Hey everybody, welcome once again to the show that has absolutely no commercials, no music, no jingles, no talent, no ro-virus, and no agenda.
Coming to you from a very dark and wet United Kingdom, I'm Adam Curry.
You know, I'm John C. D'Vorek.
We're getting pounded by a huge storm.
You were just, just before we started, you were, what were you, closing the window or something, or putting a screen up?
No, I had to, looks like the screen is gonna fly out into the ocean here if I don't, so I had to open the window to grab it, and now it's, and it was just like, got everything wet.
So what are these winds?
I even saw a news report about it somewhere.
I was aware of this, that this was happening.
Yeah, it's just a big, you know, once in a while we get these whopper storms.
We don't get a lot of action usually.
But there's these two storms that came in.
One came in at four in the morning last night.
It was just like 60 mile an hour winds, cold and raining, like to an extreme.
In fact, this morning I was trying to do some work here and it was like so noisy I couldn't even concentrate.
Yeah.
Which is unusual.
And it's also coming from a weird angle, which is always annoying.
It kind of messes up the...
Most people's houses are kind of set up in a certain way so the shingles don't go flying off the roof.
Right.
I'm going to check this roof after this one.
Okay.
Well, real sorry for all you folks in California.
I mean, we're used to that shit.
We get high winds all the time.
You don't get this kind of weather.
I've been in London when it's been pretty bad, but I don't know.
It can be pretty weird.
Anyway, it's Friday afternoon, or at least it is...
Actually, it's Friday evening, 7 o'clock in the UK. So one day early, or actually on time for once.
Right.
We're supposed to do it on Friday, but we never do.
And I figured out the Skype problem, and I really feel dorky about it.
You remember last week, the connection got so bad at a certain point that we actually turned the conversation into, how can we do this in an easier way that at least will sound good?
I'm on the PC when I do this because it's kind of like permanently installed in the studio.
And I had my MacBook Pro up here in the office and I had left iTunes running.
And it was...
I know, I'm such a dick.
So it was downloading podcasts.
Well, you know, when you're on the sorry-ass DSL line like I have here, then that just blew it all.
So my fault.
Won't happen again.
No, no, I mean...
No, but what I'm referring to is during the show, what we're recording.
Oh, okay.
No, I understand.
You sounded fine.
I don't really listen to the show.
There's no real reason to listen to the show since I've done the show.
Right.
That's why I was surprised.
I thought you had gone back and listened to the show.
I don't listen to my show.
Once in a while, I would just to see how the quality is.
Well, most people think our quality is actually pretty decent.
That's not bad.
So, you know, this week, of course, we just happened to be having pod show meetings, and I asked you, so let's just do the show now, because we're absolutely as unprepared as possible, which I think is kind of the theme of the show, just to show people that it can be done that way.
Yes.
And so, that's it then.
Yeah, we'll see you next week.
Why don't we talk about one thing that happened to you?
You had norovirus.
Yeah, that's the epidemic that is sweeping across the continent now.
They call it the vomiting virus.
Not that I vomited, because I don't do that.
In the United States, that would be known as the stomach flu, which we've had bouts with now and again.
But it seems as though England in particular is just very hard hit.
Now you're telling me it hit the continent too?
Yeah, well, at least those are the reports that I've been getting.
First of all, the BBC report says that the symptoms are projectile vomiting.
So that is not just the stomach flu.
Ha ha!
I like it.
I like the BBC writing that down.
You were projectile vomit, which I have never done in my life.
Did you projectile vomit?
No, I haven't puked in 30 years, John.
I don't puke.
Oh, one of those guys.
I had a friend in high school that never puked.
It's not like I just don't have to puke.
I'm sorry.
I'm not a puker.
What can I tell you?
The whole family is anti-puke here, by the way.
So you didn't have projectile vomiting?
No.
Well, no.
So there's so much for the symptoms?
No, because the symptoms can be high fever, which I had.
I had an upset stomach for sure.
It's just I don't puke.
That's the only difference.
Believe me, there's enough projectiles, just not vomit.
Oh, I get it.
Catch my drift.
We will go there.
Okay, thank you.
But this is highly contagious, and so I posted on my blog that, okay, I'm sick, and then the reports came out about this virus, and then Everyone in the country, every news reporter is talking about it and they're saying, look, you got a fever, you're sick to your stomach, don't go to the doctor, you're only going to infect more people.
It's infecting 200,000 people a week.
And they believe that there may already be 2 million people in the UK alone who are infected.
And when I post it on my weblog, I start getting comments from everywhere.
From the Netherlands, from Germany, from Finland, from Italy.
I mean, this thing is just...
And it's really, really, really fast.
And you get it.
By being in close proximity to someone else.
So sporting events, airplanes, ships.
In fact, I think it's the Queen Mary too?
Yeah.
They set sail and there's like 50 people who have the flu on board now?
Yeah.
And of course the smart money, whether you have the flu or not, you say you did and you get a free ride.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's a known fact.
It's like the biggest scam going right now.
People, you know, they get on a cruise ship, and then if there's any indication that something's breaking out, they go in with the symptoms.
And, you know, you can have a glass of Tabasco sauce if you want to elevate your temperature.
Really?
Does that work?
Well, no.
If you eat some really hot food, some very spicy Mexican food, some jalapenos, you can get your temperature up a few notches.
Really?
I should have known that as a kid, man.
I was always running around my room and trying to work up my body temperature that way.
Most kids can't handle it.
But yeah, you see people that sweat.
