All Episodes
Previous Next
May 21, 2010 - No Agenda
02:01:16
201: The Reluctant Spy
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
What garbage.
Adam Couring, John C. Dvorak.
It's May 21st, 2010.
Time for your Gitmo Nation Media Assassination Episode 201.
This is No Agenda.
Constantly dodging two to the head.
And coming to you from the Hilltop Watchtower, Crackpot Command Center, Gibbo Nation West, in the People's Republic of Southern California.
We still have power in the morning.
I'm Adam Curry.
And Adam has left northern Silicon Valley, and so its sun is shining and things are bright.
I'm John C. Dvorak.
It's Crackpot and Buzzkill in the morning.
It's true.
I'm there for three days.
Rain.
Yeah.
It's infuriating.
There's no rain today.
It's beautiful out.
Yeah.
Well, it's beautiful here, too.
The last couple of times you've come up here, you brought the rain with you, but there was no rain to bring.
How did you do that?
Yeah, no, there was rain on Monday.
It was really bad in Los Angeles.
So I brought it over on Monday.
It hung around for a bit, and now it's gone.
All right.
Well, maybe you should travel more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, there's an idea.
More travel.
I have to say, I was on Southwest last night.
I love that airline.
Why?
Well, because they have a very cavalier attitude about their passengers.
Basically, hi, we don't care about you.
Sit down.
And I like that.
And then they always do the fun stuff on the PA announcement, which I think is really good.
Not always, but often.
And if you have someone acting like a child...
Yeah, no, they had a new one.
It was guys.
It was a full guy flight.
Should there be a drop in air pressure, Dolce& Gabbana oxygen mask will drop down in front of you.
And then he did like, please breathe normally.
That should sound something like this.
So that was funny.
And then on approach into Burbank, we had a lot of crosswinds.
So it must have been about 10 minutes of, you know, bumpy, you know, just like really bumping all the way down.
And, you know, it kind of gets quiet.
And, you know, obviously I'm a pilot, so I don't give a crap.
And then, let's say, like three more minutes to run, the guy comes on and says, just as a courtesy, the barf bags are located in the seat pocket in front of you.
Like, that's really good because people get really, they get nauseous basically because of anxiety and, of course, the motion sickness as well.
But the whole plane was like, ah, you know, we just relaxed and felt good for a moment.
Yeah, that's the way it should be.
They adopted that, of course, from the original PSA airline, which PSA used to be.
There used to be a couple of carriers on California called PSA, and I think it was Western, the only way to fly.
Was it Piedmont?
Was that a part of that?
No, Piedmont wasn't around here.
And I think that was in the south somewhere.
But anyway, there was Western Airlines and PSA. And all of a sudden, U.S. Air and United decided that they had to get into this commute business between San Francisco and L.A. And by the way, this is going to happen to the high-speed train, too.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And so U.S. Air bought PSA and ran it for about a year.
The planes had a big smile painted on their face.
Oh, I remember that, sure.
Oh, there's several of them, yeah.
Yeah, there's several of them.
They're probably documented someplace.
If someone can find them, I'd like to see them.
Anyway, so they banned that.
And then within a year and a half, they just discontinued the whole...
They just basically dropped the whole thing.
It was just like walked.
It was too good.
And then United took its Western stuff and kind of incorporated it into the regular flights, and they didn't really...
At the end of the day, there was nothing came of it, and we ended up losing two good carriers.
It just sucked.
Southwest came into the market, you know, copying kind of the PSA model.
The CEO will say that.
And, you know, just does a great job.
Hey, did you see the all-star celebrity benefit for Iowa last night?
For Iowa?
Yeah.
You didn't see it?
No.
Well, of course, because there was none, even though the whole place is flooded.
Oh.
See, no one knows this.
Iowa, it's like Katrina there.
Iowa is completely flooded.
Houses washed away.
They're demolishing houses because they're all jammed up against bridges.
And no one knows about it.
I did a Google News search.
Only local news.
And the pictures are astounding.
It's like the Ninth Ward.
And someone sent me an email.
I was like, what?
I didn't know this was happening.
So that's why I laid my trick question on you, but I'm sure you're Googling it right now.
Yeah, but it's just talking about the 2008 Iowa floods.
No, no, no, no, no.
Please.
Please.
Iowa Flood Watch 2008.
Well, what are you Googling?
Iowa Flood.
I'm Googling Iowa Flooded.
No, just do Iowa Flood.
The California Zephyr.
Here, do Iowa Floods 2010.
Well, I guess they flood enough that nobody cares anymore.
Yeah, but this is, you know, they've got pictures of like an Arby's, you know, all the way up to the roof.
Hmm.
I'm looking at it now.
The Des Moines Register has some good stuff.
Yeah, exactly.
Hey, I'm just like, how twisted are we?
Well, let's see.
Who's is it?
A Republican or a Democrat running in Iowa?
Yeah.
But still, you know, these people need help.
No.
No!
Oh, gosh.
I'll see if anyone in the chat room is from Iowa.
I guess there's no money there.
I guess there's no voters.
Well, they can't soak the American public with some, you know, faraway place.
But I still think that, you know, we had the big thing for Haiti.
I think we should have an Iowa all-star celebrity jam.
But no.
We should.
No, of course we won't.
Of course not, because you can't scam the money.
Exactly.
There's no way to...
There's no way for...
Shysters show up and take advantage of people's goodwill and generosity.
So the thing is, is Culver, Chet Culver, is a Democrat, so he should be able to get some action from the Obama administration, but I guess not.
Maybe because Obama doesn't like Presbyterians.
Hmm.
I don't know what a presbyterian is.
Nobody knows what a presbyterian is.
My parents at one point were Unitarians.
Oh yeah, Unitarians are the ones who, it's kind of a...
There's a bunch of, yeah, Unitarians don't believe in the Trinity.
We went to the Unitarian Church on Sundays, but then we'd also, on Easter, we'd go up on a hill and then watch.
No wonder I'm so messed up listening to my childhood.
On Easter Sunday, we'd all drive up before dawn, so not even crack of dawn, before that, and as the sun came up, someone played Cat Stevens' Morning Has Broken on a cassette player.
Yeah.
No wonder I'm messed up.
The Unitarians typically...
The Unitarian Church in Berkeley is the one that has the craziest speakers.
It's the crackpot church, basically.
There you go.
At least around here.
Now I get it.
Well, I have found some interesting things going on in my little corner of Gitmo Nation, John.
Do you want to make a few announcements before we do that of our producers?
I think that's an excellent idea.
Do we have an executive producer for the show?
Yeah, we have an executive producer and one, two, three, four, five associates.
Oh, nice.
Okay.
But that's curiously about pretty much all we got.
Yeah, I think we tapped everybody out.
We're done.
People are like, I got that deuce thing.
Screw them.
Let's see.
Anyway, I want to thank Dwayne Mellencon from Tiggard, Oregon.
He felt a cosmic urge to donate the other day on a flight from Portland to Newark, New Jersey.
Not a train ride.
That would be ridiculous.
No!
How can I ignore a signal like that?
Coincidentally, I just heard you talk about how Montgomery Santos, Monsanto, has just donated 5510.
This is my second installment toward knighthood.
Oh.
I never thought about the Monsanto thing.
Montgomery Santos.
Well, you know that the Haitians...
Monsanto sent tons and tons of genetically modified seeds to Haiti.
Yeah.
We talked about that.
So you know what the Haitians are doing?
They're burning them.
Good for them.
They're doing a whole thing.
What did they send?
They sent 475 tons of hybrid corn seeds, vegetable seeds, and the MPP. Has committed to burning the seeds and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti.
Interesting they have a presence.
I guess they said...
Apparently the Haitians have more gumption than the American public.
Hell yeah.
So June 4th, which is World Environment Day, they will be staging an open protest against Monsanto.
But I guess they have a presence there.
So here's the seed and here's 10,000 of our guys.
They will help you plant it.
And we got also Jack Burns from Charlottesville, Virginia, $250, and he wants to thank you for not making a snide comment about something or other.
And Firas Althebani, A-L-T-H-I-B-A-N-A. Say that again.
Firas?
It's probably Althebani.
Althebani?
Yeah, Firas, and he's in Ridya, Saudi Arabia.
Oh, cool.
And he was complaining about the fact that we didn't mention that nobody...
He says, stop with the Arab racism, which of course wasn't.
He said, because we mentioned Israel only had one listener, and we didn't mention the one listener.
And so that's racist now all of a sudden?
I don't know.
I think he's misguided in this commentary.
All right.
We have more viewer mail, which I'll read later in the show.
LW Corporation in Telluride, Colorado.
LW Corporation.
That's $200.
And John Brown in North Vancouver, B.C. He wants to congratulate us on the show.
He wanted to be added to the Deuce Club, but I think we've closed the Deuce Club.
So he's going to be an associate producer instead, as will Mark Rieger, who gave us $200 in Munich.
He's out of Munich, Deutschland, and he wants to be de-douched.
Oh, my pleasure.
You've been de-douched.
And that's it for this week.
Even though we kind of pre-announced their status, I think our house band, Weezer, is without a doubt the official PR associate of the week.
Of course, I was twittering as I was watching them on George Lopez tonight, the show that had Donald Trump on as a guest, and there was Pat Wilcox, who I guess is like a part of the touring band.
For Weezer.
And he was dressed up in his bunny suit with a crown and an in-the-morning sash, which was pretty awesome.
Although hard to see, really, in the way the director decided to show the band to the public.
Oh, my God.
I mean, come on.
This is back to the late 80s.
Yeah, I was like, hey, I've done shows where the director does this stuff.
Yeah.
Not very good.
No, it's very, very rube.
So, we highly appreciate the support from our associate executive producers, Jack Burns, Firas Altabani, LW Corporation, John Brown and Mark Rieger.
And, of course, our executive producer for episode 201 of The No Agenda Show.
By now, you know the deal.
This is career changing.
In fact, you can consider your life changed because John and I are the life changers.
Dwayne Mellencon, as our executive producer, please feel free to put that on your resume.
It has been known to get you jobs.
It looks official because it really is official.
Now go out and propagate the formula.
Our formula is this.
We go out, we hit people in the mouth.
And here we go.
Word.
Order.
Mickey, say it with me.
Shut up, Steve.
The chat room goes wild.
You get something to do.
Yeah.
Okay, so we got a lot of news this week that's kind of odd.
Yes.
And I also have a number of clips from the Miss USA propaganda extravaganza.
This was outrageous!
I mean, there's so much in this Miss USA thing.
I mean, it really is crossed over from pure entertainment of looking at hot chicks to actual subject of political debate.
That's all subject.
It was actually ridiculous.
And the funny thing is, you know, I want to say this to all, you know, of any, of course, the likelihood of any Miss USA candidate ever listening to us is probably pretty low on the scale.
I would say when that happens, it's time to quit our day jobs.
Then we know we're in, baby.
But, you know, there are probably ten overlooked women that are as hot.
I mean, all the girls look great.
I mean, from all the states.
So, I mean, so picking the top five.
They never picked the best-looking five.
And they always try to get one dummy in there.
There's probably at least five or six or seven of the women that were just overlooked because they...
You know, I think they do...
This show is rigged.
I think they do...
Will you be able to take a year off?
No, I'm going to law school.
I can't take a year off.
There's probably about five to ten girls in there that are probably close to being geniuses.
