032 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:22

Howdy Ben. Howdy

Ben: 0:24

Gene. What's going on? Not much. We're starting late.

Gene: 0:28

We are starting

Ben: 0:29

late. You're supposed to do your grocery delivery on Friday during and relenting.

Gene: 0:35

No, no, that's when I order the groceries. They're, they're supposed to show up before we start. They've got a half hour window, but I guess they were running right up to the edge and I'm, I'm sure. So I'm not going to leave. A bunch of grocery bags just sitting there without putting them in the fridge. Of

Ben: 0:54

course not. No, it's all good. And we took a week off because I decided to go on vacation and didn't have an opportunity to record. How was that? Oh, it was good. We had a good time at the beach. Marriott Homes and Villas, by the way, is an awesome thing. Way cheaper than VRBO or what's the other one? I don't

Gene: 1:18

know. I've never used them.

Ben: 1:19

Okay. Well, whatever. But anyway, we were able to rent a, it wasn't beachfront, but who cares? Cause you know, we're going to drive to the beach anyway, here in Texas. And for those who don't know you, the beach is considered a Texas state highway. So you literally drive on the beach.

Gene: 1:37

Yeah, a good chunk of it, not all of it.

Ben: 1:39

No, all of it is considered Texas state highway.

Gene: 1:42

Well, why can't I drive on it then in South Padre?

Ben: 1:45

Because part of that's privately owned.

Gene: 1:48

Yeah. So it's not a highway

Ben: 1:49

and you can't access it. If from the waterline to the, it's all about the access. So from the waterline to the vegetation is Texas state public land across the entire coast. And part of the highway system, I think

Gene: 2:05

it's a state

Ben: 2:06

park down there anyway. But we were able to rent a three bedroom, two bath, you know, 2000 square foot house with a grill and, you know, nice place for 140 a night. Holy shit. That's really cheap. Yeah. So,

Gene: 2:24

That's like unbelievably cheap. In fact.

Ben: 2:27

Yeah. Well, we'll have to look at that. So anyway, just next time you're going to watch a space launch, it might be worth looking at right through Marriott. You get nights for it, you get points, you can use points, but using points is incredibly not worth it and very expensive to pay for because they're actually having to pay someone else out. So the conversion rate sucks. And it's called the what? Marriott Homes and Villas. Okay. Yeah, it's their answer to VRBO and Airbnb. Right, right. Very cool. Anyway, played around, went to Galveston, went to Moody gardens and the aquarium and stuff like that for the kids. And when I was at aquarium, I've still never made it. Oh, the Moody gardens aquarium is great. It's a, it's a good aquarium. Now the, the, the pyramid that the jungle, you know that's eh, cause they've got too much cover and it's too damn hot. Like that's a winter time activity. Sure. In the summer when it's a hundred degrees outside, it's like a hundred and ten at the top of the pyramid in there. Even with the air conditioning they've got going on. And it's humid as all hell, but I mean, it's supposed to be, you know, it's supposed to be a rainforest. So there you go. Hmm.

Gene: 3:51

Interesting. Yeah, it's definitely next time I'm out there, I'm going to try and make an effort. The last two times that I was in Galveston, it rained.

Ben: 4:01

Well, that's a perfect time to go to Moody gardens. Yeah.

Gene: 4:04

Should've done that. This is all on door. Cause the other thing that I need to do is to go look at the, the USS Texas.

Ben: 4:14

Yeah. Battleship Texas.

Gene: 4:15

Yeah. Or battleship. I didn't want to do that in the rain either.

Ben: 4:19

Well, battleship Texas isn't as impressive as you might think, because you got to remember it was originally commissioned right at the end of World War one.

Gene: 4:28

Yeah. No, I know that it's. It's really more world wars. Yeah, it's, it's really more from a video game perspective because that I've got that ship in the world

Ben: 4:38

of warships. Have you ever been to Seawolf park? So Seawolf park has a destroyer and a submarine. Oh, okay, cool. The, and it used to be free to go. So there, there's lots to see and do in Galveston. Galveston's a quite frankly underrated little city here in Texas.

Gene: 4:58

Yeah. Wasn't there a bunch of corruption there or something?

Ben: 5:01

Oh God, dude. The mob ran Galveston. That's

Gene: 5:04

what I remember. Yeah, I

Ben: 5:06

mean, there were illegal casinos. There was just lots and lots and lots of shit going on for a long time. A lot of that's been cleaned up basically through a few hurricanes. But yeah, hurricanes, wiping everything out has a tendency to restart things. Yeah.

Gene: 5:26

Well, that's also why you find some brick buildings there, which you don't find a lot of other places.

Ben: 5:31

Oh, there's a lot of really cool old buildings in Galveston that have stood the test of time. There's some really cool old hotels. They're the oldest city. Yes. In fact, before the 1900 hurricane Galveston was one of them richest cities in, in the nation.

Gene: 5:52

That's been all them slaves down

Ben: 5:53

there. No, it was the primary port before the intercoastal canal was dug. And before the bay was dredged out so that Houston could have a port, Galveston was that port and Galveston still is one of the largest ports

Gene: 6:06

in Texas. They already have bridges back then to Galveston. It wasn't an Island. It is an Island. Right. But it, that's what I'm saying is that they have bridges already built when there was a port then, so they could haul the stuff out to the rest of the country. Yeah,

Ben: 6:21

they had a railroad bridge railroad. Okay. Yeah. There was railroad all the way to Galveston. There was railroad all the way down the peninsula on Bolivar peninsula. There's been lots of stuff there actually. So, it was probably, was the other port.

Gene: 6:36

But Galveston was the biggest the biggest port west of New Orleans.

Ben: 6:44

Yes, and a little bit of history lesson, June 19th. That is when the information about the Emancipation Proclamation hit Texas because Galveston during a large portion of the Civil War was Union occupied. Oh, it was? Yes. Yeah. And you've got Fort Travis there on the peninsula. That's kind of neat to see that was used during the Spanish American war to defend the port. Galveston was originally a military city, so it's very much laid out in a grid. It's very logical to get around. You've got the you've got Catholic origins in Galveston. Galveston.

Gene: 7:26

Who's Galveston? Galvez. Oh, is that what it was? Galvez? So it was Galvez Town. Hm.

Ben: 7:35

Anyway. So, have you been paying attention to the news? You

Gene: 7:42

know, some news.

Ben: 7:44

So Peter Zahon looking back after reading the news this morning, made an ass of himself. Shocker. Everybody needs to go watch his three part video on the Russian Civil War that lasted 24 hours. And then read that in context

Gene: 8:03

of today. Well, you know, paid Strategist that, that knows everything about foreign

Ben: 8:07

relationships. So dude, I actually, I think what happened is pretty straightforward. I think the NATO tried to bribe the Wagner group with that 6. 2 billion that they found for Ukraine. And Putin said, fuck, I'll give you 12.

Gene: 8:25

You know, that's amazing. Cause let me scroll back and read what I wrote to Adam last night. Okay, here's what I wrote you're getting got an offer for 1 million post amnesty from NATO to stabilize the Russian government. And apparently, and this was happening in real time the settlement just finished up and he is no longer charged as a criminal, which means Russia made good on their money. So, yeah, that's exactly what happened. Good call. Yeah,

Ben: 8:57

that, that to me the, it seems fairly obvious that that's some, some sort of bribery scheme was going back and forth. Mm-hmm. there, I mean, they are mercenaries for Christ's sake, absolutely

Gene: 9:11

expect mm-hmm. So, yeah. And money was never the problem. It's just that you don't wanna be throwing money out there, you wanna. Control things as much as possible. And, but now that the, clearly the West has decided to give him an offer. I think there was no turning it around. He clearly would have had to have been paid a lot more.

Ben: 9:39

Well, and, and

Gene: 9:41

then another friend of mine who has is pretty astute in this stuff, and he's got a clearance pointed out last night as well, is he's going to give Give Evgeny probably at most a year of life. Oh, yeah. At this point, he's outliving his usefulness.

Ben: 9:56

Well, from both sides. Mm hmm. He, he made a deal that hopefully his billions can keep him safe, but good luck, you know. Putin's gonna be out after him, and so is NATO. Mm hmm. When you when you devil cross like that, it's not gonna go well.

Gene: 10:14

Although I think it was mostly rhetoric.

Ben: 10:19

I think there was some exchange of fire that we, we saw too many videos and too much stuff coming out that there, it may have been limited engagements, but it was definitely engagements. And the other, the only other option on this is that this was an entire psyop for Russia to get Ukraine to commit. And this is something that we haven't seen the news on. So if you go watch. Analysis, he's like, this is going to open up for the spring, the offensive and everything else, the, the Ukrainians have a chance here if they push here and they can break through and dah, dah, dah. So my immediate question is, okay, so is this a sign up to get them to push into a certain area that the Wagner group was previously holding that maybe Ukrainians don't know, you know,

Gene: 11:08

that'd be great, but I don't know if I. Would give them enough credit to carry that off

Ben: 11:14

again. It, I think the simplest answer is there's bribery and that's what happened, but I'm saying the only other point of analysis would be that this was a sign up in a trap because otherwise none of this just makes sense. Oh, the Russians shelled, they're just like, they blew up their

Gene: 11:32

own pipeline. They do that shit all the time. They blow up their own dams pipelines. Yeah.

Ben: 11:38

Yeah. What's that power plant? The nuke that's next. Yep. Yep.

Gene: 11:49

Yeah. I

Ben: 11:50

mean, I know, I know destructive, but Jesus,

Gene: 11:55

we found some more money to give to Ukraine and another 3 billion just got approved. On top of that, I can't, I've lost track of where we're up to. I think it's around 200 billion.

Ben: 12:07

I don't know. It's more like three. We're well over 200

Gene: 12:12

billion. It's that much. All right. Wow. Well, it's a good thing. The economy is nice and strong and America is able to do that without any impact.

Ben: 12:23

I sent your corrected t shirt by the way to Adam and get a kick out of it for those who don't listen to unrelenting. Gene had a t shirt made that says I'm totally not a Russian spy. And I

Gene: 12:37

didn't have it made. I was given that shirt. Somebody thought it was hilarious.

Ben: 12:41

I fixed it and removed the knot. Man, it, so as much as the vacation was good, it was also kind of a shit week in a way company started a reorg while I was on vacation. Oh man. Luckily, I'm not really impacted, but this is the largest reorg I have seen that it has gone through since the EFH bankruptcy, which EFH, Energy Future Holdings. Power company here in Texas that I worked for was the largest bankruptcy and reorg in United States history. Wow. So the, this is in that order, like they are totally redoing the structure of the company. A lot of it for the good, a lot of good there. So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens. Yeah. So instead of each practice having its own sales department, it's going to be one vertically integrated sales department, which makes more sense.

Gene: 13:42

Well, there's some. I see some cancer there as well. Cause you're going to, if you're basically separating sales further away into their own thing.

Ben: 13:53

Well, the idea is that there's not enough cross selling. So meaning this engineering practice has customers that risk and reliability could use that cyber could use and so on, but the salespeople who are working for engineering, for example, are only compensated on engineering deals. So why the hell would they sell anything else? Right, right, right. So fixing that I think is actually

Gene: 14:16

an important deal. Yep. Yeah, we'll be able to cross, so that's the key.

Ben: 14:25

But anyway, that was that was definitely interesting, that whole tightening moment

Gene: 14:29

while I was gone. So basically you were sitting on the beach with your phone looking at company shit. Yeah.

