Just Two Good Old Boys
We never mean any harm!
Just Two Good Old Boys
110 Just Two Good Old Boys
A sudden hailstorm sets the tone for a wide-ranging conversation that fearlessly tackles the most contentious issues of our time. What begins with weather damage quickly transforms into a deep dive on Trump's game-changing proposal to eliminate income taxes for Americans earning under $150,000 – a move one host suggests could effectively "out-Bernie Bernie Sanders" and potentially reshape the electoral landscape.
The discussion takes a darker turn exploring why the Epstein files remain so heavily guarded, with the provocative suggestion that these documents could implicate "half the Senate and a third of the House." Their candid analysis of Biden's controversial auto-pen signatures and the constitutional questions surrounding pre-crime pardons reveals the troubling implications for executive power and equal justice under law.
From geopolitics to personal security, the hosts navigate the complex possibilities of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, debate NATO's uncertain future, and share firsthand experiences with SIG firearms amidst safety controversies. Throughout these serious discussions, moments of levity emerge through nostalgic references to classic sci-fi films and playful banter about personal preferences.
Perhaps most thought-provoking is their examination of society's moral foundations, questioning whether a functional America requires the ethical framework that religious traditions provide. As one host admits his evolved perspective: "I don't think that people as a broad, general spectrum of all IQ levels and backgrounds can have morals without having religion."
These unapologetically honest conversations offer more than political commentary – they provide a window into how thoughtful citizens are processing our rapidly changing world. Whether you're seeking insights on current events or simply enjoy authentic dialogue that refuses to bow to conventional wisdom, this episode delivers substance without pretense.
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Howdy Ben, how are you today?
Speaker 2:Uh hail, gene hail, we got hail.
Speaker 1:Don't you be cussing now, boy?
Speaker 2:No, seriously, we had about 3 am rolled through, woke me the hell up and it was a pretty good little storm. A couple different cells going across the Brazos Valley and some places ended up with golf ball-sized hail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, damn, that's dangerous shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my truck's okay. Got to get up on the ladder and look at the roof, but we'll see Some other people's cars not so good.
Speaker 1:We had hail last week here, but it was, you know, typical dime size or less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we typically don't get large hail storms here, which is good.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you we got a lot to talk about, but one thing I just saw on Twitter is Trump proposes no income tax for people earning below $150,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well.
Speaker 1:If he can sell that, he's going to have Vance being elected by 48 states.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't really help you, or I but sure no, but I mean it might help you, but it doesn't help you. Yeah, exactly, hey, man, I have lean years. But I mean it might help you, but yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Hey, man, I have lean years, I have lean years, but seriously, that's a. I can't think of a better way to win the people than to tell them oh, by the way, we're not gonna have you pay taxes well, he just needs to abolish the entire income tax yeah, yeah, yeah, but what he's, what he's pitching, is basically he's out burning bernie. Yeah, because bernie wants the poor people to pay taxes too, but the millionaires to pay more I'm like uh, hold my beer, okay, how about poor people pay nothing?
Speaker 2:I don't know, man, I think this could be the exactly the kind of thing that puts the nail in the coffin of the Democratic Party once and for all.
Speaker 1:Well, you know who was it?
Speaker 2:Comedian Bill Maher said that he didn't know if another Democratic president would be elected, and I tend to agree with him.
Speaker 1:Bill Maher's been on a bender lately, he's drunk.
Speaker 2:I mean, what do you mean by?
Speaker 1:I mean like on the Republican bender he is. He's making his liberal guests extremely uncomfortable lately by asking them you're not seriously for this woke crap, are you? Yeah? And having them try and figure out what their PR agent is going to have to do to fix the situation after they say something, regardless of what they say.
Speaker 2:What it comes down to is we need to realize the shift in opinions that we are seeing. We need to take advantage of it, but what needs to happen is a lot of stuff's being talked about. A lot of stuff needs to start getting done. Like still waiting on the epstein files still waiting on certain things. Yeah, you know my take on that we're never gonna get them oh yeah, yeah, we will see there when, when you have.
Speaker 1:So I've this. I can't remember on which, whether our show or another show, but the names in the Epstein files aren't some foreigners? No, and they're not just Bill Clinton and Bill.
Speaker 2:Gates.
Speaker 1:They are the names of probably over half of the Senate and probably over a third of the House, so the protection there is better than any other documents in the country. You probably have a better chance inside of fort knox than you do of getting the epstein files which that also needs to happen. But yeah, it does, because apparently they're not letting anyone in there, including trump. So it should be. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's I.
Speaker 2:It feels like, after the biden four years of a make-believe president, that there's a whole bunch of judges out there that seem to think that title president is a ceremonial title and like well, you know the okay, so let's not get off the Epstein stuff yet, but the one of the things I would say is you know Biden's pardons that were auto-pinned, that everyone's like, oh well, that's totally completely normal, it's okay, yeah sure, but you know uh things that, uh things that are how do I put it uh pardons that are filed in dc, but b Biden was in Delaware on the day it was done. I don't know if that's something that he can consent to Like. If he's there and says, yes, you know, use the auto pen, I consent, then okay, I get it. I can see something like that being okay. But you know, with his cognitive state, but you know, with his cognitive state, that is brought into question and then when?
Speaker 2:you have pardons and things being done when he's not even there physically.
Speaker 1:Oh man, that has to have a legal challenge. I think a lot of people want that. I don't think it's going to go anywhere because there's nothing that requires him to either be present or to not use an auto pen. I think I've seen I watched a two-hour program of a lawyer talking, breaking this down like what could happen here. The end result is nothing.
Speaker 2:Well then, you know what we need. We need a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 1:Do not have an auto pen.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:You know what an auto pen. They may have changed, but you remember the old ones, right? Enlighten me. I remember Reagan showing this thing. So it's basically a box, or used to be, the size of a boom box. It had an arm with an elbow coming out of it, parallel to the table, with a pen inside of it, and what it does is, when the person signs their signature, it is measuring the movement of the pen by the changes in the angles of the two halves of the arm, and then it just uses motors to do the exact same motion again. So it's actually using a real pen and it's copying the motion that it recorded. Uh, a lot less efficient than you know, using a electronic version. This was like analog out of pen.
Speaker 1:So they may have much better versions now, but I remember when I first saw it I thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Well, cool. The point is, I don't think he consented.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing he may have been out of, but they probably have an out of pen document saying he did.
Speaker 2:Exactly the thing, but they probably have an auto pen document saying he did exactly and.
Speaker 1:but when you have Mike Johnson coming, out and not yeah, he didn't think he signed the thing that Mike Johnson told him he signed.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, exactly, yeah, that's a problem.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you where I am somewhat surprised and disappointed is that apparently no one's really challenging a pre-crime pardon. The idea of pardoning someone for future crimes does not belong not just in America, but doesn't belong in any country's politics. That is absurd. That's the kind of shit the dictators do. You cannot pardon future actions. That should be impossible.
Speaker 2:Well, it creates a secondary class of citizen. You're therefore above the law for a period of time.
Speaker 1:Literally above the law. That's not okay. Therefore, above the law for a period of time, literally. That's not okay. It's essentially giving free reign to someone to break laws with full immunity. It's it's not supposed to happen, certainly not against americans, you know sure you got, you know, 007 license to kill, yeah, but not british people license to kill other people yeah, the the pesky germans, and you know the sand people jesus christ, it's. Uh, I can't tell if you're being anti-semitic or anti-muslim at this point you're being anti-semitic or anti-muslim at this point a little of both it's all good, it's really just a, a joke.
Speaker 2:No, the your point is well taken that this is not something meant to. Uh, even in the case of like 007, this is meant for foreign adversaries, and so on not giving someone carte blanche inside their own nation.
Speaker 1:And yeah, when did we get a Star Chamber? That's what I'd like to know.
Speaker 2:By the way, I started watching Logan's Run last night before.
Speaker 1:I fell asleep. Oh, good, good, good.
Speaker 2:I had a memory of a totally different actor being in it, but that's okay, yeah, okay yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm somewhat surprised that Darren didn't seem to have seen it. I don't know that.
Speaker 2:I've ever seen it.
Speaker 1:to be honest with you, yeah but you, I expect not to have seen it. Okay, darren was alive when it came out. Barely, okay, barely, but still. How did he not see it in the reruns? How did he not watch it on HBO? The movie was known back in the 80s for being like the skimpiest outfits of any film that wasn't a porno.
Speaker 2:Okay, like the skimpiest outfits of any film. That wasn't a porno, okay. I mean it was like that.
Speaker 1:That, I'm not gonna lie, that was part of what made me go. Okay, maybe I should watch it, but it's like, eh, not really so. There's a documentary about the uh outfits of that movie and documentary about the outfits of that movie.
