Transcript/605: June 17, 2003

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N-N-N-N-N-N-Knowledge Fight

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Dan and Jordan, I am sweating.

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Knowledgefight.com, it's time to pray.

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I have great respect for Knowledgefight.

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I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys saying we are the bad guys.

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So knowledge fight.

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Dan and Jordan

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Knowledge Fight!

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I need money.

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Andy in Kansas.

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Stop it!

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Andy in Kansas.

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It's time to pray.

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Andy in Kansas, you're only here thanks for holding.

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Hello Alex, I'm a fifth grader, here in Japan.

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I love your room!

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Knowledgefight.com

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I love you.

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Hey everybody, welcome back to Knowledge Fight.

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I'm Dan.

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I'm Jordan.

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We're a couple dudes.

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I'd like to sit around, worship at the altar of Selene,

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and talk a little bit about Alex Jones.

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Oh, indeed we are, Dan.

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Jordan.

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Dan.

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Jordan.

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Quick question.

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What's up?

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What's your bright spot today?

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My bright spot today, we're going back to the real basics.

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The real basics.

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Keeping it real super simple.

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Pasta.

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No, but it is a food.

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OK.

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Iced oatmeal cookies.

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Hadn't had one in years.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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It was at the Walgreens.

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And I saw in the impulse buy section.

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Of course.

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A dollar for a bag of iced oatmeal cookies.

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And I said, yeah.

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Are they the kind with the animals?

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No.

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Oh.

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Well, then what's the point?

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The point is delicious oatmeal ginger, kind of.

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I don't know, it's good.

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It's nice.

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I feel like I've erred so strongly

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on the side of chocolate chip and what have you for cookies.

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Sure.

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That iced oatmeal gets left by the wayside, and it's not fair.

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You know, I haven't had an iced cookie in a long time,

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and they are fantastic.

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Yeah, and oatmeal is a solid cookie.

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It just gets done dirty by raisins.

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You know what we've been eating?

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Because I told you a while back we've

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been trying to eat healthier.

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Last night we ate brown bean cookies.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, man.

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Not an iced oatmeal cookie at all.

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I furrowed my brow at you.

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I have no idea what that even means.

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Not cool.

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So I guess that's not your bright spot.

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Not my bright spot.

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What do you got?

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My bright spot, Dan, is I just don't think I've

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talked about it on the show.

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But a few weeks back I did an interview with Mike Wiley,

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a friend of the show, close friend of mine,

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for his podcast or whatever.

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Plastered cast.

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Plastered cast.

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It was a lot of fun.

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I forgot to talk about it, and then I took a look at it

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last night to see if I couldn't remember all the bullshit

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that I said, whatever nonsense I was throwing out there.

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And most of it was about my favorite PSA from the 90s,

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which was an advertisement against meth,

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but unfortunately had a very catchy song about meth.

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Isn't that ooh, meth?

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Yes.

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I think my buddy Hogan would sing that a lot.

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I can't stop.

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It has stuck with me since the 90s,

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and I will take any opportunity to talk about it.

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I do think that most of those drug PSAs from the 90s

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were counterproductive.

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Yeah, not great.

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Not great.

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They had the opposite effect.

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Yeah, the weed ones where it's like, oh, all you're doing

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is sitting at a couch and having a good time,

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and you're like, is that bad?

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Yeah, this is your brain on drugs.

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This is an egg getting cooked.

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OK.

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Huh?

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Huh?

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I'm not going to eat the egg raw.

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Yeah.

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So Jordan, today we have a sneaky snake episode.

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We're going to be going over June 17th, 2003, 2003.

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Wow, my mouth.

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I tripped on all of that.

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It seemed like you were trying to get to Blackjack,

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and then you remembered that it wasn't coming.

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No, you know what it was?

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Too many iced oatmeal cookies.

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You got too much oatmeal in your mouth.

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That'll happen.

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Slowing my jaw down.

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That'll do it.

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But before we get to this 2003 episode,

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chronicling the past and what we can learn from it

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about the present, it's time to say hello to some wonks.

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Oh, that's a great idea.

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So first, Alex's Neck, thank you so much.

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You are now a policy wonk.

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I'm a policy wonk.

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Thanks, Alex's Neck.

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Will that be included in the auction later?

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Probably.

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Next, Corilai and her three weed-smoking girlfriends,

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thank you so much.

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You are now a policy wonk.

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I'm a policy wonk.

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Thank you very much.

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Next, weebles wobble, but they don't fall for disinformation.

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Thank you so much.

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You are now a policy wonk.

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I'm a policy wonk.

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Oh, thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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Next, safe in the tentacles of Jesus, thank you so much.

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You are now a policy wonk.

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I'm a policy wonk.

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Thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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And Chris the Reader, thank you so much.

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You are now a policy wonk.

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I'm a policy wonk.

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Thank you very much.

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Chris the Reader.

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And we got a technocrat to say hello to.

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So I'd like to say hello.

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And thank you to, hmm, well, I'm not

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comfortable saying this out loud until I'm

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sure it's not some new kink with an Alex Jones mask.

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Anyway, you know who you are.

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You are now a technocrat.

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I'm a policy wonk.

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Crikey, mate.

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That's fantastic.

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Have yourself a brew.

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How's your 401k doing, bro?

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We got to go full tilt boogie on this, Watson, all right?

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Let's just get down to business.

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We ain't making that money off that heroin.

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Why you pimps so good?

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My neck is freakishly large.

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I declare info war on you.

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Thank you so much.

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Yes, thank you.

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You know, a lot of them are funny.

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Some of them are puns.

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Some of them are just names.

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That one, I think, is the first one that I've really found

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bewildering.

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I think we should set a character limit.

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Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

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Pre-Twitter, too.

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140.

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Not doing this 280 shit.

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Here's what we're going to do.

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Only one dependent clause.

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Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

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And also, for some reason, no split infinitives.

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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So Jordan, we're going to start off this show.

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This is going to be a little bit of a shorter episode

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because there's not a ton that happens,

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but some stuff that is definitely worth discussing.

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Excellent.

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And I found very interesting.

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But you know, a good section of the episode

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is Alex talking to Larry Pratt from Gun Owners for America.

