Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 173: Oops! All News 3: News Hard With a Vengeance

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

wow this one is more out-of-date than usual, they really gotta stop making so much news check out our TOUR (new dates added!): April 29: New York City https://sonyhall.com/events/well-theres-your-problem/?id=18162 April 30: Somerville Mass (SOLD OUT!) https://artsatthearmory.org/events/bill-blumenreich-presents-well-theres-your-problem-podcast-2/ May 1: Somerville Mass  (SOLD OUT!) https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/wtyp/ May 2: New York City (SOLD OUT!) https://www.ticketweb.com/event/well-theres-your-problem-sony-hall-tickets/13918973 May 3: Washington DC (sold out?) https://www.unionstagepresents.com/shows/well-theres-your-problem-podcast/ May 4: Philadelphia, PA https://concerts.livenation.com/well-theres-your-problem-podcast-philadelphia-pennsylvania-05-04-2025/event/0200615211C27E44 see gareth on RAILNATTER: https://www.youtube.com/@GarethDennisTV Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod/ Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 26929 Philadelphia, PA 19134 DO NOT SEND US LETTER BOMBS thanks in advance in the commercial: Local Forecast - Elevator Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Let's do a three two one mark. That's three two one. Mark. God. Really? Yeah. Oh. Crap.

Every time I panicked. Let's try that again, try that again. Okay. Three. Two. One. Mark. There we go.

That felt better. Get clapped. Yeah. Great. Alright. Alright. People really liked being able to see our cameras for like a split second. And you know what I like giving them that you know, like, maybe not a full pivot to video, but I like I like the little like peek behind the curtain, you know,

but maybe there's like there's like catch up session and like like 30 seconds of like our face and your faces and then disappear again. Just enough to I just realized that I have a pie- I'm sorting laundry right, into keep and- So God only knows what's behind me! Yeah, yeah. It's added here, folks. Pay no attention to the podcast you're behind the curtain. I should never have gotten this blue screen covered in my bank details and all my passwords. why did I do that? I doxed myself live on railnet a few episodes ago when I held up my sacking letter from Sistra which is here.

Oh, with the address? And right then- No, don't do it again! Obviously had the address on it. There are like tens of thousands of people now have my address. That's fine. We're- Devon, I'm sure you know what you're doing, and- Just, Alea, just like, showing you the you know what you're doing. And just just just just just like showing you the like live satellite image.

Right. You're trying to get out of your house. Devon, beep that beep that. Thank you. Yeah, that's that's how that works. Right. It's still his head. It's all right.

All right. It's it's been a while since we recorded. Welcome to Well, there's your problem. It's a podcast about engineering disasters with slides. This is still in his house. Justin Rosniak. I'm the person who's talking right now. My pronouns are he and him. OK, go.

I am November Kelly. I am the person who is speaking now. My pronouns are Shay. Buck hell. Shay. Shay is here. My pronouns are she and her. My pronouns are she and her. Going to the gender identity clinic. My pronouns are she and her. Yay Liam. I don't even want to fucking do this. You know? Hi, Liam.

You doing okay? Yeah, I'm good. It's okay. Fuck almighty. It was a high back shake. I'm wondering whether we just actually lost him. Can you hear me? It's possible. Is it even moving? Can you hear me? This would be the funniest possible time for this thing to cast out completely.

Did it die? I'm gonna c*** all myself and c*** all of you. There he is. There we go. I know where he's going. of you. There he is, there we go. Hi, I'm Liam McAnderson, my pronouns are he and him, and with me we have, not a guest for Victoria Scott purposes. Yes, very specifically. Hello, my name is Gareth Dennis, my pronouns are he and him.

Yeah, because you were talking to Victoria about whether or not these episodes, uh, so like count for total number of episodes guested in. And I think she still has the record. So that she does, she does still have the record. So, so weirdly enough, you need to have me on more guys. That's, that's, that's why. If you've been watching the most recent set of episodes and you're thinking, well, it's been a while since they've had garrison. You're right. You know, that's a counterintuitive opinion, but you're completely right. It's completely correct. Yes. We'll get on that. Yeah. Yeah. So Victoria, in our eternal battle to hold the hot, the top spot, Victoria, she's

winning and the, the yeah, it's the let them fight situation, you know. Yeah, it's a very violent battle between Victoria and I. There's no love lost between us, you know. Two podcasters enter, one podcaster leaves. What we really need to do is do an episode with both of you. You know, and then we can really settle this. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be train versus car. All right, we're gonna settle this once and for all.

But Train vs. Plane also, potentially. I asked for that. We had Victoria on for Plane episodes before. Yes. Yes. Ooh, now my brain is running. Anyway, why are we here, what's going on? Why are we in this layer?

We are... It's been one of those decades comprised of weeks where decades happened. JUSTIN I was about to say, this is one of those, you know, once they elected Trump the news started happening again. Um, no, yeah, it's been a while since we've recorded because, you know, like everyone else we didn't do any work between the holidays. So, you know, here here here you know you may remember that of Gareth and so it's true can confirm so um we're doing another oops

all news episode i'm really hoping that we do this and then it just there's no more news no more news please in a good way yeah no no like you know, you know, apocalyptic way. What I'm hoping is, after this we get a decade where weeks happen, and it just kind of, like, oh, I'm so stuck for news entries for this episode, I dunno. I can't believe that, you know, uh, you know, became a Zen Buddhist. Uh, uh... He's adopted the doctrine of Wu Wei, or non-action. Yeah, he's, um, he has found the middle path. We're all very pleased for him, yeah.

Trump coming out with a shaved head and saffron rose. Siddhartha Gautama Trump. Yeah, with ear piercings. That would be nice. Yeah. So, without further ado, let's do the goddamn news. So this is a new one that just started today or earlier today or late yesterday. Yeah.

We're starting with a pretty grim one to be clear. Yeah. Like, oh, most of them are grim. Don't worry. Yeah, these are not happy news in here. Is this? Oh, no, there's one happy piece of news in there, but it's buried in there. Don't worry.

I mean, in terms of this one, I've literally been hearing from our listeners who are getting evacuated, so this is happening to like, to our people. This is... Yeah. That was actually... I was up late on the phone yesterday talking to Noah, more on that in a second, but yeah. Los Angeles has been destroyed. ALICE Yep.

How'd it get right? The wild virus. Of the list of American cities destroyed by climate change, you know, very sad to have to add Los Angeles to it. Yes. Tampa's still avoiding being on that list somehow, after all this is full of drugs in Tampa Bay. Divine providence for the Tampa Bay Bucks.

Yeah, no, I mean, as far as this goes, this has been on the cards for a while, you know, like, and I think it had been like, a sort of like, uh, a thing where like, any time you hear about Southern California's like, increasingly losing battle, with a biome comprised primarily of like, dry tinder. Um, it's- primarily of, like, dry tinder. It's... JUSTIN Uh, with the invasive eucalyptus thrown in for good measure. ALICE Oh, those fucking koala bombs. ALICE Yeah, just some koala bombs. ALICE Australian koala bombs.

Yeah. Yeah. JUSTIN Yeah. But, uh, yeah, so there are, I believe at this point, uh, two or three fires burning in Los Angeles County. There is the Palisades Fire that's down by the coast, just northwest of Santa Monica. Pacific Palisades. ALICE You say Santa Ma-

JUSTIN Santa Monica. ALICE Santa Monica. JUSTIN Santa Monica. Um, there's the other one which I believe is the Eaton Fire? ALICE Yes. JUSTIN Yes. That's, uh, that's sort of- ALICE Fucking a sick hearing about which schools these fuckers went to.

I said don't threaten me with a good time, eating far be marvelous. Yeah, that's sort of northeast of downtown Los Angeles, near Pasadena, near the near Altadena, which is looking pretty ugly right now. Those are tens of thousands of acres between them are on fire right now. And it has been pretty you know, pretty ugly to watch. This is a really big fire, and this is usually sort of the rainy, you know, wet season out there. That sort of just did not happen this year. Usually the fires don't happen this time of year. So it's been, you know, tough marshalling all the firefighters.

It's been tough marshalling all the firefighters, it's been tough, you know? It's January! It's January and it's fucking, like, fire season. Fuck you, it's January! Yeah, genuinely! The one silver lining of this, I hesitate to even call it a silver lining, is you see that one venture capitalist guy who was tweeting... Can someone find me the private fire department? I'll pay any amount of money!

Is there anyone I can buy like a fire department off of? It's like, fuck you, pay your taxes. You know? Yeah. Seth MacFarlane drew a little Brian Family Guy dog cartoon to thank the firefighters for saving his ass. I just saw that, yeah. No he didn't. Ah, he did?

No he didn't. I wanna see it. I think he said thank you LAFD, and that's Los Angeles County Fire Department Bulldozer that. Oh, yep. That's, yep. Yep. Yep.

What you're seeing here is that when the first evacuation orders came down... You're seeing Roz actually in his Bulldozer. This is his, folks. This is not like the nuke. This is his. This fire... the first evacuation orders is his. This this fire. The first evacuation orders seem to come from this this one development that's fairly high up in the mountains and there's one road in and one road out.

Sounds like then there's a there's a second road that's blocked off most of the time. That's the quote fire road unquote in case the main one is blocked. Anyway, they sent the evacuation orders out, and the fire moved so quickly that the one road in was blocked, and so everyone had to get out of their cars and run for it, and then of course they couldn't move equipment in because the road was blocked with abandoned cars, so the fire department came in... ALICE Yeah, people took their keys as well, just in case someone stole your Nissan in the middle of the fucking fire. Yeah, the fire department came in with the bulldozer. If you wanted that badly, take it.

I would point out, y'know, there's a big bus depot about two miles away by highway that could've moved people out another way. Nah, fuck you. Nah. Well, I mean, conversely, a related part of climate adaptation is maybe not building communities in places and in ways such that there's like one and a half roads out and you can only get people out by their own cars. JUSTIN All of the development in these parts of Los Angeles County, I think this is still

Los Angeles County, it's pretty big. It might be something that's joining. ALICE Yeah, they've got a county fire department there, so probably, yeah. JUSTIN Yeah, exactly. Probably. So the thing is, there's a lot of this stuff where, you talk about like the urban wilderness interface, these are houses which are, you know, they're single family, they're large houses on smaller lots, and they're built, you know, with a bunch of dry vegetation around them. And they're built inside... they're built in areas that when the wildfire goes, it goes

really hard. In this case, the one thing that's been exacerbating it are what are called the Santa Ana winds. And these are a phenomena that happens, you know, a dozen and a half times per year or so, where it's just like, okay, we have a night of 99 mile per hour gusts. Jesus. So, yeah, and that's- Jesus.

The Santa Ana, where anything can happen. Like, uh- Exactly. And that- those peaked about two and a half hours ago, as of now. This fire is still very much going, as we speak. The fire has managed to make it down the mountain and it looks like they just issued the first evacuation order for Palisades Park a few minutes ago. And that's sort of past like where a lot of the vegetation is. That's gotten into, you know, Los Angeles bungalows

proper. Yeah, yeah. So that could get pretty ugly, you know, even by the time this episode is finished recording. ALICE Oh yeah, I mean, the stuff moves so quickly. I mean, it's really grim. JUSTIN Yeah, and the other part is, that particular fire, at least the winds are mostly moving out to sea, so you don't have necessarily the spread, the other one, the Eden fire, that one there's, you know, probably a dozen miles of city

between it and the sea. There have been a couple of fires that have been, you know, started just from embers drifting three miles away, which is pretty, not a good thing to think about, but those have been contained fairly quickly, but the town of Altadena has already, y'know, had pretty serious damage to its downtown, y'know, and again, that's past, like, the urban wilderness interface, that's moving into proper urban. So that's also not so good. ALICE It's just grim to consider that not only

is this the kind of thing that's gonna get worse every year for the rest of our lives, but the Chirons are gonna become less and less like a joke every year for the rest of our lives. JUSTIN Yeah, I was about to say, the other thing is, there's been a bunch of people complaining, oh my god, why did the fire hydrants fail, why is there no pressure in the fire system? You can't design a fire hydrant system, a high pressure water system, for a demand like this reasonably. No. This is outside of scope.

This is not something anyone could have reasonably predicted would happen. Scope creep, but just to soak down the Rose Bowl with like a bunch of whatever the fuck is in fire hydrants now? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Why don't we build the whole town out of asbestos? Which to be clear, they tried. So yeah, they're largely, you know, in parts of the area that is currently being burned

over they are without any fire hydrants, you know, you have to bring in water trucks and bumper trucks. The situation is not good. Mason- Climate change. I mean, this is, you know, this isn't just climate change. There are lots of other factors in here. Not that they're causing it as well as like it making the consequences worse. But, you know, we we've talked about it all before. I've talked about in the book, it's talked about by a lot of experts. We're going to have to build, we're going to not only build our new developments and new cities to be much more resilient and also improve mobility and so that you can actually get people in and out

of areas, but there is so much retrofitting, particularly in US cities that are so sprawling. Because the thing about the sprawling cities is that they are hopeless for putting in dense transit. You can do it, but they're not so good. But also they're really good for being obliterated by fire because you've got just lovely fire going through wrecking everything. I've been working my way through on Google Maps, looking at where the fires are and just looking at how perfectly arranged all the housing is between pretty decent fire loads

in the brush, as Ross was saying, that interface. And the other thing is it's like Switzerland in the sense, some of these hilly stuff, it's like Switzerland. You've got one road up, except that in Switzerland, you'd have a rack railway down the middle of the road. So like there are ways to do this where you don't have everyone parking your car in the road, so they have to be bulldozed out the way. It's yeah. I think that the images of the bulldozing bulldozing cars out the way given that for the US cars are up there with among the highest sources of greenhouse gas emissions right now. It's yeah, it's it's a bit like that photo from Spain the other day, right?

I thought you were gonna go another way with that and say in the United States cars are the highest and holiest form of life. highest and holiest form of life. That is true. I mean, that's kind of true, yeah. Like, it's like, okay, it's gonna kill however many people, but it's gonna destroy god knows how many cars. What about my Nissan? That's the real horror. Yeah.

Coming off of my burning building holding Toby to save my Nissan Rogue. The thing is, there are quite a lot of wide roads, like, you could have... I just, pertinent to the next Like you could have, I just pertinent to the, the, the next episode, of course, I just finished watching Chernobyl series. I'm very late to that party, but I finally just watched it. And one of the things that struck me in the early part is how quickly the Soviet Union and the, the, the Ukrainian SSR just rustled up like, like 200 coaches and just evacuated an entire city. Like that sort of thing can be done.

Roswell was talking about a bus depot earlier. Yeah, there is a there is a depot for the Big Blue Bus, which is one of the local transit agencies in this area. Pretty big depot right in downtown Santa Monica, about two minutes travel time from where this bulldozer is short of a short of like building better transit for the fringes of Los Angeles or Los Angeles in total like the the city planners in the county needs to be saying do not drive your car there

will be coach you know we have an evacuation plan and it involves coaches plan that involves buses I mean you could have that organized for next season you got to worry about stuff like, okay, you know, personal possessions and pets and so on and so forth, but you'd wanna encourage people to use the bus where possible. Yeah, exactly. So you don't wind up in... this. Um. Yeah.

Yeah. Oof. I like the Fireflies are filming it on their phone. Yeah. This is me. Like, get the show in front of you, on their phone. I was like, that's funny. Like, get the Sean Freud you can. Like, yeah. JUSTIN We got a statement from Noah, our Southern California correspondent.

Um, hello from the climate crisis. There are over 27,000 acres of the county burning. There's ash falling all around my apartment. A mole developer who ran on being L.A. Trump is getting quotes in L.A. Times, and our mayor cut the fire department funding by 20 million dollars so that she could pay for exorbitant raises for the cops in LAPD staffing positions that remained completely unfilled for years because of how evil the LAPD are.

This will happen to you one day. Great. Not me, I'll just jump in the Delaware. Yeah. Yeah, that is another aspect of this, is that a lot of emergency services, other than the police, have been recently defunded, not just the fire department, also things like homelessness services and stuff, all that went straight to the police, and it's just padding the budget, it's not even paying for new officers.

It's really good that you got- it's like every other country that pays for a secondary paramilitary force ends up getting couped. It's amazing that it hasn't happened in the US yet, you know. It's government time. Yeah, it's been a ton. Civilian control of the police is something that people really ought to be focusing more... We should work towards civilian control of the police. It's about building, like, you know, strong institutions.

Yeah. But yeah, so that's an ongoing story, I mean, who knows what's happened by now, the whole city may have been destroyed by the time this is released. But anyway, in other news... There was, in New Orleans, a mass running overing. This is just a kind of omnipresent future of life now. It's a thing in Europe, it's a thing in the US. And, I mean, the thing, I've been talking about this a bit on Trash Future, and the thing that I come back to is that you just have a segment of the population

who are so, who are like, aware as everybody is that something is badly wrong, and that something is fucked, but are willing to be, or like, able to be led into the most incoherent, self-radicalizing positions based off of that. And... JUSTIN Oh, yeah. Just insane political violence that doesn't make any sense. I mean, I don't know, you could learn by this guy, he did an assassination and left an elevator pitch memo.

