The Daily Zeitgeist - Fossil Fuels: The Cause of And Solution To All Of Earth’s Problems 12.06.23

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

In episode 1592, Jack and Miles are joined by the producer of The Puzzler, Jody Avirgan, to discuss… COP28 Continues To Make A Mockery Of Our Climate Crisis, George Santos Is Now On Cameo Because Of Course He Is, Update on Private Equity - Renting Alone Is Too Expensive For Gen Z, Millennials, And Gen X, Bass Pro Shops: Worst Store In America? And more! COP28 Continues To Make A Mockery Of Our Climate Crisis It’s Big Oil vs. Science at the U.N. Climate Summit George Santos Is Now On Cameo Because Of Course He Is George Santos Is on Cameo, Charging $200 a Pop for Birthday, Holiday, and “Gossip” Videos Sen. John Fetterman trolls Bob Menendez with social media video recorded by George Santos John Fetterman paid George Santos $343 for a Cameo to troll Bob Menendez Update on Private Equity - Renting Alone Is Too Expensive For Gen Z, Millennials, And Gen X Investors are purchasing more single-family homes than ever Why the Road Is Getting Even Rockier for First-Time Home Buyers Bass Pro Shops: Worst Store In America? Garth Brooks Releasing New Album ‘Time Traveler’… Exclusively Through Bass Pro Shops Goldman Sachs’ investment in a gun retailer puts it in an awkward position Bass Pro Shops Pulls Offensive Gun From Shelf Why Have So Many Cities and Towns Given Away So Much Money to Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's? Bass Pro Shops accused of discrimination, racial slurs Cities Still Subsidize Bass Pro Megastores Despite Questionable Returns Goldman Sachs finally gets comfortable with guns LISTEN: Calling My Name by Freya RoySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Check out our recent episode with Latin Grammy winner, author, and TV personality, Chiquis, about raising her younger siblings

after the death of her mother, singer Jenny Rivera. I would do it over and over again. All of that has molded me to become the woman that I am today. Like, I wouldn't change anything. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to season 316, episode three of Dirty Nightly Psycho! Yeah! It's a production of iHeartRadio, and it's a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's share-share-share-share-share-share consciousness. I'm having... Share-share. This is the second stutter that I've had already. It's Wednesday, December 6th, 2023. Yep. That means, uh...

Europe! It's National Gpacho Day. It's St. Nicholas Day. It's National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women Day. It's National Miners, like the people who mine shit day. Shout out the pawn brokers because it's your day also. And also fucking Mitten Tree Day. I don't know what Mitten Tree Day is, but I don't know.

I guess you collect mittens and you hang them on the Christmas tree and then hand them out to those in need. I'd imagine the people that need them would probably want them just immediately rather than being like, let me adorn my tree with these mittens someone would need. But here we are. Mitten Day. And aren't the pawn stars really the modern day miners when you think about it? Yeah. Mining for gold. Or fences. Personal storage. Whatever miners when you think about it. Yeah. Mining for gold.

Or fences. Personal storage. Whatever it is. They do it. My name's Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. Man, you sure look like Cat Night Joe. My friend left here a long time ago. Where'd your tooth come from?

Where did he go? Tooth transformed him to Cat Night Joe. That is courtesy of no clue. Where'd your tooth come from? Where did that tooth come from, man? Where'd it go? Talking about the transformative nature. We've talked about wig acting before.

But tooth acting. Yeah. Tooth acting? Tooth acting. Tooth acting. Tooth acting. Truly some amazing tooth acting happening in Killers of the Flower Moon. Some amazing tooth acting happening in Killers of the Flower Moon.

And just made me realize that tooth acting from the very time, from the first time I saw someone put a little black thing over their tooth up through Leonardo DiCaprio's performance in Killers of the Flower Moon. It always gets me. It fools me every single time. I'm like, wait, that's not Leonardo. That guy is ugly, man. Leonardo DiCaprio? That's not my dream boat.

Would you call them gompers or something? Gompers, I think. But gompers might be better. Yeah, whatever. It's an impression. Poetic license. I'm thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray! It's Miles Gray, a.k.a.

Those are dinosaurs. They're huge balls. Those are dinosaurs. They're huge balls. Those are dinosaurs. They're huge balls. Those are dinosaurs. They're huge balls. That's why they're so big. They're dino balls. Or they're just a guy's

balls. Actually, that's what the hint should be. But shout out to Pato Sand on the Discord who gave me that they might be Giants rework. they might be giants rework because they are they might be giants balls yeah is what they thought i think they did in a parenthetical yes yes many jokes anyways miles we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by one of our favorite guests here on the daily zeitgeist. You know him from the podcast This Day in Esoteric Political History in the past.

Good Sport from Ted and Pushkin, 30 for 30 for ESPN. The 538 Politics podcast going way back, but that's where I first heard him. He's the lead producer of The Puzzler, a very fun puzzle podcast. He's building a puzzle empire. It's Jody

Aberga! It is very nice to be here though i will say i would very happily just let you do intros and never actually get folded into the conversation just keep going 45 minutes just do it for 45 minutes wouldn't we should we could try i mean it's it's not too far off that we have an episode. You know, I was entering like a nice little fugue state here. Just watch you guys do your thing. And that is what we aim for. Yeah. Fugue states where you lose all track of your past and future. And you're just like, hey, what happened?

A couple notes. Thank you for clarifying that it was minors, not minors. Yeah. Okay. It would be a weird, weird holiday yeah and also i'm realizing as you introduced me there that making a show called the puzzle podcast is just really it's fun for us producers in audio yes it's called the puzzle podcast it's called the puzzle it's called the puzzler but then uh you know you just say the variations of the word puzzle a lot and then you say podcast a lot too yeah yeah yeah yeah pop a lot of popping pop that puzzler pop that puzzler

listeners love this stuff by the way they do they're like more ripping nonsense please just don't give me content uh well unfortunately we will we will give you content. It's art. Jody, we're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell our listeners a couple of things that we're talking about. ACAB does include COP28 as well. COP28 continues to make a mockery of our climate crisis, the COP conference. Still out here doing it. Just being like, yeah, climate change change for sure so y'all want to

do some oil deals or what right so we'll talk about just broad strokes what's going on over there it leaves something to be desired we'll we'll talk about what that thing what that something is george santos on cameo he has taken a page from rudy Rudy Giuliani's poorly photocopied pamphlet and is now selling personalized videos on Cameo. We're going to talk about people's living situations. We're going to talk about Bass Pro Shops. It's basically, you may know them as your local gun museum, but others know them as Bass Pro Shops.

So we're going to talk about that. Why those stores that you see when you're driving on the highway maybe have been to. I've been told they're a lot of fun to visit every once in a while. Why those are taxpayer funded. All that. Plenty more. But first, Jody, we do like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history? I will just present to you the actual last thing that I Googled, which is verbatim. Why is it called constant comment tea? Do you know the tea constant comment?

