Gene 0:24

Hey Ben, how are you today?

Ben 0:26

Ah, Gene, I'm doing good. Better than I deserve.

Gene 0:29

Yeah, you don't you still don't sound perfect there.

Ben 0:33

No it's been it's been a long week, but I'm, I'm doing good. Okay, John.

Gene 0:40

What's that?

Ben 0:41

I don't know, you're cracking a, cracking a beverage on the mic.

Gene 0:45

Oh yeah, I'm cracking in a, an espresso can.

Ben 0:50

Yeah, I've got my cup of hot coffee here that I, I I was running a little late this morning because I was, Focus on other things. Anyway, I just poured, I normally pour it in my big Yeti tumbler before the show a while, so it has some time to cool down

Gene 1:04

Huh.

Ben 1:05

and I didn't this morning. And so it's the temperature of the sun.

Gene 1:08

Yeah, I've got, man, I only drink warm stuff when it's cold out. So I've switched to to iced coffee again.

Ben 1:18

Yeah.

Gene 1:19

Not that I drink coffee that often, but I, I do like these espresso cans. They're, it's the right amount of caffeine to wake me up in the morning.

Ben 1:31

I'm good for you. I'm glad you like it.

Gene 1:34

Mm hmm.

Ben 1:36

How long did you stay up watching the

Gene 1:39

The

Ben 1:39

how, how long did you stay up last watching the bombardment

Gene 1:45

bombardment.

Ben 1:47

of Israel?

Gene 1:48

Oh no, I didn't watch it past when we got off the phone. I, I wasn't watching it at all anymore after that.

Ben 1:54

Yeah, I had it. So did they update the casualty list? Did they change the story? Because the last I've seen is 1 little girl was hurt. Oh, no.

Gene 2:05

Yeah, I think that was the last I heard too.

Ben 2:07

Okay. Yeah, so as.

Gene 2:09

it's typical of Iran trying to kill children.

Ben 2:12

Huh. Yeah, it looks like this was a big nothing burger. That's good.

Gene 2:17

Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of what I was commenting to you about. It's I, this could very well just be a, Hey, we need to save face by attacking you guys, but you guys are going to be able to shoot down a hundred percent of everything. So don't worry about it.

Ben 2:33

Yeah it certainly seems that they were either able to shoot it down or the the targeting was such that it was not a real threat.

Gene 2:45

I have a hard time believing that,

Ben 2:47

Which one?

Gene 2:49

that, that Israeli defenses are so good that they shut down a hundred percent of intended rockets.

Ben 2:56

Yeah, I don't think so. I think it's more the targeting was not really ever a real threat.

Gene 3:03

I think the targeting was basically fly over, fly over Israel. And then while you're flying over, they'll probably shoot it down.

Ben 3:12

Yeah, they, they also, you know, targeted the one military base that's part of the Israeli nuke program. So there was that.

Gene 3:22

Did they target it though?

Ben 3:24

Yeah. This is what was said. I mean, we're definitely in a wag the dog esque situation, so.

Gene 3:32

The smart thing for Israel to do would be to just let it go.

Ben 3:37

I don't think that's what's going to happen though, do you?

Gene 3:41

I think that there are a number of factions involved that really want there to be a war in the middle East during the presidential election in the U S

Ben 3:53

I can agree with that.

Gene 3:56

so regardless of what Israel may or may not want, that's the likely thing to happen. But I, I don't know, man, I think I think the, the push to actually target Iran is I just don't see it as a good, good approach. Maybe I'm missing something here, but you know, it's one thing to try and get terrorists off your back lawn. It's another thing to go after a much larger country. That isn't adjacent to you that is likely supporting tourists, but still, it's kind of like,

Ben 4:38

Who do you see as that larger country? Yeah.

Gene 4:40

well, Iran, obviously in this example, but I mean, there, there's no secret of that, but it's like a lot of the actions that have taken place against Iran to effectively chop them off at the knees and prevent them from growing and, and, uh, technologically becoming more mature. There, there are two main countries that want that, or not even countries, two factions of people that want that. One, there's a faction of people in the U S government that was alive and just starting their careers during the Iranian hostage deal. Like when Iran revolution happened, they took out the guy that we put in power and replaced them with a religious government. And in the process took us hostages. I remember that. I remember what happened. I think there's some folks still working in the U. S. government that remember that. And for that reason, they, they've spent their entire lives trying to fuck with Iran. So that's Faction 1. Faction 2 is pretty obvious as well. And that is the the Royal Government of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has always seen Iran as the biggest threat to their dominance of the region. And so Anything that's bad for Iran is good for Saudi Arabia. Israel, I think is not quite a pawn, but definitely not a queen in this scenario. You know, it's a, it may be a night. So they're, they're, they have some of their own complaints about Iran.

Ben 6:26

And set up to fail for the Abraham Accords, right?

Gene 6:30

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But also who truly benefits from that failure of the Abraham accords, because there may be elements inside of Arabia that don't want that to happen. I'm like, we don't know. It's, it's not clear cut. It's not obvious. There's Iran is the easy fall guy for all of this. Like it makes some rational sense as to why they would be responsible for a lot of this stuff. But ultimately I think there are too many parties that benefit from this, including Saudi Arabia, you know, like while they were normalizing relations with Israel. On the one hand, on the other hand they like having somebody else that's constantly fighting Iran and not them much like Iran, like somebody else, meaning Hamas fighting Israel and not them directly as well. So there are multiple layers of proxies in this thing.

Ben 7:41

Yeah, I don't know that Saudi Arabia is the 1 that benefits the most here in any way, shape or form. In fact, I would argue. I don't know that they benefit. I can see this being. Pretty detrimental to them in a lot of ways. I mean, Riyadh closed their airspace during this which they're the wrong direction, which seems kind of odd. So yeah, I don't know, man.

Gene 8:02

What, what was the benefit to Saudi Arabia for blowing up the buildings on 9 11?

Ben 8:09

the paycheck from our government.

Gene 8:11

Mm. mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. They couldn't, they couldn't find any other Arabs that weren't Saudi nationals to pull it off.

Ben 8:20

I don't know, man that has never really never gotten good answers on those things. So I don't know.

Gene 8:27

So I think that there's an awful, like you've read the the Arab fairytales right before the, uh, what were they called? There's a whole book of'em.

Ben 8:40

Arabian

Gene 8:40

sin Sinbad, the sailor stuff, all that stuff.

Ben 8:43

Yeah, I, some of them.

Gene 8:45

Some, yeah. Yeah. They're culturally in in the region of the Middle East, the protagonist isn't the strongest. He isn't bulletproof. He doesn't fly. He's not Superman. He is the one that can trick everybody the best. That is a skillset that is admired in the Middle East and the Western society does not understand this.

Ben 9:18

Why would we? It seems anathema. It seems odd.

Gene 9:21

It does seem mad, doesn't it? But it's a different culture, it's a different religion. And it's a different way of interacting and much like the other, the thing that we don't really get in the West about the Far East is their whole thing with not losing face. Who cares? So you, you fucked up, you admit you fucked up when you move forward. If you're in China or Japan, you don't admit you fucked up even if you fucked up because if you admit you fucked up, you need to commit suicide.

Ben 9:53

Yeah.

Gene 9:54

We don't get that. And so we didn't understand things. Like kamikaze pilots, but in the West, in the, in the. A Far East culture, you completely understand that. And

Ben 10:07

I think there's a pretty big difference between the type of, You know, kamikaze, I can understand that, right? I can understand a, we are, we are losing. We are losing this war. We have to find a way to stop the enemy. You know, last desperate. Attack sort of thing that I can kind of get in the head of. The, oh You fucked up, so therefore you know, it's, it's, it's time to commit seppuku, I, The, the saving face thing I guess I could, I could screw up bad enough that I didn't see a way out that that was my answer, but, Holy shit, that had to be a bad, that, that'd be a bad fuck up, man. You know, not not a cultural faux pas.

Gene 10:55

up. Yeah, that'd be not a trivial fuck up, right?

Ben 10:59

Yeah, but, you know, some of the Asian countries, as you put it see a even minor thing as a cultural faux pas as, oh, you know, this is bad.

Gene 11:12

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Ben 11:14

can you quit fiddling with your mic?

Gene 11:16

I'm sorry. It's the mic stand. I'll be done in just one sec. I

Ben 11:20

Okay, you're gonna have to edit. That's okay.

Gene 11:23

I'll leave it in there. It's It It's not that bad,

Ben 11:26

Yeah, at least this way they can understand why I was bitching.

Gene 11:30

You bitch all the time, anyway.

Ben 11:31

Oh, please.

Gene 11:33

Exactly. I had a mic stand that deteriorated and blew up literally as we're recording Unrelenting. And

Ben 11:43

How does a mic stand deteriorate and blow up?

Gene 11:46

so one of the joints on the mic stand is held together by a screw between two, like the screw is on the left and then a nut, I guess, is on the right.

Ben 11:57

Yes

Gene 11:58

it fell apart, so that arm just fell down into my lap, without, without fiddling with it, like nothing, like it was totally, I wasn't moving the damn mic, it just sort of collapsed.

Ben 12:12

just hanging, it was hanging on by a thread, huh?

Gene 12:15

Yeah, I was, I was trying to, you know, lift myself up by the mic stand, for some reason the thing didn't work. I'm kidding. I didn't do that. But so it collapsed, so I'm like, ah, shit, I gotta go buy a new mic stand. So I spent like the last 10 minutes of the show looking for mic stands on, on Amazon.

Ben 12:33

You should have texted me. I've got one I

Gene 12:36

You don't use? Oh, the one that you like? Yeah. So

Ben 12:40

have one I don't use,

Gene 12:41

the one that I was gonna get is out of stock, but then

Ben 12:47

can be expensive.

Gene 12:48

it showed me yeah, and this is a, this is what's called a low profile stand. This is for the, you know, YouTubers out there. And so I but what did pop up is like, Oh, this is the one you last bought. And I thought yeah, that is, that's the one that just broke. So I

Ben 13:08

That's not the one that I want.

Gene 13:10

I just clicked, let me reorder it button. And amazingly it had the same day delivery. I'm like, perfect. So showed up. So I'm, I just got the new one installed and I'm going to ship the old one back.

Ben 13:28

Oh, okay.

Gene 13:31

Hopefully this one will last longer.

Ben 13:34

Yeah. Hopefully it'll last more than 30 days. Right.

Gene 13:37

hmm. It lasted, I think it lasted about nine months. That's not

Ben 13:40

I was giving you an out gene,

Gene 13:42

warranty. Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm shipping it

Ben 13:45

your little fraud narrative. They're sending back the broken one. Okay. You're not sending it. You're not just doing the Amazon swap, huh?

Gene 13:57

back for warranty service, and as soon as I get it back, I'll send this one back.

Ben 14:01

Okay. That's

Gene 14:02

Anyway, it'll be free in the end. Point being, the the, the mic stand, what I like about this one is it has cords or it has a channel for the cords to be inside. So you don't have a, a mic stand with an external mic, mic cord dangling next to it. The cord goes through the stand. And that's what I was doing when you started complaining about the noise.

Ben 14:27

The problem with those that have the cord in them sometimes I, I don't know, I, they haven't been the best quality cables, so I don't know.

Gene 14:36

Oh no, no, no, it's my cable.

Ben 14:38

okay.

Gene 14:39

removable, the side of it pops off and you can put the cable in. In fact, what's really cool is, my my ferrite doodad, I don't forget what the technical term for it is, actually fits inside of there. You know what I'm talking about, that little ferrite ball.

Ben 14:55

Yeah. A little noise thing.

Gene 14:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I found I put that on two years ago, I think. I No, less than two

Ben 15:01

that it makes a difference.

Gene 15:03

No, somebody started complaining. I didn't hear a goddamn thing until either you or Darren complained. And then I cranked up the volume on my self mode, because usually I have me turned down quite a bit. But I turned up the volume on the mic itself, and I'm like, oh yeah, you can hear some buzzing in there. And before I was gonna spend money on something expensive, I thought, Let me, let me try putting a, one of these ferrite balls on the cable. And that took care of it.

Ben 15:34

Cool.

Gene 15:35

Mm hmm. By the way, Adam says that he still can't have lights on in the kitchen. When he's recording a show. Even with all the shit he's done. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Ben 15:47

You know, fucking around with audio interfaces and trying to find all of these little idiosyncrasies to get resolved for, you know, like my timing issue on the Motu still having issues there. The how do I put it? Little audio crackles or like Adams RF interference. That's coming from somewhere that he can't track down, you know, things like that. That's. It's interesting to me.

Gene 16:18

Yeah, and I, I told him he should just be running it off the battery while he's doing the show. Just plug it into a one of those portable

Ben 16:26

I mean, hopefully he's hopefully he's got a UPS in in line.

Gene 16:31

work that way. A UPS isn't

Ben 16:33

on the UPS.

Gene 16:34

A home UPS's doesn't work that way.

Ben 16:37

depends on the UPS. Actually Eaton makes some is it Eaton? Nah, or it starts with an E. There's a There's a pretty interesting UPS company out there that some that are more expensive because for those who don't know, the way a normal cheap UPS works is as soon as there's a low or high voltage, it switches the battery. There are other UPSs that will have step up, step down transformers

Gene 17:05

Yeah.

Ben 17:06

will try. Exactly, that will try and do some work on the signal before going to

Gene 17:12

ever buys those, cause for the same amount of backup time, it's 300 bucks more.

Ben 17:17

I, I, I bought them for my data centers and everything all

Gene 17:21

Oh, for somebody else's money. Yes. That's the only way people buy those. Not with their own money.

