045 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:22

How are you today?

Ben: 0:23

I'm doing well. Gene, how are you this evening?

Gene: 0:26

Good. Good. Yes. It's evening. Unlike we usually record.

Ben: 0:31

Yeah, we were doing it on a Saturday night of all things. Big party plans for us.

Gene: 0:36

That's right. He's dead. Gene. What's going

Ben: 0:40

on, man? He's dead. Gene. Who's dead? Well, a couple of people, the main shooter and Matthew Perry, which one do you want to address

Gene: 0:48

first? Matthew Perry. Obviously

Ben: 0:51

Matt. Yeah. Apparent drowning. Really, we're at. I don't know. This was like six minutes ago.

Gene: 0:58

Wow. So like Rick, like accidental drowning or purposeful

Ben: 1:02

drowning? Well, you know, it's one of those things, you know, it's, it's at an LA area home. Hmm.

Gene: 1:10

Was Barack visiting? Just saying. Yeah. Let's see. Were they kayaking together?

Ben: 1:20

Yeah. I don't know if he's a Barack's

Gene: 1:22

type. Oh, he's definitely Barack's type. I don't know.

Ben: 1:27

He's male, right? I don't know. Look at Big Mike.

Gene: 1:31

Huh. Huh. Anyway. Maybe he's Big Mike's type.

Ben: 1:35

Maybe. Maybe.

Gene: 1:39

Yeah, that's nuts. So they, they found the the shooter and killed him. Yeah, I'm

Ben: 1:44

kind of tired of that, man.

Gene: 1:46

Of which? Finding the shooter and killing him?

Ben: 1:48

Yeah, instead of, you know, subduing and taking to trial and those sorts of things.

Gene: 1:53

Well, you know, it's it's, it's their religious custom to be shot, killed, and then you know, taken off cameras immediately and thrown into the ocean so nobody can review any of the DNA or anything.

Ben: 2:07

Huh. This, this was a white guy in Maine, dude.

Gene: 2:12

Oh, I thought we were talking about Osama bin Laden.

Ben: 2:15

Yeah, same difference, right?

Gene: 2:17

Well, the whole point of having a public hanging isn't to watch somebody squirming and shitting their pants. It's to have a lot of witnesses to the fact that you actually took somebody out. And we have completely moved away from that. It's same thing with witnesses in the electric chair. You know, it's. These are third party people who are witness to the event that doesn't seem to be happening nearly as often these days and we're just led to, you know, be told something we're supposed to believe blindly.

Ben: 2:52

Well, and it's more than that. It's the entire point of a public trial is to keep people from being summarily executed by people who want to be judged jury and executioner.

Gene: 3:03

Well, sure. I mean, I, I mean, I don't. I don't care if this guy gets executed. I just want to make sure they get the right guy

Ben: 3:11

before they executed. That would be a good idea. Typically.

Gene: 3:15

Yeah. I mean, you don't want to be spending those resources twice and have to kill two people

Ben: 3:21

or, you know, kill an innocent person. There's that whole thing, you know, it's kind of no take faxes.

Gene: 3:27

There was a great movie about the inefficiency of killing innocent people called Brazil. I

Ben: 3:33

don't know if that was a great movie, but sure.

Gene: 3:35

One of the best movies

Ben: 3:36

ever made. I just did not like Brazil. You were too young when you watched it. I have watched it in my thirties.

Gene: 3:45

You haven't been around me enough to enjoy. You have to have a certain, a certain sense of cynicism around you to enjoy that

Ben: 3:54

movie. You have to be a certain sadistic bastard. Got it.

Gene: 3:59

Well, it doesn't hurt. Yeah. But yeah, the idea of it, just to touch on that movie, the central idea of the film starts off with a, a fly buzzing around and then landing on a piece of paper, just as a typewriter, which really was a computer printer, but like the old typewriter style, computer electric typewriter style. Yeah. Mm hmm. enDs up typing a name and because the fly was in the way. The name ends up being misspelled as it was typed and what it was typing was a warrant for an execution or, well, technically I think it was a warrant for an abduction, not an execution because they were unaware the guy had a heart issues and ends up getting a heart attack and dying. During the course of his warrants being executed, where he's black bagged and then taken to an interrogation cell, as you

Ben: 4:57

know, is likely to happen

Gene: 4:59

does right. And so a, a low level bureaucrat ends up having to, well, he's given the assignment of going back to the widow of the man that was erroneously, uh, abducted and have her sign off. All releases to any kind of faults, because it was a mistake. So it's nobody's fault. So, you know, let's just make sure that we get a signature from her, that she can't see the government. And then it, that's, that's sort of the starting storyline and goes in a lot of very interesting, fascinating ways. And that movie along with movies that Darren hasn't seen like Idiocracy is getting every year eerily closer to our current reality.

Ben: 5:50

Yeah, the entire point of this is that it. Shouldn't have happened and, you know, due to the extraordinary circumstances of the time, you know, being the, the typical, you lose people to government ineptness, which is a real thing,

Gene: 6:07

right? But, you know, the government's just trying to fight with all the terrorists out there. So, you know, they're doing their best.

Ben: 6:14

And by terrorists, you mean peaceful citizens.

Gene: 6:18

Well, I mean, if you ask De Niro, I guess you would have a different definition of terrorists than the government in the movie. But. It's, it's a fun movie. I certainly recommend people watch it, but you have to be in the right mindset. Just keep in mind. It's not a comedy, but it does have dark comedic overtones. If

Ben: 6:36

you laugh at the Darwin Awards by Brandon Herrera, you will find funny parts of that movie.

Gene: 6:43

I agree. Or if you like Monty Python. Yes, indeed. You probably don't.

Ben: 6:49

I do actually.

Gene: 6:50

I like Monty Python. Oh, I would have figured that was not your style of

Ben: 6:55

Nih. No, actually Monty Python came up this week in talking about some of the transgendered stuff and the meaning of life, but I want to have a baby, but you can't,

Gene: 7:08

that was pretty good. Yeah. It was,

Ben: 7:10

it w it was used in humor amongst a bunch of security professionals sitting around talking about current events. It

Gene: 7:17

was funny. Ooh, careful. That might get security professionals fired.

Ben: 7:21

Oh yeah. Yeah. I'll keep my mouth shut as to who, but we were the group of us were. Very much all like mindset, very libertarian individuals, but

Gene: 7:30

you know, libertarian, I definitely will say in my time in security was very common, but also a surprisingly high number of non. How do I phrase this? Non cis sexual preferences.

Ben: 7:47

Yeah, and, you know, and there's a lot of that, but what it comes down to is I think there's a pretty big line between those, you know, Sexual preferences and everything else, and even among the people who support, you know, people being transgender or whatever, there, there's a, there's a differentiation among those who say, yes, that's fine. You can do whatever you want, the normal libertarian tact, but let's not, let's not lie about what it is. And I think that's the, that's the key differentiator there is people not being willing to lie about what something is.

Gene: 8:28

Isn't that amazing? That's that's the differentiator. Bitcoin's up to 34, 000. Dang.

Ben: 8:38

Cool.

Gene: 8:38

Up from like 24, 000, two weeks ago. Yeah.

Ben: 8:42

But if you ask Biden, the economy is doing good, man. Well, he's looking at Bitcoin. Of

Gene: 8:46

course he is.

Ben: 8:49

I guess he's doing real good. So on the main shooter, before we move off of it the amount of people freaking out and saying lots of. Interesting things about what was going on in Atlanta were pretty high on the list, man. It was definitely something that was a topic of discussion and, you know, gun control inevitably came up and people talking about different things. And it, again, the group I was around, the, the. The consensus was definitely, yeah, this is an argument for more guns, not less. And a lot of the arguments about you know, Oh, he was using an AR 15 and a high capacity magazine. A lot of people corrected other people who were talking about, no, he used a standard capacity magazine. It's like, yes, my people.

Gene: 9:40

No, that's very true. But did you see how the Biden's administration immediately like rolled out some main Gun advocate who decided to become anti gun all of a sudden as a result of this. Hmm. I did

Ben: 9:55

love doing this shit. I was at a conference all week.

Gene: 9:59

Oh, that's right. That's working. The guys, the guys saying, you know, I've, I've, I grew up with guns and I, I hunt up here in Maine and you know, I always thought it's great fun to take guns out and shoot some paper. But. Man, when this event happened I realized that we really need to take all these semi automatic weapons out of people's hands because this will just keep happening if we don't. How do you, how do you not even try and construct a realistic person? Right? Like you just take a couple of sentences from one person's writings probably, and then you put a whole bunch of liberal crap behind it. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, people are starting to change their minds because thank God, because if they, they don't change their minds, this government gun epidemics and it's just keep on spiraling out of control.

Ben: 10:52

Well, what I would say is those people who make those comments and Rene just put a sign stating that in your front yard and let's, let's see what happens.

Gene: 11:04

Yeah. And Babylon B had a hilarious anti gun video that they made with 10 easy things you can do to prevent gun attacks. Number one, have a gun for people that, that, you know, understand the dangers of guns. So one of them, it wasn't the top, top one, but one of those was be sure to put a gun free zone sign in your windows. Because it will let the potential criminals know that, that if they're crossing into your house, they're going to be in a lot more trouble. I mean, it's the typical Babylon B shit, right? But all these things were just they were hilarious. All the variety of tactics and be sure to you know, dial the police and hold your hand up to the assailant's face. As you're waiting for the police to arrive. So they don't continue doing anything until the cops get, it's just ridiculous, ridiculous stuff.

Ben: 12:12

Yeah. Well, you know, people want to be victims. And one of the sure enough ways to be a victim is to not be able to defend yourself.

