SPEAKER_00 0:25

Well, how are you Ben? How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Oh, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

I'm happy to be at home. Yeah? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Home is where the heart is, they say.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Home is where I lay my head at night. It's, you know, I don't know, man. I I've been traveling and I canceled my travel. I traveled my cancel for this. I canceled my I can't I traveled my cancel. Clearly. I canceled my travel this week because IAH had only two security checkpoints open and the counter stopped at 240 minutes because that's how high the counter went.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yep. Yeah, it could be four hours. Mm-hmm. I'm not looking forward to the first time.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Iah was one of the worst in the in the nation. Apparently Austin hadn't been too bad though. Really? That's good. Yeah. Supposedly Austin has hired some private contractors and working on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah, they uh they they keep fucking with the first class line, which I don't like. They wouldn't even they moved it to three different gates. So it used to be at the main gate, which was great. What airline are you flying? American. Why? That's what I fly, dude. That's where my mouths are at.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

American is the worst of the big three here in the US. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Whatever. So the they then moved it to one side of the airport, and then they now it's at the other side of the airport. It's like, why are you fucking with it? Just leave it alone.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Oh. And I apologize, I'm kind of losing my voice here a little bit. Oh, okay. But I mean, when they're cutting staff and moving stuff around, it just happens. Like normal access for seagates were totally shut. But if you have enough status or you have mobility issues and so on, they still had a seagate open in Houston. So yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

So we want to start off on UK heading towards civil war, you were saying about a week ago.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

I mean, the the young gentleman I set on the flight home was very pro Restore Britain. So and he's about a decade younger than me, so 30, and wants to ship them back, wants to see Britain restored. Literally use the term, you know, we've undergone a genocide in our own country. The native people of the British Isles are you know being replaced. So I don't know. I think that they're Great Britain has gone further down the road than we are. There's something like that.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

They're way too woke.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

But I think that there's some hope.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So yeah, I I don't think there is, but we'll we'll be able to watch and see how it goes. I think the percentage of the Muslim population there is too high for them to do anything at this point.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

I think it's probably too high without violence.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I mean I I don't know what that's gonna change. The uh are you saying the Islamists are gonna get scared of violence?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

No, I think you're gonna have I think you're gonna have to have a reconquista of the British Isles.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. I don't think it's gonna happen. I don't think they've got the people to do it. I think it's it's done at this point. Just a question of how long it's gonna finish taking. We could well be in the scenario where the UK has Sharia law implemented and more countries in the Middle East get rid of it.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Ironically enough. I mean, Saudi Arabia is now firing on Iran in offensive operations. You the entirety of the Middle East is backing the US and Israel.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Dude, there's a Qatari rep talking in front of the United Nations saying it's time to stop going after Israel and start going after the real enemies. At the UN. So yeah, shit is definitely changing out there for the better. But I don't know, man. For every video I see of white dudes in their 20s or 30s going rah-rah in the UK, there's about a dozen videos of the police arresting people that got assaulted by Islamists.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

And the Islamists are waving their Pakistani flags. So I, you know. It would take a lot, I think, for the UK to be able to change from that because the they don't have guns, for one. So they can't just have an uprising. What are they gonna do? Have an uprising with uh shovels? You know, what what are they gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Well, there are people who have guns in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

There's extremely few people with guns, and those guns are very controlled. You can only have it at the gun club or the fox hunt.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Okay. I I think that they're the Scots that I met were very pro-Scottish independence.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah, and they've been pro-Scottish. Sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead and finish.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

No, I I I I think my family is actually part of the problem because when the Stuart line got introduced to the royalty of Great Britain, it really made the nobles of Scotland bound to that, right? Because of all the genealogical stuff. Yeah. That said, I think Scotland is very ready to be done with Stalmer.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

And if I'd never known anything about that sentiment before, I'd go, well, that's great. However, I've been literally hearing Scotland is ready for its independence for 50 years.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Well, I mean, it's been fighting for its independence for hundreds of years.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

It'll be another 50 before somebody does anything to actually try and make it happen. That's my point, is that all these calls to arms that they're coming out of the UK, Scotland included, these are not new. These have been heralded in the past with nothing really to show for it. I don't know if you ever watched the TV show, I mean it was before your time, but you might have seen a rerun called Yes Minister, and then the follow-on was Yes Prime Minister. No. Okay. It was a BBC show, comedy, but you know, British comedy, so very dark humor, about a labor MP that gets elected, and he meets his permanent staff, you know, the career politicians, unlike the politician politicians, the career bureaucrats, I guess I should say.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

And everybody's done with labor, though, right now.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

And it is yeah, but it I mean, does back then in the late 70s, labor was right of where conservatives are right now. Anyway, the the staff, and specifically one guy named Humphreys, is basically letting him filling him in and helping him get accustomed to how British government works. And effectively what that means is that the politicians go and grumble, grumble, grumble and make their points and you know, fight for whatever the thing that they were running on is. But in the end, everybody compromises and everybody just wants to wrap things up to go have a sherry. And it is a very much a uniparty, and this is a 1970s TV show. It was a uniparty in the UK back then, much like what we have here now and what they have over there. There's very little differences between the parties. And in the end, you have to look at what has actually been accomplished. Now, Trump has accomplished a tremendous amount of things in the US, way more than any previous president that I recall in my life. Like there, there's certain things I don't like about Trump, you know that. But you gotta give him the fact that he has actually accomplished way more than any of his predecessors. Yeah. I don't think that's been the case for any prime minister in the UK in my lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Well, all I can say is I think labor is done. Restore Britain has more members than the Conservative Party at this point. I think the next elections are going to be pretty spicy in Great Britain.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah, well, we'll see. But meanwhile, they keep importing. They keep importing, they keep providing services.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Germany is done. They Germany just went and said that they are going to do the largest deportations in their history. Yeah, and that they are closed to cloak and that they are closed to new refugees. Like, I really think we're seeing an awakening in Europe and some changes. Yeah. What's going on with the with Iran and the streets of Hormuz? We want the streets of Hormuz closed because it doesn't really fucking affect us. Exactly. We can we can stop exporting natural gas and oil tomorrow, cap the U.S. oil market around$100 a barrel, not artificially, but because we're not exporting, that's where it'll land. And the rest of the world is fucked.

Strait Of Hormuz And Oil Leverage

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah, totally. The rest of the world's gonna have$300 plus barrel oil. And and Trump talked about it uh, I think yesterday on in the press conference where he said, you know, this this war with Iran, whatever you want to call it, that this has been a test for NATO.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Oh god, yes. Because and and look who's responded. Look who's responded to his call. The Japanese.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

The Japanese are there, Japanese, the guys from the Middle East. It's not Europe.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Not Europe, it's you know Germany is saying nope, not our fight.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

No, not their fight. And he's like, look, we don't we don't need the Straits of Hormos open. You do, yeah. And he's like, and the people that do, they're not interested in coming and helping. So let's just say we're gonna remember this. So I think this is gonna be something that is brought up when Trump finally eviscerates the NATO and removes the U.S. from it, effectively killing NATO.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah. Well, but here's the thing Japan and Taiwan have already committed to buying oil and gas, liquefied natural gas from the U.S. Well, they don't really have a choice. Well, they do. The Trump admin, the Trump admin from Russia, technically, I guess. So that's where this is going. The Trump admin is looking at a cross Bering Straits pipeline into Europe and Japan. Yeah. If we built that and worked with the Russians on that, which I already think we're heading towards, like, holy shit, dude, the Middle East could be fucked on oil because we can be a global producer and send it to our allies. And you know, well, you've played the look. We're looking at a massive geopolitical realignment.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Complete realignment. You you play the game Risk when you were a kid, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yep, and Access and Allies.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Well, and yeah, and the thing that makes Risk fun versus like playing a computer game against the computer or something, is all the little side deals you can do with the other people that are playing. You can have somebody who's not a very big, but you do a deal with them, and then somebody else, next thing you know, you have the largest block, and you're able to kind of force your way into areas with support that you couldn't without support. And I think this is the thing that a lot of people in a lot of countries and all the Gripers, all the Tucker Carlson types are absolutely clueless about. It's the fact that every country has a particular stake in what's happening, even if they don't publicly talk about it. Like for the United States, it's actually good for us that the Straits of Hormoth are shut down. You could make an argument that that's what's going to enable a lot more of the fracking to become economically viable if the price of oil stays over 100. For Russia, obviously, it's also good that this is happening. They have no desire to accelerate a conclusion to the situation in Iran because it's good for them to have the overall oil prices be higher. For the oil-producing nations that are outside the Straits of Hormouth, this is also good because now they're able to ship oil, where a lot of the countries inside are not able. So it there's a certain convenience alignment that's happening right now of countries that would like to keep going down this path and not have anything fixed. And then there are countries that are going to panic. Now, Europe is an oil consumer, except for Norway, and so they are absolutely fucked, and they need the streets of Hormouth open, but they're also run by a bunch of little bitches, so they're they're not doing anything to help themselves.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

So you you have to realize even U.S. territories right now are rationing. So, you know, we've got quite a few boots on the ground in Guam right now, and there are three oil importers into Guam right now, and most of their oil was coming from the Middle East for Guam just because of geography, right? It's closer.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

So US territories are rationing, but you've got countries like New Zealand that are within days of becoming Cuba.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Like this is a first world country looking at becoming where Cuba's at right now. That's the first world country run poorly.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Agreed. So, yeah. You know, a lot of these countries let their strategic reserves deplete greatly during the whole Ukraine situation. They're like, we're not gonna buy oil from Russia, we're just gonna use the oil we already have. Okay. Congratulations. So I think it's interesting. I obviously feel much better living in a country that isn't affected by this than if I was living somewhere where it was affected by this. Well, duh. But also, I'm kind of realistic about it. It's like, dude, we could have we could have taken a map a year ago. We could have done this during the 12 Days War when the bombing was going in in Iran. Taken a map and said, okay, which countries are gonna be fucked when this thing gets to the next level of the war? And we would have been probably 95% right. It's not a hard thing to predict.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Well, the the the funny part is our Arab allies are spurring us on and saying, no, finish this. Yeah, don't back out.

