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Dec. 22, 2013 - No Agenda

03:01:12

576: Mysterious Erratic

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Time	Text
	We're really a comedy show.
	This news is funny.
	Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak.
	It's Sunday, December 22nd, 2013.
	Time for your Gitmo Nation media assassination episode 576.
	This is no agenda.
	Dissecting media lies to make you feel better.
	From FEMA Region 6 in the Travis Heights hideout in Austin, Texas, in the morning, everybody, I'm Adam Curry.
	And from northern Silicon Valley, where I'm taking the plastic bottle by the horns, I'm John C. Dvorak.
	It's Crackbottling Buzzkill.
	In the morning.
	Okay.
	My new sound effect.
	Play it again, Sam.
	It is just like the crunch of boots on...
	Jack...
	Jack boots on...
	Jack boots.
	Jack boots on fresh snow.
	That's actually uncanny.
	That's pretty, that's uncanny sounding actually.
	Let's do a little skit.
	Okay.
	T'was the night before Christmas.
	Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
	Wait until I get to the mouse part.
	Cue the marching soldiers.
	Hold on.
	T'was the night before Christmas.
	Let me do a echo.
	Twas the night before Christmas went all through the house.
	Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
	However, the brown shirts were out.
	I God.
	Yes, that is the ghost of Christmas future, ladies and gentlemen.
	Played by John C. Dvorak.
	All right.
	Strikes.
	What's that?
	Incredible no agenda show strikes again.
	So I'm running, I'm on a Windows 8 machine.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Actually, what I tried to do, I tried to get something back to my workplace where I like to do the show rather than the main machine where I write.
	So I decided I've got one of these little, I have a small box that runs Windows 8.
	In fact, it's Windows 8.1 Pro Preview, Build 9431, that it's not been pulled back for some reason.
	I don't know why.
	They usually cancel these things.
	Can they do that?
	Do they do that remotely?
	It just stops working?
	I think they, I don't know how they do it.
	Whatever the case is, I suspect on Tuesday they will be killed, but whatever.
	But I wanted to do it.
	I figured I'm doing it.
	I'm going all in.
	I'm going to go Linux.
	I've got Ubuntu 12.04.
	I've got Skype 4.2.
	Wait a minute.
	So you're running on Ubuntu right now?
	No, no.
	I'm running on Windows 8.1 Pro Preview, but I wanted to run on...
	I loaded up the Ubuntu.
	Oh, okay.
	I missed that.
	Okay, you wanted to do that.
	Got it, yeah.
	I realized, you know, Linux, it works.
	It was stunning.
	So the thing worked.
	The USB speakers came on.
	The weird ASIO wireless keyboard worked right out of the box.
	The wireless mouse from Logitech, where everything came up.
	Except networking.
	No, the networking came up.
	Everything came up.
	Except M-Audio.
	No driver.
	Going to Linux is like dating a lesbian.
	It's always one thing.
	There's something that doesn't put out.
	Hold on a second.
	First of all, can you lower your volume just a little bit?
	Just a tad, because you're just on the edge of distortion.
	The edge of distortion.
	How's that?
	I don't know.
	We'll find out.
	Well, anyway, so I... Hold on a second.
	Have you ever dated a lesbian?
	I imagine dating one, though.
	I have.
	In college, I had sex once, and the next day, she said, I think I'm a lesbian.
	That's the response.
	Right before the last time you told me it cracked me.
	My daughter still loves that story.
	It doesn't matter how many times I tell it.
	Funniest bits.
	You caught me off guard.
	You said this a dozen times.
	I know.
	It's true, though.
	Anyway, so that's what Linux is like.
	Whatever the case, it had all these options for the microphones, and none of them worked.
	I just could not get Skype to work.
	And by the way, Skype 4.2 running on Linux sucks.
	It doesn't have the right interface.
	It stinks.
	I mean, it's just not good.
	Everything else with Linux is fine, but it's always the one thing with Linux.
	That you want it to do, and there it is again.
	There's one thing you want it to do, and it won't do it.
	Well, the good news is, of course, that because of the nature of Linux, you could actually get in there and make it work, something you wanted to do.
	True.
	I could make it work.
	And I'm sure if I got on enough forums, someone would say, oh, yeah, well, you're an idiot because you should have installed blah, blah, blah.
	Possibly.
	Possibly.
	And then you have to install these 18 dependencies.
	That's always my favorite.
	Yeah.
	No, it's true.
	With the MacBook Air, which is very...
	The original MacBook Air 3.1, the first version, is very hard to get a dual-load thing going on, the ESI or whatever it's called, to get Linux to dual-boot.
	And once you've gone through that pain to get that to work...
	It turns out, for some reason, the driver, even if you use the experimental external third-party driver, for the Wi-Fi, for some reason, has it at very low power.
	And the Wi-Fi literally does not have the reach.
	These things can drive you nuts, but it could be fixed.
	Yeah, everything could be fixed.
	But I still have a dual booting, and it will load Linux, and everything works fine except for this one thing, which is the one thing I put it on there for, which is the problem.
	And again, it doesn't really run Photoshop.
	You can run Wine and make Photoshop work and all the rest of it.
	So I just dual boot it over to the Windows side, and that's why I'm over-modulating.
	There's always one thing without Windows.
	It's over-modulated.
	But at least it works.
	Yeah.
	And it sounds reasonable, I suppose.
	It's always about the drivers.
	In computing, isn't it always about the drivers?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I think so.
	I think so, too.
	All right.
	I had a weird thing happen this morning as I'm going through the system, getting all the stories, etc.
	We know how Google, from time to time, just throws people in jail.
	You know, like you had with Dvorak.org.
	Oh, right, right.
	You got the malware malicious site with a little robber, you know, sticking his hand through the computer monitor, stealing your secrets.
	So Google has decided to do this for the Russian news agency RIA. Why?
	Well, they say that it's a known malware site now.
	Could be.
	But that's big.
	I mean, that is...
	If you go to ria.ru right now, this thing will keep popping up every time it loads something.
	It's almost impossible to get to that website.
	And sometimes there's actual...
	You have to do it, obviously, Chrome is blocking it right now, and then it'll spread.
	I'll see what happens with...
	Firefox?
	It usually takes a couple days before Firefox does that.
	Before they take Google's database, which they take blindly.
	Yeah, of course.
	It won't load.
	It won't load at all?
	I'm not getting anything.
	Now...
	What's interesting is I think Putin closed the news agency, so it could be kind of a double whammy where Putin called up Sergei and said, hey, shut that thing down, man.
	I'm getting nothing.
	Okay, well, there you go.
	It says it's transferring data, but...
	Oh, well.
	Hey, last night I was...
	Did you get the malware thing?
	No.
	Last night, I'm messing around, I'm reading the emails, and all of a sudden, I'm like, oh my gosh, we sometimes are so jaded, or I am.
	Maybe you thought of this.
	This Target thing, this Target 40 million break-in.
	Now, you'll recall on Thursday's show, I said, oh, we went shopping at Target.
	And I can tell you exactly the date we went shopping at Target, which was December 12th.
	And after the show, after we'd uploaded everything, I was like, yeah, what the hell, I might as well take a look.
	And yeah, there were, I think, five transactions to X holiday fun whatever.
	And these were all in the hundreds of dollars.
	There were multiple for Eat Now food services for $60 or $80.
	For a week this has been going on.
	So this is probably $2,500 is gone because we don't have credit cards.
	We have debit cards.
	Right.
	So I go through the whole thing, and you call up the bank.
	And, of course, we have consumer protections in America, so you don't have to really worry about it.
	But you won't get the money credited for at least 10 days.
	You have to sign the form.
	Well, I had this happen to me, and that's from Target.
	So we got nailed by Target.
	And, of course, now I have a vested interest.
	I'm interested.
	I start looking around a little bit more.
	And the first thing I think to myself is self.
	A 40 million credit card stolen, and of course I was able to get some information out of the girl at the bank, Mechanics Bank.
	You know, they're friendly.
	I said, hey, you know, is this a lot?
	Well, yeah, we got a lot of people calling, and there's all kinds of stuff going on.
	I was like, okay.
	So this is pretty big and it's pretty widespread and I start really looking for news and I'm watching all the news shows and I see very sparse, very little information about this.
	Why am I not seeing every single congressman and senator doing live interviews about cyber terrorism?
	Because this is, take into consideration this happened in the busiest shopping, after Black Friday, the busiest shopping period of the year.
	It's also peculiar.
	Can you play the clip I have about this, which is security codes stolen?
	Yes, and then I want to continue.
	Hackers breached tens of millions of credit card and debit accounts at the height of the shopping season, just before Thanksgiving and right up until December 15th.
	The theft occurred when people swiped their cards in store, not online.
	The retailer confirmed that customers' names, credit card and debit card numbers and security codes were stolen.
	Right.
	And a couple things, so I went back as far as I could.
	Of course, I'm really late to the research party on this, and so Google is contaminated.
	Initially, Target only said they had, they only started talking about this after they had done some investigation, so they didn't come out immediately.
	Initially they said up until December 5th, then they changed that to December 15th.
	And again, this is a primo, prime example, truly an example of American infrastructure being terrorized by cyber terrorists, cyber criminals.
	Now, although it may be an inside job, it doesn't matter.
	I was very surprised.
	Why am I not seeing every single douchebag who's been talking about cyber for years?
	Where's Richard Clark?
	And you know why?
	Because Target spends $1.8 billion a year in advertising.
	And there is no way anyone was going to step up and make this a big deal, even the Associated Press.
	They didn't mention until four paragraphs in, you know, oh, well, yeah, it's safe to shop at Target again.
	Because, of course, this is what Target did not want, is anyone thinking that it was not safe to shop at Target.
	And quite honestly, we don't know if it's safe to shop at Target again because we have not had any confirmation.
	Chase Bank has limited...
	Talk about your centralized systems.
	Chase Bank has limited 2 million of their customers...
	In fact, let me play the clip because this is what happened.
	The media started making Chase the bad guy instead of Target.
	JPMorgan Chase on Saturday notified customers who used debit cards at Target stores during the recent security breach that it was limiting use of the cards to cash withdrawals of $100 a day and purchases totaling $300 a day.
	The new limit affects roughly 2 million accounts, or less than 10% of Chase debit card accounts, according to a bank's spokeswoman.
	The bank said it was taking the action as a precaution and recognized that the move could not have happened at a more inconvenient time.
	Initial reports of Target's security breach said data may have been taken through devices at its counters.
	Okay, a couple things.
	Again, this is the only real thing that the media has been reporting big on is, oh, Chase, oh, Chase.
	And Chase is an easy target because they're assholes.
	You know, and they have billions of dollars of fines, and so no one cares, and no one's really going to lose too much money on the consumer side of Chase Banking.
	Certainly not compared to Target.
	Target is the number two or number three largest advertiser in the United States.
	And when I was thinking initially...
	Wow, you know, these senators, they don't care.
	The thing is, the news outfits were not interested in getting them in because they don't want any attention on this.
	And then I went back and looked at the timeline.
	The day after they announced, what was the big story?
	Okay.
	Some obscure online interview in GQ magazine with some duck dude.
	And this explodes, and this is completely meant to cover up Target.
	Somebody, and we have to see if it...
	I don't care much for the gay folk.
	Somebody, and I don't know if it's the crisis management company...
	Or if it's...
	This interview was out, John.
	This was no big deal.
	I read the interview.
	Who cares?
	Yeah.
	And the machine went nuts because everybody wins.
	First of all, Target wins by not...
	Target...
	This is the...
	Actually, in the last newsletter, I kind of hopped on this.
	Yes, exactly.
	Which is that the media is so corrupted by advertising that you just can't get news from them anymore.
	This is a diversion.
	I think it was a purposeful diversion.
	I would say if it wasn't, it was a heck of a coincidence.
	Even if you look at how the news media...
	Because they have to do some real reporting.
	And they'll say, this was the largest...
	A theft of credit card data since the TGX companies.
	Now, they could say TJ Maxx, Marshalls.
	They're not going to do anything.
	Those are all advertisers.
	Yeah, exactly.
	The TJX companies.
	So they don't, you know, no links or anything.
	Just TJX companies.
	You don't have to know what stores those were.
	Formerly known as Zares, by the way.
	This is almost like a Christmas gift to us, because at the very end here, the very end of the year, we get to show you how it works.
	Here we have a true form of cyberterrorism.
	The American people, at least 2 million people from Chase, are now limited to $100 in cash withdrawal.
	That is being terrorized.
	And whether it's the Chinese or homegrown, where is our fantastic apparatus?
	Where is all the cybersecurity?
	Where is my bank?
	If I travel to Europe and I haven't called them...
	My card will not work.
	However, if there's three charges for X Holidays Great Britain, whatever that is...
	For a total of $1,500, no problem.
	So all this cybersecurity stuff is bullcrap.
	There's no triggers, there's no monitoring, and no one wants to touch it because of the advertising value.
	This really shows you what's going on and how much bullcrap, bullcrap is coming out of your governments.
	Well, that's a good catch.
	And I would have to agree that the way they handled this was not as...
	Because you could have, you know, if it was any situation where you could have actually done...
	If you wanted to make hay, you could have done that with the cyber terror.
	Oh, this is the threat.
	This is why we need more money and all the rest of it.
	But they did nothing.
	So let me just put the two next to each other.
	And where's Richard Clark?
	Target getting hacked, an act of cyber terrorism performed in the United States by an unknown enemy carried out in such a sophisticated manner that it has investigators fooled.
	Or...
	A southern reality television star makes an anti-gay racist remark in an interview in Gentleman's Quarterly magazine.
	Which one is more newsworthy?
	I think it's the gay story, obviously.
	And that plays right into NBC's agenda because they are desperate to promote the Olympics.
	Coming up in just a couple of weeks, it is on NBC. So, gay, Phil Robertson, gay.
	Oh yeah, gay!
	With Russia facing fierce criticism for its anti-gay propaganda laws, the White House said it wanted its delegation to represent the best of America, diversity, determination, and teamwork, enlisting openly gay athletes like two-time Olympic hockey medalist Caitlin Cahal.
	Team USA, Caitlin Cahow.
	Score!
	And tennis legend Billie Jean King, who said she hoped the games would be a watershed moment for the universal acceptance of all people.
	In September, King encouraged American athletes to speak out, telling USA Today, sometimes I think we need a John Carlos moment, referring to one of the two American sprinters who were kicked out of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics for protesting racial discrimination.
	Yeah, in 1968.
	Wow, we're really, really hot.
	Before you go off on this other tangent, I do have a couple of comments about the Target thing.
	So let's stop for a second.
	You just kind of are going off.
	Oh, no.
	Well, I was bringing it around.
	Go ahead, please.
	Well, I just want to mention a couple of things.
	JC had apparently an issue, but he killed his card because he got, and I believe this is where this is stemming from, too.
	He got a no-charge query for his card plus security code.
	From the Ukraine.
	Which is where all this stuff comes from.
	I'm not buying anything.
	I don't buy the Chinese.
	I know people who have received Chinese charges, whether it's the Chinese doing it or not.
	I would suspect that Ukrainians got the cars and they distributed them all over the world.
	But apparently, one of the things people should note is that there...
	I didn't have this happen to me as far as I can tell, but some of the targets have a card reader that sucks the card in, and some of them have the swiper.
	And you can't get the security code unless you have the sucker.
	And the sucker, we didn't know this until recently, and JC says he's kind of confirmed it, the sucker, the one that sucks the card in, takes a photo of both sides of the card.
	Oh, really?
	Which then steals the security code from your card, which is not supposed to be.
	Oh, right.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Because it's basically just scanning it as it goes through.
	Yeah, which is a bad thing.
	Now, that said, I took advantage of this.
	I'm just going to say this for people who listen to the stream.
	You might want to go to Target.
	Yeah.
	Because I was there last night.
	You walk in and they immediately say, don't forget, 10% off the entire store.
	And so they give you a little card to remind you so you buy more.
	And I did.
	And then when you go into the store to buy stuff, everything's already like 50% off.
	I mean, they are giving the store away.
	They have to because this is a huge issue.
	And a lot of these cards were their own credit cards, John.
	The red Target cards.
	It was like a plague.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I don't get those store cards ever again.
	They just get you in trouble.
	Well, I just wanted to get that in so people are real.
	Yeah, go in.
	Our listeners are going to take advantage.
	I'm telling you, it's cheaper than goodwill right now.
	Yeah, go in with cash, people.
	Go in with.
	And I have to say that.
	Mickey and I have talked about it again.
	It's a hassle.
	You know, the card is canceled.
	You have to wait for a card.
	And we have another bank account.
	Oh, let me guess.
	It's with Chase, of course.
	So that's a real winner.
	You know, we got the kids over.
	We have to use, you know, we're taking them out to dinner.
	You know, we need to charge stuff.
	And it's annoying.
	Now we have one card between the two of us.
	And, you know, you want to just start thinking about cash again.
	I like cash.
	I like it too, but this is a real...
	The conversation, no one is having the conversation because of Target.
	It's because of advertising.
	Yes, because of advertising.
	We're probably the only group, the two of us, that discussed it this much.
	And what's even more disgusting...
	Of course, everybody wins.
	A&E wins.
	The new season of Duck Dynasty starts on January 15th.
	It couldn't be much better than that.
	Who is co-owner of A&E? Well, one of the big media companies, Viacom.
	ABC! Oh, ABC. They own half of it, so here's ABC without any of the usual full disclosure comments.
	Well, the question is, does he want to fix it?
	Is he willing to go to a deeper level in understanding and see why his remarks offended so many people?
	And we can't even talk about on a morning show how truly vile and offensive his remarks were.
	I know.
	This is...
	And I read the interview.
	This is an example of them not telling you anything, and then when you go look at the sources, it's nothing.
	It's meaningless.
	Yeah.
	He said, I worked...
	He said about black people.
	He said, I work with black people hand-in-hand on the farms growing up, and then it seemed that they were happier before the Civil Rights Movement.