Gene: 12:22

And that's something that I think a lot of Israelis are figuring out. I've mentioned previously that country has notoriously bad gun laws. Anybody that actually sees benefits in guns. They just had a little over a hundred thousand new applications last week for concealed carry permits, which is for that country, huge, like for, for, for the U S that's just like a normal American city. But for Israel, this, these are people that haven't bothered trying to get concealed carry applications put in place until now. So I think there'll be definitely a cultural shift in that country from a. A more restrictive, I think, to a more program stance.

Ben: 13:08

Well, I hope so because had a few people been armed there, I think you would have seen a very different outcome. And you know, a pistol is not the best weapon for that sort of scenario. You know, it's a defensive weapon to get to a better gun, but that's about it. Yes,

Gene: 13:25

but had everybody been armed. There would have been no

Ben: 13:32

event because there would have been a lot of dead people on paraglide. I

Gene: 13:35

don't think there would have been an event because that that's when you switch to rockets like, okay, rockets only. You don't want to walk into a situation where everybody's armed. If you're a bad guy, I agree. That's the last place you want to be. You want to chuck something over a wall. Okay. Molotov cocktail, whatever. But you're not going to walk in there with your gun to be faced with 50 people, all who are

Ben: 14:00

armed. Well, you know, there is the whole suicide bomber mentality. That's still only

Gene: 14:05

works in situations with no guns, because people know that if you stick a suicide bomber. Inside of a police station, a lot more likely to get killed before the bomb blows up.

Ben: 14:17

Yeah, maybe. Or he's got a dead man's switch or whatever.

Gene: 14:20

Might have a dead man's switch, he's a lot more likely to have somebody you know, take him out with the least number of people around him. It just, you prevent situations where the bad guys get what they want if you arm everybody. So I've, I've said this somewhat comedically, but it's actually completely true is if I was the, the, you know, King dictator here everybody would have to have. Again, it's a requirement that you carry one, of course, requirement. You also learn how to use the damn thing. But I think there's a societal mass benefit to having every person. Over whatever age you pick, but I'm not even going to say 18 necessarily, but every person be armed. It prevents needless violence.

Ben: 15:08

I, I tend to agree with you at the very least, it increases your odds of successfully defusing the situation. Mm hmm. And I recently put my money where my mouth is on that. What, what'd you do? I, when I flew to Atlanta, I decided to because Atlanta passed constitutional carry and that applies to non residents, I decided to exercise my rights and took a gun with me. Awesome. How'd that go? Well, it was quite honestly, my first time flying with a firearm. So it was a new experience and it went pretty well. There were definitely some issues at 3 30 in the morning, checking in with United on the flight out, but The main issue there was non United employees telling me stupid stuff that I knew it was wrong, like check in on the kiosk. I'm like, I can't check in on the kiosk. I have to do a declaration. I cannot just put my bag on the conveyor. That will not go well for me or for you. Thank you.

Gene: 16:05

Unless you're flying to China, in which case you're fine. How so? Well, you remember that Washington state rep that ended up flying to Hong Kong with a firearm. No, I didn't hear. Oh,

Ben: 16:17

I'll tell you about that. Yeah. Anyway. So I got checked in, got on board, no issues on the way back. I hate to say it, but I hate it. The Atlanta airport. I hate everything about the Atlanta airport. I just do not like it. But the process at the Atlanta airport for checking in that firearm and doing the declaration and everything, they had their shit way more together. So at Houston, when I was flying out. At Intercontinental check in the firearm. It goes on back on a conveyor. TSA doesn't give me a thumbs up, thumbs down. I have no idea what's going to go on with the gun. At Atlanta Hartfield after I check in, do the declaration with United they say, okay, go over to that security area over there. Show the, tell them what you got and they'll do the screening. So I walk over to the oversized bag screening area, hand them my gun, let them know it's a declaration. They go through. You know, check my bag, cool, lock my suitcase on the outside, you know, the gun was already locked up and off. I went because I already knew TSA was good. So no waiting around. No. Okay. Am I going to be good or am I going to get a call from TSA needing to unlock this or anything else? But a couple of tips. I did set myself up for success. One of the things that I did that I think was really beneficial and I, I want to thank some people Online for coming up with these ideas, they weren't mine, but locking the slide back and using a zip tie to hold it, you know, zip tying it so it couldn't accidentally close or anything so that on the x ray or whatever machine they're using, they could clearly see that it was slide back unloaded. I've never done it that way. Interesting. So it really gives them no excuse to need to examine your firearm. But yeah, it went well definitely didn't lose my bag. My bag was one of the first off the plane each time. You know, it was

Gene: 18:17

kind of nice. Did it come down the carousel or do they have it in the lost luggage? No,

Ben: 18:22

it was carousel both times.

Gene: 18:24

Holy shit. Wow. That's, that must be a change in procedure back from I used to do it regularly.

Ben: 18:30

So, for the foreseeable future, I, I'm, I, I'm, I get a free check bag, so it's no, nothing to me and I carried all my normal luggage, so no big deal. But what I'm planning on doing is basically making a little get home suitcase sort of thing that I will check that or a backpack. I haven't decided yet that I'll go ahead and check probably hard side of the suitcase so that I can lock the entire thing, which is nice. Well, if you

Gene: 18:55

buy souvenirs and shit, if you go somewhere, then you got the luggage to bring it home. Well,

Ben: 19:00

I plan on this being kind of full for a, you know, shit hit the fan while I'm gone and how I'm going to get home sort of thing. But yeah one of the things I didn't know until I was researching more of these TSA regulations and everything I didn't know that scissors up to four inches from fulcrum, not overall length, but from fulcrum with blunt tips are allowable. So like EMT shears are totally allowable. So, I'm going to modify one of my IFACs that I'm going to start carrying in my carry on luggage with me. Insta scissors. No, no, no. Individual first aid kit. I'm going to change it up a little bit so that it doesn't have like, well, like right now and some of my effects. I have, you know, scalpels and other sharps that wouldn't be allowed. This would be a TSA friendly scalp. It

Gene: 19:50

might be, because I think if it's half bench blade or less, you're allowed to bring it on.

Ben: 19:55

I don't know. It'd be easier just not to have that argument, but you know.

Gene: 19:59

Yeah. And there's. One of the annoying things I forgot to mention last time that I've stopped doing it, so it's not annoying anymore, but I bought a belt, uh, years ago that had a on the buckle, a place for a Leatherman, like it was a smaller size miniature Leatherman, but it fit right in there. And inevitably the TSA would always get into arguments with me telling me I can't bring this thing. I'm like, it's literally made for airplanes. There is no knife in there. And usually when they opened everything up, you know, then they finally let me go, but it got to a point where I just, I got tired of their having that conversation. Yeah. So I stopped wearing the belt, but I always liked sort of ways to have. Tools that are not necessarily, you know, like in a tool place. Yeah. Well,

Ben: 21:01

Gerber has a, a new multi tool that they have out that's TSA safe and friendly, but I'm looking at, that's pretty

Gene: 21:08

interesting. I I've got a full size one. I've got a Gerber. I also, I also have a TSA safe Leatherman those I had. In my carry on one of those two, usually the same kind of thing. There's no knife. So everything else is okay. But I also have I don't think they make it anymore. I think Leatherman had it for a while. I have one of their bracelets, which has. As their links to different tools. Yeah. So, so you can, you know,

Ben: 21:38

take, I think it was Gerber

Gene: 21:39

that had that one actually. Maybe Gerber. Yeah. Yeah. One of those companies had them. It was way overpriced for what it was. It was like 140 bucks. It was not worth it at all, but I really wanted it since I first saw a picture of it. So I ended up buying it and it's also too heavy. So I never actually have it on, but but it is kind of neat because it does have like one of those. Elevator screw keys that you can, you know, the two little holes in the elevator. It also has a a punch for changing, like watch pushing the pin out of the watch bracelets. So it does have some useful stuff in there. But it's I don't know, it's, it's a neat idea, but probably version two or three would be better executed.

Ben: 22:26

Yeah. You'd need a pretty light and hard metal, you know, not steel, but yeah, and the problem with titanium and stuff like that is it bends too easy. So I don't know. onE quick thing before we get off this travel experience, I do have to shout out the United club and Atlanta for sucking. Really ridiculously. Yeah. So, you know, Atlanta busiest airport in the U S and Denver was new. Ooh, Atlanta has that right now. Wow. And anyway, and all the restaurants, everything was very busy. So I just ran up to the United club real quick to grab something to eat before flight. And I get up there, the soda machine isn't working at all. They don't have anything out to drink other than alcohol and no food. And I'm like, what? Yeah, exactly. Like this is the entire point. Well, and it's, they don't have a bar or anything. It's just a self serve area, which, which is fine. It's a chintzy club, but whatever. But the fact that they didn't have all that, and I used a voucher for this just pisses me off. So anyway, I've, I've raised the stink with the United. Like, Hey guys, come on. Yeah. We'll see where that goes.

Gene: 23:40

That is ridiculous. Who's who's the main airline of the airport? Oh, Delta Delta is. Oh, that's right. That's their headquarters. Yeah.

Ben: 23:47

Yeah. Now that is the Delta hub, which don't get me started on Delta.

Gene: 23:54

Interesting. Yeah. It's I've with the amount of travel that I currently do, I figured out that it's cheaper for me just to buy a day pass. It's usually 50 bucks. Yeah.

Ben: 24:08

They've gone up to 60 now. Okay. Well, whatever it

Gene: 24:11

is. So 60

Ben: 24:12

bucks. But I used one and I'm the same way, but I used one of those. That's my gripe. Oh

Gene: 24:16

yeah. That does suck. Versus like 500 bucks a year to do it yearly.

