Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

March 5, 2009 - No Agenda

01:36:14

77: Hot Vegetarian Chicks and Other Deep Thoughts

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak.
	Coming to you live from both corners of Gitmo Nation, this is No Agenda for March 5th, 2009.
	This is No Agenda.
	From the Crackpot Command Center in southwest London, better known as Gitmo Nation East, I'm Adam Curry.
	I'm John C. Dvorak here in northern Silicon Valley, better known as Gitmo Nation West or The Gitmo Nation.
	It's Crackpot and Buzzkill in the morning.
	We've got to be careful not to overproduce now.
	Well, Yeah, well, I think that's going to happen.
	Hey, John, good to talk to you.
	I drove a million miles just to talk to you today.
	Where were you?
	I was coming from France, driving.
	You drove from France?
	Yes, I did.
	So, of course, we all know that means you put your car inside the tunnel?
	Yes, I did.
	Well, actually, let me rephrase that.
	I put my daughter's car inside the tunnel.
	That's the only car we have left.
	I sold the other two, since we're in the city.
	And she has a brand new Renault Twingo...
	Yes, we've talked about this car before.
	Google that one.
	I can just see you driving that thing.
	It's got to be one of the funniest sights in history.
	Did you even fit in it?
	Yeah, I've got to tell you, it was very comfortable.
	It was not bad at all.
	Now, of course, it's a 1.5 liter engine, so once you get into some hill territory, you better be moving over into the left-hand lane because you're the slow guy.
	But yeah, it's like a driving iPod.
	It's got a great sound system.
	It does not have a lot of exterior noise.
	And you can cruise along at about 80 miles an hour, and it's pretty decent.
	When did they open the channel again?
	I thought it was shut down from that fire.
	Yeah, they opened it up.
	Well, now it's completely open because they had one tube closed.
	I think they have three tubes.
	It's interesting because I was just reading up on that, that they still predict it's going to take 8 to 12 months before traffic is really back up to its pre-fire levels.
	Let me tell you, there was no one on this train.
	That's because nobody knows it's running, I think.
	I didn't know.
	There were 40 cars, at best, that I saw go on.
	Now, this is a midday trip, but still.
	I was reading they just turned a profit.
	Well, that's good.
	Well, yeah, after they screwed the bondholders by giving them 10 cents to the euro in a refinance deal, billions of euros wiped off the balance sheet.
	They just reported they made 50 million euro pre-tax profit.
	It's still a great way to go.
	I agree.
	I took that ride and I was impressed.
	I took a bunch of photos inside the cars because I noticed there was a little more wear and tear.
	Which is forbidden.
	Flash photography forbidden in the tunnel.
	Well, that wasn't when I was taking...
	I wasn't taking flash photography anyway, but why?
	If you look outside, there's nothing but a cement wall.
	What are you taking a picture of?
	It's going by at like 150 miles an hour.
	John, we're slaves.
	Just shut up, sit down, and follow instructions.
	I don't make up the rules.
	I noticed that they also made it illegal taking pictures in London, which is a tourist place.
	Jack Straw is the guy behind all this.
	Well, don't forget there's Jackie Smith, who is the...
	What does the name Jack got to do?
	I think it's because they're jacking the public around.
	Jack Boot?
	They call her Jack Boot Jackie.
	What is she?
	Do they call her Secretary of Homeland?
	Of the Home Office?
	I think it's Secretary of the Home Office.
	She's a frightening woman.
	But there's lots of stuff going on here in Gitmo Nation East, John.
	Well, let's run them down to us poor dummies over here.
	We don't get any real news whatsoever.
	We did get some news about the swingers in England.
	There's a bunch of them, apparently.
	Wait a minute.
	And also, hey, by the way, Brittany's got a new tour, and it's going to have to do with the circus in some way, shape, or form.
	I don't know what that means.
	In about 15 minutes from now, Michael Jackson will be announcing his string of dates at the O2 Arena.
	They've got helicopters circling above.
	I was just listening on the radio as I was driving in.
	He was supposed to make an announcement at the O2 Arena at 4 o'clock this afternoon.
	And he just left his hotel in his bus at 10 past 4.
	Before he gets to the O2 Arena, it'll be 6 o'clock.
	They've got thousands of people weighing their helicopters hovering overhead.
	And this is supposed to be his big comeback announcement.
	Well, you know, we have a lot of action going over here, too.
	You know, while the economy is collapsing and people are getting thrown out of their house and all the rest of it, there's a whole huge protest on both sides of the issue because today the California Supreme Court is going to listen to arguments about Proposition 8, the Gay Marriage Initiative, and that seems to be the most important thing anybody can deal with here.
	Alright, let's get into some real news then, before I shoot myself twice.
	Bank of England reduced its interest rate to 0.5%, another record low for the bank in its entire, what is it, 300 year history?
	And they have announced immediate quantitative easing of the economy, John.
	Have you heard this term, quantitative, or as they say in England, quantitative, which I find impossible to pronounce.
	Quantitative.
	Quantitative.
	No, the term over here that's being bandied about is mild depression.
	No, no, no.
	Quantitative easing is an action that is being undertaken by the government.
	Oh, what does it mean?
	It's called printing money.
	Oh, yeah.
	So they're now going to...
	Don't brag about it over here.
	Yeah.
	No, we just do a lot of it.
	So now that they're following suit, they're going to start buying up assets and companies.
	Of course, that'll only be banks.
	And they're doing that with new money, printed money, because they need to protect themselves by creating some inflation.
	Because, oh no, it's not good.
	Everything's deflating.
	Shit's getting cheaper for everybody.
	Can't have that.
	Well, that's the way it works, and that's what they should be doing, because if you got your interest rates at.5, when they should be traditionally at 3 or more...
	No one has anything under 6.
	What are you talking about?
	The banks are marking it up by 5.5%.
	You can't get a mortgage for 1 or 2%.
	No way.
	Mm-mm.
	Did you know that Gordon Brown was in Washington?
	Did any of that reach you amidst all of this Proposition 8 and Britney Spears news?
	All we know is that apparently if Gordon Brown was supposed to meet with Obama, Obama says it's snowing, so they call it a snow day.
	Really?
	Oh, man.
	And they never had the meeting.
	I mean, that's the last I heard.
	Maybe they had the meeting since.
	Well, there were a couple of snow days being called.
	Nancy Pelosi was supposed to speak at the Al Gore.
	Tony Blair was there at the Global Warming Conference.
	Of course, she got snowed out.
	Couldn't land for the Global Warming Conference.
	Global Warming snowed out.
	Which I think is just great.
	Now, Gordon Brown, now this is...
	It's being seen as a huge snub over here.
	He is the first European Prime Minister to visit Obama at our White House.
	And only the fifth Prime Minister ever to address a joint session of Congress.
	And he got, you're right, I think he got a half hour meeting with Obama.
	A half hour, which is like, you know, what can you do in half an hour?
	And then...
	Yeah, it takes 15 minutes to shake all the hands.
	Yeah, and then Obama did not even invite him to lunch.
	He had a working lunch with some other guys, and then he did his speech to the Joint Session of Congress, where I think he received 16 standing ovations, except when he said we should tackle this financial problem together.
	You could have heard a pin drop.
	I just wanted to play a little bit and then get your reaction to Mr.
	Gordon Brown.
	Hold on, here it comes.
	So let it be said of the friendship between our two countries that it is in times of trial true, in face of fear faithful, and amidst the storms of change constant.
	And let it be said of our friendship also, formed and forged over two tumultuous centuries, a friendship tested in war, strengthened in peace, that it is not just endured, but is renewed each generation to better serve our shared values and fulfill the hopes and dreams of the day.
	Here it comes.
	Not an alliance of convenience.
	It is a partnership of purpose.
	Purpose.
	Alliances can wither or be destroyed.
	But partnerships of purpose are indestructible.
	Friendships can be shaken, but our friendship is unshakable.
	Treaties can be broken, but our partnership is unbreakable.
	And I know that there is no power on earth that can ever drive us apart.
	Sounded to me like a big brown nose session.
	Gordon Brown knows.
	Well, let's take a look at what he said.
	Let's see.
	We only became friends with the British around 1916, 1917.
	Yeah, I mean, didn't we have like a little argument with them?
	Isn't that how it all started?
	We actually had two arguments with them.
	We had one in 1776 where we told them to pound salt and we kicked them out of the country.
	And then, of course, they re-attacked us in the War of 1812 and burnt down the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Damn you, Brits!
	1916, and by the way, the Civil War in 1860, if you look at any history book written between 1860 and 1900, all blamed the British and the French for fomenting the war.
	And it was, we were deep, a series of, it was deep hatred for the British until about, you know, like I said, just for World War I, when we were propagandized into supporting the British in that war because of the banks having some issues when we were propagandized into supporting the British in that war because of the They were going broke.
	Gee, was that how many years ago?
	80?
	Yeah, I guess so.
	Uh-huh.
	Okay.
	Actually, 90.
	We're a little behind.
	90 years ago.
	And so we've had, and then ever since then, of course, we've been their good pals.
	And we have a special relationship, John.
	Special relationship.
	Special relationship.
	So we've had a special relationship for about 91 years, and a relationship of hate.
	For over a hundred.
	So I'm not, you know, so this thing happening could be, you know, a revert.
	A turning point.
	It could be a cycle.
	Yeah.
	Like him and hate him.
	Like him and hate him.
	Maybe Obama's telling him to screw themselves because they're the ones, especially if you look at what the Scots said about, well, it's an American problem when we were starting to have trouble.
	Right.
	Well...
	Economically, you know, everybody over there was like, eh, screw you, you irresponsible boneheads, you get what you deserve, we're not going to do it.
	And now, you know, they're having more trouble than we are, and it's like, well, hmm.
