Who Decides What You’re Allowed To Hear

Sunshine after a brush with snow set the tone for a free-ranging ride that starts local and climbs straight into orbit. We celebrate 25 years of continuous life aboard the International Space Station, tip our caps to Mir’s overlooked legacy, and swap stories about chasing auroras sparked by double CMEs. A quick quake roundup keeps us grounded, while a candid update on an AI hosting glitch and a chaotic schedule shows the real-life mess behind making a weekly, value-for-value show.

Then comes the hinge: China’s new rule that influencers must prove credentials to speak on medicine, law, education, or finance. It sounds like public safety. It feels like narrative control. We unpack how “misinformation” becomes a lever for centralizing authority, why badges can inform but shouldn’t silence, and how free societies risk copying the same playbook under friendlier branding. Expect clear definitions, tough questions, and a practical case for personal agency—turning off bad speech rather than outlawing it.

To cool things down, we share the unexpected joy of the Supernatural official cookbook, savor the latest Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, and peek at a newly unveiled humanoid robot slated to greet customers in 2026. We wrap with nerdy audio talk: new drive, fresh installs, Audacity quirks, and the endless hunt for cleaner sound. If you value open access, curious conversation, and a show that says the quiet part out loud, you’re in the right feed. Tap follow, share with a friend, and leave a review to keep this conversation wide open.

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Snap To Sunny Skies;
• 4:09 Upload Glitch And Scheduling Woes;
• 9:45 ISS At 25 And Mir Memories;
• 15:45 Auroras, CMEs, And Quakes Update;
• 22:33 China’s Credential Rules For Influencers;
• 33:30 Who Defines Misinformation And Why;
• 44:50 Step Back: Personal Choice And Control;
• 52:37 Palate Cleanser: Supernatural Cookbook;
• 54:29 Rock Hall Inductees 2025;
• 56:24 AI Day’s Humanoid Robot Reveal;
• 58:07 Audio Upgrades And Tech Quirks;
• 1:02:47 Gratitude, Support, And Sign‑Off

Transcript

Capella: 0:06

Welcome to the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast, the worst podcast in the unknown universe, or at least that's what some people say. We prefer to think of ourselves as charmingly rough around the edges. We're passionate about podcasting and the value for value model, where creators and listeners connect directly. We believe in keeping our content free and open to everyone, because who needs another paywall, right?

Bruce: 0:29

That's right. Hello, everyone. This is Bruce from the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast.

Sunny: 0:36

And I'm Sunny from the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast. Welcome aboard.

Bruce: 0:43

All right. Well, that was kind of peaked out there for a minute. Welcome aboard, everybody. This is episode 128 of our podcast, and we are happy to be able to record today. It is actually a very beautiful today, a beautiful day today. I'll get that right here in a minute. Yeah, it's beautiful. We went from having uh cold weather snow, which didn't stick. And I, if you want to see pictures of it, I actually caught a video out my studio window, and I put it on our website, the uglyquacking duck.com.

Sunny: 1:25

So look it up's what he's saying.

Bruce: 1:28

Yep, that's what I'm saying. Look it up. Uh, but it we caught that and it's really awesome. Um snow coming down, and it the camera caught it really well, and it didn't stick, so we didn't have any extra snow on the ground. But we went from that weather to today being 61 degrees right now as I record this here in the Midwest, Southern Illinois.

Sunny: 2:00

Yep, that is really cool. We have it nice today, and the weather's not blowing or the wind is not blowing very much, a little bit, but the warm air. Nice.

Bruce: 2:16

Yes, it is. Thank you, Sunny. And uh it's uh showing sixty-two degrees and sunny for my area on our weather channel. Phoenix, Arizona is showing 75 today. Woo woo! And we mustn't forget Spokane, Washington, which is showing 43 degrees and partly cloudy. Boohoo! Oh well, we know somebody has to have colder weather. Glad it's not us. We're at 62, guys. Yay!

Sunny: 2:51

Yeah, that's pretty cool. It's great. A lot better than it was earlier in the week and this weekend.

Bruce: 3:05

All right. Sound effects and all. Oh boy. Thank you, Sunny.

Sunny: 3:10

Well, Bruce, I'm glad to be here, and I thank you for letting me be part of your podcast. It's great. And everybody listening, yay.

Bruce: 3:24

Okay. You always do get excited, but yeah. Speaking of that, everybody that's tuned in, listening, thank you for finding our podcast and for playing this episode. If this is the first one you've listened to, please come back. And if you've been here before and you keep coming back, oh mercy. Uh, that tells you something about you. Uh you fit right in with the rest of us, for sure.

Sunny: 3:54

Yeah, for sure.

