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Dec. 7, 2007 - No Agenda
40:20
7: No Agenda 007
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Time Text
It's another dark and rainy evening in Northern California.
It's time once again for the show that has no jingles, no music, no commercials, no talent, and no agenda.
Coming to you from the Curry Condo, I'm Adam Curry.
I'm John C. Dvorak in the fabulous...
Dvorak Mansion, in the mansion.
Yeah, Dvorak Mansion needs a paint job.
Hey JC, how you doing?
Okay.
I just got back from a President's and CEO dinner at Sequoia Capitol.
How was that?
You know, I gotta tell you, it was really nice.
It was at this place called Nola in Palo Alto.
It's like, as in Nola, as in northern Louisiana, so it's kind of Cajun.
Actually, Nola, actually what it really means is New Orleans, Louisiana.
What did I say?
You said northern.
Oh, no, I'm confused.
I meant, exactly, New Orleans, Louisiana.
There's actually a restaurant in New Orleans called Nola that's one of, what's his name, the bang chef, the guy who...
Emeril?
Emeril.
It's one of Emeril's restaurants.
And it's really, I've eaten there and it's outstanding.
But what's really impressive to me when you go to that place is that they have...
A wine list that has every price you can imagine for any kind of wine, and you could throw a dart at that list, and everything's an incredible winner.
Everything's good.
So, about 20 guys, I think.
Yeah?
Anybody noteworthy?
Well, the guys you would know, of course, would be Mark Kwame, Mike Moritz, and...
Oh, God.
Who's the guy from South Africa?
No, from...
Okay, that guy who's going to hate me now.
He only gave us $5 million.
That guy.
Rulof.
Rulof.
Shut up.
Rulof.
That'll be cut out.
But when you look around the room and you look at these companies, they're pretty well invested in media companies.
I think that if we pooled all of our resources together towards advertisers, which of course we actually discussed, We could be a pretty big force.
There's very interesting companies.
What I found the most interesting, two companies actually.
One is eHarmony.
The CEO was there.
That guy?
Yeah.
The eHarmony guy?
The white-haired guy who's on the commercials who everybody thinks is creepy?
Believe it or not, that's not the CEO. Oh, okay.
So that's just some phony guy.
Yeah, that is definitely not him.
I mean, that guy's creepy.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
This is a very nice guy.
Also there was the CEO of Zsa Zsa.
Are you familiar with Zsa Zsa?
Never heard of it.
It's J-A-J-A-H dot com.
Why am I not surprised?
Well, you know, they're doing amazing business.
I've actually been a client.
That's why it was interesting to me.
I've been a client of the company for over two years.
It's a cheap phone service, basically.
Oh, yeah.
No, I've heard of him.
I'm sorry.
Okay, right.
Nice.
He's saving me like 400 pounds a month just between my wife calling her sister.
So he's got a pretty good service there, I'd say.
And otherwise, yeah, it was all right, you know.
There's any media people there at all?
From media companies?
No, I mean like, you know, journalists.
No, no, no, no.
Oh, no, no.
This is Cone of Silence.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Cone of Silence hallowed.
Hush, hush, nondisclosure.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I'm sure there's all kinds of fascinating secrets that were passed back and forth by competitive companies.
Oh, you don't want to have anybody listening.
It's the Kiretsu.
It's the cartel.
Yeah.
Sounds boring.
No, it wasn't boring.
What was good about it, it was short, so there was no way it could be boring.
It could have been boring.
It could have been one of those really long, drawn-out things.
No, it's like going on the table, hey, how you doing?
Just reintroduction or new people.
One guy there, Pud, Phillip from Adbright, he used to work for Ron and I. It's a pretty familiar room.
Yeah.
And, you know, we just give an update and we see if there's anything we can do together and then we have a drink, have some food, and then we all fuck off.
It's pretty good.
Was the food any good?
Yes, food was excellent.
I had the, they had a strip steak, which they served a round mashed potatoes with fried onion strips on top.
Yeah, and a garnish around the side.
