Just Two Good Old Boys

017 Just Two Good Old Boys

February 21, 2023 Gene Naftulyev
Just Two Good Old Boys
017 Just Two Good Old Boys
Just Two Good Old Boys
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Sir Gene:

Ben, how are you today?

Sir Ben:

Good Gene. Happy to be back in the state of Texas.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. How's Florida

Sir Ben:

Dude, it was interesting. It was a good conference in a lot of ways. But Jesus, some of the present presentations were just fucking laughable, man. The very first, the very first presentation, right, which is usually is supposed to set the tone for the whole fucking conference, right? Literally this quote unquote data scientist who is also a standup comedian and also a circus performer,

Sir Gene:

Well that might be more interesting. Okay.

Sir Ben:

So she talks about

Sir Gene:

Oh, it's a she,

Sir Ben:

yes, it's a, she very short-haired. She, anyway, so she goes through and says how, her other two jobs help her main job. Now there was, it was very vapid, vapid speech. There was very little substance to it at all. And in the end, she ends up doing a costume change on stage, taking off her business, attire into her circus, performing attire, and then while a slideshow plays, does contortion stuff on stage.

Sir Gene:

Was she good looking at least?

Sir Ben:

No

Sir Gene:

Oh, okay. Well,

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean, she might be fine for some, but just not, I mean, it

Sir Gene:

somebody thought that would be hilarious.

Sir Ben:

I, I found it just incredibly uncomfortable. And I'm not exactly a prude, but it's just like, this is not the setting for this, this is not something

Sir Gene:

Should've just come out right in the clown costume. Right off the GetGo, huh?

Sir Ben:

exactly. I mean, it was just, it, it was insanity and yeah. Anyway.

Sir Gene:

I'm sure it was. Somebody said, oh, you know what I can do? Oh, it'll be hilarious. I'll, I'll do a costume change right on stage. I should open up,

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

yeah. I'll be the opening act.

Sir Ben:

Yep. So,

Sir Gene:

Now I've planned a bunch of these conferences in the past because I did um, I was on the i c board for like a decade and then planned a bunch of stuff, and then also was involved with some other conferences, security conferences in the planning stage, like 15 years ago. And it's, it's a not an easy thing to get good guests.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

so I, I sympathize.

Sir Ben:

security conference, it's

Sir Gene:

I'm just saying from a planning standpoint, I know sometimes the speakers are lacking.

Sir Ben:

Fair enough. But,

Sir Gene:

so have you, have you done any conference planning, volunteer work or anything like that?

Sir Ben:

No, I haven't done any planning. I've spoken many times, but never planned.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah, it's it also is a very good introduction to nonprofit work, meaning I'm saying that with a big smirk on my face because you get a very different, let's say, I was gonna say the diverse, but that has so many other meanings. But you get a very different type of crowd volunteering to help get things planned and not necessarily the right skillset that you want for planning things. You get half the people coming in there that basically want to get a very easy way for continuing education hours because being on a planning committee counts as ours for continuing education for most security certifications.

Sir Ben:

Why would that count as

Sir Gene:

They count volunteer work within the, the realm of the topic, almost everybody does for almost any type of, certification security, and even many non-security ones. So if you're, if you're a certified fireman, like planning a fireman's conference would actually count towards your continuing education kind of stuff.

Sir Ben:

that just seems odd.

Sir Gene:

well, I mean, it's, it, it's a promotion. Like the way they look at it is this is how you get people to actually do that.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

And then that allows people to count either presenting or just attending as also continuing education. It's like you need the one for the other. So some people are in it for that. Other people just love planning things, even if they're not particularly good at it. And then the third group isn't really there for the topic. They're just there because they like to boss people around So, so you get, you get kind of a mix of folks. God, I hope nobody's listening that I was, any, any of these committees on, but cuz they identify themselves real fast.

Sir Ben:

Huh.

Sir Gene:

But it's I enjoyed it. For two reasons. I don't so much, man. I do like planning stuff to some degree I do have that, that kind of interest. But I mainly did it just to be a gatekeeper cuz I, I want to minimize the number of shitty speakers and and I, what I was finding is that's the best way for me to do that is to actually be involved and then not. N not, not allow people that just can't speak very well.

Sir Ben:

Okay. Yeah. I mean it, so

Sir Gene:

Well, and I'll give you an example here before you get going. For example, before I came into one of the, one of the boards, they didn't actually ask for samples

Sir Ben:

Mm.

Sir Gene:

of previous speaking gigs. Yeah. Like, they were just like, oh, this guy's bio looks great, let's have him speak

Sir Ben:

His bio looks great in his 200 word 200 word. No. What is it?

Sir Gene:

I don't know what, 200 words. What,

Sir Ben:

hypothesis not, when you're asked for a call for papers, you submit a

Sir Gene:

like a summary kind of thing,

Sir Ben:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget there's a word for it that I'm looking for that. Anyway. Yeah. So, yeah.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

Anyway know, conferences usually go one of two ways. You either end up with some mediocre speakers like we had at this one, or you end up with a bunch of very repetitive talks by a bunch of vendors, and then a handful of unique talks to that, to that conference. So, I, I'll take a couple of mediocre speakers here and there for uniqueness of content over, polished professionalism. But at the same time, when you literally have a woman taking off her shirt on stage and not enough, great way. It's just, it's just awkward. that that was the one that got me. But anyway Miami was great. It was expensive, it was all hell, but it was great. Yeah, and lot of fun. The beer, ice acts and things like that were lots of fun. Anyone who ever goes to S four, there's there, there's no shortage of possibility of intoxication. I tend to try and avoid it, especially at work things, believe it or not, I, I set limits and say, yeah, I'm gonna go to bed now. Yeah. But some people get in way too much trouble, so, yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I'm, so this, this meeting I'm going to, I think there's probably about 50 or 60 people gonna be there.

Sir Ben:

Yep.

Sir Gene:

And one of the messages was oh, you guys are all gonna enjoy the wine selection. I've got and this is the organizer's like, super into wine, like very, very into wine. And so I think this'll be the first event like that where I go to, well certainly first time. Any, any event with this guy that I'm not drinking. So, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting to be like the, the one, fan in the room basically.

Sir Ben:

Yeah, it, it, it happens. And there is a social aspect to that, right? Where there is, quite frankly, peer pressure right? If you're, if you're

Sir Gene:

Oh yeah.

Sir Ben:

You, you're definitely the odd man out and it's like, what's wrong here? But you know that that's where you drink. You have a couple beers or whatever, but you, you set that limit so that you don't get too silly. know, I've, I, I've been there, done that, gotten silly before and I, I choose not to at this point in time,

Sir Gene:

And what I used to do, like when I was drinking, I wasn't doing this whole non-drinking thing, but if I wanted to make sure that I don't have a whole lot of alcohol on me, I would get beer.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

And I know it sounds kinda like, well yeah, cuz it's got a less alcohol. No, because I don't like beer and because I don't like the taste of beer.

Sir Ben:

You don't drink it?

Sir Gene:

I drink it really slowly

Sir Ben:

Uhhuh. See,

Sir Gene:

so I drink it whenever somebody, like if, if someone's making a toast or something, obviously I'll sip some, but I would get like a bottle of Corona and it would laugh me a good hour.

Sir Ben:

Mm. By that time it's way too warm.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, yeah. It tastes even worse, but it starts off being not particularly good and then it gets even worse. And

Sir Ben:

Some people like her on the Jean

Sir Gene:

well, no, Corona's my favorite beer is what I'm saying. Out of all the beers. The one that I disliked the most probably is well, Corona and also like the really heavy stouts. But they have a different problem, which is fucking, they're like 400 calories per bottle. So that's a different issue. But, but yeah. So if over the last however many years of drinking things for business related purposes, if you saw me drinking the beer, then you knew I was not in the mood to drink at all.

Sir Ben:

Gotcha.

Sir Gene:

I would've had like eight long islands in that same amount of time.

Sir Ben:

Oof, oof.

Sir Gene:

Those taste good.

Sir Ben:

Yes. But eight in an hour is a little, that's,

Sir Gene:

hours probably. Yeah. Like four an hour. I, I definitely used to, yeah. I've, I've drunk four long Islands an hour lots of times.

Sir Ben:

Not that you really remember, but Yes.

Sir Gene:

Well, I mean, I, I remember the first one every time.

Sir Ben:

exactly. So, hey, you sent me a video that I could not corroborate. You sent me a video of riot in Austin. What's going on?

Sir Gene:

yeah. So I had no idea what the hell it was. Earlier. So apparently there was some rice racers, street racing going.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

to the degree where they literally pushed the cop cars out of the city, like they took over downtown Austin for a racetrack.

Sir Ben:

Wow.

Sir Gene:

And the police here in Austin are told not to interact with anybody. So they don't

Sir Ben:

Yeah. But in this video, literally the crowd is pushing back a cop car throwing fireworks at it, and the cop car is just backing away.

Sir Gene:

Exactly. That's exactly right. And then other clips that I found also they, they showed the streets closed off and then like cars with a lot of neon and very loud exhaust systems doing donuts and zipping around and stuff.

Sir Ben:

Okay. So there was a bill in the Texas State House. I don't know if you've

Sir Gene:

But to make Austin not a city.

Sir Ben:

correct. Ha. Have you been tracking where

Sir Gene:

I have not, but I hope to God it happens.

Sir Ben:

Right. I mean, there, the,

Sir Gene:

It's outta

Sir Ben:

this cannot continue.

Sir Gene:

It's like I have nothing against cars like that. I've played need for speed and shit. It's just, if you wanna do it, let's make an official event out of it

Sir Ben:

right,

Sir Gene:

and work with the city to close down some streets. Do the stuff. No, this is like literally outside of city control.

Sir Ben:

So, and, and you know, what I would say is make the permitting process easy for people to have events and do things, and I'm fine with that. In fact, I would say that very little permitting should be needed just anyway, but for them to be doing something that, normally the cops would come in and put an end to this in, in a pretty hard way. And you would, when the crowd started throwing fireworks at a cop car, you would normally see backup coming in and Exactly. riot control and so on. But this was a apparently left alone. That's, that's just nuts.

Sir Gene:

It, it's, it is a, a very strange phenomenon. And this is a city, remember, that relies heavily on lots of big festivals for tax,

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Without south by, without Austin City Limits and a bunch of other events. Formula One, like Austin's budget is upside down.

Sir Ben:

Right. So why not see this as another event to add?

Sir Gene:

I don't, I have no idea. I have no idea what happened. I didn't know about this happening. And I, I was very curious like, you, like what the hell happened? Is this b l m, what's going on here? And then like two hours later, more videos started coming out and people were saying, yeah, apparently that there's like this ricer event happening. which, which literally closed off streets and had people, pushing cops back.

Sir Ben:

Wow.

Sir Gene:

I know I, it's, Austin has a reputation at this point, and it's not a good one. Not if you're a business or, or a person that likes a little more I guess order.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. So this, this is hilarious. So I've been googling since you sent that video, Austin Riot, trying to find something. And nothing came up. Nothing came up like, what the hell? Soon as I put in Austin street race, Austin, Texas. Here's the here's the here's the headline from Fox News. Austin, Texas sees street racing fireworks as police. Caution against reckless behavior.

Sir Gene:

That's a

Sir Ben:

Oh, you kids? Oh, you don't do that

Sir Gene:

I know. My god. I know, I know. It's

Sir Ben:

Oh my God. And here's the video. Yeah. Here, here's the video of the street races and everything else. It's hilarious. Oh my God. That that's just

Sir Gene:

is that nuts?

Sir Ben:

It is, it is. It is in it's insanity that

Sir Gene:

Uhhuh

Sir Ben:

well, look, I'm no fan of cops, so, there, there, there's pros, there's cons and everything else, but Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. But, but it's the crazy thing is the complete lack of reaction from the cops.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. I, I mean, when lit and, you're gonna have to post this video to no agenda, social, but

Sir Gene:

yeah, yeah. I'll,

Sir Ben:

literally a firework is bounced off the hood of a, of a cop car in Austin and the cops just back away and do

Sir Gene:

Yep. I think the cop was predominantly concerned about not hitting another car as he's going 60 miles an hour in reverse.

Sir Ben:

wasn't quite that fast. But here's the other thing. From, from that video though, the crowd also would've overwhelmed the cops. We have to tell, we have to give that, I mean, there, there were only, there was only one cop car in the video we saw, and hundreds of

Sir Gene:

my car's gonna get flipped upside down and burned,

Sir Ben:

and I'm gonna get my ass absolutely kicked

Sir Gene:

I ain't making it. Yeah.

Sir Ben:

yeah,

Sir Gene:

Now, right after that video, a suggested video that I got on YouTube, I wish I would've posted this one or sent to you a link. It was hilarious. Was of a little girl and a little boy outside. Probably like six, six years old. And the little girl is driving a toy electric powered like John Deere looking thing like, kid size. It's a, it's like a foot and a half taller or

Sir Ben:

Like a side by side

Sir Gene:

but it, it looks like a little John Deere golf cart thing,

Sir Ben:

Yeah, side by side.

Sir Gene:

but kid, kid size.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

And she's driving this and the little boy is like running around in the, like, happens to stop in front of it. And the little girl just drives right over

Sir Ben:

Oh God.

Sir Gene:

I mean, literally.

