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June 14, 2008 - No Agenda

01:31:02

35: Obama and Olbermann

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	You know, it's really hard to believe that it's already the 14th of June, 2008, and, well, we've been doing this for about 35 times so far.
	It is No Agenda, coming to you from the Curry Manor in the United Kingdom.
	I'm Adam Curry.
	And here in the United States of America, Northern California, I'm John C. Dvorak.
	Hey, Johnny Boy, how you doing?
	It's foggy today.
	Really?
	Oh, it's been nice here.
	We've had a pretty good week.
	Well, it's been nice and hot here all week, but we're getting our classic California summer weather where it's cold and foggy in the morning.
	And then it might break up and then it gets nice and warm in the afternoon.
	Of course, this is kind of weird.
	Hold on.
	Something really weird is going on here, John.
	Hold on.
	Oh, wow.
	That's weird.
	What?
	Well, all of a sudden my microphone started to...
	The fader just went down automatically.
	Okay, seems to be fixed.
	No worries.
	We're good.
	Yeah, is this one of those?
	Yeah.
	Was this one of those Mark Twain...
	What is it?
	The Coldest Winter with Summer in San Francisco?
	Is that what he was famous for?
	Yeah.
	Or July, I think.
	Or July, I think he may have said.
	Because actually July is when it really is.
	It doesn't warm up.
	It's just...
	July, people come out to California.
	It's actually funny.
	It's like a local joke.
	I mean, because people will come out from all over the world to San Francisco in, like, July 10th, which you would think would be, like, one of the worst...
	Yeah, it would be nice and warm, right?
	Imagine it would be hot days.
	Yeah.
	Right, and it'll be fogged in and freezing, and the fog never goes away, and it can be just chilly.
	And even the locals actually...
	It's kind of amusing because every year you kind of say, well, you know, you always think about it, then when it rolls around you remember it.
	But even the locals sometimes are caught off guard and you float around without, you know, the sweaters that you need to be wearing in July.
	And I've warned people.
	I said, you're going to come out?
	I mean, it's not always that way, but it's most often that way.
	And I always warn people to come into the San Francisco Bay Area in the middle of summer that they're, you know, going to be in first shock.
	That said, you can always go up to the Napa Valley.
	It's nice and warm up there.
	And, you know, that said, over here in the United Kingdom, which of course has a reputation for being horribly damp and chilly and cold and foggy and windy, in the summertime, you know, I've been here now, this is the third, one, two, three, this will be our fourth summer, I think.
	And it's just, you know, yeah, you get clouds and rain, it's seasonal, but it's really quite nice.
	And the women in London, man, when it gets above like 71 degrees, hoo boy, they start dressing like it's a thousand degrees.
	They're not used to the hot weather, so they have to take their clothes off.
	I think it's different.
	It's not that they're not used to it.
	I think it's a cultural thing where they're basically saying to the outside world, we have great weather here.
	Look, see?
	See how we're dressed for the heat?
	Maybe.
	I think they just like to take their clothes off.
	Man, we got a shitty connection today.
	You were great when you started off, and now you're coming through like...
	Well, you know what happened?
	The connection kind of fell apart when you had that microphone anomaly.
	Really?
	Hmm.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's coming in and out.
	I mean, you're legible, no problem.
	I read you four instead of five.
	Yeah, well, you're very...
	Ever since that microphone anomaly, you have been flaky.
	John, I don't think that was since the microphone anomaly.
	I think that's been that way for the past 25 years, perhaps.
	You use that joke every time.
	Do I really?
	I need some new material.
	I gotta call John Stewart.
	Have him write some new shit for me.
	I'm telling you, you've used that at least three times on this show.
	Well, when you get to be 43, you're allowed to make age jokes over and over again.
	I'm noticing that, you know?
	So, what's on the agenda, or what's on the no agenda, and what's going on?
	I mean, the only news that I've seen that's kind of interesting is that Ireland, I guess, voted no to the EU, and that showed up on our blog.
	Yeah, well, that's something I've been tracking on Daily Source Code for the past couple of weeks.
	Didn't we talk about this last week?
	we did we did touch on it we talked about yeah we did we talked about howireland can save the world by you know uh rejecting rejecting the eu so here so i'll recap them because i'm i'm really deep into this and it's really it's very interesting because we're watching the formation of of a huge entity with 500 million people known as europe um and each of the 27 member countries are actually known as
	So in a way, it's kind of like the United States, but in many ways not.
	So essentially the background of this, in 2005, the European Parliament, which sits in Brussels, actually alternates between Brussels and Strasbourg.
	I think every other month or something they change locations, some kind of dumb political thing.
	They put together a constitution, and they called it the Constitution, and it was filled with a lot of language, very lawyer-esque type language, very hard to understand, not as simple as, for example, the Constitution of the United States, which anyone can kind of read that and understand.
	It's open to interpretation, obviously, and it's always under attack for interpretation, but it's reasonably easy to understand.
	And so this went to all the states in 2005, and they had to vote.
	And I think every country held a referendum, which is a public vote.
	You know, yay or nay, we're for this or against this.
	And two countries in particular who were pretty disappointed with their governments at the time France and the Netherlands voted it down by a rather large margin.
	And so then every member state has to ratify this constitution or any document of this scope in order for it to go into effect.
	So that basically fell apart because of the Dutch and the French voting it down.
	So what appears to be kind of like a railroading move in the past couple of years, they came up with a new treaty called the Lisbon Treaty.
	And it's really nothing other than a document with a whole bunch of references to the original constitutional document.
	Again, it's a legal document.
	Change this word for that word.
	Change the word constitution to Lisbon Treaty.
	And the main reason for that is if it's not a constitution, you don't necessarily have to call a referendum for it.
	The big criticism of Brussels for the past couple of years, as this Lisbon Treaty has been coming to fruition, was supposed to start January 1, 2009, was that most of the member states just kind of like passed it through their governments really fast, no referendum, except for one country, which was Ireland.
	And they, for whatever reason, they differed from the other states.
	They said, you know, we're going to hold a referendum anyway.
	And I think the same thing basically happened with the addition of the fact that, you know, first of all, people can't read it.
	I've read it.
	It's very complicated.
	I certainly don't understand all of it.
	I've asked ministers of European Parliament for explanation on some points.
	I've gotten some satisfactory response, but again, I'm like, where can I read what you're saying in this document?
	And there's all kinds of protocols and directives.
	It's a huge mess.
	They didn't communicate it to the public.
	A lot of these countries are up in arms, saying, hey, what the hell happened here?
	You guys ratified something, and we don't understand what's going on.
	And I think that had a lot to do with the Irish, who by a margin of, I think it was 55% to 45% or something like that, they basically turned it down.
	And this is, yeah, this is a big deal because now it's all fallen apart.
	And the main things, as far as I can tell, the main drivers that Brussels was really going for is, one, a possible common taxation across all of Europe, and two...
	Oh, actually three things.
	Common taxation, common immigration policy, and probably the most important one, a common army, a European army, which, if necessary, would also go outside of Europe to act in whatever theater they might be called to.
	And understandably, people aren't just going to say yes to that.
	No one got the choice except for Ireland, and there you go.
	They said no.
	So...
	This thing is basically kaput.
	It's hilarious.
	Well, it's frightening because now we have to see what happens.
	Both Sarkozy, president of France, and Angela Merkel, who was prime minister of Germany, Have said, well, it's not really kaput.
	You know, it certainly won't be implemented by January 1st, 2009, but they've got to go back because it's all these legal things.
	It's all these guys live for in Brussels is, you know, is to get this document set up to be able to execute on whatever their plan's on, which, of course, the public has no freaking idea, no clue as to what it actually is.
	It sounds like some sort of fascist takeover of the entire European continent.
	Thank you.
	Well, this, of course, you know me, Mr.
	Conspiracy Theory.
	That's exactly what it is.
	Of course it's a fascist takeover.
	The Common Army would have me concerned if I was French.
	Why particularly French?
	Well, I mean, because the Common Army is going to be run by the Germans.
	Let's face reality.
	Hmm.
	Good point.
	Well, a lot of it's going to be run by...
	In fact, that is another part of the treaty I forgot to mention.
	And I don't have all the exact numbers in front of me, but the way it's set up, if something goes to vote in the European Parliament, which of course most laws will now have to go to Europe instead of to your individual countries, you have to have a majority, but not just a majority of...
	Member states, I think you have to have at least 15 states that will agree with you, but you also have to have a majority of people.
	So basically, if France and Germany, if they decide anything they want, together they have enough people to pass a vote, and then all they have to do essentially is just call up these little member states, which are completely reliant on them anyway, and just say, okay, we need 13 more of you guys to say yes.
	Which basically means that if 15 smaller states got together and said, hey, which is a majority in number of states, they still wouldn't be able to pass anything because they don't have enough people in these little mini states.
	So, to me, it's kind of a clusterfuck.
	It sounds terrible.
	I mean, I can't see how anything can get done, so I think the only solution is to pass broad-reaching laws that have sketchy powers attached to them, so you end up with a fascist state.
	Exactly.
	That's the only way it's going to work.
	Yeah, well, if you go back and look at history, I think you could see a lot of parallels in this.
	Well, yeah.
	Well, nothing quite this ambitious.
	This is probably the most interesting...
	I mean, they've always been trying to unite Europe.
	I mean, ever since you go back to...
