Chad Adams Fills In For Pete Kaliner 01-03-25 Hour 3

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalinershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] Johnson has lost the first vote. And now they took a break and they've quickly regathered and a second vote is imminent. I don't know what has happened. I don't know if they had a punch through to a deal. I know it's in his best interest to get this thing wrapped up.

[00:00:46] And maybe, you know, people were able to have that protest vote and they were able to make their peace and say, look, I voted against him. It's time to move forward. I don't know. But that's a lot of people are like just shaking their heads going, here go those crazy Republicans again. They can't get their act together on even voting for a speaker.

[00:01:04] And Hakeem Jeffries is out there just, you know, pontificating and being Hakeem.

[00:01:08] We're waiting for the break. By the way, my name is Chad Adams. I'm sitting in for Pete Calendar. This will be my final day at the microphone for the first week of the year as we close out the first week of the year.

[00:01:17] It has been an honor and privilege to be here for the past two weeks here on News Talk 1110 993 WBT.

[00:01:24] I've had a blast. You guys are an amazing audience, amazing staff. I say that I can't say it enough.

[00:01:29] You want to get on the conversation? It is 704-570-1110, 704-570-1110.

[00:01:34] Went to the break. I was talking about the digital age. Every age has its challenges, you know.

[00:01:41] At every age, and I'm not talking about great societal challenges like Vietnam, Civil Rights, Civil War, World War II, these guys.

[00:01:47] I'm talking about challenges in the complexity of life. So many aspects of our life are so much easier.

[00:01:54] I mean, I think our cars are making us dumber. I think technology in many ways makes us dumber.

[00:01:59] Because if you've ever driven a very advanced car for any period of time, and then you switch to a car that doesn't – like you have a car that has a backup camera.

[00:02:09] You have a car that has blind spot indicators and blind spot cameras.

[00:02:14] And when you're backing up or something, it has a top-view camera that sees all around the car.

[00:02:20] These technological advances are rather staggering and amazing.

[00:02:23] It even has lane sensors. If you've ever driven a car with lane sensors and with adaptive speed cruise control,

[00:02:29] and you've got radar sensing, which can determine the distance between you and the car in front of you and keep the car there,

[00:02:35] you basically have, for the most part, a semi-self-driving car.

[00:02:39] But if you go into – if you were to get into a 1968 Ford pickup truck and start to drive it, you would think,

[00:02:47] oh my God, I can't believe people drove these things.

[00:02:50] Because you have to be – one thing about driving a more primitive car does is it makes you very situationally aware.

[00:02:58] When I'm driving down the road these days, I look at all the people that are completely unaware of what's happening outside their cocoon.

[00:03:04] It could be raining daggers from the sky. They wouldn't see it coming.

[00:03:11] Pigs could be flying. Winged pigs, they wouldn't notice it.

[00:03:16] UFOs could fly right over their car. They wouldn't notice it.

[00:03:19] They're on the phone. More and more lately, more people – I notice people are talking to themselves, but they're really not.

[00:03:24] They're talking on their phone with their earpieces in, and they're just prattling on with no awareness about what's happening around them.

[00:03:31] So in that way, I think technology makes us a little dumber.

[00:03:36] I'm amazed when people don't – I'm a wildlife junkie, so I'm always looking for what's up in the trees and stuff, and I'm amazed at what people don't see.

[00:03:44] Did you see that owl? It was like 20 feet above your head. You didn't see the owl?

[00:03:47] What are you talking about, owl? What's an owl?

[00:03:49] So in many ways, the columnist over at The Guardian writes,

[00:03:53] I love living in the digital age as someone who grew up in the analog world.

[00:03:56] My first journalism job as a college intern involved a manual typewriter and carbon – that's really dating yourself.

[00:04:02] You know what carbon paper is?

[00:04:04] And many of you are old enough, and I'll bet you – I'll bet you some of the people in the studio that are listening right now and helping me make this show possible

[00:04:11] know the smell of a mimeograph machine.

[00:04:15] Remember that blue ink and the way that smelled when you're – that's the only thing the parents – the teachers had to kind of give you copies of stuff?

[00:04:25] They did. They do. They are.

[00:04:27] So manual typewriters, even electric typewriters are kind of strange.

[00:04:33] The downside of digital life is driving me batty to columnist right, so much so that I sometimes consider trying to get off the grid altogether to seek a less frustrating experience.

[00:04:41] And I'll tell you why I think this is fascinating in a second.

[00:04:44] I have a fantasy of this simple life that I describe as full bore Thoreau.

[00:04:48] It involves listening to birdsong and reading Russian novels while occasionally using a landline to maintain contact with other humans.

[00:04:54] What's made me get to this point?

[00:04:56] Consider, as an example, my recent adventure with usernames and password.

[00:04:59] Now, if you have a toll pass and you've let it expire, you haven't driven on the toll roads in years, and then you do, and you get – you want to change that account?

[00:05:08] This is exactly what this person went through.

[00:05:11] They had as easy pass, the device that allows you to travel through toll barriers without stopping to hand over cash.

[00:05:16] When I signed up for it years ago, I apparently got a username and password.

