Sam: Hello.
Ivan: Hello.
Sam: Let's get the streamy going. Hold on.
Sam: You look upset. Is everything okay?
Sam: You don't have to.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: All right. Okay.
Sam: You okay?
Ivan: Let's try this again.
Sam: Okay. Shall we just go ahead and start? Okay. Here it goes.
Sam: I'll wait just a second.
Ivan: What are you doing? What are you doing?
Ivan: okay what is that can you explain to me what that is t-rex.
Sam: I was gonna say dinosaur i was gonna say dinosaur i was okay you you okay yeah
Sam: i didn't say it before he said it but i was thinking it.
Ivan: Okay all right okay t-rex okay go play.
Sam: Okay acting.
Ivan: Out of t-rex damn no idea what.
Sam: Oh okay here we go here comes the song is it a song it's instrumental is that
Sam: still it is a song yeah it's a song okay here we go oh.
Ivan: How else would you call it.
Sam: A tune it's a song okay yeah like to me song sort of implies vocals no okay
Sam: anyway here here it comes,
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, March 15th, 2025.
Sam: It is just after two UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Menter,
Sam: Yvonne Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hello. So, yes, it's an instrumental song.
Sam: It's an instrumental song.
Ivan: And I see that the number, the best-selling instrumental song of all time.
Sam: Axel F.
Ivan: No.
Sam: No? Crazy Frog?
Ivan: Nope.
Sam: Beethoven's Fifth?
Ivan: Nope. Star Wars theme and cantina band by record producer Miko,
Ivan: also known as Domenico Monardo.
Ivan: In 1977, Remens, the only instrumental single to reach platinum status by the
Ivan: Recording Industry Association of America.
Sam: Nice. And that would be the original cantina song from the original Star Wars.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: Because George Lucas messed around a little afterwards and there were other
Sam: versions and whatever. But yeah.
Ivan: Yeah so i think i think the.
Sam: Original stayed in but he added
Sam: something and then there was a new one for return of the i don't know like.
Ivan: But everyone knows the original,
Ivan: yeah so yeah so that is the best selling instrumental song of all time amazingly
Ivan: i mean that's like 1977 so yeah it's been it's been a minute it.
Sam: Has been You know, instrumentals, like, it's actually relatively rare that an
Sam: instrumental, like, hits, like, number one in the charts or whatever.
Sam: Like, it's only happened a few times. There have been a few that have gotten
Sam: really popular, but it's rare.
Sam: Which, you know, and I almost like reposted something on the curmudgeons course,
Sam: because of course, we're going on a tangent here.
Sam: I almost posted something on the curmudgeons course Slack yesterday,
Sam: because I noticed it again. We talked about it a few months ago.
Sam: But, you know, when I listen to music, I randomly choose which of a whole bunch
Sam: of playlists I listen to, because of course, I'm me.
Sam: One of them is I pick like the top 100 songs from either Apple Music USA or Apple Music Global.
Sam: but on either one of them the
Sam: percentage that is explicit is like insanely
Sam: high and i know we talked about it before but it's still like
Sam: every time i see it like like just
Sam: strikes me like i'm looking right now at the usa top 100
Sam: number one nokia by drake
Sam: explicit number two luther by kendrick
Sam: lamar not explicit number three 30 30
Sam: for 30 by sizza explicit number four not
Sam: like us by kendrick lamar explicit number five
Sam: somebody loves me by party next door explicit
Sam: number six tv off by kendrick lamar
Sam: explicit number seven die with a smile by
Sam: lady gaga not explicit number eight anxiety
Sam: by do sheki i think you say explicit number
Sam: not good song though number nine i'm the problem by morgan wallen not explicit
Sam: and number 10 give me a hug by drake explicit so that means seven out of the
Sam: top 10 at the moment are explicit and like if you go down further on the list
Sam: it's a similar ratio it's just it's just like.
Ivan: Well that well the thing is that that's also because of you know how commercial
Ivan: radio isn't like the top place where you know people listen to music so that's
Ivan: you know that that's pretty much eliminated the the the the need for people
Ivan: to like do like clean versions of a lot of songs.
Sam: Yeah well and even when there is a clean version it's not
Sam: the popular version no that's right you know
Sam: they're they do make clean versions of a lot of
Sam: these but like people aren't going to bother streaming the
Sam: clean version for the most part no no even you know even if that gets played
Sam: on radio i was listening to an interview the other day i think it probably just
Sam: came up on tiktok or whatever but it was some artist i don't even remember who
Sam: the artist was but like the they played the interviewer played the artist and
Sam: the clean version of one of their songs. And the artist cracks up and is like,
Sam: this is the first time I've ever heard that. That's ridiculous.
Sam: She's like, I'm going to have to go back into the studio and actually intentionally
Sam: record a clean version with alternate lyrics or something. Because this was
Sam: one of the ones that just sort of blanked out the curse words.
Ivan: Oh, so that wasn't like one that they recorded a different one.
Ivan: This was one where they basically bleeped him.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Oh, God.
Sam: And so, yeah, so she was, she was like, this is ridiculous.
Sam: I have to, I have to go make a clean one. This is stupid.
Ivan: Yeah. I can see how in a song that would, that would make it sound just awful. That has to be.
Sam: Now the producers are able to like, you know, they, they have all the tracks
Sam: so they can bleep the vocal without making an actual silence.
Ivan: No, no, no. I, I know. No, I know, because, you know, it's a multi-track recording.
Ivan: I get it, but still, but if you, as the artist, know that you went through that
Ivan: and you spoke a word and all of a sudden the word is gone, right?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: It's got to sound really like weird to you, okay?
Ivan: When you're listening to this back. I mean, you know, it's like all of a sudden
Ivan: you taking this back and I don't know, just eliminating a whole bunch of the
Ivan: words I say, if I hear it back, I'm going to be like, what the fuck is this?
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: And then all of a sudden I'm hearing, what the is this? I would be like, oh.
Sam: Exactly. Just like our show, this was like a song that had like swearing every
Sam: couple seconds, you know?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: So, you know. Anyway. So, our agenda for today is as usual.
Sam: We're going to do our but first, where we talk about less newsy stuff like what we just did.
Sam: And then after that, we're going to have two segments each of like more news related stuff.
Sam: One picked by Yvonne, one picked by me. That's the plan for today.
Sam: My, but first is going to be media again, Yvonne. So what, what's yours?
Sam: No, we could do the twice annual daylight savings time rant.
Sam: It just happened last weekend.
Sam: I'm kind of bored of that though. We say the same thing and we,
Sam: you know, but you know, it sucks.
Ivan: I mean, I was sleeping. I was very, I was very exhausted the next day,
Ivan: you know, because obviously because I'm waking up.
Ivan: Yeah. Like not at the right time.
Sam: Uh huh.
Ivan: It's just, it's just fucking bullshit. anyway yes we hate it okay next all right
Ivan: okay yeah we we've ranted about this already on the on this on this medium for
Ivan: what 20 years almost getting close getting.
Sam: Close we started in 2007.
Ivan: Right june 2007 so almost so we're at we're almost at 18 years yes i'm just
Ivan: like i don't know but i'm like i got to today i was tired i mean i i went to
Ivan: puerto rico i i came back as you do every week.
Sam: At this point.
Ivan: Yeah i took a 7 a.m
Ivan: flight yesterday because one of
Ivan: my meetings got changed i i went to another meeting
Ivan: that was here in fort lauderdale right
Ivan: after i landed i got home i'm fucking tired i don't you know like it every i'll
Ivan: tell you what i'll talk about i'll talk about because it's not news okay i didn't
Ivan: make a note about this so there's one of the things that happened is that i
Ivan: went to lunch after that you.
Sam: You you went to lunch that's got to be a rarity.
Ivan: I actually here's the thing during
Ivan: the business trips i i noticed that i skipped lunch a lot
Ivan: okay yeah okay i wind up not not going to lunch very often i get really busy
Ivan: i might just grab a coffee and some snack just keep plowing through and i i
Ivan: just regularly don't go to lunch on on my business trips and so it's all that's
Ivan: a lunch we were talking about,
Ivan: the discussion was turning around into what the hell is going on like right
Ivan: now every fucking day right because yeah and everybody at my table is like just
Ivan: mortified about the current the.
Sam: Stuff that is in the news.
Ivan: The stuff that's the yeah and the the one thing that that was relevant is that,
Ivan: most of the people there are immigrants i think i'm the only one that was a native-born U.S.
Ivan: citizen that was at the table. I'm pretty sure, yeah.
Ivan: Everybody there was an educated, professional immigrant. Okay?
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Now, from different countries, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Argentina,
Ivan: they had a lot of different ones.
Ivan: The one that that stuck with me more, we're talking about, you know,
Ivan: how the hell are we in this situation?
Ivan: Two things that that that struck one thing that struck me was a discussion that
Ivan: said and he said, listen, I'm going to tell you what the fuck it is.
Ivan: It's basically because people are very low information because we're talking
Ivan: about stuff and just how how just nobody.
Ivan: I think is that very few people can discern what the hell is real and what isn't anymore.
Sam: OK, yeah.
Ivan: It's just it's too much out there. I think that even a lot of very educated
Ivan: people on a regular basis,
Ivan: I don't I don't think I know a lot of very educated people right now on a regular
Ivan: basis can't fucking know what the hell is real or not anymore at this point.
Ivan: And right. And just that is that it just everything boils down right now.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: What he said. Well, he said because he's not not born in the US race in Argentina.
Ivan: He said, look, it boils down to the one square meter. Okay.
Sam: One square meter.
Ivan: One square meter. And I'm like, well, what do you mean by the one square meter?
Ivan: He said, look, you're this person. This is your space.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Okay. And what they thought in their head is, well, I look at my life right
Ivan: now and buying a house is more expensive than...
Ivan: You know, stuff is more expensive. A lot of people in especially middle income
Ivan: and down are struggling.
Ivan: And they just said, look, I'm worse. I'm going to vote for a change.
Ivan: That's it. Simple as that.
Ivan: No, not that not a lot more thought, not looking into dictator to tell you what,
Ivan: whatever are the things that we know you are really worried about.
Sam: Absolutely. Well, and in this particular election, Kamala actually made a point
Sam: of not having a gap between her and Biden. Like a lot of people were like.
Ivan: You need to matter.
Sam: Well, it would have been hard anyway, but she made a specific point.
Sam: Like even when there were opportunities to differentiate, she actually refused.
Sam: And there were interviews after with our campaign staff saying that they had
Sam: specific advice that they would do better in the polls if they made sure to
Sam: differentiate. And instead, it would have mattered.
Ivan: I don't think even even even that. I don't think it would have mattered.
Ivan: Look, if you look at what happened across the world.
Sam: It was close, but it was close enough. Anything could have made a difference.
Sam: But I think you're right that like over that wasn't.
Ivan: Something that really resonated. I just don't think it is.
Sam: I agree with the general point that is most people, it ends up being,
Sam: quite frankly, just what you said.
Sam: Am I happy with how my life is going?
Sam: If so, then I will say thumbs up, let's continue what we're doing.
Sam: If not, I'll say thumbs down, let's change.
Sam: Now, wait, let me revise that because this is an important thing.
Sam: 90% of the public is partisan and will be always Democrat, always Republican,
Sam: no matter what is going on.
Sam: But that middle part, the low information voters who don't have enough, like,
Sam: alignment to which side they're on they make decisions the way you.
Ivan: Just but here's the thing but but a lot of those people over history if you
Ivan: go back to obama election they have flipped when things are bad things are good
Ivan: whatever whatnot it goes back to that there is a central group.
Sam: That switches back and forth but there is.
Ivan: A large but i and back economic crises well right Back in the old days, too.
Sam: If you look back older elections, like if you look back in the 30s and 40s and 50s.
Ivan: Well, hell, 80s.
Sam: Yeah, well, yeah. Over time, if you go back looking at the last 100 years,
Sam: the amount that elections swing back and forth has been less and less and less.
Sam: It used to be you'd get major swings that we just don't see anymore.
Ivan: But I just but it's just I still think that it boiled down a lot to that in
Ivan: it in what determines the people that really either show up or don't show up to vote.
Ivan: OK, or change their votes. OK,
Ivan: and we definitely had a lot of people that just didn't show up to vote.
Ivan: And I think that it's one of those things where you can vary.
Ivan: The facts don't matter because. Because you show them that, hey,
Ivan: Trump caused a lot of what's happening.
Ivan: Biden was trying to fix it. The GOP went.
Ivan: And even specifically after Biden made certain things that in 2021,
Ivan: 2022 improved people's pocketbooks, the GOP actively killed them. But it doesn't matter.
Ivan: You're going to vote. You said Biden was the president. I'm not better off right
Ivan: now. It doesn't matter. They're going to vote the other guy.
