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The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
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We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
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Yes, hi.
And out in Signal Land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And we have Alex.
Yeah, you do.
Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. I mean, barely. Can you hear me?
Yes, Alex, we can hear you.
There could be one week where you're able to make a good connection without all the dramatics.
Oh, for God's sakes. Well, it's very dramatic tonight.
I'm in Seville. I'm in Spain. I'm in southern Spain, and I'm in a karaoke bar.
Why, in God's name, are you in a karaoke bar when we have to be on the radio?
Well, I misjudged time and space.
Yes. That is the understatement of the week.
What song did you pick?
I didn't picked anything. It was just way too far to get to this goddamn place.
It's impossible to get back, so I'm hanging out in a secret karaoke room that nobody is using.
You might be able to hear this in the background. I apologize, but I'm stuck here for the hour.
For the hour beyond that, too, when we do overtime as well.
Yeah, I'll try to hang out for a little bit if I can.
You will hang out. You have commitments.
Yeah, I do have commitments. Yeah, I should be committed, is what you mean.
It can be arranged.
Well, okay, so let's move on. We have all kinds of interesting things to talk about tonight.
First of all, there's a lot of drama going on in Manhattan tonight.
You guys aware of this?
No.
Okay, one of you is and one of you isn't. The one who is, why don't you tell us what's going on?
Well, I assume you're referring to the fact that chunks of Midtown Manhattan are closed off due to the Knicks game that's going on.
I believe that's basketball.
Yes, and I think you know it's basketball.
We can dispense with not knowing anything about what's going on, but yeah, it's happening.
And the streets are being turned into pandemonium.
What just happened, though, fairly recently, within the last couple of hours, you know how they have those outdoor watch parties?
They were canceled after everybody was preparing to show up at one of these watch parties.
Madison Square Garden, James Dolan, in fact, the guy who owns everything, he canceled it.
He got in a hissy fit with the mayor, apparently.
And this is just a crazy story you're going to be hearing about for quite some time.
But hours before Game 4 of the NBA final, the watch party outside Madison Square Garden was canceled after a spat erupted between the mayor and the garden's owner.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Mayor Zoran Mondani said that James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks, had decided to cancel the watch party.
A call he said was breaking hearts across our city.
In a radio interview on the Craig Carton show, whatever that is, Mr. Dolan blamed Mr. Mondani and Jessica Tish, the police commissioner, for enhanced security measures across around the arena on Monday.
Well, hang on a second.
The damn president was here.
That's why they had to have all these enhanced security measures.
So what, the owner of Madison Square Garden, who sat next to Trump, is pissed off that there was security on Monday.
You really, you need a chart to follow all this.
It's insane.
Yeah, so Dolan attacked both Jessica Tish and Zoran Mondani as being inexperienced.
Here we go.
And intent on disrupting the team's run through the playoffs, which has captivated New York City and fans hungry for a title that has eluded them for more than 50 years.
Because, yeah, does it make sense that the mayor wants to disrupt that?
I don't think any mayor would want to disrupt that.
This is about celebrating the Knicks at Madison Square Garden at the Mecca of basketball, Dolan said.
This is what the mayor's office and the commissioner's office is trying to kill.
They don't want the celebration.
I think what might have happened on Monday was when the two of them were sitting next to each other, some notes were passed, some plans were hatched.
And basically, Trump told Dolan to start an insane narrative, which is his specialty.
And, yeah, people will just follow that.
Because, yeah, it makes perfect sense that the police commissioner and the mayor want to kill the celebrations in the streets of New York City.
Yeah, the city approved the permit.
It was all ready to go.
And I guess Dolan has the power to just cancel things.
Watch out for that guy.
He's a snake in the grass.
Now I'm probably banned from Madison Square Garden, although I did say I wanted to be banned in the past because of their insane facial recognition, cross-referencing.
If you're working for a law firm that is involved in a lawsuit with Madison Square Garden, and that's pretty much every law firm, you will be kicked out of, well, if you're in there right now at the finals, you'll be kicked out.
Somebody will find you and throw you onto the street.
And somehow that's legal.
We've talked about that many times on this show.
These little fiefdoms that pop up.
We're going to see a lot of that with the World Cup coming up starting tomorrow.
But this, this is another level of insanity.
And I think it's going to lead to some unrest in the streets because you can't have a bunch of fans expecting to show up and be somewhere and then told, no, you can't be here.
Go home or go somewhere else.
They're already rioting when they win.
They're rioting when they lose.
How do you think they're going to act when they're told they can't even be around for no particular reason?
Just because some, some rich guy decided that you can't be there.
It's not going to, not going to go over well.
And when that happens, I'm predicting this as I go.
Trump will say, aha, that proves we have to send ICE in to maintain order and martial law and all that.
Do you think I'm far off at least, Rob?
I don't think you're far off at all.
I mean, it's, it's been known for generations in this part of the world that James Dolan is a billionaire.
He is a very grouchy billionaire.
He likes taking petty little swipes at people he feels slighted him in some way.
And I could definitely see, I could definitely see him wanting to just in general squash these parties where people are watching the game at his stadium without paying him somehow.
And, and also like he's, he's pals with Trump.
So I do think that, yeah, notes could have been passed, you know, maybe hand signals, maybe, you know, just gazes in one another's eyes.
They were both, they were both sleeping.
So I don't think there was much, much physical motion there.
Yeah.
But, but I think, I think it's very, it's very reasonable to suspect that there were ulterior motives to all this on his part.
So now this guy, he owns Madison Square Gardeners.
All right.
He owns Madison Square.
Where he owns so many.
Does he own the Knicks as well?
Does he also own the Knicks?
That I don't know.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Let's, let's get the research team on this.
Yes.
He, he, yeah, he, he is the company, the company chairman of Madison Square Entertainment, MSG Networks, supervises day-to-day operations of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers.
Yeah.
So apparently, doesn't he own the cable company too, Optimum?
I think he owns that as well.
How, okay.
This guy owns everything.
And yet he still throws these hissy fits when he doesn't get, I don't even know how he didn't get his way in this particular case.
But I swear, if this isn't proof that too much money is a sickness and is bad for your health and the health of everyone around you, nothing, nothing can prove it better than this.
Nothing.
Alex, you're blurry.
So I can't see if you're waving at me or anything.
But if you have something to say, now's the time.
Yeah, I'll say I'm trying to conserve bandwidth here by turning off my, my video.
So I might be a little bit delayed.
And if there's difficulty hearing me, let me know.
But I think that the issue isn't joined here in the sense of I have no idea what the Dolans and Mom Donnie are fighting about.
What the hell is it?
I've heard totally conflicting things coming out of your mouth about this particular issue and what's happening right now in New York.
I really have no idea what it is, but it sounds stupid.
And I think that they're probably, in my opinion, both wrong.
I'm not a fan, as you know, of either Mom Donnie or the Dolans.
I don't like billionaires.
I'd also don't like I'm not particularly, you know, enamored with this with this mayor.
I hope he does great.
That'd be wonderful.
But you have to also realize you're dealing with the city bureaucracy here.
You should never presume that government bureaucracy is on the side of virtue.
OK, that is that I think that's the wrong presumption to make in every situation here.
Well, I'm not sure how virtue plays into it when you're just talking about people gathering in a street.
But Emmanuel, we're talking about any time we talk about Mom Donnie, you assume that he's he's operating on, you know, in some virtuous capacity.
OK, fine.
Then let's talk about Tish.
Let's talk about the police commissioner.
OK, she's she's more more right wing to your liking.
All right.
And I'm defending my liking.
I'm defending her.
Don't cast me in that.
I'm trying to make it easy for you.
Look, she is is is not a socialist.
So they granted the permit and basically Dolan said, no, you can't do it in front of my my my palace or whatever.
I don't see another side to that.
I see one guy exercising his power and saying he's pissed off that people have to go through security on a day when Trump isn't here.
And, you know, I'm not one to to generally advocate more security for for public events.
I think we have enough already.
But this is in the street.