[00:05:19] I gave them my credit card information so that it could be charged when necessary.

[00:05:22] As the years went by, everything was fine.

[00:05:24] I'd get a hard copy of the statements in the mail, but never kept them around.

[00:05:27] I gave this arrangement no thought until the day I got a voicemail claiming to be from a law firm saying I had accrued massive easy pass debt.

[00:05:39] Massive easy pass debt.

[00:05:40] I thought it might be a scam, so I decided to check the account balance, something I never felt the need to do before.

[00:05:45] This is not me, by the way.

[00:05:46] This is a columnist, but I can relate.

[00:05:49] But, horrors, it turned out that my username was not my email address.

[00:05:54] I tried to retrieve it on my cell phone number or email address, but only descended into another concentric circle of digital hell.

[00:06:00] A phone call, old school, I know, to customer service resulted in a demand for my account number.

[00:06:05] But in order to get that, I needed to sign into my account.

[00:06:08] So round and round I went.

[00:06:09] Of course, an issue like that is minor.

[00:06:11] Only one tiny piece of the daily puzzle of life that involves all the ways that we, like institutions and banks, employers, try to protect you.

[00:06:20] Two-factor authentication now stops us everywhere.

[00:06:22] To log in, you need to put in the code that's just been sent to your phone.

[00:06:25] But as you go to your text messages to find it, the original question disappears from your phone.

[00:06:30] Those of us who do any freelance work descend into a special torture chamber that comes with the registering as a vendor with part-time employers.

[00:06:37] That involves layers and layers of providing your identity, submitting tax forms, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:06:42] All of this is a privilege.

[00:06:45] These are very definition of first world problems.

[00:06:47] We're lucky to have them.

[00:06:48] It doesn't feel that way.

[00:06:49] I wish I could step off this merry-go-round.

[00:06:52] The solution, as it turned out, was marvelously old-fashioned.

[00:06:55] I dug out a small notebook from a drawer that had usernames and passwords.

[00:06:58] By the way, my mother was phenomenal at usernames and passwords.

[00:07:02] She kept a handwritten book with all of her usernames and passwords in it.

[00:07:08] So whenever it was updated, she'd scribble through the old one and put the new one in there.

[00:07:12] And when she passed away, it was really important that we found that book.

[00:07:16] It made a profound difference in us being able to move anything forward on her estate.

[00:07:22] Now, as complicated as that is, and again, I started the show talking about how we are really a first world problem country.

[00:07:28] The people in many other parts of the world that want us dead every day and wake up with that sole goal in mind, organizing and structuring, are really good at staying off the grid.

[00:07:39] They're remarkably adept at not having these first world name and password problems.

[00:07:44] Now, I'll talk about that, and I'm going to connect it to, let's see, reality show Survivor, any reality show, really.

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[00:09:05] We spent a good deal of time talking about the nature of the threat to you, to me, to your children, your grandchildren, your parents.

[00:09:14] It is real.

[00:09:15] It is not, you know, we can pretend that when we're complaining about, you know, whatever,

[00:09:20] I didn't mow my yard this week or something.

[00:09:22] You know, that's, we have, we are very fortunate to have the first world problems of worrying about your name and password.

[00:09:28] It is hard to, it is hard to stay on point that your enemies are out to get you all the time.

[00:09:35] It's not paranoia.

[00:09:36] It's true.

[00:09:37] It is an ideology that is incompatible with freedom in this country.

[00:09:40] It is incompatible with our constitution.

[00:09:42] It's incompatible with the very fabric of American life.

[00:09:46] It is important to stay vigilant with that.

[00:09:48] And so as much as we can disagree politically on things we've got, and we, I think many of us in America,

[00:09:54] we have to get the Democrats to start focusing on differences of policy that are not the border.

[00:10:03] You know, the Democrats should be on board.

[00:10:04] There are many things that Democrats need to get.

[00:10:06] They need to get on board with law enforcement.

[00:10:08] They need to get on board with the border.

[00:10:09] They need to get on board with America first.

[00:10:11] They've got to quit putting the country down.

[00:10:15] It is providing aid and comfort to our enemies each and every day.

[00:10:21] Period.

[00:10:21] It is.

[00:10:22] Now, back to the first world problem of names and passwords.

[00:10:26] I, and this is, this is a reflection.

[00:10:29] This is my personal reflection on things.

[00:10:33] I'm fascinated with reality shows.

[00:10:36] Whether, you know, especially contestants like Survivor.

[00:10:40] I don't watch all of them.

[00:10:42] I just don't have the time.

[00:10:43] I don't have the time to sit there and veg out in front of the TV.

[00:10:45] I'm too much of an avid reader.

[00:10:47] So when I do, there is a fascination I have with these reality shows.

[00:10:52] There's one Mr. Beast has done.

[00:10:54] For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Beast,

[00:10:55] I think he's from Greenville.

[00:10:57] I actually know someone who works for that organization.

[00:10:59] And here's how, when you talk about the fabric of society,

[00:11:05] Mr. Beast is a multi-bazillionaire.

[00:11:07] He does a lot of philanthropic giving away stuff.

[00:11:08] But how, one of the things he did to become famous was he,

[00:11:12] he taped himself or live broadcast himself counting from one to a hundred thousand.