	That's it.
	It was like...
	That's vile?
	Ten sentences.
	Yeah.
	That's vile.
	That's vile.
	It's horrible.
	That's vile.
	And Diane Sawyer, ABC World News Tonight.
	But no one says, oh, by the way, we own half of A&E and we hope it's a ratings bonanza.
	Well, they do mention the ratings bonanza part.
	Not just to the gay community, but to the African-American community.
	You've got to take your voice down.
	Not just to the gay community, but to the African-American community.
	Community too, Lara.
	They go much deeper than what we've talked about.
	Really outrageous statements.
	As we said, ratings dynamo.
	Do you see A&E bringing them back because this is such a big business for them?
	And if so, how do they do it?
	A business for you.
	Letting people know that they acknowledge how outrageous and offensive these comments are.
	Yeah, don't worry.
	I'm sure they'll work it out.
	Last minute.
	Miracle.
	Miracle.
	Apology.
	And the most disappointing of all of this, because everyone jumped on it.
	Everybody wins.
	Everyone gets to talk about it.
	It was the topic of conversation.
	Every pundit gets to talk about it.
	But Sarah Palin, who I have defended...
	She jumped in on this and she's standing next to them and, oh, big disappointment.
	Big disappointment.
	So she's just a big money whore like the rest of us.
	She's not getting any attention.
	There's a person who needs some consulting.
	She just handles herself poorly.
	That was the wrong thing.
	I've defended her.
	Even Mickey said, wow, you usually defend her.
	I said, not this time.
	Not this time, man.
	This is so stupid.
	This interview was up, and it was only online, and some genius threw it into the machine, and it blew up exactly what the machine needed at the right time.
	And they kept feeding, oh, we have a video of him saying something.
	Gay.
	Whoa!
	He said gay.
	Put the video on.
	Our stream seems to be down, by the way.
	The minute we started explaining how it works...
	The stream goes.
	Funny how that works.
	So it'll be interesting to see if this is what I feel is the most important.
	Okay, everyone's on vacation, but when you come back, congressmen and senators, I need to hear about this.
	I need to hear about how it's so important for us to have all of these cyber...
	$600 billion expected to be spent on this cyber crap.
	But this is such a simple one.
	Yeah.
	And where's the phone calls of the guy who set this up?
	Nothing.
	It's nothing.
	It's absolutely nothing.
	No, it's because it's all bull crap.
	They're just stealing our money.
	Yeah.
	Damn it.
	Stealing our money.
	So that was really quite a revelation.
	Of course we knew about the Duck Dynasty thing that was promotion, but I hadn't figured it out until I saw the timeline.
	I'm like, oh, of course.
	Do whatever.
	And then NBC's smart.
	They jump on the gay thing.
	Did you see Saturday Night Live?
	Not that I watched it, but I saw the clip.
	They had one of the players, Billie Jean King, with a huge NBC Olympics Sochi t-shirt.
	Yeah, and everyone loves it.
	You know, it's like, hey, Billie Jean King's a big gay middle finger to Russia, to Putin.
	You know, the whole, just playing it up.
	Total bullcrap.
	Middle finger to Putin, it wouldn't go at all.
	Yeah.
	Well, the president had his little news conference there.
	By the way, did you see the president on his news conference?
	He now has a visible facial tick.
	Have you noticed this?
	We love it.
	I pick these things up, you know, because of course I'm full of them.
	Yeah, you have a visual facial tick yourself.
	I've got all kinds of ticks.
	So I see this very quickly when someone has it.
	It's his right eye.
	He'll blink, but it's really a tick.
	And then the left side of his face looks like he's been beaten to...
	I don't know, it's like someone beat him.
	He did not look good.
	He really...
	We know that presidents usually look very, very bad after they come out of the...
	Yeah, because they have to keep him drugged up the whole time they're in office.
	It looks like he...
	Seriously, like he was roofied.
	But the tick thing is concerning, because that's...
	When you're a public speaker, it's very hard.
	If you can't control it, it can get worse.
	It can move to other areas.
	It can get really distracting, disturbing, and it exudes, for a position like that, non-confidence.
	And people, I think, subliminally pick it up.
	Whether they notice it immediately or not.
	And she said, I'm not going to social.
	No, I just got no time or whatever.
	And then again, Billie Jean King.
	And then this ice hockey.
	Really?
	So impressed.
	I got a note from Brian the Gay Crusader.
	He says he was waiting at the gate for a flight listening to the show when I threw out my Billie Jean King's Elton John with a bra.
	He said he laughed so hard, it's like everyone was looking at him.
	And he's doing the second or third draft of his...
	Of his report, which shows that this is not true.
	This is not a huge anti-gay law in Russia.
	And he's a journalist.
	He's actually quite famous for his writing.
	And he's even having problems in his personal life defending this the whole time.
	His people just, you know, they just don't want to know.
	They don't want to...
	The truth...
	Yeah.
	It's elusive.
	It's...
	The public at large, generally speaking, is problematic when it comes to some of this stuff.
	Once they've been given the meme officially by the government and then the media backs them up and pounds it home, it's almost impossible to dislodge it.
	Very difficult.
	Interesting...
	So, after the show Thursday night, one of our friends, it was her birthday, and her husband said, oh, we're going to do a little surprise party and have dinner.
	And I'm like, okay, I can handle that.
	And also there were the Obots who would never have dinner with a Republican.
	And this guy is extremely smart.
	Really smart, smart guy.
	And they're talking about phones.
	Like, I don't have a phone anymore.
	Like, why not?
	I said, well, because I just don't want to...
	I don't feel comfortable someone being able to know where I am at all times.
	They're like, ah!
	And then...
	That's the noise they make now?
	Well, you know, I'm pretty sure that eventually the public will stand up and they'll make this stop.
	And I'm like, are you insane?
	Wow.
	And I said, by the way...
	This tracking is bullcrap.
	Maybe one instance of financing terrorism has it thwarted.
	And he went off on me.
	When those towers came down!
	I said, okay, stop right now.
	I'm not going to have this conversation with you.
	I'm going to send you a clip.
	A clip from Leahy two days ago on CNN. Saksby Chambliss this morning on Morning Joe said that there were 54 instances of terror threats that were directly prevented by the NSA program.
	Well, you know, that is a question that I asked them when they had to appear in public.
	And that 54 went down to 13, and they talked more about it, and it came down to one possibly tangentially involved.
	There you go.
	One.
	We've been harping on this on the show.
	And I sent this link to him, the video?
	No response.
	No response.
	Because they can't believe it.
	When this number is...
	Leahy must be lying.
	I'm sorry.
	Leahy's the head of that committee.
	I know!
	I know!
	But this is what we're up against.
	Well, I'm not really up against it.
	That's what no agenda listeners are up against.
	Yes, exactly.
	And did you hear what John Bolton had to say?
	Bolton, one of my favorites.
	About Edward Snowden, he threw in a nice little one, which got some virality.
	It has to be one of the dumbest things that I've seen in a long time to be speculating about this publicly, even if they are contemplating some kind of deal with Snowden, some kind of amnesty.
	The last thing that people ought to be doing is speculating about it publicly.
	It will inevitably make it a political football, and it will enhance Snowden's bargaining power.
	Why are they doing it, Ben?
	I think it's a big mistake.
	I have no idea.
	I mean, my view is that Snowden committed treason.
	He ought to be convicted of that, and then he ought to swing from a tall oak tree.
	Oh, okay.
	All right, just so we know.
	Hang him.
	Hang him, I say.
	Hang him.
	I think the guillotine is better.
	Let's chop off his head.
	I think off with the head is much better.
	Hang him.
	But you should be swinging from an oak tree.
	What kind of talk is that?
	That's not okay talk.
	Not at all.
	It's unreasonable.
	We always talk about the, just going back to Target for a second, about the difference between the American credit cards and the rest of the world almost, but Europe where they have the PIN system.
	And so this forced me again to look into why don't we have that yet in the United States.
	And there's a couple reasons.
	First of all, we have very, very strong consumer protections in America.
	When someone says, you know, you need a credit card because you're a debit card, you're not protected, it's not true.
	It may cost you $50 if you're a credit card.
	Yeah, that's if your banks are dicks.
	Yeah, but that is it.
	Most banks don't charge you a nickel.
	They don't charge you for that.
	Which reminds me, by the way, which is my favorite scam, which is insurance.
	If your credit card is lost or stolen, you'll have insurance.
	Yeah.
	And they want you to pay money?
	Insurance, yeah.
	What idiot buys this stuff?
	Yeah.
	So we've got this credit, which is not universal.
	In fact, with the system in Europe, it is either you...
	The cardholder or the vendor who is liable for it, but pretty much no longer the bank.
	And so I'm saying, why have we not upgraded?
	And I looked at the numbers and that's when I started to understand.
	Credit card, debit card fraud in America is approximately $50 billion a year.
	I'm sorry, fees are $50 billion a year.
	The fraud is about $4 to $5 billion.
	So we're talking a 10% on their fees is fraud that they have to deal with.
	Cost of doing business.
	Because if you want to upgrade everyone's card, and these cards with the chip, they cost about $5, $6.
	And you have to outfit everybody with terminals, and it will eventually probably get there.
	That cost of that is in excess, is a multiple of the $5 billion.
	They really don't care.
	It's a write-off for them.
	They really don't care.
	And is it more secure?
	No, the only reason why it's somewhat more secure is because it's harder for the thieves.
	I have to get into a new business of creating new kinds of cards with the chip, and it still has the magnetic stripe on it, so it's all vulnerable.
	The banks have no interest in upgrading your security.
	Right off, they don't care what's $5 billion, what's 9 or 10 percent.
	It's nothing.
	No, it's just a numbers game.
	And there's also the point, when they first came out with the smart card, the chipped card, the patent was owned by some French guy, and the banks didn't want to pay a nickel.
	Ah, we don't want to pay any royalties, screw it.
	And so they said, we can charge 18% interest on our cards, and we don't screw that guy.
	And so they never, the card, I think it's now public domain, but until recently, they didn't want to even deal with it, because it was going to cost them a nickel or something, you know, it was too much.
	No, the bank, these guys know what they're doing.
	Yeah, they do.
	And they don't care.
	And guess who gets penalized?
	You, stupid schlub.
	You can't take your money.
	$100 cash.
	That's it.
	Hey, Merry Christmas.
	$100 in cash.
	If Ted Kaczynski had a blog, he'd be writing up a storm right now.
	Did he die in prison?
	No, no, he didn't die in prison.
	Why doesn't somebody give him a blog?
	He'd probably be a very interesting blogger.
	You know, he missed the whole revolution.
	He's been in prison during the whole...
	If he had had a blog back then, he wouldn't have to blow people up just to get his manifesto published.
	Yeah, he could self-publish on the internets.
	Yeah, and probably more people would have read it.
	Anyone who was alive at that time, did you ever read the manifesto?
	No, not really.
	I've read it.
	You're not everyone, darling.
	Well, thank you.
	I don't have a retort for the darling thing.
	Just say honey.
	The stream is completely hosed now.
	Oh, there we go.
	It looks like we're back.
	We've got no stream.
	I think we're kind of back.
	And of course, now I have some thoughts on this as well.
	Of course, this is what you have said from day one, and we have held as our thesis about this NSA spying business, and here's a quick little headline from the BBC about it.
	The document.
	These governments are said to show over a thousand names of targets from 60 countries, including Israel's Prime Minister.
	They're also said to be terrorists.
	But more surprisingly, also on the list are a senior member of the European Union, Vice President of the Commission, Joachim Almunia, who deals with economic competition issues.
	Humanitarian organisations like the UN's children's charity UNICEF and French medical charity Médecins du Monde.
	Companies like French oil giant Total and German government buildings in Berlin and overseas.
	We'd already heard about the Americans targeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone.
	That caused outrage.
	But the allegation that Britain may also have been spying on allies may cause further problems.
	A European Commission spokesperson said they would raise the allegations with the US and UK and said if true, they were unacceptable and deserved the strongest condemnation.
	This is not the type of behaviour that we expect from strategic partners, let alone from our own member states, they said.
	So this seems like a lot of spying on the French, the Médecins du Monde, which is not the Doctors Without Borders.
	In fact, I looked that up.
	It's a splinter group, a guy who left, a co-founder who left Doctors Without Borders to start this thing.
	And God knows it's an NGO and it's funded by millions of governments.
	And I think they're highly suspect as well.
	It doesn't matter.
	This is business intelligence.
	This is economic spying that we are doing.
	And when you look at the fact that we spied on the antitrust commissioner, or I think the assistant commissioner of the EU, who directly is involved in the procedure with Google, whether they will be fined under anti-competitive rules in the EU, much as Microsoft was fined for billions.
	He's being spied on?
	Oh, wow!
	How convenient!
	Come on!
	All these companies who go crying to President Obama are all in on it.
	They're all spying.
	They're spying for their own good.
	For their own information.
	Surely the commissioner of the EU can't be a terrorist.
	She's suspected of terrorism.
	When are we going to figure out that this is This is...
	What is the word I'm looking for?
	Espionage.
	Espionage.
	Yes, thank you.
	It's espionage.
	It's pure and simple espionage.
	Espionage and blackmail.
	It's like Spectre.
	Sounds like one of those operations that's in a James Bond movie.
	Yeah.
	Completely.
	Extortion, espionage, blackmail, you know, the whole nine yards, everything.
	It's so obvious.
	What else would you set up a system like that for?
	Well, I have a couple thoughts.
	First of all, we also found out that the NSA... Had a $10 million contract with RSA, security firm RSA, apparently to put in a back door into standard encryption.
	Now, did you see any documents about this or just the claim?
	I'm sure they have some documents.
	Leaked by whistleblower Edward J. Snowden.
	No, I didn't.
	It's been going around the net that they're in bed with each other.
	And apparently, all these encryption standard operations, because J.C. Buskill Jr.
	now, since he works in the industry, they're kicking out all the NSA guys from all these closed committees that deal with encryption.
	They have to.
	It's a huge issue now.
	And by the way, they've been disinvited from all future black hats.
	Where they've always been allowed to show up and hang out and do the rest.
	No.
	Now they're all being kicked out of the...
	So this is what a great job Kaiser Alexander's done.
	He's managed to get everybody kicked out of all these things that they need to be in.
	And now they're going to have to go in through the back door by...
	Buying, bribing other members.
	Could you just make a recording for us?
	And then we'll be good.
	You put a microphone under that table.
	We'll give you $10,000.
	Right.
	It's a problem.
	It's a huge problem.
	Because it is our industrial espionage arm.
	And it fits our big companies.
	The Director of National Intelligence, they have that Tumblr website.
	So they release a whole bunch of documents.
	I have to give it to Charlie Savage and David E. Sanger on this one from the New York Times.
	They immediately reported on it.
	Let me just read this from the New York Times.
	The Biden administration moved late Friday to prevent a federal judge in California from ruling on the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance programs authorized during the Bush administration.
	Telling a court that recent disclosures about the NSA spying were not enough to undermine its claim that litigating the case would jeopardize state secrets.
	In a set of filings, and these are the documents that were disclosed, although not disclosed with this description on the DNI Tumblr website, so a lot of people overlooked it, but not the Times, and I think that's good.
	Two long-running cases in the Northern District of California, the government acknowledged for the first time that the NSA started systematically collecting data about Americans' emails and phone calls in 2001.
	On and on, the government said, despite recent leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former NSA contractor, the scope of the surveillance and data collection programs put in place after the September 11 attack, sensitive secrets remained at risk in any courtroom discussions of their details.
	Long story short, what the White House, what the administration is attempting to do is tell the court you cannot even hear these cases because the information that would be revealed would put the country at risk of, I don't know, cyber terrorists.
	Oh, I'm sorry, they're already here.
	And they assert that state secrets privilege is in play here and that these cases cannot even go to court.
	Uh...
	And that we, you know, here it is, Mr.
	Clapper suggested the program was one of many needed to continue, Al-Qaeda, blah, blah, blah.
	He argued that revealing additional details, including whom it targets or how companies like AT&T and Verizon have given the NSA access to its equipment and data, would be harmful.
	Quote, disclosing or confirming further details about these activities could seriously undermine an important tool, metadata collection and analysis for tracking possible terrorist plots, he wrote.
	And could reveal methodology.
	You need metadata to find the bad books.
	That's right.
	The bad books.
	Very funny.
	So that was on Friday.
	They were tipped off by the CIA to look there.
	There was no doubt about that.
	So here is...
	CIA still did play on this deal.
	Yeah, so here's my thinking now.
	So we're very, very occupied.
	And a couple of people have been emailing.
	Our producers are very helpful.
	For the nine emails that are totally useless...
	And I love it when people just send a link to a bill.
	Oh, thanks.
	Got any context for me?
	Or should I just read this?
	Oh, it's only a couple hundred pages.
	Oh, yeah.
	This is.
	Give me a subject line.
	Tell me what this is about.
	Don't make it too long.
	And when I reply and say thanks, that is not an invitation for you to open up a whole thing.
	I'm not going to reply again, probably.
	Let's look at the CIA. Before he was kicked out, not long before he was kicked out, CIA Director David H. Petraeus made some interesting comments.
	And, of course, there's no video or audio of it, but I do have a transcript from CIA.gov.
	This is March 1, 2012.
	And this is his speech at In-Q-Tel.
	And for those, we've talked a lot, and In-Q-Tel is kind of a, at this point, if you say In-Q-Tel, probably my friends from the dinner would go, oh, there he goes again, conspiracy theorist!
	Hey, that's a new guy!
	Yeah, he has a lisp, this guy.
	Conspiracy theorist!
	Maybe I should just read a little bit of this for you.
	And, of course, this is in the show notes.
	As you all know, exploiting the intelligence opportunities, which is an easier subject to discuss in an unclassified setting than the counterintelligence challenges, will require a new class of in-place and remote sensors that operate across the electromagnetic spectrum.
	Moreover, these sensors will be increasingly interconnected.
