The Dana Show with Dana Loesch - Absurd Truth: Ben Shapiro Joins Dana

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Ben Shapiro joins us to discuss the Right’s recent grievance culture problem with Conservatives being anti-Israel, the future of the GOP in 2028, & “Lions & Scavengers”. Meanwhile, Dana ...recaps her trip on a Norwegian cruise with the Media Research Center including trolls, veganism, and scary waters.Thank you for supporting our sponsors that make The Dana Show possible…PreBornhttps://PreBorn.com/DANA Or DIAL #250 Say the keyword BABY. That’s #250, BABY. Together, we can save lives — one mom and one baby at a time.Fast Growing Treeshttps://Fast-Growing-Trees.comGet up to 50% off select plants and an extra 15% off your first purchase with code DANA at Fast Growing Trees. Offer valid for a limited time, terms apply.Relief Factorhttps://ReliefFactor.com OR CALL 1-800-4-RELIEFTurn the clock back on pain with Relief Factor. Get their 3-week Relief Factor Quick Start for only $19.95 today! Byrnahttps://Byrna.com/danaGet your hands on the new compact Byrna CL. Visit Byrna.com/Dana receive 10% off. Patriot Mobilehttps://PatriotMobile.com/DanaDana’s personal cell phone provider is Patriot Mobile. Get a FREE MONTH of service with code DANA.HumanNhttps://HumanN.comSupport your cholesterol health with SuperBerine and the #1 bestselling SuperBeets Heart Chews—both on sale for $5 off at Sam’s Club. Boost your metabolic health and save!Keltechttps://KelTecWeapons.comSee the third generation of the iconic SUB2000 and the NEW PS57 - Keltec Innovation & Performance at its best.All Family Pharmacyhttps://AllFamilyPharmacy.com/Dana Start today and take your health back with All Family Pharmacy. Use code DANA10 for savings and enjoy your health, your choice, no more waiting, no more “no’s.”

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Dana Lashes Absurd Truth podcast, sponsored by Keltec. It's his life mission to make bad decisions. It's time for Florida man. I don't know why with the cow in there every time it gets me.
Starting point is 00:00:20 Okay, where do we start? Let's start with this Florida man. Okay, so this is a big O headline. A bartender stabs a customer who is also a Florida man. They got into an argument over, they got into an argument over a bar tab,
Starting point is 00:00:35 and then one of them made crude remarks about the other's dead, sorry, dead mother. There's a lot. There's a lot to, oh, who would have thought, the guy with face tattoos? Let's see. So he, oh, he stabbed him 10 times.
Starting point is 00:00:52 It's called Grumpy's Underground. You know, any place that looks like that with a handmade sign. just screams total legit, right? Jason Rosario, 30, faces a charge of attempted second-degree murder at Grumpy's underground bar in Orlando because he stabbed a dude 10 times.
Starting point is 00:01:15 So apparently, gosh, let's go with this dramatic story. All right, so the cops responded. They were flagged down by a woman that had blood all over. She said she was in an alley behind the bar. Two men were fighting. A man brushed past her. So there's a stabbing. They walked back to the bar.
Starting point is 00:01:29 Patron alerted her, the blood on their hands, blah, blah, blah. Cops interviewed them. They said the victim happened because someone said that they could go, I can't say that at all on air. I can't say this one either.
Starting point is 00:01:38 They made some comments that I can't repeat on air, something about somebody's dead mom. And then the guy came back, said, let's take the situation outside. They did, stabbed him ten times. Now he's in jail. There you go.
Starting point is 00:01:48 It's a long story. Until it's time to not be nice. You be nice until it's time to not be nice. Well, what if they call my mama a hoar? Well, is she? I mean, it's just words that are put together to elicit a response. Only the weak respond. A Florida man fishing uncovers a mystery wreckage in the mudflats.
Starting point is 00:02:07 And now the archaeologists are investigating. What'd you find, my dude? They said it could be a wrecked vessel. How much you want to bet? It's going to be like some kind of pirate ship and there's going to be like gold bullions or something, right? Of course you know. Stick with us. My longtime friend, Ben Shapiro.