Sir Ben:

Boom, boom.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And then you could see the little John Deere going, Thum as he drives over over the little boy i's like, oh my God, how, how the fuck? Because it, it's, I didn't think it would have Clarence to drive over a kid. Clearly has the power

Sir Ben:

yeah. Well, I mean the, some of those things can actually get going pretty good. My, my son's still scared of it, but one of the neighbors, when I was living in Dallas, they had a, a, a little four-wheeler that their son was getting too big for. And William was still too little for it, but, hey, do you want it? Sure. So we've got a little electric four-wheeler for him. I mean, and you put that thing in high gear, it can, it can go, it can go faster than you think. And once you've got X amount of inertia, inertia wins a lot. So,

Sir Gene:

Right. That's a good point. And, and I guess, driving over the body of a six year old isn't nearly as tall as a adult.

Sir Ben:

Exactly.

Sir Gene:

And as sure as hell as he isn't gonna have the strength to like, push it away from it even himself. Like, if you can't push the thing, at least you should be able to push yourself away. But no And so, I, I, I certainly hope the kid was fine, but it looked, I literally laughed out loud cuz it was so ridiculous.

Sir Ben:

Well,

Sir Gene:

So, and I, I thought about posting it and just tiling it. Female drivers, but you know,

Sir Ben:

Oh, Jean et jean speaks.com.

Sir Gene:

right. Yes. Yes. And this is why we're not on YouTube anyway.

Sir Ben:

Which, do we want to address that at all, or, okay.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so we're gonna have to do at least one show on the remote rig. Maybe two.

Sir Gene:

Yep.

Sir Ben:

So,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And I was thinking I might have done this in the remote cuz I was thinking of driving up last night and just doing an extra day. So I had a full day out there today, but I last minute didn't. So,

Sir Ben:

yeah. What part of DFW are you going to?

Sir Gene:

Actually Fort Worth

Sir Ben:

Four War, worthless. Sorry. E everyone gets pissed when I say that, but I'm, I'm really joking. I actually like

Sir Gene:

more than Dallas.

Sir Ben:

Exactly.

Sir Gene:

That's totally true.

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean Dallas.

Sir Gene:

In like five years since the last time I was there was for the podcast expo.

Sir Ben:

Hmm. So having lived in the Metroplex for a while, the mid cities and DFW is an interesting big town and really you have to think of Dallas Fort Worth and all these cities in between and surrounding as one big city, cuz that's what it is. It's contiguous. There is no like, break between towns. It is a mass of people. So, when people look at the size of Dallas and the size of Fort Worth, I mean that's probably less than half of the over all population of the area. Just because of all the little cities in between. And, I lived in Grapevine for several years and it's, it's a mess. But Dallas

Sir Gene:

Mine's like kind of halfway.

Sir Ben:

yeah, grapevine's basically in the center. It's right by the airport, which was great. And I was working in Irving at the time, so, n not a bad little commute. So, anyway, so D F W is a morass of people and they are very, very different cities in many ways. Dallas and Fort Worth, Dallas is very. Showy and what I would say is vapid. Whereas, Fort Worth is really, really is the kind of gateway to the hill country of Texas and the West, right? It's, it's very much more practical city versus versus Dallas

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And I would say, I mean, I, I wouldn't use the word vat cuz I lived in Dallas, but Dallas is

Sir Ben:

example, a

Sir Gene:

Fuck you, Dallas is. Fort Worth is starting to be a little more hilly. It has the Trinity River, which is interesting. Oh, speaking of somewhat connected. So I finally watched this TV show. I've had multiple people tell me to watch, which is 18 7, 18 82 I think.

Sir Ben:

Okay?

Sir Gene:

I believe that's what it's called. Or 1885, something like that. And it's a 10th parter. It has that old dude that's like the stereotypical cowboy that's the same guy that was in the big, or not the big Lapovsky. He was the same guy that was Yeah. In the big Lapovsky, the cowboy. Sam something. Sam something.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

So he is like great cowboy looking and voice and stuff. So he's in it, guy. He's gotta be pushing 80, still acting

Sir Ben:

Yeah. He, have you ever watched the

Sir Gene:

Sam Elliot. That's what, yeah. I loved him in the ranch, cuz that, like, that literally is my dad's personality right there. That's what I grew up with.

Sir Ben:

one of the things I love to on the ranch is he's out there with his girlfriend at the time and he's teaching her how to shoot. And she goes, how many guns do you have? And the answer to the question is, I find when I find people get uncomfortable when I answer that question or something like that, and Oh, how much ammo do you have? And he gives the same response. It's just hilarious.

Sir Gene:

That was a good show. I actually thought they did a, a very good job

Sir Ben:

Oh, it was a gr it, it was a, it reminded me of the nineties sitcoms in so many ways. And, but it was very well done for a modern audience.

Sir Gene:

Exactly, exactly. So, so he was in it, but it's no big budget cowboy thing, but the storyline is, it's a, a story of three, I guess, distinct groups. One is Sam Elliot and his partner who are paid guides to take people from. I guess it would be from Houston, I suppose, or Galveston up to the Portland or Oregon Trail.

Sir Ben:

Mm.

Sir Gene:

And and then the second characters in story is a, a family where the, the dads like this, he's definitely a, a protagonist cowboy type, but it's really more a story about his family and his daughter specifically. Who's I think 14 at the start, maybe 15 at the start of the thing. And then nah, she's probably 16. I guess she'd be 16. Anyway, she's she's young. And then she's 18 by the thing at the time. The, the show's over and the daughter's played by an actress who absolutely looks like a 20 year younger version of god damn. What's the actress's name of the, the Mocking J Chick? What's her name?

Sir Ben:

Mocking J

Sir Gene:

yeah. What's that? That TV or that movie? What was it called?

Sir Ben:

are, are you talking the Hunger

Sir Gene:

yeah. Hunger Games. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Sir Ben:

The fact that I got Hunger Games from Mocking

Sir Gene:

what you're supposed to get. That's, what was the, the actress's name? I'm blanking

Sir Ben:

I, I, I don't remember her name, but I'm tracking it. I'm visualizing who you're

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. So this chick looks like a 20 year younger version of her. So if you imagine Jennifer, Jennifer, something Jennifer. Anyway her as a 20 year old basically, or like even the teenager. So very similar facial features, very similar kind of smile. Very cute girl. And it's kind of her story of, coming of age and of dealing with danger and Indians and. All kinds of other things, bandits. So it, it's, it is a very well done story too. That's the other thing about it.

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean if it's about the Oregon Trail, then a lot of people should be dying.

Sir Gene:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that, okay, so I wasn't gonna give that part away, but I guess it's not really a surprise. I remember as a kid playing Organ Trail, it used to be a

Sir Ben:

you've died of dysentery, boom.

Sir Gene:

That's the one. I don't think I ever had anybody make it to Oregon ever. I was, I was like, you're in fourth grade playing this stupid game where every single person dies. Why? What's the point of this game?

Sir Ben:

To teach you that basically everybody died trying to

Sir Gene:

No. The, yeah. Exact It's exactly right. Why are they going to Oregon? It's a shit hole. Don't go there. And, and that what came up a number of times, like, why don't you stay in Texas? Why don't you stay in Colorado?

Sir Ben:

Mm. Well, first of all, Colorado and High Mesa isn't great for farming. So there's that.

Sir Gene:

Okay, sure. But you're gonna be alive.

Sir Ben:

well, but people were looking for land man.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I don't know if Oregon, well, Oregon per se, I guess, has some good land, but Jesus, the way that people were going there was very dangerous.

Sir Ben:

Yes. Not

Sir Gene:

It kind of reminds me of like, it is probably, you got probably better chances now. coming from Mexico to the us successfully than you do going to Oregon.

Sir Ben:

Absolutely.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. That's not even a contest. We, we have these things. Oh, yeah. And actually doing it on your own two feet too, we've got roads, we've got lots of, it's just not, not comparable.

Sir Gene:

The, there was a little bit of more PC stuff that I would've preferred, but it wasn't overwhelming. It was just, there's

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean, if this

Sir Gene:

good Indians.

Sir Ben:

if this is a historical drama, I mean, they can't have too much, I mean,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I mean, they, they definitely had a little bit, cuz like I said, a little too many good Indians. And then a little too many women know how to shoot guns.

Sir Ben:

Oh, women definitely would've known how to shoot guns in

Sir Gene:

Eh, I don't know if they would've,

Sir Ben:

I guarantee you they would've.

Sir Gene:

eh, we don't have any historical records of that.

Sir Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

Well, unless you can point your finger at some documentation there.

Sir Ben:

Not not at the moment,

Sir Gene:

next thing you're gonna tell me that like, Vikings were half women.

Sir Ben:

No, not at all.

Sir Gene:

Okay,

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean, back home sure. But not like on the boats. Yeah. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, because that there, that bit of revisionism, they're definitely starting to get pushed as well

Sir Ben:

Oh, yeah. In like Norseman and stuff. Like, have you ever watched Norseman, by the way?

Sir Gene:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

I really liked the the, the Vikings TV show. Was it just called Vikings? It was the, the one

Sir Ben:

There was one that was Vikings that was, fairly serious and I didn't really watch it. I watched the comical one

Sir Gene:

Yeah. The comical one was hilarious, but the comical one, I think is much better if you would've watched the serious one first, because they clearly make fun of the serious one.

Sir Ben:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sir Gene:

Like there was instances of events from the serious one that was absolutely made fun of in the, the comedy one. And the, the sort of the breakout role in the serious one was of Lagertha which, which was the wife of Ragnar, the first wife of Ragnar and the actress that played her just kind of came outta nowhere.

Sir Ben:

Ragnar is also a character in the Last Kingdom.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he is probably one of the most famous Danish vikings ever.

Sir Ben:

Okay. By the way, the Last Kingdom in those books and the story of Ure BBA or whatever is awesome.

Sir Gene:

You mean like the, the historical story or the fictional.

Sir Ben:

All, all of it. So you can start with the history, and then you can read The Last Kingdom, which is a fictionalized version of that that is absolutely phenomenal. And then you can watch the TV show, which is a decent reproduction of the books.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, I think I watched a couple episodes. The TV show didn't really get into it.

Sir Ben:

oh, well, I mean, take your, take your time a little bit because it's, it, you can, it, it's definitely worth getting into.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Well, and I, I watched it after watching the last season of Vikings and I think I was just, I was getting too much talk, not enough fight,

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Gotcha,

Sir Gene:

that kind of thing. But Vikings, I would definitely recommend the, the acting is really top-notch. The storylines are really good. The character development's really good. And you absolutely, you have no black and white characters. As soon as you think somebody's great and they're awesome and they're doing great job, then you see'em backstop somebody else, you're like, fuck There there's no characters that are perfect in there. Everybody, everybody has flaws.

Sir Ben:

Well, that's kind of real life,

Sir Gene:

Well, that's why it's so good cuz that doesn't happen typically in tv.

Sir Ben:

Right.

Sir Gene:

That's a, where movies and television are full of. perfect white characters and, absolute black characters. And, and I, I don't mean the colors of their skin, I mean the color of their hats.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

Speaking also, this is why I like the what was it? The Ballad of Buster Scrubs, the

Sir Ben:

I'm sorry, what?

Sir Gene:

ballad of Buster Scrubs. Scrubs, something like that.

Sir Ben:

I don't know what that

Sir Gene:

It, it's a segment from a Cohen movie Joel, Nathan Cohen that had like four cowboy stories in one movie that are all unrelated to each other, but they're all kind of, they're, they're all very cowboy esque, it's, it's, it's not a comedy is what I'm trying to get at. It's not a comedy, but it's a, it has dark comedic bits in it.

Sir Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

also really good acting, but one of those stories is of a singing cowboy, and it, it really kind of creates this aura of a a Roy Rogers type

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

dude. And he's, he wears all pure white and he's got a white horse and, and he sings and and then, and he turns out he is a criminal.

Sir Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

So, and he, he is like the fastest young slinger in the west. He's a singing cowboy. But you have a lot of, a lot of that kind of trick shot stuff going on. All the stories in, in these four stories in, in the book, they're all, they're, they're all kind of depressing or how do I phrase it? They're the good guys Don't win

Sir Ben:

Not

Sir Gene:

the way I would phrase it.

Sir Ben:

not always.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and these stories never, and it's, it really is reminiscent of the style of O Brother

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

or, what was that movie called? O

Sir Ben:

Oh, brother. Where art though?

Sir Gene:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Same exact kinda style, but like another probably 50 years in the past. So instead of the 1930s, it's in the 1880s kinda.

Sir Ben:

Gotcha.

Sir Gene:

So, I don't know. I just I hadn't seen that actually in, in the Wild, but I remember that that had those fun, fun segments of the singing Cowboy in there.

Sir Ben:

The singing cowboy. That's really a bad guy.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Well, I mean, but I think a lot of'em.

Sir Ben:

Well, I, first of all, I don't think there were very many singing cowboys out there.

Sir Gene:

Hmm

Sir Ben:

Not in the, Roy Rogers since, but anyway,

Sir Gene:

how about Trigger?

Sir Ben:

wasn't that the horse?

Sir Gene:

Yeah, that's the

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Do people still know that? Or am I so old? I'm the only one.

Sir Ben:

I, I just knew it

Sir Gene:

Well, you did know it, but you're kinda, you're from out those parts out west.

Sir Ben:

You mean Texas?