	I guess you could go back to Charlemagne.
	But meanwhile, you have the Napoleonic Wars.
	In some ways, you're trying to unite Europe.
	And then you have the fascism.
	It was a movement that tried to unite Europe.
	Of course, it never got very far because it had to be done by force.
	And I think this is the...
	I'm not absolutely sure.
	Some European historian may want to chime in on this.
	But I don't know of any kind of bloodless coup...
	Attempt that has been made on this sort of a scale, which is essentially what we're looking at here, which is the takeover of all of Europe by a single entity, you know, out of Belgium of all places.
	Even though it may be, the puppet masters may be elsewhere.
	And I think they're, you know, combined...
	Well, I mean, John, obviously, where did this all start?
	This started after the Second World War.
	It started with the United Nations.
	And, of course, the United Nations famously started with an $8 million donation from the Rockefellers, I believe.
	You know, that combined with NATO and a couple other organizations like this, essentially, once they got the euro in, the common currency, which officially took hold in 2000, and I think it went into effect everywhere, either 2001 or 2002, That also meant they could combine all the central banks.
	So we have, you know, a European central bank, which maintains, you know, what central banks do.
	Except now, not just, you know, now it's all over 500 million people who are using this, or almost all of them are using the same currency.
	It's still kind of interesting how countries like the United Kingdom get away with not, you know, not converting to the euro.
	And I think, it's one other country, isn't it?
	Sweden, I think?
	I think Sweden has their own, yeah.
	Yeah, they have the Kroner or whatever.
	Right.
	Even though they have a little, even though the new British money and the new Swedish money, they have to, you know, I went there a few years ago when they made this transition, and I had some pound notes, but the pound notes that are only acceptable now, generally speaking, have to have a little EU stamp someplace on the note.
	Yeah, well, yeah, everyone changes their money one way or the other.
	And if you have, so it's a pound note, but it's got this little EU thing, so if you have the old pounds, because I always have a drawer full of, you know, alien money because I travel, so I grab it, put it in the thing, and so I have some money to buy a cab without having to change money when I show up someplace.
	So I show up, and I drop down some pound notes that look just exactly the same.
	No, no, no, you can't use these.
	Your money's no good here, Mr.
	Dvorak.
	But, like, it's really no good here.
	It's like, no good.
	I said, what am I supposed to do with this?
	And they said, well, you can go to certain banks and they'll swap it out.
	And so I went to the bank, swapped it out, and I got exactly the same money back except for this little bitty bug on there, a little bitty thing that says EU. So I did learn a couple things.
	I spoke to a Dutch minister of European Parliament, and he said, you know what, we have no plan B. He's going to be in Strasbourg starting Monday.
	They're all getting together and trying to figure out what they're going to do.
	They have no plan B? They expected everybody just to roll over?
	Yep.
	Well, everyone did roll over.
	I mean, if you look at...
	There's some great video online.
	I put one on curry.com.
	You have to go back a week or two.
	Like a week and a half ago.
	It's one of the British members of European Parliament.
	Stands up and has this whole rant.
	And he literally says, you know, you guys are horrible.
	Basically, without saying it, he said this is almost like a fascist state.
	You know, you're all railroading this thing through without referendum.
	In each individual country.
	You're doing it because you're afraid that people will actually vote it down again.
	You're doing all this backroom politics.
	They had no plan B. Every single member of the parliament and the commission all said that.
	They expected it to go through.
	And only Ireland.
	They thought, you know, fuck it, Ireland.
	No problem.
	But there were ministers of foreign affairs from almost every single country in Europe who were campaigning in Ireland, either for or against.
	I think a lot of them were against, or certainly if they were opposition parties.
	It was really, really intense.
	It's a big deal.
	It is still a big deal.
	I haven't picked up my weekend copy of the Financial Times.
	But I think this is going to be messed up for a while.
	Of course, it happens at exactly the same moment we're in the middle of the largest media event Europe can even imagine, which, of course, you know is...
	What?
	European Football Championships.
	Oh.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I can't imagine anything bigger than that.
	There is nothing bigger in Europe than the European football championships.
	There really isn't.
	And, you know, no coincidence there, I'm sure, that all this is going down at the same time.
	Well, I don't know.
	You don't think there's a connection?
	I'm not getting that one.
	Of course there's a connection.
	The media is dominated by sport.
	Look, no one wants anyone to understand this document.
	Otherwise, they would have made it understandable.
	So you've got to be suspicious at least.
	People aren't stupid anymore.
	This is what these guys forget.
	They make all this shit available on their website.
	You know what?
	People actually take the time, they download it, and they look at it and say, what the hell is this shit?
	I don't get it.
	You know, so they're thinking and acting old-fashioned.
	You know, people are just not stupid anymore.
	No, they are!
	They're old-fashioned, those people.
	And a lot of them are younger than I am, believe it or not, but they're still acting really old-fashioned.
	Like, well, we can ramrod this through.
	Anyway, here's kind of a fun story on the side.
	So yesterday, I was set to fly back from Rotterdam.
	I paid a quick visit.
	And I was going to fly.
	And usually I go to Hilversum, some other small field.
	But for a number of reasons, I decided to go to the rather bigger airport, Rotterdam.
	And they have a jet center, which of course, what it sounds like, it's meant for jets.
	It's for private jets.
	So here I come in my little, you know, Cessna 182, right?
	And I park it in the jet parking.
	I like it because, you know, they roll out a red carpet.
	They carry my bags.
	You know, they take care of the airplane.
	So it's fine.
	So I'm going to leave.
	And, you know, The Hague, of course, where the government in the Netherlands sits, is right next to Rotterdam.
	And so I roll up.
	A friend of mine dropped me off in, like, his Volkswagen bus.
	Like a VW bus.
	And I already saw, like, a couple of official-looking cars outside.
	And so I walk in, and I'm like, oh, I see there's the Royal Jet.
	It's on the tarmac.
	John literally nose-to-nose with my plane, right?
	Which, of course, was just funny by itself.
	And this is a...
	Where's your camera?
	Where's your camera?
	I'm such a dick.
	Well, let me tell you, I didn't even think about that, because here's what happened.
	So I walk in, I see like, it's like 50 suits, right?
	And there's a couple of waiting rooms in this place, and they're all filled up.
	And all these guys have orange ties on.
	I'm like, oh, of course.
	They're going to go watch the Netherlands play France in Switzerland tonight.
	And I knew that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frans Timmermans, Because I spoke to him on the Dutch radio earlier in the week.
	I knew that he was going, right?
	So I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool.
	He must be here.
	And I'd never met the guy.
	So I ask around.
	I'm like...
	So I'm one of these suit guys.
	I'm like, hey, is Mr.
	Timmermans here?
	You know, the Minister of Foreign Affairs?
	And the guy's immediately like...
	Uh, why?
	Why do you want to know?
	I said, well, you know, I met him on the phone the other day and I just wanted to shake his hand.
	Do you have an appointment with him?
	I said, no, dude, I'm here.
	I'm going to go fly on my own freaking plane.
	I'm leaving.
	I just wanted to say hi.
	Is he around?
	So while this dialogue is going on, this shithead is like staring me down, this woman walks by and says, oh, Mr.
	Curry, yes, hi, I'm Bonnie.
	You know, your producer spoke to me.
	Oh, please come on through.
	I want you to meet Mr.
	Timmermunt.
	So I walk in.
	And into the waiting room.
	You should have given the raspberries to that creep.
	Well, no, wait.
	The raspberries gets even better because he followed behind me.
	And what he saw made him total shitless.
	So I walk in.
	I walk straight to the guy.
	And there's like ten guys in this waiting room.
	I say, hey, Franz, because we're on a first-name basis.
	Franz, how are you doing?
	So he's like, oh, yeah, it's good to meet you.
	And I'd love to talk again.
	Oh, let me introduce you to this guy over here.
	And I turn to the right.
	He's the prime minister, Balkananda.
	And I'm like, oh, hey, nice to meet you.
	And the Prime Minister goes, oh, yes.
	He's kind of a dorky Harry Potter-looking guy.
	If you see him, you just laugh.
	And he says, oh, yes, well, I know you, of course.
	You're famous from radio and television.
	And I said, you know, you're famous from radio and television, too.
	He says, oh, we're kind of like colleagues.
	And I said, well...
	Don't I just wish we were colleagues?
	So it was like this really weird encounter.
	And we stood there and we talked for like 10 minutes about football.
	Meanwhile, the referendum was taking place at that very moment.
	The results came out no more than like an hour after that because I was listening in the plane to the BBC World Service.
	And these guys couldn't give a shit.
	They were jetting off to Switzerland to go watch the game.
	By the way, Holland killed France 4-1.
	What an awesome game that was.
	Holland has a real chance this year in the championship.
	You know, this is funny.
	Ed Campbell predicted that you'd say something about this stupid football game on the show here today and told me to mention that I guess, I don't know whether this is true or not, but I guess the coach of the Dutch team looks like a serial killer.
	The coach of the Dutch team, who was Marco from Boston, was one of the best players Holland ever knew.
	He does not look like a serial killer at all.
	That would be the French coach who looks like a serial killer.
	Okay, well maybe they have it mixed up.
	He has the wacky, curly, freaked out hair.
	Oh no, no, no.
	It was the French guy, if anyone's referring to serial killers.
	Of course I've got to mention it.
	I'm really proud.
