Just Two Good Old Boys
We never mean any harm!
Just Two Good Old Boys
127 Broken Cars, Border Politics, and Digital Privacy's Last Stand
Privacy is dying, and we're watching it happen in real-time. In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore how the internet's last bastions of anonymity are crumbling under increasing pressures for verification and identification. Remember when you could be anonymous online? Those days are numbered, as more platforms require government IDs and collect vast troves of personal data that inevitably get breached.
The SIG P320 controversy continues to send shockwaves through the firearms community, with over 100 police departments now shelving these weapons. We break down the potential causes, from manufacturing inconsistencies to design flaws, and discuss why SIG's response has been inadequate so far. For gun enthusiasts, we also examine Palmetto State Armory's exciting new offerings, including their X57 model that brings fresh design thinking to the 5.7mm platform.
Texas politics gets the spotlight as we dissect the drama surrounding Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to break quorum. With arrest warrants issued and seats potentially vacated, we explore the constitutional mechanisms at play and debate whether reforms are needed to prevent similar tactics in the future. The conversation naturally flows into national politics, touching on Trump's plans for DC policing and border policy changes that are showing immediate results.
Between discussions of Howard Stern's contract ending, Foundation's third season disappointments, and the strategic implications of Patriot missile systems deployed to Ukraine, we weave personal stories and philosophical questions about freedom in modern society. Frank Herbert's prescient quote about civilization and cowardice resonates deeply as we consider how comfortable conformity has replaced the chaos that once allowed for true individualism.
Join us for a conversation that might make you rethink how much of yourself you've willingly surrendered to the digital world, and whether we can ever reclaim what's been lost.
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Howdy Ben, how are you today?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I'm kind of frustrated at the moment.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 2:Well, it's hot and my stepson's car. He was at the gas station gonna get some gas. Had run the gas down to like Nothing. One mile left like nothing Sounds like a kid. And anyway, but he made it to the gas station and except his car wouldn't start back up and and it's not the battery okay, so it's turning over it's either.
Speaker 2:No, it's not turning over, no, so it's either the anti-theft device or the ignition cylinder that is out because it's and I've got to go mess with it. But I had to try and do the reset for the computer.
Speaker 1:You know the radio signal either one of those makes sense, though for gasoline it wasn't.
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:well, I mean like if you swap a battery in a car, you take out the old one. Usually the anti-theft stuff is screwed up.
Speaker 2:You got to reset it Right, but this generation Explorer has a known issue.
Speaker 1:Oh, it does.
Speaker 2:Yes, of this going bad. And it's gone bad on this car before and been replaced, but anyway. So I tried to do the reset on it, see if is that I didn't know about the actual cylinder wearing out as a possibility too, so I need to go check that. But regardless, the interesting thing is that I had to go deal with this and go push the car out of the way, because people are don't know enough. Sure.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. I could see how that could get you to be frustrated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just a little bit. But anyway, we've put a bunch of money into this car recently and I never want to put money into this car and I don't. You know, I didn't want to buy this car when we bought it, but it was my wife's brothers and she's like, yeah, it'll be a cheap car for josh. Uh-huh, it has not been a cheap car for josh and it's an explorer, you said I'm sorry escape escape, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1:Well, what else going on? Where do you want to start things off?
Speaker 2:I where do you want to start gene?
Speaker 1:well, I don't know, I think we've kind of almost beat the 320 horse to a pulp. I don't know if I keep talking about, but I I think every single one gun to bird that I watch has now done a video on it yeah, I think everyone's done a video on it.
Speaker 2:I think everyone said stuff about it that I'm still waiting for sick to actually say something they did. They came out recently with a statement that's much more better since last week.
Speaker 1:You mean yeah yeah, yeah okay, well, I haven't seen that. What do they say?
Speaker 2:well then, you haven't watched all the gun tube videos on it. They they really lightened their language quite a bit on it. Here's the thing. I think that the modes of failure are possible. And here's the thing One of the theories out there is the takedown pin. You know that one right. So the takedown pin is cross compatible between the 10 millimeter version and the nine millimeter version and the 45, the 10 millimeter version and the 9 millimeter version and the 45. But the 10 millimeter version will cause the fcu to not function correctly if you swap them and put them in and they're not labeled different and these guns are all assembled on the same assembly line factory default right, so there could be something like that.
Speaker 2:And it wouldn't be readily apparent to QC or anything, unless someone was actually looking at it. And so there are a couple things I think SIG is going to have to say yes, there are some problems, here is a fix. We've had someone come out with a patent saying I know how to fix this. Would the validity of that? I don't know, but you know what it comes down to is they're gonna have to say something more than they've said. They're gonna have to get a fix and or at least address hey, we know what's wrong. It's this percentage of the guns. Here's what's happening.
Speaker 1:We finally figured it out yeah, I think that's exactly what they're gonna need, because otherwise they're just and in percentage of the guns. Here's what's happening. We finally figured it out. Yeah, I think that's exactly what they're going to need, because otherwise they're just. In one of the videos I was watching, they were going through a list of police departments that have canceled this thing. It's over 100 now.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, I think that's a knee-jerk move, and there's a big difference between it's a knee-jerk move, that's a knee-jerk move and there's a.
Speaker 1:There's a big difference. It's a knee-jerk move. That's a absolutely appropriate, given the lack of follow-through on six part yeah well, but here's the thing how long are they gonna?
Speaker 2:they may have paused those contracts. They may have said we're not purchasing anymore. Oh, no, not contracts they've.
Speaker 1:They've taken them out of, out of their officers hands, so they've basically just put them in the safe. Okay, that's fine, so I think they're back to Glax for the time being.
Speaker 2:That's fine. They can do whatever they want with that, but my point is they're not going to throw those guns away.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. I'm sure they'll sell them.
Speaker 2:Maybe, maybe, but then you've got a cost of you know, rearming and going back and redoing everything.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but dude they. They sell guns that don't even need to be replaced. You think they're going to hang on to guns that have a defect, even if?
Speaker 2:it's fixed if sigs, if sig says we've got coming out with it yeah yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:well, we'll see what happens, but I think they've severely damaged their reputation. Yeah, I think We'll see what happens, but I think they've severely damaged their reputation.
Speaker 2:They have For the record. I like my 320.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've said that a lot, so we all know.
Speaker 2:In my configuration, I'm not worried about it. Well, yeah, and I totally agree.
Speaker 1:In your configuration it's a non-issue. Absolutely Speaking of your configuration, style guns I sent you a link to the PSA X57. Did you see that, okay? No, oh, that was probably a couple days ago. It is almost ready for production. They're doing final testing on it. They've got the molds for damn near everything except for the magazine, and that is a beautiful, beautiful gun. I'm super tempted to get one as soon as it comes out, even though the intelligent part of my head says don't ever get first generation of anything, there'll be problems.
Speaker 2:What's the?
Speaker 1:gun. It's the X57. X. Yeah, visually, to describe it, it looks like an Uzi, except it's in 5.7 millimeter Mm-hmm, and it does have a shoulder-stuck-like. Yeah, it's got a pistol brace Pistol brace on the back and it pops out with a button so it's spring-loaded. It also has on the very short barrel, but it still has mounts on there. I don't know which one they're used. They they kind of just look like regular. What do you call it? Weaver, bounce or whatever picatinny, picatinny mounts. Yeah, that's what it looks like visually, but yeah, it's got picatinny rail on there yeah so you will be able to stick things like lights on there.