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And legit, it's just, wah, I love guns.

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Yeah, they like guns.

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There's nothing interesting going on.

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It's just like, well, Bush is going

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to renew the assault weapons ban.

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Hooray!

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He didn't.

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Boo!

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Yay!

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Boo!

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Yeah, making people afraid of something

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that doesn't end up happening.

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Yeah.

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And so it's kind of pointless.

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Fair.

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But Alex does have some things to say that are kind of relevant

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to the situation we find ourselves in today.

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Interesting.

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He is very worried about an article

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that he read that has to do with a scientist declaring

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that the end of the world, or the apocalypse,

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is a 50-50 chance.

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Ha, ha, ha, ha!

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That's a good article.

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He believes.

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It either happens or it doesn't, 50-50.

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Yeah.

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Alex believes that the most likely scenario

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for the end of the world is the release of a super bio weapon.

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Interesting.

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Yes.

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OK.

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And some of the support for why he thinks this

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is a little dodgy.

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OK.

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And then the really dangerous thing,

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the thing that I think is the greatest threat,

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and they mentioned a bunch of other things in this article

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that we'll get into later in the next segment,

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is genetic engineered pathogens getting turned loose.

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And we know that porting down bio weapons

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lab over in the United Kingdom in Wiltshire

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produces and has level four status, and is underground,

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and has three rings of barbed wire around it minefields.

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But that didn't stop four years ago from someone releasing

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weaponized foot and mouth.

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Of course, two months before it showed up

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in over a dozen locations simultaneously,

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that's not how natural outbreaks behave.

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They don't show up in Scotland, and Wales,

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and Northern Ireland in the same week by accident.

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But to go back, porting down bio weapons lab

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had contacted the different counties in the United Kingdom

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and told them, prepare masses of fire, prepare masses of wood.

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They don't have a lot of woods in England.

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I remember it was a very expensive undertaking,

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the article said.

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They masked all these pyres.

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They said, prepare for some type of large outbreak,

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perhaps foot and mouth.

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Then suddenly, foot and mouth showed up.

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And porting down said, we think an animal rights

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activist stole this out of our lab, and it got released.

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That's 13 monkeys.

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OK, let's buy their story that an animal rights

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activist stole it.

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How did an animal rights activist

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get into an underground base guarded by the army?

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Real fast, none of that is true.

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I was going to say, that sounds bononkers.

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Yeah, we talked about this foot and mouth issue

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in a previous 2003 episode, so I'm not going

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to repeat all that stuff here.

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But there's one detail in that telling of the story

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that I've not heard Alex include in the narrative in the past.

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Interesting.

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In previous times, I've heard him talk about this.

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I've not heard Alex say that porting down claimed

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that an animal rights activist broke in and stole

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the foot and mouth, which then got released.

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Yeah, Bruce Willis claimed that that happened.

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That is an interesting wrinkle.

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Also, by the way, another detail that's just absurd

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that he doesn't usually include is that porting down

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called these farms and told them,

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get ready for an outbreak.

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Yeah, that one was interesting.

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That's nonsense.

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We talked about what the reality of that

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is on a previous episode.

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That was like the Ministry of Agriculture.

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They do that every year.

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They call and say, hey, are you prepared

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for possible sick animals?

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So there's a real problem with the chain of events

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that Alex is expressing that's immediately apparent, which

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is that an animal rights activist supposedly

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went on a bizarre, almost certainly impossible mission

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of stealing this virus just so they could release it and kill

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animals in the name of protecting animal rights.

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Duh.

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It doesn't make sense from the standpoint

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of an animal rights activist.

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It makes perfect sense.

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So porting down never said that an animal rights activist

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had released the foot and mouth.

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This is what The Guardian refers to as a, quote, rural myth.

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And here's the basic story.

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There's an animal sanctuary called

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the Hillside, which is home to over 800 rescued animals

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from farms.

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Some representatives from the Hillside

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visited a farm called Burnside Farm, which

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happened to be one of the main farms where animals came down

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with foot and mouth.

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They were not the only ones to visit, though.

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There was an inspection by the Ministry of Agriculture,

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having received multiple complaints

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about the conditions that animals

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were kept on the farm.

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After the foot and mouth outbreak began,

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the folks at Burnside leveled accusations

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at Hillside sanctuary workers of having

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been the source of the outbreak.

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But that's pretty much impossible.

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The Hillside folks came to the farm in December 2000,

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and the outbreak occurred in February 2001.

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In January 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture

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did their inspection and said, quote,

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there were positively no traces of foot and mouth

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in the pigs in the farm.

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For their part, a spokesman at Port and Down

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actually said, quote, we have never worked on foot and mouth.

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That was their response, not that animal rights activists

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said that.

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Interesting response from them as compared to what Alex

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said that their response was.

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Yeah, definitely.

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That was very fascinating, one of which was in a movie,

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and the other one was like, we don't do that here.

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Alex is creating a fake way to present this rural rumor

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as if it were the actual response of the people

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at Port and Down.

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Any critical thinkers listening to his show

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should be asking themselves why he would do that.

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Certainly one possibility is that Alex just

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doesn't know anything, and he's mixing up rural rumors

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with official statements from Port and Down.

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He could be that stupid, and if so, I

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would say he's probably not someone

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who should be taken seriously.

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On the other hand, another possibility

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is that Alex knows exactly what he's doing.

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If Port and Down had claimed that an animal rights

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activist stole the virus, that solidifies

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multiple things about his narrative

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that he can't solidify any other way.

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The first is that foot and mouth originated at Port and Down.

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Without this fake admission, Alex

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can't demonstrate this at all.

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The second thing is that if this is really truly

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the response that Port and Down had, there's still a bad guy.

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This story still has a villain that you

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can point to and scapegoat.

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And that second thing is super important,

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because as often is the case, in 2007, the UK government

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released a final report on the foot and mouth outbreak.

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And while they were unable to come

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to a definitive conclusion about where it started,

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they have a pretty good idea.

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There were two labs that were right next to each other,

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IAH and Mariel, which they actually

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were doing work on foot and mouth at the time.

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Well, OK, all right.