I'm reminded of a story.
In California, a lot of us eat a lot of hot chilies, although not necessarily as much as some of us do who are really kind of addicted to the chili.
And I'm quite comfortable with the hottest imaginable food, except some places in India serve food that is excruciating and maybe too much for me.
So I'm in Brazil.
Well, you're a professional, John.
Let's just be honest.
I mean, let's just call a spade a spade.
Doing what?
You're a professional foodie.
I'm a foodie, yeah.
By the way, the thing about chilies, for people out there who want to say, well, what's the big kick?
Well, besides the fact you get a little endorphin hit, the real kick of chilies is it actually changes because it burns out certain taste buds for a short term.
It changes the flavor profile of foods, and the food tastes differently, and sometimes it's meant to taste that differently way for you to fully appreciate it.
So I'm in Brazil, where they really like hot chilies, but not that many people actually in Brazil eat them, but they're all over the place.
And when I go to these Tarascarias, which are these Brazilian barbecue places, which are all over the world now, but any of them outside of Brazil, they never have the chili sauces.
Usually in Brazil, you go to one of these places where they have these barbecued meats on a sword they bring out and you ask for this piece or that piece.
They have these hot...
Some scotch bonnets and these really little bitty, really dinky little peppers that are extremely hot.
And you eat those first before you get to the meat?
The peppers are usually soaked in a vinegar or a vinegar oil mixture, and it's that mixture, the oil and vinegar you put on the meat.
You don't ever eat the peppers.
Oh, okay.
Generally.
Generally.
It's just a hot...
It's really kind of a version of a hot sauce.
It's very...
And it can be extremely hot.
Anyway, but...
So I'm in Brazil, and this guy's, you know...
I'm in Rio, actually.
They're a little...
A barbecue place right on the beach.
And the guy says, this guy, he's another journalist, and he's like, challenges me to these peppers, thinking I'm just some sort of wimp from the United States who doesn't know anything about peppers.
So I say, yeah, he says, would you ever have these peppers?
I said, yeah, those peppers are pretty hot, they're pretty nice.
He says, would you ever eat one of the peppers?
What kind of a child was this guy?
I know, he's just a jerk.
He's a typical journalist.
Anyway, so, whoops.
Anyway, so, he says, I said, yeah, I'll eat one if you eat one.
You know, here we go.
How mature.
Jeez, nice.
So he says, okay.
And so I took one of the peppers and chewed it up and swallowed it.
And it was hot, but it wasn't intolerably hot.
I mean, there's many a pepper harder than anything.
And he says, you want to have another one?
No, I said, you want to have another one?
Because he put one in his mouth.
And he says, sure.
And so we took another one, I chewed it up and swallowed it.
And, you know, and that was kind of the end of it for about five or six minutes.
And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, this guy turns beet red.
And starts projectile vomiting.
Well, he doesn't do that, but that's a funny punchline.
But anyway, so he turns beet red and he's like dying, sweating.
He's drinking water.
And I said, what happened?
He says, well, I saw you.
He says, I didn't eat the peppers.
I just put them in my mouth and kind of saved them.
Oh, you kept them in his mouth?
Oh, no.
And then he says, and then when I saw that you ate them and swallowed them with no problem, I decided they can't be that hot.
And so, anyway, I thought this was just like a personal, this is one of those anecdotes for the audience.
It's showing how the immature adults can be.
We were talking about this back to the flu for a second.
We were talking about that earlier in the week.
You said something really interesting after I made a comment.
You said it would be a great theme for a book.
This is a theory that I've had for a long time.
Every season, I'm sure some pharmaceutical conspiracy throws shit into the air so that they can go sell all the antidote.
Yeah, I know you said that.
It's a nut job thing to say, but I was thinking, well, it wouldn't actually be a bad idea for a book or a crappy TV show or something like that.
Well, just think about it.
Patricia, as long as I've been married to her, and even as long as I've known her, she's always gotten the flu shot every single year.
She's a big believer.
I am not a believer in the flu shot because, at least I wasn't a believer in the flu shot, because I'm like, How the hell can they, you know, this thing changes, it morphs, it comes back in different...
At least this is what I think we're led to believe, is that, you know, when this flu comes back, and it's amazing how it always comes back kind of in the wintertime, but now these flu jabs, which are not cheap, they work.
At ten bucks, come on.
Ten bucks?
They're ten bucks.
What do you mean they're not cheap?
But they work, right?
Yeah, they do.
Okay, so...
Well, now you're changing your whole pitch here on the other story.
I'm saying they're pre-selling the antidote.
It's a form of extortion.
Yes.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah.
No, I understand that.
I've thought that myself once in a while.
It's like these guys dream up these, you know, they go, there's actually four, typically four vaccines in a flu shot for four different versions of the flu that they predict based on epidemiology and some other things.
I don't know.
Is it really a prediction or do they know what they're going to throw in the air?
That's what I'm saying.
That's what you're saying and I can imagine other people thinking that.
I mean, it's an interesting theory to consider.
But I think if you talk to a virologist, you might get a reasonable...
Maybe we should get one on the show and somebody can explain to us how this actually does work.
Because I don't believe for a minute that they have to.
Because of the way the flu perpetrates itself, or self-perpetrates, not the right word, but spreads itself.
They don't have to do what you're claiming.
People do it on their own.
People sneeze on each other.
They don't use a Kleenex.
No, right, but the actual flu itself, right?
I mean, this thing comes and...
Why does it appear all of a sudden?
Why does the flu just appear?
