Weekly Zeitgeist 196 (Best of 10/4/21-10/8/21)

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 205 (10/4/21-10/8/21)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Weekly Zeitgeist. Uh these are some of our favorite segments
from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment
laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is

(00:22):
the Weekly Zeitgeist. He was named two thousand fifteen number
one comedian on the Top one Comedians. Listen, please welcome
the hilarious and talented Andrew Mashawn. Thank you, thank you
for having me, and my song about me is Happyvorite. No,
I don't know. I did not know it was a

(00:44):
musical podcast. Um so I don't have a song prepared,
but just know that. Um if I have one prepared,
it would have been awesome. It's very clear to everyone
listening that you have a song in your heart. Yeah,
last time you're on, You're like you said the same thing. Like,
I didn't know it was a song. I would have
came with one. So I really do let us down
this second go around. Wow, I should have known. You know. Well,

(01:06):
it's been a normal couple of years. So yeah, November nine,
what's going on? Dude? Left off? I Well, I haven't
really been paying attention. Um so I don't know. Everything's
been good for me. Cool cool um, yeah, no, it's
good to be back. Thank you for having me. I'm
gonna I'm gonna come clean here and let you know
that I have forgotten that we met, forgot that you

(01:29):
were on the show, and then become a fan of
yours through podcasts. But outside since thank you and without
realizing that you have been on this show. So that's
perfect podcast But outside is very very funny. Yeah, before
you came on, he's like, you know, Andrew like, well, yeah,
ship man, that it is very funny. I was like, father, oh, hey,

(01:55):
I honestly, actually that makes you're a fan of my show,
Like that makes it more pure. Yeah, that was just
a pure enjoyment outside of the fact that you and
I are close friends. Yes, exactly. There it is great.
What's good with you, man, other than you're back from
Coast three? I'm doing well? Yeah, how was that? It

(02:16):
was great? You know, and it was really nice and honestly, like,
looking back, I'm very glad that I did go in
November of tween nineteen because I try to go out
of the country once a year and it was a
really great trip. And then, you know, if I had
known that I wouldn't be able to leave the country
for a long time after that. Like it was, it
was perfect timing to be able to go. Great country.
Highly recommend it, easy place to travel, and everyone's very nice,

(02:36):
very beautiful. I love to see it. And I'm actually
going to leave the country again for the first time
since then in November, so there, I'm going to coast
it and I'm just going I'm going to I'm going
to Iceland actually, which I've never been to. WHOA, what's
the weather like that time of year? Super? I think
it's kind of cold year round. The vibe is apparently

(02:57):
it's just always cold, but that is definitely when winter
is in the swing of It's like in the full
swing of winter, so there might be a little more snow,
but I think it's just universally cold and frigid there.
But it is like, you know, it'll get dark like
at like four or five pm when we first got there,
and then by the time we leave it'll get dark
at like three pm. Like it really drastically over the
course of November. Yeah, but there's like boiling hot water

(03:19):
just like shooting up out of the earth there all that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, man,
I want to go there so bad. I studied a
lot of Viking history in college and like Iceland's eyes
and I'm like, I got it. I need to see
it because a lot of the people that like ended
up habitating that place where like fleeing the Vikings. They're
like like, let's get over here. Did the Vikings ever

(03:43):
go there? And like, yeah, I'm sure they did. I
mean I as far as I can remember, what was
that fourteen years ago? Yeah, I mean that's like those
are the remnants that you hold on you, Like, I
know they were fleeing the other Vikings and then they
have a great soccer team that overperforms. Well, I'll let
you know how it is. Yeah, it seems like a nice,

(04:05):
easy place to travel. And also it's like nineties six
percent vaccinated kind of thing, and you have to be
vaccinated to go in. So as far as like, it
feels like a safe first trip after this whole thing, Marcello,
we do like to ask our guest what is something
from your search history. I had to google San Francisco
Fleet Week because I didn't know what the funk that was.

(04:26):
And um, I'm in Modesto, California right now, and we've
been having these I've just been Me and my brother
had been noticing these little like cute little planes, like
multiple planes at once for just criss crossing, and I
was like, what the fund is going on? And then
my friend who lives in San Francisco was like, it's
fleet Week, and I was like, what the fund is
Fleet Week? And then I fucking put the thoughts together

(04:46):
once I hit the Google. I didn't read about it
because I don't give a ship. It just feels like
a waste of money. Oh yeah, but yeah, I guess
that's happening this week and they are practicing in Medesto, California.
So what what is it? It's when all the air
shows or some stupid It's like a thing where like
a lot of the like Navy people, coast guard, like
ship based military like come to town. Mm hmm. It's

(05:11):
it's been a thing for like a minute, but and
then they'll have air shows and ship It's just kind
of like, Yo, we're here, We're we're in the city,
some holes all over the city, but they're using the
money for a fucking fleet week, right. I associated with
like old timey like a bunch of sailors in their
in their whites, just like walking around and exactly causing trouble,

(05:32):
getting into fights and bars on the Lower East Side
or whatever. Yeah, that happens. And then they had a
little Blue Angels, you know, the party going on there too.
It's one of those traditions that feels really childish. Yeah, yeah,
I think they need to pick one. Why Why why
are the planes isn't that aren't they supposed to be
on the water. What's happening because they're launched from the

(05:53):
aircraft carric Yeah whatever, no military expert, but I said,
that's a good thing, right the Navy. I'm sure gonna
I'm gonna get hate mail for mentioning that, right something
to be like, Oh, I served, and it's a very
important tradition. I feel like a lot of the people
that served and listened to the show, like they come
through with very enlightening opinions on They're like, yeah, this

(06:14):
is what's sucked up about the military, and like thank
you for that, and it's gonna be like it adds
millions of dollars to the local economy. I feel like
that's the like Ted Cruise. Ted Cruise is a big fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
he does like the Daily Zychist weird. What is something
you think is overrated? I'm a really big professional wrestling fan.

(06:38):
It's something I've been a fan of my entire life
pretty much. And um, there are a series of matches
that happened in the tens in New Japan pro wrestling
wrestling named keny O Mega versus wrestler named Okada, which
are considered to be the greatest professional wrestling matches in
the history of professional wrestling. Dave Meltzer is a pro
wrestling journalist of note who has a five star scale

(07:01):
of how he writes matches in terms of quality, and
one of the Ocado Mega matches he rated seven stars,
which like broke his scale. It was so good, and
I gotta say, I just don't see it. I'm a
big pro wrestling fan. The matches are like they're the
problem with them is that they're all like forty minute
long epics. So it's sort of like sitting down to,

(07:23):
you know, like a three hour movie or something like
that in pro wrestling match terms. And I don't know,
I just kind of want to watch people do flips
and kick each other in the face. I'm not sure
if I want twenty minutes of like slow Matt wrestling
action to get to the cool stuff. You know. That's funny.
There is a bias like in certain you know, fan
bases where I feel like the longer the movie for

(07:46):
a while was it was considered like, well, that's a
that's a classy movie, even though I think a lot
of times like you should at least have a couple
ninety minute movies on your like top five list. It
shouldn't just all three hour long epics. You know, like
sometimes you're in the mood for like a four hour
long you know, like sometimes you're in the mood for

(08:08):
Citizen Kane or whatever, or sometimes you're in the mood
for like, yeah, like a ninety minute like die Hard
or something like that, where it's just like it's like
someone getting hit by a train. Yeah, totally, totally totally,
And it's I think it's, you know, like both of
those wrestlers are so good, and like I'm a fan
of Occado and i Mega separately. It's just like this

