This is your award-winning Get My Nation Media assassination episode 1518.
This is no agenda.
Riding the atmospheric river and broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas snow country here in FEMA region number 6 in the morning, everybody.
I'm Adam Curry.
And from Northern California where it rained and a tree fell over, I'm John C. Dvorak.
It's Crackpot and Buzzkill!
In the morning!
You're not even in Northern Silicon Valley anymore.
You're in California all of a sudden.
You changed it.
No, it's raining.
It's raining.
A tree fell over and a rock came down the mountain and hit the road.
You're witnessing some climate change there, I understand.
Some big climate change.
Woo, baby!
You know, it hasn't rained for three years and so now it's like a tree falls over, which is...
Okay, gee, big news!
Send every crew and every network and local station over there and have a picture of the tree that fell over.
Now wait a minute, just so everyone understands, there were some horrible predictions.
You even did the newsletter early, had everything good to go, because they were telling you that it was all over, life as you know it, you were just going to die.
Am I correct?
Yeah, pretty much.
Do you have any clips of these warnings, of the dire warnings?
No, I didn't.
It's dumb.
It's a rainstorm.
It happens, so what?
Yeah, Guerneville is going to flood.
Maybe it hasn't flooded yet, so that's kind of behind schedule, seems to me.
The Napa River's filling up.
It's going to overflow.
Well, that's happened before.
I mean, it's, there's nothing, it, all these, these, uh, local, uh, kids.
Is it just fear-mongering?
Is it just fear-mongering?
Is that what it is?
I think it's a lot of naivete.
Ooh, big word.
Yeah, for the kids.
Big word, naivete.
They do fear-mongering anyway, but there's a lot of naivete.
So it's like, it's not an unusual storm at all in any way, let alone the greatest storm I've ever seen coming in, which is what some of these guys have said.
Now, what I read in the Washington Post, which of course, whoppo whoppo whoppo, bomb cyclone swinging high-impact atmospheric river into California.
That's what I read.
Yeah.
I know I got boots on the ground and it's a big threat?
At the moment, I'm sitting here looking out the window.
It's not raining at all.
Well, that's very disappointing.
I wanted your power to go out, I wanted you to have horrible, just a horrible experience.
Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what you wanted.
For the show, just for the show.
Don't get me wrong.
For the show, maybe.
I could be outside and we could have the sound effects and I could be yelling at you.
Listen to this.
I'm telling you, AP, that's Associated Press, evacuations, ordnance, California storm, knocks, knocks, knocks out power.
That's today.
Yeah.
Well, I'm sure power goes out.
It happens all the time in California.
Whether there's a storm or not.
Storm or not.
It just happens.
And evacuation is very dubious.
There's a lot of climate change in the news.
And I don't know if you saw 60 Minutes.
This was mind-boggling to me.
Now, we know the climate change going back to the 70s when it was not climate change.
It was global cooling.
We're both old enough to remember I loved watching Dr. Spock tell us about it.
And of course that changed over time.
Mr. Spock.
Mr. Spock, that became global warming, then that became a little irritating because it wasn't quite warming the way Al Gore predicted, then it was climate change, we have climate catastrophe, climate disaster, and now 60 Minutes brings back the whole crew!
In what year will the human population grow too large for the Earth to sustain?
The answer is about 1970, according to research by the World Wildlife Fund.
In 1970, the planet's 3.5 billion people were sustainable.
But on this New Year's Day, the population is 8 billion.
Today, wild plants and animals are running out of places to live.
The scientists you're about to meet say the Earth is suffering a crisis of mass extinction on a scale unseen since the dinosaurs.
We're going to show you a possible solution.
But first, have a look at how humanity is already suffering from the vanishing wild.
Oh, it has to be seen.
It's the same Jamoaks.
They're still alive.
Ehrlich, the population bomb Jamoaks, they're all still around.
Ehrlich is an embarrassment to humanity.
He's out on Twitter saying, out of my research is peer-reviewed.
It has been since the 70s.
Wait, did he talk about, actually I saw this, but I'll ask the rhetorical question.
I don't have any clips so you can ask the rhetorical question and answer it yourself, that's all I have.
The rhetorical question, did he talk about the black bomb?
The race bomb book that he wrote after he wrote the population explosion book?
No, I don't think so.
You wrote a racist book after that.
Oh, we never talked about that.
No, we never talked about that.
I think it's called The Race Bomb.
If you look at his bibliography, there's a bunch of books that came out, and The Race Bomb, I think, was one of them.
I have a copy somewhere.
I think we tried to talk about it some years ago.
Oh, The Race Bomb, Skin Color, Prejudice, and Intelligence.
Oh, was this a eugenics type ditty?
I actually don't remember it.
I mean, I remember the book, and I have a copy, and I looked at it a few years ago, but I can't remember what the thesis is.
But I think he's got some very dubious propositions in there.
Very dubious.
But that's never discussed, nor is half a dozen of his other crackpot books.
No, instead we get headlines from ProPublica.
Climate change will force a new American migration.
Which I guess means everyone's leaving California.
Stay away!
Stay away!
August besieged California with a heat unseen in generations.
John C. Warrick, is that true?
I'm reading the opening of this article!
I wrote it?
No, of course not!
This is from, who wrote this?
Well, this is ProPublica.
It's freezing out.
August besieged California with a heat unseen in generations.
Now I don't think you ever see heat in general.
A surge in air conditioning broke the state's electrical grid.
Must have power outages again.
Leaving a population already ravaged by the coronavirus to work remotely by the dim light of their cell phones.
Did you witness any of this?
You live there.
No, I was scheduled to be writing novels.
There is some, I have, um, something came across my desk at multiple ads.
To go and take a look at this particular item that if you buy it, the governments, even state governments, will give you rebates.
And I think what the new new is to combat climate change is heat pumps.
They're really pushing, this was set up in the Inflation Reduction Act.
There's a whole bunch, of course, that was a lot of money.
Was it over a trillion dollars?
Or just shy of a trillion dollars.
There's a bunch of incentives in there for people to get rid of your ugly, dirty propane or natural gas burning heating units and buy heat pumps.
And a heat pump is basically an electric heater, the way I see it.
Is there some other technology in there that is special about the heat pump?
Other than that they can turn off your electricity and you can freeze?
I believe a heat pump uses compression or something.
Yeah, but it runs on electricity.
But it needs electricity to run, yeah.
It doesn't run on solar.
Mind if you get one of those nifty... It doesn't run.
It doesn't run.
It doesn't run.
I wanted to mention that I was looking at... I was weeding out my domain names.
Just, you know, because holy crap I got a lot of them.
And I came across a domain that we not only registered in 2014, But set up a whole, actually, I guess I stopped maintaining it on February 17th, 2014.
That's the last time I did anything about it.
The2030club.com.
And, you know, and we were predicting then in 2014 that, everyone was talking about 2050.
I said, no, 2030 was going to be the year.
And that's all we hear now is 2030.
Yeah.
And there's some 2027 stuff.
Well, there's 2027 stuff, yeah.
That's mostly geopolitical, it's not about climate.
Well, there's also 2025.
Norway is now aiming to end the sale of petrol cars by 2025.
I mean, Keith, I know we've talked about it, I think the ACT wants to get rid of them by 2035.
You're going to hear the Australian member of parliament, Keith Pitt.
And there's a few other European nations going down a similar road.
2025 is two years away.
How on earth do they think they're going to do this?
And think of all those people who own cars, who have got loans, who now will have something that's completely valueless.
And not only that, I mean if you want an EV, buy one.
If it suits your lifestyle and you can afford it and it works for you, knock yourself out.
But this idea that the government will tell you what sort of car you will drive in Norway or any other country or in Australia.
And don't forget in this country that the Labor government is now going to tell you what sort of stove you can have.
It's got to be electric.
You can't have a gas one for all those people who are out there cooking with gas.
They want you to be employed by the public service.
It's just quite incredible.
This is a country where we are free to make our own choices.
Norway is cold, like really cold in the winter.
Am I correct?
It's cold up there.
Yeah, it's cold.
It's a Nordic country.
But won't their cars perform at like 50%?
They're battery cars?
They haven't discussed this.
Be quiet.
They keep people home.
In Australia.
By the way, that little line he had at the end, I thought was funny.
He says, because he's talking about the rundown, everything's got to happen to a certain way.
Everybody's job will be working at the public, for the government or something.
Oh, yeah.
There's evidence of this.
I mean, at least in their minds.
Australia, though, the heat is, I mean, it's killing people.
It really is.
Wildly fluctuating weather could be putting Victorians at greater risk of cancer or other illnesses.
A Monash University study has looked at the long-term impact of the city's famous four seasons in one day with surprising results.
Four seasons in one day.
Oh, I'm surprised we're not dead in Texas.
From summer snow to searing heat days later, Melbourne is notorious for having one of the most temperamental climates in the world.
Over the past couple of days and weeks, we've certainly lived up to that reputation.
But according to a new study, our wild weather could be taking a serious toll on our health.
Our study is the first to look at the temperature fluctuation and the gene expression.
The first in Australia and the first in the world.
Researchers from Monash University collected blood samples from 479 people exposed to fluctuating temperatures each day for a week.
They found significant changes to genes linked to diseases like breast and colorectal cancer, schizophrenia, depression and bipolar.
The findings are significant, but it's still early days.
Researchers have only tested females so far.
They hope to assess men and pregnant women exposed to the same conditions in the near future.
What a crock!
You know, that clip is so off the wall, I was almost going to give you something, you know, a little commendation, which I won't even mention because you'll play it at the drop of a hat.
But it's so ludicrous.
Where would that come from?
Where are you getting these?
That's Channel 7 Australia.
Those guys are great.
I love them.
Now, we were talking about Ken Ehrlich.
I think I sent you this for possible use in the... It's Paul Ehrlich, I believe.
Paul Ehrlich.
Ken Ehrlich is a director.
Paul Ehrlich, yes.
I thought for possible newsletter use.
So it's all these scanned articles.
1975, Paul Ehrlich said, the time of famines is upon us and will be at its worst and most disastrous by 1975.
We're going to die.
Yeah, his book came out in 68 and he was making these short-term predictions.
And I can't imagine why anyone would do that because it kind of screws you over.
Don't you think?
If you're doing a best-selling book, it sells a few million copies, and you predict something seven years off, well then when it comes to the reprint rights and all the rest, Because none of these things came true that he predicted, including pretty much the end of the world in the year 2000.
Before you continue, let me just read a couple more headlines.
New York Times, Sunday, August 10th, 1969.
The trouble with almost all environmental problems, says Paul R. Ehrlich, the population biologist, is that by the time we have enough evidence to convince people, you're dead, we must realize that unless we are extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years.
A cloud of blue steam in 20 years.
In 1988, in other words, or whatever year.
Yeah.
Boston Globe.
Blue steam.
What is that all about?
Some alien is going to come down and vaporize everyone?
Project Blue Beam.
You got it wrong.
It's Project Blue Steam.
Boston Globe.
Scientists predicts a new ice age by the 21st century.
Air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the next century.
This is April 16th, 1970.
Boston Globe.
The demands for cooling water will boil dry the entire flow of the rivers and streams of continental United States!
These are great!
This is astonishing.
Here, uh, October 6, 1970, Paul Ehrlich again.
And it does need saying.
Ehrlich predicts that the oceans will be as dead as Lake Erie in less than a decade!
How are the mudflats?
How are the mudflats?
Are they dead?
Is everything dead?
They're wetter now because it's raining.
America will be subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980.
Well, he's partially right because what they did is they just stopped making food.
They just put chemicals in bite sizes, so it's kind of right there.
It's really, this whole page, which is in the show notes, it has, I must have 50, maybe 100 of these articles.
Space satellites show new ice age coming fast.
January 29th, 1974.
This is a good little ditty here.
Time.
Time Magazine.
June 24th, 1974.
This is a good little ditty here.
Time.
Time Magazine.
June 24th, 1974.
Another ice age.
We got receipts, people.
We got receipts right here.
And by the way, you know, the problem is, is that, uh, thanks to the internet and the fact that things never go away, this shows you how bad the media has been.
It's not just in the last few years.
Oh no, no, it's continued, of course, of course.
It goes back into the 60s.
But the media, it has powerful, it's a powerful mojo.
Instead, here's what we argue about today.
Italy, you might have heard about this, apparently there's, people are up in arms as a Nobel Prize winning physicist, Italian physicist, came out and said, I am going to show you how to cook pasta perfectly that will save energy and thus reduce climate change.
And his idea is, and now he's the 2021 Nobel Prize winner for physics, or as Kareem Jean-Pierre Abdul Van Damme would say, noble.
He says, he won the prize for the discovery of interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems for atomic to planetary scales, which sounds like a bunch of crock to me, but okay.
He suggested turning off the heat midway through cooking pasta Then covering with the lid and waiting for the residual heat in the water to finish the job can help reduce the cost of cooking pasta and therefore also create less climate change because you're not using that much heat.
Now you are quite the cook.
Does this sound good to you?
It sounds very, I mean, it's very sensible in many instances to always do cook by turning off the heat and closing the, sealing the product as it's being cooked.
It's nothing, not a new idea by any means, but is it necessary, is it going to save the planet by doing this instead of just boiling the water until the pus is done and then turning it off and then...
No, no, no.
What he's saying is you cook it until it's halfway cooked.
Yeah, that's typically how you cook things.
It's not an unusual methodology to cook things by cooking them halfway through and sealing it and letting it, as the temperatures cool down, it continue to cook.
Because things continue to cook.
You take a steak off the barbecue and you put it and let it sit for a few minutes, it's still cooking.
Well, Michelin-starred chef Antonello Colonna He says, nah, this will make the pasta rubbery.
And it could never be served in my quality restaurant.
I thought you would know this.
I don't think that I don't know that that's a known fact.
I mean, it's like Mimi's got a bunch of anecdotes about eggs that people don't want to listen to.
Hey, by the way, what is the URL of that egg book?
TooManyEggs.com, you can go get a free copy.
Yeah, download.
Value for value.
Just get a free copy.
We're just giving it away.
Value for value, people.
750-page book for free.
How about that?
I'm going to plug it.
No.
Please don't.
For example, one of her things that she goes on and on about, don't salt eggs before they're cooked.
It makes them tough.
And no matter how many times you tell somebody that, it won't stop salting the eggs.
You mean salting the water?
No, I'm talking about, like you're saying you're frying an egg and you salt it before it's cooked.
You put it in there, you got the egg in there, it's cooking, and you put some salt on it right away.
A lot of things that scramble, they're just salting things, eggs, before they're cooked.
It's a bad idea.
So whether the pasta gets rubbery, I've never heard that, but I'll take his word for it.
Um, I got one more here.
Al Jazeera.
We're just doing some good stuff again, Al Jazeera.
Uh, about Germany, because, you know, Germany's... I think actually that...
Well, listen to this clip, but I have a feeling that the United States certainly, probably in cahoots with, well, the rest, maybe with Queen Ursula herself, are really trying to screw Germany.
They want Germany as completely helpless, and they certainly don't want Germany getting any ideas about, you know, connecting to their neighbor, Russia.
And, you know, I think that's why they probably blew up those pipelines.
But they're just making it... Germany's in trouble.
2022 was the year when coal was king.
At one point, it was providing more than a third of all Germany's energy.
With the war in Ukraine taking Russian hydrocarbons off the market, coal from elsewhere became the easiest go-to energy source.
Power stations were reactivated to burn it.
Liquefied Natural Gas, or LNG, was another watchword.
New terminals were built on the North Sea coast to accommodate supertankers carrying it.
And a long-term deal to acquire 2 million tons of cattery LNG each year was signed.
But in the short term, analysts say ministers will have to adapt their green agenda.
They will do more of what they have done already.
Foster additional energy supplies, make sure they can come in also through German energy terminals.
And a huge step forward will be to reduce demand further.
A lot needs to be done in households still, because buildings need to be insulated, heating systems need to be changed.
You can't do all of this in 2023, but it needs to start now.
The other metaphorical elephant in the room is nuclear.
Three reactors which were due to go off stream permanently have been temporarily kept in operation.
This provides around 6% of the energy Germany uses annually.
But that's as far as the Green Party in government is prepared to go.
Anti-nuclear sentiment is so entrenched in Germany and in large parts of the population that it's going to be relatively hard to really, especially for the Greens if they want to keep their credibility, to go on to prolong nuclear power indefinitely.
Maybe for a few more months, maybe for a year, but I don't think in the long run in Germany nuclear power will have any future.
Well, because the Greenies want to keep their credibility.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's important.
Keep the credibility, Greens.
There was some gossip going around about how we're part of these riots and craziness going on in Europe.
Oh, the New Year's Eve riots were insane in Berlin.
There were like 700 cars burned.
It had something to do with us.
Us?
Yeah, the United States.
We're burning cars?
No, we're fomenting dissent or we're doing something.
We're doing something about Germany.
I forget what this reference was.
It was bad.
Our people.
No, you don't say.
We're trying to screw a country?
No, no, no.
That can't be true.
Let's listen to this clip.
This is the continued strikes in the UK that are going on.
This is very interesting to me because it's not covered at all, really, in the United States.
Let me see.
Which... What is it called?
It is called... I have... British strikes continue.
Oh, well you said... Okay.
In the UK, strikes continue to sweep across the country.
The new General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, or TUC, is challenging the government and employers to work with unions to resolve the issue.
The one thing I can absolutely tell you is that no union member wants to take strike action, takes that strike action lightly, but the government really does need to step up to the plate now, talk to unions, talk to their own workforce, put money in the pockets of working people, and stop stonewalling.
Paul Novak takes over the job amid the biggest outbreak of industrial unrest in a generation.
Leaders of the health, rail, civil service, teaching and postal unions are increasingly angry at what they see as a lack of involvement from ministers.
Novak said he will make it a priority to meet Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to try to help resolve the disputes.
He warned that workers were facing two decades of lost pay unless the country changes course.
To mark Novak's appointment, the TUC published a new analysis it said showed that workers have lost 20,000 pounds on average in real wages since 2008.
It said this was the longest real wage squeeze in modern history.
Yeah, not just that, but they just came out with food inflation numbers, 13.3%, which of course is their number.
I'm sure it's more than that.
Sure it is.
