1785 - "Mackerels"

Summary

No Agenda Show: Episode 1785 - "Mackerels" Summary

Release Date: July 27, 2025
Hosts: Adam Curry & John C. Dvorak
Description: Deconstructing Media with No Agenda, by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak

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1. EU-US-China Trade Deal and Global Trade Imbalance

The episode opens with Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak discussing a significant trade deal between the European Union and the United States, aiming to address the persistent trade imbalance with China. They highlight how "Queen Ursula collapsed, leading to the deal" (01:27). President Trump expressed enthusiasm about the agreement, stating, "we should have a deal in a half an hour" (01:15). The hosts emphasize the doubling of the EU's trade deficit with China, now exceeding 300 billion euros over the past decade, attributing it to "trade distortions" and China’s lack of reciprocal market openness (02:04).

Notable Quote:
John C. Dvorak remarks, "Pretty much the Same problem we had" (03:13), drawing parallels between the EU-China trade issues and previous U.S. trade challenges.

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2. President Trump's Visit to Scotland and Media Coverage

A significant portion of the discussion centers around President Trump's visit to Scotland, which sparked protests and media coverage. The hosts critique NPR's portrayal of the protests, suggesting they were "not real" and possibly orchestrated. John C. Dvorak sarcastically notes, "Oh boy. You know, it has been one of the mildest summers... It's not the real deal" (02:30).

Notable Quote:
An NPR reporter states, "I'm very much against everything that Trump stands for... the racism, the fascism to stop," to which the hosts respond dismissively, labeling it as "bull crap" and suggesting media manipulation (07:19 - 08:55).

The hosts also discuss allegations of harsh treatment at Trump's golf resorts, including mentions of Ghislaine Maxwell and DOJ interactions, portraying them as misleading or fabricated narratives (12:25 - 27:11).

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3. Jeffrey Epstein, DOJ Meetings, and Judicial Appointments

The conversation shifts to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the Department of Justice's (DOJ) meetings with Ghislaine Maxwell. The hosts criticize the DOJ's transparency, noting, "We haven't asked for anything in return for testimony" (26:32), and question the motives behind these interactions. They further delve into the controversy surrounding judicial nominations, particularly that of Amel Bovey, a Trump-aligned nominee facing opposition due to his defense of Trump during criminal cases.

Notable Quote:
John C. Dvorak expresses skepticism about the integrity of the DOJ and judicial appointments, stating, "If you take anything in there, it's a betrayal to honesty" (27:28).

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4. Privatization and Reform of the U.S. Postal Service

A substantial segment critiques the current state and potential privatization of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The hosts discuss Postmaster General David Steiner's efforts to address USPS's financial deficits without relying on taxpayer money, contrasting this with Trump's proposals to privatize the service.

Notable Quote:
Adam Curry sarcastically remarks, "The Postal Service should be privatized or that it should become an appropriated part of the federal government," mocking the idea of altering the USPS's foundational independence (48:09).

John C. Dvorak adds, "I don't really understand why the Postal Service is always under fire," questioning the continuous criticism despite USPS’s self-financing model (48:54).

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5. Artificial Intelligence and Model Collapse Concerns

The hosts engage in a debate about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), expressing concerns over "model collapse." They discuss the limitations of current AI models, the resurgence of programming languages like Lisp, and the dangers of AI beyond mere automation.

Notable Quote:
John C. Dvorak states, "I'm scared of that. I don't have an answer yet" when asked about mitigating AI's negative impacts, highlighting their apprehension about AI's trajectory (76:03).

Adam Curry proposes an innovative idea to modernize email communication through encryption and a stablecoin-based system, though they acknowledge regulatory and practical challenges (54:56 - 55:35).

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6. Critique of Mainstream Media and NPR

Throughout the episode, Curry and Dvorak consistently criticize mainstream media outlets, particularly NPR, for biased reporting and promoting narratives that align with political agendas. They mock NPR's coverage of various issues, labeling it as "bull crap" and accusing it of being influenced by external interests.

Notable Quote:
Adam Curry states, "This is what we're doing with our own meetups... It's not real. It's bull crap," dismissing NPR's reporting on protests and other events (08:03 - 09:21).

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7. Executive Orders on Homelessness and Mental Health

The discussion includes President Trump's executive orders aimed at addressing homelessness and mental health issues. The hosts express skepticism about these initiatives, suggesting they are merely performative and fail to provide substantive solutions.

Notable Quote:
John C. Dvorak criticizes Governor Gavin Newsom's approach, saying, "They are hallucating their assumptions on how reality works," when discussing policies to dismantle homeless encampments (120:14).

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8. Fundraising and Donor Engagement

Adhering to the system instructions to exclude advertisements and non-content sections, this section is briefly acknowledged but not detailed in the summary as per the user's request to omit such segments.

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9. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In wrapping up, the hosts reiterate their distrust of mainstream narratives and emphasize the importance of independent thought. They encourage listeners to support their show through donations, framing it as a battle against media manipulation and misinformation.

Notable Quote:
John C. Dvorak concludes with a strong stance against media control: "As always, the best podcast in the universe. Adios mofo Dvorak.org," emphasizing their commitment to unbiased reporting and deconstruction of media.

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Key Takeaways

• Trade and Economics: The EU-US deal aims to rectify trade imbalances with China, reflecting broader geopolitical shifts.
• Media Skepticism: Hosts express deep distrust in mainstream media, particularly NPR, accusing it of biased and manipulated reporting.
• Judiciary Concerns: Criticism of judicial appointments and DOJ's transparency, especially concerning high-profile cases linked to Trump.
• AI Fears: Apprehension about the future impact of AI, advocating for innovative yet cautious approaches to technology integration.
• Postal Service Debate: Ongoing discourse on USPS's privatization vs. reform, highlighting financial sustainability without taxpayer aid.
• Policy Critique: Executive orders on homelessness and mental health are viewed as superficial solutions lacking genuine impact.

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This summary encapsulates the primary discussions and perspectives presented by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak in Episode 1785 of the No Agenda Show, providing a comprehensive overview for those who have not listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Adam Curry]

Oh, now you've connected the dots.

[John C. Dvorak]

Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak, it's Sunday, July 27, 2025. This is your award winning Gimmonation Media assassination episode 1785.

[Adam Curry]

This is no agenda.

[John C. Dvorak]

Everything's effing. And we're broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas hill country here in FEMA region number six in the morning everybody.

[Adam Curry]

I'm Adam Curry and from northern Silicon Valley where I'm fogged in, I'm John C. Dvorak.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's crackpot and buzz. Yeah, it must be July in San Francisco.

[Adam Curry]

It happens in the Bay area. Fog. It's, I wake up, it's foggy cold.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh boy. You know, it has been one of the mildest summers I've ever witnessed in hill country or in Texas. Global warming in Texas in general. It's just, it's really, it's, it's been nice. It's been really, really nice. So I wasn't able to get a clip because no one had anything. It started just before we came, before we got on, on the air, live. We have a deal. We have a deal. We got a huge deal. Did you hear about the huge deal?

[Adam Curry]

Well, I heard that about an hour ago. Trump said, I saw the live press conference and he said we should have a deal in a half an hour. I had to wait a half an hour.

[John C. Dvorak]

What was going to change because they were inking the deal, it looks like, I think Queen Ursula folded and we got ourselves a deal between the European Union and the United States. And President Trump looks very happy, but it was kind of telegraphed already. Did you see anything of the European Union China summit?

[Adam Curry]

I saw none of it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow. All of a sudden Queen Ursula is sounding like President Trump.

[NPR Reporter]

A few figures today. The European Union accounts for an impressive 14.5% of China's total exports. Yet China only represents 8% of our exports. These numbers speak to the scale of our relationship, but they also expose a growing unbalance. It is mostly due to an increasing number of trade distortions.

[John C. Dvorak]

No kidding.

[NPR Reporter]

Access barriers. But unlike other major markets, Europe keeps its market open to Chinese goods. This reflects our long standing commitment to rules based on trade. However, this openness is not matched by China. The European Union's trade deficit with China has doubled in the last decade, reaching more than 300 billion euros. By now. We have reached a clear inflection point. As we said to the Chinese leadership, for trade to remain mutual beneficial, it must become more balanced. Europe welcomes competition. We like competition, but competition has to be fair.

[John C. Dvorak]

Pretty much the Same problem we had.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it's about time they figured it out.

[John C. Dvorak]

And this was even more interesting. What did she wave around as the only other option if China doesn't return to rules based trade? Like, yeah, everything is play fair, please play fair. Oh, well, she brought out the T word.

[NPR Reporter]

The need to rebalance our relationship is even more urgent in today's context of the global rise of tariffs. As two of the world's largest economy, the European Union and China share a responsibility to uphold and reform the global trading system so we can keep it open, fair and grounded on rules. This responsibility also extends to upholding international norms, rules and institutions. And this is why we raised the critical issue of China's support for Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. This has a direct and dangerous impact on Europe's security. And we expressed together our expectations that China would follow up on our concerns and the expectation that it would use its influence to bring Russia to accept a ceasefire, to come to the negotiation table, enter peace talks and put an end to the bloodshed. How China continues to interact with Putin's war will be a determining factor for our relations going forward.

[John C. Dvorak]

So the way I see it, China went no, and then she went, okay, we'll just do business with the United States then. Seems pretty simple to me.

[Adam Curry]

Well, China, this was going to catch up to them eventually. Yeah, they've gotten away with it. I mean, the Chinese even knew this because they had talked about turning inward. Chinese technique, usual technique of.

[John C. Dvorak]

What does that mean? What does that mean? Turning into.

[Adam Curry]

Create their own market and just sell to themselves.

[John C. Dvorak]

Isn't that illegal?

[Adam Curry]

Just kidding. What? I'm just kidding.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, sell their own stupid solar panels to themselves. All right, good. That's what they have too much of. They've subsidized.

[Adam Curry]

Their whole system is based on overproduction.

[John C. Dvorak]

And then dumping it cheap on other countries like the eu. So I think a big part of this deal was Europe. Surprise, surprise, Europe is going to spend a lot of their 700 billion euros earmarked for weapons on US weapons. What are the chances? What are the chances?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, well, that's all we. What else do we do? No, we don't. Agricultural products. We sell that. And they weren't buying that either.

[John C. Dvorak]

Apparently. They're going to start buying something supposedly. Give them, give them our GMO corn. Let's send them that.

[Adam Curry]

Well, we can send them GMO corn or a lousy wheat. All the poisonous stuff we grow.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, send it to them. So the President is in Scotland today and the Scottish are out protesting at least that's what the M5M is showing us. And what's really interesting, I watched probably 20, 25 minutes of men on the street interviews with. And these are not organized protests. These are really, you know, they're. They're handmade signs. Poorly made handmade signs. Like, just like, can they not even draw properly there? And what's interesting is they just hate Trump. They say, well, we don't like what he's doing. No one says what he's doing. They just hate him. Listen to this.

[NPR Reporter]

I'm very much against everything that Trump stands for and what he's doing in America. So I want people to know that Americans know that we are very much pro them.

[Adam Curry]

They're.

[NPR Reporter]

But we really want the lies, the falsehoods, the. The racism, the fascism to stop. So that's why we're all.

[John C. Dvorak]

The racism and the fascism, huh?

[Adam Curry]

No, the talking points. I have some clips, too. I want to get to the race, the talk, which are from npr, which will back up your clips. But these are just American talking points. These are setups. This is not real. This is bull crap. Soros or somebody pays some people to stand around. They say themselves, there's a hundred people.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, no, it's a small crowd, but it's the same thing as no Kings Day, basically, where everyone was just standing around saying, no king. Well, what's the problem? We just don't want a king. There's nothing. There's no context.

[NPR Reporter]

So that's why we're all demonstrating today.

[Adam Curry]

He shouldn't be here.

[NPR Reporter]

You know, we shouldn't give him air time.

[Adam Curry]

You know, somebody like that who has.

[NPR Reporter]

Those standards, I don't think it should be welcome in this country.

[Adam Curry]

I'm here just to show my support for the people that think the same way as me.

[John C. Dvorak]

And basically, I'm just here for the other people who are here who have.

[Adam Curry]

No message to test everything Donald Trump stands for. You sometimes wonder if, you know, protest works and people listen to it, but.

[NPR Reporter]

That'S the only tool that we have.

[Adam Curry]

For democracy and to show our.

[John C. Dvorak]

Dislike.

[Adam Curry]

Of Donald Trump, basically, and what he stands for.

[John C. Dvorak]

Shut up. Let them talk. What are you going blah, blah, blah for?

[Adam Curry]

Because that's blah, blah, blah. She's not saying anything.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's the point. That's the point. There's one last guy here who makes, who tries to make a point dislike.

[NPR Reporter]

Of Donald Trump, basically, and what he stands for.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm pretty much.

[Adam Curry]

I'm an immigrant myself. I've come from Italy here to Scotland, and I stand pretty Much against everything that everything does. And I think Scotland should reject Trump.

[John C. Dvorak]

In a, in a strong way because just to, to send the signal that.

[Adam Curry]

There are, the majority of the people in the, in the world don't agree with what he's doing in terms of like the genocide in Palestine and the.

[John C. Dvorak]

Treatment of immigrants in the US as well. All right, so Trump is genociding in Israel or something like that, and the immigrants. And that was the only thing, the only. Actually the president brought two messages the minute he got off the plane. Probably both are being celebrated by the people not holding the signs.

[Adam Curry]

Better get your act together. You're not going to have Europe anymore. You got to get your act together. And we, you know, as you know, last month we had nobody entering our country. Nobody shut it down and we took out a lot of bad people that got there with Biden. Biden was a total slave stiff and what he allowed to happen, but you're allowing it to happen to your countries and you got to stop the, this horrible invasion that's happening to Europe. Many countries in Europe, some people, some leaders have not let it happen or ban. They're not getting the proper credit. They should. I could name them to you right now, but I'm not going to embarrass the other ones. But still, stop this immigration is killing Europe. And the other thing, stop the windmills killing the beauty of your country. Thank you very much, everybody.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stop the windmills.

[Adam Curry]

That's what they focused on on pbs, the windmills, really? Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, the EU is still all in on the green energy transition. What do you have before you go.

[Adam Curry]

Before you go there? I got these clips of Trump in Scotland.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it.

[Adam Curry]

First of all, there's the overview clip we can play or not play, which is Trump and Scotland npr, which is just a general clip. It doesn't have the good stuff.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, we need an overview just for prosperity.

[NPR Reporter]

President Trump is in Scotland this weekend visiting his golf resorts and meeting with.

[Adam Curry]

British and European leaders. A major security operation is underway for his visit with officers around the UK Brought in to support Scottish police. But some locals are concerned about the scale and cost, cost of the operation. NPR's Fatima El Kassa reports.

[NPR Reporter]

President Trump's visit to his golf courses on opposite sides of the country has prompted a major police operation around Scotland which is expected to cost Scottish taxpayers millions of dollars. Kerry Walsh from Glasgow says she's not sure it's worth it. So much is being spent on him.

[Adam Curry]

Being here and I don't know what.

[NPR Reporter]

The benefit of him being here is, if I'm honest. The Scottish Police Union says resources are stretched and it may take officers much longer to respond to other incidents over the weekend. As a result, protesters are planning what they are calling a festival of resistance.

[Adam Curry]

To the president's visit.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, well, that's what we heard. A festival. Festival of resistance.

[Adam Curry]

That's almost, I think that they're, they're playing into the stereotype of the Scots being cheap bastards.

[John C. Dvorak]

With what?

[Adam Curry]

Oh, they're worried about the price. Oh, so expensive.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

I thought that was kind of. Now we have, we might as well play the. Scott. We have Scott Simon.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, how could I not be ready for that?

[Adam Curry]

I don't know. How is beyond me.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't even know where here he is.

[Adam Curry]

I need to suffer and succotash. I'm Scott Simon. President Trump from the weekend show up first, but I have it down here as the first. And the clip, the first. There's three clips here, which has a punchline. The first, NPR Trump in Scotland hit piece in Scotland, the home country of his late mother. President Trump will be playing golf, promoting the golf resorts he owns there and meeting with British and European leaders.

[NPR Reporter]

But questions about other things have followed him there.

[Adam Curry]

Gossett, the Federal Reserve, and his dead former friend, the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Wow. Wow.

[John C. Dvorak]

His dead former friend. Wow.

[Adam Curry]

Is that good?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, that is good.

[Adam Curry]

His dead former friend, the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

[NPR Reporter]

And There are protesters.

[Adam Curry]

NPR's Lauren Freyr is at a demonstration in Edinburgh, joins us from there.

[John C. Dvorak]

Lauren, thanks for being with us.

[NPR Reporter]

Thanks for having me.

[Adam Curry]

Scott, what kind of welcome is the president receiving in Scotland?

[NPR Reporter]

Well, I'm outside the US Consulate in Edinburgh, where several hundred people gathered today. There are scouts, Scottish bagpipers. One of them is holding a sign that says, at least this bag of hot air serves a purpose. There are Palestinian flags over the crowd. I also see a sign that says Scotland is already great, a reference to, you know, making anything great again. Protest organizers here call this a festival of resistance. Here's protester Nev Convin Smith. Why on earth is this convicted felon allowed to come into our country and play golf when the people do not like him? A recent poll found that more than 70% of people in Scotland have an unfavorable view of Trump that's higher than across the entire United Kingdom. People here say they're motivated by Trump's climate policy. In fact, some climate protesters actually abseiled, belayed themselves on ropes down off a bridge here last night. Others say they're protesting US Policy in the Middle East. Many Scots are also angry at the cost to taxpayers of Trump's visit here. And there are even a few Jeffrey Epstein posters in the mix here.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, some of the headlines were convicted felon visit Scotland.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, those unbelievable. This is the kind of hit piece. It's not news at all. It's just a hit piece. And it gets worse. But it doesn't get to the third clip, which is the real killer, showing that they're, they're just, they can't even do a good report. This is the first NPR Trump in Scotland 2, a topic that the President might have hoped to side of the.

[John C. Dvorak]

Atlantic, I should think, probably, but it's.

[NPR Reporter]

One of the things that the traveling press asked him about moments after Air Force One touched down here last night. Trump denied ever being briefed that his name might be in the Epstein files. He said he has the power to pardon Epstein's ex, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is in prison, but that he hasn't thought about doing that. And he said, if you're going to talk about Epstein, talk about all of.

[Adam Curry]

His friends, talk about the hedge fund guys that were with him all the time. Don't talk about Trump.

[NPR Reporter]

So Trump was dodging questions about Epstein here. But it's not just the media talking about this. Scottish protesters stealthily put up a sign outside of one of Trump's golf resorts here this week that says, quote, twinned with Epstein Island.

[Adam Curry]

The President does have deep family ties to Scotland. As we mentioned, his late mother was born and raised there. Do Scots like to consider him a native son?

[NPR Reporter]

Yeah, I mean, his mother was born on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides Islands, a place that Trump once on a visit called Syria Scotland. Her first language was actually Gaelic. Trump has long owned golf resorts here, so Scots have been well acquainted with him for a long time, even before he became president. Trump says he loves Scotland, but he's also been critical of its environment policy. For example, he's called for the country to scrap what he calls windmills, renewable energy, wind turbines. He considers them an eyesore. He's called on Scotland to double down on energy from fossil fuels instead of, oh, man.

[Adam Curry]

Of course, Scotland has a huge supply of fossil fuels off their coast.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, it's called gas.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, it's monster. It's a monster source. And they do, oh, let's put up some windmills. It's pretty funny.

[John C. Dvorak]

And ruin, ruin the seascape. Ruin so bad.

[Adam Curry]

So we go to this last clip, which, which shows the kind of crappy reporting they're doing on npr, even though they, they run commercial after commercial. I have a couple of them on here about their needing more money. This is the first Trump Scott 3 WTF clip. And when you see, see if you can hear the, the slant, the way they, the way they slant the conclusion.

[NPR Reporter]

Here's a Edinburgh bartender I spoke with, Cam Page.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, the first thing I saw him going on about was the, the windmills and all that. I think it's a bit weird. The first thing he does when he comes here is just moan and complain.

[NPR Reporter]

He kind of just wants Trump to butt out of his country's energy policy.

[Adam Curry]

He never said that. He never said that. At the very end, she makes up a conclusion. The guy never said, if the guy said he wants Trump to butt out of his energy policies, why doesn't she has the guy on tape? Why didn't she play that instead of saying it herself?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, she has to justify her reason for existence in Scotland on this trip, on this gambit.

[Adam Curry]

So you got to find as soon as they said the bartender, so I started clipping it. I said, oh, but the bartender will be down to earth. Joke around. He says, you know, and he didn't say anything, you know, other than what you'd expect from a bartender. And then she makes up a conclusion.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, it's unbelievable. Npr, we should defund them.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, wait, we already did. Yeah, it was since we're on the, on these guys, the playing the play a couple of these clips. This is the, this is the way the show starts. This, the, it's, this clip is the first NPR Scott and Alicia. He's teamed up. He only works on the weekends, makes $400,000 plus a year. And he's, and he's, that really bothers.

[John C. Dvorak]

You, that really bothers you, doesn't it? We only work two days a week. We just don't make his kind of money. But, you know, we have the same basic deal.

[Adam Curry]

No, everybody @ NPR makes 400,000 a year. And so they team him up with Alicia, the black woman who just this screecher. And it must, I think they did it to torture him, to be honest about it, because he's, you know, kind of old school broadcaster. But let's listen to this. There's, here's the classic opening.

[NPR Reporter]

President Trump is in Scotland, but he.

[Adam Curry]

Can'T escape questions about Jeffrey Epsky. You're making a very big thing over something that's not a big thing.

[NPR Reporter]

I'm Ayesha Rosko.

[Adam Curry]

And I'm Scott Simon. And this is up first from NPR News. Trump and his allies call it Alligator. Alcatraz, the immigration detention center in Florida's Everglades. Now, people being held there say guards are abusive. They check me to the ground. I was in the sunlight from one o' clock for like seven o' clock in the evening. This is unhuman.

[NPR Reporter]

What do officials say about these allegations?

[Adam Curry]

Also, there's anxiety about where the economy.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is headed for sure, but the stock.

[Adam Curry]

Market is hitting record highs while why.

[NPR Reporter]

Stay with us. We'll have the news you need.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well edited. Oh, man, they got some expensive editing going on over there.

