[00:00.000 --> 00:01.560]  Just ignore it.
[00:02.320 --> 00:05.840]  Politicians are overwhelmingly the hirelings of the corporate class.
[00:06.100 --> 00:11.340]  They often do their bidding, as it is usually them and only them who can afford them.
[00:11.740 --> 00:27.580]  When the Tuvalu Islands, low-lying atolls in the southwest Pacific go underwater, when rivers burst in Bangladesh, when drought threatens millions in India and Africa, will we look back at Copenhagen and think, well done?
[00:27.860 --> 00:29.140]  I think not.
[00:29.140 --> 00:33.360]  Next, from death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
[00:36.220 --> 00:40.320]  And you're listening to 99.5 FM, WBAI New York.
[00:40.560 --> 00:42.220]  The time is 7 p.m.
[00:42.460 --> 00:43.860]  Time for Off the Hook.
[00:49.170 --> 00:53.730]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[00:54.630 --> 00:56.650]  I cut myself while shaving.
[00:57.330 --> 00:59.190]  Now I can't make a call.
[00:59.790 --> 01:02.010]  We couldn't get much worse.
[01:03.010 --> 01:04.550]  But if they could, they would.
[01:04.890 --> 01:07.470]  One day, Mom, for the best, it's back the worst.
[01:08.190 --> 01:09.970]  I hope that's understood.
[01:10.230 --> 01:10.930]  One day, Mom!
[02:03.300 --> 02:04.060]  Good evening.
[02:04.300 --> 02:05.840]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:06.540 --> 02:08.380]  This is Red Hacked in the studio.
[02:08.660 --> 02:09.620]  I'm joined by Mike.
[02:09.780 --> 02:10.080]  Hi there.
[02:10.440 --> 02:10.760]  Jim.
[02:11.100 --> 02:11.340]  Hi.
[02:11.620 --> 02:12.240]  Rob T.
[02:12.360 --> 02:12.760]  Firefly.
[02:12.940 --> 02:13.300]  Good evening.
[02:13.620 --> 02:14.100]  Voltaire.
[02:14.240 --> 02:14.420]  Hello.
[02:14.580 --> 02:15.220]  And R&A.
[02:15.560 --> 02:15.740]  Hey.
[02:17.520 --> 02:20.540]  And on the phone, we have Bernie S.
[02:20.580 --> 02:21.180]  down in Philadelphia.
[02:21.800 --> 02:22.980]  Greetings from Philadelphia.
[02:23.640 --> 02:25.780]  And Emmanuel in Paris.
[02:26.780 --> 02:30.780]  Bonjour from the delightful city of Paris, which is in France.
[02:31.760 --> 02:34.160]  You speak French almost as well as I do, I can hear.
[02:34.480 --> 02:35.020]  Why, thank you.
[02:35.120 --> 02:35.680]  Thank you very much.
[02:35.760 --> 02:36.660]  Actually, you know, I've been trying.
[02:36.760 --> 02:39.620]  I've been trying to converse as much as possible with the natives here.
[02:39.820 --> 02:42.540]  And it's such a wonderful place to be at this time of year.
[02:42.960 --> 02:44.460]  They just had some snow.
[02:44.460 --> 03:01.580]  So it's kind of crazy because what I did was, as usual, counter to everyone's advice, where basically we had a blizzard over the winter, over the weekend, rather, and I left the city to go overseas on the very day of the blizzard, on Sunday.
[03:02.300 --> 03:05.520]  And I expected it to be delayed for hours, maybe even days.
[03:05.820 --> 03:06.940]  No problem whatsoever.
[03:08.020 --> 03:11.540]  Flew overseas and landed in a city that had just had a blizzard as well.
[03:11.720 --> 03:12.520]  Again, no problems.
[03:12.520 --> 03:16.400]  I was able to get into the city pretty flawlessly.
[03:16.700 --> 03:23.260]  And then on top of everything else, I wound up staying in my favorite part of town, which is near Gerd de Norg, one of the main train stations.
[03:23.260 --> 03:35.980]  And that was the center of attention for the entire world because I'm sure you folks heard that there are some problems with the Eurostar, the train that goes between London and Paris underneath the English Channel.
[03:36.520 --> 03:41.500]  Five trains got stuck in there at the same time because of temperature differences.
[03:42.100 --> 03:44.960]  And all these people wound up being stranded for several days.
[03:45.220 --> 03:56.300]  So literally feet away from where I'm staying right now, all the media of the world converged to interview people who were stranded here in Paris who wanted to get home to London.
[03:56.740 --> 04:03.100]  And people from Eurostar, which is the train company that runs that particular line, were trying to keep crowds calm.
[04:03.260 --> 04:09.680]  They were walking around with trays of croissants and coffee and juice and all kinds of things.
[04:09.840 --> 04:11.860]  And the great thing was they were giving it out to everybody.
[04:11.860 --> 04:13.300]  They weren't asking if you were a passenger.
[04:13.420 --> 04:16.200]  So I had some really nice croissants just by standing around the train station.
[04:16.360 --> 04:18.760]  And I just wonder, you know, Mike, maybe you'd know this.
[04:18.760 --> 04:24.560]  If Amtrak is particularly bad at something, if they cancel trains, do they give you free food?
[04:24.980 --> 04:35.200]  Well, I have to say, Amtrak, for all its faults, usually does not strand people in tunnels under the water for 17 hours, if only because they are not capable of creating a tunnel.
[04:35.480 --> 04:38.280]  Yes, Mike, I think you know if they could do that, they would.
[04:39.320 --> 04:40.020]  I don't know.
[04:40.080 --> 04:42.220]  They also don't really have a whole lot of ambition.
[04:42.220 --> 04:53.620]  But I'm pretty sure that if somehow, like, a giant sinkhole opened up and the train fell into it for 17 hours, I'm pretty sure you would not get any croissants from that.
[04:53.740 --> 05:01.260]  And if you did somehow, if by mistake, like, some croissants fell into the sinkhole, they probably wouldn't be edible.
[05:02.900 --> 05:07.060]  Well, I'm here with my friend Kyle, actually, who came here from Germany.
[05:08.660 --> 05:15.320]  And he basically had some interesting train adventures, too, where trains were a little bit late.
[05:15.440 --> 05:20.880]  And I think people here are just so much more apologetic when something like that happens.
[05:20.880 --> 05:24.300]  They really try to make sure that you're happy, even if a train is just one hour late.
[05:24.360 --> 05:27.500]  One hour late, I think for Amtrak, is considered on time.
[05:27.500 --> 05:33.500]  Not to dump on Amtrak too much, but just for comparison's sake, they take trains very seriously in Europe.
[05:33.520 --> 05:36.260]  And when they're the slightest bit late, it's a major news event.
[05:36.420 --> 05:39.960]  We literally had people from every news organization in Europe standing.
[05:40.220 --> 05:44.620]  You probably see me on the news when they're interviewing people getting off the train.
[05:44.780 --> 05:47.940]  In fact, we met the first Eurostar that arrived yesterday from London.
[05:48.060 --> 05:49.700]  And it was a media frenzy.
[05:49.820 --> 05:54.180]  There were hundreds and hundreds of people standing around, cameras, microphones.
[05:54.180 --> 06:03.920]  And at one point, I inadvertently made everybody from the media move to the wrong track, because I saw a Eurostar train approaching, and we were waiting on track six.
[06:03.920 --> 06:05.460]  I saw it approaching on track three.
[06:05.500 --> 06:06.800]  And I said, look, there it is.
[06:06.900 --> 06:11.700]  And there was this stampede of media people running over to the other track.
[06:11.700 --> 06:15.500]  And then a Eurostar person ran out and said, no, no, that's not the train that they're on.
[06:15.520 --> 06:17.200]  That's just a train that's leaving later.
[06:17.460 --> 06:18.520]  So everyone had to run back.
[06:19.180 --> 06:21.120]  I felt bad about that, but it was pretty funny.
[06:21.580 --> 06:24.060]  But Kyle here just came from Germany.
[06:24.240 --> 06:27.360]  I think, Kyle, you had a train adventure where it was a little bit late?
[06:28.400 --> 06:30.100]  Yes, it was 15 minutes late.
[06:31.280 --> 06:33.240]  And it ended up being quite manageable.
[06:34.280 --> 06:41.460]  We got on, and they basically had to stop at a lot of stops and wait for people to get on and off because of the holidays.
[06:41.820 --> 06:49.280]  And they did offer to let us fill out forms and get some sort of reimbursement.
[06:49.280 --> 06:52.580]  But I was content enough with the way the trip turned out.
[06:52.580 --> 07:01.400]  And I was able to not ask and not have any sort of tension and need for this form.
[07:01.540 --> 07:03.180]  So I was quite happy with it.
[07:03.280 --> 07:04.900]  And there was even a woman in my seat.
[07:04.940 --> 07:15.240]  And I let her go ahead and let her kids share the seat until she got off because apparently a lot of the locals use these regional trains to get to their local destinations.
[07:15.240 --> 07:17.300]  It's the holidays, so I wasn't grouchy.
[07:17.440 --> 07:21.940]  I sort of stood in the aisleway and just made nice with everybody.
[07:22.080 --> 07:23.660]  And we got where we were going.
[07:23.940 --> 07:27.940]  Only about 15 minutes late for a four-hour train ride all the way to Paris.
[07:28.060 --> 07:28.600]  That's pretty good.
[07:28.720 --> 07:29.980]  Wait, 15 minutes?
[07:30.560 --> 07:30.920]  50.
[07:31.180 --> 07:31.720]  Oh, okay.
[07:31.960 --> 07:34.960]  I was going to say if they were to pay you for 15 minutes, that'd be pretty nice.
[07:35.280 --> 07:36.020]  Yeah, that would be nice.
[07:36.880 --> 07:38.280]  So you got an apology, though?
[07:39.120 --> 07:40.140]  I did get an apology.
[07:40.240 --> 07:41.460]  They were quite sincere as well.
[07:41.460 --> 07:46.740]  So that's more than you'll get out of any train I've ever been on, in this country at least.
[07:47.840 --> 07:49.300]  But so now you're in Paris.
[07:50.080 --> 07:51.460]  Yeah, we're in Paris now.
[07:51.460 --> 07:58.280]  And we've been navigating the French system, which also has regional trains and then regular metro.
[07:58.280 --> 08:03.800]  And it seems like an amalgamation of all kinds of different trains.
[08:03.960 --> 08:05.040]  But they make it work somehow.
[08:05.260 --> 08:06.760]  It's quite a network.
[08:06.760 --> 08:10.940]  And it looks sort of like spaghetti, but you can kind of figure it out.