Like everywhere.
Yeah, and I love watching CNBC.
I don't have a clip of it, but this morning the jobs numbers came out and I was like, oh, we have way, the employment is, there's almost no unemployment.
This is not good.
We have to get people unemployed.
I don't know if people actually understand that the Federal Reserve is saying literally that we have to make sure that less people are employed.
Well the problem with the unemployment number as opposed to the total jobs number is that the unemployment number does not include people that just aren't even looking, they don't care.
Right, so really their phony baloney numbers are now coming back to haunt them.
Because there's probably more than enough people who've just given up and no longer counted.
Yeah, if they went and joined the job forces again, the number would go way up.
That would solve the problem.
What does ShadowStats say?
We always used to check out ShadowStats.
I haven't looked at ShadowStats for months.
Let's take a look.
I got a bad error on ShadowStats.
What happened here?
It's not ShadowStats.com?
I thought it was ShadowStats.com.
Uh, that's what I thought it was.
Uh-oh.
This is bad.
Let's see.
Maybe the government finally shut him down.
Shut him up!
Let me see.
Uh... Shadow Stats.
This is weird.
What is it?
What is it?
Shadowstats.com.
Yeah.
Oh, there it is.
Okay.
Where do we find the alternate data?
Is that what they call it?
It's up at the top.
Yeah.
Do you see it?
I don't see the... Oh, unemployment.
Ah, here we go.
According to Shadowstats, Okay, the official number is what is it now like just about 4% I think what I'm seeing here.
Then you have the broadest potential number, but really ShadowStats has it here at 24.5%.
Yeah, it's more realistic.
I think it is, yeah.
So they're just going to raise interest rates and that'll just be great for everything, I guess.
You like it.
You like the higher interest rate.
No, I don't.
Yeah, you like what's going on.
You say, oh, we got cheap money and we can pay off the bad debt.
Oh, no, I never said that.
I said that's what they're thinking.
Oh, I thought you liked it.
It's nothing I like.
Oh, you said it so excitedly.
Well, I was excited probably.
Look at these alternate numbers.
Here's the inflation number.
Check the inflation chart.
I'm afraid to look.
It's off the chart.
It's literally off the chart?
Oh goodness.
What does it say?
What do they have?
It's off the chart.
It's literally off the chart.
It doesn't say anything.
The official number is around 10% or nine, and this is at least five points higher, four points higher.
Oh, it is.
It goes off the chart to the top.
And somewhere it looks like it's 13, 12, 13.
No, it's almost 50.
I think 15.
Close to it.
Yeah.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Or 12.
But it's, you know, that's just a QAnon stuff, man.
Following a December letter from Consumer Advocates and Labor, the Federal Trade Commission today took the first step in banning the use of the coercive anti-worker, anti-competes in employment contracts.
This is a major, major deal out here that people... I mean, it's not discussed on the news, of course.
Well, of course not.
Nobody wants to even mention it.
No.
But this is huge, and as well you know, because you're involved in the industry more than a few times to the point where you know what these things mean.
Well, if we... Explain.
Well, first of all, if we take in... Well, what are you hinting at?
Well, I don't think people know what these things do.
What they do is they take you, say you go to work for Intel, and you're working there and you end up learning a few things about this and that, and then AMD says, hey buddy, why don't you come work for us?
Yeah, which is good.
And they drag you over there and say, so what did you learn over there while you were working there at Intel?
Well, you know, I learned this, that, and the other thing.
You can't do that today because you signed these documents that don't allow it for two or three years.
And a lot of bias, for example, when you have, if you like, you buy a podcast and you have two hosts.
Yeah, oh God, how much can we sell it for?
Tell me quick.
You buy a podcast with two hosts, and the two hosts, you don't want the two hosts, but you don't want them just starting another podcast.
Especially because they got the secret sauce, they have the formula.
So you say, look buddies, we'll buy your company, you can go wherever, do something else, make socks.
But sign this document saying you're not going to do another podcast, and it's usually for five years.
Sometimes it's less, but generally speaking.
Well, how would that work with the newly fired 18,000 Amazon workers, who I understand are mainly from AWS, from the Amazon web servers.
This is not people in the warehouse.
This is technology people.
They could start up a new AWS on their own.
Not if they have non-competes.
Not if this goes through.
Well, it seems like people... So you can't be kidding.
In other words, what it amounts to is these companies have been very cavalier, and I think they're douchebags in general.
And they get you over there and they say, yeah, yeah, sign this so you can't even talk about nothing.
And you can't even go work in the industry in some cases.
You can't even go back to work in the industry for two or three, four years, five.
Sign this and you get a good job.
Yeah, they pay you well.
And then they just get rid of you.
Get out of here, you're done.
And you're screwed.
But they pay you off though, don't they?
They have to pay you off if you have a non... Not always.
Oh, pay off, yeah, sometimes.
You don't get paid five years of salary.
No.
Well, from what I'm reading is that most of these 18,000 workers, many of them, I should say, many of them don't have more than two months, you know, living wages in the bank.
Yeah, that'd be typical.
It's not going to be easy to find work.
No.
In Silicon Valley.
And here's the funny part.
Apparently, the Amazon's worldwide digital unit is being wiped out.
And that's where they make Echo smart speakers and Alexa voice technology.
So that failed.
It had an operating loss of over $3 billion on smart speakers and Alexa voice technology.
How do you do that?
I didn't know this.
I'm reading it in the register, which I think we trust the register.
Is this the register, the one that's out of England?
Yeah, the UK register.
Yeah, they're quite good.
They're very good, actually.
I know most of the guys there.
Yeah, the main guy.
I've met him before.
He seems pretty nice.
Yeah, $3 billion loss.
And that thing came out, I remember, I had the first one way before anybody was all giddy about it.
And I even said, hey, you put an Apple logo on this, this thing will be dynamite.
And they never really quite pulled it off.
Siri never really worked.
I mean, it works, but it's not, hey, it's not like chat, open AI chat GPT.
Now, I got to talk about this.
Everyone's going nuts about this.
This is fantastic.
I have to say, First of all, we discussed not only, maybe two weeks ago, that all we need is, you know, that Google was really worried about this because this is a perfect search interface.
It really does a great job.
I think you made your point on the show and it was quite, it was powerful.
Yeah, and then what happens?
Microsoft comes along and says, hey, we're going to screw Google.
We're going to incorporate that chat GPT open AI into Bing it, into Bing.
Which is fantastic!
Now, I got a couple of AI things that I just... I am Bing.
I will help you find your search.
It's so much better!
I have to say, there's a lot of validity to... I mean, it's more like machine learning.
It's machine learning with a very, very...
It really speaks to you in a language that makes you feel comfortable.
And if you say, hey, find me a link for something, like I tried this morning.
Is there a page where I can find all the No Agenda jingles?
And it comes back and says, oh yeah!
No Agenda Show with Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak, and it has a whole thing about how the jingles work and says you can find them at noagendajingles.com.
It has a link right to it.
Of course, that's a dead link.
So I say, hey, that's a dead link.
Do you have something else?
I'm sorry that was a dead link.
I will come back later.
Like a Magic 8 ball almost.
But there's a lot of fun stuff happening with AI.
And there's the CEO of OpenAI.
His name is Sam Altman.
I never heard this guy before.
He's young.
He has vocal fry.
I even asked.
A chat GPT said, why does Sam Altman have vocal fry?
And it goes into a whole thing about what vocal fry is and says, I don't know why he has vocal fry because I haven't studied him speaking yet.
So maybe that could help.
So this is the CEO of OpenAI, which I think is funded mainly by Elon Musk and a few other Silicon Valley companies.
And he is talking about the future of AI, which of course he will be in charge of it because he's a mastermind.
He's the smartest man in the room.
And what it will mean to another one, what it will mean to, um, tech workers, um, all kinds of other people that will just not have jobs anymore.
So there's a lot of things that like people have been talking about a lot that I'm not going to rehash.
Like how do we reskill people for new jobs?
How do we build resilience?
How do we build like better judgment?
So people know if they're kind of looking at, you know, fake content and generated content or not.
There's all of the stuff that people have already discussed.
I will talk about three other things that I think are under discussed rather than rehash the same, even though I think those are important.
Oh, this guy.
I mean, when you talk like that, I mean, you're so impressive because you're not going to talk about the rehash stuff.
You know, you've got to talk a little more.
I'm going to talk about stuff that I think is important.
Number one is...
Number one.
You can't talk over him and Joe Biden.
You'll miss the good parts.
All right.
Number one is, I think we're really just going to have to think about how we share wealth in a very different way than we have in the past.
The fundamental forces of capitalism and what make that work, I think, break down a little bit.
Oh, we are ruining the fundamental forces of capitalism, Mr. Beale.
And so?
How old is this kid?
It's like 17, I don't know.
Okay, 17.
Well, it makes sense.
You know, is it like some version of like a basic income or basic wealth redistribution or like, you know, some sort of...
version like that.
We're trying to study that.
I think it's collectively underexplored.
And again, I think people just haven't internalized what happens if the playing field shifts this much.
So they assume we can just sort of like tweak.
I'm sorry.
He's 37 actually.
How about that?
Sounds like a younger kid.
His vocal fry is hurting him.
It's hurting his voice.
It's hurt.
Yes.
It's very bad for him.
Um, he's from Chicago, and he's from Stanford.
A more basic wealth redistribution, or like, you know, some sort of version like that.
Oh, he comes from, he was the former president of Y Combinator, so he's been in the business for a while.
Okay, here's what he, Y Combinator guy, he just ran past his desk, he said, screw Y Combinator, I'm gonna go do this.
Pretty much.
It's like the guys, I knew guys who started like video dating sites.
The only reason they started the site was to get the girl when they first came in.
Ah, that's hell putting her on the video.
I'm taking her.
We're trying to study that.
That's what he did.
Let's move on.
I think it's collectively underexplored.
And again, I think people just haven't internalized what happens if the playing field shifts this much.
I'm shifting the playing field so much.
They assume we can just sort of like tweak, you know, a small tweak on capitalism will work.
Number two is how access to these systems work.
So the resource that I think should matter most in a world with AGIs in it is like, who gets time slices to use the AGI?
Who gets time slices?
What is AGI?
That's interesting.
He says something there on AGI.
So that's artificial...
Global intelligence?
Sounds like something like that.
Oh, artificial, no, it's artificial general intelligence.
And it's the ability of an intelligent agent to understand or learn any intellectual tasks that a human being can.
Oh, okay.
Well, we decided it gets used for stuff like that.
And then And I think that's just going to require thinking about access to that limited resource in a very different way.
And then the third one is governance.
Who decides what you get to use the systems for, what the rules are, what they will do and not do.
How do we get to global agreement, treaties, whatever it's going to take on that topic.
Um, how do we agree on what the set of values is going to be?
Um, and I don't think we're like those.
So those are three things that I think we're like, are going to be really important and that we're not well suited for, uh, that gap.
Well, I think number one, I think he's right that this is going to be a, this is, this is going.
Bunkers with this AI thing and there's gonna be they're gonna be moving bills through Congress all kinds of stuff That's gonna be happening and it's gonna go fast and we're not gonna be able to catch everything because it's so much money Oops so much money that is being Being lobbied and everyone wants jockeying for position and again Elon Musk in this somehow Do we know for a fact that he is?
Oh yeah.
Let's look at it right now.
Open AI.
Okay.
You know what?
Why don't we ask the chat?
Why don't we ask that?
Here we go.
I'm loading it up.
Hold on a second.
Here we go.
Who are the main... What do you want?
Owners or investors?
Well, owners, our investors.
Okay.
Owners of OpenAI.
Okay.
Here we go.
They should have some sound effects.
Oh yeah.
It's thinking, it's waiting.
OpenAI is a research organization that was founded in 2015 by a group of entrepreneurs, researchers, and philanthropists, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Suskever, Wojciech Szeremba, and John Schulman.
The company is dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence in a responsible and safe manner.
It has a number of sponsors and backers, including Microsoft, Reed Hoffman, and Khosla Ventures.
However, it is not publicly owned and does not have, quote, owners in the traditional sense.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Set me straight, AI.
But what was kind of cool is I said, hey, how do I SSH into another server without using the password?
And it gave me a really nice formatted structure answer to that.
I also said, I did this last night, write a bash script.
You're addicted.
Oh, no, it's great.
I said, write a bash script.
It's great.
To display the current price of Bitcoin.
And it did it.
I copied it.
I just copied, ran it, and it worked.
That kind of stuff is interesting.
But when it gets to this level, we gotta watch out.
An app that bills itself as the world's first robot lawyer will be used for the first time in a court case next month.
The app uses artificial intelligence to listen to the proceedings and will dispense legal advice to the defendant.
The specifics of the case have not been revealed yet.
A subscription to the app is available for $12 per month, which is a lot cheaper than your typical lawyer would bill by the hour.
You know what we call that.
A good start!
Getting rid of the lawyers.
Twelve dollars.
Twelve dollars.
Twelve bucks.
Hey buddy, it's worth twelve bucks.
I'm telling you.
Hey, why not?
All this doing is just drawing in from Wikipedia.
Here's another version of AI.
I mean, it's a serious product, but come on people.
And the technology behind self-driving cars is now being used to power baby strollers.
The Canadian startup company is rolling out a stroller that can drive itself using artificial intelligence.
It costs $3,300 and has cameras and sensors to detect any objects nearby.
It also brakes on its own.
The company says it's designed to provide another set of eyes or hands, not to replace a parent or a caregiver.
Self-driving technology lately is really on a roll.
It's on a roll.
That's so great.
That's fabulous.
Oh, chop, chop, chop.
That's always worth the price of admission to get that plenty in there.
Wait, wait until these do make super place.
I think there's nothing better idea than having a bunch of radar underneath a baby.
Yeah, it's great.
Radar cook the baby while you're at it.
So I do want to back off.
I want to pump the brakes a little bit on my... Pump the brakes!
Push back on...
on AI-generated art.
I think there's a difference between asking a program to dither this, you know, by saying dither this and add this color versus mix up Elon Musk with the clown, you know, because then you're basically pulling in copyrighted work from different places.
And if I just look at some of the answers that I know where the information came from, particularly podcasting or about no agenda, you can almost feel the website where it comes from.
Like, oh, I know where that's from, or I've written that piece myself.
And this is something that Jason Calacanis He's very disturbed by and I could not resist of clipping him.
I think chat GPT, which I have now figured out is just the ultimate plagiarizing content form.
And I think there's going to be huge lawsuits around this.
Like, I think chat GPT should be required to put where it's sourced the information from.
That would be actually really great.
Like Wikipedia.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So this is going to be and somebody's going to have to clip this here message to Sam Altman.
If ChatGPT gives data, it should say where it got that data from and start putting some links to it.
Because that would be fair to the data provider.
If not, then the data providers should opt out of having their information in ChatGPT.
I don't know why this hasn't come up in the conversation, but I had this great revelation over The holidays when producer Brian was like asking me like, hey, what's a good stinger?
We were talking about like a little transition for Big Little Things, our segment on Big Little Things.
And I said, oh, well, let me ask Chad GPT.
Yeah.
So by the way, Molly Wood, always good to hear agreeing with Jason.
I think there's a point there because all of the stuff, unless you ask specifically for a link, you don't, you don't get a link.
First of all, Wikipedia is public domain material.
Correct.
It's not copyrighted.
And so they're stealing everything from Wikipedia.
Well, it's not just Wikipedia.
It's stuff that I've written myself that pops up if I ask about value for value or podcasting.
It's stuff that I've literally written.
So it's taking that and putting word salad around it.
Well, then he's right.
There will be some lawsuits.
I would just like if they put links.
That would be fine for me.
A lot of people wouldn't accept that.
No?
No.
No.
No, you got these guys that just don't like the idea of, it's mine, stolen, I don't care.
Right.
That attitude is prevalent.
Yeah.
And especially old media types.
Yeah.
I got to meet Sumner Redstone once.
Yes, I've met him as well, actually.
Well, he's all crinkled up.
He's all, uh... He's a mess.
Or was.
He's dead now.
Um... He's one of those guys.
It's mine!
We, um... They stole it!
I think it was his granddaughter.
He should die!
His granddaughter or something had to have a job at MTV.
Sumner's granddaughter.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, one of those no-talents.
Another no-talent in the media.
Which, by the way, has a term.
There's a term for this.
It is the Nepo-child.
Have you seen this term, NEPO?
No, I've never heard of this term.
So what's happening now is Hollywood is now taking down its own.
And Jamie Lee Curtis is at the heart of the NEPO baby debate.
And so the way it goes is, it's not fair you're doing movies because you're from famous parents.
Yeah, I saw, I've been reading the trades, there's an element of this going on big time.
Yeah!
And they're going after lots of people.
Why should the daughter, why should Kate Hudson get work?
Kind of thing.
Exactly!
I've said that before myself, I don't even know who's to...
No, that's not fair.
Kate Hudson is pretty good.
She's a pretty good actor.
It's a nepo baby.
I mean, it's just beautiful how they're killing their own, they're eating their own as usual.
Well, it's because right now they can't sell any product.
This junkie, these junk that's out there, go watch the new hot movie that's really rolling over at Netflix is this Glass Onion.
Oh, I watched it.
I saw it.
For one thing, an hour goes by before they get to the real story.
It's a time sink.
It's a terrible film.
That whole thing with the puzzle at the beginning, it's pointless.
Just send an email.
What is the point?
What I loved about it is the response from our producers.
Dude, dude, dude!
They got like a thing for COVID and you throw it in your throat and there's nothing on COVID.
Then they got hydrogen!
This is crazy!
We watched it.
It was okay.
It was very woke.
It was cute.
It was cute.
It didn't bother me as much as it bothered you.
I liked how...
With Daniel Craig.
He was fun in that.
He played a different type of role.
I thought Daniel Craig was credible.
But yeah, I didn't like it.
As someone older than you, I can tell you, this will happen to you, time is important.
And to sit there and watch some of this crap, wasting time!
I'm literally dying!
My life is slipping away hour by hour!
I'm dying as I'm watching this crappy movie!
I should be doing something better with the years I have left than anything but watching lousy, lousy entertainment.
Well, speaking of, well, not really entertainment, but a rare occurrence, rare occurrence, rare, that I would receive a text message from John C. Dvorak on a Monday night!