Speaker 1:And when they first started creating them for the actors, they, for authenticity's sake, they wanted everyone, meaning women, to not wear bras, because they wanted that chiffon just kind of draped over them and apparently about halfway through the movie there was a lot of protesting going on and that's why you'll see little inconsistencies there, just where in some scenes it's just that in other scenes there's like a bra underneath I guess, there's some chafing going on or something that they didn't have pasties in the 80s uh, it's a.
Speaker 1:Well, no, they did, but I don't think they were popular enough to use. But uh, the it also takes away from authenticity, you know. But I think the materials back then tended to be a lot more plasticky you know what I mean Like more fake. So you said you started. How far did you get?
Speaker 2:I'd have to go, look man.
Speaker 1:I fell asleep. Okay, gotcha, have to go. Look, man, I I fell asleep. So okay, okay, gotcha. But yeah, I always thought, you know, as a teenager, those were pretty damn good outfits and why don't more movies have those?
Speaker 2:well, I mean certainly today we have a lot, of a lot more skimpy stuff yeah, less attractive people though that's the thing is.
Speaker 1:You look at them like no, the chicks were way more attractive back then no yeah, I don't think there was a single one over 120 pounds. Uh, now they're all like 200 okay, okay, I guess look at OnlyFans. Dude, a lot of fat chicks on OnlyFans chubby yeah now and then. The main characteristics isn't that they're attractive, it's that they're willing to do crazy shit to themselves. That's what seems to draw the people out there, whereas in the past it was actually an attractive looking woman yeah, I agree to disagree on that.
Speaker 2:And you know, for someone who had a spa that knew exactly what they liked. Uh, you know, because you sent so many chicks there.
Speaker 1:Uh, I, I question your remembrance of the 70s and 80s because, yeah, but you don't think that there were women that were doing brazilians in the 80s?
Speaker 2:uh a lot fewer.
Speaker 1:Uh, the 80s. The most popular style in the 80s was the racing track, landing track, what are they called?
Speaker 2:landing strip. Yeah, there you go straight line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was for sure the most popular in the 80s okay but um 70s, yeah, I mean that was all over the place. That was fucking mess craziness going on there. But either way, I think you just don't like the fact that the women were skinny and didn't have big boobs.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I don't mind skinny, I just prefer the big boobs.
Speaker 1:Sure, I get it, I get, but it's, it's a good movie and I believe that in the book, the, it was all of the 30th birthday, so the actors are actually kind of a little too old to be playing these parts how so? Because they're all over 30.
Speaker 2:Were they at the time? Yeah, okay, I don't know. They look 30-ish to me, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I think even the main actress, chick, was 31 or something. But it's, yeah, I thought it was a pretty good movie and sci-fi, but very 1970s Did you ever see Barbarella?
Speaker 2:No, have you ever heard of Barbarella Ish?
Speaker 1:yes, Okay, you should watch Barbarella right after this. Then why? I think well, because it's from the same time period.
Speaker 2:Isn't it like a quasi-porn? Similar outfits.
Speaker 1:It's not really. It's more of a sexy comedy, I would say, than a porn.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But it's the film that made everybody love Jane Fonda and then realize that her brain is literally non-existent yeah. Uh huh, but in that movie you know, she plays this ditzy hot blonde chick in space named Barbarella.
Speaker 2:Uh huh.
Speaker 1:And uh, and yeah, she is at her peak of look for sure, don't do anything about it. There's a movie that was done by Roman Coppola back about 20 years ago or so. That, loosely, is about the making of Barbarella, but not completely. It's just a similar kind of fictitious movie. Very good, what the hell is it called? He's done so few movies. You know who? He is all right who. The son of uh, um, what's his name?
Speaker 2:the, the big coppola guy I, I'm not uh not tracking here, gene, sorry, yeah, I know I know well, I'm a little I mean.
Speaker 1:You're on a the big Coppola guy, I I not, uh, not tracking here, jean, sorry, I know I know Well, I'm a little I mean you're on a few hours of sleep and it's fairly early I'm more like I'm in way too many hours of not sleeping is what I am.
Speaker 1:Um, tons of hours of not sleeping. Uh, what is the movie? What, what is the movie? What is the damn movie? Huh, I'll figure it out, I'll find it. That is weird, so that is weird. So, while I'm scrolling here, what else is going on? What have you been up to? Well, this is Ford Coppola's kid.
Speaker 2:Okay, what about him?
Speaker 1:No, that's Roman Coppola. That's who he is. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:What have you been up to? Well, just paying attention to the news, working my tail off, it's been a busy, busy week. We've got quite a few projects coming in, things really heating up in a lot of ways, which is a good thing. But the big contract we won in Virginia. That contract is technically a contract with the Commonwealth. That contract is technically a contract with the Commonwealth, which means any other Commonwealth utility can use that vehicle. All they have to do is fund their task order. And, yeah, talk about opening up a floodgate.
Speaker 2:It's like a general government contract.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds like it so you'll be busy very but you know hey, that's life. That's not a bad thing working for the man working for the man hardly working for the military industrial complex.
Speaker 2:I have one project with a defense contractor. Thank you, that's only one Knew it. No, but so we've had some movement on the Canadian side side we've had uh some ink the tariffs going really fucking crazy across the entire world china, tariffing canada, etc.
Speaker 1:I mean like I know right people are starting.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing tariffs have been in place for a very long time on the us. Yeah, we are just now starting to. You know, we we've been in this quote-unquote trade war for a long time. We're just now starting to actually push back a little bit, and you know, quite frankly, if we did reciprocal tariffs on canada, they'd be bankrupt pretty effing quick.
Speaker 2:We are not doing pure reciprocal tariffs, which, in my mind, if you're going to do tariffs, say reciprocal, it's up to you country that you want to trade with us. We can go to zero. If you go to zero, we go to zero. That is my ideal world. Is we really just say, look, we don't want tariffs. Tariffs shouldn't exist. We should just trade freely. But here's the deal you got to trade freely as well, and not just like for like, because there are going to be countries that can produce certain things cheaper than us. What we need to be able to do, though, is say hey, look, any tariff on any of our goods that we would typically be able to sell to you, okay, so ie cheese to Canada? That tariff doesn't mean that we tariff Canadian cheese. We tariff a Canadian good that is equally valuable to Americans.
Speaker 2:So, something we would want from Canada, like, for whatever reason why people want Canadian whiskey. There you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. I don't like tariffs in general, but I also don't like asymmetric relationships. I think there's other ways to get other countries to get rid of tariffs.
Speaker 2:You make it as symmetrical as possible, but that symmetry needs to be meaningful. So if you just have Canada tariffing our milk and cheese, and okay, but we don't really buy milk and cheese from. Canada it doesn't matter, right.
Speaker 1:So you have to make it meaningfully symmetric, is my point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get that.
Speaker 2:I just I think we can do it without tariffs. I get why.
Speaker 1:Trump's doing. Tariffs um, you look at the things that we as a country like national defense and monitoring stations for nukes coming across from China and Russia start charging them the exact same amount that they tariff American goods for providing that service. And if they don pay, then you don't provide it. You cut off Starlink. My point is that we don't have to get into this tit for tat. We're going to tax more. No, we're going to tax more. Well, if you tax more, then we're going to tax even more. Tax more no, we're going to tax more. Well, if you tax more, then we're going to tax even more Because, honestly, while it may benefit the country, it does not benefit the individual people living in those countries. So I'm more in favor of a different type of relationship, where you look at, well, what do we get from this country and what do they get from us, and then make it asymmetric in that regard.
Speaker 2:But why don't you want to punish the Canadians?
Speaker 1:No, I do Look at who they just elected, you can create a $1, dollar per wheel fee for trucks crossing from canada into us sure easily like something like that. You can. There are a lot of ways to punish canada without raising the price of american goods that buy parts from Canada.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here's one thing I will say I do believe yeah, you get through two of those now in a row.
Speaker 1:Okay, performatives.
Speaker 2:What it comes down to. Okay, a third one. Okay, you're just Okay.
Speaker 1:Biden, spit it out. What are you going to say?
Speaker 2:I don't think we are going to see a huge price increase over American-made goods versus foreign goods. What you'll see is foreign goods coming up to the price of American-made goods and then the choice is pretty clear or the foreign goods will take less profit incentive and you'll see some equalization there. It is not a one-for-one is the entire point.
Speaker 1:It's not a one-for-one absolutely I don't think it would be, but what we have heard is Ford saying that tariffs on Canadian-produced automotive parts will be passed on to the consumer and they're estimating it's roughly $4,000 per vehicle.
Speaker 2:Okay, and that will be temporary, until those plants can be moved into the US, and then that will change up down whatever, but not really, because moving the plants to the US does not lower the price. It can, first of all because if the tariffs are sufficient that it is cheaper to do business in the United States than it is to pay the tariff it will lower the cost of goods. And the auto industry has been so screwed up since COVID, it isn't even funny.
Speaker 1:But it won't because there's no incentive to lower the price beyond what the alternative prices are. So if the price for the parts for this widget is $10 after tariff and I can make that same widget in the US, I'm going to price it at $9.99. Not like $7.