Bruce: 3:57

But we really do appreciate it. Tell your friends, okay? That's the best way for us to grow. We do appreciate everything from every one of you out there. And I want to take a second to also say I'm sorry for anybody that caught our episode last uh the last one. We actually recorded it on Halloween day. We was going to put it out that night or the next morning. In fact, we recorded it and uploaded it to our hosting page, and then we found a glitch in their AI. That's what they used to um crunch the audio and sort out the chapters and sort out any other things I want to use, like transcripts and stuff. Well, they actually had an issue with the AI. The transcript kind of worked out. I went in and edited it quite a bit, but my chapters I couldn't get into and change anything or edit it, add or delete. And so the chapters were just non-working. And I contacted them and they contacted me, and we went back and forth on email. They did get it fixed. Uh, I actually uploaded a I resaved my audio to a lesser compressed version, and it took it and worked. And then they got back with me later on and said that they'd actually fixed the problem, found out what it was, and that it should work next time. So I could go back to my regular old settings.

Sunny: 5:46

Yeah, your old settings, you old man. Hey, that sh Oh yeah, I got you again.

Bruce: 5:59

Well, um, anyway, um they got it fixed. Uh but what that story is, is that we uploaded it and wanted it to be played right after Halloween, and uh not because it was spooky, just because that was a time frame that we recorded at four. But no. It didn't work that way. It didn't come out till what, Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week, which was what uh the third or fourth, which wasn't no big deal. I mean it still works. It was a good episode. It just kind of was a bummer for us. But, you know, our scheduling kind of went off rail here lately. We was trying to get one out every weekend and put it, you know, upload it and get it out on Monday of the following week, and that was kind of a our tradition. We'd either do it on a Friday or Sunday, and you know, sometime there on that weekend we'd get it uploaded. However, since I've semi-retired, get that word semi, they're working me c crazy hours and almost as much as I was when I was full time working. And that has really threw the scheduling off the rails. And I'm not sure, you know, like today, it is Wednesday the twelfth, and we're just now getting set down to try to record again. Uh it's really crazy. And I'm gonna work this coming weekend. So I'm gonna hurry up, try to get this one together and if I get it edited and everything posted, uh then the the hosting page will work right, we hope. And we'll get it out. And then I don't know when the next one will be. Uh it's just really hard to get this thing going. And that was one of the main reasons I wanted to semi-retire so I could actually work on my podcasts. I wanted to be able to do more research, I call it homework, be able to produce a little bit better of a quality listen at car. Quality podcast or episode anyway. But uh right now we're not doing very well.

Sunny: 8:29

Oh, you can say that again.

Bruce: 8:32

Right now we're not doing very well.

Sunny: 8:35

I didn't mean it. You didn't have to.

Bruce: 8:38

Oh yeah, I had to.

Sunny: 8:40

All right, there you go. Everybody, he's a little weird.

Bruce: 8:45

A little? No. Okay.

Sunny: 8:48

You're a lot weird.

Bruce: 8:51

Okay. Well, I am a bum.

Sunny: 8:54

Yeah, you're the biggest bum of all.

Bruce: 9:00

Okay. Don't you don't have to go that far. You really don't. We'll we'll get it worked out. I told everybody in the past, and I think I had it on the last two episodes, the scheduling will line itself out right after the first of the year, I'm pretty sure, because it always slows down, and then they'll be cutting the hours a little bit, and that will give me more time to do my thing, you know? But right now with the holidays, anybody that's ever been in retail knows what I mean with the holidays. You're hitting it hard. Full time, buddy, even if you're not. Well, I was uh going through, you know, news as I always do, and there was an article that caught my eye. Uh the headline was 25 years in space. And I thought, that's kind of strange because it's been longer than that. Well, I went and read the article, and it was specifically talking about manned in space and the International Space Station, which was put up there on November the 2nd, 2000. Now it was commissioned by Ronald Reagan back in 1984, I believe. It has been up and people was in it living since 2000, which is this is 2025, November the second, past, which made it 25 years. But I do take Go ahead.

Sunny: 10:38

You take what? Take it home, take it to the river, what?

Bruce: 10:43

Well, I just take a little bit of I want to take that to the cleaners. That's what I'm saying. No. It uh sounds good on the face of it, but what most people don't realize was the Mirror space station was launched back in February 20th, 1986, and it was manned. In fact, we had Americans that went up there and stayed for a while. I think a thousand days total, maybe. Uh, don't quote me on that. You'd have to look it up. The reason I me m mention the mirror and remember it is because it was before that 25-year mark. And I uh I do a lot of radio, used to do a lot more radio um communications, amateur radio, and I got to communicate with the mirror space station a lot. In fact, you could look up my call sign back in the day when the internet was first going, and you could see my call sign connecting to the mirror space station. They had a log on the internet. Not anymore. I went and looked it back up just to see if I could find it, and there was pages and pages and pages of other stuff, but the search engines no longer do it like they used to. I mean, you could type something in and it would actually bring that specific thing up. But now if it's not uh paid for by a search engine company or you know, hit the uh what do they call that SEO's uh lot, then it won't come up. I mean, it just won't do it. So it wouldn't come up anymore. But to make a long story longer.