Middle East Alliances And Endgames

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Absolutely. And I I'm very much in agreement with them. I've always been a big supporter of our Arab allies, you know, me. And so I think we ought to listen to what they're saying.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I mean, when you have when you have Saudi Arabia coming in on the side of Israel and the US against Iran.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Let's be fair. They're coming in on the side of Saudi Arabia, not anybody else. It's just that side coincides with the other countries.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Sure, but did you ever think you would see Saudi Arabia open its air bases to Israeli pilots?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, no, that that definitely was not on the bingo cards. That is unprecedented. Although, you know, during Trump's last term, we were damn close to getting the Abraham Accords. The Abraham Accords to the point where a lot of those Arab countries would have been on board. Because, you know, once the accords got signed, we started having direct flights from the countries that are signatories to each other, even though they haven't had flights in many years. So I think that's ultimately going to be the end game for this, is that once the Iranian regime, the IRGC, is fully rousted, we're going to have a very different Middle East that'll actually look more like Europe did 50 years ago. In terms of just wanting to have fewer borders and more cooperation and more travel. It's going to be a Middle East that sees itself as a tourist destination, it'll be a Middle East that thinks of itself as a you know a combined uh uh countries with a similar mindset the way that Europe used to be.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

And I think if Israel stops when the US says to stop, Israel has the chance to be the hegemon. But if Israel continues aggression after the US says stop, I think uh the entirety of the Middle East is likely to turn on them very quickly.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, I don't know. I it really depends. The it depends what they do because the while the Saudi Arabia and other countries are perfectly willing to go and bomb Iran, right? None of the Middle Eastern countries are willing to go bomb Hamas. They're not willing to bomb Hezbollah, they're not willing to bomb any of the eight children of the RGC, the terrorist regimes that were created in all these countries in the Middle East. Uh don't know. I think I think the Houthis are a target for everybody right now. Well, that's good. I mean, it if it goes to that level where they're literally saying we need to reindicate all vestiges of Iran, then there's no such thing as Israel continuing its quote unaggression the way you put it of the IRGC, to be specific.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Of the IRGC, right? Because they're but they were the ones that were funding all these regimes. That's the thing. And there I've seen a lot of videos lately from but yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From Lebanese, but Qatar is also just utilized by Iran as a money funneling scheme. So was it really Qatar or was it just Iranian money paying for Tucker Carlson? Just asking questions. Anyway, the the videos I've seen coming from people from Lebanon basically saying we want our country back. This was a Christian country, and it was never a terrorist country, and we're sick and tired of Hezbollah. We want Israel to kill them all, and we want our country back. Now, I don't think that's a surprising sentiment, but it's not one that I've seen like a few years back. Wow. And a number of those countries, it was not just Lebanon, there was there's like three or four countries that were Christian majority countries back 50, 60 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

And you've seen an explosion of Christianity. Well, you've seen an explosion of other religions in Iran. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Recently. And I think that Christianity certainly is one of them. Yep. Yeah, yeah. And what's the native religion? Starts with the Zero Austrianism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, you know, those are the two big ones.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Well, and atheism. I mean, honestly, Iran had a pretty damn high atheist population. And not like the United States militant anti-Christian is atheists, but more like people that just don't turn.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

So yeah, I think by the way, people need to understand that Turkey during the 60s and 70s was a very secular country. A lot more than today. Ironically. Well, since Erdogan has been in power, the Muslim Brotherhood has largely taken over. Yeah, yeah. So there's a when I when I say that, I you had to take it in context.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah. Even in the 80s, when you look at videos from Turkey, and I I've never gotten to Turkey, but I've seen plenty of like travelogues and videos of people doing food shows from there and stuff. Turkey today looks a lot more Muslim than Turkey looked in the 80s. A lot. It looked like a European country in the 80s. Yeah, when you went to the Hague Sophia, like you could see how these people were just predominantly Christian, just like a few hundred years ago.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Well, you know, I mean, even the UAE. Like you go to the UAE, and when I was in Dubai, I saw women dressed more scantily than I would in any American major city. Right? Like the there there's a there is a drastic double standard and difference between the non-Emirati population there and the Emirati. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Yeah, and that's true. And you know, there there's stuff you can talk about not liking there as well. But you know, if if the the Islam in the Emirates you're gonna rate like a five out of ten, meaning like ten being it's very Western, quote unquote, good Islam, and the one being super evil Islam that are terrorists.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

I I'd say Well, I I I would say it depends on the class. So you've got you've got the Emirati who are largely westernized, right? They are they are probably like a two or a three on the militant side of Islam. You have the underclass that comes from Pakistan and Africa, that is an eight or a nine out of ten on the militants of Islam. Yeah, fair enough. And and then you've got the middle class, which are largely Westerners, that are not Islamic.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

At all. Yeah. Yeah, and and that's the thing, is I think Iran has artificially instilled this extremely Islamic kind of Shia attitude. But it's not just it's not enough to say, well, the Shia are the bad guys, and then the Sunni are the good guys. You have the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia as well, which they get rid of Twelvers, you've got you've got in the Muslim Brotherhood, is very much a you know the Ghulanists. Yeah. So there's there's a lot of groups here, but the commonality for a lot of them, and why I refer to them as Islamists, is that these groups are both militant and hyper-religious. So they're not just dictatorships, they're not just you know militant without a religious component to it, in the way that, for example, Fidel Castro's revolution was in Cuba, you know, that had no religion. That was if anything, it was more atheist. But all of these groups in the Middle East, it seems like the ones that are the most militant, the ones that are wanting to conquer and kill, are also the ones that are on the hyper-religious side.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah, and you know, that's that's the thing with Iran, and I look, I am not pro-war. I am still of an age where I could theoretically be drafted. Now I'm an only male heir. I'm an only male heir, so very unlikely to happen. But regardless, what it comes down to is when you think of North Korea, and I don't think North Korea poses a serious threat because they want to be left alone, they want to do their thing, don't fuck with them, they're fine. Will they fuck around the edges and do a little bit? Sure. But imagine North Korea now with religious fervor instead of an atheistic nation, religious fervor that says that they have to burn the world down for their messiah to come back.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

By the way, I just checked that you don't have any exception. There is there is no since the Civil War. Doesn't exist right now. They got rid of it. When I'm I'm looking right now, it doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Okay, then they got rid of it. But that is something that has existed since the Civil War.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah, looks like a last change was made in 1971. No, no, no, no, no. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Well, so I mean I can be drafted, but I can't see frontline combat is the change that was made in the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, you can be drafted though.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Yeah, yeah, but I can't see frontline combat. Well, I'll be in the rear with the gear and the beer. Where else would we expect you then? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Uh-huh. Be on the latrine patrol. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Exactly. No, my my ass would probably end up in Cyber Command, is where I'd end up, and that would be a boring fucking place to be. But yeah, you'd be in Utah. Yeah. And unfortunately, I know the colonel personally who I'd be reporting to, but that's neither here nor there.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah, no one's surprised. So let's let's wrap this topic up and move on to something that's a little more funnier. Although not good either. You want to talk about the case with the swinging dicks?

SPEAKER_00 29:23

I'm sorry, say what?

Spa Lawsuit And Legal Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 29:25

The case of the swinging dicks. I I don't know that I'm familiar with the city. It was your link, but this is a Ninth Circuit Court decision. Oh, you didn't watch it. I thought, oh yes, yes. I thought we already talked about that. Uh uh. Okay. No, that that was hilarious. Go on. Well, so there was a lawsuit to force a women's only spa. A Korean spa. Yeah, it's like a you know Korean where they do massages and all nudist spa. Yeah, I mean it's not really a nudist spa, it's it's a women's only spa where, as is typical naked. Yeah. Well, how else would they be in a spa? They're getting their stuff done with their hot rock massages and shit, whatever the hell they do. Anyway, point is some uh trans person put a lawsuit in and won the lawsuit, and then there was appealed to two levels of appellate courts who sided with the initial decision that says no, any dude that says he's a chick has to be allowed in as a chick. And this has now been that there was a a petition to have an en bank, meaning the full Ninth Circuit Court re-examined this decision, which got defeated, so they're not gonna re-examine it. So the only path forward from this is now to the Supreme Court Court.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Yeah, yeah, and the the judge that dissented wrote a great hilarious dissent. And I don't have the link up, so you can read it.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah, well, it's I don't have it up either. But uh I mean that's what the line is the case about the swinging dicks.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

He said he even said swinging dicks do not should not appear in a judicial opinion, but that's what this is about. And as shocked as you are to see it in this judicial opinion, imagine being one of the women in the spa seeing an actual one. Yeah, and the way he said it was just uh spot on and great.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

So, and that got a lot of backlash from the liberal judges saying this kind of language doesn't hear they voted to censure him on it. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy, crazy. But that's that's where I'm going to in about a week here. That's where I'm flying out to Washington State. I'm gonna call myself a chick and see if I can get into that spa. That's the plan. I mean, what are they gonna do? What are they gonna do? Come on. You can't go against uh court's opinion. You're not really gonna do it. Any guy that says he's a chick is a chick. That's how the courts interpret this. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

All right, so Darren, be ready for the next podcast because Gene's getting arrested.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Dude, not in that in that state, if I got arrested, I would literally be released before the second hand is in the cuff.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Well, that or you'd be in a women's prison, so it'd be okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Well, that too, yeah. Exactly. Uh huh. All right. Well, let's see what else we got. Uh talked about that, talked about that.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Um the chaplain core would be a good one. Oh, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Yeah.

Chaplain Corps Changes At Pentagon

SPEAKER_00 32:53

So Pete Hagseth. And you know, uh, as much as people give Hegseth shit, and I like a lot of the a lot of the liberals are giving him shit, he has gotten so much done at the Department of War. Yeah. Like he has been really effective. And this chaplain corps move where they're removing rank insignia and just, you know, hey, yeah, you may be an officer, you may be whatever. That doesn't matter. This is what your job is, yeah, is to be an advisor to the troops, to be that moral compass in time of strife and war.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

I I think it's a good move. I don't think it goes far enough. They, you know, they've reduced it from 72 religions. That's another thing, yep. Down to 16, which is still too many. There are now going to be 16 official.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Right, but you have a lot of denominations of Christianity in there. So, you know, Baptists versus the Baptists get their own? Yeah, Baptists versus Catholic.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

You would have to have separate ones, but do you have a different one?