Speaker 2:Sure Until you have competition.
Speaker 1:If somebody makes that widget for $9.98, then I've got to go to $9.97.
Speaker 2:This is where competition needs to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, except there isn't any in the automotive industry, which is a problem. It's a problem with the industry and it's a problem for America, because we have to bail them out. How many times now?
Speaker 2:Well, Ford hasn't ever been bailed out.
Speaker 1:Okay, Ford still took loans. They paid them back. If you look at their articles, you can see that they took out loans that were guaranteed by the US government.
Speaker 2:They happened to have paid them back. Yeah, but they still paid them back. Yeah, yeah, gm did not. Gm would have gone bankrupt if they would have had to pay the loans back.
Speaker 1:Chrysler was sold to a foreign company, so GM would have likely been also sold to foreign companies. Would you like a Citroën Buick?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean I switched from Chevy to Ford basically because of the government motors and the bailout.
Speaker 1:You were a Chevy guy before Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my first truck was a Chevy. My family was Chevy, most of my life. But, you know, hey, I have no brand loyalty. I go where you know the best price, best functionality is going to be. You know, like right, I'm talking to you on an AMD processor instead of Intel. Just insanity like that.
Speaker 1:AMDs are better man. Every gamer knows this. Biggest cash in the business, okay, unlike Intel, oh my god, I'm getting Apple Intelligence Beta.
Speaker 2:Oh, are you? Oh?
Speaker 1:my God, I'm getting Apple Intelligence Beta. Oh, are you? Oh, wow, you've been selected to be special Lucky you.
Speaker 2:I hate Macs, that's why you get it.
Speaker 1:I hate Macs. So yeah, I sent you a link, by the way, both to Barbarella, so yeah, I see it, I see it.
Speaker 1:And to this, cq was the name of the movie, which was very, very loosely based on the making of Barbarella. But I really thought CQ was a brilliant movie. The guy is a great director movie. The guy is a great director. He is, I think, very close to his dad and level of directing, but but also he does not seem to make movies much done that way well, with the crazy weather we had, amorello had some major issues, did you see?
Speaker 2:that uh, I did yeah that truck, semi trucks getting blown over on the highway that looks like a scene out of a movie yeah and then. Uh, did you see what happened in still water?
Speaker 1:no, what happened there?
Speaker 2:uh, big fire went through several neighborhoods really yeah, yeah burned a whole bunch of down well, that's not good they know who lit it well, with the winds and everything else, you got to remember oklahoma and northern texas was getting 80 mile an hour winds. So who knows, and one you know, when you have a fire start in that sort of condition, it it's very yeah, it's, it's over right, it's just, it's not going to end?
Speaker 2:well, yeah, and especially without water well, oklahoma doesn't have much water, so yeah, yeah, it's been kind of a dry season.
Speaker 1:I know we've got uh here in austin, we've had um fire safety alerts or whatever you know. Oh yeah, we've.
Speaker 2:We've had red flag warnings all week here in uh in in college station, but we haven't had the wind that um that they were seeing up there, though. So hearts and, you know, prayers and thoughts go out to people who are affected, but it's uh, it's not good man no uh, you know, you know, climate change, it's this.
Speaker 1:It's just crazy micro climate change, maybe all the windmills? I tell you they're fucking with the climate. What do? You get when you slow down the currents and break them up.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, I I do think that weather weapons are a thing. I just sent you a map of every recorded battle in history. It's pretty telling oh really, yeah, were they all in ukraine uh, they're all in europe yeah, well oh man, europe is so screwed, so do you think we're gonna have a uh deal, a ceasefire, or no?
Speaker 1:I mean at some point, not in the next 30 days, we won't, but at some point we will why do you think not in the next 30 days?
Speaker 2:I, I think it's no, no, not for russia just because they want to screw over the ukrainians, or there are.
Speaker 1:It's a very good time for ukraine to run out and kick somebody and then run back and hide, which is kind of what they're doing. Um, they're on the brink of losing 80,000 men, not to death, but to becoming prisoners of war which I think had a very large impact on why, all of a sudden, zelensky changed his mind. That, combined with realizing that the US was going to cut off intelligence, which Ukraine, without US intelligence, would have lost the war three years ago.
Speaker 2:Well, us intelligence and information is cut off right now. So there you go.
Speaker 1:It's back on. They announced it so I think, but it was cut off for like a week and I think that had some impact as well. But, putin, you know, I sent the full speech to Adam.
Speaker 2:Yes yes, you are the in-your-underwear you know Russian translator.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and you know he starts the speech off by saying that he'd like to thank Trump for taking the time and effort to work on this and that in principle, he completely is in favor of doing a ceasefire and it's going to be important to get that done as quickly as possible. Get that done as quickly as possible, and then for the next half hour he goes on to explain why a ceasefire right now is effectively Ukraine simply saying don't shoot us for 30 days so we can rearm and refit and get our equipment into the areas that you're about to capture and would capture.
Speaker 1:but we want to reinforce them in those 30 days, and so his point is, if we want to do a 30-day ceasefire, that means it's a full ceasefire. It's a cease of all American intelligence, it's a cessation of all European and American weaponry support. It's a cessation of any movement of any, you know, potential troops. Basically, any male of that age cannot enter the country. It's like he's got some very straightforward conditions under which he would agree to a ceasefire. Straightforward conditions under which he would agree to a ceasefire. But you also have to remember that there were two of these previously, and Angela Merkel, in an interview herself, said that you know that was for the previous ceasefire.
Speaker 2:But yes, right, that's why I said for the previous.
Speaker 1:There were two ceasefires previously. This would be the third one and she basically said yeah, we, we all said we'll guarantee it and we agreed to it because Ukraine needed time to rearm and we knew that and this was a way to buy that time. So, no rearming, no intelligence sharing, no movement of any troops, which?
Speaker 2:by the way, it looks like the US has still paused intelligence sharing.
Speaker 1:Really, Because there was an ex-post I keep saying Twitter there was an ex-post that announced that the intelligence sharing was back on. So, who knows, Maybe it is.
Speaker 2:I'm just telling you what the news says.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we should ask Grok See what it knows.
Speaker 1:You go for that. So the bottom line for Russia is they're like look, if we don't have this right now, then we're going to capture 80,000 people, we're going to move the front probably by a couple hundred miles and, you know, maybe at that point we'll talk. But it makes zero sense for Russia to do this right now absent a whole bunch of conditional guarantees. And you know, one of the legitimate questions is like look, who's going to be verifying that none of these things are happening? For Ukraine Can't trust any European countries because they're all very partisan anti-Russian.
Speaker 2:Well, it's going to be China, so no, it'll have to be the US.
Speaker 1:No, us is one of the countries supplying weapons, so it's going to have to be a neutral country that isn't involved in the Ukraine conflict. And this is one area where China is actually, I think, very purposefully remain neutral, because they want to be the arbiter if it comes down to it. Another possibility is Saudi Arabia. They may end up being the arbiter in that situation.
Speaker 2:That would be an interesting position for Saudi Arabia to be in.
Speaker 1:Well, they want to present themselves as more than just a refinery with a lot of money. They're always looking for things like that. So I don't know. It's interesting. My kind of gut feel is that there's no way that Zelensky or the US is going to agree to the terms that Putin is setting forth, which effectively means there won't be a ceasefire for a while and Putin's terms mayfire for a while, and Putin's terms may change after a while, as may Zelensky in the US. But what are you going to do to Russia if they say no, no, thanks. We're not going to do that. Right now, the US is already sanctioning every damn thing possible, short of entering the war and putting boots on the ground, which no American wants and is the opposite of what Trump said he'd do. I really don't see what pressure can be applied to Russia in this situation.
Speaker 2:Well, I can think of something what um? Well, I, I can think of something what uh us companies on the ground, mining minerals and disputed areas.
Speaker 1:Well, how are they going to get there?
Speaker 2:us, sends them over there uh on what? What do you mean on what?
Speaker 1:r Russia's shooting down the planes dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Russia's not going to shoot down a US plane carrying civilian contractors.
Speaker 1:If the warning is given ahead of time. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:It's happened before.
Speaker 2:Happened before in multiple countries. I do not see them doing that.
Speaker 1:The planes always divert because their instructions is that if a military jet gets next to you and says we will fire in three minutes, you're instructed to go to these coordinates or you will be blown out of the air. Doesn't matter what the country is.
Speaker 2:They follow those rules because, yeah, but russia's not gonna do that military that is how you would start World War III, and I do not look. I am not a fan of Putin, I don't necessarily think he's a good guy or anything like that, but what I would say is he's done everything he can to avoid World War III is my interpretation of his actions.
Speaker 2:I would agree of his actions. I would agree and, quite frankly, if trump says we're sending a fuck it let's say a 747 load of contractors over there to start looking at mining this materials, you're gonna let him do it he's gonna, let him do it.
