Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 163: Oops! All News 2: The Newsening

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

i just LOVE THE FUCKING NEWS SO MUCH i gotta watch the FUCKING news AAAAAAAAAAAA- DONATE TO HELP THOSE TRAPPED IN GAZA: https://www.gofundme.com/f/a8jzz-help-me-and-my-family-get-out-of-the-gaza-strip https://www.map.org.uk/ https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page/en_EN https://pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/forms/general WE HAVE A MERCH STORE NOW: https://www.bonfire.com/store/well-theres-your-problem-podcast/ Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod/ Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 26929 Philadelphia, PA 19134 DO NOT SEND US LETTER BOMBS thanks in advance in the commercial: Local Forecast - Elevator Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

How do I do this, there we go. Yes, okay. So we made it into the podcast, which is happening now. Now is when the podcast happens. ALICE Now was when podcast? JUSTIN Yes. ALICE Now is dark and full of mysteries. ALICE Now is, uh, 34 minutes past midnight.

Which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are freaking the fuck out about. I mean, it's like... I mean, that's not good. You don't want to be in that situation. ALICE Sweet girl. That's so fucking funny. I just, I... One of the things you may not know, listeners, is that Nova continuously takes one for the team, piece of piece, recording schedules.

ALICE This is true. It's fine. I like hanging out with my friends, and tomorrow I get to get on the train and go hang out with my wife. So, it's all good. Ooh, fun. Exciting. Mm. Tomorrow I might get my fridge working again, or I'll find out some catastrophic news and

I'll have to redo my kitchen. Oh, fun. Oh, and I'm bracing for a bunch of comments that are like, ultimately, you're married, or I thought you were already married, and it's like, listen, there's nuance going on here I don't need to explain to you right now. SEAN Yeah, certain things are none of your goddamn business. JUSTIN Exactly.

SEAN More importantly, though, uh, to leapfrog... ALICE It's polyamory happening, leave me alone. SEAN To leapfrog Nova, I'm married. ALICE Mm, congratulations. SEAN Thank you. To leapfrog Nova, I'm married. And my wife was just like, oh shit, you have to record, I'm so sorry. And fled the Wawa at like 95 miles an hour. We did not rob the Wawa, I feel like I should preface it with that. ALICE Listen, every couple wants to feel a little bit like Bonnie and Clyde sometimes.

Or Thelma and Louise. you know, depending on gender. LIAM Absolutely. JUSTIN There have been a bunch of flyers going up in my neighborhood for polycule group therapy. ALICE Get out of the polycule. Just get out of the polycule. JUSTIN You know, the ones with the little tabs that... The ones with the little tabs that you can take off, you know?

And a bunch of them were gone the first time I saw the flyer, and I was like, well, yeah, that's Westvillie for ya. ALICE RENT going up. JUSTIN A lot of people with alternative lifestyles out here. ALICE Oh yeah. JUSTIN Yeah. I am the straightest person within, like, probably half a mile. LIAM You might be the only straight white guy in Westvillie.

JUSTIN Exactly, yeah. Do you remember that stupid meme of the one Russian riot cop covered in blood surrounded by people that's like the last straight man in Europe? That's you in West Philadelphia. It's true, it's true. LIAM That's completely true. When we lived together we were basically a clan meeting, how far, you know, relative. Um. Wow, that's almost as bad as the bonus episode, anyway.

I'm not making that into a running joke. No, please do not. The bonus episode that gets us both cancelled. Yeah. So, welcome to Well There's Your Problem, it's a podcast about engineering disasters, with slides. I'm Justin Rosnick, I'm the person who's talking right now, my pronouns are he and him, okay go.

I'm November Kelly, I'm the person who's talking now, my pronouns are she and her, yay Liam. Yay Liam, hi, I'm Liam McAnderson, my pronouns are he and him, and it's, whoops, all news too, because you people wouldn't stop asking for it. Yeah, the thing is, we try to record these in advance, and then's, whoops, all news too, because you people wouldn't stop asking for it. ALICE Yeah, the thing is, we try to record these in advance, and then there's a real problem when someone takes a shot at the former president, or whatever, and all of you have to wait two weeks or more for us to do our little jokes about it. JUSTIN Well, it's amazing that they shot Trump and then Biden died.

ALICE Both presidential candidates have been killed, and now replaced. Yeah, I was worried about recording so many episodes so close together we'd run out of news, and then it turned out, as our good friend, good ol' Vladdy Lenin said, there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen, we're in one of those weeks. Absolutely. Feels like we've been in one of those weeks for like, eight years. Yeah. So we're playing catch up a bit, and we're doing this not for the first time, where we

just do an episode that's all news, aren't you, Lucky? Yeah. Some people like this, I bet some of you hate it too. Those are the more rational people, I think. I think this is the thing, right? Anything we do, any business decision we make, is met with a roughly even split, and everyone on both sides of it is furious. And this, as a very anxious person, has led me to a kind of paralysis.

The best example of this is when we had Devon put in and then take out the noise that indicates a Devon comment, and that was straight down the- it was like a presidential election, it was 49-51, and it switched back and forth. Everyone insane, everyone is completely insane about that. There's no right answer, and as someone who likes trying to please everyone, god only knows why I chose a life as a trans woman, this is... ALICE Oh, rookie mistake. ALICE Yeah, yeah.

I'm on the cycle of samsara, hoping for something easy to come up, and it hits trans woman again, and I'm like, FUCK! JUSTIN I mean, y'know, this is gonna be an issue that we only will really have to deal with when we eventually get acquired by private equity. ALICE Oh yeah, we're gonna have to. AL with when we eventually get acquired by private equity. LIAM Oh yeah, we're gonna have to. ALICE What, we sell out? Yeah.

LIAM Oh, we're selling out. We're selling out. Spotify, get that vote. ALICE Yeah, when Black Rock presents, well there's your problem. ALICE Becoming like a Spotify exclusive, yeah. LIAM Look, if Meghan and Markle and Prince Harry can rip off Spotify for a hundred million dollars, there's no reason we can't do it. ALICE Meghan and Harry kinda queered the pitch for us, right, them and like the economy or whatever, because it turns out, even if we wanted to sell out,

and even if someone thought we were good enough that we would buy us out, they don't really do that anymore. Like, Spotify don't really just throw money at you anymore, partly because they don't have infinite money, and partly because they got burned by giving like, $300 million a second to Harry and Meghan, in exchange for like, y'know, two episodes about mindfulness. JUSTIN There was like a guy in the emails offering to buy us out a while back, and it was like for three months revenue. ALICE It was a crypto thing.

JUSTIN It was a crypto thing, yeah. It was like, I had... no. No, I need more money than that. Especially since I don't have real skills anymore. No. This is real skills bomb. Can you explain this period on your CV? No.

Not really. No. No. No. No. No. That's confidential information. Okay, so there's a podcast, right?

There's a podcast, right? So it's called Well There's Your Problem. It says here you took four years off to talk into microphone. And I was damn good at it too. Yeah. I liked it, I was good at it. Yeah. So, uh, now, before we talk about the goddamn news, we have to talk about the goddamn news.

Jarring shift in tone. Oh, I cut that off way too early, that was like a second and a half of news. Whoa, excuse me. Whoa, Jesus, that was incredible. It's like a hippo in a nature documentary, that's amazing. Thank you. I didn't hear that. It was like a sort of roiling bubble, it was great.

Yeah, I, uh, wah-wah, I have a wah-wah bowl and coke burps. I had to go to the periodontist today, and got mouth stuff done, and I can't chew with my front teeth at the moment. ALICE You can't call it mouth stuff. You sure I can? SEAN Yeah, no, I mean, I'm right there with you, I had Smashburger for dinner, which is a bold choice to get the loaded fries and stuff when you're a person of gastric

disposition and you have a six hour train ride. LIAM Don't you have a tray to borrow? ALICE Yeah, the next... Yeah. There's some things that are gonna go down in an Avanti West Coast train bathroom that I'm not gonna be proud of. LIAM Well, we made it eight minutes before we started talking about poops.

JUSTIN Yeah. So we had a quite nasty bicycle accident here in Philly last Friday. ALICE We had a murder. We had a fucking murder. JUSTIN Yeah, it was basically a murder, yeah. Dr. Barbara Freeds, who was thirty years old and a pediatric oncologist was riding her bike on Spruce Street, but this is Thursday, last Thursday, right? And so, you know, riding in the bicycle lane, with a helmet, doing everything right, you

know, comes up to a light, and then some guy, like, in the traffic lane next to her, there's only one traffic lane on the street, decides, I'm not in the traffic lane next to her, there's only one traffic lane on the street, decides, I'm not gonna wait for the light to change, I'm going to go around three cars at 50 miles an hour, and just ran her over, and then, uh, you know, threw her 150 feet through the air, and then he crashed into two parked cars. This guy, Michael Vahey... Double Vahey? Vahey, I don't know.

69 years old, blood alcohol concentration of.16. Double the legal limit in Pennsylvania. Yes. So, you know, I managed to accelerate to 50 miles an hour in a 25 mile per hour zone. I mean, this is sort of brought to light, you know, just the insufficiencies of the bicycle infrastructure in Philly. You know, and it's, it's, this is something that was entirely preventable if there was anything other than paint protecting the bike lane. Paint and flex posts, which, you know, as we had Alfred Tu on a while back ago to talk

about the, the, the student housing cube, they refer to those as car ticklers, cause that's about all they do. ALICE Yeah. We need to install sentry posts with guns on them. To protect the cyclists. ALICE Pretty much. ALICE Every border implies the violence of its maintenance, but with bike lanes, that's good. JUSTIN That's good, yeah, exactly.