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And so it's theorized that the foot and mouth found its way

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into the ground soil through deficient drainage pipes.

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From the report, quote, there had been concern

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for several years that the effluent pipes were

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old and needed replacing.

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But after much discussion, money had not been made available.

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Alex's narrative conveniently sidesteps the actual answer

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to these problems, which is regulation that people actually

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follow, regular inspections, and government spending.

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By turning it into a story where evil animal rights

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activists stole the virus, Alex doesn't

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have to worry about that accidentally penetrating

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his world, because he doesn't have

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a good argument against it.

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I would love to no longer, like, we've

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done this for too many the entirety of the human race's

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existence, where it's like, OK, thing we're studying.

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I'm sorry, we just don't have the budget for it right now.

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It's just not going to work.

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Cut to a year later.

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Oh, boy, if we had put just a little bit of money

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into that thing from before, we wouldn't

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be dealing with a foot and mouth disease outbreak.

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What a wild coincidence.

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Right, it's a good bit of research

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is necessary in terms of dealing with illnesses that

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are a detriment to public health.

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That is definitely true.

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Simultaneously true.

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We need to make it safe.

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Yes, yes.

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And one of the ways to do that is make sure

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that these drainage pipes.

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How is it that we can let drainage pipes go bad?

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Yeah, so what they theorized is that there

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was a number of people who were going in and out

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through construction work and maintenance work,

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and somehow this transferred to the farm.

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They were able to trace a possible route for it

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to have gotten there from that.

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It makes sense.

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Yeah, so anyway, Porton Dowd didn't

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say any of the things Alex is saying.

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He's just completely making this up

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as a way of building his fantasy of these super things escaping

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from labs.

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It's a preoccupation that he's had for a long time,

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and now he's playing it out in present.

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Yeah, I mean, we just can't do this any more often than say,

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if you recognize something Alex says from being in a movie,

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he is referencing the movie.

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It is not real life being imitated by art or whatever.

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That is true.

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This is a movie.

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Alex was drinking some Robitussin, and it came on.

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He had some purple drink, and he was going.

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So actually, Alex has another reason

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why the government did this.

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They released foot and mouth for a reason.

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And so it's just as bad either way.

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If there's security so lax, you can walk in and steal

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this stuff.

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But again, I don't buy that because the government

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had the motive.

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The farmers were against the EU fighting it,

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becoming a powerful political bloc.

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They were about to get gun laws reversed.

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They were about to defeat the hunting bands.

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They were the really active, intelligent, on-target group.

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Yeah, that's right.

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The farmers were going to overturn the EU.

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Now the rule, if there is a really accurate

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on-target group who is just now getting political power,

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does not exist.

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Probably not.

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It's a little too convenient, this supposed motive.

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It seems a little bit obvious, doesn't it?

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Yeah.

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I don't know.

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I think this is bullshit.

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Yeah.

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Anyway, Alex has a bit of official sources

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about race-specific bioweapons.

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Got to have them.

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And I don't think that this is good.

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James weapons publications out of England,

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the world leader in tracking military technology,

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hardly ever puts out alerts.

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They may put out one a year, and just a few months ago,

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they put out an alert about race-specific viruses

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and bacteria, race-specific pathogens.

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And they said the US, the United Kingdom, and Israel

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have been known to develop race-specific bioweapons.

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And that's what they're producing at Porton Down.

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So James is a magazine that uses publicly available information

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to discuss weapons and military projects.

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I wasn't able to find anything suggesting this or matching

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what Alex is saying in James' archives,

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but I was able to find a similar discussion from an article

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published in the American Free Press.

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In case you forgot, American Free Press

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is that publication founded by Willis Cardo,

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noted white supremacist and Nazi.

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Anyway, this article uses anonymous sources

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to claim that there's a lab at Porton Down working

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on race-specific bioweapons.

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And I find myself less than convinced by this sourcing.

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Yeah, if it were me, I would also

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say that it was James and not the white nationalist rag

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that I almost certainly got it from.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, edited by my good buddy, Big Jim Tucker.

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It would be wise to hide that you got it

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from the white nationalist magazine

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that you totally don't read because you're definitely

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above that whole thing.

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Now, Alex actually, he has no problem

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admitting that he likes the American Free Press.

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That's fair.

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That's not a problem for him.

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But it is still, it appears to be laundered information,

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unless there's something from James

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that was in a hard copy of the magazine that I just can't find.

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Sure, sure.

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I don't know.

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That's a lot of benefit of the doubt to give Alex the

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You bet.

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He maybe read a hard copy of a magazine.

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You bet.

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I'm trying to be overly careful.

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Yeah, that's intense.

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So look, there's a lot of talk about Porton Down

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at the beginning of this.

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Sure.

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And it gets off track a little bit.

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By the way, in the middle of 2002,

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a subsidiary of the Carlisle Group bought Porton Down.

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They privatized it and many other bioweapons labs

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in the United Kingdom.

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All right, so here's where we have to start

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using specific language.

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OK.

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Porton Down isn't a lab.

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It's actually a 7,000-acre science park

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with a bunch of labs on it.

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The lab that Alex is talking about is on the grounds,

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but it's actually called the Defense Science and Technology

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Laboratory, or DSTL.

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The lab is owned and funded by the UK government, primarily

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the Ministry of Defense.

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There are other government-funded entities also

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that are housed in the science park,

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like Plowshare Innovations and Public Health England.

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The area also includes Tetricus Science Park,

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which is within the Porton Down, which

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is home to GWE Business West and New Serum Enterprises.

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I guess it's possible that there's

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some lab that's within the area of the science park that's

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owned by a company that's a subsidiary of Carlisle Group,

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but that's not what Alex is suggesting here.

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The name Porton Down to him means a specific lab,

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and that lab is the Defense Science and Technology

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Laboratory, which is definitely not owned by the Carlisle

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Group.

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This is ridiculous.

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Right, right, right, right.

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Nonsense.

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Yeah, I mean, maybe, what, did they sell the land?

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The Carlisle Group?

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Did they, did they, they go, OK, you

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can have these 7,000 acres.

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I'm certain that unless Carlisle Group owns the UK government.

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Well.

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Huh?

