07-28-25 - *FULL SHOW* You Call That a Deal; Frisbees and Flatulence; Dems GOP

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I took my headphones out of my out of my
bag that I normally carry around when we did the
remote from Broncos training camp on Friday, and I forgot
to put them back in the bag. So I'm using
somebody else's headphones. They're just sitting around here in the studio,
and I, uh, I don't like them very much.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
They're they're they're not that good. They're you know, what
are you gonna do? So anyway, I hope you had
a wonderful weekend. Mine was.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Mine was quite uneventful, which was which was perfect.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's exactly what I wanted.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Basically, my family was all traveling. Kristen and the younger
kid were still looking at colleges.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
They got back last night.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
The other kid left with a friend for a couple
of days to go.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh here's the story you might enjoy.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
So my older kid is very very much into nature
and things like stargazing and wants to live in a
place one day that.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Has very little uh so called light pollution.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Like my my kid follows this uh this app where
you can and there's websites and you can type in
a location and can search almost like Google Map, but
it shows you light pollution at night, so to give
you a sense of how good the stargazing.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Might be there.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
And it is actually remarkable how few places there are
that are really close to truly dark. Anyway, my kid
took a friend out to somewhere past Lyman, you know,
a couple hours east of Denver, which I guess is

(01:31):
in one of the areas that's relatively close to Denver
that really has very little light pollution.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
And I actually enjoyed this story. So my kid's friend
has spent her whole life in.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
The suburbs and suburbs and cities. And it was new
moon or close to new moon, which is basically means
no moon. And they went out this is Saturday night,
and they just went and no clouds, and they went
out and looking at the stars.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
And my kid said that when the friend.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Looked up and saw the stars and saw the milky
Way in a way that she'd never seen before, that
she burst out.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
In tears and was hugging my kid and just like.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Almost uncontrollably crying for a few minutes, which is a
kind of a lovely thing actually.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
So there's that.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
We do have a ton of stuff to talk about
on the show today. Not doing a lot of guests today,
just a couple, and one of them will be a
Rod from training camp in a couple of hours. But
I want to just share something with you. I have,
from time to time over my years on the radio,
and when I say from time to time, probably a

(02:46):
couple times a year, mentioned a brilliant guy named Tom Lherr. Shannon,
you've heard me talk about Tom Lerr. You know who
Tom Lairr is? Or do you not remember not.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Making poisoning Pigeons in the Park guy?

Speaker 4 (03:03):
Right?

Speaker 1 (03:03):
So, Tom Lehrer is actually a math professor, and I
think he was at caltect and he was at UC
Santa Cruz. And I actually have a copy of his
first album. It's a thirty three RPM, but it's a
ten inch vinyl album. Came out in the fifties and
it's just these hilarious, highly intellectual songs. And I actually

(03:30):
thought that Tom Lehrer had passed away a long time ago.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
I had never gone to look it up.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
I mean, like I said, he was putting out recordings
in the fifties and doing concerts in the sixties, and
I thought he was gone. But I learned over the
weekend that he just passed away at the age of
ninety seven. And over the course of the show, I'm
going to hit you with some tidbits of some Tom
Lehr music, and especially you know how it is on
a Monday, we'd like to warm up slowly. We're not

(03:57):
going to just jump into the politics of the economics
first thing out of the gate, so let me just
share some of this with you.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I'm not sure what year this is from.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
I'm guessing I'm guessing it's in the early sixties.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
It's it's in black and.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
White, and it's Tom Lahr, and it's just him and
his piano in concert in Oslo, and.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
This kind of and and I've got a bunch of
this stuff on.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
My blog at Rosskaminski dot com today, a bunch of
Tom Larrer's songs, plus this one, which is half an
hour of Tom Lerr playing a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Here's here's the song I really enjoy.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I'm not gonna play the whole thing, but I'll give
you a flavor if you don't know too much about
Tom larr.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
For the touch of your lips, dear, but much more
for the touch of your whips deer you can raise
well like nobody else.

Speaker 6 (05:01):
As we dance to the Masochism tango.

Speaker 7 (05:07):
The Masochism tango, Say our love is a flame, not
an amber. Say it's me that you want to dismember, blacken.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
My eye, set fire to my tie.

Speaker 8 (05:22):
As we dance to the Masochism tango.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
All right, you get the idea, and I'll play more
Tom Lehrer for you over the course of the show.
Here's an interesting thing. If you are listening on the podcast.
Normally you won't hear it when I play music on
the show because lawyers. But a few years ago before
he passed away, Tom Larr abandoned all copyrights on his

(05:51):
own music and performances and said that anybody can use
his music and performances for whatever play on the radio,
don't have to pay any royalty fee to anyone. He
did not have any kids, He did not have any
family to leave, you know, in a state to where
somebody might get the rights to the music and want
the money from this or that licensing fee. He lifelong

(06:15):
bachelor and anyway, So that's why if you're listening on
the podcast, you'll be able to hear that. Whereas normally,
like I say, when we do name that tune for example,
stuff like that, you know, my producers have to cut
it out of the podcast because, as I said, lawyers
let me do one minute on the trade deal with

(06:35):
the EU, and I'll probably do more than a minute
a little bit later on. So this is being talked
about as a win for the United States, and I
guess I'll say it's a maybe a small win for
some parts of the United States and a pretty significant
loss for most of us. That said, the Europeans really
got almost nothing at all. The Europeans got sort of bludgeoned.

(06:57):
So basically, what the deal says is that for most
things that we buy from Europe, there will be a
fifteen percent tax assessed to the American purchaser of the
European item. Now that's what a tariff is. I'm just
wording it very very clearly, right. So if you buy
something that's you know, you buy a Chanelle perfume like
I got for my wife some couple of months ago

(07:18):
for whatever that was Mother's Day or some such thing,
and now that'll be I mean, the tariff will be
fifteen percent. It's possible that Chanell will cut their price
a little bit before the tariff. It's possible that whoever
retails it maybe will cut their margins a little bit.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Although Chanell is one of.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Those products that is always listed at the same price,
you're not allowed to show it at a discount. So
I don't think the price will go up by fifteen percent,
but it'll go up by by some amount, and it's
just a sales tax, but you will be paying fifteen percent.
You'll just you'll be paying fifteen percent on some smaller number,
but you'll be paying, you know, fifteen percent sales tax

(07:57):
imposed on you by a Republican. Now there is some
upside for the US. Europe is going to invest, probably
a little bit more than they otherwise would have. The
numbers being thrown around are big, but they were already
going to be doing a lot because so much of
it is energy. They are reducing their tariffs on American
stuff down to zero for a lot of things, which
does show the leverage that Trump has. Right, He's going

(08:20):
to charge them fifteen percent, but you're going to pay it.
They're not going to charge anything for a lot of
American stuff coming in. There are some products that will
be zero tariff, airplanes, airplane parts, certain generic.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Drugs, maybe some other things.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
They haven't figured out the tariffs on alcohol yet.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
In any case, the market.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Is basically flat today because they kind of thought this
was coming, and also because there are other important deals
that have yet to be done, especially with China, and
we don't know how it'll play out. Look, you know,
and I'm going to talk about some very good stuff
that Trump has got going on, but in particular with trade.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
You know what, there's just too much to say on this.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
I'm gonna have to back to it just a I
don't know if I'll do it in the next segment
later in the show, but I'll just say Trump got
this deal done, and it's an okay deal.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
It's not great.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
There are a lot of losers, but you won't hear
about him anywhere except here. I hope you will consider
joining me next Saturday night, August ninth, at a fantastic
event for the Warrior Bonfire Program.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
I am ce this event previously.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
It's called Diamonds and dog Tags and it's just a
great charity event to help an excellent organization that does
so much for veterans. And it's going to be at
this crazy place called cable Land, which was Bill daniels mansion. Right,
So Bill Daniels, you know, historically one of the richest
guys in Denver. I think it was I think it

(09:48):
was Cable TV. I think was where he made his money.
And then he built this place, was called cable Land.
It's fourteen thousand square feet and has four bedrooms fourteen
thousand square feet and he donated it in two thousand
back when he passed away. He built this thing in
nineteen eighty seven or somewhere around there, and he donated

(10:08):
it to the city with the idea that it would
be the mayor's mansion.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
But no mayor has ever lived there.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
They have from time to time, like put a few
people in there as temporary housing and stuff, but really
it's basically turned into an event center. A police chief
lived there for a little while, but no mayor has
ever lived there. Kicking Looper tried to sell it back
like fifteen years ago or something. Anyway, it's going to

(10:34):
be a really great event, wonderful organization.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
There's gonna be music. I'll be there am seeing and anyway.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
The information if you go to Rosskominski dot com you'll
see it kind of near the top. It's next Saturday
night and it's again. It's called Diamonds and dog Tags.
You can learn more at Warrior Bonfireprogram dot org, Oregon
on my website. Here's a wacky little story. This is
from the Colorado Sun. First responders in Colorado's mountain towns

(11:05):
are receiving wave of unfounded texts for help from satellite
enabled iPhones.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
So I only learned about this recently.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
I guess there's some relatively new technology out there, and
I think I think Android phones maybe had it before
Apple did, where if you are out of cell coverage
you can somehow still use satellite.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Access to send text messages. Shannon, you're nodding your head.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Have you used this? You just know about it, right, Okay? So,
cause one of my kids friends mentioned it to me,
and that kid has an Android phone, and I never
heard about it. I have an iPhone, but I guess
it's on iPhones now. And apparently what's happening is there's
some wacky glitch in the iPhone's operating system or sensors

(11:53):
or both, some combination thereof that is causing these iPhones
to send out emergency text messages. And there are one example,
the text list is again Colorado sun. The text landed
at Grand County's nine to one to one dispatch center
Friday afternoon, trapped by fire, it read pinging a location

(12:16):
near the remote Meadow Creek Reservoir. The nine to one
to one text from an iPhone came through the company's
new satellite technology, which enables users I already said told
you that part.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
The Grand County sheriff said, We've.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Not had one of those before, so we triggered a
pretty healthy response. Rallied his search and rescue team, fire Department,
Law Enforcement emergency services forty minutes up a rural dirt
road to the reservoir and there was no fire or
anybody needing help.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
At the same time on Friday, other nine to one
to one.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Dispatch centers across the state got similar texts, for example,
multiple people on fire, single person on fire, stranded and lost,
and another trapped by fire. And when search and rescue
teams responded, they found no emergency situations. Now, at first,
some of these folks thought it was kind of the
law enforcement or nine to one one folks thought it

(13:07):
was kind of like swatting, right where you call in
and to get a police response, but it's basically a
really stupid, practical joke. But after a little while they
figured out that it wasn't swatting and that it's a glitch,
and they actually found in one of these cases, they
found the lady whose phone sent the thing, and they
talked to her for a while and it's like, I

(13:29):
never sent a thing and I was never in trouble,
and they figured out pretty quick that she wasn't, you know,
playing some kind of joke, and they sorted out. Boulder
County dispatchers received several of them, several of these texts,
and on Friday they sent deputies to the Kelly Dollar
Campground near nettter Land up where near where I used
to live, in response to a call for help. The
owner was the owner of the phone was there and