You know, and this has been, very least because this is such an egregious example, there seems to have been recently a bit more of a unified push from everyone to say, look, we need to finally protect these bike lanes. The problem is, we have Mayor Sherrell Parker, who was elected on a platform and whose staff are pure evil. Sort of somewhere between apathetic and actively contemptuous of anyone on a bicycle. These are the same people who did the Kensington encampment clear out and affected where I work and now people come in for all sorts of services we're unable to offer and the city basically tells us to go fuck ourselves.

So that's rad. Yeah. Parker is... Pure evil. I fucking hate her, dude. Very bad. Very bad. Yeah.

I mean, just extremely, like, aloof. Just like, not... I mean, you know, cause she did the communications blackout. She forced everyone to go back to work in the office in the city, even though they didn't have offices for them, she's gonna ram through the Sixers arena, and she's gonna do absolutely nothing about this except, you know, some platitudes. And then, of course, the councilperson for this area is Kenyatta Johnson, and he is also an active bicycle lane denier. You know, he is committed to ensuring that everyone can park on every surface all over

the city. You know, walls, ceilings, sidewalks... He wants every part of his Spider-Man, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, it's... This is an uphill battle, I guess is what I'm saying. To get any kind of real justice here. I believe Larry Krasner's office just released a statement today, we're at a press conference today saying they are pursuing criminal charges.

The problem is, you know, we can lock this guy up and throw away the key, it won't prevent this from happening again. ALICE Correct. ALICE Yeah, I mean, just on a sort of ice cold level, how long does it take to train a pediatric oncologist, you know? JUSTIN Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's, uh, I have a hunch it takes more money and time to train a pediatric oncologist

than it is to, you'know, wheel in some jersey barriers. ALICE Might actually take less money and time to train a pediatric oncologist than it takes to like, incarcerate a guy for the rest of his life, though. LIAM Yeah. JUSTIN Yeah, this is true, yeah. I mean, I don't think he's gonna go to jail for life, I think he's gonna get like a relatively standard, y'know, DUI slap on the wrist.

But yeah, this is, I mean, this one hit close to home, because I use this intersection fairly frequently, you know, as a cyclist. You've nearly been killed here, numerous times. No, this one always struck me as one of the safer ones, that's the thing. You know, because you don't expect someone to just do that. I mean, if you look at this road, it's like, you've got the bike lane, here's B, then you have the buffer, that's also B. And then you have the travel lane, which is here, and then there's a parking lane, and this is probably end to end about 25 feet.

Right. Um, you know, so the fact that anyone is able to drive 50 miles an hour down this, goes to show that, A, people are incredibly reckless, and B, there's just insufficient infrastructure here to stop people from doing something incredibly stupid. SEAN It's seen shit, yeah. Philadelphia's a policy failure. JUSTIN It's a residential neighborhood, this is not like a big road, this is a tiny tiny road.

ALICE And to be clear, this is kind of like the opposite of news, in the sense that this happens every day in every city. JUSTIN Yeah, this happens pretty frequently, this one just happened to be particularly egregious. And I hope someone does something about it, but again, we have an administration in the city, which is, y'know... ALICE Contemptuous of people who live here? JUSTIN Yes, exactly.

I mean, you know, well, they consider anyone who hasn't, you know, lived here for fifty years and is also very conservative to not be a real Philadelphian. This whole city is governed like it's 1970, and it's in terminal decline. It's really frustrating and stupid. Like separate, I mean, it's like great, which isn't a horrible idea, you know? Yeah, I mean, doing that, grade-separating cyclists would require demolishing and rebuilding the city, which is what we're trying to avoid. We tried that in the 60s, it didn't work that well.

Didn't work, yeah. Say her name again, I can't remember her name. I don't have- Barbara Freeds. Yeah, and she deserved a lot better than she got. Exactly. Fuck you, Sheryl Parker, whose fault this is. Basically, yeah, I mean, I still don't understand why anyone voted for her. Other than, I guess, probably some fucking like, you know, you probably got the support

of the right pastors and then they delivered the congregation, I mean, that's really how the politics works. Um. Really, yeah. That is genuinely true. Yeah. I love a sort of a moderate theocracy. Exactly.

Such that it is. Alright, what have we got next? Yeah, so that was infuriating. In other news. I mean, we did a... it's Brad Summer. It's Brad, it's Kamala Harris Summer. Who is Brad, thereby making it Brad Summer. Yeah.

And I mean, god, okay. As much as I think it's reasonable to be relieved on a couple of levels, firstly that I think she's a lot more likely to beat Trump than Biden's dead-ass corpse was, and she might be both in terms of policy a little bit better and personally less odious to the point that you feel less uncomfortable voting for her. Again, I'm not gonna condescend to anyone who's like, I want no part of the whole charade, right, but like... JUSTIN Yeah, yeah, I mean, I feel a little bit more comfortable going to the polls for

Kamala than Biden, but like, they have four months to change that. ALICE Yeah, and I've already started on that, which we'll get to. LIAM Oh, that gruesome press release about that, yeah. ALICE Yeah, and if you remember anything about, like, Kamala's time as a prosecutor in California, you'll know that it was... I mean, she did some good things, and she did a hell of a lot of bad things, which is kind of an easy thing for any prosecutor to do, you know?

Like, it's kind of... ALICE You shouldn't trust anyone who wants to be top cop. ALICE Well, you shouldn't trust any politician, basically. I include our faves, right? I think the thing with all of the like, brat memes and stuff, that people kind of then legitimately felt betrayed a couple of days later when she did the thing that we're gonna talk about in one of the next slides, and people realize, oh

wait, she's a politician, it's like, no, that was always obvious, y'know? I'm not even necessarily against having a good time making fun of these people, or even making them into memes, but you have to do it with your eyes open, y'know? And you have to be aware that they don't really think of you as a human being. Just because you don't get to be vice president, or president, by doing that. ALICE I was very confused by the... I mean, I know that there is the initial honeymoon phase, I was like, okay, I'm not gonna post anything until like, 24 hours of a last.

People can be happy for 24 hours, and then like, alright, let's let the reality sink in here. ALICE They're just like armchair leftists, with our sort of omnipresent air of misery, can say, actually, did you know that this woman who might give you some hope is bad, too? JUSTIN Yeah, obviously. You know, that's a jab. And I love it.

I revel in it. ALICE It's a pleasure, you know, you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. ALICE Exactly. LIAM You both will get and deserve nothing, right, now I get it. ALICE I just, yeah, oh, that's cool, you have a video of her dancing, did you know that she went to the California Supreme Court to try and say that trans prisoners healthcare was, like, optional?

LIAM Wow, that's grotesque. ALICE Yeah, yeah, she since, like, optional. ALICE Wow, that's grotesque. JUSTIN Yeah. Yeah. She since like, said that she felt bad about it, which, thanks, bet that's a huge consolation. SEAN The specific kind of enthusiasm felt really familiar to me, and it was like how people felt about Hillary, like, in the week leading up to the election. ALICE She's a go-go in a while, do you remember

that Madonna tweet? SEAN Exactly. ALICE Happy birthday to this future president. like, in the week leading up to the election. She's a go-go in the wild, remember that McDonald's week? Exactly. Happy birthday to this future president. It's kinda like, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uh yeah this this this it does not feel good there's something vibes are off I I've seen people say why isn't beta work the VP nomRourke the VP, nom, and I'm just like, I need you to calm down. I don't know what I need out of you, but I need you to calm down. Just post less, talk less. I dunno, I think you're right, I hope that she has better political instincts than Hillary,

that's not a high bar. She's just what she seems to, for what that's worth, which is very little. Yeah, and like, prosecutor versus felon is gonna play really well in a lot of places. She could still lose, right? They can still really, you know, fuck this up. The polling right now is like, Kamala, I've pronounced her name four different ways so far and none of them have been right. It's like, Kamala. That's gonna be the real question, is how the BBC is gonna pronounce her name.

Yeah, I mean, the funniest thing is Buttigieg for VP, because then you get a double pronunciation minefield for broadcasters. Oh yeah. I think they're gonna pick Shapiro. That's uh, they're definitely gonna do that. That's really depressing. I think the best answer is Bashir, personally. Because I really like Deep Space Nine.

What he's had to say about vetoing anti-trans bills is genuinely very poignant. Where he was basically like, trans kids remain the image of God, and I can't stand here before God and deny his wishes or something, which just like, I don't know, that really resonated with me personally. ALICE You just also have to like, success- it's very, like, fruitful to look at these people who are like, trying to drive trans kids to like ****, you have to believe the word. And be like, these people are like freaks and bullies, right, and it's cruel what they're

doing to these children. And that's very successful, and I think that's a tactic that more Democrats could stand to emulate. Not helped, however, by the New York Times opinion. Like by the New York Times editorial, going, hey, you know how the Dems can make themselves more approachable? Why don't they just throw a bunch of trans people onto the bus? JUSTIN Oh, I saw that article, I didn't read it, because that was disgusting.

But y'know. That's kind of, uh... ALICE Fuck the New York Times, now and forever. JUSTIN Way to go, Roz. JUSTIN Except that one guy who had a really good article about the railroads. Yeah, fuck, anyone who's ever written anything that's been published in the New York Times, fuck a wordle, I never do a wordle. Go Wurl.

Yeah, more of a spelling Vigil, actually. Yeah, anyway, that's like half the paper's revenue as well, seriously, cancel your New York Times game subscription, they do boot copies of them online. But yeah, so Kamala's polling like forty-six... No, fuck me, it's like, it might legitimately be something like forty-six, forty-five, and then the rest is, I don't know, it's real bad. R.F. K. Jr. comeback of the year!