Speaker 1:well, you can't walk through a war, a wall that somebody that's engaged in the war can't go through, because they're civilians they're called casualties of war at that point. So if US wants to send casualties of war, I mean I wouldn't volunteer for that. Would you go to Ukraine if your company said? Company said hey, we're gonna look at the security operations of their nuclear?
Speaker 2:uh, generator there. Would you like to go ben?
Speaker 1:sure? Uh, okay, just make sure you leave your guns to me fuck that. I'm taking them with me oh, but you can't because they have laws down there.
Speaker 2:You know I don't give a shit, oh man, yeah, no, I look. I think that there is absolutely a world where the us interdicts and says we're going to come in, we're going to stop this and we're going to negotiate. We're going to do this and it happens. Is that going to be the world we live in? We'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe the thing that I also don't see happening is if the US does something like place civilian shields for the Ukrainian military, do you really think that the Ukrainians are going to stop trying to fight Russia at that point?
Speaker 2:Well, but if they don't, then they piss us off and we end up fighting them alongside the Russians. Well, that would be okay for Russia. Yeah, exactly that's my point.
Speaker 1:Because the US fighting Ukraine would be a good thing. But I mean, I would say that the odds of if there is a 30-day truce right, if that happens, I think, the odds of there being drones that fly to Moscow, and whether they're shut down or whether they actually hit a building or a car or something else, that's a different question, but there would absolutely still be drones flying from ukraine to moscow. They're not going to stop doing that even if there's a official ceasefire happening, because they can always blame it on one of two things. They can either blame it on oh, it's just a russian, uh, red flag, you know right false flag yeah yeah, false flag they're, they're going.
Speaker 1:They're going to say that, nope, not us. They've already done that multiple times, like, oh, look at russia killing all these people, they're dead in the streets from some kind of chemicals. And then turned out that these were dead bodies that were brought over and unloaded from trucks by ukraine, and we have satellites showing. I'm doing that. It's like you staged a death zone and blamed somebody else. Okay, and then, uh, the other thing is, even if they don't blame russia, they can always blame it on some, you know, non, uh, uh, like a rogue military element or some. So there's always a plausible deniability.
Speaker 1:They can throw out there and say well no, no, no, this isn't coming from the president of the country. This is some independent, self-righteous Ukrainian patriot doing his duty, but not what the president says.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think Zelensky is going to have to. I, I think it's going to be messy.
Speaker 1:I have to the point is it's going to be messy, it's not.
Speaker 2:It's not going to be as clean as trump would like it to be well then you know what the other option is, that I'm very sad that we haven't executed on what say fuck it, get out of oh yeah nato and walk away from Europe and let the sun bitch burn. I do not understand why people want to keep propping up such failing systems. Let it burn. We will be better off on the other side.
Speaker 1:But for the same reason that people in this country want to keep propping up USAID. I don't. No, I know you don't.
Speaker 2:I'm saying enough people do that.
Speaker 1:We're seeing a big resistance to it.
Speaker 2:Like I was talking to a liberal friend of mine. What you have liberal friends, I do, and they're like. I can't believe you're on board with this and everything else. I don't give a shit. Burn it all down, let it all go. What about all the people? I don't care like you are talking to the wrong human being to get me to be empathetic on this. You know this is not, not gonna be a thing.
Speaker 1:I, and honestly- I don't torch Social.
Speaker 2:Security and I have two parents receiving Social Security. I don't care that, but that's.
Speaker 1:that's the thing with this whole situation in Ukraine is that the only reason as many people have died there as have, and the only reason it's dragged on as long as it has, is because of US support. European support didn't do diddly squat. It maybe slowed things down by a week, but US support created a situation where you have mediocre trained troops, but with an unlimited budget, an unlimited supply of weapons and ammunition, unlimited training in all the weaponry that they're not familiar with, going off and actually doing a much better job than people expected them to against Russia. And it is, I think, disingenuous to say that the US isn't the main reason and for all we know, it's the only reason, not just the main reason that Ukraine still is called Ukraine today.
Speaker 2:Versus.
Speaker 1:Versus a small? U you know that part of Russia which has always been called Ukraine, versus a country that was invented out of thin air in 1992.
Speaker 2:Did you see the awake with JP coming at a liberal coming out of coma? I did yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I did, did. That was funny, I love.
Speaker 2:JP. Jp is good. Yeah, you know I had a.
Speaker 1:You know, jp used to live in California and he was a yes, now he's in Austin, isn't he?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah he's here now, but he's a pretty liberal dude and and his comedy was sort of it was really making fun of rich people more than anything and kind of making fun of the fact that they considered yoga to be this sport equivalent to other sports, and all you're doing is just bending yourself and stuff like that. That was his mainstay, and when I don't know if he moved to Texas because he was becoming more conservative or if he moved for financial reasons and then became more conservative, but one way or the other, um it they kind of coincided and he started not just making fun of rich people but actually making fun of californians that he moves away from and then of the, more generally speaking, the libtards out there. Okay, so no, I enjoy JP I.
Speaker 2:One of the two bumper stickers I have on my truck is one of his from kovat.
Speaker 1:And that's bravery, not obedience, like good yeah yeah, yeah, and and I think he also found God. That was the other big change that happened for him. Yeah, but he, like I've been, I enjoyed his humor even when I was conservative at all, like he was genuinely always just a funny guy. He was also a skinny redhead, not like totally pumped up and you know, basically looking like almost as bad as Carrot Top. Not quite, though, I'm sorry, but gingers just should not exercise.
Speaker 2:That's not a ginger trait, unless they're female.
Speaker 1:Well no, they can do yoga if they're well hell. They can do yoga if they're male. I don't care about that, but they shouldn't be pumping iron.
Speaker 2:Why.
Speaker 1:Because it's just that. No, the red hair on a muscular body just does not work.
Speaker 2:Uh, it looks fake well, guys with red hair should dye it that black.
Speaker 1:Something else something other than red. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and well, you know, and and more brunette should. Girls should dye their hair red, but yeah, I'm in favor of that, although there's a definitely a difference between dyed red and actual redheads oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actual redheads are fucking crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are fucking crazy, and sometimes that fucking crazy comes out in the bedroom and then it's really good Sure, and then sometimes it comes out at the dating room table and that's really bad.
Speaker 2:Or you know your car tires.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah exactly. Fucking crazy. Women are fucking crazy too. Well, that's been saying that for a while too. Um, who sent the picture? I think you, you liked it of the truck, an old truck that says in the back uh, what was it? Make women servants again, or something oh, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:yeah, it was a post that said make women property again or something. And I retweeted it to you, saying Gene. I thought you drove a nicer car.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, exactly, yeah, yeah, down with the 19th, for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, well, I figured it was you, so you know whatever uh, so, uh, what else going on here?
Speaker 1:oh, I got, um, I made a little song in in, you know the AI yeah, yeah, yeah of some poetry, I guess, that Jack so big posted and I turned it around in about five minutes and he retweeted it. Yeah, I was like that's your retail did you retweet the show?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I retweeted the show. Yeah, I put it in there and it's still gaining. You know more, not just likes, but actual retweets from other people. So I think that's pretty cool. I've never had somebody with 3 million people that are following him retweet anything I've said before or done, so it's a neat experience, good for you gene now also uh.
Speaker 2:Yesterday I crossed over 2 000 subscribers on youtube.
Speaker 1:Ah, congratulations I will say going from zero to two,000 since September, in basically six months.
Speaker 2:Pretty fucking fast Okay.
Speaker 1:You know, some people take years to get to that point.
Speaker 2:Translate it into listeners for our show.
Speaker 1:Well, there might be a point at which you know our show is just not making enough money to worry about doing it. I'll just do nothing but YouTube, um, and I, I, I think that in a lot of ways, youtube is kind of eating Twitch's lunch. Twitch, which used to be the gaming preferred platform, I think, is really lose the well, I was going to say losing, but I think they've lost things, because most of the things that I see recommended to me on twitch are just what the we're called chat streams, which is kind of like what Asmund does and a whole bunch of other people do, and you know, like Sasha Gray and other people I watch on there, they're just sitting and talking the audience, and on YouTube, the number of people that are actually doing actual gameplay is going up.
Speaker 2:So I think YouTube's kind of winning that battle well, I don't have a dog in that hunt, don't really care I know, but some did you did you see the uh rage rooms? Where uh, they're, uh, so this one's in halifax. I'll'll send you a link. Oh, okay, the people are going into these rage rooms with crowbars and sledgehammers, stuff like that, and the owner is letting them smash up pictures of Trump and Elon and so on.
Speaker 1:Is that illegal?
Speaker 2:Every single person who goes in there should be on a list like I'm. I'm not an authoritarian, I am not someone who says this lightly, but like this is not. You are mentally fucking ill if you think this is cathartic in any way, shape or form there are two things I've been saying, one like the 19th was a mistake, and the other one is that shutting down the Satan asylums was also a mistake.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, and here's the thing Like the entire concept of the Rage Room that apparently has been a thing for a while, I did not know this. You know, go in, smash a TV, go and do this. You know, break, smash a tv, go and do this to. You know, break shit. Right, that's the entire point, is breaking shit. And if you find that cathartic and you think that is helpful, you are not in a good mental place yeah, well, it is cathartic for a four-year-old, sure but people are paying.
