SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Howdy Ben, how are you today? Doing good, Gene. I got to fly first class two ways. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 0:32

Oh, nice, nice. Long, long flight, or not really?

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

No, to Atlanta, only an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_03: 0:38

Well, that's yeah. I mean, I guess that's still good, but it's uh better to have longer flights than our first class, obviously. That's like me flying first class to DFW. Not quite.

SPEAKER_01: 0:53

That's like a 30-minute flight, dude.

SPEAKER_03: 0:56

It's less, I think it's literally 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01: 0:59

Yeah, yeah. From from Houston to DFW, but you know, they spend more time on the taxiway.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05

They still charge the same amount for the upgrade. It's crazy. Yeah. So yeah. So you were in Atlanta doing a little talk at a thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16

Well, I so I wasn't I wasn't scheduled to speak, but what happened was we had one of our guys that was going to go to this conference couldn't make it. So I last minute said, I'll okay, I can do it. And as a result, the owner of the conference who's known me well, this conference has been going on next year, it will be their 25th anniversary. It's the oldest OT cybersecurity conference, you know, out there. And I've been going to it for the majority of that time. And this is the first conference I ever spoke at, you know, stuff like that. But anyway, the owner of the conference saw my name come up on the roster, and I'm on the plane heading up there, and he texts he's texting me, Hey, want to be on a panel tomorrow morning? You know, it's like, sure, sure. So yeah, it was it was good. It was good. Good, good. You know, it it actually I have to say that is one of the biggest compliments I think I've ever gotten in my career. Just stuff like that, you know. Hey, you know what? You're gonna meet here. Want to speak? I think it says a decent amount about me.

SPEAKER_03: 2:23

Yeah, you're very available. That's a good thing. And and this is why we're friends. Exactly. Because who else would say that? Exactly. Yeah, no, that's that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01: 2:42

I mean, I but it was good to run into a whole bunch of people and see see some new faces, but uh uh a lot of very familiar ones too.

SPEAKER_03: 2:51

Yeah, yeah. And and I we when I looked at the picture, I'm like, oh, I think I know the guy on the right. He looked very familiar.

SPEAKER_01: 2:57

But yeah, from Kansas City.

SPEAKER_03: 3:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:02

Yeah. Water authority guy in Kansas City. So yeah, we were having some good conversations. Oh, what were you up to, Gene, last week?

SPEAKER_03: 3:12

What was I up to when? Last week? Last week. You know what? There's I don't know, I had a a lunch with a a guy who's fairly new to Austin. I'm gonna go show him around some of the sites here next week. He's a multi-entrepreneurial type guy, like he's started and sold a bunch of businesses, so but seemed like a very cool dude. What else did I do? Played some video games? Played some Battlefield 6, which is you know, fairly recent thing. Well, didn't do too much else.

SPEAKER_01: 3:54

Did you uh have some trick-or-treaters come by?

SPEAKER_03: 3:56

So on Halloween, I actually the the short answer is no, because I wasn't home. But I found out that one of the guys that I watch on YouTube that does the college, you know, here's a sign, and then argue with me about it type stuff, was here in town. Uh the guy who I watch. And he was at UT University of Texas, four miles down the street. Cam Higby.

SPEAKER_01: 4:30

I have no idea who that's.

SPEAKER_03: 4:32

I may have forward some videos to you, but he he is, yeah, I know in fact for a fact I have because after the Charlie Kirk assassination, I said, I can't believe Cam is still doing these. Because he is like a you know a very small production young dude in his early twenties, but basically just doing it, you know, same thing as Charlie was, except with way less budget, just going university to university, setting up a table and saying Islam is bad for America. Prove me wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 5:05

And the thing is, he's not wrong.

SPEAKER_03: 5:07

I know, I know. But I mean, and that's just one of the topics. I mean, they've he's got a whole bunch of things.

SPEAKER_01: 5:12

Let me clarify. Islam isn't necessarily bad. What is bad is Islamists who go to go too far. Well, fundamentalists are generally not good.

SPEAKER_03: 5:32

Yeah, I mean, fundamentalists, you can certainly make that argument. I would say Islam is just incompatible with uh principles of uh Western society. Yeah, pretty much. And and when they've met, when they've clashed, it's always been violent. And we're starting to see the rise in violence in the UK because it is Islam is as we've talked about previously, is definitely taking over the UK. And it interestingly enough really started in London and then is spreading. So it's a it's metastasizing. Yeah. So yeah, it was kind of neat. It took took me a while to figure out because I didn't know where the location was because they didn't really announce it for safety reasons, right?

SPEAKER_01: 6:21

But that's kind of antithetical.

SPEAKER_03: 6:23

If you're gonna go do something like that, then well, no, because remember, the deal here isn't to gather a large group of supporters, the deal is just to be a table at a college with a bunch of students walking past you who may have never seen you or heard of you. So it's not it's not a meetup, right? It's a a table with a controversial opinion that you are interested in interacting with college students on. So I had to kind of track it down by dead reckoning, and just about the time I got there, the university showed up and said, Yeah, you all have to leave.

SPEAKER_01: 7:02

See, that's such bullshit. Was he in one of their quote unquote free speech zones or not?

SPEAKER_03: 7:07

No, he wasn't. He was on the on the mall where there was a ton of other stuff happening, but all of those groups had gotten you know their permits. Yeah, permits for it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 7:18

Yeah, so when I was at AM, I actually fought against that inside student government saying that this was absolute bullshit. Yeah, because they would only give permits to the people they approved of. And then if you didn't, then you had to go to this parking lot way over there, and that's your free speech zone.

SPEAKER_03: 7:33

Well, the free speech zone at UT is off campus, so they that's my point.

SPEAKER_01: 7:38

It's it's the same sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03: 7:40

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So pretty much once I got there, we had to pick up all the shit, and I helped out there and just kind of track over to the very edge of campus, right on a just a regular sidewalk street, and then set up there. And I I think the location was actually I think it was a better location, frankly, because it's on the edge of the university and the uh commercial area surrounding the university, so there's a lot more people. So that if they frankly should have just set up there from the get-go, but it was one of those things that I guess they just didn't anticipate that they would be kicked off campus just for having you know a table asking questions. But yeah, it was kind of interesting to watch. I man, I tell you, from a personal standpoint, the hardest thing is standing there and not chiming in with my opinions because holy shit, I clearly had better opinions than everybody else there, you can imagine. So keeping that locked up, I'm sure that's your opinion. Well, it's absolutely my opinion because it's the correct opinion, and and I tend to have those. So it was difficult to keep my tongue in place and let other people. I mean, yeah, I wasn't there to go and you know hog the mic or anything else. I'm there to watch these guys live that I normally watch on YouTube. So I was going there just as a meet and greet kind of thing, you know, give him a donation, uh, gave the guy a hundred dollar bill, and then just to I told him this is the the first hundred from his 7,000 that's coming his way. And Jesus. Well, I mean, that's what Massad is assigns for everybody that's doing a good job. You know that. Uh-huh. So it it was uh it was interesting to watch, but the thing that I I definitely it's not like I didn't know this, I knew this, but that I had reaffirmed is just how simplistic and dumb college students are. And it's not like they're not gonna grow out of it. I think most of them will grow out of it.

SPEAKER_01: 9:49

I don't know that. I think we've lowered the admission standard so far in the standards, the overall standards of college so far that no, I don't think these people are gonna grow out of it. The arguments I think the majority of people who go to college, hell, I think the majority of people who graduate high school, like high school has become meaningless. Yeah, right? We not ever it used to be not everybody graduated high school, everybody graduates high school now. Yeah, in fact, sometimes it's the smarter people who don't graduate high school because they go and do other things, like go to college, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like it's just insane. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 10:28

Yeah, it's it like the arguments for socialism were so basic that you would probably your kids could probably uh provide the uh answers about them. And when I say your kids, I mean kids your age, your kid, your kids' age. It's just very surface level, not thought through, you know. Well, but you know, in socialism, we just we don't have to worry about that all those greedy people taking all the profits away from the workers. It's like, have you seen socialism? The the whole point of socialism is that somebody owns the product of your labor, not you, and they will decide who gets the benefit of the product of your labor, not you. That that's socialism. Socialism is a group ownership philosophy, whereas capitalism is an individual ownership philosophy. Socialism is closer to slavery than it is to capitalism, and people don't seem to understand that.

