Just Two Good Old Boys
We never mean any harm!
Just Two Good Old Boys
116 Just Two Good Old Boys
A seemingly innocuous conversation about winter driving techniques quickly transforms into a masterclass on physics, decision-making under pressure, and how false confidence leads to dangerous outcomes. This metaphor beautifully frames our subsequent deep dive into global flash points and economic shifts reshaping our world.
The shocking escalation between nuclear powers India and Pakistan—featuring the largest aerial dogfight since WWII—highlights how regional conflicts can spiral with frightening speed. While a ceasefire was announced during our recording, the pattern of one-sided peace declarations without substantive agreement mirrors dynamics in Ukraine and Israel, revealing how "ceasefire politics" often serve strategic rather than peaceful purposes.
We dissect the recent Iberian Peninsula blackout, correcting widespread misinformation blaming green energy when the true culprit was a single point of infrastructure failure. This leads to an illuminating comparison with Texas's independent power grid, complete with current statistics and expert analysis of how energy markets actually function beneath simplified political narratives.
Evidence mounts that Trump's controversial tariff strategy is achieving its intended effect, with manufacturing returning to American shores across pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and consumer electronics sectors. The economic reshoring is happening faster than analysts predicted, suggesting we're witnessing a fundamental restructuring of global supply chains rather than merely temporary adjustments.
The selection of the first American Pope reveals fascinating tensions within Catholicism between progressive politics and traditional doctrine. Our examination of Pope Leo's seemingly contradictory positions on social issues provides a window into larger cultural conflicts shaping religious institutions worldwide.
Woven throughout is our consistent philosophical framework balancing individual liberty with social responsibility—a perspective increasingly rare in polarized discourse. Join us for these vital conversations and share your thoughts about where these developments might lead next.
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Howdy Ben. How are you, gene? I am well. I am back from the swamp, mmm. Louisiana, mmm, a little more north, mmm. I was in DC this last week I was in Richmond. Yeah, exactly, oh man, that town. It just every time I go there frustrates the living hell out of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I had to.
Speaker 2:Hookers in that town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's that. I had to fly into BWI because I was meeting. I had some meetings in Maryland and Hanover, and so that means I can't take a gun. I am at the mercy of whatever is happening. Anyway, then I had meetings in Reston, so I had to drive down to Reston and that's just not a pleasant drive, especially with DC traffic and everything else. Yeah, traffic there always sucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy, ironically, some of the best roads that when I've been on the sea in the, when I've been in DC, I've been during snow storms because the locals don't know how to drive in snow.
Speaker 1:Well, not that you probably do either, and they just don't.
Speaker 2:Dude, I lived in Idaho for 10 years.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, I lived in Idaho for 10 years. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, you got that snow experience. But it was always funny to me because when I used to fly out there and it was forecast to be snowing, I always got a car with the skinniest tires possible. And the rental guys never understood. They're like well, don't you want like a 4x4? I'm like no, four by four is stop, exactly like every other car in snow. What I want is something that has the highest pounds per square inch on tires and that way you can actually maintain a better guidance instead of floating over the fucking snow. And big fat, chunky tires. Big fat, chunky tires. Uh, but you know, most people that live mid-coastal don't have that type of experience. Where, in minnesota much like idaho, probably, you know we got like good six months worth of snow driving experience every year. So you, you start figuring out. It's like, hey, there's a reason that the corvettes are spinning out, but but these little tiny Honda Civics are going in a straight line Front-wheel drive helps as well.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Four-wheel drive is also, I think, beneficial.
Speaker 2:I think, four-wheel drive is beneficial when there's patches, because there's some tires that can have grip, but when you're going on fresh snow just falling right in front of you, it really doesn't make any difference.
Speaker 1:And when there's black ice, it doesn't matter at all. None of it, you're just fucked.
Speaker 2:This is an old saying but it's so true and I remember this.
Speaker 2:I haven't been back to minnesota in many years, but uh, they always say when you look at the side of the road in the storm storm, you'll always notice a lot more four by fours on the side of the road than two-wheel drive cars. And it's because guys think that four by four gives them them superior traction and it doesn't because it, while you can accelerate better if there's a patch of snow on one side of tire, on one side of your vehicle, but nothing on the other side, your braking is exactly the same as any, every other vehicle, and so that extra kind of confidence that you get in a 4x4 tends to actually work against you when the road conditions are horrible. So it's a different thing when you're trying to slowly creep somewhere where 4x4 is actually going to help you, where the traction isn't going to get lost because the tires spin. But when you're talking about going on the highway during snow, it's very equalized and the 4x4 guys all seem to think that they have hey, I got a 4x4, I can go faster. What?
Speaker 1:no, you can't well, uh, so I'll tell you a story, um, and then we've got a ton to get into, but we were off a week because I was sick, you were sick, and there was a DC trip involved. So you know, therefore, it is what it is. It is what it is, but my parents were moving back to Texas from Idaho and my dad and I were on our way down. We had his truck, and this was January. I had been up there for Christmas break and we're coming down. You know it, it's january.
Speaker 1:So we're going through wyoming and it's a whole big thing, right, a bad snowstorm closing roads right behind us, right, as we're going through stuff and I'm plugging along, I'm steady state driving and this I think it was an Audi or a BMW blows past us. Right, I'm doing like 30 on the interstate because it's icy, it's nasty, I'm not going fast, I'm towing a trailer. I've got a very overloaded truck. You know, allegedly, yes, anyway. So I just he blows past me. You know, just like what the fuck are you doing, dude? Why are you going so slow? And a few miles later he spun off in the ditch.
Speaker 1:And I start braking, trying to stop to go help him, and after a mile and a half of braking and not really slowing down a lot, I just gave up, because that's how icy. It was Right, it was just enough snow on top that you could maintain right, left, but there was no just you. You don't slam on your brakes in that instance.
Speaker 2:There is no way. I I had a somewhat similar incident in Minnesota last few years. I lived there. I had a Subaru WRX STI. I was Fun little car. Yes, I sold the car because I knew it would kill me if I didn't, but probably the funnest car I've ever had.
Speaker 2:But there was a moment where I was going down the highway that was after snow, it was very, very icy roads and the guy in the left lane was going like 30 miles an hour and I was getting annoyed by this because I've got a car that's probably better suited to this than a lot of other cars. But I got tired of following him and he wouldn't leave the left lane, which was annoying. So I got in the right lane and I started passing this fucker and I'm you know I'm passing him at a good like two miles an hour faster than he's going. So it's a slow motion pass right. I'm not zooming past him, I'm closing in on him to where you can literally see that I'm getting like a foot closer. And then finally I'm just ahead of him and I'm looking forward and probably about 100 yards ahead of him and I'm looking forward and probably about 100 yards ahead of me is another car, but he is clearly going slower than both of us and I don't have the room yet to get in front of the guy in the left lane. So I'm like, uh-oh, I'm doing the math in my head. I'm like, at the rate of acceleration I will not have enough room to get in front of him. Even cutting them off I won't have enough room. And that's assuming he's not accelerating, because he wants to be a dick and doesn't want me in front of him and this car.
Speaker 2:So it's at some point, probably like 60 yards before the car in front of me is, you know, like I've gotten to within 60 yards of the guy in front of me. I realized, okay, this isn't going to work. I need to start slowing down. So I squeeze the brakes I don't slam on the brakes, I squeeze the brakes gently and nothing happens. Little squeeze the brakes gently and nothing happens. And I keep squeezing the brakes more. And I have something I've had very, very few times in my life I have a four-wheel lockup oof I.
Speaker 2:I thought you said you crapped yourself, but I guess that that came after the what I get.
Speaker 1:I was gonna guess that you said you crapped yourself but I'm guessing there's no crap involved.
Speaker 2:But I have a four-wheel lockup and I know I have a four-wheel lockup because my heart's beating about 140 beats per minute.
Speaker 2:Right, my hands are gripping the wheel and holding it exactly steady, pointing forward, because I don't want to also spin out and start swirling around. But my car, even though my wheel is straightforward, my foot's on the brake and I've got, obviously, anti-lock brakes really good brake system on there but the wheels are not moving because the car is just sliding and it's slowly starting to point slightly to the right and and while I'm holding the wheel straight. And so I'm like okay, what are my options here? Because I ditch? I'm, but I can't get in the ditch because I have no traction, right, that's the thing. So what I'm seeing is I'm getting closer and closer to the guy in front of me. This is all moving traffic. No one stopped, but the guy in the left lane is probably going about 35. At this point I've slowed down from going 37 down to also going 35. The guy in front of me is probably going 30. So it's all in slow motion because the differences between our speeds are not that great but I'm slowly starting to feel.
Speaker 2:Okay. The guy on my left is starting to get ahead of me still not far enough ahead of me that I can get behind them either. Not that I have any traction to get, because I'm sliding and I'm literally watching myself as the left corner, the driver's side corner of the front of my car, is getting closer and closer to the bumper of the car in front of me. But again, the difference in our speeds is, by that point, less than one mile an hour. So it's all like slow motion where I can still see I'm faster than him. I'm getting closer, I'm like, well, I mean, I'm gonna bump into him. There's nothing to be done here.
Speaker 2:Um, the you know, I I've. I don't want to also just let go of the brake right now, because if one of my wheels catches, I'm gonna start spinning with one car just in front of me and another car to my left. I, if I'm gonna hit something, I'd rather hit one car than two. So I kind of am prepared mentally for it. And I see his bumper disappear from my view because my hood is now, you know, not letting me look down far enough. So they're clearly my bumper and his bumper are about to touch I'm bracing for impact there and that that moment feels like it's hanging in the air for about 10 minutes, because time slows down when you're in situations like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your journal is pumping my heart's pumping, my adrenaline glands putting out everything it can. Uh, it's a you know fight or flight, but neither is possible at this point. You're an observer in the situation the slow motion crash and I don't see his bumper and it feels like it lasts forever. But I also don't feel anything and I slowly see his car start the guy in front of me pulling further from me as well as the guy to my left. Now it's pulled far enough away to where that lane is free and I'm I just do nothing and in about.