[08:11.380 --> 08:15.260]  And the ticket system, it's sort of legacy.
[08:15.260 --> 08:16.320]  It's really old.
[08:16.840 --> 08:20.780]  But they're these little teeny cards, and they have mag stripes on them.
[08:20.880 --> 08:22.860]  And sometimes they work.
[08:22.980 --> 08:24.320]  Sometimes they don't.
[08:24.440 --> 08:26.380]  The vending machines are terrible.
[08:28.440 --> 08:31.960]  The mag stripes can be demagnetized very, very easily.
[08:34.100 --> 08:34.860]  Excuse us.
[08:35.520 --> 08:35.920]  There we go.
[08:36.640 --> 08:37.820]  Some sirens going.
[08:38.260 --> 08:44.860]  Yeah, so that's been an interesting experience, figuring out the tickets, trying to figure out train numbers as well.
[08:45.480 --> 08:48.860]  There's names on some of the trains that don't make any sense at all.
[08:49.020 --> 08:51.020]  And so it's been quite entertaining.
[08:51.020 --> 08:55.920]  But we've been able to do a lot of sightseeing, and we're learning.
[08:59.020 --> 08:59.620]  I'm sorry.
[09:00.460 --> 09:03.080]  The tickets themselves tend to...
[09:03.080 --> 09:06.780]  You slide them into the machine, and they get printed on.
[09:06.900 --> 09:09.320]  So you get purple ink if it's invalid.
[09:09.620 --> 09:14.260]  And by the way, you have to use it to get in and then also to get out of the train system.
[09:14.940 --> 09:15.380]  Sometimes.
[09:15.880 --> 09:18.660]  Other times, you can walk through.
[09:18.800 --> 09:23.440]  Sometimes your ticket doesn't work, so you can't get out of the system, and you have to find another way out.
[09:23.600 --> 09:25.100]  So that's interesting as well.
[09:25.300 --> 09:28.000]  So I'm going to hand it back to Eric now.
[09:31.100 --> 09:31.560]  Hey there.
[09:32.020 --> 09:40.600]  Yeah, we had a bit of an adventure with the system, because we bought a bunch of tickets yesterday.
[09:41.200 --> 09:42.140]  Can you hear that siren?
[09:42.340 --> 09:42.820]  Isn't this cool?
[09:42.960 --> 09:43.400]  Yes, we can.
[09:43.620 --> 09:43.760]  Yes.
[09:49.280 --> 09:50.740]  The Doppler effect there for you.
[09:51.780 --> 09:52.920]  Did that come over at all?
[09:53.240 --> 09:55.520]  Yes, that's much nicer sounding than the...
[09:55.520 --> 09:56.980]  On a cell phone, you probably couldn't do that.
[09:57.060 --> 09:57.900]  Cell phones mute out.
[09:58.360 --> 09:59.560]  The extraneous sounds like that.
[10:00.500 --> 10:03.540]  But yeah, we had a bit of an adventure with the Metrocart.
[10:03.620 --> 10:07.400]  We bought a pack of 10, which you save money if you do that.
[10:07.720 --> 10:09.740]  And then when we tried to use them today, they didn't work.
[10:09.740 --> 10:12.820]  So we thought, oh gosh, maybe these tickets are only good for one day.
[10:13.180 --> 10:16.720]  But that just didn't make sense, because the tickets didn't have dates on them.
[10:16.720 --> 10:20.860]  And what we figured must have happened was they somehow got demagnetized.
[10:21.020 --> 10:25.000]  And so we went up to a ticket agent and tried to explain it as best we could.
[10:25.400 --> 10:27.160]  And they just simply gave us new tickets.
[10:27.320 --> 10:31.400]  So apparently that happens often, where tickets just somehow get erased.
[10:31.740 --> 10:32.680]  I'm not exactly sure how.
[10:32.680 --> 10:34.580]  They were just sitting in my pocket overnight.
[10:35.120 --> 10:40.240]  And I have another ticket sitting in my pocket overnight tonight as sort of a test to see if that will happen again tomorrow.
[10:40.480 --> 10:46.620]  Now wait, if you need the ticket to get out of the train system, then how do you prevent yourself from ending up like Charlie?
[10:47.000 --> 10:47.700]  You don't.
[10:47.820 --> 10:53.660]  I mean, first of all, it's kind of strange because some stations just have open doors we can walk through.
[10:54.420 --> 10:58.180]  There's one station called the Defense, which is where all the...
[10:58.180 --> 10:59.580]  They call it Little Manhattan.
[10:59.900 --> 11:01.480]  That's where all the skyscrapers are.
[11:02.200 --> 11:06.680]  And they don't build skyscrapers in the middle of Paris because they have height regulations on the buildings.
[11:06.780 --> 11:17.480]  The buildings here are about six stories tall, which is really cool because if you're going up in a monument or something like that in an elevator, you suddenly see the entire city become visible as soon as you get above the roof line.
[11:17.480 --> 11:23.060]  But in this particular part, the defense section, that's in Zone 3.
[11:23.360 --> 11:26.880]  And most metro passes are only good for Zone 1 and 2.
[11:27.060 --> 11:32.260]  So if you find yourself going there on a regular pass, you might find yourself stuck and not able to get out.
[11:32.420 --> 11:38.020]  However, in that particular station, the doors are just open, so you're able to leave and not even be aware that you're in a potential crisis.
[11:39.280 --> 11:43.560]  So now these tickets, are they just simple magnetic stripes like we've got here?
[11:44.040 --> 11:45.500]  They're very small tickets.
[11:45.500 --> 11:47.800]  They can easily fit in the palm of your hand.
[11:48.000 --> 11:48.700]  They're rectangular.
[11:48.700 --> 11:51.240]  They have a little mag stripe going down the center.
[11:51.640 --> 11:53.760]  And they're thick card stock.
[11:54.200 --> 12:01.580]  They look like something that's been around for easily 40 years as far as, you know, modern styles, things like that.
[12:01.620 --> 12:02.280]  But they do work.
[12:02.340 --> 12:03.560]  They are functional for the most part.
[12:03.700 --> 12:05.940]  But I should also point out it's confusing.
[12:05.940 --> 12:07.920]  The system itself is extremely confusing.
[12:08.380 --> 12:21.680]  And if anybody doubts that, just go on the Internet and look for a Paris metro map and you'll see for yourself how New York City looks very simple compared to this, there are actually only 14 metro lines, numbered one through 14.
[12:21.880 --> 12:28.560]  In fact, they look very similar to New York system as far as the way they look, you know, one in a green circle maybe or two in a purple circle.
[12:29.460 --> 12:31.640]  But they split off into different branches.
[12:31.760 --> 12:34.420]  Each one of those metros might have a couple of different branches.
[12:34.420 --> 12:37.920]  And then there's what's known as the RER, which is the regional system.
[12:38.120 --> 12:40.000]  Those are bigger trains, faster trains.
[12:40.120 --> 12:40.780]  They stop less.
[12:40.800 --> 12:43.820]  But you can ride them with your metro ticket.
[12:44.060 --> 12:50.700]  So imagine, for instance, if you had a MetroCard and there was a Metro North train that was going from Grand Central to 125th Street.
[12:50.720 --> 12:54.880]  You could simply use your MetroCard and ride that train and get there much faster.
[12:55.360 --> 12:56.740]  They have those trains everywhere.
[12:56.860 --> 12:57.820]  Those trains have letters.
[12:57.960 --> 13:00.660]  I think they're A through E or maybe beyond that.
[13:01.020 --> 13:03.220]  And then they have branches of that which have numbers.
[13:03.220 --> 13:05.500]  So you might have the A1, the A2, the A3, et cetera.
[13:05.960 --> 13:07.300]  It gets pretty confusing.
[13:07.480 --> 13:08.900]  Something happened to the A train yesterday.
[13:08.900 --> 13:09.540]  We don't know why.
[13:09.600 --> 13:10.820]  We were waiting for a good half hour.
[13:11.000 --> 13:15.280]  And then I saw something in the paper about maybe some conductor's action or something like that.
[13:15.380 --> 13:16.900]  So there's always some kind of a crisis happening.
[13:18.100 --> 13:18.920]  It's great fun.
[13:19.040 --> 13:19.420]  It's madness.
[13:19.600 --> 13:20.020]  It's mayhem.
[13:20.140 --> 13:21.880]  People are crowded everywhere.
[13:22.540 --> 13:28.260]  These massive tunnel systems where people simply are going from one place to another.
[13:29.100 --> 13:32.980]  The city really is very lively and confusing.
[13:32.980 --> 13:34.580]  But friendly at the same time.
[13:35.560 --> 13:40.280]  It's interesting because, I mean, you see this pattern in a lot of different metropolitan train systems.
[13:40.440 --> 13:42.600]  I know, at least in Helsinki, it was very similar.
[13:42.720 --> 13:46.060]  You had the transit card system.
[13:46.480 --> 13:48.360]  You could ride it on the regional rail.
[13:48.520 --> 13:49.320]  Or you could ride it...
[13:49.320 --> 13:50.360]  Well, there was only one subway.
[13:51.660 --> 13:52.980]  Or you could ride it on all the buses.
[13:53.220 --> 13:54.760]  But it was the same kind of system.
[13:55.300 --> 13:55.500]  Uh-huh.
[13:55.500 --> 13:59.300]  They do have an RFID card of some sort.
[13:59.300 --> 14:01.260]  I haven't seen it myself.
[14:01.320 --> 14:03.080]  I know I can get one, but it's very expensive.
[14:03.380 --> 14:05.080]  Usually, I think you get it for a week or a month.
[14:05.260 --> 14:06.840]  I see people going through those.
[14:06.920 --> 14:09.020]  And they have some turnstiles that don't take the cards.
[14:09.020 --> 14:11.960]  They only take the RFID cards.
[14:11.960 --> 14:18.780]  And you can tell where those turnstiles are because people are constantly walking up to them and trying to put their cards in and failing because there's no slot for the cards.
[14:19.220 --> 14:21.520]  So there's a good amount of confusion going on at all times.
[14:21.680 --> 14:23.220]  But everyone's in it together, you know.
[14:23.300 --> 14:25.900]  And it's kind of this communal spirit that develops.
[14:26.860 --> 14:27.220]  Progress.
[14:27.780 --> 14:27.960]  Yeah.
[14:28.120 --> 14:31.920]  I'm not sure if I'm convinced by your argument that it's more confusing than New York system.
[14:32.020 --> 14:34.100]  I think you're just less familiar with it.
[14:35.060 --> 14:35.420]  Yeah.