SPEAKER_01: 11:41

It's so the idea of socialism or communism, which is what we're really talking about, is that there is a collective, but collectives never actually happen, and they don't actually work in except in small groups. The only place communism truly works is in the family unit, and communism seeks.

SPEAKER_03: 12:01

I'll send you when it's up, I'll send you a link to me literally saying exactly that. Right. I did jump in and talk to them in front of the mic for a little bit, and that was one of the things that I pointed out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:16

Anyway.

SPEAKER_03: 12:18

But that's also not a guaranteed. I mean, quite often the family itself does not work.

SPEAKER_01: 12:23

Correct. So like the unfortunately, but socialism in the family doesn't work. Yeah. You usually that's because someone has somethingary tendencies.

SPEAKER_03: 12:36

Or they want to overthrow the family's hierarchical structure.

SPEAKER_01: 12:40

Yeah, or you know, the amount of narcissistic people we have these days. I think we're number one in the BP.

SPEAKER_03: 12:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:50

It's really insane, dude. And I think a large portion of it is because kids haven't been spanked. 100%. Because, quite frankly, because men aren't allowed to hit women anymore.

SPEAKER_03: 13:06

Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, there's a it's just I sent you a link to a video, I think, three or four days ago. I don't know if you watched it, of Matthew McConaughey talking in an interview about growing up in Texas, and he said that you know, his dad absolutely used corporal punishment, and it was always immediately after he did something wrong, it was always quick, and you know, you can't make uh a fuss about it because then you're just gonna get spanked more. And it it was one of those things where he said, you know, I'm not gonna give you a time out because time is the most precious thing in the world that you can't get any more of than you have. But I'm absolutely gonna make you remember not to do something like this, right? So the the idea of spanking is bad for kids is about as stupid an idea as that socialism is good for humans.

SPEAKER_01: 14:09

And and it's not just that, it's this idea of no, we need to talk to the kids, we need to we need to reason with them. Depending on what it is, sure. If you can reason with them, yes, do it. Great. But guess what? If my son is, you know, beating up on my daughter because she ticked him off, no, I'm gonna stop him, I'm gonna spank him, and he's not gonna do it. Yep. And then if, you know, or if she's trying to bite him or whatever, because yeah, kids, you know, siblings, they do shit, then I'm gonna stop her immediately and I'm gonna spank her. Or if they're doing something that could end up with themselves getting hurt. Exactly. I'm I'm not gonna just let that continue.

SPEAKER_03: 14:55

Yeah. The part that's important, I think, is making sure that the kid knows why they're being punished. But yes, absolutely. You know, other than that, I I think that it's not only is an appropriate form of teaching your kids, contrary to what a lot of these feel-good softy parent types think. I think it's something that also is good for kids because it prepares them for unexpected events in life that they have no control over later on. Like, there are things that you will do as an adult that you will get punished for a lot more than just the spanking. And if you've never even been punished by spanking as a kid, you're wholly unprepared for the consequences of the real world. Like, you know, the old saying of fuck around, find out. Well, we've seen, I mean, not just you and me, but everybody's seen tons of videos of people fucking around and finding out. And the reason those videos are funny. It is, it is. But the reason those videos are generally funny is because like you should know better. Why are you fucking around like that? Has nobody ever spanked you, and that's what it comes down to.

SPEAKER_01: 16:11

Well, and that that's the thing, is you know, people here, here, here's the thing: most of the time, society is right. Okay, that's why society and civilization exists, that's why people have a fear of speaking, and because anytime all eyes are on you or you're outside of the majority opinion, most people are generally wrong. It takes people of decent intelligence and conviction to stand outside of a crowd and be right when everyone else is wrong. And unfortunately, now we're getting into this period where society is really wrong. And yeah, so I'm speaking historically, and we're there are more and more of us standing outside going, no, this is wrong. But the problem is when society degenerates in the way that it has, people are fucking around, no one's correcting their behavior until it's something absolutely egregious. And the way you nip this in the bud is you you nip it in the bud when it you start when it's small, yeah, you spank when it's something small but needs to stop, not letting it escalate to the point where a kid has antisocial behavior that now they are not going to grow out of.

SPEAKER_03: 17:30

Exactly. Yeah, and and I think that there's been so much pushback. Spanking is violence, you can't do, you know, not just you can't commit violence against women, but against anyone.

SPEAKER_01: 17:43

That's the other thing. This the telling generations now that violence is never the answer. No, violence is the answer. The qu the question is when.

SPEAKER_03: 17:55

It's just it's that's well, and then there seems to be a complete misunderstanding or or forgetfulness about violence, it's not binary, right? There is degrees of violence that can be well that that exists, right? So you can have violence as one slap, or you can have violence that is a shot with a shotgun. Okay, that's not the same level of violence, and it it needs to be proportional violence, I guess is the way I would describe it, for the action that you're trying to not have happen. But just simply saying violence is never the answer, that's something a woman says, and it's just wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

Well, and I think especially for men, violence has to undergird male relationships because there's only so much you can do before I sit there and go, yeah, no, we're not doing this. Yeah, and people may not like it, but it's true.

SPEAKER_03: 19:28

Right. And violence is something that again, it's just the connotation from violence by bad people seems to have tainted the entirety of the word. You know what I mean? It's like we're it's it's kind of like saying that there is no good use for a gun other than to kill innocent people. That's kind of where the word violence is right now. There is absolutely good violence. Okay, yes. Well, I I I'm just saying that this is this is a an issue that in our present time that we're dealing with is the the changing of a lot of definitions of words. It's recategorizing words that have always had a meaning. Like, oh, I don't know, say the word woman. It's always had a meaning. And somehow in the present day and age in the Western culture, there's this insistence that we should just redefine words to mean other things to make it easier for us to argue. No, you can't do that, you can't just redefine your way toward making your point. You've already lost an argument since you start redefining words. So, yeah, I think this is so this is where we are.

SPEAKER_01: 20:57

In this culture war, as we go through and fight it, one of the things we have to remind everybody of is to go vote. Tuesday's an election. Have you voted yet, Gene?

SPEAKER_02: 21:10

No. No.

SPEAKER_01: 21:11

Are you aware? Have you looked at the 17 amendments to the Texas State Constitution that are being proposed?

SPEAKER_02: 21:16

I have not. No.

SPEAKER_01: 21:18

You should because there are some ones that we definitely want and some that we definitely don't. Okay.

unknown: 21:23

Good.

SPEAKER_01: 21:24

Yeah. Like there's an amendment to ban. So Texas currently doesn't have a capital gains tax, but this would put it in the Texas State Constitution that they can't ever raise one. Stuff like that. So there's some good stuff.

unknown: 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 21:37

Yeah, I do need to. I know as far as the the candidates, I mean, living where I live, my my vote is a little less. It's gonna make less of a difference. Yeah, but the amendments, you're right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 21:53

I'll send you actually a Houston TV channel uh did a good breakdown. Okay, yeah, of all 17. Nice. There's even an amendment to really push on illegal voting.

SPEAKER_03: 22:10

Really? Okay, interesting. Good.

SPEAKER_01: 22:12

So codifying in the Texas state constitution that only citizens can vote in elections. So this would prevent like Austin from allowing illegals to vote in city elections.

SPEAKER_03: 22:23

Which I'm sure they do right now.

SPEAKER_01: 22:24

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 22:26

Yeah, I'm sure that's happening right now. Yeah, good, good. Yeah, I will take a look at that and planning on coming out. But as far as like the local offices and stuff, I honestly I don't even know which which candidates are realistically have a chance of winning against the uh the current politicians in office because Austin, obviously, like a lot of large cities, tends to be extremely skewed into the liberal side. But you know, sometimes there are surprises. It does happen.

SPEAKER_01: 23:05

Yeah. Well, I so I think there's some pretty good stuff afoot that is making for some massive, massive changes. Did you see what Trump did with Argentina?

SPEAKER_03: 23:21

Well, I saw some stuff. Tell me what you're referring to specifically.

SPEAKER_01: 23:25

The currency swap.

SPEAKER_03: 23:27

No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01: 23:28

So Trump just gave Millet a huge bailout in the way of a currency swap. And he is doing this very anti-China belt and road. So he's using the stick with Venezuela and the carrot with Argentina. Yeah. Where because he has a right, but he has a reasonable person in Millet in Argentina versus what's in Caracas today. Right. So there we are seeing the Trump version of the great reset play out. And I I I don't know how anyone can look at what he is doing and not see a a neo Monroe doctrine unfolding, and B, you know, hey, we're gonna cause some regime change in Latin America, and we're gonna own the Americas. Like it's going to happen. People have to realize we are only 10 months into a Trump presidency.