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Huh?

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So Alex is pretty concerned about North Korea

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on this episode.

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Still.

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Still.

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But he has an interesting take.

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So there's a number of stories that

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are coming out around this time about the famine that

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is going up due to natural disasters.

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Sure, sure.

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And it wiped out some crops.

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Right.

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And Alex doesn't buy this shit.

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Famine struck North Korea eating children.

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Let me say that again.

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Famine struck North Korea eating children.

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London Telegraph.

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Cannibalism is increasing in North Korea following

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another poor harvest and a big cut in international food aid

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according to refugees who have fled the stricken country.

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This is from a liberal point of view.

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Let me explain why this is happening.

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What?

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People eating is liberal?

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Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

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Because Kim Jong Il is an hereditary dictator.

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Whenever you got people's kids becoming the leader,

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the old leader's kid becomes the leader,

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you know you're in a police state.

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That's why I gave Rex a show.

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It's light years ahead of nepotism.

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The guy has been caught in the 80s and 90s,

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he just apologized last year, has kidnapped

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dozens of Asian film stars, Japanese South Korean film

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stars.

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He has had aircraft hijacked to bring particular film stars

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back that he wants.

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And he apologized to the Japanese prime minister

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about eight months ago in late 2002 for quote, killing them.

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He said, yes, I killed them.

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I'm sorry, I won't do that anymore.

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Because Japan wouldn't even talk to them about aid

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until he apologized.

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So we've got a lot to break down here.

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I'm going to need a real lot more information on this Kim

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Jong Il apology.

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Yeah, well actually that is true,

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but Alex is very wrong about it.

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Interesting.

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There have been unconfirmed stories

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that pop up periodically about people eating

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other people in North Korea.

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That is true.

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But what's more difficult is trying

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to figure out how prevalent it is

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and how accurate these stories are.

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It's really hard to assess the situation,

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because refugees have told stories

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of people being driven to starvation

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and eating other people.

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But because of how shut off the world from the world

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North Korea is, we don't know much past those anecdotes

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that people have.

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Well, reading their internal propaganda,

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everybody is eating just fine.

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So I have to go by their, their, yeah.

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There are three times in the last 20 years

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or so when cannibalism in North Korea stories

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made the rounds in our press.

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These were in the late 90s, in 2003, and in 2013.

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And each of these times marked the aftermath

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of a large and devastating famine,

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involving almost certainly a combination

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of poor civic management and crops being destroyed

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by natural disasters.

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I don't know exactly what's gone on in North Korea

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or how widespread any cannibalism may have been,

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but I can say that Alex saying that this,

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you know, like saying that pointing to a severe famine

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is a liberal spin, that's really dumb.

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Also, Alex would do anything to be able to vote

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for Donald Trump Jr. right now.

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And he would welcome that hereditary dictatorship,

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no questions asked.

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100%.

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Also, just real quick.

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I'm not saying that any of what I'm about to talk about

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is okay, but Kim Jong-il didn't kill the movie stars

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that he kidnapped.

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That's just something Alex is making up.

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This had to do with Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee,

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who were formerly a married couple.

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Shin was a movie director and Choi was an actress.

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They were kidnapped in 1978 and taken to North Korea,

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where they were forced to make movies

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with the objective of heightening North Korea's profile

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in the field of arts.

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Oh my god, I read about this story.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Holy cow!

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There was a documentary that came out in 2016,

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I think called the, what was it,

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The Lovers and the Desperate?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So in 1986, they escaped while on a trip to Vienna,

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because they were able to evade their handlers

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and they made it to the U.S. Embassy.

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Shin and Choi would get remarried

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and live in the United States for about 10 years

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before going back to South Korea.

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Shin passed away in 2006,

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and Choi just died in 2018 at the age of 91.

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Alex is mixing up this story with Kim Jong-il

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apologizing to Japan for abducting 12 Japanese nationals

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during the 70s and 80s,

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eight of whom were dead as of 2002,

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according to The Guardian.

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These were just random Japanese citizens

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who were kidnapped in Japan by North Korean special forces

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then taken to live in North Korea.

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Kim Jong-il said, quote,

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the special forces were carried away

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by a reckless quest for glory.

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It was regretful and I want to frankly apologize.

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I've taken steps to ensure that it will not happen again.

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Excuse me.

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If I'm to understand what Kim Jong-il is apologizing for,

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he's saying that there were these rogue

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North Korean special forces trying to get glory

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by kidnapping random Japanese people

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and making them live in North Korea.

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The rogue-ness of it is debatable.

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That's kind of what I'm feeling.

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So he explained that they were abducted

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so they could teach spies Japanese

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and so that their identities could be used

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to enter South Korea.

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Almost certainly if Kim Jong-il is admitting

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to abducting 12 Japanese people,

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that number might be a little bit higher.

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No.

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There are also some suspicions

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that the eight people who were abducted

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and who died were killed to cover up the abductions,

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but that's not something that's been definitively proven.

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It's obviously possible,

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but I'm not sure.

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Anyway, this story is really fucked up

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and I'm not going to bat for Kim Jong-il,

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but it's important to recognize

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that Alex has no idea what he's talking about.

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He's just randomly mixing together details

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from various stories to create the kind of composite image

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that he wants his audience to have.

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If the goal is just to say that Kim Jong-il is bad,

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then I guess it doesn't matter

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if you get the details right.

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You know, fine, mix all this stuff up.

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But Alex is pretending to be a show

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that traffics in information,

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which he is short on and he's mixing up entirely.

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You have no idea about what was going on

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if you took him at face value.

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Yeah, and he's also somehow turning it

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into a left-right issue, which again, he is above 100%,

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despite the fact that everybody on the left is evil

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and this liberal viewpoint is wrong.

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The liberal viewpoint is that famine is causing

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or contributing to people possibly being driven

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to cannibalism, whereas Alex's view on it,

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which is the correct view, conservative view,

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is that Kim Jong-il is bad and that's it.

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Yeah, I mean, for somebody who understands cause and effect,

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the food is dead, people are not able to eat.

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Seems very simple.

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So it turns out that if you die in a North Korean camp,

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you're sold for meat.