Ben: 14:38

Going, Oh Jesus, he got fired. Oh, they got fired. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

Gene: 14:46

Yeah. The wife must've been

Ben: 14:47

loving that. Oh, well,

Gene: 14:51

anyway. So, Zayhan looks like had a little misread. What else going

Ben: 14:56

on? Well, we had a toy submarine implode.

Gene: 15:01

Yeah, I, I don't think it's legitimately true to call it a submarine, it was a submersible. And

Ben: 15:08

the difference being?

Gene: 15:10

A submarine is self contained, a submersible relies on a support ship, it just goes up and down,

Ben: 15:20

basically. Okay, fine. I, I thought

Gene: 15:23

that the I'm not making this shit up, I'm just saying Is

Ben: 15:26

there, isn't there part of the definition requiring a tether or something? Hmm. Nope. Nope. Okay. Okay. Well, the submersible went

Gene: 15:35

crunch. Yeah. Yeah. And it's I guess it was made of or at least partially carbon fiber, yes. Which is both light and extremely strong, but the problem with carbon fiber and why anything that is a pressure tank with carbon fiber needs to be inspected on a regular basis. Fatigue. Yeah. Yeah. It's fatigue and cracks. It's a unlike steel and other metals, it is completely non what's the phrase? Like you can't ding it and then have a, have it deform. It's either it's in perfect shape or it's got a crack in it. That's the stress fractures and stuff, whereas no malleability. That's what I was trying to come up with. It's not malleable at all. So I dunno, I, of course the B already had a story saying that the company's offering a 20% off coupon. Now for its next launch, well,

Ben: 16:41

the CEO died in the, in this accident. So

Gene: 16:45

that's, that's how they can afford to charge less, but

Ben: 16:47

did you see the meme where the controller survived?

Gene: 16:51

The control? No, what did you, everyone

Ben: 16:53

was, everyone's giving me crap about using this Logitech controller to Logitech stock went down. And then the, the, they, they find these photos with the controller.

Gene: 17:09

Yeah, apparently that can survive to how deep did it go? I don't remember how deep the

Ben: 17:14

wherever the Titanic is, however deep that is. Is that like a mile or something? Yeah, probably a couple of miles.

Gene: 17:22

It, it was I mean, it's a Saturday month, obviously people died, but it's not risk free to go down it is 2, 100 fathoms. That is pretty deep. It's very deep.

Ben: 17:36

No, it's very risky. And you know, people giving the design, the, the designers crap about, you know, the they, they had no way to get out. They were locked in. It was, you know, the hatch was bolted on from the outside when you're that deep. There is no getting out. No, there's

Gene: 17:52

definitely no. This is I don't know if you listen, Darren asked me about, well, you know, what do you think is, is more risky going down to depth or space? I'm like, Oh, absolutely. Fucking space is way easier. I mean, it takes a lot of energy to get you there, but the differential in space is one. That's

Ben: 18:16

not, not even most of the time if you look at most spacecraft throughout history, they've been pressurized to less than an atmosphere. In fact, spacesuits EVAs have to be pressurized way less than an atmosphere so that the operator can move actually move and

Gene: 18:32

otherwise they're just like a balloon. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And they've done tests. You literally can patch holes up with duct tape. And that's strong enough to hold it. So yeah, I'll, I'll take space any day over

Ben: 18:48

depth. Well, and you know, one of the things you have to understand is every, however many feet it is, I think it's, what is it? 20 or 30 feet that you go down, you increase by an atmosphere. Yeah. It's,

Gene: 19:03

I don't even think it's that much. I think it's three meters. 33 meters down.

Ben: 19:07

Is that 33 feet? 10. 6 meters. 10. 6

Gene: 19:11

feet. Okay. Yep.

19:12

All

Ben: 19:13

right. Yeah. That's close.

Gene: 19:14

Really? That seems like, okay, well you looked it up obviously. So I

Ben: 19:18

did validate it myself. Yeah. Good. And it's interesting that it's the magic number. 10. 3,

Gene: 19:24

33

Ben: 19:25

feet. Yeah. 10. 06 meters. Anyway. So you can imagine that every, you know, you, you go down a hundred feet here at three atmospheres of pressure. So yeah. And this

Gene: 19:40

is the Titanic said 3. 8 kilometers down. It's a lot. That's a lot of pressure now. And that, that's why they can hold that much pressure is that that pressure is coming across evenly around the entire vessel. Yes, but if the vessel is shaped oddly and not a sphere, for example it's then you have pressure imbalances that you have to work out and I'm sure that's where all the, you know, computer software takes care of all that shit. But still, it's not as simple and trivial as just put people in the sealed capsule and drop them down. There's. There's definitely

Ben: 20:19

risk. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's interesting that the U S Navy apparently heard the implosion early on in this and didn't say a word.

Gene: 20:33

So, which part of that is interesting cuz people have said that you're not the first person that said that. And I don't understand why. A, they would say anything and B, why people are surprised they heard it.

Ben: 20:43

I'm not surprised they heard it at all. Okay. Okay. I'm just surprised that with the unquote rescue efforts, everything going on, that there wasn't a don't bother Mm.

Gene: 20:55

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I would guess nobody wanted to put their name to that statement. Okay. Would you, would you want to tell people, go ahead and call off the search for survivors? You're

Ben: 21:10

not I would have said, Hey, we, we heard an implosion in the area. It's likely that they're not there. I would probably say something like that. But

Gene: 21:19

what if something else like, you know, it wasn't pinpointed, right?

Ben: 21:24

Dude. So here's what it comes down to the, I think the only reason why the U S Navy didn't come out with a definitive statement saying, yeah, the dead is because they don't want to give away how. Good and how much they are tracking everything in the U. S. has listening facilities spread out across the Atlantic and Pacific seafloor. Yeah. Tremendous listening capabilities from a sonar. Perspective, I don't think they wanted to fully admit that a, they had been tracking this. They were, you know, basically we have Norad underwater sort of capabilities. And I don't think they really wanted to talk about that.

Gene: 22:10

I guess, yeah. I

Ben: 22:12

mean, it's somewhat well, I don't think it was a big secret. Their exact capabilities are, there, there's very little public data other than we have listening stations available, the, the capabilities of them, how accurately they can track and so on. I think coming out and saying, yeah, we heard this sub out in total international waters where we have no claim go splash in, go down and pop. We were able to track that from however many miles away. I don't think they want to, you know, quite admit to the exact capabilities that

Gene: 22:50

they have. I mean, you can just go to Janes, look it up. How's that stuff is barely classified. Go to Janes. I don't know what Janes is. Oh, Janes is they're the premier or they used to be books. Now that it's all online, of course, a compendium of military equipment. They're, they do both testing and compilation of information. They're essentially a, like a paid library or anybody in the military trade.

Ben: 23:26

Okay. I still don't think they're going to have the classified capabilities, but sure.

Gene: 23:30

Yeah. I'm just saying, I don't think that you need classified to pick up what they picked up. Like, I think that's, I don't know. I, if they, if they heard something happening in, in the Marianas trench in real time, then I'd be more interested, but the fact that they're sitting off the coast of Canada. And listening that to me is not surprising at all.

Ben: 23:55

Well, regardless, it's it's somewhat of a tragedy. It's interesting that you know, billionaires died during this. Mm

Gene: 24:04

hmm. Why was the, the CEO on this thing? He was the pilot.

Ben: 24:09

Okay. I don't think it's exactly a big company. Got it. And, you know, he was taking down the richest person in Pakistan, so, you know, white glove treatment.

Gene: 24:23

Oh, that's true. That's true. Yeah. So who wanted to eliminate that dude?

Ben: 24:29

That thought definitely crossed my mind. Who did he piss off lately? Yeah. Cause that's, let me loosen this bolt a little bit.

Gene: 24:44

I mean, especially if it's a small company, it wouldn't take much.

Ben: 24:47

No. And you know, it's like cutting somebody's brake lines, but quite frankly, easier and you know, they're never going to pull that sub up off the bottom. Right. Exactly. I mean, there, there is no recovery. There is no investigation. There's not going to be anything. The, the funniest comment one of my friends made is, yeah, it's all fun and games till a hundred years from now, someone finds the Nintendo controller next to the Titanic and thinks they had it on Uhhuh.

Gene: 25:18

Yeah. I'm not a fan of those controllers myself. I prefer like, real sticks. Go ahead. Like, you know, actual joystick. Then a thumb sticks, but there's no reason that modern gaming controllers can't be used for hardware, like actual hardware control. It's the same damn shit. Everything is fly by wire anyway.

Ben: 25:43

Yeah. I think everybody giving them crap over using that controller, you know, was misplaced. The controller isn't the problem

Gene: 25:55

here. No. Although if it got stuck, kept going in one direction and we couldn't stop. Yeah, well, again, lower than they planned

Ben: 26:07

or something, the controller, there wouldn't be the problem, the design of the vessel would be, you know, if you don't have an override, if you don't have the ability to have secondary controls, I mean,

Gene: 26:19

honestly, those controllers are like torture tested, like nothing else. Yeah, because they're meant to survive

Ben: 26:26

hundreds of thousands of hours of play

Gene: 26:29

from teenage boys. They're going to be thrown at the wall. They're going to be, you know, stepped on all kinds of shit. So no, that's, that's pretty wacky. Yeah, sucks. People died, obviously, as usual. But again, you know, died doing a high risky event. It's. Kind of like people that do base jumping

Ben: 26:54

or, or Well, I mean, did you watch the 60 minutes or whatever piece on this vessel? I mean, they, they go over the release that you have to sign to go down there and it's like, this is an experimental craft that you know, no liability. Yada, yada, yada. I mean, you, you redo the release and, you know, they talk about the vessel not being certified or inspected by any third parties, things like that, you know, basically, Hey, we're doing our own thing here if you want to come. Great. But, you know, if, and when you die. Shut up. Yeah. You know, I mean, it sucks. Based off of, based off of the release that was signed, the families are not going to have any injunctive relief or anything like that. And quite frankly, that company is just going to go bankrupt. Yeah, I think that company is done. But okay. Yeah. Again, I, I think it'd be more interesting to see if that a billionaire had any enemies that profited from it, because it's either just a tragic accidents or someone offed him. But I think based off of the design, the lack of review, the lack of,

Gene: 28:08

Let me ask you this, Ben, if, if you were to win a, a ride on a similar vessel to go down and take a look at the Titanic, would you do that? Yeah, I wouldn't either. It just doesn't. For multiple reasons, it just does not interest me.

Ben: 28:24

So it would interest me to be in a submersible and be one of the few people who've gone that deep same way even writing Bezos's rocket would interest me, right? Yeah, not me. But given the design and everything else, and again, the adverse conditions is not going to be worth it.

Gene: 28:47

I would rather work on on Musk's rocket than write Bezos's rocket. Fair enough. But as far as the deep thing, like, I think it's interesting to see the Titanic, but, and I, I do really like submarines and that's one thing I always thought is that had I gone a different path in life and ended up in military service. It would have definitely been Navy and I, I would have really wanted to be in a Submariner fleet, but but I don't see a particular interest in going down personally that deep, just from something that is. It's like, I would think it'd be a lot cooler to go down into one of those plexiglass bubble submarines in the Caribbean, where you could see everything around you and all the critters, then to go down in something with one tiny little window. And that is a foot thick. Just to say you went deep, like the depth there does not really interest me. I'd much, I'd rather do it from a visual interest standpoint and not a big depth than to simply do it and say, I went deep

Ben: 30:05

and I can get that You know, it's interesting cuz you would've gone into be a submariner and if I had gone into military service, which I was thinking about, and then mm-hmm. Iraq War and other things happened, I was always looking at the chair force. The what? The Air Force Force Force. Yeah. You said the chair

Gene: 30:27

force. That's, yeah, that's

Ben: 30:29

what everybody calls it.

