Latest / Normal Men / Episode 63 - Thermal Shock Doctrine

Transcript

Episode 63 - Thermal Shock Doctrine · Normal Men

• 0:01
  Ed: So because the Internet is forcing me To Be Evermore YouTube, I picked up one of these and these kind of hurt me as a person because like I own real cameras. But this is an Insta360 Luna Ultra, which is like one of those. Basically it's like two webcams on a gimbal. But they're like good webcams. They're not like the webcams that, that all of your co workers use. But the neat thing is just that like, and like the future has, has definitely moved in recent years. You can like take the screen off of it and it's a remote control and microphone. So I'm over here like, oh, this is why all of the YouTubers are now like barely tolerable.
• 0:41
  Lowtax: Oh yeah, that's the reason.
• 0:44
  Ed: I mean from a production standpoint, Lotax, they're all beyond saving in terms of like what they talk or think about or anything of the sort. But it is at least like spiritually a minor step up from putting a giant Shure SM7B inside of a coffee cup and thinking you're funny.
• 1:04
  George: Ed was not content to be the resident audio pervert. He is now the resident video pervert as well.
• 1:10
  Ed: You know I used to like be a video engineer, right, George?
• 1:14
  George: Well, but not for our podcast.
• 1:17
  Ed: This isn't for your podcast. I, I can't take incriminating video of, of certain people on this podcast as far as you know.
• 1:25
  Lowtax: I just like that Ed's camera looks like Johnny five from Short Circuit.
• 1:29
  Ed: It really does. And like that's half of the reason I'm keeping this thing because like having the little stupid gimbal that like you can control and just drive around is very fun.
• 1:38
  Propter: It's very cute.
• 1:39
  Ed: Yeah, it's neat. And it's much smaller than carrying around like a full camera and like a. I don't think doing video stuff for like professional work really needs a boom micro. I'd like to, but I don't have four hands. So like we're going to make do, but it's very dumb. And like you can just, maybe we
• 1:59
  Propter: can get you like a shoulder harness
• 2:01
  Ed: that that's more for the person who's not supposed to be on camera. I think that, I mean, now that you say that, that would be an
• 2:09
  George: interesting esthetic, some sort of pulley system,
• 2:12
  Ed: just like one man band. But you're doing video.
• 2:15
  George: Yeah, that's exactly the vibration. You've also got a xylophone. For some reason, you know, the whole
• 2:21
  Ed: day it's a load bearing xylophone. George, don't you know anything about video?
• 2:27
  George: Maybe like a set of CDJ decks as well just for to complete the aesthetic.
• 2:32
  Lowtax: Load bearing xylophone. Is that like load bearing drywall?
• 2:37
  Ed: No, that's my house.
• 2:38
  George: Musically, yes.
• 2:39
  Ed: Yeah. Oh, that's true. I don't know if we can talk about that without having Go like Hell Machine on. Because I mean, really, what is a drummer but a load bearing percussion instrument.
• 2:50
  George: I had fun commiserating in the group chat with Go Like Hell Machine on Friday night because I was treated to easily the worst 80s cover band I've ever encountered. And it was hilarious because we were at this like urban new urbanism development. Like the kind of thing where like you got to drive there, but then it's walkable. Like that's the whole feel. It's like an outdoor mall, but like they also residential built in and there's no public transit access. And it's like way out in the suburbs. But you know, once you're there, it's like this very fun kind of. There's a brewery and they have a stage where they do music on Friday nights. And the kids have a good time and there's food and whatever. Okay, so we're there and it's summer in the south. So on a sunny Friday, it is 90 plus degrees at 5pm, 6pm, like full sun. And you know, the sun was kind of shifting behind the buildings as we sat there. By the time we left, we were in the shade. But, you know, and so we've got this group of like, just frazzled, like, just like not at their best. Folks in their 50s covering like, I don't know, all kinds of stuff. Everything from Journey to what was the other? They did a Susu studio. Like they did. It was so bad and just covering in the worst way imaginable.
• 4:12
  Lowtax: Very few cover bands I would trust to cover Journey. Right?
• 4:16
  George: And that's a conversation we had with, with Dr. Go like hell Machine, where it's like, okay, if you're like at a wedding and. And you've got a. The band at a wedding, like they do the live band thing. I'm more of a DJ at a wedding kind of guy. But like, you know, people do the live band fine. If it's like 11:30 and everyone's been drinking for six hours and they start doing Journey, like, I don't care how bad it is, it's gonna be. It's gonna go off. Like it's.
• 4:36
  Lowtax: It's fine.
• 4:37
  George: Like, don't stop believing in that context is like, it literally doesn't matter how bad you are. Like you could, you can it, it's irrelevant. At like 6:30pm on a Friday in broad daylight and full sun, when you're like a bunch of people in their 50s wearing leather pants and like not like good looking in the 50s, like bad looking in the 50s wearing full leather pants with what go like hell machine described as like just the goofiest setup imaginable in terms of their instruments and all that stuff. It was a grim scene, man, that's a grim scene.
• 5:12
  Lowtax: So not talking about guys in their 50s like Scott Wayland, who did enough heroin that they could pull off leather pants. We're talking, you know, there are absolutely
• 5:21
  George: people in their 50s who are better looking than I will ever be or have have ever been. Like, don't get me wrong, like, age is just a number two for a certain class of human that has a certain amount of disposable income to throw at peptides and surgery. But these people were not that.
• 5:39
  Ed: You know, you say that, but the peptides have really come down in price.
• 5:44
  George: I don't care how much deflation is built into the peptide market. Not applicable in this instance.
• 5:50
  Lowtax: So you, you were out there and it was 90 plus degrees. Did you get thermal shock when you walked into a restaurant or a restroom or something?
• 6:00
  George: Well, I, I didn't because it was all outdoors. I just simply air conditioned, turned on the preconditioning for my truck when we were headed back and hopped into nice 71 degrees and felt love. Oh wait, that's not true. We did get frozen yogurt, so we ducked in this American dish before we got back to the truck.
• 6:18
  Ed: So you, so you pre, you pre gamed to avoid the thermal shock that apparently every person with a PhD in France is deathly afraid of now.
• 6:27
  Lowtax: That's right.
• 6:28
  George: Yes, exactly.
• 6:28
  Ed: Yes, okay.
• 6:29
  George: That's right.
• 6:29
  Ed: Okay, good.
• 6:31
  George: This is Normal Men, a podcast from four men who are clinging desperately to normalcy in an era when that's asking a bit too much.
• 6:37
  Propter: I'm George in Charlotte in D.C. i'm Proctor Malone in outer Florida.
• 6:41
  Lowtax: I'm low tech Speedrun enjoyer and I'm Ed in Boston.
• 6:50
  Ed: See, that was me being subtle, like not going full proper. That was like a quarter propter.
• 6:55
  George: Is that like an actual. I haven't seen that talking point. I've seen lots of Europeans getting mad at the concept of AC over the past week, but like, I, I have not seen an. The thermal shock argument. Is that something that somebody actually said?
• 7:09
  Lowtax: Yes, yeah, many people have said it.
• 7:12
  Propter: I Kind of believe it a little bit. I'll say this though, like the, the sickest I've ever been for a season was a summer I spent in Tucson, Arizona where like I was going from, you know, 100 degree temperatures outside to 68 degree temperatures inside, like all the time.
• 7:28
  George: That, that's not a problem in that climate though. And here's why. You're going from dry heat to dry air conditioning. The real problem is when you're doing that in Houston and it's 100 degrees outside and you're covered in sweat because it' 80% humidity and then you're.
• 7:41
  Lowtax: Yes.
• 7:41
  George: Still have the water on you and then you go into 68 degrees. That's where it'll get you.
• 7:47
  Lowtax: Yeah, that's a great way. Give yourself hypothermia.
• 7:51
  George: I mean. Yeah, we, we went and watched Toy Story 5, which by the way we should talk about at some point because interesting stuff there. The, the merchandising clearly drove some of the plot in that movie.
• 8:02
  Lowtax: But no, we talked about, we talked about the Makerfield by election last week. Charged.
• 8:10
  George: We went, saw Toy Story 5 yesterday and we brought blankets and like I turned on the heating element in the seat because like, you know, the AMC wasn't like that cool. But it was, it was, you know, it's.
• 8:21
  Lowtax: Yeah.
• 8:21
  George: Like you can overdo ac. I think everyone will admit that there's, there's no, there's no shame in admitting that it can be overdone.
• 8:29
  Lowtax: Yeah, you can waffle House it.
• 8:31
  Ed: I cannot in any way relate like I am the stereotypical, go out in shorts in the middle of winter to get the male New Englander. It cannot be too cold for me. The nice thing about like losing 50 pounds is now it can't be too hot for me. So I might be invincible, but I haven't tested this fully yet.
• 8:48
  George: Come on down here and try and run 14 miles with me.
• 8:51
  Ed: And no, because that involves running 14 miles. That's, that's different. We're talking about climate. We're not talking about doing terrible things to yourself.
• 9:00
  Propter: Yeah, see, I think, Ed, I think you're gonna get your ass kicked next winter. I think you're gonna, I think you're gonna discover that cold is a thing.
• 9:07
  Ed: This winter was the coldest winter in a very long time. And layering is important, but fortunately, you know, no one has to check me on that.
• 9:17
  Propter: Yeah, you know, you can.
• 9:19
  Ed: I can't shed skin. Or apparently certain levels of overly central, you know, Western European thought about the, the heat cycle because like one of the really funny things is apparently all of the air conditioners are sold out because, like normal people are clearly not having any of this thought experiment nonsense coming out of like, there was a, there was a, A clip from France 24 going around, which is where the thermal shock thing was from. But also it's just like, in general, it just seems like this is. What is this like just like a upper class thing or something? I can't tell.
• 9:58
  Lowtax: We need to do a Berlin air airlift with mini splits for the Europeans.
• 10:04
  Ed: No, because then you have to put them in the wall. And like, I, I swear there is some kind of object ultra permanence here to some extent where it's like, that's a wall. You can't put things in a wall. Meanwhile, yes, I, I own several hole saws. This is fine.
• 10:21
  Propter: The background conversation here is that Europe is in the middle of a heat wave and there is some amount of resistance to the concept of air conditioning, specifically central air conditioning, but maybe extending to things like window units on the part of certain parts of Europe.
• 10:36
  Lowtax: We can't use window units. Our houses are too old. And they're all different from a country where 90% of people live in fucking identical Victorian row houses.
• 10:49
  Ed: I feel like now you're stereotyping a little too hard. I'll allow it.
• 10:54
  Propter: So the stat that's been floating around the Internet in the last week or so is that there are more deaths annually from heat stroke in Europe than there are gun deaths in America. Wait, what seems finely tuned to be a discourse bomb? Apparently it's true. There, there are about 50, 000 annual deaths from heat stroke in Europe. About 45, 000 annual deaths, annual gun deaths, including suicides in the United States.