God, don't even... I think she's doing a little better in the swing states than Biden was, I think that's where, y'know, she's doing better with the 35 people who determine the election each year. Yeah. I mean, Trump hasn't been able to land a glove on her, in fact none of the Republicans have been, which is great. They've gone for their obvious things, which is racism and misogyny, and disgusting sexual ...

I assume they have their, y'know, the back office at the Heritage Foundation has gone into war communism mode, trying to retool the opposition research mill for this woman. They'll have it in a couple weeks, they'll have something, I'm sure. Right now everything's bouncing off of her. You know? ALICE Well, Trump is like, I call her Laughing Kamala. ALICE Nothing. So what's this?

You know what it is, it's that he doesn't have, like, new material anymore. All of the stuff was suddenly like Joe Biden, who has been in politics forever, right. He had material for him, he had, like, and those were kill shots, right. But like, against Kamala, he's got... Cause he can't invent anything new, cause his brain is also fried. Yeah, that's true, that's true. I think Trump's material is definitely flagging, youknow, he's not doing well in his old age. Um. In his dotage.

Yeah. Got no zingers. He's got no reeds. He can't even pull back the, like, Reagan bullshit of being like, my opponent's youth and inexperience, right, which would, y'know, put him up five points, because his brain is fucked. I love it here. Yeah, I mean, she- ALICE Watching the debate was like, y'know, they were both incapable of rational thought, but at least Trump could string words together,

even though they were horribly racist. There's a hundred million people outside, y'know, Guatemalans to tear down the Hoover Dam or whatever? I think the thing is, as well, is that, I think, I'm sort of like, almost cautiously optimistic about Kamala. I think she's gonna, like, as anyone elected president will do, gonna do a continuing, insane amount of evil in the world. But as far as, like, kicking the can down the road on keeping, like, kind of, like, patrician democracy alive, something which of course we all love, I think she's probably

like their best shot for doing it. Which... ALICE I'll buy that. God, that's grim. JUSTIN Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, and she might be a smidge better on Palestine. ALICE I have heard that. This is the thing, when you look at the actual body count, not just Palestine, and Palestine's

the most salient example, but all the domestic stuff too, it kind of betrays how inadequate any kind of moderation or incrementalism really is, you know? Right, right. Yeah. And you can be like, oh, it's a bit better now and you're looking at like a fucking wasteland. JUSTIN Yeah. ALICE Well, the one Palestinian left I'm sure will be pleased with Kamala's... JUSTIN Mm.

moderate policy on Israel. ALICE Moderate state. Yeah. Yeah. ALICE I tell you what, it's gonna be a hard impression for Milo to land, but I'm sure he's working on it. JUSTIN This is true. This is true. This is true.

I haven't really heard Kamala speak, that's the other thing. I'm kinda like, okay, I... She giggles a lot, the way she does. She's got nice vibes, and this is the thing with all of the memes and stuff, is that I think, irrespective of the kind of politician-ness, I think I find her quite personally charming, it just doesn't matter, y'know. Yeah, yeah. Because she's still a hideous worker

at all, right. ALICE Yeah. Yeah, I mean, definitely more personable. And would be the first non-tea-toddler in office for... ALICE Is that true? Huh. ALICE Yeah. Biden didn't drink, Trump didn't drink, Obama drank. Bush didn't drink. ALICE I need to know if she smokes as well, because

Obama reset the big smoking counter. And neither Biden nor Trump did, so like, if she does, America might be cool again. JUSTIN Yeah, America could be cool again. ALICE If she comes out to the inauguration, right, obviously like, blood, stained with international, especially Palestinian blood, but wearing a shirt that said, like, do not give me a cigarette under any circumstances, no matter what I say, that might reclaim some American standing in the world, you know?

JUSTIN See, we need to bring back, y'know, real Americans, like FDR, you smoke a cigarette with a big long holder. Y'know. That's cool. ALICE Maybe the reason why... LIAM It does make you cool, as we do. ALICE Yeah, I mean, this is the thing, Obama was cool, but like, in a kind of... in the same way as Bill Clinton, right, the cool kind of wore off pretty quickly. LIAM Aww, tell me about it.

ALICE Whereas someone like LBJ, again, blood-drenched war criminal murderer, but like, personally cool. Great society metros! Great society metros! You get the great society metros out, so maybe the recipe is, in order to get, like, kind of domestic political change out of a Democrat, you need them to be cool in an actual way. And that means they have to take up smoking. That's right. We're on the kind of draft Kamala sort of campaign, but it's drafting her into, like, smoking?

JUSTIN Yes. Exactly. You gotta take up smoking. Kids, if you wanna be cool and be president, you gotta take up smoking. That's official advice from the podcast. Take up smoking now. Ask your parents to bring you to the 7-Eleven. Get a pack of Lucky Strikes.

ALICE When I smoked, I started smoking Lucky Strikes, and you can find them anyway, so I had to switch to Marlboro's. JUSTIN Yeah, now that is the case. In the very very rare occasions when I smoke, it's like, I'd like a Lucky Stri- I haven't smoked in, y'know, I smoked like, once every six months for a while, and now I don't do it at all. ALICE I'm always jealous of people who can do that, I have a hopelessly addictive personality, so I smoked, like, two packs a day, give or take.

JUSTIN Yes. I couldn't do that. Yeah, from when I was 18 to 25. And quit cold turkey, because I'm awesome. But like... You sure are. Yeah. I feel miserable for like a day afterwards if I have one cigarette. That's why I don't do it.

No, I don't even like being around cigarette smoke now. Which is cool. It's cool how you can just kind of reset your brain like that. I just liked taking smoke breaks as the thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's the nice part of it. I think it was really good for whatever fucking neurodivergence ADHD bullshit or whatever

I have going on, to force force myself to go and like do another activity which is light something on fire. For five minutes. Yeah. I hear that. Yeah. Well and they ruined that by making cigarettes so you can smoke indoors. I mean, that was stupid.

Vapes are so like, sourceless, apart from everything else, you know? Like, ugh. Something cool about a vape, you know? You show me a private detective with a vape. No. Nope. This is what Kamala really needs to do, is make smoking legal again. Smoking legal, vapes illegal.

Really a 180 degree turn from Biden trying to make menthols illegal. Fucker. You all dead bitch. I still can't believe Biden tried to make menthols illegal. That's one of the most wild public health measures, you know, menthols specifically. It's racist is what it is. Yeah, it is. Joe Biden racist?

Oh my god. Joe Biden segregationist? Yep, but he won South Carolina. Place where there is no racism. It was always funny to me when, like, in the kind of dying weeks of the campaign, when people, like, commentators, people who are well thought of as political journalists, were like, well, you know, African Americans love Biden, so why aren't they turning out for him now?

And then, you know, you would see a bunch of vox pops, a bunch of interviews with people, and they're like, obviously he is nine thousand years old, I saw the debate, and like, one of his ears fell off, I cannot vote for this man. And it's like, they just have the same concerns as everyone else, which is that he was manifestly unable to keep doing it. But it was kind of perceived as like, it always got written up as like, oh, Joe Biden is like the African American whisperer. And it's like, but are we talking about the same guy?

The crime bill guy? JUSTIN Yeah, the crime bill guy, the guy who can't put a sense... I mean, apparently as early as like, 2021, he was addressing Congress and just completely binning it halfway through, just had no idea where he was or what he was doing. I would say the media was concealing this from us, but it was more like, y'know, it was fairly obvious, they were gaslighting us the whole goddamn time about this guy's mental decline, y'know what I mean? ALICE Well, also I think he had a lot of cover from

Trump, right, because Trump had spent four years being deeply insane. JUSTIN Yes. Right. This was a much more lucid fashion. ALICE Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we all had us kind of like sensitivity adjusted, right, by like four years of the President has said the most insane thing you've ever heard, for like the fifth consecutive day, again. JUSTIN The President is mad at a soda. The president has said the most insane thing you've ever heard, for like, the fifth consecutive day, again.

The president is mad at a soda. Yeah, the president almost made, like, reunified Korea, but then Robert De Niro hurt his feelings. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that did happen. Again, actors, weirdly, like, are kind of power brokers here, because George Clooney brought down Biden, so, y'know. We got them together, we could reunify Korea again. JUSTIN The Film Actors Guild from Team America, World

Police is real. ALICE Oh, oh, one fun thing about this, if she wins, is that it does, like, almost verbatim do the come-town bit. The only come-town bit I like, about how we never get a white woman president, and it just drives white women insane, because they can't say, isn't it time we had a white woman president? And it just never happens. That would be extremely funny.

I think there's a few reasons why I hope Kamilla wins, but I think high up the list is the Hillary Clinton congratulations tweet. I will be turning notifications on for Hillary. This is like, on election night. ALICE Sort of stumble backwards into the presidency, it's pretty funny. ALICE You know, the other thing, speaking of tweets, that's been fun about this, has been people

being made to fall in line by Nancy Pelosi. When that's like- She is ruthless and terrifying. Whether it's John Feteman, or even Barack Obama, everybody who is withholding an endorsement like a couple of days later has just done a fulsome endorsement. And it's just, it's fully like, ah, I see, someone has been credibly threatened. ALICE Yeah, I saw your tweets, guess who just got credibly threatened. SEAN Yeah, I mean, she put John Fettermann on a

leash, I mean, that's impressive. I mean, it's depressing and frustrating too, that she didn't bother to do that. ALICE Did she call this a whole time? SEAN Yeah, any of the times that he's said any of the shit that he has, she could have brought him to heel, but she didn't. I have it on good authority, so I will reveal some personal information here, which is that Corinne's youngest sibling interned for a congressman who flipped parties, from Democrat to Republican, it's not that hard to figure out, but I'm not kidding.