SPEAKER_00 34:09

I don't think they serve, but yeah, but you you you you get my point, though. You have all these different versions uh episcopal and so on.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Yeah, and it's um I think getting rid of rank for them makes total sense, right? I mean, they're still they still have a rank because they're paid according to their rank, but the rank has nothing to do with command structure or their job. And so they're instead of having rank insignia, they have the particular denominational insignia in them. So yeah, I I think it's a good move. I I like what peak I'm still very nervous about Catholics generally, but so far what I've seen from Pete Pete Heggseth has been pretty reasonable stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Well, and I have friends who have kids that are serving, and all the enlisted love him. Because he actually fought, and you know, he's not just he's not just a general, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Well, but that was one of the complaints about him when he was going through confirmation is that he'd only served three tours. Only way less than most people. Yeah, well, it is. I mean, it's actually way less like the guy that just quit, right? The other guy we should talk about, Pete uh where no, what's his name? Blanking out his name. The the guy that basically said there's no reason for war with Iran and left the administration, he served 12 tours. So everybody that is generally anti-military is now posting about how well he's a real hero. He's you know, he's a real American, he's he served 12 tours, unlike the Pete Hetzef guy who's barely been in the military.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

So they're I mean he did three combat tours, so I mean that's that's quite a bit. And when he was serving during the GWAT, one of the things you also have to remember is not all tours are equal. So when the GWAT just started, they were shorter tours, but they got up to like 18-month tours at one point in time. Yeah, they they couldn't have replaced people in time, absolutely, right? So, you know, you you gotta look at what people went through.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

But nobody does. My my only point is that this is a critique that Hack Seth has had to deal with. I don't think any of that bullshit critique. I it is totally, but it's bullshit critique across the board. I don't I don't think that just because somebody's and I heard this from somebody else, so I'm gonna steal it, that having a long military career does not exempt you from criticism. It certainly feels based on the number of people that are sticking their old uniforms up on the wall to use as a background behind them to then jump in and shit on the president of the United States, it sure feels like that uniform is predominantly a prop.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

And as far as I'm concerned, especially like the Mark Kellys of the world and everybody else, recall them, bring them back to service, and then court-martial them.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yeah. Yeah. Or just drop them down to a private and leave them there. I mean, that's send them off to the front line if you can. But you don't have to do any of that. I mean, the point is that you remove their 80 grand in pension, which they're all still working, they're all making money, but they're getting that on the side tax-free.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

So yeah, I think a piece of the Iran war we didn't cover, but we'll get back to that. So can well, we can.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Do you want to? I I'm about done with this topic. Do you want to jump to the phone?

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Well, I was just gonna say the gift, the gift that Iran sent that Trump made a big deal about and what the hell was it? I didn't see what that was. Eight to ten oil tankers. The reports are a little confused, but they allowed eight to ten oil tankers through the strait uh flying Pakistan. Like Russian ones? Pakistani.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Oh, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Pakistani flagged.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

That's a hell of a gift. Not to us.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Uh yes, to us. How's it to us? It came to U.S.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

ports. Okay. I mean, were they supposed to be coming to U.S. ports? Nope. Oh. Oh, so we just stole somebody's oil. Yes. So somebody else paid for that oil and then didn't get it delivered. Have you not been paying attention to what we've been doing lately? No, no, no. Everything we're doing is above board. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, that's interesting. No, I had not heard that, so that is fascinating. I'll have to do a little more reading on that. But it's a. I guess it doesn't surprise me, but I did not realize we were doing that. I mean, if they unload that oil with us, that's fair. That that then it is kind of a gift. But I gotta imagine whoever paid for that oil is not too happy right now.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

I think the fact that oil is moving at all and the negotiations are going, people are it'll be fine. Insurance will pay for it.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Well, that's that's the other, you know, the the the 4D chess aspects of this is bankrupting British insurance companies.

unknown 39:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Lloyd's is going to cease existing before too long.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Well, here's the thing the moves Trump has made on the shipping insurance side of things is I think very likely to stay fairly permanent. So, you know, if if they do, yeah, I think Lloyd's is cooked. Yep. And that that is a huge shot at the North Sea Nexus Adam. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Yeah. I think they're they're gonna be struggling and potentially hurt to a point of no return out of this. Uh and that's what the ladies over at Promethean keep talking about, if you know that show that I recorded a few times. So there's there's two I don't know how to refer to them. Gals, what's the appropriate age relevant term there? These are women in their 60s, so in their 60s, pushing 70, that have they're grannies for sure, but they're like you know, Anne Randian grannies that have basically got into politics in the 80s, never left, nobody ever listened to them, no one paid attention to them, they never got big, but they just kept doing their little, you know, I guess what they call them back then. They they weren't websites, they were newsletters. Newsletters, yes, that's exactly it. They they I guarantee you 100% that they used to send newsletters through the mail. 100% yeah, it's that type of gal.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

So lately to be honest, to be honest, you know, I my first job ever was maintaining the vampire killer 2000 newsletter database for Jack McClam.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

There you go. Yep, so same exact deal. But they're slightly younger, not by much. And now that they're there on YouTube, and I think getting a lot more traction because people are going, oh yeah, shit, these chicks know what they're talking about. They might be right. Yeah, they've been saying this for 40 years, literally. But they are tracking all of the anti-British Empire stuff very well.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

And we should point out that Trump's statements about Iran haven't changed since the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yeah, that's true too. Yeah, when he was a Democrat for many years, he was very anti-Iran.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

You you can say whatever you want about Trump, but the fact of the matter, he's been consistent. In the 80s, he was talking about the rise of Japan, and why are we allowing this? Yep. Now that shifted to China.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Yeah, 2000s. He was talking about Obama not being a real American.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

And he was probably right there, too. Yep. My God. You saw the did you ever go back and watch the Brigitte Macron stuff at the White House? No, I never did. Okay. Well, the funny part about it is that Brigitte Macron was at the White House with Melania and they were talking about AI and education and these different things. But the fucking hilarious bit is that the White House chose to use a male interpreter for Brigitte Macron. Oh, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they told me that when we weren't recording. I thought that was pretty damn funny. It's Brigitte, would you not want to insist on the female interpreter? I I don't think they gave her a choice. I think she assumed, and then they just gave her a fucking male interpreter. Yes, yes. Well, based on the pitch of your voice, here's this dude's gonna interpret for you. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Oh my god. That was some of the that is that is next level troll shit from Trump. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

There's a lot of trolley shit that's happening, which is just awesome, dude. It is very, very good. I kind of feel like it's not just Trump, it's also the right people around him.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Oh, absolutely. You know, that are innocence going off.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but at the same time, you know, there's still the the the crappy hangers on that we keep discovering that have been trying to drag him down in the background as well.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Well, Christy Numb's been replaced, so there's that.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Well, and right now, I think uh I I I think that's what she gets for spending$200 million to set up her presidential run.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Well, that, and then you know, she did have a Great South Park episode. So there's that.

Party Power Fights And Election Rules

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Yeah, I think though her relationship with Corey Lewandowski and he's spending$200 million on an ad campaign that featured her so prominently was the problem.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Yeah, she's got a little bit of a me, me, me problem going on. I'll I'll agree with that. I mean in that position, it should have been a guy anyway. That was pretty obvious.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

But you know, Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote against him.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Well, which doesn't surprise me. Kentucky is a weird state. Between Massey and Rand Paul. The fuck is going on there?

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Both of them I like generally, but they just are missing the point.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

I like them when the Democrats are in charge. Then I like them. I don't like them when the Republicans are in charge because they're just contrarians. Just fucking vote the opposite for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

That's my point. They missed the point. This is the time to seize power. No, we're gonna stand on the principles. Well, the other team isn't, so you just want to lose.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Like they can't see that point where they've actually, you know, if not one at least moved forward. They just want to keep doing the same thing. And I I'm I've never liked this conciliatory Republican bullshit approach that a lot of people had of like, well, you know, the the Democrats really bent us over and had their way with them when they were in charge, but we won this election and we're gonna be magnanimous, and and then we're gonna we're gonna have an even 50-50 distribution of of who gets to run what committee. Are you fucking nuts? There ought to be a Republican running every committee, none of this conciliatory bullshit that you know we'll be nice to them and they'll remember that. No, they won't. No, they never do. They literally are Lucy from Charlie Brown. That's the Democrats. They will pull the football away every fucking time that you try to kick it. And somehow the these Republicans keep thinking, oh, well, they've changed. It's gonna be different now.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Bullshit. Well, I mean, that's part of what we voted on during the primary here in Texas was because the Texas state legislature runs that way. The reason why we have the Speaker of the House that we have is because he makes deals with Democrats. Yep. And they're looking to change that. So and the electorate overwhelmingly voted that, you know, yes, Republicans in Republican-controlled legislatures should lead. Period. Period, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

I totally think so. So you have left a link here that I questioned, which said CSU Professor O'Quinn, quote, as a lesbian, I got plenty of girlfriends with penises, okay? Unquote. You wanted to talk about that. Go ahead, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

It was not something I wanted to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

It was put it on our show links.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

Okay. The the entire point is this the woke professor is out there talking about this, and you know, it it it's the level of insanity of the left. Like, that's this isn't a mainline story, Gene. This was gonna be a point with woven into something. Make the point. Okay, the point is this woman's batshit fucking crazy. Like, it okay, congratulations, you stumbled your way into a heterosexual relationship. Good job.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

Yeah, because it's it's important to know that she is a lesbian. And as a lesbian professor, she has girlfriends that she fucks, some of whom, and apparently quite a few of whom have penises.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Which is a next level of insanity.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

I don't care what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Can I agree that there's no such thing as a real lesbian? Uh oh yeah, it's just called a woman. Right, but I mean, if if if if there was such a thing as a real lesbian, strap-ons wouldn't really exist.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Uh I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

They don't use pussy-shaped toys, they use dick-shaped toys. They they they use plenty of vibrators too.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Okay, but that's still a I mean, honestly, dude, these days, and this is where we're getting into the adult portion of the program, apparently. Uh, there's it's mostly guys that are getting the uh dicks up their ass right now. It's not chicks. Unfortunately, it's where we are in in America in 2026. Chicks are using wireless remote vibrators that their partners can control that are not at all shaped like a penis. They're not at all shaped like a penis. Yeah, I'm sure everybody's using them. I mean, there's you know. But my point is that the the lesbians are not sitting there with strap-ons next to their bed for the most part. The lesbians that I've known over the years have not owned a single strap-on. They have owned a whole bunch of vibrators.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

You know what's funny is that lesbian bed death is a real thing. Okay, John C. Dorak. Well, no, no, no, it is. And when you look at the divorce statistics, it gets hilarious, dude. I'm sure you've seen this floating around the internet, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

That lesbian marriages have the highest divorce rate, and gay males have the lowest.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

Yeah. It's because guys figure out what to go and do with each other, and chicks just look at each other waiting for the other person to figure out what to do. Oh okay. And the 19th was a mistake. Indeed.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

So last time we talked, and I know it's hard to believe because it's time flies, but the last time we talked, I was in Scotland.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

You were, I know.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

And I had not yet finished my major travels.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

That's right. So did you make it back safe?