Yeah, they have PhDs and they're extremely intelligent.
Just because a girl's good looking doesn't mean she's a dummy.
In fact, the likelihood is the opposite.
And there's probably a bunch of them.
So they had to find the five.
And the five they brought up, of course, they got the one multi-culti girl, which they gave the award to, which seemed kind of suspicious.
And is she a Muslim?
Well, you know, that's interesting because at first she was supposed to be a Muslim-Christian combination of some sort.
But she is a Muslim, yes.
Because I got reports from Gitmo Nation Lowlands, and I actually put it in the show notes, that say, quote, America is very proud that they're so integrated now that a Muslim became Miss USA. America is proud.
Yeah, she's the second queer girl to win this thing, apparently.
The first out-and-out Muslim, but she's, you know...
I don't think that became a big issue, but I'm almost thinking this thing is like a setup for some future event where she's going to be touring.
She's going to tour around.
She's going to be in the Miss Universe pageant.
I can just imagine somebody, quote-unquote, attacking her and becoming a lot of news and more publicity for Trump's organization.
Which is pretty much what he does.
He's basically a promoter, the P.T. Barnum of sorts.
And I would say, and you can put this down and make a note for the, I told you so.
Okay.
This woman is going to be, there's going to be an incident.
And she will be decrowned.
No, I don't think that's going to...
I think the decrowning thing may be put off because they already showed her by a stripper's pole and I think that's not going to...
I don't think the decrowning is going to happen.
I think she's going to be attacked for not being an Islamist.
Oh, she doesn't wear a burqa.
And she shows off her body in a bikini, which is going to cause a problem and it's going to cause a lot of attention.
And of course, when it comes to the Miss Universe show, where she'll be as representative of the USA, it'll get a lot of attention and get more viewers.
So this is a scam waiting to happen.
Mm-hmm.
So, that's the way I see it.
Alright, so we don't want to do any clips now, right?
If you want to, I mean, we can get into the Miss USA contest.
I really don't care.
I think it's too light.
There's too many good things going on, like the use of prison labor now by the Indians and their outsourcing.
What?
Wait a minute.
So the next guy I get on customer support could be an inmate?
I'm having you on customer support.
Can you help me escape?
I have a couple of catch-up stories.
And I also have stories about catch-up.
But I have some catch-up stories which are...
Bye, darling.
Have a good time.
Which are rather interesting.
Trains first or planes?
You choose.
Let's go with...
Alex, planes.
You want to go with planes first?
Okay.
So, of course, we know by now the meme is planes bad, trains good.
Let me just...
I'm going to go down the list of horrible plane stories because, you know, they really suck.
They pollute the atmosphere.
The...
The airways are full, and you have to take your shoes off, according to our president.
So the planes just blow.
And then I'm going to play you an audio clip, which is, I think, astounding.
So first of all, news now that from the audio recording, the cockpit voice recorder in the Polish president's plane, which crashed and half the government perished with him.
Prior to landing, there were two, well, one identified, but there were two other people in the cockpit...
And the way the BBC spins the story is they were probably pressuring the crew to land.
Yeah, I'm thinking.
Let me tell you one thing.
When you're landing, you don't want anyone in the cockpit.
Everyone shuts up.
There's like no talking going on because that is the most intense moment of the entire flight.
And there's not going to be people visiting.
Like, oh, what a perfect time to hang around the cockpit.
Of course, it's very difficult to hear what they are saying on the cockpit voice recorder, of which no data has been released.
So I think we can officially call that a full-on two-to-the-head.
I noticed two cartridges fall today.
So that's just kind of a side note.
A plane crashed in Afghanistan, which no one heard about.
Completely underreported news, including several British nationals.
We don't know who, and there's no further reporting on it whatsoever.
In Kabul, 44 people on a, does it say what kind of aircraft?
No.
So there's nothing.
We don't know anything except they were British nationals, so that's...
Suspicious.
TSA news.
Scientists question safety of the new airport scanners.
I think this is a plant.
This is on our National Treasure NPR. This is probably just to scare you more about the whole flying experience, but indeed, you know, there's, of course, no data if these things are safe for you or not.
And then we've got this guy who I do not like for the Wall Street Journal, Andy Pastor.
And this guy, he's got to be on the Hill of Knowlton payroll.
I'm just going to call him out.
He is reporting on two incidents which are not reported by the NTSB, who, of course, all incidents are reported to the NTSB, no matter what it is.
He's claiming that twice, planes took off and they forgot to start a couple of their engines and they had to abort the takeoff because they couldn't get enough speed due to lack of power, obviously, which, by the way, I don't think is completely true depending on the type of aircraft you may still be able to take off.
And he's reporting it like, oh, this is horrible and it's crazy and it's because pilots are distracted.
They're distracted by economic pressures and thinking...
What?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
What?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Concerns about the engine blunders come at a time when pilot professionalism, particularly among flying crews for commuter carriers, already is under public microscope.
The safety board is advocating, among other things, voluntary programs to get pilots and controllers to take greater responsibility by establishing self-regulating standards of conduct.
Now, there's this whole thing.
Wow, that's a bogus story.
Yeah, but the guy is, I think, I really believe, he lives in Los Angeles.
I should look him up.
Who, Pastor?
Yeah, I should hit him in the mouth.
So, you know, and it's like, let me tell you something.
When you're taking off, I just happen to know about these things.
That's why it irritates me when I read these stories.
You know, like, you've got four engines, let's say.
It's worse if you have two.
You know, oh, I forgot to start an engine.
And there's two people up there.
Yeah, and there's a checklist, and it just doesn't work that way.
You know, it's like, you know, if you notice when you, before you take off, the captain will push the throttle forward a little bit, and then he'll push it all the way forward.
And that's, A, so the engines don't fly off or get ripped off the wings, because you don't just want to hammer it metal to metal, as we call it.
But then the minute they do that first little bump, they're looking at all the gauges.
They're looking at every single engine, all the temperatures, the N1s.
And then when you go, then they're waiting for airspeed indicators.
I mean, this is a well-known procedure.
Every pilot does it.
You're not just going to forget and then actually start rolling and, oh, hey, we got no speed.
I forgot to turn on the engine.
Bull crap.
Bull crap.
Bull, bull, bull crap.
That is a bull crap story.
And then I love this one.
Hill and Knowlton, they're really trying to screw the airlines.
From USA Today, they had a couple of stories.
One, airline cockpit fires prompting emergency landing.
And I have not heard of this yet, but apparently on some aircraft, I think it's air buses, the windshield heater can catch fire.
So, you know, there's the fire and fire, right?
It's not like maybe something's smoking and that's possible, but this doesn't seem like a huge problem.
It being in USA today, I'm suspicious.
But this one caught my eye.
Power outlets for coach airline passengers, tough to come by.
So the whole thing is, if you're a business traveler, yeah, it really sucks to be on the plane because you can't get a power outlet.
Yeah, I might have to dry your hair.
And then this is my favorite.
It's an audio clip.
By the way, what's news about that?
Well, there's zero news.
The whole thing, it's setting you up.
I mean, we've never had power outlets.
I mean, they've tried them two or three times.
I know United had them for a while, and then I think somebody else has got them.
They're on and off again.
Anyone who's been traveling a business class or first class or whatever over the last decade...
Has not seen a consistent carrier that has power outlets.
And some of them have those little crazy laptop plug-ins, like a car cigarette lighter.
And half the time those aren't working.
This is not news.
No, but it's a setup.
That's why.
It's a PR release from Hill& Knowlton.
No doubt about it.
That's why we've been bitching about laptop power for ages.
Even Microsoft came out with a little thing of their new Hotmail service and you see people on the train because it's so handy on the train.
Anyway, Robin Maiden is a friend of mine.
He's a captain on some big iron for Delta Airlines, and he does a couple of podcasts.
And he also does an internal podcast called Delta Flight Ops 411.
And I really appreciate what Robin has done because he can't just do stuff.
He went the official route with Delta, who apparently are reasonably cool.
So whenever he does one of these, he has to go through channels and get it approved.
It takes a while to get these things out.
So this report goes back to right after the original Ashmageddon incident.
And he interviewed...
The chief meteorologist for Delta Airlines.
This is the guy who was responsible for basically keeping these pilots and passengers safe for the airlines.
You've got like army data.
I mean, the guy has got a command center that's awesome.
And so, you know, the perfect guy to go and talk to, I've got two short clips here, just about a minute, about the realities of Ashmageddon closing down all air travel in Europe because of the Icelandic volcano, yes, the ash cloud.
Here's the first clip, which is interesting to listen to.
Now you said you were basing some of your charts on actual satellite imagery and on some proprietary military information.
So was there real data that they were using at the VAAC, or were the airlines getting real data?
What's the difference there between the two approaches?
It's a real good point.
It was completely theoretical that the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center was using.
They had no observational information that was being plugged into the model.
And they didn't have a process for verifying their theoretical dispersion.
Also, they didn't have any measurements at the volcano summit regarding the volume and content of what was going up in the air.
So they did the best they could, but it was all assumptions.
Okay!
So they made it up.
Sounds like global warming.
Yeah, well, it's the same people who brought you global warming.
The Volcanic Ash Advisory Center is a part of the Met Office in the United Kingdom.
Now, Robin asked a very smart question because, of course, he was flying when Mount St.
Helens blew up.
Like, the whole side of that thing blew off, right?
Oh, yeah.
So how do we compare the Icelandic eruption to the one?
It's Portland, right?
Mount St.
Helens?
No, it's outside of Seattle.
It's outside of Seattle.
Sorry, here we go.
Now, on a relative scale, how does this volcanic eruption compare to one that I remember, you know, Mount St.
Helens?
It pales in comparison to the volume of ash.
The whole side of the Mount St.
Helens was completely blown off and there was much larger volume of material pumped up into the atmosphere.
How was the impact to the airspace of Mount St.
Helens as compared to the impact to the airspace with this one in Iceland?
That's an excellent point to look towards on a comparison on how that was handled.
The area right around Mount St.
Helens airspace was not used.
There was a plume that close to the eruption area was avoided.
But...
There was no closing of airspace over the entire U.S., and the authority and responsibility of the airlines to identify that area and make a judgment call on how close to operate to it was left up to the airlines.
There you go.
So Iceland pales in comparison...
Yeah, and I remember the St.
Helens shutdown.
The Iceland shutdown appears to be going past 800 miles from the volcano, which is the distance essentially from Seattle to San Francisco.
And in the case of the Mount St.
Helens, it pretty much was the only area that was a no-fly zone was between the mountain itself and Spokane, which was, I don't know, 150 miles or something like that the most.
And the rest of the area was pretty wide open.
So this is, yeah, I think this is something else going on.
This is a bogus situation.
Well, the only thing I can think of is it's to destroy the airlines.
You know, another shutdown occurred earlier this week.
We still haven't gotten to the bottom of this.
I mean, why is there a worldwide effort?
Well, I think, you know, Richard Branson is the only one in Europe really being vocal, which of course is really his job.
And he's saying, this is bullcrap.
This is total, total nonsense.
There's no reason you have to shut down.
There is no danger.
And he's getting no play.
You know, when he jumps off a building with a playboy on his back, you know, it's like, oh, Richard Branson's so kooky!
But when he actually says something that's intelligent, you know, they give him no airtime whatsoever.
And I think they're out to destroy him, destroy, if not just him, certainly the airline industry.
This is a huge, huge dent.