Nothing for free. And the scariest days that Cren's sibling worked were the days that the congressperson in question got yelled at by Nancy Pelosi. Because apparently she could scream at you for hours. ALICE She's got, the thing is, right, like, she's been in Washington for like, as long as Joe Biden has, the thing is, right, she's been in Washington for as long as Joe Biden has, if not longer, right, and also has the mindset of a Marine DI? LIAM.

Yes. ALICE. The fact that she uses this for mostly evil is not great, but at a certain point you have to not admire it, but you have to sort of, like, recognize the power of the work. Yeah, it's like, okay, okay, you're very good at your job. This guy had to switch parties to avoid getting yelled at. He did, he did, he would just come back, like, just with his tail between his legs, and apparently it was just like, Nancy days were the worst days for this person.

I believe it. Yeah. I always laughed at that, that just like, this guy who's like, now pals around with Trump and all that shit and talks about, y'know, oh, we gotta save the state, blah blah blah blah blah, it's just like, you couldn't handle getting yelled at by like a five foot Italian dude. I'm sure if I could handle that, to be honest. Yeah, nah, I think I would...

Like, the older Italian women get... My mother-in-law, I'm fine. The Mina they get, and like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like,

I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I would like, I've done some threat level stuff, because you wrote possible and I upgraded it on the basis of, like, intelligence assessed to probable. Probable couch fucker chosen to zp slot. Let's talk about JD Vance.

You guys are incredible headline writers. This motherfucker... I will be saying the phrase this motherfucker about a number of people. Incredible eyeliner game, though. I don't have to give him that much. I was about to say, yeah, he's gonna be our first goth vice president. That's not true, Hubert Humphrey was like, in the black parade. Hubert Humphrey, you son of a bitch.

Oh, that's a good point. But yeah, no, J.D. Vance, author of Heelbilly Elegy. ALICE Terrible bucketbook. ALICE Yep, Sanasiff, Ohio. All round piece of shit, and like, the... I mean, here's the thing, right, bad enough to have the kind of, like, horny-handed son of toil made good thing and come to rain ruin on the elites bullshit.

But to do that specifically through the lens of having been to Yale Law School, is just that combination makes you one of the worst freaks going, right? JUSTIN I just look at this guy and I could have written a book where I pretend to be from Appalachia, too. And I could be vice president now. ALICE Yeah, you could be talking about like, Mountain Dew. Diet Mountain Dew.

JUSTIN Yeah, well, Diet Mountain Dew is racist according to Democrats. That was the worst, like, attempted joke I have seen in my life. ALICE That made me racist? I don't even know how to proceed with this. ALICE He's got bad crowd work, is the thing. JUSTIN The crowd work was really bad, like, I could've seen a way that you could've made that work with that audience, but his comedic timing is so bad.

It's like, getting a laugh out of, like, a Trump audience is like, the easiest, it's the easiest layup in the world, right? You just do like, pronouns. Huge laugh, bring the fuckin' house down. Brings the house down, pronouns. Huge love, bring the fuckin' house down. Yeah. Brings the house down, yeah. And, and the thing is, right, you want, as vice presidential candidates, someone who will be a bit of a barnstormer, right? You want someone like, the Biden to your Obama, right?

The kind of, the meme Biden, the grasps podium liquid swords Biden. And what you've got instead is JD Vance, instead of someone authentically, like, insane? You know? JUSTIN No, I feel like you could workshop this fairly easily. Mountain Dew, it's a reference to Moonshine. Who makes Moonshine? Hillbillies. Hillbillies are racist.

That's why the Democrats don't like Mountain Dew. I assume that is... I'm not saying that's the exact format of the joke, I'm saying these are the things you have to work with. The thing is, this guy wrote a whole damn book where he said he hates hillbillies. Which is a bizarre choice for, you know, ostensibly the racist hillbilly party. You wanna know something really funny? You know who inspired him to write the book?

You remember the Tiger Mom lady, Amy Chua? LIAM Yeah, yeah, yeah. ALICE She was his professor at Yale Law School and she told him to write the book. She gave him feedback on early drafts and shit. LIAM That tracks. JUSTIN Oh my god. ALICE So it's, y'know, when a villain from an earlier

season comes back in a cameo. But yeah, no, I just... The funniest thing about Vance as a pick, aside from the fact that Trump now obviously regrets it and hates the guy, is- SEAN Yeah, so apparently they've been asking around for people to... ALICE Yeah. SEAN...who he should replace him with, which is incredibly funny to me.

ALICE The biggest cucking of all time if they do replace him. But the thing is, the reason he got picked in the first place was it was Don Jr's pick? Embarrassing. Oh my god. They finally let... it's like the fucking plane crash where the pilot lets his kid in the cockpit and the kid immediately nose-dives the plane, right? Like, the one time... Or like, Hunter Biden trying to keep Biden back in.

ALICE Oh, Jesus. Yeah, I know. Do you think Biden's gonna pardon Hunter on his way out? That'd be funny. JUSTIN That'd be so good, if he did. He better do that. I think if he really loves his son, he should do that. ALICE Just like, fuck all of you.

JUSTIN I don't give a shit. I'm leaving. I'm leaving with my son. Don't talk to me or my son ever again. ALICE AND LIAM LAUGH ALICE Yeah, that would be pretty good, actually. Yeah, so Don Jr. had one shot at influence over the campaign, and he's like, I want my weird, fascist, American monarchist, esoteric guy who hangs out in

a discord with a bunch of teenagers. ALICE Oh yeah, a bunch of weird twenty year old griper- yeah. ALICE Yeah. That was a weird one. That was a weird one. Why are you- SEAN It's another couch, as I'm worried about him fucking.

ALICE Oh yeah, it's the kids. He's gonna fuck some kids. Don't do that, leave it in. Sorry, Deb. I made the same joke on the TF I recorded earlier today, that the reason Trump doesn't like him is because he's jealous that there's another gay pedophile around. Like... Jesus Christ.

You're not wrong, but Jesus Christ. I mean, I don't understand the appeal of this guy at all. I was gonna say I don't understand the appeal of gay pedophiles, I was like, Roz, I don't understand the appeal of this guy at all. I was gonna say I don't understand the appeal of Gabe Hedibot, I was like, Roz, I don't think you're... I can easily put myself in the shoes of Hillbilly, which is why I'm writing a fake book about being one, so I can be vice president. But this guy, I would just look at this guy and say, what the fuck.

I hate the beard. It's so obviously the like, I'm gonna camouflage my kind of doughy cheeked complexion in my weak chin. ALICE Yeah, as a guy who does the same thing... PFFT. JUSTIN It's not a real... It's not like a real... This is a...

This is a... Y'know, there's... What is the word here? There's beards that you grow because you like beards, and then there's beards of necessity. ALICE & TROY LAUGH This is... actually, it's just occurred to me. The eyeliner, the beard, the groomed eyebrows, man is trying to make himself look like the Chad.

He's trying to make himself look like the, like, uh... Yes. Oh, that could be the case. I think he's legitimately trying to do that. He might be going for that look, yeah. This photo's the first time I've seen him in close to profile, and now that I'm seeing it, I think that's legitimately what he's doing, and I feel like I've cracked the fucking code here.

Y'know? This is the first photograph I found of him, and it was so bizarre, because it was at this weird angle. I'm not sure if he was leaning back or not. ALICE Yeah, so I actually corrected for that. ALICE Sort of like, spin stabilized J.D. Vance. Where did the couch fucking thing come from, by the way? Because I believe it implicitly.

ALICE I made a tweet, just a tweet, that someone was like, oh, he talks about it in Hillbilly Elegy. No he doesn't. No, he talks about it in Hillbilly Elegy, about how he put an inside-out latex glove in between two couch cushions and fucked it. I'm not gonna judge anyone, I know a woman who fucked two cans of Spam tape together, right, so I'm not... Oh, okay. I know it's one of the worst things I've ever heard, but...

That doesn't sound good. No. Was it the cans, or was it the meat inside the cans? No, no, no, it was the meat pressed together into two halves, taped together, and then fucked. That doesn't sound like fun. I don't think so either. Well it'd be weird if it were the cans, though.

I actually thought it was the cans, so I was just like, oh, insertion, okay, fair enough. No, no, no. We're still mutuals, like that's infie. JUSTIN I couldn't do that without immediately getting the spam song from Monty Python stuck in my head. I definitely killed the vibe. ALICE Spam. Spam.

I had a point. JUSTIN Yeah. ALICE Sparity spam! wonderful spam, at the climax. That's not good, you don't want that. You're gonna develop some pathologies from that. Yeah. I would be, like, sort of remiss then to criticize JD events for fucking a couch, but on the other hand I entirely believe it of him, because I know people who have fucked stranger things.

Yeah, and I mean, the one thing that happened is, after the first tweet, then there was an article in the AP about, no, JD Vance didn't fuck a couch, and then they had to retract it. Because while there's no evidence for him fucking a couch, you can't prove he didn't. Yeah. ALICE I mean, this is the thing, if that is Kamala, then she is leaning into the LBJ thing of like, I wanna make the son of a bitch deny it. Right.

JUSTIN Yeah, exactly. ALICE Yeah. I mean, it's not just the couch he's gonna fuck, if he gets in it's gonna be AMERICA. Because like, I can't stress enough, again we talked about this on Trash Feature, this is a guy who's very deeply hooked into the weird kind of fascist stuff. Trump doesn't give a fuck about it. Like the Project 2025 stuff, he'll do it, he'll 100% become American Hitler, if they give him the chance.