Starting point is 00:02:26 We used to be colleagues at Breitbart under our. Our late friend, Andrew Breitbart, he, of course, is the founder of the Daily Wire. I think actually his most, perhaps his best accolade is number one rapper, you know, because he was a rap artist at some point. And I just, you know, I feel like that we need to make a, I thought I was going to see him at the VMAs, you know, when watching that. Ben Shapiro, who's new book. I don't think he's expecting that one. Lions and Scavengers, the true story of America is out now. He joins us now via video.
Starting point is 00:02:57 So good to see you, my friend. As always, congrats on the book. I got to get your reaction to the soundbite because I thought, well, who thinks that Hamas might just be a political organization? That's assonine. I mean, it is an ideologial, a zealous ideology. It's a terrorist entity, Ben. I mean, literally the same day that audio was released, Kamas performed a terrorist attack in Jerusalem that killed six people and also released a video about how to shoot up a boss. So yes, they are a terrorist group, as it turns out, designated as such, not just by Israel,
Starting point is 00:03:30 but by the United States, the UK, the rest of the EU, and the Muslim Brotherhood, of which they are an offshoot is designated a terrorist group by pretty much everybody in the Middle East. So, yes, I mean, just technically speaking. The real question, I think, is what the hell is going on with Tucker? I wish I had an answer. I do not. This is the same interview in which he said that you might want to send condolences to the family of Osama bin Laden.
Starting point is 00:03:49 It would just be the nice thing to do. He's releasing a documentary in a couple of days where I suppose he's on Pierce Morgan, explaining that he thinks that the Israelis had prior knowledge of 9-11 and then celebrated it happening. So, you know, something is going on that is that is certainly strange with Tucker's foreign policy views. I think some of his domestic policy views are kooky. This is, as the president put it, his domestic, his foreign policy views are beyond kooky at this point. Yeah, I kind of feel like maybe, I don't know, it's just weird to watch his reasoning lately because you and I, but we've known him for a long time. And I'm just, I'm just shocked at some of the
Starting point is 00:04:23 things that I'm seeing coming from some of the people on the right, which kind of gets into, why in the world is this finding any kind of audience with anybody on the right? Where did this come from? I mean, the idea that there are some people that are arguing, you know, apparently in favor of Hamas for Gaza, I'm just shocked or that are upset that, you know, the Qataris were struck. I mean, for crying out loud, I mean, aiding and abetting Hamas and Hezbollah, working with Iran. I wanted to get your thoughts on this. Where does this come from? Why is it now that this is finding, and you know what I'm talking about. There's an audience, you know, a small group of people, I think, on the right,
Starting point is 00:04:58 for whom they are really agreeing with this type of rhetoric. So I do think that it's mostly online. I don't think that you see it a lot sort of in your everyday life, but it does bleed over from the online world into the regular world, particular among, you know, young people who spend a lot of time online. I think there's a grievance culture that has arisen on certain parts of the right, kind of the horseshoe theory, right? And the suggestion is they sort of take a grain of truth,
Starting point is 00:05:20 and then they warp it into something completely false. The grain of truth is that white Christian males have been put upon by some of the institutions of the society. And there's truth to that. That was true under Barack Obama. It was certainly true under Joe Biden. And that has now been blown up into the idea that all of the systems are arrayed against the interests of white Christian males.
Starting point is 00:05:38 And then once you say that, you kind of enter a grievance-minded politics where all the institutions have to be torn down, who are the big beneficiaries of the system, the people who are the wealthiest, the people who are the most educated, the people who are the most successful. And then you start saying, well, you know, there are a lot of Jews who are very successful and very well educated
Starting point is 00:05:54 and internationally. Israel's doing really well. And it must be that there's something nefarious going on. I think that a lot of this theory seems to be connected. I mean, Tucker has had on guests in the past several months who have suggested that the United States took the wrong side in World War II, that actually we should have sided with Hitler in order to fight Stalin. For example, while the Holocaust was going on,
Starting point is 00:06:14 he is, he is, you know, speculated about whether the moon landing was real. He has speculated about 9-11. I think a lot of it has to do, again, with this broader theory, that America, something deeply wrong has happened in America since World War II and really since the end of World War II and every aspect of America that we think of as great, things like free markets or things like, you know, strong presence in the world, that all of that actually is a problem and wrong, and we need to rethink that entire thing. And that means that you and I, everybody else is suffering from a sort of weird false consciousness
Starting point is 00:06:44 where we've been deceived into believing that we won World War II or we were deceived into believing, we defeated the Soviet Union. You know, I was thinking when you were talking about this, that in some ways it's kind of like a reverse critical race theory in some respects, where you're going after these pillars of our republic to tear them down for the purpose of what, reshaping it, how. I mean, that's kind of what I, maybe it's the Qatari influencer network. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:07:10 I don't know. I always hesitate to say that people are doing it for the money because, you know, maybe they're just doing it for ideological reasons. But the bottom line is that if you spend all day trafficking in conspiracy theories, and there are actual conspiracies in the world, and you can tell them because they have evidence, like things that actually happen, like Russiagate, for example, like the FBI going after the president of the United States, like the manipulation of data during COVID, all that stuff we have evidence for and we know that it happened because there's evidence of it.
