1846 - "Thumbstick Flick"

Summary

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No Agenda Show – Episode 1846 “Thumbstick Flick”

Date: February 26, 2026
Hosts: Adam Curry & John C. Dvorak

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Episode Overview

In this lively installment of No Agenda, Adam and John dig deep into the week’s biggest controversies: the ongoing Epstein discourse, media criticism aimed at the show, rampant institutional distrust, the entangling of diversity initiatives (DEI) with public failures, tech industry woes, AI’s maddening “hallucinations,” and a cultural deep-dive into gaming’s influence on identity. Capping things off are close-ups on the State of the Union, escalating US-Iran tensions, and vivid examples of institutional dysfunction, fraud, and blame-shifting at every level of government and media.

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Critical Discourse and Meta-Analysis of the No Agenda Show

Listener & Public Critiques (00:42–06:02)

• Backlash against the show:
  John reads caustic listener emails and public social media posts lamenting No Agenda’s moderation, particularly on topics like Epstein and supposed suppression of “darker” truths—some accuse the hosts of downplaying elite sex crimes, protecting “satanic cults,” and being too soft on the powerful.
• Self-defense & irony:
  Adam and John defend their critical thinking and deconstruct how listeners fall into audience capture via echo chambers. John quips:

  "When the two sanest voices are Adam and John, you gotta stop for a second, think, hmm..." (05:26)

Re: Epstein, Underage Victims & Conspiracy Culture (06:02–15:00)

• Clarification of their position:
  Adam explains the show never claimed underage girls weren’t involved in prostitution circuits like Epstein’s:

  "The average typical underage girl involved in prostitution is a runaway...they're 15, but average, average 15. So this is not what we're talking about." (06:34)

• Anti-Semitism in Epstein discourse:
  Adam reads a sex worker’s note suggesting much Epstein mania is tinged with anti-Semitic paranoia and scapegoating. (07:35–08:41)

• Democrat Hoax and Strategic Media Usage:
  Dvorak calls the Epstein coverage a distractive strategy, akin to the “Russian Hoax”:

  “This is a Democrat strategy and they're using it quite effectively.” (09:11)

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The Politics of Language and Victimhood (16:14–21:32)

• Language manipulation:
  Adam critiques how left-leaning groups recast prostitution customers as “abusers” and sex workers as “victims.” The question of agency and consent is often blurred for political effect.

• The infamous “13-year-old” Trump lawsuit deconstruction:
  John revisits the Jane Doe/Katie Johnson lawsuit, highlighting its pre-election origins, withdrawals, and probable tabloid framing:

  “A lawsuit that was put in, withdrawn right before the elections. The whole thing is very, very flimsy at best.” (19:44)

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Conspiracy, Anti-Billionaire Sentiment, and Democrat Party Rhetoric (21:45–27:16)

• All billionaires are villains:
  John mocks the emerging narrative that all successful, especially Jewish, tech billionaires are in league with Trump, using Susan Rice’s podcast comments as an example.

  “If you're Silicon Valley and you're Jewish, you got two strikes against you.” (21:46)

• Susan Rice mix-up:
  A comic exchange ensues about confusing Condoleezza with Susan Rice, before parsing Rice’s warnings of accountability and anti-corporate threats.

  “Condoleezza Rice is dead to me. Okay? She's dead to me. Doesn't exist. Susan Rice. Susan Rice. Teeing it up for the Democrat Party.” (25:40)

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Institutional Distrust, DEI, and Catastrophe (30:19–44:56)

• DEI gone awry—DC Water crisis:

  • NPR and The Wendy Bell Show’s coverage of a historic sewage spill in the Potomac is deconstructed. Focus is put on DC Water’s CEO David Gaddis and how DEI priorities eclipsed core competency:

    "He should have known she had nothing. All the stuff she put in the binders was known for a long time." (13:19) "He wanted to prioritize equity. And so what did he do? He started giving away money...in fiscal year 2024, disadvantaged and women-owned enterprises received about $520 million..." (41:20)

• Adam’s critique:

  "You can't just take anybody off the street and make him a CEO...what the Democrats are trying to do, which is exactly that." (30:24)

• Resulting collapse:
  The show lampoons the “aesthetic” appointments and the blind pursuit of representation at the expense of operational effectiveness, linking it to more fraud uncovered in Medicaid and school districts.

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Technology, Fraud, and AI Skepticism (51:24–67:02)

• Systematic fraud:
  The hosts catalog rampant fraud in public school districts (LAUSD FBI raid), Medicaid abuse (Minnesota), and educational tech contracts—linking them to bad incentives, poor hiring, and systemic rot.

• AI as BS machine:
  Adam and John bemoan AI’s tendency to “hallucinate” and lie, defending Anthropic’s reluctance to provide systems for military targeting or domestic surveillance:

  "There is no control over this...No one has fixed the hallucination yet...in a real world production environment, it's unreliable.” (59:56–60:46)

• The ‘AI writing style’ meme:
  A listener notes the distinct formulaic prose of AI-written text, which Adam recognizes as padding and iterative fluff now common across the internet.

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Social Media, Tech Industry Woes & Gaming (67:12–81:47)

• Legalities and lawsuits:
  Discussion of the LA lawsuit against social media for addictiveness and ad targeting of youth:

  "For years, Big Tech has hidden behind predatory design, coercive tactics to manipulate, exploit, and addict..." (68:20)

• Skepticism on outcomes:
  The duo agrees lawsuits will blame parents, not tech companies, for youth problems:

  "I blame the parents. All I’ve noticed is since smartphones, everything's just gotten worse..." (69:58–70:47)

• Tech innovation is ‘out of ideas’:
  The announcement of a new Samsung phone with "three AI engines" is derided as a sign of creative stagnation:

  "They're out of ideas. That's the whole point. They're out of ideas." (72:28)

• “Thumbstick Flick” and video games:
  NPR’s coverage of video game identity is roasted, with Adam and John tracing “wokeness” in gaming journalism to Gamergate and cringing at NPR hosts’ confessional use of video games as a route to sexual self-discovery:

  "It saved an NPR host from. From hooking up with a dude...Now she's discovered she's by her own bisexuality.” (79:29–79:37)

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State of the Union, US-Iran, and Domino Politics (81:54–102:28)

State of the Union Analysis

• Trump’s performance:
  Highlights include Trump leveraging victims’ families for political stunts (“How do you not stand?” 85:19) and polarizing stand-up moments on immigration and crime. Even CNN had to admit his base “ate it up.” (82:44)
• Disruption & division:
  Over 70 lawmakers boycotted the event, yelling and counterprogramming (“State of the Swamp” with Robert De Niro & activists dressed as frogs, 89:30).

Escalating Iran Tensions

• Military build-up:
  News clips cover the rapid militarization, with air and naval resources sent to the region, media hints at coordinated strikes, and France 24 linking US efforts to strategic anti-China, anti-Russia oil policy rather than nuclear threats.

  “This is to stop any oil going to China or to Russia. Hey, let us in…” (100:06)

• Military “steak and lobster” rumors debunked:
  A crowdsourced segment parses whether surf & turf for troops signals upcoming deployment; the truth is less dramatic—most branches serve it every Friday. (103:28–107:22)

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Oddities, Scandals, and Endnotes

• Institutional lapses and fraud:
  From LAUSD corruption investigations to failings in government procurement, the show’s concluding theme is pervasive dysfunction masked by hollow rhetoric and virtue signaling.

• Cash Patel’s “locker room” controversy:
  Media hypocrisy is called out as DOJ/FBI director is lambasted for celebrating with US athletes—further signals partisanship and shifting standards of “decorum.” (136:24–144:52)

• Cuba speedboat incident, Artemis delays, and Mexican cartel takedown:
  A series of fast takes on Cuba border violence, the comically delayed Artemis lunar flyby, and the mixed outcomes of killing cartel kingpins.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “When the two sanest voices are Adam and John, you gotta stop for a second, think, hmm…” – John C. Dvorak (05:26)
• “The Epstein spectacle is quite anti-Semitic.” – Sex worker (read by Adam, 07:35)
• “If you're Silicon Valley and you're Jewish, you got two strikes against you.” – John C. Dvorak (21:46)
• “All billionaires are in cahoots with Trump...Zuckerberg, Thiel, all these guys.” – John C. Dvorak (21:45)
• “Now, does anyone ever ask any of the women, were you paid any money for this process of abuse?” – Adam Curry (16:49)
• “You can’t just take anybody off the street and make him a CEO...what the Democrats are trying to do, which is exactly that.” – Adam Curry (30:24)
• “The AI can’t—it will lie continuously.” – John C. Dvorak (59:56)
• “What makes more money than the music industry and film industry combined? The answer is found in the click of a mouse, the flick of a thumbstick.” – NPR (75:01)
• “Now she's discovered she's by her own bisexuality…Video games got her into chicks.” – Adam Curry (79:29)
• “We have the most State of the Union coverage in all podcasts ever.” – John C. Dvorak (93:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Listener and Public Critique/Meta (00:42–06:02)
• Epstein & Conspiracy Breakdown (06:02–15:00)
• Victim Language & Lawsuit History (16:14–21:32)
• Anti-Billionaire Rhetoric & Susan Rice Clips (21:45–27:16)
• DEI, Sewage Scandal & Institutional Rot (30:19–44:56)
• Technology, AI, and Fraud (51:24–67:02)
• LA Social Media Lawsuit & Gaming Culture (67:12–81:47)
• State of the Union Breakdown (81:54–102:28)
• Iran Conflict Analysis (95:08–102:28)
• Military “Steak & Lobster” Inquiry (103:28–107:22)
• Media Hypocrisy: Cash Patel & More (136:24–144:52)
• Meetups, Donations, Closing (164:02–176:17)

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Tone and Delivery

Adam and John alternate between satirical, exasperated, and scholarly—a trademark blend of irreverent humor, anecdotal evidence, audience engagement, and sharp distrust for media and political consensus.

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For First-Time Listeners

This broad-ranging episode encapsulates the No Agenda Show ethos: relentless question-asking, skepticism of both official and conspiratorial narratives, and a commitment to going where others won’t—sometimes to the exasperation of their loudest critics. You’ll come away with a stack of context, a laugh, and maybe just enough paranoia or delight to keep listening.

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Not Sure Where to Start? Here are must-listen sections:

• [16:14] The political exploitation of language around “victims” and “abusers”
• [30:19] On DEI’s real-world consequences in public infrastructure
• [59:56] Adam & John’s hands-on critique of AI and “hallucinations”
• [81:54] The State of the Union’s performative theater and political divide
• [103:28] The Military “steak and lobster” debunk
• [136:24] The Cash Patel “locker room” uproar

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Signature Sign-off
“Wow, what a great podcast. Donate.” (167:59–END)

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Transcript

[Adam Curry]

Hey, today's redhead day.

[John C. Dvorak]

Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak, it's Thursday, February 26, 2026. This is your award winning Gibbonation Media Assassination Episode 1846.

[Adam Curry]

This is no Agenda.

[John C. Dvorak]

Guilty until proven innocent. And 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 we demand accountability, I'm John C. Dvorak.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's Crackpot and Buz.

[Adam Curry]

Kill in the morning. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

You did it, man. You did it. Now. You did it. Now

[Adam Curry]

what?

[John C. Dvorak]

You did it. Your entire island thesis has thrown the show into a tailspin. Did you not receive any emails at all?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I got a couple.

[John C. Dvorak]

I mean I got. Let's see, I'm just looking for my, my Twitter timeline today. Something simply isn't right about the show. What the hell is happening? Here's another one. It's truly sad. The show used to be a one of a kind breakdown of the news cycle and just enough crackpot to keep it interesting and open. I personally believe that after journalist Jamie White was murdered, it was a cue to stop talking about certain subjects. This show sucks. Now.

[Adam Curry]

I did not get that one.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, this is public. This is just on my timeline.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, yeah. Oh, it's just something somebody's bitching. Okay.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, well, I mean it's, it's non stop. It's all. I can't, I can't even go to Twitter anymore. It's like people just hate me.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, well they should hate you.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, they hate me.

[Adam Curry]

Talk like this.

[John C. Dvorak]

They hate me for something you say, here's my favorite. Here's my favorite. What kind of Christian are you? There's a mountain of evidence in the P. Diddy and Epstein cases showing their deep involvement in satanic cults and sex magic rituals. Yet for some reason you keep trying to sell us on the idea they were merely rich guys having orgies. It really makes me question who you really pray to. Why have you laughed at it? Like, our government is not full of satanic creeps. Surely you know the truth. So stuff like this, and then it's running away into podcasts. This is the coffee and a mic podcast to separate whether I can talk to somebody and judge whether they know what's going on or even if they're like controlled opposition is, does Israel control the United States or does the United States control Israel? Because if you tell me the United States controls Israel, one, I either think you're, you're ignorant or two, I think you're working for them, you know, I mean, one of the biggest podcasts in the world is no Agenda. And after what I've heard on that show over the last year, yeah, I mean, I'm trying to get people to run away from that. Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak, I mean, just this past Saturday, Sunday's episode, they were completely excusing. They're saying, oh, there were no underage girls with Epstein there. Epstein mentioned that in the friggin that I provide children.

[News Reporter]

Michael Tracy.

[John C. Dvorak]

Michael Tracy has been out there denying the undeniable. And people are like, you know, and you have the Tracy. Why do they think that works? I, I, I'm baffled by that because it seems to me that conceding something would give you enhanced credibility. Right. And there it is conceding big time with that one. Conceding into audience capture. Exactly. Wouldn't it make sense that if we really were going for the gold that we just say, oh, yeah, yeah, this is what we believe when we clearly believe other things. And we've been controversial throughout almost.

[Adam Curry]

It's hardly controversial.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, it's extremely controversial to maniacs. No, you have no idea.

[Adam Curry]

This guy with his. Oh, you know, I don't understand how it's even possible that anyone doesn't believe that Israel controls the United States because, hell, you know, there's a small little country in the middle of nowhere and they're telling us what to do. Won't they tell us to give him even more money? I don't see him do us doing that. We're the biggest. We have a $1 trillion defense budget. We're the biggest market in the world, and they're telling us what to do. And that makes sense to you?

[John C. Dvorak]

I think that. Well, of course not, but that's the point. There is.

[Adam Curry]

No, not you. I'm talking.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no, no, I know, but there's you out there. There's a complete lack of critical thinking. And it comes from this beautiful confluence of years of QAnon babies being shipped in Wayfair containers. Remember that one? Everybody was all in on that one. Why could it cost $13,000 into Epstein, who everybody was convinced that he was blackmailing people. Convinced. You know, throw in a little bit of Whitney Webb, and by the way, she's having a big fight with Glenn Greenwald. I don't know if you saw that Glenn Greenwald's like, now you wrote stuff about me in 2013 that was utter bullcrap. So I can't trust you anymore. Whatever. You're right. There's just it's like we've gone into conspiracy overdrive. And when the two sanest voices is Adam and John, you gotta stop for a second, think, hmm, I wonder why those guys are saying what they actually think and not what everybody wants them to say.

[Adam Curry]

So let's clarify at least one thing. We never said that there's no underage girls involved. In fact, if you look at anything having to do with prostitution whatsoever, you find that it's dominated by underage girls. And there's report after report, which I actually did a printout of, the United nations and other groups have done this, that the average typical underage girl involved in prostitution is runaway. There's all kinds of issues with them. And they're 15, but average, average 15. So this is not what we're talking about. But let me read you this note from a one of our listeners, one of our producers. Chester. Hey John. I appreciated your take on Epstein. I was at a dinner a few weeks ago with several people, including a former high end sex worker, you know, who explained her opinion on Jeffrey E. And the island, which was pretty much the same as yours. Nobody at the table seemed to scandalize, but they weren't agreeing either. I think I said something non committal like oh maybe, but the conversation stuck in my head so I was receptive when I heard your rundown. In other words, he heard her first, then me.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, okay, interesting.

[Adam Curry]

So I made an audio clip of you expounding on the matter and sent it to her in an email and she responded, quote. So we have a. We have our. She should be listening to the show.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I hope so. Send a pic.

[Adam Curry]

I am glad someone is speaking up about the E. Matter in a sane fashion. I think the Epstein spectacle is quite anti Semitic.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh hey now.

[Adam Curry]

Turning one lone individual into a central figure in a conspiracy that involves money and finance. Forcing every person who knows him to explain how he came to be tainted by this scapegoat who just happened to be Jewish. Give me a break. It's obvious. And then she says it's an unhealthy blend of anti Semitic paranoia, Salem witch trial methods, sex phobia, plus women of a certain age hating the existence of younger women in men's lives. Just perfect. Some of those mean spirited women claiming to be concerned about vulnerable younger ladies are older sex workers, end of quote.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, so no, I'm the more I thought about what you said. Yeah, first of all, yeah, the Epstein files are filled with all kinds of crazy stuff. Anybody's email if they ever get a Hold of my email, the stuff I haven't nuked on my own server. People send me the craziest stuff. You know, you look at that like, oh, what's going on here? Do I think Epstein was creepy? Absolutely. Do I?

[Adam Curry]

Oh, yeah, sure he was. You could take a look at him. He's creepy.

[John C. Dvorak]

People are creeps and there are lots of people like that. In fact, the Department of Justice and Sheriff's office around the country continuously round up people like that gets almost no mention because, you know, it's not Trump or it's not billionaires, et cetera. So, and this I have to agree with the President. This is a, he calls it a Democrat hoax. It's a Democrat strategy and they're using it quite effectively. So there is one case now that everybody's honing in on about this 13 year old and Anderson Pooper leads the charge. And then we'll talk about this and what the facts of the case are, not just what people are saying.

[Adam Curry]

We begin tonight Keeping Them Honest with

[News Reporter]

the name that was not last night's

[Adam Curry]

State of the Union message, Jeffrey Epstein. That and the name that we learned today has turned up in FBI records missing from the Epstein files, Donald Trump. We know this because a numbered evidence

[News Reporter]

log in the Ghislaine Maxwell case catalogs about 325 FBI witness interviews.

[Adam Curry]

But of that number, more than 90 do not appear to be present on the Justice Department's website.

[News Reporter]

And three of those witness interviews are

[John C. Dvorak]

related to a woman who told agents

[Adam Curry]

that Jeffrey Epstein had repeatedly abused her starting when she was approximately 13 years old. She also accused Trump of sexually assaulting her. Now, we should point out here the President has consistently denied any wrongdoing in

[News Reporter]

connection with Jeffrey Epstein.

[Adam Curry]

And the White House is calling the allegations, quote, false and sensationalist. We have nothing to do with Epstein.

[News Reporter]

The Democrats do.

[Adam Curry]

I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. You just keep going on the Epstein files and what the Epstein is, is a Democrat hoax. The President, as you know, has been

[John C. Dvorak]

treating the files as the ultimate not guilty verdict.

[Adam Curry]

I have nothing to hide. I've been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I've been totally exonerated. And I've been totally exonerated. I've been totally exonerated on Epstein. Well, you know, I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated, but I'm the one that can talk about it because I've been totally exonerated. Well, keeping them honest, that might be easier to say if the Public had

[News Reporter]

access to everything the federal government has

[Adam Curry]

on Epstein, Maxwell and the many powerful

[News Reporter]

people they moved among.