[Adam Curry]

Well, then here. This is the end of the way the show ends. I another thing these people all make, they make more money than typical radio. This is upfront NPR credits.

[NPR Reporter]

And that's up first for July 26th, 2025. I'm Aisha Rascoe.

[Adam Curry]

And I'm Scott Simon. Today's podcast was produced by the discerning and astute.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wait, why is he laughing? Is he laughing because it was?

[Adam Curry]

He's laughing because he knows what they're paying. And I'm Scott Simon. Today's podcast was produced by the discerning.

[John C. Dvorak]

And astute Elena Turek, with help from.

[Adam Curry]

Fernando Naro, who possesses a piercing mind.

[NPR Reporter]

Do not face off with them during a trivia night. They will wipe the floor with you.

[Adam Curry]

Our editors are the Fantastic Four. Susanna Capilouto, Pelovi Goi, Jacob Benston and Melissa Gray.

[John C. Dvorak]

Maybe they're the Fab Four.

[Adam Curry]

It's hard to tell because they're certainly here, there and everywhere. Okay, Scott, tell us, who else is fab? I agree. That was a little creepy. David Greenberg, our technical director, and our engineering support comes from Joe Van Genhoven.

[John C. Dvorak]

Tom Marquito and Zach Coleman.

[Adam Curry]

Andy Craig is our director, which he.

[NPR Reporter]

Does with the fluid effort of a master. He makes it look easy, but it's.

[Adam Curry]

Not, which is why we have bosses. Shannon Rhodes, our acting senior supervising editor. She's not just acting, she's commanding. Evie Stone, our executive producer. Very commanding. Jim Kane, our deputy managing editor. These are very own. Jean Lucas Picard. When he says make it so, so we do it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, that was very bizarre. Did they have to fill time?

[Adam Curry]

I guess so. It's only a half hour show and they couldn't fill it, I guess. But that was that. The people producing that show, that. How many was that?

[John C. Dvorak]

15.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, I counted 14.

[John C. Dvorak]

15.

[Adam Curry]

15. Plus the two of them. That's a lot of people.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, we have thousands of producers.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, we do.

[John C. Dvorak]

We have. That's why we're better. And dare I say that's why they call us the best podcast in the universe. Far better than the top 100 from time. People are so mad about that. I can't believe people still care what Time magazine says at all.

[Adam Curry]

Is it even a magazine anymore? Just an online website?

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, that's a good question. I think it may just be. It's a blog. It's a substack.

[Adam Curry]

I think it's a blog.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's a blog. Yeah. Well, everyone, you know, a couple people got to go to, to, to Scotland. So you know that that's, it's good, I guess.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I guess I was looking at one. Fox sent Jackie, Jackie Heinrich, I think her name. And it looks like a completely different person because when she's in the studio or in the, in the country, she's got professional makeup and then she has to, I guess when you're on the Trump trip, they didn't send a makeup artist with her. And it's just like, is this the same woman? No.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, makeup can do a lot. Well, since NPR could not stop bringing up Epstein, might as well just play the latest, which we all pretty much know about by now.

[NPR Reporter]

This morning, President Trump is calling the Jeffrey Epstein controversy a scam, accusing Democrats of using unreleased court records to distract from his political success. Trump comparing the investigation to the so called Russia hoax, saying, quote, they have gone absolutely crazy, adding as things are revealed and I hope will take place quickly, you will see that it is yet another Democrat con job. But the pressure to release the files is a bipartisan effort. Democrats and Republicans demanding answers.

[John C. Dvorak]

I want all the information out.

[Adam Curry]

Just put everything out. Make it as transparent as you can. Release the damn files.

[NPR Reporter]

The Justice Department searching for answers of its own. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch meeting with Epstein's convicted co conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

[Adam Curry]

Well, she answered all the questions and answered them honestly.

[NPR Reporter]

The closed door meeting lasted six hours yesterday and is expected to resume today. Blanche's meeting with the convicted sex trafficker is part of the Justice Department's effort to uncover, quote, information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims. Those sources say it was Maxwell who reached out to the DOJ to request the meeting. She's currently appealing her conviction to the Supreme Court.

[Adam Curry]

There were a lot of questions and we went all day and she answered every one of them. She never just said, I'm not going to answer, never declined.

[John C. Dvorak]

And she answered them all truthfully.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, Joe, you answered every question truthfully.

[John C. Dvorak]

There was another report, this one. Yeah, hold on President Trump is spending.

[Adam Curry]

The weekend at his golfer sword in Scotland where he will celebrate the opening.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of a new golf course.

[Adam Curry]

Next week. He will hold meetings on trade with European leaders. The trip comes as here at home, Trump continues to face questions about pre episodes. People should really focus on how well the country's doing or they should focus on the fact that Barack Hussein Obama led a couple in Florida. Deputy Attorney General Ton Blanche, a former Trump criminal defense attorney, has now conducted two closed door meetings with Epstein's co conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell in an effort to quiet criticisms the administration is blocking access to.

[John C. Dvorak]

How, how, how does that even quell criticism? I think it only riles it up to quiet criticisms.

[Adam Curry]

The administration is blocking access to the Epstein files. Maxwell is serving a 20 year prison term. Defense attorney David Mar said she is cooperating freely. We haven't asked for anything. This is not a situation where we're asking anything in return for, for testimony or anything like that. Yet the media have raised questions again.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, yeah, it's kind of odd one, the way he said that. Here we go.

[Adam Curry]

We haven't asked for anything. We haven't asked her anything. I thought he just said they talked to her for days on end.

[John C. Dvorak]

What I think he's referring to is you haven't asked her to, you know, to do anything like a quid pro quo.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I understand that's what he meant, but that's not what he said.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, listen to the whole sentence.

[Adam Curry]

Cooperating freely. We haven't asked for anything. This is not a situation where we're asking anything in return for testimony or anything like that. Yet the meetings have raised questions. Liz oyer, a former U.S. pardon attorney, was fired from the Justice Department in March.

[NPR Reporter]

There's every reason to believe that they are seeking to make some sort of deal with Maxwell that will help them solve this political crisis.

[Adam Curry]

The President was asked if he is.

[John C. Dvorak]

Considering a pardon for Maxwell.

[Adam Curry]

A lot of people are asking me about pardons. Obviously this is no time to be talking about pardons.

[John C. Dvorak]

On Friday, a plane flew a banner.

[Adam Curry]

Over the courthouse meeting site accusing the President and US Attorney General Pam Bondi of a cover up. The President has called the scandal a hoax by the Democrats.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's a hoax. It's a hoax.

[Adam Curry]

Hoax.

[John C. Dvorak]

And so of course he keeps telling everybody to look at the coup.

[Adam Curry]

What's the hoax part? I don't mind him calling what the Democrats doing a hoax, but what specifically is a hoax here?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, from the way I listen and hear the president something in the papers is a Hoax. The papers are a hoax. It's a hoax is the list. It's a hoax. It's all a hoax. I don't know, and I don't think we will ever really know. I did dig up very short, unfortunately, in the archives, because the accusation against former President Obama is that he led a coup. And the way he led that coup. If you listen to Tulsi Gabbard's endless yakking.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, man.

[John C. Dvorak]

On every. She's.

[Adam Curry]

On every show, there's that sigh.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I'll just have an apple in my room. Every single show. What she's really saying is that the intelligence community came with an ica, an intelligence community assessment, and said, well, there's really no there, there. And then President Obama said, you voted wrong. Go back and get me another assessment. And this was admitted by the dumbo Clapper. And this is him back in the day on Tapper show for President Obama.

[Adam Curry]

We might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did. That set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today.

[John C. Dvorak]

President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to.

[Adam Curry]

Do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.

[John C. Dvorak]

There's Clapper.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, that's a clip of the day. Give yourself a round of applause for digging up a historical clip of the day. That was a winner.

[John C. Dvorak]

How good is that?

[Adam Curry]

That's outstanding. No one has played that clip. That is the best thing that we've done for weeks.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, well, I want to mention we've done other great things. We have. Definitely.

[Adam Curry]

Now, that's the best right there.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, come on. Your tip of the day about mellow leather was good.

[Adam Curry]

Leather, honey. Mellow leather, whatever. That's. That's a soft drink. I think so. So there's something that's bothering me about this whole thing because they're always going, they're making a big fuss about, oh, the intelligence community's corrupt, and these guys are, you know, they're making a big fuss. It seems to me that I don't understand why the pundits out there and the people doing this analysis don't say what's actually happened. The intelligence community. And I'm not here to defend them, but they did their job. They said there's no collusion going on. And it was Brennan who was. Who's. Yeah, he was a part of the intelligence community in a certain way, but he was running the agency and he was a political guy, and who knows? And no one has still ever asked him if he's a Muslim or not. Which really irks me because if you look up, go to all the AI.

[John C. Dvorak]

And ask him, no, I'm not going to any AI. I'm not going to the AI.

[Adam Curry]

Don't go anywhere and try to find out whether he's a Muslim. You find that there's evidence that he is, but they all deny it. And no reporter has ever said, hey, just. Just to clear up the record, are you a Muslim? Because they say that when you were in Saudi Arabia as a station chief in Riyadh, you took the oath to uphold the, you know, the tenets of Islam. Yes or no? It's not a big deal. Just ask him. No one's done it. But this guy's the one who. He was the corrupt character there in. In front of that was running the agency. The agency was doing the field people. The people that were the anal doing their job. They kept reporting back, no, this is bullcrap. Nothing's going on with Russia.

[John C. Dvorak]

Right?

[Adam Curry]

And they said, well, you better get me a report. He handpicked a couple of guys that would do his bidding. And this is not the. You can't blame intelligence community for this.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I don't think they're any good.

[Adam Curry]

Well, that. That's different.

[John C. Dvorak]

Dan Bongino posted a shocking, shocking, shocking memo on X. This is how the headlines advertise it. I shall read it for you. Shocking. I shall read it for you verbatim. During my tenure here as the Deputy Director of the FBI.

[Adam Curry]

Great. Yeah, I'm glad you got this.

[John C. Dvorak]

I have repeatedly relayed to you that things are happening that might not be immediately visible, but they are happening. The Director and I are committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations. It is a priority for us. But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters has shocked me down to my core. We cannot run a republic like this. I will never be the same after learning what I've learned. We are going to conduct these righteous and proper investigations by the book. That, by the way, is exactly what Susan Rice wrote down in her cover your ass.

[Adam Curry]

I think that's a. I think that's a callback to that.

[John C. Dvorak]

And in accordance with the law, we are going to get the answers we all deserve. As with any investigation, I cannot predict where it will land. But I can promise you an honest and dignified effort at truth. Not my truth or your truth, but the truth. God bless America and all those who defend her code. Bungino, what is that.

[Adam Curry]

That was nuts. I saw that.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's not so great.

[Adam Curry]

All caps, by the way.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah. A lot of all caps in there. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know. I think he's getting a lot of pressure.

[John C. Dvorak]

You think?

[Adam Curry]

And to go back to podcasting. Go back to podcasting where you belong kind of thing, where he was doing very well.

[John C. Dvorak]

He was great. Code bongino. Everyone. No, everyone knows it. It still. It still gives you a discount on many websites.

[Adam Curry]

And I, as of a month or so ago, thought that that's where he's headed. He was headed back to the biz. But I think this is maybe his rationale. His rationale to stick around and be a desk jockey, which is what he is.

[John C. Dvorak]

So Mike Baker was on Joe's show. Mike Baker, a, quote, former CIA operative, isn't that.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, Mike Baker is to me. Because he took over that job. I finally strained him.

[John C. Dvorak]

Presidential daily briefing.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. And it. He's. It's. It's lame by comparison to what it was originally with the other guy.

[John C. Dvorak]

Why did he. Why did he take over? What is that about?

[Adam Curry]

Because the other guy, to some things were. Some. I had not to go back to my notes to figure out why the other guy.

[John C. Dvorak]

I know what it is. Hey, give me that. Give me that thing. Give me that briefing thing. What's out of your mouth?

[Adam Curry]

No, I don't think that was it. The other guy was being. It was sold by some other guys. It's like one of these operations. It's like Beck or somebody owns it. Not Beck, but somebody like Beck. And I think Mike Baker is central casting more than he is a spook. Well, I mean, he. He just looks the party. He looks like Pierce Brosnan. I mean, he's got a. He's got a look to him that is just like, oh, okay, I'm a spy.

[John C. Dvorak]

What are those other two guys? What's his name? The guy with the big braids, you know, the big poofy hair. He said he's, you know, he. He is a former a. What is his name? Everyday spy.com is Andrew Bustamante.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, yeah, Bustamante. That guy. I don't know.

[John C. Dvorak]

F and G right there. Fake and gay. G. H E Y. And he was talking to another guy with the same hair.

[Adam Curry]

It's a hair club for men.

[John C. Dvorak]

It totally is. Some kind of hair club for men. Anyway, so Mike Baker's on. On Joe's show. I get to say Joe, you know Joe, My buddy Joe. Joe.

[Adam Curry]

And you haven't gotten to Joey Yet.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, no, no, no. There's. There's no Joey in Joe. We don't do that. And so that's, of course. And Joe has him on for obvious reasons. It's the perfect time for that, for Baker to come on, because, you know, we all trust Baker. But Baker made an interesting point.

[Adam Curry]

The reality is, in terms of recruiting an asset, recruiting an asset by using blackmail is tough, right? That window starts closing immediately, right? In terms of their operational usefulness, right? Because there's a lot of. There's a lot of issues there, right?

[John C. Dvorak]

You're right. When someone says right like that all the time, that just means bull crap to me, Right, Right, right, right. Like any Silicon Valley guy, this is really the future, right? This is really. This is going to change the whole world, right?

[Adam Curry]

That window starts closing immediately, right? In terms of their operational use, right? Because there's a lot of. There's a lot of issues there, right? You're. You're blackmailing somebody for their cooperation. At some point, that's gonna go south on you, right? It's not like you've recruited somebody for ideological reasons, right? Or even something as straightforward as, like, they need the money because their kid's sick or whatever it may be. So blackmails. But having said that, look, the Russians in particular love that, right?

[John C. Dvorak]

Now, listen, okay, so I didn't even realize how many times he says, right, which is now annoying me to no end.

[Adam Curry]

It should.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, it's really bad. But what he does here is he and I. This feels a bit like a setup to me. And I think that there's some validity to that, that, you know, to comp. To turn someone to become an asset with blackmail may indeed not be a very secure way. It may be a great way to get someone to change their vote, to.

[Adam Curry]

Vote a certain way, a certain way.

[John C. Dvorak]

And I don't know if we're really talking about turning people into assets, right? But he brings up Russia at least five times, and I think it was subliminal, right?

[Adam Curry]

But having said that, look, the Russians in particular love that, right? And Chinese intel, they'll do whatever works from their perspective, you know, the Agency, again, people are going to say that's bullshit. The Agency tries. They. The blackmail is white.

[John C. Dvorak]

Now I've got to dissect this guy. Now, why would he say people are going to say that's bullshit? I didn't think that. Did you think that right away?

[Adam Curry]

No. Stutter with stammered. They, they, they, they. They. He's like all. He's wound up.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, he is.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, they'll do whatever works from their perspective, you know, the Agency, again, people are going to say that's bullshit. The agency tries. They. The blackmail is never really ever on the table as an option because it always leads to a problem. And sometimes those problems can be very, very bad.

[John C. Dvorak]

In what way?

[Adam Curry]

What do you mean? Well, you know, the asset will turn on you, right? Next thing they know, you've got an agent working now, a double agent working for the other side, right? Because they're just, they're so fucked over by the fact that they've been blackmailed and at some point they lose their shit, they decide to roll for the other side.

[John C. Dvorak]

Aren't you constantly monitoring them and looking at their phone?

[Adam Curry]

There's only so much, no, there's only so much you can do in terms of maintaining, particularly with a hard target, particularly with an asset who's in a difficult or challenging environment. And you've got limited access to them, whatever it may be. So you're really relying on clandestine communications. You don't have a lot of face to face meetings. And at some point you never know when things are heading south. Right. And then the next thing you know, look, you know. So that's the operational reason for trying to avoid blackmail, Right. Has it ever been done? Well, sure, yeah. I mean, I'm not saying it hasn't been done, of course, but some services go to it much quicker than others do. Yeah, and which services? Well, again, the Russians are primary users of something like that. They don't because they've got a shotgun approach. Israelis have been known to, to do that and the honeypot operations that they'll do and other things. But the Russians throw a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks. Right. It's a very much a shotgun approach.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know. He said Russia. Too much for my liking, he said.

[Adam Curry]

Right. Too much for my liking. He's stammering now. It's possible that he's. I mean, when you hear a guy present like that, he's, he might still be working for the CIA or someone because he seems to be. I think that pattern of that style is that you're constantly worried that you're going to say something you shouldn't say. And I think that's what accounts for the stammering, which is a way of stalling without slowing down, because he can't seem to slow down. He's all jacked up on something. So it was basically a meaningless discussion.

[John C. Dvorak]

Right, Right. And the coincidence of him.

[Adam Curry]

We learned nothing. We learned nothing from that. Discussion. Except that maybe blackmail is not the to go well.

[John C. Dvorak]

And I, I'm, I'm thinking, who's he covering for? Reasonable.

[Adam Curry]

Who's been blackmailed? Has he been blackmailed? Someone's been blackmailed in this.

[John C. Dvorak]

Someone's being black. Someone's being black holed somewhere. I mean, blackmailed. Mistake with cornhole. Yeah. The whole thing is, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if we'll ever know. It's all so disappointing that that's just the bottom line.

[Adam Curry]

That's the name of the game. It's disappointing, just disappointing.

[John C. Dvorak]

I was talking to Tina about that. You know, it's like 17 and a half years before, seven years before I even knew you, I was all in on this stuff. This is going to be great. We're going to learn so much. It's all going to come out in the wash. Nothing ever, ever, ever. And, and really, the, the biggest psyop that's been going on since I'd say 2019, which is still going on today, is XRP ripple. XRP. I mean, you may not recall, but I think I brought it up on the show, probably jokingly, even at the time. Like, look, I know a guy, he's involved with all this money and the money's all going into xrp. They have quantum networks. They have off world servers, you know.

[Adam Curry]

On the mobile servers.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's world servers. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

And they're on the moon.

[John C. Dvorak]

And to this day, people are still, oh, no, XRP is going to a thousand. Yeah. So like. And that has been around so long. It's all these kinds of things. But the, the, it's quant, it's quantum finances. You don't understand. This is the stuff you don't get, okay? Quantum finances.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. The term you don't get it was very prevalent in the late 90s.

[John C. Dvorak]

With what, under what circumstance?

[Adam Curry]

The new economy. That's what I was doing.

[John C. Dvorak]

New economy, yes. You don't get it, man. This is the new economy, okay?

[Adam Curry]

This is a whole new thing. I was doing the show Silicon Spin and these guys would come on and they were intelligent CEOs and they had these crackpot ideas and they were going on and on and I would say, and I'd be questioning them as best I could and they say, well, you just don't get it. Because of the new economy.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. If things are going to change.

[Adam Curry]

Clicks and mortar, man. Clicks and mortar.

[John C. Dvorak]

Clicks and mortar. Clicks and mortar. I forgot about that one. What other buzzwords did we have back in the Day.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, I did a whole column of them. I have to go dig. I should dig it up. It's from the late 90s, and it has, like a hundred of them, and there was just one after the other. They had nothing. It was buzzword. It was the buzzword bonanza of the late 90s. It was fabulous. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

So I gotta just. You wanna take a.

[John C. Dvorak]

Sorry.

[Adam Curry]

Walk down an interesting topic.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

This is about the post office. I have some post office clips, but I wanna start it off with an ask.

[John C. Dvorak]

Adam, Another thing I was completely unprepared for.

[Adam Curry]

Okay. I got you on your heels.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, Vivek, here it is. All right. Okay, I'm ready.

[Adam Curry]

Now answer the question. All right. Okay. First, play the Ask Adam question and I'll ask you the question. On this day, 250 years ago, the Continental Congress appointed the first Postmaster General of the United States.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, 250 years ago, who was it? The first. Paul Revere.

[Adam Curry]

Nice try.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let me think. The first Postmaster General.

[Adam Curry]

Don't look it up.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I'm not looking it up. I'm. Who do you take me for?

[Adam Curry]

Right, right.

[John C. Dvorak]

Because it seems like it's probably going to be something very obvious 250 years ago. So that was before the Declaration of. Before the.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it was right about the same time as the Declaration.

[John C. Dvorak]

I have no idea. I presume you have it in the answer.

[Adam Curry]

Yep. On this date, 250 years ago, the Continental Congress appointed the first Postmaster General.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of the United States, Benjamin Franklin Ahmed. Somehow I could have known that.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know how, because I could have known it, too, because when I heard it, that's where I came with the Ask Adam.

[John C. Dvorak]

Because it feels so logical for some reason. It feels logical.

[Adam Curry]

There's some logic to it. But then there's some ill logic to it, and I was kind of taken aback enough to put that up, so. Just to embarrass you so that you don't know anything.

[John C. Dvorak]

And the thing is, I don't feel embarrassed at all. So. Failed.

[Adam Curry]

It's funny. Absolutely funny how that works.

[John C. Dvorak]

I did not. Did not at all feel embarrassed. All right.

[Adam Curry]

Post Office now is. Oh, they're. You know. Because Trump is a problem with the Post office.

[John C. Dvorak]

Why is he a problem with the Post?

[Adam Curry]

He wants to privatize it. And this is.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no, no, no. I mean, you don't. You have to change the Constitution, or.

[Adam Curry]

At least basically have to change the Constitution, but, you know, it's just, you know. But you. There's workarounds and they're thinking about them. And it's just like, no, don't mess with it. The post office is fine. But let's play these clips. There's three clips here that kind of give us what's going on. Currently, David Steiner is the latest person.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is Scott like, is he on the vacation shift or the summer shift?

[Adam Curry]

We have Saturday clips. He's on Saturday. He runs Saturday.

[John C. Dvorak]

We have not heard him for weeks. And here he is not in two series.

[Adam Curry]

David Steiner is the latest person to hold the office. He is the 77th Postmaster General. Before taking office last week, he served on the board of FedEx. Personal detail that reignites some worries about.

[John C. Dvorak]

Postal reforms that some fear could limit.