Speaker 1:These are adults, I am, you know but they're clearly acting like a four-year-old, like you ought to be able to deal with disappointment without wrecking stuff. But also I've seen a bunch of videos of guys watching a sporting game of some type and then destroying the television set when their team loses. What's up with that?
Speaker 2:It's stupidity. I don't understand.
Speaker 1:No, what's your TV got to do with anything? Well, again.
Speaker 2:Like I like football, I like watching my Aggies when they lose, I have a reaction, but it's not that. Speaking of reactions, did you see the left lose their collective fucking mind over Pete Hegsa's latest move?
Speaker 1:No, what's the latest move?
Speaker 2:As of now, all, all, without exception, or without any test or yada, yada yada, all transgender soldiers are disqualified from service.
Speaker 1:Well, that makes sense they make people uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:There's lots of stuff I tend to agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now there is an argument to be made for actually having them in the military, and that is as drill surgeons to scare the shit out of the new recruits and get them used to adverse conditions. Okay, but short of that I would agree. And I I like there's always stories of like, well, you know, in history there was like gay units and lesbian units and all these things where it was like a group of people that all like to sleep together, that were together. I'm like, okay, maybe I'm not gonna say that there weren't there.
Speaker 2:I will say that I think that is absolute bullshit.
Speaker 1:Well, apparently Alexander the Great had a lot of gay people in his army. And you know I mean that may very well have happened, but I think that they also had different standards of not just morality but different standards of discipline, Like back then. Capital punishment was doled out for all kinds of things. You might get caught eating an extra ration, um, eating an extra ration, and you? You might be tied to a post and left while alive, soon to be dead. It's a.
Speaker 2:It was a much more brutal world back then and I think, I think is a huge part of our entire societal problem is we're not brutal enough, exactly Well, you can thank Christianity for that. You can thank capitalism. You can thank lots of things. We need some hardship in our lives, and how we go about getting that back, I don't know. I think it's going to be imposed on us if we're not careful.
Speaker 1:And you know.
Speaker 2:I would rather do it in an orderly way than a disorderly way. But you know, one of the things I would say is just like this um post by retard finder on the um rage rooms right, those are people who have never actually had to deal with probably anything traumatic. Yeah, it's always been taken care of, it's always been handled, it's always been done by someone else, and that someone else was probably their dad. They probably don't recognize it. They probably think of him as a crappy old white guy that you know whatever. But you know what? I am tired of people not saying thank you for the little things, because you know what the little things add up.
Speaker 2:And when you, when you're constantly dealing with stuff for your family and everything else and there's no thank yous, it's a hard thing to deal with, but this is why you gotta let your kids fail. This is why you got to let your kids fail. This is why you got to let them deal with some crap. You can't you know you can't save them for their entire lives. You have to let them grow and if they're doing, Yep.
Speaker 2:I agree with that.
Speaker 1:Hey it's. It's usually the parents that are at fault. That's kind of where you can point the finger. That's what I'm saying that are at fault. That's kind of where you can point the finger yeah, that's what I'm saying and the ones that start pushing back and arguing and saying, well, no, no, it's the teachers that. You know, I have no control over my kids for eight hours a day. Well, whose fault is that?
Speaker 2:Exactly. Well, I told you the story about a co-worker I had at a power plant. He was an INC guy and just an interesting guy. But you know, kenny, he said well, we're not paying our teachers enough, they're the ones raising our kids.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I just looked at him and said why the fuck are teachers raising our kids? And I just looked at him and said why the fuck are teachers raising your kids yeah, you should have asked well, how much do you pay your wife?
Speaker 1:then?
Speaker 2:anyway, you know this entire mentality of you, know it's okay to just let someone else raise your children and you, you no longer have responsibility hey, this, it's not okay and even private school. It you have to watch out, it is it is a. It is a tragic world out there.
Speaker 1:I've got a good friend that his kid went to private school. All through school you know wealthy family and of course, almost exactly like down the manual it goes where the kid goes to college and ends up overdosing and ends up in rehab. Like well you know, 10 years of private school. Sure did a lot, didn't it?
Speaker 1:well, I mean, it's not even that, it's the gender stuff, it's lots of things, but I I think it's all connected, man, because yeah, if you're a teenager, you're in college, you want to try stuff, but there's a there's an element of fear that has to exist, that keeps you from going overboard like if somebody hands you a bottle societal fear drink, yeah, like somebody hands you a bottle for your first drink as a teenager.
Speaker 1:You don't chug the whole damn thing, because you could literally die. And if you do chug the whole thing, well, you ought to die. And uh, well, you ought to die. And you know, what you ought to be doing is pretending like, oh my God, yeah, I'm going to drink a lot, and then look for the nearest plant to dump your cup into your little Dixie cup. That is, I think, what we've lost. We've lost common sense in teenagers because, partly because we've had parents handing them over to unqualified teachers making too much money- I don't agree.
Speaker 2:Oh man, so do you want to talk about Sig?
Speaker 1:Sure, your favorite topic, let's talk about Sig. It's not my favorite topic. Bring it up. Every fucking show, go ahead.
Speaker 2:How do I bring it up every fucking show?
Speaker 1:Well, you managed to do it. What do you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:Okay, I bring it up every fucking show. Well, you managed to do it. What do you want to talk about? Okay, so one Palmetto State has the M17 on sale right now for 500 bucks.
Speaker 1:We really should get sponsored by them.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I would like that very much, but no, sig has come out and is defending itself very vociferously.
Speaker 1:Oh, against drops and shit.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah itself uh very vociferously against drops and shit. Yes, yeah, and twitter has been going crazy with a lot of posts showing oh, yeah, well, look at this, look at this, yeah, and I I gotta tell you where I sit on this. Um, I have a sig p320. I have dropped my sig p320. It has not gone off. I have used various holsters. I've done lots of things. I consider it a safe firearm. That said, any firearm is potentially dangerous. You have stored energy. You have a potential energy with the. You know the way striker fired weapons work. It is not like a hammer fired gun. They are different. There are, you know, people are talking about the over insertion issues and all that with the magazines.
Speaker 2:I have tested that on my own gun and I don't see it. Maybe it's because I don't have an extremely extended magazine that doesn't get caught by the magwell, because mine does. I think it's very specific to certain variants of the sig p320 and I think you have a lot of people glamming on saying, oh yeah, I had this issue too, because they don't want to take responsibility for their own actions. That's my view on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah I get it and and we've had this conversation before too I have a negative view of sig because I had the bad experience with the one sig I bought and so and it was a mouth just non-stop malfunctioning, to the point where I talked to gun store who does not accept returns to take the gun back yeah because, like this thing was manufactured poorly, I cannot have an unsafe gun and see I have, and see I have.
Speaker 2:so SIGs, I have multiple SIGs. I have what Pistols? I have three SIGs, and so I've got a .229. I've got a .365, which is my daily carry, and I've got my P320, which is now in a pdw form, and they are some of the most reliable handguns I have ever shot, regardless of what loads I'm shooting. Everything else they just eat and are very functional. So I have an incredibly different experience. The first SIG I ever got was actually the M17. That was the first.
Speaker 2:SIG I ever owned and I have shot the hell out of it, like I actually have ordered a barrel here recently because I have put enough rounds through it that you know, I've probably at least put.
Speaker 2:I'm not replacing the barrel just yet, but I know I'm getting there. I've probably put over 5000 rounds to that gun, if not more, and I have not had a malfunction. So when I sit there and say, you know, I consider this drop safe, I don't see the problem. I don't see what others are reporting on the Internet. I'm saying that as someone who has shot the hell out of this gun. But you know what? I'm not an expert. I don't know. There could be different issues and variants and maybe yours was built at a different time and some material wasn't done right or used or whatever. But guess what that happens with anything that happens in all manufacturing it does.
Speaker 1:But but it also happened in the time where I was very much a glock guy, not a, not even a an xd guy like.
Speaker 2:I am now.
Speaker 1:And you know my Glock that I still have, the one Glock that I told you about. Part of the reason that I still have it is that I have shot over 40,000 rounds through that gun myself and it is. I can count on one hand the number of times it's jammed in 40,000 rounds. And cheap ammo, high quality ammo, anything other than Russian ammo. I've never shot Russian shit through it, so no corrosives. But I've shot pretty much everything else and it just it worked. This was back in the day when Glocks had hexagonal barrels, which they don't, unfortunately, anymore. I prefer the hexagonal barrels for that exact reason, because they just feed anything. But you know, going off of that, getting a SIG, which was Mark Spencer and nicer and everything, and and then having nothing but trouble with it to the point where I had to return it.