[Adam Curry]

Then citizen Trump included, who again says he did nothing wrong.

[John C. Dvorak]

So now you've got to add one more thing to the Epstein conspiracy that involves all the billionaires, the elites and everybody that of course is not with high end escorts. No, no, no. It's all children and it's eating babies. And the biggest offender of this, and you almost, I almost have to think she was doing it on purpose, is our Ag Barbie.

[Adam Curry]

These latest allegations first arose in July of 2019, just days after Epstein's arrest on federal charges.

[News Reporter]

A woman called an FBI tip line.

[Adam Curry]

Agents interviewed her two weeks later, during which she told them Epstein had repeatedly abused her at a home he was staying at in South Carolina.

[News Reporter]

The abuse started, she said, when she

[Adam Curry]

was about 13 years old.

[News Reporter]

Now, according to the FBI interview record,

[Adam Curry]

a form known as a 302 2, when she showed agents a photo of

[News Reporter]

Trump and Epstein that a friend had sent her, her attorney said that she

[Adam Curry]

was, quote, concerned about implicating additional individuals and specifically any that were well known

[News Reporter]

due to a fear of retaliation. The Maxwell evidence log notes three additional

[Adam Curry]

302 forms dated in August and October

[News Reporter]

2019 related to the same alleged victim,

[Adam Curry]

as well as three other sets of interview notes. Now, none of those appear to be present in the files released by the doj. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have now said the release files, which took an act of Congress to get

[News Reporter]

released, are not all there is.

[John C. Dvorak]

And it's been more than a year

[Adam Curry]

since the attorney General said this on Fox News.

[News Reporter]

Here we go tomorrow, Jesse, Breaking news right now. You're going to see some Epstein information being released by my office. It's sitting on my desk right now to review. A truckload of evidence arrived. It's now in the possession of the FBI. It's a new day, it's a new administration, and everything's going to come out to the public.

[John C. Dvorak]

So that, of course, was the dumbest thing she could have ever done. Either she is a complete idiot or she's working for the Democrats as far as I'm concerned. Because she at least should have known she had nothing. All the stuff she put in the binders was known for a long time. Final clip here about the doj.

[Adam Curry]

That said, for the most part, the files we've seen have been notable for the absence of names hidden behind redactions which both Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat

[News Reporter]

Ro Khanna both say conceal potential co conspirators.

[Adam Curry]

And to the files we've seen, you can now add the ones that are missing.

[News Reporter]

Reading now from the Justice Department statement

[Adam Curry]

of them Several individuals and news outlets

[News Reporter]

have recently flagged files related to documents

[Adam Curry]

produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her criminal case that they claim appear to be missing. As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the Department is

[News Reporter]

currently reviewing files within that category of the production.

[Adam Curry]

Should any document be found to have

[News Reporter]

been improperly tagged in the review process and is responsive to the act, the

[Adam Curry]

Department will of course publish it consistent with the law.

[John C. Dvorak]

So they continue to bumble along, putting things out, pulling them back, putting them back in, pulling them out. And the Democrats are loving this.

[News Reporter]

As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal continues to dodge the Trump administration, Democratic lawmakers say that the U.S. government is withholding evidence that could implicate the president in criminal activity. These are the files that the FBI has removed from their public Department of Justice database. The yellow files here are the files that President Trump is hiding. The yellow files here are investigations with a woman who was abused as a minor and who alleged that Donald Trump was her abuser. Dozens of FBI witness interviews appear to be missing from public records, according to US Media reports. And numerous alleged victims say they cannot find their testimonies in the 3 million new documents released by the Department of Justice at the end of January. At the State of the Union on Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers wore pins demanding the release of the missing files and brought a dozen Epstein accusers as their guests. Where are the rest of the files? The truth must come out. Why are there no investigations when there are plenty of people in these files to investigate? Since the files have been made public, there have been high profile arrests and investigations around the world into those named in the documents, but no such investigation has been opened in the United States. The White House has dismissed claims of Trump's involvement with Epstein's criminal sex ring is false and sensationalist. And the President did not mention the late sex offender in his speech. In response to the allegations, the Department of Justice denied any wrongdoing, saying that any missing documents were either duplicates or part of an ongoing federal investigation.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, so let's talk about the 13 year old for a second because what we're missing here is these so called victims and how old they were and what they were a victim of.

[Adam Curry]

And let's also mention the fact that we're dealing with a use of language which the Democrats are quite good or the left in general is good at, and changing a customer of a prostitute to an Abuse. Changing the name of a john to an abuser and changing the name of a sex worker to a victim.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes.

[Adam Curry]

So when they say victim, victim, victim. Now, the question that never seems to be brought up. Does anyone ever ask any of the women who are or that have been kind of sequestered to complain about this a lot? Were you paid any money for this process of abuse?

[John C. Dvorak]

And how old were you?

[Adam Curry]

And how old were you at the time? And were you paid any money? Honestly, I don't want to sound callous, but I almost believe that these women found out what was being charged by the system, by the, what I call a whorehouse and what they were getting and they felt gypped.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Well, the timing of them coming out is always interesting, but I want to go to the 13 year old because this is not a case that is unknown to the show, even often referred to as the Katie Johnson lawsuit or Jane Doe. It was for a long time, was filed in 2016 alleging incidents that took place in the summer of 1994 at Epstein's Manhattan pad. The victim, a 13 year old girl using the pseudonym Jane Doe, Katie Johnson claimed she was recruited under the guise of a modeling career. She alleged she was sexually abused by both Epstein and Trump on multiple occasions. Most notably, she claimed that during a fourth encounter, Trump tied her to a bed and forcibly raped her while she pleaded for him to stop. And this lawsuit included a sworn statement from a Tiffany Doe. So a pseudonym who claimed to be a party planner for Epstein and said she had personally witnessed the abuse. And the plaintiff said that Trump had threatened to have her and her family killed if she ever spoke out, citing a 12 year old girl named Maria who had supposedly disappeared after similar instances. So this suit was first filed in California in 2016, dismissed by a California judge, refiled in 2016. In New York, October 2016, there was a press conference scheduled. I remember this. By her then attorney, Lisa Bloom. Remember the Lisa Bloom, the famous.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, Lisa Bloom.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is when the plaintiff was going public, but the press conference was canceled very last minute. She stated her client was living in fear due to death threats. Then, November 4, days before the presidential election, the lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff's legal team without any public explanation. So there was no evidence. The lawsuit was withdrawn. But here's the fun part. Norm LeBeau, does that name ring any bells for you?

[Adam Curry]

No.

[John C. Dvorak]

He was a TV producer, crack smoking TV producer who did sensationalist stories about celebrities. He worked for the Jerry Springer Show. He's the guy that started all of this. He's the one that started publishing articles. He is behind a lot of these things. You know that Kurt Cobain was killed by his wife, this kind of stuff. So a lawsuit that was put in, withdrawn right before the elections. The whole thing is very, very flimsy at best. So, you know, okay, show me something. Show me something that's real. Not some email that says, ah, I got a torture video. Well, we already discussed that. Have you looked at pornhub? So, yes, Jeffrey Epstein was a creep in my personal opinion. Any older guy who wants to have sex with a 16, 17, 18 year old, probably legal in the states that were doing it or on an island, you know, they got a lot of problems. But if it was for money. Well, there's other discussions that need to be had. But the whole thing is being manipulated and turned into a strategy for the Democrat Party.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it's a total. This is the. This is the Russian hoax. This is the Russian hoax of the second administration. The Russian hoax is over. They can't talk about it anymore. Lingering effects of it. People still believe it. And this is the new one. And this came up. This is the. Trump screws little kids and he's a rapist.

[John C. Dvorak]

But I think it's going even further and it's really interesting and I see people all over the political spectrum falling for this. I think many of our own listeners, or maybe former listeners.

[Adam Curry]

Well, obviously some of our own listeners

[John C. Dvorak]

would fall for it. And the idea here is all billionaires. Anybody who has power is a billionaire, is successful. They're all in cahoots with Trump and they're going to get. Seriously. And you need to. These people are the problem. They're the Silicon Valley guys. If you're Silicon Valley and you're Jewish, you got two strikes against you. Zuckerberg, Thiel, all these guys, they're all in cahoots with Trump and Trump is protecting them. And this was completely laid out by none other than the twerp. Condoleezza. Condoleezza Rice. Condi.

[Adam Curry]

Well, she's not the twerp. Susan Rice is the twerp.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, I'm sorry. Well, she's a twerp too. Condoleezza Rice, who wrote herself an email to. To be able to say later, yeah, no, all that.

[Adam Curry]

No, no, no, that's not Condoleezza Rice.

[John C. Dvorak]

Was that Susan Rice?

[Adam Curry]

That's Susan Rice. Condoleezza Rice is the old. She worked in the Bush administration. She teaches at Stanford.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, she's a problem.

[Adam Curry]

What did she do?

[John C. Dvorak]

Listen. Listen to what she said on this podcast. With Preach Bahara, and she's teeing it up. She's teeing it up for the Democrat Party. Has the first year approximated what you expected? Has it been less bad than you expected or worse?

[News Reporter]

Well, I. I expected it to be very bad.

[Adam Curry]

Susan Rice, Not Condoleezza Rice.

[John C. Dvorak]

Isn't this Condi.

[Adam Curry]

I think this is.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is Condoleezza Rice.

[Adam Curry]

No, this is Susan Rice. Condoleezza Rice isn't even in this story.

[John C. Dvorak]

I thought this was. It's a Rice lady.

[Adam Curry]

This is the twerp.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is the twerp. I knew it. I just had the name wrong. It's a Susan Rice, then. Are you sure it's not Condoleezza Rice?

[Adam Curry]

Condoleezza Rice is a tall woman with a big square head. Well, she's sitting down like a patrician.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm pretty sure this is Condoleezza Rice. Yes, I. I clipped it myself.

[Adam Curry]

Did you. Did you visual. Did you visually see the person?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Well, she was sitting down, so I couldn't tell if she was tiny or not.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, continued.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is Condoleezza Rice.

[Adam Curry]

No, it's not Condoleezza Rice. And I. I hate the fact that I have to contradict you on this because Condoleezza Rice is not involved in any of this, and it's ruining your point.

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't. Well, let me go look at my history. I'm 99% certain this is Condoleezza Rice talking, and she may ruin my. Here she is. This is Susan Rice. You're right. Okay. Thank you for catching that. Thank you for saving me. It's Susan Rice. So is my point valid again now?

[Adam Curry]

Well, the problem is that, you know, you. When you misstep, when you're making a good argument.

[John C. Dvorak]

A good argument, and then I ruin

[Adam Curry]

it, and then you misstep by bringing in somebody that's got nothing to do with anything because of a mistake in last. The names being similar. I didn't even think about that.

[John C. Dvorak]

So here's what we'll do. Here's what we'll do. We'll cut all that out of the show.

[Adam Curry]

You're not cutting it out. No one will ever know Susan Rice.

[John C. Dvorak]

Who.

[Adam Curry]

I had this clip in the last show. She is a drip.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I have four clips because it was super interesting. All the things she actually said. I was like, holy moly.

[Adam Curry]

Part of the scheme.

[John C. Dvorak]

She is. And she's the one that wrote the email, correct to herself.

[Adam Curry]

Yes. She's the one who wrote the self. The. The COVID your ass email at the end of her term.

[John C. Dvorak]

Exactly.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. That's Susan Rice.

[John C. Dvorak]

Susan Rice, okay?

[Adam Curry]

Condoleezza Rice was out of business.

[John C. Dvorak]

Condoleezza Rice is dead to me. Okay? She's dead to me. Doesn't exist. Susan Rice. Susan Rice. Teeing it up for the Democrat Party. Has the first year approximated what you expected? Has it been less bad than you expected or worse?

[News Reporter]

Well, I expected it to be very bad, and I guess I would confess that it's probably worse than I anticipated, but not because they're doing things that surprise me. They told us exactly what they were going to do. You know, recall Trump saying multiple times on the campaign trail, if you vote for me, that this one time, you'll never have to vote again. Or his, you know, pledge to use the American military against the, quote, enemy within. You know, you had Stephen Miller foreshadowing not only the use of the Insurrection act, but potentially the suspension of habeas corpus and the imposition of martial law. All of these are, you know, they tell you, interestingly where they intend to head. But what surprised me is the speed and the, The. The efficacy of their efforts to do what they set out to do, and the fact that they have faced very little resistance from members of their own party, from the private sector, from civil society leaders and university heads and law firms and. And all of the, you know, the. The pillars of society media that have, you know, rolled over and played dead or hidden under rocks.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I love this. So she sets it up by saying, Project 2025, we all knew it. They've held to it entirely, completely to it, and they're gonna get theirs. Do you think that after a year of this. Wait, I misclip this somehow, probably, whether

[News Reporter]

you're university, whether you're.

[John C. Dvorak]

Sorry about that.

[News Reporter]

Play a long game, not this short game that has been so detrimental.

[John C. Dvorak]

So very specifically, if the House changes hands in a few months, what should be the top priority or two in terms of that accountability that you're speaking of for Democratic leadership in the House?

[News Reporter]

Well, first of all, when the Democrats win the House, which I believe they will, and possibly the Senate, they need to appropriately focus on the needs of the American people, which Donald Trump and the Republicans could give a damn about. Whether it's health care, they don't care, housing costs, food prices, electricity prices, runaway tech companies that are, you know, lining their own pockets at the expense of our children, our jobs, maybe even our very existential future. There's a lot of stuff that we need to do in service of the American people. But in addition to that, there will be an accountability agenda. You know, companies already are, are starting to hear, they better preserve their documents, they better be ready for subpoenas. If they've done something wrong, they'll be held accountable. And if they haven't broken the law, good for them. If they've done the right things, good for them. That also will be noted and remembered. But, you know, this is not going to be an instance of, you know, forgive and forget. The damage that these people are doing is too severe to the American people, into our national interest.

[John C. Dvorak]

She's threatening everybody, but she's really confirming to the Democrat Party and the people who vote Democrat, but also to anybody who is whipped up into this Epstein thing, you got to hate these people. You've got to hate billionaires, you've got to hate tech companies, which is so inherently un American. You know, I grew up like, hey, you see that guy with the Rolls Royce? Hey, you could be that guy. This is America. But now everybody who's successful, everybody who's doing anything with Trump, anybody who's, who's been helping him out, we're going to get you. We're going to get you and everybody will hate you.

[Adam Curry]

And this is, yeah, like I said, I had this clip. This was the thing about that little ditty at the end about the corporations, I think it has to do and which follows into some clips I have about the, about the D.C. sewage problem.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's pretty smelly out here in the most beautiful city in America.

[Adam Curry]

Is that, that is, that is aimed at the pulling. I believe it's aimed at the pulling of all the DEI stuff. The corporations are noticing an esg. All the corporations noticing that. You know, even Larry Fink of BlackRock, who promoted the idea of, of, of ESG in particular. But it was like, it's a, it's losing money for these companies because you're putting incompetent people into positions where they need, where there has to be some, there has to be some knowledge base. You have to, you have to, you can't just take anybody off the street and make him a CEO. You can't take every, anybody off the street and make them into some, you know, running some department that they, no clue about what it is or what it does or how it works, as opposed to what the Democrats are trying to do, which is exactly that. Which of course undermines the entire economic system that we have of capitalism because they're anti capitalists. And a lot of them will say it and they come out and many of them will just say, yeah, well, yeah, I am a communist. It's the way to go. It just hasn't never worked out so far because it hasn't been done right. That commentary, which never seems to end, never will.

[John C. Dvorak]

Someone also sent me a link today. It was a show short essay about Americans confidence in government from 1958 to today. And in 1958 it was somewhere in the low 70s and today it's 17%.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Which is.

[News Reporter]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

And the point is that when it gets this low, this is when interesting things take place. You know, you get the overthrow of the emperor, you get all kinds of things happening. And I think MAGA came in the first time at the right moment. But I don't know if, If. If Trump has the winning edge on this now, because I just see too many people severely negative. All trust. Trust is lost in all institutions. Covid had a big. Although actually confidence went up for a little bit during COVID across the board. But now it's complete. You know, now people are dying, you know, blood clots everywhere. People have lost all confidence. And so they could be a completely different person who comes along and says, hey, I can. I can motivate all these people. I think it's interesting situation for the United States.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I agree. So let's move from that. Unless you want to finish.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, that's. No, I mean, I just want.

[Adam Curry]

You made your point.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think the. Yeah, but the only point I want to make towards people who are mad at us, it's like we're doing this because that's all we do. We tell you the truth as we see it. Not because we're paid, not because we're Christian Zionists, not because we're controlled or blackmailed by Mossad or CIA, and unfortunately, not because anybody's paying us to do this. So get a grip.

[Adam Curry]

I find that character on that one podcast that condemned us to be pathetic.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, of course.

[Adam Curry]

But anyway, so we, we. The thesis has not changed about the whorehouse. And I'm still going through photos. It's. It's quite, quite interesting. So. So one of the things I'm gonna do, I'm gonna start posting either on my Twitter account, the Real Dvorak, or. And I probably put him in the newsletter. Occasionally you run into some screwball photo. I ran into one the other day by starting. I had to.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hold on a second, hold on a second. Somebody tell me you're recording the stream. Please let me know that you're recording the stream.

[Adam Curry]

You didn't push the red button.

[John C. Dvorak]

I have a feeling I may not have pushed the red button. Someone's always recording the stream. So as long as you're recording the stream, I'm happy. Somebody recording the stream. We're going to pray someone's recording the stream. Otherwise this will be a very strange podcast. Oh, yeah. Darren O has it. Darren, you the man. All right, So I knew he'd have it. All right, continue. We're good.

[Adam Curry]

Darren must have a great archive.

[John C. Dvorak]

Darren is phenomenal, man. Without Darren, we'd be bust.

[Adam Curry]

So where was I? I was talking about something.

[John C. Dvorak]

I can't roll it back to find out what you were saying.

[Adam Curry]

Sorry.

[John C. Dvorak]

Can't. Just can't. It's not good.

[Adam Curry]

It did come back. But you.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You were talking about the character on the podcast. You thought he was pathetic and. Yeah, yeah. And about not getting paid by Mossad.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, we don't get paid by Mossad. I don't know why they should send us money anyway. Just because we do. We do a good job of analysis. So I wanted to switch gears and move to. Because I thought Susan Rice's commentary, which was about, I think was about dei, brings us to the sewage thing and our national treasure. NPR did a thing on it.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's not clear what caused the Potomac sewage spill. The pipe is from the 1960s. In an open letter, the head of the utility that manages the line, DC Water, echoed the risk that scientists like McGuire describe old infrastructure, population growth and climate change. The utility has said it found signs of corrosion during an inspection about a decade ago. McGuire says the section that broke was slated for repair.

[News Reporter]

So hopefully this is a little bit of a kick in the pants for

[John C. Dvorak]

everyone because she says the risks around the country are growing.

[News Reporter]

We already have a chronic sort of slow bleed, but if we have a chronic explosion problem, that's going to be much more impactful than what we already have.