SPEAKER_03: 24:37

I know everybody feels like it's been years of Trump presidency. Because he's gotten so much shit done. He really has the thing, dude. Yeah, exactly. No, that's absolutely the case. And I and I think I think the Democrats don't want to think about just how many more years of Trump there are, and not even talking about Vance after that, but just Trump himself. Like, we're not even a year in. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 25:05

And you know what? I never thought I'd say this, but I am looking forward to voting for Vance Rubio in 2028.

SPEAKER_03: 25:11

Hmm. You think it's gonna be Rubio?

SPEAKER_01: 25:15

I do.

SPEAKER_03: 25:16

I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_01: 25:17

I think Marco has come a long way.

SPEAKER_03: 25:20

I still think it's gonna be his buddy that got him that job. Who? Vivake? Revoswami, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:29

Maybe. I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to that, but I think it's more likely to be Rubio. Now, if if Vivek ends up being governor of Ohio and doing a great job there, then maybe. But I don't know. I've seen too much scuttle butt about Vance Rubio.

SPEAKER_03: 25:46

So yeah, I don't think that means anything. It's too early. We'll see what happens. I guarantee you people will be disappointed in Rubio. That always happens. There's gonna be something people will be all up in their arms on.

SPEAKER_01: 25:58

I don't know. So far he's done an excellent job and really changed his.

SPEAKER_03: 26:02

Well, certainly a better job than a lot of other Trump appointees. I would I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_01: 26:07

Uh from the previous administration, yes. The only Trump appointee I have a problem with right now is Bondi.

SPEAKER_03: 26:14

I don't like Bondi. I don't like what Bon Gino's went into a complete black hole. We've seen nothing from him. I don't like what um I disagree with that. Well, but lay them away.

SPEAKER_01: 26:28

Like they've done some pretty good crime crackdowns. Now they're not doing exactly what we want them to do, but they're they've done a lot. They've re the FBI has reopened the whole pipe bomb thing from January 6th, and I think they're gonna get to the bottom of that. You know, we've we've seen a lot of that.

SPEAKER_03: 26:46

Yeah, that's not what I wanted the FBI to be doing. What I wanted is to have the FBI be fired and then brand new people brought in. Like that would have been actually doing what they talked about, both of those guys, both Bangino and the Indian dude. You know what? The if you watch both of those guys' appearances on shows prior to their announcements of their offices, you you tend to get a feel for oh, well, this is what his big hot topics are, that's what he wants focusing on, this is why Trump wants to bring him in, and instead, what you get is basically we're just gonna do what the previous administration's been doing. There are more loyal exactly the whole damn FBI could have been fired by now. There have been more court cases where the current administration's Department of Justice is trying to fight for the policies of the previous administration's ATF. Like, why didn't they just drop those suits? Why didn't they they keep bringing in lawsuits to try and get rid of of the uh the the resetting triggers? They got lawsuits for that again, they've got lawsuits against bump stocks again. What the fuck? Which administration are we under here? Because the Justice Department is basically being run as though it's still run by the previous administration. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_01: 28:19

Well, there is a duty that you know.

SPEAKER_03: 28:24

If you have a bad lawsuit, you have no duty to keep pushing on it.

SPEAKER_01: 28:29

Well, or you do it in such a way that the good guys end up winning and then you get a subtle precedent.

SPEAKER_03: 28:39

The precedent should be them filing with courts for dismissal and the fact that they were wrong previously in the previous administration. It it is ridiculous that they're pushing on policies that are contrary to what the people that elected the president believe. It'd be the same as basically Trump running on the marijuana is not a bad thing, it's all good, and then he's in office, but his department of uh food and drug administration is out there trying to increase the number of people caught and sentenced for marijuana. Really? Because that's who elected you. So I'm not a happy camper on that. I think the ATF today is absolutely identical to the ATF a year ago. There's been zero change, even though allegedly, you know, they've come in to clean house because that's what they were all talking about. Okay, well, they're either doing a shitty job or they lied to us. One or the other.

SPEAKER_01: 29:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 29:50

This is too important an issue just to say, well, they're just doing their jobs. They're just, you know, they're just sticking with what they need to do. No, bullshit.

SPEAKER_01: 30:06

Well, we'll we'll see. But I really hope that we see more people get fired from the government through this shutdown. Like that's what I would really like to see, and I don't understand why we haven't seen that.

SPEAKER_03: 30:26

Well, that's another thing. Yeah. I totally agree with you. Because right now the I all I keep hearing is that no one's losing their jobs.

SPEAKER_01: 30:36

Uh the the thing about the shutdown that I think has really woken everybody up is the number of people on Snap benefits.

SPEAKER_03: 30:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 30:46

Yep. Well, you see them at the like five million people.

SPEAKER_03: 30:50

If you actually go to the grocery store, you see it all the time. It's the people that have two carts with them when they're checking out. Always. Every time. That you wait, you're behind somebody who's got two carts you go through and they're paying with snap.

SPEAKER_00: 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 31:04

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know, man. It's it's what?

SPEAKER_01: 31:12

You're siloning.

SPEAKER_03: 31:14

Uh-oh. Well, that's not good. Am I still siloning?

SPEAKER_01: 31:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 31:22

Well, let me pause it. I don't know if the if it's recording that way or if you're just hearing it that way. Alright. So sounds like I'm not silent anymore, right?

SPEAKER_01: 31:31

We fixed it.

SPEAKER_03: 31:32

Yeah, hopefully. I'll say that. Fixed. So, yeah, what were we talking about? Oh, just the slow pace of progress. I'm not super happy with.

SPEAKER_01: 31:43

It's slow in some areas, very fast in others.

SPEAKER_03: 31:47

Yeah, like I like the speed with which Trump is signing executive orders. I generally like the direction that things are moving. I'm not a fan of specific agencies moving way too slow to reform. Yeah. And that's where I feel like a lot of like. And I I I honestly think that this is just the people in those agencies being much better at dragging heels than the people that came in with Trump are able to control them. You know, we're we're seeing we're basically seeing the deep state, if you want to call it that, or just the professional bureaucrats, whatever way you want to describe them, of doing a much better job of just acting like a like a union who's been given a work slow order. You know, like they're still doing their jobs, but they're just not listening to what they're being told to do. This is the same kind of shit that was happening the first administration with Trump, where he was telling his military advisors and generals they need to figure out a way to pull out of Afghanistan. And they were telling him, yep, yep. And meanwhile, no one was actually doing anything about it. There's nothing being prepped for that pullout. Like they knew they were just gonna ignore Trump. I feel like that's still happening in a lot of administrative off departments right now. Okay. Not good.

SPEAKER_02: 33:29

Agree.

SPEAKER_03: 33:31

Not good. So what else happening?

SPEAKER_01: 33:40

Well, the Dodgers apparently won and the city burned. Yeah, I thought the world was supposed to end when that happens.

SPEAKER_03: 33:47

No shit. Right. Yeah, that is crazy. Speaking of cities burning, you want to talk about Mundami?

SPEAKER_01: 34:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 34:04

So I told you I think my position on Mundami is I'm absolutely a big supporter. I think he needs to win New York. I think there is no faster way to make New Yorkers start seeing the light than to put him in charge.

SPEAKER_01: 34:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 34:26

What's your take?

SPEAKER_01: 34:33

I don't think he's gonna burn it down like that. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:37

But what do you think? You by putting in city-owned shops to control food by locking in all rental properties to be rent controlled moving forward, you don't think that's gonna make a change in New York?

SPEAKER_01: 34:51

I don't think he's actually gonna do that, though.

SPEAKER_03: 34:54

So you just think these are all just things he says, but he won't actually implement, so it's not gonna make a big difference. Well, if he's not gonna implement them, then who cares if he's in? It's not gonna make a I mean, you know, like I don't see a negative for him winning here. Either he's gonna really fuck things up, which is good, or nothing will change in New York, and it doesn't really matter who the mayor of New York is because it runs by itself anyway. It's certainly not gonna be a Republican that wins. It's not gonna be anybody that's gonna reform New York for the positive that's gonna win. So given that, I think the best chance of New York actually getting how do I phrase it? Fuck around, find out find out. The best chance of getting that is going to be having him in office. Well, we'll see. I I I know you've said that three times now. We'll see. Yes, you have an opinion about this? You don't think he's the right guy? You you agree with me? What's your take?