(08:28):
thing that the fandom has called the best series of
matches of all time, and I'm like, yeah, it's I
don't know, it's like sometimes you want, you know, a
seven minute long like rush song or something like that,
or sometimes you want like a minute thirty punk song,
and like I feel like I'm more on the minute
thirty punk song side of things. But yeah, one of
my like my mom's really good close friends is used

(08:52):
to be married to that wrestler Masa Saito who's Mr
Seido WF like back in the day, and I remember
around the time I was so into wrestling that I
went when we were in Japan, She's like, Oh, come out,
we're having like the I Forget whatever, like all those
tournaments like the g One Climb. Yeah, so I went
to one of those and I was like, I was

(09:15):
like I'm ready because I had already been to a
couple you know, w w F house shows and a
WrestleMania and I was like, okay, this is it. And
the culture around the shows were so different. I was
like having this like sort of bit of wrestling culture
clash happening. But it's true, like it is, it offers
like a completely different version, Whereas to me, a fourteen

(09:35):
year old who's just been mainlining Dwayne the Rock Johnson
like clips, I was just a little bit like, Okay,
yeah that was cool. That was there was some cool
stuff in there, this technical stuff in there. Yeah, and
like m JPW, it's it's really it's like I would
say that if w W E is like the action
movie form of wrestling where it's just like, yeah, the
Undertaker shooting out fireballs like Haynes's long lost brother, blah

(09:57):
blah blah blah blah. Like n j p W. You
is like, oh, this is like the sport version of this,
Like you know, there's not there's not like magic stuff.
Nobody is like secretly a demon or whatever. It's very
much just like, oh, these are two like top of
their form athletes who like understand the sport of professional
wrestling to a t and like are so good at

(10:19):
like the performative aspects of it. So it's like it's
a little bit more real in how they perform their moves.
Like they hit, Like there's this thing called strong style
where wrestlers will hit each other four real as hard
as humanly possible, but in safe spaces. So it's like
a forearm as hard as you can to like the
shoulder where it might hurt, but it's not gonna like

(10:40):
when you're knocked you out like that. It's like punching
on the shoulder like sort of wing. You're a kid
like with a thing that I feel like, yeah, yeah, okay,
you get one yet one, I'll take it. I can
take it right there, go yeah. When then the wrestlers
are really good at Like there's also named a Code

(11:00):
Bushy who's like one of the best wrestlers in the
world who famously does a lot of like just insane
drops on his neck, Like he gets pile driven straight
on his neck all the time and it like looks insane.
And the way that he can do that is he
just does a lot of neck exercises sort of that
thing of like they like do the moves for real
to each other, but they are trained in such a

(11:21):
way that they're like not going to get injured doing it,
whereas w W is more the showmanship side of it
of like it's like is a little bit you know,
faker for lack of a better term, and that like
things are a little bit more slight of handed away
as to how things are done. Where's n JPW. It's
just like, oh, dudes are just dropping each other on
their next for real, right right right. And then people
like in like a backyard match in like tamper, Like

(11:43):
you just see that clip. Yeah, we should try that
on a regular folding table and then be surprised when
someone has a TB. I oh yeah for sure. Yeah,
of all the places to you know, do the do
the sleight of hand that convinces people to do really
dangerous things. I feel like America not the best choice
for that, right, right, right? What? What's something you think

(12:06):
is underrated? Underrated is buying a used car or you know,
a step or a simple or a bunch of retirement
accounts that aren't super sexy. I love the people who
did the marketing for a four oh one K. Four
one K is like the darling, but I think that's overrated.
There are a ton of other retirement accounts that I

(12:27):
think are underrated. And the more of the merrier when
it comes to retirement accounts, I think a lot of
folks think the four oh one K is like the
only girl at the dance. She's not. There are others.
M hm. And does your company need to like participate
in the other like retirement accounts or you can just
kind of pick and choose if you have a four

(12:48):
o one kit, well, so you can have a four
oh one K and an ira. I know you guys
are staked and IRA love that roth Ira life. You
just go to the bank and you can open up
an ira, a traditional or a rath. And the only
difference is taxes. With a roth you pay taxes. Now
with the traditional, you pay taxes when you take it out.

(13:10):
And so that's like a whole other category of retirement accounts.
Then the four oh one K, so you can have
a four oh one K and you can have a
roth ira and a traditional if you want. And then
steps and symbols are like other variations of iras in
that family. If you own your own business, wow, I'm

(13:31):
so it's how did you become so financially literate? Because
I grew up in the most pretty financially illiterate home
or like one where a lot of those things were
not communicated to me. So it was a lot of
trial and error once I got out of college. So
I would always meet people with their financial ship together,
like how did you get there? You know? I lied?

(13:53):
True story. I grew up in an immigrant family, so
in first generation American, super broken home. My father died
of an overdo when I was young. My mother sort
of pieced out and I just needed to work, so
I needed to get a job. We talked about this
before we went on the air. We'll in l A.
I went to an arts high school. I wanted to
be a dancer, and then I went to college to
be a poetry major. So like, I'm the least likely

(14:16):
person to be a finance expert or whatever. I never
thought I'd even be in business or talking about business.
But then I started in journalism and I auditioned for
this small station group in Chicago. I went to Northwestern
and I wanted to get like a local news job,
and they said, well, you don't get this job, but

(14:38):
do you know anything about business? And I was eighteen
at the time, and I just said, yes, I just
want love business. This voice on Sunday. Like I had
a boyfriend in high school. He said he wanted to
be a hedge fund manager, and I thought the dude
wanted to be in gardening. Yeah, so if I could

(14:59):
do this, anyone could do this? Sure, no, and yeah,
And I mean I've I've I've gathered that over the years.
When people like try this read up about that, I'm like, oh, right, okay,
I think it's just at a certain point there was
just I think my priorities are just completely off. So
it took like moments like that really is like, yeah,
that's right. We live in a very complex financial system

(15:22):
here as well, especially as it relates to like taxes
and things like that. So at a certain point, I
think I just became very apathetic because it just felt like, well,
this is I get it. I would have been apathetic
if I didn't need it to pay the bills. I
wouldn't have done it otherwise for sure. And what I
realized is that money is a language like anything else.
We just didn't have a Rosetta stone for this language,

(15:43):
no matter what high school you went to or growing up,
no matter what kind of household you grew up in.
We don't learn this stuff in school. We learn a
bunch of bs, like how to dissect a frog or
the Pythagorean theorem. Why why do we like if we
want to know when right? Like want to train get
to a station? But you know what the Pythagorean theorem is,

(16:08):
don't you? Yeah, I'm square equals squared, that's right? Or
but you but then you start asking me about retirement,
I'm like shit, right if I were in charge of
the world, we would learn about sebs and simples instead
of ice slus triangles. But I'm not yet. And you know,

(16:30):
I think that for me, at a necessity, I just
went to school of hard knocks. And you know, if
you go to China you don't speak Chinese, you'd be confused.
If you go to Wall Street, you don't speak the
language of money, you'd be confused. But then hello, Captain obvious.
Once you speak it, you understand it. But first you
have to just learn this silly little language. But it's
like not complicated and so. And I think that's probably

(16:51):
intentional too, because I think most people, if you're not
making globs of money, you don't learn a lot of
the other tricks of the trade or like wealth accumulation
tactics that people have. And it seems like, yeah, you're
just be like, man, well, then that's for someone else.
But then you realize, no, it's just we can educate ourselves,
maybe give ourselves a different outcome. Yeah. And then a

