Sam: Okay, let's light this candle.
Sam: Alex is upset by something, probably because I quoted, like, Mater.
Sam: No, he's upset by dying in a video game. Okay, here we go!
Break: We'll be right back.
Sam: Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for saturday august
Sam: 30th 2025 uh 2238 utc as i'm starting to record this i am sam minter did i say
Sam: that already i don't know if i said that already i probably said that already
Sam: yvonne bow is not here and neither is anybody else well my son alex is in the background,
Sam: but he's probably not going to participate. I don't know.
Sam: But the, like Yvonne messaged me Thursday afternoon, U.S.
Sam: Time to say that he wasn't going to be able to make it this week.
Sam: And I was busy Thursday afternoon, Thursday evening.
Sam: I meant to like send out, send out the thing asking for co-hosts, but forgot.
Sam: I finally got around to it like Friday afternoon sometime. time.
Sam: And I, and even then when I did it, I screwed it up.
Sam: I always like exclude the last three co-hosts we've had, but I forgot to reflect
Sam: the fact that Pete had co-hosted with us just last week.
Sam: And so I included Pete in the email I sent out and had left out like Todd should
Sam: have been back in the list and I didn't include Todd, but whatever.
Sam: I did have one bite of interest.
Sam: Shout out to our loyal listener, Matt, who's been listening to this podcast since the beginning.
Sam: And he said he really wanted to, but then the timing didn't work out.
Sam: So here I am doing a solo show.
Sam: As usual, when I do solo shows, I am going to do one segment at a time.
Sam: And in between segments, I'm going to go off and do other things.
Sam: And I'm going to probably take all weekend to record this stupid show rather
Sam: than doing it all at once.
Sam: In in this case after i finish
Sam: recording this segment my wife my son
Sam: and i are going to go to like the the what's
Sam: it called that well it's like a state fair kind of thing around here but the
Sam: it's the evergreen state fair there we go here in washington state washington
Sam: state has several of these fairs of different kinds like there's a puyallup
Sam: fair as well and there are a couple others i think but this is the evergreen
Sam: state fair and this weekend is the last weekend that's around and we're going to go and visit.
Sam: And when we do this, my wife likes to actually wander around and check out all the stuff at the fair.
Sam: My son basically just goes for some of the fair food.
Sam: He likes the corn, likes the hot dogs, maybe likes a couple other things.
Sam: And I like the food too. I basically don't like the experience of fairs.
Sam: You know, they're just too crowded, too many people, too whatever.
Sam: So, I mean, years ago, we would go to these things and actually go on a couple rides and stuff.
Sam: Sometimes when we had my daughter with us as well, and when my son was smaller...
Sam: But you have to wait in line for those.
Sam: Like, I'm old. I get nauseous on the rides now.
Sam: You know, well, I've always gotten nauseous on the rides.
Sam: There's a nice story from years ago, me throwing up on a ride.
Sam: We don't have to go there now. But, well, okay, yes, we do.
Sam: I've probably shared it on the podcast before. But I had basically,
Sam: I had flown to Chicago to meet somebody.
Sam: Basically, you know, we'd been flirting online for months and months and months.
Sam: And so this was, we're going to meet in person, have a couple dates, whatever.
Sam: And anyway, one of the places we went was like a carnival. And we went on a ride.
Sam: And it was one of these, I forget what it's called, but it had,
Sam: you know, multiple layers of spinning. It had like one thing that spun and it
Sam: was attached to another thing that was spun.
Sam: I think it was the zipper. I think it was the zipper. Let me.
Sam: Zipper ride. Yes. Yes. This is, it was definitely the zipper. Anyway.
Sam: Anyway, we, multiple layers of spinning. Anyway, I, in the middle of the ride,
Sam: I started puking and just people, and it was falling out of the like carriage
Sam: we were in and like dripping down onto people below.
Sam: People were screaming because there was vomit falling on them from the sky.
Sam: It was very embarrassing.
Sam: The person I was with was very understanding, but I will say after that weekend, I never saw her again.
Sam: I don't know if it was related, but that was it.
Sam: Anyway, it was a fun weekend anyway. But yeah, that part did not go so smoothly.
Sam: There was another part of the weekend where we went to like a medieval times
Sam: and there were horses. And it turns out I'm highly allergic to horses.
Sam: So I had like a massive asthma attack.
Sam: Yeah, this weekend had a few issues.
Sam: But yeah, no. Anyway, I did keep in touch with her for many years after that.
Sam: But I never saw her in person again. Anyway.
Sam: This first segment will be media i was
Sam: starting to talk about fairs i got i got distracted about the fair oh
Sam: let me finish about the fair anyway this first segment is
Sam: always the the light fluffy like personal stuff we'll
Sam: talk about news in the later two segments i don't know exactly what
Sam: i'll talk about yet because news events may change what
Sam: i feel like talking about before i record those segments but oh
Sam: yeah the fair i'll talk about the fair for a little
Sam: bit and then i will do a couple
Sam: movies but yeah so we don't do
Sam: the rides and stuff anymore you know what my son
Sam: and i typically do is we will
Sam: go find a quiet corner as far away from the other people as possible where we
Sam: can just sort of camp out bring the food eat and hang out and we'll just sit
Sam: there for a while you know watching the world go by we'll we'll bring our devices
Sam: and we'll we'll We'll play on our devices. We'll do whatever.
Sam: And just basically stuff ourselves silly with fair food for a couple hours and then go home.
Sam: And, you know, it's just become a tradition. Now, honestly, I...
Sam: It's one of those, like, I would not mind not doing this in a given year.
Sam: However, if my family goes and I don't go, I kind of feel left out.
Sam: So my wife, Brandy, and my son, Alex, have actually already gone.
Sam: Like last week, they went without me during the workday while I was at work.
Sam: And so I was sort of like, well, I kind of feel left out, blah,
Sam: blah, blah. And so now we're going again.
Sam: Now I had said, I don't really need to go. It's okay. You guys are already gone.
Sam: However, then Alex was like, no, I want to go again.
Sam: And so we're going again. Well, I'm going for the first time,
Sam: but you know, like I said, I, I, I would, I would actually be fine skipping
Sam: it, but I did feel kind of left out when they go without me.
Sam: You guys know this kind of thing?
Sam: Like, it's not actually my favorite thing. I actually don't,
Sam: I can't really say I enjoy going to the fair.
Sam: It feels like a little bit of a chore. I mean, I do like the,
Sam: like the buttered corn on the cob and the hot dogs and some of the other fair foods.
Sam: I don't, I don't do any of the weird, like fair foods, like,
Sam: you know, fried butter or whatever that they have at some of these things.
Sam: I don't think I've seen anything really weird and exotic at this state fair.
Sam: I know that's a big thing in some other places, but, you know,
Sam: I don't do the deep fried Oreos or the deep fried butter.
Sam: I don't know. I don't go for the weird foods, but I like the buttered corn because,
Sam: you know, we sometimes have that at home, but very rarely, you know, and the. Yeah.
Sam: And, and, you know, it's just different at the fair.
Sam: I don't know. Like, and, you know, and so we sit there and we enjoy.
Sam: Anyway, maybe if anything interesting happens when we visit later today in the
Sam: next segment, I'll mention something, but I don't expect anything interesting will happen.
Sam: I expect that we will be, we will go there, we will do the thing,
Sam: and then we will come home, you know? And so, yeah.
Sam: So anyway, for this first segment, before we do newsy stuff later,
Sam: the main thing is I'm going to do two of the movies from my big movie list.
Sam: We are now on movie. Well, we have been for a while. Movies I watched last November.
Sam: So this next one, Alex and I watched it November 23rd of last year.
Sam: And I've previewed this the last couple weeks. King Kong versus Godzilla. from 1962.
Sam: Okay. Now this is a crossover, obviously, between the King Kong franchise and
Sam: the Godzilla franchise.
Sam: We actually did this, you know, as we're going through, we've been going through both,
Sam: I guess both of these are on our list to go through, but we got to this from
Sam: the King Kong side, because this is the third King Kong movie.
Sam: There was King Kong from 1933, Son of Kong from later in 1933.
Sam: They put out two, one in March, one in December in that year.
Sam: And then this third one was almost 30 years later, King Kong versus Godzilla in 1962.
Sam: Meanwhile, the Godzilla franchise, this was also the third movie in the Godzilla
Sam: franchise, but Alex and I had only watched the first one before this.
Sam: We watched the 1954 Godzilla, I believe.
Sam: The second one was from 1955 Godzilla raids again and then this is number three
Sam: so at some point we're going to have to go back and pick up Godzilla raids again and watch that but,
Sam: Godzilla, or no, King Kong vs. Godzilla.
Sam: Let me start with, this is not a good movie, okay?
Sam: Under no stretch of the imagination, could you say, oh man, this is a great movie, okay?
Sam: And, but, but, I am going to say, I'm giving it a thumbs up anyway,
Sam: because it was a lot of fun, okay?
Sam: And it was fun in the, this movie is so bad it's laughable kind of way.
Sam: You know i mean awful special effects not particularly great acting a plot that
Sam: you know doesn't make a whole lot of sense necessarily lots of disjointed stuff.
Sam: And and of course like these are
Sam: well known for like you know bad
Sam: dubbing of the parts that are in japanese and it
Sam: just but it it there
Sam: are bad movies that i've given a straight up thumbs down
Sam: because they are painful to watch they are horrible there's nothing
Sam: redeeming about them this is one
Sam: of the ones that is just so bad it's comical
Sam: and frankly like the the you know the people in rubber suits being the two main
Sam: characters fighting and throwing styrofoam rocks at each other and things like
Sam: that is just hilarious. It is just hilarious.
Sam: And so, yes, I had fun.