Sunny: 12:41

Oh, you're silly, buddy. Silly. I got something for ya.

Bruce: 12:50

Who said you could push my buttons?

Sunny: 12:53

Oh, I pushed them all right.

Bruce: 12:56

Okay, yeah. You're not gonna aggravate me. Do I? Well, that's probably true too. But anyhow, um yeah, so I mirror has a special place in my heart and my memory, because uh I got to communicate with it. I did the International Space Station a couple times, but it wasn't as much fun. I don't know why. But with the mirror, I actually got to communicate with him quite a few times, a couple times with voice, and then many times with digital. But anyhow, they were there first in the uh space station world, I'll put it that way. And so it's been longer than 25 years with man being up there in space and staying. Now we had manned orbits before that, which was a lot before that. So I'm not sure that 25 year mark is exactly what they're saying, but it is 25 years for the International Space Station. So there you go.

Sunny: 14:11

Now that you bore everybody to death about your radio communications.

Bruce: 14:20

Well, it's still about the space station, 25 years as of November the second, twenty twenty five.

Sunny: 14:29

All right. I'll I'll give you that, Bruce, but let's keep it down to a minimum yeah, okay.

Bruce: 14:38

Oh, listen to you. No, not okay, because that's what we do on this podcast. We talk.

Sunny: 14:46

Oh, you talk, I have to listen.

Bruce: 14:52

Ooh, wee, you're on a row.

Sunny: 14:54

Yep, the sun makes me feel good. You know, I've got winter depression. No sun, depressed, sunshine, happy.

Bruce: 15:04

I think that's probably about 90% of Americans or people, period. Uh believe it or not, we rely on the sun more than most people realize. Um, I kind of agree. Oh. Wait, mark it on the calendar, guys. It's November the twelfth, eleven forty-six AM, and Sunny agrees with me.

Sunny: 15:30

Well, you don't have to be a smart aleck about it.

Bruce: 15:34

No, but I am.

Sunny: 15:36

Yeah, that's for sure. Did you hear that? He admits it.

Bruce: 15:42

Yeah. Hey, a bit of neat, cool information is the Aurora has been visible most of the United States, uh, all the way down to Texas, Arizona, Alabama, um, here in Illinois, Missouri. I mean, I've I've seen a lot of social media um posts with pictures showing the uh aurora. What has happened was there has been a double CME strike, which produced a big severe storm, and that hit on the 11th yesterday, and there's one more heading this way, supposed to hit today. Now, I don't know if it's hit yet, but that's gonna produce another Aurora storm. So we should be able to see that one too. But if you got out there and got a chance to see that, bless you, because it's it was beautiful. I had to work, and I got home and I was tired and I had to come to bed early. But look out. Maybe there's gonna be some more auroras tonight, which by the time you hear this, you the chances are gone. But I wanted to talk about it because it's really beautiful.

Sunny: 17:01

Yeah, I got to look at him. I didn't have a camera because I don't want one and I don't know how to work one and blah blah blah.

Bruce: 17:10

But I got to see him. Well, that's cool. I'm glad you got to, man. I didn't know that. You didn't tell me that last night. Well you didn't ask. Well, touche. I didn't. I guess I should have. Well, let's shift gears a little bit. I haven't gave a uh earthquake report in a while, and I'd like to give an update. I'm not gonna do a full pledge report, you know, the seven-day report like I normally do. However, la as of 11.7, that was when my last seven-day uh report I wrote down. Uh we had four six point oh and over earthquakes, uh, which the highest one was a six point three. It occurred in Afghanistan, and then we had uh six point one in Russia on that peninsula tip, you know, where we've had several and then we had two six point oh earthquakes also in Russia on that peninsula. And if we look at uh the latest report, which is seven days from today, um it brings up three major earthquakes, six point oh and over, all in Japan. We had as of eleven nine, a six point eight in Japan, and then eleven nine, we had another one, six point four, and then on eleven ten, we had a six point zero earthquake, which was uh really bad for Japan. I don't know if anybody heard about those, but we need to keep those people in our prayer. I may not uh be reporting on these earthquakes like I have been, but I am recording them, and they're on the USGS magnitude or the USGS webpage under all the magnitude uh selections. But I am keeping a record of 'em so I can go back and look at 'em later on. And it'd be kind of interesting. They've got a map there where you can look it up and see exactly where they're at. Um I wouldn't mind putting them on a different type map and seeing if there makes any difference. But that's either here or there. I just wanted to report on them since it's been a while. Now them CMEs I was telling you about were on their way and they hit on the 11th. And I don't know if any of that had anything to do with these earthquakes, like over in Japan. But I'm going to keep an eye on it and see. Now we're supposed to have that CME hit today or this evening. I'm not sure what time, but the effect will cause another aurora being seen, um, hopefully down here in the States. And we may see some more earthquake activity. We'll just have to watch out and see if it happens. It was such a beautiful day, or is a beautiful day, but I opened the window up in the studio here just to get some fresh air, you know? I don't like having it all closed up. What that means is you'll probably hear a lot more car noises go by. Bear with me. That's part of the studio, right? Live action.