Everyone liked him. You know, I don't... ALICE But that's also an example of, like, incoherence, because okay, when he killed the health insurance CEO, it's like, yeah, that was cool, fine, but like, he did it because he was radicalized by Malcolm Gladwell. You know, it's not something he should make any fucking sense. JUSTIN The first radical centrist. ALICE Yeah, and it's deeply individual and atomized. It's like, a kind of more... especially for a guy like this, right, to be like, I'm gonna

join ISIS and then do a ramming attack off the back of self-radicalization, is just a more elaborate form of murder-suicide. JUSTIN I don't think he even joined ISIS, I figure you gotta send in some paperwork or something. Pay an application fee. Processing fee for ISIS-1250. But like, part of the thing here was he was broke and he was getting divorced, and he was unhappy about the divorce settlement, if I remember rightly. And it's like, this is the thing that I guess you do when you can't kill your like, soon to be ex-wife, and the rest of your family is you decide

to take it out on like, society in general, in the form of Bourbon Street. Um, I mean... SEAN But, I think there's some interesting local politics here as well. ALICE Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, for sure. SEAN Yeah, so, you know, uh, this is, okay, Shamsuddin Jabbar, right? US Army veteran, American citizen, he rented off of Truro. Turo.

Turo? Turo. Turo. Turo, yeah. I was thinking the city of Truro. Yeah, he rented off of this, like, um... It's Airbnb for your car. West country, I see.

Yeah. So, uh, he rented a Ford F-150 Lightning, that's the electric version of the Ford F-150. This thing's six thousand pounds, zero to sixty-four seconds. It gives you like three seconds, yeah. It's one of those things where it's an EV, and that's useful for this kind of thing, because you get a little pull. But this one thing specifically, right. Yeah, exactly.

The front torque weighs a ton. Yep. Turned right off of Canal Street onto Bourbon Street, dodged around a police SUV because they didn't have the wedge barrier there that day. Presumably all the other police crap that said Canal and Bourbon, because usually you get the portable sentry tower there and everything rams into the crowd on Bourbon Street, kills 15 people, injures a hell of a lot more.

He had ISIS flag on the truck. Uh, he rigged some pipe bombs to detonate with remote control. Never got to use them probably because he crashed into the man lift here. And then the airbag went off and then he was stuck in there getting shot at by the police. Um, it's a pretty bad situation, you know? Yeah. Not, not ideal, not ideal.

Well, you know, if you don't want to wind up in that situation, don't do a truck attack. Don't do terrorists. Yeah. Yeah. So this is about three blocks into Bourbon Street, right? This is, uh, what is it? I want to say there's a daiquiri place right up here. It is Bourbon Street, so yeah.

It also does pizza. Yeah. I'm sure we've been there, the dead of night. No, it's definitely the last time we were there. does pizza. Yeah. I'm sure we've been there, the dead of night. It's absolutely like- It's the last time we were there, yeah. I don't even talk anymore. You're right for this kind of thing, because you just have a bunch of people walking around very closely packed.

Yep. Yeah. Yes, this is a very very narrow street, very heavy pedestrian load, it was New Year's Eve, it's New Year's Eve, everyone is fucking hammered. Yeah. Um, but anyway, so, one question is, if you've been to New Orleans, what's going on with the bollards? There's usually bollards blocking off Bourbon Street at this time of day.

Or night, it's three o'clock in the morning. It all comes back to bollards, it's all bollard posting at the end of the day. Yep. Always. Mayor Mitch Landrieu proposed closing Bourbon Street to traffic back in 2017, a bunch of business owners successfully opposed this because they get the majority of their business from the roughly 15 parking spots on Bourbon Street, and not the trillions of pedestrians, right?

ALICE Correct me if I'm wrong, right, but isn't that whole area in the Gorse kind of like de facto pedestrianized, but it also occasionally gets cars through it? ALICE You can drive a car there, you shouldn't, but you can. The sidewalks are very narrow, the streets are very narrow, most streets are one travel lane, one parking lane. You know, it is built for the 17th century. ALICE Yeah.

Back when you couldn't do a self-radicalized horse attack. JUSTIN Yeah, exactly, exactly. The horse gets scared by the other horses. And various other things. ALICE One of the most perfect, one of several cities in the US, but possibly the most perfect city for being car free. Dense- cities in the US, but possibly the most perfect city for being car free. At least this section of the world. I think you could you could make a very strong case for pedestrianization.

The French quarter. I agree. Yeah. Not a compromise measure here meant to prevent exactly this kind of attack. Were these movable bollards here? Stupid. They're fine. They're fine. ALICE They're also, they're also pathetic, right? Like,

if you've seen in places that are sort of like designed against vehicle ramming attacks, and this does not always work, as we saw in Europe recently, in Germany, but like, when you see like, look at like the US embassy in your country if you're not in the US, for instance, or like, you know, parliaments or stuff like that. It might be in the form of big planters or something, but you will have big concrete like fortifications. You know?

And that's not something that's necessarily implausible to put in, it's not something that's implausible to move in and out of the way a bunch of times a day, but like, the little tiny metal bollard just kind of doesn't cut it, you know? Oh, no. These guys are pretty heavy duty, they're like crash rated for, like, I wanted to say like 20 tons or something like that, I didn't write that down. These are called something- I don't know what I'm fucking talking about. Something like, uh, the model name is a Matador something, I wanna say.

That's the... The Oficerator! Yeah, exactly. That's not how a matador, something, I wanna say. ALICE That's the official H.R. JUSTIN Yeah, exactly. ALICE That's not how a matador works. The matador's job isn't to try and absorb the state of the world. The matador gets out of the way, right? I don't know. So anyway, these slide in and out diagonally so that when the street is pedestrianized in the evenings, the ballers are up, but otherwise they are not, right?

Otherwise, you know, you can get your deliveries early in the morning and people can drive their cars down the street until I want to say like eight o'clock in the evening. So you don't need vehicles for deliveries anymore. This is true. Yeah. bikes exist. You don't need vehicles for deliveries anymore. This is true, yeah. So this was the compromise measure. This was deliberately supposed to prevent truck attacks because everyone was terrified about the attack in Nice at that point. A later proposal by Mayor Latoya Cantrell to pedestrianize not just Bourbon Street, but most of the French Quarter, in response to Covid, was also shot

down. To the point where even mild traffic calming was rejected. Come on, man. Just for Clutch, for anyone watching... It's like, literally, it's like a combination of bar owners and the kind of fifteen ancient French vampires who actually live in the French Corsair? This is a photo... RUSSELL Fucking Delphine Laloré's ghost sticking that shit up on the front door.

I want to... JUSTIN This is a photo I took on Bourbon Street several years ago, save our neighborhood, no pedestrian mall. This is on an Airbnb. Shut up, I fucking heard you. and B. Can I just, can I just to explicitly for everyone watching listening, all of the evidence shows that business income increases when you pedestrianize an area. Just in case anyone was in any doubt about what the actual evidence is, these businesses are morons. They are, their patronage will increase when you pedestrianize the street. That is a fundamental thing. And also to maintain

access for disabled people coming through, it's very straightforward to enable because those people who are driving disabled, disabled people driving a vehicle are, they are likely to be firstly, very few vehicles allowed in. They can drive around at like very low speeds or you can have mobility scooters that allow them to move around. There are ways to manage that without limiting their access, but you can fully pedestrianize an area and the business income will increase because the cars aren't in the way, because cars are a shit user road space. I'm thinking I'm developing a theory here.

I'm developing a theory that not only are cars the highest American form of life, but drunk driving is the most sacred American activity. Yes. You're not wrong. I will say some of the resistance here is also from people who just fucking hate tourists. Which, I understand. I definitely understand.

I get that, but like, they lost that battle in New Orleans in like, 1830. You're not making any forward-looking... It's like living in fucking, like, Celebration Florida and being like this to me fucking tourist. Or like, yeah, Venice or like... I like the idea of a guy who does live in Celebration Florida and it's just like, if I see the mouse one more fucking time... Yeah. Yeah, I got a guy who lived there when it was all just orange groves and was just like, I'm not...

Why should I leave? I was fucking here for this too. This this was my proposal. This later proposal, the pedestrianized Bourbon Street was also, you know, sort of disregarded. It was shot down. You know, this this would have, you would have pedestrianized a few other streets in the French Quarter as well. You know, you'd have a bunch of traffic calming elsewhere, all the stuff that would have, you know, you'd have a bunch of traffic coming elsewhere all the stuff that would have prevented you from driving a truck down there at 60

miles an hour. That made it nice. It would have made it nice. Yeah. Admittedly, it's already very nice. It would have made it nicer. The only city where I'm willing to move besides Philadelphia is New Orleans, Louisiana. So if anyone's got-

So high on my list of like needs to go there for place beautiful place. I I love it every time I've been there. I've been I treated like a king. I love I love it. I love New Orleans and I genuinely this one was like this hit me especially because I was like I you know as as as horrific and grotesque as Bourbon Street is, a place that I dearly love and care about, just seeing this is gut wrenching. And my sincere condolences. No, it's horrible. It is, and it's terrifying.

We had a shooting at the Christmas Market here in Philly, and I had the thought after this happened of just, it wouldn't be that hard. And I just... That wouldn't be that hard. And I just, that probably be pretty, yeah. Just that, that fucking thought man is, is super grim. So let's talk about something even worse. Yeah. Like the car, car as a weapon again, like the car, like I want to be explicit about the cars as an offensive weapon, not just causing climate change, not just wrecking our space environment, but cars are getting heavier, still getting more powerful. They are weapons.

ALICE It's just someone who has apprehended the kind of anti-social, violent potential of a car more than most other people have. SEAN There's no reason for vehicles to be this big, this fast, and this heavy. ALICE Yeah. SEAN If this fast and this heavy. Yeah. No, no, and I get stupider Yeah, let's talk about the truck bomb. No So anyway, these are pretty good hefty bollards they installed anyway, right?

You know, but so how is the truck able to make it through? The answer is they were not compatible with the environment of Bourbon Street. What? The fuck does that mean? It's not a graphics card. They had to be manually moved into place every evening. And because Bourbon Street is a place where people get very very drunk, um, and drop stuff on the floor, the tracks got clogged up with beads and trash, and what the municipal workers referred to as Bourbon Street juice. ALICE Oh, delicious. A heady mixture of zombie vomit, and like, god only knows what else. JUSTIN I had to describe that as a serviceability

limit state failure. That's poor design. Like, so, that's an obvious and inevitable outcome. JUSTIN In preparation for hosting the Super Bowl, they decided to clean up Bourbon Street and install new bollards, and remove the old unreliable bollards, right? Which meant- ALICE Remove the matadors. JUSTIN The matadors were turned into doormats. ALICE Oh. JUSTIN Oh.

ALICE Yeah. Sorry. ALICE I see what you did there and I don't like it. JUSTIN Yeah. Sorry. ALICE I see what you did there and I don't like it. JUSTIN Yeah. So anyway, there were no bollards installed at the time of this impact. There was absolutely no kind of barrier whatsoever, save for the police SUV parked on Bourbon and Canal. ALICE Yeah, this is the one time where you need the cops to be double parked, and they still managed

to fuck that up too. So anyway, yeah, from Nola.com, the bollard project began in November and was scheduled the last three months. It involves removing and replacing sections of road to take out the existing bollards. A city press release on Tuesday night noted the project was ongoing but did not provide details of the work done such far, the old barriers never worked, blah blah blah, Bourbon Street Juice, um, yeah. The new ballers they want to put in? Only rated for a £5,000 impact at 10 miles an hour.

ALICE Man, fuck off. So everything you were saying, Norvo, is correct. ALICE I was right, but about the wrong ballers. This is what I get for reading ahead in the notes. No, the new bollards aren't gonna work, the old bollards would have worked fine, but they took them out. Uh huh. Are you fucking kidding me? So, no, Nova, you were just 100% correct, about the bollards that are there now, hopeless. You know what you could do if you wanted to block a road in a way that he could, like, get in and out of the way without having, like, street juice blocking it as like some kind of a gate?

Yeah. Swings up, or across, you know? So usually on Bourbon Canal Street... A castle, yes. At Bourbon Canal they have what's called a wedge barrier, that's one of the ones where the big sheet metal flips up. The thing is, it's a portable one that's not there the whole day. The other thing is- ALICE What the fuck is that? What?

JUSTIN I'm just thinking about the juice coming off one of those wedges as it rises. ALICE Aww, I'm pouring down from the swamp like Barrett Harkin and... JUSTIN Bourbon actually has a pronounced grade towards the center because it is so frequently submerged in liquid. So this portable wedge barrier actually, like, half of it is slightly in the air, because it's flat, but the street is not. So every time anything goes over it, it just bends the thing. So I assume they just weren't using it, because it was probably broken.

ALICE It genuinely, at this point, it's gotta be cheaper to dig a moat. That's what I was saying. JUSTIN Yep. Well, they got... ALICE Dig the moat. JUSTIN But, they have a levee that's like the reverse of a moat. ALICE Big earthen berm blocking off Canal Street.

No cars, just make it, no cars. Just to prevent... If you just, you know, if you just pedestrianized this thing, this would not have been possible if you just did it properly. I mean, okay, you need some room for deliveries to some of these places, but, you know, if you had a lot of street furniture, if you had a lot of, you know, just... even like chicanes would have made this impossible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But, you know, I think... Everything I know about New Orleans is that it's a beautiful city that is tremendously poorly led, and kind of always has been, as long as it's existed. And yeah, you know, just kind of more of that, I guess. Well, you know, there's very little we can do to, uh, you know, no one wants to give up American's sacred right to drive a car as quick as possible everywhere. Yeah, no one competent ever wants to be mayor of anything, is another part. Like, there's no... there's a real dearth of effective municipal governance, is why

I did start doing the fucking Mayor podcast, as it's like, there's a real kind of like, thing where it's just not something that anyone seems to bother to take seriously even in large cities. LWK We need a, we need, we need a, you know, some kind of vat where we can grow new anadolgos. Um, yes. Yeah. ALICE Yeah, doing the prestiged anadolgo.

LWK Yeah, exactly. But also, there was a woman who was hit by the truck and then was shot, and she was told to come in to work the next day by Amazon. ALICE Yep, that just about sums those kinds of stuff. ALICE Yeah. LUCAS Yeah. So anyway, this very very ugly truck attack here that could have been solved with a little bit better municipal governance, if that. I mean, you know, these are ways you can be resilient to, sort of, the horrible alienation

that's resulting in these bizarre terrorist attacks with... ALICE That's the thing that I always come back to, right? It's like a symptom of an age of incoherence, right? RILEY Do you know how you make yourself less lonely? You take the person out of the three and a half ton isolation box, and you make them mix with other pedestrians in a largely pedestrianized part of a beautiful city. ALICE You can't even make Americans ride the subway

with each other without having them kill each other now, so... LIAM Yeah, this is true, this is... Well, we'll get to that later in the presentation. Oh God. Okay. Can we talk about a fun car based violence? Yeah, let's talk about the stupider one. Yeah. Okay, right.

So we have to, we have to tackle the firstly, we, I laid this into existence in the last episode we did. ALICE You did. You did. ALICE Yeah. ALICE Sorry everyone. SEAN Hold on, hold on, we need the mental bookend here. ALICE Alright, go. ALICE Oh yes, sorry. Yes, we laid this into existence, uh, as a podcast, and I can only apologize for suggesting that it would be a Cybertruck... a Cybertruck bombing Trump,

as we can see here happening. Yeah, that did in fact happen. A man... Not just any man, but one of God's own green berets. A special forces soldier, which makes everything that follows significantly funnier when you consider the whole, like, these guys are like hyper-tra trained killers kind of thing. A man- The most pathetic explosion- Oh, sorry.

Anyway, go on, go on, Ross. Went in a cyber truck off of Turo. Off of Turo. Yeah. Then asked ChatGPT how to get to Las Vegas and drove for the wrong one. He also asked ChatGPT, and again, this guy was, this guy was, he was a green beret, he was in the special forces team. He asked chat GPT how to build a bomb, what explosives he might need, and for the first

time in ever, AI's tendency to just hallucinate wrong shit. To save lives. Yes. ALICE So the most dangerous thing, the most dangerous object that we see here, of all the stuff that was dumped into it and around it, was the Cybertruck itself. Because right, he filled the incredibly small boot of this thing with fireworks. Now, fireworks don't explode hot, they also don't explode particularly violently. He had seen the most recent bonus episode and was like, what if I did that but in a

way that was also a s*** attempt? He bought the- Oh, you're gonna have to bleep the word s*** inside in all of this, sorry Devon. Oh, sorry Devon, we'll try not to use it too much. There was one in the last one as well. Yeah, so he went to EntFX and he hired the O-Bang and he put that in the boot of the Cybertruck, drove it according to the wrong place. To the wrong Las Vegas, Las Vegas, New Mexico. Yeah, excellent.

Realized his mistake and drove to the regular Las Vegas. Those marvelous green braids. Yeah, and realized his mistake and drove to the regular Las Vegas. Those marvelous green braids. Yeah. I love how much AI is just going to be a confounding factor in like increasing amounts of news. We're like, oh yeah, this is this terrorist attack happened, but it happened in it happened where no one was in like a set for a movie film of the city rather than the actual city, because AI just sent someone that way.