[00:11:19] And millions and millions of people watched.

[00:11:21] This dude is right in the process right now of giving away $5 million on a game show of his creation loosely based on Squid Games,

[00:11:30] where he gives you a lot of psychologically challenging decisions that you need to make.

[00:11:41] Ethical quandaries where you were.

[00:11:43] If I were to offer you, so there's 20 people that have, that are on your team.

[00:11:47] You're the captain for that team.

[00:11:49] And you're standing on a platform.

[00:11:52] And there's money being offered.

[00:11:54] There's four other captains with you, four of you total, that are standing up there.

[00:11:57] And each of you have a team of 20, 40, 50 people that are standing below you.

[00:12:00] And you personally are offered an ascending amount of money, a more and more progressive amount of money.

[00:12:07] And you can personally take that money.

[00:12:09] But if you do, all of the people on your team are eliminated from getting more money.

[00:12:15] That prize money got up to a million dollars.

[00:12:18] So these four individuals who are, by the way, all these people are strangers.

[00:12:22] They don't know, they didn't know each other before entering this game show.

[00:12:24] They stood on that platform and they were offered a million dollars.

[00:12:29] Any one of them could have hit the button, walked off that stage with a million dollars.

[00:12:33] And 40, 50, 60 people they didn't know would go back to their lives.

[00:12:39] And these individuals stood on that platform as it went from 200,000 to 300 to 400.

[00:12:44] It went to a million dollars.

[00:12:46] And none of them hit the buzzer.

[00:12:49] None of them took the million dollars.

[00:12:51] And it was portrayed by the people, oh, they care about their fellow men.

[00:12:56] They're so altruistic.

[00:12:57] In the very next game, one of them got eliminated by people on their team.

[00:13:04] And that was a whole psychological drama.

[00:13:07] But it is interesting, the value system that these people have.

[00:13:11] A lot of these people could have used the money for their kids' education, for their families.

[00:13:15] Then they go home with nothing.

[00:13:17] Nothing.

[00:13:18] Nothing.

[00:13:18] But here's where my fascination is.

[00:13:21] It's not with the ethical dilemmas.

[00:13:24] There's a phrase called situational ethics.

[00:13:26] A lot of that show is about situational ethics.

[00:13:28] What would you do if you were placed in a situation where you put three people in a room and you have five hours to decide which one of you will not be moving on in a game?

[00:13:39] That's going to be eliminated.

[00:13:40] Three of you get to decide.

[00:13:42] You have to come to a conclusion.

[00:13:43] And they did this with all these people.

[00:13:45] And the one that decides to stay back handcuffs himself to a wall.

[00:13:48] Boom.

[00:13:49] That person is eliminated.

[00:13:50] But they have to decide.

[00:13:51] Some people did game of chance, dice, rock, paper, scissors, whatever.

[00:13:56] But it was – and some people just lied.

[00:13:58] Now, if you couldn't come to a decision, all three of you went home.

[00:14:01] All three of you went home with nothing.

[00:14:03] And there were multiple groups where all three of them went home because no one would decide.

[00:14:07] It is – you see the worst in human beings.

[00:14:11] Sometimes you see the best.

[00:14:12] Again, still not my fascination with the show.

[00:14:15] My fascination with the show is entirely selfish.

[00:14:18] Whether it's Survivor, whether it's any of these shows that take you away from life for weeks at a time.

[00:14:26] I'm fascinated because how many of you would like to be able to just walk away from your life for a few weeks?

[00:14:39] No cell phones.

[00:14:41] No emails.

[00:14:42] No bills to worry about.

[00:14:44] No phone calls you need to return.

[00:14:47] No emails you need to return.

[00:14:49] That you walk away.

[00:14:51] I mean those people that go on Survivor are there for weeks.

[00:14:54] They go to the other side of the planet, and you wonder what is their life like that they can walk away from everything.

[00:15:01] And all of them – now, every one of them loses weight.

[00:15:05] And naked and afraid is like the extreme version of that.

[00:15:07] Those people just get emaciated.

[00:15:08] But every one of those people loses weight.

[00:15:10] Every one of them physically is stronger, better, faster, stronger by the time they leave than before they went.

[00:15:15] Every one of them has a readjustment on what their priorities in life are when they come back.

[00:15:21] And they learn a lot about themselves.

[00:15:24] How many of you would love to do that?

[00:15:26] Would love to be able to step out?

[00:15:28] Now, my grandparents on both sides – you know what?

[00:15:32] And I'm sitting here going, by the way, Dave, I apologize.

[00:15:35] Let's get to Dave.

[00:15:36] Dave, what the heck are you up to this afternoon?

[00:15:38] And what's on your brain?

[00:15:41] And apologies for making you wait, Dave.

[00:15:44] Hey, I'm here.

[00:15:45] I'm sorry.

[00:15:46] I didn't realize I was online here.

[00:15:48] That's okay.

[00:15:49] The opportunity.

[00:15:51] Yeah.

[00:15:51] First of all, on that four people that declined a million dollars to – I'm going to clean this up.

[00:15:58] But Nick Saban the other day had a comment.