These are free events.
And there's been all kinds of trouble over the past several events.
So I'm not sure how much security this guy is talking about.
I can't imagine him getting that angry at somebody having to go through what a metal detector or something.
OK, so why is that bending him out of shape so much?
Something doesn't add up here.
Whereas it's a pretty simple position the mayor and the police commissioner are taking.
Let the people come.
Let the people stay in the street and watch the game.
That's it.
Rob, I mean, maybe.
But I don't know.
I still don't really understand what the issues are.
I think they're I think it's more complex.
How is it?
What's more complex?
What could be more complex than that?
There's there's liability issues associated with using anybody's property to have some kind of public celebration on a massive scale.
And if the don'ts don't want that to happen on their property without the city and properly indemnifying them, I can completely understand that.
That's not anything unreasonable.
You wouldn't allow the city of New York to have a party on your property without some kind of indemnification procedure.
Hang on.
They've had a dozen of these things already.
Are you saying that the city changed the terms at the last minute?
I'm not saying anything, Emmanuel.
I don't know what what has happened here.
But I think you're raising these these issues that might be true.
So do you really think that's possible that the city would on the very at the very last moment suddenly say, you know what, we're not going to cover you anymore if something happens on your property?
I mean, that seems easy to identify and extremely stupid.
And if they did that, yeah, I'll agree with you.
That was that was a really dumb move.
But I don't see that.
It doesn't I'm much more predisposed to think that this is a billionaire tantrum.
I just I just it has all the earmarks of that.
Rob, go ahead.
Well, it wouldn't be the first one we've seen.
OK, but it also wouldn't be the first time that we've seen government bureaucracy getting in the way of something fun happening.
Yeah, I don't see it here because, you know, you had the two of them.
You had Trump and Dolan meeting on Monday.
And now all of a sudden this happens.
It's it doesn't make any sense.
Rob, go ahead.
Yeah, that's the thing is like the garden requested the permit for the party.
It was Dolan's, you know, it was Dolan's Madison Square Garden that requested the permit for the party.
The city personified by the mayor, the police commissioner, whoever said, yes, OK, go ahead.
And they were ready to go.
And then it's Dolan who said, wait, no, I'm psyched.
I'm not going to do it.
So, you know, I don't think there are really two sides to this thing.
It's it's clear which which party did what.
Well, we're going to find out.
There's no question about that because they they won't be able to bury this.
But I want to move on.
They want to talk about basketball or riots in the street.
Well, maybe riots in the street if they happen, because, well, that's always interesting.
But we got a letter from from a listener named Frank, who says I'm not sure why he says that.
First off, Emanuel, I am human.
OK, listeners, you don't have to say that every time because we got we're going to assume you're human.
It's not quite the reckoning yet where we have to deal with artificial intelligence talking to us personally.
I can confirm I am not artificial.
I'm not sure about the intelligence part.
I assume you I assume you have heard or seen this already.
But bringing it to your attention, as I would like your thoughts on this.
Well, guess what, Frank?
I did not know about this.
What what you sent me, what you sent me, it knocked me to the ground.
It really did.
It's a website.
Maybe some of you have gone to this website.
Maybe some of you have accessed this website.
And by that, I mean, logged into it and controlled it.
It's called www.whitehouse.gov.
We've all heard of it, right?
Whitehouse.gov.
Yeah, I see a lot of blank stares.
OK, yeah.
All right.
All right.
So we all know that we're familiar with what we're talking about.
That is the website run at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
There is another directory beyond whitehouse.gov.
Are you ready?
You're going to type this in.
Whitehouse.gov slash aliens.
Yeah.
Aliens.
Now, when I when I saw this, I'm like, oh, boy, what what are they doing now?
And sure enough, there is this green writing on black background saying they walk among us.
Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods and interacting with us in our daily lives.
And that's about the time when I realized, OK, I see where this is going.
They've shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children and lived seemingly normal human existences.
With one exception, they do not belong here.
Oh, my God.
It just goes on from there, descending into all kinds of racist hatred.
And you realize that this is just what Trump considers to be something clever.
And it's just something completely hateful.
It ends with the truth is no longer out there.
It is right here, right now.
And then you get these numbers.
What is this?
Three million one hundred and thirty thousand seventy six encounters.
Then there's an alien arrest map, which is a bunch of nonsense without any real evidence of anything.
It's just basically listing a bunch of crimes and nothing, nothing linking them to anyone from a particular place.
But the thing that really is getting me concerned here is this big red box that says report suspicious aliens, ice tip line on the damn White House.
There's a button to hit to report.
Well, I was going to say your fellow citizen, but I know they jump all over me if I said that your fellow human being.
How about that?
Is that is that too much?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So if you click that, you get an ice tip form basically asks you one question.
Are you a law enforcement officer?
Yes or no.
And then there's a privacy notice underneath that, a capture.
And then you submit.
Yeah.
You haven't actually said anything yet.
And I haven't got to the point of of actually hitting that button to see what what lies beyond.
But this is just so incredibly disturbing.
Rob, are you familiar with this?
Did you know about this?
I knew about this because of this listener who wrote to us.
And, you know, yes, it's at whitehouse.gov slash aliens.
But it is also accessible by just typing in aliens dot gov.
That's a domain now.
And it redirects to this.
And yeah, you only scratch the surface of what this actually looks like.
And it is it is glowing green text on a background that is black with animated stars scrolling through it.
It is basically if you were around on the web in the 90s and looked at any X-Files fan site, this is what it looked like.
But with the trappings of this and with little illusions like the truth is is out there and such, they are using that to put forth such hate.
And this this disgusting map, which it must be said, the little clickable red areas on the map are stylized as blood spatters.
You click on any of these and it brings up just a sourceless list of supposed arrests and their countries of origin and the criminal charges brought up against some people that they're claiming exist.
There's a little checkbox that says gang affiliation.
And it's actually powered by open map tiles, which is itself powered by open street maps.
So they're they're throwing open source software into this instead of just using a Google Maps.
There's something to be said for that, but they're using it for something so disgusting.
This is offensive that this exists on, you know, the dot gov TLD and that all of our taxes go some way toward paying for this.
I don't often call for open warfare against the website, but in this particular case, I think it's warranted.
This is disgusting.
This is hateful.
I want to read you something that that comes from another page that just popped up how it even popped up, but it did.
If you've witnessed an alien abduction, do not be alarmed.
The alien is in good hands.
They're referring to an ice raid.
We will take care of it.
It we will take care of it and return it safely to its place of origin.
There are words I want to use right now that I can't use, but this is so disgusting.
I want to break their servers.
I really do.
This it just cannot be allowed to stand in our name.
You know, whitehouse.gov.
It used to mean something.
It used to mean you were in serious trouble if you actually did access it because it was taken seriously.
But this whitehouse.gov slash aliens.
Oh, my God.
This is I I wish I had more words.
I really do.
Well, thank you, Frank, for making me obsess over this.
Now, this is really crazy.
I don't know how long it's been around.
For all I know, it's been up for a year.
But it's it's it's truly disgusting.
Yes, Kyle.
It's also really making it confusing for some of the other materials and subject matter that are of great importance and quite timely.
And putting something like this in the way, it's just makes it really hard to get the information you need.
Are you talking about on whitehouse.gov or somewhere else?
Yeah, with all the other disclosures and information.
So, yeah, this is just a waste of time.
It really is.
It really is.
Yes, Rob.
Yeah.
Just pulling down the who is for the aliens.gov domain reveals that it was created in March of this year.
So comparatively recently, I don't know when the site went live, but that's when they that's when they put the domain up.
Well, I'd like to know who's running it.
Is this an ice thing?
Is this, you know, a Barron Trump thing?
Yeah, who who's, you know, spending time peddling all this hatred and trying to get people just just grabbed off the street and referring to to immigrants as objects?
It's disgusting.
Well, in the who is output for this, there there is there are the fields which usually give you contact info for the person or entity behind the domain.
On this one, the registrant organization is listed as executive officer of the president.