Constant Comment? Constant Comment? It's a tea blend. It's kind of a black tea with a little orange rind in it. They serve it at this coffee shop that I often work at, that I was working at this morning. And I really love it. It's wonderful. It's been a couple years of me being really into it. And then I finally stopped and just looked at the actual name. And it's got me thinking a lot about i i've come to

really be a believer in like a good name is really really powerful and yeah it's a fantastic name constant comment because it sounds normal you know it rolls off the tongue it's got some nice like nice hard consonants and then for and then today for the first time i was like wait what does it actually mean and i think that's a really nice thing about a name that it could just kind of immediately just be its own sort of universe of meaning. Whatever it means, whoever created it was an SEO master. So probably stuttled in the school on Google's campus for many years. Go ahead.

Who created it, you ask? Well, Ruth Campbell Bigelow in 1945. She created constant common tea. She was unhappy with a variety of teas on the market, so she created a blend of black tea and orange rind and spices, inspired by an early colonial era recipe. The new flavor was so popular

among her friends that it received quote, constant comments, therefore giving the tea its name. Wow. Great backstory, great tea. Yeah. And I like just sort of like the cleverness of the naming. It reminds me of like how they name weed. It's like, yeah,

this one, dude, it's like constant giggles, bro, because when you hit that shit, everybody's gonna be fucking laughing the whole time. Oh, very nice blend you have here of Indica and Sativa. Yeah, it's so funny that you mentioned this. I randomly just came across like on Twitter or something, an ad from Bigelow teas like from

like it was like a message from the founder of bigelow you're about to turn 40 and they just they yeah they know they know they've got a clock on every one of us yeah they're like take that wu-tang jersey off and here's a cup of bigelow tea, you old man. In a warm sweater. Embrace it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I just, yeah. So it's funny that now I'm having the Bigelow tea message be reinforced in multiple ways now. Yeah. If you have room in some future episode or even just when we're just chatting, not on a podcast, one of the greatest stories I ever know is about the naming of a product. And I will tell it at some point or I can do it as a bonus at some point but you know it takes a little bonus okay all right the idea that

teas were the original weed strain is interesting because didn't they used to call weed tea like wasn't that a thing i think in one of those like early 20th century novels i think they keep referring to weed as tea maybe like on the road or something like that. Oh, interesting. So the connection runs deep. Yeah. No, it was. Yeah. Okay. I had no idea. Well, that all makes sense. Hot damn. Yeah. There you go. Jody, what's something you think is overrated? Well, can I combine my overrated and underrated and ask you to pinpoint where we stand here? And I like this podcast to be able to have these kinds of conversations i can't have with some

other folks but tyrese halliburton where is he on that undulating overrated underrated nba hype based on what i saw rated based on, he's undur. Like, his rating is undulating. Undurated. Very good. Very good. Wow. Look at you, Constantine. Yeah, I mean, I actually watched a lot of that game against the Celtics,

and I was blown away by his performance there. And just, like, his stats right now are pretty solid. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, you know, so I, so, so he kind of is like the, at least before this season in the off season, you know,

for people who are like in the NBA fantasy leagues, he was the kind of like classic, like his stats are incredible. He's going to go super high, but you know, is he just a stat guy and whatever? And then I, you know,

I sort of like had to dismiss them as that and sort of had this little antagonistic, like, and then, you know, I kind of, I read a great long profile of him and the ESPN, the magazine, and it was like, oh, he's like, seems like a real good dude. And then, yeah, he's played a couple of national games where it's like, oh my God, he is legit. And, you know, last night was his big, I think, breakout performance where people are talking about him as the next kind of big superstar. But I also say and this is why it straddles both lines for me aesthetically something about his game is a little janky to me yeah yes like his shot starts like at the chest and then like pops up yeah just not yeah i don't watch it and get and get that thrill that i watch when i watch other great players like steph shoot or something

like that yeah or jaw or whoever it's kairi you know it's like but you know usually most great players there's also an aesthetic appeal in addition to like they're just really effective right right and he's got this weird disconnect on that front for me and maybe you know if i watch him enough i'll just come to appreciate his janky style but even when he's dribbling i'm like the limbs are just going at like slightly different angles i don't know what it is and so so now I'm like, I'm roiling, as you can tell. Right. Yeah.

With the undurated roller coaster that I'm riding on right now. Undurating him. Yeah, because some of the shots he put up, I was definitely like, are you sure about that? You're not supposed to do that. You don't want that guy shooting. Splash. And I was like, okay, okay. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

I love an ugly shot. You don't get a lot of them in the nba right you know sean marion was like a solid deep long range shooter who shot it like he just someone threw him a basketball that he and he never picked one up and they were like try try and shoot try and shoot like a person you know nobody told him how to shoot basically but and he's got he's got one of those ugly shots i had an ugly shot when i was playing basketball so i always so you're the two comps that came to mind were sean marion and you right and me yes exactly

but you know in the basketball savant yeah somebody who has made it this deep and stuck to their ugly guns with their game i would say have you watched shea gilgis alexander play much his game is also like his shot isn't ugly but it's not pretty either right his game is it's like a lot of off-speed pitches. It's a lot of like herky-jerkiness. Yeah. And those are probably the two best young guards in the NBA. So I feel like there's something where people are figuring out a way to model their game so that it's not just jump over everybody. And the best player in the world is someone who I delight in how ugly his game is. So yeah, between Jokic and those two, are we entering an era of the Jokic? player in the world is someone who i like delight in how ugly his game is right and so yeah so yes you like between yogic and those two are we like entering an era of the just like absurdly janky looking shot or body movement which feels weird right you'd think that like the the mark

the what is the arc of the athletic universe would bend towards grace, right? But instead, you have this. Yeah, but this one, like we say on Jack and Miles, Miles and Jack got mad boosties. Jokic plays uncle ball. You know what I mean? He has the energy of an uncle playing with the kids in the driveway, but at a professional, like, that's how he's like, well, I don't have to do much to fucking show y'all what's up.

And this is an interesting stat. That game against the Celtics, Halliburton had a 26-10-13 triple-double. That stat line, or better with zero turnovers, has only occurred seven other times in NBA history, and Jokic did it twice this week. Well... Oh, that's so good.

I hadn't seen that element of the stat. Because I saw the other people who'd done it, and it's like pretty vaunted. But then I realized that Jokic had done it twice. That's so good. I hadn't seen that element of the stat. Because I saw the other people who'd done it, and it's like pretty vaunted. But then I realized that Jokic had done it twice. That's so good. Because this show is not necessarily designed for NBA fans. Yeah, I know. Sorry about this.

No, no. It's good because I think, you know, for people who aren't familiar with NBA, it's worth watching this year. Like, there are some of, like, lot like yokich is a lot of people who are like lifelong fans of the league are saying yokich is the best offensive player they've ever seen like full stop like a better offensive player than jordan like he currently leads the league in points assists and rebounds yeah all three just ross that category seems pretty significant yeah yeah

those are yeah for those of you who don't follow those are pretty significant those are the big three and yeah so like that's one thing that's happening the league there's a rookie who we've talked about before on this show picture one big yama who is on a nightly basis doing things nobody's ever seen like blocking shots like three pointers at the peak of their arc like just absurd things and but like still also doesn't fully know what to do with himself out there in a lot of cases so it's like watching somebody learning to fly but then like every once in a while it's like he hits the jackpot and you see him dunk from like a place you've never seen anybody dunk from and or just cover more ground

in two steps than any human we've ever seen yeah but his crossover goes from one side of the court like one sideline to the other and he's learned and he's yeah you know yes he's learned. And he's learned. He's become self-aware. Yeah, he's AI. Yes. And then Oklahoma City is this young team that's just super exciting that nobody had coming in who I think a lot of people are excited about. I don't know. It's a very exciting time for NBA. If you're on the cusp, you're like, I don't know.

