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June 25, 2009 - No Agenda
01:01:35
107: Health Insurance Dot Gov
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Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak.
It's time for episode number 107 of your Gitmo Nation audio publication, coming to you from New York.
This is no agenda.
At least my portion of the show is Gitmo Nation Mid-Central, something like that, from an undisclosed hotel location.
Hello, everybody.
I'm Adam Curry.
And from the same old, same old, although it's a dreary day here in northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C. Dvorak.
I'm John C. Dvorak.
Yeah, we're received in Germany as we speak.
I'm excited.
And it is the morning.
Yes, it's the morning here.
It's quarter to twelve in New York, Gitmo Nation.
What is Gitmo Nation for New York?
Is that mid-central, kind of?
Gitmo Nation, New York.
Thanks.
Gitmo Nation, New York, where I am.
Actually, I was in Pennsylvania yesterday.
Man, talk about Gitmo Nation.
How about Gitmo Nation's Eastern Seaboard?
Eastern Seaboard, I like that.
We'll keep it at that.
And actually, in a new hotel that's only been open since December 11th, I don't mind giving out the name of it.
It's 25 Cooper Square Hotel, which is down near the...
Wait, wait, wait, let me guess.
It's on Cooper Square.
No, you are amazing, Mr.
Dvorak.
Yeah, it's one of these boutique hotels.
It's nice.
Well put together, although they do this annoying thing with these boutique hotels, because I've got like two bags, right?
I've got my matching roller bags, one which is my kind of carry-on, and it has the four wheels, so you don't have to schlep it behind you, you can kind of keep it to the side, and then a larger version of that, again with four wheels, and...
Ron and I had been to Pennsylvania, so we actually drove, and we had a rental car, and we pull up in front of the hotel.
You've got all these guys at these boutique hotels, all dressed in black, and they've got earpieces in.
I was like, can I take your bag?
No, I'll just take my bag.
It's easier.
They roll really easily.
I'll check in.
I'll roll up to the room.
Oh, I have the same exact Well, it gets worse.
No, no, it gets worse.
So they have a special check-in procedure here.
I'm like, okay.
So eventually, the guy winds up just taking my bag.
I'm holding on to my carry-ons.
Like, look, I'll just take it up myself.
You don't need to carry it into the hotel.
You know, just please let me do it.
Because I just want to get up to the room.
I want to unpack my shit, take a shit.
You know, just I want to do my stuff, right?
And they have this, okay, would you please sit down here, Mr.
Curry, for check-in?
Like, oh, Jesus Christ.
Would you like a complimentary wine, spirits, or water?
Just give me the water.
And then you wait for 10 minutes, and the guy comes back, okay, we're ready.
And then one guy takes you up and shows you how the key works.
Oh, wow!
It's like a proximity card.
I could have figured that one out.
And then you wait 20 minutes for the other jabroni to come up with my freaking bag!
It's like, I hate this!
Yeah.
I'm the exact same way.
I travel light anyway.
So I got my roller bag, which is a Samsonite with the wheels, and usually my computer bag hanging off of it.
And the guys always ask if you want to take your bag, take your bag.
I say no.
No.
And I always refuse.
And I never let them ever again because actually what happened to me a few years ago, I went to the Four Seasons down in Southern California.
It's one of them.
I can't remember which one exactly, but I go in there and they insist on taking the bag.
And you have to give up at a certain point because otherwise fisticuffs will occur, right?
They insist on to, well, now I have this story to tell.
And it goes like this.
Well, I went to the Four Seasons, and they took my bag, and they lost my bag.
Oh, man.
So how do you lose your bag at the Four Seasons Hotel?
It took me an hour to get the damn bag.
So I refused to give my bag up to anybody.
I don't care who it is.
And then, by the way, I was just in New York, and I stayed at the Rivington, or the hotel on Rivington, which is on the East Side.
Let me guess.
It's on Rivington?
It is.
And it's in the weird part of New York, which was kind of a strange place.
But the hotel was exactly the same kind of hotel.
And it also had a proximity card, which is interesting.
Because I have never been...
Most of the hotels still have the slidey slot.
So now they get these.
Which, by the way, these cards have coded on them, besides just the room key opening device.
It has a bunch of your personal information on it, so don't lose those cards.
Oh, really?
I didn't know that.
Yeah, I found that out on a hacker's site.
What kind of information?
Like your credit card number, who you are, your address.
No!
All the stuff that they key in for your room, that's why they do the card after they don't have the card credit.
Right, right, right.
Apparently there's a bunch of information on there.
I don't know.
I haven't been able to read one, but maybe it's bull.
Hey, let me hit you with this early, dude.
Turn the speakers down just a hair.
See, I asked you earlier, and you said no.
I got excited and loud, and then I heard myself, and that's frightening.
So, uh, what do you think the audience thinks?
So anyway, now here's the thing that bugs me about these places.
They've got the same guys, same, you know, these are all cookie cutter.
They have the guys in the, these were all started by the guy who ran the Studio 57.
Wasn't Ian Schrager who did this?
Yeah, well, he's part of the team that was original.
And it was Studio 54, not 57.
I mean, I know you're...
Heinz 57.
They started Heinz 57.
And the first one, I think, was like Morgans, and then there's another...
They did a bunch of these little...
Well, you have the Clift in San Francisco.
The Clift Hotel, I think, is a Schrager Hotel.
It might be now, yeah.
And the Gramercy, yeah, all of these hotels.
And they're dark.
Oh, my God, what is up with the dark in the hallways?
You need Braille everywhere to find out what your freaking room number is.
So you get to your room, it's pitch black in the hallways.
I think it's a mugger's delight, but it's pitch black.
So if you don't have your key handy, you can't find it in your wallet because you can't see it.
I'll do you one better.
So this hotel doesn't have room numbers.
No.
You have a floor number, and then written out, long form, is your room number.
So I'm on, well, I'm on floor whatever, and then room number seven.
You know, so, what's your room number?
S-E-B-E-N? Yes, exactly.
What's your room number?
Well, I'm on, you know, 7.
It's like, it's dumb!
And what is this trying to prove that we're hip?
Like, yeah, you're hip, like in this late 80s, maybe.
So the floors are pitch black, and, you know, with maybe some mood lighting.
