The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 407 (Best of 11/10/25-11/14/25)

Episode Date: November 16, 2025

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 414 (11/10/25-11/14/25)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to Paper Ghosts, The Texas Teen Murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline is. The most Texas story ever. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What do you get when you mix 1950s Hollywood, a Cuban musician with a dream, and one of the most iconics it comes of all time? You get Desi Arness. On the podcast star in Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama, I'll take you in a journey to Desi's life, how he redefined American television and what that man for all of us watching from the sidelines waiting for a face like hours on screen. Listen to starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of the weekly zeitgeist.

These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one nonstop infotainment laugh stravaganza uh yeah so without further ado here is the weekly zeitgeist what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are okay um there's some pretty fucking weird ones i saw i looked i looked yesterday and i was like

huh oh you know what i'm i do i did uh alpha zombie naked um did you watch 28 years later i didn't But I've been hearing of the hug on the alpha zombie. Yeah. And what makes me laugh is that the gay internet has completely lost, like, the meaning of the film. The film is actually surprisingly kind of beautiful and complicated. And all the gay websites are like, did you see the fucking slanger? Did you see that fucking hunk's meat missile?

Like, all the gays have just lost their mind over the zombie, and they've kind of lost the plot on what it was, what it's been really about. that and just real quick does that come into like does it just it happens to be there and massive and nothing else

is really mentioned or is our people does anyone ever react in the moment in the movie to the fact that this naked zombie has a massive hug

just there it's just there but I mean obviously that you see it a lot you see it slapping his thighs for a lot of the film. But it's just, I don't know,

maybe it's there to say something, it's there to say something about toxic masculinity, that even when you die, you're still behold into toxic masculinity. Right. Because the other zombies follow him. They're like, I don't know, he has a big fucking cock. Let's do what he says.

It's crazy. So he is an alpha. So like that, it is, it is important. It's an important piece of mason scene. Yes. And it's also not during the zombie renaissance, in which case, smaller dick would have been considered

more beautiful. Oh, yes. A sign of true civility. Yes. But no, he's a barbarian. He's a barbarian. Could you imagine if the Renaissance paintings had just massive hogs? Like the David had a massive,

like had an alpha zombie dick. If you think I haven't been imagining that my whole life. That would have been a boost. I'm sure. I'm talking about, yeah, yeah. That would have been a boost. I talked before about how Jesus, like, you know, there's a lot of paintings and sculptures

maybe the most painted sculpted guy most painted and sculpted penis and like what if somebody was just like not my lord my lord's got a big old thing that would be weird I feel like they did that with his abs

you know what I mean exactly yeah but have you seen that's just the opposite a lot of satanic figures and sculptures were depicted with giant giant members because that just by the same rule they were like well big penises are equated with evil and bads which was a genius marketing campaign that some guy with a small dick started just to be like you can't date him he's satanic look at that 12 picture everything you need

to know about Christianity right there like big dicks should be feared they're evil and can't be trusted people were like well we might as well go to hell honestly sign me. Hell seems more fun. Hell seems like a lot more fun. Right. And then the other only part of my search history was Sylvia Brown, because I'm obsessed. Have you all been getting the Sylvia Brown videos in your algorithm? Do you know who the hell that is? She's this old psychic lady who used to be on the Montel show. Oh my God. And like maybe Mari too, but she would just like show up and do bad psychic predictions. And people are kind of replaying them now in TikToks. There's a picture of her that looks like she was like the, this is so mean, that looks like she was the inspiration for the makeup for weapons for the old. Oh my God. She's on Gladys.

She is on Gladys. Her Wikipedia, yeah, her Wikipedia photo. Yeah, I'm getting like also the Brazil faces. You know how the Brazil, like in the movie Brazil, the faces are like kind of stretched out and like weirdly proportioned.

Yes. She's having a renaissance. She has passed, unfortunately, years ago. but her very... So she's speaking to us from the beyond the grave. Yes, her very, let's just call it what it is.

Her very bullshitty psychic readings are having a moment where they're now being seen through the lens of today's world and being like, wait a second. She's just bullshitting these people who are actually looking for some sort of comfort for something that they don't have an answer to. Oh, it's not like, wait, she was right about that.