Sunny: 21:06

You mean live noise. Noise, noise, noise.

Bruce: 21:12

Well, uh what is it? Uh one person's junks, another person's treasure, or some something to that effect.

Sunny: 21:22

I think you made that up.

Bruce: 21:24

No, I didn't. It's actually a saying from a long time ago. However, let's talk about something else.

Sunny: 21:33

Okay, let's talk about me, me, me, me, me.

Bruce: 21:41

Okay, boy. Attention sinker, are you?

Sunny: 21:46

No, not at all. I'm just wanting to talk about me, me, me, me, me, me.

Bruce: 21:53

Ah, okay. Well, we're not going to. Sorry.

Sunny: 21:58

Oh, I'm not surprised. You're selfish.

Bruce: 22:02

No, I've got other things and I'm sure our listeners don't really want to hear about you. Well, maybe they do. Have you asked? Oh, uh I've asked a lot of things, and nobody ever answers me, so I'm just gonna say nope, they don't want to.

Sunny: 22:19

Oh, thank you, everybody.

Bruce: 22:24

Okay. Anyhow, you know, there was an article that I run across. It's been a while now, and it just kind of struck me, and it's been in the back of my head, and it rolls around and comes up in my uh conscious being a lot. And uh I'll be at work, and it the thought of it hits me, and it's really bugging me, and I just think we ought to mention it here today. And the article was actually on a podcast two or three weeks ago, I don't remember exactly when. One of the podcasts I like to listen to mentioned it. It's uh the podcast is about podcast news, about you know, all things to do with podcast. And this article was about podcasting, but it was about podcasting in China, of all places. What they did on this podcast was mention the article that they had read and kind of said, hey, you know, China has introduced new regulation. And I listened to it and I thought, eh, that's kind of weird. And the more I thought about it, the more it bugged me. So I went and looked it up, and sure enough, it's real. And there's been a whole lot of articles written about it, which I thought that was kind of peculiar because it's in China, right? Uh most people don't really think much about China. However, if you stop and think about it, there's been a lot of news headlines and mentions about China here lately. I mean, about the president going all the way back to Biden and his son, on and on and on, all the time. China's in their headlines. And it's almost like they're a put-up enemy for us to worry and be concerned about. And I don't know how to take this article. There's several things about it, but let me read it to you. I went and looked it up, and the fake first place I run across it was on Facebook. Uh, it's called Technology's Innovation or Technology Innovation, and they posted an article about it, and I'm just gonna read part of it, so bear with me.

Sunny: 24:59

Oh, yeah. Bear with him. He can't read worth a hoot.

Bruce: 25:04

All right, thanks, Sunny. You're welcome. So this is how it begins. It says China has introduced a new regulation requiring social media influencers to prove their official qualifications before posting about sensitive topics such as medicine, law, education, or finance. Creators must show proof of expertise such as a degree, professional license, or certification to discuss these subjects online. According to the cyberspace administration of China, the CAC, the movie the MOVE, sorry, forgive me, the MOVE aims to combat misinformation and protect the public from false or harmful advice. Okay, did you catch that? To protect the public from false or harmful advice. From misinformation. There you go.

Sunny: 26:23

Well now, Bruce, protecting us from misinformation, that's pretty important. I mean, I don't want to be misinformed about anything, and I especially don't like lies or false information, bad advice. What's wrong with that?