[John C. Dvorak]

President Trump has tried to blame local Democratic leaders for the accident. However, DC Water is under federal oversight. The Environmental Protection Agency said it's committed to fulfilling its oversight role and to helping make sure the recovery happens as quickly as possible.

[News Reporter]

The ultimate authority that really needs to be aggressive in addressing this is the Environmental Protection Agency.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's Mike Jarrell, another scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

[Adam Curry]

He says the EPA also has to

[John C. Dvorak]

be the one leading programs to upgrade old sewer lines like the one that broke in Maryland. Michael Copley, NPR News.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, so, okay, yeah. Now somehow we gotta blame the EPA for this local issue. So let's listen to the Wendy Bell Show. The. The female right winger.

[John C. Dvorak]

Is this a podcast?

[Adam Curry]

No, no. She's a radio person. I talked about her in the last show.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, yeah. She does the stuff on Rumble in between.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. And she is. This is from her show, though. This is not it.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is your new go to. It's your new savvy savage. You got a lady now. This is your savage. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Curry]

She. This is not an in between thing. This is on her show. This shows out of Philadelphia and she discusses the same situation. This is. I have this one. 1.2, 1.3. So we start with one. And it's a little different take on what's going on.

[News Reporter]

Well, if you need a reason to blow up DEI and put it away for good forever, it's this Potomac nightmare of raw waste that's still pumping into the Potomac river after a month. It's absolutely mind bending. So the Daily Caller did this great story and I want to read it to you and that this all we're going to talk about in this segment. It's that egregious DC Water. That's the name of the big utility, right? They have a CEO, new guy. Well, wouldn't you know, during Joe Biden's tenure, he waved a magic wand and he put some black guy in charge of it, which is fine. You would hope the black guy came from some kind of a utility background. We're going to talk about that in a minute. D.C. waters CEO, that guy oversaw $520 million in DEI contract and coincidentally the biggest sewage spill in U.S. history. Like, oh my, let's chew a little bit and see what the priorities of this utility were, shall we? While hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage accumulated in its pipes, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority was focused on diversity, equity and other left wing priorities, setting the stage for what may be the largest sewage spill in American history. DC Water CEO David Gaddis as his name. David Gattis. He's championed equity and diversity throughout his tenure, who was also named in a lawsuit against his former employer for allegedly withholding information about water contamination in Flint, Michigan. Let's dig a little bit deeper into this guy. Before joining DC Water in 2018, Gattis served as Executive Vice President of Veolia North America and CEO of Veolia Water Indianapolis. It's the utility's first black CEO and the first black executive to lead a major Indianapolis utility, according to his bio.

[John C. Dvorak]

Woohoo.

[Adam Curry]

All right, well, we have this guy.

[John C. Dvorak]

She could have done that in 30 seconds, but I guess it's a radio show.

[Adam Curry]

Do you have any idea how Much I took out.

[John C. Dvorak]

I believe you.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Because you. That's why I don't usually take from these radio hosts because they, they, in fact, even, even a problem with Jesse Waters on TV interstitials. Yeah, yeah. They can't, they can't stop with the asides.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

So here we go at part two.

[News Reporter]

Before Gattis arrived, DC Water was considered a global role model, commanding one of the highest reputations in the water sector. Gattis sought to take the authority to the next level by prioritizing equity for employees, customers, communities and contractors.

[Adam Curry]

How about.

[News Reporter]

I don't know, I'm just spitballing. How about clean water? Is that, is that like too much to ask for? Just water. Clean water that doesn't make my hair fall out. He wanted to prioritize equity. And so what did he do? He started giving away money. How much money? Well, in fiscal year 2024, disadvantaged and women owned enterprises received about $520 million of business diversity and inclusion grants. They didn't need to prove that they knew how to.

[John C. Dvorak]

Did you say business and diversity inclusion grants?

[Adam Curry]

But she said, okay, do anything.

[News Reporter]

They just needed to prove that they were diverse, that maybe they had some ovaries, maybe they had some melanin. And it was like, yes, here's your money, and yes, here's $520 million. Well, well, the EPA had to move in in April after Trump moved in. Right. And suspend some of these awards and grants. No bid awards to people who, by the way, were proven to not fulfill their contract obligations. They wouldn't be held accountable. There was no liability. Like, you can't, you can't make it up. And now what do you see? You see this mountain of human waste?

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, so why is the President not railing on this and getting rid of this guy and changing things? Right? This is what he usually does. So.

[Adam Curry]

Well, he's a black guy, first of his kind. It's just, just they. And they got the Zepstein thing being Char, you know, being used as the hoax of the, of the month. I don't know. Here, here's the, here's the little kicker. This kind of proves her point because she brings this guy on. And I have one last clip after that where he's introduced by a woman on, on another show. He does a lot of media. And here, here's this part.

[John C. Dvorak]

You know, when I arrived at DC Water, this was. This is your last clip, by the way. I don't know what your. What next?

[Adam Curry]

No, there's another clip.

[John C. Dvorak]

You know, when I arrived this is a pretty important topic. Eight clips. You know, when I arrived at DC Water, this was an organization that looked

[Adam Curry]

very similar to our. To our. Our industry.

[John C. Dvorak]

It was predominantly, you know, white male at the top, but this was a utility that's, you know, so more than 70% people of color. Yeah, there you go. That's my reason for being here, this utility. And I really believe, and I still

[Adam Curry]

believe, and it has been fantastic.

[John C. Dvorak]

The outcomes have been fantastic. But the people at the top, the executives, the chiefs in that C suite, they should look like the employees that they serve and that they work with. And the same thing with the community. And so my executive team, you know, looks like.

[Adam Curry]

Hold on, stop it a second. If you're the CEO, you're not serving the employees, you're serving the public.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, can I just add, what is the point of this?

[Adam Curry]

Of what?

[John C. Dvorak]

Of the series? Is it coming to a conclusion?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, the point is, is that you have this situation where DEI is. Is what Susan Rice was talking about that she wants to re. Implement. And this is an example of where it's going. Headed, which is sewage disasters by getting rid of whitey at the top. Because the whitey got the top. Doesn't. Okay, is that enough? I can go on.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you. That helps. That helps. Yes, you're right.

[Adam Curry]

The employees.

[John C. Dvorak]

Doesn't mean all black people don't know how to run a sewage plant. But when it comes to DEI and people like Susan Rice. Yeah, this is what you get, that they serve and that they work with and the same thing with the community. And so my executive team, you know, looks exactly like the community. It looks like. It looks like the employees, the staff, you know, be it people of color, women, men. And it is, it's just a fantastic team that has come together to do a lot of great things here at DC Water and in the community for the customer. Right. Well, it's. So you have tough day for that guy.

[Adam Curry]

So. So the. Yeah. And this is. And you, you take people that know what they're doing and you get them out of there so you could put some of your buddies in, and next thing you know, the whole thing falls apart. No one knows how to fix it. It's been going on for a month. And this is an example. This, that last clip, which, I'm sorry, there's so many clips, but I tried to keep them short. But this, this is the Gaddis intro on some show where this woman introduces him and you can see what all the priorities are. And she got named on some board that this guy put together and he's so proud of himself for being a DEI guy and this is what the Democrats are going to reintroduce when they get back in is this DEI bull crap which is not doing the public any good. It's costing more money than it's worth

[News Reporter]

and connecting them to our well established, competitively viable minority owned firms. Today, in this special 50th anniversary episode, we celebrate and pay tribute to an innovative and businessman, innovative leader rather and businessman, Mr. David Gaddis. But before we start the conversation with him, let me just tell you a little bit about him. This is not his first induction to the hall of Fame as I understand it. He is however the CEO and general manager of DC Water. In this role he oversees all authority including a $1 billion annual budget, a workforce of 1100 employees and the largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the world. I'd like to hear about that. Under his leadership, DC Water has emerged as a leader within the water sector on environmental justice and water equity programs such as the Lead Free DC Program which is is eliminating all lead service lines within the district by 2030. Mr. Gaddis has extended economic equity to the community through changes to the authority Business Development Plan which has improved access to contract opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses and apprenticeship program that offers classroom and on the job training as well as the establishment of the Authority's first ever Business Diversity Advisory Council of which I'm a part. I'm very proud. He also serves as chairman of the board of Blue Drop, DC Waters nonprofit sales and marketing affiliate and is a frequent presenter at utility and government services conferences and with the National League of Cities and the national association of Public Private Partnerships. And before I bring him on, you should know that prior to his service at DC Water he led Viola Water Indianapolis. CEO and President of Viola Water Indianapolis. He was the first African American CEO president and the first African American CEO to lead a major utility in Indianapolis, Indiana. So please help me welcome Mr. David Gaddis. Good. Good day sir.

[John C. Dvorak]

Why didn't she say Comrade Gaddis? That would have been as well have.

[Adam Curry]

Thank you so much.

[News Reporter]

So you have to tell us about your induction into the hall of Fame and basketball University of Indiana.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, you can kill it now. They just talk about basketball for 10 minutes. Kind of a stereotypical manner but the this is and this guy's not mentioned in the NPR report which this gloss it over and blame climate change. I mean how much of this can we take?

[John C. Dvorak]

We have lost all faith in our institutions and our water plants. Our poop plants. You're right, Epstein, or not, the President needs to step in here. I see it as an opportunity. You got to cut this stuff off. There's a lot to say that this guy did no good. You know, along the same lines of dei, because I think it's part of the same problem is, you know, the fraud in Minnesota. It's just more of the same problem. Oh, the Somalis? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's set them up with they can do centers for kids and leering center. Vice President Vance made his stand of what they're doing with what's his name, Batya. Is that the guy who's running CDC now?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I think it is. I think you're right.

[John C. Dvorak]

Here's his little statement, which is nothing gets the news these days. Nothing is in the timeline. Because, Epstein, we're announcing today that we have decided to temporary, temporarily halt certain

[Adam Curry]

amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota

[John C. Dvorak]

takes its obligations seriously to be good

[News Reporter]

stewards of the American people's tax money. Now, what is this going to mean?

[Adam Curry]

What this means is that first of all, the providers on the ground in Minnesota have actually already been paid.

[News Reporter]

The state has paid those providers the money. What we're doing is we are stopping

[Adam Curry]

the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government

[News Reporter]

takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that's being perpetrated against the American taxpayer.

[John C. Dvorak]

There are a few different ways that we're doing that.

[Adam Curry]

There are a few different affirmative actions that we're taking today.

[News Reporter]

Dr. Oz is going to talk about those.

[John C. Dvorak]

But let me talk a little bit

[News Reporter]

about the spirit of this and why we're doing it.

[Adam Curry]

So, number one, one of the examples of fraud that we've seen in Minnesota

[John C. Dvorak]

that we verify that is just awful,

[Adam Curry]

is that a program that existed to ensure that autistic children had access to

[News Reporter]

some after school services has made a

[Adam Curry]

number of people rich.

[News Reporter]

Not by providing services to needy children,

[Adam Curry]

but by allowing fraudsters to take money

[John C. Dvorak]

that ought, by right, go to American

[Adam Curry]

citizens and to American families and to set up sham businesses, set up sham clients, set up people who are not even autistic, but claim to be autistic and in order that they benefit from the money that's out there.

[News Reporter]

Now, what does that mean?

[Adam Curry]

Number one, it means that a lot of people are getting rich off the generosity of American taxpayers. But more fundamentally, and more importantly than

[News Reporter]

that, it means that there are kids

[Adam Curry]

in Minnesota who deserve these services, who need these services.

[John C. Dvorak]

And they're not going to those kids.

[News Reporter]

They're going to fraudsters in Minneapolis.

[Adam Curry]

That is unacceptable.

[News Reporter]

And that's the sort of thing that we're cutting off with this action.

[John C. Dvorak]

And I tell you, it's not just Minneapolis when Medicare was a boondoggle. There's another report. I didn't clip it in Austin. Company pulled in tens of millions of dollars. They think it may be up to hundreds of millions of dollars billing Medicare for stuff that people never got.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, yeah, yeah, that's obvious.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's unbelievable.

[Adam Curry]

This is all fraud.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

These are all these medical systems that, you know, they used to have private doctors and they used to have their own offices and the rest. And now it's all become some system systematically. They phone tests that you don't need. When you go now they got all these things. They'll come back, you know, oh, you, you got to do this, you got to do that. You're pre cancerous.

[John C. Dvorak]

You're pre cancerous. We need to run some tests on you. Yeah. And then this was, this was a fun. Fraud in Los Angeles involving the superintendent of the Los Angeles school district tonight. LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho is the subject of an FBI investigation. Federal agents, some in tactical gear, seen entering Carvalho San Pedro home Wednesday morning to execute a search warrant. Agents also searching Carvalho's office at district headquarters in downtown la. The FBI is not detailing the nature of the investigation, but confirms the warrants were served. The LA Times, citing confidential law enforcement sources, reports the probe is focused on Carvalho, not lausd, and may involve financial crimes. According to the Times, the investigation involves a former artificial intelligence company called Al Here that developed a chatbot known as Ed for LAUSD. All Here collapsed in 2024amid allegations of massive financial fraud involving its founder and CEO, Joanna Smith Griffin, who was arrested the same year. In a previous interview, she promoted the company's use of AI in education.

[News Reporter]

My name is Joanna Smith. I am the CEO of All Here, and we help schools to curb chronic absenteeism using chatbots powered by AI.

[John C. Dvorak]

Pravalo promoted the AI tool in 2024, but after Smith Griffin's indictment and arrest, the district declined to use the technology. Man, if I get another email from a teacher or an educator who says, oh, man, once the Chromebooks came in, everything went to hell in a handbasket. The kids figured out immediately how to bypass everything, how to get to the web to get the porn, get all the AI for all for, for all of their test scores. I Mean, what? What a. And it's all about money. There were big payouts, schools getting all kinds of cash. Oh, just take it. I mean, Apple started, and I think they were probably. They did that out of the goodness of their hearts, like, hey, we need to get these kids some computers. And then they realize, like, we're not really getting anything out of this. They stopped that program at a certain point. It's like, yeah, we're not going to do that.

[Adam Curry]

And then, yeah, Apple was the leader.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

And then they just disappeared from the scene.

[John C. Dvorak]

It was the same time when they were given. Remember they were lending out Apples. They would send you one. I got one. They sent me an Apple, too. My first Apple ii. Yeah, my first computer was an Apple ii. A guy named Daniel Paul worked at Apple. He's still out there. I don't think he's at Apple anymore. And then he sent me. He says, oh, no, I was at mtv. No, you gotta have a computer. It's good, and we want you to try it out. And the interesting thing is, several years later, I mean, I was into my first. Was it the 540C? Wasn't that one of the.

[Adam Curry]

I don't remember the model numbers. There's a bunch of LC's in other ones.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, no, this is the laptop. They had the laptop. And it was a color laptop. Oh, man. And if you had five pixels, is

[Adam Curry]

that a big giant thing?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, it wasn't that big. Wasn't that big. But no, that came in between with a trackball built in. I forget what that was called. But then they had.

[Adam Curry]

I have one of those. The giant thing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, with a track ball.

[Adam Curry]

It's got to be a collectible.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm sure it is, if you can find it. Well, I think it was the 540C and it was a laptop. It had the OS 7, I'm going to say. And I remember it so well because I had five pixels. Five color pixels weren't working. And Apple refused to take anything back unless it was more than 5 pixels. So they sold me a defective product. And they were expensive at the time. They were $4,000, maybe three. $4,000. Now, that's expected. Couple pixels out, that's just. That's normal. So the Tough, tough luck, Mr. VJ. But Daniel Paul at that time said, hey, you have to send us the Apple II back. And I actually had to send it back.

[Adam Curry]

Why?

[John C. Dvorak]

That was their policy. We lent it to you, and now we want it back. I know why, is the right question. And I, of course, went okay, all right, I'll give it back to you.

[Adam Curry]

You could have just said, yeah, okay, sure. And then generally speaking, these guys are so poor at record keeping that you say, I don't want to say that. I know this from experience, but being in that business forever, okay, it's on its way, got lost in the mail. Somebody checks the box and that's the end of it.

[John C. Dvorak]

And my how, how things are now between government and technology companies. This latest spat between the and I think it's something else, actually, between the Department of War and Anthropic is interesting. To follow the CEO of artificial intelligence company Anthropic, we need to work together between companies and the government to better manage that time of disruption and bring better prosperity smoothly to all.

[News Reporter]

Dario Amodei's company has been working with the American government. It was the only large language model being used in classified US Networks. That relationship is now at risk. Reuters reporting that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a mode in a meeting Tuesday Anthropic must ease restrictions on how the military can use its AI. Anthropic is refusing to let its systems be used for autonomous weapon targeting or to conduct US Domestic surveillance. Hegseth is threatening to label the company as a supply chain risk, effectively banning it from working with the government or invoking the Defense Production act to force Anthropic to give in. Hegseth argues US Law is sufficient. I fully support that strike.

[Adam Curry]

I would have made the same call.

[News Reporter]

The US Government attacked several boats. It claims we're carrying drugs, striking twice in one attack. Democrats have called the strikes illegal. A researcher says current laws governing war aren't sufficient for technology that identifies targets, even attacks them, without human oversight. And these sort of norms that were created, you know, decades, something like 50 years ago, you know, did not anticipate the type of technology that we have now. Branka Marion says AI finding, selecting and engaging targets clouds responsibility. So the conversation is too important to be private. Reuters reports A Pentagon source says anthropic has until 5pm Friday Eastern Time to respond to Hegseth's requests.

[John C. Dvorak]

So Anthropic is throwing it, as far as I can tell on this. Well, you know, we are a company with a soul and we don't want our work to be used. We don't want our work to be used. Used for, you know, killing people. I think they're lying. The hallucination, the minute you hook up a large language model to some tools and I have some hands on experience, I've been building something very simple you know, manage an online radio station with just prompts. And if the AI can't, it will lie continuously. It'll say, oh, yeah, I did that. I said, did you delete that file? Yeah, no, I deleted that. Are you sure? Yeah, look, deleted it. Show me the list. And it shows you the list of files in there. So it's still there. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, let me go delete that. And then, and then it comes back. So, see, it's gone. And I can look at the file system. It's still there. These things, there is no control over this. And I've tried it. The best.

[Adam Curry]

The best is great story.

[John C. Dvorak]

The best is X AI. That thing is meant to just engage you in bull crap. I mean, the way that was trained. And of course, I could have known, you know, something's been trained on Twitter. Data. Yeah. How good is that going to be in a production environment? Claude? Sometimes it says, oh, this is literally a prompt that came back. I can't connect to my brain right now. Okay. You know, Gemini, they all do it. No one has fixed the hallucination yet. And it's kind of funny when you're using a chatbot and it's okay, you know, for entertainment purposes, it's very entertaining. But in a real world production environment, it is unreliable. And they know it. I think they all know it. Like, well, we don't want to get blamed.

[Adam Curry]

So what you're implying is that the reason Anthropic is so reluctant to let them go ahead with this stupid idea is because they know it's going to be a disaster and it's going to reflect poorly on them.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. And, you know, and they have OpenAI as an example.