SPEAKER_00 51:16

I I did. I did.

Scotland Travel History And Whiskey

SPEAKER_01 51:18

I did you bring seven bottles of whiskey with you?

SPEAKER_00 51:21

I'm not gonna confirm that on the air. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

For purposes of the ass, didn't you? I knew it. I fucking knew it.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

No, I did bring back some scotch, definitely. And I focused on stuff I couldn't get in the US. Yep. And I am opening the last bottle tonight. Now I mean you've been back for six days. It's kind of abrupt to be down to your last bottle already. I'm opening the seventh bottle on my seventh night home. And the idea is I will have tasted each and every one. Oh, you haven't finished their other six? No, God, no, no, no. I mean worried that for an alcoholic.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Well, that's not what some people say.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

Yeah. Anyway, I I I focused on stuff I couldn't bring back, and on my last day there, I got to do something that I've wanted to do all my life, and that is go to Sterling and not only walk around the town, but really walked around the whole damn town. Nice, really saw the castle, did spent hours at the castle, did a semi-private tour, and got a lot of that in, got to really fill in some of the gaps of my family's genealogy. Nice. And then they did a kilt were in you. Yeah, yeah. And then I well, and uh you saw the photo of that random guy in Edinburgh. Yeah, that was funny.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:51

So I take a picture with this bagpipe player in Edinburgh and I send it to my friends, and they're like, Who's the relative? And I get to looking, it's like the same cheekbone, same jawline, same ears, same nose.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Yeah, it's called a smug look to the rest of us. Yes. It sure seemed like there's two smug people standing in the iron area in Scotland. Scotland. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

I did I I climbed to the top of the Wallace Monument, which is 240 some odd steps up this tight spiral staircase all the way up with no banister, and you know, it just it it was an amazing view, and you can see the Wallace Monument from Sterling. You can see Sterling from the Wallace Monument, and it's crazy. And that's William Wallace, who is the guy in Braveheart? Yes, and they have William Wallace's sword and they have Robert De Bruce's sword in that monument.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

And are they cool looking or pretty average? No, it's very cool looking. Very about how did they afford cool looking swords?

SPEAKER_00 53:54

Well, they weren't collecting taxes. So William Wallace's sword is somewhat plain. That's what I would expect. If you will ever send me your Gmail, I'll add you to the album so you can see all the pictures. Okay. I haven't already. Yeah, yeah. But Robert De Bruce's is obviously much more on me. But it it's very cool. William Wallace's sword is cool because it's this big double-handed sword, like like as depicted in Braveheart, right? It's this big, massive, long sword. Yeah. The claymore, apparently, yeah, yeah. And apparently William Wallace was a big enough guy he could wield it.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

Yeah. One-handed. Big dude.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

But in yeah. It's astonishing to me the amount of history. Like now, let me ask you this. Oh, go ahead. Well, when I was in Perth, the inn that I stayed in, I think I talked about this last time. The inn I stayed in Perth had been open since 1699.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

Yeah, older than the United States, yeah. Pretty cool. Just astonishing. Yeah. Yeah. What I was gonna ask is you spent the week there. How did you take the climate? Like, could you imagine living in the climate like that year-round?

SPEAKER_00 55:17

I mean, while I was there, it was a little bit rainy for the first couple of days, but the last two days were just absolutely gorgeous. So yeah, I mean, I I would need to go there in the winter, but I I I don't know, man. Like I I I could literally go work a couple jobs over there and make it a thing, but you know, yeah, well, you'd have to be well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

That then you'd still have to be, you know, working for a US company to do that, not a company out there.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

Oh, well, yeah. I and my working for my current company, I could put myself on an assignment over there for one of the clients for the reason why I flew over there, which was for an electric company over there. Then we've got enough work coming from them that I could literally put myself as the lead over there and just do that. But again, kids and yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's cool. It's that and not being able to take a folding pocket knife, you know.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Oh, yeah, yeah. Those rules are stupid.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

Yeah, Heathrow is the worst airport in the world, I'm convinced.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

It's been a long time since I've flown through Heathrow, but I I could totally see that.

SPEAKER_00 56:33

So Heathrow combines the worst parts of Atlanta, Dulles, and LaGuardia. So I land from Glasgow into Heathrow. I and by the way, I woke up late when I was coming back Saturday. Apparently, my alarm was set to vibrate instead of actually ring. So I had to get on with the travel agents and make some emergency changes, which ended up being to my benefit. But that's neither here nor there. So I flew British Airways from Glasgow to Heathrow, which by the way, fucking European Airlines in their non-reclining seats.

SPEAKER_03 57:11

Fuck you.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

But beyond that, I landed Heathrow and I had to switch terminals. Okay, fine. I get on a bus, I switch terminals. Holy shit, I've got to go back through security. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All this, and I'm like, I've got two hours, I'm great. I barely fucking made it. Like I had to do a bus between terminals. I just it insanity.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Yeah, they they drive you out of one international into another international. It's just silly.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

And then make you go back through security.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Yeah. Yeah. You know, because I've had that happen in LAX as well, where I ended up having to go through security twice for no reason.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

Yeah. I had it happen to me in Manchester before, but that was due to construction. Heathrow didn't have that excuse this time. And anyway, just it's not a nice airport. I don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

I've always preferred just flying through Amsterdam when I went to Europe.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Yeah, or Frankfurt or Munich. There's several good ones.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

Although I don't like Frankfurt or Munich just simply because I don't like the German airline there. The uh Lufthansa. Lufthansa, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:35

Yep. But anyway, it it was uh enjoyable trip, and I got to do something on the bucket list, so there you go.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

Yeah, which is very cool. That's uh worth checking off on, especially on somebody else's dime.

SPEAKER_00 58:52

Exactly. But I will say at some point in time, I'm going to take like a month sabbatical and go spend it in Scotland.

SPEAKER_01 59:01

Really? Okay. So you're you'd you'll get to really see what the weather's like.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

Yeah, like I I really do, I I I 100% would love to go just spend a month just going crazy on the history. I want to go up to like Adelaide and I want to find someone there to teach me Gaelic and everything else. Like that absolutely, I would dive full in.

Europe Pushback On Illegal Mosques

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Did you see the article about Greece announcing that's gonna close 60 mosques? No, I did not. Yeah. So apparently there have been a lot, at least 60, but probably more, of illegal mosques created by Islamic migrants to where they're just sort of taking, you know, whatever place has a large enough room and then turning it into a mosque. And there's a pretty substantial movement in Greece to clamp down on the migrants altogether, which is good, but beyond that, to actually shut down these illegal mosques. So I think that anything that is a recognized, like looks like a mosque, people go there to pray to Muhammad kind of places are fine. But what they're trying to get rid of is basically places that are just taken over by the Muslims, and then they kick everybody else out and use them as a mosque.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Well, it's crazy. I did see several former churches that were Islamic centers.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Yeah, that's right. You sent me a picture. I saw that. That was crazy. Like a building that is an obvious church, and when you zoom into the signage on it, it's an Islamic center. It's like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

Well, and and I will say, I didn't have a hard time finding hookah over there. I bet. Yeah. So, you know, it it is what it is. There's a ton of migrants. Scotland is not a large country, and they have had a ton of migrants come in, and the natives are pissed about it. It was it was fun to watch, especially in Glasgow, which is a college town, and I was staying near the college. The girls running around, I'm in jeans, boots, a jacket, you know, it's in the 50s, and it's cool enough. I'm wearing a jacket and stuff, and they're running around in a mini skirt.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

Well, you know, the one thing I will say is historically, I can't speak for the current generations, but historically, women in Europe tended to try and look nicer for men than American women.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

Lots of redheads.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

Well, Scotland would be the place for that. Number one place for redheads.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

Even more than Ireland's Ireland. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

Yeah, Ireland's second place. There's a lot of black Irish. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

I did have I did have a uh young man's father hear my accent when I was talking to somebody, and he says, Are you from America? And I said, Yes, sir, I'm from Texas. He said, Oh, hold on. And he went and got his son and brought his son over because his son's looking at going to schools here in Texas, and we got to talking and all that. And you know, they were everyone was so friendly over there. It really was great. I enjoyed it. Enjoyed the hell of it. And I got some uh and Scottish food does not suck. Okay. I had to set the record straight on this. Black pudding is delicious. Okay. How about haggis is okay? It's uh I only I I own the haggis I had was at the hotel breakfast buffet. So let's level set. Right. Yeah, let's level set that. It was okay. It wasn't the but the black pudding that I had was delicious.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

And tell people what's in black pudding?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:14

Blood. Yep. Well, it's a blood sausage, it's blood sausage, yeah. But it's it's it was delicious. And then the the steak pie that I had at a pub on the King's Mile in Edinburgh, walking up to the castle. It was so good. When I got back, I had to make it for the kids. Really? Yeah. I like I'm I made the I sent you a picture. I made this steak steak pie very. I thought you made it for you, not the kids. Well, I wanted them to try it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Okay, okay. And they loved it too.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:51

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Yeah, I thought this was a you're you missed it so much already that you had to make some more right away.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:23

I would have waited longer than that, but uh no, it was good. It looked good in the image Scottish food does not suck.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:31

It's kind of plain. I mean, it's better that look, it's better than English food, but I'll take French food any day or Scottish food. Eh, sure. And definitely Italian food.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