For an already severely depressed industry.
And I think it's just more of, it's dangerous, and now it's costing them real money.
Where's Boeing, and where's Pratt& Whitney?
Where are the voices from our American industries that are going to suffer from this?
Now, the only time I heard anyone from Pratt& Whitney was right after the thing.
Some engineer came on, and I don't know if it was official or unofficial, and had a hairy, scary story to tell about if the stuff got into a jet engine, it would...
It would grind it to powder, which I thought was interesting.
Yeah, well, they actually talk about that in the full interview, which is about 11 minutes, and it's linked in the show notes.
Yeah, I think the exact quote was, yes, it can provide more wear and tear on the aircraft if you actually go through a bit of the cloud, but it's not like you're falling.
No plane has ever fallen out of the sky and crashed because of this.
And essentially, if you can see it, then don't fly through it.
But this thing is not at 37,000 feet.
It's just not.
It goes up like 20,000, 25,000 feet.
Flight level 250.
So you can fly over it.
So it's politically motivated one way or the other.
And there's no questions being asked.
Where are these guys from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center?
Get these guys out.
Put them in the stockade for a second.
I want to talk to them.
So, I believe the only thing I can come up with is...
We use computer models we think are very accurate, and we're all for public safety.
It's better to be safe than sorry.
Shut up, slave!
Take the train.
It's better to be safe than sorry.
I remember we used to do a bunch of, when I was at InfoWorld, when the early days of using a computer on an airplane, because the laptops were starting to come out around 1983 or something like that.
And there was always these meetings, and the FAA banned laptops.
You couldn't use them on the plane because it would cause the plane to crash.
Better to be safe than sorry!
And then everyone would come up with evidence that says, there's no evidence that does any of this.
and they always would come back, well, maybe, but it's better to be safe than sorry.
So clearly it's politically motivated.
Part of it, I think, is just bringing transportation together in the United States of Europe, because that's exactly what it's resulted in.
All the transport ministers now have yet another panel they can sit on and drink tea.
And it's meant to crush the airline industry.
And I fully admit I'm biased because I think flying is still a great mode of transportation.
And of all the links I have promoting train, I will only discuss one.
And this is local to us, John.
As California's new high-speed rail authority...
I love that.
The authority of high-speed rail!
Has offered a very nice package to its new executive director, Rulof van Ark.
He is currently president of a subsidiary of the French company that constructs trains for the TGV high-speed line.
He will get $375,000 a year, plus a $75,000 signing bonus for becoming the The new chief of the High Speed Rail Authority, which is, now is that a commercial gig or is that a government gig?
It sounds like a government gig.
I bet you it's not.
So what's interesting though, I'm like, okay, well that's a lot of money, but what's interesting is that is half his paycheck of what he's making currently.
I'm like, why would this guy do this?
Stock options.
Yeah, well, what you want to look at is where he was before his current gig.
Okay?
So what's his current gig?
Well, his current gig is, as they say, a subsidiary of the French company that constructs trains for the TGV high-speed line.
That sounds innocuous.
You're like, eh, whatever.
French crap, right?
But then if you look what he was doing before that gig, president and chief executive officer of Siemens Transportation Inc., president, executive director, turnkey transportation systems, Siemens AG.
Before that, joint managing director, Siemens Limited.
Before that, general manager, executive director, Siemens Limited.
I wonder what company will get the contract.
And do you think he's got any stock options in Siemens, Inc.?
I would hope.
So, that's what we call a good find.
A good get.
That was a good one, yeah.
A good placement.
So, the fix is in.
There you go.
Yeah, well, that reminds me...
So, I've got a couple clips coming up in today's show, and I think now might be a good time to play one of them.
Just to give people...
Since we've already...
Thrown into this mix of a kind of a government somewhere along the lines have decided to screw the airlines and make us think train, at least until they build out this thing and nobody wants to use it, which is what's going to happen.
Because let's face it, nobody wants to take a day to get to Chicago when you can get there, or a day and a half when you can fly there in three and a half hours.
It's just not going to happen.
It's stupid.
I won't take the train.
I mean, what are you going to do?
Smelly old train?
Slip on the Depends and plug in your laptop.
So there's an interview that took place afterwards, a C-SPAN show that comes on the weekends.
Oh, wait a minute.
Do we need to play our clip here?
There's going to be one of them for sure.
I hate it that hotel rooms don't have C-SPAN.
It's very difficult to live.
laughs For us?
For us, yeah.
You can watch it on the computer.
I had my iPad.
You can't watch it on the iPad.
They only have Flash on the iPad.
Well, that's just too bad, isn't it?
So, they had a guy, a former spy, it was 1990 to 2006, I think, with the CIA, seemingly pretty nice guy, a very funny guy, named John Kirikou, and he was being interviewed by another CIA guy.
It was hilarious, these two CIA guys, but they were obviously trying to get some shots.
They were trying to get a little bit of info out there without grabbing two to the head.
Yeah, but they were taking some shots at the government, basically.
And there's a couple of interesting clips, including one that we were going to play at the end of the show, which is a little too long, it's almost five minutes, that will make your hair stand on end, where they go after the FBI with an anecdote that is just like, what are we doing?
Cool, cool.
But anyway, to start at the end, he has a story to tell about why he quit and when he quit.
It's called The Big Lie.
And I found that this is an example, since we just talked about how there's a concerted effort to screw over the airlines, and it always comes from high up.
And we might as well play this clip and just listen to how that worked during the Bush administration.
Wow.
Well, we haven't got a lot of time, but I think let's take this narrative through your succeeding jobs and what you came to conclude that caused you to leave the agency.
Right.
I was blessed with a fantastic onward assignment once I finished in Pakistan.
I went to work as the executive assistant to one of the associate deputy directors, not really realizing at the time that he was named associate deputy director in order to coordinate the agency's participation in the planning for the Iraq War.
So on my first day in that job, I was read into a compartment that was shocking to me.
Once I signed my secrecy agreement, the officer who read me in said, here's the deal.
Next March, and this was in August of 2002, next March we're going to invade Iraq, we're going to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and we're going to open the world's largest air force base so that we can move all of our air assets out of Saudi Arabia into Iraq and deprive Osama bin Laden of the ability to say that we're polluting the land of the two holy mosques.
How many months before?
This was like six months before?
More than that.
It turns out that he even predates it a whole year.
That's so awesome.
The big airport.
This is before the whole WMD thing.
Oh yeah, this is still...
Oh, gee, you mean that was a setup?
No, you can't be honest.
Which is what he calls Saudi Arabia.
And I was so stunned.
All I could think to say was, but we haven't caught Bin Laden yet.
And anticipating that response, he said, it's a done deal.
The decision's been made.
We're going to invade Iraq.
Well, it turned out, the associate deputy director with whom I was working, told me that he had been informed in March of 2002, a full year before we went into Iraq, that this decision had been made.
The senior officer went on to tell me that we were going to go to the United Nations by the end of the year.
We were going to pretend that we wanted an international coalition.
We knew that the Chinese, the Russians, and probably the French would oppose us, and that we were prepared to go it alone.
So we were going to wait until the spring and do it in March.
My goodness.
And that became my job for the next year.
That is so fantastic that this is just on television.
Yeah, well, we're the only ones, and our listeners feel the only ones hearing it.
Yeah, it's like, we're now coming up on the ninth anniversary of 9-11.
Yeah.
And it's like, oh, by the way, this was actually planned ten years ago.
Ha!
Ha!
This is just outrageous.
Working with the agency to come up with its response.
And as you point out, that just meant that we were taking our eye off the ball in Afghanistan and the whole effort to find...
Osama, and we were opening up another can of worms.
I thought at the time it was a terrible mistake.
And I'll say one other thing.
Inside the agency, as word began to get around, as we got closer to the March date, and Vice President Cheney began talking publicly about some sort of connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, we began calling it the big lie at the agency, because all of us knew there was no connection.
Let me get back on my chair.
Wow.
That's just so outrageous, isn't it?
So this really plays into the almost generally accepted theory amongst crackpot circles in which I travel that the whole 9-11 was an inside job.
I mean, doesn't that make sense now?
Well, no.
Actually, he's got a 9-11 story, too, which would make it sound that it's not an inside job.
But the idea was, I think the thing that's kind of disturbing is that two things that he brings out.
One is that we're going to pull out everything we had in Saudi Arabia and move it to Iraq because bin Laden wanted that.
Yeah, exactly.
He's telling us what to do.
Yeah, because, you know, don't pollute the land.
And the other thing that was disturbing is that they took, like they said, they took their eye off the ball, whatever their ball was in Afghanistan.
And, of course, now that's costing us billions of dollars because we have to go back and the Taliban's, you know, rebooted, as it were.
And it's just the whole thing is a fiasco over there.
Now it's just a drug situation.
I think they took their eye off the eight ball.
So, but this guy, I've got this story, I've got the, he has a 9-11 story that's good, and then of course there's the one that we'll play at the end of the show, which is the, to me, is just like, anyone who will listen to this whole show and they listen to this end clip, they're going to shake their heads and go, what is going on with that?
So I want to do the 9-11 now?
If you want to, it's a little...
It's not on the same topic as the airline stuff, but yeah, sure, let's play it.
Know immediately what to do.
I go into this in the book, too, and I think this is important.
I got my first inkling that something was happening because, as I said again, I was working on Greek terrorism and I wasn't at all focused on Al-Qaeda.
Right.
But on July the 6th, 2001, I was leading a group of Arab intelligence officers in the building.
We do this all the time.
It's good for relations.
You do a meet-and-greet with a director or with a senior officer.
You take them to the gift shop and get them some CI... The gift shop?
Oh yeah, I wanted to point that out.
The gift shop.
The CIA gift shop.
Oh, nice.
You do a couple of briefings.
It's good for relations.
Yeah.
And on this day I had asked that...
We need a no agenda gift shop.
We do.
We desperately need one.
...come just to shake their hands and thank them for coming.
And he was very generous in that way.
But that morning he came and he actually sat down, which was a surprise to me.
And he told them, in no uncertain terms, he said, something terrible is going to happen.
We don't know where, we don't know when, but it's going to be an attack on a scale that we've never seen before.
And then he said, Earl Way, Adre, interse.
He said, the mood in the camps is one of jubilation.
We're seeing camp commanders talking to their students and crying on the phone and saying, I'll see you in paradise.
We're picking up code words about a massive wedding or a massive soccer match.
And these are all code words for an attack.
So he leans forward and he says, I beg you, if you have any sources inside Al-Qaeda, please help us disrupt this attack.
Well, it was a stunning briefing.
Chilling.
And at the end of the day, I went back to his office to thank him.
Is this guy coughing up a lung?
The other guy, the interviewer, is constantly coughing.
He's like he's on his deathbed.
Wow.
Yeah, but this is, again, this is just fascinating information.
And the reason why the guy is saying it to the CIA is because the CIA set up Al-Qaeda.
They said it was the Mujahideen to help fight the Russians.
Right.
Stupid.
Taking the time.
And I said, Kofar, I have to ask you, was that for their benefit, or were you serious?
And he said, oh, I was very serious.
He said, Dick Clark and I, Dick Clark was at the...
Right, from American Bandstand?
Social Security Council.
Richard Clark.
Dick Clark and I have been shouting this from the rooftops, and no one will pay attention to us, but something terrible is going to happen.
And then sure enough, two months later, there was September 11th.