	And by the way, all of Britain's behind the Netherlands because half the team plays for UK football teams anyway.
	Yeah, everybody plays for UK football teams or Brazil.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So anyway, it's a mess, man.
	It really is.
	Well, I congratulate the Irish.
	Me too.
	I think it's fantastic.
	You know, this is all headed in one direction the way I see it, because they're going to keep trying to ramrod this EU down everybody's throat.
	I mean, I think a trade agreement between the countries works out, but to have a single government so you have the Germans telling the French how to make cheese really seems to be a problem.
	I don't think it's exactly that.
	I think the biggest problem is none of the people who are making the laws in Brussels have been elected.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, that's bad.
	That's like a real problem, and people don't want that.
	And, you know, it's worrisome.
	You don't think about these things often, you know, but then you realize, you know, shit, wait a minute.
	You know, this really is going to impact my life one way or the other.
	For example, July 1st, all of Europe, all member states are adding three, I think it's 3% or 3 cents, but like three, let's just say 3% additional tax to diesel to combat CO2 emissions.
	And at this moment in time, the last thing anyone needs is any rise in the cost of diesel.
	And so none of the individual states can really do anything about it.
	So everyone just kind of has to implement it.
	You know, that's a perfect example of, fuck no.
	You know, we need to be able to change.
	And not every state has the same prices, by the way.
	Because there's different...
	Different pricing and different taxing structures.
	It's very confusing.
	And all people see is money flying out of their pocket.
	That's all they know.
	Yeah, well, that's a bad thing.
	But anyway, this thing all looks to me, looking at it from a long-term kind of perspective, especially if you even have a clue about the history of Europe, and then if you think about the way the United States' history went, it looks to me as though at some point, if this thing actually started to come together, One of the states would start to resist.
	I mean, the smart money already resisted completely.
	Norway and Switzerland never joined this operation.
	As far as they're concerned, it's something they don't need.
	But these other guys who kind of agreed to it, at some point, if they start to resist, there's going to be what amounts to a civil war, especially if you have an army that is an EU army, which will be a German army.
	Seems to me.
	And you get some little country like Portugal or Spain deciding that they don't like what's going on.
	They're going to just march in there and take them over.
	It's just going to be a mess.
	Well, I think what's kind of weird about it is that the citizens of Europe get along fine.
	We trade with each other.
	We visit each other's countries.
	We do business together.
	We have cheap airlines so we can visit each other.
	We're on the Internet.
	We're talking to each other.
	We're emailing.
	We're cyber-sexing.
	Yet somewhere in Brussels, all these people are doing all kinds of other shit.
	And as you say, now all of a sudden an army is going to march into a country?
	You know, it feels so wrong.
	Well, it is wrong.
	And I'm against it.
	But, you know, I'm just over here carping.
	Yeah, it's like the States is all fine and dandy, politically speaking.
	Yeah, well, we have our own armies marching around.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It's not as if.
	But, I mean, who needs another situation?
	I mean, the thing about...
	I don't know.
	It's just I've never been...
	I've never subscribed to the EU ever actually working out from the first time I've heard about it to today.
	I'm a skeptic about it.
	And every time one of these situations falls apart, like this with this Irish deal, I'm just going, there you go, you know?
	I mean, it's just like, it's not working.
	There's too many languages over there.
	And things we have to, I don't know, I don't want to get into it because I'm not that knowledgeable.
	What else do we have to talk about?
	Um...
	Yeah, shit, I don't know.
	It's no agenda, man.
	I'm not planning stuff.
	Well, you know, somebody's wanted me to talk about that.
	We have a commentator over here who's become quite popular.
	In fact, there was an NPR special about him the other day.
	I was just in northern Michigan giving a speech to a newspaper group telling them, you know, that...
	I don't know how it went over, but I'm going to turn this speech into a monograph because it pretty much outlines, I think, what's wrong with...
	The assumptions made by newspapers when they think they're going to be able to go online.
	And it's, anyway, so, but I'm floating around this part of Michigan, which I've never been to before, and it's absolutely beautiful.
	And, you know, there's northwestern Michigan along the Long Lake Michigan up into the Upper Peninsula, which is called the UP up there.
	They never say Upper Peninsula for some reason.
	But anyway, so I'm listening to this special on NPR about this guy who does MSNBC, Olbermann.
	Oh, Keith Olbermann?
	Sure.
	Oh, okay, yeah.
	We were going to talk about this, right?
	I remember.
	Yeah, Keith Olbermann.
	And somebody says, it was a British listener to the show, said, you know, what is the deal with this guy?
	Uh...
	Because he seems to be, you know, he's getting attention overseas.
	I'm not sure what the international implications are, but he wanted a little background.
	Keith Olbermann started off years and years ago as a commentator on ESPN. And he's the one, along with a couple of other guys, I don't know if he invented it, but ESPN in its early days was still trying to figure out where it was headed as a broadcasting entity.
	And he is one of the people who became the wisecrack-oriented sports guy, where you'd be given sports highlights and then you'd have snide comments to make constantly about whatever you were witnessing.
	I didn't know that before about his background.
	That's interesting.
	I didn't know that he came from ESPN. Yeah, he came.
	His roots as a TV guy, in terms of his popularity, I'm sure he did other TVs someplace locally or whatever, because he had to.
	But it was at ESPN. The way the story goes, and a lot of this is folklore, of course.
	But this is a fact.
	He was extremely popular, and he wanted more money.
	And Disney basically just fired him.
	And it got a bunch of people mad.
	In fact, my stepson Eric is still mad at Disney for firing Keith Olbermann like 15 years ago.
	I guess he was a real fan of his.
	Anyway, so Olbermann then kicked around for a while and he never really found himself.
	And then he showed up at MSNBC doing this kind of political show instead of sports.
	He gave up on sports, but his style is exactly the same.
	It was like just snide remarks in his own distinctive way, because I do snide remarks, but I don't do them his style.
	He has a unique style.
	And he had a show, and the show's been on for a number of years, and he had got zero traction whatsoever.
	Then he decided to start focusing on bush bashing.
	And so he became a number one bush basher, and this is what, and all of a sudden during the election, this last election, primary elections...
	His show on MSNBC, or him doing commentation or commentating on MSNBC, became the number one thing.
	And they actually took over the whole scene from Fox.
	They beat Fox.
	They beat CNN. They did all...
	all they just and it was all because olbermann was bush bashing during the whole uh primary season season and people were loving it honestly i've i've watched a couple of his videos uh because i you know i don't uh i don't get to see it live on on msnbc but there's a lot of youtube videos and probably once every two weeks someone will send me a link to a keith olbermann uh statement it usually starts out with mr bernard Bush, you're a liar.
	You have consistently lied to this country.
	He's not just this short of calling Bush a war criminal, which he might have even said somewhere along the line.
	And I must admit that just about every single rant he's done, I have enjoyed thoroughly.
	Yeah, of course.
	I mean, it's just fun to watch.
	But, you know, the thing is, it's very partisan and pretty focused on Bush and the Republicans to a lesser extent.
	I mean, he did a John McCain thing recently that one of my bloggers put up.
	You can see him on the Vork.org slash blog.
	And, you know, I looked at him, and he's essentially doing what Jon Stewart does, only with a little more mean-spirited version of Jon Stewart, where you take some guy who says, yeah, no, I think that we should close this bridge, and then you find 45 examples of him I think that we should close this bridge, and then you find 45 examples of him saying right.
	You know, clips from the archives.
	So what this listener sent in, I remember now, he said, this is a thing that is now, another one of those links that I get sent a thousand times.
	Please don't stop sending him.
	I appreciate it.
	And it was John McCain on the Today Show with Matt Lauer.
	And I think it was actually taken out of context now that I look at the video.
	But the essence was pulling the troops out of Iraq and John McCain's quote was, that's not important.
	What's important is no casualties.
	And so that's what this entire rant, Obermann rant, was built around.
	Did I... Yeah, yeah, no, because he used the term, that's not important.
	And the thing that McCain's doing is, he is parsing a little too much for my taste, but if you start really listening to him, he's almost saying that...
	I mean, I'm still of this opinion.
	I think McCain's the only one with the standing who could actually just take office and then the next day say, we're pulling all the troops out.
	I looked this over, I don't like what I'm seeing.
	They've already won, you know, we've already won over there.
	We're removing the troops or we're keeping a small army in the green zone or something like that.
	I mean, he could do that.
	The green zone, which by the way is big enough for 50 bases or some shit like that.
	The green zone is the size of Texas.
	It's huge.
	And it's the only safe part of the country.
	But, you know, they can just turn it into its own country.
	Anyway, so...
	The Green Zone's a joke.
	I have friends, actually, that are in the Green Zone as we speak.
	And, anyway, the...
	So, I mean, he could get away with that, and nobody else could.
	So I'm not convinced that, you know, he's this horrible person who wants to...
	He was a warmonger.
	Because if anybody's not a warmonger, it's probably him having suffered from being a prisoner of war for such a long time.
	Anyway, this will all eventually shake out.
	But Olbermann has gone after him now.
	And this last thing I thought was actually weak.
	And I did think it was taken out of context.
	And I'm not absolutely sure he's going to be able to maintain this bashing for much longer for a couple of reasons, as somebody pointed out.
	One, MSNBC is owned by General Electric.
	Yeah, that's not going to last long is what you're saying.
	and And Olbermann's already shown that he doesn't mind burning bridges because he already burned the Disney bridge when he was at ESPN in some way.