It's just more like cold shakes exposed. Wait, I think I have been seeing this pop up. I think I have, yes. It's a big piece of internet. She's like, she's just like kind of transparently. She just makes, like, great, grand gestures, like, in very specific ways. And you're like, this is manipulation, very obviously. Because she'll just say, like, well, that's not right.

Like, that's not how, this is what we meant, you know. Someone's like, I want to, I don't know who my father is and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she just shuts your mind like, you don't want to know. Yeah. It's like, it's not him. You don't want to know. You don't want to know. And she's like, okay, thank you.

Oh, I guess I don't want to know. Like, looking back, we talk a lot about how dumb our culture is and, you know, the 6-7 stuff and kids, what's wrong with the kids? You look back at the culture of the 90s, and that shit is so dumb. I'm researching Urkel for an episode of this show that we have coming up. Okay. And it, like, I've been watching episodes of Family Matters where, like, Like, Steve Urkel has, like, a haunted doll that, like, comes back. And it's just, it's kind of mind-blowing.

Like, it's like, wow, we've, we have progressed. Like, we, it's in weird ways. Like, I, I've talked before about, like, there's this thing called the Flynn effect where they have to, like, zero out the IQ tests every decade because people just keep getting smarter. And so, like, a IQ test from the 1930s, if you took it today, and like, let's say your IQ by today's standards was 100, you would get like a 130 on that

because they've had to like make it harder and harder because people, and I think it like has to do with media and just the fact that we're like consuming more and more complex media faster and faster. Yeah, like more people are allowed to read. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's all those things. Things get like launched on a stage.

I feel like in a way that they didn't before. There were just like pockets of world you didn't see back then, But now everyone can see like... Every dumb thing is out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And goes viral. Shout on Sylvia Brown. Shout out to her.

Let's all realize how far we've come. What's something you think's underrated? Underrated, I have written down, Paul Garaventa. So everyone talks about the Christy, you know, Yamaguchi's of the world, the Snarfulas, the lady of silvers. Paul Garaventon not talked about enough, so I believe he is underrated.

The Wong's. In that echelon. First of all, I'm not laughing at the sentiment. No, no, no. I fully agree. Paul Garventa is great. This is for more casual listeners, we're talking about the folks, the artists in era, aka, not subreddit, Discord, where the songs, the wonderful songs that we sing at the top of the show are written.

And, you know, there are some heavy hitters in there. Yeah. What led you to, what led you to evoke Paul Garaventis good? name. Well, I also am realizing that everybody has a pseudonym that we just named, except Paul, who's used his full name. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. There's a lot of people, yeah, who've got full names on there. No, I have like, maybe not. No, no. Christy Amaguchi Maine is not his full name. David Lesser. That's his wife's maiden name. Is that like a, yeah, yeah, yeah. I took my wife's name. Yeah, yes, yes, please. Anyway, shout out Paul Garaventa. Also, loyal, loyal boosties.

listener. Paul and I have created like a like a parasocial relationship where he would play. I used to have a podcast called Blake's Takes for God's Sakes that ended not soon enough, but I would have a intro song where of my name being chanted over and over again and he would play it for his kid and his kid as a baby would bounce along to the song. Wow. And which was a very sweet thing to send. So we'll be posting a video of Paul's children. me. No, I'm totally kidding. But, no, he's a great dude and shout out, shout out to Paul. Just this is a funny. It's been a while. I wanted to see how you guys would react. I do think this is the first underrated that's just been a private citizen and their full first and last name. I stand by it.

Hey, PG, you're DZ famous now. Yeah. It's true. Let's all give a shout out to a private citizen who we like. Miles, you got to. I like it. I'm going to go my good friend, John Edwards, not the politician. Just a TV writer who's a good friend of mine.

I'll say, have a lot of fun conversations with them. Shout out to John Edwards. That's a great shout out. For me, I would say Judy Closson. Judy Closson. Yep. Big, big Judy Closson. No, not much else to say, but Big J.C.