And some of these places, by the way, have different room floors that are lit with different colors, which make it even more weird.
And then the room itself is usually underlit, and it's extremely minimalist.
Yeah, that's it.
You've been here before, clearly.
Yeah.
And many of these, but the bathrooms are always a treat.
Now, here's my favorite bathroom.
Now, they designed these bathrooms to be really minimalist, and they put in, like, the fanciest, weirdest kind of facilities.
So, in other words, the bowl that you wash your hands in, the one I was at, the Rivington, was a square.
Oh, I have a salad bowl this time.
Okay, now, here's my favorite one.
I went to one of these hotels that had the big salad bowl, and And so I go in and I turn the faucet on and it's immediately over pressure.
Splatters everywhere.
It goes down one side of the bowl and soaks me.
As I said, the first thing I want to do when I had to wait 20 minutes is I want to make a conference call in the bathroom.
I've been on the road.
We've had shitty food.
I want to sit down.
And then when you actually sit down, it's like, dude, it feels like I'm sitting in a jail cell.
You know where you have one of those metal toilets and that's all there is?
That's exactly what it feels like.
Where's the tin cup?
I'm paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege of being in the big house.
That's exactly what it feels like.
So I think these places are tired.
And the fact that they're still opening them with the same formula is beyond me.
This formula is 20 years old.
Come up with something new.
Yeah, for real.
For real, for real.
So thanks for taking care of my girlfriend yesterday.
I hear you guys actually had a good time.
I can't believe she's getting along with you.
Oh no, we get along famously.
When I'm not there.
When you're not there.
And she says she really likes the idea of you taking over her Twitter account.
So, yeah.
I guess that ain't going to happen now.
I had to do it.
The one thing that's good about this hotel, John, just to get back to it, I'm sitting at the desk, which is about the size of a school desk.
It's really sparse and small.
But they have an old-fashioned bendy arm desk lamp.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, bendy arm.
Yeah, with the springs in it, which of course is perfect as a microphone stand.
Oh, at least you get something out of the place.
It's great.
Yeah, that's really good.
Well, the one thing I'll say about the Rivington, or the hotel on Rivington, is that the bed was a down mattress, so it was comfortable to sleep.
Yeah, the bed is good here, too.
They do spend the money.
Everybody, I think, picked up the bed thing, because when the first W Hotel opened in New York, which I went to when it first opened, the original one...
That's the one on Times Square?
I think so.
Or the one, I don't know.
There's two of them now.
The first one is, I can't remember where it was.
But anyway, it was a down bed, down pillows, down comforters.
I mean, it was like, as soon as you hit the bed, you said, well, I think I'm just going to stay here.
I slept 10 hours last night.
Of course, I took the red eye from...
From San Francisco, I flew JetBlue.
And there's something funny on the way over.
You know how you're always waiting for that announcement?
Is there a doctor on board?
Or my favorite, which I've been waiting for my entire life, is there a pilot on board?
Gee, I can't wait to hear that one.
Now this time it was, ladies and gentlemen, we're sorry to disturb you.
Does anyone on board speak Chinese?
Huh?
That's a different one.
Yeah, it was some Chinese woman who was in some form of distress, I guess.
I've had the doctor announcement four times, and I've had two people die on a flight.
So this is a clue, ladies and gentlemen.
Don't fly on a flight that Dvorak is on.
You might die.
The real painful one was the guy drops dead coming out of China, and we have to make an emergency landing in Narita.
And Narita Airport...
Why an emergency landing if the dude is dead?
I don't know.
I guess he was still...
Maybe he just had a heart attack.
Maybe he wasn't dead.
That's the point.
Oh, okay.
That's not what you meant.
But no, I think they still got to get him off the plane.
No, why?
They just put him in the galley or put him down in the hole?
They got a little elevator.
Yeah, they got room down there to keep him cold.
Yeah.
So they land in Narita, and the problem with Narita is that it has a, first of all, the plane lands in Narita, but we're not clear to be there.
So a million cops surround the plane.
Oh, jeez.
And with the lights spinning.
And so then they make the announcement, Narita has a curfew, and we can't take off.
We have to wait until the next day.
Oh.
And somehow, I don't know, there was somebody, I don't know who did what, but this was a United flight.
Somebody did a deal, because they, you know, the guy said, ladies and gentlemen, Buckley's seatbelts are getting out of here.
And he rolls this thing up and just blasts off.
Just like, we're out, we're gone, we're out of here.
You know, so much for the curfew.
So while we're talking about aviation, something that happened on the 22nd, and of course really didn't become known until the 23rd, but is now pretty much mainstream news, that the CLEAR program, This is the program that enables you to give all of your personal data,
including biometric data, to this company, and you would then be pre-cleared to go through a separate security line at most major airports, has ceased operations.
Yeah, isn't that unbelievable?
No, it's not really unbelievable.
But it is like, whoa.
And from what I understand, the reason why is the TSA basically shut it down.
They wanted no part of it.
And they just stopped approving their devices.
It turned basically into a concierge service.
It wasn't like really...
You still had to take your shoes off.
You still had to go through detectors.
You still get frisked.
But it was like a special line, essentially.
Like a faster line.
Well, they have the first class line in some airports still.
Right.
Which is better, probably, than what Clear was.
But yeah, it's done.
It's closed down.
And SFO, when I was leaving for the Red Eye, they even had a little sign as of June 22nd, Clear has ceased to operate.
And it's done.
Well, it was a fiasco.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So much for that idea.
So I wonder if there's anything else behind it other than that.
I mean, I thought the whole...
I don't know.
We're going to have to look into it.
I think we should do a follow-up.
Well, the whole idea of essentially a company having all of your biometric data was kind of scary to start with, and you would think that the government would be quite happy to have that, but I guess not.
I was going to say that the exact same bag with the exact same contents that they opened up and ripped apart for 30 minutes on my way to Los Angeles has happily gone through security twice now without any bag check or anything.
What was in it that was triggering this search?
Well, you didn't have a bottle of water in there.
No, exactly.
This is the thing.
I have transmitters, wireless devices, MIDI devices, tons of wires, backup batteries, all kinds of...
It's like a bomb.
I'm waiting to happen.
Just add water and it will explode.