(13:52):
did not need any assistance. So in any case, there
have been quite a lot of these, apparently over one
December weekend, just this past December, there were seventy over
just one weekend in Summit County, and I guess Apple
hasn't figured it out yet. Hopefully they'll figure it out
pretty soon, because it's not just bad to waste the

(14:16):
time of all these people. It's really bad to potentially
divert resources away from a situation, especially in a smaller
county where there might not be a ton of resources available.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
And you're gonna drag.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
These people forty minutes up and then forty minutes and
then however long it takes them to figure out there's
nothing wrong, and then another forty minutes back, and you
take them away from actually being.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Able to help people.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
So hopefully Apple will figure that out really soon when
we come back. I'm going to tell you a story
about my own personal addiction. No, it's not that kind
of addiction though, Fake emergency alert messages coming through apples,
coming from iPhones that we're texting through satellites saying person

(14:58):
on fire when there really wasn't one. A few listeners
have texted in to say, I wonder if it was
part of Team Mobile rolling out their partnership with starlink
that was, and and the testing for all that. So
I don't know, but a few people have mentioned it,
so I thought I would mention it to you. All right,

(15:20):
I have I have dragged intrepid Chad Bauer in here
at the studio and he has no idea why, and
so let's see, I grabbed my iPhone here and let
me just explain this to you, and I'll and I'll
tell you why I've dragged Chad in here. So when
I was on our trip to uh Ecuador, we were

(15:42):
on a We had to take a bus every day
on that trip to go from the hotel to where
we would get a boat and then go out to
some islands.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
So we're on the.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Bus and I and I see a friend of mine, uh,
you know, playing a game on his phone called Wordscapes,
and it's a game where you're given six or seven letters,
normally arranged in random order in a circle, and you
have to create lots of words out of those letters.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
And I said, that looks like fun, and I got
it on my phone and it it puts up a
pattern on the screen.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
That looks kind of like a little crossword puzzle, and
you just have to figure out each word, right. So
if I won't give you examples, but there's six letters
or seven and you make words, and it seems like fun,
and I'm a word nerd and all that, and then
you know, I play it and I realize at some
point that at some point I realized, geez, I'm on
level twenty six hundred now, and if I think, and

(16:39):
I'm pretty fast at this game, but if I think,
maybe it takes me forty five seconds on average per level,
and that could be, it's probably somewhere around right. And
I told myself at that time Chad and I actually
mentioned on the air there was a listeners he said
he was over level sixty thousand. Yeah, but I told
myself that I'm going to get to level three thousand

(17:04):
and then I'm going to delete the game.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
And I was doing the math yesterday and.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
I think that I've probably spent somewhere around forty hours
playing the game. And it's not just that, it's that
I feel like I'm slightly addicted to it, like once.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's like pringles, right.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
You can't stop with just one, which is actually not
true of pringles because they're not that good, but with
other things like popcorn, it's definitely true. And I find
myself sometimes playing the game while I'm watching TV, keeping an.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Eye and an ear on the TV, but playing the
game at the same time.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Dude, I actually did it once or twice while I
was driving to work. That's not good, No, not good,
not good. And so separate from that, I feel like
I've spent forty hours on this thing, give or take,
could be more, probably not much less. And I think
about what I could have been doing during those other hours.
I could have been reading a book, riding a bike,

(17:57):
talking to my.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Dog, charity work already work, I could have been doing
almost anything.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Notice I didn't mention talking to my wife or kids,
just talking to my dog.

Speaker 9 (18:05):
Now, if you don't win prizes or money or anything
from this game, right, it's just a time stuck.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, it's just a time suck.

Speaker 8 (18:12):
And uh.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
And I actually did the same kind of thing that
I'm gonna do with you now years ago, when I
was on KHL with Candy Crush, which I found myself
somewhat addicted to, and realized what a ridiculous timesuck it is.
So the reason I asked you to come in here
is I want you to delete this off of my phone. So, uh,

(18:34):
and you have an iPhone, so you know how this works.
So here, take my phone. It's the it's the bottom
right thing there. It's called word scapes.

Speaker 9 (18:42):
Okay, I'm I'm holding it down for a couple of seconds.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Hold it down.

Speaker 9 (18:45):
It says remove app I'm hitting remove app ye, remove wordscapes,
remove from home screen, delete app, cancel, delete app, delete
app Yep. Well, I ask you, it's confirming again? Yes,
delit Yeah, boom gone, there you go. You know, it's
kind of like when I talk about the Raleigh.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
House sometimes, you know, and I say, sometimes somebody's got
a real problem. Often can't make that first call, can't
do it themselves. You need some help to get the help.
So that's why I brought your like my support system.
I knew you would support me in this. Yes, And
let me ask you, Chad, and let me also ask listeners.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
The same question.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
And Shannon, I'm going to ask you the same question too,
So pay attention. No, Shannon said, no, he's not paying attention.
What is the thing in your life right now at
which you waste the most time and think you probably.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Should just stop doing it?

Speaker 9 (19:38):
Do you have anything like that, Chad, Well, similar to
your thing Back in the pre iPhone, I had the
same thing with Tetris uh huh, the video the video game,
and I would literally have dreams about, you know, the
Tetris things falling down. So I just said, I'm not
playing that anymoke. I'm not a big gamer anyway, but.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
I've had a couple dreams about this thing where I
was solving yeah puzzles, and that's a problem. Yeah, that's
when you know it's a problem. Shannon, is there one
for you or are you not playing along? I guess
it would have to be working here. Listener says, Ross,
you need a twelve Yeah, very good you Ross, you

(20:18):
need a twelve step group.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
I don't. All I need is intrepid. Chad Bauer h Ross.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
One hundred dollars says, you put the app back on
your phone within a week.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
That is not a bet you want to make. There isn't.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
I am absolutely positively not putting the app back on
my phone. When I deleted Candy Crush, which I was
probably more addicted to than this game, never even occurred
to me to put the app back.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
I'm done.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
It's cold turkey and it's gone, and and and yeah.
So no, you would not want to make that bet.
You will definitely lose, but.

Speaker 9 (20:45):
You won't replace it with a similar game.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
No, no, I won't.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
There's just way too much time spent by everybody on
their phones, and it's mostly by kids. But but still
I want to I like putting my phone away. I
like putting my phone down somewhere when I get home
and not being near it and not carrying it and
not anything.

Speaker 9 (21:06):
That's why you never returned my text. There are so
there are so many thing.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Let me ask listeners again, text me at five six
six nine zero and tell me what's the number one
thing that you do in your life right now that you,
being honest with yourself, think is a waste of time
that you should stop doing and not your job. All right,
don't be don't be producer, Shannon. Don't be producer, Shannon.

(21:34):
We're not talking about your job a thing like like
my stupid, my stupid game. This listener says, I've wasted
days playing Civilization six, which I understand Civilization isn't is
an awesome game. Chat. Are you pretty disciplined with your
time these days, now that Tetris isn't so much a
thing anymore?

Speaker 9 (21:50):
I think so.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (21:51):
I read, and you know, do freelance writing things, and
so I swea.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
To you write about rock and roll music. Yeah, all right,
very good? Well, thank you, thank you for being my
support system.

Speaker 9 (22:04):
You're a do you me to come in here every
morning and check to make sure it's still deleted.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
You No, I'll be honest about it.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
There's no chance though it's not going on pretty firm YEA. Yeah, yeah,
I've done it. You've done it. Thank you very much,
all right. That is Chad Bauer, who functions as my
personal twelve step program, so that that was my addiction
and now and now it's gone off my phone. You know,
I made myself that promise. I said a goal when
I was at like twenty six hundred or something level,

(22:31):
and I said, when I get to three thousand, I'm
going to delete the game. And I thought it would
be kind of fun to delete it on the air,
just to share that whole story with you.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, I won't say that one.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Ross listening to talk radio way too much. Yeah, but
talk radio is fun and you learn stuff, and I
think talk radio is good.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
When you get the urge, just play some music on title. Yes,
I definitely will, and I do. I'm looking at or
I'm being told to look at another music streaming service
that I haven't used before, called q buzz or something
like that.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Qob usy.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
And a friend of mine who knows a lot about
all this stuff, says that might be the best one,
Ross Instagram. One a day should be plenty for me.
I'm working towards that.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Ross. I'm drinking too much.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
It makes me lazy, all right, that's a slightly different category,
but yeah, Ross, I had a free three month subscription
to Apple News.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Glad I canceled it.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Now, that's an interesting one because it says a lot
about what news is now, right, And it's true. I
fully understand what you're getting at with this. So many
news outlets now, all they're doing is trolling for clicks, right,
And if it's a conservative audience, they troll with this

(23:49):
or that kind of thing, and if it's a liberal audience,
they troll with some other kind of thing. And it's
not news. It's not news, it's gossip.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
It's a.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Cloaked his news. And you know what, that's part of
the reason I'm here for you, right. I can bring
you actual news, and then I bring you other stuff
that's not very important. But I tell you it's not
very important, and we you know, in a way, I'm
sort of your your your filter, Ross ms pac Man.
At least it's not crackh borderline, borderline.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Watching hd HGTV with.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
My wife I hear you on that. I feel your pain.
Keep those coming at five six six nine zero. Tell
me what you do that really if you think about it,
just in order to not waste your time so much,
you wasting your own time, what's something you should probably
stop doing? Text me at five sixty six nine zero

(24:45):
and tell me some of your thoughts. You gonna do
this one quickly. You probably saw the story of this
stabbing of I think it was eleven people at a
Walmart near Traverse City or in Traverse City, in Michigan,
not too far from where producer Shannon is originally from.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
And fortunately nobody died.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
And the main thing I wanted to share with you there,
and we don't know why this guy did it. He
looked deranged, right, and you know, I think he's been
charged with terrorism, but I don't think this is going
to be any kind of standard terrorism charge. I don't
think this is coming from a religion or anything like that.
Just a crazy sort of dude. But what I wanted
you to know is that a few people tried to stop.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Him, did stop him, and at least two.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Or maybe all three of the three served in the
US Marines. One of them was unarmed and grabbed a
shopping cart because the guys, you know, waving a fairly
large folding knife around and this guy basically rammed him
with the shopping cart. He didn't drop the knife, but

(25:56):
it kind of got him out of stabbing people. And
then this other dude showed up with a firearm and
let's see, I've got his name and picture in the blog.
Let me just find this real quick so I can
so I can share it with you. Derek Perry, P E.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
R R.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Y African, a big African American dude with dreadlocks. And
I guess according to the story, he had actually just
come from target shooting at the range and forgot to
take the gun off his hip.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
It's all legal, it's all legal.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
But he had he had his firearm with him and
so he was there and he drew his weapon. He
didn't shoot the guy, but he pointed at the guy
and said, you know, stop and drop the knife and
all that anyway, so it doesn't look like anybody's gonna die.
And thank goodness that there were some good guys there,
and thank goodness there was a good guy with a
gun there to stop the bad guy with the knife

(26:51):
and I'd like sharing those stories with you from time
to time when we have him. I'm just gonna mention
in this quickly and then point you to the blog
to go read about it. I'm not going to talk
about it in any greater detail, but I think it's
just a story really worth reading. It's over at the
Denver Gazette, and you know the band, the Lumineers Colorado band.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
The headline is a grieving lumineer sings.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
For his brother and his health, and it's it's a
great story. I don't know if it requires a subscription,
all right, I don't know so.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
But go check it out.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
If it requires a subscription, email me and I'll see
if I can get you the text of the story somehow.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
But it's just it is a story worth reading. What else?