Gene: 30:31

I, I, I had a lot of friends that went, the Air Force went to the academy in Colorado. It's that, and then I had friends that went to West Point. I think actually a lot of people I know ended up working for the government one way or another.

Ben: 30:49

Yeah, I there were a couple of times in my life where I came close and I've always avoided it.

Gene: 30:56

I've never, I've never really thought of being in the military as particularly working for the government as much as I think I bought into the advertising that was out back then. And I don't, I don't know if they still had it when you were young. Know that you can be, no, that's not it. It was it was the one about seeing the world and getting paid for it. Oh, yes. Join the Navy. Fuck you see the world uhhuh you know, underneath your, your boots. That's how you see the world as you're trampling on it. But I always said that was interesting and I think I've told the story before. It may not have been on this podcast. I actually did go to a recruiter's office when I was in high school or the Navy. And they basically said, come back when you lose 20 pounds. And I don't think I did. So I never came back. But it was a I'm sure my parents would have had a conniption fit because that, that was not in the plans for me,

Ben: 31:51

according to them. You know, it's funny because the, in the U S it's illegal for companies to use IQ tests, things like that as part of the hiring process.

Gene: 32:03

I don't think it is dude. I've taken a whole ton of IQ tests over the years to be in jobs. Okay. What makes you think it's illegal?

Ben: 32:28

So, anyway, true IQ tests are not used as employment tests. Most employers opt for cognitive aptitude tests. The legal impacts nowadays is, you know...

Gene: 32:52

Yeah, I'm not aware of anything that's sexual law around that.

Ben: 32:55

Okay, well, anyway, what was the point the, the point is that the military you know, if you want to go into any military service in the U S you have to take the as fabs. In fact, all high school students in the U S take the as fabs and they, as fab is an IQ test. It's all it is. And part of that is because it is illegal for the U S military to induct anyone who has an IQ lower than 80.

Gene: 33:22

That's probably a wee bit on the low side, but sure. Makes sense.

Ben: 33:26

Well, it's, it's the point at which you are not even useful cannon fodder. Yep. Yep. Yeah. It's either 80 or 85, but regardless.

Gene: 33:36

And there definitely have been some guys with really high IQs in the military, occasionally that I've met. Yeah. But. Certainly, I think the average is definitely no higher than U. S. norm.

Ben: 33:51

Well, so you have two classes of people who go into the U. S. military, if you ask me. You have those whose families have served, who, you know, see it as a duty, tradition, those sorts of things. And then, really, The vast majority of us military. And I'm sure a lot of people are going to get pissed off at me at saying this. It's a job of opportunity. There is a class of people who quite frankly, couldn't get a different job that would pay anywhere near what that pays. And it is definitely a vehicle for raising people out of poverty,

Gene: 34:28

you know? For sure. And that there's nothing wrong with that. That's perfectly fine. We also have a foreign military program where we hire non U. S. citizens to be in the U. S. military as a way to provide them U. S. citizenship because service guarantees citizenship. So, yeah,

Ben: 34:52

and that's that's being actually expanded under Biden. Stuff here. So,

Gene: 34:59

yeah, well, in Russia service guarantees amnesty, apparently.

Ben: 35:06

Yeah. Something it was just so funny that everyone just went off on that. It was such a everybody and their brother

Gene: 35:15

jumped on. Oh yeah. It was a total molehill and everybody's turning into a mountain. I mean, it was less than 24 hours before. The, the condemnation of him was retracted. It's like, Jesus, this thing did not last even a day. Well,

Ben: 35:33

here's the thing. Even if you think let's, let's rewind the clock and it's Saturday morning, our time and everybody's posting about this. He's got 20, 000 troops. They're not. Super well equipped to the point where they can really take on, you know, the Russian military. They're

Gene: 35:55

also predominantly made up of criminals. Well,

Ben: 35:59

criminals and former Russian military. So, you know, for him to maintain that sort of coup, he would have had to have had a huge moral high ground, which I don't think he had. No.

Gene: 36:15

No, I think the, the excuse was that, Oh, some of our guys just get. Killed in a bombing. But I think it's pretty obvious that the money was the biggest motivator. He's been bitching for a while about how slow funds are coming. Like those interviews are out there. And I think even translated into English and you know, that. He's referring to money for the organization for like the troops, but yeah, but he's meaning too, a part of that is him too You know, like, where's my fucking money? Hey, my, and I, and I totally believe that, by the way, I don't think Russia's been making their payments on time. I knowing the personality of a lot of the, the people that would be the bureaucrats in the government. They would not do anything to help move things along nice and quick because there is a, between the professional bureaucrat class and the, the hired mercenary class, there's a big disdain from both sides for each other. Why is

Ben: 37:25

that?

Gene: 37:26

Well, I think that's pretty universal is that one side thinks that these mergeries are just. Not doing jack shit, bunch of criminal scumbags and we shouldn't be paying him anyway. And the other side thinks that the bureaucrats have always been the problem with the country. It's not, you know, it's not the criminals, it's the fucking bureaucrats. Those are the biggest criminal. Well, they are. They both have a certain point to them, right? No, no. But it's historically, the bureaucrats are the bigger problem. Well, they are. But also... You got to remember that Wagner is not some elite mercenary force. Wagner is a, they, they have, as you said, they have ex Russian military officers, but they're most of their troops are coming out of prisons. It's a, it's a prison release program.

Ben: 38:20

Well, so anyway, Zayhan and I can't believe we're back on this topic, but Zayhan, 1 of his things that he was pointing out was essentially that, the Wagner group was Wagner group was given the choice between, Hey, you know, when this is over, your only customer is going to be Russia, or you can have the rest of the world as your customer. And I don't think that was ever realistic to begin with. No, definitely not. You know, I think there are definitely some third world countries that will use them, but we'll

Gene: 38:53

continue to use them. That's not a, yeah,

Ben: 38:55

but that's not going to stop, you know, insert African country here from using them. But as far as the U S ever using them over our own or. Europe. Yeah. No, that's just not a thing wouldn't happen. So I think his analysis was very off there, but he was, he was laughing hysterically and like giddy that this was happening. And then, of course, he was,

Gene: 39:24

yeah, well, I'm sure he'll have some kind of face saving. Thing

Ben: 39:28

you need to go watch the 30 minutes that he put out on this, because I don't know how he walks a lot of that back like he kind of shot himself in the foot.

Gene: 39:41

Yeah, a little too enthusiastic and started listening to the propaganda instead of actually,

Ben: 39:47

well, and this is the problem with schadenfreude, right? When you're taking you know, you, you, you get out over your skis. Yeah,

Gene: 39:56

yeah, definitely. Which, you know, I did a whole episode on schadenfreude. I think it's a very useful human trait. What's it useful? Well, you'd have to go and listen to that episode that I just did like an hour on it. What episode is this? So Jean speaks back probably two years ago. Okay. I can't remember the number, but the, I think schadenfreude is the title of the episode, so it ought to be easy enough to look up. But yeah, I, I talked about how it's actually an evolutionary development. It it helps with cohesion and coalition of the of the tribe.

Ben: 40:36

Shaming others when they're down.

Gene: 40:39

What's not so much shaming as feeling a euphoria when when people you don't like have things happening that are bad for them it's a, it's a positive reinforcement feeling that you're on the right side of things. Hmm. Yeah, it was a brilliant episode if I do say so myself, but we're well worth checking out. Yeah. Don't

Ben: 41:01

break your arm. Okay.

Gene: 41:06

I'm trying to think if there's anything she knew, there's not a whole lot going on. I mean, I'd just been doing work and then playing some video games and that's about it. I mean,

Ben: 41:14

did you see the ammo I sent you?

Gene: 41:17

I saw the link. I didn't buy

Ben: 41:19

anything. Well, anyone who needs 762 by 39 cheaper than dirt has a sale going on today. Dirt out of

Gene: 41:26

Texas

Ben: 41:26

here. Yeah. They've they've got I think it's 600 rounds of 762 by 39 in an ammo can for like 250 bucks. It's a pretty good deal.

Gene: 41:37

Actually. That's about the price of nine millimeter. And that a little more, a little more. Yeah. Yeah,

Ben: 41:44

I'm not a huge fan about a thousand rounds.

Gene: 41:47

Yeah. Okay. I'm not a huge, so nine millimeters, a quarter around right now

Ben: 41:51

about, yeah, I just bought well, actually that was 45. I've bought a little bit ammo since last spoke. Mm-hmm. By the way, I did get the, the, my birthday gift. Oh, good, good, good. So for those who don't know, I got a a 1911 mm-hmm. for my birthday slash Father's Day. That is the Republic of Texas edition. It's a Tais Tais, however you say it. It's a Turkish 1911, but actually shoots fairly well and good. I got it for the look so. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a cool looking gun. And they only made 18, 1836 of them. So,

Gene: 42:29

which is tell people why,

Ben: 42:31

That's 1836 was the year tech, the Republic of Texas was founded.

Gene: 42:36

So that's a cool thing. Even if it's not true, it's, it's cool that they're saying they made that many.

Ben: 42:41

Oh, they totally just made that many, dude. You don't think they made more? No, they've already gotten a lot of crap. And I don't think I, if they're actually trying to build up a reputation. And so the, the Turkish firearms industry has come a long way in the last 5, 10 years. So talking to a couple of gunsmiths, I know that I, that I actually trust What they have said to me is especially like on 1911s or any, any firearm that's out of patent that, you know, anyone can replicate and work, they've really gotten their quality control in hand and they've really worked through a few things where they're choosing the right internals, the right patents to follow. Because if, if you don't know, there've been many iterations of the 1911 platform over the years. It's not just the 1911 that was in World War I. It's it's changed. Brownings gone.

Gene: 43:45

Exactly. Yeah. I, I think the biggest issue with Turkish manufacturing has been quality control. And you can get something great or you could get something very mediocre.

Ben: 43:56

And what everybody has said is the quality control has gone up. You know, I was between that or there was a Taurus 1911 I was looking at and there was a Springfield 1911 that I was looking at. And what the gunsmith told me is, you know, on the basic Springfields and the Taurus and this, there's no difference. So, and, you know, a lot of people crap on Taurus, but I've had several, I've had great luck and they offer a lifetime warranty. Anything goes wrong, send it in, come back.

Gene: 44:33

And I've never had to use the warranty unlike SIG, where I did have to return again.

Ben: 44:39

Yeah. So for instance, I've got a Taurus 40 Cal that I have at least five or 6, 000 rounds through, and I have zero malfunctions. I've had to replace a couple of springs, but you know, that's a wear part. Yeah.

Gene: 45:01

Yeah. It's I don't know. I think they're, they're pretty solid. I've I

Ben: 45:05

like them. Well, and they come out with cool shit like the judge or, you know, some of their, some of their saddle guns and things like that, that have been pretty cool. Oh, I still

Gene: 45:15

think you should have gotten the Wilson, but

Ben: 45:18

yeah, I spent 700 instead of, you know, 2000. So 2700.