Ben: 24:23

And you know, I have enough points and status with like American, I could have gone to the admirals club, but I didn't have an American ticket.

Gene: 24:31

Yeah. Which didn't used to matter. That's some bullshit

Ben: 24:33

thing they introduced. The, all the airlines now you have to have a ticket of that day to go, yep. Yeah.

Gene: 24:41

Cause I, I remember the good old days back when I used to drive down to the airport just to get drinks. It's probably

Ben: 24:48

where they stopped that shit, Gene. You single handedly

Gene: 24:52

changed the policy. I had so much use of that club, man. I would be there. I'd have, I'd reserve rooms, have business meetings there. I would take full advantage. My club membership because why not? It's free booze, free food and meeting rooms and they didn't have like massage rooms and stuff and Yeah, they

Ben: 25:12

don't have massage rooms domestically anymore.

Gene: 25:14

You, you might as well use it. Well, this is, this is 20 years ago. Okay, this is

Ben: 25:19

going back a while. I will say that the Polaris lounge at IH is Mm-Hmm. damn nice. It is top of the line. They just redid it and it is nice. IH what's that?

Gene: 25:31

Chicago.

Ben: 25:32

No, at IAH in Houston. Oh, Houston. Oh, yeah. The Polaris Club there for the international.

Gene: 25:38

So, yeah. Okay. Cool. So, that's if you fly what? Business and international?

Ben: 25:43

Business or if you use a club pass or anything else. Okay. Yeah. Got it. So, yeah. But it, it, it was definitely nice.

Gene: 25:50

Yeah. I had for a while, I can't remember what the name of the program was, but through my, one of my credit cards, they had like a get into any airlines club. So

Ben: 26:03

yeah, yeah, a friend of mine has one

Gene: 26:05

of those and there was a limit. I think you could only do it like four times a month or something, but, but the cool thing was, it was literally any airlines club. So if you're in an airport that doesn't have a you know, a club that you're flying, you just go into a club of an airline that's there. So that was kind of neat. I, I started. Going into different clubs, just check them out, see, see which ones I like. Most of them suck. I mean, honestly, there, there's no great clubs anymore. Like there used to be, uh, in my opinion, anyway,

Ben: 26:44

I'm telling you for international there is, but yeah,

Gene: 26:48

I'm trying to think, I think the last international one I was in, yeah, that was in Miami and it was certainly better than domestic club, but. It wasn't anywhere near the level that the clubs I remember back in the nineties. Like pre nine, 11 clubs, uh, where you had sushi, uh, you know, on tap for free shit like that, just don't see that anymore.

Ben: 27:21

Well, you can, you can do like a priority pass and things like that. There's a company that has a bunch of different lounges and things like that. And, you know, they've got their membership. That's like 500 bucks. That's, you know, all visits are free. And then they got to kind of mid tier, the first 10 are free. And then you get charged after that and stuff like that. Yeah, that

Gene: 27:41

makes sense. Yeah. And the Centurion clubs, again, not really all that great. I think

Ben: 27:47

that's one I've never done. I've never been in a Centurion club, really, but I'm not a big Amex guy. So, yeah, I'm not either. I like, I don't have a personal Amex. I've, I have business Amexes and things like that, but I've

Gene: 28:00

never had a personal one and I actually I actually worked for American express as a consultant once, but I just never liked the company.

Ben: 28:10

Yeah, the, the big problem with Amex in general is outside of the U S it's not accepted very well, which, you know, I remember in the nineties as a kid, the Amex traveler checks and everything else that that was such a big deal and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, it's not, I mean, outside the U S visa is what is accepted. Yeah.

Gene: 28:30

Yeah. And I, I think the we're talking about clubs. Yeah, before, before, Oh, I'm X, I know what it was. So my other problem with MX just from a business card standpoint was that, you know, you got to pay that shit back within 30 days, like the full amount. And I was in a number of times. I remember I was in situations where my employer did not reimburse me until after 30 days. After, you know, the expenses. So I was like having to pay the Amex bill out of my own account before I got my reimbursement check. And I mean, that says more about the employer than the Amex, obviously, but still it's kind of annoying.

Ben: 29:17

Yeah, I mean, I haven't had that experience because usually I get my expense reports in on time, but I usually send them in late. Yeah. Well, there you go. But even when I, it's still their fault. Okay. Even when I have you know, usually they'll pay, you know, the first 30 days and stuff like that. So, yeah, you ha you had an agreement with a chunk.

Gene: 29:46

Oh, yeah, yeah. So, not in agreement, but I, I watched the Tim pull interview with, with chink and yeah, I've

Ben: 29:52

watched about

Gene: 29:53

half of it. Oh, you did? Yeah. So it's a long ass interview. It's almost three hours. It's yeah, it's almost three fucking hours. And, and and Tim doesn't talk very much. He probably talks about 45 minutes out of that entire time. So this is definitely sink talking a lot out of both sides of his mouth.

Ben: 30:11

JEnk, you are the young churches who were

Gene: 30:13

talking about, but yeah, I mean, I always try to mispronounce his name as much as I can, but I

Ben: 30:18

called him chunk to begin with.

Gene: 30:21

They're all fairly accurate, but he is running for president as a Democrat, which totally legally and legitimately. But what I, what I never heard of before, and he kind of talked about, and I started thinking about like, hold up, this could be true. Is that the language of the 14th Amendment actually could be applied to the, uh, the restriction on becoming a U. S. President only if you're native born and and one of his goals. I mean, he doesn't have any delusions about winning the Kansas City is Democrat, but one of his goals is to actually push through this lawsuit and the lawsuit is based around him being an immigrant to the U. S. And being a naturalized citizen rather than the native born citizen, which, by the

Ben: 31:19

way, to bring this lawsuit, he has to be running to have. Yes,

Gene: 31:22

exactly. So even if his only goal is to get immemorialized in a Supreme Court ruling, which I think honestly could be his main goal. He still has to run for president to have standing to bring the lawsuit.

Ben: 31:38

Well, you know, again, the entire intent of the constitution and the intent of the 14th amendment if you read the ratification debates, both was to prevent foreigners, people not born here, people who don't have substantial ties to this land. From becoming president. The 14th amendment was never intended to modify or change that clause in the constitution. And I think even if the technical language is that, which I don't agree that it is, but even if we assume that it is That is still a judicial overreach and misuse because it's going against the intent. It would just be like someone saying a well regulated militia. Well, you're not in the militia. So the second amendment doesn't apply to you. No, that's not, that's not true. You're yeah, it is. It's the exact

Gene: 32:26

same argument. It is not, not at all. The, the second amendment militia wrong, but okay. It is. I'm, I'm right. You're absolutely right. The second amendment militia. Is a mischaracterization of the vocabulary of the time, the, the term. Well-regulated. Militia had a particular meaning, which you can look up. Mm-Hmm. in dictionaries of the time.

Ben: 32:52

Yes. And equal protection under the law meant something different. Not to affect the terms of the constitution, but the actual laws of the federal government. It didn't even at the time, mean. The laws of the state. In fact, it wasn't until later that the incorporation doctrine based off the 14th amendment. And this is another case where the language is being bastardized to assume something is coming in. Yeah.

Gene: 33:17

And I tend to agree with you on the incorporation doctrine, but I also would say that because of incorporation doctrine, I think Jinx gonna. Pretty damn good chance of getting his

Ben: 33:27

way. Okay. I don't disagree that he has a good chance. I'm just saying that it flies in the face of the intent.

Gene: 33:34

I think Tim brings up, and I don't know if you got to that part yet, brings up some good examples of, um, how ridiculous this could be. So somebody like Chang who came here as an infant, uh, as lived in the United States his whole life. I don't, I don't even know if he speaks Turkish. I think he probably does, but probably poorly. That's where his parents were from, where he was born was Apparently, what were you talking about? It was a glitch. I was trying to explain something. What was I explaining?

Ben: 34:07

The 14th

Gene: 34:07

amendment is what we're talking about. The example that Tim gave, which is you got a chink coming to the U S as an infant, as a young kid growing up in the U S he is. I don't know even though if he speaks Turkish, if he does, probably not very well. Turkey's where he was born, where his parents are from. But he basically spent his entire childhood adult life in the U. S. And and then you have the example of apparently something I didn't realize was happening, but it sounds like it's, it does happen with some regularity is people from China that are financially well to do out there, Are having their kids in the U. S. So they're, they're actually doing U. S. Tourism specifically to have their kid be born in the U. S. And then

Ben: 35:01

birth tourism's been

Gene: 35:02

a thing for a while. Yeah, but when I hear birth tourism, I, I think of like, you know, Mexicans coming over.

Ben: 35:10

Oh no, it's, it's big in the Asian community. Apparently so. And it's not just Chinese.

Gene: 35:15

Yeah, but apparently so. So anyway, so that kid is an American, a native born American. Mm hmm. Growing up in China, doesn't have to speak English, probably will learn English as most people do everywhere in the world. But that kid. After turning 35 could come to the U. S. In the citizens line, not the foreigners line, and then petition and file for running for the president of the United States.

Ben: 35:46

Yeah. A couple of things there they could file and run, but the odds of them getting elected are negligible. And you know, either, either way, someone born abroad that comes here very young and runs, I think you'd have a hard time putting an age limit on that. So if Jenks lawsuit is successful, you're going to have any naturalized citizen. Yeah. Meaning I just got here yesterday. I can now run for president. That's not

Gene: 36:09

naturalized. Again, you're just blowing shit out of thin air. That's not what naturalized is. Yes. It is. No, it isn't. Ben. You're so wrong.