I'm like, what is going on?
Something's wrong.
Usually it's something you want to bitch at me about something, and what did I do this time?
And that's not true, of course.
That's why he says rare, rare, rare, because I don't bitch that much.
I have the clip.
Hamlin, Monday night football as it happened.
Ooh, as it happened.
Okay, here we go.
Welcome back to Cincinnati where medical personnel I've been working on Bill's safety, Demar Hamlin, for the last nine minutes.
Hamlin made a hit.
He got up, took a couple of steps, and then just fell to the ground.
We don't know, of course, the extent of his injuries, but the entire Bill's team is out on the field right now.
Several players are down on their knees.
Other players are holding hands, praying.
You can just see the worried looks on their faces.
As soon as we have more, Joe, we'll pass it on up to you guys.
Okay, Lisa, we're going to take a break.
They have been administering CPR through these past two breaks that we've taken.
And as Lisa said, Damar Hamlin has been down for over nine minutes now.
All right.
That was 44 seconds.
She came back from a commercial break.
They went to a commercial break.
The whole clip was 44 seconds.
Every 45 seconds, they would go back on the field, go back to a commercial.
They were running so many commercials during this because they knew the game was not going to happen.
They figured that out right away.
Which I don't think is a common occurrence, right?
That they actually will stop, postpone the game for a later time.
Has that ever happened?
I've never seen it in football.
I immediately... There's a lot of firsts here.
The guy was dropped dead, literally, and they all knew it.
And so he got keels over it and that's why they're all in tears and they're all worried and thinking, well, I got that vaccine too.
No, no, no, no, no.
You don't get to do that, QAnon boy.
You don't get to say that.
So he drops dead so they have to give him CPR.
They finally recovered him.
So he goes to the hospital and they killed the game because the players weren't going to play.
And it was unusual and it was very momentous for football in some ways.
But the thing is, we've been, at least on our show, we've been waiting for this to happen in our sports because it's been going on in European sports, especially in soccer.
Players out of the blue just keeling over, dead, a lot.
What's interesting is one day before and one day after, we got a couple of other reports that were not really reported like this one.
Tonight we are learning a former Jacksonville Jaguars player has died.
He was selected as a fifth round pick by the Jaguars in the 2007 NFL Draft.
His name is Uche Winery.
Our media partners at the Times Union are reporting he was found unresponsive in his wife's home in Indiana Friday night.
Preliminary reports say he suffered a heart attack and there are no signs of foul play.
The Jaguars are posting a picture of him tonight on Twitter.
They are saying they are saddened to learn about his passing.
And there's this one.
Jake Hescock passed away suddenly today.
The former tight end was just 25 years old.
Fox 35 sports reporter Jessica Yaley is live in studio with more on this sudden tragedy.
Jessica.
Yeah, the UCF community is mourning the loss of former football player Jake Hescock.
The former tight end went into cardiac arrest on Tuesday while out on a jog up in Boston.
Now according to his family, Hescock suffered a severe brain injury during the medical incident.
and was put on life support before succumbing to the cardiac arrest.
The Massachusetts native played at UCF from 2017 through the 2021 season.
Before UCF, he was at Wisconsin.
Hescock was only 25 years old.
So there's three in a row.
Now, granted, not all playing the game, but out for a jog, just hanging out about the house.
And this hasn't happened in football since 1971.
In 1971, the Lions' Chuck Hughes suddenly collapsed mid-game.
In front of a packed stadium in Detroit, he became the first and, to date, only NFL player to die on the field.
The tragedy of Chuck Hughes with the Detroit Lions, that game was not stopped.
That game went on.
The fans sat in stunned silence for much of the rest of that game.
I received several emails right away before even I had heard of Comedio Cordis.
Comedio Cordis.
Before I'd ever heard of it.
Before it was in USA Today and plastered everywhere.
A 1 in 200 million chance fluke accident.
I got the same information from an EMT.
Rob?
And he says, I know you may be tempted to try and attribute the Buffalo football player who went into cardiac arrest on the field, but this one is easily attributed to traumatic cardiac arrest or commodio cordis.
He was hit square in the chest, which I don't think is true.
No, it isn't true.
Square in the chest and heart between the R and T waves of his heart rhythm, which basically knocks it out of its normal electrical rhythm and into ventricular fibrillation, V-fib, where the heart is in a spasm, not pumping blood for effective organ and brain perfusion.
He is a young healthy male and was defibrillated so quickly that that's why they got R.O.S.C.
or shocked the heart back into a normal sinus rhythm right there on the field.
It was basically a fluke hit just at the right time in the right place.
Think of those baseball coaches slash players that get hit in the chest with a line drive and die.
Same thing.
Unless there's some undiagnosed heart condition that helped attribute to this event, I would not be surprised to see him back playing next season.
Yes.
First of all, that phenomenon was discussed in a column by a Dr. Toby, what's his name, who does a substack that's a, he's a hysteric.
He went on, he says this was a, this was a, Out of the blue, this phenomenon was promoted into the public domain to get high recognition.
He says, and he's a doctor as opposed to just an EMT, he says this is a rare occurrence in adults.
It usually happens to kids under 15.
Yes, correct.
By a baseball to the chest, as mentioned.
Football players have heavy plastic shields over their heart and they're padded.
And I watched the tackle.
The tackle was routine.
I think that Dr. Drew Pinsky had the best open-ended explanation for this.
He's dealt with this.
I trust him.
I like Dr. Drew.
He's not branded QAnon as far as I know.
He's still a valid doctor.
And here's what he said.
I've actually been involved with Kamosho.
It's a rare thing.
I've seen it from baseball.
I haven't seen it from baseball.
I've seen it from an elbow.
Hockey pucks can do it.
It's rare for football to do it.
It just doesn't have the same qualities that would cause it.
But in my experience, they are flaccid immediately, though somebody just told me he saw a video of somebody take two skates after a hockey puck hit him.
But in my experience, they're flaccid immediately, and they come right back.
They come right back after you shock them.
Now, if you are too long without a shock, Perhaps his anoxic brain injury became irreversible or he had anoxic injury to the myocardium itself.
So you've got to worry that the heart was actually damaged by the amount of time that he might have been fibrillating and thereby the second code may be more related to myocardial injury than to whatever the underlying source was.
That's crazy.
But it was different.
It was different.
He holds his head, walks around, you know, and then boom, down after, you know, complaining, complaining, stumbling, and then boom, down.
That's, that's the head.
That's the head.
This was not that.
This was stood up, walked, and then bam, just fell.
Backwards.
Which is what we've been seeing a lot of.
I don't know if you've watched the video of Heather McDonald falling on stage.
Watch what happened to Bob Saget.
A lot of this sort of sudden dropping.
I like that he throws Bob Saget in there since we don't actually know what happened to Bob Saget.
He says, watch what happened to Bob Saget.
That's interesting.
Backwards, which is what we've been seeing a lot of.
I don't know if you've watched the video of Heather McDonald falling on stage.
Watch what happened to Bob Sager.
A lot of this sort of sudden dropping, which maybe is just dysautonomia from COVID or something.
This stuff needs to be answered.
Look, we just had a soccer journalist drop dead of an aortic dissection in his 30s.
Unheard of.
Unheard of without Takeyasu's.
And why would he have Takeyasu's and not know it?
I mean, this is like crazy stuff happening that needs to be explained.
And by the way, Caleb just played the video of Heather McDonald falling on stage.
And you, play it again, and you tell me, everybody, if that doesn't look like exactly what you saw this kid do on the football field.
Take a couple of steps, and then backwards.
Step.
That's exactly what happened to this tragedy on the field.
So, I don't know.
Something is going on here.
I've never seen anything like all this stuff.
It's sort of a signal that needs to be explained.
Well, most of the soccer players that we've seen, same thing.
They fall backwards.
Well, that brings us to this.
Which is, you know that bald guy that's on YouTube that's a doctor and he's got that slight British accent?
People have sent this to me a thousand times.
We've never played this guy because he's so boring.
I cut out the first part of it.
It's quite good.
I cut all the pauses out.
And this is him going on.
I agree.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hey man, he says we should stop vaccinating right away.
You've seen him.
John, what's his name?
John, John, his name is John.
Yeah, play the clip.
This is VAC's new adverse comments.
And I thought, and he's very, he's, he's super careful about saying anything that would get his videos taken down.
Although, if they would pay attention, they'd take him down anyway.
John Campbell, I think is his name.
Campbell, yeah, there you go.
Brief history lesson.
Swine flu vaccine, 1976.
There was one serious adverse event per 100,000 people vaccinated and the vaccine was withdrawn.
This is good because the principle is we should do no harm and the vaccine should be good for the individual that receives the vaccine.
So, vaccine was withdrawn.
Rotavirus vaccine, Rotashield, 1999.
One to two serious adverse events per 10,000 people given the vaccine.
And again, rightly, the vaccine was withdrawn.
At the moment, Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, there's one serious adverse event per 800 people that are vaccinated.
And the vaccine is officially promoted.
Now, some of you might be a little confused about this.
Join the club, so am I. Now, this information about 1 in 800 comes from a re-analysis of the original phase 3 trial studies from Pfizer and Moderna.
And here's the paper here that we're going to be looking at.
And if you need to dash off, I'm just going to give you a quick summary of this.
I'm going to go dash off, OK?
That's exactly what I... Thanks, man.
Could you summarise it after a minute?
Because I've got to dash off.
So this is the paper here, Serious Adverse Events of Special Interest Following mRNA COVID Vaccines in Randomised Trials in Adults.
These are the original trials.
Full text is available there.
Why we question the safety profile of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
Now this is by two of the authors of the study and it just gives a very useful summary.
And the authors say this in their substack, using publicly available data from Pfizer and Moderna studies, and bear in mind the publicly available data is somewhat limited, We found one serious adverse event for every 100 people vaccinated.
That translates to about 1 in 1250 serious events for each million vaccine recipients.
Now if you think of 1250 serious adverse events per million vaccine recipients, and you think about the number of people that have been vaccinated with these mRNA vaccines, I'm not going to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation.
I think you can see the import of this.
Thanks for dashing.
I've got to dash now.
Let's go back to my EMT firefighter.
And so what he really started off with is saying, hey, he's in central Ohio.
He says, shit is weird.
I got a couple things for you.
We transport a cancer patient who had a serious reaction to her first chemo treatment.
I didn't think it was anything too out of the ordinary until the nurse who administered the treatment stated, I've been giving this chemo drug for 16 years.
Never has anyone had a bad reaction to this drug.
But ever since the COVID shots came out, I've sent tons of people to the emergency department after they had bad reactions to post-treatment.
And lo and behold, I look into it, our department alone had transported several patients from this clinic to the ED, emergency department, because of bad reactions to this routine chemo drug.
We hosted a cardiologist for a training meeting a few months ago.
We flat out asked, are you seeing younger people coming in for cardiac issues because of the VACs?
He replied, I can't say it's because of the VACs or not, but yes, a lot more younger people are coming in with heart issues and pulmonary embolisms, blood clots in the lung.
A guy on my shift told me his wife went to get a routine mammogram and had an odd interaction with the technician who did the scan.
The technician said, asked, did you get your COVID shot in your left arm?
My shift mate's wife confirmed that that was the case and the technician stated she can see a white haze and spots on whichever side breast people have been getting COVID shots on.
We had a continuing education.
Yeah, it's more.
A couple more.
We had a continuing education.
You were laughing.
That's pretty ghoulish.
No, it's just like, wow.
Can you imagine seeing a bunch of crazy stuff on the test?
On the scan?
Gross!
We had a continuing education course on pediatric stroke recognition.
Either kids have always had strokes and we just never looked for them, or all of a sudden medical providers should be looking for strokes in kids.
Bottom line for everyone, eliminate age as a factor for suspecting heart attacks and strokes.
Learn the signs and symptoms of both and assume anyone of any age showing any of them could be having a major medical issue.
And he goes on, he says, It really started off, he said, emergency departments are very full, but they're not full with COVID.
They are full with people deathly afraid of their children dying of RSV.
Of course, they're filled with illegal immigrants and other people who have no coverage treating the emergency department as the general practitioner.
But the main thing he said is COVID, RSV, no.
There's very, very, very few people being taken.
They're all either beside themselves with fear, and they think that their child is dying, but it's really all kinds, it's all these other symptoms.
And so yes, he said, emergency departments and hospitals are filling up, but not because of COVID.
And here we are.
We're just about, well, we're now three years, pretty much the date, you know, a couple more months.
And happy new year, everybody!
And especially take care of your health this year.
Go get that COVID vaccine and get your flu shot.
Thank you, Dr. Jill Biden.
And it's not just, not just a new variant.
Oh man, I gotta play these two clips.
So we have a new sub-variant.
A new coronavirus sub-variant is taking hold in the United States.
It's a mutation of the Omicron variant.
You can see how dominant it's becoming nationwide.
I think this is Yamiche, by the way.
Is she on NBC, Yamiche?
She, uh, might be.
Is she Moonlight?
Is she Moonlight?
She was... No, no, she's long gone.
Long gone from PBS.
Oh.
Long gone.
Long gone.
Like a year over a year.
She went for the big bucks, huh?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Well... They were probably racist over there.
That's why.
Yeah, it'll come out.
I should have been next in line.
She's a radical.
She should have been next in line to succeed Judy.
And those racists, you know, they just... Can you imagine her being the host?
Oh my God.
It now makes up more than 40% of all new cases.
The next COVID strain makes up about a quarter of new cases.
The CDC says there's no indication that the sub-variant makes people sicker than others.
It's also unclear where it came from.
What we can tell you is that the CDC says it's spreading quickly.
Joining us now, NBC News medical fail- fellow?
Medical failure?
Did she say medical failure?
I thought she said medical sales.
What I can tell you is that the CDC says it's spreading quickly.
Joining us now, NBC News medical fail fellow.
Yeah, failure.
She was gonna say medical failure.
That's why he's on TV.
Dr. Akshay Sayal, thanks so much for joining us tonight.
So what can you tell us about the transmission of this new variant?
How worried, frankly, should we be?
Good evening, Yamiche.
Yeah, so this new variant, XBB.1.5, it's part of the Omicron family tree here, but the concern is, you know, it's a little bit, it's a little bit out there in terms of the family tree, meaning, you know, the vaccines that we have and the antibodies that we've developed from infection.
The concern is that these may not be as effective with this variant as they have been with the prior variants.
And I know we say that every few months and it seems like, you know, he even says, I know we say that every couple of months, but yo, if that's what I'm I'm a failure for it.
It happened with the prior variants.
And I know we say that every few months, and it seems like every few months there's a new variant that is immune evasive, as we call it.
Yes, seems like it.
No, it is like it because you're spreading the fear.
But with this one specifically, we're worried about the vaccines, the bivalent boosters, and the antibodies we have from infection.
Are they still going to be effective at binding the virus?
And so in talking to the CDC about this new variant, the thing that they're really watching for is, yes, cases are going to go up.
But are those cases going to lead to a rise in hospitalizations?
And are those hospitalizations going to lead to a rise in deaths?
You know, we're at a different point last year than – or a different point this year than last year when we had the, you know, Omicron wave hit the United States with a lot of population immunity built up at this point.
So the hope is, yes, cases may go up, but the effects on hospitalizations and the effects on deaths should be minimal.
So here's something I learned today.
I had to learn it from UK Column News, but I checked it.
I checked it at Bloomberg.
I had no idea that the XBB1.1.5 Omicron subvariant has its own name.
Did you know that?
No, in fact, I wrote about it in the newsletter, this particular variant, because it's the big tuck of the town.
But I didn't know they gave it a name.
As of today, I'm reading it here, January 5th, in Bloomberg.
I'm not going to give it away.
Good afternoon.
It's Wednesday, the 4th of January, 2023, just after one o'clock.
Welcome to UK Column News.
Your host today, myself, Brian Garesh, Mike Robinson, and we're delighted to be joined by Alex Thompson.
Bring us Eastern Approaches from the Netherlands and nursing correspondent Debbie Evans.
We've got a lot to cover.
Yeah, so we started off Monday with the new variant of coronavirus which has been called XBB.1.5 but actually it's got a new name to make sure that everybody's particularly scared of it.
So the new variant is called Kraken.
So it's not Omicron, it's not Delta, it's Kraken.
They're calling it Kraken!
Are you kidding me?
I'm... I'm not buying it.
Release the Kraken.
I know, you said you checked it out.
Kraken.
Right here.
No one's gonna call it that.
It's disgusting.
Right here.
Bloomberg.
New COVID variant.
First detected last year.
Nicknamed the Kraken variant.
In Bloomberg.
It's not gonna catch on.
Well, I'm gonna use it.
I'm gonna use the heck out of you.
Are you kidding me?
The Kraken.
The Kraken.
The Kraken's out to get you.
Release the Kraken!
Release...
We can use our own jingles.
This is so cool.
I want them to use it.
Do we have a bunch of Kraken jingles?
We do!
What's her name, the lawyer who's going to release the Kraken and save Trump?
Release the Kraken.
Yeah, she released the Kraken.
Who knew it was the Omicron Submarine?
A.K.A.
1.2.5.4.B.A.
Let's learn about the Kraken.
Is it more deadly?
So it sounds like what you're saying that it might be more contagious, but it's not more deadly, just to make sure.
Yeah, you know, the answer is, is it more contagious?
We don't yet know.
We don't know.
It is relatively new.
It's about 40% of cases nationwide, about 70% of cases here in New York where it was first discovered.
As far as, is it more contagious?
We don't yet have the answer to that.
Lock down New York!
But the CDC is looking into that and we don't yet know, does this cause more severe disease?
But those things should come apparent in the weeks to come.
Oh, can't wait.
These are all short, so I just gotta keep going with this Dr. Akshay Sial, the failed medical journalist.
And talk to us about how much our vaccinations, our current vaccinations, the boosters, how much they're seen as working against this new variant.
Oh, let me guess.
Let me guess.
Hmm.
Well, probably not working at all.
We need some new boosters.
You know, it's an excellent question.
About 15% of people over the age of 5 have gotten the new booster.
And more worrisome, you know, over the age of 65, we're only seeing about 1 in 3 people receiving that new booster.