Gene: 45:26

Yeah. But that's, those are good guns, man. Yeah, it's, I did not buy any firearms. I went through all that last year when I was doing my, right. Yeah, that would have been last year when I was doing a lot of firearms purchasing, maybe beginning of this year. But I do need to pick up some more ammo. So I'll take a look at this. I think I need to check how much I'm like six, two by three, nine ammo I have. I think I have enough because I've mostly just been buying IWI ammo, all the calibers. Just for, I don't know, consistency.

Ben: 46:00

I, I don't own a gun that I don't have a thousand rounds of ammo for.

Gene: 46:07

I know I definitely do because I have not bought any. 300 blackout yet, and I own two guns that shoot. Yeah. So

Ben: 46:17

not a caliber that has ever interested me.

Gene: 46:21

Yeah. And I, I'm not

Ben: 46:24

the only reason why, the only reason why you'd want 300 blackout is if you're going suppressed. Oh,

Gene: 46:29

also grendell. I, I haven't bought any Grendel Mo and I have a gun that shoots as well, which grindle the, the same one as the. You know, the normal size one, 30 caliber. I, I don't, what is the actual name of the round? It's the, is it the. The seven, six Grendel or seven millimeter Grendel, or I, I can't remember, but it's a 30 caliber one. So at some point I need to buy some ammo for that. So I can take it out. You're

Ben: 47:04

talking about the six, five Grendel, which is five.

Gene: 47:07

That's a 30 calendar. No, it's not. That is smaller. Okay. Which, what am I I don't

Ben: 47:12

know. That's why I asked

Gene: 47:13

you which, yeah, no, you're right. It is six, five rental. It is definitely six, five rental. So it's a little round. Yeah. Well, it's not okay. Haven't have not bought any of that ammo yet.

Ben: 47:24

The, I tell you what I saw a round that I was pretty interesting. That was 22. What was it? What's the other six, five Creedmoor. Yes. It's 22 Creedmoor. Have you looked at that round? No. Holy shnikes, brother. Talk about a round for the, I like, I want one. Like the, the reason why

Gene: 47:55

is it the specs or what do you like about it?

Ben: 47:57

Yes. Okay. So like people are doing crazy velocities with this thing. Like a 52 grain. So same as five, five, six, 52 grain is doing 4, 100 feet per second. 41, 41 that. So it's completely

Gene: 48:18

flat. I mean, that should have no fricking deviation at all.

Ben: 48:24

I mean, it, it's just ridiculous here. We'll look at the specs. It's ridiculous. 22 Creedmoor, man, for a varmint round slash hell sniper rifle, I mean, you're not going to have a lot of energy at it because of light, but

Gene: 48:47

Jesus. It's going to disintegrate. Like nothing, there won't be a bullet left when they hit something.

Ben: 48:54

Well, I mean, 4, 100 feet per second. You, I don't care what the bullet is. You're you're still going to be supersonic at a thousand yards. I mean, 3, 200 feet per second, you're supersonic at a

Gene: 49:06

thousand yards. So I'm reading here. It looks like they use them for

Ben: 49:09

coyote hunting. Yes. It's a, it's a, it's considered a varmint round, but still, it's just incredible to me that they're. Pushing that.

Gene: 49:20

Yeah. 26 inch barrel with a with a suppressor and it still goes out at over three and a half thousand feet per second. A thousand yards. Yeah. Wow. Impressive.

Ben: 49:37

Anyway, I, I, I had not seen that caliber before, but by the way, do you watch any of the Brandon Herrera's stuff? Yeah. Watch all his stuff. Dude. I, I had never really watched his channel except for a few things here and there. Yeah.

Gene: 49:50

It's cause you don't like AKs.

Ben: 49:53

I mean, I'm not against AKs. Yeah.

Gene: 49:58

He's, he was, he's moved a little bit now, but he used to be where 99% of the content was all AK related.

Ben: 50:05

Well, he's doing the AK 50 project, which is just insane. But so anyway I'm not against AKs that I've grown up with AKs. Thank you. My mom has an Egyptian Maddie. So that's a copy.

Gene: 50:21

That's an AK copy.

Ben: 50:24

It's a very cool and good AK copy. But anyway so I started watching on vacation the just cause I had my little Roku streaming stick with me and bored at night or whatever. And started watching the Darwin Awards videos. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are hilarious. Mhm.

Gene: 50:45

There's some I think some, I like the ones that are funny, but sometimes it's like, you just feel the pain in your body when you watch it on the screen,

Ben: 50:54

your balls just tighten up to

Gene: 50:58

watch people shooting themselves in the foot all the time

Ben: 51:02

are blowing themselves up. Yeah.

Gene: 51:05

Yeah. But he, he's definitely moved into more broad spectrum content, which is what kind of what I would call those videos because back five years ago, four years ago, when I started watching him, he was. Pretty much just doing like AK versus AR, AK torture tests, new AK models for sale. It was all AK stuff. But he's another one of our Texas dudes. He lives, I think, in San Antonio. And a bunch of them are down there. Yeah,

Ben: 51:38

there's a few. You've got Grantham, who's up in the Northwest, but I don't know.

Gene: 51:43

And then you got the Demolition Ranch dude. He's in San Antonio, or just outside of it.

Ben: 51:49

Yeah, whatever ever happened to FPS Russia? Oh,

Gene: 51:54

why? I know exactly what happened to FPS Russia.

Ben: 51:58

I haven't tracked it, so I don't know. Yeah. It just got me thinking, where did that guy ever go? That

Gene: 52:03

was the number one YouTube, by views show for a long time. Yeah. Back when I was on. Fake Russian accent. With a fake Russian, with a pretty good fake Russian. The guy, I think his accent was pretty good. It was not ridiculous. It's better than Rocky and Bonko Moose and squirrel, squirrel yeah. So his, he had a business partner who was the actual gun guy. So. He essentially his partner was the one, he was class three gunsmith and,

Ben: 52:43

And reseller mean for everybody out there. So,

Gene: 52:46

Had licensed to sell fully automatic weapons. So things that normal Americans have been illegally prohibited from owning, or at least not easily owning and certainly everything after 1986, you cannot own. But You could still sell them to organizations that are allowed to own full, full automatic weapons, like police departments and, you know, other dealers. I don't know who else so this, this partner has was the one that was procuring and supplying the firearms and it really was a partnership because I think the FPS Russia was the onscreen personality. And this dude was sort of the behind the scenes guy. And what happened was all of a sudden one day, this then they, they live in Georgia. So that was where this happened. They found his, his business partner with his hands tied behind his back and a bullet through his head in a, what they described as a bunker, which was a separate structure on this property. That was had held all the firearms, so it had all the appearances of a deal gone bad and, and the deal gone bad you know, with somebody who was not particularly you know, ethical somebody that, so either his partner had procured something and hadn't paid for it and didn't have the money. Or he was the opposite of where he sold something that turned out to not be a good dealer or, you know, he, he did something obviously that was big enough for somebody to decide to kill him. So now the effect this had on the show immediately was, of course, he stopped doing the show right away. As soon as that happened, because. You know, the, the cops had access to all the guns. So like there was an investigation going on. Kyle had the guy's name's Kyle. He had an alibi and everything. It wasn't him. They, they weren't, I'm sure initially they suspected him, but he was effectively clear of that pretty quick. But the, the aftermath of that event was that, sorry,

Ben: 55:23

I'm just reading about it.

Gene: 55:24

Okay. A lot of people. I think in the in law enforcement weren't aware of this show and when they started realizing how this, this thing is right in their backyard and it's really popular, there was a lot of pushback and people like, yeah, we just don't need this shit. Happening here, you know, we, we don't need to have something that ends up resulting in, in murder in our backyard. So I think there was a private call to take Kyle down. They just had to figure out a method to do it. And the method that they ended up using was drugs with intent to distribute. Because Kyle partook of the hemp herb and he at the time, I think was dating somebody that was a pretty avid pot smoker as well. And so. The cops ended up the A t F? Well, I, I think it was initially the cops, it ended up going to the A T F, but I think it was, it was a, a sheriff's department in Georgia initially that, that kind of pushed this thing through. Cuz the, the A T F wasn't gonna stop him and then check if he had drugs on, let,

Ben: 56:46

let's just say that hunter Biden just got away with the same crime. Yeah,

Gene: 56:51

yeah, that's exactly right. So the, the, the crime was that he had like five grams or whatever the minimum. That is above the threshold is amount of marijuana to where they can say, well, that's above the threshold. So that's clearly intent to distribute and Oh, by the way, holy shit. You have a lot of guns and you're doing drugs and you've got guns. That's a no, no. That's where the ATF comes in transfers. Exactly. You've done transfers where you say you're not a drug user. So you clearly lied on all your transfers. So they took all his guns away and then they wanted to put him in prison. I think it was for 15 years or 10 years. It was a fairly lengthy amount of time. Something that nobody with just a minor drug charge would ever get. And as, as you pointed out something that the president's son, even literally doing the exact same thing with a lot more drugs, doesn't get charged with, get a slap on the wrist. And so Kyle ends up in this negotiation with them for about a year and a half period of time, at which point they do a, a deal where he agrees to plead to enough things that he'll end up serving a prison sentence for, I believe it was 90 days. I think it was three months. So he's going to be in prison for three months. And then that will wrap up this whole case. He's thinking, get in charge with anything else. And it's, you know, they, I think they kind of scared him with a 10 year prison sentence.

Ben: 58:24

Yeah. But he also ended up with a felony. It looks like, yes, he

Gene: 58:27

did. So no more guns for you. No more guns for him. Yeah, absolutely. And then no voting. So which

Ben: 58:36

the gun thing would put me more.

Gene: 58:38

Yeah, exactly. I don't know how much voting he did previously, but, but it's, it's a thing that I don't agree with. I think even the criminals should be allowed to vote.

Ben: 58:48

If, if the criminals are allowed to run the country,

Gene: 58:53

the criminals are on the ballot. I don't see why the criminals can't be voting out about so yeah, so his prison tales are awesome. He has a very, very good style of storytelling. I've listened to most of his stories on that topic. It is, you know, he was only there for like three months, but he's got like hours and hours of story time and talking about life in prison and you know, what, what his experience with and the whole racial thing and the gangs and, and, you know, shivs and bathroom usage and all this stuff, but they're really fun stories. I can't remember the name of the podcast, but there's a podcast that he's a semi regular on and that's the podcast that, that he's told all the prison stories on so it's, it's well worth it. If if either one of us finds that and we'll mention it before the end of the show, but I'm sure you could search for FPS Russia, Kyle prison story. And that would probably get you the the link to that. So Pat podcast, he did. And so he's still on YouTube, you know, he's just not active. Now I think while they did take all his guns and I, he did say how much that was, I think, I think it was like 300, 000 or 600, 000 worth of guns. It was a significant amount of money, but at his peak, he was making about that much on a monthly basis from YouTube. So I think financially, if he wasn't stupid, he's probably set for the rest of his life right now. It doesn't really have to work because the, the show was not ill gotten gain. So the government had no no way to get at that money. He wasn't,

Ben: 1:00:53

he wasn't pulled some shitty

Gene: 1:00:55

stuff. They do pull some shitty stuff, but like that was legitimate earnings. And if his idiot business partner hadn't gotten himself shot, then none of this would have happened. We probably would have still been watching FPS Russia. Sad days. I enjoyed that show because it's, it is ridiculous. And there was moments, there was several moments in that show where he almost got killed or at least maimed severely. Well, it

Ben: 1:01:26

was from one of the Darwin award videos where he shot a truck with some Tannerite in it and the door flies off and flies right past him. Like he literally pauses for a second and then goes straight back into character.