And that comes out in Dick Clark's book.
It comes out in the 9-11 Commission report as they were assessing the tidbits that were coming in.
George Tenet with his hair on fire, remember that?
Right.
Analogy.
Knowing something was going to happen, but not having the time, date, place kind of thing.
Yeah, that's pretty astounding.
That's pretty astounding right there.
And then, you know, I wasn't actually going to mention this, but not to belabor it.
If you go to, and I'm a member, pilotsfor911truth.org, just to remind you that the professional pilots from that organization They acquired the flight-recorded data from American Airlines Flight 77 through a Freedom of Information Act.
Of course, now it's like the NTSB and the FBI and the CIA. I'd give it to those jabronis.
No one cares.
No one cares.
So they decode it, and we've already been through the, you know, this is the plane that got blown out of the sky, according to Donald Rumsfeld, but he meant, of course, they flew it into the ground where there's no hole in the ground.
Right.
So they decoded this information.
And there's a parameter, a data parameter, and you can download the CSV file with all the data on it, labeled FLT Deck Door, Flight Deck Door, and the door does not open during the entire flight.
Yet somehow some hijackers got into the cockpit and flew the plane into the ground.
Hmm.
Yeah.
WTC7 won't go away.
I said nobody cares.
When you listen to the last clip, which will be at the end of the show, it's about five minutes long, it might actually verify some of the more crackpot theories because you have to ask yourself, and I'll just set it up with a huge teaser.
I don't like doing them.
But you have to ask yourself why what he's describing occurred.
WTF is the first thing you think of.
Okay.
So anyway, okay, so onward.
Yes.
As we depress the audience.
Well, I think the audience is going to...
The whole point of this show is not to depress, but to show you that if you just keep your ears and eyes open, you can find out exactly what's going on.
We help you along with that.
We help you deconstruct some things.
We show you how...
And this is really how intelligence works.
My family background is in some of these services, to say the least.
And it's more important to control the messaging and what people believe than to actually go around sniping people in the middle of the night.
This is the real work of intelligence, is to change the perception, get people to believe stuff, and then label the rest crackpots.
Right, it works.
Yeah.
So, we're at the donation point here.
I think we might take a break.
Unless you want me to play the one kind of funny clip that I have?
Yeah, let's do a funny clip and we'll go straight into donations.
Actually, let me do a couple of clips here.
I'm going to do the funny clip, then I'm going to do a clip that will lead us into one of the things I want to point out to people.
Okay.
Okay, here's the clip that I watched.
We've been playing ads for all these different drugs and all the problems they have.
So I decided that there's an ad for Regulin, which is a product that's not on the market anymore, and they're suing people.
They have a class action suit.
And so this is an ambulance chaser ad for Regulin.
Here's what you want to listen for.
Listen to the symptoms that it causes and think to yourself, wow, would I love to be in the court when these people came up to testify?
And what is Regulin exactly?
I don't know.
Important medical alert for heartburn, GERD, and gastrointestinal patients and their families.
The prescription drug Regulin, also known as metoclopramide, has been linked to a rare and serious condition called tardive dyskinesia.
Symptoms include lip smacking, pursing, and puckering, grimacing, rapid eye movements or blinking, constant movement, foot tapping, and restless leg syndrome.
If you or a loved one has used Reglan and experienced any of these symptoms, you may be entitled to substantial financial compensation.
Call now for a free case evaluation.
You know, I know someone who has these symptoms.
I'm not kidding.
You know him, too.
He does it in all the meetings.
Yeah, I think most people in meetings do these things.
Wait a minute.
What is Regulin?
Regulin is like something for heartburners.
Oh, my God!
He's been a lifelong acid reflux patient.
Play the symptoms again.
Oh, my God.
You know who I'm talking about, right?
Do I? Yes, you do!
Okay.
Oh my God.
Important medical alert for heartburn, GERD, and gastrointestinal patients and their families.
The prescription drug Regulin, also known as metal clopramide, has been linked to a rare and serious condition called tardive dyskinesia.
Symptoms include lip smacking, pursing, and puckering, grimacing, rapid eye movements or blinking, constant movement, foot tapping, and restless leg syndrome.
If you or a loved one has used Regulin and experienced any of these symptoms, you may be entitled to substantial...
I'm telling you...
I don't recall the lip smacking.
Yes!
And I know he was looking for something for heartburn.
Well, that would be it.
Tell him to get in on the lawsuit.
Get in on that class action.
Oh, my God.
Oh, that's astounding.
I was waiting for anal leakage.
That would have completed the trifecta.
Grimacing is one of my favorites.
Grimacing.
You know the guy!
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
I want to play a clip before we thank our donors for this week and request more help.
This is the kind of thing that you get when you have normal television playing anything.
This is the reason we don't like advertising.
This is taken directly off the air.
With no...
There goes a garbage truck.
Can you hear it?
Yep.
It must be Thursday.
Why can't they put...
Why do they have to be so noisy?
Anyway.
It's like leaf blowers.
This is...
Believe me, this is unedited.
Taken right off the air, during a dramatic moment in the movie V for Vendetta, just before the character is going to...
Which is, of course, a great movie.
It's a great movie.
By the way, I want to mention to our No Agenda Book Club people, we want them to put movies, available through Amazon.com on DVDs, in the list, and this would be the first one.
V. Anyway, he's having his little meeting with the woman.
And this is like a moment.
And this is the clip taken directly from the TV. I edited nothing.
This is the way it plays.
On television.
On television.
I have a gift for you, Evie.
But before I give it to you, I'd like to ask you something.
Would you dance with me?
Now.
On the eve of your revolution.
Revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.
I'd love to.
Thanks to the new Venture Card from Capital One, we get double miles on every purchase.
So we earn the ski trip twice as fast.
We get double miles every time we use our card.
I'll take this.
Double miles, Adam, quick!
And all of those?
So we brought the whole gang!
One adult, one goat, please!
Oh my god!
There's goats!
This is like a seminal moment in the movie.
And also, there's goats coming at you.
I mean, no wonder we're a confused species.
This is pathetic.
This is why people want to take ads.
This is what you get.
Now, here's another one.
I don't want to belabor the point, but I will.
Please.
So, I had all my clips done last night.
So, when that happens, I'm bored in the morning.
I've got nothing to do.
In the morning.
So, I decided to sit down and eat breakfast while watching the Today Show.
I'm just going to go over this.
Today's show apparently has no real show, even though Meredith makes $5 million a year.
This is an actual rundown.
After they left a mediocre package that looked like it was prepared by somebody else on how great repo men are in this down economy.
So they go into a batch of commercials.
I'm going to read the rundown of the commercials just quickly, one after another, until they actually get back to the show.
Can you handle this?
Do we have enough time in the program?
Here we go.
We start off.
These are all 30s.
There's one 15-second and then two or three 60-second commercials.
Starts off.
Carnival Cruises.
Different person.
Food you never get to taste.
Robin Hood movie.
Second commercial.
Robin Hood movie.
Number one in the world.
Go into Aquafresh.
Isoactive whitening.
Go into Kashi.
Some sort of grain food you can eat.
Then an advertisement for Clean Coal.
Then an advertisement for the Chevy Traverse.
Seats 8.
Then an advertisement for the number one comedy in America.
Just Right.
Never heard of it.
And then they go to a quick hit of the Today Show just plugging themselves.
These are two more commercials.
One promoting the Statue of Liberty special they're going to do next on the show.
We'll be right back after this.
Then they cut back to the commercials right after, first these messages, of course.
So then we go to a house ad that talks about the Today Show Toyota Summer Concerts with Justin Bieber.
We go to a Target ad that's also sponsoring Toy Story 3, so it's a co-op.
Openform.com, I thought.
60-second commercial, actually, for American Express.
Then we go to Days In Best Value.
Then we go to Lipitor, where the guy had a heart attack at 50, and his son turns to him and says, yes, you should listen to your doctor.
And that's a 60-second ad where you should listen to your doctor's the real message.
Letters to Juliet movie comes after that.
Two NBC house ads, one for the news and one for the Today Show.
On to the Toyota Tacoma lease ad.
Then an ad...
Then we cut to the local.
They switched to the local and they have a local ad for some guy running for Congress, Sam Blakeslee.
A quick hit on Action News 8, which is a local station in Salinas, with just two quick news item hits and then a couple of graphics.
Then they cut back to a Tony Rappas local ad and then to the Alejo, another guy running for office ad.
Back to the Today Show crowd sitting there.
Pushing the next thing they're going to have on the show but not actually going to the show, promoting the Statue of Liberty.
Then the Dalai Lama.
Then they cut to a commercial for the winner of the Harry Potter contest of some sort.
I'm not sure they get a free ticket or something.
Then they go to their own little news bit which only has one item of news right back to the Prince of Persia commercial.
Breathe Right after that.
Purina Dog Food after that.
Clean Coal, ad number two after that.
Comfort Inn, another one.
Then Loctite Glue, Capital One, that same ad we just heard from the movie V. And then Shrek 3 ad hooked into McDonald's again.
Then back, they're finally back to the show.
What kind of programming is this?
What kind of programming is this?
Well, they're programming ads, apparently.
It's just ads.
It's ads and ads.
And anybody who watches the show, just try to flip around.
You flip the channel to channel.
It's just more ads.
This is pathetic.
This is what we're trying to avoid.
And anybody who thinks that we should be doing advertising...
Go ahead.
They're clinically insane.
It's all about things that bring in grief.
Yeah, it's pretty bad.
So that was like a 10-minute block if I counted.
No, longer than that.
It was longer than 10 minutes.
It was a good 15 minutes.
Well, actually, with the...
No, God knows how long it was.
It's like the whole show is just ads.
There's no show.
And do you think...
Well, you know what?
It works.
I'm sure someone's going to go see Robin Hood, and we're going to go buy some Lipitor, and we're going to, you know...
Gladiator in the woods.
So...
So we only have a few donors here this week, but let me mention them.
First of all, we forgot to mention Mark Koolin.
Yes.
Koolin.
Koolin, and from...
You can pronounce the name of the term.
Weideness.
And he wanted to plug for his company Seed Care Seed Productions, which is not a Monsanto affiliate, he is quick to point out.
And he was a deuce donor, right?
Yeah, he was a deuce donor, as was Sir Kent Zeiser.
Oh, yes.
Well, we did pretty good.
I mean, I have to say, all in all, our administration is doing okay.
But for this week, we really did poorly, considering we did an extra show and we really got nothing.
We got Louis Pitts from Greensboro, North Carolina, sent us $97.
Daniel Jackson sent us $55.10, and he's got a happy birthday that we're going to do in a second.
He's from Melbourne, Australia.
Good support there.
And then Marwin from Port Moody, British Columbia.
Ricky Pierce from Sydney, New South Wales.
Robert Alter.
John Petrucchini and Laurie Corpy, who are actually part of the night layaways.
These are all night layaways except for Marwyn.
And Marwyn says that this is a donation on behalf...
And those are all $50.
This is a donation on behalf of our friend Kevin Liang, who's a long-time and loyal listener.
Please mention that it's his birthday.
Oops, wrong one.
So his birthday is May 20th, so that was yesterday, Kevin Liang.
And then we have Daniel Jackson, a true happy birthday.
Her first trying to make newborn Chloe your youngest Minuteman slash girl born May 16th, right after the last show.
Happy birthday, Chloe!
And of course, John and I didn't do it.
