Time for your Gitmo Nation Media Assassination Episode 570.
This is no agenda.
Guarding the realities of FEMA Region 6.
From the Travis Heights hideout in Austin, Texas in the morning, everybody.
I'm Adam Curry.
And from northern Silicon Valley, where it's actually really a holiday we're working.
I'm John C. Dvorak.
It's Craig Vaughn and Buzzkill.
In the morning Yeah.
What do you mean?
You mean it's still holiday?
Oh yeah.
We're still working the holiday?
This is actually the day that nobody listens.
It's actually worse than Thanksgiving.
It is.
It is actually, and the numbers prove it.
John, before we do anything, the entire citizenry of Gitmo Nation needs to know how your apple dressing turned out.
Actually, it turned out quite well.
I wouldn't say it's a substitute, perfect substitute for people who like a ready, tasty, sage-infused dressing, normal dressing, but I would say as a substitute, with one correction to my recipe, which I will publish in the next newsletter, for anyone interested, for maybe Christmas, is that the apples, which I used, a variety of apples, actually should be peeled.
As opposed to unpeeled, because the only annoying thing about the dressing is the apple peels.
Right.
They never soften.
Oh, you left them in there?
Yeah.
Oh.
Hey, by the way, can you just check your Skype and make sure you don't have the automatic stuff set on?
Just to double check.
Am I variable?
Beyond the usual, yeah.
You're always a little bit variable.
This is the No Agenda Show, episode 570, coming to you on December the 1st, 2013.
You know, I unchecked these boxes, but there they are again checked.
I know, they check themselves.
And I'm checking you.
Yeah, Skype just wants to do that.
It wants to recheck.
I don't know why.
I have the same thing.
I don't know why it does that.
It makes no sense.
Other than, listen, you stupid user, you don't actually want to do that.
Don't worry, we'll fuck it up next time you start our program.
That's the thing.
Alright, I'm unchecked.
Well, I'm glad you asked.
Yes, my Thanksgiving was weird.
I'm glad you asked.
I said I was unchecked.
I know you didn't ask, but I wanted to move on.
I wanted to get to my sad Thanksgiving.
Just to get on with the show.
Yes.
Now, this was the first year that I came to the realization I was one of the sad people.
Oh, you poor babies.
And I'm one of the sympathetic ones.
So I was invited to a friend's house.
Oh, you poor thing.
All by yourself.
Well, no.
The thing was, when I walked in, of course, everyone had kind of finished eating by around like 2.30.
Let's set this up before we go into this.
There's new listeners or somebody missed the last show.
All right.
So Miss Mickey was...
That's my wife.
If you're really new to the show...
That's dropping it back a little bit too many notches.
Just letting you know.
So Mickey was in Los Angeles.
She was working.
And, you know, she's not American.
We do Thanksgiving, but she's like, whatever.
It basically doesn't care.
And I didn't think I would care either.
And normally, I don't think I would, but I was kind of like, well, what am I going to do?
And so I was invited.
I had multiple invitations, but I got invited by some friends, and they said, come on over, and then we'll take you to the UT game afterwards, and whatever.
Okay, so I had actually prepped perfectly.
I had asked you, what wine should I bring?
You said, no, no, bring champagne, and I got the right champagne.
But because of the post-production of the show, I wasn't there until four.
It's not just post-production.
I wanted to shave and I was a mess.
I'm a mess after this show.
I don't know about you, but I'm a mess and I smell and it's just bad.
How about you?
No, I actually take a shower, I clean up, I put a little bronzer on, comb my hair, a little moose.
Busted!
No, that's when you go to Twit, when you put the bronzer on.
Okay.
So, exactly.
So I'm there, and it's not that far away, but I'm there at four, and I'm walking in, and you can see everyone's, like, belly's full, they're all talked out, and I can see, like, it was all...
Wait, was this a...
You were invited to a Thanksgiving lunch?
Apparently.
Apparently.
Because there was a game, and I'll get to that.
And this was the house of a former Dell guy.
He's now at UT. So nice house.
I mean, this is like, whoa, hello.
There must have been 30 people.
And the minute I knew a number of them, I'm like, oh, this is where all the riffraff and losers with no family congeal.
And I'm walking in with two bottles of champagne like, hey!
And everyone's like, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh.
And as you know, I was promised cowboys and trannies.
Well, well, well.
The cowboy, who was an actual official oil land-owning cowboy, left almost the moment I came in.
And he was the real deal.
This guy...
Hold on a second.
Are you coming?
Well, hold on.
He's so real cowboy...
I have it here.
He has a book out.
You want to Google this.
Barbecue Biscuits and Beans, Chuck Wagon Cooking, Forward by Tommy Lee Jones.
You can't get more Texas Cowboy than that.
He's like, yeah, Tommy Lee wrote that for me.
I'm like, okay, you can go out shooting with Tommy Lee.
This is Bill Cobble?
No.
Or Cliff Tennant?
Cliff Tynard.
Cliff Tynard.
Yeah.
And he had the hat, he had the boots.
He was a real cowboy.
But he had to leave because he...
And I would only understand later that he had to go do something with Bevo.
And I'm like, okay, I thought maybe he said Devo...
He said Bevo.
I didn't quite know what that meant.
So anyway, then there was the...
Actually, it's not fair to say Tranny because I think she's transgendered.
This is a professor at UT. And yes, just totally spot on and lovely, but no one told me she was 70.
In the world of Adam's fantasies, it wasn't exact.
And she looked good for 70, no doubt about it.
I don't want to be ages.
You know, I had like a little different fantasy in my mind going on.
Anyway, they're heating up a plate of food for me, and I'm eating, and everyone's kind of dribbling out.
It was really sweet.
I think they're Jewish, so they also did a lighting of the menorah, and I've never witnessed a lighting of the menorah, and there's a song that goes along with it, and half the room's singing the song, and you're looking around, you're like, should I like...
Move my lips and pretend I know the words.
You know one of those?
Like...
Have you ever heard the lighting of the Menorah song?
No.
Well, neither had I. And I was like, wow, okay.
Well, I'm older than you, so you beat me.
You win.
It was nice.
It's nice they shared that with us.
This is the one time in 5,000 years, I think.
It's 70,000 years the next time.
Oh, 70,000 years from now.
Yeah, 70,000 is the next time this will happen.
Which by then, I think Thanksgiving will actually have been moved.
Okay, so then it's like, all right, hurry up, we've got to go see the game.
Now, I had previously agreed to do this, and I had not been to a live sporting event in 40 years.
I think the last time was the Boston Red Sox when I was nine.
So, about 40 years.
I've never been to a stadium.
I've been to a stadium for a concert, but, you know, backstage or whatever.
Just a couple games a year here and there.
Yeah, I've never been.
So, I really can't remember.
And the University of Texas would have to be real spectacular.
Yeah.
It really was.
The stadium holds 100,000 people, and it was almost full.
It was quite astounding.
What I liked a lot, we were dropped off, so we had no parking crap, and you walk right up.
There's no Gitmo security.
It's just like, you got your ticket, go on.
No pat-downs, no metal detectors, very low-key.
And then it was pointed out to me what this Bevo thing was.
Are you familiar with Bevo?
You know, it rings a bell.
I didn't bother to Google it, but...
That's our cow.
I mean, our steer.
Oh, right, that damn cow.
That steer.
Yeah, they run him out under the stadium.
It's not quite as cool as the one that they have at the University of Colorado where they run a live buffalo...
Out onto the field and he goes 200 yards around in a circle and back into his cage.
Well, Bevo is a little slower.
This is a big longhorn steer that they run out.
I don't know if they run it out.
Do they run it?
Yeah, well, it's more like a walk.
It's not like a run.
This thing runs at full tilt.
And he stays in the pen, you know, in the corner there at the stadium.
So we had pretty good seats on the 50-yard line.
No box or anything.
I liked it.
Seats were $75.
I was like, wow, what a scam this is.
That was cheap.
Are you kidding?
Is that cheap?
And so we played Texas Tech.
Now, if you've never been to a ball game, certainly not a local one, you don't know a lot of the traditions.
And there's a lot of things I had to learn.
It was just interesting that I'd never even heard of hook'em.
I'm like, what?
Everyone's like, hook'em!
I'm like, hookers?
Hook'em, I guess, because we're a longhorn.
And then we have this pinky and index finger salute like the metal bands do.
That's kind of our thing.
Yeah, the longhorn salute.
If you flip it backwards, it's the sign of the devil.
Yeah, exactly.
So everyone's doing that.
I'm like, okay.
And then we have a cheer.
Do you know our cheer?
I don't really care to know it, but go on.
Well, you have to.
So one side of the stadium goes, Texas!
And the other one goes, Fight!
I'm like, this is so militaristic.
Pretty creative.
Militaristic.
And there were a couple injuries, and I was, you know, so first of all...
Did they play taps during the injuries, or what?
Well, you know what?
So the guy was, he was knocked out.
It was a Texas Tech player.
And you could see him, like, he did this flip in the air, landed on his back, and the guy was out.
And so his players, not just Texas Tech, but the UT guys circled around him on one knee.
I'm like, what are they doing?
Oh, that's like out of respect.
No, they're praying.
It's what it looked like.
No, that's what they do.
It was a little intense.
You know, I was like, okay.
So, and then, let's see, what other weird, oh, they got a penalty for unsportsmanlike behavior for dancing in the end zone.
They're cracking down on this, yeah.
Yeah, but it wasn't, like, outrageous.
He did a little high step.
No, I know.
It's very controversial amongst sporting fans as to what...
Well, yeah, I'm not even a fan.
...about these penalties.
It's like, come on, a little bit of celebration.
He high-stepped a bit, and we're all going nuts.
We're like, yeah.
And then, you know...
Oh, God.
I know, I know.
And so here's...
Just to round out my experience, which included, of course, the University of Texas drum band, who did a fine medley of Stevie Wonder and James Brown and other soul and R&B classics.
Did they have the Texas tradition where at the end of the game, if Texas wins, and I believe they did in this game, 41-16 to be exact, did they have the tradition where the cheerleaders come into the stands and blow all the fans?
Yeah.
We left five minutes early.
I'm sorry.
It's too bad.
You should have stuck it around.
But what the cheerleaders do do is each time we score, the number of points, they do backflips.
So if we score a touchdown, then they do seven backflips.
Yeah, great.
Well, it's like the Oregon Duck.
He does a push-up, but he does a push-up of the cumulative score every time they score.
So when they score 49 points, he does 49 push-ups.
When they score again, he does another 49 plus 7.
So I could just see, I could really feel how this is the bread and games.
When you approach this as an outsider, essentially, and you get thrown in in an awakened state, you see the similarities between the Roman Colosseum.
You just see it.
It could have been Christians and lions in there.
It made no difference.
Kill them!
Yeah.
And I'm just like, okay, this is for your testosterone.
The funny thing was, I'm with three gay guys.
And they're all testosterone-ed up.
It's like, whoa.
Well, there's been studies, by the way, which is one of the reasons I always advise people not...
If you have a losing team, like the Cal Bears, for example, you don't really want to root for them because apparently there's been some studies that show that sincere fans who are even watching the game on TV have the same hormonal ups and downs as the players on the field.
So if it's a big win, you know, you have the same elation as a fan that you would if you were a player.
And if you just got your ass handed to you, you would have the same depressed feelings.
So you want to find a team that wins a lot for your own health.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
And to round out my experience, two seats down, a lady died.
Was she a Red Raiders fan?
No.
She was young, and she was there with her husband and their daughter, and the daughter must have been, you know, mid-twenties.
And she just died.
I'm not sure what happened, but she was dead.
There was a dead woman?
Yes, yes.
Just sitting near you?
Like two steps down, yes.
So they brought out the medics and all this, and she was a goner?
Yeah, they're trying to figure out if there's any breath, any pulse, there's nothing.
And I've seen dead people.
John, she was dead.
And her kid's freaking out, and her husband's like...
It was weird.
And then they put her in the...
I mean, like the gurney, not the gurney, they have a special wheelchair so they can get people out of the stands easily.
And our head's just flopping from back.
I mean, it was disturbing.
I would think so, yes.
On the other hand, two good seats opened up a little closer.
That was kind of nice.
That's a good one, actually.
But it really did happen, and it was very disturbing.
And it kind of, I have to say, kind of ruined the vibe a little bit.
You know, you're just kind of like looking down like...
Did she die in the first half or the second half?
Just before the halftime.
And so we waited through halftime.
And then even, of course it was late, but it also got really cold.
So the whole thing, like, eh.
Anyway, that was my Thanksgiving, and it was interesting to witness the game.
I felt very lonely.
I did, honestly.
And Miss Mickey's back, and she made me pancakes today, so all is well, people!
All is well.
Well, you probably would have felt less lonely if you knew anything about football.
I know.
What do you mean?
I know tons about football.
Don't give me that.
I know how the game works.
I'm into that.
I was into the spirit and everything.
You know, the lady dying was a little downer, and it was cold, and I didn't know all the customs, but I like that.
But the dinner and everything, it was weird being alone and being kind of like part of the alone group.
You're in the alone group.
You're the fifth wheel.
Yeah, a little bit.
A little bit.
And nobody cared about the champagne because you came late.
Yeah, I drank most of it.
That was just a waste.
I drank most of it.
All right, so let me get something out of the way real quick then because everyone's emailing this and I think that we might have a possible two-to-the-head situation here.
And I wasn't going to think it was anything at first.
I'm talking about Paul Walker, the actor who was killed in Los Angeles.
Yeah, the Fast and Furious guy.
Right.
Have you seen this vehicle?
That he was driving?
He wasn't driving.
It was a Porsche Carrera GT. Which exploded upon impact, apparently.
Yeah, this is another one of those mysterious...
I thought this was odd, too.
This is another one of those mysterious...
Wild explosions is similar to the one that took out, what was his name, Hastings Haskell?
Hastings.
Michael Hastings, yeah.
So here's what's wrong.
Look at the picture.
I owned a Porsche a long, long time ago, a 911 Carrera.
It's essentially the same car.
They've been making the same car.
Very little has changed.
Very little has changed.
The 30 years.
The gas tank is in the front.
Alright?
Because the engine is in the back.
There's not a lot of car.
Unless they've changed that.
No, no.
It's probably still the same design.
But it's in a bladder.
I think that gas tank is very rugged.
Well, of course.
These are cars that do rallies.
There's not a lot of difference between the...
In fact, I think this was a racing version.
The driver was a race car driver.
So this thing exploded in the back, like the engine exploded.
Are you kidding me?
Oh, is that right?
Look at the pictures!
The front end is intact!
The hood is still open.
The bonnet, I should say.
So that makes...
No, I didn't catch this because I actually wrote it off.
I was lax, I guess, for this show.
I did the same.
No, no, I did the same, but someone tweeted, and I'm like, holy crap, I'd forgotten about that.
And then I went looking, and of course it's hard to look now, which is the whole point.
Attorney General Eric Holder is appealing a judge ruling in his Contempt of Congress case, where he refused to turn over documents relating to the Fast and Furious gun-walking controversy, and there is no better way to confuse the public and to get their mind off of this than to kill someone who's attached to a different Fast and Furious.
Wow.
That's a good one.
I admire that kind of oddball thinking.
But you know, it's not that...
If you really, really, really think about it, And killing someone for your own benefit is done all...
We drone toddlers these days.
Who gives a crap?
So why wouldn't, like, oh man...
And this is like, John, this is only like 10 days ago that this came down, and he's trying to appeal, and we can't have this be news, of course, so what's the best thing to do?
We've already seen how Fast and Furious, when the movie came out, it also covered up another piece of this saga.
Remember that?
No.
The new movie came out, and we talked about it, and it had basically obvious...
You know, it's like a Google bomb.
Now if you Google Fast and Furious, you're not going...
Well, let's try it.
If I just do Fast and Furious...