[News Reporter]

Canadian officials have questioned leaders from OpenAI about the company's safety protocols following one of the country's worst ever school shootings earlier this month. After the shooting, it was revealed that OpenAI had banned the Chat GPT account of the suspected shooter, but did not tell police. Reporter Ryan Patrick Jones says the case raises the question of just what tech companies are obliged or required to report. OpenAI says it banned Jesse Van Roodsellaar's

[John C. Dvorak]

account On its chatbot ChatGPT eight months

[News Reporter]

before the shooting for violations of its safety policies.

[John C. Dvorak]

The company didn't exactly say what she did, only that its automated systems flagged her account for possible misuse of its models, quote, in furtherance of violent activities. OpenAI says it considered whether to alert police at the time, but decided that

[News Reporter]

the activity didn't quite meet its threshold of. Of posing an imminent and credible risk of serious harm. They say they didn't identify any concrete or immediate planning.

[John C. Dvorak]

So the company says it kind of had to balance whether to report to

[News Reporter]

police with the importance of user privacy

[John C. Dvorak]

and the risk of over enforcing and

[News Reporter]

potentially causing unintended harm.

[John C. Dvorak]

Now, after the shooting, OpenAI did contact the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and shared

[News Reporter]

information on Van Root Solar's past use

[John C. Dvorak]

of ChatGPT, and they say they are

[News Reporter]

continuing to assist investigators. In a statement after the meeting, OpenAI said it has taken steps to strengthen safeguards and has made changes to law enforcement referral protocols for cases involving violent activities.

[John C. Dvorak]

These companies are going to get blamed for everything. Everything. And probably rightly so. We got a note from one of our producers, Gen Z. I've noticed a writing style of AI chatbots that I wanted to mention. Perhaps you've noticed it too. But now that I notice it, I see it everywhere, especially all over X. It goes like this. Blank is not just blank, they're a blank. Describing them further expands with some BS to drive their point home. For example, it goes like this. Adam and John are not just podcasters, they are media deconstructors. Adam and John speak truth to power by breaking down the mainstream media's talking points and beating them at their own game. And once I realized what he was telling us here, this format, I see it Everywhere now too. LinkedIn. He says he sees on LinkedIn work emails. Of course, there has to be tons of bots on X.

[Adam Curry]

What's the model again?

[John C. Dvorak]

That's Xai, I would say.

[Adam Curry]

No, the model. Blank, blank, blank.

[John C. Dvorak]

Blank is not just a blank, they're a blank describing them.

[Adam Curry]

Okay, so it's similar to diving. So they iterate. So John is basically a trick for padding. It's a padding trick completely. And it's just iteration 3x iteration minimum. Yeah, I can see that.

[John C. Dvorak]

So. Oh, I'm sorry. He's a millennial. So another thing related to this. I'm a millennial and my barber shop is largely millennial barbers and customers. More than once I've seen a post on X. The day or so before I heard a person in the barbershop recite this X post word for word as if it was their own thought to make themselves sound profound or well informed. I think that's been happening for a long time. Well, you know, Erica Kirk is creepy. Where'd you hear that? I didn't. I just. I deduced that I didn't hear it from Candace Owens

[Adam Curry]

and then it could be.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. And then the big news. We will wrap up some AI stuff here and gosh, this could have been so our exit strategy. I can't believe we didn't think of it. Claude does cobol. What a great idea. Of course it does. Of course it can program COBOL. Yeah, the IBM stock tanked like 13% in one go because of all their mainframes running everything.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, we discussed this on dhn.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, you did? And what did you. Yeah, which.

[Adam Curry]

What you're talking about now is like, obvious that IBM's under threat because it's their services business. And once they. Claude does red hat, what happens next? Because their whole business is basically, you know, service now. They don't do anything else.

[John C. Dvorak]

When it comes to troubleshooting Linux. I mean, I've seen it happen. It always winds up with the chatbot telling you you have to recompile your kernel. So I'm not too worried about it yet. Dudes named Ben will have business for a while. But bottom line, these things hallucinate. They haven't fixed it, they're papering over it. And it's just not that great, other than eating up your tokens, munching away.

[Adam Curry]

Munch.

[News Reporter]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Even comic strip blogger has kind of backed off, you know. Oh, Claude, this is it. Jobs will be gone. And you better get your affairs in order because AI is taking over everything. You'll have nothing to do. You won't have a job. People living on the street, what in what technological revolution has that happened? When we invented electricity, did everyone lose their job? When we had the Industrial Revolution, did people lose jobs or more jobs created? With desktop computing, were more jobs created or less?

[Adam Curry]

My favorite along these lines is that once they coined the term paperless office, if you had invested all your money in paper companies, you'd be a multimillionaire,

[John C. Dvorak]

you'd be a Koch brother, basically.

[Adam Curry]

So there's always that. But there's one other. There's another story that's floating around that's a big news story this morning. That's all we're talking about on some of these shows, which is the LA lawsuit over social media. You familiar with what's going on here?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I think we played a clip a couple shows back.

[Adam Curry]

It's coming to a head.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, you got anything?

[Adam Curry]

I got one clip. I labeled it number one, thinking I was going to get more, and then I kind of crapped out. NPR report or no, this NTD LA lawsuit.

[News Reporter]

We're outside the Los Angeles Superior Courthouse where an engineer and data science professor took the stand today. Professor John Chandler testified, saying how social media companies generate billions of dollars through ad revenue from young users under the age of 18. Professor John Chandler told jurors that research estimates showed platforms made billions of dollars from users under 18, including roughly $5 billion from Instagram and more than $22 billion from YouTube in a single year. However, YouTube attorneys pushed back, questioning how Chandler calculated watch time and ad exposure and pointing out that he does not personally use Instagram or knew all of the features offered on the app. Jurors were also shown how ads play on the YouTube app and showed Bad Bunny's NFL halftime performance as an example of how ads pop up. Plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier went into detail describing how ads are customized to certain users, saying when they log into their YouTube, they are actually logging into their Google account, which can send them based on their search history. He also mentioned how children who lied about their age are being fed adult advertisements. For years, Big Tech has hidden behind predatory design, coercive tactics to manipulate, exploit, and addict my generation of young people stealing the meaning of digital community right out from under us. And I say no more. Many survivor parents attend the trial each day. And on Wednesday, about 20 held a press conference outside the courthouse. They called for what they described as common sense legislative solutions to address social media's impact on young users.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, how about no slave slabs for you?

[Adam Curry]

Child survivor parents is a term they use, and I'm surprised they don't use the term victims for all these social media users. This is a lawsuit one girl has brought forward.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, she says she got addicted to Instagram.

[Adam Curry]

She got addicted and she has mental health issues because of it. And they have. And they're making a big stink out of it. They're suing Instagram and I don't know, there's two or three social media operations they're going to going after. I think YouTube is one of them and it's actually a big deal because I don't think they're going to win because the guys, the counter arguments are too. You end up blaming the parents.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, so do I. Yeah, I blame the parents. But all I've noticed is ever since, you know, smartphones, everything, and there's really been not been a great innovation since then. Of course, now AI is supposed to be the great innovation. Everything has just gotten worse now. Your battery runs down quicker because of all this nonsense that's running around doing stuff for you. You know, search engines suck, just suck. Everything's just kind of gotten worse. Has that not been your experience in, you know, five Decades in the tech industry.

[Adam Curry]

No, I think they've always been bad and so I don't think it's really gotten that much worse. And, and it's, it's always entertaining at some level and it's hard to say. I mean the social media stuff is, is the addictive aspect of it with the algo and all the rest is probably concerning and I think people should be aware of it. Something that didn't exist at this level before.

[John C. Dvorak]

The parents are addicted themselves.

[Adam Curry]

And yet that is the problem. That's a bad example. Yeah, I agree.

[John C. Dvorak]

So Samsung's coming out with their Galaxy S26 and they're not going to put one, not two, but three AI engines in there.

[Adam Curry]

Why?

[John C. Dvorak]

Why? Oh, I'm glad you asked. Because. So we'll have Gemini Perplexity. So Gemini for agentic tasks like booking rides and doing things across apps for you. Perplexity for web based queries and then an upgraded version of Samsung's own Bixby, which I noticed myself as all of a sudden my now, yeah, my now dead foldable phone was like, hi, I'm Bixby, how can I help you? Really?

[Adam Curry]

Is this the same as Clippy or that little dog that used to be in the corner?

[John C. Dvorak]

With a name like Bixby, it might as well be. So it's going to, you know, it's going to book Uber rides for you automatically when you have to go to dinner as after it already because it's so much work.

[Adam Curry]

It's so hard to go on the app, the Uber app and click, click a couple of times and get your ride figured out.

[John C. Dvorak]

They're out of ideas. That's the whole point. They're out of ideas. Well, we got this cool stuff, you know. And your agent can talk to my agent. This is in the press release. Your agent talks to my agent. They set a date for dinner and then it'll automatically book our rides. It'll pre order our favorite meals. I mean every, like this is why

[Adam Curry]

I said pre order your favorite meal.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is why I said on the last show like we are the robots tech companies are.

[Adam Curry]

Just a good point.

[John C. Dvorak]

Just using the phones to control us and it's working.

[Adam Curry]

Pre order favorite meal.

[John C. Dvorak]

But then we have.

[Adam Curry]

You don't go to a restaurant to eat your favorite meal necessarily. You go there maybe. I mean there used to be a place you used to go to always had these frog legs that always go there. But you don't still look at the menu and say wait a minute, this isn't different. Let me Try that. I guess that's out of the question now.

[John C. Dvorak]

So lawmakers in Colorado have come with a genius idea. This is Senators Matt Ball and Amy Paschal, their state senators. They came up with SB 26051, requiring operating systems such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft. But they appear to also have thrown in open source. You will now have to verify your age upon installing or starting up the operating system. So they figure, oh, the way to do this is you have to verify your age to the operating system. And after that, everything else has to adhere to that age verification. How about that for an idea?

[Adam Curry]

Well, you mean everything defaults to that?

[John C. Dvorak]

Everything defaults to it. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

So that's not going to work.

[News Reporter]

No.

[Adam Curry]

What do you think these kids are stupid?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

So we're. We're going to.

[Adam Curry]

Hey, dad, can you install the operating system for me? Oh, yeah, sure. Okay, I'm good to go. Thanks. I mean, come on.

[John C. Dvorak]

What could possibly go wrong?

[Adam Curry]

This is all virtue signaling.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

If you're going to talk about this sort of thing, since we're talking about computers and stuff, I do have another short presentation I'd like to get rid of.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

This is the Video Game Sick Report.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, okay.

[News Reporter]

What makes more money than the music industry and the film industry combined? The answer is found in the click of a mouse, the flick of a thumbstick. I'm talking about video games.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, yeah, it's. What is it, almost 10 times the size of Hollywood now?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it's pretty big. But what is the flick of a thumbstick? Did you hear that little thing from npr?

[News Reporter]

What makes more money than the music industry and the film industry combined? The answer is found in the click of a mouse, the flick of a thumbstick. I'm talking about video games.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, thumbsticks is how I control the entire show. I'm running it up. Yeah, that's how I forgot to record. I was flicking the thumbstick and I thought it went okay.

[Adam Curry]

Well, they straighten out and discuss joysticks for a little bit here with part two.

[News Reporter]

Last year, the video game industry generated around $190 billion in revenue, according to outlets that track it. So how did this medium go from the arcade into a global juggernaut that is the subject of a new podcast series called Hidden Levels, which is a collaboration between 99% of.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is a house ad. Is a house ad. Is a house ad that you're playing.

[Adam Curry]

I would say about half of the stuff on NPR now is house ads for their podcast. You can receive wherever you get your

[News Reporter]

podcasts visible and Endless Thread from member station WBUR in Boston. And Ben Brock Johnson is here. He's the creator of Hidden Levels and the co host of Endless Thread.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hi.

[News Reporter]

Hi, Ben.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hi, Emily. You can, you can be player one, I'll be player two.

[Adam Curry]

Ready?

[News Reporter]

Player two, let's go. Your. Your series is so fantastic. It covers so many interesting things. It's six episodes and one of them is all about the history of the joystick, because its origins have nothing to do with gaming. Turns out.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, this was a really fun episode. The joystick is born in the early 1900s. It has a somewhat murky origin. It gets introduced into the aviation industry first to better control some of the first airplanes.

[News Reporter]

That makes sense.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. But then, then the joystick gets incorporated and really perfected by the video game industry starting in, in the 70s as a tool that has become the way to extend our bodies via machine. It's just used everywhere now. Yeah. When I was training to fly a helicopter and airplanes, I always had to learn how to use the joystick. And I think on my test I even had to say, you know, you use the joyst. Control the plane.

[News Reporter]

Morons.

[Adam Curry]

So this is the level of, of, of discourse we have on NPR when it comes to tech. So here's a. The third clip, which I have labeled wtf, meaning there's something stupid in here. Well, I, I mean, you can say there's something stupid in all these clips that I have today, but this is. There's something particularly stupid here.

[John C. Dvorak]

Shane Rivera, a psychotherapist who works with LGBTQ youth in South Carolina. And Rivera described how a working with found a safe space for her own identity in the video game the Sims.

[News Reporter]

Little by little, she herself started to try out different things that her avatar did. Different types of makeup, different types of clothing, until she settled into this style that was much more her rather than a preconceived notion of masculinity or femininity. I'm so taken with that because at the core of gaming is play, and play is how you can discover yourself. And it reminds me of this game called Life is True Colors. The character in that game can fall in love with either a man or a woman. And it was a way that I explored and ultimately found my own bisexuality.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, man.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is a call back to Gamergate. This is where it all started. This is where all of the woke stuff started to rear its head. And we ignored it for months until. So it was just. There was no ignoring it. And this is where it came from, where you had this huge Pressure from video game reviewers and magazines and websites. Like, all of your characters are sexy chicks, and this is no good. We've got to have equity and equality. And it started with Gamergate. That was the genesis of it popping up. And here we are. It saved an NPR host from. From hooking up with a dude. Too much.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Now she's discovered she's by her own bisexuality. Yes, her own.

[John C. Dvorak]

She discovered it by playing games. Nice.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Video games got her into chicks. Into lesbianism, basically.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

So, okay, well, that's good to know. Here's another clip.

[John C. Dvorak]

Good to know. That's just swell. Swell. Guys, we need to bring the word swell back.

[Adam Curry]

Swell. That's just swell.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's just swell. All right.

[News Reporter]

Because I could fall in love with both, and they both were great storylines equally, and the game really allowed me that. So. So you're saying that games can be places where people can grapple with real world things. They're not just escapism. Absolutely.

[John C. Dvorak]

And that's. Wow, that's such a meaningful example, you know, and why representation is so important. Right, in these spaces. Representation in these spaces. Is this why this guy is on, to talk about representation in these spaces? Is that why they got him on?

[Adam Curry]

I have no idea why they even did this. NPR has gone down the toilet.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is great.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, it's just a. It's just. It's just a gay cabal now. Give me a break.

[John C. Dvorak]

Gay cabal.

[Adam Curry]

That's what it is. Whole operation. It's. It's kind of pathetic. And they're so proud of themselves.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, they are.

[Adam Curry]

You know, I. I'm listening to a host. I don't give a crap about their sexuality, and I don't want to throw it in my face.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, man, here we go.

[Adam Curry]

Wrap up with the bs. Okay.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think games are really, you know, ultimately, they're a reflection of us. Right. And our own capacity for building things or destroying things and. And everything in between. Not only are video games huge, they're also impacting our world in ways that we don't really realize and appreciate.

[Adam Curry]

Tell me about the sexuality. It's in your DNA.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, it's in my video game. That's where it is. Well, I do like the fact that one of those. One of the big gaming consoles is now all Linux and gave up on Windows. I think that's kind of cool. If I were Microsoft, I'd be concerned about that. What is the big. The big platform that just came out with huge console?

[Adam Curry]

I have no idea what you're Talking about.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. One of the big gaming consoles is now all Linux.

[Adam Curry]

Sony. No. PlayStation.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no.

[Adam Curry]

Microsoft's dropping the Xbox.

[John C. Dvorak]

Steam. Steam. Steam.

[Adam Curry]

Steam, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Steam has all the games. Has a lot of game, not all the games. Steam has a lot of games.

[Adam Curry]

I thought that was online stuff. I didn't know that was its council Valve.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think Valve is the name of the console. Yeah. Yeah. And they sell pre made Linux boxes now. Yeah. Good for them. All right, let's talk about the State of the Union which the president did. He sounds a little tired from time to time. I thought it was.

[Adam Curry]

He went 148.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I thought it was a good, I think a good joke was stand up if you stand for the American people over illegal immigrants. I thought was that was a fun move.

[Adam Curry]

I have a copy of that on the, on the clip list.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. But let me before I'll let you do these clips, I just want to play one the The Takeaway this morning on CNN. Among SpeechWatchers tonight, 64% say his policies will move the U.S. in the right direction.

[News Reporter]

And look at the growth President Trump made over the speech. So pre speech it was 54% of

[Adam Curry]

speech watchers said his policies will move the US in the right direction.

[News Reporter]

After the speech that number goes up 10 percentage points.

[John C. Dvorak]

So Donald Trump made some progress with

[News Reporter]

people watching the speech from their pre speech expectations to what they saw in the speech itself.

[John C. Dvorak]

And that 64% number, that's pretty much

[News Reporter]

in range across all of his State of the Union addresses in his first

[Adam Curry]

term last year, the joint session that's

[News Reporter]

about what we've seen is roughly 2/3 have walked away from his speeches thinking

[John C. Dvorak]

he's going to move it in the right direction. So a lot of red meat for the base.

[News Reporter]

Yeah, there's no, no doubt about that.

[John C. Dvorak]

I, if you're a Republican on the

[News Reporter]

ballot in 2026, I think you leave this speech being as happy as you

[John C. Dvorak]

could possibly be that he sort of

[Adam Curry]

stuck to the script on the economy.

[John C. Dvorak]

He gave the red meat to the

[News Reporter]

base on immigration and they can leave the home tonight and sort of take that out on the campaign trail.

[John C. Dvorak]

I was surprised that CNN did the report and that the numbers were that high. I didn't expect that. I mean these things are always just a performance. Doesn't matter who's doing it him. And it's either a performance from the Republicans in the audience and a Democrat president or vice versa. It's always the same thing.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it's, it's a joke.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, it's a joke. Yes. So what do you have?

[Adam Curry]

I just have some of the highlights. But let me go. I'm going to start with the one that I, because I want to just. There's a little tidbit in here that one person I saw bring it up and I'm going to bring it up to. This is a State of the Union. This is when he talks about Irina, the woman who was murdered on the, on the, the train in. Yes, in North Carolina, I guess it was. And to get, you know, he's not, he's now he's doing some of this stuff where he points out somebody in the audience. He had the family there and they, and then the Democrats would sit and the Republicans would clap. And here's an example.

[News Reporter]

And President Trump is also honoring and vowing justice for Anna Zarudska. That's the mother of 23 year old Irina Zaritska, the Ukrainian refugee who is fatal stabbed last August in Charlotte. Charlotte, North Carolina, light rail train. Her killing attracted a lot of attention and intense criticism over why the suspect was on the street despite 14 prior arrests. Take a look.