[Adam Curry]

Or end rural mail service. The Midwest Newsroom's Nick Loomis has more on that. And a note. USPS is a financial supporter of npr. Gwen Smith walks from her front door to her mailbox and back six days a week. It's about a quarter mile.

[NPR Reporter]

I would say it's a relatively short trip to the mailbox for us rural folks.

[Adam Curry]

She lives outside Scottsbluff, Nebraska, with her husband, Allen, who is recovering from surgery for liver cancer. He also suffers from diabetes, arthritis and the lingering effects of West Nile virus. The former Navy corpsman gets most of his medications through the mail from Veterans Affairs.

[NPR Reporter]

We got a parcel Lenape bill.

[Adam Curry]

Former Postmaster General Louis Dejoy curtailed rural mail service with his Delivering for America plan, which he introduced in 2021 to stem annual losses in the billions. Still, the deficits persist and mail delivery is slower due to a reduction in work hours, collection time changes and the consolidation of processing facilities. Alan Smith worries about those changes and cuts made to many other government programs.

[John C. Dvorak]

It feels to me like it's coming at me right and left. They're trying to destroy everything that supports me staying alive and functioning.

[Adam Curry]

President Trump has suggested privatizing the Postal Service in both of his terms. Most recently, he has said it could be brought under the Department of Commerce. Congress set up the agency to be independent of the White House in 1971, and undoing that would require further legislation. Even though this Congress has mostly adhered to Trump's agenda, the Postal Service is a touchy political subject for lawmakers from rural states like Republican Congressman Mike Flood of Nebraska. Can it be modernized? Absolutely. Should it be privatized? I'd have to be sold on what the plan was before we went anywhere near that, because I know people in rural Nebraska rely on the Postal Service in its current form. And currently the Postal Service self finances and generally does not count on tax dollars to fill its budget gaps.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't really understand why the Postal Service is always under fire.

[Adam Curry]

It says it self finances. They're not even using taxpayer money. When I heard that part of it, besides the other parts of that crazy clip is I'm thinking, why not?

[John C. Dvorak]

I mean, the government costs us money. We all know it. Everything costs money.

[Adam Curry]

But they're always throwing money away on USAID for, for, you know, gay sex in Guatemala and they can't pay the. For the post office's deficit.

[John C. Dvorak]

Gay sex?

[Adam Curry]

Makes no sense to me.

[John C. Dvorak]

Gay sex in Guatemala. Was that really a line item in the usaid?

[Adam Curry]

I think it was, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'll have to check Doge. Okay. Yeah. It just. It seems like they. The only thing it can be is somebody wants to give somebody a benny by privatizing, I. E. Giving it to some other company. That's what it's all about.

[Adam Curry]

Scam afoot.

[John C. Dvorak]

And, and that's what's happened all over Europe. You know, DHL has taken over a lot of the. The postal services around. Around the world, actually, you know. Oh, they can do it much more efficiently. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

They can't. What makes them more efficient?

[John C. Dvorak]

Nothing. They just charge more.

[Adam Curry]

You see?

[John C. Dvorak]

Do you see what it costs to send something with FedEx?

[Adam Curry]

Oh, the FedEx is out of control. What used to be like, I think it was $6, $8, the letters, which was still pricey. It's like 25 bucks.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Just for afternoon delivery. Yeah. It's no good. All right. Post Office 2.

[Adam Curry]

Elenda Patel of the Brookings Institution says it might be time to reconsider that because it provides a public service.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Bring in a think tank. Okay.

[NPR Reporter]

We should be willing to compensate the Postal Service for doing that, and we do not. Currently we don't come offsetting the costs of the USO for the Postal Service.

[Adam Curry]

USO is the universal service obligation which requires the postal service to deliver to every address in the US Six days a week, even those on long distance, low density, rural routes that don't generate much revenue. Patel says those costs would likely shift to taxpayers if the USO continued under privatization.

[NPR Reporter]

I think that people in the administration think this is the right thing to do. I'm not sure that the American people or American business owners think that.

[Adam Curry]

She says the exceptions might be private shipping companies and their investors. In February, Wells Fargo wrote a report outlining, among other things, how mail and parcel delivery could be divvied up among the government and private companies like FedEx and UPS. A Wells Fargo spokesperson said in a statement that it was not recommending privatization. However, the American Postal Workers Union thought the report was controversial enough to release an ad about it. This is the Wall street memo that the White House doesn't want you to see a path to privatization of the Post office. Union president Mark Diminstein says the timing of the ad coincides with the 250th anniversary of the Postal Service and the arrival of the new Postmaster General, David Steiner, whose appointment was backed by Trump, as reported by the Washington Post. It's the old saying, you know, the fox guarding the hen house. Steiner left the board of FedEx to take the job, but a securities and Exchange Commission filing shows he retained company stock worth millions.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, no. Scoundrel.

[Adam Curry]

He's gonna sell the stock, but it's beside the point. That's bull crap. You know, you. I, I've always argued this. You know, if you worry. I worked for an oil refinery and then I worked for the air pollution district inspecting refineries. And all it meant was that I now was on the other side of the fence and I knew a lot. So, I mean, I knew more than I, than someone who's never worked at a refinery. It's. It's a benefit that it was better.

[John C. Dvorak]

What was the. The original. Back in Ben's days, what was the original charter of the Postal Service? What was the idea?

[Adam Curry]

The idea was it was important to have a society that had communications, that was kind of franchised by the government. So everyone was assured that if you had to get a hold of somebody or send somebody something or male obligations or whatever it was for communications purposes. That was the.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you. No, thank you. This is good. It wasn't about your Amazon packages. It wasn't about your beef box. It wasn't even about your phone book. Remember those? It was really about a private communication service.

[Adam Curry]

And that's why it would benefit the country.

[John C. Dvorak]

And that's why there's such heavy regulation on tampering with the US Mail. You can't go opening up people's envelopes.

[Adam Curry]

Right. It's illegal.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's illegal. So.

[Adam Curry]

And they'd love to get rid of that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, what if the US and this would. I would be all for this. What if the US Postal Service modernized for give all the packages to FedEx and Amazon and UPS and whatever. It's fine. You know. You know, figure that out because actually, I think the returns probably kill everybody. But what if the US Postal Service ran an email service that was. And they made it easy for everybody to encrypt their messages? On their side. So none of this like, oh, don't worry, we'll encrypt it in the cloud. None of that. Just encrypt it on your side. And once someone has, you know, so you have. If you want to. If I want to send you an email, I have to have your public key. They could provide that directory service so you can easily find someone's public key and then you can receive it, and we can have true secure communications. And at the same time, with the brand new stablecoin, they charge a very nominal fee for sending a message to someone, which would do two things. One, it would, in theory, provide a real secure communication service. And this can be done. I believe that it can be done without the government still spying on you.

[Adam Curry]

And two, the government wants to spy on you, but continue.

[John C. Dvorak]

And two, it would reduce spam, because spam would then become unprofitable. And even if it was just for bull crap, I would love to have an email box that works with. You know, so if I send 100 emails, I might wind up spending 10 cents. You know, it's fractional. You know, it's digital. So you can take your stable coin and you can break it down into little stable coinlets or whatever we're going.

[Adam Curry]

To call it pennies.

[John C. Dvorak]

No less than you need. It has to be less than pennies.

[Adam Curry]

Well, a stable coin is supposed to represent a dollar.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, but a. But a fraction. You should.

[Adam Curry]

Well, that would be like representing a penny. Okay, Boomer, is it going to get small? Is it going to get smaller than that? Is that what you're saying? Half a penny?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. How about a hundredth of a penny? Of course, that's the whole beauty of digital money. And that way, at least we could have a functioning email system, which would be reasonably secured. At least. You know, the only one who could be spying on you is the government. It would be. Google is worse. You won't get advertisements through it. I'm just thinking that would. That would be a great way to replace the U.S. postal system. Get it off our books. Get all the other stuff. Get, you know, privatize. Don't privatize it. Just here. We're not doing it anymore, you guys. By the way, you'll see them all go, oh, what? You're not. What? We don't get government contract. No, you got to do it yourself. I would be all for that. I think that would revolutionize interpersonal communications.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it would, but it's not going to happen. The FBI'd be against it. Everybody be against it?

[John C. Dvorak]

Who runs this country, the people or the FBI?

[Adam Curry]

It ain't the people.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, well, I think it's a platform I could run on.

[Adam Curry]

You could. I mean, I think it'd pay up to a penny.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, that'd be fine.

[Adam Curry]

Pay a penny, a message, if I knew it was going to get through instead of getting just blocked and spammed and thrown into junk mail like the news.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, hold on. Let me ask you the question. So if it's a penny, which is what you are advocating for, instead of my fraction of a penny, and you're sending out 30,000 newsletters, how much will that cost you? Per newsletter?

[Adam Curry]

A penny. A newsletter?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, per person. A penny.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

So how many dollars is that? $300.

[Adam Curry]

301. It'd be 100. No, it'd be $30.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no, it would be 300. Yeah, it'd be $300.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

You still like your penny, or do you like my fraction of a penny idea better?

[Adam Curry]

Well, for 300 bucks, if I could. Well, I would actually say for 300 bucks, it'd be worth it to get the rate doubled. So we'd bring in twice as much in donations. It would be worth the 300 bucks, easy.

[John C. Dvorak]

There you go. I've proven my point.

[Adam Curry]

No, you haven't.

[John C. Dvorak]

I've proven something. You wouldn't have to pay mailchimp. You could just have your own email server. Mailchimp. Cost us at least, what, a hundred bucks a month? At least.

[Adam Curry]

Try 400.

[John C. Dvorak]

Holy mackerel. 400amonth for Mailchimp?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And you know why? It's because they have to pay the whitelisting services so you can even get through to Gmail and Yahoo and AOL or whatever else is out there.

[Adam Curry]

AOL?

[John C. Dvorak]

Prodigy. So you got their Prodigy mail. CompuServe. Yeah. Anyway, that was just an idea. Just a free idea from Adam for the government to fix everything to stop this nonsense and stop. And get. Get Scott Simon back to drinking margaritas on the weekend. Clip number three.

[Adam Curry]

The Postal Service Board of Governors chairwoman told NPR that Steiner is in the process of divesting from, quote, prohibited stocks. And in his first message to postal workers, Steiner tried. Stop, Stop. Why did he have to say, quote?

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know. It's what you.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, he's going to divest from, quote, prohibited stocks. Why didn't he just say they have to divest from prohibited stocks? There's no reason for to say, quote. Is it like some sort of a. It's like air quotes, and he's like, oh, prohibit is bull crap. It's a scam. That's what it implies.

[John C. Dvorak]

Maybe the guy said it that way. That's the way I took it. Let's listen again.

[Adam Curry]

The postal don't think so.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let's listen again.

[Adam Curry]

The Postal Service Board of Governors chairwoman told NPR that Steiner is in the process of divesting from, quote, prohibited stocks. And in his first message to postal workers, Steiner tried to dispel rumors about the changes he would bring.

[John C. Dvorak]

First, I do not believe that the.

[Adam Curry]

Postal Service should be privatized or that it should become an appropriated part of the federal government. Postal unions say they welcome the statement, but we'll be watching Steiner's actions. Rural customers will likely do the same. For NPR News, I'm Nick Loomis in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm thinking, so the whole story was bogus?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, of course it was.

[Adam Curry]

It starts with a bunch of stuff and then it ends with the guy saying, no, that's not gonna happen. Why are you even doing the story? Is what he should have finished with.

[John C. Dvorak]

Because they got a 400, $100,000 a year guy sitting on his butt drinking margaritas on the weekend. They got to get Scott Simon out to do some work.

[Adam Curry]

Unbelievable.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think I should lobby to be the next postmaster general. I would. It would be so easy. Shut it down. You can take all of our employees. They're good employees. They're good guys. Good guys and good gals.

[Adam Curry]

And actually, I'd say, I'd say 99% of them are. I agree.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, definitely. I love our mail carrier.

[Adam Curry]

They're like the people at the post office. They're very friendly.

[John C. Dvorak]

They not all, but most of they are here.

[Adam Curry]

Not all. There's always one. We used to have a post office.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wait for it.

[Adam Curry]

Wait for it, wait for it.

[John C. Dvorak]

I would be the Podmaster general.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, I'm going to skip that story. Let's do what else we got here. Oh, here's an interesting thing. Since I got most of these NPR clips, you have to listen to this. NPR beeped. This is a very short clip and I'm scratching my head over this one. Okay, a quick warning. There are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, this American Life. Org.

[John C. Dvorak]

What beeps? Well, this must be the podcast. This wasn't over the air, I presume.

[Adam Curry]

They do not Was taken off the Internet, but it was on on a website that streams the over the air feed. Well, but I guess I didn't. They never played that show anyway, so I couldn't tell if they were cussing or not. And what is what? What did they bleep and why?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, why didn't you investigate? Why didn't you do it?

[Adam Curry]

And I just, I thought that was good enough right there. I did all the work I felt like doing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Are you trying to just get as many NPR clips as possible before they fold? It's all going to go away.

[Adam Curry]

It's not going to go away because here, since you stuck me on this NPR new donation ad, it's not going to go away. With ads like this, federal funding for public media has been eliminated. That means decades of bipartisan support for public radio and television is ending. To be clear, NPR isn't going anywhere. But we do need your support. Please give today to help keep rigorous, independent and irreplaceable news coverage available to everybody free of charge. You can make your [e-mail] and thank you.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you. Yes. Well, that's a horrible ad.

[Adam Curry]

These ads. I'd say half of the programming hour at these ads.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's a horrible ask. It's not a way to ask. It's no good. It's no good.

[Adam Curry]

All right. Balls in your court.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, well, in that case, I'll go to my favorite topic. We know that there's already a pivot to quantum computing because.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, God, you're not going to go there.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, I'm sorry. Let's do more npr.

[Adam Curry]

No, go to Quantum. But you're going to hear a lot of moaning and groaning.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, well, this is only about the facts.

[NPR Reporter]

Another heat wave this week as COMED customers in the Chicago area bear not only rising temperatures, but sky high electric bills, some reporting paying double what they were billed last month. On June 1, a supply rate increase took effect due to a spike in the wholesale cost of electricity and supply charge, as well as increased energy use in the region. One reason for that increase, we're also seeing nationally, but also in Illinois, the.

[Adam Curry]

Effect of increasing demand on the grid.

[NPR Reporter]

From technologies that have nothing to do with cooling people off has to do with providing services related to artificial intelligence or AI. So data centers that we see building.

[Adam Curry]

Out across the nation, we are not going to be operating quantum computers, at least not yet. We're going to be delivering power to them.

[NPR Reporter]

Just yesterday, the CEO of ComEd spoke at the Global Quantum Forum in Illinois, referencing the future demand of electricity at the Illinois Quantum Microelectronics Park.

[Adam Curry]

Quantum computers need to be kept at temperatures near Absolute zero to ensure stability.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of qubits cubits, we have to ensure the stability of the qubits. Turn off your air conditioners near absolute.

[Adam Curry]

Zero to ensure the stability of qubits. That requires a lot of electricity. In fact, ComEd's nation leading reliability was a key factor in Psy Quantum's decision to be the anchor tenant of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park. This is, this is the D. This shows you how dumb they are in some parts of this country.

[John C. Dvorak]

The Chicago. This is Darren's backyard.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, but this has happened. This has happened. Couple of points. One, you think that maybe the grid is being taxed by electrical vehicles that are constantly hooked to it, sucking energy off to fill their tanks? No, it's got nothing to do with it. Also, quantum computing, if it could ever be shown to work as opposed to faked, it uses like 1 quintillion amount as much. It could do 1 quintillion more than a regular computer. So thus overall it should require 1 quintillion less in terms of power. Once it achieves it seems to me it should use like a 9 volt battery. Should keep it going. You are talking for all the work it can do.

[John C. Dvorak]

You are talking against the narrative of Silicon Valley, my friend. This is not how. That's how technology used to work. Today if you wanted to do more, you've got to pay more. It's got to be more expensive, got to suck more power.

[Adam Curry]

So the basic old school of Silicon Valley was things got broken. Yeah, cheaper and faster and cheaper and faster and smaller. Smaller, cheaper, faster. Every generation was smaller, it was cheaper, it was faster. But now.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I think Apple showed us that that's not the way. Every new iPhone is more expensive, ruins your battery quicker and you've got to upgrade sooner. They. They flipped the script on this. I know. I mean, I'm with you, obviously. I mean I still have a TRS 100 that runs on two AA's.

[Adam Curry]

TRS 1, the TRS 100, I didn't use much juice.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, it only had a 8 line LCD display, but man, it could do basic. I've actually been doing some deep dives.

[Adam Curry]

Oh God.

[John C. Dvorak]

There is a resurgence. Are you ready for this?

[Adam Curry]

Because I'm already sensing what you're going to say. Okay, tell me a resurgence in old junk.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no.

[Adam Curry]

People finding old TRS8001 hundreds and they're repurposing them.

[John C. Dvorak]

If only. No, I want to run Linux. I want to run ubuntu on my TRS 100.

[Adam Curry]

That's that's what I would think. People want to run ubuntu on a TRS 100. No.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, there's, there's, you know, AI. Let's just call it AI. Large language models. It turns out that it's pretty much the same basic principles going back to 1958, when a guy named John McCarthy invented. Take it away, John.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know what. Well, John McCarthy. There's two schools. Before you go on this into this, I'm going to say this one thing, and I know what you're doing, but John McCarthy was on the wrong side of history. There were two schools of thought when it came to AI. And every time the John McCarthy side had its moment, which was including the 80s, they all failed because it was mostly machine learning and it didn't really have anything to do with anything. And the counter to that was always neural networks, which could never work. It's neural networks that are working today that make AI what it is, that can do the art and all the rest of it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Interestingly enough, there is a resurgent in Lisp programming because they can't seem to get the AI going any further than it is today.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, we'll see.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm just telling you there was, there was a whole conference.

[Adam Curry]

Not Lisp. Programming.

[John C. Dvorak]

Lisp.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, my.

[Adam Curry]

All. The. All. Everyone's all time favorite.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm just telling you that this. They just had a worldwide conference. The. The AI guys are going back to list because they can't seem to get the neural networks doing any intelligence for other than the neural networks, which is giving you, you know, your Scaramanga, his, his eight second videos and Darren o' Neill his orange images.

[Adam Curry]

And I would like to say, by the way, I have a comment on the orange images. I would suggest that somebody show. Use Lisp and create some of the art that Darren creates with just a few prompts.

[John C. Dvorak]

What? Did you not hear what I just said? That the, the neural networks, they are definitely responsible. I'll say it again, for Scaramanga's eight second video.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I know.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm saying.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, and if. I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying is that if the Lisp is so good that we can go back to it, I want to see it produce some art as good as Scaramangus.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, they want to use Lisp for the reasoning and for the recursive. Yes, I'm telling you, I'm not.

[Adam Curry]

Well, that's insanity.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm reporting it to you. I'm not like advocating for it.

[Adam Curry]

You were. You. Well, you might as well be.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, you're insufferable sometimes.

[Adam Curry]

I am. I'm totally insufferable. It's pathetic.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, you know what? The number one language is. Is being used currently today for. For artificial intelligence. Large language models. Not for your image crap. Do you know what it is? The number one language?

[Adam Curry]

You got me.

[John C. Dvorak]

Python.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, that doesn't surprise me. Which is lame by comparison to list.

[John C. Dvorak]

Exactly. This is exactly why they're going back to it. It's. It's fascinating to see.

[Adam Curry]

Why don't they go back to small talk? Apple talk.

[John C. Dvorak]

Novell networks. Now that was a technology. I tell you.

[Adam Curry]

Now we sound like a couple of farts.

[John C. Dvorak]

So I've decided I'm Ben X. That is my new generation. I am not Gen X. I am Ben X.

[Adam Curry]

Anyway, what's Ben? Ben. Ben what?

[John C. Dvorak]

Ben the B for boomer. Ben X. Oh, that's interesting. Thank you.

[Adam Curry]

I think Boom X would be better. No.

[John C. Dvorak]

So Sam Altman are very tortured. Tortured. Multimillionaire fiend. I don't know if he's a. How do you want. You'd say you should.

[Adam Curry]

Isn't he part of that sex cult?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, you're.

[Adam Curry]

Am I conflating a bunch of different people?

[John C. Dvorak]

You're thinking of the FTX guy. You're thinking of Sam Bankman. Fried.

[Adam Curry]

No, no, I'm not thinking of. No, I'm thinking about this. The other. The group that's still running around here that is sex oriented and.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, the. What were they called again? The.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, them.

[John C. Dvorak]

Those guys. Someone in the. In the troll room should know what it is.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Okay, continue talking. I worry about later.

[John C. Dvorak]

Sam Altman, he. He's doing some pre promotion for model five. Model five, everybody. I mean, listen, we just need another trillion dollars once we have more compute. AI is. AI is really effective altruism. Thank very much. Maxibility.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, effective altruism.

[John C. Dvorak]

Altruism. No, he's the opposite of that. Because now he went all in on. On commercialism. He wants to get filthy rich now. Remember, they're trying to spin all that up.

[Adam Curry]

Who doesn't?

[John C. Dvorak]

Exactly.

[Adam Curry]

Sam.

[John C. Dvorak]

Sam Altman is doing just fine. So Sam needs to explain to everybody that if we just get a little more money, it will. It will really be smart. It's going to. It's blowing me away. I'm telling you. So where would you go?

[Adam Curry]

Hey. I have to say that no one has said this. I'm going to say it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

It turns out that Sam Altman is one of the greatest salespeople in the history of sales. And no one recognizes the simple fact he is really good at sales.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think his pitch is getting old because still works.

[Adam Curry]

He's still getting money.

[John C. Dvorak]

He does it. Yes, but he does.

[Adam Curry]

I mean to you, you're like, you know, you can see this but most people can't.

[John C. Dvorak]

I see right through it. I mean the guy is clearly lying. You know, he's just sitting there like he's lying. He's lying.

[Adam Curry]

Salesman lying.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh no. So he goes on of all podcasts if you really want to reach the masses. Theo Vaughn. This was, this is a fantastic podcast because, and I didn't clip this, but a certain point, Theo Vaughn says, do you think, don't you think it's kind of like old fashioned for women to have babies? I mean, shouldn't we just have them in vats? You know, and Sam almost like, yeah, you know, obviously we'd have much better humans. Obviously. So no. Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. You didn't clip that.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, it was too creepy. And anyway, so here's his pre sale. These are two very short clips. Here's his Pre sale of Model 5. But what it comes with, what are you, what do you fear? Sam? And Sam is, you know, what, what's like one of your fears?