I mean, so they know what it is because they can create the antidote for it, right?
The vaccine.
The vaccine.
I like antidote sounds better.
I like the antidote, though.
It's a funny idea.
And then, lo and behold, the virus shows up.
But where does that virus originate from?
And how come it's exactly the virus that they have the antidote for?
China.
Yet, you know, bird flu we can't figure out when that one hits.
I don't know.
I just got a weird feeling about it.
I don't know.
Well, I mean, I think a lot of people are like you, you know, misinformed and believe in conspiracies.
Blonde.
Really not too interested in science or anything like that.
No, not at all interested in that kind of stuff.
Forget about it.
Why don't we get a virologist and we'll talk to him and we'll figure this out and maybe educate ourselves and the public.
You know, we don't usually comment on news stories, but you know the story that's been whipping around the blogosphere about the RIAA? Apparently some lawyer in a court case stated that making a copy of a CD, that that would be deemed stealing.
By the way, this is my PC Magazine column for this week, by the way.
Well, let me just see if we're talking about the same thing.
Yeah, we're talking about the idea that if you rip...
No, wait, wait, stop.
No, stop, John.
No, no, I'm doing my research.
Listen to this.
Listen to this.
It turns out that this started in a Washington Post article.
Written by a guy named Fisher, I believe.
I know, I know.
I refer to this article.
And then Steve Weldstrom at the Business Week and a few other guys have come out and said, Nah, this is bull.
No, no, no.
You're missing it.
Listen to me now.
Let me finish the sentence.
He only cited half of the quote.
The quote that the person from the RIAA made was, if you rip a CD, put it on your hard drive in a shared folder, that would be deemed illegal.
And he chose not to quote that part in the article.
That you didn't know.
Yeah.
Well, okay.
But that's a big deal.
It's a big deal for this particular episode.
They have been skirting around this possibility of finding some way to condemn MP3s to some illegal status for some time.
They talk about it every once in a while.
You know, there's a U.S. code law that says that, you know, you're allowed to make, it was put into law, you're allowed to make copies for personal use, and it went on and on.
But if you read that law very carefully, and I wrote this actually in a comment on the Businessweek site, If you read it very carefully, it specifically says what you can make copies onto, and a computer hard disk is not one of them under any circumstances.
And I believe that they're going to find some way, because of the way that law is written, to skirt the personal copy protection issue, because a hard disk is not protected by that law.
The only things that are are audio recording devices, whether digital or analog, not hard disks.
I think you're downplaying my point.
I'm not downplaying it.
I'm ignoring it.
You're going to hate it because it's going to be bigger than the story.
The journalist made a huge journalistic mistake and won't admit it.
Oh, well, that's an issue.
And I know what your point is, is that here's a guy who took a thing out of context, and then he made a big article out of it.
And meanwhile, it's like one of those deals where you misquote somebody and you make a federal case out of it.
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
It's a completely different point than my point.
But I still think that underlying the whole thing is the RIA's attempt to genuinely kill off the MP3. Wow.
Well, so is the reverse also true?
If I buy tracks off of iTunes and then I burn it to a CD, is that okay?
I don't know.
That's all I know.
I'm done.
I am of no further use on this topic.
All right.
I'm sorry.
I was really interested in the journalistic angle to it.
The journalistic angle is he did a bad thing, and he's probably got chewed out for it already, I'm sure.
Yeah, well, he won't admit to it, which is the interesting part about it.
Well, that doesn't make sense.
Generally speaking, your best bet is to admit you screwed up.
As fast as you can, and then go back to the point that you were trying to make to begin with and kind of prove that your screw-up had nothing to do with your point.
That's what you try to do if you can, but obviously if the screw-up is fundamental to the point, then you're out of luck.
I'm really nervous about a new TSA initiative, John.
Oh, here we go again.
Being a mild sufferer of Tourette's Syndrome, the TSA has, actually for a while now apparently, have initiated the SPOT program.
Which stands for Screening Passengers by Observation Technique.
I'm not kidding.
Listen to this.
Since January 2006, Behavior Detection Officers...
I love that title.
I wonder if they have a badge.
Oh, I gotta get a business card.
I think I'm gonna get a pod show business card that has that as my title.
Behavior Detection Officer.
Have referred about 70,000 people for secondary screening.
Of those, now check this out, about 600 to 700 were arrested on a variety of charges, including possession of drugs, weapons violations, and outstanding warrants.
And I'm like, wait a minute.
Maybe I'm just nuts, but now we have the TSA just randomly choosing you at the airport And now if I'm carrying some prescription drugs without a prescription, I can get busted?
I mean, what is this?
Isn't that unreasonable search?
Well, I think it's profiling, but they've come up with a new way to circumvent the profiling provisions.
Interesting.
It's behavior.
I have to get that behavior.
What is it again?
It's...
Hold on.
Let me go back to it.
Behavioral observation officer or something like that?
Behavior detection officer.
Behavior detection officer.
I like it.
So questions like, how are you today?
Where are you heading?
Is this all your property?
This is...
I'll say this article.
It's a great article.
But here's what was funny.
I gotta blog it.
Yeah, you do.
TSA... To emphasize the sensitivity TSA is bringing to the program, they had a meeting with an association for people with Tourette's disorder to assure them that having a tick will not result in a pat-down.
So, I'm gonna get a note from the doctor...
So, I'm sorry, you can't actually pat me down because I have Tourette's Syndrome.
Unbelievable.
You don't have the cussing type, though.