[John C. Dvorak]

She had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal

[Adam Curry]

set free to kill in America.

[John C. Dvorak]

Came in through open borders.

[Adam Curry]

Mrs. Zareska, tonight, I promise you we will ensure justice for your magnificent daughter Irina. How do you not stand?

[John C. Dvorak]

How do you not stand?

[Adam Curry]

So the thing about how do you not stand? Which to me would. The great irony was they put, they put a camera on people like Elizabeth Warren and it's all these Democrats, they all didn't stand for the Ukrainian girl and they all had little Ukraine flags on. They had these little Ukraine flags, Elizabeth, worn as a Ukraine flag and then an American flag just, just underneath it, which is kind of the opposite of the way it should be. And I could be wrong about the order, but I'm pretty sure the Ukraine flag was on top. But it's about Ukraine. They didn't stand. I mean, to me it was priceless in terms of the hypocrisy.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I like your report there saying got a lot of attention. If I recall correctly, it took the mainstream media two weeks to give this attention. There was no one talking about it except podcasts. Yeah, I happen to remember these things.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, you do.

[John C. Dvorak]

You remember that as a podcaster.

[Adam Curry]

Let's go with. Here's the aliens clip.

[News Reporter]

President Trump last night making history with the longest record of the State of the Union address clocking in at just under an hour and 48 minutes. And a large focus of the president's address last Night was on his administration's immigration and crime policies. This is as he demands the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The President is also last night calling on Congress to pass what he says he will call the Delilah Law. That would be a law banning any state from granting commercial driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. President stressing his reasoning there that many illegal immigrants. Immigrants do not speak English and thus have trouble reading basic road signs. And the so called Delilah Law is named after a little girl who was in the audience last night, Delilah Coleman, who was 5 when she was critically injured in a car crash caused by a trailer driven by an illegal immigrant. She miraculously survived those critical injuries and was there with her father. Take a look.

[Adam Curry]

Marcus, a fantastic man. Delilah, please, you are a great inspiration. Please stand up. So tonight, I'm inviting every legislature to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle.

[John C. Dvorak]

If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government

[Adam Curry]

is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. You should be ashamed of yourself. Not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[John C. Dvorak]

Got annoying. It's like, okay, don't you know how this works? They don't stand. You say stand, they don't stand. You're unpatriotic, you're no good.

[Adam Curry]

It is funny. I mean, he's definitely milking it. The last one was the boycott clip.

[News Reporter]

Meanwhile, Kevin, a historically unprecedented number of lawmakers actually boycotted President Trump's State of the Union last year night, north of 70 lawmakers. And there are also counter addresses scheduled at the same time. There's the People's State of the Nation there on the National Mall here. And there was State of the Swamp at the National Press Club. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Democratic lawmakers who did attend to silently defy the President's remarks, although some were more vocal about their dissent, including Representative Ilhan Omar, who during his part about immigration policy, was calling the President a liar and a murderer during his speech. And meanwhile, Governor Abigail Spanberger of Virginia gave the official Democratic rebuttal criticizing President Trump's immigration policy. Our president told us tonight that we are safer because these agents arrest mothers and detain children. Think about that. Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed, not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.

[John C. Dvorak]

What?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, brother. No oh, brother.

[Adam Curry]

But you should have seen the alternate events.

[John C. Dvorak]

I have a clip, a very short clip about that from Reuters.

[News Reporter]

Several Democrats opted to skip Trump's speech and instead went to an event dubbed the People's State of the Union. Others went to a different counter event called the State of the Swamp, where actor Robert De Niro addressed the crowd, including activists dressed as frogs.

[John C. Dvorak]

I mean, again, it's all. So they're all, now they're trying to get the influencers to pay attention to them. Look, we got, we're dressed as frogs. Oh, yeah, this will go viral. Yeah, it'll go viral, no problem. You know, someone asked me like, whoa, how can Ilan Omar be yelling that? I said, this goes back to the first time I remember someone calling out the president from, from, from the seats. Was President Obama in 2009. Was it the guy from. I forget his Wilson. Joe Wilson called. He said, you lie. You lie. Called him out as a liar. And then Marjorie Taylor Greene called out biden. I think this is, this is. Get back to work, all of you. Sick of it. Yeah, I have one clip from the State of the Union because in case you didn't know, we are now currently in the golden age.

[News Reporter]

A primetime pitch to the nation from a president not known for his brevity. True to form, Donald Trump delivered the longest State of the union address in history.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm sure he went home and went like Melania here. It was a lot. I, I, I got the record, longest state in the union ever. The longest one ever.

[Adam Curry]

I did it.

[News Reporter]

As his approval ratings slide and concerns about affordability grow, the president insisted Americans have never had it so good.

[Adam Curry]

Our nation is back. Bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.

[News Reporter]

His greatest hits were on full display. No tax on tips, doubling down on tariffs, and a promise to stay tough on immigration.

[Adam Curry]

The only thing standing between Americans and

[John C. Dvorak]

a wide open border right now is

[Adam Curry]

president Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in congress.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you.

[News Reporter]

His speech was often interrupted by cheers and chants of USA The Olympic gold medal was winners in the u. S. Men's hockey team received a standing ovation. But at times, tensions spilled into the chamber.

[Adam Curry]

You should be ashamed of yourself. That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact.

[News Reporter]

Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar shouted in protest during the president's response remarks on immigration and the Somali community in her home city of Minneapolis. Fellow democratic lawmaker Al Green was escorted from the chamber. He had waved a sign protesting a video the president had posted depicting the Obamas as apes.

[Adam Curry]

Boy, oh, boy, we're lucky we have a country with people like this. Democrats are destroying our country, but we've stopped.

[News Reporter]

And dozens of other Democrats. Democrats had refused to show up in the first place.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay. It's also tiring. Like how many State of the Unions have we covered in the, in the course of this show? 25 maybe.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it comes out once a year, so probably not 25.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, it can't be. It can't be 50. I don't think I can remember that year. Yeah, but I guess we have have once a year.

[Adam Curry]

We've done about 18 of them.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. Oh, we have the most State of the Union coverage in all podcasts ever.

[Adam Curry]

It's true. The Voice, you're not getting it.

[John C. Dvorak]

But, but you know what I'm saying.

[Adam Curry]

If you're gonna want to try it, keep working on one. I'll encourage it.

[John C. Dvorak]

There's so many people out there. I'd rather, I'd rather do Alex Jones, man, listen, Iran is going to blow up, up. You know what's going to happen?

[Adam Curry]

The Muslims.

[John C. Dvorak]

Muslims are taking over Texas. I read their documents. I've seen it.

[Adam Curry]

It's in their documents. Yeah, you're Alex Joneses. You're. I'd say you're 90%. And I kept. And in fact you're so far along, I, I have no suggestions you normally I say, well, if you could do twist.

[John C. Dvorak]

No prompting. They have no prompts for me. Oh, this is good.

[Adam Curry]

Maybe the, maybe the cadence could change. I, I can't say any of that because you're God it to such an extreme that I can't help.

[John C. Dvorak]

I'm getting, I'm getting.

[Adam Curry]

So it's up to you. Get in front of a mirror.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's still the big thing here in Texas. Oh, the Isla Sharia law is coming. Oh, they're going to take and I. People say this to me, aren't you afraid of Sharia law? No. We're becoming Sweden. We're becoming the U.K. i said no.

[Adam Curry]

Check the numbers.

[John C. Dvorak]

Our borders are closed. And it took 25 years for this mess to happen in the EU and I saw it happen. I saw it before my very eyes. And you need open borders for this to happen and a complete, always communist government and a complete subdued population. But it's the Republican talking point. Just like Mandami, it's going to be there everywhere. So. Well, that'd be pretty funny anyway. Iran ABC report from this morning.

[News Reporter]

The US is increasing its military presence in the Middle east, adding to its show of force against Iran. In a rare move, a US official

[John C. Dvorak]

telling ABC News tonight about a dozen

[News Reporter]

Air Force F22 fighters have now landed in Israel. Tonight, the fighter is spotted taking off

[Adam Curry]

from a base in the UK President

[News Reporter]

Trump threatening US Military action against Iran unless the Iranian regime agrees to a nuclear deal.

[John C. Dvorak]

All right, all right, we're ratcheting it up. Let's go to cbs. The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, sailed into an American

[Adam Curry]

naval base on the Greek island of

[John C. Dvorak]

Crete today with multiple squadrons of F18

[Adam Curry]

fighter jets seen on deck. The Pentagon has moved at least 120

[John C. Dvorak]

aircraft to the region in the past two weeks alone.

[Adam Curry]

Pressure is mounting inside Iran, too. Thousands of students protested against the regime. The first demonstration since the brutal crackdown in January that left thousands dead. President Trump is weighing his options.

[John C. Dvorak]

I think they want to make a deal.

[Adam Curry]

I don't think they want to come. Consequences of not making a deal. Potential targets could include Iran's ballistic missile sites, its nuclear facilities and the headquarters

[John C. Dvorak]

of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

[Adam Curry]

Iran's foreign minister said the country was ready to fight.

[John C. Dvorak]

We have a very good capability of

[Adam Curry]

missiles and now we are even in

[John C. Dvorak]

a better situation than previous war.

[Adam Curry]

Iran has not only threatened retaliation against US Bases in the region, but Israel.

[John C. Dvorak]

I love the Nat pops in CBS report. They got explosion after explosion directly.

[News Reporter]

If Iran retaliates, it might not just be Iran.

[John C. Dvorak]

We've been fighting the last two and a half war on seven different fronts. We've seen multiple enemies. US Officials say if President Trump, Trump

[Adam Curry]

does decide to hit Iran, one option

[News Reporter]

is a joint military operation between the United States and Israel. Both countries have discussed hitting Iran's ballistic missile sites.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, because as you know, Bibi Netanyahu told Trump what to do and Trump went, oh, God, all right, look at that. Here's Canada's global news. And then a surprising report from from France24. With his country still inching towards conflict, US President Donald Trump used some of his primetime speech to issue a direct warning to Iran to give up its nuclear desires.

[Adam Curry]

We wiped it out and they want to start all over again.

[John C. Dvorak]

Iranian officials pushed back on Trump's rhetoric, calling it, quote, big lies. We're in no way seeking nuclear weapons, Iran's president said in recent days. Despite sites destroyed in 2025 appearing to be reduced, built, which adds pressure to another round of upcoming diplomatic talks. The president was measured when it came to the conflict in Iran. He definitely didn't saber rattle. He didn't make threats. He didn't need to. The massive US Military buildup around Iran speaks to America's distrust. If you choose diplomacy and respect Iran's dignity and interests, Iran's parliamentary speaker said we will stay at the table. The the US has hinted at potential olive branches, including small scale uranium enrichment, provided there's zero path to a nuclear weapon and failure to do so could result in consequences.

[Adam Curry]

This is him making the decision to use military force to achieve his own policy objectives.

[John C. Dvorak]

There are reports senior Pentagon officials have expressed concerns about a large response, saying munitions stockpiles are low due to American defense of Israel and support for Ukraine. But 10 giving the president room to delay his decision. That probably gave the American people a little bit of a sigh of relief, but it doesn't absolve the fact that this is still a very hot situation and the president has to convince people that this is in the nation's best interest. Still, time is running out with a 10 or 15 day deadline imposed by Donald Trump quickly coming to an end. Okay, so what we discussed on the last show I think is still very much in play. This is to stop any oil going to China or to Russia. Hey, let us in. Let our American companies set up shop. We'll do the refining, we'll do the shipping. We'll do drop shipping for you. We'll do gift cards, whatever you want. We'll take care of that. We'll even give you some of those cool little reactors that we're shipping around with. The Air Force is flying all over the place. Just do a deal. I still don't understand why the president and it to me is lying about this. You know, I want to rebuild. It just doesn't ring true at all. And France 24 came very close. I think in this report.

[News Reporter]

The big, big issue as well is for the US to debunk and destabilize the axis that goes from Iran to China and also Russia. And only then people like Jared Kushner will appreciate the fact that, that possibly they can implement the peace board, the extension of Abraham Accords and reshape this region for which they also have a vision, an ambition and their own ideology. And we'll see in the coming days how their own strategy applies on the ground.

[John C. Dvorak]

Sarah Kreps, speaking of China, we've had in the last days talk about intelligence sharing on the part of Beijing, Beijing for Tehran. Your thoughts on again, is this more than just the United States versus Iran and what is the role of China in all this?

[News Reporter]

Yeah, this seems like classic realpolitik on the ground, which is sort of the enemy of my enemy is my friend right now. It seems as though there are These kind of two worlds, U.S. allies, China, its allies and Then these kind of the Indias of the world that are trying to navigate the Middle. And. And so it's not surprising that China is trying to align a little bit with Iran in order to push back in a balance of power kind of way against the United States, because that's kind of what this, these spirits of influence are right now. So it's not surprising at all.

[John C. Dvorak]

First time I've heard any news report talk about China as in regards to this Iranian gambit.

[Adam Curry]

I'm glad somebody picked it up.

[John C. Dvorak]

Barely, though. Barely. It's like, come on, it's so obvious. After Venezuela, this is now, this is what has to happen. And you know, you're not going to get your oil out of the Straits of Hormuz through the armada. So do a deal and then come on into the world and everybody can play nice. Can it be anything else? It's clearly not some nuclear facility. No one is saying you have the bomb in one week. Nukes coming. That's off the table.

[Adam Curry]

Well, Witkoff did say that recently. I don't have the clip out of the blue. I think this was like about three or four days ago. Witkoff has said exactly that.

[John C. Dvorak]

What a douche.

[Adam Curry]

You would know what it was. I see. I think he had his binder and he flipped to the wrong tab.

[John C. Dvorak]

He's off script.

[Adam Curry]

And it was like, from five years ago.

[John C. Dvorak]

He's, guess what, you say he's getting. He's getting his information from chat GPT on the flight. Well, Bixby said, Bixby said they're gonna have a nuke in one week.

[Adam Curry]

In one week.

[John C. Dvorak]

So one of the most controversial things that I have ever seen happen on this show as we made a call out and said, listen, we have now seen so many times a social media post where American troops are being served steak and lobster. And it immediately goes around as, that's it. Steak and lobster. Steak and lobster. They're going to be deployed. Strikes are coming, coming. And I said, please, to our military producers, of which there are many, could you please let me know what your experience is? Well, this is super interesting because it may have to do with what, what service you're in, but I will share a few of these. I'm sorry.

[Adam Curry]

Yes, we have two notes in particular, and they contradict each other.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I have about eight notes that contradict each other other. First one, I spent 31 years in the Navy when on deployment, and they give us steak and lobster. It's usually because we're getting extended and not going home. It's True. Next one. My husband who served in the army and retired after 20 years of service in 2021 had seven tours to Iraq and Afghanistan said a very long time ago when chow halls and kitchens were only a couple of bases, they would ship hot meals in these military yetis and they would serve that before after an operation in the early 2000s. But now it's every Friday everywhere basically all the time on Friday. So the videos that are going around social media are just Friday next one.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I love these.

[John C. Dvorak]

Your sense that this was BS and brother you are right. I served as a cook in the U.S. army. Now we have Navy and Army different things. For 10 years from 88 to 98 I've served in both procurement and production capacities in large scale dining facilities. These operate on a modest budget. Generally they plan for a three week menu to cycle to balance consistency with variety. While special meals were planned in and they could deviate under special circumstances, it was rarely done to financial constraints. In September every year it was clear which facilities had budgeted well. Those who who would shift to steak and shrimp, we never produce lobster weekly. Those which manage finances poorly would swap ham and omelets to bologna and orange juice to Kool Aid to cut costs ahead of the first fiscal year. So okay then we have retired from the Army 2018 Master Sergeant, 20 years of active duty service. The steak and lobster theory is bullshit. I can only speak from the army perspective. The Air Force probably has steak and lobster on the days they don't have prime ribbon. Cav are. With that being said, most soldiers don't even eat in the dining facilities outside of breakfast. Even the numbers are smaller than most people assume. I believe there is the theory that all soldiers live in barracks with a chow hall across the street. Most soldiers live at home with their family either on post housing or in a house or apartment off base. They eat their dinners at home, take their lunch or go out and eat at one of the many fast food restaurants in base. If they are in a defense ready for status, they are still living on off post, can't drink and usually have an hour recall and could be anywhere in the world in about 18 hours. Soldiers living in the barracks are generally on a meal card that allows them to eat at the dining facility for free. Everyone else gets charged. Soldiers not on meal card are on basic allowance for the substance. They are paid $476 a month to get their own food wherever they wish. Then we have Commodore Matt the metal bed. I just heard your immediate call to arms. I can confirm I served in the U.S. navy. And it was widely known if you get surf and turf while you're out at sea, bad news is coming. Some ships would also bring out ice cream machines that they didn't usually have for the same purpose. The idea was to boost morale before dealing a big blow. So it seems the Navy may be doing this. Then we have the final one. Sir M. Madson of Mid Valley. I deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan a few times. Have enjoyed many meals at dining facilities in Kuwait, Qatar and Romania. I can tell you from my experience that service members eating steak, lobster and crab means it's Friday. Friday night is usually surf and turf night, just like Wednesday is wings night and Tuesday is taco night in many chow halls and dining facilities military wide. So the only thing I can see here is that maybe the Navy does this, but everybody else seems to think it's just Friday. And I think we solved this. I think we've solved this.

[Adam Curry]

I don't want much to solve, but it's Friday. At least we got the bull crap out of the way.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's Friday.

[Adam Curry]

Thank you. Thank you for the, for the social media and it's great insights.

[John C. Dvorak]

And with that, I want to thank you for your courage. Say in the morning to you, the man who put the sea in China's role in Iran, say hello to my friend on the other end, the one, the only, Mr. John Cedar.

[Adam Curry]

Ships seamlessly rafting the air, subs in the water.

[John C. Dvorak]

Dave's nights out there in the morning to the trolls in the troll room. Let me count you for a second. 1532. Should be 1800 today. Those are the trolls. Trolls hanging out in the troll room. That means they are listening live either@trollroomio or no, agendastream.com or perhaps they're using one of those fabulous modern podcast apps. Can't wait for the new podverse to come out. It's gonna. It's gonna blow the socks off of everybody. Oh, I had podcasting news, by the way.

[Adam Curry]

Podcasting news.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, I had podcasting news. So, so, you know, everyone's like, oh, you got to do a video podcast. Video podcast. It's got. If it's not a video podcast, it's got to be a video podcast. So Spotify was the first to jump on the video podcast. Yeah, you can upload your video to us for your video podcast. What's happening is the. And boy, we could have seen this coming from a mile away. Now that you can create video podcasts and Spotify will put you up there in the top ranking podcast because of course. It's all about the chart, man. You got to be in the chart. If you're not in the chart, no one's gonna listen to your podcast. Certainly not watch your podcast. So guess what shows up in between Megyn Kelly and Joe Rogan and. And others? Porn. And there's all these porn podcasts, and now Spotify is going, what's a porn podcast?

[Adam Curry]

Do you.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's. They're just uploading porn as a podcast

[Adam Curry]

and calling it a podcast. Hey, hey. Today's redhead day. What do you think, Adam? We got some redheads lined up. Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of them. They all. You got the skinny ones, the media, the big ones, the top heavy ones. What are we going to start with today, Adam, what do you think?