Speaker 1:Pretty sure the bottom one is plastic. That's usually par for the course for Palmetto State. But you know, for a flashlight it doesn't really matter if it's plastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's got M-LOK for some of the rails as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the top rail's metal, the bottom one's plastic, is what it looked like when he was going through it.
Speaker 2:I like that safety stop on the end there too, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the beauty of getting to design a gun from scratch is you can make it exactly the way that you want it to look like, and I think this is a very it's not the most compact, but, man, is this a sexy version of the gun?
Speaker 2:And it looks like.
Speaker 1:It might be the thing that gets me to finally buy a 5.7.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, I don't. The only 5.7 I want is a P90. Well, yes, Fair enough.
Speaker 1:And if someone does make a you know, a reasonably priced fully semi-automatic conversion for it, that will be the gun to get for sure what I want is machine guns to come off the nfa.
Speaker 1:Well, that would certainly do it. I mean, looking at the number of parts list differences between a fully automatic weapon and a semi-automatic weapon, there should be zero price difference between those two. You're not adding any parts. If anything, you're removing parts. So it's a. If machine guns were fully available, then yeah, it should totally be, as they should be, dammit as they should be, and this is the thing that you know Europe well yeah, europe has a horrible gun culture generally speaking.
Speaker 1:However, in multiple countries there, including Austria that I remember off the top of my head, and I think Switzerland is the same way, and also there's a few others that are not as bad with guns. But the ones that are not as bad with guns, all of them have silencers available without any bullshit that you can literally just have mail order to you some countries it's legally required if you're shooting outdoors yeah, which would well make more sense if you're shooting indoors, frankly, but well but they're talking about disturbing the peace.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like making you know electronic earmuffs require a tax stamp. It's idiocracy, never made any sense to me whatsoever and I don't think there was any good rationalization for it. That was a typical knee-jerk type reaction, but in the end I think we've got a chance to get rid of it, like you said, getting rid of the whole nfa, and I know there's a number of lawsuits that are out there that are attempting to do that right now, essentially using the fact that it's a tax at zero dollars, therefore it shouldn't exist. Yes and boy, I hope something gets through to a docket before the Democrats retake the House.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean Trump's not going to sign into law a $4,000 NFA tax.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, he's not, but that's a stupid thing to do.
Speaker 2:The Democrats are going to take the House.
Speaker 1:You remember what I told you like thinking. If I was on the Democrat side when this thing was going through, such a simple thing they could have done is simply change it from $0 to $1 and then claim that they're being pro-gun because they just reduced the tax from two hundred dollars to one dollar, like they could have their cake and eat it too. Essentially, they could try. Yeah, no, hopefully they're not.
Speaker 2:I was, they're not any smarter meeting hell this week. Yeah, yeah, it was like literally back to back, to, back to back.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I've had those weeks. That's pretty crappy.
Speaker 2:Anyway, yeah, I don't think the Democrats are going to take the House and I think we have a really good shot.
Speaker 1:Well, not the Texas House, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Oh man. So yeah, we've got arrest warrants for politicians.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not the way you thought the arrests were going to go, but hey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, I'm telling you, there's nothing better to put a smile on my face than seeing arrest warrants for politicians.
Speaker 2:I don't care which side they're from either. There's civil warrants.
Speaker 1:I know, I know It'd be great if they weren't. It'd be great if they were criminal warrants. But you heard Trump's comment about this right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you saw the update right. No, fbi has granted requests to locate fleeing House Democrats yeah, that's what I'm talking about and escort them. Yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:I think that's hilarious. It'd be funny. I'm sure someone's done a way to put up a, you know, most wanted posters with each of their faces on it well and kim paxton's filed for a judge to vacate their seats yeah, which is good.
Speaker 1:I I think the odds of that happening are pretty slim because, again, most judges don't like to get involved in political shit because they know that the last thing they need is the other side's political machine working against them. So they tend to ignore politically charged things, which we saw the Supreme Court doing five years ago.
Speaker 2:This is where we need an amendment to the texas constitution about the quorum and, quite frankly, I would, I would almost say, get rid of a quorum. You know entirely, but I don't know I don't like that.
Speaker 1:I like having quorums. What I would say is that everyone has to be there for every vote and the only way someone can be excused is with the vote of the majority of the members. So that way you never get into a situation where the minority can effectively flee, but also that leaves the room for the average kind of normal reasons. People may need to not come in, Don't you think? Don't?
Speaker 2:you think Ben, yeah, but they already have to be excused by the speaker. So what does that change?
Speaker 1:Well, I think the way it is right now, I think it's fairly easy to get an excuse by the speaker and I think that there's no consequences for not getting an excuse.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm in favor of consequences, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm in favor of adding those consequences in. Like you lose your seat without having to go to court. Like, if you're not, you know, if you have this happen and you haven't been excused by, you know the majority, or well, I guess we could say speaker, I would say majority of members then you have 48 hours before you lose your seat Cause that's an you know. I mean, if, if you got a genuine issue and you get an excuse, you can be gone a lot more than 48 hours, but you don't want to be unexcused for something that has so few days that they actually operate for more than 48 hours. So I definitely am in favor of doing that, because right now, my guess is that and again, I'd like to be wrong on this, but my guess is that either a judge is just not going to take this up and they'll just stick their head in the sun and ignore it, or by the time they take it up, it's next year. This is not going to happen in any kind of hurry.
Speaker 2:I think you're right, but we need to figure out what. Okay. So first of all, I think it's not going to get taken up before this issue is currently resolved.
Speaker 1:I agree this issue is currently resolved. I agree. Yeah, now the rest could actually happen, and I'm kind of looking forward to that, because they've got to return back to Texas at some point. I'd be surprised if, out of the 50-plus people that left if anywhere near majority of them decide to just never come back to Texas and live in Illinois.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I guess I guess you know you get a free, free suite in a hotel as an illegal up there. So now that the illegals are leaving, maybe they'll just designate those for red state legislatures that have decided to elope I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I.
Speaker 2:First of all, they need to be berated by their constituents for abandoning their position yeah there needs to be some sort of mechanism, like you said, to get rid out of rid of them without a court fight mm-hmm but you know we got to make sure that mechanism isn't abused. You got to do lots of things here, so yeah yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:I agree all out. It's, it's unfortunate, and I think that the bigger issue, the one that I'm actually kind of interested to see what happens is with a potential for actual charges and arrests if, if they figure out who paid for the airplane and whether anyone bothered declaring that as a campaign donation. Well, I think the bribery charges are a little. I don't think that's going to hold. Well, a bribery is any donation that hasn't been declared so and the the cost of those tickets. So if you take the cost of the airplane rental, which is a it was a CRJ 700.
Speaker 2:It was a private charter, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean it's a large plane, it was a 700. And the cost of that the fuel for that is 15,000 per hour. The rental of the plane is going to be pretty decent as well. Divide that by 50 people and you're definitely over your campaign contribution limit. That's anonymous, so you're going to need to either declare that and who it came from as a contribution to your political campaign, or you could very much get in trouble. And even in a corrupt state like Minnesota that was where I ran for office that was something nobody fucked with, like, if you're a politician, you don't, you don't falsify shit to the election commission because, unlike other agencies in the state, they will go after both parties. Yeah, but are they? Is that going?
Speaker 2:to be seen as a campaign contribution? Is the question? Other agencies in the state. They will go after both parties. Yeah, but is that going to be seen as a campaign contribution? Is the question?