Sam: I think Alex had fun. We kept pausing it to like discuss parts of it, rewind,
Sam: see the weird stuff again, make fun
Sam: of the the effects all of
Sam: this kind of stuff now you know obviously there's
Sam: both of these franchises are you
Sam: know let's see here now there are now 34 godzilla films in the original sort
Sam: of toho films japanese oriented ones and and i guess there's a yeah and then there's six.
Sam: American Godzilla films.
Sam: On the King Kong side, there are fewer, and the Wikipedia page is stupid and doesn't number them.
Sam: But, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
Sam: 12 main movies and then 3 direct-to-video animated ones. And then there's some TV series as well.
Sam: You know so these are these are well-loved long-lived franchises but and and
Sam: and there's a whole genre of like monster films that go beyond these two of course as well and,
Sam: it's a certain kind of thing i mean i guess that
Sam: some of the newer ones try to be a little bit
Sam: more they lean into the special effects
Sam: and some other stuff and not try to be sort
Sam: of the cheap pulp movies of the very early ones but
Sam: still you know if you're going to like we were talking superhero movies last
Sam: week monster movies are the same kind of genre you know where no no one's expecting
Sam: high art you're expecting some sort of big creature rampaging and doing all kinds of damage and,
Sam: and then the human beings valiantly fighting back.
Sam: And, you know, in a lot of them, you get two of the big monsters fighting each
Sam: other or more and, you know, cool.
Sam: You know, if you're watching one of these, you kind of know what you're signing up for.
Sam: Anyway, giving this one a thumbs up just because it's hilariously bad.
Sam: And yeah. Again, there are bad movies that are just not enjoyable at all. They're just horrible.
Sam: Then there are bad movies that are so bad they're comical and you can laugh
Sam: at them. And this is in that category.
Sam: So there you go. King Kong vs. Godzilla.
Sam: Next up, All About Eve from 1950.
Sam: And I believe this was, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: It was from the AFI list as we are working our way up.
Sam: By the way, like, you know, I'm doing movies that we watched back in November
Sam: right now, but we now only have number one left on that list.
Sam: We, Alex and I watched number two on the 1998 AFI list a few nights ago.
Sam: And so all we have left is Citizen Kane from 1941, which was number one on both the 1998 and 2007 lists.
Sam: And which I've never seen. I'd seen number two before.
Sam: Number two on the 1998 list was Casablanca and it was number three on the 2007 list.
Sam: Anyway, I've never, ever seen Citizen Kane.
Sam: So I'm actually kind of looking forward to it, to see if it lives up to the
Sam: hype of being number one on all these top movie lists.
Sam: Anyway, we'll get to reviewing those eventually. All About Eve was number 16
Sam: in the 1998 list. It dropped to number 28 on the 2007 list.
Sam: By the way, I don't know if I mentioned before, Alex and I have agreed that
Sam: once we pass number one on the 1998 list, we're going to start over from number
Sam: 100 using the 2007 list and work our way back up again.
Sam: But anyway, all about Eve.
Sam: I will read the, I didn't even read the plot summary of King Kong versus Godzilla.
Sam: You guys really need to know or care.
Sam: Alex is indicating that maybe I should go back and do that.
Sam: Okay, from Wikipedia, the one paragraph, the first paragraph of the plot description.
Sam: I won't go past that because then, spoilers.
Sam: But Mr. Taco, head of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, is frustrated with the television
Sam: shows his company is sponsoring and wants something to boost his ratings.
Sam: When a doctor tells Taco about a giant monster he discovered on the small Faro
Sam: Island, Taco believes that it would be a brilliant idea to use the monster to gain publicity.
Sam: Taco sends two men, Osamu Sakurai and Kinzaburo Furu, to find and bring back the monster.
Sam: Meanwhile, the American nuclear submarine Seahawk gets caught in an iceberg.
Sam: The iceberg collapses, unleashing Godzilla, who has been trapped within it since 1955.
Sam: Godzilla destroys the submarine and makes its way towards Japan,
Sam: attacking a military base as it journeys southward.
Sam: Okay, one more paragraph.
Sam: On Faro Island, a gigantic octopus crawls ashore and attacks the native village
Sam: in search of farolactin juice, taken from a species of red berry native to the island.
Sam: The mysterious Faro monster, revealed to be King Kong, arrives and defeats the octopus.
Sam: Kong drinks several vases full of the juice while the islanders perform a ceremony,
Sam: which causes him to fall asleep.
Sam: Sakurai and Furu place Kong on a large raft and begin to transport him back to Japan.
Sam: Mr. Taco arrives on the ship transporting Kong, but a JSDF ship stops them and
Sam: orders that Kong must be kept out of Japan.
Sam: Meanwhile, Godzilla arrives in Japan and terrorizes the countryside.
Sam: Kong wakes up and breaks free from the raft. Reaching the mainland,
Sam: Kong confronts Godzilla and proceeds to throw giant rocks at him.
Sam: Godzilla is not fazed by King Kong's rock attack and uses its heat ray to burn him.
Sam: Kong retreats after realizing that he is not yet ready to take on Godzilla.
Sam: There's two more paragraphs of the plot description but I won't go there because spoilers.
Sam: Okay, now the description of the plot of All About You.
Sam: And again, I'll only do the beginning. I'll do two paragraphs to match,
Sam: and then I'll leave the rest to avoid spoilers.
Sam: At the Sarah Siddons Award Ceremony, honoring rising actress Eve Harrington,
Sam: narration from acerbic theater critic Addison DeWitt introduces the attendees
Sam: and hints that there is more to Eve's story.
Sam: The narration switches to Karen Richards, wife of playwright Lloyd Richards.
Sam: She recalls the previous October when she introduced Eve to aging Broadway star
Sam: Margot Channing, who is starring in a play written by Lloyd.
Sam: Eve tells Karen, Lloyd, and Margot's maid, Birdie, that she followed Margot's
Sam: last theatrical tour to New York City after seeing her perform in San Francisco.
Sam: She tells of her impoverished childhood and losing her husband in the South
Sam: Pacific during World War II.
Sam: And moved by Eve's story, Margot takes her into her home as her assistant.
Sam: Eve quickly manipulates her way into Margot's life as both secretary and adoring
Sam: fan. And it goes from there.
Sam: Anyway, thumbs up on all about Eve as well.
Sam: As with a lot of these sort of 1950s movies, it's a little bit stylized.
Sam: You know you're not necessarily believing these characters as real characters
Sam: it's not like intended to be super realistic like they're they're kind of caricatures,
Sam: but it works anyway you know it you know you you see the the dynamics between
Sam: these characters and i actually like after watching a bunch of these older movies
Sam: as part of this afi top 100 thing I'll say that,
Sam: you know, the trend towards,
Sam: Being more realistic in sort of dramatic movies and making it,
Sam: you know, you sort of, one reaction to it is people act better now because it's
Sam: more convincing and more realistic.
Sam: But really, it's not that per se.
Sam: It's intentionally stylized. It's intentionally exaggerated.
Sam: And it's not necessarily a bad thing. It can be really effective in telling
Sam: certain kinds of stories.
Sam: And it's not to say the highly realistic mode doesn't work as well,
Sam: but it's a different feel.
Sam: It's a different type of movie.
Sam: But I think it works in a lot of these.
Sam: And they're good to watch.
Sam: You know, it still gets you. It still grabs you in the right places,
Sam: even though you know it's a little bit stylized. You know it's a little bit exaggerated.
Sam: I mean, we were talking about superhero and monster movies. Those are obviously
Sam: stylized and exaggerated as well and aren't really concentrating on realistic characters.
Sam: I'd say this kind of movie is different. I mean, there are no superheroes.
Sam: There are no monsters. It's human beings interacting with each other. But they...
Sam: By making them somewhat caricatures and somewhat stylized, you immediately sort
Sam: of get the point of how these characters are supposed to be interacting with each other.
Sam: Where they're coming from, what the kind of thing is.
Sam: This does have a few twists and turns.
Sam: I had not seen this movie before.
Sam: I had not read about it, heard about it. I mean, I'd heard the title,
Sam: but I did not know what the plot was.
Sam: So like some of the twists and turns, I didn't know about till they happened.
Sam: Now, some of them I suspected were going to happen.
Sam: You know, they sort of, some things were a little bit telegraphed and you could
Sam: see that they were coming, but it was still very well done.
Sam: I mean, I think it deserves its place on this list. It's good.
Sam: I enjoyed the movie. It kept me sort of on the edge of my seat at the right moments.
Sam: It tugged my heartstrings at the right moments.
Sam: This isn't one where it's, maybe tugged my heartstrings is the wrong way to say this one.
Sam: Like there's some where you're really like, you know, something tragic happens
Sam: and you're really feeling for the characters or, you know, the main characters
Sam: fall in love and you're like, oh, that's so sweet.
Sam: Oh, that's wonderful. And, you know, Alex always makes fun of me because I'm
Sam: a sucker and I start crying at all of those moments.
Sam: This did not have me like crying.
Sam: You know, it's not that kind of emotional resonance, but you still sort of feel
Sam: the tension of the situation and feel bad for the characters that are getting screwed over.
Sam: And at the same time, feel...
Sam: And you sort of enjoy watching the character who's doing the screwing over doing some of it as well.
Sam: Anyway, I like it. Thumbs up. I don't have anything else to say about all about Eve. There you go.
Sam: Let's see. Did it win any awards? I'm pretty sure the King Kong one didn't win.
Sam: King Kong versus Godzilla didn't win anything. Let's see. Let's make sure. Oh, there is.
Sam: Anyway there are apparently like multiple
Sam: versions of the king kong versus godzilla you know
Sam: like there's japanese version american version
Sam: i kind of presume we saw the american
Sam: version i usually try to
Sam: make sure to get like if something has an
Sam: original language i try to get
Sam: that when I can and what you use subtitles
Sam: or whatever and not dubbing and whatever this one
Sam: had they they intentionally sort of made two
Sam: versions and I got whichever one
Sam: was most easily available so yeah did we
Sam: no the Godzilla was the one where we went out of our no this is the one where
Sam: we had to buy the DVD wasn't it okay so Alex is correcting me on the fly here
Sam: like the The online streaming version was a dubbed version.