Speaker 2:it was just like okay lesson learned well, so for me, um I I just don't like the way glock shoots it's like the, the aim point and everything for me is off. Uh, I have a Glock clone.
Speaker 1:I have.
Speaker 2:You know, parents have Glocks. I've shot Glocks. They're fine. There's nothing wrong with a Glock. I think there's a lot of. Anyway, what it comes down to is all weapons can have failures.
Speaker 2:Clean, take care of, maintain your weapons know what they are and stay abreast. If there's a material failure that's causing issues, hopefully they can identify it and resolve the issue. But otherwise it's a very functional and good gun and you have to remember we're getting a few hundred reports for one of the probably most deployed handguns in the world. So between police departments, militaries and everybody else who's using the 320, there are millions of these out there and we're getting using the 320 or are they using like a 229?
Speaker 2:no 320. 320 is the service handgun of the us military at this point. Um, most uh, a lot of police departments have moved from 329, which I also have, which isn't talk about a reliable gun and an excellent gun, but that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:And and yeah, but also we know, how much police shoot, or rather don't right, but my point is if this was, but they're bouncing around, they're they are.
Speaker 2:They are rough on you know, if this was a uh non-safe weapon, we would be seeing a lot more of this.
Speaker 1:And this is one of the things that I like in the XD line is their trigger safety, which I don't understand.
Speaker 2:The grip safety yeah.
Speaker 1:Why more guns don't have that, because it seems like such a simple part.
Speaker 2:Well, but again, that is so. There are two different types of safeties that we need to, and this is something that a lot of people misunderstand. Like a Glock has a ton of safeties in it but it doesn't have a manual safety to keep you from pulling the trigger.
Speaker 1:Right the.
Speaker 2:XD has a manual safety to keep you from pulling the trigger on the grip.
Speaker 1:Not mine.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? The grip safety, when you grab the grip, the back?
Speaker 1:strap, oh, the back strap of the grip. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has that.
Speaker 2:Glock technically has one with that little dingus at the bottom of the trigger, right Right when the trigger has to be pulled in a certain way. Yeah, but you know your 1911, your so a great example would be the M1A. Right, the M1A has that little lever. Or an AK that has that little lever, the AR-15, those are not drop-safe safeties.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are just disconnects.
Speaker 2:They are just to prevent you from pulling the trigger. The AR-15, for example, has a free-floating firing pin.
Speaker 2:If you bounce an ar-15 with a round in the chamber, hard enough it will go off, yeah, absolutely with striker fired pistols, you actually have a lot of blocking mechanisms that prevent that pin, that firing pin, from being able to move because it's held captive, it's held under pressure and you, you have these safeties in place. So I think a lot of people are making a lot to do about nothing, without really understanding how firearms function, and they're assuming oh, my AR-15 is safe, this is safe, this is good.
Speaker 1:No, no, no.
Speaker 2:You need to really understand what we're talking about here. To get it, it's not a safety that you flip a switch on and now the gun is active because that doesn't really exist. Let's be honest, like even on the m17, the safety that is involved with the um, the shooter, the thumb safety, all that is is really stopping the trigger bar from moving. Yeah, all the drop safety stuff is totally separate.
Speaker 1:And I actually trust the safeties on the Glock or an XD more than I do on the 45 with a manual safety Because of how they function Well, partly because I know myself, and I know that it's a fidget toy I'm going to play with the safety on off, on, off, on off, and nothing good is going to come out of that, because it's going to be in safe mode when I think it isn't and it's going to be in unsafe mode when I think it's on, and so I prefer my gun to have a safety that I don't fuck with, it's just they're in the gun, multiple safeties preferably, and the backstrap is a good example of a safety. It's like, hey, if somebody isn't holding the gun, how about don't shoot?
Speaker 2:sure seems reasonable but again, that's just a trigger disconnect safety has nothing to do with the drop safe side of things.
Speaker 1:But but again, it's like the, the more sort of automation that you have that doesn't interfere with quick operation of the weapon. Uh, I'm going to be 10 tend to be in favor of because, uh, we've all seen the videos I have. I'm sure you have as well. I used to play all these videos back when I was a fireman firearms instructor of um negligent discharges, and especially by cops and firearms instructors. Those were the two favorite groups of negligent discharges. I'm sure you've seen the video of the big black dude coming to the school talking about guns.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and shoots himself. Yeah, yeah, uh, huh. Well, look, negligent discharges happen with a certain frequency. Yeah, I do not see an increase in that frequency with the p320.
Speaker 2:That's my entire point here and you know I, I, and maybe there is some truth to it and maybe I'm just heading the sand wrong. Yeah, but like I said I, you know this gun is a few years old. I've got over 5 000 rounds through it. I'm getting close to that point where I'm probably going to swap out the barrel. And the reason why I'm going to swap out the barrel isn't through, it's just worn the hell out but because maybe I want to put a comp on there, maybe I want to do something else and you know hey.
Speaker 1:Well, that could be, I think, like anything else, like the hot coffee at McDonald's that gets spilled on just the wrong person all of a sudden, like the whole industry has to change. So I think it probably is much less of an issue. If it's not a complete non-issue, at least it's a much lesser issue than people would make it sound like it is well, now that we beat that to death yeah, what else you?
Speaker 1:we kind of have. Uh, let's see, what else do we not talk about? I think I don't know um, nothing really techy on my end. I don't think I haven't bought any guns for a while, which has been all you for quite a while here my last one was the Carmel um. Have you even shot it yet?
Speaker 2:no, I haven't shot it so we gotta definitely get you out to where you can go shooting yeah, no, we'll do that, for sure um lots of people without power throughout the us. I don't know if you saw that no, I didn't really yeah, the storm that blew through hmm, it from texas to the canadian border man. There was a lot of thunderstorms that knocked a bunch of stuff out. Iowa got hit real hard really okay.
Speaker 1:That's um. Yeah, that's not good when you're in cold weather. I was talking to a guy in germany today and, um, it was um 10 below zero out there ah, fuck that that's what I said. Like how do you live there? In germany now now let me ask you like move to greece or something?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, there's that, but are you sure he wasn't talking celsius? No, it was celsius, yeah 10 below celsius.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, well, that's that, but are you sure he wasn't talking Celsius? No, it was Celsius. Yeah, 10 little.
Speaker 2:Celsius. Yeah, okay, well, that's better.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it's better, but it's still cold, colder than I want to be here in Austin, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean it's only 14 degrees Fahrenheit, yeah, but when it's like it's chilly when it's 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
Speaker 1:It's only 14 degrees Fahrenheit, yeah, but when it's like it's chilly when it's 30 degrees Fahrenheit, it's too fucking cold.
Speaker 2:All right, you're just a wuss, but it's okay.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm not a wuss. I've had all the cold weather I will ever have for the rest of my life. Don't need it anymore, okay. Good for you yeah, don't don't need the cold weather, so, but I, uh I do enjoy pointing out to people that they live in shitty climates.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, germany is rearming. You saw that yeah yeah, and they literally said we have relied too much on the US for too long.
Speaker 1:Not just rearming, but they're talking about reinstituting the draft for the first time since World War II.
Speaker 2:Well, and they're changing around their constitution so they can take on more debt in order to do this. Lots, of, lots of things, man, um uh. I think if we pull out of europe, europe will very quickly devolve into war, and yeah, I'm, I'm ready for us to do it? I'm. I'm gonna lose a bet today because we haven't pulled out of nato, and it pisses me off like today.
Speaker 2:You said it would happen by today uh, I said we'll do it in a couple of weeks a couple of weeks ago and you know I didn't say a date, but uh, you know I'm being held to a tighter term than I would have uh agreed to in. Uh, you know, had we really lined it out.
Speaker 1:But that's okay, it's okay I think it's going to be a a long process and, uh, with a lot of lawsuits preventing us from doing it. Um, so I do you think treaty treaties are signed by congress, right? Yes so the president can't really pull us out of nato okay, so I I there is.
Speaker 2:There are clauses in the nato treaty on how to uh leave nato there actually isn't.
Speaker 1:I read the damn thing that this is the stupidest treaty ever, because what it says is disputes shall be settled by what do they call it essentially? Negotiations. They're avoiding having explicit instructions on what to do if a certain situation arises. Even when you're talking about the mutual defense commitment, there's still a way to weasel out of that if you claim that it causes undue hardship on your country.
Speaker 2:No, so you're wrong on this, because Article 13 of the NATO treaty allows for a notice of denunciation that you're formally leaving it and that uh must be uh submitted to the united states as the quote-unquote depository state and then uh membership ceases after one year waiting period uh, really, I didn't.
Speaker 1:I don't recall that I read through it.
Speaker 2:13, you said that's what the google and wikipedia are saying.