Starting point is 00:07:35 But when you get into conspiracy theorizing about how these kind of shadowy networks, you can never quite name are responsible for unspecified evils. and the only way to do something about it is to listen to me as I guide you through the wayward paths and thickets of conspiracism. Well, number one, it's entervating. I think it's kind of an enervation op. It's a demoralization op. And what that really amounts to in the end is, listen to me because I will debunk all of the world for you. Your life's not going to get better in any way.
Starting point is 00:08:03 We won't fix anything. We'll degrade all of the gains that we've made as terrible. But you will feel as though you have a sort of secret knowledge. And I do think there are a lot of people trafficking in that sort of crap these days. Yeah, and well, the engagement pays. We know that. I mean, there are people who've developed entire personas based on, you know, what you're talking about, like these conspiracy theories and all of this other stuff. This kind of gets into this article I was looking at the divide over Israel goes down to like an age gap. And I mean, you could like say maybe like somewhere the demarcation line might be millennials. I feel like Gen X is so much smarter than all of this. But there is, there is this line at some point. How do we fix this on? the right and get back to a point where everybody used to be on the same page that terrorists are terrorists and terrorists are bad the United States we don't work with them we don't reward them we don't coddle them we we don't make it easy for
Starting point is 00:08:56 them how do we get back to that and fix this I mean I think the first argument we need to make to people who are young and there really is an age demarcation it really starts you know below the age of 30 people who are very very online yeah I think that the best argument you can make is is any of this making your life better or is your life markedly worse because you're listening to all of this trash. You have not improved your life in any way by listening to this stuff. You are dumber. You know fewer things. You're not acting in responsible ways in the world. You're not going out and like pursuing getting married or going to church or making your community better or getting a job or
Starting point is 00:09:26 advancing in the world. You're sitting around and complaining that the world is arrayed against you. And maybe if I just listen to this one extra podcast, I'll find out the secret the world is a raid against me. And that's really a terrible feeling, I think, for a lot of young people. And so the question that I would ask everybody when people are selling this kind of soap to is how does it make your life better? What decisions are you making that are smarter or better now that you're listening to this trash where do you feel as though your life got better
Starting point is 00:09:51 because you now question whether the moon landing was real or whether Al-Qaeda actually did 9-11? Or is it just that you're entertained by it or you feel it's transgressive in some way? If you want a stronger country, you should understand one thing fundamentally. America is awesome. This place is great.