All the other fields in this address, state, postal code are redacted for privacy.
So in their in their own in their own domain records here, they're very concerned about keeping themselves private and not giving any.
In fairness, everybody does that these days.
You know, I again, this is where I stray off the path.
I think that there should be some identity when you look up a site used to be when you type to is followed by a domain name.
You'd find out who registered that site.
Now, everybody, it's anonymous and it could be anybody.
And I just I even have the who is command.
It doesn't do anything.
You can have you can have a fake name.
You know, it wasn't like people were checking your I.D.
But what fake name you you chose said something about who you were.
You know, and I think that's something that we're entitled to know who runs that site.
The admin organization is given as the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency and their address in Arlington, Virginia.
So CISA, C-I-S-A, that's that's who's adminning the site.
But I think they just admin all the dot gov site, don't they, Alex?
Yeah, that's listed as basically the registrant and the registrant organization for most dot gov news sites.
It's not necessarily all the old sites and not necessarily all the sites that are associated with the executive office of the president as well.
But I remember picking this up back in March and thinking it was weird, extraordinarily weird.
Wait, why don't we talk about this in March then?
Because, boy, this is weird.
Yeah, it's very strange, but it didn't resolve back then.
It was just a new domain.
Who knew what the hell they were going to do?
But nobody knew that the content and the content really is what the crux of the issue is here.
Nobody knew that the content was actually not going to have to do with actual aliens, as in interplanetary visitors.
But about ICE itself, it's unbelievably cheap and tawdry, what they've done.
It's the kind of thing that I think that the American people should feel hoodwinked about this and should feel really sad about their tax dollars being spent on this kind of nonsense.
Especially in New York, especially in states where we have so rebelled against what ICE has been doing.
And, of course, I myself have been parted to so many lawsuits against ICE in the form of writs of habeas purpose to try to get their detainees that are being held unconstitutionally out of detention.
What's your record on those cases?
My record is 5-0.
5-0?
I've won every single case.
Every single case against ICE.
Because what they're doing is so blatantly unconstitutional that any time it goes in front of a judge, it is easily overturned.
Well, hang on a second.
We've all seen what judges are doing lately.
And there are plenty of judges that don't seem to care about what's constitutional and what's not.
How is it you've never run up against one of those?
Well, I have.
I have run up against a judge in the Southern District of New York that routinely found for ICE over and over and over again.
But, look, any good lawyer has a strategy how to deal with a difficult judge.
My strategy in that particular case was to delay the disposition of that particular matter because there was an issue on appeal that would have decided this issue of the statutory authority of ICE if it was decided in time.
And it turned out that, well, I went and saw the appellate argument in the Second Circuit down in Southern Manhattan, realized that the writing was on the wall that the government was going to lose on this issue, further stalled the case up until the point where a decision was issued.
And then the judge that I was in front of that routinely found for ICE could no longer find for ICE because that law no longer existed.
There was appellate authority that prevented that particular judge from finding in that way.
So, you know, there's all kinds of technical things that you can do to deal with this.
But we just happened to have a case on appeal dealing with the same exact issue and won that case on appeal.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
But you have to be cognizant of all these things.
But, look, to go back to aliens.gov, Emmanuel, this is insane.
Insane.
And, Rob, I totally agree with you.
I mean, the aesthetic quality of aliens.gov, it looks like some cheap, tawdry site from, like, 1997 that somebody created.
It's unbelievably stupid.
But can we just say more frequently than aliens.gov, whitehouse.gov slash aliens?
Because it's the damn White House pushing this.
It's on their site, you know?
And I think that's a hell of a lot worse than just aliens.gov, you know?
They put all kinds of weird things in the .gov domain.
Emmanuel, I think we should hold them to account for more than just one single second-level domain in that top-level domain .gov.
I think the government, as the federal government of the United States of America, should be responsible for anything that's in the zone file of the .gov top-level domain.
And aliens.gov is insane.
And I think we need to hold them to account for everything there.
Go ahead, Rob.
Not only that.
I mean, going back to the passage referring to people as it.
I mean, this is hate speech.
Plain and simple.
This is hate speech.
Every suppressive power, the fascists, the Nazis, you know, starts at treating people as though they are things.
Dehumanizing the people that you don't like or that you're afraid of.
That is tool one in their toolbox.
And, you know, that is what leads to crosses being burnt on lawns.
That is what leads to all sorts of brutality on massive scales.
And it's on whitehouse.gov.
It is being put out there by the United States government.
I am shaken by this.
Yeah, and it's not just limited to here.
You see the ugliness going on in the U.K. right now.
It's not far from any of our cities, from any of our cultures, the hatred, the ignorance, the violence.
It's something that we all have to be watching.
And unfortunately, those people who are in charge are amongst the biggest perpetrators of this right now.
It's really kind of sad.
All right, let's move on to what we were talking about last week, which was the whole 60 Minutes snafu.
We got a good amount of mail on that as well.
But an interesting connection that our good friend Aesthetics was able to share with us.
I want to draw your attention, he says, to something interesting I found.
Apparently, Nick Bilton, you all know who Nick Bilton is?
He's the boss right now, the guy who fired Scott Pele, because Scott Pele said that he was minimally qualified and they're murdering 60 Minutes and killing news and all that kind of thing.
Okay, this is the guy who fired him, couldn't handle criticism.
Turns out that Nick Bilton is one of the founders of the hackerspace known as NYC Resistor.
Ain't that something?
Wow.
A place we've been to, a place we know well, a place we know quite a few people.
And if you go to the Wikipedia page, you see that he is one of the founders.
In fact, I have it on good authority that he would sign his name, Nick Zister.
Okay, well, that's something.
So, yeah, it's all kinds of, I guess, rings of familiarity or whatever.
Whatever that's called.
I'm sorry, I'm in a 95 degree room again, so I'm having a little trouble with putting thoughts together.
Yeah, same here.
But it's always interesting.
It's a small world when people that you've known or known of, at least from the local hacker scene, turn out to be these people making news on international levels for better or for worse.
You know, we had Beta O'Rourke not too long ago, and now we've got Nick Bilton as the latest member of that club.
Well, Beta O'Rourke was just, you know, went to what, a CDC meeting or something?
I think he might have been at a Hope conference.
But starting a hackerspace, that's a couple of steps above that.
Yeah, there's always a connection somewhere.
I just, I missed where NYC Resistor put up a class in destroying TV news institutions.
I must have been sick that week.
Yeah.
All right.
People are multifaceted.
We will be on overtime tonight, if you want more of this, on YouTube, 8 o'clock, channel 2600, where we take phone calls and say what's really on our minds.
Because right now, it's kind of unbearably hot in here.
Alex, tell us what's going on where you are.
There's all kinds of weird noises and things happening in this room.
You know, I'm hidden away in this secret karaoke room in Seville, and people could walk in at any moment here.
I have to warn you.
But I would like to know what the hell happened to Beta O'Rourke.
Like, you know, I was trying to remember this guy's name that was part of the CDC, and you mentioned him.
Like, he just came off the tip of your tongue, Rob.
You know, like you've been thinking about him recently.
I hadn't thought about this guy in years.
Whatever happened to Beta O'Rourke?
People stopped thinking about him for years.
That's what happened.
Yeah.
He just kind of disappeared.
But, I mean, really, where is he?
What is he doing?
Do we have any idea?
Anybody knows what Beta O'Rourke is right now?
If he's at the Knicks game, let us know that.
If he's at his house in Texas, Alex seems to want to know that for some reason.
I think he's campaigning in Texas for local politics.
But not himself.
I don't think he's running.
I think he's out there advocating for different positions and races that he cares about.
Okay.
He ran for governor of Texas in 2022.
And I think that may have been his last run for office as such.
Yeah.
But that's not to say there's, like, sort of a lack of political engagement.
Specifically, Texas, I think there's a lot of desire for, you know, for it to be in play in ways it hasn't been in the past.
Yeah.
I think it's us that are not in tune with what's going on in Texas.