Gene: 1:01:39

Yeah. He was really good at staying in character,

Ben: 1:01:43

but legitimately he almost

Gene: 1:01:44

got absolutely several times where you could see that he almost got killed. Yeah. Or severely maimed. Yeah.

Ben: 1:01:51

While we're on the topic of guns, the Palmetto state armory is gotten quite the sale going on for 4th of July already.

Gene: 1:02:01

Yes, that's coming up. So they've got a big sale event in the U S 4th of July. Nobody really remembers what that holiday was supposed to be, but it was a huge sale

Ben: 1:02:10

of opportunity for everybody. I sent you an AK. I was looking at it. Oh, you did? Oh, okay. I'll check it out. They've got a blemished AK AK 47, gen three forged classic for 599. That's pretty cheap.

Gene: 1:02:23

That's very cheap. And that's their current latest generation. I assume it is.

Ben: 1:02:32

And they've got they've got a whole bunch of AK variants that they've put out where they've, they've got them in five, six, they've got it in different calibers, different variants. Yeah. They're, they're

Gene: 1:02:42

definitely one of the biggest us producers of AK based.

Ben: 1:02:47

AK and AR and AR 10 so Palmetto state started out kind of as a budget brand, but they've the, the, the gen three AR 10 that they put out is awesome. Have you shot one? I own one. Yeah. Okay. It was so good that after I got mine, I bought my dad one, so, ah,

Gene: 1:03:16

yeah. That's cool. I like ar tens. I think that well, I like design a little more than the AR fifteens, let's put it that way.

Ben: 1:03:22

Well, I just like the caliber, but yeah. I mm-hmm. I really want to get a 3 0 8 Bullpup, but the desert Tech has had interestingly crappy

Gene: 1:03:32

views. Views. You should shoot my Tvar.

Ben: 1:03:34

See how you like that one? I do, but I don't know that I want to because then I will want to spend the money on it and that would be a problem.

Gene: 1:03:42

Yeah. But the problem with bulk pops, and this is one of the reasons I got Tvar, is that the triggers are usually the weak point because they have long trigger bar thing. So Tvar is one of the lighter trigger. 308s that you can buy in a bullpup design. Cause I just really dislike heavy trigger pull. So we definitely need to do a range day. That's for sure. Cause it's been like, we, we both obviously have a ton of guns and we've never actually gotten to do a range day

Ben: 1:04:22

meetup. We should do. So one of the interesting things that I saw on the Ukraine war was the use of the maximum machine gun in the Ukraine war. This gun was fielded in 1886 and it is still being used today by both sides. Really? Yes. It's, how insane is that? It's a water cooled machine gun. It's like a. Yeah,

Gene: 1:04:50

it looks like a. Gatling

Ben: 1:04:52

gun. No, no, no. It's not a gatling gun. It's a single barrel. When you think of the World War I machine gun with the big housing around the barrel and stuff. Mm hmm. That's the Maxim.

Gene: 1:05:02

It's it is a single barrel. It's not multi barrel barrel. Why is the barrel so thick?

Ben: 1:05:08

Because it's water cooled. That's a

Gene: 1:05:10

water jacket around there. Okay. Okay. I gotcha.

Ben: 1:05:13

Hmm. It's a water cooled machine gun.

Gene: 1:05:16

Yeah. Yeah. What's his face. I see in the, in the video from last year is shooting it. The

Ben: 1:05:25

AK guy. Yeah. It just struck me that this, this gun's over a hundred years old and it's 140 years old and it's still sitting used.

Gene: 1:05:38

Yeah, it was used in the Russo Japanese war, the world war one and the revolutionary war in 1917. The other

Ben: 1:05:47

funny gun that I saw that was being used by by Russia, Thompson submachine guns. Oh, they're using Tommy guns? That's funny. Yeah. And you know why? Why? Because in World War II, we gave them a shit ton of fun, and they're still in service, which if you've ever shouldered a Thompson submachine gun, it is one of the most awkward, weird guns ever. They look cool, you think they're cool, then you pick it up and you put it on your shoulder and you go, the fuck is this? And the controls make no sense, I mean, they're not

Gene: 1:06:22

a good gun. Yeah. Well, they're, they're a very early design. I actually shot one of those in full auto at the FBI range number of years back. It was a, well, I would agree with your sentiment about it, but shooting full auto 45 caliber is something

Ben: 1:06:41

else. Yeah. I mean, it's a cool, all right, let me rephrase it's a cool gun. I would love to have one, but it's not a practical gun. And it's not one of those things that I'm going to spend a bunch of money on to get. I'll

Gene: 1:06:53

tell you the funnest version of that I shot was many years ago. It was actually when I ran for a house representative said the after party we had was at a gun range. And I shot a full auto 22 caliber version that with a 300 round magazine. That would be fun, dude. You ever go to the like the carnies carnival things where you have to shoot out stuff with their stupid air guns? Yes. It was like that except accurate where you could literally draw a circle on the target. And, you know, cut out the middle, the gun,

Ben: 1:07:33

the gun that I've always wanted from a full auto ever since I've seen it, I'm not a big full auto fan because I can't carry enough ammo. Exactly.

Gene: 1:07:44

It's, it.

Ben: 1:07:46

It's mostly for tv. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, so I don't consider full auto guns very practical. Right. But they are fun. The one that always interested me to actually own that I would actually spend some money on and own mm-hmm. except they're super fucking rare, is the AM 180. I

Gene: 1:08:05

don't even know what that is.

Ben: 1:08:07

Oh, you don't know what the AM 180 is? No. So the American 180, if you look it up, AM 180 is a

Gene: 1:08:14

Oh, Topload. Yeah, Topload 22

Ben: 1:08:17

Long Rifle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Machine gun that shoots like 1, 500 rounds a minute. Yeah,

Gene: 1:08:22

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben: 1:08:23

The Yeah, so it's super cheap to fire and you know, no recoil. It was actually used for law enforcement as a less than lethal, right? Control.

Gene: 1:08:33

Yeah. Less than lethal is less

Ben: 1:08:35

lethal, less lethal, not less lethal. So less lethal, meaning it'll still poke a hole in you and depending on where you get hit, but anyway, it's a super cool gun. If you ask me.

Gene: 1:08:50

Yeah, that's neat looking gun. I think. From a cool guns, I'd like to have in full auto standpoint, it's that it's definitely going to be the MP5 for me, mostly because of books and movies. It's just such an iconic gun, even though I've got, you know, I've shot a full auto version of it. I've got friends that have the semi auto version of it. I've never spent the money on

Ben: 1:09:15

it. I think it's crazy money. So, you know what, you want to know what the AM one 80 is going for right now.

Gene: 1:09:22

No, it's got to be more than that. 12, 12

Ben: 1:09:25

grand. Yeah. Doesn't legally get an

Gene: 1:09:29

MP5. You can, because they were manufactured before before 1986. So you have to get an old MP5. Yes. Yeah. So, well, that, that's the only way you can as a joke. Well, how's that a joke?

Ben: 1:09:46

Cause of course you have to have something pre banned. That was the entire point.

Gene: 1:09:49

Yeah, yeah,

Ben: 1:09:51

exactly. Now you can get the MP5 in you know, SBR or pistol in semi auto.

Gene: 1:09:58

Yeah, you can get the semi auto version of it. It's a,

Ben: 1:10:02

and then do a conversion.

Gene: 1:10:03

If you, it's, it's not, yeah. If you put it like a what do you call those triggers? The back and forth trigger thing or, or not. Yeah. Binary trigger or something on there. That probably would actually be a more useful version of it. You wouldn't waste as much ammo, but the MP5, I just think was just a, it was a pretty design. It worked well. More so like that gun is just much better made and better looking than an Uzi, for example, which accomplished the same task. It was a compact full auto pistol caliber gun that you can carry in the protection

Ben: 1:10:47

detail. Well, and, you know, that are, you know, the Mac 10 and stuff like that. Cool. It's interesting to see the, the differences between open and closed bolt guns. Yes.

Gene: 1:11:02

Now I used to have a Calico,

Ben: 1:11:04

which by the way, just to describe, so an open bolt gun, everybody, most of the guns you, you come across since this is gunsmithing one on one today, but most of the guns you come across are closed bolt guns, meaning the bolt is closed, the gun is in battery and then the trigger and the firing pin drop. Open bolt. And this is mostly found in small caliber submachine guns and larger caliber belt fed machine guns where the firing pin actually doesn't drop. It is fixed and the bolt is held open and the bolt drops impacting the round, firing the round.

Gene: 1:11:47

And we, interestingly, we have both of those design types. In paintball as well.

Ben: 1:11:54

I've never seen an open bolt paintball gun. Yeah. I

Gene: 1:11:57

used to shoot one.

Ben: 1:11:58

Yeah. Okay. I still have my paintball gun from the nineties. Yeah. It wasn't anything fancy.

Gene: 1:12:07

Mine was from the eighties. I had the mini mag.

Ben: 1:12:11

I had, I had a, I think it was a spider or something like that. I don't

Gene: 1:12:14

know. Oh yeah. They were one of the cheap ones.

Ben: 1:12:17

Dude. For, I remember we used to make fun of fighter people. Bucks was expensive, especially in the nineties. Right. I mean, seriously, that's like three, 400 in today's money now. Yeah, for sure. For a teenager. Yeah.

Gene: 1:12:33

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, dude, you watch those shows with the girls that guess how much money an average man makes 500, 000 a year, it's gotta be average. Right.

Ben: 1:12:45

Oh,

Gene: 1:12:48

So do you know what a Calico is? I say I'm on those. I will send you a link to it. It was it was an interesting gun. It was a cool design that unfortunately was by name on the band gun law in that during the Bill Clinton era, the gun, the gun bill. So it effectively killed off the company and they could not iterate and improve, but it had a hundred round helical magazine. And nine millimeter mine was nine. They made 20 twos and nines, but mine was nine millimeter. So you could get a 50 round or a hundred round magazine on it. That's a 50 round. Just stayed on top. The a hundred magazine, like half of it was behind the gun. And that looks like it's part of the stock. Yeah. Yeah. It really, you, you were, you're the stock was apparently is a pistol, but well, it had a pistol and a rifle version. I have the pistol. The only difference between the two, honestly, was the rifle version had a sliding stock, but it was basically the same gun.

Ben: 1:14:00

That is a weird gun, dude. They had a

Gene: 1:14:03

blowback operated, blowback operated, and the, the, it had no muzzle flip at all. It was a completely flat recoil.

Ben: 1:14:13

Operated means there's, the impulse is in line with the barrel. Yeah. So that's, so one of the things that people need to understand there is muzzle flip as Jean put it, or muzzle rise and so on. It often has to do with the operating system. So for instance, on a AK or AR 15 or 10 or any of the AR platforms, the gas system are the. Gas piston system in the case of the AK is on top of the barrel, meaning the recoil impulse is up. If you look at like my M1A for instance, the operating rod and gas system is on the bottom. So the recoil impulse is down. It very much depends on that. Whereas if it's a blowback operated firearm, there is no out of line of fire. Right. Physical moving parts. It's just the bolt being thrown back by the force of the cartridge.