But to answer your question, the booster is targeted against BA4 and BA5, the other variants of Omicron, but there is what we call cross-reactivity, meaning that because the bivalent booster improves protection against similar strains, it does actually improve protection against XBB, the parent variant of the one we're seeing right now.
And I know that's a lot to take in, but the takeaway is that you should get your bivalent booster.
We're expecting it to improve protection against this new XVV.1.5 variant as well.
There he is!
There it is.
The money shot, the money shot.
Get a shot.
Whatever it does, who cares?
I want to ask you, talk a little bit about where this new variant is taking hold, what parts of the country we're seeing it in.
Yeah, Yamiche, it's really the Northeast, you know, it was first discovered in New York and it's making about 70 to 75 percent of... I'm thinking this is New York specific.
We need to, seriously, we need to quarantine New York.
Lock those people in.
New York is a problem.
They're used to it.
The Northeast region are made up from this variant.
And I asked the CDC last week, are you seeing a greater than expected rise in hospitalizations in the Northeast compared with the rest of the country?
And you know, the good news is right now, there's no indication that this new XBB.1.5 is causing more severe hospitalizations, but that, you know, we still need to wait in the weeks to come to see if that remains to be the case.
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, sure.
Wait, wait, hold on a second.
Was it was XBB.1.5?
Kraken.
Was there an XBB.1.4 or an XBB.1?
I don't remember that.
Why don't they just call it XBB?
Or why don't they just call it X or B?
What is this XBB.1.5?
What's the reason for this long... Was there a whole bunch of other ones?
Yeah, there was... Was there an ABB?
Was there a YBB?
No, there was an XBB-1.
And this is a dash one.
But that's dash one, that's not dot one.
I know, it's different, it's different.
Okay, now the XBB.1 is the Omicron sub-variant.
The recent XBB sub-variant is XBB.1.
So this is a dot, this is like a sub, this is like a, it's like a July iOS upgrade.
You know, it's not the big one at the end of the year.
It's just, you know, we're just gonna tweak it a little bit.
Does it get a point upgrade?
Or is it just slipstreamed?
What about... I'd like to know what XBB stands for.
Well, XBB.1 was found in an imported infection and is actually a combination of BA.2.10 and BA.2.75.
How do you get the nomenclature then?
The nomenclature?
Yeah, XBB from B. I mean, where's the X come from?
Cross.
Cross.
I bet you it's cross.
What?
Two crosses?
Hold on!
Let's go to the chat.
GPT.
Let's ask them.
Oh, I won't know, will I?
Because it's only at 20.
Let's see.
Where does the subvariant name XBB come from?
Let's see if it knows this.
I don't think it knows this, because I'm sorry.
I don't have enough information to determine.
Shit.
Doesn't know crap.
Well, they, you know, it's only schooled up until 2021.
Oh, poor thing.
Yeah.
Let me try.
Let me try.
Can you speak French?
Let me try.
Can you speak French?
Oui, monsieur.
Let's see what it says.
Oh, hold on.
It's still doing something here.
Let's see.
Can you speak French?
Oui, je parle français.
Je suis un modèle de langue entraînée par OpenAI et j'ai été... Yep, it does.
How about this?
Do you speak Dutch?
Because I can actually check and see if this is any good.
Speak Dutch?
Okay.
Yes, I can speak Dutch.
It doesn't do it in Dutch.
How about that?
But he just speaks it in English?
Yeah.
He says yes?
Yes.
Well, I could do that.
Ask me if I can speak Dutch.
Can you speak Dutch?
Yes, I can.
Oh, I said speak some Dutch.
That's not bad.
That's not bad.
That's pretty good Dutch.
Interesting.
in verschillende talen, waaronder in Nederlands, is there iets specifiek waarover u wilt praten of dat ik voor u kan doen.
That's not bad.
That's not bad.
That's pretty good Dutch.
Interesting.
Okay, let's wrap this up here.
And as people are watching this, I wonder if...
Sorry.
Okay.
No, go ahead.
I just don't...
I know I've heard a lot of experts say get vaccinated.
you're done.
And as people are watching this, I wonder if you have any advice for folks who are worried about this new variant.
I know I've heard a lot of experts say, get vaccinated.
What would you tell folks?
Oh, okay.
Get the shot, people!
The number one thing that you can do right now is to get your bivalent booster, especially if you are somebody who's, it's been a while since you've had an infection, it's been a while since you've had a last booster, maybe you've never even had a booster.
You should really, really get this new bivalent booster to improve that reactivity, improve your antibody response against this variant, because it's very likely cases are going to rise in the coming weeks, and you want to make sure you have the most protection possible going into that wave.
How you doing, booster?
How you doing, booster?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
There you have it.
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay, yeah, there you have it.
Get a shot.
Come on, it's not that hard.
So that takes us to the TSA rules.
Oh, I am so pissed off.
And why does the TSA get to determine this?
What happened to the CDC?
You might as well explain what it is.
Oh, well, here it is.
Play the clip.
Vax TSA rules.
The TSA extends a requirement for visitors to the U.S.
to be vaccinated in order to enter the country.
This makes the United States the only Western country that still has such a rule.
Here are the details.
The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, has issued a so-called emergency amendment which extends the requirement for visitors to the U.S.
to show proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Why don't you stop some terrorists first, okay?
Why don't you stop some bombs or something?
Just stop something before you do this, dicks!
This directive is effective from next Monday to April 10th.
It applies to almost all visitors, excluding U.S.
citizens and lawful permanent residents.
This makes the U.S.
one of only a few countries worldwide to have vaccine proof as a requirement for entry for non-citizens.
Most other countries offer alternatives for the unvaccinated, such as requiring a negative test, a quarantine period, or proof of immunity, which comes from a previous infection, for example.
There are only four countries with similar rules to the U.S.
Those are Pakistan, Indonesia, Ghana, and Liberia.
According to- Wait a minute.
Did they say- Hold on, let me just hear what they said here.
Such as requiring a negative test, a quarantine period, or proof of immunity, which comes from a previous infection, for example.
Wait, you can do that?
I don't think... I don't understand.
So you don't need it?
You don't need a vaccination?
These are some other countries, not us.
Why?
To have vaccine proof as a requirement for entry for non-citizens.
Most other countries offer alternatives for the unvaccinated, such as requiring a negative test, a quarantine period, or proof of immunity, which comes from a previous infection, for example.
There are only four countries with similar rules to the U.S.
Those are Pakistan, Indonesia, Ghana, and Liberia.
According to the CDC, being fully vaccinated means having received an accepted single-dose vaccination or a second dose of a two-dose series at least 14 days in the past.
Bullcrap, we know that that doesn't work, because you have to have at least three boosters by now, so their own rule is... Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
There's no need for a booster dose to achieve the criterion.
The TSA says the vaccine requirement will advance safety and security of travelers, government workers, and more.
The amendment reads that the policy is intended to limit the risk that COVID-19, including variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, is introduced, transmitted, and spread into and throughout the United States, potentially overwhelming United States health care and public health resources.
However, the CDC director in August noted that vaccines can't actually prevent transmission.
She told CNN in an interview, our vaccines are working exceptionally well.
They continue to work well for Delta with regard to severe illness and death they prevented.
But what they can't do anymore is prevent transmission.
So it's a ludicrous rule.
Ludicrous.
Well, to make it more ludicrous, I got this interesting note from Brian, who's Irish, and he says, Dear John and Adam, here's my wee bit of input to the show.
Despite much pressure, my brother avoided the vaccine for two years as I did.
The pair of us were like lepers to some of our extended family, but we just got on with it.
He booked a family trip to see our sister in California this Christmas, and then he found out that he needed to be vaxxed to enter the U.S.
Yep.
After coughing up for four return tickets from Dublin to Los Angeles and with the family set on it, he felt he had to compromise and get vaxxed.
But, as it turned out, he was not even asked for proof of vaccination.
Ireland is one of the few places where you can do a pre-clearance.
You've probably had this happen.
I've had it a couple of places.
Pre-clearance for entering the U.S.
before flying.
So maybe they're not as fanatical here.
But all they did was ask, were they vaxxed?
And they said, yes, that was it.
Keep up the good work.
How important is which airline?
Well, pre-clearance, pre-clearance, because I've gone through pre-clearance in Ottawa.
What is pre-clearance?
I've gone through pre-clearance in Ottawa and I went through pre-clearance someplace else.
I can't remember where.
But pre-clearance is an entire United States custom service system right there at the foreign airport.
where they check you in, they check the passport, they stamp it, they look at your baggage, they do the red and green thing with your baggage, you're pre-cleared, you land at a regular airport entry, you don't land at the international terminal, you land at like LaGuardia or someplace for example, or just a regular part of San Francisco, and I've had this Pre-clearance system twice.
I think customs and immigration.
They're not just so you understand.
This is not checked in America.
They are putting this on the airlines.
The airlines are supposed to say that, but this is what happened in this guy's story from Ireland to the United States.
Because once you get past that, that step where they ask you for your vaccination, information that you just say yes, you're good to go from there on out.
The airlines don't seem to have anything to do with it.
I'm gonna disagree with that, but okay.
In this case, maybe.
Preclearance is definitely something different than this.
It's up to the airline, and if the airline just asks you and you say yes, then you'll not be hassled at all.
If the airline says, prove it to me, which would be something the commies in Holland would do at KLM, you gotta show me your pen!
I'm sure of it.
I'm sure of it.
By the way, KLM is French.
We know they're commies.
I'm just trying to do my best Archie Bunker.
Bunch of commies.
Bunch of commies.
This, of course, is not good for Chiners.
The Chiners.
Notice the China vaccine is not on the list.
No, no.
If you have the Chinese vaccine for COVID, you cannot.
Now, that would mean that Air China would have to stop their own people, which I don't think Air China is going to do.
On the streets of China, life is slowly returning to normal after years of harsh lockdowns and strict COVID controls.
But that newfound freedom is having devastating consequences.
Hundreds of thousands of people are catching the virus every day.
Officials insist it's under control, but the world's not convinced.
We are going to implement controls at our airports.
A growing list of countries, including Australia, now requiring travellers from China to return a negative test within 48 hours of departure, saying Beijing's not being upfront about case numbers and mortality rates.
That lack of transparency means that it's not possible to keep track of variants as they are developing.
Despite demanding similar tests from arrivals, the Chinese government isn't happy.
We are firmly opposed to attempts to manipulate the COVID-19 measures for political purposes.
Threatening retaliation for a policy it says lacks scientific basis.
We will take countermeasures based on the principle of reciprocity.
It's a matter for China, what they decide to do, but this is a modest measure taken out of an abundance of caution.
But given Australia's top doctor says the screening is unnecessary, and the fact that travellers can use rapid antigen tests which can't be used to identify variants, the opposition says the government's claims don't add up.
The minister should know that you cannot genetically sequence a rat test.
Prompting speculation, the move is part of a global campaign to pressure Beijing into sharing more COVID data.
Hmm, well good luck.
There's a situation occurring in Korea too.
Do you have a clip?
This is the clip of South Korea and China.
South Korea has stepped up mandatory coronavirus tests on travelers from China.
This after a Chinese national who tested positive for COVID-19 went missing while waiting at a quarantine facility.
NTD's Daniel Monahan has this report.
Health officials and military officers can be seen wearing protective suits.
They are keeping a watchful eye as travelers from China stream through the arrival hall at Incheon International Airport.
The travelers will then proceed to a nearby testing center.
The case of the missing Chinese national has fueled public debate on restrictions on people arriving from China.
Wait, there's a missing Chinese national in South Korea?
Do we have a manhunt?
We gotta hunt this guy down!
Yes, cool!
Hunt him down!
He's on the most wanted list of trying to get him.
This South Korean resident welcomes their arrival.
I think we should open the door wider to the Chinese travelers and regard them more favorably so that more tourists can come.
While 30-year-old Lee Jae-moon wants stricter rules.
I saw the news that a person came from China who was supposed to be quarantined but had escaped.
That incident underlines the seriousness of the situation.
South Korean authorities say the missing person was transferred to a hotel to await admission to quarantine but then disappeared.
Health Ministry official Kim Joo-young says the individual has been placed on a wanted list.
The person could be subject to up to one year in prison or 10 million won in fines if convicted of violating the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act.
Also, the person would be deported and banned from entering the country for a certain period of time.
Wait, do they go to jail first, then they kick you out and you can't come back in anymore?
This is fantastic!
Over 2,000 people have arrived from China since January 2nd.
More than 22% of those tested were COVID positive.
On Tuesday, about 26% of the more than 280 people tested were positive.
of the more than 280 people tested were positive.
And I would like to say that, of course, lots of people who are listening have accepted the vaccine into their life.
And, you know, you heard the numbers.
It's 1,000 for every 1,000,000.
That's what Dr. John Campbell says, the most boring YouTube doctor in the universe.
By the way, he likes to underline things that you watch.
I know.
The only reason, we're laughing because, you know, all right, so we didn't take it, but it's not funny, but the chance that you have a pretty good chance of being okay, but maybe not a good idea to keep boosting, you know, so take that as our advice.
I think you have a good chance of being okay.
I mean, if you're not, if you don't have... If the incidence is 1 in 800, I'm, you know...
A couple more things on this topic from the show notes.
COVID style measures could return under official plans to save the NHS in the UK.
So we're all gonna, that sounds like lockdown, sounds like mandatory masking.
They may have to do that just to prevent these strikes.
Ooh, that's a good one.
Yeah.
That's, let me see what this article, it's from the Daily Mail, so take it for what it's worth.
We can't do this every winter.
Fury over government plans to bring back COVID-era measures to avoid full-blown NHS meltdown as zealots demand masks in public.
Woo!
Okay.
Social distancing, masking.
So what's your mask ratio look like?
I'm keeping track of it now.
I have two looks.
I got the public.
It's gotten to the point where the public indoor masking, which is about, I'd say 65% of everybody in the Bay Area, and outdoor, Free fresh air outdoor masking is almost identical now.
It's like 65% or 70% of the people walking free by themselves or in their car on the street in fresh air are wearing a mask.
They should just be targets.
Just shoot him with a paintball.
Hit him with a paintball.
Are vaccines fueling new COVID variants?
Asks Wall Street Journal.
Remember, that was the initial complaint amongst the cognoscenti doctors.
Who were talking about the early vaccines, where you don't vaccinate a population that already has it.
You're already infected and then you start vaccinating people.
You're creating these variants.
Several doctors, the Dutch guy, I think, Geert, what was his name?
We had a lot of clips on this.
It was over a year, almost two years ago, when this was the big concern.
Oh, here it is.
I'll play a little bit.
To realize that most of the vaccinees that are coming to the hospital right now, they are still not, you know, the majority is still not hospitalized because of COVID-19.
These are typically the patients, you know, that are suffering from other diseases because of, I would say, immune suppression due to COVID.
So they are hospitalized with COVID, but they come with a number of other diseases.
Now, what will happen next, I tell you, what will happen next is that finally, These people, they are a breeding ground for the more virulent variants of COVID-19 that ultimately, when the virus manages, and that will happen, manages to overcome,
The virulence-neutralizing activity that is now exerted by the infection-enhancing antibodies, right, when the virus will overcome that activity, you know, the virulence-neutralizing or virulence-inhibiting activity of these antibodies, then what we will see all of a sudden is that the virus that is highly infectious in those people, you know, will completely resist
Any last immune defense against virulence and will blow not only through the innate immune system, but even through the adaptive immune system.
And that is why I'm saying, you know, I, you know, for me, that is not fun at all to kind of like discriminate vaccines and my heart goes out to these people.
What I'm telling is that there is an urgent need to make antivirals available to these people, and it needs to go very, very fast.
I recommend everyone who is thoroughly vaccinated, especially those who got vaccinated early on during the pandemic, because they had no opportunity to train their innate immunity, right?
And they just have their vaccinal antibodies that will be completely worthless and that will even enhance the disease to get their hands on antivirals.
Because otherwise, what we are going to see, I mean, I have no doubt about this, is huge rates of severe morbidity and mortality.
To begin with, in people who have been vaccinated early on in the vaccination program, before they even had a chance to, you know, to be exposed to the virus, and to train them to some extent their innate immunity.
That is what we are going to see.
Sounds like he was kind of right.
Yeah, I think there was a bunch of guys who said this.
It was a little more conciseness.
Yeah, well, he's Belgian, what do you want?
But, just to add to that, The NHS chief of Wales, so the National Health System CEO chief of Wales, has warned people to avoid specific activities because, you know, our accident and emergency, which is what A&E, what they call emergency department, is, you know, you're going to cripple them.
So don't go for long runs.
You can't make it up!
Wow, that's a good one.
Don't move too quickly.
It makes me sad.
It makes me sad.
Well, you don't seem that sad.
No, you're right.
You're right.
But with that, I'd like to thank you for your courage.
Say in the morning to you, the man who put the C in Comotio Cordis.
Ladies and gentlemen, please say hello to my friend on the other end, Mr. John C. DeForest!
Well, in the morning to you, Mr. Adam Curry.
In the morning, all ships will see boots on the ground, feet in the air, servers in the water, and all the dames and knights out there.
In the morning to our trolls in the troll room.
We've had low count on trolls recently.
The trolls...
Which you can join are in the Troll Room.
It's very easy to go there.
Just type in trollroom.io into any browser and you'll be presented with a player so you can listen to the stream in real time.
That's 24-7 by the way.
That's No Agenda Stream.
You can find that at noagendastream.com.
It also has entry right into the chat.
So you just get in there and boom!
You're a troll!
Let's see how many there are.
Show count.
Okay, I didn't get a count.
What happened?
I'm becoming more and more skeptical show after show of the accuracy of this troll room's mechanism.
I have a count. 1,810.
For Thursday?
Yeah.
Well, remember we had 1776 or 1773 on the last episode, so.
Yeah, it was in 1800 in the last episode, actually.
Oh, you wrote it down?
Oh.
Okay, I don't recall.
This is reasonable.
It's reasonable.
It's not good.
But it's reasonable.
Everybody who would like to hang out with the entire community of, you know, 10,000, but really if you look at the Fetiverse, it's much larger.
Noagendasocial.com is where a lot of these trolls hang out, and that is a Mastodon server.
As you know, Mastodon 70% is child porn, so that's a... Did you see these reports?