• 11:19
  George: You can, you can massage it, but it's, it's. Yeah, it's straightforwardly true.
• 11:23
  Lowtax: There are more gun deaths in Europe than there are heat deaths in the United States.
• 11:27
  Propter: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Ed: Right.
• 11:28
  Propter: And we're like a lot hotter than Europe.
• 11:29
  George: Is that actually true?
• 11:31
  Propter: Is that true?
• 11:32
  Lowtax: Yes.
• 11:32
  George: I'm not sure that's right.
• 11:33
  Lowtax: Is it?
• 11:34
  Propter: Yeah, some of, some of that apparently has to do with like, we probably undercount heat deaths compared to how Europe does it.
• 11:40
  Lowtax: Nope. But it's canon Proctor. We're going with it. Don't, don't question this.
• 11:44
  Propter: Yeah, that also is substantially true. We do a pretty good job about, about heatstroke in part because we have enough heat that we take it seriously.
• 11:51
  George: I just like you. You cannot live in my. In the climate I live in and not be very aware of the fact that the heat can kill you, like, it's, it's just. It would be insane to try and live here without ac unless you just, like, wanted a lot of people to die. And there's so much social science research that ties heat waves to increases in crime, increases in su side, increases in just general declines in mental well being. Like, like heat. Our bodies are really not adapted for heat shocks like that. Like, like increases in heat over time. Like, there are plenty of human societies that have done phenomenally well in very hot environments. It's not like it's a permanent thing where like, oh, it's 100 degrees, everyone's toast. It's just like, if it gets hotter than you're used to or prepared for, like, you're gonna have a bad time. Like, it's just, it's just. And there are many ways to adapt to that. One of them that is by far and away the easiest and cheapest is air conditioning. Just one room. Like, you don't have to central air your whole house. You should, but you don't have to.
• 12:58
  Propter: Well, you know, this comes up every time there's. There's a serious heat stroke, is that you get some number of really bad medical outcomes from people who have air conditioning but don't use it. That to some extent, this is, this is a cultural thing also that, you know, people need to adjust to this. I'm optimistic that our siblings in Europe will make the transition as things get hotter over there. I think that, you know, the point has been raised that, that air conditioning is not the solution. It's a band aid. You know, climate change is the actual problem.
• 13:32
  Lowtax: There's.
• 13:33
  Propter: There's some truth to that, but also, like, the band aid's important. You really need to not bleed.
• 13:37
  Lowtax: Right.
• 13:38
  Propter: And, you know, we're talking about, we're talking about tens of thousands of deaths here. So like, maybe solve that problem immediately and then work on the hard ones. You know, we'll get to the stretch goals.
• 13:52
  Lowtax: 1500 people died in three days in France. 600 died in London. Like, and you all want to talk about hurricanes?
• 14:02
  Ed: Wait, in London specifically?
• 14:05
  Lowtax: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Propter: Yeah.
• 14:06
  Ed: Wow. Because like, you'd expect them to have, like, invented electricity by now. Like, seriously, like, what? Like one. One of the people who is complaining about this is like, how are you going to. You get 2 whole gigawatts of electricity? I'm like, oh, so you're talking about like 4 square miles of solar panels? Yeah. I'm sure even a country the size of my garage could probably find somewhere to Put them right. Like, surprise. This is, this is, this is us now. Figure it out.
• 14:36
  Propter: That's kind of the whole. The whole rub of this from an energy perspective is that it's cheaper to cool than it is to heat. It's just that we didn't have that technology until relatively recently. But just like, in terms of just straight wattage, in terms of, in terms of energy consumption, heating to comfortable temperatures from habitable temperatures is significantly more expensive than cooling to comfortable temperatures from, like, high habitable. So, you know, these are adjustments that we're going to have to make. And I think that there's, There are lots of options to stay cool. I think that there's significant space for innovation in there. I'm sympathetic to the pleas of people who are saying that it's hard to retrofit old buildings for air conditioning. That's absolutely true. Like, if you're in the position where you're having to put in new ducting, that's expensive, but you can put a
• 15:30
  Ed: box in a room and plug it in and put it on.
• 15:34
  Lowtax: Right?
• 15:34
  Ed: Yeah, put. You know, get your two hose set up because if you don't, technology connections will find your house. But just, just, just window it. Like. No, portable air conditioners are not perfect. I used them for years. They're fine. Like, this is just stupid. And, and like, again, to their credit, like, apparently they are sold out everywhere. So normal people are not having quite this level of dumb. But. Right. I mean, ultimately it strikes me as. It's classism again. Right. Like, it very much seems like just a bunch of rich, annoying people who probably own a cravat somewhere, having just like, really shitty takes about what other people should do, as usual.
• 16:23
  Lowtax: Yeah, you get things like Brussels this week at the European Commission headquarters where they shut the AC down for floors one through seven, then floors eight and up, they. They kept it.
• 16:38
  Propter: Wow.
• 16:39
  Ed: Yeah, he rises. That's where you really need it.
• 16:43
  Lowtax: Yeah, right, right.
• 16:46
  Propter: Was that like a power draw thing or.
• 16:48
  Lowtax: I, I think it was a power draw thing, but it's like, if you're gonna shut it down, let the people downstairs go home, maybe.
• 16:56
  Ed: Yeah, but, but what if you, what if you suddenly, up on those higher floors, need an entire sheet pan of tiny, tiny pastries?
• 17:08
  Lowtax: Do they do those in Brussels?
• 17:10
  Ed: I don't know. I'm just here, look, I'm there. There's one good German on Blue sky and everyone else like the rest. I am here to antagonize. It's fine. And yes, I know Brussels is not in Germany. That, that that's, that's orthogonal to my point.
• 17:27
  Propter: I think, I think another dimension of this is, is insulation writ large. That, you know, that's. Insulation is a very attractive way to deal with climates where you have to deal with both heat and cold. And if you only have to deal with one of those in the steady state, then maybe you try to muscle through with things that are not insulation,
• 17:48
  Ed: which is historically what was done in large parts of the United States.
• 17:53
  Propter: Yeah. But more modern construction tends to be much better insulated because we're, we're better at making insulation, we're better at applying insulation. Some of this is going to be local craftsmanship essentially that, you know, I don't think there's a super deep pool of H Vac installers in Britain, for instance, like that. You know, this is, this is something that is significant local business in the United States. And I'm not sure it exists the same way.
• 18:21
  Ed: I think that's true. Like, I think it, I think it tends to be more commercial and, and like, like in the United States. Yeah, you can, you can find somebody and they probably do commercial work too because that's where the bigger money tends to be, as I understand it. But yeah, like they, they do houses and like we, we have a lot more like applied experience in this because. Hi, I used to own a property management company. I do renovations. I did my whole house myself. I have regrets, but I also have an unsettling amount of experience here. And like there are so many other benefits to having good insulation that no one bothers to pay attention to. Like, consider your neighbors and not hearing them. Because like my entire house, I, I absolute. This, this house you could call over insulated. And I made that choice on purpose. This house is stuffed to the gills with mineral wool one because I do a lot of stupid electronic stuff and I like things that don't burn in my house. Mineral wool, great for that. But also very acoustically sound while also being, you know, very, very high R value. I haven't even replaced the windows in this place from its pre. No insulation in the walls except for tiny corners of spite insulation around every window because that's code. Windows must be insulated. That does not mean the rest of the house is. So, you know, you get the, you get the window boxes and they have tiny little corners where the two by fours meet around it. One puff of insulation in each one. They were very methodical about this.
• 19:55
  Propter: Just, just a little garnish.
• 19:58
  Ed: Yes, like, just like a little tiny tuft. Boop. And then like you Knock the wall next to it and it sounds like a drum. But yeah, like this house, I can't hear my neighbors. Even though, like I said, the windows are crap. I can't, I can't hear my neighbors. I run the AC about 25% of the time to keep the house at 70 just because like there's. None of it gets out. Right. Like it's, this is a house made in 1906. So don't give me anything about, well, my building is old. Yeah. Okay. This is about as old as it gets in, in like the United States until you start buying, you know, row house made in the 50s, but 1850s if it wasn't clear.
• 20:41
  Lowtax: Sully, we don't need insulation in the walls. Just put it around the windows.
• 20:47
  Ed: Well, the other thing that everyone forgets is roof ceilings because that's the one thing that isn't mineral here because it is two feet of cellulose. Who needs an attic? Just fill it, right? Just put the hose up there and come back in 10 minutes. And it's like those are things that you can actually do fairly cheaply. Like with kind of untrained labor. You just need the tools and you need the infrastructure to ship the stuff.
• 21:13
  George: If you own a home, by the way, you should check and see how much insulation you got in your attic. In any country. Not just the U.S. but especially the U.S. like if you've got, if it's down under, I don't know, about nine inches or whatever. Like, yeah, get that refreshed. It's not that expensive. It's going to save you a bunch on your power bills and it's going to make your house a lot more comfortable in all seasons.
• 21:31
  Ed: Yeah, it's great. Yeah. The one, the one thing to be careful of is humidity. So get somebody who isn't like a complete ham handed moron. Yeah, I had to reopen a few walls because my insulation person was a ham handed moron.
• 21:46
  George: Oh, I'm just talking about attic insulation where like you said, it's just spray.
• 21:49
  Ed: You can just blow that in. For the most part. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:53
  Propter: There's a lot of municipalities or localities that'll pay for an energy audit for.
• 21:58
  Ed: Yeah, but they do it wrong. This is important.
• 22:02
  Propter: Proceed.
• 22:03
  Ed: They are going to tell you to do blow in, insulate, like spray foam insulation and shit like that. They are going to tell you insane things like that. My local did not recognize what mineral was. They're like, we, we don't do any refunds on that. So I said, go to hell. Right? Like Some of them will, you should absolutely check. But like, if you can afford it, do not let that be the thing that like guides your decision making. Because they want, like a lot of these places have dumb, dumb ideas. A lot of them haven't been refreshed in, you know, 20, 30 years. And, and like, it is, it is a huge mess. Get those refunds if you can, but like, if you, if you don't, if you don't need them and they are asking you to do something like put, you know, spray foam the walls, I would maybe think twice.
• 22:54
  George: Yeah. The other thing we really notice, our neighborhood is great because it's got a ton of mature trees and mature trees are absolutely bananas for keeping your house cool in the summer. Like, it's unreal. And you know, there are obviously a ton of other benefits to mature trees that go beyond that. Whether it's just making it feel like a nicer place to live, like a, you know, lots of green is good, right? And it makes lawns less relevant, which is generally a good thing. And it's just unreal. How much, how much. I thought cooling our house in the summer was going to be way more expensive than it is. And because our house, you know, our roof gets direct sun, but most of the house doesn't get much direct sun and the, in the summer because in this climate, if there is a way to get some sunlight, there is a leaf there. So like if you've got any mature trees around your house, and this is true in much of the country, that's really hot too, if there's a way to put a tree up that's going to just absorb so, so much of the heat that your house otherwise would have had to.