I'm trying to explain it to you as best as possible because I know you care.
But it was, yeah, it was quite nice, actually.
Hey, so there's a restaurant opening up down this, you know, from the Pacho headquarters.
If you go down, was it Bryant?
No, Brannon.
Go down Brannon to 4th, I guess, just a little bit beyond that.
So while you were doing this, I was spending the day down in Half Moon Bay at the Ritz-Carlton at the Always On conference with a bunch of venture capital guys.
And I didn't get that much out of it.
I did see a bunch of people I needed to see and schmoozed.
And the PR woman that runs the Ritz-Carlton there used to be my booker at Tech TV. Your hooker?
The booker.
Booker.
And she...
I used to, and so I know her, and she's been inviting me.
You can spend the night, you know, you can have free, you know, whatever.
I never go down.
Cool, cool.
It's just me, but you know, she was...
Is she hot?
She's a nice woman.
You sound like one of these guys who's on the forum here.
No, I mean it.
John, I say this to you at the office about women.
Why should I be any different on this show?
There's the evidence against you.
Anyway, so she's a good-looking woman.
I've always liked her.
She's very pleasant and a great PR person.
She's really smart, but I didn't know she was a mega foodie.
Oh, wow.
And so she's starting her own agency and she's going to do wine and food PR. Well, excellent.
Excellent.
But anyway, I got to meet the chef and I got to tour of the place and I did all this stuff where that was going on and had a bunch of free food down there.
I don't know where that story was going.
I had a point to make before you brought up that issue.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
So I'm always scanning across all of the news shows, and I heard one thing very consistent this morning.
Also, it was the first opportunity I had to listen to Twit124 and Buzz Out Loud, and no one has any news in the technology world.
Everyone's full of crap.
That's what we'll take over on this show because we've got absolutely nothing.
Okay, back to my story.
So anyway, so I'm talking to her and she knows all the gossip about what's going on with the restaurant scene around here and she's really got great information.
But apparently there's this new spot she believes is going to be the next hot spot taking over for anyone from San Francisco who knows these places.
Myth has been sold to somebody else and the hot spot right now is Spruce.
But there's a new one.
She believes it's going to be the next big thing.
This conversation was very in-depth on this.
I now realize that she's stunning when it comes to being at this level of foodie.
Orson is the name of the place.
It's going to be down there around 4th and Brandon.
So we can walk there and finally have a place where we can have something cool.
They probably, of course, won't be open for lunch, so with the resistance.
Well, I had dinner, just to wrap up the food part of the show, I had dinner at Spruce, and I've got to say, I was well impressed.
How'd you get into Spruce?
I just called him up and said, don't you know who I am?
How'd you get into Spruce?
Obviously, I'm not buying that argument.
I don't know.
Rosie made the reservation for me.
Rosie's got to pull in this town, man.
Be on the lookout for Rosie.
We'll have to talk to her about this.
The portions were really, really small, which I don't like.
Yeah, you're like a throwback.
Most people appreciate that.
Yeah, a little bit.
But the presentation was great, taste was great, quality was great.
But the service was really knowledgeable and...
Yeah, it was good.
It was an all-around great experience.
If you sit in the back room, by the way, because that's where you can actually have a conversation.
You can't really talk in that front mess hall.
Oh, the mess hall up front is very noisy.
Oh, that's not good.
Well, you know, the place is owned by the guy who did the Village Tavern, which is a great restaurant that's kind of underrated.
And so they opened this place up in San Francisco, and I guess they get the reputation of it.
But if you know, you probably get the same food at the Village Pub or the Village Tavern, whatever it's called, in Woodside, without having to deal with the long wait.
So anyway, before we finish the food section of this show...
Oh God, no, not more.
Yes.
You're getting free tea.
Oh, yeah.
We did a very short piece a few weeks ago about PG tips and whatever, and apparently you ended up...
I got nothing, by the way.
Well, I haven't received it.
It arrived at the UK office, and Carrie sent me an email.
Tell us who sent it to you and why.
Shall we see if I can find the actual email somewhere in here?
