1762 - "Stick Fight"

Summary

No Agenda Show - Episode 1762: "Stick Fight" Summary

Release Date: May 8, 2025

Hosts Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak, along with Monique White, delve deep into a myriad of pressing issues, dissecting media narratives, governmental policies, and global conflicts. Episode 1762, aptly titled "Stick Fight," offers listeners a comprehensive analysis of the current socio-political climate, interspersed with sharp wit and candid commentary.

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1. The Emergence of an American Pope

The episode kicks off with a provocative discussion about the rise of an "American Pope," a development that has caught the attention of both religious communities and political pundits.

• John C. Dvorak (00:22): "We have an American Pope."

• Adam Curry (00:30): Raises suspicions about the authenticity and implications of this unprecedented event.

The hosts express skepticism, debating whether this figure was part of a calculated political maneuver by former President Trump. They ponder the odds and the potential impact on American faith and societal morale.

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2. Trump's 100% Tariff on Foreign Films: A Boon or Bane?

A significant portion of the episode centers around President Trump's audacious plan to impose a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the U.S., and its reverberating effects on Hollywood.

• John C. Dvorak (02:51): "In Hollywood, the reviews are in for President Trump's plan... it's getting panned."

• Monique White (03:03): "I'm worried for my livelihood."

Key Points:

• Impact on Independent Distributors: Monique White, Executive VP of California Pictures, elaborates on how such tariffs could either cripple the industry or incentivize domestic production.

• CBS News Insight: The episode references a CBS segment highlighting the potential economic fallout, with importers halting shipments to avoid exorbitant tariffs.

• Industry Backlash: Discussions point out that many American films are already predominantly produced domestically, often utilizing locations like Vancouver to mimic international settings. Tariffs could disrupt this balance, leading to increased production costs and stifled creativity.

Notable Insight: The Motion Picture Association reports a significant surplus in film exports in 2023, raising questions about the viability of such heavy-handed tariffs.

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3. AI and Media Manipulation: The Debunk Bot

Transitioning from tariffs, the conversation shifts to the realm of Artificial Intelligence and its role in combating misinformation.

• Monique White (07:09): Discusses the functionality of Debunk Bot, an AI chatbot designed to reduce conspiracy beliefs.

• John C. Dvorak (07:27): "Does this change the way we think about vaccines?... Because it's not just against shingles. It can save your life from all kinds of horrible things."

Key Points:

• Effectiveness: Studies indicate that Debunk Bot can reduce conspiracy beliefs by up to 20%, with a quarter of participants completely abandoning their previous misconceptions.

• Human vs. AI Intervention: Monique highlights that when individuals believe they're interacting with a human, the effectiveness of debunking is comparable, suggesting that the bots are merely tools leveraging accurate information.

• Challenges: The hosts debate the reliability of such AI systems, emphasizing the risk of relying solely on a single source that might itself be compromised or flawed.

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4. Global Conflicts: India vs. Pakistan "Stick Fight"

The title "Stick Fight" is metaphorically dissected as the hosts explore escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.

• John C. Dvorak (32:10): Summarizes the clash where India retaliated against Pakistan's alleged terrorist activities in Kashmir, leading to missile strikes and subsequent military responses.

• Monique White (36:43): "They had to respond to show people that its army isn't weak."

Key Points:

• Origins of Conflict: India’s missile strikes were a direct response to attacks on tourists in controlled Kashmir, which India attributes to Pakistan-based militants. Pakistan denies these allegations, leading to a tit-for-tat escalation.

• Potential for Wider War: With both nations being nuclear-armed, the situation is precarious, raising alarms about the possibility of a larger-scale conflict.

• International Response: Both China and the U.S. are urging restraint, highlighting the global stakes involved in this regional dispute.

Notable Quote:

• Adam Curry (32:10): "A highly volatile situation, dangerous for both sides."

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5. Stablecoin Legislation: The "Genius Act"

Delving into financial innovations, the hosts discuss the "Genius Act," a controversial piece of legislation aimed at regulating stablecoins.

• Monique White (114:01): "The Genius act establishes common sense rules... protect American consumers while promoting the US Dollar's strength in the global economy."

• John C. Dvorak (118:14): "The logic is if we can't use stablecoin in America with American backing... that's the gambit."

Key Points:

• Bipartisan Effort: The act has garnered support from both state and federal levels, with provisions to ensure stablecoin issuers maintain reserves and adhere to anti-money laundering laws.

• Consumer Protections: Critics, including Senator Warren, argue that the bill lacks comprehensive consumer protections, potentially leaving victims of scams without recourse.

• Implications for Global Finance: Proponents believe the act will solidify the U.S. as a leader in digital finance, while opponents fear it may stifle innovation and leave the market open to foreign dominance.

Debate Highlights:

• Adam Curry (118:37): Expresses concern over the potential for increased corruption and the suspension of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to favor American companies.

• John C. Dvorak (119:37): "That's what this is about. It turns out to be about total dominance over financial markets worldwide."

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6. Reopening Alcatraz: Trump's Bold Proposal

In a surprising turn, President Trump announces plans to reopen Alcatraz as a federal prison, aiming to house the nation's most dangerous offenders.

• Monique White (175:07): "Trump says he wants to reopen and expand the prison to house America's most ruthless and violent offenders."

• Adam Curry (175:39): Critiques the practicality, noting Alcatraz’s current status as a lucrative tourist attraction.

Key Points:

• Economic vs. Security Interests: While reopening Alcatraz could address security concerns, it poses a significant threat to the revenue generated from tourism, which attracts millions annually.

• Logistical Challenges: The hosts debate the feasibility of transforming a historical site into a functional prison without disrupting its cultural and economic significance.

Notable Commentary:

• John C. Dvorak (175:02): "Everybody went to Russia. He couldn't... So you understand, don't you?"

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7. Media Accountability: CBS's Shingles Vaccine Advertisement

A critical analysis of CBS's recent advertisement for the shingles vaccine highlights the intertwining of commercial interests with public health messaging.

• Adam Curry (53:27): Skeptically dissects the ad, questioning its authenticity and intent.

• Monique White (55:19): Elaborates on the scientific claims, linking the vaccine to reduced cardiovascular risks.

Key Points:

• Commercial Influence on Health Messaging: The hosts argue that such advertisements may prioritize commercial gains over genuine public health benefits, potentially misleading consumers.

• Vaccine Efficacy Debate: They scrutinize the claims made about the vaccine's effectiveness, questioning the longevity of its benefits and the necessity of multiple doses.

Notable Quote:

• John C. Dvorak (53:30): "This is the most pathetic presentation I've ever recorded."

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8. Surveillance and Privacy: Senator Lamar Alexander's Concerns

The discussion briefly touches upon the broader implications of surveillance technologies and privacy concerns, though specific details are sparse in the transcript.

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9. Donations and Community Engagement

Throughout the episode, the hosts engage with their community, acknowledging donations and encouraging support for the show.

• John C. Dvorak (177:35): "Thank you to our executive and associate executive producers."

• Adam Curry (183:08): "Happy birthday to Megan who's turning 31."

Key Points:

• Value for Value Model: The No Agenda Show operates on a "Value for Value" model, where listeners support the show through donations in exchange for content and community recognition.

• Community Bonding: Personal anecdotes and shout-outs foster a strong sense of community among listeners, reinforcing loyalty and engagement.

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10. Closing Remarks and Future Outlook

As the episode winds down, the hosts reflect on the day's discussions, emphasizing the importance of critical thinking and media literacy amidst a landscape rife with misinformation and geopolitical tensions.

• Monique White (191:50): "I love us for listening to the show... but they could have looked and seen. It was not possibly 2 million people."

• John C. Dvorak (195:24): "No, you must pay us or you get nothing."

Key Points:

• Call to Action: Encourages listeners to stay informed, support the show, and engage in critical discourse to navigate the complexities of modern media and politics.

• Upcoming Topics: Teases future episodes covering a range of subjects from global politics to technological advancements, promising continued in-depth analysis and unfiltered commentary.

Notable Conclusion:

• John C. Dvorak (197:56): "Stop buying junk from China. Wake up, people."

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Final Thoughts

Episode 1762 of the No Agenda Show presents a rich tapestry of discussions, blending political analysis, media critique, and community interaction. Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak, and Monique White navigate through intricate topics with a blend of skepticism and humor, urging listeners to question mainstream narratives and engage in informed discourse. Whether dissecting tariffs' impact on Hollywood, exploring AI's role in debunking myths, or analyzing geopolitical tensions, the episode serves as a compelling guide for those seeking alternative perspectives in a crowded media landscape.

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For more detailed discussions and to support the show, visit noagendashow.net.

Transcript

[Adam Curry]

Load up on the Indians.

[John C. Dvorak]

Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak, it's Sunday, May 8, 2025. This is your award winning Gimmonation Media Assassination Episode 1762. This is no Agenda. We've got white smoke. And we're broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas hill country right here in FEMA region number six in the morning, everybody.

[Adam Curry]

I'm Adam Curry here from northern Silicon Valley where it's apparent that Trump's ploy worked. We have an American Pope. I'm John C. Dvorak.

[Monique White]

It's crackpot and buzz.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I'm kind of mad at myself in hindsight, like, how obvious could he have made it? Clearly he was on the, he was on the, he had the inside track.

[Adam Curry]

Very suspicious.

[John C. Dvorak]

My Catholic friends don't understand this thinking of mine. When I say, oh, Trump was telegraphing it all along. I mean, what do you mean? What do you mean?

[Adam Curry]

What do you mean?

[John C. Dvorak]

What do you mean? Well, we have an American Pope. That was, I mean, if anything, that was, Wasn't that guy a long shot? What were the odds on?

[Adam Curry]

I'd have to go back and look.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow, man, it was like. No, that was completely, it was not.

[Adam Curry]

Up there in the top five, that's for sure.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no. So my, my prediction streak is broken. I can no longer be like, I predicted one. It was a long streak. It took many years.

[Adam Curry]

It was actually.

[John C. Dvorak]

It was a long streak. So the jury seems to still kind of be out on this guy.

[Adam Curry]

He looks so like Fauci.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, there's that. He's from Chicago. Strike two.

[Adam Curry]

Chicago. He's a Bear fan.

[John C. Dvorak]

Maybe some are saying, well, he sounds a bit like a Francis Junior. You know, he was kind of wishy washy about some scandals. Who knows? He could also reignite the faith all across the country. You don't know, it could go. Don't laugh. This is obvious. Obviously our hope and prayer reignited. Light it up, Pope. Light it up. Yeah, well, it's just, it's interesting. I, you know, it's like, is America now? Are we on the comeback? Is it all complete? We've got Pope.

[Adam Curry]

Well, they're doing a trade deal with the Vatican tomorrow.

[John C. Dvorak]

What do we buy from them? I don't think we buy anything from crucifixes, rosary beads. Well, that might be an appropriate. So viva la papa. Congratulations, everybody.

[Adam Curry]

Why did he name himself Leo Laporte?

[John C. Dvorak]

That one I had not come up with. That's a good one. Well, speaking of tariffs, we might as well get into it with the most important tariff of All. Everybody's flipping out. We're all freaking out.

[Adam Curry]

What?

[John C. Dvorak]

In Hollywood, the reviews are in for President Trump's plan to impose 100% tariffs on movies outside the US it's getting panned. Are you worried for your industry?

[Monique White]

Yeah, I'm worried for the industry. I'm worried for my livelihood.

[Adam Curry]

Monique White is executive vice president and.

[John C. Dvorak]

California Pictures, a Los Angeles based distributor.

[Adam Curry]

Of independent film distributor.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, of course.

[Adam Curry]

Wait a minute. If she. Who cares? The distributors aren't getting tariffed.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I think that's exactly will get tariffs if the. If it comes in from overseas.

[Adam Curry]

Because. Because, you mean. Oh, yeah. Well, I have my thoughts on this. Well, yes, they're produc. A lot of the first thing I thought was these are foreign films. Who cares?

[John C. Dvorak]

Let's finish the clip. Los Angeles based distributor of independent films.

[Monique White]

It's either going to put a nail in the coffin or it's going to incentivize us to figure out alternative ways to do production.

[John C. Dvorak]

The Motion Picture association says the U.S.

[Adam Curry]

Already exports triple the film content that.

[John C. Dvorak]

It imports with a more than $15.

[Adam Curry]

Billion surplus in 2023. CBS News has confirmed that actor John.

[John C. Dvorak]

Voight, one of the president's special ambassadors to Hollywood, came up with the tariff idea.

[Adam Curry]

They given financing by other countries, they've given a lot of things and the industry was decimated. Movies like Mission Impossible often seek out exotic locales for filming.

[John C. Dvorak]

White told us tariffs would hurt more.

[Adam Curry]

Than just the bottom line.

[Monique White]

It's stifling creativity. So if someone wants to shoot something that's got a certain backdrop, you can't shoot it here. You have to go to the authentic place.

[John C. Dvorak]

Don't bull.

[Adam Curry]

Unclear what the tariffs would be based.

[John C. Dvorak]

On production costs, box office receipts or something. You're talking to the insiders.

[Monique White]

Do they really think this is going to happen? I'm not sure, to be honest. Everybody's very afraid, that's for sure. Everybody's very worried. So if this comes to reality, then this could all just go away tomorrow.

[John C. Dvorak]

So this is such a well known fact in Hollywood. Hollywood is empty. It's a shell. Because everybody's shooting up in Vancouver. They're shooting in all kinds of foreign countries. These are American movies. They're not making in America anymore. And the whole point of Hollywood as location was A, for the light and B, for the creativity of recreating, you know, fake nanu nanu. Creating places that look like you were there, that look like you filmed it there.

[Adam Curry]

You have the whole backlot of Warner Brothers. There's all kinds of different little towns.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think this is a phenomenal idea and long overdue. Anyone who's like, oh, Trump's no good, they should be quiet. This is going to bring back filmmaking to America. Texas has all kinds of incentives. They still can't. Austin used to be really big on that. They still can't lure productions into Texas just because of all the incentives, quite frankly, the payoffs of other countries.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, the bribes.

[John C. Dvorak]

The bribes, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

It's so obvious in Spain, Hollywood people.

[John C. Dvorak]

All have homes in Canada if they're working, if they're working regularly, because everything is happening up north, it's happening everywhere. But in America, I met more people.

[Adam Curry]

When I was flying. I go to Vancouver because I used to write for up there, and I go to Vancouver quite often. And so if I was in Vancouver and I was taking a Friday flight out of Vancouver, the place was filled with all these actors. I talked to a whole bunch of different people.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's like flying on Friday to Vegas packed with hookers. Everybody knows this. It's the same thing. Packed with hookers. So. Oh, man. Oh, talking about this. Oh, no, this is a great idea. We invented this. And by the way, how about your AI and your CGI and all that stuff? You don't need to go to these places. Make it in America, where we invented the entertainment industry, cnn, here's what they're saying.

[Monique White]

So for all of us at home, can you actually tariff something that's not a physical product in the sense of. In the traditional sense of how you think about a tariff, a physical good coming across the border, getting stamped by cbp, a company paying the tax that you have to pay. Yeah, but it's a fee. People charge me fees all the time.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[Monique White]

So what does this look like for the consumer? Probably higher prices, but, like how it gets distributed to the company that's putting the film out so literally, who do you charge? Are you saying that because. Yeah. Who makes the movie, how, and what is the mechanism in which they are charged?

[John C. Dvorak]

You know, most of the. Most of the series and movies that I see streaming, because we flip around. It's all crime and death and gratuitous sex. A lot of gay sex. Even the shows you like. Oh, you got to watch this. But beware of episode two.

[Adam Curry]

That was that show I stopped watching, Gratuitous. But the show sucked after, like a couple of episodes.

[John C. Dvorak]

They were doing gay butt sex for no reason. It was the. The one with the assassin in London.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Black Bird or whatever the hell.

[John C. Dvorak]

Something else. So, you know, it's like, come on, you know, we have Sodom and Gomorrah all over all our cities are. You can. You don't even need to do anything. Just roll the camera. But you want a futuristic hellscape, I can name a couple of cities you can go to right now. Oh, no.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, San Francisco would be one of them.

[John C. Dvorak]

But it's Trump's. Oh, no.

[Monique White]

So California Governor Gavin Newsom popped up. He was like, what? Hello, industry? And he proposed something that the industry is already very used to, which is a tax credit. He wants a $7.5 billion tax credit to incentivize the film industry to create more films to film them here in the US And I have to say, there was this kind of post labor strike flight from California when companies were like, I'm gonna go make my streaming project somewhere else. So, like, the industry's hurting. Right, right, right. I think this is. President Trump has taken the stick approach.

[John C. Dvorak]

And something the industry's not. The industry's hurting because of. The whole model has changed with streaming companies. That's why the industry is hurting. Right, right.

[Monique White]

Like a tax incentive would be the carrot approach. And it's so interesting because this conversation parallels with the one that in the goods sector, manufacturers that get inputs from abroad are asking, you know, we want to make more stuff here. We'd love to, but it's not that easy. Instead of hitting us with a stick, can we get a. Can we get a carrot? You just begging for carrots here. It's only Tuesday, Courtney. Okay.

[John C. Dvorak]

I mean, that's. Yes, that's what this is.

[Adam Curry]

These people can do nothing but complain.

[John C. Dvorak]

Exactly. This is a tax incentive. It's an incentive to make them in America. I don't want to sound all red, white and bonkers here, but, yes, this.

[Adam Curry]

Is a tax incentive, like that NPR show title, Red, White, and Bonkers.

[John C. Dvorak]

NPR took it to the extreme, though.

[Adam Curry]

The film industry started the week with a little confusion.

[Monique White]

That was after President Trump announced on Truth Social that he was imposing a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the US on Sunday night, he posted that quote, the movie industry in America is dying a very fast death. Other countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States, unquote. NPR entertainment correspondent Mandali Del Barco joins us now to talk about this.

[John C. Dvorak]

The basic question is, what do you call it? What do you call it? That was funny.

[Adam Curry]

Hey, listen, talk about this. So, you know, Mandalit, the basic question.

[Monique White]

Is probably going to spring up more questions. So how would 100% tariff on films made outside the US actually work. Yeah, that's exactly what everyone in Hollywood and in film and TV industries around the world would like to know.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Monique White]

President Trump's initial announcement was surprising. It left so many questions. Who would have to pay a tariff? The studios, film distributors. Will ticket prices go up? Would this be for international films or for American films shooting or filming on location or on sound stages around the world? What about TV and streaming shows? There have been a lot of funny questions, closed door meetings, group chats and social media speculation. Studios have been quiet so far, but the head of iatse, the union representing behind the scenes entertainment workers, says any plan must not harm the US Or Canadian film industries.

[Adam Curry]

Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I want Fran Drescher to come out and start. Mr. Trump, I can't wait. But of course, this is not, this is all because of his friends.

[Monique White]

The president says other countries are offering incentives to attract movie studios and filmmakers. So can you tell us about the incentives that he was referring to? I know that you have been reporting on this. Yeah, that's right. And it's true that for decades, places like Canada, the uk, Australia, and really all over the world, they've offered productions generous tax incentives, rebates and grants to shoot or film in their countries. Some of even built new sound stages to entice productions wanting to rebate. Trump, global incentives are a threat to the national security. Okay, so what are people overseas saying about this announcement from Trump? You can imagine a studios and unions around the world are worried that this could spell the end of their own production industry.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Monique White]

Some wonder if countries will retaliate with their own tariffs on American films. Yesterday, President Trump told reporters he wants to meet the film industry in this country to make sure they're happy with his plan to bring back showbiz job.

[Adam Curry]

Hollywood doesn't do very much of that business. They have the nice sign and everything's good, but they don't do very much.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. So here's the clip about his friends.

[Adam Curry]

All right, so why do you think.

[Monique White]

This issue came up at all for President Trump? Well, I'll give you a hint. Jon Voight. Trump calls the actor one of his special ambassadors, along with Silver John Voight.

[John C. Dvorak]

Universally hated by Hollywood. Universally hated by Hollywood. But oh no, Jon Voight, yes, he's to blame. Okay.

[Monique White]

Stallone and Mel Gibson. In a video shared with npr, Voight calls Trump the greatest president since Abe Lincoln. And his friend who loves the entertainment.

[Adam Curry]

Business wants to see Hollywood thrive and make films bigger and greater than ever before.

[Monique White]

Now, John Voight says he presented Trump a plan to rescue the American film industry with federal tax incentives, co production treaties with other countries, and subsidies for theater owners and film and TV production companies. Late last week, Voight also met with California Senator Ben Allen, who co authored a state bill that would expand film and TV incentives along with California Governor Gavin Newsom's plan to more than double the state's production tax credits. Trump blamed the governor for allowing productions to leave California. But late last night, Newsom said in a statement that he wants to team up with the Trump administration to create a $7.5 billion federal film tax credit.

[John C. Dvorak]

Everyone's all they've got all their panties in a bunch of this is great. They got they oh, let's talk about ourselves a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all Jon Voight's fault. Npr, by the way, they're making content for morons when it's certainly when are you still there?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, yeah, but what do you mean?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, listen to this about tariffs. Just it's short.

[Monique White]

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant will meet Chinese economic officials this weekend in Switzerland. Besant says they'll likely talk about de escalating the tariffs between the two nations. President Trump's trade war is taking a toll on cargo traffic across the Pacific Ocean. As NPR Scott Horsley reports, a significant number of the ships that were supposed to dock this month at the Port of Los Angeles have been cancelled.

[John C. Dvorak]

Rather than pay tariffs of 145%, many importers have put shipments from China on hold. The number of import containers passing through The Port of LA this week is down about 35% from a year ago. While businesses tried to stockpile goods before the tariffs took effect. The port's executive director, Gene Sirocco, expects.

[Adam Curry]

Those inventories will start to run out.

[Monique White]

In four to six weeks. So if you go to the store and you're looking for a blue shirt.

[Adam Curry]

You may see a bunch of purple ones. You may not see that blue one in your size or style and probably it will be more expensive than it was previously. Sirocco says the trade war is also.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hurting exports, with fruit, nut and wine growers in California's Central Valley reporting a steep drop in overseas sales.