Oh, I see what you're saying.
Right, you're going to get...
This is essentially a blocking mechanism.
Yes.
For Google searches.
For anything.
For the...
Just the...
It's like changing the word gay...
Meaning happy and funny to homosexual.
It's changing the word.
So, Fast and Furious, Paul Walker dies.
Paul Walker, Paul Walker.
Wikipedia for the Fast and the Furious.
IMDB, Fast and Furious.
Let's see if, not even on the first page.
Nope, nothing on the first page.
Let's look for the second page.
Which is one of the biggest scandals that has been ongoing for, what is it now, three presidencies?
Fast and Furious, Fast and Furious is all...
Well, it had a different name under Bush.
Yes, it did.
You're right.
So not until the second page.
There's some book on Amazon, which is...
Let me see what it is.
Fast and Furious, Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up.
So second page, below the crease, if you will, on mine.
We should reiterate for some of our listeners who may have forgotten and some that don't know this...
About the case in Chicago where the one guy was, one of the Sinaloa cartel guys was busted.
Yeah.
And he blew the, he actually, the lawyers are going after the government for discovery based on the fact that Fast and Furious was a gun running operation.
Mm-hmm.
To send guns to the Sinaloa cartel to load them up so they would take over all the Mexican gangs.
And the drugs, the drugs that are being smuggled in, yes.
And we would be partners with them and we wouldn't have to deal with all these other crazy guys and we'd have one group that we would just work with them and we'd be good.
You know what the weird thing is?
I think that if you went to the American public, you went on television and said, Heil everybody!
You know, we got a beat.
We got a rule.
So what we do, we decide that we're going to partner with one of these Mexican agencies.
We'll call it an agent.
Mexican agencies.
And so we can run everything.
I don't think you have a problem with that, do you?
And we'd all go like, no, great.
Don't you think?
Don't you think ultimately it could be sold?
We can sell anything to the American public.
Yes, to a point, but the problem is the talk shows and everything, because they're always looking for material, would try to cause trouble.
And so they'd be bringing this up.
Oh, it's sinful.
Matt can just hear Hucklebee right now.
It's sinful.
Well, then we just pump those guys with some drug money.
Everybody and anybody can be bought.
Right, yeah, you could actually do that.
I got this beautiful email, which I'm considering whether to republish it.
It's too long to read, from one of our producers who really...
Put it in the newsletter.
I think we might have to.
And he wrote this beautiful explanation of how Iran and Iraq and Syria and how all of that really fits together.
And he reminded me...
That Iraq and Syria, those weren't countries.
They were just drawings on the map that the British made up.
This is all part of World War I. Yes.
And we get it all into our brain that these are countries, and we don't understand how...
I don't think we can comprehend, he had a pretty good line about it, how you could get a knife in the back from some guy whose great-grandfather was disrespected by your great-grandfather.
That's how the culture is in majorities of the Middle East.
We have no concept of that.
We have concept of love and happiness and peace and unicorns and rainbows and we're not trained that way.
But I think we could be.
And maybe we should get a little bit of that or at least study what's going on with other people so we understand it.
I think it's the not understanding that confuses people the most.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, well that may be the reason we want to dumb down the public so we don't have to deal with letting...
Because understanding is dangerous.
Oh, I must mention that even though my Thanksgiving was...
You know, not exactly optimal, although I thank everybody who made it fun for me.
Luckily, you and I did a great job of ruining Mickey's Thanksgiving, because she listened to the show before their Thanksgiving dinner, and I think the talk about the butterball and the white goop that comes out of the salmon, that put her off.
And the turkey, they had this turkey, she's like, I'm not eating that.
Yeah.
It was like a Butterball special.
That stinks.
She was so put off by it.
Thanks.
You ruined my Thanksgiving dinner.
You have the white goop that comes out of the salmon.
And the salmon stinks.
Yes.
Hey, happy AIDS Day.
Yeah, AIDS Day.
Happy AIDS Day.
I truly wish that the pharmaceutical industry stops ruining lives of people and killing them with a lot of their solutions and we figure out what's really going on here and people awaken to that.
That's my wish.
And I commemorate and remember the people who have died of HIV and actually of AIDS, who I have lost.
But today is not just AIDS Day.
Today is a start of...
National Impaired Driving Prevention Month by Presidential Proclamation and Minority Enterprise Development Week.
I wonder what that is.
They go hand in hand.
What is Minority Enterprise Development Week?
Hmm.
Just a week?
This week we celebrate.
Yeah, I know.
Hey, minorities, you got a week.
We celebrate America's minority enterprises, renew our commitment to helping them grow, and look with pride towards the promise of the future.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Very nice.
Well, then, I guess all I can say is in the morning to you, John C. Daborak.
Already?
Yeah.
Okay, well, in the morning to you, Adam Curry, in the morning to all the ships of the sea, boots on the ground, feet in the air, subs in the water, and all the dames and all the knights out there.
And I'd also like to say in the morning to everyone in the chat room, noagendastream.com, noagendachat.net, in the morning to El Cid Compiador, who got kicked out of the chat room.
Why did El Cid Compiador get kicked out of the chat room?
Because he was saying, this is boring, move on with the show.
Oh, good.
That's the Leo approach.
If you start complaining about the show, you get kicked out of the chat room.
And it's not boring.
It was boring.
I'd say it was boring.
Or Adam would say it.
Adam says it's boring at the drop of a hat, but I'm a little more liberal.
Oh, by the way, I just got a note.
Apparently, the Carrera GT is a mid-engine.
So that may put the gas tank in the back.
No, no, no.
Yeah, it is a mid-engine, which is...
That's what they call it.
Yeah, but it's in the back, right?
The engine's right behind the seat.
Right.
But for all practical purposes, if you open that back thing up, there's your engine.
Right.
Well, where's the gas tank on that thing?
Well, let's consult the book of knowledge.
Porsche, P-O-R-S, is it S-C-H-E? Carrera, C-A-R-R-E-R-A, I believe.
G-C, gas tank.
Tank location.
That would be my Google search for people trying to learn Google.
Do you have it?
It looks like it might be in the back, actually.
If it's in the back, it would be surprising.
It would surprise me, too.
I'm so sure it was in the front.
Did you find it?
I can't find it.
I'm looking right now.
There's a fuel pump there, and there's a gas tank.
There's this gas tank location.
It would need a fuel tank somewhere.
It's in the front.
Yeah, it's in the front.
That's what it looks like.
Because I'm pretty sure the gas tank is...
Yeah, the back.
Here's the back.
Here's a look at the...
I'm looking at images.
Image at the back.
If you open the lid, there is a engine there.
The mid-engine.
Yeah, it's sitting on top of that rear axle.
It's not hanging off the back like a dragster.
Right.
So...
The Wikipedias is not telling me where the gas tank location is.
Here's a picture of the bonnet, which is in front.
It's right under the tire.
There's a gas tank.
Big, giant gas tank.
There's not much room in this thing.
Yeah, I don't know who this mid-engine...
Mid-engine is not like a Ferrari mid-engine, which is literally where Elbow is.
And there were all kinds of...
Like speed tracks everywhere.
Like they've been pulling donuts and stuff.
I'm thinking they were dodging the drone is what I'm thinking.
They were trying to outrun it.
You know, you laugh.
Why would they know a drone was on them?
Well, they have the electronics in the car.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
Target locked, target locked.
Evade, evade, evade.
No.
Yes.
Bull crap.
They were doing donuts because the guy was showing off the car.
Hmm.
I'm getting all kinds of messages.
I literally have text messages flying.
Apparently, the news of his death came out before it happened yesterday.
Okay.
We need a little more time to look into this, but...
This is the kind of stuff that's...
This is all obfuscation.
Yeah.
It is.
It is.
Now the information...
Especially if there was some evil doing or a drone, which is the more interesting possibility.
Maybe it's just taking pot shots at people.
Well, you know, I mean...
That guy doing donuts down there.
Let's blow him out of there.
But listen, you know, we have these cars exploding on impact.
Yeah, in the movies.
Sure.
In the movies.
It just really doesn't happen that often, John.
No, I know.
In fact, if you look at most of it, there are a lot of these, you know, one man.
I mean, Billy Snow would be dead by now.
We fixed that with the Pinto, okay?
You know, the exploding gas tank trick is old.
We fixed that.
Don't you remember?
We had lawsuits about that.
And so this isn't supposed to just happen.
It doesn't.
I'm hard-pressed to believe it.
I get the drone idea that we've actually got active drones in Los Angeles Basin blowing people up.
There's been at least two dramas done on various...
Where this is exactly the plot.
I think Castle had one where the guy was blown up by a drone.
Yeah, and this is the plot.
And we've had all these houses explode of natural gas leaks, which is another thing.
I'm sorry.
The Mythbusters, who everyone always thinks are all this and that, and a bag of chips, they couldn't even replicate it.
They were trying to do the Jason Bourne thing where he blew up the house with gas.
It's very difficult to blow up a house with gas.
Yeah, you can kill people inside a house with gas.
Easily, yes.
That's more likely.
But blowing it up is not...
So, you know, I will take the crackpot side on this that it's a great way to distract from a heated issue, very hot, hot, hot, with a court case and a federal judge against the highest person in the Justice Department in the country,
Eric Holder, For lying or being held in contempt of Congress, that's a big deal if he needs to hide something when he's basically covering for his boss who is already in a weak situation.
I think an actor is expendable.
And maybe they brought in the Israeli spy guy.
I mean, we need news.
We need news, news, news.
You know what?
Fuck it.
Let a train go off the rails.
We need to do something, people.
Actually, a train did go off the rails.
Yeah.
Gee.
Curiously.
You don't say.
I'm not putting our government beyond doing these kinds of crazy things.
That's all I'm saying.
Smoke everywhere.
Four killed as train derails.
At least four people were killed and 63 others injured when the Metro North train in New York jumped the tracks on Sunday, today.
I am getting news from the chat room that this particular vehicle is known to catch fire when it crashes.
Of the 90 or so crashes, there have been fires in more than 30 of them.
Yeah, fires, but they crashed sideways.
I don't know.
Look, I'm not a forensic expert.
We don't know.
But it is good luck for Holder, isn't it?
Isn't he just going home like, oh, shoot, that sucks.
Yeah.
Well, the way things are going with the...
I mean, we do have...
The news came, you know, as they keep dribbling out these Snowden reports, and the latest one being, of course, that they're using the information to blackmail, which we said from the very beginning of this thing that the only reason you do this kind of data collection is to blackmail people so you can have political advantage.
And we had a clip, which I didn't reprise, it's around somewhere, where they were the...
Holder, in particular, who's already in trouble, was asked specifically if the information collected by the NSA could be used for political advantage by one party or the other.
And Holder refused to answer the question in front of Congress and said he has to answer it some other time.
If you remember that.
If you were to label that clip today, what would you call it?
Holder something.
Holder lies again.
I would be something like that.
Apology holder.
Holder risks contempt.
Hmm.
This is a tough one, John.
Well, it's got holder's name in it.
Well, yeah.
How many holder things do you think are in it?
Probably ten.
And they're all worth playing over again.
Hold on a second.
Let me just...
I can find this.
Hold on.
I got a system.
Hold on.
Here we go.
We have...
Corning Grilling Holder, Grassley Demands Apology, Holder Risk Contempt, Risk Contempt of Crime, Months Holder Does It, Grilling Holder, Apology Holder, Risk Contempt at Northwest.
Play the Risk Contempt one.
Okay, hold on a second.
Where is it?
Risk Contempt.
Would that be from 2011?
Time flies.
Okay, hold on.
Okay.
It would have to be after Snowden first appeared.
That would be kind of a key.
Okay, let me see.
I believe that was in 2012.
No, so this can't be it.
Hold our wrist contempt.
Well, let's see what that is.
You never know.
Open.
We'll just try this one.
If this isn't it, then we'll move on.
Hold on a second.
Here we go.
The House that they were not aware of the tactics that were employed.
As a result of that, the information that is contained in that February 4th letter to you...
Yeah, it's Fast and Furious.
This is it?
No.
Oh.
All right.
We'll look for it for the next show.
I will look for it.
It's around.
Whatever the case...
Yeah, I was saying this is a big deal.
We have the president already under a lot of stress.
Not that it matters.
I mean, he's in, he's in, he's in.
But I think now would be the time for Hillary Clinton to announce she's running.
I think it'd be premature.
For one thing, they're making hay with this Ready for Hillary campaign.
Big time.
So I get a memo every day.
Give us $3.
Give us $5.
Because we've got to talk Hillary into running.
It's important that she run.
And it's with your help.
Because of you, she'll make the decision to run.
We've got to make her run.
She's not behind this whole thing.
I mean, how dumb do the RODs Democrats to believe this?
Well, I'm having dinner with some tonight, so we'll find out.
Ooh!
Yes, yes, yes, indeed.
I don't know if I had mentioned it, but tonight is our monthly installment of...
It's another installment of...
Dinner with the Obats!
Yep.
Will they come over to your place or what?
No, no, no.
Next time is our place.
Tonight is, I think, Lori's place.
And I'm...
Well, we'll talk about it later, what I'm going to do.
Well, let's play the Sarah Silverman clip, which is kind of the way liberals think.
Oh, boy.
Is this from her special?
I didn't put in the really bad stuff.
Because I actually caught this special.
Yes.
You know, maybe liberals are a little more open-minded, a little more progressive.
You know, maybe conservatives are a little less progressive, a little more faggot-ish.
Yeah.
I saw that she went into the whole thing about why pick on the Republicans.
Yeah, it was very bigoted.
It was completely bigoted.
And this is the left-wing approach to everything.
It's like, point the finger, tell everyone else they're bigots, and then be bigot.
Be the biggest bigot of them all.
And people should look up the definition of bigot, by the way, to understand it.
I found her entire special.
At some points, yes, hard to believe, even for Adam, somewhat shocking.
Some of it was pretty gross, but there was a couple one-liners in there that were...
I laughed very loudly at a couple things.
That's actually the only reason I watched it.
You know, this woman, I've never thought her to actually be that funny.
No, me neither.
I believe she probably writes well for other people to edit.
So I said, I'm going to watch the whole, it's only an hour short.
I'm going to watch it and see if I actually laugh.
And I laughed about it.
I laughed a couple times.
There was a number of them that were quite, some of them were pretty filthy, but it was like, yeah, it's funny.
But it was indeed a very, a perfect example of a radical, progressive person.
Yeah, yeah.
It was a little shocking at times.
But also, you know, she had some funny stuff.
I have to admit, there was some...
I think it's the funniest I've ever seen.
There were some dude jokes in there that was just good.
It was just like, oh my god, okay, you nailed it.
You nailed it.
So that's why that...
Save for work.
Well, that particular thing didn't really bother me because, you know, it's comedy.
Just comedy.
I know, but you know, what I don't like is when she goes into the whole, you know, funny or die, and then, you know, about voter ID, and when she gets political outside of her show, just to be political, and then is doing the same material, then it becomes a little disturbing.
So here's the guy that I'm just loving.
I'm just loving this guy.
And I'd forgotten how much I like him because he's insane.
But insane people and children and drunks, they speak the truth.
Kanye West...
I mean, you really want to dismiss the guy, particularly now that he has a kid with Kim Kardashian, they're getting married, so that whole thing is bizarre.
But because he's weak-minded, I think, I mean, he's not dumb, but he has no filters, which I like.
And he says stuff that comes out and it's like, oh man, I'm glad someone just came out and said it.
So he did this radio interview.
I think it might be in Miami or Los Angeles.
And a lot of people are saying, oh, he got schooled.
Kanye got schooled.
Is that guy again, by the way?
Is that guy?
Is that guy?
Kanye!
Whereas he said some things that I thought were right on.
And I'm like, yeah, you know.
If all of us could just be honest from time to time and just say things and not be so politically correct, and I can't believe I'm actually promoting Kanye.