This would be the season to jump in. There's also a single elimination tournament that the game we're talking about right now with Halliburton. Last night, he eliminated the Celtics. So now Indiana is going deep. New Orleans is going deep. It's very exciting. The things you like about single elimination sports have been brought to the nba kind of for the first time so exciting times a

reminder this nba thing might be worth checking out there you go i love this game adam silver's the check is in the mail yes yeah did you just come up with that i love this game thing that's pretty good yeah i just love this game i love this game i love i love this pretty cool game yeah all right let's take a quick break and we'll be right back this summer the nation watched as the republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.

And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Thank you. give you the real talk on drugs, but it's time we know the facts. Fentanyl is often laced into

illicit drugs and used to make fake versions of prescription pills. You can't see it, taste it, or smell it. Suppliers mix fentanyl into their products because it's potent and cheap, and the dealer might not even know. Keep yourself and others safe by knowing the real deal on fentanyl. Get the facts. Go go to real deal on fentanyl.com this message is brought to you by the ad council i've been thinking about you i want you back in my life it's too late for that i have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110.

120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm.

Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back we're back baby and so is the COP conference we're at COP 28 oof yeah

the initial headlines I don't know there was like points during earlier this year where people are like we've turned a corner and then the initial headline i feel like it's a good metaphor for the climate discussion where it's like you'll get some good headlines some positive seeming things happening and then like once you take a closer look like people are like it's it's not good yeah because like the whole point is to get you know the all of the 125 countries together and be like all right y'all how are we gonna unfuck this thing and we all gotta agree on something before we leave yeah like for real this time we gotta do some real heavy lifting in the beginning like you said there were things that made it feel positive, like commitments to seriously cut like methane emissions and like increased funds for countries that are being affected by climate change who are otherwise unable to help themselves because of, you know, the economics of it all.

But like you're saying, you start zooming out and the optimism like fucking vanishes like almost instantly like for starters right the event is taking place in dubai okay the uae is a nation built on fossil fuel profits and the man leading the talks in dubai is this guy sultan al-jabr al-jaber who he is the head of the state-owned abu dhabi national oil. And he is the one sort of presiding over these like climate talks. And then it's like, and I can add even more to this. Prior to the conference beginning, he said out loud at another conference that there was quote, no science that indicated that a phase out of fossil fuels is needed to stop

temperatures from rising above one and a half degrees Celsius. One more thing. Who are you going to believe? Who are you going to believe miles? are you going to believe, Miles? Are you going to believe the scientists or are you going to believe the head of Abu Dhabi? A state-owned oil company.

Yeah, a state-owned oil company. And not only that, there were leaked documents that showed that a lot of these people representing different state-owned oil companies in the Emirates were planning on using the talks to generate more business

for fossil fuel extraction. They were like, yeah, bro, it'd you know, a lot of people are going to be in town for this. So it's hard to imagine anything significant will be done against this backdrop, especially when the biggest negotiation at the conference that everyone is paying attention to is, are we going to actually start articulating a phase out of fossil fuels or as some lobbyists would rather say how about phase down because at least down doesn't indicate out forever can we say phase down can we say phase out there's a lot of back and forth that saudi arabia has flatly said that anything resembling a fossil fuel phase out in an agreement they will just they will be it will be rejected by their delegation and the way this the talks are structured it all it takes is one party to fucking scuttle the whole thing so you're dealing with a lot of fucking variables here that don't spell their you know a good time for earth in the near future and then you have the record number of lobbyists of like from the oil gas industries that are there last year we talked about when it was in Egypt, they set a record for lobbyists that were in attendance,

like how there were more lobbyists than like people who were from like a single country. For example, like the combined amount of lobbyists that are out actually registered as lobbyists, because there's a ton of people who might not be outwardly saying that they're there to lobby for something. They are basically, they outnumber every country's delegation, except for Brazil's.

And Brazil has more because they are going to be hosting it in like a year and a half or something. They are basically they outnumber every country's delegation except for Brazil's. And Brazil has more because they are going to be hosting it in like a year and a half or something. So like that's why they have more people. But also they fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber in official indigenous representatives by seven to one. And that means like they have more passes lobbyists than the combined total of delegates from the 10 most climate vulnerable countries combined, including Somalia, Chad, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, and Sudan. And this quote from David Tong of Oil Change International sums it up pretty well. He said, quote, you would not invite arms dealers to a peace conference. And that's kind of what we have now. It's just arms fest at the peace fest. Depends on how lit you want your Peace Conference to be. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,

I was sort of wondering and reading about this whether this is like the new Davos, you know, and this is the new just kind of like we're going to go party

and we're going to make ourselves feel important and we're going to kind of cut some deals and ostensibly there's this other project that's not actually going to accomplish anything.

Right, right. And they're like kind of protecting against something being accomplished. We've had climate experts and environmentalists on the show describe this as an energy industry trade show. three, right? And so, you know, the planks and the things, the basic, you know, things that were being discussed at those in the mid nineties into the early two thousands were basically the exact

same, right? COP two, right? In Geneva, Switzerland was basically about, do we want uniform policies or do we want flexibility? Do we want legally binding midterm targets or do we want larger principles upon which we will all adhere? You know, COP three was the big Kyoto protocol one. COP four was like, we need, we are pledging for a two year plan of action. Right. Right. You know, and that's like a two year plan of action, two year plan of action.

I mean, and then, you know, you look at like COP six, seven, eight, nine, this question of financial assistance for developing countries and this question of kind of how to, you know, developing countries need to use carbon in order to advance their economic principles, but also, you know, they're going to be affected by,

like, that is just like year after year after year after year. It's just comes up. People say some things that doesn't get fully resolved. So it is kind of remarkable. Yeah, and it wasn't until last year where they're like,

all right, I guess we can put some money together for these other countries. It's like, oh, I'll pick you 27 tries. Right, and it does feel like in this first, the fact that that got accomplished on the first day of the conference did sort of surprise some climate activists and, you know, probably also then, like, let

everyone at the conference be like, well, we did a good thing on day one, so we can just, you know, lobby and party for the rest of it. But can I ask a sort of bigger picture question of the two of you for something I've been thinking about with climate activism and sort of, you know, what needs to get done, which is, I think we've moved so far past the point where like a single solution or even like a single kind of group like oh the people are going to get together in kyoto at cop 3 and kind of like governments are going to figure this out we've moved so far past that idea of like a couple central answers to this that weirdly it feels

like now we're in a well we might as well try everything moment right and i think talking to folks you know who are active in climate change circles, like that is where we're at. Right. It's like no one solution, no one political process, no one country is going to solve this. We just kind of have to try everything. And I weirdly find a little solace in that, in that like the guardrails, the abdication of responsibility is sort of off for most people. And it's just kind of like, well, we got to try everything. And so, you know, maybe this is just, maybe this is a sort of me giving up in some way, but I'm like, if COP accomplishes a, you know, 2% of something great, because over here, someone's going to accomplish 2% over here. And that's the only way this is going to happen is just like a

million different things, nudging progress a little bit forward, as opposed to what we were doing for, I think for a long time, which was sort of saying like, well, we're the world leaders need to get together and get their act together. And I think that, you know, idea is long gone. Right. Yeah. Like it kind of, the thing kind of reminds me of like those like scenes in like a, like a superhero comedy film where someone's trying to get away in a car and the superhero is

just lifting the car from the back. So the wheels can't move. Right. And like, that's what this feels like. The car's like, it could go forward if these assholes let go and let it move forward. And then so we get these little incremental changes that like are absolutely heartening.