• 24:02
  Lowtax: And I, I agree with that. Until hurricane season comes around and then,
• 24:08
  George: yeah, that's a problem for you people down there on the panhandle.
• 24:11
  Lowtax: Looking at the three giant like 200 year old live oaks surrounding my house that keep it cool most of the time, and then seeing a cat four barreling through the Gulf.
• 24:23
  Ed: Honestly, those aren't the trolls. Those aren't really the trees to worry about though.
• 24:28
  Lowtax: I mean, there are the trees to worry about.
• 24:31
  George: Well, a limb can get you, but they're not tall enough to do the kind of damage that the, what do they call them, A butter butterfly tree or whatever. I've got two, these two giant that are like 100 plus feet tall within 50ft of my house. So if one of those goes, mine
• 24:46
  Lowtax: are 100 plus feet tall and the roots on live oaks are pretty damn Shallow.
• 24:51
  Ed: But they're still, they're still alive though. Like, yeah, totally. Like a Cat 4 hurricane is bad for anything. But like, one of the things to be aware of with trees is that like, I had to rip all of the trees out of my backyard because up here we get silver maples. Silver maples in an urban suburban environment tend to live about 75 years. They do not live 300 years. And they look perfectly healthy until they explode. Right? Like, because the way trees work. Spoilers. You learn these things when you are not only an audio pervert and a video pervert and a home insulation pervert, but also a make furniture pervert. The interior, like the heartwood on the inside of a tree is dead and it is constantly expanding outward. So like the, the strength comes from the sapwood on the outside. And the way that these trees work is that over time that heartwood is filled up with all of the waste products of the tree and dies. But you can't see it until the tree just randomly falls over one day. And I'm not talking about even necessarily like in a hurricane. I'm talking about like in a stiff breeze. So like, sure, you might lose it at the root, at the root system, but like you have, you have a tree that is not going to just randomly kill your house, which is a real problem up here. Like, I'm out here like looking at those trees and going, man, because like, you can tell roughly how old they are by how thick they are. And like, I just see like one of them go, like, just starts like visibly tilting a couple of degrees and I'm like, up. Everyone's got to go. We got to do this.
• 26:21
  Lowtax: I respect the trees up there rebelling against the colonization of that region by normal island.
• 26:29
  Ed: It's true, it's true. Like, they've, they've done an ample job of raising insurance rates for many people down here.
• 26:38
  George: The big one to worry about is pine trees because they're so short lived compared to all the deciduous stuff. And in my neighborhood, I don't know exactly how it worked back when it was built like 25 years ago, but there's a lot of pines that are now mature and everything that's followed on is deciduous. So like, you really have to watch the pines. But the nice thing about pines is you can tell like, they're gonna be a problem because as pines get more mature, their, their canopy gets higher and higher and higher until there's basically none left. And then it's like, get rid of it. So you kind of have a Visible countdown timer to keep an eye on, which is nice. Considerate.
• 27:14
  Ed: There's a lot of that from about 25, 40 years in terms of like housing developments. Because pines. I've just decided to make this the woodworking podcast. It's fine. But like, pine trees grow really, really fast. Like, this is why you have huge pine forests for things like paper and two by fours, which sometimes are even straight.
• 27:36
  George: Oh, boy. If you want to go down a rabbit hole on like a specific subject, can I just recommend looking into the difference between Canadian softwood lumber and southern yellow pine for home construction? We will leave it at that, Ed. No more pervert stuff beyond that. It's a rabbit hole. We'll le to research on their own.
• 27:54
  Ed: I don't, I, I can't get yellow pine up here. It's fine. But like, there's a lot. There's lots of good stuff on that. But the, the. The bigger thing is that like every tree that comes in afterwards, like you say, ends up being a tree that will be there for 75 years instead of like 30. Right. Like Pines. You might not even really want a pine to live like 40, 50 years. They just get nasty and.
• 28:14
  George: Oh, no, like, they, they won't make it 40 years down here. I don't know. I don't know what the growing time is like up there, but down here, 30 years is a real old pine.
• 28:23
  Ed: Oh yeah. Like slash. Slash pines are just like, get out. Yeah.
• 28:27
  George: But the flip side is like, so they redeveloped the lot across the road from my neighborhood and they cleared everything and then a bunch of it. I think a hotel was supposed to go in and like a medical facility. And they just, for whatever reason, it hasn't gone in yet. And so one of the things they did to do retention and erosion prevention is they just planted a bunch of pines. They weren't all volunteers. They were, you know, surf just from seed or whatever. And that got redeveloped that like got cleared during 2021, I want to say. And the pines are like 10ft tall.
• 28:59
  Ed: Oh, yeah.
• 29:00
  George: Like, it's wild how fast they grow.
• 29:02
  Ed: Yeah.
• 29:02
  George: In the, in the right.
• 29:04
  Ed: Like, literally, that's how two by four, like production works is. It's just like they have, they have year by year tree lots and I
• 29:13
  George: p. 2 by 4. The inferior. You, if it falls on you 2 by 4 because it's a dense.
• 29:19
  Ed: I mean like all of like, like, like white pine up here is the exact same way. It's like this chunk of the forest is 10 years old. This one is 11, this one is Empty. Because we cut them all down and, you know, like this. It's really fascinating, especially when you get into things like the toothpick industry, which is an industry that exists.
• 29:38
  George: We have toothpicks. So it must have an industry associated with it.
• 29:41
  Ed: It's an industry that exists, like, in the United States. It's like somehow this has survived in. In an age of like, every sort of like, tiny manufacturing thing. It turns out that you just. They're probably made in America. And the. The entire process. You can find it on YouTube. You should look. It's absolutely ridiculous. Entire trees, toothpick one each. That part's a lie, I would imagine.
• 30:07
  Lowtax: The toothpick industry, maybe I'm wrong, but is probably run by, like, the three of the most rancid families you could ever find.
• 30:18
  Ed: I don't know anything about that, but they all wear flannel shirts.
• 30:24
  Propter: Is that. Is that a lathe job or like, how do you toothpick?
• 30:28
  Ed: I mean, I don't know because, like, I didn't recognize any of the machines involved at like. Because, like, once you get up to the industrial side, I'm just like, yeah, sure, that somebody else's problem.
• 30:39
  George: Right.
• 30:40
  Ed: But it's just. It's. It is a massive, massive operation to make a toothpick.
• 30:45
  Propter: Yeah, there you have it.
• 30:47
  George: Cardboard as well is another. Is another good one that has a huge domestic industry like ma. Like massive, massive manufacturing operation. All the. Substantially all the wood, or it's not even wood. It's like pulp is sourced inside the U.S. sometimes Canada. And like, you just don't even think about it. Just plugging away in the background.
• 31:08
  Ed: Yeah, just flip over that cardboard box you get from Amazon. It was probably from fairly close to you, like, because. Yeah, because all of the boxes have a. Have a mark on the bottom that say where they're from. And like, all the ones here come from, like, western Massachusetts. It's kind of cool.
• 31:22
  George: Yeah. Container board shipments, also a very useful economic indicator. It can lead you astray. But they're pretty useful.
• 31:29
  Ed: I did not know.
• 31:30
  George: Yeah, because it's like everything goes in cardboard. Right. So, like, if you're shipping a lot less cardboard, there's a lot less stuff being shipped, which means there's a lot less economic activity, which means Yahoo. So, yeah, like I said, it's not perfect, but, you know, one of the things to look at.
• 31:42
  Propter: Pretty good.
• 31:42
  Ed: Leading proxy Isaiah will have already made several commodities training tradings based on this.
• 31:47
  Propter: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes.
• 31:48
  George: Our Nova Scotia correspondent. Yes, we should have Isaiah on here.
• 31:53
  Propter: As always. This is not financial advice. Except for the bits about insulating your windows, which are.
• 31:58
  George: Yeah, windows and attic. Yeah, that's financial advice, nothing else. All right.
• 32:24
  Propter: Do we want to talk about New York?
• 32:25
  Ed: Do we have to?
• 32:26
  Propter: I think we have to.
• 32:29
  Lowtax: There's no escaping New York yet.
• 32:32
  Ed: Yeah, there is. It's called going north on the Northeast Express or whatever it's called.
• 32:38
  Propter: Well, I got, I got something for that in a minute. You're gonna love this. But, but so. God. So what happened in the, in the last, in the last week as we had Democratic primaries several places, but especially in New York City. And in New York City there were three candidates that Zoran Mamdani endorsed for open seats or where there was an incumbent running and he went 3 for 3 for federal house seats. With Brad Lander defeating Dan Goldman, that was widely predicted. That was. Oander is pretty clearly a better fit for the district. We'll talk a little more about the implications of that one.
• 33:23
  Lowtax: And we like Brad Lander.
• 33:25
  Ed: We do.
• 33:25
  Propter: We do like Brad Lander. We like Brad Lander very much.
• 33:28
  Lowtax: Brad's good people.
• 33:30
  George: He's a mensch.
• 33:31
  Lowtax: He's such a nice boy.
• 33:33
  Propter: We had Claire Valdez, who is a former UAW union organizer. More on that later. Won an open seat primary. These are all safe Democratic districts. We don't anticipate anything, anything unexpected happening in the German. And possibly most contentious is derelict. Avila Chevalier won over the sitting chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Espayat, who. That was a surprise. That was an upset. That was a well resourced longtime incumbent who got taken out in the primary. That doesn't happen every day. So these are kind of three very different candidates who all sort of fit under kind of the new DSA umbrella in New York. But as promised, there's, there's one other similarity to the two that are sort of, to the two non wander candidates which is going to get us back to familiar terrain, which is that they both had UAW ties. And as it happens, UAW Region 9A is the same region that covers the Northeast and Maine. So this is the same UAW union group that came out fairly early for Grand Platner. It is primarily driven not by auto plant workers, but by grad students. UAW has a significant higher education operation, but it's, it's the same behind the scenes, you know, union infrastructure personnel working to elect these guys. And Chevalier and Chevalier and Valdez are both, are both UAW rank and file members as it is, who possibly put Grant Platner over the edge against Janet Mills. UAW came out the day after Mills announced and endorsed Platner. I think it kind of makes sense to sort of tackle this to some extent as things of a kind from that perspective. Despite the fact that unions are kind of like the old guard in Democratic primaries. You've got, you've got sort of new model. Unions are making significant plays in Democratic politics. We should probably talk about each of the, each of the candidates specifically in New York City because I think they kind of showcase different aspects of. To whatever extent this is a Democratic Tea Party of Democratic insurgents rather than Democratic establishments. Anybody else want to start on Lander or should I keep monologing here?