We don't got it like that.
When I tell you only seven black billionaires, look at that marginalization, and we feel like we're happy because me and Rick Ross got a Maybach, or I got a Sprint outside, or a couple of us, or they put a black president.
Man, let me tell you something about George Bush and oil money and Obama and no money.
People want to say Obama can't make these moves or he's not executing.
That's because he ain't got those connections.
Black people don't have the same level of connections as Jewish people.
Black people don't have the same connection as oil people.
You know we don't know nobody that got a nice house.
You know, we don't know nobody with paper like that we can go to when we down.
You know, that could just put us back or put us in a corporation.
You know, we ain't in a situation.
Can you guarantee that your daughter could get a job at this radio station?
But if you own this radio station, you could guarantee that.
That's what I'm talking about.
And when he says that, you know, black people don't have the connections that the Jews have.
I'm like, I gotta love the guy.
And I went back and I had to get his Hurricane Katrina speech.
Do you remember that?
He's there with Mike Myers.
Do you remember this, John?
Yeah, vaguely.
I just gotta play it again, because...
I mean, I'm glad you admire what he's saying, but to me, he's just like a douchey complainer.
Yes!
He's got plenty of connections.
No.
No, come on.
That's not true.
He has zero connections.
He wouldn't be as far, gotten as far as he's gotten.
Oh, please.
He got it all doing everything over the internet on his own website that he designed?
I don't think so.
But the point is, he's talking about real, who really runs the show.
He's talking about oil money.
He's talking about Israeli lobby.
I mean, he's using Kanye words.
He's using Kanye words, but he sees what's going on, and it's not bad for people to hear that.
But he gets dismissed.
So sometimes, even I gotta stick up for the guy.
And I went back to, so this was live, and Mike Myers and Kanye West at the Katrina Telethon, which I, these things, I already hate these things by themselves already, because the water in the blankets never gets to people.
Now over 25 feet of water where there was once city streets and thriving neighborhoods.
And everyone has this really, we have to talk like this as we're reading the teleprompter because it's so bad and so sad and we're so fortunate we're not dead.
They betray us in the media.
If you see a black family, it says they're looting.
If you see a white family, it says they're looking for food.
He's right, John.
He's right.
That's what happened during the Katrina coverage.
Black families, the news would be they're looting.
White families, they're looking for food.
He's right.
And you know, it's been five days because most of the people...
Even for me to complain about, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch.
I've even been shopping before even giving a donation.
So now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give.
So he's going completely off the rails and everyone's telling Mike Myers, jump back in there and then comes the beauty part.
That wants to do anything that we can help with the setup, the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible.
Get them back on script!
Red Cross is doing everything they can.
We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way.
And they've given them permission to go down and shoot us.
And Mike Myers goes right back to the telephone.
Here comes the money shot, though.
The only devastating is the lasting damage to the survivor's will to rebuild and remain in the area.
The destruction of the spirit of the people of southern Louisiana and Mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all.
George Bush doesn't care about black people.
And then they cut him off.
I'm sorry.
Apparently Obama doesn't either.
Well, no.
And I think that Kanye might even say that.
Anyway.
He's complaining about a machine.
The problem is he puts everything in racial terms.
It's not.
It's a machine that's doing it.
It's like a system.
If there's a systematic problem, that's different.
Right.
But he is speaking to a very common denominator.
From whence he cometh as well.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, it just plays into the hands of the machine, to be the way I see it.
Oh, well.
I don't know.
I think when people hear things...
You know, here was a guy who's telling it like it is.
Okay, that's great.
What difference does it make?
But, okay...
Because no one else hears Dennis Kucinich when he's telling him like it is.
They weren't listening to him until they rousted him, and he was rousted by his own party.
No, John, no one really listens.
No, he was talking.
I never said anyone was listening.
Well, this is my point.
When Kanye talks, unfortunately, people listen.
And so maybe, this is how sad it is, but maybe they get a little inkling and go, hey, wait a minute, maybe I should Google that.
And then before you know it, they see in the show notes, hey, what's this show that has Kanye in it?
And then all of a sudden they're in on no agenda!
Don't you see my evil plan?
Well, you're an idealist today, after being the loner.
Oh, I see what happened.
That's right, she showed up, she came home.
Yeah.
Let's thank our short list.
Oh, we should thank some people.
We started off and you went off the rails.
I did.
And now we have people to thank which are our producers.
Which is very much the Hollywood system.
Yes.
Ironically enough.
We are executive producer.
And he sent in a note.
Mark Workman.
I'm familiar with his name.
I think this must put him into a knighthood because I know he's supported us before.
Yeah, this does put him into knighthood.
It should be on there, hopefully.
He's on the knighthood list.
Yes, yes he is.
Dennis and James and Mark.
He's actually a baron.
He's the baron of Galt's...
Gulch.
Gulch, Gulch?
Really?
That's what he says.
Wait a minute, he says he's the Baron?
No.
Yeah, he's got his thing here.
Oh, okay.
I don't think he's a Baron.
We'll have to do some research on this.
He's going to be knighted.
Okay.
Because he's got his black knight accounting here.
What do you mean Black Knight?
He says he was passed as...
Nah, it's not a Black Knight.
He wants to be a Black Knight.
He's got his accounting here.
And it indicates that he's a knight as of this check, which doesn't give him a Black Knight.
No, Black Knight is only if you're on the list and we forget to do it during the show.
Something like that, but not...
It means we screwed up.
Yeah, but we don't do the accounting.
Right.
If you send us your accounting and then we give you the knighthood that you deserve, you're not a black knight.
You're so harsh, John.
Well, I'm just saying we have to have rules because otherwise it demeans some of the real big shots, not the dukes.
Yeah, they get pissed off.
And he wants to be the baron.
Well, when you get to baronyhood, then you'll be the baron.
Unless you've already had a knighting, and you need a three, I think, to get baron.
Anyway, Mark is in Dayton, Ohio.
And he says, he's got his accounting, he says, he wants a jingle.
Okay.
He says, Hillary Delicious, which apparently is his favorite clip.
He's asked for it before.
Little girl, yay.
Although it says DEA here or something.
I can't really.
Little girl, yay.
Hillary, what difference does it make?
So the Hillary Delicious, little girl, yay.
What difference does it make?
You know that one?
What difference does it make?
Yeah, but I don't know if I have that one handy.
I don't think I have that one.
I'm going to mention this to people.
If you have a complicated request, make sure to send it to Adam in advance.
Yeah, because I just don't.
If I get the note, I don't read the notes until the show.
I mean, I know I have the Hillary somewhere, but that was for a previous donation, and it wasn't requested again, and it's not easy.
And now I feel bad that I wasn't ready for it.
Well, we can play it later.
But give him the one that really makes him laugh, which is delicious.
It's almost too delicious to believe, my friend.
Yay!
There you go.
I got those.
Okay.
We'll dig up the other one and evergreen it.
What difference does it make?
I can do it.
What difference does it make?
Line of the day from the chat room.
John doesn't like Black Knights.
Karsten Ove Schwartz Nielsen in Denmark.
Hi, Angie and Joachim.
Joachim.
Joachim.
I have to support you during this fake giving event.
With this 5x6969 donation at 34845, I should become a knight and you can call me Sir Schwartz.
Sir Schwartz?
Schwartz.
It says Schwartz, but Schwartz would be one way of saying it.
I can only thank you from the depths of my rebellious soul.
I've always found the stuff in the media nagging my mind like a splinter of decaying phoniness.
You guys are stellar in proving that I was right.
Keep it coming.
Although I'm sometimes a little behind in listening to the episodes, I'm always ahead when discussing the so-called news from the compromised media with friends and acquaintances.
Sir Schwartz of Hitmo Nation, Mermaid.
Well, thank you very much.
And we shall, of course, put you in the line.
If you're in the lineup for knighting, to become Sir Schwartz.
Looking forward to it.
We've got Francis James McClure, who sends in a note.
From Texas.
In honor of my son's 29th birthday, I'm making the donation of 33333 in his name.
His birthday is on the November 29th.
This will be the third time James has been an executive producer, so with this donation, it becomes a night.
He lives in Austin, and we met Adam in the Hot Pockets Tour.
That's right.
My 65th birthday is November 30th, so this will be a big birthday weekend.
We really enjoy No Agenda and are happy to support the work you do.
And then he has a PS thing.
He's looking forward to the chili recipe.
And he mentions that his wife and many other Texans that he knows think beans do not belong in chili.
And in chili competitions nowadays, even though the one I won, this rule did not apply, it's just beef.
No beans.
There's no beans.
I have a confession to make.
Beans are filler.
What?
I made your recipe.
Yeah?
And I put beans in it.
Well, it's a bean.
You're supposed to put beans in it.
I'm saying that this had beans in it, so it's not like I omitted them.
It was just an aside.
I made the recipe, and I decided I would watch a movie, which I watched lots of movies with Mickey, but never stuff like Pacific Rim.
So, I had a bowl, and I'm watching on the couch, and I'm watching Pacific Rim, and I'm totally engrossed in this movie.
I go back in the kitchen to get something to drink, and I had left the gas on.
So, you burned the chili.
Burned to a crisp.
It was completely...
I heard like...
You know that sound?
Oh, crap.
The gas is still on.
So, I can't prove how good it was to anybody.
You didn't have a bowl?
Yeah, I had the bowl on the couch, and then the rest got torched.
Oh, the empty bowl on the couch.
I was eating a bowl, but the pan with everything still in, I made a big batch.
It burnt to a crisp.
Oh.
Well, that's a fascinating story.
He puts mushrooms in his chili, which I would not recommend with this dish.
By the way, mushrooms provide naturally occurring MSG, which helps with the mouthfeel.
Well, that was interesting.
That wasn't interesting at all.
I'm sorry.
You bring up your damn chili and it's interesting.
I say I burnt the recipe and it's not interesting.
Exactly.
Because you didn't have any feedback on the relative quality of the chili recipe.
Onward.
Onward to Dennis Del Prah in Littleton, Colorado, 22222.
As we ponder all these things which we should be thankful for this season, let me suggest a few candidates.
Cranberry-flavored Jell-O, functioning ballpoint pens, and the French.
Yes, the French, for it is so easy to blame them for everything we dislike.
Yeah, I agree.
Enclose a torrent of twos.
I like that.
That's nice.
Torrent of twos.
I like that.
Is that for making it rain, or is that just in general?
Well, he didn't say anything about making it rain, thank goodness.
Keep the collector's bill at bay and fine writing instruments.
Send me a ballpoint pen for the junkyard.
How about a double shot at karma for our men and women?
The Armed Forces are true heroes.
Thank you for your courage.
All right, well, here you go.
You've got karma.
It's a double shot.
And so that is our executive and associate executive producers for show 570.
That's right.
Of course, nobody's listening to the show today, and hopefully they'll catch up to it and maybe contribute a little more on Thursday, which will be show 571.
And you go to devorek.org slash na channel, devorek.com slash na, noagendashow.com and then noagendanation.com.
There's buttons there you can click on.
Oops, sorry.
To help us.
We can always use help in the propaganda department, i.e.
propagate our formula.
Our formula is this.
We go out, we hit people in the mouth.
I must say, though, that Pacific Rim movie is very much...
It's wondrous.
It didn't do much better than it did.
J.C. Buzzkill Jr.
feels the same way.
They went to see it at the theaters at a big screen and said that if you understood that it was just a mindless, really well-done action movie, it should have done really well at the box office.
But Hollywood is the one that gave up on it.
They said, screw it.
We're going to lose our ass on this.
Put no money in the marketing.
Let's just skip it.
Yeah.
I also watched Confessions of a Dangerous Mind upon your recommendation.
And I'm thinking it's total bullcrap.
This guy...
And the movie is kind of...
And you're right.
George Clooney produced...
I think he directed...
He's also in it as the CIA handler.
And if this was...
The movie says this is based on hundreds of interviews and they get Dick Clark in there and stuff...
And his personal journal.
And it's bullcrap.
The stories, the way they go down, bullcrap.
It's just bullcrap.
This is a guy, and he's still alive, this Chuck Barris.
Yeah.
He's just fantasizing.
He's just trying to make his life.
The guy's insane.
I think he was insane.
He was no CIA hitman.
Bullcrap.
Which made the movie a little disappointing.
Because I was like, oh, really?
Really?
I thought the movie was more of a comedy, and I liked the Clooney character.
Clooney always plays one of these guys because he's around him so much.
So you didn't think it was even worth watching?
No, I would not recommend it.
From a historical television producer standpoint, it's interesting.
You know, that feels kind of real, how the shows get on the air and how it came to be, and the boardroom and all that, and it's nice to see the original concept.
You know what was interesting in that movie to me?
And I think this had to do with Clooney and an homage to Hollywood.
And I never noticed this before, but they have a silhouette shot of Drew Barrymore coming to the door.
Yes.
And it is the silhouette of the Barrymore family.
It's funny you say that.
That's the opening of the movie.
Yeah.
And it's stunning.
I agree.
It's like, holy shit, I had no idea.
She looks like John Barrymore and all these other Barrymores.
That big chin and all the rest of it.
Yeah, she does.
Yeah.
But it's great.
She's fantastic.
She's sexy.
Drew Barrymore is just outrageously sexy.
You don't think so?
Yeah, no, I really admire her.
All right.
Good news that we're not getting much of.
We get a little bit.
There's a story in the New York Times about this.
But it's generally, I think, we're trying to avoid.
I'm looking at the MSN homepage right now, and they're talking about the Broncos busting Kansas City and John Stamos and healthy sides.
What?
Where's the thing about the Chinese moonshot coming up on Monday?
Oh, man, you took my clip.
China's on the moon!
China will begin its mission to land on the moon on Monday.
The Chang'e 3 lunar probe will be launched at 1.30 a.m.
local time from the Xicheng Satellite Launch Center.
The rocket system has functioned perfectly in all four general inspections.
Everything matches perfectly with the launch requirements.
Also, the weather has been really good in Xichang.
Tomorrow we will enter the injection stage, which indicates the official start of the launch procedure.
If it's successful, the mission will be the first time any country has landed on the moon for nearly 40 years.
It will also be China's first soft landing on any extraterrestrial surface.
The mission will see an astronomical telescope installed on the moon, the first ever in the history of lunar exploration.
An extreme ultraviolet camera on the lander is designed to map environmental changes on the Earth.
What newscast was that from?
That was from CCT. That was from China.
Let's listen to the American version.
Something rather different, final...
Sorry, the British version.
Preparations are underway for China's first attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon.
Liftoff is expected in the next few days.
If successful, it would be the first moon landing in more than 40 years.
China says it wants to conduct research and prepare the way for manned missions.
The prize would be to find a way to exploit the moon's natural resources.
It's so amazing that it took China 40 years and they still can't get a guy up there because it was so easy 40 years ago through the Van Allen belts and everything.
It was just so easy.
Yes, very healthy.
Of course, most of these guys lived a long life, so maybe a little radiation is not that bad for you.
Which, by the way, is true.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm thinking they need to put those new studios in China to good use, so it's about time to fake it out.
Yeah, they got those new studios.
Well, anyway, there's a triple play.
This is the only other clip I have of this, which is what exactly they are doing with these probes.
Yeah, I know what they're really doing.
I think the Brits got it right.
They're looking for maybe if there's enough platinum up there, they can somehow ship some of it back.
Well, we don't know this already?
We gave up when we landed there all those times?
Thank you.
The Chang'e 3 mission will achieve three firsts.
Number one, space observation from the moon.
This is the dream of many astronomers because atmosphere, wind, snow and pollution don't obstruct visibility as they do on Earth.
Number two, we have an ultraviolet camera on the lander to monitor the Earth.
This camera is different from the one used by America's Apollo 16.
Ours can see the formation of the Earth's plasma sphere and its density change.