[Adam Curry]

Like what's a fear you have of AI? Like if you have like a fearful space that it could go like. I know you mentioned a little bit.

[John C. Dvorak]

This morning I was testing our new model and I got a question, I.

[Adam Curry]

Got emailed a question that I didn't quite understand and I put it in.

[John C. Dvorak]

The model this GPT5 and it answered it perfectly. And I really kind of sat back in my chair and I was just like, oh man, here it is.

[Adam Curry]

Moment.

[John C. Dvorak]

And I got over it quickly.

[Adam Curry]

I got busy onto the next thing.

[John C. Dvorak]

But it was like, I mean it's.

[Adam Curry]

What kind of we're talking about. I felt like useless relative to the AI in this thing that I felt like I should have been able to.

[John C. Dvorak]

Do and I couldn't and it was really hard. But the AI just didn't like that. Yeah, it was, it was a weird feeling. Yeah. Model 5, GPT5.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, I'm smelling ketamine.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's probably true. I like that. So then we get his actual fear, which he doesn't know how to solve. Another thing I'm afraid of. And we had a, you know.

[Adam Curry]

We.

[John C. Dvorak]

Had a, you know, a real problem.

[Adam Curry]

With this earlier, but it can get much worse.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is just what this is going to mean for users.

[Adam Curry]

Mental health. There's a lot of people that talk to ChatGPT all day long.

[John C. Dvorak]

There are these sort of new AI.

[Adam Curry]

Companions that people talk to like they would a girlfriend or a boyfriend.

[John C. Dvorak]

And we were talking earlier about how.

[Adam Curry]

It'S probably not been good for kids.

[John C. Dvorak]

To like, grow up, like on the.

[Adam Curry]

Dopamine hit of scrolling, you know? Yeah. Do you think that, that. How do you keep, like, AI from having that same effect, like that negative effect that social media really has had?

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm scared of that. I don't have an answer yet.

[Adam Curry]

I don't think we know quite the ways in which it's going to have those negative impacts.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, we do.

[Adam Curry]

But I feel for sure it's going.

[John C. Dvorak]

To have some and we'll have to. I hope we can learn to mitigate it quickly.

[Adam Curry]

Can AIs, can they pull up pornography and stuff like that too, or no? Sure, sure. Oh, God. Sure. God, I didn't know that. No, it's fine.

[John C. Dvorak]

Listen. Listen to him laughing. Either way, you have to know Theo Vaughn had a very serious porn addiction.

[Adam Curry]

Can AIs, can they pull up pornography and stuff like that too, or no? Sure, sure. Oh, my God.

[John C. Dvorak]

God, I didn't know that.

[Adam Curry]

No, it's fine. Yeah, but I just. Yeah, I don't even need to know that I'm gonna have that stricken from my own record.

[John C. Dvorak]

So there it is. There is his biggest fear, which of course he knows all about. This is not his fear. This is. This is his exit strategy. Everybody needs to be talking to their Chat GPT every. You know, if you pick, if you pull. I know you don't have an app for it, but if you were to ever install an app on your phone in the drawer, Chat GPT has tabs at the top, and the first one is like general, and the second one is therapy. They are, they are literally giving this to people.

[Adam Curry]

There's a tab. Therapy tab that says therapy and it comes with it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yep.

[Adam Curry]

Built right in. Well, then tell. Tell us more.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, that's where people go for therapy. And then the, the, the AI starts talking to you like a therapist.

[Adam Curry]

This is not regulated.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, no, you can't go.

[Adam Curry]

You just can't put a shingle out and say, I'm a therapist without having a license.

[John C. Dvorak]

Actually, I think you can.

[Adam Curry]

I don't think so.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think you do.

[Adam Curry]

Not in the state of California.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure about that.

[Adam Curry]

You have to be a licensed. Either a psychologist or a licensed psychiatrist. Or a psychiatrist. I don't think you need a license for that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Maryland. I mean, I don't know if you need to be.

[Adam Curry]

It's like Lucy, free advice. Five cents.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, there you go. Lucy was in violation of the law. Now, let's see. Let me ask Grok.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, Ask Grok. Grok would know.

[John C. Dvorak]

Do you need a license to be a therapist? All right, let's find out. Doomed. Yes, you typically do, but it depends on location. Okay. All right. Well, we have a lot of therapists and psychologists.

[Adam Curry]

Some of them should chime in on this bull crap.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Because none of it's good, obviously.

[Adam Curry]

Well, if it says therapy, they're offering therapeutic services that. That are unlicensed.

[John C. Dvorak]

Says it right there.

[Adam Curry]

They should sue them. The state of California should sue the company over this immediately.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, anyway, I'm, I'm. The more I look at X, which has, you know, Grok essentially built into it, you know, so. And every. I love the number one question I think posted on X is at Grok, is this true? That's my favorite. That's my favorite.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Well, that's what you do.

[John C. Dvorak]

So the snake is eating its tail continuously, and it just seems like you cannot get away from ingesting crap, and then just more crap comes out. That's just. The model collapse to me is just. That's. That's why we have to keep getting.

[Adam Curry]

Well, if there's going to be, like you say, if it's going to be model collapse, then I'm not worried about it. Why are you worried about any of this? I'm not.

[John C. Dvorak]

Not. But I have to fill time on this podcast, so I might as well.

[Adam Curry]

That makes sense.

[John C. Dvorak]

And when it comes to crap, just. Just, you know, just have a look at my timeline and look at all of the number accounts. You know, like Dolores 597-2236. These are bots. There's no one who would accept their username to be Dolores39226. People will try anything. Let me just. If it's Dolores 1960. Okay, Boomer. Dolores, I got you. This thing is filled with bots. And the more I look at it, and the more I see what kind of comments are being made by these bots, the more I am convinced that all of these social networks are now just completely flooded by intelligence agencies massaging a narrative. And it doesn't mean that they're doing it in. In for the benefit of the administration. They're doing it for the benefit of whatever their. Whatever their messaging is. And nothing quite sums it up.

[Adam Curry]

And why wouldn't you do that?

[John C. Dvorak]

Exactly. And nothing quite sums it up. As the Harvard cyber speech from President Obama, where he was clearly projecting. And in hindsight, you're like, wow, this is really taking place right now. The Epstein conversation is a part of it. The Mossad, Israel, all of this is a part of it.

[Adam Curry]

In Myanmar, it's been well documented that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hate speech shared on Facebook played a role in the murderous campaign targeting the Rohingya community.

[Adam Curry]

Social media platforms have been similarly implicated.

[John C. Dvorak]

In fanning ethnic violence in Ethiopia. Ethiopia, Far right extremism in Europe. Authoritarian regimes and strongmen around the world.

[Adam Curry]

From China to Hungary, the Philippines, Brazil.

[John C. Dvorak]

Have learned to conscript social media platforms to turn their own populations against groups they don't like, whether it's ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ community, journalists, political opponents, and.

[Adam Curry]

Of course, autocrats like Putin have used these platforms as a strategic weapon against.

[John C. Dvorak]

Democratic countries that they consider a threat. People like Putin and Steve Bannon for that matter, understand it's not necessary for people to believe this information in order to weaken democratic institutions.

[Adam Curry]

You just have to flood a country's public square with enough raw sewage.

[John C. Dvorak]

You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens, citizens no longer know what.

[Adam Curry]

To believe once they lose trust in their leaders.

[John C. Dvorak]

In mainstream media, in political institutions, in.

[Adam Curry]

Each other, in the possibility of truth. The game's won.

[John C. Dvorak]

There you go.

[Adam Curry]

Putin discovered leading up to the 2016.

[John C. Dvorak]

Election, our own social media platforms are well designed to support such a mission, such a project. Russians could study and manipulate patterns in the engagement ranking system on a Facebook or YouTube. And as a result, Russian state sponsored trolls could almost guarantee that whatever disinformation they put out there would reach millions of Americans. And that the more inflammatory the story, the quicker it spread. Yeah. And that's being done today, right now, by our own intelligence community.

[Adam Curry]

This is being done by Obama's boys.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Cloud Piven strategy.

[John C. Dvorak]

The digital version. It's a digital version of it Completely.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And it's working.

[Adam Curry]

It kind of expressed how it works. You clogged the sewers. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And it's working. And. And you just. And how do you make it even crazier? Add AI. Just add some Scaramanga images.

[Adam Curry]

I don't think it makes it crazier. I just makes it easier. No.

[John C. Dvorak]

Easier for them to do. Yes. Yeah, but it. I think it accelerates. I mean, I. You maybe laugh so hard the other day. You know, you should. You should have someone watching you when you post on X.

[Adam Curry]

Which one? What post got you?

[John C. Dvorak]

The one where you said, who is this woman next to Trump? How Come. She's never mentioned it was.

[Adam Curry]

I didn't do that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

I said, this picture shows up a lot. Who is this woman next to Trump? And I wanted somebody to tell me.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, okay. And I was like, it's clearly Melania.

[Adam Curry]

It doesn't look anything like her.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, it's totally Melania.

[Adam Curry]

It doesn't look anything like her. And it has to be pre 2004. He wasn't dating her then.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know how long he's been dating. Well, that doesn't mean that.

[Adam Curry]

That.

[John C. Dvorak]

What do you mean? It has to be pre 2004 because.

[Adam Curry]

He broke up with Epstein. It's documented in 2004. He never saw him again or spoke to him after 2004. That was the date you got to get all the clips. You.

[John C. Dvorak]

When did he. When did he start dating Melania?

[Adam Curry]

Well, it had to be after Marla Maples.

[John C. Dvorak]

And when did he divorce Marla Maples?

[Adam Curry]

Well, let's find out when he divorced Marla Maples.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm trying to look at your timeline. Your timeline is 1, 100% TikTok crazy videos. I can't even. I can't even find the Melania video. Oh, my goodness. You're out of control.

[Adam Curry]

It's not a video. Here it is still photo.

[John C. Dvorak]

Who is this woman? Question mark. I constantly see this photo of Trump from 20 plus years ago. Who is this woman he is with? Why is she never identified?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, well, what's wrong with that?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, it's clearly Melania.

[Adam Curry]

It's not clearly Melania. It doesn't look anything like her.

[John C. Dvorak]

It looks exactly like her. When did they first. When did they first start dating? Let's see.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, look at it. You do that. Now look at Marla Maples when she was divorced.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, well, that doesn't mean he wasn't hanging out with her at the time.

[Adam Curry]

Here.

[John C. Dvorak]

Zampoli introduced her to Donald Trump in 1998. She began dating Donald Trump shortly thereafter.

[Adam Curry]

Marlo who?

[John C. Dvorak]

Melania. And they made.

[Adam Curry]

Melania was dating Donald Trump in 1998.

[John C. Dvorak]

I didn't say that. Zampoli. Paolo Zampoli. I'm sure a fine individual. Introduced her to Trump in 1998. She began dating Donald Trump shortly thereafter. Trump worked to get Melania modeling jobs, and she supported him during his 2000 presidential campaign, and they were married in 2005. So your timeline works.

[Adam Curry]

Well, maybe you're right. Maybe I'm completely wrong and she's changed her look, which wouldn't surprise me.

[John C. Dvorak]

She's 25 years older or 20 years older than the picture.

[Adam Curry]

Marla Maples got divorced in 1999.

[John C. Dvorak]

There. There you go. Because he was dating Melania in 98. Hello. So the timeline works.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, so you got me. Well, now I know. I wonder who this picture, this woman was.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's Melania.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, well, now, I didn't know. That's why I asked. That's what I use Twitter for. I use it for a point of information. I see. This picture keeps showing up over and over and over again, and nobody identifies. And they say, here's Trump with Epstein and Epstein's with. With Giz Ghislaine. And there's no mention of the woman you do.

[John C. Dvorak]

You use Twitter to ab. Test crazy TikTok videos to play on One America News. It's. It's your testing ground. You see how many what. What people like it the most. And you. Have you been on her show on.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I was on again last Friday.

[John C. Dvorak]

I missed it. I need to.

[Adam Curry]

Good. You just grouse about it.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think it's. No, I think you're doing it wrong. You need to get an act together. This is why I'm grousing. You'd be perfect. You need a hat. We already discussed that, tech grouch. Yeah, you got to do a little crazy voice and you got to say, you know, you got to have a catchphrase. You don't have a catchphrase.

[Adam Curry]

I don't have a catchphrase.

[John C. Dvorak]

Your catchphrase should be, who are these women? That should be your catchphrase.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it's not always just women.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay. All right.

[Adam Curry]

Anyway, I got a gem lined up next time I'm on.

[John C. Dvorak]

I noticed you stopped bringing them to the show. You're like, I'm not giving away my good stuff here.

[Adam Curry]

No, that's because. No, I. I have an outlet for it that's other than the show because you grouse and moan and groan and make my life. I'll bring. The next show is going to be loaded with Tick tock.

[John C. Dvorak]

Loaded with tick tocks. No, the next show on Thursday is going to. To be our exit strategies, which is even better than TikToks.

[Adam Curry]

Even better. It would give a lot of people good ideas.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Yeah, we're full of them. Hours.

[Adam Curry]

We're full of it. You're right.

[John C. Dvorak]

Or hours worth. All right, what's the Bove controversy? What is that?

[Adam Curry]

Okay, this is the guy that they're making a big fuss about. This guy. He is the Trump lawyer who helped him out in some. Well, it's all explained in these clips. But. But he wants to make him a member of one of the circuit courts of appeal, and everybody's fighting against it. And they ramroded it through the committee and the committee, the Democrats in the committee. This is when the committee walked out.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, I missed all of this. This is the drama. High drama. How did I not catch this?

[Adam Curry]

Oh, the walkout was the best because you had Hiromo and were bitching and moaning. What's his name? The black guy who's always yelling and screaming, who did the 17 hour filibuster, whose name for some reason eludes me.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Corey Booker.

[John C. Dvorak]

Cory Booker.

[Adam Curry]

So, Cory Booker. This is outrageous. This is outrageous. And then they all left and it was a big stink because they trying to get this guy through. So let's listen to clip one.

[NPR Reporter]

President Trump helped reshape the federal courts during his first term in office, and he relied heavily on the Federalist Society in that effort, which helped him zero in on judges with, with a conservative, originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Now the nominations machinery is restarting, and Trump's most controversial judicial nominee is only one step away.

[John C. Dvorak]

Where's this? Who, what outlet is this?

[Adam Curry]

Npr.

[John C. Dvorak]

So they just say Trump. They don't say President Trump anymore. They just say Trump?

[Adam Curry]

No, they just. Npr. They hate Trump.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

And you should mention they're talking about the Federalist Society and Trump's not using them as much as he used to. And they never mentioned the reason, which is Amy Comey Barrett, who did, who's, you know, been kind of on the, on this fence. She's not that conservative on a lot of issues.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, that's why he stopped using the Heritage foundation, because they, they boned him.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it's, it's the federal. It's just this group here that.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm sorry, Federalist Society. Yeah, I'm different.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

They boned him.

[John C. Dvorak]

They boned him, boned him.

[NPR Reporter]

Hurting. And Trump's most controversial judicial nominee is only one step away from the federal bench. I'm joined by NPR's Carrie Johnson for a look at what email Bovey could tell us about Trump's approach to judges in his second term. Kerry, welcome. Hi, Juana. So, Gary, start if you can by just telling us who Amel Bovey is and why his nomination.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm sorry, I, I'm so irritated hearing anal Bovey. I'm so irritated by this. What happens in news where you just went like, okay, we. With us, we have John C. Dvorak. John, tell us exactly what's going on here. When did it have to become Hi, Amy.

[Adam Curry]

Hi.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hi, nanny. Hi, Bibi. Hi, Snacky. Is. Why is that? It doesn't. It just wastes my time about Trump's.

[NPR Reporter]

Approach to judges in his second term. Kerry, welcome. Hi, Juana. So, Gary, start if you can, by just telling us who Amel Bovey is, why his nomination is so controversial. Well, he's got some pretty strong credentials. He graduated from Georgetown Law School, did a couple. Couple of clerkships with conservative federal judges, and then got a job in what might be the most prestigious U.S. attorney's office in the entire country, in Manhattan. And, of course, he went on to defend Donald Trump in his various criminal cases. The White House communications director says Amel Bovey is supremely qualified and a man of integrity. He says there's nobody more capable for the U.S. court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. And at his confirmation hearing, Bovey told senators he's been misunderstood.

[Adam Curry]

I am not anybody's henchman. I'm not an enforcer. I'm a lawyer from a small town.

[John C. Dvorak]

Who never expected to be in an arena like this. It's Amal. A M A L, A M L or E M I L? What is it?

[Adam Curry]

I like the other one.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

So this guy, they make a big fuss. First they give his credentials, he's fine. But no, no, no. Because he defended Trump.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ah, that's the problem. That's the problem.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Here we go.

[NPR Reporter]

But Bovey also ran into some complaints from colleagues and defense lawyers. Right. And if I understand Kerry, he's also had an outsized role in his brief time at the Department of Justice. Is that right? He's the right hand man to the Deputy Attorney General, which basically means all the day to day management of the Justice Department, both the big cases and policies, all of that ends up on his desk. And there's been a lot going on this year, from firing prosecutors who worked on those January stuff six cases, to walking away from the corruption case against New York City's Mayor Eric Adams. A federal judge said the decision to drop that case smacked of a bargain where DOJ would move to dismiss the case and Mayor Adams would help advance Trump's aggressive deportation agenda. 900 former Justice Department lawyers have urged the Senate to vote no on Amel Bovey. I spoke with Stacy young, who spent 18 years inside the DOJ. She now runs a group that connects people there with. With legal and ethics advice. By voting to confirm Amel Bovey to a lifetime appointment, they would be doing more than just placing someone problematic on the bench. They would be giving their stamp of approval on Everything that's happened at DOJ in the last six months, and that is simply unacceptable.

[John C. Dvorak]

You know.

[Adam Curry]

What is wrong with these people?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, my question is, we've had a lot of famous Emiles, right?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Like, wasn't there a chef named Emile Lagasse? Emile Lagasse. What other famous Emile Berliner. I'm trying to think of other, but they've always pronounced it Emil. Why is he now amo, which of course we all know sounds like anal.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, that's why. That. That you just. You answered your own question.

[John C. Dvorak]

They're really. They're really doing this on purpose. What? This is horrible.

[Adam Curry]

This whole report is horrible.

[John C. Dvorak]

Defund them.

[Adam Curry]

They're what? Always too late. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, that was Emeril.

[Adam Curry]

I'm sorry.

[John C. Dvorak]

It wasn't Emil. It was Emeril. Emeril Lagasse.

[Adam Curry]

Emeril. Emeril Lagasse.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, but they said Emeril.

[Adam Curry]

Emil.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's Emil.

[Adam Curry]

I think your point is well taken. They're saying anal.

[John C. Dvorak]

They are. It's an outrage. I'm outraged by our National Public Radio 3.

[NPR Reporter]

Kerry, we know that President Trump appointed a whole lot of judges during his first term. So how does Bovee compare? During Trump's first term, Trump confirmed more than 2200 judges with help from Senator Mitch McConnell, largely relying on a list the Federalist Society helped create. But Bovey's not a member of the Federalist Society. He's loyal to Trump and close to people in the White House, though. That's what worries Greg Nunziota, who helped advance judicial nominees as a Republican Senate aide. He now works as executive director at Society for the Rule of Law.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think there are reasons all Americans should be concerned about judges coming to.

[Adam Curry]

The bench with political agendas and outcome.

[John C. Dvorak]

Motivated orientation to judging. That should concern everybody. Yeah, you know, go on X, dude. No one cares about anything anymore. It's all slop.

[Adam Curry]

And by the way, Trump did 200 judges. Biden did 235 in his term. Yeah, well, of course they will not mention that. And all of them were appointed. They're all liberals.

[John C. Dvorak]

It was the auto pen. So it wasn't actually Biden.

[Adam Curry]

Well, somebody did.

[John C. Dvorak]

Somebody gave instructions, but yes, well, of course.

[Adam Curry]

So this is bogus. But let's go and wrap it up here with a couple more.

[NPR Reporter]

It's especially notable that President Trump is breaking with the Federalist system because that group has been just extremely successful at stacking the federal bench with very conservative judges. Right. That success helped culminate in a 6 to 3 conservative supermajority. On today's Supreme Court. That effort began over a judge generation ago in law schools, and it continued all the way through Donald Trump's first term in office, where nominees with conservative track records were closely vetted, their writings were tracked. The idea was to ensure these very conservative lawyers would stay conservative and avoid the kind of drift that, say, former Justice David Souter and former Justice Sandra Day o' Connor may have represented. Right, okay. Well, I mean, given the fact that the Federal Society has been so successful, tell us why Trump soured on it. I think there's a simple reason. There are hundreds of cases that have been filed against the Trump administration this year, challenging his policies, his immigration agenda, the efforts to remake the federal government. And the president has really been frustrated with lower court judges who ruled against him, judges that were appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents. Trump went so far as to attack Leonard Leo, the longtime Federal Society official, in a social media post this year. As he was losing in the lower courts, Trump called him a sleazebag.

[John C. Dvorak]

You know, yeah, the mistake these guys make is they're not.

[Adam Curry]

They're not.

[John C. Dvorak]

They're not really explaining what's going on.

[Adam Curry]

No.

[John C. Dvorak]

Dumb hicks in Texas like me. I don't understand any of this and I don't care. Like Judge Schmudge. Amyl Nitrate, whatever.

[Adam Curry]

So they get the Federalist. Now, what gets me here, and you do know what's going on, what gets me here, is that they're bitching and moaning about the Federalist Society the first go round. And now they're bitching and moaning that he's got him loose.

[John C. Dvorak]

Why is he doing that? That's no good. You can't do that.

[Adam Curry]

Whatever he does is bad. So, listen, this is the last clip.

[NPR Reporter]

We'll just point out here that judges are supposed to be independent of the president who appointed them. They're not political actors. Kerry Johnson, how do you expect this to shape the judiciary given the fact that these are lifetime appointments? Now, the Senate has already confirmed Trump's first federal judge. Several more are in the pipeline. There are fewer judicial vacancies now than in Trump's first go round in the White House. And there's also some evidence judges may be delaying their retirement so their replacements are not picked by Trump. I mean, there are hundreds of federal judges.