Dude, I love Mexican food, I love Italian food, I love Cajun food, I love food. And you know, and you know, when people sit there and get grossed out by haggis and stuff like that, I don't know, man. I I I've had menudo before. I've you know eaten stuff. It anything that's considered a delicacy in a country is genuine. Ginger. Have you had the marmite? I don't like marmite. But I don't I I don't like I don't like Nutella either, though. Like I can't stand Nutella. Really? I love Nutella.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:22

I don't eat it because it's fucking pure sugar, but generally speaking, I really like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:27

Yeah, and like spotted dick is fine, you know. Oh yeah, spotted dick's good. You know, rice. I had a great rice pudding when I was there and stuff like that. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:38

Yeah, I and I don't think caggus is bad. I probably wouldn't order it if there were other more tasty things. But I've had it twice, and then that's fine. It's just kind of organic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

Yeah, it's cooked in a sheep's stomach, but you're not eating the sheep's stomach. That's just the casing.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:58

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

And it, you know, it's just it's it's it's a ground meat sausage. That's all it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

Mm-hmm. Which you can get stuff that tastes very similar here as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

Fucking boudin, man. Like I love me some boudin. That's all that is. Is it instead of the oats that are used in haggis, it's rice, but it's the same damn organs.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

Different animals, but yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

Yeah, it's the the only organ stuff I really don't like is like tripe. If you go to a Chinese place.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

Like uh again, Minuto. I believe Minuto.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

But I don't find text.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:47

I do like liver. I've always been a fan of liver.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

Onions is great.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

I can't eat it very often because it's high in nitrates, and that kicks off my gout.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:58

Really? Yep. Yep. Normal just liver is high in nitrates. Yep. Naturally. I did not think. Naturally.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Yep. Absolutely. So it doesn't have to be, you know, salted liver or some weird thing. It just regular cooked liver is. So I can't eat it very often, but at least a few times a year, I definitely like to make or go to a restaurant if there's one nearby and get some nice liver and onions. It's it is a food that I ate a lot more frequently when I was a kid than uh I do now.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

Well, it's oh, what about tongue? Do you like tongue? Oh yeah, lingua tacos, absolutely. I've never liked tongue. My mom used to love it. She made it quite often. I never had a taste for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:45

Lingua tacos, barbacoa, all that. But you know, I grew up. It's it doesn't have any fat. It's just I don't I don't like the texture of that meat. Well, it has to be very slowly cooked, and it, you know, it has, but it's nothing but a muscle.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

Yeah, it's it's a muscle that is used all the frickin' time.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:05

Yeah. I I grew up though eating crawfish, right? And suck the head there, yeah, was a thing, you know, at crawfish boils in Louisiana when we'd be going through Bayou Tish or something. Right. And you know, it I just I grew up when we did our shrimp boils, my dad would do the shrimp boils head on because it added flavor. And you know, you just does it though, grow up different. Yes, there's all the spices that you put in there is what adds the flavor. No, you you miss a richness because there's a pocket of fat that when you head the shrimp, and it's the same thing when you head the crawfish, yeah, you're losing out on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:47

Yeah. I mean, I I've had them with heads on as well. I just all I can taste is the spices, usually. Well, and somebody's probably overdoing it a bit. Maybe. Maybe. But I I generally do like eating crawfish, craw hats, whatever you want to call them, because a lot of people don't like them. They they would much prefer shrimp. But I actually kind of do like lobster. I do like that they add a little bit of flavor. Yeah, it's a little lobster. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Like a shit lobster. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:25

We gotta remember lobster used to be fed to prisoners in Maine.

GPS Tracking And Privacy On Boats

SPEAKER_01 1:09:29

That's true. Yes. And so did barbecue. This is like leftover cheese food. Yeah, exactly. It's the stuff nobody buys, and so you you use it for prisoner food. That is true. And chicken wings used to be cheap. I saw there was a lawsuit by a main shrimp or lobster dude. What do you call those guys that do lobstering? Glisterman. Yeah, I guess. So they're suing uh the government that has passed a law that requires all their ships to have GPS on board that sends minute-by-minute positioning data back to somewhere in the government. I don't know if this is a federal law or a state law. I didn't didn't really get that from the article. But apparently she's suing based on saying that they're effectively doing surveillance without a warrant, so they're breaking his Fifth Amendment rights in tracking the movement of the ship like that. I don't know if it's gonna stand up in court or not, but I'm kinda on their side. I I think that's probably a little too much invasiveness.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

You know, why is the government?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:04

Lobsterman? Yep. Okay. Yeah. According to Google. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Glacierman, uh glacier, Massachusetts area, and da da da. Oh, okay. I got it. You ever been to Massachusetts? Oh, god, yes. I've spent I have spent many a winter in Foxboro, my friend. Why? Literally Foxboro control systems, they're supposed to be headquartered, and plant factory accepted is testing for DCS systems. And they would always fucking be in January for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:40

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's always fun to go there in January.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

Yeah, and snow and everything else. And in fact, there's this little cafe on the circle there in Foxboro that I would go eat breakfast at and I'd have their corned beef hash almost every morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

Yeah, it's one thing is you can definitely get a hearty meal in the Northeast.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:59

Yes, you can. And by the way, anyone who's going to Massa, anyone who's going to Massachusetts or is in them lives there, fresh catch seafood outside the Boston area. They literally have their own boats, they have their own seafood market, and they run a restaurant, and it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:19

Yeah, it's I don't like the accents. I hate the airport. I hate the drivers up there. They're horrible drivers. Not much good I can say about it. My last trip there was to Boston. What are they called? Boston Dynamics? The robot people. Yeah. That was the last company I had a there as a client that I went there with many years ago before they got sold to Hyundai.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:50

I've spent quite a bit of time in the Boston area into a Red Sox game. Yeah. Between Foxboro and some GE stuff and other things up there. I've spent quite a bit of time. I've been all over the Northeast. Maine all the way down through Virginia and so on.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

Like I've been to Maine when I was a kid, been as an adult.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

I have literally been on the entire East Coast seaboard. So yeah. I've been to all the oh my god, yes. Western and Philly. So I've I've been to Pennsylvania back when I worked for the oil company. I was out that portion of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and all that. You know, I've been all through the Midwest, Cincinnati, you know, Cincinnati, and then several power plants out outside of there, including Zimmer, which I've told the story about in the past, which is the nuke that never was, right? They were a boiling water reactor at three mile and happened, and they never got fuel. That much for that. Yeah. Well, I I literally got to go in containment on that reactor, which was very cool because the control rods are still hanging there. The boiler feed pumps are still hanging there. They just never put fuel. And you're walking in and you're walking through this door that is literally six fucking feet thick. And it's it's it's it's an amazing experience. Amazing experience.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

Cool. All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:19

Well, you we had a place that was never meant to see human eyes after fueling. Yeah, well, it didn't get fuel, so therefore you could see it. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:29

Uh, what do you want to talk about ubiquity?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:33

Well, so the FCC is blocking consumer grade only foreign firewalls. And this has been somewhat misinterpreted to say Chinese. Um, they're not being that specific. This actually may affect quite a few different manufacturers. TP Link is certainly going to get affected, but even down to uh what's the what's the other one that's not Ukrainian, but it's uh Eastern shit. Microtech. Microtech routers could be affected as well. But it depends on how these are classified, if they're classified as commercial or consumer. What's the issue? Well, the issue is because can and it this goes back to the NIST definition of what is a consumer grade router. How much administrative control do you really have over that router? And could a foreign adversary have the administrative control fundamentally over that router, eventually weaponizing it against us? So in ubiquity with Unify, it kind of is a real gray area.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:49

Haven't we traditionally only regulated that for purchase by government institutions? We have.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:03

This is more like and this doesn't have to do with the manufacturing. It has to do with Huawei.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:08

That's what it's more like. We had something similar with Huawei.

unknown 1:16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:12

You remember like five, six years ago? Yeah, we banned Huawei for telco companies in the U.S.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:18

I think we banned them as a company for selling any gear to anybody, including consumer. You can't buy Huawei right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:25

Enterprises can still get Huawei. You sure about that? Because I thought we banned them across the board. There are Laura WAN deployments used by municipalities and companies in the U.S. that I am aware of that are Huawei infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:40

Did they just not get rid of them?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

I would have to go look at the deployment times, but I'm pretty sure some of them are newer than the ban.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:50

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:53

Yeah, I mean, that could be. I just I thought that was a complete ban.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:57

Well, Laura WAN is non-direct facing, it's infrastructure stuff, right? So it's 900 megahertz, this range, it's long range stuff. It's what my meshastic radio operates in, is LoraWan frequencies. Right. Which, by the way, that was interesting to take abroad to.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:15

Oh, you brought yours, really. Did you get any signal?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:18

I did. I did. So I now have mapped points across Asia and America and Europe. Yes. Hmm. Which is is kind of a cool thing. Yeah, it is. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:34

Yeah, while we are available in the US, you're correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:38

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

Yeah. Interesting. Because it seemed like there was a big kerfuffle with them.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

Well, and again, it comes down to who really owns the device? Yeah, who's running the firmware? But here's the thing. When we start talking, and this is what I get on to everybody about, when you start talking supply chain risk, how far are you willing to take it? Because the Israelis prove to us that supply chain is a real threat, right? With major attacks. But, you know, if you have a chip that is designed in America but produced in Taiwan, yeah, that's bad. Are you going to go through and make sure that there is not a logic gate in there that when the right sequence is sent to it doesn't unlock something you didn't know about?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:31

Yep. And even if you do that for one or a hundred samples of the millions of chips that will eventually be produced, you cannot guarantee it. Are JTAG interfaces left on? Who has physical access? Or if you go to software and software bill of materials, what microservices architecture is not listed in that bill of materials? And if you try and go the binary extraction route, my God, do you understand the headache that you are opening yourself up to?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:03

Yeah, I mean, I I think for any kind of critical applications, you just cannot use products that have components from outside the US.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:15

Well, and this is why the CHIPS Act and some of the pre-existing US chip infrastructure that has existed for a for a good while, that's really basically only been sold to the defense industrial base, is a good thing. Like, yeah, we get our chips for our desktops from China and Taiwan, but what's in a missile isn't produced in China.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:45

Right. Well, it is in Iranian missiles.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:50

Sure. Sure. But not in US missiles. And that's another thing. It dude, the price of silver has gone up tremendously, partially because of the weapons expenditure. Do you realize how many ounces of silver and gold are in a uh in a missile that we shoot off? Oh yeah. Like sometimes 40-50 ounces of silver. No, I don't think it's quite that much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:22

But yeah, silver is a ridiculous amount. Not just a shiny metal, it is actually a useful metal for industry. Um, but you also keep in mind that we greatly reduce the consumption of silver when we stopped printing photographs.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:39

Yes, this is true. And that was the dip in silver through the 90s, early 2000s. Decades, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:48

Yeah. No longer using the amount of silver that we were, but we are exceeding the production capacity of silver as we speak.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:56

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's not a super rare metal to find, though.