	This is David Petraeus talking in public at the CEO conference of In-Q-Tel, and we'll talk about what In-Q-Tel is in a minute.
	The current Internet of PCs will move, of course, towards an Internet of Things.
	Remember this?
	We've talked about this Internet of Things meme.
	The Internet of Things.
	Of devices of all types, 50 to 100 billion of which, will be connected to the Internet by 2020.
	As you know, whereas the machines in the 19th century learned to do and those in the 20th century learned to think at a rudimentary level, in the 21st century they are learning to perceive, to actually sense and respond.
	Key applications developed by our In-Q-Tel investment companies are focused on technologies that are driving the Internet of Things.
	These includes item identification or devices engaged in tagging, sensors and wireless sensor networks, devices that indeed sense and respond, embedded systems, those that think and evaluate, and finally nanotechnology, allowing these devices to be small enough to function virtually anywhere.
	Items of interest, which could be, you know, your car, you...
	Will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technology such as radio frequency identification, that's RFID, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters, all connected to the next generation internet using abundant low-cost and high-power computing.
	The latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing and ultimately heading to quantum computing.
	We are looking at things that were set up 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago.
	And this NSA.
	Meanwhile, the CIA is investing completely under everybody's radar, hidden in plain sight with In-Q-Tel, their nonprofit venture capital company.
	And they are building the true long.
	Hey, it's only six more years until we're at 2020.
	And everyone's buying new machines by then.
	You're going to have your new washing machine.
	You have your new phone.
	He's doing a wash.
	What is he doing now?
	He's doing a wash.
	Spin cycle.
	He's on spin cycle.
	Get the sniper ready.
	We are being distracted from what is really going on.
	And when IPv6 fully rolls out, When every RFID sensor has its own IP address, this is where it's going.
	This is what it's really all about.
	And it's run by the CIA. The same guys who, I don't know, kill people with drones.
	These are the a-holes.
	And run by civilians who are picked and managed.
	It's not the Defense Department.
	Obama's got his guy in who thinks he's his guy.
	This is beautiful.
	No wonder.
	No wonder.
	Hey, let's do some more.
	I'm all focused on Google.
	Who gives a crap?
	We'll sprinkle some nano dust on you to track you.
	Oh, there's that.
	Well, it's all being promoted by the shows NCIS and NCIS, especially NCIS LA, as the way it's going to be.
	And, you know, they're saving us from all these terrorists, which are blowing stuff up left and right.
	I mean, just the other day, 10 years ago, something blew up.
	So on the Board of Trustees of In-Q-Tel, we should notice people like James Barksdale.
	Yeah, he's the Netscape guy, right?
	Netscape guy.
	Used to be, I'm looking at the list, and Ben Cerf used to be on here, and he's not, and he's the IP guy.
	Well, no, he's now at Google.
	He's with the NSA. Okay, so he must have changed sides.
	Ted Schlein, your buddy, a partner at Kleiner Perkins.
	Oh, yeah.
	One of the guys.
	It's just a bunch of these Silicon Valley types, and they have an office down here somewhere.
	Have you looked at the companies they're invested in?
	So the way this works is In-Q-Tel is a non-profit venture capital.
	They don't need to make any money.
	The money's made from Afghanistan heroin.
	Yes.
	There's no reason for this to be profitable.
	Well, the import and sales.
	If you just look at it, though, and they've been doing this since 1997 or 98, I think.
	A lot of cloud stuff.
	Well, Turning Ink into Action.
	Biomatrica.
	You know, these companies are all under the radar operations.
	Miserware.
	What the hell is Miserware?
	Digital Reasoning.
	GameSpan.
	Genia Photonics.
	Huddle.
	HighTrust.
	iMove.
	Imprint Energy.
	Lime Microsystems.
	Lucidworks.
	And you click on these things, you go, oh...
	A lot of optics as well.
	A lot of optics.
	That's because of the satellites, yeah.
	Palaniteer, of course, that never got any legs, that Palaniteer.
	Here's a good example.
	The optics that went right to the end, zspace.com, formerly known as Infinite Z, which was, I think, a DJ in the 50s, is a leading-edge technology provider that enables natural interaction with virtual holographic 3D imagery.
	Yeah.
	Let's see.
	How about Weather Analytics?
	Delivers global climate intelligence.
	We have Yspry.
	What does Yspry do?
	Fabless RF Semiconductor Company.
	Designs and manufactures RF CMOS integrated circuits and components for leading manufacturers of mobile phones, laptops, wireless data communications products.
	Hello?
	That's your little spy in your box.
	System on a chip.
	It should be spy on a chip.
	Yeah, spy on a chip.
	I said, just read through this and laugh.
	What's this owl thing?
	Red owl analytics.
	Oh, boy.
	Whenever you've got an owl, you've got to think Illuminati.
	Walleye is another next-generation handheld portable imaging system.
	So if anybody has any imaging ideas, you can get some money.
	Oh, totally.
	Even if you have half an idea.
	Yeah.
	Pixel, digital pixel, pelican imaging, open span.
	What is open span?
	That sounds good.
	Drive desktop automation, desktop analytics, improve performance, drive revenue.
	Oh boy, how'd that one sneak in?
	There's no spying.
	What's that one say?
	Desktop analytics.
	I guess to spy on employees, probably.
	Could be.
	But when you really look at it in context, CIA versus NSA, and FBI too.
	I think the FBI is more on the CIA side.
	No, I think the FBI is more on...
	No, no, no chance.
	I think they're playing a double game, John.
	Yeah, but they show up at all the meetings, that second-in-command guy, he's always there with his NSA buddy, Alexander.
	Yeah, you're right, you're right.
	Constantly.
	Yeah, you're right, you're right.
	But if you look at the CIA, you know, who's really, who's running, Brennan, right?
	John O. Brennan running the show?
	Yeah, I don't think they like him.
	But the president feels comfortable enough with him.
	And remember that they bring the kill list to the president every Tuesday.
	I haven't forgotten this.
	Yes, coincidentally the same as Patch Tuesday for Microsoft.
	I don't think there's a...
	There's no coincidence there.
	Coincidence?
	I think not!
	And meanwhile...
	At the end of the year here, we have...
	So, of course, these companies, they're all corrupt.
	Silicon Valley, they've been playing along with the NSA, probably thinking it was cool.
	Facebook has 50 people.
	Oh, everybody wants to be either a Hollywood star or a spy.
	Right.
	Google released their Zeitgeist 2013 top searches.
	Unbelievable!
	The name Ed Snowden doesn't show up in any of Google's lists of 2013 searches.
	No one cares, I guess.
	Yeah.
	How is that possible?
	Apparently, no one cares.
	Right.
	Yeah, I'll believe that.
	You think they rigged these results?
	Really?
	You think?
	There's gambling.
	Yeah.
	Uh, now, um, let's see, what else do we have here?
	Of course, we now have a name for, uh, Pierre-Omini-Manamanamanamanamanamanakar and the, uh, Poitras Grimgrinrath.
	That's called First Look Media.
	That's the dumb name.
	That's the dumb name.
	Yeah.
	And the setup...
	How crazy is, by the way, that Pando Daily seems to be the only quasi-journalistic outfit calling these guys on, except for us.
	That's that one guy.
	Those guys they brought over from Not Safe for...
	For work, yeah.
	That's...
	That's pretty incredible.
	This one guy that they brought over, and he's doing all the stuff that they would have never done.
	But they're still doing it.
	It's still pretty cool.
	I'm impressed.
	I'd pee on that whole operation, but the stuff they're doing there, that's pretty bold.
	Of course, they'll close soon.
	I'm sure that'll be the end of them.
	But it's a valid effort.
	So yeah, first look.
	And then we have Jay Rosen, the...
	Isn't he a professor?
	Professor Jay Rosen?
	Did he quit?
	No, he's on hiatus.
	Is he a professor and do this too?
	No, he's on hiatus for six months while he advises the company.
	Oh, okay, great.
	He published a press release about a first look.
	This is now so Jay Rosen has become a PR guy.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	He literally, in fact, here it is, from his PressThink blog, I will read to you.
	Yeah, of course he's a PR guy.
	Pressthink.org and the title of this blog post is A First Look at New Co-Structure.
	Today, Pierre Omidyar announced some details about how his new venture in news will be organized.
	My summary and explanation.
	First, the official release, which he probably wrote.
	I'm sure.
	And then, so a couple things we learned.
	Fifty million dollars His first infusion of $50 million in capital to fuel operations being established on both coasts.
	This reads like a Silicon Valley press release.
	Listen to this.
	This is opening.
	Honolulu, the news organization created by Pierre Omidyar, formerly dubbed NUCO, has taken another step forward with an infusion of $50 million in capital to fuel operations being established on both coasts.
	Fuel?
	Yeah.
	Fun would be a proper word.
	Omidyar's first capital outlay represents 20% of his initial commitment to the media venture.
	First Look Media will publish robust coverage of politics, government, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, arts and culture, business, technology and investigative news.
	So the way they're doing it is...
	First Look Media...
	I have to do the voice again.
	First Look Media will be made up of several entities, including a company established to develop new media technology and a separate non-profit journalism organization.
	So the way it works is they're going to have this technology company.
	That's the one that is for profit.
	And any profit that makes will fund the non-profit.
	Wow!
	This is really innovative.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	That's pretty bad.
	And then to say...
	And what is their technology?
	This is great technology.
	Well, it'll be the...
	And by the way, this is reminding me.
	What is it with these guys?
	So now all of a sudden Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation are funding private prisons?
	Yeah, that's pretty good, isn't it?
	It's ridiculous.
	How does that even fit into the scheme of things?
	You know, I remember there was this guy...
	Why isn't that on the PBS NewsHour?
	It seems somebody should bring it up.
	Yeah.
	Oh, wait a minute.
	It was brought up in Mother Jones.
	Isn't it funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?
	I'm sorry.
	Oh, Kyle, I see.
	Wait a minute.
	Wait, you're making the connection here.
	Let me see if I can get this straight.
	You're making the connection that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds so much PBS content that, heaven forbid, anybody actually writes something about the foundation that's a negative, like them funding and dropping millions and millions of dollars into not just one, but a couple of private prison operations, which have notorious reputations, by the way.
	Yes, the GEO group...
	Didn't they have prisons where they were beating children?
	Yeah, or something.
	They just had a beatdown every so often.
	Yeah, and there was feces on the wall everywhere.
	So they can keep them happy.
	Locked emergency exits, excessive use of pepper spray on minors.
	Yeah, that's your Bill Gates, everybody.
	The genius who's saving the poor black children in Africa.
	By testing vaccines on them?
	No, to me it was just a matter of time.
	Bill, who I know, is a guy who makes money.
	He's not a coder.
	He's a guy who makes money.
	He has got one goal in mind.
	Make money.
	Has he always been that way?
	Has he always just been about making money?
	Has that always been his thing?
	As far as I can tell.
	When he was a kid, one of his notorious little things, I think he was still in high school or grammar school, he cornered the market on the McGovern-Eagleton campaign buttons.
	Eagleton was the original vice presidential choice for George McGovern, and the Republicans pulled a quick one, and they got him to take Eagleton, I think Thomas Eagleton, as the vice presidential choice.
	And then, as soon as he was picked, word got out that he had been subject to, what do you call it when you put the electrodes on your brain?
	Electroshock therapy.
	Oh, really?
	They passed him a few times, because apparently he was nuts.
	Yeah.
	But they had already printed all these buttons.
	Gates bought them all before the word got out and before the buttons were taken back.
	And then they sold them to collectors.
	He has no scruples.
	Well, I thought that was a great idea.
	Most of his ideas are sound.
	And I just knew when he started the Gates Foundation that there's at some point...
	He, because he's into making money, had to make some investments into some sleazy operations.
	And there it is.
	Well, I mean, he's in oil and gas.
	He's in all kinds of things.
	But this is very minor.
	It's not a lot of money.
	No, but it really shows you what's going on.
	And the apologists for Bill and Melinda Gates...
	Well, the foundation needs to make money to do good.
	That's bullcrap.
	It's the largest funded foundation in the history of foundations.
	They don't need to make any money.
	The idea was not to make money.
	It was to give money away.
	It's the Mac Daddy of money.
	Unbelievable.
	How anyone could be an apologist after hearing this thing about the prisons is beyond me.
	But, you know.
	Well, in that case, thank you for your courage.
	And in the morning to you, John C. Dvorak.
	Well, in the morning to you, Mr.
	Adam Curry, and also in the morning to all the ships at sea, boots on the ground, feet in the air, subs in the water, and all the dames and knights out there.
	And to our human resources in the chat room, who had a little snafu there.
	I'm not quite sure what happened, but the servers have been rebooted.
	We're streaming once again.
	NoagendaStream.com.
	Welcome, one and all, to our artists.
	Thank you so much.
	To Jimmy V., Who did the artwork for episode 575.
	We had some good choices.
	And I'm, of course, looking forward to anything that will show up on noartgenerator.com today.
	Our artists are always highly appreciated.
	And the artwork, ever since I'm doing the hand coding now to make sure that the artwork shows up in the new podcatcher, the Apple podcatcher, which means you have to add yet another specific iTunes tag.
	Which is non-conformist, but everyone is right on board with Apple, and now five other apps start showing the artwork.
	How about that?
	If I only knew.
	Huh.
	Yeah, because everyone is, oh, well, if Apple's doing it, yeah, go ahead.
	When Apple changes it, you'll all break and you'll all be scrambling to fix it.
	And they always change it.
	They always do.
	They always do.
	But we appreciate that, and we appreciate our executive producers and associate executive producers.
	These are the people who always come in to give us a big push for each and every episode.
	Of course, we have many, many producers, and we thank all of them over $50 later in the show.
	We have a good showing today because this is one of the two shows around Christmas.
	This is the pre-Christmas show, and then we have the post-Christmas show coming up on Thursday.
	And we encourage people to give.
	To this show, on behalf of somebody else, and that's always a good idea.
	So I want to say, of course, Stephen Pelsmockers, even I'm saying Von Pelsmockers, our patron, Welcome to my show!
	We had ten executive producers and ten associate executive producers.
	Holy crap.
	A record on both ends, but also symmetric.
	Nice.
	Which I found to be very peculiar, but common with the random number theory, something like this would occur.
	I was worried, because we know that, like last year, we're almost like retail in a way, funny enough, where we kind of make our year, or don't, At Christmas time, at the end of the year, at Christmas and New Year's.
	And it was looking bad.
	We also had less time, and so this is a good start towards finishing up the year, and it's appreciated.
	So let's thank these fine folks.
	Grand Duke Steven Pelsmacher's $1,225.13, $1,225.13, the Christmas knighthood donation, $1,225.13, which is Christmas.
	Oh, nice, yeah.
	In the morning, dear gentlemen, Merry Christmas to you both and your families.
	Please, some LGY karma for all donors, and especially for the dames and knights of the No Gender Roundtable.
	Donation equals date of Christmas written the U.S. way.
	There you go.
	Yay!
	You've got karma.
	And thank you very much.
	Sir Grand Duke Pelsmokers.
	Highly appreciate it.
	Not to be outdone, David Foley, Black Baron of Silicon Valley, $9.99.99, which means you have to throw in a penny.
	Oh, that's correct.
	I have a penny, and I have...
	Some Niners.
	Yeah.
	David says in the morning, John, I'm wishing you two a very Merry Christmas for the Black Baron.
	Leslie Satao, which is a nice short and sweet note, which we appreciate, by the way.
	Thank you.
	Leslie Satao Zanotti in Camarillo, Brillo, California, $560.
	$560.
	This donation, along with previous donations for my husband Rick Zanotti, made total over $1,000 in grants Rick and Knighthood.
	We'd like to be called the Sir Rick of the North.
	This is my Christmas gift to him.
	He said next year he will make me Lady Leslie.
	Oh yeah, I'll make you my lady.
	Eric DeShield confirmed the amount needed to reach Knighthood.
	Rick's email, and he's got it here.
	Thank you, he says, to keep up the great work.
	That is...
	Real love.
	You really gave him what he wanted, and that's very, very nice.
	And thank you, and it helps us.
	It's very, it's great.
	Aaron Baer, or Baer, Baer.
	B-A-E-R, is that?
	Baer, I'd say Baer.
	I'd say Baer, and he's in Wilkes-Baer, Pennsylvania, by coincidence.
	Wilkes-Bar.
	I'd say Wilkes-Baer.
	440.
	Incognigro.
	Ah, yes, the incognigro.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	In the words of the great lyrical duo Bob and Rita Marley who feels it, knows it, thus I donate to complete my first knighthood.
	Well, not marked off as such.
	So put him on the list.
	I thought he already did a knighthood.
	Isn't the incognito already a knighthood?
	I thought he was a knighthood.
	Well, you know what?
	Let me give you another one.
	I had in mind, laughing out loud either way, please call me sir and keep the outstanding works as long as you can.
	Keep it up.
	By the way, you can call this donation the judge and request it for those among us who, like the magnum caliber truth, the two of you dish out on a regular basis.
	Cute.
	It's a 440.
	It's a 440 shell that you put in the judge.
	That's right.
	Love it.
	Well, it's a 410 you put in the judge, but...
	He added 30 for good major.
	44 Magnum.
	If I'm not mistaken, I don't know.
	The judge takes a Colt 45.
	Well, he's completely a miss.
	I don't care.
	He's a knight anyway.
	He's got all this accounting here, so shut up, slave, and give him a...
	Do you like a Manning?
	Talk about that.
	No conflict and shut up, slave.
	LGY. Quad.
	Okay.
	Quad.
	All right.
	So he wants a Manning.
	We got to talk about that, right?
	Know what was the next one?
	Shut up, slave.
	No conflict.
	Oh, no conflict.
	Uh, that's under...
	Little girl, yay.
	Okay, and little girl, yay.
	And no shut up, slave?
	Shut up, slave.
	He's got it in there, yeah.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, I'm looking at five things at the same time.
	And a karma at the same time.