Sam: And so we did get a remastered, I think it was the remastered version of the
Sam: Japanese one on Blu-ray.
Sam: You know, now I'm going to have to freaking check.
Sam: Let's go and I'll check my order history and search for King Kong.
Sam: That should do it. I don't have a lot of things.
Sam: Okay. We bought a King Kong versus Godzilla on Blu-ray and we did get, yeah.
Sam: So, and this is the 2014.
Sam: No, anyway, anyway, we got it, we got it on Blu-ray to make sure we didn't have
Sam: a crappy dubbed version like that we found online. So, yeah.
Sam: Yeah. So there, there was apparently also, so let's see home media in July,
Sam: 2014, the Japanese version was released for a first time in Blu-ray,
Sam: the English language version of the film on Blu-ray also in 2014.
Sam: So we probably had the English language version
Sam: of the blu-ray we had
Sam: the japanese version well what we had was like
Sam: the japanese when people spoke in
Sam: japanese they spoke in japanese and we had
Sam: english subtitles when they spoke in english we heard the english the the english
Sam: language was in japanese too okay well alex knows better than i did so maybe
Sam: i don't know anyway they they're slightly edited differently too apparently between the two.
Sam: But anyway, I was looking to see if it had won any awards. No.
Sam: It does not look like it.
Sam: Oh, yes. Anyway, apparently there are ways to tell,
Sam: which version we really saw, because in the Japanese version,
Sam: both Godzilla and King Kong's roars are heard during the film's final fade to
Sam: black, while in the American version, only Kong's roar is heard.
Sam: However, in both films, the final shot of King Kong swimming away alone is on. Oh, no.
Sam: Spoilers. I accidentally gave spoilers about the end. Oh, my goodness.
Sam: Anyway, when we try to get the most authentic version of these that we can get
Sam: our hands on when we do it.
Sam: Anyway, all about it, you've won tons of awards. It was.
Sam: Let's see. It won best motion picture Academy Awards, won best motion picture,
Sam: best director. was nominated for Best Actress for two of the actresses.
Sam: Best Supporting Actor won two nominations for Best Supporting Actress,
Sam: one for Best Screenplay, nominated for Best Art Direction, nominated for Best Cinematography,
Sam: one for Best Costume Design, nominated for Best Film Editing,
Sam: nominated for Best Score, one for Best Sound Recording.
Sam: And then there are a bunch of other awards that it won that weren't Oscars.
Sam: So anyway, thumbs up for both King Kong vs. Godzilla and for All About Eve,
Sam: but for very different reasons.
Sam: All About Eve, I think, is actually a good movie.
Sam: King Kong vs. Godzilla is a bad movie that's still fun to watch and laugh at.
Sam: So there you go. There's all the stuff I have to say.
Sam: I'm going to take a break. The family's going to go to the fair And sometime
Sam: later I'll record another segment On something newsy And relevant to current
Sam: events In the world Of what's going on These days.
Sam: But in the meantime Here's a break for you A couple minutes for you Less than
Sam: a couple minutes probably For me Many,
Sam: many hours I don't know how many hours Depends on when I feel like continuing Enjoy the break anyway.
Break: Okie dokie. Here it comes.
Break: It's just my internet being stupid. My internet being stupid is a new song we will make.
Break: The baby build the body of the body
Break: of the body of the body of the body of the body of the body of Bob I don't know,
Break: Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,
Break: come on, come on, come on. Come on, I'm tired.
Break: What's wrong? I'm really tired.
Break: It's amazing show on the road there's a road? there's a road? oh my god.
Sam: And here I am. As I expected, it's like a day later. It's more than a day later.
Sam: It's more than 24 hours later.
Sam: And yes, now let's see. Sunday, August 31st, just after 22 UTC.
Sam: So before I get on to the newsy stuff, I will do the quick fare report.
Sam: As expected, we went, we ate, I had some corn, and I had a hot dog.
Sam: I honestly did not eat as much as I usually do when I'm there because we'd already
Sam: eaten earlier in the day. So whatever.
Sam: And Alex had some corn. Alex had like some shaved ice and a hot dog as well.
Sam: It was, yeah, it was a thing.
Sam: The most notable thing, I think, we sat under a tree.
Sam: The quiet area that we usually go was sort of is a sort of a shaded area with
Sam: a bunch of trees, less people sort of in a in a corner.
Sam: You know, behind like a bunch of the food booths.
Sam: It was actually behind a vendor booth and next to where they do some shows.
Sam: But when the show isn't actually going on, it's a sort of a quiet area.
Sam: Anyway, in previous years, they'd had some picnic tables there.
Sam: The picnic tables are gone. So now it's just a shaded area with trees.
Sam: So we sat under a tree, we ate our food, and then I had packed a backpack containing
Sam: my laptop and Brandy's laptop.
Sam: And I pulled out my laptop and worked on some projects. Alex pulled out his, well, not his laptop.
Sam: His mom's laptop and worked on some projects. So we just sat there with our laptops.
Sam: Like I was, I was doing some work on one of my little projects.
Sam: He was, I think, working on one of his projects. I didn't actually like spy
Sam: over his shoulder to see exactly what he was doing, but it felt like he was
Sam: working on something, not just playing a game or something.
Sam: And yeah, we, we did that while my
Sam: wife uh his mom obviously went
Sam: out and wandered around and looked at
Sam: vendor booths and did other stuff and you know whatever so we just sat and chilled
Sam: and did that you know my main thing was this backpack with the two laptops a
Sam: bunch of cords and stuff that we ended up not needing most of,
Sam: like a jacket for when it got colder, a bunch of stuff, was really freaking heavy.
Sam: And so when I was wandering around, I was like, this is so heavy.
Sam: And I complained around. And we did go see some of the animals at one point,
Sam: like look at the goats and cows and stuff like that.
Sam: And yeah, so and because I was sitting on the ground by the tree or at one point
Sam: lying on the ground by the tree.
Sam: I ended up like my back was sore. My hip was sore.
Sam: I was like, anyway, by the end of the day, I was just so ready to go home.
Sam: And anyway, so, but the, the, the, the fair was done in the way that our odd family does it. Okay.
Sam: Now to newsy stuff. There are a few things on the potential list here.
Sam: I've got, we never really finished talking about this Trump-Zelensky subject.
Sam: Got some stuff about hallway conversations at work, the weaponization of government,
Sam: you know, that we got the Fed governor being attempted to be fired.
Sam: The stuff at the CDC, the Bolton raid, the occupied occupation of DC,
Sam: a bunch of other stuff, a bunch of other stuff.
Sam: But for this first segment, and I will do one more newsy segment before wrapping up the show,
Sam: but the thing that's been dominating social media in the last 48 hours,
Sam: at least my slice of social media, obviously one of the whole things is like,
Sam: this is very bubble oriented and you see certain things and not others,
Sam: but has been first, like the,
Sam: look, for weeks now, there's been an increasing buzz about Trump doesn't look good.
Sam: We've talked about it here on the show, about Trump's health and.
Sam: You know, he's not looking good and he's got bruises and what about his swollen
Sam: ankles and does this mean he has congestive heart failure?
Sam: Does this mean his death is imminent? All of this kind of stuff.
Sam: Well, Friday of this week, this accelerated because somebody,
Sam: I forget what, some personality or other, I forget which one it was,
Sam: posted that, hey, by the way,
Sam: Trump hasn't been seen in person in three days and there's nothing on his schedule
Sam: for the long Labor Day weekend.
Sam: What's going on? So, of course, the internet concluded, at least the left-leaning
Sam: part of the internet, started speculating, he must be dead. He must be dead.
Sam: And they are covering it up and or just haven't figured out how to release it
Sam: yet and stuff's going on.
Sam: He must be dead. He's either dead or almost dead or something like that.
Sam: And any moment now will come the official announcement from the White House
Sam: that he's dead and Vance is president now.
Sam: The speculation was really, really rampant on Friday night, Friday night,
Sam: U.S. time. It was just crazy.
Sam: Like, and from, you know, not just like wackadoodle accounts,
Sam: but like, you know, fairly prominent folks with lots of followers,
Sam: responsible journalists, like for the most part,
Sam: traditional journalists were not saying a damn thing.
Sam: You know, they weren't about to touch this with a 10-foot pole, as they say.
Sam: But they were the sort of next layer downs, like the George Conways of the world and sort of the pundits,
Sam: the people who weren't sort of traditional journalists but who were liberal
Sam: influencers of one sort or another, were running with this.
Sam: And even when they were like, oh, we don't know anything. We're not sure,
Sam: but maybe, but maybe, maybe, maybe he's dead.
Sam: Maybe he's about to be dead. It's really suspicious that he,
Sam: he hasn't shown his face in three days. And why doesn't he have anything scheduled
Sam: for the weekend and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: I went into the curmudgeon's corner slack and my, my statement there was the following.
Sam: Okay, so social media has now been going nuts over the fact Trump hasn't been
Sam: seen in public for three days and has no scheduled events for the long weekend.
Sam: I figure it is the usual rumors spiraling way past reality, and he will probably
Sam: show up again at any moment.
Sam: But I figured I would go ahead and note it here. Pete, who co-hosted last week,
Sam: said his underlings are not publicly stabbing each other in the back yet, so it can't be that dire.
Sam: And then approximately, what is it? Can I do math?
Sam: Eight hours after I posted this, we did have a Trump spotting.
Sam: He was spotted leaving the White House with his granddaughter,
Sam: Kai, loading the motorcade to go golfing in Virginia.
Sam: And then since then, there have been, he went jogging a bit,
Sam: jogging, no, he's not jogging, sorry, golfing.
Sam: There's a difference there, jogging and golfing. I have not seen any evidence of Trump jogging.