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When you die in a death camp,

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the police, the jail guards, the work camp guards sell you.

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And the number one product is opium.

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And they sell that, of course,

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US government ships pull up, pick up the opium,

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bring it back here for your children to inject

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and become whores in the system,

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to become prostitutes, to pay for their habits.

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That's fast.

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Hye On-yang, North Korea sells this

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to our government and to others.

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So why don't you just want to know about that?

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The article goes on and on,

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but that's the wonders of big government.

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Interesting.

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So this is a good example of what Alex does

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instead of covering the actual stories

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that he's pretending to cover.

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He'll just grab a headline and riff on it,

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going with whatever sparks some kind of anger in his mind.

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So a quick point about this opium thing.

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A 2006 Senate committee meeting was held

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on the quote, illicit activity

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funding the regime in North Korea.

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One of the witnesses called was Peter A. Prahar,

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the Director, Office of Asia, Africa and Europe Programs,

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Bureau of the International Narcotics

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and Law Enforcement Affairs,

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which is a part of the US Department of State.

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Senator Coburn asked, quote,

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is there enough information to put North Korea

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under the drug majors category?

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Prahar replied, quote, no, sir.

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That is another item that we consider on a regular basis

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within the Department of State.

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As you know, a country can be put on the majors list

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for basically two reasons.

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First of all, it is producing 1000 hectares

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or cultivating 1000 hectares or more of poppy,

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opium poppy or coca.

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We have been unable to confirm reports

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that we have received over time

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that there is significant opium poppy cultivation

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in North Korea.

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So we've been unable to consider North Korea

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for placement on the majors list for its involvement

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as a major cultivator or drug producer.

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It's not inconceivable that the North Korean government

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makes some money through illegal drug sales,

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but that's a little different than acting like

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the opium and heroin here in the United States

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came from North Korea.

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The odds of that are almost zero.

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Yeah, if you are, like you don't,

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not necessarily you need to be like inside North Korea

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to see them putting out 1000 hectares of poppy seeds,

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you're gonna notice it coming out in some way or another.

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Yeah, and according to a report put out this year

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by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,

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approximately 83% of the world's opium is produced

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in Afghanistan.

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Very little of that actually makes it to US markets,

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however, and most of the opium that's here

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originates in Mexico, Colombia or Guatemala.

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At the point Alex is recording this,

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Afghanistan and Myanmar would be far and away

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the largest suppliers of opium poppy in the world.

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Wow.

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Nothing, North Korea is not even on the radar.

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Jeesh.

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This is just how Alex puts some flair

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into his news coverage.

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He ignores reality and throws something jarring

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in his audience's face in order to shock them,

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like saying that North Korea is sending opium

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to the United States to turn your children

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into heroin addicted sex workers.

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That's just his feelings though,

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that it's not based on anything real.

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That'd be a weird thing for North Korea to do as well.

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So Alex takes some calls on this here broadcast

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and he gets one call from,

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actually this wasn't a caller, this was a guest.

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Okay.

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But it felt like a caller.

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Okay.

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That's not good.

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It was just a person.

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Yeah.

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It wasn't an expert in anything.

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It's a woman who their son is,

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who was in a special education program

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and she felt that he didn't need to be in it

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and she was upset about it.

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I don't understand.

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Tomorrow's news today.

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I don't really want to talk too much about it

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because I don't know what the situation is with her kid

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and it doesn't feel appropriate.

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However, Alex tries to blow her mind

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talking about her son and it's ridiculous.

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Being new to the class,

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he's in with kids that do have behavior problems

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and they were teasing him.

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Now my son also has two different colored eyes,

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which has always drawn a lot of attention to him.

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And some of it's been negative and some of it's been,

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well, most of it's positive, but you know, kids are cruel.

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So anyways, he's in there.

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You know, that's very interesting.

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Do you know what that means

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when a human has two different colored eyes?

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Oh no.

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It's a gene that's been discovered

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and it's called Warden Bird.

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And there's symptoms with the gene

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that you can display maybe.

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I mean, it's actually incredibly exceptional person.

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It means it's a generally, in almost every case,

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it is a twin that did not divide.

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Yeah, no.

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Do you know that?

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I mean, I'm just saying it's interesting.

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A lot of times they're very exceptional people though.

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They do have some problems, but a lot of geniuses.

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This is absolutely not true,

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but if you're just making things up,

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it kind of feels like it should be true.

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It's gotta be from a twin.

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One eye is from one, the other eye is from the other.

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That's so Alex Jones to believe in a heartbeat.

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Somebody said that and he was like,

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well, duh, one eye is from the other twin.

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I get it.

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I get why you would think this, but it's dumb.

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I like that even she was like, no, no.

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So Warden Bird syndrome is a condition that's quite rare

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and has a lot more presentations

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than just different colored eyes.

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Based on some other details that this person gives,

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the diagnosis actually seems plausible

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since her child also has hearing loss,

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which is another symptom of Warden Bird.

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The eye thing, however, just on its own

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is a phenomenon called heterochromia iridum.

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And generally speaking, it's not a problem

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and it doesn't require treatment.

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It has nothing to do with the twin in the womb

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and you can even develop it later in life.

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Do you get superpowers though?

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No.

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Your eye color is determined by a series of genes

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that are incredibly complicated,

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but more or less it boils down to melanin concentration

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in the tissues of your iris.

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Reasons you could have this at birth

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generally come down to a genetic trait

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passed on from one of your parents.

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It might be as simple as having hyperpigmentation

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in one eye or it could be indicative of,

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you know, there's a couple serious conditions

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that it could be an indication of.

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But if this caller's child was born

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with one of those more serious conditions,

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I don't think the eye color

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would be the most pressing thing to bring up.

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No.

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Alex offered up this bit of trivia

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hoping to, I guess, blow the caller's mind.

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He didn't have to say anything,

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but he couldn't resist trying to look like the guy

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who knows everything.

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And he's just making shit up

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or passing along bad information that he heard somewhere

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and didn't look into.

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It's amazing.

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No, the moment he was like,

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oh, do you know what that is?

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Do you know what is going on there?

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And she's like, yeah, it's something called

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Wardenburg syndrome, he's got it.