Where'd this come from?
Oh, man!
Hold on a sec.
I missed that one.
Oh, it's all over the place.
Child Porn Mastodon.
It was, like, big publications.
Let me see what I come up with.
Yeah, the... Mastodon dominated by child pornography.
Wow!
Yeah.
Yeah, that's everywhere.
That's everywhere.
Of course they'll do anything.
Hey, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
We're losing people here.
I think Elon Musk may have even overplayed his hand, to be fair about it.
People are kind of digging the Mastodons.
So they hate TikTok because they're losing all their money to TikTok.
Yeah, so we're going to get rid of TikTok.
Because it's a better vehicle for advertising.
They're literally taking their money.
And so now they're irked about Mastodon because, you know, a few people have gone over there to do their chitchat, as opposed to on Twitter where you're always going to have to list a Rob Reiner bitch in the morning about Trump.
Strangely, now I have three places I use Mastodon.
Noagendasocial.com.
I use it at podcastindex.social.
I have a separate account, but man, that flows back and forth.
It doesn't really matter.
We're so federated.
And then I have my secret private little instance, which I don't post on at all.
I just follow all of these journos and these professors.
Yeah, you're going to have to clue me in.
I'll give you an account.
Yeah, give me an account and I'll go do the same and we can both snicker.
We can snigger.
Ginging, ginging, ginging amongst ourselves over these idiots.
Yeah, as long as you don't post because then you'll blow our cover.
You know what I mean?
If you post from that account then we're gonna blow the cover and then people like Jeff Jarvis will be on to us.
Then the fun will be over.
Jeff Jarvis is a serial booster.
Is he?
Well, he loves boosting everybody.
Oh, look at this black professor.
Yes!
Yes!
We need to change the Fediverse!
It's racist!
God.
You'll see.
I'll get you a secret, secret account.
So you can go to knowagenthesocial.com.
You can follow, actually.
Are there any actual big names in there?
Of journals?
Oh, yeah.
Oh yeah, I mean, sure.
All the PBS people, lots of NBC people.
Taylor Lorenz is there, what more do you want?
Anyway, follow Adam at noagendasocial.com, John C. Dvorak at noagendasocial.com.
You can follow from any Mastodon account that hasn't blocked us because we are KKK quadroons.
Nazi KKK quadroons, I think.
Where does that come from, I wonder?
There's no evidence.
No, but we were blocked early on, five years ago.
Why?
Because they said that's a free speech zone.
Free speech zone and there's a bunch of Nazi KKK quadroons.
It's in the block document.
It literally classifies us as Nazis and KKK quadroons.
Why are we quadroons and not octaroons?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
I have no idea.
I wonder how many quadroons, technically speaking, are actually on the Massad on No Agenda social.
Oh, there's some real douches, for sure.
Oh yeah, there's douches, but quadroons?
Quadroons?
I don't think quadroons.
But it's like, I got a message from someone the other day, and it was something like, it was from another instance.
Adam, I know you're the admin of No Agenda Social.
What is your policy?
What is your policy on transphobia?
With a link to someone who said, man, I don't get this people, this trans stuff.
I don't get this trans stuff.
It literally was something innocuous.
I don't really understand this trans stuff.
And so I said, well, You know, it's a... I don't see any phobia there.
I don't see any extreme fear of trans people.
I didn't hear back, but then I saw right away that person post on their own account.
We have blocked No Agenda Social!
I asked the admin what their policy was on transphobia, and I got the typical, phobia is not irrational fear, so I blocked them.
That's how people think.
And I'm like, great!
We don't want your dicky stuff around.
It's a lack of Dickie.
There you go.
Speaking of Dickie, Satchel of Richards was the title of No Agenda episode 1517, which was our last show, and we really want to thank the artist for this beautiful piece of work.
The artist was brought to us by Mountain J to bring in the New Year with, I guess, well, of course, January 1st we had a show, but this is the first one of the new New Year.
And it was exactly what we wanted.
BREAKING NEWS!
ALERT!
2023 IS A NEW YEAR!
With fireworks.
Yeah.
I think that came because I'm so tired of people like... Who's that?
Ever seen Breaking News at the beginning of every show on Fox?
Who's that, um... Ah, now I forget his name.
Who's that?
Bless you.
The guy who used to be on Leo all the time.
He's the... I'm gonna... He's... I also follow him on my secret account.
Oh, come on.
He travels around with his wife.
He has no job.
He's the Nomad.
No, uh, yeah.
What's his name?
Mike.
Mike.
What's his last name?
Mike, uh... Oh, man.
I'm scrolling for him now.
He's usually here.
Mike.
Yeah, good old Mike.
Mike and his wife.
The Nomad.
The Digital Nomad.
Yeah.
Now I forget what I was going to say about him.
I was going to rag on him.
Well, apparently he was on that site and you saw a post from him.
Uh... Oh, no, yeah, what I was going to say is, he's the kind of guy... Well, hold on.
Why don't we know his name?
That Mike... It's Block.
Come... No, he's... No, no, no.
Neuro-linguistic programming has prevented us from... Come on!
No, we gotta... I follow him.
I follow him.
I should be able to find him.
Can someone help me?
Elgin!
There we go.
Mike Elgin.
Elgin?
Elgum.
Elgum?
Okay, let's see.
I want to read this.
Mike has... It used to be referred to as Gums.
Elgum.
In the, uh... Oh, maybe he's blocking me.
Now I can't seem to find him.
Anyway, Mike El... He may block you.
Mike Elgum.
Elgin.
Is it Elgin?
Maybe Elgin.
It's not Elgin.
It's Elgin.
Elgin.
There we go.
Mike Elgin.
I got him.
Okay, here he is.
Here he is.
BREAKING!
Amazon cutting 18,000 jobs!
They put breaking in a tweet?
BREAKING!
Trump made 250 million dollars off the January 6th coup attempt.
BREAKING!
Fifth vote for Speaker of the House fails!
BREAKING!
Fourth vote for Speaker of the House fails!
Hey Mike, break this!
What an irritating thing to do.
You're not a news organization and it's certainly not breaking when you're linking to the actual site that broke the news.
Breaking.
You're breaking my brain.
Breaking.
Well, that's an interesting pet peeve.
Play the Adam's Pet Peeve jingle.
That hasn't been played for at least a year.
It's very, it's annoying.
I'm going to start doing it.
So anyway, so this art, which expressed the complaint about this usage is like breaking, Hey, January 1st is the new year.
Oh, that's breaking news.
It's a new year.
That's exactly what they would do on Tucker Carlson.
Which is also getting pretty, they lost some producers or writers over there.
I don't know what happened.
Something went wrong.
The talent that goes into putting some of those segments together is a lot higher end than most of us can imagine.
I can assure you.
But recently, it's just been pretty bad.
Well, it doesn't take more than one or two guys.
You know, it's always that one guy that, you know, I've watched this and just to go back to football, I've noticed this.
There are certain teams and every year in this, they go through a whole season and the second half of the game, They kick ass because they make changes at the halftime break.
And there's one or two guys that know how to do this correctly.
We had this situation in the University of California where there's this guy Cortez who went to coach in the Canadian leagues.
He was the right-hand man for the coach in the second half.
They always just totally kick ass.
The guy left Nobody noticed, he left, nobody knew who the guy was that was doing this because nobody ever gets credit.
And he leaves, the next thing you know, they can't play a second half, they have their asses handed to them.
This is a common problem when you have unspoken, uncredited heroes in an organization.
And we have many heroes, just heroes.
We have heroes in our organization.
So this credit goes to Mountain J, and we did have a couple other things that we considered.
Although, I like the Mastermind 2023 goals, the typewriter stuff.
I understand why it didn't pass your veto, but it looked nice.
It was kind of cool.
I didn't veto it.
Yeah, you said that's no good.
I never said anything.
Okay.
I like that piece a lot.
The problem was it was the Curry-Dvorak thing was illegible at the bottom.
So that's a violation.
Yeah, yeah.
And, uh... It's at the top.
I don't know what you're saying at the bottom.
There's nothing at the bottom.
It's at the top.
2023 to do by the mastermind?
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
It's the white background typewriter.
Oh, 2023 goals.
Yeah.
Okay, he did that one too.
The 2023 to-do, I don't even think that was on the list.
That hadn't been uploaded.
Yeah, it was.
I saw it.
Anyway, Curry and Dvorak, no agenda.
Yeah, and then you're right.
This one, it was like a half-written find exits.
I didn't really totally veto it, but you know, it's going to say find exit strategy really isn't a no agenda goal.
That's our goal.
It's been our goal for a while.
It's our goal, not the No Agenda goal, so that's not, you know, so that's inaccurate.
So the whole thing is... Unless someone comes along and buys this show without us.
No, we're stuck with it.
Yeah, you're right.
But luckily, it's hanging in there and we're getting some good donations on occasion.
Today's a pretty good day.
And we like doing it and people really like this show because we provide the information as opposed to just gassing You know, we gas a lot.
For hours on end.
I was listening to some podcast recently that was just the same thing.
Two Dipshits Yammering should be the name of the show.
Let's get that domain name.
Two Dipshits Yammering.
Oh, the problem is most of the shows today are just like, it's like listening to Twitter.
It's what I always say.
It's like listening to Twitter.
I think, I think, oh no, I think.
Yeah.
I think it's no good.
There's very few that are any good.
No, it's no good.
The number of podcasts that are actually good is probably 20.
Well, unfortunately only on Spotify, but I will be on Joe Rogan again this month.
Oh, that's a good thing.
What are you going to talk about?
What's Joe going to talk about?
I have no idea.
We don't discuss that.
He just says, hey, happy new year.
Time for an update.
Can you come by on the show?
What?
Well, he turns out to be one of the great conversationalists of the world.
100%!
Yes, he is a great conversationalist.
He may be surprised himself about how good he is at that.
Anyway, I don't know... I'm sure he's surprised himself.
I mean, I'll talk a lot about this show.
Of course.
About how dynamite it is.
I'll talk about Podcasting 2.0.
You know, come up with some stuff.
If you have any ideas, let me know.
I want you to ask him what he thinks about being, he's been in Texas now long enough that he should have some opinions.
Okay.
Whenever I ask him, he always says, I love it.
He says, I love it here.
If I just asked him informally, so I'd probably have to be a little more specific.
What's your takeaway from, you know, use the word takeaway so you sound like a douche.
What's your takeaway from being in Texas?
I'm not gonna do that.
Yeah, do it.
No.
I'm not gonna do that.
No way.
No way.
All right.
So thank you very much, Mountain J, for your contribution in our Value for Value model.
If you want to learn about that... By the way, she's now leading in the race for most artists of the year.
Yeah, artist of the year.
valueforvalue.info if you want to catch on.
And within this queue, a brand new donation page with a fact.
It's going to explain everything.
It's going to be fantastic.
Yep.
Time Talent Treasure is what it's all about.
If you get any kind of value from this program, because, you know, maybe we're not just like gassing on, and you say, oh, I learned something, like maybe I should invest in heat pumps.
Maybe I should, you know that what I found from this, there's a whole roll-up of local HVAC installers going on right now.
I don't know what HVAC is.
HVAC?
H-V-A-C?
Air conditioning, heating?
I mean, I think I know what it is.
Heating, air conditioning, HVAC?
Oh, HVAC, yeah, sure.
Yeah.
There's a roll-up.
Companies are being purchased, these small companies are being purchased left and right.
Oh, that means they're going to jack up the price.
Hello!
Hello!
This is what happened to the veterinarians around the country.
They started buying up all these little vets and then these big operations came in and now to get your dog looked at, it costs like 200 bucks.
Yeah, just to look.
Well, not around here.
Yet.
No, we just got a vet.
You know, the guy you take your horse, you take your sheep.
Yeah, I know.
That's the old fashioned vet.
That's the guy, the one guy in town who knows what he's doing.
And he's like, he knows everything.
Yeah.
And he's reasonable.
And he's always got business.
It's not an issue.
He doesn't have to have starved.
He's not starving to death.
But they go after everyone.
These big operations.
So we also want to thank the producers, specifically the executive producers who came in with their treasure part, the time, talent, and treasure.
And we do that now in our first segment.
And we kick it off with Dame Julie Bunny.
Dame Julie Bunny.
Is she already a dame?
Let me see.
She's from Rockford, Illinois.
$1,000.
So this may be an insta-daming.
Let's see.
It's her handwritten note.
Um, let's just switch-a-roo as well.
Darlings, darlings, Dame Julie Bunny, the Hustafarian from Rockford, Illinois, making a very late birthday donation to my husband, Lever John, who shares a birthday with John C. Dvorak.
And with the same first name, isn't that weird?
When's your birthday?
April 5th.
I hit him hard in the mouth at the beginning of the plandemic, and he's never missed an episode!
Becoming a loyal troll is on his New Year's resolution list, and probably the only resolution he has.
The Christmas night-to-be desired to be knighted John the Undedouchable, if that's not taken.
He'd like a full bottle of canard du chien with lobster.
Tell us about the canard du chien.
That's, uh, Kenard Duchesne.
That is like, uh, uh, some cheap sparkling wine.
You stumped him!
You stumped him hard!
Well, no, it's Kenard is like, what, duck?
It's duck, yeah, Duchesne.
Duck, and chen is dog.
Mm-hmm.
Duck dog.
What's the name of those dishes?
It's not dog like chen.
It's, um, Duchesne.
It's not dog like Shen.
It's Duchenne, D-U-C-H-E-N-E. Canard Duchenne.
Canard dash Duchesne.
I don't know.
With lobster and an EpiPen.
Because it's allergic.
Yeah, well, that's a good idea.
Okay.
All right.
EpiPen.
I don't know.
Do we have those cheap ones?
Maybe it's cold duck, I think might be what we're referring to.
I couldn't remember it, but that was a cheap champagne.
Used to be sold all over the country.
I don't know if you remember it.
No.
Called cold duck or something like that.
And it was just junk.
I can't afford anything more than Prosecco.
It's like cooks.
Prosecco is a good product, by the way.
Okay, so this is a switcheroo, so we need to put Lubber John in there, and he will be the John the Undeduchable.
Now she asks for a couple of Ices.
Please, can he have an Iso?
She lists a number here.
I believe every word, which I don't believe we have.
Hail science?
Are these ISOs that we've had that you are familiar with?
Oh, wait.
I'm sorry.
There is a... Hail science!
No, not... Okay.
That's from Futurama.
Believe every word... I mean... No, see, believe every word...
No, I don't have that.
I don't have it.
I don't think so.
I don't have it.
Believe.
No, I do not have a believe every word.
33 everywhere.
33 everywhere.
No, but it doesn't exist.
Oh, wait.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm incorrect.
We do have it.
It was 33 everywhere.
No, any of these.
You've been lied to?
You've been lied to?
Oh, you know what?
I stand corrected.
You have been lied to.
And they need the money?
Well, at least they were slipped into your database as written.
Yeah, but see, I looked at, like, they need the money?
I don't have.
And then, of course, we have the final one.
Uh, I, uh, I call bullcrap.
Call Bullcrap.
So we got those.
My favorite.
We got those.
Hey, thank you very much.
And I'm going to actually change that right now into the switcheroo.
So it will be John the Unde-Douchable.
Okay, let me do that now.
Switcheroo.
Switcheroo.
While you read the next one.
Yes.
Jacob Grams, plural, in Franklin, Tennessee.
I would like a day douching since this is my first donation. .
You've been de-douched.
And this is $500, by the way.
So he's been listening for a year, stowing away cash to finally give back value for everything you both have given me.
Nice!
I figured what better way to start off the new year with a donation, a crackpot and buzzkill, officially beginning my journey to knighthood.
I've been doing my best to punch people in the mouth here in Franklin, Tennessee.
And I think it is starting to stick with some folks.
A hearty in the morning, Joe Biden, whole load and some jobs karma as I run a mechanic shop.
I'm a running mechanic as I run a mechanic shop in and am trying to fill positions with good people who believe in treating people right now and working an honest job for honest money.
Right on.
That's a proper thing to say.
How American.
He says, thank you both for the value and entertainment you've both have given, Jacob.
All right, Jacob.
I think we can do this.
Give me the whole load today.
Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.
What was that?
I don't know.
Let's vote for jobs!
Just a thing I do.
That was you.
Yeah, that was me.
Quentin Wells is from Cisco, Texas.
347, thank you so much.
The last donation for PayPal made me a knight, but I had a problem.
Everybody used to call me Q, but the 2020 elections and following craziness of the QAnon movement has tainted that nickname.
But I'm going with Sir Q of the Eastland County.
The most important thing I would like to say to you both is since listening to you, I've made drastic lifestyle changes.
Ho now.
I moved from a nice college city with a good state job but no ambition.
I'd then move to a small town where I garden, raise animals, and know all my neighbors.
I have a better sense of myself and what I can accomplish.
Much of this has to do with your deconstruction of the lies in the media.
I'd fallen for them.
Lies!
Your work is important, and I'm happy to support the best podcast in the universe.
Thanks, Quentin Wells, and you will be bestowed with the title.
Quentin, thank you.
That's a beautiful note.
Really?
It means so much when people say that.
I have to question it.
Did this little podcast really make that difference?
That he moved?
Apparently.
He moved.
He left.
Did you hit your head?
He left the city.
I hit my head.
Left a good job in the city.
Moved to a little town.
Working for the man every night and day.
That's right.
Victor Carmona in Hatchborough, Pennsylvania is on the list for $333.
Exactly why it's above the 33333's, I'm not sure.
33 33s i'm not sure on manana camaradas i hope this note reaches you for show 15 18 on the eve of the epiphany of our lord this tradition is the last day of christmas on the western on the western That's right.
New Year's is tomorrow in Russia.
That's right.
And in fact, this is kind of funny because the Ukrainian... No, wait, no, no, no, no.
Christmas is the 6th or 7th... I mean, so it's New Year's.
New Year's.
And 12, the 12th... No, the 12th is New Year's.
I thought the Russian New Year's was the 7th.
Yeah, I got corrected on that.
Okay, well, we'll look into it for the next... Hey, Mr. Gene.
Sir Gene.
He's listening.
Sir Gene.
Text me.
Alright.
Yeah, where's Christmas?
When's New Year's?
Maybe it's Christmas.
Whatever the case...