Ivan: And I think it really boils.
Sam: And I think that was the critical low information swing voters.
Sam: Absolutely. absolutely because it just comes down to that and and there's also
Sam: no understanding or no desire to understand no they don't have the time yeah you.
Ivan: Know they're they're so big you know that they don't have the time so they don't
Ivan: want the time they don't have the damn time.
Sam: Well and i think what you've said about how this aligns worldwide is 100 support
Sam: for that because it's not about not Biden and Trump.
Ivan: No, it was worldwide. Worldwide.
Sam: Every single in power party.
Ivan: Lost.
Sam: Lost ground.
Ivan: Lost.
Sam: Now, they sometimes didn't lose completely. They sometimes went from six.
Ivan: But they lost ground big.
Sam: They lost ground significantly. They lost five to 10% or whatever.
Ivan: So that was one thing.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: The other thing that I think that was more poignant, and some of us were talking
Ivan: about which ones have dual citizenship or not. a number at the table did,
Ivan: I don't think I've mentioned on the on the show that I did figure out that I
Ivan: am eligible for EU citizenship through Spain.
Sam: Because like your grandparent or my my.
Ivan: Yes, I realize that through my mom, that our family relationship is close enough
Ivan: that that is that that is correct.
Ivan: I did, you know, I'm kicking myself about this because if I had known that there
Ivan: were job opportunities I wanted to take to move to Europe in the early 2000s.
Ivan: And they told me that because I didn't have an EU passport, I couldn't.
Ivan: And now I'm kicking myself because I didn't actually dig into it.
Sam: So what's the rule here? It's like you need one grandparent?
Ivan: My great grandfather was a Spanish citizen.
Sam: Oh, so great grandfather counts. So you need only like one out of 16.
Ivan: Right?
Sam: Correct. Because you're, wait, no.
Ivan: So, and the one thing is.
Sam: One out of eight. You're, you're.
Ivan: Yeah. So my mom's, so my mom's. Grandfather. Yeah.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: He used a Spanish citizenship. So that made her eligible.
Ivan: The one thing is that I understood is that I have to, and she was fine with
Ivan: it. I said, well, you need to claim me.
Ivan: Get my, my, you know, get my citizenship. And apparently she knew this.
Ivan: I'm like, wait, you knew this?
Ivan: tell me this i'm like yeah so you need to you need to claim mine i'll i'm cool
Ivan: i'm down with that okay and then you can claim yours okay so she.
Sam: Has to claim hers and then you can claim your like it has to go down.
Ivan: Yeah yeah i have to do yeah i i think i i think i may be able to do both i actually
Ivan: found a law firm that specializes in it so i don't know i am i haven't had the
Ivan: time but i did get to the point where i i know what i got to do and then.
Sam: Yvonne after that you can adopt me so.
Ivan: That i can also get you.
Sam: Know a citizenship.
Ivan: We'll work on that okay uh so that's uh so so no i i got i got the i got the
Ivan: paperwork somewhere already i gotta i gotta deal with that but but you know
Ivan: a lot of you know we're talking about a lot of people why they came to the united
Ivan: states and one of the things that is their epic frustration right now.
Ivan: It's like literally we brought the worst shit.
Ivan: No, no, no. The worst qualities of what government in Latin America is what
Ivan: Trump brings to the presidency of the United States.
Ivan: It's that brazen cronyism. It's that brazen taking of money.
Ivan: It's just that entire the laws be damn cow de your bullshit.
Ivan: Okay. this is exactly what they were they
Ivan: they were like trying to get away from yeah and
Ivan: this son of a bitch has brought that like you know
Ivan: to the u.s there was
Ivan: a bloomberg columnist the other day that was talking
Ivan: specifically look man trump's like
Ivan: presidency is like some latin american
Ivan: you know populist and it's the
Ivan: populism specifically we're talking about it says but some latin
Ivan: american populism takes takes power and starts
Ivan: like just ignoring every law and starts
Ivan: you know this entire you know enriches every
Ivan: single one of his cronies that's exactly what they've done through history and
Ivan: what the u.s you know to a certain extent listen i know that people say well
Ivan: you know people they haven't gotten rich or whatever it's not been like this
Ivan: level okay it's not been it's not been like this.
Ivan: And not this blatant either. And not this blatant. And not this flaunting of the law either.
Sam: Yes. Even when people did bad things, they realized they were doing bad things
Sam: and tried to keep it secret.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And if they got caught, it would be a big deal.
Ivan: Right. These guys don't care.
Sam: They're just like... And it ties to like, you know, we've talked before like,
Sam: people have a really hard time Like, like if, if somebody does think something
Sam: openly, well, it can't be a big deal, right?
Sam: It can't be, they're just doing it. If it was illegal, they wouldn't do that.
Sam: And, and even the people who were like, theoretically would go after them for
Sam: stuff are like, well, he's not even denying it.
Sam: He's just out there doing it. What, what the hell do we do? Yeah.
Ivan: So I think that was my key takeaway. It's just being, we've imported the worst of, and, uh.
Sam: You know, Yvonne? I will say, but on the flip side. Wait, wait,
Sam: wait, wait. Yvonne, Yvonne, this is important.
Sam: We've imported the worst. It must have been all those damn immigrants we let
Sam: in. Yes, of course. That have brought this culture up here.
Ivan: Well, like Elon Musk, yes.
Sam: So, so we have to.
Ivan: And Melania and Elon.
Sam: So we have to deport all these people, just like Donald Trump says,
Sam: to fix all the corruption.
Ivan: Yes, that's the solution. And, you know, it's just.
Sam: Obviously, I'm being sarcastic and joking, just to be clear.
Ivan: Yeah, it's just so let's see if you get one of those TikTok clips, you know, just a clip.
Ivan: But it's just that that'll be your that'll be your like, you know,
Ivan: your Waterloo. um you know it's just,
Ivan: it's just very frustrating to see this at this level and i i guess that was
Ivan: what they saw as their frustration it's like what the fuck man this is what
Ivan: we've been running trying to run away from,
Ivan: and it's just what what they've been running away from and now all of a sudden
Ivan: it's like here yeah and and.
Sam: It's one of those things too like once it's ingrained it's really hard to get
Sam: out of it i'm not saying it's.
Ivan: Impossible but it's hard there is a flip side there is a
Ivan: flip side to it i i will say that the one thing is that i i realized a little
Ivan: bit that even though sam was like i i read some i i re you know i don't i'm
Ivan: not getting as angry about stuff but i read something a little bit before and
Ivan: sam was like why are you looking bad i'm like i can't remember what the fuck
Ivan: story. I saw it. I was just like,
Ivan: again fucking people so but i'm
Ivan: not getting as bad about it anymore i
Ivan: i will admit that me spending several years in argentina seeing this firsthand
Ivan: and how somehow people in society were still resilient and came out ahead even through all this muck,
Ivan: is the one thing that just keeps you like, okay, you know, I mean.
Sam: I, it takes a while though. Right. You know?
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: I mean, it takes a while.
Ivan: But, but, but what I say is that, you know, look, we, you know,
Ivan: somehow battle through it in one way or another.
Sam: You know, um, the problem with a lot
Sam: of this stuff is and people have characterized it as
Sam: societies that are strong on trust versus weak on trust like what are the assumptions
Sam: about like can you feel trustful that your neighbor will do the right thing
Sam: that politicians will do the right thing that whatever well i think that's the
Sam: biggest thing that's been eroded.
Ivan: In america over.
Sam: The last 30 40 50 years and that's a
Sam: that's the point is it's it's a lot easier
Sam: to break trust than it is to
Sam: build it back up it just it takes it takes a lot of time to build it back up
Sam: like it takes one or two incidents of like people trying to tear everything
Sam: down like trump is right now to really erode trust and erode it quickly because
Sam: you get the mindset that you know it's everybody okay now.
Ivan: From one but yeah but but but.
Sam: From one but to build you need a history of like lots of people doing the right
Sam: thing over an extended length of time which.
Ivan: May be the one advantage that we have on trump is that
Ivan: so many people really even though they say they wouldn't change their boat right
Ivan: now are repeatedly have said that oh my god we voted for him and this is not
Ivan: what we voted for he he lied to us and survey after survey keeps finding this
Ivan: over and over, like right now,
Ivan: you know, so, so, but, but, you know, not,
Ivan: my whole thing that I was getting more was just, I had been talking that,
Ivan: you know, we've been sharing some articles about how people are just not as social anymore.
Ivan: And so I had been like mentioning the opposite where I have, I have gone back to,
Ivan: levels of socialization that predate the
Ivan: pandemic at this point okay in large part
Ivan: because i've been having to fucking travel like crazy
Ivan: and another part because i i did make a conservative effort at changing that
Ivan: especially it seems some people i know i'm actually seeing sam i say i told
Ivan: sam that because my wife wanted to go to vancouver i'm gonna make it that we
Ivan: go to seattle first and then so we'll have a i guess we'll announce the curmudgeon's
Ivan: corner meetup oh yeah yeah i.
Sam: I remember you mentioning it.
Ivan: Yeah, it's the week of the 4th of July.
Sam: Oh, the 4th of July. Okay.
Ivan: Yeah. Okay.
Sam: We can do fireworks.
Ivan: Well, I think I'm going to be on the 4th of July in Vancouver.
Sam: Oh, okay. The week of. The week of.
Ivan: Right. I don't think the Canadians are going to be celebrating our independence this year very much.
Sam: No. No.
Ivan: I have the strange feeling. They're not going to be very excited.
Sam: We'll be lucky if we're not at war by that point. You know? Basically. With Canada?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: With Canada, yes.
Ivan: You know, that's that movie, did you ever watch the movie, I should put it on
Ivan: your list if you have Canadian bacon.
Sam: I have not watched Canadian bacon. I have heard of it.
Ivan: Okay, so you need to watch Canadian bacon.
Sam: I'm going to add it to the stupid list.
Ivan: Basically, a president is unpopular and he decides that, well,
Ivan: the Soviet Union had fallen, so they decided that, well, we'll just make our
Ivan: straw man, we'll make it Canada.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So Americans can hate Canada. We're going to go to war against Canada or at
Ivan: least make everybody hate Canada.
Sam: Well, the scenario I was figuring would play out is if Ford in Ontario actually
Sam: did like cut off electricity to New York or whatever,
Sam: I could see Donald Trump responding by like, well, we're going to go take over
Sam: to power plants in Canada.
Sam: You know, and there you go.
Ivan: That'll be something.
Sam: Anyway, anyway.
Ivan: So, so, so, so yeah. So I've been making this, the, the, the,
Ivan: so I've been, so I've been seeing more people.
Ivan: So that's one of the things that I've been, some of the conversations that have
Ivan: been coming up and like actually, uh, sitting down with lunch with people for two and a half hours.
Sam: That's a nice lunch.
Ivan: Yeah, we did. We, we had our quarterly results and we had a very good quarter.
Ivan: And so we, uh, our boss decided that we, uh, deserved a nice lunch.
Ivan: Can't complain about that.
Sam: There you go. Nice. Yeah. Now I can say my socialization levels have never been
Sam: high and they're still not high.
Sam: I, I avoid it whenever possible for the most part.
Ivan: Like the thing is I'm in fucking sales. I gotta go fucking talk to people, man.
Ivan: Look, I, I don't, I don't, I, I will admit that I, I, but I fall into the,
Ivan: uh, for example, I'll go and I'll visit my customers.
Ivan: I'll go to a lunch. But for example, there, somebody was asking me like,
Ivan: how many times are you dying alone on like a business trip? And I say a lot.
Ivan: I'm like, why? Because look, I already met people at the office.
Ivan: I went and talked to customers. I did all of this.
Ivan: By the end of the night, I'm like, look, I don't want, I don't want to be on at dinner too.
Ivan: I'm like, okay, that I like my socialization. I got it. I'm good.
Ivan: Let me, let me sit and have dinner by myself. Thank you.
Sam: Yes. Yeah. Okay.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay. My turn?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. Hold on. What, Alex?
Sam: Okay. This is too long. I'm not going to read all of this.
Sam: Tell you what. I will, as the first break, I will insert it reading this. Okay?
Sam: Instead of the break I had picked. Okay.
Sam: Okay. Okay, so as you heard, Alex has requested a thing that I will include as the first break.
Sam: He has some stuff that he has had an AI generate regarding to an educational
Sam: show we watched together recently. But I will have Siri read that out loud or
Sam: something as our first break. Okay.
Sam: Instead of whatever I had determined previously.
Sam: Now, and yeah, whatever.
Sam: Okay, but the one I had in place was a TV show this time.
Ivan: A TV show?
Sam: A TV show that I finished in June of last year.