	And he probably will go down in flames here, too, if he doesn't, you know, even Jon Stewart tries to balance his act a little bit.
	It's not just, I mean, he's not, Olbermann is obviously an Obama, like many of the media here in the country.
	In fact, when I questioned this group that I was talking to, I had about 150 people that were in the newspaper industry, and I asked them how many people in the group would be for McCain, after prefacing it with the comment that the media is very left-wing, generally speaking, and Democrats.
	And out of like 150 people, or 100 people maybe, three people raised their hand, which seemed about right.
	A fourth person came up to me afterwards, which I thought was amusing, and said, you know, I would have raised my hand too, but I just started working here and I didn't think it would be a good idea.
	Oh, shit.
	Oh, great.
	Okay, well, that's good to know.
	Let me just say, I watched this clip.
	Just about the context bit for one moment here.
	I think what John McCain answered a question and when he said it's not important, I think he was referring to what he thinks is not important.
	Not necessarily about the troops being pulled out.
	It felt like it was taken out of context and then what really bothered me, because I do like Olbermann rants, is it completely came across as if You know, he was saying, shit, I've only got until November.
	If I really want to keep this gig going, I've got to start picking on somebody really big.
	And indeed, you're right, immediately it's like Obama spokespeople on the phone, you know, three or four of them.
	You know, then right back to, you know, all the so-called gaffes that McCain has made.
	Like, you know, we could be in Iraq for a hundred years.
	You know, it...
	And I don't know what McCain's thinking, whether he's for or against.
	I really don't know at this point because there's so many conflicting information out there presented by the media.
	But to me, it felt really contrived and making a huge thing out of something.
	We already know McCain's a kook when it comes to that.
	He's just a kook.
	Yeah, he is.
	It's the obvious coot.
	But anyway, I agree with that.
	I felt that the thing was a stretch.
	And it's almost as though you're trying too hard to be mean about this.
	I mean, it's not like he, you know, and in fact, they had even my own bloggers say, you know, they keep using the word gaffe.
	And I'm trying to think, what's the gaffe here?
	I mean, where was a gaffe?
	I mean, he's just saying what he says.
	A gaffe is where you say something really stupid like, You know, it's a potato spelled with an E. You know, something.
	Dan Quayle has made gaffes all the time.
	And Bush makes gaffes all the time.
	He says dumb things.
	But, well, I mean, where's the gaffe technically?
	I'm not seeing one.
	I'm just seeing, you know, just be contradictory.
	You know what dawned on me?
	What he said three years ago is not what he's saying today.
	But who doesn't do that?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Well, that's the whole thing.
	Now the big journalistic thing has become to catch somebody on their words, which is a very internet thing, by the way.
	And boy, can you interpret words differently, let alone what comes out of someone's mouth.
	So it's like the Hillary Clinton thing, where Hillary Clinton said, you know, under sniper fire, we arrived at the airport, and then someone pulls the tape and finds the tape, where, of course, it turns out that wasn't true at all.
	I think that's what journalists are looking for these days, is, you know, how can we catch someone on his own words?
	You know, how can we nail him down to something they said eons ago?
	Which, you're right, people change their mind, come up with the...
	Thank God people's opinions change.
	What really bothers me though in all of this, and it dawned on me, that there's something going on.
	There are conference calls, press conference calls being made, particularly during this election.
	So I know the Obama camp has a conference call every day with reporters.
	Then there's the, of course, the Clintons.
	I don't know if they still do it, but they certainly were.
	McCain.
	Every candidate had their own conference call.
	And, you know, these are not, like, public conference calls.
	It's basically, you know, the candidate's or any political party's version of talking points.
	And they hand them out to reporters on these conference calls, which we're not privy to.
	In fact, I would really love to be able to get, like, MP3s or a dial-in number, for all I care.
	So I can listen in to what these people have to say, but it feels like we're really one step removed from a lot of important information that is being interpreted by what I consider to be pretty much lazy journalists.
	Yeah, there's no reason that these things shouldn't go directly to the public.
	They have the journalists become kind of a filter when they do such a crappy job of it, and they're all biased.
	I mean, everybody's like, I mean, you could just see, I mean, everybody's essentially all Obama.
	I mean, they think Obama's the next John Kennedy or something, and so they're all hoping for this, you know, the change, as it were.
	You know, he's just another senator.
	And the thing about Obama, by the way, in terms of catching up with his words, he's interesting because he never says anything.
	He doesn't say anything except change.
	Of course we all want change.
	That's a great message.
	How simple are we as Americans, dude?
	How fucking simple are we that we go behind the Pied Piper just because he says change?
	Hell yeah.
	Of course we want change.
	But I have yet to hear anything of substance.
	I totally agree.
	So anyway, so you can't catch him contradicting himself because he doesn't really say anything.
	So I was listening to his ponderous style, and I realized that you know who he sounds like if you start listening to him?
	He sounds like he's doing an imitation of Walter Cronkite.
	Seriously.
	Doing his type of speaking, because it's an...
	I thought it was oration, but I realize now it's old-fashioned network news is the style he...
	Oh, yeah.
	It's like Paul Harvey.
	This is Paul Harvey?
	Good day?
	Did I freak you out?
	There's a bit of that without the...
	Paul Harvey had a...
	Or still does.
	He has a kind of an abrupt...
	That's hard at the beginning.
	Whereas Walter Cronkite would have an abruptness.
	In other words, they have the pregnant pause and then hit the word.
	And it would be a little softer.
	And it would be a little more amenable to a network audience listening to a newscast.
	And that's what Obama's doing.
	I mean, you're right.
	He could probably transform himself into a Paul Harvey if he wanted to.
	But I think that style of presentation is old-fashioned, and I think it's going to catch up to him.
	Yeah, but it is working, dude.
	I mean, he's totally got people loving him.
	Yeah, no, I agree.
	I mean, he seems like a very likable guy.
	That I don't know.
	To me, he doesn't seem like a very likable guy.
	Well, I mean, he seems like, yeah, maybe you're right.
	I mean, I've heard stories that he's actually kind of mean-spirited and one of those guys likes to boss around the hired help.
	Do you know, by the way, John, just before we embark on this, do you know that a lot of...
	You still there?
	Ah, crap.
	I knew that was going to happen.
	Let's get John back on the line.
	Hold on.
	Oh, okay.
	We're back.
	A little Skype crash there, as you pointed out.
	It's amazing it works at all.
	What I was going to say, you were in the middle of your rant.
	I was just going to say that after the last show we did and we talked about Obama, I got a lot of really angry emails from people saying, who were we to bash Obama?
	And I'm like, dude, we didn't bash.
	We bashed everybody.
	You know, I don't think we, you know...
	Yeah, no, Obama is essentially the Macintosh of politics.
	There you go.
	You can't say anything.
	You can't say anything about him.
	You know, the thing is, again, though, the public is, you know, this is early.
	I mean, we're talking about the election in November, and at some, you know, everything is like...
	We haven't even seen what's going to happen, how the fickle public is going to react to Obama over time, especially when and if the comics take him on and the real critics jump in and they start putting his feet to the fire and say, you know, okay, the word change is cool, but what does it mean?
	I mean, should we just drop the Constitution?
	That's a change.
	Wait a minute.
	Just to clarify, he didn't actually say that anywhere, did he?
	No, no, but I'm just saying.
	I mean, if you just want change for change's sake, why don't we install a king?
	Yeah, you're right.
	I mean, I wouldn't mind here.
	You know, so just getting back to Olbermann kind of in a roundabout way, you could also conceive that entire episode he did, and I'm sure Bubba Martin will put some amazing links in the show notes.
	I saw it was on Daborak.org, obviously, so you can find the video of Olbermann there as well.
	You could also construe this as being a setup with the Obama camp.
	Yeah, that could be.
	I mean, he's obviously, I mean, it does bother me that people who, I mean, Jan Wenner came on, Jan Wenner came on, Jan, which is what his name should be.
	Jan Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone came on.
	He was on MSNBC in an interview show with Michael Eisner.
	And the two of them were going back, and he just comes out and says, you know, they're pushing Obama.
	You know, I don't know how publication, you know, I don't know.
	I mean, I guess if you're just in their camp, I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with, you know, advising the public to some point, but to become a tool of propaganda, I think, is another issue, and I think it's dubious.
	I mean, even on the blog, we have a mixed bag of people who like this and that, but we try to at least, everybody gets their, you know, their opinion.
	It's not like one thing.
	I think it's...
	By the way, I did come up with a good one, though.
	My wife actually came up with it, and I'm promoting it.
	It's that McCain should take Hillary as the vice president.
	Yeah, I saw that.
	Yeah, right.
	Okay.
	That's real realistic, John.
	Nice.
	It's possible.
	Hey, you know, they were talking about Lieberman.
	That's not possible.
	I think it is.
	I mean, what clearly happened, and this, of course, is where your theory that Hillary would get the nomination no matter what, what clearly happened is that some of this seeped over into the institutional money guys, and I think they all just kind of said, well, screw it.
	We just want a winning horse here.
	We'll just switch over to Obama.
	And they started backing him, and then it was done.
	It was over with.
	Yeah, well, I think it is over with.
	I mean, I don't see how she can pull a rabbit out of a hat now.
	I mean, I thought it was possible, but she never did get that one...
