Balancing the ever tipping scales of Gitmo nation from
opposite corners of the Constitution free zone. This is
no agenda coming to you from Gitmo nation East in the
affluent suburb of Surrey known as Guilford. I'm Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak. Gitmo nation. North aren't actually
West. I don't know. I'm in Silicon Valley
West, of course. Let's get one. Come on, you should know that.
Buying, you know, it changes, it moves around.
It's a moving target.
It's not going to be Gitmo nation anymore after the
election.
Oh, no. What will we have to talk about then?
I don't know. Probably something worse.
No, no, no. It's gone further into good my nation. Hey, it's
good to be back in the UK back into the new cycle. Boy, is it
different?
Yeah, you you were you were here for a while. And then you came
back? I mean, you like took a couple of trips. And, and the
thing was, at the end, we went down to do we discuss the ante.
We talked about chapeau, which will be our last restaurant
review. For those out there who hate the fact that we even
discussed food,
I'm getting so many positive responses to our food
discussions. And indeed, We have not discussed Chapo which I
would have to say, was one of our better meals.
Yes, I would say I agree. And it was reasonably priced. And I got
to have a wine that I haven't had for 20 years. So I thought
before, before we get to that, let's just start at the
beginning. Where we want at the end, the beginning of the end,
we walk into the joint, and it felt like we had walked in the
back door. Because you're literally the minute you walk
in, you're standing in between two tables. And all the action
is at the other side of the room. So I'm like, wow, this is
kind of weird.
I'm still wondering whether we did walk back. Yeah, absolutely.
That's probably what happened. And we got we got a great seat a
little booth right by the window, which was nice.
There was no it's a weird place. There was no you know, normally
in almost every restaurant you go to even if it's a little
place in in the middle of nowhere, France. There's a
little stand someplace where you know, we're you know, to go by
someone's name. Yeah, cuz it's like a little it's like a
podium. And trade. Every restaurant has one that I think
about why Yeah, with. Somebody could keep in the back of their
pocket, you know, the list. But no, yeah, there's usually a
podium and you go to the podium, and yes, yes. What can I do for
you? Well, I have reservation for two and six dirty name.
Dvorak? Oh, yeah.
Question about that, because I've seen you do this a couple
of times now. Because you always take care of the reservations.
And you're walking, you say, Yeah, dinner for two or table
for two. You never say, reservation on a Dvorak, you
always say written, you know, dinner for two first. Hey, I do
and in particular reason.
Yeah, I want to see if you can get in without a reservation.
Okay, right back.
I mean, of course, I do it through an open table. So I need
to get those points for the unknown reason.
I'm getting email now from Open Table about points. But I'm
foolish, because for whatever reason, I'm hanging out with you
too much. You're getting all the points. I should look that up.
That was a fascinating email.
Anyway, so yeah, just like people who said, no, no, don't
worry, I'll make the I'll make the reservation. So anyway, no,
I usually do that. I always say to I go into I do this. And I by
the way, I've always done this, I go in to see if I just get a
table. So three, and then the and then if there's no tables,
they always said you have a reservation. Now in the case of
a situation, we want to get my points. I go in, I go in and ask
if there's a it's kind of nice to know if you can just wander
into a place. So it's one way of finding out anyway, so I go in
there and I say three or two or four, whatever. I have the hope
and they say oh yeah, yeah, we can put you over here. And I say
I have a reservation Oh, yeah. And I search for and I get my
name and then they go back into check it off the box. And you
had to he had me as opposed to just taking the table because if
I don't tell him I have a reservation the be this
reservation is still sitting there. And with the name Devorah
icon and I look like a stiff.
So the email I got was open table turns 10 Plus Thanksgiving
specials and 1k points. More points. So it's out. By the way,
please. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Somebody sent me a note saying you get 50 bucks off on a kind
of you get a coupon at all these restaurants.
We got to redeem that man because this is what
happens. Yeah, I haven't gotten to the you need 5000 points for
50 bucks. I'm not there yet.
1000 points. We need to go from one 1k Point restaurants. That's
what we need. I've
only done that once. I've actually tried to slip a couple
1k restaurants in on our little soirees.
I don't recognise any on the list. So what was interesting to
me was that I think it was like a family run restaurant seemed
like a family of what would you say Koreans maybe
look like it but if you look at Alicia to French
Francois
Whoo. I'm saying, Yeah. Everybody was there was Asian we
never saw anyone that was an Asian
place was packed. And the service was very interesting
because although efficient, and prompt and attend, they did mess
up a couple things, which was just unnecessary and dumb.
I had a list of four things they screwed up. Alright, let me
see if we if we can knock them off. First of all, there was the
there was just getting the getting situated. Getting
someone over in the beginning took a little long, there was
some confusion some someone came up to take our drink order after
it already been taken. Then we didn't get our palate cleanser,
which we expressly ordered.
Right? They had it this is one of the few restaurants there's a
thing for people out there who really care. There's in higher
end rest is not a high end places kind of medium. But in
high end restaurants, they usually give you one of these
things free in their colon entre MA and they're a little piece of
this that usually low sherbert now we're not sure but nothing
was milk in it. But like, like a fruit sorbet or something that
just kind of get a lot of acid
bloom and onto a mime and dairy. Yeah.
It's got a lot of acid in it supposed to Cleanse the palate
for the next course. And it's gonna this one's
nine bottles. This thing's palate cleanser.
One of the I think it would be funnier to have a restaurant a
palate cleanser, you know, they'd have a Pray that they
come up with a toothbrush.
This restaurant did did have some gimmicks. But anyway, then
they if you would ask for the lamb, I'm going to say rare. And
I had asked for the beef medium. And although I did get the beef
and you did get the lamb, they made the beef medium and the
hour the beef rare and the lamb medium.
Yes. Which was annoying, to say the least on why bitched on what
Yeah. And it wasn't bad but the but it was the Lamb you know,
she did lamb should have been ready. Actually, the beef was
good because it was ready. I don't know why you keep ordering
medium. Well,
I don't like prayer.
Q ate the thing up like you were just, I'm surprised you didn't
use me. You know, excuse
me. I didn't finish it. And I said here would you like this? I
can't finish it. Okay, because it was just like grossed me out.
I didn't want to say hey, I'm really grossed out by this piece
of rotting flesh bloody flesh on my plate. Would you like to
harsh that down? And you always would do or you always do. Hey,
could you put this in? In a box for my dog? I really do have a
dog and then I'll put the bread in there. And you like taking
everything off the table. Hey, this scrap here. Wait a minute.
Wait. There's a crumbling give that put in there. And I'm like,
Yeah, put the salt and pepper shakers in there. Go ahead, man
put on the box.
They don't by the way. They don't do that doggie bags in
Europe. No, do not try this in Europe. Do not try this in
Europe. But I do have a dog. And we feed we feed our dogs, all of
them scraps as much as we can or we make our own dog food. And so
I'm not lying. I'm not taking that food home to eat it was
overcooked. And but here's the thing you didn't know I didn't
tell you this. They didn't put anything in there except the one
piece of meat.
They didn't put the bread in you asked you expressly as for the
bread. Exactly. What a cheap bastards. Right? They just it
was I think that just fell off the list.
When I mean it's just like they were they're careless. It was a
garrulous, the service was extremely careless.
But the food made up for it and what really the appetiser when
you talk about that about that for a second appetiser we had.
Do we have two separate appetisers and then a I think,
what did I have John? We had something in the middle to
I don't remember. Okay, the most random sort of salad or
something?
Here, but it was good. It was good. Crowd the
appetisers. Were good. Yeah. But not barely not memorable.
So the wine though this was this was a funny moment where you had
found what you would call a gem and I'll let you expand on what
it was in a second. And so the waiter comes over and say hey,
this is really amazing that this wine is on The menu you can't
get this anywhere the guy's like, got it and then you went
took it one step further. So
the guy made it then.
No, no, the snide comment came after that because he was being
nice at first and then he went, look, I can't get this anywhere
in San Francisco. And then the guy said, Well, maybe you need
to find a better place. tripped me out and, like snap. You had
nothing to say.
I didn't have a comeback. Zero.
You couldn't really say you Korean fuck. Who do you think
you are?
Well, I did some research. Yeah, the wine is not available.
But Where'd he get it from then?
I was just some distributor came through town. They sold them,
you know, half the wine list and but none of them none of the
local stores habit. You know, I looked it up on the internet as
a matter of fact, as hard this stuff's hard to find. It's been
hard to find for years.
Okay, so tell tell the audience what it was. There was a
chateau canon from Canon France. Sacher wasn't from Santa Miyan.
And it was a it was a 2005. And it's I think that it's, it's one
of these, I think, from the new owners. I think it's been I
think the ownerships been changed, although I wouldn't
know because you never see this wine. You see a lot of other
fronts, X and Canon Francaise, which is a very specific area of
Bordeaux, this used to be extremely popular, apparently,
at least if you read the literature in the 1600s, or
something like that, because it's a little closer to Paris.
But I've always liked these wines from this area, because
they have a distinctive flavour that's kind of unique and tasty.
And canon is essentially their Chateau that they named the
subdivision can in France sack after because it was so good.
And in fact, the way it was tasty,
was outstanding and a great value. It was I believe, $60 for
the bottle. Yeah, was
60 bucks. You know, if that's if you if we were in Paris, that
wine would have been probably 100.
