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May 17, 2009 - No Agenda

01:20:52

98: Health Code Violation

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	Adam Curry, John C. Devorak.
	Oh yeah, it's time once again for your bi-weekly Gitmo Nation publication.
	It's Sunday, it is the 17th.
	This is No Agenda.
	Coming to you from the southwest quadrant of Gitmo Nation East, better known as the United Kingdom, right here in Gitmo Nation East.
	It's called London.
	I'm Adam Curry.
	And from the Gitmo Nation, also Silicon Valley North, and also Gitmo Nation, California, and God knows what else we want to call it, because I guess it's getting a little old.
	I'm John C. Dvorak.
	It's Crackpot and Buzzkill in the morning!
	Wow, man, you outlasted the tune!
	Almost, yeah.
	Hey, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy.
	You're in a funny mood.
	Yeah, I gotta say something right off the bat to our listeners slash producers.
	I'm high!
	No, I'm not.
	No, actually, I am completely clean.
	No, I'm not baked.
	Yeah, disclaimer.
	I'm not baked.
	I just wanted to say there's some stuff going on in my life that people will hear about in the near future.
	Nothing I can talk about now.
	Just so what I'd hate is for our listeners to say, oh man, and this was going on.
	He didn't talk about it on the show.
	So there you go.
	Okay?
	I don't think people are that into it.
	No, but it's a trust thing.
	It's a trust thing.
	If they hear me doing a show and they don't know what's going on, they hear about it later.
	I know this because people...
	It's important that they don't think we're holding anything back, but I'm disclaiming it right off the bat.
	Well, I'm holding something back right immediately, which is Costco.
	Oh, boy.
	Straight into the...
	I mean, straight into...
	And now, back to real news.
	Or is this food news?
	Food and wine?
	Food and drink?
	Who knows?
	It's probably food and wine more than it is anything else.
	But...
	So I go to Costco yesterday, and one of the things about Costco, we've talked about it before, and I talk about it all the time, I try to clue people into the Easter eggs, because the CEO is into this, and so he makes all the managers into it.
	They bring in stuff that it's like you go, what is this doing here?
	Right.
	You have mentioned this before, and you go searching for the wine Easter eggs, which is purposely put there.
	It really is an Easter egg of something great for a great price, correct?
	Yep.
	One time I got Chateau Mouton Rothschild.
	For how much?
	For how much?
	It was $99.
	At the time, this particular vintage was going for $300 everyplace else.
	Wow.
	And it was in Port Angeles.
	It was out in the middle of nowhere.
	Of all places, Port Angeles.
	So I'm over here.
	And they have a, I think it's a, I don't have the label for it, it's a Saint-Abe from Isini-de-Mer, some obscure part of France that makes the best butter.
	And I'm looking at this cheese, it's a soft-ripened cheese, and it says clearly on the label, raw milk.
	Which is not allowed, right?
	Well, I mean, I always thought it was, even though people had been sneaking it in.
	And raw milk cheese, of course, is so much better than pasteurized milk cheese.
	Because it's a living, it develops, it changes, and it stays good, doesn't get that ammoniated weirdness.
	Because, you know, the bacteria that's natural to the milk, you know, holds a lot of stuff at bay.
	That ruins the cheese.
	And so you get to develop these very unique flavors that if you go to France and you get the cheese plate in France, you know, from any restaurant in the whole country, you get these unbelievable local cheeses that have flavors you've never had before.
	So I'm, like, eating this cheese now.
	As we speak, for your breakfast?
	Yeah.
	Ladies and gentlemen, we need a new jingle.
	It's raw milk cheese.
	It's crackpot and buzzkill.
	In the morning.
	That's right, raw milk cheese.
	In the morning.
	It's good for you.
	So, anyway, I was stunned by this cheese, and it's actually, it's very, I mean, good, real cheese like this is very filling.
	It turns out there's not, you can't eat, I mean, it's just like, whoa.
	Now, do you consider this, why do you consider this to be an Easter egg?
	Or is it just coincidence, or?
	No, no, I think it's an Easter egg because, for one thing, it just stands out too much like a sore thumb.
	I mean, the raw milk, I mean, they have a lot of cheese at this Costco I go to.
	And, um...
	And every once in a while, they'll have some cheese that is just like, why is this cheese here?
	They had a...
	I think all the Easter eggs at this Costco, with a few exceptions, this particular one, are mostly things like cheese.
	I think the guy likes cheese.
	But they had a...
	You're so funny.
	A feta.
	Have you ever met the CEO of Costco?
	No, but apparently he's very easy to get a hold of.
	He's supposed to be just like this great guy.
	But they had this cheese one time.
	I go to this place and there's a feta from Greece that has not one word of English on it.
	And the ingredients are all in Greek as well?
	Everything is just like, what is this cheese even doing here?
	It was just too weird.
	It's got to be a violation of some law somehow.
	Oh, you know, I think the raw milk thing, unless they change, maybe they change the law or something, because I have another cheese shop that has it occasionally, but I've never seen it so blatant.
	I mean, it's just printed on the label, raw, you know?
	I don't know.
	All right.
	Well, it's cool.
	Of course, now they'll be raided by the FDA. The way things are going, nobody's rating anybody.
	What do you mean?
	Well, I mean, I don't see government enforcement on anything.
	In fact, that's one of the things I want to get into later in the show, or even now, about a new methodology of cooking that has become so popular.
	And as far as I can tell, it's an out-and-out violation of every health code law in every state.
	I'd like to spread it out a bit, because there is some absolute...
	And now, back to real news that we really need to talk about before we do anything, because last night was the final, the big show, the Eurovision Song Contest.
	I wish they'd show that in this country.
	Well, I wish they had, John, because I'm going to take back almost everything I said.
	Almost everything.
	The gay thing was more prevalent than ever.
	And by the way, just about every single guy on stage was gay.
	It's just that kind of a show.
	Not that I give a shit, but the women who were on stage, whether they were lead singers, backing singers, they were all stunningly beautiful.
	But what was outrageous...
	This production, which is rumored to have cost about 40 million euros, this production done by the Russians, because it was held in Moscow, was some of the best live television with performances I have ever seen.
	By the what?
	By the Russians.
	I know.
	I'm telling you.
	It was so outrageously good that you would not believe the stage.
	There were some non-Russians behind the scenes.
	There's no way.
	No, no, no.
	I looked at all of the credits.
	I slowed them down even.
	Dexter, Christina's boyfriend, who's a total video nut, We couldn't believe the shots that were being made.
	It's like, where's the jib?
	I mean, it's unbelievable, the shots, and then you'd never see any, no Steadicam guys, no nothing.
	You could not see a thing.
	John, at one point, it was like a Cirque du Soleil.
	So when they're counting the votes, which is a 15-minute break, and everyone in Europe or all the participating countries are dialing in to vote for their favorite, they usually have this...
	Really, really lame, stupid show to kind of entertain the audience.
	And it's always the big joke.
	This thing, they had swimming pools made of some kind of plexiglass structure with people swimming on the bottom and diving in and these things lowered down right onto the audience.
	The audience could actually be touching it.
	It was Cirque du Soleil, no doubt about it.
	It was either done by Cirque du Soleil or inspired by...
	And the video effects...
	I'm getting goosebumps again.
	It was out freaking...
	No, really, I mean, as a television guy, I was like, holy crap, they just pissed on everybody who has ever hosted this show, who has ever produced it.
	It was the bomb.
	And even the songs weren't all that bad.
	I have to really say it.
	Well, you have to look into this then.
	Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, I just haven't had the time.
	I do want to play the winning song for you, just a little bit.
	Just wait for the hook, because when I heard the song, I immediately knew that this was going to win.
	I mean, it's so obvious, such a typical Eurovision Song Contest winner.
	From Norway, this is I'm in Love with a Fairy Tale.
	Now wait for it.
	I just want you to hear the hook which is coming right up.
	Here it comes!
	I'm in love with a fairy tale Even though it hurts So, if you know anything about pop music, you understand why this thing won.
	I mean, it was just absolutely perfect.
	And the guy is cute.
	You know, he's probably gay, but he's cute.
	And the girls are freaking out over him.
	He's got that Norwegian cuteness.
	Yeah, he's probably gay, you're right.
	Only in the morning.
	So...
	Yeah, I know.
	I blew you away with that, didn't I? You weren't expecting it.
	I mean, the song is just rinky-dink, let's face it.
	No, no, no.
