Gene: 0:25

This is just two good old boys, Ben, we really need to come up with a good intro.

Ben: 0:30

We do, we do Gene, we've gotta come up with something and some theme music leading into it might be a good answer there, but

Gene: 0:37

So

Ben: 0:38

We're recording

Gene: 0:39

been

Ben: 0:39

bat time again,

Gene: 0:40

yeah, back to the bad time, which you keep forgetting, but That's right. No, we're, I'm good. I'm good. It's been a I guess, I'm trying to think if there's anything unusual or interesting during the week in my life. Obviously there isn't politics, but I don't think so. I think it's been pretty normal week. Still unemployed haven't bought any new guns lately, but thinking about it, I don't know. No.

Ben: 1:02

Yeah, I, I actually have been, Christmases just around the corner and that's a time for giving and, thinking about getting something for myself and a few other people. So, yeah.

Gene: 1:15

Oh, gun related.

Ben: 1:16

Yes.

Gene: 1:17

No. Nice.

Ben: 1:19

I, I looked at even looked at doing the concealed carry license just for reciprocity into

Gene: 1:25

Mm-hmm. right.

Ben: 1:27

but unfortunately some of the states I travel into.

Gene: 1:30

Maryland's not one of'em. Yeah,

Ben: 1:31

And

Gene: 1:32

yeah, I know. I check that was

Ben: 1:33

where I really would want it

Gene: 1:35

Yeah, I, I actually did check. Now what you can do though, is you can get a Maryland out-of-state concealed carry license

Ben: 1:44

My understanding is that's damn near impossible to do

Gene: 1:47

now. It's listed on the website. No, you can get a, you can get'em, not a resident there.

Ben: 1:53

I know, but even getting a resident permit is very

Gene: 1:55

It's hard.

Ben: 1:56

Yeah.

Gene: 1:56

If you're there, that might be worth it to try. Anyway,

Ben: 2:00

be there that much.

Gene: 2:01

just tell'em that your side gig is you're a diamond seller. And I, I, No kidding at all. This is a Heads up for anybody. Being a diamond seller is considered an absolutely 100% legitimate reason in places like New York and Washington DC to have a concealed carry permit.

Ben: 2:22

Hmm.

Gene: 2:23

And I, I'm sure there'll be somebody right away jumping goddamn Jews, but but it's true. If you are a diamond seller, you generally will get a concealed permit in pretty much any state that that usually doesn't like to.

Ben: 2:36

Hmm. How often do sell a diamond for that to be a

Gene: 2:39

I'm not sure they're allowed to ask you that.

Ben: 2:42

Huh? Interesting.

Gene: 2:43

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 2:45

Okay. Good to know. Might have to be a side gig for a while.

Gene: 2:49

Yeah. A lot of people have side gigs.

Ben: 2:51

Yep. Speaking of doing some research, I think I have a business plan for for a potentially very lucrative side gig coming up.

Gene: 3:03

Ooh. Nice. That that's all you're gonna say about that

Ben: 3:07

What

Gene: 3:08

called a teaser man.

Ben: 3:10

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. More to come. More to

Gene: 3:12

Okay. Right.

Ben: 3:14

if it's gonna be a little while, but,

Gene: 3:16

Mm.

Ben: 3:17

get the website up and a few other things. And if this is gonna pan out, then I'll definitely let everybody know.

Gene: 3:23

Okay. Cool. That sounds exciting. Hopefully we'll find out more later.

Ben: 3:27

Yep. So we not only elected several dead people,

Gene: 3:33

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 3:34

some brain dead people.

Gene: 3:35

Yeah, by the, I think the dead people were the ones who cast the votes for the brain, dead people, so it kind of works out.

Ben: 3:42

As bad as Oz was I, or is I am still shocked that Federman won, given that debate.

Gene: 3:51

I don't think anybody watched the debate, dude.

Ben: 3:54

It, it's, it's team politics at this time,

Gene: 3:58

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 3:58

team sports. It's my

Gene: 3:59

Yep.

Ben: 4:00

your guys. I don't care what your, you, what the merits of you are, it's,

Gene: 4:05

Yeah.

Ben: 4:06

it's sad

Gene: 4:07

and I think that, I've heard from a number of people I don't, this is not necessarily in my opinion, but I've heard a few people with YouTube channels talk about how the problem for the Republicans with not winning in the selection, or I should say not winning more. There were certainly victories here, but it's just the quality of candidates that were.

Ben: 4:31

I, I don't know. From my perspective, I think a lot of the candidates were very good. Now,

Gene: 4:36

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 4:36

If you're a never Trump or Republican then sure, can see that. But the real problem, and I think Tim has hit on this fairly well, is procedural. So I talked to a friend of mine, a lot of time in Western Pennsylvania over a decade ago at this point, but, In the oil and gas industry and talked to some people I knew up there and they are convinced that the debate just came too late, that the early voting had already started and a lot of

Gene: 5:08

Hmm.

Ben: 5:08

went and cast their ballots early. And there were several people that they had anecdotally talked to saying I had known he was that bad, I wouldn't have voted for him.

Gene: 5:17

Let's think about this correctly though. What's the downside? If you're a Democrat, what's the downside of voting for a de. who is mentally who had a stroke. What's the downside of that?

Ben: 5:29

If you're idealistic at all, you want people to be representing you and your

Gene: 5:35

Right. But why wouldn't he be representing you in your interest?

Ben: 5:38

because he is not capable, because he can't debate

Gene: 5:40

He's not well. He is definitely not gonna represent the Republican's interest.

Ben: 5:45

This is true. I.

Gene: 5:47

and he'll do what he's told when it's written on a little note card in front of him, which there are plenty of people that are gonna be in that office to do that for him

Ben: 5:56

Yeah. If you want a meat

Gene: 5:57

and I, and really, how's that different from George Bush?

Ben: 6:00

a dude, I, I would reference the the standup that Joe Rogan did many years ago. think we can go dumber.

Gene: 6:10

Okay. I.

Ben: 6:12

so,

Gene: 6:13

I just don't see it as a downside. I, I, it, it's easy to make fun of, and it shouldn't be allowed. If the election laws were written properly, there would be an IQ test and it'd be at least 141. But,

Ben: 6:29

There would be like three members of Congress, right?

Gene: 6:33

Ben Shapiro would be one of'em, but.

Ben: 6:35

I, I'm just saying of the, the current set of Congress

Gene: 6:38

current said, Yeah, probably if that, but if in the absence of any kinda laws on the actual mental capacity of a Congress critter I just don't see this as, Oh my God, I can't believe the Democrats voted him in. No, the Democrats should have voted him in. He was the D on the ticket. And I can't think of a downside if I were a de. As to why not do it. It'd be the exact same thing. If we had, God forbid Ron Paul got a stroke, I, I guarantee you he'd still be elected.

Ben: 7:12

Yeah, he, he retired before that, I don't think he would've run. I think that's the difference.

Gene: 7:18

Would he even know whether to run or not if he had a stroke?

Ben: 7:21

I, I don't know. I, I think there's plenty of

Gene: 7:23

I watched my mom after a stroke last year before she died, and it was like they barely know their name.

Ben: 7:30

It depends on the stroke,

Gene: 7:31

on the stroke. Absolutely. Yeah.

Ben: 7:33

I had an uncle go through that. And, there's, there are different types of impacts on people

Gene: 7:42

Yeah.

Ben: 7:42

where the

Gene: 7:42

And, and this guy can form sentences.

Ben: 7:46

Did you watch the debate?

Gene: 7:48

Did you watch him after the debate?

Ben: 7:50

I did.

Gene: 7:50

Yeah. He's reading, but he can read.

Ben: 7:54

He can read, but in a debate life scenario.

Gene: 7:57

He's not gonna debate, obviously.

Ben: 8:00

Okay, but you said he can form sentences. I disagree with that. He can read sentences. He

Gene: 8:04

He can read sentences.

Ben: 8:05

When he walks up and says, Hello, everybody, goodnight.

Gene: 8:09

Mm-hmm. He's doing better than Biden This right now. If you watched Biden in this last week, Biden's beating him in terms of mental lack of capacity.

Ben: 8:21

Oh yeah. Yeah. And you

Gene: 8:22

So this is what we have. We are literally getting closer and closer to Idiocracy.

Ben: 8:28

And the fact that some Democrats on MSNBC were already calling for federman to run for president in 2024 is just

Gene: 8:36

Mm. That's awesome. I want that. That would be great.

Ben: 8:41

do you just

Gene: 8:42

ticket.

Ben: 8:43

collapse of US politics?

Gene: 8:46

Oh my God, that would be hilarious. Would you, Are you seriously thinking he would get elected?

Ben: 8:51

I, I don't know. We elected Joe

Gene: 8:52

Maybe, maybe, what, if, if the US elects him as the president, if he runs,

Ben: 8:58

Uhhuh

Gene: 8:59

Every country gets the politicians they deserve. So,

Ben: 9:03

I, I can just, I can just see see him and Biden running on the same ticket and, could be could be interesting, but there's To be

Gene: 9:11

twiddle d and twiddle them.

Ben: 9:13

Yeah. Will say this it looks like the Republicans are gonna take the house.

Gene: 9:18

I think that's the only thing that's guaranteed right now,

Ben: 9:21

Yes. But they still have a path to the Senate.

Gene: 9:24

maybe. Yeah.

Ben: 9:25

the key governor's races, for the most part, were one. When Maryland loses their rhino Republican governor, I don't see that as really a loss.

Gene: 9:34

Yep. Yep.

Ben: 9:35

I, I, I just don't So, I think

Gene: 9:38

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 9:39

the Democrats outperformed expectations by some, but in reality, Whether you win 56 seats in the Senate or 51 seats in the Senate, really doesn't matter

Gene: 9:51

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 9:52

because you still do not have a veto proof majority. So whatever you know, 51 versus 56 doesn't really strategically right now matter. So

Gene: 10:03

right? Yeah.

Ben: 10:05

if all they need is a 51 majority to break.

Gene: 10:10

but they don't really need a veto proof majority because they have the presidency right now.

Ben: 10:15

You're talking about the Democrats, I'm

Gene: 10:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh there's no, A Republican wouldn't have gotten anything yet.

Ben: 10:20

right. The my point is the maximum number of seats the Republicans possibly could have

Gene: 10:25

Oh, it was 56. Sure, Sure, sure. Sure.

Ben: 10:28

you know right now, 56 seats is all they could get to that. That's not a veto proof majority. So the difference from 51 to 56 is nil. Anyway, I'm pretty confident that Republicans are gonna take the house. I

Gene: 10:44

Yep.

Ben: 10:44

gonna lose a seat in the Senate. I think we probably end up, worst case, 50 50 with cow, still a tiebreaker.

Gene: 10:51

So I thought we'd for sure. We're gonna have one fewer Republicans in the Senate. So who's the one that edged their way back in?

Ben: 11:00

There were, so there were a couple swaps

Gene: 11:04

Hmm. So we had a couple of flips in the states.

Ben: 11:08

Yeah.

Gene: 11:09

Hmm.

Ben: 11:10

I'm not, I don't know why brave isn't coming up. I'd have to go look at exactly who that was. But right now we're, we still have a path. see what ends up happening in Georgia. Like Pennsylvania Democrats with betterman picked up what was a Republican seed, but that was a retirement and. There was a democratic seat that the Republicans picked back up. So

Gene: 11:33

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 11:34

yeah,

Gene: 11:35

So the outstanding ones are Colorado, Utah, Washington, Utah, right?

Ben: 11:43

No, Utah's already called.

Gene: 11:45

that's called, Okay, so Washington, Vermont, Colorado, and Utah.

Ben: 11:50

No.

Gene: 11:51

No.

Ben: 11:51

No.

Gene: 11:53

Which ones are left? I thought that's

Ben: 11:55

I'm bringing it up.

Gene: 11:57

okay.

Ben: 11:58

All right. Currently,

Gene: 12:00

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 12:01

Alaska,

Gene: 12:02

Alaska. How's, that's? That's not gonna go for Democrats. There's no way. Hell

Ben: 12:08

Okay. That, that's kind of my point.

Gene: 12:10

Yeah. Who's left to count, is what I'm saying. Who's, who's not official yet for who hasn't declared victory. Okay. Nevada. Yep.

Ben: 12:17

Alaska and Georgia.

Gene: 12:20

Oh, and just those three.

Ben: 12:22

Yep. For

Gene: 12:23

Okay. Alaska's obviously gonna go Republican and always does.

Ben: 12:26

Right. So Nevada, if it goes Republican, that gets us to 50

Gene: 12:31

So really it's just Nevada and Georgia.

Ben: 12:33

Yep.

Gene: 12:34

And how close is that? I don't have the stats. How close is Nevada and Georgia?

Ben: 12:38

Nevada right now is 48.5 Republican, 48.4. Democrat,

Gene: 12:46

That's really close.

Ben: 12:47

close

Gene: 12:47

Okay.

Ben: 12:48

within a

Gene: 12:49

Yeah, and,

Ben: 12:50

votes.

Gene: 12:50

And Georgia has got a runoff in, if all the people voted Libertarian, vote Republican, then it's obviously Republican. If they don't it, it'll be super close. Yeah.

Ben: 12:58

Yeah. And right now Nevada may end up in a runoff as well,

Gene: 13:02

Hmm.

Ben: 13:03

at 50% yet.

Gene: 13:04

Oh, they also have a runoff.

Ben: 13:06

yeah. And there's a get this, none of these candidates. Like a null vote is 1.2%.

Gene: 13:16

Hmm.

Ben: 13:17

The there's an independent and a libertarian that are less than a percent vote.

Gene: 13:22

Jesus.

Ben: 13:23

So literally none of these candidates in Nevada got than, more than the independent and the

Gene: 13:30

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben: 13:32

is hilarious.

Gene: 13:34

Wow. Okay. So, yeah, there's

Ben: 13:38

funny, when you look at the map, the only counties to vote blue for Nevada is Reno and Vegas.