Speaker 2:Probably realistically it was probably 30 seconds, but it felt like about 10 minutes yeah, my car finally slows down to about 10 miles an hour, at which and there's no cars around me at which point I feel comfortable enough letting go of the brake. And as soon as I let go of the brake, I get the little jerky thing to where you know. It finally starts catching traction enough to where the direction of the wheel makes an impact. I straighten out it. It probably took me another half hour before I felt comfortable enough, driving at 35, 40 miles an hour, because I was just like I'm I'm just driving slow on the highway in the right lane, not gonna pass a damn thing, while my brain is processing, like you know, in the parallel.
Speaker 1:How close did I just come to dying?
Speaker 2:How the fuck did, and it was. I didn't even feel like I would have died, but I knew that I would have been the cause of at least one and possibly two car accident Like at the worst case I would have hit one guy in the bumper Obviously my fault. I was obviously being an idiot, going faster in the right lane than I should have been and trying to pass somebody on the right in icy conditions. I mean, there's like a lot of stupidity that happened. And by uh, had I believed in god, I would say by the grace of god, I would you know I was this close to being in that accident. It didn't happen, obviously pure randomness in the universe, but still it's one of those moments that really kind of makes you pucker. Now, no pooping involved, like I said, not my thing, but boy, was every orifice tight in my body. At that point I can imagine yeah, yeah, it was crazy, because there there was shit that I got away with in that card that I shouldn't have my one of my also crazy, fun experiences. Then we'll move on to politics.
Speaker 2:In that car was and again, me being an idiot and an asshole. I was behind a guy making a right turn. He was too slow for my liking and this is not in the winter, this is during normal weather, right? Uh, too slow for my liking making the right turn. So I I hit the gas, spun all four wheels and I did a three quarter sideways turn. I basically drifted through from a right turn of that light is through the left lane and back into the right lane in front of this guy.
Speaker 2:But while I was drifting, the nose of my car was actually pointing diagonally right. So here's a normal dude minding his own business making a right turn and there's some crazy idiot that is making a lot of noise, that is passing him in the left lane sideways, while his car is pointing at my car. That's the impression from the other guy's side that I'm describing. So, yeah, and the car totally let me do that Like, that car had the most controllable drift of any car I've ever driven. Well, I mean, that's what it was made for. It was insane dude. It just it liked to be going diagonally all the time. Yeah, you went through one set of tires about every 10,000, but oh my god, which is just a crazy, crazy amount yeah, yeah, yeah, I had that car.
Speaker 2:When I bought it I had the mechanic that worked on the wrc but actually competed in rallies work on my car, like as soon as I took delivery. I didn't get to play with my car for three months until, uh, after buying it, until everything was finished so new exhaust, uh, new engine, new turbos that one not a full engine but basically a whole shit ton of different upgrades that were slapped on that card. Uh, it sounded just like the that car in Need for Speed video game. It sounded just like that. You have the whooshing sound from the turbo wastegate.
Speaker 1:It had the yeah as soon as you let out the gas. The yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:The only thing I didn't do in that car and thank god I didn't was nitrous, because I thought about it. Could have done it, uh, technically legal, um, as long as you don't actually use it, but you could have it on the car.
Speaker 1:But uh, probably in that some bullshit about our laws. I know you can have it in there, just don't use it yeah, it's for uh off-road use only.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's for track yeah, I love that car and I remember when I sold it, the guy that bought it clearly wanted the same exact experience. And uh, and he's like, yeah, yeah. So now you know, have you taken this off road? I'm like, well, I've done a few rallies with it, but not as a rally competitor. I was like one of the guys volunteering at rallies. So I was, I would go down the same track, but not at speed. Uh, just for you know, marking things and checking distances and whatnot, and so not really. And so I remember the guy calls me up after I sold the car. He's like so, uh, we had the car up on the lift and there seemed to be, uh like corn stalks that were stuck to the underside of the car.
Speaker 2:So we were wondering what that was. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's not a road route. No, no, no, I went hunting. That's uh, that's just driving over farmland, but you know slow speeds, it wasn't like I was jumping over shit. It's pretty funny. The guy was definitely freaked out. He was like why is there corn stalks stuck to the other side of your car?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's happened to me more than once in my truck, not necessarily corn stalks, but you know lots of other stuff so minnesota, you know it's corn's, about the only thing that grows out there yeah, who plants animals?
Speaker 2:ever no one wants to be there, so understandable yeah, well, it's just, it's the the crop that the government pays the most for, uh-huh so so all right let's switch gears.
Speaker 1:We haven't talked since spain and portugal went into the dark uh, or india and pakistan started world war three yeah, yeah. So which one do you want to start with?
Speaker 2:um, why don't we start with the india and pakistan, because I've been kind of more up to speed on that, okay yeah, dude, largest dog fight since world war ii yep over 125 aircraft you know we've been sitting here watching russia and ukraine and israel and doing our usual western not really involved, but love to be commenting shit and completely not. On my bingo card was World War III over religion and specifically happening not in the Middle East but in the what would we call India, in the sub-Indian continent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the sub-continent of India. India and Pakistan are both in the same sub-continent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was not on my bank card, and now that Turkey's involved, it's like Jesus Christ. This could really spin out of control.
Speaker 1:Whoa, whoa, whoa. How is Turkey involved?
Speaker 2:Oh, Turkey's sending troops. Now to Pakistan.
Speaker 1:Oh, I had not heard this.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:That's a thing. Yep, they're the one, yeah, and NATO and we're. This is where NATO is just fucking dead dude, because we're probably going to come in on the side of India.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know that we are, because Russia and India have a treaty, so we may come in on the side of Pakistan on this one.
Speaker 1:No, no way. No way, because Pakistan's backed by China. There's just no way.
Speaker 2:China would like to get more territory from Pakistan, for sure, yeah. So if they want to sell territory, I'm sure China would be on their side Again, the best way to say it is this was not on my freaking bingo card man. I have nothing to cross off here.
Speaker 1:It wasn't on mine either, but you know, Damn yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think now India does seem to be having the better victories and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, India's military is far superior to Pakistan's, which is part of what's kept Pakistan in check for a very long time. They have more number. It's really Ukraine, russia writ large again because in a war of attrition, pakistan loses.
Speaker 2:There's just no way the difference?
Speaker 1:pakistan allegedly has nukes uh, pakistan does have nukes, and so does india, but they're pretty small ones would pakistan or india use their nukes? Uh, yes, if, if delhi or islam or um chip. What's the capital of pakistan? Is it islamabad? Islamabad yeah, yeah. So if either one were threatened or attacked, then yes, I think so well, I mean, they are attacked, they're attacking each other.
Speaker 1:So right, but no one's going after the capital right now, no one's. They're fighting over cashmere. They're yeah, they're doing this in an escalatory way in a in some sense, but, like india's strikes into pakistan have been, quote unquote, targeted at terrorist locations, not even military targets. Yeah. So, you know, other than like the dog fight over cashmere, um, I don't know thing seems kind of limited. So we'll see, we'll see. I I am under no illusions that this isn't very scary and that it gets been out of control. I get that, but at the same time, yeah, you know, they both have nukes, they have that deterrent, they both have strong geopolitical alliances with other countries, and the other reason why I feel like we'd come in on the side of India is Trump's relationship with Modi, right. So I don't see the whole Russian BRICS alliance being an issue, but if Turkey is coming in on the side of Islamabad, we're coming in the side of Delhi.
Speaker 1:That's a conflict inside NATO that I don't see how it was resolved yeah, turkey should have never been invented to nato in the first place. Obviously the reason they did it well is they wanted to control the black sea yeah, but before erdogan, before erdogan, nato turkey was a very. It was the most western of the islamic states.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:There was no hijabs at all in turkey back in the day yeah, I mean when you know when turkey set up, when attatürk set up, turkey it's you know it was nothing but a normal secular state.
Speaker 2:So do you know what caused this whole thing?
Speaker 1:Because that's what I've been not very clear on is what started this Civilians getting killed, tourists getting killed in Kashmir.
Speaker 2:Ooh Like there's a video of a guy zip lining Like Indian tourists in Pakistanistan.
Speaker 1:Uh well, it's the indian controlled region of kashmir that kicked this off, and there there's a video of a guy zip lining and he's riding the zip line, not even thinking, and if you have the audio up and stuff, you can hear the gunfire and you can wow, see civilians dropping below him. As he's just zip lining through it, he doesn't get shot at. So yeah, there was a supposed jihadi terrorist attack inside Kashmir and then India retaliated and Pakistan retaliated to their retaliation. And here we are, oh, oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, india apparently has bombed. I'm looking online here, as close as 10 kilometers from Islamabad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Pakistan has sent drones in, and yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh, pakistan has sent suicide drones in, and yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that is wild. It was mostly. I've been just seeing videos of their border, with the crazy, crazily dressed, uh border guards, high stepping, you know, trying to outdo each other with how high their feet go. Um, this was not something I was expecting to happen. I I knew obviously neither country liked each other, but, uh, but didn't expect this. Now already, um, our boy, boy Vance, is getting blamed on this because not only did he show up and then the Pope died, but he showed up to India two weeks ago and then this whole conflict started.
Speaker 2:That is so fucking funny so apparently Vance is flying around the world starting war.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all kinds of events happening so all right, we got to talk about the new pope. Oh god yeah first american pope. But before we do that, the woke pope, yes, well, tbd, tbd not really.
Speaker 2:We've got his tweets. We know exactly what he said about blm and trump yeah, and we also have what he said about trans.
Speaker 1:So I don't know, give and take, why. What do you say about trans? I didn't see that. Uh, he is not pro trans.
Speaker 1:So, okay, I'll have to go pull up the tweets, but before we do that, uh, so adam reached out to me on uh last week while you know, the whole iberian peninsula was yeah, black right and he talked about it on the show, so I'm not going to recap what I said to him all a whole, whole ton, but we do have some differentiated listenership so I think it's worth covering. Yep and zayhan came out today and while he gets a lot of shit technically wrong, he actually admitted what I said. What I said to adam. Um, this was not a issue of, uh, you know, a geomagnetic storm or anything else. They had a. They had a main interconnect that fed the Iberian Peninsula from France go down. That interconnect carried about 15 gigawatts of energy, so a big transmission line. That 15 gigawatts sudden loss was enough to put them in the black, and the reason why is because they were 80% reliant on green energy at that point in time.
