3-11-25 - 7am - Washington Post, COVID-19, The Science Is Not Settled

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mike, I can see why they're removing the Black Lives
Matter mural kind of just time, you know, it reminds
me a little bit of these signs to see, I
have four collins on the bike pass.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Maintain six foot distance, square your safety at all times.
They're still here. It's the stake them down and then
come off.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I find it fascinating and in fact, I'm quite happy
to be able to live through an era. Where As
Dragon pointed out, ABC News is still talking about COVID.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
They said something about the five year anniversary.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, it is the five year anniversaries, but beyond being
the five year anniversary, while we're beginning to see, are
all of these reports coming out about oh wait a minute,
everything that the so called conspiracy theorists were claiming, whether
it be the six foot distancing, whether it be the
efficacy of the so called COVID JAB wasn't. It was

(00:57):
not a vaccine at all. Even Pfizer has come out
and admitted that, oh yeah, it didn't. It didn't do
anything in terms of preventing transmission.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
It really was so much fun, Washington going, it's one
hundred percent effective, it's ninety percent effective. It's eighty four percent,
it's sixty fifty. Well you should get it just because
just because.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Or Jared pol Is telling us that we're all bastards
if we didn't get us selfish bastards, selfish bastards, right,
it's not enough just to call us bastards. But we're
selfish bastards but not getting it. But it's and I
think let's step let me use COVID as an example,
but let's step back from it for just a moment,

(01:39):
because I think when you look at historical events, for
for example, John F. Kennedy was assassinated November twenty second,
nineteen sixty three. To this day, we don't have all

(02:00):
of the documents, We don't have all of the classified material,
even though anyone who was involved in that. In fact,
I think Cliff.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
A.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Camera's last name, he was God. He must have been
one hundred years old. He was a secret service agent
that climbed up on the back of the limousine to
kind of scoop up, not to be too gruesome, but
to scoop up Kennedy's brains and get on top of
Jackie and try to get the You know, he's the

(02:37):
one you've seen him in the film, in the Bruder film,
he finally died. I think everyone involved at that time
is now deceased, everyone on the Warring Commission. I think
somebody might prove me wrong, but I think everyone is dead.
But we still don't have all of that. We still

(02:58):
don't have all the Epstein. But what we do have
in COVID is I think an example of how this
new media, whether it be social media, whether it be
independent investigative reporters that are now freelancing. Because Well, one

(03:20):
of the stories I was going to do quickly has
to do with The Washington Post. Jeff Bezos, the owner
of Well, the founder of Amazon and a majority owner
of Amazon, owns the Washington Post. And now another employee,
in fact, a fairly significant employee, has called it quits,

(03:40):
complaining about the influence of the paper's owner, Jeff Bezos.
Ruth Marcus, who's a longtime political columnist and was the
associate editor for the Post, resigned following a clash with
the paper's leadership regarding changes to the opinion section. You
may recall that Bezos decided that we're gonna start focusing

(04:01):
on individual You know, I love this because how many
times do you hear me use the phrase individual freedom,
individual liberty. Well, the Washington Post has decided that or
Jeff Bezols has mandated that the editorial page should focus
on free markets and individual freedoms. Wow. I mean that's

(04:24):
one hundred and eighty degree urn for the Washington Post
and an editorial page now doesn't mean that any changes
in the on the news pages, but at least on
the editorial page, they're going to start focusing on thought
pieces that have to do with free markets and freedoms. Well,
Ruth Marcus, who is a die hard progressive, got pissed off.

(04:49):
She's been with the Post for it, I think forty
plus years. Well, she cited specifically bezos push to align
columns in the editorial pages with his libertarian views as
the reason for her departure, and in the resignation letter
that she posted, she claims that bezos approach is going
to damage the integrity of the opinion section. Now I

(05:12):
find that fascinating. Have you think about this. The editorial
page is just that, it's opinions. How do you damage
the integrity of an opinion section simply by saying, hey,
we want to move from these general topics over here
to these general topics. That's what pissed her off, and

(05:34):
that's what caused her to resign, not that any one
particular piece was a completely unfounded opinion, which is kind
of a in that kind of a contradiction in terms,
because an opinion is just your opinion. It's what I think.
Now you can rip apart my opinion claiming that it's

(05:58):
not based on any rational view or any you know,
empirical evidence or anything else. But nonetheless, it's my opinion,
and that's what and you can wrap that apart. And
that's kind of what an editorial page is. It's what
those editors think about. And now Bezos has said, we
want you to write about what you think about these topics,

