Easter Plans And Family Health

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Well, howdy, Ben. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Pretty tired today, Gene. We had a rough day yesterday, but it's all good. And yeah. Looking forward to Easter weekend. When's that? This weekend. Oh shit, that's right, I forgot. So nominally I'm taking off tomorrow unless something comes up for Good Friday.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

That's why tickets were expensive.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yeah, that's right. You've got some travel coming up.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, I'm flying tomorrow or uh Saturday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, you should have chosen better.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I well, you know, my dad's uh health chose for me, so didn't really pick a date. But that explains the cost. Oh sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

What's going on with your dad?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Uh same stuff. His vision's just going to crap. He's afraid he's gonna go blind, so he's trying to talk to as many doctors as he can to see if any of them can offer something to help.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

That would be really hard. It would almost be easier to go deaf.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Really? See, I disagree.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Well, I mean, making your way around your house, you know. Going deaf would be really strange. But so would be going blind.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Uh I've practice for that though.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Why?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I yeah, I remember I used to like do walks outdoors with my eyes closed, going off memory, and I thought it's a good skill. You never know when you might lose your vision.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

So speaking of health stuff, you gotta quit the Ozympic, dude.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah, so shit like that comes out all the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

And if you read the actual study, what they find you gotta tell people the study.

April Fools Tech And Gaming Talk

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Well, there's studies all the time. This particular one was done by osteopaths, so it's looking at bone density. And you know, in the what they find is like people that have a that take osempic show a higher percentage of bone density loss. And it's a it's some actual disease, it's not just you know, lower density. But here's the thing is that that study didn't look at all the other factors that could have affected that prior to the use of Ozempic. And the one thing we do know is that people that get an Ozempic they're not the healthiest people. This is true. And so I think there's a little bit of bias involved there. The difference between the people that had the disease and that didn't was about 1.7%. It's actually it's more than that because the people that didn't have it also didn't have zero. They they had I can't remember what percent. So it's really the difference between the two percentages was like one point seven. So I mean it's something, but honestly, if you start looking at studies about you pick a random medicine that you take, you're gonna find so many things that show potentially reasons not to take it. Yeah. That reasons, you know. Oh, these guys are hilarious. So Steam Deck released, sorry, I I rebooted my PC, so I'm seeing Steam Deck released a new Steam Deck called Steam Deck Lever, which has buttons, dials, and a lever on the side. Steam Deck Plus Lever is our most tactile device yet. It got eight keys, four dials, a touch strip, and a lever. Signing an action to each. Well, I guarantee you this is obviously an April Fool's thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

There were there were several, yes. There was also AMD announced it was buying Intel.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Oh, there we go. That's a good one. Oh, NASA announced they were sending somebody to the moon.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Oh, wait, they actually did that.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

No, that's that's April, April 1st stuff.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yeah, that's a real big April, that's an expensive April Fool's joke, dude.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Well, NASA has a budget and they have to use it somehow. I mean, we know that.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Did you watch the launch?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Of course. I watched the whole 12 hours.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

I watched a lot of it. I I dude, I gotta tell you, and then you we can talk about this a little bit, but Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Last let's sorry, before you talk about that, and I'll finish the topic with this Steam Deck thing. So in the video of using the lever, they show it used as a slot machine.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

So you pull the lever on the side, and the little numbers in each of the Steam Deck area starts to spin around. It's pretty damn funny.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Anyway, go ahead. Well, before we get off video games, you know my buddy Alan, who's in our group chat and stuff. I've got him looking at Gray's own.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

So oh, nice, nice.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

You might want to add him to the Discord at some point.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Anyone can add him to the you can add him to the Discord. Just doing right-click on channel and do an ad. Yeah, it's well, if he's a buddy of yours on any other Discord, it's easier for you to add him than for me.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

He's not. I don't have anyone on Discord. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

But are you not a gamer?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I I haven't been for a since Discord's been a thing. I was gaming, Discord was not a thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Well, and you weren't really PC gaming either, so you weren't using like Team Speak or anything like that, were you? Back in the day on the Counter Strike. What'd you use? Counter Strike. Right, but what what VoIP were you using back in the day?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Oh god, I don't even remember. Yeah, and then you know, the last time I was gaming was on Xbox, so you had that built in.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

That's built in, yeah. That's true. Well, actually, before we finish getting off of gaming and getting on to like Space News, so you've been gaming quite a bit. I have a bit, yeah, yeah. Like all day, all night, every night. No, no, sixty hours a day. No, sixty hours a day. Hey, look, if I'm the one who has to tell you two nights in a row that dude it's time to stop playing, you know something's wrong. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Well, yeah. Well, last night I finally got into a port where I was having to sneak around to do something, and I just was too tired to do the sneak, and I tried to brute force the mission, and it just didn't work. So I was like, okay. Pause.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

People wondering, Ben is still on his first game on the PC, which is first game on the PC in a while. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I mean. Uh on the new PC. First game on the new PC.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

First game on the new PC that I've really actually played. Like, I played Far Cry a little bit and some stuff like that, but yeah, it's Cyberpunk 2077, and it's it's peaked my interest.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Far Cry 5. I think the music is amazing, as you've heard me play it so many times before. The game is really fun, the missions are fun, but it is definitely a lot more tongue-in-cheek and a little, you know, more arcadey than cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is more a little more hardcore, although not anywhere near as hardcore as Ray Zone. So anyway, but it sounds like you're at least enjoying Cyberpunk. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

I am. It's got enough first-person shooter element to it that it's fun, but it's got enough puzzles and everything else that it just story is so good. Right, and that's the thing, is the story is engaging, and you know, you want to know what's going what the hell's going on.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

And you got multiple different groups of people you're interacting with. Multiple factions, yes. So it's a one-person single-player game that you never really feel like lost or alone, or like you don't have enough stuff going on. There's always more stuff going on.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

For sure. Oh, and there's plenty of side missions, which I'm yeah, part of the reason why I'm so many hours into it is because I'm doing quite a few of the side missions. I'm not a completist by any stretch. I'm not gonna have to get every perk, everything, but I'm doing a lot more than the average person would, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Have you well let me ask you this? Have you done the all the missions for hands?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

I'm on one of them right now, I guess. I think the I think there are perks for completing eight or ten total, but the Mr.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Hands missions are amazingly good.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Well, and that's the thing is if you do for a fixer, if you do all the missions for a fixer, you get gifts. So that's another part of it. So yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah. And it it's I just like Mr. Hand's character. I think he's my favorite fixer of all the fixers in the game as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

But the missions the most manipulative.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

I don't know about a good guy. He's just, you know, he's just a good good dude. But the the missions all have a choice, and sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes it's less obvious, but you really get to decide which way you want to go to end the mission, which character you want to kill, which one you want to save, which one you want to, you know, maybe let escape. There's all kinds of little twists and turns with the missions. So I I really think that they're the the best ones in the game, are the ones that come from hand. So definitely do all of those. And the the stuff you get, the loot is like next tier. Although there's a few others I need to show you that are very good as well. Uh all right, gaming stuff aside, what do we want to start on?