Speaker 1:But what I would say is hey man, in Texas, if we suddenly lost 15 gigawatts of energy, we wouldn't survive it either. So there are a lot of politicizes, there's a lot of people politicizing this and people are saying, oh see, green tech doesn't work. They're saying this or saying that Hold on Time out. This was a massive power loss. Should you be reliant on foreign countries and importing power? You know that you do you boo, I wouldn't be it. Texas, we have our grid. I'll say there's really no way for us to lose that. But if you've got basically one transmission station pulling in that much energy into your grid that you're reliant on, you have a single point of failure and if anything goes wrong, if there's a blip there, you're fucked.
Speaker 2:Um just to give people if the us has a blip like this.
Speaker 1:Texas is still okay, though, right well, I mean so texas, in ercot, we are isolated, we have our own grid, so there are three grids in the united states.
Speaker 2:There's the eastern grid, there's the western grid and then there's texas yeah, because we're getting ready for the secession anyway, so this is a good idea we have that.
Speaker 1:This started way, way, way before. As soon as there were any federal regulations put on power, texas went. You know, we're gonna do our own thing and we're not gonna cross our borders. So therefore, feds, fuck off. Um, literally that's we. We have had an independent grid for forever, but regardless, um. So the eastern grid, western grid you have these generation pools. Um, a loss of 15 gigawatts in any one of those pools is going to be pretty hard to survive, but theoretically possible. Uh, depending on how fast and what indicators you have, and so on. Um, but inside texas, I'll tell you, our emergency action levels do not start until we get down to 3,000 megawatts of spinning reserve. So 3,000 megawatt loss, if we're low on margin, can put us in the black On a typical day, like I'll go to ERCOT.
Speaker 2:When you say they do you mean Texas or the US?
Speaker 1:I'm talking about Texas right now, because I think that's a good analogy. So right now, our actual capacity is 65,092 megawatts. Our actual demand is 46,670 megawatts.
Speaker 2:Our actual demand is 46 670 megawatts right now, so you get 47 149 okay, anyway, we have an operating reserve margin right now of 11 947 megawatts.
Speaker 1:So if we lost 15 gigawatts, which would you know, 11 gigawatts, or we'll call it 12, you know, we would be negative three gigawatts.
Speaker 2:And if we lost here is is we're operating at 49 on solar right now okay, I'm talking about ercot entirety.
Speaker 1:Anyway, if we lost that 15 gigawatts, we would be in the black right now.
Speaker 2:Done.
Speaker 1:And Texas black start. It's a much bigger grid than the Iberian Peninsula and we don't have a whole bunch of interconnects with other grids, so the European grid is all tied together. That's much more analogous to, like the Eastern or Western grid.
Speaker 1:Texas we're an island here, so we have DC ties to the East, we have DC ties to the West, we have DC ties to Mexico, but those are small DC ties. We can only import so much power. So we would be in a full black start situation versus being able to pull power from other areas. Black start situation versus being able to pull power from other areas. If what happened to the iberian peninsula happened in texas, we would be weeks to a month yeah, yeah, there would probably be some commissions asking questions at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so anyway, the the entire point is being reliant on imported power, not having distributed power. So the texas grid does not have this issue where we have a single point that is that large, you know, our largest generation stations are a couple gigawatts yeah, um, that's it and that, and usually that's more than one unit and usually you typically wouldn't use lose one unit at a time. The largest single unit that I have seen in person is Zimmer. It's the nuke that never was. It's about 1500 megawatts on a single boiler, but that is very rare.
Speaker 1:Usually you have, you know, combined cycles that are two or three, two or three jet engines, basically on one HERSIC and you can lose either jet engine and you're still going, and then you know, or a big coal unit that's a thousand megawatts, you know one gigawatt ish in capacity, but you've got a couple of them. So we don't have that single point of failure. And really the question is, how did the grid operator in spain and portugal and the iberian Peninsula ever think transporting and relying on that much energy from a single source was a good idea?
Speaker 2:Well, because energy is evil, is the answer. Yeah, that's how they make decisions.
Speaker 1:I think the real answer to this is you know, what did communists and socialists use before the candle?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Electricity right?
Speaker 2:I don't know that's good, yeah, a little bit of a randy and joe. So okay, I still have a question. What the hell? How is half our power coming from solar right now?
Speaker 1:uh, because of the pricing do we like?
Speaker 2:I didn't realize there was enough solar to provide. What is it?
Speaker 1:20, 23 megawatts oh yeah, uh, our installed solar capacity in the state of texas is a huge, but the work.
Speaker 2:I've seen the windmills. Where the hell are the solar farms?
Speaker 1:west texas. Um, so my, so my company we built back when I was working for a power company. We had one of the largest solar farms in the state of Texas, but most of our solar is actually fairly small. So up into that Vistra energy had was 250 megawatts of solar, which was at the time the largest solar installation in state Texas. That that has changed since then, but 23,000 megawatts of solar right now.
Speaker 1:I understand, but if you look at the power prices, so if I go, look at the power plant that's closest to me, which is Oak Grove, which used to work out of um, right now they are getting 22.63 cents a megawatt um, if you look at west texas where all the solar is, it is 19 a megawatt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's the problem. So oak grove is a big, beautiful, modern, clean coal plant and its fuel cost is around seven dollars a megawatt. It can make money down at twenty dollars a megawatt, but here's the problem, that wind and solar gets subsidies upwards of forty dollars a megawatt. So they can bid literally they can bid negative into the market, which is when are those subsidies coming from?
Speaker 2:Federal and state? State has subsidies for that. That's bullshit. They should get rid of that one time and go.
Speaker 1:Texas has Texas. Yep, I completely agree. And you should not be able to bid negative into a market Right. So there are limits as to what you can bid negative. But you can bid negative because ercot is a lowest price dispatch first. So you see that delta in the demand versus uh generation capacity, that's actually online. Yeah, that delta doesn't get paid. It gets paid a margin for being available, but it does not get paid the per megawatt price. So cheapest price up into the demand wins. And that is what has screwed our power balance up in this state is because of those subsidies.
Speaker 2:Well, I yeah, I think without subsidies that model actually seems like a pretty good model. But once you throw subsidies in there, then everything's out the window.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Here's the reason why no one would ever bid negative. Right, they would go to what they can run their facility for and then they would stop. But because, literally, the wind subsidy is at like $47 a megawatt. So if they are generating power, they are getting $47 a megawatt. So if they are generating power, they are getting $47 a megawatt, no matter what. Yeah, they can go to zero and they would still get $47 a megawatt. Yeah, they can go to negative $47 a megawatt and still not be losing money.
Speaker 1:But your big coal plants. So the reason why coal is dying in the state of Texas is not because it's bad technology, it's useless. It's this, that and the other. It's because of the subsidy. Because of the subsidy, coal plants can't turn on and off. A fast restart for a coal plant is 12 hours. Right, that is fast. So a coal plant at night or whenever demand is low, they have to go down to what's called low stable load and just hover there. Well, for instance, oak Grove Oak Grove Unit 1 is 820 some odd megawatts. Its low stable load is around 550. So that's as low as they can go without the plant becoming unstable the plant becoming unstable.
Speaker 1:So, at 550 megawatts, if the price is negative $10 a megawatt look at how much money you're losing overnight, right? Yeah, so, and that's the other problem. In Texas, wind is at its peak, um, overnight and not during the heat of the day. It dies off, um, and that's when power demand is at its lowest. So you've got something there that's just killing coal.
Speaker 1:The reason why natural gas is considered more profitable and works better in this sort of market is because they can turn on and off, yeah, right, they can shut down, start up, do anything, and the simple cycle portion of the plant can restart in minutes.
Speaker 1:So that is their advantage. They also take fewer people. But I'll say this a modern natural gas plant uh, what's natural gas prices today? So you take the heat rate of the nap of the of a natural gas unit and you multiply it by its fuel cost and you're going to end up with the fuel, what it takes per megawatt to generate power. So, for instance, forney, which is a fairly modern natural gas plant that we used to own, its heat rate was about 7,000, and this gave us a fuel cost of roughly around 21 a megawatt at the time of you know which. You compare that to the coal site of seven, it it's night and day difference, the the. What made them more profitable was they can turn on and off. The coal plant takes 170 people to run. The natural gas plant takes 20. So there there's a lot of that.
Speaker 1:I will say everyone should be all on board with clean coal and getting those base load plants subsidized because, one nukes and coal should get subsidized for being able to store fuel on location, because natural gas can't um wind and solar. You're totally dependent upon the environment to run, so you have no stored fuel. Batteries can get this as well, but they're so small it doesn't really matter. But the reason why you want stored fuel on site is because stuff happens so that 850 megawatt coal unit burned about 120 tons of coal an hour okay so if you have a blip in your transport mechanism, there you're just in time delivery of this coal.
Speaker 1:You know, having that storage on site is a good thing. When we think about yuri and what happened in yuri. Um, yuri got so bad because the gas pipelines were not they, they went green.
Speaker 1:They put in solar as backup and everything else and we had gas compressor stations going down and we had a lack of volume of natural gas, partially because texas also has a stupid law that makes us prioritize home heating natural gas over industrial, even though most people's heat is electric in the state of Texas. You know there's just a lot of bureaucracy suck. It needs to be the free market. But my point is having stored fuel should be a cost adder into a grid because it is a strategic advantage in times of crisis. Yeah, and everyone should want this, and the reason why everyone should want this is good rural jobs.
Speaker 1:These coal plants aren't in the heart of a city, they're out in the middle of nowhere and they provide so. Oak Grove is a great example 170 people for the power plant and then another 700 for the mine that was a few miles away. That locally mined, shipped over done and they have enough fuel. Oak Grove I truly believe and people want to look it up, it's been written up in Power Magazine and everything else Oak Grove will likely be the last coal plant in the United States.
Speaker 1:Wow Because if current political trends continue. They are clean enough and they have enough local fuel and the economics there that they will likely survive and be the last man standing yeah, but that's crazy.
Speaker 2:We got so much coal.
Speaker 1:We ought to be using it oh, we have hundreds of years worth of coal, yeah and hey, uh, just fairly breaking news here.
Speaker 2:I just saw that uh, india and pakistan have a ceasefire woohoo good, world war three averted yeah, exactly, and we'll see if it lasts.
Speaker 1:You know the, the, the ceasefire in uh, ukraine did not so dude, that's not a ceasefire.