Speaker 1 (27:40):
I got a couple AI stories with you for you
here today. I'm doing one now and one later. AI
can be used for a lot of things, and this
is a topic that's not going to go away. And
I'm trying to talk about AI way more than once
a week, maybe a little bit less than once per show,
but it's a big enough topic that you could do
AI once per show, and it would never get old,

(28:02):
and you would almost never really have to.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Talk about the same thing twice, because.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
There are so many possible uses and misuses for AI,
and this story caught my attention.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
This website is.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Nm dot com, and I don't even know what that
website is about.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
NME dot com.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
They call themselves the world's defining voice in music and
pop culture, breaking what's new and what's next since nineteen
fifty two. All right, whatever, NME dot com. Just want
to give them credit where it's due. And the headline
is this, AI generated songs are being added to dead
musicians pages on Spotify without permission. Shannon, have you heard

(28:47):
of a dude named Blaze Foley from a band called
Clay Pigeons.

Speaker 9 (28:52):
Me?

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Neither, but apparently he's something of a big deal. Anyway,
he's dead and.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
He's dead, but a new single showed up on his
Spotify channel, a new single called Together.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
I guess it's maybe a cover.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Of someone else's song, but a new single, and it
was uploaded without his labels permission or knowledge or anything.
And the track is described as vaguely sounding like a
new slow country song. And I'm quoting from NME dot
com reportedly sounded very different from Foley's original work.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Foley was murdered in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Additionally, the single artwork appeared to be the single artwork,
so the picture going with the music appeared to be
an AI generated image of a man singing into a microphone,
but a guy who really didn't look like Foley. Craig McDonald,
who's in charge of distributing Foley's music and managing his
Spotify page via his label Lost Art Records, said the
song appeared on the artist's profile without permission. I can

(29:54):
clearly tell you this song is not Blaze, not anywhere
near his style. It's kind of an AI schlock bot,
if you will. And he says it's harmful to Blaze's
standing that this has happened. It's kind of surprising that
Spotify doesn't have a security fix for this type of action,
and I think the responsibility is all on Spotify.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
They could fix this problem.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
One of their talented software engineers could stop this fraudulent
practice in its tracks if they had the will to
do so, and I think they should take that responsibility
and do something quickly. So that song has in fact
been removed from Spotify.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
And this isn't the only one.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Spotify claims that there's a company called sound On which
is put together as one word sound and then Capital
O and a company owned by TikTok was the distributor
of the song. Anyway, there's more. There was another uploaded
song that went to the page of a country musician

(30:57):
named Guy Clark who won the Best Folk Album Grammy
in twenty fourteen, and he died two years later, and
so another you know, another fake one. Anyway, I think
it's an interesting thing, and in a way, this is
an example that's truly in so many different aspects. You
actually think about it a lot in the frame of

(31:19):
terrorism that you really got to be incredibly good when
you're on defense, right for the bad guys, whether it's
a terrorist, whether it's someone using AI to defraud people
or whatever. The bad guys are almost always going to
be a step ahead, right, and the bad guys are

(31:39):
the ones with the initiative, and you've got to anticipate them,
and you got to do all this stuff, which is
actually it's quite remarkable in a way how few terrorist
attacks there are. It's like shows how good the defense is.
AI is kind of like that you know, it's not
quite fair to say that somebody generating a fake AI
song and you know, posting it to somebody else's Spotify

(32:01):
channel is terrorism, but it is an example of something
that you would think that a firm like Spotify should
be able to anticipate that this is the thing that's
going to get done and then find a way to
get ahead of it. Let me go back to Tom
Larr if I can. Audio op producer Shannon. This is

(32:26):
again Tom Lehr, who I just oh gosh.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Look at that. This is now.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
YouTube wants to wants to play an ad that's really annoying.
But I got a Channon, don't worry, I got it, Okay.
So Tom Larr. One of his most famous songs is
called Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, and there is a
version he.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Did with the London Philharmonic. This is not that version.
This is from.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
A live concert he did in Oslow. This is either
from the it's some it's from somewhere between the late
fifties to early sixties. And we'll just have a minute
of Tom Ler, who passed away this weekend at the
age of ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Spring is here.

Speaker 6 (33:15):
The supper ring is here, life is skittles and life
is beer.

Speaker 7 (33:21):
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.

Speaker 10 (33:25):
I do, don't you, of course you do.

Speaker 6 (33:28):
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
and makes every Sunday patrade for me.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
All the world.

Speaker 6 (33:40):
Seems in tune on a spring afternoon when we're pisoning
pigeons in the park. Every Sunday, you'll see my sweetheart
and me as we pison the pigeons in the park.
When they see us coming, the birdies all try and hide,

(34:00):
but they still go for peanuts.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
When coat had to wear a scion hide.

Speaker 11 (34:06):
The sun's shining, grind everything.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Oh, I love it.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Tom Larr passed away at the age of ninety seven. He's,
on the one hand, quite famous, and was more famous
back in the day. It's also interesting that he has
something like maybe three dozen songs in his published catalog,
published repertoire, whatever you want to call it, and yet
still the guy has been entertaining people and making people

(34:31):
laugh for gosh, seventy years now. He quit his professional
music stuff a long time ago and went back to
teaching math. He is a brilliant mathematician and he's just
a very interesting character.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
I actually didn't know he was.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
He was still alive, but he passed away this weekend
at the age of ninety seven to and.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
He had a wonderful weekend.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Mine was rather una, which is exactly how I wanted
it to be. I was really, really quite good. How
about yours, dragon, How was your weekend?

Speaker 10 (35:06):
I did some putts in around the house, tried to
do some updates, but the well.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Was it stuff you wanted to do? Or was it
a honeydew list? It's a me do list.

Speaker 10 (35:14):
Yeah, I mean, she's happy that I'm fixing things up right,
tell me what needed to be fixed. I just, you know,
was like, all right, I gotta replace the vanity. I'm
gonna change these lights, you know, change the faucet, paint this.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Let me let me kea that.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Let me share with you what one listener said his
or her I'm guessing this is a guy, but what
his weekend was like, ready, go for it.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
We did the BMW Ultimate Driving.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Experience and when the race car driver drove me, it
was intense and I almost vomited. My driving was less professional,
but less intense. Then we saw circ desole Echo, which
was neat. Then we went to the Asian night Market
in Aurora, and then on Sunday we went to Parker's
Farmers Market, a tie pop up at a brewery, and
finished the weekend with steak at Bastion's. I guess that's

(36:01):
a place. Great weekend, and I still have some steak left.

Speaker 10 (36:06):
Sounds action packed, Yes, a little bit much for a
little Mutchas you know, I enjoy the food.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, that sounds like a pretty fabulous weekend, although, as
Dragon notes, very little downtime.

Speaker 10 (36:17):
I am interested in that whether the ultimate experience BMD
you drove race cars or something.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Is that what that's all about?

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Well, I think you drive. You can either drive their
BMW's but not like the multimillion dollar race cars. But
you could drive, you know, an M three or whatever,
or you bring your own. I guess it depends on
whatever you're doing. But you can bring your own BMW
track the track, Yeah, as fast as you want, Yeah,
I think so. I am intrigued by that. Yeah, it's
been around a long time. I've never done it. I
mean I I The first car I ever bought myself

(36:47):
that I really loved was a nineteen ninety five BMWM three,
and I bought it. I bought it used, and I
just I loved that car. I remember going one hundred
and forty five miles an hour on the Interstate, not
on a track on on I sixty five between Northern

(37:09):
Indiana and Indianapolis on my way down to Cincinnati from Chicago.
I did not stay at that speed for long. That
would be a fairly expensive ticket.

Speaker 10 (37:19):
I only got up to one twenty in Kansas in
my old U Selica.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
So let me ask you.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
A question that I asked other folks this morning. Okay,
so earlier today I had intrepid Chad Bauer in as
my personal twelve step support group, and what he did was,
at my request, he deleted from my phone a game
that I had found myself feeling somewhat addicted to. Okay,
it was a word game called Wordscapes that I have

(37:46):
mentioned at some point one time on the show before.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
And when I got to level.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Twenty six hundred, I told myself for I'm going to
get to level three thousand and then I'm going to
delete the game. And I got to level three thousand
on Friday. I think I did one or two more levels,
but then I didn't play it. Again, right, I didn't
play it Saturday or Sunday, and then Chad came in
and we talked about.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
It and he deleted the game from my phone. That's
a good friend, right there.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
So my question for you Dragon and for everybody else listening,
is is there something that you do frequently in your
life that you think is really a waste of time
that you should probably just stop doing?

Speaker 8 (38:24):
Should or want to?

Speaker 1 (38:25):
I mean any of that, like you feel it should should,
which is not the same.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
As thing you will.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Like I could have decided not to delete the game
from my phone, but I did.

Speaker 10 (38:34):
Right, this whole workout thing, I can give that up
in a heartbeat.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Here. Yeah, no, but that's not a waste of time.
It's not a waste of right. Just because you spend.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
A lot of time or do it every day doesn't
mean it's a waste of time.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
We're over five years?

Speaker 9 (38:47):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Really?

Speaker 9 (38:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (38:50):
How many days now?

Speaker 10 (38:51):
I don't have the exact but I know it's it's
the five days was earlier this July, so.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
You're closing in on two thousand days as eighteen something.
Oh my goodness, dude, you need to go do the
driving experience with BMW.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Absolutely there you go, Dragon, I.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Need to mount a fifty five inch TV to the
wall next weekend. I feel your pain. I thought he
was going to ask you to come do it. That's
where I thought that textiles started.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Easy. Yeah, that is pretty easy.

Speaker 10 (39:16):
Find the stud yeah, a couple of screws, yeah, put
up the bracket.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
The rest is yeah, it's it's definitely.

Speaker 10 (39:21):
My problem was that the we're changing out the vanity light. Yeah,
and it was one of the bar ones.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (39:29):
So I take it off and the junction box is
not centered to the vanity Oh so yeah, the ones
that we bought to replace That isn't the bar one,
it's you know, a singular mounts. So now I've got
a whole project ahead of me. Are you going to
try to move the box? I thought about that. It's

(39:50):
something that that's not easy. It's something that I can do.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Is it something I can do well?

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Probably?

Speaker 10 (39:57):
Wow, So I'll probably just find a a nicer looking
bar light.