	It's very, very clever.
	And the UK, by the way, who have always been last, they used to win a lot, but they've been last for many, many years, did quite well.
	I think they came in fourth or fifth.
	They were number two for a while.
	And they were so desperate.
	You know, they did a reality show here.
	Andrew Lloyd Webber did a reality show to choose the person who was going to perform his song.
	And he was there.
	He played the piano for...
	Wow, that's putting it out.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	And it was a good song, too.
	So why is the Norwegian guy singing the song in English?
	Well...
	Typical for the Eurovision Song Contest is there would be a native language version and an English language version, but these days pretty much everyone does English.
	Once in a while someone will do a native tongue version, and they do get extra respect for that.
	But these contestants have also been all throughout Europe promoting their songs prior to the song contest, to make sure every country has been exposed to it.
	These are pop records.
	We didn't talk about it last time on the show, but it is a song contest.
	It's about the best song, not about the best performance, not about the performer.
	It's about the song, which of course the audience doesn't give a crap about, because for the audience it's the full package.
	And this guy had it, and he comes out and he's playing the fiddle, he's playing the violin.
	Oh, really?
	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	It's great.
	I told you Terry Wogan didn't do the voiceover this year.
	For the first year, I bet he's sitting at home going, crap, this was the best one ever, and I'm not on it.
	I think there's a coincidence, Terry.
	So Graham Norton, who is this...
	It's an extremely gay television host who has one gay joke after another, which is very appropriate, by the way, for the United Kingdom.
	They like that stuff.
	At one point, I think it was from Estonia, the song was way too good and the performance was fantastic.
	It was this...
	Well, what he said is, oh my God, it's a stripper in a hamster wheel.
	And it really was.
	It was like this transvestite kind of transsexual chick, really hot looking.
	And she was in a hamster wheel.
	It was crazy, John.
	I wish you could see it.
	Now that you're going on and on like a maniac about this, I'm now wondering why somebody in the U.S. just for its entertainment value hasn't picked it up.
	Yeah, I wonder if maybe PBS or BBC World, maybe they would...
	Well, that's no good.
	I mean, it should be like...
	It sounds like a network show.
	It easily could be.
	It easily could be.
	It was just good.
	I can't help it.
	I was...
	The Russians are doing this shit!
	It was...
	And they always have this moment where...
	Well, the Russians, you know, do have an artistic bent.
	Oh, yeah.
	But they've got something to prove, dude.
	I mean, this is so obvious.
	Right, because generally speaking, Russia, I always used to use it as a joke.
	I mean, if you set something up, say you're doing a TV thing, and you had somebody too close to the wall, for example, and they're doing news reading, and the wall's right behind them is a good example of what you call Russian TV. Yeah.
	It's just poorly staged.
	I mean, the Russians were notorious for this cheap-looking Stalin-style staging, and it always looked crappy.
	It had a cheap look to it.
	It was worse than the 1950s.
	I mean, it just looked like you didn't know what you were doing.
	So it's somewhat, for people out there wondering why we're even talking about this, it's remarkable that something like that would actually happen from Russians.
	It was almost as if Putin personally had said, anyone fucks this up, you get to the head.
	It was so...
	Everyone was just...
	Sometimes these things just come together.
	There was not a single technical glitch...
	It was just astounding.
	Now, granted, there were some interesting little points to note.
	I don't want to dwell on it too long, but basically only the lead vocal track is sung live, or by the rules has to be sung live, which is kind of funny because there was one act, and of course I forget which country they were from, but Graham Norton set us up.
	I say, watch the woman in the blue dress over on the side of the stage.
	So she was actually singing the lead vocals while the girl who was, you know, looking like the lead, she was maybe doing harmonies or singing along.
	Oh, that's a nice trick.
	Yeah, very good trick.
	Because, you know, that's within the rules.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, stuff like that.
	But just great.
	Fantastic.
	Bravo.
	Spasiba.
	Good job.
	Good job.
	It's nice to see real television.
	I'm sure our three Russian listeners will be amused.
	You would be amazed how many Russian listeners we might have.
	I might, but it'd be interesting if one of them had some insight into this.
	I don't think we have that many media people that listen to the show.
	Otherwise, we would have gotten my bit part in a movie by now.
	I think I can get you in the next Jay and Silent Bob movie.
	You'd be great in that.
	It's just like a stoner dude.
	Just kind of...
	Hey, man!
	Wait a minute!
	Hey!
	Hey, man!
	Where are you going?
	Man, are you holding?
	All this stuff from the 60s.
	Tony in Shanghai wrote in and says, Hey Adam, I live in China.
	The guy that wrote that email on the last show about the Chinese zodiac and the calamities befalling us is full of shit.
	2007 was the year of the pig.
	2008 was the year of the mouse, or the rat, in the West.
	2009 is the year of the cow, the bull, in the West.
	And 2010 will be the year of the tiger.
	That guy wants to twist the truth to get some attention, or else he got a hold of a really poorly printed Chinese restaurant placemat.
	And I'm thinking the latter is probably true, because that's pretty much how we prep for this show.
	Yes, I think our listeners are right into that.
	That's the layer we're at.
	It's the Chinese placemat.
	I found a place, Matt, dude, and it says China's great.
	So, yeah.
	Well, I mean, I did a thing.
	If anyone out there listened to Interlude No.
	5...
	Oh, may I stop you before you say anything?
	May I just say, Dvorak's Interlude No.
	5 was so much the bomb.
	You brought that whole thing up to a crescendo.
	You were playing songs.
	I'm like, oh my god!
	You're like a lotus flower to me now, John.
	As the petals peel back, I'm like, look at the depth of this man.
	And then you had the...
	Only you could get away with actually playing Freebird at the end and setting it up and saying, I gotta play Freebird!
	And you played the perfect version that ends with an end.
	I loved it.
	More.
	Give us more.
	You know, the Freebird was...
	The one thing I wanted to mention there is I had a hippie set.
	Yes.
	Hawaiian hippie set, I think it was.
	Hawaiian hippie set for you out there on the big island.
	Yeah, buddy!
	In the morning And which is a hippie island.
	There's no question about anyone who's ever been there knows this immediately.
	I mean, you can go to the store and they got all this frozen sourdough bread from San Francisco.
	They got Columbus salamis.
	I mean, it's just, and then if you listen to the local station, it's all hippie music.
	It's just the damnedest thing.
	But make no mistake, and it still runs at 9 p.m.
	Eastern Time, I believe, the Interlude 5, every single day.
	Make no mistake, the hippie music doesn't mean it's like, you know, jingle jangle, Hare Krishna shit.
	I mean, give me an example of a couple of tunes, John.
	You played Autograph.
	First of all, you played Autograph.
	You started with Autograph.
	I couldn't believe it.
	I could not believe it.
	I haven't heard this song in 15 years.
	Yeah, it was a good one.
	The model is I usually start with that style of rock and then I go do whatever I'm going to do.
	Roger Glover's The Mask is the one who actually, I was listening to that song recently and I said, you know, it was a weird song because it's like a hippie song done like 20 years late.
	I mean, the song came out in the 80s.
	Yeah, I remember that.
	It's a hippie song.
	I mean, it just got hippie written all over it.
	I was listening to the lyrics.
	The lyrics are just the weirdest.
	I mean, we should read the lyrics of this song.
	And I also played Itchy Coop Park, which also has the stupidest lyrics.
	I got high!
	I love it.
	What do you do there?
	Are you kidding me?
	No, my line in there that I like the most is that, why don't we skip school?
	Wouldn't that be cool?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Why should we be listening to the words of fools?
	I mean, it was just like this, you know, drop out, tune in, turn out, drop out kind of mentality.
	I love that song.
	I got the lyrics here for The Mask, Roger Glover.
	By the way, the song I love from him is The Butterfly Ball, Love Is All.
	You ever hear that?
	I remember, but I can't catch the tune right now.
	It's later on a Wednesday.
	The sun's going down.
	I'm standing naked by a swimming pool.
	There's no one round.
	My imagination wanders back.
	Red dust is always there.
	We lay together in the jungle, and love was in the air.
	As I dive into the water, both time and motion freeze.
	I'm hanging there suspended like a feather in the breeze.
	Below is your reflection like an image from the past, but I can't be sure if it's really you because you're wearing a tribal mask.
	Take it off.
	Take off the mask.
	Oh man, good shit.
	It's unbelievable.
	It's good shit, baby.