[00:16:01] He said they would be blank out of luck.

[00:16:08] It was amazing to me.

[00:16:11] It was just amazing to me that they just sat there.

[00:16:14] And then they end up going home with nothing.

[00:16:15] They could have had a million dollars.

[00:16:17] Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:18] Man, I promise you, I'd take the money and run so quick it'd make their heads spin.

[00:16:22] But the reason I wanted to call – I really do think that we need to be extra vigilant over these next several weeks.

[00:16:32] Once Trump gets in and the ship starts getting righted, I mean, these folks that are after us are not stupid.

[00:16:38] They know that it's going to be a lot harder for them to do what they want to try to do to be bad actors against us.

[00:16:47] They know that their time and their windows are short.

[00:16:50] And so I just encourage everybody to keep vigilant.

[00:16:53] I pray that I'm wrong.

[00:16:55] I really do.

[00:16:56] But I promise you for myself and my family and my loved ones, we're going to all be keeping our head on a swivel.

[00:17:03] Appreciate you enjoying your hosting of the show.

[00:17:07] And, Dave, I appreciate the phone call.

[00:17:09] And to Dave's point, this is what I love.

[00:17:12] Many of the callers are astute.

[00:17:13] They're going about their day-to-day life.

[00:17:14] They don't do this for a living.

[00:17:15] They took the time to call in.

[00:17:17] I think, Dave, it has a very common sense vision there, and that is that this is the rocky – this is the turnover period.

[00:17:27] This is where we're – the largest transfer of power in the world is you're turning over the executive branch of government to a new person.

[00:17:36] Luckily, this person has experience going into it.

[00:17:38] But you're right.

[00:17:39] Through that transition is a very – especially right now because the Iranians have put out a hit.

[00:17:45] I mean they absolutely have said we want to kill Trump.

[00:17:47] They've said that.

[00:17:48] They would love to be able to kill him here on our soil.

[00:17:50] They would love to carry out that threat and make it real because in their mind it escalates them.

[00:17:55] We took out the leader of the free world.

[00:17:57] We can do it to you.

[00:17:58] We can do anything.

[00:17:59] We're a terrorist state.

[00:18:00] We can kill anybody anytime.

[00:18:02] Now, a lot of that is bravado.

[00:18:04] I mean they would love to eradicate Israel, and they haven't quite been able to do that yet.

[00:18:09] But make no mistake.

[00:18:10] They want to, and they're going to continue to try to do so through their proxies or directly.

[00:18:13] But to Dave's point, I think if Trump can make it to the inauguration, get into office, and start that train heading down the tracks in spite of his enemies, meaning the ones domestically, the Democrats, in spite of the media, which I think the media has been much softer touched lately.

[00:18:33] It's going to be brutal.

[00:18:36] I think that he's right.

[00:18:37] I think that the more the ship gets righted, the better this will be, the stronger the nation will come, and more moderates and even some Democrats will, I think, start saying, hey, you know what?

[00:18:50] Let's give this guy a chance.

[00:18:52] I don't think we're going to have the hyperbole and the crazy 51 spies who lie and multiple silly sham impeachments, mainly because the Republicans have the House and the Senate.

[00:19:02] So to Dave's point, I think it was an astute observation.

[00:19:05] I think it was a good one, and I appreciate his call.

[00:19:07] I always love this audience, and they're right.

[00:19:13] Some of the ones, I just love it.

[00:19:15] But I will say I'll continue as we wrap up this segment to say it's hard to switch gears because they made such a good point that me going back to saying, hey, I'd love to be able to walk away for two weeks.

[00:19:27] When I said it was selfish, I mean, I'll bet you the guys running the board right now would love to be able to not worry about bills, not worry about anything, and go and get in great shape and focus on different priorities in a much more primitive setting if they had the opportunity to do so.

[00:19:47] He likes the Buffalo Bills.

[00:19:48] Okay, he said it.

[00:19:49] There you go.

[00:19:50] Now, I'm kidding.

[00:19:51] It is that – but how many of you could – I mean, when you think about traveling, how many of you can organize your life in such a way that you could go for a month and just hit the road?

[00:20:02] No.

[00:20:02] What you've got to figure out is do I have Wi-Fi wherever I'm going to be?

[00:20:06] Can I manage my life from a distance no matter where I am?

[00:20:10] Because retirement is becoming much more complicated for that reason, isn't it?

[00:20:15] The vision of retirement as Americans see it is very complicated because from a digital standpoint and a paperwork standpoint, it ain't as easy as it used to be.

[00:20:25] Used to.

[00:20:26] You didn't have to worry too much about it.

[00:20:27] You just go.

[00:20:29] But now, I don't know.

[00:20:31] All right.

[00:20:32] I hope you had a happy holiday season, but tell me if something like this happened at your house.

[00:20:37] Your family and friends are gathered around.

[00:20:39] Maybe y'all are in the living room.

[00:20:41] You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says,

[00:20:45] Hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes?

[00:20:47] Did you ever get them transferred?

[00:20:49] And then the room gets all quiet.

[00:20:51] All eyes are on Dad who says,

[00:20:54] Oh, you know, well, I've been meaning to, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

[00:20:57] Look, don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for another year.