You have the Tourette's that results in, like, one tick that's ridiculously minor that's hardly noticeable.
That's it, as far as I know.
Are you a neat freak?
Most Tourette's syndrome people, the ones that have a good case of it, are, above all, neat freaks.
No, not at all.
Well, then you don't even get the good advantage of it, then.
No, and it's in our family.
It's hereditary.
You just have some, you know, okay, so you don't have the neat thing going.
No.
There was a good special on PBS about Tourette's.
It was quite interesting.
And, you know, the crazy Tourette's were people who cuss out of the blue.
Wait, is this with the kids?
Are you talking about the kids?
No, it was just a whole show.
It was launched a few years ago.
But it was a good education for anyone who didn't understand what it was.
Because you can see some of these people once in a while.
You say, yeah, that guy's got Tourette's.
You don't think much about it.
Although I did see a guy thrown off of an airplane for having it once.
You witnessed that?
Really?
Yeah, no, the guy was coming.
In fact, I saw it right from the get-go.
He was going nuts, right?
He was a mess.
He was cussing.
It's funny.
You can't help but laugh about it.
Well, it was kind of amusing, but I felt sorry for the guy for being thrown off the plane, because he was obviously harmless.
Yeah.
But he was like, you know, a mess.
And besides the cussing, he was shaking, and he couldn't roll his roller cart, so he had the wheels upside down, and he was dragging along, he was bouncing all over the place.
It was just like, I was wondering if somebody's filming this for some TV show.
And he finally got on the plane, and he couldn't stop cussing, and so they took him off.
Yeah.
Well, don't forget, we do have the no-agenda drinking game.
I mean, I do a little bit of cussing.
But you know what it is?
Very, very, very mild.
But there's sometimes guttural grunting, or there's all kinds of weird little shit.
And for me, it moves around all over the place.
It's not consistent, never has been.
It's in variations, degrees.
It's really weird.
Huh.
And, uh, but there was a, I think it was a, I don't know if it was a PBS special.
There was a special about kids with Tourette and my, uh, my cousin's son, Connor, uh, was like the main, um, uh, the main character, main character.
Yeah.
Of this special.
It's rich.
It's a very, very good.
I'll see if I can find, I'm sure it's on Google.
Maybe that's what I said.
Maybe what I saw, but I think Not.
Because it was pretty...
I thought it was more about adults, actually.
But maybe I've not seen that one.
But once you see that you understand what that is, that...
Well, no one really understands it, John.
There's no actual fucking understanding.
No, I'm saying as a member of the public that doesn't suffer from it, when you see somebody with it, it's not like a big deal.
No.
And it's very identifiable once you are familiarized with it, too.
Yep.
I wouldn't have identified whatever that one tick you have as anything other than just a nervous tick that shows up once in a while.
Yeah, but it moves around.
It can go from my shoulder to my neck or whatever.
I just thought you were uptight.
Yeah, that's unfortunate because I'm pretty fucking laid back, John.
Finally.
Just so you know.
Ah, there we go.
Yes.
Ah, nice one.
All right, so what else we got on the agenda here?
I don't know.
Do you have anything specifically?
I was looking at some stuff that I didn't cover in my Tech 5 report.
There's a bunch of weird stuff going on.
It's not necessarily news-related.
It's just kind of trans.
I noticed the one thing I'm doing on Tech 5 is I'm finding all these laundry lists.
At the end of the year, it's very popular.
The eight things about this, the nine things that took place.
Yeah, I heard it.
The seven things...
Yeah, well, there's a formula, which is what fascinates me, is that the last item always sucks as an item.
It's like they ran out of material and they make something up, without exception.
I was kind of happy I was sick during the old and new year switchover because I couldn't then resort to creating one of my own.
It's not just in newspapers.
Everyone's fucking weblog.
Everyone's doing it.
I'm so, so, so sick of it.
Yeah, I mean, I used to work at a couple of places where they required it.
You know, you're a columnist.
You have to do what's going to happen next year, predictions.
And I remember the one I wrote some years ago.
It was like, you know, the predictions are all, if anybody's any good at predicting, it's because they have inside information.
It's not predicting anything.
Yeah.
Because especially with high tech, it's just impossible.
And the one thing that is being ignored, and I've been harping on this a little bit in some of my columns, is that there's the switch that people are making subtly.
No one's ever said this is a major trend, when I think it's the biggest trend in the industry.
The switch over from desktop computers to laptop computers used as desktop computers.
Yeah.
Almost everybody at Podshow, except me...
Because I have an iMac with two screens and I don't feel like I should be dragging a laptop all over the place.
But everybody except me, and maybe I think Garcia maybe doesn't have a laptop, I'm not sure.
But anyway, everybody uses laptops.
Maybe they hook a big screen to them.
Most of the time they don't even do that.
They just use those crappy little laptop screens.
The crappy little laptop keyboard, I can't take it.
And they're all hunched over these things, and everybody in most businesses now are using laptops instead of desktops because the laptops are more powerful in many cases.
Are you really sure about that?
I mean, when you say most businesses, I mean, are you talking really enterprise-wide?
I'm starting to ask around.
I'm asking around more and more and more, and I'm getting more and more of this.
The pod show offices are just the, you know, one of many places when given the opportunity.
People will take a laptop, yeah.
They choose the laptop.
They take the laptop home.
They have everything they want on the laptop.
They lose the laptop and then they're screwed.
They don't back things up properly.
With the laptop, you really have to be conscientious.
You should have it password protected so if somebody steals it, they can't take all your data.