[14:35.580 --> 14:36.040]  I suppose.
[14:36.180 --> 14:39.320]  Although I do see a lot of people here that I imagine do this every day.
[14:39.700 --> 14:40.860]  And it's still...
[14:40.860 --> 14:44.220]  Well, then, of course, they do take advantage of the situation.
[14:44.220 --> 14:52.560]  If you're lined up trying to buy a ticket, guaranteed somebody with a cap over their face will come up to you and offer to sell you a ticket.
[14:53.040 --> 14:58.980]  And I saw the same guy there for hours yesterday just doing good business.
[14:59.480 --> 15:00.600]  And, you know, maybe...
[15:00.600 --> 15:04.520]  I imagine he must be not ripping people off for him to stay there that long.
[15:04.820 --> 15:05.880]  But still, I'd be a bit wary.
[15:06.000 --> 15:12.420]  For instance, if something happens with the ticket I bought from him, I couldn't just walk up to him, I don't think, and ask for another ticket.
[15:12.460 --> 15:12.960]  Maybe I could.
[15:14.000 --> 15:18.040]  But you just feel a bit more secure, especially if you're from out of town buying it from an actual agent.
[15:19.920 --> 15:20.360]  Emmanuel?
[15:20.720 --> 15:21.300]  Yes, Bernie?
[15:22.600 --> 15:23.040]  You're...
[15:24.780 --> 15:27.700]  Are you en route to somewhere in Paris?
[15:27.920 --> 15:29.160]  It's funny you should mention that.
[15:29.280 --> 15:30.800]  Yes, I am en route to somewhere.
[15:31.280 --> 15:32.260]  And not in Paris.
[15:32.360 --> 15:37.300]  Paris was simply a good first stop in this little mini-tour.
[15:38.160 --> 15:48.740]  This is the time of year for the CCC Congress, which begins on the 27th, as it does every year, December 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th, in the wonderful German city of Berlin.
[15:49.240 --> 15:52.220]  And I'll be making my way over there, I believe, on Friday.
[15:53.320 --> 15:56.640]  So this is a big hacker conference, or Congress?
[15:57.260 --> 16:02.720]  It's the longest-running hacker conference, Congress as they call it, and it's huge.
[16:03.040 --> 16:06.500]  Several thousand people will be there from all over the world, a number of Americans.
[16:06.500 --> 16:12.420]  I don't believe anybody from off the hook other than me is going, but that doesn't mean there won't be a lot of Americans there.
[16:12.420 --> 16:17.220]  And, of course, we'll be doing a special show from there next week at this time, talking to all kinds of people in the hacker scene.
[16:17.400 --> 16:19.160]  This is, what, the 26th year?
[16:19.980 --> 16:23.460]  Well, they started, I believe, in 1984, the same year the 2600 started.
[16:23.600 --> 16:24.280]  So the 25th?
[16:24.440 --> 16:30.220]  Yeah, except back then, there was the whole big misunderstanding between East and West, and they had to have it in Hamburg instead of Berlin.
[16:30.980 --> 16:36.840]  But once that got sorted out, they moved it to Berlin, and now it's really amazing, right?
[16:36.940 --> 16:38.680]  In Alexanderplatz, in the...
[16:40.060 --> 16:40.980]  What do they call that building?
[16:41.060 --> 16:41.540]  The BCC?
[16:41.540 --> 16:43.440]  Yeah, the Berliner Congress Center.
[16:43.680 --> 16:45.080]  Yeah, it's a great name for a building.
[16:45.240 --> 16:46.840]  So the CCC takes place in the BCC.
[16:47.540 --> 16:52.980]  So if you find yourself anywhere near Berlin, it's so worth going to and being a part of.
[16:55.160 --> 16:59.180]  Kyle and I were talking about this yesterday, about how communities are built.
[16:59.660 --> 17:01.140]  And we were talking about...
[17:01.140 --> 17:02.380]  They have these things called Christmas villages.
[17:02.440 --> 17:12.280]  I don't know if they have that in the States anywhere, where basically they have these temporary wooden structures they build, and people just sell all kinds of food and knick-knacks of various sorts.
[17:12.280 --> 17:17.320]  You can walk down the Chardonnay and buy warm wine, white...
[17:17.320 --> 17:18.220]  We have that in New York.
[17:18.400 --> 17:19.240]  We do have that in New York.
[17:19.260 --> 17:20.100]  Where in New York is that?
[17:20.220 --> 17:20.860]  I have no idea.
[17:21.020 --> 17:22.360]  It's in Union Square on the south side.
[17:22.600 --> 17:27.740]  Are you saying I can walk down the street in New York and buy a glass of warm, white wine and walk down the street...
[17:29.800 --> 17:30.740]  This offended me.
[17:30.880 --> 17:35.740]  I went to this market last year on Union Square, and they say they have Kluhwein, which is the stuff they have in Germany.
[17:35.960 --> 17:40.820]  But then if you go to them, they're like, we have non-alcoholic Kluhwein, and it's a rip-off.
[17:41.820 --> 17:42.900]  Non-alcoholic Kluhwein.
[17:43.200 --> 17:45.360]  But you said Christmas Village, that we don't have those.
[17:45.460 --> 17:46.660]  We do have those, at least.
[17:47.320 --> 17:48.700]  Whether or not you can get wine there.
[17:48.700 --> 17:59.040]  The Christmas Village in Philadelphia, they just built a bunch of these little wooden sheds on the west side of City Hall in Philadelphia, and there's probably several dozen of them.
[17:59.340 --> 18:06.980]  And people are just selling various Christmassy things, so it's a festive thing, and I'm glad that apparently that idea came from elsewhere.
[18:07.380 --> 18:09.480]  Yeah, well, can I get warm wine down there, Bernie?
[18:10.100 --> 18:16.620]  You know, I haven't looked for wine, but it wouldn't surprise me if somebody's selling wine there.
[18:16.720 --> 18:17.020]  It would be nice.
[18:17.020 --> 18:18.360]  They might have to card you there.
[18:18.360 --> 18:19.140]  We talked about this before.
[18:19.300 --> 18:22.120]  It's just that there are so many things that we freak out over in the States.
[18:22.120 --> 18:23.560]  It's just not a big deal here.
[18:23.560 --> 18:29.720]  We just walk around, and yeah, you know, we buy wine on the street, and we walk down the street, and people are behaving themselves.
[18:29.880 --> 18:32.060]  Everyone's, like, you know, happy and getting along.
[18:32.780 --> 18:34.620]  And these Christmas Villages are everywhere.
[18:34.800 --> 18:35.660]  They're all throughout Germany.
[18:35.660 --> 18:36.600]  They're all throughout France.
[18:37.180 --> 18:49.780]  They just announced here in Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, which has a unique alcohol distribution system, where only the state distributes alcohol, aside from beer.
[18:50.980 --> 18:57.780]  So Pennsylvania will now be dispensing bottles of wine through state-controlled vending machines.
[18:57.960 --> 19:12.140]  There'll be about 50 machines in the Philadelphia area that will be vending bottles of wine, and you'll insert a credit card, and in addition to inserting your credit card, you will be asked to...
[19:12.140 --> 19:15.120]  That's how they identify your age, apparently, through the credit card.
[19:15.260 --> 19:17.460]  I'm not sure how that's linked and figured out.
[19:18.340 --> 19:20.220]  And then, no, your driver's license.
[19:20.340 --> 19:30.720]  You have to put your driver's license in and a credit card, and you have to breathe into a funnel to make sure that you're not inebriated, and then the bottle of wine will be dispensed.
[19:30.860 --> 19:33.660]  So you have to breathe into a funnel before you can buy the bottle of wine?
[19:34.140 --> 19:34.940]  Exactly, yes.
[19:35.680 --> 19:37.580]  It's a proof that you haven't already had a bottle of wine.
[19:37.700 --> 19:43.880]  Well, but because generally, you know, liquor stores, for example, aren't allowed to sell alcohol to people who are intoxicated.
[19:44.160 --> 19:46.800]  So the same, I guess, would have to apply to the vending machine.
[19:46.800 --> 19:51.660]  But since you don't have somebody staring at you, slurring your words, they use technology instead.
[19:51.760 --> 19:53.120]  I'm going to put Kyle back on for a second.
[19:53.200 --> 19:54.680]  It's his second trip to Europe this year.
[19:54.900 --> 20:07.720]  And he's been particularly moved by the lack of fuss and various things that are done totally nonchalantly in this continent that we completely go nuts over back home.
[20:08.460 --> 20:13.940]  Yeah, I just wanted to add a couple things about sort of how easily people move around.
[20:14.600 --> 20:16.880]  I'm talking about people of all ages.
[20:16.880 --> 20:21.980]  You see really young kids busily going places back and forth alone.
[20:22.580 --> 20:26.920]  They're on their way doing something, going to school, whatever it is.
[20:26.960 --> 20:32.920]  But they're, you know, completely, you know, on their way with, you know, no sort of supervision.
[20:34.020 --> 20:40.320]  And that's the kind of trust that is placed upon or that is rampant in the community here.
[20:40.900 --> 20:52.440]  Other things, like we talked about how busy the train stations are, you know, there's the sense that you won't, you know, there's not constant warnings and, you know, blatant signs telling you, you know, stay away from the track.
[20:52.620 --> 20:56.360]  There's a sense that, you know, look, you're going to know better than, you know, this is busy.
[20:56.360 --> 20:58.300]  You're going to know better than to get that close.
[20:58.500 --> 21:06.640]  And there's, you know, very subtle things like colored lines, and it's set up architecturally so that you can move about safely.
[21:06.640 --> 21:11.580]  But it's not, you know, this sense that you can't possibly take care of yourself.
[21:12.440 --> 21:16.820]  And things move very fluidly like that, and that sort of organization.
[21:18.180 --> 21:23.960]  We mentioned walking around with wine, but generally, like most beverages, you know, people drink whatever they want to drink.
[21:23.960 --> 21:31.320]  If they're having lunch and they want to get up and go, or they want something to go, they'll drink whatever their fancy is, if it's beer or, you know, whatever.
[21:31.560 --> 21:34.120]  But, you know, lots of water and other things, too.
[21:34.260 --> 21:35.920]  It's really nice.
[21:37.820 --> 21:46.040]  And just the general sense of freedom, and different freedom, distinct freedom from the kind we have in America.
[21:47.300 --> 21:56.060]  And I'd say that, you know, it's really, really refreshing as an American, because, you know, you get other sorts of freedom.
[21:57.580 --> 22:02.940]  Freedom to just enjoy things and interact with people.
[22:03.080 --> 22:08.540]  And there isn't this sort of blasé indifference, this coldness.