(06:21):
not those topics. Well, that resignation follows the resignation of
the opinions editor David Shipley, who was trying to persuade
Bezos to reconsider his directing. When when Bezos canceled the
planned endorsement by The Washington Post of Kamala Harris, they

(06:41):
lost three hundred thousand digital subscribers. That's what I'm a
digital subscriber. Bezos defended his decision in an opinion piece
asserting that ending presidential endorsements was a move to maintain
perceived new Then, when Trump's won, the paper lost an

(07:07):
estimated one hundred million dollars in revenue. Last month, the
company lost another seventy five thousand digital subscriptions when Basils
announced that they would focus on personal liberties and free markets.
And there have been other resignations too. But think about

(07:27):
the people, the some three hundred and seventy five thousand
people that dropped their subscriptions. Where are they going to go? Well,
they'll probably go to MSNBC, or they'll go to the
New York Times, or they'll go to the Daily Beast,
you know, they'll go to some they'll go to the Nation,

(07:48):
they'll go to some far left wing news site to
get their news. But for someone like you, someone like
me who wants to see a plethora of a opinions,
we now are able to do that by going to
all of these freelancers. Now, some freelancers are better than
other freelancers. There are some outlets that I've subscribed to,

(08:14):
and the more I've read, the more I have found that, well,
you know, your opinions and even your news is not
very well written or you don't provide much data to
support your opinion. You don't provide really good sources for
the news that you report. So I've dropped those and
I've moved on. But to get to the larger point

(08:35):
about COVID, I think it's the fact that we now
have and I think this is part of the Trump effect.
I sincerely believe this is part of the Trump effect
that when Trump went on the Joe Rogan podcast. Now
I've told you before that I don't listen to the
Joe Rogan podcast, I have a confession to make. I

(08:59):
have now started partially listening to the Joe Rogan podcast.
Now I don't because I don't have time to listen
to all three hours. But what I do now is
I look at who he's interviewing. Now, if he's interviewing
some sports figure, I don't have any interest in that.
If he's interviewing some immunologists, I might go listen to
part of that. And if that immunologist happens to be

(09:23):
talking about COVID, well I'm really curious because Rogan would
ask the kind of questions that I would ask. Okay,
well you say that the let's just pick on Pfizer.
Since Pfizer has already admitted that their shot really was
had no efficacy to it whatsoever, then let's pick them

(09:43):
that because Rogan would be the type of person they
would ask this immunologist about the efficacy, like, why do
you not believe that there's any efficacy in that shot?
And now an immunologist has an open forum, and on
the Rogan podcast, not like here where we're stuck by

(10:03):
a clock, he can give as long a winded answer
as he wants to, and there might be some real
good nuggets in there. You know what the dominant media
that you know what the cabal is doing. Now they're
going to the same kind of sources that I'm going
to for their stories. And that's why I think you're
starting to get these stories from ABC News. And I

(10:28):
know that the precipitating factor for ABC News covering it
is that worth the five year anniversary, But I think
it goes beyond that. I think it's that, oh, we
now have all of these other sources of news that
are willing courageous enough to say, look, here's the data,

(10:50):
We've analyzed the data, here's the conclusion we've come from
the data, and it turns out that, oh, we didn't
need to do all of these things, or with respect
to cod oh we remember all of us that claim
that shutting down schools was a huge mistake, that children
particul you know, under the age of eighteen were at very,
very low risk, and now we have destroyed well, now

(11:14):
we're getting the truth about that. We absolutely did destroy generate.
We put a generation of children behind in reading, writing,
and arithmetic scores. Look at Colorado. Look at how bad
scores are in Colorado, and it's true all over the country.
We live in a time when, because of the evolution

(11:39):
of these freelance journalists of what I've referred to as
the new media, we're now learning things much earlier than
we normally would have. I mean, there's still the outliers
like the Kennedy assassination or the Epstein files, those are
still outliers. But you know what I believe is different
about those now is that now there is pressure on

(12:01):
those gatekeepers that would keep that information from us to
release that information. We live, as this one friend of
mine keeps referring to, we now live in a season
of reveal, and that means that all the stuff that
people were accused of being a conspiracy theorist about or

(12:23):
lying about, or having no basis in science or data about.
We're not now thinking, oh, no, that's not true. There
really is data to show that, and there really is
a rational reason to believe this, and there really is
evidence to prove that it's not a conspiracy theory. It's
what actually happened. And that's I think that's a combination

(12:44):
of the Trump effect. I think it's a combination of
the demise of the cabal. Look, it's not gone completely.
It still exists, but I do think that it's being fractured.
And the more it fractures, the more opportunity there is
for us to learn things that have been otherwise hidden
from us or kept from us from these elitist members

(13:06):
of the cabal, the dominant media, government officials, the ruling elite,
and of course the tech giants. They're all they're all
now coming around. Not let me rephrase that, they're not
all coming around, but many of them are beginning to
break off. And as they break off, it will reach

(13:27):
some sort of mass movement where it'll flip and what
once was the cabal will become a Oh that's the
old media and they're the ones that lie to you,
they're the ones that slant stories, they're the ones that
do everything. And we all now have the ability if

(13:52):
you have access. I mean, I know there's a lot
of bad things about the Internet, there's also a lot
of good things. For example, when I was a baby lawyer,
a law library would take up enormous amount of space.

