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July 19, 2008 - No Agenda

01:26:51

39: Fascism Today

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Time	Text
	Gone for a week, but hopefully not forgotten.
	Once again, welcome to the program that comes to you from two different sides of the globe.
	It is no agenda here in the Curry Manor in the lovely and affluent suburb of Surrey known as Guilford.
	I'm Adam Curry.
	And I'm up here in Northern California.
	I'm John C. Dvorak.
	John, it's good to talk to you again, my friend.
	Yeah, you were on vacation.
	Yeah, and I apologize.
	I forgot to tell you that I was going on vacation.
	Well, I think I did tell you, but I forgot to tell you that I wasn't planning on doing a show.
	Yeah, you were wasted in the south of France, I understand.
	I was not wasted.
	Nothing of the kind.
	It was fantastic, though.
	I've never been on vacation to the south of France, and I have to say, I think I have my new holiday destination all figured out.
	Everybody says that.
	And Portugal is the other one they like to go to.
	I've been to Portugal a number of times, and I think it does not compare.
	I really, really like the south of France.
	And you even say France.
	So, um...
	I know, it's horrible.
	Oh, I went to France.
	I went to the south of France, no less.
	So, but you know, a lot of people go, I mean, I would recommend the south of France to anybody, but you went to the high rent district.
	I mean, when I go there, I'd be floating around.
	I actually probably would even, which isn't technically the south of France, go to Provence, or then if I was going to be in the south of France, I think Nice is probably more along my direction.
	Or even Monte Carlo, which sounds ritzy, but it's not as fancy as where you went, which is San Tropez.
	Well, actually, we stayed at a friend's house in San Rafael, which is between Cannes and San Tropez.
	And so it's a small village, but we did day trips.
	We went to Cannes and then we did go to Saint-Tropez twice with the big powerboat, the way you're supposed to do, right?
	You roll up there and there's...
	No, it's fantastic.
	You park in front of Nicky Beach.
	Have you heard of Nicky Beach?
	Yeah, it's one of those places where the Russian mob hangs out.
	Exactly.
	The Russian mob and all of their chicas.
	It's fantastic.
	Actually, we had lunch at Club Saint-Consec, which is a pretty famous restaurant on the beach right nearby.
	More Russians.
	And actually, Gordon Ramsay was there when we were having lunch.
	Everyone was on high alert and looking spiffy and doing their best.
	Oh, really?
	What was he doing there?
	Did you go up to him and say, hello, I'm Adam Curry?
	Sure, you've heard of me.
	You must have heard of me.
	I've heard of you.
	No, I did not.
	He was just having lunch.
	By himself?
	No, we had a couple friends there.
	It was totally overcrowded.
	This place, there's a line outside what you could call a door, I guess, that must be 50 people who have no reservation and subsequently no chance whatsoever of actually getting down and having a meal.
	So how was the food?
	Oh, it was very good.
	What they do is they have these, each table gets like this big...
	Now this is, let's go back, this is Sank on Sank, is that the name of the place?
	Yeah, so 55, Club 55, Sank on Sank, very famous restaurant.
	And it's a dump, right?
	It's like a beach hut with tarps strung over the top of it.
	I mean, it's nothing special at all, except for the fact that all the beautiful people are there.
	And each table gets this huge, like...
	Like a side of a tree, you know, with bark and all, and it's probably, I'd say, about five inches high, and on that hollowed-out tree slice or slab, if you will, they put huge amounts of raw vegetables like...
	I'm not getting the description correct.
	Is it like a stump?
	Is it round or is it long and it's cut down the middle?
	What's its shape like?
	Imagine if you took a tree and you sliced off a piece of the bark, say about two or three feet long.
	Sliced off a piece of bark?
	Yeah, except really a deep slice, so maybe a couple inches thick.
	So like a canoe.
	Oh, okay.
	Right?
	And so you have the bark on one side, which has been modified a bit so that, of course, it doesn't roll around on the table.
	And then the top part is all clean, you know...
	Flat wood.
	Flat wood, yeah.
	And then on that they put cauliflower and cucumbers and tomatoes and radishes and all kinds of stuff.
	So that's really nice.
	Everyone's just kind of picking at that at the table.
	I'm surprised, before you go on with the description, that the EU allows it.
	Because of the trees, you mean?
	Yeah, I mean, they have this thing about what food can touch, and they have all these rules coming out of Belgium, and I'm stunned by this.
	I'll tell you, the French, as far as I can tell, don't give a shit about the EU. I mean, they're smoking everywhere.
	They're doing everything that is not supposed to be possible in the European Union.
	Okay.
	Well, that's good.
	Excellent.
	Not that people should be smoking, but I'm just saying it's good that they're still French.
	Also, most of the people I met and talked to definitely don't work 34 hours a week.
	You know, there's more like 54.
	So, another farce.
	But great weather, man.
	But wait, let's get back to the food.
	You got the plank of wood.
	It's got some cauliflower on it.
	Okay, so then I had artichoke.
	Is it steamed artichoke?
	Which I kind of like.
	You know, where you take off the leaves and the closer you get to the center, to the heart of the artichoke, the more stuff there's on the leaves.
	Okay.
	And I had steak tartare, which is basically a big slab of raw meat.
	Yeah, always at risk.
	Oh, it was good though.
	Oh, it was so good.
	And...
	The only other spectacular thing worth mentioning on this program is the 14th of July, which is kind of the French Independence Day, known as...
	They call it a couple different things, but it's...
	Bastille Day.
	Bastille Day, yep.
	We were invited to...
	Actually, Patricia was invited, and so we all went along.
	This apparently quite wealthy woman who was throwing a party in her apartment, but her apartment...
	It was the building next to the Carlton Hotel, rooftop penthouse.
	I don't know how big this rooftop penthouse was, just on the rooftop part of it, but there were easily 70 to 80 people outside comfortably.
	And we had an unobstructed view of the water where all the fireworks were ignited.
	Oh, that's nice.
	Yeah, and there's a picture on curry.com.
	You can see the situation.
	You actually took a picture.
	You brought a camera.
	Oh, yes.
	Just a cell phone camera.
	Actually, when you called me earlier before we started the show, I got a new cell phone, man.
	Yeah, because I left on Friday, the day the iPhone was supposed to come out.
	And actually, I went to the store at 9 in the morning.
	I'm like, okay, I'm going to go get one at the local Guilford shop at the O2 store.
	I'll go pick up an iPhone, the 3G model, and I'll have something fun to play with during the vacation.
	So I roll up.
	There's 100 people in line in Guilford.
	Yeah, so, you know, like, all right, turn around, because we had to leave at 11 for the airport, so I turn around, go back, forget about it, you know, but throughout the week I was kind of reading things, and I've been, you know, actually there were a couple of reviews in Financial Times, and just some web reviews, and the more I was reading it, the more I'm like, you know, I don't know if this thing is really going to make me extremely happy.
	You're talking about the iPhone?
	Yeah, the iPhone 3G. I've been an iPod Touch user ever since it came out, basically.
	And so we got back last night, and I upgraded my iPod Touch to the new 2.0 software.
	And I'm like, do I give a shit about...
	And I went through the App Store, I'm looking at all the stuff, and I'm like, well, you know...
	It doesn't really integrate with my entire life.
	It syncs nicely with the Mac and all that.
	And then I'm looking at reports on the battery life and how you can't actually get driving directions with a built-in GPS, not with voice commands.
	I'm sure that's going to come out at some point.
	But all the stuff that's still to come.
	And I'm like, I don't know.
	And so I broke down and went into town, looked at the iPhone 3G again, and then went next door and bought the new Nokia E71, which I'm just tickled to death over.
	Why?
	Well, I've had the E61i, and basically everything that I didn't like about it, which mainly was processor speed, It's just, you know, rendering web pages and all that stuff.
	And also the fact that the E61i doesn't have HDSPA, the really high-speed wireless access.
	And also the form factor, just the size of it.
	And this E71, if you look it up online, man, it's a beautiful, beautiful phone.
	And it is unbelievably fast.
	And, you know, we're using this thing called...
	Joiku Spot?
	Have you heard of that?
	No, I'm looking at a picture of it now.
	It looks pretty cool.
	Yeah, so this thing called Joiku Spot, you install this little application which works on the Symbian platform, and it turns your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
	So I just installed that, and so basically now I have the iPod Touch.
	What do you mean a hotspot?
	You mean it turns it into a transmitter?
	Yes.
	Well, so the phone has Wi-Fi, so you can browse through high-speed mobile data or through your Wi-Fi access point.
	And what this Joiku spot thing does is it just reverses that process and it turns your phone into a Wi-Fi access point using its data connection.
	So I can, so, okay, oh, this is, oh, so in other words, if I can get it out, because I'm stunned.
	In other words, what it does, so essentially it turns the phone into a hub, like if you have your laptop with you and you can't get a connection any way, shape, or form, you can call up, you can dial up on the phone, and the phone becomes a Wi-Fi device.
	A hub, as it were, and then the computer can talk to the phone, which talks to the network, and then you can get your email.
	Exactly.
	So it just routes...