I'm sure if you were there, you would hear his name more than you hear it here.
And that might be unfortunate.
He has a lot to say.
But maybe we'll hear more from him in the months ahead.
It's been an interesting political year so far.
It's going to get more interesting.
Well, and it's also, I guess, the subtext here being that it kind of has become remarkable or unremarkable, the connections to technology and hacking.
A lot of people that grew up with this stuff are now engaged in what are otherwise sort of stereotypically grown-up activities, like getting involved in politics or whatever the case may be.
Subverting Western democracy.
And that's kind of what I was joking at.
But, yeah, it is the case.
And, yeah, maybe as adults they don't care about journalism or freedom of speech, you know, as much or in ways they did when they were sort of just starting out getting to understand who they are.
Yeah, and, you know, these people do move in our circles to a degree.
Everybody knows somebody who knows one of the players.
And it's really nothing to be proud of, nothing to boast about.
It's kind of embarrassing, actually.
Sometimes very sad.
You feel like you could have stopped it.
You could have done something and prevented all this evil from taking root.
But it's not that easy.
You don't always see it coming.
The most you can do is look for the signs that you missed from years ago and write a screenplay, I guess.
I don't know.
I'm not sure what the answer is.
But also, you know, whenever you're involved in something that's growing, that's taking off, whether it's cryptocurrency or hacking or anything in the technology world,
a lot of the people that you're hanging out with are going to turn into extremely powerful people, and you won't recognize them.
And you might have an opportunity to influence them, maybe instill some values.
But I wouldn't count on it.
I wouldn't count on it.
I don't want to sound too negative, but it's just it's insane what is going on right now with AI, with data centers.
Okay, Seattle, this was an interesting story.
In Seattle, they are putting a moratorium on AI data centers, the home of Amazon and Microsoft.
They actually passed a moratorium.
A year-long moratorium.
Well, it's not that much, really.
Seattle said no more AI data centers for a year.
The city council voted unanimously in favor of the temporary ban yesterday.
A major tech hub whose metro area is home to Amazon and Microsoft.
Seattle is the largest U.S. city to have passed such moratorium as the backlash against AI infrastructure grows across the country.
Lawmakers have framed the pause as an opportunity to draft regulations, specifically targeting the electricity-hungry data centers being built nationwide to serve the AI sector and to protect local residents from environmental risks and rising electricity bills.
Okay, there's a couple of things I don't understand here.
These guys, they move into town and they suck all the electricity out and somehow it's the people who live there who are paying more for electricity.
If a company is going to do this, they should be in the business of generating electricity to cover their needs and to reimburse the neighborhood that they are destroying in one way or another.
It's just insane to me that I see place after place that welcomes these huge companies, allows them not to pay taxes, gives them discounts on energy, hurts the people who live there, and just asks for more.
I mean, you know, we see the ugliness of FIFA, what they're doing to various cities that they park their van in.
And what is with leadership that allows this kind of thing?
Well, a lot of these deals are being done in secret.
I know Aaron Brockovich was creating a map and talking about this and reporting on it amongst many other public interest groups.
And the fact is, they're just happening everywhere, unmasked, under codenamed, you know, secret, kind of really discreet public filings.
And basically, a lot of that information is cloaked so that for the express reason of obfuscating their purpose or their ownership or their interests or what its purpose will ultimately be.
And, yeah, the thing with generating electricity, yeah, they've been encouraged.
That's sort of one of the rationales now is that, okay, fine, you can build these places, but you have to make your own electricity.
But they tend to install portable, like, turbine generators that themselves can become, that are a part of the noise generation and other forms of pollutants and consuming resources in that community.
And they need a vast amount of them with sort of, from what I understand, really kind of specious plans to ever replace them with something a little bit cleaner or a little bit more suited for the long term, especially as it keeps growing and growing and growing.
Now, that's a huge generalization I'm willing to grant, but it's that kind of mental that's landed us here.
So then the data centers become sited and placed in places and communities that are a little bit further away, have less population or resist it.
But it's out now sort of pretty corrupt as far as getting into these cities with these contracts and not having a public forum or a comment period, at least, and other sorts of moments to actually plan it.
And that, I think, is the reason the Seattle thing, yeah, though it's a year, well, it's a year to take off to actually come up with a way to be kind of on top of this in the future when projects are submitted, to actually have a way of evaluating specific criteria to manage the influx of these types of facilities.
I think, you know, I think, you know, I think, you know, the easiest way to manage it is just to say no, and I keep saying no.
I cannot understand why anybody would welcome such a data center that makes noise, that uses power, and that somehow raises what they are paying, what people living there are paying for electricity, all the while not paying their fair share in taxes, not doing anything for the community.
Why would anybody support that?
I don't get, I mean, I could see why corrupt politicians and local business leaders would support, they'll get something out of it, but the people who live there, they won't get anything except maybe some diseases.
So they should be the ones to decide once and for all who gets to do what in their community.
Listen to this, the Seattle Times reported in April that five proposed data centers could consume up to a third, up to a third of Seattle's current demand for electricity.
It was at that point that lawmakers moved to impose a moratorium.
That's what it took, a third of the electricity in Seattle.
Local tech workers, including activist groups such as Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, met with policymakers on the topic and mounted a letter-writing campaign that sent nearly 100,000 emails to local lawmakers.
Whew.
You know, I feel like it's a good first step, but it's such a tiny step.
A one-year moratorium is nothing.
That just shows you that, like, they are, they have a lot of catching up to do.
They're not really, that they're not really aware of the sentiment on the ground.
Like, I think they have a huge gap in what their sense of this is and what people's actual feelings are and inclinations.
Like, the facts on the ground, as you kind of listed off, are more in line with it than the political solutions.
They do seem really kind of paltry, like kind of inadequate by comparison.
And the funny thing is, we didn't even touch upon the evils of AI taking away everyone's jobs.
The same people living in those communities no longer have jobs now because AI replaced them.
And that's where you get into, like, the, okay, so who's cashing in?
So you have a gold rush, right?
You have contractors.
You have different kinds of construction.
Remember those people I was talking about that you grew up with that you see become more and more powerful?
Those people, they're the ones benefiting from this.
The evil people out there.
But, okay, before we start popping champagne on this, there was an amendment to the moratorium that passed unanimously last week.
It allows existing data centers in Seattle to apply for expansions requiring up to 20 megawatts of additional power during that year-long pause.
Well, you think they're all going to do that?
I do.
Activists are concerned that provision may lead to a spike in data centers' demand for power while the moratorium is in place and may undermine the premise of the pause.
You think?
Yeah, of course.
I can't believe that passed.
Well, what is it?
Half a rack?
Like, 20 megawatts?
Like, that's, like, just a couple you, right?
For AI?
Yes, Rob.
Go ahead.
I mean, this, I, you know, kudos to Seattle for staving this off at least a little bit in a meaningful way because it warms my heart when these people are told no, and that's not happening nearly enough.
This whole bubble is being fueled by, you know, tech bros and their minions basically going off to local governments everywhere, going, you know, putting out a big spiel like they're selling a monorail to Springfield and getting entrenched and putting up a data center which makes life around it worse for the people who live there, which, you know, takes space and health and everything away from them.
And the real mind blower of the whole thing is that this whole field has yet to show a profit.
They're pouring money into this because it is a bubble.
You have to pour money into a bubble for it to keep bubbling.
When this pops, it's going to be disastrous.
I'm wondering, like, what plans there are for use of these data center spaces after this all crashes.
You know, can we easily convert these into shopping malls or swimming pools or something?
But it's interesting to watch when they actually get told no by the people who live there.
You know, they didn't get to the right government official and allow some money to fall into their pocket or something to get their plan approved.
Go ahead, Alex.
You know, I think Rob is on something here when he mentions something interesting about when these people are told no.
But because they're going to be told no over and over and over and over and over here, the federal government doesn't have...
This is the future, folks.
This is the sound of the future.
Is there any way you can get a better signal, Alex?
Alex, no.