[00:21:02] All right.

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[00:21:38] Now, looking at the Speaker Johnson vote, they're having some technical issues trying to get the next one is.

[00:21:44] He lost the first round of voting.

[00:21:46] They're trying to figure out what to do.

[00:21:48] They don't want to dismiss.

[00:21:50] They don't want to formally adjourn.

[00:21:51] Who knows what's going to happen?

[00:21:53] But it is a bit of a mess.

[00:21:56] Now, earlier, there's three or four things I want to get to that should be fun.

[00:22:01] I'll get to the serious one, then we'll go to the rest of them.

[00:22:03] And you guys are welcome to be a part of the conversation.

[00:22:05] News Talk 1110-993-WBT, 704-570-1110, 704-570-1110, the call-in numbers.

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[00:22:40] Now, throughout the show, it's been interesting.

[00:22:45] I think Brandon Dixon and Pam Warner could have a conversation, and it's interesting.

[00:22:50] It's actually paying attention to them.

[00:22:51] One of the first ones they had was about the dinosaurs, and the dinosaur highway in Great Britain had been discovered.

[00:22:57] So that made me curious.

[00:22:59] I was looking at this dinosaur highway.

[00:23:03] I was fascinated by it.

[00:23:04] You have carnivore prints.

[00:23:05] You have omnivore prints.

[00:23:07] You have vegetarian prints.

[00:23:08] And they're all kind of galloping along, you know, 100 and some odd million years ago in the tropics of Great Britain because climate change was real back then.

[00:23:18] So – and what was fascinating to me were the size.

[00:23:22] Like I – if you're an avid nature watcher, you know, seeing a whale is – you see a sperm whale.

[00:23:28] You see a right whale.

[00:23:29] Those are big critters.

[00:23:31] Even elephants, big critters.

[00:23:33] But the size and scope of these animals that lived then are staggering in proportion.

[00:23:39] So this dinosaur highway, one thing they had never known is they had a 60-foot-long vegetarian.

[00:23:45] It's a sauropod.

[00:23:46] It's called – well, it's called the Cetiosaurus.

[00:23:52] That's what they think it is.

[00:23:54] 60 feet long.

[00:23:55] You imagine something walking through your yard.

[00:23:58] It's 60 feet long, walking upright.

[00:23:59] I'm not talking about swimming in the ocean.

[00:24:01] I'm talking about just cruising along.

[00:24:03] Hey, what's up?

[00:24:03] Yo, I'm eating your garden.

[00:24:04] I'm 60 feet long.

[00:24:06] That's – you think deer are a problem.

[00:24:08] Imagine a group of those just kind of walking through.

[00:24:11] And the megalosaurus, that's the other one.

[00:24:13] That one was one of the first big carnivores discovered.

[00:24:16] That thing was 30 feet long and stood upright.

[00:24:21] Or at least – and between each print, nine feet long.

[00:24:27] One footprint, nine feet, next footprint.

[00:24:30] And they're not thinking this is at a run because of the angle of the foot.

[00:24:33] It's just a step.

[00:24:35] I'm taking a step.

[00:24:36] I'm nine feet.

[00:24:37] You have a couple of those cruising around.

[00:24:39] I'm thankful.

[00:24:40] When I see birds, if you're a bird watcher, you have no doubt those things.

[00:24:44] You know, scales turned into feathers.

[00:24:46] These things, when they look at you, I'm convinced.

[00:24:48] When I see hawks and eagles and a lot of things that crawl around at the beach,

[00:24:52] these things, they look at you like, you know what?

[00:24:54] If I were bigger, you were smaller, you're food to me.

[00:24:57] They have no – it isn't about compassion.

[00:24:59] They would just eat you.

[00:25:01] Nature is a cruel mistress.

[00:25:03] And these guys, they'll kill each other.

[00:25:05] You see a group of crows around a hawk.

[00:25:07] They're thinking, how can I kill that hawk?

[00:25:08] The hawk's thinking, how the hell am I going to get out of here?

[00:25:12] It's reality.

[00:25:12] That's the ultimate reality there, and they're not on TV.

[00:25:16] Now, I do want to get to fun stuff, and one of those – I'm going to get to the potato cartel.

[00:25:21] I didn't know there was a potato cartel, but apparently there is.

[00:25:23] I think they may own me.

[00:25:24] They may own many of you, potato cartel.

[00:25:27] But this is about the five-second rule.

[00:25:30] How many of you – see, we can end on a lighter note and just talk about the end of the world.

[00:25:35] We can talk about things that affect you.

[00:25:36] Like how many times have you been around somebody or you yourself dropped something?

[00:25:40] Five-second rule, right?

[00:25:41] Pick it back up.

[00:25:42] See, five-second rule.

[00:25:45] It's referred to often.

[00:25:47] So you drop it on the floor.

[00:25:49] Is it a real deal?

[00:25:50] Is the five-second rule real?

[00:25:52] It suggests that something dropped on the floor.

[00:25:54] This is from – it's actually a scientific journal.

[00:25:57] It's the American Council on Science and Health.