	Well, I think you're right.
	I think it's very possible there's a turning...
	Look, regardless, regardless, it's a snub.
	You know, there was no joint press conference.
	I mean, it's a total, like, he shines, man.
	It was a total screw you.
	Yeah, screw you.
	Here, talk to the plebs over here.
	Go ahead.
	Talk to the hand.
	What caused this?
	Do we have any background?
	Do we have any understanding of why this happened in the first place?
	I don't know.
	And the thing that bugs me even more is that at this very moment, by pumping $30 billion into AIG, we are actually bailing out European banks.
	It's European banks who are in trouble with AIG. Our money is going to help out the Europeans.
	I'm telling you, there's a missing piece of this puzzle, and thanks to our great media over here that needs all the help we can get, we're never going to find out what it is, unless there's something that we see on C-SPAN by accident.
	Well, I've seen a lot of things on C-SPAN by accident this past week that are highly entertaining.
	Well, what?
	Name two.
	By the way, before you go on that, because you mentioned Pelosi a minute ago.
	So if anybody is on the West Coast and they get a hold of the current San Francisco Express, they have an article about the savings and loan fiasco that took place way back when, I guess it was during the Reagan administration.
	And they bailed out Charles Keating and the Keating Five, the Keating Seven, or whatever the heck they were, and all these savings and loans had to be bailed out.
	This was the first iteration of this sort of thing.
	Wasn't McCain part of the Keating Five?
	McCain was, but the more interesting person that shows up in this story, Nancy Pelosi.
	She was apparently on the big, you know, bribery, now I wouldn't call it bribery, but let's say a campaign donation tit of Charles Keating's mob.
	And when they found out about it, and they were grilling her at some, apparently, some of these investigations that took place, she was accusing them of being incompetent for discovering her.
	Meanwhile, that got all somehow disappeared from the public record or who knows what, and now she's like the Speaker of the House?
	I'm just cracking up reading this.
	Sheila Baer, who is the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation...
	The FDIC says, hey, we're running out of money.
	We may not be able to insure all deposits in all banks.
	Have you heard this one?
	No.
	Yeah, this came out, I think I saw it late last night or maybe this morning.
	So essentially, the way FDIC works, it's an insurance, and every bank has to pay a premium to the FDIC so that they can cover, if a bank goes out of business, and you know, when this whole When the crisis started,
	one of the first things that happened is the amount that is insured federally, so the government, the faith and credit of the United States federally guarantees that your money is safe up to $250,000.
	I think it was $100,000 or $150,000, but they raised it, if I'm not mistaken.
	Right, they raised it to make people feel better.
	Well, feel better no more.
	Because...
	So first of all, she says, without the assessments, that's the payments from the banks, the deposit insurance fund could become insolvent this year, Baer wrote in a March 2 letter to the industry.
	Now the problem is that every single bank has to pay.
	So you've got these smaller community banks If they have to ante up and pay more into the insurance pot, they're essentially going to wipe out all of their, if they had them, profits and probably start to tank because of it.
	And Bayer is saying, well, we make no distinction in size.
	That's the mandate.
	Not that they couldn't change it.
	They've changed every other mandate, including that document called the Constitution.
	So this is a big deal.
	This is a big deal.
	It sounds to me like they're trying to put the squeeze on the quality little banks, the ones that actually survived this disaster, and did well and showed that these banking laws that were changed by Clinton, where you could have national banks, essentially, because the Bank of America, like I said before, used to only be in California.
	And now it's national.
	Everything else is national.
	And all these banks are huge monsters.
	They're monstrosities.
	The customer service is terrible.
	And all these little banks, like the one I use over here in my little town, a little privately held bank, they said they're never going to sell to a big company, and they haven't.
	They've been in business since 1900.
	And they do great work.
	You can walk in, and they call you at home if there's something weird happening to your account.
	Do you have a mortgage with them, or do you do that with a bigger institution?
	Or do you not have a mortgage?
	I don't even know.
	I have a mortgage with a big crappy institution because my wife had, you know, I said, it's a bone of contention.
	It's going to be creative.
	Oh, it's one of these, well, I got the free credit card account and I opened it up.
	No, we don't use credit cards anymore.
	We only use one.
	But it's a long story, but the fact of the matter is...
	Oh, Shorten, it led us into your life, John.
	Actually, one of the problems is that this little bank, during this period where everything was going crazy, they wouldn't give anybody mortgages.
	They didn't think it was a good idea.
	Duh, really?
	That little bank, you think?
	Hmm.
	And so now it seems to me that what this is all about is screwing quality little banks so we have like one big national bank.
	Oh.
	Well, yeah, not just one big national bank, an international bank.
	John, how many times do I have to tell you that's the agenda?
	The IMF is positioning itself, it's moving into place as we speak, and this does bring us right back to the Gordon Brown-Obama flap, I'd call it.
	I think it's an international flap being under-reported.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's because, you know, the media does what it's told.
	Because, you know, we have the G20 coming up.
	The G20, which includes the U.S. This is going to be in three weeks' time, I believe.
	It's happening over here.
	By the way, it's the G20 plus two.
	Spain and the Netherlands are both invited, even though they're not large enough to be in the G20. Of course, Netherlands is part of the Anglo-Dutch Empire, so that's why, you know, Bilderberg, they have to be brought in.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Get back to the point.
	I'm going to come back to Bilderberg.
	It's a drinking club.
	Yeah, wait until you hear who's in it.
	But it looks like Europe has either a plan and they need America to be a part of it, Or they have, more likely, no plan and desperately want to be a part of whatever America's doing, which also seems to be pretty much no plan.
	I mean, weren't we assured that if we didn't have all these stimuli packages signed that 500,000 Americans would lose their job every month?
	Well, that was incorrect.
	It was actually more like 670,000 who lost their job in the shortest month of the year.
	When is this shit going to kick in?
	When is it going to work?
	Yeah, no, what was the point of signing it if it doesn't do anything?
	Yeah, and we had to rush.
	And horrible news.
	Front page.
	Front page of the Financial Times.
	Gordon Ramsay in trouble.
	Gordon Ramsay has been in trouble for a while.
	What's the latest?
	Well, it looks like he's...
	Getting back to more interesting news.
	Meanwhile, that's why it's on the front page of the Times.
	He has broken some...
	Gordon Ramsay Holdings, who are about...
	It's interesting, because it's a private company, but it's so typical in a socialist society.
	This is the same in the Netherlands.
	You have to report your numbers to the Chamber of Commerce, and they publish it, so everyone can look at your shit.
	What good is it being private if that's the case?
	Nothing, and then they ridicule you in the fucking paper.
	I hate it when that happens.
	Obviously, the guy has to renegotiate his six million pound line.
	I mean, that's normal in these times.
	But now they're saying, well, according to the filed report, it looks like just the fact that it was filed late, he's broken his covenants, and he's got to be in trouble.
	It's really...
	It's a nasty thing to do, but it's so typical when someone's high on the horse and he's got a big mouth and, gee, I've learned this firsthand.
	Man, when people can, they will kick you in the ass so hard.
	So hard.
	Even a stand-up publication like the Financial Times.
	So he's getting kicked in the butt is what you're trying to tell me.
	Yeah, big time.
	Huh.
	So what's the deal?
	I mean, what's going on with him?
	Since it's all public.
	Well, this is exactly what I'm saying, is that it looks like he's broken his covenants, i.e.
	he hasn't paid back his loans, and he's trying to refinance, and everyone's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
	A couple of celebrity chefs have had to close multiple restaurants over here.
	It's dead, man.
	The economy here, you think, this is just a little taster of what you guys are going to get.
	Just a little taster.
	In the Netherlands, because I had a very European couple of days, so I was checking out some Dutch news.
	They already started cranking this up about a year ago.
	It was in the press, saying, well, you know, we have to really work on our economy, and, well, we think that we should raise the...
	The retirement age and the finance minister Walter Bosz the other day said, you know what?
	We're all going to have to work longer.
	Moms, you're going to have to get off your ass and work because of all the shortcomings because they've bailed out Fortis and ING. So they're actually enslaving people now.
	That's what it sounds like.
	Yeah, it's true.
	It's absolutely true.
	Well, they've always yearned for the good old days of the serfdom.
	Well, here it is.
	You know, the peasant farmer.
	Hey, let's go get some more of that peasant farmer's money.
	Speaking of farmers, John, I heard that the farmers...
	Is it not true that most of our corn and wheat comes from Colorado in the States, like 40%?
	Isn't that a huge...
	No, most of it comes from Nebraska.
	Oh, really?
	Nebraska?
	Yeah.
	Colorado's pretty much of a mountain state.
	Well, I heard that the farmers are having a real hard time.
	I'm not really into the commodity prices of corn and wheat and pork bellies, but apparently they're way underwater on selling this stuff, and it's supposedly so bad that they may not be able to plant new crops.
	Well, that has not been anything good.
	I haven't heard this.
	I think if there are any farmers in the audience, I'd love to know.
	You know, whether you're farming...
	Any farmers on a hand-cranked radio, give us a call.
	Whether you're farming wheat or corn or if it's livestock, yeah, let us know.
	Yeah, let's get the farming report in on this show.
	Yeah, because I don't follow farming stuff.
	We should.
	We need to follow farming stuff because this is the most important business there is.
	And it's basic to survival.
	Absolutely.
	Basic to survival.
	Well, I do know this might be part of it.
	It seems as though Obama's going to pull the plug or has pulled the plug or is pulling the plug on a lot of these subsidies to these huge farming corporations that get just a pile of money for doing pretty much...
	I mean, it's just on top of whatever they make.
	It's because it goes back to the Depression days when they used to have to subsidize the farmer.
	And they kept it in play.