Sam: And again, I talk about TV shows when I actually finished them,
Sam: so I can talk about all the seasons and everything else.
Sam: Well, I'm not going to talk about all the seasons. Anyway, the show was Stargate SG-1.
Sam: okay for those of you who don't remember this this was on from 1997 i was gonna
Sam: say in the 90s right yeah it's well 1997 to 2007 okay so the first thing i'll mention about it yeah.
Ivan: I will say that i i don't think i've ever watched one episode of stargate sg1.
Sam: Okay so i'll get to it in a second but the first thing i wanted to mention about
Sam: it was okay the show was on 10 seasons 1997 to 2007 when we watch 10 seasons
Sam: 1997 to 2007 that's not counting spinoffs and this is like.
Ivan: The right the the are these like the conventional regular uh seasons 24 episodes
Ivan: so you're talking about 200.
Sam: Episodes around there i think that's approximately correct let me i mean i will
Sam: double check it for you and make sure i have the numbers yeah the the first
Sam: seven seasons were 22 episodes, the last three were 20.
Ivan: Okay, so yeah, close.
Sam: So that's a total of, scrolling down real quick, 214 episodes of the series. That was close.
Sam: Now, it also had spinoff series, and there were also three made-for-TV movies
Sam: that were after the series.
Sam: I haven't watched the made-for-TV movies yet, only the series itself.
Sam: And of course, it was the whole series was a sequel to Stargate the movie...
Sam: Which was by, let's see. Menem?
Sam: Which was a 1994 movie with a different cast. So they recast it for the TV show.
Ivan: Wait, what year was the movie?
Sam: 1994.
Ivan: There was a movie? It started as a movie?
Sam: Yes, there was a Stargate movie, which I have also watched. It was like years
Sam: ago. Let me check. When did I watch the Stargate movie?
Sam: Now I have to check that too, because you brought it up.
Sam: here we go okay i.
Ivan: Watched the original feature film here it is star i watched i do remember this
Ivan: i it's just i never associated stargate sg1 with the movie stargate for whatever
Ivan: reason now i don't think i've watched the film either.
Sam: Yeah so i watched the movie in 2014 okay but but Yes.
Sam: So, and I keep trying to make this one point that I thought was really cool
Sam: and you keep distracting me from it.
Ivan: Sorry.
Sam: Okay. It's 10 seasons, 1997 to 2007.
Sam: But when we watched it this time, this is actually one that I started after
Sam: I was logging everything properly. So I know when I started it and we watched it from 2014 to 2024.
Sam: So it was originally 10 years and 10 seasons and it took me 10 years to watch it.
Sam: when I watched it now. So I was essentially rewatching it in real time or,
Sam: you know, with, I mean, it wasn't the same like spacing, right?
Sam: Like I didn't like do a season and then take the summer off or whatever they
Sam: did in the original, but yeah, it took me 10 years to rewatch the show that
Sam: was originally on the air for 10 years.
Sam: so okay so because because you know because i'm not binge watching in the way that you know instead,
Sam: i am wrote i'm watching a whole bunch of different shows and we watch one episode
Sam: every once in a while and as it turns out it took 10 years to watch 10 years
Sam: of this show so so that you know that tells you how fast i'm gonna catch up
Sam: on law and order as well yes jesus which which by the way we just started season three. Like, uh...
Ivan: Okay, well, you're not moving as... You're moving faster on Law & Order, it seems.
Sam: Maybe a little bit. Like, season one took me almost a year. So...
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: But, anyway, we're not talking about Law & Order. We're talking about Stargate SG-1.
Sam: Anyway, I give it a thumbs up. I really enjoyed Stargate SG-1 as a show.
Sam: I watched it... I did watch it when it was originally on TV,
Sam: but sort of spotty. It wasn't necessarily one that I saw every episode all the time.
Sam: I think it was only partway through the original run that I got like a TiVo,
Sam: you know, so that I was more likely to hit every episode.
Sam: But I enjoyed the show. The basic premise, for anybody who doesn't know,
Sam: is that, well, in the movie, originally, they dig up a Stargate in Egypt.
Sam: Like it's underneath in some archaeological thing.
Sam: I forget if it was under a pyramid or nearby or whatever. But they dig up this
Sam: thing and then they figure out how to activate it.
Sam: And it turns out like it's a portal that you can walk through and go to other planets.
Sam: You know, so instead of space travel through spaceships, it's space travel through
Sam: portals that you can activate and as a thing you can dial to pick where you're
Sam: going and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And so they start exploring, exploring the universe with this thing,
Sam: or at least the galaxy in the, in the original movie that it's basically all
Sam: an adventure to the first planet.
Sam: They figure out how to get to, and it ties into the whole Egyptian theme and all that.
Sam: the movie picks up, or sorry, the TV show picks up after the movie.
Sam: So it is, they make, there are some subtle differences, like the lead character's
Sam: name is spelled differently.
Sam: A few little things like that to sort of hint that maybe it's not exactly the
Sam: same, because of course they recast everybody.
Sam: So they, you know, it's the same characters plus some new ones,
Sam: but it's, you know, it's unclear Is it actually exactly the same universe or
Sam: is it like a subtly different universe from the movie? It doesn't matter.
Sam: It effectively acts as a sequel to the movie.
Sam: And then, of course, as they start exploring the galaxy, they find enemies that,
Sam: you know, don't like the fact that they're there.
Sam: And, oh, like we'll go after the Earth and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Adventures ensue. over the course of the ten seasons there are.
Sam: They change sort of the villains up a few times because like they sort of have
Sam: done everything they could do with the first set of villains and so then they
Sam: bring in new ones and then they bring in new ones again and there were a few
Sam: times where cast members,
Sam: you know came and went and so there were sort of replacement characters a few
Sam: times but I will say one thing that this series did,
Sam: that i think is better than what some have done is like first of all aside from
Sam: the switch from the movie to the tv show they didn't just flat out recast people
Sam: like if the actor was not available then the character went away in some way
Sam: you know um you know and and so.
Ivan: The character you know god it's gone.
Sam: Yeah and the thing is they
Sam: they also were fairly good with a couple notable exceptions they
Sam: didn't like kill them off either like something happened to them because in
Sam: many cases they came back like you know they would come back for guest appearances
Sam: in some cases they were gone for a season and then came back for real or even
Sam: the season they were gone they made cameos occasionally so it's not like.
Ivan: We talked about with spike not spike uh with uh buffy but.
Sam: Buffy were.
Ivan: All of a sudden sister popped up.
Sam: Right. And they did bring in new people, but like they were,
Sam: they were new characters.
Sam: Now you could tell that they were kind of the replacement for the character
Sam: who left, but then they'd have episodes where they were like together with the
Sam: old person because the old person came for a cameo and there were subtle differences.
Sam: So they weren't exact clones.
Sam: You could tell they were sort of filling that spot, but they didn't pretend
Sam: like for anybody who remembers the Dukes of Hazzard.
Sam: There were there was one season where Bo and Luke Duke, the actors who played
Sam: them, like wanted more money and they didn't want to give it to them.
Sam: So there was a season with a replacement Bo and Luke.
Ivan: Oh, my God. I remember this. And I remember being very confused by it.
Sam: It was like their cousins or something. So it wasn't Bo and Luke.
Sam: They did make them new characters, but they essentially played the same characters.
Sam: They had a different name. They looked like Luke.
Ivan: I'm like, where are they?
Ivan: What the hell's going on? Why are these two guys in the fucking,
Ivan: you know, General Lee? What the hell is this shit?
Sam: Yes. And then they brought him back the next season. And I think they did have
Sam: one crossover episode where they were both there. But like, anyway,
Sam: this has done better than that.
Sam: And it is kind of weird as you go on towards the end when like,
Sam: it's like, okay, well, we've defeated that enemy.
Sam: So here's a new enemy, you know, you know, and, and one interesting part for
Sam: the last couple of seasons, they brought in a couple new characters that were just happened to be.
Sam: They were characters from another sci-fi series called Farscape.
Sam: They weren't brought in as their Farscape characters, but like they were so
Sam: strongly associated with that other series that it was interesting.
Sam: They brought in both of them and they were interacting with each other as new characters.
Sam: And they, they made jokes about it on the show because like,
Sam: you know, anybody watching the show probably was familiar with the other show too.
Sam: So there was like one dream sequence where everybody
Sam: in stargate played characters from farscape essentially with different names
Sam: but they switched it up so it wasn't the same actors and actresses playing the
Sam: same roles that they actually played on the other it was funny anyway and there
Sam: there are a few like self-referential anniversary episodes and stuff that are
Sam: cool anyway bottom line thumbs up to Stargate,
Sam: if you like your sort of sci-fi shows,
Sam: you know, if, if, if you like, you know,
Sam: your, your Star Treks and, um,
Sam: you know, other, other of these kinds of shows, you're going to like Stargate
Sam: too. So if you haven't checked it out, go check it out.
Sam: Like I said, it has a number of spinoff series too.
Sam: We have, we have not watched the spinoff series yet. Like, like Stargate at itself.
Sam: I watched a lot of them when they were originally on TV.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Anyway, thumbs up for Stargate if you like those kinds of sci-fi shows.
Sam: The other spinoff shows I watched when they were originally on TV,
Sam: again, sort of in a spotty way.
Sam: Can't guarantee I watched every episode. I might eventually watch them again.
Sam: I might eventually watch the TV movies that occurred after the main Stargate
Sam: series because I have not seen those.
Sam: And I want to. Cause like they sort of, there's some loose ends from the end
Sam: of the series that are apparently wrapped up in those made for TV movies.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: So anyway, a lot of fun. Thumbs up. Stargate SG one. There you go. That's it.
Ivan: By the way, I was checking on this whole thing because I, you know what?
Ivan: I didn't realize that's what happened with Dukes of Hasbro.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: You see, I did, I did. I, you know, I know that all.
Sam: Cause you were a kid.
Ivan: There were a whole bunch of episodes. well yeah i realized a whole bunch of
Ivan: episodes that they weren't there and i'm like who the fuck are these guys i
Ivan: remember you know what was i right was.
Sam: It a money dispute.
Ivan: No no you were you were absolutely correct about it and and so but what happened
Ivan: was you know they held out they they cast these two guys that looked looked
Ivan: a lot like them then they said that the duke boys went to race in nascar somehow
Ivan: yep for a while and what happened was that the ratings, like, crashed.
Ivan: And so, you know, so they were like, you know, I think it was Warner Brothers
Ivan: was like, ah, shit. You know, we got to...
Sam: You can have your money.
Ivan: Yeah, we'll give you the money. We need you guys back because the ratings got hammered.
Ivan: So, yeah.
Ivan: But they did come back and it was for a couple of more seasons. I'm looking at it here.
Ivan: Hang on. They had a chart, but, but I think the damage is kind of like,
Ivan: actually it, yeah, it, it, it only lasted two seasons.
Sam: It never recovered.
Ivan: It never really fully recovered from that.
Ivan: So the bottom line is that you should have just given them the fucking money.
Sam: Yep.
Ivan: So anyway.
Sam: Well, on the Stargate one, there was one actor who was like,
Sam: you know, I'm kind of, he wanted more money too, but also he was like,
Sam: I want to explore other things, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And so he went into just doing those cameos for a season.
Sam: And then they were like, here's your money. Come back, please.
Sam: He was like, oh, okay, I'll come back. And there's another character,
Sam: Colonel Jack O'Neill, who was the head of the team the whole time,
Sam: also kept trying to say he was retired from acting and done.
Sam: And so he left the show a couple times, but they kept convincing him to come
Sam: back for cameos to the point where they made jokes about it on the show.
Sam: I thought you were retired. Why are you here?
Sam: Things like that. So anyway.
Sam: Anyway, we're done. It's time for a break. And I promised this thing.
Sam: So just so Yvonne can hear here, I'm going to, I'm going to play it into the microphone.
Sam: Okay. So there, there are several of these, he sent me three segments,
Sam: each of which have a bunch of words.
Sam: So we'll see how long this takes a few minutes, probably. Here we go.
Siri: I don't have the exact transcript of Sam's, but first on that Nova episode,
Siri: but I can summarize the key points for you.
Siri: Sam starts by mentioning how he was watching the Nova episode about dino birds,
Siri: and got curious about the coordinates they flashed on screen.
Siri: They showed a full 12-digit latitude longitude, and a shorter 6-digit one,
Siri: which immediately made him suspicious.
Siri: Why the inconsistency? He went down a rabbit hole, checking Wikipedia,
Siri: of course, and even pulling up Google Earth to see if they matched any known dig sites.
Siri: The best part? He gets so caught up in it that he debates messaging the Nova
Siri: producers directly, just to ask if the numbers were real are just placeholders.