Sir Gene:

No. Montana

Sir Ben:

No, I've ne I've never lived in Montana. I did live in Idaho for a

Sir Gene:

Yeah. You know what I mean? You're like cowboy country.

Sir Ben:

I think Texas is more cowboy country than Idaho, but, okay.

Sir Gene:

Mm. I dunno if that's true right now.

Sir Ben:

It depends on what part I need to introduce you to. A buddy of mine, he he especially with the Houston Rodeo coming up and everything, he's very big into the vaqueros and everything else. And the, there's a, there, there's a whole cowboy subculture still in Texas, I would

Sir Gene:

Well then this, this is one of the distinctions that I remember when I lived in Dallas, is that in Dallas, the only cowboy hats you see are on 20 something women that are trolling for husbands. In Fort Worth. You see guys driving trucks wearing cowboy.

Sir Ben:

Uhhuh Well, I mean, I don't really wear a cowboy hat very often just because I don't wear hats very often. But I live and die in my boots, man. I, I wear'em every day.

Sir Gene:

I know it's a short people thing. So everybody wants the x extra inch,

Sir Ben:

yeah, that's not why, but,

Sir Gene:

Okay. All right.

Sir Ben:

Anyway.

Sir Gene:

I wore cowboy boots at various points in my life. Like, I think probably my last year of high school, I mostly wore cowboy boots.

Sir Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And then at some point in my twenties I did, I don't know. Hey, kind come and go. It's like there's, there's pros, but there's also some cons.

Sir Ben:

yeah. So getting onto a more serious topic, did you see where Brazil's President DeSilva has said that mothers who refuse to get their children vaccinated will not receive child support and aid?

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. I, and it's gotta be some kind of, payola kind of thing from Pfizer, I would think.

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean, he's w e f, he's very much woke. So I, I mean, it may not even need to be actual cash payment. It may just be doing what the club wants him to do.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I don't know. But I mean, what, what that is is reducing the population of your country. Now, what, what is the goal of reducing the population of Brazil? They do they feel like they have too many people

Sir Ben:

I don't know. Good question.

Sir Gene:

because then there's no other reason to mandate it. Well, I guess there's two reasons. One is you're getting paid by Pfizer to turn it into a, a force thing, or it's not just Pfizer, I mean whoever's providing it that particular vaccine,

Sir Ben:

Yep.

Sir Gene:

Which is likely Pfizer. But the other one is if you wanna reduce your population

Sir Ben:

well, the, the other thing you have to consider is that this is easily, if they, if this is successful in Brazil and there's not, a revolt over it, which we'll see. I mean, there are a lot of poor people in Brazil and I think people are rapidly waking up to the clot shot as

Sir Gene:

it was also a very contested election.

Sir Ben:

a very contested election. They've had some interesting reactions to the election already. So it's, it's gonna be interesting to see exactly what happens here. But I think if this goes the way that the globalists want it to, then you'll see this get picked up in other countries and that, that's my fear, especially when you have the C D C already and recommending the c, d and f d already recommending the covid vaccines for children as young as six months old,

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

six months old

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

for something. We have essentially no real safety data on.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Honestly, I, I'm kind of with candid Owens on this.

Sir Ben:

And her stance

Sir Gene:

at all unless there's a reason for it.

Sir Ben:

Well, I, I mean, so I, that's, that's the way I am as well. I am very risk based on

Sir Gene:

travel to Africa, you get something from malaria. If you're not traveling to Africa, you don't need a vaccine from fucking malaria.

Sir Ben:

well, for instance, a perfect example. And this is one that the kids' doctors agree with me on. And, we've, we had to find and I think I've talked about it before, we had to find a doctor that would allow us to do an altered vaccine schedule. And that was not a trivial thing. So, if you're gonna go down that route, be prepared for it. But I, I sat down with the, the kids' pediatrician and I said, look, here's the vaccine schedule I wanna do. Here's how I wanna do it, and why I wanna stay away from as many adjuvants as possible. I wanna be very particular about the vaccines we do. I want to do as few combination shots as possible. I want every shot spaced out at least two weeks. So if there is a reaction, we can see it. And, and we went through and one of the vaccines I left off was polio. And she asked me, why, I'm leaving off the polio vaccine. It's been around for a long time and pretty safe. And I said, yeah, I, I actually polio. The polio vaccine is not a vaccine I'm particularly worried about from a safety standpoint. But I said, the last case of polio transmit in the United States was in the 19 seven.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

So, as I said, if we go to go to India or somewhere where polio is more prevalent than Sure, I'll get the polio vaccine at that point. But

Sir Gene:

you don't have one

Sir Ben:

No,

Sir Gene:

really? When did they stop doing'em for or your parents didn't want you to get it?

Sir Ben:

my, so I had the one round of shots and apparently I had a reaction and my mom said, Nope, no more. So, yeah,

Sir Gene:

Well that's interesting to know cuz that also could mean that you're more primed to actually get the polio.

Sir Ben:

no, no, no. I it wasn't a polio vaccine that I

Sir Gene:

Oh, some other vaccine.

Sir Ben:

Yeah,

Sir Gene:

Yeah, cuz I, I had, all the standard vaccines and shit back that they were doing when, when I was a kid, which probably was like five, six, now it's what, 40?

Sir Ben:

I mean, it, it has grown tremendously depending on how you count it. Before the age of, I think it's six, they're up to 80 different vaccinations now. A lot of pe that's counting the combo shots. So, and people are double counting the dosage and everything else. So it, it all depends on how you count it. I'm, I'm, I'm not too worried about that because I'm, like I said, I'm, we're following an altered

Sir Gene:

H P V for boys.

Sir Ben:

Well, e e, even hpv, HPV for girls and young girls at that. So even if you believe in the HPV vaccine and the whole idea that HPV V causes cervical cancer, which by the way, there is nothing but correlative studies, which correlation does not equal causation, right? So it's like people who died of a gunshot wound, who had covid died of covid. There's a correlation there. It's not necessarily causation. Now, people, do your own medical research or whatever.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Although I will, I will say that I do believe that a lot of, as time goes on, we're gonna find that more and more cancers are actually cause by viruses.

Sir Ben:

yeah, I 100% agree with that. And I'm not saying that HPV doesn't cause cervical cancer and other cancers. It absolutely could. What I will say is that fucking Rick Perry governor, good hair, the only reason why that vaccine is approved, declared a state of emergency, which allowed it to do the exact same fucking thing that the Covid vaccine did, and that skipped safety trials. And here's the thing, we again, still have no real safety data on on, on that vaccine.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

We will see what the long-term effects are in another 10 years. That's scary, number one. But number two, we're giving it to children at an age where the efficacy of it is minor, right? So we're giving it to them when they're least likely to be exposed. And by the time that they're more likely to be active, the efficacy of that vaccine is potentially not there. Here's another thing people need to understand about vaccines. When they say a vaccine is effective, that means it's effective in producing antibodies. They do, they do not do a study that shows efficacy to unvaccinated people versus vaccinated people as far as contracting the disease or long-term effects because it's quote unquote, considered unethical to douce said study because you're denying someone the possibility of treatment.

Sir Gene:

Yep.

Sir Ben:

So, yeah. Anyway, the, the vaccine topic is

Sir Gene:

Well, they could do

Sir Ben:

go off on. Yeah,

Sir Gene:

I mean, ethics aren't really a thing

Sir Ben:

no, I mean,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. As and like a lot of people on the internet I saw on Twitter the video of a Chinese restaurant that has a dish that is a live fish

Sir Ben:

mm.

Sir Gene:

that is I guess it's fried, but so like the, they figured out a way to keep the fish alive while they, while they fry it. So the head's still moving when they serve it to you.

Sir Ben:

That's n

Sir Gene:

I don't see that as appetizing.

Sir Ben:

I, I, I don't either. Like, I, I don't want to eat something

Sir Gene:

I do want to eat something immediately after death. Like there's like eating Yeah. Like butchering a deer and, and eating the tenderloin right off the carcass is really good.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

I don't want to eat a live deer You know what I mean? It's just like there, and this is where I think the kosher and halal practices make the most sense. You wanna kill the animal with the least amount of adrenaline in its blood, which means a very quick death that it's not expecting.

Sir Ben:

correct.

Sir Gene:

They're doing the opposite direction. They want the animal to be in the most pain possible when they eat it. I was like, what the fuck, man? It's adrenaline is bitter. It does not taste good.

Sir Ben:

Well, you also have to understand the, the Chinese there for a long time and well and still people are catching, wild boars and things here in Texas, which, I will not eat a boar that is over 50 pounds. Like I, I will leave that sucker to lie cuz they are nasty.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

So, but you know, you can sell them to China all day long cuz they want that gamey gamey taste. Apparently

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And I, I, people theorize that it comes from the fact that there, there's always been very little food. So people are used to eating all kinds of weird shit, and that's become part of the national food culture. But but stuff like this is just, I don't know, it's just, it's, it's bizarre. There's all kinds of dishes, like they have drunk shrimp. which is, basically live shrimp that the, instead of water, you put'em in alcohol and then serve'em, and then you eat'em while they're still jiggling around.

Sir Ben:

But why

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Why? That's exactly right. I was like, what? I, I don't understand that. I, I remember in Hitchhiker's Guide and one of the other books actually I think it's a restaurant in the universe, the

Sir Ben:

hilarious book series by the

Sir Gene:

yeah, yeah. Oh, it's awesome.

Sir Ben:

Always take your towel with.

Sir Gene:

always, always the, the, I hate to call it a cow, but basically an intelligent cow that is also your waiter that is taking your order for which parts of itself you would like to eat, I thought was hilarious. And I have no problem with that if it's a consensual thing. Right. But the idea of, of wanting to eat something while it's alive is just bizarre to me. And, and it's something I've kind of teased vegetarians with as well.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

least I kill my food,

Sir Ben:

Well, and you know what I would say to the vegetarian people out there is cow is literally plant-based meat.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is. Absolutely.

Sir Ben:

Speaking of China and weird stuff going

Sir Gene:

mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

we've shut down a few balloons,

Sir Gene:

Yes, we have.

Sir Ben:

including apparently a ham, raspberry pie. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, it was,

Sir Ben:

balloon.

Sir Gene:

yeah. Yeah. It's so that came up last week.

Sir Ben:

Well, not the raspberry pie one. That, that one happened in between.

Sir Gene:

no, I mean, it, it didn't, the balloon didn't go up. The story came up and yeah, it, it, it seems like they have the, the GPS data literally to the point up until it was destroyed.

Sir Ben:

Yeah, so it, it's funny because what what has happened is, this one China Chinese balloon that is verified, Chinese flew over and ra our radar systems are apparently tuned to, not look for

Sir Gene:

which is planes and not balloons? Yeah.

Sir Ben:

So because of this, apparently they've decided, oh, we need to look for, yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

So they go through and they do this, and now all of a sudden, holy shit, there's balloons everywhere,

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

And it's just hilarious that one of the, one of the ones they shot the fuck down was apparently a amateur ham balloon

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And, and they're, they're thinking the other two were weather balloon.

Sir Ben:

Right. So, let's dispatch the multi-billion dollar plane with the multi-million dollar missile

Sir Gene:

did announce the cost. So each of those balloons was 2.1 million to shoot down.

Sir Ben:

Now that's just for the ordinance. That's not considering the flight time of the F 35

Sir Gene:

Yeah. The F 35 is not

Sir Ben:

our F 22, whichever one it was. But

Sir Gene:

one they were playing, it's, yeah, it's probably F two and twos. Yeah, it's not it's not cheap. The, the funny, I saw a funny comic on that little, little one frame thing that basically, I guess it's a meme, that's what it is, right? So a one frame comic is basically a meme, that's all it is.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. It's just a drawn meme. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

And it was

Sir Ben:

The one with Biden in the plane.

Sir Gene:

no, it was the picture of a two people. So, and the, and the picture of a U f O and two people. And, and the, the idea is 1970 the normal person looks at the U F O and, and says, wow, it's probably a weather balloon. And the conspiracy person that's a conspiracy now is like, ah, it's aliens. And then 2023, same picture, same, same people, normal person. It's aliens and the conspiracy knots think, nah, it's probably a weather balloon.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Like things have just flipped around to where people assume it's probably aliens and the conspiracy knots are saying, nah, it's not aliens.

Sir Ben:

Well, the, yeah. Jesus. That that's the thing is in this, the, the d o d and everyone's like, well, we can't, we we're not gonna say that. It's not aliens and so on Mother, come on. People immediately are, oh, they're, they're not they're not they're not dispelling it, so it might be, Jesus Christ.

Sir Gene:

aliens. You never know.

Sir Ben:

Well, I, I think some people are too eager to get probed

Sir Gene:

That's a good point. Very eager for the aliens to come down. That was still one of my two day favorite episodes of South Park. It was in the first season

Sir Ben:

Oh,

Sir Gene:

where Carman

Sir Ben:

car. That, that's the very first episode, dude.

Sir Gene:

Oh, is it really the first, I thought it was just in the first season.

Sir Ben:

Well, so there's the, there's the original, very, very, very first episode of South Park that was sent around via and sent around via VHS tape to colleges and copied and copied and copied. And then there's, yeah. But yeah, and Kurtman ends up with a big satellite dish out as rear is hilarious. My people don't appreciate South Park for the fucking genius that it is in so many

Sir Gene:

plenty of us do, but you know, I, south Park is, is absolutely the definitive Gen X show. It has always

Sir Ben:

would say it's also very much a millennial show, man. I mean, it was, it was very popular when I, it, it came out when I was in college, so

Sir Gene:

No it didn't. It it came out right after I was in college. It, it came out in the early nineties.