	And that's how these big giant farm companies started playing the game because they could just score all this easy money.
	It may be kind of a disinformation campaign.
	You know, to moan and groan about this stuff, to benefit these big corporations, the Archer Midlands, McDaniels, these kinds of guys, that, you know, expecting to get the, because everyone else is getting money from the government, why aren't we, kind of thing.
	So I'm skeptical, let's put it that way.
	Well, let's keep our eye on it, because it's important.
	It's just as important as oil.
	And thanks to NetPierre, who just Twittered that the minute we started this show, the Dow lost 27 points.
	Well, it's a good thing we're not Obama.
	It would have lost 270.
	That guy can't get a break.
	Now, I think we're now...
	It's going to hover around this level, I believe, John.
	I think it's going to hover for a while.
	I was expecting a bigger rally today.
	Yesterday there was a rally, because that has to happen at a certain point.
	You can't just keep...
	It's almost like...
	Well, in any game of craps, the odds are it's going to go up for a little while.
	And I think we're going to see some rallies between 7,000 and 8,000.
	And then we're probably around the summertime.
	I think that's when we're going to go hit six.
	We'll go below six.
	Well, the Dow's way down.
	Way down.
	Right now, today?
	It's down 3.3%.
	Today?
	Yeah, so far NASDAQ's down 3.24 because these guys are working lockstep.
	Let me hit the number here.
	What is it then?
	67?
	I'm going to lose a bet here if this keeps going.
	My wife told me to stop betting because I've had a long streak about a 15-year winning streak.
	Time to stop.
	Time to stop.
	Hey, let me...
	Yeah, go ahead.
	She says, because I lost the Obama bet to a bunch of people.
	I also took the other side on a couple of people.
	I love you for that.
	That was at 66.38.
	Jeez, Louise.
	Hey, you know what?
	I went to this Masterclass conference for Final Cut Pro.
	Oh, yeah.
	That's why you were in Europe.
	I forgot.
	The video editing program.
	And you know what one of the most exciting things was that I learned?
	That I'm not the only person who gets pain in the ass from sitting down too much and editing.
	We had a real get-together there for a moment.
	What do you use?
	Well, I use powder.
	Uh-huh.
	I use a soft, inflatable donut.
	It's really, that's what they said.
	Everyone has pain in their ass from sitting too long, sitting behind this frickin' program, editing shit.
	Unbelievable.
	You know, I think it's time.
	Here's an idea.
	And by the way, I've thought about this seriously.
	And I don't know if it was triggered by Rumsfeld or whatever, but to go back to the standing desk...
	I love standing desks, by the way.
	The standing desks, which is what Rumsfeld used.
	I got that snarky note in one of these Abu Ghraib memos.
	What's wrong with standing?
	I stand all day.
	But the standing desk was extremely popular in the 1700s.
	And I think Thomas Jefferson used them.
	There's a bunch of these guys that all used standing desks because you could...
	Stand.
	You can stand.
	And your ass doesn't become full of bed sores, essentially.
	I'm just being honest about it.
	So, you know, maybe it's time that we, the two of us, we re-promote.
	Bring back a standing desk?
	Absolutely.
	Well, what about, just to take it one step further, no one has done this.
	No one's done a standing computer desk.
	No, that's not true.
	There's plenty of them.
	I've looked into this.
	There's plenty of standing.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And you even have computer desks that you can raise and lower electrically.
	No, there's some good shit out there.
	Beautiful, beautiful desks.
	I need to go to a standing desk, I think, because...
	I do, too.
	When I write essays, I use a technique that I probably started in the 1980s before there was a mouse.
	Essentially, I'm a mile away from the monitor, which, by the way, has improved my vision enormously.
	I throw my feet up on the desk.
	And I lean back with the keyboard in my lap and I type away.
	And that's why I use keyboards that have the little track point on them because that way I don't have to get up from that position and find the mouse and dick around with it.
	What size font do you use when you're sitting there?
	I use a regular Sys to 12-point.
	I mean, I can read from a huge distance.
	Oh, that's great.
	Even though I'm nearsighted, but my vision, as you get older, your eyeball starts to go farsighted, whether you like it or not.
	And so farsighted people get extremely blind because they go so farsighted that they're the ones wearing those huge goggle glasses and their eyeballs behind them are just scary.
	Yeah.
	You know, you look at them, whoa!
	Because their eyeball legs is huge because it's all magnified.
	But nearsighted people tend to go toward 20-20, and I'm at the point now where I really don't wear my glasses a lot.
	But anyway, so I use this trick of throwing my legs.
	It's very comfortable, and you write, and you feel like some sort of a leisurely writer.
	And I'm not sure I could write long essays on a standing desk, but most of my time is spent surfing and doing research and stuff.
	Where it would be nice just to walk into the office.
	You've got a standing desk.
	You go right to it.
	You look up something and you walk out.
	You don't sit down.
	Once you sit down, the momentum of sitting pushes you down into the chair.
	You start to fall asleep.
	In the 80s, when I started doing radio professionally, in Europe, everyone had sit-down consoles, and you'd sit, and you'd have everything built around you.
	And in the U.S., it was all stand.
	Everything was stand all the time, because the theory was, particularly in Top 40 Radio, the DJ would be more energetic if he was standing.
	And I buy into that, by the way.
	Yeah, I actually worked on Tom Likas' show.
	I came in as a guest.
	He was the number one top 40 guy or whatever.
	I don't know what he was.
	He was down in L.A. And then he later went up to Seattle after they changed formats.
	I don't know what he's doing now.
	He was working standing up.
	It was just short of having a lavalier mic.
	Yeah, I've never gotten into that part.
	The lavalier mic.
	But, yeah, he would stand up.
	But I should go back to stand up.
	I really should.
	It's just, it's hard because, you know, to get a desk that's, you've got to get one that is adjustable.
	The electric adjustable.
	That's just the coolest shit.
	Yeah, I'm going to look into it myself.
	They're very expensive, but they're awesome.
	And thank you to, who is this, the Twitter, this, Icolit, I think.
	Just to remind you that according to your previous predictions on no agenda, the Dow at this moment should be about 20,000.
	Huh?
	Huh?
	According to predictions made previously on this show, at this period in time, the Dow should be about 20,000.
	Yeah.
	I think I'm probably the one as responsible for that bullshit.
	That's correct.
	That's exactly what you're saying.
	Well, that's because I was thinking of the cycle looking like 1929, but it apparently doesn't.
	It looks exactly like, so far, it looks exactly like 1890, which means the Dow is kind of languishing, and it should have a little bump, like, in a year.
	And go up, probably not to 20,000, or 25, by the way, is one of the numbers I also bandied about.
	And then crash again, big time, and this time we've got no money left, and that'll be in 2013.
	That's my current thinking.
	Okay, well, I believe it's been accelerated.
	I think that it's going much faster.
	Well, no.
	See, there's no evidence that this has ever happened in history, because what you're trying to say is the following.
	The market crashed in 2000 and 2001, and it dived, and then it went kind of flat and never recovered until, like, last year when it didn't recover, it crashed more.
	And now it's going even down further.
	Actually, we're returning to 1990 price levels.
	On everything, including real estate.
	And it's going to keep going down because we're broke.
	And we're going to have another...
	This would amount to a 20-year down cycle, which has never happened in the history of the world.
	Well, maybe except during the Hundred Years' War.
	But I'm saying in a normal environment where there's not some crazy stuff going on...
	Wait a minute.
	Wait a minute.
	Stop.
	Back up a second.
	There's not some crazy stuff going on?
	What are you saying?
	Not like the Black Plague or the 1918...
	What are you talking about?
	How about wars everywhere?
	We've got climate change?
	There's all kinds of scary things happening, John.
	Oh, I've got to move on, man.
	I've got to move on to our Shadow Puppet Theater.
	Uh-oh.
	Yes.
	There was an announcement.
	Some new players on the scene in the White House.
	As we've had several potentials who have not been able to be confirmed due to primarily tax evasion.
	Of course, Daschle was supposed to come in to be the health guru.
	And I saw this on C-SPAN. I saw President Obama...
	I'm introducing Nancy Ann DeParlay and Kathleen Sibelius.
	Now Sibelius is going to be the, she's currently the governor of Kansas and she is now going to be the, what is it, what's her official title?
	Health, help me out John.
	I don't know.
	You're on your own.
	You're swinging in the wind, my friend.
	I'm floundering in the pond is what I'm doing.
	All right, so she's supposed to be health secretary, I guess, is the title.
	So what was interesting is I saw this on C-SPAN. It was very different from any other announcement in the fact that the room was only filled with...
	It sounded and looked like, from what I could see, and on C-SPAN you get a pretty good vibe of the environment because there's no voiceover and no...
	No overlays and no lower thirds.
	It's just the video.
	It was just a handful of press.
	Normally, after an announcement like this, there's lots of applause.
	There was nothing.
	It was just dead silent, just hearing cameras go off.
	And then Sibelius, who seems...
	Pretty clean, in general, just looking into her background.
	She does a little, thank you very much, and this is important, and healthcare reform, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	And then the President says, Nancy, do you want to say anything?
	And it's this little timid woman.
	And she's like...
	He didn't really want to say anything, and Obama kind of ushers her up to the podium, at which point it was kind of funny.
	The minute he was done with his introduction, you saw the two teleprompter screens get lowered.
	So his bit was on teleprompter.
	So she's stuck without the teleprompter.
	No teleprompter.
	You saw them levitate down.
	There's these two boxes on either side.
	There's a little electromotor in there.
	It was very cool.
	And then she does some little nondescript blah, blah, blah, whatever.
	It's great.
	Healthcare reform.
	Fantastic.
	And then I started looking up this Nancy Ann DeParli.
	Oh my goodness.