Speaker 2:When you have one side announce a ceasefire, that's not a ceasefire. That that's just, and it's it's flip-flopping, right. So russia had the three days for easter where they they were technically under a ceasefire. The uh ukrainian side doesn't give a shit about easter, so they kept shooting. Then Ukraine arbitrarily calls for a ceasefire and then, without any agreement from Russia to a ceasefire. They're now announcing Russia is breaking their ceasefire. It's a unidirectional ceasefire. Guys, you stop shooting. Does not make it an agreed ceasefire across the board.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, this reminds me of kids playing tag or something does not make it an agreed ceasefire across the board.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, this reminds me of kids playing tag or something and someone yelling time out time out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Russia's whole contention with the talks with the US has been that if we do a ceasefire, where we agree to a long-term ceasefire in this conflict, we have to have provisions for non-rearmaments. Because if you are saying, hey, let's have a ceasefire for three months, and then the entire time for those three months you're rearming the other side. Uh, that's no, that's not, that's not a ceasefire, it's not good for us, we're going gonna keep on fighting at that point until we win, and then they won't rearm. So it's a. It's interesting, and the whole same thing with israel. It's like there were calls for a uh, a ceasefire literally a day after the response from israel for the attacks in the last year. It's like whoa, whoa, you don't get to go out, massacre 700 people and then call a timeout, effectively, like you said, as soon as the other side actually gets their shit together and starts attacking you back. That's, that's not how that works. I agreed, so I just I don't know. That's not how that works. Agreed, so I just I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think your analogy of kids is very apropos. In a lot of these conflicts, it is literally people in positions of power that are much older, exhibiting exactly the same behaviors as children on playground. Yeah it's, it's somebody you know kicking sand at somebody else and then, as soon as the other person starts wiping it out of their eyes and rushes to attack them, they're like no, no, no, I, you know, I, I'm uh, I'm I. I didn't mean to sorry, you know I, I'm uh, I'm I, I didn't mean to sorry, you know, it's like what, dude, if you, if you do something that the other side didn't expect and wasn't, uh, like you're not responding to them, you're initiating, you shouldn't expect no response from the other side, no matter what it is it.
Speaker 2:That's just silly, that goes against human nature. So, yeah it's. I think this is where this idea, which is also a complete fallacy, comes from that if women ran the world, there would be no more wars. Yeah, if women ran the world, there would be no more wars. Yeah, if women ran the world, there would be no more world. So, by definition, I guess, technically, there would be no more wars, because there would be no electricity, there would be no roads, there would be no vehicles and there'd be a lot of bickering, but possibly no wars.
Speaker 1:Do you want to go to tariffs, trade deals and stuff like that? Let's do it. So did you look at the uk trade deal.
Speaker 2:Uh, I did not. I saw that we got one and, um, we got a big one. Yeah, I I honestly I thought we were focusing on china, so I was ignoring pretty much all the other ones. But what's what? What do I need to know about the uk one?
Speaker 1:well, so I'm going to bring zayhan back into this, but okay, he has talked about. He has talked about how we need to functionally bring the uk into nato and why, and so on, and uk is in nato, not nato nafta, sorry, oh. So basically that's what this does. It is a very nafta-esque trade deal between us and the uk okay um, essentially, we can sell our products into them way more than we've ever been able to. Well, that's good. They can sell their products into us more than they've been able to. What?
Speaker 2:products do they have, but?
Speaker 1:we've maintained a 10% tariff. Oh Okay, so Trump got them to drop their drawers, bend over and we still get to keep our 10% tariff, hmm, which I think is just hilarious.
Speaker 2:I mean, don't you want your Jaguar?
Speaker 1:Oh wait, that's an Indian company now.
Speaker 2:Which one? What? Jaguar? Oh, jaguar. Yeah, that's Tata. So we're doing $5 billion export deal with them. Okay, our biggest exports are going to be ethanol and products like beef. I mean, don't they make both?
Speaker 1:The UK. Uk is fucked their farmers internally. Have you not been watching Jeremy's farm?
Speaker 2:But I thought that was the fucking was part of them converting to ethanol, just like we are here instead of just you know growing actual food. Or are they just removing farmers?
Speaker 1:altogether. I think they're just removing uh farmers altogether. What, but anyway?
Speaker 1:the disease makes somebody think that's a good idea um, read anthem, yeah, which, by the way, I was going through through a bunch of Rand quotes yesterday because I was in an argument with a TDS sufferer. That's a you know, that's a whole nother thing. But anyway, big win on the tariff side, things are starting to move. I think it's, you know, I think it's very indicative that we are starting to see cracks in the armor and this this going. I think the tariffs are working. I think we're moving the needle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I this is what I've always supported but said we have to be extremely careful here is that, uh, using tariffs as a threat, a club effectively, or using an increase in tariffs, let's say, as a club, is a totally legitimate way to get better trade deals across the world? Long-term tariffs in place are horrible for the economy. Long-term tariffs in place are horrible for the economy. So we we need to get to a resolution with the use of tariffs and not just simply jack up tariffs and leave them there.
Speaker 1:um, agreed, you know, um, now, in the case of, I'm kind of for it, like China is about to like. I know you're poo-pooing this, but if you look at China and what is happening internally right now and what they're doing to the European Union, which the European Union is now putting tariffs on China because China just started dumping all the goods they were sending to us, to Europe.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Bottoming out prices and causing massive issues. China is an inelastic economy. They are not demand driven Right, they subsidize the demand. Subsidize the demand. If they cut back on manufacturing, people lose jobs. G is facing a real revolt.
Speaker 2:Like they are not in a good position here, dude no, but I think that, uh, you know, zayhan and folks like him tend to completely underestimate what a command economy is able to do, because we don't really have that here, like there are. No, we're not used to it. We don't have the example, the idea that a decision that is made purely politically will have an impact on millions of people, and that's it. It's just going to happen, and no one's going to say anything or do anything or protest anything. It's foreign to Americans, because Americans protest every goddamn thing that the government does, and it doesn't matter which government. There's always protests. And so how many people were protesting? The Trump announced tariffs. These are people that don't even know what a fucking tariff is that are showing up to protest In China. They have a way of dealing with protesters that we don't in this country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Tiananmen Square.
Speaker 2:Which was mild compared to what happens these days. Which was mild compared to what happens these days? Because now, if you go out and you protest in China, you become an employee building iPhones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Have you looked at the death numbers in China, like how many people die?
Speaker 1:each year, or what? Well, there is the official how many people died, and then there's the cremation numbers, which are distinctly different. Which is interesting, China is genociding its own people.
Speaker 2:The Uyghur genocide is a real thing.
Speaker 1:Well, the word genocide gets thrown around an awful lot these days. Okay, I mean it's while we're on it, uh. So trump is headed into talks with uh beijing today, and tomorrow right and he's saying he can see lowering the tariffs to about 80%. So which means he'll go lower than that. But that's his big ask is he's going to keep at least some rate on? So anyone who had stock in Timu or AliExpress, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Well, you saw where Bitcoin's at right.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was on mute because I was blowing my nose. Bitcoin is over $103,000 again $103K.
Speaker 2:yep.
Speaker 1:I've got a little ticker on my stream deck.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, same, so do I.
Speaker 1:Which, by the way, since I've actually set up the stream deck and actually customized it and everything else.
Speaker 2:You want the bigger one now, don't you? I do.
Speaker 1:I told you that I have three pages right now including monitoring Texas Power Grid and stuff like that. It's super handy. It is, and I've got navigation jump buttons. I've got it set up. It's good.
Speaker 2:This is why I've got two of them sitting on my desk right now. But a bigger one would be nicer and the dial one, yeah, of them sitting on my desk right now, but a bigger one and the dial one yeah, uh, and I think I did. I, I think I sent my uh regular one off to darren at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by the way. Um, while we're talking about technology, did you get your jet kvm yet?
Speaker 2:no, no, but I I think that's a pretty cool device and I was telling you about it. You should probably get one. Other way around there, bucko, I watched a video where a guy explained it.
Speaker 1:Yes, that I sent to you. No, I love it. I've got it set up. It would allow me to move my Nook off the workbench and into the network closet. Nook off the workbench and into the network closet. And I even went through and registered with their uh cloud service for it so I can get to it easily from anywhere. I'm trying that out. I don't know if I'll keep that or not. Uh, because it is another connection into my home versus versus using my vpn and then getting on it.
Speaker 1:but uh, the thing works great. Dude, it is a neat little device, it's very useful and I've got the DC power module in there so I can power cycle the thing. I can do everything I need to Nice Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's cool by the way they are prioritizing I'm sorry, pretty low power.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, negligible. Yeah, they are prioritizing US shipments because of the China tariffs right now.
Speaker 2:Well, if there is an actual improvement in China tariff talks, then I need to hurry up and sell that joystick I bought, Because I kind of bought it. Well, I wanted to test it out, but also I kind of bought it as a hedge against prices going up, so I should probably put it up on eBay. I bought a I think I told you about it. I bought a really cool thrust controller, so it's like an airplane thrust or throttle for your left hand, but it's this space version of it which adds tilting to the handle, to the grip of the thrust, so you could tilt it forward or back or left or right to add the missing degrees of movement, Because in space you have six degrees and when you're on Earth you have four degrees. So it's a somewhat unique stick.
Speaker 1:You have four degrees, no matter what, it's just the combination that give you the lateral movement right. So you have two-dimensional thinking. You know east-west and then you have up-down. You know east west and then you have up down. You know, and those two overlapping spheres of, or circles, create that sphere of. You know what direction am I going.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so it's not quite what I'm saying here, so I'll clarify. So, in space, what you have is you have three different directions that you can move to. You can go forward or back, you can go left or right, and you can go up and down, and then you have three different pitches that you can change. So you have roll, pitch and yaw, and so that adds up to six different controls that you can get. So you can be going forward, but you could be pitching while you're going forward, for example.
Speaker 2:So on the ground, what you're missing is the ability to go left, right or up down in an airplane, at least without pitching. Now, if you have a vertical takeoff aircraft, obviously that can do the same thing as you can do in space, which is go up or down without any other movement and without pitching. But for a typical airplane, for flight sims, all you really need is you need the three degrees of pitch you on roll, plus just one degree or one movement in the left hand, which is your throttle, which is basically your forward speed or your reverse, because you you can't just hover. Now, if you're doing in the helicopter, then yes, you can hover and then move left, right, forward, back or up down, independently of the pitch of the actual vehicle. Um, but it's, um, it's, it's a always a sticking point. Playing a spaceship game with a controller that was designed purely for flight because you're, you're generally missing those other two vectors. And, um, this stick adds that ability by being able to pivot the grip of the stick independently of the position of the throttle.