[00:26:02] The rule suggests that if you drop something on the floor and you pick it up within five seconds,

[00:26:07] first, the morsel is too tasty to have dropped and needs to be eaten regardless.

[00:26:11] And in some scientific way, bacteria needs time to transfer.

[00:26:14] That's the assumption, isn't it?

[00:26:16] You drop it, the bacteria can't jump on it that quick.

[00:26:19] While there is abundant personal experience, scientific research on this, believe it or not,

[00:26:24] people have looked.

[00:26:25] Drawing inconsistent conclusions using different surfaces, foods, bacteria, and contact times.

[00:26:30] A study in applied and environmental microbiology wanted to come out and look at this.

[00:26:36] And they looked at a non-pathogenic bacterium with adhesion.

[00:26:41] I love them.

[00:26:42] Scientists go, you know what?

[00:26:44] And I'm thinking they're sitting around a table in there.

[00:26:46] What are you going to do today?

[00:26:47] I don't know.

[00:26:47] Oh, my God.

[00:26:48] Fred dropped his bread.

[00:26:49] And he picked it up and ate it.

[00:26:50] You have five-second room, fellas.

[00:26:52] Wait a minute.

[00:26:53] You know what?

[00:26:54] I think I know what we're going to do today.

[00:26:55] Fred, get that stuff.

[00:26:57] Let's run into the lab right quick.

[00:26:58] Get some bacteria.

[00:26:59] Bring some pathogens in.

[00:27:00] We're going to test that theory.

[00:27:01] We're going to continue to drop food.

[00:27:02] And we're going to test to see if any of that bacteria jumps on your bread.

[00:27:06] See if it's real.

[00:27:07] Boom.

[00:27:08] Let's write a grant.

[00:27:09] Maybe the government will give us some money.

[00:27:10] Yeah, we'll get a million dollars to study if bacteria jumps on your bread.

[00:27:13] But so anyway, the Enterobacter origins, autogenes, a non-pathogenic bacterium with adhesion characteristics.

[00:27:21] Did you know your bacteria had that?

[00:27:23] Like duct tape, except with bacteria.

[00:27:25] Of the more pathogenic, Salmonella were inoculated on four types of surfaces.

[00:27:30] In other words, they put it on four different types of surfaces found in our homes.

[00:27:34] Stainless steel, ceramic tile, laminate wood, and carpet.

[00:27:37] And it left it there for five hours.

[00:27:39] So they put a pathogen, and they put the other stuff, put it on those surfaces, left it.

[00:27:44] Didn't touch it.

[00:27:45] Went and had another food break, I guess.

[00:27:46] All right.

[00:27:47] If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events.

[00:27:50] And I know you do, too.

[00:27:51] And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources.

[00:27:55] Why?

[00:27:56] Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News.

[00:28:01] It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information.

[00:28:10] You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete.

[00:28:15] I put the link in the podcast description, too.

[00:28:17] I started using Ground News a few months ago, and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom.

[00:28:27] The Blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right.

[00:28:31] See for yourself.

[00:28:33] Check.ground.news slash Pete.

[00:28:36] Subscribe through that link, and you'll get 15% off any subscription.

[00:28:40] I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:28:44] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent.

[00:28:51] I'm narrating my own version of this story, mind you.

[00:28:55] It's true.

[00:28:55] Everything I'm telling you is true, but I'm narrating it in a way that may be fictionalizing some of the way these guys came to this because I'm thinking about what kind of scientists are sitting around going, you guys want to look at climate change?

[00:29:06] No.

[00:29:07] You want to study Ebola and what it might do?

[00:29:09] No, I don't want to do that.

[00:29:10] Let's see.

[00:29:11] What else can we do?

[00:29:12] I don't know.

[00:29:12] You want to cure cancer?

[00:29:13] No, don't want to do that.

[00:29:14] But Fred dropped his bread, and I'm wondering.

[00:29:17] He picked it up pretty quickly, and he said five-second rule.

[00:29:21] Why don't we study that?

[00:29:22] And they went and did it, and they did – I mean, there's graphs and charts and all sorts of really cool information.

[00:29:28] They went and found four surfaces, so they had a very dangerous – they had salmonella.

[00:29:32] They sprayed that on tile, on stainless steel, all these things.

[00:29:36] And then they also put something that's a non-pathogenic bacterium just to see if it jumps on stuff.

[00:29:42] So then – this is what's great.

[00:29:44] Talk about scientific inquiry.

[00:29:45] So they had the four surfaces.

[00:29:47] Then they get four different types of food.

[00:29:50] So they get watermelon.

[00:29:51] They get bread, butter, gummy candy because gummy candy has to be included, right?

[00:29:56] It must have been near Halloween, but gummy candy.

[00:29:58] By the way, pre-getting-in-your-mouth gummy candy.

[00:30:01] So it's not all wet.

[00:30:02] It's just gummy candy.

[00:30:03] And then they're going to go – this is where it gets funny.

[00:30:06] So the scientists are wandering around the lab.

[00:30:07] They've got their surfaces sprayed with the bacteria and the pathogen, and then they've got their food.

[00:30:12] Where are they going to drop it from?

[00:30:13] The table?

[00:30:14] No.