Shout out to you. She was actually my first music teacher in elementary school. Oh, no, wow. Yeah, Ms. Closson. It's great. I credit me sticking through music because of Judy Closson. Shout out Judy Closson. Speaking of music real quick, we got notification yesterday

from my second grader school that they are doing a tryout-based variety show. It's like a talent show, but like not a winner, but just like, if you've got talent, you can try out for it.

And he came home and was like, Dad, I'm going to do the drums, which would have been great if he played the drums. And he was like, I need to get lessons stacked. Like, we need to start. Like yesterday.

Trials are on Friday. He's like, get me in front of a full drum kit and was absolutely unwavering in his decision. I was like, you've got so many, you're so great. Like, you could do so many things. Like they even said, like, do, you know, a skit or something like that. This is like what he does. He's like very funny. He's like, he's like, no, like being funny and like, you know, doing magic and stuff.

Those are my private skills. But drumming is really like what I'm born to do. That's dope. I'm navigating that. We're trying to find a drum set where we can get him a lesson and then he's going to learn the hard one. You need to get him. I need lessons yesterday, Dad. Yeah, like literally.

Does he think this is like the Matrix where you can be like, yeah, hold up. And he's like, I need drum lessons right now. He's about to find that out, I think. Unless he's like some phenome and he just like gets out there. But I mean, what do you say? be uh i i think it's you know he's gonna he's gonna learn a lesson about yeah does he want to keep playing drums like you think this is the beginning of it yeah he wants to start yeah he wants to start playing he hasn't even started yeah yeah yeah we're gonna find out at his first drum lesson miles yeah yeah okay

okay oh no this isn't for me at all i hate this he played drums for three days uh during the summer at school of rock and oh okay so he had a taste never again showed no interest after that until this uh late late breaking announcement and then how he's like i'm going to i'm going to he like i just i would love to just like get a video of like what's going what his image of how it's going to go in his mind it's going to be because it's got to be so awesome it's probably the beginnings of his his weird uh malformed male confidence or he's like yeah dude i'm going to fucking kill it up there no practice cut to what the fuck is that oh shit i guess he's a home is the talent evaluators have never heard the drums before in their entire life.

They're also equally unfamiliar with drums. When I was a kid, at his age, in fact, I wanted to be, like, play the electric guitar, took, like, lessons, was bad at it. Went to a mall where they would make a video of you, like, lip-sinking along to me and my good friend Scott Seltzer, another full-name show. Shout out for a private citizen. All right. Underrated. Did a video to a sweet child of mine and looked back at the tape and did not like what I saw. No.

You're like, this is such a fucking L. Yeah, such an L. But like he doesn't even listen to rock music. Like back then I was like being steeped on a lifetime of like MTV. Like he hasn't watched a person drum, let alone. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. It's going to be interesting. He's going to lay out a drum set. He's like, what the fuck are these? What am I looking at right now? I said a drum kit. What's something you think is overrated? Yeah.

So I guess my shortest answer could be sports, but I understand there are many beautiful stories and families and friendships and connections people have to it. just personally, that's not where my understanding and connection to, you know, to society and humanity live, absolutely. But I'll also say sort of as a combo, overrated, underrated, I would say overrated is comedy that other people like. Underrated is comedy that you yourself like. Like, truly, that is what I say with respect, like, whoever it is, whoever they, like. And here's It's not to say that there's some really popular comedians who are great and I love, and yet they're even at a certain point, like, probably, you don't stop when you're rated exactly the right amount. Like, you know, if Kevin Hart's your guy, like, maybe you love seeing him in every commercial, you know, but maybe you don't. And if Kevin Hart's not your guy, if you're like, oh, you know, if Joe Firestone's your favorite comedian or Nick Vatterot or Baron Vaughn or James,

A-caster, you know, there's so many comedians who certainly my mom has not heard of yet, and your mom may not have heard of yet. And so there's, I would say, that's another, I guess, underrated. I guess what I'm saying is overrated is talking about what's overrated. I'd rather talk about what's underrated, you know? Oh, yeah. So talking about the underdogs. I do think that's a good point.

