The Eric Metaxas Show - Ezra Levant - Part 3 and Fun Facts Friday

Episode Date: February 28, 2020

Ezra Levant wraps up his conversation about the attack on free speech with some hopeful signs of push-back; then, have your slide whistle at the ready for the return of an all-new Fun Facts Friday!

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I tell all my relatives to take it. relief factor.com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Have you ever gargled Peter Butter? What's the capital of North Dakota? Do I spit what I talk? All this and more on the Eric Mataxis show. Now your host, until further notice, Eric Mataxis. Hey there, folks. I am Eric Mataxis. And as I promised you, we're going to continue the conversation today with Ezra Levant. He is a Canadian journalist, Gadfly, troublemaker. My kind of guy.

I wanted to just talk to you because we talked previously about a lot of the horrifying things that are going on in Canada and in the UK, truly horrifying. The end of freedom, it seems to me. That's exactly what it is. It's, you know, it comes under a different name, political correctness or woke culture. But it's destroying what was once freedom. And I guess the question is, what can we do? How can we fight back? because we know this is coming to the U.S.

It's already coming to the U.S. It's not coming in the future. It's coming right now. What do you say we can do? I've observed the problem gets strength in two ways. Number one, the Internet oligarchs of Silicon Valley, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, companies like that, they're global companies.

They have a tremendous amount of power. They're somewhat restrained in the United States with how they use that power for power. political censorship, but they're practicing their censorship in other jurisdictions. So for example, in the United Kingdom, they shut down the Facebook and Twitter pages of Tommy Robinson, who had the largest most active political account in the country. Just shut them down under political pressure. They constantly bend the knee to countries like Pakistan.

Twitter does all the time. And Germany is a laboratory for bad ideas about censorship. And I understand that they're still trying to deal with what happened 80 years ago and did hate speech cause the rise of it. But I think they learned all the wrong lessons, and they're engaging in wild censorship. And the thing is all these tech companies who are American, they actually are practicing their bad behavior around the world.

And China is one of the places they're practicing the bad behavior. No question. And so it's some of the troubles we see around the world, and before you and I talked about Tommy Robinson, It was a California company that pushed the button to delete Tommy in the UK. Facebook deleted literally tens of thousands of pages for Marine Le Pen and her Rassamlement National in France. They just deleted them saying they were fake. Really?

Did you have some sort of hearing about that? Or we're just supposed to trust you, Mark Zuckerberg? You delete 30,000 pages before an election. You're going to make a dent. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, similarly censored. Yeah, you're both. In Brazil. Now, he won despite that. So one of the things is to realize that censorship today often comes from Silicon Valley, not from Washington, New York, or even the UN. In fact,

it's easier for a government to contract out, to delegate their censorship to a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, because then there's no due process. There's no hearing. There's no appeal. There's no transcript. There's no, I serve notice. I want better disclosure. There's none of that. Mark Zuckerberg pushes a button. you don't even know what happened. So it's the merger of big tech and big government. That's one thing. Another is to realize how international or globalist institutions like the UN weaponize that.

But there's also hope. I don't want to be just negative and just pessimistic. I'm pretty pessimistic about things in the UK and Canada. But I look around the world and there are some things that give me so much hope. I almost cry from joy. when I saw those Hong Kong democracy protesters literally putting their bodies on the front line, almost as if they were daring China to go Tiananmen Square on themselves, when they were flying American flags and understood why,

and when they could answer in great detail what they thought freedom was in a way that I put it to you, most Americans could not. Well, that's the problem, and that's one of the things we try to do on this show, is to say if you don't understand these things, you are certainly part of the problem. And we are going to become these other societies unless we remind ourselves over and over and over of what it is we have of those who have died that we could have these freedoms. But when I saw that in Hong Kong, I thought, wow, they're more American than half the Americans, I know. You know, and so many young people leading the charge, like at Polly University, they literally were fashioning homemade bow and arrows to fight against the Beijing commanded police bow and arrows. I mean, that is doomed to fail, but they would die trying, and they're the young.