	Well, he never said karma, but I would give him one.
	You got to talk about that!
	There's no real conflict!
	Yay!
	Shut up, slave!
	Yay!
	You've got karma.
	That's pretty short.
	It was okay.
	Broke a sweat.
	Theodore Hosman in San Jose, California.
	Do you know the way?
	335-46...
	Thank you for your courage.
	Consider this my annual birthday donation.
	12-22-80 was his boy.
	He's 33 today.
	Also, this donation is rounding out my knighthood.
	Please call me sir.
	And lastly, my second executive producership added to my LinkedIn profile.
	Very nice.
	Merry Christmas.
	Happy New Year.
	Feliz Navidad!
	Sir Charles Jordan at 33333, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
	ITM gentlemen, heading to knighthood number three, foundationbar.com.
	Best Mai Tai around, which I've got to discuss with him.
	Dame Francine Hardaway.
	Ah, Dame Francine.
	Our buddy over here in Half Moon Bay.
	33-33-33-33.
	You suckered me into supporting you again with your pleas about value for value.
	I might have to tell you to stop giving so much value.
	I can't afford it!
	I love it when women tell me to stop giving them value.
	Happy holidays from her.
	Thank you, Dave Francine.
	Sir Richard Garrett in Thunder Bay, Ontario, 33333, ITM. The Karma Works.
	I requested a few doses during the first semester.
	It reflected rather nicely on my grade.
	So here's the 33333 to get those donation numbers back up again.
	Remember, slaves of starving students like me can come up with a producership.
	The rest of you have no excuse.
	Exams are finally over, so can I get a preemptive strike of the two-to-the-head chemtrails karma for the upcoming semester?
	Also, a big shout-out to all the Thunderwolves at Lakehead University!
	We received a Doach and a CD in one of my political science classes.
	I had thrust one upon them in a hallway or found one of my cleverly planted discs in the campus pub.
	Keep up the outstanding work.
	Good work.
	You keep up the good work.
	All right.
	He wants a two to the head chemtrails karma?
	No problem.
	Oops.
	I have to do that again.
	Chemtrails.
	You've got karma.
	Yay.
	Another night here.
	Semi-anonymous night, 33-333 in unknown parts of California.
	Until I read this piece by The Atlantic, I did not know because noun had become part of the vernacular.
	This is now an annoyance of greater proportion than even Freddy the Firewall.
	And show 575 at approximately 2 minutes 40...
	No, 2 hours 40 minutes and 26 seconds, Adam says, because internet.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, he nailed me on that.
	I did do that, and I did it on purpose, and you actually did not respond to it, which I found interesting at the time, but had forgotten about it.
	And I'd like to point out, two hours and 40 minutes and 26 seconds...
	Well, at two hours and 40 minutes, I'm probably half, you know, asleep.
	But two hours, 40 minutes and 26 seconds of pure entertainment...
	Well, it's astonishing that we can do a show this time.
	But this is indeed, we do like to call people out on weird vocabulary things, and this is a big one.
	People will say, well, because internet, or because advertising, instead of creating a whole sentence, and it's kind of a fun thing to do.
	Because of the.
	Yeah.
	Give yourself a douchebag and a wee-sat.
	We got rid of the WeSuck.
	The WeSuck has actually been dismissed.
	Yeah, we don't use the WeSuck jingle.
	Also, give PayPal as douchebag as well.
	Douchebag!
	Completed my PayPal account a while back, but despite that, I've gotten receipts at the old email address that the account had used, had been used, or is used, I don't know, bastards, he says.
	I also need a job karma.
	The last karma shot didn't work out.
	The donation makes me a night.
	If certain people knew that I've given over $1,000 to a podcast, I believe I would be institutionalized.
	Please sign me as semi-anonymous to be known or not known as Sir Semi-anonymous.
	Yeah, you got it.
	You've got karma.
	Job karma for you, my friend.
	Good luck with that.
	Thank you very much for supporting the best podcast of yours.
	Podcast, by the way.
	What?
	Monick's Lansing in Drayton Valley, Alberta, Canada, where the money is, 33333.
	When I heard that Adam was doing the last show sick as a dog, I just had to donate.
	Merry Christmas, no agenda boys.
	I would like to request some no more snow karma.
	We have enough of that white crap to last till spring.
	Alright, Dame Monica, no more snow!
	You've got karma.
	Monica lives in Alberta and she's bitching about the snow.
	Yeah, well there you go.
	How does that work?
	It happens.
	I was in Edmonton one year in July and it was snowing.
	Yeah.
	Kevin Hart, global cooling, man.
	Can't stop it.
	Kevin Hart, $270, will be associate executive producer from Pleasanton, California.
	Adam and JC figure you owe you guys at least $5 a show for all the hours of media assassination you provide.
	Adam, your analysis of the White House and NSA document and the 60 Minutes debacle last week was over the top.
	Unbelievable, and you are correct.
	Well, that's what we do.
	I mean, we're just trying to...
	It's not that hard.
	You know, it turns out, if you really just take the time and you have...
	You don't need $250 million.
	By large media organizations, and they don't do this.
	They just sit around drinking.
	As far as I can tell, they don't do this.
	Yeah, drinking and whoring.
	And whoring.
	Yael Ispinel in New York City, $250.
	Greetings, Alejandro Juan and Milagro.
	Writing from the Gitmo Tall Buildings, I'm writing to thank you for the continuous information you provide to us.
	I would like to be de-douched and to apologize for listening to us for such a long time, since episode 40, as a matter of fact, and not donating.
	It sucks to be broke in this expensive city.
	I'm going to be given...
	I'm going to be given with extra karma, which is the sentence.
	He wants some karma.
	This year has been the absolute worst for me.
	Everything can go wrong, has gone wrong.
	Wife left me, got pregnant from another, had no place to stay.
	Only bright spot is seeing my daughter and your voices twice a week.
	Hope all goes well for the holiday.
	Wow.
	Well, that's kind of a heartbreaking story.
	Get out of that place.
	Yeah, get out of there, man.
	Hey, Miguel, thank you very much.
	Here's your de-douching, of course.
	You've been de-douched.
	And the karma for you and your daughter, my friend.
	You've got karma.
	Feliz Navidad.
	Donald Kuhl in Wyndham, New Hampshire.
	Pronounced Kiel.
	Yes, Keel.
	But I think cool is what he is.
	I think he is a cool.
	2222.
	Pronounce Don Keel.
	You guys sound desperate.
	One plus year listener.
	I think I'm close to knighthood.
	I have only hit one person in the mouth.
	It's hard to convert to slaves.
	They're so locked in.
	Yeah.
	Which is what we talked about earlier.
	You don't have to.
	You talk to the choir.
	The choir.
	The choir's already halfway there.
	I am the Mac Daddy of conversion, and I can't even get...
	I have proof.
	I have the guy from the oversight committee saying it's not true, and these people won't believe me.
	They don't...
	I'm not listening to you.
	No, they're putting their hands over their ears.
	And they'll be the first voted off the island when the time comes.
	Well, they'd be droned.
	Michelle and Adriel Cartmel in Okanagan Valley, BC, which is the wine growing area, which makes some pretty spectacular wines considering it's in BC. 212, and I have a note.
	Greetings again from the Okanagan Valley, West Bank, BC to be exact.
	It was cold up here this weekend where we work, which is Williams Lake, BC, minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit.
	Geez, that is cold.
	It helped to have no agenda to distract us from all the chill in the air.
	This donation was going to be my gift to my husband, Adriel, for Christmas, but I will probably end up getting him something anyway.
	So I figure that we together can gift it to the show.
	Merry Christmas, my friends!
	Oh, thank you.
	As for the amount of 212, there isn't really any special meaning.
	It's just something like a nice number, and I wanted it to be enough to really show our appreciation to the show.
	Everything counts, but this is beautiful.
	Thank you.
	I want some F cancer karma for a friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy and other tumors removed from her shoulder, and we think the cancer is back.
	So far, no agenda karma has worked well for us.
	And I hope it will again.
	Also, some traveling karma would be great since we have lots of driving.
	We plan to do these holidays.
	Thanks for the best podcast in the universe.
	Here we go.
	You've got karma.
	Merry Christmas, slave.
	Thank you.
	I believe it was Michelle that wrote that.
	Peter Norwood, 1120, Morrisville, North Carolina.
	Please announce me as Peter C. Norwood.
	Okay.
	As yesterday was December 21st, I'd like to wish a happy 21-12 to my friends and fellow producers Don Summers and Chris Heffy.
	I thank them for their courage and thank you for the great analysis and humor.
	I laugh out loud several times a show.
	This is a little known fact, but I think that we're really a comedy show.
	This news is funny.
	We should relist our iTunes category as comedy and see if they put us in there.
	We're closer to a comedy show than any sort of serious news show.
	I mean, we do serious news analysis, but we do it with humor.
	Otherwise, it would make you too depressed.
	I have a little bookmark I'm going to give you.
	We need to talk about Jon Stewart.
	Oh, the Jon Stewart, yeah.
	I want to talk about that, yeah, a little bit.
	I'm bookmarking it so we can forget it.
	I thank them for their courage, blah, blah, blah.
	I laughed several times on the show, which a lot of people apparently do, including people in line.
	Please send a karma shot to warm me as I journey into the dark and foreboding lands of New Hampshire for the holidays.
	Peter C. Norwood, thank you very much.
	Here's your karma.
	Good luck with the journey.
	You've got karma.
	Thank you for your support of the work and the best podcast in the universe.
	Onward, Zach Morrison, 211-11 in McKinney, Texas.
	Hey guys, student loan slave here.
	Your call for donations on Thursday convinced me that I'm a douchebag.
	It's hard for me to donate when it comes to my pocketbook, but when it comes to my sanity, it's worth it.
	Yes.
	It's a bargain.
	It's a bargain.
	I'm a graduate with a degree in advertising, but after two years, I still can't find a job in North Texas.
	Go to Dallas.
	Adam makes me...
	Maybe that's where he is.
	Yeah, could be.
	He's in McKinney.
	Adam makes me happy when he goes on his rant about the youth, the lazy mainstream media hates us and thinks we're lazy, but he recognizes that we work our asses off to be slaves.
	Please give my 1111 to Tracy, which we'll do that on the next show.
	Mark it down.
	We're going to do another big Make It Rain.
	The club will open up.
	We'll get enough.
	We'll get enough.
	They build up and then we'll do it.
	Can I just say one little thing about the Make It Rain?
	Some women who listen to the show think that you're sounding a little too comfortable in that role.
	Just letting you know.
	I'm working on it because it's my exit strategy.
	Yes, correct.
	I'm going to be Freddie the Firewall and you're going to announce strippers.
	We're golden.
	That's the golden parachute.
	The golden parachute of the No Agenda Show.
	Kent O'Rourke in Frostburg, Maryland.
	$200.
	The last two shows have been par excellence, which gives me no chance but to give some value for value.
	I only ask for some general purpose karma.
	While you're at it, give some karma to the show to get the donations back at Level Befitting.
	Level Befitting, the best podcast in the universe.
	Sir Kent Bacon of Potomac Highlands.
	How about Baron?
	Although you can call him Bacon.
	Is he a Baron now?
	Oh, Sir Kent, the Baron.
	Ha, ha, ha.
	I think that's an offense that is suitable of the guillotine.
	Called the Baron of Bacon.
	Alright, here's the karma.
	Of course, thank you very much, Sir Ken.
	You've got karma.
	And three more on this 10-some.
	Here's a name I recognize.
	Armando Guerra.
	Armando of War, $200 in Buda, Texas.
	Armando.
	It was Merry Christmas, and he hopes that Echenea helped.
	Is this your pharmacist?
	This is our mail carrier.
	Oh, the mail guy.
	Armando, not mail guy, our mail carrier.
	Okay.
	Yeah, and by the way, the post office, the United States Postal System, loves the show because we're the only ones who point out that they're being boned.
	Actually, you know, democracy now is where I got most of this information.
	That was a couple years ago.
	They don't do it constantly like we do.
	But they brought the union, head of the union in there, and he just rattled off.
	We had a clip.
	I'll dig it up again.
	And he went on about all the money they're really making.
	This whole thing's a scam.
	Armando, when he delivered the mail, he put a little strip of echinacea.
	In the mailbox, in a little note, hey Adam, hope you feel better, Armando.
	That is so lovely.
	That's so lovely.
	You know, we never have to worry about, you know, we leave, we don't have to sit, we leave for a week, we don't have to get neighbors.
	No, it's all taken care of.
	The mail is held back.
	That's a good mail guy.
	That's the way it used to be.
	We used to have Tommy the mailman when I was growing up.
	And Tommy, he got around.
	But Tommy the mailman was, you know, it was Tommy.
	You could go to Tommy if you had a problem.
	Say, hey, Tommy, I can't get into my house.
	Tommy, you know, my mom's not home.
	He would take you to the neighbor.
	He was part of the community.
	We have a UPS guy, my UPS guy, not during the Christmas Eve, but now there's a bunch of slackers that came in.
	But our normal UPS guy, who's this good-looking male model-looking guy, sometimes he doesn't deliver the packages until like 8.30.
	Yeah, same here.
	8 or 9, they're still working, I know.
	Well, just because he's stopping off a lot of places.
	This guy looks like he's the worst for wear.
	He's got at least five or six women that demand him come in for cookies and tea.
	Hey, maybe that is our exit strategy.
	That sounds like a good gig.
	Drive around all day in shorts.
	Neil Liston, onward for our last couple.
	Thank you, Armando.
	Appreciate it.
	Neil Liston in Edinburgh, UK, $200.
	No comment.
	I don't have one.
	If you have an email, I didn't get one.
	Dave, just plain old Dave, in unknown parts of Massachusetts, that's $200.
	I'd be happy if you guys became millionaires from this show.
	I told you it's a comedy show.
	Exactly.
	That's a very funny line.
	Hold on.
	No, I don't have a thing from Neil.
	No, don't have it.
	Okay.
	So I want to thank all these fine people for helping us get through the Christmas season with their executive producerships and associate executive producerships and remind people we do have a show on Thursday.
	It will be the day after Christmas.
	We're going to be working it.
	And that will be show 577.
	This is 576.
	Go to Dvorak.org slash NA and gift some no agenda contributions for one of your loved ones.
	Yes.
	And well wishes for the new year.
	Karma, whatever you want, whatever you feel is appropriate.
	It certainly helps us and certainly helps us finish up the year in good spirit so we can get right on the stick in 2014 and continue because it's only going to get worse.
	It really is.
	And I have to tell you, sometimes we talk about that here around the house.
	This is...
	You know, I don't know how to explain it.
	We know that it's hard for families to live with us because of what we do.
	Sometimes I think it can be a little challenging.
	It's anywhere a little weird.
	But I don't think I've ever had this much fun doing anything in my life.
	And, you know, it's so creative to be, you know, so last night, it's like 11, 15, I'm like, I'm missing something, you know, then I see the combo between the Duck Dynasty and the Target thing.
	I get really excited!
	I do!
	I get, oh wow, look at this!
	I don't know.
	To me, it's incredibly creative.
	I love the process.
	And I'm very happy.
	I'm not bummed out about life.
	Because I get to talk about it for five, six hours a week.
	And get it out of my system.
	Well, yeah, and I hope that people out there have the same.
	We got a new listener that wrote in and he said, you know, you bitched about the Duck Dynasty thing and we didn't bring it up when it was just...
	He actually got me going on it.
	I'm like, wait a minute, I'm missing something.
	Because it's not just PR. I sent a note back saying, you know, generally speaking, we don't talk about just regular PR stunts done by Hollywood.
	Because he said, this is a PR stunt.
	Yeah.
	And he was right about that.
	And we said, most of our listeners are on to this already.
	We don't need to remind...
	I mean, that's not the level that we're working at, generally.
	Now, we are when it comes to...
	When you made the association with Target, then it brings it into the picture.
	But just normally, we don't...
	But that's the...
	We don't look at Lindsay Lohan's stuff.
	We don't care.
	But that was the beauty of it, because he had already identified, as a no-agenda producer slash listener, he identified it was a PR stunt.
	He brought it to our attention, and that feedback gave me the sparks, like, oh, wait a minute.
	Because, of course, we knew it, but I almost felt like I was lax.
	I was so jaded, oh, another PR stunt.
	But then I figured it out, so...
	It's nice how it works, and thank you all very much for your courage and for your support of the best podcasts in the universe.
	No advertising.
	I'm sorry?
	I said we have no advertising.
	No advertising.
	We do have a PR mention from Dame Jennifer, who is now in Charleston, South Carolina.
	She's organizing a meetup, and she has a website.
	NACHarleston.com.
	Go to NACHarleston.com.
	She has a website to set up a No Agenda community and a meet-up community, I think.
	The meet-ups are small, but I'm telling you, even if you get three or four people together...
	They're dynamite.
	This is a good group to have a meeting with because you have like-minded people, and it turns out they're very diverse.
	We don't have...
	It's not like everybody's in the military.
	We have people in the military.
	Yeah, we have quite a few.
	Truck drivers.
	We have students.
	We have lots of students.
	We have high school kids, which probably won't go to the meetups because it's old folks.
	We have retirees.
	That's not true.
	Lots of young folks have showed up at meetups that I've been to.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	It's a real interesting cross-section, which is unusual because the only thing they have in common is pretty much a desire for truth-telling.
	Exactly.
	Okay, well, we've got to go.
	Check that out.
	And, of course, continue to propagate the formula.
	Our formula is this.
	We go out, we hit people in the mouth.
	Merry Christmas, slave.
	Shut up, slave.
	Thank you, Lizzie.
	you you you Lizzie gave us a Merry Christmas, slaves?
	Yeah.
	She's got another one here.
	Bah humbug slave Well actually here's one Here's one for everybody.
	You've got Christmas Karma.
	That's Lizzie with her.
	She looks all sweet, but you know she's the devil inside.
	So I was following a couple of things.
	We had a couple of clips I wanted to, or a couple of things I wanted to read from the last show.