Digital Night Vision And Thermal Tricks

SPEAKER_00 1:21:04

I mean, in great quantities, where you don't have to refine the crap out of it. By the way, did you see the new digital night vision that I sent in the I did. I took a look at that. So T-Rex, no, it's not. It's on par with a PBS 14. But its performance exceeds a PVS 14.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:27

So you I haven't seen the video about it. I just saw the link you sent.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:30

T-Rex Arms did a review. Okay. And it it can be in color. Yeah. And it has lower light sensitivity than a Gen 3 PVS 14.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:43

Yeah, that's scary because I know that shit is definitely coming from China.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:49

So that means that for a mere 2,000 bucks or whatever it is, anybody can is it two or three? I can't remember. Sorry, I am coughing. It is 3,000. It's okay. Well yeah. So it's it's about uh two grand cheaper than the PVS 14.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:08

No, no, no, no. You can get a Gen 3 PVS 14 for around three grand.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

Yeah, not a very good one. Okay. Because the ones I was looking at were all over five grand.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:22

Well, you should look again because you can get through like Nocturne Industries, not sponsored, steel industry is not sponsored, you can get a Harris tube. You know, yeah, it may have a blemish on it somewhere, but you can get a pretty decent tube for around three grand. Now, what your auto shutters and what all other features you add and things like that will add to it. But the tube itself and the overall performance of the optic, that three grand price point is about where it starts for a decent tube. Because you can get a green phosphor Gen 3 tube. Yeah, green phosphor. You can get a Gen 3 green phosphor crap tube for around$1,500.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:06

Really? They've come down that much. Holy cow. Those were three grand back when we were looking a couple years back.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:14

Yep. But anyway, this this night vision is pretty interesting because it does not rely on an IR illuminator the way others do.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I'm definitely a fan of the digital ones. They just haven't had the quality. I mean, you and I both have a couple of different cheap digital ones.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:35

This is a pricey digital one. And the the latency is basically non-existent on this.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:42

Yeah, that's good. And because they match the sensor size to the display size, there's no screen door effect like you get with an A1.800 by 600 sensor? It's the same size sensor as the display. I'd have to be looking at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:57

Yeah, it's 800 by 600 display.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:00

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's not bad. It doesn't have quite as wide a field of view as a PBS 14, but it's damn on par.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

Well, and yeah, that's that price is cheaper no matter how you slice it. That's interesting. I so I'll I'll have to watch that video. I've generally liked their reviews. Is that the only one review that you found on that particular one?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:24

That's the only one I've seen, yeah. Okay. But I mean, this is brand new and they're not in stock really anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:30

Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's good. And that the price should keep going down and the quality should keep going up on the digitals because we've been pretty much at a standstill with the old analog models.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:44

Yeah, I think we've done all we can do with analog.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

Like realistically, other than the panoramic views and shit like that, like which all they are is basically Gen 32. Or tubes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You do technically have Gen 4, you do have some of the thermal overlay stuff, you have some of the things that they're continuing to do. But realistically, I think the next generation of US military grade gear will be a digital night vision with a digital thermal overlay.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:20

Exactly. 100% guaranteed that. And I've got that thermal one that I bought, what, two years ago now, I guess. Yeah. Totally not been using it, so that kind of sucks. But yeah, I mean, thermal quality has been good for quite a while. There's tons of videos of people hunting coyotes.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:40

Latency is the only problem with thermal.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:43

Yeah, but it's still, I think it's quick enough. I didn't really see an issue with it. It if you spin your head left to right, left to right, really quick, you do see a little bit of a latency there. But these things, even with latency, you're still gonna see the hot zones. And if you're using it for targeting, you're not gonna be moving that fast. So I I think the latency, while it's there, it is not as relative or relevant as people think it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:17

Did you see the latest Dirty Civilian episode where they built the thermal hide? Huh? You should go watch it.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:24

I know, I know you can buy thermal and night vision umbrellas now.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:33

They used very, very few artificial materials in this. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:39

So they just built it themselves, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:41

Yep, and they had ex-Special Forces guys hunting them. It was good.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:48

There's a video that I saw of guys using all is not a be-all and all. Well, it's a kind it's a combination of stuff. But they were showing that you could use a regular black umbrella, nothing at all fancy and special about it, and you would become essentially invisible to night vision. Like it absolutely blocks out all the light reflecting off of you. You flip to thermal mode, you can see right through that umbrella, but then they actually started using something that I have still a bunch of in the garage, and that is photographic light reflectors, which is all it is, is a black umbrella with basically a foil inner layer to reflect light. And those work for both thermal and night vision for blocking. They're very light, very compact, and easy to open than hide behind.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:47

Yeah, I mean, but if someone's looking through night vision and they see a black hole, they're gonna wonder what it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:53

It's not a black hole, it's it's the temperature of the surrounding area. No, no, not for thermal, for night vision. Well, yeah, but again, same kind of deal. It's like you'd have to be pretty close for it to look like a round black thing. Because you're probably gonna have branches and things in front of it that are gonna break it up to not look round. But the point is, you don't like that is way easier than trying to wear clothing that is completely gonna hide you. As long as you know the angle from which your attacker is coming. Yes, absolutely. So that's the thing, but they were showing like even just a regular twenty-five dollar golf umbrella completely prevents anybody from seeing you with night vision.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:44

Yeah, did Did you see the story I posted in both our group chat and our um show notes on the woman who stabbed the girl's eye, little girl's eye?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:57

Yeah, yeah. I watched that video, in fact, and I was just horrifying.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:02

So this crazy woman's walking around with a knife and just literally ends up stabbing this girl in the eye, and her dad grabs her back and does all this. But the fact that like my my comment was, this is why I carry. I would have killed her with my bare hands, frankly, of that if she did that to my kid.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:22

I am so disappointed. No, that person is just dead.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:25

But that that dad's reaction is his daughter, but he he he hit he was in flight mode, man, not fight. What is wrong with people?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:36

Yeah, like you're afraid of getting a cut? Well, I tell you what it is, Ben. Like, I'm sure for you, given where you grew up on that commune and everything, uh, you probably got in as many knife cuts as I did when I was a kid. All my friends at you know, eight, nine, ten years old running around with pocket knives. Oh yeah. Everybody got into situations where you you cut yourself, you had rusty nails that that ended up getting jammed into your body, all kinds of shit. You go fishing with your buddies, they snag you with their fishing hooks, and then you use a knife to cut them out of your skin.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:13

I mean, like, so everyone's still alive. I I was in college, and actually, no, I was done with college because my wife and I had started dating at that point in time, and I was walking down the Sabine River, and there's a spot where a pipeline crosses, and a piece of rebar had been sticking up, and the river had just withered it away to this very sharp point.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:40

And I stepped on it and it went through my water shock into the into the arch of my foot. Yep. Pretty damn deep. Oh, it's horrible. And broke off and had to hobble back and dig this SOB out and go get an updated tetanus shot. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:01

I have, I don't know if it was any better, frankly, and a somewhat similar story. I was windsurfing on a lake, and I had come out to the beach, got off the uh the surfboard, and I was wal I had you know walking at about knee level water, and all of a sudden I just feel this searing, like you know, somebody poked you with a hot poker in the arch of my foot, and I I yanked my foot up, and it's a broken glass coke bottle. Oh, it's a glass cut, so it was very sharp, couldn't see it in the water. You know, it it fell away as I put the foot up because the water was still in the bottle, but it was obvious that this thing went in about, you know, probably half an inch minimum into my foot. And it was the same kind of scenario. It's like, okay, well, obviously, I can't windsurf back to the other side of the lake where my car is, given that I'm hobbling. And I'm bleeding, like my foot is bleeding. The sand has blood accumulating on it. Which it bleeding in that scenario is a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:18

Yeah, you want that blood out, you want to clean it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:23

And so I I hobbled up and I'm like, oh, I I'm kind of I don't know what to do. I mean, I'm like, I got I'm gonna have to leave the the surfboard here, try and flag a ride from somebody in their car while I'm basically wet and barefoot to drive me around to get my car, and I gotta stop the bleeding before I could do any of that. And of course, you know, I'm just got my swimming trunks on, it's not like I have anything with me for any kind of injuries. And luckily, I hobbled for probably about a hundred feet to where there was a lifeguard, and then you know, he had some urgent emergency supplies there, poured some alcohol on my foot, which was not pleasant at all, and then put a a really big band-aid on there, and then I ended up walking about a mile before I talked to some other windsurfers and kind of explained the situation to them, and they ended up driving me back to my car so I can get this because I I was out there like after work thinking that I could get some good surfing in before the wind dies down. It turned out to be a bad day, and that I never I never got shots for it. It really, yeah, it took at least it was probably over a month before I could just not think about when I stepped on that foot.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:56

It was a long ass time. Like I've I've I've broken my bones and both feet multiple times, and when you have to hobble for, like you said, months, yeah, it's just it it it it it messes with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:15

It it sucks.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:17

Because every step is painful.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:19

Yeah, well, yeah, because uh a lot like in your foot itself, it's mostly tendons. It's not it's not like muscle. Like if you get a cut in your calf, it's painful, but it actually heals up pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:37

A lot less blood flow to the feet.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you get a cut in your foot or your hand, uh speaking of knife cuts, I had one cut, which was just my stupidity, as a lot of these things tend to be, where I was holding a a really sharp Tonto knife, and I was cutting something, I was holding it in my left hand, knife in my right hand, and I was cutting, this is where the stupidity part comes in, toward myself, trying to cut into this thing, whatever it was. Don't remember what I was cutting. Could have been a box, could have been something else I was trying to cut. Anyway, knife slips off this thing. The front of the knife goes right into the webbing between my thumb and my pointing finger, and it goes in there about an inch. I realize that my knife is now in there. I yank out the knife. This is all before any paint. Yeah, yeah. And I after I pull out the knife, I look in there and I can see an empty space where there's a what looks like a bone on one side and like shredded beef on the other side, and then while I'm watching it, the pain hits, and I see the whole thing just flood with blood. But like I could see it before the blood came and before I felt the pain.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:05