And by the way, when I say a reasonable price, that's all
relative, obviously,
it for these restaurants, that's a very good deal. Because for
people out there who you know, wondering why that's pretty
high. I only pay eight. But the fact is the restaurants we've
been going to until we downgraded downgraded Oh my
goodness. Until we downgraded it was like pulling teeth to find a
way under $100.
The total bill for this, I believe, was $230. about as
expensive as the other restaurant with the previous one
we went to,
right which was which actually, I think it was a little cheaper
and the restaurant this restaurant was, which was Eisah
I think it was a little better. And then we did it wasn't like a
tune up. You
thought you thought Eisah was better than Tshepo
No, no, Tshepo was better. I said it was better and cheaper
is what I'm trying to get to. And and for people out there you
know 250 bucks, just one this meal had it. We didn't there
wasn't anything that we didn't do, except that we didn't have
any after dinner drinks. Although I think we had a white
wine or white wine to start with.
We had a white wine to start with a full bottle of wine and
everything we had an after dinner shot turn or something.
Oh, and of course the PS the rest is stones. Exactly. Which
just blew us both away the desserts. I think you get this
sorbet.
Away to the resistance for me was the guy slipping us a saw
turn that wasn't the one we ordered. Oh, yeah. True. Another
faux pas Yes. Places things. These guys have a lot of a lot
of emails.
A lot of guys. Go back there and say you know what? You know, we
thought you were pretty good. But you're off the list now.
Sure, visitors screw ups.
Very cute. At the end there though. They give you a little
hat. Of course. Chapeau being French for hat. And your bill is
in there. I want to take a company
hat it's an actual hat. That
was a real hat. What was what was just awesome. Was the the
one desert
you want to take a dump and is that what you're saying?
Yeah, when I saw that one. I was a little annoyed by the service
but it evened out because the food was so good. And at the end
let me get through it. I had a banana strawberry kiwi, kind of
mash up. But what they've done is they kind of floated that in
basil oil and it was an outstanding combination.
I'm glad you remembered that because I actually forgot it but
now that you mentioned it, I was stunned by this dessert. It was
one of the tastiest things, combinations of flavours but
anyway we had we're talking about we're talking about
classic like you know combinations of like a custard a
banana strawberry something else that but with this basil oil. It
just took distinct to another dimension for some reason it was
absolutely It's phenomenal.
And basil, you know, I associate that with some Italian dishes
certainly more hearty. Not something sweet. And but but
when you combine it with those other sweet fruits it is I mean,
it's absolutely heavenly. I mean, yeah, I
mean, I was I was I was stunned. So anyway, that's a review of
chapeau in San Francisco if you haven't be going by when you go
in if anyone comes in San Francisco,
tell them DeVore Accenture. Now.
I understand your service is kind of crappy, although your
food's good. Yeah. Hey, let
me take a dump and that hat of yours are you getting? I don't
know either. I'm all alone. I came home. Check this out, man.
So it's been it's like being on tour. For three weeks in San
Francisco. Then we I rushed back to the, you know, the surprise
party in Amsterdam, then flew out almost a day after we got
back in for another full week in San Francisco, Los Angeles. And
I come home and I've delayed flights until I'm home late, and
everyone's kind of getting ready because Patricia, Christina and
Dexter Christina's boyfriend, they all went to Holland
yesterday. So I've been home alone for two days. Me and the
admin. The stuff that piles up in a few weeks time is just so
and not just frightening but annoying. It's like an
albatross.
Like, what what are you talking about? It's just stacks and
stacks of envelopes that have to be opened and dealt with. And
it's amazing because when I go through it the actual signal to
noise ratio is very low. I mean get this you know, there's like
basic utilities, a couple of bills, but honestly 150
envelopes and it's all kinds of bullshit that really doesn't
need any attention at all is you know overkill and you have to
wade through all of it. Ah, I hate it
you know what's interesting is I thought this was supposed to be
eliminated by electronic email and things like that. Oh, it's
junk mail but you're talking about
it well it's not even junk mail it's just the vendors that I do
business with one way or the other beat the banks of the
banks are the worst they send you so much crap it's like no
get get a clue already. I'm not going to take the credit card
I'm not going to take your insurance in the in the UK is
this the same in the states where you pay for the water
coming out of the tap and you also have to pay for the amount
of water that goes down the drain?
I don't know that we well we there's a sewage tax but that's
no this is not a tax they actually measure or they sound
they measure how much water you flushed
don't even you shouldn't even mentioned it now that I think
about it. Yeah. We'll just say hey, there's a good idea
paying for it both ways. And I never heard of such a thing how
do you measure it? Let me let me go grab a bill let me see what
they say hold on.
Do they have a metre on your on your outflow?
I have a metre on my ass they can see how much is coming out
how much farting are you doing
let me see they metre everything for carbon credit here
it is here it is check it out. So services your water services
bill for 15th April 2008 to two October 2008 191 pounds 80
consisting of water
right Wait wait wait, wait, wait, wait. Yes. What's the
period of time for 191 pounds which to us Americans is about
$350
April to October
April May and June. So a six month bill
six month bill okay in that time 100 Oh interesting. This is an
adjuster This isn't man I gotta go check my metre. So here it
is. They
This is how do they know well they basically say okay, you the
estimate that you use, you know they do that where you get an
estimated charge and then you know when you move then they
throw a $20,000 bill and yeah. So they say well, we estimate in
that period you use 100 cubic metres of water at 107 pence per
cubic metre. Wow. So that's 118 pounds and then they say Well
since you use the 100 cubic metres your wastewater was also
100 cubic metres 51 pounds pen that's just
basically doubling this is chicken. Isn't that horrible? By
the way, what if you just drank all the water and peed
elsewhere?
I bet I can prove it. I can prove I use that water and I
passed it down someone else's toilet Got to compensate him and
Bill him more.
Could be can happen.
Get mo nation.
Well, that's pretty ridiculous. Yeah. How can the English public
put up with this crap?
Well, it's funny using you mentioned that because they're
the English public has snapped. I came back and the whole
country is in an uproar. I'd already read about it. You know,
the last day I was in Los Angeles before I got on the
plane. I was like, What the hell was going on? An absolute
uproar. I'm talking about 10 minutes, a 10 minute long
discussion items. Reporters live on the scene. At the top of the
news, the 10 o'clock BBC News, not ITV or channel four, but the
BBC News. All the news outlets were doing it. The BBC 24 News
Channel. These two, two presenters, one of them, you
probably know both of them. One is Russell Brand. He's he's the
guy who hosted the MTV awards. He's an English comedian. He's
also in that movie. Forgetting Sarah, I think it's called kind
of rock and roll looking guy. It looks a bit like Michael Butler.
Okay. And Jonathan Ross, who is of course, you know, the top
talk show host has his Friday night show makes 6 million
pounds a year Jonathan Ross is the highest I think the highest
paid quote entertainer on the BBC. And of course, the BBC is
publicly funded, though people are always bitching about it.
And Russell Brand is also a reasonably I think he's up there
in salary. But anyway, they they made they did a show together I
think it was Russell Brand show and Jonathan Ross came on and
you know, the here two guys who probably off the radio that
really funny together because it's probably really good
friends. But then they got together and it just became a
trumping one doing crazier than the other. And they called up an
actor Andrew Sachs, who was Manuel in Fawlty Towers. And you
know, and so they're just talking trash into his into his
voicemail because the guy didn't pick up. And then at one point,
Jonathan Ross says, well, and He literally says this, he says,
oh, go ahead, Russell, just tell them that you fucked his
granddaughter, which apparently is true. And then it just went
downhill from there. Right. So if anything, that should be an
outrage, because it was not funny, it was just dumb. But
this has resulted in a huge, I mean, just John astronomical
front page of the Financial Times, even the BBC, it's gone
too far. And this has to stop and Russell Brand resigned,
Jonathan Ross, you know, suspended for 12 weeks without
pay. You know, the Director General had to give public
statements and everyone's and now what's happening, they're
saying, well, the BBC clearly needs more and tighter editorial
controls, it's really amazing to see what's happening. So from
two ends, one, the public that they're so frustrated and angry
that he was an opportunity, I believe, you know, to yell at
him, because basically, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand are
public servants. If you look at it, the way the payments are
structured to the BBC, to just get pissed off, like they were
like, they were bank executives getting bailed out, you know,
it's just huge outrage.
So basically, are you telling me that there was a pent up
hostility towards the BBC?
I think towards authority in general and perhaps in
particular, people who are doing quite well doing seemingly
nothing but then was
everybody in broadcasting
exactly but so now what's happened on the on the political
side is it's it's really being I can see it happening they're
grasping this it's like we need stricter editorial controls and
you know what that does to the DNA of a broadcast company makes
everyone's afraid to say anything bright and ruins
everything Yeah. And so the the BBC was just basically you know,
if you believe in Nomi Wolf's Shock Doctrine theory, then wow,
they got it they got a club and on this one
well, you know, the BBC has been pretty I mean, they've been it's
been a weird operation for the last number of years in terms of
its politics have been extremely politically slanted. No kidding.