[John C. Dvorak]

All I can do is go back to this.

[Adam Curry]

Straight from Resita. Here she is, Raven.

[John C. Dvorak]

Give it up. So now Spotify. It's, like, so obvious this was going to happen. Now Spotify has to employ 30 people to go and check every video podcast to make sure it's not porn. Like, didn't you know that was going to happen? It's so obvious.

[Adam Curry]

All right, porn.

[John C. Dvorak]

And. And it's topping the charts. Another obvious thing. What?

[Adam Curry]

Top of the char.

[John C. Dvorak]

Top of the chart. We're number one, taking over Joe Rogan any moment now. Hilarious. Anyway, go to modern new podcast apps.com. i think you can go to podcast apps.com actually podcast appsplural.com and take a look at all the different features besides some of the really cool stuff that you already are using. Transcripts, chapters, location, what people, great search capabilities. You can also listen to many of your favorite podcasts live when they stream live, like your no Agenda show and many more on noagendastream.com so if you subscribe to the podcast, you'll be notified when they go live. You can listen to it live. And as always, when they publish the podcast, within 90 seconds, you'll be notified. That is a modern podcast app. Except no substitutes. Get rid of the legacy apps. Value for Value is our podcast. It's been that way for over 18 years. And the only way we survive is by. By you thinking that you or you actually receiving value and saying, you know, this show was valuable. There's something about it that it just. It adds something to my life. I feel so good about myself now. What can I do to help these guys? Oh, I know. Send some value back whenever it's appropriate. Any amount that you feel is right. Go to noagendadonations.com and send the Value back time, talent, treasure. It's the three T's. Time and talent is also accepted. Accepted in the form of, for example, artwork that people would do for us. You can upload those tonoagenA artgenerator.com and a lot of people had the same idea for the artwork for episode 1845. We titled that Slave Slab, which we totally stole from some of the art because we're trying to come up with the right name for that.

[Adam Curry]

From Dan.

[John C. Dvorak]

Dan, that's right.

[Adam Curry]

O, B, G, y, n. Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

4.

[Adam Curry]

He's the one who.

[John C. Dvorak]

Thank you for. Thank you for remembering.

[Adam Curry]

He coined it.

[John C. Dvorak]

And because we had controller slab and we knew we were on the right track, but we didn't have it just yet. And then when we looked at the art went, ah, Slave Slab. That's it. Because these things are clearly not phones. They are a slab that you are enslaved to.

[Adam Curry]

And now you're carrying it around literally in your hand while walking down the street sometimes.

[John C. Dvorak]

True. Two. One in each hand. It's amazing. That's only women, though. For some reason. A lot of women have two phones. Think it's the. The family phone and the.

[Adam Curry]

Just in case.

[John C. Dvorak]

Just in case. And we argued over. We discussed many different pieces. We chose Rocket boys. Throwback to 2001. Is it 2001 Odyssey. Is that it?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. And I was surprised by when we were doing the post mortem on the show after afterwards that you had never seen this movie.

[John C. Dvorak]

I can't recall seeing it. Of course, I know Open the pod bay doors, Hal, but I don't think I've actually seen it. So I have put it on the listing. I have put it on the list. Well, you know, I don't know.

[Adam Curry]

You know, I'm thinking about it because that movie came out in the 80s or 70s maybe.

[John C. Dvorak]

I was in Holland and they didn't have possible.

[Adam Curry]

But I'm wondering, because I haven't seen it for a while, whether it's even watchable anymore.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's probably why I have never gone and say I should watch this thing. You know what was interesting? We wanted to watch Spin City. We thought, you know, hey, it'd be fun to watch Spin City with Michael J. Fox as a. As an old show to just kind of reminisce. That is not available. And. And if you search for it, it says not available because license expiration. So there's a show that should be on Pluto or at least someone should pick that up. That was a good show anyway. Yeah, it may be unwatchable. Kind of like The Colossus movie. What was that. What was that thing called?

[Adam Curry]

Forbin. The Forbin project. I think that's still kind of watchable.

[John C. Dvorak]

So it was Dan OBGYN4. And he's. He's had the image, which I did not remember because I probably haven't seen the movie that you said this. The monolith. It's the monolith. Don't you see? It's the monolith. Monolith. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's a big phone in the middle of a valley. I thought his. I.

[Adam Curry]

But. And Dan, I thought this was the. This art I picked.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes, you did.

[Adam Curry]

But I had to. But Adam was so adamant about not getting it.

[John C. Dvorak]

I really had to.

[Adam Curry]

I have to assume that if he didn't get. I mean, there's a lot of people that probably didn't get it. If he didn't get it. And so we went to another version of the same art, only more, I would say, surreal. And we picked the other version, which

[John C. Dvorak]

looks a lot like a phone in front of an orange butt plug, which

[Adam Curry]

is the first thing you saw that was. Which I thought was dimensional thinking. So it's like, holy mackerel. I didn't get that. I still can't see it.

[John C. Dvorak]

But. Okay, well, when's the last time you saw a butt plug?

[Adam Curry]

I don't go around looking for him. I think the last time I saw is when Adam Schiff gave a speech.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ah, there it is, everybody. So thank you very much, rocket Boy, for bringing that beautiful piece of art. And anybody can submit for the show. Get your favorite. Your favorite AI thing to do it. Sometimes people actually are real artists. They like to come in and do something. We appreciate that. If you do know Agenda Art generator dot com.

[Adam Curry]

And I should mention that I used another piece, a third piece, for the newsletter, which I just thought was cute, which was a Moon by AI Slop, which just has a little alien guy in the moon holding up a sign saying the best podcast in the universe. And I thought. I don't know why, I just thought it was a very cute.

[John C. Dvorak]

I saw you use that.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it was nice piece of art that. It was just funny looking.

[John C. Dvorak]

We all slick.

[Adam Curry]

Slick.

[John C. Dvorak]

We always thank people who Support us financially. $50 and above, not under $50 for brevity and also for reasons of anonymity. There's a lot of people just want to give and they'll put in multiple 4999s. Whatever it is. We appreciate that, particularly the recurring donations. $200 or above. Not only will we read your note within reason some long ones today, but you also get a Hollywood credit of associate Executive producer. Just like Dana Brunetti, who I will be calling. So not that I'm going to be calling all of our associate executive producers, but he's a big time Hollywood associate Executive producer and you can put that credit into IMDb.com if you don't, just to prove that you're an Official Producer and $300 or above, you get an executive producer credit and we'll read your note as well. And that is exactly what Bob Newell did from Penfield, Pennsylvania. He sends in a note with his $350. He says greetings and gratitude from the far flung realm on the borders of Clearfield and Elk counties in Pennsylvania. Your twice weekly alchemy of deconstruction, courage and borderline questionable clip curation continues to keep this humble pastor sane. Ah, we have a man of the cloth here. Truly, your work is a shield against the dragons of misinformation and I thank you for riding into battle every episode. As for me, I come not only as a pastor in the stronghold of Du Bois, Pennsylvania and nearby areas, but as a certified dude named Ben. This is the pastor can fix your pooter. Forged in the ancient fires of computing, I cut my teeth on an IBM360 back when punch cards were plentiful and a missing period could bring an ENT kingdom to its knees. Good times. Those early days taught me patience, precision and the sacred art of not dropping the box of cards. With this donation, I joyfully complete my night layaway quest. The accounting scrolls are enclosed for your inspection. And so, with due humility and a grin, I request to be dubbed Sir Robert of Penfield and request gnocchi and corn bread at the Round table. If the round table permits, I'd also be grateful for a mention on my little offering to the wider world. Lights, Camera, Devotion. Now available on Amazon.com it's a resource meant to help folks connect faith story in daily life. No jingles needed. Just my thanks, my tithe and my continued loyalty to the best podcast in the universe. Actually, someone sent me a jingle that would be perfect to play for our pastor friend here. It just came in this morning.

[News Reporter]

You've got prayers

[John C. Dvorak]

in case you don't want karma, we can give you prayers.

[Adam Curry]

Actually, there's a bunch of people out there that don't want karma for exactly that reason.

[John C. Dvorak]

I know. That's why we have a jingle. Isn't that cool? Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it is. Upon request, yes. Chris Cohen. Cohen. Cohen Naur in Oklahoma City.

[John C. Dvorak]

Easy for you to say.

[Adam Curry]

33369. This is a douchebag donation of the highest order. I've been listening since early 2020 and have never donated. Oh, okay. Well, you know what that means.

[News Reporter]

You've been de douched.

[Adam Curry]

I just want to celebrate the greatest natural resource this country has to offer. American Boobs. That was going to be the show American Boobs.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, thank you. Thank you, Chris. Sir Rich is in Odenton, Maryland with our favorite 333.33 sir rich here. He says newsletter issue is cname. Redirecting_d markdvorak.org to dvorak.org which has a TXT record for the sender policy framework spf. This means that any system that uses DMARC will see the SPF record and then reject as broken dmarc. I think that is exactly what void zero was talking about.

[Adam Curry]

But yeah, no void zero. Everyone says this, but then when I use the Google email, yeah, I get the same numbers.

[John C. Dvorak]

Same with. What do you mean the same numbers?

[Adam Curry]

This is mailchimp. This is the DMARC thing. I agree with.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, void zero wants to help, but you have to unblock it.

[Adam Curry]

No, I'm going to try to have a conversation with void zero.

[John C. Dvorak]

I still haven't.

[Adam Curry]

I sent him a note, but the note that he's. The note. I sent him a note and his note got rejected by his side. I got it kicked back.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hey, I have his phone number. Just, Just a thought, you know, get your slaves.

[Adam Curry]

No, we do this. We. We set up. We set up shop.

[John C. Dvorak]

And hurting the show, man.

[Adam Curry]

Well, we didn't hurt these guys. Heavy, heavier. Javier. How do you pronounce it? Javier.

[John C. Dvorak]

Javier. Javier.

[Adam Curry]

It's not Javier.

[John C. Dvorak]

Javier. Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Javier Vasquez. Mr. Vasquez in San Diego.33-333. The second half of the show a special was outstanding. Thank you for your help to help us see us through things with the right perspective. Jingles. Dr. Kiki, Climategate and Obama. No, no, no, I think.

[John C. Dvorak]

Wow. We haven't had a request for Dr. Kiki in ages.

[Adam Curry]

I think it's a science.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I know what it is, but it's just. I find that interesting. Here we go.

[News Reporter]

But anyway, that was just my little.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, I'm sorry, that's the wrong doctor.

[Adam Curry]

There you go, there you go.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's so old. I thought it was Kiki. Science. Where's Dr. Kiki? Science, science, science. We have a new science.

[News Reporter]

People are learning through science.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, that's not it.

[Adam Curry]

That's not it. I never heard that one.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's. I've signed.

[Adam Curry]

Why did she say that? It was worth it.

[John C. Dvorak]

We have that one. What happened? I see Dr. Kiki's signs, but it's not the one we're thinking of. Dr. Kiki. Well, that's. I have. What has it done for you lately? Well, this is ridiculous. It's gone. Linux sucked it up, man. This is not the right one.

[Adam Curry]

This is scheme.

[John C. Dvorak]

This is a horrible scheme. It was worth it. We have that one. I have. What has science done for you lately?

[News Reporter]

What has science done for you lately?

[John C. Dvorak]

I'll have to leave it with that. I can't find anything else.

[News Reporter]

To the gate.

[John C. Dvorak]

To the gate.

[News Reporter]

To the climate gates.

[Adam Curry]

No. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

We didn't need Obama. No.

[Adam Curry]

Obama.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no, no. Obama. No, no, no. This is a rowdy crowd.

[News Reporter]

Come on, guys.

[John C. Dvorak]

You're in my house. Hold on a second. No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

[News Reporter]

no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

[John C. Dvorak]

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

[Adam Curry]

no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Okay, you know what?

[John C. Dvorak]

Shame on you. You shouldn't be doing this. I do miss him. Good times. Dennis Caddell or Catal? Not sure. He's in Tampa, Florida. We know that for sure. He comes up with $333 to support the show and says ITM gentlemen, I've been a listener since Adam's first Ro Parents Rogan donation. And this is my first donation.

[News Reporter]

So please deduce you've been de douched.

[John C. Dvorak]

Ah, but he's not just coming in for any old reason. Oh, no. He needs baby making Karma. And this is for his son Justin and his beautiful wife, Amber. Thank you for your courage and keep up the important work that you provide for this. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Kenneth Cadol. There we go. Tampa, Florida.

[Adam Curry]

You flew. Got.

[News Reporter]

Karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

Dynamite.

[Adam Curry]

And there we go to John. John Whitten in Kodiak, Alaska. 250 bucks. No note. That means he gets a double up. Karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

You sure do, John.

[News Reporter]

You've got karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

We go to Karl Carney, New Jersey. Kearney, New Jersey. Kearney, NJ. Michael Verdi lives there and he's our second associate executive producer. $220. No longer a douchebag. First donation. Need business Karma. After Covid crash. Well, I think you need a de douching right now.

[News Reporter]

You've been de douched.

[John C. Dvorak]

Business karma. Incoming. I sell and repair multi function printers like Ricoh, HP and Plotters for engineers serving New Jersey and Lower New York State, Magic Tech Office Equipment is hosting the first meetup at the Barn in Rockaway, New Jersey, Wednesday, March 18 at 5:30. Happy hour deconstruction of the Leprechaun. Thank you for your funny, informative show, says Michael Verdi. And we got the karma for you right here. Thank you, Michael.

[News Reporter]

You've got karma

[Adam Curry]

moving right along with Sean Holman. No relation, I don't think. In Noblesville, Indiana to 1911. Again. So you get double up karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's the 1911. That must be the platypus.

[News Reporter]

You've got double up karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

And we have Leo Atkinson. And Leo sent us a Note with his $218.26 Did John Adam in the morning. And by the way, he says all emboldened. What's wrong with sneaking in the verbal equivalent of waving something shiny to distract your partner towards a better topic? Incidentally, I see what he's doing here. He's giving us some new words to use. Incidentally, most people do prefer to hear themselves speak. Quite unlike the typical no agenda listener. We have the foresight to listen to our beloved crock pot and puzzle analyze the news of the day or even the news of yesteryear. That reminds me, he's using all these terms we can use now. Thank you. What would we be without you? You two are like a couple of swell gifts brought to a housewarming party in 1976. Wow.

[Adam Curry]

Wow. We're.

[John C. Dvorak]

We're too swell gifts. Anyway, I was considering a request for the following jingles. Mystical shape shifting Somalians. Trumpy loves Trotsky. I love my train. I love your beef stew. The classic oh, Biden. I can carry eggs and they always give me a back rub on the air, but airplane. But now that I mention it, I think those are all hallucinations. The genuine article, Benny. Better than any produced by AI. So I'll have you know, Leon, I always prep the show and get the jingles for the spreadsheet before the show starts. I misread mystical shape shifting Somalians and had shape shifting Jews. And then I was searching for Trump loves Trotsky. Thought you meant Donald loves Nazi. And oh, did I just lose John, what happened?

[Adam Curry]

Your site went dead and I just reset.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hold on, hold on. I got to set you back up to four. Hold on. That was weird. I wonder if I had a. I don't think I had a glitch on the stream.

[Adam Curry]

Well, who knows?

[John C. Dvorak]

Whatever.

[Adam Curry]

It was short.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. Anyway, so the point being that I was looking for these jingles until I realized that underneath it said it was hallucinations. I at some time I thought that we had these so thanks for nothing. And he ends with Before I forget, the enclosed donation falls short of the value you provide. I just like the digits that mark my birthday. I can only hope that in four more years we can still expect four more years signed by Leon and yes, you are on the list. Thank you Leon. We appreciate it.

[Adam Curry]

Matthew Martell, our Buddy in Broomall, Pennsylvania. $210.60. He's still not receiving the newspaper letter. It's zapped before it hits the server. Best of luck. Void0 visit martel hardware.com and use code Bongino is back for 10% off your order. We're all going to die. JCD Hot Pockets is his request.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay Hot Pockets yes, we're all gonna die.

[Adam Curry]

Hot Pockets.

[John C. Dvorak]

I love the over modulation of the Hot Pockets. Hey, there's Eli the Coffee Guy from Bensonville, Illinois. He's back reminding you that their big Chicagoland meetup is coming in March. Check noagendameetups.com for more information. And he says he thought about writing a donation notice long as Trump's State of the Union speech. But I figure I'd do everyone a favor and keep it short and sweet. Just keep up the great work and visit Gigawatt Coffee Roasters.com and use code ITM20 for 20% off your order. And whatever you do, stay caffeinated. Says Eli the Coffee Guy.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, he's followed by Linda Lupatkin in Castle Rock, Colorado. $200 jobs karma. For competitive edge with a resume that gets Results, go to ImageMakersInc.com Linda applies executive level positioning to career transitions at every stage. That's ImageMakersInc.com with a K and work with Linda Lou, Duchess of jobs and writer of Winning resumes.

[News Reporter]

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

[John C. Dvorak]

And we have actually two more associate executive producers. Lisa Perez in San Gabriel, Louisiana has $200 to return to the show in value and she has a note. Hi Adam and John. I really enjoy listening to to. Oh, thanks for the show. I really enjoyed listening to it and appreciate your viewpoints. Thank you. I made my first donation now in particular after listening to episode 1845 on and the discussion how we Are Slaves to the foam, I wholeheartedly despise how reliant I am on a piece of electronics and how much it controls my life. I think there are way more negatives than positives to it. We are all becoming less human courtesy of the smartphone phone. My elderly sister and her husband are in their 70s and have one flip phone between between them and they function just fine in life. I have informed my children that after I retire, they will have to call me to find. They will have to call me to find me because I 100% plan to put it in a drawer. What an influence you are, Mr. Dvorak. Love listening to you both. Lisa Perez, Marilyn. Lisa Perez, M.D. i'm sorry, St. Gabriel, Louisiana. And I believe she deserves a D day.

[News Reporter]

You've de douched.

[Adam Curry]

Which brings us to Hig Hawker in Higginsville, Missouri. 200 bucks. He wrote a note. Hig Hockin Hawker from Hawker. Hig Hawker from Hawker from Higginsville, Missouri. Love the show. Keep on keeping on. Yeah, we need truth more than ever in these wretched times. Go podcasting Hig Hawker. Pronounced Hig not how Hawker. I don't know. I'd pronounce it high. Can I get a goat scream, please? You guys rock.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, I'll do one better. I'm gonna give you a full on goat. Karma.

[News Reporter]

You've got karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

And that concludes our executive and associate executive producers for episode 1846. We appreciate the return value very much. It keeps us motivated and excited to continue to do this as a public service for you. So if you're liking what you hear and you get the value out of it, go to noagendadonations.com support the show. It's important to keep us going for at least another four more years. Some of you will actually need us. Noagendadonations.com thank you again to the executive and associate executive producer.

[Adam Curry]

Our formula is this.

[John C. Dvorak]

We go out, we hit people in the mouth.

[Adam Curry]

New world order.

[News Reporter]

Shut up, slave. Shut up.