Ben: 36:18

You are a naturalized

Gene: 36:19

citizen, Gene. Yes. And it didn't happen the first day I showed up here. No. But that's not how it works, buddy.

Ben: 36:25

As soon as you get your citizenship, as soon as you go take the test, get sworn in, you are now a naturalized

Gene: 36:31

citizen. Yeah. That's exactly. Once you get your citizenship, you are a citizen.

Ben: 36:36

Yeah. I'm not saying someone on a green card can come. I'm just saying that they can be here for a very short period of time.

Gene: 36:43

Yeah. Five years. Super short. Nah, that's pretty short. And they're running behind. So it's, it's a minimum of five years. And then often

Ben: 36:52

not enough time to be U. S. president. And here's the other thing I'd say, either way, you could end up with a Manchurian candidate and I'm using the Manchurian candidate as a reference. Okay. And it also fits. Yeah. Ironically. Yes. This, this is like a callback to when I use the term Oriental and you were telling me how offensive that was. Oh yeah. That's super. That was actually a really good episode, by the way. We should have noted which one that was. I can't remember what number it was. Anyway. Anyway, my, my point is neither situation is good. Ideally, someone to lead this country should be a citizen, should be born here, raised here and instill the ideas instilled in them, the ideas

Gene: 37:36

of the country. And I'll tell you why. Not just because I want to run for president now, but

Ben: 37:41

yeah, genes, if this passes, I am running CSB, CSB comic of gene running for president.

Gene: 37:49

That would be a pretty good comic. Right behind Chuck. Yeah, csb. lol. Just in case he donates some money, I figured I'd mention the the thing. Although I haven't seen any money coming in from him for this podcast. But anyway I think that if you look at what's currently happening with college students and Gen Zs, I would much rather have Elon Musk as president than one of those pieces of shit. Ooh,

Ben: 38:14

I don't know, man. Elon Musk is, he, he's an interesting character and I don't know how to take him on

Gene: 38:21

some things. Well, he's going to be the king of Mars no matter what. So it's just a matter of

Ben: 38:25

time. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, we'll see. He's got a long way to go with his little rockets.

Gene: 38:31

He does, but he's further along than everybody else. Rocket

Ben: 38:35

man.

Gene: 38:36

He's actually building one that's capable of getting there. Unlike everybody else.

Ben: 38:43

We'll see.

Gene: 38:44

Mm hmm. Yeah, we will. So I don't know. I think this is actually a good thing that chink is doing. I don't like the guy. I don't think he's going to be successful and certainly getting to be the nominee for president. Yeah, I don't think

Ben: 38:59

the Supreme Court will take up

Gene: 39:01

the case. I think they might. I also because it's safe. It's it's a safe case. I also love his domain name for his campaign.

Ben: 39:11

Oh, yeah. Me too. That was good. Huh. Huh. Yeah. You gonna spoil it or do you want me to? Go ahead. Go ahead. JoeBidenWillLose. com. Yeah.

Gene: 39:18

I was trying to remember what exact words. Yeah. JoeBidenWillLose. com. Now, having somebody who's Democrat with that domain is fucking priceless.

Ben: 39:27

Well, and an extreme liberal Democrat, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like him and Ilhan Omar. He's a burning liberal. Well, him and, no, no, no. Him and Ilhan Omar could get it on and make some of the ugliest, ugliest babies ever. But you know. That's the

Gene: 39:43

other guy. I mean, yeah, like, I think Ilan Nomar is about his kid's age, but yeah,

Ben: 39:53

I guess like, and

Gene: 39:56

she, she could use another husband.

Ben: 39:59

You saw the video of her eyeing Matt Gaetz, right? Oh God. Yeah.

Gene: 40:06

You know, that, that video I watched right next to, or right after a video of Bill Clinton. I, Ivanka Trump,

Ben: 40:16

well, you know, what was really funny though, is I had a discussion with the liberal about the, you know, the whole speaker thing that we should get into here in a second. But I was like, yeah, Ilhan Omar was totally fucking man gates is like, no bullshit, bullshit. And I shut up the video and they're just like, okay, yeah, there's not many ways to interpret that dude. Sorry.

Gene: 40:37

Yeah. Oh, and even chunk had nothing bad to say about man gates. He said he's actually. Somebody disagrees with him on most issues, but he's somebody that he respects.

Ben: 40:49

What do you think of Mr. Mike Johnson?

Gene: 40:52

I've never heard of Mike Johnson until after he got elected and then I started looking up some info on him. The good news is he's been well rated as far as gun issues. Eh, okay. By who?

Ben: 41:05

By... An A plus from the NRA means jack shit to me. Well, that's because you're biased. No, it's because I have experience.

Gene: 41:14

Huh. I was rated A plus by the NRA. Yeah, well. So you call me jack shit, are you?

Ben: 41:23

No, I'm saying the NRA's rating is jack shit. Nah, nah,

Gene: 41:26

nah. So, yeah, I mean, we'll see, we'll see. I, he's also been on the right side of the Ukraine. Although, there is... Kinda. There is some inklings that... You know, he will concede some Ukraine funds if it pushes some of the Republican programs along. We'll see, we'll see what happens, but he's certainly better than the guy we had. Or at least appears to be, well, obviously we don't know yet.

Ben: 41:57

We'll, we'll see on a couple of things. Not

Gene: 42:00

having a house of representatives. I wish that would just last the whole year.

Ben: 42:05

Yeah. Well, there are a few things that do need to happen,

Gene: 42:08

but yeah, no, nothing. There's literally nothing that needs to happen, you know, funding the government. If we don't fund the government, we're saving billions and if not trillions, trillions, yeah, that's, that's one of the best things that could happen is not funding the government. Just take defund the police and just broaden that a little bit, the entirety of the government. I think that would be the awesome thing for the US. Yeah,

Ben: 42:38

they're hitting him up as a trumper, which I don't know that he really was a full on trumper. I've seen mixed things on that, but we'll see. You know, it's good to have someone from more humble beginnings. I haven't looked at his net worth yet and seen where he is, but... You know, he's got some anti LGBTQ plus IAPP, whatever it is now, two spirit leanings. What are you,

Gene: 43:04

Canadian? You have to mention the two spirit?

Ben: 43:07

Hey, hey, hey. It's not just Canadians now, sir. Sorry, but look at academia there with the whole reparations things for native lands where they're doing the affirmation stuff before the talks and everything else. Academia has fully embraced that. Thank you very much.

Gene: 43:25

Yeah. Well, it doesn't mean you have

Ben: 43:27

to. Yeah. Well, anyway but anyway, there, there's a lot of. You know, cannon shot aimed at him over all of this. So we'll see. Oh yeah, yeah,

Gene: 43:36

for sure. Yeah, we'll, we'll see. We'll see. Biden surprisingly had nothing bad to say. Why does that surprise you? Cause that's a bad sign usually.

Ben: 43:49

Okay. But you know, again, we should have ended up with a better, more well known conservative name, someone from the freedom caucus and that would have been better.

Gene: 44:00

Certainly that would have been better, but. I don't know. I, I think that the so far from looking at his stats, I would say we could have done a lot worse. Yeah. Like McCarthy.

Ben: 44:16

Well, we already

Gene: 44:16

did that. So hopefully that'll be a lesson to the next guy that they get rid of McCarthy, they can get rid of the

Ben: 44:26

next guy. Yeah I haven't seen if they changed the rule on that yet or not. I don't believe they did. I know there was an amendment put forward, but again, I was traveling this week. There was an amendment put forward to remove that provision where any any single member of Congress could call for a no confidence vote.

Gene: 44:45

I like that.

Ben: 44:46

I Oh, I do too. I wanted to state my point is that I think they were trying to change that during this race as

Gene: 44:51

well. Oh yeah. Well, I, I'm sure Democrats don't want it. So let me tell you about this Washington State Senator. So he apparently was flying

Ben: 45:01

to Oh, flying to China. Yeah, I'm like to Hong Kong squirrel. What?

Gene: 45:04

Yeah. Yeah. Flying through Hong Kong. And as he was getting. A snack out of his carry on bag, he noticed a familiar feeling of cold metal or plastic. I don't know what gun he had in there, but either way on the flight, he discovered that he was armed. And so he when he, when they landed, when they got to customs, he, he says, Hey guys just to let you know, I have a firearm in my carry on that was not meant to be intentional. So. But I'm declaring it, you know, right now with you guys, and then he was sent off to jail because he had an unregistered weapon in Hong Kong. And I, I think that it doesn't say that he's back in the U. S. yet. But it sounded like it should be cleared up fairly quickly because it was a misunderstanding. Yeah. And then he, you know, literally, so I'm curious to see what would you do in that situation because I'll tell you what I would do after I hear what you do. Okay.

Ben: 46:10

I would see if I could get through custom

Gene: 46:15

realize that could be a 30 year sentence, right?

Ben: 46:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, the odds of you getting inspected at customs, especially as a sitting us representative is pretty low. So, I'd probably always gotten inspected at customs. Well, that's because, you know, you're a completely legitimate

Gene: 46:31

businessman, you know, and that doesn't, I get inspected. On my way to the U. S. from Mexico, for

Ben: 46:38

fuck's sake. I have, out of all the countries I've been to so far, not about many, but I have yet to have any questions at customs. Even when I was coming back to the U. S. and like trying to declare stuff, they're like, eh, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. COVID really changed that a lot.

Gene: 46:58

Yeah. I think you're right about that in general. But anyway, I mean, what

Ben: 47:04

are you going to do? I would just act like I didn't know it was there, go through and if they find it, then be like, Oh God, I forgot that was there. I mean, it's the exact same thing he already

Gene: 47:12

did. What are you going to do with the gun in China? Let's say they miss it on the way out.