And I don't know that the public you know, suddenly we have one
of our talk show right wing talk show characters actually is more
of a libertarian type, I guess, but who's popular successful is
is Michael Savage. And he has a thesis that and of course,
anyone who listens to the show knows that I you to a lesser
extent, but you know, right wing talk shows are extremely popular
and well produced and it's a shame that the liberals don't
listen to them because there's a lot of besides A lot of
learning, learning. Yeah. Well, it's not learning as much as
interesting perspectives that need to be addressed. He has
this thesis that the reason that American newspapers are doing so
bad in terms of they're losing, they just keep losing
circulation. And he went through all the numbers over the last
quarter mean every no matter even the times, everybody's just
like losing numbers like there's no tomorrow, don't read these
things. And the public is getting tired of it. And I think
is a lot of it has to do with what came out in a Pew Research
Report. That's showing the doing an analysis of every story
written about the Obama and McCain campaign with, you know,
even though we already we already knew this, even though
there was some denial for a few years into the denials went
away, which is that the media is extremely liberal. And the Pew
Research report showed that, you know, 80% of the Obama stories
were positive about Obama and 20% of the McCain stories were
positive about McCain. And it was avert, we're not talking
about something that was like mild, he was overt up, you know,
positive writing about one guy and overt negative writing, you
know what? I'd call this, John, because I totally agree with,
with what's taking what you're saying is taking place. And
really when you look at it, the elite, I call them the, you
know, the elitist media. And we're definitely part of us is
elitist, which isn't really West Coast, East Coast, it talks to a
very small audience. This is the Jon Stewart show has a very
small audience, but much, much smaller than the NASCAR country
in Western media, what I call it, which is Rush Limbaugh or
many other forms of news and entertainment, which is meant
for a broad audience, as a broadcaster was hammered into me
go broad go broad, because you will wind up with no audience.
And I believe that's what's happening to these newspapers.
That's his theory. That's my theory. And eight Well, it's his
theory too. So you're in agreement you should get should
get together for a drink. Anyway, the point is, is that,
you know, the public, hey, you
wouldn't be jealous, if I got together with them and
get them out, get an autograph. Anyway, to get a free book from
the guy who's always given his books away. So anyway, the point
is, is that the audience can only put up with so much of it
because they have an opinion. And they just keep having this
stuff thrown in their face. It just, you know, constantly. A
lot of it's just Bs, and you can tell and you know it after a
while, I mean, you just sense it, the public is becoming more
becoming like Russia, you know, where they were the population
before the effect to this day, they're extremely sceptical of
any kind of reporting. Any you know, you have a public that's
so sceptical because the media is not really doing his job.
It's just promoting its personal agenda, even though they deny it
because oh, we're we're supposed to be so objective. But the fact
of the matter is, you know, it's all my little all be like
democracy now, where they might where they just at least, let
you know where they stand up front. Yeah. I mean, it's
nobody's fooling anybody with that show. And instead of trying
to trick you, and I think the public resents it at some point
they're there they get sick of it or they sell or they just get
tired of it. And I don't know and then the news choices of
course, which is what you have you listened to the the right if
you want to call them right wing philosophers, but the people
that are conservative that took over the country for a while
they had this thing which I always thought Richard viguerie,
who is one of the great direct marketing people and but he does
mostly political stuff in history, wrote a bunch of books
he writes, he tells you how to do all this stuff and do these
guys a lot of people have great skills and I have to do is read
their book, and you get all the tips you can do it to vagary
says that, and I always agreed with this, he says, it's not so
much the way they write the stories. It's the stories that
decide to cover, of course, and we run into that, in fact, I
have a blog and all the guys all my other editors had that blog
there, you know, it's called, you know, underreported news a
with a subhead, why, ask yourself why you're reading this
on a blog. And there'll be a lot of scandalous and interesting
stories that you just read is almost impossible to find many
of them covered in the European newspapers and completely
avoided here. Yeah.
No, it's true. And although I have, you know, I'm just
imagining a little bit of this, you know, our numbers are
shooting through the roof. I think people are slowly
switching on to the idea that there is some alternative out
there and there are other smart people. And we're starting to
brand ourselves appropriately and people are picking up on
more information and there's more choices. There's more
angles, you can look at things from so you can start to define
your own opinion. But yeah, the it's, it's so obvious when you
come from abroad. have cast background like yourself and I,
you know when you know how it works and you know, play the
actually I was talking to Ron about this because he was
showing Auggie, his son who's 26 He was saying play the flashback
game. And so he loads up Fox News on one channel, then, you
know, loads of CNN on the other hand flashes back and forth with
the last channel. And then all of a sudden becomes apparent.
Hey, wait a minute, these guys are all hyping up Obama and
those guys are all hyping up McCain. And only when you see it
in that context, does it really start to dawn on you, when most
people don't realise this is taking place and don't realise
how it really works, you know, the ownership structure, which,
you know, there's rarely a guy sitting in a room with a white
cat going for, you know, turn up the Obama, that kind of, it
trickles down through the big lever, yeah, trickles down
through the DNA of a company. And if you've worked in any type
of media organisation, you know what this is like, Oh, we don't
do that here. We don't talk about that here. No, that's not
really what they want is a very mystical day. And I've always
had who's they get they on the phone? Because I got a question.
No, no. Kid, by the way, usually gets you fired.
Well, yeah, that you become you become the what was that movie
with Tom Cruise that he played the sports agent? Turning
Maguire? Yeah. Maguire is actually if people haven't seen
that movie, you should review or people who ask you, you should
revisit it because it only for the beginning. Because the guys
is gung ho superstar. And he decides to stupidly reveal a
memo that he wrote showing you some of the ways that they can
improve the company. Big mistake, and he's out. You
always have to be careful because the companies are
corporate that mean corporate cultures are our animals.
They're
they'll, they'll say, shred you and spit you out.
They exist on their own. And what's what's interesting to me
about the newspaper situation, which I think is not discussed
much, but I should remember because I used to be, you know,
here we go. Yeah.
Wait a minute. You used to be Lou Grant.
I used to be a paperboy. Of course. And so, so it was I was
very sorry, you were y'all. Yeah. He must have been the last
one. Anyway, so. And I was working for the contribute. And
I remember the newspaper business back when I was a kid,
and because my thing my dad would bitch about this because
he was like a liberal Democrat, you know, union guy, and, you
know, labour. And he would always say, Well, you know, and
he the rule was, all the newspapers are owned by right
wingers. And all the reporters were left wingers and that's the
way that that's the balance that you had. And you could never
really, you know, get too far out of control because you had a
boss and owner, like Noland in Oakland, who would became
governor that one wasn't gonna let it happen but in today's
environment, it's like the owners are the Liberals they're
the rich you know, there's a lot of people you know, there's a
study that just came out showing that the especially the hyper
rich are all Democrats, the rich are all Republicans and
everybody else's is a Democrat. But the the super rich are all
Democrats in the I mean, we can I can name
names. They're actually socialists,
right? They're socialists, maybe they're got a lot of money in
there. You know, Warren Buffett's in this category.
Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, John Doerr, right, all of
them. So anyways, Soros right, a good example. These guys are
billionaires. So anyway, the vague, these people own the
media now, also, I mean, instead of the we don't have the balance
anymore. In other words, you don't have the owner who says I
don't care what anybody thinks in the editorial room, I'm this
paper is for the Republican, and here, you know, suddenly put up,
you know, we recommend you vote for this guy. Now. Like I think
that they the results have just come in. It's like 80% of the
newspapers around the country, the USA, have endorsed Obama and
20% of in which are the the hangers on the 20%. And indoors,
McCain. And you know it, there's no reason for the thing that in
the olden days, you'd never have that if the if the Republican
was the worst guy in the world, it would still be pushing for
him. So the balance is missing. So now it's just all liberals.
I'm sure you call it that Obama threw three journalists off of
his plane, all three whose newspapers had endorsed McCain.
No, I didn't know this. Oh, yeah. And it was under the guise
of well, you know, we need to let some other reporters on and
the reporters replacing them I think was like Ebony Magazine
and jet magazine.
No, yeah. Yeah. It's
pretty funny. Report by the way. Well, remind me by the way, they
I think what you just described by the way is going to get
worse. Yeah,
well I mean how much we only have a couple days left so
doesn't make that No, no,
I'm talking about when Obama if Obama is elected, oh, yes gonna
be worse than the Clinton administration for like, you
know, marginalising everybody and taking over the media and
making those press conferences like really they're gonna be
embarrassingly fawning.
Who do you Who do you think would be a good press secretary
for Obama? I would.
Oh, man, you caught me mid swallow in my water. I could
have been dying was spewed on that I was fine.
I do have some thoughts about Obama, we'll get to that we talk
about the Oba mercial. Maybe we should talk about it now. I
can't remember where we were. Are we talking about your dad?
And about the balance? So yeah, well, you were Yeah, make that
go ahead. We were talking about Obama's get going to clamp down
and on the right wing or the conservative sides of the media
and is they're not going to be in the press conferences are not
going to get any access at all, they're going to be denied
access. I mean, that's what the President can do. I mean, it's
began years ago, you know, with you know, Biden or maybe was
Nixonian I'm not sure where it really began
well, didn't they didn't eventually didn't Bush
eventually throw Helen out the world the cabinet that I know
of? Well, she's I think she was she resigned she was so
disgusted with it all. She she left she decided that to cover
it anyway,
I think she retired. I don't think she was I mean, she wrote
she wrote,
which I have, which I have on my list. I really should read that
because man, she was there for everything.