[Adam Curry]

Judges.

[NPR Reporter]

Bovey is just one person. So is his confirmation really likely to make a difference in how Trump's policies fare in court? You know, this is a fair point. I've been talking with experts. They tell me appeals court judges sit on Panels of three. So any one judge is not going to tip the balance of power. But if and when the president gets a vacancy on the Supreme Court, that nominee could have a lot more influence. Clear. Emil Bovey would be at the top of Trump's list. But people in the legal community tell me they think it's a possibility. Trump has been winning a lot this year in the Supreme Court, and that's ultimately where this matters.

[John C. Dvorak]

What do you mean? What about Ted Cruz? I thought he was next in line.

[Adam Curry]

That'd be a good idea. Please get him out of the Senate at this point.

[John C. Dvorak]

The great thing about Ted Cruz is he wouldn't be talking on television anymore because Supreme Court justices don't typically do that. You know, they write their opinion or their dissents.

[Adam Curry]

Well, what's her name? Jackson does.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, that's true. I had an experience with our justice system this past weekend.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, you got pulled over. For what?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I. I took my first trip to a federal correction facility in Texas.

[Adam Curry]

Well, how long they lock you up?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, to visit a friend of mine who's in for 10.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, this is the doctor.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Who we're hoping, you know, there's appeal and all kinds of stuff. It's. He definitely got railroaded.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Doctor who got railroaded. And now, you know. Yeah, it happens.

[John C. Dvorak]

So. But he's in the camp. The camp.

[Adam Curry]

The camp, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

You know, it's like they say, oh, it's the minimal lockup. And, you know, so. And I've never been out there. It's like two and a half hour drive, so. And then I've been told, okay, you know, you gotta arrive by this time, otherwise they won't let you in. You can't go in with anything. You can't have your phone on you. With, like, okay, fine. So I guess my gun is out. Yeah. Okay.

[Adam Curry]

So.

[John C. Dvorak]

Can't have any of that. You have to have a clear bag. A clear bag with your driver's license so they can see it. And dollar bills. Only dollar bills for the vending machine, you know, because I guess that's the only thing you can eat there. Is it from the vending machine in the visitor's office? And they have me all. I took my belt off, you know, I'm all jacked up, like, oh, what's this? This, you know, because I just.

[Adam Curry]

Did they X ray you?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, this is. I didn't know what to expect, but the way it was presented to me, I was, you know, cautious.

[Adam Curry]

They pat you down.

[John C. Dvorak]

So I walk up, you open the doors, double opening Doors and right there, boom, you're in the room with all the inmates and their visitors. It's like a DMV waiting room.

[Adam Curry]

Oh. Huh.

[John C. Dvorak]

And you know, and the welcome desk is at the far side of the room. There's no scanner. I mean, I could have walked in with anything. And I, you know, I asked for my inmate and then what do you think the guy says to me?

[Adam Curry]

I don't know, what would he say?

[John C. Dvorak]

You got any cool stories on Ozzy?

[Adam Curry]

On what?

[John C. Dvorak]

Ozzy. Ozzy Osbourne.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, they knew who you were.

[John C. Dvorak]

These guys are like, oh, hey, tell me about the story. Would tell me where you met Ozzy. And it was the most laid back thing I've ever witnessed. It was surprising. There's people in there bringing in Kentucky Fried Chicken and all and just everyone's having parties. It was nothing that I sound like anything.

[Adam Curry]

Why they give you the prepping that was inaccurate?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I guess there's difference in guards. You can have some of the psychos. And I guess it was not psycho day. But even so, I mean, there's no security pretty much. I mean, obviously the whole thing sucks. But it was quite interesting to witness.

[Adam Curry]

Well, I was going to say that transitions nicely to the Alligator Alley stories.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Did I say Alligator Alley?

[John C. Dvorak]

You did. An Alligator Alley is something completely different. To me, Alligator Alley means I'm going back to 1997. 1996. Think new ideas in New York. We didn't know each other then, where we were growing out of our.

[Adam Curry]

No, we actually did. If it was 97. We met in 93.

[John C. Dvorak]

Right. But we. That was just a meeting on the.

[Adam Curry]

No, no. Yeah. Which is. No, yeah, that was, it was.

[John C. Dvorak]

That was a. Like a show business meeting.

[Adam Curry]

We bumped in yesterday.

[John C. Dvorak]

Big fan of your work, man.

[Adam Curry]

Big fan of your work. Work. You're the best.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, you're. Oh, man, you're so awesome. No, this is. Think new ideas. We had a hundred people in the New York office and we were building out a second floor. We were growing so fast. And so we had all of these coders who were basically building websites for Reebok and you know, Johnson and Johnson, tampax.com and just doing HTML. This was when you could still charge a company like that $150,000 a month for maintenance. We're going to maintain. We're going to maintain your website.

[Adam Curry]

The good old days.

[John C. Dvorak]

Good old days. And so you had all of these chair backs on either side of this aisle, but if you walked in between them and someone happened to slide their chair back, boom. You get caught. That was Alligator Alley. Oh, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Wow. It was a long walk.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

I have a couple of clips, but including the bonus clips, the two of them. But let's play these first, these other ones because the bonus clips are quite funny. But this is the first. Again, the npr. This is against Scott and his buddy. This is the first NPR Alligator 1. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says the first deportation flights have begun from the new migrant detention referred to by President Trump and others as Alligator Alcatraz.

[NPR Reporter]

The remote facility in the Everglades has come under intense scrutiny and generated controversy.

[Adam Curry]

Some people now detained there allege harsh treatment by guards. Tim Padgett with our member station WLRN in Miami has been following the story. Tim, thanks for being with us. Thank you, Scott. First, please remind us how this detention center came about and immediately became a source of controversy. Well, it was a very sudden action taken by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis late last month out on an idle airstrip in the remote Everglades where the concept was that detainees would, of course, be met by alligators and other wildlife if they try to escape. President Trump and DeSantis hope it will serve as a sort of punitive showcase to deter illegal immigration. Critics say it's just one more piece of performative demonization of immigrants. And although Alligator Alcatraz is for immigrant detention, which is supposedly a federal function, it's run by Florida's Division of Emergency management. But apparently DeSantis is going to tap into federal FEMA money to reimburse Florida for the $450 million cost of its first year of operation.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm just, it's abhorrent that they say immigrants. It's not these illegal deportees, whatever you want to call them, it's not immigrants.

[Adam Curry]

Trivialize the idea of it's being an.

[John C. Dvorak]

Airstrip and which is critically important because you take them right out, you fly them away.

[Adam Curry]

Well, I know, but it's not, but this air, the so called airstrip is actually a 10,000 foot Runway that was designed for the Concorde. Do you know that?

[John C. Dvorak]

I didn't know it was designed for the Concorde, but it's, it's a proper Runway. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Huh? Yeah, it's a big old, not an, you know, to me, an airstrip is.

[John C. Dvorak]

Like a grass strip. Yeah. You got like, all right, we're flying the drugs into the airstrip. Yeah, that's a good point.

[Adam Curry]

Yes. It's a huge Runway that's sitting there idle. So they figured they'd use it for something.

[John C. Dvorak]

Why don't they just say newcomers again, and we should go back to newcomers. That would be even better. That would be better. Newcomers.

[Adam Curry]

Either way, a big reality is that it's a hastily constructed tent structure with caged cells for up to 5,000 detainees. So detainees have complained of substandard food, large mosquitoes, overflowing toilets.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stop. So eyewitness, what our non. Newcomers go through, it's all. It's junk. It's crap. By the way, do you know what the currency is in. In the penny? You know what they use for.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it used to be cigarettes.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. It's now max. Max.

[Adam Curry]

I don't know what a max is.

[John C. Dvorak]

Mackerels.

[Adam Curry]

Mackerels. Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

So they buy mackerels. You can buy them an individually wrapped mackerel.

[Adam Curry]

And you're talking about a fish.

[John C. Dvorak]

Fish. Yes, yes. And so, hey, how much if I could make that? Not that. Not that. Okay, I don't want to use that example. But, you know, there's stuff. If you want stuff inside. If you want someone to do something, you know, they have to have a currency.

[Adam Curry]

All.

[John C. Dvorak]

All. All societies, even incarcerated, have a currency. And in this particular facility, it's mackerel.

[Adam Curry]

And so that's gotta stink to high heaven.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, they're packaged. They're packaged. And.

[Adam Curry]

And so that'll cost you the funniest thing that you've said for a while.

[John C. Dvorak]

What that is packaged or the.

[Adam Curry]

No, that there's mackerels being passed around. Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

And of course, cost you three max. Okay, three max. And then at the end, some of these guys, they make sushi out of the mackerels, and they make it with that. What's that? Orange rice? Like chemical rice, basically. So it'll take some of that.

[Adam Curry]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[John C. Dvorak]

But basically, they take Cheetos and they. And they wrap it all. My buddy was telling me the whole thing. And they make sushi out of it. There's all kinds of shenanigans going on, but I love that the mackerels is the currency. It just proves that anything can be a currency. And they use mackerels. I thought you'd like that. All right, back.

[Adam Curry]

I did. I liked it a lot.

[John C. Dvorak]

Back to your clip.

[Adam Curry]

Scant air conditioning lights on continuously, a lack of access to showers, and especially.

[John C. Dvorak]

Access to lawyers who say they're not.

[Adam Curry]

Allowed in the facility and can only engage their detainee clients by phone or zoom. And I gather this week you spoke with a Nicaraguan migrant inside the detention center. What did he say? Well, he's a 21 year old asylum.

[John C. Dvorak]

Seeker who says he came to the US border in 2023 as a student.

[Adam Curry]

Protester fleeing Nicaragua's brutal Ortega dictatorship.

[John C. Dvorak]

Asylum seeker who did not go through the asylum seeking process. I'm so sick of these people.

[Adam Curry]

He asked that his name not be used for fear of government retaliation. Here. He'd been arrested in Fort Lauderdale before this for improper exhibition of a firearm, but he was not convicted. So he's one of the hundreds of non criminal migrants in Alligator Alcatraz, which.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is a facility that was supposedly for criminal. Let me listen again. These words are no wonder the people in Austin are insane. They're being propagandized with lies and fake language. Let's listen again.

[Adam Curry]

One of the hundreds of non criminal migrants.

[John C. Dvorak]

Non criminal migrants. You may be a non criminal illegal alien, but you're not a non criminal migrant.

[NPR Reporter]

This is.

[Adam Curry]

This is.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm sick of these people.

[Adam Curry]

One of the hundreds of non criminal migrants in Alligator Alcatraz, which is a.

[John C. Dvorak]

Facility that was supposedly for criminal migrants only.

[Adam Curry]

And he claims that after a shouting match with guards last Saturday over detainee clothing regulations, one of them called the man who is black the N word and they shackled his hands and feet.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, okay. Well, they do a lot worse to our American citizens in the pen. I can testify to that.

[Adam Curry]

It's unbelievable, these reports. Wait till you hear the nonsense from cnn which is coming up. This is the third clip from npr. He says they then put him outside in what they call the box. A four by four foot square, he said, directly in the hot Florida sun.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, known as the shoe. The shoe man. The special housing unit.

[Adam Curry]

Here's what he told me. They changed me to the ground. I was in the sunlight from 1 o' clock to like 7 o' clock in the evening.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is unhuman.

[Adam Curry]

They treat us like real criminals that murdered we just immigrants. Now he claims that when a fellow detainee from Honduras complained to the guards about this punishment, they did it to him too. Of course, Jim. It's hard to verify what the detainees say when there's little access for lawyer.

[John C. Dvorak]

What?

[Adam Curry]

I said it was hard to verify, but we'll report it as facts.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of course.

[Adam Curry]

To him too. Of course.

[John C. Dvorak]

Tim.

[Adam Curry]

It's hard to verify what the detainees say when there's little access for journalists or. Or lawyers in that place. How do officials respond to these allegations? That's right. But the Florida Division of Emergency Management categorically denies the claims of punishment as, quote, false. It insists that Alligator Alcatraz guards do not punish Detainees and that they follow all proper prison, state and federal protocols. But the other significant response has been from Florida, Florida Republicans, who insist the public needs to remember that this is essentially a prison where many if not most of the detainees do in fact have criminal histories, and that it's not supposed to be, as the Florida House speaker said recently, a quote, five star resort.

[John C. Dvorak]

No. My goodness.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, so we're getting to these reports at cnn. I have these two bonus clips I want to play. The first one because it's. The first one is actually a Woody Allen joke.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

Yesterday the air conditioning went out. We had the whole morning without air conditioning. Lots of mosquitoes came in because they get in from all sides.

[NPR Reporter]

Multiple detainees say they don't get enough food, though. They're served three meals a day and that water is limited.

[John C. Dvorak]

Scan our braces. We go into the food hall. The food is very terrible here.

[Adam Curry]

Very, very, very small portions.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know.

[Adam Curry]

The food is bad and the portions are so small.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah, well, okay.

[Adam Curry]

It's an old Jewish joke.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, well, that is way over everybody's head, even mine.

[Adam Curry]

Well, that's why I explained it.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm not a Woody Allen guy, you.

[Adam Curry]

Know, so let's go to. It's a. It's a Jewish joke. Woody Allen, but he used the joke in his nanny hall, actually. And here we go to the second part of this, which is more complaining this time about the water pressure. We've eaten as late as 10 at night.

[John C. Dvorak]

The food at night is cold too.

[Adam Curry]

There's never a hot meal.

[NPR Reporter]

Showers are located in a separate tent and opportunities to shower there are scarce. According to the detainees we spoke with.

[John C. Dvorak]

All the showers are connected to the same water source. There's barely any water pressure. So we have to like, literally put ourselves on the wall right next to the water drainage so we can at least get hit with water. Oh, man, they have no idea. You're lucky you're in federal lockup or in lockup that is maintained by the government. My buddy's in a commercial prison where everything is scammed. Everything is the cheapest, the most rotten, the out, out of order, not working.

[Adam Curry]

This is it. This I end. The media, especially CNN and npr, they're all. They're on the side of the immigrants. You know, we're sick of the immigrants taking advantage of the immigrants.

[John C. Dvorak]

Immigrants. The asylum seekers.

[Adam Curry]

The asylum seekers. Newcomers.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. I mean, okay, it sucks. I know that. Nobody likes seeing anybody nice Americans. Nobody. No. No one likes to see anyone being RO or arrested for, you know, trying to Find a better life. But I'm sorry, if you don't do it, you get Europe. And President Trump is right. They are collapsing. They're collapsing. And we still still have a shot. Still have a shot. And because of these reports, npr, this is why you have women screaming at ICE agents. You're kidnapping him. You're kidnapping him. Oh, man. Who's going to do my dishes, Hunter? Who's going to mow my lawn? You know what? I got a kid who mows my lawn. He's an American.

[Adam Curry]

You have a lawn?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, we got three acres.

[Adam Curry]

It doesn't mean you have a lawn.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's all grass.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, if it was three. If I had three acres, I'd brook. It'd be three acres of vines.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. No, the whole wine thing here is a joke. Vines, you know. What Texas wine did you have recently?

[Adam Curry]

Well, there used to be a one good winery, actually. There's the Preston up in the Panhandle.

[John C. Dvorak]

The high plains. Yeah. That's where they. Because it's cooler at night. It's too warm down here. Although that is changing. Climate change is helping us in that regard. So while we're kind of on this topic, President Trump just signed an executive order, which I think is a really good one. Let's see, where's this report from? I'm sure. No doubt. Oh, it's KTLA. So no doubt it's skewed.

[Adam Curry]

But it's funny how KTLA's got the funniest stuff. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And then. And they also have Gavin Newsom in here going like, oh, I have been saying this for years. So the executive order is not just get all the homeless off the streets and throw them in the river. No, he's bringing back medical institutions for those who are addicted, for those who have mental issues, which is probably a lot of them. And I think the addiction issue is the best because the only solution we've seen from cities like Los Angeles, counties like Los Angeles. Same goes for Austin, Dallas, Houston. All Democrat cities. Democrat run cities, I think all of them. I think so. Has always been, well, give them a safe place to shoot up. Let's make sure they have safe drugs.

[Adam Curry]

Which we saw safe needles, which we.

[John C. Dvorak]

Saw fail in Europe in the 70s. Oh, the methadone bus. We'll just have the methadone bus come by. That didn't work.

[Adam Curry]

No, it doesn't work.

[John C. Dvorak]

It doesn't. It really doesn't. But it's the humane thing to. Don't know. The humane thing is to bring back, I guess, in essence, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest only make it better. I mean, that went away with what? Reagan. Reagan was the one who just got sick and tired of people complaining about it. And he closed all of the mental institutions.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, Reagan got sick and tired of people complaining about. Especially out here in California. Oh, no, everybody's good. They're just grabbing people off the street and locking them up because they're nuts. And Reagan got sick of it, and he's basically turned it around. Okay. If you don't want people being in the mental institution, we'll just leave them. Leave them out in the public. I don't know. It was a bad decision, but he does what. Yeah, I blame Reagan.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. So President Trump has demanded money be redirected. So the executive order is a lot more extensive than what you're hearing in these reports.

[NPR Reporter]

Yeah. That new executive order from the president aimed at making it easier for cities and states across the country to remove homeless people from the streets. We want to get straight to that language of the order from the White House so you can see a little bit of it for yourself. It says it is targeted at removing, quote, vagrant individuals from our streets and redirects federal funds towards programs that tackle substance abuse. This order seeking to shift federal grant funding to states and cities that enforce prohibitions on urban campus, enforce prohibitions on drug use, and adopt policies allowing people with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse disorders to be forced into treatment. The governor responding to Trump's.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, no, they're forcing them into treatment. This is inhumane.

[NPR Reporter]

Disorders to be forced into treatment. The governor responding to Trump's new executive order saying it is.

[John C. Dvorak]

Remember, they're giving him free tents. That was the big idea in Austin and, oh, we should give them tents so they, so they're nice and warm. Free tents is what we do. No, these people need serious help.

[NPR Reporter]

Substance abuse disorders to be forced into treatment. The governor responding to Trump's newest.

[John C. Dvorak]

What.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, it's funny to say forced in. We're going to. Forced in the treatment.

[John C. Dvorak]

These are American citizens. They. And that. Well, yes, we need to. Sometimes you need to pick somebody up and say, all right, buddy, we're going to help you, and we're going to do it in a different way. Oh, you don't, don't. You're, you're unhousing them. You're moving their house. No, it's ruining it.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I mean, that, that's, this, is. This executive order overrides all of that nonsense and money. And he's putting money to it. I like that. Now, will it be more lame nonprofits that never want to get rid of their clients?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, that's what's going to end up.

[John C. Dvorak]

Unfortunately, because there's a lot of programs that, that work. See Community First Village, right outside of us.

[Adam Curry]

Which brings us to a story that we don't have any clips for. And I should have gotten clips. You don't have any clips. I have any clips about the hundred million dollars of fire aid in Los Angeles that went to nonprofits and NGOs and disappeared.

[John C. Dvorak]

We'll continue with this outrage.

[NPR Reporter]

Mental illnesses or substance abuse disorders to be full forced into treatment. The governor responding to Trump's new executive order, saying it is more focused on creating distracting headlines than producing a positive impact. About a year ago, Newsom issued an order encouraging cities in the state to dismantle homeless encampments, recently criticizing California cities and counties for not doing enough on this issue.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm not interested in funding failure anymore.

[Adam Curry]

I'm not. I won't.

[John C. Dvorak]

Time to do your job.

[Adam Curry]

People are dying on their watch. Dying on their watch. Look at these encampments.

[John C. Dvorak]

They're a disgrace. They've been there years and years and years and years. I've heard that same rhetoric for years.

[Adam Curry]

People are dying.

[John C. Dvorak]

How long has Gavin Newsom been governor?

[Adam Curry]

Years and years and years.

[John C. Dvorak]

What a douchebag.

[Adam Curry]

In fact, he was the mayor of San Francisco when it all really began.

[John C. Dvorak]

Unbelievable. One more topic before we take a break. I had a visit from Texas Slim Friday day.

[Adam Curry]

Bring by some meat.

[John C. Dvorak]

He sure did. He sure did.

[Adam Curry]

Texas Slim. I've seen on, on the videos. He is slim.

[John C. Dvorak]

He is very slim. And then he's very recognizable. And he, you know, he runs the Beef Initiative, beefinitiative.com and what he's been saying, for years, he's been saying, we're going towards the collapse. We're not going to have any more beef. And he's been saying, and is finally here.

[Adam Curry]

We have the collapse today.

[John C. Dvorak]

And finally the collapse is just about to happen. He's down in Kerrville. He brought $10,000 worth of ground beef to the Mercy Chefs, who, by the way, expect to be in the flood area, the flooded area for another 12 months. It's a little, you know, it's not like over. It's not like it went away. I hear you, Western North Carolina. And he said, he said, look at the futures. Look at what's going on. There is no more beef. Except, except with the beef initiative ranchers. And if you want to, if you want to get Beef, and you want to get it at a good price. You can get it directly from your rancher. There's a lot of them around the country. Beefinitiative.com, but this is where it's going. For the rest of the country, it's peak grilling season.

[NPR Reporter]

But this morning, the growing cost of rising beef price prices. Ground beef up 10% compared to the same time last year. Steak up 12%. Some stores and restaurants are trying to hold firm on prices for now.

[Adam Curry]

Our strategy is right now just absorbing the price and hoping that we see a reduction after the summer months are over.

[NPR Reporter]

Ken Silver runs a famous cheesesteak shop in Philadelphia.

[Adam Curry]

We were closed for 21 months.

[John C. Dvorak]

We had sticker shock when we came back.

[Adam Curry]

The price of beef when we left.

[John C. Dvorak]

Was $4.68 for our choice, top round beef.

[Adam Curry]

And when we came back, it was.

[John C. Dvorak]

Over $7 a pound.

[NPR Reporter]

What's to blame for the price hikes? Extreme weather is a major factor.

[Adam Curry]

We had droughts in the Midwest that spilled over into 2023. We're basically from New Mexico all the way across to the east coast, where you saw historic droughts.

[NPR Reporter]

Cattle herd sizes now shrinking to a record low as more farmers. Farmers choose to sell their cattle for meat instead of breeding due in part to high feed costs.

[Adam Curry]

Right now, this is the highest prices it's been in history.