Ben 17:26

How I,

Gene 17:27

You got my point. Adam doesn't have one. But, I, I, it's. What I got is one of those, they're called generators. They're obviously not generators. But it's, it's a big honking lithium battery. That you can either charge at home or charge with solar panels and then it's got outlets on the outside. It's got 12 volts, it's got 120 volts but something like that could totally be used to power the Motu completely absent of any interference and with its own sine wave generator.

Ben 17:59

Except you're assuming that something isn't acting as an antenna like his microphone cable or mute button or something like that. That's bringing in the noise from the other direction. You're assuming it's coming in from

Gene 18:12

And mute button is a good point because he does have a mute button. I've never trusted mute buttons because I just don't trust things like that. I don't know. So it's, it, like the last thing I want to do is put a 300 microphone. In line with a 25 switch. You know what I mean? I just want my analog portion to be as short and clean as possible. So that there's the least opportunity for fuckery.

Ben 18:41

That's why I'm on the Yeti today. I mean, it's literally the analog mic and then digital.

Gene 18:47

Right. Right. it's just,

Ben 18:50

No, I'll be happy when I get my motor back.

Gene 18:53

and technically, I probably could take your incoming sound and then run it through Maimotu's other channel, which is what Darren does to my voice. Oh, incidentally, on the last episode of Unrelenting We were talking about audio and, and I had talked about how much different Darren's voice is compared to when he's got the, his real voice versus what you hear. And he turned off the filters so you could see the difference. It's a huge difference.

Ben 19:20

He does a lot. He, you know, he does a lot of compression and

Gene 19:25

yeah. Compression and EQing and big bottoming and all kinds of stuff.

Ben 19:31

yeah, he, he, he doesn't have the deep voice that he wants. So he tries to manufacture it.

Gene 19:37

does have it if you remove everything else. So it, yeah. It, it's, you know, like his, his voice that you would hear in person or that I've heard on the phone stuff is definitely not the voice you hear in the podcast. Yeah. It's more like this. Hey, I'm Darren. No, I'm kidding. He doesn't listen to this show anyway, so I can make fun of him.

Ben 20:01

So the ATF rule got signed into effect. I mean, it'll go into effect here in a little bit, but the new rule on what is a firearms dealer

Gene 20:13

Yeah. If you have, if you ever want to sell a firearm, you cannot anymore.

Ben 20:19

Not true.

Gene 20:20

Basically.

Ben 20:22

So first of all, you can always sell to an FFL.

Gene 20:26

Oh, right. Right. Right.

Ben 20:28

But second ball it's actually, this is, this is the way they have you read it.

Gene 20:33

No.

Ben 20:34

Okay. The way it is written. Is very up for a court challenge, because basically the way it's worded is your primary motivation has to be for profit. If you ever sell a gun. For a primary motivation for profit not, not to make a living the way it was before anything else which was also ambiguous, but if your primary motivation is for profit, then you have to have an FFL. Oh,

Gene 21:09

Hold up. So you tell me you could just sell guns and exactly what you paid for them all year long And the ATF isn't gonna bust down your door and shoot you with a gun

Ben 21:18

oh, no, they probably will, but, you know, Actually, what I would say is you can incur a lot of expenses and I'm not making a profit, right? You can make any business, quote unquote, not profitable.

Gene 21:31

a non not for profit gun shop

Ben 21:33

Yeah, yeah. The other thing I would say is the way it's worded, I would love for someone in, you know, if I, if I weren't such a pussy, and if I didn't have a family and everything else I would start buying and selling guns, making 1 on each gun. Until they arrested me and then say, but my primary motivation was not to earn a profit. Here I can show that I only made$1 per gun. It was to fuck with you and file this lawsuit. Thank you. But you know, then you're risking felony charges and everything else. So

Gene 22:08

problem is that if you

Ben 22:10

the problem is it's left up to interpretation and then someone has to get fucked enough by it and challenge it.

Gene 22:16

yeah, yeah totally but as far as challenging stuff that the problem is there's so many laws on the books that If you step on the wrong person's foot in government, and a lot of those people work at the ATF,

Ben 22:35

Mm-Hmm.

Gene 22:36

they will find a way to fuck you no matter what. It's kind of like the guy from if you remember the, the first Guntuber channel, FPS Russia.

Ben 22:51

Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Gene 22:52

you know, super successful can't own a gun for the rest of his life.

Ben 22:57

Which is just insane.

Gene 22:59

Because they wanted him to stop doing that TV show, that, that YouTube channel. And what they got him on is

Ben 23:10

A process crime.

Gene 23:12

it's, it's, it's completely a fake crime. They got him on intent to distribute marijuana. He was never selling marijuana. His girlfriend was so stupid that when asked, had he ever giving you a joint said, yes, he has. And that was why he spent a year in prison and can never own a gun again.

Ben 24:02

Yeah, and the problem with the way the current iteration of the FFL rule is now written on who needs to be in FFL it actually really doesn't change a whole lot. So if one administration is in and doesn't want to necessarily enforce it There's enough interpretation there that they don't have to enforce jack shit. But the problem is if you get someone who wants to be overzealous and really screw someone, anyone who sells any gun for any reason, and that's the chilling effect and the problem that can happen here.

Gene 24:38

True.

Ben 24:40

and the federal government making you prove it in court is not a fun experience and most of the time they end up winning those cases.

Gene 24:48

Even if they don't win, you still lose.

Ben 24:53

Right. Cause the cost to defend yourself.

Gene 24:56

Yeah. We're talking hundreds of millions. Not maybe not hundreds of minutes, but definitely in the millions of dollars because they're, it's a very long

Ben 25:04

haven't helped yourself with the public defender.

Gene 25:08

Yeah. That's, that's why you're playing a video though.

Ben 25:12

No, I hit the wrong button. Sorry about that.

Gene 25:15

That, that's a very dangerous proposition because the public defenders are not necessarily going to be on your side. Yeah.

Ben 25:22

No, they've got to work day in, day out in that in that courtroom and deal with those people. So they're not going to be rocking the boat as it were for you anytime soon.

Gene 25:33

not at all. And as I found out

Ben 25:35

isn't going to help us.

Gene 25:37

no. And then as I found out recently, you know, different states have actually implemented fees for public defenders. So there are states that will, after you use a public defender will send you a bill in the thousands of dollars.

Ben 25:57

But I can't afford a lawyer, so I have to be represented.

Gene 26:01

yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

Ben 26:05

So now

Gene 26:06

gonna be now paying money for that for the rest of your life.

Ben 26:10

Ah, that's evil.

Gene 26:12

Hmm. Government. Evil. Tomato. Tomato. Whatever. What do you, what do you think the the real government of the U. S. is doing right now that they're telling Joe to start talking about?

Ben 26:24

It's interesting that some of the crap that was coming out of the call, the very long call that Joe and BB apparently supposedly had. Were you

Gene 26:39

didn't, no, I didn't hear about that one. What was that

Ben 26:41

so there was a lot of stuff coming out last night leaked esque about you know, Biden trying to push Netanyahu not to go into a broader war and that he needs to calm down and, you know, trying to make Joe sound forceful, and none of us think Joe's forceful, right? I think we all think he's Probably bumbling on the phone. If he was even on the phone with Netanyahu man, I, I don't know. I don't see the Israelis unless something happens to that little girl, unless they want to make that one little girl like the martyr for this. I don't see them retaliating In ways that they could, so hopefully this calms down, but you know, yesterday was it was a moment, you know, I wouldn't filled up my truck yesterday when this was going on when this 1st started. I wouldn't made sure I had gas in my truck and gas prices are still going to go up on this

Gene 27:43

Oh, that probably will. Yeah,

Ben 27:45

Yeah, anytime there's tension in the Middle East like this. It's gonna be crazy.

Gene 27:51

Now. Yeah, I guess. It's, it is the first time that Iraq has actually I guess attempted would be the word to use here. Military action against Israel directly.

Ben 28:05

You mean Iran and Yes, this is the first time they've launched from their territory

Gene 28:11

having a George

Ben 28:12

using a proxy. Yes. Yes.

Gene 28:15

Did you see that video? I sent the link to it. It's the oldie, but a goodie of Bush talking about. Ukraine and

Ben 28:22

Iraq. Yeah

Gene 28:24

a completely unjustified war in Iraq. I mean, Ukraine.

Ben 28:29

Whoops.

Gene 28:29

love, I love the fact that he says, he says, whoops, but then he also, if you actually listen to it, he quietly says Iraq too.

Ben 28:39

Yeah,

Gene 28:39

under, under his breath, not directly into the mic.

Ben 28:42

he knows, he's a, he's an an idiot

Gene 28:45

Yeah. So then you kind of wonder too, is like who actually was it him or was he steered You know, doing the Iraq

Ben 28:58

was as much of a puppet as Biden is today. I really think so. You know, I don't think Bush was in was competent. No, no, not at all,

Gene 29:11

it's just, and in some ways it's just the other side of the coin people that were running him that are running Biden right now.

Ben 29:18

Yeah, and I mean, Reagan was the same way too, right?

Gene 29:22

It's interesting. I don't know. I thought Saturday night live had a absolutely brilliant skin on during the Reagan years. That it was Danik Aykroyd that played Reagan in that skit, so you can probably find it on Google or on YouTube, but in that skit, he's kind of shaking his head and he's talking to reporters like you know, we'll, we'll, we'll see what's what it comes out of that, whatever they're talking about, whatever the question was. And as soon as the reporter's out of the room, the head shaking stops, he straightens up, his posture changes. And he's like, all right, Bill, I need you to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and he totally turns into not this kind of fumbling old dude. Yeah, he, he, he's like clearly very vivid and understand what the hell he's doing. But his whole personality is I'm a, I'm your grandpa, you know? And I, I want to do nice things for you. So it's hard to say, I don't know, man. One thing I do know is that Giving women the vote pretty much ruined the chances of this country ever having a good president.

Ben 30:26

I don't know if that, I think universal franchisement in general was the problem, not necessarily the women, but you know, Hey. That said you know, a repealing a lot of amendments wouldn't be a bad thing, you know, getting rid of the income tax, which I'll be paying tomorrow is just, you know, I, but here's the thing, you can't vote your way out of tyranny. It typically doesn't work very well. And all you do is highlight yourself. So I don't know what the answer is. I think when you look at the Pfizer renewal, did you pay attention to that? Yeah. So it's a tie fucking vote and speaker of the house casts his vote for Pfizer renewal.

Gene 31:15

Mm hmm.

Ben 31:15

He needs to be absolutely dealt with in a less than generous

Gene 31:22

Remember there was a reason he was elected Speaker of the House.

Ben 31:25

Why is that?

Gene 31:26

Because the establishment wanted him.

Ben 31:29

Yes, but I don't know. I think that there's a lot of people on both sides of that that were okay with Mike Johnson. And I think, I mean, he will be removed after this. We all recognize that, hopefully. You know, who is,

Gene 31:45

who's there

Ben 31:45

Hakeem. Jeffrey's going to make it in this time. I don't know. Actually I can see. MTG and alike pushing for like Thomas Massey pretty heavy. And I would

Gene 31:56

They can push all they want, they don't have the numbers.

Ben 32:01

I don't know.

Gene 32:02

That's just unfortunately it's true. Because the, who should have been the Speaker of the House is, what's his face? I'm watching his He's got a big head, I can't remember his name off the top of my head. You know, he had, what, four votes, and they couldn't bring him in? You know who I'm talking about.

Ben 32:18

Yeah. You,

Gene 32:19

the big hair guy.

Ben 32:21

you're talking about McCarthy or

Gene 32:22

Florida guy. What the hell's his name? Not McCarthy, no, the Florida guy. The guy that should have been speaker.

Ben 32:30

Oh yeah.

Gene 32:31

What is

Ben 32:32

he had way more than four votes.

Gene 32:35

Oh, okay, but at least, yeah. But, you know, what is his name? I'm blanking. Gotta look it up now. Florida Congress. People.

Ben 32:45

Just put failed speaker of the house.

Gene 32:48

Is that, is that all it's gonna take? Okay.

Ben 32:51

doo, dah, do. n nope. hmm hmm

Gene 32:54

Failed speaker vote.

Ben 32:56

hmm hmm hmm

Gene 32:57

Uh, What is his name? It's not Jim Jordan. No, it's the other guy.

Ben 33:08

Hmm hmm hmm hmm, hm, hmm, hmm.

Gene 33:14

We're just going to stop until I'm done here.

Ben 33:17

Really?

Gene 33:17

yeah, unless you come up with a name. I'm not, I can't move forward here. What is his name? He's from Florida. He's got a big head, big hair. And he's the guy that runs the coalition of your favorite girls. But what's his name?

Ben 33:34

yeah, it was McCarthy, dude. And he finally won and they kicked him right back

Gene 33:38

It wasn't McCarthy. He McCarthy's not from Florida.

Ben 33:42

okay. I agree, but it was 17 tries and took 15 ballots to elect McCarthy.

Gene 33:47

Yes, but who is the guy?

Ben 33:50

McCarthy, this is what I told you minutes ago.

Gene 33:54

McCarthy's not from Florida. I'm talking about the Florida guy. I don't

Ben 33:58

Jim Jordan is the other one.

Gene 34:00

It wasn't Jim Jordan either. What is

Ben 34:02

Those are the two. I don't know who you're thinking about, but it In recent memory, who you're thinking of is McCarthy.

Gene 34:11

that's not who I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of the guy from Florida. Not Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan's not from Florida.

Ben 34:19

Anyway pretty shitty vote, and I think that it's gonna go down in history. I mean, the Speaker of the House rarely votes, and when it's a fucking tie vote, 2 12,

Gene 34:32

Mm hmm.

Ben 34:33

for him to do that, number, first of all, he should have just abstained if he wants to.