	And there was two articles.
	I want to talk a little bit for a minute about Kim Jong-un.
	Yes.
	Because he's been in the news again, and it's like not every...
	Even PBS is going out of their way to slam this guy with some really crazy reporting on him.
	And I want to read...
	I want to place out a few clips and I want to read at least one comment that was left on the Washington Post site.
	Because the Washington Post and Reuters had two different profiles of the guy.
	The Washington Post, which is an arm of the government...
	Full disclosure, it's an arm of the government because Amazon runs the CIA's infrastructure...
	And Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
	So they went on a tirade about how they did a survey, not naming one person, of people that were in school with him in Switzerland, and he was a maniac.
	He was a crazy, crazy kid, and he was dangerous.
	And then the Reuters had a, and the Reuters won, which I sent you last, for the last show I sent you these two.
	Yeah, I'll move them forward to this.
	Yeah, we have, it's the same story, same week, two different takes on the outcome.
	The other take was he was a great guy, and they don't know what they're talking about.
	Everybody thought he was cool, and I have one, in fact, I'll read this.
	Uh, now I might as well read this.
	This was in the Washington Post comments, and I thought it was an interesting comment.
	He says, there were a couple of YouTube videos, I don't know if they're still up, which Kim Jong-un's classmates talked about the guy.
	As I recall, no one had a bad thing to say about him.
	He was studious, outgoing, polite, and respectful, and he liked to ski.
	That was about it.
	His oldest brother, Kim Jong-nam, was out of control son.
	He was, by the way, I believe this was written, it was in the Washington Post, it was written by somebody who put it here for a reason.
	Uh, Kim Jong Nam was the out-of-control son being groomed for the top spot, but Kim Jong Il wasn't going to leave the country to a party animal.
	Kim Jong Nam hightailed it out of the DPRK and spent a lot of time at the gaming tables of Macau.
	Oh, I didn't even know he had a brother.
	I didn't either.
	Jang Song...
	Well, I think he had an older brother in the military, too.
	It's a different one.
	I think he's got two brothers.
	Jang Song Thak was supporting him Probably with the idea of putting him in charge.
	That's the guy, one of the plotters.
	The last I heard, Kim Jong-nam is on the run from several EPRK hit teams.
	Yeah, of course.
	Kim Jong-un's older brother is Kim Jong-chol, and it seems the two work closely together.
	He's the guy in the military.
	Kim Jong-un's half-sister Kim Sul-song is also very close to Kim Jong-un.
	This is only my opinion, but all three siblings have spent a few years outside the DPRK and have seen how the world actually works.
	Kim Jong-un had to fight fire with fire, but I honestly think these three went to drag the DPRK kicking and screaming into the new century.
	Kim Jong-un keeps talking about it.
	That's what holds them together.
	I thought this was highly significant that Un did not speak at the ceremony of the two-year anniversary of his father's death.
	He remained seated.
	The DPRK is his country now.
	The ancient regime is dead and gone.
	If you aren't part of the solution, you must be part of the problem.
	That was the end of that little note.
	So that is falling on deaf ears, the actual reality of the situation.
	And the Reuters report also brought something up interesting.
	Which I'll talk about after we go through these clips.
	So let's start with Kim Jong-un.
	Let's try Margaret Warner and the Margaret Warner.
	No, one.
	One Erratic.
	Let's start with their part one Erratic.
	This week, North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un embarked on his third year as head of the isolated kingdom after a week that has raised questions about his intentions and his country's stability.
	Today, Joint Chief Chairman General Martin Dempsey, commenting on Kim's execution of his high-ranking uncle, said, These kind of internal actions by dictators are often a precursor to provocation.
	Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called it concerning to everyone.
	Tonight, senior foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner takes a closer look at the erratic 30-year-old.
	Okay.
	So I'm listening to this and the key word here is erratic.
	Yeah, of course.
	Okay, now what makes him erratic?
	Well, if you listen to part two, it brings up another issue and then I'm going to ask you the question.
	Part two is mystery?
	Is that the one you want?
	NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman returned to Pyongyang today to renew what he calls his basketball diplomacy and his curious friendship with Kim Jong-un, North Korea's young leader for the past two years, who remains a mystery to the outside world.
	You give me the sign any time you want me to bring up the Uncle Don stuff.
	You just let me know.
	Okay.
	So, you'll probably bring it up when you feel it's necessary.
	Now, let's get this straight.
	Let's listen to this report.
	He's erratic.
	A curious relationship with Dennis Rodman.
	Well, the curious relationship, I'll explain.
	But how can he be both erratic if he's a mystery?
	If he's a mystery, you don't know what he's like, right?
	Isn't that what the word mystery means?
	Yes, correct.
	You're right.
	So how can you make the assumption he's erratic if he's a mystery?
	So I found this to be just crap reporting.
	So let's go on with Margaret Warner.
	She goes on, and she kind of makes more assumptions about this guy.
	And then they play a clip, which unfortunately you can't see, but it's a raving maniac who apparently is doing the newscast in North Korea, jumping up and down.
	But you have to see him.
	It's just hilarious.
	But let's play this clip.
	While much is not known about Kim Jong-un after these two years, two trends in his leadership appear clear and worrying.
	The internal instability, revealed by the way Kim's uncle was purged and executed, and North Korea's ongoing build-up of a nuclear weapons and missile arsenal that could threaten the world.
	On the day Jong was killed, a state TV newscaster recited a litany of shocking charges against him.
	The accused Jang committed hideous crimes, such as attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of sabotages and despicable methods, with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state.
	What is the difference between this outrageous newscast and John Bolton saying we should hang Edward Snowden from an oak tree?
	I mean, there's no difference.
	In fact, our guy is ruthless.
	I know, it's ridiculous.
	So let's listen to one, two, there's two more, these are all short clips I made.
	Yeah, I like it, I like it.
	Kim Jong-un, now John Kerry, because he's like the state guy, he has to say something, he doesn't know anything either, and he's a little, I think, annoyed by the thing that's going on with Dennis Rodman.
	Kim's summary dispatch of his high-ranking relative perplexed and disturbed foreign governments and long-time observers.
	Secretary of State Kerry spoke on ABC last Sunday.
	He tells us a lot about, first of all, how ruthless and reckless he is.
	He is spontaneous, erratic, still worried about his place in the power structure and maneuvering to eliminate any potential adversary or competitor.
	Alright, now I get to interrupt.
	Alright, so my uncle, and you can look him up, Donald P. Gregg, G-R-E-G-G. He's in the Wikipedia.
	He is, and he was the ambassador to South Korea, and he was a civilian in the Pentagon.
	It's all in the Wikipedia, what his background is.
	It's all in the Wikipedia.
	He is often invited back to Korea, and they revere him because he's now 83, 84, and age is respected and held in high regard.
	Until this administration, really, even though he hated George W. Bush...
	He literally hated George W. Bush.
	He would act as a go-between.
	He ran the Korea Society.
	I'm sure it was an agency front in New York City.
	Now he's the chairman emeritus of the society.
	He went to South Korea, I think about a year and a half ago.
	Now, not even, maybe a year ago.
	The first time, just right after the first time Dennis Rodman went to North Korea.
	And he also met with the North Koreans, because he has a history with them as well.
	And he went on CNN with the anti-constitutionalist Deepak, what's his name?
	Not Deepak, a douchebag.
	Azaria, whatever that guy.
	Rajiv Azaria.
	Rajiv Azaria.
	Something.
	And that was the last time he was on television, because he said, look, the North Koreans, they don't want armistice.
	They just want to be seen as a full country.
	They don't want war.
	They just don't want to blow anybody up.
	They just don't want to be treated as little babies in this armistice.
	They don't want that.
	And he said that Dennis Rodman, he agrees more with Dennis Rodman than anybody.
	And Dennis Rodman, the reason he is here, is for the Big Bang in Pyongyang.
	Have you heard of this?
	Well, actually...
	I'm headed there.
	Okay.
	I'll stop.
	I'll stop.
	Okay.
	So let's go on with...
	For one thing, there's a defector.
	This is bad reporting.
	I'm going to continue with this kind of skewed report on PBS, the National Treasury.
	Fareed Zakaria, by the way.
	Fareed Zakaria, yes.
	Rajiv Zanaria.
	Rajiv something.
	Guy's a douche.
	That's why we can't remember his name.
	So this is Kim Jong-un.
	So they found some defector, some army defector, or some, I don't know, the guy left the country.
	This would be this Ed Snowden kind of character that left the country.
	They put him on one of these machines, and they let him talk, and he bitches and moans about it.
	There's no counter-side to any of this story.
	This is a complete...
	This is a hit piece on this Eun guy.
	It's ridiculous.
	But play the Kim Jong-un, the defector speaks.
	There's an incredible admission of infighting in the country and factionalism, which has been completely unheard of in North Korea.
	That are two incredible admissions for a country that tries to keep a very public profile of them having everything under control.
	Kim's ostensible enemies weren't named, but this former North Korean Military Intelligence and Workers' Party official, who defected to South Korea just before Kim Jong-un came to power, offered some insights.
	We agreed to conceal his identity and name.
	Military officers generally were outraged that they had to accept Kim Jong-un as the new leader.
	Do they think the military is all stupid?
	Discontent among the military elites began soon after Kim Jong-il demanded we transfer our allegiance to his son.
	The feeling of betrayal turned into anger.
	Military and party officials scorned Kim for his inexperience, the defector said, and his rudeness to subordinates.
	His father had more confidence and so was more relaxed because he earned the power.
	But Kim Jong-un did not have the chance to learn and prepare for the leadership.
	This is why Kim Jong-un heavily relies on intelligence officers to control and spy on his people so to suppress dissent.
	Can I say something?
	Yeah.
	Alright.
	So, take your mind out for a second.
	Here's the crazy leader of North Korea who put his uncle at the firing squad and killed him.
	Crazy guy.
	He's a nut job.
	Now...
	Think about our president who sends unmanned airplanes to kill Americans like, I don't know, wasn't there some guy in his 16-year-old kid?
	To kill them.
	To kill them.
	And he jokes about it.
	I have two words for you.
	Predator drones.
	This is, I mean, who's the crazy?
	Who's the crazy?
	And he likes basketball, too!
	Well, so we go to that aspect, and there's a...
	Now, this is not reported...
	You probably have heard it, but maybe some other listeners have.
	But generally speaking, this is the only way we're dealing with this Kim Jong-un character in the mainstream media.
	And so I finally found, you know...
	The Reuters report on him had two interesting things.
	It says he really, really liked basketball.
	Liked it a lot, which is the reason that Rodman's over there.
	And his main team that he rooted for when he was in Switzerland was the Chicago Bulls.
	Dennis Rodman played for the Chicago Bulls.
	Now, what's Rodman doing there again?
	You have to go to China, the CCTV report, and you can barely understand this guy, but replay the CCTV report on what's North Korea's up to with Rodman.
	An agreement was reached between Seoul and Beijing earlier this month after South Korean President Park Geun-hye made the offer as a humanitarian gesture during her visit to China in June.
	Still on the Korean Peninsula, former NBA star Dennis Rodman has held tryouts for a DPRK team to face a dozen NBA veterans in an exhibition game to mark the birthday of Kim Jong-un, the DPRK's top leader.
	And it's billed as...
	It's a birthday party.
	It's the Big Bang in Pyongyang.
	Yeah.
	And it is...
	This is not being reported.
	It's sponsored by Paddy Power...
	The Irish betting outfit.
	And it is the Paddy Power Dennis Rodman basketball invitational event.
	You can buy tickets for the tour.
	It's 6,500 euros per person.
	All included.
	Return flight on air choreo.
	You get the North Korean visa, hotel accommodations, yeah.
	The whole thing is Bonanza, it's for his birthday, it's sponsored by a betting outfit, and it even has a Vegas name, the Big Bang in Pyongyang.
	Yeah.
	Where is it reported?
	Here.
	And I would add to that, because I didn't know the Chicago Bulls, but now that I think about it, Is it feasible to anyone?
	And could anyone, maybe Rolf Blitzer could make the connection.
	Maybe Kim Jong-un is trying to say, hey, I like basketball.
	I like the Bulls.
	President Obama, you like basketball.
	Maybe you could find some common ground.
	And he likes the Bulls.
	Yes, maybe we could find some.
	The Chicago team.
	Maybe we could find some common ground there?
	And does the president not even see this?
	Can the president not say, hey, there's an opening, there's a reason for me to open discussions with the erratic, mysterious leader of the DPRK because we have a common love for the Chicago Bulls?
	No.
	No, that would be too good.
	I think that should be seriously considered.
	I think so, too.
	I think this guy, this is the opportunity.
	He's opening it up.
	From that phony baloney guy who was in South Korea that was the ex-whatever military intelligence guy, saying that Kim Jong-il, you remember Kim Jong-il when he first showed up?
	Yeah.
	He was like a weird haircut, and they had that front page of The Economist saying, hello, Earthlings.
	The guy was considered a complete lunatic.
	But he was okay, but this new kid who's down to Earth is not.
	He's erratic.
	It was an insult to the military.
	It's bullcrap.
	This is a hit piece by PBS, and I'm really surprised to see it.
	Of all people, the NewsHour on PBS doing a hit piece.
	Oh, really?
	You're surprised?
	I am surprised.
	Well, who pays for that NewsHour on PBS? Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
	You mean the people who finance abusive prisons?
	For-profit abusive prisons?
	And you're surprised?
	I'm just saying.
	Alright, let me tell you this.
	Although I'm going to be on your side, that the solution and the concept that she created is...
	Something to be discussed and is not that important in the overall scheme of things.
	Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged accurately described where we are right now with the insane government, which is what she saw and why she wrote about it in her youth in Russia.
	So forget all the Galt's Gulch and who's John Galt and the quitting and all that.
	I'm okay with objectivism.
	We can all talk about that another time.
	But the description of what is happening, right down to the rail, is exactly what she was warning the United States about.
	Atlas Drugs.
	By Ayn Rand.
	And I think you can even agree on that.
	What's funny is that that's not the message that is being picked up from her by the Silicon Valley folks that you pounded earlier in the show.
	They just see it as, oh, we should make more money!
	No, no.
	Great is good.
	They should all quit.
	That would be a good start.
	I'm all for it.
	If their takeaway is, oh, we'll just quit and then you won't have Gmail.
	Fine.
	Fine.
	Get out.
	Get Apple II. Tim Collins, Steve Cook, whatever his name is.
	Tim Collins.
	I like saying Tim Collins.
	It's a bad cocktail.
	It's a Tom Collins gone left.
	He's compromised.
	He's compromised.
	He's compromised Apple.
	He's compromised the entire operation.
	There's no other reason for him to sit in that suck-up meeting.
	Suck-up meeting.
	At least Jobs, before he died, had that dinner and got all huffy about it.
	Remember that?
	Yeah.
	Remember that?
	Sorry.
	Yeah.
	Zuckerberg didn't even show up.
	No, he sent us Cheryl.
	Yeah.
	Lean in.
	Yeah.
	Lean in.
	Lean forward.
	Whatever.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Wow.
	Okay.
	Well, that's what's going on.
	Good little wrap up there.
	I like that a lot.
	I think we at least are on top of this.
	And we should visit the country.
	I think there's a lot, there's something going on and it's like, here's another thing I was thinking about when I put this together.
	Where is the news media interviewing Dennis Rodman?
	How come there's not a microphone in his face?
	How come CBS took this crazy guy that's bitching and moaning, this unknown guy, we can't say his name, but they never put a microphone?
	And you don't think Dennis Rodman doesn't like to have a microphone in his face?
	He's a media whore.
	He does have an exclusive with Vice, who are doing yet another documentary.
	So there may be some issue there.
	But here's how the mainstream media...
	It's for Vice if he talks.
	Oh, I agree.
	But here's how the mainstream media...
	I've seen this at least three times.
	You get a pundit on, and I even saw a woman from ESPN. Those ESPN reporters, those women are hot!
	And they talk well.
	They only know about sports.
	They don't know anything else.
	But okay.
	And here's how it goes.
	Well, what do you think is going on in Dennis Rodman's mind?
	And then the answer is, if I knew what was going on in Dennis Rodman's mind, I'd be in an institution.
	Every single one of them.
	That's it.
	That's the extent of coverage.
	That's it.
	That's the coverage right there.
	That's exactly right.
	A little ditty came out from the White House, kind of in the region.
	We'll stay in the Eurasian region.
	Memorandum for the Secretary of State.
	That would be John Kerry, who you aptly titled the State Guy.
	And to the Secretary of Energy.
	Dear folks.
	Doesn't say that.
	I have considered the proposed agreement for cooperation between the American Institute in Taiwan and the NiPay Economic and Cultural Representative Office of the United States concerning peaceful uses of nuclear energy, along with views, recommendations, and statements of the interests of agencies.
	I have determined that the performance of the agreement will promote and will not constitute an unreasonable risk to the common defense of security.
	So we're now going to enter into a nuclear relationship with Taiwan, China's most hated enemy.
	It's not at all obvious.
	Well, what can I say?
	We're the provocateurs.
	Yes.
	Well, nothing other than...
	How about that cool photographic and videographic evidence of the moon landing from China, huh?
	You're still on that.
	Yes, I am still on that because now even people who are angry at me for even suggesting that we never landed on the moon are joking about China.
	Really, the fake footage we have in the 60s was better than what they're doing.
	Where's all the high def stuff?
	Where's anything?
	Well, the Chinese make all that gear.
	That's the irony.
	Yeah, they're not showing any of that.
	They had a video of an animation on a flat screen in their command center.
	Please.
	How insulting.
	Why is the scientific community not saying, in outrage by this lack of what they're showing?
	People, please.
	Turkey is on fire.
	I got a couple of turkey clips, too.
	And the thing is, it's interesting because it brings back a topic.
	There's something that we have brought this up numerous times, this topic about these crazy schools in Texas.
	Yep, the Gulen movement.
	That's right.
	The Gulenists is the right way to pronounce it nowadays.