But it's not because he wants to do any work, because he doesn't. Like, yeah. Because every Hitler needs a, you know, a weird Nazi party behind him full of, like, people trying to do, like, weird rituals and like... It's absolutely like a Himmler vibe off this guy, you know? Exactly. If he's Vice President, he's like directing a bunch of US government money into weird archaeology to try and... He's gonna put runes on the naval observatory. Oh, God.

He's gonna try and do some kind of ancient viking summoning ritual. Yeah, yeah. He can't let this guy be vice president. JUSTIN He's gonna start talking about Odin in every speech, he's gonna... ALICE Yeah, it's like, he's on this weird, like, minxish mold bug thing, I just... All of these guys, man, they need to put them on a barge and they need to float it into the Pacific Ocean and just leave it for a while, you know?

Yeah. They're just gonna start decorating the vice-presidential residence with various mosses and herbs that have ritual significance. Oh my god. This is the thing, right, Trump, you know, kind of a crowd pleaser if the crowd is extremely racist. He's just like, get some people going, get some riled up, right. And then we also brought in this guy, who is trying to, like, inscribe ancient Babylonian

demon-summoning sigils, like, on the fucking stage. He's gonna, he's gonna, he's gonna, like, throw off the atomic clock, because he was trying to manipulate it in some kind of, like, throw off the atomic clock, because he was trying to manipulate it in some kind of fertility ritual. ALICE I'm still baffled that this guy became a sanitor, to be honest. But like... JUSTIN I don't want this guy anywhere near the atomic clock.

ALICE No. No. No. No. That's gotta be a weird pedophile ritual. JUSTIN But if he becomes Vice President, it'll be in his backyard. ALICE Every couch in the naval observatory. Ruined. JUSTIN Oh my god, it'll be worse than Liz Truss and towels.

ALICE What? Ew, what? I missed this one. ALICE Liz Truss went through, like, an alarming amount of bathrobes, as Prime Minister, at like, the official residence. She like, soiled so many fuckin of bathrobes, as Prime Minister at the official residence, she like soiled so many fuckin' bathrobes. Well, okay, I'm pointy. You don't know what she was soiling them with.

Yeah, exactly. That's the fun, Nova. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. Oh god. Spin that wheel, baby, let's do this! In other news, don't worry, we'll get back to politics. Well, this is still politics.

The city of Jasper, Alberta has been destroyed. Oh god. Oh no. How'd that happen? There's a big huge wildfire in Jasper National Park. Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah, so there's some indications a good chunk of the downtown survived. This is one of these, you know, historic vacation destinations in the Rocky Mountains.

Uh, right. But we'll have confirmation later, this is St. Mary's and St. George, which is relatively close to downtown. You know, this is like not a smaller, unknown place, this is a pretty good sized town, and just this wildfire just completely overran it. I mean, this is a stop on the Canadian, which is, you know, the transcontinental railroad, transcontinental passenger train in Canada. You know, there were these really extensive evacuations, you can see here, people got

stuck in a traffic jam for six hours trying to get out of the town. You know, cause that's... Cause we can't conceive that a town that has a railroad you could maybe use a train to evacuate. But that's another story. But yeah, the Jasper wildfire has been, you know,, really really aggressive, as I understand it. It's been going on for like a long time now.

And yeah, it just went straight for the town of Jasper, and like, knocked out a good chunk of it. Again, I think a good amount of the downtown area survived, but we don't know yet. This sort of happened a few hours before we recorded. ALICE I'm not loving that this is becoming like a sort of everyday occurrence. JUSTIN Yeah, like a town just gets wiped out. Yeah.

LIAM That happened to Fort Mac, right, a few years back? ALICE Yeah. JUSTIN Fort Mac didn't get completely wiped out, it was some of the outer subdivisions got wiped out, though. ALICE Still, though. JUSTIN Yeah, it's still like, pretty bad. That one town in Hawaii, that one got completely wiped out. though. Still, though. Yeah, that's still, like, pretty bad. That one town in Hawaii, that one got completely wiped out. Oh yeah.

Yeah. I forget what it's called. Now I feel like I'm insulting the people of Hawaii. I also do not remember... Crap. We're, like, cancelled for... Yeah, cancelled. Lahaina, guys.

What? Okay, good. Lahaina. Oh! Okay. Okay, we're not cancelled anymore Lahaina, guys. What? Okay, good. Lahaina. Lahaina. Okay. Yeah. Okay, we're not cancelled anymore. There we go.

That one got completely wiped down. I mean, this is just becoming more and more common. Yeah. You know, and it is a combination of... there's been some folks who have been saying, well, this is because, you know, the Canadian government is spending money on aid to Ukraine instead of wildfire prevention. Come on. And it's like, I don't think that's the case.

I think, okay, climate change is an aspect, bad forest management is an aspect, really bad forest management, and, you know, just sort of, okay, having less resources to fight wildfires is an aspect, but it's not like, you couldn't have prevented this given all the decisions that had been made before. ALICE Yeah, unfortunately, the town of Jasper existed in the context of all that came before it. She tried to warn us, guys. JUSTIN Did not just fall out of the pine tree, yes.

ALICE Yeah. I mean, like, this is the weird thing about forest fires, I say weird, is that they really just, like, or wildfires, just crop up in unexpected places. This is not one of them, right, necessarily, but like, think a lot about how, like, the big strategic planning document for future resilience for London just got published. And aside from the headline stuff that that like, y'know, half of all properties are gonna get hit with some sirens, or like, you need a new Thames barrier, part of it is also, yeah, a bunch of stuff's gonna get burned down by forest fires.

And yeah, just... or like, wildfires, because they just have enough grass around it, it just burns. So, yeah, it's bad to be on a heating planet, I think, maybe. JUSTIN It's not very good. Probably someone should do something about it. ALICE I mean, listen, I think maybe the... if Kamala is the next president, maybe she's just gonna do the like, cloud seeding or whatever, and everything's gonna be fine. I mean, at this point you're kinda stuck with, okay, maybe we should do the sulfur dioxide

bullshit. It's gonna be, y'know, we don't know what's gonna happen, but at the very least, y'know, if you find yourself in a sort of snowpiercer situation, you can just stop seeding the clouds and it stops working. Um. Yeah, and then you get that sweet sweet rebound effect. Which is the thing we're currently in, funnily enough, because of the, like, boat fuels.

JUSTIN Yeah, the boat fuels got changed, yeah. I mean, this is presumably how they wound up in the Game of Thrones universe. You know, where it's like, 12 years of summer, then 12 years of winter, whatever the bullshit is. ALICE Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is a thing, I guess if the geoengineering doesn't work out, we're just stuck with a we gotta solve a here to for unknown engineering problem or we're all gonna die, which is what we're already in now, with climate, with carbon capture and storage.

JUSTIN That's air conditioners. ALICE Yeah, just everybody get an air conditioner and run it as high as possible all the time. That's what I'm doing right now. Yeah, fuck you, Texas. When I, like, if I'm ever able to leverage this podcast to inshallah buy a house, the first thing I'm doing is air conditioning. Central air, baby! Not a thing that is common in the UK.

We will help you get central air. It is about to be, is a thing that is common in the UK. We will help you get central air. It is about to be, is the thing. If you wanna make bank in this country, I think, get into the HVAC game. Sell shovels. Mmm, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's career advice for our younger listeners. Get into HVAC. Yeah.

It's absolutely miserable. Quite a D-pad absolutely miserable, yeah. Friend of the show and all three hosts of Kill James Bond, Manny Lubchanski, used to work in that field and was so dispirited by it that they ended up drawing comics instead. Which, I mean... RILEY Well, if it works, it works. ALICE Yeah, I'm very glad that it has done. That's the kind of endorsement of working in HVAC, I guess, is bad enough to propel

you into the idea of, like, maybe I should draw for a living. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, especially the United States, we install a lot of very obsolete HVAC systems that aren't very good. And charge people a lot of money for them. ALICE Minny splits, minny splits, minny splits, I like minny splits. ALICE Hey, but you do get some, like, complicity, because by running the HVAC you are also burning down the town. Cause you're making it, like, hotter on the outside, you're losing the thing.

SEAN But I don't think Milkshake could live in a house that was on air-conditioned in this weather. No, he'd die. Yeah, exactly. I gotta protect Milkshake. In other news... This one's all me. So we've been waiting to talk about this for a while, and I've kind of been reluctant about

it because it hits a little close to home. JUSTIN This man looks like an overgrown child. ALICE Yeah, yeah, so this is- SEAN I would like to beat this man to death with his own shoes, is that an appropriate thing to say? ALICE I can't possibly comment. This is Wes Streising, who is the secretary- SEAN Oh, this motherfucker. ALICE Yeah, the secretary of state for health and

social care. Yeah, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is in charge of the NHS, and you begin to identify one problem of socialized medicine, so the couple, in that your healthcare is at the mercy of one extremely transphobic and careerist lickspittle, such as this. So, you may have heard of the CAS review, I think we talked about it on prior news thing. Which was a like- The one that said trans people aren't real. Yeah, the one that said that trans people aren't real, and specifically that trans kids should just kinda like, suffer. Fuck that noise. Yeah.

Whereas a consequence of that, this guy, Wes Drayton, has effectively banned puberty blockers, which are like, reversible drugs that you take, if you're like, if you're a child and you are like, maybe trans, maybe not, you wanna like, wait and find out, rather than going through the puberty that you got assigned randomly, it just kind of differs, it kicks the can down the road. Right? And these are things that are relatively commonly prescribed for other conditions, right? Absolutely, yeah.