	Well, email, I mean, you can get stuff at high speed.
	In fact, I think the speed that I'm getting through the phone, through that Joico thing, may actually be faster than my broadband at home.
	Really?
	Well, you know, we have shitty provisioning out here, 50 to 1 or whatever, so when everyone's sucking on the pipe, well, you know, it's like when we have really shitty shows, that's my access at home.
	But this thing, you know, I've seen 700 megabits down.
	It's also smaller than the 61 by a lot.
	Yes, and it's almost the exact same size as the iPod Touch, which is smaller than the iPhone.
	And it's great.
	It's got GPS built in with turn-by-turn instructions.
	The Nokia does.
	Yeah, the Nokia, yeah.
	It's got turn-by, really?
	Yeah, oh yeah.
	It looks like it's about 500 bucks.
	Yeah, and it's a little more expensive here.
	It was like 300 pounds, so about 600 bucks.
	And of course, that's an unlocked version, so I can put any SIM card in that I want.
	I'm not locked into a carrier.
	There's one on sale for $483.95.
	Hot damn!
	I should have waited.
	Well, that sounds like a winner.
	Well, you'll see it in a couple weeks when I'm over.
	It is stunning.
	And it takes good pictures?
	Yeah, it has a 3.2 megapixel camera, which is the E61 had a 2 megapixel, and so also the iPhone 3G only has a 2 megapixel camera.
	So it has a reasonable camera with a flash.
	It also has a little...
	Has a flash?
	That can't do anything.
	What's the flash go for a foot?
	I don't know.
	I haven't tried it yet.
	I got home and I called you.
	It has a camera on the front, a VGA camera for video calls.
	Oh, on the front, so you can do phone sex.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Another thing the iPhone doesn't have, and just the more I was looking at it...
	You know, the iPhone was supposed to get that.
	Everyone kept talking about it, but I think they bailed out on it.
	Yeah.
	Everything that I really missed in the iPhone, this thing has, and so combined with that hotspot software, I think I've got a real winning combination, and smaller in size.
	And it has a keyboard, which I think is a big deal.
	And the keyboard, I'm loving this keyboard, and you're right, it is a big deal.
	It really is.
	You know, I've kind of gotten into, I don't do it as much as I could, but I have to admit that, you know, doing just SMS messaging, even though it's, you know, sometimes the messages get lost, I think is, you know, I think the kids got it right.
	I think it's a good thing.
	Yep.
	And so now I have to wean everybody off of my old phone number onto the new phone number because I finally broke down and got a UK number to use.
	No, tell us what it is.
	Thanks, everybody.
	Trying to get one that's not being tapped.
	Oh, well, that's not going to happen.
	I mean, you probably got about a week before the...
	As soon as the MI6 or 5 or whichever group it is who listens to the show, I figure they listen to the show once a week, about a week after the show's been out.
	And then they'll know you have the new phone, and then they'll lock you into their system shortly.
	Well, you know, it's no big deal over here.
	All you do is, even the council, the Guilford council can request a phone tap.
	Yeah.
	And they do it by the thousands.
	I think there was 30,000 last year.
	I'm sure the Guilford Council has got you on their list.
	Yeah, well...
	You're a troublemaker.
	You're an amazing troublemaker.
	I live in England.
	I'm a freaking troublemaker.
	But, man, it was good.
	It was good to have a vacation, good to get away, and I'm raring to go.
	And I did nothing but read paper.
	Very, very little internet access.
	And I literally would be reading the Financial Times back to back every single day.
	I think I'm going to get a subscription to two.
	This is a change of my approach to things.
	I think I'm going to, which is noteworthy, I think I'm going to get a subscription to the hard copy of the New York Times.
	Really?
	And here's the reason.
	Here's what my thinking is.
	Because I was traveling recently and I picked up a copy.
	Well, usually when I go to the airport, I scrounge around and try.
	I think that people should recycle more.
	I don't think they should be picking up those papers.
	I think people should be.
	One of the reasons people don't buy newspapers anymore is because they feel guilty about all the trees that are being wasted.
	Seriously.
	It sounds like a joke, but in fact, they've studied this.
	And people do feel bad about it.
	So what?
	So like 40%, 50%?
	Lots.
	Well, yeah, 40.
	Something like 40 or more.
	You know, it's just a huge number of people that don't like the idea.
	And it's also a pain in the ass to have a big stack of papers.
	You've got to take them to the recycling bin.
	But anyway, so I get the thing.
	I realize that the efficiency...
	Which is what we have to consider here, rather than, oh, the internet, you know, you can always find out stuff.
	And I was watching the news the other day, and I was noticing somebody said, and so-and-so, blah, blah, blah, some guy killed somebody, we'll get back to it after this break, and you don't know who it is, and they don't even get to it until the end of this show.
	I don't need this aggravation.
	So that's when the internet comes in handy.
	You go up and you can look things up.
	But for getting just a hit of the news on a day-to-day basis, the efficiency of a big It's a big newspaper where you just open it up and you can really see what at least some people think is important.
	And you can also pick up on what's good about the New York Times isn't so much it's news, but it's coverage of trends and trendsetters and things that are going on in the city, like something about sunglasses or something about women are wearing shorter skirts.
	Major basic cultural trends.
	It's more efficient to get that from a paper, because you get the paper, you can spend it 20 minutes with it.
	You'd be on the net all day.
	And I think at the beginning to think that in terms of getting news, although I think a hit on one of the newspapers online probably gets you some news, but I think overall it's an inefficient way to gather the daily news and trends and things that are going on if you need to talk about these sorts of things.
	Well, it's interesting you say that because, you know, I was basically, as I said, offline and I'd just go down to the harbor and I'd buy a Financial Times.
	And I really enjoyed that format of getting my news, exactly what you're saying there.
	In fact, I'd take the first section and I'd take it down to the pool and I could fold it.
	I could fold it in another quarter, you know, just kind of hold it in like a book format and read...
	Read one article.
	And you're right.
	It's the importance, that whole layout, showing you what the editors or whoever's responsible for the front page of each section, you really get a much better global overview that is impossible to get online.
	Or at least it hasn't worked for me yet that way.
	No, I think people get more from this show, which they're listening to and it's very slow.
	And in this show, we don't really have a lot of bandwidth in terms of when you're talking, because I did this with one of my speeches recently.
	I had it transcribed.
	I gave a one and a half hour speech on the state of the art in the newspaper industry, why it's having problems, although I'm in denial about it.
	And so I had it transcribed by a transcription service, and the whole hour and a half speech was 7,500 words.
	Oh, jeez.
	Right.
	And I'm a fairly fast talker.
	I mean, I mumble a little bit, and sometimes I stammer.
	But the fact of the matter is, that's about what it is.
	And so for our show, we have to assume that it's probably running around 7,500 words, which is really three feature stories.
	2,500 word stories in a newspaper, which you can really plow through in about 10 minutes.
	So what are you saying?
	So is our show good or bad?
	What I'm saying is that the newspaper, the old-fashioned newspaper, I'm saying for one thing, yeah, this show is inefficient.
	But the newspaper is extremely efficient, an efficient way to get a lot of information fast.
	And I think that can't be denied.
	And the internet is not as efficient as...
	At getting you this much information this quickly.
	Well, also, you still, in most cases, you have to act as kind of like the editor.
	You have to figure out what's important, you know, because, yeah, there might be something on the homepage, but it's typically not the same that's being highlighted in the paper.
	And then all the other sections, like, you know, then it's almost like a weblog version, you know, reverse chronological order and not another layout.
	You know, I love looking at Financial Times has that sidebar, Like, oh, here's other stories within this section of the paper.
	Oh, I might skip ahead to something.
	Yeah, it's good.
	I like it.
	I have to say.
	I should probably put the Financial Times on the list and subscribe to that, too.
	Now, thinking about that, and the fact that I've been giving these talks about the newspaper business being in decline, and it is...
	I realize that one of the problems they have is because they're so arrogant.
	The newspaper people, they're just so full of themselves, generally speaking, because they know they're doing a good job.
	They don't want to listen to anybody from the outside telling them what to do.
	But the one thing is that they're not doing very well is marketing their product anymore.
	They've never bothered to market it.
	I mean, they talk about their idea of marketing.
	It's almost like the Chinese method of marketing.
	The Chinese...
	If you boil down any Chinese philosophy of marketing, it always comes down to one thing, best price.
	They don't care about advertising, they don't care about messages, they don't care about anything.
	Just best price, that'll do the trick.
	Which is a detriment to them and everyone else.
	And the newspaper people must be the same way, because their whole idea of marketing is giving you a deal.
	Well, we'll give you a month for free.
	Or a free CD inside.
	So the point is that if they would market the newspapers the way I'm doing now for them, which is to say, look, this is a very efficient...
	Well, you guys don't have a lot of time on your hands.
	How much time do you have to kill dicking around online, surfing the net?
	If you want an efficient hit of news and trends and information, nothing beats the newspaper.
	It's extremely efficient.
	Here, this is why you should subscribe.
	I've never heard that message.
	You're right.
	And how about newsstand placement?
