An afternoon in the pub

Don't click here to listen. It won't work. Seriously. We're crazy like that. But you can read what we tried to do, so it ain't all that bad.

This week, we retire to the Duke of Edinburgh pub to record the podcast. It results in a slightly more mellow tone than usual, but with a few fun interruptions by Beth, our favorite barmaid, who loves a good chuckle.


We are joined by Ashok, who asks a few good and pertinent questions during the discussion.


We quickly review Thanksgiving and what we all got up to, and very briefly Simon gets a plug in for a book he's just finished reading, "I Shall Wear Midnight" by Terry Pratchett. Very funny indeed if you're into fantasy fiction merged with satire.


We then delve into something more serious, while we're scoffing down our Sunday lunches, and with regular interruptions by Beth too. Ashok asks why it is that all the promise of web job hunting hasn't become everything it promised to be, and why it doesn't seem to be working as advertised.


We couldn't have a podcast this week without mentioning Wikileaks, as the latest story has just exploded onto the scene, and we're all still digesting the content of those diplomatic disclosures.


Ashok asks Simon some specific about a Commercial pilot's license and why there aren't as many pilots these days as there have previously been. This expands into the territory of the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) license, which a lot of hopes have been pinned on.


Ashok, worryingly, brings up the topic of this new 'toy' he saw advertised, a remote control drone capable of taking photos, that can be controlled from your iPhone?!?!?!?!  


We end by requesting listeners to send in their favorite moments from 2010 and we can recap some of those at the end of December.


Ashok asks Greg for a food recommendation and Greg suggests his favorite pizza joint in the whole Bay Area and we discuss why Berkeley has such a high concentration of good restaurants.


Simon was coughing and spluttering all the way through.


Ending music was Aura & Armament by Maximum Indifference.


BMSMA.


G&S

Don't touch my junk!

Click here to listen.

This week we have a good old mix of topics.

We start reviewing our weekends. Greg went to a Basia concert. Simon went flying, in the clouds, and we both had Sunday lunch down at the pub. Nice!

Simon has recently finished the most recent book in one of his favorite ongoing sagas, the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. The book is called Cryoburn. He's about to start on Terry Pratchett's latest, "I Shall Wear Midnight."

We stray into talking about war heros and we discuss some of them we've spoken to over the years.

We talk about  the US holiday of Thanksgiving, as that's coming up and that leads us into the topic of travel and the recent TSA debacle that has created a massive backlash by travelers within the US. We explore whether it's just good old fashioned incompetence or whether it's the ongoing march towards a 1984 type world.

We throw in some excellent quotes for good measure, which were taken from this list.

" Fascism will come to America in the guise of national security." ~ Jim Garrison in 1967, the only man to bring a suspect to court for the Kennedy assassination The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable."   ~ H.L. Mencken (American Writer 1880-1956)  "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins - all of them imaginary." ~ Henry Louis Mencken "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending to small degree of it." ~Thomas Jefferson. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" ~ Martin Luther King Jr "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." ~ Tacitus, Roman senator & historian c.55 - c.117 AD " Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to know that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers." ~ John Adams "We tell the people what they need to know, not what they want to know."  ~ Frank Sesno, CNN News "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ~ Richard Salent, Former President CBS News. "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear-kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ..." ~ General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 "The news and truth are not the same thing." ~ Walter Lippmann, American journalist, 1889-1974 "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." ~ Thomas Jefferson Letter to William Ludlow, 1824 "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have     done. And I am Caesar." ~ Julius Caesar "He who would give up essential liberty in order to have a little security deserves neither liberty, nor security." ~ Benjamin Franklin "The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans."  ~ Hermann Hesse - Author (1877-1962) “Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” ~ P.J. O'Rourke

BMSMA.

G&S

Don't touch my junk!

Click here to listen.

This week we have a good old mix of topics.

We start reviewing our weekends. Greg went to a Basia concert. Simon went flying, in the clouds, and we both had Sunday lunch down at the pub. Nice!

Simon has recently finished the most recent book in one of his favorite ongoing sagas, the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. The book is called Cryoburn. He's about to start on Terry Pratchett's latest, "I Shall Wear Midnight."

We stray into talking about war heros and we discuss some of them we've spoken to over the years.

We talk about  the US holiday of Thanksgiving, as that's coming up and that leads us into the topic of travel and the recent TSA debacle that has created a massive backlash by travelers within the US. We explore whether it's just good old fashioned incompetence or whether it's the ongoing march towards a 1984 type world.

We throw in some excellent quotes for good measure, which were taken from this list.

" Fascism will come to America in the guise of national security." ~ Jim Garrison in 1967, the only man to bring a suspect to court for the Kennedy assassination The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable."   ~ H.L. Mencken (American Writer 1880-1956)  "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins - all of them imaginary." ~ Henry Louis Mencken "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending to small degree of it." ~Thomas Jefferson. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" ~ Martin Luther King Jr "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." ~ Tacitus, Roman senator & historian c.55 - c.117 AD " Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to know that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers." ~ John Adams "We tell the people what they need to know, not what they want to know."  ~ Frank Sesno, CNN News "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ~ Richard Salent, Former President CBS News. "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear-kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ..." ~ General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 "The news and truth are not the same thing." ~ Walter Lippmann, American journalist, 1889-1974 "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." ~ Thomas Jefferson Letter to William Ludlow, 1824 "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have     done. And I am Caesar." ~ Julius Caesar "He who would give up essential liberty in order to have a little security deserves neither liberty, nor security." ~ Benjamin Franklin "The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans."  ~ Hermann Hesse - Author (1877-1962) “Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” ~ P.J. O'Rourke

BMSMA.

G&S

who could ask for anything more?.....oh, but then the world went to hell.

Click here to listen.

Subtitle of......a planetary alignment of "What the hell just happened?" moments.

This week we explore our glorious weekends. Simon's was spent in Carmel California and Greg's was spent, as you can imagine, in a number of venues, but mainly his favorite Cohiba Cigar Lounge, in Santana Row, San Jose, California, where he attended an event for a specific cigar.

The spectacular avocado burger at Monterey airport.

Simon's weekend was spent hiking along the spectacular California Coastline and eating great food.

The Northern California Coastline. Amazing.

The gorgeous woodland scene near Pfeiffer Beach.

We reference Eddie Izzard's sketch on Noah. Here it is so you actually have a clue.

We do discuss the recent weekend, which was Remembrance Sunday in many nations of the world, marking homage to the fallen soldiers of our respective nations.

Then, in an ironic twist, we discuss a few news items that indicates that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. here are some of the indications....

In a Virginia school, kids can no longer fail, as the F grade has been removed from results. How exactly are kids meant to now learn what life is about? In a related story, it seems that we Californians are idiots, as we are now paying for school costs for illegal immigrants. Nice. Thanks California Supreme Court and the politicians who made this into law. Glad you're thinking ahead there.

Then we kind of thank the guy who stood up to the TSA goons who insist on giving him a 'full pat down' because he refused one of the new airport full body scans, as an invasion of privacy. Naturally, he was threatened with all kinds of negative results if he refused to be 'fully patted down' but he insisted that they don't touch his "junk". Good for you buddy.

You know....we can't make this shit up. It is really going on.

Finally, and with a humorous twist, scientists are promoting an idea of the first manned space mission to Mars is going to be a one way ticket. We suggest that we send all the politicians on that flight.

Unbelievable.

There were a few quotes from the "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in this week's episode. If you didn't understand them....buy the book.

And with that, these 2 curmudgeonly old farts will bid you a good evening.

BMSMA.

"Good evening!"

G&S