Artemis Launch Emotions And Milestones

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Well, you know, I want to talk about Artemis because I I don't know, man. I I I remember where I was when the first crew dragon got launched and you know went into orbit, and that was America's return to manned spaceflight, right? After 18 years. Well, I remember I was driving between Dallas and College Station, and I was just outside of Riesel, Texas, and I remember pulling over and watching on YouTube on my phone, watching that launch. Yep. And I teared up. You know, because it uh space has always been just a very something in my heart, right? Absolutely. And anyway, yes, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

It's the pioneer spirit, dude, because I I I've always felt space has a certain connect. This is why I love shows that have space cowboys, like Firefly, because it just combines both the pioneer element and the space element.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, exactly. Anyway, yesterday I was watching it again on my phone because the kids were being brats about it, and I was eating dinner, so I was watching it from my phone. But I I teared up again, you know, just every stage, you know, just watching with anticipation, watching the ignition, watching when they dumped the first boosters and then the you know main stage, and just knowing knowing a lot of the points of failure where things can go wrong, and just having a catch every time they got to that next one.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Well, and there were quite a few things that went wrong, too. I mean, that's the other part is they were extremely transparent with this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Well, but they had all four main engines stay lit, which was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

No, they did they did those engines are really good, man. It's they were designed like nothing else that century. The SR-25s, in my opinion, are are the best American engines ever. Probably still will be for a long time. I think they're better than the the ones on um the SpaceX rockets. What are they? The the oh yeah, no, not from an efficiency standpoint. From well, not from an efficiency standpoint because it's using a different fuel, but for the fuel that it's using, they are insanely efficient. And again, given that they were designed 65 years ago, it I don't think there was anything else last century that came close. Which is sad that we're still using the same engines, but it's neither here nor there. People were ahead of their time back then. I mean, right now, you know, I don't well, like, I can go to whole diatribe about that. Well, go for it. But well, it's and and it to some extent, I'm not the guy that should be making the diatribe because I I did not work in science, I didn't work in physics, I didn't work in rocket science. I've been a huge fan of all these things, but you know, in the end, where I worked was in technology and business.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

And for the record, my company literally was one of the contractors on the Artemis project.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

So yeah, so you really have nothing that you can say legally, so that's good. And by his company, of course, he means the CIA. But anyway, yeah, well, they were the main contractor on the Artemis Project, that's for sure. Uh-huh. The thing that I'm kind of observing here is that people that went into well, into into education that ultimately brought them to careers at Boeing, at Northrop, at companies that made rocket shit. These people were the best of the best. They were the top graduates from colleges like MIT before those colleges started doing placement based on race, which is what they're all doing right now. So it's not a uh meritocracy uh to get into universities anymore. Hasn't been. Yeah, but it used to be back when space was a a new frontier.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Well, but we also developed the idea that everybody needs to go to university.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah, which is I think incorrect. I I that's a mistake. It it certainly is something that benefited universities tremendously because they made so much more money by having so many more students. It benefited banks by loaning the money for all these students to go, even though ultimately what they end up doing for careers they could have still done without going to the university.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

So I I think that there's a well, I'm a perfect example of someone who has I I have been educated, but I have no EduMicated, yes. I I have no degree, and you know, I do plenty well for myself. You mean just like Bill Gates?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Don't compare me to him. Okay. Mark Zuckerberg. Never graduated. Right, but ew. Steve Jobs. Elizabeth Rapido. Steve Jobs never graduated. Douche. Jesus Christ, dude. Anyway. I'm trying to compare you to people that did well and you're like all pissed off.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

But hey, Artemis, dude, like they're they're gonna go out further. The slingshot around the moon is further away than any of the Apollo missions went. Like, this is a truly historic moment in time.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

I mean, that's not really a positive aspect that the slingshot is further away because it's actually harder to be closer than further away.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Well, no, but it okay. Yes. They're not doing uh and they're only doing one loop, right? So they're they're not they're not doing a whole lot. They're just proving out the systems.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yes. It's supposed to be a test mission, it makes sense. One of the first that they have to fix with a toilet.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Remember, the first manned Apollo mission never left Earth orbit. So the fact that we're progressing as fast as we are with Artemis is actually pretty easy.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Artemis started over a decade ago. We're progressing really slowly. It took this is Artemis 2. It took less time to get the man in space in Apollo than it did on Artemis.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Understood.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

So the progression speed is not that fast.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

But it's only the second launch, and we're going way further out. So that's substantial, is my point.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

And keeping fingers crossed that nothing happens. Because, you know, the more missions you have under your belt, and SpaceX is a great example of this, the more you know the bugs are worked out. The fewer missions you have, the more you're relying on test pre-data. Like shit that that you you tested before it was all assembled. So, yeah, I'm I'm hoping this thing goes well and not like you know, veers off course somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

What do you think of the change in the gateway station?

SPEAKER_00 19:14

I always thought that the gateway station was totally unnecessary.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Well, instead of it being a space station, though, it's gonna be a base.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah. Yeah, the base makes more sense. That's what the Chinese have, so might as well do the same thing. Well, they don't have anything yet. Well, they've got a base on the moon. I mean, other than that, they don't have anything, I guess. They do not have a base on the moon. They totally have a base on the moon. They haven't sent people to the moon yet. No, there's no people in the base, but they have a rocket landed on the moon. Sure, that doesn't make a base. That could be used as one, yes.

unknown 19:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I mean, that's the way I would do it. That's the way that I've done it when I was doing simulation stuff, is send as much stuff unmanned as possible. Yeah. And then only bring people in when you need humans aboard. I'm not a big fan of test flights with humans aboard. I I'm more of a fan of test flights without humans and with a potential to detonate it if something goes wrong. So I I think the way that SpaceX is doing research on rocketry is a much better way than what Artemis has been doing. But it it's so obvious in the old school versus new school with these contractors. If you look at the interior of Artemis, it looks like what a 1980s TV show about 2025 would look like. Like all the monitors are flat screen, there's a lot of blue buttons everywhere, but it's still a shit ton of physical buttons everywhere. It's still relatively small monitors rather than big ass touch screens the way that SpaceX does it.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yeah. I I thought it was interesting that they're using Outlook on Artemis.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, they're running Windows. I mean, that's the that's the other thing that you would never see on a SpaceX computer is Windows. Right. SpaceX runs Linux. Specifically the variant of Linux that drives their cars. Yeah. So there there is a little bit of a nostalgia thing for sure, because it really does look like a total you know it's a NASA mission. Yeah. It's a it's a grandson of the Apollo series. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Still not as big as the Saturn V.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