[00:30:14] They're going to hover about five inches above these surfaces and drop it.

[00:30:20] And they leave it there, each of the four, on the four surfaces, times the following times.

[00:30:25] One second, five seconds, 30 seconds, or 300 seconds.

[00:30:28] And then they determined the transfer to each of those surfaces on the various foods.

[00:30:34] It shouldn't be any surprise to those skeptical of the five-second rule that outcomes are kind of entangled.

[00:30:40] In other words, the science isn't 100% clear, but it's pretty clear on what happened here.

[00:30:46] Watermelon.

[00:30:46] Here are the results.

[00:30:48] Watermelon.

[00:30:49] Melon, I guess all the melons.

[00:30:51] Wet fruit.

[00:30:53] Watermelon, irrespective of surface, picks up a great deal of bacteria.

[00:30:56] Five seconds, way too long.

[00:30:58] So if you're a germaphobe and you drop melon, any of the melons, don't pick it up.

[00:31:02] Just don't worry about it.

[00:31:04] I mean, you can pick it up, throw it in the trash.

[00:31:05] Don't eat it.

[00:31:06] Bread seems to have very little transfer in those first five seconds, but you have to move quickly.

[00:31:11] By 10 seconds, most everything gets transferred, even to the bread.

[00:31:14] There is a notable exception for carpeting where you do have more time.

[00:31:18] So if you drop your bread on carpet, you got more than five seconds, but there may be other things on the carpet that you don't like as well.

[00:31:25] So there you go.

[00:31:26] Another important conclusion for those of you engaged in the butter side up, butter side down on your bread doesn't seem to make a difference.

[00:31:34] They couldn't determine whether the butter made it worse or better.

[00:31:37] So there you go.

[00:31:38] The one thing you got to worry about is the butter clearly got on the surface, right?

[00:31:41] So you got to clean the surface.

[00:31:43] Gummy candy.

[00:31:44] Why of all the things they could have dropped on the floor, it would be gummies?

[00:31:49] But you know what?

[00:31:50] Maybe they were THC-infused gummies, and the scientists were just having a little bit of fun at our expense.

[00:31:55] But gummies made the list.

[00:31:56] They offered the greatest opportunity for microbiological safety.

[00:32:00] And they had to put that in there to make it sound really scientific, didn't they?

[00:32:04] They couldn't just say, hey, gummies, most likely to get crap on them.

[00:32:07] They said opportunity for microbiological safety under the five-second rule.

[00:32:12] A word of caution, the gummy wasn't already moistened.

[00:32:14] I told you that earlier.

[00:32:15] So there you go.

[00:32:16] The longer the food contact times, the greater the bacterial transfer.

[00:32:20] That's the, oh, really part of the study.

[00:32:23] Surface characteristics also play a role with polished surfaces like tile and stainless steel transfer more than carpet.

[00:32:30] Because carpet has lots of nooks and cannies, kind of like hamburger meat.

[00:32:35] The topography of the food, specifically its moisture impacts the speed of transfer.

[00:32:39] So there you go.

[00:32:40] They spent time because scientists study all sorts of stuff.

[00:32:45] And the good news is we know more about the transfer of bacteria to food than we do our climate.

[00:32:49] Because a lot of those guys get it wrong.

[00:32:51] Now, final story that I'm going to try to get through today is the potato cartel.

[00:32:54] Didn't know this.

[00:32:55] I didn't know there was a potato cartel, but apparently there is.

[00:32:59] And now I've learned about it, so you are going to learn about it as well.

[00:33:02] A potato cartel has allegedly conspired to artificially hike prices on French fries and hash browns as they corner the $68 billion frozen potato market, according to multiple lawsuits.

[00:33:17] Now, again, that's not necessarily true, but that's what the lawsuits are asserting.

[00:33:23] After decades of consolidation, just four companies, Lamb West and Canada-based McCain Foods, the J.R. Simplot Company, and Cavendish Farms.

[00:33:30] I've only heard of one of those, by the way, the Cavendish I'd heard of, controls 97% of the market.

[00:33:37] Go figure.

[00:33:38] It's kind of a virtual cart.

[00:33:40] That's why they call it a potato cartel, right?

[00:33:41] It's not a monopoly.

[00:33:42] It's a cartel.

[00:33:44] According to antitrust lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court of Illinois, between July of 22 and July of 24, these tater titans set the price of frozen potatoes soaring 47% by colluding to raised prices.

[00:33:57] Now, this lends credence to what the Democrats would say, right?

[00:34:01] There's a collusion to raise – they're gouging.

[00:34:04] It's price gouging.

[00:34:05] When there are only a handful of players, collusion is too appetizing for these companies to pass up.

[00:34:11] The companies blame the increases, and again, I would be more likely to believe this, the rising cost of operations.

[00:34:18] Because we know through COVID and through the idiocy of the Biden people that prices went up.

[00:34:25] And when prices go up, Democrats want to blame gouging.

[00:34:29] They don't ever want to say, well, fuel's more expensive.

[00:34:31] Raising things is more extensive.

[00:34:33] Fertilizer's more extensive.

[00:34:34] Blah, blah, blah.