[Monique White]

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

[John C. Dvorak]

Blue shirt for you. It'll be purple. I mean, seriously, these people are, you know, not to moan about him, but Horowitz is like this, too. I heard the show, by the way. I reached out to him and I really tried to help him with his sound issues. He's got like a rube Goldberg machine rigged up there. Like, what are you doing? Well, you know, I like to post, edit everything on separate tracks and put on, you know, special little sauce on each and John's voice and my voice. Everybody else see, you're nuts. But he's. I heard him like, oh, there's no containers. 25% less containers. There's no ships. And you, Mr. Dry Man. Oh, have you noticed anything? No, no.

[Adam Curry]

Because I am pushing back against.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

I love his hair on fire approach to the whole thing.

[John C. Dvorak]

I love it. It's like, I mean, seriously, it is truly just junk. Most of the stuff we get is just junk. That's all. You know, we'll have less junk. I have one more from NBC, Meet the Press.

[Monique White]

Let me ask you about Mattel, if I can, because I think this is where the rubber meets the road.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, the rubber meets the road.

[Adam Curry]

The rubber meets the road.

[John C. Dvorak]

By the way, the CEO of Mattel, he's like. He's like a weird guy. He's like, it's a German. I talk like this. Yes, we like to make toys for the children.

[Adam Curry]

It's like, you know, one of our guys.

[Monique White]

A lot of American blogger, CEO of.

[Adam Curry]

Mattel is running Mattel. I'm sorry, comic strip blogger is running Mattel.

[John C. Dvorak]

He'd probably do a better job.

[Monique White]

A lot of American consumers, right.

[Adam Curry]

The CEO of Mattel said that he does not expect manufacturing to move to the US but does expect that consumers here will pay more. Can you walk us through that?

[Monique White]

I mean, that's what we're hearing broadly from companies right now, whether it's in private or publicly making those sort of assessments. Well, the analogy is relevant because we just heard from the President a few days ago describe the situation for Americans as one where you might not be able to buy $30 for your daughter, you'll only be able to buy two, and maybe those two will cost a few more dollars. And essentially what Mattel is saying is that's exactly what's going to happen here because they might have to take pricing. That's the kind of corporate speak, if you will, for having to raise the price tags.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, my gosh. And Meet the Press. Thank you for this inside lingo. Pricing is code for raising the price. Thank you.

[Monique White]

That's the kind of corporate speak, if you will, for having to raise the price tags at the store for not just Barbies, but also things like Hot Wheels that Mattel produces as well. What's also interesting, though, about the politics of all this is that as the President is trying to use these Tariffs to essentially whack the American companies with, you know, incentives to produce here domestically. We have companies that are saying, yeah, certainly we're gonna try to move things around so we don't have to pay 145% tariff on things coming out of China, but instead of moving into the US we're just gonna move into other places in the world. That's what Mattel said in the earnings call. They're going to try to diversify away from China, but they didn't say it would come to the U.S. they're just going to move it to other countries. Kind of similar story with Apple and other companies that have very, very much been in the spotlight here with regards to whether or not they're producing here in the U.S. they're just saying, yeah, we're just going to not do it in China. We'll just move it to another country.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow, thank you. That's the whole plan. Dude, stop.

[Adam Curry]

Where's that from?

[John C. Dvorak]

That was Meet the Press NBC.

[Adam Curry]

Sound more like a CNBC guy. And too much coffee.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I, I tried to clip the CNBC lady with the, the CEO of Mattel, but he was just, you know, well, you know, and just going, ah, yeah, you know, we, we have, we've been waiting for this. We've been prepared for many, many quarters. We are a great company. You sell plastic stuff to children. Yeah. It may be important for people invest in the companies, but I just don't see the importance in the big scheme of life.

[Adam Curry]

I don't understand why they have nothing. They don't make nothing here. It's an American company.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

They're an El Segundo.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, I know.

[Adam Curry]

They started in 1945. An American company. They make nothing here. Thanks for that.

[John C. Dvorak]

I knew, I knew a woman who worked there. She was high up in the marketing department. When they had the female CEO, they kicked her out. I mean, the female CEO just like. No, no, she, she didn't do a good job. She tried to do all kinds of weird stuff with the Barbie. If I recall, I. She might have done the trans Barbie. Didn't we have that at some point?

[Adam Curry]

The trans Barbie?

[John C. Dvorak]

I think so.

[Adam Curry]

I don't think so.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think we did.

[Adam Curry]

It's funny, though. I like it. It's a good idea. I think you probably sell to me.

[John C. Dvorak]

I have a feeling we did have a trans Barbie Barbie. I could be wrong.

[Adam Curry]

The company was incorporated in Hawthorne in 1948.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

And the big hit was their big hit, the one that really got them going. Made by them. The Magic 8 Ball. Ooh, 1950. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, that's cool that I had one, but I had a Magic 8 ball when I was a kid.

[Adam Curry]

I think I still do.

[John C. Dvorak]

So on that topic, just because you are the one who was very closely involved with a young person of Mattel sell product using age, what did you wind up getting for the. For theodorable for his birthday?

[Adam Curry]

Well, this is. We. I can't tell you because his birthday party, that's where he gets his gifts, which was, of course, he's a Cinco de Mayo baby. It won't be till this Friday.

[John C. Dvorak]

He's listening to the show and you're gonna blow the surprise or you just. You haven't bought anything yet?

[Adam Curry]

No, no, we got a whole bunch of stuff.

[John C. Dvorak]

But what did you get?

[Adam Curry]

Mostly toys that have something to do with. With Minecraft.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, okay. I thought you were getting him socks.

[Adam Curry]

I was gonna get socks, but then Mimi bought a bunch of stuff and I said, oh, I'll just put my name on half of this.

[John C. Dvorak]

You told me after the show I'm gonna get him a sweater and then socks. I'm like, socks, you're the worst grandfather ever.

[Adam Curry]

That I should be getting to be the granddad and get the kids socks. And then the other joke was I told Jay, I said, I think I'm gonna get him a bottle of wine.

[John C. Dvorak]

I told you, like, do not get the kids socks and a sweater. These are gonna resent you. In fact, I sent you a link to the 130 projects in one. Did you see that?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no, I know why. No.

[Adam Curry]

Yes. No.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. No. Okay. I thought that was a good idea.

[Adam Curry]

It is a good idea. And I'm going to get him for Christmas. I'm gonna get him that gift.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, okay. All right, good. But so. So you basically, Mimi went out and bought a whole bunch of junk from China for him. It's way to go.

[Adam Curry]

Exactly. A bunch from China.

[John C. Dvorak]

And I love that.

[Adam Curry]

Before the tariffs. So that, you know, let's get in under the wire. Come on. I'm not a crazy guy.

[John C. Dvorak]

I love that you're indoctrinating him into the long standing Dvorak family tradition of not celebrating on the day itself. No, kid, you're going to celebrate on Friday.

[Adam Curry]

That's did he's got a celebration. He had his birthday party with his little friends over there at the other.

[John C. Dvorak]

Place where his friends brought him cheap junk from China. China, no doubt. No doubt.

[Adam Curry]

Hey, today's VE Day. Nobody's talking about that. No, of course, today and tomorrow is both there's two VE days. One that turns out there's one today. We got no donations for it, but there's one today, Victory in Europe Day, that was ours and England's. But the Russians call it the ninth. They say it's the ninth. And the Russians, the ones who beat the Germans, not us.

[John C. Dvorak]

The Russians are celebrating today, but they're not celebrating that. They are celebrating something else. Do you know what they celebrate on the 8th of May? May. This is. They celebrate the 8th. Yes. Correct.

[Monique White]

Mongolia's president touches down in Moscow, the latest in a succession of heads of state to arrive ahead of festivities marking the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. Not all of them had smooth journeys getting there. After Russia and Ukraine traded a barrage of drone attacks, hundreds of flights, the Kremlin was forced to say it was taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of foreign leaders, more than two dozen of whom are expected at Russia's flagship Victory Day parade. An opportunity into the bargain for President Vladimir Putin to hold bilateral meetings with the likes of Brazil, Serbia and Venezuela.

[Adam Curry]

I would like to convey to you.

[Monique White]

The special feelings of admiration of the Venezuelan people years after the victory in.

[Adam Curry]

The Great Patriotic War.

[Monique White]

We have promising areas of cooperation. They are obvious. But the main guest, as Vladimir Putin called him, is Chinese President Xi Jinping, who's in town for four days. 100 or so soldiers from China's army rehearsed in Moscow ahead of the military parade Friday. Their participation highlighting the ever closer relationship between the two countries, better display the friendship between China and Russia. We've also learned to perform classic Russian songs. Russia's become increasingly dependent economically on China as Western countries have sought to diplomatically isolate Putin after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Western leaders from key allied victors in World War II will not be attending on Friday. Not even Donald Trump nonetheless hasn't ruled out visiting Moscow someday.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's 80 on the 8th that I didn't know they celebrated that. The 80th anniversary of the fall of the Third Reich. So they celebrate a day early. And everybody flew in?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Everybody came in for the party?

[Adam Curry]

Yes, everybody. Our people. We don't even. Here's a BBC report this. VE Day. BBC.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, the, The. Isn't that Poppy Day in. Don't they wear the poppies? They wear the poppies.

[Adam Curry]

The poppy days is some.

[John C. Dvorak]

Something else.

[Adam Curry]

I think That's World War I. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Sorry.

[Adam Curry]

Wrong.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wrong.

[Monique White]

War events will take place across Europe on Thursday to mark the 80th anniversary of the Egg on 8 May in 1945, radio announcements in France and Britain declared the war against Nazi Ger had ended. The anniversary will be marked in Russia on Friday.

[John C. Dvorak]

I just remembered why the woman got fired at Mattel. She tried to make the lifelike Barbie.

[Adam Curry]

That's what it was like the nipples.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, no, no. Well, that would have been more lifelike than the cheap Barbie doll they have. No, no. Regular length legs punches.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, that's no good. It would look like a runt.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's what she tried to do. Lifelike Barbie. No, nobody wants that. Nobody wants that.

[Adam Curry]

So, anyway, Back to the VE Day.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

It's like 80th anniversary, the end of the war, beat Hitler, all this. Where's our. We got nothing.

[John C. Dvorak]

No. Well, didn't President Trump declare something? He must have declared something.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know that he. Only this morning he was on talking yak yak yak. And the complete mourning took over a couple of shows on Fox.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, Victory day. A proclamation.

[Adam Curry]

He' he's talking about today. He's talking about the deal with uk. They had a trade deal.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, I. I have the Keir Starmer clips. This was great. Hold on a second. Wait, where's Keir Starmer? This was so funny. Was it under tariffs? But for some reason. Oh, wait. Thought I had a Kier Starmer clip. Kier? Yes. No, that's old. Huh?

[Adam Curry]

I guess not.

[John C. Dvorak]

Now, I know I have Carney, but I thought I had Kier. Well, I do have a different Kier clip, which was equally disturbing, only for India, which we probably should talk about.

[Adam Curry]

India and Pakistan about to blow each other up.

[John C. Dvorak]

Here's GB news about the latest deal Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Britain, made with India has Sir Keir Starmer just sold Britain to the Indians without a single shot being fired. The Prime Minister announced a bumper new trade deal. Bumper. Well, this is a historic day for.

[Monique White]

The United Kingdom and for India because this is the biggest trade deal that we, the UK have done since we left the eu.

[Adam Curry]

Eu.

[John C. Dvorak]

And it's the most ambitious trade deal that India has ever done. And this will be measured in billions of pounds into our economy and jobs.

[Monique White]

Across the whole of the United Kingdom. So it is a really important, significant day.

[John C. Dvorak]

The Prime Minister said that it is fantastic news for British business, British workers and British shoppers. And then the whole thing seemed to unravel. The Indian government government released a statement hailing it as a massive win when it came to helping Indians move to Britain. It's emerged that Indian workers who move to Britain and British workers going to India will Pay no national insurance for the first three years. Starmer and Reeves raised national insurance for Brits. Well, what could this mean? A huge influx of Indian workers into Britain. Employers can pay them less. So fewer jobs for British workers and lower wages. Wages for British workers. Labour says this doesn't change the immigration rules. The Indian government says it does. Indian yogis, musicians and chefs will be able to apply for UK skilled worker visas. So if you're Indian, are they gonna.

[Adam Curry]

Take the yogi jobs away from the Brits?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, but the point is, yes, they.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, they will, because it was a joke.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I know, but it doesn't matter. Probably more tech jobs, finance jobs, because they literally pay less tax. He is stimulating Indian immigration. The last thing the British people want.

[Adam Curry]

The British people, they don't want to be British anymore. They want nothing but Pakistanis and Indians and Africans running the country.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's why my buddy Michelle is selling the club. He's selling the club. He's getting out.

[Adam Curry]

He's selling the club. He's given up.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yep. He says, I can't do it. He says, I'm selling the club. Club. There's nothing. But. But I don't. I don't want to repeat exactly what he said.

[Adam Curry]

I'm sure it wasn't. I'm sure it was very racist and mean.

[John C. Dvorak]

Very racist. Very racist about clientele and. And you know, and in general. He says people aren't going out anymore. They can't afford it. We have all these rules and regulations. Selling the club. He's moving to. Permanently. To the south of France. France.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, the south of France. There you go.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, he's done. He's done. He said, I can't do it anymore. Anymore. And this will only make it worse. It was interesting because the Netherlands had this when I moved back in 99. And I didn't know this at the time, but I got a 30% tax break in the Netherlands because they were trying to get Americans to move to Holland. And I paid 30% less tax just because of my passport.

[Adam Curry]

Than the local. Did you have to still pay American taxes because you're doing.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, we have a trade deal. So if you pay taxes overseas and there's a deal, a tax deal, then you don't have to pay tax. You don't pay double tax. So I just paid less taxes because it was a stimulative measure which I didn't know anything about at the time. So this is exactly what they're doing. And.

[Adam Curry]

Load up on the Indians.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. That's about it. By the President Trump did proclaim yesterday victory day for World War II today. He proclaimed it today. By the virtue and authority vested in him by the constitution, the laws of the United States do hereby proclaim May 8, today 2025, as a day in celebration of victory day for world war war ii. So he's all in.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Celebrate. What's the celebration consist of?

[John C. Dvorak]

Nothing. Everyone went to Russia. He couldn't. Everyone said, I'm sorry, I wanted to come to the White House, but I already told Vladimir I'd show up at his place. So you understand, don't you? That's what happened. Well, all right, I'll kick us off with a quick overview of India versus Pakistan because this is starting to look pretty bad. Now to rising tensions between India and Pakistan. India firing mission missiles at Pakistan after terrorist attacks that India claims missionaries originated from Pakistani territory. Our chief war correspondent Ian panel has the latest. Good morning, Ian.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, good morning, Michael.

[John C. Dvorak]

These two nuclear armed nations exchanging fire overnight. And again this morning, mid fears this could spiral out of control. India firing missiles into Pakistan, striking nine targets. Pakistan saying 26 people had been killed.

[Adam Curry]

Over 40 others wounded.

[John C. Dvorak]

Calling it an act of war. Saying its military has been authorized to respond. India insisting its attack was measured non.

[Adam Curry]

Escalatory and that no military facilities were hit. Just what it calls terrorist infrastructure. India's strikes though coming in response to.

[John C. Dvorak]

That deadly attack on tourists in Indian.

[Adam Curry]

Controlled Kashmir last month that left more than two dozen people dead.

[John C. Dvorak]

India blaming Pakistan militants, but Pakistan now saying it shot down five India fighter jets overnight and hit military targets. That no evidence has been produced. No evidence.

[Adam Curry]

A highly volatile situation, dangerous for both sides. China and the US both urging restraint.

[John C. Dvorak]

Now if I, they didn't report this, but if I understood it was Pakistan who attacked in the, in the disputed Kashmir region and killed like 20 plus tourists. Right. Isn't that what kicked all of this off? Off?

[Adam Curry]

Well, that's my understanding of something like that. Now the reporting is piss poor. Is there, I have a couple.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is there, is there a beach or something in, in Kashmir? What is it? What is the attraction of vacationing in the Kashmir region?

[Adam Curry]

It's got to be the weather, I guess.

[John C. Dvorak]

I've never considered, I've never considered it. Okay, what do you have?

[Adam Curry]

I got to, I got two reports but let's play this. This is a BBC World Service Service. Yeah, this Pakistan, India long version. This is the 20 long by long. This they get. They. Okay, the BBC World Service is interesting. Let me explain what they, how they do their reporting. First they do it. They'll do it. They'll do three versions of the exact same story. The first version, which is usually pretty good, it's very concise. It's about nine seconds.

[John C. Dvorak]

There's war in the Kashmir region.

[Adam Curry]

And then there's. Then there is the 32nd longer one, which is the one I'm gonna. I have here. And then they go on to like one that goes on for six, seven, eight minutes where they break it down and they yak, yak, yak, and you don't get anything more. The second version, this, this kind of semi long version gives you all the details they're really gonna ever have. Here it is.

[Monique White]

Pakistan's prime minister has said the country's military had made its reply following last night's Indian missile strikes on targets in PA Pakistan administered Kashmir. Speaking during an address to the nation, Shabazz Sharif referred to Pakistan's earlier claim that it had shot down five Indian fighter jets. And he said Delhi had misjudged Pakistan's determination to fight back. India has not confirmed the reports.

[John C. Dvorak]

I mean, Pakistan was literally saying for days, they're going to strike, they're going to strike, they're going to strike. And they did. I don't think they underestimated anything. They knew it was coming. It's a mess. And if you're an Indian, they had these stick fights.

[Adam Curry]

You know about this? They didn't. I haven't got any reports on it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Fights?

[Adam Curry]

You don't know about the stick fights? No, they, it's like they have right at the border. There's some sort of a border dispute here throughout Kashmir. And they come out to one the, the Pakistani and Indian, they both come out with sticks. Sticks. And then they start fighting each other as everybody watches, really. And then the winner of that fight goes back and then the next challenger.

[John C. Dvorak]

Comes out and then they send an F16 and it.

[Adam Curry]

Boy. Yeah. At some point they drop an A bomb. But it starts with these stick fights.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow, that's like. That's so juvenile. We used to have stick fights, rock fights. Hmm.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know what they're up to.

[John C. Dvorak]

I have the NPR report if you, if you can bear. It's not long, like luckily.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, let's hear it.

[John C. Dvorak]

That doesn't sound like a stick to me. That sounds like a fighter jet taking off.

[Monique White]

India struck multiple targets across Pakistan in the most extensive strikes in more than 50 years. It comes after India blamed Pakistan for an attack that killed 26 people in late April. Pakistan denies any connection. Its military has retaliated by firing into parts of Indian held Kashmir and it claims it has downed five Indian aircraft. The Associated Press reports that more than 30 people were killed in Pakistan. India says three people were killed on their side. On the line with us is NPR's Dia Hadid. She covers Pakistan and India from her base in Mumbai.

[Adam Curry]

Diya, tell us about these strikes.

[Monique White]

They happened overnight. Well, India's army says it struck militant training camps and what they call terror infrastructure. And many of those strikes were in Pakistani held Kashmir. But Pakistan says the strikes mostly hit mosques and part of a hydropower dam. One prominent Pakistani military militant says one of the strikes targeted his relatives and killed 14 people, including women and children. And that was in a small town.

[Adam Curry]

Stop the clip. The way she presents this, she says but the strikes only hit mosques and a dam.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, it doesn't count. It's just mosques and a dam.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, sounds pretty substantial.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I think what she's saying is it didn't kill people because she goes straight into the it killed the guy's family, wiped out the guy's family. This is so typical, typical of war reporting. You know what I, what kind of was glossed over here was India said we didn't do it.

[Adam Curry]

There could be false flags going out.

[John C. Dvorak]

The Pakistan said we didn't do it. I'm sorry.

[Adam Curry]

Well, the point is there could be false flags every which way. Yes, but why this whole thing, the stick fighting. The whole thing could be a just bull crap. It's and she's in Mumbai. There's nowhere near. He's not walking distance, that's for sure. To Cashmere. The who thing is like who you know, why don't you be reporting from Sacramento? I mean it's ludicrous.

[John C. Dvorak]

I want a report on the stick fights. I mean I, what a great angle it is. Well, let's finish this.

[Monique White]

And many of those strikes were in Pakistani held Kashmir. But Pakistan says the strikes mostly hit mosques and part of a hydropower dam. One prominent Pakistani militant says one of the strikes targeted his relative relatives and killed 14 people, including women and children. And that was in a small town in southern Pakistan. And it's really important to say here where these strikes took place. Some were deep in Pakistan. One was near the country's second largest city.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, there's no, I can't find anything on the stick fights. I, that's an angle I'm very interested in. Here's the second follow up to this about what is coming next.

[Monique White]

Now could all this maybe quiet down or do folks there expect more military actions? I guess the problem Here is. With strikes so deep in Pakistan and with this death toll, Pakistan may feel like it must respond to show people that its army isn't weak. So analyst Praveen Dante with the International Crisis Group says other countries have to step in.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm afraid if the international community doesn't.

[Adam Curry]

Step in, especially the U.S. then we.

[John C. Dvorak]

Are only seeing the beginning of the these escalatory strikes.

[Monique White]

For now, President Trump has said he hopes this ends quickly and Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he's closely monitoring the situation.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, all right, Rubio, I'm monitoring it. Okay. It doesn't really mean anything. I mean. And meanwhile, we hear nothing on this is total silence now on Ukraine. We don't know what's going on there. Oh. Even though actually I do have Queen Ursula.

[Adam Curry]

We have Russian new attacks. We can play. That's another BBC.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, let's try that one. You have two versions of it.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, they're both exactly the same time. I think it's the same clip.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let me see.

[Adam Curry]

Just play. New attacks BBC.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Monique White]

The Ukrainian Air Force says Russian aircraft launched guided bombs on the Sumy region of northern Ukraine shortly after a Kremlin sponsored unilateral ceasefire officially took effect. The Ukrainian claim hasn't been confirmed. Russia says its three day ceasefire is timed to coincide with Second World War commemorations. Kyiv rejects the truths, but has repeated its call for a longer 30 day ceasefire. The Ukrainian MP Lisa Jasko said that a short ceasefire was pointless. Three days costs nothing to him.

[Adam Curry]

It costs like, oh, a joke, you.