I still can't believe they launched on April 1st, though. I mean, how much every flat earther? Every flat earther. See, I told you so. It's I know. Well you can't argue with it because they picked it. They picked the damn date.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Well, I mean, it's orbital mechanics, dude. It's it's a launch window. Yeah, it didn't have to be April 1st. The math works the way the math works.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

The math works every 28 days, dude. Right. So you're gonna postpone it? Or how do it last month, yeah. The uh the thing that's funny is the the data coming back from the rocket, right? All the uh telemetry is displayed in a more game cutesy like interface than what I've seen in video games where you do rocketry. Yeah. I mean, it is it is hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

So again, NASA definitely spent some money on UI.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Not much. It's pretty bad. How so it's not bad in that it's a bunch of pixelated crap, but it's too cutesy, man. It's too damn cutesy. I think it makes it very accessible to the average public. Okay, maybe. Maybe. I wouldn't know. Not the average public. But it it looks kind of ridiculous to me. Plus, their measurements are in the wrong damn units, which I've always had a problem with. No one needs to know miles per hour. What you need is meters per second. And having to do that calculation every time that's updated, ugh.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

It's for the public.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You measure thrust in newtons. You don't measure it in foot pounds.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

I mean it's like you can measure it in both, actually.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yeah, sure you can, but it's impractical to do it in one versus the other.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Well, I mean, in that case, why aren't you using joules? Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Well, you know, you there are there are appropriate places for that as well. So the the telemetry data is neat to have because we're we can certainly recreate that. I'm I'm definitely planning on doing this, probably not tomorrow, but probably when I get back from my trip, I'll I'll crank up the old uh Kerbal and then do a parallel of that flight. The I I've got the full realism the the railway.app dashboard. Railway.app? I don't think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Here, I'll send it to you in signal. Um so this is a pretty neat dashboard of the Artemis data, and it's Artemis dash two uh II. So Artemis dash II dash dashboard dash production dot up dot railway.app. That's a long ass URL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can put it in the show notes. But anyway, it shows their power, temperature, where they're at, velocity, all that. It's pretty neat.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, that looks much better than the what they had on the screen. So what I was talking about was what they had on their telecast. This actually looks more useful. And I mean, kilometers per second, I'm okay with because it's just a thousand meters per second. So they're at 0.9 kilometers per second, so 9,000 meters per second.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

It's even got crew biometrics and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

So yep, they're at zero G. Distance to the moon is zero kilometers, really.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Well, that's obviously a load error on your side. That's obviously what it's showing me.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

What it's showing it to you, it's not showing it to me.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Distance is 33 uh 960. Yeah, mine says zero kilometers. So that's a load issue for you. What what what browser are you using? Edge. Try a reasonable browser like Firefox at work.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

What is a reasonable browser? It's very locked down. Let me unlock some shit.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah, but no, their velocity, so they're currently not accelerating. You know, their velocity is 0.9 kilometers per second. Even has comms delay at 1.3 seconds.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Alright. I'll I'll try uh Firefox.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Works in Firefox. Anyway, this is day two of 10. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Same time I'm getting the same thing in Firefox. Zero. Really?

SPEAKER_01 26:30

It's working zero kilometers.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

I wonder if it's one of those things that updates infrequently, or maybe? Because it's it's at zero. I've seen comms delay at 1.3, but distance to moon is zero.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Altitude slash distance.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Altitude is the 396.695.749. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

But distance to moon is zero.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

I don't have distance to moon.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

It's below acceleration.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Oh, yes, that is showing it's zero to me as well as it's a little bit more than a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Okay, and you were blaming my browser.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

I was thinking about the altitude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Uh-uh. Uh uh, so can they mission? Lonessus lunar approaches six thousand kilometers? Jesus, that's really high up.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Yeah, I'm just looking here.

Space Radiation And Fusion Propulsion

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Anyway, I find it neat. It like I said, brought me to sixty-two percent of fuel remaining. It brought me to tears of joy when they launched and launched successfully. Like it just I don't know. I've always I think this is pretty common, but I always, you know, wanted to go to space. And who knows? Maybe if we continue with Artemis and what SpaceX is doing and everything else, maybe before my life is over, I'll get to go. Go where. Even if it is just in Bezos' penis rocket to the edge of the Oh, dude, don't go in the penis rocket. Hey, if it's my only shot and I'm like 70, I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Not worth it. Not totally not worth it. For 10 grand? Come on. Not worth it. No.

unknown 28:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

If people make fun of you for the rest of your life, not worth it.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

You know what? I can die happy.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Okay. Solar wind, though, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah, I wonder what these astronauts are going to uh report as far as effects from radiation.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yeah, well, there was a satellite that was deployed as I was uh co-share or co-writer or whatever you want to call it. Ride share. A uh microsat that whose mission is to measure the radiation in the Van Allen belts to disprove all the flat earthers. Because obviously these guys are live, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Well, I mean it's not gonna kill.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Sitting in a studio in Arizona, like their predecessors.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

You know what? Here's the thing. You can sustain a lot of radiation before you really get bad, bad effects. You have to remember Chernobyl was a great example. The only people who died of radiation poisoning were the human robots that went into Chernobyl. Everybody else survived with no statistical increase in cancer rates. And most of the people who were exposed got a very heavy dose of radiation. There are some three-headed fish there. Okay, Simpsons.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Well, I'm just saying it's a real thing. Hansen has a really low heartbeat. What, 54? 58.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Wiseman's 63, Kotcha's 64.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yeah, it it is neat, man. I I think that obviously the more space and look, I I'm definitely a fan of Elon and SpaceX, but I'm also a fan of just space in general. So this is very cool stuff, even if it's a company that'll be surpassed soon enough by what Elon is doing. Have you watched the video on what is it? On the fusion propulsion system.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

I think I shared that. Well, which one? There's several different laser.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Yeah, so I the video was done by the angry astronaut, who's a guy that I've been watching for a while.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

But it's a talking like an ion drive or what?