Gene: 13:47

It's always cities. That's, that's always the case. Yeah, that is true. Kinda makes you wonder though, what if the people that are in the Red Zones just stopped selling their food to the Blue Zones?

Ben: 14:02

Yeah. It is a

Gene: 14:04

Let's have a food protest. It's you know what? This year we're not gonna farm. We're just gonna let our land recycle and rejuvenate for a year. We wanna avoid the that'd be all right. We got too big of a population in the world anyway.

Ben: 14:18

Hmm.

Gene: 14:19

So did you watch the did Gen Zen five launch yesterday?

Ben: 14:23

The Chinese, No,

Gene: 14:25

Nope.

Ben: 14:25

no, I didn't.

Gene: 14:27

Their their last piece of the Chinese Space Station.

Ben: 14:30

Yeah. Which a lot of people don't even know exists. It's just not even talked about. what's really is did you see the Chinese space plane released its cargo that's been in orbit for however many years?

Gene: 14:43

Oh no I didn't.

Ben: 14:44

Yeah. And

Gene: 14:46

I had the satellite killer weapon.

Ben: 14:48

there are lots of theories about what that would be.

Gene: 14:52

Mm

Ben: 14:53

so. A, US has a secretive space, autonomous space plan in orbit as well

Gene: 14:59

mm-hmm.

Ben: 15:00

for, years at this point. And yeah.

Gene: 15:04

I'm pretty sure it's landed now.

Ben: 15:07

No, no, no, no.

Gene: 15:08

Are you talking about the, the X 37?

Ben: 15:12

Yep.

Gene: 15:13

Yeah. That landed like six months ago. Pretty sure.

Ben: 15:18

Plane passes 900 days in orbit. Seven days ago.

Gene: 15:23

Really, I, I thought it landed.

Ben: 15:25

Has been in orbit for over 900 days.

Gene: 15:27

Okay. Um hmm. Do they have more than one? Do they have several of'em?

Ben: 15:34

potentially, I don't know. It's a pretty secretive program. there's not a lot known about its missions. They're not exactly declared

Gene: 15:41

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But I could have sworn I saw landing earlier this year and I don't recall it. Flying back up.

Ben: 15:49

well, according to that article on space.com, it's been in orbit for over 900

Gene: 15:54

Yeah. Here we go. Here we go. Successfully de orbited and landed in NASA Kennedy Space Center shuttle facility on November 12th, 2022 at 5:22 AM.

Ben: 16:04

Today?

Gene: 16:05

Was today the 12th? Yeah. Yes. It landed today at five 20. Like I said, I know these things. It landed

Ben: 16:11

were both right.

Gene: 16:13

I I was, I was right by accident. Yeah. 5 22. How could you have possibly missed that? Do you not know these things?

Ben: 16:20

No, I was busy with the kids this morning, so

Gene: 16:23

Uhhuh Uhhuh. It's right on the Space Forwards mill website. It's there.

Ben: 16:28

Since the Chinese released whatever they're releasing, they

Gene: 16:30

Do you think Ours landed first and then the Chinese released theirs?

Ben: 16:34

No, I think the Chinese released,

Gene: 16:36

released theirs first. Okay. Oh, okay.

Ben: 16:39

ours down to

Gene: 16:40

Yeah,

Ben: 16:40

and

Gene: 16:40

we are.

Ben: 16:41

we needed to go back up.

Gene: 16:43

Exactly. Exactly. Well that, that is interesting because the other bit that I heard yesterday was the oh, what is the system? I think it's the M 500 Russian anti missile missile system.

Ben: 16:58

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 16:59

realize about it, cuz it's not in chains, it's that the, the system not only is capable of shooting down. Missiles, including cruise missiles at 200 kilometers out. But it's actually capable of shooting down low earth orbit satellites up to 250 kilometers,

Ben: 17:19

Hmm.

Gene: 17:21

which is pretty interesting. I did not know that about it. So they can actually, which is much better. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. SpaceX is a military satellite system that's been declared already. So SpaceX satellites start dropping off. We know why.

Ben: 17:36

Indeed. Yeah, And the reason why Russians would target starlink is because currently with gps being jammed in the region, the only way the Ukrainians are able to some of the weapons systems that we've given them is. Through starlink. So starlink while it was sent over there, nominally for communications purposes, at least that's what was said

Gene: 17:59

And, and for

Ben: 18:01

been,

Gene: 18:01

incidentally, was the intent,

Ben: 18:03

Yes, was for civilian communications is what Musk has publicly said. He sent that over there for, and now Ukrainian military has hijacked it and used it for targeting, so the Russians are

Gene: 18:15

right?

Ben: 18:15

about that.

Gene: 18:16

Yeah. Russians aren't too happy. And I don't think Elon Musk was too happy to the point of saying,

Ben: 18:21

it away.

Gene: 18:22

Yeah, exactly. Which they quickly threatened to shut down all his future launches if he even talked about that.

Ben: 18:29

Yep.

Gene: 18:30

So he pulled it, pulled it back. Yeah. And did I, I posted this, actually, I tweeted it cuz I'm on, on Twitter now. Last night is a clip from the Joe Biden. Press conference to where one of the reporters toward the end asks Biden this question and she says is Elon Musk a threat to national security of the United States right now? Can you elaborate on that? It literally, like with a straight face, this reporter is asking the senile president of the United. Whether the richest man on earth is a threat to national security because he bought Twitter,

Ben: 19:12

And they're serious about it,

Gene: 19:14

they are absolutely serious. They're trying to come up with ways to sanction him.

Ben: 19:18

I, know, I think, Did you, did you see the Elon press conference with the big investor group?

Gene: 19:27

No.

Ben: 19:28

I forget the name of the investor group, but

Gene: 19:31

Black Rock

Ben: 19:32

No, it's a private group. I think it's bear ca. I don't.

Gene: 19:37

Mayor Stearns.

Ben: 19:38

No I'll, I'll probably think about it in a little bit. But

Gene: 19:41

Okay? Yep.

Ben: 19:42

were talking about his plans for Twitter, and one of the things he's talked about is part of the reason why he wants to go to$8 a month or whatever it is, is because right now it costs about a penny to have a bot, a penny a month to have a

Gene: 19:58

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 19:58

account on Twitter. So he wants to. Crime and influence games not pay by

Gene: 20:05

right.

Ben: 20:06

$8 a month. Now, that drives that cost up. So, he was using the, 800,000 versus 8,000 mark for a hundred thousand pots. So that's an interesting thing. But basically what he is saying is if you're not paying for Twitter, you'll be on there, but you'll be relegated to trash bot.

Gene: 20:26

Which pretty much you are anyway. If you're on there without a blue mark.

Ben: 20:30

But, I think the reason why everybody's freaking out is because the Democratic party, the Republican party, I'm sure operating bot forms, I'm sure the cia, nsa, and so on are, and they're looking

Gene: 20:42

It's all the Russian bots. Clearly that's the main thing they're worried about.

Ben: 20:46

yeah. Anyway, regardless, it's gonna be interesting to see that. But then he talks about, X and business plan he had at PayPal from 2020

Gene: 20:56

Yeah.

Ben: 20:57

Has sit on the dust and he can't believe no one's built it, so he's gonna build it. And he was a little nebulous about it, but what it comes down to is he's going to. that payment method, have, known customers, quantifiable information about the customers, and then he is gonna create a banking app inside of Twitter, which will be interesting to see. So I,

Gene: 21:17

I had an X x.com account.

Ben: 21:20

I'm sorry.

Gene: 21:21

I had an x.com account. I had an x.com credit.

Ben: 21:25

Hmm. It'll be to see where he goes with it. I don't think he really cares about the social media side of the platform. He talked about adding long form video to the platform,

Gene: 21:36

Yeah, that would be cool.

Ben: 21:37

and. Making it into somewhat of a YouTube competitor

Gene: 21:41

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 21:42

people for content. So it, it will be interesting to see what happens. I think he is thinking an everything app, like we have in China and so on, it's

Gene: 21:52

Yeah,

Ben: 21:53

it's your entertainment, it's

Gene: 21:54

your social scored right in there. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Ben: 21:58

Which depending on where that goes, that be very dystopian in its own and nature.

Gene: 22:05

Like the rest of his projects.

Ben: 22:08

I don't see SpaceX as dystopian.

Gene: 22:11

No, the whole idea of, leaving Earth, going to Mars to start a new world,

Ben: 22:16

Yeah,

Gene: 22:17

he is Drax. Come on. We've talked about this, haven't we? He's Drax.

Ben: 22:21

Tracks.

Gene: 22:22

Oh, from Moonraker. Are you too young to watch Moon?

Ben: 22:25

If I have, it's been a long, long time ago.

Gene: 22:28

It's a James Bond movie.

Ben: 22:30

Yeah. I haven't seen all the Bond movies. I like

Gene: 22:33

Oh,

Ben: 22:33

but

Gene: 22:33

okay. Okay. Okay.

Ben: 22:35

Yeah.

Gene: 22:35

The moon break is definitely one of my favorites. Moonraker, I guess I was talking to Darren, not you.

Ben: 22:40

playing in.

Gene: 22:41

It was Roger Morris, 1979.

Ben: 22:44

I'm not a big like Sean Connery.

Gene: 22:47

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 22:47

Connery's my favorite bond.

Gene: 22:49

I think he's everybody's favorite mom, but I, I don't. Have a disdain for Roger Moore the way some people do. I just think he should have retired two movies sooner instead of dragging it out until he was in the sixties. But when he was younger, I think he was pretty good. They definitely went a little more camp, but, but also I think that was. That was the general attitude of the world at the time. you, you have to take the Bond movies in the context that they were made in

Ben: 23:18

Fair enough, Fair enough.

Gene: 23:21

and

Ben: 23:21

know,

Gene: 23:22

really don't like the Dalton ones.

Ben: 23:24

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I'm, Yeah, Agreed. Pierce not what was the other

Gene: 23:32

Yeah. Pierce Bran.

Ben: 23:33

Yeah, he, anyway.

Gene: 23:35

I thought he was pretty good. The problem with Pierce Bron is he was offered the role right after Roger Moore, but he was under contract to a TV show on NBC that wouldn't let him out a contract. So that's where Dalton came. And I think by the time Pierce Brolin started doing him, which was like 10 years later, he was already a little getting kind old.

Ben: 24:04

Yeah.

Gene: 24:05

But I think he would've been very good, certainly when he was younger because he was totally British. He had that kind of look good and tuxedo thing going on and and they were going for the, take the comedy out of it, kind of approach. A lot of people. Providing that feedback. It's just too campy.

Ben: 24:25

Yeah. And I guess that's part of the reason why I like Sean Connery

Gene: 24:29

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 24:30

cuz he was just, Such a good fit for the character

Gene: 24:35

He actually wasn't it seems that way in the movies, but in interviews with Ian Fleming that he was not particularly happy with them picking. Sean Connery one. He was, he was from Scotland and he had an accent. Two is that James Bond was not supposed to be this big hulking kind of, athletic dude. He was supposed to be what the rest of I six people look like, which is, five foot, eight, medium build, medium average. Look, there should be nothing that looked special. And Sean Connery had won body building contest before he became an actor.

Ben: 25:38

Yeah, I, and I, I, I guess if you want to take the Bond movies seriously enough to the point of thinking, they need to be realistic.

Gene: 25:47

Yeah.

Ben: 25:48

But have you seen any Bond movies, none of them are realistic.

Gene: 25:53

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they, again, there, there is an argument to be said that even with Sean Connery, they were kind of campy. But no, I I, I've always enjoyed the bond films. I always thought they were really good. Some of the the last couple Roger Moore ones were kind of, ma didn't like Dalton ones. I was fine with the the Pierce bros ones, but I really didn't like the complete elimination of any kind of bond. I don't know what you call it, confidence that, that this last actor had Daniel Craig, I thought he was the worst bond of the bunch. They, they went and if

Ben: 26:37

I've seen

Gene: 26:38

somebody,

Ben: 26:38

of the Daniel Craig movies

Gene: 26:40

Yeah, that you're not missing much, but I think if somebody started watching Bond by watching the Daniel Craig once first, they would hate the rest of the Bond movies cuz Daniel Craig Bond is a lot closer to the book Bond Ironically, he's a very average dude, Not particularly big or strong or anything else. Not particularly smart. He cries the, so there is an argument to be made. They kinda went back to the roots. The problem is that 80% of the bond movies are not that. So if you, if you start with Craig, you probably will not like the rest of'em. If you start with the rest of'em, you probably think more like I do, which is that Daniel Craig wants, they kind of took a, a left turn for the.

Ben: 27:23

Yeah. He's also the blonde bond,

Gene: 27:27

Right, Right. And he, they could have colored his hair. I don't know why he didn't.

Ben: 27:31

They did that for the The new Ariel and the new Live Action Mer Little Mermaid movie.

Gene: 27:37

They colored her hair.

Ben: 27:39

Yeah. Yeah. They've a a black

Gene: 27:41

She's blonde.

Ben: 27:42

No, they've got a black

Gene: 27:43

Redhead.

Ben: 27:44

and they

Gene: 27:45

Yeah. Yeah. And I've seen that photo of that the, And then somebody did like a white version of that girl or something.

Ben: 27:53

Yeah.

Gene: 27:54

What was that whole controversy?

Ben: 27:56

The whole thing is, they're, they're replacing what in the cartoon as a white redheaded mermaid, which, this is all fiction. I don't care. The, the funny

Gene: 28:05

That's

Ben: 28:05

is,

Gene: 28:06

that authentic to the way BRI mermaids look.

Ben: 28:09

well, there's that whole thing, if, if we say, Okay, we're gonna have a black character, dye her hair? do that, just a black aerial? That can be fine.

Gene: 28:19

right?

Ben: 28:19

this kind of in between. Anyway. I don't know, man. It's just people have gone crazy with their wokeness

Gene: 28:28

Oh yeah. It, it would be literally impossible for her to have black hair, or, sorry, black black skin underwater though, because the,

Ben: 28:37

but,

Gene: 28:38

pigmentation is not needed underwater

Ben: 28:41

fish have different pigmentations, but

Gene: 28:43

but not for the purpose that humans do. Our pigmentation is not for attracting mates. Our pigmentation.