	I mean, she couldn't quite get the momentum back once she lost.
	And a lot of it stems back, and everybody will say the same thing, it stems to her arrogance at the beginning thinking she was going to get the nomination.
	Jon Stewart had a real funny bit where he showed all these people predicting it early on and guaranteeing it.
	All these pundits on TV. Like you.
	Well, I did.
	Yeah, you're right.
	Yeah, I did.
	You're right.
	I'm one of them.
	But I'm not on TV doing it.
	I guess that's my...
	Oh, okay.
	It makes it all right.
	Besides the point, I still have to bet the other way.
	So, anyway, yeah, you're right.
	I feel bad.
	But anyway, so the point is that she was cocky at the beginning, and she had a bunch of her pals doing all the work for her.
	She didn't have any of the hot political consultants that you would normally hire.
	She was using her friends, her sorority sisters, and they dropped the ball.
	They screwed up left and right.
	She had to fire two different groups of them before she'd get on track, and by the time she got on track, she was so far behind in the race that she couldn't catch up.
	It was a disaster.
	Yeah, I think it'll go down in the history books as how not to do it.
	Yeah, no, absolutely.
	You know, total screw-up.
	I mean, it was incompetence at every imaginable level, which makes you wonder what kind of a president she'd be.
	Yeah, nice way to run a show, Hillary.
	So, I mean, it's essentially giving it away.
	I mean, Obama was on some interview show and I saw him, he was talking to somebody in his plane and talking about how he says, look at that, you know, I can manage, check out what I've been doing with this election.
	You know, this is a management job that I'm doing here and I'm winning.
	Does that say something for me?
	And it does in that regard.
	It definitely says that Hillary, if she was the president, she'd just lie in the office with a bunch of cronies.
	We'd just have another democratic version of Bush.
	And amongst all of this, a very important player in this election in the United States passed away.
	Tim Russert from Meet the Press.
	And actually, I saw it on your blog.
	That's where I first read the news.
	And it really shocked me.
	I was like, wow, fuck.
	I didn't expect that to happen.
	Yeah, that was out of the blue.
	You know, one of the guys at the office was watching him, he said he saw him a week ago or something.
	He said he didn't look right.
	Maybe he had something, you know, one of those weird heart conditions.
	Yeah, because he's only 58.
	Yeah, I showed a picture to, because, you know, obviously I talked about this with Patricia last night, and I said, so here's two things.
	First of all, you could say there's a conspiracy, because, of course, he does have a lot of knowledge about the Valerie Plame affair and all of that, and said, but take a look at the picture.
	And Patricia took one look.
	She said, oh, look at those eyes.
	They're puffing.
	He has huge pressure behind his eyes.
	I bet he was suffering from high blood pressure and something just blew up.
	Maybe.
	Although I like the conspiracy thing a lot.
	You like that one, huh?
	Well, you know, it doesn't take much.
	You know, a little plastic acid and there's other techniques that make you look like you had a heart attack and it can't be traced.
	I don't know why they want to kill him.
	Well, there's a lot riding on that.
	He is mentioned in a lot of these documents.
	This Valerie Plame thing is no joke.
	I mean, people are going to go to jail over this.
	There's people sitting in jail now, I think.
	Perhaps.
	Generally speaking, they just keep denying it and it goes away.
	But maybe.
	Whatever the case is, yeah.
	He was a big...
	I guess he was pretty neutral.
	He's been criticized by the right-wing talk show guys for being a left-wing character because of all his background.
	He was a politician or worked in politics most of his life and then he became a journalist later.
	But I always thought he was pretty good as a neutral commentator.
	Well, to me, he was just as important to my Sundays as the Financial Times and PG Tips.
	You know, I get the podcast version, which downloads around 5 or 6 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening.
	And I always enjoyed watching it.
	You know, there's only two shows.
	It's like the McLaughlin Group, which reminds me of a political, you know, like Dvorak.
	What's that?
	McLaughlin.
	Wrong!
	Bye-bye!
	Yeah, McLaughlin, I saw him in New York once, you know, he just looks like, I mean, he does look like a cranky geek.
	Yeah, right.
	I think more than I do, I hope.
	Yes, no worries, John.
	So, anyway, so that's kind of the Olbermann thing.
	That's about the best we can do.
	He's just essentially an Obama, you know, guy, period.
	That's what it is.
	So we should, you know, just to go back on that, I really like to be able to get in on these conference calls.
	I mean, that's the shit that I want to hear.
	Well, you know, there's got to be somebody out there that's got a dial-in number.
	You would expect.
	I mean, they send it to all the press.
	And it seems to me that if you have a dial-in, and here's what bothers me about the media again.
	If you've got a dial-in number, why aren't you recording this thing and then posting it someplace?
	I think it would be more interesting than your interpretation of it.
	Hell yeah.
	I had a call yesterday with a guy who wrote the latest book on the death of Marilyn Monroe.
	So I'm going to post the audio of it.
	I have the whole conversation in about 18 and a half minutes.
	And it's actually quite interesting.
	It's quite interesting.
	Was this just a chat, or did you interview him?
	No, it was an interview.
	So it was an out-and-out interview.
	So I ran it as such, but I didn't really have to say much.
	He's one of those guys with a million stories.
	He's an old...
	I guess he worked with the coroner's office or something during that era as an older guy.
	And...
	I'll be posting it probably Monday or Tuesday.
	Oh, cool.
	Are you going to do that on Tech 5 or just on Dvorak?
	Or are you going to do that?
	I'll just do it on Dvorak.
	It's not really a Tech 5.
	Tech 5 has got to be about tech.
	There's nothing high-tech about Marilyn Monroe being cajoled into killing herself, which is basically a theory.
	That's the theory?
	Okay.
	Well, the guy wrote a book on how there are personality types that are prone to suicide.
	And they often match up with personality types.
	In other words, they get married to or they hang out with people who drive them to suicide.
	He actually wrote a book on this years ago.
	I think it was his college dissertation for his PhD.
	Or thesis.
	Or is it a dissertation?
	Well, whatever you do for the PhD.
	And dissertation.
	So...
	Anyway, so he says these people match up a lot, and he had examples of how one woman married one of these soft males who was always threatening to kill himself, and he was serious about it.
	And so one day, with the comment that, you know, if you ever left me, I'd kill myself.
	If you ever left me, I'd kill myself.
	And so she wrote him a note one day.
	He says, this is documented, by the way.
	She wrote him a note and says, I'm leaving you And then she left a gun there and her last count was, you know what to do.
	And he shot himself.
	No, shit.
	Oh, crap.
	Oh, man.
	You know, with all this Marilyn Monroe stuff, because I think there's also some new footage, unseen footage, which is being auctioned on Monday or Tuesday.
	There's a lot of pictures now in the press of Marilyn Monroe again that kind of heats up.
	And I was looking at one of her more famous pictures.
	It was on a...
	In a restaurant, in the bathroom on the wall.
	As you do, you're kind of sitting there, or standing, I'm sorry, doing your business.
	I'm looking at this picture, and she wasn't really all that hot.
	Does that make any sense?
	Well, by today's standards, it's hard to say.
	I've seen a lot of photos of her, because you can't not.
	I thought she had a really pretty face.
	Yeah, but in a milfy way, but not like in a young sex mom way.
	If you look at her hands and her fingers, and you look at the condition of her skin around her neck, I mean, I'm really picky about this.
	I'm really looking at it.
	Apparently.
	Yeah, but, you know, I was there for like two minutes.
	I got nothing better to do, and so I'm really examining this.
	I'm like, you know...
	And also, maybe I should say this, maybe it's because I've become so used to looking at these photoshopped, completely unnatural-looking beauties that are in today's media.
	This is what women actually look like, honestly, and they didn't use any of those techniques back in the day.
	Maybe it's that.
	Yeah, it could be, although you might just be hypercritical, which is probably more like it.
	So meanwhile, I mean, so this reminds me of a story.
	Hey, John, fuck you very much.
	Okay, your next story, yes.
	So I'm going, I'm in Amsterdam with this group of people, and we're floating around the area where all the hookers are, or these girls in those little booths.
	There's like rows of them, and they're all over the place.
	We're just rolling around.
	It's known as the Red Light District.
	Ah, yeah.
	Anyway, but it's the one that's for the tourists, you know, apparently there's a couple of them there.
	But it's like a bunch of guys walking by.
	I don't see anybody even doing any business, but it's kind of funny to walk by.
	So I'm walking by, just as I'm about to turn a corner, I'm with a bunch of these other people in this group, and I look inside, and this girl's in there, and I just make the comment, I say, she's not that hot.
	And so I turn the corner.
	Apparently, I guess the windows there are so thin.
	She heard you say it?
	I didn't think she would hear it, heard that.
	So she apparently comes roaring out of the little booth thing and starts screaming at all this group of people.
	Meanwhile, I have to turn the corner.
	I'm gone.
	And so she's just berating them and cussing them up and down, just the way the story was told to me.
	And then they come and finally catch up to me, and they say, you son of a bitch, you know what, you got us into trouble.
	This comment, I was completely oblivious.
	And she wasn't that hot, though, that was the point.
	Yeah, you gotta be careful, man, what you say.
	She was kind of sensitive, but now I know not to say anything around that thing, because they can hear you.
	Nah, they don't understand you anymore, because now they're all from Croatia.
	They don't speak any English or Dutch.
	They've ruined the whole vibe.