Sam: I'm not sure that that is a thing he does.
Sam: But anyway, no, yeah, he apparently went golfing again Sunday and there was
Sam: another picture circulated of him leaving for golfing.
Sam: There was a little bit of controversy because the White House also put out a
Sam: picture supposedly of Trump actually golfing, but that picture turned out to be months old.
Sam: So it's like why did they do that and a
Sam: number of people have pointed out that in the pictures of him leaving the White
Sam: House to go golfing he doesn't look that great at least that's what the commentary
Sam: says but honestly they are not great pictures taken from quite a bit away,
Sam: and you know look,
Sam: there are a couple things I want to talk about this first of all is.
Sam: This whole zeitgeist on social media had the feeling of people being super excited.
Sam: Oh my God, this is great. Maybe he's dead.
Sam: And getting really hyped up and worked up about it that maybe this is...
Sam: And I'll add, this is a meme that's been going on on social media for quite
Sam: a while too, is like, what will it be like when it happens?
Sam: Where it is quite clearly an announcement that Trump has passed away.
Sam: And people posting all kinds of, like, memes about how there will be celebrations in the street.
Sam: And look, I'll be honest, there probably will be.
Sam: There will be lots of excited people. There will be lots of upset, sad people as well.
Sam: I mean, the country is very divided on this issue.
Sam: And, you know, it's a few steps away from people actively being like,
Sam: we hope something does something to Donald Trump.
Sam: That's a whole different thing. This is people hoping he drops dead of natural causes.
Sam: Yvonne has been on this show hoping that he drops dead of natural causes and
Sam: expressing his wish that that happens sooner rather than later.
Sam: And all over social media, and look, when I say social media at this point, I'm not on X.
Sam: I check threads fairly rarely.
Sam: I'm mostly on blue sky these days
Sam: but i also still check mastodon regularly but
Sam: on mastodon i usually check only my feed of people who post about the news not
Sam: my feed of everything and then i'm on tiktok a lot so when i say on social media
Sam: i'm talking about that universe of things oh i didn't even mention facebook
Sam: i do check facebook occasionally but i don't see this kind of stuff there,
Sam: and I don't check all the time for Facebook.
Sam: But anyway, that's what I'm talking about on social media.
Sam: But people were really excited about this. And first of all, look, I understand.
Sam: But that's still not a great look, you know, but also the running ahead of the facts.
Sam: And look, I understand nobody trusts the White House physician's office at this point.
Sam: We talked about that on the show a couple of weeks ago, how even before Donald
Sam: Trump, it's not been an office that's been particularly forthcoming about presidential health issues.
Sam: Going, going back decades for presidents of both parties, you know,
Sam: some have been more forthcoming than others, but even, even then it's not like,
Sam: it's not like they're really releasing everything.
Sam: It's always sort of, you know, here's some information, here's some basic information,
Sam: here's the standard high level stuff.
Sam: And I feel like the level of disclosure does vary quite a bit president to president.
Sam: But in this particular case with Donald Trump, we know, like,
Sam: he's had doctors lie about his weight, lie about other numbers.
Sam: They always come out and say, like, he's the healthiest president ever.
Sam: So nobody believes the official updates, understandably.
Sam: And he has not looked great on a number of recent occasions.
Sam: He's had the swelling of the ankles and And the White House doctor's office
Sam: did provide an explanation for that.
Sam: Some people think it's more than that, but they did provide an explanation.
Sam: He's had the bruises on his hand. But as we've talked about here before, that is very common.
Sam: It is not necessarily like some people have been talking about it like it's
Sam: a sign of imminent death.
Sam: And it isn't necessarily. Now, could Donald Trump drop dead of a heart attack
Sam: or stroke or something else imminently?
Sam: Could it happen at any moment? Well, yeah.
Sam: He's, you know, he's an older man, not in the best shape in the world.
Sam: So could it happen at any moment? Sure it could.
Sam: He could also last years and years and years and years.
Sam: And even people who've talked about some of his specific symptoms that have
Sam: been obvious, even without trusting the doctor, they're like,
Sam: yeah, those are sometimes indicative of serious underlying conditions.
Sam: Sometimes they're not. But very often they do indicate some kind of underlying condition.
Sam: But those underlying conditions can last for years.
Sam: It is not necessarily a sign of imminent death you know it's not like you know oh he's definitely,
Sam: going to be gone in days or weeks or anything
Sam: like that again maybe could happen
Sam: could also be years and so like you know i look i've watched a decent amount
Sam: of the speculation i've seen all kinds of like people on tiktok that claim to
Sam: be who knows if they really are not but claim to be doctors or nurses or people
Sam: who work in hospice or whatever,
Sam: you know, saying things like, oh, this looks like something I often see.
Sam: And when I see this, things very often go downhill very rapidly.
Sam: I've seen lots of those comments.
Sam: I have also seen much more rarely, but I have also seen the countervailing. Yeah, but.
Sam: Like, of course, you know, maybe hospice nurses see all this time right before
Sam: people die, but they're hospice nurses.
Sam: That restricts the universe of people they're seeing anyway.
Sam: This kind of stuff also happens in people who last a long time.
Sam: You know, and so there's a lot of wish casting here of people who want to see Trump gone and move on.
Sam: And, you know...
Sam: There's all kinds of other stuff. There's like, and people are saying, well, why?
Sam: Like, when have you ever seen Trump stay away from the press this long?
Sam: He loves like talking to the press and, you know, it takes every possible advantage of it.
Sam: And now he's like intentionally like gone for days.
Sam: And even his social media posts seem to
Sam: be posts more like things
Sam: that staff would write even one that he posted that
Sam: was a long rant about somebody damaging the new patio where they paved over
Sam: the rose garden apparently a contractor installing something else like scratched
Sam: it or something and so there was a long rant complaining about that but people
Sam: were like trying to read into it like.
Sam: Oh, but this, yes, it was a long rant.
Sam: It was a long rant that people clearly wanted to sound like Donald Trump,
Sam: but it has proper punctuation and he never does that.
Sam: So maybe that's not really Donald Trump posting that.
Sam: Maybe that's somebody else and, you know, posting on his behalf and he's still
Sam: not really doing anything.
Sam: And he posted again, apparently
Sam: earlier today just saying
Sam: never felt better in my life all caps
Sam: also dc is a crime freeze president
Sam: djt so because people keep asking for
Sam: like can we can we see that he's really good like and look it is very possible
Sam: the man hasn't been feeling good the last couple days he was sick he was in
Sam: bed took a little time off it is a holiday weekend the last couple days he's
Sam: apparently been golfing and people have been like, whoa,
Sam: but we got pictures of him leaving the White House, but we didn't have any like
Sam: press sightings at the golf course, actually watching him golf.
Sam: Look, sometimes we have that, sometimes we don't.
Sam: And again, look, another aspect of this is obviously, given what we saw in 2024,
Sam: the slightest little thing about Joe Biden also led to this kind of speculation,
Sam: both on the right and with Democrats who clearly wanted to push out Joe Biden,
Sam: even before the bad debate.
Sam: So we did have this with Joe Biden as well.
Sam: We're now having it with Donald Trump.
Sam: So although I have seen a number of people on the left complaining that,
Sam: yes, sort of the left-wing social media sphere has been full of this, but as I said earlier,
Sam: the mainstream press, for the most part, was not engaging in this speculation.
Sam: A couple mentions here and there, but they weren't going nuts with it.
Sam: Whereas with the Biden stuff, of course, it became the all-consuming conversation
Sam: for, like, months, it seems like.
Sam: You know, is he too old? What's going on? Is he healthy? Does he have an issue? Does he do this?
Sam: And yes, I acknowledge that asymmetry.
Sam: But I kind of think it was overblown with Biden and I kind of think it's overblown
Sam: here now just watch before I even publish this podcast episode he's going to
Sam: drop dead or something but and again possible but.
Sam: Fundamentally I feel like,
Sam: Let's try to stick with the actual known information as much as possible.
Sam: And there is plenty of things that the Trump administration is continuing to do day by day,
Sam: hour by hour, that we can talk about and react to, that we know are happening.
Sam: At the beginning of this segment, I listed a few of them, right?
Sam: You know, we've got, you know, the troops in D.C.
Sam: We've got potential troops going to Chicago soon.
Sam: We've got the Bolton thing. We've got the decimation of the CDC.
Sam: We've got firing the Federal Reserve or trying to fire a governor of the Federal Reserve.
Sam: We've got lots of stuff going on that is
Sam: real and we know for sure it's real
Sam: there's no question about that it seems
Sam: like this kind of feeding frenzy
Sam: over donald trump like not showing
Sam: his face for a couple days is a waste
Sam: of time if he actually dies we
Sam: will know about it We will know about it
Sam: really quickly There's not going to be I could say this right now We're not
Sam: going to have a gap Between when the president dies And when we get a news alert
Sam: about it That is measured even in hours.
Sam: Let alone days, okay?
Sam: You know, worst case scenario He goes to bed and passes away right after he
Sam: goes to bed and it isn't discovered until morning.
Sam: So, okay, eight or nine hours, maximum, you know, in that sort of scenario.
Sam: But if it happens during the day,
Sam: There is no way that thing doesn't leak within moments of it happening because
Sam: there's going to be a scramble at the White House.
Sam: There are going to be ambulances. There are going to be people running.
Sam: There are going to be members of the random White House staff who tell people
Sam: about it instantly. That would be known immediately.
Sam: And if he is sick enough to go to the hospital, even, that's going to come out pretty quick, too.
Sam: Remember when he had COVID during the first term.
Sam: Now, there was some hemming and hawing, and there was a lot of,
Sam: you know, it became clear later that it was much more serious than they let
Sam: on, but we knew he took the helicopter to Johns Hopkins, like, when it happened.
Sam: This is not a universe where it is a realistic thing to think,
Sam: oh, the president died and they're covering it up.
Sam: We're not going to have a Dave scenario.