There was a guy sent me a note about this, I think it may have been Victor, and he says, the curious thing is that the Orthodox Church in Russia does this, you know, they move all these dates in January, but the Ukrainians switch to the normal Christian days to kiss our ass!
No, well, basically they've shut down all the Orthodox churches in Ukraine.
And they're making a mess and a ruckus and kicking people around?
This is a disaster.
Yes, it's a big disaster.
It's horrible.
And we'll talk about it later, Kevin McCarthy's got a little Ukrainian pin on, that's what he wears.
Oh, goodness.
Also known as Old Christmas, January 6th is often recognized as the 12th day of Christmas, concluding the Christian Holiday season and commemorating in the arrival of the three wise men in my native Puerto Rico little kids leave grass and water to the camels for the long trip to the three wise men for the three The three, for the long trip, the three wise men have, sorry about that, have made an exchange.
You always like to brag about my cold reads.
That's great.
The three wise men have made an exchange.
We get presents.
Does this sound familiar?
Value for value.
Oops.
Oops.
Sorry.
What?
I'm sorry.
I don't know why that's happening.
The holiday is very popular in all of Hispanic America, and I found out that even the Dutch celebrate it.
Drie koningen.
Drie koningen.
Yeah.
And I wonder if Adam had drie koningen brood for the festivities.
Yes, it's three kings bread.
Absolutely.
Not so much these days.
What about oil pancakes or whatever it is?
Oil balls.
Oliebolle.
Oil balls.
Yeah, that's New Year's.
Yeah, oil balls.
They have that.
That's a big, that's a Christmas celebration in New Orleans.
No.
Yeah, where they had the big oil rig blew up and the oil balls rolled on shore and they ate them?
No, New Year's in the Netherlands we have appelflapper and olieboller met poedersuiger.
Unfortunately, he continues, here in America this is Insurrection Day!
Oh yeah, that's right, January 6th!
What a great day to do that on!
Wow, perfect!
Thanks to the liberals who are not happy to steal Christmas from us.
These people are sick.
That's very funny.
I'll give to me the executive producer credit.
Can I have Jobs Karma and some Rev.
Al?
Victor Carmona, you are Puerto Rican, no agenda, grand gentleman.
R-E-S-P-I-C-T.
Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.
Let's vote for jobs!
Thank you, Victor.
Good note.
Sir Bryguy is in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Sends us our favorite number, 333.33.
Hi guys!
With triple Z. Simply could not stay sane in this fear porn 24-hour news cycle nonsense without the grounding y'all provide.
Here's another one.
I give to my church.
I give to you.
No agenda matters now more than ever.
Best wishes and best wishes in 23.
No jingles, no karma.
Sir Bryguy from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Thank you.
Beautiful.
Oh, hold on a second.
Sir Gene just responded.
Gene, in the orthodox, not orthodox, just Russian.
What is Christmas?
What day is Christmas?
And what day is New Year?
That's what we want.
Thanks.
Okay.
David Lane in Manassas, Virginia is 333-33.
I don't have a note for him, so I'll continue with Sir Don Chandler.
Wait, he gets a double up.
He gets a double up.
Oh, double karma.
Oh, double karma.
Double karma.
You've got karma.
Live.
Ugh.
Thank you.
Sir Don in Chandler, Arizona, with the note of the day.
33333.
No jingles, no karma.
Love is lit.
Love, Sir Don.
Yeah, we got David Hook in Forestelle, Missouri.
333.33.
It's the 14th anniversary of my 33rd birthday.
January 4th, yesterday.
Hmm, I thought that was supposed to make me sound younger.
Dedoosh, please, and thanks for the deconstruction.
You've been dedooshed.
Denya.
Denya.
I just realized I made a mistake.
We could have easily asked ChatGPT.
For what?
For the answer to this question.
Oh yeah, we could have because that's old news.
Anyway, Friday, January 7th is Christmas and the 14th is New Year.
There you go.
That's from a Russian.
So dispute it all you want.
The 14th is New Year?
That's what, uh, Sir Gene just said.
He's the Duke of Texas.
Well, he would know.
Yeah.
Dania Pa- Dania.
Dania.
Pack in Lago Vista, Texas.
Uh, uh... Passed on the note.
333.
We don't have a note from her, so I'll continue with our... No double-ups?
We don't do double-ups anymore?
No, I keep forgetting this.
I want to make sure we do it right.
You've got... Double-ups!
Karma.
Now we go to Sonomish, Washington for a $250 associate executive producer donation from Natalie Martin.
I'm, uh, I'm going to a meet-up and I don't want to be a douchebag.
Does that mean she wants a de-douching?
I guess she does.
us.
You've been de-douched.
Can you imagine somebody listening to the show and hearing the following?
It's been about six months since I was hit in the mouth by Midnight Mike, Joe aka Flavorton, and cretched belated Jingle Bingle, and I thought it was insane to donate this much money to a podcast.
Yet here I am.
Please accept this donation of 222.22 in exchange for being the best podcast in the universe and a de-douche in which we deceive you.
You've been de-douched.
That old cretched.
Please give the entire audience and some party horn karma at the end.
As for me, I would love to hear a I Got Ants live performance by Mr. Dvorak.
Bye!
Well, uh... Now which horn does she want?
Does she want the horn?
No, she wants the horn.
Does she want the... No, no, no.
She wants this.
Alright.
You gotta do the ants.
I got ants.
I got ants.
Thank you.
Sir Bates is in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Oh, he has a note here.
Hold on a second.
Sir Bates?
Is he a master?
What?
Oh, boy.
Sir Bates, let me see, is this... Yes, here he is.
It's on a card, 219.19.
Thank you for your... I love how it's fill-in-the-blank.
Hope your Christmas brings one fine moment after another.
Adam and John, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.
Sir Bates from the California light state of...
What is that?
Minnesota Nuts.
Oh, Minnesota Nuts.
Donation includes a 15 cent cash checking surcharge.
You sent cash?
That's kind of... that's cool.
No, he sent a check.
It was a check.
Oh, okay.
Oh, I gotcha.
I gotcha.
Steel Empire in Glassboro, New Jersey.
$233.
$200.33.
Me love you long time!
De-douche me now!
$200.33.
Me love you long time.
De-douche me now.
You've been de-douched.
And our last associate executive producer, Joseph Amory in Piscataway, New Jersey.
No need to read this on the show!
I did!
Man, you got me!
Just keep it up!
Thanks for all the years of sanity.
Thank you very much for your associate executive producership.
And these are, of course, all Forever titles.
You are really an official executive producer or associate executive producer of The No Agenda Show, episode 1518.
You can put it anywhere credits are recognized.
Even if they're not, just put it wherever you want.
LinkedIn, IMDB.
Go ahead, look around for some No Agenda credits on IMDB.
You'll see some big names there.
Many people register there.
And if anyone questions this, you put it on a resume, we will be happy to vouch for you.
Thank you again for this incredible support.
We really appreciate it.
And we have a website which is going to change, so look at the old one soon.
Go now.
Thank you all for supporting us here at the No Agenda Show.
Episode 1518!
Our formula is this.
We go out, we hit people in the mouth.
Water.
Water.
Shut up.
Shut up.
So I was interested in discussing this McCarthy thing.
Oh good, because I have really stayed away for it for my own sanity.
Well, it does turn out to be an international story for some reason because I think the liberal media is promoting it overseas that we're all screwed up because of these Republicans.
Well, you are correct because I always check the Dutch newspapers every morning and it's filled with this story and the reason is because that's all the journalists over there do.
What's the headline in the New York Times?
Let me just translate it.
I'll plug it in the chat GPT and I'll go have some tea.
There's no journalists anymore.
They just repeat whatever is being done in the media in the U.S.
Many times they just repeat what they're told to repeat.
So let's go with France 24.
This is the discussion they're having about it.
I thought this was an interesting little... because this brought to mind... I finally found, by the way, why this is going on.
As opposed to what everyone thinks it is, and the real answer is coming.
Ooh, ooh, it's a tease!
Otherwise I wouldn't be doing this at all, because I thought it was stupid.
I would have been like you.
But here we go, this is France 24.
They're coming out of a Republican who's saying, you know, that well...
He's trying to make some heads or tails out of it, and then they throw it to a Democrat that's in France.
He's part of some... Commie.
Commie.
He's just a guy in France.
He's one of these guys that's American in France.
But let's go French 24-hour.
Like Mike Elgin, basically.
No?
Yeah, it would be.
In fact, he looks a little like him, not to mention.
Here we go.
I like the, forgive me using the word, spin you've put on this, saying that they're trying to toughen up McCarthy.
It's an interesting way to put it.
I'm not quite sure whether people will agree with you.
Joe Biden calls it an embarrassment.
Fred Hoffman representing the Democrats abroad.
Your take on the situation?
Is this toughen up McCarthy or is it chaos within the Republican Party?
What's your take?
Chaos!
First of all, how about governing?
Being at the forefront instead of just Talking about 2024 already, the American public is looking for people to govern.
And if this is the way that they're starting, it's been two months that they've had to try to get for McCarthy to get votes.
For a journey for one more day, it's not going to change anything.
They don't want him, they don't trust him, they don't like him.
And what I find really interesting is they nominated two different people yesterday, Jim Jordan and someone else I can't even remember, not important.
And now Donald's today, and it's kind of like, well, let's just fling, you know, something at the wall and have it stick.
Maybe this person will get elected.
There's no strategy.
I mean, how can that be possible in the government, in the Republican Party, that there's absolutely no strategy?
Randy says it's toughening up McCarthy, getting him to be more focused, getting him toughened up.
Do you accept what Randy's saying?
I don't think so.
I think he's weak.
I don't think anything's going to make him tougher.
And he's not going to win.
That's the whole thing.
He's going to hold out for so long.
They're not going to vote for him.
And so I don't see where this is going to go.
And if they want to nominate someone else, fine, but it's kind of like they're just like, well, who's the flavor today that we're going to have?
And for me, it is an embarrassment and it's horrible for the American public because Horrible!
They expect the government to govern and the Republicans have been promising how they were going to get things done.
How are they going to get things done if they can't even elect a speaker and allow their members to be sworn in?
This is kind of whining that you're hearing.
The American public doesn't even know this is going on in general.
I don't think anybody cares.
No, are you kidding me?
This is all that's being discussed everywhere on Twitter, on Facebook.
It's breaking!
It's breaking!
It's breaking.
Americans, it's bullcrap.
I don't care.
Let them take their time.
If it takes them, you know, a month to get the right guy in there.
If I may.
I really do watch this.
I do watch this.
You do?
Yes, I do.
This has consumed all media.
So whether people care about it or not, it's unavoidable that they hear about it.
It's everywhere, top of the list for whatever insane reason.
It's the most important story brarking in America today.
I don't think so, because out here on the West Coast it's this storm.
No, well, okay, because All right.
Climate change.
You read about the storm there, too.
But OK, let's it's getting a lot of attention.
There's no doubt about that, because it's another way they can try to embarrass the Republican Party.
And but then they go on.
I listen to the PBS reports and go in the typical response is, well, here's the problem.
McCarthy, he's spending like the Democrats, and if they could just stop spending money, and he makes a point of saying, I'm going to stop spending money, then they'll get him in immediately, and he'll go right in.
And a lot of this doesn't make any sense until I finally found, I hate to say this, I found somebody who seemed to be on point with why they're not voting this guy in and I think I found it on NTD, sorry to say.
This is MTD.
Okay.
And it's in the second clip, but let's play clip one.
McCarthy won.
Leadership of the House remains in limbo after Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed to win after three votes in the race for House Speaker.
The House is set to reconvene right about now to try to resolve the deadlock.
Among internal opponents is Representative Bob Good of Virginia's 5th District.
We spoke with a congressman on his position.
We need to move past Kevin McCarthy.
He doesn't have the votes.
He's not going to have the votes.
He's got some 20 or so that are hard-nosed against him.
I think you may see someone else emerge today in the fourth ballot, the first ballot that we have afternoon today, or perhaps on the fifth ballot.
I think you're going to see more individuals, members of Congress, willing to vote against Kevin McCarthy.
He's part of the problem.
He's not part of the solution.
Past history is the best indicator of what future performance will be.
He has contributed to how we got to $32 trillion in national debt.
He has contributed to the fact that Congress has a 20% approval rating.
80% of the country thinks we're on the wrong track.
We can't do what we've always done and expect we're going to get a different result.
Who is this talking?
It's one of the congressmen that votes against McCarthy.
But he's... Let me ask you a few questions, because you're going to reveal this.
I'm very excited.
Now, he is a California Republican, correct?
McCarthy?
McCarthy is, yes.
Okay.
So that's, right there, that's a problem.
No one trusts a Republican from California anymore.
Wouldn't you say?
So how he got in is, yeah, he has to be a Democrat in Republican's clothing.
Yeah, exactly.
That would be true.
That's what I was thinking, yeah.
So let's go, and we finally bring this guy in who wrote the book, one of the books, The Plot Against Trump or something, and this guy's good.
And he brings, he just makes it, it becomes clear as mud when this next guy comes on and actually explains what's going on with the people, the 20 holdouts, which are all, many of them are new Republicans who they tried to screw over, and Boebert's in this group.
Yeah.
And they tried to get her out of office, and they tried to do this and add that to her, and she's not happy about the Republican Party.
The old guard didn't help her much.
And so they want to end this.
They don't like anything that's going on.
So let's go with McCarthy 2 clip.
And this, I think, is the key to understanding this.
We get some analysis on the reason for the opposition and the negotiations taking place.
Joining us now is Lee Smith, columnist and author of The Plot Against the President.
He's also the host of Over the Target on Epoch TV.
Thanks, great to be here as always.
House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy only received 202 votes of the 218 needed to become Speaker in the House for the third vote.
What are the main reasons for the opposition of McCarthy becoming Speaker among Republicans?
Well, my sense of it is speaking with some former congressional officials, including some investigators up there.
A lot of people are concerned.
They want power to go into these different investigations.
And they look at the rules that Kevin McCarthy submitted At the beginning of this week, and they're not satisfied.
They see that McCarthy has not granted enough power to committee chairs for them to be able to investigate different things the Biden administration has been doing and stuff that law enforcement authorities have been doing, targeting Republican voters, the Republican base.
And so Republican representatives are keen to make sure that they do have enough, as much power as possible.
To hold accountable.
The people who have been hunting their base for the last two years.
So some of these investigations are part of the holdup.
What can you tell us about the negotiations that are happening here?
The people who went out there in the beginning, they said, uh, we're not going to vote for McCarthy.
They can't walk it back without getting major concessions.
So they have to figure out a way, the, uh, you know, the Republicans have to figure out a way to be able to use, um, be able to use this Congress, which they lead, As an instrument to, you know, not only to investigate, not only to go after the Biden administration, but to answer to the needs of the people, the men and women, the Americans who put them in Congress.
Oh, okay.
So he submitted... He's weak.
He's weak.
He wants to actually govern instead of investigate.
Well, that will not stand.
What are politicians for?
They're there to investigate each other.
Well, it gets even more interesting and kind of sketchy with the third clip.
They just hold McCarthy's feet to the fire, make sure that the Republicans get what they need to be a sharp instrument.
The main thing that people tell me that they want is Investigations of the FBI, but they will need that power and they need McCarthy to give them that power.
And without it, they're not going to be able to investigate the FBI or the Bidens properly.
Well, no wonder.
No wonder.
No wonder.
So McCarthy, does he have an intelligence background or anything like that?
I don't think so, but it's like he's obviously part of the, you know, he's been FBI blackmail.
I mean, he's obviously supposed to be a blockade to keep this from happening.
Probably the Hunter Biden laptop would never be fully investigated.
If McCarthy gets in with the rules that he set up.
So the whole thing is about the Republicans' revenge.
It's a revenge play.
We can't be pushed around like this and almost screwed over.
We almost didn't even get the House back thanks to the situation, which is corrupt, and we want to look into it.
And there's a bunch of guys that want to look into it.
They want to look into this, they want to look into that, and they want to do it with some teeth.
They don't want to just be a bunch of, just the typical weenies, you know?
They want something like the January 6th committee.
Gets a lot of coverage on TV.
It doesn't have anybody on the other side to cross-examine.
It's rigged.
It's what they want.
This is very interesting.
I use a search engine called Neva.
Are you familiar with this?
Yeah, we've talked about it before.
Yeah, the ex-Google search guy, he set that up.
And I always use it because I just don't want Google... I pay for this.
So I'm going to presume that they're not lying and that a lot of my stuff is... Yeah, that's a stretch.
It has, at the top of every search, Neva AI answer.
And it's typing, so they're ahead of Bing.
And here's what's interesting.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has called for a church-style investigation.
That's when I said, Senator Kevin McCarthy, FBI, question mark.
If I just say, Senator Kevin McCarthy, I get an AI answer.
Ooh, Neva AI is analyzing webpages, getting the answer for you.
Oh, shit.
Oh, yeah.
No, it's what it says.
But it gives me the links!
It says, this answer was generated by Neva AI using the following websites, abcnews.go.com and pbs.org.
Kevin McCarthy is a Republican politician from California, blah, blah, blah.
He was elected, blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
He has recently failed in two rounds of voting to become House Speaker.
Your old news!
Your fake news!
It's six rounds!
Interesting that they're using AI.
So they're trying to get a jump on it.
Well, uh, even more funny is something we have discussed here about this, uh, Speaker of the House role.
New members of Congress cannot be sworn in until a Speaker is elected.
There's no rule requiring the Speaker to be a current member of Congress, but experts say bringing in an outsider is an unlikely option.
The problem here is, you know, this, this group of, you know, sort of malcontents, these sort of dead-enders, they don't trust anybody.
So they certainly aren't going to trust an outsider.
And the kind of person from the outside that they might have would be, I think, overwhelmingly opposed by, you know, an overwhelming majority at the Republican caucus.
I mean, you and I could be speaker.
If we had the votes.
Yeah, we've discussed this before during the Pelosi discussion.
Now, it's possible for the following.
If you could get, like, 50 Republicans to go in on some out-of-office neutral person that may be a Republican but a super mild one, a weenie, and then the Democrats just turn all their votes over to that person, because the Democrats are voting on this too.
Yeah.
In fact, the leading vote-getter is Hakeem Jeffries.