Starting point is 00:10:06 And that doesn't mean there aren't flaws with it that we can fix. We can fix some of those flaws. But the systems of America, like, you know, free markets and free minds. and rule of law and traditional virtue. These are very, very good things. And if instead we're going to get a bunch of conspiracized crap
Starting point is 00:10:21 that has no relation to reality, then the result is going to be probably something that looks more like Bernie Sanders and Zora and Mamdani than you're willing to admit. And that brings us to the next presidential election for those joining us. We're talking to Ben Shapiro, his latest book, Lions and Scavengers,
Starting point is 00:10:36 which I like kind of, I like the word and I like the concept because it's kind of like have and have knots, but it dives, you know, obviously way deeper into that. We'll talk about that in a moment. Who do you see as the leader of the Republican Party after Trump is out? Because I, you know, I was talking to some folks at an event over the past week, and I was telling them, I think the biggest threat to the future of the Republican Party is if the party has an inability
Starting point is 00:10:58 to move past personality and refocus on issues and why we all do what we do in the first place, can we get, is that something we're going to be able to get past? Because I don't know who can take that place of Trump. I mean, he's kind of like a once-in-a-lifetime candidate. love him or hate him. No one is like him. What does it look like? If you look in your crystal ball, what do you see in the next election? I mean, I think you asked why this was happening right now. I think the reason is because there's already a battle going on for what comes next after Trump. And there's a conspiratorial wing of the Republican Party that says they actually want to
Starting point is 00:11:28 seize away from Trump his own movement. And so that Trump betrayed himself by by attacking Iran, for example, or that Trump has betrayed himself by siding with Israel against Klamas. Yeah, that part of the movement wants to grab control. This is people like Marjorie Taylor-Green, Tucker, some of these folks. And then you have folks who are sort of more libertarian-minded, like Elon, right, who are trying to grab control of the movement and move it in that direction. Because Trump is such a huge personality and because he's so famous and he's so kind of gigantic, he's able to contain multitudes within him and then sort of build a coalition
Starting point is 00:11:59 underneath him. I don't see anybody on the horizon who's like that. And so I think that we're going to have to go through a bit of a fight here to determine what ideas lead the coalition. I think that everybody's sort of tapping JD Vance on the shoulder. as the era parent. And maybe that's true. I mean, just statistically speaking,
Starting point is 00:12:14 the vice president is very frequently the next nominee of the party. But the idea that JD can somehow just pick up the Trump coalition and then carry it across the finish line. That is almost never true in politics. It was not true for Hillary Clinton about Barack Obama.
Starting point is 00:12:26 It was really not true about George H.W. Bush about Ronald Reagan. It's just every politician has to have their own coalition. And there are some uneasy scenes inside, for example, the J.D. Vance coalition between sort of the Thiel libertarians
Starting point is 00:12:38 and the Tucker isolationists and kind of big government's Appalachia types. So it's going to be hard, I think, for the Republican Party to replace somebody like Trump, in the same way it's been impossible for the Democrats to replace somebody like Barack Obama, which means, as you say, we're going to need to go back to some first principles and decide what are our actual ideas. It can't just be we don't like the Democrats. It's got to be like, what are we actually about here?
Starting point is 00:13:02 Which brings us to your book, Lions and Scavengers. I think, I mean, it's almost self-explanatory. You know, I mean, you do have those two types of thoughts. that kind of built this Republican. You're seeing that fight play out now, regardless of party. Tell me a little bit about this because, you know, I have not, admittedly, I've not read the book yet. But I love the, I like the title.
Starting point is 00:13:23 I love the concept of it. And I think that it, it, it, you're looking to explain this in a way that even mainstream media people can process it because I think that, you know, the Brian Seltzer of the world, they, they don't understand, they don't understand any of this. They don't understand this concept. Why now? Why this book? I mean, again, I think.
Starting point is 00:13:40 the reason that this originally arose is right after October 7th, that a month and a half, I was debating at University of Oxford, one of the great historic institutions of the West, obviously. And the security team that I travel with, they told me you're not allowed to stay in London. It's too dangerous. There's a gigantic pro-Kamas protest there. And so we stayed about an hour outside of London. And then when we went to University of Oxford, it was also extremely fraught. I mean, it's a very close-packed room. There are a lot of people there who really, really don't just dislike Jews.
Starting point is 00:14:06 They actually really dislike Western civilization. we're chanting about how terrible America is and all the rest. And I walked out thinking to myself, there is something deeply wrong when the heart of Western civilization has basically been overrun by people who hate the civilization. And when you see people marching on college campuses carrying a variety of banners, right?
Starting point is 00:14:22 It can be anything from LGBTQ plus causes to immigration, to global warming, the sort of omni cause. They march under different banners, but it's all the same group of people. Those people have nothing in common. Like, what is queers for Palestine? That doesn't make any sense. I mean, in Palestine, they throw queers off buildings, right?
