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