	So that to me is like a classic hippie song because it's actually, what are you talking about?
	It's obviously a drug-induced lyric.
	Yeah, you think?
	Yeah, I think.
	But since Glover is like an old pro, he puts the song together around a very nice melody and rhythm and the arrangement is just dynamite.
	It's actually one of the finest...
	If anyone out there is listening to these interludes, they tend to be oriented to a fairly hard beat.
	I'm going to switch it on right after the show.
	You have six coming, right?
	Yeah, six, and then the one that I'm really impressed with myself is seven.
	He said modestly.
	Well, that's because seven is just a mind-boggler.
	So when can I have six?
	Probably Monday.
	Okay, then I'll repeat five right after the show, because people need to hear.
	I mean, they'll put you in a good mood.
	You know how important it is to have a build-up, and you just did it, man.
	You fucking nailed it.
	Nailed it.
	Anyway, back to the Lynyrd Skynyrd Freeburg, for anybody, not for people going, oh, these guys are boring me stiff, they're going to tune out, but I'm going to finish with this one comment.
	Freeburg has always fascinated me as a song, and...
	So I'm driving around with my daughter one day, and Freeburg comes on this station that I listen to on the radio.
	I said, oh, you've got to hear it.
	And I explained to her the song, and the fact is kind of a, it's almost a cliche song.
	People like to play, you know, it's like there's another one or two of these types of anthems that go on forever.
	They're very long songs that developed in the 70s.
	And so I'm listening to it, and it fades out at the end.
	I'm saying, what happened to the end of the song?
	It sucks.
	I hate I hate that.
	Yep, you're right.
	It's a great song, even though people laugh about it and yell it at concerts.
	Play Freebird!
	And so I didn't realize that I had been listening to this outtake version all these years.
	And when I dug up my CD that has it on there, it explained it was the outtake version.
	And it was exactly the same song, except it has an actual ending.
	So that's the one I ran with.
	It actually has a nice ending.
	I don't understand what the point of that other release was, and that's the one that was publicly released.
	There's got to be some executive bonehead.
	Oh yeah, of course.
	Some dork.
	Was it even ever released as a single?
	Probably not.
	No, but I think when it first appeared, even on an LP, was this bad version.
	Yeah.
	No, I'd never heard the version that actually ended, so I appreciate it.
	I really appreciate it, John.
	Who says that?
	I really appreciate it.
	Thanks for listening.
	I really appreciate it.
	Michael Butler.
	Michael Butler.
	Oh, Butler's got this great line he had on this thing I'm listening to.
	I do listen to the media today once in a while.
	He says, yeah, no, I like my women like I like my coffee.
	Black?
	Dumb.
	The guy's a trip.
	I love him.
	I thought that was just hilarious.
	The guy's a fucking trip.
	Kind of a meta joke.
	He's a trip.
	Let's ease into it here.
	Email from listener Kevin Schmidt.
	Says, Adam, I don't even know what to say about this.
	I just saw a commercial on TV, and it said something along the lines of, Kids, don't you want to walk in Obama's shoes and be a part of great change?
	Keep up the great work with no agenda.
	I look forward to every show.
	So he sent me a link to obamashoes.tv, which does have said commercial.
	Obama's shoes.
	Success and well-being of every American child is my highest priority.
	I want every child to have the opportunities I did.
	Kids, want to be a part of history and walk with President Obama as he leads us to change?
	Yes, you can.
	For a limited time only, you can be the proud owner of these stylish, commemorative Obama sneakers.
	These quality, 100% leather sneakers in patriotic colors are easily an $80 value.
	They can be yours now through this TV offer only for just $39.99.
	But there's more.
	Over now, we'll send you absolutely free this ultra-cool Obama backpack.
	Be the envy of your friends.
	Show your patriotic spirit every day.
	But that's not all.
	That's not all.
	You'll also get this professional quality Obama basketball.
	These sneakers are literally running off the shelves.
	Don't wait another minute.
	Call 1-888-313-8035 right now and get your pair and your free gift.
	That's 1-888-313-8035.
	Call now.
	You know, Obama's boys are cracking down on this stuff.
	This is not an official anything.
	He's here, he's got the official signature underneath his picture.
	No, no way.
	These guys are going to be out of business in two weeks, I guarantee it.
	Two weeks from today, we'll revisit this, and I guarantee this website will be off.
	Obama Shoes TV is a private entity makes no claim of affiliation or endorsement by President Barack Obama or his campaign for office.
	There you go.
	Michigan residents add 6% sales tax.
	Allow four to eight weeks for delivery.
	Void where prohibited by law.
	These guys are toast.
	There's no way.
	Because they've been cracking down on this stuff.
	And in fact, the funny thing is, do they have any of the Obama logos?
	Yeah, oh yeah.
	I have the logo, the official picture.
	If you go to the websites and look at those logos, they're copyright.
	Because the audience should know that we had looked into this.
	Because we, you and me, were going to do Obama armbands with that logo.
	We were denied.
	You can't do it.
	I mean, you could, but they're going to just stop you eventually.
	And I don't think you'd want the IRS pounding on the door because you did some armbands.
	But I still think the armbands would be hilarious, but we're not doing them.
	I got an email.
	He's got an email.
	Okay, this is from Mitchell Gordon.
	Hi guys, I just heard NA 97 where John mentioned Stepin, which is the people that bring in the cocaine for Coca-Cola.
	Oh, right, right.
	And I had to send this note to you.
	New Trier, which is the school that...
	That Rahm Emanuel and Rumsfeld went to.
	It has two campuses, a freshman campus in Northfield and the main campus with sophomores, juniors, and seniors about 15 miles away in Winnetka.
	The freshman campus, which I attend, has six buildings.
	One of the buildings, the infamous B building, is rented out to a company as an office building with their main company, none other than Steppen.
	Wait, so they've got Coke on campus?
	Well, it says the main company-specific building being 50 yards away from the Nutriar campus.
	The company is...
	I don't know.
	Hey, kids!
	Come to our school!
	We've got coke on campus!
	It's just that this meant leaves.
	To me, it seems like a rather large coincidence that the only company licensed to import cocaine happens to be renting buildings from Rahm Emanuel's and Donald Rumsfeld's high school and have their world headquarters located right next to the school.
	Could that be the relationship between New Trier and Stepin is more than it appears.
	We need to look into that.
	Yeah, we really need to look into that.
	That's outrageous.
	You know, as far as I'm concerned, they should import more of those leaves.
	I've never done it.
	I mean, I know you're talking about the Lees, but I've never done Coke.
	I have no interest in it.
	I don't care.
	I've actually never even seen anyone do it around me, if you can believe it, considering my history.
	I assume one of my producers says it's pronounced Nutrier.
	Oh.
	Apologies.
	We did not want to start any controversy.
	Well, the leaves are very fundamental to the Andes culture in Bolivia, in Ecuador.
	Yeah, they put that on their cornflakes up there, don't they?
	So when I mentioned this before, because I've chewed on these things, it's like chewing on lawn clippings that have been left to dry out in the sun.
	It's just the worst.
	Lawn clippings.
	You can't get enough moisture out of your mouth to actually do my...
	And what does it do to you?
	Do you feel weird?
	No, you don't feel anything except you feel normal because you're up at a high altitude where you're just gasping for breath.
	And these things give you a kind of a normalizing stamina where you don't feel that you're up at 14,000 feet.
	You feel pretty normal.
	Interesting.
	They could use these things in Telluride, Colorado, these leaves.
	How about in aviation?
	I don't see why.
	To be honest about it, there's no...
	There's zero...
	High.
	High.
	There's no high.
	Well, what a waste.
	What's the use?
	In fact, it's just a normalizing thing.
	Actually, once you've realized what's going on with them, that's what you're going to be chewing all the time.
	In some of these places up in the northern, the highest peaks of the Andes where those villages, above the timber line, there's no trees up there.
	Just to walk around, and it's hilly, which is a problem, you get pooped.
	Yeah, of course, because you've got no oxygen.
	You chew on these leaves, and you still get a little poop, but there's a big difference between you and everyone who's not chewing the leaves.
	Yeah, I remember you told me that you were doing just fine, and you neglected to mention the cocoa leaves at the time.
	No, I don't think you mentioned it.
	I had a handful.
	And I was walking past kids that were 20 years younger than me.
	They couldn't walk.
	They were bent over, gasping.
	I'm thinking, hey, come on, let's go.
	What's your problem?