I just- ALICE Doing 9-11 to Manhattan, Kansas. Oh man, just incredible work. Anyway, so it went pop. It didn't even break any windows, right? It was just- ALICE I think it injured like a couple of people who were nearby, but like, I think I shot himself and then hit the fucking...

Oh god, okay. The detonation thing, and then just kind of... you had a very voluminous fireworks-y explosion, and the Cybertruck caught on fire. Yeah, it was pretty loony tunes. Yeah, it was a bit comedic, yeah. And then of course when the Cybertruck got hot enough, that was when things started getting dangerous, yeah. ALICE I mean, yeah, you're then faced with a Cybertruck

fire, which is not great. RILEY No. ALICE Well, Elon was like, look how great the Cybertruck performed. ALICE Because it was designed for this, yeah. RILEY It was designed for this, because my Cybertruck is made of steel. Guess what other cars are made of? Sometimes aluminum.

Sometimes car- It's just fucking street. Twat. Anyway, yeah, there it is. It just- That means we're sliding towards a future where the Los Angeles County Fire Department's bulldozer is unable to push a Cybertruck out of the way. Oh my god. No, they'll upgrade, it's fine. department's bulldozer is unable to push a cyber truck out of the way. Oh my god.

No, they'll upgrade, it's fine. Fire with fire. Just in case. Sir plus IDF. Just in case. Sir plus IDF. Please. Bigger bulldozers.

Yeah. Buy them from the IDF. No, I want them to stay BDS compliant. That's a good point, yeah. What's a BDS compliant. JUSTIN That's a good point, yeah. ALICE True. JUSTIN What's a BDS compliant bulldozer? ALICE The bulldozer's a really, the bulldozer's a really like, kind of an extremes of morality technology in the sense of like, you can use it for a genocide, or you can use it to crush a cyber truck to like, do firefights. JUSTIN Yeah, that really is the opposite end of the spectrum.

ALICE It's like a new palm of silk, buddy. JUSTIN Yeah. ALICE Is Caterpillar on the BDS list? ALICE Oh, they talk. ALICE Oh, yeah. ALICE Of course that's what I figured, yeah. I mean, I guess you'd have to... I mean, who else builds bulldozers?

China! There are like twenty different bulldozer manufacturers in China. I mean, if we're talking about human rights abuses then... Probably Volvo. I think Volvo might be woke, I dunno. Volvo woke manufacturers. The logo. The logo is the man I dunno. A Volvo woke manufacturer. The logo. The logo is the man symbol.

Yeah. So no. Well they care about men's mental health, is the thing. We gotta get Volvo to change it to the trans symbol, and then they'll be woke. Yep. That's it. I'm gonna need Volvo to do a couple of things. First of all, change the logo to the trans symbol.

Second of all, build the world's largest bulldozer. Three, start giving it to American firefighters. Yes, exactly. Okay. Glad we're making progress today. Yeah, we're rattling through this agenda here. We have a coherent vision for a better world. Yeah.

Imagine the, like, woke fire department bulldozer crushing a cyber truck forever, and that's our vision of the future. MULLER Komatsu, Europe, that's who we want. That's who's building our bulldozers, Komatsu. That's who we're going for. ALICE Sure, yeah. Do you think bulldozer guys get really tribal about their bulldozer affiliation, like Power Tools guys do? MULLER Oh, 100% yeah. Yeah, exactly.

So it's just like they're making up, like, homophobic acronyms for other bulldozers and manufacturers. Oh, like, the Operating Engineers Union is like, barely holding together constantly because of these internal divisions. It's like, yeah, I showed him my set of keys to the commando and he stabbed me in the hand with a pencil. I don't... ALICE Oh dear.

Anyway, boom. Total boom. ALICE This is, again, another symptom of incoherence, this time of much less consequence. I've been calling this whole thing the years of lead poisoning, I'm really happy with that, I'm gonna be using it on everything. RILEY I was about to say, the other thing is, of course, this guy who did this, whatever the hell this was, was a big Trump guy.

Yes! Donald Trump supporters love trying to assassinate him when they're bored. Like, just... I hope you find that. His enemies have way more reason to assassinate him, and yet as far as we can tell, like, basically none of them have made a serious run at it, but his own guys? They love trying to kill him. They can't get enough of it. It's like, do you remember that editorial cartoon, it was like Washington Post whatever, with the like, like dark MAGA figure with the like, I'll take care of the

Mr. President. It's like that, but he's shooting at Trump. Yeah, exactly. Yes sir, Mr. President, I'll take care of the woke deep state. Sighting up Trump. This man has created a reverse secret service. Yeah, he's created a core of like thousands of lunatics dedicated to his own assassination. What if this is, what if, I'm going to try and get it into every item, what if this is an elaborate- YouTube. What if Trump is like, he's still like, I don't wanna be president, I wanna die, and so he's just like, setting up these guys, you know? Oh, you've heard of- No.

By cop. This is- Can't say that on YouTube. By political supporters. YouTube. By assassin, yeah. Yes. There's gonna be a little counter for that This is... Can't say that on YouTube. By political supporters. YouTube. By assassin, yeah. There's gonna be a little counter for that word in the corner that Devon's gonna take. Devon, I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'd like you to, if you can do the counter that'd be great, but ideally what I'd like you to do is instead of a beep, just replace every instance of the word with a really flat

recording of yourself saying, YouTube? That'd be great. My understanding is that, actually, YouTube doesn't censor you saying- Gotta take that out. This is a form of mass psychosis that Gen Z has imposed on us. Oh, unaliving yourself, yeah, possibly. Exactly, yeah. Although we did get a video get, like,-boosted or whatever the fuck it is. From...

No, that was because we talked about Aaron Bush now. I think that was a specific political thing that YouTube did not like. I guess we can A-B test that with this. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna try. I quoted, I read a quote by him in my New Year's Nata, actually. I had one very angry email about it because he gave a really good quote on Reddit in 2023 that was, I thought was pretty

inspirational and, and yeah, YouTube hasn't hit me hard on that, but yeah, I don't know. I've noticed anyway. Yeah. Zoom still being proven more right every day. I think a lot about the, this is what, what our ruling class has decided is going to be normal. Um, I think that's, yeah, we're looking at all of this and yeah, getting that feeling. Yeah. Hold on. That slides later in the presentation. Oh my God. God.

I think that word, the word incoherence, political incoherence comes up a lot. That just, I think, in fact, I think Hussein, not don't not not to cross post but like yeah trust me the last trash feature we have saying Hussein kept talking about it and I even spawned with that point about this this incoherence is just going to happen more and more because the landscape is incoherent like like the politicians are incoherent anyway sorry next slide let's let's talk about some other really horrific things going on yeah horrific things going on. Yeah. So we've lost another 737.

Oh, our t-shirts. It's a Max. This is not a Max. This was an 800. Isn't the 800 just the, haven't they just rebranded the Max? No, no, this is a much older airplane actually. Oh, forgive me. Okay.

I believe this is before even the 737NG. Okay, forgive me. OK. I believe this is before even the 737 NG. Oh, OK. Crikey. Jeju Air Flight 7C-2216 left Bangkok, Thailand, approached for its scheduled landing at Muang International Airport in southern South Korea. They had an initial failed landing attempt. There was a go around and they had a bird strike, I believe,

at least when I wrote this slide, that was the most current information. Yeah. So they, they, they went, they did a go around, they came back in for landing. The, uh, the, the, the flight crews sent a distress signal. They tried to land on a different runway than the one they were, you know, uh, given clearance for, because apparently that's all they could do. The plane touched down without lowering its landing gear, right?

It skidded along the runway, very high speed. Actually, for a belly landing, absolutely beautiful. Pilots did a great job. Thing is, they couldn't stop in time. Overshot the end of the runway, and so at the end of the runway is the localizer antenna, which is usually made of a sort of material that can break away in these sorts of instances. ALICE Well what they did was they perfectly prevented a truck attack from hitting the

end of the runway. JUSTIN Yeah, yeah, it um... This localizer was on a big concrete berm and the plane hit it and just blew up. Everyone except two flight attendants at the back of the plane died. Yeah. Christ. Yeah, it sounded, again, this is one where there is, we need to wait until there's a report on this because all the details on this seem a little bit muddy still.

I'm cool. I'm not. I'm now a pro air crash investigator having watched pretty much every single episode of air crash investigation because I'm obsessed. Exactly. Exactly. I've watched a lot of mentor pilots. So I'm an expert. Each episode of appearance on this podcast is equivalent to a year's, like, college air crash investigation. You all have your pilot's licenses now. Congratulations. Yeah, exactly. The credits come good. So it seemed like there's suggestions that the pilots landed it beautifully, but they took too long on the runway. They went too far down the

runway without touching down. So they didn't have enough to spend enough time skidding along on their belly to slow it down. That seems like... yeah. I'll be very interested to see what went down on this one, because it's a real fucking mess. It's really hard to say, and also, I don't know if you put this in the slides, but South Korea, a country that is experiencing a surfeit of news at the moment, like a real news surfeit. Oh, right, yeah. Yeah, they should have put that one in, yeah. They're doing a lot of news there. It's fine, it closed itself off neatly, right? It's all good, everything's fine and down in South Korea right now.

ALICE Not so much, no. I think they're up at like, two presidents impeached sequentially, and one of them is like, barricading himself in his house with the Secret Service, as the cops try to arrest him, the non-secret service cops. S1 05-01-00 God, I hope we can have that kind of politics. S2 05-01-00 I love the idea. I'm never coming out just like bashing at the door of the plunger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. S1 05-01-00 Oh man. So hypercapital, the countries in

East Asia, in the Far East where we exported hypercapitalism, it's doing great. So South Korea, it seems like their entire democracy has collapsed in on itself, and Japan the average age is 78. So yeah, it's going real good out there. Yeah, terrific. ALICE And so also now this, in a country with a kind of barely functioning executive, it's never a good time to have a massive plane crash, but this is distinctly the worst time. Not a great time, yeah.

South Korea, and people are gonna catch me if I'm wrong on this, but South Korea has a pretty good safety record. Oh, get like, world standard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As in like, in terms of actual crap, very low, we're not talking Taiwan, this isn't China Airlines, where they have like six, seven four sevens hit the dirt a year. This is like, this is, they're very high, very good safety rate. I would hope then that they have a very effective crash investigation

board and obviously, you know, the NTSB will be over there sniffing around as well and supporting them. So yeah, I look forward to reading the crash report into this one. This is all going to be very heavily investigated. I was interested to reading the crash report into this one. This is all gonna be very heavily investigated. I was interested to see that there was no, apparently no, what's it, EMAS on this runway, the Engineered Material Arresting System. Just seems like this airport was old and poorly designed and couldn't handle the runway overrun without the aircraft turning into, you know into razor blades, yeah. Yeah.

This is, I mean, you don't get many big crashes like this anymore, thankfully. You also don't get many that are apparently caused by airport design, that's something that you tend to think has been pretty standardized. We had quite a few in the 90s, and then kind of since then none really, cause we fixed, you know, EMAX is a good example of the thing that, you know, we kind of, it was a solved problem. We had, you know, the surge in down drafts in the early nineties, various things that we kind of solved. And so it is surprising to see this. Yeah. I just, it's one of those situations I look forward to seeing the crash report. It'll be a really interesting reading

to see what's going on. Cause it feels like Because it feels like there's not been good crew resource management for this to happen. It's likely there was stuff going on in the cockpit. Bird strikes to bring an aircraft down is very unusual. They're designed to deal with this shit. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't add up. And I think you're right. It's gonna be one of those situations where, you know, where traffic control overworked, mismounted... yeah, I look forward to reading that crash report. Really, really intense bird strike. Like the bird... More of a bird hijacking.

Several albatrosses trying to get in the cockpit. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's a bird strike, it turned out it was Feathers McGraw. Oh no, no, this is great. That wildly fucked... Yeah. Uh, fuck. Yeah. Uh. Yep.

Yeah. So, um, who knows what happened here. Um, anyway, in other news... How are we doing in Gaza? Poorly. Bad. Bad. Real, real bad.

Yeah. Yeah, as I was about to say, it's getting real, real ugly and there's no end in sight here. Israel has blown up or set fire to Kamal Adwin Hospital, which was the last functioning hospital in the north of Gaza. That's pure fucking evil, same as it ever was. Yeah, I believe there's been some kind of torture video released where the Israelis got some doctor to admit there was Hamas in the hospital, NYT breathlessly reported on that, I'm pretty sure that was, you know, complete fucking nonsense.

Yeah, exactly. You know, I'll say this much, since it's clear that the Israelis would have, like, destroyed the hospital either way, at that point it doesn't matter, you know? It doesn't really matter. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's a war crime, but like... Not like they give a shit.

Whole thing's been a war crime, yeah. Why are we like, you know, how many days are we in now? Like, yeah, it's... I literally have lost count. Like, it's... It's getting, it's getting, uh, I mean, it has been ugly the whole time, but it's ugly, it gets uglier every day. It's very difficult to like, y'know, we haven't spoken about this for a while, I suppose,

because it's just like, what is there to say? But yeah, this is only getting worse. The word impunity feels like it's completely lost meaning at this point, right? Like impunity, it just took a meaningless word right Israel have just Israel have just been told again and again you can do this and more and you will still get billions from we're not gonna say you'll still get all your weapons you can take over parts of Syria yeah yeah and what else is everything they now own they now own like significant percentages of the water supply in Jordan,

Syria, not to mention Palestine, because of the fact they've just done, they've just taken over bits of Syria, they've just decided, oh that's ours now. That's ours now, yeah. We need a buffer zone for a buffer zone, and I need a buffer zone for my buffer zone. Yeah. Exactly. And it's like, I... fuck, fuck to find out what I can say to like, do about any of this. ALICE Yeah. And it's like, I fucked if I know what I can say to do about any of this. JUSTIN Yeah, nah, I reminded of that Kurt Vonnegut

custard pie quote, about the Vietnam War. ALICE Yeah. It's not as if anyone involved was waiting to hear about what podcasts thought about this, but fucking hell. JUSTIN Or like, you know, mass protests, or uh, you know, any kind of writing your legislator, withholding your vote, in an organized fashion... Nope. Fuck you.

Nah, there's just, nothing has worked. Nothing has moved the needle an inch. It's a real fucking diamond and endowment on how evil our governments are. Yeah, this is how you get to the incoherence as well, is even the people who think this is good and are praising it are still learning the lesson that there are no leavers that you can pull, other than violence. That there is nothing that you can do to make any of these governments listen to you. And what these people are learning from that is like,

well, the only thing for it is these kind of like grandiose, terroristic acts of violence, you know? Yeah, I think the only thing that- Let me be clear, those don't work either. It's just, that's what they're relishing on, you know? Yeah. The only thing that I've been doing is reminding people that this is not just something that someone else is doing and it's bad boohoo. This is like in the UK, we are sending arms,

we are providing intelligence, we are flying our very expensive AWACS planes over the top and we probably have boots on the ground even though we're not, like, it's, even though it's not being talked about officially, it's very likely we have boots on the ground, even though we're not like it's, it's even though it's not being talked about officially. It's very likely we have boots on the ground in Israel in some form, whether it's advisement, whether it's the likelihood is there's probably like 1500 BAE guys out there. Like we are out there, we are facilitating the shelter. So that's not even, that's not even talking about the U S that's the UK. And so we are absolutely all of us have blood on our hands, whether we like it or not. And we should be reminding our MPs of that as frequently as we possibly can.

ALICE You're right, remember the aid pier? They built the aid pier, and then they... ALICE I do have the aid pier. ALICE DROVE DROVE like, four trucks in, and then used them to do a war crime and then dismantled the thing. ALICE Yeah, it was just deliberate. ALICE A guy died, like an American soldier, died of like, misadventure in the course of this building this pier in

an industrial accident. So yeah, great record there. Do you remember Jose Andres, the celebrity chef, who also does World Central Kitchen? JUSTIN I got the Presidential Medal of Freedom after the administration killed some of his guys. ALICE Yeah, from the guy who helped kill a bunch of his staff, yeah. They were shooting at WCK convoys, oh, not WCK, but like, NGO convoys, like, two days

ago. And the IDF is fucking with the UN forces in Lebanon still, even after the kind of withdrawals there, and it's just like, it's like fully a rogue state, but it's a state that's kind of like, apprehended the way things are going, which is like, oh, so, you know, we can, we're really kind of putting international humanitarian law to the test as to whether it's gonna do anything. And that's still not gonna be a settled question for a long time yet. I think you're, you know, as more and more evidence comes out about things, you know, atrocities that, you know,

the IDF have committed in Gaza, you know, I saw this thing that was like, advice to like IDF soldiers traveling abroad, in case you get arrested. SIDNEY Oh, I saw that. Yeah. ALICE Yeah. SIDNEY Or war crimes. ALICE Yeah. You get arrested for war crimes. ALICE And the thing at the end of that was like, the risk isn't gonna decrease over time, it might in fact increase over time. So yeah, we don't know what shape that's gonna take, but in the meantime...