Starting point is 00:14:39 I mean, that's what they do? And so what is that about? And the answer is all these people envy and hate the West. And so they see the institutions of the West is threatening to them personally, and they are able to cobble together a coalition of people who actually really dislike each other in order to tear that down. And so what I'm juxtaposing here is the lions, people who actually are focused on things like building community, innovating, risk taking, going and building a business, going and building up your church, defending your civilization as a member of the military or the police,
Starting point is 00:15:06 from the people who are largely motivated by envy and a belief that everything is owed to them and they have to provide nothing in return and that therefore any shortcoming in their life is society's fault and you got to rip everything down and and zor and mom dani is obviously a kind perfect alpha example of this somebody who's been given literally everything by the united states came here as a child immigrant grew up in a very wealthy family privileged in every way it is possibly privileged has never held a real job in his life has less of a successful rap career than i do for god's sake and somehow is ending up as the mayor of New York based solely on this idea that he has grievances,
Starting point is 00:15:42 that things are unaffordable, and therefore capitalism is bad, and he's going to tax the hell out of everybody and release all the prisoners, and he's going to have New York State boycott Israel, like all this kind of crap. And so the question is, are we a civilization that wants to stand for our fundamental principles, or do we want to engage in this sort of envious grievance culture? And one of the things I do in the book is I do not juxtapose right and left. I don't think that every lion is on the right, and I don't think every scavenger is on the left as we've been talking about. I think that there are people who I disagree with about tax rates who are very much creative, entrepreneurial forces in the world seeking to build things.
Starting point is 00:16:14 And there are people with whom I agree about tax rates who are very much in the envious mold and seeking to rip down key pillars of the institutions of the United States in search of some sort of past that never existed. That's very interesting. It's kind of like the Elon Musk's and the Jeff Bezos of the world. sometimes you can be chaos neutral. Yeah, absolutely. This book, I love the back, by the way, I love the back quote that you take from the introduction. Soon, very soon, the scavengers will master the world unless. That's a big word, unless.
Starting point is 00:16:45 The book is Lions and Scavengers, the true story of America and her critics. Ben Shapiro, always good to see you, my friend. Wish you all the best, and we'll talk again soon. You too. Thanks so much, Dana. The folks who make the program possible, I always think it's important to be able to protect oneself. And I tell you, guns save lives. We have statistics out there every single day that highlight this.
Starting point is 00:17:04 Defensive gun usage is actually over three times out of criminal usage. It's just counted differently city by city, state by state, due to existing local and municipal standards. And as a result, you get different numbers. But by and large, it's always good to be able to protect oneself. One of the companies that makes a good product is Keltec. It's the PR-57. It is a 57, Chambered in 57. It's lighter than the other 5-7s on the market, 40% lighter.
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Starting point is 00:17:58 And now, all of the news you would probably miss. It's time for Dana's Quick Five. A Republican bill in Ohio is going to, aims anyway, to allow utility companies to limit customers' energy usage. It's Representative Roy Klop Feinstein from Havelin. He said that the measure hasn't been assigned a committee. They're talking about, he's a, oh, I think he's Ohio lawmaker. But what?
Starting point is 00:18:28 Why are we having energy problems? Why would we have to limit? I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to have my energy. I would not have, I will literally riot. I'm not threatening that, like, idly. I actually will riot, Kane. I will. Stomp on some shrubs.
Starting point is 00:18:46 No, I actually am. I would take to the streets over this. That's a major issue. Let people get what they pay for. Lumber prices are flashing a warning sign for U.S. economy. That's coming out of the Wall Street Journal. They said wood prices are sliding, mills are cutting back because of uncertainty over tariffs in a building slump. Well, yeah, we've got to have more deals cut.
Starting point is 00:19:06 And yes, you are going to have prices increase in certain things because that's literally how tariffs work. It's supposed to be leverage. I get it. It's a tactic, but I will also warn that the White House has got to get all these deals buttoned up in order to reverse this and to stop that. So we all knew that going into it. The 2025 American Dream, this is depressing, will cost you $5 million. What? Who decides this? This is, it's a, it's an interesting piece in Newsweek, although they bury the lead like a million paragraphs down, which I can't stand.
Starting point is 00:19:38 No one, it's like how you go to a recipe, find a recipe online. I really, I don't care about your life. I don't care about your kids. I don't care about your house. I don't care about anything. Just give me your stupid food recipe or shut up. Give me the recipe or get out. There's actually a website that you can put a recipe link into, and it does all that.