He's got 212 votes, but he can't possibly get the full thing because the Republicans aren't going to vote for him.
But they could be something.
This could happen.
What could happen?
An outsider?
I think an out-of-state, as it were, candidate.
There's only one candidate.
Trump, of course.
You make him Speaker of the House.
But the Democrats won't vote for Trump.
Do they need the Democrats?
If they all voted yes for Trump, which they won't do, they have enough votes.
Yes, the Republicans have enough votes to put anybody in, but The number of Republicans that even though they... actually, here's what's interesting.
Most of the Republicans, current Republicans in the House, are not going to vote for Trump.
They don't like him.
But we don't know that for sure.
So it would be interesting to bring Trump up for a vote just to see who those Republicans are.
Just to see, yeah.
Now you're talking.
That's a good idea.
Well, they won't do that because they can't take a chance, but I think it'd be great to do that.
So what we can... Orbert could implement that.
She'd vote for him.
Right.
So what we're learning is that the 12, what is it, or 6, or how many are missing?
28? 20?
So there's 20?
The 20 were not voting.
He's missing between 10 votes and now I think he's down to 202, whatever.
You need 218 to win it all and he's in the 200 range and these 20 are Now, there was a big fuss made by Joy Reid on her show.
This has never happened before, because this is how stupid the Republicans are.
It never happened to Nancy Pelosi, for example.
She's the greatest ever, and she goes on and on about Nancy Pelosi.
She says, and then she sold all the votes for Pelosi.
When Pelosi was getting in, she had such a huge majority of Democrats, she didn't need everybody to vote yes.
In fact, there were more than a couple of occasions where more than 20 Democrats did not vote for her either.
Right.
And we're only talking about 20.
Well, the 20 who are voting no are clearly queuing on.
How come they haven't brought this up yet?
And this is, if I'm just going to shift now... Actually, I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is probably QAnon for sure.
Well, let's just talk about this for a second.
QAnon has arisen as the new slur.
Conspiracy theorists is out.
It's overplayed.
It's boring.
A lot of the conspiracies came true.
That's why you called me that earlier today.
What?
That was a QAnon or something when I said I forgot what it was.
Yeah, but this is the new term.
This is the new, new term.
Conspiracy, oh, it sounds good.
Conspiracy theory, theorists, is just out because a lot of the conspiracy theorists were right.
You know, you can say, hey, vaccines don't work.
Okay, you're right.
I mean, you can go in and say, well, but they prevent you from getting really sick and dying.
So that's not popular.
Which is unprovable, by the way.
They brought in the QAnon term.
I would like to ask you, what is the genesis of QAnon?
If someone said, Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon, what does that mean?
What does QAnon mean?
Where does it come from?
And what is QAnon?
Explain it.
Well, I think Hugh comes from the Star Trek character from the next generation, to be honest about it.
I don't know if... You're not going to take my question seriously.
No.
I can't answer it.
Yes, you can.
QAnon, there was Q. Q and the people who followed Q were QAnon during Donald Trump's presidency.
Yes.
And then 4Chan and 8Chan and everywhere.
Q was supposed to be someone on the inside, on the plane, with Trump, dropping proofs.
Right.
That's what QAnon was.
Yeah, that's what it was.
But the description of QAnon has changed drastically into a complete lie!
And I have to play just a minute and a half of this NPR report about a popular yoga guru who was QAnon!
QAnon!
That's a good story.
At the US Capitol two years ago, we've learned a lot about QAnon.
It's a baseless conspiracy theory rooted in anti-semitic tropes about elites worshipping Satan and drinking children's blood.
Now, is this... is this QAnon?
Is this what Q was?
No!
That's not true!
No, it's a lie.
This is what you do.
This is how you do it.
This is like a psy-op.
You think?
So I'll play that again.
So they're going to discredit... By the way, this woman died.
I think she died suddenly.
The yoga teacher died?
Yeah, she died.
This is a story about a dead yoga teacher.
So it's great.
You can just say QAnon.
Since the insurrection at the U.S.
Capitol two years ago, we've learned a lot about QAnon.
It's a baseless conspiracy theory rooted in anti-Semitic tropes about elites worshipping Satan and drinking children's blood.
Alright, stop, stop, stop.
I have to ask the chat.
I'm sorry, but I don't have enough information to determine what you're asking about, Q-Anon.
Could you provide some context?
What is the Q-Anon?
I'll double up.
Conspiracy theory.
Okay, let's see what I get now.
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that originated in 2017.
It alleges that a secret cabal of high-ranking officials and celebrities is engaged in global child sex trafficking ring, and that President Donald Trump is secretly working to expose and dismantle this cabal.
QAnon followers believe that a person or group known only as Q is providing them with secret information about this alleged cabal and the efforts to take it down.
Well, that's kind of expanded.
That's not bad.
It's not bad at all.
It's not bad.
Way to go, Chet.
You're better than NPR.
And while the QAnon movement is most closely identified with the far right, it is also found in yoga and wellness circles.
Of course!
I was like, all in.
In wellness and yoga circles.
Oh, yeah.
We know it's like functional medicine.
Why don't you just say it?
Yoga and wellness circles.
I was like, all in.
A yoga teacher that talked like that, that was real, that was grounded.
I knew instantly, this is my teacher.
Jacqueline Gelb began taking yoga classes with Guru Jagat back in 2013.
She told me that Guru Jagat had occasionally talked about conspiracies before the pandemic.
But as it progressed, she began to speak more openly.
This is engineered by the government.
There's a reason they need to keep us at home.
You need to be looking at that.
And she said, this is what you get for spending the weekend on YouTube watching alien videos.
And I mean, that caught my attention because it was like, oh, she's falling into rabbit holes.
In the beginning of the pandemic, Guru Jagat suggested specific foods, yoga poses, and breathing exercises to stay healthy.
Oh, what a crazy idea!
That's actually more than your government did for you!
But over time, she began to defy local stay-at-home orders.
Here's Guru Jagat teaching maskless and in-person in late May 2020.
Maskless and in-person!
What a horrible- QAnon!
Oh no!
Maskless, maskless!
Here's Guru Jagat teaching maskless and in-person in late May 2020, in a class that was later shared on Instagram.
We now have that AI technology where they know how to control your mind.
In December 2020, Guru Jagat invited a well-known conspiracy theorist and anti-Semite to come speak.
When she brought in David Icke, I mean, that just was not something that the woman I knew before would do.
That was so deeply offensive.
Among other things, Ike claims that reptilian extraterrestrials control the world.
By the time Guru Jagat interviewed him on her podcast in January 2021, he'd been banned from Twitter for spreading falsehoods about COVID.
And he's a known anti-Semite, which is bullshit.
I've never heard him say that.
No, he's not.
But here's what's interesting.
If you could get David Icke to show up at a yoga class... No, I think what she meant is she just started talking about him.
I don't think he came to her yoga class.
I don't think so.
That's a shame.
That would be great.
I mean, I think David Icke's an interesting character.
We both do.
And I love his reptilian stuff.
It's the best!
We've followed him forever.
And I would think, you know, dude, why would you be deeply offended?
It's like, it's fascinating more than it is offensive.
Oh, I'm so offended!
The queen's a lizard!
Who cares?
There's your opening.
I mean, really.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah.
It's, uh...
I'm glad that they changed it so that we are actually at ground zero of this trope, which will last for quite a while, I'm sure, and it'll morph even more.
But I remember when, I think it was during It was Question Trump.
He was out on stage.
It was for NBC.
I think it was, you know, like a town hall on an unfriendly network.
Do we have a clip of it?
Oh, we do?
Yeah.
And he was, and it was like, well, you know, this is about Democrats eating babies or something like that.
Yeah, they'd be passed it off.
Q, um, yeah, I don't know what that was.
We'll never find it.
Not, not easily.
You might.
But it's, okay, let me see.
Trump, Q, was it maybe NBC?
No.
Mika maybe?
Was it Town Hall with Mika?
No.
I wanted to describe a candidate to you.
No.
I'll play that anyway.
Sounds good.
I wanted to describe a candidate to you.
The candidate is considered a political outsider by all the pundits.
He's tapping into the anger of the voters, delivers a populist message.
He believes everyone in the country should have health care.
No, no, no.
No, I wish I could find it.
No, it wasn't Brian Stelter.
Oh, here it is, QAnon question for Trump.
Maybe this is it.
During the pandemic, the QAnon movement has been, appears to be gaining a lot of followers.
Can you talk about what you think about that and what you have to say to people who are following this movement right now?
Well, I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much.
Which I appreciate, but I don't know much about the movement.
I have heard that it is gaining in popularity.
No, it was this one with Savannah.
Here it is, I found it.
While we're denouncing, let me ask you about QAnon.
It is this theory that Democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and that you are the savior of that.
And I remember when this is completely made up!
At that point, none of that was in play with QAnon that I can remember.
Do you?
I think you're right.
I think you're right.
This is through this, yeah.
This is when they made it up.
This is maybe the genesis of what we see today.
And I think that we, and it was episode... I don't know.
Back a while.
Yeah, it was back a while.
2015.
Yeah, 18 actually.
I have, no.
No, no.
This is, hmm.
Let's play the rest of it.
Now, can you just once and for all state that that is completely not true?
Can it disavow QAnon in its entirety?
I know nothing about QAnon.
I just told you.
I know very little.
You told me, but what you tell me doesn't necessarily make it fact.
I hate to say that.
I know nothing about it.
I do know they are very much against pedophilia.
They fight it very hard.
But I know nothing about it.
They believe it is a satanic cult run by the deep state.
If you'd like me to study the subject, I'll tell you what I do know about it.
NPR missed it.
They missed the satanic cult run by the deep state.
They missed it!
They believe it is a satanic cult run by the deep state.
If you'd like me to study the subject, I'll tell you what I do know about it.
I know about Antifa, and I know about the radical left, and I know how violent they are, and how vicious they are, and I know how they're burning down cities run by Democrats, not run by Republicans.
Republican Senator Ben Sasse said, quote, QAnon is nuts, and real leaders call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories.
He may be right.
Why not just say it's crazy and not true?
He may be right.
I just don't know about QAnon.
You do know.
I don't know.
No, I don't know.
I don't know.
Let me ask you another thing.
Let's waste the whole show.
How embarrassing for Savannah Guthrie that she did that.
She's terrible.
Just a real embarrassment.
She's no different today.
No.
She's kind of a ding... a dimwit.
I was going to say dingbat, but she's not a dingbat.
She's a dimwit.
It's different.
I'm going to shift gears before we take our second break to Russia.
We are at peak Zelensky, I guess, at this point.
I mean, once you've spoken before both houses of the U.S.
government, how much more can you do?
We do have a report from the BBC, which details and translates President Putin's New Year's Eve address.
Well, in Russia, President Putin also made his New Year address and spoke about the war.
He told soldiers that historical righteousness was on their side.
For years, the Western elites have hypocritically assured us of all their peaceful intentions, including the resolution of the difficult conflict in Donbass.
In reality, they were fully encouraging neo-Nazis, who continued to carry out military and blatantly terrorist actions against peaceful citizens of the Donbass People's Republic.
The West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression.
And today, They're not ashamed to admit it openly, and they cynically use Ukraine and its people to weaken and divide Russia.
We have never allowed anyone to do that, and we will not allow anyone to do that.
That was President Putin.
Well, here in the UK, the war crimes prosecutor who led the case against Slobodan Milosevic has called for Mr Putin to be tried for crimes against humanity this year.
Sir Geoffrey Nice, who worked with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, told the BBC that the case against Mr Putin couldn't be clearer, and that civilian targets should never be bombed or otherwise attacked.
So let's not respond to what he said, let's just say, we gotta throw him in jail.
International Criminal Court.
Didn't Slobodan Milosevic die sitting in court?
Oh, I forget how he died.
One of those guys did.
One of those guys did.
One of those guys died literally in the court.
I thought it was... Let me see.
When he died.
Can't find it.
Can't type fast enough.
Well, here's the BBC on a short round-up of what Zelensky said during his New Year's speech.
Hello and welcome to BBC World News.
We start with a fallout from a Ukrainian rocket attack in the occupied region of Donbass, which Ukraine claims killed 400 Russian troops.
Russia puts the number of dead much lower, just 63 service personnel.
But Russian politicians are calling for their own military commanders to be held accountable for the deaths.
It comes as Ukraine's President Zelensky says intelligence suggests Russia plans to continue its drone attacks as a concerted effort to exhaust and demoralize Ukraine.
We have information that Russia is planning a protracted attack using Shahed drones.
But we act and do everything so the terrorists fail in their aim, as all their others have failed.
I don't want to say too much about Neva's AI, but I typed in Slobodan Milosevic and I got an AI answer.
That's all I typed in.
Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslav-Serbian politician, served as president of Serbia, blah, blah, blah.
He was found dead in his prison cell in 2006.
Ah.
There you go.
Dead in the prison cell.
And I might as well, unless you have something... No, but I should mention that this situation they're talking about, this is kind of interesting, it comes in, but all the stories mention it, it's like a piece of NLP, or I'm not sure why they're doing this.
It's an op!
Everything's an op to you.
You said it first on this show, not me.
So, is this trope that, oh, the Russian troops are wiped out because they're all yammering on their cell phones.
Have you heard this?
No.
No, I haven't.
Yeah.
I've heard it from more than one or two reports that a bunch of Russians were killed.
Because they're on their cell phones.
And the generals are all irked about them.
Because they were on their cell phones and they was giving away their position because we've got some technology or who knows what.
And they just bombed the hell out of where the cell phone signal was coming from.
Hmm, sounds sketchy.
Well, it sounds sketchy, but why do they keep telling us this story?
Is it something to get new service?
Are we supposed to get a Pixel phone?
Or is there something coming up from Apple?
Is there a new secure phone from Apple coming?
Something like that.
Is there a movie?
Is there a Mission Impossible?
Is there a movie about phones?
Well, I got a report from WION, which is the Indian news, and that's what we're really up to over there.
Moving on, let's take you to Europe, where U.S.
troop deployment in Romania serves a dual purpose of sending out a warning to Moscow while boosting morale among NATO allies in Southeast Europe to hold the line.
It is the first time since the Second World War, 75 years ago, that the U.S.
Army's 101 Airborne Division has returned to Europe.
The division's rare presence is just a few miles from the Ukrainian border with Romania and is a clear indication that Washington is aiming to support NATO allies without being directly involved in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
U.S.
troops are training at an airbase in Romania in the northern part of the country.
Soldiers from both countries participated in drills, fired artillery, launched helicopters and dug trenches near the front lines in Kherson.
The troop deployment underlines a warning sign to Moscow that the U.S.
will defend every inch of NATO territory, a pledge President Biden has reiterated often in recent days, but without tempting Russia into escalating the war.
The joint exercises are also a way to ensure that other troops in Southeast Europe can hold ground if it comes to it.
However, it remains unclear what footprint will the U.S.
Army keep at the base.
The decision will soon be made by the Pentagon as to whether to maintain the number of troops and senior commanders there or bring the number down.
So we've got the 101st Airborne hanging out.
Yeah, they're digging trenches in Europe.
What the hell?
Remind you of anything?
Oh man.
Well, let's just stick in Europe for a moment because it's falling apart.
We talked about Croatia joining the Schengen zone.
They also joined the Euro and I was able to obtain a report.
Oh, I don't know that they joined the Euro, did they?
Yes, yes.
So the Schengen zone, I don't know.
I think it's... I've never had any trouble going in and out of Croatia.
Well, no, but it's just a gimme.
It's just a part of joining the Eurozone.
And, well, this is an interesting report.
Croatia has dropped its currency, the kuna, to adopt the common European currency, the euro.
The Balkan nation becomes the 20th member of the Eurozone.
Croatia had to meet strict economic conditions to join.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to Zagreb to mark the occasion.
Croatia also became the 27th member of the passport-free Schengen zone, which allows more than 400 million people to move freely through its borders.
And Stephen, how significant is this switch to the Euro for Croatia and its actual economy?
Yes, quite meaningful.
If you look at, you mentioned the Schengen milestone, there's the two big milestones that are happening today, both have broad ramifications for their economy.
The hope is that by reducing the friction on businesses and service sectors, especially the tourist sector, Which is the most important branch here in Croatia that that will help increase business for this nation.
So it is no small thing at all.
We talked to the central bank governor here who said that it also is afforded for borrowing costs by hitching their wagon essentially to a more larger more stable point.
that their risk premiums essentially for borrowing go down, and that is also a benefit to Croatia.
So there's a lot of hope that this will bring in, that this will usher in a lot more business and a lot more possibilities, at least on the political level.
For those who made this decision, one grumble that you can hear quite often here is that it was really a decision that was left out of the people's hands, the politicians made it, but obviously there is some excitement about what's going on.
What?
This guy is going on like a maniac.
He's giving the deets.
Okay, so a lot of excitement, but you mentioned grumbling.
What is the nature of the grumbling?
Who are these critics?
What are they saying?
Who are these people grumbling?
Who's a grumbler?
Well, in addition to those who say that the decision itself was left out of their hands, we know that some critics say that economically this doesn't make sense for a small country like Croatia.
This is a country that is, in many ways, compares with a lot of other European nations quite well.
We can get debt levels.
We look at growth.
Growth has been turning, especially after the pandemic.
But when you look at wages, it's actually one of the lowest.
This is a small economy, 4 million people, and of course, this country no longer has to install this currency.
Instead, I should say, it cannot devalue the currency, it cannot strengthen it artificially as economic times are tough.
Instead, it's one of 20 nations that has to work together to make a decision.
In Frankfurt, the European Central Bank, those decisions are mostly going to fall to the bigger nations, the Germany's and the France's.
I know, the guy's annoying.
Now, it's a little NLP going on there with the use of the word, which has got nothing to do with anything.
They use the word to describe the euro as stablecoin.
Did you hear that?
I sure did.
I'm glad you picked up on it.
He said it twice.
He said at the end of that report too, which I didn't play because it was too annoying.
Yeah, stablecoin.
The euro is now officially a stablecoin.
Or maybe the digital euro will be a stablecoin.
Very curious report.
That guy, something's wrong with him.
CBDC is on deck, baby!
I'm going to show myself old by donating to No Agenda.