Ben: 47:17

Go to the nearest hardware store. Huh. No. I'm not going to say anything incriminating, but you know, Take care of certain things and find a nice big pond to throw

Gene: 47:29

it in. Okay. So you're going to just toss your fully functional weapon into a pond over telling it customs that you accidentally brought something. Well, either

Ben: 47:39

way, you're not getting the gun back,

Gene: 47:41

dude. Well, you might. So here's what I would do. Here's what I would do. And I, I've told a couple of people this already is as soon as I discovered that I had the gun on the flight, then I would. I would actually communicate with the pilot and say, Hey I am a Washington state Senator, whatever he is, accidentally forgot to take my gun out when I flew out. I Would like to request that you as a United States pilot flying a United States airline, um, put this on board the plane and then have it fly back to the U S.

Ben: 48:23

Yeah, that or say, Hey, pilot I've got a gift for you. No, I

Gene: 48:27

don't want to get, I want my gun back. I'm not going to give a gun away, dude. But

Ben: 48:31

as much as I am not one to be separated from my firearms, dude, I, I just don't know that I, yeah.

Gene: 48:38

Well, and I, I'm curious. We'll find out once there's something that published talks about him coming back. Whether or not he got his gun back, there is a chance he might, there's a, probably a bigger

Ben: 48:50

chance he doesn't. So a friend of mine was flying not too long ago and this guy's former military, he's been one of those spooky dudes for a long time. He was high up in some interesting companies doing offensive security stuff founded in the middle East. And people can probably figure out what company I'm talking about, but anyway. He was flying here in the U S and he forgot that he had his concealed carry on him and he forgot all the way up until TSA. And he had to go to the TSA agent and say, Hey yeah, I forgot this. Of course they handcuff him, all that. And yeah, he, he is not getting that gun back. Well, he was, he missed his flight, but he was not charged or arrested. So he, he, he got away with it because he was able to go up and say something, but that firearms gone.

Gene: 49:48

Yeah. It's hard to say. It's it's hard to say, but like, I've also had TSA Not impound knives that I brought. This was, again, this like when I, when I flew a lot was over a decade ago. So I don't know what, if anything's changed in the interim.

Ben: 50:06

Yeah. So I've forgotten knives you know, up until TSA and then take stuff out and they're like, Hey, or whatever. And I'm like, oh shit, forgot that was in my pocket. And they give you the option of going and mailing it to yourself or surrendering it. And generally I don't have time. So I ended up surrendering the pocket knife. I've also had. Leatherman's in different bags that I forgot were there and made it round trip on a trip before I realized that that had been in my bag the whole time.

Gene: 50:35

Oh, that's good. Yeah, and I, and I've had them like offered to ship stuff back to me. So.

Ben: 50:42

Yeah. Usually you have to go do it and go back through security and all that.

Gene: 50:47

Yeah. And then I used to fly with a bullet pen that I got from the FBI and it was a you know, it was basically a cartridge and a bullet converted into a pen. And it literally has the FBI logo on it. And it was for some kind of event or occasion or something. I can't remember. And all of a sudden they say, yeah, you can't fly with us at TSA. I'm like, what do you mean I can't fly? So it's a pen. What? Since when are pens banned? It's a blow. Well, no, it's not. It looks like one, but it's not, it's not usually. The TSA agent just wanted your cool badge. Yeah, I know. Exactly. So TSA were just being dicks about it. So I had to escalate it to their dudes. And the guy said, look, I get it. It's, it's, and you got it in an event or whatever, but you got to mail it back to yourself, which is such a bullshit. Because for the longest time prior to that, I actually used to fly with ammo in my pocket. Like that was not uncommon because I was three, nine, 11. When I, when I was flying out to gun ranges and stuff, it, I would put on my, my gun range clothes and sometimes there would be ammo in the pockets. And it was not a big deal. Like nobody gave a shit. It's like. You don't have a gun here. No, a gun's checked. Okay. Well, don't worry about it. So it's, it's gotten very different than what it used to be. And we're now a whole generation past that. I think soon the collective memory will forget what it was like to not have TSA. Hmm. Yeah. Well, I remember meeting people at the

Ben: 52:32

gate when they fly or saying goodbye at the gate. Like I remember my grandparents walking me to the gate on my first flight and stuff like that. Had another interesting interaction with TSA on the way back from Atlanta. They had the face scan stuff and man, everybody was just going along, going along, going along. Of course, I get up there, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna opt out of that. Mm-Hmm. and. You know, passes my driver's license, all that. And then he looks at my driver's license and that's it. They didn't take a photo of me, didn't do anything. So right now, the TSA procedure, if you're opting out of the facial recognition that they're doing, is that the TSA agent has to then manually Confirm that you're you match your I. D. Sure. Which, which is fine. It's good. I, I think that's okay for now. But, you know, I, I remember not to, I guess it's been over a decade now, but, you know, I, I remember. Right after 9 11 happened. And then it was a little while it was in the 20 teens. I was flying and I wanted to make a point because I was very politically active at the time and pissed off about all the draconian bullshit flying without a. Identification refusing to show my identification. And that was a while that took a while to get through TSA. Like I got there early in the morning and thank God I had a afternoon flight sort of thing while but you have to do affidavit saying who you are and everything else. And it's just a whole nightmare, but you can theoretically still do that. But boy, they, they're just conditioning people to just. You know, go with the program. This is it.

Gene: 54:08

Yeah. I remember when all you needed to get through security was to show them that you had a ticket. And I remember I used to print tickets so I could go through security and go to the club and have drinks and stuff.

Ben: 54:23

Before they had any validation of the ticket or anything else.

Gene: 54:25

No, they just saw a ticket in your hand, that was good enough. Yeah, but now as far as the facial recognition stuff, I've not dealt with it here. But what, so what's the downside? Why didn't you want to do it?

Ben: 54:38

Because I don't want the government having facial recognition data on

Gene: 54:42

me. So which data are you opposed to them having

Ben: 54:47

a 3d photo of my face? So the cameras are twin cameras. They are, they're doing if you've ever used like a Xbox, whatever that was, the video augmented controller or anything else you know, basically they're using stereo cameras to be able to take a 3d. picture of your face. They're also using infrared cameras and things like that to get pretty good biometrics on your face. And here's the thing, theoretically, based on what the TSA is saying, they're going to just take a picture, the computer scans your ID, and they're going to match the picture that they just took of you to the picture that's on your ID and have the computer validate that you are the same person. That's what they're saying they're doing. Right. Well, cool. They don't need the cameras that they're using to do what they say they're doing. Also, that could be a standalone device, not something that's networked and saving off copies the way they are.

Gene: 55:40

Right, right, right. Okay. Fair enough. That makes sense. Cause I, I

Ben: 55:44

was the same reason why I don't use clear when I fly.

Gene: 55:46

Yeah. I would agree with the the, the 3d imaging is unnecessary there, but, but really they, they already have a photo of your passport with your photo on there. So a flat. Photo image. I don't have, I don't care if it's a computer looking at it or a human, they already have that photo. So comparing it from their

Ben: 56:07

single camera, yeah, there are public photos of me available. I'm, I'm not arguing that I'm arguing that building a better biometric that can, because of the 3d nature of the photo, if a partial part of my face is obscured, part of it is not, it could then still recognize me potentially that's just leading us down to the panopticon I don't want to live in.

Gene: 56:31

Yeah, I can see what he didn't like the movie Brazil, um,

Ben: 56:38

too close to home, but I did like 1984. I did like brave new world, you know, all those things.

Gene: 56:45

Is that a, did they make a movie a brand new world? I don't think there's a couple

Ben: 56:48

different versions. Is it worth watching? Yeah, a couple versions are, you know, I mean, BBC did a pretty decent one, but it's very BBC early Doctor Who esque sort of thing. Okay,

Gene: 57:00

so there's no, no what do you call them God, I'm blanking out Stuff. There's no stuff that's in there. Sex. No, God damn it. Props. There's no props.

Ben: 57:14

Oh, there's props. There's some, but it's, it's, you know, I

Gene: 57:18

don't know if you ever saw the I Claudius that they did, uh, BBC production back in the eighties, I think late eighties, early nineties. And it's supposed it's regarded as one of the best productions of it. But there, there's no fricking props. It's like, you're watching a play. I mean, like the props, there's probably, when I say none, I mean, like 10 minimal, minimal, minimal props in the shot. Aside from just some architecture in the background. There might be one little statue sitting here, two chairs over there, and that's about it. So BBC tended not to have a big budget for that

Ben: 57:56

kind of stuff. Yeah. So I ran into a chick from the DOD at this conference. Mm hmm. So I, you know, just random talking to people because it's a conference. I'm like, oh, what do you do? And the way this woman presented herself was the most arrogant bitch I've ever seen. Oh. Like, I'm not gonna.

Gene: 58:21

Was it, was she Kyle's mom?

Ben: 58:23

Oh, no, worse. You know, like, you know, like, Oh, you work for the DOD. Okay. I, you know, I know, you know, know some people in the DOD, you know, so on, so, so on, so I, I, I'm in a different department. I'm very tied to national security and then just, it's like. I don't care who you are in the DoD. I know how much more I make than you. Please stop taking this arrogance. You know, she just was obviously fairly new in her role and took the title and everything just like she was hot shit. And it, anyway. Arrogant people bug the shit out of me, man. Well, not, not arrogant people, falsely arrogant people, people who have no reason to be arrogant, especially in the cybersecurity space, who think they know something, you know, it's the same, same type of person who's I see. So at insert corporation here who has zero fucking skills, it, it greats on me. Okay. Yeah. You are a paper pusher, you know, jack shit about security.