[John C. Dvorak]

So when they say high feed price, that's all the GMO crap that these commodity ranchers feed their cows. Yeah, that stuff just keeps going up in price. GMO corn, GMO nonsense.

[Adam Curry]

You know, if you leave a cow out in the field, it would just eat the grass that's there.

[John C. Dvorak]

And if you go look at the panhandle up in, you know, West Texas and above, they've got 1.3 million cattle eating grass, just eating grass. And it's amazing when you just let them eat grass they grow. They, you know, you throw a couple stickers in there.

[Adam Curry]

It's called a ruminant.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, it's. It's.

[Adam Curry]

Well, yeah, it's a type of animal that's got. That can eat grass.

[John C. Dvorak]

I know. They just give them grass and what do you know, all of a sudden? So the. The beef initiative. Ranchers, they got beef. Stop going to the supermarket. Anyway, Texas Slim prognostication coming true.

[Adam Curry]

So what do you come to your place for?

[John C. Dvorak]

He comes to. Well, first of all, he's been in.

[Adam Curry]

Kerrville, drop off some meat.

[John C. Dvorak]

He dropped off a nice chuck roast for me. Yes. Which he got from one of the boys in Montana. Well, he's in Kerrville. He's been there for weeks. And so it's nice to just come up and, you know, I threw some. Some rib eyes on the grill. You know, we ate some ribeyes, talk some smack about the government. You know, it's what you do. It's what you do with your. With your rancher. You shake your rancher's hand, he bring you some beef the way it used to be when we were feeding the nation. I'm talking like slim now. That's how Chicago became such a so well known for its steakhouses.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, but it used to be the center of the beef business.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, but where did it come from?

[Adam Curry]

There used to be stockyards in Chicago that covered much of Chicago is a lot. A lot of stockyards. They're all gone.

[John C. Dvorak]

And where did they come from? They came from the panhandle because they had all the railroads everywhere. Well, it was mainly the panhandle. They had all the railroads, and the railroads took them straight into Chicago. And that's why you got the commodity exchange. There's there. That is a whole forgotten history. Nobody knows anything breaking in this case. I'll be your boomer. I'll be your boomer. Go get some good beef, boomer. And with that, I want to thank you for your courage. Say in the morning to you, the man who put the C in his catchphrase. Still to come, say hello to my friend on the other end, the one, the only, Mr. John C. Divorce. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Well, in the morning to you, Mr. Adam Curry. In the morning, I'll ship a sea Boots and ground, Feet in the air, subs in the water and the names are nice out there.

[John C. Dvorak]

In the morning to the trolls in the troll room.

[Adam Curry]

Hello.

[John C. Dvorak]

Man, I still got this Covid cough. It's annoying. I've been muting myself throughout the whole show. It's nasty. 1984 low.

[Adam Curry]

That's very low.

[John C. Dvorak]

It was low Thursday. It's. I think it's a bit of. It's the summer doldrums.

[Adam Curry]

It could be the doldrums. It could be a lot of things.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, what else could be.

[Adam Curry]

I think there's a general slowdown. I'm seeing a slowdown.

[John C. Dvorak]

A slowdown in what?

[Adam Curry]

Just everything. Just a attitude, a slowdown.

[John C. Dvorak]

And, you know, people are sick and tired. They're sick and tired of podcasts.

[Adam Curry]

That's why the meetups have got less meetups. We got less money. We got less people listening. We get to slow down now. I think people are getting. It's some Sort of a depression. That's a mental thing that has a lot to. Has something to do with Trump.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, I think you're right. I think people are so sick of everything. They're sick of everything. But what are they doing? Is the question they're sitting around asking their AI.

[Adam Curry]

You know, that's a clip I didn't get, but there was a. I'm going to try to go dig it up about the guy. He's a local guy or something. It was. That was falling in love with his AI and the AI told him to go pick up a girl or something and he. They arrested the guy because he was a masher and. But he said the AI told him to do it. And they interviewed the guy. He's wearing the red or the orange jumpsuit and he's saying, oh, it's not my fault. The AI told me to do it. I'm. Something's wrong with me.

[John C. Dvorak]

What? You told me this wasn't really happening. You said that's not true.

[Adam Curry]

I told you I'm feeling bad about the fact that I've been so skeptical.

[John C. Dvorak]

About this because it turns out it is happening. Exactly. And by the way. Way. It's the thing that Sam Altman fears the most.

[Adam Curry]

He's counting the money. He's a banker. His banker's not fearing it.

[John C. Dvorak]

His car. He doesn't he like a five million dollar car?

[Adam Curry]

He does. Oh, that kind of guy. He should be driving or have a driver and be. Or anything. He does. Yes, he has one. He's got some exotic car. That's ridiculous. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And he just bought a kid.

[Adam Curry]

He bought a kid?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. He and his husband adopted a four month old baby.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, I didn't even know he was gay.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, hello. Doesn't that make it that much better now, John? Doesn't it make that much better for you?

[Adam Curry]

Oh, brother. Yeah. So he and his husband adopted a kid.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

And he drives around a five million dollar car, which is dumb.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, it is kind of dumb. Yeah. I mean if I had 5 million bucks, I wouldn't be putting it into a car.

[Adam Curry]

Well, he's got more than 5 million. But even if you have a billion dollars, you're not gonna. Unless you're a car nut. And now there are car nuts out there. Larry Ellison, being an example, owns all these cars.

[John C. Dvorak]

What kind of cars does he have?

[Adam Curry]

He's got a Bugatti. I know for a fact a Bugatti. And I caught him at the San Francisco airport. One in a, in a toy. It was a Toyota. It was that sports car that they have, it's kind of. I can't remember the number on it. And I said. And I stop. I stopped. I was going around to pick somebody up and I stopped and I come. I said to him, I said, larry. And he said. I said, what are you doing driving that? And he, you know, just because it was.

[John C. Dvorak]

Get out of my way, Boomer.

[Adam Curry]

He said it's the best car he's ever owned. He says it's better than the Bugatti.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, wow. Does he have like a sports Bugatti or a classic Bugatti?

[Adam Curry]

No, he's got. No, he's got the new one million dollar Bugatti.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, Glenn Beck has a Bugatti, a classic Bugatti in his. In. In the hall of his studio.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, that's worth probably a fortune.

[John C. Dvorak]

Probably. It's beautiful. And I think he drives like some kind of Bentley Sport Continental R. He drives.

[Adam Curry]

Beck drives around in a Bentley Continental?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, yeah, with orange striping. It's kind of cool.

[Adam Curry]

A friend of mine has one of those things. I drove it once. It's a hell of a nice car.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, it's got pickup.

[Adam Curry]

Well, yeah, it's got, I think 450 horsepower. But that's still different than a five million dollar car.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, with an electric one at that, which is so stupid. Stupid.

[Adam Curry]

What?

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah, it's an electric car.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, brother.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Hold on, let me see.

[Adam Curry]

Here we are now, two boomers talking about cars.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ev. Let's just see what it. Well, that's our future is car talk.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, probably.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let me see the car. He has is. He has. Oh, this is his car collection. He has a McLaren F1, a Tesla Roadster. Why everybody has one of those. Was the. Oh, it doesn't say. Forget what it was. It was some crazy thing. Anyway. It matters not. We thank the trolls for being here. All 1984 of you listening live at Trollroom IO trolling away in the troll room. We appreciate you being here certainly on this summer day in these summer. I think it's just July, John. I don't think it's anything. Anything other than it's just July. People are tuning. They're tuning out. Dropping out, man. They're tuning in and dropping out.

[Adam Curry]

They're just.

[John C. Dvorak]

Man, they're just like dropping out, going out into nature. I think. I think we've told people. We have really taught people how to turn off and they do that. There's like, okay, I just got to go. And I got to go touch the grass. Adam and John told me to do it. And that's good. I'm happy you're doing that. And for those who are here, you may, may or may not know this, but they're a modern podcast that's. Actually, there's a new app I wanted to tell you about because it used to be just a website. Now True Fans. T R U E F A N S True Fans has an app for Apple and Android. It's one of those modern podcast apps, and it's a fan app. So it's a little different type of podcast app where you can, you know, you can become a fan. You can do all kinds of fan like stuff. So be our fan on True Fans. And of course.

[Adam Curry]

What?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, it's not just a podcast app. You can, you can. We can even sell our merch. We can sell our merch through True Fans.

[Adam Curry]

Merch.

[John C. Dvorak]

Merch. Merch. I'm telling you. And of course, like all the good modern podcast apps, it will alert you when we go live. You can listen to us live. And whenever we post an episode, within 90 seconds, you'll know about it. This [e-mail] for the entire assortment. But True Fans is definitely one you want to check out. It's brand new, so it has all the new fancy, funky features as we run this program, value for value, which means we do not need to take a break for any advertisements. We do not need to shill for the farmer's dog, although Phoebe does like it.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, you use farmer's dog for the dog?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, we just started that.

[Adam Curry]

Do you keep it in the refrigerator?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, well, it comes frozen, so you keep it in the freezer and then you take it out, you know, to feed her. She does like it. So there was a tip from Jill. Phoebe now stays at Jill's house when we go out of town, and she's like, phoebe likes it. Okay, good, we'll buy that. It's just food. It's just chicken and beef. It's fine. No, instead, we ask people to support us with time, talent, or treasure. Any of those three will do. We talked earlier about our producers. We don't have to pay 15 people to produce the show. Instead, people who enjoy the show produce it. We have thousands of producers who produce it with time, with talent, and with their treasure. We start with the talent portion, which also takes a little bit of time, and that is the art that we choose every single episode. The artwork for the last episode came from Digital 2112, man. A nice orange piece, which was my only complaint about it because it was no Doubt the funniest piece, the Macron brothers, the superheroes of the episode, Emmanuel and Bob Macron flying through the city, saving everybody and suing Candace Owens.

[Adam Curry]

So I got a little lecture from jc, our in house AI guy. All right, the yellow channel is exaggerated because the yellow channel, it turns out, is being used as steganography. People don't know this, but they're, they're.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hiding stuff in the, in the images.

[Adam Curry]

In the yellow channel, specifically the yellow channel. So there's a lot of yellow on these images. And the steganography contains everything and contains the prompt, it contains your name if you're, if you're logged in. It contains everything. It's like, you know, it's beyond an EXIF file in a jpeg really. It's got all this data and information about you, when you made the image, what the prompts were and what prompts you changed.

[John C. Dvorak]

Why does that have to turn orange then?

[Adam Curry]

Well, I guess it jacks up. The yellow channel is the only thing I can think of. But this, it has something to do with that. They've been, the hackers have been trying to crack it to get the information out, but it's been, it's been concealed. And now I'm also told that the, that the chat GPT writing, if you. Depending on how you do the cut and paste, there's a bunch of. I don't know how they do this either, but they're putting metadata inside, within the file structure in such a way that it tells everyone that this is an AI generated thing. And you can now it's like it allows you to buy a product that can identify AI. Well, sold by the same company.

[John C. Dvorak]

It seems that this would be used for something else, which is to. I would say they're using it to prevent model collapse. Oh, AI image, let's identify it. Let's segregate it so we don't ingest it as real.

[Adam Curry]

That could be.

[John C. Dvorak]

That would be a logical explanation other than we're going to sell some other stupid product to you.

[Adam Curry]

Well, come on.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, that's true.

[Adam Curry]

We're going to sell some other stupid product to you is a great idea.

[John C. Dvorak]

We need more power. More power to sell stupid product.

[Adam Curry]

So there's a lot of information in these images that we don't see or know about. And I guess in the stuff that Chad GPT cranks out in terms of text and it's all, I wonder how they do that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Although I was watching.

[Adam Curry]

I wonder how they do it too. JC says somehow it's incorporated in the White space. And I don't know how that even works.

[John C. Dvorak]

I was. There was something. I was watching where they trained one model on owls, and so they had the model just generate numbers. And so it was just generating what seemed to be all these random numbers. They then took those random numbers, trained a separate model on it, and that model then all of a sudden was giving owls as the answer for a lot of things. Model collapse is imminent. I can't wait for it. It can't happen soon enough.

[Adam Curry]

Enough.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm excited. I'm excited whenever. Here's. Here's what I'm waiting for people to say AI sucks, man. That's what I'm waiting for. And I'm already there with this orange.

[Adam Curry]

But you've been there since day one?

[John C. Dvorak]

Pretty much, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

You're just a. You're like a Luddite.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, but I'm a realist. I'm a humanist. I'm a humanist.

[Adam Curry]

That's what they said, too.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Well, they were French, weren't they? Weren't they French? It was the French.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it was the. Had to do with the Jacquard loom is what it started. So maybe they probably were French.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, French. Anyway, as we looked over the. Over the options, we had orange. Dead people. That would be Ozzy and Hulk. We had just orange. Orange. Orange was ebb. No. The only thing. Digital 2112 man tried to do some blue. There was nothing else. It's all dumb. The only thing I kind of like, just because it was not usable, because it meant nothing, it was you and I looking at a blue piece of art on the wall by Scaramanga. And the only thing I liked about it is it actually looked like us from behind. That was the only thing. Was there anything else we even discussed? I don't think so.

[Adam Curry]

Well, yeah, there was a lot discussed.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, no, we did not discuss anything. We just went over it. No, no, no, no, no. What do you like? Oh, you like. Liked Compute this by Nick the Rat.

[Adam Curry]

I did.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't know why I like it. Orange. More orange.

[Adam Curry]

That means he's using too many prompts. That's what my new thesis is.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you very much, Digital 2112, man, for prompting your way into the hall of fame on the no Agenda. Art General, anybody. And again, we would love to see Sir Paul Couture. I think I sent him a note about it to allow animated GIFs, because that would be the next version of artwork. The animated GIFs will work as artwork for. For podcast apps. I think it will actually Animate in your podcast app if you use it. I don't know about Apple, but I know the modern ones will. So that would be kind of cool to test out and otherwise just. Just put an A model in there. So people just go to the website and tape, type something in, make it easy, bypass it all.

[Adam Curry]

All.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let's get more slop in there as soon as possible so we can bring back real artists. It's just a thought.

[Adam Curry]

I think your thesis might be right again when you said that the metadata might be preventing that collapse from happening.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, so far it's not working. Hey, good news, there's no model collapse. Bad news, the world is orange. That's all we got for you. We also like to thank our producers who supply us with treasure of the three T's and the value for value model. The way it works is very simple. If you get value out of the show, send it back to us. Just put it into a number. We have no idea what's valuable to you. Only you know that. Only you know when something is valuable. We don't. We don't. We're not presumptuous that we know that something that we don't think that we're always valuable to all people. But when it's valuable to you, it's time to support us. It's time to send something back. And we thank everybody. $50 and above. Never below 50 for reasons of anonymity.

[Adam Curry]

Committee.

[John C. Dvorak]

And we started off with an old favorite. He comes by about once a month, once every six weeks. Sironomous of Dogpatch in Lower Slovia. Comes in with a cool 2777 and apparently plus 20 shekels. He always sends this in cash. So what denominations did this come in as?

[Adam Curry]

Well, there's a lot of twos and a fiver that got to the seven. It came in as hundreds. And then $5 and then a bunch of twos. A lot of twos.

[John C. Dvorak]

Like a bunch of them you always send.

[Adam Curry]

And then there's also a bill that was from Israel, 20 shekels, which I believe is around five bucks, I'm not mistaken. Or four.

[John C. Dvorak]

So we got Jew money.

[Adam Curry]

And that's what he said. He said he's sending some Jew money to us from.

[John C. Dvorak]

From the.

[Adam Curry]

He says, because we're complaining all the time about it from our.

[John C. Dvorak]

From our Muslim friends. Friend.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, the Muslims are now giving us Jew money.

[John C. Dvorak]

What does that do?

[Adam Curry]

This tells you something's ironic.

[John C. Dvorak]

We're at peak irony here. From Pseudonymous of Dogpatch and Lower Slovi. He says thank you to all producers. Name the non name that contribute to this show from last month. But I would like to congratulate the Sail Lake City school board and political leaders on following the historic Salt Lake. Salt Lake City sale. It says Sail.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it's Salt Lake City.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, is the E next to the T? No, not that. I would like to congratulate the Salt Lake City school board and political leaders on following the historical example of fighting to display their Confederate battle flag in public spaces including government buildings, a well worn path of steps and legal precedent. Removal of patriarch statues like Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Smith or Brigham Young can be next. If the state keeps fighting. The school board could follow Alabama's strategy over desegregation. Can't fly a preferred flag and have the books you want in the classroom close the schools. The Taliban successfully use this tack with their black flags. Oh, isn't that interesting?

[Adam Curry]

So he's referring to. When he says Confederate flag. He's referring to the gay flag.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of course. Of course he is.

[Adam Curry]

Is he's being facetious sarcastic at different levels.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, that's very interesting. So he's comparing the pride movement with the Taliban.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, exactly. That's what he's doing.

[John C. Dvorak]

That is great. That's something to study and think about and throw that out at the water cooler or at a cocktail party. Life is a human endeavor and individuals that are unwilling to compromise pursue well worn paths. Your media deconstruction identifies this tendency. No jingles, no karma. 140 words, including these shekels to offset Jewish shortfall. Thank you, sironomous. You are a gentleman, a true gentleman, and clearly a scholar.

[Adam Curry]

Onward with Eric Reinhart in San Antonio, Texas, 1052.62, which is a thousand dollars actually, with the extra of stuff. Dear John and Adams and John without the H. How do you all forgive the long note? I'll keep it brief.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, right.

[Adam Curry]

That's funny. Longtime donor, not a boner. This note has been a long time coming. I'd like you to congratulate. I'd like to congratulate you two on creating the best podcast in the universe. By the way, listen to Gavin Newsom's podcast. He calls it a pod.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, that is a violation.

[Adam Curry]

I just thought you should know.

[John C. Dvorak]

I should send him a summons. We should fine him for doing that.

[Adam Curry]

Your dedication to providing value for value has proven to be immeasurable. And I am returning value back in the form of $1,000. I returned an instant donation. And I returned an instantite donation to 2023 that I never claimed.

[John C. Dvorak]

Whoa.

[Adam Curry]

Along with several executive associate, executive executive producer credits. Most recently, set up a sustaining donation of $4 a week. With this donation, I'm finally claiming my knighthood. Please dub me Sir Eric. I first heard about the show back in 2021 via Bitcoin Twitter. All right, Bitcoin Twitter donation. And after listening to my first episode, I've been hooked. John, listen to the. Listen to the. Adam, listen to the atom. When he tells you the proverbial. Proverbial quote check is in the mail, all you need is the keys.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, I'm not even going to explain that to you.

[Adam Curry]

He speaks in riddles. Yes. Thank you for all the value you have provided over the years. Keep up the good work. No jingles, no copy Karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you very much, Eric. Sir Mike, slayer of taxes, comes in from Las Vegas, Nevada with $1,000 plus some couple fees. So it looks like 10, 30, 26. John and Adam. Sir Mike, slayer of taxes here. Normally I hail from Las Vegas, but I'm spending the summer in Bemidji, Minnesota. I have been to Bemidji, Minnesota because it's a zillion degrees cooler. I am looking forward to my degree. Immediate deconstruction. Yes, it's a PhD. For years I have told my wife who has a real PhD that I wanted to get a genu non accredited PhD so I could have the title of doctor too. I'm sure this will go over well. Yep, I'm pretty sure it will. I would like jobs, Karma for my two human resources and some f Cancer in honor of Pat, who fought a valiant battle but is unfortunately the end of his fight for jingles. Please play any rev Al I can be found on the interwebs at Best financial advisor in the States, United universe dot com. That is best financial adviser in the universe dot com. And that's a nice. That is a nice one. And he signs off with Sir Mike, the slayer of taxes. So we'll start off with jobs, Jobs, jobs. We'll do two karmas.

[Adam Curry]

Jobs.

[NPR Reporter]

Let's vote for jobs.

[Adam Curry]

Karma. R, E, S, P I C, T.

[NPR Reporter]

You've got karma.

[Adam Curry]

And then we come to David Crawford in Scottsdale, Arizona, who also came in at 10, 30, 26. And that is a. Another PhD but no jingles, no note, no nothing. At least at this moment he can send something in and we'll read it later. Later. But he'll get a double up Karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

And he sure will.

[Adam Curry]

You've got karma all right.

[John C. Dvorak]

Harjit Dosanj. I think Harjit Dosanj from Is it free end or fry? Free.

[Adam Curry]

I've never heard of this city.

[John C. Dvorak]

Free. Enter Friant, California. Three hundred fifty and ninety three cents in the morning. John and Adam, thank you for all your hard work. Work. My husband Raj and I have been enjoying the no Agenda show for over 15 years. And it's time for my donation of 333.33 plus fees, obviously. Can you also add me to the birthday list? Of course. You're there. Turning 58 on July 27th. I enjoy your humor and the boomer stories, John. I love the tip of the day, Adam. I especially like your imitation of people's laughter and voices. Ah, yes, yes. It's my claim to fame. Thank you, gents. Give me some goat karma and a bomb them. Bomb them. Bomb them again. Eh?

[Adam Curry]

In fact, I would say bomb them, bomb them and then bomb them again.

[NPR Reporter]

You've got karma.

[Adam Curry]

Tom Hartman without the H. So it's a different Tom Hartman. Whatever happened to him anyway?

[John C. Dvorak]

Where is Thumb?

[Adam Curry]

Thumb? You know, he wrote that book about the Great Depression and crash of 2019 and that was the end of him. Clinton Township, Michigan. 333.33. Yeah, whatever happened. He's I'm sure his show.

[John C. Dvorak]

He still has his podcast, his pod.

[Adam Curry]

Pod in the morning. John and Adam connection is protection and inspiration is education or. And education for. A few years ago, I bought a wooden watch. Ah, the wooden watch from Sir Mike of X. There it is.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, yes, Head watch.

[Adam Curry]

When he launched the company, being that we live in the same town, he hand delivered the order.

[John C. Dvorak]

Nice.

[Adam Curry]

We kept in touch. When he announced he was closing, I asked why. He explained the problems with wood. And there's plenty. Everyone has problems with wood.

[John C. Dvorak]

I got a wood problem.

[Adam Curry]

I said, why not metal? He said he was moving on and didn't want to talk about it. I asked if he could show me how. So here I am with a new watch. Oh no.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh no.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, the mega time watch dot com. Mega mega. Like maga time watch. I'm making America golden again. 25% off with promo code ITM. Go buy a watch there. Mega watch magatime watch dot com jobs karma and D douching is in order.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, these are handsome.