I mean, Create Chloe, that is.
So, thanks to everybody who donated.
And we do have a night.
Yes, indeed.
And I think this is one that we missed.
So, this will be a black night.
Actually, this is quite a special night.
He's not only a night noir, but he's been donating proceeds from the Pocket No Agenda app to the show.
Adam Burkpile, please step up.
Uh, hold on a second.
Do you have, uh...
Oh, I got mine here.
You got yours?
Yep, there it is.
Okay, unsheathed.
Adam Berkpile, as creator of the Pocket No Agenda app, the donations you have, uh...
Contributed to support No Agenda have equaled your knighthood status.
So we hereby knight thee, Sir Adam Burkpile, knight of the No Agenda Roundtable and apps.
Please join for all the hookers and blows.
It's cool.
And, you know, he's going to keep going.
He's not going to stop.
Oh, yeah.
Actually, he should do better and better as time goes by.
Well, it's also just an outstanding app.
I mean, it's the one I use, I have to say.
It's just a really good app, and I really dig it.
So yeah, we didn't do all that great, I agree, in donations.
Certainly not as good as some other programming from our national treasure.
Did you hear about Frontline?
Yeah, they got another 7-8 million bucks or something like that out of the blue for no good reason.
So they could do more mini-shows.
Well, yeah.
That's what I think is going on here.
So Frontline, by the way, has often outstanding productions.
But I think now they're turning it into Ministry of Truth.
Probably what's happening is...
What's her name here?
Patricia Harrison, who, by the way, is a former PR executive.
That's her claim to fame.
She and her husband had a huge PR agency.
You should look at her Wikipedia page and put it in the show notes.
She decided to hand over almost $7 million so they could produce more programs.
Here's what they will be doing.
New episodes interspersed throughout the year will include three stories an hour, not the usual hour-long front-line investigations.
In other words, hey guys, you've got a great brand.
She even says it here, they've got a great brand, but you're getting a little too close to the truth, so could you just do some fluff pieces?
Do three shorter fluff pieces.
Yeah, this is based on the Frontline World show that was going on for a while, which I think was the test for this, what people put up with it.
And they tend to be done by very independent producers on extremely low budget and not really that deep.
In March, the Public Broadcasting Corporation, which administers federal funds for public broadcasting, federal funds, can I just repeat that?
Federal funds, your tax money, so not donations, this isn't even Monsanto, said it would make a separate $7.5 million available to set up seven regional reporting projects that would be collaborative efforts between public radio and TV stations.
So the Ministry of Truth is expanding, is the way I read this.
Well, there's also, if you go to the blog, and I think I sent you a link to these, or maybe some of the stories coming in about Kagan now.
Oh, yeah.
And the Obama administration actually wanting to pretty much control all free speech, the internet, pamphlets, posters.
They want to literally censor all these things.
There's a couple of elaborate stories on it.
It came before the Supreme Court.
She was grilled about it.
Essentially, everything short of book burning was in the mix.
Even the book censorship thing was soft-pedaled.
There is a...
The Obama administration apparently, if you listen to the right-wing talk, guys, they hint about this.
They think the following.
They think Obama's extremely sensitive to criticism, doesn't like it, one iota, and would just as soon put the kibosh on all this crap that he has to put up with, somebody criticizing him and his wife.
And so that's...
I think that this is all part of this, you know, kind of...
I mean, we can see it.
We see it with these stories that we're doing on the show twice a week.
Every story here is suppressed.
It's pretty outrageous.
I'm reading this right now.
There's a link in the show notes.
Explosive report shows Kagan supports censorship of TV, radio, posters, and pamphlets.
And the internet.
Yeah, it doesn't quite say no agenda show, but...
One of these days, someone's just going to come out and say, we've got to get these guys in the morning.
We've got to get rid of them.
Just a quick, some viewer mail from Venezuela.
Let me plug the word.
No wonder we don't get any money.
We keep forgetting to tell people how to support us.
That would help.
Noagendashow.com.
Go to noagendashow.com as many times as you can.
Dvorak.org slash NA, which is the No Agenda donation page.
Noagendashow.com.
Channeldvorak.org slash NA is an alternative page, but dvorak.org slash NA is the main page.
If you can't get to any of these things, go to the noagendaproxy.com, and you can go anywhere through that guy.
So we got some listener feedback.
Normally I say it's a producer note.
A note from the producer.
But this is actual listener feedback from Otto from Venezuela.
And this note is not entirely safe for work.
But I do want to read it to you because it is basically directed at you.
Although he starts off with, Hi Adam and John.
On show 199, you call the president democratically elected of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela an idiot.
And not only that, you called the majority of the population of our country idiots?
What the fuck?
Don't insult if you don't have a clue about our country and what our president is doing.
Free education, free healthcare, and many, many other things he is doing for us.
You're insulting the country that the US empire fucked up the ass 50 years long.
Have any of you two been in Venezuela?
And better, you talk about conspiracy theories and stuff.
But you have not realized that our President Hugo Chavez Frias is proving all the things you talk about and call him an idiot for.
I love your show, but don't insult us and inform yourselves better about Venezuela.
Please don't misinform because I know your job is to inform.
I don't have a jingle of the show, but the President's name on Sundays is called Allo Presidente.
Yeah, he has a show every week.
Love the show.
Let me know if you need any information about Venezuela.
I'd be glad to help.
Can't donate yet, but once I get a job, I will.
And below some links about Venezuela.
So first of all, he's clearly...
Well, you know, the thing is, Chavez was targeted by the economic hitmen.
They tried to kill him.
And it was after that that he went kind of nuts.
Alo, Presidente!
You can't blame him.
In the morning!
In fact, you can't blame him for being the way he is, but he's not a good guy.
No, he's not a good guy.
So here's another piece of mail, this one from a producer.
I don't know if you read this, this is in the spreadsheet.
In the morning to you gents, found something interesting.
Ah, this is ah, no, Adam's earthquake is real, question mark.
I was watching Violent Earth on the National Geographic Channel Explorer show.
Apparently at 1930 in the show, a Soviet rocket engine fired off through a magnetic field and created a quake by accident while they were studying alternative energy systems.
This is a very real Soviet earthquake machine.
The U.S. military bought the machine after the Cold War ended.
Where is it today?
Unknown.
We don't know.
He didn't tell you anything.
Says the National Geographic narrator, you're not going to get a more impartial recognition that this thing is real than the National Geographic.
Well, maybe.
Well, look.
Listen.
Hear me now, believe me later.
Of course these things are real.
You played the jingle.
This is the bogus playing of the jingle.
It's not a misfire.
It's not a misfire.
It's a misfire.
Honk, honk, honk.
So the United States of Europe is in deep peril, and it's now gotten to the point where first the plan was, of course, unless you're living under a rock, they even mentioned this maybe even on the NBC Today show, that you might have heard there's some financial issues going on in Europe after this.
Remember how good it was to install this Lisbon treaty and make it all one happy place on earth?
So first, the call was, hey, you know, with all these different countries, you know, because now we've got to bail everybody out.
We've got a trillion dollars lined up.
We need to be able to look at your books like they hadn't done any diligence before.
They hadn't?
No, of course not.
We need to look at your books to make sure you're playing by the rules.
Well, no one liked that, of course, because everyone's cooking the books.
And so now they're saying, well, you know what, we need to have more regulations and Brussels needs more control, which is exactly, I should play the jingle here, which is exactly what was predicted, exactly what this is about.
And now in Gitmo Nation East, in the United Kingdom, where we have a new government, we also have a new chief secretary to the treasury, David Laws.
And so, you know, we got new guys coming in and, you know, as is typical, you know, they'll leave their predecessor, in this case, Liam Byrne, will leave, like, some information behind.
coming in.
And this clip is kind of funny because it was on a talk show, I guess.
I don't know which one in the UK.
And the new guy, the new Secretary of the Treasury, David Laws, received a note from his predecessor.
A note from your predecessor, Labour's Liam Byrne, saying we've run out of cash.
Yeah, well, I had to chuckle when I received it.
I thought when I got this note and the civil servant said, you know, your predecessor has left you some advice, I thought, how kind of him.
This must be about how to deal with other ministers, about the complex way of making decisions in the Treasury.
And it was just this very short note which said, dear Chief Secretary, I'm sorry to have to tell you the money's run out.
And it was honest.
I mean, I think most of us knew that from the public Are you saying the money has completely run out?
Well we clearly have a massive deficit so it's more than run out.
What would you write back to him?
I would thank him for that very honest advice.
You talked about this on the last show.
No, we didn't talk about it.
I told you about it at lunch.
See, this is why we should not talk about anything.
I know.
I even said I shouldn't.
By the way, that proves, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, listening in, this is why you don't do pre-interviews.
Exactly.
Because I would swear that if somebody had quizzed me, I'd say, oh yeah, you talked about it on the last show.
Would you mind telling us briefly, John, about your...
You told me about something, and I just want you to relate the story, so we can do a true media assassination on CNBC, which you were bumped, you were thrown off.
I get bumped all the time on CNBC. Well, tell our producers why.
Because, of course, you were going to promote the show, I'm sure.
Actually, I haven't done that yet, but one of these days in the morning gets on CNBC. Since I write for MarketWatch, I've done a lot of CNBC, and of course, they're supposed to be putting us on Fox Business, but if you have the choice, you don't want to work Fox Business.
No one's watching.
No one's watching, but the real important people do watch CNBC. Every stockbroker in the world's got it on constantly.
But the thing is, these little segments they do, and they have the two people in the boxes, are essentially rigged.
They make a decision on what the issue's going to be, and then they start calling people up and asking them what they're going to say, and you can tell what they want you to say.
They say, well, do you think it's just a terrible thing that they're doing this?
And they say, no, I don't think it's that terrible.
Okay, well, we'll use it next time.
So what did they want you to do?
Well, they wanted me to...
They were going to talk about Apple's only taking cash, and I explained to them why that probably was.
Not taking cash, you mean?
Right, they're not taking cash, they're only taking credit cards for the iPad because they're trying to monitor who's buying them, and they won't let anyone buy more than two of them because they're going right immediately to the black market and being sold in South America and Europe and Asia.
Although I'm sure the bootlegs are coming out of Asia anyway.
So anyway, so I was grilled.
Apparently, my job was to be, I think it's an invasion of privacy.
Apple is a terrible company for doing this.
Okay, so the producer calls you up, and he asks you what?
Because this is the pre-interview.
He says, He says, we like to talk about the Apple thing.
What do you think?
And he just kind of hints around what I think, and I give him a lecture about what I think, which is that I think the only real issue is that it's legal tender to have a dollar bill to buy something.
How is Apple bypassing the treasury?
I mean, the whole system, I think it's illegal what they're doing.
That was going to be my comment.
He says, well, he kept asking me, do I think it's an invasion of privacy?
So he wanted me to say, yeah, it's an invasion of privacy.
But I couldn't say that because I didn't think that's what they were up to.
I thought they were up to just a database just to keep tabs on the sales.
I didn't honestly believe it.
And since I didn't honestly believe it, when I go on these things, I generally...
I mean, I can sometimes...
Anybody can do this if you have...
You're kind of on the fence.
You can take either side of an argument, which is ideal for these shows because they can give you...
Nobody wants to say that I'll say it.
Because sometimes you can say it because you don't really have a strong opinion.
But when you don't really believe in something...
Why bother?