Gene: 59:22

Did you ask her what the operating system she runs?

Ben: 59:24

I did not. I just stopped talking to the woman and moved on. And, you know, this is a conference I've been going to for almost a decade. In fact, next year will be a decade. Oh, you've

Gene: 59:36

spoken to this thing too, right?

Ben: 59:37

Oh, I've spoken almost every year except for the COVID years. Yeah. And I spoke, I had two presentations this year and then I got pulled into a panel. So, oh,

Gene: 59:46

okay. So you're on stage three times. Anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Anything

Ben: 59:52

interesting? That I talked about or others? Either. Yeah, so I covered some topics on you know, basic foundations of cybersecurity and bootstrapping a program, especially in the industrial control system world and how to do it, how to live off the land versus spending money on tools. One of the messages there was really around, Hey, a lot of you want to go out and buy tools to solve this. And. That's not the answer you have to build a basis of a program and have an understanding of what your problems are before you can go buy a tool to solve a problem. You don't even know how to define yet. So back to basics. Let's talk about this because year after year, I feel like I have to repeat myself because so many more new people are coming into the space and Oh, I think they have an easy button. The fuck you do. There, there's way more that you have to go into. And then the the other presentation. Yeah. Was on risk in cyber risk in physical, in terms of physical industry and, you know, how to navigate risk. This, this was, this second session was actually focused on petrochem, but really looking at how to address and quantify risk when, you know, the, the consequences are so astronomically high, even if the incidences aren't, you still, you know, your, your standard risk equation has to be modified somewhat. So, yeah. And yeah, it, both, both talks went fairly well. I did have some microphone issues on the first one that were annoying, but that's, that's neither here nor there. And then the the panel the panel was the owner of the conference and I are tight and have been for a long time. And he had some people cancel last minute and anyway, threw together an impromptu panel for him and worked out pretty well. And what was the topic of that one? Just industrial cybersecurity, mainly we focused around how to close the skills gap in industrial cybersecurity and the, I brought up the looming boomer retirement and we all talked about how, you know, how many of our controls engineers and specialists in this industry are aging and that we don't have really a replacement generation. So, yeah,

Gene: 1:02:07

so the,

Ben: 1:02:08

that's a great. If anyone is interested, this will be online. If anyone's interested, hit me up on the agenda. Watching Ben,

Gene: 1:02:16

you can watch this thing.

Ben: 1:02:17

Yeah, if you want to poke fun at me, go right ahead.

Gene: 1:02:20

Well, that's all right. I'm sure you all talked about nuclear things.

Ben: 1:02:26

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Gene: 1:02:28

Anyway, this is a good lead off into South Park, because yesterday CSB and I were watching The guard jobs! Yeah, we were both watching the new special that they came out with. So it's not just a regular episode. It's actually like 45 minutes. So it's like a one off special thing. And its main focus is poking fun at Disney for recasting old stories with gay women, basically, or black women. And the secondary story was about how nobody in America knows how to do anything anymore. And essentially starts off with Stan trying to explain to his kids that you have to learn how to fix things. Our oven door is broken. So what you do is you pull out your iPhone, you find a handyman, you go to their website and you call them up and you place an order for them to come out and fix it and you don't just sit there and magically wait for it to get magically fixed by itself. You have to take the initiative and get somebody else to fix it. And of course, right, which is great. And then from there, the handyman, of course, shows up and he's like, yeah, well, it looks like I'm, you know, I need some more parts. So I probably come back in two weeks, two weeks. What can't you get here tomorrow? It's like, well, I'm kind of busy. It's like, well, I'll give you an extra 20 bucks if you get here right away. While this other guy already gave me a hundred, a hundred, that's more than I make. And then, so, the, of course, typical South Park fashion, the story takes things and exaggerates them to the nth degree, to a point where the handyman, uh, okay, okay, I'll tell a little more. So Randy decides that he has to take things and matters into his own hands, so he's going to go to Home Depot. He's going to go to Home Depot so he can pick up a Mexican dude from the, standing next to Home Depot. And see if he can get him to fix his oven door. And when Randy gets to home Depot, he sees a whole bunch of guys standing by the side of home Depot, except it turns out it's all his friends. And they're all like, we'll trade computer programming for handyman services. Like they're all trying to find handyman because nobody knows how to get things fixed, uh, like physical things. And then the the handyman dudes are driving around in like Lamborghinis and. And taking limousines is there the most highly paid people in the world at this point. It was a funny episode. I certainly recommend people watch it. The thing that sucks is this has been annoying for several years is that South Park hates their contract with HBO. And so with whoever owns HBO, I can't remember who that is right now. ABC, I think that whole thing. And so instead of releasing it in the same place that they released their normal episodes. For Comedy Central,'cause HBO owns Comedy Central. Instead they had a separate deal for specials, which were not covered under that contract to be released on Viacom. So you have to be a subscriber to fucking CCBs Viacom to be able to watch the South Park special, even if you're already a subscriber to HBO slash Comedy Central, where most of their episodes come out. So, well, yeah, you can go, but you, you, you get, you get Viacom already for Star Trek, so you're, you should be okay.

Ben: 1:06:16

Well, you know, good on them. That's why they're putting out all the specials instead of new episodes, but

Gene: 1:06:20

that's okay. Yeah, that's exactly why they're putting on specials instead of new episodes because separate

Ben: 1:06:26

money. So in in this vein, have you seen the stuff going around about the Buc ee's pay scale?

Gene: 1:06:36

nO, but I mean, every time I go into a Buc ee's, I can see a sign of their pay scale. They make

Ben: 1:06:41

it public. Yeah. And do you know what the managers and people are making at Buc ee's? I don't

Gene: 1:06:48

recall off the top of my head. And I mean, it was all small numbers. No,

Ben: 1:06:52

no, no, no. So Buc ee's current paid scale, a cashier slash warehouse, grocery stocker, and so on, starts out at 16 an hour. Food service and car wash because it's a 19 team lead goes up to 21 department manager goes up to 31 an hour and full time of 35 to 50 hours. Then we skip down to assistant general manager, 100 plus K car wash manager, 125 K food services manager up to 175 K. I didn't

Gene: 1:07:25

know, but he said a car

Ben: 1:07:26

wash. Hold on general manager. 225 K

Gene: 1:07:33

for Bucky's location. That's Yep. Probably a little low, but it's pretty good.

Ben: 1:07:38

That's, I can't believe they're making that much 401k up to a hundred percent match up to 6%, three weeks of paid vacation,

Gene: 1:07:45

I don't know. A bucket's location probably does like 5 million a month. Yeah. Yeah. So that's not, that's not at all unreasonable pain. It might be a little on the low side for the amount of money they're turning in that location.

Ben: 1:08:01

Yeah. I'd say about the average boat, Becky's locations, revenue, not profit, but revenue is probably around 50 million a year. Yeah. Some of them

Gene: 1:08:11

are definitely over a hundred million.

Ben: 1:08:13

Maybe, but regardless, it's just, this is a I don't know, man, when I see numbers starting to get close to my salary for that kind of thing, I'm

Gene: 1:08:22

just like, yeah, no, I, I know exactly what you mean. Like, I remember a big goal for me was hitting six figures before I hit 30. I like for, you know, a decade, that was my goal basically. And

Ben: 1:08:38

And then when you do, they change what that means. Well, yeah,

Gene: 1:08:42

exactly. That's, that's about it. And, and sort of like, but now, because it's so far in the past for me as well, I'm like, you know, a hundred K back then and what that bought you, if I was doing that today, I think my goal would be hitting a quarter million a year salary. Oh yeah.

Ben: 1:09:02

Yeah.

Gene: 1:09:03

Cause anything less than that is not really hard to get to. It's a, and in some fields, including fields I was in, it's really not that hard to get into. Like software developers starting at 180, 000. And getting over a quarter million in less than five years here in Austin. And that's for like video game developers. That's mostly who I've been talking to. If you're talking about AI people, those guys start at three 50 and then go up to almost a million a year.

Ben: 1:09:36

So, you know, my parents, they were making pretty decent money in the eighties. And if you were to take what my parents were making in the mid to late eighties. iN revenue, well, let's say 90, let's say 92, um, just to not screw with the inflation. So if you're taking what my dad was making in revenue well, me, what he was taking home in 1992, uh, in today's dollars, that'd be about 260 K a year. Yeah. Easy. Yeah. And that was by the way, that was 120 K back then. Yup. So it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's astonishing, you know, because like, no, just my, my parents, you know, everybody, Oh, you know, you're doing great and everything else. Well, I'm not really doing any better than you. Yeah.

Gene: 1:10:28

That's absolutely true. Like, I remember when my parents started making over a hundred thousand a year in the early eighties. And it was, you know, it was noticeable, like, from a kid's standpoint, I got to enjoy life more. And and it seemed like, yeah, they're probably doing maybe a little bit better than most other kids parents, but not like a whole lot better than most of my friends that I knew. And then so that's why I kind of. Always thought like, okay, so, you know, you get to every, all the money you make up until a hundred K is money to live on the money you make over a hundred K is the money to either save or blow on completely ridiculous shit. You can probably pick which one I mostly did. And and that seemed reasonable in the late eighties, early nineties. But. It's kind of like the term millionaire doesn't mean anything anymore

Ben: 1:11:34

and just to be clear, the stats I'm talking about is based off of us government, normal numbers. That's not even taking into account shadow stats or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. And if you look at real inflation, it's way more.

Gene: 1:11:47

Yeah, I think I did this with Darren, I think back about nine months ago, we did kind of a memory lane down to the prices of the eighties.