Exactly that.
It's the inconsistency that pisses me off all the time.
It's like, why am I getting pulled out now?
Was that bag checker, that moron who sits behind the monitor, and by the way, they are morons.
I'm calling you out.
Was that just a lesser moron who saw something that might...
And also, it's the way you put the bag in, I'm convinced.
If you put the bag on its side, I think then they see more for some reason.
Oh, yeah.
Well, it's because they see more.
Yeah.
It's just so inconsistent.
It's just...
I just...
And I look at all the waste, all these people.
There's 50 people at San Francisco Airport working TSA alone, man.
It's just, geez, Louise.
And here's another thing with the inconsistency you run into.
Tell me you haven't noticed this.
If there are, like, if the place is packed to the gills, they're trying to run people through really fast, but if the place, like, I go through Seattle at a weird time once in a while, there's, like, nobody there.
So I'm, like, the old guy.
And it's just...
It takes an hour to get through.
Yeah, I've seen that, and another one that gets me is, sometimes it's like, you need three bins, or two bins.
I need one bin to put my laptop in, then I put my bag on the belt, then I have to take off my shoes, my jacket, everything, and I put that into a second bin, and all of a sudden there was this, shoes can't be in a bin, shoes have to be on the belt by themselves!
I'm like, ach tu lieber!
Are you kidding?
Yeah, and I was at San Francisco when I went to L.A. Shoes have to be on the belt by themselves!
Shoes have to be on the belt!
And of course, they're all foreigners.
And they're barking.
Oh, God!
And actually, one guy got in my face on this trip over.
You have the TSA agent.
He stands right behind the metal detector and waves you on and you have to wait.
God forbid you just walk on.
Oh, no, no.
Please step back, sir.
Step back!
Okay?
And then I walk through, and because the guy's right, he's like three feet in front of the other side, so, you know, I kind of, like, turn to the right and kind of make myself small, and then my shoulder hits the, uh...
Oh, yeah, you touched that thing.
I touched the thing, and it went off, and he's like, don't touch the side, sir, go back!
I'm like, well, you were, like, in my space, you know, you were in my way.
Oh, was I? Yeah?
You know, it's like, you know, fucking Nazis.
I just gotta say, you're fucking Nazis, okay?
And I fucking hate you.
His name is Adam Curry?
Yes, Adam at VVO.com.
I am at the Cooper Square Hotel.
You can identify him when he comes through the line because he's quite tall and blonde.
Yeah, and hot looking.
I personally think they're wonderful people and I feel sorry for the job that they have to do.
I don't know if they're wonderful people, but I do feel sorry for the job they have to do.
I think that people who are in jobs like that become not so wonderful people.
They become assholes.
That's because they have to deal with the public all day.
Hey, you're breaking up, dude, and it's not me, okay?
Oh, we should have made sure to have sent it at Comcast Cares.
Oh, yeah, Comcast Cares.
You know, I can't get Comcast in my new building.
Why not?
Well, they say, oh, Comcast doesn't service that building.
What the hell is that all about?
They don't service that building.
Oh, that's got something to do with the building.
It's got nothing to do with Comcast.
But people live there.
They have television.
There's wires coming out of the wall.
Someone had some form of television there previously.
They probably have a sweet deal with somebody else, and that's the way it is.
We'll see.
You should bitch to the building owner.
And I'd just like to follow up on the sentencing of Bernard Madoff.
Of course, the sentencing was supposed to happen on June 16th.
I found out that got pushed back to June 29th.
And now today in the news, we're going to wait another 90 days for sentencing.
I guarantee you the International Financial Court has to be set up and they will work on the sentencing.
This is exactly what I predicted.
They cannot sentence this guy because they don't know what he did wrong.
They're going to come up with this whole cock and bull story where they have to investigate it, and it's going to go to the IFC. Mark my words, you heard it here on No Agenda First.
Yeah, you're sticking with that story, and it's so far working out for you.
I don't think that's going to happen, but I'm very suspicious about this.
Why are they putting it off?
Again, they're putting it off because they don't know what happened.
How can you sentence a guy if you don't know what happened?
He pleaded guilty.
They're like, okay, well, yeah.
So we know it was $50 billion, but what actually was the crime?
I did read...
On CNN, I have it here, that his lawyer has asked for 12 years, a sentence of 12 years.
It's a classic.
Yeah, I love that.
Here's it.
Mr.
Madoff is currently 71 years old and has an approximate life expectancy of 13 years.
So give the guy 12, you know, so he can get laid for the last year or something like that.
I'm not quite sure what that is.
Well, also, when you get 12 years, you only end up doing five.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So he's got the money stashed away somewhere, because nobody knows where the money is, which may be part of the reason they're stalling on this thing.
Oh, no, I can tell you where the money is.
It's in Switzerland.
No, no, no, no, no.
It's in gold.
It probably went through Switzerland, but it went to Israel and it's being used to kill people.
Oh, it could be.
And the funny thing about it is a lot of this money, or at least up to a certain amount for many of the investors, was insured.
And that insurance came through a number of vehicles.
One is the FDIC. Another one is AIG, who insured tons of transactions.
And as you know, AIG was bailed out by who?
Oh yeah, by us.
So it was like a double whammy.
You know, I think a lot of people didn't have...
I think a lot of those investments were not insured.
Some of the instruments certainly were.
So here's a news item.
So I'm reading about this guy.
Do you know the name of the guy?
I'll be asking this question in hopes that you don't because I think a lot of us are skeptical about things and always forget some of the prime movers.
Do you know who's the father of global warming?
Oh, I think you sent me this in the show notes.
Go ahead.
I'll pretend I don't know.
Yes, James Hansen.
Is he a NASA guy?
Was that the story?
Yeah, he's the NASA climatologist who made some testimony in 1988 in front of Congress claiming that man-made global warming was taking place and we have to do something about it.
And then Gore became his pal and so did...
Okay, that part I didn't know.
He was actually the guy that inspired scam artist Gore to come up with his PowerPoint.
Is that how it worked?
Pretty much, yeah.
He's the inspiration.
So anyway, so I'm just reading through something.
And then I run into this old posting from January, which I don't know.
Did I miss it?
Or did it get no press?
I didn't even blog it that I know.