You don't need to be on CNBC that bad.
But it's the way he blows me off.
It's like...
What do you think is an invasion of privacy?
No, I don't think it's an invasion of privacy.
Then it goes like this.
You know, I think we're going to go with an analyst.
I love it.
Because otherwise, Erin Burnett, I mean, she would have been so confused.
The irony was Erin wasn't on that.
They had some substitute British.
Oh, nothing lost then.
Who I've never seen.
Yeah, with Erin not there.
Why do this show?
No loss.
Who cares?
Oh, all right.
That's good.
I don't know who this other woman was.
If it was one of the other women I've met over at the studio, it would be kind of fun.
But this woman, I've never seen this one before.
She must be from CNBC World or something.
It has a thick accent.
More proof that the Codex Alimentarius is real and spreading.
From Gitmo Nation Lowlands, a TV report, and I've put a link to it in the show notes.
It won't do you much good if you don't speak Dutch, unless you're in Holland or South Africa, you're screwed.
But I thought the title of the report was pretty good.
And this is like a half-hour report.
Salt is a sniper.
It's a sniper.
It's killing you, I tell you.
This is the most amazing phenomenon I've ever seen, this salt thing.
Yeah, and there's a couple more links.
We have not isolated the PR agency behind it.
Well, you don't need to.
Well, you know, you're right, because global warming, of course, is the same type of setup, set up over years and years.
By the way, the next...
And global warming is still in Nolten, by the way.
Yeah, and the next global warming conference will be in Cancun, Mexico.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that's why Obama had Calderon over, setting him up, getting him ready.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it's clearly a setup, and I'm sure that the Codex Alimentarius Group will want to hire a global agency soon enough.
I would be stunned if they don't have one.
Yeah, I haven't been able to find it yet, but this thing has been building for a long time through the World Health Organization, the United Nations.
Yeah, but this recent salt thing has got somebody behind it.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know.
I mean, all I'm identifying...
They always do.
You can't get this much publicity without a public relations agency.
The newspaper guys aren't going to go out and dig this stuff up.
The government is incompetent at promoting stuff.
It has to be a big public relations agency.
We have to figure out who they are.
Okay, so that is the task, the homework for our producers to find out what the PR agency is behind the assault on salt.
By the way, Boar's head...
We got a picture from one of our producers, Kevin.
He's got a sign in the cafeteria that says, Boar's Head, our assault on salt continues.
I mean, you need salt.
And there is a counter thing, the Salt Institute, which of course everyone is now, they're becoming the big tobacco of the salt war.
Yeah, big tobacco.
Let's have a public hearing.
Oh, there will be.
Oh, yeah, there will be public hearings about salt.
I understand you've sold 25 tons of salt last year.
You bastards, you're trying to kill us all.
I don't know what it is.
And the New York Times is all over it.
They're trying to speculate.
They're saying, oh, who benefits from less salt?
The Tabasco industry.
Right.
Could be.
But I think, John, I really...
This morning, as I was going through the early morning in the morning routine...
I thought, you know, maybe it'll crop up.
Maybe a Monsanto-type company or someone is going to have something all of a sudden, and we're going to go, oh, brother, I can't believe it.
It could happen.
Because they've got to come up with something.
Well, I know that they have this new salt, the different kinds of flakes that somebody's working on, so that could be it.
No, you're right.
We'll just keep an eye on it.
Yeah, I'm almost becoming jaded, you know?
It's so funny.
It's so funny to watch.
You just sit there and go like, of course.
That makes total sense.
Why not?
You're turning our army of listeners into the same sort of...
Although a lot of people still aren't quite thinking for themselves because we get notes every once in a while that make you shake your head.
Yeah.
There's a good story that came in from Australia.
They're pushing the porno thing now.
Did you hear about that?
Yeah, I did.
And I actually had it in my list.
Apparently now on the sheet, I haven't seen one.
Someone should send me a scan.
I want to see a scan of this.
The incoming passenger card which you fill out.
The incoming passenger thing where you check the boxes.
Are you bringing in more than $10,000?
Are you a terrorist?
It says, are you bringing in pornography?
Yeah, which is like, oh crap, I've got my laptop with me.
And what's pornography is still the issue?
Is it just a naked person, a picture of a naked person, that pornography?
Well, we know that if you have a picture of a naked person where you actually see them atomically correct, as we played on the last show, where you see a female labia, that that would be deemed pornography according to their rules.
You know what this is, John?
This is the whole doublespeak coming up.
This is a very good point, actually.
What is pornography?
It is not being determined on this card.
Yeah, no, it's just like, it's just vague.
This is the way you want to do, by the way, you want to make it so everybody's breaking the law all the time.
This is the Soviet approach to controlling the public, which is that no matter what you do, you're somehow breaking the law.
So you're always subject to arrest, you know, under all circumstances, because there's no way.
To give a story, when I went to Russia for the first and only time, I hope to go back, But this was before the fall of communism, and they had all these rules.
And one of them was you could not have any Russian money outside of the country.
I brought a couple of rubles.
Of course, we all did.
Of course, which means to me I was a criminal.
But the joke of it is that you couldn't have any...
Money outside of the country.
And when you went to the airport, there was like a line where you're like in the country and when you were out of the country.
And the only way you could get a cart to put your baggage on, the carts were outside the country, but required inside the country money.
Whoops.
So to get a cart, you had to break the law.
Hedy Johnson...
So walking right into Russia for the first time, you broke the law.
You broke the law.
Hedy Johnson, chief executive of child protection group Bravehearts, agreed with Patton...
I'm not quite sure who this is...
The question was too broad.
She said it should apply only to illegal pornography.
Quote, if it said child porn, I'd be 100% behind it.
If you're carrying child pornography, then you deserve everything you get, she said.
The issue has, and this is something we've got to research, the issue has echoes of the 1956 detention of famed British conductor and composer Sir Eugene Goossens.
Who had his bag searched upon his return from Europe.
He was carrying material that was considered at the time pornographic and his reputation was subsequently ruined, forcing him to flee the country.
Apparently the term pornography is not referred to at all in the Federal Classification Act which customs relies on to classify the material.
There you go.
Yeah, this is...
This is the...
We got a jingle.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
We love you.
No agendas.
Double speak of the week.
Naked is porn.
It's a little lengthy.
Let me read you a story from Everett, Washington, which is kind of like a classic example of doublespeak and making, doing one.
This is a woman, apparently there's a number of these, you know, in Washington State, because it's a very boring area, to stay awake, they drink so much coffee.
So everyone's just downing coffee constantly so they don't just fall asleep while standing.
So there's, you know, Starbucks and Seattle's Best and everybody's up there making tons of coffee.
Pizza.
And there's a bunch of these, to keep your eyes open, there's a couple of these so-called bikini baristas, which are women who wear bikinis, and then they make an espresso.
So let me just read you this.
A bikini barista who had faced a prostitution charge...
Wait until you get to that part.
She's allowed to serve her time under home electronic monitoring.
She also ordered the woman to be fully clothed, no bikini or lingerie, when she works at an espresso stand.
The 21-year-old had been charged with prostitution after detectives photographed her licking whipped cream off of another barista.
That has nothing to do with prostitution.
Hello?
That's a big doublespeak right there.
Four other baristas charged after a lewd behavior investigation last year at the Grab and Go espresso stand will have charges dropped if they stay out of trouble for two years.
So basically, you've got a girl in a bikini and another girl in a bikini, and one of them sprays some whipped cream on the other girl, licks it off, now she's a prostitute.
Can you believe this?
Yes.
It's very hard.
How does licking whipped cream off of somebody make you a prostitute?
Did she exchange her money?
I mean, this is bogus.
This is unbelievable.
This is what's going on here and Australia and probably most of the world with this craziness.
I saw something interesting.
Where is it?
In California, I think.
I don't know if we talked about this.
Governor...
Who's our governor here?
No, no, wait a second.
This is governor.hughesforgovernor.com.
Hughes.
Who's this guy?
Douglas R. Hughes.
I guess he has no chance, but I guess...
Is this the guy running in California?
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, this is the guy.
Oh, this is, yeah.
This is Mint.
This is Mint.
So, as your governor, my number one promise...
By the way, we have an $18 billion deficit in California.
And by the way, Schwarzenegger's our governor, by the way, if you don't...
I know he's running for government.
That's why I stopped myself.
So we have an $18 billion deficit with the grease of the United States.
My number one promise to you as governor is to remove all pedophiles from the state of California.
Sounds good, right?
So what's he going to do?
By the way, he says, we can do this.
We as parents care about our children.
They are a gift from God.
It's our responsibility to keep them from harm.
Okay, absolutely.
Currently, our government places pedophiles in prison.
After short sentences, they're released back into our neighborhoods to rape our children.
How mentally ill can one government be?
Why should Californians tolerate this practice?
So he has a plan.
As governor, I will introduce legislation to impose mandatory expulsion of convicted pedophiles from the state of California.
By the way, a pedophile is not necessarily someone who has sex with children.
That would be a pedosexual, to be really correct.
So a pedophile, I think, can be broad.
The pedophiles in the state of California will have three choices.
One, leave our state of California permanently.
Two, remain in prison for life.
Or three, live on Santa Rosa Island, a self-supporting community for pedophiles and sexual offenders.
This is amazing.
And this guy, by the way, is the creepiest looking man in the world.
He's probably already got a house there.
He's like, I'm going to have a cool pad.
And this is next to, in between Santa Cruz and San Miguel is where Santa Rosa lies.
And he wants to build a community.
This is crazy!
So they can exchange tips?
I don't know.
It's like...
This is just another loser running for governor in the state of California.
I would like you to just talk about...
You posted this at Dvorak.org slash blog.
As you know, there were a lot of states that boycotted Arizona.
Oh, yeah.
And this, by the way, this Arizona thing is going to turn right into the national ID card...
We're all going to be Gitmo-ized with this.
It feels like a let no good crisis go to waste.
Like, oh, okay, those guys in Arizona, they screwed up.
Let's take this and turn it into a bill that we can, like, attract people.
Because, you know, we don't want to, like, just because of the way you look, we want to identify you through RFID or something like that.
You watch.
You watch.
Yeah, no, that's going to happen.
You watch.
So, uh...
Any excuse.
So, Los Angeles...
Came out publicly and threatened and said, we're boycotting Arizona.
And what was the exact quote?
It was kind of funny.
It was not to...
Do you have the PDF file in front of you?
Yeah, I do.
I'm opening it up here.
Okay, the quote from Los Angeles, by the way, that's Mayor...
How do you pronounce it?
Villaraigosa, I think is how you pronounce it.
While we recognize that as neighbors we share...
resources and ties with the state of Arizona that may be difficult to sever our goal is not to hurt the local economy but to impact the economy of Arizona Our intent is to use our dollars or the withholding of our dollars to send a message.
So that's what L.A. said to Arizona.
Yeah, so much for states' rights.
Yeah.
Which is guaranteed in the Constitution, by the way, and all these actions that these cities are taking are completely un-American.
Gary Pierce, Commissioner of the Arizona Corporate Commission, sends a little note back.
I have a link to the Dvorak blog so you can read it there.
He says, We're good to go.
If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power arrangements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation.
I am confident that Arizona's utilities will be happy to take those electrons off your hands.
I'm saying rolling blackouts are on the way.
Good.
Oh my God.
This is crazy.
This is...
I thought it was genius.