SPEAKER_00 31:33

No, no, it's a it's actually a fusion drive. But what's it using for propellant? The fusion reaction. That's so it's using neutrons for propellant.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

That would be so insignificant as to not provide any amount of thrust. That's bullshit. You have to expel something of mass.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah. And that that what it's expelling is the this is why it's called a fusion drive, is it's expelling the the byproduct, the end product of the fusion. So it's it's super efficient, and it does provide more thrust than the the uh Hall effect drives.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Because it's a it's literally you have to move mass of some kind, and neutrons are not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Well, you have to move mass, actually that it's not neutrons, it's protons. I was wondering about it. But well, dude, you're the mass you're moving is the neutrons, or the sorry, that keeps saying neutrons, is the protons, but the speed of those protons, not just the mass of those protons, is what provides the thrust. And they're they're getting spit it spitted out of there at 30,000 meters per second.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

So it's uh still not gonna produce enough thrust to do anything.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Okay, well, you're just wrong, but you know, we can move on because obviously without the video, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

The way you're describing it, it would not work.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

I'm gonna blame myself for describing it poorly. Okay, but here's the thing, right? So, unlike the ion thruster drives, which are using a heavy gas and then creating plasma to spew it out, this uses a fusion reaction to essentially an open-sided fusion reaction or an open-ended fusion reaction, so that the end product of that reaction is getting spewed out through a magnetically controlled nozzle, effectively. Okay, and therefore creating a jet or a thrust. The amount of thrust is nowhere near chemical rockets, but these things are significantly larger than the ion thrusters that we're currently using, and are meant to essentially create what is in the expanse, which is to say create a constant thrust for the entire duration of the flight. In one direction 50% of the time, and in the opposite direction the other 50% of the time, which is not a method that we currently use with chemical rockets because chemical propellants are extremely heavy for the amount of thrust they provide. Whereas this fusion drive is much lighter in terms of fuel usage for the thrust that it provides. So it's a it's a system that is certainly way lower total thrust than what you're getting with the chemical reactions, but it doesn't have to be because it's meant not to launch shit from Earth, it's meant to take something that's already in space, already in orbit, and then fly it to Mars or Venus or wherever, and do it in 20 days instead of a hundred days. So it's a pretty cool thing. The the size of each engine is about the size of a small RV, or maybe a large bus, let's say, uh not a bus minivan, large minivan. So they're they're substantially sized, they're not like the the little bitty foot diameter ion thrusters. But the the whole point of it is that using fusion reactors, they're the fuel that you're gonna be using is basically deuterium and tritium-three. Sorry, helium-3, helium-3 and deuterium. That shit's available on the moon. And you could literally set up a moon mining operation that gets the fuel that you need in order to then fly to the belt and every other planet. I mean, this I think this is the kind of shit that's gonna make uh what we saw in expanse a lot closer to reality. Now, in the expanse, they had a magic drive, which result gave you a lot of thrust for a long extended period of time. This gives you a way less thrust than that, but it does mean that you can literally have thrust the entirety of the flight.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Well, and that's the thing, is right now there is no thrust going on, right? They're coasting.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah, yeah, they're coasting. Yeah, so all the thrust was expended early on. I don't I don't know exactly how many minutes of thrust they did, but all they did because there's no friction, is just map out a course that they wanted to do ballistic. Yeah, it's a ballistic exactly, it's a ballistic trajectory. That's a very good point. Whereas with a rachisochrone trajectory, which is what the expanse style trajectory is, where it's full throttled the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Not always, they also do turn and burns and the expanse's physics, although they do, to your point, have a magic drive, is actually pretty accurate with acceleration rates when they had to do a turn and slowdown and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Yeah, the Epstein drive's only magic feature is that its fuel lasts a very long time. So you don't have to carry much of it. That's the only bit of magic involved. Otherwise, they they do a very good job. It's probably one of the more scientifically correct sci-fi TV shows ever. Certainly a lot a lot more correct than uh Firefly.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Yes, indeed. Well, Firefly had a different type of magic drive.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Oh, yeah, yeah. So, anyway, it's it's pretty cool. If I'm pretty sure I posted the video in a group chat, but if you didn't see it, I I'd be happy to re send it to you. I can find it pretty easily. But the guy that did it like got a tour of the factory and everything, so it's pretty cool.

Guns On Base And DOJ Drama

SPEAKER_01 38:43

So we've got a bunch of stuff that's come out over the last few days from a politics standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Where do you want to start?

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Uh I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

I mean, it's there's we've had the excess announcement. Which one? About allowing armed forces members to carry guns on base. No. So I didn't see that. Came out yesterday. Okay. So he's issued orders to because basically, right now, and what led to like the Fort Hood shooting and stuff like that was you know, basically, unless you're an MP, you're not carrying.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

And anyway, so now members of the military will be able to carry a sidearm while on base. And uh I don't know if I like that. Well, we're gonna end up with more negligent discharges for sure.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Here's the thing there's a lot of drunk people on bases. There shouldn't be. But people that live on base drink on base, dude. Okay. And I mean, how I've seen plenty of videos of cops pulling over people in full uniform on their way to base, and they're completely drunk. So obviously, I'm a supporter of people being able to carry the guns that they own, but that comes with a higher responsibility that I'm not sure that all of our military personnel are capable of observing. It's uh I yeah, I think at the very least we're gonna see a whole bunch more accidents. Now, the positive aspect of it obviously is gonna be that I think the odds of somebody trying to have a mass shooting on a base is gonna go down tremendously because they'd be an idiot to do it if everyone's carrying a gun. That's why I've always said that if you want safe schools, then arm all the students. Yeah, teachers. That was a joke. But you know what I mean. It's like you gotta have enough people armed that somebody isn't going to be willing to try something that likely will get them shot within seconds. So yeah, it's well, that's a good thing. You know, I think Hath Seth's been really good so far. I I've I've liked what I've seen from him.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Egg Seth and Rubio have been selling in absolutely awesome. RFK RFK, man. RFK's been doing great.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Yeah, RFK is I think he's a little more in the background. I don't see as much stuff about him, but yeah, I've I've always liked him. I mean, I think he uh it's funny because it in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ted Denson, Ted Danson basically plays him.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Okay. So it's been a while since I've watched that. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Well, you know, so his real wife, RFK's real wife, is Cheryl Hines. Yep. Cheryl Hines is Larry David's ex-wife in Curb Your Enthusiasm. And she is the current wife in the TV show of Ted Danson. Okay. And like she was, it's it's kind of funny that given that she's basically, you know, involved high up in in politics in the current administration now, thanks to her husband, that she was still playing Larry's ex-wife just like a year and a half ago. So but I've been watching that show for 20 years, so it's it it's probably more funny to me than other people.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

There's something else actually. Did you see that Pam Bondy's out?