Speaker 8 (40:03):
All right.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
For folks who are listening text us at five sixty
six nine zero, and tell me something in your life
that you feel like you spend way too much time
on and should cut out. So I'm not just asking
what's something you spend a lot of time on. Okay,
I'm asking what is something that you spend a lot
of time on that you think is just an absolute
waste of time and that you could spend that time
so much better. And for me, that was this game

(40:26):
I've been playing, so we deleted it off my phone.
But I would like to know what your thing is.
Let me do about one minute on some state politics
here in Colorado. In the next segment, I'm gonna do
kind of a rapid fire of a whole bunch of
national political stories, but I'm gonna give them to you
in a kind of a distilled way so we don't
spend too much time on them.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Let's see this.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Coloradopolitics dot com national site ranks Colorado Republican Gabe Evans
as the most vulnerable House incumbent in the country. Hotline,
which is a respected outlet. Hotline has put out their
twenty twenty six House power rankings, and of all incumbents

(41:11):
right now, they rank Gabe Evans as most likely to
lose his seat. Now, that doesn't mean, by the way,
that he is more than fifty percent likely to lose
his seat, right because remember there's really major power in incumbency.
And also remember that in most congressional seats in the country,

(41:32):
most of them are not actually competitive. And in fact,
Gabe's district, the eighth congressional district, which has only been
around for a few years now has or maybe just
over two years now, is the only seat out of
Colorado's eight that is thought of to be a true
swing seat. And last year Gabe Evans beat incumbent Yadera

(41:58):
Caraveo by few more than twenty five hundred votes.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
And actually it all kind of came in at the end.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
With the late counting of the rural parts of the
district going into that Like on election night, it looked
like Caraveo was ahead on election night, but the late
votes came in for the Republican two years earlier Caraveo won.
She beat Bob Kirkmeyer at that point by even fewer votes,
less than twenty five hundred. So it's going to be

(42:25):
a really interesting thing. And the bottom line is this,
This is how you need to think about it. Although
we say all politics is local, all politics is also
about turnout. And so what ends up happening is that
mid term elections are almost entirely a referendum on how

(42:46):
people feel about the president of the United States, and
if Donald Trump's popularity ratings can get up to the
high forties, forty seven, forty eight or above, there's a
good chance Gabe holds a seat. There's a good chance
Republicans could potentially hold the House, even though normally they don't. Normally,
the off the party out of power picks up a

(43:08):
bunch of seats. If Trump's numbers are lower, Gable have
a much harder time In any case, I did think
it was interesting, although not terribly surprising, that Gabe Evans
is listed as the most vulnerable Republican in the House.
But again, don't take that to mean that he's got
a lower than fifty percent chance of winning.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Quit playing games. Oh playing games all right?

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Ross hookers and blow way too much time on hookers
and blow. Yeah we all have that problem. Yeah, you
need to like get a unique problem. I'm reading all
your text folks at five six, six nine.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
There, let me just.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Do I don't know how many how much of this
I'm going to get get through in you know, four minutes,
but let me just do what I can real quick.
I did watch the new South Park episode over the weekend.
When you watch it without ads, it's only twenty two minutes.
It's on Paramount Plus and it's the first the first
episode of season twenty seven, and it's it's very funny,
and a lot of the hype about it has been there.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
The script the the.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Show's attack on on Donald Trump, and it is absolutely brutal.
It is truly brutal and hilarious, absolute hilarious. It is
incredibly funny, but it's only it's it's a you know,
half or less than half of the episode, and a lot,
a lot of the rest of it is how Eric Cartman,

(44:27):
who is this ridiculous, bigoted, racist, anti everything. You know,
the fat kid is bummed that Woke is dead. And
there's a great piece over at the Free Press by
by Eli Lake who.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Is talking about this.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
This episode, but he wonders, and this is really for
south Park fans. So Cartman hates Wokeness, right, Cartman is
the ultimate anti Woke character that that probably is ever
existed on television. Really, and so this is Eli Lake
writing at VFP dot com.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
So why would Cartman more.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
In the end of Wokeness Because Wokeness is hilarious, he says.
The show opens with Cartman waking up and asking Alexa
to play his local NPR affiliate.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
All he hears is static.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
When Cartman's mom explains that the president has canceled National
Public Radio, Cartman becomes enraged. The sum is dot of
the coastal elites for Cartman was quote like the funniest
stuff ever, except he didn't say stuff.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
He used the word I can't say on the radio.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
He later tells his friends Kyle, who's Jewish by the way,
in the show, Stan and Kenny that he loved in
PR because it's quote where all the lesbians and Jews
complain about stuff.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
And then he said, and I quote again, it.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Had gay rappers in Mexico all sad because these girls
in Pakistan got stoned to death.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Anyway, the whole episode is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Jesus comes back, and it turns out Jesus came back
because he was afraid he's gonna get sued by Donald
Trump if he didn't come back. And the episode is brilliant.
It's absolutely brilliant, and the Trump administration needs there's a
little bit of a message there, right, Gosh, I'm not
going to get through nearly what I wanted to. I'm
gonna have to do more later in the show because

(46:19):
I'm doing something different in the next segment with a guest.
But you know that a lot of these the south
Park watching folks are the younger, edgier, sort of libertarian
types who moved very aggressively toward Donald Trump in the
last election, very aggressively, surprising a lot of people how

(46:39):
many younger voters President Trump got. And of course south
Park will skewerr anybody. They don't care. They're laughing all
the way to the bank.

Speaker 12 (46:50):
You know.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
When someone asked these guys in an interview in the
past couple of days whether you know what they thought
of the White House's very negative reaction to the show,
one of them said, We're so sorry. Right, So they're
you know, they're laughing all the way. This is what
they do and they're really they're the best at it,
and it's really funny. And I think that I said

(47:13):
this before the Trump administration made a big mistake by
reacting by criticizing South Park by saying South Park isn't
funny and is a fourth tier show. It's in its
twenty seventh season and it's incredibly funny.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Still, so that was a mistake.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
But the bigger picture I think is the president needs
to figure out how to get a little bit more
on track with that part of his base.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Not because Donald Trump is gonna run again.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
But because if he wants to maintain a majority in
the House of Representatives after the next election to be
able to get any part of any further part of
his agenda.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Done, he's gonna need those those voters.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
So there is a little bit of a lesson in
South Park in addition to the fact that it really
was unbelievably funny. No matter how you feel about well,
I mean, if you love up so much and you
can't take a joke, then you might not love it.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
But I have to say one other very quick thing
on this.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Jay Leno gave an interview that's getting some press, and
he really chastised a lot of late night TV shows
for being so divisive. And one of the things he
said a little bit later in the interview was, in
his experience, conservatives and Republicans are better at laughing at
themselves than Democrats and liberals are.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
And that doesn't surprise me.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
And I hope that the Trump administration will come back
to realizing that that could be a strength for them.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Your way ahead of me, Your way way ahead of me.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
The title of one of Roger Pilke's latest posts on
his substack, called The Honest Broker. The title of it
is Frisbees and Flatulence, And therefore Dragon decided to play
that smell by skinnerd right correct. So I don't know
if I would have gotten that on the first Can
you hit me with the first note real quick and
we'll see if Rogers says he would have gotten it

(48:56):
on the first note, Nah, I wouldn't have. I would
definitely have needed more than that. That's pretty hard keep
going right about somewhere around there. Yeah, definitely not on
the first note, all right. So that's a ridiculous way
to introduce Roger Pielke. Roger is now professor emeritus, although
that makes him sound old and he's really not at
University of Colorado at Boulder, where he taught basically the

(49:19):
intersection of science and technology and public policy, and now
he's doing that same kind of stuff as a senior
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, which is a fantastic
organization AI dot org and he has a must read
and must subscribe substack that I mentioned already called the

(49:41):
Honest Broker, and you can just look up the Honest
Broker substack and you will find it.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
I urge you to subscribe.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
I saw a story this is probably a week or
so ago at the Washington Post, but lots of places
had it epa drafts rule to strike down land mark
climate finding, and I thought about talking about it on
the show on that day or the next day after
I saw the story, and then I decided I would be.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Dumb to talk about this topic without having.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Roger here with me, because Roger will have forgotten more
about this than I will ever know, and I truly
don't know anybody who would understand this issue better. It
doesn't mean we will agree on everything, but that's one
of the great things with Roger is you don't have
to worry about that. So Roger Pilko, welcome back to KOA.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
It's good to see you.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
You too, ross great to be here.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
So why don't we start with a definitional thing?

Speaker 1 (50:37):
What is ann or perhaps the in this case in
dangerment finding?

Speaker 3 (50:45):
So it goes back a long ways.

Speaker 13 (50:48):
So you go back to nineteen seventy and at Democratic
Congress and a Republican president enacted the Clean Air Act.
This is when we had pretty dirty air in the
United States because a lot of manufacturing and so on.
And under that Act, the EPA Environmental Protection Agency administrator
can identify issues for which the government might want to

(51:10):
have regulations, and so it's a very low threshold. So
if the EPA administrator finds that some pollution that is
being emitted poses risks, they can issue what's called an
endangerment finding, saying this substance poses risks and we.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Might want to do something about it.

Speaker 13 (51:28):
It's basically that simple that it's not a regulation itself.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
It opens the door to regulation.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
So the endangerment finding that we're talking about in this case,
is it very specifically carbon dioxide or is it more
than that?

Speaker 3 (51:45):
It's a basket of six greenhouse gases.

Speaker 13 (51:48):
Carbon dioxide is the most important, and a lot of
the controversy over this stems from the fact that when
the Clean Air Act was enacted in nineteen seventy, no
one really foresaw that we'd be eulating greenhouse gas is water.
Vapor is a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and so
one of the big questions that had to be resolved
almost two decades.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Ago was our greenhouse gas is actually pollution.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Right, And that's something we should probably discuss over bourbon
because it's almost a philosophical conversation as much as a
scientific one.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
But if you want to give.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
A very short version of your opinion on that question,
go ahead.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (52:28):
And actually we don't need to have opinions on that
because the Clean Air Act is very explicit and this
gets to the frisbees and the flatulence. So in the
two thousand and eight Supreme Court decision Massachusetts versus EPA,
the Supreme Court ruled, and it was a narrow five
to four vote, that greenhouse gases are pollution simply because

(52:51):
the Clean Air Act is so broadly written that pretty
much any substance in the atmosphere can be identified as pollution.
So Judge Anthony Skill, yeah, and his descent had a
funny quip. He said, well, you know, based on the
Clean Air Act, frisbees and flatulence could also be considered
air pollution.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
And he was right.

Speaker 13 (53:11):
So air pollution is just any substance in the atmosphere
that the EPA administrator determines poses risks.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Right, So let's just move away from the law for
a second, just for fun. Yeah, and so if I
were to just ask Roger, not as a matter of law,
but as a matter of what most people would think
the word pollution means, would you put carbon dioxide into
that category?