And here in America and in Canada, we have Antifa and all the woke college kids on mom and dad's trust fund. They don't even know what they're doing. But these kids in Hong Kong, kids often, were willing to die. And it's amazing. And let's not lose hope because you look around the world and I've told you about some sad stories in the past. But look, there can be a win. Brexit itself was a working people's reaction. to the elites. And remember what George Orwell said in the book 1984,

The Hope Lies with the Proals. That was his nickname for the working people. And that's why, I mean, you're very scholarly, very well read. I would call you an intellectual, public intellectual. But let us never forget the common sense of the common man. And at the end of the day, I think that that Orwell, that phrase by Orwell is true. You don't disrespect the proles. In the UK, it's Tommy Robinson who's fighting back. I mean, Donald Trump's a billionaire, but he's got a blue collar style. In Italy, it's Matteo Salvini, in Holland, it's here at Vilders.

In Germany, it's the alternative for Deutschland. Don't despair, because in many of these European countries, if not the first place, at least the second place party, is talking about these ideas. And in some place they punch through, like in Poland and Hungary, Richard Orban, now they're demonized and by these same globalist forces, either the UN, the EU, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, but they seem to have punched through. Yeah. Well, because things had to get very bad before it was possible.

But at last, things have gotten so bad that you have a Brexit, that you have the election of a Donald Trump, who would have been, you know, considered beneath contempt at any time, at any previous decade. But things got so bad under President Obama that I think a lot of people said, hey, wait a minute, something is wrong. We're going to try something different. I look at Tommy Robinson in the UK. He's rough around the edges. But I keep telling anyone who will listen in the UK, do not denormalize him. Do not marginalize him. Don't push him outside the acceptable spectrum of political communication and activism because Tommy Robinson is in fact pulling everyone to the right

of him back into the system. He's saying, no, no, no. Don't, give up on this country. We can argue. We can debate. We can vote. If you say, no, no, no, Tommy Robinson, all your good faith is for naught. We shall unperson you. You're not just doing that to Tommy. You're sending the message to millions of other people. Don't even try. And the attempt to, you know, basically for three years, they tried to de-legitimize Trump and undo the election. Well, they did that to Brexit, too. For three years, they stalled and delayed. And finally, they're out over three years later. What was the trust in the system.

Oh, yeah. The administration of democracy was brought into disrepute. You bet. And thank God they're out because it's not just the question of Brexit anymore. It's does our system work at all or is it all rigged and gamed? And everyone was against Brexit except the people. Yeah. Well, listen, we see this playing out all over the world.

Globalist forces, you know, led by George Soros and Satan. I can say that. basically they are anti-American in the deepest sense. And when I say anti-American, I don't mean to be parochial. I'm just saying that there are values that we have in America, that we have had in America, that have been a beacon to the whole world. The whole world has aspired to the kind of freedom that we have in here. That's what it is to be a shining city on a hill.

It's not for yourself. It's so that others can see it and say, hey, whatever that is, I think I want that. Can I go there? Can I get that here? You know, and we've always been that way. And it seems to me that this globalist cultural elite, we know, whether it's George Soros or the UN or the New York Times, they really do have a fundamentally different worldview. Their worldview is very, very different. They're not quite clear themselves on what they believe.

In other words, when we talk about, you know, diversity or they have these kind of inchoate longings for some utopianist culture. They don't know how to get there. And the fact of the matter is there is no way to get there. It's absurdity. But we have to talk about this. We're going to keep you on for one more segment. Folks, I have the joy of talking to Ezra Levant, L-E-V-A-N-T. He's with Rebel Media.

You can go to Rebelmedia.com. Do not go away. A Georgie girl swinging down the street so fancy free. Nobody you meet could ever see the loneliness there. Inside you can't. Georgie girl, why do all the boys just pass? You wonder why I always dress in black? Why you never see bright colors on my back?

And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone? Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on. Hey there, folks. It's here from Texas show. I'm talking to Ezra Levant. Talking about many things. The website, I misspoke earlier. I said rebel media.

It's rebel news.com. I encourage you folks to visit rebel news. com. And I want to ask you, Ezra, today, what is Tommy Robinson doing today? What is he up to? Well, he has his own website called TR. And he runs around the UK doing stories. But I have to say about half his time is spent being sued.