Speaker 1:It can't not be seen as a campaign contribution. Why? Because when you get anything of value over $200, and that number could have gone up since I recall, certainly, but anything over $200 is considered a campaign contribution during the portion of the year that is designated to be a campaign period, which, in Texas, is right now and that I heard from from what's his face's office, the attorney general's office, ken Paxton. Paxton's office yeah, tax in the office. Yeah, so right now is campaign season, which means anything over 200 bucks or whatever the adjusted number is now has to be reported. Hmm, so we'll see what happens. My suspicion is that, man, it'd be awesome if it happens there could very well be some folks getting slapped with charges on that account. It'd be awesome if they are.
Speaker 2:I just don't see it actually going going through, but I would love it that could be done fairly quickly though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because that's not I mean I'm sure that, but like that would have to first happen before they could actually try and object to it through the court system well, and they would have to, they would, would I mean.
Speaker 2:At the very least, then it'd be grounds for censure and or removal.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes exactly, but either way I'm glad that our fairly middle-of-the-road governor grew some balls.
Speaker 2:It ain't over yet. I know, I know, but you know grew some balls.
Speaker 1:I ain't over yet, I know, I know, but yeah grew some balls. I said not all balls, but certainly and I guess that's maybe not a great joke to make, given that he's in the wheelchair, but paxton, I think, is definitely pushing for this because this helps his campaign makes him look tough on crime even political crime Makes him look tough on crime, even political crime.
Speaker 2:So yeah, which he's. I think Cornyn is worried.
Speaker 1:Cornyn's got to be done. He's been in there long enough. He ought to just retire, gracefully, yeah.
Speaker 2:Last thing you want, on your final years, to actually get kicked out of office. Well, he's not.
Speaker 1:He's running and Ken Paxton's running against him. So he is, I know, but but I think he, if he's smart, he will drop out and not let it be a decision that the the uh people make it just did you make some look bad?
Speaker 2:Did you see the big balls story, since you were talking about?
Speaker 1:balls, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a big balls is proving to be you know, sticking up for his name.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for those who don't know, he was beaten mercilessly because he saw a woman getting carjacked or something like that, tried to step in and he got his ass kicked pretty bad, but yeah, this led to trump talking about taking federal jurisdiction back over dc yeah, yeah and that lot.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people are in favor of that. Dc is kind of a shithole. Has been for a long time. The location of this attack, too, is an area I know pretty well.
Speaker 1:I had a friend that lives off dupont out there, or used to yeah and so every time I'd fly into washington area I'd end up hanging out there, going to the coffee shops etc. You know, if anything, that area was kind of known as a gay area. It wasn't really like a high-risk criminal area, but I guess they're at the point now where everything inside the square is high-risk criminal.
Speaker 2:I apparently, like I don't know, I'm not familiar with that portion of the of DC I'm not familiar with the gay area, like you are yeah yeah, well you're mostly in virginia, so that makes total sense well, I'm. I work in virginia and maryland occasionally.
Speaker 1:Yes, uh-huh, that boy your head. All right, let's see what else we talked about again. Oh, watch the video on another gun, the Guardsman series, also from Palmetto. Did you watch that? No, geez, you haven't been watching much video. What are you working on something? What are you busy? Yeah, yeah, I am Go figure. Geez, you haven't been watching much video. What are you working on something? But you're busy. Yeah, yeah, I am go figure. Yeah, palmetto's been cranking out some stuff like it seems like it wasn't that long ago that they just had their big poll at shot show, but they're busy cranking away on a bunch of new products and suing the government. So, yes, sil, yay.
Speaker 2:Paul Meadow Instead of Silencer Co. Yeah, yep, that's right, that's right, there's a good coalition that we're ready to go.
Speaker 1:That's very good. Give a little health update here. Last episode I'd mentioned that I hurt my foot somehow and I wasn't sure what's going on. And long story short, on that everything's fine. Did end up going to urgent care and did a bunch of tests because I was. I was worried that what my other co-host, the co-host Darren, said might be actually happening, which is a blood clot. The doctors reassured me that there's extremely low chance of that, given where I had the pain and then the feelings afterwards. So no blood clots, no negative issues from that and no one knows for sure exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:But most likely scenario they could come up with is it was gout which I've had in the past occasionally. Is it was gout which I've had in the past occasionally it was just if it's gout, this is the first time I've ever had gout at an ankle location rather than in my toes. I've had it in my toes for every time it's ever happened, always been in the toes. But I guess it is possible for gout to be anywhere in the body or any joint. I should say Fingers, elbows, knees toes anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think, Shoulders, knees and toes, yeah, right exactly, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I think typically it tends to be at locations with the slowest moving blood, which would be the furthest from the heart, which would be the toes. So I think statistically that's most likely in the future again anyway, it's a fat man's disease. Well, it's an intelligent man's disease. A lot of royalty tend to have these issues in the past, but I could see how you would mistake it for a fat man's disease, sure.
Speaker 2:There's no mistaking it, Gene, and you are indeed fat, so Well, I mean you know big bone.
Speaker 1:I guess you could say but, it's not fun. I'll tell you that it's definitely not fun.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad you got it figured out and I'm glad it wasn't a clot, right? You had me worried there for a little bit, yeah, wondering if I was going to get some guns, get all my guns.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I know what you were thinking about. The important bit.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But nope, I get my guns for a while here. Let's see what else we end up talking about or looking at. Yeah, I mean, I probably spent half my time with all the sick related videos, so I don't I don't have a huge amount of stuff that I want. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You, you. You've been sending me a quite the spam.
Speaker 1:I know I probably sent you like 12 videos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, two story and I've sent you some of what I'm getting on my X timeline.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:I didn't get the Reem's Authentic Jerusalem Street Food, though you did or didn't, didn't. You didn't get the Reem's authentic Jerusalem street food, though you did or didn't, didn't.
Speaker 1:You didn't get it. You mean, you don't understand what I had food there. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know what this is. Oh Did you see Mr Guns and Gear NYPD paying $200 for anyone who surrenders a gun. I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did see that, I did mr guns and gears, and then it's had an ad huh, it was pretty funny. For a 410 shotgun for 75 dollars no, I would be extremely careful using a shotgun for 75 dollars no, you, it's a breech load, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's pretty straightforward, dude.
Speaker 1:I mean, the parts should be more than that, but yeah, Turkey Turkey-ay. Turkey-ay. That's right. Pronounce it properly, man. They don't like you mispronouncing it Turkey-ay.
Speaker 2:So what did you like about the PSA Guardsman? I'm looking at that one. Oh Well, again I key. So what did you like about the psa guardsman? I'm looking at that one. Oh well, again I. I think it looks just like a ar-15 style.
Speaker 1:Well, it is an ar-15, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:They've added a bunch of sort of upgraded comfort features to it, which is good comfort, features you know, like upgraded trigger, ambi selector, like all the shit you'd normally buy aftermarket to add to a cheap gun. And psa no doubt about it is in the market of selling cheap guns that were making manufacturing cheap guns like they. Certainly they sell more expensive guns than that, but their guns tended to be on the low end, not the high end of the spectrum. So it's interesting that they've now got a still fairly cheaply priced line but now it's actually made to be more competitive with other lines that are using higher end parts but still not very expensive.
Speaker 2:I mean, they've got some expensive guns out there too that they make Like their Sabre line is pretty expensive, the Jackal line is pretty expensive.
Speaker 1:Jackal is cheap. Come on, dude, that's not expensive.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Jackal, that's not expensive.
Speaker 2:I mean it's a $1,400 gun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's a $1 yeah, yeah, it's a 1400 gun now it is.