I don't think.
Maybe it's on the blog.
I should go look.
But how his supervisor, John Theon, sent out this note after, I guess he's retired or he's not the supervisor, he doesn't work at NASA anymore, and he says that Hanson was an embarrassment to NASA, he was never muzzled, and this guy, Theon, says that all climate models are useless.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
And let me just read a couple of things from the note that was sent out.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist John Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA's vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen...
Oh, here's the reason I dug this up.
It's because Hansen just was in the news a couple of days ago saying, it's worse than I thought.
We're doomed.
We're all going to die.
We're all going to die.
And he's targeted coal.
So he was arrested with Daryl Hannah up in West Virginia picketing some coal company.
Oh, with Daryl Hannah, right?
Yeah.
And so he was up there getting arrested with Daryl Hannah.
By the way, if you've got to get arrested, it might as well be with her.
Yeah, get handcuffed to her.
And he declared that Hansen embarrassed NASA with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was never muzzled.
Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks.
But here's the one, the interesting quote is here.
First of all, he says he likes to join the group that's a skeptic, this guy.
He says...
No, NASA scientist James Hansen created a worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his calls for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming.
He's one of the guys that thinks anyone who says it, like what I'm saying now, I should be arrested.
Yeah, you're a terrorist.
And his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews.
You know, so...
Mickey and I were talking about this the other day, about this whole 2012 and about what's going to happen, the end of the Mayan calendar.
Many people believe that this is going to be something similar to the book of Revelation.
We've got the mark of the beast and we're all going to die.
We're going to have tsunamis and tidal waves.
And of course, I totally believed that previously.
I have revised my thinking somewhat, and I believe that what is going to happen...
It's something that is already taking place.
So the idea is people who have higher vibrations will raise to a higher consciousness level, which, of course, you and I are already on, John, because we see through all of this...
Stay with me now.
Stay with me now.
We see through all of this bullshit.
But I think that what is actually going to take place is...
The Earth is not going to kill humans.
Global warming is not going to kill humans.
Humans kill humans.
That's what happens all the time.
And the perfect example is swine flu.
Swine flu is a great example of how...
A large amount of the population is completely being beat down into submission, into a state of fear, and in fact you will be injected with some crap that probably has the potential to kill you in combination with your french fries or whatever it is.
I love that.
Whatever the scheme is.
Binary weapons.
But it's really that, and it's this whole global warming.
I think that is really what 2012 was going to be about.
It's not like on the day itself, that on the 21st of December 2012, the world ends.
But this is really what's taking place.
And either you stand above it, and you see through the bullshit, and you don't stand in line to take the shots.
Or you're into submission and you wind up in a freaking FEMA camp.
That, I think, is what all of this is about.
Let me give you a couple more.
Oh, that's a topic we're not going to use.
That was my rebuttal.
Monsanto.
We've got to stay on top of Monsanto.
I want to thank...
Oh, boy.
I've already lost the email.
I'll get back to it in a second.
This article was sent to me by one of our producers slash listeners, and it's about the weed-whacking herbicide called Roundup, and I'm sure you've heard of this, John, as an horticulturist.
Yeah, and if you watch the documentary...
Yeah, it's actually in the World According to Monsanto documentary.
Yes.
So let me just read a little bit.
This is from Scientific American, which I think is a pretty good publication.
Used in yards, farms, and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer, but now researchers have found that one of Roundup's inert ingredients, and that's the key word, inert, look it up, can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental, and umbilical cord cells.
And...
So I guess what happened is that the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, approves inert ingredients.
Except they never really looked at...
So most of these studies focus on the safety...
So we're talking about glyphosate.
I think that's how you pronounce it.
That's one of these inert ingredients.
I have my Merck Index.
I should be at the ready.
Do you have the Merck Index by now?
I have to run downstairs to get it.
Well, we'll get it next time.
So what they've done typically is they've focused only on the inert ingredients themselves, but not on a mixture of ingredients.
So the mixture of ingredients and all of them inert, what does inert mean literally?
Like dormant?
It means it's not reactive.
It's not chemically reactive.
It doesn't do anything.
So this mixture actually amplifies the toxic effect on human cells.
In other words, this shit can kill you.
And there's remnants of this, because it's a weed killer, right?
So it's used on shit that you put in your mouth, right?
And if you don't really wash it, and maybe washing won't even help.
The movie, the thing that's interesting about Roundup is that it was originally sold as an organic product that was completely biodegradable.
And then it turns out, the movie discusses this, by the way, and I want to mention to people, you can find the movie.
They have it on the Google videos, but they've changed the name because apparently every time it crops up online, somebody somehow finds it and gets it removed.
and that's so now what you have to do fine and I have a copy of it I do By the way, you should download it so you can have a copy of it.
Keep it, yeah, indeed.
And keep it.
And pass it around.
And you can find it on the Google videos, but it's got like, what they've done to trick people is to change the name.
So you have to do a search on Monsanto, then you'll find something with some obtuse name that is not the world according to Monsanto, but that's the movie that's actually in the envelope.
Do you still find it with the keyword Monsanto?
Yeah, I think so.
We have a website coming.
We have a producer working on it as we speak.
And this is exactly the kind of stuff that needs to be put in there.
Right.
So anyway, they determined that it's not biodegradable at all.
They had to take that moniker off the label.
And it only degrades 5% a year.
So the stuff just sticks around forever, and it turns out to be, they think, mildly carcinogenic, too.
So I've decided not to use it ever, but I noticed that at Costco, they're selling it by the gallon with a sprayer.
Really?
So you can just buy this shit off the shelf?
It's like retail stuff?
Oh yeah, it's always been retail.
But they're selling it by the gallons.
And just so you know, ladies and gentlemen, producers, listeners to this program, Monsanto is rampant throughout the Obama administration.
There are Monsanto people everywhere.
Everywhere.
They are so in.
Now, one more thing.
Watching CNBC yesterday before I basically went into coma.
We've noticed that there's a large amount of...
Pharmaceutical-based advertising on television.
In fact, if you go away for a couple months and you don't look at American television and you come back, you are amazed by the amount of erectile dysfunction products, sleep deprivation products, nervousness...
Come on, John.
Help me out.
Bipolar.
That's my favorite.