Well, it is genius.
It's like a big middle finger, like, screw you.
But just, wow.
So, on another topic, I ran into...
There's this broad...
I keep seeing this commercial, and I had to finally record this...
Because it's a sense...
I've never seen this done before.
You know, Broadway show tunes have become parodies of themselves.
I mean, the Simpsons do them.
Family Guy does them to a lesser extent.
But they have a certain sound to them.
It's a Broadway show tune.
Right.
And they're not very effective...
They're happy.
That's not what they sound like.
But they're not very effective as advertising vehicles.
And there's this one, they keep playing it.
I keep, why are they playing this Broadway show tune?
And I've seen this ad about five or six times.
And when you hear it, you go, oh my God, it sounds like a Broadway show tune.
But you can never remember what the ad is for.
And then when you finally realize it's a lame AT&T ad, you kind of say, well, they're just wasting their money.
But I want to play it.
Because people have heard this ad, I'm sure, if they watch television at all.
And they will never, they will not, except now that I've mentioned AT&T, will never identify.
Because it's a meaningless, crazy ad.
Obviously, somebody who really likes Broadway show tunes, I won't say why, got into the advertising agency and talked them into this idiotic ad.
We'll begin with a spin.
Traveling in the world of my creation.
What we'll see will defy explanation.
Remember when you were five and anything was possible?
Happy fifth birthday again.
Come with me and you'll be In a world of pure imagination.
Remember when you were...
Isn't that the worst?
Isn't that...
Is that from Willy Wonka?
I don't know.
I guess.
Maybe it was a Broadway show tune, whatever the case.
But you can't use a Broadway show tune to sell anything.
Well, they're trying to, you know, the whole appeal is, remember when you were five?
Well, shut up, slave!
That's what they should have done.
That would have been funny.
Remember when you were five?
You're five again.
Slave, shut up.
Slip on the bracelet.
It's from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I told you.
See, I recognize my show tunes.
It worked!
Now I'm scared.
It worked!
I'm kind of surprised anybody would know in any way.
But all I know listening to this is going, why are they playing a Broadway show tune?
Here's another little exercise that people can deal with.
I think this could be, you know those pictures you have when you have, what's wrong with this picture and they show picture A and picture B? Oh, you may know, find the differences as well.
But you can just do with TV shows.
Having knowledge, you can find the difference between facts and crazy bullcrap on bullcrap.
Now, this is a clip from Criminal Minds that has got so many unbelievable assertions about technology and everything in between.
This is worse than making a pixel into a license plate number.
Play it.
Well, it wasn't the cameras.
He remembered to take those with him.
It wasn't the body.
He took that with him, too.
Hey, did Garcia find anything unusual with Allison's wireless?
No, records show that it was a basic DSL installation.
Hey, Princess, help me move this tape.
Yeah.
Where are you going?
I see this line right here.
Yeah?
This is what brings the internet from the street into the house.
Okay, so?
This isn't DSL. It's not?
It's a fiber optic kit.
Whoa!
Completely different type of connection.
We just found this mistake.
There's already an internet connection in the house.
Why does he bring his own with him?
It's the upload speed.
Fiber optic allows him to stream large amounts of video.
And maintain a chat room.
That's dozens of computers connected to him at once.
He'd need a lot of bandwidth for something like that.
We check out the ISPs.
Why do you need to turn on?
I get mail phone calls.
People knock on my door all the time to see if I want to upgrade my internet.
Yeah, I get them too.
And they'll offer to come inside and demonstrate how much faster their connection is.
Dude, did you record the ads after this?
The AT&T ad must have run right after this crap.
I'll tell you, this has got so much garbage in it.
One, they got a fiber optic cable stuck into a DSL wireless router somehow.
I don't know.
Magic with a dongle.
Apparently, it goes on.
They said they also bust them because...
Play the rest of it and I'll tell you to deconstruct it.
Bruce that gets him in the door.
It makes sense.
During his demonstration, he would have access to his victim's computers.
On his way out, he asked for a glass of water, a distraction, something to buy enough time to plant that first camera.
We need to find out what company owns this cable.
Detective Fordham's already hunting that down, and there's an ID number on it, so it shouldn't take long.
There's an ID number on the cable.
Shouldn't take long.
Shouldn't take long.
Okay, I don't know how many cables have ID numbers on, none that I've ever seen, but there's a number of flaws.
This thing is filled.
When does somebody knock on your door?
Would you like to upgrade your DSL? And I can demo it for you?
Ha ha ha!
They do that.
They run a special wire to everybody's house so they can demo how much faster they're...
And the one guy says, oh, they come over.
They come over and they demo how much faster it is.
And the woman says, yeah, that's happened to me, too.
This is bullcrap.
This is bullcrap on bullcrap.
And then to make it worse, at the end of the show...
The guy who's the lead Criminal Minds guy does an Eric Schmidt quote, which I just dropped my jaw.
It's like, what are you doing?
Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google?
Yeah.
Can I play it?
Yeah.
The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand.
The largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.
Eric Schmidt.
He's such a visionary revolutionary.
Don't be evil, Eric Schmidt.
NSA shill.
Get out of here.
Unbelievable.
That's phenomenal.
You know, they're still working on the Federal Reserve Empowerment Act.
Yeah, that's going to go anywhere.
They've already gutted it, haven't they?
Yeah, I think they've pretty much shut it down, but I was watching some of the...
Actually, I think I have here...
One of the reasons for this going awry is because they're trying to put regulations for derivatives.
And I happen to know a lot about derivatives because I built a vanilla swap trading system for Bankers Trust in the 90s.
So I learned it's really not that hard.
The most common form of derivative is basically a hedge.
It's to lower your risk.
An easy way, so some to understand is like oil, as an example.
So you want to, you know, you can get some oil now or borrow it from somebody.
It's basically a contract saying, hey, I'll take that oil from you within the next two years for X amount.
You can do it with money if currency fluctuates.
So you can say, hey, you know, I need some euros and you need some dollars.
Let's swap them and we'll do it at this strike price.
So it's a reasonably...
In business, it's used all the time for all kinds of things, but it has a very bad connotation, so you can't just go and outlaw derivatives.
That would truly stop the world.
You can't do that.
They're trying to put all these derivatives regulations out.
And I tried to find it on the C-SPAN video library because I thought it would be a funny quote, but Senator Judd Gregg said in his speech, he said, the way the derivatives language of this bill has evolved, this is the bill put in by Chris Dodd.
Jabroni.
The way the derivatives language of this bill has evolved is that it just gets worse and worse in an almost incomprehensible and irrational way that is rather surreal.
It's almost as if we were at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, the way this derivatives language is evolving.
And he has a whole bunch of Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland references, like, I guess the Queen of Hearts would be proud of it.
You know, it just keeps on going on and on and on.
But the clip that I found...
This is what the dickheads are doing in Washington.
Expressly put in the bill a form of derivatives that had to be outlawed because it would kill the industry!
Football.
Maybe some Americans can understand that.
Recently, one firm actually proposed, a Cantor Fitzgerald subsidiary, proposed to do futures on movies.
So...
In L.A., they would produce a movie, and then the people on Wall Street would bet on what the opening weekend was going to return, and they would bet on how much money it might make.
This became of such concern to producers in L.A. because they thought, my God, if they start out, shorten us right away, then that's going to depress our investment potential for the movie, etc., etc.
So...
They've actually, in the Senate bill, they're actually banning this sort of derivative.
So they've banned two kinds of derivatives.
One has been historically banned for some reason, lost to the mists of time.
Onions, you can't do them on onions.
And the second would be movies from Hollywood.
But otherwise, you can bet on anything.
You could bet on the weather tomorrow.
I thought that was pretty interesting.
You know, that is interesting.
I used to know the rationale for the onions.
I was going to ask you about it.
I'm sure you would have known.
Yeah.
No, I knew about the onions and I can almost remember it because I heard somebody, probably on C-SPAN or one of the financial channels, explaining it in great detail.
And it actually made some logical sense at the time.
I'll have to say, though, what I find offensive about this is the usage of the word bet.
Like it's one big casino.
You can bet on this.
You can bet on that.
Yeah, that's the meme they want you to do.
Yeah, it's betting.
It's betting.
It's a casino.
It's betting.
It's just betting with you.
It's not.
You need derivatives in global business.
You need it.
It's very, very important.
It just has been the financial derivatives of these CDOs and synthetic CDOs.
That, of course, is...
They just need to pull all these guys down, just put them out of business, get rid of them.
Can we jump to the Miss USA thing before we run out of time?
If you let me do one more thing about the squid.
One more thing about the squid.
Because Bloomberg...
I think I heard you and Horowitz talking about this, you know, chuckling about Goldman Sachs' perfect quarter.
Yeah.
Where they made money every single day.
Right.
Daily net trading revenue topped $100 million 35 times last quarter out of 63 trading days.
So actually it's Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and Bank of America.
This week each said its trading desks made money every day of the first quarter.
Every single day.
Right.
So this guy, Jonathan Weil from Bloomberg, And he posted the calculation, and I wouldn't have given you the story without the actual formula.
He calculated the chances of that happening.
Do you know what the chances are of that happening?
No, it's going to be ridiculous.
One in 5.7 billion.
And four banks did it.
Yeah, that's because the chances are miscalculated when it's rigged.
Oh, I love it.
It's fantastic.
So on Miss USA, I've got a few clips, mainly near the end, but I got the kick.
First, we're going to listen to Miss Michigan give her answers.
The way this starts off is, okay, now we're coming to the hardest part of the competition, they say.
You have to speak.
Exactly.
That's the first thing I say to myself.
Oh, yes, now she has to actually talk.
So...
The girls did fair, but the Michigan one, I clipped it down as best I could, but essentially they have to pick from a jar and some idiot that's a judge, including the most gay guy they've ever had on the show, this skater who is wearing feathers.
Why are we discussing this?
Hold on, I must give you the...
And now, back to Real News...
Why are we talking about this?
Because I like to watch it because this is like, you know, show business at its worst.
In fact, let's skip to the, I'll play the Michigan thing, but the old Miss USA, it was actually a pretty girl, had a walk-off, you know, because she had to come out.
What are we playing, Michigan or walk-off?
Sorry?
Are we playing Michigan first or walk-off?
No, no.
We're going to play the sickening walk-off.
Oh.
This has been obviously so scripted, and she reads this thing, I guess, before she comes down and wanders around shaking her butt, which makes it funny as you listen to this.
And it is the worst type of writing.
They use the overuse of adjectives.
It is a self-promotion for Trump.
It is everything that's wrong with the world summarized in this walk-off.
Well, now to the woman who knows what it's like to take the top prize and deliver life in the spotlight.
As she takes her final walk as the reigning Miss USA, please welcome back Kristen Dalton.
This magical year has been filled with priceless opportunities to meet incredible people, work with dynamic causes, and travel our great nation in so many parts of the world.
Working for the Miss Universe organization has taught me to be stronger and more inquisitive and to encourage young women to dream big and realize that with education and hard work, anything is possible.
I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who helped me grow and to achieve my goals.
To God for my countless blessings and this amazing chance to make an impact on the world.
My family, the best support team ever.
Mama, Julia, Kenzie, Drew and Daddy.
The Miss Universe organization, especially Paula, Lark and Esther.
And Mr.
Trump, you're the world's best boss.
Being Miss USA has been an absolute honor that will never be replaced by any other experience.