Like, I was just talking to somebody who was like, I really like, you know, I think you should leave and the chair company and they were like yeah i've been like trying to get into i think you should leave and like i just it never worked like i watched every episode and i was like why did you do that like it's clearly like i was that show the very first skit i was like had tears pouring down my face laughing and uh the people i was on a plane with like thought there was something wrong with me and like that's so just like find that for yourself like if it's not happening Don't try and, like, it's not that, like, somebody else is, like, you know, right and you just need to, like, work to get yourself that. It's just like, there's something wrong with me that's not wrong with you, or, you know what I mean? Or right with me, but, you know, like that is just, like, that shape. If I may, my, my girlfriend, Rini, who is that we have a lot in common, you know, we're not the exact same person, but we have similar taste in a lot of things, like a lot of comedians that I love, she loves, and vice versa.

We're not the exact same, but I watched, I think you should leave before she did, and I was going to share it with her. And, like, the first episode, we turned off because she was like, too chaotic. Like, I can't write. I don't understand. This is not a flavor that I need or want. But then I shared Detroiters with her. And Detroiters, she loved. And by the end of watching all of Detroiters, she was like, I think I have a greater understanding, a great.

a greater context for, like, what is going on with Tim Robinson's comedy and brain? And then we did, she's like, I think I can, I get it now. And we started watching, I think you should leave. And with that context, with that framing, she loved it and loves it. And we saw friendship and we love the chair company. So, yeah, he is now, I mean, he has basically invented a new flavor that, like, when, like, when a baby tries something, a new food for the first time, it's always like, eh, and then, oh, yeah. You know, like when something is unknown, when something is mysterious, it often can be frightening or weird or we don't get it. But then once you're like, it doesn't mean that you don't like it.

Like, it just means you might need the, like when Steven Sondheim wrote the musical, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum, when it first came out, it bombed. And nobody, apparently people didn't get that it was a comedy. So he went back and wrote a new opening number called Comedy Tonight, which basically did. I put funny in the goddamn title. All right. You want me to add a song up front? Maybe the original title was a thing happened on the way to the forum,

you know? It's like, who knows what kind of thing? The forum, ancient Rome or Greaser were ever boring. Couldn't be common. But truly, having the framing of it being comedy led people to get it. So having the right framing for, I think you should leave, led Rini

to discover it. So I'm not saying that whoever this person is, like, absolutely like I wouldn't recommend I think you should leave to everyone but as a gateway do do try to if you like Detroiters try Detroiters which I think is really warm and sweet and if you then enjoy the weirdness of Detroiters then dip your toe in I think maybe you shouldn't leave yeah maybe maybe that's a that's a better ramp in I was going to say the sort of opposite thing to Jack's friend which is that like I feel like so many people get the advice like oh you got to give it like a bunch of episodes or whatever.

And I actually think it's fine to just tap out immediately. There's just so much good comedy. There's so much good comedy. Yeah. Everything, I have a friend who never got into Breaking Bad. I'm like, I think Breaking Bad is, I mean, it's I watched it myself, I watched it with

friends, I watched it with Rini. You know, we watched Better Call Salt. Like, it's amazing art. Like, it's funny. It's dramatic. It's really weird and cool and great. Also, I have a friend who's like, I watched the first episode or two, eh, not for me. And I think I said or somebody else said, they're like, oh, you got to give it like, you know, six or seven episodes.

And he's like, I got to give it like three movies worth of time before I can decide that this isn't for me. And so I think that's completely valid. Like there obviously are things that take time to like get the tone or get, you know, get into the vibe. Like every work, every great work of art, many of them teach you how to experience them. Like if you've never read Dickens or you've never read, you know, Moby Dick is weird, you know. But if you get like truly, yeah, any, yeah, Moby Dickens, you know, anything like that. And I say this, not as somebody, I have not read all of Moby Dick. I have read some Dickens.