• 36:27
  Ed: He's a good dude and what else do you got to say?
• 36:31
  Propter: I.
• 36:31
  George: Well, the other thing is he was, he is as close to the middle of the Mamdani coalition as it gets. Right. Like he, they cross endorsed in the primary. And I think Lander was the most significant permission structure for the mainstream Jewish primary voter in New York City to vote for Mamdani. You know, Lander is Jewish obviously.
• 36:57
  Lowtax: He is a progressive and just mainstream libs.
• 37:01
  Propter: Really.
• 37:01
  Lowtax: Yeah, I mean I think it definitely, I think it definitely impacted. It was definitely more of a permission structure for mainstream Jewish folks. But I think it, it probably did matter to, you know, the MSNBC meme.
• 37:15
  George: It certainly didn't hurt.
• 37:17
  Ed: He's just a normal guy.
• 37:18
  George: Yeah, yeah. And I mean Lander has also been extremely high profile for his role. You know, like he has been involved in a lot of the stuff around ice. He has been very active on social media. He's very thoughtful, very reasonable. Like he comes across like you know, someone you'd see at a PTA meeting who's just worried about his kids school, which is laudatory like that. That is, that is an energy that I think connects really well with a certain segment of the Democratic coalition. And you know, I think Mamdani endorsing in all three of these was not nothing but like that. Like Lander is the proxy for Mamdani across these three in my opinion, if you're going to pick one. And you know, I also think look like the, the Democratic coalition is not going to continue electing people that have the traditional views around Israel that Biden had. For instance, like I'm sure there will be some that win primaries. I'm, you know, there, it's going to take a while for the whole party to shift. But like the Democratic voters just have want nothing to do. And Goldman's politics on Israel were very much the opposite of where the party's headed, if not all of the mainstream political Dynamics in the U.S. so, you know, I, I think, I think that was a relevant thing too. But, you know, like, like we've said, like Lander, regardless of the broader themes or whatever, Lander's just an incredibly likable guy, very thoughtful, just comes, just radiates like, nice dad next door energy. And, you know, I think he, I don't think he would be like my platonic ideal of virtue, but he's a virtuous guy and I think that is great. And so, you know, as we continue to grope and grasp for a return to some sort of virtue in our politics, I think people like Lander are great to see winning successes kind of regardless of the context. So Good job, Brad.
• 39:12
  Lowtax: 100%.
• 39:13
  Propter: Yeah. Very happy to see him presumptively in office. I think he'll be a good representative. And I mean, Dan Goldman was too conservative for what is an extremely blue district, in my opinion. And that's been something that's been kind of out there for Goldman's tenure in Congress. Goldman got that seat through sort of a contingent chain of circumstances. He's wealthy, he was high profile because Goldman was. Was. Ouch. Impeachment. Was. Was House impeachment, counsel for the, the Trump impeachment. So that gave him a significant profile boost.
• 39:51
  Ed: I'm sorry, but that is the most lawyer ass thing you've ever said on this podcast.
• 39:56
  Propter: Well, it meant he was on TV a lot. So, like.
• 39:59
  Ed: No, I just mean, like, the word contingent is a lot even for this audience.
• 40:04
  Propter: So all I'm saying, all I'm saying is that, like, I don't, I don't. For what it's worth, I don't, I don't think Dan Goldman's a bad guy. I, I just think we can do better than Dan Goldman in that district.
• 40:14
  Ed: Like Brad Lander.
• 40:15
  Propter: Yeah. For instance, Brad Lander. Like, I would like to see a Dan Goldman run in a more purple district. I, I obviously would have voted for Lander over, Over. Over Goldman, but I don't have any particular animus towards Goldman.
• 40:29
  Ed: I'm pretty sure I would vote for Brad Lander over most of the Democratic Party.
• 40:34
  Propter: Yeah.
• 40:34
  Ed: No. Guy's a good dude. Yeah.
• 40:37
  Lowtax: We need to sit Dan down and say, Dan, how do you feel about Montana? Because if you can get it done there.
• 40:46
  Ed: No, give him something that's, like, possible, like send him out to, I don't know, Kansas.
• 40:51
  Propter: I mean, you know, if, if he wants to move to, like, Rockland county, maybe he's got a shot there. But you know, we've got, we've got other, we've got other things happening there. I think Brad Lander is one of kind of the possible futures for particularly Judaism in the Democratic Party. And I think it's good to have that, to have that avenue that, that he's, for my money, he's pretty close to the median Jew in America. That he is, he is, he is progressive. I mean, he's a, he's a former DSA member. I don't want to undersell his progressive credentials by yes, budding it like,
• 41:29
  Lowtax: but
• 41:29
  Propter: you know, he's somebody who is trying to invest heavily in good government that he's invested in deliverism, which is let's have the government do nice things for people and people will reward that electorally, but also just generally a mensch. It's clear that there's a strong moral compass there and he lives it. So, so plaudits for, for Brad Lander.
• 41:56
  Lowtax: He's also a liberal Zionist.
• 41:59
  Propter: Correct.
• 41:59
  Lowtax: And yeah, and that's, that's not a bad thing. Like I think, I think all of us have kind of two state solution, liberal Zionists leanings.
• 42:11
  Ed: Right.
• 42:11
  Lowtax: But he's willing to call, I mean, okay, maybe not. George.
• 42:17
  George: Look, I, you're right though. You're right, you're right.
• 42:20
  Lowtax: He's willing to call on Israel, but he's not willing to give up the basic idea of, you know, the homeland for Jewish people in a liberal democracy and so on, you know.
• 42:34
  Propter: Yeah, I mean, Zionism has, has become a really fraught term in the past several years because.
• 42:42
  Lowtax: Right.
• 42:43
  George: We've discussed, we've discussed that on this podcast. Like, you know, like that's the Pikachu episode if anyone wants to go back and listen to that.
• 42:52
  Propter: So throwing it out there is going to raise hackles for a lot of people. But you know, I don't know, I, I, I feel like maybe this is, maybe this is me projecting my own politics on Lander. But a one state solution or two state solution or any other structure, like the goal here is to stop people killing each other. Yes, whatever structure results in that and also maximizes human freedom and human welfare, then that's the one we want. And the details of the negotiation are necessarily down to a whole bunch of parties who are very much. Not me.
• 43:35
  George: I don't think anyone's under the impression that someone with Lander's politics supported the Israeli response to 107 in Gaza. And I think that's like the key thing. Right, like, right. Brad Lander does not want the IDF in Lebanon. Brad Lander does not want the idf, you know, sparking beef with Turkey. Like, let's just go down the list. Like if there's a compromise to be made, you're way out the distribution of the compromise you're making, so.
• 44:00
  Lowtax: Right.
• 44:01
  Propter: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's fair and I think that's accurate. The other two, the Mamdani DSA candidates are left of Lander on Israel in particular, but also left on land. Also left of Lander on, on other things. I think that Valdez is interesting. I think, I think in some ways she's, she's gotten maybe the least press of the three, but in some ways I think she is most the general future of the Democratic Party of the three. I wouldn't be surprised if, if she sticks around for a very long time and we hear a lot more from her. She's, she's impressive, former field organizer, great bio, you know, and as discussed, has these union ties. We'll see how much of a bomb thrower she decides that she wants to be versus a coalition builder in office. Depending on the numbers, things could go either way. I'm not really expecting there to be the equivalent of the House Freedom Caucus on the Democratic side for several reasons. That hasn't really been the inclination of, of the squad types in past.
• 45:04
  George: Poor mom Donnie and how he's run New York City.
• 45:07
  Ed: Right.
• 45:07
  George: Like, right.
• 45:08
  Propter: Like, you know, for all of the sometimes absolutist rhetoric that is coming from the left, the actual left politicians that are getting elected have been pretty pragmatic for the most part in terms of, you know, you, you get the most you can with the coalition.
• 45:25
  George: You can ball knowing free throw hitters.
• 45:27
  Lowtax: Yeah, that's right.
• 45:29
  Propter: And, and that's, that's meant as extremely complimentary. Like this is, this is how politics works in a, in a multipolar polity. So I think it's going to be interesting to see how Valdez works as sort of a weathervane for how the new squad. I don't really like Momdani Democrats because this, this trend predate, predates Mamdani, even though he's now one of its most prominent advocates. I think specifically that does AOC a disservice whatever kind of the new evolution of the squad is.
• 45:55
  Ed: She's going to get to be president and he's not. She can put up with it.
• 46:01
  Lowtax: That's right. Get his ass, Ed.
• 46:03
  Propter: So, so I think it's going to be interesting to see how she functions within a new Congress as sort of a weather vane for how that group is going. If, if she's staking out, you know, left lane positions, that indicates something about where new squad feels they're positioned relative to the rest of the caucus. If she's kind of integrating into the main caucus, then that says something too. The third candidate is probably the one you're going to hear the most about, especially from right wing media.
• 46:33
  Ed: Should we get our sighing out of the way for now or should we wait?
• 46:36
  Propter: So, yeah, I think Chevalier is interesting. She's clearly engaged and bright and has done good organizing. Like winning. Winning a primary like this over a fairly strong incumbent is a strong signal that you are good at politics. It doesn't necessarily speak to the specifics of your politics, although it can, but it's a strong signal that you are good at getting elected. You are in some ways, I think, better than some of the media coverage has made her look at driving message.
• 47:09
  Lowtax: It probably helps when your opponent does anti Haitian racism too.
• 47:14
  Propter: Yeah. I mean that. Yeah, that felt like desperation flailing to me. That was terrible. For mess by.
• 47:21
  George: Can we detail what happened there?
• 47:25
  Propter: Yeah. So demographically, this is. This is a district that has become increasingly Haitian in recent years. But specifically the SBAT campaign cut a senior advisor loose so that he could plausibly race bait on Haitians moving in without it being directly connected to the campaign. It was a fairly transparent ruse and it's a. A permanent black mark on everybody who's involved from that side. We should be better than that as Democrats.
• 47:50
  Ed: Yeah.
• 47:50
  Propter: And especially right now, like, if you're going to kick a community, Haitians are a bad community to kick right now. This is. We had a Supreme Court decision this week that just revoked tps. We are headed headlong for a human rights crisis with regard to deportation, the locus of which is going to be specifically the Haitian community in the United States. So, you know, this is really pretty unforgivable in my opinion.
• 48:18
  Lowtax: Not to mention all the libel back during the 2024 election.
• 48:21
  Propter: Yeah.
• 48:22
  George: Or the general history of Haiti and what countries like the United States have done to that country since literally since it existed. Right. Yeah. If you're not familiar, Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast did an arc on the history of the Haitian revolution. And it's really interesting because you can literally hear Mike's politics changing as he goes through that specific revolution.
• 48:48
  Ed: Yeah.