Siri: He knows it's a long shot, but the inconsistency is bothering him too much to let it go.
Siri: Classic Sam, getting fixated on details no one else notices,
Siri: and then almost emailing PBS about it.
Sam: Okay, next.
Siri: Ivan, you ever have one of those moments where you're watching something completely
Siri: normal, just enjoying yourself, and then suddenly boom, you're spiraling down
Siri: a research hole you didn't even know existed?
Siri: Sam, every day of my life. Ivan, right?
Siri: So I'm watching this Nova episode about dino birds, feathered dinosaurs,
Siri: fossilized impressions, the whole deal.
Siri: And then they throw up some coordinates on the screen.
Siri: Just numbers, right? But something feels off. Sam, oh no. No. Ivan? Yeah.
Siri: One of them is a full 12-digit latitude and longitude. The kind that gets you down to a square meter.
Siri: The other? Just six digits. That's not right. I paused the episode,
Siri: rewound, checked again.
Siri: And then, obviously, I had to open Google Earth.
Siri: Sam, of course. You had no choice. Ivan? Exactly.
Siri: And then I thought, well, maybe they rounded one for some reason,
Siri: but why would they? It's Nova, not some History Channel nonsense.
Siri: So I start looking up known dig sites, trying to match locations, but nothing quite fits.
Siri: Sam, you're going to email them, aren't you?
Siri: Ivan, I'm thinking about it, just a polite message to the producers,
Siri: asking if those numbers are real or placeholders.
Siri: For science, Sam, this is why I love and fear you.
Sam: Okay, last one.
Siri: Sam, but first, you ever be watching something totally normal,
Siri: just a casual educational program, and then suddenly you're deep in coordinates.
Siri: Checking decimal places like your life depends on it, because that's where I
Siri: was with this Nova episode about dino birds.
Siri: They throw up a set of latitude and longitude coordinates, one of them a full
Siri: 12-digit precision point, the other just six digits.
Siri: And immediately, I'm like, hold on, that's weird. So I pause, rewind, check again.
Siri: that's what they showed now i could have just let it go
Siri: but obviously i didn't next thing i know
Siri: i've got google earth open i'm checking known dig sites i'm cross-referencing
Siri: wikipedia and none of it is adding up so now i'm at the point where i might
Siri: actually email the nova producers and ask hey what's going on with these coordinates
Siri: are these real or did someone just make up some numbers because i need to know okay.
Sam: Alex just sent more but that's not happening
Sam: today we've already done three he's fighting me over it maybe more some other
Sam: time anyway that was based on a true story we were actually watching the nova
Sam: episode on dino birds which is a the most well not the most recent it's a recent
Sam: nova episode from this year.
Siri: Ivan you ever just be watching nova thinking it's going to be a nice relaxing
Siri: time and then suddenly you're in no.
Sam: Quiet series And anyway, this is, uh, it actually did happen.
Sam: They had, they had coordinates on the screen. Like when they were talking to
Sam: people at a new place, they'd put coordinates in the bottom left hand of the
Sam: thing. And there'd be a little animation.
Sam: And I noticed that they had like, it was like the degrees period.
Sam: And then like 12, 14 digits. I, so I had to pause it. I worked it out.
Sam: That locates your position on the planet down to a nanometer.
Sam: Oh, wow. There's no reason to locate you down to a nanometer when you're just
Sam: showing that you're at some building where they're doing something.
Sam: And then I tried to look up some of these coordinates to like,
Sam: like they showed like the person in front of the building talking about whatever.
Sam: I looked up the coordinates. There was one that was in the suburbs of Beijing
Sam: and it was in the suburbs of Beijing, but it was not in front of the building
Sam: that they were showing on the thing.
Sam: I looked at like the satellite view and stuff.
Sam: It was in a field, not at the building. so i'm
Sam: like getting upset by this you know and like
Sam: what are they doing and i'm like they probably rounded and then added
Sam: extra digits but what's up with the extra digits are they random are
Sam: they inserting some sort of code is it like a secret
Sam: message that producers have to like put in their kid's name and code or their
Sam: wife's name or something now of course i did not you know i am ashamed of myself
Sam: i did not investigate further writing down all the numbers and trying to see
Sam: if there actually was a code and try to crack it in some way.
Sam: But the fact that they had these extra digits there, I mean,
Sam: immediately I was like, hey, just two or three, four or five digits after the
Sam: decimal point gets you to like within a foot or two.
Sam: Like, why are there 12? So anyway.
Sam: Okay, Vaughn, Newsy topic. we've already got an hour on the non-newsy stuff or almost an hour so.
Ivan: I have to pick a newsy topic son of a bitch okay we're gonna pick well alright,
Ivan: let's shut down did we have a shutdown Sam we.
Sam: Did not have a shutdown okay
Sam: You know, maybe, maybe like, let's expand this slightly from shutdown.
Sam: Like, cause I think there's a big thing here about how the Democrats handled
Sam: the shutdown versus how Democrats.
Ivan: Or how Chuck Schumer handled that.
Sam: Yes. Well, Chuck Schumer and a bunch of people who went along with him,
Sam: but like, I feel like there's a fundamental contrast here between how certain
Sam: Democrats like Schumer are handling things versus how.
Ivan: And Fetterman.
Sam: And Fetterman. And there were 10 senators who ended up voting for this thing.
Sam: But like, but like contrasted to like things like, you know,
Sam: we talked about AOC before. Bernie's doing some stuff.
Sam: Walls is doing some stuff. and it like one quote that i saw and we will talk
Sam: more specifically about the shutdown stuff itself i guess but i there was one quote.
Ivan: Well what shutdown there wasn't a fucking shutdown yeah what the
Ivan: fuck is there to talk about democrats i mean chuck schumer caved again chuck
Ivan: schumer caved let's be clear about this chuck schumer caved while extracting
Ivan: nothing right which that's the thing that really pisses me off because if you're going to do that,
Ivan: you needed to have gotten something out.
Sam: Now, one quote that I thought was really on point was from Ann Caparra.
Sam: Capra Ra. Anyway, Anne Capra Ra. She is apparently the chief of staff for Illinois Governor Pritzker.
Sam: And she posted on Blue Sky, the fight going on in the Democratic Party right
Sam: now is not between hard left, left, and moderate.
Sam: Because a lot of people are putting this as sort of progressives versus moderates, but no, that's not.
Sam: She says, it's between those who want to fight and those who want to cave.
Ivan: That's right.
Sam: And team fight stretches across all ideological aspects of the park.
Ivan: Yes. Yes.
Sam: Misread this at your own peril.
Ivan: She's totally right.
Sam: Yeah. And I think there's a lot of this that's old guard versus new guard,
Sam: but not even. Like Pelosi. Not even.
Sam: Pelosi put out a statement that...
Ivan: Ripping Schumer!
Sam: Ripping Schumer. Like, she didn't explicitly use his name and stuff,
Sam: but she made it absolutely clear what she was talking about.
Sam: And Jeffries, who I've had problems with as well, also is like,
Sam: the House went on a limb for this.
Ivan: Yes!
Sam: We 100% stayed together and voted against this.
Ivan: Listen, man, after you get the House to be that together.
Sam: Chuck Schumer can't go...
Ivan: Yeah, well, OK, but after you get the house to stick together that way,
Ivan: what Chuck Schumer did is is dead right treasonous.
Sam: I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it's it's definitely like,
Sam: what the hell are you thinking?
Sam: And like you said, it's no it no value extracted.
Ivan: Exactly. No value extracted. it.
Sam: Nothing. You kind of knew in the end they had to make some sort of deal that
Sam: would, like, not result in an extended government shutdown. But,
Sam: To just sort of say, ah, okay. And like, look, the argument was,
Sam: let's be fair and give the argument.
Sam: Schumer's argument was basically, look, they kind of want the government shut
Sam: down and it would empower them even more.
Sam: Like once we're in a government shutdown, then you sort of even further justify
Sam: all the cuts that they've been doing because they can be like,
Sam: hey, we obviously don't need this.
Sam: We're doing fine with everything shut down. and while they're in government
Sam: shutdown they have a much more they have much more ability to pick and choose
Sam: what to shut down and what not to accept okay.
Ivan: Yeah yes that is the argument but again here's
Ivan: a reality he caved many hours before he didn't even push this to the brink it's
Ivan: not like you know even if you didn't want the damn shutdown and you had your
Ivan: reasons it was the only bargaining chip that you had and you went like well.
Sam: Before you didn't even try to use it yeah
Sam: just to just to finish the picture it's because
Sam: the way that they were pushing to extend
Sam: with a continuous continuing resolution was subject to the filibuster so they
Sam: needed 60 votes in order to bring it to the floor for a real vote right which
Sam: only required 50 but you had that procedural step that did require the 60 votes,
Sam: which means it did need Democrats.
Sam: And so the leverage they had was they could have said right up front,
Sam: no, we're not granting you this.
Sam: You know, Republicans, you control the House, you control the Senate,
Sam: you're on your own. But hey, look, you don't have enough to get this done.
Sam: So you're not getting it done unless you give us something.
Ivan: Something.
Sam: Something. You know, and they could have picked whatever.
Sam: I think in the end, the deal was they could put four amendments on the floor
Sam: that would all lose. Like, what the fuck?
Ivan: But no, what the fuck? No.
Sam: What's the point of that? No.
Ivan: It's just preposterous.
Sam: You either hold out for a real deal where you make them back off from some of
Sam: their own priorities, or at the very least, you end up putting them on the spot,
Sam: refusing to do things that are popular.
Sam: Or insisting on doing things that are unpopular.
Sam: And you make a spectacle out of that.
Sam: And you force them to be wide open, out there, on the record,
Sam: about things that would hurt them politically. You at least do something.
Ivan: You try, you know, to get something out of it. And, you know...
Ivan: I still think here's the reality that the shutdown puts a lot of pressure on everybody.
Ivan: I, even with this thing, well, we could pick, choose whatever they couldn't
Ivan: really just pick and choose whatever you needed the damn filibuster breaker.
Ivan: It's not like they could do something, but you could have said,
Ivan: look, for example, I would, I think one that I would have, I would have said,
Ivan: okay, you guys want the pasta clean CR.
Ivan: Okay, great. Here's one condition. stop firing fucking veterans.
Sam: How about that that's exactly that's exactly the kind of either they cave on
Sam: that or you put them on the record not caving on the record.
Ivan: Basically saying hey you know what they refuse to protect veterans jobs they
Ivan: refuse to protect you had to do you had to use it and you just fucking just frittered it away.
Sam: And there are a bunch of other things too like
Sam: you could have them like i think chris hayes
Sam: on msnbc has been on about this one you could have had them sort of
Sam: do something to to sort of validate the elon musk stuff just right you know
Sam: just list out all the stuff that he's doing all the people he's firing all the
Sam: things he's shutting down and say okay look this stuff is illegal with musk
Sam: just doing it on his own it would be perfectly legal if,
Sam: congress passed a law about it so pass the damn law right you know and put them
Sam: on the record about that. But no, just nothing.
Sam: And I think this whole thing is, you know, this is once again,
Sam: this sort of surrendering in advance kind of thing.
Sam: And look, part of Schumer's argument here was, hey, if we held this up and the
Sam: government was shut down, in the end, the Democrats would be blamed for it. And, you know, blah.
Ivan: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And look, people's short fucking memories right now?
Ivan: Yeah, like all the shutdowns, the other ones that were impending with Biden,
Ivan: did they blame the fucking Republicans? Did they lose anything?
Ivan: Fuck this shit. Stupid thinking. It's just stupid thinking. I'm sorry,
Ivan: but he completely fucked up.
Ivan: He needs to retire. He needs to go home.
Sam: Yes, he does. I mean, I think it's been past Schumer's time for a long time now.
Ivan: Yeah, but this is like...
Sam: This is not an ageism thing per se. It's a...
Ivan: It's an ideas thing.
Sam: It's an ideas thing.
Ivan: And these ideas are wrong.
Sam: It's a meeting the moment thing.
Sam: It's like these folks who've been around for a long time are not showing that
Sam: they have what it takes to react to the new reality of what Republicans are now.
Sam: There's all these people that are longing for the days when you had sort of
Sam: everybody was, you know,
Sam: back to the Reagan days where Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan would go for a drink
Sam: after work or whatever and, like, be friends.
Sam: you know, and, and, and even after disagreeing all day and then where that was
Sam: common and Biden wanted to go back to those days too. And I think a lot.
Ivan: Well, you know what? Those days are long gone.
Sam: It's like acknowledge reality.
Ivan: We acknowledge are fucking long gone. They ain't coming back.
Ivan: They're gone. They may come back. They may come back at some point,
Ivan: but it's not anytime soon.