I mean, there's so many products.
And here's what...
Because they're basically...
Restless leg syndrome.
I've got restless dick syndrome.
Anyway, so...
The report on CNBC was about the pharmaceutical industry.
And there's a couple of analysts, and I've forgotten who they were, and they're saying the reason that what's going on right now is all of the patents of the big, big products are expiring.
In fact, you have something called Pay to delay, which these big pharmaceuticals, you can read it right in their annual reports, it's a line item, pay to delay.
They're paying generic makers of drugs to not put their cheaper products out in the market because that erodes whatever market share these companies have and they have not come up yet With the new killer product, the new beta blocker drug or the new whatever it is.
And they are just desperate, because this is a trillions of dollar business, they are desperate to find the next cash cow.
Enter swine flu.
This is exactly why this is taking place.
If you look at the money being spent by the U.S. government alone, On companies developing vaccines, Vax International developing special processes for creating vaccines quicker.
It is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
And then go look at who's on the boards of all of these companies.
It is a humongous scam taking place before your very eyes.
Please don't take the shots.
Look at what the HPV virus, the so-called anti-cancer shots that are being shoved upon our kids, and soon you won't be able to get your kids into school if they don't have the MMR vaccines.
It is just keeping these companies alive.
It is disgusting when you follow some of these lines, and we've got to really pay attention to it.
So, I lost my train of thought.
Yeah, because you were so amazed by my analysis.
Well, no, actually, that's not it at all.
So let's go to one of my clips.
So let me just bring in the story that broke, kind of breaking as we speak.
So last night at 10 p.m.
during prime time, ABC decided to work with the Obama administration and do a one-hour infomercial for the health...
Care initiative.
Health plan initiative.
Now, let me ask you a question.
This is...
I'm not quite sure what is going on.
The health care initiative means what?
The fact that they wanted...
Well, I hate to say the term, but they want to create some sort of a...
Well, it's not socialized medicine.
The government wants to become a health care insurer.
Insurer, right.
Okay, so you will buy your health care insurance from the government...
Directly or indirectly through your employer.
Either way or both.
And they are, of course, competing with this entire system.
They're competing with the big insurance companies who, of course, are colluding with the pharmaceutical companies who, of course, are colluding with the doctors.
Yeah, the whole thing's a scam.
So the government decided it's going to have to do something about it.
And Obama, he sat down in front of another one of these fake town halls with questions that are obviously rehearsed with Charlie Gibson.
Charlie Gibson, on Good Morning America, he was great asking fluff questions of Britney Spears, but now he's like a super...
He's like a journalist.
And he's there with Diane Sawyer, who's holding the mic.
She looks like a hostess.
Guess what?
She is a hostess.
And so she's holding the mic for this audience, which they asked at the beginning how many of them think that the system's screwed up and needs to be changed.
Everybody raised their hands.
And how many don't?
And nobody raised their hands.
And it was kind of funny.
But there's a couple of interesting little...
There are two sides here that I want to discuss.
One is the fact that they did this in the first place on network TV. And then, by the way, they did it for the hour from 10 to 11.
And then they did it again.
They did another half hour on Nightline.
Oh, my gosh.
An hour and a half.
And I'm thinking, why is...
And people were talking on the talk shows about this kind of a risk for ABC. And the first thing I'm thinking...
Well, someone bought the time, clearly.
What were the ads?
I don't think so.
What were the ads?
Here's what my thinking is.
I don't think they bought the time.
Disney.
Yeah, it's Cap City's Disney.
Which is one of the cheapest companies in the world.
They're the ones who changed the Florida labor law, so everybody who works at the Disney World Park, and people have to always remember this, are not employees.
Oh, that's right.
The guy who scrapes up the gum, and everybody in between are quote-unquote performers.
Yeah.
And the labor laws for performers, actors, and actresses is not the same as people who work for a living.
They're cast members.
They're cast members.
And on the doors of all the buildings, the hotels, and everything else, it says cast members only.
It doesn't say employees only.
It says cast members only.
They stick to this theory.
So Disney benefits from this new system?
Is that what you're saying?
I think Disney will benefit from the government health care system...
And that's the reason they're behind it 100%.
I think all these big corporations, they're sick of paying this health.
I mean, General Motors doesn't want to pay this.
They're probably behind it too.
I mean, this breaking these companies who have to pay health benefits for employees.
Can I ask you a question?
As an entrepreneur, someone who's had mid-sized companies with 700 employees to...
Mevio, which is somewhere around 60 if you look at everyone worldwide.
Now, we have always provided health care.
We see that as not just health, but also dental benefits.
What is the problem?
Why do companies not want to provide this as a part of a compensation package?
They've always wanted to, but the problem is it's increased.
It's always been budgeted a certain way, and the fact that it's doubled has really kind of screwed up the bottom line numbers for companies that have like 10,000 or 20,000 employees.
It adds up.
Well, it adds up with 60 employees, too.
Yeah, it does, but it'd be nice if it was cheaper.
And the fact that my wife was pointing out to me that our old pharmacist, who is an interesting character, is retired now, but he once told her, you know, when I was a kid, we never had health insurance.
We never heard of health insurance.
Nobody ever had health insurance.
You just go to the doctor, you pay.
You know, it wasn't that much.
And then you went...
You went home and, you know, you went to the hospital, you pay.
It wasn't that expensive.
And it's gotten, you know, so expensive.
But a lot of it has to, he says that once the insurance companies got into the game, then it became kind of a, how can we soak the insurance companies?
And so you look at, like, one of the hospitals locally was busted for, you know, if you went into this hospital and you looked at the itemized account of, you were paying $10 when they gave you one Tylenol.
Now, why does a Tylenol cost ten bucks at a hospital?
Well, it's specially packaged.
So, okay, so that does kind of come back to the pharmaceutical industry then.
Yeah, well, anyway, the whole thing is a mess.
So, they're pushing hard, and I think Obama's actually going to pull this off, to be honest about it, because he's such a sweet talker.
It's unbelievable to watch him in these groups.
Without the prompter, he's not as quick, as fast a talker.
No, but he's good.
He's good.
But he's good.
Now, I want to play a couple of...
And here's the thing.
There's a couple of things here which are kind of not about the health care.