	Well, it's not just Texas, John.
	There's 600 all over the world.
	There's 600 all over Europe.
	The Gulen movement, the Gulen schools are all over the world.
	600 schools.
	And now it's believed that the Gulenists are behind what's going on in Turkey.
	Which is what we said on this very show!
	And every time it comes up, I'm always reminded of these crazy schools.
	It's still somewhat...
	We don't know what the hell is going on.
	I mean, this could be an agency thing, but the FBI has been investigating.
	Apparently, they're all over this...
	The Gulenists in Texas.
	There's a bunch of articles floating around about it.
	The FBI investigation of Gulen schools, a.k.a.
	Harmony Science Academies in Texas.
	They've apparently been...
	Yeah, so a number of police officers were arrested for corruption.
	And everything you read, even Time Magazine, and that means the CIA is behind it, because if Time is doing this, then...
	Now, we have someone coming to...
	We have a little Meet the Kids party today, and we have a famous documentarian coming to...
	I won't mention his name, but he will be joining us, and I believe he may be doing something along these lines about this particular thing.
	So you have to understand that this Gulen guy, the...
	Who lives in the Poconos, by the way.
	He lives in a huge compound in Pennsylvania, and here's what we have to remind people of.
	The CIA uncle of the Boston Bombers, he was a direct connection to the State Department arranging for the green card for this guy's move to the United States.
	Do you remember this now?
	Is it coming back to you?
	I vaguely remember that.
	You're right, though.
	Yeah.
	And the CIA... No, this is the most...
	I don't know.
	I just look at it and look at it and I go, gee, this is too screwy not to have some agency involvement.
	But we have to because we know the Chinese have just...
	The Turks are buying Chinese rockets.
	A little faux pas if you want to be in NATO, I'd say.
	And they're doing that on the heels of a $30 billion loan to complete rail for the Trans-Eurasian Rail Network, which will transit through Turkey into Europe to connect China and the Russians who are working together,
	the Shanghai Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperative Corporation, I think it's called, all the way into Europe, Rotterdam, Up to London, down to Barcelona, and now also going into Africa, as the Chinese are paying for Kenya to upgrade its rail to standard gauge.
	No, no.
	This is very obvious.
	And of course, we have all the pipelines running through Turkey.
	Not all of them, by the way.
	Go to...
	This will tickle you, John.
	Go to ukrainegas.curry.com.
	This is a great graphic.
	Ukrainegas.curry.com Yeah, I was ready, then I wasn't.
	And you will see here the pipelines that go through Ukraine from Russia and the actual percentages of Russian gas that is used by Ukraine and transits to Ukraine.
	Looks like all the gas.
	66% of Russian gas exported to the European Union transits Ukraine.
	66%.
	Yeah, Ukrainians have no choice in this whole situation to pick Russia versus the EU. Well, not unless they want to get really cold this winter.
	It's a bad time.
	Yeah, and it's not a warm country.
	It's a bad time to be doing this.
	And they're getting a $15 billion bailout, which is like free money.
	Yeah.
	And like somebody, we have people bitching about the Ukraine.
	I don't think they, personally...
	I suppose you could maybe make a case, but the Ukrainians, like somebody said, I don't want to disparage the Ukrainians, we have, I think, one of our producers, but they said the only export they have is, you know, is corruption and prostitutes.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And gas.
	They transit gas.
	And they would be in the EU. They would be, you know, it would be a problem, I think, for the EU to have the Ukrainians when they're really traditionally more toward the east than the west in terms of their culture.
	Yeah.
	Well, anyway, we know that the State Department is there.
	Victoria Nuland, Assistant Deputy Secretary of State, handing out pretzels to everybody and sandwiches.
	Because, you know, it's good to try and head them off at the pass.
	And this chart of yours, I think, really points out what really should happen, which is separate the Ukrainian country into two.
	Have the Ukrainians...
	Oh, you mean like Bosnia-Herzegovina?
	Should we do that one?
	Should we do that one again?
	Where Yugoslavia turns into two different spots?
	Yeah.
	I think there's more than two in Yugoslavia.
	Well, but that's kind of what we wound up with.
	Yeah, the Boltonization, where these countries say, look, all the Ukraine-speaking...
	People are on the West and they can become part of the EU if they want to try that.
	And the Russian side can just become part of Russia.
	Yeah, and typically in this process, thousands of people are slaughtered.
	This is great.
	We can just wait for it.
	Yeah, it's always problematic.
	I have to agree that there's nothing.
	I've been advocating separating the state of California into three states.
	Oh, you and that Silicon Valley.
	What was this non-story?
	I've been talking about this for a decade.
	And I've always thought having the state cut in half would be a good thing because we get more senators and more representation for the state itself because it's a big state.
	It doesn't need to be this big.
	But I finally worked it out to three states.
	It should be a northern part, the center part, and then the southern California.
	Yeah, Canada, America, and Mexico.
	And like that, kind of a fractal.
	Yeah.
	And it would be fine.
	Anyway, but you know.
	It's the Winkley Huckery Park.
	Right on the heels of France, where prostitution is legal, but soliciting sex can get you a 1,500 euro fine.
	We now skip over to Scandinavia.
	In their ruling, the justices note that prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada, but the laws meant to discourage that trade endangered lives.
	The three laws made it illegal for prostitutes to communicate with clients in public, do business in private buildings, and for anyone else to live off their profits.
	The court ruled those laws put prostitutes in harm's way by prohibiting them from paying for security, working in brothels, or screening clients on the streets.
	This is very interesting that this took place, because you hear who comes out, and immediately it's...
	Well, clearly it's okay for people to buy and sell women!
	Which, of course, has nothing to do with this ruling, because trafficking in humans and underage sex is obviously still illegal.
	In writing the unanimous decision, Chief Justice Beverly McLaughlin pointedly raised the case of the B.C. serial killer who preyed on vulnerable street prostitutes.
	But groups that fight human trafficking and child prostitution called the ruling a step backwards.
	It's a sad day that we've now had confirmed that it's okay to buy and sell women and girls in this country.
	I think generations to come, our daughters, their granddaughters, and on, will look back and say, what were they thinking?
	That's really, I mean, that's just not true.
	This is not what it's about.
	It's renting.
	It's not buying and selling.
	It's renting.
	And it's, yes, there's danger.
	But wow, you know.
	At that time.
	Today's decision doesn't have any effect on Canada's laws against human trafficking, child exploitation, and pimping.
	Those laws are all still in force.
	Thank you.
	At least they point that out.
	That's the weekly hooker report there.
	That was the weekly hooker report.
	I tell you what, why don't we thank the rest of our Christmas donors and then we can move on to blow through the end of this show.
	I'm going to show my support by donating to No Agenda.
	Imagine all the people who could do that.
	Oh yeah, that'd be fab.
	Yeah, on No Agenda.
	In the morning.
	This is a fact.
	And what is that fact?
	I don't know.
	Fact is...
	George Clooney is a spy.
	Is it supposed to follow that?
	No, no, but...
	Sounds like the same guy.
	If you want that, I mean, I can do that.
	Yeah.
	But I wasn't quite ready.
	George Clooney!
	Is a spy!
	Did you get those coasters, by the way?
	I didn't...
	No, I did get...
	A Christmas card from Eric the Shill.
	Oh, that's nice.
	Not really.
	Would he chew you out?
	Did you get a Christmas card from Eric the Shill?
	No.
	A Christmas card.
	Nice Christmas card, by the way, with a $1 bill.
	Okay.
	And it says, don't spend it all in one place.
	Merry Christmas from your disgruntled back-office shill.
	At least he has humor.
	Yeah.
	One dollar.
	That's the way the back office should always be.
	He's nailed it.
	Yeah, he did kind of.
	I have to admit he nailed it.
	Jan Christian Terhart, Abbotsford, B.C., 199.
	And we don't know a note from him that I have, or her, him, that I know of.
	Nothing to see here.
	Sir Joe Gaz in Wilmington, Delaware, 164-31.
	He also makes a note.
	He says, here's my version of gold, frankincense, and myrrh for the best podcast in the universe.
	Oh, very nice.
	Dame Joan Dottifree in Morgantown, West Virginia, who you've visited, 133.33.
	You guys kicked me off my monthly PayPal donation, of course.
	Why did you do that?
	Just so you know, this happens all the time, PayPal.
	Certainly at the end of the year, please check it.
	When things are expiring, PayPal will drop your subscription.
	They may not even send you any note at all, but if they do...
	Or if they do, they'll say it's our fault.
	Yeah, no agenda show has refused your subscription or canceled your subscription, which of course is not true.
	And we don't even know how to do that.
	It's easy for you to do it.
	Anyway, so she was on the $33.33 a month program, which is very dedicated, and got kicked off of it.
	Thank you very much, PayPal.
	And I've bitched about this to them, and they've never gotten back to me.
	And she's going to go with the automatic bank transfer, she says, starting in January.
	Much better way to go if you're in the United States.
	Yeah, that results in a check.
	And we might as well remind everybody.
	It's so snappy.
	Let's see if you can understand it.
	Nope.
	Raleigh Rakama in Helsinki, 115.
	Excellent work.
	Those guys had a Helsinki meetup.
	I wonder if he made it.
	How many people in there in Finland?
	We got a couple nights, of course.
	Or three people, five people.
	Maybe more.
	I'm going to go visit Helsinki and I'm going to demand a meetup.
	Yes.
	I like that town.
	It's nice.
	It's dark.
	It's dark right now.
	It's always dark.
	Michael Bale in Los Angeles, California, 115.
	Josh Mandel, $112.35 in Greenville, South Carolina.
	Cutting Edge Solutions in Scotland, Glasgow, 111.11.
	But no call-out.
	No woman for stage.
	That's good.
	Also...
	William Carter, Broomfield, Colorado, 1111.
	You got a call out in here?
	Yes, Lily Satu.
	Lily Satu, his anime wife.
	So you'll have to do a little...
	We're going to do this Thursday.
	We're going to do the big Make It Rain show?
	I hope so.
	Lily Satu.
	So this is kind of good.
	If you do a Make It Rain donation, you get your mention, and then you come back again when we collect them all into a big segment.
	That's actually kind of a good thing.
	Sabina is a real milf.
	What's it called?
	Okay, this is Samuel Butterick in Justin, Texas, and he's got a bunch of call-outs.
	He said, Texas is an expat living in Germany.
	He's actually in Germany, not Justin, Texas.
	A German friend hit me in the mouth a month ago, and I've decided to stop being a boner.
	In order to thank my friend Akim, I'd like to call his wife Sabine or Sabina.
	Sabine, probably.
	Sabine.
	Sabine.
	Okay, we got her down.
	Sabine to the stage.
	Thank you for your courage.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Robert Mueller.
	Not the Robert Mueller, but this guy's in Chesapeake, Virginia, $100.
	Michael Hanson, 99.33 in Mawa.
	Mawa.
	As far as I'm concerned, he is the Michael Miller.
	Robert E. Mueller.
	No, he's ours.
	He's ours.
	Okay, he's our Robert Mueller.
	How's things going at Facebook?
	Michael Hansen in Mawad, New Jersey, 99.99.
	Elliot Rothman, 777.
	Atlanta, Georgia, there's an initiative that didn't get very far.
	Frank Pugh, $75 from Tallahassee.
	69!
	69, dudes!
	The following are the 69-69ers, and there's only four of them.
	Kevin Nunes, East Brunswick, New Jersey, Pixel Haven in Liberty Township, Ohio.
	Scott McKenzie in Wilmslow, not available.
	And Simon Marciniak in Poland.
	No, no, he's not 69-69.
	Oh, I got one too many.
	It's only three.
	Oh, that sucks.
	Okay, well, anyway, so Marciniak is 66-66.
	And he says, this donation is entirely due to the blow-me tweets, the best tweet I ever watched.
	Thanks, AC. Yeah, that was good.
	And of course, you have a blow-me bobblehead from Leo.
	And I have a standing invitation for triangulation.
	Yeah, like I'm going to go on that show.
	Todd Elgee in Katy, Texas, $57.50.
	Brian Barrow, double nickels on the dime from Wooten Bassett in the UK. Donald Devine in Claremont, Florida, $55.00.
	And these are all $50 donors, including Jason Daniels in Dallas, Texas.
	Adam Beers in Rixton, New Brunswick.
	T. Abel in Bergfield, Berkshire, UK. Peter Colvin in the UK, Antrim somewhere.
	I can't.
	Ballymina.
	I don't know.
	Is that a real place?
	Eric Johnson in Sweden.
	Eric Veet in Dublin, California, right up the street from me.
	Kyle Bauer in Parts Unknown.
	And finally, Dan Greb in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
	Oh, wait.
	Also, Benjamin Smith in Oakland.
	Oakland, I say.
	Which is right down the street from me, California.
	And Todd Elgie, I think, yes, from Texas, he says, Dear Uncle John and Adam, my homeschooled kids would like to say Merry Christmas.
	Thank you for your kale.
	And he also wants a birthday shout-out for his smoking hot wife, Kim, whose birthday is today.
	And she is on the list.
	Exactly.
	And that concludes our donor segment for show 576.
	Yes, it does.
	And we want to thank these people and all the lesser donors for coming in.
	A lot of people came with like $12 or whatever they could afford, and we appreciate that too.
	Especially in these days.
	Especially in these days.
	Thank you all very much.
	We highly appreciate your courage, your support of the work, and of the best podcasts in the universe.
	We'll be here again on Thursday.
	Which is the day after Christmas.
	We'll be ramping up.
	And we'll do our 2014 predictions, I guess, on Thursday.
	Yeah, you've got some predictions you're anxious to get out there.
	Yeah, I'll make sure I do those.
	But first, let me remind you...
	Dvorak.org Slash N.A. And as we just discussed, Todd Albee says happy birthday to his smoking hot wife, Kim.
	I think he sent me a picture, but otherwise you might want to send me another one.
	And Sir Theodore Hossman, 33, the magic number, today.
	Happy birthday from your friends here at the No Agenda Show.
	Sorry about that.
	A little misfire.
	Too much eggnog.
	And now we have one, two, three, four people to be knighted today.
	Just under the radar.
	You can still do it for your 2014 knighthoods.
	And we'd like to call a couple people up to the stage.
	Not for the make it rain, but thank you, John, for your sword there.
	Rick Zanotti, Incognito, Theodore Hossman, and Semi-Anonymous.
	Step forward, gentlemen.
	Hereby, I'm very proud to pronounce thee the following titles.
	Sir Rick of the North, Sir Incognito, Theodore Hossman, and Sir Semi-Anonymous.
	All of you now, Knights of the No-A-Dealer Roundtable.
	For your contribution, the amount of $1,000 or more to the show, thank you very much.
	For you, cannabis and Cabernet, librarians and Jagerbonds, opium and warm orange juice, Pippi Van Winkleblonde, served with Oktoberfest Frauleins, hookers and blow, rent boys and chardonnay, winches and beer, and of course, some sparkling cider escorts and mutton and mead.
	For you here at the roundtable, go to noagendanation.com slash rings to pick up your well-deserved ring and sealing wax.
	I think the Incognigro pulled one over on us.
	Maybe.
	Maybe.
	Isn't that just like an incognito?
	Yeah.
	Totally.
	Totally.
	That's the first thing I thought.
	We're going to hell.
	I picked up a little something funny.
	Of course, in our never-ending quest to win a comedy award.
	What are the comedy awards?
	There's more comedy awards than there are podcasting awards.
	A guy named...
	Let me bring up my notes here.
	A guy named Stephen Schneider.
	Stephen Schneider, who passed away in 2010.
	Stephen Schneider did.
	He was a climatologist.
	He was a member of the IPCC Working Group 2.
	He died of cancer.
	But he had beat it, and then all of a sudden, boom.
	He was a MacArthur Fellow.
	Big climate change guy.
	Big, big climate change guy.
	He also was on stage when Barack Obama received his Priest Prize.
	He's been around.
	And here he is in 2000, I think beginning 2000, he died rather suddenly.
	Talking about the dangers of climate change and global warming in the near future.
	Don't be poor in a hot country.
	Don't live in Hurricane Alley.
	Watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic.
	It's a bad idea to be up on high mountains with your glaciers melting and losing your water supply.
	And if you're in a Mediterranean climate, you're going to have a fire season in the summer that's really going to be a problem.
	Sounds like he's pretty much all in on the we're all going to die from global warming.
	Man-made global warming.
	He wrote the report on man-made global warming.
	Unfortunately, as I was watching the entire Leonard Nimoy narrated piece about the global cooling from 1978, I came across this.
	Sea ice could be melted by covering it with black soot to increase the absorption of sunlight.
	Dr.
	Steven Schneider is a climatologist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
	Can we do these things?
	Yes.
	But will they make things better?
	I'm not sure.
	We can't predict with any certainty what's happening to our own climatic future.
	How can we come along and intervene then in that ignorance?
	You could melt the ice caps.
	What would that do to the coastal cities?
	The cure could be worse than disease.
	Would that be better or worse than the risk of an ice age?
	How unfortunate!
	Well, there you have it in a nutshell.
	And then he died, suddenly.
	Yeah, well...
	So this guy was all...
	In fact, if you read about him, one of his ideas was to create a nuclear explosion on the pole to break up the ice.
	And then, you know, it's like, but we don't know.
	We can't really predict the climate, can we?
	Oh!
	I'm sorry.
	The same guy who in 2010 was writing about the models that were predicting the climate.
	I should send that to my Republican-hating friends.
	Yes.
	Yes, these are all good things to bring up at the dinner table.
	Yeah.
	Not tonight.
	Tonight we're doing a nice...
	Just have a little clip machine with you.
	Oh, yeah?
	Boom.
	You push the button.
	Great.
	You'd be a great dinner mate.
	No, that's not going to work.
	You'd never get invited back, I guess.
	No.
	So, you know, I was noticing on our donation list there wasn't anybody from India, which is one of the largest English-speaking areas.