	I don't know if they have to fight for that or if they still do or if they care.
	But where your stuff is in the stand and what's on that front page?
	I mean, that's a big part of marketing there, too.
	Yeah, no, the front...
	Well, in Europe, and I think we've talked about this on the show before, they're a little more adept because everything, you know, people want...
	You know, you go to a newsstand, if people travel and they go to Heathrow or any place where there's a big newsstand, you look at these...
	Yeah, they're screaming at you.
	You want to buy a lot of magazines because they have these fantastic layouts and they scream at you.
	You're right.
	They demand that you pay attention.
	We don't do so much of that in the States, even though magazines like Cosmopolitan kind of do that.
	But generally speaking, the difference is, and people have to realize this, is that in the U.S., most of the magazines and newspapers account for most of their income from subscriptions.
	And in Europe...
	Most of their income is all done on newsstands.
	Well, in New York, I don't know if it's still that way.
	Yeah, I guess it is.
	You had those newsstands where you buy your dirty magazines, your cigarettes, your chewing gum, and then they have...
	Yeah, but if you look at the really hot magazines that those newsstands you're talking about, and they're all over New York, the hot magazines, the ones I always get gravitate to, are the ones that are brought over from Europe.
	Yeah, yeah, true.
	And I'm always buying some weird wine magazine or some screwball magazine that's coming out of England or somewhere.
	Yeah.
	Anyway.
	So that's the deal.
	Meanwhile, the newspaper...
	Of course, no newspaper person is listening to this show either because they're sitting around amongst themselves, which is what they do, and wondering what's going on.
	But I guess it's just too expensive a format to maintain their business model.
	It seems like no one's really doing any great business.
	No one's raking it in.
	Well, maybe Murdoch is, who now, of course, also owns the Wall Street Journal.
	That'll be interesting to see.
	Yeah, when I went to Manhattan a few weeks back, we had the editor, because I went with MarketWatch, we had an editorial meeting amongst the columnists, and we have some characters for columnists, I have to say.
	But anyway, they brought in the editor-in-chief, because Murdoch also owns MarketWatch now.
	Oh, really?
	I didn't know that.
	Yeah, well Dow Jones bought MarketWatch, and so he owns everything.
	Have you gotten the call yet where they say, hey John, we want you to stay away from those topics.
	We'd like you to focus a little bit more on this kind of news.
	No, my understanding is they just wait for you to make mistakes and fire you.
	Okay, that's much easier.
	You know, they don't have to tell you what to do.
	So, I don't think there's a lot of that kind of direction.
	They did bring in the guy who's the hatchet man, I guess one of Murdoch's right-handed men, that guy who's now running the Wall Street Journal, in to talk to us.
	See, there it is.
	It's starting.
	Yeah, but I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.
	That's the only thing.
	Well, I've really been paying a lot of attention.
	Obviously, reading the news, I've been paying a lot of attention to what people are saying and the words that they're using.
	I guess you'd call them code words.
	Code.
	And a big word these days is shock.
	Boy, that's being used a lot.
	The oil shock.
	The credit crisis shock.
	Everything's a shock.
	And on the heels of that, I read Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, which kind of clarified a couple things for me about the usage of the word.
	But just interesting to note.
	I haven't noted it here.
	Maybe I'm not paying attention.
	So what did Naomi Klein say about shock doctrine?
	Well, this comes...
	So the word shock comes from the Chicago School of Economics, which was founded by a guy named Friedman.
	I'm sure you've heard of him.
	No?
	You're not talking about Milton Friedman.
	Yeah, I think it's Milton Friedman.
	Well, I mean, he came, that school, he was way after that thing began.
	I mean, there's earlier names.
	Oh, he didn't found the school, but he started this.
	You're talking about the current, okay.
	Yeah, the current thought of how economics should work.
	Right, he's the guy from this generation.
	Right, and so when you see who has studied at the Chicago School of Economics and what alumni have advised which world leaders, some of them actually sleeping with literature, going to bed, reading it, getting up and reading more, and a lot of it is based on the shock theory.
	And one example that was in there was Katrina.
	So Katrina hit, and the first group to take advantage of the shock of what took place were people who went in and changed the entire school system, did away with public schooling, and came up with vouchers for charter schools for these commercial entities.
	Like the tsunami in December 2006.
	Was it 2006?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, 2006.
	The people came in and took advantage of the shock by immediately turning that whole coastline into hotels and all the fishermen could go basically leave.
	Or we're not invited to come back.
	And things are changed drastically when there's a big shock.
	And it happens very, very quickly.
	I think that's an interesting...
	I should read that, I guess.
	But why bother?
	You'd enjoy it.
	But it's interesting in light of the New Orleans thing because every time people go there, I have to go there.
	I'm going to have to get down there somehow.
	Because everybody goes there and says, Jesus, it's just like worse than it was.
	Nothing's changed.
	It's just a mess.
	They've apparently left most of the area, the Ninth Ward and all those areas that were decimated.
	They're just a mess.
	It stinks.
	And it just seems to me as though almost the whole thing is a scheme to...
	Just take New Orleans and get rid of all those poor black people and everything that was kind of sleazy about New Orleans and turn it into kind of a yuppieville.
	Yeah, so essentially all that public housing.
	That's what that theory would say.
	And when you read it, there's points about that in the book as well.
	All that public housing, the problem was basically solved.
	Okay, it's all done now, so that's taken care of.
	But no thought about, okay, where did the hundreds of thousands of homeless people go, or where do they migrate to?
	Yeah, exactly.
	But yeah, so I read Shock Doctrine, and then I keep seeing this word shock, and it's always, well, these days it's associated with oil, you know, the oil shock, which, by the way, What is going on?
	Oil went from $146 a barrel.
	It's down now to $128.
	Yeah, I think it peaked.
	I think you're wrong.
	No, I think it's the pullback.
	No, I think this is the pullback.
	They're about to flip the levers big time.
	It's going to hit.
	The jig is up.
	No, I don't think so.
	And by the way, how can you say that these prices are not based upon speculators when it clearly is?
	The options expired on every month.
	I never said it wasn't based on speculators.
	No, no, I'm just saying, oh, I'm sorry, I've also been reading everywhere that all these studies have been done, and everyone's saying, don't blame the speculators, it's not the...
	Oh, you know, that's a cronk of cronk.
	I can't believe that people print that stuff.
	Yeah, they're saying it over and over again, and, you know, they're doing all these studies, and, oh, no, we checked it all out, it's not the speculators, no, it's...
	Pure market forces.
	And so these options, you buy, you know, stuff like oil you buy options on and they expire on, what is it, the Thursday of every month or the third Tuesday or something like that?
	Something like that.
	Yeah, so, you know, on Tuesday the options all expire.
	The price drops five bucks.
	And it starts to go down.
	Then, of course, we have what is about to be the most interesting moment in financial history as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to be subsidized by you and I, essentially, taxpayers.
	A scam!
	And that's going to cause more inflation, right?
	I mean, you print up money, you give it to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and there's more money in circulation, and it devalues the dollar and causes inflation, I think.
	What are we going to do?
	Just keep watching.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know what we're going to do.
	But it's been interesting looking across those three lines of U.S. news, U.K. news, and to some extent even Dutch news.
	And I saw something that happened.
	Someone sent me a note.
	Two days ago, that double jeopardy is now being eliminated systematically in European member states.
	So it's about to leave in, I think...
	Oh, that's interesting.
	Yeah, it's about to be taken away in Ireland, the Netherlands...
	And I presume, as the New World Order continues, eventually they'll try and do that in the States.
	But yeah, it's being eliminated.
	Oh, absolutely, not to mention it.
	Because, you know, one of the things that they've always done, you know, a lot of this is always...
	Maybe we should explain Double Jeopardy real quick, so not everyone will understand it.
	You do it, because you'll do a better job.
	Essentially what it says is that if you're indicted for a crime, let's say murder, and you are found not guilty, you cannot be retried even if they find all kinds of evidence of including a movie of you killing the person because that's double jeopardy. you cannot be retried even if they find all kinds The reason for the laws makes some sense.
	If you think about it, the way if double jeopardy doesn't exist and they're after Adam Curry, they want to get him and they want to imprison him somehow.
	So they'll trump up some charge and then they find him not guilty.
	So they just charge him again and then again and then again and then again.
	And so the guy's never out of court because you can just keep doing it over and over and over again until the guy basically dies of old age.
	So there's a good reason for these laws, but The public has been, you know, over time, you know, there's a brainwashing thing afoot where you have, you know, movies and stories where you have the evil guy who somehow manages to scheme the system.
	How about O.J. Simpson?
	That's an example for you.
	Yeah, O.J. Simpson's a good example.
	And so, you know, and now you find out that he did it or whatever.
	Or he writes a book and says if he was going to do it, this is how he'd do it.
	Yeah, that kind of thing.
	Whatever.
	But he's probably one of the many examples.
	So in this change of law, they're specifically saying that because of new developments in DNA, which is...
	This really scares me.
	They now want to say, you know what?
	If we find DNA evidence 20 years later, we want to be able to go back and prosecute that person.