I've even asked if there's Wi-Fi in this place, and they quickly turn me down.
Can you hear me all right?
We hear a sound.
Not exactly words, but keep trying.
You're kind of underwater.
Maybe if you shut your video and have more bandwidth for sound.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, I didn't realize...
Yeah, we don't need to see you.
Is that...
You don't need...
Is this any better?
Yeah, it is better.
Basically.
Okay, good.
Yeah.
So let me get to the signal here, then.
I think Rob is right, and I think these people are going to be told over and over and over again, no, no, no, no, no.
Because the federal government doesn't necessarily have the right to tell these people no.
We can't expect the federal government to do this.
This is an issue about land use.
This is a local issue for local people, for local votes to decide about how their local land is used in one way or another.
And it's up to them to decide whether or not they want to have a data center that pollutes their environment, disrupts their lives, disrupts their wildlife, and doesn't really provide anything meaningful in return to their community.
And, of course, all of them are going to say, no, this is creating a massive wedge in the Republican Party between the Trumpers who have basically said, you know, AI at any cost here.
Do whatever you need for America to lead in AI and the local politicians who are dealing with the fallout of this.
And we've talked about this in the past, and there are plenty of Republican politicians who have pushed back against this.
And I think we need to applaud those politicians who have pushed forward these local issues against the Trump administration's agenda of expansion at any cost because it's absolutely wrong.
It's absolutely wrong, and I like the idea of local democracy working, and if this is what it takes, this is what we have to do.
Well, it is going to be a battle because the federal government is not going to be interested in protecting people at all from rampant data centers everywhere.
They basically want to be able to step in and get whatever they want and just step over state government, local government, you name it.
Voter ID is a good example of that, how the feds want to create a national ID database under the - basically fooling people into thinking that it somehow makes voting more secure.
We don't have time to get into that.
We will get into that for sure.
But right now we're going to be moving over to YouTube at 8 o'clock, and you can join us by going to Channel 2600 over on YouTube.com or clicking the link that's on the webpage, 2600.com, and we will hopefully see you there.
In any case, we'll be back next week, hopefully celebrating the Knicks dramatic victory.
And write to us, O-T-H at 2600.com.
Hopefully, it will be less than 95 degrees next week.
All right.
Good night, everyone.
See you later.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my gosh.
Easy, easy.
Hold it down, hold it down.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my gosh.
Easy, easy.
Hold it down, hold it down.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh my gosh
Oh my gosh
Easy
Yes, you came
Oh my gosh
Oh my gosh


And welcome everybody to Off the Hook Overtime. Yes, that's the name of the show, Off the Hook Overtime, here on YouTube.
Manuel over here, Barely, Kyle, Mick to the overheated studios, and out there in Signal Land. Rob and Alex, you both make it okay?
Here I am. And I think Alex might be expiring over there.
He was just there. I just saw him.
He was. But we are live on YouTube. I don't know if Alex lost his signal or what. He returns.
Wow. Alex, how do you find places with such shitty connections week after week?
Even in the middle of New York City, you're able to do it. It's a special skill.
You're talking to me. I'm in freaking Spain right now. I mean, you can't fault me with that.
I'm in a karaoke bar at 2 o'clock in the morning, Thursday. Okay? You've got to give me something. You can't be all fault here, all right? You've got to be like, all right, I give you credit for making this.
I don't know what the hell you just said, but it sounds like you're trying to throw the blame over here, and that's not going to work.
Because you can't even get the words out to do it.
I'm just casting the shade back into a place where it belongs. That's all.
Can I make a suggestion that maybe nobody's thought of in the last 10 years? Why don't you just make a phone call to us? Talk to us on the phone. Can you do that?
That's actually a great idea. I don't know why anybody's ever done that.
Because people don't think of old retro technology, which unfortunately is what a cell phone is these days.
Yeah. I mean, that would solve the entire pandemic.
It would. But we just have to turn the phone line on, and you have to make sure you call before Rebel does.
Oh, my God. This is what I'm dealing with here. There's this weird signal bleed in this room that I have usurped.
At any moment, somebody could come into this room and start singing a song, and there's signal from other rooms that comes across the speakers at random times.
It feels like I'm in a cyberpunk TV from Panther in, like, 2050 or something.
I don't know what world you're in, but I am definitely in hell right now.
So if we could please move this along and just -
All right.
You know the phone number, right?
Because if I give out the phone number, people are going to call it, and then you won't be able to get through.
So just please call that phone number.
I think that would be great.
But I have to go, guys, because it is 2 a.m., and I've got to catch a train in the morning.
No, no, no. No excuses. Alex, you do this every week.
I have to go.
We do this every week, and we're already down a person, and you're committed to being here last week.
This is really irresponsible here.
I think you guys can handle it without me.
Alex -
I think you're going to have to, because I'm on 7% of my own.
I do have to -
Revenge is going to come, Alex, and I'm going to let you know when the revenge is there.
All right?
All right.
You let me know.
I will let you know.
Motherfucker.
Motherfucker.
No, I'm reading 18 at any moment.
I accept any notice.
You just -
All right.
I'm sick of it.
Let's cut him off.
Cut him off.
I'm done.
All right.
We're going to make this an extra quick overtime, since our people can't even be counted on to be here.
Gila had a legitimate excuse.
She told us in advance she couldn't be here, and she was not here, and that's, you know, that's how it works.
That's how it's supposed to work.
So, what we're going to do is open up the phone lines, 802-321-4225, and take phone calls for a few minutes, and then we will -
There's already a call.
Is there already a call?
How did that even happen?
Yeah.
Someone called.
I picked up because I thought maybe -
All right.
Good evening.
You're on overtime.
Go ahead.
Are you sure you picked up a call?
Okay.
Maybe no one's there.
Is somebody there?
I'm talking to you.
All right.
Let's start over.
All right.
802-321-4225 is our phone number.
This might be the earliest we have ever taken phone calls.
Rob has his hand up.
Yes, Rob.
At your service.
Yeah.
Just while we're waiting for a call, I will give a shout-out to the folks in our YouTube chat.
You'll see Gila's name floating around in there because I am logged into Gila's laptop over here, so I can take care of the chat in her absence.
She trusts me with this because, you know, she is that sort of judge of character.
So, hello to the 38 folks who are with us now.
Welcome to the chat.
And, yeah, people are commenting on the fact that Alex was sending us two packets a minute on his call, and it was enjoyed.
We're going to have a meeting, is all I'm going to say.
And we have a loud ring in this room.
Do we have a call?
Yeah.
All right.
Good evening.
You're on off-the-hook overtime.
Go ahead.
Yes, Emmanuel.
Emmanuel.
Yes, caller.
Yes, I have some things to mention, and I'm going to mention the following.
Are you trying to sound like Rebel because you're not Rebel?
No, no, no.
No, this is me.
This is me.
Who's me?
It's me.
Who's me?
It's the real Rebel.
No, I don't think it is.
This doesn't sound like the real Rebel.
Kyle, am I right?
It sounds a little different.
I mean, yeah, it's like.
No, there's something different, Rebel.
I mean, oh, my God.
No, not Rebel.
Whatever the hell you are.
Okay.
First of all, first of all, you're coming in on a different phone number than you usually
do.
Your voice sounds different, but just different enough.
Maybe because I am on speakerphone?
No.
Now he's starting to sound like Rebel.
All right.
You know what?
Let's get this over with.
What's on your mind?
Go ahead.
Okay.
If you call your phone number, there's 751-2600.
If you call 516-751-2600.
Our old area code.
Yeah, our old area, your old area code.
Let me just start.
Did they finally assign it after, what, 30 years?
I guess.
Hold on.
Let me key in the number.
I love that phone number.
I love that phone number, and they took it from us, and then they never gave it to anybody
else.
Excellent.
Damn, Nassau County.
Due to overwhelming demand, we're unable to take your call live right now.
However, we can still reserve your free smartphone today and have an agent call you back to finalize
everything.
Supplies are limited, so don't wait.