It's more about Obama.
I got two clips.
I want to play the long clip first.
And this long clip is...
I'll set it up.
It's a woman...
They're asking these supposed questions that are casually done at this thing.
Even though...
While this woman is asking this long-winded question, they're showing a package that they've produced.
A B-roll?
B-roll?
Yeah.
A B-roll of her and her mom.
Wait a minute.
So this is a woman who's supposed to be in a town hall.
She stands up and then they just happen to have an entire B-roll edited package of this very woman asking the question with her mom, etc.
Yeah.
I love it.
So anyway, let's play this, because the point I want to make is after the clip ends, there's something that I want to make an observation for people to start paying attention to.
We have with us a couple of people who really represent the opposite ends on this spectrum, too.
I want to talk, if I can, to Jane Sturm, your mother, Hazel Homer, 100 years old, and she wanted...
She's 105 now, over 105.
Ah, kill the bitch.
But at 100, the doctor had said to her, I can't do anything more unless you have a pacemaker.
I said go for it, she said go for it, but the arrhythmia specialist said, no, it's too old.
Her doctor said, I'm going to make an appointment because the picture is worth a thousand words.
And when the other arrhythmic specialist saw her, saw her joy of life and so on, he said, I'm going for it.
So that was over five years ago.
My question to you is...
Outside the medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody who is elderly, is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, a quality of life, or is it just a medical cut-off at a certain age?
Well, first of all, I want to meet your mom.
And I want to find out what she's eating.
I'll bet you it's not GMO products.
It ain't no french fries.
So, yeah, that's probably true.
Now, the thing is that, when did Obama become a stand-up comic?
Dude, he is a fantastic performer.
He's always been a fan.
He is an actor.
You know my stance on this.
The guy is a great actor, stand-up comic.
He's fit.
He's just, he's it.
He is the man.
Yeah.
So he's doing these one-liners.
And by the way, the way he answered that question was he thinks that spirit and joy and all this rest of it is too subjective.
Oh, my goodness.
Now I'm going to do a pet peeve piece, which is the one that's not really just about Obama.
Oh, by the way, when he finished with his one-liner, Obama then says, look.
Look, here's the deal.
Listen, let me be clear.
Yeah, so play the other clip that I sent.
If a national health plan was approved and your family participated, and President Obama, if your wife or your daughter became seriously ill and things were not going well and the plan physicians told you they were doing everything that reasonably could be done, And you sought out opinions from some medical leaders and major centers, and they said there's another option that you should pursue.
It's so scripted.
Oh, completely.
The guy's even, you can even hear him reading it in his mind.
...in the plan.
Would you potentially sacrifice the health of your family for the greater good of insuring millions, or would you do everything you possibly could as a father and husband to get the best health care and outcome for your family?
Well, first of all, Doctor, I think it's a terrific question.
Okay, stop there.
One of my great pet peeves is when you ask somebody a question, they say, oh, that's a great question.
It's never a great question.
What is a great question?
A great question is the one you already have the answer to.
That's a great question.
That's a great question.
I got the answer.
You have no idea how many times I've been in a situation where I've asked somebody something in some public thing.
That's a great question.
I'm always tempted to go, no, it's not.
It's a simple question.
It's not a great question.
A great question might be asked by Socrates or Aristotle.
This is just a simple question.
It's not a great question.
John, I want you to know that I put you up there with Socrates and Aristotle.
I just want you to know that.
Well, then I would know if it was a great question.
And it wasn't.
I don't ask great questions.
I ask questions.
Speaking of scripted, did you see the Michelle Obama teleprompter flub?
No.
No, gosh.
I saw it on...
Again, I was on JetBlue, so I was surfing all the channels.
I think it was on, like, Greta Van Susteren.
And so Michelle Obama is, you know, talking somewhere, doing something.
You know, of course, she's very important to society.
And she starts off her speech and she says, and you know...
I would really love if the teleprompter was just a little bit higher so I could actually read it.
But since it isn't, I'll just read from my notes.
Oh, God.
I mean, what a way to get out of it, man.
Oh, my goodness.
So, well, anyway, I wish people could really see what's going on.
It's so clear how it works, and it's okay.
And I like the president.
He sets the tone of the morale of the...
Of the happiness of the nation.
I think he's doing a really crappy job.
I think they should change the scripts a little bit.
Make us a little bit happier.
There's nothing wrong with that.
And of course the smoking question.
I'm sure you heard that or blogged about that one.
You didn't hear this one either?
Well, I know it's played up in the Canadian newspapers a lot.
Oh, there was supposed to be a Rose Garden press conference, and I guess there's some bill that he's passed or some law about cigarettes.
I don't even know what it was, but someone in the audience, or one of the journalists, says, well, you know, Mr.
Obama is a former smoker.
Have you...
You know, have you fallen off the wagon?
And Obama goes into this whole answer like, well, you don't really care about my law.
You just want a great human interest question.
Well, yeah, that's exactly right.
And he basically stands there.
And look, I've lied about my smoking, cigarette smoking before to people that I love, which in this case, the people he loves should be the American public.
And he went through this long, bullshit rigmarole of, well, you know, I am a former smoker, and yes, sometimes I do fall off the wagon, but I get right back on the horse, and, you know, essentially, 95% of the time, I'm a non-smoker.
The guy is smoking!
Just admit it!
You're smoking, dude!
And you're freaking hooked on it!
And you're like, ah, God!
Well, in that job, you think if anything is going to make him take him back to smoking, that will do it.
Yeah!
Yeah!
Nothing wrong with it, man, but roll your own because at least you're not smoking formaldehyde.
Yeah, this stuff's bad.
So here's a story of underreported news.
Do we need an underreported news jingle?
No, I don't.
I mean, all I have is real news.
Mexico expected...
You know, they've already talked about how Mexico has legalized essentially marijuana.
And then the June 22nd article, which is this week, Mexican cities will become Latin Amsterdam's, they say.
Everything, small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, meth, amphetamine, heroin, and other drugs are going to be decriminalized in Mexico.
Yeah, right on.
Right on.
That's how you end the drug problems.
Right on.
Good on you, Mexico.
So, meanwhile...
While we're on the legalizing drugs thing, a law enforcement group is backing legalizing drugs.