Starting point is 00:19:53 It strips it all out. Did you know that? I swear to you, it is. It's real. I can't remember it right now. I have it saved. but it's true. Anyway, they're saying that the American dream, especially when you look at retirement, et cetera. Yeah, it's like $5 million. Long story short, saved you a click. Let's see. Scott Besson
Starting point is 00:20:09 apparently got into a fight per politico with an administration rival and threatened to punch him in the blanking face, which makes me like Scott Besson even more. I mean, if you're displeased, say it. I like the fact that he's very forthright about it. He threatened to punch top housing finance official Bill pult in the blanking face. Yeah. That sounds about, do you, when you look at Scott Besson, does he seem like that?
Starting point is 00:20:38 He's like a timid guy that knows a lot about finance. He, yeah, he seems. Can I be real? Can I be real? I don't mean to be just as, but he seems like a dork. Kind of? Yeah, so it's like weird when a dork is like, I'm going to punch you in your blanken face.
Starting point is 00:20:50 I'm like, ooh, you're a spicy dork. What? All right, so we, uh, let's see. Israeli startup Red Sea Biotech wants to replace donors with lab-grown blood from stem cells. I don't like that. Look, again, hi, I don't even have a Roomba. Don't even have that.
Starting point is 00:21:11 Why are we lab-growing everything? Why does it need to be lab-grown? The only thing that's okay for lab-grown is diamonds. Oh, it is too. Stop acting like somehow because kids mind it with their hands that it's more romantic. Shut up. I can't even stand these people that are like, no, I'm not going to have. Stop it.
Starting point is 00:21:27 It's a rock. I mean, for crying out loud. Let's see here. You're welcome. Also, labor market growth slows dramatically. We got some jobs numbers that we're going to have to dive into. Did you know that fall is one of the best seasons for planting? Many trees and plants thrive when planted now, but knowing where to start makes all the difference. That's why you should turn to fast-growing trees, the largest online nursery in the United States. They offer thousands of plants from fruit trees to privacy hedges, all tailored to your climate.
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Starting point is 00:22:38 Well, hello, Radio Land. Tisai, your hostess, I've come back from the north. We are here at the start of this third hour of radio. Welcome. I have no idea why I'm talking like that. It seemed fun to do at the time. Welcome. Dana Lash with you. Don't forget we got the chat at Rumble and you can live street. You can watch us do the radio show. We don't have teleprompters. So I have a screen that I look down at too for the drive by. You always want to just blah that gap.
Starting point is 00:23:07 That you can watch us do radio channel 347 direct TV. Watch us there. So I was in Norway with MRC for like a week and a half. And I had brown cheese. It's like the way of cheese with goat's milk, the process. And then like you boil it down and caramelize it. and it gets and then you slice into cheese and you put it on a waffle with some marmalade
Starting point is 00:23:29 and I had it with a pint for second breakfast and it was delicious. And a town called Shulgin. I did kind of learn how to pronounce some of the town's names. You'll be very pleased. I did go on a cruise. Would you guys know my thing about cruises?
Starting point is 00:23:41 Do I like the cruise boats? I don't know. But I did have to take prescription anti-naugia. Big tip, by the way. Big thanks to have all-family pharmacy who doesn't even have a live plan for today. But all-family pharmacy, forget me them drugs,
Starting point is 00:23:54 because it's the only way I was your girl was staying on that boat because the North Seas are angry man and they don't like you and they it's like the sea was trying to throw us off for a while it was like a buck and bronco and so I was
Starting point is 00:24:08 I had all the you know I was taking all the anti-nage of meds and it worked and people were like oh you need to try some ginger broad I love you but that's not going to work Boinland a little lemon and ginger ain't working for me okay I need an RX strength
Starting point is 00:24:24 So thanks all family pharmacy for making that happen. So yeah, we did the boat thing. I didn't even know. And we got meat and potatoes to get into and we're going to talk to my friend Ben Shapiro. I used to work with him up right, right back in the day. He's going to be on at the bottom of the hour. But I did not know that it was a whole culture. Did you know that, Kane?