Speaker 1:Well, if you're not going to use it, then I would definitely get rid of it, because I think the tariffs are going to change dramatically here shortly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I got it literally five days before they stopped all shipments to the US. And they stopped all shipments because they wanted to wait out tariffs to see what happens, because what they don't want to do is have somebody buy something for $300, ship it and then the person gets it and has to pay another $300 to pick it up. Yeah, they're like that's going to completely make customers feel unhappy, so we'd rather just not sell it for now.
Speaker 1:So yeah, now one of the things I'll say is I do see a lot of manufacturing coming back to the US right now. So in my job, you know we we're a big epc, we build stuff um. I'll tell you that we have drug companies, um specifically like nova nordis is bringing a wogovie plant to the us. Uh, because of these tariffs. Um, we have a lot of other drug companies that are looking at setting up, even like down to vitamin c and basic antibiotic stuff and everything else they should be doing here, because you can't trust the shit coming from china exactly so I think you're going to see a lot of construction over the next few years yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is not stock advice, but I would definitely look at construction companies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get stock. So, yes, anyway, the thing I would say is look, and there are only a handful of big EPCs in the world that can do these projects. So, yes, go look at them. What I would say is we are seeing an influx, we are seeing more movement on the chip manufacturing side than we ever saw during the CHIPS Act or anything else. I think some of these tariffs are going to strategically stay on for certain products because we're seeing the investment. I think it's a long-term deal. I think that's what these companies see, otherwise they wouldn't be putting out these public rfps and yeah, so good for trump.
Speaker 2:You know that's a good question, something I haven't done for a damn long time. Is there websites out there that I've used that to?
Speaker 1:track aggregate and track rfps yeah no, it's a part of my part of my routine these days, so that's always interesting because those are all leading indicators.
Speaker 2:this is before anything actually happens. You can find out what kind of budgets are put together, and I think you're right. I think nothing's actually happened yet, but the anticipation and the planning is definitely in full swing, and so you know things like Apple committing to 500 billion or trillion or whatever the hell they had 500 billion yeah In facilities. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And your Apple chips are not going to be made in the US.
Speaker 2:In 10 years probably. Yeah, I mean, none of these things are going to happen overnight. Most of them aren't, are going to happen overnight. Most of them aren't even going to be over the course of one year.
Speaker 1:But eventually they should make a move. No, I think construction will start on the Apple facilities within a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you remember how long it took them to build their headquarters?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, in years, yeah, do you remember how long it took them to build? Their headquarters, yeah, but in years, okay. Yeah, I don't think that's, I don't think that that's going to be the case on a lot of this. For instance, we did a chip fab facility and the turnaround from start of the funding of the project to stuff rolling out the door was about two and a half years.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, let's. Yeah, that's pretty quick.
Speaker 1:You know we're, we're building data centers, um, our data center construction stuff, depending on the size, and you know lots of variables here, but a small data center six months to a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think you've got to realize stuff is changing and as long as the inputs are available which you could argue that tariffs could cause a problem with that but as long as the inputs are available, stuff can get turned around, especially as Trump deregulates again and everything else.
Speaker 2:Well, and then there is this sort of question mark timer going, because there's a number of possibilities of turnarounds. So one is the midterm elections. If the Democrats gain a lot of power, trump will immediately be impeached. We know, that's happening. I mean, they've already started impeachments, right now.
Speaker 2:Those aren't going to go anywhere. But there are plenty of people that are on the left that would like nothing more than to end his presidency faster, are on the left that would like nothing more than to end his presidency faster, and they might get it into the Senate now, because Trump has not got the best relationship with the Senate. The other one, of course, is in another three and a half years, when his term is over. Whether it's AOC or somebody else that they're going to run, they're definitely going to be giving everything they can to try and take back the presidency.
Speaker 2:AOC would lose AOC, I think would lose. Gavin Newsom may win.
Speaker 1:I do not see that as possible. California is literally a joke.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. However, he is a good-looking person and no elections are decided by women voting based on the way that somebody looks.
Speaker 1:Hence.
Speaker 2:Barack Obama winning. That had no business running in the first place. Indeed, and I talked to your mom about that Yep, god yeah indeed, and I talked to your mom about that. Yep, oh god. Yes, ben's decision that he regrets the most in life is introducing you to my parents, yeah, exactly yeah, yeah, yeah, uh.
Speaker 1:So trump did something to move that needle, uh, today. That I think um is brilliant. Did you see the national center for homeless veterans? No, so trump has announced he's moving next.
Speaker 2:Uh, I'm sorry was this on x? I didn't, didn't see it there's.
Speaker 1:Fox News has stories.
Speaker 2:A bunch of places.
Speaker 1:Have stories here. I'll send one to you. But he's literally moving money that was spent on housing for illegal aliens to now housing homeless veterans. Mm-hmm Like. Say no to that one, democrats. Yeah, exactly he is setting up so many traps.
Speaker 2:You know he is setting up so many traps for them yeah, yeah tell me that is not a brilliant idea it's almost as brilliant as this portable folding table grill thing uh, yeah, I was on x and I said to me but yeah, I saw that uh earlier, uh on x as well, and I thought it was really neat. Um, and I'd seen like similar looking devices, but nothing quite as compact as this thing yeah, like the amount of engineering.
Speaker 1:To put all that in like that is just crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you could probably get it on Temu right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to pay double, but sure.
Speaker 2:Well, this one's 800 bucks. So the one that's in the video, according to somebody anyway, it's 800 bucks, but on Temu you can probably pick it up for about 250. Double that with a tariff, yeah, yeah. And then somebody says the real trick is remembering how to fold it back up. Yeah, I, I've been there for sure. There are things that are super compact when you get them and then good luck folding them afterwards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, anyway. But this moves like this, that Trump's pulling on, you know, moving funding from housing illegals to housing veterans. It's just setting the left up because you know they're going to say, oh, he's doing this illegally, he's doing that, he's whatever. Holy crap, dude. Know they're going to say, oh, he's doing this illegally, he's doing that, he's whatever.
Speaker 2:Um, holy crap, dude they are going to shoot themselves in the foot so hard you know well and and I I will say that I think there have been plenty of people that have voted left, that are veterans you know like just because you're in the army doesn't make you a Republican, and we've seen a lot of that in the younger generations, where these guys come back after a couple of tours. They're in their late 20s, early 30s. They're definitely Democrats. They don't like Republicans, but good luck getting them to shoot themselves in the foot. But it is a great move, but good luck getting them to shoot themselves in the foot.
Speaker 1:But it is a great move. It totally is. You know, one of the things that I think is also I don't know if you saw this story this is how desperate the news media is to just shoot Trump and put him down. They're comparing his comments on potentially raising the top marginal tax rate by 2.6% to George Bush's.
Speaker 1:You know the headline says Trump's tax hike proposal is deja vu of George HW Bush. Read my lips moment. Experts say the fuck it is. Of all, bush did that during his first election. Trump's not trying to get fucking re-elected? Yeah, and you know. No, this is not comparable. This is just not comparable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but this is fox news running this, just bullshit article, yep and how dare he, by the way, even talk about raising taxes on people making a minimum of 2.5 million per year? 2.6, but yes, oh no, it's 2.5, you're right, you're right I was 2.6 uh percent raise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah anyway, yeah, it's, it's, the hilarity ensues, dude right well, I think fox assumes that a lot of these people that make two and a half million a year watch fox. Uh yeah yeah, I, I don't know man, I don't know anybody that watches. Well, no, I do, my dad watches fox about it he doesn't make 2.5 million. He definitely does not.
Speaker 1:I wish he did man, but he does not so you know, I got into a pretty good uh back and forth with a tds surfer sufferer the other day and I added you uh on twitter a randy and quote, and this is is something that I think really is the essence of what we try and do here on this show and I think, what's why the mainstream media is quite frankly dying. And the Randian quote goes devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality. There is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking. That's a good quote. It is, and it's really emblematic of, I think, both of our viewpoints on rational uh, on rationalism, if you would. You know, and I hate to say it, but I think the best way to describe me politically at this point is the libertarian, or you could even say potentially anarchistic, rationalist right, which I don't want to be lumped in, but you know, hey um, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Uh, I don't see a problem with it. I don't know why you don't want to be, but um, uh, because the libertarians went actually, you know just yeah, but we know it's a small, small libertarian, not a big libertarian. Yes, exactly yeah, yeah, yeah. Just because somebody uses a term and ruins it doesn't mean that that you know you can't still use the term in its original form. You just have to make an allowance for informing people of it gene I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to when this day uh, comes about uh I just said gene at alpha fox tweet is that it is ai generated of uh, robo women. Yeah, that what there is. And the the caption reads don't be too picky, ladies. Soon you'll have competition that's true.
Speaker 2:Uh, the. There's a actually a video I watched recently in japan, where they're a lot more comfortable with sex by the way uh, except they blur everything. For some reason only, only certain portions. Do they blur, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the law.
Speaker 2:It's the law, but not in person. The blurring only happens in broadcast.
Speaker 1:Really I thought all Asians had blurry vaginas?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Well, it's to make it more difficult for the octopus. That's why, what Octopus porn, oh my God.
Speaker 1:Have you not seen it, hentai? Yeah, yeah, technical porn.
Speaker 2:It's a very popular thing out there. There's some crazy videos.
Speaker 1:Have you seen the real life hentai stuff that's been popular lately?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm talking about yeah, not like the animated stuff.
Speaker 1:Now, the animated stuff, uh, some crazy stuff, dude anyway, so there's a video it's almost as crazy. You know what?
Speaker 2:it doesn't cross the same line as german like shiza, shiza porn, yeah like that's just like oh my god yeah, why is it germans and the japanese both have kind of twisted porn? Uh, what's the commonality?
Speaker 1:here.