A new billboard off a busy street in Oklahoma City is advertising the legalization of drugs as a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
And there's supposed to be 10,000 cops or ex-cops or people in law enforcement.
Although...
These guys who are against it, Mark Woodward with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, not only disagrees with their message, but also those behind it.
It's giving parents and kids the impression that the police support legalizing drugs.
That's not the truth.
Woodward said any real police officer could not support legalizing drugs.
Really?
Why not?
Ugh.
Yeah, well, if they legalize TV out of a job, maybe there's a reason that there's a conflict of interest in that statement.
Speaking of drugs, the legal kind of drugs, which of course are far worse than the ones you just mentioned.
Joel, who is one of our listeners, he actually does the Life in Ohio podcast, sent us a note.
I don't know if you got this one.
He said it was about Ambien CR, which we were talking about on the last program.
Right.
He says, I was in what they call the titration study, the second sleep study they do if you are diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, which I indeed do have.
Snoring.
Yeah.
Is that snoring, obstructive sleep apnea?
Yeah.
In this study and the previous study, they wire you up, EEG, EKG, pulse oximeter on your finger, and if you're in the first study, a sensor to detect when you stop breathing, which are plastic hooks sticking up your nose, and the second one is your CPAP mask, What is that?
Is it like an oxygen mask or something?
I don't know.
All of which looks pretty Byzantine because of all the crap on my body.
I could just not get to sleep.
I slept and got enough data for them.
In the first study, they recorded that data plus a video of you sleeping to look for restless leg syndrome so they can give you meds for that.
But in the second study, they gave me a dose of Ambien CR. I slept better but still not great.
But the strangest thing happened to me while on the drug...
I was just laying there, and it felt like I could not move, and my eyes were open, and I didn't feel like I was asleep, but I was.
All of a sudden, the sleep tech called in and told me it was morning.
I remembered nothing but laying in the bed, did not feel the passing of time at all.
It was the strangest experience I've ever had.
Stay away from Ambien CR. Far away.
It is bad shit.
Joel, thank you for your personal story there.
And I'm thinking, that sounds like an awesome drug, man.
That sounds like Special K. That sounds like GBH. Especially if you get somebody in that state, then you can brainwash them.
Oh, totally.
Who knows?
He could be programmed to kill me now.
Oh, jeez.
So, you get the real news thing?
Don't I always?
I'm actually going to put that on a different button so I can fire it faster.
Oh man, here it is.
And now, back to real movies.
So Craig Newmark, the runner of Craigslist, he defends the website, dodges reporters.
He was giving a speech in B.C., refuses to do a press conference.
He says he's keeping all the hookers.
He's going to let them keep posting on Craigslist.
He doesn't care.
He thinks it's bogus.
I'm thinking, what a promotional scheme this has got to be.
Yeah, you want to find a hooker?
Go to Craigslist.
His numbers must have gone through the roof.
But that's what Craigslist is for.
It's for two things.
It's for finding apartments and for finding hookers.
I mean, I don't understand.
What's the problem?
It's a good service.
And you can also...
Someone has tied it into Twitter.
I'm just trying to see if I can find it.
Well, I've heard this in some...
Every time a hooker posts, I think it goes...
Yeah, it goes...
It's like erotic London or erotic underscore London.
Yeah, right.
The London hookers.
The London hookers.
Yeah.
When someone posts on Craigslist, then you get a tweet about what hookers are available.
And most of the Craigslist hookers, it's all like, I'm in town tonight, available for tonight only.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's a business.
I'm all for it.
So talking about a weird business, it turns out that in Rhode Island, because of some really screwball way, they wrote the law and now they're totally panicked about it.
Prostitution's actually legal if it's indoors.
Just in Rhode Island?
No, Rhode Island.
This is some state law.
Somebody screwed up writing the law.
And so now they're scrambling to make it illegal.
It turns out that if you're a call girl or somebody, you don't really go out and walk the streets, it's totally legal.
Well, excellent.
Good on you, Rhode Island.
You have a few days left.
Good on you.
Yeah, really.
And we haven't really talked about the funniest thing.
And this happened, I guess, last week where they're now talking about starting a new regulatory body, a new regulatory agency that will essentially...
Watch the banks.
Because, of course, we didn't have enough regulation, and that's why we're in all the trouble that we are in the financial crisis.
And even President Obama endorses the idea of the Federal Reserve being the body that is supposed to have oversight over the banks.
Now, please...
The Federal Reserve is as governmental as Federal Express.
It is not a federal agency.
In fact, the Federal Reserve consists of banks.
So now they're actually advocating, and every single business publication is all over this.
It's great.
Oh yeah, the Fed, they're the right guys to watch the banks, which means they're going to be watching themselves.
This is so freaking wrong.
And you're stunned by this?
I am stunned by the lack of reporting in...
Well, the Wall Street Journal now, of course, now that's owned by Murdoch doesn't surprise me.
But, you know, where's the New York Times on this?
You know, where's...
Where is the...
They're all on board.
Yeah.
So, uh, you want to play a mystery clip and then we can go from there?
Because we're almost out of time and we still have to pitch people to give us a donation.
How are we on time?
Let me see.
We're at, uh, how do you know we're out of time?
No, shit, we are almost out of time.
Oh, it's been too much fun.
Time flies when you're having fun.
How do I know we're out of time?
Because when you're on Skype, it's got a clock on it telling you how long you've been talking.
Which one?
I can give you.
Greg Laughs, Obama Stand-Up, Plastic Brain, Scary, or Tony Hawk?
Let's go with Tony Hawk.
Okay.
Tony Hawk is a skateboarding dude, right?
Okay, now let me tell you that...
Well, I'll tell you that...
Let me set it up.
I think this one needs to set up.
This is...
When I was bitching about ABC News being shallow, this is one of their reports.
Okay.
Hold on.
Tony Hawk from ABC News.
The champion skateboarder Tony Hawk made a little history before joining Obama's conference.
Pictures posted on his website show Hawk riding his skateboard down the marble halls of the old executive office building.
He also snuck a ride in the White House.
Hawk says he was answering a dare from his friend, the actor, Ashton Kutcher.
Ugh.
There you go.
That's important news.
Ugh.