Bruce: 26:43

Uh, there you go. That's on the surface, it sounds really good. And it really hit me wrong, and it took me several weeks of mulling it over before I started really getting into what was bugging me. And I'm slow about stuff like that, so it takes me a little while. But uh, let's break this down, let's take a little bit of time and break it down. First of all, this information comes from China, of all places, right? I don't know about you guys. Now, when I was growing up, everybody was taught that China was a backwards type of uh country, uh their people was uh mistreated and poor and blah, blah, blah. You know, you kind of get the picture I'm trying to describe. Now, most of us here recently, maybe not real recent, some people more than others and sooner than others, have discovered that information is probably probably not true. In fact, we uh have seen uh many social media posts and people over in China showing off their country. Now again, they may be hired to do this and to mislead us Americans. However, I don't believe that, but they show a different country than we've all been led to believe that China is or was. So that's the first thing that bugged me. All of a sudden we're hearing about China again, and China's people are made, wait a minute, what is it? To get a some kind of qualification, expertise in order to talk about certain subjects on social media. So that tells me China has social media very much like us, and we know that's true because of TikTok. Because TikTok was uh at one time we were able to see their TikToks and they were able to see ours. Now, once that all took place with our government taking over, you don't do that anymore. You can't see them and they can't see us. Huh. Isn't that interesting? Back to the subject. So China's people were having problems with what? Misinformation. Now that's very similar to what we've all been hearing over here. All our news media, the mainstream media, has been squawking and qualking and crying about misinformation. And not just in this country, England, UK, uh the whole UK, uh, Australia, uh, they're all cracking down on misinformation. And not just those countries, there's others, but most of them. The other countries are led by certain leaders that don't want any information at all leaked. But, you know, like America, UK, Australia, and there's several others that are supposedly free countries that have free information abiding everywhere, but yet they're having trouble with misinformation, just like China having it misinformation. So China is not uncommon the way we think they are. They have influencers, they have social media, and they have problems with misinformation. Now, misinformation could be misinformation in itself. And let me read this little subject matter about misinformation off of the American Psychological Association page. Misinformation and disinformation is the title. And it says Misinformation is false or inaccurate information getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead. The spread of misinformation and disinformation has affected our ability to improve public health, address climate change, maintain a stable democracy, and more. All right, that's the way they stand on that. And that's what all the countries are doing. Now what I have noticed, and I don't know if you've noticed, uh, all information can be shut off. All that information's on the social media, on the radio, on the TV, and I remember when I was young, uh we used to do a lot of CBing. And if somebody that was very nasty mouth and hateful was on there talking, we'd either just turn the channel and get on a different channel, or we would turn it off. Problem solved. They're gone. And you may say, well, I can't go anywhere. They're everywhere. Well, no, they're not everywhere, but they're all the places where you like to travel in your internet circle. And that's the same thing with China and their social media problems. And I go back to China, so I I think about China and I'm surprised because one, I didn't think China had that kind of situation, and every day I'm waking up to the fact that even though they have a different government, and sometimes that government takes away a lot of their rights, they still have people trying to live with new information, and they have social media and everything like we do here. And they're having to deal with misinformation. The problem is their government has chosen what information is correct and what information is wrong or misinformation. That's what we call communism. Or you can do it in another way. But what we're seeing in our country is that is taking place here. And it has been for years, and it ain't just because we got a new president and everybody hates him. No, it's been like that for years. The media that we think is telling us the truth is and has been paid for by people with deep pockets, and then people with deep pockets have connections with people that are in our government, and what is happening is they tell the newspapers that's what it used to be, or the TV shows or even the movies what to produce, what to say, what not to say, and that's the way it is. And you may not like hearing that, or you may not believe me, but if you think about it, you'll know it's true. They actually have controlled everything, and they've been controlling the history books and the education system for a long time, also, and we're just now waking up to that, and I say they, the pirates to be, the ones with the money, the ones that want us fighting amongst ourselves and not looking at them from what they're doing and what they're taking away and what they're controlling. So whether we're talking about China, the UK, Australia, Iran, any country, the ones that are in charge has always been controlling the information, what is to be said and not to be said, and they are labeling that information either misinformation or disinformation or accurate information. And the what you are accepting is based on what you believe and what you see and what you trust. And why I'm saying this is because that really bothered me when I first read that article. I thought, first of all, it just didn't sit right because of China. I'm thinking, why is China brought into our news media so much? Well, because they're using that as the beginning. They do it with everything. They're manipulating you into whether you're going to accept this misinformation story, and then they're going to twist it a little bit more and a little bit more before long. You're going to have to have a certain ID and certain age requirements to get on the internet, and uh that way they can track where you're at, what information you're seeing, what you're accepting. It's all part of the plan. It's just unfolding now, and we're just now starting to see it. I'm not saying there's not a problem with misinformation. There's always been people that would sit on the street corner and talk about something that they had no idea what they really was talking about. And then there was others that knew that they knew that the government was cheating, and they would tell people, and they would get carted off to jail either way, either one of them, because one didn't know what they was talking about and one really did. And they wanted to make sure they kept them both quiet. They don't want anybody coming out against the known powers. Never has changed, never will. We are living in a corrupt world. That's all I got to say about that. No, not really.

Sunny: 37:56

Oh, you never got all that. You got more and more and more.

Bruce: 38:02

Yep, I do. But anyhow, the point I'm trying to make today is because it took me a while to kind of figure out what was going on, but I'm hearing more and more. Even back several years ago, President Obama was talking about this, and then there was um, I think I even hit got that. Hang on.