	Which, of course, is really, really frightening.
	Because, you know...
	How do you check all this DNA stuff?
	I'm willing to believe it.
	Well, I mean, I'm game for the DMA to get people off.
	I mean, which is what they've been doing in this country, which essentially is they find these guys who have been in prison, especially places like Texas, where they just, you know, hey, the guy's black!
	Hey!
	Throw him in jail!
	Death row!
	And so they've gotten a lot of people off with DNA. But to go back in time, if the guy's already been on trial...
	The DNA is one more straw.
	See, this is where you get into the situation where every time a new technology comes...
	I mean, you might as well just say, well, every time they improve DNA testing, let's go back after the same guys over and over again.
	That's what they're saying, John.
	That's exactly what they're saying.
	Yeah.
	That's just another step toward fascism.
	I mean, let's face it.
	Absolutely.
	What is it called in Latin?
	Edim, I think is what it is?
	Or...
	I don't know.
	I don't know what it's called.
	But it's totally another step towards fascism.
	And I'm convinced, you know, now looking at this, because the talk still continues about the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union's constitution, which really wasn't a constitution, but it was, and because it wasn't called constitution, got rammed through, is now through in 21 of the 27 member states, with Ireland still the only ones who had a referendum saying no.
	And it's like these guys are just, you know, it's like they're ignoring it.
	Well, you know, Sarkozy is, I think he's in, so he's the president now of the European Union.
	He's in Ireland this weekend or this coming week.
	And, you know, he's like, well, I'll talk to my boy over there.
	And I think we'll have to hold another vote.
	Yeah, that's pretty clear.
	We need another vote because the first vote didn't have the outcome we desired.
	Yeah, just keep doing it over and over and over until you get him to vote.
	You vote something in, which is an old trick.
	Let me guess.
	A fascist trick?
	The funny thing is we're going to have to come up with a new word besides fascist.
	The reason for that is because it's marginalized as a term.
	You're calling everything a fascist?
	You're an idiot.
	In fact, this is not fascism in the sense of the fascisti or the actual political movement that took place in the late 20s.
	I think Mussolini was one of the progenitors, one of the main guys that began the process.
	This is something else, but there's no name for it.
	You can say, well, we throw out the term fascism, but it's not really fascism because fascism was a party.
	In fact, it was a political and a sociological concept that this is a little different in some funny way.
	But no term has been dropped on it.
	We need a nasty new word for That you can keep calling this situation and we don't have one.
	I think it's important that we develop one.
	Well, I'm looking now at the thesaurus.
	Let me see if I can find anything.
	Hmm.
	Autocracy, dictatorship, Nazism, totalitarianism.
	Hmm.
	Fascism just sounds so good, doesn't it?
	Yeah, it's a nice word, but, you know, the thing is, I think we've got to come up with something else, because it just sounds, you sound like a, the problem with using fascism, in fact, I ran into a crackpot friend of mine the other day, who used the term, and the first thing you think of is when somebody says, oh, it's fascist.
	You think of Hitler?
	You think the guy's a crackpot.
	And that's the problem with the term.
	You and I saying it, people listening, those two crackpots are hilarious.
	We should listen every week.
	But what's happening, I think particularly in Europe, pretty much mirrors the definition of fascism.
	Yeah, no, it does, but the problem is the term itself has been people who see flying saucers.
	Even if they see one, they're not going to be believed.
	Oh, crap.
	All the activity is heating up in the UK over flying saucers.
	Flying saucers are hot right now.
	In fact, Larry King, I've been flipping through the channels since there's nothing on TV. Did he have Shirley MacLaine on again?
	No, no.
	He's done at least three shows that I know of where he has these flying saucer experts.
	Yeah, and they're ex-military.
	Shirley MacLaine was on with a couple of them.
	I think it must have been maybe half a year ago I happened to catch it.
	Well, that's one way to...
	Well, you know, but Shirley McKinney comes across as kind of kooky.
	Kind of?
	Yeah, but I think she's intelligent.
	You know, and there's Dennis Kucinich.
	See, there you go.
	The vegan.
	Yeah, but you're calling people crackpots for having said they saw UFOs.
	There was a UK police helicopter that chased one.
	They say, we chased a UFO, and this was only a couple weeks ago.
	And it went out to sea, and they continued with their pursuit, and they had to give up because they ran out of fuel, essentially.
	They had to go back.
	But they said, hey, it was a UFO. I don't care what you say.
	It was a UFO. Like the one guy in the last night's show, they had a bunch of these guys.
	Including a guy from, the way King does it is he has two of the UFO, you know, really the guys that are, they're credible, but they're a little out there.
	And then you have a couple of guys who are skeptics.
	And the one guy who made this, you know, a very good comment says, look, look, where, why, you know, with all these cameras out there, how come nobody's ever gotten a good picture?
	Because they're all using iPhones with two megapixel cameras.
	I'm just saying, you know, where's the good picture?
	And, you know, like a good picture.
	There's not, they're always just blurry things done with a, you know, a little dot on a screen.
	And look, look, there it is.
	And it's like a little white thing flying around.
	I mean, it could be some kid with a model airplane at night for all you know.
	Go to YouTube, or better yet, Google Video, and look for something called the Disclosure Project.
	Which was, it's a video from 2000.
	And the disclosure project was this entire panel of, it must have been 20 guys, all ex-military, ex-pilots, ex-NSA, ex-CIA, you know, retired, most of them.
	And several of them who did air traffic control radar.
	And I say, look, you know, we're tracking an object at 80,000 feet, which is pretty high.
	And we could just see it stop.
	We could see it hover.
	We could see it make a 90-degree left-hand turn.
	There's no doubt about it.
	That was nothing earthly that was making those moves.
	And the point of the disclosure project is they all go up there.
	They state their case.
	They all have their own stories or their own proof.
	And each of them ends by saying, my name is Lieutenant General so-and-so, retired, and I'm willing to testify about these facts before Congress.
	That was kind of what the disclosure project was.
	Yeah.
	The other comment that somebody made is, you know, why these aliens have all this tech?
	Now, why doesn't one of them just, you know, stop in the, you know, take a stop in one of the heliports and get out and greet a few people?
	Well, you know, okay, you know the theories.
	I mean, there's many theories why.
	The prevalent one being that this did happen.
	This is part of what Roswell was all about.
	And there was contact and the governments of the world shot him.
	Shot the fucker down.
	the world have been in contact and they have a deal.
	They gave us technology.
	We give them babies to eat and blood to drink.
	Come on, you've read these theories.
	Strawberry ice cream is one of the things they like.
	I haven't come across that one yet.
	Oh yeah, that's in there, believe me.
	Anyway, so the thing is there's a trend right now because the UK has released their UFO files.
	The French did it back in, I think they were the first to do it back in March.
	And I think the UK did it since and the French didn't get much publicity for theirs.
	But everybody's doing it now except the US, so now they're getting hounded.
	And I think there's a big thing going on, and I think a lot of it, when it really boils down, it's for the next X-Files movie.
	The whole thing is a big publicity scam.
	I'm telling you.
	Everything I... I believe that when you start seeing this stuff happening all at once like this out of the blue and then a movie's coming out, I'm looking at who's the PR person?
	I'd like to meet this person and shake their hands because we're witnessing one of the greatest stunts in the history of marketing.
	Yeah.
	It wouldn't surprise me if you look at how short the lines are between White House and some of the companies that own scripts and movie companies to produce.
	Why not?
	Yeah, you know, you're talking Viacom, you know, they own most of the content.
	I think Viacom, if I'm not mistaken, I don't know, I think they own CNN, I'm not sure.
	Man, that's also, that's really bugging me, that whole Viacom YouTube thing.
	Well, I think they backed off.
	Well, they backed off what?
	They're still getting the...
	So here's the thing that I love.
	This is what I read.
	And I'm going to get the IPs, I understand.
	No, no, but that's only for external.
	They do want all of the usernames or IDs or IPs, addresses, of the people within YouTube.
	Meaning that if they, or even Google I guess, so if they were to get Eric Schmidt's details of what he was looking at, and he was looking at Jon Stewart, or any other person within YouTube, if they were essentially aware that there was illegal content on there as proven by the logs, Then they're in deep shit, because that you can't do.
	You can't be sifting around for stuff and then not taking it down.
	That's not exactly how the...
	No, that's interesting.
	I didn't know this, but that's the way discovery should work.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, no, I think that's actually valid.
	I think it's very valid.
	That would be interesting to do.
	Well, I think it's explicit or implicit that that's what they're going to do.
	Yeah, no, I, you know, thinking about it, I do the same thing.
	Yeah.
	So then, of course, you know, it doesn't fall under the safe harbor of the DMCA. Right, no, then their lame excuse, well, we didn't know, is out the window.
	Yeah.
	But I'm pretty...
	You're going to have to sieve through a lot of IPs.
	But internally, it's not all that bad.
	They'll get enough hits.
	They'll get enough hits to prove it.
	No problem.
	It'll be easy.
	I mean, I'm sure...
	Yeah, you know, I think you're dead right.