SPEAKER_01: 36:03

What's my take on what?

SPEAKER_03: 36:06

Do you agree with me that Modami is probably the best person to be elected in New York?

SPEAKER_01: 36:12

I think he'll tear it down in a way, but I don't think he's gonna be as drastic as most people think.

SPEAKER_03: 36:19

You think he's gonna be more like an Obama? Correct. Who was not nearly as sort of liberal-minded as the people that thought they were voting for somebody like that. Like Obama was very centrist, not as much as Bill Gates. Bill, I was gonna say Bill Gates, as much as Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was about as centrist a president as we've ever had. There's definitely plenty I complain about him on, but also compared to even compared to Obama, but certainly compared to his wife and her policies, Bill Clinton was really pretty moderate.

SPEAKER_01: 37:00

Well, Bill Clinton, by today's standards, is a conservative.

SPEAKER_03: 37:05

Well, yes, that's true too. That is a good point. But he was he was absolutely less liberal in his policies than the last liberal president we had before him, Jimmy Carter.

SPEAKER_01: 37:17

Agreed.

SPEAKER_03: 37:19

So I don't know. I I think that one of the lessons that you teach children with is that if they insist on saying that dirt tastes like ice cream, and you're saying don't eat dirt, at some point you say, okay, you think dirt tastes like ice cream? Go ahead. Eat the dirt, you'll find out.

SPEAKER_00: 37:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 37:45

So I don't know. Most people would say that's a pretty out there take, but sounds like you're actually on the same same wavelength as me on this one.

SPEAKER_01: 37:58

I I I don't know, man. I just I'm ready to see it all burned down.

SPEAKER_03: 38:03

Yeah, and that's what I'm saying is that like when when we're the ones preventing them from burning themselves down, maybe it's time we stop trying to prevent them from burning themselves down.

SPEAKER_01: 38:16

I okay. You're not gonna get a big argument from me on that.

SPEAKER_03: 38:20

No, okay, well, good, good. I mean, I just I want something. I want the either an agreement or a disagreement, but you're kind of like, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah, we will see. We don't know. That's you know, we're just we're I think we're pretty good at predicting, but we're not great at predicting, so we will see. We don't know what's gonna happen. But I just I don't want to try and argue against Mandani. I I think this is what New York wants. Let New York have it, let them figure out what the end result of having it actually is. What I don't want to do is step in and save New York after the fact. It's like, oh, you guys dug your hole, now dig yourselves back out of it. We don't need to come in and rescue your ass. Just like California. Like, we don't need to spend any money on California. Fuck them. They've made their mess, they can figure out a way to pay for it. I'm I'm a you know, let let people live the way they want to. As long as they don't expect anything from me.

SPEAKER_01: 39:25

Well, but that's the problem. They do, and they will.

SPEAKER_03: 39:27

Well, they do, but it doesn't mean you can you have to give it to them. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like the same thing with people that insist on building houses in a floodplain. Like, you know, you can build there. I'm not I'm not gonna tell people that they can't build in the floodplain. I'm just gonna say no one's gonna bail you out. So it's your risk. If you have the money to build a whole a home in a risky area, but you really like the way it looks, I don't see a problem with that. Do it. Just don't expect somebody to bail you out.

SPEAKER_01: 40:08

Agreed. I I again I think that we ought to we ought to allow people to do whatever the hell they want without any expectations from us.

SPEAKER_03: 40:22

I exactly and so that's kind of my my rationale for thinking Mondani actually is the right person to run New York. Because that's I I think this allows them to do all the things that they've been saying. Well, if only we could do this, then we'll have a better world. Okay. You want a socialist, you want a Muslim, do it.

SPEAKER_01: 40:50

I I just I don't want to but these are the same people saying that real communism has never been tried.

SPEAKER_03: 40:57

Yeah, so let him try it. I'm all for it. Let's let's say he is a real communist and let's have him do it. Let's do it. What I am opposed to is people for national offices being radicals. Like if he ran for Senate, I would absolutely be against it. But if he wants to run for New York City, I'm all for it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 41:23

Okay, I'm I'm I can't disagree.

SPEAKER_03: 41:26

Yeah. Well, it's uh we'll see if it happens. I suspect there's there's been a lot of articles about how you know, oh, he's got all these negative things that are happening. Uh I still think he's gonna win. I I really think he's way too popular with the average person that's gonna vote in New York. He's way too popular for numerous reasons. One, he's brown looking, two, he's a socialist, he's not afraid to use the same word that Bernie uses. Three, he's a Muslim, which of course everybody knows that Muslim are the smallest, most threatened group in the world that everybody needs to save. So, for those three reasons, I think he's a shoe in.

SPEAKER_01: 42:13

Okay. Well, we'll see.

SPEAKER_00: 42:16

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 42:19

We will. I I think he is a shoe-in because I think the other circum split the vote, and I don't think that's gonna make any difference. So, yeah, I agree with you there that he's a shoe-in. I don't think he should be. I think this is ridiculous. I don't think he's gonna do everything he says, but you know what? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he goes and does everything he says, and if he does that, then you know, like one stat I saw in New York, the top one percent pay forty percent of the tax revenue in New York.

SPEAKER_03: 42:49

That's why Rush left.

SPEAKER_01: 42:51

I mean, it's gonna that will destroy New York overnight.

SPEAKER_03: 42:55

Yeah. Well, it's I think New York has had a habit of losing companies and people for many years. I don't know much about their finances. I know that New York courts are extremely crooked, but you know, that may be one way to fund the city is simply to have your courts extort people for massive amounts of money. But certainly I can't imagine anyone wanting to live in New York if they make any any kind of real money. Of course, I say that, and and I have friends that live in California, and I have relatives that live in New York. So what the fuck? I can't imagine why either group does that, and I've told them both, you know, if you left, you'd have so much more money, but I guess they just like the scenery. And the bagels are pretty good in New York.

SPEAKER_01: 43:53

I don't know why anyone would want to live in New York. Like the New York has zero appeal to me. I hate every time I go there. Yep, yep. But you know.

SPEAKER_03: 44:03

Yeah. I mean, like, yes, the pizza's good, yes, the bagels are good, but that ain't enough. You're paying such a crazy wage for that. And I don't just mean financial, like the quality of life is worse there. Everything's worse there. Uh traffic, dude. When I when I was there beginning of the year, I didn't realize that the frickin' speed limit in all of Manhattan is 25 miles an hour. How? How do people live with a 25 mile an hour speed limit? That's basically walking speed. You know, I mean, it's crazy. No, it's not, dude. You know what I mean? It's it's not. I know it's not, unless you're an African athlete. But still, it's it is super slow because it's not just 25 mile an hour speed limit, it's also that on top of that, there's usually like 20 out of 24 hours in a day, there's also traffic, which slows it down further. So your your 40-minute Uber ride took you four miles.

SPEAKER_01: 45:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 45:06

That and I'm not exaggerating that. I literally took multiple ones of that from Manhattan to Queens, and it was usually about half hour to 45 minutes to go four miles. If I was in better shape, I would just fucking walk.

SPEAKER_01: 45:23

Well, you know, that's that can certainly be a problem. I mean, but it unfortunately it's not just New York that has stuff like that. Like, I was just in Atlanta last week, and Atlanta going to the airport at 3:30 in the afternoon took an hour from Buckhead. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03: 45:44

Yep. Yeah. And that's this is this is again part of that whole liberal agenda of like, well, we need to get people to use cars less. So you do that by just slowing everybody down so everything takes longer? Is that the idea? It's crazy. I don't uh I don't understand it, but you know, again, this is like a preference thing. I get it. Not everyone's gonna have the same preferences. I I prefer to leave to live in a state that has a lot more freedom and much higher speed limits. Not everybody does, obviously.

SPEAKER_01: 46:27

So I like the 80 mile an hour speed limits in Texas.

SPEAKER_03: 46:31

Yeah, I mean they ought to be 100, but yeah. Let's talk about Texas. So Texas has a new law that's already been passed and everything that kicks in January 1st that is an ID law for purchases of apps on your phone. Are you aware of this?