(17:12):
lot of women, in particular, you know, I wrote rich Bitch.
I either thought it was gonna fail or crush it.
There was no gray area. People were gonna have feelings
about the book, but because I think women in particular
don't get their financial lives together because they think a
guy is going to take care of it. And listening
to you guys case in point, take care of it

(17:33):
guys out of a spider though, yeah, you know, or
I will escort it outside because I like spiders. But
I'm there. But yeah, you start talking about college funds
and stuff like that. Like my partner I was like, what, dude,
should we in the college fun Like, man, I'm gonna
sella n F T And then you know, like that's

(17:54):
not a strategy. I'm like, you're right. Do you have
a like crash course? Do you recommend for people just
to like kind of like what what did you read
to first sort of learn the language. I was just
on the floor of the Chicago Merk, which is like
Wolf of Wall Street style, and so I learned it

(18:14):
there and I realized, like when I heard people say short,
I thought it was the opposite at all, but it's not.
It's just the opposite of long in the Wall Street world,
and it's not complicated. It's like it just means something's
going in the pooper, it's going to fail and that's all.
But nobody says it like that. They say, you know,
most folks who explain it don't even understand what the

(18:35):
heck they're saying. And so I thought that there was
an opportunity to be like, hello, everybody is just like
smoking something here, can can somebody just explain this, like
say it plain how it is? And so that's what
I tried to do, and so folks wanted that. Yeah,
so rich Bitch would be the rich Bitch would be

(18:56):
a good place to start. Boss Bitch would be another
good place to start. Miss Independent is the book I
have coming out in January, and not to sort of
like sell my own books. But I came up with
the Money School because I kept saying the same type
of schpiel, like why isn't there a class? And so
I kept saying it so much I was like, I
might as well do one because and it doesn't include

(19:18):
the Pythagorean theorem. Yeah, you're really hard on the Pythagorean theorem.
By the way, I do have to stand up for
the porn theorem. That's never steered me wrong as far
as I know, in the zero times that I've had
to use it in my everyday life. You're right, let's
be fair, Miles. You know, it's really hard on her.

(19:40):
All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be
right back. And we're back, and Christy Nome is defending
herself from nepotism accusations by just like admitting she did

(20:02):
nepotism kind of like, yeah, okay, maybe I did that ship,
but not the what you think. You know, she's been
in the news for last week. That story came out,
the rumor that she was sleeping with Korey Lewandowski from
Trump World, like they were having an affair. And then
she's like, I love my husband whatever. She's like, we've
raised god fearing children together. I'm off this, like this

(20:24):
is a bad rumor. And people were like, wow, okay
that by addressing it, it seems a little bit more guilty.
But you, Christie, you gotta do you. And now she's like,
over the last you know, two weeks or so, this
nepotism thing has been getting louder and louder and louder.
And because here's the deal. You know, her daughter just
like about two years ago, she wanted to be a

(20:46):
real estate appraiser. But you know, like the tests and
certifications were just like so unfair that the board denied
her application and certification and the state says that they will,
like in order to have your certificate Asian denied, it's
denied when quote an applicants work samples don't meet minimum
compliance with national standards. I mean, try to imagine how

(21:12):
bad her application must have been for her to not
get the affrontable in the first place, when her mom
is Christine. Know, first of all, the application was in krayon.
I don't know if you guys it must have been
it must have literally been Graham. He's like someone else's
application on top of this with crayon, like it's not
even your name, miss oh okay. So that's all these

(21:34):
biases and things I got to overcome now, uh, And
I mean, look, no shade too. You know, real estate applications,
it seems fairly straightforward to get licensed, I know, and
appraise like this specific certification might be a little more specific.
I'm sure. However, for a lot of people, but not
the not her. You wouldn't like this because the moment

(21:57):
that they denied this, the meeting that you're about to describe,
was like said in motion, and they had to have
known that like they had, there was only one option,
So the certification denied governor Mommy coming through and demand
demanded a fucking soprano styles sit down with Sherry Brand,

(22:17):
who is the manager of the appraiser certification program, her
direct supervisor, and the State Secretary of Labor and talk
to your daughter. And my daughter was there. I do
like that she did. Let me talk to your manager
with the and your direct supervisor. I need to speak

(22:38):
to everyone's manager. So who's your manager? Okay, their manager
as well, and who's yours too. I just thought that
she she did all that when she could have just
hired somebody to fill out the application. And you know,
like you know what I mean, Like, there's so many
ways you could have really played the system if you
wanted to, you know, just trying to do it the
right way. Yeah, failing spectacularly and then having her mother

(22:59):
abused the office the power of her office to get
this done. So oddly enough, a couple of months after
that meeting, boom, she's certified, baby certified and is ready
to start appraising. A praise the Lord, but it is
not nepotism. And Christie Nome did a vertical video apology.
So you know she's fucking serious about this. So this

(23:22):
is Governor Nomes self taped. It wasn't nepotism, but very listen,
very closely, how she just even lets this unfold. And
I wanted to take a second to set the record straight.
I never once asked for special treatment for Cassidy. She
is my daughter and I'm proud of her. I raised
her to accomplish things on her own, just like my
parents raised me. Other appraisers went through the exact same

(23:45):
process that Cassidy did right here, and I'll be honest,
my administration started fixing that process and it was way
too difficult. Appraisers weren't getting certified and celt Dakota is
having to wait much longer to buy a home than
another stick. Okay, that's it. I don't even care about
the rest state it goes. Yeah, I didn't do nothing. However,

(24:06):
we have process the problems. Yeah, it was way too hard,
way too difficult. I'm sorry, did you is that a
direct quote from your daughter? It's way too difficult. I
don't difficques coins application runs and nfl out a moment.
There is nothing o rry. I need to see you tomorrow.

(24:34):
Your manager and her manager to this is thank you
what we think? No, I got a baby, I know, honey,
So I can't believe they made you read. I wonder
if they don't know the difference between nepotism and incests.
And that's why she's like, it's not depticism. It's like, lady,
do you even know, because you know, it sounds like

(24:55):
she doesn't know what nepotism is. No, it's really what
it sounds like. I mean, it's especially when you then
go on to say, however, we did have to fix
some problems over in that place that made my daughter upset. Okay,
She's like, y'all, nepotism is disgusting and that's why obviously
I support abortions in the case of rape and nepotism.

(25:18):
And they're like, I also love that you can see
the ring light in her eyes and the video that's
my favorite, when you're just like, and the glasses, did
you a glasses? That's what I call them, you know,
it's an apology when someone who's not normally wearing glasses
puts the glasses on or around their head to kind
of I think it evokes that old things like Batman

(25:39):
when the jokers like you wouldn't punch a guy with glasses,
which funny, what a mess. Let me just take a
break from all this work I'm doing with my glasses
to put them up on the top of my apologize.
You guys are a distraction from the She definitely took
more time on hair and makeup than she did on
the apology. Yeah, ohause isn't there. But it's just this

(26:05):
is why it's so bad. You won't believe how long
it takes to buy somebody to buy a house in
in South Dakota because there's no appraisers. I mean, really,
what I'm trying to do. She goes on to be like,
I need to get more young people involved in this
to give them opportunities, because there shouldn't be so many
obstacles to opportunity. Please don't look at my policies on
education funding or things as it relates to reservations. But anyway,

(26:28):
that's what I believe us. It's like the classic white
feminism story, right, like they fucking want to adjust it
for them and they think that that's helping everybody. Well, yeah,
or use that very narrow like lens to say like
the version of what is being experienced now is actually
an oppressive force that we're trying to counteract versus my
daughter is ill prepared. I probably raised her as such,