The the very first time I cut myself with a knife, I still remember this to this day. I'm it's one of my earliest memories. I'm like four, four or five years old. And so where we lived at at the beach, we had the main house, and then we had this garage apartment that was above the detached garage, and it had you know, kitchen, bedroom, and stuff like that. And that's where we did homeschooling. My mom and I, we would go up there, and that was the classroom. And I went to get an orange and to peel it, and I took a serrated old 1980s steak knife and was trying to start the peel. Uh-oh. And I slipped and I stabbed myself in the the thumb pad of my the you know, the pad that's underneath your thumb in my left hand. And I ended up having to have a couple stitches, but I I still remember that to this day, and I still start oranges with my teeth to this day. Like I said, you don't want to touch your nice fuck that. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I like I I I I I my dad starts oranges with his teeth, and I just went, nope, he's got a point. This is the better way to do it. I just use my fingernails. Not uh hard to do that. I don't have fingernails, I chew them off.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:28

Oh yeah, it's not a good habit. Well. Well, they don't have them anyway. But you know what I mean. Like, it is retarded to try and argue for people that are non-citizens to be able to vote.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:32

Well, even if they're not voting, if they're counted in the census and you have congressional appointment apportionment based off of that, that's a problem in itself. That is a problem. You're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:43

And and the ancillary topic I was gonna bring up is that we also had so this is why I actually do have some hope for the 2028 uh election is a I think the if we can get a census to reapportion electoral votes, I think it's gonna really make an impact. The other big deal that I think Avan may have an large impact on the 2026 election is the Supreme Court has now ruled that mail-in ballots cannot be counted after Yeah, I'm all for that, obviously, as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:14

So they it makes it harder for them to do the hockey stick maneuver they did with Biden.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:21

But yeah, I I don't know, dude. You know, I'm naturally a pessimist, and sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it just makes me too damn depressed. And I I I I I sometimes wish or wonder what it'd be like to be an optimist, maybe just for like a month.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:40

Well, you know the difference what they say the difference is between an optimist and a pessimist.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:44

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:45

A pessimist is an optimist with experience.

Cyberpunk Bugs And Food Tangents

SPEAKER_01 1:39:50

Well, can't argue with that. Yeah, that's uh that's true. Which kind of reminds me a little bit of now you've been playing some video games. Yeah. Or a video game, let's say. Yeah. And this this whole optimist pessimist thing reminded me so yesterday or not yesterday. It feels like yesterday. Earlier today, you were playing a little cyberpunk, and I I was watching and giving you coaching tips as you're playing it, and I I said something stupid that I knew should have known better not to say. It's like, oh man, you should have been playing this game when it first came out. It was horrible. There were so many bugs, and then they fixed them all.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:33

You jinxed me. I so jinxed you.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:36

100% my fault. I totally admit it. Because not five minutes later did you get to a mission where you legitimately couldn't do the mission because of a bug. Yep. Right after I got saying that, yeah, they fixed all the bugs.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:51

And since then, when I was playing when you called me to do the podcast because you were eating, right? I found another one. Uh-oh. Really? Yeah, I was in combat literally when you called me. Okay. And I tried to jump off the bike and I couldn't move away from the bike. And there wasn't anything else around the bike that could have prevented you from moving? Nope. I was in open field, and I had to literally go a block away and then get off the bike and go back. So I had to stand there in one spot and kill the three enemies, which that was a whole thing not being yeah, I did, but I wasn't able to maneuver. Luckily, they weren't, you know, big, bad enemies. Right. But I took a decent amount of damage there. Because I couldn't maneuver. Yeah. And you know, I could get on the bike and maneuver, but that's not easy to shoot that way.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:46

So yeah, shooting from motor vehicles until you get missiles is and you'll get those eventually. It's not easy. When you get missiles, it gets a little easier, but see now talking about crawfish has got me thinking about ordering some crawfish with heads on. Well, it's the time of year, man. My local place has a uh a bogo on them.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:13

It's the time it's the right time of year. That's all I'll say.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:18

Yeah, and they do look tasty, I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:23

Well, I love a good crawfish bowl with plenty of potatoes, onions, and corn.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:28

That's funny you say that. I'm gonna send you a picture right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:31

It's potatoes, onions, and corn.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:35

Yeah, this place is pretty good. I uh I've been getting stuff there maybe once a month or so. They it it's called the catfish parlor. And they they specialize in catfish-related stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:52

Which, by the way, at some point in time I need to make my uh catfish and shrimp ceviche for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:59

Okay, yeah, I'll I'll do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:02

Catfish makes actually a really good ceviche.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:04

Guess how much a filet catfish a la carte is like you know, just by itself with no nothing. Eight bucks, ten bucks? Nope. 225. Oh, that's great. This is like 1990s prices. Yeah, that's why I love this place. I can literally order like eight catfish fillets for 16 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:30

I I'm not a huge fan of catfish. Like fried, sure. Blackened, okay. Ceviche, yes. Yeah, but other than that, like I just don't eat a lot of catfish.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:43

Well uh how how else would you? This is the only way that I eat catfish.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:50

Uh some people grill catfish, some people, which I don't like, catfish grilled. I like fried catfish.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:56

That's the only style.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:57

Yeah. Blackened is good, and again, so it makes a really good ceviche because the the fish really firms up. And actually, I got this idea. It's not my idea, I got it from Alton Brown.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:10

I've been watching his uh YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:12

Yeah, he's doing great. Yeah, now a YouTuber. Right. But I took one of his recipes where he was talking about catfish in a ceviche, and I riffed on it, and I made what I call my kunas ceviche, which includes shrimp and you know, Tabasco peppers and jalapeno, you know, different different things than you would typically find in a ceviche. And it's it's quite good. But I also did the same thing with my buddies, my Persian friend's recipe for dolma, and you know, did deer sausage in there instead of ground lamb and called it my deer dolma. There you go. Right. I I I I do these things. I I like to cook.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:52

I really so this place for your sides, the catfish, you can get fried okra, hush puppies, uh well, costlaw, obviously, cucumbers, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas of bacon. Uh-huh. So how do you make your hush puppies? I have never made hush puppies. I've had them plenty of times when I've ordered them. I've never made them.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:19

All right. So a hush puppy should basically be your batter that you have left over from frying your catfish. You chop up onion, garlic, peppers, stuff like that, put it in there, make a ball, and throw it in the grease to use it up. Yeah, it's like a cornbread without the corn. Well, I mean, so no. Because it's not it's it's masa, you know, it's a coarser ground, it's not it's not a flour, and it it's it's just different. But yeah. And bread's pretty, pretty it's not fine ground, it's usually pretty coarse. But like you should be frying your catfish in masa. You should be using a mustard on there as your binder, and yeah. Mustard, really. Interesting. Yes. Yellow mustard. So coat your catfish in yellow mustard. Okay. Then have massa, right? Not cornmeal, right? Massa, and which is a different grind. There's a difference here. Season the hell out of it, and you need to season the hell out of it because that's where your flavor's gonna come from. You dredge your catfish in egg and yellow mustard, and then you put it in that flour and you fill it. Yeah, the egg I get, but the yellow mustard I've never tried.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:44

Absolutely. Fantastic. Interesting. Well, there you go. I I gotta say that you definitely have a lot of very interesting recipes you've shared.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:58

Well, I so I grew up in southeast Texas, and I grew up going from Brownsville to Key West, and then I lived in north central Idaho. You cannot get a larger variety of culinary differences from that.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:17

I could see that, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:19

So, you know, like we had Mexican deck hands on the boat. Like, I remember Beto. Beto was a guy, he uh he had the gay dude running for office. No, no, no. He had the pat he had the patchy skin, you know, where parts were really white and then other parts were not. So that's your horse. I can still see his face. Your horse. But you know, the very first time I tried Migus, he made it for me on the boat, me, my mom, my dad, and the other deck hand. And, you know, it just grew up eating a bunch of different food. Like I remember being at a crawfish boil on Bayou Tish, where literally they had four picnic tables butted up against each other and butcher paper spread across, and this 55-gallon drum of crawfish, shrimp, and crab just dumped out on the on the butcher paper and everybody picking through it. You know, I I've I've been culinarily adventurous my entire life, and my parents made me try stuff. I hated mustard greens as a kid. I hated it. Yeah, yeah. But you know what? I oh my I don't know how you cannot be like good mustard greens are amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:35

They've got to be drowned in bacon bits for being in trim.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:39

Well, so you should you should start with ham and lard or bacon grease as your basis for wilting them. Right, right. You gotta have a lot of yep, you gotta have a lot of garlic and onion and stuff in there, and then you you gotta take I really like Tappy's pepper sauce, which is white vinegar and Tabascos. Like it's literally a jar full of Tabascos and then white vinegar just soaking in it. Okay, and you've got to have that acidity to cut the richness and the earthiness of the mustard greens. You gotta brighten it up some. And without tappies, I don't really like mustard greens, but with that, with that pepper sauce in there, the heat and the acidity makes it. Yeah, I don't know. But I like greens. I like mustard greens, I like turnip greens, I like beet greens, I like greens.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:39

I like a lot of the the sprout stuff, but I don't like it cooked. Okay. Because I mean the greens are the like the yellow the first leaves, basically, right? No, greens are just the leaves. So but they're not mature leaves, they're young leaves.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:57

No, they are absolutely mature leaves.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:59

Oh, are they? Oh, then I just don't like them, period. I I I like the younger leaves, like when the plants before it flowers, before it starts creating. Oh no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:08

You you don't eat mustard greens that have gone to seed. Yeah, that's different. Okay. Like it's not to seed yet, but you will have a mustard leaf that's two feet long.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:19

Okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not a baby leaf. I was thinking of the baby leaves.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:27

Well, I'll have to make mustards for you sometime.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:30

Yeah, I'm I'm fine eating food that you or anybody else cooks. I mean, I I have a pretty varied palate, but I I definitely have things that I prefer over others when I cook myself, and I have certainly my favorites when it comes through when I eat out. At restaurants. Which, by the way, how was your meal that I was jealous of that you had today?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:55