	She is on seven boards of pharmaceutical companies, owns stock, millions of dollars worth of stock, in all of these different companies, and she's going to be the person in the White House on the President's team, and then really the liaison between Sibelius and everybody else.
	Ah, there's your health care reform.
	Ah!
	It's just unbelievable.
	And she's got, you know, hundreds of thousands of shares in all these companies.
	We should find her portfolio and outline it.
	Hey, by the way, talking about Obama, do you remember when Bush was president and he was roundly criticized by the media for his use of soldiers as props?
	Sorry?
	And us.
	We criticize him.
	Soldiers as props?
	Yeah, no, we never criticize him for this, because it was, what was the point?
	Yeah, he, for soldiers as props, Bush was the first president, apparently, who would give a speech with a whole bunch of soldiers behind him as props.
	He'd be talking to him, and he'd be like, the Fifth Army will be, you know, behind him.
	Right.
	And standing there, you know, at attention, you know, whatever.
	Sure, sure.
	Okay, so, oh, this is the first time, this is exploiting the soldiers of America, he puts himself in there, he's never even been in the army, and blah, blah, you know, even though he was, I guess.
	Yeah, not a lot of that criticism flying around, is there?
	And now Obama, I saw him yesterday, and he's standing in front of a bunch of soldiers.
	I don't know why.
	They're all back there behind him and make him look more presidential.
	Was this another one, or was this still the Lejeune place where he...
	I don't know which one it was.
	All I know is I'm looking at this going, wait, where's the criticism of Obama pulling the same scam?
	You know, Obama is, you know...
	I've said this before on the show that he's the Steven Spielberg of presidents.
	He steals from the best.
	He takes whatever Reagan did.
	He has those people, the stooges in the audience when he gives a speech, which Reagan perfected.
	Now he's using the Bush trick of having the soldiers in the background.
	They've got somebody in this administration who has studied all the things that worked in the past.
	Well, that's Axelrod, I think.
	That must be Axelrod.
	He's the only one who would care.
	Lots of flags behind him and soldiers.
	Yeah.
	Doing a beautiful job.
	But where's the media with their criticism?
	They were always leveling on Bush every time the guy turned around and farted.
	The media has been bought and sold and paid for and they're all afraid of losing their job and since we barely have jobs, that's why we tackle these problems head on.
	We are patently unemployable anyway, so who gives a hoot?
	Actually, it was 697,000 jobs.
	Almost 700,000 jobs lost in the shortest month of the year.
	Yeah, but don't forget, because of the bill, there were at least a million jobs saved.
	It's so unbelievable.
	So don't think of it as 700,000 jobs lost.
	Think of it as a net gain of 300,000.
	While we're at it, let's just see if recovery.gov has any news today.
	I haven't looked.
	I go there every single day.
	Oh, they've changed it.
	No, no, they've changed it.
	Oh, they have a new graph.
	Okay.
	This is the only change they've made so far?
	Yeah, this is a significant change.
	They have a new graph at the top about the estimated distribution of highway infrastructure funds.
	Hold on a second.
	I've got to move.
	I have to widen my browser.
	Yeah, I know.
	That thing is huge.
	That's not an AIB standard banner, Obama.
	You've got to fix that.
	Now it's the same video.
	Okay, it's a little makeover.
	But I still see no reporting.
	Where's the reports?
	I don't know.
	It's not there.
	Aren't they all here?
	They're here somewhere because they promised them.
	The National Institute of Standards and Technology will receive $610 million in funds as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
	What do they need with that money?
	The NOAA receives $830 million?
	Hmm.
	We can't get on this tit.
	The UK announced a plan two months ago, I believe, that was supposed to help small and medium businesses.
	And of course, nowhere except maybe now on realhelpnow.gov.uk, there might be a link, but no one could really figure out where to get this help.
	This money was like a billion pounds.
	And only last week did they file the appropriate paperwork so that it goes through the Appropriations Committee or however that works over here.
	They don't expect the money to be available for another two months.
	It's a complete fucking scam.
	Just scamming.
	You know where the money's going.
	It's going to...
	More money going to bankers.
	And everyone's just...
	You know what?
	We're stupid.
	That's what we are.
	We're stupid.
	We should be out there getting our own part of this scam.
	Just stupid.
	We can't get in on a scam.
	So let's talk about the Turkish Airlines flight.
	Oh, yes.
	This is one of your specialties.
	Talking about producing the show, we could have a little segment about Adam investigates something.
	It could be a little jingle.
	Yeah, we could just start that at the beginning of the show, because that's all I do.
	Well, you do plenty of other things.
	So let me just give you a quick rundown.
	So yesterday, the Dutch Transportation Safety Board, which is headed by the chairman of that, is Maester Pieter van Fullerhoef.
	I think we have to stop at that for a moment, because we were talking about him the other day on the show, in regards to this horrible accident and something else that happened between himself and my wife.
	Right.
	Well, let me summarize.
	You made the assertion, you alleged that he is a masher because he bumped up into your wife with apparently some sort of excited member and then kind of rubbed up against her a little bit while she was standing there and she was aghast by this.
	And meanwhile, of course, was not known to the general public, and I'll bring it up before you do, this was picked up by the Dutch media.
	Yes.
	Well, and I'm actually thinking, because we discussed a lot, and although that was a humorous moment in that particular segment, we were talking about the crash, about tension between the Secretary General, that's one of the highest...
	Uh, service, civil servants in the justice department and Turkey.
	And there's all kinds of real weird shit going on around him and, uh, and child abuse.
	And so there was a lot happening in that segment.
	And I said, Oh, by the way, this guy who's heading up the, uh, the, the investigation, who's the chairman of the traffic safety board.
	Um, he's kind of a funny guy because here's what happened with him in the past.
	And by the way, that, uh, that thing that happened, that happened, uh, over 25 years ago.
	And I didn't point that out.
	Uh, But time is relative.
	So that got picked up, but it got picked up by, you know, like they teased it on the 11 o'clock news that was coming right up, and they called the Royal Dutch, you know, the Royal Family Information Department or whatever, and said, can you, and of course they said, no comment.
	And they actually played a snippet of the show, and they had it subtitled, oh man.
	Unbelievable.
	And I knew something...
	But they never gave us any...
	They never said it was the No Agenda podcast, did they?
	Well, I didn't see the, I cannot find the actual, no, I think they did say no agenda, but I couldn't find the actual piece online.
	I didn't see it live, but boy, I knew about it because, you know, of course, every stupid Top 40 radio morning show was calling me at 7 a.m.
	who had seen it the night before.
	You know, then what they do is they get your cell phone number and they call and, you know, you're supposed to pick up and then they surprise you with this, hey, man, that was amazing last night.
	I think you nailed it!
	I've learned to avoid that.
	If you get a call at 7 in the morning that is unidentified, I mean 7 in the morning, that is unidentifiable, you know something's afoot.
	Anyway, Patricia, she was laughing about it.
	I'm glad she has a good sense of humor.
	Come on, she has a great sense of humor.
	But I said, what if they're going to call you?
	She said, hey, ladies don't talk about shit like that.
	They can just, if they want to know anything.
	Same with their husbands, apparently.
	Oh yeah, I got some stories.
	Honey, what's that wet spot on your back?
	Okay, anyway, so when this crash took place, I do want to say my immediate reaction to this based on information that I had was fuel starvation.
	Meaning that there was not enough fuel going into the engines, and it's important for the listeners to understand there's a difference between engines stalling and an airspeed stall.
	Every airplane will stay aloft, will float its physics at a certain speed, and that's based upon the size, the weight, and of course the wing is really what, you know, it's all about the wing.
	So if you run out of airspeed, then it will not fly.
	It can be going 100 miles an hour, but if that's outside of the envelope for that particular aircraft, it will fall to the ground like a brick.
	It will not glide at a certain point.
	Yeah, okay.
	Get to the point.
	So they came out, and this was an amazing press conference, particularly so short to have this much detail.
	Now, what they did not give us is actual cockpit voice recorder transcripts or even any inkling of conversation that went on in the cockpit.
	But according to the black box, the data recorder, At about 2,000 feet on their final approach, the altimeter broke, and there's two, and this altimeter is locked into the autopilot and autothrust, which apparently are two independent systems.
	And it then registered, hey, wait a minute, where it sent data to the plane's computer saying the plane is actually on the ground.
	Why that was 8 feet?
	Well, it's minus 8 feet, but the steeple is below sea level, so it would be approximately on the ground.
	And in an Autoland approach, and I'm not an expert in these systems, so I'm really just replaying what was said, the The aircraft, when it's on the ground or when it's approaching the ground, it will turn the engines to idle because that's what you do.
	And then you glide down, you float, boom, and you land, and you're done.
	In some cases, the autopilot will actually flare the plane, and in other cases, it could even do a reverse thrust on the engines, I'm told.
	Irrelevant.
	Let's flare the plane.
	Oh, so when you're landing, at the very last moment, just before you touch down, you pull back on the stick gently so the nose goes up, and then you come down.
	It's kind of like just a perfect...
	Right.
	You try to get that perfect all wheels at the same time.
	Well, it depends on the aircraft, but you flare it a little bit, it slows you down, then you just pop down onto the pavement.
	Right.
	So what happened is, at a little under 2,000 feet, the computer all of a sudden gets the signal, hey, wait a minute, we're on the ground.
	It does two things.
	It starts to retard the engines, essentially starving them of fuel, because it's going to idle.
	It's not going slower.
	It's turning them to idle.
	And then there's a warning.
	The warning says, your gear is not down.
	And of course these guys, they couldn't see the ground at that point because there was some cloud cover.
	But they ignore that warning.