It's like, otherwise... It's normal unless you think you might be trans. ALICE Exactly, yeah. And explicitly for that reason. You now can't get a private prescription of them, and you also can't get them on the NHS. I believe the idea was that you would be able to get them... The CAS sort of compromise, such as it was, it wasn't a compromise, it was a stalking horse for this, was that you'd be able to get them as part of a research protocol, and then no research protocol was

ever designed or announced or anything like that, so the answer is just, suffer. Right. ALICE So it's a skill-play game at all. Yeah. LIAM Kids. Miserable. Cool. That's great.

That's awesome. That's great. ALICE Absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, the thing is, aside from the kind of naked spite of this, I've mentioned this on Twitter before, but I had this kind of naive idea at one time, even relatively recently, a few years back, that there was this kind of, the transgender tipping point, right? There was this sea-changing attitude, and there was gonna be a generation of kids for whom being trans was a sort of minor personality

detail, right? Like a childhood illness, essentially. That's a very problematic way of putting it, don't yell at me. But fundamentally, it's something that you sort of realize as a kid, you take some medication for it, and then you kind of... There's a qualitative difference to your life as a result, because you never went through the, like, puberty that you would be, like, otherwise, sort of, coercively, genetically assigned. And you know, I was, like, simultaneously happy for those kids, and also a little bit

worried for myself as a kind of original model transsexual, that this would be a kind of, like, unfashionable mode of being. Luckily, guys like Wes came to the rescue, to make it so that there will be, as yet, no generation of trans people who are not miserable. And ideally for them, forced to go through a kind of like... Agony. Yeah, I mean, I experienced puberty basically, as you remember that scene from Prometheus? Yes.

The like, yeah, kind of like that only, it lasted for several years. And I don't love anyone else being forced to do that, but this guy does. And as far as these things go, it is still, like, it's still in the courts, so we'll see, right? But I think it shows the intent of the Labour Party in government, and not just this, but some of the other stuff, like the two-child benefit cap. The right wing of the Labour Party, which kind of controls the government, is very set on this idea that we're gonna, like, make the left squeal by doing these things, and it's gonna establish our kind of virility.

Like I've heard the benefit cap described as a virility test for the government, like internally. Which is an insane thing to say about, like, we're gonna make it so your kids can't get food or your kids can't get healthcare, right, this makes us tough. ALICE We gotta make our government more fuckable. We gotta make the government more fuckable by abusing people. SEAN I mean, the government to be submissive and readable.

ALICE Pfft. We're like, dominant in this case, but yeah, no, it's just really grim, and I'm sure there will be multiple Devon notes on this one as well. I think that it just... ALICE Grotesque. ALICE It's grotesque, and it's like, even if I was so self-centered as to not care about the kids it would be pretty frightening for me as an adult as well, because I'm aware

that I'm next, y'know? And I think this should be pretty frightening for you, even if you're cis, in the UK, because if the guy's gonna compromise with a bunch of evangelical headbangers and freak bigots about this, then why not abortion as well? Something which is on... ALICE They will come for you eventually. Yes. ALICE Something which is on extremely shaky ground, legally, in the UK, and which could be very easily outlawed.

So, y'know, just keep an eye on it. I think the best remedy, as ever, is protest and direct action, so maybe do some of that. JUSTIN And, kids, in addition to taking up smoking, learn to buy Russian research chemicals on the dark web." ALICE and LIAM As yet, they have not succeeded in passing an online safety bill that stops kids from using Google, right? So, you're allowed to find out what the standard for your healthcare in civilized countries is, and act on that as you see accordingly. Like, legally we probably can't put any links in the description

of the fight. JUSTIN I'm not gonna do that. ALICE Yeah, YouTube's not gonna like that one. JUSTIN Yeah. ALICE The algorithm already doesn't like this one. JUSTIN It's depressing. It's always like, you know, you see people talking about it, isn't it Great Labour One in Britain, and then they immediately run around and just double down on austerity.

ALICE Skullfucked PPX. JUSTIN It's just austerity, and they're gonna, y'know, they hate the trans kids, they hate everyone, they're making everyone miserable, they're like, hey, we can make people miserable better than the Tories could. Y'know, and HS2 is still cancelled. ALICE Thanks for nothing, you motherfuckers. ALICE Hey, but look on the bright side, at least England won the Euros. JUSTIN Oh my god.

It turned out that what I was actually doing was jinxing it the hardest anyone had ever jinxed it. So I'm sorry for that. It did not come home. No, it did not. Ugh. World's most self-sabotaging country. Yeah, I mean, I think that might be true.

Which is insane. We're not allowed to have nice things. No. No. No, because trans kids might get them. Do not allow anything to trick you into thinking that Britain might be a good or fun place to live. On the other hand, I'm staying here for as long as I can, because I'm fucked if I'm gonna

let this guy kick me out of it, y'know? That's a good point, yeah. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks. That's right, yeah. Alright, I'm sick of looking at this guy. Next. Hi, it's Justin. So, this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to. People are annoyed by these, so let me get to the point. We have this thing called So this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to People are annoyed by these so let me get to the point. We have this thing called patreon, right? The deal is you give us two bucks a month and we give you an extra episode once a month Sometimes it's a little inconsistent, but you know, it's two bucks you get what you pay for

It also gets you our full back catalog of bonus episodes so you can learn about exciting topics like guns, pickup trucks, or pickup trucks with guns on them. The money we raise through Patreon goes to making sure that the only ad you hear on this podcast is this one. Anyway, that's something to consider if you have two bucks to spare each month. Anyway, that's something to consider if you have two bucks to spare each month. Join at patreon.com forward slash WTYP pod. Do it if you want. Or don't. It's your decision and we respect that.

Back to the show. Yeah, and other news. We brought international war criminal Benjamin... uh, Benny from Cheltenham, Netanyahu, to address Congress. Oh, this is a part, this is the note saying, this is a part where as the review said, we will be subtly anti-Israel. Fuck Israel, doesn't deserve to exist. I've never been accused of being subtle in my fucking life. JUSTIN Yeah, exactly. ALICE No, someone got a reviewer of the podcast saying

that we were subtly anti-Israel. ALICE Free Palestine from the river to the sea. JUSTIN Yeah. Whatever, exactly. No, I was... someone got mad at me on Twitter for being an anti-Zionist Jew, to which I say, uh, suck my ass and balls. Mm. Absolutely.

So we invited this guy with a warrant out for his arrest by the International Criminal Court of Justice. Good enough, bud. The ICJ, whatever it's called. IC and J, we're the new PB and J, is that true? Yeah, the IC and J. We're the new PB and J. Yeah, the I.C. and J. And he gave a speech, and it was horrible. And everyone stood up and applauded. Give us more weapons, we'll finish the job.

Yeah. Insane and insulting to be doing a Zelensky tribute act. Not least when you consider that... Zelensky more or less begged Israel for aid and they told him to go fuck himself consistently for a couple of years. Which, uh, yeah, no, it's real bad, is the thing. And it just... Outside they had the cops macing kids, while this smug fascist called them, like,

unwitting agents for Iran, and whatever. JUSTIN Oh, yeah. I mean, they, uh, they, uh, you know, one of the various Jewish pro-Palestine groups occupied the Capitol Dome, and then, you know, the police had to forcibly evict them, and then, you know, y'know, they're obviously anti-Semitic Jews. That was the whole thing right there. I think someone dumped maggots into the conference room at the Watergate Hotel, where Netanyahu

and crew were staying. ALICE You're telling me that there are bugs at the Watergate? JUSTIN Yeah, there are bugs at the Watergate? JUSTIN Yeah, there's bugs at the Watergate, yeah. ALICE Very good, Dovah. ALICE It doesn't even make sense, because were they planting bugs or were they just stealing documents, I don't even remember. LIAM I believe they were trying to bug it too, I'm pretty sure they were trying to bug

it though. ALICE Oh, man, makes sense. JUSTIN Hey, run into a bunch of Soviets also trying to bug it. ALICE Ay! This is our turn, fuckhead! I tried to combine motherfucker and fuckhead and it came out, muckhead. Muckhead.

A lot of folks skipped the speech, but there's a lot of- Including Kamala. Yeah, Kamala did skip the speech to go to a sorority thing. Alpha Kappa Alpha, I guess. Hey, don't disrespect it. I would never- again, much like the tiny Italian woman thing, I know better than to disrespect an alpha, right? But, yeah, no, she was out of town, Nancy Pelosi gave a surprisingly strident statement,

because again she's in combat mode right now. Where she's like, fuck this guy. I mean, as much as Nancy Pelosi would do that. Where she's like, he's a kind of divisive figure, we want him to take the deal and bring the hostages home kind of thing. She wasn't gonna do the right entifada on the Liberty Bell. It's fine. JUSTIN Yeah, a replica of the Liberty Bell. ALICE Replica Liberty Bell defaced with Pro-Hamas

graffiti. JUSTIN Yeah, it's like, oh, well, you know, wipe it off, come on, this is not difficult. We see here Rasheeda Tlaib, who did attend the speech to protest Netanyahu, who is factually speaking a war criminal, as divined by several international bodies at this point. I think ICJ just... ALICE pathetic for your thing to be like, you know, California's top cop, like, prosecutor, and then be like, oh, well this guy with a warrant on him is coming to town, so I'm just gonna be like, away when he's here.

JUSTIN Yeah, I mean, maybe she should've just arrested him, I mean, that would've been pretty funny. It would've been pretty funny. Listen, if Carmilla had done like a citizen's arrest of Benny from Cheltenham, I think I would feel comfortable in saying that you should vote for her. That would get her the unqualified endorsement. Yeah, that'd be an unqualified endorsement for me as well, y'know, I'd be like, okay, y'know, citizen's arrest, and then they put him in like, they don't put him in like a federal prison, they put him in like local DC lockup.