Gene 34:39

Getz. That's who

Ben 34:42

Gaetz never seriously went after the Speaker of the House.

Gene 34:44

Seriously or not, he's the guy who should have been speaker. He's the one that kicked out McCarthy. He kicked out

Ben 34:50

of times. Yeah, and he was nominated as a joke a couple of times. He was never going to be Matt Gaetz was not going to ever be Speaker of the House, just like Thomas Massey is never going to be Speaker of the House. He's not, Ever going after that.

Gene 35:07

Whatever.

Ben 35:09

Anyway, all that for that.

Gene 35:12

I couldn't remember his name. So I'm glad I finally found him.

Ben 35:17

Anyway I, I, I think this does a lot of damage. I thought it was funny that a lot of the Trump supporters were all on board. Yeah. Block FISA. Why did Trump sign the renewal last time? He shouldn't have, you know,

Gene 35:31

Oh, they all do it.

Ben 35:32

I know,

Gene 35:33

blackmailed into it.

Ben 35:35

I understand, and oh, did you hear about the DOJ representatives sitting outside the halls of Congress during some of these votes, grabbing representatives and having conversations with them?

Gene 35:48

I did not, but it doesn't surprise me.

Ben 35:50

Yeah, this was, this was absolutely Reported by multiple Congress critters that literally there were people sitting outside saying, hey, we need to talk to you about your vote. And what we need to talk to you about this. Now, they didn't make it sound like anything nefarious, but to me that especially given the subject matter of what we're voting on, that's an implied threat.

Gene 36:12

hmm.

Ben 36:13

That that that's interference at the very least, even even if all they're trying to do is lobby their congressman to say, hey, this is why we need it. And it's. You know, fairly innocent. It's still insidious, man, because it's an implied threat.

Gene 36:29

Yeah, it definitely has that overtone, but is it appropriate for any branch of government to be lobbying Congress about their funding?

Ben 36:38

No.

Gene 36:39

No, I don't think so. Hmm.

Ben 36:44

congress people, including Thomas Massie, who I actually do trust quite a bit, that's what they were doing.

Gene 36:51

Yeah, that's not surprising.

Ben 36:53

Pretty

Gene 36:54

please renew that, that law that allows us to spy on you. Cause here's what we found so far.

Ben 37:02

Yeah. Yeah. By the way, do you remember doing this as a teenager? Cause you know, we found the photo.

Gene 37:10

What? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm like, what would you find hold up? I did a lot of things as a teenager. Would you, which one of those?

Ben 37:20

Gene's sitting there going, oh Jesus, how would I react to that?

Gene 37:22

mean, no, I know exactly how it tick cause you're hearing it right now. Which one? What do you mean? I mean, I wasn't there. definitely not me. No. There, there,

Ben 37:36

grew up where the sheep were scared.

Gene 37:40

there's a, I think there's been in the last 23 years of FISA authorizations. I think there's been an awful lot of dirt that have been dug up on politicians.

Ben 37:53

Yeah, no doubt. And, and used, you know, I think that's the, that's the key point there and used.

Gene 38:00

And if we, if you had FBI agents that were literally taking down the president of the United States, what makes you say or think that somebody wouldn't do that to just a mere representative?

Ben 38:18

Oh, I guarantee you they are, but more than that, I think what they're doing is at the very least. You know, just if a, if, if the FISA warrant process, we, we all know about the FISA warrant, right? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows for the warrantless tapping of non U. S. citizens and theoretically for U. S. citizens and U. S. citizen name reveals, they have to go through a secret court that is held in secret, which, you know, warrants aren't exactly hard to come by in An open court, which is sad, but they have to go through this process and they then theoretically get a warrant to unveil the, and this is all sealed permanently sealed because it's national security, the U S citizen involved, but then they can tap all your communications and everything without ever going public about it, which is

Gene 39:18

It's worse than that. It's two levels. So essentially if, if you've got, let's say some guy from Cairo that they suspect of being involved in something, not even proven to any extent, but somebody that they suspect they're already tapping his phones because they can. And anybody, anybody that he communicates with in the United States, they're recording those phones, phone calls already. And if they want to get that person's info and start recording their phone calls, then they do a FISA court warrant for that, but it doesn't stop there. Anybody that has ever communicated with the American person in this example, they can do the exact same thing for. There's two levels. Of surveillance that they do. And it's, it doesn't stop at somebody directly communicating with a foreign suspect.

Ben 40:17

Yeah. It's like degrees of separation or Kevin Bacon,

Gene 40:21

and it's not like they start and stop recording calls or tracking

Ben 40:26

they, this is, they just take it all in and then they,

Gene 40:30

The data is. Always

Ben 40:33

Yeah, the, the, the, the argument is that since we're not accessing it actively, we can collect whatever the hell we want and we will collect whatever the hell we want, and then we'll only ask for permission to access it, which is just horseshit,

Gene 40:48

It's not even what we want, it's we'll collect it all.

Ben 40:51

yeah,

Gene 40:52

Literally. All data.

Ben 40:54

I think one, the way one one guy put it, why, why why try and pick up the needle when you can grab the whole haystack?

Gene 41:02

Exactly. And if we need to look for the needle, we can do that because we already have the haystack.

Ben 41:06

Yeah, and but here here's the the insidious thing is if you believe in what Brezhnev said about show me the man I'll show you the crime. They've got everything they want on you now Do they have everything probably not right? So if you're if you're going through and using non standard means of communication if you're, you know Going out of your way, but all that does is If they get wind of it, or look at that is make make you a bigger target. Oh

Gene 41:36

Mm hmm.

Ben 41:37

what's he doing? He's doing something out, you know, that is elusive to our surveillance. Therefore, that that is in its nature suspicious. Which is circular reasoning at its best, right?

Gene 41:50

Yeah, I mean, you can always be suspicious. It doesn't take anything. It wasn't Brezhnev that said that, incidentally, but close enough.

Ben 41:59

Who wasn't barrier? Okay. It started with a B, and I'm in the right time frame.

Gene 42:04

yeah, yeah.

Ben 42:05

Yes, I barrier. Sorry.

Gene 42:09

Yeah, he was the head of the secret police

Ben 42:11

Yeah, I got the wrong wrong Russian.

Gene 42:14

Wrong Russian. How could you? Heh heh heh heh.

Ben 42:18

By the way, you should totally see if that domain name is available.

Gene 42:22

which one?

Ben 42:23

Wrong Russian.

Gene 42:24

Oh, wrong Russian? Yeah, I di Okay, and then you buy it, and then you do nothing with it for four years, and then you let it go. That's usually how this shit works. For me, at least. I bought so many domains over the years and then never used them.

Ben 42:38

Eh, okay.

Gene 42:41

Because it sounds funny for a split second and then you're like, okay, no one's using that.

Ben 42:46

There's a reason why no one has this.

Gene 42:50

usually yeah, it's, it's insidious. And then on top of everything else, the Pfizer warrants aren't issued on the hunch or suspicion. They're actually issued on detailed information coming from five eyes where our friends are spying on Americans. And then that information is used to get warrants. It's, it's a nice little way for all these countries to get around local

Ben 43:16

assume that everybody knows what Five Eyes is?

Gene 43:19

Oh, really? Okay. Five Eyes is basically the English speaking ex British territory countries that all share intelligence information so it's U. S., U. K., Canadian land. Australia and what's the last one? This is New Zealand.

Ben 43:40

Yep.

Gene 43:42

And so essentially what they figured out is that each country has laws in place to prevent its external spying apparatus from being utilized against its own citizens. But not against any of the other countries. And so they, they figured out that, Oh, so the U S can spy in the UK and the UK can spy in Australia and Australia can spy in the U S and the U S can spy in Canada and Canada can spy in New Zealand and any mix of those without breaking any laws. And then they all

Ben 44:18

you're not spying on your

Gene 44:20

cause you're not spying on your own, but, but they have in place a relationship. That basically says we're going to notify you if we think that there's some kind of a threat. And so if the UK who's spying on the U S says, Hey, you've got some us citizens doing some nefarious actions. So here's your notification of that. Now that. The U S has a

Ben 44:46

Reasonable suspicion,

Gene 44:48

a reasonable vision and then the FBI gets brought in, so it's not the CIA doing it, but the FBI gets brought in based on that information coming from a

Ben 44:56

to note that because the CIA has no domestic authority,

Gene 45:01

not, not, not a law enforcement. Authority, yes.

Ben 45:05

they have no ability to operate inside the borders of the United States information collection in based off of their charter. And in theory

Gene 45:14

Yeah yeah, it's a, it's a very great area. They don't have any law enforcement, they don't have any law enforcement abilities within the United States. Even outside of the United States they have no law enforcement abilities.

Ben 45:30

obviously, because it would be outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

Gene 45:34

not world police. So the, the, the FBI quite often does get brought in internationally to do the police authority type actions. But, but the CIA does tons of stuff inside the U. S. They do training, they do investments. They own a shit ton of different for profit companies inside the U. S. They are involved in political actions inside the U. S. There, there's a lot of things that the CIA does that is not external, but as far as them not being able to, you know, find and trap U. S. citizens in the U. S. that they leave to the FBI.

Ben 46:18

Which, you know, I can rattle off at least seven different agencies that need to die. But, you know, hey, whatever. I

Gene 46:28

there's a shit ton of

Ben 46:29

level positions just gone.

Gene 46:32

there's a shit ton of that's, that's why that video

Ben 46:35

And you know, the FBI was created from an executive order

Gene 46:39

Oh yeah.

Ben 46:39

should be able to die from an

Gene 46:41

From the executive order. Absolutely. Yeah. The FBI You know, that was just a extension in the reaction from the internal revenue department.

Ben 46:49

Right, but I would love to see someone come in and say, you know what the FBI has overstepped their bounds. We're just going to scrap the entire agency and start over. And, you know, if

Gene 47:01

How about we don't start over? We just scrap

Ben 47:03

But no, no, no, no, no. Let's just say if Trump did that right after he was elected and just said the FBI is hereby dissolved, executive order,

Gene 47:10

They wouldn't let him. They would not let him do it. It would immediately be in the courts and the courts would Put a what's your man injunction on any suspension order that he would put to have a long process that where they would argue his inability to actually do that.

Ben 47:26

except he is the head of the executive

Gene 47:29

That would be the argument for it. Sure. But if you don't think that this would go to the Supreme court and the Supreme court guaranteed would not let him dissolve the FBI. I, I don't know what you're drinking.

Ben 47:44

I, I think that it's time. And if we, so if we can't do that, then you know what, it

Gene 47:52

way to do

Ben 47:52

hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. If, if we can't do that, if the president cannot actually use his executive authority where it is needed, if we cannot dissolve agencies wholesale out of The existence, if we cannot remove the barriers to our freedom and remove some of the obvious overstepping agencies, man, then is there any hope for the U S or is it time to just hit that big old reset button?

Gene 48:27

Oh, I'm glad you're on my side now. The only way I think that AD changes can be done, right now, is the way that Ted Cruz, as well as Vivek have talked about. Which is setting their budget to one dollar. You, you can't dissolve them without going to court, but Congress does have the power. To approve a budget for them and setting their budget at 1 does not in fact dissolve the agency. It effectively says you have to figure out how to live within your means. And you do that by firing everybody.

Ben 49:04

Yeah, but they won't do that

Gene 49:06

Were they going to get money to pay salaries?

Ben 49:09

because then the, the executive, whoever it is, we'll move money around and it'll, it'll just happen though. The, they will just do it.

Gene 49:19

They, I mean, then, then you're truly talking about a government that is outside of the control of the government. Because, because you're while it, There, there, no agency has the means except for one to be able to live without a budget.

Ben 49:38

Which one's that?

Gene 49:39

The CIA can, but no other

Ben 49:41

can the CIA?

Gene 49:43

Because the CIA is self funding.

Ben 49:46

Yeah, In Q Tel notwithstanding, I agree,

Gene 49:49

Q Tel is one of about 400 different companies.

Ben 49:53

I understand that's why I said notwithstanding the black market bullshit that they have done, the drugs and gun running that they have done is what has made them their money, not any legitimate business.

Gene 50:05

That's definitely not the case. The, the number of legitimate businesses that the

Ben 50:10

think that's not the case? I think it is the case.

Gene 50:13

It's not the case. They, last year they made over 7 billion from legitimate business,

Ben 50:18

Says who

Gene 50:19

says the CIA.

Ben 50:22

and you trust the CIA or is that the money they washed through the legitimate businesses?

Gene 50:29

I think you greatly overestimate the amount of money that, that you need to make illegitimately when you can make it legitimately.

Ben 50:37

Yeah, Arkansas.

Gene 50:40

The entire budget for Arkansas is probably less than that.

Ben 50:43

No, no, no. I'm talking about the CIA drug running operations inside Arkansas that we're going on. I'm talking about lots of different things here.

Gene 50:51

The, the CIA. This is not, you know, any kind of conspiracy theory, secret shit or anything. It's just going off of their published information, their information published about them. The CIA is the only agency that actually does not need a federal budget.

Ben 51:10

Good, we can remove it then.

Gene 51:13

Yeah. It can keep going on forever.

Ben 51:17

I'm telling you, we just gotta get the right, I just, I wanna see it teared down. I, I, and you know, if that's not possible, then what is the endgame?

Gene 51:27

are, there are many more agencies that I would get rid of before the CIA. The CIA has been pretty good at their job. I have no problems with the CIA. I shouldn't say no. I have, I have way fewer problems. Let's put it that way with the CIA than I do with a lot of other agencies. There are two agencies in my mind from my own personal interactions with those agencies that I would not fuck with. And not fuck with because I'm afraid of them, but not fuck with because they're actually doing a good job. One of them is the CIA, and the other one is the U. S. Secret Service. And I, and I've, I

Ben 52:05

Now, ever since the Secret Service went under DHS, they need to go. All of DHS needs to go.