SPEAKER_01: 46:51

No.

SPEAKER_03: 46:52

Yeah. So that's the Texas age verification law. Starts on January 1st, requires ID for purchases of any apps from an app store on either Android or Apple or any other platform. It's a clearly a law designed to keep children safe and to ensure that uh anyone that has access to applications is at least 18 years old. It's uh SB2420 if you want to look it up. Actually, why did we allow that to pass? I sent you a link to it, I think, earlier today. So you can find it in there. Why did we allow it to pass? Well, I'd not heard of it for one, up until I saw that this article today. So I wasn't even aware of it. I totally understand why they did it, is because it's not an article. Good point. But you could look up the SB2420 Texas, and it should pull it up. But it's a.

SPEAKER_01: 48:31

What's gonna happen is a kid's gonna get their parents' ID and just scan that in.

SPEAKER_03: 48:36

Yeah, and what it's meant to do is basically to say if you're under 18, you can only download apps by using the parental group. Or what I don't know what it's called in Android, but you know what I mean. Like you can have an account that has shared apps that you can select which ones other people have access to. Family plan, whatever the hell it's called. Yeah, so that's what it's meant for. I'm sure there was a special interest group that was driving this that was all about protect the children, you know, save the children's. That's what a lot of laws get passed under that guys. I'm not a fan of this technology.

SPEAKER_00: 49:14

Oh well, someone think of the children.

SPEAKER_03: 49:16

Yeah, but this is but this, I think, is right along in line with Texas having a requirement for adult content websites to also validate IDs for anyone that goes looks at porn in Texas. The problem is, not all websites are complying with that. All the big ones are.

SPEAKER_01: 49:41

We can have that conversation offline.

SPEAKER_03: 49:44

No, uh people are uh people want to know, they want information here. Really? Do you think there's websites that are not complying with this? Uh I yes. Without using a VPN, correct. Like, okay, I I haven't seen any everything I've seen, not that I go to a whole bunch of porn sites, but you know, I go to a couple, but there's you know, they instantly know if you're coming in from Texas based on your IP address, and they will, or I guess on your phone, if you're coming in from your phone, they they have other ways to know where you're coming from, and they will pop up the little you have to register or sign on or approve age. Again, not a fan of laws like that because these are laws that are meant to keep kids off the internet, but at the same time, they are okay. I see Ben is starting to provide like a list of 25 porn websites, so don't check it. Good to know, Ben. Holy shit, that's a long list. Oh my god. Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_01: 50:47

I did you too.

SPEAKER_03: 50:50

Yes, let's call that two, shall we? Okay, fine. Yes. Ben Ben just told me one site at this point, uh, but yeah. Anyway, point I'll have to go through that list later. Point being that there's like we all know how these things happen, right? People do the old, well, this is the only way we can keep kids safe. So the little trouble that you have as a result of it is worth it. If you can just save one child from seeing porn, then all the adults should have to prove who they are. The problem with it is that how do you prove who you are, right? The only way to really dupe to prove that you're an adult is with a document that shows your age and can be validated. And I'm not aware of any documents that have an age that would be a validated type document that doesn't have all the other information about you, right? Like your name, McCloven. So from Hawaii. So consequently, if you're required to prove your age, you're basically providing all actual personal information to that party. Not made up bullshit phony information, which you can use if it's not a validated thing, but they're basically, and by the way, X is doing this as well. If you want to get a We are headed to the ID and requirements, yeah, we're heading to internet ID is where it's going, and it's obvious it's gonna go there. And this is, I think, a natural evolution of the internet. I was around in the very early pre-private internet days, and then saw it change from that to the commercialization to the the period that Ben always likes to remember back of all the porn pop-up ads when in his youth, which must have been it was bad enough for adults like me, but it was must have been just horrendous for kids, because you're just getting bombarded with stuff that you really have no business to be looking at. You know, in my day, like having one of your buddies say, Hey, I got a I got a copy of a Playboy, and then like that's gonna get shared amongst a whole bunch of boys to look at because it's so rare and hard to get your hands on it, is very different than what Ben experience said that same age.

SPEAKER_01: 53:16

I I was exposed to way too much, way too early.

SPEAKER_03: 53:20

No doubt. Right. So consequently, now the pendulum's swinging the other direction where you know they're catching up with all of that and then going well beyond to a point where, oh, did you want to use the internet? Okay, here, just put your fingerprint in here so we can validate that you actually are this adult person and you have paid your taxes and everything else, and you're now allowed to look in the internet. This is the direction we're going. It's it's eerily similar to what China has: a social credit score type system based on which you will be either allowed or denied access to a variety of things.

SPEAKER_01: 54:01

And this is why we need better discoverability inside the Tor system.

SPEAKER_03: 54:08

Sure. Even though the Tor was always set up by the US government for tracking, but okay.

SPEAKER_01: 54:14

Sure, but they're not going to admit to that.

SPEAKER_03: 54:19

They've all been admitted to it, dude. I mean, there have been so many articles published about this. It's it's funny. It's funny. All it all Tor does is create a second internet layer for people that like to think that they're being sneaky.

SPEAKER_01: 54:37

That's really okay. I mean, as long as you're not doing something downright illegal on there, I'm just saying. Well, that's my point. We should normalize the use of that as an alternative to these states.

SPEAKER_03: 54:50

It just adds all this extra bandwidth and sl it's fucking slow. That's the other issue. Like, you're not gonna be breaking any speed records going through Tor. It's basically dragging you down to speeds of the internet 20 years ago. So I'm not a fan of Tor. I I think that I I have too many memories of the old internet to want to use the alternate internet because the current internet is fucked up. So I don't know. It's pretty bad. What else you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01: 55:39

Well the government shut down. We haven't really touched on that, but yeah. I've gone through is IAH is shutting down all but two security checkpoints as of today. Okay. So for instance, if I my luckily my trip to DC got canceled, so I'm not going traveling next week. But you know, if you let's say you're flying United, which is the main carrier outside of, you know, out of Houston, I have to go to C to check my bag, and then I have to go to terminal E to go through security.

SPEAKER_02: 56:19

It's a pain in the butt.

SPEAKER_01: 56:20

Only A and E will have security. And let me remind everyone that the Senate has voted multiple times to pay the military, air traffic controllers, TSA, and to fund SNAP. And the Democrats are still saying no.

SPEAKER_03: 56:40

Yeah, because they're they're gonna just I mean, I'm I'm very two-minded in this. One one is they're they're just fucking over their own base. The flip side of it is I love the fact that it's the Democrats that are the ones responsible for curbing government services. Because I think curbing government services is a good thing. Oh, I agree. I'd love for this to just go on for a year. Just just nah, let's just shut down the whole government for a year, see what happens. Do we really need a government if it's shut down for a year?

SPEAKER_01: 57:12

This is this reminds me of privatize TSA and air traffic.

SPEAKER_03: 57:16

There you go. This reminds me of something that happened in when I was living in Minnesota. You remember Jesse Ventura, the uh wrestler turned governor of Minnesota. He was he was kind of a bull in the China shop in in certain ways, not super effective in a lot of things, because again, the you know, the local deep state in Minnesota had known how to keep him from messing with too much stuff. But one of the things that he did was very interesting. So Minnesota was a leader in implementing ramp meter lights in its state. It did it first, it did it to everything. So when you have an entry onto the highway, a ramp on the highway, every one of those ramps had a little light. And you still have these in California, you still have these in quite a few places, to where this was a traffic management system basically that was supposed to be monitoring the level of traffic on the highway and then modulating how many people are allowed to enter the highway at per hour by having these red, yellow, green lights on traffic on the highway ramps that would then change the speed with which they would allow cars to enter the highway. You've got to have been somewhere where they have these, right?

SPEAKER_01: 58:44

Yeah, it was just in Georgia and Atlanta, they have it.