[John C. Dvorak]

Let's see. I think. Oh, just a fun little ditty. Although it's very, very short and you probably heard about it. Minor controversy at the British fake Oscars, also known as the baffled us as one of the people who was in a Tourette's movie could not help himself when two black actors were on stage. Here we go. And I are delighted to be presenting

[Adam Curry]

the first BAFTA of the night for

[John C. Dvorak]

a vital part of movie making. My coffee league, I love. How was it? Was it Jamie Foxx who said, no, man. He meant that it's such a controversy. You get a Tourette's guy at an award show. Hello. Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

What do you expect to happen?

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I. I never had that kind of Tourette's.

[Adam Curry]

No, that's. That's extreme. And that happens A lot.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

And once in a while you run into. And I feel sorry for people that get that don't under. That have it happen to them. They're the Tourette sufferer.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah. And they.

[Adam Curry]

And it happened. I was at an air. On a flight once and there's some poor guy came in, he obviously had Tourette's and he was freaking out and dragging his luggage backwards off the wheels and then cussing like a maniac, trying to put his bags up while cussing and cussing and cussing it. And they took him off the plane. And I felt really bad about it cuz I knew it was like just some. It was moment.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, because when you're on the plane then you, you can't help but saying bomb, bomb, bomb. You know, that's, that's. But that's what Tourette's is. It's like a severe OCD where you think, I'm. I'm not going to blink my eyes. I'm not going to blink my eyes. Oh crap. I'm blinking my eyes like crazy. I can't stop. I can't. That's what it is. And if you have the really bad kind, it's like, oh, I can't say bomb on this airplane, Bob. That's what it is. It's.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, it's tough.

[John C. Dvorak]

You know, Steve Jobs had a little bit of Tourette's. Did you know that?

[Adam Curry]

No, but I'm trying to imagine him.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, if you look at that video where he announces podcasting and then you know, I'm cussing about my. My Mac hard drive sucker.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

If you look at him, he laughs and then he ticks his head like three or four times.

[Adam Curry]

Oh, the old head.

[John C. Dvorak]

The old head tick. Yep.

[Adam Curry]

Like. Like Stephen Miller has.

[John C. Dvorak]

Like I have.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, yeah, I do.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, you have. Yeah, I do.

[John C. Dvorak]

Or you.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, you don't have the blinky blink.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, I do. Oh, the blinky blink.

[Adam Curry]

Blink a lot.

[John C. Dvorak]

The blinky whenever I go on Rogan. The blinky blink is hard to control. It sucks. Oh yeah, but that, but it's cool. You look at the YouTube comments, people like, what is. Is that guy like resetting every five seconds? And then you'll get a comment under it. Someone's like, hey, manias to rats. Leave Malone. Okay, I'm a victim. You see? I'm a victim. And then people step, stick up for me. It's good. I like it.

[Adam Curry]

Let's go with Cash Patel's hockey fiasco. Npr.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, this is, this is pretty fun.

[Adam Curry]

The stupidest thing of the week.

[News Reporter]

So, Ryan, I want to start with Cash Patel's trip to Milan. I think a lot of people have seen that video of him partying with the US Men's hockey team. Is that why this is getting so much attention? Short answer.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, that's. That is certainly a lot of it. Look, FBI directors are traditionally very serious, buttoned up professionals. Robert Mueller is one example. You know, they wear suits and a tie. They carry the FBI and it's huge responsibilities on their shoulders.

[News Reporter]

We're talking terrorism investigations, fighting drug cartels,

[John C. Dvorak]

catching foreign spies, trying to steal America's secrets. And then juxtapose that with the video of Patel and Milan celebrating with the US Men's hockey team in the locker room after the gold medal win over Canada. And in that video, Patel is chugging a bottle of beer. He sprays some in the air. He pumps his fist, bangs on a table. He jumps around and sings with the team. And so this episode has certainly added to concerns, including among current and former FBI officials about Patel's temperament and his fitness for this big, important job.

[News Reporter]

What does Patel had to say about the criticism over this video?

[John C. Dvorak]

He's tried to brush it off. He said in a post on X that he loves America and was humbled to celebrate with Team usa. Now, am I mistaken that Kash Patel plays hockey? Played hockey.

[Adam Curry]

He plays. Not pro, but not semi pro, but he plays a. He's on a league. He's a hockey player. He's nuts about it.

[John C. Dvorak]

But that's not.

[Adam Curry]

The coach of the national team is his buddy. Oh, and his buddy invited him into. Hey, come on. You want to come in the back? Oh, sure, I'll come back there. And so they made a big fuss about it because, you know, he, he was, you know, he was acting like a dude.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no.

[Adam Curry]

The winning locker room.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no. The fuss is about the airplane.

[Adam Curry]

Well, that became the, that. I think that's the secondary fuss because they're trying to add on to the main fuss. But the main fuss was this lack of decorum. Should have been in. There was a suit and tie saying, stop it, boys, stop singing. But here's a part two of this clip.

[News Reporter]

Now, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee says he has evidence that Patel's past travel has actually hampered FBI investigations. What can you tell us about that?

[John C. Dvorak]

Right. This is Illinois Democr Senator Dick Durbin. He said in a letter to the Government Accountability Office yesterday that whistleblowers have come forward with information that Patel's decisions about the use of FBI planes have hampered a couple of high profile investigations. One instance, according to Durbin, an FBI team was delayed at least a day getting to Utah after conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination there because of a plane and pilot shortage caused, Durbin says, by Patel's personal flights.

[News Reporter]

Durbin also says a team of FBI

[John C. Dvorak]

investigators was enabled to fly, fly to Rhode island after the shooting at Brown University because of Patel's decisions about planes. Now, FBI spokesman Ben Williamson has rejected both of those allegations on Brown University. Specifically, Williamson said on X that Patel was in Florida visiting his parents at the time, but that there was no issue with aircraft being unavailable. Needless to say, though, this issue, this travel issue for Patel is not going away.

[News Reporter]

NPR's Ryan Lucas, thanks as always.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's jet gate. This thing has legs. They're going to go after him. They're going to go after him real hard. Here's the Jake Tapper. Tapper did a whole segment on it. Oh, is this was outrageous.

[News Reporter]

Believe it or not, that's your FBI director Tash Patel celebrating with the US

[John C. Dvorak]

Men's hockey team after of their overtime

[News Reporter]

win against Canada to win the gold medal.

[John C. Dvorak]

It was an incredible win that all

[News Reporter]

Americans can celebrate now.

[John C. Dvorak]

Why

[Adam Curry]

except Patel? All Americans can celebrate, but. But not Patel, FBI director, who you

[News Reporter]

might think would be busy with all sorts of things. Why he's in the locker room in Italy seemingly pounding beers along with the team. Well, you could be forgiven if you're

[John C. Dvorak]

pounding beers, unlike Jake Tapper, who was pounding beers at the deputy CIA director's birthday party. Okay, asking that question, especially after FBI

[News Reporter]

spokesman Ben Williamson was lashing out at

[John C. Dvorak]

a reporter from a different network on

[News Reporter]

Twitter the day before the game for

[John C. Dvorak]

asking whether Patel was going to attend the match.

[News Reporter]

The FBI spokesman writing, quote, your rag outlet wrote that he went to hang

[John C. Dvorak]

out at the Olympics on the taxpayer

[News Reporter]

dime, even when provided information that your theory was false, unquote. Now, the FBI is denying this was a personal trip for Patel. They say the director flew to Milan on the FBI's Gulfstream private jet for meetings with Italian law enforcement and security

[John C. Dvorak]

officials, adding that the FBI plays a major role in Olympic security and that

[News Reporter]

the trip was planned months in advance.

[John C. Dvorak]

Of course, the Olympics was planned years in advance.

[News Reporter]

Director Patel responded to the criticism on X, apparently not taking it very seriously, writing, quote, for the very concerned media, yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted gold medal winners on Team usa, invited

[John C. Dvorak]

me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys, unquote. Of course, the Issue is not whether or not Cash Patel loves America. It's about his judgment and whether or

[News Reporter]

not he's embarrassing the bureau and the perks he grabs and the seriousness with

[John C. Dvorak]

which he treats his job. And one would think the FBI is

[News Reporter]

pretty busy these days with lots of things going on.

[John C. Dvorak]

He didn't stop there. We've got evidence.

[News Reporter]

The Government Accountability Office estimates that flying

[John C. Dvorak]

the FBI private jet costs at least $5,000 per hour. Yeah, try closer to $11,000 an hour. If it's the plane I think it is, 5,000 is pretty cheap. Meaning Patel's a lot trip could theoretically

[News Reporter]

cost taxpayers at least tens of thousands of dollars.

[John C. Dvorak]

And we should note that the FBI

[News Reporter]

director, for security reasons, is legally mandated to use government aircraft for all travel, including personal trips. But they are required to reimburse taxpayers for the commercial cost of their travel. But the question is, why was he in Italy to begin with?

[John C. Dvorak]

The trip to Italy is far from

[News Reporter]

the only time that Patel has faced accusations of using government for his personal benefit. Reportedly, at Patel's direction, the effort. FBI is even providing a separate security detail for his girlfriend.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, not his wife.

[News Reporter]

His girlfriend, country music singer Alexis Wilkins, who lives on.

[John C. Dvorak]

Stop. Stop.

[Adam Curry]

Does he. Is he married?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I don't think he is. He has the. The honeypot girlfriend. Remember? That's the one who.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I know that he's got the girlfriend, but is he married?

[John C. Dvorak]

I don't think so.

[Adam Curry]

Then why would you say not his wife? Wife. He doesn't have a wife. You just put that in to make it sound scurrilous, as though he's ditched his wife and he's running off with this other woman. That's what it sounds like. It's not his wife. He wasn't with his wife.

[John C. Dvorak]

Good catch.

[News Reporter]

His girlfriend. No, not his wife. Not his fiance. His girlfriend, country music singer Alexis Wolf, who lives part time in Nashville. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation last year into Patel's use

[John C. Dvorak]

of the FBI jet for private travel.

[News Reporter]

There was a time, of course, you

[John C. Dvorak]

might remember, when Cash Patel seemed to have a different attitude towards the use of government resources.

[News Reporter]

Confirmation hearing last year.

[Adam Curry]

And the resources of the FBI, which

[News Reporter]

are funded by the American taxpayer dollars. In the seven minutes that you and

[John C. Dvorak]

I have been talking about, two people

[News Reporter]

have died from fentanyl overdoses, one person has been shot to death in this country, and three people have been raped. The resources of the FBI will go to that mission set and that mission set alone because America deserves a better brand of justice. And I'm going To give it to them.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, so how many Americans died of fentanyl overdoses?

[News Reporter]

How many Americans were shot to death?

[John C. Dvorak]

And how many Americans were raped while

[News Reporter]

Kash Patel was celebrating in that locker room?

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, brother.

[Adam Curry]

Ah,

[John C. Dvorak]

the hatred. The hatred is so deep. What happened to love conquers hate? Bad Bunny's words.

[Adam Curry]

Like bad bunny.

[John C. Dvorak]

Man, oh, man. All right. I mean, in the Netherlands, the King, when he was prince. Prince Pilgrim. Bills for beer. I mean, he would. When the Dutch won something, he'd be freaking out it. Throwing beer over each other. Everyone thought that was cool. No, not in America. No, you. You can't celebrate anything here.

[Adam Curry]

Well, not if you're a Republican.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, no, not you can't.

[Adam Curry]

If you're anything else, it doesn't matter. Going on to screwball stories. Let's. If I got a couple here, I want to play this one. This is the Cuba stories. I have questions.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, that is a screwball story.

[Adam Curry]

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says US

[John C. Dvorak]

Authorities are doing their own investigation into

[News Reporter]

an incident early this morning.

[John C. Dvorak]

This comes after Cuba says its border

[News Reporter]

guards shot and killed four people and wounded six aboard a Florida registered speedboat

[Adam Curry]

off the Cuban coast.

[John C. Dvorak]

Cuba's Interior Ministry claims the crew aboard

[News Reporter]

the vessel opened fire on the. The guards first, who then returned fire.

[John C. Dvorak]

Your secretary Rubio, just moments ago.

[News Reporter]

We have our embassy on the ground

[John C. Dvorak]

in Havana working this as we speak, asking for access to the people that were on those vessels. We are going to verify that information independently and reach our own conclusions. Cuban officials claim the commander of the Cuban vessel was wounded in the shooting.

[News Reporter]

The ministry released a statement following the incident saying Cuba would protect its territorial waters.

[Adam Curry]

Florida's Attorney General says he has directed

[News Reporter]

the Office of Statewide Prosecution to investigate. Secretary Rubio says the result of the

[John C. Dvorak]

investigation will be presented to policymakers, including

[News Reporter]

the president, for potential further action.

[John C. Dvorak]

Hi. Your questions.

[Adam Curry]

We're doing all this action against Cuba and we still have an embassy there. They haven't kicked us out.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, I didn't realize that that either in Havana. Well, of course we did, because that's where the Habana Syndrome came from.

[Adam Curry]

Well, I know about the Havana Syndrome. And it came from there, supposedly. But we're taking action. We've. We've cut them off from the oil supply. They can't refuel their jets or anything. And they're how in the. Having power outages and they've let us keep an embassy there. This doesn't make any sense to me.

[John C. Dvorak]

I agree. You would have thought they at least would have kicked our diplomats, but. And here's I was going to say these were Cuban Americans supposedly who went over there. I mean this has, in some way it has Bay of Pigs vibe to it.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, well, there's also a lot of people who are real sailboat enthusiasts. They're, they're usually armed to the teeth on these, some of these boats because of piracy and the open seas in the Caribbean.

[John C. Dvorak]

Like Horowitz. Horowitz always is packing heat when he goes with his buddies. He's going to the islands, man. He's packing heat. He's not taking no risks. He's got his, he's got his, his Magnum, you know, he's got a, he's got a.45, he's got the AR15, he's got a couple of grenades. He's serious. Ask him, ask him about it. He'll tell you.

[Adam Curry]

Well, it's a well known fact that people are super careful and they, they're armed on these boats. Don't kid yourself. So, to a last oddball story, but this one is going to be your favorite favorite. The Artemis. Oh, no.

[John C. Dvorak]

NASA is moving its Artemis moon rocket from the launch pad back to the hangar for more repairs. It's a slow four mile trek expected to take all day. At Florida's Kennedy Space center, managers ordered the rollback over the weekend after a problem developed with the rocket's helium pressurization system. The launch team had been targeting March for the Artemis 2 astronaut mission. Human, humanity's first trip to the moon in decades. But now it's off until at least April. Yes, of course, because you know, we did this with a tin can 50 years ago. A tin can and some, and some hoodies with a, with a garbage pail on their head. That's okay. And we'll get there eventually. They're not even landing on the moon. They're just gonna fly around it.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, this is a fly around.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, a little bit. Little cgi, little AI. It'll be great. And unfortunately, it could be a lie. It could be, they could be misleading us. But it appears we did not have copulation in space. It was not the female astronaut who was pregnant.

[News Reporter]

NASA is sharing the following information at the request of NASA astronaut Mike Fink. On January 7, while aboard the International Space Station, I experienced a medical event that required immediate attention from my incredible crewmates. Thanks to their quick response and the guidance of our NASA flight surgeons, my status quickly stabilized. After further evaluation, NASA determined the safest course was an early return for Crew 11. Not an emergency, but a carefully coordinated plan to be able to take Advantage of advanced medical imaging not available on the space station. On January 15, we splashed down off the coast of San Diego after an amazing five and a half month mission. I'm deeply grateful to my fellow Expedition 74 members, Zena Cardman, Kimia Yui, Oleg Platinov, Chris Williams, Sergey Kud Zverchov and Sergey Mikiev, as well as the Entire NASA team, SpaceX and the medical professionals at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Hoya near San Diego. Their professionalism and dedication ensured a positive outcome. I'm doing very well. And continuing standard post flight reconditioning at NASA's Johnson Space center in Houston. Space flight is an incredible privilege and sometimes it reminds us just how human we are. Thank you for all your support.

[John C. Dvorak]

I guess your theory doesn't pan out.

[Adam Curry]

Not necessarily.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh. Oh, okay.

[Adam Curry]

Well, I mean, a couple of things. I keep an eye on the woman and see if she has a baby.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, that's, that's the. That's what you do. Yes.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah. Or the reason they want to bring up this cock and bull story, which is possible, is that had an abortion.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, goodness gracious. Okay. I guess anything's possible. Might be a bit of a stretch. We still don't know what, the guy

[Adam Curry]

don't think it's a stretch.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. We haven't talked about it. I did find this, this report from Global News relatively complete regarding El Mencho, the Mexican drug cartel leader, and which probably, probably just wrap it all up with this report and we can maybe discuss. After the operation to capture Mexico's most powerful cartel leader, known as El Mencho, unfolded in a small town near Guadalajara, where Mexican special forces acted on a tip from an associate of one of his romantic partners. In the raid that followed, the wanted drug lord was seriously wounded. He later died during an airlift. This was a very, very effective takedown of one of the biggest leaders, and it was done, you know, based on

[News Reporter]

the intelligence that they conducted.

[John C. Dvorak]

Primarily, Mexico's defense minister became emotional as he honored the 25 National Guard members killed in Operation Sunday. The prosecutor's office where El Mencho's body was reportedly taken is now under heavy guard. President Claudia sheinbaum denied direct U.S. involvement in the operation, but acknowledged the Americans did provide intelligence. US President Donald Trump has previously threatened military strikes inside Mexico targeting cartels and has designated El Mencho's cartel a foreign terrorist organization.

[News Reporter]

It's no coincidence that the Mexican government decides to act when it's under unprecedented levels of pressure from the Trump administration to crack down on the cartel.

[John C. Dvorak]

The fear now Is that violence may continue to spiral as cartel members fight for power and battle for territory.

[News Reporter]

There are three people who are going to compete to become the new leader of the cartel. And the political protection will go on.

[John C. Dvorak]

While experts warn the death of El Mencho alone will do little to disrupt Mexico's sprawling narcotics.

[News Reporter]

It is a very superficial way to attack the cartels and doesn't speak to a sort of more profound, deep extraction of their roots that are so deeply embedded in Mexico.

[John C. Dvorak]

Facing unprecedented violence, it's now a question of whether Mexican officials want to go deeper or if the cartels are too rich and too powerful to truly be disrupted. This was kind of interesting. Interesting. First of all, I think we needed to clean up Mexico for FIFA, for the World Cup. You know, we gotta clean that place up a bit. But it seems like, like 20% of Mexico is in some way, in some shape or form, employed by the cartels. Have you heard this?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I've heard that number and other numbers. And it just seems as though so embedded, they want to just let the cartels bite each other to the death and let them take the country over.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, they seem to, you know, they. Yeah, there's rivalry once in a while. Once in a while. But they, you know, I've received different boots on the ground. I won't read them, but some people say, you know, everyone's happy. Get rid of these guys. Other people say, you know, they come into the neighborhood, they take care like the mob, they take care of the kids, bring candy for the kids, flowers for the women. You know, it's. It cuts both ways. And this guy was not an El Chapo kind of boasty guy. He. He was supposedly a man of the people. A man of the people. No matter what. The banks are going to have some trouble. Got no more money to launder for a while. I think that may be.