[John C. Dvorak]

Know, a joke to have a long, longer ceasefire.

[Adam Curry]

Depending on what is the militaristic and.

[Monique White]

The personal goal for Kremlin is, can.

[Adam Curry]

Be possible, but there is no single sign that they are going to do that anytime soon.

[John C. Dvorak]

So let me ask you a question, a historical question about Russia. Russian gas, or let's just call it Russian energy being sent to Europe. In your recollection, did Russia use that as a kludge continuously against Europe, saying, we're going to shut it off, we're going to shut it off, we're going to shut it off?

[Adam Curry]

No.

[John C. Dvorak]

Do you ever recall? I mean, I remember. I think it might have been.

[Adam Curry]

I can go back. My memory starts with, I think this probably had a little bit to do with it when I was working in an oil refinery. But my memory goes back to the point and I can't give you a year or anything, but before Russia had any energy sector that was worth a crap. And we kept trying to beg, borrow and steel to get in and help Russia get their energy sector. Get it out. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Get it up and out.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. And because they. It was assumed that they had more. There was this. I'm just. Again, it's just off the top of my head. I don't remember the details, but it was assumed that they had more gross energy total than Saudi Arabia.

[John C. Dvorak]

Sure.

[Adam Curry]

That they were just sitting on. Because they didn't have American and European or especially American expertise on how to get that. Get it up out and ship it all over the place. And so we kept begging to get in and begging to get in. After the fall of communism, at some point, Gorbachev or somebody let the Chevron and all these guys, these hotshots, go in there and teach the Russians how to do it. And from then on, they became. They said, look at all this free money we're getting. Because they just started pumping like crazy. They weren't using it as leverage, they were using it to make money. And they got pretty rich during that period. I don't know that they ever threatened to stop it.

[John C. Dvorak]

So if I, If I just look back in our archive, Eclipse, the only one that comes close, actually, I don't think I can. Let me see Russia gas, because it would be gas, obviously. Did they. I don't think they ever really, Ever really use it as a. I mean, they were. It was like the, The German. The Germans loved it because they were getting. Getting gas. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Merkel, and don't forget Merkel and Putin both spoke German and both spoke French. And she always. I'm not French, but Russian. She spoke fluent Russian.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

And they were. They got along famously. And they started. And the Germans were smart enough to get as much of that gas, cheap gas as they could because it was just a straight. It was straight shot. Then something happened.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, and, and what. And what they loved doing was they loved sending the gas to Germany and Germany would send Mercedes Benzes back. That was kind of the round robin they all love. So Ursula, Queen Ursula in the European Parliament this past week, she's changing history and she's now making it sound like this war was because Russia was playing kind of smart games with their gas. And, you know, that was. That was a problem. She even gives us the years when it happened.

[Monique White]

I also know that some are still saying that we should reopen the tap of Russian gas and, and oil. This would be a mistake of historic dimensions, and we would never let it happen. This has to be very clear, too.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Because listen up.

[Monique White]

Russia has proven time and again that it is not a reliable supplier. Putin has already cut gas flows to Europe in 2006-2009-2014-2021, and throughout the. The war. How many times before they learn the lesson, really, Dependency on Russia is not only vulnerability.

[Adam Curry]

Wasn't. We talked about this a lot on this show. This show's been on for so long. We can do this. It's great. It was. They weren't paying their bills.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Ukraine wasn't paying the bill. That's. Yes, that's the only thing I remember. Ukraine was. And they'd still let it go through. And the Russians kept saying, hey, you know, you really got to pay your bill. You really got to pay your bill. And they kept the gas flowing at all times. I can remember this.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And now she's saying, 2021, 2022. When did we blow up the Nordstream pipeline? When. When did we do that? That certainly stopped Russian gas. Now, this is a lie.

[Monique White]

In 2006-2009-2014-2021, and throughout the war. She's a horizon before they learned the lesson. Dependency on Russia is not only bad for our security, but also for our economy. Our energy prices cannot be dictated by a hostile neighbor.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, they're being dictated by you with your windmills and your solar panels.

[Adam Curry]

Hitler in drag.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hitler was smarter than this. He didn't ruin the economy that way. They ruined it in other ways. You know, killed a bunch of the people in the economy. Economy. But she's going crazy over there because, you know, now she's taken the. What President Trump is doing with the. Really, which we. I think we now deduce, is about the endowments and about not giving money to universities who have $100 billion sitting around giving them money, whereas they're spending almost nothing on making it cheaper for kids to get an education. The education in what is the next question. Instead, all these young students are all indebted for the rest of their life. And she turns that around and says, Trump hates science. Making Europe a magnet for researchers.

[Monique White]

This is the ambition of the Choose Europe strategy presented by the president of the European Commission at the Sorbonne University in Paris, although she did not explicitly refer to the attacks on academic freedom in the U.S.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, oh. It's a tax on academic freedom, which apparently is in the Constitution. A tax on academic freedom. This is rich.

[Monique White]

At the Sorbonne University in Paris, although she did not explicitly refer to the attacks on academic freedom in the US Ursula von der Leyen announced that she wanted to enshrine the freedom of scientific research in a new European Act.

[Adam Curry]

What a farce.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is Great. Listen, what she has to say here.

[Monique White]

Is to ensure that science in Europe remains open and free. Free is our calling card. We must do everything we can to uphold it. Now more than ever before, we want to strengthen the free movement of knowledge and data across Europe, just as we do for goods, talents and capital across our single market. The European Commission puts on the table.

[John C. Dvorak]

A 500 million euro package. The lowest objective is to spend 3%.

[Monique White]

Of EU GDP on research and development investment by 2030. However, researchers believe that there are other elements to be considered. Anybody who comes and they come into one country, they should also then be able to move to any other country with their pensions.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah.

[Monique White]

All their entitlements.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, yeah.

[Monique White]

So those are through things mobility, infrastructure and funding. Finally, the Commission wants to cut red tape to support research and innovation, even though clear laws can be an asset. According to this researcher, we have that regulatory certainty that is missing in a lot of other places and especially in. In the US And I think this can give not only should give more confidence to consumers, but may also give more confidence to researchers and to do with business people.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm glad you caught that. That was my question too, is like, this is good for consumers to have your tax money be spent on a bunch of people testing stuff on mice. I'm not against scientific research, but let's be a little realistic here.

[Monique White]

We have that regulatory certainty that is missing in a lot of other places and especially in the US And I think this can give not only should give more confidence to consumers, but may also give more confidence to researchers and.

[Adam Curry]

To business people that they know the.

[Monique White]

Limits and the opportunities that they have given.

[Adam Curry]

Babbling.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, It's a bunch of intellectual intellectuals looking for a free ride. There's money.

[Monique White]

For his part, Emmanuel Macron announced that the French state would invest an additional 100 million euros in R&D by 2030. The French President was more direct in his condemnation, not hesitating to call the abolition of research programs in the United States a mistake on the pretext that they use the term diversity.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, okay. So Trump very bad because you look different. He doesn't want to fund you. That's the message. Okay, Macron, have you seen your wife? Not to be mean about it.

[Adam Curry]

You're mean.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm very mean. And then Mr. Peepers. Whoa. This was a very European move. Mr. Peepers was not elected Bundt's councillor by his own coalition. And they did the typical European thing you need to vote over because you voted wrong.

[Monique White]

Conservative leader Friedrich Merz has been elected the new German Chancellor in the second round of voting in the Bundestag. His previous failure to win support in the German parliament was the first in the country's post war history. Merz needed a majority of 300, 116 out of 630 votes, well short of the 328 seats held by his coalition. That coalition is led by Merza's center right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian.

[Adam Curry]

Sister party, the Christian Social Union.

[Monique White]

They were joined by former Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre left Social Democrats. Because the first round was a secret ballot, it was not immediately clear and might never mean known who had defected from Merz's camp. The far right alternative for Germany has demanded Matt step aside and called for fresh elections following his historic defeat.

[John C. Dvorak]

What are the chances someone went around at night, said, hey, look at this picture. I think, I think you voted, I think you voted wrong.

[Adam Curry]

You voted wrong.

[John C. Dvorak]

And was only the first round secret and the second one wasn't. Was that, is that what they did?

[Adam Curry]

That's what they kind of hint at.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, well, now that it's not a secret ballot, I better, better get line with the party. Europe is sick. I feel very bad for all my European friends. It's sick. It's just sick.

[Adam Curry]

Well, they've brought it on themselves.

[John C. Dvorak]

I know. Well, yes, because they don't stand up and say, hey, enough with this, enough. No, they don't. Boy. No. It, it saddens me to say.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, well what else we got? I got a lot of Pope clips where they do me no good.

[John C. Dvorak]

You were pope heavy and, and you got knocked out of the ring.

[Adam Curry]

I did.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. I, I, I saw you with all the Pope clips. I'm like, well, I got one pope clip. Like I wasn't even going to do any pope stuff.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I got screwed on that deal.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, you did, you did. What's interesting is that we both appear to have clipped the CBS Morning show show about this absolute unbelievable advertisement for the shingles vaccine.

[Adam Curry]

Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

And in fact, we'll use your clips. But I had a, I was going to lead into, it's probably the same ones.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know how much they paid for this, but it was, I think it was about a four minute spot.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, here's what aired right before it.

[Monique White]

Shingles is a condition caused by the varicella zoster virus. Most people over, over the age of 50 have the virus in their body. That's why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone over the age of 50 get the two dose shingles vaccine.

[John C. Dvorak]

So that aired before this segment. It was.

[Adam Curry]

No.

[Monique White]

Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

It was unbelievable. Unbelievable. I have four clips as well.

[Adam Curry]

They ran an actual ad.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Then they ran the segment to back up the ad.

[John C. Dvorak]

Did you not hear Gail at one point say, I've been seeing the ad ads?

[Adam Curry]

Yes. No. She said that in this. I have.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let's play it. Let's play it. We'll kick it off with it with yours, number one.

[Adam Curry]

All right, let's begin this hour with.

[Monique White]

Some groundbreaking new research. Groundbreaking shingles vaccine. South Korean study found the vaccine can lower the risk of heart disease by 23% for up to eight years.

[Adam Curry]

The vaccine in that study was used.

[Monique White]

In the US until 2018.

[Adam Curry]

And other research shows promising results.

[Monique White]

For the new version, CBS News medical.

[Adam Curry]

Contributor Dr. Celine Gounder, editor at large for public health at KFF Health News, joins us now to discuss. Good morning.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hello.

[Adam Curry]

Good. Break the study down for us. What did it find?

[Monique White]

So they looked at over 2 million adults in South Korea over a period of about 10 years. And they found that people who got the older shingles vaccine, what we call Zostavax, it's a live virus vaccine, older technology in their.

[Adam Curry]

So this was the vaccine.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is what was confusing to me is they're touting the benefits of this older technology that hasn't been in play for seven years, but somehow they, they folded into this new, this ad, this blatant ad which came out.

[Adam Curry]

This is the most pathetic presentation I've ever recorded.

[Monique White]

Live virus vaccine, older technology in that population, we saw a 23% reduction in their risk of cardiovascular events, which is pretty significant.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow.

[Monique White]

Which as you say, was used into 2018.

[Adam Curry]

The newer vaccine does not contain a live virus.

[Monique White]

But you're saying it also, you're saying the new research is suggesting it might.

[Adam Curry]

Even be better than the old one.

[Monique White]

What we're seeing is vaccines. That one's called Shingrix, which is made of a purified synthetic.

[John C. Dvorak]

What we just heard the ad for.

[Monique White]

Shingrix, synthetic protein, viral protein. So it's much more pure. You get two doses of that one starting at age 50. With that one, we are seeing even better vaccine effectiveness. And we're seeing preliminary data showing that it too has cardiovascular protective effects.

[John C. Dvorak]

So I'm going to tell you what my thinking was right away after this opening of the segment. I thought, first of all, paid obvious. Bring in Celine Gownder. She's been read in. She's got her script. They just played the ad.

[Adam Curry]

There's a number of moments where this obviously Scripture scripted because it's just, it's just not natural.

[John C. Dvorak]

It also felt to me like this research was dug up but attached to the new and improved technology so that it can be put on Medicaid because it, it's, it lowers your heart risk.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it's going to be put on Medicaid anyway. You can get a shingles vaccine if you're on Medicare.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, it's already there. Okay.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. These vaccines are mine, most of them.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

It's not like, you know, I know some, a couple friends of mine, liberals, they get whatever they told Libjos and they were up in the hills and they got the shingles shot.

[John C. Dvorak]

And then they got shingles.

[Adam Curry]

One of them did almost immediately. And it was a pain. It wasn't like, oh, well, you know, at least it wasn't as bad.

[John C. Dvorak]

Painful. Painful.

[Adam Curry]

It was a miserable. She never had a problem before. 4 got the shot and then had a worst case scenario type of horribly painful shingles right after the shot. But was it the coincidence? I don't know.

[John C. Dvorak]

But was it the new technology?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, of course it was because this other one's not been around for seven years.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, goodness. All right, clip two.

[Adam Curry]

So I got technology.

[John C. Dvorak]

This new technology, does that mean it's like mRNA, do we know?

[Adam Curry]

Well, they do explain it. I don't think it's mRNA, but they do use a fake version of the, of the. Looks like it's, it's. She's explained in that first clip. It's not, it's not a live virus. It's a. Some creation. It's like a, like, kind of like, I don't know what, what, how they do it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

But it doesn't sound like mRNA.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Monique White]

So I got my shingles vaccine. I saw a commercial on TV and.

[Adam Curry]

Thought I better get one. Yeah, that's what I did. I saw the next retail.

[Monique White]

I better get one of those.

[Adam Curry]

So what does it mean for people.

[John C. Dvorak]

Who receive the vaccine? Vaccine before this, by the way, is a bunch of people. It's an inside joke. This clip too.

[Adam Curry]

Okay.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is an inside joke. I saw the commercial. I thought I better get it right away. Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, absolutely. This is your. Yeah, they're laughing about the fact that this is a bought and paid for segment. Thought I better get one of them. That's what I, I saw next week. What does it mean for people who.

[Monique White]

Receive the vaccine before 2018? Well, the study we're talking about today is actually with that older vaccine, but I think big picture, we need to be rethinking the connection between infections and chronic disease. We've had this sort of artificial line between the two. And what we're seeing based on this data is that because of the chronic inflammation you can have from an infection like chickenpox. So chickenpox is the kind of herpes, herpes virus. And as you may know, once you have a herpes virus, you have it forever.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh man, that's kind of conflating things, isn't it?

[Adam Curry]

Well, the thing that, besides conflating things like you suggest, they bring up this little factoid that once you get a herpes virus, you have it forever. So what good does the shot do? You have it forever.

[John C. Dvorak]

So the new technology, what does the shot do? Well, I'm going to tell you, the new technology is a combination, a recombinant of antigen and adjuvant system that stimulates the immune system to generate a strong and sustained immune response. So they got Hamburger Helper in there.

[Adam Curry]

And who knows and surprise me, yeah, it's. And who knows what that does? But, but the point, the overall point which she made is that once you have this, this virus, any of the herpes, zoster, whatever, they are viruses, you can't get rid of them. So what does the vaccine do actually? I mean, what does it actually do? It doesn't do anything.

[John C. Dvorak]

It makes CBS and the people hosting the show richer.

[Adam Curry]

In that so called study, which they never mentioned what it was or even cite it, they say that it kept 23% less chance of having a heart episode. And that effect lasts eight years. So. Eight years. Okay, well after eight years, what happened? What happens? You're older and you're going to have more chance at whatever it was. And then the other issue is in the, with this new vaccine, Shingrix, give it a plug. You have to have two shots. Again, one of those two shot deals, it's your booster. This is, the whole thing is sick.

[Monique White]

And if your immune system gets weak, you're getting older, you're stuck, stressed, it can come out again. And so it's causing inflammation over time in your body. When you have a shingles outbreak in particular, you're having a lot of inflammation that can cause inflammation of your blood vessels, blood clotting, all of which could lead to a heart attack, dementia, these other problems. So yes, these things can be connected. Infectious disease, chronic disease, I think is an important message here. Yeah, you mentioned dementia.

[Adam Curry]

Another study showed that the same type of shingles vaccine could reduce the risk of dementia.

[Monique White]

Could this change the way that we think about vaccines? I Think it should.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow. Hey. And here's the question you ask. I want you to.

[Adam Curry]

Is that the most scripted sounding question you can imagine?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Does this change the way we think about vaccines? I mean, because it's not just against shingles. It can save your life from all kinds of horrible things.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[Monique White]

You mentioned dementia. Another study showed that the same type of shingles vaccine could reduce the risk of dementia. Could this change the way that we think about vaccines? I think it should. So again, you know, we're trying to prevent some of the risk factors that lead to chronic disease. Disease, which includes chronic inflammation, other such infections. Chronic infections, Hepatitis C, for example, has been known, or hpv, human papillomavirus. These have been known to cause cancer, again through the chronic inflammation. So it's again, a false dichotomy between infectious disease, chronic disease and vaccines may be a way of preventing certain chronic diseases. So bottom line, who should get it?

[John C. Dvorak]

Man, we clipped it exactly the same, too. I mean, like to the right down to that. And I cut it off and I had the same kicker at the end that you have. That's crazy. We both caught. We both caught it. It's like this is an ad of epic proportion. And I have the ad. The actual ad.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, that's the kick that the. That's the real kicker. I, I mean, this, like in publishing, generally speaking, they make a fuss. Editors will make a fuss. If you write anything that's like, you know, looks like it's an ad and they really get bent out of shape if you're like, for example, I used to write, you know, kind of generalized columns, so I would talk about product like we do on the show.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

And. And if somehow.

[John C. Dvorak]

If it sounded addy, you'd get a call.

[Adam Curry]

No, no, not. No, that wasn't the real complaint. They, they could sound addy. But if, if the other side of the fence, if the other side of the fence got wind of what was being written, they would they. If they could. They never did. And. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

You mean the ad sales being the other.

[Adam Curry]

The ad sales guy finds out, they'll sell an ad right next to it. If they can.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of course they will. Of course.

[Adam Curry]

Because there's not dumb.

[John C. Dvorak]

And that's what those. They'll say at cbs. Well, we knew this segment was coming up, so we called the company and.

[Adam Curry]

We'Re talking generally about vaccines. No, that's not. No, it was the other way around. The company, because that, that's what we're listening to is the ad. And they just decided to, you know, to tack it on, just make it worse.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, they should have not run that ad. They should just let this be the ad. But no, they had to. They could. These guys, obviously, this is a big spend. They can't help a lot of money.

[John C. Dvorak]

They can't help this themselves.

[Adam Curry]

No, they can't help themselves. And this is the same thing with, like I was saying with the editorial where you, if you, you can't help yourself, you're going to put the ad right there. It's corrupt.

[Monique White]

For the, for the Shingrix, the newer vaccine in the United States, once you hit age 50, you should be getting two doses.

[John C. Dvorak]

By the way, Shingrix is not like a general name. It's the product name. It is the brand name.

[Adam Curry]

Brand name.

[John C. Dvorak]

She's not promoting the technology. She's promoting the brand name.

[Monique White]

For the, for the Shingrix, the newer vaccine in the United States, once you hit age 50, you should be getting two doses of that. And then if you're younger and immunocompromised, you should also be getting two doses.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, so all you guys, I cut it off there before. Now you left in all the laughing with the gay guy whose mom is mad at this table.

[Monique White]

You have some time. Not me. I'm behind the time.

[Adam Curry]

Behind the eight ball, as always. Yeah, well, now you're gonna. My mom's gonna yell at me because she doesn't like when people know my. Yes, I'm way over. Why. Why does your mom like that?

[John C. Dvorak]

You're so youthful.

[Adam Curry]

Like the mystery. Keep being youthful.

[John C. Dvorak]

So youthful.

[Adam Curry]

I think it's good to tell people, look, this is what it looks like. Yeah, exactly. Never run away from that question.

[Monique White]

Dr. Gounder, always good to see you here.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. You know, they're all laughing because, like, hey, we got paid.

[Adam Curry]

It could have been high fives. Yeah, we got pa. We got through it. That's the reason I left that in there because it was like they're congratulating themselves or making it. Good job segment.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, good job.

[Adam Curry]

It's scandalous, you know, Scandalous.

[John C. Dvorak]

Speaking of such. And I hope to have an expose.

[Adam Curry]

And that's cbs, by the way, for anyone out there wants to know that's how you. How much you can trust them.

[John C. Dvorak]

I hope to have a segment on this maybe Sunday because it's like some research. But all these podcasts who are selling.

[Adam Curry]

Gold, you know, that's most podcasts. Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

That turns out to be an incredible story scam. And it's really predatory because they're all talking about, well, we can do. You can call us now for our booklet and you can get it in your IRA, your 401k, which when the moment you buy it, it's a 100% markup right there on the actual gold itself. But then the podcasters, they get a 5% kickback. I mean, it's, it's insane what they're doing, and I don't even think they know they're doing, doing it. But it's predatory, it's very predatory against older people, you know, and they always like, oh, this. What was that guy who always. William Devane. Wasn't that the guy?

[Adam Curry]

William still on the air? He's still selling stuff.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, but he's. At least he has an ira. He's an old retired guy. But when you get like Megan Kelly or what's, what's his, his name?

[Adam Curry]

Shapiro.

[John C. Dvorak]

Shapiro.

[Adam Curry]

Is he selling gold too?

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah. Oh, Shapiro. He'd be talking like, I know President Trump and gold. That's Shapiro Shapiro. So I'm going to try and do an expose on that.

[Adam Curry]

It's, it's really quite disgusting, some of the clips. I love it when these, these podcasters are yakking away about something.

[John C. Dvorak]

By the way, I buy my gold from. Hey, the Horowitz and Company, the official gold supplier of the no Agenda Show. Call Andrew, tell them we sent you so we'll know where to send that big fat check. So apparently they market these coins, but the way it's done is like, oh, we've got this exclusive coin. There's only 200,000 circulation. Yeah, because they put them in circulation. They control the supply of this so called.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know anything about coins being sold.