It's called lawfare. I know, for example, a Muslim kid is suing him for defamation. The police are suing to get him banned from going to all soccer games in the UK. There's always some harassment. And again, the process is the punishment. Wear him down, waste his time, cost him money. He's got an indomitable spirit. I don't know where he gets the energy from.

So, yeah, I mean, he's free. But the thing is, his wings have been clipped. And there's no denying it. When he had a million followers on Facebook and Twitter, he could change the national conversation. And more particularly, if there was a lie about him, he could rebut it. But now he's being, it's like a laryngectomy. So you can say anything about him, and he can't talk back. And I'm afraid that his audience has been diminished probably by 80 percent because of this Silicon Valley censorship.

If I was a Brit, I'd say foreign meddling in our politics, but it was. Twitter, Facebook, they're based in Silicon Valley. They've censored a man. Well, this is the problem with globalism. This is the problem with entities like Google and Twitter. We've never seen anything like this before. And we're not sure how to deal with it. We're not dealing with it very well.

Yeah. I mean, the trust busting in this country 100 years ago, those oligarchs were nothing compared to the Jeff Bezos and the Googles. And what terrifies me, and I know that your guest the other day, Peter Thiel, says this. Google is in bed with China the enemy. Okay, that you have to understand. Smoke comes out of my ears almost literally because I think to myself that is so wicked. And Americans, this is not just true in Canada and in England, most Americans have lost a sense of who we are, what we stand for, what does it mean to be an American?

What is liberty? If you understand those things, you would never allow a company like Google to make a penny on our shores when they are making. common cause with our enemy China. When I say our enemy China, I don't mean the Chinese people. I mean the people who are oppressing the Chinese people. It is despicable. It's horish when people say, I'll take the money and I'll help China to oppress their people. That's like working with slave traders and saying, well, it's not my business. The slave trade is happening. I might as well make a buck off of it. Somebody else will. It is that kind of a moral issue. Well, and it's not interesting.

That's exactly what George Soros said to 60 minutes. When they said to him, how did you feel about summoning the Jews to the death trains? How did you feel about seizing their property? He said, well, it's like the market. If I didn't do it, someone else would. That's a satanic thing to say. It is.

And, I mean, was it Solzhenitsyn who said, or maybe it was Lenin himself, who said the capitalists will sell us the ropes by which will hang them? IBM to this day, a dark chapter was when they provided early computing services for the Nazis. Well, Google is right in there. Oh, yeah. Right in there. Well, you've got to understand. They have no values.

They haven't thought this through. They are sawing off the branch on which they are sitting. They don't believe in anything except making money and growing and getting more power. They never thought it through. You know, the other day when Donald Trump was in India, I listened to his speech in that huge stadium, 125,000 people. And a lot of it was just boilerplate, rah, rah, America,

love you, Narendra Modi. But he talked about freedom, and he talked about God and the soul. And you could read his conversation as being targeted at Indians and Narendra Modi, who's a very interesting character. But it absolutely was a rebuke of China.

Because Trump will say nice things about anyone he meets if there is an interest, an American interest. He will say nice things about Xi Jinping. I think he goes too far. But what he said in India, Trump is principled enough that he would not have said in Beijing. He wouldn't have lied about the Chinese government having a soul, about it being morally correct, about the divinity and people. Like, it was quite a speech. And so if I'm making a list of things to be hopeful about, I'd put India in there. Well, and of course, what Trump is doing, he's taking a page out of Nixon's playbook and saying, hey, we can use China against Russia.

He's going to use this gigantic nation, India, against the other gigantic nation. That happens to be a democracy, by the way, and happens to not only be a rival of China, but a rival of Trump said it in the speech, radical Islamic terrorism. That was the largest applause line in Trump's speech, 125,000 people in Ahmedabad. Number one applause line, let's fight radical Islamic terrorism because they're victims of it in India, too. It's a stunning thing. Now, of course, on the downside, there's a lot of nationalism in India, which translates into religious persecution of Christians and so.