Sir Ben:

No, it didn't,

Sir Gene:

Yeah, it did.

Sir Ben:

no, it didn't.

Sir Gene:

Let's look it up. South

Sir Ben:

Ah,

Sir Gene:

No, cuz I remember watching this thing. Let's see, where's the history of it? There we go. Yeah, 97. I got mid nineties. Fine. You were not in college in 97, my friend.

Sir Ben:

Okay,

Sir Gene:

Even with your 16 year old freshman

Sir Ben:

hold on. Hold

Sir Gene:

you were still not in college.

Sir Ben:

Original release, 97. You are right. All right. So fine. It could became popular,

Sir Gene:

But the point is Trey

Sir Ben:

Which by the way, I am right that the first episode was Carman gets an anal probe.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that's, that's, I I didn't think that was the first one, but yeah, that makes sense. I know it was the first season but Trey and Matt are literally my.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

I mean, it's like their humor was my humor that that's same shit, same time. And

Sir Ben:

just saying it appeals to plenty of millennials and the

Sir Gene:

oh yeah. Yeah. No, it has certainly a broader appeal, but if you look at it and the changes in the humor of South Park and the changes in what topics they're covering, I think that absolutely paralleled the Well, and you're kind of a, you're, you're a millennial, but you're kind of a weirdo cuz you, you kind of grew up more like a Gen Xer, like you were actually outdoors. No, this is a compliment. I'm, I'm complimenting you because most of your compatriots of your generation did not grow up the way you did.

Sir Ben:

I'm also an elder millennial raised by boomers, so

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah.

Sir Ben:

old boomers, so

Sir Gene:

Well, but age aside though, I think it, like you have very different sensibilities, which is why you and I get like, get along really well is because you're you have more of the Gen X type mentality then most millennials that I interact with

Sir Ben:

yeah.

Sir Gene:

trying to compliment you again. So

Sir Ben:

Well, thank you.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm. Yes. Your whole generation sucks. Mine's great. So you know,

Sir Ben:

My generation will save us all.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Good luck on that. The, the Zoomers, I think are, are trying to commit suicide as we speak

Sir Ben:

yeah. The Zoomers are definitely

Sir Gene:

between socialism and apathy It's just like, I think they're just ready to just give up, completely be done with it. Not, not exist anymore. It's the, the most depressed generation.

Sir Ben:

Well, it's the most medicated

Sir Gene:

It is definitely the most medicated and there's a lot of lessons to be learned about the west and how it, it went in the wrong direction.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. And what not to do,

Sir Gene:

yeah. Yeah. And how the while spending an awful lot of time pointing out the the totalitarianism of China and Russia, the actions of the West, if you look at'em on a progression rather than the exact point where they are, is skewing to where literally within a decade, China will look like it's freer than the West.

Sir Ben:

If China exists in a decade?

Sir Gene:

I don't think China's going anywhere unless there's a nuclear explosion that happens.

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean, China's gonna have very few people in it by that

Sir Gene:

Oh my God, yes. It'll have very few people, just 10 times as much as the United.

Sir Ben:

oh, okay. I, I would say three times as much as the United States.

Sir Gene:

Oh, because you think they're all gonna come here?

Sir Ben:

No, I, I, I think that China is gonna be below a billion in the next decade.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. They one and a half billion right now, so they'd have to lose a third of their population to do that.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Look at the age and the demographics. I think certainly possible, and you gotta remember, we've got this great reset thing coming where, we are doing everything we can to destroy as much farmland and everything that we, we're, we're trying to kill off as many people as

Sir Gene:

Well, we are for sure. Yeah.

Sir Ben:

mean, look at what they just did in Ohio.

Sir Gene:

But, but again, this is where I think it's sort of invalidates what you're saying because you're assuming the, the United States stays constant or grows while China shrinks. I think if China shrinks, we're gonna have a lot of shrinkage in the us. Not for the same reason, not because there's a lot more males, but because no one's having kids.

Sir Ben:

well, it's not just, it's not just that. So Kit, the US still has a replacement birth rate. Even with millennials and my generation, we still have a replacement birth rate. So there's that. Whereas China is far below replacement. The other thing I would say is with this great reset, I would, I think that the elders, and, Really people my age and up are the targets of we want to get rid of you and just have the young productive people, the old people can go away. So there's that, and there's a lot more old people in China than there are in the us. So we'll see. But did you track what happened in Ohio with the train derailment?

Sir Gene:

Oh yeah. Yeah. We actually, well, I, I, I would be bragging if I said we broke that story, but we kind of did actually talked about it on the livestream on grift cast the day it happened

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

and nobody was talking about it. In fact, had to go and look over the next couple days if it was real, because there was zero coverage

Sir Ben:

Well,

Sir Gene:

it wasn't until like the third day that there started being more coverage coming out.

Sir Ben:

well, so there, there definitely has been a, what I would call a suppression of the story to a large degree in the mainstream news media. And they're not really talking about, Hey, why the hell did they, he allowed this to rupture and try and catch it in this ditch that they had dug, and then decided to light it the fuck on

Sir Gene:

yeah. Just burn the whole thing off so that there's pollution spreading everywhere.

Sir Ben:

Exactly. I mean, you've got fallout going everywhere and here, here, here's the thing, they should have set up temporary containment around it. And if the, if the tanks were gonna rupture anyway, then whatever. But they could have fought this and done this in a very different way. We've seen oil spills and hazardous material spills before we've seen it handled what I would say is the right way.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

And this chair as hell almost seems deliberate and it's going to affect a huge portion of Ohio and the Ohio River Basin that this is not a good thing. There's a lot of farmland in there that's going to be con, potentially con contaminated.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. No, that's true. And did you see the video of the tracks in Ohio?

Sir Ben:

No. What do you mean the video of the

Sir Gene:

you have to watch it. It's worse than the tracks in India.

Sir Ben:

What are you meaning by tracks.

Sir Gene:

train tracks.

Sir Ben:

Okay. What

Sir Gene:

Completely, horribly maintained.

Sir Ben:

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Wiggly squiggly.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. The, the big problem with this particular train derailment though, was that they, they didn't have the train loaded, right, right. As the current root cause analysis that they had heavy cars at the rear and lighter cars at the front and, they were not they were not appropriately

Sir Gene:

him off,

Sir Ben:

Yeah. And, and here's the thing, in, in the train industry, you have you, you have, I saw it at the conference to, do a callback. There were a lot of gray hairs, a lot of gray heads at, at the conference. Not a lot of, not a lot of young people. And you have these, what I would say, hyper-specialized, skilled positions, whether that's industrial, cybersecurity or railroad that you have the boomers retiring out of, and you do not have a replacement cadre in place. So you, I fully expect to see more shit like this go wrong because you're losing a ton of tribal knowledge.

Sir Gene:

we got about a thousand trail drains a year happening right now.

Sir Ben:

Right. Which,

Sir Gene:

gonna go up.

Sir Ben:

which by the way, who the fuck knew we had that many trained derailments a year?

Sir Gene:

It's a stat I looked up a few years ago.

Sir Ben:

So, fyi, gene's a foamer. We just learned this.

Sir Gene:

Uhhuh? Yes. Because I'm curious. That makes me a foamer.

Sir Ben:

It's, it's okay.

Sir Gene:

play train simulator, so I guess I do know how to

Sir Ben:

If you play a train simulator, you are 100% a foamer,

Sir Gene:

Yeah, and I don't know where my model train set is right now, but I do have one.

Sir Ben:

Oh, it's okay. Gene. You're right there with my son. He loves trains too.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Well, who doesn't love trains? I actually have, I got my first train set when I was a little kid and I still remember the smell. It's a very distinct

Sir Ben:

was it one of those that if you put the oil in the thing, it would puff the smoke.

Sir Gene:

No,

Sir Ben:

Oh, I had one like that

Sir Gene:

Did you? No, it was the smell of the plastic itself. It, it was a skunk smell, smells just like skunk. And, and I thought this like, maybe my memory's just bad. Right? And I looked this up one time and it turns out the plastic that was used in Germany during the 1970s absolutely smelled like skunk cuz the components that were in it. So that was the smell that I remember from, it was a German train set.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. So mer captains is what causes the skunk

Sir Gene:

Oh, really? Yeah. There we

Sir Ben:

Yeah. And in some, in some plastic manufacturing, you generate a lot of mercaptans. Usually, usually that goes away towards the end of the refinement process. But the, the more carbons on the me capin chain, the stinkier it is, and some of those are multiple times that of a skunk.

Sir Gene:

So the, the side effect of that is that I don't mind the skunk smell. Like when everyone's like, oh, it smells like sun. I'm like, oh, smells like childhood man.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. So real quick thing before we get too far from the Ohio story. There's, there's a lot of, the EPA isn't stepping in the, they're basically deferring to the state, which I, that's fine. But basically the, the o Biden administration is, showing its impetus, right? It's, it's not, it's impotence impotence. It's not doing what it should do.

Sir Gene:

it, it's the fact that Biden announced that the United States will now be paying the salaries and the retirements of Ukrainian government official now and perpetuity while this is happening just demonstrates how little Americans give a shit about their own country.

Sir Ben:

Well, and you have you have the e EPA sending a letter saying, Hey, we're gonna hold Northrop, Southern, Southern responsible for this.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

You have local officials saying, if you live in this area, go to the doctor and, document your health because, you

Sir Gene:

yeah. Lawsuits.

Sir Ben:

yes. You have the potential for hydrochloric acid to form and cause acid rain in the area, you and a lot of this will go away.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I think that's the least dangerous of the chemicals.

Sir Ben:

But the, the point is, this should be handled in a much better way. They should have evacuated a much larger swath of the area than they did. And quite frankly, I don't know whose bright idea it was to light the shit on fire, but good god,

Sir Gene:

That's insane.

Sir Ben:

it is. And I mean, it literally looked like a mushroom cloud the way it formed.

Sir Gene:

yeah.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Absolutely. And, and as that mushroom cloud dissipated, you had those very distinct bumpy clouds that just,

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

they just look like they're right out of alien movies,

Sir Ben:

I mean, this is being called the worst ecological disaster in the US history. Some people have compared it to Trenoble the way it is,

Sir Gene:

I think that's a little overboard,

Sir Ben:

well, no, the comparison is in that the government's response is totally insufficient. They're telling everyone it's not that big of a deal, da da da, da, da. When it is an environmental disaster. Now, I will say this, trenoble isn't as bad as everybody thought it was.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No,

Sir Ben:

Right? So that people still live in the exclusion zone,

Sir Gene:

I think you're right. It probably is handled about as poorly and, and they tried to sweep it on their rug just as much.

Sir Ben:

Yes. And, and that, that, I think that that is a valid comparison, but I also think that people need to chill out

Sir Gene:

far as I know, nobody's died from.

Sir Ben:

No. But a lot of chickens and foxes and wildlife have, people's dogs are dropping dead.

Sir Gene:

But intra noble, we had quite a few human deaths as well.

Sir Ben:

Yes. And we'll see, this is chemical exposure, not radiation. So, but really the only people who really died immediately and really had cancer at Trenoble were the first responders that, inhaled and got a lot of, lot of particulate dust. And then the, the human robots that were sent in to turn turn off some of the water supply, tho those people died horrible, horrible deaths. But they also, they were receiving quite literally, rads of radiation. Not even like Millie Seavers, right. We're talking a mu a much, much larger increment of radiation. So yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I mean, they, they literally were burning their DNA n a

Sir Ben:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, the, p anyone who was exposed to the elephant's foot was dead. I mean, if you had no shielding from that, you're just dead.

Sir Gene:

Although I watched these videos of the early nuclear program in the United States,

Sir Ben:

Hmm.

Sir Gene:

and I'm sure you've seen these black and white videos of dudes in rolled up shirts, smoking cigarettes while holding uranium.

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean, it depends on the refinement. I mean, I've, I've held uranium.

Sir Gene:

Really,

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Yeah. So it, it, it totally depends on the refinement. So it, it time, distance, and shielding? No, no, no, no, no. So a refined uranium core here at a and m there, there are little reactors that were designed in

Sir Gene:

So what's your superpower?

Sir Ben:

Good god, Jane anyway, time, distance, and shielding. And, it's all about refinement. A not so refined piece of uranium. It'll set up a Geiger counter and it'll produce a few milli seavers and whatever. You get exposed to radi. How many x-rays have you taken? I mean, you've spent how many hours in the air? I mean, you get more radiation flying, pilots are exposed to a shit to more radiation than the

Sir Gene:

I had a, a, a full body cat scan here this year.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. So, y r radiation is

Sir Gene:

I still wouldn't want to be holding uranium though.

Sir Ben:

Anyway. So, yeah. By the way on your trip to Dallas, have you ever since you're a foamer and all if you ought to get over to Grapevine and ride the train.

Sir Gene:

I've been to Grapevine and I've ridden the train.

Sir Ben:

Okay, there you go.

Sir Gene:

Not a foamer.

Sir Ben:

Totally. A Foamer.

Sir Gene:

Not at all.

Sir Ben:

I lived in Grapevine and I haven't ridden the train dude.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Well, yeah. It's actually a cute little area there in Grapevine,

Sir Ben:

Yeah, I, I was where I, where I lived was in walking distance of downtown Grapevine and downtown Grapevine's a pretty neat little spot. It

Sir Gene:

What I haven't done that a lot of people have done is taken the train from Austin to Fort Worth.