SEAN They've started, they just started today, I believe, blurring soldiers' faces on television. ALICE I mean, yeah, great, have they got them to stop posting TikToks and stealing... Yeah. And like, I just, at this state level, in the immediate term, I think Israel has just kind of made the correct bet that no one is gonna stop it, and this is just how international relations is just gonna work for everyone from now on. JUSTIN It's gonna be ugly, it's gonna be ugly, especially when Trump decides to invade Mexico

or some bullshit. Yep. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is the thing, like, it's kind of like, well, you can just do what you want, pretty much. And there's a lot of countries that wanna do shit like this, you know, Israel isn't like, uniquely evil in the sense of being the only country that has done a genocide or wants to do a genocide, you see that with Azerbaijan just as much, for instance, and

the Gronkhara Bak, and like, this is just gonna be a thing that is gonna become normalized at this rate. And you combine that with the kind of, like, billions of climate refugees, and that whole thing takes on a real children of men cast, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's about to say, yeah, I mean, you're gonna... The only thing we can do is hope we run out of ammo.

The only thing we can do is fucking give the UN nuclear weapons at this point. I mean, honestly though, yeah, I mean, if we could, uh, you know, everyone could vote... Well, no, cause there's still the United States veto. No, no, no, no. See, I'm now at the point where I'm just at the kind of desperation that people got to after the end of the First World War, where they're like, what if we had like an international air police to enforce peace. That kind of thing. I'm just like, well, there's gotta be something, there's gotta be some solution out there. Maybe

it's besadism. Maybe we just have the fucking aliens take over, because we're unfit to govern ourselves. ALICE Or the dolphins. JUSTIN Yeah. ALICE Oh, the dolphins aren't getting away from the sexual assault allegations. ALICE I like to separate the art from the artist, you know, those council culture shit's gone too far. Okay, maybe they didn't do some shit that was so good, but I saw them in a lot of nature documentaries, they're an inspiration.

Yeah. Have you seen Dolphin Chinatown? YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEE E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E Very good, Roz. Oh dear. Yeah. Delirium has said it. Alright, well, let's move on to some later news. Yay. All these guys hate each other and they're not even in power yet. Uh, Trump and Musk have both said, immigration is good, actually. I was waiting for a politician to finally, y'know finally do this, it's just they're only talking about

the H1B program. ALICE We're annexing Canada, maybe, possibly, so... SEAN We'll get there, that's another thing. JUSTIN That's later, yeah. SEAN But yeah, so, this was the thing, Elon Musk... We didn't even include any of his European crash-outs, which I guess we'll get to in future episodes. JUSTIN Oh, right, yeah.

He's... SEAN I genuinely think there's a non-zero chance that he'll run YouTube himself. Like, I think it's up there. It's a possibility. Come on, baby. Yeah, I mean, this was the joke when he started doing Twisted Premium, is, do you wanna see what happened to the last guy who made me post on a forum and made me pay for it, you know? Like... So, there's been a split among the ascendant right wing about immigration, in the sense of, okay, we need to keep out those, you know, dirty brown people, but we do want to bring

in... but the other side is like, yes, but we do want to bring in the educated Indian people to work at our tech firms. ALICE Exploited, yeah, exploit their labor, you know, hire a guy who's like, a very specific kind of computer scientist and you pay him like, stupidly low wages. SEAN Yeah, I was about to say, this is a person who's put in like, you know, fuckin' eight years of study at, you know, the most prestigious university in, like, Chandigarh, and, like, you're paying him, I don't know, twenty bucks an hour.

And he can't quit or get another job, because then he'll get deported. And his wife is not allowed to work. Right. And this, this sort of, like, nuclear heterosexual family where the wife isn't allowed to work, of course, triggers all of the worst chuds on the internet, because they're racist, right, and because they are threatened by the existence of non-white people. And also there was a particularly faddish anti-Indian, specifically, racism, kicking around. This is true, that's become aian, specifically, racism. Kicking around. ALICE This is true.

That's become a new fad, yeah. And, so... RILEY It's just not... I mean, I'm wrong, it's a type of racism... The US does a wondrous rainbow of racisms, but actually that kind of racism isn't one I'm that familiar with popping up that much in the US. ALICE It's sort of one that existed mostly on, like, the chans, pretty much, like the image boards, and then kind of grew from there, right?

And it was kind of like, it was a meme through the kind of, like, sort of, griper bit of the far right. I feel fairly horrible. Like, no one's gonna... JUSTIN I feel like we've had sort of this rise of... this sort of rise of multicultural racism. ALICE Yeah. JUSTIN Where, like, the racists don't care the color of your skin, as long as you're

racist against someone. ALICE Right. Mm. Um. ALICE That's, they put that, you know, they're putting that on the new, unwoke statue of liberty. You know? JUSTIN Wow.

Wow. Yeah, exactly. But so, like... JUSTIN Give us your racisms. ALICE The real, the real sort of like counterforce here is, you know, guys like Elon Musk and Donald Trump who want cheap labor personally because it benefits them, like SpaceX and Tesla just don't work without H1B visas. And also, as a fun little tendency, the Indian upper class who are also racist but wish that you weren't racist against Indians? This is a kind of like... because it's a fine tradition for any immigrant from any ethnicity anywhere in the world is to kick the ladder

out from under you, right? And that's something that you saw white immigrants do, but it's something that you're seeing here. And that's like, every immigrant's fondest dream is your grandkid achieves some kind of high business or political office and is immediately the most racist person you've ever seen. So- Well, Vivek Ramaswamy, the other guy who is at the Department of Government and Efficiency, he has started experimenting-

Seems sort of stunned by it. Yeah, no, he seems to be starting to experiment with the idea, maybe I'll be accepted by the GLP base if I am racist, and the people I have chosen to be racist against are white people. Well this is, yeah, no. It's this kind of strange contortion, right? Because if you look at, like, this same tendency in the UK, right, you have a lot of non-white immigrants that you can distinguish yourself by being racist against, and that's something

that, like, whether that's Rishi Sunak or Kemi Badenoch, these are people who, like... RILLE You people reinvented being racist against Pollacks. ALICE I mean, true, but in this case it's more like, sort of like, coming from an immigrant background and then being still very racist against... even people of, like, your own national background in that sense, right? ALICE Yeah, the I'm one of the good ones sort of approach, yeah.

ALICE Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Like, whatever Cami Badenok talks about Nigeria, for instance. But like, Vivek's deal was, white people are on the outs because you watch too many cartoons, and you don't know how to work, which had the kind of expected reaction from all of these, like, based European traditionalist guys, right? Of screaming and crying and shitting themselves. And it's just like, I wish these people every happiness with each other is the main thing. I know. Yeah, this is it. Understand how Omelas works now. Everyone...

Everyone... became... everyone decided to be racist against one child. And then they all got along. My favorite thing about this was, uh, the discourse got so bad that Elon remembered that he's South African. Which he almost never does these days. Yeah, he doesn't do that. Yeah, this is it. I was like, oh, good on you, Elon, you know, remembering the apartheid bit of your upbringing.

That's so nice. Yeah, no, so it remains to be seen, like ultimately this is something that I think bodes, if not well, then at least humorously for the next four years of hell. JUSTIN Oh, watch this, this is gonna collapse. ALICE The coalition. JUSTIN Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna see- we're gonna see who in the GOP walks away from Omelas. ALICE Yeah. Like, there are pictures from Mar-a-Lago, the New Year's party, where Elon took his

infant child as a human shield, which is a strange thing. That motherfucker is stuffing that kid into a plate carrier like the Division. It's like... It's like Warzone, he's got like four kids. It's like, it's like war zone. He's got like four kids, he's layering them on top of each other. You can't get over it, you can never be too sure. It's like it's holding triangles, sticking them in front of my sternum so that nobody shoots me. Oh God. But literally though, on the shoulders, walking into the party. But what's funny is

that later on there's a picture of these two within reasonable proximity of each other. And it's quite clear that, I mean, Trump is, let's run ourselves, a disgusting, unpleasant character. But he was looking repulsed at Musk, who is also a disgusting, repellent, unpleasant character. I, these two are- Well, see, it's a thing for me to try. Donald Trump is not like so much, man. Donald Trump, Donald Trump enjoyed hanging out with like, you know, Jeffrey Epstein and

stuff due to their shared interest in being a rapist, right? But like, Elon commits a far greater crime than that, which is being annoying in Trump's eyes. And I don't think you can, I don't think you can litigate that. I don't think you can argue that Elon Musk isn't annoying and isn't a bad hang. So yeah, it just, it's just his vibes are, I mean, like, yeah, just like spending any time with him. It just like, it just makes it stop. Yeah. Yeah. I was about to say, I mean, it's like, I mean, they're both sexual assaults and sexual abusers. That's, that's these two, they've got that in common. But yeah, no, apart from that, I think this is definitely like an oil and water type situation.

ALICE Yeah, he's like one step up from like, notch of Minecraft fame. ALICE Oh wow. In terms of how bad I hang. ALICE I've dug deep in there. Ha. Yeah. RILEY I was, so I had a week in Tenerife, escaping

from 2024 and running into 2025, somewhere that had sun and warmth, and it was lovely. And then you saw kids, darlin', debulketing past you. Oh my god. I swear to god I saw Notch coming down the beach, on the same beach I was on. Which, I mean, it probably wasn't him, but it just made me think, god can you imagine? No, no, very distinctive looking- I mean, the thing that I always think about- It still smells like the, uh, the sort of rancid candy wall. The candy wall!

I was gonna mention the fucking candy wall. If you're not familiar with this detail, when he made his money off of Minecraft he bought himself a beautiful house, which is presumably now on fire. So I guess the candy is being cleansed and purified with flame right now. Eucalyptus trees, they're blowing holes in it. One of the things he installed in this kind of man-child act was he had a wall that was filled with candy, like pick and mix, like, sweets. Which he then couldn't eat enough of, and so it just kind of stayed inside inside this like perspex wall just like obviously

just obviously that was that that's how that what those work when it's a woolworths and you've got like and someone changes them out people that's definitely a house designed for entertaining and i don't know who natch has to uh entertain Um, Minecraft I don't think was ever developed by someone who was like a good socializer, I think we can be clear about that. I gotta imagine the people working on it now are probably a little bit better. Mm. I mean, you know, starting from a really low bar. Maybe.

Also, fucking hell, Donald Trump's looking well. He's looking... JUSTIN Sure. It's looking quite true in this picture. I don't know if they have any time for this. It's crazy, I think. JUSTIN I was about to say, yeah, no, that's, uh, you know, here's the thing, though. The new, the new MAGA hats, I don't like them.

I don't think they're well proportioned. ALICE I didn't like the old ones either. JUSTIN The text is too big. They're too busy, right? Adding the flag on the side, I think, is too much. But the text is too big. They are not, they do not have the same je ne sais quoi of the first bag of hats. It's like, what if the Nazis had got in for like, you know, had briefly had an interregnum,

got back in and gone, okay so this swastika's got like serifs on it now instead of gangs? Yeah exactly. It's like the Superman and Lois 90s font, right? That's what it reminds me of. Yeah. JUSTIN I saw someone wearing it on the train. ALICE I think one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen is Elon's dark MAGA hat. JUSTIN Oh god, the dark MAGA shit.

ALICE With the Harry Potter font. JUSTIN Alright, it's terrible. Nah, I saw someone wearing the MAGA hat on M-Trek about a week ago and I was like, that's way worse than the old hat. I'm sorry. This campaign is decayed. It's going to be far less entertaining than 2016. Piss tape is real?

Remember the piss tape? Remember when we had fun with that? Yeah, I have that hat. I know you do. Yeah. The piss tape is real. The piss tape, I think we can be absolutely clear about that. I'm still a true believer in the piss tape.

Nah, let's hope that drops at some point, yeah. That'll be one bright spot. Like day one. Yeah, you know, just day one. January is the oldest media vault and is like... Yeah, Fruiten Open is the oldest vault. Takes out the piss tape. It's like a shitty quality WNV because it was filmed in Moscow in like 2000.

That's just like how he's going to negotiate with Trump for Ukrainian unconditional surrender. Zelensky having to be like, what the fuck is, why did you send me a, like a video that requires a real player? Recorded on a flip phone. Unregistered hypercam too. And it's just Trump getting bathed in Russian hookah piss. Thank you. There is a detail, there's another detail about this photo by the way that I want to mention.

No there is, there is. Because it's the dumbest thing ever, it's the stupidest, lowest stakes lie, but I remember last year when Elon Musk accepted on stage an Israeli dog tag, an IDF dog tag, and he said in front of God and everyone, in his fucking weird accent, I am going to wear this until all the hostages are free. And he isn't fucking wearing it. So, he got bored, and he, yeah, he's betrayed the IDF, and I can only hope- LIAM No. Can't say that on YouTube.

ALICE We can't say that, I don't think. But, yeah, here's something. ALICE Just bleep accordingly. Just bleep accordingly. Bleep accordingly. based on the widespread destruction in Gaza, I suspect all the hostages may be free of this mortal coil. ALICE Yeah, they're just going to die. They're going to touch the face of God. Yeah.

ALICE If nothing else, it beats out the Russians for worst KD ratio in a hostage rescue operation. ALICE Congratulations, to fucking morons. That's about to say, yeah. It helps if you're not trying, you know. Yeah, exactly, this is more of a game of... I think they were trying, I'm pretty sure the idea of were trying, they were just trying to kill as many of the hostages as possible. Yeah, that's true, yeah, those guys who came out, the hostages with the white flags, the

idea of just, they just shot all of them. ALICE Actually straight up do feel bad for those guys. What are you gonna do? JUSTIN Yeah, you don't move to Israel, that's what you do. ALICE Yeah, no, I know. But like, that's a real like, yeah. LIAM I get it though. JUSTIN Yep.

Well, in other news... Oh yeah, that's right, we're under siege. Everything's a drone. Everything's a drone. There's drones everywhere. There's drones everywhere in South Jersey. I saw a big drone a couple nights ago. So this is ages ago now, this news, but is it still happening? Is it still like, ticking around in local news and stuff?

I think people still drones. Are there? I believe there's still drones happening. news, but is it still happening? Is it still like, ticking around in like, local news and stuff? I think people still go to the boards. Are there? I believe there's still drones happening. Have you... one of the classic... I'm cursed to just have a memory for tweets, but one of the classic tweets, I don't remember who it was, sorry, credit it, Devon can find it, where the guy's like, my buddy says that he saw an alien, but he just saw like, a regular plane and he looked at it with binoculars and he he looked in the cockpit there was an alien flying it.

That's... I am awaiting the drone equivalent of that, of like you look in the cockpit of a plane and it's a little quadcopter, just like hanging onto the... Yeah. We didn't get a chance to talk about the drone panic when it was at its height. But yeah, the in apparently in New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania and parts of Delaware, parts of Maryland. There are there is a huge swarm of potentially Iranian drones. Of course, they're Iranian. yep yep yep. Which are doing secret surveillance or something of like, I don't know, Vineland, New Jersey,

to get a look at the glass factory or something, I don't know. I mean, this is kind of interesting, right, because this followed on the heels of similar reports in England, I think there were some in Germany as well, right? And the ones in the UK were kind of acknowledged by the US and by us as being like, yeah, there were some drones we don't know what the deal with them was, we're investigating them, no one heard anything else about it. And then all of a sudden, everyone in New Jersey decided to go out and try and shoot down the nearest, like, 737.

SEAN And Staten Island, don't forget Staten Island. LIAM Yeah, it's Staten Island, yeah. ALICE Which is really like, you know, muddying the waters in the sense that, maybe there was something there, I dunno. We saw with the, like, spy balloon shit, and all of the, like, quote unquote UFO videos from the west coast, that like, probably some secret drone shit is happening somewhere at any given time. Like, just by the law of averages.

It probably doesn't involve like United Airlines flying over your house in the same pattern that they do every day. ALICE Yeah, or like a FedEx cargo flight. You go out on a limb and say, no one saw a secret drone. Because, if it's a secret drone... ALICE You'd never see it. JUSTIN Why were the lights on?!

ALICE Yeah. Good question. ALICE Just turning on the, like, marking lights on my secret Iranian drone. Respect for the federal aviation authority. Just like, well, the entire United States is the greatest Satan apart from certain aviation groups. ALICE That is kind of true, though, actually, the FAA is the only good agency.

ALICE Doing, like, Iranian worldview and it's like, my enemy is not the American people, it's not the American political leadership, it is specifically the FAA. I mean, I guess that was kind of our kind of deal, too, but like... JUSTIN Yeah. Just the, uh, the... whatchamacallit. The best one was, of course, former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, whose Twitter handle is still Governor Larry Hogan, posting, look at all these, uh... ALICE Cope, see, that's like my Twitter handle still being like 99 kilograms, November Kevin.

What did he do? He got into office, he cancelled the red line in Baltimore, then he got cancer, then he left office. Um, anyway. So, you know, he was like, look at all these drones in the sky, and he posted a picture of the fucking constellation Orion. Um, what was said on there was that one of another elected official who genuinely posted

a picture of a, of a like film prop tie fighter on the, on a truck, on an interstate somewhere. They genuinely had like, like rural cops driving around watching the skies for this shit. Like, they were gonna do anything, and there were reporters doing ride-alongs with these four fucking idiot cops being like, yeah, we dunno, so we better keep an eye on it, because people are worried. And it's like... That is an aeroplane. JUSTIN No, like six cops shooting at the International Space Station.