Speaker 2:Well, uh, germany didn't get nuked, so we can forgive japan a little bit, but I don't know well, they also have godzilla before the nukes godzilla yeah, yeah, I don't know, zira, uh, anyway, so I was watching these videos, the robots the one of the selling features of the robots, which absolutely look just like your image here I mean they're like perfect female form is they have swappable faces which you can order and customize, so you can you don't like this face, you can keep the body and just swap the face and, you know, give her a different name, I guess. But it's uh, it's full-on industry man.
Speaker 2:I wonder if we're gonna have any countries moving production of these things to the us futurama it, you know, predicted this with the.
Speaker 1:Don't fall in love with a robot. Johnny video, right, I think futurama predicted a lot of things, right. Futurama south park simpsons.
Speaker 2:It's like crazy the comedy channel should have been renamed to the future channel. Yes, indeed, that's pretty wild.
Speaker 1:So I am going to have a very busy June. Okay, I am going to be basically gone the whole month.
Speaker 2:Wow, so we got to figure out your remote podcasting setup then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I'm in Guam I'm probably not going to be up to do the podcast at the same time.
Speaker 2:They have very good internet there.
Speaker 1:They do not.
Speaker 2:Oh, they do, they do.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, anyway, so, yeah, anyway. So I'll be in Guam at some point Late June, early July. I will be in Guam at some point late June, early July. I will be in Puerto Rico early June and then I'm taking a vacation to Mexico June 16th to the 20th, so it's going to be a busy June, you know that reminds me, maybe I should book my vacation for June too, then.
Speaker 2:I've got a Mexican vacation. I need to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've never been I've need to do. Yeah, I've never been, I've been all over. I've never been to mexico, so where are you going?
Speaker 2:I can't go really okay, you mean really I don't know that's literally where I invited you to go last year and you didn't go.
Speaker 1:Well, I couldn't make it I know, but yeah, I I'm going to go stay at the Westin.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're going to stay at the hotel I was staying at last time. Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:All I want to do is go. You know beach and pyramids, that's it. Yeah, They've got both.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was thinking of going back to Cabo this year. Yeah, got the kids' passports and all that. So, they're on the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that'd be good.
Speaker 2:Definitely we'll chat before you go and I'll give you some pointers. The hotel is actually in a really good location, cool. Uh, literally walking distance across from it is a large is a very large shopping mall, uh, slash aquarium, touristy kind of area. Cool. Um, there's some unexpected things, like the cab ride from the airport, unless you're renting a car. But the cab ride from the airport to the hotel two years ago was or last year, I guess, was a $86. Ooh, you don't expect in Mexico. You expect that in other countries, but not in Mexico. Um, and there's like I think the reason that the cab driver told me was that the license for them to pick people up at the airport is like 40 bucks, so they're just passing all the fees on to the people coming in.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe I ought to look at renting a car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could. The only thing about renting a car is make sure that you have a hundred dollars in cash with you at all times, because if you ever get pulled over by the cops, they don't actually want to give you a ticket they just want to get paid, okay, so it is completely normal and expected for you to just pay the cops off and just say look, I'm a dumb American, I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Are you sure there's no way that we could just handle this right here, now, so that it doesn't delay my travel? And then you pull out your wallet and you pull some $20 bills out and they'll tell you when to stop counting. Yeah, oh, so it's. It's going to cost you usually 40 to 50 to 60 bucks. You know pretty much anything.
Speaker 1:Well, uh, I mean an intermediate SUV, uh, from Hertz and Cancun is only $28 day. So yeah, like holy shit dude the gas is a compact four-door for 15 a day, like just a full-size car is 19 a day.
Speaker 2:Like this is pretty good way cheaper than here yeah, yeah, I just rented a car yesterday, uh in seattle, and it was 55 a day yeah, yeah, I gotta tell you it's a nice location.
Speaker 2:it's good for kids. There's a kids kind of swimming pool area with a slide and everything Mm-hmm there. Depending on exactly when you go actually I think you're going a little later, but they have areas on the beach that are roped off because the turtles have laid their eggs there Mm-hmm. So you gotta be make sure your kids don't dig that shit up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Kims are at least. Kims are at least sea turtles. They taste pretty good, I hear. Yeah, that's what I was about to say. You know, we pass laws to protect the sea turtles and everything else and down there they eat them. Yeah, turtle soup, yeah, so that'll be fun. By the way, travel tip I don't know what rental car company you are using these days, but I've basically been forced into using hertz, which I've never used before I haven't.
Speaker 2:Either. I usually use national or avos.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, hertz, as soon as you get any status with them. Fucking awesome, yeah. Yeah, like you do it on the app, you don't have to talk to anybody. You literally walk down the aisle for the class of vehicle or the status that you have and and you go pick a vehicle, get in it and drive off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, National's had that for 25 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but before this I was always using Enterprise. Oh my God, I feel like I'm such a dumbass for sticking with Enterprise for as long as I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, both Avis and national have that. National has a better car selection or used to pre-covid I don't know if they still do, but pre-covid like. I got a. Um, I rented a well two cars actually. It was kind of cool. So for the same price for the because I had really good status for the price of just a mid-sized car. One time I got my fiat 500 down there. That was like before I actually bought a fiat 500, I actually rented one uh, convertible one down there. And then, um, another time I rented a maserati and again I got that just for the price of a regular midsize car. Yeah, cool. So, yeah, it's the way to go. The pre-assigned car thing is bullshit. Getting to pick the car that's standing there that you like the look of is definitely the way to go.
Speaker 2:Usually, the cars that are the hardest to get are hybrids yeah, I, I.
Speaker 1:So I drove when I was in dc, since I was flying into bwi and then flying out of dallas. I drove a jeep and, uh, good looking little jeep. Because I'm looking at you know getting something other than my truck, because my truck has way too many fucking miles on it, but anyway like it's just getting to that point of it's kind of time, yeah, but uh it. It's a plug-in hybrid jeep, which I don't know that I'd want, but it was a fun little vehicle it really was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will tell you, if I had to buy a car right now uh and I don't, I don't have to because my car only has 40 000 miles on but I would totally get a grand cherokee plug-in hybrid because it gets, uh, the longest range you can get right now because of the hybrid portion of it, and it's a mild hybrid, so it's actually got a pretty, pretty big motor in it yeah, same thing with this uh that I was driving, which is the uh 4xe, which is the look I like in a jeep, and it was plenty quiet, it wasn't super loud.
Speaker 2:I was surprised yeah, yeah, and and the the only thing, the only reason I wouldn't get a jeep like the one that you got, with the big fat tires and the square looking body I visually, I love the look of that, but that like that you're. The penalty is about five miles per gallon. You're going to lose five miles per gallon versus a grand cherokee uh, which carries the exact same amount of cargo and everything, but it's more aerodynamic.
Speaker 1:Right, but I like the look. And coming from my truck, dude, oh yeah, it's probably more aerodynamic than your truck. You know my truck highway. If I get 16 miles to the gallon, that's great. Yeah, like on the highway I get 16 miles to the gallon.
Speaker 2:that's great, yeah, Like on the highway.
Speaker 1:I get 26. Yeah, so my my point is even if okay, this gets 20. Yeah, great Upgrade, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that's about what it would be. I think it'd get probably 2021 on the highway. Yeah, the the other thing I'm looking at, but as a hybrid this would get like over 30 in the city sure, and that's part of what I'm looking at and, you know, thinking it through, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So the other vehicle and I went and test drove one because I was flying out, uh, sunday. So I went to houston saturday and test drove some vehicles, yeah, and I found a really nice q5 oh yeah, those are nice too. I like those, always like them oh my god, I like that car like variable suspension, like very sporty, awesome. Like I wouldn't want the Q7, you know it's a little too big to station wagony right. Q5.
Speaker 2:I do. I think the Q5 is a sweet spot. Yeah, cause it's Q3 is a little too small, but a Q5 is perfect.
Speaker 1:And the, the Q5 that I found, uh, which they sold it, so I'll have to find another one. But to find another one, but it was a 2018, one owner vehicle yep, with 47 000 miles on it somebody like me exactly and and it was for like 20 grand which is a great price, because that thing was 60 when it was new, 62 I think yeah, but and fully loaded, top of the line package. Yeah, great leather interior. You know, it's just like I.
Speaker 2:I really have always liked those cars, even the q7 I like. I knew it was always too big, but I've I I've been close to getting one of those multiple times. But in in the last two times I've bought cars I just couldn't pass up the specific combo of stuff that I got with the one that actually got and I really I really like my, my grand cherokee.
Speaker 2:Um, I do wish, obviously, you know I I see all the new tech that they have. Like mine doesn't have carplay so I can't use my phone or play in it. But also the fact that I have a diesel makes it somewhat unique, because they don't make those anymore. I always liked diesels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like diesels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just wish the price of diesel was like what it used to be back when I was young.
Speaker 1:Before they went to the low sulfur diesel yeah, like diesel was cheaper than gasoline.
Speaker 2:So it was both cheaper than gasoline and you got better mileage. So your combined difference between diesel and gasoline used to be way bigger Now, yeah, you get better mileage with diesel, but you also pay more. Yes, so it somewhat defeats the better mileage purpose.
Speaker 2:yeah, I agree, yeah, um so and I always wanted like a diesel hybrid. Like to me, I never understood why they didn't make it, because one of the characteristics of a diesel engine is a more limited power band, which is perfect for a hybrid, because you're keeping the engine in your power band and using the additional power from the electric motors supplement that, which makes more sense than Well the Army tested a replacement for the Hummer and it was going to be a diesel electric hybrid where literally all the diesel engine did was generate electricity and then all four wheels had independent electric motors.
Speaker 1:So they could literally sit there and spin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, it's probably more expensive. It's probably what the answer is yeah, yeah, so woke Pope. Yeah, yeah, it's probably more expensive is probably what the answer is yeah, so woke Pope, yeah, yeah, so uh, there's a number of of Pope related tweets that are floating out there that he made allegedly in the past. Now I have to throw the allegedly in there, because the search for this just started. No one seems to have really known about this dude.
Speaker 2:Well, he was a dark horse candidate yeah, yeah first american pope first american pope yeah, yeah, um which I think a lot of people that don't really give a shit are making a big deal about. Hey, it's the first pope that's been to a walmart. It's the first pope, that's you know. Hey, it's the first pope that's been to a Walmart. It's the first pope, that's you know, eaten Chicago deep dish pizza. It's all these things which don't matter at all.