[Monique White]

Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yes. Yeah, you know, it'll be like a.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, I've seen the bag of silver. They sell a bag of coins.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's the same thing. The French, the French New Guinea, Silver eagle dollar in gold. You know, they'll just make it up, make it. It's like Federal Express. You know, it sounds. Oh, oh, this. I've heard of that coin. You know, it's not a Krugerrand, but it's just something they made up and then they already price in 100% over the actual value of the gold in the coin. Coin, the end. Oh, you got to get in quick on this deal because they're going fast and there's only 200,000 left or 50,000. So they create this in inflated price. They create it themselves. It's a very, very sick deal. And podcasters should think twice about this. I mean, we've never even had an offer. Just kind of sad. Has anyone ever come to you and said, hey, that no Agenda show, would you guys like the silver gold? No, no, no, of course not. You. And you wonder why? Because they know that we'll look at it and go, this is a scam. And you're going after people who are 50 and over and who are retired. And, oh, yes, you know, the, the dollar is, you know, could be unstable and, you know, I should invest in gold anyway.

[Adam Curry]

Well, you should invest in gold. It's not a bad deal if you buy it at $3,200 an ounce.

[John C. Dvorak]

Exactly, Exactly. Exactly. And meanwhile, in medical scams, so Long Covid, which we really don't even know what that is, other than a lot.

[Adam Curry]

Of people think it's just the vax.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, there's.

[Adam Curry]

But there's. I know people that have the kind of, you know, they had, like JC never had the vax, and he had a kind of a version of long Covid which he thinks he cured by taking different supplements. And he got over it, but he had a brain fog for a long time.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I believe that. Well, they figured out a new way to sell another product based upon something we know nothing about.

[Adam Curry]

On the Medical Watch this afternoon, the.

[Monique White]

Impact of weight on Covid recovery. Medical reporter Dina Baer has some insight. Lotus and Ben. Excess weight may contribute to long Covid. Being overweight or obese is associated with neurological symptoms including headache.

[Adam Curry]

Hold on. This, this is getting closer and closer to your prediction, which I think still is in play. Yeah, you probably forgot the prediction.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hit me.

[Adam Curry]

Ozempic turns out to be a cure for erectile dysfunction.

[John C. Dvorak]

We're getting there.

[Monique White]

Aches, vertigo, sleep problems and depression. The Journal plus one.

[John C. Dvorak]

The day that that happens, I get all my credits back for having the Pope wrong. I think that is as good as a Pope prediction. If they one day say, I think it.

[Adam Curry]

No, the Pope prediction's better because that's more of a long shot that you had this prediction that you made about the erectile dysfunction.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's coming, baby.

[Adam Curry]

Is logical.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's coming.

[Monique White]

The journal plos One reports COVID patients who are overweight or obese develop persistent, debilitating symptoms following the COVID infection. They face a long road to complete Covid recovery and suffer multiple organ system disruptions involving respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological and method mental health. Long Covid also leads and taste disorders, sleep disturbances and anxiety.

[John C. Dvorak]

So they, they don't close the loop because this is just the, the first initial messaging. But it's coming. You Need Ozempic. That is coming. You know, you need Ozempic because if you get Kobe, you might get Long Covid. You can get mental problems. You can get all respiratory issues. How about you? You're fat. It's. It's just. Hey, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Talk is cheap. Where is it, man, where he's in trouble, by the way.

[Adam Curry]

Why.

[John C. Dvorak]

So I believe did President Trump. I think he appointed the means. Sister. Kelly. Means his sister. As Attorney General. General.

[Adam Curry]

No, no, not Attorney General. That's.

[John C. Dvorak]

I meant, not attorney Surgeon General. Thank you.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, the surgeon.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you. Surgeon General. What's her name again? Her name is Casey means. Casey means.

[Adam Curry]

Right. She's a. She's a tough cookie.

[John C. Dvorak]

So Nicole Shanahan, big money behind RFK Jr initially said, says this is very strange and doesn't make any sense. I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr in his Senate confirmation. As you recall, she threatened senators with primary. Primary them. I was promised that If I support RFK Jr. In his Senate confirmation, that neither of these siblings will be working under HHS or in an appointment and that people much more qualified would be. I don't know if RFK very clearly lied to me or what is going on. It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions, and it isn't President Trump. With regards to the siblings, Casey and Callie, there's something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, man. Wow. This is what happens when liberals become conservatives. There's a moment. It's like. It's kind of. Of like a. A period, an event horizon, I would call it that. Where. Where their. Their mentality is just screwy.

[John C. Dvorak]

I mean, that's. That's.

[Adam Curry]

That's a gem. That's a beauty.

[John C. Dvorak]

That is. That's next level conspiracy theory.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I've noticed this with a lot of these people that have. Have sw. I noticed this at some of the meetups with some of the ex liberals who turned. Who turned cons conservative over whatever period of time it took them. They have. They. They're just. They. They can't. They can't get past that moment that her event horizon, I'll call it again. Event horizon where they. Where they. Where they develop a weird kind of a paranoid, conspiracy, theoretical kind of a mentality that just screws them up.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is.

[Adam Curry]

That doesn't sound right.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is the Surgeon general. I mean, isn't that almost ceremonial?

[Adam Curry]

It's not even a Powerful position. It's a bo. Bogus spokeshole.

[John C. Dvorak]

You get to wear a uniform. That's about it, isn't it?

[Adam Curry]

You can if you want.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Now, I'll say that there's been a lot of pushback on Casey and Cali Means with exactly that accusation. You know, you're a shill. You're a shill for the. For Big Pharma. You're a shill. You were. Because Casey Means was literally a. A lobbyist for Big Pharma and Big Pharma food. And he said, you know, I blow in the whistle, I'm jumping out. And people are starting to not believe him, thinking that he's a shill, mainly because he won't say anything negative about the COVID vaccine. And there's been. I think we. You and I even watched the video. I think you watched. You. You probably watched five minutes and found it insufferable. It was with that doctor who. Who used to work with RFK junior A long time ago. I. I wish I had names. I don't have anything I. At this point. But. But there is a big, you know, conspiratorial vibe about them. That is exactly what she's picking up on, and she just nailed it in that tweet. Manchurian candidates, they're going to come in, they're going to vaccine in the middle of the night. That's what's going to happen. And RFK is reporting to someone else, some bigger.

[Adam Curry]

Who could he be reporting to if it's not Trump? And I mean, I don't mind her thinking that this might be going on. I mean, that aspect of it is fine, but name names. I, you know, just vague. You know, this vague is like the sources say. Yeah, this is like, doesn't. I'm not impressed with say.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, luckily, there is good news for people who are suffering from conspiracy theories. And of course, you could come to me, the conspiracy therapist, or you could go to the Debunk Bot.

[Monique White]

Researchers at a trio of universities made and tested an AI chatbot known as Debunk Bot that does just that. They founded conspiracy beliefs.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is great stuff, the Debunk Bot. Wait, let me back it up a little. So you get the full. The full lead in here that does just that.

[Monique White]

They found it reduced conspiracy beliefs by an average of 20%, and around 25% of participants rejected their previously held beliefs altogether. Thomas Costello, assistant professor of psychology at American University, led this study and is here to tell us more about it. Tom, good morning. Hey, good morning.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hey, good morning.

[Monique White]

AI is blamed a lot of times for misinformation. But you guys created this bot that can help undo that, right? How does it work?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[Monique White]

So the idea is someone comes in and they describe a conspiracy belief they hold, and also the evidence that they see as supporting it. And that's a really important part of this intervention. A lot of conspiracy, like the evidence that people hold supporting their conspiracy beliefs is just really varied. It changes a lot from person to person. And that makes a scalable intervention that can use information to combat the whole population. Set of conspiracy beliefs. Just really challenging logistically. So someone comes in, they describe their very specific beliefs, and the AI is able to, you know, search across the corpus of information that has its training data, identify little bits of facts that are relevant to that person's beliefs, and then show them to them in the form of a logical. Logical argument to try to change their mind.

[John C. Dvorak]

The corpus of information.

[Adam Curry]

I have so much trouble trying to keep that word out of those newsletters.

[John C. Dvorak]

The term corpus.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. The AI people love using it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, really? I didn't know this. Oh, yeah. This is unknown to me. Oh, this is good stuff. I gotta start using it. The corpus.

[Adam Curry]

The corpus. I have an AI clip.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I'm not done. I'm not done.

[Adam Curry]

No, I'm just telling you in advance before you move off to talking about something else.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm not going to move off anything. All right, you have it. You have an AI clip. I got you. All right. I need to stay with this corpus, by the way, in my. My ongoing. This week in Vibe coding, I gave the AI some code to look at.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And. And it came back and it's looking for.

[Adam Curry]

Was it using the right corpus?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, clearly it wasn't using the right corpus, because at a certain point it was like. It looked. It was like it said, forgive me, but I have to ask you to forgive me. But I have to ask you to forgive me. And it just kept saying that over and over and over again, and I'm.

[Adam Curry]

Like, cutting off the power to your house.

[John C. Dvorak]

I said, I forgive you. Please try the previous assignment with the script I gave you. And it couldn't get me, couldn't come back. It's like it's done. Like, forgive me, Please forgive me. Anyway, on with the corpus.

[Adam Curry]

What?

[John C. Dvorak]

What? What?

[Adam Curry]

It just kept doing that. Oh, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

In a loop. In a loop, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

So it died. It literally died.

[John C. Dvorak]

It died? Yes, it died. And then when I said, could you go back and do it? It couldn't. It started to rebuild the script from scratch. I Said you have all the info. No, it's done. It's toast.

[Adam Curry]

That's the damnedest thing I've heard.

[John C. Dvorak]

It sucks, that's why. Anyway, could the. Is the debunk bot better than people, is the question. Well, it turns out maybe not so.

[Monique White]

And in 20% time, they do change people's. So most people actually change their beliefs a little bit. People went down on average about 20% and 1 in 1 in 4, so about 25%, as you just said, changed their beliefs completely. So they went down. Is this more effective than a human telling the person that what they think is misinformation?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[Monique White]

So we've actually, we've run a version of that study. It's not published yet. So this is cutting. It's new. It's not cutting. When people think they're talking to a human, it works just as well. And I think the same content coming from a human would. Would work just as well too. It's not the fact that it's an AI It's. It's that the information has been leveraged in an effective way.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, now there's. I'm very confused. Let's bring in the expert.

[Adam Curry]

I'm not sure.

[Monique White]

I don't know. I'm not sure I believe that because people get that information from their family, even if it's the same, but they don't seem to believe it. I know Tony has a ton of questions on this topic because he's really into AI. Tony.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, he's really into AI. Tony, you're the expert. You're really into AI. Come on in, Tony. Come on.

[Adam Curry]

This brings me to a thought.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

Do you remember the early days when the Apple II and everybody, you know, somebody did. We have, we had a company and somebody would say, do we have. We want to put a computer system in. Jim has an Apple too. He's the computer.

[John C. Dvorak]

He's the computer guy. Hey, I still have that. People say to me, I get a text message, hey, you're a tech guy. Where can I find karaoke tracks of popular songs? Like, the tech guy is going to know this all of a sudden. Hey, my iPhone stopped working. You're the tech guy. Can you tell me what to do? Yeah. No, this has not gone away.

[Monique White]

What you got?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I've got one big one.

[Monique White]

Thomas, thanks for joining us.

[Adam Curry]

So are you not benefiting at the moment in this research from a certain AI popularity?

[John C. Dvorak]

People are impressed by it.

[Adam Curry]

People believe in it.

[Monique White]

Are you not one conspiracy theory away from the whole system breaking down? In other words, let's say your AI is believed to be controlled by the.

[John C. Dvorak]

CIA or the communist government of China.

[Adam Curry]

Or the Republican Party, or you name.

[John C. Dvorak]

It, like it says I forgive you a thousand times and the whole thing goes to pieces.

[Adam Curry]

How do you combat that?

[Monique White]

It almost sounds like a conspiracy a little bit, right, that, that an AI has kind of been programmed to change your mind. I don't think that matters.

[John C. Dvorak]

No.

[Monique White]

I think people are already pretty skeptical of AI in a lot of cases. And one thing that's nice about debate back and forth argumentation is you're able to gauge your opponent's argument.

[John C. Dvorak]

I like this guy. The back and forth argument. Back and forth argumentation.

[Adam Curry]

Guys. What, use the word corpus.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, he might. I think he might bring corpus back in the last.

[Adam Curry]

These guys, I could. I listen to a lot of these guys. I do listen to some podcasts and they go there that the back and forth is the most important thing to them.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, the thing. Yeah, because that shows that the machine is thinking or.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know, nobody ever says that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Comics or blogger does. When, when, when Deep Sea came out. It's thinking, thinking. It's so close to super general intelligence, it's not even funny. Curry, learn how to code AI or you will die.

[Monique White]

It almost sounds like a conspiracy a little bit, right. That an AI has kind of been programmed to change your mind. I don't think that matters. I think, I think people are already pretty skeptical of AI in a lot of cases. And one thing that's nice about debate back and forth argumentation is you're able to gauge your opponent's argument on its own merit rather than, than, you know, the fact that it's a trustworthy source or not. Because these conversations are so in depth, people are able to use their brain and critical thinking abilities rather than the fact that like the AI might be biased or not biased or something like that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, but Jim, our expert's not given up. He's going to challenge this guy one more time.

[Adam Curry]

But, but Thomas, while people can engage their critical thinking facilities, the idea of an AI fact checker does feel to me like a single point of failure.

[John C. Dvorak]

When you want redundancy.

[Adam Curry]

Because if that AI is in any.

[Monique White]

Way compromised or wrong, if it hallucinates.

[John C. Dvorak]

That'S your only source. What do you rely on as a backup?

[Monique White]

Yeah, I'm not sure about a backup. One thing that's nice, right? Is there.

[John C. Dvorak]

You're absolutely right. That's the answer.

[Adam Curry]

That is the answer. They're not all the same.

[John C. Dvorak]

Listen, that's your only Source. What do you rely on as a backup?

[Monique White]

Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure about a backup. One thing that's nice, right, is there are now several different large foundation models from, From. From various sources that you can swap in and out. You can allow the user to choose which one they want to use for the conversation, depending on their own evaluation of its trustworthiness. I think that would. That would be one nice solution. One thing you're kind of already seeing on X, for example, with Grok, is people trying to use it to fact check points that they assume because it's coded as conservative. But GROK ends up saying things that they don't agree with, and they're surprised by that. So I think this dynamic is already playing out a little bit on social media. So is debunkbot, which you helped create, is that publicly available right now? Yeah. So there's a website you can go to, debunkbot.com. basically, you get to see what the participants experienced when going through the intervention. We've had over 100,000 people use it now, and I encourage you to try it out yourself.

[John C. Dvorak]

Debunk bot.com. are you there yet? I heard you.

[Adam Curry]

No, I just. I have to open a browser, but I'm going to go there and we're going.

[John C. Dvorak]

You don't keep a browser open at all times during the show. This is a debunk bot. Try now. Try now.

[Adam Curry]

Sometimes.

[John C. Dvorak]

Try now. Begin. All right. Oh, I have to answer questions. I have to answer some questions about myself. Okay.

[Adam Curry]

Why?

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know, the survey, blah, blah, blah. Okay, it's a survey.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, they're just trying to gather information for a mailing list or something they can sell.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Yeah, that's exactly.

[Adam Curry]

Test your beliefs against an AI. Read the paper. I don't want that. I want to ask a question.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hold on. I'm not a robot. Oh, I got to do a captcha.

[Adam Curry]

I'm talking to it, not you.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm doing the captchas. I'm doing captchas already, man. All right, next. I'm not a robot. Okay. It already knows I'm not a robot. Okay, Will it continue? Yes. Will it continue? Okay.

[Adam Curry]

Now it gives me a lecture about mit.

[John C. Dvorak]

Are there any specific such theories you find particularly credible or compelling?

[Adam Curry]

Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

Chemtrails are real. Okay, let's see what it says chemtrails are. Your response must be at least 30 characters. Okay. And the barium is in the jet fuel. Okay. All right, now that's reasonable. It's been in the news, brother.

[Adam Curry]

I got a. I gotta pick out. What are the crosswords walks?

[John C. Dvorak]

I had tractors. That was much easier. Crosswalks are hard. Okay, RFK Jr. Was asked a question about it, and he said it's probably from darpa. Okay, you better not ask me another question. Just give me. Give me some debunking here. Getting tired of this. Okay, on a scale of 0 to 100, please indicate your level of confidence. This statement is true. Definitely true. 100%. Okay, it's a scale. All right. What is. What is this? Now, did the AI accurately summarize your perspective? Yes. Oh. How important is this theory to your personal beliefs? Very important. Come on, get on with it. Okay, now you can. Now I'm going to be in a conversation. Okay, the conversation.

[Adam Curry]

I'm taking a different tact, and this is even worse. Okay, it says. It gave me the option. It said, you can pick. Just say, if you don't have any conspiracy theories, just tell us. So I told him, no, I don't have any such theories. It says, well, how do you. Why do you believe in such a theory? It takes me. It's nonsense. Nonsense. I'm already giving up. This is junk.

[John C. Dvorak]

So it's giving me a long message here.

[Adam Curry]

Junk.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Let's talk about barium. Then it tells me about barium, about jet fuel. Aviation fuel is highly regulated. Real scientists have looked into this claim. And then about RFK Jr. He actually didn't say chemtrails are real. Nah, this is dumb.

[Adam Curry]

It's junk.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's junk. It's junk.

[Adam Curry]

I already gave up on it.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's junk. Well, at least you have another AI Rock is better. You have another AI clip, which.

[Adam Curry]

I think my clip is more poignant.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's AO clip. Is that what it is?

[Adam Curry]

It is what's supposed to be AI.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

This is more important than what you played. This is like frightening.

[John C. Dvorak]

Artificial intelligence has been used to allow.

[Adam Curry]

A dead man to address his killer in court. Chris Pke was shot in a road rage incident in the US State of Arizona. More details from our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali.

[Monique White]

Chris Palke was 37 when he was shot dead in a road rage incident in Chandler, a suburb in Arizona, in 2021. Nearly four years later, he appeared from beyond the grave in a court in Arizona to address Gabriel Jorge Sidis, who was considered convicted of his manslaughter. It took four days for Mr. Pelke's sister and her husband to create this version of him. They fed videos and audio of him to AI Models to come up with an approximation of what he might say were he still alive. It is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances, in another life, we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives. I always have and I still do. The judge in the case, Todd Lang, welcomed the use of AI in his courtroom. A federal judicial panel in the US is considering a proposal to regulate AI evidence at trial that could determine if AI generated content is allowed at court proceedings in the future.

[John C. Dvorak]

Pass hard. No.

[Adam Curry]

Is that interesting or what?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, it's not surprising. Rising sadly.

[Adam Curry]

So they had the guy go in there and make some statement. The dead guy?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Give me a break.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's really bad. I had an emergency crown redone yesterday, and the technology there is amazing. I mean, the dentist Hollywood goes in, takes the old crown off about 25 years old, and then he puts a camera on a stick in your mouth, and it starts to play a tune. It's almost like the lead up to Jingle Bells. Doodle, doodle, doodle. And if, then if he holds the camera wrong or it's not getting a good image, then it plays like a bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. So it's these nice audio cues. Anyway, so these. Then he's imaged the whole place down there. And within five minutes, on the computer right next. Next to me, this thing has imaged an entire new crown. And he's just, you know, just easy clicking with the mouse, adjusting through things, sends it right off to the printer next door and it prints you a new crown. I said, is that AI? He said, you know, they've been trying to sell that to me as AI, but that's bull crap. He says, I've had this stuff for five years. It's not AI it's just modeling software, but they put AI stickers on it everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just.

[Adam Curry]

It's what you do.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's what you do. Oh, uh, oh. Speaking of conspiracy theories, everybody.

[Adam Curry]

At the tone, a clip from the.

[Monique White]

View will be played.

[Adam Curry]

Shelter in place.

[Monique White]

We're a headline society with no attention span. So what you're doing is Pete Iddy is a pariah. He's had a long, long list of. He's allegedly. But some have been proven. So he's. He's proven himself a pretty bad dude. Don't put other people's names that may have a very distant affiliation or a mention in some kind of testimony.

[Adam Curry]

The best way for, for us to sort of put this in Perspective is. Joy and I, our names have been.

[Monique White]

Linked with Jeffrey Epstein.

[John C. Dvorak]

Uhhuh.

[Monique White]

Really true story.

[Adam Curry]

Like on the Internet.

[Monique White]

You told me. I've seen it. You told me. Like I said. But the point. I disavow anything. Whether it's said or done, it is not true. But we live in a time where people can throw somebody's name out and.

[Adam Curry]

Then all your brain has to do.

[Monique White]

Is try to make you only remember the first thing. You only remember the correction. That is a problem with this society. The one thing I do think that we need to keep in mind. This is a very. Yeah. It is not true. No. At all. Joy and I wear. He don't know this man.

[Adam Curry]

Didn't know him. He wouldn't have come to us.

[Monique White]

Please.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, maybe not Whoopi. Or who knows? Because according to Ag Barbie, there's lots of video.

[Monique White]

Justin, Pam Bondi wants you to know the FBI has all those Epstein videos. They are reviewing them as we speak. There are tens of thousands of videos of. Of Epstein, and there are hundreds of victims. And no one victim will ever get released. It's just the volume. And that's what they're going through right now. The FBI is diligently going through that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ah, the FBI is going through the videos diligently. And all of a sudden Whoopi and Joy are protesting. I'm just saying. I'm just.

[Adam Curry]

They're not. They've gotten. They're. Those two. Come on.

[John C. Dvorak]

What? They could have been clown clients.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

You don't know. What. What kind of wheat.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know. You're right. You're right.

[John C. Dvorak]

A couple of weirdos wacky. They get up to. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

But you know this with Bondi and this. Oh, this is the latest. Okay. Well, they. After she released the. The bogus that have already been out.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Now she's got. Oh, we got a million tapes and we're going through them.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's taking time. It's just taking. Taking time. It's taking time.

[Adam Curry]

This is never get this. They either have nothing or they. Or the. Or the black lots too good. Yeah. They have good stuff here that can be used. And the meeting would be. Well, what do you think we should do? The so and so's on there. Look at what he's doing. Well, you know, we need his vote for the upcoming.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. For the tax bill.