ALICE Stop resisting! I'm not gonna say anything about shooting at the International Space Station. JUSTIN No, resist, yeah, don't say anything over deep. ALICE Go on, go on, go on. ALICE I guess there is a real thing here about, like... Listen, I think Elon Musk should be assassinated by Mossad, that's all there is to it.

I just, I want them to give him a pager. The thing is, there is an actual point here, about how poorly equipped people are to know anything about civil aviation, even though it's a thing that has been a sort of technology to which most people have had some form of exposure since, I don't know, the 50s? You can't even recognize an airplane. This is not difficult, it's not new, it's just, you're not used to looking at stuff in the sky and you look at

it and you're like, that's fucking, like, the Islamic Republic coming to blow up Danbury, Connecticut. Yeah, exactly. It goes even deeper than that. They hate our hats. It's like, it's like... Not only turbines. It goes back to the incoherence thing, it's like, people have just got absolute... people,

okay, some people just didn't even get to start with, things. Like, people have just got absolute... Okay, some people are just taking weeks to start with, but a lot of people are just suspending their own awareness because they just have no idea what to believe. They're not even believing their own senses anymore. That's not a good situation to be in from a political perspective. ALICE I've had this feeling for a while, I think everybody has, right? And I don't know whether there's anything to it. I don't know whether it's just kind of like mass hysteria because everything feels awful, or some kind of cognitive bias or I'm sure people will tell me it's like, all long Covid, or maybe like, increasing

CO2 in the atmosphere or something. But it really does feel like everybody is getting dumber and angrier and crazier all the time. ALICE Yeah. dumber, and angrier and crazier all the time. Yeah, and the only thing that's keeping me contextualizing that is how much stuff from like, I dunno, the 60s and the 70s is also like, it feels as if everyone is getting dumber and crazier all the time. Because I dunno, it just feels like we're in that kind of cultural moment, I guess. You know, and that's not to discount fucking COVID, or CO2, or whatever, like, you know, future pandemic, carcinogenic, is fucking around with people right now, but like, it's just like, I dunno, it really feels, it feels bad out there, you know?

JUSTIN What was there a period of history where it felt like everyone was getting smarter and saner, that's my question. Yeah, it's called the 1990s. And then it ended. Oh yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, it ended. Famously ended, yeah. Thank God, What's-his-face spoke it into existence.

Francis Foucault, you piece of shit. We could've kept it going. ALICE Yeah. And has access to the lathe of hell, where the thing that you're saying comes the opposite of true. False, I guess. JUSTIN So anyway, so far no one has blinded a pilot with a green laser, but I assume that... I don't think this has fully gone away, the drone thing, so I assume someone will do it. Oh, 100% of FedEx 777 is getting spread across somewhere, because some angry kid shined a

little laser pen through the way it happened. Just like, short approach to Newark airport and lands on the turnpike by mistake, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it should be absolute we don't want that to happen. It should be happening these days because of future story congestion prices. Oh yeah. Now there's a lot of people going around is the problem. Yeah. Well.

But, sticking to transportation news. Oh no. Who the fuck is this guy? We're extensively a train podcast, so, you know. Are we? We talk about trains a lot. Let's talk about Donald Trump's transportation secretary nominee, Sean Duffy.

He made that decision while on the toilet. Like, I don't think... Speaking of log rollers... That were just like, not a priority for Donald Trump. Like, this would be one. Yeah, he is. He the Sean Duffy was a competitive log roller. You're joking. You're shitting me. Yeah, he was a competitive log roller when he was younger. I take it that's not tabling. That's not cable tossing.

So that's just rolling the log. It's not picking it up end on end and flipping it like a scosted. This is in a river, right? So I think there's either you're rolling the log yourself, or there's two people rolling the log and they're trying to knock the other one off. Oh, I see. Oh, I see. Like American gladiases. Yep.

So this guy looks like, I imagine, most like, federal bureaucrats look. As in, like, too young, wearing too paisley-ish a tie, and just looking very ill-equipped to cope with the world. They got the anti-Pete Buttigieg. He's got a fascinating kind of boldness coming in, where it's coming, or like, he's bolding from under, and on top. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah segment, so you guys finish it out. Yeah, me and Nova are just like, who this guy? I don't know, tell us about him, Russ. He was, I believe, a congressman from Wisconsin. Wisconsin maybe, maybe was Minnesota, maybe was Michigan, I think it was one of those, something up there, Great Lakes, northwest Great Lakes area. Right.

Wisconsin, I think. northwest Green Lakes area. Right. ALICE He was... he was... he has no transportation experience that I've been able to discern. SEAN He was on Road Rules All-Stars. JUSTIN He was on MTV's Real Life Boston, and then Road Rules All-Star. ALICE So he's a campy TV personality, like the President will be. Okay, cool. ALICE He's on Fox News, he hired a guy off the TV! ALICE He was definitely shitting.

JUSTIN Donald Trump saw this guy was in a series where he was in an RV for a long time, and he was like, yeah I... okay, right. There is something funny about Pete Buttigieg having been Secretary of Transportation for four years, having left no imprint or legacy on the office besides East Palestine, and then has to hand it over, turn over the keys, to the RV idiot? That's- that's pretty- That's a degree from St. Mary's. Oh wow, okay.

Okay, okay. I believe he, uh, he also has done some lobbying for the airline industry, which is important because transportation secretary is kinda like, well, you are in control of a lot of agencies but the only one that does anything is the FAA. Yeah. And the only thing the FAA does is stop doing anything, make sure that anything that the NTSB suggests gets delayed as long as possible.

That's kind of what the FAA's job seems to be. I mean, you know, I think at this point we are in a position where the safety record is pretty good. I mean, it's been a long time. we've had a fatality in any sense. I'm not a big FAA fan, but uh... You will be. But if you look at other agencies like FRA doesn't do anything, we'll talk about the FRA in a second. What else? The big thing he's in control of, I guess, is going to be dispersing funding

from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Because a lot of that is still in the planning stage. So essentially, Biden passed this huge infrastructure bill, and Trump is going to make all the decisions about who gets what money. Yeah, that's gonna be interesting. ALICE Well, it's gonna have to be supply lines to the invasion of Canada, first of all. So maybe port the high speed rail to, you know, Wisconsin, and like, upstate New York. SEAN Yeah, Wisconsin doesn't like high speed rail.

I mean, they're gonna have to like it when there's trains full of Abrams tanks going north. Yeah, they'll learn. So maybe we could briefly talk about, okay, what does this mean for inner city passenger rail? Are those passengers wearing multicam or not? Good question. This is the M-Trac Konexus map. This is supposed to be, y'know, what a lot of that infrastructure

funding was supposed to go to. The light blue lines are new services, the yellow lines are enhanced services, the dark blue lines are existing services. And what you can sorta look at here is, what happens now? I think a lot of this just doesn't happen. Maybe you get some patronage stuff that goes to, I don't know, North Carolina, or like Virginia, but this is gonna be very, very determined, I think, on, okay, who delivered the votes for Trump, and who has a state legislature that is sufficiently committed

to like passenger rail that they're not going to say, Oh, that's communism. We don't want the money. Sure. Um, which is what happened everywhere voted for Trump, but the places that think trains are communism is also everywhere. So yeah. Well, so I would say like, okay, Virginia and North Carolina are going to be the ones that are going to go for it because they have pretty durable pro rail majorities. You know, North Carolina essentially threw so much shit at the wall that if they get all the funding they want, that place is going to be like Switzerland. Sure. You know, in terms of passenger rail.

That would be good. That would be nice. California? Uh, nothing's happening there. Right. Um, you know, uh, Washington, Oregon, who knows. Um, but yeah, this is gonna be, I don't know, maybe we can do a deeper dive at some point in the future, but I could see a lot of stuff just not happening. Um, you know, all billions of dollars that just don't go anywhere

Or do anything for like at least four years It's just the other thing is that all these proposals were so like tepid to start with yes Like it's not this is like the minimum that's then just not going to materialize. It's extremely aggravating. It's amazing how long it's taken for like to get someone to fund a train from like Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, you know, which is the most obvious three cities in the entire country. Yep. But yeah. Yeah. I remember asking the question when Trump had got in, I remember asking the question what happens to all this, and, well, get your rubbers out and start rubbing off the lines off this map.

I was about to say, I mean, at least Emtrak's been pretty good about trying to award as many contracts as possible before Inauguration day right now. Trying to rush everything through, because we also have to talk about our new FRA director. This fuckin' guy. I like the very low resolution picture that- Yeah, me too. It's got a distinctly Diane Abbott shade vibe going on here with the loress, it's very nice. God bless that woman. You know, distinctly Diane Abbott shade vibe going on here with the little rest, it's very nice. ALICE Yeah, God bless that woman.

JUSTIN I am proud to announce that highly respected David Fink, a fifth generation railroader, capital R, will be the next Minister of the Federal Railroad Administration, wrote Donald John Trump. ALICE Passing the railroad. JUSTIN Yeah. David will bring his 45 plus years of transportation leadership success, which will deliver the FRA into a new era of safety and technological innovation, under David's guidance, the Federal Railroad Administration will be great again.

Congratulations to David. ALICE Uh-huh. Make railroad great again, thank you, Mr. President. ALICE David Fink was the president of the Pan Am Railroad. Oh god. In New England. Why is it called the Pan Am Railroad? That's a very good question, Ross.

Why is it called the Pan Am Railroad? Because David Fink's dad thought it'd be funny to buy the defunct trademarks of Pan Am, and switch them with the railroad he owned, and the airline he owned. ALICE I mean that does sound kind of funny, to be fair. JUSTIN Oh boy. Yeah, to be fair that is a funny bit. ALICE That's kind of posting energy, you know?

JUSTIN Yeah. And I do like the Pan Am branding, so, you know. JUSTIN So there's now, it used to be called Guilford Rail Systems, or something like that. JUSTIN That is kind of kooky. JUSTIN Pan Am Railroad and Guilford Airlines, I believe. ALICE Jesus Christ. JUSTIN I think that actually does work better, to be fair. Okay, that's Guilford airlines, I believe. Jesus Christ. That actually does work better to be fair. Okay. That's actually based. Okay. I'm reassessing.

I was going to whisper into the mic is this us handy, but, uh, but I dunno, maybe, maybe it isn't. Uh, cause I actually, I I'm all for that bit. Gareth, you're the, you're the railroad right of way expert here. I am. I don't like, I know, I see you've put two pictures of rights of way here and I, I was deliberately, actually three, cause there's some under the wagon above, I was deliberately not paying attention to picture number two. Ooh.

Yeah. Yeah. Cutely. You remember the episode where we did, at Morpetheth where we talked about superelevation? One thing that I didn't need to say in that episode, because I felt strongly that I didn't need to say is you don't put superelevation on straight track. They, they seem not to have. In fairness, the track is not exactly straight.

Also a fair point. Yeah. They're just responding to the, to the deficiency as they go through all these 50 pence pieces in all directions. Yeah, that's, that's horrifying. I really do not like that. That's a shambles. The Pan Am railroad essentially took over a lot of tracks that Penn Central didn't want,

let's say, in New England. Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, that's a lot of about 1700 miles of track in New England in Oh, wow. Sure. Yeah. I mean, that's... You know, so that's a lot of... About 1700 miles of track in New England in about this condition. Yep. Um, you know, a lot of times this track is like 10 miles an hour, if you're lucky.

They're known for, like, bizarre derailments in winter. Like, okay, the track goes through a divot, the divot becomes a pond, um... Yep. Yeah. Okay, the track goes through a divot, the divot becomes a pond, the pond freezes over in the winter, and then the train derails and skids on the ice. What the hell? That's just not a derailment mechanism. That is simply not a derailment mechanism that exists. I refuse to believe it.

Hey buddy, you better believe it. There's a big tunnel- I see there's also a tunnel collapse in one of the other photos here. There's a big tunnel in New England. The Whozac tunnel is like four miles long, it was an amazing engineering achievement, it came into Pan Am ownership, it collapsed. What the tunnel? Yes. Like, the Whozac, he let the Whozac tunnel collapse.

Oh. Great. Yeah, I would... Nope. Yeah. You don't wanna do that. Nope. So this guy's like, he's a fifth generation railroader and a first generation tunnel-collapser.

Yeah. Yeah, he's... I mean, the Pan Am has long been like, y'know, we talk about how bad that the Class 1 railroads do maintenance, but when you get down into the Class 2s, this was, this is a whole other situation. This is, this is like, how far can you push it? Oh boy. Seeming pretty far.

Yeah. So one of the things that got, so here's a little peek behind the curtain. One of the things that for the sake of making my book smaller and tighter, one of the things that got chopped actually, and I got to turn into an article, was me going into some detail about how you fix, you know, how you fix the US railroad system. I'm going to put up as a proper article and so on and so on. But one of the key things was take the railroad out of the hands of and so on and so on. But one of the key things was take the railroad out of the hands of these guys.

Yeah, please. But the problem is, if you do that, what you might end up doing is putting it back in the hands of this guy because he's now head of the FRA. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. Yeah, but he's wearing a different hat or at least a different tie. Yes. So this this is, uh, this railroad, some people have said okay, but he kept freight rail a going concern in New England, because that's been a very difficult thing. If you call this freight rail, like, isn't a rail supposed to be straight?

This is a good point, yeah. I mean, but, you know, okay, it's been very difficult to sustain freight operations in New England for probably 90 years now. But on the other hand... I'm not surprised that the track's looking like that. For fuck's sake, fix your shit, man. Yeah, it's not a good situation. This railroad was... it folded a couple years ago, it was sold to CSX, who I believe have since reopened the Who's Zach tunnel. Thank God. Good. I mean, if you're running a railroad at 10 miles an hour, the thing that railways

are good for is that they're fast. Like you can run fast and get your goods reliably on time places. It makes no sense to have it would be like they would make more money by ripping this up, laying the track completely fresh tracks along this right of way. And then they would you know, and then running the trains quicker so they can move more goods. It just makes no sense to have a really looks like this. Not only can you not run it fast because the tracks in so bad shape, you can't even run a long train. Now, you get nothing. Yeah Mm-hmm just a lot just a shambles. Anyway, let's not dwell on this. I'm sure this is actually fine. He's competent No

The American short line and regional railroad association is excited to have one of their guys at FRA though, so, um. Oh god. ALICE Good for them. JUSTIN Mixed blessings. ALICE Representation. JUSTIN That's a whole different level of small business tyrant when it's, y'know, a small railroad.

ALICE So I'm sure the next bit of news will be good, happy railroad news, finally. JUSTIN No. ALICE Oh. ALICE Oh god. Oh. Oh, God. Ooh. Oh, dear. So this is one that a lot of people like asked me to talk about, you know, because this is

such an insane incident that occurred. I don't think it got a lot of press because there's just insane derailments that happen every single day that don't get a lot of press. But this is one of the bigger ones. This is in Pecos, Texas, right? This oversized load truck stalled at a grade crossing that I believe it was not authorized to cross. It had some kind of big oil refining equipment, whatever this huge tube is here.

Right? Oh yeah. Yeah, we've done a few of these in the UK in the 60s, 70s. And installing the, like, special transport DLC for American trucks and then this happens. Yeah, it's like a distillation column or something like that. I heard from... Some of the earlier articles said eyewitnesses said it was stuck on the crossing for 45 minutes, I think there was a subsequent report from the NTSB that said it was only there for one minute, then all that was taken

down, I have no idea how long this truck was on the crossing. But this huge fucking, you know, chemical reactor, whatever the hell this thing is, was stuck on this crossing up here. Right. And then rapidly all converted into scrap by... Yes, this big Union Pacific, I believe, train came through. This is full of domestic containers, so like, 53 foot containers. Those trains go fast, as opposed to the sea containers that go slow. This was probably doing, there's video up there on YouTube, if you want to watch a snuff film. This was probably going 60 or 70 miles an hour when it impacted.

Um, you can see several, probably dozens of cars jackknifed here. Um, the big chemical reactor impacted the Pecos Texas Depot. Um, took out probably two bays of windows. This was very, very nasty. Also, well, I guess there's no hazmat, so it's fine. No reporting in the media killed the engineering conductor. You know, so this is very, very ugly. And this is something which is not too uncommon.

This happens every day, basically. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, all I can say is if you're in this situation, there's a blue sign on the railroad crossing where you can call a phone number and speak to the dispatcher and they will stop the train from crashing into your truck. But also don't, unless you're 100% confident your vehicle is getting across that level crossing, don't enter the crossing. Yeah, and this is very, I don't know, the video

was insane to look at. It was like, you know, and the amount of damage that was done here, like, bizarre. It's impressive how much it's compressed in actually because there's so much momentum behind this these mega trains particularly when they're going at those high speeds I'm impressed how localized the mess estate there's a hell of a lot of energy has been dissipated. I was about to say it was an engineer did you say the engineer died? Engineer died instantly conductor died a little bit later. Absolutely awful. Yeah so So, uh, don't kill people. If your truck gets stuck on the crossing, call the phone number on the little blue sign. Yep. I mean, I'm sure if we looked we could find some structural causes in this about the trucking

industry, right? This is true, this is true. I mean, this is probably one of those where it's like, well, we could save some time if we just go through downtown Pecos, as opposed to an authorized crossing like 50 miles away. You know. ALICE All the time to like, train the driver to be like, read blue sign, call number on blue sign. LIAM You call the number on the blue sign, yeah.