(14:13):
Now if I want to look up a state statute,
I want to look up a case, there are all
sorts of without even using my lexus NeXT's account, there
are all sorts of places that lay people can now
go without any charge. And you want to go read
a Supreme Court case, you want to go read what
somebody says about a Supreme Court case, you can go

(14:35):
do that. People can start learning from themselves, and I
think that's a huge it's a huge shift in how
we consume news. And that shift leads to this. Oh
it's the five year anniversary of COVID. Let's hear what
ABC News says, because now that ABC News is well,

(15:00):
they're subject to being fact checked by not just so
called fact checkers, but by just about anybody. Let me
see if I can just find anything real quickly as
I scroll through you because we have this I have
this service ABC Radio News Call, and let's see. I
think that I can search News Call. Let's see what

(15:22):
they say COVID. Here we go. Take a listen.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
The WHO says over seven million people have died from
COVID since twenty twenty, and even though there's no longer
a pandemic.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
The virus still claiming lives.

Speaker 5 (15:38):
The WHO says in the past twenty eight days, there's
been more than three thousand COVID deaths worldwide, and says
twenty seven hundred of those deaths were in the US.
Michelle Franzen, ABC News, Now you know what.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
I find fascinating about that? How many of those deaths
here we are right back to where we started. How
many of those deaths all worldwide are in this country?
Were deaths with COVID versus death of COVID.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
I'm stuck on the three thousand divided by how many
billion planet?

Speaker 3 (16:14):
I'm sure that isn't three thousand divided by eight billion?
Like there's I played zero zero zero zero zero zero
zero three five.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
The only reason I want to look it up because
I want to see how many zeros are before the
first real number.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Yeah, because you can find out how many zeros are,
but you can't tell me what that means true, right
or this.

Speaker 5 (16:37):
The moment five years ago changed the world forever, the
head of the World Health Organization declaring COVID nineteen a
global pandemic.

Speaker 6 (16:45):
COVID nineteen can be conductorized as a pandemic.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
The deadly virus spreading around the world, leading to lockdown's
Washington State recorded the first COVID case in the US,
but New York City later became the epicenter Shell Friends
and ABC News.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
So now you have the ability within a mere span
of five years to do what Dragon's doing. Right now,
let's put it in perspective, yes, and then you want
to believe him further. So whatever that number was, three
thousand COVID deaths in this country of or with COVID
compared to oh, I don't know, murders, suicides, cancer strokes.

Speaker 6 (17:25):
Heart attacks, Michael for Tubby, the proper phrase is worthless, master,
thank you, Tubby.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
I don't know, Okay, all right, you must have said
something and he thought he needed to leave a talk
back for that.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
I'm just I'm trying to did I call somebody, Tubby?
You must have tubby tub probably not me to b
TV in that something now to b TV.

Speaker 4 (17:55):
And I did do the math here, Yes, and three
thousand divided by the billion equals out to count along
at home zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero three.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
I counted six. I think that is correct. There are
six zero six zeros. Yes, So run for the hills,
run for your life. Good grief. Okay. I promised yesterday
going back to Saturday's program that I had spent considerable time.
In fact, I thought it was a pretty good segment,

(18:35):
but I'll leave that up to your judgment. Talking about
how CO two, a natural occurring gas that is necessary
to stay life on this planet by both plants and
animals including us, has been declared a pollutant by the

(18:57):
Environmental Protection Agency. You can go back and you can read,
or you can listen to I'm sorry. You can read
the cases I cite and you can understand how we
got to where we are today, and that case, which
occurred back in two thousand and seven or so. I

(19:18):
think it's quite getting quite up there in age has
led to this whole effort to decarbonize everything. Well, one
thing I wanted to do Saturday was go to the
next step, which is by what EPA did in declaring

(19:38):
CO two to be a pollutant, is they have bastardized
the scientific method, which is the cornerstone of discovery and
advancement in every single branch of science. You know, I
didn't do all that great in chemistry and biology and