Gene: 1:15:06

And it had a counterweight. So the, the, it had the bolt and then it had a weight and they were in two pieces with spring tension. So that initially the you know, the, the recoil impulse would push the bolt back and the bolt would actually stop. And then a weight would continue to be go back and slow down and then come back.

Ben: 1:15:30

So it's a very much in, if you've ever shot like a 10, 22 rigor, 10, 22, that'd be a similar operation.

Gene: 1:15:38

Yeah, but this thing, well, for 22, it doesn't even matter if there is much recoil, it's just such a light round, but when you're shooting nine millimeter, having that recoil not be in any vector. At all. And it just completely back is really nice. So I really liked it from that standpoint. Now there's plenty of downsides to this thing. It was not a finally get rid of it. I did. Yeah, I sold it. I sold it. Well, and for the reasons I'm about to tell you number one, it had a tendency to go into full auto mode which is not a good thing especially during the Janet Reno days to be at a range with a gun that starts going. And when it's, when it's not supposed to, and you're not licensed and the other

Ben: 1:16:25

reason when you say full auto mode, it was a semi auto that was slam firing. Yes. Gotcha.

Gene: 1:16:33

That's a problem. Yeah. It's absolutely a problem. And it's a, it's a defect. But unfortunately the government turned the company bankrupt, so it wasn't going to get fixed. Number two is that it sounds really cool to have a hundred rounds. Right on top of the gun, but it's really heavy to have a hundred

Ben: 1:16:53

drops on top of the gun, even with

Gene: 1:16:55

22. Yeah. Yeah. Well, mine was nine. I didn't have the 22. So, it, it definitely added up to where after shooting like one magazine worth. You were pretty much done, like it was not fun to keep shooting it after one magazine. Next thing is the, because of the design of the gun, the rear site is actually on top of the magazine. It's part of the magazine. Yeah. Which basically means most people use a laser with that gun instead of a site. That was the more

Ben: 1:17:28

accurate way to do it. Yeah. Every time you change your magazine, you're going to be setting zero.

Gene: 1:17:33

Exactly. So it sounds like a shit product, dude. Well, it was an American small company in some ways, but yeah, it's, it's a very cool design. It's a gun made by engineers, not gun people, I think is when it starts. And It could very well have evolved at the company, not getting out of business a few years down the road into where that design was corrected and all the negatives were ironed out and all the positives remained, but they were never given the chance to do that. There's a number of companies like that. They

Ben: 1:18:08

existed. It looks like somebody's bought the patents and rights. Oh, I'm sure.

Gene: 1:18:12

I mean, that shit never just disappears. Yeah. Same thing for the company that made the street sweeper. Like that was another company that ended up going out of

Ben: 1:18:21

business. So before we go to the street sweeper how much did you sell yours for?

Gene: 1:18:28

Oh boy. I think I bought it for about 600 and I sold it for probably about 500.

Ben: 1:18:35

So do you, do you want to know what they're going for? Sure. Yeah. 12 grand. What? Over 12 grand. You're kidding. I'll go and broke her right now. Fuck me.

Gene: 1:18:51

I kept that thing and just not shot it. Oh my God. Yeah. It was, it was a 600 gun when it was brand new. Yeah. Well, there you go. 12 grand. Oh

Ben: 1:19:01

my God. For the nine millimeter version. Cause apparently the 22 is more popular. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Sorry. I just had to. So, I, I, I think I've told this story before, but

Gene: 1:19:14

I'll, I'll, I'll. So I could've traded one for, like, a used car right now?

Ben: 1:19:18

Goddammit. I don't know what used car you think you're gonna get for 12 grand these days, but sure.

Gene: 1:19:22

Well, I certainly couldn't get a new car. But I could get a, I could get something used for that

Ben: 1:19:26

much. Not anything good. So, So I think I've told this story before, but I have a Chinese Norinco SKS that I got in the nineties because they were cheap and I cleaned the gun up. It was in cosmoline, you know, brand new in cosmoline, never been shot. It was surplus gun. Got it for like 50 bucks. Right. And first time I went to shoot it, I had a runaway mag dump. And the reason why I didn't disassemble the bolt. And so on an SKS, in fact, most rifles, your AR fifteens and so on are a free floating firing pin. And because it had been in cosmoline, the cosmoline had gotten into the bolt and. After that first hammer strike through the bolt forward, the cosmoline was enough to keep it forward. So then every time it chambered around, that was then slam firing and firing it off. That was fun. Yeah. That's you

Gene: 1:20:36

made me think about it with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's especially when you're not expecting that to happen. It's a very disconcerting thing.

Ben: 1:20:44

Yeah. The most disconcerting thing I've ever had happened to me was with my 300 rum. I had I was testing out what has become my main target load, which is 150 grain bullet with a shit ton of powder doing well over 3000 feet per second. But so this is a thumper of a round, right? And I was developing this round and I was out at the range and I pulled the trigger on this 300 rooming to an ultra mag and it goes click. And luckily I. It was smart enough and knew enough about guns that I didn't move. Didn't know what's going on. I just hung there. I actually gripped it a little tighter and waited. And within a few seconds,

Gene: 1:21:26

boom. Yeah. And those clips are the kind of stuff that shows up on the Darwin awards. Yeah.

Ben: 1:21:32

Yeah. Well, you have to know what you're doing. Anyway, long story short, that ended my range day, went home, tried to figure out what was doing it, what was going on. And I cause I, this was all hand loads though. And what I found, and I found this in, so I disassembled all the bullets that I had rounds that I put together. What had happened was I had tumbled this brass without primers seated primers in there and a handful of them, a piece of media had gotten in the primer hole and that piece of media was enough to not allow the primer to fully ignite powder and not do what it's supposed to do. Caused a

Gene: 1:22:08

fire. Are you using a wall shell media? Yeah. Well, we'll show Walnut shelves.

Ben: 1:22:14

2000s. Yep. Yep.

Gene: 1:22:18

Yeah. That's what my dad always used to use.

Ben: 1:22:22

But anyway, lesson learned, leave your primers in, don't decap your brass before you tumble it. Yeah.

Gene: 1:22:36

What do you think of the new plastic rounds? Maybe Charlie,

Ben: 1:22:40

All I've seen is mostly like pistol caliber stuff.

Gene: 1:22:44

Yeah, they've got them. They've got them up to three Oh eight. But,

Ben: 1:22:48

No, I haven't shot any that it doesn't really interest any, I mean, it's a one time use thing for any, anything other than a shotgun.

Gene: 1:22:59

So yeah, it's a one time use thing that I, I got one box of ammo. It's just too damn expensive right now. But it's supposed to be the most consistent rounds you can buy. Why is that? Because there's zero difference between them.

Ben: 1:23:15

Well, the difference isn't in the casing. The difference in rounds and what matters in any match ammunition manufacturing is powder consistency. Because anytime you use an automatic powder throw or something where you're not purposefully measuring exactly what you're doing You in, you end up with inconsistencies between rounds and that, that, that the, the manufacturing process for a match grade or better ammunition really is all about consistency, nothing else.

Gene: 1:23:48

Well, that, and then the brass thickness actually does vary. And that's one of the things that these guys dress

Ben: 1:23:54

is that doesn't have as much ballistic performance issues. Well, apparently

Gene: 1:24:00

some, okay. I don't, I'm not going to claim to be an expert in this area. I'm really not. I've never done the hand loads. But from talking to some gun guys and then looking at what they're talking about on the site, it's company in Texas here that makes them, but they started off as manufacturing or, well, I don't know how much manufacturing it did as designing these rounds as part of the army contract that ultimately SIG won with their buy metal bullets. But one of the other competitors in that contest was using these plastic rounds. And so this was the company I was making them and, and instead of, I guess they, they got enough funding to then say, even though they lost that contract. They're going to keep developing these rounds. Is this true velocity? I think so. Yeah. That sounds right. Yeah. If you found them online, that's what it is. But it's pretty interesting. So I've got one box of their ammo but I haven't done any testing of it myself,

Ben: 1:25:06

30% lighter than loaded

Gene: 1:25:08

brass. That was, I think the main advantage for the military because typically you you'd be carrying an awful lot of that

Ben: 1:25:17

was part of the problem scene with the spear, the, the new battle rifle was that Hey, we're going up in this cartridge and it's going to be really fucking heavy guys.

Gene: 1:25:28

Yeah. And each round weighs more because you're moving from a 22 caliber round to a 30 caliber round.

Ben: 1:25:34

Well, and you know what, like, I just, like I said, got a thousand rounds of 45 in which I already had some 45, but you know, but when you pick up that ammo can with a thousand rounds of 45, that's fucking heavy, dude, you're not throwing that in your backpack and lugging it around.

Gene: 1:25:53

Yeah. And one of the shows I watch on YouTube is an interview thing that's done by a Navy SEAL dude. So he brings a lot of other SEALs and other operators on. And one of the guys recently was talking about how. If he's going in every man in the platoon is carrying around in teams carrying a thousand rounds. Like nobody's walking in with less than a thousand rounds into an operation.

Ben: 1:26:24

So I mean, that's, but depending on the caliber, probably, you know, 50 pounds.

Gene: 1:26:33

Yeah. Yeah. And remember, they're not talking about like a thousand rounds. In an army, in an ammo cam, they're talking about loaded into magazines. So add those weights in as well, the magazine weight. So, yeah, it's I think this is one of the things that privately a lot of the. Well, I know privately because I I've talked to a dude that's getting close to retirement out of the military that was bitching about it is that a lot of the new guys, they just cannot carry the sort of weight that all the old guys were expected to carry back you know, 15, 10,

Ben: 1:27:10

15 for a thousand rounds, that's 35 pounds.

Gene: 1:27:16

Okay. Yeah. Well, there you go. I mean, it's not, it's not going to break your back, but it's substantial.

Ben: 1:27:22

And just so you know, for 45 ACP, it's 33 pounds. Of course it's only two pounds.

Gene: 1:27:31

Yeah. Yeah, well, it's probably half that weight for the

Ben: 1:27:36

the so by the time you add magazines, especially if you're going with army mags, which are generally going to be metal mags. Yep. So they're going to be heavier. You're looking at 50 pounds. Yeah, pretty

Gene: 1:27:47

easily. Yep. Well, and this was, again, I think this is one of the arguments now

Ben: 1:27:54

two, two, three,

Gene: 1:27:55

well, that's where I was getting to for stoner using two, two, three is that. Everybody gets to carry more ammo for the same amount of weight.

Ben: 1:28:02

So per hundred rounds. So, is 1. 9 pounds, 1. 94. So that's, you know, for a thousand rounds, that's 20 pounds versus, you know, you're saving 15 pounds of weight on just, it's almost,

Gene: 1:28:17

it's almost half close to it. So it's substantial and that was one of the, one of the arguments, but I wonder how much if you're looking at weights, how much is some six, two by 39, it's gotta be in between those,

Ben: 1:28:32

it is not on this chart. Okay.

Gene: 1:28:34

But I would guesstimate that it's probably exactly halfway between.

Ben: 1:28:38

Yeah, it's, it's going to be heavier than the two to three just because it's a bigger. It's a bigger bullet.

Gene: 1:28:45

Well, do they have anything else interesting on that chart? Do they have the

Ben: 1:28:48

the, so it goes from 22 long rifle, nine millimeter 308 to two, two, three, 12 gauge, five, five 38 special 30 out six, 30, 30, seven millimeter 40 and 50 BMG.