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Is she out out? I know there was rumors of her being out circulating on the YouTubes, but I didn't see that an actual replacement announcement.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Trump put out a truth saying that here in a short period of time she's gonna be going to the private sector. Okay, so is she out then or not yet? Not out yet, but it's the writings on the wall.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

Well, that's good. I I think that should have probably happened sooner. I I think she was a great cartoon character for South Park, but I don't think she was the right qualified person for that role ever. Um, much like Trump's A G has been the wrong person for now a year and a half. And he's Pam Bondi. Still hasn't replaced her. That's Pam Bondi, that's who we're talking about. Oh, wait, who am I thinking of? I'm not sure. I'm thinking of uh the not Pam. Yeah, yeah, okay. That chick's already gone. Okay, good. Pam Bondi, you're right, you're right, you're right. See, I haven't taken my B-12. I was thinking of the chick that was in charge of Department of Homeland Security.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Oh, Christy Home. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

She's gone. Yes, she is gone. Right, right. Yeah, I kind of got two.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Bondi, the two least effective of Trump's appointments are out.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Yeah, which is good. Because I don't it's not even an issue of nobody liking her. It's like she just she was not productive. And and talking about Bondi now, she was just not productive in moving the ball to where Trump's campaign for the ball to be moved to. And doing the press conference or the the pressers that she did where you know, I've got all the Epstein documents on my desk right now, we're about to release them doing that a year ago was just retarded. Well, it yes.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

It she should have just said every other person of the the foibles with the Epstein files.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

I I think you're right. It's like What she should have done is what everybody had done previous to her, which is it's currently an active investigation. Like we can't release shit until it's done. Instead of promising stuff and then not delivering the way that she did. Even though obviously Elon Musk saw some of the files.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Okay, good. Tabs Blanche is acting AG.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Who is?

SPEAKER_01 45:15

The can the one under her.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

I don't know who that is. Do you know anything about him?

SPEAKER_01 45:20

I know.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

I don't. Okay. Yeah, I mean, she was in and over her head. She was basically Trump's lawyer on some big case that he had down in Florida. Like, this is not the person that you make the AG. You gotta have somebody that has a you know a pit bull attitude.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

She's a busty blonde. That's why.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

That's literally it. She's a busty blonde. She's Trump's type. He likes those. Who doesn't? I mean, I've not for that job, I wouldn't. I wouldn't hire based on looks. That's crazy. There are plenty of jobs where it doesn't matter if the person's any good, and you can hire for looks. The AG is not one of those jobs.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Well, it looks like we're getting a replacement just in time. Yeah. I think this is also tied into Trump's executive order on the elections.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Did you see that?

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Yep. Yep, I did see that. So we'll see how many lawsuits get raised by all the obvious states that disagree with it. But effectively Trump is not waiting for the what's the act called? The uh American Something Act.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

The SAVE Act.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

The SAVE Act. Yeah, he's not waiting for that. He's using the power of executive order to immediately prevent states from acting like idiots.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

What he's doing is having DHS compile a list of eligible voters, and then directing the post office to only mail ballots to those eligible voters. But why would you mail ballots to anybody if you don't want people doing Because he can't directly stop mail-in ballots, but he can, by doing this, limit who those ballots go to.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

Yeah, I don't don't people need to request a mail-in ballot? Why are we mailing them out to everybody anyway?

SPEAKER_01 47:27

Washington State's 100% mail.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Washington State's is fucked in the head. I know. That's it, it's it's a completely fucked up state. So I would be okay if not a single vote was counted from there.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Let's just do that. That solves the problem. I'm down. Yeah. Until we get voting on the internet, this is probably the easiest way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Yeah. It looks like they're launching an investigation into Newsom for some of the Medicare fraud.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Good, good. How about an investigation into Tim Walt while we're at it?

Iran Moves And Global Oil Pressure

SPEAKER_01 48:07

That's supposedly coming. We'll see. So on to Iran. Because we've got a couple of things here. Did you see the Russians statement? Because I haven't been able to validate that, and I'm hoping you have.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

No. I mean, I've seen statements every couple days, but I haven't seen anything from yesterday if that's when came up.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Well, it's in the chat, but so supposedly Russia is going to be working with the US on getting the Streets of Harmos opened back up where the Europeans are not.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Well, that would be hilarious if that's actually the case. Yep. I mean, we could look search RT real quick here. See what they've posted. Because they would probably be all over that if it was true. Let's see. Mostly they're showing videos of Israel being hit.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Yeah. I do. The attack we just did outside of Isfahan. Have you seen the explosions from that? Holy crap.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Yeah. Yeah, we know how to do that. They were mushroom clouds. Yeah, those are awesome.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Non-nuke, but you know. The other thing was it looks like Trump is negotiating with the head of the Iranian parliament, is who he's talking to.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yeah, which a lot of the Iranians are saying that that's not a thing. Meaning they will say anything that they need in order to just stall for time. Yeah, so I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Quite frankly, again, I don't think we care if the straits are reopened.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Yeah, I I really don't think it affects America other than the global price of oil. That's the only place it affects it. But America is okay. I mean, look, I get it. People in California are now hitting six bucks a gallon. They're not happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

They're over that. They're at seven.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

That makes oh, really? I'm only 6'6. But that that's mostly because of their taxes.

SPEAKER_03 50:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

So apparently Tiger Woods called President Trump to get him out of his D UI, yeah. Which why does that guy just not have a chauffeur? I know, right? You would think you should. For sure. Yeah, I mean, RT is there's nothing about what you just sent me on RT. The only stuff I see is Iranian state television. Which I guess you could kind of include they they have every clip now of Tucker Carlson on RT. He has now become an RT correspondent. And then uh Joe Rogan clips. That's pretty much all they're showing on RT right now.

Roblox Allegations And Dark Platforms

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Did you see the allegations against the developer of Roblox?

SPEAKER_00 51:28

No, but I know Roblox is very pedophile.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Well, apparently the developer of Roblox programmer arrested New Orleans for possession of child pornography.

SPEAKER_00 51:42

Does that surprise me?

SPEAKER_01 51:43

And in and importing a child sex doll now hit with 195 new charges, including raping animals.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Okay. I mean, what do you do when you have that much money, I guess? Not that. So have you ever seen I I know you haven't been on Roblox, and I haven't either, but have you seen any YouTube videos of people getting on the Roblox?