Sam: It's not anytime soon. And you can't like, I was upset about the, the whole,
Sam: like, it's not officially a state of the union because it's the first year of
Sam: a presidency it's an address to congress whatever but like at that speech i
Sam: was also upset by the the democrats who were like yo i mean the one that 10.
Ivan: Fucking democrats have voted to censure what's this fuck uh the democratic guy that was protesting.
Sam: With his fucking reason he the the people who stayed away and that guy who made
Sam: a point of demonstrating and
Sam: being kicked out of the thing. Those are the ones who did the right thing.
Ivan: Right!
Sam: The ones who...
Sam: sat there politely, fuck them. Even the ones with the stupid little signs.
Sam: Okay, that's better than nothing, but it's kind of late.
Sam: I was saying before the speech, they should have either not shown up at all,
Sam: or they should have shown up and then had an orchestrated thing where every
Sam: 30 seconds someone got up and left and made some sort of protest statement as they walked in.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, this is not the time for, okay, we're going to sit there and be polite
Sam: and pretend this is like, okay.
Sam: No, those days are long gone. And there's a significant portion of Congress
Sam: who's just not willing to go there yet.
Sam: And it's like this sort of like, let's try to find places where we can be bipartisan.
Sam: And, oh, let's treat them like as if this was happening in good faith.
Sam: No, there is no good faith on the other side anymore.
Ivan: No, there is no good faith.
Sam: You know? And so pretending that, and like, look, the, and this goes along with
Sam: the whole thing of like, this, this also this, you know, what's the right way to react to losing?
Sam: Okay. So first of all, people, the reaction is, oh, my God, the Democrats got
Sam: crushed because we have a winner-take-all system and lost the House,
Sam: lost the Senate, lost the presidency.
Sam: But all three were goddamn close, Senate less so than the others.
Sam: But all three were close in the end.
Sam: But it's because things are amplified by the Electoral College,
Sam: by all of these other factors, and it's winner-take-all.
Sam: It was like, we got crushed. No, you just barely lost. If you'd done a little bit better,
Sam: And you would, would have been okay. So like, but there's people reacting.
Sam: It was like, oh, we have to change absolutely everything.
Sam: Oh, we have to move to the center.
Sam: We have to adopt Republican positions. We have to not talk about trans people.
Sam: We have to do this. We have to do that. No, no, no.
Sam: Retreating is not the way to win in this kind of situation.
Sam: It makes you, If it makes you look weak, it makes you look like you have no convictions.
Sam: You know, no, the thing you've got to do, and I'm not saying that the whole
Sam: Democratic Party should become Bernie and AOC policy wise.
Sam: That would be a mistake, too. But you have to show up for your damn conviction.
Ivan: I'll tell you what, hell of a lot better than the current one.
Ivan: I'll fucking sign up for that. I'll sign up for that plan. Better than the current one.
Sam: Yeah, no, I agree. But you don't have to go all the way to where they are position-wise,
Sam: but I think you do have to go to where they are attitude-wise,
Sam: where they stand up for what they believe in and are not going to just say, oh, oh, well.
Ivan: We're overplayed.
Sam: And look, I realized, I was first one to admit and say, you know,
Sam: look, you don't have the presidency, you don't have the House,
Sam: you don't have the Senate, you don't have the courts.
Ivan: Yeah, but you do have to use the levers that you have.
Sam: You do have to use the levers that you do have, and you do have to communicate
Sam: clearly about it, and you can't end up looking like you're just giving up. Yes.
Ivan: Losers.
Sam: You did lose, but you don't have to look like losers. And someone pointed out,
Sam: even when the Republicans were in the minority, they never act like this.
Ivan: No. Never. Never. Never.
Sam: They are always like,
Sam: obstructing in any possible way they can. They're being vocal about everything.
Sam: They're talking about how bad the other side is. They're talking up their own plans.
Sam: They're doing all kinds of stuff. You know, whereas this sort of preemptive
Sam: capitulation is exactly why people are disillusioned.
Sam: You know, this is, this is why like one of variety of reasons,
Sam: but this is one of the reasons why, you know, people weren't all that excited about,
Sam: well, certainly not about Biden and, and to some extent about a Harris to the fight.
Sam: I mean, come on, you know, and, and, and, and I, you know, the,
Sam: the whole, like, again, like you have to moderate to go after the center.
Sam: I know conventional wisdom is
Sam: all about, you always have to get the median voter, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam: But the way to win these things is to differentiate yourself strongly and have
Sam: actual fucking convictions about things, you know?
Sam: And this is an unmitigated disaster i i agree and schumer specifically here
Sam: but we've had you know and jeffries was good on this one but jeffries did fine
Sam: jeffries has been weak on other things and then we had that newsome thing where
Sam: he was like talking about fans keep on newsome.
Ivan: I mean to me i mean to me right now newsom is dead.
Sam: I mean he not only i mean the conversation i mean newsom.
Ivan: To me is dead period.
Sam: Yeah i mean he's an idiot and look the this is the same like trying to go move
Sam: to the right or whatever like the first episode of his stupid podcast was not
Sam: just bring on somebody who disagreed with him it was bring on some guy who's
Sam: a right-wing fanatic Trumpy.
Ivan: But not just bring on some guy that's a rightful Trumpy.
Sam: And then agree with him.
Ivan: Is be completely unprepared.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Not know who the fuck the guy is, what his positions is, and not refute the
Ivan: bastard and go like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah,
Ivan: yeah, yeah, yeah, we're gonna, you know, yeah, you're right about those trans people playing sports.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Fucking wanted to punch him in the face.
Sam: Meanwhile, like, we've talked before about how AOC seems to be communicating well.
Sam: Bernie has been going on a, basically he's going into red congressional districts
Sam: where the Republican Congress people are refusing to have town halls.
Ivan: Beautiful.
Sam: And he's like, I'll do town halls.
Ivan: Fuck yeah.
Sam: And, and so he, and, and, and also just to be clear, these are red districts,
Sam: but often purplish red districts.
Sam: Although he has, he's done some in deep red districts too, but like the whole
Sam: point. And you're doing that outreach. You're going into enemy territory.
Sam: You're giving your story and he's getting huge crowds. He's filling like venues with 10,000 people.
Sam: It's not even a goddamn election year. He's not running for everything, anything.
Sam: He's old. He's not going to run for president again, you know, but he's popular.
Ivan: He's got balls! Still!
Sam: Yeah. And like, look, I've never been a fan of Bernie.
Ivan: But- But I am right now.
Sam: Exactly. He's like showing balls. Okay, sure. Good word.
Sam: And, and, you know, Walls is talking the same way. He's now going on.
Ivan: And so is AOC, too, by the way. Going out there fucking like,
Ivan: you know, carrying water for everybody, showing more balls than all these other fuckers combined.
Sam: Yeah. And not being afraid to have these conversations.
Ivan: And I know she's getting fucking daily death threats and shit like that.
Sam: Oh, of course she is. Of course she is.
Ivan: And she's just going out there, not caring one bit about it.
Sam: So, you know, doing what if you remember, like right after the election,
Sam: there was a thing where somebody put out an exit poll or something that identified
Sam: there was actually a large number of people who voted for both AOC and Trump.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, I remember that.
Sam: And so she had a live stream where she was like, hey, if you're one of these
Sam: people, I want to talk to you. I want to understand.
Ivan: What the fuck? I want to fucking understand. What the hell?
Sam: But the point is she was doing that reach out and she was talking to people
Sam: and she was engaging with those kinds of voters. And all of.
Ivan: I know. I know.
Sam: And, you know, Walls, AOC, Bernie are doing that.
Sam: They are going out. They are talking to Republicans. They are talking to Trump
Sam: voters, but they're not doing so in a manner of, oh, and we're going to give
Sam: up our principles in order to try to convince you to come over.
Sam: No, they're sticking by what they believe in, but they're engaging and engaging directly.
Sam: And they are approaching this correctly.
Sam: All of these other folks. This is a reality.
Ivan: They don't need to compromise on anything because the fucking reality goes back
Ivan: to what I said in the butt first.
Ivan: And it goes back to what people are seeing right now.
Ivan: These people right now are a lot of people, a lot of people,
Ivan: like a high percentage of fucking people that vote.
Ivan: A large number of the kind of swing people do you expect that voted for Trump
Ivan: right now are in serious buyer's remorse.
Ivan: big time and what you have to do right now
Ivan: is capitalize on that properly okay and
Ivan: yeah if bernie and aoc are going out
Ivan: there and offering you know i tell you
Ivan: guys this is what it
Ivan: is and you give that strong message you know
Ivan: about how we really offered you an alternative and you need to fucking like
Ivan: make sure that the next in the next midterms you vote these fuckers out okay
Ivan: Because we offered you the right way We told you this was going to be And it's
Ivan: exactly Happening right now the way we told you You need to vote him the fuck out Period.
Sam: Yeah. And you don't have to rub their face in it, but you have to make sure
Sam: you're giving that message anyway.
Ivan: But many of them are already upset.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, and like we said, it's, you know, it's never going to be like
Sam: 90% of Trump voters are like, oh crap, I should have voted for Kamala. But you don't need that.
Ivan: You don't need 90%.
Sam: It was the freaking closest election, popular vote wise, in a long time.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, this was a close election. You only needed, I think somebody estimated
Sam: like in the critical key states, you needed to change the mind of like one in 50 people.
Sam: That's all. Maybe even less.
Ivan: But the one thing, like I said, you know, you only needed to change that few people.
Ivan: And the reality is that what you needed to do is battle the reality they see.
Sam: Or and also not the one.
Ivan: That you see.
Sam: Yes yes you have to you have to recognize what
Sam: people are seeing what people's experiences are and where they're coming from
Sam: as low information people and and also the other thing like we kept kept pointing
Sam: out like the effect diminished as additional votes came in but it was still
Sam: an issue of like a lot of people who voted for joe biden just stayed home.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So how do you motivate those people? You don't motivate them by capitulating on everything.
Ivan: That's definitely not one way to do it.
Sam: You know, again, if you want to excite those people and get them out,
Sam: you have to give them a reason to want what you're providing.
Sam: Get them fucking excited.
Ivan: Damn it.
Sam: Make them excited. And some of that is personalities and like,
Sam: AOC's got the personality. I think Tim Walls does, too.
Sam: The second half of the campaign, I keep mentioning that there was a big turnaround in September.
Sam: Part of that turnaround is they muzzled Walls.
Ivan: Well, yeah.
Sam: The first half, he was out there, he was excited, he was happy, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: The second half, he screwed up in a debate, he didn't do that great in a debate,
Sam: and then they were like, okay, you just stay quiet for the rest of the time. That was a mistake.
Sam: But I think Walls has the personality.
Sam: AOC definitely has the personality. I don't get Sanders, but a lot of people
Sam: really love him, so he obviously has some appeal as well.
Sam: Find those people. Not like Newsom.
Ivan: Oh, God, fuck Newsom.
Sam: Not Jeffreys, not Schumer. Fuck Newsom. Get these people off the stage. Oh, my God.
Ivan: Good Lord.
Sam: And frankly, I would not mind seeing Harris again.
Sam: She just, but she's been in quiet mode and she's thinking about running for
Sam: governor in California and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: But you need to like have the original Harris, not they, they,
Sam: they bottled everything up in the second half of the campaign and they fucked everything up.
Sam: whatever okay shall we take a break yvonne then one more thing okay so i will this time oh,
Sam: fine i i i will play the last thing yvonne sent to continue no not yvonne the
Sam: last thing alex said i get you two confused all the time you look the same you
Sam: sound the same yeah you definitely sound.
Ivan: The same i'm sure he talks about as much as i do.
Sam: Yes so eddie and you swear about the same you know oh.
Ivan: Yes he loves the swearing.
Sam: Anyway i'll play the last one he sent me it was it was only one more right yeah
Sam: here we go this is the last one and that'll be the break here we go.
Siri: Ivan you ever just be watching nova thinking it's going to be a nice relaxing
Siri: time and then suddenly you're investigating coordinate inconsistencies like
Siri: you work for some geological survey?
Siri: Sam. I wasn't planning on it. But then Nova decided to throw up two sets of
Siri: latitude and longitude.
Siri: One with a full 12 digits. The other with only six. And immediately,
Siri: my brain went, wait a second.
Siri: Ivan, of course it did. Sam, because that doesn't make sense.
Siri: If you're going to show precise coordinates, you do it consistently.
Siri: So now I'm pausing, rewinding, double-checking.
Siri: One of them is hyper-precise. Like you could find a single rock precise.
Siri: The other? It's vague. Like it could be anywhere in a square kilometer.
Siri: Ivan. Did you consider just watching the episode?
Siri: Sam? No. Because by then, I had Google Earth open.