The Yorkshire Tea Company themselves sent it over and they said they had heard the show and could not resist trying to bring me up to the real gold standard of Yorkshire instead of PG Tips.
I was tickled.
And there's a whole box apparently, so I can't wait to...
To get to the office, which, by the way, Monday, so I'm flying back tomorrow afternoon, Monday evening, we have our Podshow UK Christmas dinner.
We're not doing a huge party, but when you put a staff together with spouses and some of our talent who work full-time for productions we're doing, you're talking 25, 30 people.
So, you know, of course, Patricia and I were going to go to the party.
What do you think shows up today in my email box?
An invitation for Monday night, starting at 6 o'clock, for the Led Zeppelin one-off reunion concert and party.
I'm like, oh my fucking God, I feel so bad for the pod show people that I won't be able to make it.
Ha ha ha!
You're going to have to make a showing.
No, of course.
I'm going to the Christmas party.
Oh, man, I don't know.
Led Zeppelin one-off.
Of course, those guys are so gone by now.
Yeah, but it's like the Ahmed Erdogan tribute.
Everyone in the fucking world is going to be there.
So I went to the first Led Zeppelin concert when they did Nicest.
They came out to the West Coast.
And I luckily enough got to see them when they first showed up.
Wow.
And it was really a pretty dynamite experience because no one had heard this type of sound before because it was a power trio with a different twist.
And especially with Jimmy Page, because at the time, he was doing stuff with the guitar, including playing it with a violin, right?
Yeah, with a bowstring.
I was like, what the heck is that?
But the curious thing is, I was working and going to college at the same time, and I would do that, by the way.
And so...
I was in the luncheon place talking to some guy who was like a big one of these guys who went to all those concerts like I used to do.
And I noticed there was one curious thing that happened at the concert that I thought was odd.
In the middle of one of their songs, which one of the songs that had a break in it, when they'd be singing and singing and going crazy and they'd have a break and then Jimmy Page would rip into a guitar solo.
At the moment of the break, somebody in the left-hand back corner let out a blood-curdling shriek that matched beautifully.
The timing and everything was perfect for the music.
It really added a dimension to the song.
But actually got stabbed?
No, it was just somebody screeching.
But it always stuck in my mind as like awkwardly perfect.
And you miss it on the record?
I went to this guy and I said, what day did you go?
And he went some other day and I said, did you notice?
And I pointed out to him specifically this blood-curdling shriek at this one moment in the song in the back of the room, you know, in the corner.
And he said, yeah, I thought that was weird.
I heard that too.
So apparently they were ahead of their times with setting these shills into the audience.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
But, you know, ever since then, I think I've been skeptical about everything.
It's called show business, John.
Yeah, show business.
Show business.
So I've been...
You got any stories you want to launch into?
Well, wait, let me finish before we go into the story.
You're still not done?
More food?
The special blend PG tips.
Oh, God.
And the one thing we didn't mention, and maybe we can get some of this for free.
Of course, nobody says anything to me.
No.
Lifeboat tea, which I mentioned to you, but we didn't get it on the air.
Yeah, yeah.
It's really one of the more interesting British teas.
If people out there want to like a tea with a real punch to it, lifeboat tea was supposedly used by the British Emergency Corps and their lifeboats, so it would give them an extra punch of caffeine or whatever.
And that's good stuff, huh?
No, it's delicious, actually.
It's actually quite tasty.
All right, I'm done.
So I've gone on...
Let me see...
We talked last time.
Did we talk about the military-industrial complex?
Maybe that was at the office.
I was showing you Eisenhower's quote.
Yeah, you're like getting a little nutty about this stuff, but yeah.
Well, someone sent me another Eisenhower quote, which I just got to read to you.
Well, wait.
Back up and tell people.
Okay, if anybody's out there, they want to go look up Eisenhower on YouTube.
And he has this really nice speech that he gave.
And I vaguely remember hearing it over the years.
About the dangers of the military-industrial complex.
And it's actually, when you hear the speech, which you have isolated, I should put on the blog, it's actually quite interesting.