I think it's just, and then, but looking at the totality of it, it's like, God, there's still so much energy and investment to basically offset whatever gains there are to continue like the profitability of the extraction but i think like to your point it is better to think of like that there are many ways to potentially achieve this whether it's through like how fucking like the dairy industry

is working or agriculture these other things and if many of these things can come together that there we may find a way here but the biggest thing thing is it's these nations, it's these state actors who really have a lot of control over the sheer volume of emissions. And when you know that they're like, hey, we're bringing our lobbyists to COP28 to represent our gas industries. It's just like, how serious are we? So I'm less nihilistic and maybe I'm just more deeply frustrated. Yes. That's that's kind of where where I'm at, I would say. I'm curious in looking back at the past cops.

Do you like would your sense be if if there was some way to quantify like the actual beneficial ideas or, you know, progress that came from each one of them, like, how do you think if we were to rank the top 28 cops, top 28, how long do you have? Here we go.

26 definitive ranking of the top. I'm just wondering because it feels like putting a meeting together, a meeting of the minds with this as the central goal is a good idea in theory. talking about things that are specifically meant to hem them in, like then it almost becomes like you're building an institutional means for just skirting all the laws and all of the things that we're trying to do. Because yeah, I totally agree. Like it's not going to be one silver bullet. It's going to be a lot of things. but all of those things are going to be avoided with precision and legal, just millions of hours of legal arguments and contracts and things like that put in by these companies because that's what they do. Like sending companies that are focused only on profit for the most part, like focused only on profit to be the solution to climate change. It just seems so it seems not like, you know, well, we might as well try everything and more like this is actively doing harm. Like it's the it's going to be the thing that will allow us to continue down the road that we've been going down is my concern. the cause of and solution to all life's problems you're like how because there's so many gas on it

what if we well i mean that is a huge thing like you hear the people how the lobbyists are speaking about the industries that the industry they represent and they're like we have to do this in a humane way like and it's really talking about humane to their company's bottom line but they're but they couch it in this thing this this argument of like, well, we're going to need fossil fuels to help these other economies get online to get to that point. But really, and I think that's what makes it really difficult is because it's easy to do this sort of double speak. And then from that extract like a good headline if you are in the more greenwashing sector of this conference, or you can extract a good headline if you're there to protect the

investments or whatever. So it is just kind of wild, though, too too because we're in this like liminal space where like the the rich and powerful are still doing their old school shit like you know like just self-dealing in full view of the public but because they were used to like a public that was just uninformed or apathetic and now people are like like, what the fuck? Hold on. Who's running the conference? How many lobbies? And they're like, what the fuck? Well, it's a reality check where I think, you know, over the last year or two in the U.S., you know, I think you could probably tell yourself a story that like, oh, you know, the sort of capitalistic market incentives and the energy and climate change have kind of moved a little more in parallel and are

maybe working a little more in sync right over the last year and i think you know for sure the biden's bill has a big part of that and that was the sort of calculus there and then you just you know to your point miles you get this like wake-up call where it's just like a qatari sultan who's like the fuck are you talking about yeah i'm an oil guy like let's just let's do it yeah i brought the guess what i just brought the entire global oil industry to my back yard and then we can kind of like side plan stuff based on whatever else is going on so yeah it it's uh yeah it's one one little tidbit just that i noticed here from this guy that you you shouted out sultan ahmed al-jaber which is like he spent his first his talk at the climate on his first day, his major address, like complaining about how the media had misinterpreted him about his climate, about his comments earlier about how we'll never be able to divest from fossil fuels.

And it's just such a like hallmark, powerful person, application of responsibility that then like just get their backs up about being misquoted and then spend their whole time i feel like that's like if you're president of fifa that's all you do is you complain about media coverage you don't actually address all the things but it's like it's like it was it's just such a classic classic right move and it was just yeah and a classic keynote you want to to open the conference by talking about your own petty bullshit and grievances. That's how people get everybody invested. The keynote address for the conference of the parties to help tackle the issue of Earth death. And you kick it off with, to all my fucking haters. You're like, oh, shit. No, no, no no this is this is a completely gone off the rails yeah amazing all right let's

move on to the boring black mirror episode that young people today I'll share my rankings of the top cops on the discord top cops top cops commandant lasage from police academy and that's it yeah Top cops. Commandant Lesarge from Police Academy.

And that's it. Yeah. Yeah. That guy rules. Just completely oblivious. Completely senile. Yeah, that's what we need. Was he Henry from Punky Brewster?

Or do I just... Is he just that guy in my memory? No way to know. I said Lesarge. Lesard. I don't know. Lesard, yeah. George Gaines. That was the actor. I said Lessard. I don't know. George Gaines. That was the actor. We'll sidebar.

Anyways. Henry Punky. He was. He was Henry Warnemont. There was an article on Axios a couple weeks back

that is basically just saying we're going to be living with roommates until we're 50. That is on average. The average age of people who can rent solo is 50 now because everyone under that age is too poor and the rent is too damn high.

It also mentions the baby boomers have, quote, ditched homeownership for low maintenance apartments, which makes it sound like a breezy lifestyle choice. This one easy hack. Yeah. Find out about this one easy hack. Real estate agents don't want you to know about. Sell your house to them. Sell your house to a corporate entity. Yes. The one that really jumped out to me, 87% jump in the number of Americans age 25 to 34 living at home in 2021 compared to the previous decade. Meanwhile, the typical repeat home buyer is currently 58, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. And, you know, there's been a lot of reporting from there's a New York Times article from last year. There's a Scripps article from earlier this year about how more and more single family homes than ever are being purchased by

investors, which ties into our special episode about private equity companies from earlier in the year, I think, who killed the free ambulance. Was that what it was called? Something along those lines. Just industry by industry, just hollowing it out. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And there's this one quote in the Scripps News article that I just want to read to you guys word for word. There are billions of dollars, trillions of dollars just sloshing around in the economy looking for places to go. Where do we go? What are we going to invest in? Real estate is a really, really good investment, said Mike DelPrete, a global real estate tech strategist and scholar. It's definitely an issue worth paying attention to. So from his perspective,