I think a lot of people don't know about the blue sign though. ALICE I think you're probably right. JUSTIN There's a thing that happens a lot in the UK, more than the US, or certainly, well, bridge strikes happen in the US, but the bridges are often bigger so that the trucks get smashed up and the railway doesn't care. But in the UK, we have quite a lot of bridge, or GB, we have a lot of bridge strikes where, unfortunately, because our bridges are often very spindly and our HGVs, our road trucks are oversized and too heavy, they often have to close the railway

to go and check that the railway is safe and fine. And these happen so often. And there are bridges that these happen, like there are bridges where people have set up webcams because it happens so often. Um, and I know that the U S has a few like that as well, but certainly the UK, we have several of those and Amazon and you get angry people, boomer types going, oh, we should be prosecuting the drivers more and more, you know, they need to increase the penalties for drivers. That's not going to solve it. Drivers are overworked. Their conditions are getting worse and worse as drivers. They're overworked. They are overstretched. The reality is that the way you hit this is by taking the license away from the operator. You take away from the haulage company. And

doing that, the drivers can move on because the drivers are very skilled and very short supply. Drivers can move on. The company dies. But it's training. They're overworked. They're not trained. Often there isn't the back office support because with the haulage company, it's not just the driver going freestyle. These routes have to be planned, particularly for this thing, which is a specialist object that route should have been planned meticulously. And, and coordinated with the railroad. I mean, on the video,

you can see there's multiple support vehicles and folks just sort of standing around like, I don't know what to do. Like this, like that company should be out of that. That's a company that should no longer exist. You know, that haulage company should be out of business. mean if you if you kill people you know you should probably be facing the management should be facing you know criminal charges it's not like i don't hold this against the the driver this is on the planners this is on the the back of house staff but particularly the management because clearly there's not that there's a failure here

that's allowed this ham, but just really yeah All these are like fly-by-night haulers, you know, that's the exactly it's Yeah Well, it's like whack-a-mole the challenges if you know if one of these if you get into a situation where they're used to Getting penalized to debt to kind of Totality then there's another one pops up with it with a slightly different name They just add the number two after the name of their company or whatever. Exactly. Yuck.

Don't like that. Hi, it's Justin. So this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to. People are annoyed by these, so let me get to the point. We have this thing called to log of bonus episodes so you can learn about exciting topics like guns, pickup trucks, or pickup trucks with guns on them. The money we raise through Patreon goes to making sure that the only ad you hear on this podcast is this one. Anyway, that's something to consider if you have two bucks to spare each month. Join at patreon.com forward slash WTYP pod.

Do it if you want. Or don't. It's your decision, and we respect that. Back to the show. But I do have one piece of positive news. Whoop. Just a tiny- Bup. Bup.

Bup. Oh, I did it. I was supposed to- There we go. Hey, how about congestion pricing? We got it, finally. Oh my god. New York City has congestion pricing. Thank you, Governor Huckle. Are you telling me that, like, a good idea came to pass in government and had, like,

immediate positive material effects? Yeah. When was the last time that shit happened? Like weed legalization? Like- only- and only one man could make it happen. Governor Cuomo! Governor Cuomo! Yeah baby. I told the cars to make ziti! For the people of New York! And he opens up 19th-Circ, he's like, lamb down.

This is actually, I mean, this was, this genuinely was legislation that was passed under Cuomo's administration, which was durable enough. ALICE Jesus, that date? That's it? JUSTIN Yeah, 2019. It was durable enough that even Kathy Hochul could not stop it. ALICE Five years of your life on, like, an obvious

thing that is gonna make this SE so much better. JUSTIN Well, I think this actually started well before that when they were trying to make it happen. I didn't actually write when it started, I did say it took about 1.7 Apollo programs of time. ALICE & LIAM LAUGH Yeah. Yeah, that's it. What a beautiful reflection of state capacity that is.

Yeah, that is how I've started thinking about various small transit or transportation projects is okay. It's like repaving Washington Avenue here in Philly. That took one Apollo program. ALICE We gotta start using that measurement for everything now. JUSTIN Yeah, I like that. I'm making that official, so it's very nice. Gonna start using that in the UK for things like HS2. So there was a lot of, uh, the idea is, okay, below 60th Street in Manhattan, you will, with some exceptions, be charged nine US dollars to enter the most congested area of the entire

world. In order to discourage you from doing self harm like that. It's just putting up a big sign that says, hey, why not consider taking public transport here? Considered public transportation. Take a bicycle walk. I don't know. How far how far walk is it If you stood at the southern tip of Lower Manhattan, right down at the bottom end, and walked straight up northwards, along the grid, I suppose skirt around the side of Central Park, how long would it take you to reach, I dunno, Harlem?

How long has it taken you to get up to, I dunno, what number of streets would that be by that point? So it's like a four hour walk. Three hour walk. Yeah, Manhattan's like thirteen miles long, up and down. So like... But 60th is right at the south end of Central Park. So how long does it do?

So from the tip to the south end of Central Park, how long is that? How long walk is that? If you've started... Hold on, I'm measuring this now. Uh... The battery to the wall will take you less than two hours. I'm seeing two guys here who walked the whole length of Broadway from 225th Street in the Bronx to Battery Park, and it took them six hours thirty minutes.

At a leisurely pace. At a leisurely pace, enjoying yourself. That sounds like a nice day, just walk Newly pace. ALICE A leisurely pace, enjoying yourself, yeah. ALICE That sounds like a nice day, just walk New York City, that sounds great. JUSTIN It's five miles along Broadway from Battery Park to Columbus Circle. ALICE Yeah. You truly could be walking here.

JUSTIN You could be walking here. ALICE That's actually a nice walk. One of my favorite days in Philly was when I just went for a walk and walked all the way around... that's a very very long walk I did, it was nice, I spent a lot of time over days in Philly was when I just went for a walk and walked all the way around. That's a very, very long walk. I did. It was nice to spend a lot of time over in East Philly. I'm sorry, West Philly. There's no East Philly. There's no East Philly. I was in West Philly. Forgive me. In a dream, I saw the city invincible. It's just Gareth.

Yeah. Just me out on my own in a little tent. Yeah, that's a nice walk. So my point being the reason I asked that question is because New York, very dense, Manhattan, very dense and super walkable. Right. Yes. It's got the most public transportation to probably anywhere in the United States, at least possibly. I mean, just from the density of the subway. Maybe almost anywhere in the world. You're right. You're, and so this has been opposed by a lot of disparate groups, most notably the state of New Jersey.

Fuck those guys. That's fun. Because the governor has the governor in New Jersey has made the argument this is going to increase pollution in New Jersey, because of question mark. Take the train, dickhead. Well, you know, the idea of this congestion tax is that we are going to, or congestion toll, it's a tax, I don't know what it is, you pay the government money. We were calling it a congestion charge here, but it's as good a term as any, I guess.

All of this money goes straight to funding public transportation. Good, perfect. Um, yes, exactly. So, um, you know, this was opposed in New Jersey, because, you know, you're double told, I guess, if you go through, you know, the Holland Tunnel or the Lincoln Tunnel, which is something you shouldn't do. Nope The because New Jersey has what you call the get out of New Jersey tax I'll pay to get in but you pay to get out baby You pay to leave New Jersey, you don't pay to enter but you pay to leave

like hell As a well as senator Sumner said shortly before the Civil War, New Jersey is the valley of humiliation through which all travelers north and south, from the city of New York to the city of Washington, must pass. And the monopoly like Apollyon claims them all as subjects, saying, for all that country is mine, and I am the prince and god of it. So they're fine with that anymore. Yeah, that's poetic, man. I like that.

They're finally getting a taste of their own medicine. This is it. But this was delayed significantly because Governor Hokel thought that she could increase the odds of Democrats winning elections. Yeah, she fucked it. In New York, if she delayed this tax, which was presumed to be unpopular or this toll, excuse me.

And well, that didn't work. New Jersey sued to stop it from happening. That has so far not worked. They failed to get an injunction. But yeah, the tolls are the tolls are being levied. But we lost six months of revenue also. The toll was reduced from $16 to $9. Such a sizable reduction in revenue, like a massive reduction in revenue. Yes, and I mean...

But at least it's happening. Yeah, exactly. At least it's happening. I mean, you're still gonna have problems with the MTA budget. But it is happening. And it has sort of worked better than maybe people expected, because, you know, it's only been a few days now, but travel times in lower Manhattan, if you're driving, are... The streets are free and open everywhere. Oh wow nice. They're probably gonna have to start readjusting bus schedules because they're all arriving

early. Yes! It works! The thing works! This works! London made it work. It works! I wrote a piece in Jacobin about this.

It works! All the evidence is there. It works! Hockle is an idiot. I'm glad that she's had to eat shit and this has happened. Definitely ate shit. Yeah. On this one, you know, she's now known for being opposed to this fairly obvious thing. But people are still like trying to figure out ways to get mad about this. I mean, this is sort of, you know, the world's most obvious policy. You

know, I guess you could say it's neoliberal, but guess what, we live in neoliberalism and this is like a good policy that works. Okay, it may be... there's like one guy who lives in a rent controlled apartment in Lenox Hill who is poor but not poor enough to qualify for an exemption. And you know what? Fuck him too. And is disabled, but apparently not disabled enough to qualify for the exemption, who may get fucked over by this. But...

ALICE My understanding is that they've found like... JUSTIN This is almost, this has affected almost no one negatively. ALICE We found the one guy that it affected negatively, who's also the least sympathetic possible guy for this, where it's like a guy, an insanely rich guy who lives in an insanely rich place, who cannot leave his block without getting charged something by someone now, which is really funny. ALICE It was, this guy was like, interviewed on like, freedomegel.biz biz news or something like that and

You know, he was like well, I can't go visit my kids up on 79th Street because I I park on 61st Street Indicating that he probably has a parking spot that he paid, you know a tremendous amount of money more more than the entire Town of like Shelby Montana is worth for the one parking spot. And you know, he's like, well, I can't drive north without, I can't drive at all without going through the congestion zone, because, okay, Fifth Avenue is one way southbound. And it's like, sure, but dude, take the subway. JUSTIN You don't know what nine dollars is. ALICE Take the subway.

JUSTIN Nine dollars is literally like... you've never had... you aren't aware of sums of money that small. Like, that's where the cordon is. ALICE Also really funny that the guy with a really, like, uniquely fucked real estate situation is a real estate developer? Yeah. Well that's where the cordon is, it's through a part of the island where everyone's absurdly wealthy. So anyone who is stuck in that situation, again...

Get over it boys. Yeah, it's like, nine dollars is what they think a banana costs. But yeah, it's very good. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's very good. And for them, maybe it should. I finally see some good policy happening. It's good to see congestion pricing. I mean, this is going to fund a bunch of ADA improvements on the subway.

This is going to fund theoretically the Second Avenue subway extension to 125th Street. This is going to find all those are the two I know about, I don't know about the rest of it. Um, y'know, but this unlocks a lot of bonding capacity for the MTA. It's good. It's a good thing. Everyone who's mad at it is dumb.

ALICE And sucks shit. Yeah. JUSTIN And I don't care about them. Yeah, exactly. ALICE Listen, sometimes you've just gotta hit the big state go do thing button, and, y'know, down the consequences. And win World War Two, yes I agree. Andrew Highbrow, you can suck the shit out of Liam's ass.

It's the bit in Ford vs Ferrari where Henry Ford II, or III or whatever the fuck is like, we used to build planes in this building, therefore fuck Italy. It's kinda like that. You know? Great movie, by the way. Yeah. Noted. I'm summarizing it very poorly, but I cite instead my letterbox review, which is, I think, four stars and just the word vroom. Very good. I need a few more Goodreads reviews like that of my book actually. People just, just, just

does the words, the word trend with an E and a five star review on Goodreads. That'd be nice if anyone wants to make that happen, then go for it. Yeah, please. Yeah. All right. We've done the good news. Let's go back to bad news. We're all going to die. We're all going fucking die. How about that bird flu? That's good. I, uh, I'm not... Thinking about how, thinking about the prospect of doing a lockdown again, and how that would go. How Trump has to do another lockdown.

Oh god. Well the thing is, right, what lockdown did, right, it saved a lot of lives, it got a lot of people into podcasts, and so therefore, I assume, right, they do lockdown number whatever for bird flu, not only do we all go completely insane, but we also make infinity money. Like, we could make a lot of money and go insane, which is usually a good combination. Like that kind of overlap of things rarely happens outside of like, cult compounds, but I think we have the possibility to... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe like the Spanish economic miracle, but just for podcasters, it'd be amazing. People thought podcasts were washed, but then one Turkey started coughing into its beak and you know, from then, you know, um, I mean, I don't, I don't know if I'm ready for another global pandemic. I had COVID again over before Christmas. In fact, when I was in the height of the fever, when we recorded the fireworks episode, I wasn't joking about my hundred degree fever. I was burning up. It was funny is my fever broke mid episode. So like you might have noticed I took my hat off and beads of sweat poured out. It's because my fever broke mid episode while we were recording, which is quite funny.

I've been masking and I still feel like I've been sick like pretty much all the time. So but it was it was COVID because I lost my sense of smell and taste and I haven't come back properly yet. So like I've I want to out. And what's great is that I can't find any information. The NHS website hasn't been updated with the latest COVID symptoms and the latest strain for like two years or something now. So yeah, it's really great that we've just decided that's done and now Bird Flu's on its way over. So great. I don't, I, I, you know me, I've never been one of these people who's like, hyperbolic about it, but we really did just like give up, it seems like.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, the other thing is, I don't want to reassure anybody because, like, I don't want to say like, oh, you know, the healthcare system's better prepared for like zoonotic flu than it was for- It is not, no. No, it is better prepared for, than it was for COVID, because COVID was really like de novo, whereas like, flu is something that like, they've kind of like, all the exercise sickness, the thing that we got Nightingale hospitals from was specifically like, basically

H5N1. There was a ton of like, planning around it. But the thing is, when COVID was a thing first in like, 2020, I did a... what was pretty well reasoned at the time I thought, thread, where I was like, listen, there's very little chance that it's not contained in place, and then there's still less chance that it spreads, you know, like regionally and then internationally, and like, you know, ultimately if it gets to a point where you have to panic, you'll know but don't panic. And at the time, I was right, it's just that I was then subsequently more owned by events than I have ever been. So I don't wanna be like, don't panic, now. You know? ALICE I told Liam, I told Liam when the lockdown

happened and we were not let into Locopez because the lockdown happened, I was like, this is gonna last two years, minimum. Yep. How many Apollo programs is that? We did an Apollo program for giving everybody a respiratory disease! That's one fifth of an Apollo program. We choose to give everybody COVID and to do the other things, not because they're easy, but because they are hard.

JUSTIN So the bird fluke, the bird fluke, this H5N1, this has been interesting to see- ALICE You guys heard of this? JUSTIN Yeah, you guys heard of this, H5N1? This has been interesting to see progress, because it seems like- ALICE It's been around for ages, seriously. JUSTIN It's been around for ages, but it's okay, it started spreading from birds to cows, right? And then it spread to agricultural workers, but also, those people are blameless. It also spread to raw milk guys.

And those people should be- Can't say that on YouTube. Quarantined. Like, all the stuff that they thought that lockdown was should be happening to them. The WHO should be hunting them down with dark guns. Yeah, with dark guns, yeah, exactly. Bluey Pasture didn't die for this.

I agree. All the scary, like, you know, like, disease thrillers where the government comes in and kicks your door down with the hazmat suits on, that should happen to you if you drink raw milk. Yeah, it's like, come on, come on, come on. It's just boiling it. It's fine. ALICE The only time you can ever drink raw milk

is immediately after it's come out of the cow. Any time after that, do not do that. I've drunk, I'm not a raw milk guy, good grief, no. I have farming family, and I know what that looks like. Don't do that. But drinking it straight fresh out of the vat once it's come out of the cow is very nice. A rare treat.

But storing it in, the whole point is that as soon as it's more than five minutes after that, it's full of all manner of excitement. Not good excitement. ALICE Yeah, it's a perfect breeding ground for all kinds of stuff, because it's like warm and fatty and it's like, yeah. SEAN Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, I have to buy like insane chemicals to clean dairy stuff, because it's like warm and fatty and it's like... Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have to buy like, insane chemicals to clean dairy equipment, because it's also grody instantly.

It's instantly fatty and full of nonsense, yeah, exactly. So don't do that. The main thing here, and this is something that we're never gonna do, and it's a lot like the car thing, right? Except instead of what we consider to be a higher form of life, it's what we consider to be a lower form of life, right? Is that, okay, pandemics, like zoonotic pandemics are not the main reason to do it, the main reason to do it is climate sustainability, but like, we need to start rapidly rethinking our relationship with animals as food. relationship with animals as food. Like, the poultry industry, the meat industry, in, I mean, the developed world at a minimum,

right, is just like, not sustainable, it's not compatible with, kind of like, non-disastrous continued existence, right? And I'm not gonna tell you that you have to go vegan overnight, right? But like, uh... ALICE Unfortunately you're gonna have to eat the bugs. Here's some shrimp, here's some crawfish, you have to pay the fuckers a delicious lobster roll. JUSTIN Yeah, you might have to eat the crawfish, it's pretty good.