Gene 52:11

I think that DHS can go, Secret Service can stay.

Ben 52:16

Secret Service is part of DHS these days,

Gene 52:18

these days, that, just because they got shuffled around doesn't all of a sudden mean that they're now a bad agency.

Ben 52:26

Okay

Gene 52:27

just saying, that, that, they're,

Ben 52:29

don't think they're a good agency, but you know, hey, whatever. And besides, the Treasury doesn't print money anymore, so their anti counterfeit operations is null and void,

Gene 52:38

maybe they don't print money.

Ben 52:41

ex

Gene 52:41

They totally print money.

Ben 52:42

No, the majority of the money comes from the Fed, and digital ones and zeros edit the bank accounts, so

Gene 52:50

yeah, but they're still printing money.

Ben 52:53

A very small percentage of the

Gene 52:55

I've

Ben 52:56

money that's in the

Gene 52:57

mint and the press and I,

Ben 53:00

making a half assed joke

Gene 53:02

know you are. And I'm saying you're wrong.

Ben 53:05

Oh my god.

Gene 53:07

The fed might be evil, but they're still printing money. The for many

Ben 53:13

are the ones printing the physical currency. You are correct in that. But my point is that the money that the Fed prints is not necessarily physical in nature. It's just insidious in

Gene 53:24

Then don't call it

Ben 53:26

far more prevalent. That's the term. It is a term.

Gene 53:31

The fed prints money.

Ben 53:33

Correct.

Gene 53:34

The, the actual printing of the money is completely disconnected from the money that is in the in use, which I, I found interesting when I first found that out.

Ben 53:46

Evil.

Gene 53:47

So when I was at, at the fed I've been to a few different feds, but the one out in Dallas, the or Fort Worth, which one was it? I can't remember. But yeah, it probably is this the the money sorting machines are really cool machines. And so they're, they're basically processing physical money flowing through there coming from banks. They're scanning them. They're scanning them for a number of things. One is that it's not counterfeit currency, but they're also for damage. And you can see a line of damaged bills flowing out of the machines into a shredder and you can buy the shredded dollar bills or 10 bills or, you know, 50, whatever, 20 bills at the fed in the store in you know, the visitor center but that money being shredded, I'm like, okay you know, do you, do we know like how many, what are the numbers? Like how many bills does it shred each day? That have to be replaced by new printed bills. And the answer to that was sure, we can get those numbers, but it's sort of irrelevant because we don't actually print money and one to one to what we destroy. I was like, what? So you just destroy physical currency at whim, any number here? And then yeah, pretty much. And then we just print physical money as the banks requested.

Ben 55:15

Yep,

Gene 55:15

And the reason for that is because, remember, money is created every time a bank gets a loan.

Ben 55:24

well, and yes, the money, the monetary supply is expanded. So that's why they're printing of it cannot be tied to a limited supply because the numbers that are electronically available far exceeds it. The printed dollars

Gene 55:41

Yeah,

Ben 55:42

orders and orders of

Gene 55:43

even if they have a printed dollar for every electronic dollar, those are not tied to a one to one ratio. So every time you destroy a physical dollar, A digital dollar is not destroyed,

Ben 55:56

agreed

Gene 55:58

which is fascinating because to most people, when you see a shredder sitting there chewing up dollar bills, you're like, Oh my God, all that money being lost. No, no money is being lost.

Ben 56:09

and

Gene 56:10

representation of money is being destroyed.

Ben 56:13

yeah, and for those who haven't read it none dare call it. Conspiracy is a lot easier read than the creature from Jekyll Island, but they're both in the same line. None dare call it. Conspiracy was written in the 1970s, right? As they were trying to get us off the gold standard. The creature from Jekyll Island was written a little while after it, but both are. Excellent books on the fed, the money supply and how it works. And unfortunately nothing's changed.

Gene 56:40

No, no, and,

Ben 56:42

fact, our technology has just increased the rapidity at which the federal reserve debases our currency.

Gene 56:49

and I think they're finally getting to the point of being ready for the digitalization of the U. S. Currency. Like for a long time, the Fed wasn't ready for it. Like they didn't have their shit together yet, but I think they're just about there.

Ben 57:05

Yeah, which is scary. And you know, so I watched Friday's Timcast. I'm not a big Dennis Kucinich fan, but I gotta say Dennis was in rare form. And

Gene 57:17

an idiot. It

Ben 57:19

okay. I thought more of him on that episode than I have ever thought of him. I've never really liked him. But why do

Gene 57:26

reminded me. He's, I just remind, I watched the episode too I, I just, it reminded me that

Ben 57:30

thought he was extremely well spoken for an old man, but maybe I've been watching Biden too much.

Gene 57:35

You've been watching by the way too much

Ben 57:37

I mean, in comparison, it's crazy, right?

Gene 57:41

no, Kucinich is, there, there was a few things he talked about that just really pointed the fact of how old people should not be serving in politics and, and you know, I don't even think I can point to a single thing. I just remember watching that episode and cringing like in real life when he starts talking because he was, uh, the least informed person in the room and generally that's Ian.

Ben 58:09

I don't know if I would agree with that statement, but okay.

Gene 58:14

Yeah I didn't think of the episode enough to make any notes or anything on it, but I, I, it was like, yeah, Jesus Christ. I was surprised they had him on in the first place, frankly.

Ben 58:24

Yeah he's running for Congress again.

Gene 58:27

Of course he is. Yeah, it's I, I think the U. S. is doomed. That's, sorry, that's what it comes down to. Because. I think we've had an,

Ben 58:39

strategy here?

Gene 58:40

Which country do you like?

Ben 58:42

I'm more thinking revolution, but you know, I,

Gene 58:46

revolution is the most likely one to not lead to a good future for you. You might be dead as a

Ben 58:54

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand that.

Gene 58:57

and that's one thing to fight for a country and for a cause. It's another one to just move your family out of the country and live a life that

Ben 59:06

Yeah. But where that's the problem

Gene 59:09

yeah, and it's definitely it's you're gonna have to learn Spanish. I mean, that's there's no two ways about it Oh, yeah, no See like I understand all that But you know, my Spanish is based on my housekeeper. Or it's, it's, it's a result of having a, a housekeeper.

Ben 59:31

I, I tell you what, so I, I studied, I, I'm my, I need more practice obviously, but I studied Castilian, so Spanish. Spanish, right.

Gene 59:41

hmm.

Ben 59:42

et cetera.

Gene 59:43

hmm. Mm

Ben 59:43

Um, and

Gene 59:45

That works in Europe.

Ben 59:46

Yeah, it does. And it works in dealing with people from Latin America, but one of the problems is slang. So I, I was talking with some construction workers at a oil and gas site years and years ago, and I walked outside and it was a little chilly and I said, ah, que frio, necesito un chaqueta.

Gene 1:00:08

Mm hmm.

Ben 1:00:09

so to me, I'm saying, ah, it's cold. I need a

Gene 1:00:12

you need a jacket. Exactly.

Ben 1:00:14

To them. I'm saying

Gene 1:00:16

You need a condom.

Ben 1:00:17

need Exactly, yes. Yeah, yeah.

Gene 1:00:21

Huh.

Ben 1:00:22

It's okay, that's of course they're laughing their asses off and I'm like what? What'd I do? I, I know what I said. I didn't say it wrong. What are you, what are just going on?

Gene 1:00:30

Yo, hombre, yeah, yeah, it's a I think being in a smaller country and one where the cost of living is significantly lower than the U. S. So you can transition the wealth that you've accumulated in the U. S. into lasting much, much longer. In that country. And Southeast Asia has some of those countries too. I just think that that's a riskier place to

Ben 1:00:55

Southeast Asia has a, you know, a little bit of a, a how do I put this? A history of totalitarianism.

Gene 1:01:03

There's some, look, every country has a history of totalitarianism. Name one country that doesn't.

Ben 1:01:11

let me rephrase a recent history of totalitarianism yeah, I don't know, man, I,

Gene 1:01:19

I think, I think it's going to be tough here because before there is Before there is substantial resistance to what's happening with the man made downfall of the United States, I think a lot more people will have to feel a lot more pain.

Ben 1:01:40

yeah, yeah. I mean, what do you think of the the shooting we had this last week as well?

Gene 1:01:48

Oh, the the black dude that was shot 96 times?

Ben 1:01:51

Yes, that was clearly executed.

Gene 1:01:53

Yeah, I, I mean, poorly executed. Shouldn't take that many rounds to execute. Somebody should take three clearly was not a traffic stop. That much is obvious.

Ben 1:02:04

this is what I don't understand. So the, what they're claiming is. Quite frankly, obviously bullshit. you know, so they're saying a, a car with five unmarked five plain clothes officers in an

Gene 1:02:20

I'm our car with five plainclothes, please. Yep.

Ben 1:02:23

And they, they complained about the tent on his vehicle, saw that he was unbuckled and decided to stop him. Bullshit. That's just bullshit right off the

Gene 1:02:32

bullshit. Yeah, that is absolutely true. We know for a fact, cops are lazy and no cops are going to do something that they're not. Actually tasked with doing, and you don't have a vehicle full of five unmarked cops that is tasked. Yeah. Five, an unmarked vehicle with five plainclothes cops that is tasked with. Traffic violations. That does not happen. That's a different class of cop that is used for completely other purposes and probably from vice and most likely if they were following him, it was because He was somehow connected to a vice activity, whether it was drugs or prostitution or, you know, something trafficking, who knows, whatever it was. And maybe he was a CI. That was one of the thoughts I had was maybe he was a confidential informant and he did something they didn't like. And so they decided to stop him under the guise of a traffic stop. And instead of him you know, obeying them and complying with it he did something to cause them to decide that this guy's dangerous. We need to take him out. Maybe that that was the goal that they had in mind all along when they started off that day. I don't know. It's the all we know is that this story of a a nice young man that took his car out for a drive to go to no particular place, as his mother said, Is complete bullshit. And the fact that five five undercover cops pulled him over for having a tent that was too dark is also bullshit. So both sides are

Ben 1:04:17

him over for the

Gene 1:04:18

See how do they see the seatbelt if his

Ben 1:04:20

If it's, that, that was my point,

Gene 1:04:22

That's impossible. So it's,

Ben 1:04:24

I don't know if it's impossible, but it's, it's definitely, this is obviously

Gene 1:04:28

I've been pulled over because the cop said that he couldn't see if I had my seatbelt on and he thought my tent was illegal. I've been pulled over for that in Texas. And you know, and cop can do anything because the tent was factory and it was right where it's supposed to be. And and of course I was wearing my seatbelt because I'd be an idiot not to. I've been in enough car accidents to know that seatbelts are good.

Ben 1:04:53

okay. Anyway yeah, the, the, the entire thing here is they're saying that he fired first and the right has gone off and said, Oh you know, he shouldn't have rolled up his window and he should have just complied. Fuck you. No, this is wrong. You know, them, them saying, Oh, you know, they, they obviously were, excuse me. Planting a gun or, you know, this wasn't some cabal. I don't know. I mean, it stinks. There's something wrong here. I mean,

Gene 1:05:25

There's a lot wrong with

Ben 1:05:26

at the very least, we're not getting the full story and the immediate question. Anytime a cop doesn't tell you the full story or the right story about why they stopped him. Is okay, why what's going on? So either he was a C. I. and you know, involved in something else and they're trying to keep it quiet because there's another investigation going on. But there's something that we are not being told here and that should never be allowed from a police officer as far as I'm concerned.

Gene 1:05:55

Hey, how's that Menefetz though from the the shooting back a year ago coming along?

Ben 1:06:00

Oh, God. Yeah. The, the trans manifest though, that Crowder released part of and is being sued for.

Gene 1:06:07

Yeah. Cause you know, it's up to the cops to decide what we should know as the public that pays their salaries

Ben 1:06:15

Yeah,

Gene 1:06:16

clearly. So I think something went wrong on the, on the flippity side here. Like this shit happens in a flippity. This shit happens daily. And I'm not sure why this one we're hearing about all over the news, but the one yesterday and the one that's going to happen tomorrow, we don't really hear about yeah. Yeah. It's Chicago has more than one murder a day, but

Ben 1:06:44

this will again, I think you, the reason why we heard about this is exactly what we started this off with. You know, 90 some odd rounds fired in less than a minute into even if he was armed, like the amount of excessive forces, just egregious.

Gene 1:07:03

also keep in mind, remember the acorn cop unloaded two magazines and didn't hit a guy sitting in his own car.

Ben 1:07:11

which is just, wow, yeah,

Gene 1:07:14

I rewatched that again. Somebody hadn't seen it. So I sent some of them rewatched it. And it was, it was amazing

Ben 1:07:20

isn't

Gene 1:07:21

the roles, the LARPing that I'm hit, I'm hit shots fired, that's like. The guy is creating a story in his own head,

Ben 1:07:31

he's Devin but, yeah, he, hello, haha I have to set the narrative, I have to put enough in here so that when we figure it out, you

Gene 1:07:42

Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Ben 1:07:45

anyway, you know, I, I just, I have family members that are cops, and, I don't I don't see how anyone could be a cop today. At all. I mean, at the very least, you are standing by and watching evil shit happen. And, and that's, that's evil in and of itself. I don't know. I, I have a problem with it.

Gene 1:08:11

hmm. Yeah. It's, it's a in, certainly in most large cities, the police is a criminal enterprise that is funded publicly.

Ben 1:08:23

Yeah, and see here, I thought we were going to disagree on this. I thought we were going to have some good fireworks on

Gene 1:08:29

I don't know why you thought that, man.