(26:50):
or whenever she had a problem, Mom would solve it
without her having to learn a lesson, which has created
runaway momentum for this baby adult who I've raised now,
who now screams when they don't get their appraisers. Oh
my god, I just thought of I've had My mom
helped me on one thing once when I was in
high school. I think we had to we had to
carve out the fucking was the sphinx, like one of

(27:13):
those no from soap and yeah. So I was trying
to do it right and I was like, Mom, can
you help me? And she was like yeah, And then
she started doing it and I was like, okay, let
me and she was like no, let me, and she
finished it. I didn't want her to. She just like,
you know what, you're gonna mess this up. And I
worked really hard on the back, so now I'm just
gonna do the whole face and I was like and

(27:34):
then yeah, I mean, we saved it. And to this day,
when I look at it, I'm just like, mmm, I
will never ask that woman for help again. She just
looking snatched it out of my hands. I mean, it's
so weird when your parents are just like, let me
do this thing for you, and you're like, but it
just has to do with my school and like the opportunity, Yeah,

(27:55):
let me fail on my own, No, because I gotta
show you. Mom still gotta wouldn't exact a knife in
a bar of here we go. So funny, but we
still have it. Sometimes I'll see it and I'm just like,
this doesn't even mine. But she was like, you remember
that when you made that. I was like, I didn't
make that. You made that. Yeah, that's funny, funny, the
same the one it's so funny you said that. The

(28:15):
one time my mom ever helped me with the school
project was with it like an ancient Egypt diorama had
to build and I was trying to make my own
pyramids out of paper and on. My dumbass just didn't
know how to funk with geometry property to get it.
And my mom watched me struggle for hours good and
then until she was just like yo, like you can't

(28:36):
embarrass me like this. We bring this ship in here,
like here, like just cut this paper like this and
then just fold it and then it'll be it'll look
like a little pyramid. And I'm like, and I remember
like being so self conscious when I brought it like that.
I was like, the teacher's gonna know my mom did this.
You know, my mom did the fucking paper pyramid. And no,
it wasn't like that, but I'll never shake that feeling either. Yeah,

(28:56):
it's so funny, right because I got an a on it,
and I was like so upset for me to like
with you know, Asian household, it's very much like sink
or swim, motherfucker like and if you fail, I hope
you ready for the shame train because it's about to
make a stop at this house. You'd be better hop on.
But like, at the same time, also became very much

(29:18):
like able to rely on myself because I was like,
you know what, because I feel like every kid, like
when book report time will come around, there was always
that one kid, you know, like your mom fucking made
that ship. I've seen you. You can't even color in
the fucking lines, And now you did a whole ass
diorama out of a moving box. That's like the scale, No, No.

(29:40):
My dad helped me with math homework in sixth grade
once and I still remember it because it ultimately ended
with him being like, your teacher is wrong about this.
This doesn't move, this doesn't make sense to me. And
my poor teacher, who was like such a hardass, she
didn't give a funk. She was just like, h uh

(30:00):
huh yeah, okay, yeah, and you're a basketball coach, right, okay, yeah,
so why don't you just add up the score? That's
what you can only count to five, right, and do
it in ones, twos and threes? Because he isn't that
funny that we all have a story and then we
all are like we very vividly remember and how it
made us feel, how we still feel about it, and
like Christie Newham's daughter is probably like, well, so that

(30:22):
it is sometimes for somebody, Well that's like because you know,
I grew up around a lot of kids who were
the children of celebrities, and they all have that similar thing,
which is money has solved all of their problems since
they can remember. And I mean there's some kids who
you know, were raised i'd be a little more self relife,
but many are like to the point where it's like

(30:43):
you move in, You're like, yo, can you set up
the WiFi or something like they don't even know how
to set up a WiFi account, like to even like,
you know, you call the phone company and they're like
huh And I'm like, funck, bro, did your mom always
do this? Like they'll be like, yeah, my mom got
it covered. You're still on the parent pone now wild Yeah,
don't be bullied into not drunk driving. Okay, don't be bullied.

(31:06):
Don't let the thought bullies. Uh, you know, research on Facebook,
which speaking of Francis Hagen, which is how German people
say Hulk Cogan, last name, um hash, I don't know, man,
I don't know, you know what, keep it, keep it,

(31:28):
I don't know. Come on now. Francis Hagen has now
testified in front of Congress in like words that it
seems like they might be able to understand based on
their response. Yeah, I mean, because I think this one
for a lot of people, it feels like this could

(31:48):
be a slightly different moment as it relates to Facebook
and talking Facebook on Capitol Hill because typically when the
Senate halls Facebook up to the Hill for some just
good explaining it's usually some very slick representative or a
lawyer or like an alien form of Mark Zuckerberg like

(32:09):
doing the talking and people that are like these are
all people that are like well versed in obscuring like
the sins of Facebook, like through their like rhetorical mash
tree and just being like, well, you know, I think
I have to get back to you, but actually the
way this product is, you know, it's all this just
it's it's just a lot of sidestepping when hard questions
are being asked, well, yeah, I mean, and they're also explaining,

(32:31):
like they're also doing this like sick explanation. That's like
explanation to like octogenarians who don't know what computers are.
Like that's part of it too, you know, yeah, oh
a huge part. So there, it's just very easy for
them to go by because they'll be like, what's finn
stuff and they're like, that's not us, sir, You're confused,
old man. Here's your apple sauce and I think you're

(32:52):
tapioca is getting warm. It's like, oh, thank you, And
they've just completely sidestepped to question, well, how again has
come out here? And just letting these dinosaurs know, very
straightforward and very plain words from the beginning. So this
is how Agan just coming to the senators being very direct,
straightforward and letting them know, hey, you know, um there

(33:14):
there's there's actual Let let me just say this in
normal sentences, what is happening at Facebook? During my time
at Facebook, I came to realize the devastating truth almost
no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside of Facebook.
The company intentionally hides vital information from the public, from
the U. S. Government and from governments around the world.

(33:36):
The documents I have provided to Congress proof that Facebook
has repeatedly misled the public about what its own research
reveals about the safety of children, the efficacy of its
artificial intelligence systems, and its role in spreading divisive and
extreme messages. So that's that's that seems like an easy
follow h just yeah, you you're you're blowing the whistle.

(33:59):
You're saying I've thing you thought you knew, you act
in fact, do not know because there is a policy
there to keep as many people in the dark as possible.
And that was sort of one of our first statements.
And people are like, Okay, well, well what else is
going on? What? What? What else? Can you can you
tell us is happening? And you know, I think she

(34:19):
said she stresses the same thing about this whole profits
over people thing which we've seen constantly over and over again,
which is that when push comes to shove, they will
choose whatever they have to do to make money. That's it,
that's all that, that's all that this company is going
to do. And again, just so for the for the
elders in the back, in case you were understanding, like,

(34:41):
let me just say, it's not just algorithms or things
like that. This is the choices. These are the choices
that are being made at Facebook. During my time at Facebook,
first working as the lead product manager for Civic misinformation
and later on counter espionage, I saw Facebook repeatedly encounter
conflicts between its own profits and our safety. Facebook consistently

(35:02):
resolved these conflicts in favor of its own profits. The
result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more threats,
and more combat. In some cases. This is this dangerous
on like talk has led to actual violence that harms
and even kills people. Yeah, surprises when it's it's not

(35:24):
just uh like, I mean like in the industry that
we work in, like we've experienced Facebook just you know,
presumably just flat out lying about stuff in a way
that like just destroys entire industries. Like like a lot
of us worked in work or worked in like kind
of the digital comedy space, you know, writing for you know,
comedy websites who you know, when Facebook started allowing videos

(35:47):
on their platform, they like goosed the numbers on all
of their videos. So all of a sudden, you see
somebody post a video from their kid's birthday party and
then would look like it had like five million views
or something like that, and then every comedy website was
just like, oh, pivotal video only on Facebook. And then
that turned out to be like just a horrible idea
because Facebook just you know kind of tea rolled past it.