Speaker 2:When I bought mine, it was 1100. Well, I'm talking about the, the ar-10 base 308 one.
Speaker 1:Well, that it okay. 1400 for a 308 is a cheap line. Come on, you gotta specify for for a 308 size. Most of your guns are going to be from other manufacturers that are of that caliber, that are semi-automatic black guns. They're all going to be over two grand Okay.
Speaker 2:What you don't agree, no, but anyway, the regular Jackal is still like $1,100.
Speaker 1:All right, and how much is the SCAR?
Speaker 2:Way more expensive, but it is not a one-for-one replacement for the SCAR.
Speaker 1:No, but it just looks like it.
Speaker 2:Sure, do you buy your guns based off of looks, of course. What do you?
Speaker 1:buy them off.
Speaker 2:Functionality, oh yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Well, in that case you wouldn't have a Glock, would you?
Speaker 2:No, because I hate the way a Glock feels in my hand. I don't shoot Glocks well, I don't like the mechanics of it. I would have to relearn stuff which you know. Yeah, before we go too far away from the texas thing you saw where the dems, newsome and hokal are talking about redistricting there I heard it, but I didn't really pay attention because california is already pretty gerrymandered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it would literally they don't have time, so they would literally they don't have time, so they would literally have to put a ballot initiative to do a special thing outside of their constitution. Yeah, and it would go to a bipartisan group that would then, you know, do whatever.
Speaker 1:And California is again. They've already eliminated the votes of conservatives living near cities. So that's the only thing that you can do with redistricting is any? Just for sake I assume you know this but for sake of people that don't understand why this is an issue and how gerrymandering can get more votes for one side than the other. The way that you eliminate people's votes is by spreading those people out as a minority within a larger district where they will all be a minority. So let's say you have a pocket of, let's say, black people living close to the city, like South Dallas, for example.
Speaker 1:If you want to ensure that that entire group of people that presumably have a similar political sense votes together, then you would create a district right around that bubble, usually, you know, chopped off at the sides by highways or railroads or something, or, like you know, eight mile or just random.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, but if you're proactively wanting to keep that vote together now, conversely, if you want to do the opposite, you want to ensure that that those people will never be represented, then you take and you split that district into three groups you could do it with two, but ideally into thirds and then you have a southwest portion of that group that's grouped together with a larger district that includes mostly people that would vote differently.
Speaker 1:Then you have another slice that, maybe an eastern slice off of that group that with again another district where people would vote and you can theoretically and, by the way, illinois is a very good example of this if you want to look at the way they did it. They're super gerrymandered in illinois, which is probably why those guys decided to go there they effectively make sure that any large conservative voting district like the northern area of chicago which is, you know, expensive houses, typically people that would vote more likely towards conservative that area is split into three different sections that bend and curve down and around to ensure that they're also capturing people from South Chicago. It's a bizarre looking map.
Speaker 1:Most district maps are um you know the there's a district not too far from you in Austin, that's pretty gerrymandered because it literally goes from Austin to South San Antonio yeah, exactly, and there are a few of those and Texas, from what I saw in the analysis, texas is currently about 5% gerrymandered and it's going to go to 6% gerrymandered with the new scheme. Not a major change, frankly.
Speaker 2:It's not, and the thing is it's just going to screw over the Democrats. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:However, illinois right now is 17% gerrymandered. It's like easily four times more gerrymandered than Texas is, or three times so. In California, I think, it's 12%. New York is 16%. So all these enclaves of liberalism, they're the ones that typically go hog wild with gerrymandering to ensure that the people that they want get votes. You know, if they don't have enough people in one district that they think are going to vote Democrat, they just simply sort of shrink the sides of the district on one side where there may be more conservative voters, and then expanded, maybe stretched out another couple of miles not at all in a straight line to make sure that they capture more of the vote that they think is going to vote Democrat. And it's like it's super easy to know from a physical address who votes what, because all those numbers are totally available, like that's part part of the what the area?
Speaker 1:yeah, they are your specific individual not individual houses, but but they're not gerrymandering by house, they're generating by the voters of an area. So they can that like any. Any well, more than likely, anything east of 35 in austin is going to be like 90 democrat voting and 10 conservative voting, but if you go down to the southwest side of austin it's going to be more like 50 50. So they they know how to draw the lines to ensure that you know they can minimize one side and maximize the other side, and everybody does it. This has been a normal thing forever. The reason it's called gerrymandering is because the original guy that was I don't even think he was the first to do it, but he was the one that kind of got accused of doing it was a guy named Jerry and I can't remember if it was Louisiana, if somewhere in the south, I can't remember what state but isn't that apocryphal.
Speaker 1:The districts- were drawn in the shape of a salamander, which is where the second part of the word comes from. There's the name of the guy that that kind of got blamed for, along with the word for Salamander. What's apocryphal.
Speaker 2:I think that, where that name comes from, the story you just told is apocryphal.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought it was kind of funny. It was also a story from the age of yellow journalism too, so we don't even really know any of the facts around this, because you really couldn't trust newspapers back then have you ever been able to?
Speaker 1:Well, I kind of feel like there have been people in long history that have engaged in the news reporting field that I would trust them and I would trust their books, but as a general industry, no. But there have been times where the industry itself has basically said, look, we need to reform ourselves before the government does it, because we're just blatantly lying to everybody. And that's where I think the Pulitzer Prize came out of is. Basically that was given to the one reporter a year.
Speaker 2:That actually was lying the least yeah, so the dems are also freaking out about the new census that trump wants I don't know if you saw that story I did see that.
Speaker 1:I think it's hilarious. I don't know if he's going to get funding for that, because that obviously is a major investment financially and I think a lot of people will be pushing for, like why the hell are we doing census twice in a decade? That's wasteful.
Speaker 2:I now. Is he talking about doing it out of rotation?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, he wants to do it next year, year.
Speaker 2:Hmm, yep, because everything I was saying was that he was just changing the census form for he wants to do it while he's president.
Speaker 1:Okay, and they talked about it how it basically would be a five-year census instead of a 10-year census, which is why I think it's going to get some pushback.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean he can call it, but it wouldn't be for the. It would just show the disparity. It wouldn't be used for districting purposes.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know that it wouldn't. I think it would be, and this has been done before, has it? Have we done out of sync?
Speaker 2:Apparently in the 70s.
Speaker 1:Really I didn't realize that. Okay, hmm, wonder why. But yeah, I think it's a good idea. I think it again fixes something that is systemically broken, which is that there's zero penalties for states to do this without any kind of a standard across the board. So, state some states will include illegals, like all the liberal states, other states will not include.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the feds, so the states don't get to include or not include that really my understanding was that no, it's the federal government that determined, it's the federal government that does the federal government at some point made a decision to include illegals they never have excluded them explicitly. There's not a question on the form that says are, are you a citizen?
Speaker 1:And that's the thing that's so stupid. And then again.
Speaker 2:That person could lie.
Speaker 1:Well, under perjury of felony, yeah, but it really should be a census of citizens, not a census of random people who happen to be in a certain place.
Speaker 2:Well, it should be a census of everyone and count the citizens and the illegals separately, and permanent residents for that matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it could be, but since representation is based on that census, it is completely unfair to some states versus others. That some states that have more illegals would have a greater vote in the house. Yep, that that's the problem. This is why I think all the other states do have standing to sue, but the supreme court disagrees with me. But they're wrong.
Speaker 2:Oh, I tend to agree with you.
Speaker 1:Because it affects all the other states, and Texas, I think, presented a very good case when we sued the government, which, again, the Supreme Court just threw right out.