It's better than a satellite, which can only record data section by section as it orbits around the Earth.
On the Moon, it can observe half of Earth at a time without moving.
This is something people have always wanted to do.
Number three, we will be the first to learn the structure and layers of the moon 100 meters below its surface with radars installed at the bottom of the rover.
As the rover drives on the lunar surface, it will be as if it can cut and see what's 100 meters below.
These three highlights are what no other countries have done so far.
Well, I'm sad that they're not putting a dude up there.
I'm ready for that.
I'm ready for it.
Yeah, they probably will.
I'm ready for it.
Yeah.
You know how skeptical I am.
They've got plenty of dudes to put up there.
I'm still skeptical.
I just really am.
There's nothing up there.
They went up there.
There's nothing up there.
They took some rocks back, and that's that.
And the Chinese apparently got one gram.
According to this, I forget who it was, one of the presidents gifted China with one gram of moon rocks, which apparently they studied to death.
And I don't know if they found anything worth going back for.
Things do change.
It's funny you always say that, oh, you know, this never happened.
But then you make the claim on one show, I don't remember the exact number, that there are Israeli moon colonies.
No, first of all, I've never said Israeli.
Second, I've never said colonies.
I said space elevator and moon bases.
It's very different.
Okay, moon base.
But I'm...
I'm curious to see how this will be portrayed.
It's going to be downplayed in our media.
I can guarantee it.
They won't show them.
When we shot our...
So essentially they're dumb.
They're just dumb because we know there's nothing up there.
We haven't landed there in 40 years because there's nothing, nothing at all.
Nothing.
And now they're going back, so they're dumb.
Okay.
Is that what I'm supposed to believe?
I'm supposed to believe that?
They're dumb?
Well?
I'm asking.
I don't know whether you're supposed to believe it or not, but I think it could be sold.
I wouldn't even take it.
Here's my approach if I was doing the counter public relations on it.
It would be the Chinese are just trying to make it appear that they're just trying to catch up to the Russians and the Americans.
We've long since given up on this crap.
And we actually have little vehicles on Mars, which is a planet that's way out there.
It's nowhere near the moon.
And it goes around and around.
It's one state over.
It's New Mexico.
What are you talking about?
It's one state over.
Not that far.
And we've gone all that direction, and so these Chinese are just way behind.
It'll be used to demean them.
Meanwhile, I'm listening to Van Kat, and they're talking about one thing or another, and they start talking about Africa and the Central African Republic, which looks like it's the next hot spot where there's going to be some sort of...
Yes, C-A-R. You have to say C-A-R to be official.
C-A-R. C-A-R, yeah.
And so this is one guy, this guy from the Atlantic group who's on, they have this little panel discussion on VanCat at the end of the news segment.
It's actually kind of interesting.
But this guy goes off on...
On the way we look at China and the way the Chinese look at China, and I think, and he's got a little thing at the end, which I don't quite get, and I want you to analyze it, but listen to this Chinas in Africa perspective, which is pretty much our thinking to a point.
To have a new basis there?
I mean, it's very easy for them to come to this state and work from there.
Obviously, France has an interest.
I think...
The French are feeling embarrassed that they've really lost their foothold in Africa.
It's a slap in the face of national pride.
If you look at today, right now, what happened today?
What was the most important thing that happened today in Africa?
It took place in Kenya.
Where they inaugurated a, I believe it was in the neighborhood of a $14 billion rail line linking East Africa through Kenya, all funded by the Chinese.
This is a huge deal.
In the old days, you would have seen the president of France down there.
In charge of this it would have been a French operation.
This was a Chinese operation.
And the future of Africa is in the hands of the Chinese.
And what's going on now is that the Western powers, France specifically here, Or, I think, trying to be a little bit too old colonial for their own good.
Yeah, but again, as we were saying earlier, countries like France are haunted by inaction in the past.
Get over it.
Get over it.
It's a brave new world.
We're talking about real people being killed here in the Central African Republic.
And I'm talking about real politic in the 21st century.
Yes, you're right.
But do we see, again, do we see the mass protests in the streets?
Saying that we have to do something for these people in Central Africa.
Did we see this going on in Darfur?
Did we see it go on in Somalia?
No, you know, we did not.
Humanitarian interventions are not popular among nation states unless economic interests are at stake.
And that's a real politic reality that a lot of conservatives and liberals have a hard time swallowing.
But it doesn't make it any less true.
Well, the elites have no problem swallowing that because they go out there and kill everybody and bomb the whole deal.
Drone them.
Hey, you know, but some news came out today, which kind of fits into that, that the Eastern African states are going to create a monetary union.
This is Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi are going to have a common market and a single union monetary unit.
They're talking about the African euro.
And they're talking about doing that.
So this is the EAC, the East African Community.
So it's part of, you know, obviously Kenya has to be a part of that.
This has to be a Chinese initiative.
Well, I know what they should do.
Bitcoin!
They need to go to Bitcoin!
It's time for another installment of Bitcoin Bonanza with Adam Curry and John C. DeVore.
Peter Thiel.
Satoshi Nakamoto.
Cody Wilson.
And special guest, Alan Davis.
This week on Bitcoin Bonanza.
If only we had the money to do a game show.
Isn't that great?
That's good.
That's very good.
He just left Taylor Swift out there.
And Elon Musk.
I was actually thinking, if Elon Musk is smart, he'd start accepting Bitcoins for that battery car of his.
Yeah.
I'm calling.
He should do that.
He should do that.
He knows it's a scam.
It's risky.
Anyway, so I think you're right.
I think this has China's written all over it.
And they're, of course, going to underwrite this new currency.
They're talking about 10 years.
It definitely takes 10 years to do something like this.
Yeah, they're sick of us pushing everybody around with our Euro dollars.
But the question is...
Wait a minute.
Did you ever hear about this $14 billion rail line?
No, I never heard of that at all.
Of course.
So the Chinese put this rail line in that's essentially hooking the countries up that you mentioned.
Yeah.
Into the Union, yep.
And now they're going to do a thing.
These guys are really outplaying us big time.
And this is why I always get so mad because when we think of Africa here, it's all these little piddly NGOs, non-profit 5013C corps who are bringing books to the poor children in Kenya.
Don't kid yourself.
These people are going to own us.
They probably already do.
These countries are...
Yeah, sure, there's poverty, but it's not like we don't have poverty.
Crikey almighty, we got some poverty in this country.
It's just, you know, it's got old Nikes on, you know.
So it doesn't look all that bad.
You know, you don't have flies on your face.
But these countries...
Which brings me to another series of clips, but continue.
Well, it actually brought me to an email...
About San Francisco, or do you need to stay on Africa?
No, I think we're done with Africa.
I just wanted to get this point over so everybody knows that we're still looking at this and it's getting worse by the minute.
But we're being fooled.
We're helpless.
We're being fooled into thinking that Africa's helpless.
It's exactly the other way around.
In fact, they're walking out on climate conferences because we're not paying them.
That's what's going on.
Yeah.
I got a rant from Nick about Silicon Valley, because we were talking about...
Nick the Rat?
Not Nick.
No, producer Nick.
I don't know if...
No, because he works at a company.
He doesn't want me to give you his last name.
Okay.
And this is about the arrogant Silicon Valley types in San Francisco and the rents and all.
We were kind of bitching about that.
And he has a counterpoint, which I think we should share.
Which goes to this point of poverty in America.
Adam and John, just catching up on Thursday's show, I work for a startup in Silicon Valley.
Willie's points were kind of bogative.
He completely ignores the fact that the city doesn't give a flying fuck about the homeless and crime as long as it's not happening in Soma or the Tenderloin and not in North Beach or Knob Hill where he lives.
I have to agree right there.
When we really got things rolling about seven months ago, someone from the city came down to waste our time.
I think it was the city manager.
He came in with the guise of hoping to help us, and in return, help them.
Nothing ever came of it, of course.
And again, I'll agree.
I've seen those guys at the company in San Francisco.
Just wasting time.
They kind of came in, acted like a big deal, talked a big game, and left.
No doubt they'll be walking around going, oh yeah, I've met those guys.
Great stuff.
Yep, yeah, yeah.
Want to buy a seat at my dinner?
They don't help out with the homeless problem.
They don't discourage the crime.
Oops.
They're bent on making it more and more difficult to run a small business there.
Startups have been doing their damnness to clean up South of Market, Soma, but it's a fucking hellhole.
Before the startups, it was 100% warehouses, crime, homelessness, and auto body chop shops.
Now it's just startups, crime, and homelessness.
We support the local restaurants because, well, we need to eat.
New ones keep popping up, which is good, and the chop shops are turning into maker spaces.
These are all good things.
That said, the city seems to think it's a startup's job to clean up the streets.
You know why people at Zynga and Square don't walk down the street?
Because it's fucking dangerous, that's why.
Would you feel safe walking down a street full of crackheads and mentally ill?
This, by the way, is true.
Our employees are routinely approached for sex by meth addicts on their way home from work.
The homeless problem is massive.
The place where I park every day has about 30 to 40 homeless that live in a mix of tents, makeshift tents, cars, and non-operating mobile homes.
At our office, there's a homeless guy that routinely sleeps in front of our door and shits on our sidewalk.
It pisses off our investors like you wouldn't believe.
At 9 a.m.
every day, he's out there sitting in a fold-up chair watching people step in his crap while he drinks a Ford Loco and pisses it on our building.
When I leave every day, there's a line all the way down the sidewalk on 5th Street for the shelter slash soup kitchen.
When I say line, I mean mob of people, some of which just kind of stand in traffic and shout profanities at cars.
That used to be my job.
There's no parking in the city, which means pretty much everyone wants to live in the city, which keeps driving up the rent.
This is your problem, John.
When the city discovers a street without meters on it, they stick meters on it, about $27 a day on average to park in San Francisco.
If there's a Giants game or anything else that's going on, it's $6.75 an hour.
They use parking meters that change the price hourly.
Yes, they do that.
I want to mention that that is absolutely true.
They put all these electronic parking meters in and the price changes.
If there's actually some reason to park, It goes up.
Pre-paying for meters is a nightmare because of the variable rates.
Oh, and a parking ticket, which you will get, is $85.
$100.
Didn't turn your tires towards the curb?
56 bucks.
And they're complete Nazis about it.
So how about our rents?
$3,000 a month for a one-bedroom in Knob Hill.
Even worse in North Beach, South Beach.
Most people choose to live in Mission Soma Dogpatch, where break-ins happen all the time.
You can't go out at night, and smashing grabs are common.
When someone broke into our office, which is right across the street from a massive police station, it took police 20 minutes to get there.
When we asked why it took so long to get across the street, they said, oh, that's just highway patrol.
They don't do anything but write tickets.
The only thing keeping startups in the city is that employees want to live there.
That's the only thing that's keeping tax revenue coming in.
Oh, hiring locals?
Like who?
90% of SF is people from other states and countries.
Anyone left over is no good.
Invalid is what we call them.
When we do interviews, it's so hard to find people to work for you from SF. They're arrogant and no good at what they do.
They're disposable employees and they jump from job to job every six months.
End of rant.
Alright, hold on a second.
Now, I've been complaining about San Francisco being a hellhole, that people shouldn't go there, and all this, for years.
And I've complained about the parking and the ridiculous crap they put out there.
I've always said San Francisco is unfriendly and a miserable place.
There's some undertone here that's trying to correct my thinking.
What are we doing?
No, you have a fan.
What are you talking about?
He's right on board with you.
It's a horrible place.
Yeah, but he's saying this in response to Willie Brown and, you know, us saying that the, or me maybe, saying that the startups are arrogant and, you know, but yeah, I guess in a way you have to admit they need to have these buses because it is, it's like Escape from New York only at San Francisco.
It is, it's a hellhole.
And I remember our office, the Mevio office, that must have been broken into ten times.
Yeah, it was broken into at least once every quarter.
Once every quarter, yeah.
Yeah, you're right.
It's a hellhole.
And now I'm like, oh yeah, I remember that.
I remember that.
Well, the number of homeless in that area is pretty minor.
The homeless are really around Twitter and Facebook and around Market Street.
And they're all over the place.
And there's encampments that are set up commonly where there's a whole bunch of tents and lean-tos.
It looks like Brazil.
And there's just a lot of guys in there.
I'm seeing this more and more in Austin now, too, which is kind of freaking me out.
This is all the liberals.
Because in Oakland...
They've roused.
There's very few.
Even though Oakland is the most dangerous city in the country, and it's just dangerous, but they've gotten rid of the homeless.
They shipped them all to San Francisco.
I don't think I've ever encountered a homeless guy in Oakland.
This is what the FEMA camps will be for.
Yeah, it'd probably be okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, the Region 9 camps for the homeless.
San Francisco likes their homeless.
I think they use it as leverage in some way to get more police services.
Or, oh, it's so dangerous out there, you need to finance more in the police department.
They encourage San Francisco.
I totally believe this.
They encourage the homeless.
For some reason.
And I think it has to do with...
That's a pretty big statement.
I'm convinced of it.
I've always been convinced of it because they use it to get the coffers, they get more, they can tax you more.
Huh.
Yeah.
Even more.
Is it up to 12% now in California?
Your state income tax?
I don't know if that was passed.
I know it's still 10.
Maybe it is 12.
That's state income tax on top of everything else.
Yeah, but then you have city tax, right?
No, there's no city taxes.
Oh, Los Angeles is still sending me things for city tax or whatever.
There's a city tax in Los Angeles?
Some kind of tax.
Like a city income tax?
Yeah.
There's a city income tax in New York, and that's really high.
It's for doing business in the city of Los Angeles.
And, of course, I've moved out.
Oh, that's just a licensing tax.
Well, they're pretty damn persistent about it.
You're not there.
You've been in Austin for years.
Yeah, they don't like that answer.
They don't like that at all.
Well, the U.S. government does the same thing with people that move out of the country.
Yeah.
They've decided, well, you still owe us money.
Don't get me started on that.
Just staying in San Francisco, I was reading, what is this?
This may be, I wonder if this came off of Hacker News or something, but there's, you know, the political correctness, the cultural Marxism is now bleeding into high tech, where we now have to change out of political correctness the term master and slave to client-server.
Because of the weight of the slave and master relationship.
There's something, you know, somebody, it was actually one of our producers.
You know who he is.
He's constantly writing.
He said there's a movement to ban the word slave.
Yes, yes, yes.
And I said, this is bull crap.
But then I started thinking about it.
In other words, we call the public at large slaves.
And this doesn't seem to go over well with the government.
So it would be cool to just eliminate the word so it's like gay doesn't mean happy anymore.
It's just redefine things.
And I was thinking, well, I was kind of on the borderline until Friday.
On Friday, the entire Democracy Now!
show had no news whatsoever.
There wasn't one item of news.
The entire...
Our was devoted to a book on slavery in the 1700s and how it formed this enslavement.
It was all about slavery.
The whole hour.
Slavery, slavery.
I was just befuddled by this.
Interesting.
And how bad it was.
Harvard was formed on the basis of slavery.
Yale was a slave school.
It was just unbelievable.
In 1600, they were telling us stuff about the 1600s.
So there is something going on about the term slave.
Yeah, well, the Drupal community is now apparently changing the concept of slaving a server to a master...
To a client-server relationship because of the political correctness of not using the master-slave term.
Yeah, the S-word, it'll be pretty soon.
Yeah.
The S-word, and it won't really mean slave.
I can't say it.
And shit will be okay.
You said slave, you racist!
What was that?
I heard something the other day on NPR... And, yeah, I think it was a woman talking about something, and she said, well, and then in this particular book, it used the N-word a lot.
And I'm like, should it be okay to say the word nigger if you're not talking in a certain situation?
If you're referring to a word in a book, can't you use the word?
I mean, we all know you're not being racist by saying the word.
You know what I mean?
That's really weird.
Well, that's why they're pulling all the Mark Twain material.