	Speaking of kids, man, I presume I have not looked at Dvorak.org slash blog.
	I presume you saw this article from the New York Times, which I'm going to Skype you the link right now, titled, Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists and More.
	Have you seen this?
	Is this an outrage?
	They're training Boy Scouts to be like militia.
	Border Patrol.
	Yeah, well, militia.
	I mean, it's crazy.
	And I encourage everyone, it'll be in the show notes, of course, at noagenda.mevio.com, to read through this.
	You know, as the sheriff's deputy says, this is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl, which, you know, it fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.
	And it's like, you know, here, put him on his face, put a knee in his back.
	I guarantee he'll shut up then.
	I mean, this is the kind of training they're getting, you know?
	And this, by the way, is our audience for the armbands, which, it bums me out.
	They'd be perfect.
	I got some brown shirts in the closet, too, which I think would look nifty.
	This is unbelievable.
	It goes beyond unbelievable.
	Yeah, and the pictures are just too precious.
	I mean, it's like 15-year-old kids in combat gear with handguns and assault rifles.
	I want to cry.
	It's so wrong.
	Yeah, this article, people who follow the show, this will be posted in the show notes.
	You have to, if you haven't seen this article in the New York Times, and we do have a version of it on the blog, but if you haven't seen this article, it's just like you said, it's a head shaker and an eye roller to the max.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it really is.
	You'll just go.
	And these kids look like, I mean, these kids, I don't really want to get into it.
	Please say it.
	Say it.
	It's important.
	They look like a bunch of boneheads.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, these are the kids who always have the big bunch of keys dangling from their belt.
	Yeah, in fact, one of them has keys dangling from their belt.
	Really?
	Really?
	I've got to look at it again.
	Because those are always the kids.
	Oh, you're right.
	No, he only has a couple of keys.
	Well, they all have a key.
	Oh, no, I think he's gotten worse.
	He's got the thing hanging from his belt with the hook, and it looks like it goes into his pocket.
	Oh.
	These are the guys who have the keys, or my all-time favorite thing that these guys do, which must be a chick magnet, is you have this keychain thing hooked to a hole drilled through your wallet, and then the wallet is shoved into your pocket, hooked to this chain, like everybody's out to get your wallet.
	I mean, please.
	I don't want all that important cash to get ripped off, baby.
	They've got to take me with it, all my money.
	Oh, funny.
	Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
	So, I've got to do another piece of email here.
	It kind of relates a bit.
	Adam, I hate it when you talk about the military because you were always wrong.
	Oh, yeah.
	I got this one, too.
	And it's okay.
	First of all, anyone in the military, I appreciate and respect your service.
	Coming from my background, I have a right to say that, and I know what it means to serve your country from a family standpoint.
	Yeah, you don't have to apologize.
	You're not anti-military.
	No, no, of course not.
	You just make errors.
	Yes, of course.
	Of course.
	And this is why we read these emails.
	So the latest was your theory of the friendly fire incident in Iraq.
	The incident was at a mental health facility, and those killed were mental health professionals and patients.
	That explains why they didn't defend themselves.
	They probably didn't have weapons.
	Additionally, this was nowhere near the green zone.
	This is the story that I talked about where...
	Right, where the maniac goes in and they're pissed off.
	Right, and sources say that this was actually an attack on Nancy Pelosi who was there.
	The commanding general in Afghanistan was replaced, not the commanding general in Iraq.
	So that's a big bone mistake on my part.
	Also, when the military does something weird sometimes, it is just because we do stupid things.
	Okay.
	Conspiracy theorists often give us too much credit.
	The military are just people.
	Sometimes people do stupid things like fly the presidential 747 around the Statue of Liberty and take pretty pictures.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	I got a bridge for sale for you for that one.
	I distrust the government almost as much as you do, but sometimes we just do stupid things that don't involve a national conspiracy.
	On a side note, I supported a special ops mission a few days ago in Afghanistan.
	The mission took down an opiate grower and burned several hundred thousand pounds of heroin grade opium.
	Probably a drop in the bucket, but we do take them down sometimes.
	I know, I know you're going to say he was probably the competition.
	I love you anyway, man.
	You know what?
	He was probably the competition.
	I like that.
	He didn't sign up.
	He didn't sign up with the consortium.
	Hey, buddy.
	Hey, see that feel that you're going to sign up?
	No.
	Okay.
	Burn it!
	Exactly.
	He's not in the group, in the clan.
	He's not in the group.
	He hasn't signed up to give his profit.
	He hasn't put his name on the sign-up sheet.
	Tamil Tigers concede defeat.
	Yeah, this is big shit.
	I'm glad you brought this up.
	This is a huge story.
	It's getting very little play in the U.S., but it's one of the main...
	I mean, this is the one place where people say, well, all the terrorism in the world is Muslims.
	This is the worst.
	I think over 50,000 people were killed in terrorist acts.
	Yeah.
	In Sri Lanka, which used to be called Ceylon.
	Can you just explain briefly what's going on there?
	I'm getting a newspaper article as well.
	Go ahead.
	There's two groups of people battling each other, Buddhists and Hindus.
	And the Hindu-Tamils is a specific kind of a...
	Religion, sect.
	It's a sect.
	And they've been in a beef for, I don't know how long, when it first started.
	It was over ten years ago, I think.
	I think even longer.
	In the 80s, Sri Lanka used to be like the place to go.
	It was a vacation paradise.
	Actually, I understand it's still to be, but the area where there's this fighting going on is ridiculous, and it's some of the worst kinds of terrorism.
	If you, like, depleted uranium on your cornflakes, yeah, it's a great place to be.
	And anyway, it's over, finally.
	They started to crack down.
	The Indian government, see, the problem was that the Tamils were the troublemakers.
	Who, by the way, are a ragtag bunch, including women, who just get blown to pieces, their heads blown off, their bodies exploded.
	It's women as well who are fighting.
	Yeah, and they were fighting against these Buddhists, and the Indian government was like, well, you know, they were like wishy-washy about doing anything about it, and I think it's because the Tamils were Hindus, and nobody in India, even though Buddhism actually originated in India, there's just not a Buddhist country, and I think they were just, I think they were lax.
	I think the Indians, I mean, the Indians are not great at law enforcement.
	So there was a huge article in the Financial Times.
	By the way, we do expect the email after I said that.
	It's okay.
	You know, just the fact that we're bringing this up is great.
	Huge article, full page in the Financial Times for this weekend.
	And there's an important little side note.
	That China is actually the huge beneficiary of all of this because Beijing, I'll just read from the paper, Beijing has in the last few years become a crucial supplier of weaponry and aid to Sri Lanka.
	More than that, it has helped to deflect international criticism of mass civilian casualties in the war.
	In return, Beijing has won access to a key Sri Lankan port, giving it a strategic foothold next to one of the world's premier shipping lanes right outside Under the nose of the South Asian regional power, India.
	So this is a very, very big deal, and I encourage you to look at Google Maps or Google Earth.
	Take a look at this shit and see where it is.
	It'll be good for you.
	I didn't know that.
	That makes sense.
	I mean, and I was like, okay, that makes a hell of a lot of sense.
	And so the Chinese have basically been funding this horrible atrocity, which has killed many, many civilians.
	And what they're getting back for it is the quid pro quo is they get the shipping lanes and they get the port right there.
	I mean, this is so clear.
	This is New World Order.
	Again, it's India being, you know, I don't know what their problem is.
	I mean, but the thing is, this battle had to be, it was halted.
	It should have been halted years ago.
	And without the Chinese getting beneficiaries.
	And here in the United Kingdom, the Tamils have been protesting.
	They've gone on hunger strikes.
	They've been outside Whitehall.
	They've been, you know, demonstrating.
	And actually, I believe it came to a little bit of a head.
	There were some skirmishes going on last weekend.
	And how much do we see about it on the news?
	No.
	I mean, all we're seeing is, I'm in love with the fairy tale.
	You know, Eurovision.
	And this is happening in London.
	In London.
	Every single day.
	There's hundreds, if not thousands of people protesting, saying, hey, you guys got to do something about this shit.
	Because, you know, people are dying.
	Civilians are dying.
	Well, whatever.
	laughter That's a t-shirt right there.
	People are dying!
	And on the back, well, whatever.
	Whatever.
	So, um...
	So I guess Obama's going to speak at Notre Dame.
	By the way, Michelle Obama...
	What is this?
	Obama's on the speaking tour.