it's like an issue worth paying attention to. You said scholar? worth paying attention to. So from his perspective, it's like an issue worth paying attention to. Yes. He's a real estate tech strategist and scholar at the university of Colorado Boulder. I wonder if that was like a description he gave to them. He's like,

yeah, you can describe me as this. And that's spelled S C H. Oh, I'm a scholar of making that bank. Yeah. Oh no. It's S C A L L E R. I'm a scholar of making that bank yeah oh no it's s-c-a-l-l-e-r i'm a shot caller that's what i meant by that yeah yeah scholar s-collar i'm sorry did you not get it telling y'all what to do with these houses you can get fuck right out of here i'm a shot caller

that is ultimately where the where the term scholar came from of course it's just the original shot colors but yeah i don't know for first of all very infuriating for you know when most people's lived reality is check to check that the investor class's problem is like what how do we unburden ourselves from all these trillions of dollars that came our way during the pandemic just that that that fucking metaphor it's so it's just so wild right because it's like you're like you're acknowledging a finite resource like money and many people don't have it and like you're likening it to like having like a kiddie pool of just fucking water sloshing everywhere while people are dying of desert thirst. Fuck yeah, I got money problems too, man.

Dude, it's sloshing everywhere. How the fuck am I doing all this shit? I get it. But yeah, I don't know. And there's always an industry person who's like, guys, private companies buying up single family homes not a big deal like we're actually not that big of an industry like i i barely matter i suck okay like none of don't even you don't like why are you even talking to me i suck i there's nothing here which is usually a bad sign when like an industry group just keeps trying to

be like guys i like i'm i'm shit why are you right no there's there's this is a non-story but i don't know it just seemed like when you talk to like the new york times article from spring of last year was just looking at an individual i think it was charlotte real estate market and it's just when it, and I found this to be true, anybody who is thinking about like trying to buy a home or, you know, like this is the number one thing they mentioned now is that like you are going to get scooped by some company. Like they, they talked to this woman who is trying to buy a single family home in Charlotte instead forced to downsize from a rental home to an apartment.

And, you know, the car that or the home that she wants to buy is bought by Tricon Residential, who owns 1600 homes. And yeah, this got me thinking about a kind of bigger sort of story I feel like in my life. And I'm curious how you think about kind of homeownership and how I've thought about it, you know, because I do think like I'm of a generation where I did push back or, you know, kind of, there was a, I thought a really important conversation about like, well, is homeownership the sort of goal, you know, and our parents, that was the thing for our parents coming, you know, and it was like to buy a home and that is the American dream. And I, you know, I think I became convinced and I kind of probably spouted language along these lines of like, well, you know, that's not the fit for everyone, you know,

and maybe it's not the fit for me. And, and I wonder if we were kind of sold while we were kind of being sold that idea. They it's not you know it's not yeah it's the american dream anymore there's other ways in the meantime you know that option was just being ripped off the table to begin with and that i think is the real sort of tragedy here it's just it's not just that like everyone should own a home and that is the most you know that is totally still the sort of definition of the american dream but just the lack of options and everyone i know you know and all the people in the reporting here the pervading feeling is just constriction you know and the inability to even uh make a choice and have agency and sort of figure out what's best for yourself

and i think that's like you know that's incredibly tragic and i will say like you know this may be taking us a little bit far afield but i will say, when I think about this kind of big conversation that's happening, and it will only build going into next year about the disconnect between people's economic feelings and the actual economic indicators that are out there, and Biden has built a pretty good economy, but people still think the economy is terrible. Housing is the answer to me. You can look at every other metric about wage growth and inflation going down and all these other things. But if you just like can't get from here to there, if you want to own a home like I don't think any of those other metrics matter. not making rent like that then yeah homelessness is like you know something that hangs over a lot of people who are still might show up on that as like employed and you know but being employed and the precarity of like being in a gig economy you know role is like that's not a comfortable place to be and a lot of these things are things that have just changed generation to

generation, you know, you know, it does, it does tie into that sort of gig economy overall, like gig effication of our lives that like, Oh yeah, you know,

yeah. If you're under 40, like the way you want to live your life is just like improvising every day, you know, like you just move around and you rent and you figured this out, you figured this out, you have all the time. like i don't think so i think yeah like stability well and i think like the cop what what happened to the cop conference is a i thought you were gonna say the cop on the slide what happened to the u.s economy no we thought it'd be a good time

hopping in there and it just fucked us up on the other end. When you have corporations and private equity companies as the major decision makers and designers of an entire civilization for decades, which it seems

like we've had for a while now, and really being the power that politicians have to push back against and often listen to, this is kind of what you end up with, where it's just like their flexibility is the thing that ends up being unshakable

and not people's security at the end of the day and feeling secure. So it just feels like anywhere where they have fully, you know, unshakable and not like people's security at the end of the day and feeling secure. So it just feels like any anywhere where they have fully where like massive corporations or private equity or, you know, the people who view money as a problem in the sense that they what to do with all this money being the problem that they're trying to solve. Like when those are the only people making the decisions, like you end up with subtle fissures in like day-to-day life of people who aren't making those decisions that don't look great, don't feel great. And, you know, there's a Senate bill that would close legal tax and regulatory loopholes that allow private equity

firms to capture all the rewards of the investments in real estate while insulating them from risk and it has sat in committee since elizabeth warren and charlotte brown introduced it in october of last year so it's yeah it's there's like yeah i think rokhana also has a bill about banning corporate landlords because like when you look at it i mean it's this problem is only increasing and you know, Jeff Bezos just put like a ton of money into this like new company. This, this,

it's like an investment company called arrived that basically allows people to like, like become sort of a small time landlords. It's like, well you can get, you can own a property for as little as a hundred dollars by like crowd crowd fucking people like that and that's sort of like this new like we're just seeing all these entry points to sort of either because i see something like this

a lot of people that are defending this company it's like well they're not like one of these institutional corporate landlords like invitation homes that 80,000 single family rental homes or like Blackstone. They're like, this is actually allowing people just a way to have that kind of security or those aspirations in a way that's realistic for them. And really, it's just more like they're being like, you could be a landlord, dude.

Like, you're not going to live here, but you can fucking maybe profit off of this situation. They're not a Blackstone, more of a gray stone, which is also a massive corporate. More of a gray stone. Yeah. How many colors are left? Yeah. White stone.

Hey. Brownstone. Yeah. Mr. Brownstone. All right. Well, let's let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about less depressing things, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. We'll be right back.

This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife

working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Some people won't give you the real talk on drugs, but it's time we know the facts. Fentanyl is often laced into illicit drugs and used to make fake versions of prescription pills. You can't see it, taste it, or smell it. Suppliers mix fentanyl into their products because it's potent and cheap, and the dealer might not even know. Keep yourself and others safe by knowing the real deal on fentanyl. Get the facts. Go to realdealonfentanyl.com. This message is brought

to you by the Ad Council council i've been thinking about you i want you back in my life it's too late for that i have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do one session 24 hours bpm 110 120 She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out?

I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And first of all, just big news. George Santos is on Cameo.