So, you know, Trump's not talking in a vacuum. It's complicated. But he's trying to encourage them in the right direction. There's no doubt about it. I was asking you earlier about Tommy Robinson. Does he ever get to the United States because I would be interested? You had mentioned him coming on the show, and I think it would be very interesting for my audience to hear him directly. Does he ever do that?

For legal and diplomatic reasons, he cannot come to America. What? And there's a long story there, but I know he would join you via Skype. Really? Oh, he would be a delight. Yeah. I know because I've helped see him up with other interviews. He has a story to tell, and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of not only the, he wrote a book, the annotated Koran.

Like he's a scholar. He's so bright. Had he been born in a different station in life, he would probably be either a leading barrister in London or even a judge. I know that sounds absurd to say it, but he is one of the sharpest minds, but because of their caste system in the U.S. And because of, you know, there's still, it's still very much classist. And they write him off, but I tell you, there's no one who knows the file better than him. He's an incredibly quick debater, a quick wit. What's the file?

What do you mean? Of Islamification, censorship, the surveillance state. Everything that you and I have talking about these last conversations, you would have to set aside your whole show for him. Sure. He is a fountain, and he can go deep on everything. He has had to. to defend himself against every critic in the world. And I think your view, and I can't get enough of the British accent,

but to hear the stories of woe will make your hair stand up like a porcupine. When you mentioned that he's written a book called the Annotated Quran. Yeah, it's Muhammad's Quran. Although Amazon banned it. Amazon sold it. It became a number one bestseller in the UK, and then Amazon banned it. They haven't banned his autobiography called Enemy of the State, which is very readable. Enemy of the State by Tommy Robinson.

Oh, it's heartbreaking. His book, Muhammad's Quran, is a work of scholarly level, you know, it's not a light, chatty book. The man knows his subject matter. It's just extraordinary. Now, what are you working on? because I know you're in New York visiting here, but what are you doing when you go back to Toronto? Well, I mean, Rebel News, we have about 15 staff,

and we cover the news. We're Canadian-based, but about 40% of our viewers are American. We're interested in the U.S. election, as everybody is. But these themes that we've been talking about, free speech, globalism, the deplorables versus the elites, Islamification, mass migration, those are universal ideas. We love to cover UN conferences, for example. We're banned.

And, you know, thousands of journalists are allowed to cover the UN Global Warming Conference. We are banned. You're kidding. On the instruction of the Canadian government. On the instruction of the Canadian government. We were admitted to the UN Global Warming Conference a few years ago. We asked questions that were prickly. Canada's Environment Minister instructed the UN not to accredit us.

We go anyways and report from around the conference. We go to every UN conference. We went to the UN Global Compact on Migration. We won't let us in. We'll report on it anyways. We'll do better reporting from the outside than the media party stenographers on the inside. So that's what we do at Rebel News. And did you grow up in Toronto? No, I'm from Western Canada, Calgary. It's like the Texas of Canada. And when did you know that you, we just got a minute left, but when did you know you'd be pursuing this line of career? I was pushed into it. I fell into it. And a dozen years ago, I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in Canada. And I was prosecuted for that. and that's when free speech became one of my main issues

when I was prosecuted in Canada for publishing cartoons I mean that's amazing and that was in what newspaper that was the Western standard yeah I used to publish a magazine we just reprinted them saying look at what all the fuss was about because no one would show these cartoons and they're quite banal we showed them and it was a 900 day investigation a night what in Canada yeah it's a story for another day this is this is chilling this is chilling stuff look you're a hero

there aren't many of you, alas, but I think that you're inspiring, which is why I wanted to have you on. It was great to see you again recently at the Socrates and the city event. And I just thought people need to know what is happening around the world. As you've said many times, what is happening in the UK, what is happening in Canada. It will certainly happen here unless we're aware of it and we take a stand. I believe that we can win. You've mentioned all these places where we can look for hope. So I'm generally, I'm cautiously optimistic.

But Ezra Levant, thank you so much for everything. Well, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. It's that super tramp. You know what that means, Albin? What does that mean? It means we're in for a truncated episode of Fun Facts Friday. Friday.