Speaker 2:Well, Texas v Pennsylvania should have been heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:so well, texas, the pennsylvania should have been heard, yeah, yeah I think there's more grumbling now with the. The other issue, or the other politically related stories that I've seen, is the, the fact that All of the stoppages of Trump's executive orders have come out of, I think, three states and a fairly small number of judges, and all of these are affecting the policy for the entire nation. So I think there's the.
Speaker 1:Supreme Court is alsoa problem, but that's all yeah, yeah, yeah they are, but I think that there's probably gonna be some court reform that's gonna get taken up by the probably this, I imagine this term by the house, by the house of the courts no, no reform from the house. Like new laws relating to the courts?
Speaker 2:well, we'll see what federal court is.
Speaker 1:Anyway through though yeah I, I don't know it's. I don't know if that requires a simple majority or a supermajor.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you know new laws in the Senate require two-thirds, so Is there anything ever in new law?
Speaker 1:They're always just amending shit.
Speaker 2:Well, other than budget reconciliation, it requires two-thirds.
Speaker 1:Hmm, Now that Really You're sure about that.
Speaker 2:Anything other than budget reconciliation Unless you get rid of the filibuster rule.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's bound to be things that get less than two-thirds, but sure that aren't filibustering. Not everything has to be filibustered, you know okay I'm just telling you well anyway. Uh, it's there. There's definitely a lot of unsatisfied politicians right now with the court system. I mean there's certainly plenty that are satisfied, but they're in a minority, because the courts are not supposed to be used as a way of affecting political desire. They're supposed to be focused on black and white matters.
Speaker 2:Agreed desire. They're supposed to be focused on black and white matters. Agreed, but yeah, the courts are very political right now yeah.
Speaker 1:So in the absence of laws that prevent that, I think they're going to need to create some new laws that govern. At the very least, I think they may revisit the requirements for judicial what would you call it? You know where they kick them out.
Speaker 2:Well, you want to get rid of judges. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, so it requires impeachment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go. They might revisit that.
Speaker 2:So do you think the Senate's actually going to vote to impeach any of the Democrats?
Speaker 1:They might.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I don't know, dude, I think they might. We definitely have a problem with the Senate, and I've talked about this plenty of times, that this, the Senate, is really the most of the unit party. Really the most of the unit party. They're because they, each Senator, is an office. Even a bare minimum term is longer than a president. They, they, tend to work more as a, a group that does favors for each other than they do as a party-based coalition, and certainly way more than they are representatives of their electors yeah, it's the.
Speaker 2:The courts are a problem in most states.
Speaker 1:Texas, we elect our courts here, so that's a benefit that's not even a good thing either, because most people why we can get rid of them? Because most people. I'd love to have an election where, again, you have to actually write down the name of the person you're voting for, because what we have here is no different than other states that have judicial elections, which is where 90% of the people voting are just checking off a box. They have zero actual information about the judge, which is also why a lot of judges run unopposed, because no one even bothers running against them, because, well, they don't care. I don't think elections of judges, I don't think elections of judges by the public at large, is a solution to this at all.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we've ended up with fewer radical judges in Texas because of it. But that's me, I think. Where it does help is there's at least a fear that your terms are going to expire, but I think you know a term could expire even without having direct elections for judges so anyway, moving on, because I don't think we're going to agree on that one, but did you?
Speaker 2:did you see that the border crossings, uh, illegal, uh, interdictions and everything are now down to almost zero? No, I didn't, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:The border policies are working.
Speaker 1:Well, that's not too surprising, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then did you see that Trump is ordering colleges to prove that they don't consider race in admissions before they can get federal funding?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an interesting one. I don't think colleges should get federal funding period. I don't think colleges should get federal funding period.
Speaker 2:I don't think so either, but he's using that money. He's using that as a way of saying yeah, we're not going to just give you money anymore by default. You have to actually go through some hoops, which I don't think is a bad thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it's a bad thing either. I just think that there's a it's. It's like the the old argument about you know, reforming pretty much anything in politics. It's like, well, you want to reform it, or do you just want to not pay for it, cause there's plenty of things that Doge has found that I'm very happy that we're no longer paying for. So frankly, getting rid of money to colleges in my book is the same as getting rid of npr did you see?
Speaker 2:well, which is just so wonderful, you saw howard Stern getting canceled and well, he's not really getting canceled, he's just not getting renewed it's the same thing no one.
Speaker 1:Well, we don't know why he's not getting renewed. I don't know that he wants to keep working.
Speaker 2:Dude guys pushing say, didn't know for they they weren't gonna offer him enough money because his demographics have gone to shit.
Speaker 1:His demographics absolutely have gone to shit. But again, it's a I don't. People are are talking about this like it's some kind of big win. Colbert absolutely wants to and is going to try and find some other network to be on. I think it's highly likely that Stern is going to retire and I think that, given how long he's been doing this and the fact that his format hasn't changed, as you gotten really stale and the people that are big fans are, like you said, dying off, I don't think this is a surprise for him either. I think this is something that he very likely has thought of and maybe even talked about with XM, sirius, xm, whatever they're called these days, as far as what happens, because, remember, this was a 10-year deal, so this is the expiration of a 10-year, $100 million contract.
Speaker 2:I would love one of those.
Speaker 1:It's his second $100 million contract, by the way. I would love one of those. So the guy has made about $200 million so far. Off talking on the radio about porn.
Speaker 2:Well, and politics and lots of things actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the thing that I think most people listen for is the porn. You can get politics a lot of different places, but how, where else do you get interviews with chicks that are taking their clothes off while they're sitting on the vibrator? I mean, that's, that's pretty much howard, cern, or how was?
Speaker 2:he? How? How did he ever get around the f, f, e, c that well? Why do you think he's on?
Speaker 1:seriousius FM for the last 20 years.
Speaker 2:Right, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1:He wasn't. Yeah, they were a lot more careful with their words. But also he did always get in trouble. It was pretty regular for them to be paying for fines every month. He talked about it in his book, okay, and you know I listened to Hard when I was in his book. Okay, and I, you know I listened to hard when I was in high school. Like that's the demographic. Unfortunately, I think the demographic never converted to that age group. It just sort of got older and older as he went down. Because I just like at a time where it was very unusual and titillating to hear about strippers when you were, you know, growing up in the suburban school or college, the world is just not that innocent these days. The world is just not that innocent these days, you know, you got 12 year olds watching the kind of porn that that some of us hadn't seen until we were in Mexico on a trip in our twenties, I heard. So it's a, it's a different world, and a shock jock is just not very shocking anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. Unfortunately, some of us that grew up in the 90s got pop-ups of things that you didn't want to see.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I'd been to Mexico by then already. But yeah, it's a different world, for sure. But you know what that world is changing and I don't know if it's for the better. But I'm sure you've also seen and maybe we haven't talked about it that there's a huge move to get rid of privacy on the Internet, or not so much maybe privacy, but get rid of anonymity. I think that more and more websites will require photo identification.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then there's the flip side of it. With what we just saw, what happened with the T app? Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, lots of people's driver's licenses got leaked, oh yeah. And here's the thing Anyone who's worked in cybersecurity should know that you don't keep PII if you don't have to have it. Yeah, but also you know, and PII is personally identifiable information.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know as well from working in corporate America that no one ever falls through on that shit, like nothing is ever deleted. It keeps everything because there's very high probability that somebody at some point is going to say hey, we still have this right Because we need it for a thing we're doing.