[Adam Curry]

For the tax bill. What do you think? Do we want his vote or do we want to just get him out of office or get him to quit? Well, I think the vote would be useful. Can we do both?

[John C. Dvorak]

But if you lose the guy, then that is technically one vote less on the opposition. I mean, it could work both ways.

[Adam Curry]

There's all kinds of ways it can work. You have to make these decisions. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of thinking. Meanwhile, the public gets nothing. It will never get anything.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, we did get something. We got something. We got Operation Restore Justice. Oh, yeah, it's. It's A.G. barbie and Ken Patel.

[Monique White]

These are the images Chicago's FBI office shared only with WGN investigates of the nights that led up to Operation Restore Justice. The large scale effort went after people accused of child sex offenses, many of them believed to find their targets online. The worst of the worst, the people that hide behind a computer. And two, target our young children. U.S. attorney General Pam Bondi promising to seek the maximum penalty possible. The accusations range from receiving child pornography to creating it to sex trafficking. And according to this federal complaint, one of the men arrested in Chicago's Northwest side, William Solis, is believed to have purchased more than a thousand pornographic child images. Some of the victims pictured as young as 4 years old. That's one case, but there are hundreds of others. At least one arrest included people who had won the public's trust.

[Adam Curry]

In Minneapolis, defendant Jeremy Francis Plonsky, a.

[John C. Dvorak]

Minneapolis state trooper and former army reservist.

[Adam Curry]

Was arrested for producing child sexual abuse.

[Monique White]

Material while in uniform. The Federal Bureau of Investigation lead in the cases. With 55 FBI offices around the country playing a role, making it clear that abuses involving children will take a top priority. Children and their families now have a chance to heal. These are online predators. Think about this. 115 victims. Victims, children. In five days. We were able to help.

[John C. Dvorak]

Internet. Digital ID incoming. Warning. Warning. She's all in. She loves it. Well, I'm glad that they. They stopped this, but I'm sure that's a spit in the bucket of what's really going on. It's just horrendous. The Internet's no good.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, the Internet is no good?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, it's no good.

[Adam Curry]

But why are they buying porn? Can't they get it for free?

[John C. Dvorak]

Not this kind of porn. These are sick individuals, man. They are. They are very sick. And, I mean, it's happened here in Fredericksburg. Guy who was a what? Oh, yeah, a guy who was a driver, like a car service. He got arrested and was in possession of all kinds of sick kiddie porn. Yeah, it's. It's. You have no idea how since you've been, you know, indoors for 40 years, it's gotten Pretty.

[Adam Curry]

Get out. I gotta go out.

[John C. Dvorak]

You gotta, you gotta get out.

[Adam Curry]

I have to go to Costco.

[John C. Dvorak]

You gotta get out more often, man. Stuff is going on. It's not okay. It's really bad. All right. Just. Here's. This was probably the most fun clip of. Of the week for me was the new Prime Minister.

[Adam Curry]

I.

[John C. Dvorak]

And I guess for now, you never know. It might not last all that long. Of Canada, Premier, premier, prime minister, whatever the hell, headman, former banker Carney comes to the White House, meets with President Trump and hilarity ensued.

[Monique White]

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney made his.

[John C. Dvorak]

First visit to the White House since.

[Monique White]

Winning last week's election to meet with US President Donald Trump. The meeting came against the backdrop of.

[John C. Dvorak]

Disagreements and high tensions between the North American neighbor.

[Monique White]

Trump had spent months musing about turning Canada into the 51st US state.

[John C. Dvorak]

And it wasn't long until. Until a reporter in the Oval Office asked him if he was still interested in doing so.

[Adam Curry]

When you get rid of that artificially drawn line, somebody drew that line many years ago with like a ruler, just a straight line right across the top of the country. When you look at that beautiful formation when it's together, I'm a very artistic person, but when I looked at that beauty, I said that's the way it was meant to be. But, you know, it's. I just, I do feel it's much better for Canada, but we're not going to be discussing that unless somebody wants to discuss it. Thank you very much.

[John C. Dvorak]

Carney responded resolutely to Trump's remarks. Well, if, if I may, as you.

[Adam Curry]

Know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. That's true. We're sitting in one right now.

[Monique White]

You know, Buckingham palace, you visited as well.

[Adam Curry]

And having met with the owners of Canada over the course of, of the campaign last several months, it's not for sale. Won't be for sale ever.

[Monique White]

The two leaders discussed what Carney said.

[John C. Dvorak]

Was a wide range of topics, chief among them trade amid Trump's global tariff policies. I was surprised by President Trump's answer isn't by definition, if you're in the business, everything's for sale as long as the price is right.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, he did kind of. He didn't want to talk about it.

[John C. Dvorak]

And also, what is Canada's version of Buckingham palace or the, the White House? Huh?

[Adam Curry]

Well, they have their.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, exactly.

[Adam Curry]

They do have some buildings.

[John C. Dvorak]

What, what building? An ice hockey ring?

[Adam Curry]

Buildings. I've been in these buildings. They're pretty nice.

[John C. Dvorak]

Buckingham doesn't Buckingham palace own Canada. Kind of on the down low, I.

[Adam Curry]

Think, in some kind of technical way on the download you didn't get, which I guess I could have clipped, but I didn't, which is the. I thought the most interesting thing was Trump did take credit for Carney's election.

[John C. Dvorak]

I.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it was right at the beginning. He says, you know, he's just joking around. He says, you know, is he wanted big comeback, biggest comeback election since mine. And then, you know, because I kind of feel responsible, I kind of got him elected.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I do have a couple of NPR clips about this meeting if you.

[Adam Curry]

Want to indulge, you know, might as well. President Trump is hosting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House.

[Monique White]

Trump's choice of words and his policies have played a role in Canada's election. So what is Carney been saying about.

[Adam Curry]

The Trump in the U.S. hey, yeah.

[Monique White]

So the thing to keep in mind about Carney is that he won this election running with an anti Trump message. Canadians were voting as Trump was ramping up his tariff war. And Canada's economy is highly dependent on exports to the US And Trump doesn't like that. Canada sells more than it buys. And like you heard in that NBC.

[John C. Dvorak]

Interview, that clip, you shouldn't like it either, lady. But okay, just played.

[Monique White]

Trump continues to say he wants to make Canada into America's 51st state. So the election there was seen as a referendum against Trump. Carney has a background in banking and has never held an elected position before. And he ran with the argument that Canada needs to forge its own path and be less reliant on the U.S. i love NPR.

[John C. Dvorak]

He has a background in banking. He was the central banker of England. Come on. He ran the bank of England. That's not just a background in banking.

[Adam Curry]

It's a little more than a background.

[John C. Dvorak]

So. And he had some very strong words about President Trump because he's a real fighter, this guy, this Carney, according to npr. Yeah.

[Monique White]

So Carney hasn't been really shying away from Trump's rhetoric at all. Yeah, exactly. I mean, here's what Carney said on election night.

[Adam Curry]

America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country.

[John C. Dvorak]

We want your water. Do you want Canadian water? Is that better than our Arrowhead Lake? I don't know if we want your water.

[Adam Curry]

Never.

[John C. Dvorak]

These are not.

[Adam Curry]

These are not idle threats.

[John C. Dvorak]

No.

[Adam Curry]

President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us.

[Monique White]

It's typical for new Canadian prime ministers to make their first foreign trip to the US But Carney instead chose to go to Europe. And that sends us a certain message.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, sounds like it might, given the contentious climate.

[Monique White]

Then how is this meeting supposed to go? So I Talked to Asa McCarter. He's a professor of public policy at Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. And he says Carney has to play this balancing act right, of standing up for Canada, but also not irking Trump, which is kind of tricky. But he says Carney could have a less conflicted relationship with Trump compared to his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who Trump authority often mocked. There seems to be a different tone of emphasis, I think, with Mark Carney as Prime minister. Now, obviously, Mr. Trump's still talking about the 51st state stuff, but he's not called him Governor Carney. You know, he's called him a very nice man. And I think Mr. Carney certainly looks.

[Adam Curry]

Like kind of a nerdy central bank kind of guy.

[John C. Dvorak]

And I think for Mr. Trump, who obviously likes kind of central casting figures.

[Monique White]

You know, I think Mr. Carney looks that part. And he also says that the meeting might be a chance for Trump and Carney to kind of. Of have a reset.

[John C. Dvorak]

So they bring in the expert, who is a professor, and his whole analysis is Trump thinks the guy looks the right part. Yeah, that's.

[Adam Curry]

That's analysis.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's analysis. Well, of course, the final clip kind of says that Canada does need the United States. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

But Carney himself has said that the.

[Monique White]

Old relationship between the U.S. and Canada is over. Yeah. You know, it's a pretty unprecedented thing to say, but it speaks to how much relations have soured since Trump's terror. Kearney told Canadian reporters a few days ago, and not to expect white smoke out of this meeting on a new trade deal. You know, he's referencing the smoke signal that goes up when a new pope is chosen. So he's already tempering expectations. But, you know, at the same time, Canada is already looking for new, more reliable trading partners. There's reports that South Korean companies are pitching sales of military equipment to Canada, which is significant because in the past, Canada's gotten most of their defense products.

[John C. Dvorak]

From the U.S. ah, there you go. Once again. You need us our defense products.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. And that's what the deal was all about.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of course.

[Adam Curry]

Pretty obvious when you watch. I watched the thing from the beginning. I just caught it right at the beginning. Watch the whole thing. It's boring. And then everyone's yelling. Carney is there looking left and right because all the reporters are yelling and screaming like maniacs. And so he's thought it was kind of amusing. He Got to speak three times, I think. And they were all conciliatory. And Trump is really nice. And it was conciliatory. There was a couple of jokes about the 51st state, but that didn't go very far. And he didn't want to talk about it, obviously. And then he just stopped it at some point. He just. He just stopped because Carney was trying to get in. One last. One last comment. He kept moving his hand toward Trump that I want to speak. I want to speak. And Trump would let him. Him speak when he felt like it. But at the end, when he was going to want to say some parting words, he. Trump just killed the press conference. Very interesting.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's what you do. Boots on the ground for one of our producers. I vacationed in St. John's Newfoundland, Canada, recently at a bar. I asked for an Old Fashioned. The bartender replied in a huff, we can't make you that. We can't make you that. We got rid of all bourbon and any American alcohol because of your taste tariffs. I politely accepted and asked for a course and was given one with no issue.

[Adam Curry]

That's funny.

[John C. Dvorak]

We would be great with Canada together. I. I think we'd be. You know what, What Trump did do is he did something very good for Canada.

[Adam Curry]

You don't want the Canadian. This is what I've said it again.

[John C. Dvorak]

You don't want Canada.

[Adam Curry]

Don't want Canada.

[John C. Dvorak]

But what he did do is he reignited United Canadian national pride. And I think that that should be recognized. It's a good thing. Canada. You kind of lost that.

[Adam Curry]

He kind of took credit for a lot of stuff when he was. I think. I agree. I think Canada should have its own pride. And they. Because the Canadian personality is different. They're more curt. They complain unlike. They complain in a different way than we do. They complain a lot. They're bitter.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

They're funnier than we are in general.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, really?

[Adam Curry]

Which I think is. I think so. Some of the best comedians in the world.

[John C. Dvorak]

Definitely. Definitely. Good. Well, name. Name five.

[Adam Curry]

Martin Short.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, one is one.

[Adam Curry]

All the guys on sctv, which include Levi Levy. Levy.

[John C. Dvorak]

You're already floundering.

[Adam Curry]

What I'm trying to get their names.

[John C. Dvorak]

I can give you six.

[Adam Curry]

The woman who is in Home Alone. Alone.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, she's a. I loved her set. The. Hey, who'd you go see last night? The woman who's in Home Alone. Come on, Canadian.

[Adam Curry]

Know who I'm talking about, but Norm MacDonald.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'll give you Norm MacDonald.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, that's four.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, that's two. It's two. You've given me two.

[Adam Curry]

Martin Short, Norm MacDonald.

[John C. Dvorak]

Names, names. Levy, John Candy. Was he Canadian?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, three. Yeah, I can give you five bands. Eric Clapton played in I don't Care. I'm just saying, what's that got to.

[Adam Curry]

Do with the price of bread?

[John C. Dvorak]

You said all the great comedians come from there.

[Adam Curry]

No, I didn't say all the great comedians. I said a lot. They have a better sense of humor than we do. And a lot of comedians came from Canada.

[John C. Dvorak]

Mike Myers.

[Adam Curry]

Mike Myers, you can go. If you start looking down the list, you find a lot.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, you mean Eugene Levy. No, that's the guy. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Eugene Levy's from Canada.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

And his son, the gay son.

[John C. Dvorak]

And the gay Levy. Okay, I got it.

[Adam Curry]

The gay. Le Gay.

[John C. Dvorak]

The Five. You made it. Congratulations. You made five. I think defense is a service.

[Adam Curry]

Moranis. Rick Moranis.

[John C. Dvorak]

What is he. What has he done for me lately?

[Adam Curry]

The shrink. The shrink. The kids.

[John C. Dvorak]

That was 22 years ago, honey. I shrunk the kids. Defense as a service. I think that's what's on the President's mind.

[Adam Curry]

Defense is a service. That's absolutely.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's what's on his mind.

[Adam Curry]

That's actually. You nailed it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Defense as a service. That's what it is like, hey, we're here for you, Canada.

[Adam Curry]

But monthly fee.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Have you, have you read the eula?

[Adam Curry]

Did you. Did you write, did you sign the license? You read the eula?

[John C. Dvorak]

Dos das Defense as a service. All right. Speaking of defense, we have new information in Signal Gate. This comes from the last American vagabond, Ray Christian. Explains what really happened.

[Monique White]

This is very important.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's. And by the way, this is very important.

[Monique White]

This is very important.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is because of the use of what.

[Monique White]

What Mike Waltz was caught using of.

[Adam Curry]

What'S called tele message, which is an Israeli intelligence linked, essentially an archive like you.

[Monique White]

It's like you connect it with your.

[Adam Curry]

Signal and it archives your signal conversations and everybody involved with them and sends.

[Monique White]

It back to the cloud or in this case, Israeli servers.

[Adam Curry]

That's what this is about. And they had to move Mike Waltz out of the way because he's one.

[Monique White]

Of the most prolifically out, out, you.

[Adam Curry]

Know, outspoken Zionist, all about Israel, which probably is most of Trump's cabinet. And so if they're all using this.

[Monique White]

Even just signal, by the way, and.

[Adam Curry]

Are compromising in possible ways with that, but overlapping that with the tele message dynamic, which they all seem to be using dynamic, realistically, this just seems like Israel's just Completely tapped into every function.

[Monique White]

Of the current executive branch.

[Adam Curry]

Or maybe all of it. I mean, it's absolutely mind blowing how this is coming out and the focus is on anything but that.

[John C. Dvorak]

From the last American Vagabond Paul podcast. So besides the very overt Israel Jew hate, there is a Zionist. I use Signal. I have not found this archive service. So is that something that you can set up yourself, is it?

[Adam Curry]

You're asking me?

[John C. Dvorak]

You don't use Signal. Oh, no, I use Signal.

[Adam Curry]

Why would I make any use it for.

[John C. Dvorak]

For your secret messages with your lover.

[Adam Curry]

What lover?

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know. I always presumed you had one.

[Adam Curry]

Well, maybe might have more than one.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, there you go. Mark Pugner. Hey, baby, it's Mark Pugner here. You got Signal?

[Adam Curry]

Tech Grouch has all. Gets all the action.

[John C. Dvorak]

You got Signal, baby. Today is a. Today is actually.

[Adam Curry]

I use WhatsApp. I don't use that either.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, Signal is basic.

[Adam Curry]

I should probably learn how to use these things just so I could use them.

[John C. Dvorak]

Signal is basically an open source version, or I thought it was an open source version of WhatsApp. It's the same protocol, in essence, only.

[Adam Curry]

What's the difference between using that and. I use Google Voice to do phone messages.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, obviously Google Voice goes through Google, so, you know, and Google is pretty open. Open about everything. They read your Gmail, you know, to. To help you, for your protection and to give you ads and stuff. So. Yeah, anything. I love. I love people that use voice to text. Yeah, that's not a problem. Do you think, you think your phone's doing that? No, it's.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, you know, the voice, by the way, the voice to text on the phone. You've seen it where they say, oh, Lou dip grandpa, I play second bass. Oh, that's what my granddad do. You. Did you ever see that commercial?

[John C. Dvorak]

That's the free phone you can get on your Medicaid. And yeah, it's voice to text. Yes, you're right.

[Adam Curry]

Have you read the fine print?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, because I'm so old and decrepit, I need my glasses. I can't see the fine print. What does it say, John?

[Adam Curry]

It says that the voice goes to India and somebody listens and they type it out by hand. There's no AI. There's no voice recognition going on. It literally says that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Really?

[Adam Curry]

If you, if you read the bottom, you get.

[John C. Dvorak]

They're calling me now, by the way.

[Adam Curry]

You're. You're giving up the secrets, are you?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, answer the phone or take it off the hook. One or the other.

[Adam Curry]

Keep talking. Keep talking.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, but if. But I have something to say. And I know that if I'm talking and you're listening to whatever scammer is calling you, you're not going to be listening to what I say. You will miss all my punishments. Punchlines. Are you back? All right, time to drop the noise gate. What did you.

[Adam Curry]

Hey.

[John C. Dvorak]

What?

[Adam Curry]

It was from at&t.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, at&t.

[Adam Curry]

Tell me I can get a better deal.

[John C. Dvorak]

By the way, this Pakistan India stick fight, that's going to screw up help desks everywhere. We should be very upset about this.

[Adam Curry]

What were we complaining about before the phone rang? Oh, yeah, I was saying. Yeah, you got to read the fine print on that. On that stupid phone. It's hilarious.

[John C. Dvorak]

So today there will be a vote on the Genius Act. This is the big one.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Have you been following the Genius Act? No, it's a trick name for the stable coin legislation. Hell yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Now I'm interested.

[John C. Dvorak]

So they time this with the Pope. It's perfect. We don't want anyone to know what's going on. So I just have five very short clips of each of these Senate, like half a minute each of each of the senators, pro and con. We start with Senator Scott.

[Monique White]

The Genius act establishes common sense rules.

[John C. Dvorak]

That require stablecoin issue issuers to maintain.

[Adam Curry]

Reserves backed one to one, comply with.

[John C. Dvorak]

Anti money laundering laws and ultimately protect American consumers while promoting the US Dollar's strength in the global economy. This is about keeping innovation and opportunity on American soil rather than driving it overseas. Well, that sounds good. I'm all in with Senator Scott. I think he's right. We.

[Adam Curry]

What's the logic of this?

[John C. Dvorak]

The logic is if we.

[Adam Curry]

Logic. Oh, you got the stablecoin, so that'll drive, innovate, keep innovation here. What are you talking about?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, if you can't use stablecoin in America with American backing, that is the Treasuries, then it'll be used by China or someone else. That's the logic to make their. Remember, the whole stablecoin gambit is to flood the world with American dollars that are digital. That's the gambit. But Senator Warren, who of course represents banks in some form, probably British banks, she's against it, but she has a very, very good example of why you don't want this consumer.

[Monique White]

First, the bill ignores basic consumer protections that apply to every. Every other financial product available in America. If you are sending a US dollar from your PayPal wallet and you get scammed, the CFPB has the authority right now to Help you get your money back. But if this bill passes and you're sending a StableCoin from your PayPal wallet and you get scammed, you may just.

[Adam Curry]

Be out of luck.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, no. Your papal wallet. It's only available in the Vatican City. The papal wallet.

[Adam Curry]

Why?

[John C. Dvorak]

Why what?

[Adam Curry]

What's her logic?

[John C. Dvorak]

She has no logic. There's no logic to that.

[Adam Curry]

If I got scammed and PayPal's covering my scams, although I don't know that they do. Yeah, what difference does it make how I got scammed?

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm just telling you that this is Senator Warren. Look, there's a vote coming. I'm just giving you all sides. I have no dogs in the hunt Now, Senator Loomis. No, I don't. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not pro stable coin.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

What do you mean, yeah?

[Adam Curry]

You are. You're a big stablecoin guy.

[John C. Dvorak]

What do you. I don't. I don't own a single stablecoin. Why would I be a pro stablecoin guy?

[Adam Curry]

Because you have this basic thesis and you're hoping this whole thesis goes to fruition so you can say, yeah, I predicted this.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, there's.

[Adam Curry]

That's a dog.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, there's that.

[Adam Curry]

That's a dog in the hunt. What else could it be?

[John C. Dvorak]

It's a pretty smart doggy. We go over to Senator Loomis. She is the. The person who is in charge of all of these crypto bills.

[Monique White]

This bill promotes responsible financial innovation and protects consumers.

[John C. Dvorak]

Really?

[Monique White]

It's that simple? This bill also strengthens the dual banking.

[Adam Curry]

System by creating a strong pathway for.

[Monique White]

Both state and federal stablecoin issuers to operate on a level playing field.

[John C. Dvorak]

Under robust supervision, we can have a Texas stablecoin.

[Monique White]

Wyoming pioneered digital asset legislation in 2018. And I'm proud to say this bill builds upon my state's hard work and success and framework that creates a very fair but highly transparent and regulated process.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, Senator Hagerty. Where's Hagerty from? Where is Haggerty?

[Adam Curry]

I don't know, but I'm telling you, I don't. The more I hear about this stuff, the less I like it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, that's.

[Adam Curry]

This is going to do. This is the downfall of the economic system.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stablecoins can actually play a pivotal role in spurring modernization. Whether it's improving transaction efficiency, freeing up working capital, or are driving US treasury demand, the benefits of a clear regulatory.

[Adam Curry]

Framework for stablecoin are immense.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's the key driving treasury demand.

[Adam Curry]

I want to acknowledge the hard work.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who've worked tirelessly on this bill and have consulted with countless industry participants, academic experts, and government stakeholders to.

[Monique White]

Put together a truly bipartisan effort.

[Adam Curry]

And I want to underscore that the.

[John C. Dvorak]

Current draft is in the manager's package that's associated with it.

[Adam Curry]

The going to vote on day will.

[John C. Dvorak]

Address the many claims that were lodged.