Ben 1:08:31

because the majority of the conservative media has gone off on back the blue, and I

Gene 1:08:36

Yeah, but they're wrong on that. I've been saying defund the police before BLM started saying defund the police. They stole that from me, as far as I'm

Ben 1:08:45

took our jobs!

Gene 1:08:47

They took our jobs.

Ben 1:08:48

By the way, have you ever seen you've seen,

Gene 1:08:51

Park, yeah.

Ben 1:08:52

no, no, no, not South Park America, World Police.

Gene 1:08:55

Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah.

Ben 1:08:57

Yeah. I, I got a friend of mine to watch that the other

Gene 1:08:59

Oh, nice.

Ben 1:09:00

and, you know, it was definitely a, oh, the, this is, it's gonna be so stupid, and da da da. Okay. That was hilarious. Yes, exactly. It, it is hilarious.

Gene 1:09:10

What made it

Ben 1:09:11

I'm so bro read Who's so bro read,

Gene 1:09:13

Roamery, yeah, that was, that was a great tune. What made it really cool for me too is, as a kid, I watched all of those British puppet shows. Cause I basically, I grew up watching the BBC. It was a, you know, really brought back old memories.

Ben 1:09:35

Okay. I, I, I thought it was hilarious and I did not watch British TV a lot

Gene 1:09:43

watch the Thunderbirds?

Ben 1:09:44

No,

Gene 1:09:45

You, have you heard of the Thunderbirds?

Ben 1:09:47

Yes, I've heard of the Thunderbirds. I know what it is.

Gene 1:09:50

All right.

Ben 1:09:51

But

Gene 1:09:51

Gary, what was the guy's name?

Ben 1:09:53

my list.

Gene 1:09:55

What I thought was hilarious is even though it's a

Ben 1:09:57

by the way, for people who don't know, this show is definitely done in the style of the Thunderbirds.

Gene 1:10:02

completely, and then the guy's name is Gary something that did a number of shows in that style. But it was the voices for the characters were American, even though it was a British show because they felt you know, They would have a more broad mass appeal if the Thunderbirds were Americans instead of Brits.

Ben 1:10:26

Yeah I think they misstepped there.

Gene 1:10:30

You think?

Ben 1:10:31

Yeah, it was never a very popular show.

Gene 1:10:33

It's probably reasonably popular. I watched it.

Ben 1:10:40

Okay, Doctor Who was far more popular than

Gene 1:10:44

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Everybody watched Doctor Who. Yeah.

Ben 1:10:49

I didn't watch it until the reboot, really.

Gene 1:10:51

I that's

Ben 1:10:52

And then after, after the reboot, I started going back and watching a lot of it.

Gene 1:10:57

I wonder if, are they even all available, are all the episodes, can you go back to all of them, or are they not available?

Ben 1:11:02

They're all on my NAST.

Gene 1:11:05

So you've, you've got them available? So I can watch the original John Pertwee episodes and

Ben 1:11:11

I don't know about that, but they, they are available. And I don't even know if they actually are on my NAST. I don't think they are. But I bought all the seasons at one point in time when they were on Oh,

Gene 1:11:21

Like the original show, you bought 20 years of seasons?

Ben 1:11:25

yeah, there was a, there was a, I think it started with an F or something back in the day where you could buy digital media and copy digital media from DVDs and stuff. If you had the DVD, you could get a digital copy legally and I, anyway.

Gene 1:11:42

Quasi legally, clearly.

Ben 1:11:44

It's been a long time. So there we go.

Gene 1:11:46

Yeah. Yeah, it's a, you know, it was a kids show that just broke out and became super popular with everybody. I love Doctor Who. I thought it was a great show. I thought it was a

Ben 1:12:00

I haven't watched the latest couple of seasons. Like it's, it's, it's lost me.

Gene 1:12:06

oh, I don't really consider the reboot Doctor Who. I consider that the reboot.

Ben 1:12:10

Oh, David Tennant is very, very good. Dude. David Tennant is the best doctor.

Gene 1:12:18

No, Tom, Tom Baker is the best actor.

Ben 1:12:23

Okay.

Gene 1:12:24

But I do Tennant. He's actually been very good in other stuff he's done.

Ben 1:12:27

Oh yeah. Some of his Shakespearean work is great. He's, he's kind of like, another Patrick Stewart, if you will. Younger Patrick

Gene 1:12:34

Just less gay. Mm hmm. Less gay.

Ben 1:12:38

not gay.

Gene 1:12:39

pretty gay.

Ben 1:12:40

He's not gay.

Gene 1:12:40

He's definitely gay. He's talked about it.

Ben 1:12:43

No he hasn't. He's married. No.

Gene 1:12:47

yeah, yeah. But he also was fooling around with what's his face? Magneto.

Ben 1:12:53

Huh?

Gene 1:12:54

Magneto.

Ben 1:12:55

No, you're just making shit

Gene 1:12:56

No, that's totally true. No, no, no, no. You can go back and look for interviews between Patrick Stewart talking about fooling around with Magneto.

Ben 1:13:04

I,

Gene 1:13:05

He went through a divorce and his fourth wife, I think he's on his fifth wife, and he was very lonely. He talked about it.

Ben 1:13:12

I think you're interpreting something wrong.

Gene 1:13:15

You know, what I'm surprised

Ben 1:13:16

Goddammit Gene, do not take Picard away from

Gene 1:13:19

Picard is gay, always has been, he just didn't realize it.

Ben 1:13:23

Jesus Christ.

Gene 1:13:26

What I didn't realize is how old David Tennant is. Holy fuck. 52 I thought he was way younger. I thought he was younger than me. 52

Ben 1:13:39

Okay.

Gene 1:13:41

he's really young

Ben 1:13:43

Why do I have so many old people in my life?

Gene 1:13:46

I don't know, probably cause you can't make friends of your own age.

Ben 1:13:49

What does it say about me or

Gene 1:13:51

shrink told you that. Has a shrink ever told you that

Ben 1:13:54

What's

Gene 1:13:55

you have a tough time making friends your own age?

Ben 1:13:57

No? Ah,

Gene 1:13:59

they've kept that away from you, huh?

Ben 1:14:03

I do not have a problem with friends my own age. It's just there are just fewer people that I I like in my own age bracket, unfortunately. But I, it's part of, part of it's the way I was raised. You know, I was raised by much older parents, so that Kind of shifts that a little bit.

Gene 1:14:20

Did you know Tenet was Scottish?

Ben 1:14:22

Yeah, I did.

Gene 1:14:23

did? Okay. He speaks pretty good English

Ben 1:14:27

Yes, but if you actually hear him go off and

Gene 1:14:31

when he gets excited.

Ben 1:14:33

No, but if he's portraying a Scott or anything else. He's

Gene 1:14:37

Mel Gibson portrayed a Scott with a Scottish accent too.

Ben 1:14:42

very poorly Jesus Christ, this hurts so much.

Gene 1:14:47

Oh, that

Ben 1:14:48

Anyway so I did get a some accessories and play around with some things. I, I will say for the U. S. civilian market, if you don't want to spend a bunch of money, the Holosun lasers are a good option from what I've found. By the way,

Gene 1:15:05

And so Halason is a Chinese company that's infiltrated the U S gun market. What what type of laser did you buy from them?

Ben 1:15:13

a IR laser,

Gene 1:15:15

An infrared laser for your night vision. And how compact is this? I've not seen theirs.

Ben 1:15:23

It, it's, it's fairly compact. It's not it's not teeny, but it's it's a coaxial laser. So it's got you know, it's got a body on it. It uses one cr 1, 2, 3 but it's reasonably small. It would go under, if I had enough rail space on the gun, I'm putting it on, it would go under most optics without having to do some funky high riser.

Gene 1:15:44

Now I'm looking at their website. Most of their lasers actually go on top rail, not bottom rail. So you got their RML

Ben 1:15:51

no, so this is top rail laser, but I'm actually going to probably mount it on the side. No,

Gene 1:15:57

the which model? Do they have a bunch of'em

Ben 1:15:59

I got the, the one I got because, okay, so I really would love to have a maul or something, but I'm not spending three grand on this right now.

Gene 1:16:08

or ever? That's just stupid. Don't buy that shit.

Ben 1:16:11

Yeah. Anyway, the, the, the, the options you have are a bunch of fake lasers or spend several thousand dollars. I didn't want to do that right now. So what I decided to do was I was able to get the vampire light style flashlight. So I've got a white and infrared flashlight on one side of the weapon. So my IR illuminator is there and then I don't need a vis laser. The only thing that the vis laser would be nice on is co aligning with the IR laser for citing it in. So I just got the I decided to go with one of their cheaper models. I went with the L E 1 7 7. Now they've got an even cheaper model, which is the L S, but the L E is. There's a pretty big difference in the LS versus the LE

Gene 1:17:01

That's not even listed on their website.

Ben 1:17:04

Yeah, it is.

Gene 1:17:05

They've got a one 17, a 2 21, A

Ben 1:17:07

why I said 117.

Gene 1:17:10

you said one. Seven. Seven.

Ben 1:17:11

Oh 117.

Gene 1:17:13

one seven. Okay. Yep. So there's a class three, a visible laser, red or green, or a class two infrared laser. So you've got the infrared laser. That's pretty compact

Ben 1:17:25

Yeah, and you know, it's for sub 100 yards will be fine for me, which is all I really care about and need.

Gene 1:17:32

So you and I had talked yesterday, even though I told you not to talk before the show, we did end up talking for a bit.

Ben 1:17:38

Dude, I tried to get off the phone with you and said save it for the show, save it for the show, and you, no, no, no, no,

Gene 1:17:44

totally don't recall that conversation.

Ben 1:17:46

I'm sure you don't,

Gene 1:17:48

Anyway. My. My what would I call it? Dislike of lasers happened immediately after I bought a laser 30 years ago for my Glock pistol, which was that compared to either regular sites or a red dot site, which I eventually got as well the laser had the problem that it was shaking or bouncing. All over the place on the target

Ben 1:18:18

which obviously was not a problem with the laser,

Gene 1:18:20

it's a problem with my hands, not the laser, obviously. But what, what the difference between the laser and the red dot is because the red dot is so much closer to you. You don't really see major movements on it. I mean, they're probably still happening, but it looks like it's pretty damn solid. And you just see a little bit of hand boom. And that's about it with the laser, because you're looking at something that's actually. you know, 25 yards or a hundred yards away from you you see large movements erratically happening. And that I found actually distracted me from better site alignment. Like I was not as accurate using the laser as I was using the sites. And so I had that laser. I was looking forward to getting it when I got it immediately after using it. I was like lasers suck. Why the hell would anyone use this in real life? The only time you didn't have that movement, that shaking that's happening is if you were standing yourself against a solid object. And of course, with the rifle, you can do that quite easily with a handgun, not so much. So really I kind of switched from laser to red dot back 30 years ago or so and haven't looked back

Ben 1:19:37

and this is something that people don't understand, but, you know, if, if an MOA is an inch at a hundred yards, so if you make a quarter inch movement, At 25 yards, that's an inch at 100 yards. Right? So that, that, that minute of angle, that little deviation. So when you go back to your hand, you're talking about, you know, less than, you know, probably a 16th of an adjustment and you're, you're moving over an inch down range. Yeah, so it's a big

Gene 1:20:12

but it's a lot more visible because your movement on your hand is the same regardless of whether

Ben 1:20:18

you're, but you're seeing the light reflected from the target. So that is the actual movement that the, that you'd be seeing. You're just not used to seeing it because you're used to seeing it closer to

Gene 1:20:28

and that's the thing is, it wasn't like my hand movement changed. It was that I was distracted by the large amount of movement I was

Ben 1:20:35

You realized how bad you actually were.

Gene 1:20:38

Yeah, but, but again you know, when you squeeze the trigger, when you, when I, at least, the way I, when I'm, the way I'm used to shooting, you know, I kind of, I'm holding the weapon, getting the sight picture, in a slightly more relaxed, Pose where I think there probably is a little more movement. And then as I get closer to taking the slack up off the trigger and then controlling my breath, and that's when I'm going to freeze essentially the most was right before that last bit of trigger squeeze. And so it's a to be in that frozen state the entire time when I'm just looking at the site picture would take more effort than I'm willing to give. And, without that effort, using a laser, to me, just shows a bunch of squiggly, jumping around shit happening on the target.

Ben 1:21:31

because you're using it for the wrong thing. Lasers are not for long range shooting. They are for quick target acquisition and short range. And again, this is ideally the, if you're using night vision, the problem with using passive aiming through sites and everything else is either you have to put it on a huge riser, which then

Gene 1:21:54

hmm. Parallax,

Ben 1:21:55

its own issues and everything else and getting that cheek weld and parallax, and there are lots and lots of issues there especially as you go out further ranges. Again, if you're only worried about CQB, then it doesn't matter as much, but then if you're only worried about CQB, why are you not using an aiming laser? I, I, having played around with this, I fully understand why the U. S. military went to IR aiming lasers for the majority of their night work, as it were. It makes sense to me.

Gene 1:22:33

Yeah, yeah, I get that. And I think the better approach since we're not the U. S. Army is to simply put either thermal or night scopes and rifles.

Ben 1:22:46

That has its own issues.

Gene 1:22:48

I mean, then it doesn't mean you now need to have batteries any time you want to look through a scope. But if you put a night scope on there or you put a thermal scope on and then you put an offset read that on it, like on the side or something, or on the, at an angle, or on top whatever it is. I think then you kind of cover your bases in case your battery dies as well, but when your battery isn't dead, which is going to be most of the time, You're using a superior optic. And I will say that so I've got two night scopes right now, and I want to get a thermal scope as my next scope. And with the conversation you and I had about the weight of the ACOG, I may just have the ACOG pay for my thermal.