Speaker 13 (53:36):
Most people would not put that in that category, and
I don't think I would either. That said, and this
is you know, my view very much as carbon dioxide
is it's perfectly reasonable to be the subject of regulation.
But the Clean Air Act ought to be expanded, And
don't try to put it in with frisbees, flatulence and
you know, smog and things like that. Create your own
section of the law to focus on greenhouse gases and

(53:58):
their unique properties.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Right on a pound for pound basis or however you
would want to measure it. It's not so much the flatulence,
but the cow burps are much more potent greenhouse gas
than carbon dioxide, is right. And I'm not trying to
make a policy point there, just sort of a science point.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
So, okay, so what does the Trump administration want?

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Okay, no, let me back up.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
What does the endangerment finding then allow government to do?

Speaker 3 (54:27):
So?

Speaker 13 (54:28):
After the two thousand and eight Supreme Court ruling. After
President Obama came in, they issued the endangement finding. So
it was a two hundred and thirty page document that
said greenhouse gases pose significant risks in the future, and
we therefore might want to regulate them. And that set
the stage for putting regulations on automobiles, on trucks, eventually

(54:48):
power plants to limit how much carbon dioxide methane could
be emitted. And regulations are expensive, and so that's where
this is, you becomes very political.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
So what does the Trump administration propose to do?

Speaker 13 (55:06):
So it's it's we don't know all of the details,
but what has been released is they want to get
rid of that endangerment finding, So they want to get
rid of the basis for even having regulations. And so
the reports are in the Washington Post and the New
York Times. They're not going to argue about science. Everyone
wants to argue about science, but they're going to argue

(55:26):
about issues like standing and does EBA have the authority
under the Clean Air Act to actually regulate greenhouse gases?
So the details are to be determined, but it's going
to get very technical and very legal, very quickly right, And.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
It's probably a little bit beyond the scope of it's
more than a little bit beyond my mental capabilities and
maybe slightly beyond yours to give really strong legal opinions
about how this would play out in court. You know,
I mean, you might have an opinion, and I think
you actually do have an even though you're not a lawyer,

(56:02):
but it seems like you think.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
The Trump administration is more likely than not to lose.

Speaker 13 (56:08):
I think that if it were to go before the
current Supreme Court, and you know, it's unlikely during the
Trump's term that it would get there, I would think,
but three of the justices are still there that dissented,
So it's very plausible that they could win a case
based on the legal arguments that said, if they challenge
the idea that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and so on.

(56:32):
Going back to the text of the Clean Air Act,
it's a very difficult case to actually make because it
is so clear, because it's so broad.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
So one of the things that.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Strikes me as having been very noticeable by its absence
is the lack of conversation about cost benefit of analysis
with some of this stuff, which I know even though
you and I have some modest disagreements about the importance
of the underlying problem. I think you and I think
cost benefit analysis a pretty reasonable thing. So why does

(57:03):
it seem like we haven't seen much of that.

Speaker 13 (57:08):
So under the Obama and then the Biden administration, they
invented a concept, or employed a concept that was invented
in academia called the social cost of carbon. And the
idea was to come up with how much it costs
society for every ton of carbon that's emitted into the atmosphere.
And it turns out it's a very plastic number. You

(57:28):
can come up with any number you want, So I
don't remember what it was exactly, like one hundred and
eighty dollars per ton under the Obama administration and the
Trump administration came in and they reduced it to seven
dollars a ton, and they're both equally plausible, and so
they employed cost benefit in kind of a you know,
a fake sort of way to get the answer that

(57:50):
they wanted. And so there is cost benefit analysis, but
the problem is it doesn't really touch the ground.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
So just moving away now from sort of government and
the intricacies of politics and so on, for just ordinary people.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Why is this conversation important?

Speaker 1 (58:08):
How can this conversation result in something that impacts your
daily life.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Yeah, so everybody gets a power build.

Speaker 13 (58:17):
We get Excel bills here in Colorado, and if there
are regulations put onto power plants that burn natural gas
or cold, you're going to see your electricity bill go up,
and people don't like that. If you drive a car
that's powered on gasoline or diesel, like most people are
these days, you're going to see the price of the
pump go up. And the idea is that with these

(58:39):
regulations you can create a more favorable environment for cleaner
burning fuels.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
And so there's a tension there between.

Speaker 13 (58:47):
Higher prices to motivate people and the fact that people
don't like higher prices. It's a political loser in pretty
much under any administration.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
And I think you and I would probably agree that
under the last two Democratic administrations they placed more emphasis
and more of their own goals on reducing greenhouse gases,
and Trump is placing more emphasis on cost of living
led Just to put it in the plainest term.

Speaker 13 (59:17):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's perfectly fair, and I
mean the reality is regulation is important. Anyone who is
alive in the sixties and seventies knows that you know,
there's dirty water, dirty air, and we've all benefited from
those improvements. But it does have to be balanced with
cost of living issues. And so I would say, you know,
neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have really engaged in

(59:38):
smart regulation. It's more political posturing as regulation. So we've
had this climate ping pong back and forth between the
administrations for at least twenty years.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
We're talking with Roger Pilk, Senior Fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute AEI dot org, and he has a fantastic
must subscribe substack called the Honest Broker. You can just
go look up the Honest Broker substack and you'll find it.
Make sure you find Rogers, because there might be more
than one with similar name, but make sure you find Rogers.
If you forget any of that, you can find it

(01:00:07):
on my website today as well. So, Roger, let's say
I made you an advisor to the president. Or let's
say our mutual friend Chris Wright resigned for a day,
and you were Secretary of Energy for a day, and
you were given the task to give the president a

(01:00:31):
few bullet points of the most important things that should
and shouldn't be in regulation of carbon dioxide in particular.
Forget the other greenhouse gases for now, what would be
on your bullet points what must be in there and
what must not be in there to give us the
most sane policy.

Speaker 13 (01:00:49):
Yeah, So the Cleaner Act for other types of pollution
already has some language that's really important. It talks about
the importance of deploying the best available technologies. And so
the best available technologies are those that are the cleanest
to operate, the lowest costs, and are proven. So, for example,
coal energy, it's not very popular, it's been declining for

(01:01:10):
economic reasons for a long time. Natural gas is plentiful.
The US is the world's leading producer. It's a powerhouse.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
We should be moving off of coal onto natural gas.

Speaker 13 (01:01:24):
Nuclear power is absolutely a wonderful technology and it's advancing
very quickly. One great proposal that came out of the
Department of Energy is to cite new nuclear power plants
where coal plants have been shuttered or will be shuttered,
they're already connected to the grid. So in this era
of AI and data centers and this recognition, we're going

(01:01:44):
to need a lot more electricity in this country. We
ought to be doing everything we can to deploy the
best available technologies everywhere we can. On the other side,
on the technologies that we use, I tell people I'm
old enough. Remember the great light bulb Wars of twenty
eleven when people thought about light bulb.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
Now you go to home depot and.

Speaker 13 (01:02:04):
There's a whole wall of LEDs that last for fifteen
or twenty years.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
Great lights, great technology, and they're inexpensive. So a lot
of the battles over energy I.

Speaker 13 (01:02:14):
Think can be deffused by advancing technology such that the
choices become obvious.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
All right, let me just.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Refocus on one part of my question that I don't
think you got to, and that is what is something
that is currently in regulation about carbon dioxide that you
think is counterproductive?

Speaker 13 (01:02:36):
So the Biden administration put forward rules that the Trump
administration is unwinding that said that fossil fuel power plants,
natural gas, and coal had to have carbon capture technology,
and carbon capture doesn't.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Exist at scale.

Speaker 13 (01:02:52):
So I would take out of regulation the dependence upon
expected future technologies that don't ex us today and have
the requirement that, yes, you have to use the best
technologies that are available. But but you know, for those issues,
I'm a Missourian. You show me if they work, then
let's deploy them. Regulation can help expand the deployment of

(01:03:15):
the best technologies.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
All right, last thing for you and to me, I'll
stick with the Missouri thing for a minute. We've been
told for many years that solar and wind are cheaper
than fossil fuels, and I've never believed that when you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Take out the subsidies. But I'm not looking to debate that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
So to debate that with you, how do you think
that in the absence of large government subsidies that there
either will be or should be a significant place for
more wind and solar in our energy mix.

Speaker 13 (01:03:50):
Yeah, so the first thing I would say is we
got to stop lumping those together, wind and solar.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Yeah, use the term renewables.

Speaker 13 (01:03:56):
Yeah, solar has a fantastic future, and I mean you
can just see that by the rate of deployment all
over the world in places where there are subsidies. Where
there aren't subsidies, win technology is much more challenging both technologically.
It requires a lot of land, a lot of space,
and so I do think that without subsidies. Wind has

(01:04:17):
a limited future. There are some places West Texas, for example,
or Wyoming, eastern Colorado where it might make sense, but
Solar I am very bullish on Roger Pilka Junior.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute a
EI dot org. Subscribe to his substack, Roger Pilka Junior.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
That's Jr.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
For the junior part dot substack dot com. It's called
The Honest Brokers. You can just look that up and
find it. It's all linked on my blog today at
Rosskominski dot com, including the article we were talking about
Frisbees and flatulence.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
Thanks so much for your time as always, Roger. By
the way, great article title.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
Thank you Ross.

Speaker 8 (01:04:56):
Great to be with you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
All right, we'll talk again soon. All right, very cool
guy is He's just brilliant. I'm so happy to be
able to bring him to you on on the show.
He is really an absolute, an absolute treasure. Let me
do just three minutes on a somewhat.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Major national story. It was.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
It was really big last week and it's still simmering.
And that is the renewed focus by the Trump administration
on misdeeds under the Obama administration by intelligence and law
law enforcement officials trying to tie Donald Trump to some
kind of Russian collusion when they knew the story wasn't true.