Imagine all the people who could do that.
Oh, yeah, that'd be fun.
Yeah, on No Agenda.
In the morning.
And we do have a few people to thank for show 1518.
I want to mention I sent out the newsletter and I sent out a second little note.
Yeah, what happened?
What happened with the first one?
Well, the first one, it was not getting the... Open rate?
Yeah, it was a couple of things.
Open rate was one of them.
But the second note was really weird.
And everyone wrote me about this.
the link to the first newsletter which was a MailChimp link I cut and pasted from the actual link and I took out the question mark addendum, which is you can do with the most URLs because it's just bullcrap to track you.
I took it out.
I never checked it per se, even though I refreshed the page.
And so, yeah, there it was.
It's the same thing without the question mark plus.
And, uh, and then I put in a newsletter, and in the newsletter it linked to Deadline Magazine!
How did that happen?
Well, I would like to know that myself because I didn't have Deadline Magazine on my pages.
I never look at Deadline Magazine.
So I have to assume that MailChimp was storing Deadline Magazine and somehow or some way, perhaps one of the, like the last number on the database, something that I just, maybe it got accidentally erased when I erased the question mark and it went to Deadline Magazine.
I'm not sure, but I just... That's weird.
Everybody wrote in.
That's strange.
Like, hey, you idiot.
Wait, is this done on purpose?
Is this some sort of an op?
What are you doing this?
Why are you sending us to Deadline Magazine?
Another op!
There you go.
Christine in Raleigh, North Carolina is at the top of our list, by the way.
and she came in with $133.33, followed by Javier, Javier, Javier, or Javier.
Javier.
Vasquez.
Javier.
Whatever, Vasquez.
Mr. Vasquez in San Diego at 1-2-3-4-5, one of our favorite numbers.
Sir Loud Pipes follows with 1-2-3-4-5 and he's in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Polat Abdubek in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
Great work on the amazing podcast.
He came in with 101.
Good old page.
$101.01.
He actually sent in a card.
Oh, we like notes.
This is actually kind of cute.
I'll read one.
We normally don't read these.
Glad you two met.
You are the rare combination That elucidates while cracking us up.
We are the original Kraken.
Best, Paige.
Thanks, Paige.
Thanks, Paige.
Baron Latican in Houston, Texas, $100.
John Robinet, $100.
$100.
John Robinet, $100.
James Polos, P-O-U-L-O-S in Reno, Nevada, 8-8-8-8-8-8-8.
Kevin McLaughlin.
Sir Kevin, actually, in Locust, North Carolina.
8008.
Boob.
Only one today.
Gregory Kirdak.
7777.
Anastasia Perov.
She's actually in the North Pole.
7777.
Ryan Cartier, that's what it says.
And N.U.
Inuvik?
Is that N.U.
Inuvik?
That's that area, that huge Northern Territories.
It used to be called Northern Territories.
They've changed the name so nobody knows what it is.
How far are you from... You know why they changed it?
Because Northern Territories was a misogynist.
Racist.
I've been to Tuktoyaktuk.
How far away are you from there, Anastasia?
Let me know.
Wyan Cartini in Torrington, Connecticut, 7421.
Rodney Lillibridge in Lewiston, Idaho, 6933.
Not Sir Jake in Thompson, Connecticut, 5678.
Sir Kyle in Bertram, Texas, 5555.
This will be the new donation when John freaks out that no one is opening the newsletter.
Well, Tom Darry, I always freak out at this.
Oh, what?
What?
Tom Darry, DeForest, Wisconsin, $55.10.
Brian Furley, $55.10.
Troy Funderburk in Spokane, $55.
Michael Gates, $52.80.
James Otis in West Des Moines, Iowa, $50.33.
Viscount Sir DH Hammer, $50.33.
$55. Michael Gates, $52.80.
James Otis in West Des Moines, Iowa, $50.33.
Viscount Sir D.H. Hammer, $50.33.
Slammer.
I said hammer.
Yep.
Yes, Viscount.
I'm confused because he's now a Viscount.
He's in Buelton, California.
James Little in Alameda, California.
5033.
Free Hollow Books, our buddy, Free Hollow Books.
Yeah, Jimmy.
And it should be freehallowbooks.com.
Summerfield, North Carolina, 5005.
Scott Nelson.
Hold on, hold on.
He's promoting the Meetup Saturday at Kernersville Brewing at 2 p.m.
Hollow Book door prize!
That means you're going to get a hollow book.
If you're the door prize.
Scott Nelson, he's got big hollow books.
Oh yeah.
I have one hollow book that he sent, because he sent, I think I got three from him total over time.
And he sent one that is so well made and so good.
I think it's the one that's supposed to hold a gun.
Yeah, I got one of those.
It's on the bookshelf.
I have yet to find, I haven't been able to find it in two years.
Because it's so realistic.
It's probably Atlas Shrug, that's one of my favorites.
I'm pretty sure it's not Atlas Shrug.
I don't have Atlas Shrug on the bookcase, it's in the bathroom.
Scott Nelson, Council Bluffs, Iceland?
What is his IS?
That's a fat finger.
No, that's a fat finger.
It's Iowa.
50-01.
The following people, then, are $50 donors.
Name and location when I have it.
If I have it.
James Sharametta in Nappanock, New York.
Matthew Janiszewski.
Sir Matthew.
He's probably a duke by now.
Chicago.
Alex Zavala in Kyle, Texas.
Villarreal, Villarreal.
I believe he's in... I forgot where he is.
I think he's in Texas.
Anna Drake in Whitestown, Indiana.
Michael Labar in Williamston, Michigan.
Christopher Josak in Philipsburg, New Jersey.
Alex Sal in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Steven Powers in Midlothian, Virginia.
Kurt Patrick in Nynamo, Canada.
It's just a Victoria Island, Nynamo.
Brian Wilson Watson and Sir Brian in Raleigh, North Carolina.
And wrapping it up with Brett Farrell and Kelly Hubbard in Plymouth, Minnesota.
I want to thank these people for making show 1518 a reality.
And Christopher Josak wanted a deducing.
You've been de-douched.
And I have a make good here from Roger Cervic.
Guys, guys, before we get rolling in the new year, I thought I would make one more attempt to complete the comment submission that I failed to figure out at the time of my donation on episode 1499 at about 2 hours, 35 minutes, and 16 seconds.
The value you guys add to my life needed to be recognized, so I hope that by completing my submission, I can continue to listen to your show twice a week without feeling unofficial.
And I believe he is going to be knighted cervic today, protector of the visual futurists, and we are very, very happy that you support us with that, and we're glad that... Wait, 14... So he's a...
I guess he participated in the double-up, right?
Yeah, double-up.
Beautiful.
For those of you who would like to support this podcast, value for value, you can support it with any amount you want, for as long as you want, or not at all.
If it's valuable, do something for us.
Time, talent, treasure.
Learn more on our website.
No one's asked for a goat karma today, so here's a gratuitous one.
God. Harming.
And we say happy birthday to David Hook, turned 33 on January 4th.
That's all we got.
That's a lot.
That's what?
That's all we got.
One birthday on today's date?
What was going on nine months ago that would keep something like that?
It's very strange.
What is nine months ago?
Nine months ago would have been tax day.
Everyone's depressed.
Not tonight, baby!
I got a headache!
Something like that.
I'm thinking that's right.
We do have three knights I'd like to bring up on stage.
Yeah, there's a blade.
That's a cute one.
Uh, Lover John, Lover John, your lady has called you to the podium.
Roger Cervic, we just, uh, read your note.
And Quentin Wells, all of you have, uh, are now, uh, eligible to be knights of the knowage in a round table.
I'm very proud to pronounce the K-V as Sir John the Undeduced Cervic.
Protector of the Visual Futurists and Sir Q of Eastland County.
For you, gentlemen, we have Hookers and Blow, Rent Boys and Chardonnay, Canard, Duchenne, Lobster and EpiPen.
That rhymes.
Hey, now.
Of course, Ribbonettes, Loon and Rosé, Geishas and Sake, Bacchus and Biddleabong, Hits and Bourbon, Sparkling Cider and Escort, Ginger Ale and Gerbil, Breast Milk and Pablums, Beer and Blunts, Organic Macaroni and Plasticizers.
We also have Mutton and Mead.
We got Mead!
Go to noagendanation.com slash rings and go ahead, give us a place to send these rings to, also the ring size of course, and that will be accompanied by your wax to seal your important correspondence with the Signet ring and your official certificate of authenticity.
Thank you all again for becoming Knights of the No Agenda Roundtable.
We got a list.
We got a list.
We got a list of meetups coming up.
But first, two promos.
Are you in the greater Knoxville area looking for something to do Wednesday, January 11th?
Come hang out with me, Billy Bones, down at Barley's off East Jackson from 5 until 8.
Upstairs at the pool tables.
From novice to shark, come hang out and shoot some pool.
Or at the very least, shoot the breeze.
Alright, nice little promo.
We also have a promo from the tribal meetup in Indiana.
G'day producers.
If you're in central Indiana, then come attend our New Year No Agenda meetup.
On 15 January, we'll be going to the Blind Isle Brewery on Binford Boulevard in Indianapolis.
This meetup will have good food, good drink, good conversation, and the donation raffle.
To find us on noagenda.getups.com for more information and to RSVP.
Not bad, I like the production.
Today, the New Year's same old PSYOP meeting, 6.30 Mountain Time, so you can make that no problem, Lincoln's Roadhouse in Denver, Colorado.
On Saturday, the North Carolina Triad No Agenda Meetup, 2 o'clock at Kernersville Brewing Company.
Just heard a promo from the organizer there, Sir William, I think, that's in Kernersville, North Carolina.
Also on Saturday, the Central Jersey 732 return to the Gulag Meetup at 2 o'clock at 3BR Distillery, Keyport, New Jersey.
And the OKC hooey-hooey kicking off the New Year meetup two o'clock at Fassler Hall, excuse me, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, also on Saturday.
And we got a lot coming up in January, as you already heard.
I do want to mention we have Couple already set up in February, San Diego, Idaho, Star, Idaho, Charlotte, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Ohio, and also Toronto, Canada.
Toronto seems to have one every single month, and we got plenty in January.
If this is something you've never done before, you owe it to yourself to try it.
It's really fun having, you know, Tina's doing a meetup in Chicago, which is like the Keeper meetup.
I'm not, you know, no agenda.
Curry, it's all been obfuscated.
She's got a meetup going on in February.
How about that?
Just for her.
She's going to visit family.
She needs a meetup.
She does need a meetup.
I guess she does.
These are the No Agenda Meetups.
You can find more information at noagendameetups.com.
If you can't find one near you, start one yourself.
It's easy and you'll be welcome doing it.
Sometimes you want to go hang out with all the nights and days.
You want to be where you want to be.
Drink it all, hail the flame.
You want to be where everybody feels the same.
It's like a party.
It is like a party.
Now, sadly, I have to admit that I have no ISO.
Well, I have an ISO, but it's an old one, and I don't know.
I don't think it's... I got three.
Oh, I'm not even going to play mine.
Let's see.
One of these might be good, but let's start with this one.
ISO, huh?
Okay, here we go.
That wasn't quite huh, was that some... I don't have, how do you spell that?
I don't know, ISO dying breath?
Dying gasp for air?
Gasp, that's what it was.
Yeah, probably.
Gasp.
Yes, okay.
Okay, ISO interesting.
Very... Oops, sorry.
I messed that up.
Very, very interesting episode.
No, I like, it's a little long, but I like it.
I like it.
What else you got?
And then I got another tribute to Judy Woodruff with Hold It.
Barely hold it together.
No, no, I think you've nailed it with a very, very interesting episode.
I think that's good.
Okay.
That settles that.
I do have one clip I want to play for sure.
Okay.
So there was, you know, these, these, you've heard about this in Washington state to somebody blew up a power distribution center.
Then there's another one.
There were four of them.
It's like terrorists.
Yes.
Domestic terrorists.
Yes.
Yes.
I have heard this.
Okay, well they finally found the guys.
And it didn't turn out to be much of a domestic terrorist at all.
And the clip is called Idiots and Power Stations.
Two men have been arrested and charged with vandalizing electrical substations in Washington State, attacks that left thousands without power over the holidays.
Matthew Greenwood and Jeremy Crayon were arrested on Saturday.
A newly unsealed complaint charges both with conspiracy to damage energy facilities, and it charged Greenwood with possession of a short-barreled rifle and a short-barreled shotgun.
According to the complaint, Greenwood told investigators that the two knocked out power so they could burglarize a business and steal from the cash register.
The business was not identified in the complaint.
Cell phone location data and other evidence tied them to the attacks on the four substations in Pierce County.
Officials have warned that the U.S.
power grid needs better security to prevent domestic terrorism after a large outage in North Carolina last month took days to repair.
Conspiracy to attack energy facilities is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Possession of an unregistered firearm is punishable by up to 10 years.
Alright, hold on.
Can I ask a question?
So they took out power stations to steal cash, cash from a store.
Yes, and probably an electric cash register that wouldn't open without power.
But here we go.
Hey, Clem, what do you think we ought to be doing here?
That place I know has got a burglar alarm.
Well, I don't know.
Let's just blow up the power station, and then that'll take care of the problem.
Well, which power station?
I don't know.
There's four of them around here.
Let's just blow them up, and then we can go in there, and then we can get the cash out of the register.
This is the kind of dumb fucks they have up in Washington.
How about this?
This is not true.
This is not what was going on.
It's an op!
Well, that's always a possibility.
That's my thinking.
But I'll bet you these guys show up in court.
And to show mixes, Sir Michael Anthony, Dee's Laughs.
We got, let's see, So Agenda.
And John Fletcher with a classic, classic, classic.
Coming up next, Coming up next on No Agenda Stream, if you're hanging out at trollroom.io, will be, oh yeah, Hog Story!
With Fletcher, Blainey, and me!
I did Hog Story.
I'm out of control.
You did Hog Story!
I did Hog Story, of course!
Now I'm not going to do anything until way after Rogan.
Way after Rogan.
Yeah, that's going to last for a while, I hope.
And the people get sick of me, so I don't want to do too much.
Coming to you from the heart of the Texas Hill Country, here in FEMA Region No.
6.
In the morning, everybody.
I'm Adam Curry.
That sounds like a lame excuse, but okay.
From Northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C. Dvorak.
We return on Sunday with another episode of The Best Podcast in the Universe.
Please remember us at Dvorak.org.
Until then, have a happy hooey-hooey.
In the morning to ya!
Adios, mofos and such.
World Tondo 4 Months Year 2022.
No more bread, no more sugar, and no more fossil feeds!
They want to take your stake, so defend your liberty!
If you want to save the world, eat meat and live free!
I eaten an animal-based animal since 2017!
Beef and egg and bacon don't compete, nothing green!
No more chronic depression, cause I got that dopamine!
Ever since I've been littered all fat and protein!
Or rely on your grill with a side of pork ribs.
Popping back like it's a hot, I'm getting more of it.
You're not to tighten up your belts.
Are you strapping on your pants?
If you don't see me, say yo, what's up to me?
A ton of four months here, 2023.
No more bread, no more sugar, and no more brothel.
If you want to take your sake, you'll defend your liberty.
If you want to save the world, you need to live free.
You need to be some food.
This is great.
No more bread.
You're not getting jacked.
No more bread.
In the morning.
You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.
No more bread.
And what I mean by that, it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.
Poison pills given out by corporate shills.
Don't ask, don't tell.
Things aren't going too well.
Know to put a price on your soul, but never sell.
When that suddenly is trending and people say it, oh well.
What's in those java shots?
Talk about the blood clot.
Morticians and embalmers, they sound somber.
Climate change will be the cause for lockdown next.
Event 201 was just 201 night prep.
But the mandates keep moving the goalposts.
They hide the ball, now COVID is now ghost.
It's a new year, no agenda.
Producers are smaller, make the less of me, we got no fear.
It was in the White House when Bill was there, and he said, you know, never waste a good crisis.
And when it comes to the economic crisis, don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security.
And that's what we're trying to do.
Why do you think that they need CBDCs?
Controlling centralized spending habits of economies.
Tell you when and where to spend your so-called money.
Turn you on and off.
I sounded good like a COVID cough.
Cashless venues.
Keep collecting for stash.
Parallel economies.
They say Bitcoin is trash.
Too much strain on the power grid.
Save it, kid.
I can't lie.
I like these libertarian views.
I dig.
Did you watch Blue's Clues as a kid?
Talking to my generation.
Stone dazed and confused.
I mean on TV.
We used to watch Murder, She Wrote, Matlock, and Hill Street Blues.
It's how I got my news.
Called a boob tube.
Talking about the Hill Street Blues and Cool G Rap.
Yeah.
Favorite comics back in the day were family circus Andy Cap.
Just rest.
Perfect.
I don't want to be under.
Just rest.
I don't want to be under white supremacy and capitalism.
Naps provide a portal.
Just rest.
Ill.
Our dream space has been stolen.
We will reclaim it.
Imagine liberation.
Invent liberation.
Naps provide a portal.
Heal.
Just rest.
I don't want to be under White supremacy and capitalism.
Good.
Okay, let's try it out.
Rice-a-roni, mac and cheese, paste-a-roni.
Pop it in, pop it in.
Boom!
Don't try it yet, everybody.
Don't try it just yet.
Oh, there's all kinds of good stuff in here.
Polyl-methacrylate?
Poly-l-lactic acid?
Could have added plus in that.
Take that off the internet immediately.
How does that make sense?
This is not good.
You just don't understand.
This is a whole area of chemistry that is specialized.
You can't make more of it.
I love this.
I love this.
Is this where you grill the second head?
Oh, wait.
Stop right there.
Hello, officers.
Would you like to join our prayer meeting?
Your electic fits?
No, what did you tell him that for?
We don't want that out of here.
I don't know what you're talking about.
It's nothing new.
Bull crappy.
No, what did you tell him that for?
We don't want that happening here.
I don't know what you're talking about.
It's nothing new.
It's really, really, really bad.
It's really bad.
This is really bad.
You know, this is all very confusing.
Way to go.
I'm blocking this.
I'm blocking it!
A misty little trick, actually.
I don't care about American people!
I'm blocking it!
I'm blocking this!
Now, we're... There's something... This is not good.