• 48:49
  George: Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I would highly. If you're not familiar with the Haitian revolution and the details, I would highly encourage you go and check that out. Because it will open your eyes to some stuff for sure. Yeah.
• 49:00
  Propter: The Haitian revolution is a very memorable point in a view of a group that clearly had all of the moral rights and the progress of it, I would say improve material conditions significantly. But man, they were not left in a good state by the way things unfolded. And that's continued to this day as a legacy of privation and horror that frankly, I think everyone else owes quite a bit on that. Anyway, this is getting away from New York in particular. Chevalier is extremely young. She's I think 32 years old and you know, Columbia grad student background. She is the most distinctively leftist of the candidates and she has taken some positions and said some things in past that A, she's indicated that she would like to have back in the context of recent events and B, were pretty inflammatory. She called Joe Biden a rapist. That. That's one that got some press. There was an October 8th rally that I think is. Honestly, I think that that's my take on that is we kind of have to give a little bit of grace for people to have changed position and also not to over interpret position from early signals on some of that stuff.
• 50:34
  George: Was that, was that the one in New York where there was some little shit with like a swastika?
• 50:42
  Propter: Yeah, I mean so do you remember
• 50:44
  George: there was some rally. I think it was 10a. There was some rally in New York that got a ton of press because there was literally like a kid who had like a piece of paper with like a swastika on it and I think it was like one of these PSL organized type deals. Was it that going or was it like a totally different one?
• 50:59
  Propter: I don't know if that was the one with the swastika, but it was, it was, it was definitely part of that constant. Like yeah, there were, there were some, there were some groups that clearly took 10, 7 as. As kind of the sign that now is. Now is the time for Palestine to militarily conquer Israel and made statements to that effect and those statements did not
• 51:21
  Ed: age well as of like later that day.
• 51:24
  George: Also to be clear, like I'm. When I'm. I'm. Yeah. To be clear like I'm scene setting. Like obviously like this was a literally a child. Like this was someone who was I think probably 13 years old. And like I'm sorry, like no political movement has to answer for a 13 year old regardless of what the 13 year old's up to. You know, that said like there was some overstepping and some regrettable rhetoric around that from adults too. And I, you know, I think you're right, Proctor, that like those kind of like knee jerk reactions, like people deserve a little bit of grace for especially people that are what she would have been 29 at the time.
• 52:03
  Propter: Yeah. So, you know, that's on the one hand, you know, that's, that's not that long ago, but on the other hand, as a political actor, she was a different person then than she is now. And I don't think we should necessarily over interpret who she is now or who she's going to be in office by that. She also gave an interview to the New York Editorial Board, not the New York Times Editorial Board, the New York Editorial Board, which is I guess a Ben Smith outfit. She's going to have to get better on handling some types of questions if she's going to stick to positions that I think she's held for a long time. There was a discussion of prison abolitionism, which is a position that in theory she holds that you can go look at the interview. But I don't think she handled it terribly well. At some point you have to answer the question, what are you doing with murderers?
• 52:55
  George: Incidentally, that is also a view I hold and it's not an easy one to hold in practical terms day to day. But you know, it's a long term utopian vision of the world. It's not something that you are going to write laws with regard to tomorrow. And it's something that, you know, I
• 53:14
  Ed: mean you and, you and I have talked about that though. But, and yours I think is a much different sort of thing than. I'm just gonna say it. Tumblr made us Congressperson. Right. Like, like you, you have a much different view of the world. And like I, Proctor is being very nice and kind and optimistic. I think this is the worst gutter drag of, of Tumblr that we have seen elected to, to national office in the United States. It's in, it's a bunch. And like, I don't think she's very good at it. I think she's, I don't think it matters because she will do what she's told. Like the speaker says, you vote, you vote. Right. Like, so I, I don't get up in arms over it. But like this is kind of comical to me. I'll be honest. Like the House, the House is for, the House is for lunatics and that's fine. Like, Lord knows we've seen plenty of them. I'm just glad we don't have cane fights anymore. Sorry, Senator.
• 54:09
  George: I don't know. Yeah, I was gonna say that's a Senate thing.
• 54:11
  Ed: No, I know, I know, I know.
• 54:13
  George: Sumter was a senator.
• 54:15
  Lowtax: He.
• 54:15
  Ed: He was from what state again? Yes, Ed, yes.
• 54:20
  George: The one you live in. Yes.
• 54:22
  Ed: But, yeah, like, I just every. And I am admittedly polarized by listening to the people who talk like this. I don't think someone changes in three years. Not like that. And like, I was a Republican when I was a kid, it took me a very, very long time to dig out of what I would very unhesitatingly at this point call absolute bullshit opinions. These are also absolute bullshit opinions. They're just a little bit differently flavored. Right. Like, I. You don't change in three years just because you want a Congress seat.
• 54:52
  Lowtax: I agree with Ed, that, that, like, she's. She's not very good at this. Her opinions kind of suck. It is the House, though. And I. I don't want people to. I said this to Propter earlier in the week. I don't want people to make a mountain out of a molehill kind of thing. Like, she's going to be a congresswoman. She's going to vote the way the speaker tells her to vote, or the minority leader, maybe. But she still sucks and she's still probably going to cause headaches.
• 55:25
  George: I would look at this point in American history, at this point in where we are with the Democratic Party, I think it's kind of nice that we're going to have some bad takes missing to the left instead of missing to the right, because that's the only direction you can ever miss to.
• 55:41
  Lowtax: Right.
• 55:42
  George: You know, like, fine. Like, not the optimal candidate, not the optimal set of views, whatever. Fine compared to the stuff that's gone on in this party over the past 20 years, and that's accepting the Marjorie Taylor Greene's of this world on the Republican side of the slate. Right. Like, I just. I am not going. I think Mega Man Molehill.
• 56:04
  Ed: What?
• 56:04
  George: Nitpick. However you want to describe it, like, it's fine. Yeah, it's fine. And if she's got the juice, then none of this is going to matter because she's going to get much better at being on message. Like, Mamdani, like, Proctor had a post earlier this week talking about Mamnani hitting his free throws right. In response to. I think it was anti Semitic vandalism on the Upper west side. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and. And Mamdani came out and said, like, this is totally unacceptable. Like, like, no, we're not Doing this, which is exactly what you would want him to do. And, you know, Mamdani is. In addition to all the media stuff, Momdani is really unique in that. Like, he is really good at saying the right thing. Like, that's, that's. It is really hard to find a politician that has, you know, and I'm sure there are going to be people out there who will say, well, you know, but he called APAC monsters and that's anti Semitic, and I'm sorry, that's wrong. So, yeah, go away. But like, Mamdani is constantly saying exactly what he needs to say in really, really compelling ways. And like, if, if she has the juice, she'll figure out how to do that herself. And if not, then she'll just be, you know, a Jamel Bowman type character in the House. And that's fine. And there's nothing wrong with that.
• 57:13
  Lowtax: Yeah, I, I totally agree with all that. Mamdani has made some dumb posts in the past too.
• 57:19
  Propter: Sure.
• 57:19
  Lowtax: I mean, on social media, but he
• 57:21
  Ed: also has, like, since.
• 57:22
  George: Since. Since the mayoral primary.
• 57:23
  Lowtax: Noor primary, but Right. When, you know, a couple years before that. You know, lots of, Lots of stupid on X. The everything app.
• 57:33
  Ed: But he also, like, was able to build up a level of credibility before that stuff hit, I think is an A thing because, like, he, he. He has historically presented himself as a. I hate the term, but serious person. Right. Like, she.
• 57:50
  George: I mean, she's got a level of credibility too. Right. She knocked off the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
• 57:55
  Propter: Yeah.
• 57:56
  George: Again, I'm sorry, that's credibility. Like scoreboard. Like.
• 57:59
  Propter: Yeah. I think, I think our presumption has to be that she's good at politics. Like, yeah, that's, that's. That's a big W to put up.
• 58:06
  Ed: Sure.
• 58:07
  Propter: At least.
• 58:08
  Lowtax: Because politics where she's from, which is
• 58:11
  Ed: kind of the other thing is that I'm House. I'm just dreading more New York. Like, that animates a lot of this.
• 58:18
  Propter: That's reasonable. I think that. I think information environment New York. I'm always hate New York. I think, I think information environment.
• 58:27
  Ed: Just want them to stop talking about politics. I want Chuck Schumer to go to a farm upstate. I want them to stop.
• 58:34
  George: That's. That's happening. You're good.
• 58:36
  Lowtax: I want Georgia Democrats to decide New York's politicians for them.
• 58:41
  George: Thank you. Yes.
• 58:43
  Ed: We need constitutional amendment for this.
• 58:46
  Propter: I think info environment is really, really important to how people's views, politics, and particularly their statements evolve. And it's clear that at some point in the past Chevalier has been marinating in some gray zone stuff that I think is really dangerous. Great. Gray zone being the largely pro Russia aligned faction of. We'll call it the Left. That's. That's their target audience. And we can talk about whether or not that that's the true left. On another episode, optimistic people who think
• 59:19
  Lowtax: the Intercept is too Jewish.
• 59:23
  Propter: Yeah.
• 59:25
  Ed: Matt Taibbi did nothing wrong, people.
• 59:28
  Lowtax: Yes.
• 59:29
  George: Yeah, it's honestly a step worse than that. Like, it's.
• 59:33
  Ed: Yeah, like, you're right. But, like, I. I can't think. I can't think offhand of people with name recognition of just how slimy that is.
• 59:42
  Propter: Right. Like. Like, like, if you know the names, you're. You're instantly suspect. Right?
• 59:46
  Lowtax: Like, yes.
• 59:48
  Propter: I mean, it's. It's a presumption that can be overcome. But, like, I'm a little worried about you.
• 59:54
  Lowtax: So.
• 59:55
  Propter: Yeah.
• 59:56
  Ed: Which, to be clear, is largely where, like, my antipathy here comes from. Right. Like, I. I kind of don't think they. You can come back from that without doing, like, a lot of substantial work. I think that stuff is, like, really bad for you.
• 1:00:11
  George: Like, it depends how deep in she was, though. Like. Like, there's so much of the stuff like that that floats around on Instagram that, like.
• 1:00:17
  Propter: Yeah.
• 1:00:18
  Ed: I mean, why I don't use it. I.
• 1:00:20
  George: Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending anything. I'm just saying, like, if you occasionally caught a reel from that kind of thing because it was, as Proctor said, part of your broader information environment, but that wasn't the entirety of it, then I disagree. I mean, I think you can. You can get put onto the right path pretty quickly If. If, like, that was your homepage, I'm like, that's where you got your news. Yeah, I agree. Cooked. No, done. Like, that's it.
• 1:00:43
  Propter: Yeah.
• 1:00:43
  Lowtax: You've got to. You've got to put some work in. You've got to. You've got to move to Maine and start a fake oyster business to serve your mom's restaurant.