	I mean, do these guys actually do any work?
	Michelle Obama is giving the commencement speech at UC Merced.
	Where's Merced?
	Which is the newest campus of the University of California.
	Which was kind of doing what it could to try to get people to even come to this school.
	I mean, if the campuses of the University of California aren't already in Hicksville with Riverside and Davis and God knows where else they have some of these campuses.
	Now they open one in Merced or Modesto.
	I mean, it might as well be Modesto.
	Mm-hmm.
	And it's like Michelle, all of a sudden, they're giving a commencement speech.
	They have room for like 2,000 people to watch this, and apparently 25,000 people are coming this, or already did.
	I don't think she gave it yet.
	But it's like 25,000.
	Wow.
	Yeah, when they were over here for the G20... These are the rock stars.
	We're stuck with these rock stars.
	Yeah, when they were over here for the G20, Michelle Obama went to a girl's school and spoke at a girl's school.
	And, you know, she's a big example and hero and blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	Yeah, well, you know, it's...
	Maybe it gets better service at a restaurant in Belgium.
	Belgium?
	Brussels.
	Brussels.
	You know, the joke would have been in France, but no matter what we do, the service is what it is.
	Yeah, that's for sure.
	I'm glad I picked this up off of Twitter.
	It was sent in an at-reply to me.
	You want to talk about Gitmo Nation?
	You want to talk about New World Order?
	You want to talk about what is being done to save journalism, as we have discussed many times in this program, in particular newspapers.
	From The Guardian, who reports, and the reason I'm using The Guardian is because all the other reports I have are in Dutch.
	Dutch government to pay salaries of 60 newspaper journalists.
	Yeah, we blogged this too.
	4 million euros to pay the salaries of 60 young journalists to work on otherwise commercially funded regional and national newspapers across the Netherlands.
	Does anyone see how this is wrong?
	It's like wrong.
	Nothing to see here.
	Look at that.
	This is so wrong.
	It's the Ministry of Truth.
	The Ministry of Truth.
	That's what we need?
	You know where that's from, don't you?
	We need a Ministry of Truth.
	You know where that's from, right?
	That's from 1984, Orwell.
	Oh, right, right, right.
	Yeah, the Ministry of Truth, where you've got all these journalists who are correcting the news.
	Correcting.
	Yeah, and even the archives.
	You can totally see that.
	This is so much a step towards it.
	And I haven't really seen the discussion anywhere other than, yeah, our newspapers are really, really important, and so the government needs to support it.
	But please, no, this is not how you get independence.
	This is how you get ministry of truth.
	The ministry of truth.
	The ministry of truth.
	Yeah, we should have a jingle for that.
	Jeff Smith emailed me.
	He's going to be in San Francisco, I think, when I'm there, beginning of June.
	Is there a Macworld coming up or something in June?
	No, the Macworld's in January.
	What's in June?
	There's a developer conference, maybe.
	Well, anyway, he said that he had blown out his pipes and he had to take it easy for a while, but he's going to get some more jingles our way.
	I love that guy.
	You know, he's made a career out of this, out of the jingle business for podcasts.
	He's made a real career.
	Just for podcasts?
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, he also has ringtones, and I've never really looked into exactly what it is, but just Google Jeff Smith, G-E-O-F-F, Jeff Smith ringtones, or go to thejeffsmith.com, and that's also working very well.
	I've got to figure out what he's doing, because he's doing something successful, and I like that.
	We've got to look into that.
	So Wolfram Alpha came out.
	Is this a video game?
	No, it's a new search engine, but it's not really a search engine.
	Oh, right, right.
	This is the thing that has all this super algorithm and is actually supposed to get you answers, not links or something?
	Yeah, there's no links.
	You ask it a question, or you don't even ask it a question.
	You put it in San Francisco and you get essentially a version, a kind of CIA fact book.
	Is it wolframalpha.com?
	Yeah.
	But what's interesting about it is you can put comparative stuff in there.
	You can put San Francisco, Cincinnati, something else, and you get these comparisons.
	Or you can put a bunch of countries in and you get a combined population.
	It's actually, for people who, I've mentioned this in a column I wrote, that if anyone who's doing a talk show like us...
	You should just have it up all the time, because you can type in, you know, you have a quick question about something, and this thing answers it without having to deal with, you know, a middleman, which would be Google.
	Well, I did, what is no agenda, and Wolfram Alpha isn't sure what to do with my input.
	Yeah, because that's not what it does.
	Oh, what would the question be?
	Well, say we're talking about, put in Tamil, put in Sri Lanka.
	Okay, hold on.
	Sri Lanka.
	Paradise.
	And I think the thing that has to be dealt with, I mean, you have to realize what this thing can and can't do.
	So I get, I'm sorry, Dave.
	I'm afraid I can't do that.
	Wolfram Alpha has temporarily exceeded its current maximum test load.
	See the live video feed of the control center.
	Whoa, hold on a second.
	It must be pretty small.
	Wait, wait a minute.
	Let me get this straight.
	It's got the bandwidth to show you some live video feeds, but it can't give you...
	That's a good one.
	Yeah, that's pretty rich, isn't it?
	Although it's not really loading the video.
	Oh, wait.
	Here it comes.
	Here it comes.
	Let's see what we get.
	Oh, that's on Justin TV. That's why.
	Oh, okay.
	So it's not their feed.
	No.
	Anyway, so that's what it's good for.
	Right now, everyone's looking at it, and they're probably bitching a lot.
	You can't do, for example, a vanity search and get anywhere.
	It's not about you.
	I read an interesting little note.
	And something we have not talked about, of course, is our buddy, Naley Smith, The anti-competition European Council member Chick, who has just fined Intel $1.4 billion.
	And we'll talk about that in a second.
	But I was reading some related articles about Wolfram Alpha and saying, well, should Google be worried about this?
	And of course, well, first of all, no.
	But second of all...
	It's competition.
	It's exactly what they need.
	They're probably funding it on the back end.
	It's exactly what they need so they don't get into this anti-competitive problem.
	Yeah, there is that.
	But the fact of the matter is Wolfram Alpha and Google have nothing in common.
	You don't use it.
	In fact, even with Wolfram Alpha, when you get your data, it has a link to the Google site if you want to get normal results.
	There you go.
	I told you that they're on the back end.
	No, there needs to be some competition to Google.
	Right now, there's nothing.
	Microsoft can't seem to do it because I think they're just too cheap.
	But it always makes me laugh because they say, well, it's anti-competitive and they've got a lock on the internet advertising market.
	I'm like, the internet is the most competitive market.
	It's a good place to be.
	I mean, anybody can start a competitor to Google, you probably won't succeed, but anybody can start it.
	There are no gating factors that the government can actually do anything against.
	Right, and they don't send a couple of guys over to beat you up.
	No, not at all.
	You don't have to use Google.
	It's nuts.
	That's crazy talk.
	But this Intel AMD thing, was that part of the eons of lawsuits that you have actually testified in court for?
	Yeah.
	This is it.
	So this is the result of your labor.
	I had nothing to do with the most recent stuff.
	Good job.
	Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
	I'll be here the whole week.
	No, this actually is a result of a more recent...
	Most of those lawsuits that go back were all instituted by Intel as a harassment scheme, and it was typical of the Silicon Valley mentality.
	This more recent one was the result, literally, of AMD. Complaining bitterly to anyone who would listen about the business practices that Intel employed to keep AMD in its place.
	In its place.
	Short-sheeted, as it were.
	And the EU paid attention, and now it's, you know, but now Intel's get a little worried about the fact that, you know, these things are kind of like dominoes because, you know, nobody does anything, and nobody does anything, and then one person, you know, Nellie.
	Nellie.
	You know, whatever.
	Whoa, Nellie!
	She does something, and it's a big deal.
	And Intel, of course, poo-poos it, but the fact is it's a huge deal.
	And now everyone else that didn't do anything is re-examining, you know, well, is thinking, well, we're going to look bad here.
	You know, the EU is doing all the hard, the heavy lifting.
	We're going to look like a bunch of schmucks if we don't do something.
	You know, what happened to...
	You know, these other guys, you know, you start to get worried.
	These bureaucrats, this bureaucrat mentality.
	And Intel now has to deal with all this others.
	This is what happened with Microsoft.
	I mean, nothing, nothing, nothing happened.
	And then one...
	And then kind of boom.
	Kaboom.
	And then every state now tries to get in on the action.