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And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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This is what, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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This is my turn to tell you something.

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Yeah.

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How dare you know what's going on with your child?

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Thinking that it was Wardenburg

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is actually the liberal perspective on this.

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Exactly.

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What you didn't know was that he's actually a genius.

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Yeah.

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And I could honestly hear Alex be wrong all day

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and I would enjoy it.

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I would enjoy him blowing hard about like these things

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that he knows nothing about that are just trivia.

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Like, hey, you know why your hair color changed

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when you grew up?

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You know, like that kind of thing.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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I would love it.

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You know what it means if you're left-handed?

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Evil.

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Evil.

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Evil.

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You would be fine with that kind of a dumb show.

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But the problem is that Alex is also perpetuating

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really dangerous ideas within the same conversation

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with this lady.

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Let me tell you what these special ed classes do.

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They will try to hop your kid up on drugs the next few years.

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The kids are going to keep teasing him.

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He'll start having behavioral problems.

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And before you're done, they're going to send CPS after you.

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Also, a large portion of kids that go in these classes

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are eventually kidnapped by Child Protective Services.

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Oh, but you know, all these things have already struck me.

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I'm getting him out of this class.

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Oh, wait, this is already happening?

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Well, no, these things have already crossed my mind.

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OK.

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You better, but don't be confrontational with these head

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heads on power trips.

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Just calmly go sign the form, withdraw your son,

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move if you have to to another school district, start over.

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Don't make a lot of smoke, though,

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because you're a single mother.

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They'll figure that they're like hyenas.

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My circumstances, yeah.

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They'll figure that they can attack you

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because you're with young easier.

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Mm-hmm.

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Well, see, I was already kind of aware of that.

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Oh, boy.

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This is not the probably best take.

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OK, so here's what I'm hearing.

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A concerned parent going like, they put my child

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into this special education class.

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I don't believe that he's supposed to be in there.

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And because he's in there, it's having a negative effect

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on his development.

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And Alex's response to that was, well, obviously, they're

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going to murder your child.

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Right.

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They're going to take him.

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So if they're going to murder your child and you,

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then you have to leave, of course.

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Yeah.

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And her point, I guess, as best I

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can tell from the conversation that they have,

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is that these special education classes

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aren't specific enough.

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You know, they're people who have different learning

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challenges grouped together in a way that it's not.

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You can't treat all of them the same.

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And to the extent that that's true,

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yeah, there's probably a fair point in there.

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However, the solution to that would possibly

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be more classes, more special ed classes,

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as opposed to the solution that Alex has,

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which is get rid of them.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, that's trouble.

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Yeah.

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It's an incoherent conversation.

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But I feel like Alex's take is just so irresponsible and so

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disrespectful to people who are special ed educators and who

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take a lot of time and care to try and help kids.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I remember growing up, I was a, we were,

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we had like enrichment programs or whatever.

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And there was a, and it was essentially,

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it wasn't like a gifted class or anything.

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They just gave you more work.

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It's just like, hey, guess what?

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You're part of the enrichment.

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Do all of this extra shit as well.

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And there were parents who took their kids out of that program

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like this isn't helping them develop.

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And that's totally fine.

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There were kids who were not being helped in their way.

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You know, like hearing loss is a different problem

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than a developmental disability in certain ways.

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You know, that kind of thing.

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All of that is fine.

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A parent should recognize what's going on there.

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But if somebody tells you that they're

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going to murder your child, they're not doing good for you.

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No.

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I don't think that they're looking

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at the problem as it exists.

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They're looking at the problem as you want it to be.

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Alex, my son is getting extra work from his school.

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And I don't think it's helping him.

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You know what they're doing?

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They're going to kill him.

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They're trying to make him too smart.

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And then they're going to take him away from you

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and turn him into a government scientist.

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And then they're going to put you in a mental institution

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because you're going to say that the government took him.

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They're not going to believe you.

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No one's going to believe you.

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And that's how it works.

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It all makes sense.

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So Alex gets a call now.

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Now he's actually going to calls.

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And he gets a call from a guy who works at Taco Bell.

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And this guy is pretty concerned about technological

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advancements.

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I was watching less than a couple of weeks ago.

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I was watching a thing on the History Channel on restaurants.

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And they were talking about the drive-through windows.

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And it caught my eye because they were talking

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about maybe a next step.

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And some of the McDonald's restaurants

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were already doing it, is having the little cards.

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And they would ask you if you just

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want to take it off the card while you're not even

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handing in cash anymore.

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It's just done through the.

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Yes, and then major chains are going to go away

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from cash, phasing it out.

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Yeah, I work for Taco Bell.

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And I'm saying this is freaking me out.

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Because they're trying to say, well, it's

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going to speed up the speed of service.

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And then there's going to be problems

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with people stealing the cards.

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But don't worry.

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The face-scanning camera hooked into the driver's license

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database is already happening.

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We'll know if it's really you and your card.

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But it's for everyone's safety and to stop fraud.

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That's kind of an exaggerated fear

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to have about credit cards being taken at drive-throughs.

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There's just no technology.

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You remember when they introduced self-checkout

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at a grocery store?

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People lost their fucking minds.

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And it's not about having to bag my own groceries.

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It's not about that.

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It's definitely not about that.

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I don't like all the beep-boops.

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I think that there is a fine conversation

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to have surrounding the jobs that

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are taken by self-checkout and the jobs that are probably

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going to be eliminated within the fast food

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space in the coming years.

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100%.

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I think that's a conversation, but it's kind

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of different than this one.

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This is stupid.

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Yes, exactly.

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I think that Alex, I don't know if he

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understands that this guy is talking about credit cards

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being taken at the drive-through.

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Because he's saying, I don't know what he's getting at.

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Does Alex think that they've got Taco Bell cards?

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That seems like Taco Bell is giving them Taco Bell cards

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that they put money on.

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And then it's hooked up to their driver's license or something.

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Yeah, I don't know.

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I think it's dumb.

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I'm not worried about credit cards at the drive-through.

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Mark of the beast.

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So Alex takes another call.

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And this fella, I believe, is from the Oklahoma City area.

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And he heard something on the radio

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that he wants to run by Alex.