Speaker 2:I think what does matter is what we're going to see from the Vatican, because, like it or not, there are people that actually listen to the Vatican but what we're going to see from the Vatican of things they condemn and things that they support and the last pope was definitely the most liberal, anti-capitalist pope we've seen. This one has a potential to be even more anti-capitalist and and pro-woke than what we've seen. Uh, what? What has come out in tweets so far is a number of tweets specifically negatively reacting to jd vance um, ironically, some would say you know, he killed the last pope, um, so this pope was mad at him way before that happened. And this pope also had tweets condemning trump and his efforts to curb the migration, the aka invasion of the united states, because he thinks that it's good that people that want to escape persecution, get to go to the us with no restrictions. He had tweets about blm supporting them, so this isa pretty damn woke this is.
Speaker 1:This is part of the catholic liberal wing, for sure you know it's interesting because I am on x and I just sent you a tweet that uh, someone had put up that's trending here and, uh, facts about pope leo. And this guy's obviously catholic and very happy with the choice. Yeah, uh, iq 145, speak seven language, former professor, degrees in mathematics and theology, missionary in peru for 10 plus years, first american pope known for humanity and intellectual capabilities. This just isn't a pope. This is one of the smartest men alive I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:145 is like the average aq for a jew oh come on now just saying don't be lying, no, not that high man, uh-huh, uh-huh, it's, it's, it's dude, that's top five percentile but it may be top five percentile, but it's. It's definitely below aqs of the host of this podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, anyway, regardless, it's interesting to see the reaction. It's interesting to see the name he chose, right. So Leo is historically been more conservative. So I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't really trust Catholics. Oh, nor do I. I'll just stop at that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nor do I.
Speaker 2:It's a pagan religion as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the problem I have with Catholicism or anything or a lot of the other sects like that that have such dogmatic law.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't need an intercessor and if it's not in the bible fuck off like yeah yeah, yeah, and, and they worship a female goddess.
Speaker 1:Run into that yeah, well, but not only that, but they add new gods to their pantheon, all the time with the, you know, saints. So, it's no.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't need to pray to Mary, I don't need to pray to saints, I don't need to have a priest intercede on this earth or anyone in heaven. Right, it's just insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know we have a very big overlap there. I would just say that you know I wouldn't pray to any supernatural being, but sure as hell not a female one, but it's um yeah, the the wokies are definitely liking this.
Speaker 1:Here's a meme of uh eight hours on the job and pope leo is already taking out the garbage, and it's uh pictures of him dragging out trump and vance yep, so we'll see. Yeah, but you know he's he, then he's got quotes like this the promotion of gender ideology is confusing because it seeks to create genders that do not exist and and I can tell you why he says that Because it's confusing when you're looking for a boy and you end up with God knows what. You wanted to diddle a choir boy but you know it used to be a female.
Speaker 1:So you don't, yeah, so you're not interested, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Know, man, it'll be interesting yeah, yeah, it will be, but, uh, he's what? He's probably like the fifth or sixth pope of my lifetime. There have been a lot of them. Um, I was really thinking they were going to go with africa this time. Um, this is definitely yeah, you and adam oh, adam thought that too. That's funny.
Speaker 1:I didn't yeah, adam, adam was going for the old, uh, yeah, the old black pope, yep, yep, and he was definitely more conservative.
Speaker 2:Yes, um, this guy not so much so, uh, there's a very good tv show about the Borgias, called, I think, the Borgias, which is, you know, dramatization. Right, it's not a historical thing, it's historic drama, but you really get to see the political process involved of electing a new Pope in that show. Pope in that show, and while it was set, obviously during the uh, enlightenment, um, it was, I think, very representative of what has been happening and still is happening at the vatican, and it is very much a political process, oh, very much. So, yes, there are people compromising in order to get something they want. There are people holding things up because they're being passed over. It's a bunch of emotional, sexually frustrated men making decisions.
Speaker 1:That's the other thing that bugs me about Catholicism. You know I get that they didn't want the priests and so on to have family to pass down and become a basically a new monarchy. I get that portion of it, but you know there's better ways to do that. Anyway, I don't know Having a clergy that is sexually frustrated is.
Speaker 2:Where the priest can go on a bacchanalia up until they're 30. And after they're 30, if they still want to be a priest, then you have the vow of celibacy.
Speaker 1:Or you just don't have vows of celibacy, but you know.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm just saying that, why do priests bang boys?
Speaker 1:I don't know, bang boys Um I, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, the generic, you know, high level answer because they still have sexual urges and they're so strong that they're not able to control them. And the right to be more convenient than the girls because they're there. Um plus, I think that the uh like, in historic times penalty for raping a girl was more severe than raping a boy well, and boys are less likely to admit that they've been raped.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good point too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's something to do there, but, um, I think that that urge is, to a large extent, developed in the youthful years of the priesthood and, if it continues on like the, the priests that are in their 50s and 60s that are banging boys. It's a great topic. By the way, they didn't start banging boys in their 50s and 60s. They've been doing it since their 20s.
Speaker 1:Why do you think that?
Speaker 2:Because the sexual drive is much stronger hormonally when you're young than it is when you get old. Sure, it's just less. Let's put it this way it's easier to be celibate later in life than it is to be celibate younger in life and I think I think once they've developed a pattern of being boys, then that pattern, just say, kind of stays with them.
Speaker 2:But if you say I mean the other alternative is just to not have priests under, let's say, 40.
Speaker 2:Like you can be a religious, you know person, but you can't be a priest until you're 40. Because you have to make that decision later in life. That basically says I'm going to dedicate my life not to a family, not to procreation, not to fun activities, but to God and studying religion. And I don't think that that's a decision that a young man can make, fully understanding and grasping what it means. So I think they would have far fewer instances of those types of despicable relationships if the priesthood was something that either happened later in life or that there was an allowance earlier to be something maybe not call it a priest, call it something else, but a priest in training. Well, you could still have a family, you know, you could still be married and have kids, and then you know your kids are like in their teenage years and then you go off and you become a full, full-on priest and leave your wife, and that's not gonna work exactly that's not gonna work.
Speaker 2:Well, sure that? What do you mean? It's not gonna work over half the marriages in the us and divorce. How's that? What are you saying?
Speaker 1:it's like it works right, but catholics don't believe in divorce.
Speaker 2:Well, catholics don't, but they believe in anything. That's doctrine. You just have to make divorce part of the doctrine and they'll believe it. So that's how god intended it for you to leave your wife when you're turn 40. That's how God intended it If you need to leave your wife when you're turned 40, that's how it works. So, and and they wouldn't question it, it would just be the way it is, because the Pope is God's representative on earth.
Speaker 1:You know how how fucked up is it that someone would presume literally say my job is to sit on the throne of christ?
Speaker 2:well, I mean, you would have to do that if you're creating a new religion and you're trying to uh propagate it, you kind of have to say well, because what happens after your main, you know, the main dude's gone. Like you got to come up with with an explanation of how the religion continues after he's gone right, but no one needs to sit on the throne of christ because he's, if you like.
Speaker 1:If you like, for the orthodox religions that basically believe in a dead god, sure um. But if you are in the sect of christianity, I'm in. You believe in a dead god, sure um. But if you are in the sect of christianity, I'm in. You believe in a living god, um, you know, and the whole he has risen thing. Um. Why does anyone need to sit there? I don't get it like.
Speaker 2:It does not make sense to me well, it actually does make sense to me.
Speaker 1:Well, it actually does make sense to me.
Speaker 2:You're more of the orthodoxy type? I think that no, because I can understand from the standpoint of a young religion recently created. I think it is necessary to have some tie-in to the God representing him on earth. You're looking at it from the standpoint of like well, it's a 2 000 year old religion. You just don't need that stuff.
Speaker 2:I agree you don't today, right the tense, you have a whole bunch of people that are protestants, but when this was religion was 100 years old, I think it was pretty important to have someone that essentially sat on you know Christ's throne or stood in the footsteps of Peter. Like you have to be continuing the line and showing that there is a direct connection here between what your religion says and what you're trying to convince other people, because it's a proselytizing religion. If you just say we have a story about a guy that used to walk the earth, who is the best guy that ever, ever was, uh and set an example for us and died for our sins. But he's gone and we're all just equal as humans and we'd like you to start worshiping him along with us, it's like, well, why you over somebody?
Speaker 2:You know those, those guys over there, you know they. They have, uh uh, they have direct sacrifices to, to, uh um, see Diana or whoever you know, whatever pick your Roman God to Jupiter, and where you know that blood that is coming out of the bowl is actually Holy blood, because the bowl was chosen not by men but by Jupiter as to be part of the sacrifice. The men are carrying out these tests. The, the priests, have a way of communicating directly with the gods. You're competing against that. As a new startup religion that came out of the Middle East. I think you have to do what they did. I think you have to establish this tradition of we have a direct plug into our god and, by the way, he's the best god, the greatest he's a super God, best of all time.
Speaker 2:Best of all time. So to me it makes sense now, because I'm looking at it from a historical context and you're looking at it from an actual belief standpoint too. I think that's the other difference.
Speaker 1:Hmm, yeah, sure, hmm yeah.
Speaker 2:Sure, but it does. But, like I said, I do think that the particulars of Catholicism makes me less trustworthy of uh people that that are part of that religion than part of the price inside.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because for me, I don't see Catholics the same way I see other Christian sects, you know and so on. I do have a pretty good issue with the dogmatic law side of uh catholicism. It's right up there with um. It's right up there with my views on mormonism and islam to be honest with you and you know, talmudic jews no such thing, but okay it totally is so let me ask you about what about like seventh day editors?
Speaker 1:uh well, they're their own special kind of crazy, okay, um, and the pentecostals as well. You know those damn pentecostals, as used to say the, the, the, the ones that play with snakes.
Speaker 2:Is that that the Pentecostals? Yeah, yeah, talking tongues. Well, the talking tongues thing, wear long dresses.
Speaker 1:I don't, because it's a bullshit thing of like. Speaking in tongues is a very specific thing in the Bible, and just spouting gibberish that someone else says they can interpret does not mean you're talking in tongues, so sorry. Sorry to any Pentecostals. I'm offending right now, but you know.
Speaker 2:Sorry, not sorry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I view that as moronic, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what did you send me here about retaliatory strikes? I thought they had the truce. It's funny, oh, it's funny, okay, funny, okay, okay, I'll take a look at it.