A couple of us. Who did that? What was that? Oh, my goodness. It's fun facts. Folks, we thought we could contain the humor into hour one today. Alas, we've failed. No, the humor has washed over into hour two. We had Ezra Levant talking about all kinds of serious stuff,

but somehow the humor leaked through disgusting image into this segment, and we're going to have to do a little fun facts Friday. Alvin, first of all, at some point in the next couple of minutes that we have left in this program, you've got to tell your avocado story. I do. I mean, in all the avocado stories I've heard, this is certainly one of the ones. of them. Yes. Okay. So do you want to do some Fun Facts Friday first? So what do you have a question for me? No, well, I have a big question.

And I know the audience wants you to answer this. Now, earlier in the first hour, we did answer questions. But here's a big one. You have great music on this show. Everybody talks about the bumper music. But what is your favorite song? I mean, do you have a favorite song? My favorite song?

Yeah. Do I have a favorite song? No. I don't, you mean, other than the Fun Facts Friday theme song, which we haven't played today? Actually, I don't know that I have a favorite. Maybe I'll have to really think about this. And in next week when we do Fun Facts Friday, you can ask me again, maybe I'll have an answer. But right now, no, I don't.

Okay. Can I share, I can maybe share my favorite song? No. Okay. Oh, sure. Why not? Go ahead. It's the first song I ever danced to. Now, I was alone when I was dancing, but it's still the first song I ever danced to.

It's the seatbelt song. Do you know that? There's a buckle up for safety. Buckle up for safety. Everybody buckle up. Put your mind at ease. Tell your driver, please. Buckle up for safety, everybody.

Buckle up. You never heard that? I'm sorry, what? It had a big impact on my... That song, was that Henry Mancini? I never can remember my composers. Who, first of all, what year did you first hear that? Well, that was probably in my early teens.

That's usually where something dramatic happens. So this is going way back. Going way back. But I don't remember that people were talking about seapelts that long ago. Like, seapelt's, in the late 60s, people are talking about seatbelts? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And we did it. It became, I guess, a law back in. Here's a fun fact. It became something of a law. It didn't become a law until like the late 70s.

Was it that late? Oh, yeah. Well, I was wearing them. As soon as I heard that song, I buckled up for safety. But where did you hear that song? I heard it on television. What kind of life do you lead that you heard that song? Well, that's a good, it's like, you know, only you can prevent forest fires. I mean, only you. But there was no song with that. Yeah.

Buckle up for safety. But you know what? It's warmed its way into my head now. Buckle up for a safety. Everybody buckle up. Is that it? That's it. Put your mind at ease. Tell your driver, please buckle up for safety.

Everybody, buckle up. Now, you know, somebody wrote that. They did. And that person is probably lying in a cold, cold grave right now. It's so sad. No, but I mean, seriously, like that's one of those jingles that if I had heard it back then, it might be my favorite song. I know. You can't get a, but I've literally never, ever heard that song.

Okay. Buckle up for a safety. It's really warmed its way into my psyche. It's bitten itself into my brain. It's branded itself onto my very soul. I can't believe that. Buckle up for safety. Buckle up.

Yeah. Buckle up for safety. Everybody buckle up. It's like your mind at ease. Tell your driver. Please buckle up for safety. Everybody buckle up. Yeah.

That's so beautiful. That's like a Bach cantata. Like it doesn't get in terms of Western art, that's like the high watermark of Western art. Albin, thank you for sharing that extraordinarily banal, eminently forgettable song, because really, I think we needed to hear that today. Although in all seriousness, there are people out there who don't buckle up. And I think that, I think the Lord of hosts, the Lord Sabah Oath is his name. He called us to sing that song today to remind those reprobates who don't value.

you their lives who don't care about the people who would watch them, you know, be lowered into a grave. They don't care. And we're here to remind you for crying out loud folks. Buckle up for safety. Do it for yourself. Buckle up. Now that's reminded. This is a boils my potato. I have to share. Now we're going to shift to boils my potato. Now we've got to remind people that means it makes you really angry. It makes me really angry. And you made that up. Nobody has ever heard that phrase before the show. So Albin, tell me, my friend, what boils my friend? What? your potato. Okay, there are plenty of things, but this one just recently is speed bumps, okay? This really gets me. Not razor bumps. No, not rate, speed bumps, okay? Because there is no

national, like, height for a speech bump. They can be any, any level at all, any height at all. So you want the government, you want big government to regulate speed bumps. Yes, I do. In fact, I organized the march on Washington. Even I didn't show up. Over this issue? Yeah, I even as long as you organize it, you don't have to do everything. That's all I have to do. But that's not the point. The point is they're sometimes too high. In the condo community where I live... The speed bumps are sometimes too high. Yeah.