Starting point is 00:24:46 Cruise ships are like a whole culture. I did not know that. Me, I didn't know. I didn't know that. And there were a lot of spaces on the boat. and there were like big, I walked around, like, I can't believe all of this is on a boat, that expression on my face the whole time. But, yeah, it was interesting.
Starting point is 00:25:02 And then we got to go and see a lot of very cool. We got to this little bitty tiny village in Norway. Sholden. It's at the end of the Sonian Fjord. Yeah, I think that's it. And, okay, I have a story. So trolls are everywhere, right? So we go to this tiny, tiny little village.
Starting point is 00:25:23 and you get off and walk a mile and that's great. You know, you're out nature. It's so beautiful you think it's fake, right? You're like, this is some Lord of the Rings. Like there are going to be some orcs that pop out here any moment. You know, I feel like, you know, we're in Rivendale. It felt like we were in Rivendale. So anyway, we go and we're in Sholden and they were amazing.
Starting point is 00:25:44 And I, we go into, I guess they're like tourist information place. And we were learning about the stave churches and all this stuff. and there were trolls, troll dolls and troll figurines and, you know how some people put ceramic geese in front of their houses? Okay, it's trolls there instead of the geese, it's trolls. And my husband just like offhanded asked this one, what, very tall woman, she clearly, she was Norwegian. She was like 5,000 feet tall. And they were all like, they don't age. I think they're vampires and this other woman, I swear she had to be 90s. She had like long white hair that was in a braid. I mean, like they all look like shield maidens over there. Anyway, and he's like, well, can
Starting point is 00:26:30 you tell us about the trolls? Like, is it like, you know, kind of a funny thing? Is it a mascot? And she goes, well, you know, if you look up into the mountain, I can't do the accent. If you look up into the mountain and you might see, she said like a glint of light, it could be a troll. We had no idea if she was being serious or not, but she scared the hell out of us. We had no, I felt like, you know how Kane says that old people scare him? So it was like, I couldn't tell if it was like a whole, it was, I didn't know what to do. She was like not, she was so serious and she was telling us this. And we're like, oh my gosh, they're trolling them out.
Starting point is 00:27:10 Like, what is happening? You would have been terrified, Kane. All their old people were bigger than you. It sounds like that. And you're a tall dude. Yeah. You're the average size and all the old people are bigger than you. They don't shrink.
Starting point is 00:27:21 They just get taller. I don't know. I'd still be honest with them. Yeah, you would have, you would have been like, I'm going to go back to the boat. I'm terrified. I'd tell them, I just don't assume they're innocent. That's all. I'm just saying.
Starting point is 00:27:33 We made friends with some animals and, you know, I mean, they're just beautiful, absolutely beautiful up there. They are actually thinking, so David Bezell of Media Research Center was telling me that Norway is considering banning ships. that use like diesel or fossil fuels. They haven't fully banned diesel ships, but they've mandated zero emission operation for smaller ships and for larger ships by 2032 in their fjords to reduce pollution. And they said that you have to use zero emission.
Starting point is 00:28:09 The whole time we were up there, it was super rainy and cloudy, except for like a day. So I don't know how the, how the, how that would work with the solar power. But are they going to do that with their airplanes too? I'm curious. Is it just the boats?
Starting point is 00:28:30 I don't know how some of those towns live. Those towns, villages. I don't know how some of those villages, unless it's the tourism coming in from. And I am not a cruise person. So it's the first ever large boat I've ever been on. And I'm still not used to it. but I don't know what
Starting point is 00:28:50 because some of the ways you could only get there easily to access some of these villages are literally by both so are they going to do this with their planes to are they going to have like zero zero emission planes would you want to be on like a hydro-powered or solar-powered plane
Starting point is 00:29:05 redacted no no thank you golly I don't want to be on anything like that no those choppy seas no seas are always angry over there oh the sea was giving us a giant middle finger at one point. I watched it. I looked out the window and like the water came up and it, it was pretty, man, I'm telling you, it was, uh, pretty, pretty wild. So I don't know
Starting point is 00:29:31 what that, they're all obsessed with zero emission. There's a lot of modernity. I hate modernity. I've, I've seen a couple of news articles occur or published in the past week that talk about a return to like maximalism, which just, I mean, I don't like the modernity because they think it's insufferably boogie and pretentious. And I also think modern architecture looks like garbage and everything ends up looking like borderlands in 10 years. It all looks like trash. There's one thing when we were in Amsterdam, the modern architecture was killing my soul.