Ben: 28:52

But yeah.

Gene: 28:53

Yeah. It's not well. Man, there's some racist jerks I could say right now.

Ben: 28:57

That was not where I was going. I was

Gene: 28:59

Oh, okay.

Ben: 28:59

Pigmentation for camouflage.

Gene: 29:02

kinda led me somewhere there. Tropic Thunder,

Ben: 29:06

Yeah.

Gene: 29:07

Uhhuh, that's all I, that's all I'm gonna say. Traffic thunder.

Ben: 29:10

Oh man. This is why we don't have advertisers.

Gene: 29:15

Oh yeah. That, and then also nobody offered.

Ben: 29:19

Yeah, true. Anyway,

Gene: 29:21

say that, but this episode may have an advertiser.

Ben: 29:24

Why are we doing that?

Gene: 29:25

I don't know. I do, I I always did that on Search Gene for other podcasts. I don't know if you notice that.

Ben: 29:32

The cross pollination

Gene: 29:34

cross pollination with podcasts.

Ben: 29:36

Yeah. The

Gene: 29:36

they may not want us to be Craft violating to them.

Ben: 29:41

Yeah,

Gene: 29:41

Uhhuh

Ben: 29:42

only thing I would say to just wrap up the whole

Gene: 29:46

Racism.

Ben: 29:46

controversy thing there is I think it would've been better and for Disney to expand the universe and instead of just remaking the Little Mermaid

Gene: 29:56

Oh, the, the other mermaid. Yeah.

Ben: 29:59

Yeah, exactly.

Gene: 30:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben: 30:01

story,

Gene: 30:02

Right?

Ben: 30:02

story, have a different character. Expand the

Gene: 30:05

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 30:06

To it. Don't

Gene: 30:07

Right. Make her the, the dark mermaid, the evil one.

Ben: 30:12

You don't even have to do that, Ursula. But yeah, anyway. That's racist gene, cuz Ursula is purple. So

Gene: 30:19

What's purple?

Ben: 30:21

Ursula.

Gene: 30:22

Who's Ursula?

Ben: 30:24

The villain in the Little Mermaid

Gene: 30:26

I don't think I've ever seen the little mermaids, so I'm not sure who the other characters are. I just have seen the, the main character.

Ben: 30:33

okay.

Gene: 30:34

I honestly, I've never seen that movie

Ben: 30:37

Yeah. Okay.

Gene: 30:38

the original one. So

Ben: 30:39

I, I grew up, it was one of those movies I watched as a kid growing up. So,

Gene: 30:45

I've read a story as a kid, but I've never seen the movie.

Ben: 30:50

Yeah, and that's something I wish Disney would get back to is, Disney's roots were taking old

Gene: 30:57

Out of copyright stories

Ben: 30:59

Yep. Yeah.

Gene: 31:00

and then copywriting the hell outta the characters

Ben: 31:03

Yes, indeed.

Gene: 31:04

Yeah. Yeah. And I'd read the Pinocchio certainly before I saw the movie,

Ben: 31:09

Most people are going, What?

Gene: 31:10

and I think it was called Chapino, if I remember right.

Ben: 31:14

Yeah. Yeah. Cause well, it was an Italian,

Gene: 31:17

Right, right. Yeah, I think that's where I read it.

Ben: 31:22

Yeah. You, you read Italian.

Gene: 31:24

Yeah, I could read Italian. I don't really understand a lot of the words, but I, I, when I was a kid, I lived in Italy for a little bit.

Ben: 31:30

I didn't know you were such a poly lot.

Gene: 31:33

Definitely not, but I'm much better at understanding things than I am at speaking. I, I often watch movies without subtitles,

Ben: 31:42

Mm. Okay. Yeah, I,

Gene: 31:46

the, the hardest one is Chinese, though

Ben: 31:48

yeah, I, I don't speak any oriental

Gene: 31:53

they don't like that term though.

Ben: 31:55

I don't really care. I'm sorry.

Gene: 31:57

It's too funny.

Ben: 31:58

I

Gene: 31:59

is kind of like dark African

Ben: 32:02

Okay,

Gene: 32:03

I think they prefer Asian. Yes.

Ben: 32:05

Regardless, I, never, I, I tried Vietnamese a little bit when I was in college cuz I was dating a Vietnamese girl.

Gene: 32:13

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 32:13

broke up, I lost any interest in that.

Gene: 32:16

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 32:17

Turkish a little bit because my Turkish roommate never really tried

Gene: 32:21

So basically what you're saying is just the swear words, You learn the swear words, each language,

Ben: 32:27

No, no, no, no. Vietnamese was definitely more than

Gene: 32:30

food ordering. Okay.

Ben: 32:32

yeah, yeah. Because her, her parents didn't speak English, so that

Gene: 32:36

Mm

Ben: 32:37

incentive,

Gene: 32:37

mm-hmm.

Ben: 32:38

anyway. But really, I took a shit ton of Spanish and a shit ton of Latin, and with those.

Gene: 32:45

Yeah. Oh, Latin gives you a lot. Exactly.

Ben: 32:49

Most Portuguese, most Italian I can

Gene: 32:53

Now I saw it was called romance not romantic.

Ben: 32:57

the romance languages, whatever

Gene: 32:58

Yeah.

Ben: 32:59

call it.

Gene: 32:59

I think they're different things.

Ben: 33:02

Okay.

Gene: 33:03

Yeah. I, you would know that if you took Latin, but That's right.

Ben: 33:07

Anyway yeah. So language is, is fun, definitely you get older, harder to pick up.

Gene: 33:14

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's definitely, I've been on and off for probably about five years trying to learn Arabic.

Ben: 33:24

mm-hmm.

Gene: 33:25

And I get through the first chapter and then I get to the second chapter. And about midway through the second chapter is where I kind of lose focus and I forget about it for about a year, and then I try again a year later.

Ben: 33:38

What are you, what, what program or what are you using

Gene: 33:42

I don't know, I bought like Kindle books years ago for all, a whole bunch of languages including Arabic. And I thought, Arabic. I, I got nothing there, like nothing. No other, nothing else I know leads me to understand Arabic.

Ben: 33:57

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 33:58

so I thought that would be a good one to just start working. Either that or I guess Chinese. But I thought Arabic would be more interesting given that we were, mostly in the Middle East at the time. But I've tried it starting quite a few times and I, I don't get very far before I just lose focus and interest.

Ben: 34:17

Some of the interactive programs are pretty good for at least and learning languages.

Gene: 34:24

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 34:25

been looking at several cuz I want to really start the kids. Probably William here in the next year or so.

Gene: 34:33

Chinese.

Ben: 34:33

between three and four. I'm gonna

Gene: 34:36

Oh,

Ben: 34:36

Latin. Just because I think that's a great basis,

Gene: 34:39

mm-hmm.

Ben: 34:40

science, everything. There's so much, there's so many Latin roots used in technical language that

Gene: 34:47

Absolutely.

Ben: 34:48

Beneficial and it sets up for the next language that I want him to learn, which is Spanish.

Gene: 34:54

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 34:55

and if he has a propensity for it and is into it, then we will just keep adding. So my thought is start with Latin and be I, I know that and can help and we'll work up to that where he and I are decent in it. And then we won't stop Latin, but we'll add in Spanish and you. My goal would be by the time he's around 10, to have at least three languages

Gene: 35:20

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 35:21

in, in addition to English

Gene: 35:23

That'd be great.

Ben: 35:24

working on. because I think once you get to that, it becomes way easier down the line if he wants to add anymore.

Gene: 35:31

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 35:32

that, that, that would be the goal. But, know, you gotta work with the kids and the kids aren't always interested in things. So

Gene: 35:40

Oh yeah, no, that's, that's very much true. But I, I think it's certainly easier to be fluent if you learn a language before in 10.

Ben: 35:50

Absolutely. And one of the things that my parents did for me is they never really pushed subjects on me. let me fall behind in certain subjects and

Gene: 36:00

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 36:00

in others and then catch up later.

Gene: 36:02

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 36:03

When that, you don't kill a child's love for learning. And at the end of day, it all works out, right? So if I was more interested in math or history than reading I can only go so far before. Really being able to read proficiently and everything else makes me have to catch up as a child, right? I do

Gene: 36:24

Yep.

Ben: 36:25

that opens up a whole new set of doors to where literature is now very interesting to me and down that road and know, it, it's this, Everything doesn't have to progress evenly. And if you, That's one of the things that our school system today, I think. Screws kids over on because they force them to all proceed at pace, which just sucks. So for those that are struggling in a subject, it sucks because you're feeling left behind. For

Gene: 36:52

Right.

Ben: 36:53

in a subject, being held back. It it, it

Gene: 36:56

Yep.

Ben: 36:57

work except for the median average kid.

Gene: 37:00

That's what they're trying to create. the median average kid. Yeah, I totally agree with you. I, I think just thinking back to, my own time in school and stuff, it's it really is like everything's either too easy or really. That's like the majority of things fall into one of those two camps. Rarely was there a class that was right on the.

Ben: 37:25

Yeah. Which, that's. The vast, If you look at the vast majority of kids and grade distributions and everything else, school just doesn't work for the vast majority. It's actually only a minority that school really works for. those kids aren't getting much of an education. What, what is taught today? Oh, we've got a great school district. You look at the curriculum, you look at what it's teaching, you look at the product and the output, and you go, What?

Gene: 37:57

Yeah.

Ben: 37:58

People have to remember, our education system is not meant to create a classical education. It isn't meant to make and create a critical thinker. meant to produce the best factory worker possible.

Gene: 38:10

Right, and then we, and then we don't have any factories from to working,

Ben: 38:14

right?

Gene: 38:15

so they end up working on Twitter

Ben: 38:18

Yeah,

Gene: 38:18

they get to decide what the science is.

Ben: 38:24

yeah. I don't know if you've paid attention, but Twitter, Facebook, lots and lots of layoffs.

Gene: 38:29

Yeah. Oh yeah. I've been very happily paying attention.

Ben: 38:32

I, I, it's interesting to me, I'm surprised by the Facebook layoffs, Musk, already talked about coming in and firing a bunch of people at Twitter, so that's one thing. But going on with Silicon Valley that laying all these people off? And now is the repercussions of that? And how much of a, de depression of wages is going to occur in the tech sector?

Gene: 38:53

I think it's all it should. A tech sector has been out of control. Fricking Amazon paying 300 grand for starting. For developers, 600,000 for developers with 15 years of experience. It's insane. You talk about inflation and jacking up the pricing across the board when they're paying those kind of rates that trickles down and not in a good way. So if you wanna be competitive, if you're another large tech company, that's what you're gonna have to match. Cuz otherwise Amazon's gonna get your.

Ben: 39:25

Right. But now that Facebook and Twitter have flooded the market with,

Gene: 39:30

really shitty people. Yeah, exactly.

Ben: 39:33

We don't know,

Gene: 39:34

I, I'm pretty sure I, I think that there's a let's put it this way no agenda. Social is mostly tech people.

Ben: 39:43

agreed.

Gene: 39:44

if, if through an amateur conclusion of just talking to a bunch of people on there, it's, it's, I'd say 80% of the people work in a tech field and out of those, probably about a third to half are developers. And then on the other social, the the one focused on podcasting 2.0, it's like a hundred percent develop.

Ben: 40:05

Yes.

Gene: 40:05

Or let's say 95,

Ben: 40:07

Adam Curry

Gene: 40:08

minus Adam Curry and a Pollack. That's about it. Everybody else, technically the Pollack developer too, but he's just anyway, either way, it's, it's a very tech developer, heavy concentrated group. I don't think I've run across a single person that's mentioned on there that they work. At Facebook or Twitter or any of the large woke institutions.

Ben: 40:35

Yeah.

Gene: 40:36

So I think that, and when I've, like I've, I've been to the Facebook office here. I haven't been to Twitter office here, but I've been to a number of large California company offices here, just from living in Austin and having, friends and stuff. I really don't get the impression that the, where the average experience age of a developer is about six years, that they're just full of the top talent. I'm just not getting that. I think they'll hire mostly anybody and and then their attitude is we'll grow them to be good. So,

Ben: 41:13

in, know, in Agile and the whole fail fast mentality,

Gene: 41:17

Yeah.

Ben: 41:17

And getting out minimal viable product in time and don't have, So the way these software development companies are working and what

Gene: 41:27

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 41:27

they don't have to have the best people

Gene: 41:29

they don't,

Ben: 41:30

don't have one person doing a

Gene: 41:32

right?

Ben: 41:32

chunk. Everybody's doing a very

Gene: 41:34

Yep.

Ben: 41:34

chunk. The problem that that creates is with all these interdependencies and no one really having the big picture and the big idea across the board,

Gene: 41:45

Yeah,

Ben: 41:45

run into problems, troubleshooting then becomes a nightmare.

Gene: 41:49

and I'll tell you the other thing I run into, and I, I've actually run three different companies that are software, heavy software companies over the years.

Ben: 41:56

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 41:57

problem that I, I've noticed, and I never thought it would be an issue, is just creative thinking. There are people that understand the semantics of code and they can program, but I can think of a number of occasions where, there have been massive delays. I've had meetings with development team and just to walk through and see what the hell's going on and what's causing this, and then I'm the one that comes up with a solution that gets us back on track even though I'm not really in technology.

Ben: 42:31

No, but the you, you hit the nail on the head. There who, if you tell them what you. To have created.

Gene: 42:41

Hmm.

Ben: 42:41

They can figure out a way to create it,

Gene: 42:44

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 42:45

but they not have the ability to then make that next logical leap or intuitive leap or creative leap to do anything else. They're just going to be able to do exactly crank out exactly what the spec

Gene: 42:57

Or yeah, yeah. I think that's, that's exactly right is it's, it's what the spec sheet says and not what the spec sheet is trying to address. So what and I do this in business too, and maybe it just seems like it's really easy for me cuz I do it all the time. But the idea of just taking a step outside and, and looking. Things from a different perspective is one of the first things I do in any project is okay, we know what we're trying to achieve. We have an idea of how we wanna achieve it. Is there a better way to do this?