Speaker 2:Well, and then there's the whole. We should talk about the burn bag too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, before we get to that. So if you want to have a blue check mark on X, you also need to provide your photo identification. So there's a ton of people whose driver's license photographs are at X right now, and if X ever gets hacked into and that data gets exposed, I think there's a very high likelihood that x also, even though they shouldn't be keeping it. I totally agree with you. It should just be used for verification, but I think there's a very high probability x would have the exact same problem as this app because, they most likely keep all this indefinitely.
Speaker 2:X wouldn't have the exact same problem because they're not the same type of app.
Speaker 1:So you know no, no, but I mean the same problem as in a leak of personal information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yeah, yeah well, yeah, but the doxing and is less likely to be a thing because you know it may be the. You know some famous accounts and stuff like that, but not individual people well, I still remember when ashley madison got hacked.
Speaker 1:I was not a happy camper.
Speaker 2:You're on that list, huh? Well, obviously.
Speaker 1:Everybody's on that list. 37 million people in the United States.
Speaker 2:I was never on that list, thank you. Yeah, were you married back then what year was it? They got hacked in 2015,. 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:No, I was not married. Okay, not yet. Yet doesn't mean you couldn't have been on. I mean there, you know reasons to be on there anyway. But yeah, that was a. That was a pretty major leak, but I didn't really care because obviously, like I've been doing for any questionable site, I always use phony information in there.
Speaker 2:Say that again.
Speaker 1:I always use phony information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean you still have to actually pay with a credit card on some of these and everything else.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:There's lots of things that can get leaked.
Speaker 1:You do. Thankfully, the PCI requirements tend to be actually more enforced than the general data protection requirements.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and again, that's why you know, when I was at the power company, one of the things that we because we had customers, right- we had customers' information. One of the things we were trying to do while I was there was move to tokenization of that information to get rid of it because it's just a huge liability. Absolutely, and if you have a decent cso who is talking to the board and actually talking about risks, that is definitely a risk that needs to be addressed now.
Speaker 1:asmongold did a video on this, which is hilarious for a guy that is known for having a messy house and playing wow online but know he's kind of turned into a political commentator lately. He said that this is inevitable. It's going to happen that the internet's anonymity is going to go away. I tend to agree with that, but he also said that the scenario that is most likely to happen is a government-based tokenization system where it's not operated by any large company, but essentially a company can query, you know, a government database for a, whether it's their requirements for adults or for whatever. Essentially, take what you currently already have in your DMV, in your state's driver's license database, and then be able to just verify against that using tokens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you have the government getting hacked and everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm less concerned about that, why they get hacked all the time.
Speaker 2:They do get hacked all the time. But I'll tell you why. I'm less concerned about that. The the issue why they get hacked all the time. They do get hacked all the time.
Speaker 1:But I I'll tell you why. I'm less concerned because the issue with companies is a extremely large built-in incentive to tie all personal information to the person's sales data, their marketing information. Now, if you look at what is already currently available and I think we looked at the, or maybe no, it was on my other podcast there's a website that Darren talked about that has a tremendous amount of information. I remember everybody. Combine that with your Amazon marketing info and your Google AdWords info and then tie your actual driver's license and information to it. You're no longer selling demographic data on people. You're now selling individual people. Oh, you want somebody that's diabetic and has diabetic and has gout and makes X amount of money and lives within a one mile radius of this location? Yeah, here's your list of three people. And is Jewish? Here's your list of one people.
Speaker 1:I'm still trying to hide within those three, god damn it, huh, I'm sorry, I'm trying to hide within those three. God damn it, huh, I'm sorry, I'm trying to hide within those three people, god damn it. So so, point point being that it's, it's gonna be literally and exactly like. What was that movie? Tom cruise, pre-crime, the pre-crime movie, what's it called?
Speaker 2:like minority minority.
Speaker 1:It's going to be just like when you walk into a store and you see little holographic pop-ups that are just for you and based on every bit of data about you not just who you are, but where you live, what your name is, what you've previously bought, what you've bought in other places, you know, know what kind of porn sites you visit. All that shit's tied in because, of course, in Texas now, if you want to go look at a porn site, you have to provide your driver's license.
Speaker 2:Better. You just find porn sites that don't comply.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean the good ones comply Eh there's no porn sites.
Speaker 1:What kind of porn sites are you going to if they're flying by night without complying? But it is definitely getting us way closer to that type of future. And, of course, we're only one step away in the US, here from the UK, with all their insanity going on right now, where they're putting people to jail for Facebook posts or Twitter posts, threatening to capture people from overseas to bring into court or literally posting unpopular opinions, and unpopular in this case being not not praising Allah, like if you're not praising Allah, well you know you might end up in prison. It is, the UK is a fully captured caliphate at this point yeah, the UK is not in a good place and I was totally about to send you a very inappropriate site, but I will.
Speaker 1:I will withhold well, I don't do it on the podcast, because then CSB is going to want to say, well, share the link. You're talking about it, you're sharing it.
Speaker 2:I'm not sharing that. I know this site exists publicly. Oh man, no, you know, it's sad because I think I grew up in the golden age of the internet. I really do like, I think that in a way, like it wasn't good that I was seeing at, you know, 10 and 12, these porn pop-ups, right, right, you know, had bestiality shit in it and stuff like that like no, no, no one needs to see that much less.
Speaker 2:You know a little kid, but what I would say is you really did have pretty good anonymity when I was growing up and oh yeah, there wasn't enough storage to just keep everything. Yep, so a lot of the dumb shit I did goes away. Yeah, not everyone had a cell phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know I mean there's lots of good, it's totally true yeah, anonymity was a lot easier to get back then and it was something that, like you could both have a reputation and anonymity at the same time. It's it's really hard to do that right now. You're you're. If you're lucky, you just have anonymity. That's it. Yeah, if you have a reputation, you basically were walking around with a target on your back for somebody to dox you.
Speaker 2:Well, like even me, you know I I try not to just exactly say who I am but, we've had listeners figure out who I am you know, and find me on LinkedIn. So there's that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, if you quit sending them a message saying, hey, go check me out on LinkedIn, it'd be harder for them to do that, but yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't do that.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, no Likely story. Likely story Ben. No, I didn't do that. No likely story. But yeah, likely story ben? I don't think, yeah, it's, it's. It's definitely a brave new world out there I just feel sorry for my kids like it's gonna be different for them, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and just like photo albums. You know, we have Google photo albums for both of my kids and the amount of photos that are in there is just ungodly yeah.
Speaker 1:And if it was a physical album and stuff like that that you had to curate and do, there would never be. You know you just't have that many, right you know. So it's, it's a good thing and a bad thing, I agree even just like there's a screensaver that's built what I said.
Speaker 2:that's dangerous.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, yeah, I mean, I offloaded most.
Speaker 2:Choose your folders carefully.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, but well, it's less dangerous on the Mac or on the iOS because Apple's already been spying on all your photos and marking the adult ones automatically as adults. Those are not included in any albums, but still it's kind of like. I'm not a big photo taker Like I don't. I never take selfies ever, but I do occasionally take photos of something interesting, and the number of photos that will pop up in the automatic screensaver that I've totally forgotten about. I was like, oh my God, I vaguely recall that is huge. It's literally. Someone could recreate a very large portion of my life off of those photos what I did, where I was, you know all that stuff. And if, if they can do that, for me, as somebody who doesn't do selfies all the time, it's scary how much can be recreated based on that data very accurately for people who do who are know taking photos all the time a lot of normies.