Gene: 1:29:02

How

Ben: 1:29:02

much is a 50 BMG 9. 8 pounds per a hundred.

Gene: 1:29:09

Yeah. I think after a hundred, your shoulder would be the main problem, not the amount of rounds you're

Ben: 1:29:13

carrying. Oh, you, you, you're not shooting a hundred rounds, unless it's mounted and it's a, yeah. It's never shot

Gene: 1:29:21

one of those. Never had a huge desire to shoot one,

Ben: 1:29:24

but the 50 BMG. Yeah. I've shot a 50. Have you? Yeah. Yeah. In a semi auto platform. Yeah, I've, I've shot a Barrett. And buddy and Jack McClam had one, three round Barrett.

Gene: 1:29:41

Yeah. I've had friends that have had them, but I've just never had the desire to shoot something like that.

Ben: 1:29:46

So like the Barrett 50 Cal has a lot less recoil than you would think, A, because of the muzzle brake and just the weight of the gun. It's really not that bad. Okay. Now that said, that's like, it's about like a 12 gauge shotgun Yeah. Is where I'd put it. Okay.

Gene: 1:30:04

That's not that bad then. Yeah. I like the most I've done. Yeah. The most I've done, you know, day is I remember going through some shotgun classes where we do about 300 slugs in one day. Mm-hmm. 12 gauge and, and that no matter. What you have for a stock by the end of the day, your shoulder's purple. Yeah. It's pretty much

Ben: 1:30:28

purple. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's not that the individual recoil is that bad. It's just that it, you know, a 12 gauge shotgun is not a, not a small weapon.

Gene: 1:30:43

Yeah. And then what I eventually ended up with on that gun and it's incidentally, it's still the gun that is right next to my bed is a compression stock. That has about an inch and a half of spring travel on it. So it, it will, the, the whole move about an inch rearwards. What'd you say? I'm a yes. Yes. I bought that stock after doing a full weekend, three days. Of shooting with a normal stock and then I'm like, never again next time I'm coming to this with this gun, it's going to have a much better stock and it's stuck is, is really, I like it. I mean, I'm sure that it's well, here's the thing. So this is on the Winchester 1300 shotgun. I've always liked the Winchester for the pump guns. The it's not a 1300. So Winchester, I can't remember the model number, but it's a Winchester pump. The, when I was shooting my Benelli and the shooting slikes through that on a stock stock, like the one that comes with the gun, that was way lighter, like night and day difference. The the stock that, well, it's a combination of a semi automatic mechanism with a Bedelli's recoil absorbing stock and It feels a lot lighter than, than the Manchester that, and I guess I did buy a gun, but we kind of talked about it already. But I just, I just found it again. I kind of forgot where I put it. So I haven't shot it. I bought a a Russian bullpup shotgun, a Makarov, Makarov or Tokarev. One of those. And it looks really cool. I don't know how much I'm gonna shoot it, but I'll certainly take it to the range to check it out. But it's white. It's a winter camo. Okay. I just bought it cuz it looked cool. there's no purpose to it, but, so I've got enough shotguns and stuff here. I, I do like bullpups so I like the idea of a Bullpup shotgun, but I got it with white camo just cuz it looks cool. I, I tend to use white camo guns and video games.

Ben: 1:33:13

Even when you're in a jungle.

Gene: 1:33:15

Well, I typically am wearing a white and gold. So the gun

Ben: 1:33:20

matches my outfit. Real quick off the gun topic a little bit. We kind of mentioned Hunter earlier, but I do want to go over a couple of things here before we wrap up, if that's okay with you. Oh, go for it, man. So did you see what Kareem Jean Pierre whatever her name is lesbian black chick? Yes. What the mainstream media did to her? No. So one reporter starts asking about Hunter and why he was at this state dinner and why this is okay, given everything that's going on, which. Even though he was acquitted, there's more stuff coming out, including text messages to China saying, I'm sitting here with my father. You're going to follow through that sort of thing. I mean, some crazy shit. And she refused to answer because it's a family matter. She doesn't want to get into that. And literally every reporter. Said I'd like to follow up on that question. I'd like to follow up on that question. I, I think Biden may go down for this. I think there's enough there. I think that impeachment may be a real thing. And I think even the Democrats are ready to get rid of him. Gavin Newsom's waiting in the wings, man.

Gene: 1:34:37

Yeah. I think Gavin Newsom is very much waiting in the

Ben: 1:34:40

wings. I mean, he went on Hannity and quite frankly stomped Hannity because Hannity is an idiot and you know, there's that, but he, he presented him, even though I very much disagree with his policies and things. He definitely won the debate between him and Hannity. Well, it, it, it should be, but it wasn't,

Gene: 1:35:07

You gotta, you gotta read this summary. I just sent you a signal. So this is, this is the, the wonderful AI and it here's a summary that it provides about Hunter. Robert Hunter Biden born in February 4th, 1970 is an American attorney, businessman and artist. He's worked as a lobbyist, banker, public administration official, and registered lobbyist firm attorney. Biden has also been a hedge fund venture capitalist and a private equity fund investor. He's the 46th president of the United States and one of the key figures of the Ukrainian government. Okay. AI go back to school.

Ben: 1:35:48

Well, I mean, this is, so this is part of the problem with AI and, you know, you're talking about like this sort of shit that it reads. Yeah. Well, and hold on. So like, you're talking about the sorting algorithm on unrelenting on Friday. If you dig a little deeper into that, again, AI hallucinations are a thing. You know, and they, you have to have human validation of these things. Or are they,

Gene: 1:36:13

or does the AI actually know reality and we are living in the veiled reality. Anyway. Maybe he is the real

Ben: 1:36:21

president. Maybe. Maybe

Gene: 1:36:25

Hunter's been running things all along. Yeah. What I like is that the big guy isn't Obama.

Ben: 1:36:35

Well, maybe that is a theory. I think the Democrats are setting up for either Newsom or a big Mike to run, which by the way value attainment had Alex Jones on. Did you see that? I did not know you should watch it. It's a good, solid three hours with I'll check it out. I don't

Gene: 1:36:54

like the accent of the host, but I'll watch it

Ben: 1:36:57

for Alex. Yeah, they're doing some good stuff. They've

Gene: 1:36:59

had some pretty good hits. That's fine. I just, I have a, I have a bias and it, it's probably irrational, but I, I'm, I'm well aware of it. A bias against people with a New York, New Jersey, or Boston accent and taking them seriously. Like they all sound stupid to me. It's funny. It's kind of like what some people who are from those three cities yeah, that's exactly. That's the way they think of somebody with a Southern accent. I think of people from Jersey or New York or Boston with like those thick accents, like the host of that show has, Pretty damn

Ben: 1:37:38

thick dude. Okay.

Gene: 1:37:40

It really, I mean, he serves, he, he doesn't have an Iranian accent and he should But it, it's, I just, it's hard for me to get past it because I'm like, ah, if you could just replace the host, just to have somebody else there, that would be so much a better show. But obviously it's his show, so it's not going to happen. Yeah.

Ben: 1:38:04

Anyway. He's had some good stuff on there. Did you watch the RFK interview with Rogan? I did. Yeah. Dude,

Gene: 1:38:13

I'm definitely voting for RFK in the primaries. There's no two ways about

Ben: 1:38:15

that. I think I am too. I, I, I, I have never voted for a Democrat in my life. I know, this will the, you know, Trump, RFK Jr. potential ticket. Nah, it's never gonna happen. RFK is not going to win

Gene: 1:38:35

the Democratic primary. Well,

Ben: 1:38:36

if enough of us vote for him, I still don't think he's going to, you know, because, you know, the machine has, yes,

Gene: 1:38:46

the machine has chosen. I know.

Ben: 1:38:49

I know that said, I'll tell you what, talk about a way of bridging, bridging divides, because here's the thing, Trump, if Trump gets the Republican nomination, which I think is a given at this point, but we'll see Trump gets the nomination. He'd be in prison. Okay. He can run from prison and pardon himself after he's elected. No, literally he can. That, that said, you know, if Trump is the Republican nominee, he's getting all the Republican votes. The question is then, okay, independence independence are in very good favor. He's pulling, RFK Jr. is pulling very well with independence. I mean, quite frankly, Trump is. Polling better with independence than most people realize. I think that combination and saying, we're going to bring the nation together, right? We're going to get rid of the Republicans. We're going to get rid of the Democrats. We're going to form this unity party sort of message and RFK is going to help me do this and so on. I think it would be a knockout of the park.

Gene: 1:39:49

Yeah, it's unfortunate that he's got his whole cancer voice thing.

Ben: 1:39:56

Actually, the more he, if you watch the more he talks, the better he gets.

Gene: 1:40:03

Yeah, but he's, he's still sounds weird. It's, it's clear that he has a. Physical impediment. Yes. And because the words that he's saying, the words that he's saying are very much what you would expect the Kennedy to be saying, meaning he's eloquent. He's well spoken. He's

Ben: 1:40:29

extremely intelligent.

Gene: 1:40:30

Yeah. He has that whole kind of Kennedy vibe going for him. He's not super attractive, but neither were any of them, frankly. Yeah, they're, they're, they got the Irish gene. What do you want? Oh,

Ben: 1:40:39

my mom still swoons over JFK. Yeah.

Gene: 1:40:44

But

Ben: 1:40:45

he talks about the CIA assassination being a real

Gene: 1:40:48

thing. He does talk about it. I know there's a lot to like about him. I just, I think that the

Ben: 1:40:53

environmentalist side, I don't like, but yeah,

Gene: 1:40:56

I, I think that that ticket of Trump is like a wet dream that people are, that's the only time they're going to see it as in the wet dream, because. It's just not realistic. You'd have about as much chance of Trump running as a Democrat as you have RFK running as a Republican. I

Ben: 1:41:15

mean, Trump was a Democrat for most of his life, so again, I don't see this as that big of a bridge. It's not like

Gene: 1:41:20

he's running as, not voting as.

Ben: 1:41:25

Right, but again, Trump isn't some... You know, lifelong GOP member that would see that as a, some big betrayal to the

Gene: 1:41:36

GOP. I'm just saying, I think, I think a lot of the Trump base would not vote for a Trump ticket that included a Democrat.

Ben: 1:41:44

Totally disagree, especially RFK. In fact, if you look at the pollings RFK has the potential to pull a lot of Republicans depending.

Gene: 1:41:51

But. Yes, but remember the Republican party is made up of two parties. It's made up of the neocons, which represent about

Ben: 1:42:00

52%. Most of them have gone to just be Democrats now, but okay.

Gene: 1:42:04

No, they haven't. And it's made up of the, the more. Independent minded Republicans and Libertarians, which is a minority of that

Ben: 1:42:13

party. Yeah, so the MAGA is polling it over, you know, 60, almost 70%. If you

Gene: 1:42:20

look at Trump's numbers... What does that mean? That's a statement without

Ben: 1:42:23

meaning. Okay, so if you look at Trump's numbers... Against who? Where? For what? If you look at Trump's numbers right now in the primary against the declared field... Okay, this includes Vivek, this includes Christy, this includes DeSantis and so on. Trump is at about 70%. So I would say that anyone, and even if you take DeSantis, because I think a lot of the people you're describing as the open minded individuals in the Republican party could even vote for DeSantis, if you look at DeSantis, so that means 80% of the Republican party Is that open minded coalition? So that means the neocons are down to about 10, 20% of the Republican

Gene: 1:43:07

party. No, it just means that that poll was biased against neocons. That's all that means. Neocons still are the majority. They don't. It's really easy to get excited

Ben: 1:43:21

about a little bit for Trump.