Starting point is 00:30:02 It was killing my soul cane. Part of it was rotting and withering away because it was exposed to modern architecture. And I'm like a vampire to sunlight with some of that stuff. I just, I can't. I can't handle it. So, yeah. I um that was the only those are my only criticisms if I had to say anyway the but it was it was a very it was a fascinating fascinating experience very fascinating experience and we were there with Kevin Sorbo
Starting point is 00:30:30 who's also really tall but was only rendered average over there it was pretty interesting to see hercules humbled because he's like a thousand feet tall also he's just a large large man he's very tall and like him and all of his kids are tall et cetera so here's something interesting. One of their kids, they were at a buffet in Amsterdam and they were going to get eggs and somebody complained at the buffet that they didn't want non-halal offerings on the buffet so they had to shut it down and make it vegetarian. I would literally chop someone's head off for that. Like, oh, you think your ideology is bad? If I don't get protein in the morning, I get head chopping hangary. That's what happens. Like I will immediately, you know, Hassan chop your head off because I didn't get my protein.
Starting point is 00:31:24 That's exactly what would happen. I mean, and I am not even joking. I actually would be very forthright like that. Who gets to dictate that stuff? Wait, and can we just be real? The only reason that a lot of the Islamism stuff that anybody even pays attention to their threats is because other Islamists have chopped people's heads off. I mean, how many heads got a roll before people start? I mean, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:31:45 I'm just saying. What would you do if you were at a buffet and someone's like, oh, no, sir, there was a complaint. This is not how long? If I was also head chopping hangary like you? Yeah. Oh, man. I get, I get, yeah. I'd probably do some head chopping.
Starting point is 00:32:01 My husband basically just has to throw bacon at me and run away just to save himself. When I get hangary in the morning, then I calm down. It's like, you know how if you feed gizmo after midnight, he turns into a gremlin? Okay, so the opposite is true with me in the morning. I wake up a gremlin, and then after I get protein, I turn into gizmo. So it's, anyway, I would, I would not have tolerated that. I don't think. I don't think that would have worked well.
Starting point is 00:32:30 But, yeah, it was a very interesting experience. It was very, it was a very goth trip because the weather was pretty got. Do you get to bring any exotic food home with you? I tried to, no, I wanted to bring whale meat. What? But you can't. What? Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 00:32:45 Wait, you can't? It's the meat of a whale. Right. It had blubber on it, right? You can reduce that down. Well, it's like sliced, you know. I'm curious. So you weren't able to bring it?
Starting point is 00:32:55 No. Because they don't allow it. There's certain things. And I get it, you know, agriculture. I mean, we don't really. You can bring reindeer meat, apparently, but you can't bring whale meat. I don't know why. Is it?
Starting point is 00:33:07 I mean, I'm not going to go up there and tell the nords what to do. But, you know, I don't know. I guess it's, I don't know for the end. It was whale meat. That's all I know. And they had it at a troll shop. Good eating, I guess. Yeah, but I did have the brown cheese.
Starting point is 00:33:20 I was trying to look for some weird fish, but it was very difficult to find some authentic because I like, I don't do excursions and I don't like tours. I like to, I'm really nuts about this stuff. And so I will research the area and we were going into all these very interesting places. But I felt like a lot of people thought, oh, we're the only us Nordic people like the weird fish. So we want to make sure that, you know, Americans or Europeans can come in and eat stuff. So I feel like it was really hard to find even some kind of odd fish to say nothing of like the weird fish meals.
Starting point is 00:33:51 I wanted something that they had to go into a pit in the backyard and dig up and then, you know, shake the dirt out of it before they slapped it on a plate. I mean, I've seen, I've seen some of these cooking shows. I know how it happens. Just saying. Like, what is it, Lute Fisk? And then someone said, Summers, smirmermer, I don't know. There's a fish that has like three ems in it. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:34:11 It's like a dish and some G's. I don't know. It's just very, it's a very, very fun, fascinating trip. Thanks for tuning in to today's edition of Dana Lash's Absurd Truth Podcast. If you haven't already, make sure to hit that subscribe button
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