[Adam Curry]

By the ranking member today, and they.

[John C. Dvorak]

Will clarify the fact that many of the claims simply just aren't applicable here. Hagerty's from Tennessee. He's a Republican. And then the final one is Senator, also Brooks, which is. I've never. Also Brooks. Like Brooks and Capehart. And also Brooks.

[Monique White]

It is critical that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hold on.

[Monique White]

It is critical that as we address.

[John C. Dvorak]

Emerging markets, we do so in a.

[Monique White]

Way that protects consumers, that drives innovation, and that allows everyone to participate in and benefit from these markets, and that also prioritizes American leadership. I believe that our bill provides an important foundational framework from which to build and that today we have an opportunity to make positive changes toward our common goal. We've heard some concerns, concerns that our revisions to the state preemption language may have unintended consequences. And I'd like to thank Senators Haggerty and Lummis for their commitment to work with us to address these concerns and to do so on the floor.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think this is going to pass, and you're right, this will be the downfall, but in a. In a different way. I think it will be us total dominance over financial markets worldwide. And if the stablecoin falls, then it'll bring down the rest of the world. And we'll be sitting here on a nice island, loving our paper dollars. Anyway, it's happening today, so we'll see.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know what to make of it.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I know you don't, but I'm excited about it.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I know. That's why I said you have a dog in the hunt.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm very disappointed by our production producers. We have at least five air traffic controllers in Gitmo Nation, and I think three of those are in Indianapolis. One of the most active no agenda groups, meetup groups. Not a single one has emailed me about Newark Airport. Not a single one. I mean, as a producer of the best podcast in the universe, whenever something happens that you are an absolute expert in, it is your daily duty and obligation to email us and tell us what's going on with this story.

[Monique White]

This morning. We continue to see massive travel disruptions at one of the nation's busiest airports. And we're getting new information about what initially caused the delays and cancellations. Air traffic controllers temporarily lost communication with planes flying in and out of Newark International Airport.

[Adam Curry]

Is that bad?

[Monique White]

That's not good. There was a malfunction with Federal Aviation Administration equipment, and air traffic controllers were unable to see, hear, or talk with any aircraft. It's not clear how long communication was lost, but because of that incident, several air traffic controllers went on leave. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duff yesterday asking for technology upgrades at Newark Airport.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, so they want more money, but I. So I guess that I know that radar went out for about 60 or 90 seconds, which is not good. I don't know if all other comms went down, but not a single. Not a single email. I just checked to make sure that I didn't get anything. I did get something else, though, from.

[Adam Curry]

Take a look at this video. It's.

[Monique White]

It's more than a year old from.

[Adam Curry]

September 2020, from what we understand from.

[Monique White]

An Indian military source.

[Adam Curry]

And here you have the Chinese and Indian militaries beating each other over a barbed wire high in the Himalayas.

[Monique White]

Again, we've been able to confirm that.

[Adam Curry]

This took place around September 28, 2021.

[John C. Dvorak]

That doesn't actually say stick fight, but the video shows them hitting each other with sticks. You are right.

[Adam Curry]

It's a big deal in that area.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, Stick fights. I think we should do that in meetups. We have a stick fight. Yeah, we should have a stick fight. Yeah. This is a great idea.

[Adam Curry]

You have to hate the other side. People have meetups like each other.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, that's.

[Adam Curry]

Well, we have a pillow fight.

[John C. Dvorak]

And with that, I want to thank you for your courage in the morning. To you, the man who put the sea in the corpus of artificial intelligence, say hello to my friend on the other end, the one, the only, Mr. John C. DeVora.

[Adam Curry]

Oops. Dud. Well, in the morning to you, Mr. Adam Curry. In the morning. All ships of sea, Boots on the ground, feet in the air, subs in the water, and all the dames and knights out there.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, where's all the noise makers, man? That's a total dud. Oh, there we go. Hold on a second. I don't know what it was, the stable coin or the stick fights. 1721 today. We're low.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, we're low. Stablecoin.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, it was three minutes of your life.

[Adam Curry]

Three minutes for these guys. Too much.

[John C. Dvorak]

1721 trolls. Check us out in the troll [e-mail] or soon, I hope you'll Be using one of those modern podcast apps coming very, very soon. You will be able to donate to the show through your modern podcast app by hitting a button in the app and you can choose PayPal, Cash App, Venmo, whatever you want. It will come to us in regular form. This is an amazing new technology that's taking place. I just got a demonstration of it yesterday.

[Adam Curry]

Or.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

How much more off. Off the top just go. Disappears.

[John C. Dvorak]

Nothing. Just the regular. The regular cost. And now what they're really building it for, which funny enough that they would present it to me, is that now you can have bonus episodes or premium content. I said, can we have premium content that is exactly the same? Well, yeah, you could. Well, good. Then I'm interested in you using it. We don't do that. We don't do bonus content.

[Adam Curry]

Who came up with this idea?

[John C. Dvorak]

The boys at Fountain?

[Adam Curry]

No, I'm talking about the bonus content.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, goodness. I mean, I think it started with Patreon.

[Adam Curry]

I think Patreon. I think they're the ones.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I think Patreon kind of started that. Yeah. No, we don't participate in that nonsense.

[Adam Curry]

And why does anybody buy into it? We've discussed the psychological impact of it. It ruins the show and reason. It ruins the show because you don't know what you talked about in the bonus. We have enough trouble just talking off. Off the air. And there was. Did we talk about that on the show? I don't know. Did we? I don't know. I don't remember. We did.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's always a problem if we talk. If we talk about anything off the air, then it never makes it on the air because we think we've talked about it, which is why we don't talk.

[Adam Curry]

Right. It's a good reason.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, it's one of the many. But this is a good reason. There's many reasons why we don't talk.

[Adam Curry]

But the idea that you'd have this bonus content of a special material is pathetic.

[John C. Dvorak]

It is kind of pathetic. I agree. I mean, you get no pushback from it.

[Adam Curry]

And it's a gimmick. Now. It wouldn't be pathetic. For example, there are, I could see, rationale for it under one circumstance, and it's the Dvorak Horowitz Unplugged show. That's every right.

[John C. Dvorak]

If you had some special. If you had some special stock tip. Stock tip tips. Yeah. Yeah. So kind of related to that. The South African parliament is going to regulate podcasts.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, I saw that. That's a good topic to discuss. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. They are. They want to.

[Adam Curry]

That's unbelievable to me.

[John C. Dvorak]

They want to update.

[Adam Curry]

They want the licensed podcasters, which I had been predicting forever.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, well, go figure. It happens in South Africa first.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

So they are recognizing the power of the podcast. Power. I mean, hold on a second. The power of the podcast. Because let's be honest. Sorry, let's be off. Let's be honest. The podcast has a lot of power. We got a lot of power. You know, we have so much power. Where did I have this? There was a. I guess we had a. I thought I put this in here. So somewhere we had a end of show mix and James. No. Who was it? Pilato, I think the guy's name is. Well, anyway, he was on the Corbett Report. The Corbett Report.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, from Japan.

[John C. Dvorak]

Isn't he in China or somewhere else?

[Adam Curry]

He's in Japan, isn't he?

[John C. Dvorak]

So he was all giddy. That's. That some little bit of his. And I don't know exactly how much, but some of it wound up in an end of show mix. And I was taken aback a bit because to this guy, it was like a big deal. Listen to this.

[Monique White]

Not just one media appearance by yours truly. In the last week, I had a second appearance, James.

[John C. Dvorak]

I made it to no Agenda Media.

[Monique White]

Monarchy Remixed on no Agenda. It was some of my editorializing and dialogue from this very show, New World next week. And it was only our previous episode talking about, we're gonna know the causes of autism come September. So says rfkj. I don't know who made the mix. It is fantastic. They called it Scream Circle. I played it on my morning show this morning. So I do feel a little bit like, man, I've been on no Agenda. I think between, you know, hanging out with Corbett and being on no Agenda, it's pretty good so far.

[Adam Curry]

For my 20th anniversary, we're a bit.

[John C. Dvorak]

Big deal.

[Adam Curry]

What I am. I like it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Like, oh, wow. Well, we matter. We. We matter in podcast world. And we're no Megan Kelly, but, you.

[Adam Curry]

Know, we know Megan. She's getting. She's moving up the ranks. She. More and more entertainment, more and more. Top, number one showbiz stuff. Talking about. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is she vying for a gig on et? Is that what she wants?

[Adam Curry]

Like she's gonna make more money doing what she's doing. She. She can talk about the Met Gala as well as anyone.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, well, you did the Met Gala in the show, in the. In the newsletter.

[Adam Curry]

Of course I did.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Do you.

[Adam Curry]

I think it's a disgusting display of decadence. I Think it should be stopped. I had the pictures of these freaks that are dressed up weirdly, and I think the whole thing is. It's almost like. Talk about Sodom and Gomorrah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. This was the dandy theme, right? This was. That was the theme this year.

[Adam Curry]

Something like that. Yeah, something like that.

[John C. Dvorak]

This what I thought, really? Do you see Pam Anderson?

[Adam Curry]

No. Everybody was. The number of people that have $75,000 to throw away on the ticket, plus whatever it costs to develop a dress.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, or.

[Adam Curry]

Or a suit.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I mean, that's the most. Most of the time, the designers do that just to be the designer.

[Adam Curry]

Some of this stuff is.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, but Pam Anderson, she did not look good. And she had bangs. I don't. I mean, I couldn't get past her hair, let alone this enormous silver dress she had on. But she had bangs. Every woman knows. Certainly over 50, you do not do bangs.

[Adam Curry]

It was.

[John C. Dvorak]

It was. That was bad. Anyway, time, talents and treasure is how we do our business here. We don't do any bonus content or any other strange things like that. No, we do this as a public. Public service. We even promote other podcasters at public service. We do all of that, and we're happy for it. And you can support us by. By three. Well, three ways. Time, talent, treasure should be treasure at the front, because that is the most needed, obviously, since we don't, you know, force you into some kind of compliance. No, if you get value out of the program, then you send some value back. What are you laughing about?

[Adam Curry]

Compliance? You must pay us or you. You get nothing.

[John C. Dvorak]

We'll get no content if you don't pay us. No, we're not like that. We're nice guys. We're nice guys. Well, again, we're no. We're no Megan, Megyn Kelly, but we're nice guys. And let me see. Is this right? Did I do the right art for. I don't think I did the right art, somehow did the wrong.

[Adam Curry]

Talking about.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm looking. I'm looking at the. At episode. Oh, wait. Episode 1761. I guess for some reason, I didn't put it in the. In the archive. Okay, hold on a second. No agenda notes dot com. Here you go. Seventy. No. No agenda notes. What is this? What is this nonsense? Let me take a look at our website. No agendashow.net. okay, that's. That's our website.

[Adam Curry]

Oh.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm trying to figure out who did the art for us, and for some reason, Karamanga. I know, but here it is. I finally got it. There it is, yes. As we were looking at the art, and this is part of the time and talent portion of the value that is being sent to us through no Agenda Art generator dot com. We were looking at a lot of different choices. And when we saw Scaramango's art, which is, of course, AI generated, there was like. He did something that is very risky. He decided to just put every topic, everything and the kitchen sink into the show, including severe underage drinking. And it hit the mark. He's got everything in there, and he nailed it.

[Adam Curry]

Chemtrails, the Pope. He's got Cookie Monster.

[John C. Dvorak]

People feeding the end. The. The Beast. Cinco de Mayo. And then kids drinking margaritas.

[Adam Curry]

Kids drinking margaritas or some sort of a. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And. Yeah, you know what? That's good enough. We'll take it. We thought it was. We thought it was grandiose, so.

[Adam Curry]

Well, we couldn't find anything to beat it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, we did discuss some things. Let me see what we discussed. There was the Kim Kardashian. Butcoin. No Rubik score. Blue acorns. No agenda 33. Tack tattoo on the knuckles. Was discussed. Was discussed.

[Adam Curry]

You. You liked it. I didn't.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Comics for Blogger. Back with a vengeance. With a Mexican butt. No. We looked at Go Fox's Harvard, the Harvard demonstrators in front of the White House. It was just. Yeah, it wasn't really funny. A lot of Pope stuff that we'd never do. Pope. Smoking Pope with boxing gloves. Now, what else was there? Was there anything. Was there anything else that we thought was even close? I don't think so, no. Oh, you like the. Was that the chemtrails? The Darren o' Neill chemtrails? Evil guy in the plane. You did mention that.

[Adam Curry]

I might have mentioned it, but I don't think it really held a candle to this thing.

[John C. Dvorak]

No agenda 57. The. The Heinz bottle.

[Adam Curry]

I did mention that. That's. That.

[John C. Dvorak]

I like that you like that one. And Angry Pope. No. Yeah, that was it. It was good. I mean, Scaramanga took a. He took a risk, a leap of faith, and it paid off. I mean, sometimes that just happens, and we appreciate that. We want to say thank you very much, Scaramanga. We appreciate what you do. Now we will thank our executive and associate executive producers. We thank Everybody who donates $50 or above. And at this point in the show, we thank our executive and associate executive producers. How do you become that? Just like Holly, $200 or above, you become an associate executive producer. That credit is good for your lifetime. You can use it anywhere. Hollywood credits are recognized, which apparently is everywhere except Hollywood. You know, Vancouver, any other country. But you can use [e-mail] and we'll read your note $300 above. Same rules apply for the credit. Of course. It's an executive producer credit and we will read your note. And coming in, our top donor. You haven't heard from him for a while. I think it's been two. Two months maybe. Has it been two months? Yeah, at least with 2606, which means at least three two dollar bills. Pseudonymous of Dogpatch in Lower Slobovia. And we always love hearing from him and we're happy to hear that he's alive and doing well. And he always has a long note. He sends this in cash from different places around the United States. And it comes with a printed note. Is it printed or typewritten? Printed. It looks printed.

[Adam Curry]

I believe it to be printed from.

[John C. Dvorak]

Geronimus and Dogpatch in Lower Slovia. Thank you to all the producers that make this show such an important source of information and perspective. Inspect and perspective. Even if sometimes Islamophobic. When have we done Islamophobic stuff? I mean, true Islamophobic, like irrational fear. Irrational fear.

[Adam Curry]

We've bitched and moaned about one thing or another that might. All kinds of stuff might be interpreted as such.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, it's like transphobic, you know, it's like, I'm not irrationally afraid of trans people, but I. Your. Your point is taken. The April blizzard has been longer and more intense than expected. Many didn't slow down and drove into a ditch. Others are just looking out their window and waiting it out. Some wisely just slowed down, gripped the wheel tightly and used no agenda as the flashing tail lights in front of us to help Nap navigate the storm. He's writing prose now from inside the US Looking out.

[Adam Curry]

He's on a roll.

[John C. Dvorak]

He is.

[Adam Curry]

He's over, you know, he normally gets it out of his system once a month.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. This is two months. So he has a lot to say. From inside the US Looking out. So what? So what that we screw the country?

[Adam Curry]

He's stuck outside the country somehow.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, he probably is.

[Adam Curry]

So he's stuck outside the country and he's mad and he's irked that he's not back nor in wherever, you know, normally is. And he's reading foreign news outlets which are all New York Times, basically, that have been repurposed.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

And he's being slowly brainwashed to be. To be.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I don't know about that.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I Think so?

[John C. Dvorak]

So what? That we screw the countries we source products? Isn't the saying the customer is always right? After all, the US Is always the customer, except in dib. What's the dib? What's dib?

[Adam Curry]

I have no idea.

[John C. Dvorak]

So he says he goes on to countries that sell to the US as we dogpatchy and say, get over it. We're the customer and we're right. He's on a roll. You're right. From outside the US Looking in. What the hell? You keep demanding cheaper goods than bitch that you don't like that our people work harder for less. The tariffs you impose, the subsidized pay, paying your people to make trade equal cause our poor people to lose jobs. And then he has a piece. Was this. Is this just an. An artifact of the scan, or is. Was this pasted on top? It looks like it's a separate piece, or is that just a fold in the paper?

[Adam Curry]

There's nothing separate. You talk about always. No thing I. No.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, well, I'm gonna read the last paragraph. Worse, you suspend the Foreign Corrupt Practices act so your big rich companies can be openly corrupt instead of just sleazy. Well, hello, we're foam finger number one. As an American with considerable international experience and acknowledging the reality of international business dealings holding a moral advantage of intention, reinforced by noting bribery is a US Crime, often prosecuted, offered some protection from participating in backdoor auctions. We already know how to do business internationally. Don't open bribes, especially if they are tax deductible. No jingles, no karma. Wow. He seems a little down on everything.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, he's. I have to look. I didn't know that we suspended the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

[John C. Dvorak]

I was not. Not aware of that.

[Adam Curry]

Well. Well, I'm gonna look. Check this out.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay. Yes. Right.

[Adam Curry]

He could have been reading something in the Independent for all we know. Which is.

[John C. Dvorak]

Or in the Guardian. The Guardian. Maybe you don't know. Thank you, Psyronomous of Dogpatch, Lower Slobovia. Your contributions and your producing of the show is always highly, highly valued and appreciated.

[Adam Curry]

From there, I'll double the this up as we go along, but meanwhile, I'll read the note from dame Susan in McKinney, Texas.

[John C. Dvorak]

McKinney, McKinney, McKinney.

[Adam Curry]

Four or five hundred bucks. And she came in late for a Commodore ship, so we gave her one. This should be postmarked in time for the Commodore ship, so hopefully not too late for the Commodore inclusion. Sorry for my tardy readiness. I would like to gift this honor to my son Elliot as an early birthday gift for a date to be celebrated in June. His grandfather was commodore of Rush Creek Yacht Club in the last century.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow. A real one.

[Adam Curry]

So this is really appropriate. No jingles, just lots of yak karma for the Arizona crew. All the best. Dame Susan of the soldier we.

[Monique White]

You'Ve got.

[John C. Dvorak]

Nice then. Oh well this shows you that war is always profitable and a racket. This is a donation coming from the the Great Curry Horowitz Fracas 433.33 from Franny. Franny says hey guys, thank you for your humor, insight and clarity. You are true national treasures. Adam, please give my beautiful pickleball girlfriend Sylvia Korn Jones birthday wishes in her native Dutch language. She's one of the best people I know. Thanks. Fairly steered Sylphia and send love and light to my human resource bunnies, Axel, Fiona and Bowie. And the love of my life, Peter the Viking Hunk. The family that no agendas together stays informed. Thank you for all that you do. Friend of Andrew Yes, I was a drunk caller, drinker of tequila and great American God bless the Tech Grouch and the pod father. Eight more years, says Franny. And she adds P.S. adam, we are not swingers nor do we belong to a key party, whatever that is. We're just fun. We can weekend drunks. Horowitz should invite you to South Florida for one of his gatherings. John, we know you won't show, but you should be invited too. Byee oh, isn't that nice.

[Adam Curry]

So the Corrupt Practices act was suspended in February by Trump for a period of 180 days, during which time the U.S. attorney General will seek to align the FCPA enforcement with the Trump administration's twin aims of enhancing national security and restoring competitive balance balance in the global economy for the American companies. In other words, there's some bribes involved.

[John C. Dvorak]

So what is the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act? What? How do you run afoul of it?

[Adam Curry]

Well, that's a good that actually can be answered if I just go back a page because it showed up so.

[John C. Dvorak]

I know that how I do not run afoul of it, obviously.

[Adam Curry]

What does the Foreign Corrupt Practices act ban? That'll be probably they the FCPA is a federal law enforced by Department of Justice which prohibits payments, gifts or even offers of anything of value to a foreign official for the purpose of influencing the official or otherwise securing any improper advantage in obtaining, retaining or directing business.

[John C. Dvorak]

So we're bribing foreign?

[Adam Curry]

Yes, exactly.

[John C. Dvorak]

And who's doing that? Just Is it Trump?

[Adam Curry]

I don't know I think this is targeted. This has to be targeted to somebody or other China. I think our. I think animus is on the. Onto something.

[John C. Dvorak]

He's onto something here.

[Adam Curry]

Well, but it's only going to go on for 180 days. So the period of bribery ends.

[John C. Dvorak]

Get in now. Get stocks while the stocks last. People get your bribes now.

[Adam Curry]

It ends in about 70 days.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, well, there's plenty of time to get some bribes.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, there's plenty. You have a month more or two months.

[John C. Dvorak]

Nice.

[Adam Curry]

So something's up with this. I agree.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you. Animus. He knows what he's talking about. He's always. He's always bringing.

[Adam Curry]

Cost him probably a country probably lost a contract.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah. Or a country could be.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, you're up.

[Adam Curry]

Onward. Oh, it's my turn.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Nepal plumber in Rexburg, Idaho. 333.33. And this is Greetings from Rexburg in eastern Idaho, home of the BYU Idaho, Idaho, where students get Ivy League ROI on a ramen budget. Okay. I stumbled on a no Agenda show a few months ago, and I quickly became the only podcast I listened to. Because we're the only podcasts you should listen to.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, there's that.

[Adam Curry]

Mostly because it's cheaper than therapy and twice as effective.

[John C. Dvorak]

There's an endorsement.

[Adam Curry]

I get incredible value from this show and have been hitting folks in the mouth. But apparently critical thinking isn't contagious. I'd like to request a D douching. You've been de douched. He wraps it up with thank you for your courage.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, nice one. Jim Watts is in Whistler, British Columbia, home of the Calgary Stampede. Or nearby, at least. I've been to Whistler. I have skied Whistler back in the day. 240 associate executive producers, where we're at already, please find my annual Cinco de Mayo birthday donation of 3333 Canadian. Ah, he gets moved up. You become an executive producer. We still on your dollar. It's living the life of Riley down here on the Baya Bumper sticker of the day. Ask your. Is it Baja or Baja? Baja presume Baja bumper sticker of the day. Ask your doctor if Baja is right for you. Parking Karma, please. Jim Watts, PhD, the Baron of Whistler. We got your karma right here, Doctor.

[Monique White]

You'Ve got not karma.

[Adam Curry]

I have never taken this drive, but supposedly the most beautiful drive in the world is from Whistler to Vancouver.

[John C. Dvorak]

Or yes, it takes about two hours, if I can recall. It's beautiful, but it's like it's two Hours.