Rini, my wonderful partner, has read, like she started a project like seven years ago to read all of like the agreed upon great work of, classic literature start she started with moby dick she uh then went on to anna carina and a bunch of dickens and like then i i just had a memory of it being like in school like uh no thank you homework i don't think so but like if you don't have to read it like actually you know there's some funny dickens out there and it's like just but it's a different thing and so like every but yeah i guess the main message is try something if it's not for you That's cool. Let's take a quick break and get into some news.

In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming, upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E

and maximize game performance with enhanced overclock. When the tech search, power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. She said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas planes, teens are dying, suicides that don't make sense, strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened.

Listen to paper ghosts, the Texas teen murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast health stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dabolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. On health stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health,

but also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain. Explain to the rest of the world that, like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but, like, you don't even know.

You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Tick podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's, There's no chance of bad news on the labor market.

What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't?

CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We got to get to the new, because this is one of the ones. the bigger news stories that we've had in a little while. The New York Times just published some newly released emails. So the lockdown is over. One of the, you know, narratives about why the

lockdown was happening was that they were trying to keep Congress from meeting because then we were going to possibly get the Epstein files. And Donald Trump didn't want that for some reason. And we're not, we're not sure what that could be. How crazy. Yeah. It's so, it was so wild. The way he went from release the file, we're going to like, you know, release everything and like get people the information they want. And then like the next day was like, why are you guys still talking about this? You're being weird. Uh, who cares? That guy's dead. Okay. Like, he's dead. What are you guys even talking about was so just, like, cartoonishly guilty. It's how the Republicans operate on, like, every level of, like, not thinking long-term.

Yes. And then there were a hoax. And then that was, like, the, so it was like every tactic, which, of course, is the biggest tell of a liar when it's like, wait, you can't have three different excuses. You, like, have, you have to have one story. A, we're going to release them. Two, we're not going to release them and you shouldn't care about it. And three, it's a massive hoax.

Yeah. Which is it? Yeah. So in this case, it feels like it might not be a honks. So they released three emails from a trove of 23,000 documents, and they recently received these from the Epstein estate in response to a subpoena. And one email from Epstein in 2011 referred to Trump as that dog that hasn't barked because a redacted victim spent hours at my house with him,

and he's never once been mentioned by police chief, etc., etc. So for, I just want to, I want you to realize, so this is what the email says. I want you to realize that dog that hasn't barked is Trump. So it's like he was using code language before in the emails to be like, and don't, let's not even mention that dog that doesn't bark. So in this email, he's writing to Guillain, Jeffrey Epstein, saying, I want you to realize that dog that hasn't barked is Trump.

Victim redacted, spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned, police chief, etc. And then, I don't know, he says I'm 75% there because I think he was edging. That's like the Trump admin. That's like the Trump admin with everything. They have to be like blatantly obviously stupid, like putting, that's like the signal chat of the email Christ. Christ.

So, and by the way, this is in 2011. So just to like read the subtext and Steam was like, man, I can't believe they're not all over Trump. He was all, you know, it's just kind of a crazy one to come back from.

Like, he's like, I can't believe they're not all over him. He was like with me and like did all sorts of bad shit. This is like the ring leader saying this. Like, What would the theory of the case of a Trump defender be at this point? He sent this email in 2011. At this point, talking about, like, he's being like, huh, interesting.

They haven't mentioned Trump yet. He did all these crimes. And this is before he was a powerful political figure, so he, like, doesn't have anything to gain from it. He's not saying, like, man, crazy, he's not being mentioned. He's the future president of the United States. he's saying, man, this guy who hosts a reality show and did a lot of crimes with me isn't being mentioned, that will probably happen eventually. Also, I don't understand why, like, pedophile lawyers in their, like, 40s and 50s are sending emails like high school me who thinks that nothing will ever be traced back to me. You know what I mean?

It was 2011. It was a simpler time. Like, you're a grown fucking man, and you should know how technology is, but you're, like, painting the dots. for no reason, like connecting them for no reason. It's insane how they and people don't care. And that's what's really awful about the year 2025.

People have pretty much said, well, what are you going to do? And like some one famous really bad lady, Azalea Banks, who continues to be awful, publicly said like, in some people's defense, it didn't used to be creepy to be into 14 year old girls. Like, right.