Ben: 1:11:56

Yeah. By the way, did y'all do a unrelenting on Friday? I was traveling. I have, I have not, I haven't, I haven't listened. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene: 1:12:03

we did it. We did it.

Ben: 1:12:05

It was I have to see what disparaging things you said about me.

Gene: 1:12:08

I don't think I said anything disparaging about you. You did the previous week. I never say anything disparaging about you. You're clearly

Ben: 1:12:15

wrong. You're lumping me in the same category as H. W.

Gene: 1:12:21

Ahem. Anyway the I think just based on the costs. So, yeah, so here's a good example.

Ben: 1:12:29

Let's see. Yep. And the 10th most expensive car is the GMC Hummer EV edition. So there are nine other cars ahead of that. I have the one

Gene: 1:12:38

that I remembered. Yeah. Yes. So that, uh, well, I haven't watched the video of the Corvettes and I haven't watched the video on the, I was of the ones I remember, I was the only one still it's in the top 10. Oh, snap.

Ben: 1:12:51

My point being, can we agree that EVs are about to die? Definitely

Gene: 1:12:57

not. EVS are not going to die. I think that I talked about this actually with Darren too, is I think the problem with EVs is they were marketed incorrectly. They were marketed as a solution to better mileage, effectively, better gas mileage, which they're not, which they're not, and to be more green, and more earth friendly, and all this bullshit, and that's just the wrong marketing. What they should have been marketed as is muscle cars. They should have been marketed as... If you want a street legal drag racer, this is, this is what you have to get. Cause everything else just sucks in comparison.

Ben: 1:13:39

Well, you could also do a hybrid and lots of other

Gene: 1:13:41

things. Hybrids don't accelerate the way fully electric cars

Ben: 1:13:45

do. Sure. There's nothing. They have a battery and electric motors and a generator to charge them. Yes, they can.

Gene: 1:13:52

No, they can't. Because if it's a hybrid, you're always hauling the additional weight. I'll be non electric motor on there.

Ben: 1:13:59

No, because the additional weight of the batteries to give you any fucking range is more than the motor.

Gene: 1:14:05

Well, drag racers don't need range, buddy. You're going a quarter mile.

Ben: 1:14:11

Okay. My, my point is you can have a. Battery that is there basically to be a surge or reservoir. The torque is why they make good drag cars. And the torque is all due to the electric motor, not the power source going in. So you can have a little rinky dink. Briggs and Stratton motor sitting there turning a generator that's charging to give you additional range and you're good is

Gene: 1:14:36

all I'm saying. Yeah, that's what the BMW i3 was. That's literally what it was. Yeah,

Ben: 1:14:40

yeah, yeah. Okay. We are in, we are in what I would call violent agreement, Gene. Well, we

Gene: 1:14:46

are, but my point is that they marketed them incorrectly. What they should have done is focused on their benefits, not on their Theoretical Al Gore benefits.

Ben: 1:15:01

Yeah. Well, what I'm saying and the reason why I'm saying that I think the EV market is dying is if you look at copper mine outputs over the last few years, they are going down regardless of soaring prices of copper and everything else. So. We are looking at a collapse in the very items needed to create this EV revolution. There's enough lithium on the planet to replace

Gene: 1:15:25

all... We also don't need a revolution. I mean, again, this is my point is

Ben: 1:15:29

that... Well, but that's what, that's what the talking point is. That's what they're pushing for is they want all electric cars. Well, you can't get to all electric cars without reducing the number of cars on the

Gene: 1:15:38

road. Or getting a whole bunch of nuclear plants built.

Ben: 1:15:41

No, no, no, no. I'm not even talking about power generation right now. I'm just talking about one for one, replacing the cars that are on the road today with EVs, you do not have the raw materials to do that.

Gene: 1:15:52

Yeah, I mean, they're probably just really hard

Ben: 1:15:55

to get. Anyway, but even with a bunch of nuclear plants online, you cannot get there because you don't have the distribution. You don't have the transmission and looking at California's stuff. I did the math a few months ago, looking at California's just to be able to feel their current Evie, it would cost about, I think, about 15 trillion worth of infrastructure build out. And they can't get there. I mean, there's, they just can't get Ben.

Gene: 1:16:29

You're, you're forgetting about the 10 minute cities.

Ben: 1:16:34

No, I'm not. And in fact, that's my point is their entire purpose. Yeah. Is to reduce them. Thank you, Gene. We've circled back to my original point now.

Gene: 1:16:43

You're welcome. Yeah. So my point is for the people that will still have cars, they can afford electric cars that are really high performance, like 146, 000 Tesla, um, because they're the only ones that are going to have cars and there's certainly enough copper for those.

Ben: 1:16:59

Hey, Gene how are you liking the books, man?

Gene: 1:17:02

Oh so I, What am I on? I have five actually for the last four days. I haven't read it. So I'm, I'm not any further along. Well,

Ben: 1:17:08

you should. Yeah. When you get over to the Charlie's Requiem series, which is in the same universe, same author. But it's told from a different point of view. Holy crap. Are it, does it go deep into the crappiness of our own U. S. government, man, and quick, I'm in book. I'm, I'm, I'm just finishing book two. I'll finish book two tonight. Okay. But there's this character. How many books in that series? I'd have to go look, but he's still writing both now. But do you mind a spoiler real quick?

Gene: 1:17:39

Yeah, I mind a spoiler. No, I don't want a spoiler. I'll get there. Okay.

Ben: 1:17:43

Can I just describe a character for fuck's sake? Go ahead. Okay. So there's this undersecretary of DHS who is a wuss and just a waste of human material, but he's very, very power hungry. And literally he names his personal guard, the basically the new Praetorian guard which is very telling of what he thinks of himself. Right. So, yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 1:18:09

It sounds like a character and ran a little bit.

Ben: 1:18:11

Oh, dude. Charlie's Requiem he learned a lot from the other books that he wrote it. It is like you can see him getting better throughout the books in the main series that you're reading. Yep. Yep. But Charlie's Requiem is that this series is such a stronger start.

Gene: 1:18:31

You don't think it's the, the other guy that's responsible for that

Ben: 1:18:36

regardless, the, the original source material and where the characters are coming from is, is he's very character driven and especially in the later books that are just him. So regardless, I, it's a fantastic, however, they got there. It's fucking good. They need to make a series out of this. Anyone who knows anyone at the daily wire, please. I. I beg you, send them the note of, look at these book series for the love of God.

Gene: 1:19:03

Well, I'm sure the Ely Wires could do an adaptation with Israel as the location. Damn it. See, I just ruined it for you.

Ben: 1:19:15

Gene? Nope. Bad Gene. Bad Gene. No.

Gene: 1:19:20

Yeah. No, I think that would make a pretty good TV show. I don't want a movie out of it. I want a

Ben: 1:19:25

TV show. Well, it needs to be. There's just too much material to make a movie. Yeah. You'd cut it. You'd cut it way too short, but yeah.

Gene: 1:19:32

Yeah. I gotta, I gotta go pick up my gun tomorrow, I think. Oh, what'd you get? I sent you a picture. I bought a new pistol.

Ben: 1:19:42

Oh, I thought you were just looking. I didn't know you actually

Gene: 1:19:44

ordered it. No, I was, it was a 3 a. m. text to you with a picture of it because I bought it. Not

Ben: 1:19:50

because. Yeah, well, I, I was, you know, working and. I see. Your, your message was just like something to match and I'm like, okay.

Gene: 1:19:59

Yeah, the color matches my shotgun. So I figured I'd pick

Ben: 1:20:02

up the pistol. Which firearm

Gene: 1:20:04

is it? It's, it's some off brand. That I don't recall, it's basically a Glock copy, but it's I don't think so, but the important piece is off

Ben: 1:20:16

brand Glock copy. That's not shadow system.

Gene: 1:20:18

Interesting. The important thing is, is it's white. So it's, it's a fully white

Ben: 1:20:24

pistol. It, it, it will match your Adidas tracksuit. Well, it

Gene: 1:20:28

matches my Adidas tracksuit and my white shotgun. Yeah,

Ben: 1:20:34

and that's not a euphemism for anything.

Gene: 1:20:37

I'm all white, baby. So the only thing I, I'm, I'm the next thing I'm going to be looking for, and I know who makes it, but it's too fucking expensive. I'm not going to spend the money. Is to get a, a white rifle. bUt

Ben: 1:20:55

you know, you can have any gun, Sarah

Gene: 1:20:58

coded, right? I know, but CMMG has a white, uh, a white AK

Ben: 1:21:04

47. Yeah. But why would you want that dude? I mean, have you ever shot a gun? You realize how dirty things get? Have you seen

Gene: 1:21:12

me in my track suit? Come on, man. Not in person. No. Wearing a white track suit with white pistols and white firearms. I mean. It's like I even have Adidas branded white, um, what do you call'em? God damn. It's the shoes that I like. What are they? What brand are they? They're do, oh god damn dude. They're comfortable

Ben: 1:21:43

shoes. Sorry, you were out of time. What are they?

Gene: 1:21:47

It's the shoes all the, like doctors and nurses wear. Flats,

Ben: 1:21:51

I don't know, tennis shoes. I mean, these are the things that my doctors typically

Gene: 1:21:58

wear. Yeah, people, no they don't. People will they'll, they'll know what I'm talking about. I'll, I'll, I'll mention it as soon as I remember. I can't believe I'm basing it out. They're oh, god damn, what is, ah, anyway, what else, what

Ben: 1:22:22

else going on? Well, one thing that I would like to point out and that we kind of forgot to talk about at the beginning of the show on the main shooter, just to circle back real quick, Maine has what they call a yellow flag law. Have you been paying attention to that? I just

Gene: 1:22:38

heard that today. So it's first time I ever heard of it.