	And I think that they will prove it because...
	It's lax.
	I mean, the whole YouTube thing from the beginning is lax.
	Well, that and Google Video.
	I mean, there's not a single thing that you can think of that you're looking for.
	Any documentary, anything that's been on the BBC of interest, you'll be able to find it in its entirety.
	Right there, uploaded, converted, ready for searching and enjoyment.
	Yeah, I watch a lot of stuff from there.
	So what does that mean?
	I mean, once Viacom, because I'm sure Viacom's going to say, okay, hey, you know what, it's not 1 billion, I think it's 10 billion, or whatever the number is.
	I don't think they're going to be able to change the number after the, you know...
	Maybe.
	I don't know.
	I actually would have to talk to an attorney about that one.
	Here's what I think the game plan is.
	I think the game plan is, on a broad scale, remember, it is Viacom, Sumner Redstone, one of the most powerful men in the world.
	I would say that this whole copyright thing, that's just a farce.
	That's just a front to turn the ISPs into filters and police stations, essentially.
	So it starts with, oh, you're looking at something illegally.
	Oh, no, no, no.
	Can't do that.
	And then all you have to do is just determine what's illegal.
	Maybe.
	It could be.
	I mean, I don't know.
	I think it's actually with deep packet sniffing and some of these other technologies that are coming out, it's possible that you could...
	Do things, especially if there were watermarks and flags and things like that that could be identified.
	But you don't even need deep packet sniffing.
	Just look at the HTTP request.
	It can be really simple.
	But what it is, it's turning your ISP, your direct connection to the internet, the first hop you make to the network, it's turning that into a filtering station.
	The cops, the man, checking us out.
	They can filter for whatever.
	We know they have the technology to filter out whatever they want and listen or search for keywords.
	I mean, that's not too hard.
	So, one and one is two, man.
	So, back to our fascism story.
	Right.
	It all boils down to the same thing.
	It does.
	We need a better word.
	We need a better word.
	Maybe people out there who listen, we have like 30,000 listeners, I think.
	Somebody, if we use the mob, as it were, which I'm sure this is close to being one, see if there's anybody out there that can help us come up with a new term that describes the New World Order, which is what we're talking about here, in some way that you can use to really, it's got to be a negative word, but it's got to be modern term.
	It's got to feel right.
	It can't be marginalized and it can't make you sound like a crackpot when you use it.
	Okay.
	Oh, I got a funny story to tell you.
	So, Dr.
	Ron Paul, as you know, I'm a supporter of Dr.
	Ron.
	He's doing an alternative convention in Minneapolis right in the same week when the Republican convention is taking place.
	They're doing this, you know, big concert on, I think, September the 2nd on Tuesday, 15,000 seat, you know, auditorium, whatever.
	They're going to have, you know, artists there and It's going to be...
	They're calling it the Rally for the Republic.
	But the day before that, on Monday, is when they're doing something in a football stadium.
	And that's going to be more for the diehards, if you will.
	Yeah, like you.
	Exactly.
	So they called me up.
	They said, would you mind hosting the event?
	And I'm like, no, it sounds like fun.
	And I said, you know, so I'll make sure I talk about it on my shows, you know, because I said, certainly the Daily Source Code, I know I've got lots of reptilian hunters and tinfoil hat wearers.
	And then the guy says, oh, as we like to call them, our core base.
	I'm like, right on, man, right on.
	So I'm going to do that September 1st.
	I'm going to host the Rally for the Republic.
	I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
	So it's going to be, where is it going to be?
	Minneapolis.
	Specifically, an auditorium at the stadium?
	By the way, have you ever been to Minneapolis?
	Yes, I have.
	It's a great place.
	The thing I recommend people do is go to their museums.
	They have two or three just stunning art museums that are really worth checking out.
	I'm sorry?
	No, go ahead.
	I'm just going to say, also, it's a much more cosmopolitan city than you'd think.
	Oh, totally.
	They have Mall of America there, of course.
	Well, I don't...
	That actually, to me, is a point against, but that's another story.
	Well, it relates to why I was there.
	I was shooting a television commercial for Sam Goody, and we're shooting it at the Sam Goody store in the Mall of America, because, of course, that's their flagship store.
	It's the biggest one or whatever.
	And so it's like a three-day shoot, and the second night I'm there, I get a call around midnight in the hotel room.
	So I pick it up and, you know...
	Yeah, Prince has a party over at Paisley Park, which is famously in Minneapolis as well.
	He says, do you want to come?
	I'm like, let me think.
	Yeah.
	He says, okay, well there's a car downstairs waiting for you.
	So I got whisked away to the Purple Palace and there was a party at the Paisley Park.
	Yeah, it's a happening town.
	So, how was the party?
	Did you get to meet Prince?
	Yeah.
	Was he going by the name Prince at the time?
	Yeah, no, I think he was going by the name of Prince at the time.
	Yeah, so you come in, you go through a metal detector, which makes sense, and then there's a whole bunch.
	It's really clean.
	Now you know you're going to a real party when you go through a metal detector.
	Yeah, so it was a big room, dimly lit, but a white room across one side, just the nicest buffet I'd seen in a long, long time.
	And there was a DJ with a mobile setup, and he was playing all kinds of Prince tunes you've never heard before in your life.
	And it's like, there must have been 150 beautiful girls and boys, nothing else, of course.
	It was kind of funny because Prince was standing over by the speakers near the DJ. And I was talking to a couple of people.
	I said, I'm going to go over and say hi to him.
	And this one girl, I kid you not, says, oh, you better not do that, man.
	You better not.
	I said, why not?
	Well, because you're like six feet tall and you're white, man.
	That's two strikes.
	You don't want to be talking to Prince.
	I'm like, fuck you.
	So I went over, introduced myself.
	First of all, he's not that small.
	You know, the stories about him, you think he was an Oompa Loompa.
	But anyway, he was really nice, and he knew, you know, what I had done on MTV just the previous week, and my daughter had been born maybe, maybe she's a year old, and said, how's your daughter?
	And he knew what was going on.
	It was fantastic.
	It was wonderful.
	He's an artist slash businessman.
	Absolutely.
	Why would he be a jerk like this girl thinks?
	Because, well, she obviously likes to project that image for good reason because he doesn't want to be bothered by every schmuck in the world.
	By her in particular, I think.
	Yeah, by her.
	And the coolest thing, though, was because the party ends at a certain point.
	You know, Prince, of course, he only made his appearance, and he was there for a little while, and then he disappeared.
	And then all of a sudden, you know, his guys come through this room, and all they do is they just kind of like flick flashlights on and off, pointed at the floor.
	And they just walk around, they're clicking their flashlights, and everyone knows, oh, it's time to go.
	And then within 15 minutes, the whole place was empty.
	So like a slick party.
	Very slick party.
	So anyway, that was my one time in Minneapolis.
	And I think, maybe I was there in Minneapolis.
	Did they ever do Indy in Minneapolis?
	Indy?
	Yeah, Indy 500.
	Oh, do they have any race tracks?
	I don't know.
	Maybe.
	I can't remember.
	They'd have to do in the middle of the summer, that's for sure.
	Yeah, I can't remember.
	Anyway, Minneapolis.
	So you're going up there.
	You're going to go up there to be the host or the guy who announces Ben.
	And ladies and gentlemen, Ron Paul!
	That kind of thing?
	Yeah, exactly.
	And there'll be artists there.
	And they're all going to cheer.
	Yeah, and I'll be like, you know, I'm going to wear my tinfoil hat.
	You know, it'll be cool.
	Patricia made me one.
	I got a really nice one.
	Cool.
	We did a couple blog posts on tinfoil hats, including, I think it was about two or three years ago, some kids at MIT or someplace had done a whole study of tinfoil hats, and they would send radio waves at people with the different styles of hats, and they finally came up with one design that was the best.
	The perfect design.
	Oh yeah, absolutely.
	I've always thought that would be a great idea as a giveaway.
	Basically, you package up a big sheet of industrial aluminum tinfoil with instructions on how to fold it and how to make your hat.
	Yeah, man, that's a great idea.
	Hey, let's do it.
	Let's do the Adam and John tinfoil hat company.
	And we could actually make a kit and sell not that cheap-ass aluminum foil, the thin stuff which the radio waves can get to.
	No, no, it's got to be the hard course.
	By the way, it's aluminum.
	It's not aluminum.
	Well, we've got to differentiate ourselves in the market here, John.
	I think you're right.
	The Canadians pronounce it that way, too, so we can get away with aluminum.
	Aluminium hat.
	So we can be the aluminum hat company and a do-it-yourself hat.
	It comes in a kit.
	We'll make it like $9.95 with complete instructions and a nice package with the pieces of foil and how to fold them up and hold nine yards.
	I'm sure it already exists.
	If we can get the aluminum printed so it has some sort of logo on it, I think we'd have something.
	I bet you someone's already started this company.
	There's no way we're the only guys coming up with this idea.
	Well, I know, but we have marketing behind us.
	Savvy.
	We've got marketing savvy.
	I think we could sell 10,000 units.
	You might be right.
	But think about how...