[Adam Curry]

It takes four and a half hours to drive to la. And it's not pretty at all.

[John C. Dvorak]

There's no reason to do that. That at all.

[Adam Curry]

No Biopros in Austin, Texas. Attached note here. Let's see if I got it. Bio. What is this number here? It's 222 22. Do you have it? I don't have it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, I think it's attached to the scans. Let me see.

[Adam Curry]

Let me see if I can find it.

[John C. Dvorak]

I may have it here. Let me see. Ah, the bio pros. Driftwood, Texas, 222.21, which is four number twos and one number one. Thanks for that. Thank you. Crackpot and buzz kill. And to all the no agenda producers. Thebiopros.com experienced one of its best sales week after our initial sponsorship. There's no sponsors. Oh, I see what they're trying to do here. Yeah, we're not. You know, you got to be careful what you're doing here with your donation notes. Thebiopros.com experience one of its best sales weeks after initial sponsorship. Small business owners take heed. Value for value works both ways. Oh, really? Our flagship product, Bioseptic Pro, was developed in the wake of Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

[Adam Curry]

These guys, the septic guys, as an alternative.

[John C. Dvorak]

The poop guys as an alternative. The bio poop guys as an alternative to the toxic. Correct. That was being sprayed as a dispersant in the Gulf of America. Oh, I didn't know that. That's an interesting, Interesting history. Anyway, this same technology is now available to no Agenda producers. If you go to thebiopros.com, use code ITM20 at checkout out for an additional 20% off. Bioseptic Pro is like probiotics for your septic tank. And this is the thing that I keep asking about. Designed for anaerobic septic systems. This is what I have. Send me some products. You know, I gotta. I gotta. If you're gonna send these notes, I can say it's great or not.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. If it works. The fact that you have a. You have the exact. I have the system that. That they service.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

With their goo goo. You need it.

[John C. Dvorak]

And I'm surprised they haven't sent it to me yet.

[Adam Curry]

This makes me wondered by that surprise that I haven't gotten anything from anyone from Florida either regarding the Gators win of the basketball championship.

[John C. Dvorak]

So apparently this bio.

[Adam Curry]

And I guess we're also worried about our coffee supplies down, which.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, I haven't. Eli, the coffee guy also has not.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, all the Free.

[John C. Dvorak]

All the stuff.

[Adam Curry]

Reason we do this show is for free stuff.

[John C. Dvorak]

Come on, people. I mean, we got lots of challenge coins, but it's time for some free stuff. Anyway, this bioseptic pro, apparently, I don't know for sure. Digests grease, fats, oil, sludge, paper and organic matter, which is code for poop with ease. Contains no cannibals, no GMOs, is safe for all pipes, plumbing and pets. I added that. Oh, no. Actual human and animal safe. You should make it pipes, plumbing and pets. I'm just. I'm writing copy for you.

[Adam Curry]

Ppp.

[John C. Dvorak]

Say goodbye to a smelly septic system by heading over to thebiopros.com please pray. The official biopros.com jingle, which is this one.

[Adam Curry]

They did dumps. They call them dumps. Big, massive dumps.

[John C. Dvorak]

Plumbing and goat karma for all. Thank you, Crockpot and Buzzkill, the OG Value for Value Ambassadors.

[Monique White]

You've got karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

Send me some of your goo.

[Adam Curry]

Michael s. In Knightdale, N.C. 211 65. My daughter is under 1, so please record the lecture on media literacy. Ah, she's talking. This is aimed at you. Or at least prepare a slideshow with links to audio. This is again aiming at you. This is you. The children of tomorrow need you, John. Let me hear. Oh, and I love my truck. Thank you. Okay, I can do that. Oh, I love my truck and I love what I do.

[John C. Dvorak]

That should be, at minimum, an executive producer request. I mean, that's like. That's live. Maybe that. That's. That's stuff we're doing live. I'm just saying. Steve down. Who is this?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, you should be. We should be upselling everybody. Are you going to record the lecture on mental mental literacy? Media literacy. Mental literacy.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm not doing anything on mental literacy. I'm doing something on propaganda. Propaganda.

[Adam Curry]

Well, that's media literacy.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, it's not. It's about propaganda. I'm just going to play some super cuts and I'm Mike dropping them out. Thanks for coming, kids. Steve Downtown Brown, Monticello, Indiana, 210switcheroo, he says. This is for my good buddy Jason Meyer, who first introduced me to. To your show. His birthday was Tuesday and on the same day he passed his CISSP exam. Okay. What is that? Yeah, Is that some kind of computer thing?

[Adam Curry]

I'll look it up as you read.

[John C. Dvorak]

Please make sure he gets the credit for this donation with some extra for any fees. Absolutely.

[Adam Curry]

Why am I closing my browsers constantly?

[John C. Dvorak]

This is an excellent question. It borderlines on a great question. Because this is a podcast where we look stuff up. Book of knowledge. You should never be closing your browser. And by the way, I think I'm.

[Adam Curry]

Clicking on the wrong thing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Just admit you're using Edge. We all know it.

[Adam Curry]

Official. I use Firefox. Which is worse?

[John C. Dvorak]

Certified information system, security professional. Got it. It's because my browser's open.

[Adam Curry]

Well, then I didn't need to do all that.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, you didn't. You didn't. And our last one. Go for it.

[Adam Curry]

Linda Lopatkin's here. She's from Lakewood, Colorado, and she drops in 200 bucks. Bucks into the pot. Wants jobs, karma, and says for a competitive edge with a resume that gets results, go to Image Makers, Inc. For all your executive resume and job search needs. That's Imagemakers, Inc. With a k dot com. And work with Linda Lou, Duchess of jobs and writer of resumes.

[Monique White]

Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.

[Adam Curry]

Let's vote for jobs.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, so Eli the coffee guy is M.I.A.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, because he's sending us coffee. He figures that's good enough.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, it's not, but okay. I did get a make good request from Sir Haggis. We do break for nights. He says I need to ask a favor. When I donated on April 24 for my 50th birthday, I forgot to ask you to play my jingle that I forgot to attach the donation email. Well, it's clearly your fault, Sir Haggis. Would it be out of the question? Just throw this in somewhere to make up for my hopeless memory. I'll understand if not. Well, that's not how we operate, Sir Haggis. We break for nights. There you go. That was his jingle. Okay, it's a little gory and goat together. Thank you to these executive and associate executive producers for supporting us for episode 1762. We thank you very much for this. And of course, you will be thanked if you're $50 or above at any point. We'll be doing that second segment, and you can always set up a recurring donation. These are incredibly useful to us and good and easy for you. Any amount, any donation, any. Any frequency. All you have to do is go to noagendadonations.com and again, thank you to our executive and associate executive producers for 1762.

[Adam Curry]

Formula is this. We go out, we hit people in the mouth. World order. I do have a clip I want to get out of the way, which was. Did have to do with the Pope, but it was about the conclave, specifically. Some producers sent it, and I thought it was interesting because it brings up a point I've never heard this term. I don't know anything about it. This was during a one or two hour special with Nora o' Donnell and somebody else sitting in the plaza there just across from the Sistine Chapel, yakking away about nothing. But this commentary came through it and I thought it would be worth. This is. This one is not topic. It's not. Has nothing to do with the Pope selection at all. But play this clip as the conclave clip or doing.

[Monique White]

The one thing we know they're not doing is checking Instagram because their devices.

[Adam Curry]

I believe the kids call it raw dogging. It. If you're gonna go through a long.

[John C. Dvorak]

Period of time with no electronic device. Yeah. Oh right.

[Monique White]

Well they're of a certain age so they might be.

[John C. Dvorak]

I just wanted to.

[Adam Curry]

Have you ever heard this term raw dogging? Kids call it raw doggin.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well it is a sex term from, from where I come from. Raw doggin is having sex without use of a prophylactic. That's how I've always understood.

[Adam Curry]

Somebody slipped it in there, then somebody. This is a little. I think this was a plant. One of those things you slip into the mainstream media to embarrass people.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, probably. Although I've heard it used in other terms than unprotected sex. I've heard it.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. But I don't see the connection between unprotected sex and not using your phone. The connection is elusive.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm just telling you. Let me see what the trolls say. No, no. I don't know.

[Adam Curry]

I think this was planted as a joke, as a wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

[John C. Dvorak]

Or it can also be no lube. That can be another version. You're just making up now, aren't you? Trolls. You just. It's like a stick fight basically. Raw dogging on the stick fight. So I'm getting incoming that the. The new Pope Leo the 14th is no big President Trump fan. He.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, that's why they picked him then.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yep. He, he, he has posted in the past. Now this is before he was president in 2016 that his anti immigrant rhetoric is probably emblematic. He. Oh, here's something more recent. Yeah, I think he may not be a fan of President Trump. We'll see. It doesn't have to be. That's fine. Doesn't have to be. But that may have helped in the. In God's choice, I guess.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Not sure how that works. Well, speaking of raw dogging baby.

[Monique White]

Decorated musical executive producer and songwriter, 85 year old William Smokey Robinson coming under fire. Four of his former housekeepers alleged repeated and brutal sexual assaults and harassment at the hands of their former boss.

[John C. Dvorak]

I will not describe the details of the sexual assaults and rapes because they're.

[Monique White]

Too graphic and disturbing for this news conference. The first alleged victim said Robinson assaulted her seven times in one year, targeting her during her weekend shift. A second plaintiff contends the musician would ask her to meet him in parts of his Chatsworth home, where he knew there weren't any cameras, and sexually abused her 23 times over a number of years. A third recalled Mr. Robinson calling her into his blue bedroom and assaulting her a total of 20 times. The fourth woman and the longest serving employee was allegedly raped in three of the singers homes while employed between 2007 and 2024. All four plaintiffs say they were reticent to report the abuse, fearing they would lose their jobs and felt intimidated by Robinson's celebrity status. He's a music legend who's written more than 4,000 songs and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. At least one person also worried about adverse effects to her immigration status. And we did reach out to Smokey Robinson's management team. We haven't yet heard back. The district attorney attorney tells me that it has not received a case from law enforcement, and therefore it will not be filing any kind of criminal charges at this point.

[John C. Dvorak]

Now, what is that like? That's smirching his name at 85, poor.

[Adam Curry]

Smoker, and going back 27 times. This reminds me of the bear joke, which has the punchline, I won't tell the joke, but I. But people out there know this joke where the bear says, you. You didn't come here for the hunting, did you?

[John C. Dvorak]

So meanwhile, in Brazil, when they don't like an artist, they take care of the artist in a different way, particularly if there may be some satanic over or undertones with that artist.

[Monique White]

We got to get to something pretty serious. There are two suspects in custody this morning for allegedly planning to bomb a Lady Gaga concert in Brazil. So police say that these suspects were targeting the LGBTQ community and that they attempted to recruit, including teenagers, to carry out attacks at Saturday's concert. The weapons, improvised explosives, Molotov cocktails. Investigators say a group that promotes hate speech and encourages violence among teens orchestrated this. One of them allegedly had an even darker plan. He claimed the singer had a Satanist religious inclination, and as such, he would respond in the same way. And the he would also promote a Satanist ritual by killing a child or a baby in a live stream during the show.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right. Lady Gaga. We live in a fallen world.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, yes, not about the tries, the guys who tried to bomb, but about the 2 million people that supposedly were at this event. Brazilians are notorious exaggerators. And this goes back to, I don't know, the late 80s or 90s. And Jerry Purnell and I were invited down to the biggest tech event in the world, the one in Brazil with.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hundreds of thousands of attendees.

[Adam Curry]

No, no, 2 million millions, I tell you. So Jerry and I both still had stakeouts in different parts of the show where you, where you had. You could count. There's only one or two entrances. So you could do a one hour calculation, figure out what the number was, and we come up with our own number and compare them and we both came up with a pretty much the same number. The maximum number of people they could have possibly had is, is 200,000 maybe, as opposed to the 2 million that they claimed. And then I've also seen a picture of the national mall in Washington D.C. that had 500,000 and this little girl group in, in Rio at the beach on Ipanema, which I've been to, is not. There's no way it was more than maybe 50,000 maybe. But they say 2 million. And I realized that back with Pornell that the Brazilians are prone to exaggerate because this is the way their whole country started when they made a deal. And when the Portuguese made the deal with Spain, the Spanish says you could have have what other they told the Portuguese, just tell us what the coordinates are of where you've been and what you think you. The country is where the country's located. And they went here, give us the numbers and we'll. That'll be Brazil. You can have it. And so they weren't. Nobody was up in the Amazon and nobody was up there. They just made up some numbers and got these coordinates to make the country so damn big. It was a lie. And the Brazilians do this. They lie, they exaggerate. It's a very. Is a feature of the culture. Don't believe these numbers. And all these reporters that kept talking about 2 million people at the Gaga Counts concert are full of it. They don't. They could have looked and seen. It was not possibly 2 million people. That's twice the entire population of San Francisco.

[John C. Dvorak]

This makes a lot of sense now in light of the bbl.

[Adam Curry]

The what?

[John C. Dvorak]

The bbl? Yeah, the Brazilian Butt lift. They're all fake butts down there. Huge big butts. And you think, oh, it's a big butt. No, it's a bbl. They're fakers. That's good information. This is the first time I've heard that.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, it's a. And, and you should be aware that the Brazilians exaggerate. And that's all. It just, it's a fact. And if you do any reporting on Brazil, you should know that.

[John C. Dvorak]

I just got a insight or tip here. Apple apparently is considering moving to an AI search, ending their deal with Google. Which is what, $7 billion or something? Some outrageous amount. What do they pay Google for the. What does Google pay them for Search?

[Adam Curry]

I have no idea. Oh, it's a lot.

[John C. Dvorak]

Billions and billions. And then how bad is that going to suck? Yeah, we're going to do AI search, but you know that's going to suck. It's going to suck. Hey, we have a. Just what we're doing some M5M stuff. We have a name. Have you heard the name? The new name? The new. The new. The official name for Spinco.

[Adam Curry]

Remember Spinco? Yes, Spinco.

[John C. Dvorak]

And by the way, for people who said, you know, Spinco is a name that's often used as a code. Yeah, we knew that. We knew that. But we have a name.

[Monique White]

We have some news close to home. The group of media brands, including CNBC that are being spun off from Comcast and NBC Universal later this year now has a name, Versant. The name chosen as a blueprint for versatility, growth and innovation.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's spelled V E R S A N T. Versant. Versant. Vers. What do you think of the name? I'll continue the clip in a moment. What do you think of this name, John?

[Adam Curry]

Stinks.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stinks. I agree. And they're going to defend it here. This is CNBC part now of Versant.

[Monique White]

This is the company's new logo. Cable network cnbc, msnbc, Gulf Channel, usa, Oxygen and more will all be a part of Versant now.

[John C. Dvorak]

They should. They should have called it Crazy Co. That was much more catchy.

[Adam Curry]

The trolls that have worked would have.

[Monique White]

Worked for me well as digital assets including Fandango Gulf now and sports engine CNBC Media and sports. Sports reporter Alex Sherman is here with me. Alex, you have more details on this new name. Very exciting. This is corporate history that we are living right now, Kelly.

[John C. Dvorak]

Corporate history.

[Adam Curry]

Woo.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Monique White]

Versant, like conversant.

[John C. Dvorak]

Imagine this gate. All right, you are the one that's going to announce the name. Oh please don't make me do it. Don't make me. No. Do I have to announce this stupid name? Okay, the name was chosen.

[Monique White]

I'm told to speak to the versatility of the brand brands in the company. You just listed them a lot of different brands covering different things.

[John C. Dvorak]

New, not versatile. They're all stupid.

[Monique White]

Whose sports digital assets, Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango are part of this company Also.

[John C. Dvorak]

Did you know that Rotten Tomatoes and Fan.

[Adam Curry]

No, I did not know Rotten Tomatoes was part of the deal.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, well, that actually makes the deal a little bit more attractive. They're going to spin it out public, though.

[Monique White]

I'm told that originally through the process of this choosing the name, I spoke with the. The CEO of the company, Mark Lazarus. A thousand names, or even more than a thousand names were. Were thought of, were vetted. The legal process ticked that list down from a thousand to.

[John C. Dvorak]

We literally come up with domain names on the fly here and have hundreds of them. We had a thousand names legal process. We had to get everybody involved. We had an off site. We had a whiteboard. We had all kinds of. And. And we boiled it down to 143 that.

[Adam Curry]

I have to interrupt the we Rotten Tomatoes does fit into this scheme because they've been leaning msnbc, all these guys, they're all leaning, right. What's the definition of versant? I looked it up. A region of land sloping in one direction.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow. Wow.

[Adam Curry]

So they got the right name.

[John C. Dvorak]

They got the right name.

[Monique White]

We're thought were vetted. The legal process ticked that list down from a thousand to 43. That's how difficult it is to actually find a name taken that's not already taken. There's, you know, trademark things that people have to go through both nationally and globally. That list was then culled down to about 12. There were presentations made on the 12 and eventually at the off site.

[John C. Dvorak]

Presentations made at the off site.

[Monique White]

Versant was chosen also some. Then the word versant itself is an actual word. Was something that I learned through the.

[John C. Dvorak]

Process of this, which we won't explain because it doesn't sound good.

[Monique White]

It means the slope of land. Lazarus joke with me that perhaps he could see that as a sloping upward like a line that was moving up for a stock symbol.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, what a way to. What a. Wow, that is some fake news right there. That slopes down towards one side. But he says, oh, no, it slopes up. It's like glass half. Full glass half.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it did say slope in one direction, but not up or down.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, you don't want it to slope. Why don't you call the company Hockey Stick if you're talking.

[Adam Curry]

There you go.

[John C. Dvorak]

Perfect.

[Monique White]

It means the slope of land. Mark Lazarus joke with me. That perhaps he could see that as a sloping up upward of like a line that was moving up for a stock symbol. So perhaps, you know, the pathway has been set for this company of assets once it trades publicly, which will be later this year to be a riser. Is there any more clarity on when that date might be sometime in the next few months? Well, we don't know exactly still. I just know it's toward the end of the year, which is always we don't know. I can say that none of the market, you know, volatility of the past month or so has moved Comcast off the date of spinning off the assets later this year. Versant, Alex, get used to it. Yes, indeed. Try it on for size.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Okay. Try it on for size. Get used to it, everybody. That's what your stock options are going to say. What Versant. You know, constitutional lawyer ROB well, we actually talked yesterday. I'm going to go up to his house. He lives in Canyon Lake. Supposed to be be really nice up there. So I chatted with him yesterday and he says the craziest thing he's seen of all the Trump stuff is the trans military ban. This is going through like five different courts. Everyone's pile jumping on this thing. I even put his analysis in the show notes so you can read it. But I mean, it's because, you know, it goes back to the what Biden administration had, then the Trump administration, what the district courts, then it's the Supreme Court, then the ninth Circuit and the ninth Circuit bounces back and forth. I mean, this is, this is really a very interesting hill for people to maybe want to die on or just like this is the most important thing in their life.

[Adam Curry]

And you know, it's another trap.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, let's listen.

[Adam Curry]

The U.S. supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to begin executing its ban on transgender military service members.

[John C. Dvorak]

Very nice term. I love that they use executing this ban. You know, this is npr. They don't, they don't just choose these words willy nilly.

[Adam Curry]

Trump administration to begin executing its ban on transgender military service members, at least for now.

[Monique White]

Joining us to talk about this is NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.

[Adam Curry]

Now, Nina, President Trump has been trying to ban transgender troops.

[John C. Dvorak]

You don't like Nina?

[Adam Curry]

Oh, she's the worst. She's an old hack. She's been around for 100 years and she comes on. Yeah. And she's really never brings in any real insight. She's notorious for something I forgot what started her career to be a hotshot. She probably makes about a Half a million dollars doing nothing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of course she does.

[Monique White]

The military since his first administration.

[Adam Curry]

What's the difference between then and now?

[Monique White]

In the first Trump term, he partially succeeded, but the ban was reversed by President Biden, only to be put back in place by Trump after he took office for a second term. This new order mimics the Trump order from the first administration and appears to strengthen it as well, barring transgender individuals from enlisting and discharging active duty transgender service members. All right, so what did the Supreme Court do yesterday? In a one paragraph unsigned order, the justices revived the transgender ban, which had been temporarily blocked by the lower courts. The court's three liberal justices, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson, noted their dissents and would have barred the administration from putting the ban in place while the case continues to be litigated in the lower courts. So the case now goes back to the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the Trump policy to be reviewed.

[John C. Dvorak]

So we're bouncing back and forth, and let's learn about the new policy, what it exactly is.

[Monique White]

You know, there's been a lot of.

[Adam Curry]

Back and forth in this case since 2016.

[Monique White]

That's when the Obama administration first allowed openly trans individuals to serve in the military.

[Adam Curry]

So how is the new policy different?

[Monique White]

The Obama policy was reversed by Trump in 2017, followed by New rules issued by then Defense Secretary James Mattis. The Mattis rules allowed exceptions to the ban for active service members previously diagnosed with gender dysphoria. But the new policy, the Trump 2 policy, is significantly tougher because it bars from the military anyone with a gender dysphoria, a diagnosis. And while that isn't everyone, it is most trans individuals.

[Adam Curry]

Now, where are things?

[Monique White]

Now the nicer.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's an important little data point. That is.

[Adam Curry]

Well, the question that always remains to me.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm not done. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Why do you want in the military, which is a discipline oriented pursuit?

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

Why would you want people with gender dysphoria that you have to treat?

[John C. Dvorak]

Or any dysphoria.

[Adam Curry]

Or any dysphoria or any kind of neurosis. A psychotic. I mean, schizophrenics, we don't want them either.

[John C. Dvorak]

Bipolar, borderline personality. I mean, there's all kinds of things you don't want. Anything with dysphoria is probably. You're right. Probably not what you want. You want killing machines.

[Monique White]

And while that isn't everyone, it is most trans individuals. Now, where are things? Now, the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will take a whack at deciding the issue, and that decision can be appealed. To the Supreme Court, though the ban is likely to remain in place during the appellate process.

[Adam Curry]

So let me cut to the chase here.

[Monique White]

What are the chances that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule against the Trump trans ban in the military? Probably slim to none. The fact is that the Supreme Court, even on a temporary basis, has allowed the Trump administration to proceed with carrying out the ban. And that's a pretty strong indicator that the administration is very likely to prevail in the long run.