	And it can only be about 15 or 20 seconds later is when the engines have cut, and so the plane is losing speed rather rapidly, and all of a sudden they notice because the stick shaker goes off,
	which is a warning saying your plane is about to stall because they didn't have enough airspeed, and then Apparently, you know, someone throttled up really fast and then pulled the nose up and it was just too little, too late, and then the tail hit the ground and then it slammed down.
	So here's what's interesting about this.
	The first words out of the chairman's mouth were, we're sending a message to Boeing.
	They were dead set on not blaming the pilots.
	They said, Boeing needs to know that there's a system flaw.
	If the altimeter doesn't work, that under no circumstances should the autothrottle still be engaged if there's a fault.
	And that should be put into the manual.
	And essentially saying, not really blaming Boeing, but saying...
	Boeing, you guys, you've got to change the way you operate because this is a dangerous situation.
	Now, another interesting data point.
	On the flight data recorder, which records 24, 25 hours, so it had the last eight flights this aircraft made, the exact same thing happened twice where the altimeter broke and started registering incorrect data, passing that through to the flight systems, yet there was no accident.
	But in flight terms, the number one things you're supposed to be watching, no matter who's flying the plane, autopilot or not, is airspeed and altitude.
	And if all this data is true, and if it's all correct, and they're not talking any bullshit, I hate to say it, but it was complete pilot error.
	Because they got three guys in the cockpit, and whatever they were doing, they were not watching the speed.
	And I just ran out of speed because if you want to then hit the thrust, it takes three seconds for the engines to spool up from idle.
	So they just had no chance.
	But they were doing something else other than paying attention to the airspeed, which anyone who's ever taken flying lessons or currently flies knows that that is number one.
	Your airspeed.
	Without airspeed, you're dead.
	And you're always...
	I am-ing.
	No.
	This is the joke of the, you know, we had this big wreck out here in California, and they blamed the engineer for coming back to this.
	He was texting?
	Yeah, he was texting.
	This huge instant texting thing, when the fact of the matter is people have witnessed the fact that the signals were wrong.
	But, anyway.
	So I think that now Turkey, of course, has responded saying, you know, our pilots are heroes.
	You know, this is bullshit.
	It's not pilot error.
	And anyone in aviation knows that if these are the facts, yes, there was something wrong with the aircraft, but they had many, many opportunities to correct it if they had paid attention to their airspeed.
	But you had the captain in the left seat, so in the command chair, if you will, and then the trainee who, you know, he had 3,000 hours.
	You know, the guy has to learn somehow.
	It's very normal that you have a first officer trainee, and then the actual first officer sitting on the jump seat, and whatever was going on, maybe someone was, you know, they might have had all heads down looking at something else or doing a demo or, hey, watch this.
	If you ever hear a pilot say, watch this, Watch this.
	You know it's all over.
	So where did you get that?
	You had a document you sent me.
	It was a PDF. Where did you get that that had all those details on it?
	That was an official release from the Transportation Safety Board.
	Alright, so what does this all mean?
	Now that we've deconstructed it.
	We'll accept your explanation that it was pilot error and it makes sense.
	Right.
	I think that...
	I find it interesting that they come out with so much detail so quickly that they immediately point blame towards...
	It's now a political thing.
	It's very political because who's going to pay the damages?
	The airline immediately said, oh, we'll give everyone five grand compensation.
	And of course, they've already formed a class action.
	They're like, fuck you with your five grand.
	I don't think so.
	So everyone's pointing the other way.
	And it was just interesting that that was the main thing that came out so quickly.
	Usually there's a preliminary report, but to go into such detail about there's two systems and there's altimeter one, altimeter two, I'd really still like to hear the tower speaking to the aircraft, which that recording was removed immediately.
	And I think we should have at least a transcript of what was said in the cockpit because it doesn't add up.
	If you really are three experienced airmen, to miss something like your airspeed is a real day wrecker.
	It's hard to imagine that that happened.
	But I can't really make a conspiracy out of it.
	I wish I could make a Boeing Airbus thing out of it, but it doesn't seem possible.
	I'm sure one of those will come up shortly.
	The show's not over yet!
	So if you go to my blog, you'll see a very funny...
	I don't usually put produced videos up, but there's a funny episode of The Daily Show where they basically slam CNBC. Rick Santelli apparently was invited as a guest on the show, and he, as Stuart said, bailed out.
	Should I play it?
	How long is it?
	No, it's too long.
	It's really long.
	But I recommend it to people because it's extremely funny.
	But the funniest part...
	Is they finally get to the end of it where they had CNBC interviewing Stanford, that scammer that ran off with $8 billion.
	Yeah.
	And it's this huge softball thing, and then it builds up to the end, and Stuart stops and says, okay, he's got the money question coming.
	Here it comes, and this is going to really, you know, they got the guy in the chair, you know.
	Here you go.
	And then they started off with him saying, how come you didn't get caught up in the investment scandal and Stuart didn't get caught up?
	Because it was a scam.
	So anyway, at the very end, the interviewer goes, so, Mr.
	Stanford, what's it like to be a billionaire?
	Oh, my God, really?
	And all that was missing, the way I saw it, was the guy sniggering and then picking his nose.
	Oh, man.
	Oh, that's amazing.
	Hey, I got a link for you, man.
	Hold on.
	I'm going to send you this link.
	This is something we could have thought up.
	Of course we didn't.
	Hold on.
	We're too busy talking.
	This is true.
	This is a website where you can help choose the sexiest vegetarian next door 2009.
	This has been going on for a few years.
	I've never seen this.
	And they have female and male contestants.
	It's also sexiest vegan.
	I thought this was new.
	They all look kind of scrawny.
	PETA.org.
	They look kind of scrawny.
	I think Brooke's pretty hot.
	What's the meat on your bones, Amanda?
	Look at Brooke.
	Brooke's pretty hot.
	This is funny.
	This is like a single elimination tournament in the NCAA or something.
	They got this thing blocked off.
	Hey, we can do our fantasy league.
	And she'll take on the winner of Amber and Christina in the next round.
	How about Amy?
	Now, they're all scrawny.
	Look at Amy.
	Yeah, she's scrawny, man.
	And a lot of them have implants.
	She can't even stand up.
	She's so thin.
	She's lying down.
	I'm so weak from not eating.
	The poor woman can't even stand.
	I'm so weak.
	I must lay down in my lingerie.
	She looks like she's got a fake top.
	Hell yeah.
	It's totally fake.
	That'll be in the show notes.
	Yeah, we'll send you the link.
	And here's one.
	Amanda, age 23, all tattooed up like Amy Weinstein.
	Winehouse!
	Oh, whatever.
	Weinstein.
	This is good.
	Amanda, she lives in Australia and California.
	I don't know how that works.
	That's what I call a long commute.
	But she always comes back to her hometown of Fulton, New York.
	What is this called an international what?
	She's her own little trilateral commission right there.
	She loves to cook and especially loves to create her own unique recipes, much to the delight of her family, who God knows where they live.
	Amanda says that even her brothers, who hunt and fish, enjoy the meat substitute she uses.
	The adventurous vegetarian also loves skydiving, tattoos notably, biking, what kind of a hobby is that?
	Here it comes, here it comes.
	Skating and filmmaking.
	She hopes to work in the film industry someday.
	Well, from the looks of her, she's probably working in it now.
	The adult film industry.
	There's a link to meat replacements.
	Meat substitutes.
	All of them look like they enjoy some meat from time to time, don't they?
	Yeah, in the film industry, let's say.
	Jeez.
	Well, let's pick a winner then.
	Let's just do it.
	Just pick a winner.
	Well, you know, I do like the girl that can't stand up.
	She's kind of pretty.
	It's just Amy is so weak.
	She's so weak.
	She can't stand up.
	She can only do sex.
	We're going to get some email now.
	Oh, goodness.
	I mean, I'd have to look.
	There's too many of them here.
	You'd have to look at all their pictures, and these are all professionally taken photographs.
	These girls could be homely as a mud hen.
	This is bull.
	This stuff is ridiculous.
	Oh, there's male contestants.
	I didn't see that.
	I haven't looked at them.
	Oh, brother.
	Look at Monty.
	Hold on.
	Where's Monty?
	This one's going to get you.
	Oh, man.
	Monty's built.
	Monty may not eat meat, but he's definitely carrying a quarter pounder.
	I think he does eat meat, if you know what I'm saying.
	John.
	I'm sorry.
	Okay.
	Enough of this.
	How about Ari?
	It brings out the bad side of me, letting me ad-lib about people.
	Did you see Ari with his little white puppy?
	Yeah, that's another one.
	I guarantee none of these guys that are on this one care much about the female contestants, let's put it that way.
	Which is okay.
	You're generalizing, man.
	No, I think you're right.
	So, well, just look for yourself.
	So anyway, by the way, I was bitching about the CNBC thing.
	I have to recall, because I'm telling you, this video is worth watching because they bring up everybody, what they said and then what happened, in a very different way than The Daily Show usually does.
	I mean, it really apparently put a lot of work into this.
	But I remember when I was in New York last year, I was up earlier than usual.
	I got to watch that early show on the CNBC where this guy came out with this...
	This was before all the crashes.
	And this guy came on the show who had just finished a book on how Lehman Brothers was obviously going to go out of business.
	And they just...
	He raked this guy over the coals for even suggesting anything about this great company, Lehman Brothers.
	And he said, what makes you think that any of these assertions of yours are true?
	And they were just pounding him.
	And he kept pointing at one number.
	He said, well, you know, if they can explain what this number is, I wouldn't even write this book.
	But I've asked and asked and asked, and nobody can explain it.
	There's this number, you know, in this column here.
	And these numbers don't make any sense.
	And they don't, what do they refer to?
	And it was obviously some, you know, something to balance the books.
	Right, right.