Oh, you know what they got to pull?
They got to pull Tom Swift then as well.
You know Tom Swift, the books?
Yeah, Tom Swift.
Yeah, so I wanted to do an audio book, because the early Tom Swift books are public domain.
They're written at, like, turn of the century.
Yeah, Tom Swift's been around forever.
Yeah, Appleton.
Victor Appleton wrote the original series, Tom Swift and his flying grandmother.
And I really wanted to do...
And I was reading the book, and I'm recording it, and then it's like, and here's Bubba, and Bubba's, hey, Martha, you got that flying thing over there?
And...
And it's really written in the slave-type language of the day.
So you might as well burn those books.
You've got to get rid of them because it's racist.
Well, Huckleberry Finn would be the same thing.
Which I read as a kid, and I loved those books.
And I felt it really gave me a good perspective, if anything.
Because, of course, Huckleberry Finn and...
What was the slave that was on it?
Sawyer.
No, no, no.
Huckleberry Finn...
You had the black guy on the raft.
This is going back.
I forget his name.
Jim, maybe?
Yeah, Jim.
And, you know, they were friends, you know, they were buddies, and it was a real deep bonding thing.
And that was a beautiful book to read.
I always felt it was really enlightening.
But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if because of the language used, those books will be banned or altered or updated.
Well, they've already been banned in most places.
Banned?
Really, John?
Banned?
Yeah, banned.
Banned.
You can't buy Huckleberry Finn?
No, where it was once in a curriculum of American literature, it's now out.
And it's so important to have that.
Well, you know.
Alright, well now that we're at curriculum, we might as well do a quick one.
And by the way, a lot of people are very upset when I said that we probably would not do a lot of Common Core.
I didn't say that.
I said, we're not going to do the same thing over and over again.
And people are really upset.
Oh, you need to stay on this.
You are staying on it.
What are they talking about?
What did you say?
I said, we're not going to keep reading out the same things if there's something new.
Oh, no, you were complaining about the email.
Yeah, well.
Yeah, I remember this.
What you said was that I'm not going to read everybody's email who comes in bitching about Common Core.
People took that to me.
We're not talking about it anymore.
I said that in exactly that annoying voice.
It's just uncanny how you are able to do me that way.
So two things I want to say.
I'm a good mimic.
Let's put it that way.
One, I do want to read a quick email.
And then I have actually a revelation for me.
So here's how Patrick, my 13-year-old daughter, and I want to thank you for your courage and coverage of Common Core in episode 568.
It was very educational to her and was also a wonderful bonding experience for us both.
She was quicker than I and nearly as quick as John to pick up on each of your points.
I was very proud of her.
She went to her favorite teacher the next day and he already was aware of the would-be fiasco.
He seemed impressed that she understood the scam.
Thankfully she goes to a good private school and they're already on our side.
I'm sorry, not a donation attached to this email.
We're just getting by.
Really?
Sending your kid to private school?
You don't have five bucks?
Alright.
I like the way you turn this little note around.
I just realized that.
I just realized, hey, that sucks.
Yeah, that sucks.
Can't get a $5 a month subscription?
I mean, come on.
And then there was a link, and I finally figured out the...
So here's the term.
Compensation mathematics.
This is a common core term.
Compensation mathematics.
And I finally figured out what they're doing, and we can probably dissect why they're doing it.
So here's the sum and how they want children to approach it.
This is a textbook from Common Core.
Use compensation.
We've got to write this down, John.
Compensation mathematics.
Use compensation to find the answer to 3 times 18.
What is 3 times 18?
Can you do this in your head?
John?
Yeah, it's 24, 54.
Okay.
How did you do that?
How did you get to this number?
I multiplied 3 times 8, which is 24, then I carried the 2 and added it to 3 because it was a 1, and 3 plus 1 is 5.
Right, so that's how I was taught as well, and that's why the only thing you have to know is the multiplication tables are drilled into your head, so you can snap off that answer.
There's only none.
Yeah, it's not that much to it.
Right?
It's a very simple way of approaching it.
So no.
The way the common core with compensation mathematics wants you to do it is substitute a number for 18 that is easy to multiply.
Because, of course, you're dumb.
So they suggest, why don't you take 20?
So they say 3 times 20 is 60.
Now you're left with 3 groups of 2.
That is six, so you have to subtract six from the 60 to arrive at 54.
That's harder!
Yeah!
Thank you!
It makes no sense.
I mean, yeah, maybe because it's three times, I can do three times 20, 60, because it's a low multiplication table.
It seems like they don't want kids to go over, you know, 20, or two, the tables of two.
Yeah, no, to go that route, when you can just remember that you can remember the multiplications tables three times eight, you'd have to remember, you know, two times two, three times two.
I mean, it's not that hard.
It's like that's all third and fourth grade.
You generally have the multiplication table drummed into you.
You have a year to learn it.
It's not like, oh, my God!
You have a year to learn everything from 1 times 1 to 12 times 12, because that's kind of where they stop it, usually.
Not even.
144, by the way.
We don't even need to do that.
You learn that.
It takes, I don't know, 60 days at the most, 30 days a week, whatever it takes.
You have flashcards.
You use flashcards and just do it.
What is this?
And so you go through that and you got it.
Now you can do three times 18 rather easily and quickly in your head.
You can come up with the answer almost instantly.
But this other approach, the one thing, I was looking at the other approach and here's the first thing I said to myself.
I said three times 20 is 60.
There's two differences.
I just subtract two.
The answer is 58.
Right.
Because the difference between 18 and 20 is 2, I know that, and 3 times 20 is 60, but I changed it to 20 from 18, that's 2, so the answer is 58.
I'm telling you, this is the kind of problem you have with this complexity.
So I'm looking at the two pages from this textbook.
So the first one says, Using Mental Math to Multiply.
And then it gives you this problem and the equation, and it says, with compensation, you choose numbers close to the numbers in the problem to make the computation easier, and then adjust the answer for the numbers chosen.
Wow, this seems like government, doesn't it?
Let's guesstimate, and then when we get the wrong answer, we'll adjust it later.
This is very, very strange.
It's actually disturbing.
Yeah.
But it seems to me...
It's inviting errors.
It's inviting, like the one you just, the error you explained when you came up with 58, but also, it seems like it's pushing people towards not learning more multiplication tables than two.
Because you're doing 3 times 2, 0.
3 times 20 is 60.
And you're doing 3 times the 2s that are left over, which is 6.
And then you're subtracting.
And so it really feels like we're so dumb, we can't let you do anything harder.
You can't remember more than the multiplication table of 2.
So we'll have you solve it this way.
It's very, very, very strange.
That is weird.
What happens when it's 4 times 18?
Think of the complexity to get to the...
No one ever orders 18 Big Macs.
It's not going to be a problem.
Don't you see?
They're never going to happen.
Ever.
Well, this is very stupid.
It reminds me of what people always refer to when you talk about it with somebody who's not listening to the show where we've actually broke it down quite a bit.
Oh, it sounds like new math!
No, it's not.
I remember new math.
I can't quite remember all of it, but it was similarly stupid.
I think I just kind of went past the new math.
What the hell was New?
New Math was another attempt at this.
I think this has been going on for a while.
This Common Core thing is not new.
Buzzkill Jr.
blames the whole thing on Dewey.
The Dewey Decimal System?
In order to boost science education and mathematical skill in the population, so that the perceived intellectual threat of Soviet engineers, reputedly high-skilled mathematicians, could be met.
Oh, just replace Russia with China in this, and you have the exact same thing.
This is a fractal, John, of the new math.
Yeah, I think it is.
It's a fractal.
Mathematicians describe interesting objects, set builder notation, okay, binary numbers, duodecimals, oh my god.
Now, the problem, of course, is that we have a lot of this Common Core is going to carry over to college, and a lot of people are just not going to be able to get into college because they didn't have the Common Core background education in the dumbed-down system.
And it is dumbed-down.
I just can't see it any other way.
Make it up, kind of get there, compensate later.
Wow, sounds like healthcare.gov, doesn't it?
Oh, which reminds me, now that you mention it.
I guess it's running like a champ now.
It's just buzzing along because it was guaranteed, according to Obama, to be fixed today.
By the end of November, it was going to be running great.
How is it doing?
I don't care.
I think you shut it down.
I really don't care.
It's irrelevant.
It doesn't matter.
It's failed.
The whole thing has failed.
It's not going to work.
It's just not going to work.
Well, it should be fun.
Maybe we'll get to it tonight and we'll get to talk about it.
Yeah, I should bring it up.
No, they're going to bring up 23andMe, which I'm going to take a totally different tact on now.
Oh, okay.
Tell me.
Well, so I've learned, actually, as you know from Thursday, I went really deep on this stuff, and I've learned a lot.
And really, the main thing I've learned is that DNA analysis, to date, is really not helpful in finding diseases or helping you cure diseases.
It's great if you want to know how much Neanderthal you are, or how much African you are, or if you're related to somebody.
Yeah, that...
You know, that makes sense.
But it hasn't really done very well in truly predicting diseases.
Well, tell that to Angelina Jolie.
Well, she's part of the system.
She's part of this whole movement.
But here's what I'm going to say.
We already made...
Having a company like 20...
I'm forming it in my head here, so help me.
Allowing a company like 23andMe...
To, quote-unquote, democratize your health and your DNA is like we allow Twitter and Facebook to democratize freedom of speech.
You know, there are open-source databases, open-source programs.
The testing is one thing, and they don't even do the testing.
They outsource it.
So I'd like to know, where can you test it?
And it's fun.
It's fun to run it through Prometheus, I think it's called.
Prometheus.com.
Which is open source and you run it and you can run it against the same database.
In fact, one guy, one of our producers, he thanked me for mentioning that.
He says 23andMe, I took the raw data that I got from them and ran it through Prometheus.
23andMe never told me I have a higher risk than the average population of getting coronary heart disease, whereas Prometheus had it at the top of the page.
I have an above average risk for glaucoma, which two of my aunts have.
So it may even be that the false negatives that you get from the Twitter of DNA, which is what I'm calling them now, are more dangerous than the false positives.
But in general, I like the open source route.
I don't think we should give up our DNA to some Google-related company.
It's just not smart.
Learn from what's happened.
Google Gmail is not great.
It's just not.
You may think it's great still, but it's not.
Twitter is not great.
It's great until they close you down.
Facebook is not great when they don't show you your friend's timeline.
These are not great things.
We need to decentralize everything, including the DNA stuff.
So that's where I'm taking it.
I think if you threw exactly what you said right there in that little one minute, Which I'll never get back.
That little one minute at the dinner party, you would stop the show.
You'd probably get a standing O. I'm going to try it.
I'm going to try it.
It starts at 6.30, so I'll still be...
I think you're right on to a...
It's not, I don't think, a complete answer to what you really want to do, which is to get everyone all worked up.
I think it's a great, great little commentary that you could drop like a bomb in there and it would shut everybody up.
Right.
Because you're, from that little soliloquy, that...
Means you've actually thought about this.
I guarantee nobody there has thought about it.
They're all at the one layer deep.
Oh, you know, the government's shutting them down, and there's a bunch of conservatives.
The Republicans are the gatekeepers.
The Republicans are behind it.
Yeah, exactly.
I didn't want to say anything, really.
I'm so tired of it.
No, but that's a good speech, and it's short and sweet.
It's also the way I really feel.
And it took all of this for me to realize what my real aggression was towards this company.
And I'm like, oh, it makes so much sense.
Because all they're trying to do...
Is gather a lot of data to perhaps one day be able to supply some kind of analysis, but they're taking your shit.
It's like, once again, you're not getting the benefit.
You're giving it to them, and you're paying them $99.
Yeah, this is the way things go.
Yeah, and have we not learned?
You're being exploited.
I mean, this is like these systems that just exploit the users.
Yes, and I'm tired.
And they've raised $100 million.
That's not a fly-by-night operation.
No.
And, of course, they must be subsidizing the test because the test...
Look, if there's a real market for this, the price will come down.
Right now, the tests are expensive.
$4,000 or $5,000.
And the price will come down if there's a real market for it.
It's actually a good deal for $99 to get the test done.
It's a great deal, and I actually am considering doing it because now that I know that the SNPedia, which is where they get their information from, too...
Is open source and available?
Yeah, it's interesting to look at that.
Sure, I don't mind looking at it, but I think we should be very, very careful and learn our lessons about giving up our technology, and let's just call this technology, to a-holes in Silicon Valley.
Backslash.
Rant.
Okay.
I think you made your point.
Thank you very much.
And I have nothing to add.
I think you're fine.
I'm looking forward to the results of this next dinner.
Why are you doing it on Sunday?
You did these things on Saturday night.
It's first of the month.
I don't know.
Oh, there's like some coded, you know, like holiday, like manufactured schedule?
It's hard to, unfortunately, the guy who, did I tell you this?
That the guy who was there last time, the extra guy, he turns out that he's a top guy for Hill and Knowlton.
Yeah, he's there to check you out.
Yeah, but I didn't realize this.
Of course not.
He's a spy.
Well, he's not able to make tonight's dinner, unfortunately.
He figured you're just a crackpot.
Yeah, but I said, you know...
Your dossier's closed.
Nothing to see here.
Nothing to worry about.
It went into the big filing cabinet.
Don't look over here.
Nothing to see here.
Glenn Greenwald was on the BBC's Hard Talk.
Did you see this interview?
No, I wish I had.
Yeah, I pulled a couple clips.
I thought it was interesting in two regards.
One, whenever I see people online going, Glenn Greenwald totally schooled that motherfucker!
I'm like, okay, let's see how bad he schooled him.
You know, it's like, mainstream sucks!
I'm like, alright.
Actually, I found it to be quite...
This is a different guy.
Yeah, it's the...
This is the profane, low-class idiot that thinks everything is...
The internet guy.
Yeah, Glenn Greenwald schooled him!
And, well, what I liked about this is the guy on Hard Talk, which is a BBC news evening show, and Glenn's on from Buenos Aires.
Again, on one of those...
Skype has less...
He's in Rio, isn't he?
I think he was in Buenos Aires, I think.
Oh, he was in Buenos Aires for some reason?
For the interview.
Maybe I'm just remembering that wrong.
Okay, whatever.
It doesn't make any difference.
Why doesn't he just go to England and sit there with the guy?
Well, duh.
Part of that is in this.
And I'm just going to say that Skype, if you did the interview on Skype, you'd have less delay than whatever satellite system the BBC is using.
Man, it's really annoying because whenever Greenwald gets excited, he's responding three seconds later to when the guy tried to interrupt.
And he goes...
And it's really...
The cadence is weird.
So the question, of course, that we also asked is who really owns this information that I... Submit was taken from Edward Snowden, and subsequently Edward Snowden is no longer necessary, and he's now just a brand, as in the documents from Edward Snowden.
But the guy is like, here, enjoy Moscow!
So who owns it?
So long, sucker!
Exactly.
You've only published a tiny fraction of the huge number of top-secret documents that you have in your possession.
So, question number one, who owns those documents intellectually right now?
Who has ultimate control over them?
You no longer work for The Guardian.
Edward Snowden's stuck in Moscow and can't get out.
So, who actually controls this, in your words, top-secret information which is yet to be published?
What would your answer be to that, John?
Wow.
So this guy, of course, we're talking BBC, probably MI6. Oh, yeah.
And so he's asking specific questions.
This is a good question.
Thank you.
This is a very good question.
I'm glad somebody finally asked it.
My answer would be, it's public domain.
No, this is what I'd say.
I believe at this point, because copies have been circulated, the New York Times has one, the Washington Post has one, the Guardian has one, I have one.
There's a couple copies out there.
I am taking these documents and assuming that they are public domain until told otherwise.
The journalist who he trusted...
They're mine!
They're my documents!
What?
Nerve!
Listen to the rest.
As a source, just like is true in every single case.