	And so I figured I'd have my monthly Indian douchebag clip.
	Oh.
	So here's a guy that runs a thing in India.
	He's just a big publisher, and he's also, you know, this typical Brahmin.
	And it brings up the situation.
	In fact, let's go back to talking about Indian Brahmins.
	Don't you think it's a little peculiar that the story...
	Let's play this clip.
	India's strip search fiasco continues.
	...how Devyani Kobra Gade, India's Deputy Consul General, was treated.
	We have seen the statement issued by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney on December 18th.
	We need to keep in mind the simple fact that there is only one victim in this case.
	That victim is Devyani Khabragade, a serving Indian diplomat on mission in the United States.
	This story has captured the Indian media's attention.
	News outlets are pitching the arrest and detention including strip searches and cavity checks of the Indian diplomat as the humiliation of the nation.
	Many people have welcomed the government's strong response and New Delhi appears determined to set an international example.
	It is not a matter of India alone, but all developed nations should learn a lesson from this and should raise their voice whenever such incidents take place.
	Protesters shout anti-American slogans in the North Indian state of Rajasthan.
	Their angry chants are feeding a growing chorus of discontent.
	Okay, a couple of things.
	One he said, on mission, which is annoying.
	But Rajasthan gives a rat's ass about anything that happens in the United States, I can assure you.
	But it's okay.
	They got all riled up about this thing.
	And I was thinking about this.
	This is the, you know, these Brahmins that are part of most of these missions into, you know, like in the United States or in the council or wherever you run into them, they're all over the place.
	Many of them were in industry.
	But these Brahmins, these are the high caste Indians, are extreme.
	They're outrageously arrogant.
	Yeah.
	There is absolutely, I was thinking about this strip searching cavity search.
	I'm absolutely convinced that they went in there probably like most government guys do, with a reasonable, you know, look, you violated this rule, you know, there's going to be a fine.
	And she must have given them some outrageous lip.
	Yeah.
	As a Brahmin would do, because everybody's beneath a Brahmin.
	And so they decided to show her some New York sentiment, and they gave her the once-over, and showing her who's the boss, because she's not the boss of them.
	And that's how this thing is kind of spun out of control.
	And I think it's interesting that nobody really wants to even discuss it as anything other than...
	Because it makes no sense that they would strip-searcher and cavity-searcher woman for a paperwork violation unless it was something she triggered.
	It's a retaliatory move, of course.
	Yeah.
	You can't do this, especially within our police state.
	Come on.
	It's, hello, officer.
	Yes, sir.
	What else do you need, sir?
	Anyway, I just thought it was just a little thing.
	So that brought me to this other clip, which is this channeled 18 guy who is now considered the Rupert Murdoch of India.
	And he says this, and I just couldn't take it.
	The firm also has interests in e-commerce, in films and magazines, just to mention a few.
	Raghav Bahel, thank you very much indeed for speaking to us.
	It's a real pleasure.
	Thank you.
	Now, you've been called the Rupert Murdoch of India.
	I'm not sure.
	For some people it's a compliment, for some people perhaps not.
	What do you make of that label?
	You know, I think this is more because we are one of those few media companies which has got a footprint both in entertainment and in news.
	So he goes on with this.
	We're one of the few companies in the world that is in entertainment and news.
	Tell me one of these big media companies that's not in news.
	Let's see, ABC, Disney.
	Of course, they're all in entertainment and news, or whatever passes for news.
	So this guy's just full of crap.
	Even First Look Media, Pierre Omikamaki, Laura Poitras, Ralph Greenwald, they're going to be doing sports and entertainment and gossip and celebrity.
	Their press release says it.
	Because you can't do news without entertainment in mainstream.
	Right.
	And you can't control the masses without news.
	Yeah.
	And you can't control the entertainment without news stories about the entertainment.
	Yeah.
	That's what it's really about.
	I mean, you have news.
	You see it all the time.
	You watch one of these.
	Even the local shows.
	Oh, tonight is the last episode of Breaking Bad.
	You know, what's going to happen?
	Who cares?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Well, a lot of people cared.
	So Obama commuted a bunch of drug guys.
	Yeah, including someone he knew, I think.
	Yeah, well, here's the story.
	They left a part out.
	I didn't get the part.
	He also did a bunch of pardons for the first time.
	But listen to this story.
	They do give him the needle here a little bit.
	Obama commutation.
	Yes.
	Commutation.
	Yeah.
	President Obama commuted the sentences of eight convicted drug offenders today.
	In a written statement, he said their prison terms were unduly long, under a law that treated crack cocaine more harshly than powder cocaine.
	A more recent law has reduced the disparity.
	Before today, the president commuted just one sentence in his five years in office.
	So he did one.
	They didn't mention the pardons.
	And I said, well, it's funny they would have mentioned because he did a bunch of pardons.
	I think eight or something like that.
	All the pardons.
	We've talked about this on the show before.
	He doesn't pardon anybody.
	He's a very cruel ruler.
	So he didn't pardon anybody.
	But he pardoned a bunch.
	All of a sudden, every one of those pardons, the people were already served their term.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah.
	Not one of them was in jail.
	They have long since served their term.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah.
	Isn't that funny?
	That's lame.
	I read somewhere that one of the pardons I thought was like the son of someone he knew.
	Well, that was a commutation, I think.
	What is a commutation exactly?
	That's when you commute the sentence.
	The guy's in jail.
	He's not innocent.
	But you let him out.
	You're in too long.
	Boom, you're out.
	Pardon is that you're now innocent.
	You're like, you know, it's just thrown out.
	The whole case is thrown out.
	You're okay.
	You're good to go.
	Here we go.
	Top Democratic ally Deval Patrick's crack dealer cousin was among eight people whose hefty sentences were commuted yesterday by the president.
	There you go.
	Yeah, there you go.
	Okay.
	Well, that makes sense.
	He probably commuted a bunch of them so that one didn't stand out like a sore thumb.
	Well, Bill Clinton, of course, famously pardoned.
	Mark Rich, the...
	Or the man who essentially set up the oil spot market for illegally trading with Iran and went on to create Glencore, the largest oil corporation in the universe.
	He died recently.
	Yeah.
	Recently.
	Hey, I got this report about Central Africa.
	Yeah, wow.
	I got a lot about what's going on.
	You can go on with yours, because mine's not...
	Well...
	Wait, wait, wait.
	I want this played first, because it'll get it out of the way, and I want you to tell me, and the reason for this report that I have a clip, this is the CAF with Big Voice, there's a guy that comes on, and he's got one of these unbelievable big voices.
	You know what I'm talking about?
	Yes!
	Yes!
	Well, this is bigger than that.
	You can't even do this voice, it's so big.
	And I want to see if you can spot it when it comes onto the clip.
	UN Ambassador Samantha Power is getting a close-up look at the violence in the Central African Republic.
	She met with the country's president on Thursday.
	The Obama administration says it will provide $100 million to assist African Union troops and another $15 million to the UN for humanitarian aid.
	As Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons reports.
	A military handover that's meant to make a difference to the traumatized people of the Central African Republic.
	The CAR peacekeepers called FOMAC are now replaced by a much larger force.
	It's named MISCA, another military acronym in this continent's troubles and the largest force of its kind in this country.
	It will try to calm the CAR, which is on the brink of more killing and the threat of genocide is ever present.
	It's twice the size of the existing force called FOMAC and will double that number again in the coming weeks to 6,000.
	With the military build-up, more political pressure is bearing down on the country's interim president, Michel Jotadier, to calm the anger and threaten full justice against anyone involved in the unknown number of atrocities.
	We have discussed with the president of the transition to really insist on what needs to be done to prevent further atrocity crimes.
	In other words, it is critical that a message comes from himself to make sure that nobody will be immune from any form of prosecution.
	Okay, you can stop it.
	Well, let me tell you a little bit about it.
	I want that voice.
	I can do this voice because we tell the president about the atrocities.
	You're almost close.
	His voice has got a little more soothing.
	Blow me.
	Blow me.
	Low notes.
	Low notes.
	And you've got...
	Blow me.
	It's all hell's breaking loose.
	Well, was it not your, our economic hitman, who verbatim said several, maybe two months ago, it's time for genocide in the region?
	I don't think he was advocating it.
	Well, I don't know what he was doing, but he did say this.
	And Sudan is also falling apart right now.
	South Sudan, specifically.
	Yeah, it's completely falling apart.
	Here's the question.
	I tried to get some South Sudan clips, but there was like this last clip I got.
	It was too wordy.
	It's very annoying to listen to.
	Yeah, it was no good.
	It was Al Jazeera.
	No good.
	I think they'd summarize better.
	So here's the thing with South Sudan.
	I want to just ask a rhetorical question.
	They got this one guy with this big gap-toothed guy.
	I think he's the guy who wears the cowboy hat or the other guy wears the cowboy hat.
	They're all crazy down there.
	So this guy is out of government.
	He wants to get back into government.
	Now he's trying to take over the place and they're trying to get rid of the other guy and they're killing each other left and right.
	And we're on one side or the other.
	Why don't we just, since it's Sudan, don't we have drones?
	Why don't we just blow one of these guys up?
	Yeah, we got everything in Djibouti.
	I think it's because there's not enough rubble.
	My rubble theory holds true here.
	Because we could easily fix this dilemma in South Sudan by blowing up one of the two guys.
	No, there's no fun.
	With a drone.
	Boom, done.
	No, we need more rubble.
	Yeah, we need more rubble.
	So all hell's going to break loose.
	They're going to kill each other.
	We're going to stand by watching it.
	And then we're going to wring our hands.
	Samantha Powers is going to go over there.
	And she looks so out of place in Africa, I have to say.
	Yeah.
	She looks like a nervous wreck.
	Oh, my God.
	I didn't sign up for this.
	I didn't sign up for this.
	Totally.
	Exactly.
	She'd rather be in a New York coffee house.
	She does not look good.
	No.
	And she just looks like a wreck and she's wearing the wrong clothes.
	She looks like an idiot.
	To do this job, you have to be ruthless.
	And essentially, she's married to Cass Sunstein.
	And Cass, of course, is all in on the, you know, let's turn everything into a police state, infiltrate the conspiracy theorists.
	Hey there, chat room!
	You know, he wrote the, he was on the panel for the recommendations for the NSA to expand the authority of the NSA. Go read it for yourself.
	Don't believe what the media is telling you.
	It's expanding it and creating a bonanza for Richard Clarke.
	To have a third party store all of this crap for a fee.
	So she was coasting.
	She was hanging out in the White House.
	She and Valerie Jarrett, whatever she was doing.
	And then she's like, oh, I get promoted.
	Oh, this is so great.
	What?
	Holy crap.
	I have to wear long sleeves?
	In Sudan?
	Oh, no.
	Yeah, she's going to end up with Barry Barry or something.
	Beriberi?
	You know, one of those African diseases.
	Oh, okay.
	I think Barry, Barry, Barry.
	Your legs swell up or gigantic is whatever it's called.
	Barry, Barry.
	Barry, Barry.
	Yeah.
	So the president is under the war powers resolution.
	He has sent approximately 45 U.S. Armed Forces personnel to South Sudan.
	Why can't he just say 45?
	Why is it approximately?
	Gee, it's hard to count to 45?
	I wonder about that myself, because it could be 450.
	That's what I'm saying.
	It's bullshit.
	And he said, I'm providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution, because, of course, it's Al-Qaeda or terrorism or whatever.
	It's just a lie.
	These Muppets are not going to jump up and blow us up here?
	No.
	But what does South Sudan have?
	And we've got to make sure the Chinese don't come in.
	Or kick whatever is there out.
	Well, they're going to be rubble.
	And in the process, whatever China is doing there is going to be blowed up.
	That's going to get hit for sure.
	What is the capital of South Sudan?
	Oh, I don't know.
	Let's take a look in the Book of Knowledge and get that straight.
	Okay.
	Consult the Book of Knowledge!
	South Sudan's capital.
	It is...
	Benoui.
	Is it not Benoui?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I think so.
	Or Juba.
	No, Juba.
	Juba, Juba, Juba.
	So let's look at Juba.
	Let's just look at some pictures of Juba.
	Images.
	Let's see what Juba is.
	Juba is the capital and largest city in the Republic of South Sudan.
	It also serves as the capital of Central Equitonia.
	The capital of Equatoria.
	Central Equatoria.
	What the hell is that?
	It's one of the ten states of South Sudan.
	Yeah, and you've got all these states.
	It wouldn't take much to make this look more rubbly.
	It's pretty rubbly as is.
	Yeah.
	It doesn't need much.
	You know, rubble, really, really rubble is like, should be, wow.
	Wow, that's some rubble.
	Yeah, because where do we have rubble right now?
	We have rubble in Syria.
	Yeah, Syria, Libya, not Egypt yet, but we're getting there.
	We're working on Turkey.
	Well, Turkey's down the line.
	I think Egypt will go first.
	And Turkey is going to be, the split is going to be right up the Bosporus.
	He took it right up the Bosporus.
	That's where the split's going to be.
	Between the terrorists and the non-terrorists or whatever they're going to make up to stop trains and pipelines and what have you.
	Do you, before we, I got a couple things to wrap up here that I think will be kind of funny, but do you want to talk about this, this Jon Stewart accusation was pretty interesting.
	And the reason why I bring it up is because a lot of people really think that Jon Stewart is great, his show, and although extremely funny, and I know him, I know him when he started the Jon Stewart show at MTV, and I've worked with him, he's a nice enough guy, but I was kind of blown away by these accusations.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I was done by David.
	I actually know the guy that did the accusations.
	I know him pretty well.
	But who was this?
	David Feldman.
	Known to his friends as Feldo.
	And he's a writer, comedian?
	He's a stand-up comic.
	He likes to do borderline off-color jokes, kind of like Louis C.K. does.
	Feldman has never brought himself to actually get to the level of Louis C.K., but it's that same type of material.
	Jokes about prostitutes and pedophilia with a light touch.
	Highbrow material.
	Yeah, it works to a point.
	So apparently, I guess this guy got him on an interview show.
	We should have taken a clip from it, which we could have.
	And he just went off on Stewart.
	He has been a head writer or a writer for Bill.
	He was a writer with the Dennis Miller show when he was on HBO. He was actually, I think, the head writer when Miller was on HBO. Then he worked for...
	Bill Maher.
	No, I think he worked for Stewart.
	Then he worked for Bill Maher, if I'm not mistaken.
	Mm-hmm.
	Whatever the case is, he's really a stand-up comic that writes for a living, because he's not a famous enough stand-up comic who's never gotten to fame.
	Maybe you need to explain how these shows work, because not everyone sees Jon Stewart and thinks, boy, he's brilliant, and there's three other people who appear from time to time.
	But he must have 20 writers.
	He's got a huge staff of writers, and so does Bill Maher.
	Maher's is less than it used to be.
	How many writers do we have?
	I just want to count.
	How many writers do we have?
	We have two writers, Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak.
	And then we have a bunch of stringers who send us email.
	And jingles.
	And we tend to take the two writers of this show, you and me, we tend to take stuff from that.
	Right.
	Yeah, we don't have a big...
	It would be interesting.
	It would be funnier.
	Anyway, so apparently Stuart is an anti-union...
	Prick, according to this article, which is linked in the last newsletter.
	If you didn't get the newsletter, you should have gotten it.
	It's in the newsletter, and it's linked there.
	And it's a very interesting discussion about what he thinks about everybody.
	He thinks Dennis Miller's technically the funniest guy, but he doesn't agree with his politics.
	He thinks Bill Maher's middle of the road, but he agrees with his politics.
	And Feldman is an old-fashioned liberal.
	And then he...
	He hates Jon Stewart because he's an anti-union phony.
	Tell the story.
	His writers wanted to unionize.
	He fought against it.
	They joined the Writers Guild.
	They joined the union.
	And he has punished them by not using any material from the writers who joined the union.
	Right.
	Supposedly.
	Which is kind of the worst thing you can do to a writer.
	A writer will take a check for only so long.
	Without having his material ever acknowledged as useful.
	Yeah, that's true.
	They would bail out just because there's other jobs out there, especially for comedy writers.
	I mean, the big gig you want as a comedy writer is one of the staff writers for an ongoing comedy show on network TV that pays around $40,000, depending.
	I mean, but you can get up to $40,000 a week.
	What?
	Yes.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	Holy crap, $40,000 a week?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Wow.
	For the run of the show, and then you get residuals.
	Oh, wow.
	Really, you get residuals if your joke is used, or just in general?
	No, no, it's just a couple points of the actor.
	Wow, I didn't know that.
	If you're a writer, you don't get, like, the actors get huge residuals, but you get something.
	Huh.
	Interesting.
	Yeah.
	And I think Stewart's just like 5,000 a week.
	Somebody gave me the number once.
	I think actually, next time I get a hold of Feldman, I'll find out what the numbers are for writers on The Stewart Show, because he'll tell me.
	Cool.
	And then we'll say, I think it's five or something like that a week, something.
	I'm not sure.
	5,000?
	Yeah, something like that.
	Jeez.
	Wow.
	And that's not their only gig that can do other things.
	Generally, that's their only gig.
	Oh, okay.
	I mean, you can try to write in a book, but you're, you know, in the writer's room, you're just, you know, it's time-consuming.
	The Federal Register put a little ditty out, which is kind of interesting.
	The National Archives and Records Administration is issuing final notice about the disposal of a collection of disaster recovery backup tapes from the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations.
	Uh...
	If no one says they want it, they'll be destroyed.
	What?
	On February 18th, 2014.
	Well, somebody must want them.
	Who reads the Federal Register?
	Just us.
	Bad Chad from Colorado's reading it.
	Well, maybe Chad should get the tapes.
	I don't know if civilians can do that.
	Why not?
	It's public.
	It's a public document.
	There's no such thing as a copyright in a government publication.
	The National Archives and Rec Administration determined further retention of these disaster recovery backup tapes is not warranted.
	The presidential and federal electronic mail...
	They have other backups, in other words.