	And they could never come up with anything, but as soon as I saw that and the way they attacked this guy and the fact that he had come up with stuff, and we were already starting to see the oil scam and some of this other stuff get revealed, I got pretty suspicious.
	Well, that oil scam is really working, boy, I'll tell you.
	The downward scam, keeping it below $50, that is really, that is just, Venezuela is now, there's all kinds of crap going on there, because when you build your business, i.e.
	your country, on $140 or $150 per barrel oil, your plans have to change pretty drastically when your income is knocked down by 60%.
	Yeah.
	Have you been following Venezuela?
	Well, Venezuela, no, I had that special I recorded for you on Cesar Chavez that Frontline did, by the way, which is one of the best things.
	If anybody out there can find this Cesar Chavez special on Frontline, it's one of the most fascinating things they've ever done.
	But no, Venezuela's got all kinds of problems, and of course we're putting the screws to them, and then of course they got this.
	There was just a special on, I think it was 60 Minutes or something over the weekend, where this guy Morales, who's the Indian coca farmer that's the head of Bolivia, Who basically told the U.S. to get their DEA guys out of the country.
	You know, people here in the Andes, we chew coca leaves and we can't have these.
	Will you just line up and buy it like everybody else and stop bringing in your own shipments?
	Right.
	Your own transport?
	So they went to, you know, so this has become a big problem, and of course, Cesar Chavez supports this guy, and he's kind of, you know, trying to get him to become a communist.
	And it's a very interesting situation in South America with these guys.
	By the way, the Coca thing...
	Coca leaves are a common thing people chew and make tea in both Peru and Bolivia and other South American countries where you have high altitudes because it's a combination of chemicals in these leaves that give you enough stamina.
	It doesn't give you a buzz.
	I've chewed these things.
	But it gives you a lot.
	I'm up at 14,000 feet in the Andes in this little town with a bunch of guys who were floating around.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Back it up.
	Set the stage.
	What were you at this time?
	Chemist?
	No, no, no.
	This was like a few years ago.
	The guy who runs a company that got bought by...
	Whoa, there goes the phone.
	That got bought by National Geographic that sells indigenous people's artifacts.
	That ripped off shit, yeah?
	Yeah.
	Actually, they sell for a pretty good price.
	So let me kill this call.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	You take that call.
	In the meantime, we'll play a little bit of music here on No Agenda.
	We're waiting for John C. Dvorak to come back.
	Hey, hey, hey.
	So anyway, so they invited us up to go to Peru and go into the Andes and visit some of these rug makers.
	So we're in this one town, which is just up there.
	And, I mean, you have to take air sickness pills, and we drank a lot of coca leaf tea.
	And then we got up there, and then you find these old farts who had bags of these leaves, and you chew on them.
	And then you can wander around, because it's pretty, it's tiresome to walk, because we're not only at high altitudes, but we're going up and down hills.
	It's like sucking on a Red Bull continuously.
	Anyway, it's terrible.
	And so I'm like the oldest guy in this group.
	I was 30.
	No, I'm just whatever age I was.
	Anyway, there's a bunch of these young people that were with the group.
	I mean, there's different ages, but let's just say that I was the oldest of the group.
	And these young people, a couple of them were, no, no, I don't want to chew the leaf because, you know, it's like, I think it's bad.
	I don't know why.
	I don't want to get hooked on the leaf, man.
	I don't want to get hooked on this stuff.
	And so it was so funny to, you know, once you had enough, you know, you've been chewing stuff enough, you just wander around.
	It's pretty normal.
	You're still a little winded, but it's not too bad.
	But it's something hilarious about walking past on the way back to the, you know, our ride back.
	Down the mountain.
	Walking past two or three of these guys who refuse to chew the leaves, bent over, holding, you know, with their hands on their knees.
	Oh, yeah, they're out of breath.
	Gasped with air, unable to move, walking downhill.
	They can't do it.
	Yeah, that's altitude sickness.
	Yeah, sure.
	And I walk right past one of them.
	I said, I told you you should have chewed the leaves.
	Have you ever tried Viagra?
	No.
	I mean, neither.
	I don't want to have, I mean, it causes, you know, it increases your blood pressure.
	I don't think, it doesn't sound like a healthy product.
	No.
	But the leaves, you know, so the leaves are no big deal.
	I like the herb, too.
	Well, yeah, you like the herb.
	But anyway, the leaves are no big deal, and the tea is tasty.
	But, oh, no, it used to actually be legal in the United States to sell coca leaf tea until, I think it was the Reagan administration, somebody with a hair up there.
	Oh, no, you can't do that.
	I mean, if there's actually extracting cocaine from a bag of coca leaf tea, you would not get a crystal.
	No.
	And I just think it's ridiculous.
	Our drug laws are stupid.
	And we should legalize marijuana.
	I'm a libertarian 100% of the way on this.
	Yeah, but it's not going to happen.
	We went through that last week.
	It's not going to happen.
	It would completely ruin the business.
	Yeah, your rationale for it is because the government's in bed with the drug dealers who are all splitting the money.
	Yes, I guarantee you marijuana will never be legal in any of the United States unless they declare independence from the union.
	It will not be legal.
	It won't happen.
	It will not happen.
	The way I see it, everybody who smokes dope now has a supply.
	They get their dope.
	I mean, Mendocino County probably supplies most of it.
	And it's not like if they legalize it that all of a sudden...
	There was a really specious argument that came up the other day.
	Anyway, legalizing it all of a sudden is not going to increase anybody using it.
	I mean, I'm not going to start smoking dope because it's illegal.
	I don't care for it.
	But here's the argument that the guys say...
	Oh, you know, this is a bogus argument that they're going to get all these tax dollars.
	This is one of these right-wing talk show guys.
	It's a bogus argument because you know as well as I do that once it's legalized, the prices will plummet, and then there won't be any tax dollars because it won't cost much.
	If you tax it by the pound at a fixed rate, what difference does it make with the base price?
	You're still going to get the tax money.
	What kind of math is this?
	These people come up with this.
	Just make some horrible, some bullshit argument that there's going to be any tax money because the price is going to go down.
	It's nuts.
	It's crazy.
	Anyway, sorry.
	No, no.
	I do not understand the Republican Party, right-wing, that's for personal responsibility, less government in your life, and all this other stuff, and then they want the government in your life.
	Yeah.
	By which somebody explained, it all was for the good of the public.
	Bull!
	I watched this show on Monday.
	By the way, marijuana used to be legal in this country, and it was used a lot less when it was.
	I was watching this show on Monday called over here in the UK. I think it was the War of the Bins.
	And it was a fascinating program.
	The municipalities, the councils throughout the United Kingdom have such an incredible amount of power and control over the subjects of England.
	Most places now have, count them, four individual garbage bins they must fill appropriately for trash removal.
	And this, I think we talked about it last week or the week before, that there's already been all, you know, these councils are cutting back, and in some cases they're not picking, they're only picking up garbage every 14 days.
	14 days, okay?
	They'll rot.
	But they now, they're in schools teaching kids which crap goes into which bin.
	And there's four of them.
	There's a red one, a green one, a blue one, and a black one.
	And it's amazing.
	They will leave your bin.
	If there's one thing in there that's wrong, they leave it.
	And then you get fined.
	They've got, you know, it was showing these inspectors walking around, looking at people's garbage cans.
	Oh, they've got the wrong thing in there.
	I'm going to have to write them up.
	And to make people recycle, this is the kicker.
	So in this one municipality where they have two bins, one is for recyclable and one is for trash, they cut the trash one in half by size and gave everyone a new bin.
	Okay, this is now half as big, which means you have to recycle more, I guess.
	They're completely terrorizing people with these ugly-ass plastic bins that are throughout the entire country.
	There's not a single street that doesn't have colored bins out in front.
	And they're forcing people to...
	It's crazy.
	Well, okay.
	We can talk about what...
	We have the bins here, too, but we don't have...
	It depends on the community.
	Like, for example, in Berkeley, they have a similar situation that you're talking about with all these, you know, not necessarily inspectors, but if they find that you've put a bottle, for example, in your garbage instead of in the bottle bin, which you've already paid, by the way, for.
	You have to pay like an extra nickel or a dime because of the bottle bill that was passed in California years ago to encourage people...
	They pick it up and they go sell it, right?
	They sell it to the glass guys.
	Yeah, but here's the irony of the whole thing.
	Because I used to be an air pollution inspector and one of the places I inspected was the glass companies.
	There's a thing called Cull or Cullit.
	It's the busted up old bottles that get recycled into the glass scene.
	The glass business is always, from day one, big time into recycled glass.
	They bring tons of this stuff in.
	And people would collect it, and there was no reason to charge this extra nickel, which amounts to being a tax on this bottle.
	Every time you buy anything now that's a plastic, even a plastic bottle, you buy a bottle of sparkling water, and you go through the register as the price, and plus a CRV or something recycled nickel, just another nickel or a dime.
	And...
	And every time one of these guys comes, there's a community organizing group in California called CalPIRG that was responsible for this rip-off.
	And every time one of them comes around, because they're always doing something about, you know, they've always got some little thing they want to do.
	Now it's about green or about global warming.
	Yeah.
	There's a couple of them around the office, by the way, in San Francisco that stop you for global warming.
	No.
	They want you to sign a petition.
	No.
	Which I refuse to sign all petitions.
	Of course.
	And so every time they come around, I read them the riot act about this.
	You know, I mean, it's just ridiculous.
	And there's other things that they do that are just counterproductive.
	I mean, Berkeley's got the same kind of bin thing.
	We have a system in Albany, which is probably okay.
	We have three bins, but you can own as many garbage bins as you want to pay for.
	So if you're a real garbage producer...
	Ours are government-issued, man.
	Yeah, well, these are issued by the garbage company.