Ben 1:23:36

That's one way to do it. Because

Gene 1:23:38

the good thing about ACOG is they hold their value.

Ben 1:23:40

yeah, but the problem with the ACOG, like we were talking about yesterday is yes, it's built to be a tank to your point, but it's, it weighs like that and you know, one of the comments I made was, yeah, Jean, your fixed power, six six X scope weighs more than my LPVO eight X, right? With very few benefits

Gene 1:24:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben 1:24:01

and there are some a cog lovers out there that will just say, oh, it's the best thing ever. And yeah, it's a great scope, but it's fucking heavy for what it is. That's all I'm saying.

Gene 1:24:10

it is. And when I got one and I've got several ACOGs and this is, this is definitely the most expensive one is the six X one. But the, when I first got my ACOG or when I first, even before I got it, when I first saw ACOG it was at a firearms training and the only other alternative to an ACOG really was an EOTech and between the EOTech I like the ACOG more,

Ben 1:24:38

Yeah,

Gene 1:24:39

it was a, that, and then every video game I played always had ACOG, so of course I had

Ben 1:24:46

I went with aim point back in the day, but yeah

Gene 1:24:48

yeah, that's just not as good.

Ben 1:24:51

It very much is the aim point military series, like the comp M3 and the newer versions of it are absolutely fantastic sites.

Gene 1:25:01

Mm hmm. They didn't exist back then.

Ben 1:25:04

In the early 2000s? Mid 2000s? Yeah, they did.

Gene 1:25:07

Early 2000s? I don't remember any endpoints back then.

Ben 1:25:11

Okay, I bought a Aimpoint in 2008.

Gene 1:25:14

Then, shitty quality.

Ben 1:25:16

Not at all. I still have it. It's still a great sight. Dude,

Gene 1:25:22

you?

Ben 1:25:22

wrong on this.

Gene 1:25:23

I'm totally not wrong on this dude. It's the aim points.

Ben 1:25:29

Look up the Comp M3. It ran in okay.

Gene 1:25:33

but certainly back then they were not

Ben 1:25:36

You, you've said this in the past and you're wrong. The Comp M3 was a military grade site, much like the ACOG and everything else that was out there that it, I, I have one and it is fantastic, has been fantastic. Yeah. You're wrong. It's okay.

Gene 1:25:53

Yeah, it's shitty. Anyway, what else we got to talk about? Oh,

Ben 1:26:01

uh, federal agencies are bleeding people. That was kind of an interesting thing that came out to hear recently that CISA and some others are losing a lot of their technical talent. Like crazy.

Gene 1:26:14

yeah. Now, do you think that's going to affect anything?

Ben 1:26:18

I mean, it's not going to stop the political appointees that are running the organization from coming out and saying a lot of stupid shit that they can't back up technically. So

Gene 1:26:26

they ever cared about that?

Ben 1:26:27

nope.

Gene 1:26:28

Okay, that's what I thought.

Ben 1:26:29

So no, it's not really going to change much, unfortunately. But yeah,

Gene 1:26:35

Aimpoint's got some interesting scopes here I haven't seen.

Ben 1:26:39

we, we literally have done this before,

Gene 1:26:42

I don't remember doing this. All I know is back in the day, back 20 years ago, Aimpoint was not considered in the same league.

Ben 1:26:52

No, you're wrong because Aimpoint, like the Comp M3 was like a 500, 600 site that

Gene 1:26:59

and the ACOG was a 1400 site.

Ben 1:27:03

Correct. The ACOG didn't require, or didn't require batteries. The Aimpoint did, but the Aimpoint Comp N3 had a 5 year battery life. There was lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and

Gene 1:27:14

20 years ago, it had a five year battery life. Come

Ben 1:27:16

Correct. Yes. 100%.

Gene 1:27:19

No way.

Ben 1:27:21

Okay, dude. You're, you're, you're wrong.

Gene 1:27:24

mean, the modern ones have that. There's no way it did 20 years ago.

Ben 1:27:28

You're wrong.

Gene 1:27:30

Okay. I mean, I don't know what you did when you were playing paintball, but I had an aim point on my paintball gun. I didn't have it on my real gun.

Ben 1:27:39

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Gene 1:27:41

I think I still have one on my shotgun. I still have an aim point, Man. They're all cheap compared to what the military was using.

Ben 1:27:49

Aimpoint. Comp M3 battery life. Reflex sights. Okay. Yes, I'm, I'm in the U. S. Thank you. Can I get out of this?

Gene 1:28:00

can't look up what their current battery life

Ben 1:28:03

No, I'm looking at the Comp M3, which is discontinued and has been for years. It's, it's their old site. And by the way, it is 50, 000 hours or over five years. Boom. Comp M3 circa early 2000s. There you go.

Gene 1:28:21

Yeah. I think you're full of shit.

Ben 1:28:24

I will sing. You're wrong. You're wrong.

Gene 1:28:28

Yeah.

Ben 1:28:29

You just can't admit when you're wrong.

Gene 1:28:31

No, I can admit it. I just haven't seen any

Ben 1:28:33

in the chat. There you go.

Gene 1:28:35

Yeah, I've looked at that link, dude.

Ben 1:28:38

Okay. That's the battery life that they launched in 2005.

Gene 1:28:41

Between the shows, I'm gonna look for an old YouTube video from 2005, testing it and telling me what the battery life actually is, because there's no way.

Ben 1:28:50

Okay that's what they did. And it was night it's night vision compatible, and it came out in

Gene 1:28:55

Yeah, they all called themselves night vision compatible back then. But you know, it's I'm not even, I don't even care about that.

Ben 1:29:03

Okay I still have that Comp M3. I will show it to you, and by the way, I haven't changed the battery in it in

Gene 1:29:10

since you bought it and 20 years ago. Okay.

Ben 1:29:12

Pretty much, I mean, I don't leave it on constantly, and it it's I turn it on and off and it's fantastic. I love that site for a little reflex site. It's, it's great. It was very expensive back in the day when I bought it. But,

Gene 1:29:27

Mm-Hmm.

Ben 1:29:29

yeah, prices have definitely come down, but no point has had some good products. Tell you

Gene 1:29:37

yeah. But you also bought vortex shit too.

Ben 1:29:40

Only recently actually have I bought Vortex and Vortex has come a long way. It's, I, I wish Nikon didn't stop making scopes because I, I like my Nikon scopes more than I do my Vortex scopes.

Gene 1:29:56

Yeah. I kinda have better quality scopes I thought. Mm-Hmm

Ben 1:29:58

yeah, the biggest problem I have with the Vortex stuff is the eye relief and the eye box is not great. But other than that, they're okay. They'll, they'll work. Yeah, I mean, I've, I've got some pretty high end 8 Vortex scopes too.

Gene 1:30:15

Yeah. I'm, I'm leery of that stuff. I don't know. But then I am also still leery of hollow sun, even though everybody seems to be recommending it.

Ben 1:30:24

Dude, I've got multiple Holosuns on pistols and it's, they, they've been great.

Gene 1:30:30

Mm-Hmm. they're recording all the audio and sending it right back to China.

Ben 1:30:35

Yeah, I'm not worried about that.

Gene 1:30:36

Okay. That's a good thing. All right. Can we get off scopes? We done?

Ben 1:30:42

the way, the Comp M4, which is

Gene 1:30:44

The new one?

Ben 1:30:45

a thousand dollar

Gene 1:30:46

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. And I'm sure it's a much better scope.

Ben 1:30:51

Jesus Christ, Gene.

Gene 1:30:53

That'll make sense.

Ben 1:30:54

Back in the day when it launched in 2005, and still is a fantastic red dot. But anyway, what else would you like to talk about, sir?

Gene 1:31:06

There was something else we were gonna, what the hell was it? Oh was it, did I do a, we didn't talk about the clips at all, right?

Ben 1:31:16

No, we haven't.

Gene 1:31:17

Yeah. You didn't watch it together. Mm hmm.

Ben 1:31:20

I mean, I wasn't in the cone of totality, so I've seen partial eclipses before. I did look up and see it. Briefly.

Gene 1:31:29

hmm.

Ben 1:31:30

Why?

Gene 1:31:31

No, I just, I, cause I actually drove out to be right in the totality for it,

Ben 1:31:37

yeah, you went and saw Adam and Tina.

Gene 1:31:39

I did, saw them managed to leave my iPad at their house, which you gave me shit for.

Ben 1:31:46

Why did you take your iPad?

Gene 1:31:48

I was spending the night you know, I usually watch some YouTube before I fall asleep.

Ben 1:31:54

I mean, you've got your phone.

Gene 1:31:56

I'm not gonna watch a fucking phone screen, that's tiny, are you kidding?

Ben 1:32:01

Scripts.

Gene 1:32:01

How can you watch the screen that small? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold up. When you tell me, Oh, I watched that video. Do you usually refer to watching it on your phone?

Ben 1:32:12

Depends. Phone or TV usually, yeah.

Gene 1:32:15

I mean, there's a big difference in phone TV. You could actually see things on TV.

Ben 1:32:19

Not really, not if you have good eyesight.

Gene 1:32:20

No, not really. No, it's a tiny little screen, man.

Ben 1:32:25

okay.

Gene 1:32:26

Got it. Because yeah.

Ben 1:32:28

I, I wouldn't carry around a tablet to watch YouTube videos.

Gene 1:32:32

I also have my video glasses, so I had those as well. So I plugged the, I plugged the tablet into the video glasses.

Ben 1:32:40

I, I, when I'm traveling, I have a tablet with me now, because I've got my my notepad that I'm using, my, my books but that's an E Ink display. So I'm certainly not watching anything on that.

Gene 1:32:53

No.

Ben 1:32:53

I've got a personal

Gene 1:32:54

liking that one?

Ben 1:32:55

Oh, I love it. Yeah, I use it every day. The battery life's good. It's you know, usually I, I charge it once every other week or so

Gene 1:33:03

Mm. Kind of like the watch. No.

Ben 1:33:11

I've been outside. I, my battery was up to 100 percent yesterday. Just from solar. But anyway, regardless yeah, it's been, it's been good. I like the notes. I, I. I still have some syncing with my 1 note that I've got to fix and get over. And by the way proton did an acquisition. That's pretty interesting. I don't did you see that? So proton mail bought standard notes,

Gene 1:33:38

Okay. I use Proton, so that'll probably mean it's being added to it.

Ben 1:33:42

Correct?

Gene 1:33:44

I do the, I use their mail obviously the most. I use their VPN quite a bit too. I don't use their calendar cause I don't have a need for a secure calendar.

Ben 1:33:54

It's just tied into your.

Gene 1:33:56

yeah, yeah. So now they're going to have text.

Ben 1:34:01

What do you mean

Gene 1:34:02

What's it going to add? This acquisition, what are they adding for

Ben 1:34:04

Well, OneNote competitor, go to standardnotes. com and you

Gene 1:34:08

Yeah, so text. Like you could put documents in and sort shit.

Ben 1:34:14

If you, you obviously have never used OneNote

Gene 1:34:17

No, I don't use OneNote. Why would I use that?

Ben 1:34:19

because it's, it's like people who don't really use Excel and don't understand what you can do with Excel. It's the same sort

Gene 1:34:31

Why would you use Excel when you can use Google Docs?

Ben 1:34:37

First of all, Google Sheets is. A piece of shit product compared to Excel. There is no

Gene 1:34:43

everything you need. Does all the formula shit.

Ben 1:34:48

Pivot tables, my

Gene 1:34:49

It does pivot tables. It

Ben 1:34:51

Not worth a shit. No, it does not.

Gene 1:34:53

does. It does. I've played around with them.

Ben 1:34:55

Oh, Jesus Christ. So I hope everyone understands the the real power user here versus the LARPer.

Gene 1:35:06

Yeah. Okay, Microsoft fan.

Ben 1:35:08

I am not a Microsoft fan boy,

Gene 1:35:10

like it. OneNote. And Excel.

Ben 1:35:13

I, Hey, I, those are two of their best products. I, I, I, I, I would love for someone to come up with a really good alternative to OneNote. It would make me very, very happy if

Gene 1:35:27

Mm hmm.

Ben 1:35:27

I have yet to see it. And if anyone knows of a good, Actually usable alternative to one note. You know, I, I would, I would love to see it. I'm hopeful that standard notes might be that after pro time gets a hold of it. I would love to ditch one note as my primary note taking app, but so far I have not been able to, and I have tried a bunch of different ones, so yeah.

Gene 1:35:52

Yeah. I don't know. I, I, I've never gotten into the note taking apps things. I guess I just record shit and have it be transcribed.

Ben 1:36:01

Yeah first of all, there's lots of different things that you can do there. It's not just about a text transcription of the conversation. There, there's lots of ways to do it. Also one of the features that I was using in OneNote back in college, I mean, that's how long this has been in OneNote, Is you can record a meeting and as you're taking notes, you can use, you can highlight that section of your notes and skip to that portion of the recording, which is hugely beneficial.

Gene 1:36:32

Yeah, I remember that playing with it when it first came out, but I don't know. Didn't really find a big use for it.

Ben 1:36:41

okay,

Gene 1:36:42

So I, I also I also remembered one other thing that other than the fact that, The quality wasn't very good on the aim points that I remembered. It was not a magnified optic, that was the other thing. Yeah,

Ben 1:36:55

correct. You could put a magnifier in front

Gene 1:36:58

Right, that's what it was. I remember some guys had that and I thought that was stupid. Yeah, that is, that is what it

Ben 1:37:07

you're wrong again, but that's fine.