Yeah. Which is a great take from her. Unfathomable. to say out loud. Okay, Azalea Dershowitz. Like, awful, awful. Then there's a 2015 email from Trump biographer, Michael Wolf Tapstein, wherein, I'm

assuming this had to be like translated from parcel tongue because he's just like so fucking like, he's just like, yes, yes, let him. I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house, then

And that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you. Or if it really looks like he could win, this is before he won the presidency, you could save him generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that when asked, he'll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime. So just straight up little finger. Yeah. Oh, my God. Just Varus being like, all right, but again, this entire email is starting from the premise that Donald Trump is guilty of the crimes that Epstein is associated with.

Yes. They're just like, that is a given. They're not like, so do we, how do we say this, you know? Anyone with a single brain cell knows this, but what's interesting is people are just so deeply in his call. It's like, people will just be like conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy, no matter what amount of. evidence is shown. Right. It's like so stomach churning for those children, like those victims.

Like, yeah, I can't imagine having the, like, the most annoying fucking president in the world. You were on an island, just even if nothing happened, but he was talking. Like, I can't imagine. Yeah. Shocking. Yes. I do think that this one, like, cuts in a different, like, I, as much as they've been able to dismiss everything up to this point. Like, I think there's a reason that, like, he is so

dismissive and, like, it does seem to strike at, like, a core part of, like, who he is. Whereas, like, in the past, the things that people have been pointing out, like, he's been getting caught on is, like, being a corrupt businessman. And the people who support him are like, yeah, that's, like, what, like we want him to just like get shit done no matter what this one though like he got elected by people who like concocted a weird death cult around him where he was there to stop child predators and like if even like a small portion of them like let in all of the like evidence that's starting to pile up about this i do think it affects him a little bit differently than some of the past stuff also like a lot of his base is like anti-semitic and so it was easy for them to be like mad at Epstein even if they would be hypocritical with anyone else who was a pedophile but now his association with someone that they're like Epstein bad because of a combination of things that's like I think that's the part like if he was a pedophile not on the island they don't I don't think they would care as much which he has been you know what I mean like I think it

It's the association of that and how that's been in the zeitgeist for so long, you know? It's, I feel like it's like that's in stone now. Yes. It's going to be wild to see if this has an effect. And especially it's scary to see, like, how vocally anti-pedo, like, they hold the whole faction of Magor, whatever you want to call it was. They were very anti-that, anti-that. And that has gone quiet. Yeah.

has just gone quiet. This is like when people are seeing more of the destruction of Gaza and then like some of the Zionists got quiet just like pretended like it wasn't happening. Right. It's so crazy. Yeah. And then finally we have a 2019 email.

So less than seven months before Epstein's death, like Donald Trump was like we kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. I had no idea what was going on. And Epstein specifically says, you know, victim Mar-a-Lago. Trump said he asked me to resign. I was never a member there. Of course, he knew about the girls as he asked Gielane to stop. So he knew what was happening.

That's coming from Epstein himself. They're just going to say he was like a whistleblower and he was trying to stop it. Like they're going to be like, if he did kill him, which he didn't, it was a good thing. You know, like what they do with every like contradiction in their minds. Yeah. So we talked a little bit on. yesterday's trending about how the Republicans are trying to spin this. But it just, the details seem pretty, pretty damning.

And yet you go to Fox News and the lead story is Red State University staff caught on hidden camera spilling plan to hide DEI. And the New York Post is focusing on Jack Schlossberg, the JFK's grandson, trying to imitate his uncle, JFK Jr's enthusiasm for. bicycling. So it's, you know, I mean, equally big stories. Equally big stories. What are the senators who are blocking the vote on the release of Epstein files? Like, what are they saying when after someone asked, why did you vote no? What are they saying? What are they saying? Why do you not want that released? Forty-five-two senators? What, tell, give me anything.