ALICE Most of us don't even have to reduce our meat intake at all. Like, the amount of wastage, the amount of mass meat that gets consumed by people who just eat don't even... Like, most of us could still have like a nice meaty meal a couple of times a week. And it's the mass, it's the cheap mass meat manufacturer that is just the amount of land, carbon, and then as you say, very squeezed in close proximity, no quality of life animals that we go through. And also rapid fire say, very squeezed in close proximity, no quality of life animals that we go through. And also rapid fire generations, which are just fan as you say, fantastic for zoonotic

diseases to just, oh yeah. So yeah, no, absolutely very good reason for us to completely reevaluate that. Yeah. It's also like we're just reducing your meat consumption. I mean, you know, you can make a, a, a, a, I know some people are like, I want to eat a one pound steak and it's like, I don't understand that you can have like a pasta and you know, has like, I don't know, half a pound of pancetta in it. It feeds four people. I mean,

it's a lot, it's a lot healthier. You tend to like feel a lot better. I just, it's, it's one of the things that, like, I think about it the same way I think about the cars getting crushed by the, like, fire department bulldozer, right? In that, I think this is one of those decisions that you can make now, or that is gonna get made for you by circumstance in the, like, near future. Right? Like, ultimately, we have lived through the golden age of eating meat, right? Like the kind of ready availability of that as a protein. Unless we really go like the only way out is through a lab grow the fuck out of things.

I think... SEAN I don't think any of that's gonna... that's not gonna turn out very well. ALICE Yeah, well then in that case I think any conceivable future is one where people eat a lot less meat, and that's probably for the best, you know? But it's been interesting to see the lack of response to bird flu contaminating all of these dairy cattle, because it's like, okay, we're not quarantining agricultural workers, the government is not ordering these herds destroyed, they're also not paying for quarantining those herds.

It's sort of like there's been a total paralysis in terms of containing, you know, H5N1. We've had a few severe cases. Where is it? Where is it spread? Sorry, I've actually not up to date with where it's spread. Is it in California or is it where? It's, it's in, oh God, I want to say that it's in the Midwest. It's in the south It's in the west

It's I don't think it's made it out east yet But this is this has been kind of you know There's only a few human cases like well there's been like 60 human cases or something like that There's been no human to human transmission We have had situations where like, I think there was one like big cat sanctuary that like the all the big cats were wiped out by bird flu somehow. You know, there's the bird flu is obviously affecting birds including wild birds. Yeah, this is, you know, I guess the real question is, with our pretty

meager attempts to contain this, can we, I don't know, tough it out until the summer when presumably transmission is down? I have no idea how much of it was transmitted. ALICE So the thing is that, as far as we know, the thing that has not happened yet that would be the scary thing would be like human-to-human transmission. And so you get cases where people like, catch it from animals, and then get sick, and I think like three people have died total. Which is a pretty high case fatality rate. And yeah, I don't like betting against the CDC, even in, like, two weeks' time when their, y'know, their new director is someone that Trump saw on TV.

ALICE Yeah, Turbo Hitler, yeah. Yeah. I'd have to really lock myself in my apartment to even a greater extent than during Covid, because I don't wanna, like, give it to Milkshake. Yeah. that than during COVID, because I don't wanna, like, give it to milkshake. ALICE Yeah. Yeah, but milkshake, I don't want milkshake to die. SEAN You don't wanna fuck around with this one,

but like I say, I think the public health and surveillance system that exists around uh, flu like this, is as good as there is for anything. Um, and, y'know, like I said, I really don't, I really really don't want to reassure people again, because... Yeah, no, we're out of that business. We're out of that business. Don't touch, don't touch the anti-lath. This is the official WTIP position, is do panic. Yes.

Yeah, panic, lose your ship, move out into the country, uh, kill all birds on sight, WTIP position is, do panic. Yeah. Yeah. Panic. Lose your ship. Move out into the country. Kill all birds on site. Yeah. Do not allow any animal protein reservoir to become close to you. Yeah. Oh dear.

Panic. Freak out, go nuts. Don't do that. Become vegan, but also psychotic against all living animals. I'm vegan not because I love animals, not because I hate plants. So you're vegan for health reasons, or like crippling contamination anxiety. Little of column A, little of column B. I actually kill every animal I see and refuse to eat them. I'm a vegan.

I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan.

I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. And health reasons, or crippling contamination anxiety. A little of column A, a little of column B.

I actually kill every animal I see and refuse to eat them. I mean, it's fun, because my wife is basically vegan, which means I'm basically vegan these days. Sure. And it's crazy how much I don't miss it. In general, the fucking impossible burgers or whatever the fuck. They're fine. It's the same. Like, I haven't had cheese yet. That's the only thing. I was gonna say, me, I don't think it's cheese, and I think I'd miss tremendously actually

cheese would be the problem for me. Yeah, vegan cheese sucks. They have not worked that one out yet. Vegan cheese, no one tells you this, but vegan cheese stinks. Like especially if you like, if it's been in the fridge for like a day, vegan cheese will like, it's like a chemical fucking weapon. But yeah. Yeah.

So okay, we've had pand- we've had plane crashes, we've had derailments, we've had pandemics, surely this is the kind of escalate from here, there's nothing worse than this right? My head when I'm trying to go to sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's like anxiety nightmare. pandemic, surely we're not gonna escalate from here, there's nothing worse than this, right? ALICE This is the type of shit that goes through my head when I'm trying to go to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

ALICE It's like anxiety nightmare. Alright, folks! Oh no! It's the Gulf of America! Let's talk about the Gulf of America! Yes! Yes! Oh my arm!

Manifest Destiny everywhere! ALICE This is, I mean, again, you wanna talk about the Age of Incoherence, you wanna talk about crashouts, fuck Elon Musk. Donald Trump going on TV and being like, you know what, maybe we gotta invade Panama, Canada, and Denmark, well, and Greenland. Greenland, yeah. And we're gonna rename it from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

The US might have enough clout to have that stick. He can't change it internationally, but he can order federal agencies to use it. To be honest, if the US- They could definitely export it in public schools, yeah. Yeah, that's probably enough to get it changed on a lot of the maps. I'm thinking of a great follow on Twitter, pinstripebugle. I'm just thinking of like the mass of like the American, like the US civil service just like, like, like unhappily having to go through all their atlases and saying, oh well I'm not happy, I'm doing the unhappy face while I change all of these, score out Mexico and

all these maps to America. I just, I picked up a globe off the street a couple days ago. It's crazy. Sorry. You know, I don't know if you've ever done this, you've picked up a globe off the street, it's in my living room now. I've never picked up a globe off the street. And I was like, really excited, because it is an old globe, it still had the Soviet Union

on it. Oh, you get to date it. Yeah. Oh, fuck. Yeah. If it smells Korean with a C, you're... It said Zimbabwe, but brackets Rhodesia underneath. No, but Zimbabwe now. So that's gonna be like, ooh, okay.

Like 1990 or something. There's the XKCD diagram of how you date things, that's the one, that's my go-to. But I know that now there's gonna be some, you know, Gen Z kid, you know, ten years from now, who's also gonna pick up a street globe, and he's gonna be like, wow, this one says Gulf of Mexico on it. ALICE This is literally why, right? It's crazy how much this is just straight up Trump thinking about his legacy, right? Until H5N1 has him go out like Stan Chera, again.

Him just being like, before I die of bird flu, I've gotta- SEAN He's gonna get bird flu and transform into a bald eagle and fly into the sunset. Yeah, yeah, experts now believe that Donald Trump is more of a mythological figure. But yeah, he so clearly wants to change the map as a way of securing his personal legacy, and the ways he can think of doing that are, like, territorial expansion that the US last tried in, like, the 1830s, and it should be called the Gulf of America. And the thing is, right, I've said this, you could placate the guy, you could fulfill that need by either putting him on Mount Rushmore, which I bet South Dakota would go for, or

renaming Florida the state of Trump. And the thing is, I think Floridians would go for that about 3 to 1, and it would ultra cuck DeSantis into a level of cuckoldry never seen. Yeah, Florida deserves it. I think the US should be reminded of Trump in a turn, I'm sure. I think it deserves a state of Trump, I think it should have his face on the flag like Washington State, and it will continue to be the worst place on earth. I was gonna say, with the proposed annexation of Panama, or re-annexation of Panama, I should

say, and annexing Canada and so on and so forth, I think a lot of these people maybe start sending out some feelers to China, like, you guys interested in a foreign military base? ALICE Yeah, like driving maybe you into the arms of China to be like, yeah, sorry, do you wanna station a couple of marine regiments in Greenland? JUSTIN Yeah, you thinking about like a little, you know, marine base? We could probably do that for you. Yeah, where the president's changing, I'm guessing.

My people in nuke, yearn for freedom. Please send J-20 strike fighters. Where, politically, where is Panama, in my head, Panama is a bit of a sock puppet for the US because of the... Kind of, yeah. Panama is a fake country a sock puppet for the US because of the... Kind of, yeah. Panama is a fake country we invented to build the canal, yes. But then we gave them a lot more independence and we gave them back... Jimmy Carter gave them back the canal, which a lot of people were very mad about at the

time. And Trump is apparently still mad about it. But also if we retake the canal... So they could definitely go to China. Yeah. If we retake the canal... RILEY So they could definitely go to China. ALICE If we retake the canal, guess what, we get the expanded locks at no charge. Other than the military intervention, which will probably be very expensive. RILEY I mean, those people, they're gonna be dry...

I'm sorry to break it to you. ALICE It's money, not your money. RILEY It's a thing that a lot of people don't realize about how much global trade is gonna get turned upside down in the next thirty years, but it's unlikely the Panama Canal will be functioning much after the middle of this century. Like, it won't work. ALICE Yeah, and the US has already been handed the fucking Northwest, like, the Northwest Passage, so...

SEAN This is true. ALICE Yeah. Yeah. SEAN Yeah, you gotta get Canada for that one. It's like, we're gonna use tariffs and economic pressure. Now, I think Alberta and Saskatchewan would probably join the United States, no problem. But I don't know about, like, Ontario. I mean, I am excited to see if we annex Canada, and like, American politics has to deal with

Bloc Québécois. Because it'd be really funny to see why Bloc Québécois establish a foothold in Louisiana. ALICE Really enjoying the idea that, like, making Canada a state and you immediately get another fifty electoral college votes that all go to Democrats. Like, Alberson just gets completely shut out. SEAN New Hampshire is lost to Black Quebecois as well.

ALICE But, it's cause Trump read Infinite Jest and he's trying to do the Great Concavity, either that or he played Fallout 1. I don't know which is scarier. I mean, like, any one of these is so obviously fucked. I... I dunno. I thought maybe in my lifetime we would see the end of the United States with its borders, as it has them, and constitutional system as it has it.

I wasn't expecting it to be this stupid, maybe I should've, you know? You should've. Well, we'll getcha, we'll getcha, don't worry. Yeah, cause like, I remember when I was a kid, the kind of prevailing Lib dream was some kind of EU analog, like, North American Union. Right. SEAN You imagine two senators from Greenland? JUSTIN Yeah, I mean...

ALICE That commute would not be fun, I'll tell you that. ALICE At this point I'm surprised Trump hasn't tried to buy Baja California from Mexico, like, in Bardo. Like, it just... SEAN It would make more sense, I would think. None of it makes any sense, but... SEAN It looks like Claudia's about to do the big, big shitty infrastructure investment over there, so.

You know? ALICE Give it to us, Claudia, we can be trusted. ALICE That's probably the most possible time for the US to seize control with free canal locks, free railroads. ALICE Yes. JUSTIN Oh god. I just, I'm just visualizing it. ALICE Can you imagine being in the Canadian military right now and having to earnestly be like,

to Justin Trudeau, who is resigning in like a week's time, just in case, yeah, we do have the backup plans for the like, stay behind guerrilla operation, that we would have to run in case he's actually serious and the US Army comes out of here. Canadian gladiator is gonna be a hell of a thing. Yeah, they're gonna start poisoning... It's the fallout timeline! Gonna open the maple syrup flood gates. I'm just enjoying the idea of a bunch of Quebecois French speakers flipping the coin on Trump and invading, yeah, like, going, invading down into New Hampshire, and you have, so

you've got a bunch of Quebecois guys taking over Berlin? Ah, we said we would get it, no, we are finally marching through Berlin, ah. Yeah, that's it. I look forward to that moment. So, might happen. JUSTIN Yeah, maybe Canada just seizes the Great Lakes, you know? Like preemptively, in a preemptive invasion. I think some of those cities would go with it. ALICE This is what happens when you hang out with Baron, your only map game playing kid.

ALICE Take that guy's Steam license away. ALICE Yeah, he's been all playing TNO as well, it's like weird. RILEY Yeah, they're really fucked up, only fascist mods on Hard to Find 4. I could see Baron as a Millennium Dawn guy, I'll be honest. I think that's what led him to this. I think that's how this is happening. It's an UPS news episode and we've hit the two and a half hour mark, my god.

There's been a lot of news, there's been a lot of news. It has. It's true. I do like the Knights of the Golden Circle flag on the thing, by the way. I can explain this. So this was an idea that was sort of in vogue pre-Civil War, where the US was gonna seize and colonize a kind of... South and Central, yeah, all of Central America and also the Caribbean for some reason?

Yeah, it was gonna be like, as a hedge against the Civil War, the South was going to create this country, the Golden Circle, that was gonna be like, all slavery. Yeesh. Yeah. It's like, you know when you talk about Hearts of Iron mods, this was Burgundy, this was like the Odinstadt Burgundy, but in like 1850. And yeah, thankfully this did not come off. But like, people were still pitching this, even after the war, people were pitching to

Ulysses S. Grant of like, shit like, hey, maybe the US should like, try and grant statehood to, I mean, Cuban statehood was a thing that was proposed a number of times, but like, hey, maybe the US should try and grant statehood to... I mean, Cuban statehood was a thing that was proposed a number of times, but like, you know, bits of the northern coast of South America. I think that was even a push for like, Brazilian statehood at one point, which was not something the Brazilians were interested in. So, yeah. No. It's just kind of... Mafflingly weird geopolitical intrusions. Yeah, crikey. The US has benefited a great deal from its geography, and from the map game starting

position that it's ended up with, of having no one who's really credibly able to invade us anymore. But that also means that they're stuck in this position where it's like, if you are of that mindset and you want to paint some more color on the map, your places to go are basically just like Canada, the Caribbean, or south to Mexico and South America. I was talking about the Knights of the Golden Circle. Yeah. That's a real goofy one.

That's where we're heading. I mean, if it keeps Trump entertained, then, you know, the Mexicans will keep him busy, so you know, it's fine. Just tell him they did it. He'll believe it, probably. Yeah, that is the part that I'm worried about is invading Mexico. I feel like they might just actually do that part. And that sounds really bad considering the amount of progress that's happened in that country recently.

Attempting to kill friends of ours notwithstanding. ALICE I don't think they deserve another punitive expedition for it, you know? JUSTIN Yeah, yeah, exactly. ALICE And then, like, y'know, a hundred years later you get a bunch of really cool revisionist westerns about it. LIAM Sure. ALICE Ooh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think they should go, I think the US should go north. I think Canada could do with... Canada has a reckoning coming on all the Trump guys in Canada as well, so maybe... Aim northwards, let's see what happens. That could be fun. ALICE I want to see the timeline from Escape from

LA, where the Shining Path unify all the oppressed peoples of the world against the US, and Florida is invaded by a joint Cuban-Ugandan marine force. JUSTIN I'd watch that. ALICE Oh, that'd be pretty good. That'd be pretty good, I'd love to see that. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, the one thing about invading Canada? Uh, cold. You know, M-Trac has priority over freight trains and Via Rail does not. So...

Via Rail, how many divisions do they have? Yeah, exactly. So you would wind up improving passenger rail in the former country of Canada. ALICE I mean, listen, we have precedent for what happens when a superpower tries to invade a, like, much smaller neighbor, just on the basis of, like, well, they're not really a country anyway and will probably be greeted as liberators, and the answer is that your three day special military operation is, like, well they're not really a country anyway and will probably be greeted as liberators, and the answer is that your three day special military operation is like bogged down for multiple years as that country has like turned itself into the most armed, sort of like,

rump state imaginable. A huge personal cost to everyone. JUSTIN What I'm hearing is that all of the Ukrainian-Canadian fascists in the Canadian government... ALICE Oh boy. They're gonna have the most unexpected convergence of interests ever. JUSTIN They're gonna have to start taking arms from Russia, yeah. Yeah. Well. Yeah.

ALICE No, no, you don't understand. Canada is American Ukraine, that's how you pitch it to them. LIAM You know what? I worked! No, no, you don't understand. Canada is American Ukraine, that's how you pitch it to them. You know? I worked. The languages are mostly mutually intelligible, but there's a series of revealing grammatical mistakes you can make. Tamarack.