So check this one out from a couple of years before that speech.
So he was still president, 1954.
I haven't found audio of it yet, unfortunately.
So I'm telling you, this guy is the Nostradamus of American politics.
Listen to this.
Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.
There's a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things.
Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas.
Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
Isn't that a great quote?
You know, Eisenhower, I think, was underappreciated.
The more we, you know, over time, I think people are starting to appreciate that guy more and more and more.
I mean, guys, he was a military, you know.
Yeah, he was a general, right?
Well, he's the one who organized, you know, the D-Day thing.
Yeah, he was the man.
And...
He didn't seem like a humorous guy by any means.
He was kind of a stiff business type as a president.
And he was despised by the Democrats because he was a Republican.
But the fact of the matter was, looking back on it, he may actually have been one of the better presidents we've ever had.
Surely you can recommend some literature to our listeners?
I can't think of anything.
Because I've got to find out more about this guy.
Well, I think he wrote a couple of books, which would be worth reading, and...
There's probably a few biographies.
I'll look into it.
Like everybody else, I've taken him for granted.
So I'm on this tear now about how can we stop the military-industrial complex.
Yeah, I know I'm getting nutty, but hear me out because I actually have a really good idea.
So if I were to ask you, what is the most powerful force in the American economy?
What would you say?
The most powerful force?
Yeah.
What is the most powerful force in the American economy?
It's used all the time in financial reporting.
In financial reporting?
I was going to say sex before you said that.
In the American economics.
Profit?
No.
Consumers.
No.
Right?
It's the American consumer that is the God Almighty power of this country.
Would you agree?
I think so, yeah.
Okay.
That's what makes the country a big market.
So I saw this really cute animation flash-type real-time video thing on a website called storyofstuff.com.
And it's basically the story of how stuff is made.
And, of course, from a green vantage point.
So first we rape the earth, then we create all this chemical toxic shit by creating stuff, and then we package all this stuff up, and then people take it home, and then it turns into garbage, and only 1% actually is recycled.
You know, one of those stories.
But the thing that struck me is the whole part about the consumerism.
And apparently there was an economist after the Second World War.
His name escapes me for a second.
And he came up with the idea of using the American people, this consumer force, to fuel the economy through something called obsolescence by design.
Or designed obsolescence, so products that are absolutely...
Planned obsolescence.
I'm sorry, planned obsolescence.
Thank you.
So products that are designed to break after six months or that need an upgrade.
It's Veblen you're talking about, right?
Yeah, that's it.
Thank you.
Oh, John, I love it, man.
You are so fucking smart.
And then there's perceived obsolescence, which is basically the fashion industry.
And they have this great little graphic of, so you work really hard all day, you come home, you sit in front of television, then television says, you suck, you don't have the coolest shoes.
And then you go out to shop and you get the coolest shoes and you feel better.
And then you go work twice as hard and take another job to be able to afford it.
And you go home and you rest and you watch television.
And then they tell you, you suck again because you've got yet the wrong bag.
And it's this endless loop of perceived obsolescence.
And I was thinking, we should make...
First of all, if we want to protest as a country, all we have to do is just stop consuming.
Which is a great way to protest because it's easy to do and we save money.
So I really like the concept of, let's just not buy anything for a while.
And maybe that'll wake someone up.
But then I thought, how do you get that kind of awareness?
What if we created a brand, and I've come up with a perfect brand, called Wrong.
So instead of having the right Gucci bag or the exact right Chanel bag or the perfect shoes or the right dress or whatever it is, you could walk in.
Because you know how ladies, they're deathly afraid they walk into a party and they have the wrong bag, right?
It's like everyone has yet the new version.
Oh, she's got the wrong bag.
Oh, my gosh.
So why don't we just create a brand called Wrong?
And you have these handbags, and just like a Gucci logo, it'll say Wrong, so that you can be proud by protesting by using the same bag, not being a part of the perceived obsolescence, by wearing and using the wrong brand.
I've already registered shopwrong.com and buywrong.com.