Speaker 1:Yes, withdraw from nato. Well, I wouldn't trust wikipedia, I mean google, I would trust a little more. But uh, I wouldn't trust Wikipedia, I mean Google, I would trust a little more. But uh, well, anyway, I was on NATO's own website. I read through the whole damn thing. I did not see any way for anybody to leave.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, nato treaty. Leaving is the search term I used.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So historical context France in 1966 withdrew from NATO. Integrated military command remained a member of NATO alliance. So on, legal hurdles for the US. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision, section 1250A, that requires two-thirds of the Senate vote to withdraw from the president. Two-thirds of the Senate to vote that the president can't, uh. Two-thirds of the senate to vote uh, that the president can't. So there is a, the ndaa is a law, but that law doesn't bind the president. Like there will be a lawsuit over this that congress can't say, well, we want to have this authority over you and it be a law that is extra constitutional, that actually binds the president. Like that, that can't happen. Either you believe in a unitary executive or you don't. Like you cannot have it both ways here.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I know what you mean, but I don't know the president, Like if the Congress can sign a treaty. I don't know the president, Like, if the Congress can sign a treaty, I don't know the president can cancel it.
Speaker 2:It depends on the terms of the treaty and the entire purpose of the treaty clause in the Constitution is to prevent the president from engaging in treaties that would bind the states.
Speaker 2:That's why it's two-thirds of the Senate that require the ratification of a treaty, and a treaty has the same level of law enforcement and capability. It becomes the law of the land, ie the Constitution, so a treaty. One way to, for instance, ban all guns and the left has looked at this and nullify the Second Amendment, would be to engage in a treaty that says we will do X, y and Z because it would. Now, whether or not the people would accept it, that's a whole other thing, but what it comes down to is if Congress passed a law and said the president shall not have the power of veto, or the president shall not have the power of veto, or the president shall not have the power to pardon, that doesn't stop the president from having those powers, because the congressional law does not supersede the Constitution. And anyway we have to have people who well, congress passed a law. They did this. That's irrelevant. People do not think or apply the right level of analysis to items far too often in our society.
Speaker 1:be my point yeah, that's definitely the case, I I agree I, I don't know man, I, I think, as with a lot of things around the current situation in Ukraine, I think US extricating itself from NATO is very much a hot potato that is going to result in a lot of pushback that will delay and delay and delay things, even if Trump wanted to do it. I think a better way for Trump to go is to do what he kind of hinted at, which is start charging a fee for NATO and then having other countries leave, because if NATO is like the US and Canada and that's it, there's not a point to having it.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, canada is going to get those French nukes, and then we'll see what happens?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll have the French nukes exactly.
Speaker 2:By the way, did you see the outcome of the Greenland elections?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was pretty exciting I don't know a single person that I saw in the videos I don't know jack shit about their politics, but I think they have what? 60 000 people there yeah, um, and apparently a good chunk of them voted conservative uh voted conservative, pro-business and uh you know pretty and pretty pro-independence and potentially even US yeah which is very cool, and I know that Trump's kids have been there both of them, I think so that's probably helping.
Speaker 1:Trump has more than two kids dude the eric and uh junior is the one, the two that I'm thinking of, because I've seen videos of both of them out there.
Speaker 2:Yep well, so I don't know I, I think, the odds of us getting something like that, or you know I, yeah, I would love to see that happen.
Speaker 1:but the problem with that is if, let's say, they gain independence and then they vote to join the US, well, how's the US going to oppose the eastern parts of what was Ukraine that voted to join Russia, and how are they going to call that a legitimate then?
Speaker 2:I don't think I dude, I. I see nothing but a strong. I see a Russo American alliance coming pretty fast. I really do.
Speaker 1:Every country in the world does not want that.
Speaker 2:Literally. I agree. Does not want that. I agree, yeah, yeah, yes, china should be scared shitless of such an alliance.
Speaker 1:China actually doesn't want it, india doesn't want it, the Middle East does not want it, israel sure as fuck doesn't want it there are no countries that want Russia and the US to be on the same side.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this is probably why we should want it more than basically anything else yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the us is the closest country to russia, which doesn't have a border that touches of any country, yeah, alaska, alaska yeah the island chain there, but it's um I I think there's so many people like you. Look at what kind of stuff is coming out of the woodwork for shutting down the usa id. If it was perceived by the left that us russian relations were warming, my god, would there be a lot of stuff coming out to try and prevent that from happening. Okay, I yeah, I, I, I Okay, Let them reveal themselves more.
Speaker 2:That's all I can say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, fair enough, but it's just to me it seems an extremely unlikely scenario. Not because people in Russia hate Americans or because Americans hate Russians, but because every other country doesn't want this. It's a serious danger to every other country because between russia and the us, they literally becomes a self-sufficient two you cannot fuck with at all. As long as Russia and the US are perceived as being enemies, it's much easier for smaller countries to pick a side, switch a side, fuck around and then get something out of the other guys. Pick a side, switch a side, fuck around and then get something out of the other guys, and that goes away if the two large countries end up seeing each other as friendly.
Speaker 1:So again, I agree with you, and that would be a great thing, but I just can't imagine it ever happening.
Speaker 2:So Mark Ruta just came out and said that NATO chief says Russia relations should be restored post-war. So Ruta, who we think is kind of our bag boy, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:He's on board so. I don't know man I think stuff could shift around pretty quick, faster than we think it could.
Speaker 2:I'm going to continue being a pessimist. Damn it, Gene.
Speaker 1:Why are you being a pessimist? Because I'm more right than I am wrong. Eh, are you? I am. I've calculated this. It's part of my value.
Speaker 2:You have value.
Speaker 1:The beauty is, you'd be surprised. The beauty of being more pessimistic is that, even if I'm wrong, it's a good thing, okay, because it means things are better than they would likely be. So, yeah, I don't, uh, I don't know. I I would. I would love to see not just the war end, but a great normalization of relations between russia and the us. But so many people, and really countries, not just people would prevent that from happening. They just can't allow that to happen.
Speaker 2:You have to have an enemy, and that's the chosen enemy well, I mean, if the EU keeps, keeps going, who knows, it might be them yeah, well, so somebody, somebody was um this, uh, something from x, uh, somebody posted a little quib about the uss liberty.
Speaker 1:You, you know what that is right it enlightened me. So it's a uS ship that was attacked by Israel in 1968. Yes, and you know. Basically a one sentence description of the incident, followed by, oh, most friendly nation, huh. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't friends like this.
Speaker 1:who needs enemies? Yeah, I don't disagree. Well, you'd be a moron then, because that was my reply to the guy and I said, okay, so how many people died during that incident? 37. 37 Americans died. 37. 37 Americans died during a war that Israel had, where it was attacked by four different countries at the same time. That happened during that actual war. And you know, sometimes in war things don't go according to plan and civilians get hurt and sometimes other militaries apparently get hurt. And for something that happened in 1968 that killed 37 americans, we're going to be saying, yeah, that's not a, that's not a friend to the US, that's a bad country. How many Americans died from Germany, our great partner in?
Speaker 2:Europe and a member of NATO. Yeah, I disagree with this sentiment 434,000. So I disagree with this sentiment.
Speaker 1:How many died in Japan fighting the Japanese, our great friends in the West? Nobody is suggesting that we ought to terminate relationships with Japan or Germany. Hold on, hold on.
Speaker 2:I don't think we should terminate relationships with Israel. I don't think that this should be a major impact to our relationship at this point, but at the same time, we've got to call a spade a spade and not act. I think we should be acting very cautious towards a lot of countries now. Japan and germany have capitulated largely, but they're that's changing and we need to be aware of it. Um israel, you know I'm sure you'll call me anti-semitic, but I just I. I think false flags happen all the time.
Speaker 2:We've seen that with the war in Ukraine. Do I blame them for doing what they're doing? No, they were trying to survive. They're trying to do X, y, z Fine, but let's not act like there's some great ally of ours that has always just helped us and done the right thing by us because they haven't, and it's okay. They've done the right thing by themselves because they haven't, and it's okay. They've done the right thing by themselves, and there's nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend that they're doing something by us, yeah well, I guess that's the the difference there versus germany is I didn't say they were.
Speaker 2:You're making a comparison that I don't think needs to be made.
Speaker 1:My point is that comparing the countries that we have relationships with and then that showing a completely disproportionate negative attitude towards Israel is why I'm making the comparison, because if you, if you look, there's plenty of stuff you can say that somebody doesn't like about Israel. That's fine. But to somehow look at Israel as being a bad country for the US to have as a friend is a really hard thing to sell, because a lot of America's dirty activities in the Middle East were actually carried out by Israel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is not a good thing, but you go on.
Speaker 1:Well, it isn't a good thing, because we don't like our country acting that way, but this wasn't Israel doing it on their own behalf. This was Israel doing it on behalf of America. Yeah, I gotcha Doesn't make sense, so it's like the definition of a friend isn't somebody who has high morals and won't do the things you want them to do. The definition of a friend is somebody that will absolutely break the law for you and on your behalf, because they're your friend okay this is this.