[22:08.680 --> 22:09.980]  People look out for each other.
[22:10.420 --> 22:13.180]  Same kind of goes back to what I was saying about safety.
[22:13.180 --> 22:19.000]  And, you know, we're sort of into everything being code and everything being, you know, tall handrails and everything.
[22:19.100 --> 22:23.080]  I mean, we've gone up and toured some of these sites, and it's amazing.
[22:23.080 --> 22:35.880]  You're on, you know, the Arc de Triomphe, and, you know, there's just a mild sense there that sort of subtly nudges you from, you know, hanging off the side or, you know, throwing the pigskin around.
[22:35.880 --> 22:38.820]  And, you know, you don't do that in those places.
[22:38.820 --> 22:43.560]  And it's amazing that it just works.
[22:43.780 --> 22:54.060]  There's no sort of this hypersensitivity and focus on, you know, managing everyone's action, every single action.
[22:54.060 --> 22:57.960]  And then dare we go into, you know, what people are thinking about things.
[22:57.960 --> 23:02.000]  I think there's the same independence and rugged individualism.
[23:02.180 --> 23:03.660]  It's just a little bit different.
[23:03.940 --> 23:06.900]  So I just want to add that, and we'll hand it back to E here.
[23:09.200 --> 23:12.360]  Yeah, I echo all those sentiments, as I've mentioned before.
[23:12.540 --> 23:17.140]  This is an incredible sense of people just looking out for themselves and the common sense prevailing.
[23:18.160 --> 23:19.820]  It's something I think we can learn a lot from.
[23:23.320 --> 23:23.720]  Okay.
[23:24.580 --> 23:25.200]  You guys still there?
[23:25.300 --> 23:26.100]  Yeah, we're still here.
[23:27.000 --> 23:31.400]  That was a very deep thought there, so we had to absorb it.
[23:31.840 --> 23:33.460]  Well, we need to go into other deep thoughts.
[23:33.640 --> 23:36.140]  I mean, being in Paris is interesting, I'm sure, but not that interesting.
[23:36.440 --> 23:38.820]  There are all kinds of other things going on in the world.
[23:38.920 --> 23:42.620]  Now, Bernie, this is something I'd like to ask you about, because you seem to take a particular interest in it.
[23:42.780 --> 23:50.460]  Am I to understand that hackers have somehow gotten into military drones and have put this nation's defense on high alert?
[23:50.640 --> 23:50.960]  Again?
[23:52.580 --> 24:05.900]  Yeah, well, this isn't the first time this has happened, but this is a story that was reported in the Wall Street Journal and what Mike and I and other people would describe as a really incredibly poor piece of journalism.
[24:06.420 --> 24:21.300]  And the story is hackers are in Iraq, or insurgent hackers are hacking into these unmanned aerial vehicles or drones that perform video surveillance of the area.
[24:22.580 --> 24:35.280]  But all these people are doing is viewing broadcast video from satellites that are not... these video signals are not encrypted.
[24:35.580 --> 24:38.600]  The same thing happened back in, I think, 2002, 2003.
[24:38.600 --> 24:44.920]  It was discovered that people in Europe were able to view a lot of surveillance video from U.S.
[24:45.040 --> 24:52.380]  drones on their free-to-air satellite TV systems and regular consumer electronic stuff.
[24:52.940 --> 24:59.480]  So, if I understand correctly, what you're saying is all that was going on here was that someone was basically watching television?
[25:00.500 --> 25:01.300]  Basically that.
[25:01.420 --> 25:06.760]  I mean, it was a little more complicated than that, because this is a satellite broadcast, but they're not encrypted.
[25:06.760 --> 25:14.000]  You can buy consumer office self-equipment to view these video transmissions from U.S.
[25:14.440 --> 25:17.840]  military surveillance aircraft with their unmanned aircraft, their drones.
[25:19.260 --> 25:33.620]  These people in Iraq, the so-called insurgents whose laptops were seized in raids or so forth, were found have been using a more portable version of this instead of a whole set-top box kind of satellite receiver.
[25:33.620 --> 25:40.560]  It's basically just a card you can insert into your laptop and connect that to a satellite dish.
[25:40.800 --> 25:45.260]  And then using software called SkyGrabber, which is...
[25:45.260 --> 25:46.960]  You can buy it online for like $20, $30.
[25:47.500 --> 25:49.620]  You can... it'll decode all the video streams.
[25:49.920 --> 25:57.120]  And you can see what... you can use your computer as a DVR and view these videos that the U.S.
[25:57.160 --> 26:00.640]  military has been broadcasting in the clear without encryption.
[26:01.260 --> 26:07.180]  Now, I don't believe these are... these were classified videos or they would have to be... have to be encrypted.
[26:07.440 --> 26:08.740]  So I don't think the U.S.
[26:08.780 --> 26:17.340]  military is terribly concerned about people in Iraq watching us watch them so they could see what they look like.
[26:17.500 --> 26:19.280]  This has been going on for several years.
[26:19.280 --> 26:23.520]  It happened in the whole Balkans conflict in Bosnia and Serbia.
[26:24.320 --> 26:25.580]  It happened then, too.
[26:25.860 --> 26:27.300]  So why this is being...
[26:27.300 --> 26:35.500]  My problem is this is being reported in a story where people are thinking that Iraqi insurgents are hacking into these American...
[26:35.500 --> 26:39.800]  these unmanned military aircraft that the U.S.
[26:39.820 --> 26:40.840]  is sending over the area.
[26:41.120 --> 26:45.460]  There's no... this is a passive reception of a signal that's being broadcast in the clear.
[26:45.740 --> 26:47.380]  There's no... there's no access.
[26:47.380 --> 26:49.200]  It's a one-way reception.
[26:49.580 --> 26:56.500]  Nobody on the ground, no insurgents or anybody else, or accessing any control system or anything in the aircraft.
[26:56.680 --> 26:59.260]  It's just... it's just broadcast television, basically.
[26:59.460 --> 26:59.620]  Yeah.
[26:59.700 --> 27:05.060]  The story was originally reported by the Wall Street Journal, and I don't think they should get all the blame, though.
[27:05.480 --> 27:09.720]  Their original headline, which I don't have it exactly in front of me, but it didn't...
[27:09.720 --> 27:19.320]  Is that from the Wall Street Journal?
[27:19.460 --> 27:19.600]  Yeah.
[27:19.920 --> 27:22.100]  Okay, I thought that started with NPR, but...
[27:22.100 --> 27:23.940]  When did Rupert Murdoch buy the Wall Street Journal?
[27:24.480 --> 27:24.820]  No, but...
[27:24.820 --> 27:26.100]  About a few years ago.
[27:27.080 --> 27:43.460]  If you went down to read the whole article, even that article, you would probably be able to tell that it was kind of BS, and I'm sure it seems like every single news outlet that I picked up on it, ran with, like, just rewiring the title as opposed to making it,
[27:43.540 --> 27:45.120]  putting it in perspective as they should have.
[27:45.360 --> 27:45.780]  Wait a minute.
[27:45.900 --> 27:51.800]  They didn't correct the obvious... the glaring hype that went into the... that title.
[27:52.500 --> 27:53.160]  It got worse.
[27:53.520 --> 27:55.720]  Did Rupert Murdoch actually buy the Wall Street Journal?
[27:55.780 --> 27:56.340]  Because I was kidding.
[27:57.040 --> 27:58.020]  No, the... yes.
[27:58.820 --> 28:05.220]  I think you had your tongue in your cheek there, but yes, Rupert Murdoch did purchase the Wall Street Journal, I think it was like five years ago or something like that.
[28:05.220 --> 28:05.400]  Oh my God.
[28:05.740 --> 28:06.960]  I really was kidding.
[28:07.080 --> 28:08.040]  I totally lost track of that.
[28:08.040 --> 28:08.700]  Yeah, he... oh, wow.
[28:08.700 --> 28:18.860]  Yeah, they did... actually, several people resigned from the journal when that happened, because it's... you know, it was considered a fairly respected piece of journalism.
[28:19.200 --> 28:20.120]  Well, compared to the Wall Street Journal.
[28:20.740 --> 28:21.100]  Murdoch...
[28:21.100 --> 28:23.820]  May I take this moment to officially resign as a reader of the Wall Street Journal?
[28:24.780 --> 28:29.220]  No, they still have some good journalism, but there were three different reporters that worked on this story.
[28:29.220 --> 28:31.460]  It was really surprising to me, and I wrote to those reporters.
[28:31.520 --> 28:32.440]  I didn't get any reply.
[28:32.440 --> 28:38.860]  I said, how could you have gotten this so wrong in reporting this as these drones are being hacked into when it didn't happen at all?
[28:39.040 --> 28:40.500]  And other media, the whole U.S.
[28:40.640 --> 28:42.980]  media echo chamber picked this up.
[28:43.100 --> 28:46.900]  I heard NPR report this using words like cyberterrorism.
[28:47.300 --> 28:49.980]  Well, this is ludicrous.
[28:49.980 --> 28:56.300]  These are freely available, unencrypted video broadcasts from satellites.
[28:56.320 --> 29:09.780]  Basically, what happens is the drones that are photographing the area video uplink the video to satellites, and the satellites then beam it down to the ground stations.
[29:09.780 --> 29:12.460]  The military ground stations can watch the video.
[29:12.460 --> 29:14.420]  Well, if the U.S.
[29:14.440 --> 29:21.180]  military was that concerned about it, they probably would have encrypted it, because they know this has been going on since at least 2002 in the Bosnian conflict.
[29:22.160 --> 29:25.560]  So I'm really puzzled as to why this is like such a...
[29:25.560 --> 29:28.460]  And then you've got the Secretary of Defense, Rob Gates.
[29:28.660 --> 29:32.660]  He's like personally calling for an investigation on this.
[29:32.760 --> 29:34.180]  It's like, this is silly.
[29:34.460 --> 29:38.380]  Well, I know, Bernie, we had a conversation about this concerning the use of the word hack.
[29:38.380 --> 29:56.980]  And while I totally agree that there is no active hacking going on here, I do think there is somewhat of a hacker mentality for somebody to say, you know what, it's actually possible to tune into this frequency and hear this particular broadcast, which would be very interesting and embarrassing to the powers that be in order to obtain this information.
[29:56.980 --> 30:08.840]  So I think there's a bit of a hacker spirit, at least, in just trying to figure something out that no one else has actually done before that supposedly should be impossible or just very unlikely for you to pull off.
[30:09.000 --> 30:09.520]  I don't know.
[30:09.620 --> 30:12.260]  I mean, there's one very simple way we can illustrate this to our listeners.