I'm not kidding. If I go over it more than five miles an hour, like the hood pops open and the alarm goes off on my car. And your dentures fly out the butterfly window. That's right. And now I have to get out, put the car in neutral, and push it over the speed bump. And, you know, that's a little annoying. Now, wait a second. So in this condo complex where you live, you're saying the speed bumps are too high.

Too dang high. And it boils your potato. Of course. worse. If you have to... Does it get your goat? It gets my goat. It chaps my hide. Does it chap your...

It does? Hide. Yeah. Man, that really chaps my hide. Now, you have a boiled your potato as well. I did? I don't think I do. You don't have any boiled...

There's nothing... Nothing sets you off. I didn't prepare for this segment. This was your segment. Fun facts Friday. We haven't even come to any fun facts, and we're going to have to go to a break. When we come back... We're going to...

We've got a lot of fun facts. We've got the avocado story. Albin, of all the avocado stories I've heard in my life, and my goodness, how many have I heard, this is certainly one of them. We'll be right back. Buckle up for safety, always buckle up. Put your mind a... Buckle up for safety, buckle up.

Buckle up, poor safety, always buckle up. Pull your seat belt snuck, give an extra tug. Buckle up for safety, buckle up. Buckle up for safety Buckle up Fuckle up for safety Always buckle up Show the world you care

By the belt you wear Buckle up for safety when you're driving Buckle up Buckle up for safety buckle up I can't believe that That is such a peppy song I'll never get it out of my mind I'll be buckling up even when I'm not in the car

Thank you James James Yeah Our engineer He just dug that up, archaeologically speaking. He found that. Buckle up for safety. Everybody buckle up.

Unbelievable. Okay, this is Fun Facts Friday. We've got a lot of fun facts. Oh, yeah. And we're only going to read the fun ones. Okay. So, Albin, you've got an avocado story. Oh, I do.

Maybe, you know what? I think we better start. We promised that. Okay. Okay. This morning you said, hey, who wants to hear my avocado story? Right. And everybody had blank stares.

Like, what? And a few left the studio. Yeah. So, but tell us, tell us. Yeah, okay, here's my avocado story. Now, on the way to the subway, a couple days ago, I, I knew that we needed avocados at home because Anne wants us to eat avocados and bananas every day. Okay, so I figured I'll stop.

And you're the most hen pecked radio sidekick. Yeah, but I'm very healthy. So we're, I'm coming up to the guy that sells, you know, the fruit and vegetables right there, right in front of the subway stop. So I go there, and I, there's a sign there. It says two avocados for a dollar. So I tell the guy. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

that's an incredible price. It says two avocados for a dollar. Yeah. Okay, so the sign says that? Yeah, it does say that. Two for a dollar, okay? So as I'm getting the two for a dollar avocados, underneath that, you know, and this is a handwritten sign, underneath it in smaller letters, it said $1 each.

Hold on. I got to do the math in my head. Okay. So the sign says, avocados, two for a dollar. And then beneath it, it says $1 each. Or $1. So I say to the guy, I said, does anybody ever get? at one avocado for a dollar.

And he looks at me and says, yes, yes, once in a while. And I'm like, really? So I take out my cell phone. Okay, I'm getting my cell phone out, because I got to take a picture of this, the avocados with the sign, right? So then the guy goes, no, no, no, no. He grabs the sign and he takes it, and he takes it away. And he says, two foot or a dollar.

He was ashamed. Yeah, he was like, okay, somebody caught him. So anyway, so yesterday I'm going to the subway, and it's back. The sign is back. The sign was back. fine is back. And he's off to the other end of his little cart selling some fruits, right? So I quickly take out my camera and take a picture of the sign. So there it is. Okay, I'm going to post it on Instagram. You've got to send me that photo.