Ben: 43:34

Yeah, that definitely is or can we use this in a different way to accomplish the goal

Gene: 43:41

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 43:42

and

Gene: 43:42

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 43:44

And that's, that's one thing that grew up, and this is something that a lot of people grow up doing, but. Using things in unintended ways and

Gene: 43:54

Right.

Ben: 43:54

creative solutions. And that's a skill, and it's a skill that has to be exercised in order to at.

Gene: 44:01

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 44:02

It's something that kids do very naturally. That, again, we knock out of kids pretty early,

Gene: 44:10

mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ben: 44:12

When my son takes two blocks or three blocks together and he makes, know, one of'em is long and then two of'em are skinny, so he makes an L shape for a gun and runs around with that. That's a

Gene: 44:22

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 44:23

It looks nothing like a real gun, in his imagination and doing something that wasn't intended. So,

Gene: 44:29

Yeah, exactly. And I think all kids go through this because this is the formulation of our brain is analyzing things and it's actually very similar to the way that AI is doing it. And AI right now is, About on the level of a one year old, I would say it's right around there. I could go on and on about the AI and kids, but I'm gonna skip over that. We, maybe we'll do that at separate episodes in time. What else going on? We'll talk about the, the elections here, obviously. I was pretty happy with myself. I didn't talk about Ukraine or Russia at all on Unreal hunting.

Ben: 45:10

Ah, good. You saved it all for

Gene: 45:12

for this. Yeah. So, I know that there's been quite a bit of mainstream media talking about how Ukraines managed to kick the Russians out of was it Carve? I can't remember.

Ben: 45:28

Yep.

Gene: 45:28

And that they're all retreating and they're, they're clearly winning the war. It's just a matter of time until Ukraine kicks the Russians out of the rest of the places that used to be Ukraine and then goes in and takes over Moscow. So it's interesting,

Ben: 45:45

It takes over Moscow.

Gene: 45:46

It's only like a couple hundred kilometers out, they might as well.

Ben: 45:49

Uhhuh.

Gene: 45:50

So it's interesting because there seems to be really nobody on the US side interviewed on mainstream media that has any concept of strategy. Everybody is just looking at things like they're watching a movie.

Ben: 46:08

I

Gene: 46:08

happened. This is good.

Ben: 46:10

yeah,

Gene: 46:10

nobody's thinking about strategic. Why would they pull out of some place?

Ben: 46:17

well, And evacuate the civilian. They didn't just pull out, they evacuated the civilian

Gene: 46:21

Yeah, exactly. Now what, what, what does that mean? And should you really be celebrating?

Ben: 46:28

So yeah, to hold it, it's not a strategically important city necessarily. The big thing that I'm worried about right now is UN is talking about sending in blue helmets and yeah, that would be bad.

Gene: 46:43

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 46:45

So,

Gene: 46:46

Yeah.

Ben: 46:47

Because Russia's going to retake that city, Russia's going to retake a lot of this territory. As soon as there is a freeze and they can move massive amounts of troops, they're going to.

Gene: 46:59

yeah. It's, it, the, the idea of sending blue helmets from literally the same army that you're fighting with doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Ben: 47:11

Technically not fighting with,

Gene: 47:13

There are

Ben: 47:13

this still is a proxy

Gene: 47:15

in the Ukrainian army. It is made up entirely of foreigners at this point.

Ben: 47:21

Yeah.

Gene: 47:22

the Ukrainian male army level population has been decimated.

Ben: 47:27

I, I I think it's been reduced by more than 10% gene.

Gene: 47:30

I think it's Virginia more than 50% right now. There are no men left in Ukraine. It's, it's only women and children, and so the people that are fighting under the guise of Ukraine are not Ukrainian nationals. There. There's a lot of Polish people there. There's a lot of people that are from other old ye European countries.

Ben: 47:53

a lot of contractors.

Gene: 47:54

There's tons of contractors and contractors on both sides too.

Ben: 47:58

Yeah.

Gene: 47:59

They're not just on the US side. Yeah. Al-Qaeda is getting a nice paycheck out there. That's true. Which is

Ben: 48:06

weapons access to weapons, What could go wrong with that

Gene: 48:09

Yeah, not nothing clearly. The good news, the silver lining is at least Al Qaeda's not fighting in Syria.

Ben: 48:15

Yeah.

Gene: 48:16

So it's good for Syria. This war's been very good for Syria,

Ben: 48:19

It takes the pressure off.

Gene: 48:21

Uhhuh, Uhhuh, But I think that sending in blue helmets is just simply a way to crank the war up to 11,

Ben: 48:32

yeah, I

Gene: 48:33

obviously Russia's not gonna make any exceptions for blue helmets.

Ben: 48:37

well, brush has already said, We're not going to give you security guarantees. And they're saying why not? We're an independent and neutral force. No, you're not. And and what's gonna happen is if the UN sends in the blue hillmans and Russia says we're not guaranteeing your safety. And it's an active war zone, when a group gets killed, it's gonna be bad. And I could see the Ukrainians. Purposefully isolating and killing a group of blue helmets and going, Look what the Russians did.

Gene: 49:04

Absolutely. I could see the cranes literally dropping bombs in blue helmets and saying, Look what the Russians did. Cuz they've done that in a bunch of other places, including the nuclear power plant.

Ben: 49:13

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 49:13

They're, they're shell, the nuclear power plant to show how evil Russia is

Ben: 49:18

Yes.

Gene: 49:19

for showing their own the, a place they're occupying. Yeah.

Ben: 49:22

Yeah. But, Russia's distributing Viagra too, so

Gene: 49:26

Oh, that's

Ben: 49:26

there's that

Gene: 49:27

Cause you, they have money for that. There, there was, I, I listened to an interview with Colonel McGregor

Ben: 49:34

Yeah.

Gene: 49:36

and I can't remember his first name.

Ben: 49:38

on Unredacted.

Gene: 49:39

Unredacted, Did you see that one? Yeah.

Ben: 49:41

I did. I I listened to them some. I. They're the kind of people and their points of view. That does make me wonder if they're not getting a paycheck from somewhere.

Gene: 49:54

Oh really?

Ben: 49:54

Oh, I, I think they're very much disinformation esque in lots of ways on some subjects.

Gene: 50:01

Like what?

Ben: 50:02

So for those who don't know unredacted.in c they've got a YouTube channel. They're right at over a million subscribers right now, which their audience far in a way exceeds ours. Yeah.

Gene: 50:13

A little bit, Yeah. Now there it's, it's Clayton Morris who was a Fox. Yeah. But I don't think Natalie was on anything. I haven't seen her

Ben: 50:21

yeah, yeah. She

Gene: 50:22

used to be on Fox.

Ben: 50:23

yeah, she was on a different channel. But she's been, they, they're both mainstream media

Gene: 50:28

a producer. I didn't realize she was an anchor.

Ben: 50:31

I don't know that she was an anchor, but she was a reporter at some

Gene: 50:33

Oh, okay. Okay. But I know she's done a lot of production work. So she's actually like on their show, she's the one that does all the research and her husband Clayton, is just the talking head.

Ben: 50:45

Yeah.

Gene: 50:46

and you can tell too, cuz she'll, kind of slap around a little bit if he starts wandering off in the, in the wrong direction.

Ben: 50:54

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 50:55

It is kind of fun watching a quote unquote news show where it's a husband and wife team instead of two random people because like they can give each other a lot more shit which is enjoyable as a viewer.

Ben: 51:08

Yeah. Sometimes their production quality is interesting, given that they have two full-time paid producers and anyway, they, so they obviously had some seed money or something to start this, right? They're.

Gene: 51:21

Clayton was making like 800 grand a year for quite a few, quite a few years.

Ben: 51:25

Ah, okay. And he's

Gene: 51:28

So they got some

Ben: 51:29

quite a few years, he also is a huge real estate

Gene: 51:31

rich. I don't think they're super rich, but they're definitely millionaires.

Ben: 51:36

Yeah. Anyway, and they're living in Portugal right now, which is

Gene: 51:39

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 51:40

So you have usx pats that are former mainstream media, and now they're coming out with opinions that are, very in line a lot with a lot of gene and i's opinions, but just some of the,

Gene: 51:56

libertarian.

Ben: 51:56

I wouldn't go that far at all. They're, they're anti-war, which I'm fine with. But the, anyway, the, just some of the talking points and some of the things that they

Gene: 52:06

Anti Covid, Antibi government.

Ben: 52:10

Natalie's not Antibi government at all. It. Anyway. I just don't see it

Gene: 52:15

she is. Anyway, whatever. So what, So what were we, we were watching that, so we both watched it. Right? So getting back to the

Ben: 52:21

And, and McGregor is fantastic. I I, I think a lot of that, man,

Gene: 52:26

Yeah. McGregor seems like he's genuine. Like

Ben: 52:30

And he's still plugged in. He's obviously still plugged in.

Gene: 52:33

you think?

Ben: 52:35

Yes, a

Gene: 52:35

I don't know. Okay. But he, he seems to be he's not reading a script, is what I'm getting to. He seems like he's actually saying the words he's, that are coming out of his head. And I think that where was I going with this? So McGregor was on and he talked about what, I forgot what the hell we were talking about.

Ben: 52:56

Ukraine

Gene: 52:57

Yeah, I know that. But what was he saying? God damn our, the little tangent we went on talking about the show itself made me black out on what the actual

Ben: 53:09

Right. Douglas McGregor. Yeah.

Gene: 53:12

Yeah. He talked about

Ben: 53:14

of the strategic moves and seeing this is

Gene: 53:16

Strategy.

Ben: 53:16

a strategic move. He talked about how in Russia right now, the Russian people aren't happy about this because they don't see it as a strategic move either. And Putin having the ability to ignore that right now politically has been beneficial. Yeah.

Gene: 53:32

Yeah. I don't remember god damn it. Oh, yeah. I, I, I have no idea what I was gonna get to with him talking, so, at least we talked about Natalie and Clayton

Ben: 53:40

Yeah. So he was in the Army from 76 to 2004. Saw action in the first Gulf War in Coso o. He's a pretty interesting guy. Yeah.

Gene: 53:53

Yeah. He is an interesting guy for sure.

Ben: 53:55

He was ambassador to Germany

Gene: 53:58

I didn't know

Ben: 53:59

Trump. Yeah. Nominated. So like I said, he's been, I would say he's still very much plugged in.

Gene: 54:06

That explains why I saw him talking to a bunch of Germans.

Ben: 54:09

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 54:10

I didn't realize he was an ambassador to Germany. Interesting.

Ben: 54:15

Yeah. So he, he first started talking about this back in 2014 on

Gene: 54:19

yeah.

Ben: 54:20

and, he's been involved,

Gene: 54:22

Ah, he's compromised rt.

Ben: 54:24

Yeah.

Gene: 54:25

Anybody that's ever been on RT is clearly just carrying water for Putin.

Ben: 54:30

Yeah.

Gene: 54:31

Clearly, Clearly. Alright either way, the, the, the point I guess is, Oh, I know what it was, is he said in that interview that when he talked to some of the, some of the people you don't see talking about it on TV because they're actually still working in the US military. And the question came up, I was like let's say the US. Openly ended up going into Ukraine that, whether it was because the blue helmets were getting shut up or somebody decided that, it was the right time, but whatever the trigger was, regardless of the trigger, if the US is actually sending people to Ukraine and in trying to quote unquote liberate Ukraine from Russia,

Ben: 55:16

Mm.

Gene: 55:17

what would be the expected human toll on this? What would be the expected casualties? And whoever the guy he was talking to, I think he was a general of some type, said realistically, if US goes in, given to what we know about Russia and their capacity, because obviously at that point, Russia is not on a military action. It's, it's going to, it's at full, full mobilization, which means 2 million troops minimum. I said we'd probably be looking at 50,000 dead Americans every week now in the US eyes, I'm sure that means a hundred thousand dead Russians every week as well. But think it'd be a hard, a hard thing to sell the American public with 50,000 dead Americans in the ages of 18 to 24 every week.

Ben: 56:09

Yeah, I

Gene: 56:10

what? For what, exactly what, What is it about Ukraine that makes it worthwhile to lose thousands of American kids? I think that would be the question.

Ben: 56:21

I don't think it does. I don't, I don't think there is anything, and I think now that we're post midterms, I think the support for Ukraine starts to wane

Gene: 56:31

I think now that we're post midterms and the lame duck president can do anything he wants as commander in chief cuz there's no consequences for. Unless he thinks he's gonna run again,

Ben: 56:42

which he does, he's already said that he's already technically declared, so,

Gene: 56:48

he said he's gonna think about it during Christmas. Technically.

Ben: 56:52

Okay. He's filed paperwork, so yes, he could back off of that, but the paperwork has been filed.

Gene: 56:58

Really? It's not what he said. He said he is gonna think about it during Christmas and make a decision by January.

Ben: 57:03

Okay. I will look it up. But Biden has filed for reelection.

Gene: 57:07

Hmm. Interesting. Either way. I think that's, that, that's certainly my concern is that if he's not running, he, anything having to do with money he has to go to Congress for, which is gonna be tough with a Republican house, but anything having to do with. Operational control. And as commander in chief, which means all of the military, it's gonna be a lot easier for him to send troops to Ukraine now than to get money for Ukraine.

Ben: 57:38

Yeah, indeed. But man, I don't know. First of all, authorization for use of military force, Congress could poll. So there's that. And I know we haven't declared a war since World War ii, if Congress pulls, basically the authorization for military use of military force, then

Gene: 57:58

But the Congress can't pull that with a divided Congress

Ben: 58:02

Yeah, you would have to have a veto proof majority

Gene: 58:05

uhhuh.

Ben: 58:05

be able to

Gene: 58:06

Exactly. So that's not really a thing.

Ben: 58:09

Yeah, I,

Gene: 58:10

We just talked about it. It's impossible to have a veto proof majority right now.