Gene 1:37:09

You know, remains to be seen.

Ben 1:37:13

No, it doesn't. It's been proven.

Gene 1:37:17

I've been wrong. It says yet to be proven. I've never actually been wrong.

Ben 1:37:21

Okay.

Gene 1:37:21

never conclusively wrong.

Ben 1:37:24

Huh.

Gene 1:37:25

It's misinterpreted sometimes.

Ben 1:37:27

Huh. Gene, I, I think we've we've talked ourselves out of it.

Gene 1:37:34

you think, all right, I I, let me just scroll back through our chat. Make sure there wasn't any conversations that we're going to, Oh, you looked at the Starog video. What'd you think of that?

Ben 1:37:43

Which Tyrog video?

Gene 1:37:45

The one that's in our signal chat that

Ben 1:37:48

When did you send it?

Gene 1:37:50

today.

Ben 1:37:51

Yeah, I haven't gotten to it today.

Gene 1:37:53

Oh, but you've watched the video.

Ben 1:37:55

Why do you say that?

Gene 1:37:56

Cause you've watched every video I ever send you. Ehhhhhh,

Ben 1:37:59

true. Actually, that's you. And you, you've been sending me a lot of old ones now. So wait, where did you send it? Is it in ours or borderbound or

Gene 1:38:08

in Signal. It's in our Signal.

Ben 1:38:10

Yeah, no, I haven't. I have not watched the news. Yeah, no, I have not watched that. What, tell me about it. What's the news style going to

Gene 1:38:17

It's just like the old one except it has a Ford front rail. For adding shit to it. And a slightly more ergonomic looking grip.

Ben 1:38:28

Gee, okay.

Gene 1:38:31

So it looks nicer. I don't know if it I've never that gun has never felt ergonomically comfortable for me. I've, I've shot it a number of times, but I've never really liked it.

Ben 1:38:41

I've always wanted one just because of Die Hard and a lot of other stuff, right? That is just, it's a sexy gun. It's an iconic gun to me. But,

Gene 1:38:51

And

Ben 1:38:52

from a util I, I I mean, some of the desert tech stuff could be just as good. Chose the war, because it has a better reputation as far as reliability. You know, the desert tech 3 0 8 is very interesting to me as well. And I wouldn't mind getting 1. There are lots of good options out there for bull pups

Gene 1:39:14

More and more, which is awesome.

Ben 1:39:15

Yeah, the taboor has the advantage of actually being militarily adopted versus the desert tech and others. Who knows how long they're going to hang out and survive.

Gene 1:39:26

Yeah, and that's somebody that has to own the FS 2000. You know, which never went anywhere, which I still think was a cool gun. But it just never went anywhere.

Ben 1:39:36

well, and, you know, when you when you watch a bunch of people bitch about, the tour any bullpup and, oh, the manual of arms or this, that and the other, and the triggers crap, the triggers not crap. And I think John level actually had a great analogy for the trigger that once he said it, I'm like, yes, that's perfect. That that's exactly right. And once you realize it, you can run with it and do well with it. And that's that. The trigger on a Bullpup, especially a good trigger like the Tavo has, it's like a striker fired pistol. You have a, you have that mushy esque take up, and then you finally hit that wall, and there it is. And once you break that, your reset is totally different than that initial trigger pull. And once you realize that, and stop thinking of it as a mill spec, two stage or mill spec, or two stage ar trigger. And you get out of this. I have an AR trigger in my mind. It's not that it's more like a pistol trigger. It's fine. It's great.

Gene 1:40:45

Yeah, I don't think it's a bad trigger I I have not shot a huge amount of rounds through it. I mostly just set it in the gun and Shot it once after that, but it's it feels like A perfectly adequate, comfortable trigger. It's certainly not what I have on my bolt guns, which is like a two and a half pounds.

Ben 1:41:08

It will, and it's, it's not the crisp trigger that you can get on an AR, for example, it does have that original take up and everything. But once you hit that wall, and I mean, I think the pistol trigger is the right analogy for it.

Gene 1:41:23

And I've never replaced a trigger on my ARs either. I, all of my ARs have factory triggers. So none of them are super crisp and

Ben 1:41:31

It, a lot of people. A lot of people like to think that their, if their trigger isn't, a lot of it's fluff, that a lot of people want to spend some money on something that

Gene 1:41:46

Mm hmm.

Ben 1:41:46

they are not a good enough shot to, to actually use.

Gene 1:41:50

Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right.

Ben 1:41:52

Because.

Gene 1:41:53

I've done trigger replacements are, are on my my old Glock that I used to, that I shot a shit ton of that I used when I was a firearms instructor and then bolt guns.

Ben 1:42:04

Yeah, the, the bolt guns is where I've done the majority of my trigger work. And the reason why is because that's a very different use case. Right? Again, use case, use case, use case. The, the Tavor, I'm not looking at to be a sub M. O. A. gun or anything else. I'm, I'm looking at it to be a 5 to 300 yard maximum engagement range. Weapon.

Gene 1:42:33

Five to what?

Ben 1:42:34

3 to 500 yards is what I would say is the maximum. 500 is really pushing it, really more like 3 is a good upper limit for it, so

Gene 1:42:45

I, it'll certainly go beyond that, but certainly with the, the regular length barrel on that gun mine is set up for a 200 yard siting,

Ben 1:42:56

yeah. Yeah, but the biggest problem with the barrel on the Tavor is the twist rate. So the twist rate's too slow and here's what you have to understand. It's, it's too slow for a heavier round. So if you're going like 160 and above on grain weight or even one anything over normal m80 ball the twist rate is too slow to stabilize that big bullet. You, you have to understand that that twist rate, especially with 308, matters for the long range, and they, but that, that's not what this gun was built for. There you go.

Gene 1:43:33

exactly. And this was just a more powerful gun that, that is CQB, but capable of extending further than other CQBs.

Ben 1:43:45

Yes.

Gene 1:43:46

And it's, it's perfect where it's at. And one thing I also love about that gun is the recoil impulse is so damn comfortable. It is very smooth. You could shoot that gun all day long. And have zero shoulder ache at the day. Whereas a lot of other 308s not so much.

Ben 1:44:09

Did you see the bullpup kit I sent you for the Glock and the dagger and all that?

Gene 1:44:16

Yeah. Yeah. And it's not a huge sale. It's a little bit of a sale, so I probably not going to order it right now, but I, at some point I'll pick one up. I just,

Ben 1:44:25

It, to me, it's actually a good home defense weapon at that point. If it's reliable, right? If it'll cycle reliably, that's, that's a, it could be a fun one.

Gene 1:44:35

and what I haven't looked at on that particular one you sent in is the barrel. Cause it looks like it's sticking out, but is

Ben 1:44:40

Oh, it's a 16 inch replacement barrel.

Gene 1:44:42

Oh, it is good. Good. Yeah. Cause that's the one thing that I I've seen some of these kits and instead of giving you a replacement barrel, they basically just have a faux barrel on the front.

Ben 1:44:54

Yeah. That that's one of the things I like about this is because of the bullpup nature of this and they're actually replacing the barrel. There is no pistol brace ruling. There is nothing. It is, it, it's, it's going from a pistol to a rifle and it's a full rifle, not a SBR or a pistol brace that you have to

Gene 1:45:13

Oh, it's full 16 inches.

Ben 1:45:15

Yep.

Gene 1:45:16

Oh, I didn't realize that. I thought it was still kind of like the, in the

Ben 1:45:19

Nope, it is, it is a, it is the same as your Tavor. It is a full length rifle, which has a lot of really interesting implications and really cool things.

Gene 1:45:31

Interesting. Yeah. I'll take a look at it again. I'm not as much of a fan of the pistol caliber rifle length guns as, as you are. Yeah. As

Ben 1:45:43

again, it's, it's, it's, it's purpose of use, right?

Gene 1:45:49

Yeah. And to some extent, some extent is just how it looks. I mean, let's face it. There's a reason I think that, that, that

Ben 1:45:57

I mean, the only pistol caliber carbine I have is my Ruger and you know, it's built to be a truck gun for me and it's useful for that. This. To me, is

Gene 1:46:10

and the only one I got is at your house,

Ben 1:46:13

Yeah.

Gene 1:46:14

so there,

Ben 1:46:15

Oh, yeah

Gene 1:46:16

yeah, I, so I was going to mention this to the we're wrapping up here, the photo of Adam and I standing with the guns outside.

Ben 1:46:26

I haven't seen it.

Gene 1:46:28

You haven't seen that on X? You're kidding.

Ben 1:46:30

No.

Gene 1:46:31

Really? I posted it during the eclipse. You haven't seen it.

Ben 1:46:35

Okay, you think I monitor your ex

Gene 1:46:37

I figured you'd look at every single one of my X posts. Why wouldn't you?

Ben 1:46:42

No, I

Gene 1:46:43

What an asshole, man. Jesus. All right I'm gonna send it to you. If you're making me do the damn work, I'll send it to you. But that picture got It's the most viral post I've ever made.

Ben 1:46:57

How because you, because you had Adam Curry in it.

Gene 1:46:59

I think so. I think that's why, but it had like 5, 000 views and several hundred retweets and shit.

Ben 1:47:09

Okay.

Gene 1:47:10

I mean, it was, it was pretty amazing. It was a obviously not because of me, but because of Adam, but that post was also responsible for adding a hundred new subscribers to my. X.

Ben 1:47:24

Okay, so ready for the eclipse and you're in the tracksuit with a, what is that white

Gene 1:47:32

Ah. Huh. I'm holding a white pistol and a white shotgun, so now you know why I got a white helmet.

Ben 1:47:39

Okay. Yeah.

Gene 1:47:40

Yeah.

Ben 1:47:41

Now you just need to let your beard go the rest of the way white and then

Gene 1:47:46

believe me, it's happening by

Ben 1:47:47

Tavor.

Gene 1:47:48

And Adam's holding the Tavor, exactly. It's obviously, this is not stuff that is popular in the US.

Ben 1:47:56

What is not

Gene 1:47:57

white guns and white camos.

Ben 1:48:01

They're a dumb idea

Gene 1:48:03

The Northern countries all have white camo and white. Firearms for

Ben 1:48:09

very specific times of the

Gene 1:48:11

for winter. Exactly. Exactly. And as somebody who lives in Texas, clearly I need this. So I, for me, it's mostly just for LARPing, you know, cause it looks neat, but

Ben 1:48:22

by white camo, he means he's wearing

Gene 1:48:24

a

Ben 1:48:25

tracksuit.

Gene 1:48:25

that's why Adidas makes great camo.

Ben 1:48:28

wants to fit in with the other oligarchs.

Gene 1:48:32

Hey, if you, if you don't have a white tracksuit white guns and some gold chains, then you're never going to fit in. But anyway, so that was a fun picture, but I wanted to use that just to explain to you why I was, because you made fun of me for getting a white helmet as well.

Ben 1:48:52

Yeah.

Gene 1:48:52

And I was like, there's a reason to this madness and I will have a second helmet that's black that's not white. But I got, you know, the, the, the helmet I got right now as a test bed platform for the thermals and night vision. I figured I would get the cheap one and it might as well be white, and then when I get the expensive, when I get you know, something that's probably a ballistic helmet Team Wendy or something, then that'll be black.

Ben 1:49:23

Yeah, I, I, I wouldn't bother with a ballistic helmet, but you do what you wanna do. So last thing and then we can wrap up'cause I'm

Gene 1:49:32

You could get a used one, barely used, with just one hole.

Ben 1:49:36

wood hope. Yeah. It's only we shot one. I will say that I'm going to buy at this I, I'm going to do this. I'm gonna buy some cheap ass body armor off of LA Express to use as a target.

Gene 1:49:48

Yeah, yeah.

Ben 1:49:50

they have some quote unquote level 4 plates for 30.

Gene 1:49:56

Soft steel level 4. Mm mm.

Ben 1:49:58

yeah, I'm going to buy this and I want to see how it does. Because, I

Gene 1:50:03

Well, what's his face? He's done a bunch of tests. Demolition Ranch, I don't know if you've seen his videos on that. He's bought a lot of Chinese shit.

Ben 1:50:10

But the whole cool thing about this is actually that's a pretty cheap target if it holds up at all.

Gene 1:50:15

Mm hmm.

Ben 1:50:16

So,

Gene 1:50:17

Yeah, and the good thing with if it holds up, but it's obviously softer, I assume it's gonna be softer. I don't think they would give you high quality metal on that. Then it would still be pretty good because then you wouldn't, wouldn't ricochet, because I don't know that you want a high quality plate as your target, because you might actually start getting ricochets.

Ben 1:50:37

One, this is why you angle your steel. There's that. And two, this

Gene 1:50:41

your face, or?

Ben 1:50:42

No, you have it at a at a downward,

Gene 1:50:46

kidding. I'm kidding.

Ben 1:50:47

you have shot steel before. Right?

Gene 1:50:50

I've shot plenty of steel. I've shot steel with shotgun and pistol and rifle.

Ben 1:50:55

Anyway the other thing I'll say is I did get recommended a short story that I have read that you should read. It's it's. only a few hours worth of reading, if that. Like it's, it's not long. It's, it's an hour at most of your life, but the machine stops. It was written in the teens, like the 19 teens. It's pretty

Gene 1:51:20

Oh, 19 teens. Okay.

Ben 1:51:21

Yeah. Yeah.

Gene 1:51:22

Yeah, so I mean, look, I'll read it.

Ben 1:51:25

Like it's short enough. You should, you know, go through and do it real quick because it's, it's worth it.

Gene 1:51:32

I can do it.