[30:12.820 --> 30:17.880]  If you're listening to the show right now, by this definition, you're a cyber terrorist hacker who's hacking into WBAI.
[30:18.040 --> 30:19.620]  And possibly sponsored by Iran.
[30:19.820 --> 30:23.760]  Yeah, well, that's where I draw the line, because obviously they went a little too far at that.
[30:23.860 --> 30:28.920]  But I do think that if you want to draw that analogy, people who do listen to this radio show are inquisitive types.
[30:28.920 --> 30:34.220]  And it's a bit of a hack in order to be able to find a show about hackers in and of itself.
[30:34.440 --> 30:35.420]  So I don't know.
[30:35.600 --> 30:37.500]  You know, it's an interesting story.
[30:37.820 --> 30:42.000]  You know, it's something that I think I'd like to know about, that it's actually possible to do this.
[30:42.080 --> 30:48.600]  I can't imagine, though, why the Defense Department wouldn't think that this is something that really shouldn't be broadcast in the clear.
[30:48.780 --> 30:51.120]  I mean, was it really something that's not at all sensitive?
[30:52.100 --> 30:59.980]  You would think it would be sensitive, but there are very strict rules for how classified information is handled in the military and other government agencies.
[31:00.620 --> 31:03.660]  If this was classified data, it would be encrypted.
[31:03.960 --> 31:07.880]  Clearly, it's not classified data, by definition, if they're not encrypting it.
[31:08.060 --> 31:10.220]  So, but it probably is somewhat sensitive.
[31:10.220 --> 31:17.540]  And I'm sure now, with all this media hype about it being cyberterrorism, whatever, that, you know, pretty soon it will be encrypted.
[31:17.540 --> 31:22.980]  And I have to hand it to the people in Iraq who were using creative technology.
[31:22.980 --> 31:33.920]  It was very clever of them to use commonly available consumer-grade technology to watch us watching them to see what they look like.
[31:34.200 --> 31:35.240]  That's very clever.
[31:35.600 --> 31:36.500]  But there was a...
[31:36.500 --> 31:44.720]  I found a much more balanced news article, of all places, in Al Jazeera's website, where they interviewed a former U.S.
[31:44.820 --> 31:53.260]  intelligence official who said this is really basically not much more than people listening to police scanners, digital police scanners.
[31:53.960 --> 31:59.500]  So it's analogous to that, you know, people listening to police scanners, although it's a little more complicated because it's...
[31:59.500 --> 32:03.980]  Bernie, that's not at all surprising because Al Jazeera does have some very balanced reporting.
[32:04.180 --> 32:10.400]  And, you know, if people only would give it a chance and watch the English version of it, they'd see that it's actually a good source of information.
[32:10.400 --> 32:12.320]  And I think, you know, it's...
[32:12.800 --> 32:17.900]  You might as well say that Al Jazeera is banned in the United States because no cable company...
[32:17.900 --> 32:20.180]  I think there's a cable company in Columbus, Ohio, that carries it.
[32:20.200 --> 32:20.960]  I think that's it.
[32:21.120 --> 32:23.180]  But nobody else dares to do this.
[32:23.220 --> 32:30.600]  And I really would like our listeners, and I'd like everybody, to put pressure on cable and satellite providers to provide a different perspective to us.
[32:31.000 --> 32:35.300]  And Al Jazeera English is one of those perspectives that I think we need to hear.
[32:40.400 --> 32:46.440]  As though, it'll simply provide more, as you say, balanced information as far as stories that we're already hearing about.
[32:46.580 --> 32:51.860]  And also on that note, we're talking about the headline in the Wall Street Journal and how horrible it was.
[32:52.140 --> 32:55.420]  Computer World ran basically the same story, but listen to the headline they gave it.
[32:56.080 --> 32:58.280]  Insurgents intercept video feeds from U.S.
[32:58.340 --> 33:00.720]  drones using $26 software, a report says.
[33:01.080 --> 33:06.820]  And the subheading, Pentagon has quote-unquote fixed the flaw with the unencrypted feed, defense official says.
[33:06.840 --> 33:09.540]  I just think that's a lot more informative and accurate.
[33:10.460 --> 33:11.680]  It's incredibly inaccurate.
[33:11.880 --> 33:14.060]  The $26 software has very little to do with it.
[33:14.120 --> 33:15.360]  You need a satellite dish.
[33:15.540 --> 33:22.320]  You can't just buy a $26 software and suddenly a satellite dish will sprout out of your computer to receive these signals.
[33:22.520 --> 33:23.740]  Yeah, but Mike, you're making some assumptions here.
[33:23.780 --> 33:24.820]  You need electricity, too.
[33:24.980 --> 33:26.080]  It costs money to have electricity.
[33:26.080 --> 33:26.800]  You need a house.
[33:27.980 --> 33:33.180]  They're assuming that you have the hardware already, but the software is what you need in order to be able to make the hardware work.
[33:33.180 --> 33:34.220]  But you don't need the software.
[33:34.280 --> 33:35.480]  You don't really need a house, either.
[33:37.080 --> 33:37.860]  Fine, okay.
[33:37.860 --> 33:41.000]  But, you know, you're making writing headlines very difficult with all these caveats.
[33:41.900 --> 33:48.260]  The headline could be drones emit unencrypted video signals.
[33:48.500 --> 33:49.960]  That's even shorter than their headline.
[33:50.300 --> 33:51.940]  Oh, yeah, but that's so passive.
[33:51.940 --> 33:53.640]  You need to be able to say somebody just did something.
[33:53.800 --> 33:54.100]  All right.
[33:54.460 --> 33:57.180]  Iraqis watch unencrypted drone video signals.
[33:57.400 --> 33:59.180]  I think the headline is deserving of a pun.
[34:00.800 --> 34:01.220]  Yeah.
[34:01.740 --> 34:05.580]  Anyway, it's an interesting story or an interesting non-story, however you want to look at it.
[34:05.580 --> 34:08.040]  That's the way it was reported, I think, is a story in and of itself.
[34:08.160 --> 34:09.220]  But there are other stories, too.
[34:09.760 --> 34:11.180]  And do you guys hear about this?
[34:11.300 --> 34:12.920]  The Iranian cyber army hit Twitter?
[34:12.920 --> 34:13.740]  What was that all about?
[34:14.360 --> 34:14.840]  Oh, yeah.
[34:14.920 --> 34:19.160]  I think the Twitter front page or something was defaced for, I don't know how long.
[34:19.160 --> 34:26.140]  A group claiming to be the Iranian cyber army managed to redirect Twitter users to its own site displaying a political message.
[34:27.060 --> 34:36.560]  And I'm wondering, there's been all kinds of talk about Twitter and their security and how this is proof that they don't take their users' privacy seriously.
[34:36.640 --> 34:40.940]  And I'm wondering, is this simply a DNS redirect, in which case it's not even their fault?
[34:41.140 --> 34:41.760]  Yes, it was.
[34:41.820 --> 34:45.480]  It was actually the same thing that happened in 2600, I think, a year or two ago.
[34:45.680 --> 34:46.500]  Yeah, I remember that.
[34:47.600 --> 34:52.080]  Basically, they guessed the email to their default password.
[34:53.240 --> 34:56.040]  They guessed the default password to their email server.
[34:56.400 --> 34:58.340]  And they had a...
[34:59.060 --> 35:03.280]  So whoever they used for their DNS registrar, they forgot your password thing.
[35:03.420 --> 35:04.240]  They got the email.
[35:04.360 --> 35:04.940]  They called them up.
[35:04.940 --> 35:08.160]  And they said, oh, yes, we are the Twitter owners.
[35:08.220 --> 35:12.380]  And we wanted to direct to the revolutionary Iran place.
[35:12.800 --> 35:14.020]  It wasn't even that.
[35:14.020 --> 35:16.520]  Because in our case, they didn't get anything from us.
[35:16.540 --> 35:30.160]  They simply called Network Solutions and were able to convince them that they represented 2600 because Network Solutions should have been called Network Problems because they simply had no way of verifying this.
[35:30.320 --> 35:31.320]  They believed them.
[35:31.460 --> 35:33.400]  And that happened to be when I was down in Brazil.
[35:33.400 --> 35:40.220]  So I had to call them from Brazil and convince them that I was legitimate, which was very hard to do when they asked me where they could call me back.
[35:40.220 --> 35:41.780]  And I gave them a phone number in Brazil.
[35:42.140 --> 35:43.380]  They were like, yeah, right.
[35:43.380 --> 35:50.940]  But you're telling me that you want us to change where the domain is pointing based on you being at a different phone number.
[35:51.120 --> 35:53.700]  And I think, Mike, you were part of that whole...
[35:53.700 --> 35:55.720]  Yeah, at some point, they wouldn't talk to you.
[35:55.780 --> 35:58.400]  They would only talk to me because I called them before you did.
[35:58.480 --> 36:00.060]  And therefore, I must be the one to talk to.
[36:00.260 --> 36:02.980]  And you had never talked to them before and they had no record of you before that day.
[36:03.080 --> 36:05.780]  Because I don't normally do these things when you're not in Brazil.
[36:06.020 --> 36:06.340]  Yeah.
[36:07.340 --> 36:09.700]  So it just goes to show that it's very easy to do this kind of thing.
[36:09.800 --> 36:10.560]  So I don't think...
[36:10.560 --> 36:13.020]  I'm all for blaming Twitter when they deserve it.
[36:13.160 --> 36:15.640]  But in this particular case, I'm not sure that they do.
[36:16.420 --> 36:17.360]  Well, yeah.
[36:17.600 --> 36:18.560]  I'm also...
[36:18.560 --> 36:25.020]  I wouldn't be surprised in this list to learn that the Iranian cyber army is some bored kid in the first world somewhere.
[36:26.200 --> 36:26.660]  Yeah.
[36:26.780 --> 36:27.660]  Wouldn't be surprised at all.
[36:29.800 --> 36:34.840]  Now, we're going to our social networking sites, I guess.
[36:35.420 --> 36:49.540]  And there was a story in the New York Times written by none other than Katie Hefner about how many teenagers all around the world are disconnecting from Facebook because they're getting completely, I guess, obsessed with it.
[36:49.740 --> 36:50.820]  Did you guys read the story?
[36:51.000 --> 37:00.480]  You know, I read the story and then I immediately wished that I could unread it because it was one of these journalism stories where they find three people who did something and call it a trend.
[37:00.940 --> 37:01.500]  Uh-huh.
[37:02.740 --> 37:05.620]  As opposed to Facebook where everybody's doing it and it's a lifestyle.