Ben: 58:13

I understand that. I think if you really look at a scenario where Biden goes to get us into that sort of position, a lot of Democrats might say, Hey, yeah, let's not let Bum and Joe Biden over there, the guy who is obviously cognitively declining, get us into World War ii. I, I think, I don't think the Democrats are that crazy, but we'll see. By the way, I did send you the link. He filed an August, August 30th.

Gene: 58:40

Oh, interesting. Okay. So he, what, He doesn't know what he's talking about then, because yesterday he said that

Ben: 58:45

This is a shocker to anyone.

Gene: 58:48

and make a decision. He is the president of the, the, the most powerful man on earth as they used to say

Ben: 58:54

Oh, it's terrifying, isn't it?

Gene: 58:56

it. In some ways it just goes to show you that it's inconsequential who the president actually is.

Ben: 59:02

R it shows you how consequential it is.

Gene: 59:05

yes and no, but like you running two years with Biden. And it's not been a great two years by any stretch, but also it's not people's salaries are being held up because they're waiting on a signature. It's, he, he has managed to make a lot of bad choices and it'll take some time and money to get out of those choices, but, but he hasn't really there hasn't been a point that I can think of where his mental decline has led to immediate consequences. It's all long-term shit.

Ben: 59:44

Sure it's all long term shit, but it's all long term shit that really kinda matters and really, it's gonna suck for a long time. And even if Trump or DeSantis get in in 2024, it's not gonna be an immediate turnaround. It's just not. It's gonna

Gene: 59:59

Oh, no, no. It, it's definitely going to be a finger pointing game. Basically showing how the Republican president is incapable of doing anything because they're stuck trying to get us out of the hole. That Joe dug?

Ben: 1:00:14

I mean it, this is exact, so this is very analogous to Carter Reagan, right? Reagan's first term, the Democrats blamed him for a lot of shit. That was really due to the Carter years. And then after, after Reagan got into his second term and the last part of the eighties really pulled out and did well Bush made it into office very easily because, he was writing that Reagan wave,

Gene: 1:00:43

Yeah.

Ben: 1:00:43

then he screwed it up by not being principled and lying,

Gene: 1:00:46

Yeah, a number of things that he screwed up for sure.

Ben: 1:00:49

He did not get reelected because of the read My Lipe, No new taxes, then

Gene: 1:00:54

I know.

Ben: 1:00:55

and,

Gene: 1:00:55

voting for Rosborough.

Ben: 1:00:57

Yeah. The ironic thing is that Clinton and a lot of the Clinton years was really, not because of Clinton, but because of what was set up by Reagan.

Gene: 1:01:07

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:01:08

So, Yeah.

Gene: 1:01:10

Yep. No, that's that's a good point. So obviously there are long term consequences related to this stuff, but But, oh, it's speaking of things that Joe Biden screwed up, do you see that the the courts held that Biden's executive order for canceling student debt, debt is unconstitutional?

Ben: 1:01:30

Yep. And I wish they would've done that, a little sooner to some of the millennials and Gen Zers who voted the way they voted. Might not have, but hey, whatever.

Gene: 1:01:41

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:01:42

Yeah. There's no way that Biden can. Yeah, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, everybody has already said, I would love to, but I do not have the authority to do so. It, it was just a buying votes, political maneuver. It was never an intended thing. So yeah.

Gene: 1:02:04

But hey, the price of gas is less now than it was when he came to office.

Ben: 1:02:08

Oh, man. Yeah. How do you figure that? There's just, Oh, I know, I know. There are just so many gas, how can he,

Gene: 1:02:16

The, the, the crazy thing is he would still win if he ran tomorrow.

Ben: 1:02:21

No, I don't think so. Not at this point.

Gene: 1:02:24

Okay.

Ben: 1:02:25

We'll find

Gene: 1:02:25

we just saw what the election's no, I think, I think there's enough ballots pre-printed already for his victory that would ensure that it happens. I don't think, and this is both coming from that article that was in was it The Atlantic or whatever the article was that talked about the fortification of the last election where essentially it was confirmed the. The Democrats said, Yeah, we, we got this. No matter what, Trump is not gonna be in office. And I think that that protocol, those decisions set up all future elections moving forward for them. There, There's not going to be what Republicans would consider a fair election ever again in this country moving forward. Because the, the playbook's been rewritten and updated to say that in every election, this is what you guys do.

Ben: 1:03:21

In, in what was it Washoe County in Reno area. The livestream cameras for the county went dark for eight hours. The cameras actually went down, but the time code and everything, it was still streaming. And oh no, there's no malfeasance here, but oh, yeah, overnight we found a whole bunch more democratic ballots that, make him jump into the lead.

Gene: 1:03:43

Yep.

Ben: 1:03:43

Man. It, it's one of those

Gene: 1:03:45

to expect this. You have to expect this. This is gonna happen every election.

Ben: 1:03:50

It's one of those things where there's that much smoke. Improving, it's gonna be very difficult. And part of the reason why election fraud is quite frankly, so easy in the US is because we do have a secret ballot. There is no way for me to go on and look and say, Okay, my vote been Sterling. Yes, that is what I intended to do. That's somewhat problematic.

Gene: 1:04:10

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:04:11

So anyway, I don't know. I think that DeSantis cleaned up the vote a lot in Florida, and I think you see the benefits of that. Now, how to do that nationally, that's gonna be very difficult because it is a state by state task. And really what it comes down to is we've got one more election in us, I think before. We either get so disenfranchised that we roll over and give up as, the minority party, I guess, Or you really start looking at civil divorce.

Gene: 1:04:48

Yeah. And you have to take a drink every time Tim Pool says Civil War. But I think we've been talking about it for about as long as Tim Pool has as well. The stats, last stats I looked up is that right now in Texas, Over 50% of not just the voters, but over 50% of all residents polled say that they would prefer Texas independence.

Ben: 1:05:13

It's getting up there. Or the way I

Gene: 1:05:16

is that number need to climb before something happens?

Ben: 1:05:19

the, the way I saw it phrased would be open to a referendum on it. I, there needs to be a referendum and it, it needs to happen. And it may go down in flames, but just, you

Gene: 1:05:32

But let's say the referendum shows that over 50% of Texans want to be independent, Then what?

Ben: 1:05:40

then the governor and the state legislature should immediately draft articles of se succession removing us from the United States of America once again,

Gene: 1:05:48

So it would be the state legislature that needs to draft that and vote.

Ben: 1:05:53

yes.

Gene: 1:05:55

Okay.

Ben: 1:05:56

There is no legal mechanism post-Civil War for that to necessarily occur. There's a great book on this. Was Davis a traitor? In the subtitle is, Did the right cession exist before the Civil War? And it's literally the man who had Davis been brought up on treason charges. It was the lawyer who was preparing to defend him his rationale. And it's, it's fantastic. And there's a reason why they didn't bring Davis to trial on for treason because it would've been politically damning for reconstruction and for the union. The fact of the matter

Gene: 1:06:34

Jefferson Davis was the president of the

Ben: 1:06:37

confederacy.

Gene: 1:06:38

Confederacy. Yeah.

Ben: 1:06:39

And here, here, here's the thing. Grant did not believe that you had, that the states had a right to succeed after the 13 colonies because the colonies paid for their entry and that there was a debt there that couldn't be repaid. And that's bullshit. Now, what it comes down to is succession removal of one body politic from another. Ultimately comes down to, to a kinetic engagement. It's going to come down to a fight. Now, whether that becomes war or not depends on lots of things. Through Grants Logic in mind, the Civil War was always going to be fought through other people's thoughts and minds. There was no reason for it to be a civil war. The South did not want to fight the north. They did not want to engage in hostilities. They just wanted to go there on merry way

Gene: 1:07:31

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:07:33

that you know. I do not believe in the Constitution being a death pact. I just don't, the idea that there is no right to succession. This country was founded on succession. We su we succeeded from the British Empire through the Declaration of Independence. Now we had to fight a war to secure that. And I think anytime that you go to remove yourself from a further body politic, that you're risking that and you have to be prepared for it. I don't believe that there will ever be peaceful divorce of the United States, but I do believe that if they keep going the way they are, there is going to have to be a divide and breakup.

Gene: 1:08:12

Yeah. Yeah. So

Ben: 1:08:14

at the election map. The election map says it all.

Gene: 1:08:18

Yeah. And, and having the handful. Of high population density West Coast and East Coast cities, effectively now stealing the elections for the entire country and controlling decisions that affect the entire country, where the majority of that country voted against them, I think is gonna lead to actual violence.

Ben: 1:08:42

and when we say majority of the country, we mean territory,

Gene: 1:08:46

Yeah, Territorial

Ben: 1:08:46

necessarily population. So there is that.

Gene: 1:08:50

Now, granted, Bill Gates owns a good chunk of that red territory,

Ben: 1:08:54

ironically enough, yeah,

Gene: 1:08:57

so, I'm sure his argument would be I own it, therefore all those votes should be counted as what I vote. But it, and I'm only being half kidding here I, I think that. For a lot of the large corporate as well as private land ownerships I think that they would have a thing to say because all of them don't live where they own the land. All of them live in the blue areas.

Ben: 1:09:21

Yeah. It's going to be an interesting time if we do ever get a referendum and it's in the positive for succession. It will be interesting to see how the state legislature then responds. And that's why that there has not been a referendum put on the ballot yet, because I think there is enough sentiment among the people that there's a damn good chance it might succeed. And I don't think any, I think very few of our representatives in the state legislature are brave enough to face that. And Abbott sure as hell is not.

Gene: 1:09:56

No am but I, I'm really pissed that he got re.

Ben: 1:10:01

I, I, I would take him, I, I've, you would prefer Beto

Gene: 1:10:07

I did not vote for Abbot.

Ben: 1:10:09

Okay. I, I couldn't vote for Beto.

Gene: 1:10:11

completely betrayed what we, what we stand for here in Texas.

Ben: 1:10:16

I agree with you.

Gene: 1:10:17

and the voting for a guy with an R that that betrays you is not any better than voting for a Democrat.

Ben: 1:10:24

I voted against him in the primary that, and that you, we have to primary him, but I'm not gonna let Beto get in over Abbott. So I, I was very adamantly against Abbott. Abbott and the primary

Gene: 1:10:38

But let's say Beto got in, our legislature is vastly Republican.

Ben: 1:10:43

Right. And Dan Patrick was going to win the Lieutenant Governor's race, which in the state, Texas, the

Gene: 1:10:48

what exactly would Beta would be able to.

Ben: 1:10:52

Really just enforcement. He wouldn't really be able to do much

Gene: 1:10:55

Basically lack of enforcement. He'd be able to not enforce certain laws. That'd be about it. Yeah,

Ben: 1:11:01

But four years of that, it could be very damaging depending on what

Gene: 1:11:05

it could. I'm just really tired of having rhinos just right on the coattails because they're better than the alternative.

Ben: 1:11:12

I agree. And I wish the Libertarian candidate would've been a viable option, but

Gene: 1:11:17

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:11:18

Look, I agree with you and I am not particularly fond of Abbott, but I think that Abbott will be better than Beto was. And again, I think that next

Gene: 1:11:31

he will be, but I just don't like that.

Ben: 1:11:34

I agree and next time there's a gubernatorial primary, we need to really have some good candidates to go up against him and win.

Gene: 1:11:42

Yeah. And I, I, I, I definitely voted against him in the primary and I thought more people would given, given fricking covid and nope, he just, he had a very large majority in the primary. So it's, it, it kind of sad again, this, this whole voting for the hour, the D is equally bad on both sides. The Democrats don't mind voting in a guy with no brain, and the Republicans don't mind voting in somebody that that's a total.

Ben: 1:12:12

I, I, I think that I wouldn't call Abbot necessarily full on Rhino. I think what he did on the lockdowns and everything was not as great as DeSantis, but I think everybody was, everybody fell for the same shit like across the nation other than there's one. That I can think of that didn't, and that's nom up in Dakota, one of the Dakotas Alaska lockdown.

Gene: 1:12:40

Mm. Did they know? I don't think they

Ben: 1:12:43

Christy Nom was the only one who didn't, to my knowledge.

Gene: 1:12:46

Yeah.

Ben: 1:12:47

So, and she's got enough of a backing in that state that she could get away with it. Had Abbott not locked down, he, he might not have won reelection. The, I, we are of a mindset that it was bad and everything else. I think the vast majority of people thought it was necessary at the

Gene: 1:13:05

I don't, I, How could he have not won the reelection? The other place that shut down and quickly reversed the trend was Florida. And that governor won by a landslide.

Ben: 1:13:14

And I think had Abbott reversed the trend quickly and opened up sooner had he had the bravery to do what DeSantis did we wouldn't be talking bad about him. Right.

Gene: 1:13:25

And, and he, all it would take is for him to have admitted that it was a mistake to lock down, and then he's corrected it by opening up quickly. That would've been it, That would've been all it was. But he didn't do that.

Ben: 1:13:39

no. And he's damaged himself politically

Gene: 1:13:44

he definitely lost my vote at that point. And speaking of people who have lost votes, so we talk about Trump,

Ben: 1:13:51

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:13:52

so he definitely has lost my vote with what he's been doing now post-election.

Ben: 1:13:58

What's he been doing post-election that makes you

Gene: 1:14:00

bad mouthing DeSantis for, for No, immediate

Ben: 1:14:05

What has he really said?

Gene: 1:14:07

He's, what he said is he called him a des sanctimonious, and that effectively Trump is fully responsible for creating him.

Ben: 1:14:17

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:14:17

And when when asked, when DeSantis was asked not to run, his reply was, I haven't considered it yet. And that to Trump is like a backs stab. It's fuck you, dude. You're not, you're not the shoeing, guaranteed nominee for the Republican party. You fucked up. He fucked up most of his term. He didn't do anything he promised to do that. We can, we can list. He did very little. We can list the things that I actually did, but, okay, where's that fucking wall? Where's the, where's the wall on the Mexican border?

Ben: 1:14:52

Partially built.