I'm in.
Count me in.
Okay, thank you.
We're making t-shirts first.
That's our first order.
Oh, the t-shirt's got to say wrong.
Yeah, wrong.
But with a great logo, so it really looks fashionable, right?
Just wrong.
You know, it doesn't...
Franklin Gothic will work.
You know, any good type font.
So...
I'm kind of surprised.
This actually is an outstanding idea.
Oh, thank you.
You just say whatever Curry says.
No, no, no.
You do not.
You do not.
And so I'm just saying this to the two or three guys out there.
Anyway, so I think you should look into this further because I actually would be surprised if somebody else isn't doing something similar.
It's just too good of an idea.
I was amazed that knowing that there's a place out there called ShopRite, And Best Buy, that I could get ShopWrong and BuyWrong.com.
I was blown away that those domain names were available.
And of course I got them using my GoDaddy code DSC1. Speaking of perceived obsolescence.
That's funny because I came up with an idea today too, which is something I think I'm going to implement.
It's called the Disclosure Project.
And I've got a PR woman that owes me a favor.
I'm going to have her promote this thing.
She doesn't work at Half Moon Bay, does she, by any chance?
No, no.
Actually, I'm going to work with her, though.
She's on some food things.
When I do some other projects, I'm going to bring her on.
Get back to your disclosure project.
She should be a food restaurant critic.
Because we have a crappy one here in the Bay Area, and something has to be done.
Anyway, the disclosure project.
And the idea is, and I came up with the idea...
Because of my bloggers.
Because I have like eight guys or so that blog for me, and they also have the Dvorak Cage Match and the other dvorak.org slash blog.
And I contribute, but everybody else does too.
And they come up with a lot of great stuff.
But I want to put a page up with every one of these guys.
Of course, I haven't cleared with these guys yet because I just thought of it today.
I'm going to put a page up and I'm going to push it as a project that all media outlets should do, which is that I want a list of the writers that are contributing and I want to know what their political affiliation is, what their religious affiliation is, and all the other things that would be interesting so you can reevaluate what they have to say based on what they would obviously have as a background.
Yeah.
And now while I can see somebody saying, well, I don't want to say who I voted for.
I don't want to say if I'm a Republican or a Democrat.
I don't want to do it because it's private, private, private.
I can see people moaning about the concept.
But the fact of the matter is if you're in the fifth estate, you're providing information to the public.
And you're digging into all kinds of things.
I think you have to make a sacrifice once in a while and tell people where you're coming from.
And that's what I call the disclosure project.
And I think it would be interesting to...
So when you read an article in the New York Times by so-and-so, I want to be able to click on that guy's name and see where he's coming from.
Is he a Republican?
Is he a Democrat?
Is he part of the Union?
Is he a freelancer?
Is he a Catholic?
John, let me ask you a question.
Isn't that kind of...
Where it's going to move eventually anyway, where I would...
Yeah, you're a writer, but I see you as a journalist.
If I want to know what John C. Dvorak is about, I go to johncdvorak.org, dvorak.org slash blog, whatever, and I can read about you, and I can make up my own mind.
It's not exactly disclosed in that manner, but...
No, actually, you don't know that much.
What you get...
On the Vort.org blog, you look at short bio, which I have listed.
It's, you know, I wrote for here, I won this award, I've done this, I do that.
Yeah, but I get insight into you.
You get very little.
It doesn't say, it's not the same as knowing that I, you know, that I, like we talked about before, like I've done, you know, the Universal Life Church, and I, you know, I'm agnostic, but I'm not an atheist like these other guys.
I got two or three atheists, you know.
Well, I think it's a really good idea, first of all.
I doubt that any journalist Will participate?
Because I think you're right.
They're all going to say, ooh.
Well, I think they could be forced.
I think that if the public demanded it.
I know how.
I know how you can force them.
Make it a wiki.
Yeah, make it a wiki.
But they're allowed to change it.
I like that.
You know what, Al?
That's what it's going to end up becoming.
Oh, this is it.
Here it is.