Yeah. That reminds me, like, I think I read a sign once, like ham sandwich, 25 cents, a ham, 10 cents extra. Like, I mean, literally, the people are often not thinking, and they write stuff like this. Yeah, yeah, I think we need, like, as seen on the streets of New York or as, you know, I mean, look, that's just, that's, you know what, though, on my way home? I'm going to buy me a couple of avocados. There you go. Two for a dollar. I mean, seriously, though, that's like what?

Two for a dollar. It's like seeing a sign. Are they loaded with parasites and you shouldn't eat them? What's the catch? Excellent. All right. Fun facts Friday, Alvin, we got to share some fun facts. Well, I've got it.

I've got a quick one right here about Lincoln. Since we just got through President's Day and all the presidents, et cetera, et cetera. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln signed the Secret Service Act? And this is into existence on the same day that he died, the very same. day, Secret Service. But when he signed it into law, it was originally formed to stop counterfeiters. Okay. It wasn't about protecting the president. It was about going after counterfeiters because that was the big deal back in the day. If you're thinking, remembering it's the... Now, here's the problem. That's supposed to be a fun fact. It's kind of a

sad fact, Albin. Okay. But then how about this? He signed it on the day that he was murdered. Right. He signed the Secret Service Act. Yeah, it's like, man, there are people laughing all across the world. That's another boils my potato thing is when people say, careful after you've fallen. They'll say, oh, careful or what's your step? It's like, if you would have told me that two seconds earlier, I would not have fallen. Those people are just useless. Useless. What's the point?

I think there's a word for him, jerk. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How about that? How about that? Do you know that jerk is an actual term from physics?

I bet you didn't know that. Now, that's a fact. Well, I took AP physics. I got a one, which is a lower score you can get. but I did learn that you have, first of all, you have speed, okay? Yes. What do we call speed in physics? Speed and physics is, I don't know, velocity?

Correct. Thank you. We call it velocity, okay? And then the change in velocity is what? V times. No, the change in velocity is called acceleration. Oh, okay, yeah. But the change in acceleration is called jerk.

Uh-huh. Not making that up. Okay. Well, that's good. But isn't that interesting? Like, it sounds like something I'd make up. It does. But it's kind of like the change in velocity is acceleration, and the change in acceleration is called jerk.

Okay. I know. I wish I made that up, but I didn't. It's true. But that's a fun fact. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, we got a fun fact for you. Okay. Any other fun facts?

Yeah, another fun fact about Russia since Russia's in the news. There you go. With Bernie Sanders being in the race and all that and Russia influencing our 2020 election. Yeah. Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto. Okay? So if you go to Russia and you walk all over it, save your money, don't go to Pluto, okay?

Because you've already... So you mean to tell me that Russia is not considered a planet? No. And yet, it has more surface area. Hey. You know, it extends over eight time zones? How many time zones does Pluto have? Actually, no one knows.

Actually, that's a very complicated question. It depends on how fast it's been. But actually, I love facts like that. Pluto has the same, has less surface area than all of Russia. Yes. Mother Russia. Mother. Okay.

Any other fun facts before we... You know what? This should be an easy one. If you're scoring at home and you want to see how many fun facts do I get right, which states votes finally decided the 2000, the 2000 U.S. election, which states votes? Well, that's easy. Yeah. That's an easy.

Well, I'm telling me it's an easy one. Florida. Florida with a hanging chat. Now, some kids out there, they weren't even born. I know the hanging chat is like 10 minutes ago, but it's now 20 years ago. Yeah, exactly. What, come on. You know, 20 years isn't what it used to be.

That's a fact. No, and I don't like the fact that life actually goes faster when you're older than when you're little. I know. I know. Because it seemed like a year was an eternity when you were little. And it was in 1964, that famous seatbelt song shot up the charts, Billboard charts. I'll never forget it. Number one on the Billboard Chairs.

Okay, we're almost out of time. Thank goodness. When we come back, we're going to have a little more fun because we just can't contain ourselves, Albin. Now, today's Friday, by the way. If you should sign up for the newsletter. You should. You should order honorbound coffee. You should.