Well, myself, Laura Poitras, the New York Times has a large number of documents, the Guardian has a large number of documents, and the Washington Post does as well.
So basically, the world's largest and most respected Western newspapers are in possession of a large number of these documents as well.
Don't you love that?
It's like, oh, okay.
Yeah, I'll just trust the news media.
I'll just trust the world's largest news organizations.
In this day and age, no.
No, I would like to see them myself.
Thank you very much.
But we know Glenn owns them.
Myself and Laura Poitras.
Okay.
Myself and Laura Poitras.
Did you hear him say it?
I find that interesting, the Laura Poitras aspect.
Because she's the one that really made the contact.
Yeah, she's the one.
She's probably the one.
Yeah, there's something.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Believe me.
Laura Poitras is the one.
Yeah, she's the one.
And Glenn is the face.
She is obviously a CIA stooge.
I believe in CIA because everything looks like CIA to me from her perspective.
Well, yeah.
Chaos.
I think she's with chaos.
But you were the first he turned to.
I don't know if I'm right in assuming that you have all of the documents and other people have some of the documents.
I mean, tell me if that's true.
Myself and Laura Poitras have the full set of documents and others have portions of them.
You have the full...
The portions he already sold.
He sold those to them.
You know he sold them.
He sold them.
...set of documents.
Do you believe you have the right...
You no longer work for The Guardian.
You are a freelance journalist.
I know you're hooked up with some other people.
But do you believe you and maybe Laura Poitras have the right to decide, going forward, what further to publish?
What would your answer be to that, John?
Well, if I was him, I'd say yes.
We are working with the world's largest media outlets in making those choices.
So even though I'm no longer at The Guardian, we have started our own media outlet that has some of the most experienced and respected national security editors and journalists in the world already working with our organization.
When I report in foreign countries, as I did in the last two weeks in Norway and Holland, I Okay, so I just want to, because I saw this thing, NRC is the newspaper that hired him in Holland.
So here's how it works.
He'll go in, in his little document database, and we know that what the New York Times has is some very complicated thing where it's very hard to find anything.
So we don't know if he's working off the same bundle of information or database.
He'll find something regarding the Netherlands, which the story was about the NSA possibly not stopping spying in the Netherlands in 1960 or something.
And I believe he calls up, you know, or he puts out to bid...
I think I could be wrong about that.
That's just off the top of my head.
And then he flies out.
They put him up.
He works with their person.
And they take a document, they publish a page or two from the document, without really any commentary, because no one will comment.
They're just publishing slides.
And then they'll make up a headline, and oh, this is what's going on.
And that's his business model.
That's the business model.
And so he's going to travel around the globe doing this, and I think you can rack up some nice dough that way, and you can keep it going for quite a while, as we'll learn later in this interview.
Work with some of the largest and most respected media establishments in those countries.
How can he say that these big media establishments are respected?
It's perpendicular to what he's always stood for.
Yes, I agree.
I'm wondering, well, there is customers now.
That's why.
Thank you.
That's the true answer.
And have the same exact process and structure where I work with their editors and their lawyers and their journalists to make these decisions collaboratively.
So there's never been a single document that has been published because I myself have decided it.
We work as responsible journalists in a journalistic structure.
Okay.
Um...
Now, this is another part of the interview, and he comes back to this a lot, about the safeguarding of the documents.
And, in essence, Glenn is saying that he is protecting the documents, which you can read one of multiple ways.
Is he protecting it?
For the CIA and the NSA, or is he protecting against it?
The way he answers it, I think, is open to interpretation.
You control information which is of vital national security interest to hundreds and hundreds of millions of people who live in the United States, the UK, and other countries.
Surely, the wisest course of action for you as a human being, let alone a journalist, is to return that information whence it came.
I love that term, by the way.
Return it whence it came.
God, that's funny.
Isn't that awesome?
Return it from...
It doesn't even say from.
Return it whence it came.
I think that's proper English, too.
Ah, probably.
It's to return that information whence it came.
You've looked at it.
You've decided that the information you can't publish is so sensitive that it can never be published.
So, should you not get it out of your possession and return it whence it came?
Return it whence it came!
No.
First of all, the people who can't be trusted to safeguard the security of that information are called the NSA and the GCHQ. They're the ones who are so reckless with the information that they put it on systems that are accessed by tens of thousands of people and lost control over the documents.
That's very interesting he's saying that.
Do you think it's possible that more people have taken that information from these servers?
The chances that if tens of thousands of people had access to them, that more...
Oh, I'm sure there's some...
Well, they were using it for blackmail.
I mean, they were using it for...
I mean, there were some moments where they admitted, at least I think in Congress, that some rogue employees were checking up on their old girlfriends using this stuff, listening in on conversations.
So, yeah, I think there's probably a bunch of people who've collected chunks of it.
Not necessarily the exact same chunk because it was probably collected.
I think Snowden, for example, and you've seen this on systems, I mean some people will do it personally, you keep all your PowerPoints in one folder and then that's the main folder that everyone...
Right.
Dips into a corporation.
To create new PowerPoint, flower points.
Right.
Say, I've got to see, let me grab the PowerPoint folder and see if there's anything in here I can use.
Exactly.
You take a slide from here and a slide from there, and then you change the template so the slide, all of a sudden, they all look like you put it together as one slideshow.
And so I think Snowden, for one thing, saw that cache of PowerPoint.
Cache.
Cache, as they say.
Cache.
He had the cache and grabbed the whole thing, and then he probably saw some other folders of interest, and so whatever he has.
But I'm sure other guys have grabbed other stuff, but they're a little more less likely to come out.
They got a good job in an environment like this, and let Snowden take the heat, and well, this is fine.
You can always sell something in drips and drabs later.
Yeah, it doesn't matter.
Whereas we've maintained very tight control over the documents.
Secondly, I never said that all of the documents in my possession that haven't yet been published are ones that shouldn't be published.
In fact, there's a lot more reporting that I intend to do that other media outlets intend to do in publishing these documents.
How much more?
How much more?
I don't have an exact count, but I can tell you that if I had to guess, we are still in the first part, the first half of the reporting.
The majority of reporting on these documents, for sure, is reporting that has yet to be done, but that will be done.
Oh, okay.
There's a little information we didn't have.
Yeah, that's a good one.
In other words, he's dribbling it out, and of course, the way I understand it, it's pretty much all he can do.
Well, he spent the first quarter of it to reel in the big money to monetize this, which is Omidar.
P.O. as we call him.
And I'm sorry, he's not really doing journalism.
I'm sorry, it's not.
He is publishing slides and making assumptions about what they mean.
He doesn't have sources, a lot that I've seen, that back it up, that confirm.
I don't think he does.
No, so it's not really journalism.
However...
That you will use most of the material Edward Snowden gave you, ultimately.
I'm going to use most of the material that's newsworthy.
How much of that is part of the pile, I can't quantify for you right now.
But like I said, there's a lot more reporting to do because we're not the kind of journalists who just go around repeating what the government says.
No, you just go around publishing slides and saying this is the truth.
And demanding that everyone accept it as true without evidence.
We're the kind of journalists who believe that the way you hold power accountable is by reporting on what the truth actually is, and it's the documents that reveal that.
Right.
I'm just going to have to disagree.
I want to agree, but that's just bullshit.
The documents do not hold any specific truth.
I know that, but if you're publishing slide 56 from a deck...
That's out of context.
It's out of context, and we need context.
Context is everything.
Context is the truth.
If anything, I'm...
The whole pile of crap needs to just go to WikiLeaks and be published as a giant chunk.
If anything...
Let the chips fall where they may.
Yeah, you're going to probably compromise.
Talk about compromise.
What's her name?
Valerie Plam was compromised by her own government and had to retire as a CIA field operative.
So, I mean, yeah, somebody's going to get busted and it's going to be, you know, they're going to have to quit the business.
But give them fair warning.
Probably if...
Because, you know, we know that the way this really works is they take a slide, they take a deck, they go to the authorities and say, what can we not publish?
They say, don't publish this, redact that, which they do.
And this is admitted, this is not like some stunning news.
And then they publish, you know, and probably whatever is disadvantageous for whoever is saying it's okay to publish, if we really had all the documents, it probably would be much worse than it is now because what would fall out, I think, would be the blackmail, would be the industrial espionage.
I think it would be much, much worse.
Yeah, I think it would be too, and I think it's a lot of blackmail, and I think this whole terrorism nonsense is a smokescreen for a blackmailing operation done by the government against the citizens.
I mean, they say they have the goods on some...
The truther that's in Hollywood...
Yeah, tell me about this, because you had this in the newsletter.
I hadn't heard this.
Yeah, there's a...
Well, there's not...
It's pretty vague.
I think in Metafilter had some references to it.
Wow, you still use Metafilter.
Oh, my God.
It's actually not...
I get routed through Metafilters from Buzzkill Jr.
as a member.
Wow, I haven't used Metafilter in years.
You should look at it.
Yeah, I'm going back now.
It's actually kept up with stuff.
How do you use it?
And supposedly, there's some guy that they've got the...
Who's, I guess...
There's some connection to this truther Hollywood star who apparently likes really some weird type of porno.
I don't know if it's the shemale stuff.
Hey, hey, that's not weird.
Or any of this kind of offbeat, let's say.
I know how much this is important to you.
Maybe it's about you.
Now that I think about it.
They're going to be really disappointed because I don't care what you think about me.
But the point is, is that this blackmail idea is just obvious.
I mean, that's exactly what you'd use this for, to get to your political enemies.
And that, again, takes us back to the Holder clip where the senator asked him, you know, under oath, can this be used for political advantage?
And he wouldn't answer the question.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I have one more clip from Greenwald if you're interested.
It's a little long.
I love listening to Greenwald.
This is the last one we have here.
He's asked a very specific question.
About the possibility of foreign powers having this information that intelligence officers have said, well, hold on a second, this is really damaging, because now I guess terrorists aren't using Skype, whatever.
But he doesn't answer the question.
Which is interesting to me.
And I think that's probably his legal background, the speaking.
And he answers it in quite a different way, which is not a bad...
I'm not totally against what he's saying here.
It's just interesting he doesn't answer the question.
You don't trust, plainly don't trust, all of the security chiefs who've lined up to say that what you've done, the stories you've written, have fundamentally undermined security and aided and abetted terrorism.
I'll just point you to the evidence of Oliver Robbins, the Deputy National Security Advisor for Intelligence in the UK Cabinet Office, who says, and he said this...
In written evidence in a court case, it is known that in the seized material is personal information that would allow intelligence staff to be identified, including those deployed overseas.
He says the government has had to assume that copies of information held by Mr.
Snowden may now be held by one or more other states.
You're saying he is not telling the truth?
There was this thing called the Iraq War in which the US and the UK governments persuaded their media outlets and their populations to support an aggressive attack on another country by making one false claim after the next designed to scare the population into believing that there was a security threat that didn't actually exist, that they had to go to war in order to stop.
What journalism is about is it's based on the premise that when people like Mr.
Robbins and others who exercise power in the dark make those kinds of claims to justify their own power, they're often lying.
That's not what journalism is about, Gwen.
But your point is valid, but that's not what journalism is about.
Wait a minute, go back to that, because this is like one of those great sentences.
Where you throw something in and you never talk about it.
Oh, yeah.
Can you just play that again?
Yeah, of course, of course, of course.
I'll just go back a little bit more.
Hold on a second.
Oh, yeah.
No, he's not going to answer the question.
The U.S. and the U.K. governments persuaded their media outlets and their populations to support an aggressive attack on another country by making one false claim after the next designed to scare the population into believing that there was a security threat that didn't actually exist, that they had to go to war in order to stop.
What journalism is about is it's based on the premise that when people like Mr.
Robbins and others who exercise power in the dark make those kinds of claims to justify their own power, they're often lying.
That's what crackpottery is.
That is nuts what he said.
Yeah, that's what I do.
What journalism is about...
Let me do it.
What journalism is about is when Mr.
XYZ says something, he's lying.
Generally.
Generally.
Now, this is like one of those things that we found, these kind of crazy sentences where you say one thing.
Performatives.
Okay, well the way we're going to solve that problem is, and then you talk about, you know, the theater lines are too long and what we've got to do.
You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, performatives.
Yeah, it was even worse than that.
It's kind of a layered performative.
In the dark, make those kinds of claims to justify their own power.
They're often lying.
They often tell things to the population that turns out to be untrue.
And the job of a journalist is not to investigate other journalists who are investigating those powerful officials.
I think sometimes that is the job of a journalist.
I'm sorry.
Sometimes, yes.
Are you kidding me?
To try and be responsible when telling their viewers and readers what government officials are saying and then to assess whether there's evidence for it.
That's my role as a journalist.
You don't have to rely on my statement.
You are saying something so explosive I have to challenge it.
You're accusing the most senior intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic of routine and systematic lying.
What is your evidence?
You say, look at the Iraq war, but what is your evidence that when people like the head of GCHQ and the head of MI6 say that there is real evidence that since your revelations, the sorts of communications conducted by terrorists has changed because they've adapted to...
Hold on, hold on, stop, stop.
Now, he should come back with where's their evidence and throw it back at the guy, does he?
Well, this is, so it's funny you say that, because that's exactly what I was expecting.
It's exactly what I was expecting him to say.
They've learned from you.
Where is your evidence?
Those intelligence chiefs are lying.
First of all, I think the Iraq war is a pretty significant example of the propensity.
If you want to scream at me and make all kinds of filibustering remarks, I can just disconnect and you can do that.
What a dick.
That's bad.
That's really bad.
Okay, well, as a lawyer, he usually, he would, I don't know why he didn't have that rehearsed.
Well, let's listen to the rest.
You want to ask me a question, you're going to give me time to actually answer it.
The evidence that government officials lie is found in history.
He's saying he's very smart.
The evidence that government officials lie, not the evidence in this case, but they lie.
With things like the Iraq War, when the U.S. and the U.K. destroyed a country of 26 million people based on lies they told over the course of two years to their population.
And if you look at what happens in countries where there's constitutional guarantees of a free press, which I know doesn't include the U.K., but includes most Western democracies, What you find is all sorts of people who have created those protections have done so based on their recognition that people in power, specifically national security officials, will routinely lie to their population.
The evidence that I have is that three Democratic senators just two weeks ago And he wins with that one, because that's what we've uncovered as well.
Not even uncovered, we just played C-SPAN. Yeah.
There's nothing to uncover.
It's there.
It's fact.
It's just there.
They just played on C-SPAN. Huh.
Well, he blew that one up, I think.
I think he had a better shot at calling the guy out for the claims of the GCHQ guys.
I totally agree.
They've changed their game plan thanks to these guys.
And there's no evidence of this at all.
I totally agree.
I totally agree.
Alright.
That was entertaining.
Eh, a little bit.
I'm gonna show my support by donating to no agenda.
Imagine all the people who could do that.
Oh, yeah, that'd be fab.
Yeah, on the agenda in the morning.
On the short list.
We have a few donors here, including Adam Smith, if that is indeed his real name.
$193.08 from Calgary, Alberta, where all the money is.
This puts me over knighthood.
And you've got $111.11 to make it rain for Christina.
Yeah.
If possible, the additional 81, 87, 81 being the only number whose square root is also the sum of the two numbers.
And 97 is the largest two-digit prime number.
Nice.
To celebrate, can I get an Oreo is better than crack?
We won't find that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I got it.
I got it.
What else?
Followed by a guy falling off the cliff and then karma.
Yeah, I can do that.
Oreos are just as addictive as cocaine.
Oh!
You've got karma.
Nailed it.
Sir Smitty.
Now I do have a, if you want to do a quick, it's the only one, the only 1111.
Oh, this is the only one?
Yes.
Oh, hold on a second.
Did he, he wanted to, what did you say, he wanted to be Sir Smitty?
Is that on this one?