So you send them an email.
Congratulations.
You are now on the Disclosure Project.
A wiki page has been created for you.
Anyone can go in and put anything they want, but if you register with these credentials, whatever, then you have an admin so that you can go in and change it to what you believe is true.
In disclosure.
Right.
But the changes will remain in place, something like that.
That could be very cool.
That would work.
Goddamn, two million dollar ideas in 25 minutes.
We're rolling.
We are that good.
Actually, we had a guy, I was doing Cranky Geeks the other day, and a guy comes up.
The conversation changed to like an idea.
Oh, boy.
And I have to kind of remember what it was, but it was like a moneymaker.
You promptly forgot.
We were like, just do this.
I mean, come on.
A lot of money making.
This is a problem, by the way, for people out there listening.
This little area, the San Francisco Bay Area, especially around the Silicon Valley milieu, is essentially all you do all the time.
You're just coming up with these idiotic ideas.
Some of them are good, some of them are stupid, but the whole scene is nothing but just dreaming up concepts and ideas and trying to make some money, or if nothing else, just implementing or having fun.
It's really an odd place.
Yeah, and were you here in the 60s?
Yeah, you were out here, weren't you?
I was just a youngster.
Yeah, okay.
Sorry, I forgot.
But hasn't this place always been like that?
You know, I think it goes back to the gold mining era.
Oh, wow.
You were around then too, weren't you?
Just a youngster, but...
I was just a kid.
But I think really in the 18th, once gold and then silver was discovered, and then all these borderline criminals came out of here with their banks, all these guys became very famous, and they took advantage of the situation.
That group, I think, is the progenitors of everything we've seen since, even though people like to credit Silicon Valley with Stanford.
But if you look at Stanford, Stanford himself, the original Leland Stanford, who goes back to that same era, was a borderline crook.
And it's like the whole scene has really come from the gold rush and the scammers and everybody that came and went.
And it still exists.
In fact, one time I was at a party.
I won't say whose place, but it's one of these guys.
Actually, I think it was the CEOs of Intuit.
And there's a big mansion.
Scott.
And so there was this party there.
And I was in one of the rooms talking to somebody, and there's this one very cynical guy making me look like a normal guy.
And we're talking about, well, you know, there's a lot of, you know, I was actually promoting the Valley thing as, you know, a way that a lot of ideas and stuff are generated.
And I was, I don't know why I was so up-tempo.
You were smoking the dope.
I was not smoking anything.
In fact, I wasn't even drinking much.
Maybe that's the problem.
But anyway, whatever the case, this guy says, what are you talking about?
He says, this whole thing is just a big scam.
All these guys are just a bunch of salesmen selling crap to the public.
There's nothing to it.
It's shallow.
It's just making money for the making of money's sake.
And he went on and on, and I walked away going, you know what?
He's right.
He's right.
To a certain extent, absolutely.
I notice over and over how weirdly out of place we are here in San Francisco.
Not you, but Podshow as a company.
I don't think we're that out of place.
I think we're very out of place.
Not from the engineering perspective, but from...
First of all, we're building a business that actually sells things to companies who gladly pay for it.
Well, that's a little weird.
We make money.
That's like wrong.
You shouldn't be doing that.
But I can tell.
I can tell.
Sometimes I'm like, wow, this is so out of place here.
But that also makes it fun.
So I think we cannot end this show as American citizens without briefly having touched on H.R. 1955.
Yeah, go ahead.
I know about this.
Go ahead.
Okay.
The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.
Yeah, I know.
I first saw this, I think somebody presented it on the blog, and I looked at it, and when I first saw it, I thought it was a hoax.
It's not the exact same thing, but it's not.
This is already past the House of Representatives.
I know.
I looked it up.
It's on the government site.
It's a real thing.
Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.
Okay, so this is a bill that is...
Actually, they have a summary.
Should I just read the summary?
It's on the damn website.
It should be understandable for all of us, shouldn't it?
Yeah, go for it.
Introduced 4-19-2007.