Speaker 2:Don't understand that, you know. For instance it never dies man well, it's not just that, it's you know your gps, location, everything is included in that right right that's why, if I ever sent shit somebody, I anonymize it. That's why, if I ever sent shit to somebody, I anonymize it.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, yeah, I gotta do that?
Speaker 2:So do you see this story in Freakout of Trump firing the statistician at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. I did. I don't see why that's a big deal. I thought that happened on a regular basis anyway, all the time, because he didn't like the numbers Gene. So it's Trump derangement syndrome. That or she was, you know, since COVID making larger and larger corrections and things need to be done differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just. I guess it just seemed like a non-story to me, like a slow news day. Okay, did they correct the numbers? Do we have new numbers yet or not yet?
Speaker 2:they corrected them way down by a lot okay so I forget the exact numbers because I I have a job, I'm not worried about it. My job is pretty insulated.
Speaker 1:That's what happens when you work in Virginia.
Speaker 2:Yep, I do have a cool project that might be coming up. Oh nice, the spaceport in there in Virginia. Uh-huh, it looks like I might be doing some work with that spaceport.
Speaker 1:I swear to God, if you end up doing that, everybody I know will end up working somewhere in the space industry getting tours of shit. Except for me, the guy that actually knows how to fly rockets, that's great.
Speaker 2:In the simulator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, over 5,000 hours.
Speaker 2:Hmm, well, you know, maybe go apply at SpaceX to be a pilot, I don't know I've applied at spacex plenty of times, dude, they keep ignoring me but yeah, some cool projects, so nice. I mean, I got to see a manufacturing facility where defense contractor builds, you know, icbm boosters. So you know there's lots of cool stuff I've gotten to do in my job, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's good. It's nice to have some perks that are interesting, okay, and then you got me doing projects for Kraft Foods and looking at their cheese storage facilities. Cheese storage- facilities.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh Like where do you age cheese?
Speaker 1:generally, it's ages in a cave yeah, exactly a huge artificial one, okay, not like a bath cave that you'd expect well kind of like a bath cave, I guess frank herbert wrote a great book about that actually. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Dulce Experiment.
Speaker 1:Hmm, had not read that. Oh, it's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I won't give it away, but it's a good book. That, and the White Plague. That was another really good. Frank Herbert was great. I've read most of his stuff. His son's expansion of the Dune universe sucks. Yeah, what are you going to do? But you know, if anyone likes Frank Herbert, the White Plague and the Dulce experiment is both very good. I've only read Dune. I haven't read anything else. Have you read all three of the Dunes? I read the first one and started the second one. That's about it. Okay, the second one's kind of hard to get through because it really is just setting up the third.
Speaker 1:But you really need to read the third, that was also like 25 years ago.
Speaker 2:Well, you need to reread them, because God Emperor is the best of the Dune books.
Speaker 1:That's the third one, mm-hmm yeah, speaking of books. That's the third one, mm-hmm yeah, yeah, speaking of books. We've talked about my quote from that book, have we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my favorite quote from that book. I don't remember it.
Speaker 1:You want to say it again.
Speaker 2:Let me look it up, so I'm not paraphrasing, but what were you?
Speaker 1:saying I was saying, speaking of books or, in this case, adaptations of books, I've been watching the Foundation on Apple Apple TV. Yeah, I need to watch it, and I still stick to my original review, which is season one was really good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. They did a very good job. I thought the cast is a little too, you know, racially diverse, but whatever, you could get past that. But season two was, it just felt not nearly as big and interesting as season one. And now we're in season three and we're about five episodes in and in season three. I'm getting a lot more of the season two vibe.
Speaker 2:I'm not.
Speaker 1:I mean, granted, the story is continuing right, so that you could also kind of say, well that you're. You're changing what's actually in the book as well, not just in the series, but it just it's feeling less interesting. And and somebody I watched a video that did a very interesting comparison of the foundation series to Dune. I may have even sent you a video for that, but it was clearly a guy that reads way more than me that did this. But it was kind of interesting in talking about the types of governments and who ends up being the good guy, the bad guy, the gray guy, the bad guy, the gray guy, you know, like all the different archetypes in these books and how the author shows that. I kind of feel like watching the foundation. I'm mostly rooting for Empire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, well, the Empire wasn't bad.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, it was just failing.
Speaker 1:Right and I feel like they got fucked. The Empire well, not just the Empire, but Empire. You know, the Triumvirate, I think, were really good characters and so maybe it's just the, the writing and or the acting that is winning me over big time on that, but I don't know. I mean, I just I'm I'm disappointed with season three. I was meh with season two, but I watched it. I'm going to obviously finish watching season three. I was meh with season two but I watched it. I'm going to obviously finish watching season three.
Speaker 2:Well, let me tell you my quote. I don't know if I'm going to watch season four. And then we should talk about some updates to Ukraine. Yeah, so the quote reads like this Most civilization is based on cowardice. It is so easy to civilize. By teaching cowardice, you water down the standards by which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will, you regulate the appetite, you fence in the horizons, you make a law for every movement.
Speaker 2:You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame. Tell me that is not what has been done to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2:And there are just a few of us that just say, hey man, I ain't being fucking tamed, all right, so Ukraine.
Speaker 1:Okay. Only thing I know is Putin's supposed to be meeting with Trump.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's that. But the bigger deal and I wanted your take on this is so we sent I think it was 17 patriot systems to Ukraine. No other ally has that many and I don't want to call Ukraine an ally, but none of our allies have that many Patriot systems. That's quite a few. According to habitual line crosser, that's more Patriot systems than we went in when we were invading Iraq with.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that is a massive amount of air defense.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So huh, so that is a massive amount of air defense, yeah, so huh, yeah, I don't I I don't know, I mean I.
Speaker 1:I think they're not going to make a whole lot of difference there why, because again they're, they're it takes air superiority away from the Russians. It absolutely does not. No, patriots are not, they're old.
Speaker 2:First of all, they're better than any of the Russian air defense systems.
Speaker 1:We don't know that the, the Patriots, came out of a 1970s and so did the B2.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it defeated Russian air defense systems in Iran.
Speaker 1:No, it defeated Iranian defense systems, which were old Russian shit. I mean that's like saying, oh yeah, well, you know, russia is taking out F-35s left and right in Ukraine.
Speaker 2:But they're not.
Speaker 1:They're not, because we don't sell the latest generation shit, and neither does russia, and the stuff that was in iraq was already old by the time iraq bought it. Yeah you mean iran, but that's okay, no, no, I I'm actually talking about iraq, but yeah, well, iraq was definitely old yeah, during 92. Well, iraq was the heyday of the Patriot systems. Iraq was when the Patriot systems were shipped over to Israel and, incidentally, israel has retired their Patriot systems now. Started doing that last year.
Speaker 2:Well, but Israel's version of the Patriot system is also not what we're using today and presumably what we sent them, because it has been upgraded substantially. In fact they're. You know, they have the entire integrated missile defense system. They can talk to the f-35 and everything, and patriots part of that, but anyway, it's a lot of firepower that was sent over. There is my entire point yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1:I think trump. It's obvious why trump did it. It's pretty straightforward like he is basically trying to push putin into negotiations. And so the submarines that he talked about we've got nuclear subs parking off the coast of moscow. You know we're shipping all these air defense systems.
Speaker 2:All of our subs are nukes, so so, it doesn't really tell us anything.
Speaker 1:No, but presumably it's just that they're dedicated now to a new task, but it's all for the same reason.
Speaker 1:It's just show force to get Putin to the negotiating table Now.