Sir Ben:

I didn't know that was a thing.

Sir Gene:

That's the thing.

Sir Ben:

Amtrak, I guess.

Sir Gene:

Yep.

Sir Ben:

Well, yeah, if the, if they ever get their druthers and the high speed rail gets built,

Sir Gene:

I think we got more, more odds of a tunnel being drilled.

Sir Ben:

I don't know, man. They're following the north south utility corridor, so they've got literally the right of way for basically three corridors of it already, built in

Sir Gene:

Between what? Houston Dallas's?

Sir Ben:

Yep. Houston and Dallas. And the only stop in between would be College Station.

Sir Gene:

No. Well, that'd be good for you.

Sir Ben:

Oh my God. College Station. Well, it'd be good for me in

Sir Gene:

it would, it would suck for you as well. It would turn into a suburb.

Sir Ben:

Of Dallas and

Sir Gene:

of Dallas and Houston both.

Sir Ben:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that if, if, if that's ever getting built, I'm gonna wait for my property value to go up a little bit, and then I'm gonna get the hell out.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. You may wanna get the hell out of there first. Keep the house, even if it's just rented out, and then sell it once the property values are up.

Sir Ben:

Yep.

Sir Gene:

Yep. What else is happening? We talked about the balloons, we talked about the train.

Sir Ben:

Wants your forgiveness,

Sir Gene:

yes. C SB wants my forgiveness. We'll make

Sir Ben:

I'm the middle man for this

Sir Gene:

Yeah, I know. So somehow you became the middle man. Yeah. Well, like I said, we'll make it happen. It's just well, it's a little bit more time, but

Sir Ben:

yeah, you said the year anniversary of the banning, but he didn't know when that was.

Sir Gene:

Yes. And I thought that was hilarious.

Sir Ben:

well, do you want to tell him when it was

Sir Gene:

Oh he'll, he'll find out when he gets unmanned.

Sir Ben:

All right. All

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm. I know when it is,

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

but apparently he didn't.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. So you had Adam

Sir Gene:

He's not the only guy I banded either. He's just the only one that's asked to

Sir Ben:

He's the only one who cares.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. It was probably the fact that we wished him well for his shoulder.

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean, I didn't, apparently he is healing well, so that's a good thing.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. No, that's good. Well that, and then of course the whole Ukraine thing is getting closer to being done.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. It really seems like that's gonna wrap up. The Republicans are really pushing on, Hey, where the hell is this money going?

Sir Gene:

That's where it's going.

Sir Ben:

right. And I, I think that now they want to wrap it up and get to where they can do the whole rebuilding thing and get

Sir Gene:

And I don't understand, how does there, there seems like there's so much of the distribution of money happened by executive order. That's the part I don't understand. Isn't it Congress that gets to decide where money is spent?

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Well, it sure doesn't seem like that was happening.

Sir Ben:

Oh, but the Democrats freaked out about Trump using an executive order to move budget money around for defense. Mind you, defense to build a wall.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Saying that that wasn't allocated Well, it was allocated for defense and the wall is a defensive structure, so I think that's a lot better off than executive order to send to another country. Right. And in largely a lot of what Biden is doing in military aid is coming out of the defense budgets, and they're making literally a similar argument to what they ified Trump for doing.

Sir Gene:

A good thing because what they're, what It's not like

Sir Ben:

a horrible precedent to be said, and I was against it when Trump did it, because Congress has the power of the purse. Congress dictates the budget and the President, it's like the line item veto the line item. Veto is a horrible fucking idea. If you wanna veto something, veto it. You cannot go through and change lines to change the law and then implement it in the way you see fit. That is not constitutional yet. Bush was the ma bu baby Bush was the main user of the line. Item Veto. And you know him, the Bushes, man. The Bushes are, please read Bush. Family

Sir Gene:

starting to boil over

Sir Ben:

I I'm, I, I don't wanna get the Secret Service called now the Read Bush Family of Secrets. And look at, to me, the two worst totalitarian presidents in this nation's history is Abraham Lincoln and Bush Junior. And the reason why, and what I will cite is the military the Military Commissions Act p, act one and two. And, really what happened in Gitmo, I, I, it, that's just not okay.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm. Well, and I think Gitmo side, the growth of the the spy apparatus on their bush was tremendous.

Sir Ben:

that was part of patriarch one and two. That's where we got the tsa. That's where, which by the way, the Miami tsa,

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

I, I fly a good amount, right? And the liquids rule is not evenly enforced. Right. And I've never, never had to give up anything at TSA until Friday.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. What'd they make you drop off?

Sir Ben:

So the rule is by the container's printed volume, not what's in it. So they made me drop off my hair gel, which was 0.2 ounces over, and my body spray cologne that was

Sir Gene:

Oh,

Sir Ben:

0.4 ounces over.

Sir Gene:

it's all your chick products. Okay.

Sir Ben:

And well, whatever. I don't care. I'll reorder more. It's not that big of a deal, but it just pissed me off. But here's the fucked up thing. They let me keep my toothpaste, which is also oversized. They didn't say a word about that. So it's just this security theater bullshit, selective enforcement. And the reason why they did it was I did the little no agenda trick on, going through the metal detector. And for the first time ever, when they swiped my hands, it came back as a positive.

Sir Gene:

Of course it did. Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

that's why they did the extra search of the bag and threw stuff away. But here's the thing, I'm not wearing anything different. I'm not doing anything different. I haven't touched anything different. That was a bullshit random alarm.

Sir Gene:

Did you take an Uber?

Sir Ben:

I did.

Sir Gene:

Yep. There you go. You touched the inside of somebody else's car.

Sir Ben:

Okay. Maybe. But anyway, next time I'll go to the bathroom and wash

Sir Gene:

Yeah, exactly. And that's, that's a good tip for everybody is if you are going through tsa, just stop and wash your hands first.

Sir Ben:

it, it wasn't just me that they were pulling out, they were doing lots of stuff and it, the, there are good airports in this country that

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

have shit together and down, and then there airports that are not so

Sir Gene:

really depends. And I remember, I remember going back when I used to go to a Nevada for gun training all the time. I go like a couple times a month. I used to be flying back right after shooting in full camos with guaranteed.

Sir Ben:

I, yep.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, absolutely. And there were so many people flying through that, like they had a very fast, efficient process for even if your hands come through as being as, as showing Yeah. It's showing nitrates basically.

Sir Ben:

Well, anyway, it, it's gonna be interesting. So I, I've got some refillable travel bottles coming for my European trip because I don't want similar things happening when

Sir Gene:

all I do is I, I just take all the crap from the hotels and this only use that when I travel, so I always bringing some with me, but.

Sir Ben:

well, I, I use the hotel shampoo and stuff like that too, but I, I still want my toothpaste and my, certain, certain items that, you know, fi like for instance, finding a fluoride free toothpaste and a travel size is not trivial.

Sir Gene:

Oh, you get fluoride free?

Sir Ben:

absolutely.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Well, if you're not drinking it, I don't

Sir Ben:

But you are, do you drink tea? Right.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

Okay. Look at the amount of fluoride that is in tea,

Sir Gene:

Why'd you have fluoride at all? In tea.

Sir Ben:

because it's in the plants, because the plants have absorbed it and Yeah. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Oh, I've never looked into that.

Sir Ben:

Oh, it's huge. And, and I mean, it's, it's, it's not even about the water supply that

Sir Gene:

Well, why would there be fluoride in the, in the ground then?

Sir Ben:

Because we've put it in our water supply and we've, it's like, why is there birth control in the water

Sir Gene:

Well, the tea doesn't grow here. It grows in Africa.

Sir Ben:

It's all over the world, man. L, look at that. There's a huge concentration and a lot of tea has grown here for us consumption, by the way,

Sir Gene:

Okay. Where did, I've never seen a big tea plantation anywhere. Where the hell is there A tea grow in the us.

Sir Ben:

let me Google this for you.

Sir Gene:

Okay. Are you, have you, do you know this or are you just. I don't think we have climates that are conducive to growing tea.

Sir Ben:

Tea plantations in Florida.

Sir Gene:

Okay.

Sir Ben:

Anyway. There are some, yeah, so, there are some tea plantations in Florida.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

I don't see any other states listed though.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, it's cuz our climate's not correct for tea.

Sir Ben:

I, yeah, I, again all right t fluoride, fluoride and t send you Fluoride and tea, black, green and white white, herbal and more. In fact, tea has two or three to six times the amount of fluoride when compared to tap water.

Sir Gene:

Huh.

Sir Ben:

So

Sir Gene:

And where's that from?

Sir Ben:

The truth about fluoride.com,

Sir Gene:

that's a, it's clearly a site run by people that are

Sir Ben:

anti fluoride

Sir Gene:

fluoride. Exactly.

Sir Ben:

There, there's

Sir Gene:

can't trust Zts on either side. Dude. That's the thing. It's you get into the flat

Sir Ben:

just what it, it just, what came up, man, there, I've seen

Sir Gene:

I

Sir Ben:

articles about it. So anyway,

Sir Gene:

I'm, I'm not a fan of fluoride, but also I think that if you don't drink any tamp water, which I don't,

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm. well, I filter my tap

Sir Gene:

I'm okay with, I just drink distilled water, only distilled water tea. But then I'm okay using fluoride in my, which is the only place it actually might have a benefit.

Sir Ben:

But I don't see any benefit. I, I, I mean,

Sir Gene:

Well, shall I direct you to a dental website and tell you all about the benefits of fluoride and

Sir Ben:

I, I mean, you can, and I can look at Appalachia where they've introduced fluoride in the water and toothpaste and dental health has not increased.

Sir Gene:

Cuz of meth. That's a different

Sir Ben:

that's bullshit. So there's

Sir Gene:

Bullshit. They do meth there, okay.

Sir Ben:

No, no, no. There's, there's a whole thing though. This entire theory that fluoride replaces calcium by bonding with the enamel on your teeth. I, I just, I don't buy from several chemistry reasons. It's just dubious at best. Because what, what catalyst would be for that reaction to take place? Right. The enamel is not seeking to pick it up. It's something that I don't want. It is it's a halogen, it's similar to iodine and you

Sir Gene:

What? Do you not believe in iodine in either of them?

Sir Ben:

Oh, I use iodine all the time. I take

Sir Gene:

I do too.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. And one, one of the biggest changes in my life was when I started taking Iodine Daily,

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

massive difference. That and several other hormone precursors make a big difference,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I, I use iodine like if you ever get a not a mold, but what do you call'em? Like skin tag things or whatever.

Sir Ben:

never

Sir Gene:

weird growth on your skin. If you, if you start getting the one growing, and again, most of these things are viral in nature. They're just benign, viral just put ion on it for about a week or two and it's gone. Just falls off iodine's awesome. On your body externally for anything that is not, it doesn't belong there, basically.

Sir Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

Cuz it, it, it's a poison.

Sir Ben:

It's also an essential nutrient, but yes.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. But not in the concentration you're putting on your skin. It's not an essential nutrient. It's absolutely in poison levels there. Well, so something that's actually part of your body has the mechanisms to be able to deal with that iodine. But something that is a shouldn't be on your body cuz it's a little viral infection that does. And it, it tends to die off. So just a quick tip there.

Sir Ben:

So I gotta ask you a travel question and looking for some tips.

Sir Gene:

Okay. And we gotta talk about guns yet before we're done too.

Sir Ben:

Okay. Are you a team carry on, or do you check a bag?

Sir Gene:

No, I never check. I mean, I guess if I went for two weeks, maybe I would check, but a week or less is never a check.

Sir Ben:

Right, so I, I'm looking at my trip getting extended to probably at least two weeks.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

And right now, the way I'm flying. It's very much a check bag would be very difficult to do. So you think I can get away with two weeks?

Sir Gene:

Why? Why would it be difficult to

Sir Ben:

So I'm flying in on one airline and then I have an hour and a half layover to then fly out on another airline.

Sir Gene:

and they're not purchased on the same ticket?

Sir Ben:

No.

Sir Gene:

Oh, yeah. Then you're better off just doing carry on.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. So, and I don't know where the luggage carousel for, if the luggage carousel is inside the international terminal where I don't have to go outside of security and, all that, then it could be doable.

Sir Gene:

are you doing the transit in?

Sir Ben:

Manchester?

Sir Gene:

Oh yeah. I've never flown through there, so I don't know.

Sir Ben:

Yeah, I don't either.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, I would probably just try and do the carry on and just like, if you're gonna be there over a week, maybe on the weekend, go to a shopping mall and just buy some more.

Sir Ben:

Well, then there's the problem of getting it home, but Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Well, you can ship things home. First of all, you don't need to carry'em home.

Sir Ben:

But then if you're shipping, don't you have to do the whole where you're, you're basically doing your import paperwork.

Sir Gene:

No. There's no import paperwork. No. I've shipped clothes back. Well, I wouldn't say a lot. I've done it twice.

Sir Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

Just send'em to your home. Address

Sir Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

it, it takes a while,

Sir Ben:

yeah.

Sir Gene:

but, but who cares?

Sir Ben:

other challenge I have is I'm gonna be in very differing climates, right? So I'm

Sir Gene:

That is a challenge.