(01:05:37):
So I actually wrote a lot about this in my
blog today and you can go read more detail. But
let me just share with you a couple of things.
So Director of National Intelligence Telsea Gabbard has announced some things,
put out declassified some documents that show a few things. So,
first of all, and most of it, I'll say, is
stuff we already knew. There's a little bit of new

(01:06:00):
information around the margins, like maybe Barack Obama's involvement was
maybe a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
More than we thought. But the bottom line is there was.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
This, I think true conspiracy among Jim Comey and John
Brennan and probably Barack Obama, although they probably kept him
a little bit at arms distance for deniability purposes. Maybe
Jim Clapper, people like Peter Struck, Lisa Paige, Andrew McCabe

(01:06:28):
for sure, Deputy director of the FBI, people like that
to use information that they knew was not true to
put together and then including basing this on the so
called Steele dossier that they knew was not true, in
order to try to damage Donald Trump going into the election,
and then to try to toward peedo donald Trump's first term,

(01:06:51):
and I have to say they were actually rather successful
on the latter, right. Trump did get some things done
during his first term, but he spent almost all of
it to deal with utter nonsense day after day after day,
bludgeting in the mainstream media, and the outrageous Mueller Commission
and Mueller Report and all that. None of that should

(01:07:12):
ever have existed. So I wanted before I go on
which I'm just gonna one more minute on this, I
want to make very clear that I think a whole
bunch of people in the Obama administration did things that
ranged from violations of rules and ethics to violations of law.
I don't think the violations of law were anything along

(01:07:34):
the lines of treason, but that doesn't mean they're okay.
They certainly abused the FISA process to get FISA warrants
on carter Page and people like that. They also lied
to Congress. Okay, but or I should say, and we've
known all that for a long time. None of this
is new information, right, Just little bits around the edges

(01:07:55):
may be new, but the big picture is all stuff
we knew already, and it seems like Telsea Gabbard put
this out to try to distract from the whole Epstein
story because they're still trying to make that go away.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Here's the problem.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
They've got the Department of Justice talking about it, and
normally the Department of Justice shouldn't be spending their time
their time on things where there are not going to
be criminal charges. And there are not going to be
criminal charges coming out of this for one simple reason
unless they can come up with a colorable theory of
an ongoing conspiracy that lasted well into twenty twenty into

(01:08:32):
twenty twenty one of somehow keeping this whole Russia thing going,
Any criminal activity that was associated with what they did
the first time around is barred from being the basis
of criminal charges by the five year federal statute of
limitations for most federal crimes. Not everything, but most federal crimes.

(01:08:53):
The statute of limitations is five years and it would
be on anything involved with this. So unless they can
prove an ongoing conspiracy, will not be able to file charges.
So this is a tricky thing because there are truly
legitimate issues being raised here and people did really bad
things and should be publicly shamed, especially John Brennan, one

(01:09:16):
of the very very worst. But that doesn't mean the
Trump administration should be taking their time focusing on something
where they will not be able to bring criminal charges.
And they are taking a real risk like they did
with Epstein, in getting their base to hope for the
purp walk of John Brennan or Jim Comey, which is

(01:09:38):
not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
Dragon. No, you remember some other.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Day, I think it was a Monday, and I said
Happy Friday. Do you remember that it was just like
two weeks ago, and you looked at me like I
was brain damaged, which was a correct way to look
at me. I have not seen this t shirt of
yours before today?

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Correct, So can you please describe it for us?

Speaker 10 (01:10:01):
See for those who know have seen the Big Bang theory,
it is a shirt that says rock paper scissors lizard spock.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Rock paper scissors, lizard spock.

Speaker 10 (01:10:11):
Correct, So that's what it says on the front, and
then they have the rules on the back.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
So it is the nerdiest extension of the rock paper
scissors game of all time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Correct. Essentially very good.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Let's see, just a couple of people were responding to
my comments at the end of the last segment about
some of the information.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
Oh we got Dion Sanders, Do we do? We haven't. Yeah,
let's let's take a little bit of this.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
I I've seen Deon Sanders at a press conference wearing
overalls and a cowboy hat and the and the lower
third says Dion Sanders reveals bladder tumor.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
So let's have a listener.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
Yeah, you much love to my son Jr.

Speaker 4 (01:10:52):
Who have not left my side since we found out
what was taking place, not one day. He's been with
me here, been with me and TAXI, been with me
everywhere every day. And I've seen his handsome face. And
I love you to life, son, and I thank you
for everything you bring to the table. But this wasn't easy.

(01:11:19):
Come then, everybody get checked out, because if it wasn't
for me, get tested for something else, they wouldn't have
stumbled up on this. And make sure you go to
the get the right care because we doubt wonderful people
like this. I probably wouldn't be sitting here today because

(01:11:40):
it grew so expeditiously I could say, or please get
yourself checked out, especially African American men. We don't like
going to the doctors. We don't like nothing to do
with the doctor, you know that. So I'm not just
talking to the brothers. I'm talking to my Caucasian brothers,
my Hispanic brothers, my Asian brothers, everybody, and my sol

(01:12:00):
And that's all y'all get checked out, because it could
have been a whole another gathering if I had. I'm thankful.
It's been a tremendous journey. It's been tough. I think
I dropped twenty five pounds. I was like Atlanta Valcon

(01:12:22):
Prime at one point, you know, and just dealing with
the catheter, dealing with all the stuff that I had
to deal with. And right now I'm still dealing with
going to the bathroom like it's a whole life change.
Like I can't and I'm gonna be transparent. I can't
pee like I used to pee. It's totally different. And

(01:12:47):
she not only is a blessing, but she provided other
persons that have gone through what I've gone through so
that I could talk to them and get some solace
and understand like what I'm facing not just from a
doctor but from another individual, and the half having a
toll like it it's a totally different light. I mean,
thank God, I'm now I'm done. I depend on depend

(01:13:10):
you know, if you know what I mean. I truly
depend on depend Like I cannot control my bladder. So
I get up to go to the bathroom already four
or five times a night. But then I'm sitting up
there waking up, you know, like my grandson were in
the same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
We got the same problem right now, we going through the.

Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
Same child and tribulations. We try to see who has
a head of his bag at the end of the
night like this. It's ridiculous, but I'm making a joke
out of it, but it's real, like it is real.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
It is real. It is real.

Speaker 4 (01:13:46):
So if you see poor the party on the sideline
is real. Okay, I'm just telling you right now, you're
gonna see it. You're gonna see the practice. You gonna
see one because it is is unbelievable, like dozing off
and waking up first day. I'm grabbing my properts to
see if if if I feede on myself, and uh.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
It's just totally different.

Speaker 4 (01:14:08):
And I know it's a lot of people out there
going through what I'm going through and dealing with what
I'm dealing with and let's stop being ashamed of it,
and let's deal with it. And let's deal with it,
you know. And uh, it's so many other companies I
did to do a wonderful job. But I'm thankful that, uh,
you know, we have a relationship with the PAM and

(01:14:30):
we're making some other products, trying to make other products
that to help all of us through. But it's it's
been tremendous these two. Uh, Lauren came down to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
All right, let's let's leave it there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
But I got a I got a few things to say.
I think a lot of people are going to have
a few things to say. First, Holy cal how about
that for just being transparent, to use the word of
the year.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
Perhaps that that is some radical transparency there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
How about the level of self confidence a guy has
to have to come out on television and talk about
all that stuff, and then he's making jokes at his
own expense a little a little bit while simultaneously.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
Talking about a serious thing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
I mean, can you imagine and this is now what
I'm about to say is not a joke. Imagine seeing
Dion Sanders like doing ads for depends or something like it, Right,
I mean, he seemed like he was talking about already
doing some kind of business with them or some kind
of product development.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
With the Yeah, I mean, and he's primed.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
So's there's always a deal right when it when it
comes to Coach Prime.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
But so we missed the first minute or two of that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
But what I see at the bottom of the screen,
and I've got one of my TVs here in the
station is on our news partners at kadv R Fox
thirty one, and the headline there at the bottom of
screen is Deon Sanders reveals bladder tumor removed, successful surgeries
and progress reported. One thing I have absolutely no idea

(01:16:00):
and would not begin to speculate, is this issue that
he's talking about where he can't control his bladders. We
have to, you know, go to the bathroom very frequently
and where you know, adult diapers as he described them.
I don't know if that is a situation that will
heal over time to where you get back to being
able to control. I'm not going to speculate.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
I truly don't have a guess.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
I have absolutely no idea, and even probably a doctor
might or might not have a guess because you might
need to know more about the procedure that right before
you can make guess. So I have no idea. I
hope for his sake that that all gets better. But
what a remarkable thing for him to for him to
come out and reveal all that dragon.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Do you want to add anything.

Speaker 10 (01:16:43):
I'd just say it's pretty ballsy. Sorry to have that
kind of confidence to come forward. I mean, I'm pretty
private when it comes to my medical stuff, but so
having somebody come out and say, hey, this is a
problem I'm dealing with it and have that sense of
humor to it. I can relate to that kind of thing,
having the sense of humor to self deprecating, you know,

(01:17:04):
I get that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
But yeah, that's something one other quick comment Dion Sanders
said explicitly, and then it expanded a little more, but
he explicitly at least initially addressed some of his comments
along the lines of go to the doctor and get
checked up to black men and black people in general.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
And it's absolutely true.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
Based on poll after poll for not just years, but decades,
that African Americans tend to be more reticent to go
to doctors. And part of that I think comes from
you know, some terrible like medical experimentation. You know, the
history that was done on African Americans that caused a
fully understandable reticence or mistrust, a certain degree of mistrust

(01:17:51):
that at least some of the African American community.

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
Has with the medical system.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
And Coach Prime was was really in particular exhorting African Americans, Hey,
get to the doctor. And then he expanded it to say,
and I'm talking to my white brothers and my Asian
brothers and so on. But it was really, I thought,
an important thing for him to say, because he's not
wrong about that. It's it's you know, it's not a stereotype.
It's it's well known from data over many, many years

(01:18:18):
that African Americans probably don't go to the doctor as
often as they should or as soon as they should.
What a remarkable press conference from Coach Prime. We'll be
right back listener requests for music in quite a while.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
We need to true need to get back to that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
If you want Dragon to play something as listener as
bumper music coming into a segment, just text us at
five six six nine zero and he will consider it.
He's in charge, he gets to decide what gets played.
I really have nothing to do with it. Coach Deon
Sanders is still giving a press conference. I don't know
that we need to drop in again, but I'll just
say I'll just sort of give you the headline here.

(01:18:55):
So Dion Sanders apparently has had a couple dozen't maybe
surgeries in the last few years to deal with a
bladder tumor that was removed. And I saw a headline fourteen,
not a couple, doesn't fourteen, it's fourteen surgeries since twenty
twenty one, and the news channel here katiev R Fox

(01:19:15):
thirty one says he.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
Has a new bladder. If you weren't listening during the
last segment of the show, well even if you were.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
Coach Prime, we dropped in on the on the press
conference and he talked a lot about those struggles and
how he can't control.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
His new bladder.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
I said, I have no idea, and I didn't hear
him say, because we haven't listened to the whole thing,
and I don't know if he's mentioned it, whether he
will be able to control his new bladder. But in
any case, he was very, very open and transparent about
these challenges, having to go to the bathroom so frequently,
having to wear you know, as he you know, he said,
he said, my infant grandson or whatever it was, and

(01:19:55):
I are in the same situation, meaning they're both wearing
diapers and they both you know, just can't control their
p And it was a remarkable thing to hear somebody
that famous in that, you know, that much of a
star come out with this rather vulnerable you might say, openness.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
It was, it was really, it was really something. I
do think there was a.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
Little bit of worry going into the news conference, including
from some of my colleagues here at Kaway, because we thought,
or that they thought my.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
Colleagues were paying more attention than I am.

Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
That he would be talking about medical stuff and we
were concerned. Or Rob Dawson, for example, was concerned, well,
what if coach Prime announces that he's going to step
down and I is so far he has not said that,
And if you were gonna say that, I think you
would have said it already. So uh, And now Fox
News is picking it up as well. National Fox News

(01:20:50):
Dion Sanders reveals he had bladder cancer.