But I think this guy's gonna be potentially beyond the recipe
because he knows he can get away with all this stuff. And
everybody's gonna cheer him because the air all the liberal
friends that I have that are Democrats are, most of them come
to consoles, liberals are real extreme ones are progressive,
which is kind of a throwback term. And they are so irked
being cut out of the deal for so long, that they're going to be
dummy, they'd be cheering Hitler.
Just to give you a perspective on how well I can say Europe is
certainly the the United Kingdom is looking at these last days
before the election, and they are following it quite closely.
They have the reporters on the ground they have they're using
studios in Washington, with audiences. And those are pretty
funny actually, because they know they'll have a panel of two
or three Obama people two or three McCain people want to be
like a Republican, not affiliated with the campaign.
And there's usually one person who is actually in the campaign.
But the audience it's, I love it, you can pick them out, you
know, the audience is so stacked, you know, they went to
Central Casting and said, Give me some Republicans give me some
Democrats give me some undecided. And literally, the
Republicans are great, you know, they're like 16 year old boys,
you know, full full suits, ties, you know, very articulate and
very, you know, you just want to slap them upside the head, one
of those little bastards, Oxford debaters to have exactly on the
debate team. And then you can see which ones are I mean, you
can just tell right, it's totally stacked. But what's
really interesting is the main thrust of the conversation I've
picked up on is that it's really the question about race, which I
see. Well, I saw less of that in the US in the last four or five
weeks, than just the little amount that I've watched of
coverage here in the UK. And, and they really go in in depth
into this into this question of, of race, and you know, the
warrior, we're gonna get a Bradley Effect, all these
different things. And there was one woman who was it was a news
piece. I don't know who she was. And she said something really
interesting. She said, just so she's black. She said, just so
you know, Obama is is not an African American, he does not
come from slave roots. Ergo, he does not necessarily represent
the African Americans in the United States. And it didn't
really, it didn't really hit me until I realised that that's
that's really an interesting statement. And it just shows you
how racist people actually are, because they are judging, in
many cases, judging his perceived culture and background
based upon his skin colour, and not really on his real
background, which indeed has nothing to do with Africa,
African Americans, descendants from slaves.
Yeah, no, this a specific type of African American is obviously
an African American. But this issue came up you missed it
probably just came up in this election cycle during the early
primaries. When he was running against Hillary. This became a
huge issue. For a couple of weeks it was brought up by this
sharp 10s Or this you know, the black. The you know, the people
that you know that marginalised one
is this one is this one Al Sharpton tried to say off camera
or I don't like the way he was Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson,
right?
But it was it was one of those guys, they brought it up. And it
became kind of an issue that he's not really black or he's, I
think it was may have been Sharpton. But it was one of
these guys that said he's not black enough. And then they
started talking about
him. Am I crazy? Or is that the most racist thing you can say?
It's pretty bad. I mean, that that seems like an outrageous
racist comment to me.
Well, nobody calls anybody on, they're given a pass on this
stuff. And that's just the way it goes now, and nobody, you
know, was not going to give him a pass on. It's like, oh, you
know, bring it up some other time. Now, the thing that's
interesting is that shut up, bring
it up some other time. Well, yeah.
So So I don't I should, I could find it. I'd send it to you. But
somebody sent me a can maybe we can play it next week after the
election is over. But although wouldn't do any good.
Apparently, Howard Stern sent his man on the street into
Harlem. And have you heard any of this?
Is this is this the piece where they where the question is, do
you think that having Barack Obama and Sarah Palin on the
same ticket will be good?
Exactly. Yeah, he went on, the idea was to prove that that
blacks are just voting for Obama, because he's black. And
there's no thought at all involved in the whole thing,
which is, again, another racist thing. So he goes into the
street, and he and the idea was he brings this guy out there,
because you can do this with any population in the United States.
So it's kind of artificial, because I mean, Jay Leno has
been making a career out of this thing called jaywalking. But
anyway, so the idea was, you go into the street, and you take
some, just any casual person in Harlem, a black person. And you
ask them a question about Obama, and whether they agree with his
policies, and then you reiterate McCain's policies. Yeah. Yeah,
obviously seen this, after they agree to that you say, and you
don't think it was bad that he has a vice president like Sarah
Palin as his running mate, and see what they say. And they all
agreed with McCain's policies. And they thought Sarah Palin was
fine as his running mate, even though she's not. And the whole
thing was ridiculous. But it's a typical, that you listen to more
you listen to these kinds of things, and jaywalking that Jay
Leno does is actually worse, it just makes you shake your head,
the only thing I take issue with is people forget, and I see this
with very highly intelligent people. They forget that there
is an editor who put this together. And obviously, it's a
lot less spectacular. If you see a couple of people answered
quite intelligently and not falling for it. And you just put
all this the idiots together. There are many examples of this
type of video on YouTube. tonnes, you know, it's like name
a country that starts with a letter, you know, it's like,
and, of course, if you think about America, not a lot of
people think about United States of America. And you know,
they're like, Utah.
Right? They say, Utah. Well, there was this one kid roaming
around, I think we blogged this one or I did. Who goes away some
joker goes to some hottie College, some Behati private
college somewhere. You negati hated the place. And he goes to
the women one after another saying, you know, getting him to
sign a petition against women's suffrage. Yeah. And, you know,
he gets them all to say, Oh, I've women's suffrage. Oh, yeah,
I'll sign that, you know, girls, that's the woman's right to
vote. Right. And meanwhile, just just one girls go for it. She's
signing away and her boyfriend shouts out. You can't sign that
that's talking about she he knew it was about the right to vote.
And she was like, I don't know what he's talking about. She
signs today anyway. And then And then finally, there was the one
girl who knew, and you know, out of the group, but again, you're
right. I mean, these things are I mean, you edit them for a
fact, you can imagine what Jay Leno how much footage that they
actually get, Tom before they find these incredible dummies
who don't know, but apparently don't know anything.
So from that very perspective, and this is a unique perspective
that John and I have, because we know how television works and
how it's how it's made. And I and I probably know more of the
dirty tricks because MTV is full of them. And they're not
considered dirty or bad. By the way, do we just do it as a force
of nature? The Obama mercial should be on this topic. And
thank you for for sending me the link. So I could watch it in its
entirety. Were you able to watch this in high def, by the way?
Yeah. How did that look in high def, because I thought it
wasn't it wasn't special.
But the the tone and the colour of it. It felt to me like it was
one of the was read read filters and it wasn't film but it was it
was video that was kind of drawn into film. What what did you
think it was?
That wasn't good. I think that was just a bad. What do you call
it when you think just a bad copy? No, I mean, I copy but you
know, that was ripped to flash no one.
But still, when I looked at it, it felt to me like they were
they had put some form of nice effect into the entire piece to
give it kind of like that film look.
Well, you know, it's possible. I mean, I was I would initially
guess it was the transcoding. But now that you mentioned it,
and I'm just this is just a guess, because I never looked at
the little version that you have. It's possible that there
was something going on like that, that when it was
transcoded became more apparent?
Well, I'm all you know, it's, it wouldn't matter if if it was if
they did it, then I wouldn't be able to see it because I just
know and I can always pick up on these things and with the
knowledge that you know that that video of the horrible Obama
Eugen singing that was done by Jeff was it Zakhar and
the NBC guy in DC guy
but also the they specifically thank the the red Corporation,
the red lenses, whatever it is, people who make that? Oh, I
didn't know that. Yeah, cuz it was, you know, they had the the
Steadicam operator and other famous guy who does a lot of he
was director of photography and a lot of different movies.
Anyway, so though, of course, there were no credits, which is
what I really wanted to see. But it looked like, look, you know,
I liked the way they did that.
And yeah, well that you could tell that production I here's,
before you give your analysis, let me just say what I thought,
which is that I thought that thing was extremely Hollywood at
the beginning. And you could tell that they used some
expensive people and Obama's team, whoever they was really
running things are really adept at getting who they need to get
to make this guy look the best he can. And then I thought they
kind of blew it at the end with that live thing. I thought that
was like lame. Well, that
wasn't on the video. Because I only have the whole video. I
didn't have this switch over to live I did hear audio of it.
When they switched to Florida. It was it was in Florida.
Yeah, it was in Florida. There was like, it wasn't one of his
biggest groups. That was some empty seats that were which they
obviously didn't have the right you know, people there fill
those seats up. And it was it should change the tone. And I
thought it I thought the whole effect that was being developed
throughout the regular.
Good, and then they ruined it with that. Then they ruined it
within an easy you know, up there grab Same old, same old
you
know what that sounds like was like, that sounds like feature
creep. It sounds to me like the production team was okay, we're
gonna make this beautiful video, and then we're gonna switch live
via satellite to Florida. It'll be a beautiful thing. That's
that feels like a director who was just given a little bit too
much rope.
Could be. Yeah, it was, I think I think whatever impact the
first part of it had, which I guess is all you saw, I didn't
know that. That other part wasn't at the end, I would have
gotten a copy. And then they you know, just like wow, what an
amazingly well produced good, you know, see the guy wasn't
pushing it too far was just well, it was tastefully done.
And then then they throw you did some horrible convention live
thing with him yelling and screaming like Hitler, you know,
on top of a podium. And I'm thinking here was what I was
looking for. Yeah.
I thought the casting was really well done. I like the the you
always you put people on that could be the people watching.