(36:08):
It's a view You're like, it isn't. Yeah. At my time,
a certain companies, the like the people who are running
to promcheck we love it just just because even if
they don't watch it, says down there it was you
three million times, and I'm like, god, yeah, and that's
something that like is it's you know, a big reason
that like online sketch comedy is just not a thing anymore,

(36:29):
is like because Facebook convinced all these places to pivot
to video. They hired huge video teams, and this caused
like too much overhead, which caused them to have to
like shut down and lay off all of their staffs
because it turns out that like Facebook was goosing those
numbers in the companies were seeing no profit from these
huge video teams that they were starting. So yeah, you know,

(36:51):
if they'll like do you know, if they'll work in
such a way that's self serving for that, then yeah,
for sure, I'm sure Facebook, like you know, gooses things
in other areas as this whistleblower definitely pointed out, you know,
and I think you know she's calling for. I think
like most people like transparency, like regulation, oversight because a

(37:14):
real popular defense that Facebook, you know, will deploy a
lot of times, like, you know, we don't really need
any like regulation because we're not like, like this is
not like an infrastructure people are using, Like it's like
a platform people were trying to start our own trying
to start a new world. Everybody cool, you know, it's
not infrastructure. But you know, when all their whole ship

(37:35):
went down for five hours on Monday, that certainly blew
that argument up because It's became really clear because many
people were like suddenly unable to communicate with people over
what's app internationally, like many people do use what'sapp for
or even like a lot of people who maybe do,
they're like run a small business on Instagram. Suddenly like
I'm losing out on my livelihood because this thing went down.

(37:58):
I don't know what's going on. I think a lot
of people begin to like that is providing a lot
of robust infrastructure for people to communicate or create a livelihood.
So what it's still just this casual thing. My version
of that, which I would say is equal in levels
of stress and importance, is I have a pro wrestling
group chat on Facebook and Facebook shutdown. I had to

(38:21):
be like, Okay, what's everybody's phone numbers. Let's put everybody
on a cell phone chat. So we have to like
migrate the pro wrestling group chat to text message for
five hours just so we could like talk about the
sweet wrestling news and rumors without like losing that infrastructure.
So like, but but that is a real thing. That
is like just Facebook Messenger, Instagram messenger and all that
are like ways that businesses communicate at this point, and

(38:42):
like yeah, or just using shops through Instagram, like if
you're just being like, hey, here's my bespoke whatever, whereas
I'm you know, creating that Facebook is a great place
for people or Instagram and Facebook has been a place
where people have been able to like I'm actually making
my living using this stuff. When I was working in
the online comedy space, like there there was a slow

(39:05):
but steady kind of change from things. You would get
a lot of traffic from Facebook and then like they
would start like kind of squeezing it down and squeezing
it down, and then like I went to a symposium
like put on by Facebook, you had to just like
focus on Facebook because that's where so much of the
traffic was coming from. And like the people were like, yeah,

(39:29):
industry wide page placement is really the only thing that's working.
And it was just like a given all of a
sudden that like you just had to pay to get
to distribute your content on on Facebook. So that's like
another way that they just like took out any small
content creator. Yeah. It's like if you have a Facebook

(39:49):
page with a million followers and you post a video
to it, usually like pre this, it would show up
in the new speeds of all million of your followers.
Then Facebook started doing kind of like this thing where oh,
it would only go to like ten of your followers
and then based on like how it doesn't analytics, and
then they would slowly parse it out to like the

(40:10):
other million. Or you could give Facebook a hundred dollars
and they would immediately put it out to all million people. Yeah,
and a bunch of people you don't even know. And
but that's you know, you're either paying them a shipload
of money or you know, doing like a fucking rain dance,
like to hope that the Facebook God smile on you

(40:30):
that day and like tweak the algorithm in a way
that makes it like a little bit fair to the
little guy. But all of that to say that all
publishers are still presumably, like non podcast publishers, I guess,
are still presumably very focused on like what Facebook's preferences are,
and I feel like that has to influence like what

(40:54):
we see, Like the the this story miles that you
put in here like just made me one under about
the fence to thing, which was like in in and
of itself, like inherently funny, but the the fact that
that one as viral as it did, and was sort
of the thing that overshadowed or like that was like
the main takeaway from that day of testimony was the

(41:18):
senator being like, what's offense to? Can you not do
any more of fense to? Like, I I have to
feel like that people saw that that was getting a
great response on Facebook, and that Facebook kind of encouraged
that along, because why the funk wouldn't they? Sure? But
I think also, I mean, if you're looking at very
cynically how we would at the Senate, it's just like,

(41:39):
even organically I would look at that and go, this
is the fucking problem. He's supposed to haul these people
up here for answers and he's just getting like he's
wasting his breath getting explained like a thing that isn't
necessarily a consequential than the purpose of the here. But yeah,
I mean, but yes that I think, like they say,
she goes on to say, you're we all live in

(41:59):
a world that is being affected by Facebook, whether you're
on there or not. There are many people that are
so yeah to that point, I'm sure there's there's an
element to that. I just want to say, quick side
note on a Jack saying the term rain dance. I
was like, it's like like like, I'm a Native person
and I've like heard that phrase a lot. But I
was like, wait, what did tribes really do that? Or

(42:23):
is that just a thing that people say that tribes did?
And I just googled it. I just want to say,
shout out to the Zuni tribe. But the Southwest they
did rain dances. Uh not not totally a thing that
people just made up that native folks don't actually do.
The Zuni tribe does it. So shout out to the Zunis. Yeah,
there you go. A teaching moment. Yeah, I was teaching
moment for me too, because I was just like, wait,

(42:43):
I've only seen the stereotype of that, but is that
a real thing? You know? Right right right. The The
other part of this that it was very interesting was
suddenly Richard Blumenthal, the famous man behind the fence, to
comment his energy was a lot different too, which I
found to be again like things feel a little bit

(43:03):
different about this hearing because now I think I'm sure
Richard Blumenthal has read up now on everything Facebook. It
looks like you put a little color in his hair,
but a little bit look a little I mean he's
always it's always been that form of denying. I'm aging Brown.
I think the reason for his fire is that he
has a Facebook page and he Facebook shutdown and he

(43:26):
was just like, no, my Heathcliff means he's like they
love ape. He was just like he was just like
there was five hours where he couldn't read a garbage
ape and he was panicking. Yeah, He's like his staffers
were having to like make ones on paper. It's like,
oh no, this has a logical punchline. That's not what
garbage ape. Heathcliff's tooth is. On the other side, Heathcliff

(43:52):
is wearing a helmet that has a word on it
that you can track the logic of. Get out of here, right.
So this is him saying he's coming with some way
different energy rather than what's Vince to He's like, Mark,
get over here. Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at
himself in the mirror today, and yet rather than taking

(44:13):
responsibility and showing leadership, Mr Zuckerberg is going sailing. Is
new modus opera endi, No apologies, no admission, no action,
nothing to see here. Mark Zuckerberg, you need to come
before this committee. You need to explain two, Francis Hogan,