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act 2007 amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to add provisions concerning the prevention of homegrown terrorism, in parentheses, terrorism by individuals born, raised, or based and operating primarily in the United States.
It directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to, one, establish a grant program to prevent radicalization, which is defined as use of an extremist belief system for facilitating ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United which is defined as use of an extremist belief system for And two, establish or designate a university-based center of excellence for the study of radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States.
And three, conduct a survey of methodologies implemented by foreign nations to prevent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.
It prevents the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism from violating the constitutional and civil rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
And actually, I think the summary doesn't, they've omitted something very important in this summary, I believe.
Let me just see if I can look at the full text.
Well, I mean, I looked over this thing, and one of the things that came out of it is, like, they could almost take the law if this thing is passed and it's not thrown out by a court, which is bound to happen if somebody goes after it early.
Yeah, but 404 representatives voted in favor of this.
Do they read this fucking shit?
This is the Roman Senate.
These people are horrible.
And I'm going to do a follow-up story after you're done with a 409-2 vote on something just as stupid and dangerous as that thing you're talking about, which is ridiculous.
And these guys just rubber stamp everything.
And this is supposed to be – this is why Congress, by the way, if you follow the polls, the president has like this ridiculous low rating, historically low, under 30 percent approval rating.
But Congress is like around 10 percent approval rating because these guys had all these promises, especially the Democrats, and they did nothing.
And now they roll over on all these idiotic laws.
And the one I'm going to talk about – Before you get there, before you go on the rant, let me just read definition number two, and I just want you to pick that apart because you are a wordsmith.
Violent radicalization is determined as...
The process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
That cannot go into law!
I know it's idiotic.
It's crazy.
But there are some other aspects, apparently almost...
I think there's one interpretation where even criticizing the president, you could wind up and get low.
Yes, you can be deemed a homegrown terrorist.
So even what we just discussed, what I just discussed about slowing down the consumer engine of the United States could most definitely be taken to task by this.
Can I have your job?
Of what?
Sitting in jail with Bubba?
After you get thrown into Gitmo?
Yes.
Only if you promise to do a show every single day.
Okay?
As long as you do the daily source code every day, it's fine.
It'll be the John...
It's Dvorak C... Oh, D-S-C. No, it'll be the daily source code with John C. Dvorak.
I'm not going to change much.
Okay.
No, I appreciate it.
That's nice.
That's very cool.
Don't forget the Food Bar Fridays.
I'll have an homage to you once in a while.
Yeah, on Fridays.
That's all I ask.
So we, it'll go like this.
Say, well, you know, it's Friday's show, and of course, you know, Adam is in Gitmo, and no one's heard from him.
And I guess they're beating the crap out of him, but you know, hey, it's just the way it goes.
Electrocuting my testicles, but otherwise, everything's fine.
So, obviously, call to action, people.
Please, please, write to your congressman.
What do we have to do, John?
You write to your congressman?
What are you supposed to do?
Hey, when the congress rolls over like this, you can write all you want.
It's not going to help.
But this can't go into law.
This is an outrage.
We really have to stop this.
This is just not okay.
I hope that the Supreme Court is not going to put up with it.
So, let's follow up with another ludicrous...
I'm going to read it.
This was taken from the...
This is a post on the blog, as a matter of fact.
It's the SAFE Act.
S-A-F-E Act.
Oh, yes.
I've read this one.
Hold on a second.
Let me...
Hold on.
Hold on one second, John.
I like this.
Hey, John, can I call you right back?
I'm just recording no agenda with the other John.
Okay, I'll call you right back, man.
Bye.
It's Fernandez, our financial dude.
He's still at the office.
Oh, poor bastard.
Yeah, really.
Okay, sorry.
The safe act.
Yes, refresh my memory.
Okay, and I'm going to read from the blog post.
If you own a Wi-Fi spot that's accessible and free or own a business that provides such a service, life just gets a wee bit more complicated.
Seems that Congress passed by a...
Margin of 409 to 2.
And by the way, I'll bet you one of those two is Ron Paul.