It was what do you mean? The Brazilian chell. I didn't know you were jealous of a meal.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:00

Dude, are you kidding? I was even saying that. I was like, wow, I I hardly ever go to those things by myself. I usually only go with other people.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:06

Yeah, well, I'm on my own this weekend, so I Oh, totally. More power to you, man. I cooked for myself last night. I cooked at Ribye last night and ate the leftover peas that I had. And today I decided that my one meal I was gonna have today was gonna be protein. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:25

Unlimited Brazilian steak.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:28

Oh, and I sat there for about an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:30

Oh, you got your money's worth then.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:33

Oh my god. I I I am too full, dude. I really am. But no, it was it was good. I I I I I like Brazilian steakhouses. I do, you know, it's not the best cuts of meat, it's not a fantastic steak, but it's just the variety and everything in it. Yeah, yeah. And it's and I hate to say it, but the sides are so damn good.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:56

They are, and I always point that out. It's like how ironic is it that if you want really the best salad, you have to go to a steakhouse.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:05

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. A unlimited meat buffet steakhouse.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now there used to be some. We don't have this in Austin anymore, unless somebody corrects me, but there used to be a Mongolian barbecue here in Austin, and pretty much every other place I've lived, there have been Mongolian barbecues where I used to go regularly. Because that is the cheaper version of the Brazilian steakhouse for you basically have an unlimited meat selection of food. And usually, if if anyone has not had a Mongolian barbecue, the way it works is you basically have what looks like a salad bar layout, except when you get there, it's all kinds of thinly sliced cold cuts of raw meat. So it's all raw, so you don't want to eat anything that you pick up there, but you basically pile on the variety of meats that you want, you know, whether it's it's chicken or turkey or beef or pork or lamb or whatever, you pile it on there, and then you load up on different sauces that it's going to be cooked in, and they usually have garlic sauce and you know on different different Asian ones as well. And then you bring it up to the guys that actually cook, and they cook right in the main room, and it's one of these giant, yeah, it's like a probably like a six-foot diameter flat griddle with where you can't see the flames are all underneath this thing. It's just a giant griddle, yeah. It is, but I I I don't want to use the word griddle because it's it's flat, it's not wave. I always think of a griddle as being kind of wavy, but okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:53

I think my blackstone griddle that I have in the backyard that's yeah, 53 inches, it's just a it's a big piece of cast iron.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:03

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's basically what these are. These these are huge round metal, and then the the gas flames underneath them, keeping them at the right temperature, and then they just dump your plate into an area, and then like three or four inches away from you is food that they're cooking for somebody else, and then three or four inches away from that is another portion of food for somebody else, and then you know, all the stuff, all the meats you picked out are just cooked in all the sauces that you had put in there, and it it usually only takes about five, six minutes, and then they scoop it up. Very high heat, it's constantly like steaming hot liquid, and then they pile it into a brand new plate for you, clean the area off, and then uh keep doing it over for other people. But usually if you go to one of those, they'll have just like a regular plate for 13 bucks or whatever, or you can get the I'm hungry, I want to do unlimited portions of meat plate for like 20 bucks, and that is one of the best deals in if you want a lot of protein in places that have them. The one that we had here that was close to me shut down a couple years back, and I haven't found a replacement, so we may very well not have one in Austin anymore. But we used to, they're usually called something like Mongolian barbecue or like Huns Barbecue, or you know, something related to Mongolia. Or uh who's the the other guy? The big Mongolian warlord Genghis Genghis Barbecue, there's one called that. But I I've always liked them. I've been going to them ever since I was a in college, and it always totally fills that checkbox of like a high protein meal that just makes you totally full.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:07

And and I don't know about you, but I sleep better and I poop better the more protein I eat.

Carnivore Diet Peterson And Stress

SPEAKER_01 1:56:14

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I I don't think we were we're for sure we're not doing the podcast, but I've probably this would have been the year before COVID. Uh-huh. I did a pure protein diet that was kind of loosely based on God damn, I'm blanking out today. Peterson's carnivore diet. Yeah, Peterson's carnivore diet. That's what it was based on. And so I was doing nothing but meat three times a day for two months. Yeah. I will say by the end of two months, I was kind of tired of meat, but I went through so much filet mignon at that point. I was buying tenderloins, the whole tenderloin at a time. But how did you see them?

SPEAKER_00 1:56:59

What were your results?

SPEAKER_01 1:57:01

I felt great. I I probably pooped out about one pound per week. I mean, protein gets absorbed, guys. It you don't really poop protein. It does not much left once you eat protein that doesn't get absorbed in and either used for muscle building or as fuel. So it's a very efficient food to do it. The only issue is you do kind of get bored, and then if you you absolutely have to take supplements because by not having any of the green vegetables that that normally you'd be eating, at least some of you just are not getting certain vitamins out of meat. Like meats don't contain certain vitamins at all. Uh like vitamin C. There's no vitamin C in meat at all. So you're gonna need to supplement that, which I was doing. That part was fine. But I I liked it, I enjoyed it. I had a lot of variety of meat of different ways I cooked the meat.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:02

Last time to throw a curveball at you since you brought up Peterson. Did you take the personality test I sent you?

SPEAKER_01 1:58:10

Not yet. No, I I forgot about it to tell you the truth.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:13

I need to do it. So I I sent Gene Peterson's Know Thyself Big Five model personality test. I paid for it. Not expensive, but it's one I've done in the past, and it's it's pretty interesting. So I I'm we gotta push him to get the results on this.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:32

Yeah, I'll definitely talk about it when I do it for sure. Yeah. Have we heard anything about how Peterson is doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:58:43

I I haven't. He's fallen off the radar, and I know he's dealing with a lot of health issues.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:49

So he was in the hospital, I guess, for five months. I said, okay, so Donna Michaela says he's not doing too well and remains ill. Chronic inflammatory response syndrome, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:10

All I know is that I I truly believe that modern medicine will kill you in a lot of ways. And I think a lot of what Peterson is dealing with. I'm being very I know I'm I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you because it's true. I I I think he took way too many different medications and barbiturates over his lifetime trying to deal with certain things, and he found some potential ways out and some of his diet stuff and everything else. And I'm betting as soon as he deviated from that at all, it hit him with a flurry.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:52

I think stress is a tremendous that too back there in his own.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:57

I think a lot of my own health issues are stress related.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:00

I totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:01

Like I I uh on my travels, I had for two weeks two issues, and since I've been home and dealing with everything in stress, last seven days have been issues. Yeah. So, and for those who have listened to the podcast know what I'm talking about, but it's you know, stress it plays a tremendous.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:23

I mean, stress is all about hormones and cortisol, yeah. But it's not just cortisol, but there's a lot of hormones that are released by your pituitary gland and other glands that are meant to you gotta remember, our bodies are tuned to be precise instruments of fighting and surviving wild animals, and we do almost none of that in our lives, but what we see with our eyes and the emotions that we experience from work, from you know, our spouses, from girlfriends, boyfriends, our kids, everything else, generates the same kind of fight or flight responses that dealing with nature 10,000 years ago did, and our bodies react as though that is what the problem is. So if either you run for the next 20 minutes as fast as you can, or you get eaten by a large bear, that's what your body is going to push you chemically to do, even though you're sitting on your ass playing a video game. Like the chemicals that are pulsing through you are bad for you and only necessary in order to save your life in a real genuine stressful situation, and unfortunately, they're coupled to mechanisms that are not at all actually dangerous for you. And that's if you watch enough videos about the uh the research side of medicine that is investigating a lot of the hormonal effects on humans, and this is where a lot of the the modern drugs like azempic and stuff are coming from, is really looking at that side of it, is the hormone side. This is the main problem is that our bodies think they're responding to genuine life and death situations, which our ancestors had to deal with, but none of these situations are actually life-threatening. Like when I'm arguing with somebody about Trump or Iran or Israel or something, none of that is life-threatening. Depends on how you're feeling for me. Okay, and so, but the the hormones that my body's releasing during that event is exactly what would be released if I was standing in the general vicinity of the bombs being dropped. And I actually needed to run somewhere. So that's the the disconnect. And I know this the whole stress-related thing for sure. Back when I was working for a large British conglomerate, the the amount of gray hair that I got in one year was about as much as I have gotten in the next 15 years combined, because of a much less stressful environment, not dealing with the same kind of clients, dealing primarily with actual business owners instead of you know middle management. And that is visible externally by looking at how fast your hair goes, gray, amongst other things. It's not just the hair, but that's one of the very easy things to look at. I actually have hair because I have a long beard, and this we'll wrap it up after this, but you know, my beard is about two feet long. There are hairs in my beard that are brown on one end, are white in the middle of the hair that where the hair clearly went white, and then are back to being brown and the end closer to my face. That is a clear indicator of a reduction in stress. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:26

And you know, it it's funny because I'm I'm getting grays. I don't have the long hair that you do to monitor that. Right. You know, I I'm getting grays in my beard and in my temples.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:37

Just in your pubes.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:39

No, no, no, my beard and my temples. You know, so yeah, it's it, but I'm I'm my hair is light enough colored unless you're really looking and you see the white, you don't you're gonna be the only one that notices because you look at yourself every day.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:57

But I definitely noticed it when I when it was happening. It was like, holy shit, I went gray all in one year. How the hell did this happen? But it turns out I really kind of didn't because you know I stopped going much more gray after that, and I've actually had some gray hair that's now got back to brown back to brown. So yeah, it'll be back to white before too long. I'm actually kind of looking forward to that. I can finally get those Christmas Santa Claus jobs that I've always wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:29

Oh God.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:31

Oh my god. I cannot imagine that. I would totally work as a mall Santa dude. Absolutely. I've had that plan since I was a kid. I'm like, someday, someday. You've got to build for it. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:47

Uh-huh.

Final Thoughts And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_01 2:05:48

Well, more importantly, I've got to be an elf. I've got shut up. I've got the right temperament for it. I'm a very jolly person. Uh-huh. Until the kid pisses on your lap. Yeah, well, that kid's gonna be flying about twenty feet in the air if that happens. All right, dude, we better wrap it up. We should. We'll talk to you later. All right, guys, we will catch you all a week from now.