• 1:00:52
  Propter: I mean, I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but her information environment is about to change significantly because she's about to. To be a congresswoman instead of a Columbia grad student.
• 1:01:00
  Ed: Right. Which will. Which will like, very clearly determine if she has us or not. And if so, great. I. I would be more than happy if that ends up being the case, but I also would like to never hear about her or any New York congressperson ever again. So, like, no news is okay.
• 1:01:15
  George: We want to do the Georgia Politics version of this. Keep in mind, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a committed New York Times reader now, so, you know, like, stuff happens.
• 1:01:23
  Ed: Yeah.
• 1:01:23
  Lowtax: Is that a testament to Marjorie Taylor Greene moving or a testament to the New York Times? New York Times moving?
• 1:01:29
  George: It's not a testament to either. It's just a testament to the fact that information environments are not static. Right. And I am not going to say anything else.
• 1:01:42
  Ed: You don't. You don't want dash on your. On your emails.
• 1:01:47
  Propter: I will say that I think. I think that the ascent of Chevalier is unambiguously good news for aoc, because it means that there's clearly somebody in New York who is. To AOCs left who is going to be taking fire that would otherwise be directed at aoc.
• 1:02:03
  Ed: So that is a good point. And we. And we like AOC around here. We are AOC respecters around here.
• 1:02:08
  Lowtax: That's right.
• 1:02:09
  George: I think that might be understating my feelings towards aoc, honestly.
• 1:02:13
  Lowtax: Yeah. Well, it helps, too, because now there's going to be more pressure from the left to make our nice boy Jon Ossoff picker for his vp.
• 1:02:24
  Propter: Good point.
• 1:02:24
  Ed: Good point.
• 1:02:26
  George: Yeah. Which she may turn down because she wants to entrench herself in Schumer's Senate seat and never leave, which, you know, there are worse outcomes than that.
• 1:02:34
  Propter: That's fine, too. Yeah, we like that.
• 1:02:36
  Lowtax: There's.
• 1:02:36
  Ed: To allow New Yorkers to talk about politics under one condition.
• 1:02:44
  Lowtax: Yeah. I would like that. Although AOC being the first woman president and what that would do, first of all, she'd be great. But also what that would do to the right.
• 1:02:56
  George: Listen, the only question we have to ask is, are the American people ready for a Latina batty to be the president? And I think they are. I. I think there's a shot. I think there's a shot.
• 1:03:09
  Ed: I know none of your neighbors. None of your neighbors have to know how you voted. This is a message direct to all of those red states. Your ballot is private. No one knows.
• 1:03:24
  Propter: So just. Just from a scoreboard perspective, this set of results are clearly a big win for the Momdani coalition in New York.
• 1:03:32
  Ed: Yes.
• 1:03:32
  Propter: Which is. Which is winning knife fights with the various other political gangs of New York.
• 1:03:38
  Ed: It turns out that if you bring a knife, you can win a knife fight. Yeah.
• 1:03:42
  Propter: And like, I think that the tendency is to interpret a lot of this stuff nationally when a lot of this is. It really is on the ground knife fighting between coalitions that exist in ways that are not necessarily easily translatable like
• 1:03:57
  Lowtax: that have these nebulous New York beefs. Like, you didn't get your bacon, egg and cheese from the right corner store.
• 1:04:06
  Ed: Yeah, we're talking about, like, if you grew up in that building, you carry that. You carry that precinct.
• 1:04:13
  Lowtax: Right.
• 1:04:14
  Propter: I feel like, you know, unless. Unless you can answer the question, like, what. What are people from this particular Caribbean island in this. In this particular district doing? And why in this election, then, you know, there's. There's some ball there that you don't know and don't.
• 1:04:32
  George: I have a. I have a couple thoughts about this, actually. So I think on the one hand, I agree with everything Proper just said to me to, first off. But second, I think if you are not really closely following New York politics, I think it's easy to think of DSA as the kind of relatively marginal political force that they are. For instance, where I live, like DSA Charlotte is a thing. They basically are irrelevant. I mean, nice people. I've been to a meeting. Irrelevant. Don't factor at all. DSA in New York is a big deal. They are very organized. They have a large voting bloc. They get out and they get stuff done. And that is really unique across the country. We're actually going to, at some point, try and get a DSA organizer onto the podcast. We'll see how that goes. But because I think there's some really interesting stuff going on there and I think there are implications for if you want to do politics in your local area, whether it's you're on the left or, you know, more towards the center of the Democratic coalition. Irrelevant. I think the DSA model in New York is a really good example of how this stuff is totally achievable, but it requires a huge amount of time and effort and organization and commitment for long stretches.
• 1:05:42
  Lowtax: It helps to have a state party. You're going up against an establishment Democratic party that is full of rot and brain damage.
• 1:05:53
  George: It does, but it still takes years. I mean, the DSA has been chipping away and steadily building for over a decade now. And, you know, I think just writing it off as, you know, the Dem Tea Party or whatever really understates the. The actual foundation of that success, which is DSA being an organized force in New York politics that is. That is growing steadily and not. And doing so in ways that are sustainable. So I think that that's my first thought. My second thought is I've seen similar stuff to what's going on in New York in obviously, like the. The political context of Charlotte could not. It's hard for it to be more different, even Though it's a large blue city from New York for a bunch of reasons. But Charlotte City Council has gotten more outspoken. Like individual members of the council have sort of put beefs out there and put more aggressive visions around what they want to see out there. And the traditional sort of machine blocks in the city have started to break down. And in some examples that has been like, super welcome, welcome. There was a couple of state representatives from a little bit east of me in Mecklenburg county who got thrown out in primaries in 2020 because they backed Republican bills and, and Democrat voters were like, no, sorry, that's, you know, and these, these were basically machine politicians. The same thing has happened to county commissioners who people just say, okay, we're done. Even though they were machine politicians, they were backed by all the black churches in heavily black parts of town. And voters just lost their sort of willingness to continue plugging along for these people. And so, you know, I, I, I do think both things. It's both the DSA in New York being very organized and very committed as part of a long term political project. And it's also the fact that the business as usual in the Democratic coalition is not going to get you reelected in a contested primary. And I think that is going to be a really important thing to watch as we come up against the sorts of legislative fights that were much more prevalent last year. We haven't seen really that many this year, but the government shutdowns, you know, how, how is that first Congress, that will be a Democrat House and probably a Democratic Senate going to negotiate with the president? And how do the people within those caucuses, you know, message around it? Anyone that doesn't get aggressive is going to have to answer to voters in short order. And I think it's gonna be really interesting to see how some of these creatures of self preservation respond. Because the creatures of self preservation that have been the anchors of that have that sort of conservatism around how to fight, are on the way out. Schumer, Durbin, et cetera.
• 1:08:46
  Propter: You know, we'll also come back to this because there's a certain amount of kabuki is overstating it. But if you are doing opposite party negotiations between Congress and the President, it's potentially very valuable for somebody like Jeffries to be able to go in and talk to the negotiators and say, oh man, you know, I'm trying to be reasonable, but these people I've got on my side, you don't know what I have to do to keep them, to keep them in Line, you know, these guys, these guys are crazy. Give me something I can give them.
• 1:09:16
  Lowtax: The Republicans. The Republicans have done that for decades.
• 1:09:20
  Propter: Yeah, yeah. So like
• 1:09:24
  Ed: in fairness, John Boehner wasn't wrong.
• 1:09:27
  Propter: No, he was absolutely correct. He was absolutely correct. And to a large extent, you know, the House Freedom Caucus has gotten their way on some things in terms of policy, but also the rest of the Republican caucus kind of hates the hsc. So sometimes that results in real intra caucus animus and sometimes it doesn't. And it can be difficult to read that. And there's a tendency to, I think, over interpret that. That from the outside.
• 1:09:53
  Lowtax: Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes it does verge on kabuki theater. In fact, I, I would say oftentimes it does.
• 1:10:01
  Propter: So you know, you just kind of have to be a little bit discriminating about when you think there's actual serious intra caucus beef. Like, like they're like there very clearly is now on the Senate side. Like, like Warren is not. Warren is pissed at Democratic leadership. That's not, that's not fake. But I'm not sure that for instance, there's, there's a significant rift on the House side between, between certainly between a Jefferies and, and a Jayapal, but probably between a Jefferies and an aoc. So.
• 1:10:33
  Lowtax: So Dem. Dem leadership and Liz Warren let them fight on the House side. Mamdani and Jeffries need to either run against each other or that's it. Yeah,
• 1:10:50
  Propter: I mean, honestly, I think one possible way to interpret this is that this is. This is a very, very long, very contentious courtship ritual between old New York machines and New York and new New York machines. That there may be some integration and some commingling at some point rather than replacement.
• 1:11:09
  Lowtax: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:11:10
  Ed: They're national press.
• 1:11:12
  Lowtax: Yeah, yeah, that for one thing. But also the Jeffries people are still just so incredibly antagonistic towards Mamdani. And I don't think Mamdani is anywhere near that antagonistic towards.
• 1:11:30
  Ed: He doesn't have to. He's winning.
• 1:11:31
  Propter: Yeah, some of his people are. I mean like, no, I don't think Jeffries is that antagonistic towards Mamdani. I don't think Mamdani is that antagonistic towards, towards Jeffries. But like in addition to their actual titles and roles, they're both kind of leaders of these knife fighting gangs in New York and they have ceremonial responsibilities in that regard.
• 1:11:52
  Lowtax: So Jeffries is a. Jeffrey's gang is trash.
• 1:11:57
  George: Two things to keep in mind here, fellas. One, scoreboard. Two, self preservations of first law of nature.
• 1:12:05
  Propter: So yeah, and like, the Pelosi principle is that you support your incumbents, period.
• 1:12:12
  Ed: Right.
• 1:12:12
  Propter: Like, do they have major ethical issues? Doesn't matter. We're supporting the incumbent. Are they kind of crappy as legislators? Doesn't matter. We're supporting the incumbents. So, like, I wouldn't necessarily overread Jeffrey's support of the incumbents in the past. I expect that, that Jeffries will. I mean, I, I, I, I expect that, you know, in 2028, Jeffries will be in the corner, assuming he's still speaker of people like Chevalier in the same way as in the past. Like, you know, he, he endorsed Bowman early in his reelection campaign. And, you know, there were, there was money going on and all of that.
• 1:12:57
  Lowtax: There's a balancing act. Balancing act to that, though, like Pelosi, ideologically and in terms of the direction of the party, I, I didn't think she was as terrible as people on the left often made her out to be. I didn't think she was great either, as sort of an ideological leader she,
• 1:13:18
  Ed: she was looking for.
• 1:13:21
  George: Yup.
• 1:13:22
  Ed: Yep.
• 1:13:22
  George: Yep. She was one of the best vote counters there's ever been in the House.