(44:36):
to us, to the world and to the parents of America,
what you were doing and why you did it. M
So it's only about seven years too late. That's cool.
But to that point, as you know, I'm not going
to give Bluementhal, I'm not going to just start standing
up applauding him because there's they they're they're able to

(44:59):
do things up there, and Amy klob which are She's
also like, let me also let me also come in
with a take onto why there's been this glacial pace
in terms of us being able to regulate or have
oversight over things like Facebook. We have done nothing when
it comes to making the algorithms more transparent, allowing for
the university research that you refer to. Why because Facebook

(45:22):
and the other tech companies are throwing a bunch of
money around this town and people are listening to them,
we have done nothing significantly passed, although we are on
a bipartisan basis working in the Antitrust Subcommittee to get
something done. A consolidation, which you understand allows the dominant
platforms um to control all this like the bullies in

(45:43):
the neighborhood buy out, the companies that maybe could have
competed with them and added the bells and whistles. So yeah,
it's there's so many elements to this. You've got the
lobbying parts of this where they're like they've bought people's votes.
So that's an element of it, and we're trying to
do something. But I don't know that this this I

(46:05):
feel like at this point her words, Francis Hogan's words
were just so direct and just powerful, like to these
people that maybe this, this will inspire something different. There's
also like these tech companies are getting so big. This
is a story fromen but like Facebook and Amazon are
building their own towns for their employees to live. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

(46:27):
So it's like there is just this weird level of like, yeah,
we need to have some level of oversight on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
all the hits, friends get the get the person who
runs friends to in here unless there are a lot
of memes about like the other platforms that kind of
be like we just spade to the back, Like I

(46:49):
don't know. Yeah, Facebook, they get it together over there.
You know. They're able to like get rid of things
like like obscene like child pornography. They're very quickly able
to like, you know, get things like that off of
the Internet. And then I think that's why a lot
of people are there, like but for whatever, but white
supremacy is just too lucrative, So that's why you want

(47:11):
to just turn the other way. Because Halgan also said
to that prior to the election, they like ramped up
a lot of the controls to help curb a lot
of misinformation and and just any just chaos around the
election because they didn't want a replay of twenty sixteen.
Or maybe they did but just to a lesser extent.
But they said once the election happened, they fucking they
took all those controls off, which really helped all the

(47:33):
big lie misinformation really get a ton of interaction on
Facebook because Facebook was trying to recoup the money they
lost from doing the slightly responsible thing before the election.
When it's also like the way that companies like Facebook
profit our things called like it's engagement, like comments, shares, whatever.

(47:56):
So like if you get into a Facebook are gumment
with like somebody you went to high school with who
like doesn't think that vaccines are real or whatever, Like
that's like Facebook wants that and like there's also things
that they can do with the algorithm to steer you
in that direction of like seeing things that they know
that you'll disagree with and comment on, so you'll start

(48:17):
this Facebook arguments which will increase the engagement on the
piece or whatever. And like it is just this how
are that these companies have over like, you know, like
how we communicate as people, And yeah, it sure would
be cool if somebody who didn't have profit in mind
was like quit it, right, yeah, exactly, And you hope

(48:38):
that like they would have people like Holgan help Congress
understand what they can do and what they could do,
rather than Richard Blumenthal asking his granddaughter like yeah, what
what should happen? But that's why it's important that people
like ao CD in Congress who are like in their thirties,
you know, people who like have Instagram accounts and understand

(49:03):
what this stuff is, you know, yeah, rather than someone
who's like, I don't know. My staffers said I need
one of these things, so I have that, and I
have a TikTok, but I don't know what it is.
Like them like they have an email that their staffers
check for them, you know, m right, they Yeah, that's
a really good point about the and like they put

(49:26):
and put these benevolent seeming values into the or not
even benevolent but just harmless seeming values like engagement into
the algorithm, and then that ends up leading to these
outcomes that they can claim are unintentional. They're they're not
putting like angry up the Facebook community into the algorithm,

(49:48):
but it's just engagement. But that the outcome of that,
which may be unintended, but they're not doing anything to
fix it, like, is that they just can't be trusted
to ever do anything to fix it on their own. It. Yeah,
the only way it can be done is regulation, right,
and society is just all saying like, we'll make as
much money as you can however you can, Like people

(50:10):
be damned. I gotta say one of my favorite Facebook
interactions to watch was a guy went to high school
with This was probably, i want to say, two years ago,
challenged another guy to a fist fight over Facebook, and
like they were on the Facebook wall post, which I
forget what it is about. It was probably just like
the burners are bad or whatever, you know, because yeah,

(50:34):
something like that, But it was like watching them try
to plan having a fist fight with each other on
a Facebook. Well was delight because it was just like, like,
what time do you get off work? I gotta work
at six pm. Let's meet in this park. No, I
actually I'm busy tonight. Let's do it all your friends fight, bro, No,
I know. I told you I have my daughters on
on Fridays and Saturdays, and I to grow men in

(51:00):
their thirties trying to plan a fist fight publicly over
fake Facebook ruled Thursdays for you, bitch. It was like
a lot of It was like a lot of that.
It was like them a new show, Like I can't
do it during my lunch break, I mean sales. If
I come back all scraped up, I might lose my job.
I'm not gonna risk that you. So, actually, on second thought,

(51:22):
now that I'm thinking about that, let's leave Facebook on regulated. Yeah.
One quick aside on the company towns thing, Joey that
you just mentioned. So last week we talked about Amazon
doing these company towns for sort of the laborers that
make their business model possible. But I think you were

(51:42):
referring to these Facebook and Google company towns that are
more for like the executive class that they're building that
are going to be these you know, elysium style like
really beautiful, you know, the way the Google campus was
held up as like the best place to work because
you had all these fucking chefs and many ball pits

(52:03):
and slides. Like they're building these company towns that are
like the next step in luxury and like you know,
communal living. But really they're just gonna be these hives
of like groupthink where which is really dangerous because these
companies are you know, controlling our country from the top down,

(52:25):
like in really profound ways, and so like, you know,
the more you just get the like minded people at
the top who have all the power just in their
own like like literally literal bubble, the I feel like
the worst it's going to get. All right, let's take
a quick break and we'll come back and talk about
Starbucks cups and we're back. And so BuzzFeed released a

(52:57):
declassified scientific review of the attacks that have been described
as Havannah syndrome. That the attacks are being quotes because
they found what we had suspected what a lot of
people have talked about, that the noises that they were
associating with the attacks that first happened in Havana were

(53:18):
crickets and it was a de classified like State Department studies.
So it's not this isn't like an outside researcher. This
is like what they have learned themselves. Now, around this time,
the Biden administration had started referring to Havana syndrome is
unexplained health incidents, which kind of suggested they were backing

(53:41):
off of the idea that they were delivered attacks from,
you know, adversaries. But because that became a story, they
now have issued a new report that seemed to back
and like jump back into the this is an attack
camp because the people who you know, are suffering the

(54:02):
symptoms believe that they were attacked and that they're very
sensitive understandably about because we're in their country attacking them
right exactly, so you very much would be the fuck Okay,
I'm just I'm just a nurse, that's all. I am,
not a cia op. But yeah, the this Miami Harold

(54:24):
Peace about like the new this new direction quotes a
and the this is a trend senior administration official but
no name. We need to believe our personnel who are
coming forward, people are facing real symptoms. We are very
conscious that people are experiencing something very real and it's
having a real negative effect on their health health, and