	And so if you want two garbage bins, fine, you can get two.
	And then they give you free a gray bin for recyclables, and they let you mix them.
	That you could put cardboard in with glass, with paper, with...
	Right.
	Can't they sort that out at the main office?
	Yes, they can.
	That's the point.
	They had to sort it out at the other end.
	Exactly.
	And then they have a green bin for if you have a bunch of, you know, scraps from the yard, you want to pick up your leaves and put them in there.
	So, and it all comes, there's a machine that, you know, it's basically this giant truck with a big arms that grabs and stuff and throws it in there.
	They don't even look at it.
	You know, if you could mix it up.
	And I throw bottles away occasionally into the regular garbage.
	Nobody cares here.
	But in Berkeley, oh, it's terrible.
	And in San Francisco, they got close to the, you know, this kind of same thing going on there in San Francisco like they do in parts of England.
	And the fact that the public puts up with this is ridiculous.
	Thank you.
	That would be my point.
	Sorry, long bro, to get to the point.
	Yeah, but it was weird, man, watching these kids in the classroom learning about global warming and, okay, in which bin does this go in?
	I'm like, man, you're just charging up these batteries to go to work for you, aren't you?
	In New Jersey, we had great...
	They came twice a week in New Jersey.
	Trash from the bin men in New Jersey.
	Hey, Adam, how you doing?
	Half a body?
	You got a dead body?
	Yeah, no problem.
	We'll throw that in two.
	When the mob runs trash, the shit works.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Well, you know what annoys me, and when you get down to the basics of this thing going on over there, and in Berkeley and San Francisco, similar, is that they're essentially having the public do their job.
	Yeah.
	I mean, if you have to sort this from that, from this, you've got to do all this sorting and sorting and sorting of the garbage.
	You never used to have to do that.
	You're basically doing somebody else's job.
	This is like, you know...
	Patricia had a really good idea.
	She said, well, if the bin men collect...
	Let's just talk about recyclables.
	If the bin men collect those, and all they do is they take them, and you've sorted them for them, indeed, and then they go sell the glass, and they go sell the plastic, and whatever else can be sold...
	Wouldn't it be if you just started here where we live, on our square, and if we all collected it ourselves, and then we brought it, and then we split the money, or we put a playground in, or something like that?
	Would we have to have a tremendous amount of recyclables to actually make some money?
	Because I think people would be motivated to do it then.
	Now it's like you're a little child, and you're being scolded, and you're not doing it right, and you have to use the government-issued trash bag.
	And if you don't, again, cardboard boxes, you have to cut up the cardboard box and then put the cut-up slivers into the orange plastic bag, otherwise they won't take it away.
	I hate this.
	Do you know how many boxes I had after we moved?
	Probably more than two.
	And it'd be cut into slivers to fit in the bag.
	Is it possible?
	Can you make money with, I don't know, 50 families?
	You know, you can burn.
	A cardboard is one of the greatest cans that burns.
	You can't burn anything in the city of London.
	Are you crazy?
	You can't start a fire.
	You have a fireplace in your house, don't you?
	Yep, not allowed to burn anything in it.
	Well, what good is it?
	Well, it's no good.
	It's no good.
	Have you heard about...
	Well, you know, this is depressing.
	Now, let's move on to something else, then.
	This will be up your alley because you know a lot about illness.
	Are you familiar with me?
	What does that come from?
	You know all about illness and sickness and cocoa leaves.
	Morgellons.
	You have no idea how many people are jealous of the fact that I got to go up into the Andes and chew cocoa leaves.
	No, I think it's fantastic.
	Send me pictures.
	Ah, screw it.
	Are you familiar with Morgellons?
	I never heard of it.
	Morgellons, and this is doing the rounds, this story, so I don't know anything about it, is a multidimensional disease, it's called.
	I have no idea what that is.
	That means you're going into the third dimension.
	The aliens own you.
	Starts with relentless itching, stinging, or biting sensations.
	Cotton-like balls may appear on the body with no reasonable explanation.
	Soon, skin rash develops along with lesions that may not heal, that will not heal.
	Many sufferers report string-like fibers of varying color popping out through the skin lesions.
	These fibers can be black, white, red, or even iridescent blue.
	Others report black specks falling from their bodies that litter their sheets.
	It's like spontaneous human combustion.
	It is.
	Eventually, a variety of bugs and worms begins to find their way out of the body through the lesions.
	What are you reading this from?
	Naturalnews.com, of course.
	Other accompanying symptoms include hair loss, debilitating and chronic fatigue, hard nodules beneath the skin, and joint pain.
	Oh, no.
	I don't want my joint to hurt.
	But this is apparently contagious and it's frightening and...
	It's a big story.
	Okay, so this thing cropped up in 2002.
	It's a name given in 2002 by Mary Latow to a proposed condition.
	It's not a new disorder, but a new and misleading name for known illnesses.
	However, no consensus, but I'm reading this from the great Wikipedia.
	Well, in April 2006, the Center for Disease Control recommended an epidemiological investigation of what they were then referring to as a public health concern.
	In January 2008, they announced a grant to healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente To test and interview 150 to 500 patients.
	No, they're on it.
	Hmm.
	No, of course there's a GMO link.
	Typical.
	This is interesting.
	And the CDC opened a website on unexplained dermopathy, a.k.a.
	Margellans.
	Announced an investigation process.
	That's what I was just talking about.
	Yeah, symptoms and diagnosis, blah, blah, blah.
	Okay, doctor.
	Granules and crystals that appear under the skin?
	That's crazy, isn't it?
	Sounds like something from the X-Files.
	Well, on the page I'm reading here, it's saying that there's a link to genetically modified food.
	Doesn't that make sense?
	I love that!
	Doesn't that make sense?
	That's a good one.
	They're saying it's a new name for an old condition, delusional parasitosis.
	Wow.
	I got part of that at least.
	Well, you can understand.
	Just from the name of it, you can tell it's a psychological illness where people imagine these crazy things happening to them.
	So you say, okay, so it's not really happening?
	Well, I mean, that's what they say.
	Some cases of delusional parasitosis have organic causes other than those associated with neurological, psychological conditions of unknown etiology.
	For example, fornication.
	Oh, I'm sorry, formication.
	The sensation that...
	That's a funny, interesting word.
	Formication.
	Formication.
	The sensation that bugs are crawling under one's skin can be caused by allergies, diabetic neuropathy, menopause, skin cancer, demodex mites, or herpes zoster.
	Both dementia and mental retardation have been reported in association with DOP. What's D.O.P.? I don't know.
	Symptoms associated with delusional parasitosis, maybe it's delusional, I don't know, including hives, unexplained tingling, and itching are common side effects of many prescription drugs or drug abuse.
	The sensations are real, but the attribution of, of course, that's another reason to make drugs illegal.
	The sensations are real, but the attribution of the sensations to unknown parasites and the collection of fibers Is part of the delusion.
	So nothing to be worried about, I guess.
	I wouldn't think.
	Nothing to see.
	Move on, people.
	Nothing going on.
	It goes on and on.
	This is one of the longest pieces.
	It's a good one, though.
	I still think that MRSA, or the flesh-eating bacteria, is a bigger threat to public health, and nobody seems to really do much about it.
	It's in gyms now.
	Professional athletes are getting it.
	A friend of mine is almost dying from it.
	It's just a mess.
	This flesh-eating bacteria gets inside people.
	That's nasty.
	So I got one more thing here I wanted to...
	So there's a bunch of photos.
	The reason I should have brought this up earlier.
	There's a bunch of photos on the net...
	I should have brought up earlier because it reminded me of the Gordon Brown story, the fact that he couldn't talk to Gordon Brown, but apparently Obama has no problem spending time at the basketball game.
	Yeah, I saw him drinking beer.
	Drinking beer.
	Well, there's nothing wrong with that.
	Does anyone have a real problem with him drinking beer?
	No, there's nothing wrong with that.
	It just seems to me, though, if you've got some guy coming to visit, you know, you might want to either take him to the basketball game or do that.
	Yeah, that would have been nice.
	I don't think he was actually there, though, because he flew in Tuesday mid-afternoon, so that was the day after the game.
	I'm sure Obama can get tickets for any game.
	We got some crap brewing over here in Gitmo Nation East, though, my friend.
	Ukraine cannot pay its gas bill.
	So we're back to that shit, which you had just solved a couple weeks ago.
	Because they have to pay Russia.
	And state agents took over the Ukrainian gas company.
	So there's a lot of things going on.
	And Latvia, I think, did Latvia do an Iceland on us?
	Did I hear about that?
	I think I heard that on the BBC, on the World Service.
	I think Latvia went bankrupt.
	Did they?
	They went belly up?
	I think so.
	The whole country?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Well, you know, the UK is next.
	Well, don't laugh.
	It's absolutely going to happen.
	The car companies have now...
	In fact, I think the Obama administration told them to do this.
	They're now knocking on the doors of the European governments, saying, help us, help us, bail us out.
	You know, we've got Vauxhall and Opel and Jaguar and all these other...
	Brands, if you guys don't help us, we're going to go belly up.
	What did we put in it?
	$40 billion now?
	And everyone knew the shit wasn't going to work.
	Where's the car czar?
	Is he supposed to say something at a point here?
	GM is saying they're going to be out of business in a month.
	Well, duh.
	We knew that was going to happen.
	How much more of this insanity do we have to look at and witness?
	Lots.
	And believe me, it's good for the show.
	Yeah, no, it's fantastic for the show.
	And talking about the show, by the way, I finally put up the...
	Ah, the library link?
	I put the library link.
	Actually, I think Grum is going to put that up today.
	But I have a new...
	You know, if you go to Dvorak.org slash NA to help us out here so we have something to...