SPEAKER_03: 58:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of states got them, but Minnesota was one of the first. They started doing this in the 70s. And by the time Jesse Ventura was in office, which was in the 90s, they had these on literally every single ramp on the highways and between highways. So when you exit one highway to get onto another highway, generally you had to stop and then accelerate again on the ramp because there was a light there anytime you switch highways as well. And this was considered to be a good thing that helped keep traffic moving. So one of the things that Jesse was always this was one of the things he complained about when he was campaigning to run for office, was that this was stupid and this whole government system is, you know, the the traffic controls are they all they do is make things worse. And so he managed to get the legislature during his term to pass a bill that would require a test of the system that he then signed into law, which would shut down all these traffic uh signals, all the uh the ramp lights, I should say, not general traffic, but shut down all the ramp signals for a one-month period and then measure the traffic levels on the all the highways. Democrats all thought this is a god-awful idea, it's gonna cause collisions and catastrophes along the routes. The Republicans, for the most part, were agreeing with the Democrats, but saying, look, it's probably worth a test, right? The last test we ran was in the 70s, it's been 20 years, let's do another test of the system. And much to not really a surprise to me, what they found was when they deactivated all of those, a number of things became obvious. Number one, the duration of traffic on highways. Was cut by about half an hour in the morning and about 40 minutes in the afternoon. Which means that your speeds under the speed limit on the highway became were for a shorter duration per day than they had been with the lights. That was one of the things they found. The second thing they found was that when you don't have these artificial slowing down kind of barriers in place, people can more effectively judge which route is the fastest to go from point A to point B. And when the highway started getting busier with traffic, people simply took the service roads. Yeah, more people just went onto the service roads. If you have no idea what the highway is like, because you're sitting at a forced light to get onto anywhere, no matter what, more people just tended to just stick to the one highway and not go on any other service roads. And so it actually decreased the amount of traffic that people experienced overall. And the net effect of this is one of Jesse Venture's legacies, is that after that test was complete, they started taking down these lights, and it was a multi-year process to get rid of all of them. But I think what was left was a handful, maybe 20 or 30 of these traffic control lights at like around the airport and a few other areas. But for the most part, they probably got rid of several thousand of these ramp lights as a result of that test. And this just goes to show you that sometimes common sense can win, but it has to be given a chance to compete. And I think this is something that we need to not forget in Texas as well.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:38

Well, I think again, this is why it's important to vote Tuesday, regardless of what state you're in. I I will say that common sense the only way we keep the politicians in check is by voting and making sure that we support politicians that like Brandon Herrera. I I truly think he will be one of the good ones when he gets in there. And unfortunately, what we need to remember is what the election that's gonna matter for him is the primary next year. So everybody's gotta go out. You know, if you live in that district, please vote for him.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:26

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:27

I would love to, but no, I don't want to live in that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:32

I I should really look at more carefully on what the uh actual border area of his district is to see if there is a place that would that I could move to.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:43

I mean, what do you mean? You don't want to be in San Antonio?

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:46

Well, I mean San Antonio here's the thing. San Antonio is certainly cheaper than Austin, but it's not that cheap.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:52

And no, it's not, and it's not it there are parts of San Antonio that are great. I know people who live in San Antonio. I have spent a lot of time in San Antonio. I I just don't like any big city.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:08

I would totally move to San Antonio for a job. I don't have anything against the city, but moving there just for a vote for somebody, I would rather I'd rather do what I discussed, which is totally legal. I checked into it, right? I can get a second residence and then make that my primary residence and still keep this residence. You can own more than one house in Texas. You just have right. So, and I wouldn't even mind living there more than well, more than half a year. But the point is, you know, if I was to just move to a single other place in San Antonio, I would have to tie that somehow to financial gain, like a job that would pay me a decent amount. Or like uh, even if I'm a contractor, right, for a client that's in San Antonio where I could benefit from being at that client's location for an extended period of time and not just somebody I work with for three months and I'm done. Like I would have no issues at all moving to San Antonio, but you know, I don't want to just go through that rigmarole purely to take a vote or to vote once for for somebody in the primary. Well, I guess twice. I vote for them in the election as well. But yeah, Republicans kind of win those elections anyway, there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:28

So oh whoever wins the primary is gonna win the election.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:31

Yeah, yeah. Now, related to his election there, I don't know how much of this is true or not, but one thing we do know is that there does seem to be a little bit of a a little eyebrow-raising something going on with Tony Gonzalez, the guy he's running against, because we found out a number of months back that a staffer for Tony Gonzalez had set fire.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:54

What? A married staffer.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:56

Yeah, yeah, she had caught fire. Which was a bizarre story, regardless of where this person was, but given that it turned out to be she was a staffer for Tony Gonzalez, and now there are allegations that they were having an affair, it's very interesting, and I hopefully this is something that can help Brandon as well, even if not any more real information comes out. Just the whole question of like what the hell's going on, what what would cause somebody to catch fire? That's not a that's not a common scenario. Not yet, not so far, but you never know, right? Now, of course, I know what the uh the current Republican Party leadership, like Nick Fuentes, would say. Well, clearly she had a Jew pager.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:46

All right, now what else could it be? Nick Fuentes is the Republican leadership.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:51

It sure seems that way if you're on X. I mean, that's that it's it feels like he's the new head of the Republican Party.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:58

I don't know, man. You know, here in Texas, guys are getting sheriff's departments going to people's homes for posts they put online.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:04

As well, they should. Absolutely. If your post is I'm going to kill this person and everybody out to go kill them, I think that's probably worth checking into. And I've said for a long time, we need more asylums. We need more advisors.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:22

What's that? The agricultural secretary says that he's been directed by Trump to use the emergency, the five billion dollar emergency fund to pay SNAP benefits.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:32

I don't uh I don't think that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:35

Well, it may be politically. If Trump can take credit, they can't.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:41

You're gonna have black people basically saying the damn Republicans are the only ones paying us and the Democrats will pay us.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:47

Yep. I I taking away their voter base one at a time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:51

Ah, I'm just not a fan of that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:54

It's normal, but I think that's the play.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:57

Yeah, I guess. I guess that makes sense, but I just I don't like that type of scenario. Yeah. So that was just now, okay. Well, well, I guess once again, we shall see what that brings in terms of end result. And I'm sure that there've been people that have done all the predictability. What is what's that website that that has all the betting stuff going on? They seem to always know the answer.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:28

There's several of them. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:30

The I don't know. There's a big one that everybody follows. Like it, you know, they take bets for literally anything, and so you can kind of figure out where the mood swings of people are. Polymarkets.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:43

So I'm curious to see what polymarkets what there's also call she and others.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:50

I don't know that one. Polymarkets, the only one that I've seen consistently be mentioned.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:54

Polymarkets, call she, and predicted are the big three.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:58

Okay. I I'm only aware of the polymarkets one, but I'll have to check out the other ones.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:04

Yeah, so there's a right now, like Polymarket has when will the government shutdown and the leader there is November 4th to 7th, basically saying as soon as the election's over.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:19

Oh. Huh. I guess I could see that. I don't I don't see how that's a win for Democrats, but okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:27

We'll see.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:29

You know what I mean? I mean, it's kind of like what's the do they really think that that not having the government operating is going to make more people vote Democrat? I don't see how that helps them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:47

Well, it it depends. See, so far, the average person has not had any impact from this. Now, with the stuff like is going on at IAH, it's gonna start impacting people, and people are gonna get pissed off. So then it becomes okay, who do they blame that on? Do they blame it on the Democrats or the Republicans? Yeah, yeah, I could see that. So we'll see. Yeah, so it was interesting. While I was at the conference, I was talking uh dinner and saying, you know, I actually the government can stay shut down for as long as it wants, as far as I'm concerned. And this guy who works for CISA was like, Well, I would eventually like a paycheck. And I said, Well, then work for the private sector. And young liberal guy, and he and I started going off.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:37

Um that that would be fun to watch.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:40

Well, the one of the guys at the table said, Y'all should have recorded this as a podcast. Like, there were people watching us going back and forth, like when I was debating the worst presidents with him, you know, what the states' rights and everything else. Civil War came up, but all the talking points. So it was it was interesting. He he did agree with me that George W. Bush was a bad president, but for totally different reasons.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:05

Okay. Well, so was there a point he was making about the shutdown one way or the other?

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:12

No, he he he just wants his paycheck, dude. Oh, okay. He deserves his paycheck. Work for the private sector.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:20

Yeah, I mean, why would he get a paycheck if he's not working?

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:26

Well, he is working.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:28

Is he? Why is he working for free? That doesn't make sense either.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:33

Well, the what do you mean?