I mean, you definitely should do it.
Nobody does that.
Nobody backs it up.
It's a disaster waiting to happen for most people.
But what's weird to me is that the trend kind of took, I think, Scott, it's taken everyone by surprise.
I mean, I've been a laptop guy only for years.
I mean, I don't even remember the last time I had a desktop.
To me, that's quite normal.
And all the companies that I've had in the last 10 years, it was, I think, all laptops.
Even from the mid-90s.
Well, the crossover point for sales from laptops to desktops has only been within the last couple of years.
So not everybody was that advanced.
But it's an obvious trend to me.
I guess I'm just going to be the old-fashioned guy because I still have a laptop that I use.
I synchronize it with the desktop.
When I travel, I take the laptop and I use it for mostly email and some surfing and stuff like that.
But I don't...
If I can have a big screen and a big, powerful desktop, like, for example, the machine I'm on now, which runs this, you know, I run a whole amp through it.
I've got, like, two DVD burners, one that's a two-sided, and I have a couple of three-and-a-half-inch drives, and I have a five-and-a-quarter-inch drive on this thing for finding it, because once in a while I find an old disk I need to convert it.
You know, it's a pretty powerful unit.
It's got a lot of USB ports and some other connectivity.
It's fast.
It's got a terabyte in it.
I mean, it just seems to me that I would rather have this than a crappy little laptop that I'm hunched over.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm getting...
I'm just out of...
I don't know.
No, no.
It's cool.
But just on the laptop thing, I really enjoyed your article about the one laptop per child.
I totally agree.
Oh, yeah.
I got a lot of – that's one of those articles.
You got a lot of negativity for it, I'll bet?
You got to – you get the mix, the absolute split-down-the-middle type of response.
I'm an idiot for suggesting it.
These people are trying to do good work, and I'm in their way, which I always find to be bold.
I'm not in anybody's way.
I'm just saying stuff.
And then there's other guys that say, yeah, this is a crock and you're right on the money.
I mean, there's nobody in the middle in any way.
And it's just like you're an idiot or you're a great guy kind of thing.
And I expect that kind of article.
That was good, though.
I enjoyed that.
Here's one thing I promised myself I was going to talk to you about.
Because when I was sick, I was watching, of course, I was laying there in bed watching tons of conspiracy videos.
Not much more to do, right?
Yeah.
You're going to make yourself crazy, by the way, listening to that stuff.
No, I actually believe I've throttled back, because you're right.
You go absolutely bonkers from it.
But I did run across a reference that came back a couple times, and I started to do some research.
Now, because, of course, I plan to do the show tomorrow.
I don't have everything done.
But the origin of the name Al-Qaeda, do you know what that is?
Did you ever get that video I sent you from the BBC? Dude, that's what started me off.
I watched all three of them.
You mean The Power of Nightmares?
Yeah.
Yeah, that was very good.
Thanks for reading my fucking weblog, John.
I even credited you.
Oh, well, I don't read a lot.
I'm a writer.
I write.
I don't read.
So my reading days are over.
I'm a lover, not a fighter.
Anyway.
That's it.
It's exactly the same.
So the origin of the name Al-Qaeda.
Do you know the origin?
Yeah, I do, because I saw those same specials.
But did you do any research into this to verify this information?
Well, so that's what my whole preamble was.
I did find a couple of articles.
Trustworthy.
Left wing.
Well, yeah, left wing.
But the fact...
Let me just read this to you.
Because it's about bin Laden, right?
So bin Laden was through a product of monumental miscalculation by Western...
Throughout the 80s...
Wait, wait, wait.
I think you better preface to the listeners out there what the answer to the question is before you start to document the answer.
Well, the answer to the question is coming up in this next sentence.
Okay, go.
Okay, the answer is, it stands for the database.
That's the answer.
Is it like, it's Arabic for the database?
And the reason why is throughout the 80s, bin Laden was armed by the CIA, funded by the Saudis, to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda, literally the database, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.
So, the name Al-Qaeda originated with the CIA, according to this.
Yeah, well, those documentaries from the BBC claim that even after the early events that took place against American facilities like the embassies and whatever, where the Al-Qaeda name came up, that we're the ones who foisted the name on them.
Exactly.
But it's been marketed very differently from what it is.
And when they first came out and said, it's Al-Qaeda, it basically means, yeah, the list of guys that we gave money to.
Right?
I would have to assume so.
But if you ask anyone, what is Al-Qaeda, they immediately imagine this complex network of terror cells throughout the entire world of sleeper cells that are going to pop up and annihilate us all.
It's been marketed as this group.
I love that every single time they talk about an Al-Qaeda training camp, you see those guys on the monkey bars.
Don't you love that video?
You see some guys with hoods on, on fucking monkey bars, like, okay, yeah, that's really frightening.
But to me, it's just, it's like, wow, I totally believed Al-Qaeda was like, you know, this name of these guys, like, you know, Al-Qaeda is the same as, you mean other, like the IRA, you know what I'm saying?
Like a terrorist group.
But it's not, it was just the fucking name of the database of the Mujahideen that the CIA funded.
That, to me, is a revelation.
But since then, haven't the people involved with bin Laden kind of adopted or in fact co-opted the name and perhaps use it?
Because I think Al Jazeera uses it as a name of an organization now.
I mean, things change.
No, I understand, but that's the beauty of it.
You know, they threw a fucking media virus into the ether and it stuck.
I mean, it makes...
A meme.
A meme, yeah.
But it makes no difference.