That's the whole point. Not about audience, by the way. 30
million, so about 10 10 million per network, these that's
probably 10 fold with these networks usually get during
election coverage. So very good deal for everyone all round. And
I think the price was still quite reasonable, you know, 3
million to reach 30 million. So steel. Yeah, I think that's a
really good deal. What I did not like was the writing. I thought
the writing really fell flat. It didn't it didn't grab me at any
moment. You know, it was too many examples of people. That
was not enough. You know, the setup was good. The opening was
good. The whole opening scene in the office.
Well, you know, you might have something there because when I
watched it, I was kind of just trying to be I wasn't gonna take
sides. I was gonna watch this thing. And I thought the thing
wasn't poorly written. But when I read the post mortems and I
were listening to some of them and then some people brought up
some of the ludicrous aspects of the presentation, including this
woman who has an you know, a fairly new SUV and seven kids
with the little stickers on the back and she has a big
refrigerator and each kid has their own rack where they have
their own snacks and each one and they have to like budget
their snacks because they're running out of money. Anyway,
what are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah. And they did they have the
uniforms on because now remember the little surprise they didn't
have their armbands. So by the way, that's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna bring out some Obama armbands, I think they were,
they were great,
awesome, it's gonna be a hit.
I got to get a hold of our T shirt guy anywho I'm gonna see
if he can do armbands for example, parcelled. I gotta find
out whether we can use the logo or not.
I looked into it, I did find the company that made it they did
all the branding for the Obama campaign.
Oh, who? Look it up. Okay, well, we should bring that up to the
listeners, because it's interesting, because it's
extremely Madison Avenue. They got the logo, they got the, you
know, the certain font that they use commonly, those posters like
the Obama, you know, hope, dope, smoke, whatever those things,
say. Those were done by independent artists on the side,
there's a lot of independent art that kind of came into the
campaign that they've adopted, but in fact, the actual
messaging, and you can see that the Democratic National
Convention, it's extremely, you know, it's art directed. And,
you know, everyone hold up the same poster, and then they'd
hold up another one, and it'd be a bunch of them. I bought this,
and I showed a lot of examples. And these goons would come in
with their, you know, they were looked like one of those guys
are working on a roadway, you never
see you ever see a homemade sign in the background. And unless
it's an extraordinary one,
well, they would take go, they would hustle over there and
grabbed the guy. And I don't know if they beat him up. But as
possible, they clubbed him, and then they give him a regular
raise
them, they tased him, give him a regular sign
that he's supposed to be holding. And so it is extremely
orchestrated to kind of a sick. I mean, I thought it was it
launched a lot. There's a lot of soullessness to the, to the
Democratic National Convention. Well, here's
what I here's what I miss John, in the in the writing, okay,
because I see this as a show. And the the McCain Palin part of
the show, you know, it's like, like on Happy Days, you know,
sometimes you just don't see a lot of Richie, you know, that's
just the way that's the way miniseries work. So now we've
got the funds, we've got Obama, right friend centre, but there
was no motivation. There was no, you know, We're the youngest
country. Look at Europe, the three times as old as we are, we
have a very dynamic, great force, we'd love to get the shit
done. Americans are awesome. The young people are really going to
make stuff happen, and we're making this change. And we have
this hope for them. It wasn't it was all for people who the way I
the way I felt the writing was, it came across as okay, you
know, yeah, I'm middle class, you know, let me be upper middle
class, you know, saves me. That's basically what it was.
There was no inspiration for the country.
Didn't know what the messaging is all day. And people have
pointed this out before most of Obama's messaging is negative,
not not negative campaigning, I'm talking about negative
messaging, the country screwed up. You know, we've got to turn
around, we got to fix things. We got to redistribute the wealth.
We got to make things more fair, as you saw all these bad things.
He's not saying anything bad against McCain. Well, even
though he does he called them Bush every time they turn
around, which just seems like an insult if he asked me, so Oh,
no. Obama's not doing any negative campaigning? Well, I
think calling John McCain Bush is negative campaign. And
you know the thing about that. So here's what here's the here's
the latest trip he's on. And I want to remind our listeners
that neither John or I are voting for either candidate.
They're calling me a socialist. Well, yeah, I do remember when
kindergarten I do remember sharing my toys and giving my
friend half of my peanut butter sandwich. And like that is that
is I don't understand why they don't rip into him on this.
That's a really bad analogy, because it's a little different
when the teacher forces you to give up half of your peanut
butter sandwich. That's, you know, there's a difference.
Yeah, no, that's a good point. But well, he he gets away with
anything he wants to get away. Because let's face it, this is a
long, I mean, it's decided by the people who'd be criticising
him, that they're not going to he gets a pass on everything.
So I know John McCain makes no chance unless, unless there's an
interesting twist of the just at the very end, the final series,
the final in the series, unless they have rigged the voting
machines and then John McCain wins. That would be a very
interesting turn in the whole plot, but I'm just going to
presume that Obama becomes president. So I'm really looking
into what he's doing. And I'm looking at at the plans, which
are on the website, Brock obama.com. And really, what I'm
seeing is doubling of the military, doubling of homeland
security resources. And I see new internet everywhere
databases everywhere. And it's right there. I mean, there's
stuff in there about, you know, working with private industry
and government to create, you know, a new safer internet
buying, huh? Yeah. And you can, you can see all these little
things that he's done throughout his career as a senator, you
know, these these little little bills that are put in these one
paragraph bills, basically creating some kind of commission
for this or commission for that, or who's going to determine
what's safe on the internet. You know, there's another
commission, and he's passed all these bills. And it's like, to
me, it seems like a beautiful puzzle that's now coming
together. And I look at this policy, I'm like, wow, you know,
that's sure hope and change. But, you know, there's a lot of
details on on what he's going to do with tax credit refunds,
refundable tax credits, and, and his health insurance plan. But
not a lot of detail and all this other stuff. And it seems, seems
quite far reaching in many cases.
Yeah, like, could be militaristic for all we know, I
mean, nobody's gonna, you know, nobody breaks any of this stuff
down and just, you know, working 14 hours a day for Obama. I
mean, I got a note for somebody the other day that was like,
yes, when you for me? Yeah, it's afforded to you. Well, you know,
I would like to get together some time, you know, but I'm
down in New Mexico, he was a person from the Bay Area, down
in New Mexico working 14 hours a day for the Obama campaign. Boy,
I forgot what this election is over. And then you have your
next door neighbour who's like at Obama camp. And these people
are just, I mean, amazing job of creating a bunch of Vaal. I
mean, this just shows you by the way, that volunteerism is alive,
and well. And not many people take advantage of it. But people
do like to get involved in movements that are historic and
or even interesting or fun, and, and literally work themselves to
death on behalf of somebody else who they'll probably never meet,
or they might meet in a you know, some, some sort of a line,
you know, or they're all standing there and they get guys
basically, you know, given the fish fist thing, bing, bing,
bing down the line as fast as he can to get out of there. And
that's it. So what a thankless job. So,
you know, and I liked Barack Obama, I like him, he seems like
he seems like a good guy. You know, he's, he's programme. And
he's being run by, by Well, what you would call the shadow
government. And well, you would call Brzezinski Yes. Absolute?
Well, yes. For sure. And I'm thinking that there must be a
way to hack into the system because if we could, if we the
people could truly get him to do the things that that we want.
That will be pretty awesome.
Because that's never gonna happen.
Well, I don't know. I mean, maybe there's a way to hack into
reprogram his thoughts,
shows he gets an office, they drag him aside, three goons
grabbing and these days checked in with something. And then they
didn't have you never see him again. You will love this. And
he's always given speeches. This reminds me of that Star Trek
episode.
Before we get into that, before you get into that, I gotta tell
you this as a part of the plan. He has worked and will support
and will make available $4 billion for the avian flu. Yeah,
that freaks me out. Why? Because there is no avian flu. Well,
they're definitely won't be they spend a billion to
$4 billion. Okay, your essay said a billion of 4 billion, 4
billion with a B $4 billion set aside.
I think there is an avian flu. And I think our little operation
Adam, the avian flu elimination project is going to need some
funding.
Damn, you're so right. Hmm. We must get on this immediately.
Oh, my goodness. Okay. Yeah, the Star Trek episode.
Yeah, they get started one of the older ones, everyone who's
seen Star Trek, you know, the original series probably seen it
a million times, but this is the one where they show up on this
plan that places fascist. And then they find the guy who's
running the plate, everyone's wearing Nazi armbands and
whatever. And the guy who's running the place is almost some
guy from you know, it was from the Federation or whatever,
they, Oregon, you know, whatever. They, I forgot what
it's called. But the he's one of the Star Trek guys. He's like a
guy that was sent out on a different mission. And next
thing you know, he's now potentially a fascist. And then
they determined of course that he was he just did the fascist
thing to try to straighten out what was an out of control
society, and they got carried away and then some evil people.
Because he became so popular. They drugged him and made him do
their bidding. You know, behind the glass wall and they had to
rescue him and then take him off these drugs so he could say no,
you know, we got to give his last speech and say this is all
wrong, wrong wrong. And of course, then they shoot him. The
bat, you know, the bad guys do and then they arrested the Nazis
and it's just it was actually a pretty one of the better stories
was very interesting.
It's Wizard of Oz.