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Yes, unfortunately. It is something I will never let my kids do.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Exactly. It's basically like, you know, pedophilia central. It's like a big white van handing out little treats to kids as long as they don't tell their parents. You know, they're applications that have been developed. I'm sure there's some that are perfectly fine, right? I don't want to paint with that broader brush, but there's way too many that are things like hugging simulator, you know, or like secret hug simulator. What the hell? You know, they're all very they're off. They're definitely off. It takes a special kind of pedo to program shit like that that kind of makes people playing the game be involved in their fantasies. There's way and I mean just weird shit, you know, like they got all these like adult baby game simulators, just it how that is something that that started as a kid's programming platform is beyond me.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

I guess where the kids go is where the pedos go, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

So it's not that it's not that pedos like child parks. It's that children like child parks and the pedos like the children.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Well, exactly. They're going there for a different reason. Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

They're not going there to ride the rides and look at the squirrels.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

So did you have you been tracking Japanese Twitter?

SPEAKER_00 53:54

Not at all, no.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Oh my god, dude, it has been so hilarious. Like some someone posted, you know, we should get I support giving Japan nukes. And what Japanese reply that's being auto-translated by X comes back and said, You already gave us two, but the packing was crap. Next time do a better job.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

That's a good sense of humor, dude. I approve of that. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Uh there the memes out of this have been hilarious. Yeah, it's worth a while, it's worth a worth a watch.

What A Post Regime Iran Needs

SPEAKER_00 54:30

Yeah, that was interesting. There's a what's this video of oh, that's the pedo guy, Jamie Bourne? Okay. Yep. Got it. Yeah. Yeah, I I have to say, while I've watched my usual share of news, I really haven't posted a whole lot into our links thing. Partly because there's a lot of repeat. I mean, I hate to say it that way because obviously it's happening to different people and stuff in Iran, but a lot of the news, a lot of stories, a lot of ex posts are just different locations, same event, you know, diff different claim, same looking images, kind of stuff, or similar images. It's a I think we're in that part of the war where it's no longer a novelty, but also right now I think both sides are taking advantage of the time involved, meaning the Iranians need more time to plan how to exit with the most amount of money that they can, and the Americans need to get to a point where landing troops on the ground is going to minimize casualties.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

In Iran? Yeah. Well, where do you think we're gonna land troops?

SPEAKER_00 56:01

Well, I don't know. I mean, I I have an idea where we want them on Carrick Island, but I'm not sure that's where they're gonna be landed.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

I don't know. I I can see securing the coastline because I don't think Karg Island would be very defensible. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

I don't know. It's it's really hard to say, and I I think so. If I was the president, so I don't know what they're doing, obviously, but if I was the president, what I would want to do is take out a sufficient enough amount of missile production and storage to where the number of outgoing missiles out of Iran is like a dozen or less per day. And once that happens, I think instead of a land-based invasion force, I think you just turn on the PR machine on full and you basically tell the Iranian citizens that we we've now cleared enough of the regime that the rest is up to you. And in fact, what I would do is I would I would start dropping gifts instead of bombs on the population. Meaning like guns, you know, food. Well, guns would be great. The problem with guns is that you can't supply the you know the bad guys with them. You gotta only supply the good guns.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

But I think I don't know, dude. I'm I'm a fan of drop it, like go to the ghetto where you get a lot of gang activity. Do it do a you know a cyberpunk style drop, like in Dogtown, and let people fight it out. The criminals can eliminate themselves.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

I'm not against it.

SPEAKER_01 57:59

You may just think it's hard to drop guns in some, and you drop drugs in another. So the ones that get the guns go for the drug, you get them battling.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

Yeah, I know, I know, I know what you're trying to achieve here. You're you gotta do something that'll be fun to watch in television, is what you're after.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, it it's I think there's a sufficient number of people that are gonna be willing to take the risk to get go back out on the streets, but I think the US has to provide them with some now. I would start with food supplies, right? I I don't think they're necessarily starving like a lot of countries out there, but it's gonna go a long way if you start dropping a shit ton of Snickers bars or something, you know, all over the country, or whatever, whatever food product is going to be the least affected by being dropped out of an airplane, right? And not gonna kill somebody if it hits them on the head. And and I think that will motivate people to go out. Now, I I do think your idea of guns could also work, but I don't think that's what you start with. I don't think you you start by dropping that. What you want to know is here's what's crucial for the US to establish is where are the rebel stronghold areas and where are the IRGC stronghold areas? And then focus on the drops being in the rebel strongholds. So there's bound to be some areas that have a much higher percentage of people willing to rebel. I just don't know where those areas are. But I'm sure they exist. And I also do believe that the percentage of the population that is interested in helping with this revolution is way over 50%.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

I I would hope so.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

It's it's it's at least like 70 and potentially 90. I've heard everything in between. Certainly Iranians living abroad would like to say it's 90 to 95% of the people, but I don't know that's necessarily true for people that are still actually living in Iran. But it's I think it is pretty clear that it's well over 50%. One interesting stat that I saw this week was that the attendance in mosques is at an all-time low at roughly 3% of the population.

unknown 1:00:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

So that tells you something, given that it's a theocratic regime.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

It does, but it it also potentially says apathy, depending on if they're going to other religions or what, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

Oh, yeah, yeah. It could totally be apathy, but my point is it's a theocratic regime, so you can't just say, well, it doesn't matter what religion people are, it has nothing to do with the government. In a theocracy, not adhering to the faith of the theocratic government is a big deal. You know, people had to convert involuntarily in 1979. This is a this is kind of what was happening in Russia toward the last five years before the Russia I should say the USSR, before USSR fell apart, is the attendance at a variety of things, events, celebrations, whatever, that were sponsored by the officially by the government was like a few percent compared to what it had been 30, 40, 50 years earlier. Like people know when change is coming, and even if they're not necessarily willing to risk their own life for it, they are willing to call in sick or have a sick day or just, you know, just not show up. So I I think the population is ready to do it. What how that looks, how that happens, is going to be interesting. Because obviously you also need leadership. You don't just need a population.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

Well, you have to have someone stand up and take the strongman mantle there. You you have to in a revolution.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

But I don't even mean like one leader, I mean like regionally to liberate a province or an area, you need leadership within that area to not just achieve the overthrow, but then to say, we are now in charge, we will be the ones that are controlling the police force, for example. You know, we're the ones that are going to make sure that the fire trucks are still running. Like, someone has to do that. And I again, there, I just have no idea what's on the ground, what they've got involved. For all I know, like all the people that are actually working in the fire departments in Iran would happily get rid of the Iranian government and will keep doing their jobs even though the government changes. But it there is a bit of a risk of chaos, obviously. So that's gonna be a thing. But and it's a big country. That's the other thing that we need to remember. Is this 80 million people? I think 82 technically. That's a that's a very large country compared to what historically the the size of countries that have had revolutions. Okay. I mean, obviously, I know I'm not talking about China and Russia, but I mean I mean like the revolutions more recently have been in small countries.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:13