(54:46):
we're seeing better health outcomes the sooner we can respond
to that. So it's like they're trying to treat it
as though it's a real thing, because it is. As
we've talked about functional disorders, like they're the real thing.
That these people are experiencing real symptoms, they're not just
making them up, but that it is probably a neurological
and you know, a stress based thing. That and that

(55:08):
is the thing that explanation is very offensive to anybody
who is suffering from this, and so that there's this
new article from Jacobin that just kind of puts this
in the context of a bunch of different stories over

(55:29):
the course of like the last twenty five years that
have been kind of adopted and just repeated by the
mainstream media because they are, you know, they go in
the direction of like helping America maintain an aggressive foreign policy.
So they start with a Havanna syndrome reporting and just

(55:51):
like all the different headlines that flatly state that Cuba
attacked US diplomats, which you know are general a CIA
agents and you know, pointing out that any time somebody
is quoted, it's always they're always quoted on background, or
they're quoted as like a unidentified administration official, and they

(56:14):
point out like this is this happened immediately after Trump
indicated that they were going his administration was going to
go like hard in the opposite direction of the Obama administration,
start being like really hostile towards Cuba. And then this
event happened, and they seized on it and started ramping
up their negative foreign policy. But they kind of put

(56:37):
it in the context of you know, the New York Times,
all these mainstream media outlets trusting military officials on things
like Russia Gate, which, in addition to being hostile towards
Trump was also allowed the military to make Russia seem
more dangerous. And you know, with a lot of the

(56:59):
Iran reporting towards the end of the Trump administration, because
they were trying to justify a like this says, I
run on it. I don't know if what you want
to do with that, maybe do a war. I don't,
I don't know. Yeah, there's no we don't have a
pattern of doing that at all in this country. Yeah,
but it just reminds me of like the you know,

(57:21):
we talked about the news relying on police sources and
especially like for the local news, and like, you know,
the guys with guns are the sources that they need
to satisfy like audience blood lust, and like their willingness
to chase that blood lust makes it so that we
live in a world that we think is more dangerous
and keeps people tuning in. And it also just creates

(57:45):
this sort of feedback loop where you know, the version
of like the world that exists in the minds of
the military and the police gets like filtered back to
us over and over again, and it's just you know, why,
why is that, Like after the most catastrophic like mistake

(58:05):
in the you know, recent history of America going to
war and Iraq was like turned out to be based
on a complete lie, you think that the mainstream media
would have like altered their approach a little bit and
been a little bit more willing to pump the brakes
on ship like this. But it just seems like that

(58:25):
is as currently constituted, Like unless something kind of dramatically changes,
the mainstream media will let the military feed them you
know bullshit. I think that the tolerance for bullshit stories
from the Pentagon is higher because they're all they all
have a relationship with each other. You know. It's like

(58:47):
you have a homie who may bend the truth from
time to time. You're like, okay, all right, that wasn't
the best thing, but we're still good first because I
know you. And it's the same thing, like you'll get
burned by just straight up misinformation from the Pentagon, and
still it's like, no, it's all good, like you don't
worry about it, Like we gotta keep this thing going.
You know, General Electric and the Pentagon do some good

(59:07):
business together. And we're also NBC, so you know, well
let's let's you know, we're not gonna make it too
hot for anybody. Yeah, Can I be honest about this
before we move on, just real quick. I think this
Havana syndrome is jamaking me crazy. Are you are you
gonna have they and a tough time about I'm having
a tough time with this ventis and it's the sword

(59:29):
of God. Oh I'm being serious. I know it's the problem.
That's the problem. Oh man. Yeah, I mean, so many
reporters like get into the game because they would like
want to be war correspondents, like they have that like

(59:50):
kind of you know, they grew up on the idea
of like going to Vietnam and being a reporter on
that or you know, and it just, you know, as
I think you were suggesting as jamaking them crazy, it
is and that's exactly not even suggesting just what I
was pointed Lee saying, I think there's no room for
interpretation there. In college, I had a I took a

(01:00:12):
class called war reporting, and my professor was a former
like embedded journalist, and he would never he would always
just show us movies, and we would never were like
it's like, why, like, you have the most interesting story
in the world, why wouldn't you just teach us? And
then one day there was this girling class like who
just maybe like laid in a little too hard, being

(01:00:35):
like all you do is show us movies, Like why
don't you actually instruct us and tell us what it
was like being there? And a forty five minutes story
of one of the most emotionally traumatizing things I've ever
heard in my entire life, the one time he ever
told a story about his time and war, about how
his guide was like murdered right in front of him,

(01:00:55):
and then the whole class was like completely silent, negos
all right, I think we're done for the day. And
then he and we're like, never asked him to talk
about it again. We just watched movies for the rest
of the semester because it was that. It's like, yeah,
that's why he doesn't talk about it, you know what
I mean. Anyway, random side note, but seriously that that
ja made me sane, that the joke doesn't work when
you change it, that you made me sane. You can

(01:01:17):
workshop that one. Yeah, it work on it. Come back,
report back is like, that's the fun. Well we came
up with okay, yeah, yeah, that's fine. I think it
will stand. Just maybe it's give it a few years.
Yeah yeah, we'll just yeah, we'll come back. Pittsford will
do uh, they'll they'll they'll record. Yeah, all right, let's
talk about the War on Christmas. That was the war

(01:01:38):
that he was embedded in. By the way he was
embedded in the War on Christmas, it's uh, it's begun.
Fauci said in an interview that it's just too soon
to tell whether holiday gatherings will need to be restricted
due to the pandemic for a second year in a row,
which is a arm. It doesn't really say anything. It's

(01:02:06):
like a non answer that doesn't really offer any specifics
for what kind of restrictions they might put in place.
But right wing media, you know, I I guess the
fact that he was willing to answer a question like
enraged right wing media. The National Review wrote an article
calling him a grinch, and you know, their Fox and
Friends labeled Fauccia grinch because they you know, that was

(01:02:30):
too good not to repurpose. October. It's October. They they're
talking grinch and claimed that he was about to cancel
Christmas based on his statement that it's too soon to
tell that I it's a seems fully fabricated. But so
there are actually this year, like legitimate threats to the

(01:02:55):
Christmas traditions that they seem to hold so dear, such
as you know, supply chain problems that are going to
make it so that it's harder to order presence for people,
or you know, the due to climate change, there are
fewer Christmas trees available. And you know, there's a shortage

(01:03:18):
of truck drivers because as their wages have declined over
the years, there's just been a problem with finding enough
people to do that job. As The New York Times
pointed out, it takes a peculiar, a peculiar form of
logic to cut pay steadily and then be shocked that
fewer people want to do the job. But that's what
happened in the truck driving industry. And also because of

(01:03:42):
you know, slowdowns in manufacturing. There has been a slowdown
in the production of fake Christmas trees. So these are
all things that the real spirit of Christmas, and they don't.
They don't. They're not stressed and talking about that ship though.
I mean, I think for their sake, like the Fox

(01:04:05):
News that you probably don't want to have all of
your unlike most of your unvaccinated base take airplanes to
congregate because that you know, they're already like getting freaked out,
like by the demographics of how like the pandemic is
affecting things. So what there's gonna be Like, No, man,
get together, folks, don't worry about any kind of spiking cases.