Sam: That is the right movie, right? Dave, I remember liking that movie. Let's double check it.
Sam: Dave movie. And I should add it to my list again.
Sam: Yes, Dave is a 1993 American political comedy.
Sam: There we go. I've taken a picture of it to make sure it's re-added to my list.
Sam: He's a presidential lookalike hired by the Secret Service to be a stand-in,
Sam: but the stand-in becomes stuck in the role indefinitely after the president suffers a major stroke.
Sam: You know, that's the fundamental plot of the movie. And then things happen.
Sam: And it turns out that the imposter Dave is better president than the one he
Sam: replaced, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam: That situation is not going to happen in real life. If something serious happens
Sam: to Donald Trump, we will know really quickly.
Sam: I'm sorry. Like anybody who wants to fantasize about these other scenarios.
Sam: No, no, we would know right away.
Sam: Now, that's if something acute happens, either death or something serious enough
Sam: to go to the hospital right away.
Sam: He's obviously got really good medical care right there at the White House.
Sam: If he's just sick, and it isn't something that actually requires rushing him
Sam: to the hospital, and he can be treated there at the White House,
Sam: I absolutely believe they could and probably would keep that as quiet as possible
Sam: and might be able to succeed in keeping that information from being out there.
Sam: Like, is he getting IV treatments on a regular basis? Maybe.
Sam: They could do that at the White House. They've got everything they need to do that there.
Sam: You know, yeah, he could be treated for all kinds of conditions.
Sam: He could have something serious that doesn't require hospitalization.
Sam: And yeah, that could happen.
Sam: But again, I feel like us spending, and of course, I'm spending a whole segment
Sam: on this, but I'm kind of reacting not to the rumors themselves,
Sam: but to the, well, not to President Trump may be sick or dead,
Sam: but to how everybody's reacting to that.
Sam: And I feel like it's kind of a waste of time.
Sam: When we figure it out, not when we figure, if something serious happens,
Sam: we'll know then, And then we can react to that then and whatever happens then.
Sam: You know, like if Vance does become president, then we can start talking about that.
Sam: I mean, it is interesting a little bit to speculate how Vance would be as a
Sam: president compared to Donald Trump. What would be the same? What would be different, et cetera?
Sam: You know, agendas would be different. Style would be different.
Sam: He might keep some things. He might ditch others. Like, I think he'd probably ditch the tariffs.
Sam: But there's a whole bunch of stuff he would double down on. uh who are the people
Sam: that whisper in his ear is a different set of people etc etc etc.
Sam: Interesting conversation but i feel like i don't know and look i i was watching
Sam: all the rumors i was checking social media regularly to see if something was
Sam: new you know has he shown up Has there been some leak of something? Look, yeah, okay.
Sam: I was checking it regularly all night, Friday night. I fully admit that.
Sam: But is that a waste of time compared to other things?
Sam: I think it is. I think it probably was. You know, if something happens,
Sam: it happens and we'll know then.
Sam: In the meantime, we can talk about the other stuff.
Sam: And with that I am going to take another one of these exciting breaks and I
Sam: will once again go do other stuff,
Sam: I'm going to do some stuff with my son I will come back and we'll do one more newsy segment unless,
Sam: and I will tell you it will be one of the other things,
Sam: something other than Trump's health, unless,
Sam: Trump actually does get rushed to the hospital or dies before I do the next segment.
Sam: I'm not holding my breath for that. But yeah, people are still talking about it right now.
Sam: Within the last few minutes, Midas Touch just did another post linking to something they're saying.
Sam: The mysterious case of disappearing Trump continues to leave more questions
Sam: than answers with each proof of life post put out by him.
Sam: Get the latest updates in this weekend's I'm not even bothering clicking through,
Sam: but obviously it's a way to get engagement.
Sam: Lots of people talking about this. Lots of people excited.
Sam: Yeah. Okay. It's break time.
Sam: Break time, break time, break time. And this time it's one, two,
Sam: three, four, five, six, seven.
Sam: Wait, did I count wrong? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Sam: eight. Oh, there we go. There we go.
Sam: It's this one. It's super short. This is the new one. that's super short. Fun. Here we go.
Break: I want to be on top of the tree.
Break: I want to be on the floor when I fall off the tree.
Sam: Okay. I am back as promised. It's a number of hours later.
Sam: Let's It's now Monday, September 1st at 6, just before 6.30 UTC.
Sam: So my goal of actually having this out while it was still Sunday Pacific time is going to fail at it.
Sam: You know, it's only half an hour till the end of Sunday Pacific time.
Sam: It'll be Monday. I, you know, the way these things usually go,
Sam: I probably won't even finish recording this segment yet, let alone the extra steps I need to do to,
Sam: you know, export it, put the three parts together and then post process and put it out.
Sam: So whatever. And also, you know, I've been delaying because,
Sam: well, first of all, like since I last stopped,
Sam: I watched some TV with my son. But the more interesting thing,
Sam: and I think I'm going to at some point put a video on my YouTube channel.
Sam: I think you can find my YouTube channel by searching YouTube for Ablesmay, A-B-U-L-S-M-E.
Sam: Or maybe you have to search for Samuel Mentor.
Sam: I don't know. Let me check. We go to YouTube right now.
Sam: Anyway, it's not there as I'm recording this. but I think I might put a time lapse here.
Sam: You know, a few weeks ago, I mentioned that one of the contributing factors
Sam: to my daughter clipping my car,
Sam: trying to get out of the parking space is that Brandy has an old Buick Riata
Sam: from like the late 1980s that hasn't moved under its own power in a decade,
Sam: but is like taking up part of our driveway,
Sam: but that it wasn't all the
Sam: way scooched over to the edge of the driveway well today
Sam: brandy and i well mainly brandy yeah
Sam: i helped but mainly brandy successfully got
Sam: this car scooched over several feet
Sam: and we like the car again has
Sam: not moved under its own power we tried putting it
Sam: in neutral a little while ago and to
Sam: like last week sometime to try to
Sam: just see if we could just push it back and forward no luck
Sam: like we needed to back it up turn the wheel move forward again no
Sam: we couldn't push it and we tried jump
Sam: starting the thing we actually had to have someone from like
Sam: a mobile mechanic place start let help us open
Sam: the hood so we could get to the battery because like
Sam: the latches were all you know rusted shut apparently but we we got the hood
Sam: open we got the battery attached and we got some power to it like the screen
Sam: came on for for a second but then went off again and we We couldn't get it started
Sam: either. Anyway, so we ended up.
Sam: Buying these, these little rolly things that you can put under the wheels.
Sam: We, we got a jack, you know, a nice hydraulic jack. We got like four of these
Sam: things to go under the wheels. We got the stuff underneath.
Sam: And basically with a little bit of effort, we were able to just push the car
Sam: to the left, like six feet, maybe eight feet. I don't know.
Sam: It was anyway, I've got video of it from the security cameras.
Sam: And so I may make a time-lapse of that and put it on YouTube or something.
Sam: If I do, I'll mention it in the next episode, if I remember.
Sam: But yeah, let's see. Can you search YouTube for Abblesmay?
Sam: Yes, you can search YouTube for Abblesmay, and it will say, did you mean abuse?
Sam: You did not mean abuse. You meant Abblesmay. And the Samuel Minter channel will
Sam: come up, and you can look at it. You can subscribe it. You can do whatever.
Sam: And maybe I'll add this at some
Sam: point the most recent video on
Sam: there right now is still the the daddy
Sam: torture video when alex made me
Sam: drink some concoction that
Sam: he put together of like all the random things on a diner table that you would
Sam: expect to see in exchange for us having him sign some papers he needed to sign
Sam: because in washington state if you're over 13 like in order to have parents
Sam: be able to talk to your doctors and stuff. You have to sign stuff.
Sam: And he drove a hard bargain. I had to drink this in order to do that.
Sam: But yeah, so that's done.
Sam: Anyway on the youtube like the daddy torture video before that we had like me doing a stupid dance,
Sam: and then before that we had me playing a cpm game and yeah i don't really have a lot on,
Sam: my youtube channel these videos go under curmudgeon's corner youtube channel,
Sam: there used to be more from many years ago but i just haven't been posting much
Sam: there lately You know, there have been a couple of TikToks lately on my personal TikTok.
Sam: There's obviously I've been posting clips from this show on the Curmudgeon's Corner TikTok.
Sam: Although I'm behind still. I'm still like, I'm way behind. I'm like a month behind.
Sam: But the very most recent video I posted on TikTok was a clip from the July 27th episode, I think.
Sam: July 26th. the July 26th episode. And it has more views than any other so far.
Sam: Like as I'm recording this 3,982 views, 37 likes, and six comments.
Sam: That's more views than any other TikTok clip I've posted by like more than double.
Sam: The previous record was 1,287.
Sam: So we'll see. I don't know. Like TikTok's picking up, but I need to catch up.
Sam: Okay. What was it? Oh yeah. Yeah, like what I actually am talking about for
Sam: like this episode on like actual newsy stuff for like actually now.
Sam: One of the things, you know, besides all that like useful stuff,
Sam: moving the car and stuff that I did, I also delayed a little bit because I wasn't
Sam: sure which thing I wanted to talk about.
Sam: You know, I rattled off the list in the last segment. And I'll rattle it off again right now.
Sam: Trying to fire the Fed governor, Cook.
Sam: The Bolton raid. The occupying D.C. and talking about occupying Chicago.
Sam: And of course they did something in L.A. last month.
Sam: Decimating the CDC.
Sam: Look, let me sort of munge all these things together into one topic.
Sam: Which is basically things are getting bad fast you know whether you know,
Sam: there's been the question uh you know people keep asking you know are are we
Sam: moving towards an autocracy are we what is our democracy in danger blah blah
Sam: blah look and i've said before This isn't a thing where you just wake up one day and it's over.
Sam: There is a gradual degradation that happens.