(20:01):
those so called sciences, but I got the basics and
I understand that at the heart of the scientific method
is this process of formulating a hypothesis, conducting experiments or observations,
collecting the data from those experiments or observations, and then

(20:21):
refining or just outright rejecting your hypothesis based on the
evidence that you produce. You see, science, much like legal cases,
thrive on rigorous questioning, falsifiable predictions, the ability to reproduce

(20:42):
the repructive repruct reasy for you to say, reproduce ability
of experiments, and of course, free and open debate. Think
about how much free and open debate we had during COVID,
And then you wonder why we're walking around here with

(21:04):
everybody spending billions of dollars trying to figure out a
way to decarbonize the planet. You know, you know what
decarbonization is, at its very essence, the elimination of carbon
Well wait a minute, my body is a carbon based body,
animals carbon based bodies, plants carbon based bodies, So you

(21:30):
take it to its logical conclusion. Decarbonization is the elimination
of everything living on the planet, which I think sometimes
is what these whack a doodle environmental greeny weenies actually want.
But when the fundamental aspects of scientific inquiry and scientific
methods are maintained, then scientific knowledge moves forward. This is

(21:53):
why this concerns me because I believe, I sincerely believe
you look over your show, regardless of your age, look
over your shoulder, and you look at the scientific, technological, social, cultural,
whatever it is, advancements that have been made since you

(22:14):
were born, and then think about your parents or your
grandparents who maybe were born back in you know, nineteen
twenty or nineteen thirty, and think about what they've witnessed.
And we're so stupid to think that, oh, here's where
we are today, and it's the end of civilization. It's
the end of the world. Nothing's going to change, nothing's

(22:35):
going to improve, nothing's going to get better. Well, you
know what, you may be right, if you kill off
the scientific method, whether it's physics, chemistry, earth sciences, the
scientific method is It's not some stupid philosophical idea. It's
a daily practice. It's what real scientists do in their

(23:01):
labs every single day. It You know, a scientist will
propose a theory that will test that theory, and then
it will invite critique from their peers. You know, if
you are involved in particular research, you'll put that out
there and you'll say to your peers, look, here's my hypothesis.

(23:24):
I conducted an experiment, and here are my results, and
here are my conclusions. What do you think? And if
a theory consistently withstands critical tests, then it gains acceptance,
but it doesn't gain immunity from further questioning. It's always

(23:45):
being questioned. That's how scientific progress is meant to work.
And if we don't bastardize the scientific method, that means
that everything that we fear today we may whether it's
five years from now or twenty years from now, or
maybe even longer, we'll look back on it and we'll

(24:06):
laugh at it. Oh, I can't believe we were worried
about CO two. I can't believe that we are worried
about finding a new, reliable, you know, and cheap source
of energy. But as long as they, meaning those who
control the purse strings, those who control the political debate,
as long as they continue to bastardize the scientific method,

(24:29):
that's going to skewer the results, and that may never
get us to that new cheap, abundant source of energy,
And it'll keep us going down this path of decarbonization,
which to me seems on its face, seems prime of
facia to me to be an absurd idea. Just think
about the ft decarbonization. You're going to eliminate CO two,

(24:53):
Then how am I supposed to exhale? And how are
plants supposed to get the carbon they need to conduct photosynthesis?
See I at least got maybe a B or C
in some science. But what happens? And I don't care
what the uh the vertical of or source of inquiry is,

(25:19):
but what if it strays from those standards, uh, you know,
you rigorous questioning the predictions, reproducing experiments and having open debate,
what happens? Think about what if a scientist proposed a theory,
tested that theory, and then invited critique from the peers.

(25:42):
If the theory fell apart under scrutiny, then it gets
modified or replaced. If a theory consistently withstands those critical tests,
then it gains acceptance, although it would continue to be
examined because people are always tinkering, Well, what about this?
What about that? How can I improve that? How can

(26:03):
I build a better mouse trap? If I could go
from here to here with this process, what if I
could go this much further? If you if you stray
from those standards, do you become more dogmatic than you
are inquisitive? Which goes back to remember the comment earlier

(26:24):
about research and a lot of research that's funded by
the federal government. Or for example, if if I don't know,
I'm sitting here drinking diet coke, so I picked up
at McDonald's diet coke this morning. What if I were
to go to a researcher. Let's say I'm in Jeff
Bezos where I'm a Warren Buffett, and I go to

(26:46):
some research and say, look, I got I have a
ten million dollar grant for you that I want you
to find something good about diet coke. I want you
to show me a health benefit of diet coke. Unfortunately,
there are some scientists who, oh, well, I don't want
to bite the hand that feeds me. So for that