Gene: 1:14:53

Partially built. Yeah. So he didn't do what he said he was gonna do.

Ben: 1:14:56

He redirected as many funds and everything else as he could. Congress

Gene: 1:15:00

he had a full cabinet of crappy appointees that did everything they could to make sure that nothing that he promised got done.

Ben: 1:15:09

so Trump is really good at firing, not so much hiring.

Gene: 1:15:13

He exactly, he absolutely sucks at hiring, which is why he is good at firing is because he doesn't know how to hire

Ben: 1:15:20

But, but here's the thing. I think Trump is a very smart man. I think he would learn from it. My concern with Trump running again,

Gene: 1:15:26

He's 80 years old, dude. He's 80 years old. He's not gonna learn anything from

Ben: 1:15:31

he's a very spry 80 year old

Gene: 1:15:34

doesn't matter if he's spry in the bedroom. I'm just talking about his capacity to do things.

Ben: 1:15:39

I would know. But anyway, here, here's the thing. I, I think that there is some strategy that's going on a little bit between DeSantis and Trump.

Gene: 1:15:50

He's not getting in.

Ben: 1:15:52

Hold on. I don't think that Trump really has said anything damaging to, to, or about DeSantis.

Gene: 1:16:00

He's damaged his reputation. Absolutely. 100%. They talk about on Tim Cast, I'm 100% of that

Ben: 1:16:06

DeSantis,

Gene: 1:16:08

He's damaged his own reputation by lashing out at the most successful race of the last election.

Ben: 1:16:16

Agreed, But what, what

Gene: 1:16:18

Desant did and then immediately Trump lashes out.

Ben: 1:16:21

Okay. When DeSantis beats Trump in the primary and Trump then backs him,

Gene: 1:16:28

He's not gonna back him.

Ben: 1:16:30

I guarantee you, you

Gene: 1:16:31

I guarantee he won't. He's dude, Trump's only been a Republican for five years. He was a democrat for a 50.

Ben: 1:16:39

Eh, Okay.

Gene: 1:16:40

What do you mean? Ah, that's a, That's an actual fact. Look it up. It's clearly available. He's talked about that.

Ben: 1:16:46

okay.

Gene: 1:16:47

He's barely a

Ben: 1:16:47

was Reagan.

Gene: 1:16:49

Trump ran as a Republican predominantly because the Democrats said, No way in hell are we gonna let you run. It was a toss up for him.

Ben: 1:16:58

I, I, Again, I don't think Trump is a Republican or a Democrat. I think he's a populist, and I don't think a populist is a bad thing.

Gene: 1:17:06

I don't think it popul well, but I think DeSantis is a better populist.

Ben: 1:17:11

I potentially, but I am very concerned with DeSantis. I don't want someone who's acting like a populace, but really isn't. So,

Gene: 1:17:23

Okay. And what would lead you to think that that's him,

Ben: 1:17:27

okay. So he was Freedom Caucus. There are lots of good things that appear, but the people, when Liz Cheney starts talking about the San and defending him, that worries me.

Gene: 1:17:41

That that is a very strategic thing to do?

Ben: 1:17:45

You, how many layers of, how many layers of deception do we find reasonable?

Gene: 1:17:50

I, I don't think there's any surprise to Lynn, Liz, Cheney, or anybody else of that ilk to know that she's not popular with the Republican party.

Ben: 1:18:00

Okay.

Gene: 1:18:01

if she lashes out at the person that is super popular with the Republican party right now by saying, Oh yeah, no, I totally support him. I think he'd be right, that it is almost inconceivable that she wouldn't know what the result of that statement would lead to. If you're not popular and you want to take somebody down, don't say something bad about'em. Say something good about them because your non popularity is going to bleed through and transfer to that person. And I don't think you have to be playing 3D chess to know that. That's 2D chess.

Ben: 1:18:35

so you could say the same thing about Trump. He knows he is as hated as he is, and if he glams on and says, Yes, DeSantis is great, then the media's gonna hate on

Gene: 1:18:45

Trump thinks he's hated. Trump thinks he's loved.

Ben: 1:18:48

No, Trump knows The media hates him and it's gonna be contrarian to him in every which way.

Gene: 1:18:54

Yeah. I don't, I don't know, man.

Ben: 1:18:55

I, I think the simplest answer is that

Gene: 1:18:57

I'm definitely not voting for him.

Ben: 1:18:59

I would, I would have to watch the primaries and see what goes on. I, I can see myself voting for Trump again. And I can see myself voting for DeSantis. We'll see who else runs. I think if if I ran De Paul runs, then Rand would probably have my vote over any of the rest.

Gene: 1:19:16

Yeah. It'd be a guaranteed loss, but I'd do the same thing. I'd probably vote for Rand Paul, but there's no way a guy with that face is getting elected as US President. I'm sorry. It's just not gonna happen if, if women didn't

Ben: 1:19:28

isn't exactly,

Gene: 1:19:29

if women didn't vote, it'd be a whole different issue.

Ben: 1:19:32

which by the way, we, we kinda, you, you sent me, you bootlegged a

Gene: 1:19:38

I didn't bootleg, I paid for,

Ben: 1:19:39

Right.

Gene: 1:19:40

You're the bootlegger. I'm the one who paid for

Ben: 1:19:43

sent it to me. Oh. But hey, Milos

Gene: 1:19:48

So let's talk about it. Milo. Okay. Finish the Trump conversation. My guess my point on, on that is Trump, who I voted for, served the purpose to some extent that I wanted him to serve, which is the bull in the China shop, the unknown quantity, the non-politician, the guy who's never been in office, ever coming in to break the pattern as the candidate. So he did that. He served this, I had higher hopes for him, which he didn't achieve, which included things like pardoning, Assange included things like getting Getting more good civil service people in firing what he's supposed to. Good at the bad civil service people. He didn't do that. There's the majority of the civil service men. When I say civil service, fbi, cia all, all the nsa dhs, all these organizations that effectively have the ability to affect the lives of regular Americans negatively. He didn't do any of that. The ATF is more egregious day than it's been in many years, so that it, it's not moved in, like none of these organizations moved in the right direction while Trump was in office.

Ben: 1:21:08

Trump is partially to blame for the ATF because of his moves on BU stocks after the, the Las Vegas shooting, which by the way I sent you a video of talking about the Vegas

Gene: 1:21:22

watch that video, man.

Ben: 1:21:24

Why not?

Gene: 1:21:25

It, Or is that a different video? I couldn't watch. You sent me some video of a, a chick that does that thing,

Ben: 1:21:32

No, no, no, no. This was a guy, the guy, the way it starts is the girlfriend is on the phone with her boyfriend and she says, What's on your mind? And then he goes off about the Vegas shooting in a brilliant way. I'll resend it to you,

Gene: 1:21:46

oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't watch that.

Ben: 1:21:47

yeah, the, the whole Vegas shooting thing, which doesn't get revisited enough. And the

Gene: 1:21:53

We've talked about it. It, it

Ben: 1:21:54

we have, but.

Gene: 1:21:55

mostly a arms deal gone wrong or something.

Ben: 1:21:58

Yeah, but there's, there's lots of points. But regardless of what happened there, the aftermath and the reality of what the Trump administration did was one of the bad things that Trump did. I think that, and, sending of some tomahawks into Syria were not great moves.

Gene: 1:22:16

Between the whole Covid approach that he had and what you mentioned with the bump sex. I think Trump is very, very likely to go the wrong way from a libertarian standpoint on an awful lot of issues if he thinks the wind is blowing that direction.

Ben: 1:22:35

So I, I think, I think Covid we. You can go a couple different ways. At the very least, it was a crisis that the deep state and the party apparatus on both sides utilized to their full value and

Gene: 1:22:55

Authoritarianism, authoritarianism won Bigly

Ben: 1:22:59

indeed. And that's part of, you have to realize that the Republicans and Democrats, the, the deep state of both of those parties are both going the same direction, right? They're, they're just taking slightly different roots. But at their heart of hearts, if the underlying powers that be could, they would be as authoritarian as China. And I, Justin Juro famously talking about the Covid, China lockdowns and everything said the quiet part out loud, you

Gene: 1:23:30

he did. Yeah. Which just goes to show you how safe he thinks he is.

Ben: 1:23:35

Which is insanity.

Gene: 1:23:37

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:23:37

Oh my God. It's insanity.

Gene: 1:23:39

And yet they keep voting him in.

Ben: 1:23:41

Yeah.

Gene: 1:23:42

So, And by they, the legislature, cuz in Canadian land they don't have direct elections. They have the PM chosen by the legislature.

Ben: 1:23:51

It's a parliamentary system. Yes.

Gene: 1:23:53

Yeah. So, okay, so let's move on to Milo

Ben: 1:24:00

Which, by the way, you ruined my segue because we were just talking about women voting and that being why brand Appal couldn't get elected and Milo is again, he wants to disenfranchise all women.

Gene: 1:24:13

well, clearly, cuz that's what gay may want gay men want is to disenfranchise

Ben: 1:24:19

He's not gay anymore

Gene: 1:24:20

He is so gay. Oh, first of all, he is the gayest gay dude out there. And, and if you watch, how do you say he's not gay? They asked him, So are you dating women now? Are you having sex with women? And, and he's No, no, I still, I'm still really, really into guys. It's just, I'm just not having sex.

Ben: 1:24:38

Because he had said he was reformed and since he found God,

Gene: 1:24:43

Yeah. He found God, yes.

Ben: 1:24:45

statements that he has made.

Gene: 1:24:47

Exactly. So anyway, super

Ben: 1:24:49

for those who don't know, my unops is the troll of trolls. He is the king of all trolls.

Gene: 1:24:56

Dunno about that. I think Milo is he got a lot of notoriety. First of all, the guy has a fucking ego of the same size as Trump.

Ben: 1:25:06

Yes, but he also has the IQ to back it

Gene: 1:25:09

he does not. Absolutely guaranteed 100% does not. I don't know why people think he's intelligent. He is not intelligent. What he is is brazen. He has much, much like Shapiro. He leaves no time between when somebody that he's in conversation with, stops speaking and when he starts speaking, there's zero interval there. But if you actually dissect what he's saying, it is not intelligence. It's just rapid fire emotion.

Ben: 1:25:43

Do you feel the same way about Shapiro?

Gene: 1:25:45

No, I think Shapiro's more intelligent, absolutely Shapiro's more intelligent. I do think that Shapiro has an element of that, but but Shapiro has demonstrated to intellect in other ways, like playing violin for example, being a lawyer and playing chess, doing things that require a certain IQ level to be able to accomplish. Milo has none of that. He is exclusively known for his big mouth

Ben: 1:26:14

Yes.

Gene: 1:26:14

and not just for sucking cock with that mouth, but for throwing out expels

Ben: 1:26:20

And

Gene: 1:26:20

and if he happens to be right some of the time. That's great. And it was, it's fun having him be bashing Democrats, but his absolute infatuation with Daddy Trump as he calls him.

Ben: 1:26:35

That was a phrase that he used.

Gene: 1:26:37

is borderline sickening. This guy literally wants Trump to fuck him in the ass. So that's what I have to say about. Now, I sent you that for two reasons, one of which was the one that you wanted to use as transition, which is Milo is probably the first person other, outside of myself that I've heard talk about publicly. The fact that was it the 18th amendment? Whichever one gives women the right to vote. 19th,

Ben: 1:27:04

Universal. And by the

Gene: 1:27:06

it. Let's, let's take the 18th through the 24th out. Just let's get rid of all of them.

Ben: 1:27:10

But keep the 25th

Gene: 1:27:12

Yeah. 25th was fine.

Ben: 1:27:14

So,

Gene: 1:27:15

he publicly talked about that and quite a bit publicly, I should say, on a private segment. Only available

Ben: 1:27:21

No. He did allude to it on the main show.

Gene: 1:27:24

he did. You're right. He did. Okay. So he did totally publicly talk about it, which, which was fun to hear that he thinks it was a mistake. And this is where I think he, even, even the clock that's stuck is right twice a day he hits on something. Correct. Which is that it's not that it's bad because women will make the wrong choice. It's bad because it changes how politicians sell themselves to the electorate. The majority of the population is female. And so if you want to win as a politician, you have to ensure that what you do gets their vote and you sell differently to men and women. And when women got the vote, the nature of elect of election, Campaigns, the, the sales process of the politicians changed and it, and it's been that way ever since. And that has resulted in different people getting elected than would have gotten elected, had only men been allowed to vote.

Ben: 1:28:33

Yeah, I, I will say this, I have zero problem with women voting. I, the problem I have with the, the universal franchisement of of all citizens when this country was founded you had to be a landowner to vote. I don't think that distinguishing based off of arbitrary things like race or sex should be criteria to vote.

Gene: 1:29:04

Right.

Ben: 1:29:05

But I do think having some stake in the game of some kind, a landowner, I don't necessarily disagree with poll tests.

Gene: 1:29:13

I don't, I don't, I don't think it's horrible land ownership. Right. But I, Here's the problem with land ownership. I think that would be perfectly fine as long as it only counted land that was acquired during your lifetime, not land that was acquired from your parents,

Ben: 1:29:30

Fair enough.

Gene: 1:29:30

because otherwise you're just duplicating the futile system.

Ben: 1:29:34

agreed. Agreed. Anyway there's definitely something to be said, and this is a point that Tim and others have made is that, universal, universal voting is not a good thing. We don't want people to vote who are not at least interested in voting because you end up with a, what can you give me sort of culture? And, and that's really the problem with the. Direct democratization that we've moved to because when we moved away from, the, the senates being elected by popular vote, which by the way was the 17th Amendment. So I think we need to go back further than the 18th.

Gene: 1:30:15

With that one.

Ben: 1:30:15

yeah. Let's start with the 16th income tax. Get that one. Alright. So, when we, when we shifted from the popular election of the, the senators versus state legislatures electing them, we moved into a position where as soon as the population realizes that they can vote their way into money we have a problem. And I think universal voting is definitely a move in that direction that I don't wanna see.