So get your wallets ready. Get your wallets out, folks. hundred dollars per video and offers options such as holiday birthday gossip pep talk roast advice and other oh man what's gossip like you can pay him to like tell like confidential shit or something he's like since i'm not here you want to know the tea of stuff you know yeah yeah how do i get the gossip on what my neighbor's social security number is yeah what's going on with the pacific fleet right now you know give us some military tea that tea and then john fetterman used it to talk shit at bob menendez uh so that's a little gossip that's a little tea it's just also we just found out bob menendez like those gold bars that he got paid when we talked about how he was taking

like he was literally taking literal gold bars they were from some robbery from 10 years ago oh really i didn't realize that yeah dude like they connected oh is that the jewelry store robbery that somehow yeah they're like anyway, so that senator has it. And then you have, it's just like, it's funny. A lot of people were like, wow, John Fetterman paid George Santos to like troll Bob Menendez. But I'm like, I don't know, like the Fetterman thing starting to really wear thin where I'm like, okay, I get you're very savvy on social media when you were just dunking on Dr. Oz during the campaign. on social media when you were just dunking on dr oz during the campaign and now like i i'm just like just from the the like the jingoistic stuff like that he's been doing with like israel's like wrapping himself in a flag and stuff and being like there was no means will like the civilian

death stop and now he's like and i also gave george santos campaign money out your pockets yeah to like own bob menendez like none of it is just like now this I mean this I'm like this makes me want to scream like this is just so depressing and infuriating and like yeah the Fetterman thing and the Santos thing and the enabling of Santos

I mean obviously the enabling of Santos up until this point also makes me want to scream I just think it's just like incredible that they didn't find a way you know I think you can you can measure a lot by sort of what are people willing to put up with and i think like that's a really good way to look at the modern republican party is like where is the line for you know not what's the line not what not what's become acceptable but where has the line for what's unacceptable moved to uh and you know the fact that this wasn't on the on that side of the line until very recently but yeah this cameo thing it's like it's so well it's embarrassing and it's like so unserious and it is i think like really like

a culmination of a really corrosive thing of just like what like we think everything is reality tv we think everything is like an ironic game and it's like what the what are we doing people like it's really really frustrating and the fact that like an ostensibly serious democrat is like playing that game it's just like yeah what the fuck what the fuck i don't know what you're talking about i'm just trying to decide which of the two presidential candidates who have laser eyes emojis i should vote for yeah right we're we're a very serious political nation i mean i want dark brandon that's not a guy you know you know it is i mean this is where santos probably should have been all along right i mean he like that's that's another part of the story too is like the fact that people whose destiny

was D-level celebrity selling videos for $200 on Cameo, the fact that they see politics as their path to that. It's a perfectly reasonable place to end up. Great. It's like Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz right now wants to be a podcast host. That's clearly what

he wants to do. He should just leave politics and be a podcast host. And the fact that he wants to do. He should just leave politics and be a podcast host. And the fact that people still think it's reasonable to stay in politics, or they think it's all part of the same game. Right. I mean, that's the, that is the core of the problem right now.

And my call letters are kiss my ass. All right. Those aren't letters, man. Those what? Where my cruisers at y'all out there. Let me hear you one time. All right, Those aren't letters, man. Those what? Where my cruisers at? Y'all out there? Let me hear you one time. All right, cool.

Yeah, it does feel like with Santos, we're seeing like the death of a politician and the birth of a reality TV celebrity whose name I wouldn't otherwise have known. Yeah. Well, he's, you know, he's following the playbook, like how all people who get into sponsored content from a reality show, you know, like you, you make a big scene. People are like, oh, who's that on that show? Then you get off and then you can start doing some spawn con on the Instagram. Although I don't know.

To belabor the point, it's the reality TV show playbook, not the fucking elected politics playbook. But it's completely in Donald Trump's like it's the reality. It's both. Since Donald Trump, like it's the reality. It's both. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not to mention that just like, gosh, some of the stuff he's actually accused of doing, it's not just like, oh, what a like lovable grifter, like some really awful shit stealing from fucking cancer.

But then there was like some shit about a dog. Like, it's just really it should just be beyond the. Oh, yeah. Who among us hasn't stolen from cancer who hasn't done a fundraiser for a dog and then take all the money for yourself you think i got lambo wow yeah all right let's talk bass pro shops so this came to our attention because garth brooks for some reason, we like to keep an eye on Garth Brooks. He's the best-selling artist in American pop music history, which I think flies under the radar a little bit.

He has a new album, but it's only available to buy in Bass Pro Shops. Hell yeah. I don't know. It's a weird... I think he was trying to do... It has no digital footprint. There are like no reviews from professional critics, possibly because it's only available at Bass Pro Shops.

But it's like, yeah, you can't really get it online. It's weird. Is it an album if it only comes out at Bass Pro Shops? It's kind of, I think, where we're at philosophically because they're like, I don't know how else to... It's only there. No review copies for anybody? You think it's just a bad album? Like it's a...

You know, like intentional? He's like, yeah, let's just release that shit at Bass Pro Shops. It's like the Wu-Tang album that they only sold to Martin Shkreli, but just, you know, with a couple thousand copies and stuff. Right, right, right. Just the one. I know this is a different era, but are you familiar with the 2007 Joni Mitchell album Shine?

Are you familiar with the 2008 Carly Simon album This Kind of Love? No. Those albums were put out on a record label, Concord Music Group, that was co-founded by Starbucks. And you could only buy those CDs in Starbucks. In Starbucks, oh wow. This isn't totally different from something that has happened in the past. I know we're living in the digital music era,

but this has long been the case where you can kind of like find particular music or culture in particular stores and people have done specific releases. So big chains have started record labels before. it's a little weird in the digital era where like i mean starbucks shuttered its record thing as soon as the internet yeah but i think it's more interesting from the perspective not like from garth what you doing man and more from

the perspective of like what does this corporation see themselves as and in the case of like, what is this corporation see themselves as? And in the case of Starbucks, it was misguided that they were like, Starbucks is really like more of a vibe. It's more of like a, although I mean, it really had, I mean, it was a powerful cultural force for a while. I mean,

there's like a whole sort of generation of bands that like, yeah, just, you know, we're Starbucks, we're Starbucks bands. And like that phenomenon of like hearing something in Starbucks and then seeing that the album was right there to purchase next to the store i mean you know and i think that's like part of the story

i mean starbucks clearly wanted this to happen i think brass proschop clearly wants this to happen but you know that that the brand and the store become a sort of cultural space more than just a place where you go to buy stuff and that's clearly what's happening here and then i just but it's just interesting when you see an artist make a decision like that where it's like right yeah i like to sell albums but then you're like you know this isn't the best way to achieve like ubiquity for this album right is to just put physical copies in this one store so that's i'm like i'm always curious what the economics of it are for them to be like they're actually paying me a lot of money up front yeah to do i wonder right you know what i mean right but also i mean i do wonder how much it is that like you're not going to be making you don't

make music by selling actual music anymore anyway so it's like if this is if there's some big endorsement deal here where he gets a bag for that and then he goes makes his money the way that you can kind of actually make money in music these days which is a huge tour or whatever yeah you know then yeah so i suspect he has some um he's got some people with some spreadsheets in his camp. Yeah. This is the right way to go. Yeah. I mean, he's done this before with Target and Walmart.