• 1:13:25
  Lowtax: Yeah. If you needed something passed, Nancy was gonna get it done.
• 1:13:30
  Propter: Right.
• 1:13:31
  Lowtax: But she wasn't the, she wasn't steering the ship ideologically, and I don't think she was very good at that.
• 1:13:40
  Propter: Yeah, well, I mean, to some extent, I don't think she saw that as her job, and I don't think.
• 1:13:44
  Lowtax: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:13:45
  Propter: Jeffries necessarily sees that as his job. His, his job is to maximize the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives and having. Maximize that, do whatever he can with it. But part of maximizing that and part of, part of the reason why people vote with the speaker under the Pelosi principle is that because the speaker will have your back. Yeah. So for sure, once you're in the club, you're in the club. Right. Are we done with New York? Should we escape from New York?
• 1:14:17
  Lowtax: God, we're always done with New York.
• 1:14:20
  George: Done, cooked.
• 1:14:23
  Propter: All right.
• 1:14:25
  Lowtax: Sink it into the ocean.
• 1:14:27
  George: So, Proctor, I hear you had a fun local politics experience.
• 1:14:30
  Propter: Yeah, I'm, I'm visiting family in northern New Mexico. I'm up in, up in Espanola, Rio Arriba county, and I got to go with my dad to a, a community meeting to talk about homelessness in Rio Arriba County. Just a couple quick vignettes from this, from this meeting. So I walk in and I'm, I'm greeted by.
• 1:14:51
  George: Wait, sorry. Just little, little scene setting like, like what's the population of the county? And like, what kind of. I mean, I have no reference here.
• 1:14:59
  Propter: Okay, so.
• 1:15:00
  Lowtax: Okay, so. So before you get to that, Proctor. So to translate for folks, Rio means river and riba means white people selling dream catchers.
• 1:15:12
  Propter: Okay.
• 1:15:12
  Lowtax: Just to set this up.
• 1:15:14
  Propter: All right, so like, this is, this is, this is the county. This is a county of 40,000 people, about 20,000 of whom live in Espanola, which is, which is one of the poorest cities in the United States of America. So Espanola is heavily, heavily Latino and heavily indigenous and has huge, huge drug problems and huge mortality rates. So, like, you know, the dreamcatcher thing is there's not none of that up here because it's northern New Mexico. It's. It's kind of part of the, part of the.
• 1:15:51
  Ed: It's more of a Santa Fe thing.
• 1:15:53
  Lowtax: Yeah, I'm just giving you a. That's. It's more of a Santa Fe and Albuquerque thing.
• 1:15:58
  Propter: Yeah, no, this is, this is, this is, this is white people cooking meth up here. So.
• 1:16:04
  Lowtax: But
• 1:16:08
  Propter: recently, because of, because of some downstream politics there, there, there have been some shifts in where the homeless population in the area has been. And this is, this is a very heavily drug inflected homeless population. So this meeting was to talk about what this relatively Small county, again, about 40, 000 residents, about 20, 000 of whom are in Espanola, should do about a recent influx of homeless people. So I walk you in and I'm immediately greeted by a heavily white bearded, extremely heavily tattooed man who introduces himself as Money and, And, you know, I wasn't really sure which direction that was going to go, but I was really impressed by the sensitivity of everybody at this meeting, which under other circumstances, you know, might have been a. You know, homeless people are terrible. We need to do everything we can to push them out. This was, this was very much a. Well, you know, we got to figure out how to connect these people with treatment and solve the drug problems. And maybe we need to figure out where the drug houses are so we can bust ewers. Anyway, was. It, was. It was a cool thing to kind of get in touch with rural America in this way. It's a big ass. It's. It's a big ass county. And they were talking about very much nuts and bolts of enforcement and nuts and bolts of politics in terms of how do you make things better for people in your county. And I think that it's a little bit different than they look like in D.C. in terms of those conversations. Because the terrain is very different. This is a huge county and they don't have a whole lot of enforcement. It was cool doing that. The other thing is I went to a, a literal diner safari to an espanola diner to go, to go hang out with a bunch of people my dad has breakfast with on the weekends. And they're pissed out here, man. You know, this is, these are, this is not, this is not by any means like, you know, the white liberal corner. The, this is again, this is, this is super Latino. And they are really, really angry about what is happening under the Trump administration. There's some amount of pre selection here probably because these are, these are people my dad has breakfast with on the weekends, but you know, literal diner, you know.
• 1:18:40
  Ed: So you're, you're saying that your, your, your dad is fomenting the, the DSA caucus of rural New Mexico?
• 1:18:50
  Propter: I mean, you know, I don't think these are, I don't think these are doing so. No, I, I don't think he is.
• 1:18:55
  Ed: We're narrative baking here. Proper. Come on, Come on.
• 1:18:57
  Propter: I think he's right, man. You know.
• 1:18:59
  Ed: Okay. All right, fair.
• 1:19:00
  Propter: Like we had, you know, farmers and ranchers and bow hunters out there. Like it's kind of a, kind of a crazy set of people you get out that, you know, we were talking about animal husbandry techniques for raising sheep in northern New Mexico and whether or not you can reasonably train a llama to pack out elk meat.
• 1:19:23
  George: So answer to that. Absolutely is yes. Yeah, apparently reasonably is load bearing.
• 1:19:29
  Propter: But yes, apparently you gotta, you gotta comb out the llama's hair because otherwise they get like saddle sores. But, but, but once you properly hairdressed your llama, they're, they're good for packing out elk meat, given a year and a half.
• 1:19:43
  Lowtax: And they probably will be DSA aligned though, maybe.
• 1:19:51
  Propter: Like it's, it's clear that there's a real, you know, it's, it's, it's like any other rural, rural area I've been in that there's, there's a definite kind of independent, self sufficient emphasis that may or may not be fully aligned with the reality of self sufficiency out here. But there's, there's a certain amount of, of no, we don't want the government telling us what to do. We'll, we'll figure it out. We'll handle it. That in sometimes in places has coded as Republican and other times in places has, has, has not. Right now, I think that's blue energy out here. So.
• 1:20:33
  Lowtax: Yeah, it reminds Me a little bit of 2006. I mean, new Mexico's a blue state, but I'm thinking back to 2006. George W. Actually won New Mexico in 2004, if I remember correctly. Yeah. But 2006, there was the concept that Marcos Militis of Daily coast had the, the libertarian Democrat of the Mountain west and really pushed guys like Tester in Montana. So there, there is a, there is a weird kind of small L. Liberal, libertarian aspect out there that can go either way.
• 1:21:18
  George: Yeah. And it's a very Mountain west phenomenon, though.
• 1:21:21
  Propter: Yes. You know, they're big national parties and you got to kind of make room for, for the local strains. Right. Like, you got to figure out what it means to be a Democrat in everywhere that you want to contest elections in.
• 1:21:36
  George: Well, but it's also people just, okay, 2024 was an incredibly narrowly won election. It was decisive, but it was narrow. Right. And the thing you just keep coming back to is if you're losing those guys in northern New Mexico, like, yeah, that doesn't impact the national outcome. Right. Mexico, New Mexico is a blue state, but the read throughs are so bad. Right. Because that was where your margin was. Like those kind of guys who are packing out elk meat on a llama, like, that's who you need to win by even larger margins than 2024, because your base is going to be suppressed. It's a midterm, and the Democrats are going to be amped up and. Because again, it's a midterm and they're out of power. And so like, you've got a natural headwind there. But you're not only, not only are you not amping up the guys who you really need for that decisive margin, you're sending them the other way. And I just, like this is true across every demographic that provided Trump the margin of victory he needed in 2024. Like, time and time again, the key swing demographics are getting hit in the face by these people. And like, I just. You don't have to be a political genius to understand the implications. It's just that simple. Right.
• 1:22:58
  Ed: To be a political moron to do it, though, which is one of the things that I keep coming back to is it's just like, it's just like these people are so high on Twitter that they think that they have won the Titanic war of civilization.
• 1:23:14
  Lowtax: Right.
• 1:23:14
  Ed: And, and so they can just be fascist about it towards everyone who voted for them, whether or not it is, you know, I pack out elk, me, not a llama. And I vote or like their Own base. They're. They're just like, oh, cool. Now we can be the boot stamping on a human face forever. And the human face is like, I have some thoughts about this.
• 1:23:36
  Lowtax: They have an answer to that, though. And that is apparently accusing James Talarico of eating veggie tacos which have egg in them.
• 1:23:46
  Ed: Doesn't that.
• 1:23:46
  George: Yeah, I mean, yeah.
• 1:23:48
  Ed: I. I don't.
• 1:23:49
  George: I don't understand the food truck, and
• 1:23:51
  Ed: I kind of want one.
• 1:23:53
  Propter: Yeah, those sounded good as hell.
• 1:23:55
  Lowtax: I love to. I love to put my opponent's name on a big board and serve tacos.
• 1:24:01
  George: Three tacos associated with James Talaria. What could possibly go wrong?
• 1:24:06
  Ed: I mean, like, they keep threatening me with a taco truck on every corner, and it. They have not delivered this yet.
• 1:24:11
  George: It.
• 1:24:12
  Ed: Why is deliverism failing me?
• 1:24:14
  George: They probably cannot walk to a taco truck. This is completely unacceptable.
• 1:24:19
  Lowtax: Do we really want. Ed. Do you really want the kind of tacos y' all serve up there? That close to you, though?
• 1:24:26
  Ed: I actually have some exceptional Mexican restaurants near me. Thank you. I would love it if they got into the taco truck game.
• 1:24:33
  Lowtax: I don't believe that. Take it up with Fein.
• 1:24:37
  George: There was this guy on TikTok that did a series where he went to every single state to eat tacos and then rate them. And, like, you know, and he would always get the same taco order, and he had, like, very specific criteria. So, for instance, like, he would. You didn't have to make the tacos that the tortillas in, like. Like fresh. You could use the bag tortillas, but if you use the bag tortillas, you better be frying them up in oil.
• 1:25:00
  Propter: Right.
• 1:25:00
  George: Like, it was a little stuff like that. Yeah, right. Like the al pastor, he wanted nice and sour. He didn't want it. He wanted it crispy. Like, there's all sorts of different little metrics that he used, and he was able to find at least serviceable tacos on his rubric literally everywhere.
• 1:25:18
  Propter: Yeah.
• 1:25:19
  George: Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont. It was wild how good some of these tacos looked in places that have no business at all serving delicious tacos. So I will defend Massachusetts honor and Ed's taste for once.
• 1:25:34
  Ed: Well, I'm about to stab you in the back, George, because I am. I am more aligned with the proctors of the world on, like, the. The. The west coast fish taco when possible. And so that's really easy to get here. But yes, like, the. The normie taco is also a very approachable thing here.