Sam: I say gradual, but it's been eight months, January, February, March.
Sam: End of January. Anyway, you know, it hasn't even been a full year yet.
Sam: The damage being done by the Trump administration is huge already and accelerating quickly.
Sam: At this point, we've had two cities where the National Guard has been called
Sam: in and the military has been called in in L.A.
Sam: As well, to do police work and help with ICE stuff.
Sam: So we're sort of getting used to, oh yeah, Trump is calling in the military
Sam: again, calling in the National Guard.
Sam: They're wandering around the streets of an American city again.
Sam: The talk is Chicago's next.
Sam: And And, you know, the more that it happens, and also I'll add,
Sam: the more that it's sort of been uneventful for the most part.
Sam: There were a few little clashes in L.A. In D.C., no one's taken the bait.
Sam: It almost seems like the desire is to get these people out here,
Sam: get them confrontational, hope for some sort of conflict between protesters and these folks.
Sam: And so far, that hasn't really happened. Nothing is blown up.
Sam: There hasn't been a major escalation of violence.
Sam: It seems like the kind of thing that at any moment could.
Sam: But so far, we've avoided that. And, you know, in L.A., they did their little
Sam: cosplaying for a few weeks, and then it's kind of died down to nothing.
Sam: I don't know if they're still present. I haven't heard about it much lately.
Sam: We've heard about the D.C. situation. But the D.C.
Sam: Folks have mostly, with a couple of exceptions, deployed to parts of the city that...
Sam: Didn't really have a huge crime problem to begin with.
Sam: You know, they're going to the rich neighborhoods and the mall where all the
Sam: federal buildings are and Georgetown where there are lots of restaurants and stuff.
Sam: I did see... And so, like, not much has happened in terms of a real difference
Sam: to sort of this crime thing.
Sam: They have been supporting grabbing potential people who don't have their papers
Sam: in order for immigration purposes.
Sam: But, you know, it's sort of like it goes on and nothing major happens.
Sam: And so it's like, oh, you know, so if Trump goes into Chicago,
Sam: then it's like, oh, OK, there's another city.
Sam: And then maybe Detroit's next or Pittsburgh or Seattle, where I am.
Sam: And you sort of people talk
Sam: about normalizing but that's what happens is you
Sam: sort of start thinking oh well there
Sam: he goes again nothing really bad happened last
Sam: time maybe nothing bad will happen this time and
Sam: but it's all part of the normalization you
Sam: you sort of stop you you
Sam: get acclimatized to it and then the outrage is
Sam: not as much as it was before but it really should be
Sam: and you know i i mentioned the
Sam: ice stuff i mean that's horrid
Sam: but it's been going on for months and months now at basically the same kind
Sam: of levels we hear about the same kind of stories about people being pulled off
Sam: the street and the first few times you hear it you see it it's absolutely shocking.
Sam: The 30th time, it's a little bit less so. The 100th time, it doesn't even get
Sam: the attention. It's just like, it's the background.
Sam: But we've got essentially concentration camps being set up with people who are captured.
Sam: There was a news story in the last week or two about how the number of people
Sam: in these detention centers has hit a new all-time high.
Sam: And we've heard that the conditions at these places are horrible.
Sam: There were, you know, some of the stuff is going through the courts and they
Sam: have been ordered in a few places to improve the conditions.
Sam: This alligator Alcatraz nickname thing has been ordered to shut down. But.
Sam: It's, you start, just the natural thing is, oh, you know, we've heard about that already.
Sam: And so it's hard to maintain the constant level of outrage.
Sam: And along those same lines, you know, we talked about, you know,
Sam: firing, trying to fire, I should say.
Sam: It's still legally up in the air, trying to fire the Fed governor.
Sam: We now have a
Sam: long history of Donald Trump and his minions firing all kinds of people in the
Sam: federal government and doing so for no real reason other than they aren't 100%
Sam: towing the line. Donald Trump is all about loyalty.
Sam: Donald Trump is all about the only purpose of the federal government is to enact my will.
Sam: The idea of a professionalized civil service is anathema.
Sam: So, you know, in a healthy organization,
Sam: you want your underlings to have independent ideas and opinions.
Sam: You want them to tell you when you're wrong. You want them to provide opinions
Sam: and expertise in things where the leader is weak.
Sam: Donald Trump doesn't believe any of that. Donald Trump is just, do what I say.
Sam: Do what I say and shut up. And if you express any doubt or any alternative opinion
Sam: or anything other than that, you're out of here.
Sam: Now, the way things were set up in the federal government was that the top layers
Sam: were supposed to be like that Look,
Sam: the top layers are supposed to be political appointees
Sam: who enact the policies of the president And they serve at the president's will
Sam: But all kinds of lower levels are supposed to be technocratic are supposed to be based on expertise.
Sam: And that's not what's going on here. And this flows right into,
Sam: I mean, and I was going to jump to the CDC, but let's talk about the Fed a little bit.
Sam: They have really long terms as Fed governors, intentionally,
Sam: because it is supposed to be nonpolitical. It is supposed to be independent of the president.
Sam: They're supposed to last multiple presidents.
Sam: The president is allowed to dismiss them, quote-unquote, for cause.
Sam: But like a lot of these things, for cause is not defined.
Sam: So that's why it's in court now. Like, for good cause? Or just any cause?
Sam: And if it is good cause, what defines that?
Sam: And the law is unclear on that because, you know, they expect people not to
Sam: take advantage of it. But, you know, I can easily see this going straight,
Sam: not straight, but eventually getting to the Supreme Court.
Sam: And, you know, maybe lower courts will say, you know, for a cause,
Sam: it needs to be a reasonable cause.
Sam: It needs to be something well-defined and that makes sense, that has the right level of magnitude.
Sam: And, of course, in the Fed governor case, he's said there's evidence of mortgage
Sam: fraud. Now, they haven't actually supplied that evidence of mortgage fraud at this point.
Sam: Apparently, there's some issue potentially with what she claimed as a primary
Sam: home versus a secondary home, whatever.
Sam: It's unclear. Maybe something there, maybe something's not.
Sam: Does it rise to the level necessary here anyway?
Sam: I don't know. Now, one of Trump's things, of course, is and she is not the first
Sam: one that he's had investigated for mortgage fraud, which, by the way,
Sam: is almost assuredly like everything's projection here.
Sam: Because, of course, one of the charges against him was related to mortgage fraud.
Sam: And so now he's going to go out and get everybody else for mortgage fraud.
Sam: Now, there are differences in scale, differences in degree.
Sam: We'll see, like, if evidence ever actually comes out on this,
Sam: then we'll find out. But she hasn't been charged with anything.
Sam: No evidence has been presented yet. Maybe there's something there, maybe there's not.
Sam: But everyone, the consensus is, like, this is not a case where the mortgage,
Sam: fraud was blatant and obvious and therefore needed to be gone after no matter what.
Sam: Now, of course, Donald Trump will say the exact same thing about the charges against him.
Sam: His line all along has been, if I wasn't the ex-president, they wouldn't have
Sam: gone after me for any of these things.
Sam: And maybe he's right on some of them.
Sam: That's, and that I've said before, I think that's actually a problem.
Sam: They should have gone after Donald Trump for his miscellaneous crimes as far back as the 1970s.
Sam: I mean, we've got plenty of information about things that he's done that have
Sam: at the very least been unethical, but I think in many cases have been illegal as well,
Sam: going back decades and decades and decades, and people just didn't go after him, you know?
Sam: Now, in this case, if she actually did something wrong, absolutely.
Sam: And same thing with the Bolton thing. If he's actually got classified documents,
Sam: absolutely, go after him.
Sam: You know, do the proper investigation, go after him.
Sam: Whether she should be fired or resign over it in the meantime while the investigation
Sam: is ongoing, I don't know.
Sam: But the clear motivation here seems to be get her out of the way so he can appoint
Sam: someone to replace her so he can get a majority on the Fed and force interest rates down.
Sam: And as a trial run to see if he
Sam: can fire Powell as well. Because if he can fire her, he can fire Powell.
Sam: He'll dig up something.
Sam: People said that the old Soviet phrase, I think it was a Stalin thing actually,
Sam: was show me the person and I'll show you the crime with the basic notion that almost anybody.
Sam: Probably everybody, if you dig deep enough, you can find laws they broke because
Sam: there are so many laws about so many things.
Sam: I mean, the simplest example is, I don't think you can find, I.
Sam: Maybe out of the millions and millions of drivers on this planet,
Sam: you could find one, but I mean, show me somebody who hasn't broken the speed
Sam: limit at least once. Come on.
Sam: Even by accident, right? Like, did you go 22 in the 20 mile per hour zone?
Sam: Throw the book at you. And the thing is, the book allows for more serious,
Sam: in almost all cases, there's a range of potential punishments.
Sam: And there's a lot of discretion involved.
Sam: And so very few people are actually
Sam: going to get pulled over and get a ticket for going 22 in a 20 zone.
Sam: If you go 40 in a 20 zone, completely different story.
Sam: And even within that, there's a range of potential punishments you may get.
Sam: A lot of this varies municipality by municipality, state by state.
Sam: Some of the places have very regimented rules.
Sam: Some of them have less regimented rules. But the point is, there's a lot of discretion there.
Sam: And that discretion is often a good thing. But if the way you are using your
Sam: discretion is universally go after your enemies and leave your friends alone, that's problematic.
Sam: And to the folks who say, well, that's exactly what the Clinton administration
Sam: was doing against Donald Trump, I just don't think the facts back that up.
Sam: If anything, it shows how careful and how reluctant they were and how they really
Sam: didn't want to do that, but sort of had to.
Sam: And even when they did so, they made sure to cross the T's and dot the I's and
Sam: do as much as possible in the right way.
Sam: I mean, hell, like a lot of the investigations they were complaining about happened
Sam: during the first Trump administration, you know, and then we had more during
Sam: the Clinton, during the Biden administration, obviously.