[Adam Curry]

Well, from that group, anyway.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, from that group. I don't know, any thoughts besides the fact that we clearly were helping?

[Adam Curry]

I have no thoughts on it. I mean, I know the writing was one shot. Deal. Deal. There was supposedly there was a couple of tick tockers online that are talking about it, and I. I don't. I have no, no. You know, it could be all bull crap to me. I mean, I have no. Nothing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Nothing.

[Adam Curry]

Got nothing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Well, that is a. That's a. That's not a great way to get into our second donation segment. You need to say something funny, witty,

[Adam Curry]

or how about playing a clip? Okay, one more last clip for me. This is the mystery school District.

[John C. Dvorak]

The FBI conducting a search on Wednesday at the home and office of a Los Angeles school official. A spokesperson for the FBI Los Angeles field office confirms that agents were at the headquarters of the LA Unified School District and at the home of Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. A third location in Florida was also searched. It's unclear what the investigation is about, but the school district says it's cooperating with the investigation. Investigation and doesn't have further information at this time. Carvalho, himself an immigrant who had once overstayed his visa, has been vocal about protecting students from ICE activity at schools. He's been the Los Angeles Public schools superintendent since 2022. Before that, he oversaw Florida's largest school district for more than a decade. The LA Unified School District is the nation's second largest, with more than 500 students and covering more than two dozen cities. The office of LA Mayor Karen Bass says it has no information about the search of the school district's headquarters.

[Adam Curry]

Some sort of corruption. I'm gonna show my school by donating to no Agenda. Imagine all the people who could do that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Oh, yeah, that's.

[Adam Curry]

Is better than nothing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

And so we have a few more people to thank for today's show. 1846, I believe it is. And Adam, we'll start with the top of the list and go right down to the 50s.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yes. And we have to stop at this first one because It's Blue Meg. CC comes in from Grove City, Ohio with $150. Not only is today her first 43rd birthday, but she thought, hey, what better way to celebrate than becoming a dame? My dad Rick hit me in the mouth during 2020. I've been listening ever since. Thanks, Dad. I eventually hit my now husband in the mouth and we listened to every show together. That's why you're still together. In fact, when we got married, the first thing we listened to in the car on the way to our reception was the no Agenda show. Do you have kids yet? Tell us about that. We started going to our local no Agenda meetup in central Ohio. And now we have our own little troll room. Connections. Prot. This is the best podcast in the universe. You both are a gift to this world. I would like to be known as Dame Meg of the Massachusetts Refugees. I would like an iced coffee and a piece of. I didn't actually put. I kind of ordered that now. And a piece of strawberry cheesecake at the round table. And could I have some. Oh, there you go. So they need some baby making karma, because that is. And remember, whatever happens, this Kid, it has to be named after John and after me. That is the rule. It can be. Even if it's a girl, it's after John and after me.

[Adam Curry]

You've got.

[News Reporter]

Karma.

[John C. Dvorak]

And yes, you are added to the birthday list. And we also got the iced coffee and a piece of strawberry cheesecake for you going down the list. William Gibbs, Atlanta, Georgia.105.35. Robin Tolbert, Topeka, Kansas. 103.33. I see what you did there. 100 bucks from Anonymous in Fredericksburg, Virginia. 100 bucks from David and Renee Mapstone in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania. Thank you both. Bless you. Robert Osigueta in eastern Connecticut. Boobs8008. Kevin McLaughlin, of course, he's always there with his boob donation. Donation, Boob donation. God bless America. He is the Archduke of Luna and lover of America. And Boobs8008. Brian Kaufman, Scottsdale, Arizona. 7575. Matthew El, Weatherford, Texas. Small Boobs, 6006. Les Tarkowski from Kingman, Arizona. Also with the small boobs. And Dame Liberty mom from Vista, California. She shows her small boobs with a donation of $60.06. Baron Henry of the Outpost West, Rancho Palos Verdes, California. 59.92. Kurt Lebonowski, Ramsey, New Jersey. 58. Birthday donation. The longer I live, the more you get. I might guess you're 58 today. Jeff. Jeff. Paul Fergus Falls, Minnesota. 56. He turned 56 on the 18th. I love it when you celebrate your birthday with a donation to the show. Gregory Kierdak in Padova, in Italy. Padova, Italy. 55. 55. Thank you, Gregory. Alex Delgado, Aptos, California. These are the 50s already. Noel McDonald, Traverse City, Michigan. George Wushett in Lavernia, Texas. Aaron Joyce in York, Pennsylvania. Todd Myers in Diamond Head, Missouri. 50. And finally, Michael Kemmerer from Snohomish, Washington. $50. I do see a number of $49.99.

[Adam Curry]

Mississippi.

[John C. Dvorak]

Did I say what? Did I say Michigan? I meant.

[Adam Curry]

You're saying Missouri for some reason.

[John C. Dvorak]

Because I'm an idiot. I think.

[Adam Curry]

No, some. Something stuck there.

[John C. Dvorak]

It's Ms. Well, the first thing when I see Ms. I think Ms. Now. And it's just. It goes away.

[Adam Curry]

You should just say that.

[John C. Dvorak]

Miz. Now.

[Adam Curry]

Michael Myers. Now.

[John C. Dvorak]

We'll cut it in three, two, one. Michael Myers from Diamondhead, Miz. Now. 50 bucks. And finally, Michael Kermherson, a homeish, Washington. $50. Thank you all very much for supporting the no Agenda Show. And for those under 50, we don't mention you for reasons of anonymity. But you are appreciated. We see it all. Thank you very much. You can go to no Agenda donation. Consider making a recurring donation. Any amount, any frequency. It supports the show. Thank you to all producers who support us with time, talent and treasure, including our executive and associate executive producers. Once again, noagendadonations.com. So we've got a list. We got Jeff Paul who turned 46 on February 18th 18th. Also on the 18th, Leo Atkinson. Meg CC turned 43 today. And finally on the list, Kurt Lebonowski celebrating his birthday. So we say happy birthday to everybody here on behalf of the best podcast in the universe. Got a layaway night to celebrate. Nathan Klein. He says thanks for all you guys do to keep my brain tuned appropriately. You deserve more than I've been able to donate. Layaways work people. I would like to to be known as Serendipity of the Ozarks. And he started his layaway on July 29th, 2022. He would have reached his knighthood with his October 2025 donation. But obviously continuing will continue to donate is what he's saying. Beautiful. So let's, let's get our our dame and our and our and our two nights up here. John, if you have a blade.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, I got blade right here.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's beautiful. Nathan Clifford. Also we welcome Bob Newell and Meg cc all three of you are joining that illustrious group that is the group of no Agenda knights and dames. Thanks to your support of $1,000 or more. And I'm very proud to pronounce the Kate the as day Meg of the Massachusetts refugees, Serendipity of the Ozarks and Robert Sir Robert of the Penfield for Yahoo. For you we've got Hookers of Blow Rent Boys and Chardonnay Lights Cast Camera and Devotion now available on Amazon.com gnocchi and cornbread, iced coffee and a piece of strawberry cheesecake. Along with that we got bong hits and bourbon, sparkling cider and escorts, ginger ale and gerbils, breast milk and pablum and as always at the round table, plenty of mutton and mead. Enjoy that and go to noagenderrings.com anybody can go to noagendarings.com take a look at those beautiful rings for knights and for dames. They are signet rings. So we will accompany your ring in your size. If you supply us with your ring size ring size sizing guide on the website with some wax you can use that to imprint your no agenda ITM seal of approval there for your important correspondence. And of course it also Always comes with a certificate of authenticity. Congratulations and welcome to the no Agenda Roundtable. Sir Tooth fairy sent his missed note. Not sure we missed it, but something with PayPal, you never know. On Sunday, $223. He says the note wasn't important, but I did have a suggestion for the show. I made the proposal that you go back to doing the show high. Not for every show, but maybe twice a month. Okay. And he ends with God bless. Thank you very much. We'll take it into consideration for the next meeting. All right, thank you very much. I think that's. Yeah, that's it. We can go on to the meetup.

[News Reporter]

Perfect.

[John C. Dvorak]

Not sure why, but I have a feeling I missed a meetup report somewhere. So if I missed that today, then please send that to me. We'll do it on Sunday show. We do have a meetup coming up this Saturday. The Dallas Fort Worth Mid Cities. It's back after the holidays. Now this is an early one. Kicks off at 11:30 in the morning at Chef Point and at Sir Nerdworks. Who is organizing that. You need to contact him for details. Sounds like exclusive deal there. Also on Saturday, the no Agenda meetup for February at Jack's Brewery. This is Columbus, Ohio. That'll be at noon. And another Duke of San Francisco birthday bash also on Saturday, 3:33 at Connecticut Yankee in San Francisco, California. Sir recalcitrant Crazy Steve II hosting. I don't know if you're planning on going, John, but Crazy Steve, he does good meetups. I'm just saying. And we have another meetup on Saturday. These things are popular. The South Louisiana Bayou Brouhaha, 4 o' clock at Fred's on the river in Prairieville, Louisiana. Dame Mary Moon is hosting that. Coming up in March, we have Buenos Aires, Argentina. Look at that on the 5th. Raleigh, North Carolina. Tinley Park, Illinois. Los Angeles, California. Eagle, Idaho. Gladewater, Texas. Indianapolis, Rockaway, New Jersey, Charlotte, North Carolina, Franklin, Tennessee. Who's doing Franklin, Tennessee? It's very cool. And Fort Wayne, Indiana. Many more to be found, including the April 11 meetups in Fredericksburg, Pittsburgh, Texas and Osaka, Japan. Yes, we are bad. We are nationwide, we are worldwide. We are the no Agenda show. If you're a part of it, you gotta go to one of these meetups. You will not regret it. You will get connection that gives you protection. All the people you meet at a no Agenda meetup are your first responders. In an emergency, go there because when they make you stable, you are able. Noagendameetups.com it's real easy. Go to the website, find one near you. Go to it. Enjoy yourself. If you can't find one near you, how about this? Start one yourself. Agendameetups.com Sometimes you want to go hang out with all the nights and days.

[News Reporter]

You want to be where you won't be triggered on Hell.

[John C. Dvorak]

You want to be where everybody feels the same.

[Adam Curry]

It's like a party.

[John C. Dvorak]

It is always like a party. Guaranteed. These things are like a. And before we get to John's tip of the day and some dynamite end of show makes us, we do have an ISO to choose. We always do that at the end, just as a little fun thing for ourselves. Usually it's man against machine, but I have all humanoids for this particular ISO face off and I will start. Ready? Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

How many got?

[John C. Dvorak]

Two. Go. These people are crazy nice. And I thought about would be actual. And here's another one.

[News Reporter]

You did amazing.

[John C. Dvorak]

Kind of like that one.

[Adam Curry]

Well, I got some Trump, too. That's funny. Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

What you got?

[Adam Curry]

Let's start with incredible. I got to tell you, these guys do an incredible job.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, it's a little bit better than mine.

[Adam Curry]

Yeah.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay.

[Adam Curry]

I also got Trump talking about donating. Wow, what a great podcast.

[John C. Dvorak]

Donate. Wait a minute.

[Adam Curry]

It.

[John C. Dvorak]

That's AI. That's pretty good.

[Adam Curry]

No, that was on the. I was on the speech. You didn't hear it?

[John C. Dvorak]

No, I did not hear that on the speech, no.

[Adam Curry]

Well, then if you didn't hear that, because that was right with this one, which is the Freedom Award. Give John and Adam a Freedom Award.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah, no, that's a little too kooky. Yeah. All right.

[Adam Curry]

And then I went to the well and got Gavin Newsome to discuss comparing his podcast to ours.

[John C. Dvorak]

My podcast podcast stinks compared to these guys. It's a toss up for me between this one. Hold on. Where is it? My podcast stinks compared to these guys, but I think I like this one better.

[Adam Curry]

Wow, what a great podcast.

[John C. Dvorak]

Donate. I think that's just better. I mean, we want to end with donate, don't we?

[Adam Curry]

Yeah, we do.

[John C. Dvorak]

Every single time. Hey, before we get to that, though, it's time for John's tip of the day.

[News Reporter]

Great advice for you and me.

[John C. Dvorak]

Just the tip with JCD and sometimes Adam.

[Adam Curry]

All right, this is a simplistic, very simple tip that I was digging around. I saw. I should give this tip of the day. People don't realize how important it is to have one of these things. They're a buck or two, they're cheap, and they're extremely handy for writing on Anything that is just. Just a little different. Like a wine bottle or I use them to write information. Like if you have a power supply and it's 2v, so many amps. I write it on the side using a. And this is the tip. A silver Sharpie. If you don't have a silver.

[John C. Dvorak]

I love silver Sharpies.

[Adam Curry]

Silver Sharpies are the handiest thing. I mean, I first discovered them back in this floppy disk era when you could write on floppy disks with them. But. But they, they're just handy for everything. You should. Because there's a lot. Everything. You know, people make stuff out of plastic and it's black.

[John C. Dvorak]

Yeah.

[Adam Curry]

And you can't write on it. You want a silver Sharpie.

[John C. Dvorak]

Do you know how many mixers I've written stuff on with a silver Sharpie? I. I've lost count. You know, you put. You know, because the mixers are. They never like, correspond to the players and stuff. And so. And they. Or they have no numbers. And so I'll write down one through eight. Oh, yeah. So that. That is a tip I can agree with. Also handy if you have twins. You can write on which one is. Which one is which. Just the thought. And what is the retail price of.

[Adam Curry]

I think they're a buck 99 max.

[John C. Dvorak]

You should get a six pack.

[Adam Curry]

And the six packs are probably, you know, less than. Probably eight bucks or so. They're terrific product.

[John C. Dvorak]

Outstanding product, everybody. Another fabulous tip of the day. Get them [e-mail] tipoftheday.net just and sometimes

[Adam Curry]

Adam Created by Dana Burnetti Yes.

[John C. Dvorak]

Okay, we're done. That doesn't mean that the party stops. Because right after we're done, John and I start talking about what we're gonna do on Sunday. Because we do this for you. We do not conform to the ways of this world. We do not let ourselves be captured by people who think we should say something. We don't believe in it. No. We do this because we are the truth.

[News Reporter]

Truth.

[John C. Dvorak]

I tell you. At least it's what we believe. And we've been pretty right in 18 years. Coming up next on the no Agenda stream, we have. Ah A the latest episode of Grimerica. Make sure you catch that. We have end of show mixes from IDP Pop. We got Paul Revere and we got mvp and they are dynamite. So enjoy that and we'll be back on Sunday coming to you from the heart of the Texas hill country right here in Fredericksburg, Texas, where we've got lots of good wineries. Come visit us and make sure you leave on time in the morning, everybody.

[Adam Curry]

I'm Adam Curry and from northern Silicon Valley, where we still demand a counter stability, I'm John C. Dvorak.

[John C. Dvorak]

We'll be back on Sunday. Please join us for at least three hours of media deconstruction and remember us at no agendadonations.com until then. Adios mofos. A hooey, hooey and such.

[Adam Curry]

My son, Buzzkill Jr.

[John C. Dvorak]

Robot AI has a huge advantage. It already has humanoid movement. It's tells people what to do. We are the robots. The way people are going talking to these chatbots, the brain is in the phone and you are the robot. Another PA Robot. We are the robots. The economic output of a large number of humanoid robots is the average productivity per robot times the number of robots. Wow, wow. Let's listen to that calculation again.

[News Reporter]

Just like Blade Runner, right? You don't want human impersonation where you think you're talking to a human being, but it's actually a robot.

[Adam Curry]

I mean, he could be a robot.

[News Reporter]

You need to be able to actually clearly label that, you know, he's a robot.

[John C. Dvorak]

You are the robot. Exactly.

[Adam Curry]

Robot.

[John C. Dvorak]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Say it's not so robot. That was so dumb.

[News Reporter]

Now here's a little story I gots to tell about three Democrats that you know so well. It started way back in history with

[John C. Dvorak]

H. Rock, oh and me, Joe B.

[News Reporter]

Then had a little honey named Abadin. Just me and my honey and a fifth of gin. Riding across the land, kicking up sand, polling higher than Trump. Cause I'm in command, man 1 Lone Democrat I be all by myself without nobody, no opposition since we threw out Joe. The race is getting vile, the gin is getting low Looking for a win, I ran into a guy, his name is Barry O. I said howdy, he said hi. Now I've got the juice, you got the gin.

[Adam Curry]

You've got two choices of how you can win.

[News Reporter]

Not a tough decision as you can see.

[John C. Dvorak]

You go on your own or you

[News Reporter]

can ride with me. I said I'll ride with you if you can cover up one detail. The feds are after me for what I did with my email. I hit it like this, I hit it like that. I hit it with a wiffle ball bat. So we're on the trail. The feds got my mail and right about now I need a cocktail. The Queen Hrod, that is my name. And I know the fly spot where they got the champagne pain. We rode for six hours, then we hit the spot and we met up with a man that the world forgot. This dude was staring like he knows who we are. We took the empty spot next to him at the bar. Very O said, you know this guy? I said I didn't but that was a lie. The guy said, get ready cuz, this is no joke.

[John C. Dvorak]

My name is Joe B and you know I'm provoked.

[News Reporter]

Held out his hand and looked us in the eye. He yelled, pull my finger and let two fly. Customers gagged as they hit the floor. Two kids passed out while they ran for the door.

[Adam Curry]

I'm Joe B And I get respect. The presidential nominee is what I expect

[John C. Dvorak]

but you chose to shut me out of the race. You ignored my seniority and threw it in my face.

[Adam Curry]

But my role doesn't slow, my fuel doesn't stop. I pour gasoline on my corn pop

[News Reporter]

Joe Be rambled away, Barrio snatched the coke and I started cooking a Russian

[Adam Curry]

hoax No Agenda show is not brought

[John C. Dvorak]

to by the following so please v4v no support was given by the Artisanal Dirt Foundation, Glitch and Solder, the Institute for Intermediate Silence, Tweet Intention, the Cloud Buffer Initiative Experiment Informant, the Barn Door Collective.

[News Reporter]

We get no support from the Thursday Sunday Afternoon Appreciation Board, Universal Beige Data

[John C. Dvorak]

Whisper, the Spatula Free Future Fund, Root Bound Botanicals, Typewriter Ribbon Recovery, and Sockmate Correlation Project.

[News Reporter]

Our funding has been cut by the

[John C. Dvorak]

Nostalgia Core Solution Algorithm, Free Artisans, the Kinetic Energy of Toasters Group Vestige in

[News Reporter]

Vague, the Boredom Research Wing, the Seasonal Corduroy Council.

[John C. Dvorak]

Just send your cash, Hummus and Hubris, the Placeholder Policy Group Echolocation Aesthetics.

[News Reporter]

Donate now.

[John C. Dvorak]

And finally, no Agenda gets nothing from the the Damp Cardboard Initiative Mild Inconvenience

[News Reporter]

Partners Mild Inconvenience Partners the Best podcast in the universe.

[John C. Dvorak]

Mofo dvorak.org Na wow, what a great podcast. Donate.