	Yeah, I've heard bad things.
	Yeah, it's really, it's no more fun there.
	I'm reliably informed.
	Oh, here's one for you.
	So, um...
	Big thing happening over here.
	By the way, Croatian women are pretty hot looking.
	Well, maybe the ones they're shipping out aren't.
	Maybe that's what the deal is.
	That's possible.
	But I'll tell you, when I was in Croatia, I've been there a couple of times because I write for a magazine there, so I go there and float around.
	There are more women there that are dead ringers for Natalie Wood than any place I've ever been.
	It's unbelievable.
	You know what?
	I'm going to send you this link right now.
	I got a link from a guy.
	And it was titled, Iranian Women Are Hot.
	And he's got this...
	Well, they're Persians.
	The Persian women are traditionally hot.
	Holy crap.
	You gotta see this, man.
	Are they terrible looking?
	No, they're serious.
	Captain Chris sent it to me.
	Oh, it's a YouTube video.
	Here we go.
	Hold on.
	Captain Chris, who's a commercial pilot, and he sent this to me.
	He says, dude, I so know you.
	Well, you should probably send a copy to...
	You should send a copy to Bubba.
	You mean the link?
	He'll post it.
	Yeah.
	Well, hold on.
	I'll just send it through to you.
	Because I don't think there's even sound with it, so you can just take a look at it.
	But wow.
	Smokin' hot is what I'd say.
	Well, it's probably a good thing they're being kept down by the moolahs.
	As it were.
	Well, it's just kind of sad when I think about it, you know, because there's all this talk about bombing Iran, striking out.
	And I only realized just the other day when I actually looked at Google Earth.
	I can't remember what I was looking for.
	But, you know, it finally hit me when I saw Afghanistan and where it lies in position to Iraq.
	And then all of a sudden I understood why we're actually in Afghanistan, right?
	We're surrounding Iran.
	Well, we seem to be.
	People need to look at them.
	Americans in particular, we don't look at maps enough.
	I forgot to tell you, John.
	I've got a really big piece of news for you.
	I've got a scoop-a-roonie.
	Oh, good.
	So, I was allowed to ask, on behalf of my Dutch audience, a question to the President of Iran, Mr.
	Karzai.
	No, he's not the president of Iran.
	I'm sorry, Afghanistan.
	Right.
	And so you want another question?
	Yes, of course you do.
	The question was, which was chosen from many entries, was, how are you going to beat the Taliban?
	Which I thought was a genius question because, of course, it has a false bottom, seeing as the Russians tried to beat the Taliban for 10 years.
	And, you know, now the deal is that the coalition is supposed to stay in Afghanistan until 2010, at which point we pull out our...
	Well, that's what the deal is.
	Everyone pulls out their troops and then the Afghan army and their police should be strong enough to take care of their own.
	And he answered back.
	He said, you know what?
	I probably don't think we can actually defeat him.
	He said it outright.
	He said, I don't think we can defeat him by 2010.
	We won't be able to do it.
	You know, so here we are, pouring billions into the country on a promise that we can get out by 2010.
	And the guy literally says, you know, I don't think we can do it.
	Well, he's probably right.
	I think we had our shot at it.
	I don't understand you.
	One of the things I've always thought is that I don't know why we even send troops into these places.
	We should just send assassins and cruise missiles.
	So the Taliban takes over and they're having a big meeting.
	You just bomb them.
	But here's the whole problem.
	The follow-up to his answer was the core Taliban is in Pakistan, he said.
	They're not even in Afghanistan.
	Yeah, I think everybody knows that.
	Right.
	But how messed up is that?
	We don't have any troops in Pakistan.
	Yeah, I know.
	And every time we do everything, something over there, they all get all bent out of shape.
	Yeah, and they got nuclear weapons.
	I mean, how about let's go after those guys?
	You know, screw the rest of them.
	Well, we're in bed with them.
	Yeah, why?
	How?
	How are we in bed with them?
	Well, that goes way back, because what happened years and years and years ago was that India, during the Soviet Union era, India became allies with Russia, and that's where they bought all their weaponry and everything from.
	And so because of that, we decided, well, we have to be allies with Pakistan, because there was no religious issue at the time.
	It was just all, you know, geopolitics.
	And so the Indians were allied with Russia the whole time.
	And in fact, most of their weaponry and all the jets, they were buying everything from Russia.
	And so we got in bed with Pakistan at that point.
	And, you know, even though when you started looking at analyzing it...
	If we're close to any country, it's India, because they speak English and Pakistan too, but they're more connected to the British.
	Most of the people that immigrate to the United States are more likely to be Indian than Pakistani.
	We eat Indian food.
	The British eat Indian food as if it was Chinese food here in the U.S. They have to go, take out, and delivery, and it's amazing.
	But because of the geopolitics of it, that's the reason.
	I'm sure it could be clarified by one of the experts out there, but essentially, it was the alliances of the Soviet era.
	We're all going to a hell in a handbasket, man.
	It's a joke.
	Well, you know me, Mr.
	Conspiracy Theory, all I can see is just more and more proof that this is all about money and control over people and control over territories and forces at work that aren't necessarily the politicians we think are running the show.
	Well, I mean, I think there's elements of that, but a lot of it is...
	Just the way things have evolved, because they're distributed.
	I mean, if you look at, I don't think, I mean, there is a control issue.
	There's banks love to get in on certain deals, and I mean, right now, the oil crisis, I think that's going to end shortly, by the way, because it finally, it looks like they just passed the legislation needed to Oh, the close the loophole on the...
	Close the Enron loophole.
	Yeah.
	And there was a piece of it left open, and so they could do...
	And the guys who are the bad actors here, again, we're talking about Dubai and the London commodities people that are the ones racking these oil prices up.
	So when it turns around, which is going to be probably right after summer, I think it's still going to go higher before it turns around, John.
	I think they're just going to go for it.
	Well, I think right now it's going to be harder because the scrutiny has changed.
	A lot of my smart money friends are already going short.
	You know, at about 140 in the oil thing, hoping to catch it on the downside.
	Because when it starts to go down, I think you might be right, it could go to 160, 170.
	I don't think it's going to make 200 now.
	But when it starts to turn around, it starts to slide, it's going to fall so fast you won't know what happened.
	And then everybody's going to go, oh, gee, well, that's interesting.
	The thing that's weird to me is how the public is like bamboozled.
	Like, I mean, the best example was the Enron, you know, the energy crisis that we'd had years ago when they were having these rolling blackouts in California, which made no logical sense.
	And they had all these writers, you know, all the newspapers, well, we don't have enough power, people are using too much, there's all these blackouts.
	There's rationales for this when the whole thing was rigged and they were just turning the power off.
	They were shorting us.
	They were basically cutting us off so we could have to pay more.
	And nobody was paying any attention to that.
	There was all this, you know, all the greenies came out going on and on about, oh my God, we, you know, we have to conserve more energy.
	We have to do this.
	We have to do that when it's just the whole thing was a scam.
	Yeah.
	If you've never seen smartest guys in the room, which is the Enron story produced by, um, What's the Maverick guy name?
	What's his name?
	The smartest guys in the room.
	I can't remember who produced that.
	The guy who sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo.
	The Mavericks.
	Mark Cuban?
	Right.
	Mark Cuban produced that.
	Yeah, that's his.
	Oh, I didn't know that.
	Okay.
	Good for him.
	Yeah, it's called The Smartest Guys in the Room.
	And you will literally hear recordings of these energy traders.
	That's with a D for Delta.
	And literally hear them saying, all right, man, screw those guys.
	We're just going to turn them off.
	All right, ready?
	Yeah, black them out.
	Black them out.
	You know, I was like, Right.
	Meanwhile, who was writing about that?
	I mean, who was investigating this?
	Where's all the reporters?
	Where are the journalists?
	No, they're all talking about how we should be more green.
	Yeah, there you go.
	And it's happening again right before our very eyes.
	It's the big institutions.
	They're all, you know, they're rolling over these investments in oil commodities month over month.
	They keep tapping it up.
	And they're screwing everyone.
	They're absolutely screwing everyone.
	And I bet you there's a recording somewhere that'll surface in ten years from now where you hear these guys going, yeah, fuck them, let's take the oil to 170, come on, we can do it, screw everybody.
	You watch, that'll come out.
	Oh yeah, it probably will, after the fact, and then there'll be the next scam.
	You know, and these things come and go, and nobody picks up on it.
	And the funny thing that bothers me the most, and it really bothered me with the rolling blackouts during that era, is that it was obvious that it was a scam.
	I mean, you don't go from having 24-7 great power to having rolling blackouts every month, even when there's no weirdness going on.
	It's not like we're having a blizzard.
	Yeah.
	Well, no.
	Too many air conditioners are on.
	There's no air conditioners in California.
	We don't use them.
	No, but that's what the story was.
	There's too much air conditioning being used.
	Yeah, don't use your air conditioners.
	It's unbelievable.
	And we had a governor, Gray Davis, who was an out-and-out idiot.
	And he was like...
	I don't know who we had working for him, but he was...
	Buying right into it.
	Oh, yes, you know, this is a problem because we don't have enough power capability, generation capability, and, you know, this is going to be the way it is from now on.
	In fact, they were telling us this was going to be the way it's going to be forever.
	Rolling blackouts in California that are never going to end.
	And nobody thought this was like a little odd.
	Yeah, and no one got the story.