[37:06.560 --> 37:11.700]  Well, if you can show that a million people have signed off Facebook, then you've shown it's a trend.
[37:11.940 --> 37:15.000]  If you found three teenagers somewhere who, what did they do?
[37:15.100 --> 37:17.840]  They, like, made a pact where they trade passwords on the weekends.
[37:17.840 --> 37:18.560]  It was all...
[37:19.080 --> 37:24.300]  It was a very in-depth way of just not using a computer and I don't know.
[37:25.140 --> 37:37.360]  Well, do you think the idea is an interesting idea that people are becoming so completely taken over by social networking sites that they might need to do this in the first place?
[37:37.500 --> 37:40.860]  No, because social networking websites are just extensions of your normal friendships.
[37:41.080 --> 37:41.940]  So it's basically...
[37:41.940 --> 37:54.460]  I mean, you can say, oh, it's not a true friendship or, oh, it's not as good as face-to-face communication, but it's basically when they're spending hours and hours on Facebook, they're spending hours and hours doing stuff with their friends even if they're not directly next to them.
[37:54.780 --> 37:58.560]  Yeah, but, you know, I grew up without Facebook and I can tell you I didn't have a thousand friends.
[37:58.800 --> 37:59.680]  I didn't have all these people.
[37:59.680 --> 38:01.760]  Yeah, but not all kids have a thousand friends.
[38:01.880 --> 38:03.400]  In fact, I don't know anybody.
[38:03.740 --> 38:06.840]  I mean, maybe I know one or two, like, friend whores, but I don't know.
[38:06.840 --> 38:07.460]  How many friends do you have, Voltaire?
[38:08.120 --> 38:09.300]  I don't know, like a hundred?
[38:09.960 --> 38:10.200]  A hundred?
[38:10.320 --> 38:12.080]  Okay, that's a lot more friends than I've had in my whole life.
[38:13.280 --> 38:14.780]  How many friends do you have on Facebook?
[38:14.800 --> 38:15.820]  I think it's approaching a hundred.
[38:15.820 --> 38:17.620]  Well, I'm trying to cut back, actually.
[38:17.740 --> 38:19.880]  I'm trying to insult people as much as possible so that they de-friend me.
[38:20.160 --> 38:23.300]  But what I'm wondering is, in the room right now, who has the most friends?
[38:23.520 --> 38:23.880]  Tell us.
[38:24.740 --> 38:26.660]  I have zero because I don't use the Facebook.
[38:27.280 --> 38:28.260]  Ah, but you know what?
[38:28.260 --> 38:30.920]  You said the same thing, Rob, about Twitter a year ago.
[38:31.100 --> 38:33.520]  And now, how many tweets have you had in the last few months?
[38:33.780 --> 38:34.960]  I have a computer today.
[38:35.060 --> 38:35.780]  I can find out.
[38:36.120 --> 38:37.440]  Yeah, we can all find out.
[38:37.640 --> 38:38.540]  It all comes out now.
[38:38.860 --> 38:42.640]  On the subject of Facebook, Facebook recently had a privacy overhaul.
[38:43.420 --> 38:45.120]  And a lot of people are criticizing it.
[38:45.120 --> 38:51.300]  But to be honest, I think it's kind of good because it seems like you have more control over what you're able to prevent people from seeing.
[38:51.360 --> 38:59.400]  And I've noticed that more people seem to be hiding their friends list, which, if I read the mass media, they say that it's now not possible to hide your friends list.
[38:59.460 --> 39:00.520]  But I think it is possible.
[39:00.520 --> 39:04.620]  I think the criticism was more towards that they said, hey, we have a new privacy option.
[39:04.800 --> 39:06.240]  You should update them.
[39:06.340 --> 39:09.340]  But then they defaulted everything to that everyone could see it.
[39:09.400 --> 39:15.000]  And that was the criticism, was that so you might just click OK, and then, you know, suddenly your thing was entirely public.
[39:15.640 --> 39:22.540]  They also came up with some really confusing UI, user interface for making the change.
[39:22.760 --> 39:28.020]  They gave you choices between two things that didn't really seem to have anything to do with each other.
[39:29.320 --> 39:29.880]  Uh-huh.
[39:30.400 --> 39:31.860]  Yeah, it can be very confusing.
[39:31.860 --> 39:36.720]  And apparently the head of Facebook, actually, couldn't figure it out himself.
[39:36.720 --> 39:39.580]  He had previously had a very private profile.
[39:39.720 --> 39:45.440]  And then after this privacy change, people were finding pictures of him hugging teddy bears and doing all kinds of things.
[39:46.420 --> 39:51.540]  And then, you know, it got into the media, and suddenly he figured out how to use it, and the pictures went away again.
[39:51.780 --> 39:53.340]  And then they said that he did it on purpose.
[39:53.340 --> 39:57.060]  Yeah, if he was smart, he would have said, yeah, I'm doing this on purpose to show that I have nothing to hide.
[39:57.140 --> 40:00.000]  He said that, but it doesn't mean I believe him.
[40:00.320 --> 40:06.620]  Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the big push here with, you know, sites like Facebook and Twitter and all that is now to get more things public.
[40:06.620 --> 40:10.120]  You know, you have Google and Bing and all these search engines.
[40:10.300 --> 40:11.500]  They want to index everything.
[40:11.780 --> 40:18.660]  And, you know, if things are marked private, then as businesses, they can't give this information, or they're not supposed to give this information out.
[40:18.740 --> 40:25.600]  And so they really want you to give them permission to give your information out and to use it in whatever ways they see fit.
[40:25.600 --> 40:34.300]  So, if you're careful, you know, well, either you don't use it, or, you know, you try to keep control over it as best you can.
[40:34.320 --> 40:41.380]  But, you know, at the end of the day, I don't know what the laws around it would be, whether or not they could just, you know, say, well, we have your information now.
[40:41.460 --> 40:43.100]  You gave it to us, so we can do what we want.
[40:43.780 --> 40:45.300]  Now, Bernie, I'd like to ask you this.
[40:45.420 --> 40:50.120]  There's an article that came out in Playboy recently, a magazine I know you read.
[40:51.740 --> 40:58.440]  And basically, it's about this guy named Dennis Montgomery, a self-proclaimed scientist who said he could predict terrorist attacks.
[40:59.700 --> 41:17.560]  Quoting here, operating with a small software development company, he apparently convinced the Bush White House, the CIA, the Air Force, and other agencies that Al Jazeera, which we were previously talking about, the Qatari-owned TV network, was unwittingly transmitting target data to al-Qaeda sleepers.
[41:18.000 --> 41:25.900]  And this is turning into a whole big scandal, where apparently the wool was pulled over the eyes of the administration, or perhaps they were in collusion here.
[41:26.500 --> 41:27.920]  What do you read from this?
[41:28.300 --> 41:46.980]  Well, I think it indicates that the Bush administration was very, very easily duped by a con man, in conjunction with another guy who worked with him, who worked with Michael Milken in the whole junk bonds thing, back with Drexel Byrne and Lambert back in the 80s.
[41:47.200 --> 42:07.140]  And there was a couple of con men, one of them worked at a software company, and convinced the White House, the military, and the CIA that coded messages were being sent over, you know, from these al-Qaeda videos that were coming out.
[42:08.140 --> 42:23.500]  They were somehow embedded with coded messages, and that Al Jazeera was unwittingly passing them on to sleeper cells in the United States when these, when these, when Al Jazeera was then airing these, these videos.
[42:23.680 --> 42:30.420]  Now, of course, Al Jazeera isn't available in those markets here in the U.S., as you just stated, but still, it was, it was a ludicrous idea.
[42:30.660 --> 42:34.080]  Anybody who knows anything about video signals would know that this really isn't possible.
[42:34.220 --> 42:41.400]  But somehow this guy conned the whole science and technology directorate of the CIA, that this actually was, worked.
[42:41.580 --> 42:52.640]  And he was coming up with all this bogus data, with fake coordinates, and, and flood numbers, and things that were going to be al-Qaeda targets, and just printing out these reams and reams of bogus information.
[42:52.880 --> 42:57.820]  And this resulted in, according to this article, which is very comprehensive in Playboy, it's about 10 pages.
[42:58.300 --> 43:01.660]  I found it on the website, in a web search, that, the...
[43:01.660 --> 43:03.000]  A web search for what?
[43:03.460 --> 43:05.300]  A web search for Al Jazeera.
[43:05.500 --> 43:12.340]  When I was researching the story about the, the, the, the video hacking, the supposedly video hacking of the, the U.S.
[43:13.360 --> 43:17.420]  military drones in the, in the Baghdad theater, I came across this other story.
[43:17.680 --> 43:22.580]  And it's being, it's, it's a real, pretty serious piece of journal, journalism in, in Playboy.
[43:22.780 --> 43:26.820]  And it indicates that the Bush administration was so influenced by this bogus data.
[43:27.080 --> 43:41.840]  Uh, this, this ridiculous story that, that somehow, uh, al-Qaeda, uh, videos had hidden digital messages in them that Al Jazeera was, was unwittingly passing on to, uh, al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States.
[43:42.300 --> 43:45.380]  Um, they had, like, flight numbers and coordinates of targets and so forth.
[43:45.520 --> 43:49.720]  That this resulted in us being in an orange, high alert.
[43:50.040 --> 43:57.760]  Remember back in 2003, New York City was crawling with, uh, with people with, with, uh, uh, military guys with, uh, with machine guns.
[43:58.080 --> 43:59.360]  That's, this is what this is about.
[43:59.480 --> 44:01.520]  The Bush administration was acting on this stuff.
[44:01.780 --> 44:06.840]  This was going to Cheney, to Bush, uh, to George Tennant, the, uh, director of the CIA.
[44:07.160 --> 44:08.840]  They were swallowing this garbage.
[44:09.000 --> 44:12.440]  How does one, how does Dennis Montgomery have all this power to do this?
[44:12.820 --> 44:14.820]  He was just a good con man, apparently.
[44:15.060 --> 44:22.980]  But, uh, but there were, there were some people at the CIA's department of, uh, according to the article, some people at the CIA's, uh, the science and technology directorate that thought this was ludicrous.
[44:23.500 --> 44:36.440]  But apparently the Bush administration just wanted to believe this stuff, just like they wanted to believe this guy named Curveball in Iraq who came up with all this bogus information about weapons of mass destruction and mobile, mobile vans with, uh,
[44:37.040 --> 44:39.440]  with, uh, pathogens in there and stuff like that.
[44:39.860 --> 44:51.300]  Um, it just seems like the, the Bush administration is looking for anything they could grab onto to justify, um, you know, keeping us on a, on a high terror alert or, or, or dropping bombs, whatever.