	I mean, your cost is very low.
	But, you know, it's just going to be real...
	It's going to be quality aluminum.
	And, yeah, if we could print it even better, you know, fold along this line like an origami thing.
	Yeah, that'd be outstanding.
	There's got to be somebody out there that's in the metal business that has a clue.
	I mean, you could even have an upgraded hat, because what you really want is made out of copper foil.
	Oh, because that really stops the RFID transmission.
	Well, I don't know that it does any better.
	I mean, the stuff that really would work would be, I mean, there's two ways you can go about it.
	You can make a Faraday cage, which I think would be the coolest thing to have.
	A Faraday cage hat, because then nothing can get through, period.
	I guess it could get underneath.
	Maybe it could come up through your feet.
	But anyway, a Faraday cage hat would be cool.
	And lead is always a winner.
	But they're too heavy.
	Not exactly convenient to wear on your head.
	A big lead hat.
	But lead foil can be very effective, and there is such a thing as lead foil.
	Hey, well, John, you know what we have to do?
	The Faraday cage is the one I'm kind of feeling good about.
	Yeah, well, we should get this going before September 1st, and we'll go out and we'll sell them at the event, sell them at the venue, our merch.
	Well, here's another possibility.
	How about an, because especially for this event you're talking about, a baseball cap insert that's a Faraday cage.
	In other words, like a beanie.
	It's like a yarmulke.
	Like a beanie thing that goes inside a baseball cap.
	Ah, inside the cap.
	Yeah, that's a good idea.
	Inside the cap, and you can wear a regular baseball cap, and you've got this protection.
	And it would be cool and light, and you don't look as nutty.
	It would keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
	It's a floor wax and a dessert topping.
	I'm mentioning this now, and I'm writing up the patent as we speak, so I don't want anyone stealing this idea.
	Insert Faraday cage, insert for a baseball cap.
	Because you're going to go to this place, and you're going to have a lot of people with baseball caps that say cat on the hat.
	But people don't realize out there, especially the European audience listening, it refers to the Caterpillar Tractor Company.
	And there's a bunch of these hats that say cat that people in the Midwest enjoy wearing.
	Yeah, because basically you get 50 of them when you buy a cat, when you buy one of these farm backhoe or tractor.
	Tractor, one of these big things that pushes dirt.
	Yeah.
	Oh, man.
	Okay, it's a plan.
	And we've just got to find someone who can do the printing.
	There's got to be, well, you know, if we do that, but I'm thinking more now, I'm starting to think about this Faraday cage insert for a baseball cap.
	You know, there's got to be some hat company in China that makes caps or skull caps, because we're talking about basically a skull cap that you wear inside a baseball hat.
	Yeah.
	They can't cost that much.
	I mean, there's got to be a manufacturer in China that could crank out 10,000 of these skull caps in the form of a Faraday cage, like within a week.
	A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure formed by conducting material or by a mesh of such material.
	Such an enclosure blocks out external static electrical fields.
	Faraday cages are named after physicist Michael Faraday, who built one in 1836, coming from Wikipedia.
	Yeah, I have actually a wallet.
	Not to sound like I'm a complete nutcase, but I've written about this in PC Magazine.
	There's a guy down in Southern California that makes these things.
	I've seen them for your passport and for your wallet.
	Yeah, he makes wallets that have a Faraday cage built into them, and that's what I use for my wallet.
	Even though I really haven't got any RFID, but I just think it's interesting anyway.
	The funniest thing, before we went on vacation, I bought three or four books, and one of them was The Shock Doctrine.
	And I started it at home when I was laying on the couch, and so I crack it open.
	It's a paperback.
	I crack it open, and out falls an RFID chip.
	You know, one of those pieces of paper so you don't steal the book?
	Yeah.
	That was pretty trippy.
	Yeah, what I like to do with those, if you can find them, is I like to put the double-sided tape on them or something and slap people on the back so they're walking around with them.
	It's also fun to stick them in the bottom of somebody's shoe.
	That's horrible.
	So as they walk out of the store, the thing goes off like they're stealing something?
	It's great.
	I've been looking for an RFID reader.
	Apparently, it's not all that easy to have one device that can read all different forms of RFID chips because it has to send out a signal, has to then scan a whole bunch of different high frequencies to receive the relatively weak signal because I'd love to know what stuff around me has RFID chips embedded in it.
	That's a great idea.
	But it's hard.
	Here's another product.
	We're just productizing today.
	Which is another Silicon Valley term I hate.
	Productizing comes before monetizing.
	Yeah, you've got to productize, then you monetize.
	So anyway, the idea is to create a device that is similar to a Geiger counter...
	In so far as that it will spot, it doesn't read the chips, it just has the induction output that will signal one of these chips to send back a, hello, I'm here!
	And then so you'll know there's a chip there.
	You don't need to know what's on the chip, you just need to know the chip exists.
	That would be cheaper, and it would solve the problem you're after, which is why, you know, what RFID is, am I surrounded by RFID chips, and if so, where are they?
	So, Chuck, did I tell you about the RFID? I'm writing a patent up on that, folks, so don't...
	Did I tell you about the RFID chip that was used during this four-day marathon walk in Holland?
	No.
	The one you ingest?
	Oh, this is great.
	You ingest, and then you crap it out?
	No, no, no.
	Yeah, well, yes.
	Or does it stay in you forever?
	So first of all, no, you crap it out.
	The marathon walk happens once a year.
	It's called the four-day.
	And it was a health thing.
	That's how it started initially and now lots of walking clubs.
	And it's basically you walk, I don't know, the equivalent of a marathon, but you do it over four days.
	It's walking.
	It's not running.
	It's just hundreds of thousands of people walking these routes.
	It's pretty cool.
	But last year, it was so hot that a lot of people became seriously ill, fainted.
	I think a couple of people actually died of heat exhaustion.
	And so this year, under the auspices of, well, we want to create something that doesn't let that happen again, this company's developed a pill.
	You swallow the pill, it has RFID dust, or the equivalent of very, very small RFID transmitters in it.
	It stays in your body for approximately 24 hours.
	But check this.
	It transmits through Bluetooth to your cell phone your temperature.
	And if your temperature goes up to a certain degree, then you'll receive a text message that says, hey, you should drink something.
	You're kidding me.
	No, I'm not.
	This is absolutely true.
	And if it goes up to a dangerous level, you get a text message that says you have to stop.
	Now, I'm pretty sure that the RFID chip is not transmitting the Bluetooth.
	I think they have a separate device that they give the walkers that receives the RFID signal, then converts that to Bluetooth.
	And then, you know, they send you a text message.
	I think that's how it works.
	But there's still got to be in this pill, besides the RFID circuit, there has to be obviously a MEM or something that takes the temperature of the person internally.
	Yeah, well, that's...
	So there's a small thermometer and an RFID, and the RFID sends out a signal when it's inducted, which is the way it works, right?
	You send it.
	And then while it's inducted, it's active, and it takes a look at the temperature gauge and then sends a message out what the temperature gauge told it.
	And I think it also could do humidity.
	Or, you know, whatever...
	It can't do humidity, because you're inside the...
	It was temperature and...
	Because it's in a liquid, so it's not going to work.
	It's got to be just temperature.
	But it's true, and this company, of course, one of their biggest clients is the government.
	Go figure.
	Go figure.
	Well, this is all just to protect us more, Adam.
	Yes, of course.
	So we can still be terror-free.
	But we still haven't come up with the fascist word.
	Yeah, we need it.
	So anyway, I'm reading through the messages on the various...
	I've been blogging stuff about Obama on the Dvorak.org slash blog site because it gets all these people all worked up.
	And somebody mentioned...
	It brings in audiences is what you're saying.
	Yeah, it brings them in.
	And they usually debate each other and call me a jerk or something.
	It's all page views, John.
	It's all page views.
	Guy says, in Europe, it's a foregone conclusion that Obama's going to win.
	They've already made this decision.
	All the Europeans just take it as a given.
	Is this right?
	Or is this guy just full of crap?
	No, I would say that that's the writing on the wall.
	Also, Obama, of course, is now doing his big European tour.
	And he had scheduled himself in front of the gate in Berlin, where, of course, famously, John F. Kennedy said, Ich bin in Berliner.
	And Reagan said...
	He was a donut, if I'm not mistaken.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	And Reagan said, Mr.
	Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
	So what is Obama going to say?
	I think all the good lines have been taken.
	Well, the point is that Angela Merkel, the prime minister, said, well, I don't think that's such a good idea.
	I don't want you doing any speeches in that spot because you're not the president yet.
	But because he's on this tour and this is his big push, it's pretty obvious that the press loves him.
	Was he going to give the speech from there or did Merkel talk him out of it?
	No, it's not happening there.
	It's happening somewhere else.
	And she literally said, because she didn't want to see him, because he's not president yet.
	I think she's right.
	I think Merkel's not a dummy.
	Nope.
	So, yeah, she probably is right.
	Of course, I'm sure, you know...
	Somebody called her.
	Hey, Angela, baby, this might not be such a good idea.
	Let's think about this one.
	Yeah.