Speaker 8 (01:20:53):
Well he was.

Speaker 10 (01:20:53):
He was talking about having you know, a porta potty
on the side, right so right in he's saying close
to stepping down.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
Right right, and it was just the opposite. He's like,
this is what it looked like when I'm back. So
I think that's that's great news for a lot of
reasons that Coach Prime isn't isn't leaving. Gosh, I have
so many things I still want to want to share
with you. Let me let me do this one quickly,
and then in the next segment of the show, I'm
gonna I'm gonna start by talking about what Lebron James's

(01:21:25):
lawyers just had, why Lebron James's lawyers just had to
get in touch with an AI company, And we'll get
to that, but let me just do one other thing quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
You, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
Recall hearing that during in one of those ridiculous COVID
massive spending bills of a Biden infrastructure bill, that they
allocated billions of dollars to installing electric vehicle chargers around
the country, and James lynch Over at National Review reports

(01:21:58):
fewer than four hundred electrical vehicle chargers were built with
are you ready for this seven and a half billion
dollars in federal infrastructure funding, which comes out to more
than nineteen million dollars per charger.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
And this is not.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
The analysis of some conservative organization. This is the analysis
of the government's GAO, the General the Government Accountability Office.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
And I mean, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
That's just absolutely insane, and that seems a little high,
a little high. And let me give you, just very
briefly here part of the reason it ended up that high.
And once you understand what was going on, I think
you won't actually be surprised, because part of me, when
I see they did four hundred chargers, part of me
is surprised the number is so low. But part of

(01:22:46):
me is also surprised the number is so high because listen.

Speaker 11 (01:22:48):
To this.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Construction. So the Biden officials.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
Claimed that they were going to be half a million
EV chargers by five years from now under this construction
quickly became down by an executive order requiring that grant
applicants requiring that beneficiaries of forty percent of all federal
climate environmental programs should come from underserved communities, and in

(01:23:14):
order to qualify for a grant, applicants must demonstrate how
meaningful public involvement inclusive of disadvantaged communities, will occur throughout
a project's lifestyle life cycle. So in other words, in
order to get a grant to build these electrical chargers,
you had to go explain how it was going to
benefit some Hispanic community, or some black community, or or

(01:23:36):
the lesbians or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
It was absolutely nuts, and that's why nobody did it.
Almost nobody did it. It's beyond stupid. It's barely imaginable,
even for the Biden administration. We should do bump a
request anyway, So maybe right after a Rod, just pretend
it's like a new segment.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Should we do that? Should we pretend we can?

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
We can pretend we've got four segments this out or
instead of three?

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Should we try? Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
You don't seem very enthusiastic because it's more work for me.

Speaker 3 (01:24:07):
I don't.

Speaker 10 (01:24:07):
I don't ever want to purposefully make more work for myself.

Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
Who are you, producer, Shannon?

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
I'm half the line I'd expect from Shannon, not from you.

Speaker 9 (01:24:16):
What you sure?

Speaker 8 (01:24:19):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:24:21):
All right, Let's talk to another producer, one who isn't
lazy or complaining or complaining. Let's talk with producer A Rod,
who joins us from Broncos training camp, where he's wearing
very stylish and exceptionally reflective sunglasses and and and he's
just checking out what's going on out there. In the
first day of practice with with pads, right a.

Speaker 12 (01:24:43):
Rod that is right, the first day with pads. They
just wrapped up a little bit of a team period.
Now kind of looks like the entire squad looks to
be doing some sort of sprints all the way down
each sidelights each into the field here. So I'm not
sure whether that's planned or punishment based on how the
team periods are going.

Speaker 8 (01:24:59):
But but yeah, the pads have been popping.

Speaker 12 (01:25:01):
We've seen a couple extra players shine more here on
this day.

Speaker 8 (01:25:05):
But it's always a good day when you get the
pads on.

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
I'm kind of curious.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
So when I was out there on when was I
there Friday, it was a warm day but not terribly hot.
Yesterday was hot. Today is hot again, And now they're
in pads. Are you can you tell anything from your
vantage point of whether the combination of pads and temperatures
is affecting anything.

Speaker 8 (01:25:27):
It absolutely is.

Speaker 12 (01:25:29):
I selfishly and have been enjoying the little bits of
shade that I can find, so ninety percent of my
time has been in the shade. But these players cannot
say the same. And I'll tell you one example that
immediately gave away the fact that it is very hot
out there, and that much more so with the Pads
linebacker new edition the Broncos, Drake Greenlaw came over from
the San Francisco forty nine ers he was tasked with.

(01:25:49):
I think it was the play he was trying to
chase down rookie running back RJ. Harvey down the sideline
and had to do it so much speed that he
seemed to be pretty darn gassed after doing so. I
think that was a factor. And Uh, he's obviously a
guy that's trying to get worked back in. He he's
missed some time uh early on in the offseason program
with the injury he's been dealing with. But he was gassed,
had to be on his knee quite a bit, went

(01:26:11):
up and down from that knee. I think that's kind
of a microcosm of the heat out here. So it's
impacting these guys for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:26:16):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Uh, tell me a little bit about how the how
it feels to you having the spectators in bleachers kind
of behind where you and I set, rather than what
we had known for many years over on the hill
to the side.

Speaker 12 (01:26:32):
Yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely very very different. I mean
with the with the berm over on that side near
the Pat Bowl and field House as it's called.

Speaker 8 (01:26:39):
As what it was called, I should.

Speaker 12 (01:26:40):
Say, uh, you know, the number was about three thousand
fans that that we were able to fill up that thing,
and then it was a real more a more personal experience,
especially for the fans after practice. The only really, the
only thing separating the fans from the players after the
practice was that thin that thin rope where players could
go right up to the to the fans afterwards and
get that personal touch with the autographs, have little conversations

(01:27:02):
with them and take pictures.

Speaker 8 (01:27:04):
They still are doing, you.

Speaker 12 (01:27:05):
Know, autographs, and I'm not necessarily sure about pictures, but
they do walk up to those that bleacher side over
here to the left of our broadcast area. But it's
you know, it's down from three thousand fans to I've
been told. I find it hard to believe, but the
number there looks like they could fit eight hundred over there.

Speaker 8 (01:27:19):
I don't know about that, but.

Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
I don't know either.

Speaker 12 (01:27:21):
It doesn't look like eight to me. No hundred would
be pushing it. It's a little less personal. But but but,
but the players are still making a concerted effort, whether
they're being you know, asked to do so or not,
are they doing on their own delision. They are walking
over very often early on in the practice to get
the crowd all ramped up. They're they're throwing their hands
up in the air. They're coming over in packs at
times to keep keep those the smaller amount of fans

(01:27:42):
still engaged.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
Yeah, I noticed that on Friday when I was over there.
You know, maybe there would be some play that was
going in that direction with two or three players running
that way just as part of the play.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
And at the end of the play they just keep.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
Going and run all the way up basically to right
in front of the bleachers and kind of you know,
like raise their hands up in the air and get
every body cheering, which is kind of fun.

Speaker 8 (01:28:02):
Yeah, it is fun. And again, you have to you
have to do what you can with this situation.

Speaker 12 (01:28:06):
I was talking with with Nick ferguson yesterday, who's who's
been chatting with some of the higher ups, uh you
know here here here in the organization and and they
think that this, you know, this should be should be
and could be a really short term thing, maybe just
a one year thing. And you know, there's there's talk
that this the main building that is being really replaced,
could you know, could be fully taken down. We have
I've never read or seen any confirmation on that, but

(01:28:27):
that could be where a new.

Speaker 8 (01:28:28):
Berm could be.

Speaker 12 (01:28:29):
It could be it could be permanent stands if they
decided to.

Speaker 8 (01:28:31):
Go that route.

Speaker 12 (01:28:32):
So so this stand that what they've did in a
short period of time and for it, it for it,
you know, potentially being only a one year temporary situation,
they've done done a pretty darn good job.

Speaker 8 (01:28:41):
And again it's it's it's training camp.

Speaker 12 (01:28:43):
You know, a lot of us are still out here,
you know, we're we're covering this thing for the fans
that can't be here. Now that's obviously even a smaller number.
So so they're doing the best that they can and
they've they've done a really good job. The situation they
have over here with these fans and the cool little
set up they have behind with the with the water
stations and the merch and whatnot.

Speaker 8 (01:28:56):
They're doing a good job with it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
All. Right, last question for you, a rod Uh, You're
watching this pretty closely, and you're over there every day now,
So picked just for fun one player, not counting a
quarterback who has been kind of standing out to you
today or today and yesterday.

Speaker 8 (01:29:14):
Well, I'm a quick talker.

Speaker 12 (01:29:15):
I'm gonna give you really fast too, because number one,
I have a big time running backs guy, and the
rookie running back RJ. Harvey is showing that he is special.
He has some serious burst. He is a bowling ball
that has some serious speed. He's probably got one of
the fastest spin moves I've seen of any of the
NFL running back that was yesterday.

Speaker 8 (01:29:31):
He's an electric.

Speaker 12 (01:29:32):
But I will tell you today, even though it's a
pad's day, we are now seeing while Lebroncos drafted a
punter with Jeremy Crash out of Florida, This dude, we
were timing it out there and a lot of our
times were close. The NFL's punters typically fall between four
and a half four and a half and five seconds
in terms of airtime. He was closing out more of
five seconds. I even registered a five point three second airtime,

(01:29:52):
which for NFL punters is gnarly. So to have him
do that, I think that you know it's a game
of inches here in the NFL. So having him do
that's gonna be really big for flipping the feel for
the Bronco's gonna be really big for them this season.

Speaker 1 (01:30:05):
You know, it's it's funny that you mentioned him. Well,
not funny, but I when when our boss Dave Tepper
asked me, like, you know, is there any Bronco you
might like to try to talk to, which is not
always the easiest thing to get done, especially for a
show like mine that isn't really a sports show.

Speaker 12 (01:30:20):
But I said, I want to talk to the punter.
Do you know why we'll forget to talk to him.
Number one, he's Australian there you know you know that.
But number two, wait till you see him up close,
because dudes got a wicked mustache. I mean, this thing
has this thing is like a full on caterpillar on
on the on the upper left. It's got some curl
action and he's got we obviously we interviewed him, you know,

(01:30:41):
the day he got drafted or the day after he
got drafted, maybe both. And he's got an amazing accent
gray voice.

Speaker 8 (01:30:47):
Great guy.

Speaker 12 (01:30:47):
And then you want some personality with your punter, I
don't think NFL coaches want a personality with their punter.

Speaker 8 (01:30:51):
They just wanted to punt the damn ball.

Speaker 12 (01:30:53):
But if you're punting, if you're getting airtime of five
plus seconds and five point three was the highest winner registered,
you can have all the personality, all the mustag, the
Australian accent that you want. So I think they're all
about it no matter what it was.

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
Yes, for sure, And of course I wanted to talk
to him because he's Australian, because my wife is Australian
and I lived.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
There for a while.