Well, not really,
in a way in the metaphoric sense that the seeming power really is
powerless.
Yeah, well, that's true. The guy was a phoney but he wasn't like,
the difference is that one was unwitting. And the other one
was, you know, volunteer. So
it's slightly different. The Manchurian Candidate.
goal is that too. Yeah, by the way, if anyone hasn't seen you
know, the Manchurian Candidate, the original one, which shows up
on TV every once awhile, a black and white movie with Frank
Sinatra is an hour is much better than the second the
second year they do these read, you know, they'd redo these
movies and they change the story, the original story and
the novel. By the way, if you want to read a good book, read
the Manchurian Candidate, the book, it actually has a lot of
interesting. There's a lot of interest is well written. Let's
put it that way in a great read if you haven't read it, and
rather than read this new stuff, read, go back and read some
classics. But the Manchurian Candidate is one of them. But
the original movie, of course, was never successful, because it
came out just as John Kennedy was assassinated. And that thing
had to actually be shelved. I don't think you've ever made any
money. But it is a great, great film.
I got a question for you. Yeah, this show has been on the has
been going for over a year now. We actually forgot to celebrate
our one year anniversary, honey, I'm sorry. To lo siento. I think
somewhere around episode 20. We were talking about China. In the
Congo.
Oh, yeah. And Africa throughout Africa. Right. But
specifically there in the Congo. This is 750,000 Chinese workers
now. Yeah. In Africa.
Yeah. Because they can't find workers in Africa, apparently.
Yeah.
And, you know, they they promised to build hospitals,
schools, roads, you know, all this stuff in the Congo in
particular roads, very important because they've got the red mud.
And I actually know a little bit about that. I can remember
getting stuck in the red mud as a kid in Uganda. And so you
know, they move in quite aggressively. They need the
gold, they need all the minerals. There's what's the
stuff that is in the in mobile phones, Johns and other mineral
data, palladium or malaria? mullite. Not accom.
There's not cobalt, but
I don't know. I mean, there's a bunch of that. Yeah, I know what
you're saying. It's not I thought it was palladium. But
maybe I'm wrong.
Now. Well, they it was something on the BBC, but I forgot what it
was. It sounded like cobalt. I don't know. So, you know,
obviously very important for China, because most of our
mobile phones come from China. Look at your iPhone. I'm
thinking that, you know, I
use a Nokia II 71.
So do I they come from Finland? Yeah, we're whereby the way the
internet has the regulation Australia's getting. But anyway,
so the Chinese move in pretty aggressively. This has only been
going for about a year. And in fact, if you know, well, if
you've been listening to the show, you know that John and I
are a fan of Confessions of an economic hitman, the book, John
Perkins, the author of that, who spells out how this works. And I
was looking through some articles today. And I saw that
Bechtel. That's the company that John Perkins worked for. Was all
over Actually,
no, he worked for a small consulting firm. It wasn't
Bechdel he worked with definitely later he worked for
Bechtel. I don't know maybe I don't remember that. Well, he
references
back to many times in the book. And so I read that Bechtel is in
there setting up huge contracts are basically kind of like a go
between team and the way John Perkins explains it is. So
first, you know, the Economic Hitman GO IN they, you know,
they find they, they find out who, who they need to bribe and
they give them hundreds of millions of dollars, and they
sign off, they basically sign their their countries away. And
then those contracts go to mainly US companies. And if they
default on loans and the IMF and then they take everything away,
I mean, it's a huge scam, basically. And what the guy
specifically says is that when that doesn't work, then they
send in the jackals, the jackals being, you know, Black Ops, CIA
type stuff, troublemakers troublemakers to stir shit up
and to throw people from power. And when I look at what's going
on now, where it's exactly the reverse of the 90s where the
thing of I'm saying this right, the Tutsis were getting there.
asked kicked by the No, the Tutsis were kicking or getting
their ass kicked by the huzzaz
Hutus and Tutsis. I
like saying Hutus and Tutsis is easier to remember. The H's and
T's, now the T's are kicking the H's ass. And it feels like
jackals all over this thing, John, and it feels like this
time China's involved as well.
Well, I think China is our competitor in this deal. And I
think the problem we're having is that China is like, you know,
they're doing a bunch of stuff we can do. I don't know, maybe
we're partnering with them. I mean, it's always possible that
behind the scenes, or you're trying to this could
be the front panel course. Now, you know, this could be where
the front of the war between the US and China takes place.
I, I'm thinking more it's more likely that there's some sort of
an agreement in the back room. That let's because one of the
things we could never do in Africa, in particular, was
support these creeps who hated us anyway. And you know, Ben
pull the economic hitman stunt that we could easily do in South
America.
Well, we tried, but we always seem to fail.
Yeah, we always screw it, it never works. We can't do the
model we for Africa is unknown to us. Because the Chinese have
an interesting model. And which, of course, I elucidated before.
Now, you know, just to bring it up, again, they have need to
basically scam these people. And this was introduced to me by a
German entrepreneur some years earlier, who it's started to see
it back. Right. This was a while back, he said, and he outlined
exactly what the process is. And then as soon as he did, it made
sense to me that every time I looked into it, this is exactly
what was going on, which is the Chinese find some government no
matter how horrible these people are, do a deal to build their
infrastructure out. And in the process as part of the deal to
build out the infrastructure they are allowed to bring in
duty free anything they want, and their own workers. And so
they flood the place with with with a bunch of supposin workers
who set up little communities and towns and stores. And then
they take all these all this duty free goods, which nothing
can compete with this is where the German guy was irked because
you can't compete with duty free when you're paying 50% for the
same thing, and they bring in a lot of the stuffs inferior, they
bring all this crap in. And then they start flooding the market
with products that are duty Dennis cheap, as part of this
process to build out their infrastructure, build a dam, do
this and do that. But they never complete the product project to
us. And let this this situation go on forever, where the Chinese
start importing just tonnes and tonnes of stuff. People in the
end up taking over the country for all practical purposes, at
least economically. And it's something we don't have the it's
just not that we would do
my crazy. But is that not exactly what's taking place with
Europe and the United States? Aren't the Chinese doing exactly
that? Aren't they bringing stuff in concert constantly? Maybe
they're taking us over? Very quietly, economically in the
background just by importing all this stuff. I mean, they've got
all kinds of new. They've negotiated I'm sure with with
all these sovereign wealth funds, I'm sure they've
negotiated many of the import contracts. Maybe that's maybe
that's their whole modus operandi.
Well, the problem with doing that to us, first of all, is the
reader is not they're not doing it as a cheat. In other words,
slipping in some crazy idea so they can get the stuff in duty.
For me it is already duty free. And and and the other thing is
most of this what we're paying them with is not it's not
minerals is not, you know, I mean, I think the Canadians ship
them a lot of logs, but we don't really ship them anything that's
anything other than essentially debt that they owe.
You take some take some of our credit cards,
take some of our debt out. Oh, by the way, can we borrow more
money from you? So I'm wondering who's scamming who in this deal?
Well, it takes two to tango, I guess.
Well, it all shakes out in the end. And at some point, it's an
unstable situation. And of course, my thinking is that
we're having heading for an economic crisis, but not until
we have a nice bull market
right after the election.
That's my guess. Yeah. So anyway, I bought a I don't want
to get into the stock market stuff. But I did buy a in
Exchange Traded note.
And so is that for the upside or the downside?
It's a downside as double short, actually. And it is it is an
exchange traded note, which is one of these crazy financial
vehicles. And this one was created by the Deutsche Bank in
Germany. And if anyone wants to know what it is, you can look it
up as a DI T Oh, it's an oil short for goods a commodity
purchase, but it's not as a short but it's done as Exchange
Traded notes. So just traded openly on the market. But it's,
but it's it's structured like a credit default swap is, in other
words is one of these crazy things that it doesn't you know,
it's like one of these investment concepts, right? So
yeah, so. So apparently, when you buy what I would recommend,
we'll just somehow get one and buy it and sell it, I don't
care, but you want to get it long enough. So they have to
send you the document, which explains it. So it came in the
mail the other day. And I've been itching to get a hold of
one of these things, because I know they exchange all these
crazy ideas that we've been these these financial vehicles
or whatever they want to call them. I've always wanted to get
a hold of one of the documents that explains how it works.
So what's the what's the value of one one of these et NS
that Etn? Well, that's it's kind of explained there is none, in
fact, is the whole thing is something like a house of cards.
So you have to get in and you don't want to hold them forever.
Although they expire. This one expires in 2036. But they you
can trade it on the stock exchange. But anyway, so I got
the document finally showed up. Holy mackerel,
so is this you got? This is like you're, you're kind of betting
against the house where you say, Okay, I'm gonna put 5000 into
this Etn and you have a mark point where you bought in and
then depending on what it does, you you you win, or you lose?
Yeah, pretty much. Okay. And so tell me about the document.
The document is the size of the Manhattan phone book. It's cost
like 10 bucks to ship me this thing. It's huge. And I mean,
now I realised that no matter what happens with this Etn this
document is got to be the greatest cocktail party
conversation piece ever. Because I've gotten documents from
companies you know, doing IPOs and you've seen these things
does
it really thin paper and really small print?