Yes, absolutely.
You are right.
He is.
He is.
Ron Paul voted against it.
They passed the SAFE Act, which stands for Securing Adolescents from Exploitation Online Act.
You know, this is a great thing to couch things in.
Anyway, it goes on.
While everyone, while most people are against terrorism and child porn, this sweeping bill pits the operators of services such as Wi-Fi and social networks against its users and leaves the onus on the operator.
And here's a quote from the article that was cited.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images, including obscene cartoons and drawings, or face fines of up to $300,000.
The broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi.
It also sweeps in social networking sites, domain name registrars, internet service providers, and email service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and may require that the complete contents of the user's account be retained for subsequent police inspection.
Hello!
Isn't that funny?
So, another one of these.
This was passed by these idiots.
409 to 2.
It makes no sense.
And besides that, it's not possible to do what they demand.
It's technologically not possible.
It's not technologically possible.
Essentially, everybody would just have to shut down.
So the whole thing is idiotic.
It's not going to go anywhere because it can't, because it can't work.
But nobody's going to vote against it, these morons.
Because it's about kiddie porn.
When it's not, it's really not about that at all.
I know, but that's what it's labeled for.
Yes, labeled as.
Securing adolescence.
Definitely, I vote for that.
It's called censorship.
It's called censorship, and it's very easy to tack on a little.
Let's just combine these two.
You know what?
I think you should, while you're scanning for kiddie porn, I think you should also scan for...
Someone who is in the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
Yeah, I think you should retain his account to make sure he's not doing that.
I am so going to the slammer, John.
Gitmo, man.
Gitmo, baby.
Gitmo.
That's where you're headed.
So, uh, we're in trouble.
I don't know.
These things shake out in the wash.
Well, as long as we keep talking about it and people realize it, because, yeah, there's some reports here and there, but look at the timing.
Look at when this is coming out.
Yeah, I know, but the thing that gets me the most, I mean, I know these things aren't going to get very far because the smart money is just going to sue against them.
I mean, the courts can't put up with this yet, but it's the 409 to 2.
It's like, what is wrong with Congress that they vote for this stuff because they're cowed into it by just the name of the act, which has got nothing to do with anything.
I don't believe they even read it.
I really don't.
I think somebody...
They have big staffs.
Somebody's reading it.
Oh, someone's reading it, yeah.
And someone's reading it going, ah, shit, another kiddie porn thing.
Yeah, you should vote on that one.
Yeah, you don't want to be...
Meanwhile, the two guys with enough guts, enough balls to vote against it are the only two people I have any respect for in the Congress.
And it's like, you know, because they're not, you know, it's BS. It's like, just because something is about, you know, you couch it and, well, it's about securing adolescents from online, whatever.
Yeah, that's great.
That's fine.
But that's not what it's about at all.
It's got nothing to do with it.
It's not protecting anybody.
It's actually trying to shut down things.
So this passed in the Senate, right?
No, that's a Congress thing at 4092.
I don't know what the Senate side of it is.
So is this now law?
No, it's just, as far as I know, it's just a bill.
It's just an act.
Yeah, so far.
And usually the Senators are a little more, you know, because see, the Congress will bring the thing, the Senate will rewrite it, and if they change the name of it, you know, from safe to something else, you know, the idiotic act, like censor all things on the Internet, they'll vote against it.
God bless Ron Paul.
I hope that guy wins.
That would make me so happy.
His chances of winning are zero.
Dude, if he wins, I am so getting laid in the Lincoln bedroom.
I am so getting laid there.
He would probably cut that deal out.
You know, they've asked me to do an endorsement video for them, which of course I'm going to do.
Sure.
So, yeah.
Oh, well.
We're doing our best.
And we'll try and do more of it next week, unless you've got anything left, John?
No, I think that's about it.
We've got the tea plug in, you know, whatever.
So send us tea, and don't send us to jail.
Gitmo.
Gitmo, baby.
Coming to you from the Curry Condo, I'm Adam Curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak in Northern California.
And we'll talk to you next week.
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