These offers are handled in the order requests are received.
And leaving your information now helps secure your free phone.
I'm going to pick zero.
Please leave your first and last name and the best phone number to reach you.
This is what's at our old phone number.
Yes, this is what's at the old phone number.
First of all, I have to ask, have you been calling our old phone number every day for
the last 30 years?
No.
Well, how did you find this?
I just was like, because I've been listening to old, you know, off the hooks, and, you know,
it's just like, you know, you say phone number, you know, what's at that phone number
now?
I just, just as a curiosity, I just asked, I mean, I just like say, you know, what's
at that phone number now?
So I, you know what I mean?
He just admitted to being curious.
We have that on tape, right?
No crime in that.
Oh boy.
That's where it all goes wrong.
Listen to this.
Listen to this.
This is how hacking happens.
You get curious.
Curious.
So, uh, what else you got for us, Rebel?
Okay.
And let's see what happens when you call 732-517-7533.
What the hell is that?
What number is that?
I don't know that number.
Oh, it's a scam number that called me.
And when you call it, listen to what happened.
Oh boy.
Thank you for calling.
All calls are recorded for quality control.
Now, what did I call?
It's good that you did.
I don't know what I did.
Rebel, it sounds like you're fading off into the distance.
What's going on here?
I mean, like I said, thank you for calling.
What did I call?
I don't know.
You called it.
No, no, no.
You're subjecting us to this now.
What did you call?
The point is, is that, you know, when you call something,
sometimes a phone number or whatever,
and they say, thank you for calling.
One moment for a representative.
I mean, like, what did I call?
Are you upset that everybody's not identifying themselves
when they pick up the phone?
Well, I mean, company, should I get it?
Thank you for calling Merrill Lynch.
Please hold for a representative.
Or thank you for calling whatever.
You know, we all had this neighbor when we were growing up
that they forced their kids to answer the phone formally.
So you would call their house
and get a poor little kid pick up and say,
this is the Bradley residence.
I'm Sherman.
How can I help you?
Literally, they had to say that.
And I'm sorry, I'll admit it now,
we would have hours of fun calling these poor kids
and making them do that time after time
because we knew if they didn't do it just once,
they'd get in trouble.
So they were living in fear of their parents
catching them not answering the phone properly.
And I just would say hello when the phone rang.
That's, you know, that was my way of answering the phone.
Most people, I think.
Yeah, just like a lot of people.
Now let's try the 518 number.
Let's try this number.
This is what I think will be the last one.
I hope so.
518?
Yes.
Thank you for calling.
No one is available to take your call at this time.
If you'd like to be added to a do not call list,
please press 1 now.
If you'd like to leave a message,
please press 2.
What did I call?
So wait a minute.
You call this number that is annoying you
and you can tell them to put you on a do not call list.
And do you really think they'll do that?
Right.
I mean, that's a call sometimes.
All right.
Well, Rebel or not Rebel, whoever you are,
thank you for calling.
And please, won't you call back again?
Yes.
And I just want to say that the next game is on at 830.
You know.
It's on a little after 830.
They got to do the whole, like, boo the president
and play the Star-Spangled Banner and all.
Well, he's not there, but they're still going to boo him.
And they don't get on with it until about 845, really.
Yeah.
Well, they're going to win this game because it's, you know,
like they're in New York City and they...
They're going to win this game, Rebel,
because of the better team.
That's why they're going to win the game.
Right.
But, you know, Monday they didn't win, so...
Anyway.
No, they didn't win Monday because Trump jinxed the whole thing.
Look, do we have to go through this again?
True.
But anyway, we almost got through the week.
We are going to move on, but thank you for calling.
We're going to open up for one or two more phone calls.
You know, I guess this works out.
And I think Alex just escaped to see the Knick game.
I think that's what he did.
He's over there in Spain, and he's going to watch basketball.
Yeah, that's what he's going to do.
They probably have a better view of it
than most people in this city right now.
All right.
802-321-4225 is our telephone number.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you have anything on your minds, please call in and express yourselves.
Oh, that sounds like someone with something to say.
I can hardly wait to find out what it is.
Did we pick up the phone?
Okay, we did.
Good evening.
You're on overtime.
Go ahead.
Yes, hi.
I had a few questions about the HOPE conference.
I totally forgot about that.
Thank you for bringing it up.
I totally forgot about the HOPE conference,
which we just released a whole bunch of information about it today.
So, yes, go ahead.
Ask questions.
Yes.
When do you expect that you'll have the bulk of the schedule uploaded to HOPE.net?
Well, you saw what we did today, right?
Right.
I just saw a couple of names listed,
but I didn't see like days and times that they're going to be actually speaking.
Well, we have over two months before the conference.
So, usually that happens closer to one month before where people finalize when they can talk,
when they can't talk, what days are preferable.
And we have to balance it with workshop schedules and all kinds of things like that.
And today what we did was we released about maybe 10 or 12 speakers,
including various organizations and also individual people.
So, that gives you a sense.
And that's only the beginning.
That's only a small fraction of what we'll be doing.
But it gives you a sense of the flavor of the conference and the kind of quality that we will have.
So, I hope people see that and are enthused by it.
And I should also point out, if you're going to New York City right now,
between the Knicks and the World Cup,
you can expect to pay a huge amount to stay in a hotel anywhere.
That's not going to be the case in August.
You're going to have a very good rate for Midtown Manhattan.
So, it's definitely a good time to have a hacker conference.
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
So, you figure probably like early July, you'd have some actual days and times of different talks.
Yeah, I would not be surprised if it's early July, yeah.
And the other question I had was,
I see you're selling virtual tickets for people that are unable to be there physically.
Correct.
How close to the conference will it be possible to purchase an online ticket?
Will it be like up to like the day before day one of the conference that somebody could get a virtual ticket?
It was pretty close last time.
I think it was within a day.
We might have even continued selling them throughout the conference.
Do you remember, Carl?
I think we do cut them off when the conference starts,
only because a lot of our volunteering transforms, shall I say, to more on-site stuff.
We do have people maintaining that and we may have a capacity for it,
but it would be a lot more convenient just for our process,
for the time it takes to go through and acknowledge the transactions, all that, like in the run-up.
So, if you could do a prior, I think that helps our volunteers, our crew behind the scenes,
but it may be possible, but I'm pretty sure we cut it off so that people could focus to our needs on-site
and people buying tickets in person, all of that,
because, you know, we run into different things that need our attention at the event.
Okay.
Okay.
So, I guess earlier the better for virtual ticket attendees then.
I guess that's the bottom line.
Yeah, earlier the better for everything, because, you know, as Kyle was alluding to,
it gives us more flexibility to do things.
When we have people who pay for the tickets in advance, it definitely helps.
Plus, we are limiting attendance.
We're not going to say when we're limiting attendance.
We'll give people a little bit of warning, but we, you know, we don't want overcrowding.
We definitely don't want to do that, and this is our first time in a new place,
so we have to get it right.
Okay.
So, since you've met, that leads to my final question then.
So, is it likely or possible that the day of the conference you will no longer be selling physical tickets,
in-person tickets, once the conference starts?
That's entirely possible.
We'll know a lot more in a month.
I encourage people to buy tickets now while they can, because if they reach that magic number and we've run out,
we're not going to make any more available, obviously.
Yeah, it becomes capacity and other kind of safety issues.
Right, but it also gives us something to work with as far as being able to spend.
You know, things like AV and network connections and things like that,
we're basically paying the hotel right now.
We're still doing that, so we need more attendees to basically pay up now so that we can invest in more things
and make a better conference.
Okay.
And when I get the receipt, if I buy a virtual ticket, I'll get some type of receipt, I guess,
in the day of the conference.
The links will be available on the website to stream it.
Yeah, there's instructions when you do your transaction.
There's a lot of info about what to expect after that.
Yeah, and a lot of support, so you'll be fine.
All right, well, thanks.
Good luck.
All right, thank you.
See you at Hope.
Thank you.
Yeah, I totally forgot about Hope.