(27:07):
ten million dollars, I'm going to find out that diacochu
has some beneficial health benefits, some health benefits. I don't
think all scientists are like that, but I think those
who become dogmatic, those who, for example, are members of
the Church of the climate activists, I believe they are dogmatic,

(27:27):
and I believe that it's more about a religion to them,
and I think it's more about control and a political
issue than it is about a scientific issue. I don't
think there's anywhere that you see that shift from a
true scientific inquiry to a dogmatic or a religious inquiry
than you do in climate science. How many times have

(27:48):
you heard the phrase do you know what I'm about
to say? When it comes to client science? Do you
know what it is? The science is settled? Remember we're
told the science is settled. Well, that means if you
dare to challenge whatever the narrative is, no matter how qualified,
no matter how data driven it is, you're going to

(28:10):
be dismissed as a denier. You're a heretic, and you're
going to get lumped in with conspiracy theorists and the
flat earthers and the scientific method dies. That's what I
think we've been watching with regard to climate science for
what the past twenty years, maybe longer. Is the science settled?

Speaker 4 (28:37):
All right? Dragon, let me get this straight.

Speaker 6 (28:39):
You're saying the COVID mortality rate is zero point.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Zero zero zero zero zero zero.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
Three percent, So you're saying there's a chance, well, to
strive for accuracy. My number was straight math, not the percent.
So if you want to do the percent, there's only
four or zeros after the decimal point.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, so, but there's a chance, there's a chance. What
were you and I talking about this morning as you
were walking out the door. And I have freely admitted
that I reached the stage of my life where my
age bugs me, and then you you lectured me. You

(29:25):
lectured me about my mom's jeans and how it actually
to some degree about what we're talking about right now. Yeah, yeah,
about she grew up in an era where she didn't
have the type of medical care that I've been able
to get with my anti aging doctor and stuff, and

(29:46):
so I have maybe a lot longer to live correct
and that's as of today, let alone what might happen
ten years down the road. Correct And then Chris, then
I said, and all that's true, and I'll walk out
and I'll get in the beamer and an RTD bus
will t boone me and kill me at ten oh
two this morning.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Here's helping.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
The point is the science is not settled. So there
I watched. I didn't finish the documentary because it was
too crazy. I don't mean Brian Johnson, I think is
his name? Have you heard of this guy? He's he's
some tech millionaire, billionaire whatever. He is. Used to be

(30:35):
a member of the Mormon Church. He's left the church
and he's on this quest to see how long he
can live by extending every I mean he's he takes well,
he spends I think somebody said a million dollars a month.
I'm forget in the documentary, it know some outrageous figure.
He throid million dollars a month or a million dollars

(30:55):
a year. So it's something way beyond what any normal
person could possibly do. And he does every single thing
that proven or other proven or otherwise that is supposed
to extend longevity. He's crazy, and I think he's absolutely crazy.
He's a guy's got too much time in his hand

(31:16):
and he's spending he's spending too much time trying to
extend his life as opposed to living his life. He
is so sucked up in the science. Now here's what's
good about what he's doing, because I, you know, occasionally
I try to find the good in the stupid stuff too.
Whatever he may learn may contribute to the science of

(31:40):
human longevity. But for the rest of us, all I
want to do is I want to live healthily as
long as I can. And I do that based on
what my anti aging doctor says is appropriate, you know,
including you know, off label use for certain medications and things.
And I do that well, like Rocky Mountain Men's Coney

(32:01):
testoss and replacement therapy one because I want to feel
well too. That's scientific based. Well, if if the science
is settled about climate, then tell me which way is
it settled? Because I've been I'm just old enough to

(32:23):
know that. Oh, Time magazine, ha ha. What a source
told me when I was a high school debater that
we were entering a new ice age. And then when
I was in college debating all suddenly became well we're
all going to burn up, We're going to burn to death.
And then Al Gore comes along and tells us, oh,
look at this hockey stick, and what was that stupid

(32:43):
movie he produced? I forget what the name of it is.
Who cares? And now we're all going to die. Oh again,
an inconvenient truth. So tell me what if the science
is settled, how is it settled? In fact, tell me
what science is settled. I saw something yesterday. I just

(33:03):
glanced over it because it was way beyond me. Has
to do with clantum physics, has to do with Einstein's
theory of relativity, and there was something that showed that, oh, scientifically,
we've proven that, hmm, he may actually be right. It
wasn't anything, you know, concrete, but it was enough scientific

(33:24):
advancement that now they're looking at it and going, oh, yeah, hmm,
he may have been onto something. I'm not saying that
all climate science is groundless, but really, you're gonna try
and convince me that it's settled. No, it's ideological. It's
absolutely ideologic.