But Bass Pro Shops are kind of a deeply fucked up company. I've never been inside. I love it. I've been there. It's wonderful. It's wild. I was like, there's a fucking, you could test drive a boat in here? A boat.

Like, you know what I mean? You can test, you know, I grew up fishing. I went to a lot of Bass Pro Shops and like, you know, you can test, you can test all your reels there and they have ponds and they're, you know, it's, it is a real like amusement park slash cultural space slash, you know, they're trying to sell you a bunch of stuff too, including a bunch of guns, which is probably a major seller of guns. And they are among the only they are the biggest seller of guns that just refuse to implement any restrictions in the wake of Marjorie Stoneman shooting and Sandy Hook and, you know, just kept selling assault rifles even after personal appeals from Sandy Hook families. And then Bass Pro Shops are a longtime partner of the NRA. One of their stores even houses a NRA gun museum,

and they sell NRA T-shirts featuring, say, a picture of a handgun with the Constitution engraved on the barrel. One Arkansas store made headlines for selling a rifle that celebrated the trail of tears massacre like that on the box yeah because we're about the we're like for hunters man and that whole thing and you're like yeah celebrate the trail of tears yeah it has like people on horses with the rifle that you're buying with Native Americans walking. All right, here's a quiz for the two of you.

At the NRA National Sporting Arms Museum at the Springfield, Missouri Brass Post Shops, there is an exhibit called the Hollywood Collection. And it features guns used and owned by at least four hollywood celebrities okay whose guns are on display no not charlton heston that is surprising but no not i think the first one should be arnold schwarzenegger no uh clint eastwood yes clint eastwood is the first one the second one's probably pretty obvious too none of the action heroes like arnold is it an action hero nope no it's in that clint it's in that clint yep john wayne is the second person listed the third one's a curveball i would say not known for guns maybe known for other swat more swashbuckling uh forms of violence can't be violence in his movies oh johnny depp john? Really? And then the fourth select... I do not think Johnny Depp should have guns.

For his safety and others. What, like a fucking Flintlock pistol or some shit? The court ordered that his guns be taken and be put in the museum at the Springfield Missouri Bass Pro Shop. And then the fourth one is Tom Selleck. You can go see Tom Selleck's gun.

That guy's name was Magnum, for God's sake. There you go. So I was surprised to learn that Bass Pro Shops Empire was largely paid for by taxpayers. So they routinely build giant stores using government subsidies promising economic benefits such as jobs. And the jobs disproportionately go to white people. As a 2011 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleged, the fishing and hunting gear supplier knowingly and systematically discriminated against Hispanic and black applicants in hiring and some of its managers used racial slurs. One manager of a Houston area store told his human resource manager that, quote, it's getting a little dark in here. You need to hire some white people. Jeez. So, and little dark in here. You need to hire some white people. Jeez.

So, and an investigation in 2012. It's funny that he used like a euphemism in the first half of that. Yeah, yeah. Like wink, wink, nudge, nudge, and then he follows it up with, you should hire some white people. I'm not known for my subtlety.

Yeah. But an investigation in 2012 found that $2.2 billion in taxpayer money went to Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's, which is Bass Pro Shops, bought in 2016. In the preceding 15 years, noting that Bass Pro Shops often pays comparably little toward the construction of its own stores. And their argument is that their business should be viewed as a public amenity like a park or a library or a museum. Yeah. These aren't just stores. These are natural history museums. That's what their

CEO said. I'd say people who would agree with you are currently trying to destroy libraries also. So we're going to have to find some common ground here. Why do you need libraries when you have quote gun libraries? Which is what they call some of their like gun collections that act as legal justification to qualify as museums and therefore access public

funds oh so it's like some trump shit where it's like put a museum call it a museum get that one gun from diehard and now you can get subsidies because it's a fucking museum that's okay clever it's the sweatshirt where it says ho ho ho now i have a machine gun so there's your reading material asshole the featured book on the bass pro shops book book page on their website is the man i knew the amazing story of george hw bush's post-presidency there it is top sell written by who the man i knew jean becker who's okay i'm just wondering if it was his mistress because he famously had like a long time long time affair like somebody who was basically his chief his wife yeah oh okay but yeah i don't

know it seems like they've historically acted pretty much like a con artist would, preying on communities that need money by making lofty promises to help troubled economies. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania literally played $7 million in subsidies while they were $437 million in debt and literally sold off schools to make that investment. I mean, it is funny how Walmart is like, you know, receives so much the ire around this kind of stuff, you know, both gun sales and the sort of extractive nature of, you know, the subsidies they get and the wages they pay and so forth and how they, you know, eat up small businesses. And, you know, I guess I don't have a sense of scale.

I imagine Walmart is considerably bigger than Bass Pro Shops, but it is funny that that, there isn't that kind of conversation about Bass Pro Shops. Bass Pro Shops is like a comer. It's like on the growth path. And a lot of times I talk about the singularity, the thing that everyone's afraid of, where this hyper-intelligence that becomes undefeatable and insinuates itself into our lives is already here and it is just hyper-capitalism.

And Walmart figures out this amazing way to exploit taxpayers and like get everywhere. It's not like Bass Pro Shop is not learning from that and going to like take every single, you know, learning that they possibly can to keep, to keep growing and doing the same thing. So that's,

yeah, it's, uh, we got to find a way to, we got to find a way to get like on this Bass Pro Shop subsidies wave, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like national service.

I'm almost like, I would love to like, how are they able to do it so well like that to be like, like, it's like a football stadium or some shit. It's like on that level. Because it's like football. It's like, right. No, I get that. Yeah. Cartoon Americana. Yeah. because it's like football it's like right no i get that yeah cartoon americana yeah but i wonder

who like because clearly like there are many people who have connections with their lobbying efforts or whatever and i'm i'm i really want to see like who are the people that are really helping because you know like when you see like subsidies like this there's always like a couple senators or congress people who are like always like sticking up for that kind of shit i saw when i was lobbying i like they were like three senators who we knew like would have the industry's back for certain things so i'm curious who like the real people are who are like you know bps dude i got your back no matter what the subsidies will keep flooding because look it's a museum it is a library it is a place for us to do better to improve ourselves and not and also discriminate against, you know, people who would like to work here.

Yeah. Can I throw something on your list for future things to dig into? Yes. Dollar General. You know, Dollar General has more than four times as many stores in the U.S. as Walmart. Yeah. It is like a force. And it's the same thing.

It's extractive, low wages. It is like a force and it's the same thing. It's extractive and low wages. And the CEO of Dollar General has actually bragged that he can like shutter a store and move out of a town in 24 hours. I mean, it is just incredible. So yeah, worth a dig into. Yeah, it's wild. like also says a lot about like, you know,

how a lot of these industries look at consumers and like where they're at and being like, yeah, man, we can just kind of keep, keep the accelerator down on that mode on that movement. fortunately the economy is thriving. So no one's going to have to shop at a dollar general. That place is on its way out.