See, that's what I want to talk to Alex about is the conference and all.
It's so frustrating.
Rob, it looks like you have something you want to get off your chest.
Go ahead.
Not at the moment for me, but there's some interesting chatter going on in the chat.
Somebody mentioned that, for whatever it's worth, Beto disappeared in Texas, too.
I hope he's having a margarita somewhere.
That's from Sarah.
Someone mentions they're talking about Hope and attendance in the hotels, and someone
mentions, someone called Admin Admin mentions, don't forget about the tennis.
Since U.S. Open is in August as well, hotels might still be expensive.
Not in Manhattan, maybe in Queens, and I'm not sure what the date of that is.
Can someone find out what the date of the U.S. Open is?
I know there's no conflict.
I think it's after Hope.
Let's see.
Let's see what we can find out.
Okay.
What do you got?
It looks like the U.S. Open starts on August 24th, the local games, so that's after Hope.
We're August 14th through 16th.
Go to hope.net for more information.
You can see all the people that we announced today.
And again, that's just a small fraction.
We have a little slideshow going with various organizations.
I'll read some of them.
Let's see.
Jasmine Hergendorfer is going to be there.
Tiffany Radd, auto hacker and all kinds of other fun projects that she's involved in.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation, they're going to be represented.
You know, such important groups.
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Brandon Roberts of ProPublica.
There's just so many.
And of course, Cindy Cohn, the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Distributed Denial of Secrets.
Hope.net.
You'll see all the ones we've announced so far.
And we will be announcing more probably on a couple of days basis.
Every couple of days, we'll announce a few more.
All right.
We have a phone call.
Good evening.
You're on off the cover time.
Go ahead.
Hello, guys.
How are you?
This is the guy with the dog from Queens.
How are you, guys?
The guy with the dog from Queens.
You know, we know your name.
Don't we know your name?
Yes, that's Howard.
Howard.
That's it.
I knew that.
First question is this.
I do want to come to the convention, you know, to the thing, Hope this year.
Hope 26, yes.
Right now, I have an issue.
I don't know if I'm going to be able to come medically right now.
I have sciatica, and I'm having a hard time walking.
So if I was able to purchase a ticket, would I be able to back out if I couldn't make it for medical reasons?
Well, I mean, if it's a medical issue that's, you know, an emergency or something like that, we definitely take that into account.
We try to get people to trade tickets with somebody else, but, you know, we understand sometimes things happen.
In your case, I would say wait.
You know, wait until you know more before making that purchase.
Right now, I'm having a real hard time of going for physical therapy.
Okay.
I'll probably see you guys.
That's why I haven't shown down there.
Having a hard time walking.
I can barely walk right now.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Well...
I wish Alex was around, because I had a really funny question.
I'll ask it to you guys, but I'll probably call next week for Alex, and I do respect the guy.
Anybody can be a professor at a college in England.
He's got to be one heck of a smart guy, smarter than I will ever be.
Oh, he comes up with more excuses than anybody I know.
So he definitely is gathering knowledge with that.
Well, listen, he's got one of the best colleges in the world out there.
But here's the question.
The Constitution says that it's people.
It doesn't say humans, okay?
It says persons.
Now, would a vampire or a witch have the same rights as a human?
Would they be...
Could the church come along with the government and put them in jail and then dispose of them like they did in 1692?
You know, I wish somebody would ask this at the White House press conference.
The next one.
I'm sure they come up with a dandy of an answer.
I'm going to say yes.
I think you might have some sound logic.
I mean, that's essentially what personhood is not, by definition, in the cases of the examples you gave.
Well, because, you know, in 1692, they started burning witches.
And today, they're also starting to say that people who do tarot card reading and are into magic are evil.
Can you believe this?
In 2026.
That's backwards, yeah.
But I believe that, yeah, people that are different can sometimes...
Oftentimes, they are the people that are targeted.
But that's just too much.
Wow, I didn't know that was going on.
But I could see it, you know, with people exaggerating stuff and taking things, you know, for their own means to twist them around.
Well, you know what?
There's a couple of places in Brooklyn.
I'm not going to say where they are, but they're having some problems because they're bookstores and they're into all the supernatural stuff.
And they're saying that it's evil and they're saying that it's against the church and religion.
Well, it's really kind of, you know, interesting to some people.
And, I mean, we have a right to know about these things.
And if you're against it, you might want to know about it.
And so I think, you know, yeah, like not having any information about it is a bad thing.
So we should, you know, be...
And if you're going to celebrate your own religion, you should be tolerant of the other types of faith that people have and the way they express it.
I agree.
Look, I'm into supernatural stuff.
I actually believe that there are other creatures out there that we're not the only ones on this planet.
There's a lot going on right now with that, Howard.
I mean, that's why the site we were talking about, it's like, okay, it's a funny, you know, maybe a funny joke to some people.
But there's a lot of, like, stuff changing with, like, technology.
And we really got to know how to detect things and understand things that we don't even know what we're looking for or how to communicate.
And I agree with you.
You know, it's something that there's a lot more attention, you know, increasing.
There's a lot of films.
I think there's a couple of Spielberg films.
There's a bunch of other cultural artifacts, you know, that we're making with our imaginations.
But who knows what's out there and what they think of us.
That's a good question.
Well, you know what?
There's books out there like Discovery of Witches and a bunch of books by this lady called Deborah Hartless.
She wrote some very beautiful books about other creatures and stuff like that.
And what's interesting is if people had their way, they would burn these books.
Well, I think it's so important to, like, the key to understand is to have that imagination.
If we can't imagine these things, how do you, you know, insulate or protect yourselves or communicate?
Like I was talking about, like, there's so many things about not being creative, you know, thinking, like, creatively about problems and what might be out there.
Then you don't know what to expect, you know, because you haven't thought it through in an imaginative way.
So, yeah, that's a good point.
I agree with you.
All right.
I'm going to call next week.
Hopefully, Alex will hang around for 2600 overtake.
But he would be the guy to talk about could he make a defense for people like that?
Could he defend another creature of a different type?
Oh, I'm sure he can.
I'm sure he can do that.
Rob, did you have something to say?
Yeah, just to tie this back into the hope scene in the hacker world, one thing I've always really enjoyed about the hacker world is in terms of spirituality and those sort of outlooks, religion, and that the hacker community is so delightfully diverse.
You know, you have people who are, you know, hardcore atheists.
You have people who are hardcore one faith or another.
And part of the hacker, I think, outlook is to get a crowd that's this diverse in thought and just everyone's cool with each other, you know, 99.9% of the time.
How about pagans?
How about pagans?
People like that.
You know, you do a lot of stuff out there.
Believe it or not, back in the 60s, when there was a great show out there called Dark Shadows, the church tried to ban it.
They actually, WABC, took it off the air back in 71 because they got so much blowback from the church.
Well, they get a bit sensitive about broadcast because in some cases people can take creative work seriously.
That's, you know, something that has been done, you know, in the realm of radio and so forth.
But sometimes those then become misunderstood, you know, those cases where concerns are expressed from institutions like a church and so on.
And so, but it is a big problem.
You have people trying to control human understanding and human belief and ideas.
And I don't know.
I find parallels in all sorts of things we've lived through, like the, you know, terrorism and different, you know, ideological persuasions that we're confronting as a species.
Yeah.
The only thing I can say is that if we go too far, they'll start going after people like that.
And then thinking anybody who acts differently, just like they did in the 1690s.
I thought we met that time.
I thought we would never visit that again.
But we are now heading towards a dark area, a dark space.
Well, I'm glad we can agree on that.
But, yeah, well, anyway, I hope you feel better.
And I hope we see you at Hope.
It would be great.
Yeah, I hope to do it right now.
I can barely walk three feet.
That's what's going on.
I have psionic only for treatments.
But I definitely want to come.
I can't believe I'm not feeling that great.
But this is a great opportunity to have it all in one place, you know, in a hotel.
I would pay for that weekend just to be at the hotel and not have to go back and forth to the house.