(01:04:28):
Just do your thing, y'all. I it's I don't know,
this is just it's watched. It's it's fun watching them
get so outraged and I mean, so were there things
in place that like actually stopped people from congregating or
was it just like advice last year, Like yeah, yeah,

(01:04:50):
it's just that I like they I'm so confused what
they like. At the height of the pandemic, they just
for guidance. They're like, okay, big brother, nice try asshole.
Oh you said it's it's and advisable to gather with
elderly family and when there aren't vaccines, Okay, yeah, okay, yeah,

(01:05:16):
I don't know, it's yeah, they were just merely guidelines.
But I think most people because they were able to
look around in their communities or just the news and
be like, okay, so this is real and there's the
potential for untold harm for people that I will I
will heed these guidelines. Yeah, I mean jm Our writer
Jam McNabb was pointing out that like this actually kind

(01:05:37):
of obscures how, you know, focusing on the idea that
he merely mentioned that he might at one point consider
giving some travel advisories around Christmas, like so that caused
him to backtrack, and he was Fauci was like, now
you have misinterpreted me. I'll be spending Christmas with my

(01:05:59):
family which is like, again, way too soon to tell
whether that's a good idea where or not. The c
d C uploaded their holiday guidance to their website, which
was picked up by multiple news outlets, but then they
deleted it because they had actually put up last year's
holiday guidance instead of this year's and they haven't figured

(01:06:21):
out what their guidance is going to be. In one
fucking it's just a position for them to be in
where they're like, fuck, don't say don't give them real advice,
or else they're gonna accuse us of stuff. So let's
water it the funk down, because the situation is just
my uncle is a big Fox newsperson, and uh I

(01:06:42):
gave him. I put like he's a bad guy, so
I put coal in his stocking and then he pulled
it out and he's like, this is such a great gift.
This is my favorite fuel source. So don't give Fox
News people calling their stockings because they'll they'll completely misinterpret
it as a gift. Did he did he take a
bite out of it too? He's like, Oh, you don't
think I will. I don't think I will. Yeah. Over

(01:07:05):
the course of the next three days, asshole, yeah, oh god,
oh god, yea, but I mean the big news story
of the day is really of yesterday. I guess that
that the Zodiac killer has finally been identified according to

(01:07:26):
TMZ and you know all the other main news sources,
Fox News. So a group of researchers I did someone
named Gary Francis Post, who died as the Zodiac Killer.
The degree to wich this got pick up would have
suggested it was like a law enforcement agency that had

(01:07:47):
like done some some sort of d n A linkage um.
But they so they're made This group has made up
of former investigators and journalists, so essentially volunteer year is
acting in no official capacity. They call the case Breakers, right,
They're called the case Breakers, and they one of their

(01:08:07):
like key theories is that Post also killed Sherry Joe
Bates in Nix, whose death was followed by a Zodiac
like letter. And this is strange because the police were
sent to a Zodiac like letters, so it's not like
nobody entertained this idea that it was that was from

(01:08:30):
the Zodiac Killer and her murder was part of the
Zodiac killings. But they looked into it and the letter
was revealed to be a hoax and an actual cold
case units have already like investigated that that case and
concluded that the murder is not connected to the Zodiac case.
So they're just like putting out a theory that most

(01:08:51):
people believed to have been widely disproven and saying, well, here,
here's your evidence. And then there's also like the evidence
that they're pointing to our photos from posts dark room
actually matched scars on the police sketch of the Zodiac killer,
which it's just it's just creases in a forehead. Oh no,

(01:09:14):
oh no, come on, case breakers, Yeah, come with some
come on, come with than this. They also claim that
they deciphered new code and the Zodiac letters that could
only be cracked if you knew if you know Gary's
full name. But there they're not revealing that just yet.
They want to. They're being proprietary about their solution. The

(01:09:36):
fucking cyber Ninja's my pillow voting audit like, what the
fund is it? Oh we go, we got it. You
can't show you. We just can't show nobody right now,
it's too explosive. Tom Colbert, who is one of the
main case breakers, former job was working for a hard
copy So I mean he knows how to do a

(01:09:57):
good tease hell people, you know. But he was also
a story broker, which is somebody who like buys up
compelling stories and like sells them to people to make movies.
He sold the story rights for Flyaway Home and The
vale Um. So so you know, like real hardcore, grizzled

(01:10:17):
crime solving ship. Yeah and yeah, it just feels weird
that this is one that any news outlet, even if
it's just TDZ, has like seized on and been like solved.
I the reason I just started wheezing and laughing is
I'm falling along in your document that you guys used,

(01:10:38):
oh sorry to show behind the scenes look at the show.
This is all coming from the top of my head. Blake,
You're right, and those scraps I keep by my desk
is then this is the document that I the one
page document that I made for the show, and the
case Breaker Team had, which I can't believe I just
said without laughing my way through it. But at case

(01:10:59):
Breaker Team, UM, I'm like, oh, it's they's eight following
two followers on Twitter. You have a screen grab of it,
like this is probably taken from a few weeks and
now they have fourteen followers, so yeah, we're in the
same place. Yeah, it's trending. It's trending. So so basically
they're saying that the the case breakers, the the evidence

(01:11:19):
that they're working with has been debunked. So they're like,
this is already built on like a false premise because
you're already using debunked like you're trying to connect dots
that really aren't there. Yeah, I mean unless you like,
look at look at the those forehead wrinkles. Man, I'm
just saying, like those are pretty well. They better come

(01:11:40):
with that info that they say they they're ready to
decipher all the letters because we would have to know
his full name and only we do. I mean, Okay,
how many people did the Zodiac Killer kill exactly? That's
information that they have to prepare. You have to ask them. Yeah,
they're holding back on they say, you'll never believe what

(01:12:04):
we found out about how many five claim he claimed
to have killed? Thirty seven five confirmed dead, but possibly
twenty eight. Okay. Interesting. Just another example of their work
on a famous story where people are, you know, very
horny to identify a historical figure. Is Colbert got interested

(01:12:28):
in the dB Cooper case. And yeah, so the dB
Cooper was a bank robber who will hijacked a plane
and then jumped out of said plane after like you know,
making everybody turn around, I guess, or go into the cockpit. Anyways,
is it's a people think that he probably didn't survive

(01:12:51):
jumping out of the plane, but you know, it's very mysterious.
They never found the body, and he thought he had
figured out that it was this guy, Robert rack Straw,
And so Colbert or Colbert approach. Rack Straw offered him
twenty dollars to participate, and when he refused, Colbert threatened
to have him hounded forever. And then he started catfishing

(01:13:14):
rack Straw, who then in turn reverse catfished Colbert. And yeah,
it just seems like real, real, top level you know, mature,
mature and you know, top level investigative ship going on, right,
someone who's clearly not just trying to get the thing
over the line by any means necessary, true dedication to

(01:13:36):
the truth, unflinching, you know, rather than like fuck your
life up if you don't admit your dB Cooper, right.
So this, Yeah, so that's that's the story of how
the Zodiac Killer was salt was identified. Well, I'm glad
to know that all the people who are talking about
it now I can finally um, actually, every fucking tweet

(01:13:59):
ice now. Yeah, And you know JM, who is clearly
into this, into the story of the Zodiac killer, is
saying like they're they could be right about who it is,
but publishing articles like definitively claiming the Zodiac cass come
to an end based on these people's work, it seems
a little premature. Like I've read the story, the headlines then,

(01:14:21):
like I I've looked at the article and they were
talking about these case breakers like they were a known
quantity that like I should be familiar with. And the
fact that they have fourteen followers fifteen now but I'm
following them is um wild. They do have their own logo,
which is not nothing, right, Yeah, it's kind of huge. Yeah,

(01:14:44):
it looks like Charles Barkley's like signature shoe logo. All right,
that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please
like and review the show. If you like the show,
h means the world of Miles. He needs your validation, folks.

(01:15:05):
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
talk to you Monday by