Speaker 8 (01:31:10):
I fell in love with the guy. He's really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
Yeah, I'm just saying, yeah, I would, I would.

Speaker 8 (01:31:13):
I would love to put a wife on notice.

Speaker 1 (01:31:15):
Yeah, all right, I will.

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):
That's producer A Rod.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
Are you wearing your exceptionally reflective sunglasses right now as
you're talking to us?

Speaker 8 (01:31:23):
I am.

Speaker 12 (01:31:24):
I followed suit of Ryan Edwards unintentionally, and apparently people
really don't like when you wear sunglasses and social media
videos so they don't want to see the reflection of
being being a one man banding holding up a selbies.
So I've got the tripod to appease that one person
who really, really really was upset about me wearing sunglasses
in a video, but hey, it's hot out here. My eyes,
I'm trying to protect them, but you know, I guess

(01:31:45):
you know, not for everybody, but they are.

Speaker 8 (01:31:48):
I am wearing them right now. They're very nice and
they're Oakley, so they're really fancy.

Speaker 1 (01:31:51):
That is Producer A Rod from Broncos training camp. I
will note one other thing that has nothing to do
with football. Listeners who have been paying attention will know
that the over the course of this month, we have
done twelve giveaways and one of these days twelve giveaways
of entries into the final giveaway, which is gonna be
for a big fire pit. And A Rod is intimately

(01:32:12):
involved with this whole thing. So A Rod, you have
collected the twelve names, correct?

Speaker 12 (01:32:16):
I have collected eleven, and I'm checking literally as we speak,
checking the direct messages of our Twitter account, and there
is one winner right now on Twitter who still has
not responded. So we're have eleven of twelve, okay, and
I am now giving each person that twelve opportunity to
keep getting back in. So if you submitted on Twitter
last week, there's still a chance. If I have to
move on from another potential winner. You may still be

(01:32:38):
the twelfth. So do me say their name. They're probably
listener to your show.

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
Yeah, okay, well, so what you're gonna give their name
and then the person has to do what? Respond to
you by direct respond to KOA Colorado by direct message
on X.

Speaker 8 (01:32:52):
Yes, specifically X.

Speaker 12 (01:32:53):
This is the second person I had to move on
from the first person that was my choice.

Speaker 8 (01:32:56):
And now Roger.

Speaker 12 (01:32:58):
If you are a listener to Ross Roger on X
at KLA Colorado, check your DM because I'm gonna have
to move on from you at the end of the
day because we got to get this twelve person before
we do our big time giveaway later this week.

Speaker 1 (01:33:09):
Okay, yeah, sometime probably either Wednesday or Thursday.

Speaker 2 (01:33:12):
We'll do the we'll do the final giveaway.

Speaker 4 (01:33:14):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Thanks for your help with all that, a Rod, and
thanks for reporting from training camp. We'll probably talk with
you every day this week at least that I'm here.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
I'm out Friday, but we'll probably get to you every
other day.

Speaker 8 (01:33:23):
Sounds like a plan. I'll be here all right.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:33:25):
That's producer A Rod with his reflective sunglasses or with
that bumper music request by whoever asked for ask for
that I did see.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Did the person who asked for that.

Speaker 10 (01:33:36):
They didn't give a name, but you you warmed my heart.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Dragon.

Speaker 10 (01:33:39):
Please pick Godzilla by Blue Uster Court for some bumper music.
Thank you you are the man. Did you take out
your trash this morning? I don't see that you responded
to himn't respond. No, but I did not take out
my trash this morning, even though I do have enough
to wear that I could.

Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
Okay, keep those cards and letters coming as far as
requests for bumper music, although there won't be more bumper
music today, but just generally keep in comming and Dragon,
will you.

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
Know, go along with the suggestions that he likes? All right?

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
I promised you a little story about Lebron James's lawyers.

Speaker 2 (01:34:14):
So what is this about?

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
Earlier in the show, I shared with you a story
about how somebody was creating AI songs that they were
attributing to currently deceased and I imagine in the future
they will probably still be deceased artists and posting them

(01:34:39):
without the knowledge or approval of the artists label. Somehow
getting them onto the artist channel or playlist or something
on Spotify, and Spotify is taking them down and they're
going to try to figure out how to sort this out.
And you know, it was you know, various kinds of
shenanigans that you can do with AI. So with this

(01:35:00):
particular story, this is pretty crazy. The creators of here's
the headline. Here's the headline, Lebron James's lawyers since ceased
and desist letter to AI company making pregnant.

Speaker 2 (01:35:16):
Videos of him. What have you? Have you heard this story? Dragon?
Do you know this story?

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):
No, I'm gonna I'm actually gonna try. Oh my gosh.
So I was supposed to have a guest here and
I and I didn't. Yeah, I know, another another guest,
another guest. All right, I'm just I'm just emailing him

(01:35:42):
back and apologizing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
So the thing with AI, it gets better and better
and better, and it can make more and more realistic
versions of almost anything.

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):
So we were just talking about it making a realistic version,
somewhat realistic version of a song, right, and to the
extent that they're at least going to try posting it
as like a new release by a dead guy, like
a newly found song that had.

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):
Never been released before. In YadA, YadA, YadA, So.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
People can make all kinds of all kinds of things,
of course, and now that AI is getting better and
better and better, there are also issues of with with video,
with AI creating video or or still pictures of anybody.

(01:36:31):
And I'm just trying to get to my log in
here because this this website logged me out and I'm
trying to get back in as fast as i can.
Here we go so that i can share the story
with you, because it's pretty crazy thing. And you do
wonder a little bit where you get into some copyright
kind of issues, like what are you really allowed to
prevent people from creating?

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
So let me share some of this with you. This
is from four oh four.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
Media dot Co, not dot com, but four oh four
media dot Co, the creators of an AI tool and
discord community that allowed people to create AI videos of
NBA stars. Says that it got a seasoned assist letter
from lawyers representing Lebron James. This marks one of the
first known times that a high profile celebrity has threatened
legal action against an AI company for enabling the creation

(01:37:20):
of non consensual AI imagery of their likeness. It is
also one of the first times we've seen such a
celebrity take legal action against the type of non non
consensual but not strictly sexual type of AI generated content
which is rampant on Instagram and other social media. This
reporter says, in March, I wrote about brain rot ai

(01:37:44):
that was regularly going viral on Instagram, a lot of
the most popular and I guess this is what critics
are calling the category. But brain rot ai videos featured
Lebron James and were created using a tool called interlink ai,
which runs on a larger AI generation platform called flick

(01:38:04):
Up flick capital up. On the interlink ai discord channel,
people were learning how to make the videos with detailed
guides that in some cases explained exactly how to make
videos of Lebron James, high profile creators. There were racking
up millions of views on Instagram. And remember, I'll interject

(01:38:27):
here the way you make money on social media platforms
is by getting an insane number of views and subscribers
to your channel.

Speaker 2 (01:38:36):
And then most of these platforms.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Will pay you a fraction of a penny per view,
but only after you are above some certain number of views,
because the platforms put advertising in there, and so in
a sense, you get a fraction of a penny by
driving someone to see or maybe see an advertisement.

Speaker 2 (01:38:52):
So that's how that's how that works.

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):
But they were getting millions of views on Instagram making
AI generated videos of Lebron James Steph Curry, and these
included videos where an AI generated Lebron James stood by
as an AI generated p Diddy sexually assaulted Steph Curry
in prison. Also videos of Lebron James imagined as a

(01:39:18):
homeless person, videos of Lebron James on his knees with
his tongue out, and videos of Lebron James pregnant. In
late June, the mods these are the people who control
these various channels. The mods of the Interlink AI discord
community told members they decided to remove all realistic people

(01:39:40):
models from the platform, and they said this change comes
after we ran into legal issues involving a highly valued
basketball player, and to avoid any further complications, we've chosen
to take a proactive approach and remove all realistic likenesses
from the site. We know this may be disappointing for
some of you who were employed the realism in your content,

(01:40:01):
but the move for text the future of the platform
and allows us to focus on building something even bigger.
So there you go, pretty interesting, all right, I want
to do something completely different. I mentioned this a couple
of times during the show today, that Tom Larr has
passed away. I have been enjoying Tom Lrer music since

(01:40:22):
I was a kid, because my parent, my mom in particular,
had been enjoying Tom Larr music since she was a teenager.

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
Tom Larr is a brilliant.

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
Mathematician who I think taught at Caltech and definitely taught
at UC Santa Cruz, and I think he was maybe
also associated with MIT, a really brilliant mathematician who wrote
these simple, satirical and slightly twisted songs that it just
him playing on piano. I shared with you Poisoning Pigeons

(01:40:52):
in the Park earlier, which is probably his most famous song.
He did a rendition of it with the London Symphony
Orchestra at some point, or the London filarm On with whatever,
and that was just great. And I actually thought that
he had passed away a long time ago, because I
hadn't heard anything from him about him for many many years.
But I learned over the weekend that he just passed

(01:41:12):
away at the age of ninety seven. He's interesting in
that he's he's fairly famous, and he only has something
like thirty or thirty five published songs in his entire catalog,
but they're all just so so good.

Speaker 2 (01:41:29):
And a listener.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
Earlier asked me to play a little bit of this one.
It's called the Vatican Rag.

Speaker 6 (01:41:40):
First, you get down on your knees, fiddle with your
ros there is bow your head with great perspective.

Speaker 11 (01:41:47):
Jenu flec genuflec, genu flex.

Speaker 2 (01:41:50):
Make do whatever steps you want him. You have cleared
them with the pot.

Speaker 11 (01:41:53):
If everybody say his own kirie lay his own doing
the Vatican r. Yet in line and not professional. Step
into that small confessional. They're the guy who's got legeneral'll
tell you if your sins are reginal. If it is,
try playing it safer. Drink the wine and chew the waifer.
Two f six eight time to try and substantiate.

Speaker 2 (01:42:17):
Yet all right, you get the idea.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):
And Mandy just walked in and gave me a look like,
what the heck is this? That's yeah, that's Tom larr
Tom Larra, Yeah, yeah, And he passed away. He just
passed away at the age of ninety seven. I've been
listening to this stuff since I was a little kid.

Speaker 14 (01:42:32):
That's a good run.

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
It's a good run. Just brilliant, brilliant stuff, folks.

Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
I got a lot of it up on my blog
at Rosskominski dot com. Mandy has a lot of stuff
on her blog at mandy'sblog dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
What you got coming up?

Speaker 14 (01:42:44):
I am infuriated right now. We recently had a small
traffic incident that I mentioned briefly on the show. Just
got the police report. Oh, it is so completely detached
from reality. I'm not quite sure what to do, but
Parker PD you should.

Speaker 3 (01:42:58):
Probably listen up.

Speaker 1 (01:43:00):
Wow, Wow, all right, Mandy's gonna Mandy's gonna rant invent
and she's got stuff in things on Shenanigans as well,
probably a lot of Shenanigan's given the mood that she's
in today, everybody's sticking around for Mandy's fabulous show.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
I'll talk to you tomorrow.