Speaker 1:I thought it's some guy in a cessna throwing a roll of toilet paper out the window and it's like you know, pakistan's retaliatory strikes on uh, india, throwing them toilet paper. It's hilarious, uh, all right, so toilet paper.
Speaker 2:Jesus Hilarious. All right. So yeah, somebody, somebody had a great post here. It replies that's like so is the U? S going to be dropping Apple gift cards? All right, that'd be about right. Or for the course.
Speaker 1:So what do you think of the Newark mayor getting arrested? I didn't know about that. New York mayor got arrested. Newark mayor got arrested for assaulting a police officer.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Newark, newark.
Speaker 2:New Jersey.
Speaker 1:Not New York, newark, newark yeah, newark. New Jersey Mayor got arrested for assaulting an officer at an ICE detention facility during a protest.
Speaker 2:Was that the chick that spit on him?
Speaker 1:Huh.
Speaker 2:Was it a chick or a guy? It was a guy oh it was a guy, because I also saw some chick that spat at an officer and I think they found who she was or they were gonna arrest her um, yeah, no, uh, dim storm ice facility new york mayor arrested. Okay, good, good, no, I'm like generically, I can say that the more politicians are that are arrested, the better it is for everybody else and what I find so hilarious about this the left is sitting there saying how dare they arrest him?
Speaker 1:They can't arrest a mayor like this, and then the response is just the mugshot of Trump. It's just fucking brilliant.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, yeah, I can see it. So there was a guy that I follow that I don't know if you follow him, but we talked about him before who's a guy here in Dallas who his ex-wife ended up converting his son to, you know, be a girl and then he's been fighting her for years. She ended up moving to california and now the california judge effectively said he he can't communicate at all with his children or his ex-wife. So there's, I mean it's, it's retarded. The whole situation is crazy. He got a crazy bitch wife, which when I posted that, he thumbs up that. But. But he had a post on a different topic recently. He's traveling to Europe right now, I guess, and he said isn't it interesting how it is only in the Orthodox or Catholic countries that the woke wires hasn't been spreading and all the Protestant countries, including the U S woke uh has gotten to extremes?
Speaker 1:Ah, I don't know that that's true.
Speaker 2:Well, and I I kind of replied back with yeah, china has the least woke of alls and probably the second least, or maybe even tying china, is iran, which has no woke. No, no wrong. What iran is wrong? How's?
Speaker 1:iran. Iran is one of the biggest uh transgender countries in the world. What, no, yes, because homosexuality is illegal and they see the gender transition as a way out of that. You're kidding me?
Speaker 2:nope, really, yep, wow, that's. That's interesting. I didn't realize that. Okay, I thought they just didn't like any of the weirdos, okay, well no, google iran transgender definitely has a lot of trans. I know that which is weird well, it's been a part of Indian tradition and religion for literally thousands of years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then Brazil, you know Brazil.
Speaker 2:Brazil is a Catholic country, and they've got, you know, but fuck Brazil is almost as bad as Thailand, dude, but also woke, isn't just that I mean?
Speaker 1:right, right, right, but it's a component of it, is my point.
Speaker 2:So, and is my point? So? And and he said well, but I'm referring really just to western societies, but I I forgot about I should have mentioned brazil. I kind of forgot about that, but he is right to some extent. Like I don't think there are any orthodox countries that went woke in the last uh greece no, no, greece is not woke uh g, greece is extremely socialistic. Yeah, they're socialistic.
Speaker 1:They're not woke though. All right. How are you defining woke?
Speaker 2:Well, blm, you know, I mean it's basically, it's, I think, the socialism Greece in all of Europe, I don't think is deniable. But like there are Rainbow flags and um, uh, preferential treatment to certain minorities but not other minorities, like all these types of things, I okay, I don't know, maybe, I mean, maybe they are. I honestly I've just not really gave a shit, a whole lot what's happening in European countries. I just know they're worse than ours. Okay, I don't know. Man Anyway, so he posted this. I think he was wrong, I think he's because I know that he is Orthodox, so it kind of makes sense that he would think that, you know, there's less woke in Orthodox. But also, I think that's somewhat a somewhat self you know what's the phrase?
Speaker 1:Self-something prophecy, like if you pick Self-fulfilling yeah.
Speaker 2:Self-fulfilling. Yeah, if you pick certain factors and then you look for which countries have those and then you say, well, those countries, because they have this one thing in common, it's clearly that one thing that is responsible for them having this these factors it's. I don't think it's statistically true, I guess is the bottom line. My argument would be more that countries that have a strong morality are going to be less woke, and that morality doesn't have to be a good one. It could be a morality imposed by a socialist government like China.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the ethic right but yeah, and the cohesion of the country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so in places where that is strong, you have less woke, you have less woke. In places where there's been individual, liberty has tended to be at the forefront, like a lot of Western Europe and the U S? Um, that tends to be places where the wires tends to stick and grow.
Speaker 1:The reason why is because we, we make a conscious decision to say you, do you, and we don't want to oppress our minorities. We allow them to kind of go the way they go, and that means, okay, yeah, you're going to end up with XYZ people deciding, people deciding hey, I want to cut my dick off. Um, okay, that doesn't affect me, so whatever.
Speaker 2:so, yes, you have the next thing you know it's I want to cut my, my kids dicks off and I.
Speaker 1:I think there has to be a balance, right, because I I believe in individual liberty as a core principle and something that has to exist, like if you're over 18 and you make a decision to do something to your body, yeah, that is your decision, I have nothing to say about it and and here's the way I am, and I I'm in very much agreement with you on that I believe that people have and the right to self-mutilation and the right to do stupid things.
Speaker 2:However, I also believe that the way that society gets around that issue of people doing stupid things is through a combination of shame and harsh treatment, meaning you have the right to put a giant nose ring in your nose and tattoo your face.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I have the right to never hire you to do anything for me and to ridicule you for it and to make fun of you. Yeah, exactly Like that's the balance. It's not saying you can't do that, you can't self-mutilate. It's making it have consequences.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the way I view abortion is very similar to this. In fact, I was having this conversation the other day. Abortion I don't want abortion to be illegal.
Speaker 2:And the reason why is?
Speaker 1:because I don't want the government to feel the need to intervene.
Speaker 1:I think it should be morally unthinkable and not something that can even be thought of except in extreme circumstances. But here's the thing. I don't think the state has a right to tell people I think back to the fountainhead and again, because I was going through a bunch of Rand stuff last night I will die for you, but I won't live for you. No person has the right to force someone else to live, to benefit someone else at the expense of themselves. So what it comes down to is do I think abortion is good? No, do I think it is a right? No, do I think that we've created a really shitty social consciousness around this that has really bad consequences long term? Yep. So yeah, I don't know what to say, other than we have to figure out the way out of this this and I don't think it's through legislation, I don't think it's through um anything other than good morals and that's
Speaker 2:for all of the what my environment and and there have been many instances well, I shouldn't say many. There have been instances where, uh, part of the admission to a certain thing has been the reciting of the pledge uh, galt's pledge. I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine. Yeah, because that sentiment excludes the possibility of communism, socialism, all the isms um nationalism. Because it effectively reaffirms the order of importance of uh in in the um hierarchy of, I guess uh justice or uh, I don't know what would be the hierarchy that this would be in of. Yeah, it probably is justice. Honestly, I mean it's it's placing values on what is important.
Speaker 2:And important, I think, in this case, is tied to just, and the voluntary ability to give your life for something is taken away by the state's involuntary determination of what you can and can't do with your life Agreed. And this is also why I think that is immoral for the state to not allow suicide Agreed. For the most part, again, there's nothing wrong with trying to use non-legal means to keep people from exercising the right to suicide, but I think it is absolutely immoral to presume that someone doesn't have the right to their life, and of course, we could also derive the right to slavery from that. Say that again. We derive the right to slavery from that, like if you cannot sell your life, you don't own your life and that's an important distinction is being able to sell oneself into slavery.
Speaker 2:Not your kids, not other people yourself, yeah, Not your kids not other people, yourself. Exactly, exactly, or those you capture during battle. Yeah, okay, hey, conan was right.
Speaker 1:Conan the Barbarian man.
Speaker 2:I've never seen those comic books and it is a shocker to me sometimes that that was actually a comic book originally. Uh, because it seemed like it's rich storytelling. Why, why, I don't know. I just kind of consider comic book usually to be fairly surface level. Maybe I'm just not an aficionado of that stuff. Okay, cool, and on that note, jean, let's wrap it up in and that stuff Okay Cool and on that note, Gene. Let's wrap it up. Ben Been going for over two hours, Correct.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope everyone had a good day, a good week, and we'll catch you next time. Please share the podcast and put it out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we had one more person subscribe.
Speaker 1:Yes, we did.
Speaker 2:I don't have their name here. Share the podcast and put it out there. Yeah, and we had one more person subscribe, which I, we did.
Speaker 1:I don't have their name here. Do you have that email? I just closed.
Speaker 2:Buzzsprout Hold on, oh shoot. But yeah, we want to thank everybody that does support us on a monthly basis. We know people come and go. Some people do it for one month and then they're gone, and that's great, we appreciate that and other people have been with us for over over a year yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if I want to. We want to give out the uh last name, but anthony anthony. Yeah, that's so.
Speaker 2:Thank you, tony yeah, yeah, whichever, whether it's anthony or tony and if you want to support us. Honestly. The easiest way to do it is a link right in our podcast that buzzsprout does the credit card processing. They give us, uh, a credit towards the fees that are paid for hosting and ai processing of the episodes, all that good stuff. So it's what you're doing is you're literally, uh, donating money that goes directly towards credit to the costs that we have in doing the podcast.
Speaker 1:So we appreciate people we. It basically goes into an account and when the revenue is high enough, we don't pay anything for the hosting fees and stuff like that and we just let it build up yep, uh. And when, the, when people fall off or whatever, yep, um, we end up paying the difference, or you know, it comes out for a bit and it works out.
Speaker 2:We're not making any money off of this no, we've never made, and never have expected to make, any money off this, but it is nice when somebody else is at least picking up the costs and the costs are like if nobody was donating money. I think the monthly bills were like 55 bucks thereabouts.
Speaker 1:It's like having domain and everything else, yeah.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Alright, guys, we'll catch you on the next one.
Speaker 1:See ya.