Sir Smitty, yeah.
Yeah, it's on the list that way.
Okay.
We'll have to turn on the echo and I'll just do a quickie.
Hold on.
A quickie?
Hold on a second.
I didn't realize it was just one.
We can do that.
All right.
You are good to go.
Ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for Christina as she comes off the stage.
Her hobbies include staff collecting and amateur forestry.
So get your logs ready for Christina.
Excellent.
Well done.
Well played, sir.
I think I can get a job doing this.
Just a bunch of cute one-liners.
Jason Doolin in Las Wages, Nevada.
1, 2, 3, 5, 8.
And he has a donation letter.
I sent you a copy of this.
Yeah, do you want me to read it?
Yeah, because I don't have my email.
That's why you send it to me, so you wouldn't have to deal with it?
Yes.
In the morning, Korean Dvorak, I'd like to thank you guys for an excellent show day in and day out.
I work whatever the day is, just like you guys.
Listening to you guys while I work this last holiday was a true pleasure.
I have a few things here you might be interested in.
Just like the blue dots, there are green dots.
The green dots, if your jurisdiction uses them, should mark automatic gates.
Usually you will find an egress into gated communities.
These tell emergency vehicle operators where gates are.
This matters because these gates have sensors to open for the emergency vehicle.
I didn't know that.
I have a 20-month-old daughter.
My wife and I have been talking about educating our daughter.
Your Common Core reporting has been appreciated.
I certainly think you guys are right.
Homeschooling is the only way.
I have seen some of the John Gatto stuff.
John Taylor Gatto.
Here is another interesting person.
Charlotte Eiserbyte has the claim that the American education system is meant to dumb down our society.
Yeah, I've read this.
She was head of education under Reagan.
She does have some other interesting claims that could be fun.
Rabbit holes if you have the time.
Yeah, no, I got the time, of course.
So that gives me some time codes.
So just lots of other stuff.
Oh, is it appropriate to call out a buddy's wife to the stage?
I don't think I will this time around.
Well, first of all, yes.
I don't think so.
You can call out a buddy's wife to the stage if you want to get bopped in the face.
What do you mean?
I think it's inappropriate.
The answer is no.
This is not okay.
Wow.
I'm so picky.
Well, thank you very much, Jason, for the 12538.
It's highly appreciated.
We'll read notes, a couple of notes, selected notes.
I need to interject for one second.
Did you get some silver coins?
No.
Not in the post box?
When did you last go?
Yesterday.
Really?
Huh.
You got silver coins?
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure you got them, too.
I didn't get any.
It's from Dave Jones, and he said, here are five one-ounce silver coins I've picked up over the years that I thought you guys would get a kick out of.
At the current silver spot price of $19.40, it should come out close to $100.
The Bush and Cheney coins were from a limited run set called the Neo coins that was never finished.
If you read on the air, please tell any producers in central Alabama, I'd like to do a No Agenda meetup in Birmingham.
If anyone's interested, they can get my email from Adam.
And Dave Jones and I have been working together for many, many years on the Freedom Controller software project.
So I'm surprised.
I think you should be getting these as well.
These are numastically...
nuministically?
What is it?
Numenistic, I think.
Well, they're nuministically sealed.
And they are indeed silver coins.
And one of them is George W. Bush.
They're beautiful coins.
Then one is Lakota, which is the Indian dude.
And one of them is Liberty.
And then one of them is John Galt.
Oh, God.
But here's the coolest.
And I showed this coin to Mickey.
And she went, oh, my God, it's John on a coin!
It's actually Dick Cheney.
And it's funny, if you look at Dick Cheney, did you know that with the glasses that It's pretty uncanny, John.
Well, there you have it.
So anyway, I don't know.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I thought that you were getting coins as well.
So you may be.
If not, then...
I'll keep an eye out.
I'll go back on Wednesday again.
If not, I'll be sure next time I'm out there.
We'll read one more note, which is from Sir Loren Osterman, because he's sent twice this amount in Sills, Austria.
He forgot to deliver.
He's kindly asked for health.
He's one of our knights, so we do what he says.
Some health karma for, I guess, someone himself or his wife or somebody, but he needs health karma, and let's give it to him.
Of course, no problem.
You've got karma.
He says his last week's few last shows recently have been stellar.
Good word.
Oh, that's nice.
Well, we tried.
Yeah, Kalen Nistor in Northville, Michigan, $99.99.
Matthew...
Haven't gotten one of those in a long time.
Upcoming night, Matthew J. Milligan in Spanish Springs, Nevada.
He likes the show.
Put it that way.
Vincent Veithoisen, Sack of Sevens in Groningen.
Feldhausen.
What?
Is that all right?
Yeah, close enough.
Balthausen in Gröningen.
That's a sack of sevens.
Stu Coates, 69-81 in Chelmsford.
And he's actually 69-69 plus something to complete his knighthood, which will be knighted later.
69!
69, dudes!
Seriously, the 69ers are both from the UK. Michael Gonzalez in London, 69-69.
And Brian Barrow in Wooten Bassett.
Nice.
Which is my favorite place.
That and Powell's.
I'm not even going to close it out because it's only like two.
Nope, we don't close it out.
Matt McNulty, 66-66 in Chicago.
Chicago.
Michael Siegenthaler in Parts Unknown, 6666.
Sir Ryan Burgett in Bothell, Washington, $60.15.
And we drop down to Benjamin Winters in Dayton, Ohio, 5768.
Ralph Smith in Brooklyn, New York, 5690.
Martin Krupka in Jacksonville, Florida.
He wants some job.
Karma will give him at the end of the listing here.
Hold on.
And he's 55.
Double Niggles on the Dime.
Double Niggles on the Dime from John Tucker in Omaha, Nebraska.
51-11 from Roy Pingel in Brooklyn.
Not the guy in Brooklyn.
You guys should have a meetup.
And then we have Carl Barron in Malmo again in Sweden, who's commonly giving us $50, and these are all $50 donations.
Greg Brunsel in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Zradik Zagreb...
Oh, great.
Zagrobelny.
Zagrobelny.
Yeah, something like that.
That would be the way he'd say it.
In Ontario, Canada...
He also wants some karma.
Dame Jessica Walters in Geelong, Victoria.
And we have her down for a birthday shout-out to her husband.
And finally, Bogdan Lachendro, if that is indeed his real name, in Irvine, Texas.
I want to go back to Matt McNulty just to read, because he has a birthday request.
He gave us a sack of sixes.
Dear Fruity VJ from my childhood, an old tech geek from whatever hole you crawled out of.
This is always a good opener.
I'd like to take this time to thank you for your courage as well as punching my dad in the mouth for his birthday today.
Please accept this sack of sixes on my dad's behalf and remind him that Fox News is run by the Democrats.
Thank you, Dad, for the love of history you bestowed upon me, and thank you, Trudy and Anthony, for giving me the stomach to muddle through the madness.
I could use a dedouching for my first donation, and would appreciate you adding Kevin McNulty to the infamous birthday list.
Sincerely, Mac McVader, future baron of Logan's Swear.
So I want to make sure we dedouch.
You've been dedouched.
And everybody who wanted some karma, bend over.
Here it comes!
You've got karma.
There you go.
Rather rude of him.
What?
Fruity VJ from my childhood.
I wear...
Old tech geek from whatever hole I crawled out of.
I wear that banner with pride.
Dvorak.org slash NA. It's your birthday, birthday.
I'm so much younger.
Here we go.
Matt McNulty says happy birthday to Matt McNulty.
Dame Jessica Walters is happy birthday to Sir Troy Walters, celebrating tomorrow and the new human resource Colin Walters, born on the 23rd of November.
Hey, I've been busy!
And Francis James McClure and James McClure celebrating on November 30th and the 29th, 65 and 29 years respectively.
And it's good hearing from you guys.
Thank you very much for the donation.
You're partly responsible for us being here in Austin, Texas.
Happy birthday from your buddies here at the Best Podcast in the Universe!
It's your birthday, yeah!
And then for some reason we have quite the list.
Yeah, that's kind of weird.
Well, you know, eventually people get there, you know?
That's what happens.
Yeah, it adds up.
It really does.
You know, did you read that story?
It was kind of a distraction of the week about the Seattle man who clipped coupons but left a $118 million legacy.
This is a fractal story.
I've heard it all my life.
One of these stores.
Oh, the guy was a janitor and he died and they found $250,000 in stocks in his dresser drawers.
Well, this is $118 million.
Well, that's a lot.
It could have been at least a mil for the No Agenda show.
People, if you're going to be one of these mysterious people, put us in the will.
Believe me.
Actually, that's what KQED promotes.
Getting us in the will.
Really?
We should do that.
What difference does it make?
You're going to be dead anyway.
And you hate your kids.
Send it to no agenda.
Your kids are grown up on Common Core.
You'll hate them anyway, so you might as well send it to us.
Exactly.
I need it to be in the will.
Okay, let me get this.
There you go.
Jamie Lodberg!
Mark Workman, Carson Schwarznelson, Francis James McClure, Adam Smith, and Stu Coach, step forward.
All of you are about to become Knights of the No Agenda Roundtable, and you've got some pretty kinky names.
We appreciate that.
So congratulations, Sir James of Norway.
Sir Mark Workman, Sir Schwartz, Sir Francis James McClure, Sir Smitty, and Sir Stu Coates.
For you, we've got...
Oh my God.
Librarians and Jaeger bombs.
Nope.
Opium and warm orange juice, long-haired heavy metal guys and scotch if you go that way, wenches and beer, geishas and sake, vodka and vanilla, bong hits and bourbon, sparkling cider and escorts, mutton and mead, or as Karsten Schwartz suggested, fries and thick, creamy milkshake.
Which sounds like something disgusting, really.
Thank you all for contributing to the No Agenda show.
This is a nice list.
I'm glad that a lot of people made it through today.
Go to noagendanation.com slash rings to get your rings.
We're still doing rings.
And almost a year after we said we wouldn't, which is kind of cool.
Which means we basically just had a lot left over?
They reordered.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, well, yeah.
That's a big ticket, so we have to stay on them.
That's no joke.
Well, you know...
No.
No, I mean, it's like I still think pins are a better idea, but everyone seems to like these rings.
Excuse me, I didn't get...
I wasn't in the memo when this was discussed.
But okay.
Hey, you know what?
Everyone likes them.
Our knights like them, that's for sure.
And that's all that counts.
I like the guys who use the ring and they actually use the wax and when they send a letter in, they stamp it with the ring and they seal it.
I like that.
It's very cool looking.
It's awesome.
It's fantastic.
I think you should do that with all your bills.
Buy a bunch of that wax.
I'm actually a guy that I'd send everything.
I do checks.
I don't do online payments for almost anything.
Yeah, I prefer the mail, too.
What is that about us?
We don't trust it.
We've been in the business too long to trust the electronic anything.
That's true.
So there's a couple more stories.
Go back to China.
There's a couple of little items here I wanted to get out of the way.
One is the update on the air zone.
The Chinese have changed their air zone and we've toyed with them.
And now apparently we've kind of caved.
And Obama says, yeah, we'll not do this.
But play the air zone report so we can keep up.
Meanwhile, according to reports in the New York Times newspaper, U.S. President Barack Obama is to tell American commercial airlines to comply with the rules of China's air defense identification zone and notify flight plans to Chinese authorities.
The decision has apparently been taken following a government meeting.
Interesting.
Well, the Chinese have, this is rail news from China, the Chinese, in the time it took for the Californians to decide and to go to court and go to their high-speed rail, it's never going to happen, of course.
Oh, this is interesting.
Interesting you bring this up.
Hold on, I've got something.
Well, let's now move on to other news.
A high-speed railway route has opened in North China, forming the last link in the high-speed rail network from the country's north to south.
The line goes from port city Tianjin to coastal Qin Huangdao in Hebei province.
And its first train set off on Sunday morning from Tianjin.
The nearly 300-kilometer-long journey only takes about an hour and ten minutes, half the time it takes by regular trains.
It connects with Beijing to Harbin and Harbin to Dalian routes to the north and the Beijing to Shanghai route to the south.
Is it like Rail Appreciation Day or something?
Because I got a high-speed report.
It's like a repeat.
I think the PR people are back at work, A. And B, by the way, looking at this report, I'll bet you, now I want to go to China just to take this particular train.
It looks dead empty.
Listen to this report.
This is a U.S. report that says the same thing but even hypes it worse.
We're going to show you the scene this morning at New York's Penn Station.
Amtrak says it's expecting a near record...
This is from Thanksgiving Day.
...number of passengers for the Thanksgiving weekend.
Crowds are also lining up for trains in Philadelphia.
But across the country, travelers still don't have one option used to run the world for nearly half a century.
High-speed rail.
This is a packaged piece.
I mean, they're going...
No, it's totally packaged.
No reason for the story.
There's no news.
Apparently, they say, oh, it's going to be busy.
Well, yeah, it's Thanksgiving weekend.
Yeah, hello.
It's busy at the airports.
It's busy on the freeways.
Straight into a pre-produced package.
It shows us why one state's battle could set the pace for the rest of the nation.
In China, this bullet train zips between the cities of Beijing and Zhengao at over 220 miles per hour.
So convenient, one local air service went out of business seven weeks after the first train left the station.
Andy Kuntz heads an advocacy group called the U.S. High-Speed Rail Association.
Ah, there it is.
China now has built almost 10,000 miles of brand new state-of-the-art high-speed rails.
All brand new, all fast, all, I mean, the best in the world.
10,000 miles?
10,000 miles.
I gotta question that.
10,000 miles of brand new rail?
The way they built that, like, overnight?
This is the Acela Express, which runs between Boston and Washington, D.C., with stops in between.
It's as close as the U.S. gets to a high-speed line.
The top speed is 150 miles an hour, but the average speed is not even half that.
But California hopes to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles with America's first true high-speed rail.
520 miles between them.
Travel time, three hours.
All aboard, trains good, planes bad.
And of course Boeing went and said, let's throw a train off the tracks.
These guys are getting way too much press.
I can get...
What?
What are you playing?
I'm not playing anything.
What are you hearing?
Oh, I bet you it's my...
You got an ad running?
You got a Skype ad?
I have something running.
I went to the USHSR.com.
Oh, and they got an autoplay?
And I think they're playing some bull crap in the background.
Oh, yeah, there it is.
They're showing the high-speed rail of China and how we should have this in California.
Right.
Which, by the way, they're going to stop.
Yeah.
This thing is never going to...
I mean, all it is right now.
What they're going to do is they're going to build the Bakersfield Fresno...
You know, high speed line so they can run, you know, grain to up the gut.
And they're never going to hook San Francisco to LA as a scam.
But, okay, fine.
And by the way, three hours?
First I've got to find a place to park, which is a pain in the ass, and I have to wait to get on the train, obviously.
So that's about 45 minutes.
There's going to be scanners.
You're going to have to walk through the thing, and you have to wait for the train.
So it's going to be just like going to the airport.
So the time difference there is not going to change.
Hold on, hold on, hold on a second.
John, I'm not going to let you only talk down about high-speed rail and only talk about the disadvantages.
I'm not going to let you do that.
There's advantages to high-speed rail.
Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city.
No racing to an airport and across the terminal.
No delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes.
So I don't see the difference.
I'm going to have to rush to the train station, because there's not one across the street from my house, I can assure you.
So I have to rush to the train station, I have to rush to the airport.
I have to park my car somewhere, and it's not cheap.
I have to park my car at the airport.
Same thing.
Here's the great thing.
Why do you want to get to San Francisco faster?
To that hellhole.
Well, there's that.
Seriously.
Here's the other thing.
I mean, who cares?
San Francisco and L.A.? Why?
If I want to go to L.A., I can go to casually go to the Oakland Airport, which is a very pleasant airport.
I can get on the Southwest flight and I can land in Burbank where I don't have to be in some...
The hellish LAX. I have choices.