	They got sued over and over and over.
	But one thing after another, it becomes a nightmare.
	Yeah.
	And this is what the potential is for Intel is going to have to deal with the nightmare scenario if they can't, you know, I don't know what they're going to do about it, to be honest.
	Well, you know, I believe that the fine could actually amount to, like, up to 10% of their gross take.
	That's the worst case scenario fine.
	They've never done that fine that I know of.
	I mean, you know what, I mean, and being a public company where you already have Sarbanes-Oxley, I mean, that's horrible.
	Sure.
	I just had to build a bridge to it, sorry.
	You just wanted to use the soybeans.
	Totally.
	Let's hear it again.
	again.
	I like it.
	You know, you're going to have to have a bunch of these You have to be like Kramer on the Mad Money where you have the buttons.
	Oh, yeah, the big buttons.
	Yeah, so you can hit these things because, you know, if anyone listens to this show, they know that you suck at hitting the sound effects in a timely fashion.
	Hello, kettle?
	This is the pot calling.
	Who sucks, baby? - Easy.
	Who sucks?
	Alright, any more?
	Before I get to my food news?
	Yeah, I got some important things.
	God bless the Germans.
	And I've said many times, we almost got to set up Podshow Germany at the time.
	Really, I had a very good time with Professor Wilhelm.
	Yeah, to be a good t-shirt, by the way.
	What?
	God bless the Germans.
	Oh, God bless the Germans.
	Yeah, that is a good teacher.
	It could be the ultimate in political control, but it won't be patented, or as we say, patented, in Germany.
	German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi investor's application to patent a killer chip...
	as the Swiss tabloids put it, has been denied.
	The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin so that authorities could easily track him.
	Model B would have an extra function, a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat.
	The inventor said the chip could be used to track terrorists, criminals, fugitives, illegal immigrants, political dissidents, domestic servants, and foreigners overstaying their visas.
	You forgot pedophiles and people who look at pornography.
	The invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German patent law, which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals.
	Yeah, I'd say this oversteps the boundary a bit.
	So where did this idea come from?
	From a guy who's trying to patent it.
	Saudi Arabia.
	Saudi inventor.
	So this is the Saudi contribution to intellectual property.
	Well, remember, ACT is coming soon.
	You never know what will be allowed.
	They might change those rules about good morals.
	ACT could have it all for us.
	So here's kind of the downside of this.
	Well, downside besides the fact that the chip is ridiculous.
	But...
	I'm just going to predict for people out there who want to see this coming down Broadway.
	If anybody comes up with any of these chips, these little tracking chips, then the idea that you'd have one with cyanide in it, you could say, are you sure that that chip that they're giving you doesn't have the cyanide in it?
	Exactly.
	Or that it's not being controlled by Vista?
	And Vista is, is this a James Bond group organization?
	No, Vista is Windows Vista.
	Oh, right.
	Right, it reboots and you're dead.
	Android.
	Now with Android.
	Uh-huh.
	Hello?
	Yeah, no, I'm just trying to think.
	I'm just wondering who would come up with this idea of putting arsenic in a GPS chip.
	I mean, these Saudis are nuts.
	It was cyanide.
	It wasn't arsenic.
	It was cyanide.
	Cyanide.
	Cyanide, I mean, yeah.
	Cyanide would work better.
	The cyanide is an interesting poison.
	We've talked about it before.
	You can honk the horn.
	No, go ahead.
	I don't recall.
	I don't recall.
	Cyanide is interesting because it's fully metabolized by the body.
	So if it doesn't kill you, it doesn't have any long-term damaging effects, necessarily.
	Unless it gets to the point where it almost kills you.
	But it's almost like it kills you, and then it gets metabolized.
	It's used a lot for assassinations where you want somebody to look like they had a heart attack because essentially it metabolizes so quickly in the body that it's hard to uncover it in an autopsy.
	Oh, that's right.
	Do you remember Ellery Queen?
	Yeah.
	Ellery Queen and his dad, his wacky dad.
	What was it?
	Was that Dick Van...
	No, who was it?
	Who played Ellery Queen?
	The long, lanky kind of dude.
	It was a TV show.
	But they always were like cyanide.
	It's impossible to detect because the body metabolizes it.
	But when you're working in a chemistry lab, you smell it every so often.
	And if you know what to look for, you run into it in food.
	I mean, cyanide is very common, and it essentially accounts for the almond aroma that you get from almond.
	Oh, that's right.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It smells like almonds.
	So cyanide is actually the almond aroma or an extract of it?
	No, it's not an extract of it at all, but the almond aroma that you're smelling when it gets really intense actually is cyanide.
	And in fact, you've run into modest amounts of cyanide in, for example, apricot pits.
	The French use apricot pits when they make jams and jellies.
	You crack the pit open, there's a little nut inside, which is, by the way, delicious.
	Have your cyanide pit today.
	A lot of people used to call it vitamin K. It was anti-cancer.
	There's a lot of controversy.
	So what is the main source of cyanide?
	Cyanide is just a carbon and a nitrogen atom hooked together.
	The main source is...
	I mean, it's just everywhere.
	I mean, cyanide...
	I don't know where you...
	I don't know.
	How do you make it?
	It's actually quite easy to make.
	I mean, it's like really easy to make.
	Really?
	Yeah, I know.
	It's extremely...
	I used to know how to make it, but I don't remember.
	But I do recall it's really easy to make.
	You have to be real careful.
	Because you get a whiff of it every once in a while.
	You go, whoop.
	And then you just say, how am I doing?
	And then you, okay, I'm fine.
	Really?
	It's like, how am I feeling?
	Am I... Okay, I'm good.
	I'm good.
	Wow.
	So, anyway, this...
	Cyanide occurs naturally in food, like nuts of fruit.
	And that's why you can't eat...
	I mean, you can eat a couple of these pits, nuts from apricots, but if you ate like a handful, you'd probably be dead.
	The other one where it shows up...
	By the way, the more delicious...
	If you really want to taste cyanide in its most flavorful form...
	I think we need to do this, by the way, when I'm in San Francisco in June.
	We must have some cyanide.
	Well, you can do it in the backyard.
	No, but I'd like to have it with you.
	I'd like to have some cyanide with you.
	Join me for the cyanide party.
	No, we're both dead.
	This is the two shots of the head.
	We've got him now.
	Yeah, now we've got...
	Oh, they were experimenting with cyanide.
	Ain't that a shame?
	Ain't that a shame?
	Wait a minute, John.
	Hold on a second.
	I believe in UFOs.
	They're coming to save us.
	I've just got to say something like that real quick so that we don't get knocked out.
	So, apple seeds, which, by the way, are absolutely good apple seeds, especially if it's mature, is one of the most delicious things you'll ever have.
	I mean, they're just tasty, but it's a cyanide thing.
	You can't eat more than a few of them.
	You can have one or two.
	Of an apple seed?
	Yeah, if you had, I think, a tablespoon of apple seeds, you're risking health problems.
	Because of the cyanide.
	Yeah.
	Wow!
	Well, that is news.
	Thank you.
	It's a no-agenda health tip.
	Don't eat too many apple seeds, kids.
	But if you get a real strong whiff of almond extract smell, and that's what the smell would be exactly like.
	If you get some good almond extract and you sniff it, that's what cyanide smells like exactly.
	And if you get a real strong smell of that somewhere, if you can't hold your breath, you're screwed.
	So you had more health and food safety tips?
	For today?
	Well, yeah.
	If we want to get into it, we have a jingle, somebody says, by the way, on the food news.
	I didn't get the jingle.
	We got a food jingle?
	Yeah.
	Is that forwarded to me?
	I thought so, but we'll use it next week.
	What's it called?
	What was it?
	You don't remember.
	I mean, Gmail is so fast.
	I can't use the jingle because I haven't got the sound effect machine on my side.
	But there's an article.
	You can go to Wired and look at it.
	People should check this out.
	I'm going to give you a genesis of how I've come to certain conclusions based on the news that we've been doing over the past few months and the fact that I was at a used bookstore and saw Thomas Keller's cookbook on a process of cooking called sous vide.
	It's spelled S-O-U-S-V-I-D-E. So, there's two things that happened in the news that were interesting.
	One was the smear campaign against Gordon Ramsay.
	And the other one was the food poisoning incident at the Fat Duck in England.
	Right, right.
	That was where they had to close it down, right?
	The celebrity chef.
	Right.
	So, as soon as I saw this book...