But I'm not finished yet, and I'll take everything I've learned and apply it to my next dream.
Working at Wendy's.
My next dream.
I just...
It was a jaw-dropper listening to that crap.
What garbage?
I think...
Was it Miss Oklahoma?
Or is it one of them talked about states' rights and she got...
Miss Oklahoma, play it.
Okay.
Here we go.
Welcome back to the 2010 Miss USA pageant live from Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino Las Vegas.
Now, it's on to our finalist's most difficult challenge at all.
Is this the skater feather guy?
No, that's the guy who's the host.
Oh, okay.
That's right.
It's the all-important final question.
What's the final question?
First up, Oklahoma.
Come on over.
Help yourself to a card.
I'm diving in.
Oh, you hear the applause tape get cut in?
Did you hear that?
Yeah.
Over.
Here it comes.
Help yourself to a card.
Hey, dude, there's a fader on that button.
And by the way, talking about that...
You know that the positives are being turned up and down by the control room because during this question, the guy asking the question has to calm the audience down from booing, but you don't hear the booing, so the audience actually isn't mic'd at all.
So you're saying the booing was put in?
No, there's no booing.
The guys didn't mic the booing and they didn't always have a booing thing screwed up.
In other words, the audience wasn't mic'd, so they couldn't get the booing.
But I've seen clips of her being booed everywhere.
No, no, check.
Well, that was put in later, because here's the real clip.
Okay, just so I know, I saw a clip of the view, and on the view, they show her getting booed loudly.
Loudly.
Well, here's the real clip.
You tell me if this is what you heard.
Okay, meanwhile, I'll go see if I can find the view clip.
Come on over.
Pop yourself to a card.
I'm diving on in.
Not literally.
Okay, judge number two, Oscar Nunez, your question, please.
Hello, Ms.
Oklahoma.
How are you?
I'm doing so great.
Thank you.
All righty.
Arizona's new immigration statute authorizes law enforcement authorities to check the citizenship of anyone they've been in the country illegally.
Now, listen to the question before you boo.
Critics say this may amount to racial profiling.
Do you think that this should be mandated by the state or by the federal government?
I'm a huge believer in states' rights.
I think that's what's so wonderful about America.
So I think it's perfectly fine for Arizona to create that law.
And I am against illegal immigration, but I'm also against racial profiling.
So I see both sides in this issue.
Wow!
Thank you, Oklahoma.
Thank you very much.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
John, I've got to find this freaking clip.
Oh, my God.
On the view, they were booing her!
There you have it.
Oh, crap, Ola.
Hold on a second.
When they turned up the applause on her, which is what they actually did, that was also a tape because there's a whistle in there that shows up.
It just corresponds with a beat.
I mean, I whistle in audiences and the whistle never sounds so perfectly the same each time.
And they had it come in two or three times, that little whistle.
But yeah, no.
The guy says, stop, don't, you know, before you boo.
But there was no noise because the audience wasn't mic'd.
So how did all of a sudden the view get a copy with the audience mic'd?
You don't mic the audience after they've gone home.
Oh my God.
Oh man.
If anyone in the chat room can find that clip, that would be...
We can write it again next week or next show.
Maybe I have it here.
Let me see.
Let me see.
Yay, everybody!
It's The View!
It's Whoopi Goldberg!
Yay!
Oh, it's Elizabeth Hasselbach!
Yay!
So, less than 24 hours after Rima Faki was crowned Miss USA, photos emerged of her...
All right, let me skip past that.
Let me see if I can find the clip of her.
I hope this is the one.
Donald Trump...
This looks like it.
They use that, they say, to get her to say...
All right, it's in this clip.
Hold on.
It's coming up.
Oh, we've got to listen to this, John.
Check it out.
Here it is.
I'm a huge believer in states' rights.
I think that's what's so wonderful about America.
Now listen to what they said.
So I think it's perfectly fine for Arizona to create that law.
And I am against illegal immigration, but I'm also against racial profiling.
So I see both sides in this issue.
Oh, well, she fixed it up.
Because she got booed.
She didn't get booed?
She got booed in that clip.
Yeah, let's A-B it for a second here.
This is actually quite interesting here.
Hold on, where's your clip?
Do you think that they...
Did it sound different to you?
Yeah, they have audible boos in the ones that...
Okay, let's listen to your clip.
All righty.
Arizona...
Mm-hmm.
...illegally.
Now, listen to the question before you boo.
He's even setting up, before you boo, before you boo, before you boo.
Critics say this may, um...
Eh, shut up.
...that this should be meant.
Shut up.
I'm a huge believer in states' rights.
I think that's what's so wonderful about America.
Okay, now let's listen to the view clip.
There was no booze in there, right?
There's a law that cost her the crown.
Check it out.
I'm a huge believer in states' rights.
I think that's what's so wonderful about America.
No, it sounds the same to me.
Nah, there's a little booing and they've also changed the page.
It sounds a little more, it sounds less cheering and more kind of, oh, you know.
Yeah, but it doesn't really matter because they come back to, it was the big woman who sits there at the view table.
The bigoted black woman.
Here she is.
Oh, she fixed it up.
She got booed.
She fixed it up.
Because she got booed.
Did she get booed?
And it sounded like she got booed when she said, I'm four states making the laws.
And then she came.
What state was this in?
I don't know.
I don't know.
See, I can't.
There are six.
I can't take it.
Yeah, line them up and shoot them.
Shoot them!
Two to the head!
Every single one of them!
Hey Whoopi, how you doing?
So Michigan gave her thing, and she added, you know, just a dingbat question, didn't make that much difference.
The Maine girl, the girl from Maine who was like 6'7", who didn't have a shot in hell to win anything, she ended up getting a question from Trump's wife that ended up chilling for Trump.
We can play that one.
Do we have to?
Why?
It's short.
It's fine.
It's funny.
What's Maine?
All right.
Then we've got to stop this.
No, I've got one more because you've got to have the Virginia...
Wait, wait.
Okay, then skip the Maine and give me this one.
You've got to play Miss Colorado because this one came in very close to that girl who started talking about the globe and, you know, we don't have...
You know, this is the dumb one.
By the way, nice outfit change, Johnny.
Your question?
Johnny's the gay guy.
Oh, he had new feathers.
Hello.
Okay, so the question.
A new social networking site has become a place for young people to anonymously post gossip, nasty, and sometimes sexual comments about their peers.
Should such sites be regulated by the government?
I feel that it's hard to regulate these sites, regulate any website, but I feel that we should take it into our own hands to be above the status and to show people that we should be kind and caring to everyone, no matter who they are, what they look like, or what they believe in.
All right, thank you.
You should be above the status.
You should be above the status.
Stop.
All right.
I want to wind it up with a little we told you so moment, although I won't play the jingle until the product is officially on the market.
We've been talking about the eugenicist agenda behind a lot of the people who are pushing the vaccines.
And I believe, because I can kind of recall where I was, I know I was at the minimum containment cell there in San Francisco when we talked about this on the show.
And I said, you watch, the next thing is male birth control vaccine.
And here it is.
Male birth control.
Stopping sperm with ultrasound.
And this story's been out for a week or two.
We just didn't get to it.
Yeah, we blogged it.
Yeah.
That's Bill Gates Foundation.
Yes, it's the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
If you see Bill Gates, go kick him in the nuts.
Will ya?
Kick him in the nuts.
It's crazy.
Anyway.
I believe that is kind of it, John.
Yeah, I think we're done, and I want to remind people that after the music plays, stay tuned because I have a clip of the reluctant spy discussing a very disturbing situation that everyone should at least listen to.
Wow.
Just in time, because you're starting to fade on me through the Skype connection for some reason.
Yeah, good.
So yes, thank you all very much.
Tomorrow on noagendastream.com, of course we still would like to see more support for that.
Dvorak.org slash NAS. FUBAR Friday edition of the Daily Source Code.
Also open source, as is this program.
And until then, I am Adam Curry coming to you from the Hilltop Watchtower Crackpot Command Center in the People's Republic of Southern California in the morning.
And apparently breaking up here in northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C. Dvorak.
We'll talk to you again together for Sunday morning early service right here on
No Agenda.
It didn't make any sense to us.
And as we're driving by, he pointed it out to me.
And he said, you know what we should do?
We should break in there one night and just steal everything they have.
And I laughed and I said, yeah, that would be funny.
And then we looked at each other and I said, you know what?
That's exactly what we should do.
So we went back to Islamabad and Tommy pitched it to his FBI bosses and they gave the go-ahead.
He requisitioned two vans from the embassy motor pool and assembled a team of people.
We drove up to Peshawar, waited until about 2 o'clock in the morning, broke the cheap lock off the front door and went in and just started taking absolutely everything in the building.
Computers, files, cell phones, weapons, money, anything.
Anything that wasn't bolted down to the floor, we jammed it into these two vans and drove back to Islamabad.
Well...
Because September 11th was an open criminal investigation, of course the FBI had the lead here.
So Tommy, not emailed, but cabled the FBI saying, we did it, no problems, everybody's accounted for, got everything, we're going to start going through it.
They said, congratulations, please advise if you find anything interesting.
Well, four or five days later, he came up to my office and he said, you're never going to believe what I found.
It was a file folder with telephone bills in it.
And the telephone bills were written in English.
They were Pakistani-issued telephone bills.
And they documented 168 calls made from the Taliban embassy to numbers inside the United States.
And I mean all over the United States.
Bethesda, Maryland, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Kansas City.
All over the country.
And those calls...
He stopped abruptly on September the 10th, 2001, and then started up again slowly on September the 16th.
So he had a live one.
A live one.
This is the best lead that we had during the time that I was in Pakistan.
Well, he was very, very excited about this.
This was a very serious catch.
And so he cabled the FBI and said, be advised, this is what we've found.
We're pouching the originals back.
They said, good catch.
Please make sure the originals come to such and such an office.
And we were so busy, I kind of put it out of my mind.
Went back to the agency several months later, stayed in touch with Tommy, and I asked him, whatever happened to those phone numbers at one point?
He said, nothing that I know of.
I know that we sent them back to FBI headquarters.
I know that they received them, but I haven't heard any follow-up.
Well, then, a couple of years later, I left the agency, and I spoke to him again in 2005, and I asked him, whatever happened to those Those numbers, were the traces ever done?
And he said, you know, the FBI never traced those numbers.
They said initially that they didn't have the Pashto translators necessary to dedicate to the job.
And I said, but the bills were in English.
They didn't need to be translated from Pashto.
That was the reason why we knew what they were.
And he said, well, all I know is what the FBI is telling me.
They were to parties in the United States.
They were to parties in the United States.
Now, in a worst case scenario, This is terrorists living among us.
Quite.
Or terrorist sympathizers.
It was clear that, and the Bureau, remember, warned us about that.
Indeed.
After 9-11.
They did.
They could have sleeper cells.
Sleeper cells.
Attorney General Ashcroft at the time was very clear about the possibility of sleeper cells in the United States.
And al-Qaeda's leadership had alluded to the fact that there were sleeper cells in the United States.
Well, 2007 finally comes, and I asked him once again, whatever happened to those numbers and the FBI traces?
He said that, to the best of his knowledge, nothing was ever done with them.
And then finally, I ran into a former FBI colleague With whom I had served in Islamabad and I asked him.
And he said that the phone bills were put into a box and sent into an FBI storage facility in suburban Maryland.
▲
Export Selection