• 1:25:58
  George: If you're calling an al pastor Taco. A normie taco.
• 1:26:03
  Propter: We.
• 1:26:03
  George: You are so far adrift.
• 1:26:05
  Propter: I don't know, like, I don't know
• 1:26:07
  George: what to do with that.
• 1:26:08
  Ed: I mean, like, I'll eat one, don't get me wrong. But like, there's a reason that I accept jobs that require business travel to San Francisco, and it's not for the local culture. Aside from the food.
• 1:26:22
  George: Anyhow, where the hell is my taco truck? It's not on my corner. And I want one. I want one now.
• 1:26:28
  Lowtax: The food is bad in San Francisco though. Like, they serve tacos, but they just jam it with 3 pounds of rice. Like, you can go get real tacos.
• 1:26:38
  George: San Francisco has excellent food. I don't know what the hell.
• 1:26:41
  Ed: I'm sorry. I don't believe any Mr. Speedrun Enjoyer.
• 1:26:44
  Propter: This is.
• 1:26:44
  Lowtax: This is.
• 1:26:45
  Propter: This is Mission Burrito slander.
• 1:26:47
  Lowtax: But yes, nonsense burritos.
• 1:26:52
  Ed: It's the size of your head and you can get literally anything you wanted it. Why are you complaining?
• 1:27:00
  Lowtax: Because I don't want Mission Burrito.
• 1:27:02
  George: Fast casual is the question. For those that are unaware, there was. Have we decided whether that account was doing a bit or is it real?
• 1:27:13
  Propter: They seem pretty. They seem pretty sincere.
• 1:27:15
  Ed: What happened?
• 1:27:16
  Lowtax: Okay, yeah, I think they were sincere.
• 1:27:18
  George: So there's this account that was getting mad at Cat. Abu. Abu. I'm.
• 1:27:22
  Ed: Oh, you mean the shrimp.
• 1:27:24
  Propter: Oh, God, yes.
• 1:27:25
  George: Abu Gazela or whatever. Because she. And I'm sorry, I think I mispronounced that Kat Abu, the candidate for Illinois prop to remind me which district nine.
• 1:27:35
  Propter: It's. It's. It's that Evanston. Yeah.
• 1:27:38
  Ed: Aha. I did a prompter.
• 1:27:40
  George: She ran for ILO 9. We talked about it back when that was relevant. She ended up coming in a respectable second.
• 1:27:46
  Propter: Was.
• 1:27:46
  George: Yes, yes. In the process got arrested outside of an ice facility. There was a whole drama about the D. A trying to manipulate the grand jury there. That all got released in transcripts. Anyhow, interesting character. She posts a very laudably normal take where she's like, I've just discovered Culver's shrimp. Which I didn't know Culver serve shrimp actually, to be honest. But Culver's, for those who are uninitiated, is a Wisconsin based fast food burger chain. And she went back five hours later to get more shrimp because she liked the shrimp so much. Which, you know, good for you.
• 1:28:21
  Ed: Fair.
• 1:28:22
  George: I've never encountered shrimp that good. But maybe the Culver shrimp are that good.
• 1:28:25
  Propter: Who knows?
• 1:28:25
  Lowtax: Yeah, that's. Anyhow, this account that's the actual criticism is like, I am all for shrimp. Even shrimp at a fast food joint. I am not trusting those drunk Krauts in Wisconsin to make me shrimp. Sorry.
• 1:28:39
  George: Right, yeah. Cheese curds. Now, Culver. Culver's does have pretty good cheese curds. They're not superlative, but they're pretty good. If you live near a Culver's and you're not in Wisconsin, that's likely the best cheese curd you've got available. Almost certainly location.
• 1:28:52
  Lowtax: So
• 1:28:54
  George: anyhow, this account tries to use the fact that she ate Culver. And again, Culver's is a fast food restaurant. Culver's shrimp twice in one day as evidence that she's, like, living high on the hog and some sort of like. Like she's profiting from her influencer status on the left and that you should hate her for that. And that was weird. But then people, like, fully went to the mat over the concept of Culver's being fast casual. Fully, like, doing, you know, detailed reads of the Wikipedia page like it was. And not just the account itself. So it's not like the account doubled down and then, like, you know, like they were doing that, but, like, third parties were jumping in, being like, no, it says right here on the Wikipedia page, they're fast casual.
• 1:29:42
  Lowtax: And it's like, does it have a drive through? Then it's fast food, not fast casual. End of story. Done.
• 1:29:49
  George: Easy.
• 1:29:49
  Lowtax: We're done.
• 1:29:53
  George: I. I don't know what to make of the world sometimes, gentlemen. I just don't know what to make of it.
• 1:29:58
  Propter: Look here at normal Men, we like restaurants, we like food, we like good food.
• 1:30:04
  Ed: We are, in fact, pro food on this podcast.
• 1:30:07
  Propter: I don't want to hang labels on. Could you. I don't understand what the hell fast casual means. I refuse to understand what fast casual means. People have tried to explain it to me. They're all wrong.
• 1:30:19
  Lowtax: Okay, I will explain it. Okay. Five guys is fast casual.
• 1:30:24
  Propter: Is it because of the peanuts?
• 1:30:27
  Lowtax: No, it is because it's, like, more expensive and kind of bougier. And there's no drive through.
• 1:30:34
  Ed: I mean, like, so it's really the drive through. Some Chipotle's have drive throughs now.
• 1:30:39
  Propter: You know, I think some five guys have drive throughs, too.
• 1:30:42
  Lowtax: I respect Chipotle for trying to spread E. Coli among its rancid fans as far and wide as possible.
• 1:30:50
  George: That was, like, 10 years ago at this point, man.
• 1:30:52
  Propter: Come on.
• 1:30:52
  Ed: Didn't they have a second?
• 1:30:53
  Lowtax: I don't care.
• 1:30:54
  Ed: Later.
• 1:30:55
  Propter: Yeah, they've had a couple.
• 1:30:56
  George: Yeah. The second outbreak was 2018. I mean, this guys, come on.
• 1:31:01
  Ed: I mean like.
• 1:31:01
  Propter: Oh, yeah.
• 1:31:02
  Lowtax: I mean, how many outbreaks do you need, George?
• 1:31:06
  Ed: I have eaten at a Chipotle this year. I, I'm not going to throw stones, but like, I think fast casual is. You stand there and watch them make it.
• 1:31:15
  Propter: So is Subway fast casual?
• 1:31:17
  Ed: Yes, yes. Look at the prices. They, they definitely qualify. A footlong sub at Subway is now like $14.
• 1:31:31
  Propter: Feels super location dependent to me, but I don't know. I mean, maybe I haven't been to Subway in a while.
• 1:31:35
  George: Maybe People's Republic of Massachusetts, but down
• 1:31:38
  Ed: here I do live in, in a land of plenty. Yes, you're correct.
• 1:31:42
  Lowtax: Yeah, I think, I think Subway. Subway's everywhere.
• 1:31:46
  Ed: I.
• 1:31:47
  Lowtax: It's all in the map.
• 1:31:48
  Ed: Vented fast casual.
• 1:31:50
  George: That's until very recently, they were the number one fast food franchise in the country in terms of the number of locations.
• 1:31:56
  Propter: Yeah, they have lots of way stores.
• 1:31:57
  George: Big margin too. They had like twice as many locations as McDonald's.
• 1:32:00
  Propter: Yeah, they franchise super aggressively.
• 1:32:02
  George: I actually had poorly for them. For the record.
• 1:32:04
  Ed: I actually had a Subway in Japan because I had to know. And it was one of the better meals I ate there. And I'm not joking. Like, they grilled like I, it, it was a grilled shrimp sandwich. Granted, like circumstances matter and I was leaving the country and I was very tired. So like at some point, like any food is delicious, but like it was like actual food at a Subway.
• 1:32:33
  George: It was actual bread. Better or worse than the Culver's shrimp?
• 1:32:36
  Ed: I don't know. I've, I, I make it a policy not to go to the Midwest.
• 1:32:41
  Lowtax: I didn't even know near me.
• 1:32:42
  George: Like, you don't have to go to the Midwest.
• 1:32:45
  Ed: I've never seen a Culver's.
• 1:32:46
  George: I mean, they might not be up by you, but I'm just saying you don't have to.
• 1:32:49
  Ed: No, I mean, I didn't know that. I've literally never seen one.
• 1:32:53
  Lowtax: Yeah, I've got one fairly near me. I had. I don't think they serve shrimp at the one I go to. I didn't know they served shrimp. And again, I am not buying seafood from a chain in Wisconsin.
• 1:33:09
  Ed: I will say though that like the Popeye shrimp are, are definitely edible.
• 1:33:15
  George: Popeyes rules. It's really now though, like, even relative to like Bojangles or Chick Fil A or like Chick Fil A is the most expensive fast food. But it, it's. I, the last time I went to Popeyes, I was like, really, like, compared to family restaurants or other like McDonald's or whatever. You know, there.
• 1:33:34
  Ed: There are Culver's in Massachusetts, but I
• 1:33:39
  George: think maybe some cheese curds, buddy.
• 1:33:41
  Propter: Yeah, it's pretty good.
• 1:33:41
  Ed: I can't tell if they're actually. I can't actually tell if they are here or if that is. Is a hallucination of some kind of.
• 1:33:49
  Propter: Apparently they've got 1100 locations, which is more than I expected for Culver's.
• 1:33:54
  Ed: Yeah, no, I think. I think. I think that was incorrect because there it was like, they're in Springfield. And I'm like, nothing is in Springfield except sadness. Right? Like, why. Why would you put your. Your. Your only location for your franchisee operation in scenic Western. But I'm not going to finish that sentence. Massachusetts.
• 1:34:18
  Lowtax: Okay. Gemini tells me there are no Culver's in Massachusetts.
• 1:34:22
  Ed: Well, it just told me that there were. So what are we going to do about this? I'm not driving to fucking Springfield.
• 1:34:29
  George: And that's why we don't use Gemini, folks. All right, I think that's enough of our nonsense for the week since we're just querying a bad AI agent for fast food locations at this point, so.
• 1:34:39
  Lowtax: I agree.
• 1:34:40
  George: We would appreciate it if you would give us a rating. Review. Wherever you listen to this, share it with your friends, co workers, bosses, spouses, children. Potentially depends how old they are. Yeah, whatever. Put out the good word that you like hearing four dudes who pride themselves on normalcy talk about stupid stuff for an hour and a half once a week. With that, I think that's our show. So in Charlotte, I'm George from the OK Owinghe Pueblo.
• 1:35:09
  Propter: Go.
• 1:35:09
  Lowtax: I'm Proctor in outer Florida. I'm low tech speed run and dryer in Boston.
• 1:35:15
  Ed: Ahmed, insulate your house.
• 1:35:17
  George: Stay normal, y'.
• 1:35:18
  Propter: All.