Gene: 1:30:43

And there's never been a senator who hasn't become a millionaire if they weren't in the Senate. Now for house, I think in two years. There's some that don't get to be millionaires, they're not there long enough, But being a politician at the federal level in the United States is absolutely a guarantee of becoming a millionaire.

Ben: 1:31:06

Yep. And just the insider trading rules

Gene: 1:31:10

the Obama, the Obama's came in with under a million dollars in assets into office and left with 14 million.

Ben: 1:31:18

Yeah.

Gene: 1:31:19

there's a, there's a significant problem. So Mylo talked about the, that, and I, I do agree with them on the rationale for the change. So it's nothing against women, it's the idea that women. Create a, they, they base their decisions on different criteria than men. And we're generalizing here. Obviously. Some, some women will vote more like men and some men will absolutely vote more like women. But

Ben: 1:31:45

probably being one of them.

Gene: 1:31:46

probably being one of'em. But the absolute part of it that I think is true is that if you are the one selling to this group and the group just expanded with a new large contingent that has different criteria for election, you're obviously gonna either change your sales method or you're just not going to do very well selling to that new group and somebody else who may be less qualified and end up having worse results, but does a good job of selling. And I think Kennedy is a good example of that. Not that he was a horrible president, but that he was a much better candidate for women. Than Nixon was.

Ben: 1:32:29

Oh yeah. I mean my mom still thinks Kennedy was one of the greatest presidents and I look back and I'm like, Yeah, no. I mean he was okay, but

Gene: 1:32:37

Yeah. As far as Democrats go, he wasn't horrible.

Ben: 1:32:40

Correct. He, he was still a patriot and which coming from that family is kind of interesting how patriotic he really at least seemed to be. Now this was in the height of the Cold War and that is how you won. So how much of it was

Gene: 1:32:56

We're

Ben: 1:32:56

for a

Gene: 1:32:56

of the Cold War right now. What are you talking about?

Ben: 1:32:59

This is a new,

Gene: 1:33:00

we're about as hot of a Cold War as we can get right now.

Ben: 1:33:04

The Cuban Missile Crisis was pretty

Gene: 1:33:06

was pretty hot too. Yeah. All the irony of, of history repeating itself

Ben: 1:33:11

It

Gene: 1:33:11

fring itself, whatever

Ben: 1:33:12

Yeah. It at least rhymes

Gene: 1:33:15

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:33:17

Anyway, I, I, I don't know,

Gene: 1:33:20

but let's talk about Milo some more. So, I, I think most people probably remember who was, he kind of disappeared when he got he was disappeared. It's probably a better way of saying it.

Ben: 1:33:30

Oh, he was Ned for orbit.

Gene: 1:33:31

He was, yeah, he was removed from every platform. One of the earliest people before even Alex Jones. Because his views were very unpopular because he is a person that presents himself as what the woke would very much see themselves as he's, flamboyant, homosexual man somebody that is flaunting his sexuality. And he definitely was doing that by, having lots of photos with his boyfriends and multiple boyfriends at the same. So somebody that clearly you would assume from first glance is gonna be very staunchly pro democrat. But then his rhetoric, what he is saying is exactly the opposite, is it is he's absolutely in love with Donald Trump. He wants Trump to be elected and to be his Danny. And he, he became fairly popular in doing the college tour road show things, I think in a lot of ways because of the con controversy that it was creating that made him be more popular. So, I think the same thing happened to Ben Shapiro. You were talking about Ben Shapiro earlier. In a lot of ways, what built both of those guys were their college tours, the fact that they were doing these college tours. And I remember being in a college organization and in leadership positions, I think you do as well. If you can get somebody to come and tour that'll fill the room on a political topic, you're absolutely gonna do it. You'd be an idiot not to. So colleges were very happy. I wouldn't say the colleges were unhappy. Right. Administration hated controversial people

Ben: 1:35:14

And, and that's the thing is he filled the seats and the streets. Right? So the people who wanted to hear him were clamoring over it and the people who wanted to shut him down. So, he, he was one of the

Gene: 1:35:26

good way of putting it. I like that.

Ben: 1:35:28

he was one of the first really controversial characters out of 2016. And one of the first to get Ned. He was Ned before Jones was

Gene: 1:35:35

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. He was kinda like the, the bad boy Republican if you can call it that.

Ben: 1:35:42

Yeah.

Gene: 1:35:43

and at some point after his new king I'm not even sure if this was a year ago or several years ago, or just recently, but at some point he got religion and, and he went back to his quote unquote Catholic roots, which ironically is also the Catholic roots, is how he became a homosexual as well, because he was, screwed by a priest. And he talked about that in his book.

Ben: 1:36:06

Did he, I, I didn't know if he

Gene: 1:36:08

yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was, it was like 12 or 13 when he got, a little bit of the priest cock, iNOS ass. And

Ben: 1:36:15

you've been a little on the vulgar train today. Jean, you've been thinking about this

Gene: 1:36:19

I, I find it difficult to not use appropriate language when discussing somebody that's so publicly homosexual. It's just like he's the, these are words he would use, Not

Ben: 1:36:30

Yeah, absolutely. I, I'm just, I'm, I'm laughing about it.

Gene: 1:36:34

But anyway, so he was fun to, watch when he was public. Then he disappeared and then came back and he's got religion. But it, I don't know. And I'm, as you well know, I am not religious by any stretch. And so for me, I am very curious how people who are religious are perceiving him and his newfound, reclaimed religious convictions. Because I'm just not buying it. But I don't, I, I don't have to buy it cuz I, it doesn't affect me one way or the other. If somebody's pretending to be religious or actually are, it's no difference.

Ben: 1:37:12

Yeah. So as someone who is, I would say this is something that happens in I think pretty much every religion where you have people who. Go all in on it or sit there and become sanctimonious. It's not a good look in my mind. I'm, I am, If you ever met me out and about, you would never, I, me being as religious as I am, would not strike you because I'm

Gene: 1:37:44

you look like a damn hippie.

Ben: 1:37:46

I'm sorry.

Gene: 1:37:47

You look like a damn hippie. I'm just trying to convey that to people that have not seen you.

Ben: 1:37:51

Yeah.

Gene: 1:37:52

you don't, you don't look like a clean cut religious type.

Ben: 1:37:56

I'm pretty clean cut gene, but

Gene: 1:37:58

Eh, look a little hippieish to me.

Ben: 1:38:00

It says the man with a beard,

Gene: 1:38:03

I didn't say I don't look like a hippie.

Ben: 1:38:05

anyway yeah, I, I, I'm not someone who prays out loud in public

Gene: 1:38:10

looks like more like a libertarian than a conservative, that's for

Ben: 1:38:13

Mm. It's cuz I am yeah.

Gene: 1:38:16

So anyway, you're, you're not, I don't know if you're actually answering the question,

Ben: 1:38:20

what I'm saying is I just don't find, saying, Hey, I went back to my Christian roots and I, I, I'm, I'm going a different way with my life. Great. But to go off on it as much as he did on the Temple interview, which is the first public interview he's given, and I don't even know how long I That's off. Yeah. That's off putting to me personally just like the holier than the out Christians or someone who, makes a public spectacle of their religion. To me it's a private matter and not something that I'm going to, it's not something I'm gonna hide about myself, but it's not something I'm gonna rub in everyone's face. So,

Gene: 1:38:57

Yeah, I, I don't know it, I didn't have the same impression, but like I said, I think it's just, cuz I really don't care, I'm not religious, but my impression was that this could have just as easily been a calculated move for okay, this current thing isn't working. I'm gonna try out something different. Oh, let's try being religious now. And, and in a lot of ways, to me, it seems like when he talked about in the the private segment, the, the non-publicly shown one where he got into a little more like the question was asked, So are you. Have, have you become straight effectively was I think what the intent of the question was, has this program to get you to convert to being straight instead of gay, been successful? And his answer, and I appreciate, I think the honesty there was that, no, it got me to stop fucking guys, but he didn't get me to start thinking that women are attractive. So he became celibate, he became a celibate homosexual, much like a lot of priests

Ben: 1:40:08

Yeah. Until they're not

Gene: 1:40:09

And that's the, I guess it's better to have a celibate, homosexual priest than a, a child diddling priest.

Ben: 1:40:16

yeah, I, I just

Gene: 1:40:17

Not to imply that, that all pedophiles are homosexual. There's plenty of pedophiles that are straight.

Ben: 1:40:24

well, and not that all priests are homosexuals. I, I, I really have a problem with the Catholic church. Prohibiting priests from marrying that prohibition came in because of some of the diagnostic things that happened during the Middle Ages. And I,

Gene: 1:40:40

It was land ownership.

Ben: 1:40:41

Yeah, I get why they did that. But I, there's no reason why priests should be celibate today. And I think in, if you wanna be celibate based off of your own beliefs or what you wanna do, that's fine. Enforcing someone else to be celibate I don't think that ever really works. And I think it actually creates a drive towards

Gene: 1:41:02

about the military?

Ben: 1:41:04

What do you mean?

Gene: 1:41:05

If you are in an active military campaign, you, I think you do want everybody that is on your in that campaign on your side to be celibate for that duration?

Ben: 1:41:20

Why?

Gene: 1:41:20

I, I don't why because you need them focusing their energy on winning the, the campaign, not worrying about somebody and how they're doing that they're in love with

Ben: 1:41:34

I think that throughout history, soldiers, when you're in the trenches, yeah, you're, you don't exactly have time to do something, but that's not necessarily enforced. That's just the situation you're in. But as soon as soldiers get leave or go on leave or fall to the rear, then yeah, that historically, families had been created that way,

Gene: 1:41:54

no, I think, I think there's nothing, there's no reason for ll c. In an inactive military, but during an active military, I think you have to enforce celibacy for the duration.

Ben: 1:42:07

I think we're playing games with active and unactive. So during World War II, when a unit would be rolled off the front lines, they were going to party and finding something, whether that was somewhere in France or wherever they happened to be stationed

Gene: 1:42:23

Yeah.

Ben: 1:42:24

and,

Gene: 1:42:24

But I, all I'm saying is I think there are instances where celibacy enforce celibacy doesn't make sense. That's all I'm trying to get to.

Ben: 1:42:31

and the lack of that enforcement during Vietnam definitely gave the Viet Con talking points that they shouldn't have had.

Gene: 1:42:38

That's true. Yeah. Yep. And I, while I don't think a military army should be castrated I do think that there is a benefit to. Not having an army that's also just fornicating like crazy.

Ben: 1:42:56

Yeah, I, I, I don't disagree with you. I don't think that for instance, the, the nonsense story about the Russians giving their soldiers Viagra or what happened during Vietnam, or was at least alleged to happen that is not a good look, and that is not going to help you win the war.

Gene: 1:43:17

But it's a historically majority rather than the minority. When, when Jen Khan or Jing Khan conquered a majority of the Eastern Europe the standard deal was your rape and pillage in that order when the Vikings did the same thing. Western Europe, it was the same thing. Conquerors get the right of fuckability. They, they get to be the ones that regardless of any previous marriages or arrangements they're the ones that get to have sex with everybody. But even outside of war, the tradition of pr Okta was not exclusive to England, which is that the Lord gets to fuck the virgin, be on her before her husband does when she's married.

Ben: 1:44:10

Yes, since the 18 hundreds, I think we've,

Gene: 1:44:13

I think I'm gonna have to label this episode as not, not as adult The language is strong in this one. Yeah.

Ben: 1:44:21

So, since, during the American Revolution there was very little of that on either side, obviously, and during the war of 1812 I, I think that really since then, that has been a massive shift in the way wars have been fought, with very few exceptions.

Gene: 1:44:41

in, in Afghanistan. Absolutely. They were fucking everybody.

Ben: 1:44:45

You think Irish soldiers

Gene: 1:44:46

No, no, not Americans. No. The Afghans, no. There's tons of stories of the Afghans during, when Russia was occupying Afghan that they would fuck both the men and the women.

Ben: 1:44:57

the Russian soldiers.

Gene: 1:44:59

Oh my God. The Afghan, How many times did I have to say this? The

Ben: 1:45:02

But who were they doing that to, is what I'm

Gene: 1:45:04

people that they, that they conquered, people that they trapped. It's, it wasn't. either on the Russian or US side. It wasn't like the US came in, or Russia came in and then won every battle.

Ben: 1:45:16

okay.

Gene: 1:45:17

occupied the country. But there's plenty of victories by the Afghans and the

Ben: 1:45:22

So when they would go into their own tribe, the different tribe

Gene: 1:45:26

they No, when they won against the Russians or the Americans raping them was on the menu.

Ben: 1:45:34

Sure.

Gene: 1:45:35

Yeah.

Ben: 1:45:35

But that's okay.

Gene: 1:45:37

So maybe in the western world, that's no longer a

Ben: 1:45:40

Right. So I guess

Gene: 1:45:41

but in the Middle Eastern world, it's absolutely a practice.

Ben: 1:45:45

There are lots

Gene: 1:45:46

And the Japanese did that during World War ii. Absolutely. There's it was organized for the Japanese during World War ii. The, the, the raping of Korea.

Ben: 1:45:57

and China.

Gene: 1:45:58

Yeah. That like they, they had Korean. Organized by different preferences for the Japanese soldiers that were coming in.

Ben: 1:46:08

I understand, and this is why there is a lot of racism in that part of the

Gene: 1:46:14

I'm, I'm just making a point that it didn't stop in 1812, that's

Ben: 1:46:17

s I. Okay. I guess I, my point was that it has become less the norm

Gene: 1:46:26

Yeah, I agree with that. That is true. So, how do we get on this topic? You mean how are,

Ben: 1:46:34

I don't know. We went yeah, because we went from the priest conversation and all

Gene: 1:46:39

The priests. Yes, they, Yeah.

Ben: 1:46:41

yeah. And then we were talking about enforced,

Gene: 1:46:43

are the Catholic priests the only ones that are pedophiles or, not, that are celibate, I might say.