	And I realize, by the way, I've had this kind of cooking a couple of times.
	In fact, I had some in Holland.
	I had a piece of veal that was prepared with this sous vide method.
	Just a bunch of things fell into place.
	Let me explain.
	First of all, Gordon Ramsay was accused of using baggied food, you know, stuff in a plastic bag.
	And, you know, he's taking as though it was a shortcut.
	When, in fact, obviously, Ramsay is experimenting with this cooking technique, which involves taking a piece of food...
	Putting it in a vacuum-sealed cryovac bag, sucking all the air out of it, throwing it into a water bath, and cooking it rather slowly for a very long time at a very low temperature.
	And this creates an unusual cooking.
	You get a very weird food out of this technique, and it's used mostly...
	In fact, there's a good Wikipedia article.
	You should look it up out there, everybody.
	S-O-U-S-V-I-D-E. I'm going to make a copy of that.
	But it goes on and on with the explanation of where it began.
	It started in the 70s.
	It came out of France.
	And everybody who's anybody, all these hot-shot chefs and all the guys doing the three-star restaurants, are using this technique because you can present somebody with some really wild food.
	Now, Michael Minna, I know, must use it because he has a duck dish over here at his restaurant in San Francisco that is cooked this way.
	It's absolutely fantastic.
	And I had a piece of veal in Holland that was obviously cooked this way.
	And what it entails is, and there's a good article in Wired Magazine, because Nathan Mirvold, who is something of a foodie...
	He's the Microsoft dude, right?
	Microsoft dude to a billionaire who's a...
	Billionaire dude.
	Billionaire dude is experimenting with this trick, and I'm looking at a picture of him in Wired, which he's wearing a chef's outfit.
	I mean, come on.
	And then he's putting leaves into a piece of salmon that he's going to cook with this method.
	This, as I read this, this I think is one of the most dangerous cooking techniques.
	It needs to be either outlawed or there has to be a warning on a menu.
	I do not want to eat this food prepared in this manner from amateurs.
	And I think the fact that, what's his name, Blumenthal, where a fat duck made a whole bunch of people sick.
	And if you read those articles about this...
	The first thing I did, as soon as I was thinking back, I typed in his name and then sous vide.
	Boom!
	He's like one of the number one guys involved with this type of cooking.
	In fact, most of his dishes are done this way.
	And I'm reading the articles from these dumb journalists, the same ones who thought that Gordon Ramsay was doing cooking bags.
	And they say, well, maybe it was bad fish.
	It could have been the scallops.
	It could have been the oysters, which, you know, generally speaking, you don't get 40 people in your restaurant sick on oysters because there's only usually a bad oyster.
	You know, it's not like a batch of them.
	And how many people have oysters nowadays?
	Not too many.
	So I figure this is cooking methodology that got people sick, but nobody's bringing this up.
	The article to read is the one in Wired with Nathan Mirabold, and here's the reason you want to look at it, because I'm going to read you a couple of points that Nathan talks about, because he's apparently been experimenting with this, and I actually would advise him to stop.
	So let me read a couple of points here.
	The articles were actually quite short.
	Here's his tips.
	Don't bother with lab-quality thermal circulator.
	Everybody in France who has been trained in this methodology says you must have a lab-quality thermal circulator because you're cooking at extremely low temperatures.
	I'm going to read from the Mervold article.
	For at-home fare, check out the temperature controllers at auburns.com, which can be used with a rice cooker.
	You'll also need a vacuum sealer like FoodSaver, which doesn't do a good enough job, in my opinion.
	Cook short ribs forever.
	I love to cook short ribs at 130 degrees Fahrenheit for 36 hours, Mervold says.
	They become very flavorful and have a different texture than most braised meat.
	Yes.
	Don't be tricked by the color of your fish.
	Now, here's the one that gets me.
	Fish can be particularly interesting.
	Cook salmon at 102 to 104 degrees for 20 minutes, Mervold says.
	It will look raw but have the texture of cooked fish.
	Now, I want to point out this.
	102 to 104 degrees is about 20 degrees less than the ambient temperature in Phoenix, Arizona most of the year.
	And you're going to be cooking at this temperature.
	To be cooking food at 102 degrees in a vacuum pack, you're asking for the botulism bacteria, if nothing else, to propagate like a maniac and make you sick.
	I don't believe that this form of cooking should be...
	There should be a warning on a menu.
	I mean, I was actually...
	This is really interesting, John, because I did mention this a couple weeks ago on the show, but I didn't know this background.
	This is fascinating.
	There should be a warning on the menu if anyone's using this technique to cook anything.
	There's a lot of training that went on with some French chefs that are using it.
	And yeah, you get some really weird food out of it because you're cooking.
	It's not even cooking.
	I don't even know what...
	The fact is...
	I haven't been beside myself, obviously, with the fact that this kind of cooking is being done and propagated and promoted irresponsibly, I might add, at all.
	This is not to be even experimented with unless you want to...
	This is a real health risk.
	And the health departments have got to crack down on it.
	I don't care if somebody knows what they're doing, cooks this way.
	I just want to know...
	That this is what I'm going to be getting.
	And would you eat it if you knew it?
	It depends on the chef.
	Ramsey?
	I would trust Ramsey.
	I think Ramsey is a fanatic.
	He's something of a screwball, and I would think that he could do the job right.
	I mean, he's not known for this cooking technique, and he's obviously experimenting with it.
	But I'm sure that he's such a stickler for details.
	He's not going to tell people not to use the...
	You know, the one thing I ran into is this information about this extremely expensive circulating water thing that these guys all cook with.
	And then Mervold's saying, yeah, don't worry about it.
	Get a rice cooker.
	And then cook your salmon at 102 degrees.
	And he's actually showing a picture of him putting leaves, which are some sort of herbs, on top of some pieces of salmon that he's sticking in these bags.
	And I don't care what herbal leaf it is.
	Any herbal leaf out there, especially when you're stuck, he's not wearing gloves.
	So it's going to be rife with bacteria.
	By the fact that you're using a bare hand, you've got salmon, which is a great vehicle for growing bacteria, and you're putting pieces of plant material.
	I mean, it's a witch's brew, potentially, to be putting it in some sort of a bath of any sort and cooking it at 102 degrees.
	It's going to be, in Northern California here today, it's going to be 102 degrees outside.
	Why don't you just throw the food in the street, you know, let it cook that way.
	Yeah, it's cooking right on the asphalt, right on the tarmac.
	Perfect.
	So anyway, I was very upset about this.
	I didn't know any of this.
	I should have known.
	It's been going on for a number of years.
	But it all makes sense now.
	That's why Ramsey got busted for using baggies.
	I'm sure why he got a bunch of sick people at the fat duck.
	But is it that much better?
	I just don't understand the philosophy behind it.
	Is that the only way to cook it?
	I just don't get it.
	Why?
	Here's the two dishes I know I've had cooked with this method.
	One a few weeks ago in Holland, it was a veal dish that was amazing.
	I mean, it was like this veal.
	What it is, it creates an extremely interesting texture that you've never had before.
	The tenderness factors through the roof.
	The product itself, in this case veal, it doesn't look right.
	It looks like it's been treated in some weird way.
	It's got funny colors, but it's fascinating and delicious and probably partially pre-digested.
	The Michael Bennett dish...
	And anyone who wants to go to Michael Minna's restaurant in San Francisco, which I thought I had bitched about before because I went there three times and every time it got progressively worse in terms of the service until I finally did a bait and switch on a bottle of wine that irked me to no end.
	And they have a duck dish there.
	And at this restaurant, Michael Minna's in the St.
	Francis Hotel, they have...
	Everything's prepared three ways, and so you get this version.
	Hey, John, the chat room is complaining about hearing dripping water from you?
	No.
	You got no dripping water?
	No.
	I think maybe they're complaining about the Tech 5 show.
	I don't have any dripping water.
	Oh, yeah.
	No, maybe I'm confused.
	I'm sorry.
	We'll have them say something else.
	Anyway, the point is they have these three dishes and they've got this duck dish.
	And I remember the guy telling me about it.
	Now it's cooked in some, you know, he kind of explained, now I realize what it was.
	It was cooked in this method.
	And I'd say, you know, it's wow.
	It's like amazingly delicious.
	And that's the reason, because it's a new culinary thing you haven't had before.
	So it's a curiosity more than it is anything else.
	And so these guys are very attracted to it.
	And the guys who are practicing it are getting all these Michelin stars.