Sir Ben:

so I'm gonna be in Germany, and then I'm gonna be

Sir Gene:

So it's probably still in the fifties or forties, even in Germany.

Sir Ben:

it's gonna be potentially in the thirties according to the 10 day forecast at this

Sir Gene:

That's cold.

Sir Ben:

And then I'm gonna be in differing places around Europe. And the reason why my trip is getting extended is I'm likely going to the Middle East from there.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. So

Sir Ben:

In, in,

Sir Gene:

good news is you can definitely do your

Sir Ben:

way

Sir Gene:

in mountain.

Sir Ben:

So, yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, you could, you you could definitely shop for the appropriate clothes there.

Sir Ben:

I'm looking at Oman and Abu Dhabi at the very least right now.

Sir Gene:

oh dude. So awesome.

Sir Ben:

I guess.

Sir Gene:

no, I mean, like, I, I, for what you're getting to do, I'd almost be worth it just to start working again.

Sir Ben:

Uhhuh.

Sir Gene:

Because that's a, i I love travel like that. That's fun. It, yeah. Business class internationally with cool destinations, you can't beat that shit, man.

Sir Ben:

I, I don't see

Sir Gene:

Even if you're working for the government, that's still,

Sir Ben:

I don't see Oman in Doha and Abu Dhabi as, really great destination places, but,

Sir Gene:

they're awesome destinations. You're, the only issues there you're gonna have is less alcohol. Not no alcohol either, just less.

Sir Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

So my point is it's not really a big minus.

Sir Ben:

Well, and I'm, it, it's, it's funny because I'm going one after the other, after the other. So it's like, the week after my European leg, I, I, I, I go to Doha and then I go to Abu Dhabi, and

Sir Gene:

I mean, if you had more time, what you could do is actually ship close to your second destination as well,

Sir Ben:

yes. If

Sir Gene:

you probably don't have time

Sir Ben:

where I was gonna be, no,

Sir Gene:

Or do you think you have enough time or not?

Sir Ben:

no,

Sir Gene:

No, I

Sir Ben:

don't think I have enough time

Sir Gene:

but like that is still way easier cuz all of those have modern shopping malls that will cater to either, off the shelf, off the rack or, or custom clothing. But if you were going to like Vietnam or something, then it, I'd say, well, that, that place actually makes a lot of clothes, but it'd be much more of a risky maneuver not knowing where you're gonna get stuff. Like, I remember when I went to Costa Rica their shopping facilities were few and far between for clothes.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

like you could buy, swim shorts for the beach anywhere,

Sir Ben:

right.

Sir Gene:

if you want to get a suit jacket, like good luck. There's just a few stores that, that would sell at.

Sir Ben:

Well, it's, it's gonna be an interesting trip. It's gonna be hard to, I'm, I'm, it's gonna, I'm gonna have to really think through what I'm gonna pack and what I'm gonna do.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

So that's,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I would say don't bring any crap that you got taken away at the airport. You'll have anything available at the hotel and you can, you can probably even put up with a couple days of using fluoride toothpaste if you had to.

Sir Ben:

yeah. Well, anyway, it's, it's interesting because again, I fly all the time and I've never had jack shit taken, so it, it was a different experience.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And your flying hanza for your second bit of your trip, which I think is one of the worst airlines in Europe. that'll be fun.

Sir Ben:

Now why do you say that? Because

Sir Gene:

I don't know, it just reminds me of like Sun Country or not what, what's the other? That's the, the hell's the airline called Superior Airlines, that kind of thing.

Sir Ben:

really, because that's not the, that's not what I am been reading, so I don't know.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Oh, let's see what you think of it. That was my experience. This is like, of all the different airlines that I've been on, the planes and I've, I've been on like four different flights on Hanza, and those were probably the, they're, they're stuffed more than other airlines. They put more seats into the same pl space. Seats are less comfy. The amenities are nonexistent. It's just, it's a bus. It's basically just like, it's just a bus.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Do you ever fly Southwest?

Sir Gene:

God, no. That's what I mean. It's, it'd be like Southwest.

Sir Ben:

Okay. Yeah, I can't stand Southwest, but,

Sir Gene:

no. I, I don't, I, I know millionaires that still fly Southwest,

Sir Ben:

which makes no sense,

Sir Gene:

which makes zero sense to me, and they're like, well, they have the best times available. I'm like, really? I mean, okay, you got here three hours sooner, but,

Sir Ben:

eh? The, the good news is I will be very much international gold at the end of this, if not a little higher.

Sir Gene:

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Which I, at this early, like February, literally, and you're getting to gold, you're gonna be at the top tier very quickly.

Sir Ben:

yep. Which has its perks. And its downsides.

Sir Gene:

There's no downside. It only has perks.

Sir Ben:

no, there, there's downsides cuz you're traveling enough to have accomplished that. That is a

Sir Gene:

a downside. Traveling is never a downside. I, I love traveling. The only thing that traveling did, I kind of, made me get a divorce. That aside, it was great.

Sir Ben:

The, the, yeah, that would be a downside gene. That would be a

Sir Gene:

Well, it was for a little while and then it was an upside.

Sir Ben:

Okay. Anyway. You want to talk about guns? What, what are we gonna talk

Sir Gene:

Yeah. The whole cluster fuck that is the brace rule.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Did you see?

Sir Gene:

More videos coming out from different people with contradictory opinions, it's like, oh my God.

Sir Ben:

yeah. And I think there's more and more people who are gonna push this and defy it and being fairly high profile

Sir Gene:

I'd say 80% sounds like are gonna not do anything different.

Sir Ben:

Well, and there's the whole cluster fuck around. Not being able to put a gun in a trust.

Sir Gene:

Yes, exactly. Well, there's multiple cluster facts. So one of which, and see, it just shows to how this thing was ramped through without any thought given whatsoever. Maybe the silver lining, just maybe the silver lining will be that either the NFA gets abolished or the ATF gets abolished. Or at the very least short barrel rifles will stop being a category.

Sir Ben:

Well, I,

Sir Gene:

just be rifles and pistols.

Sir Ben:

Well, I don't know if you've paid attention to some of the news stories, but there's been a huge uptick of news stories about weapons found at a airport. And even in Houston, they had a ar pistol, which they called an AR rifle or a short barreled rifle. And I'm like, eh, it's got a pistol bridge on it. And we haven't entered into that yet, but Okay. Which I guess technically we're in an

Sir Gene:

it would be called a short barreled rifle right now.

Sir Ben:

okay. Whatever the point is, I think they're ramping up the scare tactics on this to say, no, we have to have this rule because look at how much more concealable they are.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. But there's, everybody in their mother is doing videos on this topic now, and it just showing the absolute absurdity and something that we've covered already in the past, which is that the origins of the MFA was the banning of all firearms, and they couldn't do it. They didn't have the votes. So it ended up being just pistols and.

Sir Ben:

Well, N F A

Sir Gene:

kind of rifles and shotguns that were cut to be closer to pistol size. And even that, they didn't have the votes for those failed. And so the, the only thing that made it in there was the in between, which I guess nobody after the fight for removing the pistols from the N nfa which originally had all pistols banned the, there was not enough of a fight to remove the short barreled rifles and shotguns which were 18 inches at the time. And then the the manufacturers of, I think there were several manufacturers that predominantly had 22 caliber rifles saying, look, our standard barrels have always been 16 inches. So you're, you're taking a huge amount of people that have those guns and turning them into felons.

Sir Ben:

which by the way, how can they have this rule change? So usually in English common law, when there is a change in the law, you are grandfathered in if you're already doing it. So for instance, the county decides, Hey, no more outhouses. Well, I've got an outhouse that's preexisting. I'm not gonna get fined for

Sir Gene:

Right. You just can't build a new one,

Sir Ben:

correct. So,

Sir Gene:

it. If it breaks

Sir Ben:

no, no, no. Usually you can maintain

Sir Gene:

falls down, you can't rebuild it.

Sir Ben:

correct? Correct. But you can maintain. So for instance, why is this not the same thing for

Sir Gene:

Because this is not a law.

Sir Ben:

Okay, so then why the fuck is it enforceable?

Sir Gene:

Because the people that are enforcers are the ones that created the rule.

Sir Ben:

Yeah, so anyway, I, I, I think

Sir Gene:

It's, it's a wholly unconstitutional, no question about it, I think right now over,

Sir Ben:

an unjust law,

Sir Gene:

yeah. I think

Sir Ben:

you can,

Sir Gene:

26 states that are already suing the ATF right now.

Sir Ben:

yes.

Sir Gene:

So I think this will get turned around just like the bump stocks did. The problem is, what do you do now?

Sir Ben:

I would find a friend that doesn't have I don't know, man. I don't, I don't know how to give advice on this

Sir Gene:

No, I mean, that's the thing is it's, it's like this murky area where

Sir Ben:

Well, and

Sir Gene:

there's an extremely high chance that this rule, which is not a law, will get thrown out. There's already a bill in the house that I is effectively to defund the a tf,

Sir Ben:

mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

because they're a rogue agency at this point, and clearly there's no other means to control the a t f with Biden as the president and the Senate being full of uni party. So the only thing that, that we can hope for is that the house, which controls the purse strings, literally just defund the ATF complet.

Sir Ben:

yeah. The, the only thing I would say is you can't even just say, okay, I'm gonna take off the stock.

Sir Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ben:

I'm gonna, I'm gonna make this where it's no longer a sbr r in the eyes of the atf, but I'm not gonna get rid of this cuz I think it's gonna turn around. So I'm just gonna put the stock over here in the corner, because now you have then quote unquote, intent to manufacture.

Sir Gene:

Right,

Sir Ben:

So you can't keep the part

Sir Gene:

Well, I mean, you can, and there have been questions to the ATF about it, and the, the, their example of how you can legally do that is, for example, if you have a storage facility in a different state that you own,

Sir Ben:

Yes. But for the average, the average person at uh, at their house, if you have, if you have the gun and the gun safe and you have the, the stock or the pistol braces that were in a box in the attic, you have the intent to

Sir Gene:

So there, there's a group, I can't remember the name of it. I wish I would've had the link to it. There's a, a group that basically provides storage facilities across the United States for gun

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

And they're generally at, gun shops that opt into this program. And you can literally then just. Ship your gun to this gun shop and they will store it for you and you just pay, like a fee every six months or something.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

that's a it's a, I think it was originally set up as a way for people to be able to keep guns in places they want to go use them,

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

but that they can't like, drive through places with those guns. But now, I mean, that, that was a suggestion is you could do that, you can just ship your, your braces to these guys. But here's the, here's the other problems with it. So first of all, the way that the rule is written, and I'm very careful, did deny call it a law cuz it's absolutely not a law. The way the rule is written by this gang, it's called the atf, they're kinda like the Crips and the Bloods is that as of January 31st, any pistol that has a buttstock or has a not a buttstock, but a brace added, shall be considered to be a pistol with a buttstock, making it a rifle, a short bear rifle. So in the 120 days from January 31st those are days during which. You can register the gun with no fee. And that there's a big asterisk there. There's actually two of'em I wanna bring up. And, but you're registering a gun that is as of January 31st, considered a short barreled rifle. So like you're not registering a the typical 4 0 1 where you would be manufacturing a short barreled rifle after getting the approval, six months later, you're registering what is already a short barreled rifle in your possession. And that has consequences. And one of those consequences is that if you have a firearm that is manufactured outside of the United States

Sir Ben:

mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

and that firearm has a pistol brace on it, you are in possession of a firearm that you are not allowed to modify because modification of that firearm is actually illegal per US gun import laws.

Sir Ben:

And there, there's another thing here as well, so keep going, but I want to get into

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

The aspect of a gun that was not an N F A Adam, becoming an N F a Adam, and some of the complications around tax stamps.

Sir Gene:

yeah, yeah. And, and so, The net result of this is that if you have an AR 15 pistol that has a brace, you can take that brace off and you'll be, as long as you, keep that brace in a different location than the house, that's, that's okay. You'll be in compliance according to the atf. However, if you happen to have a SIG or any other foreign manufactured rifle that has one of these braces on it you would actually be in violation of actual laws, not rules if you were to remove the the brace from that rifle. So the rule says you can't have a gun with a brace without registering it. The law says that you can't remove that component because you are manufacturing a foreign made short barreled rifle without, so you're, you're in a catch 22 where you can't do, or I guess it, I guess there's only one solution, which is you have to register it. There is no other option

Sir Ben:

You

Sir Gene:

other than destruction of the gun. Yeah. Surrender, destroy, or register. That's the only options they give you. There is no modification to remove the part that, that somehow makes. A gun less hideable, but nonetheless makes it more hideable

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

It's insane. It's literally insanity. The other bit that I wanna bring up then we'll get to your points here is that it has now come out that they do not have the authority to not charge you the$200 fee. And so to do that during the amnesty period, it's being called a deferment or deferral. Deferment effectively saying, yeah, well register it. You don't pay the fee. However, it's a deferment, which is to say that a different administration or just different head of the ATF can remove that at any time. And then for the people that that registered their now short barreled rifles, they they now get a bill for each of their guns. They registered for free, quote unquote, they get that$200 per gun bill and presumably would have, a few months to get that paid or lose their guns because obviously the guns are now registered. So, they know you got'em.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

It, it, like, there's just so many issues with this thing not being thought through on a multitude of topic.

Sir Ben:

Well, and then there's the whole, getting your guns into, let's say you have a trust for your N F A Adams, which a lot of people do for many, many reasons. Estate planning and just

Sir Gene:

having more than one person

Sir Ben:

Yes, exactly.