Tamarack. If Trudeau's gonna have any sense behind him, he needs to be folding up the Houthis quickly. If he wants to know how to circumvent and destroy US heart military hardware, then there's no one better. There's no one doing it better. Maybe maybe the maybe the like Iranian drones are just Trudeau hedging his bets just in case Trump serious. Damn.

Damn. No, no, this is this has gone poorly. I support this idea now. This is not where we're supposed to be. OK. Anyway, I think this is our last piece of news. Oh, yeah. The Sixers Arena is coming to a center city near you. Huh? Yep. Oh, OK. Zooms in on Philly. Where's it going?

So they the OK. Yes. Yes. Where's it going? So they the OK. Yes. Yes. Where? Yeah. So the Philadelphia 76ers, the basketball team has been wanting to move their arena into Center City for a while now. And I feel underqualified to do a huge exposition here. But it's it's been very, very unpopular with a lot of grassroots activists. It's been very, very unpopular with parts of Chinatown because, you know, it's seen as this big, big project that's going to, you know, gentrify neighborhoods.

It's going to, it's replacing part of a dead mall in Center City, which admittedly is good, they're building it right on top of a train station, and also blocking off all the light into it, which I think is bad. There's a lot of stuff going on here. Not actually seeing the skylight, you just see them dribbling the basketball on top of it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Where's it go- where's it going exactly?

I'm whizzing about, where's it being dumped? So it goes, it goes, yeah, something like, it's going to, it's replacing part of a dead mall in Center City, which admittedly is good, they're building it right on top of a train station, and also blocking off all the light into it, which I think is bad. There's a lot of, uh, stuff going on here. Not actually seeing the skylight, you just see them dribbling the basketball on top of it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Where's it go? Where's where's it going exactly? Well, I'm I'm wasn't about where's it being done? So it goes it goes. Yeah, something like what is it? Well, they're going to knock down the the the fashion district to build it, right? Yeah. So it's between Market and Filbert and 11th and 10th,

as well as the bus terminal just north of that, which was previously sold off by private equity. Although, you know, I think they did take advantage of the fact that this, uh, this thing was going forward. I mean, this has been, this has been a very contentious issue for a while. It seems like, uh, Mayor Sherrill Parker was sort of elected to do this deal. Right. Um, it's been sort of steamrolled through for like a year now. And it's... I'm not as radical as some people in saying this is going to destroy Chinatown,

this is going to destroy Centre City. I think it's a bad idea and we don't get much out of it. Obviously this is at the final vote, you can see here someone being arrested for protesting. It's getting in the trough, though. I gotta say, this is a great photo. This is one of the best being, like, sort of, like, huckled out of the location of all times, you know? I was actually in the building when this happened, but I was a jury duty. There's a huge line of people outside the building, like, waiting to get into the council

hearing, and I was like, oh damn, a lot of people have jury duty today. I was like, no, they said, no, go to the front of the line, you're allowed in. Thank you. So you're losing a Primark, you're losing a Gamestop, you're losing a Wetzel's. Wetzel's, pretzels, of course. What's it, there's the AMCStop, you're losing a Wetzel's. Wetzel's, pretzels. Of course. What's it, there's the AMC theater, there's... The bowling alley.

Yeah. I mean, so, like, the building it's replacing is not, like, especially great. I mean, the sort of, whatchamacallit, they call it the fashion district now, it used to be called the gallery. But this whole, like, process, where, you know, at some point it was like, the Sixers are gonna move to Centre City, you know, there was not much community input, there was not much... ALICE They've called it something at something. 76 place at Market East. Yeah.

I hate that. I hate that. I hate that. JUSTIN Exactly, I mean, the part I don't like is that they're gonna ruin the train station. But y'know, the big thing here is, a lot of people have been protesting this for a lot of reasons, and then it just didn't... ALICE They just rammed it through. JUSTIN It's never felt like there's been any sort of engagement with anyone about the stadium... ALICE The concerns people had? No, of course not. there's been any sort of engagement with anyone about the stadium.

I can sense people had, no of course not. Yeah, I don't feel like it's necessarily like, again, I don't think it's the end of the world, but the way it's been pushed through has been crazy. The one, a couple, they have like a community benefits agreement, which is kinda mediocre. There was a plan to put a bunch of affordable housing on the site, but that got cancelled because people don't like affordable housing, I guess. That was a little bit bizarre. Yeah. Like, uh, so the Save Chinatown coalition did a poll, which showed 56% against, 18%

in favor, but then when participants were given neutral information about why people support and oppose the arena, it went to 69% against? So, you try and pitch this to people and they like it less. Which is a really good sign. That's how I feel. JUSTIN Yeah, I am... It's weird. I mean, if you look at...

The only thing I could say is look at similar arena situations, like in Washington DC, where they did put a multi-purpose arena in the middle of their Chinatown, and, well, there's no Chinatown anymore. Yeah, absolutely. It's multi-purpose arena. Yeah, exactly. It's sort of increased rents, you know, it's sort of, it's, it's, oh God, I, I should have put more notes here, but yeah, it's, it feels like-

There's a whole massive space that I happen to know is free down and right down there, where there used to be a massive refinery complex, and why the fuck don't they put it down there and do some- It already is down there, that's the thing, yeah. I have an idea- Leave it down there then. I have a modest proposal. Could you fit an NBA standard sized basketball court on the

SS United States? Yes. Oh, that thing's never gonna move, so they may as well. Refurbish it, move the 76's onto it. You know what, fine. Honestly, that might be the solution, yeah. This is the kind of lateral thinking, you know? This is it.

City Hall needs to hire me, you know? SS United States Conservancy. DM us. Listen, listen. Stranger ideas have come to fruition, right? And if the US is gonna fucking invade Greenland, you tell me why the hell you can't play basketball on the largest ocean liner built in the US and the fastest across the Atlantic Ocean. Sure.

Yeah, again, it's not gonna move. I mean, it might move. Nah. It's probably not gonna move. Nah. Nah. No, that's gonna be... Gareth, you mentioned you were disappointed about not being able to see it.

Well, there's probably still time. There's still time. There's still time, yeah. I'm glad there's still time. Well, there's probably still time. There's still time. There's still time. Yeah, I'm glad there's still time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'll be making a point of whizzing over. Yeah, that's it.

That and the Dead Fleet, there's a couple of things that are on my list. Actually, there's a lot of stuff on that, on the Delaware that I want to see, actually. That's just a nice walk down. Yeah. Anyway. But yeah, I think the big thing about the arena is that the vibes have been totally

rancid this whole time. It's really hard to like, I guess, put a fine point on what exactly is wrong with it, but the vibes have been so rants. I've seen the like, the like concept illustrations and it's just this weird kind of like box. No, fuck that. Basketball at sea. Like in that one Simpsons episode. Yes. Can they can they flatten the convention center

and put it there instead? I don't know. Just like I mean, the convention center needs to that. That could be a whole episode. Oh, my God. The convention center was a terrible idea. But you know, I'd say at sea, it's definitely irritating. I mean, they've done for the deck of an aircraft carrier. Irritating to see like a lot of people who are, you know, ALICE and T court, and then you tow it out to international wars. Football was fake, but basketball's real, here you go.

You start betting some real money on it, you know? Like, international wars, you can do whatever, the laws of the NBA do not apply. Holy shit. There is a picture of the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Michigan State Spartans on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson. OK, legit. There we go. But it's 70 basketball. It's irritating to sort of see, you know, especially a lot of folks

from the local urbanist organization saying, you know, we have to replace this horrible dead super block in the form of the mall with the arena, which will also be a horrible dead superblock in the form of the mall, with the arena which will also be a horrible dead superblock. Except for a few times as well. ALICE They've literally played college basketball. Yeah. Like, you can do this.

You can just do this. Just do it. Just do it. Yeah. I got you. I thought you were talking about football for a second, sorry. JUSTIN Yeah. Yeah.

I, uh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, it's a very, it's a prime location. They're definitely better things they could do with that space. It's a, it's a, it's a really prime location right in the center city that they could be doing different and better things with. Yeah.

A good one. Yeah. Yeah. All right. But also I agree, Roz, I agree. They need to not fuck Jefferson station. Like it's, it's already. Yeah. Market East is a very, very nice station. I need to not fuck Jefferson Station. Like it's already... Yeah, Market East is a very, very nice station.

I refuse to call it Jefferson. That's a naming right steal. How is it? Yeah, we have several names. Fuck you, Google. NRG or whatever they're calling it now. Yeah. Paterson Avenue.

That's Paterson. Drexel Station at 30th Street. Fuck off. No, you know what that one did? You know what that one did is that when you scroll through the app for arrival times for the L, now it's like, oh, okay, you know, you know, 46th, 40th, 34th, and then it goes straight to 15th because alphabetically, Drexel station at 30th is not between 34th and 15th. That's, that's extremely aggravating, yeah.

Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah, well, people, morons run cities. There's a podcast about it. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. Yeah.

No Gods, No Mans.com. That was the goddamn news. Uh, shit. Oh, there we go, another one. That's true. Yeah. No Gods, No Moms.com. That was the goddamn news. Uh, shit. Oh, there we go. There we go. We have a segment on this podcast called Safety Third. Oh, oh, okay. Hello, Justin November Liam Gareth and Struttinger's guest.

Nope. Fuck you. I come to you with a story from a hospital of unspeakable prestige, which you may be familiar with as an institution next to a children's hospital that abuts a CSX line carrying hazardous cargo. Okay, sure. Doc your own place of employment at rwtypod.gmail.com. We have mentioned this hospital numerous times and there's a lot... It could be any hospital. It could be any hospital.

There might be a lot of them like that, I don't know. Yeah, no, it's... There probably are. Yeah. Okay, sure. As a resident physician in internal medicine, one of our jobs was to respond to codes in the hospital. In general, a code refers to when a patient has sustained a cardiac arrest, also known

as dying, and we would attempt to revive them with CPR. Depending on the case, sometimes this involves using a defibrillator to shock the patient's heart into a rhythm that can produce a pulse. Contrary to popular depictions, we do not use paddles to shock patients. Figure 1. ALICE That's an obsolete technology, they don't CPR you on a planche. JUSTIN Yeah, no it's not.

All the defibrillators that are spread around in like, phone boxes now in the UK, they all have those little pads. It's not nearly as exciting. I'm saddened. Yeah, you wanna rub them together, you know? It's like if a phone, like a mobile phone, entered and stayed in popular culture as a flip phone. Like, forever.

Yes. Yes. Instead, adhesive pads are stuck on the patient. Stuck onto the patient. See figure two. Adhesive paddles are advantageous because they limit downtime between CPR rounds, they do not need pressure applied to the chest, and they minimize the risk of electric arcing." ALICE Yeah, but that electric conductive gel is horrible stuff. Like, okay, yeah, you might

still be alive, and okay, you might be having a horrible time on a more fundamental level, having just been defibrillated and, like, CPR'd, but like, you gotta get the goop off you, and it's gonna get on your chest hair, eugh. ALICE Yeah, the yucky goop. No one wants yucky goop on them. JUSTIN The goop is true, yeah. Just let me die. ALICE Well, maybe some people do want yucky goop on them, but that's different. JUSTIN It is standard practice for everyone to clear

the patient prior to delivering the shock. This is accurately depicted in entertainment. Anyone who is touching the patient, or is touching something that is connected to the patient, is hands off. Now, a component of CPR that is underappreciated by the public is that most patients end up intubated, which is having a breathing tube placed in them, during CPR. We have been mulling for a while a bonus episode about anesthesia, and that's still in the works, you know, so we'll get on that sooner or later.

Compressed oxygen then runs through the breathing tube to be delivered to the lungs. Prior to shocking the patient, the respiratory therapist to the lungs. Prior to shocking the patient, the respiratory therapist on the case is supposed to disconnect the tube from the ventilator to minimize the risk of sending large amounts of 100% oxygen into an electrical environment. Oh God. Today's seemingly apocryphal tale started as a run-of-the-mill cardiac arrest. We were faithfully attempting to return someone from the heavens. My job was to jam my fingers deep in this patient's groin to palpate ephemeral pulse." ALICE. Medicine's so glamorous.

JUSTIN. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a... I love learning things about medicine. ALICE. You look at the big mural on the side of the hospital and it's a, you know, go to the square door pushing death's scythe back, and then you go, what's going on inside this hospital? And it's like, fingers fully into the taint. Scrobs. Yeah, exactly. The code leader, which was one of my co-residents, called for a pulse check, which I did not feel.

The cardiac rhythm was one that was shockable, so the leader called for everyone to clear. A shock was delivered and chest compressions resumed. Then, at 12 minutes and 7 seconds into the code, a smoldering smoky odor rose, and the patient burst into flames. ALICE Oh. Jeez. I believe you made a good, good... ALICE Oh, the classic patient, you know?

You're just like, you're in this state, sort of like between clinical life and clinical death, and the medics are like, get back here. And you're like, I'm going to do something nobody's going to expect. And what do you do with that point as a medic? Did you just get your cigarettes out and light We've got the attendings coming in with marshmallows on the stands. This was not a situation that any of us residents had encountered previously, and the patient could not stop, drop, and roll on account of being dead. Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah.

I'm gonna save a lot on cremation costs, I can tell you that much. Luckily, a supervising ICU physician always oversaw codes from the background, and he literally sprang into action in a moment of ingenuity, stupidity, or both. This attending physician, as I said, ran into the room, leaped and belly flopped onto the patient, smothering the fire.

Alright, cool. After recovering from our astonishment, we resumed compressions as if nothing had ever happened. Unfortunately, the patient was not revived, but the fire likely had little to do with the outcome. They were, after all, already dead. Oh my god. This is... did you ever six feet under?

Yeah. This is the type of shit they used to open episodes with. Yeah. This is like you of shit they used to open episodes with. Yeah. This is like you're doing courtesy CPR. You know, you have to do it in front of the family to look like you're trying even nicer. Oh man. Slow-codes. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, do you remember that one video of the guy like pretending to search people at the entrance to the thing and it's like he's blessing them because he's just doing the like, hover hand? Just doing that but like, over the sternum you know yeah i still do not know what caused the fire other than a freak accident it is possible 100 oxygenated air made it near the pads and ignited shocks without clearing are being trialed because of the safety of adhesive pads but i certainly am not someone who wants to have my hands on the chest when the

electricity is delivered after seeing this case." We've, do we found the least popular doctors to trial, uh, like not clearing the defibrillation? Thank you for the continued entertainment from Dr. H. Thank you, QH. Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you, Dr. H. P.S. Support Resident Physician Unionization. We make under minimum wage and conditions that would make a railroad company blush. Absolutely. I mean, for all the good that like having a medical union like the BMA is doing doctors here, but like, yeah, absolutely. Sure. Yeah. Damn, I mean.

Well, the undertakers are going to have a bit less to do on that guy. I was about to say, uh, you know, if you can, if you can, you know, it, depending on how you want to be buried, if you can figure out how to self emulate, um, you know, you're going to take a Turkish bar and a job, you know, the cotton worn paraphernalia, the situation. Easy peasy. Quite. Question is if the insurance will cover it. What the fuck do you mean, out of network? Wow, you know, your family gets a bill that's like, oh, fire extinguishing, four hundred thousand dollars. No, just kill me.

Don't worry, the insurance covered the first hundred thousand. Alright, our next episode will be on Chernobyl, does anyone have any commercials before we go? By Garry's phone? That was Safety Third. Oh shit. Uh... Shake hands with danger. Yeah, what Liam said.

Thanks Liam. Buy my book if you haven't already. Thank you so much. The third print run is now out and about. There are 1200 copies in the warehouse. So they are there finally. We've got ahead of this. The fact that everyone has bought it has caused problems, but we now have enough that you can buy them again. If you haven't, if you are having problems, genuine supply problems, you can message me. I'm an idiot. I reply to people who message me on things like this when I shouldn't, I should ignore

you all, but no message me and I'll lend pest to the publishers. Um, uh, what else? No gods, no merges has been entertaining me. I've, I've very much enjoyed, uh, Noah dropped in actually. And, uh, I enjoyed that episode. That was the most recent free one. We talked about Sam your team mayor of Los Angeles. Your tea. Yeah. What a guy. So, um, yeah, that's, that's tremendous fun. I enjoyed that a lot. Um, and then, you know, the usual list, uh, 10,000 losses, uh, TF, uh, kill James Bond for God's sake. Uh, rail matter. Yeah, we have a whole smorgasbord. We have eight tickets left in Washington, DC. We have something like 250 tickets left in Philadelphia at the

Fillmore, we need to fill more seats there. ALICE We still need to fill more seats. JUSTIN We have quite a few tickets left for the first New York City show. ALICE People don't wanna do the Stalinist congestion pricing, y'know? JUSTIN Yeah, apparently no one wants to come into Times Square on a Tuesday. Who can blame them? That's just bullshit.

Yep. You're gonna have a great time. Assuming that the federal government lets me into the country. You'll still have a good time anyway. You know, we'll figure something out. Yeah. Bye everybody. Bye everyone.

Bye everyone. Bye bye. Okay, good, I was worried I was running out of hard drive space. I hate you so much.