Honorbound coffee.com. And you should stay tuned for the final segment of the week. Hold on to your hats, folks. Who knows what we're going to have for you, even we don't. Georgie girl swinging down the street so fancy free nobody you meet could ever see the loneliness there inside you hate that Georgie girl why do all the boys just happy you just don't try lucky can one guy be I don't know how lucky I kissed her hey Albin I've got we've got one amazing fun fact to share before we end our week now before that Yes. Before we share the insane final fun fact of the week, which it is insane, I can't believe I didn't know this. This is kind of thing I thought I would know. Before we do that, I want to tell people, you've got an opportunity because we're doing a campaign with food for the poor.

They are feeding the poorest of the poor in Guatemala. Guatemala has the infamous title of being the place with the highest level of malnutrition in the Western Hemisphere. horrible to think that in the entire Western Hemisphere, there are people in Guatemala who are suffering from severe malnutrition. So the reason it's an opportunity, the good news is we can do something about it. The good news is we don't just say, oh, how horrible. We can do something about it. In fact, we're obliged and commanded to do something. It doesn't mean in this case in particular.

But we all have to do what we can. And I want to say that the reason I consider this an amazing opportunity is because the money that we have in the West goes so far. a place like Guatemala that it's almost unbelievable. $80 of our money, $80 can feed a kid for an entire year because of food for the poor. That's how they leverage, not only leverage our money, but they leverage their contacts around the world with donations of beans and rice and other foods. So I want to say that if you give $80, you're feeding a kid for an entire year, they get water for life. That's $80, folks. If you give $300,000. If you give $300,000, you're feeding a kid for an entire year, They get water for life.

That's $80, folks. If you give $320, obviously that's the same blessing for an entire family for it. You think about that. That's $27 a month. Almost everybody can afford to do that if they want to give back somehow. And so we try to give you opportunities and we try to give you great opportunities. I consider this a great opportunity because the leveraging of the American dollar is just outrageous when you think about how poor they are in Guatemala that for 80 of our dollars we're feeding. a kid for a year and did I mention water for life think about that they don't have clean drinking

water if you give 80 dollars that's food for a year and water for life they're drilling wells it's unbelievable uh I'll give you the phone number before we get our fun fact uh of the uh the last fun fact of the week all right here's the phone number and by the way I recommend you go to our website the website is metaxis talk dot com but this is seriously it's a huge opportunity we want to thank you in a hundred ways. We enter you into a drawing to win all kinds of stuff to visit us in the studio. We give away Metaxus Super. That's commercial free podcasting.

All kinds of great stuff. So please just take advantage of this. But the phone number is 844-8663 Hope. 844-863 Hope. 8-4-863 Hope. God bless you as you give, Albin. Yes, I've got the final fun fact of the week. Okay, this is November 12th, 1859.

Check your calendar. 1859. Here's something. We've got a lot of. There's a lot of musical stuff here in this Fun Facts Friday, but he floats through the air with the greatest of fees, the daring young man on the flying trapeze. That was Jules Leotard.

He performed the first flying trapeze act in the circus, Napoleon. Jules Leotard, and of course, that's where we get the word. And in French, it would be Jules Leotard. Now, wait a minute. He's wearing a leotard. Yes. That the word leotard comes from the dude on the flying trapees. The dude, man.

I mean, seriously. I never knew that. That's right. I actually kind of doubted a little bit, but I'm trusting you. Yes. You've researched this. No, I've, yes, it's been researched. A leotardtard comes from.

A leotardtard comes from this guy named leotard. And of course, from that, we get, you know, Unitarred. We get all these, these terms that we, that we have used. But leotard originally comes from the name of the man's on the flying trapeze, 1859, Paris. This is amazing. Now I know where leotard comes from. And you do, too, folks. That's what's, we call that Fun Facts Friday.

You know stuff now. You didn't know before. You are the richer for it. If you don't believe it, trust me, you just are. Okay, thanks for listening. I want to remind you again, food for the poor. Go to our website. Really, this is a tremendous opportunity.

Tremendousmetaxis talk.com. Check it out.