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:36

Well, either he's working or he's not working. If he's working and not getting paid, then he's working for free. Why would you work for free? Because you want unemployment.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:45

Well, except they're furloughed, not fired.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:49

So furloughed means you're not working.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:51

Or you are considered essential working for CISA, and you have to.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:58

Well, then you're not furloughed, then you're working.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:01

Correct.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:02

But if you're working and you're not getting paid, that's illegal. No, it isn't.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:06

TSA. TSA is working and not getting paid. The U.S. military armed forces are not getting paid.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:11

They are getting paid. They're they have deferred payments. Nobody's like working and not getting paid.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:17

You're right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:18

They get no one's just working for free and not never getting paid for it unless they're a moron.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:25

But he's not getting his paycheck on the regular basis. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:28

So he has delayed paychecks, is what he's complaining about. And is he blaming the people that he voted in for that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:34

He didn't vote for I guarantee you he didn't vote for Trump.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:38

Right, but it was not Trump's fault. It's Democrats' fault. That's what I'm saying. Is he blaming the people responsible for this or not?

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:46

Or is he assuming it's Trump's fault? He's assuming it's Trump's fault. He's totally got TDS, dude.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:52

Yeah. You can't you can't objectively say that it's Trump's fault, because first of all, Trump has nothing to do with agreement or disagreement in the House.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:05

You mean in the Senate? The House has passed.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:07

House has passed? I thought the House is where it was tied up. No, it's the Senate. Oh, okay. Well fine. The Senate. So you like that's pre-Trump.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:15

Yeah, which is why Trump is wanting them to go with the nuclear option right now.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:20

Mm-hmm. So I yeah. It's funny. But yeah, I mean, I get it. Look, I've got a good friend that uh that that works in the Pentagon, same thing there. You know, he's still working 12 hour days without getting getting this paycheck, which is annoying, I'm sure. But it's not like he'll never get paid for that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:52

Well, it's uh And he absolutely is blaming the Democrats. See, I like I I'm even the people who are furloughed are gonna get back pay. Yeah. Which I just cannot stand that that is the case.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:06

Yeah, yeah. It's it basically it's just paid vacation with a delayed payment.

unknown: 1:14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:12

On top of all your other vacation that you're getting anyway. It's not it certainly isn't the same thing as just being expected to work for no money. No. That's that's my issue with it. It's like it's it's the language. Again, it's just like redefining words.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:44

So did you see that Trump put uh additional sanctions on Russia?

unknown: 1:14:49

No.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:49

I but I'm not surprised. I mean, what what else are they gonna do? They they have no other leverage, there's nothing there they they can do.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:57

So well, the they have now they've now put sanctions on the two additional oil companies. And they're about to do secondary sanctions as well. So I don't know. I am shocked that the uh peace deal in Israel is still holding.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:18

Well, it depends who you talk to, right? Because depending on who you talk to, a lot of people say that it's been violated over and over since day one by Israel. Because they keep shooting back when people are trying to shoot at them. It's amazing how that happens. Yes. So I don't know. There's a there's a lot of unhappy Israelis right now, I'll tell you that. There's also a lot of unhappy Israelis with Vance. Why? Because he said something that I think isn't supposed to be said. I mean, I don't care if he said it, I have no issue with it, but uh a lot of people seem to. Which is that first of all, he said that he didn't deny that Israel controls the US government which I guess he was people thought he should have. I don't know. That was a thing. The other thing was that and then he said, but this president isn't controlled by Israel, implying that all the others were. And then the other thing he said, and uh you know, to get this peace deal in place, Trump had to uh push on the Israelis to do what we told them to do, which I think is actually a good thing that he said that, because it demonstrates something that's I think 100% true. Yeah, that's been always true, is that for as much as people think you know Israel is controlling the US, it's always been the other way around. Like Israel always will do what the US wants Israel to do, and that has been the case for 40 years. They may grumble about it, but they'll freaking do it, they're not gonna ignore what the US tells them to do. And so there's certainly a lot more truth in saying the US controls Israel than saying that Israel controls the US. But but Vance said this part out loud, and I think for a little bit of the Israeli pride out there, they didn't like hearing that, and so there's like, well, you know, that's not a that that's not something we want. We don't want some other country controlling our government. So there's definitely some people pissed off at his statements. What's that? Then be independent. Exactly. And and I wrote a thing, and I I think I afford you a copy of what I wrote as well, uh, that basically said that is that you know, I kind of talked through a little bit about anti-Semitism and what it is, and then I said the best thing that Israel can do is stop buying American weapons because that's the only part that US grants go towards covering. So the money that is quote unquote going to Israel never leaves the US. It's just money that basically pays US military industrial complex for weapons that are shipped to Israel.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:22

Yeah. We got a listener note. Which one's this? I it just came in. It's on Mastodon. So weenie wawa sent in a note. It's been a while since we've heard from him. He writes, what can we do to get the podcast back on the stream? I never listened, I never listened to that, so I have no idea why it was pulled, but it's important that it to be on there. Let Gene know I bought his robot CD music, and it doesn't sound like any it doesn't sound any different than any any music with no soul currently made. Exactly episodes behind.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:57

He's absolutely right. It is identical in sound to anything else out there, and that's why I think it's great. So I'm not claiming it sounds better, I'm just saying it's no worse.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:06

You gotta you gotta at least one album.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:08

So yeah, awesome. You know, it'll take 60 days for me to see what kind of payments. Really?

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:14

Is that long?

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:15

Yeah, yeah, that's standard in they don't give you any numbers up front because remember, it's not actually no, they they don't. It's all based on you know aggregated monthly sales, and then it's a month delayed after the end of the month, huh? So it'll be a while, but I'm I'm gonna keep making them. I enjoy the process, man. And I think honestly, you know, I've said this to Ben privately too. I was like, dude, I can make a hundred albums off the Bible, like there's so much material there. It's it's a it's gonna get numbered when you get down to numbers. It's a non-copyrighted work. I know, right? Numbers is gonna be an interesting one, but it's a non-copyrighted work that that has a lot of poetry out there too that you could do, and it has a lot of uh built-in uh interest, right? So it's not an unknown book.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:05

So I think it's a natural popular book ever written.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:09

Yeah, uh second only behind Atlas Shrugged, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:12

So I think I think it's a copy of the Bible and sold in any other book by a long shot.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:18

Well, if you consider the entirety of the lifespan of the Bible, but uh the for a period of time there in the 60s, uh the Atlas Shrugged outsold the Bible. But anyway, neither here nor there. The point is it's a great source of material. That's all I'm trying to say. As far as off the stream, so this is contentious because there are people that are saying this is bullshit, we were never pulled off the stream, we're still on the stream. There are other people saying we were pulled off the stream, but it wasn't CSB's fault, and that Darren lied to Gene. There are other people saying that Darren never said that we were pulled off the stream or that it was CSB's fault. So there's a lot of confusion. Here's my take is I almost never to the stream listen to the stream. The only time obviously I don't listen to the stream enough to know whether or not we've been pulled off. I'm going off of what people have told us, and what they told us is that we are no longer on the stream. And then when I asked Darren about it, he said that uh, you know, it was must have been CSB that responsible for that. And I I don't know, and I don't like I'm not mad at CSB or anything either, and I think CSB totally denies that he's responsible for anything, but uh I know he and Darren have now gotten into a very contagious kind of position where they I think Darren's blocked him on every platform now. So, you know, drama drama. Well, because CSB got mad at him for saying that it was his fault, and it's like I don't know. All I know is CSB sends me messages to pass on to Darren. I pass them on, I don't care. You know, I I had blocked CSB for a year if you remember back on the other platform. Yeah, yeah, and it was it was it was because he got very personally insultive when the whole uh Ukrainian war started. I was like, dude, I can argue about the pros and cons of the war and the history of that region, but I'm as soon as you switched to just insulting me, there's no reason for me to communicate with you. It doesn't add anything to the argument. So, you know, and that's why he was blocked for a year, and I unblocked him and he said that he wouldn't insult me personally. And I was like, okay, fine, then I have no problem talking to you. So, so first question is to people that are listening to this, do you even listen to the no agenda stream at all? That's question number one. You can all reply back to us using the link in the podcast, like you don't have to send us money, it's just the link.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:51

I I think people are thinking of it as a discovery mechanism, but it's really the way the way people a lot of stuff's been tried, but the way people find podcasts is by someone telling them about the podcast. Exactly. I listen to this and I really enjoy it. And you know, so the best thing you can do is go tell people about the podcast.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:10