	Fall back on in hard times.
	So we can continue to do the show forever.
	Mm-hmm.
	And bring you information you can't find elsewhere, and you won't find elsewhere by a lot.
	We need donations to the show, and we're getting some.
	We're not nowhere near our goal.
	So the new Dvorak.org slash NA has two other options because I've got too many people Twitter me saying, I just want to play for one year at a time.
	I don't want to do this for two bucks a month.
	There are people saying, I want to be on the board of directors.
	I want to determine where the money goes.
	That's not one of those deals, okay?
	Yeah.
	This is a TARP fund.
	This is our own personal TARP fund.
	You can be on the board of directors.
	It costs you $100,000.
	Yeah, that's right.
	You're on the board.
	And you get to place one story every show.
	For a year.
	Yes.
	For disinformation purposes, whatever you want.
	No problem.
	Yeah.
	You know, it's fine.
	We can have a special little jingle for it.
	Disinformation in the morning.
	You can have your...
	In the morning.
	So we have the...
	So we have...
	Anyway, so I got the two new links.
	I got the $24 a year.
	And also, just a donate some money button, which you can click on.
	And that could be whatever amount you want, just boom, just donate some money.
	Right.
	And again, if the $100,000 would get you this segment.
	And this is to the Curry Dvorak Library slash Winery website.
	You're adding a winery to it.
	Yeah, well, we need more donations so the winery will fit.
	You know, the idea of a winery is not a bad one.
	By the way, anyway, we're asking you if you can do this.
	Please do it.
	Dvorak.org slash NA so I don't have to keep doing this.
	I'm going to be doing it for the next year, it looks like.
	It's not going in fast.
	Well, it's going fast, but it's not going that fast.
	If we were like Kevin Pollack and his Twitter account, he went to 90,000 people instantly.
	Yeah, it would be going faster.
	Who's Kevin Pollack?
	So anyway...
	He's a comic.
	Dvorak.org slash NA. When you get home, if you're listening to this in your car, try to help us out.
	Before you do that, a question about Twitter.
	Would it be crazy if we just set up our own Twitter?
	Leo has that, the TwitArmy thing.
	Yeah, it's going nowhere.
	Well, it's going nowhere.
	I mean, the whole idea, people are used to using that type of system.
	I think it could grow, but at least it would be a very closed system of stuff that we're interested in, and it would be a lot less, a better signal-to-noise ratio.
	Well, maybe we could do a closed system like that just for our subscribers.
	For donors.
	Donors, yeah.
	Donors.
	Donors.
	Well, we'll talk about that.
	Because we do have to add some value added at some point.
	We'll do that when we get enough.
	And that would be kind of cool because then they have a closed loop that would be easier to deal with than just a massive wide open thing that we're doing.
	I'll look into that Twit Army thing.
	I'll look into it.
	Go ahead.
	You were going somewhere before I rudely interrupted you with this promotion for the Dvorak.org slash NA donation site.
	Okay.
	Well, whatever I was saying, I was going to wind up by saying they are taking down the economy on purpose.
	They're going to bankrupt everything, everybody, and we're going to wind up...
	Being controlled by the World Bank or a global bank and you watch the word carbon tax or credits or something come into it.
	You watch.
	It's going to happen.
	But I'm very confused now because the Gordon Brown-Obama thing, that's way underanalyzed.
	They're joking about it in the papers.
	Gideon Rackman, Financial Times, you know him, right?
	The columnist?
	Yeah.
	He wrote a pretty funny article.
	I didn't have enough time to pull all the appropriate quotes for the show, but he actually wrote them down.
	If I can find them real quick, otherwise I'll skip it and we'll have to do it.
	But I don't understand.
	Aren't these guys all supposed to be saving the world?
	I mean, the banks?
	Saving the world?
	Saving the banks, Gordon?
	How does that work?
	Is there any analysis being done on it at all in the United States?
	No.
	They're just too busy saving their job as the journalists are trying to scramble around.
	I mean, now they're worried sick.
	I mean, we just lost the Rocky Mountain News, which happened last week.
	And then, of course, the San Francisco Chronicle is going out of business.
	If anybody can find Phil Bronstein, he used to be the editor-in-chief of the Chronicle, and before that the Examiner, which merged.
	They can find his, he has a lament in his blog.
	It goes on forever.
	He can't stop writing.
	He doesn't understand how succinctness is important online.
	It goes on and on and on, but fails to mention about how the reason for these collapses of these papers and how the economics doesn't work anymore.
	But he fails to mention the anecdote, which you, I believe, we had that meeting with those guys, and he at least told me that it was kind of ironic, to say the least, that Craig Newmark of Craigslist came over there and was going to hand Craigslist over to the Examiner or the Chronicle on a silver that Craig Newmark of Craigslist came over there and was going and they told him to go screw himself.
	We know how to do classifieds.
	I don't know what.
	Get out of here, kid.
	There you go.
	So, yeah, Gideon Rackman in the Financial Times.
	So Sky News covered the Brown speech live to the joint session.
	And the only thing these guys could talk about at Sky were how many standing ovations.
	One said, I think it was 16.
	No, no, no, it was 19 standing ovations he got.
	As the puppet theater continues.
	But I'll send you a link to this online.
	You've got to see the shit that Brown was saying.
	He's almost begging.
	Begging to do it together.
	And he didn't even get the meeting.
	I mean, I'm pissed off if I show up to a sales meeting somewhere and the guy doesn't show.
	I'm not going to then go and talk to your company if the CEO won't have a little chat with me.
	So I feel that something very nasty is afoot and something's happening very, very soon.
	It's going to blow your 80-year models, etc.
	It's just happening much sooner.
	So that would have been the conclusion of whatever I was saying.
	Ah.
	So I think we need a new section and probably a new jingle for corrections.
	Oh, did we screw something up?
	Yeah, I'm going to read it to you.
	This guy, Michael Pecco, from thepecos.com, sends me a note.
	Once again, I found myself screaming into my earbuds.
	I don't know what that means.
	I asked him, he says, I don't know either.
	A couple of years ago, Mrs.
	Pecco and I cruised to Bermuda.
	I immediately noticed a difference in the housetops, and I found a local and asked about it.
	The material is called Bermuda stone.
	It's a somewhat porous stone that is quarried on the islands, and since Bermuda is a group of coral islands, it's essentially coral.
	They power wash it from once in a while, and they each have cisterns underneath.
	And it turns out, as somebody else mentioned, or he mentioned in a different email, that the size of your cistern is some sort of a...
	It's a prestigious thing.
	My cistern is...
	I've got to tell you, my cistern, maybe, it's been hanging out.
	Huge!
	Huge!
	Massive.
	So I said it was lime or something like that.
	Okay.
	Limestone.
	All right.
	Well, we definitely need to have a correction.
	Yeah, we can do some corrections, because we're basically talking out of our asses.
	We do as much research as we can.
	Yeah, we try.
	We try, and we know a lot, and we've been around.
	It's not like we're a couple of stooges that sit at home all day jerking off.
	Well, all right.
	Hey, John, keep your eye on Kyrgyzstan.
	Kyrgyzstan, yeah, those guys.
	Keep your eye on Kyrgyzstan and the Manus Air Base.
	We're getting kicked out.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah.
	Well, that means some bad things will happen to that country for doing that to us.
	Well, not only that, but we need a new base because, you know, you've got to be in the stands, man.
	That's where all the groovy action is taking place.
	But they decided, no, no, we're just going to close.
	But, you know, Krugerstand, all it is is a big air base.
	So they're going to have to lease it out to somebody.
	Maybe to Russia?
	Yeah, maybe.
	Russia's causing a lot of trouble.
	Here's an October 20, 2008 article.
	October 20, 2008.
	Latvia will not go bankrupt as Iceland did.
	The cushioning of the European Union structural funds provides cover for Latvia, which in real terms minimizes the risk for the Baltic nation to go bankrupt, as has happened to other countries like Iceland.
	Latvian Commercial Banks Association President Theodor's something, Tvergian, I don't know, said last week.
	In an interview with the Latvian state television, he said that regardless of the crisis on global financial markets, the bank in Latvia would end 2008 with a profit.
	Oh!
	This profit would not be as large as it used to be in the past year.
	Latvian banks' investments are balanced and diversified.
	Therefore, they cannot sustain such losses as foreign banks did.
	He reiterated, no bank in Latvia is facing any trouble presently.
	And who was this that said this?
	He was the head of the Latvian Commercial Banks Association president.
	Fantastic.
	All right, people.
	And now, meanwhile, by the way, the thing that's going on in Latvia now is apparently their shoes, their dissidents, or the latest...
	Throwing shoes?
	Shoes as a means of political expression.
	Apparently, 100,000 shoes or something, or tens of thousands of shoes were sent to the Latvian Senate or their legislature.
	That's right.
	Shoes coming this summer.
	It's the summer of shoes.
	The fine thing is we all have...
	Some shoes in the closet that we're never going to wear ever.
	You might as well throw them at a politician.
	Exactly.
	What a fantastic news.
	I got some golf shoes.
	You could probably get thrown in jail for that one.
	Yeah, probably.
	Take the spikes off and be okay.
	So the bottom line is your government does not love you.
	They do not work for you.
	But we do.
	And it wouldn't kill you just to tell a friend about this show.
	Forget the money.
	Forget the library and the winery.
	Just tell someone to listen to this show.
	The winery.
	Yeah.
	That'd be cool if we actually could get, you know, you get enough people to watch the show where we have a critical mass that we could get enough money to actually get a winery and give away wine.
	Well, John, a girl can dream.
	Coming to you from Gitmo Nation East in Southwest London in the Crackpot Command Center, I'm Adam Curry.
	And I'm in the Buzzkill Bunker.

▲