	Who do you think that could have been?
	What if the other guy wins?
	Hello, it's Dick.
	No, it doesn't matter.
	Obama's from...
	He's a reptilian, man.
	He's in the same league as McCain.
	It's all from the same stuff.
	Just look what he's doing.
	That's the Ron Paul thing.
	In fact, this guy I was talking to yesterday said the same thing.
	What difference does it make?
	Neither one of them are going to be calling the shots.
	He's a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.
	Everyone's related to that organization one way or the other.
	And look, now he's backpedaling on pulling out of Iraq.
	He voted for the FISA bill.
	FISA. That FISA thing makes no sense to me.
	I mean, why would he do that?
	I mean, that was the biggest...
	I think that was a blunder.
	Because he has to.
	I mean, that's what it looks like.
	It looks like somebody called him up and said, you know, we know you're running and everything.
	It's probably not going to look that good, but you have to vote for it.
	Now, here's the sequence of events.
	Oh, I'm not going to take public money because instead of the $82 million I can get, I need about $500 million.
	Then he looks around and goes, shit, where am I going to get $500 million from?
	Oh, I know.
	Big companies like AT&T. Yeah, well, this obviously, you know, although they'll bleed it into the system so you don't know it's necessarily from big companies.
	Anyway, so much for campaign finance.
	I always thought that was never...
	The idea of reforming campaign finance was never going to fly in a million years.
	And my feeling was because the newspapers would always be against it.
	And they would end up...
	You know, if it ever actually got to the point where it was more than just kind of idle chat, they'd start finding ways that it wasn't going to work.
	I mean, because they get the money.
	Where does the money end up going?
	It goes to the media.
	Yeah, it goes to a lot of local spots, radio and television, and lots of cable.
	You know, national.
	It's 500 million.
	I'm sure 400 million is going to media.
	I don't know how they do that with newspapers.
	They actually advertise in newspapers?
	Yeah, there's advertising.
	It's not as much, but there's enough.
	And there's all the call-out research, and it's all, you know, a lot of marketing money going into phone systems.
	Of course, I got on the Ron Paul list on my cell phone.
	I got entered into their system because there's no other reason for anyone to call me, any telemarketer whatsoever, because I don't exist.
	I'm a company phone.
	So I got on his list, and it's all automated.
	It calls you up and talks to you and tells you stuff that you should know, and you can press one or just say yes.
	I'm sure that's not inexpensive to set that up.
	No.
	That's expensive stuff.
	And AT&T does that kind of stuff.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	There you go.
	Back to AT&T. Mm-hmm.
	So...
	Yeah, no, the whole thing's corrupt.
	But anyway, so this guy says, you know, that the Europeans have got, as far as they're concerned, it's already discounted, you know, that Obama's going to win, and so everything's playing along those lines.
	You know, I'm not...
	Convinced.
	I'm not buying it.
	No, I'm not convinced, and I'll tell you why.
	Because McCain is a late starter.
	He did the same thing in his main election run for the nomination.
	He's a laggard, and then he does all his work at the end when it counts.
	And we still don't know who Obama's going to pick for the vice president.
	He could botch that, pick Jesse Jackson or something for all we know.
	He could screw that up, and then we don't know who McCain's going to pick for the vice president.
	And that, I think, a lot's going to hinge on that, because people are more, you know, maybe in the 50s nobody cared who the vice president was, but nowadays they do.
	Especially with these guys who are both, you know, targets, nowadays, I mean, targets of terrorists.
	And in fact, there's some video game out that's...
	Creepy game trying to kill the president or something like that.
	What game is that?
	I don't know.
	Somebody sent me a link on Twitter about it and I was looking at it and I go, God, is this guy nuts?
	I'll do some research and get it on the...
	It's some terrorist game.
	But anyway, the point is that the vice president is more important than ever.
	And so who these two guys pick is going to be a big deal.
	Yeah, well, absolutely.
	And you hit the nail on the head.
	The vice president is more important than ever.
	You know, the vice president we have now is running the show, as far as I'm concerned.
	I'm sure Ron Paul agrees.
	Go ahead, man.
	You know, I figured this out, John.
	I know you totally agree.
	I know you have your tinfoil hat on as we speak with your Faraday cage wallet.
	But you just want to have some kind of non-kookiness so that you're taken seriously by people who read Market Watch or whatever.
	Yeah.
	But that's why you pull back, man.
	I don't pull back.
	You're a crackpot half the time.
	I'm not a crackpot, man.
	I'm just an open, free thinker.
	That's what they're called.
	Free thinkers.
	We say, no, he's not a crackpot.
	He is the one who is going to be presenting Ron Paul at the big counter event where all the crackpots will be gathering.
	No, that's the core base, John.
	It's not crackpots.
	Stop now.
	Stop.
	So, come on.
	I mean, how can I top that?
	Dude, Ron Paul's not a crackpot.
	You know that.
	You have to admit it.
	He's not a crackpot.
	I like the guy.
	No, he's like, you know, in fact, he'd be probably a more interesting president than these other guys, except for the fact that he doesn't play ball.
	What do you mean by that?
	You know, he's not playing ball.
	I mean, these other guys are going to play ball with the economic hitmen types and all these other people.
	There's a system in place that has to be kept alive, this trend toward this one-world government kind of thing.
	Oh, dude.
	The new economic order, the new world order.
	I spoke to – I had an interview for my Dutch show.
	I spoke with the State Secretary for Finances.
	Because there's a whole bunch of problems.
	And he's a guy that comes from the IT world.
	He was brought in about a year ago.
	Now he's the Secretary of State for Finance.
	And his number one goal is to fix all the computer systems.
	Which is interesting.
	And this guy, I saw him on a video giving a lecture.
	And he's like, yeah, it's all messed up.
	Particularly the tax system.
	We've got all these systems that don't talk to each other properly.
	And it's just a mismanaged project, is what he's saying.
	Which is really open and honest.
	So I get to talk to this guy.
	And I said, let me ask you a question.
	So when the Netherlands gives like 200 million euros to Afghanistan, how does that work?
	Can you send a big check or do you just get on your bank account and you use your card and you type in your PIN code?
	And obviously I'm baiting him, but man, he fell for it.
	And he's like, no, no, no, no, we just put a computer entry.
	I said, oh, there's no real money.
	He says, no, no, we just put in a credit entry for Afghanistan.
	Oh, so that means that they have to pay it back.
	Yeah, with interest.
	Yeah.
	Mm-hmm.
	And he just kept going, you know.
	And then he actually tried to say, well, you know, at Fort Knox, they do move some gold around.
	I'm like...
	What are you talking about, man?
	And it was like this guy is building the systems for the, you know, that is exactly what Confessions of an Economic Hitman is all about.
	You know, okay, we'll loan you money, but we're not actually giving you any money.
	We're just putting an entry into a database, which means you have to now start paying us interest.
	That would be real money, by the way.
	And then we transfer all these bits and bytes to companies like Burger King and Pizza Hut to come in and build stuff.
	Hey!
	The problem that I have is these companies like Pizza Hut and Burger King and all the big box companies as they call them now.
	It's another term that somehow I guess will eventually get into Merriam-Webster because they've added a whole bunch of new weird words.
	I heard you talk about one that was really dumb.
	I heard it on Tech 5.
	I went through a list of them.
	There's a couple of really dumb ones.
	But anyway, so big box is like one of these terms that probably has to go in.
	And so we've got this deli up in Port Angeles, Washington, and so my wife is looking into locations for future ones and things like that.
	I stumbled onto the methodology for how, you know, when you go to these new malls, these new, they're kind of mini malls, but they're not strip malls in the old sense, which in the old American sense of a strip mall, you used to have this, like, running a bunch of weird little stores, and now you have these big kind of plaza stores, and there's always a Home Depot and a Staples, and it's always the same stores, and they're all big stores.
	Yeah.
	And there's never any little guys in there.
	Rarely there is.
	Sometimes there might be a small taqueria if you're lucky, but it's usually part of a chain or the guys are connected or whatever.
	And it turns out that these places, the way they operate, they operate to keep small competitive stores out.
	And they do that by requiring you pay one year's rent in advance.
	Really?
	Yeah, and there's some other schemes that they have that make it very difficult to get into those places because you essentially can't afford it.
	And who is they?
	Is that the developers?
	The developers want these keystone, cornerstone anchor stores, I guess is what they're mostly called.
	And they want these big names and they don't want any small timers.
	And these big names don't want the small timers around either.
	Because they don't want, you know, Home Depot doesn't want some guy selling something that competes with them in any way.
	And so they don't even want a story within 10 miles of them.
	And you know, and so...
	So these things are essentially set up so when you go, and you can go anywhere around the country, driving around, you go to, and I always like to rent cars.
	I'm from California, so when I travel, I'm always, I never stay in the hotel.
	I'm out.
	Yeah.
	Driving around, and you see, and you say, and you can go, and you just go, this is exactly the same as every other city in the country when you run past these little segments of the town where you have these big box stores.
	Mm-hmm.
	And there's no variation.
	They're all cookie cutter.
	And they all have the same crappy stores.