Y'know. Next to a bunch of protesters. Yeah, next to a bunch of protesters. Oh, that'd be funny. Hey, what are you guys doing here? Hey, hey. As everyone's doing today. I'm Ben, from Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.

ALICE But yeah, no, I mean, I admire Rashida's leap a lot. I think this is a brave thing to do. And it's shameful that she was the only one who was protesting in any meaningful way. JUSTIN It's about to say, at least in the chambers, outside the chambers, quite a lot of protests. You know, there was the one everyone's taking pictures of in Columbus Circle outside Union Station, where they put a bunch of graffiti on the Columbus statue and also the replica

Liberty Bell. But there were also, like, some bigger protests along Pennsylvania Avenue, I wanna say. Obviously there were some outside the Watergate Hotel. I mean, there were pretty strong protest presence the whole way. I mean, the war in Gaza has not exactly let up, you know, this is something to remember. It's been less in the news recently, but I forget what that medical journal is. ALICE The Lancer. JUSTIN The Lancer, y'know, is estimated that something like one tenth of the Palestinian

population has been killed in this conflict. ALICE Jesus fucking Christ. JUSTIN They've actually decimated them, y'know, in the traditional sense of the word. Stuff's bad there right now. It's absurd, you know, just... Well, one of the things, if you watch any regular media coverage of this, it's like, these killings just happen. And it's like, well no, this is entirely one-sided.

It's all Israel killing Palestinians, it's, I don't know, I had an experience, you know, watching news with my family last weekend. And it's just, you know, you look at the coverage of the news, of the conflict from the mainstream media, it's just bizarre. Because these deaths are not attributed to anything other than an abstract force. ALICE Yeah, there was a piece from a couple of American surgeons who went over there to volunteer, about what they saw in their time there and what they didn't, like... JUSTIN We got another five kids today shot in the

head by sniper rifles, wonder who did that. ALICE Yeah, exactly. The number of kids who they found shot in the head was astounding. And they could do next to nothing for them. LIAM Right. Unbelievably fucking evil. Just pure fucking evil. Again, Israel specifically has no right to exist.

ALICE I should've put some cheerful news in this summer. ALICE Unfortunately there's not, like, for a week where decades have happened, this is why I kind of understand on some level the people being like, Kamala, so brat, or whatever, is like, you gotta get something somewhere to... LIAM Something, right, I get it. JUSTIN Yeah, exactly, you gotta have a little bright

spot somewhere. Even if they're gonna fuck that one up too, but that's gonna take a couple weeks. Well, Israel continues to be bad in other news. ALICE This is a little bright spot. Maybe? JUSTIN Well, no. ALICE No. JUSTIN SpaceX destroyed one of their rockets, and some of their satellites, and also the

National Labor Relations Board. ALICE When they crash a rocket into it? JUSTIN So, there was some flaw in a recent Falcon 9 launch where the upper stage did not fire correctly, I think there was a propellant leak, which is what all this ice here is, it did not deliver the payload of twenty Starlink satellites into the correct orbit, they're all gonna de-orbit in like a week or two. ALICE Hey, a bit like space lesser. satellites into the correct orbit, they're all gonna de-orbit in like a week or two. So, satellites- Hey, a bit like space lesser. Yeah, so if a satellite crashes into your house, you know who to sue.

Yeah. Best of luck. You know? You just have to sue the most annoying man on the internet. Yeah. Yeah, you have to go talk to Elon Musk. And he'll call you like a paedophile. Oh, instantly, yeah.

He's got paedophile-seeking satellites. Pfff. JD Vance in serious danger. Oh my god, they crashed directly into his couch. That couch told him she was 18. Oh god, Nova! Yeah, the most unrealistic thing about that was the pronoun she. LIAM Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, sheesh. Brace on. Hell. JUSTIN So they botched one of their own payloads on a Falcon 9, but the other thing they did very recently is SpaceX has prevailed in getting a preliminary injunction against the National Labor Relations Board, preventing them from routine enforcement in Texas and Louisiana. I think another state, but I'm not sure, it might be Mississippi.

This is in anticipation of a future ruling by the Supreme Court, which would make the National Labor Relations Board unconstitutional. ALICE I mean, of course this Supreme Court would do it. LIAM Right. Oh yeah, the official acts. Fuck you. JUSTIN Yeah, this was a lawsuit that I wanna say was SpaceX, and I think also Starbucks, and then a third company.

Amazon? I think Amazon. ALICE Oh, the Super Friends. JUSTIN The Super friends, yeah. At least Starbucks haven't... Whole booths but having so much Amazon. Yeah. At least Starbucks haven't done a Vanity Project to try to go to space, y'know? Not yet.

Not yet. Mmm. Yeah, okay, I copied this from Matt Brunig's newsletter. Oh boy. Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, also known as SpaceX, sought a preliminary injunction in a Texas federal district court against the National Labor Relations Board and its officers, including the LRB's administrative law judges. The core issue was the constitutionality of the removal protections for NLB members and

ALJs, the administrative law judges. SpaceX argued that these protections violate the president's Article 2 power of removal and the district court applying this Fifth Circuit's decision in JARC-C, I don't know what that is, that's probably a case of some kind, decided that SpaceX was likely to win this argument and preliminarily enjoined the NLRB from initiating an administrative proceeding against SpaceX. In this case, they're not allowed to enforce or proceed in any basic labor complaint, because they think the way the judges are able to be removed is unconstitutional. ALICE And it doesn't matter anyway, because after

Chevron, like, the NLRB is like, well, all kind of agencies are now functionally powerless anyway. JUSTIN This is true, yeah, like a lot of the administrative state is just... ALICE Pfft. It's dead now. Pending Supreme Court reform. I have some ideas of what I'd do there.

LIAM I was gonna say, I have some ideas too, it involves massive ****. Don't blink, don't blink. I'd at least pack the court. We'll all pack a bowl of explosives. Or, again, just as he leaves office... 24 Supreme Court justices are second. President Joe Biden issues an executive order ruling that Marbury versus Madison was wrongly decided.

ALICE As we've agreed, yes. JUSTIN Yeah. Now that depends a lot on who the next president is, whether you do that. But if it's Kamala, okay, sure, whatever. ALICE All power to the liberal coup, you know? JUSTIN Yeah, all power to the liberal coup, you know? JUSTIN Yeah, all power to the liberal Soviets. ALICE Would be very funny for the Federalist Society and the Republicans to have set up this generation long project that's about to come to fruition,

and that it gets swept out from them and turned around on them because Don Jr. picks JD Vance to be Vice President? ALICE I mean, that would be entertaining if they did the whole Project 2025 thing, and then the next guy was a Democrat. You know, and it's like, oh, you know, you move too slow on the super gerrymander. And now, I don't know, Dr. Brother Cornel West is president, just uh, you know, just- ALICE I think he actually finally did make that

tweet come true, and his with a brother Trump recently. Which- JUSTIN Oh, oh yeah, he has done that before, yeah, it's not the first time. ALICE Brother Vance. LIAM Brother Vance. JUSTIN But yeah, we're gonna wind up in a situation where there's no National Labor Relations Board and that's going to be interesting to see how the unions are going to respond to

that. Well, I mean, I know how the head of the team has responded by going to the Republican Convention. Sean O'Brien I think made a... I know that he's like trying to, trying to, you know, what's the word? He's trying to play both sides there, I know that, I just, I'm not sure that it's like a gambit that... It seems like it has very little upsides and a lot of downsides, you know? It does not... I guess that... Yeah, it's pretty bad. Pretty grim.

Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time that the Teamsters have endorsed a Republican, but you know, it's sort of, you know, a lot of Teamsters are folks who are, you know, economically disadvantaged in various ways that, you know, a lot of Teamsters are folks that the Republicans want to kill. Yeah, yeah. I've heard this. You know, it's kind of, I don't know kind of, uh, I don't know that this is playing well, I believe he now has a challenger for the presidency of the Union at this point.

ALICE What a dumb dickhead. ALICE Unquestioning endorsement of whoever that is. JUSTIN Yeah, it's kind of like, uh, you know, maybe we shouldn't talk to the people who want to kill part of our membership. ALICE Yeah, if you are a Teamster it is now your sacred duty to administer this guy an electoral punishment beating. JUSTIN Yes. Yeah, you're gonna have to get out the big Teamster clubs.

We need some big guys. ALICE The beating sticks, yes. JUSTIN Yeah, we need some big guys for this. ALICE Very big guys. JUSTIN Very big guys. this. Very big guys. Very big guys. Very good guys. Anyway, so yeah, no more National Labor Relations Board.

Well, that's gonna reduce the situation, strikes are gonna have to be a lot more militant because they will be able to, y'know, just be broken up by the police. I mean, they do that anyway already, but it'll be more... You'll be able to just fire people for striking, you'll be able to do all kinds of the old stuff they used to be able to do. And you know, I think this is... I mean, it's not good, it's going to make life very difficult, but at the very least I think you will see a lot more labour militancy...

ALICE Yeah, it's not only the bosses who can go back to the old ways, y'know. JUSTIN Well, yeah, I mean, this is the thing, I mean, we'd prefer not to have a Battle of Blair Mountain again, but... What else are you gonna do? ALICE Exactly. JUSTIN All thanks to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and... what's his name? ALICE Stupid space cunts.

LIAM Howard Schultz. JUSTIN Yeah, space... Howard Schultz, yeah. Mmm. Neat. You know, he was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's Labor Secretary, I wanna say. My god. I'm just, I'm just rotating the Carmel cabinet in my mind.