No, it was small print was not necessarily thin paper, but it's
just regular, you know, LaserJet for paper, but the thing is so
big and it's a convoluted mess. No, you wouldn't it would take
you a year or two to read it be and if you could and it's one
thing after another and how the bank does this and that and
anyway it's worth the price of admission just to get this this
big piece of paperwork in the mail your holy crap it and no is
this complicated? But that's what a lot of these you know,
these crazy investments, you know, creations are they're just
I was watching.
I'm sorry. It's like these guys say nobody can understand them
was watching
CNBC. Fridays, they were wrapping up. Erin Burnett, God,
I'm in love with her. I love her so much. She She's everybody's
favourite. Oh, my God, I could live with her. I would worship?
If I could. I wouldn't even have to have sex. Just just to lay
next to her.
Yeah, and I'm sure you wouldn't get any from her either.
Anyway, so Bernanke was on and Bernanke around two o'clock
Friday afternoon, Eastern Time, he, he starts doing this live
speech. And they already have the speech. So to certain point
when it gets kind of boring or long, or whatever, you know,
they just tune out. And then they start talking about what he
hasn't even talked about, because they've been sent the
speech ahead of time. And, and essentially, what the message
was that they're that they can't find a way to put into place. A
US government backed government sponsored enterprise. So the
saying is, you know, the, the, the the pyramid of mortgages
that exists today, we're kind of winding up with the Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac, that that cannot exist without explicit backing
from the government. And they're talking about this, this way of
doing it called covered bonds. Have you heard of this?
No, but I'm sure it will.
Yeah. So essentially, you know, there's, there's bonds that the
US government guarantees. And so that would be the vehicle. I
mean, it's really, it's quite interesting to see because that
is one of the big changes that they're making now, into this
into the new global economic order. As Sarkozy and Gordon
Brown are calling it and miracle. So Andrew Merkle,
Andrew Hora was wrote in his online news thing or blog, the
disciplined investor. He ran a blog at two which is that
apparently $60 billion dollars of that bailout are going to
salaries and bonuses for executives. I
heard this guy's getting $500 million. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And the New York Times had a great piece Where the reporter
called into an employee conference call. So somehow he
got that, and this is what a huge lack of security these
things are. And oh, yeah, the stuff that's discussed on
conference calls is just outrageous. I mean, and we're
probably really bad at it at NI VO. So he called in and, you
know, the question was asked, What are we going to do with the
money? Well, we were going to make acquisitions. We're going
to, you know, hold on to it for better times. But you know,
basically, no, we're not giving this to any smaller banks. And
this is not moving down the line, we're keeping it. So we
can do business and acquisitions. acquisitions, of
course, mean, fees and bonuses. Right. But what's very
sorry, I'm just say it's a scandal.
What was really interesting is that Barclays Bank here in the
UK, which I also bank with, they went out and they raised 7
billion pounds, like 12 $12 billion from the Saudis from the
Middle East, because they didn't want to take the government
money. They refused it. And everyone's like, really tripping
out over this. And so they gave it like, a really sweetheart
deal to some Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. And so
they're still independent. They're not they don't belong to
the government, which is a very interesting move.
Yeah, well, they'll probably still be in business someday.
Exactly. And I was quite happy to see that.
Well, I know that Wells Fargo when they when the government
came calling they they said no, we don't want your money. And
they said, No, you're taking the money. And you're given us so
many preferred preferred stock shares, even though it turns out
that it wasn't as good a deal as Goldman Sachs got and they some
of the same offerings. In other words, the taxpayers have to pay
the premium because of their treasury secretaries and ex
Goldman Sachs guys looking after his own people, you know, that
Oh, I'm sure it's always his
little assistant, the guy doling out the money, Neil cash and
carry.
And so they didn't want it. But the argument was interesting to
me was, well, every one of you banks have to be in on this
because if, if some of you buy in and some of you don't, then
the public will know which banks are insolvent. And, and sketchy.
And we don't want anyone knowing anything, which of course is
like kind of insulting to the public is why is the public you
will let you may have a run on the bank. Nobody has a run on
the bank. And we we don't because we got the FDIC so your
money's insured. You always gonna get it. But I think it'd
be nice to know which banks are flaky,
of course, it's total protectionism.
Anyway, what else gets in this depressing topic?
So just a quick swing back to to the Congo. The one thing that's
really irking me is that regardless of which news channel
I'm watching and you know, I, I would expect a lot better from
the BBC. Here's what I'm really outraged for get Jonathan Rossen
and the other fellow I'm really outraged that every single
report you know, starts by saying well, it's really bad in
the Congo. And here's so and so who has details on why this is
taking place? And then you see five minutes of five horrible
pictures of children you know, there's no food they're on the
run, they're gonna go die in the bushes in the woods, it's it's
horrible, hundreds of 1000s they don't actually give you any
information about why this is happening. None of them not a
single story not anywhere, can I actually get some information
about what is taking place? Because they don't actually know
is my belief and I really think that this has China and US
written all over it and be and we raised about that that's what
we should be outraged about.
Well, you know, I bet you if you if you read it if you go into
and I hate to say that you have to do this nowadays to get
information. I believe that if you go into the African blogs or
you go to some of this more specialised information coming
from you know, other types of reporters, you're gonna find the
facts. Totally a promise you're gonna get a lot of it's going to
be slanted, but I think at least you can get closer to it.
But what obviously I'm able to find some information but what
I'm talking about is that you know that they'll go into depth
about all kinds of bullshit, but you know, this seems to be a
really important one it you know, it's the top of the news,
but really, it's only the top of the news because there's
frightened looking people falling over each other and
children crying and being trampled upon. It's porn. It's
news porn. They're not actually giving you any information or
anything we can, we can do to change it. And where's Bano? Fix
it Bano and Bob. Come on, guys, get out here. We need some help.
We gotta call Follow up Ted leonsis. Let's do live live
nine.
Now that's the cynic in you
pisses me off. Remember, we are the world. Oh, the whole USA for
Africa. That was 25 years ago, John 25 years ago. Look at turn
on the television. What have we done? What happened? Was the
same things bullshit.
And the same thing with hands across America. Do you remember
that one? Oh,
my God. Oh, you got to tell our listeners a lot of people don't
know about that. It was it was too long ago.
Hands Across America. There was a this was about I have to get
the date. And you might want to look it up on Wikipedia, Utah.
Yeah, give me the date. But anyway, so I actually met one of
the guys who was the original designer of the whole process.
And the idea was we're going to have, we had too much poverty in
the United States, and we're going to pull together as a
nation. And we're going to eliminate poverty and
homelessness. And I think homelessness was maybe when the
word first started become popular, was during the hands
across America thing. So they decided they're going to have to
do have to make a big event out of people starting on the West
Coast, holding hands, one after another after another into a
long stream across the entire country, like the Great Wall of
China, from one end of the country to the other all holding
hands, and there was like little buttons and stickers and pins
that had everything but the armband, and it was like little
people holding hands. It's very collectible now. And it was
called Hands Across America and it was going to be the beginning
of the end for homelessness. And it was just another big bunch of
bullshit.
May May 25 1986. Yeah, there you go. 7 million people held hands
in a human chain for 15 minutes along a path across the
continental United United States participants paid $10 to reserve
their place in line. The proceeds were donated to local
charities to fight hunger and homelessness, and help those in
poverty. I mean, it would have been it would have been cool. If
you could hook up a big ass battery to one hand. Do you
think it would go through all the tell those people? Joke? The
guy Kazem dude, both Tehsil
Well, the problem was is when all is said and done, they
weren't the gaps
all over the apps. They never made it that that was like it
was a disappointment because we didn't pull it off. You know, we
failed fail.
Well, they didn't fail making a lot of money.
That's a big meme. Now these days fail. Have you noticed
that? Yeah, it's a me no. Yeah, no, yeah. It's you see
photoshopped pictures of like Bernanke and Paulson in in
Congress. And then behind them? A guy holding up a sign fail?
Really? Yeah, it's I mean, that to me, that's a good one. It's
fun. Well, I
have to start using it then. Yes,
let's we should use it here on this very show. We need to nail
well, sometimes this whole show was fail.
Actually, we I don't think we really had a totally dog.
Dog Show. No, no, we've been pretty like, well, it really
depends, though. And gosh, it's so important for me to be
somewhere else away from you.
Well did not for no other reason that your connection is better.
I'm convinced that's my router. I gotta I gotta fix that. But I
get a new router. But I don't know if I'm gonna be in San
Francisco before the end of the year. I'm going to be in New
York. Got to do some sales, sales stuff hitting the road.
Well, New York's a short trip for you.
It's a good trip. Yeah. Right now, there's only four hours
time difference between London and New York, which is
Yeah, no, if I lived in New York, I'd probably be going back
and forth to London or Paris constantly. Because it seems
like a good weekend thing to do. It's inconvenient from here
because it adds another four or five hours and just forget it.
Ergo having my own aircraft.
Right. Well for you. I mean, going to Paris is like you know,
or, you know, Holland has got just an hour or so for you.
Right? How long does it
take? Holland Rotterdam about an hour? Paris would be about an
hour 45
Yeah. Do they like give you landed in Paris? Yes. Do you go
to the wine countries like Bordeaux? It'd be a nice little
place to fly.
No, I've not done that yet.
There's a that's a little further
where where most pilots from the UK go if you just want to go to
France is lit toolkit.
Where's that?
That's a coastal
to Normandy or something like that.