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Got a couple questions for you real quick.

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OK.

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One, had you heard about the Oklahoma City Council

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considering a resolution against the Patriot Act?

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Heard it on the radio, the car radio

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this morning on a local Oklahoma City radio station.

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I know that a talk show host named Lan Lampere,

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I've been on his show about five times.

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And we called for it.

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And it's one of the big 50,000 waters there, AM.

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I know he had called for it a few weeks ago.

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Tell me about it when we get back.

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No, I didn't hear about that.

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That's a conservative area.

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That'd be a major victory.

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This is amazing.

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In that clip, Alex was basically trying

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to take credit for some alleged resolution being discussed

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at the Oklahoma City Council that he didn't even

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know existed before this call.

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Also, shouldn't he know about these kinds of things?

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Like half of his show is just yelling about the Patriot Act.

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So you would think that he would keep himself

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up to date on what would be major news on that front.

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I mean, if the city of Oklahoma City

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just decided to overturn the Patriot Act,

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that would be pretty big news.

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Yeah, it seems like something like what else

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is he paying attention to in the news,

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if not like this kind of thing?

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I'll just wait until someone calls in.

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I think he's really just watching 13 Monkeys.

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Probably.

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I also have no idea what this resolution was.

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I can't find it.

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Why would you?

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Yeah.

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What are we talking about?

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That was almost certainly the same thing

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as like, we're reaffirming the Eighth Amendment.

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You know, like, fine.

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Have fun.

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So this next clip from a call is one of my favorites

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that I've found in a long time.

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And possibly part of the rationalization

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for doing an episode, even though it's

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going to be shorter, because there's not a whole lot.

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I needed to bring you this clip.

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This has to hear it.

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Yes.

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I had no idea that these people had been around

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as long as they have.

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And they're talking about 1928.

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You mentioned David Rockefeller talking

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about how great China was.

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Mao Tse Tung.

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Yeah, how wonderful it was.

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And he was the greatest man in the last 100 years

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in all this.

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Well, this John Dewey, who they made a

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Dewey Decimal System, yeah.

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No.

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Yeah, I mean, this guy had come back from now.

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This was almost 50 years before.

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Alex is just free associating.

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Nope.

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It's awesome.

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Nope, nope, nope, nope.

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He hears the name Dewey, and he knows

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that there's a thing called the Dewey Decimal System.

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So he confidently asserts that they're related.

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They aren't.

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And I'll talk a little bit about that.

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But first, I want to explain why Alex does this.

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Alex has no idea who John Dewey is,

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but he can't make that obvious to the audience.

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If this caller is mentioning Dewey in relation

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to the early globalists back in the 1920s,

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then Alex should be an expert on this guy.

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By just interjecting Dewey Decimal System,

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Alex is trying to feign expertise,

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because it's meant to look like him saying, of course

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I know about John Dewey.

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Yes, John Dewey of the Dewey Decimal System.

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Let me prove by making a reference

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that I know about this guy.

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I believe his brothers were Huey and Louie also.

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Yes, of course.

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Yeah, it's remarkable.

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And it's kind of the same thing that he's

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doing with the eye color thing.

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It's the same sort of fake authority that he's presenting.

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And it's just amazing.

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That is a perfect example of that.

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Totally.

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So first of all, they're talking about this period in the 1920s.

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And the Dewey Decimal System was created in 1876.

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Also, it was invented by a guy named Melville Dewey, not

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John Dewey.

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It's kind of weird that Alex doesn't know this,

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seeing as he should be the president of the Melville Dewey

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fan club.

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I don't know if you know this, Jordan,

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but Melville Dewey was a pile of shit.

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I did not know that.

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Yeah, he just also happened to create a very important system

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for standardizing book classifications in libraries.

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Oh, brutal.

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He was also kicked out of the American Library Association,

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which he founded, because he wouldn't stop

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sexually harassing women, including his daughter-in-law.

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Jesus Christ.

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It's just nuts to think that this guy was so out of line

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that he would get in trouble for making

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unwelcome advances to women in the early 1900s,

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a time when that sort of thing was pretty common.

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Yeah.

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And people turned the other way on it a lot.

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It was in the newspapers.

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They just wrote horrible sexually harassing shit.

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And he was such a problem that he got kicked out of the AMA.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So Melville would go on to found the Lake Placid Club, which was

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something of a health resort.

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He forbade Jews, black people, and any other minorities

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from joining the club, and he specifically

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banned Booker T. Washington from coming in.

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Wow.

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He was such a bigot that, according

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to an article in the American Library's magazine,

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quote, Dewey bought up the adjoining land for fear

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it would otherwise be sold to Jews.

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Jesus Christ.

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Yep.

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This dude is a real piece of shit.

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Yeah.

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Why couldn't we have just gone with alphabetical?

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I didn't know that Melville alphabet was a piece of shit.

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Yeah, yeah.

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It's unfortunate that he did create something

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that revolutionized libraries.

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That's really unfortunate.

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And that he saw.

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It's a really unfortunate thing.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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So conversely, John Dewey was a psychologist and an educator

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who spent some time in China in the 1920s.

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He has nothing to do with libraries and library science.

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Alex is just making up whatever information

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makes him look smart in the moment,

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because he's comfortable in the knowledge

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that a podcast pointing this stuff out and laughing at it

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wouldn't exist for another 18 years.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, he got away with it for a long time.

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Not anymore, baby.

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Nope.

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Dewey Decimal System, go fuck yourself.

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Yes, Dewey Decimal System.

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I was waiting for him to even be like,

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I was expecting him to go with Dewey Defeats Truman

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as his reference for that.

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Ooh, that could have been.

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And he didn't even do that.

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He went even dumber than Dewey Defeats Truman.

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But I think that people might actually

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remember details about the Dewey Defeats Truman.

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Sure, sure.

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Whereas Dewey Decimal System is just obscure enough

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that most people don't know the history behind it.

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But everybody knows that it exists.

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Yeah, so everybody should remember that Melville Dewey

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was a pile of shit.

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Can't believe that.

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That's unfortunate.

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Why don't I get to learn about half of the shit

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that we learn about is made by pieces of shit?