Sir Gene:

able to use the gun.

Sir Ben:

So, As a result, you have now a situation where you have a firearm that was not an NFA item, that is suddenly an NFA item that cannot be just registered to the trust because it wasn't sold to the trust. So unless you have paperwork proving that before this rule came into effect, you had moved that into the possession of the trust, you have to personally, whoever owned the gun, register the gun as an N F A item to yourself. Then you can transfer your trust and you have to pay the tax stamp to to the transfer. So essentially you're being double taxed.

Sir Gene:

Well, yes. You're, you're theoretically being double taxed. You're practically being single taxed, but you're certainly, what they're trying to not allow is for people to be able to

Sir Ben:

Well, like you said, this is a D, this is a deferment. So if the deferment goes,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Then you'll definitely be double taxed. Yeah. Yeah. And it's The number of guns that I've heard is varies from an estimate of 7 million to 35 million that have these braces currently. There are certain people that I think like wouldn't mind converting their pistols, pistols to become nfa, short barreled rifles because they want to add more crap that you can't have on a pistol, like a front stock, front grip a real stock in the back and still have a short barrel.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

So there, there is, like if you were gonna planning on doing this anyway, and you were gonna do it in your own name then this, this maybe just moves the timeline forward for you, but but also look at the practical consideration. Let's even look on the low side, the 7 million guns according to the, the speed of processing that the a TF has been doing prior to this rule coming out on the N F I N FFA items. And the number of N ffa form ones that are processed. The, somebody did the math and calculated that to do, and I think they even did 5 million, not 7 million. So to do 5 million form one registrations would take the ATF 32 years.

Sir Ben:

Which by the way, if you do not hear positively from the ATF that yes, you are approved, then you must assume that you are not.

Sir Gene:

Well, there, there's two factors there. One is there, there is an automatic disapproval at 60 days if you don't get any notification like that was. Yeah. So that was always a but it's not just assumed it's an actual, it's on their website. If you don't get a notification within 60 days, you're disapproved. You have to refile. They have clarified though, and this is again demonstrating how unprepared they are. They have clarified that for these particular guns, they will not be enforcing them. And they, they say that as long as you carry the copy of your paperwork that you registered with, with you at all times, where the weapon is, that should you get stopped by an at t F agent, that having that paperwork will be sufficient for them to not enforce the

Sir Ben:

until it's not.

Sir Gene:

until it's not exactly right. So there's an awful lot of things that happen when you register, like you get on the database for real

Sir Ben:

none of this is put into law, by the way. This is all via,

Sir Gene:

it's

Sir Ben:

all up in the air, and they've already shown that they will change their opinion at the drop of a hat

Sir Gene:

Absolutely. They, they could, I mean, there's really, if they can do this, there's no reason that they couldn't come out with a new rule tomorrow that simply says No more rifles, period.

Sir Ben:

are, you must register and Yes.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I mean they're like, it's, it's an arbitrary thing to them to reinterpret the N F A as anything they want.

Sir Ben:

Well, and you have the whole designation in the N F A that's so fricking vague as any other weapon. Right.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Mm-hmm. So the N F A is definitely the problem. The N F A came in place as a result of the lack of government being prepared for the, the mafia more than anything. And it's a it was a knee-jerk reaction back then. It should have never been allowed to last. It should have had a sunset clause.

Sir Ben:

Well, and the fact that the N F A has never. Been no case around the N F A except one has been to the Supreme Court, is just ridiculous. And that one was regarding short barrelled shotguns and well, that that should have been a mistrial, but,

Sir Gene:

And, and again, that is by design because the way that the ATF works is that. When the law is challenged, when not law, but then when their rules are challenged in court, they will keep pushing back until it gets to the, the first level appellate court, at which point they will settle with that individual. And they essentially say, for that person, this will not be enforced. For everybody else that's still enforced and they've done this over and over, where they actively prevent challenges to their rulings from going up to the Supreme Court level because there's nothing for the Supreme Court to do if the case is either thrown out or settled. And so they're, they've been very good at effectively pushing up until the point that there's a risk to them of something going to the Supreme Court. At which point then they just concede. And that was, that happened with the not the, the last bump stock rule, which didn't go in, at least into the Fifth Circuit. But other bump stock cases were very similar to where they would say this particular gun shop can sell bump stocks, but nobody else because it's, it's because it's not laws, it's just selective enforcement of rules. It has nothing to do with laws, it has to do with arbitrary rules that they use the power of the gun of the government to enforce. These are unelected unelected officials

Sir Ben:

and again, with the popularity of these weapons and with,

Sir Gene:

Yeah,

Sir Ben:

hopefully the, the, the cluster fuck that's coming out of this, hopefully there's enough defiance that we actually get some movement.

Sir Gene:

yeah. Exactly. And I, I think that there's a,

Sir Ben:

The Republicans will pass something. But the problem is with Biden and the Senate, that's, that's not gonna do

Sir Gene:

Well, and this is why I'm saying the only thing that the Republicans can do right now is to defund the atf. They literally have no other options.

Sir Ben:

The, they're not gonna be allowed to do that. Because what's gonna happen is, I mean, are they gonna shut the government down on it?

Sir Gene:

But what do you mean?

Sir Ben:

I mean, how, how are they going to defund the atf? Right. So

Sir Gene:

that's, that's the way you defund the atf is that

Sir Ben:

Yeah. In the budget,

Sir Gene:

time for the budget bill,

Sir Ben:

right. But, and then the

Sir Gene:

vote to have zero money going to the atf.

Sir Ben:

and then the Democrats are gonna go, well, you can't do that.

Sir Gene:

Well, they can say that, but they have the minority now, so they

Sir Ben:

Right. But what they can, what they can do is in reconciliation between the Senate and the House, put the money back in.

Sir Gene:

they can't. No.

Sir Ben:

they can

Sir Gene:

Well, no they can't because the house doesn't have the votes If they wanna do

Sir Ben:

my point

Sir Gene:

bunch of rhinos get in.

Sir Ben:

unless the Republicans are willing to literally shut down the government or hold something up, then it's going to get back in. Because I mean, all the Republicans would have to have the political will to literally shut down the government over this.

Sir Gene:

No, I don't think so. I don't think they need to shut down the government, and I think the Senate would be, as long as the Senate can blame the House, the Republicans in the Senate will blame the House Republicans as being radical, crazy people. But you know, they're, they're not going to, I,

Sir Ben:

I am not so optimistic that they will go through and do

Sir Gene:

I don't know that they will either. I'm just saying that's the only option. There's noth, there's literally nothing else they can do. They can't make any laws right now at all because the the Union Party controls the Senate and obviously Biden's in the White House. So even if they had the Senate, Biden would veto it.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

And they certainly don't have veto approved majorities even in the house, and certainly not in the Senate where they have a minority. So, the, the only thing that the House has that's unique to the house is the ability to authorize Yeah. Authorize laws that have to do with spending. So if there is no spending for the A T F.

Sir Ben:

I, I, I get what you're saying, but I'm saying the political reality is that I don't think they're gonna go that far.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, I agree. I don't, I don't think they will either. I'm, dude, I'm saying this is the only option. I'm not saying they're gonna take the option. I'm just saying there's literally no other options for them other than this one.

Sir Ben:

No.

Sir Gene:

And they're probably not gonna take this one. Although, the core group of people obviously are, would be fine with that. The same people that held up the vote for McCarthy.

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean the, the problem is they're not gonna have the same leverage to hold up the vote for a budget. Right? Because Democrats will just cross party lines and vote for a budget.

Sir Gene:

What do you mean?

Sir Ben:

Like the Freedom Caucus isn't going to have the political capital to stop a budget that has funding for the ATF from

Sir Gene:

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, yeah, I see what you mean. Yes, exactly. Yeah. The, there, what you're saying is there's, there's always gonna be enough Republicans in name only willing to go with the Democrats and still fund the atf. Yes, I agree with that.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

It's, you, like, you need the, but the, the House Republicans, if they could stand together, united. Could defund the atf, but the odds of that happening are very slim.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. The odds are zero.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, probably. But I don't know. I don't know, dude. I don't think they're actually zero, because here's what could happen, let's say within the 120 days, there's only, like, 10% of the people have bothered registering their guns. The ATF at the direction of the Biden White House starts to actually enforce this aggressively.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

And then what? Now you're gonna have regular folks, as they like to say white collar, blue collar, every collar becoming felons overnight, losing their guns. More importantly, losing their jobs, losing their houses, losing their properties.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

think there's gonna be some outrage from that.

Sir Ben:

I, I hope. But we'll see. I don't have one of these weapons. If I did, I doubt I would be taking the track of registering them because I, I think, Thomas Jefferson had a pretty good point on it's the moral duty to disobey, unjust and unconstitutional laws. When we were

Sir Gene:

limit.

Sir Ben:

well, when we were talking about Ruby Ridge, which we got a lot of really good feedback on. One of the things, you said, well, why, why would he do that? He knew it was a felony. Yeah. And he did not care. And what I would say is I, I I, I see some pretty prominent people in the gun community on YouTube, flat out saying, fuck off. That gives me hope. That really does. I, I, I've, there have been a couple things that have gotten me much more white pilled lately, so that's one of'em.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And I, I certainly hope that happens. Now, I actually have a couple of guns that I specifically bought in order to get a free, quote, unquote free registration, cuz I do want to convert'em to rifles. So I'm still gonna do that though. I'm pissed off that I can't do it through a, a trust. Cause I was planning on doing'em through a trust. So it's really not really a, a savings of money in the end.

Sir Ben:

not, it's not at all.

Sir Gene:

that's, that's the thing at some point it's kinda like, well, you might as well just do it as a trust and pay the 200 bucks right away.

Sir Ben:

I mean, what I would do is I'd take the pistol brace off,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And then

Sir Ben:

it, have it as a pistol, or sell it as a pistol, and then buy your SBR the way you want your sbr.

Sir Gene:

Why you can't, you can't buy the sbr. No. Why I want, it's, it's definitely a build, not a buy.

Sir Ben:

Okay. Well, regardless,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And there and

Sir Ben:

wouldn't try and go the pistol route as a quote unquote savings.

Sir Gene:

Well, the, if you look at pricing, dude, like before this whole fiasco, if you look at pricing six months ago, a year ago and sbr r with a 13 inch barrel that from the factory would typically cost you about 30% more than a pistol with a 12 inch barrel from the factory, and a brace from the same, from the same company. So it's like, I don't know why there's a premium on a factory sbr r but they were always sold at a premium. So buying a pistol to convert to an SBR R was always cheaper.

Sir Ben:

Right. But my point is, at this point, because of the$200 tax stamp

Sir Gene:

Yeah,

Sir Ben:

and potentially being double charged,

Sir Gene:

yeah, yeah.

Sir Ben:

And anyway, I, I just, yeah.

Sir Gene:

And, and you could, theoretically, you could convert it to a pistol and then file the 200, paid it 200 bucks, file for the form one, wait for 10 years, and then get your approval, and then build the

Sir Ben:

Well, and here's the other thing that a lot, I think the estimates on these guns, here's why the, and this is something a lot of people need to understand, the reason why the number of AR pistols is ambiguous and we don't know is because the ATF only really has serial numbers for lower receivers that were sold as pistols.

Sir Gene:

Right, right.

Sir Ben:

If they were ever done as an ffl transfer, as a pistol, then they know that it was a pistol. They don't know if what you've done with it since then. If you said, you know what, I wanna, I don't really like this. I'm gonna sell the upper and I'm gonna put a different upper on it.

Sir Gene:

yeah,

Sir Ben:

Now, there have been some arguments that say if it was ever a pistol, it has to be registered. Well, that's scary and some bullshit, but here's the, the flip side of that. If you bought a strip lower, or you bought a lower receiver as a rifle that you then made into a pistol, they have no way of tracking that.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. But that's also illegal

Sir Ben:

No, it's not,

Sir Gene:

to buy, to make a rifle into a pistol.

Sir Ben:

it is not illegal.

Sir Gene:

I'm pretty sure it is.

Sir Ben:

Again, okay, if I buy a lower receiver that is just as a lower receiver

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

and I build it into a pistol, is that illegal?

Sir Gene:

I think so.

Sir Ben:

Nope.

Sir Gene:

If the. If the receiver was sold as a rifle, I don't think you can convert it to a pistol. Again, not according to laws, but just ATF rules.

Sir Ben:

Okay. I

Sir Gene:

But, but also what about people that didn't buy it from a fricking store and fill out a form at all?

Sir Ben:

right.