Speaker 1:The main reason that Putin has said that he hasn't been negotiating is because the Americans and Ukrainian puppets refused to have a non-armament provision during the ceasefire, during the ceasefire.
Speaker 1:So the last time that Russia agreed to a ceasefire in Ukraine, that's what effectively ended up happening, which was actually told by Angela Merkel in an interview after she'd retired. She said yes, yes, we told Putin that we're going to guarantee the peace during the ceasefire, but really all we were trying to do is get Russia to stop sending arms to the rebels on the eastern Ukraine, and we could then resupply Ukraine with more military weapons, like that was the plan all along, that was the goal. And so he said for any future ceasefire, there has to be a provision that says that Ukraine will not simply be taking the time that we're not bombing it to resupply, because that's not a ceasefire, that's a timeout. Hold up, let me catch my breath. Let me get some new ammunition shipped in from Poland across the border and then we'll start right back up in about 60 days, once we've got everything shipped over, russia has zero interest in that. They're winning.
Speaker 2:Well, it's pretty stalemate-ish right now, but we'll see what happens when Trump meets with Putin?
Speaker 1:I've heard it's stalemate-ish for two years.
Speaker 2:The Kremlin's confirmed that they are meeting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think Putin's wanted to meet with Trump for quite a while, but it's you know I keep hearing it's stalemated for two years. Yet every week I watch the progress of the front lines and the front lines keep moving towards Kiev. So you know it is slow progress, it is trench warfare, but it is not stalemated. The front lines have been moving pretty much continuously for the last year, a little over a year. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:I really don't think that these Patriot systems are going to do a whole lot. They're going to put all of them right around Kiev. They're going to ignore the rest of the country. So all it's going to do a whole lot. They're going to put all of them right around Kiev. They're going to ignore the rest of the country. So all it's going to mean is that you know that there'd be fewer attacks in Kiev, probably other than with hypersonics. But they'll be shifting those attacks, not stopping them. Well, we'll see. And they absolutely want to have the latest generation patriots there to test the hypersonics with them. So you can expect pretty much anywhere the patriot systems get deployed, which is, I think, just a ring around kiev, I think you're gonna start seeing that being exclusively bombarded with hypersonics because? Because Russia wants that test data just as much as the US wants that same test data. Like they both want to test this against each other.
Speaker 2:Well, it'll be interesting to see. Hey, I just sent you a message with a Politico story that just dropped an hour ago. So Trump isn't nationalizing or federalizing DC, but he is having federal law enforcement will patrol DC.
Speaker 1:Like. Who is that Secret Service?
Speaker 2:US Parks Police. Oh, park Police, that's who he's using. Oh interesting, yeah, focus on high traffic tourist areas.
Speaker 1:I mean, if we sell off a bunch of national forest land, we could probably repurpose those people, right?
Speaker 2:that's kind of what he's getting at and you know people don't realize it, but there are a lot of police departments in the federal government which shouldn't exist, but anyway, so he's actually doing it in the dc. Mayor's office declined to comment.
Speaker 1:Wow, well, that's good. The dc mayor. They shouldn't have a vote. What, what I? What I said, you know, not that anyone gives a, but my recommendation for this that I posted on x is dc should have always simply been a city where you work and not a city that has even a single resident. It should have. It should basically be the you know, the national government worker city.
Speaker 1:It should not be a place people live and frankly, everybody who currently works in DC, or let's say, 99% of the people who work in DC, already fly or drive in from either Virginia or Maryland. Anyway, they don't actually live in DC.
Speaker 2:Sure, but you do have that. You know worker class that's working at the restaurant and stuff like that that live in the city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do Absolutely, and you can replace them with robots.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw a funny video to bodily illegals, right, it's like you got a bunch of guys on the roof doing roofing project and and they're all dressed like Chinese people and one of the neighbor dudes was like man I never knew that Chinese had a big roofing industry, but this is great. And then he zooms into one of the guys up on the roof talking to another guy on the roof and they're very Mexican looking and like so you think the disguises are working. Oh, that's terrible. I know it's pretty funny though. Oh it's, you know it's. It's what Californians all bitch about is like you can't get rid of the servant class. Well, who's going to do all this work for us for super cheap? You can't be getting rid of them. We don't care if they're legal. Rid of them. We don't care if they're legal or not. We don't care if they rape anybody. We care about the fact that all these industries in california are serviced completely by people that are illegal yeah, well, we'll see.
Speaker 2:I like, if, as long as we're not giving them amnesty, as long as we're, you know, give them a work permit, let them stay here. Tax the out of them, tax their remittances at 90%, let them stay here and do that. But no path to citizenship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I'm glad you're on my page now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No path to citizenship. So did you see the number of dildos being thrown on the WNBA courts. I did.
Speaker 1:I commented on that as well. I said when, what did I miss? When did we switch over from throwing the towel on the court to throwing a dildo on the court to get a timeout?
Speaker 2:yeah, because yeah, mr sports, but it's. It is fucking hilarious because these are giant green horse cocks well, and there's there's bedding pools and it's like 90% that sport is becoming more interesting now, that's all I can say.
Speaker 1:The sport is becoming more interesting now.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Give somebody a reason to watch.
Speaker 2:I think, since we're talking about dildos being thrown on basketball courts, we're probably out of topics.
Speaker 1:But you, you know it's, it's all good we didn't start with that at least right, right, oh man, are we? I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2:Let me scroll up real quick see if there's so mr guns and gear has a promotion right now for a threaded barrel Glock 19X with the FBI spec round magazine for 683 right now.
Speaker 1:What gun?
Speaker 2:Here, I'll send it to you. It's the current generation.
Speaker 1:Really that's not bad.
Speaker 2:Nope, it's a pretty good gun. It's at midway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the 19X is the. Uh, what's the military version?
Speaker 2:It's the FBI version.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the government version. There you go. Yeah, are they all that color? They're all coyote. That sucks.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the deal, and it's already sold out.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's Okay, Not eligible for a return.
Speaker 2:But threaded barrel no gun is. Threaded barrel's pretty good, yeah, yeah, I just I don't think I need any more guns in nine millimeter. Yeah, I need to. I, you know I. I have other calibers too, though, so I'm okay well, yeah, yes, part of the thing.
Speaker 1:Part of the thing, alright, dude. Well, let's go ahead and wrap her up. Let's see we didn't get any new people donating right, so nobody to mention agreed so alright, and if you all want to spread the word, that is probably the biggest thing you can do for us. Let other people know about the podcast and where to get it.
Speaker 2:Also, ben, last show, I think you had challenged some folks to come up with a zinger yeah, and csb sent me a, a very brief thing of you giving financial advice and it was like not going to use that csb, but thanks well, yeah, it's not, it's.
Speaker 1:It's only interesting to people that are already listening anyway and know who the characters are, but uh but yeah if somebody comes up with any clips that they think would be useful in promoting the show, send them ben's way and he will buy an ad out of it on x. We'll test out how that works, see if it makes a big difference or not, or even a small difference, but it's yet another way you guys can help us. And, of course, there's the link in every episode that you can use for setting up a monthly donation, and those are going 100% to pay for all the services and infrastructure associated with the podcast. We never take money out of there, ever, so it's all just sort of making sure that we're not paying money out of pocket.
Speaker 2:We enjoy doing this, but we don't want to pay to do it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, exactly. Because the difference is, if we were just doing this without the podcast, there wouldn't be any bills either, because we'd just be talking on the phone or signal. So, hi guys, let's wrap her up. We'll catch you next week.