Why? That's why I love those videos where people like accost them in public and are like, answer my question and they're like then Mitch McConnell falls down or whatever you know like I think that should happen at every fucking fucking second of their lives because like they don't it's our system is so corrupt

our system is so deeply corrupt deeply corrupt we have breaking news Fox News has started reporting on this they announced that White House slams Dems bad faith Epstein doc releases demand for files intensifies so it's just in the context of

what the White House is saying, which is bad, bad faith. It's bad faith. Like, why are you doing things in bad faith? Why can't you believe people aren't pedophiles? Like we have always said. Yeah. Like I tell you, just let me tell you that I'm not a pedophile and then ignore these mountains of evidence. Let's take a quick break and then we have to get to this reveal of an AI humanoid robot.

We'll be right back. It's going to be me. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors.

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Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the Central Texas Plains, teens are dying, suicides that don't make sense, strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The forces shaping the world's economies and financial markets can be hard to spot. Even though they are such a powerful player in finance, you wouldn't really know that you are interacting with them. And even harder to understand. Donald Trump's trade war, 2.0, is only accelerating the process of de-dollarization. which in a way is jargon for people turning away from the dollar. That is where the big take from Bloomberg podcast comes in, to connect the dots. How unusual is a deal like this? Unprecedented.

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Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And there's a new program at Target. called the 10-4 program, good buddy, which follows similarly creepy rules enacted by Walmart and Disney. So store employees are now required to smile if they are within 10 feet of a shopper. They also must make eye contact with and wave to or greet the customer.

If they're within four feet, the employee should ask how the customer's day is going or if they need help. And this is, first of all, they should like pay their employees a little wage. That would be, that would be one thing, or pay them for all the time they're working. Target warehouse workers had to take legal action to actually get paid for the 30 minutes. It takes them to walk from the entrance to their workstation. Yeah, Target is bad at this.

But I do just find this, this interesting. Like, I've definitely been to Trader Joe's and had the experience of like being lost in thought and somebody, like the checkout person starting a mandatory small talk conversation with me and like being kind of thrown and feeling a little weird and alienated by it. But I just think it's an interesting like it's a thing that if people came down or like outside of history, if people from other eras were able to look in, I think it would be one of the things that everyone thought was weird about our culture is like because there's uh i remember there was a either radio lab or this american life episode from the early days of podcasting where they talked about the phenomenon of when they

first opened the macdonalds in russia after the wall fell and everyone was like the people who worked there were just like what the fuck do you mean smile at them like what what are you talking about and they had like the hardest time getting them to do it and ultimately like gave up on it there's also something called Smile Mask Syndrome, which was diagnosed in Japanese young women who, like, work in the service industry where they have to, like, smile so much that, like, this psychologist was like, they were still smiling while relating, like, really stressful or troubling experiences, which I think is like the movie, the horror movie smile, but, and, like, it's, again, they're like, this came because of Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in 1983, and

throughout the 80s, they found this thing of like the obligatory smile in the workplace, creating this sort of psychological or like existential weirdness that people have a hard time dealing with. Do you know, I co-sign everything you're saying, and I obviously like capitalism is, this is a feature of it, you know, not a bug, this is, it's a trap, and it's unfortunate and would be better if, you know, people all could be more self-directed in how they want to live their life and not need to be beholden to these massive corporations like my girlfriend used to work at a, you know, a big department store in the fine jewelry department. And, you know, like there were times when if you

didn't, like some people, if you didn't sell as much as others in one month, like if you didn't a couple months in a row, your job was potentially at risk. But there were times when if she sold enough in like the beginning of the month, then the rest of the month, she could, relax and she would actually sell, she would be a better employee then because she was relaxed and not, you know, constantly masking and constantly, you know, on her toes to be like, I got to do this. I got to because it's ultimately, I would say at best, it's, I mean, it's like acting, you know, like you get a job as an actor, like, well, in this scene, maybe smile because the character is happy, you know, and maybe a director could be, you know, as, you know, a different

to deal with if it's a difficult director, but ideally if you're making art, it's going to be, here's the, I don't know that I even believe what I'm about to say, but I want to present this as an option. I do think that there's like this,

the guise of familial, you know, happenstance in workplaces. Like, we're a family here, you know? Like, hey, which they, like, it's not a family, it's your job. You agree to do something