And all the podcast apps have a mechanism to send a link to a podcast to somebody else. Like you can for like if I describe, oh, I'm listening to this right now, you should check it out. I don't have to just leave it up to that person to go and search for it. You can just use whatever app you use for podcasts, and if you're listening to ours, just there's gotta be some button there that you can click, some some menu that you can drop down that has a forward link to it. Every app I've looked at has some variant of that, and then you just forward a link to those people and say, Yeah, you should check out this podcast. Once they open up in theirs, then their own app will say, Oh, did you want to subscribe to this or just listen to us? And that really is the best way to spread it because uh a lot more people are gonna be interested in listening to something that is personally recommended by a friend than just some random mechanism that's trying to shove something into their face that they don't know anything about. So good good point of that. But anyway, my question was if anyone listens to the stream, or if you don't listen, let us know. Two, if you do listen, have you still been hearing our podcasts on the stream? Yes or no? And again, even that's not categorical because people can listen at times when it's not being played, so who the hell knows? So I guess the third question is if you've heard any of our recent podcasts on the stream, then let us know that because I don't listen enough to the stream. The only time I usually have the stream running is during no agenda, if I'm not doing something else when no agenda's playing. So I really don't listen otherwise.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:49

I always just listen after on download. Yeah, I don't do art. I'm I it's you know not at convenient times for me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:58

So yeah. So it's really even if we're not on there, it's just not that big a deal. But I also can't say categorically that we're not on there, it's just based on what other people have mentioned. So there you go. There's that issue taken care of. What else?

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:19

Man, after traveling a lot and everything, that's pretty much all I got. All I can say is I I will give one takeaway from the conference. It was nice not having a bunch of government people there talking because of the shutdown. So they had to cancel a bunch of talks, which is fine.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:38

Oh, okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:40

Because normally at this conference, you've got a lot of people from three letter agencies and everything else around, right? Like NSA directors have spoken at this conference many times and stuff like that. And I've had plenty of contentious arguments with them at this conference. It was nice because there was a sudden lack of FUD.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:01

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:03

That's funny. Like there were a couple people still spouting the same bullshit, but it was so reduced, it was noticeable. Oh, it was it was refreshing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:15

I can't imagine security conference without FUD. That just seems like they go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:19

I'm not saying it was totally absent. I'm just saying it was drastically reduced. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:24

Uh-huh. But I'm sure people know what it is, but in case you don't, it's fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:31

Yeah. It's it's something people do to justify their job.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:38

Yeah. At least it's it's interesting. I uh I was talking to somebody else uh recently about security, I'm trying to remember the topic, but it was it's the whole the whole security area I think is going to become a lot more interesting as the use of AI is ramped up for hacking purposes because the the traditional vectors that are protected are going to be less important as the use of AI increases. I think that the social engineering aspects of using AI is going to make security so much more difficult for people because you're going to literally have thousands of people, well, or even let's say forget thousands of people.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:42

Imagine having AI is never gonna go out and do a zero day. A hacker may be able to use AI to programmatically searching.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:52

AI is not gonna do shit itself. I'm just saying hackers using AI will greatly enhance the amount of vectors that are hit.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:03

One of the best talks I saw at this conference that I thought was really good is you know, we've been spending a lot of money on tools, and this is true. And a lot of it ends up as shelfware or not really utilized. And you know, what we really need is a way of finding what is working, what isn't, highlighting that and spending smarter, not more, right? Yeah. And talking about the importance of setting up those KPIs and actually doing it. And many years ago, one of the one of the CISOs I know for an oil and gas company, when was I was talking to him about you know a product. And he said, I don't need another way to document my incompetence.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:54

That's that's a fair point.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:57

Uh and I I just the way he said that, I I just cracked up, and you know, he's a funny, funny guy. One of the funniest people I've ever met. And and just very sharp and on on top of it. So his big thing was okay, I I I don't need something to document my incompetence, so how do I guarantee that we're going to operationalize this and make this work?

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:21

Yeah. And that that is a variant of an argument I've heard for 25, 30 years of I have a bunch of people wanting to charge me money to tell me what I'm doing wrong. What I really want to spend money on is action that fixes the things that I'm doing wrong. So it doesn't matter if it's like in security, in finance, in other areas of business, but there's a a lot more people that can come in and tell you what you're doing wrong. And I'm hey, I'm raising my hand right here. I've done that for the majority of my life in consulting. But there are fewer people in companies that can come in and actually do the remediation work, actually fix the problems that you have and not just tell you what they are. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:10

And that's the difference between my company and like the big four consulting, right? Actually, put hands on keyboards and do stuff.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:18

Yeah, yeah, which is very cool, which is why I think that you guys are way bigger than you ought to be.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:26

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:27

Well, I mean just the amount of work you're getting. It's it's like huge. You're you're winning shit left and right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:34

We we are, and we it we are growing tremendously, and it's I I I we are competing against the big four and winning. We are competing against special. Contractors like who would have ever thought going in putting a bid on a defense contractor and doing cybersecurity, and I'm going up against Booze Allen Hamilton and I win.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:57

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:59

Like fucking hate, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:01

Yeah, no, that's that that is awesome. It's a it's very impressive.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:06

And you know, as long as the canoes don't buy us.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:11

Yeah, it it's ever since you started working there, and I've been hearing more and more about you know what what success you guys are having. I'm like, damn, you got yourself a good place to work.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:25

Very cool. And there's plenty of good companies out there, but it it's it definitely sounds like this one's doing things a little differently.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:35

Yeah, we are, and part of that's because you know, my VP was brought in to really change the way this is run. And then he, you know, one of the first things he did was went out and got a handful of leaders that are cap, including myself, that are capable and want to push, and so that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:55

Yeah, that's very cool. And you know, hopefully that means you continue to advance and grow. And but it's not to say we don't need your help and support, guys. We appreciate everybody who donates money, even though Ben's making hand over fists these days. I am not making any more than I was before. It's just hopefully you have to get a good bonus. Like, yeah, exactly. Hopefully you get a good bonus. But we do appreciate people that do donate. You know, every penny that we receive from donations is 100% put back into paying for the infrastructure. So the hosting, the uh AI generation of stuff. I know there have been a couple of people, and I I do want to mention this to interrupt my own call for donations here. We've had a few people mention that the that the time sink is off between what you hear in audio and what is on the transcript. So I've opened up a ticket with BusRoute for that. They went through and showed me that they're not off, that the times are adjusted exactly to where they should be after the intro is played. So what I told them I would do is I would ask for every anybody that seems to have noticed that there's a difference between what the app is showing you from the the transcript of the show and what you're actually hearing in the show. Anyone that sees that, take a screenshot, send it to us, let me know what the app actually is, and then I can forward that information to them so they could do further testing. But from what they what they did and what they showed me is that there isn't supposed to be any difference between the timestamps on the transcript because the obviously when we record the show, we don't have the opening music in front of it, we don't have the little reminder in the middle of the show that's recorded live telling you to go ahead and subscribe to it or tell for your friends about it. All those things are added in post. And so the timeline, the time sync numbers for the transcript are supposed to be updated to include all of those extra bits of audio. And if they're not, let us know what you're using so that they can test with that software and make sure that it is because from what I saw, it looks like everything should be updated properly. So, but anyway, I say that because I just remembered it, but it was kind of in the middle of my saying we appreciate the support. I think we have 11 people currently that are donating anywhere in the range of three dollars to ten dollars a month, and uh we certainly appreciate all that, and that helps us pay for all the services because obviously the the less work we do, the longer we're gonna keep doing this because just not, you know, it's just like a normal conversation with Ben on the phone. It I don't have to do a whole lot extra, and neither does Ben to get this out in podcast form beyond just us talking via signal to each other about the exact same topics we just talked about on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:10

And I will say I am pretty proud of the number of people that we have donating relative to overall listenership, it's pretty nice.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:18

I I will agree with you on that. Like we could definitely get a lot more listeners, that would be great. We'd love to see that. But in terms of the percentage of people that are actually supporting us compared to the overall listeners, you know, the the industry average everybody says is if you get anywhere over three percent, you're doing really well. Well, we're definitely getting over three percent, guys. So we appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:40

We're getting around five.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:42

So yeah, we appreciate that. Very cool. All right. Well, with that, I I don't have anything else. We can uh wrap things up, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:51

All right. Well, and since I'll be home next week, we'll probably have a longer episode next week. Perfect. Talk to you then, man. See you, Gene.