I can go to Burbank.
I can go to Ontario.
I can go to LAX. I can go to...
There's even flights from Virgin Flights into the Long Beach Airport.
I have a bunch of choices.
Otherwise, I have to go to San Francisco and find a parking to get on the San Francisco high-speed rail to LA, go through the gut Fresno and Bakersfield with a beautiful...
They do have a great go-kart track in Bakersfield.
And so I go, boom, it takes me three hours on the train.
It takes me one hour and ten minutes on the plane.
And it's going to be on sale because they're always having fair wars.
There's no fair war.
Now let me ask you a question.
And by the way, take a look at Amtrak prices.
They never discount anything.
Now let me ask you a question, just so we can wrap this up.
Why are they doing it if it makes no sense?
Well, for people who are new to the show, we've long since determined this is to benefit Warren Buffett, Burlington Northern, Santa Fe, and all these other carriers of freight.
They need new rail beds for their freight, and they won't spend the money.
They're cheap.
If the government and the stupid public will pick up the tab for new rail beds for these high-speed trains, the freight guys will end up with the high-speed rails because the high-speed train passenger service will never make money, and they'll end up putting the freight trains on these tracks.
And there's tons of money to be made in the process of putting this down.
Tons of money.
It's just a part of a greater corruption that, you know, we bitch about.
It's about as far as we get.
Red 33!
Red 33!
Clip blitz!
Clip blitz!
All right, quick clip blitz.
I've got some Euroland news.
We start in Greece, where we have to continue to discredit the true opposition, I believe, which is the Golden Dawn Party, which even is billed in this Eurovision, Euronews report as far right!
But when you listen to what's actually going on, they've just basically locked up the opposition under suspicion of some things with no evidence.
Around 1,000 supporters of the far-right Golden Dawn Party gathered outside the parliament in the Greek capital of Athens.
The smaller-than-expected crowd were protesting against the pre-trial detention of...
The smaller-than-expected crowd.
That's not propaganda.
Their leader, Nikos Mihaloyakos.
13 of the party's 18 MPs are in detention, face charges, or have had their parliamentary immunity stripped of them.
As the government cracks down on the group, they suspect of involvement in paramilitary-style attacks.
A counter demonstration of leftist activists passed off peacefully as riot police prevented the two rival groups of protesters from clashing.
Golden Dawn is struggling for survival after losing a third of its support after anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fisas was allegedly killed by a man who pledged allegiance to the far-right party.
Which, by the way, as far as I can tell is not true.
They are number two or number one in the polls, regardless of whatever statistic Euronews just threw out there.
Very, very disturbing.
Greece is...
It's kind of dropped off the radar after what now?
How long has it been going on, John?
Four years of this insanity?
Three years?
Four years?
It's amazing.
The unemployment numbers just came out.
Almost 60% unemployment, youth unemployment, 60% more.
And Europe was touting all these 0.01% drop or something, 0.1% drop in overall unemployment, yet youth unemployment skyrockets even more.
It's very, very sad.
And in the Ukraine, which you won't hear a lot about, this is very interesting, the Ukrainian government apparently does not want to join the European Union.
Well, this is debatable.
You might as well play Ukraine play first clip.
Interesting.
Okay.
The news, sorry, and European leaders have just wrapped up a summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, that was dominated by the Ukraine's decision to walk away from the deal.
And Fonse van Kaskalva-Craig in Vilnius explains why the Ukrainian leader has yet to sign the agreement.
At the moment, his communication strategy is to say that he wants to sign this agreement in the not-too-distant future, but it's not really clear whether or not that's what his real intentions are, because one can ask, well, if he really wanted to sign it, why wouldn't he sign it now?
The Russian pressure is not going to let up any time soon.
The Russians have been perfectly clear about that, so it's not all that easy to believe that Viktor Yanukovych really wants to sign this agreement, or at least, if he does ever sign it, it will...
Only be if he gets something from the European Union that he hasn't so far got and that what we're hearing from European diplomats in any case is the European Union is absolutely not prepared to give.
Ukraine has been asking for very, very large amounts of financial assistance from the European Union and actually the advisor to Francois Hollande who was here said that that would...
Going down that road and starting to sort of deal with Ukraine in terms of figures of potential financial assistance would be moving away from the whole principle of the Eastern Partnership, which is to encourage good governance and democracy and not to start doing sort of geopolitical bargainings of who's going to be the highest bidder between Europe and Russia in order to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence.
I think the greatest hope for Ukraine to move towards Europe is the will of its people who are still demonstrating on the streets of Kiev and Lviv this evening.
Yeah, so I kind of caught the same thing.
I'll just play the report quickly of the Euro news report.
Defying a ban on city centre protests, tens of thousands of Ukrainians are rallying in Kiev to denounce the decision to reject an EU deal.
Undeterred by the court order and beatings meted out to demonstrators on Saturday, they streamed back towards Independence Square.
Boxing champion turned opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko spoke for many.
The authorities cannot and do not want to hear the people.
The authorities that use the police to beat people and not to protect them should step down.
The government, the parliament and the president.
Ukraine's interior minister has warned that police will respond if there's what he called mass disturbances.
But as demonstrators re-appropriated the square, officers disappeared.
In a bid to defuse tensions, President Yanukovych, who rejected the deal in favor of closer ties with Russia, said he'd do all he could to speed up Ukraine's moves towards the EU. Okay, so that report is in its entirety all farce.
The boxing guy, all of that is just all games for the masses.
This is clearly geopolitical, and your report, the Van Katte report, was much closer to the truth.
This is about the supply routes that go through the Ukraine for Russian gas in Europe.
In fact, the Van Katte guys have one of those little talks about it.
Oh, really?
And they all conclude this.
Yeah, I mean, so either...
If the European Union wants a hedge for Russian gas, it behooves them to bring the Ukraine in.
The Ukraine is playing it fair as a country, as the leadership of the country, which has nothing to do with what's good for the people.
Well, the guy came out and he says that the Russians, you had to read between the lines when the head of the Ukraine came out and kind of hinted that the Russians were going to do a deal for energy because all the pipelines go through there, a lot of them.
And Ukrainians are essentially going to get a steal.
They're going to get like, you know, cheap.
Yeah, and Russia has always been screwing with them.
Yeah, you know, they turn it off, they charge more.
If they, you know, say, okay, we're not going to go with the EU, because the EU, if they went with the EU, which, by the way, I think would be a sketchy situation because the Ukrainian operation in its entirety is half Russians, half Ukrainians, and it's incredibly corrupt.
They would be introducing a really bad kind of a country into, not the Ukrainians, you can write me, into the mix of the EU.
I don't think it would really do them any good.
And they would try to gouge the EU.
They're already showing this.
Of course.
But, you know, you don't want to play.
It's just, it's so fascinating.
We'll play my second Ukraine clip and see what they say there.
Great, hold on.
I have a question about this in a minute.
On that score, let me get you to react, Vivian, to some comments.
The polls in Swedes, particularly miffed by Kiev's about-face, the Swedish foreign minister, Karl Biltz, who bluntly wagged the finger...
At Putin, but also at Ukraine's president earlier in the week.
This is what he tweeted early this Friday from the Vilnius summit that's been taking place between the EU and Eastern Europe.
He's saying, President Yanukovych must show what he wants.
Rumors that he's promised to leave the European energy community would kill an association agreement.
Bill saying that this is Yanukovych playing both sides against the middle a little too much.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, everybody playing everybody against everybody.
But it seems to me, obviously, he's in a very difficult situation.
He's facing an election campaign.
For one thing, he needs the funds for that election campaign.
And he obviously has, as Anne was saying, a huge base within Ukraine that is not, you know, that favorable.
Yeah, here's some money.
So why are the Swedes in particular upset about this and bitching about the energy situation?
Because somehow they're going to take it in the shorts, and I'm not sure how, because if you look at the maps, it's not obvious.
But somehow Sweden believes that they're going to be screwed over by the Russians somehow, and the Ukrainian guy's not helping.
This I don't know.
I don't know it either.
That's the weirdest clip I have because I can't figure out what this fuss is.
We're going to have to dig into it.
Meanwhile, we're going after Russia in every way we can with anti-Putin stuff, of course.
So I came up with a Sochi Olympics hit piece that they ran on one of the HBO networks.
Let's just back it up a second for the new people.
We have dissected that the so-called anti-gay laws in Russia are nothing more than a way to soak the American entertainment industry for tens of thousands of dollars for each movie that comes out or tries to be released in Russia.
For the corporate fines that are about the propaganda of alternative lifestyles to children.
It's not exactly the same as you can't be gay, which is the way this is being played and the way that my gay brothers and sisters are actually promoting this attack against Putin without proper knowledge or at least poorly informed about what's really going on.
So they had this, I'm going to cut this to two since we're running out of time, although we don't really run out of time on this show.
We could have all of them.
Well, let's start with this.
You've got something better to do?
No, let's do at least three of them.
This was on Real Sports with Brian Gumbel, who's the lead.
He produces this thing.
It's on HBO. And they do a lot of political stuff, even though it centers around sports.
So they go after with a hit piece.
And this is the Sociolympics hit piece that kind of introduces some of the elements.
And I'll explain what they're talking about here.
We asked Dmitry Chernyshenko, the president's right hand on the Sochi Games, what he thought about so much being spent on construction when there were thousands of people living like Leo, in poverty, in Sochi alone.
You can understand when people say, geez, that's a lot of money being spent, you know, in a country that has so many people who are deprived of modern conveniences.
Do you understand their concern?
I understood what you're saying, but I'm not agreeing with that.
I can tell you that this will be the first bright and notable victory for the new, young Russian democracy.
But in a real democracy, there would be stories on national television about the bribes, about how Mr.
Putin's friends, who are already fantastically wealthy, are getting even richer, about how billions are being spent on the games, while tens of millions of Russians don't have running water.
You're getting it already.
How much of a real young democracy are we really talking about here?
You have to understand that Olympics is not about politics.
Hello, kettle?
This is the pot calling.
It gets worse.
Yeah.
So let's go.
Let's go.
And let's go to clip.
Wait a second.
Did everyone understand the irony of that?
Did everyone understand?
They will when it's over because I kind of emphasize the irony on all these clips.
So let's go to the Olympics anti-Putin guy comes out.
He's got a book and he's discovered there's corruption.
No.
There's gambling going on in there?
Nemsoff, who commissioned his own study into the finances of the games and doesn't like what he found out.
This is a festival of corruption and mismanagement.
A festival of corruption?
Oh my god!
Oh my god!
This is a festival of corruption and mismanagement.
We have 20 million poor people in this country.
We have a problem in police.
We have a problem in our hospitals.
Putin spent 50 billion dollars?
For what?
For what?
To put on a show that tells the world...
Show for himself.
A festival of corruption!
That's great.
That's show title.
Yeah, it is.
Festival of Corruption.
So the festival of corruption goes on.
So they finish up.
Gumbel gets together with the reporter at the end.
And this is the final thoughts.
And then they discuss this.
Now, I want you to...
The numbers that we threw out so far is $50 billion that they're spending on these Olympics, which is similar to what they spend everywhere, by the way.
But it's all because of Putin.
And there's 20 million poor people that should get this money, but they're not getting it.
So let's play the final thoughts, and then I'll give you my final thoughts.
Should any of this surprise us?
Russia has several traditions.
One of them is sports.
And that sports tradition is they use it to show their strength and their legitimacy to the world.
The other is corruption.
So this is like a perfect get-together of two great traditions.
Without debating whether or not Putin is really a president or really a dictator, was he able to do all this unilaterally or did he have to pass it by an assembly of any kind?
I love your naivete when you ask a question like that.
No, he's the strong man.
Not only are these his Olympics, he went to Guatemala City in 2007 and personally lobbied for them, and it was that personal effort that won the Olympics.
And, and this is important, Spending this kind of money on the Olympics couldn't be done anyplace else because there'd be stories about it.
Of course.
There'd be discussion about it.
So the answer to your question is these are his games and he gets what he wants.
Were you afraid to shoot anywhere you wanted?
They didn't stop us.
They didn't stop us.
In all fairness, wherever we wanted to go, we went.
Alright, your thoughts?
Okay, so let me ask you a couple of questions.
Okay.
So in the piece they talk about 20 million people in dire poverty in Russia while they're doing these Olympics.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I was going to say in America, but yeah.
No, no.
What's the American number?
Higher.
46.
Yeah, the American number.
47, I think.
It's 47 million.
That's 47.
It keeps going up.
It inches up.
47 million.
So we've got twice as many, but that's okay.
So now Putin went to Guatemala to sell this thing for himself.
Didn't Obama go to, like, Copenhagen to sell the 2016 Olympics for Chicago?
And...
Olympics fail.
Well, he failed, but that's beside the point.
But what was the budget for those Olympics?
Well, according to Wikipedia, which talks about this whole thing, they had thrown on the table $47 billion, which was going to be over budget, so it was going to be over the 50 Russians spent.
So we were going to spend at least as much as the Russians are spending.
We have more people in poverty, but the Russians are the bad guys?
Well, this is how it works.
You have to keep people focused, their eye on the ball.
It's very simple.
Don't look over here.
Nothing to see here.
That's what it is.
That's how it works.
Well played, I'd say.
It was well played.
But again, you know, alright.
Nice.
Can I read an email from Iran?
Have we ever received an email from Iran?
Do you know if we've ever received an email from Iran?
You've asked the question now three times in a row.
I would say no.
Hi Adam, I'm 24 and I'm from Iran.
I listen to your show and I love it.
Most of it, at least.
You know, why do people even do that?
That's like...
You know, it's lame.
Hey, Rembrandt, I liked everything, but that self-portrait, not so.
And why do you keep doing it again and again?
Especially, I love your thing about Muslim cultural aggression in the Western world.
It's very true, and I keep mentioning to everybody, I'm not a Muslim, but I'm surrounded by Muslims, and I see them trying to make their life Western and absorbing Western culture.
It's probably because we're Persians and are different from Arabs, and Iranians are mostly Shias.
I don't know what the reason is, but anyway, I think this cultural aggression is a real thing, but there's a difference between Muslims.
Oh, one other thing about Iran.
In my whole life here, I live in Tehran, I've never seen a woman in a burqa, but I see them in Europe.
Ain't that weird?
Yes, it is.
A couple things.
A sect of Shia that is very close to the main branch of Shia with the only difference that they are not into the hijab stuff.
Two, really sorry I can't donate.
And this is the real crux of it.
Not because I don't appreciate the work that you're doing, but it's because every international transaction system has been blocked so I can't send you a donation.
But as soon as this Iran-US deal gets through, my first international money transaction will be to you.
Thank you for reading.
Asim alaikum says Said.
Nice.
Yeah, how cool is that?
That's a very cool letter.
Yeah, I thought that would be kind of nice to just read.
As we sign off, there it is.
We got no funds from Iran because of our own sanctions.
He could send us Bitcoin.
Oh, there's an idea.
Do you want the bully song as an end-of-show clip?
The bully song?
We're a bully-free zone in this school?
Yeah, play it.
It's pretty bad.
I'll give it a whirl.
Alright, it's bad.
I don't know why you're going to play it, but okay.
Because it's, like, disturbingly bad.
No, you know what?
I'm not going to play it.
We'll keep it.
We'll review it in committee.
Yeah, we have to put it in the meeting.
Which apparently we're going to have.
All right, everybody.
Thank you for those of you who did tune in.
Thank you for those of you who did support the show.
It's always weird on these vacation weekends, but we do appreciate the help.
Please support us for our next program, which will be on Thursday.
And I am here in FEMA Region 6, Austin, Texas.
In the morning, everybody, I'm Adam Curry.
And from FEMA Region 9, also known as Northern Silicon Valley.
And parts unknown.
I'm John C. Dvorak.
We'll be back on Thursday, right here on Your No Agenda.