Jody, what a pleasure having you as always. Yeah. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff. Allow me to honor the four greatest words in the English language. Yes.

Follow me on threads. Threads. I'm making it happen. I like it. I'm making it happen. How long have you been over there? No, I've been over there for a while, and then I kind of like dilly-dallied, and I've just, I don't know, whatever. I mean, I'm trying.

I have very complicated feelings obviously about twitter whatever but i'm trying to post more on threads and it does make me feel slightly better yeah so you know follow me there but uh yeah listen to the puzzler i like that i really like making the show it's like a daily short puzzle show it's from iheart so um but you know it's a it's like five eight minutes a day it's very fun i you guys are going to be on the show sometime soon. So, yeah. No, I was like listening to a couple episodes. And it's funny how sometimes I think this happens to anyone listening to a podcast where like any kind of trivia or something is being asked.

And you know the answer before the person on the show. Oh, come on! Do you like that? So this is something we've talked about a lot making the show. You know, do you like those moments? Are they frustrating to you? This question of whether we want it so that the audience knows before the guest or vice versa. Yeah.

I mean, there's some that are like actually like obviously really good questions that I didn't like couldn't answer at all. But the ones that I knew, I'm less like, I don't know, that's not necessarily aggravating. I think it's more for like my ego to be like, I know this. Come on. I think that's what we found, you know, and I used to write the like year end news quiz on the Brian Lehrer show, which is the like the big, you know, call in show here in New York at WNYC. And like the thing I learned there was like, you can't make it too easy because people like to get stuff right. Right. you can't make it too easy because yeah people people like to get stuff right right and people listening like to know stuff and like it's actually and it's also like pretty crappy radio to like hear someone struggle and so you know not that the puzzler isn't like stimulating and

engaging but we've tried to find that sweet spot no and generally our default is kind of like if the audience at home gets it before the guests that's a really good dynamic yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah well clearly you've gone with that dynamic because you've asked us to come on and no yeah i mean now we've basically who are the biggest idiots we can convince to come on the show how do you feel about the phrase doll boy you're gonna be hearing a lot of it golly really jeez got it all over my shirt what sorry i'm real sorry i'm eating a burrito i'm really confused by this taco bell i get it extra crispy yeah all right amazing is there a work of media that you've

been enjoying jody i really like that show, The Rest is History. Have you listened to that show? It's these two British historians, and they just do big, deep dives. But I mean, I just find myself listening to that more than any other show. And they're very funny, and they know their stuff, and they do these big multi-part series. And they're doing one right now about the JFK assassination, which is super deep. Which show? The Rest is History. JFK is history. The Rest is History. Yeah, which is super deep. And this is heavy, but the rest is history.

The rest is history. The rest is history. Now you have my attention. And this is heavy, but the thing that hooked me on them, and I think it's like really stunning, is they did a multi-part series about the rise of Hitler, the rise of the Nazis. And it's one of those stories that I've engaged with so many different over and over and so many, so many different ways. And I didn't feel like I kind of really understood the dynamics until I listened to this. So I would highly recommend that.

So the rest is history, but just dive in. They do all these, you know, they do all sorts of stuff. I'm so intrigued by that. We might have to cut that recommendation because nobody's going to listen to our podcast now. Amazing. Miles, where can people find you as their work media you've been enjoying? Yeah, find me on, you know, the app-based places, including threads at Miles of Gray.

Find Jack and I on our basketball podcast. Miles and Jack, I'm at Boosties. And also, what else, what else? Find me on 420 Day Fiance, where I talk about 90 Day Fiance with Sophia Alexandra. Let's see a tweet. I like this is something I said I forgot was a thing. But at Morning Gloria, Aaron Ryan shared this this Daily Beast article, which maybe she wrote.

But anyway, it said time for my end. It is actually time for my annual sharing of the most important Home Alone theory and possibly the apex of my writing career. In Home Alone, what if Kevin McAllister is dead the whole time? Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah. Why?

Is he just a ghost wandering around that house? Yeah. Do his parents know he's dead or are they going to come back and find him dead? But he hated his family too. So he's dead Or are they going to come back and find him dead But he hated his family too So he's already dead Oh the whole time Like even in the beginning Jack you got to read this is how I chum the waters

So you can check out Aaron Ryan's Wait does she go on or does she just Pause it No it's the whole thing The piece is called Home Alone is so much better if Kevin McAllister is dead. Oh, it's a piece. I see. I thought it was just a provocation on Twitter.

Let me just throw that out there. And I've heard like people say this before in years past. Like, I felt like some peak college stoners. Like, dude, you know, like he's dead, right? Yeah. But yeah, this is the question is, could you basically do that for every movie? Yeah. Right.

Could you just take that theory and plop it onto any movie and yeah probably have it basically yeah i have this theory what if bruce willis is dead in the sixth sense there you go think about that shit blow your mind this is a good podcast idea just like just a movie review podcast where we just talk about it, but the main character's dead. Right. Exactly. The godfather. You're like, dude.

Doesn't even make sense. Shut up. It does. He's fucking dead the whole time. It's actually spooky now. On the day of his daughter's wedding? Why would they go to him? Because he's fucked.

How do you have that kid, man? You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. Some tweets I've been enjoying. Speaking of Home Alone, Young Chomsky has the picture of Kevin talking to his neighbor, the snow shovel killer, and his neighbor saying, My son won't speak to me. He's too woke. And then Skylar Higley

tweeted, you know, if they just introduced seatbelts now, conservatives would be so mad. They would not be wearing those shits. Oh, well, there's actual footage of that floating around of when they mandated seatbelts. You have people saying the exact same language that they were saying

around COVID, you know, like government can tell me what to do. I can trust, you know, I trust myself. You know, it's in,

it's like war. It's incredible. Same with like drinking and driving. Like if I want to have a beer after work and you're like, wow, I'm driving home from work and to work. You can find us on twitter at daily zeitgeist we're at the daily zeitgeist on instagram

we have a facebook fan page and a website dailyzeitgeist.com where we post our episodes and our footnotes where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode as well as a song that we think you might enjoy miles what song do we think people might enjoy uh this is a track from

a german english new jazz vocalist i believe uh let me make sure i have the name right yeah this is freya roy roy f-r-e-y-a and it's called calling my name just a dope kind of new jazz i'm like interestingly enough all the music apps that i use are like, you can listen to a lot of English New Jazz, European New Jazz. Here are some new artists for you to check out. And this one, actually, I liked a lot. So this is Freya Roy with Calling My Name. All right. Well, we will link off

to that in the footnotes. The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. Find podcasts or give it away for free. That's going to do it for us this morning. Back this afternoon

to tell you what is trending and we will talk to you all then. Bye. Bye. Bye. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay.

And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Check out our recent episode with Latin Grammy winner, author, and TV personality, Chiquis, about raising her younger siblings after the death of her mother, singer Jenny Rivera. I would do it over and over again. All of that has molded me to become the woman that I am today. Like, I wouldn't change anything. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who, on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do

is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous

about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.