[00:34:36] So the operators said, hey, frozen potatoes is high after operating costs went up.

[00:34:42] And they're saying – other people say, no, that's not it.

[00:34:44] So Mark Doucette, vice president of communications at Cavendish Farms, call the allegations basis.

[00:34:49] We intend to vigorously defend ourselves so the potato cartel will go into court and they will fight this.

[00:34:54] The three other companies mentioned in the lawsuits didn't respond to requests.

[00:34:58] Since November, restaurants and grocery stores have filed more than a dozen class action suits,

[00:35:03] arguing that the prices imposed by the potato cartel has crushed their bottom line.

[00:35:08] Around 40% of all potatoes grown in the country, 17 billion pounds are sold to frozen potato companies.

[00:35:18] 17 billion with a B pounds of potatoes.

[00:35:23] I didn't even – I couldn't even believe.

[00:35:26] Dave – well, now actually we had Dave.

[00:35:29] Oh, that's the staff being nice to me.

[00:35:31] Thank you.

[00:35:33] 40% – it's hard for me to fathom.

[00:35:36] I mean, you see these things about how many milkshakes people get that we consume in a year, how many pounds of beef.

[00:35:43] I would never have thought 17 billion pounds of potatoes.

[00:35:48] And that's just the potatoes sold to frozen potato companies each year.

[00:35:52] That's not the baked spuds that you see at the grocery stores that you're going to buy, the red potatoes, whatever kind of potato you're going to buy.

[00:35:59] 17 billion.

[00:36:01] The people that we quoted, 70% of the market, while J.R. Simple, it holds 20%.

[00:36:05] Cavendish has seven.

[00:36:07] So that's where you get to 97% of the market.

[00:36:10] All these industries are trending toward duopolies.

[00:36:13] The model of Coke and Pepsi, Phil Howard, a professor at Michigan State, told the Lever in investigative news.

[00:36:19] The four companies have been colluding to fix prices since 2021 according to the lawsuits.

[00:36:23] Now, here's the thing that makes this, as a free capitalist swine that I am, is that it's in the interest of these companies to compete with one another.

[00:36:35] Their fiduciary responsibility is to the owners of their respective companies.

[00:36:41] So at any given point in time, they can, if this was a true price-fixing, gouging situation, they could allegedly lower their prices and gain market share because theirs would go.

[00:36:56] It's just like, I don't know if you've ever heard of gas wars, but back in the 70s and late 60s, there would be times where the gas station up the street would lower its price two or three pennies and start kind of a price war with one of its competitors.

[00:37:08] So there are times that prices are – and that's the great equalizer in capitalism is that you try to have lower prices with greater value, and you compete that way.

[00:37:20] So to try to come up and say, hey, all of their prices went up because these guys had some kind of secret meeting in a bathroom somewhere and fixed it.

[00:37:28] It's like Pepsi and Coke.

[00:37:29] These guys hate each other.

[00:37:30] They don't hate each other, but they want to win.

[00:37:32] They want to win that war.

[00:37:33] They wouldn't spend billions of dollars in advertising if they weren't trying to win the war.

[00:37:38] If they could just fix the price on things, then commercials are kind of superfluous.

[00:37:42] How many of you have seen the Idaho potato commercial?

[00:37:45] Well, you know, the big truck.

[00:37:46] I can't see the potatoes driving by in the background all the time.

[00:37:48] So that's where I have trouble.

[00:37:51] It's like price gouging when Democrats want to scream every time there's a hurricane down at the coast.

[00:37:55] There's price gouging on all that plywood.

[00:37:57] See, we're going to go get them.

[00:37:58] They're raising the prices.

[00:38:01] This is where they miss.

[00:38:02] This is you can tell they never took an economics course because scarcity raises the price on something.

[00:38:08] If you have the last bottle of Gatorade on the planet Earth, that bottle of Gatorade is going to be worth a lot of money.

[00:38:14] If there's five billion bottles of Gatorade, then the price is adjusted accordingly.

[00:38:17] And when you have a storm, if prices don't go up, then people hoard things.

[00:38:23] Pricing it means that there's more of that asset or more of that product that can cover and help more people.

[00:38:33] And that's the weird thing about the left in general is it looks at creating division that's not necessary.

[00:38:44] There's nothing to stop people from grabbing a bunch of plywood and going down to the coast if they want to when it's not as expensive in Charlotte as it might be at, I don't know, the Outer Banks when something happens.

[00:38:55] But we've got to figure out a way to kind of get on the same page about things.

[00:38:58] We talked about in this show the number of people, 140 million radicalized Islamic extremists that would love nothing more than to destroy everything you believe in.

[00:39:08] They would love to.

[00:39:09] We're finding the suppression of Christianity across the globe right now.

[00:39:13] In not-too-distant future, Islam will dwarf Christianity.

[00:39:17] Christianity will give the second because the witnessing and the growth of Christianity isn't happening that well.

[00:39:23] We have to be vigilant here while the left is focused on DEI.

[00:39:28] All right, that'll do it for this episode.

[00:39:30] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:39:31] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast.

[00:39:36] So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here.

[00:39:40] You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepcalendarshow.com.

[00:39:45] Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.