[44:51.540 --> 44:53.040]  But it's a really interesting story.
[44:53.180 --> 44:58.180]  I, you know, I, I, I don't, I don't promote Playboy generally, but this is a story worth reading.
[44:58.640 --> 45:00.460]  Uh, it's on, it's available free on the website.
[45:00.700 --> 45:01.940]  So check the story out.
[45:01.960 --> 45:18.900]  It really goes into a lot of detail about how this, uh, technical con man convinced the, the Bush White House and the CIA and the military that he could hack into these, uh, or just supposedly decode hidden messages, uh, in, in, uh, Al Jazeera's, uh, video transmissions.
[45:19.040 --> 45:20.460]  And it was just complete nonsense.
[45:20.800 --> 45:23.900]  You know, maybe the Bush administration watched a lot of 24 back in the day.
[45:25.500 --> 45:25.900]  Yeah.
[45:26.080 --> 45:30.380]  You know, I was wondering that myself because, uh, they really did have a Jack Bauer type syndrome to them.
[45:30.900 --> 45:33.600]  And, uh, they just seem to, it was better writing on 24.
[45:33.600 --> 45:35.800]  I'll say that, but, uh, that's not saying a whole lot.
[45:36.260 --> 45:40.820]  Um, I'd like to, uh, take phone calls in a couple minutes, 212-209-2900.
[45:40.820 --> 45:42.320]  This is Emmanuel over in Paris.
[45:42.760 --> 45:45.520]  Uh, and Bernie, of course, down there in Philadelphia, everybody else back in New York.
[45:46.060 --> 45:52.800]  Um, we're, we're pretty much killing the subject we were talking about the last couple of weeks of climate change and global warming, but I did want to read one letter we got.
[45:52.860 --> 45:53.440]  Do we have to?
[45:53.900 --> 45:57.800]  Well, I think our listeners deserve to be heard occasionally, especially if they disagree with us.
[45:57.960 --> 46:00.360]  And this is not one of the ones with all the foul language, so, uh...
[46:00.360 --> 46:01.620]  Can we do this after the phone calls?
[46:03.000 --> 46:05.380]  You know, you guys, you gotta, you gotta be open to criticism here.
[46:05.540 --> 46:07.240]  You know, maybe, maybe this person is right.
[46:07.420 --> 46:07.760]  It's possible.
[46:08.080 --> 46:11.900]  Um, basically, he says, I'm an avid reader of 2600, a faithful listener to your show.
[46:12.080 --> 46:14.580]  I often disagree with your views, but generally respect them.
[46:14.700 --> 46:20.000]  I enjoy listening to perspectives that differ from my own and like to think that I can be persuaded by compelling argument.
[46:20.140 --> 46:24.420]  The intellectual consistency that I admire has recently gone by the wayside.
[46:24.600 --> 46:28.400]  The weak effort made on behalf of the leaked climate research emails was appalling.
[46:28.460 --> 46:34.080]  If that same evidence was explained away by a Republican concern, you would have attacked like hyena on a zebra kill.
[46:34.400 --> 46:35.540]  It's a good analogy, by the way.
[46:35.540 --> 46:41.160]  Is it really out of the realm of possibility that a scientist would lean toward data that he believes in his heart is correct?
[46:41.520 --> 46:46.320]  Is it unheard of for a scientist to publish a paper in such a way as to keep the grant money coming in?
[46:46.520 --> 46:49.920]  Is it not the human condition to try to suppress data that contradicts our opinions?
[46:50.160 --> 46:52.860]  A debate this important should be done in an open source way.
[46:53.020 --> 46:56.980]  I have trouble differentiating East Anglia's research methodology from Microsoft's.
[46:57.040 --> 46:59.540]  I am not writing to challenge you to a global warming debate.
[46:59.640 --> 47:00.820]  Thank you, because we're not going to have one.
[47:01.040 --> 47:05.140]  I am just expressing my dismay at your passive acceptance of blatant deception.
[47:05.980 --> 47:10.900]  Questioning that the establishment is your charter, even if that establishment represents your own beliefs.
[47:11.100 --> 47:12.220]  Signed, right-wing hacker.
[47:12.460 --> 47:13.880]  And I think you make some very good points.
[47:13.880 --> 47:15.520]  Yes, we should be questioning everything.
[47:15.580 --> 47:22.260]  But I think the point that's being missed here is that these things have been questioned forever for the last few decades.
[47:22.580 --> 47:28.460]  And there comes a point where conclusions are reached and you move on from those conclusions without having to reinvent the egg every time.
[47:28.880 --> 47:29.680]  Or the wheel, I'm sorry.
[47:30.020 --> 47:30.600]  Reinvent the wheel.
[47:31.100 --> 47:39.920]  I would also dispute that these emails, these select emails out of millions of them constitute blatant deception.
[47:40.400 --> 47:41.860]  They were taken out of context.
[47:41.860 --> 47:46.620]  If you read them in context, and I have read some of these in context, they don't constitute blatant deception.
[47:46.980 --> 47:49.220]  They do show a certain attitude.
[47:49.480 --> 47:57.240]  But this is just one tiny data point in the whole world of climate research data.
[47:57.740 --> 48:07.840]  So I think this is a story that's being sort of a big story being made out of a tiny piece of information in a huge volume of information that's available.
[48:08.040 --> 48:24.500]  And I think even if every single one of those emails was proven to be completely fraudulent, done by evil people out to completely misguide everybody, it still doesn't derail what all the other thousands and thousands of scientists have been doing over the decades that have proven this.
[48:24.740 --> 48:28.040]  And, you know, watching European media over here, you see this is no longer a debate.
[48:28.160 --> 48:30.580]  They're talking about, look, this is a very real effect.
[48:30.580 --> 48:33.620]  You see islands that are sinking in the Pacific.
[48:33.800 --> 48:36.940]  You see other effects of climate change.
[48:36.940 --> 48:39.480]  Not just global warming, but there's all kinds of effects of climate change.
[48:39.600 --> 48:42.620]  And yes, human beings have the capability of doing this.
[48:42.860 --> 48:52.380]  And it makes sense for us to pollute less and to try and figure out a way to make the environment, you know, somewhat more hospitable for as many people as possible.
[48:52.560 --> 48:53.260]  These are good things.
[48:53.340 --> 48:57.500]  But yes, the listeners correct in saying that we should be questioning everything.
[48:57.920 --> 49:01.480]  And if we ever appear not to be questioning something, we should be called on it.
[49:01.600 --> 49:06.940]  But this is something that, you know, it's like saying that the earth might still be flat.
[49:07.280 --> 49:10.140]  You know, yeah, let's understand why the earth is round.
[49:10.200 --> 49:19.760]  But let's accept that it's been proven from many centuries of debate that the earth is... I mean, you could point to the moon and say, hey, the moon has the same face towards us all the time.
[49:19.860 --> 49:21.740]  Therefore, it's not circular.
[49:22.120 --> 49:23.540]  It's just a flat disk.
[49:23.720 --> 49:28.080]  I mean, you know, all those astronauts who supposedly went to the moon, they know this because they actually went to New Mexico.
[49:28.080 --> 49:31.760]  You can have those kinds of pointless arguments, but it's a big waste of time.
[49:31.760 --> 49:38.460]  And we're not blindly accepting one particular viewpoint by saying, you know what, this is not a debate to have anymore.
[49:38.460 --> 49:46.380]  For those that want more information on the debate and the science behind this, I'd recommend the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast.
[49:46.820 --> 49:52.140]  They did a really good roundup of this whole situation and global warming as a whole.
[49:52.340 --> 49:54.220]  They also do a lot of other good programming.
[49:54.400 --> 49:56.640]  And I recommend it for anybody that's interested in this show.
[49:56.780 --> 49:58.400]  It's tangentially related, but...
[49:58.400 --> 50:01.520]  Yes, there are people who can put this into words much better than we can.
[50:01.620 --> 50:02.800]  This is not our field of expertise.
[50:02.800 --> 50:04.540]  We can just basically claim our opinions.
[50:05.300 --> 50:11.720]  But, you know, people have written in saying that we're saying things awkwardly and clumsily, and they're right, we are, because this is not our field.
[50:12.340 --> 50:21.120]  We can just give you our viewpoints on this, but as Voltaire said, there are plenty of other places you can get very informed perspectives on climate change and global warming.
[50:21.200 --> 50:22.280]  What was that, the Skeptic's Guide?
[50:22.520 --> 50:22.880]  Skeptic's Guide.
[50:22.940 --> 50:24.940]  I think it's skepticsguide.org, I believe.
[50:25.540 --> 50:26.020]  Okay, great.
[50:26.180 --> 50:26.840]  So we take some phone calls.
[50:26.920 --> 50:30.480]  Yeah, let's hear some other people's opinions on, hopefully, some other topics.
[50:30.600 --> 50:31.000]  Yeah, please, no.
[50:33.440 --> 50:35.600]  And you're on the air, but we might have just lost Emmanuel.
[50:35.820 --> 50:37.160]  No, no, I'm here, I'm here.
[50:37.160 --> 50:37.460]  Okay.
[50:37.840 --> 50:38.800]  What's on your mind?
[50:39.560 --> 50:51.480]  Well, I enjoyed the show, but I apologize if you guys have covered the story, but the AI last week did an interesting show in the morning, it was like this, the 9 to 10 o'clock slot, about this.
[50:51.980 --> 51:05.000]  And they were saying that, you know, this climate, the issue isn't global warming, it's whether mankind, by increasing CO2, which apparently is a relatively small percentage of the atmosphere, is really the cause.
[51:05.520 --> 51:11.860]  And one of the cruxes of the whole thing was, usually the argument is that, well, why would anybody lie about that?
[51:11.860 --> 51:13.060]  There's no money to be made in it.
[51:13.120 --> 51:24.480]  But apparently, with the carbon offsets, there's potential for a whole new bubble-generating trade in, you know, fictive instruments.
[51:24.780 --> 51:29.680]  And that, indeed, and like Goldman Sachs has put a lot of money into it than J.P.
[51:29.680 --> 51:29.980]  Morgan.
[51:30.200 --> 51:32.640]  And there is, indeed, reason to lie about it.
[51:32.820 --> 51:42.660]  And it turns out that, um, there's a relatively small number of people that actually understand the computer modeling that has led to the conclusion that it is mankind that's lead to global warming.
[51:42.880 --> 51:43.520]  I don't know if it is.
[51:43.660 --> 51:48.440]  There's also a relatively few number of people that understand the computer modeling behind gravity, but that doesn't like to prove it.