	We should go back and look and see if anyone did get the story or not.
	If anyone ever looked into that to any depth.
	And how ironic is it, by the way?
	Well, you know, there may have been some alternative press.
	Maybe some alternative press picked it up.
	I don't remember seeing anything.
	So this is the thing that I've learned, and which is just, it's bugging the shit out of me.
	So we have, you know, this show, which, you know, we got, I don't know, 35,000, 40,000 people listen to it on a weekly basis.
	Maybe more.
	I haven't looked in a while.
	You know, and we're discussing a lot of stuff.
	We're talking about a lot of things.
	But it has so little impact.
	Whereas, you know, I get on a little frickin' rinky-dink radio station in Holland, which is...
	Tenth in the ratings.
	No one gives a shit about.
	And all of a sudden, I get all this access.
	Doors open up.
	I can get any kind of member of parliament, ministers, you know, anything I want, just because it's radio, because it's, quote, mass media.
	Oh, it pisses me off.
	We're so far from the tipping point on any of this stuff.
	It's all just...
	It's noise in the ether, unfortunately.
	I think we are opening up individuals and citizens' minds to other thinking and kind of red pill like, hey, dude, there might be something else going on here.
	But it really has so little impact and I'm so frustrated by it.
	Yeah, it doesn't bother me.
	I figure it's got no impact.
	But at some point we can sell these people something.
	Now you're talking.
	Alright.
	That's the American spirit, John.
	I gotta get some books done or something.
	At least we have an audience, for God's sake.
	Hey, speaking of books, have you read McCollum's book yet?
	The former White House Press Secretary?
	You know, I've seen that guy.
	That guy bothers me.
	Me too.
	Thank you for saying that.
	I'm happy you said that.
	Oh, by the way, I was in New York with my agent and I was talking to some other people in the book business.
	And, um...
	The story behind the book I don't think is necessarily known.
	Apparently, McClellan had this manuscript that he was schlepping around Manhattan agencies for quite a while.
	And it was either the publisher or one of the agents that said, look, unless you come up with some stuff in here that's a little more scandalous, we can't publish it because nobody's going to buy this boring book you wrote.
	Huh.
	board and came up with some stuff and then they made him do some more along those same lines.
	And so the whole thing was just created for the purposes of selling the book.
	And I don't think he's sincere about it.
	I think he's, and when you see him, he seems very sheepish and he still talks about how great the president is.
	Yeah, I've heard him in three interviews now.
	I heard him on Terry Gross NPR, whatever that's called.
	Fresh Air.
	I heard him on another NPR on the media.
	I've seen a couple of interviews.
	He has exactly the same story, exactly the same answers.
	He's like a robot, and it all seems to focus on two things, which is annoying.
	Because you rarely get any real content.
	In fact, I don't believe there's any content to this book.
	Because the things are...
	The so-called...
	He says, well, it's very clear that the White House had a meeting in the situation room or whatever.
	And came up with talking points about me.
	And the talking points were going to be, this is not the McCollum that I know.
	This sounds like someone else wrote this book.
	And of course, everyone plays the...
	Just like Jon Stewart does, plays the bits of all the different commentators saying exactly that.
	And they all feel betrayed by this guy saying, well, you lied to us on December 13, 2005, you said this.
	Thank you, hon.
	It's just like, get to the content of the book.
	It's not there.
	Yeah, no, I agree.
	I have no interest.
	I mean, I've seen him interviewed.
	I've heard these same things you're talking about.
	I saw the Jon Stewart ridicule.
	It's just, I don't, there's nothing there.
	It's just a, you know, it's a publicity stunt, and I'm not even impressed by it.
	But anyway, the back story is that what his real tale originally was, was just dull.
	Like he is.
	He's a dull guy.
	I always thought he was a snot when he was the press secretary.
	But the point he's trying to make is that he too got sucked into the way things are done in politics in general and certainly Washington specifically.
	And that's no message.
	No one gives a shit.
	Everyone knows it's like that.
	Yeah, I know.
	It's not breaking any new grounds, that's for sure.
	There's a lot of good books.
	The problem is there's a lot of good books about this administration, lots of them.
	And a lot of them end up, the authors show up on The Stewart Show.
	And this book is just a smokescreen book.
	And it just takes money out of the pockets of the writers who are actually doing good work and puts it into this guy's pockets and it doesn't accomplish anything.
	I think it's a bad idea.
	I don't think people should buy this book.
	And by the way, if you are in the United Kingdom, I believe tomorrow, Sunday, that'll be the 15th, I believe George Bush is coming to visit the United Kingdom.
	I think he's on his farewell tour.
	And there's some huge demonstrations being planned.
	Is he going to be with Cher?
	It's going to be President Bush, Cher, and Bill Gates.
	Yeah, they're all saying goodbye again.
	So I think there's some huge demonstrations planned for his arrival.
	I think it's tomorrow.
	So it'll be interesting to see.
	Yeah, those demonstrations have not been effective.
	I guess they make people feel good, but I think it's a pointless waste of time.
	Well, I think when people want to express their emotions, that's good.
	You know, when people say, did it help?
	No, but it made me feel good.
	Yeah, I guess that's okay.
	That's important.
	And if they have creative signage, I think that would be cool.
	Yeah.
	Creative signage.
	Nice.
	I don't know.
	So what else we got?
	Anything?
	I think we're done.
	Let me see.
	Yeah, this just in.
	Germany and France moved to isolate Ireland in the European Union.
	What?
	Is that what it says, really?
	Yeah, Guardian.
	Germany and France have moved to isolate Ireland in the European Union, scrambling for ways to resuscitate the Lisbon Treaty after the Irish dealt the architects of the Union's new regime a crushing defeat.
	Oh, I get it.
	It's like making a bet with some guy.
	Okay, I'll flip you four heads.
	Okay, two out of three.
	Okay, okay.
	No, no, three out of five.
	Three out of five.
	Yeah, heads I win, tails you lose.
	Come on, boom, boom.
	Come on, okay, we'll do five out of seven and then we'll do it.
	I mean, it's just like, give me a break.
	It's nuts.
	There are local as well as European elections in Ireland next year and Fianna Fail will not risk having to hold another referendum.
	Not within the next 12 months at least.
	You know what?
	For all I know, this may be a great treaty.
	Why don't they just spend 500 million euros and go explain it to people?
	Or rewrite it so it's in simpler language.
	Yeah, just give the blue-collar guy a break.
	We talked about this last week.
	A good contract is clear.
	Mm-hmm.
	And that's what this is.
	It's not a constitution.
	It's a contract.
	You know, a constitution is like the U.S. has.
	There's other ones.
	It's simple.
	You know, it's simple, then you can work with it.
	This is a giant contract, obviously, but it's not clear.
	No, you should take a look at it, John.
	I'll send you the link.
	You should just take a look at it, just if you want to laugh, because you won't get through two pages of it.
	I'll plow.
	Actually, my wife likes reading contracts, so maybe I'll give it to her and she can plow through it.
	That would be great.
	Maybe she can give us some info on it.
	I don't understand it.
	So the only two things I think we have left open, one is on your side, because it was not well explained here in Europe.
	Bush suffered some form of defeat over the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
	Yeah, this is actually an interesting situation.
	The Supreme Court said that...
	That the U.S. government has essentially took the sovereignty of the country and moved it offshore in some funny way.
	And it depends on how you interpret it.
	There's two interpretations.
	One says this is a horrible thing that happened because essentially it gives rights, American citizen rights, outside of the country to prisoners, but not necessarily citizens.
	But isn't Guantanamo Bay just like an embassy?
	Because if you go to an embassy in any foreign country, that lands...
	It's not an embassy.
	Yeah, but it's not an embassy.
	No, I understand.
	It's a territory, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	But it's considered on...
	It's a sketchy place because it's really part of Cuba and it was part of some agreement and it's hard to say what its status is in terms of U.S. law.
	What is the deal?
	I mean, right there.
	We kind of gloss over it now, Guantanamo Bay, but why the hell do we have a prison in Cuba?
	Can we make it Texas or Florida?
	Why does it have to be Cuba?
	Well, that's the reason, because then you would have a sovereignty issue.
	I mean, you would have U.S. law apply.
	This is essentially a military base.
	Like, say it would be one in Germany.
	Say you have a military base in Germany.
	And you put somebody in the brig that is a German.
	Right.
	Does he have American citizens' rights to due process?
	When he's not an American, he's not in America.
	He's in a military-based prison in Germany.
	Right, I got it.
	And so that's what they said.
	Yeah, so this has become a real problem, mainly because they think it's a slippery slope of, you know, it just could be...
	The total resolution of it is yet to be determined, but it seemed to be a setback because Bush didn't want this because it's going to complicate matters, and it was just a straight party vote.
	The liberals on the court voted for it and the conservatives voted against it.
	And the weird thing was that the votes against it required a number of different dissensions.
	It wasn't just one, there was I think at least two or three of different interpretations of why it shouldn't go this way.
	That's the best I can explain.
	The only reason I can even explain it that well is because I was watching one of the PBS shows that had two people arguing both sides of it.
	The big thing in the UK this week was that a law was passed, which has been a huge discussion point for months, maybe even longer than that.
	Extending the period the government can hold you, incarcerate you without process from 28 days to 42 days under the anti-terrorism laws in the United Kingdom.
	Hmm.
	Which, 42 days, quite a long time to go without due process.