I'm just amazed.
To me, it's just another little tick the box there as to how all this shit was orchestrated.
I mean, that's a good job on pumping that one out there.
The people now have this Al-Qaeda meme and they believe that it really is this true terror network.
That's pretty impressive.
Well, you gotta do something to get the people riled up.
Well, I'll do some more research on it.
Yeah, I don't know if anyone's explored it to the nth degree, because I'm sure you could actually find some one person if you really did your homework.
I hate to use that term, because it's not really homework.
But if you actually did enough research, you could probably narrow it down to some one guy, unless, of course, it's buried deep within the confines of Langley.
But...
I would assume that somebody came up with this bright idea, calling it that.
Yeah.
Well, it's all ours.
Sorry?
I'm sorry.
No, go ahead.
No, I was going to say, those documentaries are fantastic.
Now, who's the name of that guy that produces those?
People should look him up, because they have most of them on YouTube.
They're quite good.
Yeah, no, I linked to it.
He's a new one on Fear is good, and there's a couple other ones.
We'll have to track it down.
Adam Curtis, that's his name.
Adam Curtis.
Adam Curtis, right.
He has a new one on Fear, is that what you said?
He's got another one out that's really outstanding.
It's on fear or the politics of fear or something like that.
It's another three or four-parter that goes on forever.
But with him, he does the voiceover.
And he's got this really interesting voice because it's got this cynicism built into it, the tones.
I enjoyed it thoroughly.
The documentaries were well put together, for sure.
I really liked watching them.
And he uses sound effects much the way you and I do, here and there, which is always hilarious, and he uses that boing sound.
You know, there was another documentary I was watching while bedridden, and it was funny because it was about the binge drinking here in the UK. And, you know, this New Year celebration, all-time high, I think the record was, at one point, 500 calls per second were coming into the emergency services about people who, you know, basically alcohol-related problems at that very moment, like dying of poisoning, etc.
But alcohol poisoning.
And it's just, but this documentary was unbelievable.
People of Britain, you're killing yourselves.
It's an epidemic, John.
How much drinking does it entail?
Oh, hold on.
Ow, shit.
What did you do?
I rolled over the headphone wire and then my head, like, got stuck between my knees.
Sorry about that.
Well, you know, so they have this girl.
She's the singer for some, you know, non-important pop group, Liberty X, you know, basically needed a gig.
And they follow her for one of these 30-day deals-like format.
And so they follow her for 30 days while she just binge drinks with everyone else and, you know, Keeps a long pace, and then they basically follow her physical, but also her mental abilities.
And of course, you know what's going to happen and how they decline, etc.
But just looking at...
And of course, it's just one view, and it's edited to show a lot of bad shit.
But I have a 17-year-old daughter, and she tells me everything.
And this is actually happening everywhere, and it's bad.
Well, what happens is...
The Brits, I'm just going to generalize for a second, the consensus that I got from the documentary is that the Brits only really feel comfortable socializing when they're drunk.
But it's okay, it's not like they're not hiding it.
They're not hiding it.
Right, do they have to be quote-unquote drunk?
Yeah, drunk.
Like drunk?
Yeah.
Not like one beer.
No, it has to be like eight beers.
Eight pints?
Eight pints.
Oh, John, you have no idea how much people can put away here.
And I've talked to a lot of Brits about it.
And they say, hey, it's our culture.
And look, it's okay.
And by the way, the majority of the Brits...
You know, hold their liquor with decency.
And with that, I mean, they don't all get rowdy and fight.
They don't all projectile vomit.
They don't all fall down.
Like the Irish, who I've been in many a British pub, and an Irish guy comes up to you and he starts yelling at you.
Exactly.
And in fact, he hasn't called in in a while, but I had Charles, the drunken Londoner, who would call my show, completely fucking hammered.
And he was great.
In fact, he started calling sober, and he wasn't that funny anymore.
Oh, yeah.
Makes sense.
But, you know, so they're happy drunks.
I got no problem with it, but man, you're killing yourselves.
It's unbelievable that it's gotten to a very, very, I think, a critical point.
And meanwhile...
Well, isn't that why they used to close the pubs early and then they changed the law?
Now you can drink all the time?
Now it's 24 hours.
Yeah, but it doesn't really matter.
The increase is not because of that necessarily, I don't think.
But it's a coincidence.
I mean, there's been lots of studies, and some places are turning it back, and I don't think it's mandatory.
You can set a curfew in a municipality, I guess, if you want to.
But it starts early.
Let's drink eight pints, or what I saw in this documentary, 18.
18 pints, no problem.
18?
You'd be peeing all day.
Yeah, well...
Well, you know, there's a lot of cultures, like if you go, and people I don't think, Americans especially don't understand this, because, you know, we don't really like to, I mean, it's a funny gag to say that you drink during the day, but most people don't even drink usually at lunch, and I find it difficult to have even a couple glasses of wine if I have a big lunch, because I get loggy.
I can't, you know, I'm like tired, I gotta take a nap.
I mean, the French can do it because they, you know, they take most of their...
Because they don't have to work, man.
Yeah.
The lazy French fuckers.
But the culture is somewhat different, and you do things differently there.
But anyway, where was I going with this?
I got interrupted by an IM from someone, and now I get the phone ringing.
So I'll let that go.
Actually, can you pause this for one second?
Yes.
Or do you just want me to...
No, I'm paused.
Anyway, sorry.
I was rudely interrupted by someone sending me an IM telling me I made a bunch of money on a stock.