Siri: I was checking known dig sites. And I was deep in Wikipedia articles about fossil locations.
Siri: And guess what? The numbers don't match anything I could find. Ivan.
Siri: So you're going to email Nova, aren't you? Sam. I'm thinking about it.
Siri: Just a polite, hey, what's up with these coordinates, because either they made
Siri: a mistake, or they're hiding a secret dig site from the public, and I need to know which.
Sam: There you go. Anyway. Ah.
Sam: Yes. Okay. So now it's my turn.
Ivan: It's your turn to see what you can say.
Sam: So I was going to pick what we did last segment if you hadn't. But you did pick it.
Sam: So I think the other thing we need to cover that's, you know,
Sam: also politics and Trump related and stuff is, how's the stock market and economy doing, Yvonne?
Sam: Did they like all the tariffs and uncertainty and back and forth?
Sam: How's that going? It's going through the roof, right?
Ivan: It's going through the roof, depending on which way your roof is.
Sam: Ah, right, right.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Well, the roof of your upside down underwater car.
Ivan: Right. If you have like your upside down tree.
Sam: Yes, my upside down Christmas tree.
Ivan: Christmas tree then yeah it it would be
Ivan: heading if it's heading towards the roof there then you
Ivan: know that that that it's that you know it's right there was today somebody posted
Ivan: the stock market report card showing the performance of i guess the last 12
Ivan: presidencies so it wasn't just president,
Ivan: but like the four-year term.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah. The last 12, okay, presidential terms and how their stock market performance.
Sam: Starting from elections, though, not inauguration day.
Ivan: Election, not inauguration, yes. And I think it's important to election because
Ivan: the election day, depending on who wins, does create a stock market inflection.
Sam: Yeah, people start reacting to it, you know, one way or the other.
Ivan: Right and often but by.
Sam: The way often from that i've seen that it's up no matter who wins because you've
Sam: just eliminated uncertainty.
Ivan: Yeah and so that that is something so like right now and i'm looking at this
Ivan: at why is this chart right now i'm looking at only,
Ivan: it's i'm looking at the eight week chart right now again instead of like the
Ivan: 16 week chart but Bottom line is that.
Sam: You know, every time I've looked at that, I've only looked at that site on my
Sam: phone, not on my desktop, but there's just weirdness about it.
Ivan: I don't know if I trust. But bottom line, but the data, I checked it. You checked it?
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: It does track. It.
Ivan: Right now, Trump had the second worst ever stock market performance to date
Ivan: of any of those presidential terms.
Ivan: The only one that was worse was Bush Jr.
Ivan: in the face of the dot-com crash.
Sam: Now, just for our listeners, if you want to check this out, it's at stockmarket-reportcard.lot23.com.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: So, you can check out these graphs and, yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. And so, right now, it keeps showing me the stupid eight-week chart,
Ivan: but I know that when I was looking at it earlier, it was doing the 16-week chart.
Sam: Yeah, I don't get it. I saw 19-week. So, like, eight weeks would line up with Inauguration Day.
Ivan: Right almost i think we're at seven.
Sam: So i forget but like then i saw another view that was like 19 weeks which is
Sam: more like election i don't know what's up with this site it's confusing.
Ivan: It's a little bit confusing but but bottom line is that trump is is is heading
Ivan: one of the worst ever stock market performances by any new president and this
Ivan: was when he was handed a strong economy and a strong market, you know.
Sam: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Yvonne, Yvonne, I have heard repeatedly
Sam: from administration spokespeople over the last few days.
Ivan: It's a disaster, right? What did he say? The Biden disaster.
Sam: Yes, this was a Biden disaster. He handed over an economy in tatters and that
Sam: this is all Biden's fault.
Sam: And, you know, don't worry, Trump will fix it.
Sam: Now, the administration has also said, hey, we're trying to make some big changes
Sam: here. Of course, there'll be pain on the way.
Ivan: I, you know, okay, sure. Yeah, whatever.
Ivan: This is the, there are explanations or no, okay, nobody in the stock market
Ivan: is buying their explanations.
Ivan: Okay. All right. This has all been self-inflicted.
Ivan: You know, they are going around and, you know, they keep doing all of this trade wars,
Ivan: changes on policy, all these cuts in government, terminations,
Ivan: you know, firings, they're cutting contracts, they're cutting whatever.
Sam: And they're trying to do things, like, suddenly overnight as well.
Sam: Like, even if you believe government needs to, like, be smaller than it is,
Sam: like, if you wanted to be responsible about it, you would do it over some extended period of time.
Sam: Because guess what? The government is a significant portion of the economy.
Ivan: And that's the thing. That's the big thing.
Ivan: Because, and it's not like, it's not like you are, they said,
Ivan: well, it's to cut the deficit. But here's the rub, okay? They're looking at
Ivan: cutting taxes at the same time.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: So therefore, you're going to keep the deficit at the same.
Ivan: There isn't any way that you're going to be able or up.
Ivan: There isn't any way that you're really bringing down the deficit in any meaningful way.
Ivan: So look, the markets have been every day.
Ivan: the president says something that is just bad for business.
Ivan: I mean, there's no other way of putting it. It's just every day it's shit that's bad for business.
Ivan: And there is, you know, the other day he was ripping business people because
Ivan: one of the things when you are, you're a multinational.
Ivan: So you're manufacturing, getting parts and things from many different countries,
Ivan: assembling them and selling them in different countries.
Ivan: And he goes to that and the business roundtable people are going to him and
Ivan: saying, look, we need certainty and understanding.
Ivan: What's our, you know, how we are trading with our partners.
Ivan: And he just dismissed it saying, yeah, these idiots, certainty.
Ivan: They all just want certainty.
Ivan: I'm like, yes, you want fucking certainty because you don't want to be,
Ivan: for example, like one example that I was seeing today, a restaurant or a distributor
Ivan: that imports wines from Europe, okay?
Ivan: And sells them to restaurants.
Ivan: Those wine orders are placed a long time in advance.
Ivan: OK, and so all of a sudden you ordered two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Ivan: worth of wine that you pay for up front,
Ivan: by the way, six months in advance that all of a sudden you're going to have
Ivan: to pay if you're going to take delivery to take delivery of this shit.
Ivan: You have to pay a tariff of $500,000.
Ivan: Okay? That's going to bankrupt people. Literally, there will be people that
Ivan: will have to walk away from shipments and just say, we don't have the money to take the shipment.
Ivan: We can't do it. We can't clear the shipment. Leave it at customs.
Ivan: We're not going to be able to clear it.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And so, I don't understand. You know, and he thinks this is a joke.
Ivan: he doesn't get it because he doesn't do business like this fucking hotels and
Ivan: real estate you know it's not manufacturing building assembling and selling
Ivan: stuff you don't do any of that shit so you don't get it you.
Sam: Should be using the california wine anyway.
Ivan: Right yeah i mean that that solves the problem i i mean but i well you know
Ivan: but but but but then on another thing Speaking of that thing about the California example,
Ivan: it's like this whole thing about, oh, yeah, we're bringing manufacturing back.
Ivan: Listen, nobody is bringing manufacturing.
Ivan: all the textile and furniture manufacturing that was lost in the last 30 years back to America.
Sam: Well, here's not happening. Well, but here's the whole thing.
Sam: The scenario where you could make that happen, like let's say you make the tariffs
Sam: like 500% or hell, you make it illegal to import, period. Just make it illegal to import.
Sam: Then eventually maybe you do get some domestic production. But here's the thing.
Ivan: You have a great cost it's.
Sam: At a huge cost and you have to sustain that
Sam: ban or those tariffs for an extended enough period of time that people actually
Sam: do believe they're permanent and that it's worth doing the investment to do
Sam: the domestic production and that it's worth the increased cost it's going to be i.
Ivan: Mean the reason these things here but here's a problem with
Ivan: this shit sam yeah look i've seen this done look
Ivan: i'll give the best example that i remember brazil brazil for
Ivan: a long time had these huge import
Ivan: barriers on computing okay and they had these things that if you wanted to to
Ivan: i mean they they basically the tariffs are so great that it forced a lot of
Ivan: computer companies to have to manufacture in brazil because otherwise it was
Ivan: It's just the tariffs, which just made it impossible.
Ivan: So a number of companies did.
Sam: That's exactly the kind of thing Trump wants to happen, right?
Sam: So a number of companies did.
Ivan: A number of companies did, like IBM and HP.
Ivan: You know, when I worked at HP, HP, and they found a joint venture partner down
Ivan: there called Edisa, which they did these computers, you know,
Ivan: and they were doing some manufacturing.
Ivan: But here's a reality about that. The reality is that it made it that the computers
Ivan: that medium-sized to large businesses were able to get, the only type they were
Ivan: able to get is because IBM manufactured, like, AS400s,
Ivan: System 36s. Those were the only ones that they could get.
Ivan: That meant that computing for middle to big businesses was extremely expensive
Ivan: in Brazil as compared to everybody else, okay?
Ivan: And what you could get was shit as compared to everybody else as well,
Ivan: okay? Because you were so closed off to the rest of the market.
Ivan: So you wound up causing the economy
Ivan: a lot of harm because you closed off yourself to the market so much.
Sam: I don't know the scenario there, but let me predict one additional thing,
Sam: and you can tell me if I'm right on this or not.
Sam: Did it also develop a huge black market?
Ivan: Oh, God, yes.
Sam: Of course. Duh.
Ivan: Of course. Duh.
Ivan: I mean, of course it did. But, you know, it developed the black market for certain products and things.
Ivan: But even that black market was problematic. You couldn't get support.
Ivan: You can get certain things. So why not?
Sam: And you also get a premium on that. It's still expensive because now you're doing it illegally.
Ivan: Yes. Yes. It's a disaster.
Ivan: These kind of policies are a fucking disaster, especially for an economy that
Ivan: what is done over the last 30, 40 years is, is, you know, so yes,
Ivan: we did lose a lot of this low cost, you know,
Ivan: this lower cost manufacturing, but we converted it into, you know,
Ivan: quite a lot of more high value added services. Okay.
Ivan: I mean, this is the reason why companies like Apple and, and,
Ivan: you know, and others are so dominant in the world. Okay.
Ivan: Because we're not fucking building, you know, our economy isn't based on building,
Ivan: you know, certain cheap products, okay?
Ivan: It's on the value add, it's on the services, it's on the financial services,
Ivan: it's on this other stuff.
Ivan: You know, and like you said, you know, yeah, in order for those tariffs to work,
Ivan: to some extent, you would have to keep them for an extremely long period of
Ivan: time for some of the manufacturing to come back.
Sam: And even then, it would be much more expensive.
Ivan: It's super expensive. The wages these people are going to get are still shit.
Ivan: Okay? And it's going to be ridiculously expensive on the rest of people.
Ivan: It's going to raise the prices of so many goods.
Ivan: It's just... I don't, you know...
Sam: Okay, so are they intentionally trying to cause a recession?
Sam: Do you think it's actually their purpose? Do you actually think they want one?
Sam: Or are they really just like they have no idea and they're going to stumble into it?
Sam: It feels like they I've heard people speculate. Let me just throw this out there
Sam: without saying I believe it.
Sam: But I've heard people speculate that they almost intentionally want to do a
Sam: recession because the people they care about the most are rich enough that they
Sam: can survive the recession no problem.
Sam: people who are not able to survive easily. Lots of companies will go bankrupt.
Sam: Lots of businesses will have trouble. But then the ones at the top who survive
Sam: the recession and have enough money that they can sort of weather it will then
Sam: come in and pick up all that stuff at fire sale prices and make a huge profit
Sam: of it off it after the recession is over.
Ivan: I mean, that's plausible, okay?
Ivan: That's a plausible train of thought.
Ivan: It certainly is. But, but also the problem is it's one of these things is like
Ivan: letting the genie out of the bottle.
Ivan: You know, this is what they're playing with is the same shit that ate up the
Ivan: rhinos or the so-called right.
Sam: The Republicans in name only.
Ivan: Right. Not like the animal with the horn. Not the animals. Right.
Ivan: Oh, no, no. We'll just, you know, we'll use the racists, you know,
Ivan: to be, you know, whatever.
Ivan: and they'll get us our votes and we'll get our taxes and we'll get our stuff
Ivan: and we'll blah blah blah and we can control them, we can whatever yeah yeah
Ivan: yeah, we can control whatever until we came out of control, it's the same fucking
Ivan: thing with the recession, you know, these are the kind of fucking things, okay,
Ivan: that, you know it's like,
Ivan: you're arsoning the building thinking that you can keep the arson under control,
Ivan: you'll be okay somehow yes, okay, and that's always a bad plan to set your own
Ivan: fucking building on fire.
Ivan: I don't care if you think you got some advantage later.