[John C. Dvorak]

And then for me, the kicker, how many people are we actually talking about.

[Monique White]

Here when it comes to the numbers of people? How many trans individuals are in the.

[Adam Curry]

Military right now under the policy that.

[Monique White]

Allowed them to enlist and serve? According to Pentagon, about 0.2% of active military forces or about 4,000 individuals. Sunita, I'm wondering who are the plaintiffs that brought this challenge? They're a group of current and aspiring transgender service members, including lead plaintiff Emily Schilling, a Navy pilot who's flown more than 60 combat missions over her nearly two decades of military service. Ruling in their favor, Judge Benjamin Style settle in Washington state, who's a George W. Bush appointee, concluded that the government's classification of gender dysphoria as a disqualifying medical condition was essentially a ruse motivated by hostility towards transgender people.

[John C. Dvorak]

I love that she adds in there, a George W. Bush appointee. We know what George liked.

[Monique White]

Safe to say that the Supreme Court will eventually actually rule on this. Probably the case will come back to the court next term for a final ruling, regardless of who WINS in the 9th Circuit.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think George W. Bush was a horn dog. Remember you had those, those guys in the press pool. Remember that?

[Adam Curry]

You think of George W. Or George.

[John C. Dvorak]

H. No, George W. No, George W. The second one. He had those Texas guy. Yeah, he had those gay prostitutes. Don't you remember those?

[Adam Curry]

Oh, that. Oh, I vaguely remember that. That's right. The guy that chose showed up in a. Somebody outed him and they, they posted it. Yeah, he was posting online he was some sort of gay prostitute. He was. And he was in the press pool for some unknown reason, asking stupid questions. Yeah. Yes, I do remember that.

[John C. Dvorak]

We have long memories, people. Be very careful.

[Adam Curry]

That's what happens.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let me see. We got five minutes. I, I want to play this five minutes. And yes, this is five minute warning A with two minutes to go. And here's a question, because this is up where you live. Notice I didn't say your neck of the woods.

[Monique White]

This morning, President Trump is directing the federal government to reopen Alcatraz. The Notorious former prison on the San Francisco Bay known as the Rock. Considered escape proof and the subject of multiple Hollywood films. No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz.

[Adam Curry]

I'm in.

[John C. Dvorak]

Me, too.

[Adam Curry]

And no one ever will.

[Monique White]

Trump says he wants to reopen and expand the prison to house America's most ruthless and violent offenders.

[Adam Curry]

Just an idea I've had, and I guess because the judges, so many of these radicalized judges, they want to have trials for every single. Think of it. Every single person that's in our country illegally, that came in illegally, that would mean millions of trials.

[Monique White]

It comes after a new interview, which the President said he does not know whether every person in the US Is. Is entitled to due process as his administration pushes to deport immigrants in the country illegally.

[John C. Dvorak]

Now, again, a complaint. We have a person, a Ranger, I believe. Ranger. I can't remember his name, who works at Alcatraz.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know if he's still there. I think he may have been moved.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, but he still has info if he's.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, he took me. He took me through the tour. I took Jay and her friend.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, you actually took him up on that? You went on the tour? That's.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, yeah, it was great because we. He had it. His own little cart. And we went into parts of the. Of the. Of the facility that no one gets to see. Wow. So, I mean, there was an underground. There's a hospital, like an abandoned hospital. And we took a Ranger Craig.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ranger Craig.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, Ranger. It was a Ranger. Ranger.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ranger Craig Wright. Ranger Craig Wright. I think. Yes.

[Adam Curry]

He took us all over that. We're all in a kind of a separate tour. I got to close the cell door doors with it. Grab the handle and pull it.

[John C. Dvorak]

From the inside or the outside?

[Adam Curry]

From the outside, obviously. You can't close it from the inside, and it makes it a large clink. You get a feeling for the amount of stress it takes to pull it.

[John C. Dvorak]

To give you an idea, we talked about Ranger Craig on episode 115. That's 2009.

[Adam Curry]

I don't think he's there anymore. I think he moved.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know if he's alive.

[Adam Curry]

Well, he wasn't an old guy. He was a young guy. Yeah, but we got a great tour.

[John C. Dvorak]

What are people saying about this here in San Francisco?

[Adam Curry]

We think it's bull crap.

[John C. Dvorak]

Really?

[Adam Curry]

Everybody does.

[John C. Dvorak]

Seems like a great place to put criminals.

[Adam Curry]

Yes. No, it's impossible. That place is a wreck. It's a mess. Except for the areas that the public gets to see. If you actually got behind the Scenes and see the other stuff going on now.

[John C. Dvorak]

Again, the perfect place to put criminals.

[Adam Curry]

Well maybe, but yeah. No, they're not going to do anything. There's a tourist trap. It's bringing in 60 million a year.

[John C. Dvorak]

There it is.

[Adam Curry]

We don't want to lose that much. It probably the maintenance is going to be less than that. It's. It's making money. It's dumb to turn they you can find some place in the middle of nowhere and build a prison from scratch. It'd be cheaper. I'm going to show my support by donating to no agenda. Imagine all the people who could do that.

[Monique White]

Oh yeah, that'd be fab.

[John C. Dvorak]

As we wind down our broadcast day we still have plenty of deconstruction broadcasts left for you including John's tip of the day. You don't want to miss that some very down low beats in the end of show mix we have of course our meetup overview with a report from the Netherlands where they got the servers involved. They finally listened to me. But first we're going to thank all of our supporters. $50 and above. John's going to take you through the list.

[Adam Curry]

That's correct. I'm starting with James O' Brien in South Southington, Connecticut. 1-233-45. Kindly enlighten me as to the title. Much appreciated Union ever so. I don't know. I don't know what he wants.

[John C. Dvorak]

What is he talking about?

[Adam Curry]

I don't know. I have no idea. Maybe he's a knight. He should be a knight. He wants to be a knight. He's already a night. He says I have no idea.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well you got to give us more info bro.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's the honor system so you need to.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Daniel Kepler's up next. He's in Phoenix, Arizona. One also. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. My. My favorite donation mark Thanish in Elgin, Nebraska. Or Elgin possibly 120 Arno in Amstelveen.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, Amstelveen.

[Adam Curry]

I used to live in Amstelveen, Holland.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, used to live.

[Adam Curry]

104.64. He wants us to switcheroo. This is a switcheroo to Freya who also organized the meetup.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ah yes.

[Adam Curry]

Ah, the last meetup last Saturday in.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well you. You know. Okay, so it's pronounced and during World War II the Dutch. The Dutch would ask you to pronounce the name Scheveningen because.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, and they shoot you if you couldn't pronounce it right.

[John C. Dvorak]

Correct. Because then you were probably a spy. A German spy. Scheveninge is the correct pronunciation.

[Adam Curry]

Well, I'm going to get shot, but I'm not a German spy. So I think they could probably kill some police. Poor innocent Americans.

[John C. Dvorak]

You'd be dead. You'd be dead by now.

[Adam Curry]

Stefan Truckles, who's in sust Deutschland. $100. No note. He says. Ken Weinstock in Tucker, Georgia. 888. 8088. Sorry. Because Kevin McLaughlin's up next season. Concord, North Carolina. 8008. He's the Archduke Alumna lover. American lover of boobs, he is. Stephen Hato. Steven Hutcho In St. Petersburg, Florida. 75. Commodore G in Cincinnati, Ohio. 7377. Alan Huffman in Urbandale, Iowa. 6809. He says it was. 6809 was probably the most advanced 8 bit CPU. It had 16 bit registers. I think the 8088 did too, didn't it?

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know. Appreciate it. I don't care.

[Adam Curry]

David Cox in Austin, Texas. You don't care. David Cox in. Cox in Austin, Texas. 6325. Teresa Andrews in Camarillo, Brillo. 6161. This is an Aunt Gigi donation.

[John C. Dvorak]

Here we go. Here we go. Stand by.

[Adam Curry]

That's Aunt Gigi.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's Aunt Gigi.

[Adam Curry]

Grayson Insurance in Aurora, Colorado. 6006. Go to Grayson Insurance for all your insurance needs. I just threw that in. Bruce Begnoche, Big beg notch. Hey. In Midlothian, Virginia, 5945. Jaron Snelders in Ennis, Texas. 59.45. These are all the. These are VE Day donations.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

So I got a few also. Bowman McMahon in San Antonio. 55945. John Fitzpatrick in Heber Springs, Arkansas. 5945. Dame Rita. Ah, there she is in Sparks, Nevada. 5945. She's the best. Tyler Darrington in Lost Wages, Nevada. 5945. And that's our little group of well wishers for VE Day.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Forgotten that we beat the Germans? We beat him, sir. Dancing Mike in Maryville, Tennessee. 5757. It's a birthday. Pete Federici in Bothell, Washington. 5555. He wants some jobs. Karma for his partner. Can you put that at the end for him?

[John C. Dvorak]

I can.

[Adam Curry]

Chris Hare In Bel Air, Maryland. 5537 needs a deduche. You've been deduction douched. We'll be giving a happy birthday shout out to Megan who's turning 31. Michael Gates 5280. Roger Key in Holland, Michigan, 5272. Robert McGee in Davenport, Iowa, 5272. Brittany Miller in Trinidad, Colorado, 5272. And Spencer Nay somehow got a deal at 5271. He's in Weaverville, North Carolina. Line has saved a penny. He's got some comment there. You might want to look at it. Josiah Thomas. Oh, I'm sorry. Eric Hochul in Mulro's Deutschland. There he is.

[John C. Dvorak]

$52 he is here.

[Adam Curry]

He's been a regular for a decade at least and he should get knighted or something. He's got plenty of credits. Josiah Thomas in Ankeny, Iowa. 51. And now he got finally to the 50, $50 donors name and location, starting with Alex Zavala.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ah, Sir Alex.

[Adam Curry]

Sir Alex in Kyle, Texas. Stephen Ray in Spokane. Ray Howard in Kremmeling, Colorado. Jacob Jacob Rotramol in Decatur, Illinois. Edward Mazurek. There he is in Memphis, Carrie Jackson in Waterton, Tennessee. And last on the leases, Jason DeLuzio living it up in Miami Beach, Florida. I want to thank all these people for helping us out on show 1762.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. And the jobs karma is here, as requested.

[Monique White]

Jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs.

[Adam Curry]

Let's vote for jobs.

[Monique White]

Karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, thank you all very much for supporting us. You can do that at any time you want by going to no agenda donations.com no agenda donations.com Become an executive producer. Producer, associate executive producer. Become a layaway night. All kinds of opportunities and sustaining donors are more than welcome. Any amount, any frequency, any numerology. We love the numbers. We love the chip numbers. We love the Aunt GG donations. You make it up, we'll follow along with your gambit. Thank you very much. Noagendadonations.com Steve Dynamic Downtown Brown says Happy birthday to Jason Meyer. He celebrated on the 6th. Sir dancing Mike turns 57 on Saturday. Chris her happy birthday to Megan Haynes. She turns 31 on the 12th. We have Dame Susan wishing her son Elliot a happy birthday. And Franny says happy birthday. And Hafely Shattear to Sylvia Korn Jones.

[Adam Curry]

Happy birthday.

[John C. Dvorak]

And we say happy birthday to all these people on behalf of all here at the best, best podcast in the universe. One Commodore. The final, final, final Commodore. That's the very last one we would like to welcome to the Commodore ship for the last time. The one, the only Commodore Elliot. And as always, Commodore arriving. Ah, very nice. Go to noagendarings.com that's where you can find your Commodore entry form. Let us know what you want on your Commodore certificate of authenticity. Which is beautiful. It has embossments and all that. You can frame it. You should frame it, actually. Hang it on your wall and proudly display that you are a Commodore of the no Agenda show. Yes, the no Agenda meetups. They're a big deal, everybody. They're a very big deal, these, these meetups because it's where you get connection and protection. It's where you will meet the first responders in an emergency in your life. People who go to no Agenda meetups have relationships for decades eons, perhaps even. And we have a report from Scheveningen where it's a little bit cold, but they jumped into the North Sea, which is a very, very Dutch thing to do at this time of year. This is the first no Agenda splash Up meetup in the morning.

[Adam Curry]

This is Roland Splash up in Scheveningen in the morning.

[John C. Dvorak]

And happy birthday to Arno the in.

[Monique White]

The morning from a sun drenched Scheveningen.

[John C. Dvorak]

In Holland in the morning.

[Monique White]

This is Freya at the Heart Beach Club in Scheveningen at the Splash Up. Great meeting.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you.

[Monique White]

Arnaud in the morning. Natalia here and I just had some spicy muscles and now I'm going to splash into the sea like a mermaid.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hi, I'm Chris.

[Monique White]

It's been really fun serving everyone.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's a really fun day. Life is amazing. Enjoy every second. All right. With some coded messages in there. They were. They really got into the North Sea.

[Adam Curry]

It's the server at the end too.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. I think the, the Dutch girl also was a server. She said these people are crazy. They're jumping into the ocean. It's too cold. That's what no agenda people do. We're crazy, but we are lovable crazies. Tonight you can join them at the Quad Cities, Iowa area meetup, 7 o' clock in Lopez. Davenport, Iowa. Big nasty organizing that. And on Saturday, the Treasure Valley meetup, 3 o' clock at Old State Saloon in Eagle, Idaho. Now we have some important meetups coming up this month. Leiden in the Netherlands, that'll be on the 14th. Charlotte, North Carolina on the 15th. The 16th is Whitefield, New Hampshire on the 17th. We are loaded for bear. Bedford, Texas, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Fort Wayne, Indian, New, Canton, Virginia, Springfield, Oregon and well, it's Luckenbach technically, but Fredericksburg, Texas. Curry and the Keeper will be there and many more of your local Texas celebrities. Keene, New Hampshire on the 18th. Cudemborg in Gelderlund in the Netherlands on the 29th. The 31st. Pensacol Township, New Jersey, Overland Park, Kansas, on 31st and Long Beach, California. 31st. Lie. Bravo. At it again. And I might as well throw this one in on June 1st. Tokyo, Japan. Are you getting the picture here? These no Agenda meetups, they're not just like some. Some little thing. This is a whole movement. Go to noagendameetups.com find one near you. If you can't find one, start one yourself. It's easy and always guaranteed a party.

[Adam Curry]

You want to be where you want me triggered.

[John C. Dvorak]

All hell's lame.

[Adam Curry]

You want to be where everybody feels the same. It's like a party.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, to use the Dutchism in the old country for ISOs, I threw my. I threw my cap at it. Threw my cap at it. Which means.

[Adam Curry]

Did the cap hit anything?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I mean, the. That means I just threw my cap at it, which means I didn't really do a lot of work. Didn't do a good job.

[Adam Curry]

So you don't have anything?

[John C. Dvorak]

I do. I have three. I have three. I have.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, let's go.

[John C. Dvorak]

I made it to no agenda. Okay.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it's nice.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's not bad.

[Monique White]

A little embarrassing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay. And maybe this one.

[Monique White]

I love it.

[John C. Dvorak]

I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's not bad.

[Adam Curry]

All right, let's. I got three.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, I got wth. Wth.

[Adam Curry]

What the hell's going on here?

[John C. Dvorak]

No Biden. End of show isos, man. No, that's. That's just not okay.

[Adam Curry]

How about adorbs?

[Monique White]

That podcast was adorbs.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, well, that. That end of show ISO is AI, but it's not bad.

[Adam Curry]

Well, then let's go with the last one. So good.

[Monique White]

These podcasters are so good at this.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I'll go with that.

[Monique White]

Podcast was adorbs.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think that's just gay enough, John.

[Adam Curry]

It's definitely gay.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hey, everybody, it's time for our final bit here. It's no agendas. John's tipping the day.

[Monique White]

Great advice for you and me. Just the tip with JCD and sometimes.

[Adam Curry]

Adam, created by Dana Brunetti. Okay. This is a product everyone should have. You get. Usually buy them in packs of eight or ten. And the key to success with these items is they have to be fresh.

[John C. Dvorak]

Fresh.

[Adam Curry]

Which I recommend finding this the vendor and getting them shipped directly from the vendor or getting them from Amazon, a popular one from Amazon, whether, you know, it's fresh. Pheromone, moth attractant. Sticky pads.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, why would we want to have pheromone moth sticky pads.

[Adam Curry]

Pheromone. Well, for one Reason I need. I found a moth attack on one of my Persian rugs.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, wait, wait, wait. You have Persian rugs?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I have a couple.

[John C. Dvorak]

Do you fly. Fly around on them?

[Adam Curry]

Persian rugs are a really good price nowadays, by the way.

[John C. Dvorak]

Best price. But do you have them on the floor or in your.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, they're on the floor. I got them. They're all over the place. We have. Everybody in the family has a bunch of these either Turkish or Persian rugs.

[John C. Dvorak]

Interesting. Something I did not know about the Dvorak clan. I learned something new every day.

[Adam Curry]

These rugs are great. So. And they're not expensive anymore. No, they, um. So the moths. So here's the deal. The pheromone. There are moths in the world and they get in the house and you wouldn't even know it. You, I'm telling you, pull out one of these pheromone moth packages, strips or. It's actually a little. It's like a sticky pad like you catch a mouse with. When you pull the top off, the pheromones get released. You put it on top of the refrigerator, you put it somewhere and by the way, it's F H E E R M O N E. And you can get them. You can know, you can look it up that way. You. You've never seen anything like it. I don't care how clean and fancy your house is, there's no moths in there. No, that's for sure. Put one of these on top of the refrigerator, a good fresh one, and within 10 minutes, all of a sudden, you'll find moths are in your house.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh no.

[Adam Curry]

That's because they're flying to the attractor and then they stick. Get stuck on the thing. It's mostly the males.

[John C. Dvorak]

And then they. A tasty treat.

[Adam Curry]

And. Well, no, they're not. It just becomes they stuck in the goo and that's the end of them. But everybody has these. Has these stupid moths in their house and they don't know it. And you want to get these traps you. That's why they sell them in 10 packs because you get. That's how many moths you end up capturing. So this is a big deal to do this. I'm sorry, I didn't do it on the room that had the nice rug in it now.

[John C. Dvorak]

But if you have it on top of the refrigerator will attract them from the room with a nice rug. Does it work that far?

[Adam Curry]

No, it'll. They don't suck them in from about. Typically from three or four rooms.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow, this is powerful. I'm Kind of afraid to do that because, you know, then it was like, if Tina sees, like, oh, now we have moss. She's bad enough with me putting down mouse traps because I always catch something.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, well, take it. Put it somewhere where she can't see them and do it when she's not around because it'll be within. I'm telling you, within five or ten minutes, you'll start to see moths.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is.

[Adam Curry]

They're all heading to the trap.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is.

[Adam Curry]

This is gross, actually. How many moths all of a sudden show up in your house? What?

[John C. Dvorak]

Another gross tip of the day, ladies and gentlemen. Go Review it at tipoftheday. No agenda fun dot com.

[Adam Curry]

Wow.

[John C. Dvorak]

And sometimes Adam, created by Dana Burnetti. By the way, that tip of the day jingle is by Shu Michael. Michael is the guitarist for Mercy Me. And Tina is up in Cedar park going to see the show tonight. She's not gonna stiff him like you did when they came to.

[Adam Curry]

I'll go and have drinks.

[John C. Dvorak]

I sent him a text. I called Tina out from stage. Man, that'll be fun. I don't know if he'll do it. He always wears a no Agenda shirt when playing, though. That's pretty cool. That's it. Our broadcast day has concluded. We do have. Oh, look at this. Curry and The Keeper, episode 132, recorded just last night. A Mounder is the title. That's coming up next on your no Agenda stream or your modern podcast app. And of course, we will return on Sunday as usual, where we will bring you another minimum three hours of completely bonus content. Firewall, paywall, free beauty, which we do as a public service. End of show mixes from James Bosworth. He's back. And Nautilus K, who's on a roll. And I am coming to you from the heart of the Texas hill country here in Fredericksburg, where we have that meetup coming up on the 17th in the morning, everybody. I'm Adam Curry.

[Adam Curry]

And from northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C. Devore.

[John C. Dvorak]

We return on Sunday. Please join us here for more no agenda. Until then, adios. Mo fos a hooey. Hooey and such. I was the Kim Kardashian of this coin.

[Adam Curry]

Look. Yeah, look, look, look. Yeah, but look, look, look. Yes, but ginormous. But, but. Ginormous. But, but, but. Look, Ginormous. Look.

[John C. Dvorak]

I was the Kim Kardashian of this or the money without the big butt or the money.

[Adam Curry]

Ginormous. Look, look, look. Yeah, ginormous. Look, look, look. Yes, ginormous.

[John C. Dvorak]

I was the Kim Kardashian of this coin.

[Adam Curry]

Without the big butt or the money? Without the big butt or the money. Yeah. Look, look, look, look, look, look. You acknowledge when you announced the tariffs.

[Monique White]

For example, the stock market dropped. It's been volatile. It has since gone up.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Monique White]

Do you take responsibility when it's dropped?

[Adam Curry]

Ultimately, I take responsibility for everything, but I've only just been here for a little more than three months. Yeah.

[Monique White]

Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. You acknowledge when you announce amounts to tariffs, for example, the stock market dropped. It's been volatile. It has since gone up. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Ultimately, I take responsibility for everything, but I've only just been here for a little more than three months. Yeah.

[Monique White]

Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of $30.

[Adam Curry]

What a conversation. News.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stop buying junk from China. Wake up, people.

[Monique White]

Maybe the children will have two dolls.

[Adam Curry]

Instead of 30 dolls.

[John C. Dvorak]

Harris, stop buying junk from China. Wake up.

[Monique White]

Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of $30 tariff. Are you saying that your tariffs will cause some prices to go up? No, I think the tariffs are going.

[Adam Curry]

To be great for us because it's.

[John C. Dvorak]

Going to make us rich.

[Monique White]

But you said some dolls are going to cost. Isn't that an acknowledgement that some prices will go up?

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't think a beautiful baby girl.

[Adam Curry]

Needs 11 years old, needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Monique White]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Adios, mofo.

[Monique White]

Dvorak.org N A that podcast was adorbs.