	I've got to get one hot shot chef to say he won't do it because it's just too dangerous.
	It's a dangerous cooking technique.
	People need to have a warning.
	I can see why people get sick of the fat duck.
	Okay, can we stop now?
	That was very interesting.
	That's the end of it.
	It was very interesting because we do have some health news we need to discuss.
	The show's almost over, man.
	Things whip by.
	According to the CDC... 100,000 plus people in the U.S. have flu.
	Half have swine flu.
	According to this, this is on WebMD.
	Now they're just making it up.
	But this is on WebMD, and it's according to more than 100,000 Americans probably have the flu.
	At least half of these cases are H1N1 swine flu, as CDC expert estimates.
	There you go.
	So I had it.
	I had it, dude.
	I had the swine flu.
	I'm telling you, I had it.
	You're right to think you did.
	Of course I did.
	You need to get tested.
	The antibodies are in your body still, so you should confirm.
	Yeah, well, I'm not letting them put any needles in me.
	Not even to test.
	Who knows?
	It might smell like almonds.
	Well, they might inject me with a chip, a GPS chip.
	By the way, the GPS chip, I mean, they're so far advanced.
	They have RFID dust now, where you can just sprinkle this dust on someone and they can track you.
	No, bullshit.
	No, absolute.
	RFID dust is for real.
	It's for real.
	And it was funny because when we went to Portugal, so Dexter came with us and Dexter has a British passport, a Gitmo Nation East passport, and I was like, do you have a recent one?
	Yeah, I got a recent passport because if you have a chipped passport, then it's much easier because the reader can get all the info and it's It's going to be a requirement, obviously.
	And I look at the...
	Yeah, you have...
	I have one, too.
	But, you know, it's like a very little itty-bitty chip, right, in ours.
	But in the UK passport, John...
	I'm going to take a picture.
	I'm going to scan his passport.
	So you have the chip in the middle.
	The antenna is the entire back of the passport.
	There's wire all the way around it.
	They could pick this thing up from fucking space.
	It's amazing how big the antenna is on the UK passport.
	I wonder if, you know, I have a wallet.
	I'll talk about the brand and give it to you.
	A Faraday Cage wallet?
	Yeah.
	You had that?
	You used that?
	The Faraday Cage wallet's interesting because I think it stops the U.S. passport, but I use a key card at Ziff Davis at the office building when I go to Cranky Geeks, and I've put the key card inside one of these wallets, and it blows through the Faraday Cage.
	Really?
	Wow.
	But it's got a big, just like what you're describing, it's got a huge...
	A key card is a big one, which probably has a big antenna on it.
	I say you should get your money back from that Faraday Cage wallet.
	Well, it's meant for passports.
	I don't know if it's meant for a key card.
	But whatever the case is...
	It was meant for credit cards, all kinds?
	Isn't credit cards another big thing?
	Yeah, it's supposed to be.
	But it's a nice wallet anyway.
	But the point is that I wonder if that wallet will protect against a big antenna.
	I doubt it.
	It was a Canberra?
	Is it Canberra?
	Canberra, right?
	Canberra-based scientist who came up with a theory that swine flu must have come from a laboratory, or laboratory, as we say, in Gitmo Nation East.
	Adrian Gibbs researched.
	He said genetic markers suggest the combination of genes and the virus was not a natural event.
	Of course, the World Health Organization, the WHO, won't be fooled again, says the virus probably evolved naturally.
	So I just want you to know that they're out there debunking and, you know, The other group of scientists felt that the original hypothesis does not really stand up to scrutiny, and this is how a scientific process can work in the context of this kind of public health emergency.
	Well, it's funny how they go along with this kind of debate, except when it comes to global warming.
	Right.
	Everybody doesn't debate it.
	Everybody, because Joy told us so.
	Yeah, everybody.
	Without exception.
	Every single scientist in the entire universe.
	Hey, you know what it's time for?
	Sing along.
	We are the Knights of the No Agenda, Knights of the No Agenda, Knights of the No Agenda, and we suck!
	Yeah, we need to get more money.
	Hell yeah.
	Have we gotten anything in?
	Do people even bother?
	No, it keeps dribbling in, and we have some very dedicated subscribers and producers, I have to say, and we'll talk about the latest crop on...
	Thursday.
	Also, somebody who sent in that weird amount of money, he said...
	Oh, the 6421?
	Yeah.
	You don't want to talk about that now?
	Yeah.
	Well, I'm talking about it now.
	He says, you know, it was just a number.
	No, he had to use the iDice app on his iPhone.
	He had this whole intricate way of coming up with a good number and that was it.
	And that was the amount that he donated.
	And he's going to keep doing it.
	I love it.
	We should have that in our No Agenda app, which there are two of course, but you need to look at the show notes and there's a link at least to one of them.
	That should be a part of it.
	You know, a donation dice.
	Yeah, I like it.
	One of the things right now we haven't done, which is up the ante and what we can help get some t-shirts that are interesting and have some apps that are interesting, things that are value-added.
	Because I think we got all the low-hanging apples from the...
	From the tree already, and these are the real dedicated listeners.
	But anybody out there, we would like to do this show as a job, although it's not really a job.
	So go to noagendalibrary.com or dvorak.org slash na and help us out.
	It wouldn't hurt.
	For the armory.
	Yeah, we got the armory and the winery and the library to do.
	We have a lot to build.
	It costs us millions of dollars.
	We have a lot to build before we get to the head, Johnny Boy.
	Hey, you better give someone a password to the PayPal account.
	Like me.
	Oh, yeah, okay.
	But someone else as well, a trusted third party, in case we smell the almonds.
	We wake up and smell the almonds.
	It's a good point.
	Yeah, just saying.
	Because our legacy must live on, then.
	And it will.
	It will.
	It will be good.
	So we should probably remove that money and put it somewhere else at some point.
	Anyway, so noagendalibrary.com or dvorak.org slash na.
	And probably by sometime midweek, I'll make that a little more...
	We would come up with some new reasons that you should donate to help the show.
	And also the interludge thing that we do.
	Interludge, right.
	And a stream that's running 24-7.
	It needs to be supported.
	It does.
	Well, people are supporting me with technical help, which is highly appreciated.
	And art.
	And artwork.
	The only art you can deliver is fine.
	Yeah, we've been getting some good artwork.
	And, of course, now we can't use everything, obviously, so don't be bummed out.
	But make sure you put it on the drop, noagendadrop.com.
	Yeah, we can eventually put a website up showing all the art, too, as a little gallery.
	Yeah, we've got to fix all our URLs, too, man.
	I'm sucking with that shit.
	Sucking.
	So I'm going to be in New York next week, which will be interesting.
	We may have to do the show Wednesday night.
	Because I actually, and I got meetings, and I leave New York Thursday evening, so we'll have to kind of play that by ear.
	Wednesday night works.
	Yeah, I'm sure it does.
	If you can get a connection.
	Well, yeah, I'm staying at, have you ever stayed at the Sophie Tell in New York, which has been completely redone?
	I don't believe so.
	Oh, my God.
	It is...
	Because the Sofitel kind of had like a bit of a drippy image.
	But it's great.
	It's kind of like...
	They always have good food at the Sofitel.
	I didn't have a chance to eat there yet.
	But, no, they have...
	You know, besides just excellent amenities and very stylish rooms, you know, kind of old world New York, which I like, only it's all new and fresh and, you know, and it fits and it closes properly.
	So it's kind of like the St.
	Regis, only modernized, but the same kind of style.
	And they give you a hardwired connection, which I love.
	I love a hardwired connection.
	I love a good hard wire connection.
	Well, we'll see.
	Yeah, we will.
	It could suck.
	All right.
	And I'm coming out to San Francisco after that for the entire month of June.
	Yeah, that's something to deal with.
	Yeah, well, it's good.
	Thanks.
	It's going to be interesting to see how the show goes.
	I'm going to have to find a way to watch BBC. You won't have any information.
	I know.
	Boat heads in California.
	Like, duh, duh, duh.
	Sorry about that.
	I don't know what's going on.
	Maybe there's an international newsstand you can visit once in a while.
	I'm sure there is.
	Coming to you from the southwest quadrant of Gitmo Nation East, better known as London in the United Kingdom, I'm Adam Curry.
	And from where there's going to be an ambient cooking temperature of around 100 degrees today, northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C. Dvorak.
	We'll talk to you again Wednesday or Thursday.

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