Ben: 1:46:50

So in, it depends. I, I don't know about all orthodoxy as far as that goes. I don't know

Gene: 1:46:55

rabbis have always married. That was

Ben: 1:46:57

in, in pastors in, non-Catholic forms of Christianity I don't know, on the Russian Orthodox Church or the Greek Orthodox Church where they're at. But certainly Baptist pastors marry, most Nondenominational, obviously Mary, and then most of the other SEC of Christianity are allowed to marry and doesn't seem to be a problem. So

Gene: 1:47:22

Yeah.

Ben: 1:47:23

I think the Catholics are also the only ones that really require a vow of poverty, which is just hilarious given the Vatican and the amount of wealth there.

Gene: 1:47:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think again, both of those were more political, I think. I did look up real quick in Rush North X if you're married, when you become a priest, you stay married. If you're single, when you're a priest, then you cannot marry.

Ben: 1:47:47

There you go.

Gene: 1:47:48

Yeah, there you go. So it's it's the middle ground I guess. So yeah, batter be married when you become a priest or else you're screwed. Or rather, I guess you're not screwed.

Ben: 1:47:58

Or find a different denomination

Gene: 1:48:00

that's easy to say. I think most priests have a calling, don't they?

Ben: 1:48:03

Yes, but again, I, I have a problem with the Catholic Church and I know a lot of people probably not like me for this, but I don't care. One, have you ever seen the movie Dogma?

Gene: 1:48:14

Yeah, of course.

Ben: 1:48:15

Okay, perfect example. The idea that you're going to have dogmatic law that is laid down, that supersedes the Bible in your religious exercise, yet you say the Bible is the basis of your religion. I, I find that, not great. I sure as hell would never wanna be Pope, because the idea of the Pope is that he's the ruler sitting on the throne of Christ until Christ returns.

Gene: 1:48:43

I would totally be Pope.

Ben: 1:48:44

oh man,

Gene: 1:48:45

I think that'd be fun,

Ben: 1:48:47

why?

Gene: 1:48:49

dude. Do you know how much stuff Vatican has? Holy shit.

Ben: 1:48:52

Right. And you've got your own little army and your own guard and all that. Yeah,

Gene: 1:48:56

your own money. You have your own bank.

Ben: 1:48:59

yeah, but you're not supposed to have, concubines. So,

Gene: 1:49:04

You say that, but we have documented evidence of popes pretty much up until about 150 years ago, being married to multiple wives.

Ben: 1:49:14

yeah, again, I have problems with dogmatic law and rules for the, but not for me. So,

Gene: 1:49:20

Yeah. So, I don't know, as far as I mean it, the Vatican is super evil, but if I could become Pope, I would totally do it.

Ben: 1:49:29

You'd have to be religious in a cardinal and lots of things there.

Gene: 1:49:34

Fair enough. I'm probably too old at this stage of my life to go through that whole process, but but I've been to the Vatican sometimes and it is a very, very impressive collection of stuff they got.

Ben: 1:49:45

Absolutely. So Jean, let me ask you something, just as an aside, international travel in today's world, advisable or not?

Gene: 1:49:56

Sure. I go to Mexico all the time.

Ben: 1:49:59

No, no, no. I'm talking like Middle East Europe, so on.

Gene: 1:50:04

My, my sister's flying to France in like next month. I don't know. I guess, I don't think there's any increased risk in their trial if that's you're getting at

Ben: 1:50:13

Yeah, I just think the world could

Gene: 1:50:15

is super strong right now

Ben: 1:50:17

against. Yeah.

Gene: 1:50:18

Other than, unless you're going to Russia.

Ben: 1:50:21

it's still stronger than the rubal gene.

Gene: 1:50:24

It's, I dunno about stronger than the rubal. It has a lot less buying power against the Rubal In the Issu.

Ben: 1:50:30

That sure than it used to. But at the same time, the Rubal has so much less buying power than the dollar. very definition,

Gene: 1:50:38

No, not, not, not really. It's

Ben: 1:50:42

how many rubs to a dollar?

Gene: 1:50:44

Oh, what is it now? I can't remember what it's down to. But yeah, but people don't get paid the same number of rubs that they get paid the number of dollars. it's not like it's 30 times cheaper to buy the same product in Russia. If something's a hundred bucks in the US and let's say the exchange rate is 33 to one, it, it doesn't cost a hundred rubles, It costs 3,300 rubs.

Ben: 1:51:09

Yeah. So one ruble is just less than two pennies, so it's 0.0.

Gene: 1:51:15

to one. Yeah. So like 55 to one, whatever it is. So your, your buying power is determined by what you can buy, not, not the demo denomination of the currency.

Ben: 1:51:29

I understand.

Gene: 1:51:30

So, I don't know. I think certain things are, like, if you're, let's say you're buying natural gas for example. I think that buying it in rubs is definitely cheaper than buying it in dollars.

Ben: 1:51:40

In Russia, sure.

Gene: 1:51:42

And, and soon to be in a lot of other places. If you are watching the news on what Saudi Arabia is doing

Ben: 1:51:48

man. I I, Do you think they actually, I don't know if Saudi Arabia actually goes through with that.

Gene: 1:51:55

Join bricks, I think they totally will.

Ben: 1:51:57

I, I'm talking about getting rid of the petro dollar entirely.

Gene: 1:52:01

I think they're gonna effectively do it Because as soon as you're selling most of your products for not using dollars, you, you kind of got rid of the Petra dollar,

Ben: 1:52:11

Yeah. Here's the thing though. Have you've been watching China closer. I think

Gene: 1:52:17

Yeah.

Ben: 1:52:17

China is, and this is part of the reason why the Congress gave g the powers that they gave. G they are very afraid of potential collapse. And I, I think the general we were talking Douglas MacArthur said it pretty well. McGregor, there you go. Not MacArthur, McGregor,

Gene: 1:52:39

it's like

Ben: 1:52:41

they don't, they don't want to go to war over Taiwan because they, quite frankly, they're somewhat afraid they would lose.

Gene: 1:52:49

I don't think they would think that they would lose. They don't want to have the expense of doing it.

Ben: 1:52:54

Yeah. Anyway, China, right now, the steel industry, especially with some of the sanctions in Australia, not exporting the coal that they used to, they are in a bad place. I, I think there is a, if China keeps up this no covid policy, which GE is very tied to, I think it was a strategic mistake

Gene: 1:53:15

And I don't understand why. I've never heard of a good rationale, like not, not a reasonable rationale, but like just from a purely political good rationale of why they're so damn stuck on the covid thing

Ben: 1:53:29

I, so I think it's g I think it's the total totalitarian he's a tyrant and he is wanting to exercise his will. I think part of the

Gene: 1:53:41

but for what reason?

Ben: 1:53:43

Because the Chinese people tend to have changes in government when there is famine or plague or a unsuccessful war, and I think this was G's way of preventing his own alster. So it's a very convenient excuse to be able to weld people into their apartments and say they can't do anything. Oh, you talked. And the surveillance state in China, you have to realize is far and above and beyond it's actual practical utilization than it is in the United States. We are probably, and I would say almost certainly equally as surveilled, but the, the Chinese government openly uses it whereas our government does not openly use it.

Gene: 1:54:28

Right? It's completely out. Yeah. Everybody knows about it. It's out in the open. Yeah. But we're a lot more secretive in pretending things aren't happening.

Ben: 1:54:37

Correct. So I think a lot of political dissidents have been disappeared and died of covid in China over the last couple of

Gene: 1:54:46

But you could do that without locking things down. You could just have people mysteriously get covid and die.

Ben: 1:54:51

Yeah. But this is a way of actually having excuses. And I don't know. The

Gene: 1:54:57

Yeah, I don't, I don't know. To me that sounds a little tenuous and not well thought through if they're actually doing it for that reason. I, I have yet,

Ben: 1:55:05

give me another rationale.

Gene: 1:55:06

I don't have one. That's what I'm saying is I have yet to hear a good reason. If there are good reasons that you can come up with to do plenty of bad things like evil, bad things, but in, in complete lack of any good reasons to do bad things, why would you do a bad thing? What purpose does it serve? And I, I have yet to read something or hear somebody say something that is a good reason to do that particular bad thing. It's it's effect or does he like, think that Covid is actually dangerous or, I don't think this is required for getting rid of dissidents. There's, China's been very good at getting rid of dissidents even prior to Covid. I don't think they need to cover up when dissidents disappear. I don't know, man. I don't know. It's, I it seems somewhat irrational to me as to why China is still stuck on this zero tolerance program.

Ben: 1:56:08

well in the effects that it's having on the Chinese economy, and quite frankly, the

Gene: 1:56:13

yeah, they're not good.

Ben: 1:56:14

This is shooting yourself in the foot.

Gene: 1:56:16

Exactly. And if somebody shoots themselves in the foot, there's only two reasons for it. One is they're an idiot, or two is it serves some greater purpose that you're just not aware of,

Ben: 1:56:27

Like

Gene: 1:56:27

or is there a third? Can you think of a. Getting rid of. Yeah, exactly. Getting out of the, Oh, I now have a flat foot. I'm sorry. I can't serve. I don't know, dude. But what I do know is that Chinese trade with Russia in coal grew by 36% during c and they don't have the numbers yet for post invasion of Ukraine.

Ben: 1:56:51

yeah. And part of that,

Gene: 1:56:53

way higher than that now.

Ben: 1:56:54

Yeah. But part of that was because Australia stopped shipping so

Gene: 1:56:58

Right, Right. But that's what I'm saying. I think Russia's replacing that.

Ben: 1:57:01

To an extent, yes, but the problem, I don't know that Russia has the capacity that Australia has. So I don't know.

Gene: 1:57:10

Australia is a pretty small country.

Ben: 1:57:13

I'm sorry,

Gene: 1:57:14

It's pretty small in terms of population. Yeah.

Ben: 1:57:17

but Yeah. But they have a huge mining endeavor. That, that, that, that is not a new thing

Gene: 1:57:23

Yeah, I know that their steel is some of the cheapest steel in the world, and, and it'd be hard to replace that if they went off the market.

Ben: 1:57:32

yeah. And, and part of that is because of the availability of coal there to, have coke to then create the steel. Anyway, it, it's just interesting seeing the sectors in the Chinese economy get really wobbly. And we'll see, man, I don't know.

Gene: 1:57:46

and that's, I think, a danger of anyone who is the dominant industry of anything is that because you're the dominant in that field, any, any kind of hiccups, you're gonna feel a lot more than somebody who is not dominating in that field. If you're producing avocados and then all of a sudden there's a new avocado tree disease. Like you're gonna feel a lot more than somebody that only has 5% of their revenue being made by avocados.

Ben: 1:58:20

Fair enough. But I think with all this inflation and everything else, we are seeing, quite a bit of money pull back and a lot of that money is headed to the us even from foreign nationals because right now we are still seen as this most stable economy right

Gene: 1:58:38

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:58:39

That effect is kind of interesting. One, we've talked about it before, the de-industrialization of Europe that, more German cars are gonna be made in the US than, in Germany,

Gene: 1:58:50

wild.

Ben: 1:58:51

is insane. And I think you're seeing, US investment in China pull back to the us. I think you're seeing other countries that have invested in China pull back. And I think that's part of why it's hurting China. I think Russia has, because of sanctions and everything else, insulated themselves against this fairly successfully. But I could see a scenario where I, if the Biden administration gets to continue the way it has through hooker by crook, the, the US suffers a depression and the rest of the world largely suffers a great depression, including China. And that may be how we stay on top.

Gene: 1:59:32

Could be. Yeah. I, I don't think that that's a, an impossibility by any means. But like you did say, there is a lot of US investment in China,

Ben: 1:59:42

A lot

Gene: 1:59:43

and I know one of the things I just read was that given the, the. Inflation in the us Tesla is considering importing Teslas from China to the US instead of billing them here.

Ben: 1:59:56

Mm-hmm. Yeah, Germany's gonna be importing their beamers from the

Gene: 2:00:01

Yeah, I, I gotta imagine that with, I don't know actually. I was gonna say maybe Tesla have to shut down their, their giant Tesla plant, the mega factory in Germany, but also they're the most capable of running with minimal electricity So ironically, cuz their entire plant is it's all solar powered.

Ben: 2:00:23

Yeah. We'll have to see where it ends, but regardless, it's not looking good globally. So

Gene: 2:00:31

No, no, that's we're pretty sure that's been the case for a while. And with Biden at the helm of the. Most powerful position in the world. What else would you expect?

Ben: 2:00:43

indeed.

Gene: 2:00:44

Should we wrap things up?

Ben: 2:00:46

Yeah, I think we, we've,

Gene: 2:00:47

Yeah.

Ben: 2:00:48

shot air wad as it was.

Gene: 2:00:50

We've been chatting for a while here. No, that's, that's good. I think we covered all the stories that I was thinking of making sure that I brought up. So good to go. Yeah, we gotta get some intro music or at least something repetitive that we can utilize when we start the show. That's, that's gonna be our goal for the next episode, I think. But other than that, we're seeing people subscribing, which is great. Make sure you tell others, make sure you tell other people if you're listening to this right now, because this being, even though it's technically not an, not a brand new show, because we've been doing a show for a while, it is on a brand new rss. And we need to get more people subscribing to the new feed. So if you're listening mention it to other folks that you think would enjoy listening to this show as well.

Ben: 2:01:40

And right now we're not listed on anything but Podcast Index, so

Gene: 2:01:44

Oh, let's fix that. I think we got enough episodes now. We're gonna get start getting listed on every platform.

Ben: 2:01:50

I mean there were, I was talking in my travels this last week. I was talking to a young couple when I went out to dinner and they were sitting across from me. We just started a conversation and the podcast came up and they were trying to find it and I was like, Yeah, you're not gonna find it on Apple Podcasts right now. Sorry,

Gene: 2:02:07

It's private, it's a private podcast just for select people. Yeah, we'll get it up on everything. I think I, we just wanted to wait until there's a couple episodes in the can before doing that.

Ben: 2:02:17

Yep. Cool.

Gene: 2:02:19

Alright man, I'll catch you next week.

Ben: 2:02:21

Good to talk to you, Gene.