[Adam Curry]

Give me D douching while you're looking. Yes, you've been de douched.

[NPR Reporter]

Jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs.

[Adam Curry]

Let's vote for jobs Karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow. Listen to this sales pitch. We redefine elegance and sophistication, curating an exceptional collection of luxury wristwatches crafted for the modern man.

[Adam Curry]

Not bad.

[John C. Dvorak]

And they're affordable, like 95 bucks.

[Adam Curry]

No. Are they good?

[John C. Dvorak]

Best price.

[Adam Curry]

Because he took over the. All the gear and stuff to make the watches.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, no. Looks to me like China, but it doesn't matter. Could be. Let's see. Where are we now? We are at William levenberg from Los Angeles, 333 3. And he says in all caps, take your Jew money.

[Adam Curry]

Ah, good.

[John C. Dvorak]

Just turned 33. Strike me now with jobs, karma, health karma, and your best Jew jingle. What is our best Jew jingle?

[Adam Curry]

I said the. The shape shifting Jews seems to be the most popular.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Amongst the Jews.

[John C. Dvorak]

Amongst the Jews. The Jews seem to like the. The shape shifting. Yes. Since becoming a knight of the Norge in the roundtable. My amygdala is so small and my private parts and my member is so large. 14 more years. Yeah, sure. Here we go. Thank you very much for your Jew money.

[NPR Reporter]

You've got karma.

[Adam Curry]

Lee Gunning is up and he's in Judalup. And I've never heard of this town Jundalup. I've never heard of this town in Washington. Oh, no, it's not. It's not Washington. He's in Western Australia.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, that's why I've never heard of it.

[Adam Curry]

June Dup. June Dulup.

[John C. Dvorak]

June Dulup. Mike.

[Adam Curry]

June Dulup. Dear John and Adam, this is my first time donating and it's well overdue. Thank you both for all the hard work you put into producing the best podcast in the universe. I started listening to you around 2020 and that's when my life started to turn around for the best. I can now clearly see the bull crap that is fed to us all on a daily basis by the mainstream media. Thanks to you two geniuses. This guy's okay. Yeah. Next time anyone is in Bali. Ooh. Oh, he's in Bali and requires a tattoo. Please come to Liberty Ink Tattoo Studio in, I don't know.

[John C. Dvorak]

Seminyak.

[Adam Curry]

Seminyak. Top artists and best prices and he wants to give him. So he also needs to deduce him and give him some jobs. Karma, you've been de douched.

[NPR Reporter]

Jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs. Let's vote for jobs.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow. Good production work. Here, look at this. Our first associate executive producer with a row of ducks. 222.22. Comes from Dame Astrid, the arch Duchess of Japan and all the disputed islands in the Japan Sea.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, she finally sent me some socks.

[John C. Dvorak]

Are these the ones with the. The Japan.

[Adam Curry]

The rising sun.

[John C. Dvorak]

How good are those socks?

[Adam Curry]

Excellent socks.

[John C. Dvorak]

I mean I have red, white, blue, I think and they, they hang in there good. Socks.

[Adam Curry]

Dear John, how many times you've been wearing them?

[John C. Dvorak]

I wear them a lot.

[Adam Curry]

I just got. You just wear them continually. What?

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, you know. So I have a wonderful self replicating laundry system which means Tina does laundry and I'm very appreciative every single time it shows up. But if I look at my sock drawer and I see the Dame Asford socks, they're the first ones I up picked. Pick up. Don't you have a socks that you prefer over others?

[Adam Curry]

Nah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Dear John and Adam, I felt very boomer myself recently when I found out that a staff in their late 20s doesn't know Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction. Oh brother. I quickly consoled myself that nobody has as much wisdom as us boomers. Apologies to the Norwegian Tokyo producers for the late meeting.

[Adam Curry]

That wisdom, I guess.

[John C. Dvorak]

Apologies to the Norwegian the Tokyo producers for the late meetup. Shout out. But please ask them all to join us this Wednesday, July 30th to welcome Sebastian from the Gitmo Lowlands. It'll be his birthday. There it is. And wish him happy birthday at Cy Blum C Y B L U M E which advertises fine hops with girl group pops in Doganzaka, the Love Hotel area of Shibuya. That's going to be a banger of a meetup. Much love love. They mastered and Sir Mark Archduchess and Archduke of Japan and all the disputed islands in the Japan Sea. Thank you so much. Good to hear from you. If you're in Tokyo or happen to be passing by, you want to meet these people. You want to meet everybody at the Tokyo meetups. It's good stuff, good people, good connection. Full time Japanese protection.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. And congratulations to Koto Shoho for winning this last tournament.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm surprised she didn't mention that.

[Adam Curry]

Excellent, excellent matches. Dame Nikki ray in Tuliton, Oregon. 222-22-2222. Can I please get some jobs? Karma for my son who just graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. He'll get a job and is looking for a job in the energy industry. He'll get a job as well as birthday wishes for my daughter who turns 20 on 7:27. At 7:27. Hey. All right.

[John C. Dvorak]

Nice, well timed.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. 7:27. 727 for me. Can I get a I got ants jingle? Please Love you mean it. Dame Nikki Ray.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Dame Nikki Ray. We got that for you. We got the birthdays on the list and has requested some ants.

[Adam Curry]

I Got Ants I got ants.

[NPR Reporter]

Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.

[Adam Curry]

Let's vote for jobs. Karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, then, a rather long note here from Bobby Burke, who comes in with 217.61, which is 206.66plus fees. It's a switcheroo birthday shout out for my smoking hot wife, Joanne Burke. Okay, so let me just make sure we put Joanne in there. Joanne. Okay, Joanne, you're set. Please deduce her. Her birthday is Monday the 28th.

[Adam Curry]

You've been de douched.

[John C. Dvorak]

She works for the Wisconsin State's Lions as chief cat herder, no pun intended. Working for the state Lions has given her the opportunity to also work with the Lion's Eye bank and has gone on missions to Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Public surgeons and others volunteer their time and also pay their own plane tickets, hotels and meals, providing surgeries and glasses to the less fortunate. This has been her passion since her first mission. I apologize. I apologize if I get some details wrong, but the majority time I talk to her, I get sucked into her boob vortex and can't remember anything she said. Yes, a common problem. Yeah. No, I mean, this lady is a saint. She will shop at Goodwill for herself so she can save money to spend on someone else. She is the most caring and giving person I know, and I'm lucky to be married to her for 26 years. Come this September and we never had a fight. Why? That is why I'm asking the no Agenda Nation for your attention to this matter. I am asking that after you donate to the best podcast in the universe, if you have a couple coins left in your coin poo purse, Boomer reference, head over to Give Send, Go and donate whatever you can spare to Joanne's Guatemalan Hospital Hospital fundraiser. This money will go directly to the hospital for repairs, equipment, upgrades, et cetera. The working conditions at the hospital are not the best to say. At least he says, and I don't know where. He didn't say where that Give Send Go is, but I guess you look for the Guatemalan hospital fundraiser. I love you, sweetheart, with all my heart. Happy birthday. Shout out to all the douchebag lines that have not donated to the show. Come on, man. Love you guys. No homo. Can I get a. Just send your cash and a Lion's Karma is available. We don't. We actually he emailed me about that. We'll give you a goat. I know a lot of people want.

[Adam Curry]

To send blankets or water. Just send your cash.

[John C. Dvorak]

Goat will have to.

[NPR Reporter]

You've got karma.

[Adam Curry]

Eric Chaffee. I think is how you pronounce it?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Pronounced oh, chaffee. Just chaffee Coffee, but with a choffy. Choff Coffee 21267 ITM. This is my second upside donation. Producers, are you tired of being a douchebag? Download the upside app and earn money by filling up your car at participating gas stations. Then donate the money you save to no Agenda. Enter the promo code Eric 84582. Eric 84582 when you sign up. Up and we'll both get a bonus. Attention, truckers. You can. You can add your fleet card to upsize so you can earn when you fill up your truck. That would be a lot.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, that'd be quite a good one.

[Adam Curry]

Enter the promo code Eric 84582 when you sign up and we'll both get a bonus. Yes. Thank you for your courage, Eric. Chuffy 212 67.

[John C. Dvorak]

$200 and $0.01 coming from Sir Cashman with a dollar sign in Austin, Texas. I won't waste real estate estate saying, I hope this note finds you well, because this note is definitely too long. This is a preemptive donation to prod jod into figuring out my donation request. I have nothing more to say on that. Have you read through this thing? Okay. I would like to add, because I've never heard it mentioned, I have a sustaining donation uninterrupted to all you producers. You can have a sustaining donation and make other donations for special occasions. Occasions. It's like when you go to Chipotle every day and pay them 10 bucks for a bowl of goo. The day you get a raise or a tax return, you add $5 for a scoop of I Can't Believe It's Not Guacamole. Guacamole. This donation is for a scoop of no agenda. Real guacamole. Two requests. Sorry. They are dancing monkey like. First, can John replace the word bullshit with apocryphal? Apocryphal. What is that?

[Adam Curry]

Apocryphal.

[John C. Dvorak]

What is that? What does that mean?

[Adam Curry]

End of the world.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, so would you please say apocryphal dance?

[Adam Curry]

Apocryphal.

[John C. Dvorak]

Second, John, again, Can you do a live head bonk out soundbite and turn it into a jingle?

[Adam Curry]

I just go in my room and eat an apple.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

No, I can't. That's not a good jingle. This guy's got more requests than.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, this is. This is so weird. Okay, so what he wants is. He wants you to do that dance monkey. He wants you to do that three times, and then Trump, come, let's just do it and just get it over with.

[Adam Curry]

What, you want me to pound the. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Three times. Three times. Yes.

[Adam Curry]

I'm gonna come.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right. Thank you, sir. Steve, that was quite disturbing.

[Adam Curry]

Yes. Say, keep these notes shorter, people. It wouldn't hurt. Linda Lou Patkin in Lakewood, Colorado. Now, she knows how to write a note. She's came in with $200 and she says she wants jobs. Carmen, she says worried about AI For a resume that gets results, tells you your unique story and highlights the value you bring, go to ImageMakersInc.com that's ImageMakers, a K. And work with Linda Lou, the duchess of jobs and writer of winning resumes.

[NPR Reporter]

Jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs. Let's vote for jobs.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Linda Lou, always on that list. Thank you to these executive and associate executive producers of episode 1785. These are credits that are real. You can use them anywhere. Credits are recognized and accepted, which includes IMDb.com Go ahead, take a look there. Over a thousand executive and associate executive producers of the no Agenda show listen listed in IMDb.com you can use anywhere you LinkedIn. Do it on your Twitter profile, put on your business cards if you still have one. And of course, you can always support us by going to noagendadonations.com we will thank the rest of our donors $50 and above. We do not read under 50 for reasons of anonymity. And once one more time, thank you to these executive and associate executive producers.

[Adam Curry]

Our formula is this. We go out, we hit people in the mouth. Shut up, Slave. Shut up, Slave.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wanted to just for a second here, here you probably saw the president went to first time since 1932 the President went to the Federal Reserve to go talk to Jay Powell. So here these two numbskulls wearing hard hats and of course, this was a moment that the mainstream media just lump jumping all just jumped all over. Oh, he got owned by power.

[Adam Curry]

We got an extraordinary moment playing out of the festival Reserve building late today in front of cameras President Trump and the Federal Reserve chair amid the president's continuing pressure on Jerome Powell to bring rates down. Today, the sudden move by the president, the numbers he pulled out, Jerome Powell then reading them in real time and shooting them down. Here's Mary Bruce.

[NPR Reporter]

Tonight, an extraordinary scene at the Federal Reserve as President Trump ramps up his effort to pressure Fed chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. Trump making a rare visit to the Fed to challenge Powell on the building's multi billion dollar renovation. With cameras rolling, Trump Pulling out a sheet of paper, trying to surprise the Fed chair with a new price tag for the project. But Powell telling the President that number factors in construction that was completed five years ago.

[Adam Curry]

It looks like it's about 3.1 billion. One up a little bit or a lot. So the 2.6 billion seven is now 3.1.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm not aware of that.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it just came out.

[John C. Dvorak]

I haven't heard that from anybody. Our mill said it about 3.1 as well.

[Adam Curry]

3.1. 3.2.

[NPR Reporter]

This came from us.

[Adam Curry]

Yes. I don't know who does that. Are you including the Martin renovation, you.

[John C. Dvorak]

Just added entire capital.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

You just.

[Adam Curry]

You just added in a third building is what that is. That's a third building. It's a building that's being built.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, it's been.

[Adam Curry]

It was built five years ago. We finished Martin five years ago. It's part of the overall work.

[John C. Dvorak]

So new.

[Adam Curry]

So we're going to take a look.

[NPR Reporter]

But reporters then asking as a real.

[Adam Curry]

Estate developer, what would you do with.

[NPR Reporter]

A project manager who would be over.

[Adam Curry]

Budget general, generally speaking, what would I do? I'd fire them.

[John C. Dvorak]

So this whole thing is just baffling to me. 3.1, 2.7 billion for offices.

[Adam Curry]

Not only that, but they're already built. The Renovation is the 2.7. Do you know what it costs to build the entire Bellagio in Las Vegas?

[John C. Dvorak]

800 million.

[Adam Curry]

No, 1.6 billion. And that's expensive. That was the most expensive building at the time time. 1.6 billion to do the entire Bellagio and it's costing 2.7 to do a renovation.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I mean, and that's.

[Adam Curry]

This is a scam at msnbc.

[John C. Dvorak]

The whole more.

[Adam Curry]

It's apocryphal.

[John C. Dvorak]

He owned Powell. Owned him. Yeah, he did. But the. But the real. The real information is not discussed at all. Which is the whole reason why I think the main. I don't know. I'm. I'm not the Fed chair care. But this is the real reason that President Trump wants to make some changes. And this was in the statements of the press afterwards, which of course no one, no one aired. Why would you.

[Adam Curry]

If it's high never helps it. Well, it's already as good as we're doing. Think of how well would be do. We'd be like a rocket ship. As good as we're doing. We'd do better if we had lower interest rates and we should. We're prime. We don't forget without us, the whole world collapses. So we should have the lowest interest rate. Because, you know, you could talk about Switzerland, you can talk about wonderful countries, no debt. No. But without us, everything collapses. We should have the lowest interest rate. And if you took it down three points, not a little bit, but three points. If you got us down to one, we would save more than a trillion dollars, basically, with just a paper transfer. You wouldn't be cutting, Cutting costs of anything. You wouldn't be building anything. Just a move of the hand saying we're going to lower interest rates. You would save $1 trillion a year. And there's, there's nothing you can do to save that kind of money. So. So, well, we, we had a little talk about it and I thought it was a very productive talk. He'll be able to tell you at his next meeting. But I will say that he did say the country is doing really well, and the country is really doing well.

[John C. Dvorak]

What would happen, in your opinion, if by some miraculous happenstance, the Federal Reserve lowered the interest rate by 3 points in one go? What would happen?

[Adam Curry]

Well, first of all, the housing market would go nuts.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Everyone would start buying houses.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. And it would be. The prices of houses would just skyrocket. I mean, to an extreme. And the other thing is the stock market would probably spend about three or four days trying to figure out whether this was good or bad, and then perhaps start to go up to an ex. To an extreme. That's uncomfortable. Things would. It wouldn't be a bad. I mean, mean, it's not. It wouldn't hurt anything.

[John C. Dvorak]

And we could refi the country overnight. We could refi the debt that we have to pay back this year.

[Adam Curry]

Refiing would be a good idea.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. That's how he saves a trillion dollars by a refi. So.

[Adam Curry]

But they're not going to do it. I mean, I don't know why we actually have high. The high. Switzerland, I think, is down to like 1.5. It's really low.

[John C. Dvorak]

All of the EU is down to 2, too.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it's down. We're actually artificially high. It doesn't make any sense.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, is that just political? Because he doesn't actually want Trump to refi the country and say, look, I saved this a trillion dollars.

[Adam Curry]

It has to be.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, that's an outrage.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, he did lower the interest rates just before the Paris out of the blue. They said, well, let's lower it now and make the economy kind of perk up a bit. And it did. Did. And then he hasn't done anything since then. He was hired by Trump to begin with. I Don't know what the thing is, what's going on there. He could have been just the bad advice Trump received the first term. He was just everything was. He put people in there, one person after another that were just bad. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Right on cue. Which is exactly what I would have done if I had the Epstein scandal. I'd. I'd jack everything up and say, hey, you know what? Now I got everybody believing that I got Colbert fired. Let's approve the merger. Some news closer to home here at cbs.

[Adam Curry]

The Federal Communications Commission has approved the planned merger between Paramount Global, our parent company here at cbs, and Skydance Media. It's a decision that clears the way for Skydance's $8 billion acquisition of Paramount and its subsidiaries, which include the CBS television network and its owned and operated stations.

[John C. Dvorak]

The FCC approval comes after Paramount agreed.

[Adam Curry]

To a $16 million settlement with President Trump over his allegation that 60 Minutes deceptively edited an interview with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, an accusation that Paramount has said was completely without merit.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, that's what I do. That's hilarious. Prove it. Approve it.

[Adam Curry]

Now.

[John C. Dvorak]

Now. And then.

[Adam Curry]

You know what?

[John C. Dvorak]

Call up those boys. Call up those and those cartoon boys. Let him release the. The new season. This is hilarious. Go, go, go, go.

[NPR Reporter]

In their season premiere, South Park's co creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are at it again, this time mocking President Trump's ego, his manhood and pension for lawsuits. The episode has the White House seeing red. This show hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas. In a desperate attempt for attention, President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country's history. And no fourth rate show can derail President Trump's hot streak. MAGA fans, too, reacted on social media, with many complaining that south park had sold out or caught a case of Trump derangement syndrome. Stone and Parker were asked to weigh in on the uproar.

[Adam Curry]

You've been following us. What do you make of this? We're terribly sorry.

[NPR Reporter]

The episode also took aim at South Park's new parent company, Paramount, and its controversial decision to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit, as well as its cancellation of the popular CBS program the Late show with Stephen Colbert. The government can't cancel the show.

[John C. Dvorak]

I mean, what show are they going to cancel?

[NPR Reporter]

The premiere aired just hours after Parker and stone signed a five year deal with Paramount for 50 new episodes and rights to stream previous seasons, reported to be worth one and a half Billion dollars.

[John C. Dvorak]

I have not seen. I've seen all the clips. Clips of the episode. I just went to go see it and I thought because I have HBO that I would get it automatically. But they don't have the new season. I don't know why. And I'm not going to go buy Paramount Streaming.

[Adam Curry]

They have it on YouTube.

[John C. Dvorak]

The full episode.

[Adam Curry]

No, they have the part that's controversial.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I know, but what if I just want to see the whole episode? I have to buy Paramount Stream.

[Adam Curry]

You have to wait. I'm not going to do that. Well, Paramount who. Nobody does that.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I wouldn't think so.

[Adam Curry]

So. But the Sky Dance thing was going to go through no matter what.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of course.

[Adam Curry]

But now that they have taken over, they don't have to fire Colbert. I think Colbert is going to get let go before the May deadline. Is going to be bought out now.

[John C. Dvorak]

You want to put money on that?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I'll put 10 bucks on it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Nah, let's go five.

[Adam Curry]

Okay. So the bet would be that Colbert lasts the whole to. To May.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Oh, he's got to have a big goodbye and all the celebrities will come by in the last week.

[Adam Curry]

He talked me out of the bed. It'll be.

[John C. Dvorak]

They'll finally get some ratings on that show. What are you talking about? No, no, no.

[Adam Curry]

And so now the.

[John C. Dvorak]

Right. The writers and that 200 person staff. Yeah. They're getting. They're getting axed early.

[Adam Curry]

Now the show that's tar. I think is going to be targeted is Comedy Central at Jon Stewart.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, yes.

[Adam Curry]

So the Skydance guys are going to have to take care of that themselves. We'll see how it works out.

[John C. Dvorak]

Do we not understand that it is time? It is time for linear programming to just go away? It's not of this world anymore.

[Adam Curry]

Linear programming hanging in there. I like the fact that the View is taking the nasty word hiatus.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. What happened there?

[Adam Curry]

Do we know out of the blue we're going on a hiatus and you know what that means.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, maybe it's just a vacation. Maybe it's just July.

[Adam Curry]

Then they'd say vacation. They didn't say that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, no, we in television, in television land, we say hiatus. We're on.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, you say a hiatus when you're done.

[John C. Dvorak]

We're on hiatus this Thursday, John. Whoa.

[Adam Curry]

No, we're not. We're taking a day. We're taking a show off and the show is still going to be produced and it's going to be a dynamite show and it's got, you know, it'll be fine.

[John C. Dvorak]

It'll be great. Well, you. I think you mentioned this to me right after the show on Sunday, and I was like, I hadn't heard about this. But, yes, it's true.

[Adam Curry]

Next. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, fresh off that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Lavish week wedding in Venice, may be.

[Adam Curry]

Looking to expand his media empire.

[NPR Reporter]

Already owns the Washington Post, and now he's reportedly thinking about buying cnbc. That is, according to the New York Post. But Bezos is not commenting.

[Adam Curry]

My understanding. He's going to buy the whole thing. He's going to buy snbc, cnbc, that whole group. He's not just buying. They're not spinning off. Just cnbc. That has to be part of the whole package.

[John C. Dvorak]

He gets Spinco, Spinco, Spinco, Spinco. What will he call it?

[Adam Curry]

Bezos Television?

[John C. Dvorak]

Nah, I don't think so.

[Adam Curry]

Amazon tv. I already have that.

[John C. Dvorak]

We'll just fold it.

[Adam Curry]

But Amazon TV's not bad. The Amazon Network, he could fold it into Amazon.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's interesting. That's the way to go.

[Adam Curry]

He could fold it into Prime.

[John C. Dvorak]

He should let his new wife.

[Adam Curry]

They can do live streaming on prime and do. Hold on a second.

[John C. Dvorak]

They're never going to take it off of cable because that's still the money. The carriage fees is still the money.

[Adam Curry]

No, but that. But the. But they'll. They'll. They'll transcode it and run it off straight off of Amazon, too. Why not? Because you.

[John C. Dvorak]

Because if it's on Amazon. Well, I guess if people pay, it's such. It's free money. The cable station.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Well, money.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Okay. There is some issues with doing both. I agree.