President Obama: 38:30

And that's why I'm here today. On Stanford's campus in the heart of Silicon Valley, where so much of the digital revolution began. Because I'm convinced that right now, one of the biggest reasons for democracy's weakening is the profound change that's taken place in how we communicate and consume information.

Bruce: 38:53

This was taken in June 18, 2025.

President Obama: 39:01

Part of what we're gonna have to do is to start experimenting with new forms of journalism and how do we use social media in ways that reaffirm facts, separate facts from opinion. We want diversity of opinion, but we don't want diversity of facts. That I think is is the big one of the big tasks of social media. And by the way, it will require some government, I believe, uh some government uh regulatory constraints around some of these business models in a way that's consistent with the First Amendment.

Bruce: 39:45

That's just a clip of his speech he gave um talking about this misinformation problem. And it's been all the leaders have talked about it. I mean, President Trump has talked about the media and how they've lied. I mean, in fact, the BBC has recently just got in trouble, and two of their main heads of that company has resigned because they got caught lying. They took um video and audio of Trump's speech, and they took one part of it, and then they took another part that had been recorded about an hour later, spliced them together, and made it sound like he told everybody to go marching and fight and yell, and you know, that's not exactly what happened, but they made it sound like that's what he did. So that was proof of what he's been saying and what a lot of the leaders. Obama said it when he was president that there was misleading news media out there, and everybody's forgot about that. But you know, we are living in a society that has grown up with news coverage of everything, and we have accepted those as legitimate facts, but they're not normally that way. They're biased, they're controlled, and they are misleading the public. But the misinformation that they're wanting to squalch is not that. It's not the main objective that they're putting out. It's the people that are talking. And I don't know about you, but I've run across all kinds of people that are blabbing around, and if I don't like their message or I know they're just full of you know what, I'll walk away from it. And that's what we should do, whether it's on social media or YouTube or any of this misinformation that they're saying. However, they should have the right to put out opinions that is opposite of what our government is saying. There's the key. You know, what about the drugs? You know, there is a big, big, big riff right now with the vaccine makers and the vaccine responsibility. They took away their right, or no, that's not right. They took away the consumers' right to sue the vaccine makers if they did anything wrong and made people sick and made people die. They hid the fact that they were killing people and then they took away the r rights of our consumers to sue them for damages. Why? If the vaccine was so great, why? That's what I'm saying. The truth needs to be said, but when the truth is said, it is called misinformation, disinformation, and lies. Because they don't know they don't want us to spread the truth, and they don't want people to wake up. That's the whole point. And it doesn't matter if it's in China. China's leadership does not want people talking about them. They don't want people to realize what they are missing out on. Same thing in this country. They got us believing we're free. They have us believing that we are free and that we are living good and everything's great, and we just have problems with our money. No, that's not what's going on, folks. Sorry. If that's what you're believing, then there's something wrong. Stop, take a look, and really smell the roses because they're taking away your rights. They're working you nonstop. They're making sure you can't make enough money to make ends meet so you can't have enough time to think, to stop and talk and communicate. And when you do stop and talk, you're so stressed out that you're relieving yourself, whether it be with drugs, alcohol, sports, and you're not communicating with each other. And they do not want that to happen because they don't want you to figure out that they're against you. Well, they're making all their money, they're taxing you, and they're claiming that they're helping you. I don't know, I don't know if you guys can see it or not, but that's I seen that article and it just sat wrong with me, and I couldn't figure it out for a long time, and then I finally realized that it is misinformation, but it's not the people talking about the information that makes it misinformation. It's the leadership that is making it misinformation. And they're getting ready to do that here. They're getting ready to put people in charge of claiming, hey, that guy on social media media is dealing out misinformation. Well, who makes that decision? Well, the guy that has the degree. Well, how'd he get the degree? Well, he went to the school that charged him a whole bunch of money to give him a degree that they established was the right degree. Now he can go out and judge everybody else because he has that degree from that place that charge him that money. I don't know if you can see where I'm going with all that or not, but I'll uh I'll call it quits for now with that.

Sunny: 46:18

I think you should before you make people mad.