And now confused. I don't know if that's what it's called. I
don't think it's the 2k Maybe it is the 2k that's how they
pronounce it here. The 2k.
I think the place to go if I were you or if I was visiting
and you wanted to go somewhere. I think champagne.
Well, the good thing is there's airfields everywhere. I mean,
and you can you can almost just say, Okay, I want to land
somewhere over there and there's going to be an airstrip.
Well, I'm sure is a bunch of air strips into the champagne area
just random just based on a
grass strips you know just the kind of stuff you can pop in and
out of and you pay the guy or whatever you know basically
donation
people doing that maybe you're flying over France and there's
little airstrip you land and give the guy some money and you
need leisure. Let's just sit there how do you get what do you
need it we do have a car and there's no car rental place.
John, this is this is aviation man. I mean, this is this is the
hardcore stuff. Now you can usually you'd like rent a car in
the in the States, you can do this all over the place. You
know, same in many of these smaller fields you know for in
the States, you can be five bucks. You can rent a car and
it's basically just someone's car
it's just a car, you know that that's how it works. Sometimes
it's like a real proper budget, but usually it's or hurts. But
yeah, usually it's just a car, you know, the end they'll take
they have local restaurants and you know, they have hookups. If
you go to the Isle of Wight, you know when you're arriving you
can say hey, we're going to the the lobster pub. Okay, we'll
have a cab ready for you. You land cab takes you up there.
Doom. Yeah, you have some lunch. It's nice. Like we got to do
that when you're over here. Yeah, afternoon. It sounds like
you have to cook on my Agha.
So I'm thinking about this. I don't want to bring in a little
paranoia in this. But I was thinking about this August
thing. I'm thinking grindy I want you to run this past your
wife. Okay? Because she's, she seems to be more in agreement
with my views, and often when they're when I consider
something to be a setup.
Well, that's because you guys are from World War Two.
So anyway, the I'm thinking, well, maybe they gotta keep an
eye on Adam. So what are we gonna do? He's gonna move into
this new place. Well, how are we going to do this? Well, I'll
tell you what, why don't we listen to what he really you
know, some of his tastes, and let's get a place and let's wire
it up with microphones. And how we're going to make him buy this
place. I know exactly how to do it. Let's put an AGA in it and
I'll tell you this idiots gonna buy the place and he'll be in
there we'll have the whole place wired and we can listen to his
conversations 24/7 Just in case and bingo. I originally thought
it this has been not that I'm thinking in these terms normally
is because what a coincidence that out of
the blue a house of yours that my wife house appears she's in
on it. She's a she's a shill. She's part of this black flag
operation
out of the blue just as you're looking for a place there's a
another house with the stove you love which are rare by the way
this is not for people who want to know about this stuff. I've
never heard of anybody even owning one. Now we have two of
them. It shows up and you like being reeled in our house. So
here's what I here's my thinking, Okay, you gotta get a
guy Oh, look, there could be hard wires, which is harder to
deal with in than bugs that are you know, sending out
transmissions you have to bring an expert, a bug expert, to go
through your house and make sure that places and wired for sound.
Now I think quite the opposite. I need to find the main
transmission unit and then I gotta jack that shit into the
net. So we can stream that for a fee. I totally
do. That's this is good. But anyway, that was a thought that
passed my mind. You know, it's not like I'm you know, paranoid
as you are. But I'd run it past your wife and she was she thinks
Okay,
I'll ask her. I think she'll she may give it some thought. I
don't know. I don't know. She's coming back in about an hour or
so. Man's outrageous audience again last night, her first live
show.
Yeah, yeah. As like
35% market share is unbelievable.
But nothing probably has legs, then she'll be making money for
a few years on that deal.
Yeah, well is that she starts Hollins got talent in February.
So it's just she just bops from one to the other. It's awesome.
As she saw multitalented
Well, you know, it's it sounds like easy money.
But I keep telling her she's she's buying me my next plane.
Yeah, you can get nice. What do you think you're gonna get?
Well, but yet you're out you got a twin engine in mind. Not
necessarily. There's a really blast around and one of those
things. Well,
yeah, I don't know. I mean, I like the Piper meridian, which
is pressurised single engine, Turbo prop which you know the
you know the requirement is it has to have steps in the back
that open up otherwise my wife won't fly with me over the ocean
and so I don't want to get high enough so that you know there's
no turbulence so that's when the wind you pressurise but also,
what was the ceiling on that thing? 22,000 feet.
Now you're getting tickets high enough, but okay. Oh
yeah it is.
It's right in the middle of the clouds at 22 isn't a
whole 22,000 feet. No, you're way above the clouds.
And I remember one time I was flying across country on some
one of the first 760 sevens in the you know, they typically fly
around 36,000 feet, and they were bumping the pilot says
it depends on where you are, obviously a mountainous terrain
will give you different height results.
And the pilot says we're gonna go up to 42,000 feet because the
767 just shoots right up to 42,000 feet where there's no
turbulence and we shot up the 40s and it was just like smooth
as and I'm always thinking you need to get to 42,000 feet to
avoid all turbulence
so so you know those clouds sometimes you see when you have
that turbulence of those, it's really the columnist Nimbus
cloud and it reaches up to 42,000
feet, the Nimbus Yeah, the Nimbus.
What's crazy is is you know, so you see those at the bottom. So
you and you're you're flying around and a couple 1000 feet,
and if you were to fly into one of those, you actually this has
happened before you can get sucked up to 40,000 feet and
then blown down again. Being Wow, oh, yeah. Nobody ever wants
to fly into one of those regardless of how big the
aeroplane
Yeah, I've heard that that a Nimbus is a cloud that you do
that you fly way around. I was in Texas once flying out of
Dallas, on a on a pilot, it was a DMD 80 or something like that.
And a guy really liked. And he went and he and he flew around,
it was a huge pile of these Nimbus is there all over the
place. And so he was flying in on banking heavy bags and going
around one going around the other. It was actually one of
the most fun flights I've ever been on for a commercial flight
because this guy was just, you know, really taken it around.
Yeah. And we, you know, I missed every one of them. He just went
around. I mean, he just like there was a little map, I guess
he had of how to get through the mess, and never went through a
cloud. He didn't want to hit one. It's
called radar, John. Okay, the little map work or weather
radar.
So, but anyway, yeah, he was flying. It was actually quite
which, by
the way, a lot of people don't understand that, you know, the
whole point of being an aeroplane in the sky is that you
can actually not fly into the rain cloud, you know, sometimes
unavoidable the direction you're going but lots of times, you
know, it's like I don't want to go you know, it'll take me five
minutes longer if I just go around it. Right. That's,
that's, that's pretty common stuff. But yeah, so he basically
he did not want to fly through it.
No. And Dube was really to tell you the view because you get to
see all these big Nimbus is which are, I think, is one of
the prettiest clouds there are beauty spectacular. And it
happens to be a Nimbus, which has decided to become a
thunderstorm where you see the light inside the cloud. You
know, it makes it look like a light show ping, ping. It's
quite a sight. One time I was flying to Chicago, this was an
extra with the other really great site ever saw. I saw a
number of things from an aeroplane I also saw the roar of
Borealis. But I was flying in the Chicago
in search of the Crystal Skull in the crystal skull.
So anyway, I was flying to Chicago and there were about 50
funnel clouds in the sky. Yeah, they're all over the place. I
mean, it was just
a little little mini funnel cloud is really kind of
frightening when you see a little you know that just the
beginning development of a funnel cloud. Yeah. It's kind of
scary.
But anyway was like But it was this was a very early in the
morning, and then they were lit with a kind of a golden colour
was just like, wow, where's the camera? Anyway, enough of that.
hour and a half my friend.
I guess we're done. Yeah. So we got the election coming up. Now
we're you want to do a special broadcast right after it?
Yeah, I'm thinking that. Let's see. It probably will have
probably have to wait until until Wednesday, because
Tuesday. It'll be in the you know, like, really early
morning. Wednesday morning for me, I think and who knows, you
know, who knows what happens. We may go into recounts that maybe
all kinds of stuff going on,
but I'm sure they're going to demand recounts here and there.
I mean, it's that's a foregone conclusion. But there's a like,
apparently number of states like Mississippi have 20% more
registered voters in the population.
Have you seen Hacking Democracy? Have you seen that? HBO special?
No. Oh, oh, you really need to see it. It came out to I think
it was over a year ago. And it's basically these grandmothers and
don't think really old grandmothers, but you know, 60
year old grandmothers, and they go to find out if if the voting
machines actually can be manipulated, and well, I won't
spoil the ending for you. Right, but it's, it's about you should
there's a link from curry.com check the show notes from the
daily source code. I talked about it, it was really
phenomenal Hacking Democracy. Really will surprise you it was
possible.
Well, I'm whatever the case is, you know, whether it's Obama and
Sarah Palin winning,
or for that, man, I get horny no matter who I think of
and, or would be, you know, McCain and whoever he's I guess
Biden's running with him. I'm not sure.
All right, my friend. All right. Okay. Well, I'm gonna be here
for I think, at least another week, so probably, well, after
the election, that's what we'll do the next show, maybe the day
after the election. Okay. Until then, I'm coming to you from
Gitmo nation east. I'm Adam curry,
and I'm up here in northern Silicon Valley, also known as
get more Nation. I'm John C. Dvorak.
We'll talk again next week right here on no agenda.