and they agree to give you money. And, like, Hopefully you get along with your coworkers. You get, hopefully your boss is a kind human being, hopefully. But they sometimes use that to say like, hey, maybe put in some extra time because we're all a family here. You don't just back out on your family. But so with it in opposition to that, I feel like there is something nice about saying the quiet part out loud or saying it, saying it explicitly to be like, look, we're paying you to be the face of this company, which involves like, like, Like, here's definitive directives, like, as opposed to just being like,

hey, when people around, try to be cool, try to make it seem like they're happy. You'd be like, look, we're hiring you to smile when you're at this particular trajectory, at this juncture. Hey, you're 11 feet. I love that. If you're 11 feet away from people, go nuts with your face, you know? Yeah. Just like, shut it down.

Like, go offline. That will make them not come within 10 feet of you. Or just sort of shuffle away as they get closer. Like you're running a zone defense in basketball. You're like trying to stay in between people. That's like there's, I think this is somebody's joke. It might be the comedian Tony V in Boston, who's an incredible comedian. I know he has some jokes about scientists who study dolphins.

And so this might be from his bit, or it might just be a fact that I learned somewhere along the way or somebody else's bit, but that some dolphin was trained to like get litter out of its enclosure, like if there was like pieces of paper or debris, it would pick them up and then it would get fish, you know, get food for each piece of paper that it delivered, each piece of trash. So dolphins, I don't know, they're smart. So dolphins would then start after they realized the system ripping trash in half. They would start ripping the pieces of paper and being like, two pieces of fish, please.

Like, I got you two garbages, so give me two foods. And so I feel like that also, I wonder how target employees are going to gamify it. They're like, where's the 10 foot mark? Like, nothing in the rulebook that says I have to move into the zone. This is a big corporate game of I'm not touching you. And they're just fucking running. I mean, obviously, like, this is just poor. Even if you want to just be shackled with the strictures of capitalism, this is just

poor management. Like, you shouldn't need to define this if everything else was being managed, correctly. But I do think this has like a really nice letter of the law, not spirit of the law opportunity for some enterprising target employees. Absolutely. It's you want to address the not this is addressing the symptoms like the external like hey your face isn't doing what we wanted to do. What do we do to make your face smile? Order you to smile. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So producer Catherine asks if they're trying to combat the Gen Z stare, which I think is. Oh, yeah. or something, but that is a big news story.

We were like, Gen Z, look at us, like, they don't know what we're talking about. Yeah. Ha. This is, this is, this is, all I'm reading here is this is a nationwide fakesst smile contest for all a target employee. Yeah. He said just most unnerving smile. Can I help you?

They should just hire everyone to wear a mask that is the target bullseye over their face, you know? Oh my God. That's kind of like a smile at the bottom. I would love that, honestly. I do personally just feel, like, set on edge. Like, anytime someone is starting an interaction with me, like, I feel like you can tell the difference when it's, like, enforced and when it's not. And usually any sort of forced social exchange is, like, you know, someone trying to con

con you or sell you something or something like that. So I just, like, have an immediate, like, detection of, like, yeah, yeah. Fuck you. Get away from it. But also target management, you know, maybe. Maybe you could also just not loudly trumpet how you don't support DEI or, you know, like, not lock up all your, all your remotely valuable things. Maybe that's why people don't like shopping and targeting for, not the lack of fake smiles from children of the corn. What do people like? Friends. We're going to be their friends.

That's, yeah. All right. That's going to do it for this week's weekly. zeitgeist please like and review the show if you like the show uh means the world demiles he he needs your validation folks uh i hope you're having a great weekend and i will talk to you monday bye I'm going to be able to be. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com.

Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at least. Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. She said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night.

Along the central Texas plains, teens are dying, suicides that don't make sense, strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What do you get when you mix 1950s Hollywood, a Cuban musician with a dream, and one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time? You get Desi Arnest.

On the podcast star in Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama, I'll take you on a journey to Desi's life, how he redefined American television, and what that makes, for all of us watching from the sidelines, waiting for a face like hours on screen. Listen to starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies. in the history of business. First episode,

how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.