Sure, but you know, it it's also proportionate. So if you look at global population and you look at 90 million people, I bet you if you compare that to global population and the US, you know, the U the colonies, I bet you it wouldn't be too far off.

unknown 1:04:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Yeah, there are just more people now.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:38

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, obviously there's more people. So yeah, it's uh all we can do is just support the president, obviously, and hope for the best and see what happens and hope that uh the decisions that are made are gonna be based on good intel.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

Well, I think Trump has done done right so far. I think going into this conflict and then telling the Europeans, hey, you need to step up and then not, and then immediately pivoting to the NATO talking points of do we need NATO if NATO's not going to be there for us? Um, like he's setting the stage for a withdrawal of NATO, withdrawal from NATO. And you know, which I people people can say, oh, well that's well, it takes some time and there there is a process. But what is interesting about it is we could pull what the Europeans have been doing, right? We could just not fund it. And if we just didn't meet our NATO obligations, well, they don't really have a leg to stand on to say, why aren't you when they're not?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

There's I think there's a couple things that can be done. One that Trump absolutely can do is start shutting down US military bases abroad. He doesn't need congressional approval to start doing that immediately. And uh moving American troops back home.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:15

And what you have to realize is what that would do to the European economies.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly what I would like him to do is what I would do. The the other thing, like you mentioned, is that he could not cut the treasury checks to NATO expenditures, like basically what all the European countries are doing. There I think there are four countries, and Poland is one of them that are actually meeting their obligations to to uh NATO.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:46

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:47

Whereas the rest of the countries are not. It may be more than four at this point, but it was it was somewhere around four. And the US by far is the largest payer into NATO of all the countries. And some people would say, well, it's also the largest recipient or benefactor of bullshit. It's the largest country that benefits from NATO because it has forces everywhere. But again, I this is where I think my small L libertarian sort of inclination kicks in, is I I think that it does make some strategic sense to have bases for strategic purposes. The same way that I think it makes sense to go to war for strategic purposes. It's not a black and white issue, it's a gray issue. However, and we looked this up on a few episodes ago, and I don't remember the exact number, but there are over a thousand active U.S. military bases around the world. That's too many. So we should shut down our European ones because you know what are the odds that we actually need troops in Europe?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

Well, Germany rearming.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

Yeah, what if we're gonna fight Germany, it's not gonna be with our troops. It's gonna be with satellites and rockets. So I I just I wouldn't move anybody in Southeast Asia, I wouldn't move anybody in the Middle East, but I would absolutely yank out all the troops out of Europe because once the fall of communism happens, the reason, the raison être for them being there went away. And it's just been costing us money. And you know, your Europeans are happy to dump all this money into Ukraine. Well, then why are we the ones spending money and guarding them from a from nobody, frankly? So we should shut down our European bases. I think that would be a great way to have a peace dividend even during the Iran war.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

It's wishful thinking, but who knows? I I think there's I think there's a lot of big cards to be played between now and the midterms, and he's gotta play them and play them at the right time if he wants to hold on to the House.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:25

I don't think he can hold on to the House, so I in my mind that like that doesn't affect it. I think what Trump needs to do is just what is gonna achieve the greatest good for America during his four years, and that not worry about anything else. The midterms for Republicans to win sufficient seats to retain majority means that they have to win every single contest that they're running for because there's a few of them that are gonna have non-incumbents running. Because there have been, I think, four Republicans that are retiring uh from Senate, and we've obviously got challenges during the primaries to quite a few as well. So, like those people first have to win their primaries and then win their elections. And doing that in a midterm, which historically goes to whoever is not in office, I think is gonna be really hard. I'm not saying it's impossible, well, but it's it's absolutely gonna be very hard to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:41

Our last war starting president, Bush, pulled it off.

Epstein Files And Birthright Citizenship

SPEAKER_00 1:10:50

Uh he pulled off winning the house. Yeah, yeah. Holding on to the house. In his first term, you mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah, but they they fucked that up just as much as what's happening right now. Like the House didn't take advantage of that. Okay. There's a lot more that could have been passed or more like removed, you know, well, still through passage of new bills, laws changed and removed, that just never happens. Because they're all bickering. They're all bickering and wanting pork. That's the one aspect of all politicians that never changes. That's why Trump is not a politician. But there are plenty of politicians that he has to deal with, and I think he's quite frustrated in that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

Well, and you know, this is where declassifying the Epstein files and just nuking Congress would be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:50

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I really think that the whole they their handling of Epstein has been pissed poor. It should have either been completely swept under the rug and never brought back, or it should have been declassified very quickly. Because right now you've got a lot of people that voted for Trump that obviously doesn't matter because he's not running again. Their attitude is, well, I am voting for Trump. Well, okay, but he's not running, so it doesn't matter. But they're unhappy. And I don't think they're unhappy for like that's not we don't have a good reason to have them be unhappy, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Like, it clearly was a botched, mismanaged job of handling the Epstein files. Even if there's quote, nothing in there we're seeing the way that Trump would say, then you guys should have not done what you're doing. You should have like just put a lock on it and say it ain't happening during this administration period, or do the opposite, which is what people thought he was gonna do, which is just declassify everything day one. Everything about aliens, everything about JFK, everything about Epstein files.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:17

What do you think of the government registering aliens.gov?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:23

I think that has the term aliens has historically meant in the government non-citizens of the United States. So I don't think it means anything.

unknown 1:13:35

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

I don't know. Yeah, I mean, like I've got an alien registration number. What's that? I've got an alien registration number. What's that, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:45

Uh that's uh you know, I forget that you're a naturalized citizen.

unknown 1:13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:53

Yep. Which, you know, that's a whole nother thing, is we really ought to have a process for naturalized citizens after a period of time, you know, so not having two chunks point of not having second-class citizens.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:13

Well, I I think my take has always been that citizenship needs to be something that not everybody in the population has. So birthright citizenship is just stupid. I don't think that should have ever been the case. Birthright. What what's another word that's not citizenship but similar? Like birthright living status or something. Birthright Well, I mean, you could go the Like you can be an American, but not an American citizen.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

Right. I mean, that's the whole Heinlein approach, right? With a meritocratic citizenry where service guarantees citizenship, that are you have to in the Starship Troopers universe, service guarantees citizenship, but it's not the only path to citizenship. If you are worthy and judged by the citizenry to be create become a citizen because of your outstanding contributions, then you can as well. So that's where that phrase came in. Service guarantees citizenship, otherwise it's not a guarantee.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:16