Sam: But I think if anything, there's
Sam: evidence that they were being super careful and they recognized the gravity
Sam: of going after an ex-president and were extremely cautious about it and had
Sam: been criticized over and over again for being as cautious as they were.
Sam: And meanwhile there was tons of evidence of
Sam: really serious stuff you know so
Sam: but we're normalizing this we've opened
Sam: investigations and and you know in
Sam: the in the prediction show at the end of last year i had predicted there'd be
Sam: lots of investigations along these lines but that i didn't think any indictments
Sam: would hit yet and somebody correct me if i'm wrong but i think that's so far
Sam: a little more than halfway through the year.
Sam: Well, we're getting close to three quarters of the way through the year.
Sam: That's pretty much what's happened. There have been a bunch of investigations.
Sam: He's opened investigations into a lot of his political enemies,
Sam: but there haven't been any indictments yet.
Sam: And within people who actually work for the executive branch,
Sam: he's fired a bunch of people and made things miserable enough for other people to resign.
Sam: But the long and short of this is,
Sam: The notion of the non-political expertise-based portions of the federal government have been eviscerated.
Sam: You know, there have been, you know, DOJ already. There were lots of people,
Sam: lots of people fired from there, and their priorities have been turned around.
Sam: The biggest example from this week is CDC. I think he eventually actually fired the director there.
Sam: Like, there was some back and forth on has he actually fired her yet personally
Sam: because it was being done by intermediaries and tweets and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And whether or not she's technically been legally fired or not,
Sam: I think she's filing a lawsuit too.
Sam: But she's locked out. She's not actually getting into the building anymore. She's not doing the job.
Sam: And a whole bunch of other people at CDC have resigned based on this.
Sam: In this case, she was in a position that serves at the will of the president.
Sam: She was a political employee.
Sam: So he has every right to fire her. He's not even violating civil service protections
Sam: for that one. And the only dispute was, does he have to do it himself by calling her up directly?
Sam: And honestly, I feel that's kind of a weak case.
Sam: Like he should be able to do it by directing somebody else to take the legal actions.
Sam: But the reason for the dispute in this case was she basically refused to go
Sam: along with some of RFK Jr.'s non-scientific anti-vax nonsense.
Sam: They were looking for, and have started to at this time, change vaccination
Sam: guidelines for the COVID vaccine in terms of what's recommended.
Sam: They also had FDA change what's allowed, because I shouldn't quite say it that way.
Sam: There are a lot of pharmacies and insurance and et cetera that if CDC and FDA
Sam: don't recommend something,
Sam: even if they're not saying it's not allowed, if they don't recommend something,
Sam: then they will not proceed with it.
Sam: There were a bunch of stories about how CVS has now restricted the vaccine in
Sam: many, many states based on the guidance this week, the COVID vaccine.
Sam: Even in those cases, I guess you can still get a doctor's prescription.
Sam: Well, in some states, it's not available at all.
Sam: But in other places, you need a doctor's prescription.
Sam: And look, the guidelines they put out, I'm getting tangent a little bit.
Sam: The guidelines they put out are fairly easy to, first of all,
Sam: there's a list of pre-existing conditions that's pretty darn long.
Sam: That says you can still get the vaccine if you have any of these.
Sam: I've got at least two or three of the pre-existing conditions that say you can get it.
Sam: So, like, I'll be able to get it. I'm also in Washington State where anybody
Sam: will still be able to get it, basically.
Sam: But there are conditions on the list, apparently, that are things like.
Sam: Oh, I'm fairly sedentary. Okay? You can just lie about that kind of stuff, you know.
Sam: And I've seen places that in other places, you know, it's just self-attestation anyway.
Sam: Do you have any of these conditions? Yes. Okay, here's your shot.
Sam: They don't check. but anyway the
Sam: director was upset that he was pushing
Sam: some of this stuff with no good science behind it in fact the good science says
Sam: the opposite and all indications are he's going to go all in on more of this
Sam: in terms of you know blaming vaccines potentially for autism potentially for other things,
Sam: basically hamstringing the CDC to come up with justifications for the opinion
Sam: he already has, rather than actually following the science.
Sam: So there's already been cases where they're looking at cherry-picking evidence,
Sam: they're looking at interpreting things in ways that do not match expert opinion.
Sam: RFK Jr. specifically saying paying attention to experts is not what you do in a democracy.
Sam: What? Give me a break. You know, you don't, I'm sorry. It's just so ridiculous.
Sam: Like, you know, let's.
Sam: There are certain things that
Sam: you don't just want to have a vote on and go with what the public thinks.
Sam: You want to ask someone who knows what the fuck they're doing. And then you do that.
Sam: And look, there are always disagreements. Like, you know,
Sam: there's the, the nature of science is nothing is ever 100% settled and lots
Sam: of things are subtle and there's not like one single answer and there's complications
Sam: and all kinds of caveats and,
Sam: that's just the nature of the beast.
Sam: And so you have a bunch of experts who can debate and come to a consensus and
Sam: just, you know, recommend an approach and sometimes they're wrong,
Sam: but it's the best you can do at that moment.
Sam: The one thing you don't do is have some jackass who doesn't even believe that germs are real,
Sam: which by the way, RFK wrote about that in one of his books,
Sam: that he believes a long discredited 17th and 18th century theory of the miasma
Sam: explanation of diseases and other stuff.
Sam: It's basically like, he doesn't believe in germs.
Sam: He basically wants to undo the last 100 to 200 years of medical progress in
Sam: terms of understanding what the hell is actually going on with people's health.
Sam: It's just unbelievable.
Sam: Anyway, so there's no surprise that a bunch of CDC people are unhappy with that and are leaving.
Sam: I mean, a whole bunch of them were fired anyway already in multiple rounds of layoffs.
Sam: Of the ones that are left, the ones that can are leaving.
Sam: I know they're ones trapped because they don't know where else they can go and
Sam: are hoping that they can hunker down and still do some good where they are.
Sam: But fundamentally, you are taking one of the premier public health institutions
Sam: in the world, which has not been perfect.
Sam: They made some mistakes during COVID, especially in the first few months of
Sam: COVID. They made some big mistakes.
Sam: Like there was that whole thing about insisting on using their own tests instead
Sam: of using the European tests.
Sam: And because of that, delaying things by a couple months. And there was the whole
Sam: thing of being slow to realize it really was a fully airborne disease and not just droplets.
Sam: And therefore, you know, the quality of mask mattered. So it wasn't just use
Sam: a mask. You needed to say use a good mask.
Sam: And there's been a whole bunch of things CDC has done wrong. They're not perfect.
Sam: But they were still one of the best, if not the best, such institutions in the
Sam: world. They've been destroyed.
Sam: And no one can trust them at
Sam: this point because there's no
Sam: faith that they're actually making determinations based on the science at this
Sam: point and you know things that they publish are being put through like political
Sam: review before they can go out they've
Sam: been prohibited from talking about certain topics at all. It's bad.
Sam: And this is just the latest example
Sam: of the federal agencies that are being systematically made ineffective.
Sam: You know, I mean, we had all the USAID foreign aid stuff costing potentially
Sam: millions of lives by taking away that aid from places it was really needed.
Sam: Now we have CDC. It's also going to cost lives. They do good work there.
Sam: And even when they make mistakes, they're trying their damn best.
Sam: Now they can't try their best anymore.
Sam: And, you know, it all comes back to Steve Bannon's comment about deconstructing
Sam: the administrative state.
Sam: This was all in Project 2025, too, for all the people who are like, oh, that's all made up.
Sam: That's not really anything Donald Trump's going to be doing.
Sam: I saw this one website. I don't have it handy, but they're tracking like exactly
Sam: what of Project 2025 has already been implemented.
Sam: Let me see if I can find it really, really quick. project 2025
Sam: implementation tracker here
Sam: we go okay this website project
Sam: 2025 dot observer and
Sam: basically they've got a nice little
Sam: little tracker here and let's see
Sam: 40 they what they track is
Sam: 47 percent of what
Sam: was in project 2025 has already been implemented so that's there are 317 total
Sam: objectives that they distilled out of project 2025 116 are done 63 more in progress.
Sam: And the agencies where this has gone the furthest, there were six objectives
Sam: for USAID, 100% complete.
Sam: There was one objective for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 100% complete.
Sam: For White House itself, 13 objectives, 92% complete. Department of State,
Sam: 10 objectives, 75% complete.
Sam: U.S. Agency for Global Media, three objectives, 67% complete.
Sam: And then it goes down from there.
Sam: And if you go to this website, they track it objective by objective by objective.
Sam: So, for instance, the latest was the Department of Labor. Provide robust accommodations
Sam: for religious employees.
Sam: Note, OPM issued a memo that allow federal workers to promote their religious
Sam: beliefs to colleagues, display religious items at work, and pray together or individually.
Sam: And then they've got sources for that one. And before that, at the CDC.
Sam: Promote fertility awareness-based methods as opposed to contraception for family planning.
Sam: Note, the administration is rerouting birth control funds to menstrual cycle
Sam: education classes to try to prevent pregnancy without using birth control.
Sam: And look, all of this stuff is, you know, you could say, well,
Sam: what's objectionable about those things?
Sam: Well, in the CDC example, it's because there have been plenty of studies about
Sam: what's effective and what's not in terms of birth control, and the fertility
Sam: awareness stuff is much, much less effective.
Sam: So if you've got a dollar to spend, you want to spend it on the stuff that's
Sam: more effective, not the stuff that's less effective.
Sam: And on the accommodations for religious employees, look,
Sam: as far as I know, well, I'm not going get out over my skis, but I have no problem with,
Sam: you know, someone wearing religious headgear or religious necklace or otherwise,
Sam: you know, discreetly doing stuff.
Sam: But this is allowing proselytizing.
Sam: This is allowing somebody in the workplace, you know, and this is federal employees
Sam: in a federal place to try to convert me while I'm at work. No, that's not okay.