	And it's, you know, it's just horrible.
	I mean, there's nothing interesting.
	You wonder why these big guys are taking over everything.
	I mean, the little guys have nothing but trouble competing unless they become big guys.
	I have to say, that was one of the nicest things about being in the south of France, is going to an actual grocery store that had, oh my god, it had like...
	Fruit and vegetable that was not genetically modified.
	It actually looked like a tomato.
	It had some bumps on it, you know, and pears that weren't exactly pear-shaped.
	It was so nice just to be in a smaller, non-box-like environment with real food, real stuff.
	I hate to say it, but the French are onto something.
	The French have always been on to this.
	Generally speaking, finding a grocery store is pretty hard because they almost encourage a tomato store next to a meat store.
	They have all these little operations.
	If you're going to go shopping, you generally have to go from place to place to place to place to place as opposed to one place that has everything.
	But when they do have a grocery store, it tends to be exactly like you say, a fantastic variety of extremely high-quality products that are all, you know, there's none of this, you know, garbage that we're sold.
	And you go to these places where you have the tomatoes that have been gassed, so they turn red.
	You know, there's an oxy, I forget, ethylene or some gas you hit the tomato with when it's, they pick them green, so they're never going to develop any flavor.
	And then you run them through a processing plant where they're gassed.
	And so then the gas turns the tomato into this kind of weird, pinkish-red.
	The tomato's never going to taste like a tomato.
	It's just a joke.
	And they sell that to the public.
	You know, the Food Administration, whatever it is, whoever's in charge of food, it's now in law, dude.
	This is part of the Codex Alimentarius.
	There's only four types of tomatoes.
	It'll be permissible now because of this whole tomato scare, right?
	Which turns out to be bogus, which makes me wonder.
	It's a setup, dude.
	It's a setup.
	I mean, it sounds like a marketing ploy for this alimentarian thing, which we obviously haven't gotten onto in this country yet.
	But if that's the case, because the number of heirloom tomatoes is in the thousands, and the fact that they wouldn't want these to be grown as opposed to these commercial crappy tomatoes that are crummy...
	It's ridiculous.
	But it could be all part of a scam, this whole tomato scare, because it turns out that the tomatoes weren't the problem.
	And I'm reminded...
	Tell me about this.
	I don't know about the tomatoes not being the problem.
	You mean this was the poop water story, wasn't it?
	Yeah.
	Well, it turns out that maybe it wasn't the tomatoes.
	So they thought it might be the jalapeno peppers.
	And then they thought it might be the cilantro.
	Now they don't know what it is.
	I haven't heard it.
	I haven't read any of this.
	I didn't know that was happening.
	Oh, yeah.
	No, it's backed off from the tomatoes.
	You're kidding me.
	No, you missed like three stages of this crap.
	I mean, they've been changing the story on and off.
	Now they're baffled.
	Okay, so meanwhile, I should look this up.
	I'll find this.
	It was like an official release.
	It was real news.
	Hold on.
	Where should I look for it?
	Anyway, keep going.
	Well, anyway, so I'm reminded of when I used to be a columnist at the San Francisco Examiner, I used to write these op-eds, and there was this one thing that happened, this was in the mid-80s, and it always baffled me, and I wrote about it, and it never got anybody paid any attention to any of the, in fact, the whole idea.
	Out of the blue, and this, of course, is one of the reasons I like the Confessions of an Economic Hitman, because this story kind of was reminiscent of Out of the blue, sometime in the mid-1980s, and people can maybe try to find this, they stopped shipments of grapes from Chile,
	froze them all, because they found two grapes that were injected with cyanide or strychnine or something, and they had pictures of the grapes with pinholes in them where the needle had gone in and poisoned the grapes, and they thought there was some sort of...
	Because this was during that era where people were stealing Tylenol and then putting poison Tylenol back on it.
	And so they had to, you know, all of a sudden Tylenol was all recalled and, you know, it was a big scandal and people were, you know, blackmailers supposedly were behind all this.
	I think there was more to it than that.
	But this thing with the grapes was ridiculous because grapes come in by the truck, those hundreds of, you know, millions of individual grapes piling in from Chile.
	How do they find these two grapes with a hole in them?
	That they could actually show a picture of that were poisoned, you know, in some attempt to kill the American public.
	How is this even possible?
	Yeah.
	No, I hear you.
	- I hear you, I hear you. - And so they stopped the grape shipments and then there was a bunch of negotiations and blah, blah, blah, and I figured they're just gouging somebody over this.
	And then the next thing you know, the grapes are back coming in and that was the end of it.
	And the story just died.
	And nobody ever asked the question except me as to what bullshit is this?
	Because there's no way that, you know, I know what inspectors do for a living.
	They're not looking at...
	This is just ridiculous.
	Geneva, an international standard for tomatoes has been adopted, ending about seven years of intense debates between countries on what qualifies as a proper tomato.
	According to the new standard, tomatoes may come in one of four varieties, round, ribbed, oblong, or elongated, or cherry tomatoes and cocktail tomatoes.
	They must be whole, clean, free from foreign smell, free of pests, and fresh in appearance.
	In the case of trusses of tomatoes, the stalks must be fresh, healthy, clean, and free of all leaves and other visible foreign matter, according to the so-called Codex standard.
	A commission called Codex Alimentarius was created in 1963 by the Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization.
	That's not true.
	It was the World Trade Organization.
	To come up with food standards with guidelines on food products.
	Here we go.
	Tom Hyland, who was a senior food standard advisor, explained that one such international standard was needed for tomatoes in order to protect importing countries.
	Quote, many developing countries in particular...
	Said that they need this standard so they ensure that they would get the right quality of products that they ordered.
	Hmm.
	Huh.
	Yeah, I like the way they twist it.
	Yeah.
	I'm telling you.
	So that's very interesting that...
	And this was July 4th.
	Yeah.
	There's always a gag in there somewhere.
	Yeah, right.
	It's like we always had...
	You know, my wife and I... Years and years ago, there was a, and this will be probably our last story, I think we're running out of time, but years and years ago, there used to be this operation, just pre-Costco era.
	There used to be a couple of big box stores.
	One was called Jemco, which required a, you had to get a, kind of a license, but it was like a membership.
	Which was not that easy.
	You had to be a government employee, supposedly.
	I think it was GEMCO, G-E, Government Employee Membership Company, something like that.
	But the other one that was hugely successful was a company called White Front.
	And over the years, it turned out that White Front was run by a mobster on witness protection.
	Okay.
	And we started noticing there's always a trend between...
	of their operations.
	White front, you know, it's like, oh, white front, now I get it. - Yeah. - And there was a trucking company recently that got busted 'cause they were run by another mobster, and it had the word con, as in convict, in the name.
	And so every time we see anything that's got, it's consolidated.
	I think it was Conway Trucking, as a matter of fact, something like that.
	We always think, is this another gag?
	Because these guys seem to have a humor.
	They think it's funny, I think, to come up with these names that indicate that they're crooks.
	What they're really about, yeah.
	Or not necessarily crooks, but at least they're gangster or they're on witness protection or who knows what.
	I'm always waiting for the witness protection, you know, produce company to come out, you know.
	But anyway, keep an eye out for that kind of thing.
	Gags.
	Interesting.
	All right, let me see.
	What do we do on time?
	Hey, this is good.
	Not even an hour and a half.
	Right, it's just under, well actually the call duration is 131 since you were having so much trouble getting this thing started.
	Okay, hold on.
	Let me do my thing here.
	Oh, is it not working?
	Oh shit, of course.
	I was going to be really slick there and get the music going, but of course I neglected to turn on my new device.
	Yeah, the equivalent of queuing it up.
	Yeah, there you go.
	Wow.
	Now we've got to come up with a name for the show.
	Well, let's see.
	We talked about, I think, the fascism.
	Oh, yeah, fascism.
	That's a good one, yeah.
	Well, how about modern fascism today?
	Sounds like the name of a new show we've got to put together.
	Yeah, it sounds like the name of a new show or a magazine.
	Hi, everybody.
	Welcome to Fascism Today.
	It'd be a good name for a magazine in the 30s.
	Yeah.
	These days, not so good.
	No.
	Alright.
	Are you doing Twit this weekend?
	Yeah, I think so.
	I'm not sure.
	Did you do it last weekend?
	Because I haven't caught up yet.
	Yeah, I did.
	Was it a good show?
	It was okay.
	I mean, it wasn't a long show.
	It was a pretty good show.
	I think we got onto some topics because there wasn't a lot of people.
	One of the problems you have with that show is that when you have too many guests, it becomes...
	Burdensome.
	Leo spends a lot of time, too much time working, keeping the balls in the air because he's always working the guests.
	Probably four max total is probably the best.
	I think we only had three.
	Okay Fascism today Fascism Fascism Fascism There you go Fascism today Yes Coming to you from the Curry Manor in the United Kingdom where climate change has not yet set in.
	It's crappy weather.
	I'm Adam Curry.
	And we're here with our regular foggy summer in Northern California.
	I'm John C. Dvorak.
	We'll talk to you again next week right here on No Agenda.

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