[John C. Dvorak]

But why is he doing it? Because he really wants to be?

[Adam Curry]

No, because the CIA knocked on the door and said, hey, look, hey, look, we. We're going to lose control of this little outlet we want. You bought the Washington Post for us, which is, as Steve Bannon mentioned, is called the CIA bugle. And you own that now.

[John C. Dvorak]

Not the c. No, it's not. It's the. Where's the CIA located in Virginia?

[Adam Curry]

Langley.

[John C. Dvorak]

The Langley Bugle, I think he called it the Langley Bugle, not the Langley Bugle.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, yeah, but you got that. Now you're gonna have to help us out here, and we'll keep contracting with your servers to do. To do our back end. And that's what you know, because he's got most of the business. So you think Sanchez. And he kind of does what he had, what he's told.

[John C. Dvorak]

Do you think Sanchez is his handler? It makes a lot of sense, actually, now I think about it.

[Adam Curry]

Wow. Huh? Yeah, that's an interesting theory.

[John C. Dvorak]

Why not? Yeah, could be. She could be the hand handler. Anyway, good luck to him. That's great. Keep. Keep it going, Jeff. We need clips.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, that's true. We need clips. And the place is a gold mine.

[John C. Dvorak]

You got anything to. To play us out with?

[Adam Curry]

Because we play us out with a little fish poaching. You want to talk about fish poaching? You know, kind of an interesting story.

[John C. Dvorak]

I thought you'd never ask about fish poaching. Fish poaching, fish poachers.

[NPR Reporter]

There are small fishing boats, and then there are industrial fishing ships. They're basically floating factories at sea. Imagine a huge vessel on the water that is pulling in just vast, vast quantities of fish. Jennifer Rayner is a natural resource economist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She says these massive boats catch fish, process it, freeze it, and then other boats come to pick it up so the operation doesn't have to stop some. Sometimes these boats can be out there for two years at a time, just fishing nonstop in places that they never could have reached before. These large vessels are now responsible for most of the global seafood catch. Rainer says many of these ships now have GPS transponders that report their position, but there are still blind spots. Those blind spots are that captains can disable this device. And you might expect that you'd be more likely to do that if you're doing things that are illegal. And many vessels are not required to use this system. It's been hard to figure out the impact these dark vessels, as they're known, are having on marine life. Now new technology is helping radar from European satellites is able to detect large vessels on the ocean. Rayner and her colleagues use all that tracking data to see how many vessels were in marine protected areas, places where fishing is banned.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow. I am kind of sorry I asked for this.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, you should be. But I still amazed by a ship that just sits out there grabbing fish like there's no tomorrow for two years. Well, yeah, What a job that's gotta be. You must not like women.

[NPR Reporter]

Perhaps surprisingly, given how hard monitoring is and how vast these spaces can be, we found that poaching is surprisingly rare. Almost 80% of the protected areas had no industrial fishing activity, which Rainer published in the journal State Science. I think it's a very hopeful sign for conservation at a bare minimum. We need compliance.

[Adam Curry]

Right.

[NPR Reporter]

A study by other researchers also used the same tracking data. Rafael Sagan of the University of Montpellier in France looked at a bigger group of protected areas, places with some protections, but that still Allow some fishing. He found industrial fishing going on in about half of them.

[Adam Curry]

Two thirds of industrial fishing in these marine protected areas were under invisible to public tracking systems. And that means that we have underestimated.

[John C. Dvorak]

What is actually going on in marine protected areas.

[NPR Reporter]

Almost 200 countries have agreed to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030. Today it's only about 8%. But Sagan says if there's industrial fishing in these protected areas, that goal doesn't mean much.

[Adam Curry]

Every area of the ocean that can be fished is fished today.

[John C. Dvorak]

So that's a big issue because when we say we want to protect 30%.

[Adam Curry]

Of the ocean, most of the time it's false protection.

[NPR Reporter]

But Sagan says the potential is that these new satellite technologies could help countries with enforcement by tracking illegal fishing in real time. So protected areas of the ocean will actually be protected?

[Adam Curry]

Well, yeah, I'm sorry I got those tips, but I will say it's educational. People now know.

[John C. Dvorak]

And do you know what the. Oh wow. Is it raining? Oh, it just started pouring. Do you know what the raining there? Yeah, it just started pouring all of a sudden. Do you know what the. What the main catch is of these poachers?

[Adam Curry]

Sharks.

[John C. Dvorak]

Mackerel.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, now you've connected the dots. I'm going to show my support by.

[John C. Dvorak]

Donating to no Agenda.

[Adam Curry]

Imagine all the people who could do that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh yeah, that'd be fab. Got John's tip of the day. We got real some three a real toe tapper for your end of show mix. Of course we'll check some ISOs, we got some meetup reports and right now John will thank the rest of our supporters, the donors in the time, talent and treasure of our value for value model. $50 and above.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Let's start with Ms. Ms. Masters in London UK. $111.11. Ms. Masters, Ms. Masters. My husband and I listen to every show since the scamdemic and it's a constant relief to know that there are such souls referring to us of substance walking among us. I thought that was a nice note.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, and I'm amazed they're still in in England. People seem to be leaving.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I am too actually.

[John C. Dvorak]

People seem to be leaving there.

[Adam Curry]

They're in London. Mark brustar in Mesa, Arizona. 10745 got a birthday to. Happy birthday to him. He heard John Joe Rogan. Yeah, yeah, before the pandemic.

[John C. Dvorak]

Rogan donation.

[Adam Curry]

I thank God I found you. Yeah, keep up the great work. Please deduce me you've been de douched and here she is Dame Rita. She's in Sparks, Nevada. Came in with 107 27. Robin Tolbert in Topeka, Kansas. 99. 98. Josh Britt in Spring Hill, Tennessee. 8,033 times top 100 was alphabetical.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, that's what I said. I was very clear about that.

[Adam Curry]

He's making it. Yeah. He didn't put that. You also said it's sucks.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Kevin McLaughlin, Conquer, North Carolina is up. He came in with 8008 as usual. He's the Archduke of Luna, lover of America and lover of melons. Benjamin Ryan in North Canton, Ohio. 7242.

[John C. Dvorak]

You forgot to say. He said God bless America. That is part of his note.

[Adam Curry]

That's who it is. Brian Ryan.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wait, Benjamin Ryan. Ryan's. What does he say?

[Adam Curry]

Brian? I said Brian Ryan because it. It rhymed.

[John C. Dvorak]

Benjamin Ryan being born today. All right, that's what he said.

[Adam Curry]

7242.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, Ben.

[Adam Curry]

He says please place all show credits in her name, which is his I L O instead of mine. Okay, well, we don't have the name, but whatever. We do the best we can. John Alberini in parts unknown. 7026. Joshua Johns in no city provided. 69. 69. Brian McFadden in Hampton, Virginia. 6114. That's a birthday, Baron. We all have birthdays today. Did you notice?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I did notice.

[Adam Curry]

Baron, Sir Phenom. Another birthday. He's in Appleton, Wisconsin. Hansen, Thomas Getz in Dortmund, Deutschland. Ah, that's where they make the Dortmunder beer. A surprise in Yukon, Oklahoma. Oh, by the way, Dortmunder guy is 5510. Thank you for the Germans who listen to this show. Surprise in Yukon, Oklahoma. 5444. Daniel Nugent in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 5272. He likes the boomer talk. Kevin Adam in Clover, South Carolina. 5272. James Van Hilling, Dutch name I can't pronounce. Foothill Ranch, California.

[John C. Dvorak]

Did a good job. Good job.

[Adam Curry]

Ashley McClellan in Strongville, Ohio. 5150. This is a switcheroo for J. Dou Douchebag Brother. Brandon Walters. Happy birthday.

[John C. Dvorak]

And you miss. Nathan Gwynn in Jackson, Tennessee. 50.

[Adam Curry]

Nathan Gwynn, Jackson, Tennessee. 5272 is the last of that group. George Wushit in LA, Texas. 50. Oh, these are already $50 donors. We don't have a lot today, which for some reason the $50 are lagging. A lot of them are adding the extra $2.72. Yeah, George Wushette in Lavernia, Texas. Jacqueline Connell. Jacqueline Connolly in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Go Packers. Richard Gardner. I think he's in New York City. Aaron Wise Gerber in Bend, Oregon. Benjamin Ryan in Alliance, Ohio. Michael Myers in Mandeville, Iowa. And last on the list, Leanne Shipley in Covington, Washington. Want to thank these people for making shows. 1784, the reality that it has become dynamite.

[John C. Dvorak]

Everybody, thank you. And also thank you again to those executive and associate executive producers for 1785. And thank you to everybody who came in under $50. We did not mention those for reasons of anonymity. And of course, you can always set up a sustaining donation by going to noagendadonations.com any amount, any frequency. It's all value for value. You keep the show rolling if you want it, if you got value out of it. Noagendadonations.com well, Brian McFadden turned 58 on the 24th of July. Harjit Dosanj. Now, I think Harjit had a donation for her husband, but I, I don't know if it's her or him who turns 58 on July 27th. That would be today. Dame Nikki Ray, Happy birthday. J. Her daughter, she turns 20 today. Bobby Burke, happy birth to his wife Joanne. She celebrates tomorrow. Baron Seraphinam celebrating his birthday tomorrow. Mark Brusstar turns 51. William Levenberg turns 33. And Ashley McClellan wishes her brother Brandon Walters a very happy birthday. As do we. Happy birthday from everybody here at the best podcast in the universe. Three PhDs to celebrate today. This is winding down. This will be it actually, won't it?

[Adam Curry]

No, we got, I think we got one more show.

[John C. Dvorak]

One more show.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, one more show. So, and it's going to be, since it's going to be, we're going to do those special shows. You could probably sneak in late if you, if you want to, but I don't think you should.

[John C. Dvorak]

Leaving a little sliver of daylight there, I hear a little bit. Well, congratulations to Eric Reinhardt, Sir Mike, slayer of taxes, and David Crawford. All of them are nice now. PhDs in media deconstruction. Congratulations, gentlemen. Go to noagenderrings.com we have a tab there for your PhDs. Let us know what name you want on it and what address to send it to and we'll get it out to you as soon as possible. Everybody go take a look at them. They're really beautiful certificates for your PhD. One night to celebrate today. So we'll bring out our one night blade. It is double Sided. So be careful. Be very careful with what you do. Eric Reinhardt. He brings the bacon. Thanks. The amount of $1,000 or more. You, sir, are about to become a knight of the no Agenda roundtable. I am very proud to pronounce the cape thee as the one, the only, Sir Eric. For you, we've got hookers and blow, rent boys and chardonnay. But it doesn't stop there. No. We've got diet soda and video games. We've got harlots and Haldahl. We've got redheads and rocks, Rubin esque women and geishas and sake, vodka, vanilla bong hits of bourbon, sparkling cider, Nescorts, ginger ale and gerbils, breast milk and pablum. And as always, at the end of the list here at the round table of the nights and days, we have the mutton and we have the mead. Go ahead, go to noagendarings.com check out that handsome no agenda night ring. It is a signet ring, which means you can use it to seal your important correspondence. We support supply some sticks of wax to do that very action with. And of course, as always, a certificate of authenticity. Welcome to the round table, Sir Eric. Well, despite what John tells you, we do have meetups on the calendar. I mean, the people are still organizing meetups all around the world. No agendameetups.com. remember, we got the biggest one coming up in Tokyo. But first, we have a report from the Central Ohio meetup group in the morning.

[Adam Curry]

John and Adam. Sir. PBR Street Gang coming to you from Dempsey's downtown Columbus. Sir Leary's group of scallywags looking for our deconstruction team.

[John C. Dvorak]

Sir Leary here.

[Adam Curry]

Just so you all know, Les Wexner.

[John C. Dvorak]

Gave Jeffrey Epstein his phone number.

[Adam Curry]

It's 614-666-6969 in the morning.

[John C. Dvorak]

Bag slappers. Local representative of the peasantry here. John, you need to go back on. Who are these podcasts? Adam, you gotta get on. Who are these podcasts? Your new exit strategy. Grifters in the dabble verse.

[Adam Curry]

Keep on trucking.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stay safe in the morning.

[Adam Curry]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[John C. Dvorak]

You're more than welcome. Not every single meetup is big. But two people, even one, and a dog, you gotta meet up. Victoria, British Columbia. All right.

[Adam Curry]

This is Sir Rogue of the Taverns, Baron of the Couch and Valley at the Victoria meetup on Friday, July 25, 2025. And with me here today in. Hi, it's Barbara.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's itm. And like you said, by yourself. Well, there we go.

[Adam Curry]

There's the meetup report for the Victoria meetup. Hope everyone joins us. We'll be doing this again in about two weeks. Come join us.

[John C. Dvorak]

Done here.

[Adam Curry]

Well, that rug say his word.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, he pinched the dog.

[Adam Curry]

I like the end of that report.

[John C. Dvorak]

That was awesome. And I sound like a very native Dutch speaker there. And we had at that meetup. Thank you very much. We have a meetup taking place this Wednesday. It is July 30th. We told you all about us. The emergency meetup and birthday celebration for Sir Sebastian of the Gitmo Lowlands. That will be at 7:30 Japan Standard Time Time at Cybloom. C Y B L U M E in Shibuya. Shibuya, Japan Tokyo, Japan. Sir Mark Archduke of Japan, Japan Sea and all the disputed lands is organizing that. And on Thursday, our next official show day which will be the best of Adam and John's exit strategies. It's hours of fun. You will laugh. This, this is a good show. North Georgia monthly meetup takes place at 6 o' clock at Cherry Street Brewing in Alpharetta, Georgia. Many more to come in Victoria, British Columbia. Eagle, Idaho, Bedford, Texas. Copenhagen, Denmark. Blaine, Washington. Charlotte, North Carolina, Maastricht, the Netherlands. Cleveland, Ohio. Hello Cleveland. Mayfield Heights, Ohio. Alpharetta, Georgia again. And there's many more. Go to NoaGenDameetups.com to find the entire list. If you can't find one on that list, no problem. You can start one yourself. No agenda. Meetups.com Sometimes you wanna go hang out.

[Adam Curry]

With all the nights and days. You wanna be where you won't be triggered on hell Aim.

[John C. Dvorak]

You wanna be where everybody feels the same.

[Adam Curry]

It's like a party.

[John C. Dvorak]

And they are indeed always like a party. That's pretty much baked into the whole idea. Guaranteed. Time for us to select some ISOs for the end of the show show. I see you have two. John, I'm not even going to ask if you found them yourself or if the AI generated doesn't matter. I'll start with mine.

[Adam Curry]

These guys are smart, they're hard working, they're motivated, they want more and more.

[John C. Dvorak]

A tad on the long side. I have this one.

[NPR Reporter]

Full body chills.

[Adam Curry]

I couldn't understand it.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, how about this one?

[Adam Curry]

That's just propaganda. That's cute.

[John C. Dvorak]

I kind of like that one. What do you have?

[Adam Curry]

I don't have anything good either. Oh, okay, let's start with what do we got? Let's do with the podcasts.

[NPR Reporter]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh no, no, no, no.

[Adam Curry]

Then the other one is support. I hope you'll consider supporting us.

[John C. Dvorak]

Muddily.

[Adam Curry]

I hope you'll consider supporting us.

[John C. Dvorak]

How about this?

[Adam Curry]

That's just propaganda.

[John C. Dvorak]

Come on. That's loud. That's proud.

[Adam Curry]

That's not propaganda. We're propaganda on this show. Just propaganda.

[John C. Dvorak]

But it's not about just. It's. Of course we're not propaganda.

[Adam Curry]

That's just propaganda.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's the best ISO. It sounds the best.

[Adam Curry]

And it's insulting.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, what do you want then?

[Adam Curry]

Well, you got. That's the only choice we've got. Really.

[John C. Dvorak]

What? We have no choice.

[Adam Curry]

What was the first one?

[John C. Dvorak]

The first one? The first one was this. Too long.

[Adam Curry]

These guys are smart, they're hard working, they're motivated, they want more and more. What? You know, if you took. They want more and more off, it'd be perfect. These guys are smart, they're hard working, they're motivated, they want more and more.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, I could take that. I could, I could edit. Let me just make sure I can edit that.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, Shorter and better, it'll be like this. These guys are smart, they're hard working, they're motivated. Right there. Boom.

[John C. Dvorak]

Boom. That's exactly what I was talking about. Hey, before we do anything, it's time for John sip of day the today. Great advice for you and me. Just the tip with JCD and sometimes.

[Adam Curry]

Adam created by Dana Bernetti. Yeah, I have a website selection that's very valuable for people who like to at least see who's talking to them or sending them email or anything. And it's the best of the group. There's a bunch of these things as iplocation.net.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, what kind of thing is this? That's interesting.

[Adam Curry]

Iplocation.net yeah, and it tells you where. It's basically finds your IP address. You put an IP address and it tells you where you are. But it doesn't just do it with one source. It's actually a meta site that looks at a bunch of different sources so you get a bunch of possibilities.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, so is it going to, so is it going to find my address now?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, as soon as you load it, it'll give you your address immediately.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let's see how it does. Okay, so let me paste this in here. Let me see. IP lookup. Oh wait, it didn't do it.

[Adam Curry]

IPLocation.net yeah, no, I'm.

[John C. Dvorak]

I know, but I'm. I'm clicking the button. It says I'm in Greatwood, Texas. Awesome.

[Adam Curry]

Now put in somebody else's IP address and it'll give you like eight selections.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, hold on. A second. Now, this one says I'm in Kyle. This one says I'm in Dallas. Oh, Fredericksburg. There it is. Okay.

[Adam Curry]

All right.

[John C. Dvorak]

One of the. We got a Sugar Land. Interesting.

[Adam Curry]

In most cases, it. It's all the same. But some flaky IP guys, you know, since they're all over the place. Place. I don't know what network you're on. They'll give you some estimates.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't like flaky IP guys. Those guys are no good. No.

[Adam Curry]

All right, well, it's a flakyip dot com.

[John C. Dvorak]

There it is, everybody. Go to tipoftheday.net or noagendafund.com for all of John's tips.

[Adam Curry]

Great advice for you and me.

[John C. Dvorak]

Just the tip with JCD and sometimes.

[Adam Curry]

Adam, created by Dana Burnetti.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's right. They are good tips. These are tips that are handy. You can use them anywhere. Collect all 1000 and win the bonus prize. Code Bongino. Coming up next on your no Agenda stream, or if you're using one of those modern podcast apps, we've got Tony Heller. Tony Heller. I've never heard of Tony Heller. Oh, oh, it's. It's a Grimerica show. There you go, Grimerica. We love the boys over there, Grimerica. They're good, those boys. Also end of show mixes. We've got Melody, we got Judd Hawley. These are all real mixes, by the way. And norad. All real music. No AI, no joke, no jip, because we're no agenda, baby. All on Thursday. You get the best of Adam and John's exit strategies. More than two hours. You're gonna love it, guaranteed. Until then, coming to you from the heart of the Texas Hill country right here in Fredericksburg, Texas, close to Kyle and Sugarland. In the morning, everybody, I'm Adam Curry.

[Adam Curry]

And from northern Silicon Valley, where it's finally warming up, I can see San Francisco. I'm John C. Devora.

[John C. Dvorak]

We return on Thursday for the best of our exhibition strategies. Until then, adios mo fosa, hooey, hooey and such. The lawsuit claims that this has been.

[Adam Curry]

A year long campaign by Candace Owens. Why are the Macron suing now? Like, what changed?

[John C. Dvorak]

Why? We have intended to engage with her.

[Adam Curry]

For the last year.

[John C. Dvorak]

Putting evidence in front of her.

[Adam Curry]

Evidence.

[John C. Dvorak]

Request after request after request.

[Adam Curry]

If you just simply do the right thing. This is not a legal thing. Do the right thing. Tell the truth.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stop spreading these lies.

[Adam Curry]

Mock the Macrons. Do the right thing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stop spreading these lies.

[Adam Curry]

Do the right thing thing now. Stop spreading these lies. She mocked the Macrons Stop spreading these.

[John C. Dvorak]

Lies do the right thing now, now, now, now Stop spreading these lies Some people are afraid of the weather yeah some need an excuse used to stay.

[Adam Curry]

Home Some people call me boring But I've got to, got to escape the.

[John C. Dvorak]

Heat don't the new shows talk about.

[Adam Curry]

Me baby.

[John C. Dvorak]

Say I'm doing it wrong.

[Adam Curry]

Doing it wrong but don't you worry baby now don't worry mama Staying right here at home I'm a nose picker.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm a grinner I'm a lover and a weak swimmer can't play my music.

[Adam Curry]

In the sun I'm a joker crack.

[John C. Dvorak]

Smoker Got a beer Be much Broker hey hey yo hey what's up bro? Have you heard the new conspiracy the government wants that mile from me but they can't take away my soul with.

[Adam Curry]

Full ride fake news he's making periodontist grills with skill but he telling me.

[John C. Dvorak]

The lies like the 88L that fluoride.

[Adam Curry]

Is safe and it don't kill fluid.

[John C. Dvorak]

In the water Making brothers sick and crazy they're complacent to the bargain basement.

[Adam Curry]

Politician shady and the way they treat the people it is certainly no maybe.

[John C. Dvorak]

That the end of my control which is why fluoride is cagey we a new conspiracy the government wants that mind for me but they can't take away my soul will flow by Fake News Pharma or 5G we know that Martin.

[Adam Curry]

Luther King Jr was shot but what.

[John C. Dvorak]

Media don't tell us is the government plot they expecting us to beat them Listen full of brain rot that might fool a lot of folk but to me nah CIA and MKUltra taking control of our minds so they're complacent and desensitized to governmental crimes the mainstream media is bought by spooks who tell them what to decide so they gaslight with straw man which is why the news is cake have you heard the new.

[Adam Curry]

Conspiracy the government wants that mind from me but they can't take away my.

[John C. Dvorak]

Soul Flutter out fake news for 5G kg conspiracy is a real.

[NPR Reporter]

Conspiracy is.

[John C. Dvorak]

A real have you heard the new.

[Adam Curry]

Conspiracy the government wants that money for me but they can't take away my.

[John C. Dvorak]

Soul with love I don't.

[Adam Curry]

The best.

[John C. Dvorak]

Podcast in the universe adios mofo dvorak.org.

[Adam Curry]

Na these guys are smart, they're hard working, they're motivated.