Sam: It's a bad plan. You're going to collect the insurance money.
Ivan: Not if you burn up in the damn building.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: So, you know, where there are some of them that are thinking this,
Ivan: and actually, I do think, look, I'll tell you something.
Ivan: I wonder who the hell's feeding him ideas about what things to talk about one day or the next.
Ivan: So I'll tell you something You want to talk about a way to Easily short stocks
Ivan: And buy stocks Based on whatever the fuck whim He's going to be having like the next day Yeah.
Sam: You think there's some insider trading going on here, Yvonne?
Ivan: Oh, I'm 100% sure there's insider trading going on like we've never seen it before.
Sam: Yeah, absolutely. If you even have like a two-hour head start on like what the
Sam: fuck Donald Trump's going to be ranting about next.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You can ride these moves up and down.
Ivan: Up and down. Nicely. Yeah, very nicely. Yeah.
Sam: You know? Fuck. And of course, like in...
Sam: in like the old world, this is one of those things where, you know,
Sam: stop thinking about how things used to be. There's nobody investigating that.
Ivan: There's no, who's investigating? Who's investigating whom?
Sam: Oh, the SEC is going to look into who's insider trading on this?
Ivan: Funny people.
Sam: No. You know?
Ivan: I do love, by the way, how the Tesla and SpaceX both sent unsigned letters to
Ivan: the government basically pleading against the tariffs.
Ivan: And I'm like, unsigned letters? What? Like, what?
Ivan: Yeah, so Elon had nothing to do with him?
Sam: For real? Nothing. Nothing. Well, he did in an interview this week,
Sam: somebody asked him, so with everything you're doing with the government here,
Sam: how's managing your companies going?
Sam: And he's like, I don't know. It's kind of tough.
Ivan: He's such a fucking moron I swear to god.
Sam: He basically said directly that yes he is neglecting his companies because he's
Sam: concentrating on doge right now.
Ivan: Yeah and uh you know that's.
Sam: All now some people would say that like the best thing you could possibly do
Sam: for tesla and spacex is keep elon the hell out of them.
Ivan: Well, here, so, you know, after this week, you know, the White House became
Ivan: the, you know, a prominent Tesla car dealership.
Sam: Yes, yes.
Ivan: During the week.
Sam: We saw that.
Ivan: You know.
Sam: He did a little presentation in front of the White House showing off his car.
Ivan: So, you know, one thing is Tesla car sales have been plummeting.
Sam: Also, like, Ted Cruz did, like, a little Tesla thing, too, didn't he?
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Now, of course, that was countered. Now, countered by Mark Kelly.
Ivan: Senator from Arizona, sold it. But here, so Sam, are we going to get the electric
Ivan: car revolution now by Tesla now being the MAGA car?
Ivan: Okay. Oh, that's a rabbit.
Sam: Sorry. I distracted Yvonne with a rabbit on my phone.
Ivan: Okay, well, there's a rabbit. Okay, well, that's good.
Sam: Because i because yvonne reacted verbally i will have to explain the other day
Sam: we were at the mall we were passing one of these stores that has a whole bunch
Sam: of like random stuff in it had this giant stuffed creepy looking rabbit and
Sam: i was like oh my god that thing's disturbing,
Sam: so alex took a picture of it and it's now then has now made it my phone background that's.
Ivan: That's lovely anyway yeah so.
Sam: Go ahead sorry so.
Ivan: Is is is it listen i've already seen so many teslas with like maga stickers on them recently.
Sam: I'm like.
Ivan: Okay so is this now the okay so are we going to by the way ev cars.
Sam: I saw i saw someone speculating last two months yeah wait wait ev cars the.
Ivan: Last two months in the U S surge 26%. Okay.
Ivan: Even as Tesla dropped. So, but now if, if, if the Tesla is the MAGA vehicle
Ivan: and start, are we going to get the electric car revolution?
Ivan: All the liberals buying all the other brands. And now all the MAGA people buying Teslas.
Sam: It could happen. I did see one. I saw one person on TikTok, I'm pretty sure
Sam: it was TikTok, talking about how, look, there's a major conflict happening here.
Sam: Because on the one hand, there's nothing that MAGA folks hate more than electric cars.
Sam: Because they want to roll coal and stuff to stick it to the libs.
Sam: But now, now their God is pumping Teslas and saying they're wonderful.
Sam: So maybe now they have to buy them. and so there's a conflict.
Ivan: I mean, this would be the, the, the, I mean,
Ivan: you know, as much as I want to see Elon Musk bankrupt,
Ivan: the reality is that if we wind up with an electric car revolution,
Ivan: because the Tesla becomes the MAGA vehicle of choice,
Ivan: would be the weirdest thing ever, but in the end, we win.
Sam: Yeah. Oh, come on. Isn't that sticking it to you as a lib? You're Elon's making money.
Ivan: I mean yeah but but
Ivan: but but we're we're killing all these gas burners hey you know i had theorized
Ivan: that this could be a way of doing this like i think at some point in the past
Ivan: i said you know this is this you know this could be the way it's.
Sam: Too bad uh elon doesn't also have major investments in like,
Sam: you know, solar and... Well, he does.
Ivan: He does? What are you talking about? What are you saying?
Sam: He's got that whole solar thing that emerged into Tesla a few years ago. That's right.
Ivan: He sells the panels, the battery, everything.
Sam: Yeah, that's right. The roof, the solar panel roof. I hadn't heard much about
Sam: that lately. I heard it wasn't going well.
Ivan: They had issues, but they got them out there, yeah.
Sam: So he needs to, he needs, Elon needs a windmill thing too.
Sam: And then all of a sudden they won't kill birds anymore because,
Sam: you know, or cause don't the windmills cause cancer?
Sam: The windmills cause cancer and kill birds.
Ivan: Of course, you don't, you don't realize the windmills cause cancer.
Ivan: I mean, you know, the wind patterns.
Sam: Well, and that's, that's the thing too. Like, you know,
Sam: as somebody pointed out, I forget which of the things I was listening to,
Sam: but they pointed out earlier today, I heard somebody talking about how, like, during Trump won,
Sam: Elon actually pulled out of some, like, governmental advisory panel because
Sam: Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement.
Sam: Because he was such an environmentalist at the time. And now we've got this.
Ivan: Here's the thing. I don't know if he's not an environmentalist anymore.
Ivan: I think he's more, as far as I can tell, his entire transformation to MAGA has
Ivan: been because of COVID and the trans thing.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: That's it. Because his daughter basically said that he's trans.
Sam: What you just said, COVID and the trans thing, explains a lot of people.
Ivan: Yeah, I know.
Sam: Not just one. It does. But...
Sam: Yeah. And, and yeah, what was a, you, you shared on the curmudgeons course slack
Sam: and I had seen it elsewhere as well that his, his daughter, the trans daughter
Sam: has also mentioned, uh, who,
Sam: who, by the way, like if you look at their rants online about him are devastating.
Sam: like oh yeah oh yeah you know she she has
Sam: the goods on him in all kinds of different he is an awful i mean
Sam: one of one of the latest is like he
Sam: he has fathered like 15 kids now at least
Sam: that we know of at least that we know of and the latest one was an influencer
Sam: who apparently like the way he's doing this now is he's like taking applications
Sam: and like sending them sperm for in vitro fertilization He's not even going out
Sam: and having sex with these women.
Sam: But, like, he wants to impregnate as many people as he possibly can.
Sam: And apparently, his daughter says he is having this go through selection procedures
Sam: to, like, sort of filter out all the sperm that would result in female babies.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, that's right. Because he doesn't want girls.
Sam: Yeah, and there are ways to do this because it is the sperm that determines
Sam: the sex of the baby, not the egg.
Sam: And there are apparently ways that you can tell and do things to dramatically
Sam: change your chances of getting a girl or a boy.
Sam: And so he's doing that because he only wants boys.
Ivan: Here it is.
Ivan: Vivian Jenna Wilson, the estranged daughter of Elon Musk, revealed her father
Ivan: pays extra for sex-selective IVF in order to produce male offspring,
Ivan: which is why he's so angry that she's trans.
Sam: Yes. And yeah. Like, and I think this newest influencer was not the first one that was IVF only.
Sam: Apparently he did this with like several of his subordinates at SpaceX or something.
Ivan: I thought he fucked the subordinates.
Sam: Some of them, but some of them were IVF.
Ivan: You know, I love the story about the one person that said that they voted,
Ivan: you know, going back to my one square meter thing, who said that she voted for,
Ivan: the reason why she voted for Trump was because she had been looking to get IVF treatments.
Ivan: And in one campaign stop somewhere, Trump said that he was going to give,
Ivan: he's going to make IVF free.
Sam: Yes, I remember that.
Ivan: And that's the reason why he voted for it.
Sam: Just in like five minutes. Yes.
Ivan: And that then he realized that she's bamboo. And she had these regrets that
Ivan: she, that she voted for him because she's not getting her IVF and all these
Ivan: horrible things are happening.
Ivan: And it, and, and, you know, it goes back. I'm like, man, I mean,
Ivan: all these fucking lying, fake promises that Trump does. These people eat them up.
Sam: Yeah, it works like for the low interest voter. Who's doing the one square meter
Sam: with the fucking Palestinians.
Ivan: As he told him that he was going to, you know, he's going to fix that,
Ivan: you know, you know, Gaza is going to be great.
Ivan: And of course now apparently he's planning on a resort casino still in the style
Ivan: of Bif Tannen's empire in Gaza, which totally makes sense.
Sam: Of course. You know, although we haven't heard much about that in a few weeks, so I don't know.
Ivan: Well, I, I, I, you know, yeah, well, I did hear that.
Sam: As he lurches uncontrollably from one subject to another with the attention span of a gnat.
Ivan: Well, I mean, I don't know. This week he was saying he was ordering military
Ivan: options studied for Panama. We're going to bar.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: And Panama.
Sam: Sorry, not on Canada. I have not heard that explicitly yet.
Ivan: No, no. Greenland.
Sam: For sure. Oh, Greenland. They're talking about doing basically the Russian playbook
Sam: with Crimea of like start with the American bases that already exist there and then expand.
Ivan: Ah, always, you know, follow your idols.
Sam: Yeah, so.
Ivan: And, you know, you got that. And then, I don't know, what was the other one?
Ivan: I mean, oh, that he's going to bar all Venezuelans, Cubans, and Haitians from
Ivan: coming into the country.
Ivan: So now it's not a Muslim travel ban.
Sam: The latest list is apparently the draft list for the new Trump travel ban has 43 countries.
Ivan: 43 countries?
Sam: 43 countries on the list.
Ivan: Jesus fucking Christ.
Sam: Exactly. Let's see. Do I have a list here? This is... I'm bringing it up.
Sam: This is a New York Times article from...
Sam: from when? From March 14th. The Trump administration is considering targeting
Sam: the citizens of as many as 43 countries as part of a new ban on travel to the
Sam: United States that would be
Sam: broader than the restrictions imposed during President Trump's first term.
Sam: They want to do it in three different categories, red with all travel banned,
Sam: orange with sharply restricted visas, and yellow,
Sam: where 60, I guess they're giving the country 60 days to address concerns before
Sam: deciding where they're going to be.
Sam: So the red list, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea,
Sam: Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.
Ivan: Yeah, it just pulled up the article.
Sam: The orange list, Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan,
Sam: Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan.
Ivan: Oh, so the Russians don't get like open visas?
Sam: Apparently not. And then the list that I guess they're still deciding what to do with,
Sam: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon,
Sam: Cape Verde, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Sam: Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi,
Sam: Mali, Mardania.
Ivan: St.
Sam: Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Vanuatu, and Zimbabwe.
Ivan: Okay. But listen, hey, the Cubans and the Venezuelans are going to be thrilled.
Sam: Well, some of these already have significant restrictions, just to be clear.
Ivan: No, but, well, listen, a ban on Cuban and Venezuelans is not something that
Ivan: exists. I mean, if you're in, you know, you're in any other.
Sam: I said some of these, not all of them.
Ivan: Yeah. The reason why I mentioned that is, look,
Ivan: the Cuban community really turned strongly, you know,
Ivan: anti-Democrat when the whole Elian thing happened in the 90s with Clinton. Okay.
Sam: Where Clinton sent him back.
Ivan: Yeah. Where Clinton sent him back. I think people underestimate how that episode
Ivan: really hardened Cuban attitudes against Democrats.
Ivan: Venezuela was sold this bill of goods like the IVF lady about how they're anti-communist or whatever.
Ivan: But now he's throwing them, he's throwing them all the ones with temporary protection
Ivan: status out and basically wants to bar anybody with a Venezuelan passport doesn't have that.
Ivan: Basically, what's a bar? Anybody with a Venezuelan passport to come into the United States, period.