Sir Gene:

it from another human, which you're allowed to do still so far,

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

directly. So now there's no paperwork. And because the ATFs, the rationale they gave for why you you can't move it to a trust is because the gun, the only paper trail for the gun is the form that you fill out at the gun store when you first purchase it. And there is no form 40, what is it, 44 70 or something like that, whatever that form is. Like you don't fill that form out. If you're buying a an NFA item, you fill a different form out. And so this is their rationale for why a trust can't do this, is they're saying that when you fill out that original paperwork for the pistol at the store, It is not for the trust, it is for the individual that is buying it. There is no options on that form. What is, and I can't, I can't remember number, but 44 something, there is no option as the owner of this gun is a trust. You can only transfer individually, purchased firearms into a trust. You can't purchase a firearm with a trust. Again, this is ATF language, not what I'm saying. And so there, because of that when you, when you register your now illegal short barreled rifle during the analyst period the trust cannot have been the owner of the short barreled rifle without using the, I can't remember that number either. It's like form seven or whatever it is, which is the form you fill out when you purchase a N F A item. And, and so that form has a place to fill out that the owner is a trust. But if you purchase a non NFA item, then a trust cannot be the owner of that item. Only an individual can ask per that form. And so, Their argument is like, well, the, the, the trust could not have owned your pistol because it's not an NFA item, but it is now an NFA item, which means you would have to transfer it using the appropriate form to the trust. So it's this a very administratively convoluted bullshit kind of thing, which has, it, it makes some rational sense if you think about it as a bureaucrat, if you don't care about guns or anything else, you're just looking purely as did you fill out the right form.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

but it's, again, it's just yet another argument against their being an NFA and frankly against their being an atf.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. So, and I had to look this up cuz it was bugging me cuz I, I know some people who have done some things. You're right. So if you ever had a right here, here's how fucked up this rule is. If you buy a lower that has a stock on it, but it has never been assembled into a rifle, you can take the stock off and you can put it you can make a pistol and change it into a ar pistol. However, if it has ever had a rifle length upper put onto it, you cannot convert it into a a ar pistol.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Once that's the rule is you can go from pistol to rifle. You can never

Sir Ben:

Right, right, right. But literally, it, it's down to the point where you can have a lower, that I just buy a lower, which you can buy lowers all the time and it can have a stock on it.

Sir Gene:

Yep.

Sir Ben:

If you take that stock off up until now, put a pistol brace on it and then put a pistol upper on it, you're still legal. But if it was ever as a actual rifle, it is just, and this is such a name, this is why this is such a bullshit thing, right? The, the, there, there is no good reason or rationale behind this

Sir Gene:

and I'll, there's absolutely not, and I'll tell you further beyond what you just said. The way that they're interpreting according to a ATF is that if you have any lowers and uppers at the same time in a house, then those lowers are by definition rifles.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

You cannot

Sir Ben:

you have the intent to manufacture.

Sir Gene:

having parts is intent according to the a f. So if you have two uppers of different calibers and you have one lower that lower, even if it's brand new from the store, you just drove into your garage. You've never had it attached to any single gun ever. You just bought it. Because you have the two different uppers of different calibers at your house. That lower can never be a pistol. Now it is a rifle that's ATFs interpretation of it.

Sir Ben:

Every

Sir Gene:

And don't even get me started on, on the manufactured lowers like the 80 percenters or the stuff you make yourself with no serial numbers. That that's, they're

Sir Ben:

That they're trying to get rid of.

Sir Gene:

yeah, of course they're trying to get rid of, but

Sir Ben:

at some point you have to defi. So if I buy a hunk of aluminum

Sir Gene:

yeah, they would like to ban hunks of aluminum. That's exactly right.

Sir Ben:

oh, Jesus

Sir Gene:

think they would prefer that you had to get registered in order to buy a CNC machine

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

or, or even the drill press for that matter,

Sir Ben:

this, this,

Sir Gene:

some of the 80 percenters are more like the 99 percenters.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. This is why the the liberator and the 3D printed guns is gonna be such a important thing, which by the way, people make fun of Oh, the liberator. The, literally he named that after a single shot gun that the allies dropped over France during World War ii, by the way. So maybe people should understand the historical context,

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Sir Ben:

but I think it was on Tim Cast or something,

Sir Gene:

there's a channel I watch.

Sir Ben:

it was just, it pissed me off.

Sir Gene:

Of a guy that does the videos for or he does a bunch of videos of 3D printed guns of basically recreations. So like a Glock or, whatever done in

Sir Ben:

by the way, an a 3D printed AR lower is very doable.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and then one of the videos I watched was awesome cuz he had a, a 3D printed lower with a brace and a forced reset trigger and boy was that fun to shoot or watch him shoot. Anyway,

Sir Ben:

yeah.

Sir Gene:

And this gun is completely manufactured in house

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

with no

Sir Ben:

the trigger that

Sir Gene:

ATF involved.

Sir Ben:

the trigger that most interests me that I would like to get, but I, I haven't cuz they're expensive and how often would I ever use this? But it's the binary triggers. I

Sir Gene:

that's why, that's what I'm talking about.

Sir Ben:

No, no, no. Not a force reset. A binary

Sir Gene:

Oh, a binary. Oh, oh yeah.

Sir Ben:

binary trigger has safe fire and then binary. And binary means it fires on the pole and the release.

Sir Gene:

I think I would prefer the force reset trigger for one reason only because there, there can absolutely be times, and I can think of some in my past where after squeezing the trigger,

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

Had I had a round go off when I released it, I probably would've hit somebody.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Yeah. But so one of the things you can do with the binary triggers is you can if you just pull the trigger and hold the trigger, you can flip the safety to single action

Sir Gene:

I know, but I just also know that knowing myself well enough that I would forget that at some point, unless every single one of my guns acted that way.

Sir Ben:

Okay. Anyway, one of the, one of the reasons why I like it is because it's more akin to like a three round burst than philto. Yeah. It's a two round burst, essentially. And that makes more sense to me than philto. So, or

Sir Gene:

it does. But yeah, full auto is un unnecessary. Completely.

Sir Ben:

Can't carry in a FMO

Sir Gene:

no, no, you need to carry like literally a, a, one of the little

Sir Ben:

or have a, or have a military logistics train behind you to support

Sir Gene:

or, or like the backpack that Arnold had the, for the mini gun. Yeah. Which is what I, what I was carrying, playing paintball.

Sir Ben:

yeah. Well, instead of money, printer grower,

Sir Gene:

well, and that's, so the other issue with the 3D printed guns is that if you wanna have something that's more than a occasional shoot it for a little bit and have a break gun, is you really need a 3D metal printer. and the 3D metal printers are still way to hell, too expensive.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

And but, but they make really high quality products.

Sir Ben:

And, it depends on what you're doing. So like, I have polymer ar lowers they're inject injection molded, but they're polymer and a polymer lower can absolutely hold up. In fact the very first ar I ever built is a polymer lower and it has had thousands and thousands and thousands of rounds through it. It's been beat up to hell and is still in great shape. So, polymer lowers can survive. They can take it because again, the majority of the action is not the only weak points you really have is where the buffer tube connects. That, that could be a little weak point depending on how it's made. So,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. No, absolutely. And the buffer, the, the buffer tube is, that's the other stupidity element of this too, is like, okay, so you take off the brace, well, the buffer tube, if you're talking about an, our AR platform is only like an inch shorter.

Sir Ben:

Yep.

Sir Gene:

Most, most of the the arm brace dude ads were already, already not horribly long, because a T F had already indicated that, hey, if you make it the same length as.

Sir Ben:

Normal

Sir Gene:

stock, we're gonna call it a stock. So people are like, okay, we'll just make it shorter. And, and so you take that off, you still ha And so I have this idea and somebody steals it than more power to you, but I've been thinking that this would be a nice little fuck you product to make.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

And that is essentially something that you wear as a, a harness, kinda like a backpack that has a, a place for you to put the buffer tube in. Yeah. So the two ways to imagine that is take the take a traditional stock off the gun and glue it to your shoulder, and then instead of having to stock attached to the buffer tube, you have the buffer tube that is going into a hole that is the stock.

Sir Ben:

Well, you could even have just a pad on your shoulder with a little cup for the end of the

Sir Gene:

Well, and that was that, that's more of what I was thinking, which is the, the way to think of it is like, if you've ever gone deep sea fishing, you can buy fishing belts, which is basically a, a, a cod piece fits over you, that you put the po the pole into so that you are using the leverage of your body and legs instead of your arms.

Sir Ben:

Yep.

Sir Gene:

And you take that basic design again, slap it on your shoulder instead of,

Sir Ben:

I, I, you know what, I think we should build a prototype and send it to the ATF for approval and see if we can get it through, see if we can get it through, because hell, I mean, we could corner the market gene.

Sir Gene:

I don't know that we would need to ask the atf because we don't need to sell it as a gun related product.

Sir Ben:

Yeah, just we're You're wearing a shirt. What are you talking about?

Sir Gene:

It's it's for fishing. Thank you. It's a fishing implement

Sir Ben:

Uhhuh. That's a very awkward fishing implement

Sir Gene:

well, you know what? The, the diameter of the fishing pole grip is roughly the same diameter as the buffer tube. It's not our fault.

Sir Ben:

yeah.

Sir Gene:

That's just the way it works. But I, I thought about it. I talked to a buddy of mine and he's like, dude, you're so gonna get sued.

Sir Ben:

this is like, the oil thread converters,

Sir Gene:

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right.

Sir Ben:

Perfectly legal to buy. Perfectly legal to put on a gun until you pull the trigger

Sir Gene:

I don't know that it would be illegal to pull a trigger because it's not part of the gun. They can't control things that are not part of the gun. When you put that can on the front of the gun so that your gun shoots quieter, that becomes a part of the gun. There's no attachment

Sir Ben:

But I'm talking about the oil filter

Sir Gene:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The oil filter. Yes. But the, for this thing, this is literally like a backpack or a fishing rod holder or any, it's, it's something you just wear on your body that happens to make. Easier or more straightforward to use as a brace, whether it's a fishing rod or a gun, doesn't matter. You can brace it against your shoulder.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

I don't think that, I mean, I'm

Sir Ben:

can see the headlines now. Clothing manufacturer rated by the atf.

Sir Gene:

oh, yeah, no, no. They would totally rate us, but I, I don't think that, I think it would be much harder for them to prove that they control this if it's not physically a part of the gun.

Sir Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Sir Gene:

It's the same reason that the ATF hasn't administratively imposed restrictions on magazines. They'd like to, but it's an up appeal argument. Like it's much harder to make an argument that says that the ATF gets to control how many rounds fit in the magazine without there being a law to say that,

Sir Ben:

Well, all I can say is it's time to get rid of the atf. It's time to

Sir Gene:

it's long, long

Sir Ben:

time to restore the Constitution and get rid of all federal police agencies.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. But let's start with the A T F, though. They have the long, long history of, yeah. Well, the F B I I think is gonna be a little trickier because I mean the, I'm not saying they're any better, but the F B I. Does there, they have what's the phrase? Their charter is to do things that are across a broad spectrum of law enforcement. There should be no federal law enforcement, obviously. Totally agree with that.

Sir Ben:

You

Sir Gene:

But the eight,

Sir Ben:

law that created the F B I.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sir Ben:

By Attorney Generals

Sir Gene:

I'm not sure that there was ever laws that created most government agencies. Was there a law that created the Department of Holland Security?

Sir Ben:

Yes.

Sir Gene:

Well, that was an actual law.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Patriot Act

Sir Gene:

Did that create it or just funded?

Sir Ben:

created,

Sir Gene:

Really. Okay. How about the cia?

Sir Ben:

It was originally oss. I don't know. I'd have to go back and

Sir Gene:

Yeah, because I think that that was just a, a branch that was created under Department of Defense and then got moved around. But I don't know. I mean, it's, once a bureaucracy is created, it's extremely hard to kill it off because the people that work for the bureaucracy are lifelong and the people that work for the government have terms of office. And so the, the departments tend to outlive all the politic.

Sir Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Unfortunately. So anyway, we've been going long on this one, but That's right. It's a good, good

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Well, yes, it's always a good conversation with you, Eugene, but I think the biggest problem here is that we have massive government overreach and, it really comes down to what are people going to do? Are they going to let this go? Are they gonna stand up and do something about it?

Sir Gene:

And certainly the Supreme Court's last decision relating to guns included the

Sir Ben:

Well, I mean, quite frankly, the Supreme Court's last decision relating to guns should absolutely make this illegal.

Sir Gene:

yeah, yeah, exactly,

Sir Ben:

Heller decision is right there. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

And, and it's the, the thing to

Sir Ben:

the Heller decision should

Sir Gene:

common

Sir Ben:

A illegal

Sir Gene:

common use in tradition, and whether it's 35 million or 5 million, that's pretty damn common use.

Sir Ben:

Yeah,

Sir Gene:

So, and the idea that an accessory to a pistol not only is controlled by the atf, but then allows the ATF to reclassify the pistol. Is insane. But again, it just points to the insanity of the original N f A to begin with.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. Well, I, I don't know what else to say about it, to be honest with you, Jean. I think it's,

Sir Gene:

No, I think we beat this dog to death.

Sir Ben:

All right, man. Well, I'll catch you next week for the last time before the trip.

Sir Gene:

the big trip. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how, how it works, how much delay we have been bandwidth once you're actually overseas.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. I, I, I, I think Europe shouldn't be too bad, but it, we'll, we'll see if we can be successful at other places.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, and I, I just going back to that advice, I just think that when you're going on an extended trip like that, and given that it's probably better for you to not have checked luggage than just bring money. That's money. Always works.

Sir Ben:

Yeah. I'm already planning on taking some cash for certain, I, I, I actually do want to get some souvenirs for everybody and, do little things like that.

Sir Gene:

Mail'em out. Don't bring'em with

Sir Ben:

Yeah, exactly. So if I'm already gonna do that, then I think your advice is sound, so,

Sir Gene:

Just mail back the stuff you, you don't need and then just buy some new clothes when you're there. For sure. I think it's a good way to do it. All right, man. Take care.

Sir Ben:

All right. Bye Gene.