Ben 1:51:34

I think the audible, I didn't even get it on audible. It's like,

Gene 1:51:39

mean, I can have the computer voice read it to me,

Ben 1:51:41

It's an hour and a half on Audible. There you go.

Gene 1:51:44

Yeah. Oh, what'd you think of the finger washers? Heh heh heh heh heh.

Ben 1:51:49

Oh, you and Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the finger washers. It's

Gene 1:51:54

That's pretty good. Who's Tom?

Ben 1:51:55

Hey, Tom Tomski. He's,

Gene 1:51:57

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben 1:51:58

on the, yeah, on X, one of our

Gene 1:52:01

See, if you read his shit, I don't understand how you could not be reading my shit. He reposts 100 percent of what I post.

Ben 1:52:10

Because he posts a lot less than you do.

Gene 1:52:13

But he reposts everything I post.

Ben 1:52:15

Not everything.

Gene 1:52:16

Pretty much.

Ben 1:52:18

And I like him more. He's nicer to me.

Gene 1:52:20

My God. Probably is. What do you think of the of that Navy photo with the

Ben 1:52:25

Oh my god that was this week. Jesus, this week has been a busy

Gene 1:52:29

a long week. It's a long

Ben 1:52:31

No, that, that was just like, someone was fucking with a guy, right?

Gene 1:52:37

that's my guess, is it, it, it had to be a prank. Somebody, that backwards, on purpose, on his gun, knowing he was going in for a photoshoot.

Ben 1:52:46

yes, and I'm, Yeah, I, I, here, armorer, hand me a gun, I wanna, bruh bruh bruh,

Gene 1:52:52

It had

Ben 1:52:53

you shot, sir? You know?

Gene 1:52:54

Heh heh heh heh. You know, in the Navy, they don't shoot a whole lot.

Ben 1:52:58

But, I mean, he, he, he can't possibly have seen anything through that, and, like, how does he not go, I don't know who put this on here, but this is obviously wrong. What the fuck?

Gene 1:53:15

Yeah. And also on just a bare bone stock M16, that would not be the scope I would put on that.

Ben 1:53:25

Why not?

Gene 1:53:26

Because I would put a something that's for a lot, you know, shorter distance. I'd probably put an ACOG on there.

Ben 1:53:34

I mean, that's an LPVO that was on there, so

Gene 1:53:37

That's not an LPBO. That looks like it's, it's more of a normal scope.

Ben 1:53:41

No, if you flip it around and understand what it is, it's an LPVO.

Gene 1:53:45

Is it really? Okay. It looks bigger than most

Ben 1:53:49

Because the objective, he's got it reversed. It's because it's Bass Ackwards, so it looks bigger. Hey,

Gene 1:53:56

know, also I, I'm just zoomed in on a photo. It looks like there's something mounted to the side of it, like a laser rangefinder.

Ben 1:54:06

share your screen so I can see what you're seeing.

Gene 1:54:08

which is pointing directly at his, yeah let me, let me just resend you the image, you can zoom it in yourself.

Ben 1:54:14

Jesus.

Gene 1:54:15

But it's it looks like it's on, back towards his eye, pointing at his other eyeball. But I've got one of those on one of my scopes. It's basically a little square box. It's on the side of the scope that has the range finder on it.

Ben 1:54:33

Oh you? Yeah. On the backside of the scope. I see what

Gene 1:54:37

the backside of the scope. Yeah. Yep.

Ben 1:54:39

Yeah. But that is an LPVO, by the way.

Gene 1:54:41

how does he not?

Ben 1:54:43

He, he cannot have any sort of sight picture. And then if you look at the shoulder, you know the gun's half off his shoulder. I mean, this guy does not fire a firearm. Also, then the four grip is so fricking close.

Gene 1:54:59

It's super close, but he's got his earplugs in cause you know, he's ready to pull the trigger. He's got his finger on the trigger. I just noticed that too. It's not even the straight finger. But

Ben 1:55:09

he is actually firing, like that's the

Gene 1:55:11

he can't see anything.

Ben 1:55:13

No, he's just shooting randomly. And most people would never look at that and go, Oh, what's wrong with it? You know?

Gene 1:55:22

And we're sure it's not a Photoshop job,

Ben 1:55:24

Yes. No, this was actually put out on the Navy's official Twitter.

Gene 1:55:30

but it doesn't make the Navy look very good.

Ben 1:55:32

No, it doesn't. And I mean, I would love to know what this guy's rank is. And I like the hand on the shoulder. Do you see the hand on his shoulder? I've got you. You can do it.

Gene 1:55:42

I think mostly that hand is like, Oh my God, what if he turns? It's Nope, just stay facing that direction. Cause you can't see shit.

Ben 1:55:52

Yeah. I mean, I don't know what this guy's rank is, but he has never.

Gene 1:55:58

And we got to figure out how much we need to donate to demolition range. Or Brandon's campaign to get an invite, because they're having events left and right out there.

Ben 1:56:08

Yeah. Fuck.

Gene 1:56:10

I, I would enjoy going there.

Ben 1:56:13

I would too. I, I would too. I, I really hope Brandon wins. He has been ratioing Tony on Twitter, but you know, some of what Tony is putting out, I think is going to work for a lot of Texas voters, unfortunately.

Gene 1:56:27

I'll tell you what

Ben 1:56:28

But I, I think the ATF releasing their ruling that we already talked about today may fuck over Tony.

Gene 1:56:36

And it looks like Tony did not vote for the reappropriation of the the FISA. He was not one of the people listed in there.

Ben 1:56:44

Oh, good for

Gene 1:56:45

So well, but I wonder if he would have if he wasn't running against Brandon.

Ben 1:56:49

I guarantee you he would have. He voted for the gun control bill,

Gene 1:56:53

Yep

Ben 1:56:54

and then Brandon came out and ran against him, and now he's going the other way

Gene 1:56:58

I think it's a win win no matter what I think even if Tony wins Tony is gonna be very careful in his voting record moving forward to not Lose and jeopardize his seat by pissing off pro gunners.

Ben 1:57:16

except he already did, so

Gene 1:57:18

He did but I I'm just saying I think that You Ideally, Brandon wins, obviously, but even if he doesn't, I think this will have had enough of an impact on Tony that his voting won't be so anti gun. Because he clearly, given that he's in a runoff, I think he clearly started realizing this is not a shoo in for him.

Ben 1:57:39

A runoff that is Normally, a runoff is going to favor the incumbent.

Gene 1:57:47

hmm. Mm

Ben 1:57:48

Brandon has such a personality and everything else. Man, I, I, I, I really, I'm very interested to see what what's gonna happen with this.

Gene 1:57:59

hmm. Mm hmm. It's, That's cool. Also nothing to really, I guess, comment on too much, but I do the stock that you've got on your

Ben 1:58:12

oh, the one I painted?

Gene 1:58:13

Mm hmm. That turned out really good.

Ben 1:58:15

Yeah, it turned out pretty decent, and I gotta tell you, doing that snakeskin pattern is really easy.

Gene 1:58:21

Yeah, which is very cool, because I thought it would be hard.

Ben 1:58:24

No so I, I found like some expanded paper stuff that works and it worked out great. And I've got stencils and a whole bunch of stuff. And I got to tell you, this was the 1st time I ever rattled came to rifle. And I, I'm, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Yeah,

Gene 1:58:42

Yep. No, I think it looks good, and at some point, I'll probably be asking for your help in doing that with some of my guns as well, because I really didn't think it would turn out nearly as good. It's

Ben 1:58:52

yeah, you, you were skeptical and then you look at it and you're like, oh, oh,

Gene 1:58:55

I've seen I've seen some guys that have shown pictures of guns They've done themselves and most of them look like total shit. So I I give you props on that.

Ben 1:59:06

Yeah. I took my time and kind of set myself up for success and it's not perfect. It's it's not. I could definitely do a better job. If I ever redo it and I'm sure I will. But

Gene 1:59:18

You'll do more guns. I'm sure now

Ben 1:59:20

yeah, actually I'm almost, I'm not going to do the Tavor yet because it's. It's too expensive of a gun, right? And I probably wouldn't have done the M1A, except I already had another stock for it. This was a replace, this was a separate stock and I'm not painting the actual gun.

Gene 1:59:38

These guys, they also do the the full gun. So with the scope and with all the accessories and

Ben 1:59:44

and that's what I was about to say. So my AR 10 that I have. That has a older Nikon scope on it right now. It's got a I, I think it was like a 3 by 14 or something milled out scope on it. It was a Nikon Monarch scope. It was a nice Nikon back in the day, but it's an older one. Anyway I, I think I may take and paint that entire thing. But we'll see. I haven't, I haven't gotten there yet, so we'll see.

Gene 2:00:17

Gotcha.

Ben 2:00:18

By the way, I will recommend ARDs anti reflective devices. There's some really cool manufacturers out there and I don't get, I don't, I don't get a kickback for this, but It's MK machine. Have you looked at them?

Gene 2:00:32

Nope. Yeah,

Ben 2:00:34

MK machining, they have scope caps and ARD caps and they're not cheap. They're, they're fairly expensive, but I ordered some from them and they're fantastic. I, I, their scope caps, everything is nice enough that I will be ordering a substantial amount of, I already ordered a decent amount of them, but I'll be ordering more for various scopes and items. Both both caps and these anti reflective devices.

Gene 2:01:03

All the ones I've bought all the ones, the caps, I've just gotten with the super cheap plastic ones in the past. I've never bothered getting expensive ones. And then the only ARD I've ever had was actually made by a trench gun.

Ben 2:01:15

yeah they make these that fit the LPBOs that I have that fits the larger scopes that I have. So it works.

Gene 2:01:27

Yeah. And I I've, I've, it's funny cause again, the first time I ever bought one was after playing a video game where that was One of the, you know, things that was in the game was the glint from the rifle that you could see if you didn't have one on.

Ben 2:01:47

Yeah,

Gene 2:01:47

like, oh, I should get one in real life too.

Ben 2:01:49

yeah. You know, it makes a difference.

Gene 2:01:51

Yeah. And that was the original Far Cry game, so I want to say that was in the mid 2000s.

Ben 2:01:56

oh, man, I, I remember. Oh, yeah. I remember playing Far Cry at land parties. And the graphics and the open, expansive nature of the maps and everything was pretty crazy.

Gene 2:02:09

That

Ben 2:02:10

you watched the new Fallout show on

Gene 2:02:13

I've just started, I saw episode one.

Ben 2:02:16

Okay, I haven't seen it yet. Is it worth me watching?

Gene 2:02:19

Yes, yes. I don't know where it's going to go. I can't advise for, you know, but, and it does have a little more of a multi culti cast than you know, what I would prefer, but

Ben 2:02:30

knowing that I've barely played Far Cry, is it something I'm going to

Gene 2:02:33

yeah, I think you would. Yeah. So far, after one episode so I, I don't know. It's a, you never know where these things, where it's going to go, but I, I think it's worth, I, I feel like my my, my gamer you know, profile would come into question if I didn't watch that show. What kind of a gamer are you if you don't even watch shit like that?

Ben 2:02:56

I mean, have you watched the Halo show? Then aren't you already in that territory?

Gene 2:03:02

I guess. That's why I need to watch this, right? I can't, I can't not be watching anything. I, you know, I haven't even watched the the anime version of Cyberpunk 77 that they did. Even though everyone said it was super awesome, at some point I need to watch it. But it came out on Netflix and I I don't subscribe to pedo networks, like Netflix or Disney I have not seen it, but I'm sure there's a way for me to see it, through, through Darren probably.

Ben 2:03:31

through Darren or HBO or something like that, I'm sure.

Gene 2:03:34

Oh, if it's, yeah, but anyway, I think it was exclusively on Netflix when it came out.

Ben 2:03:38

Yeah, but a lot of that stuff shifts around, so keep a lookout. Or you can also buy a lot of it. So on Amazon, it may not be for free for streaming, but you might be able to buy it.

Gene 2:03:48

Right. Right, right, right. Exactly. And then last thing and we're going to wrap up is because I had that bump in the number of subscribers, I've been able to turn on monetization on X, which also means you can now send me money directly on X. If you prefer to do it that route instead of sending it through PayPal or something else because you don't like PayPal. We all like

Ben 2:04:14

are you how much are you getting on monetization

Gene 2:04:16

bucks is what I'm asking for.

Ben 2:04:18

No, no, no. What, what are you getting from X based off of your views?

Gene 2:04:22

I have no views, so I haven't gotten diddly squat yet. But I'm just saying, that feature was turned on for me. And so one of the things you can do is have add also a, just a fixed amount subscription thing on there, which I added for five bucks and it literally says, you will not get anything extra on X as a result of this. This is purely yet another way for you to be able to donate for one of my podcasts. That's all it is. So if somebody doesn't want to do a PayPal donation or, you know, Oh, you know, we're still, we've still got a few people that are subscribing directly through the

Ben 2:04:57

Through best part.

Gene 2:04:58

Yeah, through Buzzsprout, which is great because that just, you know, lowers the cost of

Ben 2:05:03

Yes, that goes to me and helps me pay the hosting bills.

Gene 2:05:07

Exactly. Which I think at this point, your bill ought to be basically just taxes, right?

Ben 2:05:12

yeah, it's just basically taxes, so yeah,

Gene 2:05:14

So the rest of the cost is paid for by donors, which is awesome. We appreciate you guys doing that.

Ben 2:05:20

it's definitely

Gene 2:05:20

we, we almost never asked for money. And nonetheless,

Ben 2:05:24

one's hearing this anyway.

Gene 2:05:26

exactly. Nonetheless, it's it's not about asking for money. It's about people that like the show enough to actually search out a donate button. So do that. But if you don't like Ben, feel free to donate to me directly on X.

Ben 2:05:38

don't do that.