Which makes great sense to me because there are plenty of people that would not expend any energy in trying to acquire citizenship, even though they were born in the US, if it required any energy whatsoever to become a citizen. And that same group of people are the ones that frankly wouldn't really care whether or not they got to vote. And they're also the people that very likely would have the least love of the country. So I think doing it based on meritocracy makes a lot more sense. And obviously, if you're born in the country, then you know you can have a kind of like your confirmation or whatever when you're 13 or 14, uh, whatever, pick your random age number. Where if you studied up on all your civics and American history, and you can quote all the founding fathers and then explain verbally why they took the positions they did, then you can take the citizenship exam, and when you pass it, you become a citizenship. You know, like that makes way more sense than you know, your your parents, or even just one of your parents, happened to be an American when they were born. So I I don't know. This is where I can make fun of the UAE and stuff, but they kind of have it right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:51

How so? The only way to become a UAE citizen is to either marry one or be born into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

Okay, well, maybe it's not UAE. Who am I thinking of? Qatar? It's it's the ones where you can't get a citizenship unless you're given the citizenship. Which country is that?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:08

No, the Qatar and UAE are the the you are born into it, i.e. your parents were citizens, but you're or you're married into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:22

But you're you get my point in just because you're born in the territory of Qatar doesn't mean you're a citizen. Correct. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:29

There's no birthright citizenship there. Yeah. In fact, if you're a foreign national, if you're a foreign national in the UAE, the the best visa you can get, the golden visa is only a 10-year visa, and that's after over a million dollars worth of investment.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:42

That's pretty good. I mean, if you really want to live there, 10 years or the million bucks of investment is not that big a deal. I think that that's a uh that's an approach I would love to see the USA. I don't think it's gonna change in my lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

But I would love to see that because Well, the Supreme Court's gonna make sure that's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:08

The problem with birthright citizenship is it really it dilutes the meaning of the the term citizen.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:17

Did you pay attention to our moronic Supreme Court's oral arguments on the Supreme on the birthright citizenship? I did not know. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:25

Well, who put their foot in their mouth? Which chick put her foot in her mouth?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:29

Katanji definitely did, but so did Roberts and Oh Roberts did, really. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:38

Yeah, it it's I I've not been uh happy with a few of the Republican judges because they're not really Republicans.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:48

Yeah. Well, we can we could still potentially see a 5-4 decision, but it's it's gonna be close. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:59

Well, you know, if we can get some of the other things passed. There they look, there's been a few good rulings this year or last year. So it's not an all-bad Supreme Court, but certainly way fewer good rulings than I would have liked.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:17

Agreed. But it is I think we need to start impeaching judges.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:22

Yeah, and I thought about that. The problem is it it really does open up a can of worms because if if you impeach even an absolutely crappy judge who everybody would agree is a crappy judge, like uh the DEI hire for the Supreme Court Jackson, you know that as soon as that happens, whoever's on the side of liking that person, meaning the Democrats generally speaking, they will absolutely go after the most conservative judge immediately.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:58

I have a feeling they're gonna do that regardless.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:01

I don't think they're gonna go after an impeachment. I think what they've threatened to do is just increase the size of the Supreme Court.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:08

I think they'll impeach Clarence Thomas if they get a chance in a heartbeat.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:12

No, I don't I don't think they will. I think that that would be a hard sell. Because they know, just like the Republicans know, that if they try and impeach Clarence Thomas, all their judges are up as soon as the election flips the other way. So it's it's kind of a the the lifetime appointments of the Supreme Court justice are sort of a nuclear football. No one wants to be using it for fear of what happens when they lose power. So it's a it's mutually assured destruction. If if you basically open that can of worms and Supreme Court justices start getting impeached, then all that Supreme Court justices will become are effectively justices that last one term. And a new president comes in from the opposite party. First thing they do is do a sweeping impeachment of the entire court, bring in their own people. Four years, eight years later, twelve years later, whatever it is, party in control flips, which they always do, and they do the exact same thing. All those justices get swept away, and they bring in their own. I mean, do we really want to have the third branch of government be that tightly aligned with who currently is in power?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:48

Well, I don't the problem is if we have the Supreme Court strike down this ban on birthright citizenship and they uphold it, uphold the current status quo, dude, we gotta do something. This has to change. Because first of all, the amendment was never intended to grant grant citizenship to people who are just here visiting from other countries. Right. That was made clear by the author of the bill. So like you have to go back to a contextualist argument. You really do.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:34

Yeah, but how are you gonna do that? What do you mean? Well, I mean, clearly the the Republicans are voting Mirrat and Democrats are voting Democrat in the Supreme Court.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:46

Well, I mean, we'll see. We just have their oral arguments to go off of.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:51

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:54

We will see what their decision is when they publish it. So anyway, but Trump by doing this through executive order the way he did, all he has to do is change the rationale for the executive order and reissue it.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:07

Yeah.

unknown 1:23:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:08

Because the court is certainly not going to do a broad ruling here. They're gonna rule very narrowly because they're spineless. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:20

They're definitely doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:22

All right, man. Anything else to cover? I know we've both been.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:25

I know. Yeah, we're I know I'm tired, you're tired, and it's kind of been a rerun week, and I'm also getting ready for my trip, so I'm thinking about that. So, yeah, let's wrap it up. I think our next episode will probably be a day or two late just because of my travel. But this one won't give you a lot of time. Taking your travel mic with you? No, I'm not gonna be talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:47

I did one from Scotland.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:50

Well, good, good. You know, maybe I'll buy one someday, but it ain't gonna be right now. All right. But it doesn't mean I'm not gonna talk to you on signal, it just means we're not gonna record it, that's all.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:03

Well, I hope you have a very good trip, Gene. And sleep too. I'm hoping I sleep through.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:09

Do you know that from here from Austin, it is almost five hours, like four hours and fifty minutes to fly to Seattle.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:17

But here's the question: have the TSA lines improved?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:20

Oh shit, I gotta check that. I don't know. I was planning on heading out three hours early.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:25

Yeah, no, that may not be enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:27

Ugh. So I should just sleep at the airport.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:31

You're fine you're you're flying first class, right? Yeah. So some airlines, depending on your airline, may have a first class line.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:40

Oh, yeah, we usually have a first class line in Austin.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:43

So if they still have their if they're still operating that first class line, then that may be better. I know United was recently.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:50

So Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:52

Good luck.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

Gonna keep my fingers crossed, but I know it's gonna suck. It's gonna suck worse coming back, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:59

Yeah, CTAC sucks.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:00

It's a much yeah, bigger airport with a lot more flights coming in and out, including international than Austin. So Austin, for at least what it's worth, is actually a fairly small airport.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:17

Alright, guys. We'll catch you all in bye week. Later.