Speaker 1:The question somehow gets translated into like what's the most moral country in the world? Well, probably iceland. You know, a country we have nothing to do with.
Speaker 1:It isn't going to be Israel and sure as fuck isn't going to be the United States. The number of wars we've been in Agreed. So you know, if we're not clean, I kind of think our friends are going to be not clean. And the closer a friend they are, the more not clean they're going to be, are going to be not clean and the closer to friend they are, the more not clean they're going to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah Again, I am not going to champion one way or the other here, because I just I think we're not being a very good friend to Israel by just sending them money. I think that needs to stop. I think they need to be self-sufficient. I think you would even agree with that I totally agree.
Speaker 1:I've been saying that forever lot of israelis say that they don't want to be influenced by america because believe in that they would prefer to be more, uh, independent and make their own decisions about what kind of dirty business they're going to get involved in.
Speaker 1:You know, there there's a um, there's a just straight sort of nationalism that trump very much espouses, and I think a lot of countries have, uh, not nationalism in the nazi sense, but nationalism in the sense that I like my country, I want to support what my country does, but that doesn't automatically carry over to friends of my country. And I think this is what a lot of people are kind of doing with Israel. Is they're saying look, I love America, I don't like Israel, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying that. But somehow pointing to an incident that everybody admitted was a mistake, including Israel, and paid money in compensation to the families for the deaths, that happened 50 years ago over 50 years ago in fact and completely glossing over the fact that we've spent tons of american lives dealing with japan and germany, to me just doesn't balance the equation it's it's like ignoring in the sun it's like I know you don't, I'm just saying I I have this comments in uh in x, so I was writing about it because it's asinine.
Speaker 1:It's like you're going to be complaining about the uh, the person that jaywalked, while completely ignoring somebody that caused a car accident. Uh, you know, and and ignoring that and and you're going to go after the jaywalker. Okay, you're going to go after the jaywalker okay, there's my rant that I had on x gene's rant of the day.
Speaker 2:By the way, I do think uh darren had a good idea. You do need to start a show called the gene pool I, I'd love that title. I, I wish I would like you should have already bought the domain.
Speaker 1:The gene pool. I don't know if that's available, but yeah, it is actually a great title. I think the comparisons to Tim Pool would definitely pop up.
Speaker 2:I'd have to start wearing a beanie, I think. Well, I mean, your picture on your Zoom is already that, so that's fine.
Speaker 1:It's not a beanie, but okay.
Speaker 2:How is that not a beanie?
Speaker 1:It's supposed to be like a knight's helmet.
Speaker 2:It's not a beanie, it's cloth. No, it's supposed to be metal man, the way that I described the image to the ai, it was metal okay, well, it's a beanie, sorry well maybe it looks like, but it's definitely not a beanie.
Speaker 1:Why would I have a beanie on my head? I?
Speaker 2:you know what I'm gonna? I'm gonna take a screenshot and I'm gonna post this on twitter and let people decide if it's a media or not. Like, come on.
Speaker 1:You do that. That's a good prank. But I have been watching Tim Pool and he is very much like on fire right now.
Speaker 2:What did you watch? Because I didn't watch the Friday show yet yet. Or the culture war, uh I don't watch.
Speaker 1:I actually only watched tim's morning show at this point okay, and uh, what did, uh, what did you? See?
Speaker 1:well, he's talking about the violence of uh, the left yeah the ramping up, the increase, the normalization of violence, all the shit that we've been talking about. For you know, not on the show, but like I, you and I have been talking to each other. We've been talking to our friends, and for decades, literally, it's like the left does not respect life. It starts there. When you don't respect life, violence is not out of the question. We saw it in Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 1:we saw it in black lives matter we saw it with covid, we saw an escalation to violence happening as a result of someone saying words they didn't like yeah we've most recently seen it with the, the preferred uh clothing choices, aka trans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people praising Luigi Mangione.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and it's like that jump to violence happens very quickly for people and it all starts with a lack of respect for life I mean, it's almost like this country really needed to be a christian country well in order to function I I think maybe a moral christian country, yes, exactly of immoral christians an educated, moral country with a religious tent yes, unfortunately yes, like that is what our system of governance was I I say unfortunately, and we've talked about this because I think it shouldn't have to.
Speaker 1:People should have the ability to be moral without relying on some kind of stories and fairy tales.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's not real, that's how that's not real.
Speaker 1:I know, I know I mean that I agree that that's.
Speaker 2:Even if you take the bible and say, well, you know it's stories or whatever you dismiss it as and you look at okay, well, why are those stories relevant and why did they become what?
Speaker 1:they are. There's a reason for that.
Speaker 2:Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that this is, this is definitely something and again, you and I have talked not on the show about, but that I would disagree with that until I was probably about 40, 42, and then I I changed my mind. It was like, yeah, I don't, I don't think that people as a broad, general spectrum of all IQ levels and backgrounds, I don't think that they can have morals without having religion. It just empirically it, it it doesn't work and um, and so, yeah, I mean it's when, when, when reality points something out to you, it's hard not to uh agree with it well, I'm glad you're coming along did you finish the screw tape letters no, I need to do that.
Speaker 1:It's still just like six chapters. But yeah, I've had other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got a chapter left in the Peterson book.
Speaker 1:And then you start on my book.
Speaker 2:Yep, and I start on fancies and whatever it's called.
Speaker 1:Good.
Speaker 2:Nights, good Nights, yeah, which is such a weird title, but yeah.
Speaker 1:It is, it is, and that's one of the things that I like about it. It's kind of peculiar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's just out of print Like crazy not easy to find, no right.
Speaker 1:It is a little nuts. Well and when we meet and this we have talked about we've got a bunch of stuff for each other. Yes, I've got a box sitting on my stairs, yeah, yeah, and I don't have a box, but I should probably put everything into one box, so I don't forget anything, because I've got a variety of souvenirs and items for you, including that Civil War book.
Speaker 2:Ah, very cool.
Speaker 1:Which you know we've had in our family since the 70s. So I think you'll greatly enjoy that, and I'm sure your, your parents probably like looking at it too yeah, absolutely cool beans dude? I don't know. I'm sure there's stuff that I'll forget, but as we mentioned the beginning of the show, I'm going on mostly not sleep.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think I've actually slept for about two hours in the last 24 yeah, you, you need to go rest like close the blinds, you know yeah it's not just rest, it's just, you know, when you sometimes you lay in bed and you look at the ceiling and you're like, okay, let's just fall asleep, and and then you think about all kinds of stuff, and then you look at your watch and it's like, ah, like an hour has passed and I still haven't fallen asleep.
Speaker 2:So take some Tylenol PM or.
Speaker 1:Sudafed or.
Speaker 2:Benadryl or whatever. That just knocked you the hell out.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'll take some of this. What do you call this stuff? The methylene blue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a stimulant. That's the opposite of what you know.
Speaker 1:But I, but I kind of like it so hey, yeah, maybe oh you think maybe that's why I'm not sleeping maybe I hadn't really thought of that, but it is it's. It's a combination of nicotine, caffeine, methylene blue and CBD.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting. I heard you talk to Darren about it and I was looking at it. Yeah, it sounds vaguely addictive Vaguely, I don't know, man, you might want to chill out on that until you get some good night's sleep and see what happens.
Speaker 1:But I'll tell you what it clears up the fog like nothing.
Speaker 2:Did you ever try Brain Force and stuff like that?
Speaker 1:Alex Jones yeah, adam gave me a bunch of that stuff. When he went on the show he brought a box back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Brain Force, alpha Brain, there's several different little nootropics that uses mushroom extract. Yeah, yeah, but the nootropics work, and there's you know, things are good. I don't know if I'll try the ethylene blue or not, because it seems a little much.
Speaker 1:Oh, make sure you don't try ethylene blue. You try methylene blue, because the ethylene blue will kill you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I miss misspoke, I'm so sorry, I'm trying to make a joke about that yeah, anyway, um, but uh, I saw the you know, 30 bucks for x number of doses.
Speaker 1:It's not cheap, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:No, it's about 150 bucks a month if you're doing it every day, which I don't think is the intention.
Speaker 1:How else else would you?
Speaker 2:do it as needed. You need it every day.
Speaker 1:Okay, it says the guy who's going on?
Speaker 2:two hours of sleep. Yeah, that's the only downside of this side effect is you just stop sleeping. Yeah, like no dude, I think if you. Oh man, I'm kind of groggy this morning. Let me do a touch of this then that's fine, but if you're doing it regularly and every day, this may be why you're not sleeping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe I should take a pause. Yeah, yeah, we'll see, we'll see. I am taking a whole ton of different supplements right now, so it's hard to even figure out which one's doing what. Well, I think I'm doing like 32 supplements every morning.
Speaker 2:How do you not have a chronically just screwed up digestive system?
Speaker 1:Used to it. Okay, yeah, they all have positive benefits, it's just sure thing, yeah. So um, let's wrap up before we keep babbling all right, we'll talk to you later all right, we'll see you next week.