Ben: 1:22:41

Yeah, so it's their version of a red flag law, but it requires an officer to petition for basically, if an officer says, Hey, we need to yellow flag this guy, you have to go before a doctor to evaluate your mental state. And depending on the findings of the doctor, then they can take your guns, which isn't much of a checksum, but at least it's something I still don't like it. I don't think it should exist at all. That said, this guy was hearing voices. His neighbors complained. There was lots of things. If anyone would have qualified for that, he would rocks

Gene: 1:23:17

cracks. That's what I was thinking. No one likes cracks, dude. Everybody likes cracks. Everybody wears cracks. I,

Ben: 1:23:25

I, I do not own a pair of Crocs. Thank you. You will.

Gene: 1:23:28

And I managed to a, a set of Crocs

Ben: 1:23:32

senior. Are you getting the new Crocs cowboy boots made

Gene: 1:23:34

by, made by Diaz? Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 1:23:37

I header. I mean, and we know you like the latex, so I can just see you in the Crocs cowboy boots in your long Mm-Hmm.

Gene: 1:23:49

Latex wearing crack. What? I'm just thinking of you in a gimp suit with the cracks. That would be an interesting look, but it'd be comfortable. Maybe for you. Well, maybe selling for 3, 000. Let me just send you a picture of this. I don't

Ben: 1:24:10

care. It's something I would never own. Oh Jesus. What are you sending me?

Gene: 1:24:20

Why? Because they're super awesome. That's why.

Ben: 1:24:25

But why are they going for that amount of money? Because

Gene: 1:24:28

they're super rare. Just like the ones that I got.

Ben: 1:24:31

Yeah, this is a beanie baby sort of thing. And absolutely stupid.

Gene: 1:24:37

Limited edition. Anyway. Anyway. And Merrill makes cracks now too. You like Merrill shoes, right? I've never owned a pair. Well, most guys like Merrill shoes. Why would I like Merrill shoes? They make good driving shoes. I mean,

Ben: 1:24:54

you realize I wear boots. And flip flops and that's pretty much it. Like Adidas. No, like actual flip

Gene: 1:25:02

flops. Okay. I assume, uh, like Birkenstocks.

Ben: 1:25:10

No, Jean actual, just regular flip flops.

Gene: 1:25:16

Well, I used to wear Birkenstocks all the time, but Birkenstocks

Ben: 1:25:20

did you wear socks with your Birkenstocks?

Gene: 1:25:23

Of course everybody wears socks with their Birkenstocks. Jesus

Ben: 1:25:25

Christ. I had a math teacher in high school that wore socks with his Birkenstocks, Uhhuh. I know.

Gene: 1:25:33

No, I did not wear socks, but I know exactly what you're talking about. It looks funny, but, and I really like Birkenstocks. But they're not good for your feet, apparently. Mm.

Ben: 1:25:46

I don't know, man. But yeah. So what else we got Gene, other than your Adidas.

Gene: 1:25:52

Adidas fetish. Adidas Fancy. Adidas Crock shoes. I don't know, let's see what else is going on. I got to scroll up to see if I texted you anything interesting. Oh, you saw, you were

Ben: 1:26:04

spamming me while I was gone. Yeah, I know. I wouldn't call it cheap, 10 bucks

Gene: 1:26:09

for a 9mm? 50 rounds. Yeah, that's a pretty good deal, man.

Ben: 1:26:13

Eh, I mean, if I'm buying in bulk, I can get way cheaper than that. Really? How cheap? 26 cents a round.

Gene: 1:26:22

sO 13 bucks instead of 11 bucks. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Or no, no. 13. So, yeah. So this, this is at 22 cents, right? The picture I sent you. Did I lose you?

Ben: 1:26:46

Yeah. It's 21. It's 21. It's right. 22 cents around.

Gene: 1:26:50

13 cents? Is that what you

Ben: 1:26:52

said? No, I'm saying right around we're shipping and everything 23. So yeah, it's right there, but you can't buy that in bulk though, I guess. So it's right at the same price as the point I'm making. I'm just saying that's not that cheap. Yeah. I think it's not like ridiculously cheaper than what I would get.

Gene: 1:27:09

So, but I think it's about as cheap as I've ever seen. Ammo and adjusted dollars because the cheapest I remember buying nine millimeter ammo at Walmart in 2005, never told me, oh, that's in Washington state. wHat are you doing in Washington state? That's not me. It's a buddy of mine sent to me to tease me about the price. Wow.

Ben: 1:27:34

Did you tell him to buy a bunch and ship it to you?

Gene: 1:27:36

I said, how many thousands did you buy? And he said, just 1000.

Ben: 1:27:41

Wow. That's all. I mean, that's like a weekend. That's all they had. That's all they had. So. Yeah, but again, that's just like a weekend. I know, but you

Gene: 1:27:48

got to get it when you

Ben: 1:27:49

can, right? Yeah, but I can get that price roughly all the time with shipping.

Gene: 1:27:53

Well, this was cheaper than the ammo man, he said.

Ben: 1:27:56

Well, okay. So SGMO is where I buy a lot of ammo and I go back and forth between ammo man and SGMO and usually over 200 and something bucks. It's free shipping or whatever, but anyway shipping has Matt tax title, license, everything. My last and that that's blazer. And the the last time I got was Ingram or not Ingram. Some German I've sent you a picture, I can't remember, it's about Spitzer or whatever it is Better Ammo, and that was at, yeah, that was at 20, just under 23 cents a round, so you're talking right at a penny difference between what he was getting and what I was getting, and I'll take my ammo over the blazer, even though I've shot blazer, it's fine, it's just dirty, and the nickel plated stuff like that, I don't like as much as a brass case, to be honest with you. He said

Gene: 1:28:40

this was a brass

Ben: 1:28:41

case. Oh, well, then great. That's, that's better.

Gene: 1:28:46

Yeah, this is, this is brass case. Yeah. I don't know. I, I wouldn't shoot blazer at all. I think they suck, but the cheapest ammo that I remember buying nine millimeter was probably 15 years ago in a Walmart in Vegas and it was 699 a box.

Ben: 1:29:06

For a box of 50 or a box, a hundred bucks,

Gene: 1:29:08

a 50 bucks, a 50 Winchester's. anD

Ben: 1:29:11

see, I'd shoot blazer over Winchester.

Gene: 1:29:13

Oh, God. No. And in today's, have you shot both lately? Yes, I still have like 4, 000 Winchester

Ben: 1:29:21

sitting in my garage. Current manufacturer.

Gene: 1:29:23

God, no, I haven't bought ammo in

Ben: 1:29:24

a long time because I, okay, well, all I can tell you is I bought ammo and shot ammo recently and of current manufacturer Winchester, the old Winchester white box, like target rounds, shit like that, that has gone so downhill I didn't even find it.

Gene: 1:29:38

Really? But you can't get any more anyway, cause they shut down Lake city's ability to make it.

Ben: 1:29:42

Lake city. Isn't there only factory that turns that out? Number one, you saw that, right? That's what I did. Yeah. We talked about that last week. I thought, Oh, you're breaking up. I thought we'd talked about that last week, but if we haven't, yeah. Lake city is cut all commercial.

Gene: 1:29:57

Hold on, Ben. You're breaking up. Let's see if it'll get better by itself. Test one, two,

Ben: 1:30:02

test one, two, Gene. Can you hear me? Gene? Everything looks good on my end. Did your motor crash too? If you're talking, I cannot hear you. And I can't, unlike you, pause the recording. Well, this is gonna be an interesting episode. First I flake out, and then now Gene has. Yep, Gene just left the building. Test 1 2, test 1 2, Gene is back. It's gonna be pretty interesting to listen to this recording. And it looks like we lost Gene. Gene, did the feds get ya? Hello. Mr. Natuliev, can you come to the door? I don't know why I sounded like Bill Clinton there. Anyway while Gene is gone, you and I can have a talk about Lake City, and them shutting down any and all commercial sales right now. They've literally cancelled, well not cancelled, but postponed delivery of all current commercial contracts and future contracts, even though they're still accepting them, until further notice because we need to build up for more. And Gene is dropped off again. But this is a kind of an interesting thing, because the, this doesn't happen generally outside of war or conflict, but given what we've sent to the Ukraine and given everything that's going on geopolitically, it's somewhat understandable. All that said. It's, it's also potentially manufacturing an ammo shortage much like if you remember a la Sandy Hook and the nonsense of the Obama administration and DHS going on the buying spree. For those of you who don't know during the Obama admin, they went on a huge buying spree of ammo across multiple, multiple departments, including the IRS. Yeah, Gene. Hey, it appears

Gene: 1:32:42

my internet router lost

Ben: 1:32:45

connectivity. Ah, well, I'm still recording right now, and I'm holding the phone up to the mic, so. Okay, good.

Gene: 1:32:53

I'm not going to record the rest of this week. No, but and

Ben: 1:33:01

2, it's kind of funny that, you know, we got you back like this. Well,

Gene: 1:33:07

I mean,

Ben: 1:33:08

sure, funny, I guess, yeah, you know, it just yeah, more like a knock, knock, Mr. Natalya. Can you come to the door, please? We've got a warrant for your arrest.

Gene: 1:33:21

That reminds me, I got to replace my

Ben: 1:33:23

my ring. What is your router, by the way?

Gene: 1:33:29

wEll, the router is fine. It's the, the the internet box. That's the modem. Yeah, that's, it's not really

Ben: 1:33:35

a modem, but yeah,