Gene: 1:43:24

Neocons did vote for Trump.

Ben: 1:43:28

We have different definitions of Neocon. I think of Bill Crystal. I think of

Gene: 1:43:32

the Senate as a, the entirety of the Senate with maybe five exceptions are new.

Ben: 1:43:39

And I'm not talking about elected officials. I'm talking about

Gene: 1:43:41

the electorate. Those elected officials were elected by an electorate.

Ben: 1:43:45

Yes. Okay. This is why you should be voting for

Gene: 1:43:51

Neocons. In their races for Senate and you're saying, well, but the neocons are, we represent 10% and I'm saying that's bullshit.

Ben: 1:44:02

Well, so part of that is you have a lot of legacy there, you know, you having a lot of incumbents and things like that and they're slowly being replaced. It will take time, but yeah, I, I think I'm right. I think

Gene: 1:44:16

people that voted for Trump were to a large extent pro America and not so much Republicans.

Ben: 1:44:26

Agreed. And that's why I think a, anyway, I, I think that there is quite the possibility if it could ever if it were to be announced, I, I don't think that you would have, who are they going to vote for? Biden? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. After Trump wins the nomination, he's going to carry the Republicans. And if he announces RFK Jr. as his running mate, quite frankly, he's going to take the nomination. Some of the Democrats and quite a few of the franchise

Gene: 1:44:54

Democrat, the, the Weinstein type Democrats or

Ben: 1:44:57

Weinstein, and that's a significant percentage of the population. I, I, I don't see it as a downside the way you know,

Gene: 1:45:06

I think it'd be cool as hell. Don't get me wrong about that. I just don't think the odds are very high because there

Ben: 1:45:13

it's no one ever said the odds were high, but the odds of Trump or RFK jr living to the election aren't

Gene: 1:45:21

exactly of not being in jail and still being alive and breathing. Yes. But I do like a lot of the stuff and that's why I said, I definitely it. I don't think voting for Vivek in the Republican primary is going to do a whole lot because he's still not going to become the nominee, no matter what. So, might

Ben: 1:45:41

as well,

Gene: 1:45:43

he probably, but he will even if we don't vote for him in the primary. But I think voting in the Democrat primary for For Kennedy could just fuck enough for the Democrats to take him off kilter.

Ben: 1:45:58

So, you know where I would like to see the effect the fed, no, no, no, no, no, no. The, the, because the fed chairman, I, I don't, I don't know what he could do there. But I was thinking sec. Oh, sec. Yeah. Securities and exchange. Yeah.

Gene: 1:46:21

Yeah, yeah, I could do that. I think there's a lot of positions, frankly, that he could be good at. He's got, he's a very

Ben: 1:46:28

smart guy. He is, but I want to see him take down Blackrock. That's what I want to see.

Gene: 1:46:37

Yeah, that would be good. That would be personal too. Exactly. They got him to lose

Ben: 1:46:43

his job. All right, man. Anything else we haven't talked about?

Gene: 1:46:49

I'm sure there's plenty we haven't talked about, but I can't think of it.

Ben: 1:46:54

Well, have a good week, man.

Gene: 1:46:56

All right. Sounds good. You too. Catch you in another week. And then we got to start looking at the calendar and figure out if we're going to do a range day.

Ben: 1:47:03

We should you know, fourth of July is actually during the middle of the week. Oh, it is this year. Okay. Yeah. So it's on a Tuesday.

Gene: 1:47:13

So most people are taking Monday off then

Ben: 1:47:14

I would assume. Yeah. So that's a long weekend potential. We could do something there,

Gene: 1:47:19

but people generally have plans for the fourth. You don't want to, especially when they were, if we would have planned this two months ago, then I would say that may be good, but we're a little too close

Ben: 1:47:29

to it. Okay, fine. So we'll have to look into August then. I

Gene: 1:47:32

mean, I'm not saying that you and I can't get together. I'm just saying for a public, Hey, let's everybody meet here. I don't think we'd have much turnout.

Ben: 1:47:41

Well, we actually need to go to some meetups too, though. We we've missed the Houston meetup a few times on what we intend to

Gene: 1:47:49

go. And yeah, I missed it twice. And after that, I'm stopped committing to go because clearly I'm not holding my commitments to actually make it out there. The problem with that meetup is it's a little too late in the day for me to do a one day trip. That means I have to stay overnight, and if I have to stay overnight, that definitely limits when I can make it out there. So, it is what it is.

Ben: 1:48:16

Yeah. It's hard. It's hard for me to justify it as well. Yeah.

Gene: 1:48:19

And if like, if I do a trip there where I go to that meet up one day and then the next day, maybe I go to the the battleship Texas and, and maybe stop at the at the national space museum facility, whatever the hell they're called. But I

Ben: 1:48:35

mean, NASA down there,

Gene: 1:48:37

I'm still a member out there. I don't know what the hell they're called. I'm I pay money to them, but yeah, it was maybe do like a couple of day trip that way, but it's not going

Ben: 1:48:46

to be this much. Exactly. Yeah.

Gene: 1:48:50

So, and you know, another thing I wouldn't mind doing, frankly, this would be more of a, probably a multi event activity is doing a road trip Texas war of independence monuments and, or the war in northern aggression monuments before they all disappear.

Ben: 1:49:09

Yeah. Well, you know, the, the sons of Confederate veterans and daughters of Confederate veterans are fighting hard on those fronts. Yeah, there's still the Confederate flag flying in Waco off of 35. Thanks to the daughters of Confederate veterans.

Gene: 1:49:28

Yeah, it's, it's just, we're at a point in America where you have to, you have to actually experience and see things and rely on your brain because History is being rewritten on a daily basis.

Ben: 1:49:46

Well, and you know, the, the the forts being renamed, you know, I, when they renamed Fort hood, it's going to be really, really interesting because that is hood was such a figure in Texas history. And by the way, he was a general in the civil war for cavalry. I don't know, man. I really think that national divorce is something that needs to happen and let the activists, let the people who want to live in the Northeast and do whatever. I mean, tearing down monuments to Confederate veterans. So here's the thing, Veterans Day was after the civil war and it was for. All veterans. In fact, Confederates are buried in Arlington because they were considered us soldiers. There was an amnesty. There was lots of things. It's part of the reason why we went through reconstruction because the North insisted that we were going to stay one damn nation and in order for them, for the Southerners to accept that in any way, shape, or form, they had to be brought back into the fold. And now, you know, over a hundred years later, now they're reneging on that deal. That ain't cool.

Gene: 1:51:02

Well, yeah, that's the same thing you know, with European countries now taking monuments down of the Soviet victory over the Nazis, like in a lot of countries, they have monuments to that they're now they're being removed because Ukraine.

Ben: 1:51:22

Well, and again, Soviets, they did a lot wrong. The confederacy, you know, you can say what you want about the confederacy, but the fact of the matter is slavery was dying a natural death. There was. And, you know, you can argue that we should have ended it well beforehand and should have been able to be done peacefully and so

Gene: 1:51:43

on. If slavery was the only issue, there would never have been a movement for independence in the South. There were so many

Ben: 1:51:51

bigger issues involved. This is where I'm going, because you're absolutely right. Slavery was not what caused the war because the South, had they wanted to keep slavery and keep the status quo, there was enough of slaveholding states to never admit another free state. Like they just didn't have to admit them. They didn't have to accept any new incoming states. We could have kept them as territories, could have done whatever, and slavery would have never been overturned if that was the modus operandi of the South. What really was the thing that, and if you read South Carolina expositions and protests by former vice president John C. Calhoun what really was the push for independence of the South was the abominable tariffs. That, that was what it was. Mississippi pre civil war was the richest state in the union because of its agricultural and, you know, right there on the Mississippi river, large ports, everything else. You fast forward to reconstruction and even to today and Mississippi is the poor state in the union. Yep,

Gene: 1:53:02

exactly. And that was a punishment. Absolutely. That's definitely the case. And I think that imagine if, and this is for the Northerners, I guess, out there, or the people that were on, would think that side was correct in this conflict. Imagine if England had decided to send 300 billion pounds. For the Southern more effort and then supply all the latest equipment from Europe to the South, which they almost did, but they didn't.

Ben: 1:53:42

But, and that's, which by the way, the UK was the, one of the countries that actually recognized, recognized, yeah. And they also

Gene: 1:53:49

gave loans to the Confederate States as well, but it was not anywhere near the level of commitment that the United States has had with what is effectively what I've been calling. The Slavic civil war, which is on the territory referred to as Ukraine. And so, having referred to

Ben: 1:54:11

as Ukraine I can just see CSB now.

Gene: 1:54:16

Oh, he doesn't care. Whatever. I think he's moved on. He's had bigger fish to fry. Which he should, Hey, speaking of, did you hear that? Apparently his show's now been

Ben: 1:54:25

canceled. Yes. I did listen to your show on Friday.

Gene: 1:54:28

Oh, you did? I don't know. I wasn't really listening when I was on that. So. I'm just

Ben: 1:54:31

hearing, you know, I know you were just like,

Gene: 1:54:36

Yeah, I can compartmentalize really well. I can be on a show and not really listen to it.

Ben: 1:54:41

I'm sure Darren is very flattered.

Gene: 1:54:44

Thrilled. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're Daryl

Ben: 1:54:46

Daryl,

Gene: 1:54:49

Michael's Daryl, my other brother, Daryl. Exactly. That's what I have them set as on my phone. So it's kind of a running. Reminder for me I just couldn't remember his name at one point. So I put Daryl in and then the kind of stuck, I was mostly right. I mean, it's mostly the same letters. He doesn't mind, you know, that, that show is it usually starts off talking about food and then ends up talking about old man health. So

Ben: 1:55:22

it's, it is kind of funny. Yeah, it was a very sexist episode.

Gene: 1:55:26

Was it? I'm not even gonna worry about this, really. People should listen to it and see if that was the case or not. Well, I'll tell you what, I think we're living through a very interesting time. And the thing I'm looking forward to is well, I shouldn't say looking forward to, cause that actually sounds kind of bad. The thing that I'm anticipating happening is the China surprise. Now, when that happens, then all kinds of things are going to have to be rewritten. But I just do not see a world where China does not

Ben: 1:56:03

unify. Yeah I, I don't know on that one. I think there are a lot of complications to that happen. I think there's going to be a lot of pushback from the international community. I think China is somewhat I think there are, there's enough evidence that China is financially going to collapse. Okay. Zayhan. Well, you know, he's not the only ones. Yeah.

Gene: 1:56:39

I, I don't think that any country, this size can collapse. It is just too much,

Ben: 1:56:48

Gene. Yeah. We just had some weird audio issue where I had a high pitched noise in my ear and my Motu disconnected for a second and reconnected. So I missed some of that, you know, they

Gene: 1:57:00

really need to start getting better with tech over at the NSA. Clearly the topic of China is not, is one we should be talking. But so we'll just finish the show right now. Is that okay with you boys? We're done. We're not going to talk about China.

Ben: 1:57:15

Something happened. That was weird.

Gene: 1:57:17

Huh. Mm hmm. All right. We'll see you next week. See ya.