Bruce: 46:21

Well, I don't think I'm gonna make anybody mad because the people that listen to me are used to me. But I want everybody to realize that we are heading into a spot in this world world that uh is we better wake up. That's all I got to say, because it won't be long that they'll be making you, even in the states, have some kind of certification. They do the same thing with everything. Take hairdressers. Hairdressers have to get a certificate in most states, whether it's a license or a certification, saying they've had classes and they've furthered their education in order to cut hair and charge money for it. Uh drone operators. Now, if you're just gonna do it out for fun, that's one thing. But if you're gonna fly it and take pictures and make money, guess what? You gotta go take a class and get licensed. Yeah. Kind of weird how you can just fly it f without anything, but if you wanted to make money, you gotta get a license. Again, it's kind of strange how they control things. The key word is control. And I won't go into it very much more, but I just want everybody to realize how crazy it is and how much they have really started manipulating the misinformation story, and they're wanting everybody to realize, hey, they're giving you misinformation. We need to come in and control the situation to protect you. And you know, that's not what they're doing, they're just controlling everything. We don't need protected. I I know a lot of people, let me read something real quick. This is uh from the Facebook post that I read, um, this is some of the comments. This one gentleman says, I think this is a brilliant idea, partially at least, but I think I would do it slightly different. I would enable a system where a qualified person can have a badge or a verified icon on their account and post that they can't have unless they prove their credentials. This way people could still have an opinion without being silenced. But you wouldn't be able to post. I don't know. And then this other guy says, you know, people might see this as interference with people's freedom of speech, but it's actually a smart idea. It's China looking out for the mental health of their citizens, unlike some other countries I know. Really? Now you have to have somebody look out for your mental health. You can't make your own choice. There's the rub, there's the problem. We're not training people any longer to make choices based on truth and knowledge and how the heart feels. We're basing it on or we're training them to base it on what they're told is truth. Big difference. Control. This one gentleman says what it really means is that the government can control the narrative of said fields. There you go. That's what I'm trying to say. Without getting too much on the soapbox any more than I already have, I want everybody to realize that what we're seeing happening is more control. And it won't be long to till we have in this country also uh some kind of regulation where you have to have some kind of paperwork before you talk. And it's you think I'm funny. Don't don't even think that because we are heading that direction. It may not be today, but we're heading there. So uh if you don't agree with me, that's great. I'm glad you don't. If you do agree with me, I think that's great. But look into what I'm telling you and see for yourself and form your own opinion. That's what makes this work. If we don't form our own opinion, make our own mind up, and we let other people tell us what it needs to be, then we are always gonna be sheep, and we're never gonna break free. And that's what they want. That's what they expect, and that's what they're gonna get if you do that. Okay. So I'm gonna shut up now.

Sunny: 51:22

No, you're not. You're just talking, and you're gonna quit talking about that.

Bruce: 51:28

Well, that's true. We're gonna shift gears really quick, like. If you haven't seen it, it's kind of it's kind of wicked. I don't know how to explain it, but it deals with uh ghosts and funny things. It's kind of like X-Files, but it deals with Supernatural instead of UFOs. It gets really, really bizarre towards the last several episodes or seasons, I should say. It's a long-running show. But we've watched it here at this house several times. And they got me a book. It's called Supernatural, the official cookbook. Yeah. Burgers, pies, and other bites from the road. And uh when I got it, I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. I like apple pie, and that fits in perfect because um one of the guys on Supernatural loved apple pies. But when I opened it up, it does. It has recipes from the show's food. So if you fix one of the recipes, you get food from the show. But what was neat was it also has pictures from the show that goes along with the series, and that that made the book really cool. It's worth keeping and hanging on to because I can flip through here and see pictures that fit uh the mood of the the food you're getting ready to fix. So it's pretty cool. Anyway, I'm telling you that because I wanted a little bit lighter subject to shift to and get off of that deep, dark uh subject that we was in, even though that it's very important to talk about. It's not uh what we need to stay in. We need to jump out of it and get into something better. So if you've not watched Supernatural, I'm telling you right now, you need to go watch it and catch it. Don't live it and believe it for a fact. It's a fictional show, but it's got some fun stuff to it, man. You watch it, enjoy it. It's several seasons, and uh you can actually spend a lot of time watching every one of the seasons. That's for sure. Hey. On another subject, did you know that this last week, I think it was this just this last weekend, they had the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame uh induction party. Yeah. And they have some new inductees to the Hall of Fame, and I've got it pulled up. I want to read the list. Uh don't um if I don't pronounce something wrong or right, don't haunt me on it, okay? Uh the first one on the list. Bad company Carol K, Chubby Checker, Cindy Lauper, Joe Cocker, Lenny Warner, Warner, Nikki Hopkins, Outcast, Salt and Pepper, Soundgarden, Tom Bell, Warren Zavon, and the White Stripes. There's that complete list. What do you think about that, folks?

Sunny: 55:38

Well, I don't know about them, but that's pretty cool. I like some of those bands a lot.