Sam: Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And with, look, it's, again,
Sam: deconstruction of the administrative state.
Sam: It is step by step, agency by agency, taking away the effectiveness of government
Sam: where it has been built up over time.
Sam: Now, and this is, you know, there was another conservative goal going back years
Sam: that didn't work, called Starve the Beast, which was basically,
Sam: take the budget away from the federal government to the point where it becomes ineffective.
Sam: And then you can make the argument that government is bad at XYZ and therefore
Sam: shouldn't do it at all, and we should privatize these things.
Sam: This is essentially the next level extension of that.
Sam: Yes, they are reducing the budget to many of these things, but even where they
Sam: couldn't reduce the budget because, you know,
Sam: and they're doing that too, by the way, they're taking away funding from things
Sam: that Congress has approved,
Sam: but they're step by step taking away the ability to be effective,
Sam: even when the money is still there. And it's part of that same strategy.
Sam: It's like, you know, the argument all along has been government shouldn't be doing these things.
Sam: And you would often hear this couched as government is not good at these things.
Sam: Sometimes government hasn't been the best way to do some of these things.
Sam: And when it's not, it's, you know, we shouldn't absolutely look at the alternatives.
Sam: But in many cases, the reason government hasn't been good is because it's been
Sam: hamstrung in one way or another.
Sam: But in this case, they're taking even the things that government has been good
Sam: at and has been having positive effects.
Sam: They're systematically breaking it.
Sam: They're breaking every aspect of the federal government one piece at a time.
Sam: And part of the reason for that is so that you can then more effectively make
Sam: the argument that government sucks at this, it shouldn't do it at all,
Sam: we should let the private sector do that.
Sam: I think so far, I mean, they're, they're breaking the military too. What am I even saying?
Sam: They're doing all kinds of things that are going to make the military less effective as well.
Sam: But I'm not sure we're quite at the privatized military part yet,
Sam: but we are certainly at the, the whole,
Sam: just like with everything else, the notion of a professionalized military who
Sam: has certain rules that they operate by and certain things that are okay and
Sam: certain things that are not,
Sam: I think that's...
Sam: Anybody who expresses any sort of dissent or question about that is gone or going to be gone.
Sam: They're getting rid of trans people. They're getting rid of women.
Sam: I believe at this point all of the female generals have been fired.
Sam: If not all of them, certainly a lot of them at the highest levels,
Sam: for sure. Maybe there's still some at lower levels.
Sam: They, you know, it's get to go back to how I started this segment. It's getting bad.
Sam: Point by point, step by step, power is being centralized in the president.
Sam: And, you know, even if Donald Trump does die and it becomes J.D.
Sam: Vance, by the way, latest speculation I saw, which resonates with me,
Sam: is he probably had some non-hospital medical procedure that they could do at the White House.
Sam: He was probably told about it several weeks ago, which explains why,
Sam: you know, he was all talking about his mortality and wanting to get into heaven
Sam: and all this kind of crap.
Sam: And then he had the procedure and he's been recovering and he's like,
Sam: you know, from whatever the procedure was, it was something they could do at the White House.
Sam: They didn't have to take him to the hospital, but, you know,
Sam: it put him out of commission for a couple of days and now he's recovered.
Sam: Makes perfect sense. I saw a count called Hilly on TikTok that said that.
Sam: So, yeah, it's specifically Hilly the nurse.
Sam: There you go. TikTok.com slash at Hilly the nurse.
Sam: Made perfect sense to me. But anyway, the point is they're consolidating power
Sam: and executive to an extent we haven't seen in this country.
Sam: Donald Trump is right up at, I'd say he's passed the verge of defying court
Sam: orders and it hasn't been brought to a head at the Supreme Court yet,
Sam: but he's been defying court orders left and right.
Sam: He's been making changes to spending that should have to be authorized by Congress.
Sam: He's been shutting down agencies that were authorized by Congress that should
Sam: only be shut down by Congress. He's...
Sam: Practicing putting troops domestically in various places, it's getting bad fast.
Sam: We're seeing things that if you, I was going to say, you would be shocked to
Sam: even see being considered if you went back 10 or 20 years.
Sam: But that led me to think of the standard cliche, Like,
Sam: can you imagine if Obama had done this, how this very same people who are rah,
Sam: rah, Donald Trump are, you know, are happy about these things when Donald Trump is doing it.
Sam: Can you even imagine if Obama had been doing this kind of stuff that already
Sam: be, you know, armed insurrection?
Sam: But what the hell am I talking about? There was one on January 6th.
Sam: Although the a lot of people there had weapons it didn't actually escalate into
Sam: a battle from both sides with with firearms anyway i mean obviously they were
Sam: beating people with flag flagpoles and fire hydrants and all kinds of things but.
Sam: Anyway i think it's just going to get worse before it gets better and i'm not
Sam: and even if Even if Donald Trump is replaced by J.D.
Sam: Vance, I don't have a lot of faith that it's going to get better fast.
Sam: Keep watching, try not to get too accustomed to all this stuff.
Sam: I mean, people said don't normalize things from the very first day Donald Trump
Sam: was elected, before he even became president.
Sam: And of course, what we've been doing, it's human nature.
Sam: We get used to things, and then that is just the normal.
Sam: Oh, there goes Donald Trump again. There he goes violating another norm.
Sam: There he goes violating another law.
Sam: It's not even news anymore because he does it every day.
Sam: Try to retain the outrage because we have to.
Sam: In the meantime, like I said, I don't see a way that it doesn't get worse before it gets better.
Sam: And on that happy note, let's wrap up the show. I've gone a lot longer in this
Sam: segment than I had intended.
Sam: Curmudgeons-corner.com. You can find our archives. you can find all the ways
Sam: to contact us find transcripts and i still haven't linked the tiktok i mentioned
Sam: the tiktok you can search for curmudgeon's corner on tiktok you'll find it,
Sam: and i i i reserved the handle for blue sky but i haven't set up anything so
Sam: curmudgeon's corner is not yet posting on blue sky but we are on mastodon you'll find that,
Sam: and of course there's a link to a patreon where you can give us money at various
Sam: levels we'll mention you on the show.
Sam: We'll ring a bell, send you a postcard, send you a mug.
Sam: Soon, I'll set it up so you can just buy a mug if you want to buy a mug.
Sam: I haven't done it yet. Maybe someday.
Sam: And of course, at $2 a month or more on the Patreon, we will invite you to the
Sam: Curmudgeon's Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners are chatting
Sam: throughout the week, sharing links, and all kinds of other stuff.
Sam: Should I do the highlight? Sure. Here's something from the Curmudgeon's Corner
Sam: Slack that I have not mentioned on the show.
Sam: There was an article on the BBC, Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-thru after man orders 18,000 waters.
Sam: This is exactly what you think it is. A whole bunch of fast food restaurants
Sam: are experimenting with having AIs man the drive-thru. So when you talk at the
Sam: drive-thru and make your order, there's an AI talking to you instead of a human being.
Sam: McDonald's tried this a few months back and had to shut it down pretty quickly
Sam: because it was doing all kinds of weird things like putting bacon in ice cream.
Sam: Although, you know, I think about that and I'm like, maybe that would be okay.
Sam: Maybe I should try that. But yeah, let's see.
Sam: Last year, McDonald's withdrew AI from its own drive-thrus as the tech misinterpreted
Sam: customer orders, resulting in one person getting bacon added to their ice cream
Sam: in error, and another having hundreds
Sam: of dollars worth of chicken nuggets mistakenly added to their order.
Sam: This guy with the 18,000 waters was obviously just trying to screw with the AI.
Sam: In another example from this AI, the Taco Bell AI, it kept asking,
Sam: would you like a drink with that?
Sam: Would you like a drink with that? Over and over and over again,
Sam: after the guy had said what drink he wanted.
Sam: And it just would never end. It got into a loop. It got stuck.
Sam: Anyway, AI is awesome. Look, I'm using it for a bunch of stuff.
Sam: You know, the question is where it's being used, where it's actually beyond
Sam: what it's actually good at yet. I'm sure it'll get better.
Sam: People keep trying to push the limits, and bad things are going to happen.
Sam: More than just 18,000 waters at the Taco Bell drive-thru.
Sam: Something massive is going to get screwed up at some point.
Sam: Well, we already had AI determine the tariff levels, the initial tariff levels, so what am I saying?
Sam: Ah, geez. Okay, that's it. I'm done. I'm out of here.
Sam: Hopefully, Yvonne will be back next week. Have a great time,
Sam: everybody. Stay safe. All the stuff I usually say.
Sam: And it is indeed after midnight Pacific time as I'm wrapping this up.
Sam: It's coming close to 1230 a.m.
Sam: On Monday Pacific time.
Sam: Coming close to 730 UTC.
Sam: Ah, I'll get this sucker out.
Sam: Probably, you know, sometime Monday. Whatever.
Sam: I'm late. podcast is later than I like it to be, but it's not the first time it's come out on Monday.
Sam: It's even come out on Tuesday before of the week after I anchored this in the week.
Sam: It's supposed to be four because I started on Saturday.
Sam: There's one podcast per Sunday through Saturday week. And this one started on
Sam: Saturday. So it counts. Damn it.
Sam: Haven't missed one. Not going to now, But I have been several days late finishing
Sam: and posting them before because of things like this, where I space it out over
Sam: the course of a couple days. Anyway, whatever.
Sam: Here comes the music. Goodbye, everyone.
Sam: I already said stay safe. Goodbye!
Sam: Okay, I'm going to hit stop now. We had no live viewers this time.
Sam: But you know last week we
Sam: apparently did have some people watch the watch a good
Sam: chunk of the podcast if not even all of it on on the live stream well on the
Sam: recording of the live stream on youtube so hi to anybody on youtube and goodbye
Sam: hi goodbye whatever i'm hitting stop bye folks.