So I lost my train of thought because of that because that never happens.
So anyway, Americans don't know.
We're pretty circumspect about how we drink.
I mean, that doesn't mean that people don't get drunk.
And it is probably more of a problem if you wait until like 9 o'clock and then just start pounding drinks, which I think people do.
But like in Europe, like in Denmark, for example, the first time I went to Denmark, which was over a decade ago, I should go into the airport because I had to get an early flight out.
And I'm at the airport at 8, 8.30, and everybody's drinking Carlsberg.
You know, they all have their beers for breakfast.
And I'm thinking, well, that's kind of interesting.
Oh, the Dutch prince, when he was still alive, every morning he would have a Heineken beer.
Yeah, in the morning.
Yeah, in the morning.
For breakfast.
Well, you know, it's a thought.
Yeah, I think I'll try that.
It's a lifestyle choice.
Anyway, you know, from a social perspective, this country also happens to have an enormously high divorce rate.
There's tons of kids that shuttle back and forth between moms and dads and cousins and uncles.
I mean, it's an island, right?
It is a fucking island.
Yeah.
And sexual health is also not too fantastic here, because people are so fucking drunk, you know, they don't wear protection.
Teenage pregnancy is outrageously high.
I mean, it's, uh...
The thing that people have to realize when we talk about somebody drinking 8 pints, which are these big giant beer glasses, or 18, is that the beer, which is actually ale in England mostly, is very high in alcohol often.
It's not the 3.2 crap that we get in the United States.
It's more like 6, sometimes 7%.
Oh yeah, it's real good.
It's at least 5.5.
So 18 pints is like 8.5 liters?
Yeah, that would be a lot of alcohol.
I think that would be like drinking a whole bottle of vodka, maybe something like that.
I'm not sure.
But that's what people do, John.
I'm not kidding you.
Huh.
Yeah.
Yeah, so you learned something new.
Yeah, well, I've gone pub crawling when I go to London with you.
I have friends there, and I will float around.
But generally speaking, especially an after-work pub crawl, consists of, you know, you actually have two pints.
You have one at one pub, then you go visit another, and then you find another pub you want to stay at, and then you have another pint.
Yeah.
And that's it.
Because if you have a third pint, I always, you know, lecture people up to say, you want to float around and have three pints of beer, It will affect your sense of balance and other things.
You think?
You know, pretty fast.
I mean, you can do two, and you don't just guzzle them.
You do a couple.
I mean, you can drink one fast if you're thirsty, but generally speaking, I mean, you could stay out all night, I guess, but eight?
I don't even know how you can manage it.
I mean, I would be throwing up, and I know how to drink.
Well, we're all going to be safe, John.
This just came in.
Oh, I'm so happy about this.
Tens of thousands of airline passenger jets will soon be flying with anti-missile systems.
What does that mean?
Courtesy of the TSA. What is that supposed to mean?
Well, it's exactly what it means.
Here, three American airlines have already been outfitted.
They fly daily routes between New York and California.
Anti-missile jamming laser jammers.
Oh, God.
That's not encouraging.
No.
Let me see what it is.
Oh, of course, because we want to jam shoulder-fired missiles.
Can you believe this shit?
Who manufactured those shoulder-fired missiles in the first place?
Well, I'm sure some fine American company manufactured them.
Here it is.
Although there has not been an attempt to take down a jet on U.S. soil with a shoulder-fired missile, Homeland Security has...
Well, you know, a lot of people are still suspicious of that TWA flight.
Which one?
The one that blew up after takeoff.
Oh, in New York?
It became a big conspiracy theorist.
I think that was...
I've seen the accident data on that.
I think that was a very unfortunate rudder problem that was later corrected.
I thought it was a fuel tank exploded.
That's what they claimed.
It's like the fuel tanks blew up.
You mean the one that landed like in Brooklyn?
No, it was the one that blew up in the middle of the air.
It was TWA flight, whatever it is, seven-something or other, 700 maybe.
Oh, that one.
Oh, no.
I thought they already said that that was like a tape recorder that had...
No, that was Pan Am 103.
Fuck, I don't know, man.
No, it was the...
Oh, it was off the coast...
Right, right.
Off the coast of Maine?
Yeah, and then somebody, you know, there was eyewitnesses that said that they saw a missile, you know, but then these guys were shut up by the government.
Nobody wanted to say anything after that.
All right.
Well, whoever's making the...
This is the one where Pierre Salinger came out, you know, the ex-president guy, you know, presidential spokesperson for Kennedy, comes out and he says it was a great government conspiracy because he got sucked by one of these conspiracy websites and humiliated himself.
Oh, boy.
Anyway.
So it'll only cost $1 million per plane to have this installed.
Oh, gee, I should get into the missile jamming business.
Good business.
Shit, yeah.
Unbelievable.
So is this thing going to just be shooting laser rays down at the public?
I don't understand how it turns on.
Well, I think there's two ways that you can...
I guess these shoulder missiles, so either they're heat-seeking, which then you use what's called chaff, Which is basically like throwing aluminum foil into the air, and that distracts the missile, thinking it needs to go hit that.
Wait, that's chaff?
Chaff is for the...
It's hot chaff, yeah.
Yeah, hot flares usually.
Yeah.
You have flares and chaff, and then they're going to jam the radar.
I'm like, what the fuck happens after the...
So the jet jams the radar, then that thing comes back down to Earth, though, doesn't it?
There's nobody shooting missiles at these planes yet.
Of course not!
But what a fantastic...
