. 60 minutes. There's 60 minutes. Eh, well.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:55]
| I can't talk about 60.
|
Sam:
[1:34:58]
| Yes. Oops. Yes. For obvious reasons, Yvonne Bowe has been gagged, just as I used to be gagged about certain topics. Right. Anyway, let's wrap it up. Go to curmudgeon-corner.com. Check out, you know, our website. You can find our archives, transcripts of shows, all the ways to contact us, of course. And yeah, all that stuff. Very importantly, you will also find our Patreon. Oh, and at our Patreon, you can give us money at various levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will... What else will we do, Yvonne? Oh, postcards. We'll send you a postcard. We'll send you a mug. And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask, we will invite you to Commissions Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and others are sharing links and chatting throughout the week. and we would love to have you join us there. Yeah, you only have to ask. You don't really have to give us money. We appreciate the money.
|
Sam:
[1:36:09]
| Especially if you happen to be someone who is suddenly going to become a multimillionaire when SpaceX goes public. Then, you know, hand us the money. All of it, please, actually. But, you know, anyway, Yvonne, what is a highlight from the curmudgeon's core of Slack that would make people want to join that we have not talked about on the show?
|
Ivan:
[1:36:31]
| Oh, man. That's such a good question today. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Oh. I had shared that apparently there is some turning point, This is the Turning Point USA Women's Leadership Summit, okay? June 5th through 7th, so it's happening right now in San Antonio, Texas. And the lineup is a, I mean, you want to spend three days being tortured. This would be it, okay? A lineup of confirmed speakers with such, you know, glorious people as Erica Kirk, Kaylee McEnany, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Dana Lohish, Riley Gaines, and other such eminent people. By the way, one curious thing about them. There's a certain skin color that seems to be very consistent across all these people.
|
Sam:
[1:37:45]
| Oh, I can't imagine.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:48]
| Yeah, I mean, they're all African-American, of course, right?
|
Sam:
[1:37:51]
| Oh, yes. I thought you were going to say orange.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:54]
| Well, they all also seem to be, for the most part, they are suffering from Mar-a-Lago syndrome.
|
Sam:
[1:38:03]
| Yes, the lovely carved-up faces and heavy makeup and all this kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:11]
| Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, this kind of it is I do you know what kind of self-loathing women this has to be to organize an entire conference where basically you're telling women you belong in the kitchen, basically.
|
Sam:
[1:38:28]
| But they don't believe they do specifically, apparently.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:32]
| But all the other women. Right. That's that's that's the funniest thing about that, too. That's right.
|
Sam:
[1:38:38]
| Okay, let's close this up. I will give one additional shout out for most of the, well, not most of, for a significant portion of the show. We had the host of Club Exile from the Snohomish Podcast Network was watching on our live stream. And like I said, they are YouTube. If you go to YouTube.com and search for Club Exile, you will find them. They will come right up. Their format, and I'll be honest, I've only watched like, I don't know, half an hour of their content. They do a lot of content. They basically do nearly daily, sometimes more than once a day, live streams. We're live streaming as we record this. but almost nobody looks at the live stream. People download our podcast after we edit it and put it out as audio only. He'll go on YouTube as a live stream and just start talking, and then people will join him and he will bring them into the live stream. He will talk to other people live who just happen to be live or in the comments.
|
Sam:
[1:39:49]
| Sometimes they're specific topics. Other times it's very stream of consciousness. Just open it up and talk to whoever shows up. And anyway, check it out, Club Exile. And so I'll give him the plug as a fellow member of the Snohomish Podcast Network. At least he's attended a couple events. I don't know if he's formally joined yet, but whatever. And yeah, that's it. So thanks, everybody, for joining us yet again. And yeah, have a great week. Stay safe. Have fun. Blah, blah, blah. Have to do the blah, blah, blahs thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:23]
| The blah, the thing, and the thing.
|
Sam:
[1:40:25]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:26]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:40:26]
| We'll talk to you next time. Yvonne, are you planning on being here again next week?
|
Ivan:
[1:40:31]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:40:32]
| Okay. Well, there we go. Here comes the music. Bye, everyone. Say bye, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:40]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[1:41:12]
| Okay, thanks, Yvonne. We'll talk to you later.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:15]
| All right, let's do the save.
|
Sam:
[1:41:17]
| Do the stoppy thing. Stop, stop.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:18]
| Stop.
|
Sam:
[1:41:19]
| Here comes.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:19]
| Stoppy, stoppy.
|
Sam:
[1:41:20]
| Stop.
| |
|