The news today, of course, front page of the New York Times is the senator who had an affair.
Wow.
Gee whiz.
That's the headline.
Yeah.
It's sad.
That's ridiculous.
So we've gotten pretty close, once again, to the true bullshit of how the world works.
We've talked about Monsanto.
We've talked about the financial system.
We've talked about Tony Hawk.
Tony Hawk.
We've talked about the non-conviction of Bernard Madoff.
This is usually the point where I would say, I believe in aliens.
They will come to save us so that the government doesn't reach out and put two in my head and the gun in my left hand.
Instead, I think perhaps we should ask people to send us some money because we're now actually in danger with the type of stuff and the type of real news that we provide on this program, John.
I like the paranoia.
I think that because we're podcasters, essentially, we're just marginalized.
Nobody takes us seriously anyway.
And we definitely need some donations because it's actually dried up.
So go to Dvorak.org slash NA, and I'll have the new page up today, which will have some other plans on it besides the ones that are listed so far today.
Dvorak.org slash NA. And I'll send you a copy of that HTML file that you can put on the No Agenda library site.
Yes.
And I've received a couple of different emails from people saying, you know, I really don't mind sending you money, but perhaps you should, like, tell us what you spend it on.
And it's okay.
We haven't spent it on anything so far.
Well, that's the problem.
You know, people say, hey, spend it on the No Agenda jump jet.
That's fine.
You know, just spend it on something.
We could put it into a fund for jets.
No, I'd like to pay my rent with it, if you don't mind.
That's what I was thinking.
Actually, what we need to do is we need to buy the bandwidth of the connection, the rent.
Yeah, that's what it's going to get spent on eventually.
Yeah, it really will get spent on stuff that we privately pay for at the end of the day.
You know, rent, Comcast bandwidth, batteries.
Oh, man, I go through so many batteries on this show.
And also dinners, because we haven't been reporting on too many restaurants of late.
Do you think, can we do a dinner this coming week?
Is that, are you around?
Because I'm around.
I should be around.
Now, do we dare take Mickey or should it just be you and I? Because I don't want to get into another fight.
Well, Mickey, you know, it hasn't, I mean, I want to, you know, I would like, but the problem is it always deteriorates.
Yes, it does.
Here's the thing that happened.
I was actually hanging out at Rosie O'Grady's after I did Cranky Geeks with Mickey and Molly Wood.
Oh man, you had the babes!
Yeah, both tall blondes and I'm sitting there.
It was the same kind of thing as the dynamics started to change and I would start to argue with Mickey about something.
Molly would take Mickey's side as opposed to she was the girls beating up the guy.
When we're there, the guy's beating up the girl.
So it's like, you know, it's probably, we probably should put it off.
We should skip one, you know.
I think you and I should just have dinner.
She goes shopping with Molly.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's what we're going to use your donations for.
Expensive.
It's a good use of your funds.
No, but seriously, this is an audience-supported program.
And may I just point out that we really bend ourselves into all kinds of...
Of shapes and really work on making this a regular, twice a week so far, scheduled program.
Here we are, I'm in New York, in between meetings.
I've got 15 minutes to prepare for the next conference call.
Sunday morning, we're both going to be getting up early, our otherwise free Sunday morning.
And we do it because we really love doing the show, but we need to be compensated for our time.
And that's a great way for you to participate so the show can continue.
And who knows?
Maybe one day we'll actually go to three shows a week now that we seem to be keeping it down to about an hour, which I think is a much better time frame in general for the program.
Yeah, because we still have stuff left over.
We can carry over like the Tony Hawk thing was actually from last show.
It should have been on the last show.
But the point is that I know a lot of people listen to the show and really like it.
So show your appreciation.
Because we're not going to do advertisements.
We're not going to be underwritten.
Unless we obviously can't get enough people to contribute.
Yeah, but that'll mess up the show.
Because that'll ruin it.
I don't want to do the show if we have to do advertisements.
We'd rather be begging for money rather than begging for advertisers.
I was going to make another point about that.
Yeah, I don't know.
He doesn't know.
You know what?
I just don't know.
Why don't you play one more last mystery clip and then we're out of here.
Okay.
Obama's not too long.
The short one.
The short one.
Greg Laughs is the short one, I think.
Or scary.
How about scary?
Scary?
I don't know what that is.
Let's play it.
Oh, we did this one already.
Oh, really?
I'm sorry.
Erase that one.
That's the one where the woman says, oh, I was so scary, and she didn't know anything was going on.
Okay, hold on.
We did play that one.
I apologize.
Let me erase it.
Yeah, okay.
I'll think of some better clips.
How about Obama stand-up?
I mean...
Yeah, hit it.
So now, on top of the cost of healthcare and energy and the recovery plan, we've got another fiscal problem.
Fortunately, the lawyers tell me that Hillary's ready to settle.
That's a good one.
I have to admit, though, it wasn't easy coming up with fresh material for this dinner.
A few nights ago, I was up tossing and turning, trying to figure out exactly what to say.
You can hear him launch into the line, can't you?
You can hear him launch into it.
That's awesome.
The guy delivers.
Finally, when I couldn't get back to sleep, I rolled over and asked Brian Williams what he thought.
That's so funny.
Okay, that's enough of that.
That's good.
I like that very much.
Alright, what dinner was that from, do you know?
That was another, you know, it wasn't that major, you know, TV network.
It was another one he did a couple weeks later, which was a correspondence dinner, which had, like, the real working press at it.
Is that the white tie dinner?
No, no.
This was a more casual one.
This was different.
This one had all the normal schlubs.
Well, my friends, we do have an actor as president, and I'm quite proud of it.
I just wish that someone else was writing the scripts, but that's a whole different story.
Remember, we had Ronald Reagan, a true actor.
We have Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He can't be president legally.
But he's a great politician because he's a fantastic actor.
And that's what makes this country great.
And I am quite proud of it.
We just need different script writers.
Fire the writers!
That's what it is.
Don't impeach the president.
Fire the writers.
There you go.
Coming to you from Gitmo Nation, Eastern Seaboard, in a disclosed hotel location with the bendy lamp microphone stand, I'm Adam Curry.
And in a blustery northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C. Dvorak.
We'll talk to you again this coming Sunday right here on No Agenda.
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