Well, of course, this is off of AOL News.
So it's the top of their news today.
Huh.
Well, now we know we don't cover the news.
Yeah, you're right.
So what else is going on?
I think that's it.
Yeah.
We could talk about the caucus, but I don't really understand that too well.
The caucuses, who cares?
This is just a good thing that these people...
It means nothing.
I don't quite understand it either.
Well, the caucus is a different system for picking representatives.
The way the system works, we pick a bunch of representatives, they go to the convention, and they pick the guy who's going to run for the office.
And the way they do in Iowa is they use this caucusing system, which is a little different than voting because you can keep changing your vote.
If the guy doesn't get a majority and you voted for a guy who only got 15%, you can change your vote to somebody else in the next round until they finally decide on who they're going to pick.
And it's a complicated process that's not the way it used to be with the smoke-filled rooms.
And I'm of the opinion, and I say this often, is that I think we had better politicians running the country when we were doing it via the smoke-filled rooms.
And people knew what they were doing rather than the public who were suckered by idiots.
By Huckabee playing bass on Leno.
Right, and things like that.
And, you know, Britney Spears would be the president, you know, if given a shot.
And the olden days, with the smoke-filled rooms, cigar smoke-filled, by the way, I thought gave us some better people, although, you know, there's a bunch of boneheads all throughout history.
So how many states have a caucus, then?
Four?
I think there's only a couple.
Four or five?
Four?
I don't know.
Maybe.
I don't think there's that many.
Is that just some really old school thing that just kind of stuck?
It's an old way.
Right.
Right.
And Iowa's the only one I know of.
But did all the original states, did they all caucus back in the day?
Or was...
You know, I should know.
I don't know, but I'm guessing they probably did smoke-filled rooms mostly.
They may have called it caucusing because the way a caucus back in the day...
There's that storm again.
I'm just going to blow the screen out of here.
Back in the day, the caucuses were closed.
These are open.
Oh, okay.
Well, Ron Paul certainly sucked.
I don't think he's going to make it.
I don't understand how that happens.
He's not a chosen boy.
The whole thing is rigged.
That's the way I see it.
Well, if it was truly rigged, then according to your theory, McCain would have...
Oh, I talked to Patricia about McCain.
No, McCain has to stay in third because he's the horse running back in the pack, so the negative media attention is not going to be focused on him.
And by the time all these other guys are beaten to death by the system...
No, but that's when Ron Paul is going to sneak ahead.
You watch.
That's when it's going to happen.
He's already beaten to death.
I don't know.
I mean, I have to remain positive, first of all.
You say it's rigged, but how so rigged?
It's rigged.
There's these guys that have already chosen who's going to be running, and they just make it happen.
I don't know how they do it.
If I was part of that system, I wouldn't be talking to you.
Thanks, fucker.
You'd be out there rigging more systems.
Exactly.
Yeah, making your life miserable.
I'd be saying, who's this Curry guy?
Let's put him on a watch list.
Yeah, let's fuck with him for a while.
Yeah.
All right, but then it's got to be rigged on the Democratic side as well.
Oh, absolutely.
Okay, so interesting, though.
I'm going to tell you again how I think that's going to play out.
It's going to be Hillary, but she's going to have to concede to Obama so he becomes the vice presidential candidate.
Those are going to be the two.
I can't see it going the other way around because she's not going to be vice president.
She won't put up with that.
But I think it's got to be her as president and him as vice president, which they can argue, you can rationalize that as an unbeatable ticket because you get all the women and all the blacks to vote for this party, you know, for these two people, and you will win, you know, statistically, except for the fact you're not going to get all the blacks to vote for this guy, and you're not going to get all the women to vote for her by any means.
And so the fact is it's going to be actually an unelectable ticket because there's going to be so much negative energy that is focused on that.
That whoever the Republican is will win easily.
It's almost like a Hollywood script, what you just said.
By the way, that description of what's going to happen, you should save a copy in one of those folders of yours.
And so after the election, we can play this old no agenda, and you can hear this again, you know, a year later, about how unbelievably accurate I am about this stuff.
Right, but of course, so the Democrats won't win.
It'll be McCain.
Who's going to win because he will win the Republican ticket.
And who's his VP going to be?
Well, I was initially thinking Giuliani, and I'm going to kind of stick with that for a while.
But whoever the Republican that runs is is going to win.
That's for sure.
And I'm going to stay right now with the prediction it's going to be McCain at the top of the ticket.
And he'll win.
No matter who the Democrats run, they've got nobody.
I mean, who are they going to run?
John Edwards, that guy?
I was listening to him after the thing.
The guy sounds coked up.
You know how some people kind of talk like this?
Well, he's talking like this now.
Like, he can't breathe through his nose.
Well, maybe he has the norovirus.
Come on, man.
Give the guy a break.
I don't think so.
That'd be the projectile vomiting.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
Well, I shall certainly save this in one of my folders.
One of my shared folders.
And we'll see.
Okay.
Well, I still have hope.
Yeah.
I guess that's all I can have.
Yeah, that's all you can have.
And I can continue to support Ron Paul.
I think as long as people are getting the message, that'll work.
Because, God forbid, if that scenario really does play out, it's going to be a very confused country.
Well, it doesn't make any difference.
There's more to the story that I'll discuss in future episodes of this fine show.
Oh, boy.
Well, I can't wait.
And on that note, Mr.
Dworak, thank you very much for joining me.
It's a pleasure.
Coming to you from the Curry Manor in the United Kingdom, I'm Adam Curry.