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And we should also get that context.

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Yeah, not erase this person from history.

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Like Watson and Crick, pieces of shit.

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Why don't we always get that context every time

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I hear about DNA or even while we're talking

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about the mRNA vaccines?

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Like, also, just a reminder, the guys who did pieces of shit.

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It's unfortunate, kind of, but it is just

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a part of living in reality.

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There are some things that are important breakthroughs that

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have happened in our history that have

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been done by people who suck.

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Yeah, I think if you are a literature major like myself,

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you're eventually going to have to wrestle with the fact

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that just about everybody who wrote a good book

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is a giant piece of shit.

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Yeah.

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So Alex is still covering that monkey pox quite a bit,

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the monkey pox scare.

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And this, it's just, it's ridiculous.

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Mary, go ahead, Mary.

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I want to say quickly that I'm able to clearly see

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that the government has most probably dumped

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this monkey pox on us.

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Because right away, before they, you know,

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even hardly have a name of a victim,

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they know which animals to go after.

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And sure enough, it's the same animals in those pet shops.

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That's not good evidence.

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I would say that they did know the names of people who were,

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they just didn't publicize them.

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Like, they protected people's privacy, which is fine.

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And they were able to find what commonalities there were.

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And like, oh, they all went, were in contact

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with prairie dogs at specific animal shops.

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I wonder if there's a connection here.

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The almost nonstop reality of a large group of people

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who react to anyone knowing something with,

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well, if you know something, you probably did it.

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Yeah, you're probably in on it.

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Like knee jerk, just like, see, they knew something,

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so they obviously did it.

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Not like you could have learned it.

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Yeah.

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And you know, the other thing too

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is that Alex is trying to present this fear

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of a release of a bioweapon by talking about the monkey pox,

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which is nonsense, and then talking about porting down,

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releasing foot and mouth.

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And it's like, these aren't good examples.

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They're not based on anything.

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Come on, two things happened 1,000 miles away.

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They're the same thing.

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But they didn't happen, the way Alex is saying.

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Two things didn't happen 1,000 miles away.

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Obviously, it's a conspiracy.

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So we check in here on Alex's views on some events

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that are going on in Iraq.

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And we have an interesting update.

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OK.

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Also, cash crisis forces US to print Saddam banknotes.

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They're back to printing.

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Our government, who runs the central bank presses,

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has put a Ba'athist back in control.

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And they're going to print money with Saddam on it.

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So that's from Reuters as well.

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So the reason that folks in Iraq needed to print Saddam bank

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notes is because the public had, quote,

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lost confidence in the only other bank

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note in wide circulation.

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By October 2003, a new dinar had been introduced

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with anti-fraud measures in place

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to provide a unified currency without Saddam's face on it.

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Nice.

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This was just the least bad solution to the problem.

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As an article in the BBC puts it, quote,

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US and British officials have said

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it's better to lose face by printing 250 dinar

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notes with Saddam on them for a short period

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than risk further inflaming public anger.

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The Ba'ath Party is not in power at this point.

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And in fact, just 14 days before this episode was recorded,

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the active elements of de-Ba'athification

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had entered into force in Iraq.

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Now, coalition forces were responsible for trying

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to determine who was a member of the Ba'ath Party

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so that they could be banned from holding

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any job in the public sphere.

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It's really fucked up.

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Like, this super-destructive process is going on.

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And the way Alex is covering it could not

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be more detached from reality.

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He's 180 from what's actually going on.

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Yeah, I mean, it's bananas, especially considering

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the fact that, you know, you go back

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and you read through all of these books.

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And it's like, you guys are so stupid.

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Why are you getting rid of everyone

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who knew how to do anything?

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And immediately, the whole place fell apart.

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And they're like, I don't understand.

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It's almost like we just hired a bunch

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of new people who have never done anything like this before.

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Fuck.

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There were some critical mistakes that were made,

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especially in the implementation of that initiative.

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Yeah.

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Very foolish.

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Such a brutal, brutal time period.

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And it's so weird that we're here in the middle of June.

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And Alex is still on the, they're giving the country

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back to the Ba'athists line.

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I don't know when that's going to change.

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But it's one of the only things, really,

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about his coverage of the Iraq War

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that I find at all interesting.

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Yeah, because it's baffling.

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Yeah.

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It's so divorced from any, like, how can you read anything

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and come to the conclusion that they've put a Ba'athist

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in power?

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I need to put his content through debathful occasion.

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OK.

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Sorry.

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Sorry.

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All right.

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Show over.

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Click.

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Well, actually, we are out of clips.

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We might as well end on that pun.

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That would be fun.

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No, I wanted to do this episode because I

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thought there was actually some fun and some interesting stuff.

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There is this sort of weird mirror of the present day

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in terms of this discussion of releasing bioweapons from labs.

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But if you look at the stuff he was talking about

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at this point, it's bullshit.

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It's just nonsense.

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And then that Dewey Decimal thing really made me laugh.

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Yeah, I can't believe that the Dewey.

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And I feel like the story of Melville Dewey

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is not as widely known as maybe it should be.

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It's good to know that we have an influence.

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We can get that story out there.

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People will know from here on out.

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Didn't they change it?

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They don't use the Dewey Decimal System anymore in libraries,

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right?

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Dude, I'm not a librarian.

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I don't know.

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Well, I don't think they do.

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They may.

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I don't think so.

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All right.

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I think they got rid of it.

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Do you know why?

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Sound off, librarians.

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Somebody said that Melville Dewey was a real piece of shit.

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Hashtag cancel.

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There we go.

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So yeah, Jordan, we'll be back.

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But until then, we have a website.

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We do.

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It's knowledgefight.com.

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Yep.

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We also are on Twitter.

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We are on Twitter.

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It's at knowledge underscore fight and that.

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Go to bed, Jordan.

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Yep.

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We'll be back.

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But until then, I'm Neo.

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I'm Leo.

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I'm DZX Clark.

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I'm Daryl Rundis.

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And now here comes the sex robots.

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Andy in Kansas, you're on the air.

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Thanks for holding.

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Hello, Alex.

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I'm a first time caller.

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I'm a huge fan.

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I love your work.

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I love you.