	It's a really long time.
	I mean, it's like a month and a half of just sitting on your ass.
	Yeah, and there's all kinds of stuff.
	I mean, it seems to me as if you got somebody in jail, you should have a reason for it.
	Yeah, well, that would be the argument.
	Yeah.
	That's just going to incarcerate people randomly, which you could do under these circumstances.
	You grab somebody, you don't like them, which I always think is, you know, I always think a lot of this is going to be eventually politically motivated.
	You get some despot, you know, running things.
	Okay, well, there's one of my critics.
	We've got 30 days for the election.
	Throw him in jail for 45 days.
	That's right.
	Or you get some non-likable guy like, let me see, Adam Curry, and you're saying, you know, let's just fuck with this guy.
	Let's just call him a terrorist or a suspect, and we'll throw him in the brig for 42 days.
	Yeah.
	It would certainly shut me up.
	It would.
	I'd be like, okay, okay.
	My wife is so worried about this, John, I can't tell you.
	She's worried that they're going to throw you in jail for 42 days because you're a loud mouth?
	No, she's afraid they're going to throw me in jail, sabotage my airplane, which of course they've done consistently, try and screw me for taxes.
	This is my life.
	The tax thing, I've been investigated eight, nine times in my life, in my professional career.
	It's crazy.
	The problem with...
	I mean, the airplane thing bothers me, too, after having read the Confessions of an Economic Hitman, because that's a methodology they seem to like to use, whoever they are.
	Yeah, they like to sabotage.
	But the point is, is that for the most part, I think your wife should be assured that you're really part of the machine that they need.
	You're not really a force that...
	You're not a wrench that's being thrown in the works.
	I mean, I hate to tell you this.
	Well, and I understand what you're saying.
	But you're actually a part of the system, I have to say that probably am too, that actually keeps the thing, you know, we bring up these criticisms, but they're not like the same thing as plotting to overthrow the government or doing something really wacky, which is dangerous to the status quo.
	We're not dangerous in any way.
	In fact, we're probably laughable to some of these guys if they ever listen to the show.
	I think your wife's fears are unfounded.
	Not that somebody in the government might not want to screw with you in terms of investigating you for your taxes because you lived a high life.
	Well, now, that's somewhat...
	You're always flying back and forth and back and forth.
	You're always flying back and forth.
	You must be transporting money.
	It must be.
	Let's check this guy.
	But what you said there is, in a way, comforting and in a way, extremely disappointing, of course.
	And I hope that one day...
	Because I think I'm finally starting to find my calling in life, John.
	I hate to say it.
	But I'm really...
	Clearly I have enough time on my hands to download shit and look at it.
	And I'm really interested.
	And I'm interested in passing on this information to other people.
	So yeah, I don't think...
	I'm not like a monkey wrench that I throw into the machine.
	But I'm more like a guy who has a pot of water and everyone's sitting in it.
	And I'm just turning up the heat very slowly and other people start to turn up the heat.
	And maybe one day it'll come to a boil and maybe something will happen.
	I really hope so.
	I just...
	This is your Ron Paul type of guy.
	You know, you're kind of an annoyance to some people because you point stuff out.
	But that's it.
	You're an annoyance is what you are, and that's not worth dealing with.
	I mean, you know, the annoyances are necessary.
	They're part of the mechanism.
	Well, maybe I'll strike on something one of these days and become more than an annoyance.
	I'm not seeing it.
	Thanks, buddy.
	I really appreciate it.
	This is not going to happen.
	Yeah, but someone's got to say something.
	You know, I can't just sit around.
	Well, you can say all you want.
	The fact is that the mechanism has long since realized that saying things, unless you're really good at it, not that you're not, but I'm talking about in a Leninist style or Trotsky type of thing, which doesn't work, wouldn't work anymore.
	I don't know what the mechanism is to get people riled up.
	I mean, let's face it, the public has become extremely passive, and you're just, you know, it's just a I'm pissing in the wind with some of this stuff, no matter how good your information.
	Yeah, right now, first of all, yes, you're probably right, but I'm not going to accept that as a reason not to continue, not that you're saying that, but I do see that every single day there's another person who will send me an email and say, you know, dude, thanks, you opened up my eyes, at least I'm thinking a little bit about this stuff now,
	and maybe, maybe one day, you know, we'll be able to catch, like this European Union thing, I truly believe That citizens around the world are smarter than the old-fashioned guys in Brussels, as we discussed, or the old-fashioned way of doing things.
	And they're saying, you know, fuck no.
	We're not going to do that.
	We don't understand what it is, so screw it.
	And I think that people are awakening.
	Not enough of them, but if we keep...
	Well, the Irish woke up, even though they don't listen to our show.
	The Irish didn't wake up.
	Well, they are suspicious.
	They're like, wait a minute, this just smells bad.
	But because of big internet campaigns, and there's been a ton of them, a ton of online action telling people to say no, that is working, I think.
	You've got to believe that some of that is spilling over.
	Yeah.
	Well, no, I'm not saying it's completely a waste of time.
	You just made me feel so fucking worthless.
	I'm just saying a lot of it is there's a wheel spinning mechanism involved in most of this kind of complaining.
	I'm not complaining.
	I'm just saying.
	I'm pointing out.
	Anyway, go Europe.
	Go Holland.
	You guys will kick ass in the finals.
	See, this is what it always boils down to.
	This is where they know where they got you.
	That's all people care about is football.
	I think that's true.
	Or at least over there, over here.
	Actually, over here, too, except it's a different kind of football.
	But when the football season, our football, American football, starts, that's all people care about.
	Although I have to say the Y generation, the younger kids coming up, don't care at all about it.
	I think there's going to be a huge problem.
	Go ahead.
	I think there's going to be a drop-off in the interest in professional sports somewhere along the line.
	It's going to be in the next 10 or 20 years, and it's going to be dramatic.
	I'll tell you where we're going to see it first.
	The first time we're going to see it is with the Olympics.
	The Olympics, I predict, will have nowhere near the viewership, despite the coverage, nowhere near the viewership that it's enjoyed in the past.
	I don't think people care anymore.
	Well, there's one other reason for that, of course.
	Yeah, China.
	Yeah.
	Well, no, you're going to have the camera up in the stadium, and then they won't be able to get through the smog with the zoom lens.
	So it's all going to have to be done with handhelds, and nobody can run that fast.
	So, I mean, it's going to be, you know, tough.
	What did the Romans used to say, give the people bread and games, or what is the saying?
	Something like that.
	Yeah.
	Games.
	They love games.
	Yeah.
	You know, every time, by the way, I point this, this is the last thing I'm going to say, but I keep pointing this out.
	When you see these reports coming in from China where there's correspondence talking about the Olympics, just look behind him.
	You cannot see anything.
	It's just like these guys in a smoke storm.
	Hi, everybody.
	We're here at the Olympics.
	Beijing has got problems.
	This is the eye in the sky at the Beijing Olympic Stadium.
	And, well, we see absolutely nothing.
	Nothing.
	You know, the Chinese, they're supposed to clear it up by shutting down all the factories and everything.
	I don't know if that's going to help because they're going to have to shut down the factories that are east of Beijing, and there's too many of them.
	Most of the guys won't shut down anyway.
	Then they're going to have to shut down the cars and all the freeways.
	The town is crawling with, you know, it's bumper to bumper, and it's got a bowl-like effect.
	So they have to keep the cars out of town.
	I mean, I don't know how they're going to do it.
	Well, John, no matter what, and no matter if it makes no difference, I enjoy doing this with you every week.
	It's a good show.
	And maybe one day we can make some money off of these people.
	That's the worst thing you could ever say.
	I can see the emails already.
	They know that they feel guilty listening to this show, knowing that we're dying here.
	Yeah, we're dying.
	Excuse me, I just stepped out of my own plane.
	Hold on a second.
	I'm hurting so bad.
	Oh, boy.
	Ooh, he might get a tax problem.
	Yeah, people don't give a shit about it.
	Oh, by the way, Monday, I think Monday, big news from Mevio.
	Be on the lookout for it.
	I will.
	I'm not allowed to say what.
	You know what it is.
	I'm not allowed to say what.
	Well, it's a good teaser.
	Yeah, cool.
	All right.
	What's coming up this week for you, John?
	I'm going to be around all week.
	There's an AMD meeting I'm having because I have my penance for writing a nasty article.
	So I have to listen to the lectures.
	And that's on Monday.
	And then the rest of the week, I may go off to the...
	Actually, I'm going to probably be around all week.
	I'll probably just be doing nothing.
	I've got to clean up my office.
	Yeah.
	I've heard you say that for two years now, I think.
	It's pathetic.
	Yeah, it is.
	Well, I think I'm coming out maybe for Fourth of July.
	What are you doing on Fourth of July?
	I'm going up north for Fourth of July.
	Oh, shit.
	Crap.
	I've got to find a good hang for Fourth of July.
	We have to be at the...
	We're doing the Fourth of July parade.
	Our deli has to be in the Fourth of July parade.
	You know, one person's going to be wearing a pig costume and then another one a chicken, you know, for a chicken sandwich.
	I don't know.
	Okay.
	So you won't see me.
	All right, then I'll have to replan my trip.
	I guess that's it.
	All right, coming to you from the Curry Manor in the United Kingdom, I'm Adam Curry.
	And from foggy Northern California, I'm John C. Dvorak.

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