I mean, funniest answer, Buddha-jedge transportation again. Just stay there. Stay in purgatory. Gay purgatory. You're stuck in transportation forever. Doing absolutely nothing. Making some appearances. ALICE Yeah, something that we didn't actually mention

in the thing is that, I've heard rumblings of Admiral William McRaven for Vice President, which fucking Christ. JUSTIN I don't know who that is. He used to command the SEALs. Oh, I see. Wrote a really godawful couple of books, and some of the worst poetry I've ever read. So yeah, he's got like a warrior philosopher in his own mind. Oh boy.

He'd be an interesting Secretary of Defense. And by interesting I mean bad. Yeah. Yes. That was a very depressing episode of The Goddamn News. Alright, onto the main topic of tonight's episode. Yes. Ah, I forgot to put in a topic.

Onto Safety Third. Uh, I got a 50-50 choice here. There we go. Yay! Hello, Roz, November, and Liam. Yeah, and Alda. Yeah. Good job.

We all know the safety rules are written in blood. Today I'd like to tell you about a few of my favorite rules from my time working around steam locomotives. Beautiful machines. Yes. It's not this one, this is from the Walt Disney World Railroad. I think I have an idea of what railroad this guy was working for, but I don't wanna say. When I started my career as an impressionable young brakeman, the rulebook included two

contrasting rules likely written a century apart. Rule 227. Dynamite that has leaked must not be used. It must be handled carefully and taken to an open space and burned. All wood showing evidence of dynamite leakage must be carefully removed and burned in the open. The use of dynamite boxes or dynamite packing paper for kindling is prohibited." I've built myself a beautiful little campfire out of dynamite boxes.

RILEY And, rule 968, employees must exercise great care when scooting across the floors in castor-equipped chairs. Standing on chairs is not allowed. ALICE Oh boy. ALICE Enjoy the use of the word scooting there, very whimsy. Actually, when was the castor- like, when was a chair with wheels invented?

JUSTIN When did they invent the office chair, yeah. ALICE Yeah! LIAM Rollie chair, invented when. ALICE This is perfectly snide for me here. Um, 1876 patented. So, shit, I mean, maybe not that far apart after all. JUSTIN People were fuckin' around with office chairs in 1876. And dynamite. far apart after all. JUSTIN Uh, people were fuckin' around with office chairs in 1876.

And dynamite. God. Hopefully not the same time. SEAN Thomas Jefferson made an early swivel chair in... a swivel chair. Nevermind. ALICE Yeah, no, he's uh... mm.

JUSTIN Well these rules were absolute, others allowed open-ended exceptions, perhaps because no blood was available to rewrite them, or because cooler heads recognized the need to allow problem solving in the field Mmm. It took me only a month on the job to experience such an open-ended rule. Trains usually ran close to the locomotive's tonnage limit on the long climbing run, but today we were especially heavy with the addition of the fanciest and heaviest parlor car, so the executive bigwigs could entertain some dignitaries. It had rained the night before, and on this cool morning, the rails were slick."

ALICE Oh, I am already concerned. JUSTIN Mmhm. In conditions like these, locomotive engineers use a pneumatic system to spray sand onto the rails ahead of the wheels. This increases the friction of the steel- steel wheel rail interface to avoid the locomotive slipping. Wheel slip is very bad. And it can damage your track, your locomotive, and most importantly in this case, your forward

momentum. He's trying to go uphill. Steam locomotives make a very distinct sound when slipping, which I will attempt to describe in technical terms. Chugga chugga ch-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugg Eventually the grade lessened and the slipping stopped, but there was still one nasty grade ahead. The engineer stopped the train on level track and the conductor and I walked up to the engine. From his perch high above us in the cab, the engineer asked if I'd bring him a stack of empty soda cups from the Coke machine in the cafe car. I dutifully went on my fetch quest, wondering what James the Red Engine bootlace fix he was about to perform. When I returned, he and the conductor were looking grim. I cheerfully offered the cups to the engineer who refused to take them. Those are for you, he said.

Oh boy. We have sand, but it's not spraying properly. You're going to ride in the cab with us, and when we get to the next hill, you're going to climb out onto the front of the engine and use those cuffs to pour sand onto the rails. Fuck that. Like the helpful and agreeable rookie I was, I agreed. But later I looked up the rule. Number 145.

Except when necessary in the performance of duty, employees must not ride on catwalks, ladders, steps, or tops of moving locomotives. Now, necessary in the performance of duty is the exception for when railroading gets weird. Subject to the requirements of the service. I donned my gloves and climbed into the cab, taking care not to dirty my uniform. A traditional trainman's cap, crisp button down shirt, vest and clip on for safety tie. The fireman handed me a packet of earplugs and away we went. Now steam locomotives are loud machines and make a cacophony of noise.

Stack is barking, the fire is roaring, the fire doors are clanking open and shut as the fireman shovels. The air compressor is panting, the injector is gargling, the dynamo is whining. That's the most irritating sound. And everything is rattling. Lost in the kaleidoscope of sound, I barely noticed when we were, where we were, until the engineer waved me over to his seat. Over the din, he shouted in my ear, it's time. Be fucking careful. I squeezed past the fireman and clambered onto the running board above the wheels in

this reference locomotive that's here. Scad, scad, scad, scad. Yeah, I don't like this. Outside the cab I could feel the chugga chugga exhaust from the stack shaking my chest as the locomotive worked near its tonnage limit, building speed toward the hill. My first task was to fill the cups with sand. The sand dome is atop the boiler, usually the first dome behind the smokestack."

And here it would be this guy, I believe, in this reference locomotive. But I have a feeling this one's a lot bigger, so it's going to be a much more low profile dome. "...with a white knuckle grip on a handrail attached to the boiler I inched my way forward. I could hear the pounding and clanking of the wheels and rods below my feet and knew that if I fell I'd be mincemeat before I hit the ground. This may or may not be true but certainly felt true in the moment." That counts, we count those. "...climbing up the boiler to the sand dome was painful.

The smokestack was blasting not just exhausted steam, but also unburned bits of coal from the firebox. Those are cinders, right? These fruity pebbles of death pelted down on me, singeing the exposed skin of my wrists and neck. As quickly as I could, I slid aside the heavy sand dome cover and filled two cups with sand. Then I continued forward to the front pilot.

So in this case, this one has sort of a fake cowcatcher. This whole assembly is the pilot. This one probably has like two boards down here for standing on the front. This is again, this is a Walt Disney World steam locomotive. It's been dressed up to look older than it is. Because these are from the Yucatan. Listen to our Trend Maya episode where I talk about that. Now, once I got ahead of the smokestack, my life improved immeasurably. The cinder stopped and even the exhaust got quieter. Instead, I was greeted with the unnerving sight of the empty track curving in front of me before rapidly disappearing under the front coupler and cow catcher.

Oh, so it did have a cow catcher. Okay, so this is difficult then. I considered doing my best Bauer the Titanic Jack We're Flying pose, but decided I didn't want that in my obituary. I could already hear the locomotive starting to slip. One hand on a handrail and one holding a sand cup I knelt on the pilot and did a test pour off the front of the engine. The wind caught the pour and scattered it everywhere except the rail head. This clearly was not going to work. I noticed the pilot deck had holes cast into it through which I could see the ties flashing past. Hoping I wasn't pouring sand into some lubricated machinery, I aimed for the rail and poured sand through one of them

into those holes and it missed the rail but stayed in a single stream. I adjusted my aim and tried again, finally hitting the rail. For the next hour I poured a slow steady trickle of sand onto the rail. Actually, it was probably about five minutes, but I was so completely focused that I jumped when the fireman appeared, tapped me on the shoulder, and told me, that's good. And gestured for me to follow him back along the running board into the cab. We arrived safely at our destination. If the big wigs in the parlour car were aware of the day's events, I never heard a word about it.

ALICE Of such things are railroads made. JUSTIN Years later I qualified as a conductor and then a dispatcher, and continued to encounter weird railroading problems which, now that I was responsible for solving them, furthered my appreciation of rules with escape clauses. As far as absolute rules go though, I never did have problems with dynamite or castor-equipped chairs. ALICE This one has given me deja vu, I think we may even have done it before. SEAN Nah, this came in very recently.

ALICE Huh. Well, thank you for sending it in. If you wanna send in a safety third, the email's like wtyppod.gmail.com, right? JUSTIN Yes. Wtyppod.gmail.com. Safety Thirds, we like to keep them about a page length. ALICE Yeah, you assholes. JUSTIN Send in some pictures if you want to.

And if you wanna remain anonymous, obviously you can, we're not gonna get you fired. Unless your boss listens to this podcast. And identifies you. Yeah, exactly. That's true. This is a good Safety Third though. That's not our fault though, this is a good one though, yeah. Thank you for your railroad service.

Thank you for your railroad service. Um, well, that was Safety Third. Our next episode will be on Chernobyl, does anyone have any commercials before we go? ALICE Yes, I do, I should have put this up front. I... God only knows when this is coming out, but we continue to have tickets for the Kill James Bond live shows in London in August 9th, 10th, and 11th, that's two weeks from the day we're recording it, go to killjamesbond.com slash live, you can come and see us, it'll

be a good time. JUSTIN It's about Johnny English, right? ALICE Yeah, that's right. JUSTIN Kill Johnny English. ALICE Kill Johnny English. ALICE That's right. Much to say about it, I know Dev saw the second one recently and I just got a message in the group chat that's like, wow this is racist.

So. Oh good. I think I saw the first one once. I've seen the first one or maybe first two. So. We're moving on. Alright. Oof.

End recording. Alright. That was the podcast. Goodnight everyone. Bye. Bye.