	They're not throwing out material.
	They're just throwing out backups and backups.
	Yeah, I'm not so sure.
	Who knows?
	Well, I think it would be something that should be looked at.
	At minimum.
	At minimum, someone should just look at it.
	They're just going to shred them anyway.
	They don't recycle anything.
	No, they don't.
	They don't.
	Okay.
	There's an interesting...
	One of our producers, Scott Mulkantine, I think from Australia...
	Marked up a document which did a great job, a PDF. This is a study done by James Alan Fox and Monica J. DeLateur.
	Published December 18th.
	This is Mass Shootings in America Moving Beyond Newtown.
	And he did a great job of marking this up.
	It essentially is a myth about mass shootings in America.
	And it's very interesting to read.
	First of all, a mass shooting.
	Do you know how many people have to be killed for it to be deemed a mass shooting?
	Two.
	Four, actually.
	Four.
	Yeah.
	There's all kinds of factual evidence.
	Okay, myth.
	Mass shootings are on the rise.
	Factually not true.
	Not true.
	Pretty much consistent since 1976.
	Incidents and victims.
	Pretty much consistent.
	Consistent.
	There's no surge.
	From year to year.
	They just get more publicity than before, so everyone gets all worked up.
	Correct.
	Yeah.
	According to the expanded data over the past few decades, there have been on average nearly 20 mass shootings a year in the United States.
	Most, of course, were nowhere as deadly as recent massacres in Aurora, Newtown, but of countless Americans believing that a new epidemic is upon them, because that's what the media tells you.
	The facts clearly state there's been no increase in mass shootings and certainly no epidemic.
	Myth, recent mass murders involve record-setting body counts.
	Also not true.
	If you look at the history.
	Then we have violent entertainment.
	Video games are linked to mass murder.
	Of course, no evidence for that.
	Maybe just the opposite, actually.
	Yes.
	Let's see.
	Widening the availability of mental health services will allow unstable individuals to get treatment.
	They need to avert mass murders.
	Turns out no clear relationship between psychiatric diagnosis and mass murder has been established.
	They've been trying to establish that since 1986.
	They have not been able to establish that, which is interesting.
	In recent examination of 93 mass shootings from January 2009 to September 2013, conducted by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Bloomberg-founded outfit, in only 10 of the 93 cases, was there evidence that concerns mental health of the shooter that had been brought to the attention of a medical practitioner or legal authority prior to the shooting spree?
	My favorite...
	Assault weapons used in these 93 incidents.
	How many of the 93 mass shootings, four people or more, involved an assault weapon or high-capacity magazine, John?
	Well, if you listen to the mainstream media, it would be all of them.
	Yeah, 14.
	14 out of how many?
	93.
	That's quite a low statistic.
	Very low.
	Yeah, so there's a couple more.
	This is a very good document.
	I appreciate Scott for marking that up.
	That's very cool.
	You'll find it under the War on Crazy.
	And it kind of flows into something that I guess we missed, or, you know, of course, the news of the Arapaho high school shooting has been covered up because, well, first of all, it was an armed guard who, if this was not a drill, if it was real, if this kid is even real, Which we won't know if this kid was even real, well, because of this.
	The shooter was not removed from the debate team, and the teacher that was responsible for that disciplinary action was the shooter's main target.
	We still have to visit with a variety of people to determine what the outcome or interaction relative to the threat was.
	Sheriff, are you prepared to release the suspect's BOP? The question is, are you going to release the suspect's DOB, date of birth?
	I'm not quite sure why that is so incredibly relevant, but this is the douchebag sheriff, your favorite guy with the tick, with his head moving all over the place.
	And his answer is interesting.
	We will release the date of birth within the next day or so.
	I will tell you that he's 18 years old.
	He was 18 years old.
	But I will also tell you, and this is a bit of an editorial comment on my part.
	This is my personal perspective.
	As usual.
	Followed by my professional responsibility.
	I will share his date of birth, but I will tell you that I am no longer inclined, nor will I speak his name in public.
	What?
	Yeah, listen to this.
	He is someone who victimized an innocent young lady by an act of evil.
	And in my opinion, deserves no notoriety and certainly no celebrity.
	He deserves no recognition.
	The issue here is the victimization of Claire Davis and the victimization of this community and this school.
	So it is my professional and my personal perspective that although I realize your responsibilities, I also understand my perspective on life, and I choose never to use his name again in public.
	And this is the PIO, the public information officer in this case, besides being the sheriff, for this particular incident.
	Now, of course, it's...
	I'm thinking that there may be something more to this, the fact that he was gunned down by an armed officer in police, so there was no mass casualty, because it has to be four, at least four dead before it's a mass shooting, so it was not a mass shooting.
	He was a socialist, I'm proud of it, which is to not fit with the redneck crazy gun freaks.
	Right.
	Gay-hating.
	Gay-hating gun freaks.
	And, of course, and I know I'm not allowed to play her, but here's mad cow all over it.
	The sheriff's commitment, as you just heard there, to not deliver notoriety or recognition to the gunman who perpetrated the crime and then killed himself.
	The sheriff's refusal to speak the gunman's name, that turns out to be catching on.
	Oh.
	In the New York Times today, some survivors of mass shootings and victims' family members are advancing the argument that gunmen in these incidents should as much as possible just be written out of the coverage of these crimes.
	Oh, okay.
	What?
	And she's all in on this?
	What kind of reporter is she?
	She does a half-hour segment on this with all kinds of people who are like, yeah, no, because we should not give them celebrity.
	Because, of course, celebrity is only if you swallow penis on camera.
	And then release that.
	That's when you get celebrity in America.
	Not for killing people.
	That's not how we do things.
	Against the rules.
	It's against the rules of celebrity.
	Yeah, it is.
	If you get drunk and do something weird, if you don't wear your panties and you step out of the car, anything with Dennis Rodman, these are all things that get you celebrity.
	You say, if you're talented, you shouldn't have celebrity.
	No, no, no, no, no, no.
	No, this is not how we get celebrity.
	We're not ruining our airwaves with these celebrities.
	And I think that, John, honestly, I think that this is only for this case.
	That they just want to get rid of this.
	This one does not fit.
	I'll keep that in advance.
	I'm not sure you're right.
	I might not be.
	It could be.
	Maybe because there's something about this case.
	Because they definitely want to get this case off.
	Because it does not follow the narrative.
	The guy is a socialist.
	It was an armed guard at the school that was advocated by the NRA, as we talked about in the last show, that shot the guy and stopped the whole thing from getting out of control.
	And all these things are not part of the narrative.
	The anti-gun, anti-big clip, and all the rest of it.
	And, you know, the guy's being a right-winger.
	So, yeah.
	It's possible that it's a one-shot.
	We'll see.
	Now, staying in Denver, public and news media will be barred from a pre-trial hearing in the Colorado theater shooting that will include testimony from a psychiatrist who evaluated whether defendant James Holmes was insane.
	Arapahoe County District Judge said testimony from the psychiatrist and other witnesses would infect a large portion of the jury pool with factual information about home sanity and make it impossible for him to get a fair trial.
	Let me reread that sentence.
	The Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos A. Sumner Jr.
	said, Why can we not have factual information?
	Why is that a bad thing?
	I don't know.
	Well, I don't know.
	This is very...
	Because it's a kangaroo court?
	That would explain it.
	Well, I think because he was...
	Something was going on with him, and I believe that this is not necessarily saying he was mentally insane, but maybe he was mentally controlled or something else was going on.
	And someone was honest about it and wrote it down and we can't have that.
	That's what I'm thinking.
	And parts of the judge's ruling were even redacted.
	Seven pages or 40 pages of his ruling were redacted.
	What is this play?
	What is this country?
	It's so dangerous we can't have this information because what?
	What could possibly be so dangerous to know about him?
	Samore's 40-page ruling said the upcoming hearing is, quote, one of those rare situations in which closure of a pretrial hearing is not only justified but required because of the potential damage to Holmes' right to a fair trial.
	I don't understand.
	Either you're insane or you're not insane.
	But there must be something else that has been written down that someone doesn't want the public to know about.
	Because I can't think of any case.
	What difference would it make?
	We're all grown-ups.
	We get it.
	People died.
	It was bad news.
	Bad day.
	But why can't we know what his mental state was?
	You got me.
	You're asking the wrong guy.
	Yeah, I know.
	I'm just saying.
	You don't know either.
	I don't.
	There's some piece of information that they don't want out is what it is.
	Well, these seven pages of the judge's ruling by itself is that they don't want out.
	Yeah, the guy was like EMK Ultra.
	That's what I'm thinking.
	Or something.
	He's a part of a government program or he's on some sort of mixture of drugs for some reason because he looked like a maniac sitting there.
	Yeah.
	Or something crazy about him that they don't want to talk about because it would...
	It would embarrass someone in the government.
	I can't see any other reason for that.
	Yeah, I know something's fishy about this.
	That's a way to do it.
	Did S&P downgrade Europe?
	Did I see that correctly?
	I didn't see that.
	Yeah, I think I did see that.
	Well, they should have if they didn't.
	There wasn't really a lot of news.
	Yeah, a ratings agency Standard& Poor's downgraded long-term credit rating of the European Union on Friday.
	Good.
	It should have been downgraded.
	Taking away its top-notch AAA grade and making it AA+. Which means...
	Oh, man.
	Oh, my God.
	This is the last thing I've got to talk to you about.
	Wow.
	This...
	Where is it?
	The...
	Why can't I find this now?
	Oh, here it is.
	The CFTC. You'll be talking about this with Horowitz.
	You doing a show with him this week?
	No, we're not doing a show until next year.
	Oh, too bad.
	It may all be over by then.
	The CFTC, which is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said, oh, there were some technical errors in reporting the swaps data.
	This is the derivatives.
	We under-reported the swaps market by 55 trillion dollars.
	What is the GDP of America?
	I don't know.
	It's a good question.
	I think it's not that.
	No.
	No, it's not.
	I think we're maybe at 10 or something.
	Well, let's find out what the GDP is nowadays.
	55 trillion underreporting because of a glitch.
	It's a glitch in the computers.
	It's a glitch.
	Yeah.
	No wonder we...
	But what's interesting is when I'm...
	I don't know anything.
	I know how swaps work, but I don't know anything else about...
	This and how the CFTC works.
	But, you know...
	15.68 trillion.
	Okay, so this is three and a half times the size of the entire GDP of the United States of America on an annual basis.
	Yeah.
	$55 trillion, which is...
	And they actually said a technical coding issue.
	Yeah.
	But I was Googling around for that number.
	And in 2008, September, just before the, maybe it was just around the time of the bailout, that number popped up, and I thought that was kind of interesting.
	This is from what, let me see what, this is from CNN, from 2008.
	As Congress wrestles with another bailout bill to try to contain the financial contagion, there's a potential killer bug out there whose next movement can't be predicted, the credit default swap.
	In just over a decade, these privately traded derivative contracts have ballooned from nothing into a $55 trillion market.
	Is it possible, John, that this $55 trillion CDS credit default swaps was technically coded away and now they're trying to finagle it back somewhere?
	Or is that just really a coincidence?
	Well, the number is a coincidence.
	I mean, it's a weird coincidence.
	I don't know.
	I don't think they're...
	I think everyone's been aware of the size of the credit default swap business, and it's high.
	And I think $55 trillion may be low.
	No, no.
	The entire swaps and derivatives market...
	This is just credit default swaps.
	The entire derivatives market is $700 trillion.
	Okay.
	The president said $600 trillion, but I think it's about $700 trillion.
	It's a lot.
	Yeah, yeah, kind of.
	But it's kind of misleading because most of these swaps just expire and they're not really necessarily worth anything after they go away.
	Unless someone starts wanting to collect, and this is what Warren Buffett called weapons of financial destruction or whatever he called it.
	Yeah, it's still kind of, it's never been well reported how this is going to affect the economy one way or the other.
	Well, other than that, we just had this bill passed which allowed banks to keep their exposure to derivatives inside their FDIC-insured entities.
	It all just kind of comes at the same time.
	That's all I'm noticing.
	I'm not a financial wizard.
	I don't know what I'm talking about.
	I'm just noticing little patterns along with Europe's downgrade, along with Europe's new, new, new bank out bail-in deal.
	I think your 2017 number is coming up, my friend.
	Yeah, it may come sooner than later.
	We'll see in the next year.
	We're definitely going to get through this year without the perfect collapse.
	Damn.
	Because everything's off.
	Damn.
	No problem.
	But there will be a collapse of some sort.
	And I like the market going over $16,000.
	If it goes much higher, then it's probably going to reset sometime next year.
	Yeah.
	No, I think we have to have a 40% reduction.
	Which would not be the collapse, but it would certainly be a reset.
	I think that has to happen.
	With gold at $1,200.
	Do you think it'll go below $1,000?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, you do?
	I don't think it's going to go far below, but at $900 looks like a good place to be.
	Wow.
	And that would be a reset back to 2007.
	Because I remember I bought my gold Krugerrands at $850, I think.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Well, you're still in the blue, in the black.
	I'm holding on to it, man.
	It's going to be worth a lot more when the time comes.
	So I only have, what do I have left?
	I just wanted to mention, there's somebody sent us this link to this whole article that we didn't cover when it came out in July of 2012, actually.
	But this is a very funny story.
	The team of researchers at the University of California, Davis, set out to test the reliability of drug and bomb-sniffing dogs.
	This is one of our themes of the show.
	I just never had this particular article.
	The team assembled 18 police dogs and their handlers and gave them a routine task.
	Go through a room and sniff out the drugs and explosives.
	But in order to pass it, but there was a twist.
	The room was clean.
	No drugs, no explosives.
	In order to pass the test, the handlers and the dogs had to go through the room and detect nothing.
	But of 144 runs, that only happened 21 times with a failure rate of 85%.
	Although drug-sniffing dogs are supposed to find drugs on their own, the researchers concluded that they were influenced by their handlers.
	Who smelled like dope.
	Life failure rate.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	We've talked about this before.
	These dogs lie.
	Yes.
	They're told to lie by their handlers.
	And the handler will do, I don't know, you know, it's just like any trained dog.
	You know, you have a little signal.
	You move your foot a certain way or you scratch your cheek.
	Next thing you know, the dog's sitting next to something as though it's got drugs or bombs in it.
	Lying dogs.
	Sons of bitches.
	Lying dogs.
	All right, Johnny Boy, what are you doing for the 25th?
	That's Wednesday.
	I'm heading up north, and I'll be up there.
	That's nice.
	So you'll be up there for Thursday's show?
	Yes, I will on Sundays, too.
	Oh, okay, nice.
	Well, that's good you'll be hanging out with the family.
	And we'll see.
	Hopefully the connection will be as good as this.
	And I'll be doing my work from up there.
	Okay.
	I'm here with the girls.
	All three girls.
	Miss Mickey.
	We have Miss Christina.
	And we have Miss Rihanna.
	So I've got the girls here.
	We're doing an old school family Christmas.
	And a big meet the kids drink thing tonight.
	Everyone's dropping by.
	So we're really festive.
	Sounds like it's festive time for all.
	Yeah, it is really nice.
	I miss the kids so much.
	You know what it's like when you have young kids around?
	Like you got JC and his wife.
	Wife!
	Hello?
	It's nice when the young kids are hanging around.
	You learn a lot.
	You get something to grumble about.
	I learned a lot, really a lot.
	Yeah, you tend to learn quite a bit.
	You tend to learn something like...
	So I'm listening to this ad, this Sprint ad, and I'm wondering, are they making this up?
	This is supposed to be a conversation.
	They bring out two famous actors, Malcolm McDowell and the deep-voiced black guy.
	I can't remember his name offhand.
	And they talk about the, you know, they got the big, deep voice.
	James Earl Jones?
	James Earl Jones.
	And they're supposedly reading or, you know, they're reading what some girls apparently have typed in.
	Now, either they were spying on the girls and they got this dialogue, or they just made it up, which I believe is...
	Sorry.
	I just believe this is bullcrap.
	Sprint honors Lizzie and Kim's call on our new network.
	Ryan is a total hottie McHarderson.
	Avi!
	He's amazeballs.
	He's like the hottest hottie that ever hottied.
	He's like a hottie times infinity plus another infinity.
	And his smile is totes adorbs.
	Totes m'goats.
	It's cray cray adorbs.
	Totes m'goats.
	In honor of the important things you do, save up to $100 on any new phone when you switch to Sprint.
	Yeah, that's not how my kids talk.
	Get this ad off the air!
	Yeah, that's pretty bad.
	Kids don't even watch TV. And they're all starting to think about dropping their cell phone plans, too.
	That's a plus.
	Going Wi-Fi.
	Anyway, that's it.
	I got other stuff we can talk about on Thursday, and we'll do, if we get a couple more 1111s, we'll do those two.
	Oh, okay.
	Lovely.
	Well, we look forward to that.
	And thank you all very much for your support of the show.
	Best podcast in the universe, as we're sometimes known, vying for that Ultimate Comedy Award.
	Working on it.
	After we discredit the competitors like Jon Stewart.
	Yeah.
	That's just the start.
	We're just getting started, people.
	Thank you all very much.
	Have a wonderful Christmas.
	Merry Christmas.
	And I'm not going to say what everyone says.
	Whatever you celebrate, enjoy it!
	No, I'm not going to say that.
	That irks me.
	Happy Festivus and Kwanzaa.
	Merry Kwanzaa.
	Exactly.
	And we'll be back here on Thursday, day after Christmas.
	We'll be rolling up towards the 2014 date.
	Keep an eye on all the bull crap for you so you don't have to, so you can feel good about knowing that you're not being completely snowed over.
	Coming to you from FEMA Region 6 here in Austin, Texas.
	In the morning, everybody.
	My name's Adam Curry.
	And from northern Silicon Valley, where the stormtroopers are coming...
	I'm John C. Dvorak.
	We'll talk to you again on Thursday, the second day of Christmas, right here on No Agenda.
	The best podcast in the universe!

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