Yeah, no, it'll be a blast.
It'll be great.
And you'll bring your dog, too, I hope.
You have a great time.
You're going to call next week.
I've got to ask Alex this.
I've got to ask Alex about this because, basically, it would be an interesting legal question.
Uh-huh.
All right, well, maybe that'll entice him to stick around.
Have a great evening.
Alex is definitely going to be sad that he missed this guy telling him how great he was.
Well, I'm sure he'll find someone else to do that.
But since Alex isn't here, you're going to have to play Alex, Rob, and counter what I'm saying here.
Because I have some updates on what's not going on outside Madison Square Garden.
I'm looking at New York 1 here.
And, basically, according to Mondani's post, MSG requested a permit for a watch party for 500 to 999 fans.
We approved that permit for 999 fans.
So that seems like they approved it for the max.
Mr. Dolan has now decided to cancel the watch party.
It had been scheduled to be held on Plaza 33.
Kyle, I think we walked past that, didn't we?
Yes, we have several times.
Yeah, and what would you say, about 999 people there, about 1,000 people?
With room.
Okay, so maybe that was only 500.
It looked like half full when we were there one time.
I think they are well able to accommodate that with space as far as the area they've gated off.
Well, yeah, so apparently what pissed off Dolan, I'm trying to figure this out because this really is hard.
They put out a statement Wednesday afternoon, taking issue with the capacity limit.
I mean, you can only fit a certain number of people in that space.
And about 1,000 people is what it was.
So it sounds like they were giving them exactly what they wanted.
And they were also upset at the need for a ticket.
I believe the tickets were free, but it was a way of controlling the crowd.
I don't know why Dolan would be upset at that.
The statement added that the added security measures around the garden would turn the streets of MSG into a police state.
I don't know what that means because when I was walking by there, they had people checking back.
They had a security screening.
It's a very pleasant feeling.
And obviously later on when things got a little vandalistic and even violent at some points in some places.
Excuse me.
Oh, wow.
I've never sneezed on the air before.
Yeah, at that point, you want to have security.
You want to have enough security.
So, yeah, I'd expect more of a police presence.
So it just seems weird to me that the guy who owns Madison Square Garden, the Knicks, whatever the hell else he owns, is upset at the appearance of a police state.
I mean, that sounds like the kind of thing we'd be upset at and he'd be the person doing it.
So, you know, I think the only reason that he's accusing the city of having a police state is because it's Mondani.
What would you say to that, Alex?
Oh, I say because of laws and the lawyering involved about the laws legally, I can say, I don't know.
But for those unfamiliar with Plaza 33, I'm going to interrupt you here, Alex.
Okay, Rob, you're my favorite panelist.
Thanks, Alex.
Well, the two of you both shut up.
Rob has the floor.
Go ahead.
Plaza 33 is the northeast corner of the Madison Square Garden chunk.
So it's on the corner of 7th Avenue and 33rd Street.
And it is a wide open space.
Usually it's full of tables and chairs.
I'm assuming they would have gotten rid of the tables and chairs.
Right by that taco place everybody lines up for.
In fact, when they had the LIRR strike, all the picketers were outside the taco.
They weren't picketing so much as they were just hanging out outside the taco place.
Hey, hey, hey.
No, they were walking in circles with the signs.
They were doing what they were supposed to do.
But they were in front of the taco place for a reason.
And hope attendees, you will get to know that taco place when you're in town because you're a block away.
I so want to go.
I want to go there.
We've never been there.
But we see people lined up, like, you know, 50 people lined up for tacos.
They must be good.
Absolutely.
But going back to this issue, it does look like, and according to what the mayor wrote here,
Dolan, you know, in the guise of MSG, asked for a permit, got the permit.
Here's the top limit of what you asked for.
Go nuts.
And then he got the hype and the excitement going and then was like, no, I don't want to.
And he's blaming Mondani somehow.
I don't follow his logic here, except if you count being a billionaire and saying, you know, something, I'm going to do something and blame the problems on someone else.
It's weird because Trump gets along with Mondani.
So I guess Trump couldn't say anything insulting to him.
So he got Dolan to do it instead.
Because that's all I'm getting out of this is that he just doesn't like Mondani.
He's going to blame him no matter what happens.
I mean, look at this logic.
He goes on to say that the issues outside the watch party at Bryant Park for game three, that's when Trump was in MSG, and they couldn't have the watch party there because of security issues.
So they had one at Bryant Park and there were problems there.
Well, this guy is saying 20 people taken into police custody.
Those issues are not related to the blocks around MSG or any previously run MSG watch party.
So it's basically saying that the blocks around MSG are better than the blocks around Bryant Park, where people get into trouble.
But people don't get into trouble outside his establishment, which is bullshit because people did get in trouble outside his establishment before this, when the Knicks weren't even in town.
So I don't know what part of his ass he's talking out of, but it's not a very convincing part.
Now, there's updates from the New York Times, which is also quite interesting.
Hours before game four, Mondani and Dolan were publicly feuding over who was to blame for the cancellation of a smaller viewing party outside the arena.
Mr. Dolan said he rejected the city's offer to screen the game to roughly 1,000 ticketed fans.
We're not even putting up the screens, Dolan said in the radio interview on that previously mentioned Craig Carton show.
Okay, he's not putting up the screen.
So that sounds to me like he's the one canceling it.
You know, he's the one saying, I'm not going to do this.
He gave us the gift of allowing us to screen 999 people and tell 20,000 no.
20,000?
What the hell is he talking about?
You couldn't fit 20,000 people there.
According to the mayor.
Yeah, he'd be inside Madison Square Garden, maybe, but not outside on the street.
Is that what he thought he was getting?
Because that's not what was there before.
So according to the mayor, their permit was for 500 to 999 people.
So they got the top of what they asked for and then are complaining that that's too low.
It's amazing to watch this blame be thrown around like that and say, instead of me, I don't know, maybe Dolan hired somebody to put together the application.
And they filled in the wrong number.
And that person needs to, I don't know, have this put on their permanent record and brought up at their next employment review.
But it's interesting.
Someone on the chat said Game 3 is starting right now.
Tip-off has started.
That was Rebel saying that.
Thank you.
Need Rebel to give us sports updates.
That's the world I live in.
So, okay, to finish up this, though, Mondani said that Dolan's decision was breaking hearts across our city.
Mondani added, but it says, one thing Knicks fans don't need permission for, it's showing up for our team wherever we may be, no matter the block or the borough.
So that's kind of an interesting statement.
It's kind of an invitation saying, you know what, just show up.
You don't give a fuck anymore.
Just show up.
I don't know.
It's getting interesting.
Escalating tensions around fan celebrations seem to threaten the good vibes heading into Game 4 of the series.
Even without a watch party, nearby streets will again be closed for several blocks with a wide security perimeter in place at the Garden.
You know, that just sounds like what police departments do when situations like this are ongoing.
All right.
We'll see.
We'll see what happens.
But people are going to be talking about this for a long time.
I guarantee that.
All right.
We're done for tonight.
We want to watch the game as well.
And thank you, everybody who called in.
Write to us, O-T-H at 2600.com.
And we will hopefully see you again next week.
And let's all convince Alex to stick around and try not to be in a place where there's no network, which is so hard to find, but he's always able to do it.
Absolutely.
And thanks to the folks, the 60 or so folks who were hanging around in our YouTube chat and keeping a lively conversation going.
Thank you for being nice to me, subbing in for Gila and posting under her username.
And, yeah, we'll see you all next week.
And thank you, Rob, for filling in for Gila.
It did a stellar job and everything went fairly smoothly, I think.
Excellent.
Next time Gila has to be me.
Well, if Gila were here, she wouldn't have let Alex leave.
This is true.
I know that.
And what am I to this whole process?
Like, do I get any kind of, you know what?
I'm ready to click this.
Yeah, I got to find the right thing to click because I'm kind of.
There's a lot of clicking.
Okay, there.
I found it.
All right, folks.
Enjoy the heat.
See you next time.
Bye.