Bruce: 55:47

Yeah, I like some of them also. Um, I like pretty well all of them, but some better than others. I really have enjoyed many of the groups that has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and I just enjoy music, some better than others, and I'm not just stuck on rock and roll. I like country, I like um classical. There's numbers of things I like, and there's probably a lot of music I haven't heard. Hey, there you go. That's the list for 2025. All right, and at the 2025 AI Day, that's right, I did. I said AI Day. Didn't know there was such a thing, but they unleashed or unveiled, revealed, however you want to say that, a second generation iron humanoid robot. Now this thing has been upgraded. It's uh powered by a solid state battery, and they're saying it's gonna greet customers in 2026. The engineer spent a year upgrading its movement control and balance systems to make it behave like a person navigating a busy street. The new version can walk, talk, and interact with people in real time. It stands five foot ten inches, weighs about 154 pounds, and it appears to be an average adult, but operates with far more precision. And I will include a picture on the chapter marker if you guys want to see it. We hope that you will find it interesting. I'm not sure how I like it or not, or whether I like it or not. Uh, it looks like a human being wrapped up in some kind of uh wrap without a face. So there you go. Well, I hope everybody enjoyed this episode. Um, it's been interesting, and I I think the sound is better. I won't be able to tell until somebody tells me uh I've really worked hard on the audio quality. I actually had a hard drive, I think I mentioned this, but I had a hard drive go down, and I've got a new solid state hard drive in my computer that is um running, up and running, and I've updated all my programs and put them on the new hard drive, which uh it seems to be running pretty good and pretty fast. However, I um had a few programs that I had on my small solid state drive, and I moved them over to that hard drive. And when I did, I had to uninstall them, reinstall them on that drive. And uh Audacity, the program I used to record and do the editing, um, it's acting weird now. It's um not acting the same as it did before, and I don't know how to explain it. It's it's just hard to explain, but it it's getting feedback sometimes when I have the USB uh button on where I can hear, you know, things from the computer, which it didn't do that before. I could leave it on and talk, and it didn't feed back, and then when I played something from the computer, I could hear it. And now I have to switch it back and forth on and off. And there's a few other quirks, it works good. Um, I don't know what changed, something changed. When I did all that, but I think the sound's good. Anyway, I've been working on my computer system and working on the audio too, and I hope it still sounds good. You'll have to let me know if there's anything weird going on. But this took place after I had the problem with the AI on my bus sprout hosting page. It's uh all been fixed now, hopefully. Anyway, thanks for tuning in and being with us. I hope you enjoyed the episode, and we will have more to come. I am Bruce.

Sunny: 1:00:41

And I am Sunny, and we are going to say good afternoon to everybody.

Bruce: 1:00:48

Yeah. We hope you enjoyed the whole day, and I hope you get something out of this podcast. Uh that one portion from the China talk has really been bothering me for a couple weeks. I had to get it out, had to share it, and I didn't do a very good job. In fact, part of the rant got erased. I hit the wrong button and erased part of it, so you didn't have to put up with the whole rant. But there was more of it, believe me. But I I won't put put you through that anymore. I just kind of cut it off and ended it, uh, so you wouldn't have to put up with that. But it's important. What we see coming down the pike is um not good if we don't put a stop to it, if we don't just stand up and talk about it. And uh there's so many people out there that want somebody to control the situation. They don't want to have to make a decision, they don't want to have to choose anything in life, they just want to be led. And that's fine. Go off somewhere and do that, but there's a lot of people, a lot of people that want to create and do things and be something and be part of something, and there there's young people growing up to do that, and we need to allow that. We don't need them to be growing up into a world that is manipulating them and controlling them. I'm gonna get off of it, guys. I'm sorry.

Sunny: 1:02:33

You better you better get off of it.

Bruce: 1:02:37

I am. I'm gonna leave it with this episode, and then the next episode will be totally something else I can gripe about.

Sunny: 1:02:44

Ha ha yeah, you uh you said that right.

Bruce: 1:02:48

Yeah, I did, I know. But anyhow, this is the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast, and I am Bruce.

Capella: 1:02:54

And I am Sunny. There are many ways you can show your support for the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast. First, simply keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and maybe send good vibes too. Second, spread the word. Tell your friends about us, even the ones with questionable taste in podcasts. Third, share your talents. If you have skills in technology, art, or anything else that could help us, we'd love to hear from you. And finally, consider supporting us financially. Equipment, hosting, and website costs add up, and any contribution is greatly appreciated. We promise not to spend it all on rubber duckies, unless you want us to. Thank you for your support.

Bruce: 1:03:35

All right. Thanks again, everybody. We really do appreciate it. We thank you for being here, and we hope you share this with somebody. If you can help us with anything, creativity, sharing the podcast with somebody else, anything, we do appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Sunny: 1:03:54

All right, I think that's a very good fact, and I appreciate everybody too. Take care, have a good week. We'll see you on the round, or see you next time, or see you sometime. How's that?

Bruce: 1:04:08

Hey, we will be here, you be here, and we'll all be here. How's that sound? Until next time, may the Father's blessings and love go with you. 73, everybody.