[51:49.240 --> 51:50.120]  Well, that's right.
[51:50.120 --> 51:54.280]  Well, this is a fascinating thing to talk about, but as we just said, this is not really our field.
[51:54.600 --> 51:57.320]  But we want to thank you for calling in and keep thinking about this.
[51:57.740 --> 51:57.880]  Right.
[51:58.740 --> 51:59.200]  All right.
[51:59.600 --> 52:00.540]  Thanks for that call.
[52:01.100 --> 52:04.200]  Seriously, folks, I mean, we just wanted to have the final word on that because...
[52:04.200 --> 52:05.880]  Yeah, well, you brought it up.
[52:06.180 --> 52:11.820]  Well, I just wanted to read a letter because I felt we owed that to our listeners to address this one more time.
[52:11.820 --> 52:13.280]  But really, this is not our field.
[52:13.840 --> 52:17.520]  Have the conversation, but have it with, you know, inappropriate forums.
[52:17.520 --> 52:18.420]  All right.
[52:18.520 --> 52:19.120]  Let's see.
[52:19.260 --> 52:20.200]  Hello, line nine.
[52:20.200 --> 52:20.900]  What's on your mind?
[52:21.820 --> 52:23.460]  Well, hello, WBAI.
[52:23.540 --> 52:24.520]  How are you doing off the hook, guys?
[52:24.960 --> 52:25.240]  Hello.
[52:25.580 --> 52:25.820]  Hi.
[52:25.940 --> 52:26.320]  Hello there.
[52:27.020 --> 52:40.700]  Sorry to be the dead horse, but to the crack, to the point made about how one can go and test how people don't understand the computer models, which test gravity, you can test gravity in your backyard.
[52:41.000 --> 52:43.360]  You can't test man-made global warming in your backyard.
[52:43.860 --> 53:02.660]  And I'm mildly disappointed that a group of intellectual rebels like yourselves would be so against the idea that a large politicized issue like global warming could not possibly be a lie or a hoax.
[53:03.220 --> 53:18.780]  And, you know, I think you guys owe it to yourselves and everybody else, due to your long history of rebelling and asking tough questions, that you should really look at issues like this and really ask those questions instead of relying on how it makes you feel.
[53:19.000 --> 53:19.400]  Okay.
[53:19.560 --> 53:20.320]  We'll take that into account.
[53:20.500 --> 53:21.160]  Thanks for your opinion.
[53:21.320 --> 53:21.720]  Let's move on.
[53:22.040 --> 53:22.340]  All right.
[53:22.520 --> 53:26.860]  Can I have permission to, like, not take any more calls on this topic, on any side of this topic?
[53:26.880 --> 53:34.680]  Well, you know, it's just... Obviously, people have opinions to express, but I find it hard to believe that most of our listeners seem to be questioning global warming.
[53:34.680 --> 53:36.220]  No, it's a vocalist.
[53:36.420 --> 53:38.280]  I don't want to, like... Well, then, you know...
[53:38.280 --> 53:48.720]  I don't want to make it seem like it's a bad thing that they're being vocal, but I think it's just in general that the vocal people are going to come out more so than the people that passively agree.
[53:48.920 --> 53:50.620]  Well, that's not really true at BAI, usually.
[53:50.800 --> 53:55.560]  But, you know, if people want to question global warming or gravity or evolution or whatever they feel like...
[53:55.560 --> 53:55.660]  9-11.
[53:55.820 --> 53:56.840]  By all means, question it.
[53:56.940 --> 54:00.000]  But this is a show about computers and technology and hacking and things like that.
[54:00.420 --> 54:02.500]  And let's try and move back to that.
[54:03.400 --> 54:04.120]  All right.
[54:06.100 --> 54:07.560]  And now we have a new caller.
[54:07.780 --> 54:08.440]  What's on your mind?
[54:08.900 --> 54:09.560]  It's Sanda.
[54:09.860 --> 54:14.500]  I will give one reference on this topic and then go on to my point.
[54:14.940 --> 54:23.060]  Today, Michio Kaku Explorations, 5 p.m., WBAI, archived, free, 90 days.
[54:23.500 --> 54:24.440]  Yes, listen to that.
[54:24.500 --> 54:27.580]  That is a much better informed opinion on the subject.
[54:28.500 --> 54:30.180]  David Archer, professor.
[54:30.420 --> 54:31.240]  Yes, today.
[54:31.500 --> 54:34.480]  They dispatched this whole stupid thing.
[54:34.480 --> 54:35.800]  Can we move on to the second one?
[54:35.920 --> 54:41.140]  Because people know to listen to Exploration Today on BAI and they can engage in a discussion there.
[54:41.280 --> 54:42.080]  What was your second point?
[54:42.120 --> 54:43.480]  I think we lost her.
[54:43.800 --> 54:44.120]  Oh, no.
[54:44.380 --> 54:44.560]  Yeah.
[54:47.160 --> 54:47.600]  Next.
[54:47.820 --> 54:49.060]  Let's go over here.
[54:49.320 --> 54:50.200]  What's on your mind?
[54:50.900 --> 54:51.640]  How are you doing?
[54:51.820 --> 54:52.560]  This is Robert.
[54:53.340 --> 54:55.380]  And, um, hello?
[54:55.700 --> 54:55.920]  Hi.
[54:56.000 --> 54:56.180]  Yes, go ahead.
[54:57.720 --> 54:58.020]  Hi.
[54:58.140 --> 54:58.340]  What's up?
[54:58.940 --> 54:59.600]  You're on the air.
[54:59.680 --> 55:00.240]  Tell us what you think.
[55:00.500 --> 55:00.720]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[55:00.760 --> 55:02.300]  We have just a minute left.
[55:02.800 --> 55:07.880]  Last week you were talking about aircraft and how they can't use cell phones on the airplanes.
[55:08.220 --> 55:11.440]  Well, it's takeoff and landings is when you don't want to use the airplane.
[55:11.580 --> 55:12.740]  I'm an aerospace engineer.
[55:12.940 --> 55:16.440]  Takeoff and landings is when everything has to be just right.
[55:16.440 --> 55:17.840]  This is where you don't want mistakes.
[55:17.840 --> 55:20.140]  The rest of the time, you can use your cell phone.
[55:20.260 --> 55:25.600]  Actually, I believe JetBlue is trying to put in a system where you can use your cell phone while you're flying.
[55:25.720 --> 55:27.880]  You're going to put an onboard cell site.
[55:28.140 --> 55:28.740]  Oh, joy.
[55:29.460 --> 55:31.020]  I'm looking forward to that so much.
[55:31.740 --> 55:36.220]  Continental is now trying to put in so that you can surf the web while you're flying.
[55:36.400 --> 55:37.040]  A lot of airlines.
[55:37.300 --> 55:41.880]  I've had a couple of people talk to me while they're flying on commercial aircraft over AIM, and I thought that was fascinating.
[55:42.640 --> 55:43.900]  Yeah, it's pretty nice.
[55:44.440 --> 55:45.560]  They're getting cutting edge.
[55:45.740 --> 55:53.560]  They're trying now to make it do transatlantic or trans-pacific because right now it doesn't work that way because the satellite's not pointing over the ocean so it can pick up.
[55:53.620 --> 55:56.240]  But they're working on low-orbit satellites so they can do that as well.
[55:56.660 --> 55:58.420]  But it's pretty cool technology.
[55:58.840 --> 55:59.600]  I love your show.
[55:59.720 --> 56:00.300]  Always listen.
[56:00.360 --> 56:01.600]  You guys have a great Christmas.
[56:02.000 --> 56:02.280]  Thanks.
[56:02.460 --> 56:02.720]  Take care.
[56:03.340 --> 56:03.660]  All right.
[56:03.720 --> 56:11.100]  We can only hope that if they do put cell phones on planes that they'll cost a lot of money to use.
[56:11.620 --> 56:14.340]  Yeah, but you know, you don't have to talk loudly on a cell phone.
[56:14.440 --> 56:17.980]  Here in Paris, people communicate, and they're quiet about it.
[56:18.100 --> 56:21.200]  On trains, in massive hallways, they're not making a lot of noise.
[56:21.240 --> 56:23.200]  On cell phones, it's an attitude.
[56:24.240 --> 56:34.560]  In honor of the holidays, the 25th is, and in honor of gravity, the 25th is Newton's birthday, so happy Grav Mass, everybody.
[56:34.860 --> 56:47.380]  Can I also just point out that there are 2,600 meetings coming up on January 1st in some parts of the world, but in other parts, including New York, the meetings have been postponed one week because it's a holiday, and the venues that we frequent are closed.
[56:48.000 --> 56:54.120]  So check your local website for your 2,600 meetings to see if yours is on on the 1st or the 8th, or both.
[56:54.340 --> 56:54.580]  All right.
[56:54.640 --> 56:56.560]  And I think with that, we're out of time.
[56:56.940 --> 56:57.520]  All right, guys.
[56:57.580 --> 56:58.040]  It's been fun.
[56:58.180 --> 57:00.100]  And I'll talk to you from Berlin next week.
[57:00.280 --> 57:00.580]  All right.
[57:00.760 --> 57:01.460]  See you next week.
[57:02.060 --> 57:02.920]  Merry Christmas, everyone.
[57:02.920 --> 57:05.900]  You must be older than 18.
[57:06.500 --> 57:09.700]  All major credit cards accepted.
[57:12.000 --> 57:14.080]  I love you in the Internet.
[57:15.240 --> 57:17.000]  Computer 6 in the online bed.
[57:18.320 --> 57:20.120]  It's been through Beids and bits genitzt.
[57:37.420 --> 57:42.380]  She doesn't cook.
[57:45.640 --> 57:48.160]  She doesn't clean.
[57:51.650 --> 57:53.910]  She lives inside.
[58:07.520 --> 58:09.660]  The Blonde or the Brunette.
[58:10.500 --> 58:12.640]  I have all of them on the diskette.
[58:14.140 --> 58:18.620]  The love will be placed in an abandoned world.
[58:19.380 --> 58:23.920]  The price will be traded before, after the lady plays over.
[58:25.260 --> 58:26.940]  No amount of emotion.
[58:28.440 --> 58:31.520]  Virtual erection in the version of the function.
[58:36.260 --> 58:37.940]  She doesn't cook.
[58:41.550 --> 58:43.690]  She doesn't clean.
[58:47.430 --> 58:49.490]  She lives inside.
[59:22.510 --> 59:24.410]  She loves to scream.
[59:28.560 --> 59:36.200]  She loves to stay here on screen.
[59:39.940 --> 59:42.060]  As long as you pay.