Ivan: All travel banned, which is quite a lot of people. A lot of the friends and
Ivan: family of these people that voted for him, that he promised this down in South Florida.
Ivan: And I'll tell you that this kind of thing is kind of like that kind of moment in reverse.
Ivan: They're really. And this is Steve Miller, who is just driving this,
Ivan: who is just a rabid, you know, out of control racist drafting this list.
Sam: Mm hmm.
Ivan: And and Trump likes him because he is a rabbit out of control racist.
Sam: Of course.
Ivan: And, you know, he he was I mean, if I remember I mean, this Steve Miller's from
Ivan: down here, too, and he has a thing against Latinos.
Ivan: So, um, this has the potential to backfire spectacularly very quickly on them.
Ivan: A lot of these things, I think it's all, listen, Trump's, Trump's approval already is underwater already.
Ivan: That's gotta be a fucking record. Okay.
Ivan: I mean, you know, his honeymoon is already over. It didn't last like two months.
Sam: Which by the way 538 used to have
Sam: a way you could compare the approval ratings for all the presidents going back
Sam: to truman but 538 is gone now they got completely torpedoed abc canned the whole
Sam: part of their company that was 538 fired all the people so maybe somebody else
Sam: will make that those graphs those comparison graphs eventually but we don't have them now no.
Ivan: No yeah so but yeah But, you know, maybe a website called election graphs.
Sam: You know, I actually had the thought like a little while ago,
Sam: maybe I could collect that data and do some stuff on it.
Sam: And then I was like, I don't have time for that shit.
Sam: Yeah, that could be a problem. You know, there is clearly a need.
Ivan: I mean, they completely wiped any trace of the presence of 538.com from the Internet.
Sam: I was like i was like i hope somebody archived that crap
Sam: like you know archive.org or somebody i'm sure has some snapshots but like their
Sam: database like you know like that they they they had just a database and all
Sam: kinds of ways to access it that you could get like all kinds of poll information
Sam: going back a long time was there that you could access you know one of.
Ivan: The things i'm wondering the staff that got let go one thing i i'm wondering
Ivan: if any of them were allowed to take that information because one thing that I,
Ivan: For example, I listened to this podcast, and I like a Levitard show that used
Ivan: to be an ABC property, a Disney property.
Ivan: And when they negotiated the exit, they were able to keep all their archives.
Ivan: They did allow them to do so. So I'm wondering if some of the staff on their
Ivan: exit, they're saying, hey, you know what? We may want to launch.
Ivan: Listen, you're not interested in this shit. We're going to launch a site.
Ivan: Can we back up all this information and take it so we can, if we want to go
Ivan: do something else somewhere.
Sam: And I'm, I'm, I'm guessing like there are people out on the internet who have
Sam: backed up their database, the, anything that they had public anyway, but we'll see.
Sam: Like, I'm sure those people will turn up again before too long.
Sam: Nate Silver has his own thing he's doing there. There are all kinds of ex-538
Sam: people that, like, I think G.
Sam: Eliot Morris ended up working for them for a while. He had been at The Economist before.
Sam: I'm sure he will land somewhere else and be doing cool stuff.
Sam: You know, we will hear from this stuff again. There is a demand for it.
Ivan: But like I said.
Sam: Whether it made sense for ABC.
Ivan: Yeah, no, but I'm going back to the reason why we got after this.
Sam: 538 tangent.
Ivan: But, you know, pretty damn impressive how Trump has managed to get his approval
Ivan: rating underwater that fast.
Ivan: I mean, here's the one thing. He could have cruised to a honeymoon.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Listen, none of the shit that he is doing. Nobody was clamoring for this.
Sam: Oh, no, no, no. Come on now. He is running the Project 2025 playbook.
Sam: This was all there. The Heritage Foundation wrote the plan.
Ivan: They are executing the plan. No, no, no. Those people were clamoring for it.
Sam: But yes, the general public was not. The general public wasn't clamoring for this shit.
Sam: The general public, at least his voters, were convinced that the whole Project 2025 shit was a lie.
Sam: And that he had nothing to do with that. He didn't want to do this stuff.
Sam: This is all ridiculous. This is liberals lying about what's happening.
Sam: And of course, Trump isn't going to do any of this stuff. I mean,
Sam: they didn't even believe the stuff he said with his own mouth because of like
Sam: nobody, nobody believes Trump. He's just full of hot air.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And they wanted him anyway. But it's not that nobody believes Trump.
Sam: It's that all these people believed the things they wanted to believe and ignored the rest.
Ivan: So, you know.
Ivan: This is pretty amazing work by Donald on that part.
Sam: Shall we be done?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. Go to curmudgeon-corner.com. You know the stuff.
Sam: You'll find our transcripts. You'll find links to how to contact us.
Sam: You'll find old shows. You can go back and listen to, you know,
Sam: we mentioned we started in 2007.
Sam: Those old shows are out there. You can listen to them. I still haven't found
Sam: the tapes with the college version of the show, maybe someday,
Sam: but yeah, you can find our archives.
Sam: You can find our contact information. You can find a link to the YouTube channel
Sam: where you can see the live streams, the unedited live streams that include video,
Sam: not just our lovely voices, but also you can see the faces we're making.
Sam: You can see the trash behind me in my office. you can you can see the non-trash
Sam: behind yvonne in his office you know yeah all there there is yeah.
Ivan: There isn't yeah there definitely i do not have mountain of trash yeah.
Sam: Definitely is that the new york times from the day you were born yvonne that.
Ivan: Is the new york times front page from the day i was born yes.
Sam: You know i keep thinking like that and pretty cool stuff by the I will say,
Sam: there is a picture on the bottom of that page that every time I see it in the
Sam: background, because it's too small to see for real,
Sam: but every time I see it, yes, yes.
Ivan: It's Jimmy Carter.
Sam: It's Jimmy Carter, and who's the other guy?
Ivan: Let's see. It's David Gambrell, left arriving with Governor Jimmy Carter in Washington last night.
Sam: I knew this was the New York Times from the day Yvonne was born,
Sam: because he's talked about it before.
Sam: But that picture in the bottom, when it's at a distance and blurry and you can't see it properly,
Sam: reminds me of a picture that I have of myself and our friend Rebecca with me taking a shot.
Sam: Like, me taking a jello shot, like drunk.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, I have that picture, yes.
Sam: And that picture right there reminds me of that picture when it's blurry in
Sam: the background. Now, I haven't drunk or taken jello shots in decades at this
Sam: point, but like there was a period of time.
Sam: We're under the bad influence of Yvonne and Rebecca and some of our other friends.
Ivan: Oh, my God. Yes. The bad.
Sam: I would go drinking and have jello shots at parties and stuff.
Ivan: I know.
Sam: There's a picture of me.
Ivan: Such awful people. Yes.
Sam: There's a picture of me clearly under the influence. Yeah.
Ivan: We made you so miserable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God.
Sam: And anyway, that picture on that newspaper reminds me of it.
Sam: Every time we record the show, I'm like, did he sneak in and change that picture
Sam: of that newspaper to actually be the jello shot picker.
Sam: It's the newspaper from when he was born.
Ivan: Let me read you the headlines. Apollo cleared to make moon landing on Friday. No docking flaws found.
Ivan: That was one of the headlines.
Ivan: Another one asked, Governor asked new taxes of $1.5 billion for crisis refuses more aid to city.
Ivan: This is an issue with New York. New York City was insolvent.
Ivan: New York City was told by Governor Rockefeller today that That no new state
Ivan: aid was available for the coming year beyond increases already mandated.
Ivan: So bond issue urge state can no longer meet its own needs, Rockefeller warns.
Ivan: What else we got over here? U.S. officials say Allied Drive is on an area near Laos.
Ivan: So obviously Vietnam War raging at the same time.
Ivan: Nixon protects cuts in inflation and joblessness. His economic message sees
Ivan: 3% price rises, 72 and 4.5% unemployment.
Ivan: By the way, those are numbers that got Biden fired.
Sam: And last time we talked about this newspaper, I mentioned that I do not have
Sam: the newspaper from the year I was born.
Sam: However, what was in the news when I was born was the prison riots in Attica
Sam: had just ended. Oh, nice.
Sam: Yeah. Like, I had thought I was born while it was going on.
Ivan: But I looked into it and it ended right before. Here we talk about what's going
Ivan: on and like sometimes blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, it's a worst time ever.
Ivan: You've got a fucking war raging here in South Asia where we had how many troops deployed?
Ivan: Several hundred thousand.
Ivan: You know, we had a ton of troops and military deployed. We had Nixon,
Ivan: for God's sakes, you know, with inflation. New York City was bankrupt.
Ivan: Literally, New York City was bankrupt. okay but we were going to land on the
Ivan: fucking moon again there you go I mean we're going to land people not just not
Ivan: a not a fucking robot that went and like fell fell on its side for the second
Ivan: time in a row for the second time fucking idiots and.
Sam: Elon blew up another spaceship.
Ivan: Too much and Elon blew up another rocket but we were able to launch that okay okay.
Sam: Okay we were wrapping up you can also find a link to our Patreon where of course
Sam: you can give us money and at various levels we'll send you a postcard We'll
Sam: send you a mug. We'll talk about you on the show.
Sam: We'll ring a bell, all that kind of stuff. And yes, I still owe that to Pete,
Sam: Greg, and Ed. I will deal with it eventually. Sorry. Sorry, people.
Sam: And yeah. And at $2 a month or more on the Patreon, or if you just ask us,
Sam: we'll invite you to the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack.
Sam: We're all week long. Yvonne and I and others are sharing links,
Sam: chatting about the news, chatting about other things.
Sam: So Yvonne, one highlight from the Slack, and then we can be done.
Ivan: Uh, oh boy.
Ivan: Uh, uh, oh, this one, this one was good.
Ivan: Developer sabotaged ex-employers, IT systems with kill switch.
Sam: I have to stop you. And I talked about that last week.
Ivan: Huh?
Sam: Because you posted it while we were recording. And so we talked about it.
Ivan: Okay. Okay.
Sam: We actually, we also made fun of you that you couldn't record,
Sam: but you were well enough to post on the damn Slack while we were recording.
Ivan: Well, I was, like, lagged. I was, like, break.
Ivan: I was, like, real. My cold last week was really, really, really, really bad.
Sam: I understand. We were just teasing you, Yvonne. We were just teasing.
Ivan: Oh, okay. Well, there's a man shot by a dog in Fraser, police say.
Sam: Oh, beautiful.
Ivan: The dog's paw got caught in the trigger, and it shot the man. How's that?
Sam: That's just the dog's excuse. You know, it was on purpose.
Ivan: He really hated that guy.
Sam: Exactly.
Ivan: So, yeah. So, and, oh, and, well, there was stuff on that cyber attack on X.
Sam: Oh, right.
Ivan: Which apparently, like. It was the Ukrainians.
Sam: Right?
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, apparently, well, it was a DDoS attack,
Ivan: a distributed denial of service attack, apparently using a whole botnet.
Ivan: And they all always spoof IP addresses anyway. So this is idiotic saying that
Ivan: there's an IP address in Ukraine.
Ivan: But apparently a big problem is that most websites are protected against DDoS like right now.
Sam: There are a variety of services you could use, Cloudflare and others.
Sam: There are ways to protect.
Ivan: Yeah. And apparently, obviously, as per standard operating procedure at any
Ivan: Elon Musk company, they had that protection misconfigured. So it allowed to
Ivan: be a whole bunch of service exposed, which is why the DDoS worked.
Sam: Nice.
Ivan: So anyway.
Sam: Okay. We are done. Thank you everybody for listening to us yet again on curmudgeon's corner.
Sam: No, no, no. What's, what's, what's going on?
Sam: Alex is asking for something again.
Sam: He has made the background of my phone is no longer the rabbit.
Sam: It is now a blurry upside down picture of me for some reason. Anyway, we're done.
Sam: Yes. Oh, and if you actually log into the phone, the background is now a picture
Sam: of a fish from the TV show Octonauts.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: There you go.
Ivan: That's helpful.
Sam: Whose name I can't say. It's some long Hawaiian name. Amuamua,
Sam: Puapuaku, something, something fish.
Ivan: Pukanakua.
Sam: Something like that. Okay, we are done. Thank you, everybody,
Sam: for listening to yet another Curmudgeon's Corner.
Sam: Have a great week. Stay safe. And we will be back with you next week. What's this say?
Sam: Unless the cricks rise or something?
Sam: Having something cricks rise, something, something, something.
Ivan: Whatever, something.
Sam: We'll be with you absent something disastrous. Okay. Have a great week.
Sam: We'll see you next time. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Thank you. Okay, that's it. I'm hitting stop. Bye, Yvonne.
Ivan: Bye.