The Slippers Show Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Slippers Show Podcast
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: East Coast & TBD go over some political ideas including the manifest degeneracy of racist voter disenfranchisement, how police officers who refuse vaccination are telling us exactly who the "bad apples" are, the Republican "Bully Mentality, and the ongoing moral bankruptcy/cowardice of elected Democrats.
With the return or Slippers TBD's alter ego, Slippers Mortis, the conversation tuned to online life expectancy and cause of death probability calculators, these are those links:
https://flowingdata.com/2015/09/23/years-you-have-left-to-live-probably/
https://flowingdata.com/2016/01/19/how-you-will-die/
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: TBD & East Coast take a much needed vacation from agonizing over the end of The Enlightenment, American Democracy, and all that is Good and Holy in the world to chat about music. Here is the nifty part: Because EC in particular is paranoid about violating the massively EVIL Digital Millennium Copyright Act, they can't play the songs on air (I mean, we realize that we MIGHT be able to claim some sort of "fair use" defense, but the reality is that DMCA is a POS law that should be struck down immediately and until then better safe than sorry).
So TBD & EC won't play the songs . . . BUT . . . they are pretty sure that they can post some Youtube links to them and let the listeners do the work. You just need to open up another browser window and sync up each song as the hosts call the start point so that you can simultaneously hear the same thing that they were listening to. Give it a try, it's LOADS of F - U - N !
NOTE BENE: One synch-up did not get called out clearly enough, so for "Horse Pills" by the Dandy Warhols you will want to hit pay right at the 35:57 mark. Everything else should be reasonably clear.
Slippers TBD's Tunes
- Holocene - Bon Iver
https://youtu.be/-oCPAO3bp4Q
- Send Me on My Way - Rusted Root
https://youtu.be/IGMabBGydC0
- December, 1963 (Oh, What I Night) - Frankie Vali & The Four Seasons
https://youtu.be/mTUhnIY3oRM
- Of All The Gin Joints in The World - Fallout Boy
https://youtu.be/SRLLHIE8RZU
- Unchained Melody - Rightious Brothers
https://youtu.be/RXARHZmpgvw
- Daydream in Blue (Acoustic) - iMonster
https://youtu.be/4Myyq6BcKHs
Slippers East Coast's Tunes
- You Really Got A Hold on Me - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
https://youtu.be/DRd-bjFfjNc
- Adorable - The Drifters
https://youtu.be/Vj6vak1-L3E
- Searching for A Heart - Warren Zevon
https://youtu.be/GGLPtXJZ7AM
- Horse Pills - The Dandy Warhols
https://youtu.be/nApfhU0Wwvs
- Heart of Gold - Neil Young
https://youtu.be/60qLd7mkikA
- Foundations/A New England - Kate Nash & Billy Bragg
https://youtu.be/a2-5gv81cC0
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: TBD & East Coast continue to try to figure out how to fix the world (or just American Democracy).
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: The one where EC & TBD mess up big time. Welp, we really screwed the pooch on this one. Nixon had his "missing" section of tape and this on is our Watergate, if not our Waterloo. A little bit of editing magic may have saved the entire reel from getting tossed in the dumpster, but did anybody actually "win" here? you be the judge.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: It's the nostalgia episode and that leads TBD and East Coast to share stories about reckless and irresponsible sporting activities in which they have each participated. It's actually a good bit more interesting than that description makes it all sound. I think. I hope. Anyway, back to hardcore political doomerism next time, this one is just a kickback.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: TBD plugs the Beiber single and East Coast stares at her agape. They also talk about everything the Democrats get wrong (which is a lot) and the fact that people who go into politics are almost all unhinged psychopaths.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: East Coast does a rewind and follows up on TBD's story from E10 about prenatal issues with her last pregnancy. The pivot, of course, is back to the draconian anti-woman law in Texas that essentially strikes down Roe v. Wade and the larger role of all-purpose misogyny in American conservatism.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: TBD & EC hit the double-digit club in a barn burner of a humdinger of a who’s-a-ma-whatsis. It’s kind of the return of the Putatively Unpopluar Opinions trope from E8. Here they rag on stuff like Obama, limits on right-to-choose laws, people who camp, and Democrats (just the white ones). As I said, the whole thing is a real hoot.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: We start out kinda meta, asking "Who are we?" and "Why are we doing a show?" We conclude that it is fun to have a show and that it might also be fun to have an audience we move on and talk about show mechanics and that we need to "trase" more items before we just dive into them.
Next up is something that is a curse in both TBD's and my life:
Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder
Since there is no real cure the only sort of fix is to try to build a life that accommodates having a natural schedule that doesn't work for the rest of the world. Anyway, we discuss that. Next episode (here's the teaser!) we are going to circle back and try to wind up our discussion of Putatively Unpopular Opinions.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: Unpopular Opinions (or Popular Opinions that are masquerading as unpopular opinions for the sake of the show). It is an old trope, but tbd & EC put their own spin on it and turn it into something new and exciting.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: In a world gone mad, EC & TBD try to understand why Democrats are so chickensh*t scared to prosecute acts of terrorism and open treason.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS:EC & TBD crank it up again, this time getting obsesso over different logical fallacies and how arguing with NPCs is a waste of time. The ultimate question is "Why does it have to be so difficult?" and the ultimate answer is "It doesn't have to be, but it just is." Answers may be in the offing, but our intrepid duo has yet to fully illuminate them.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: East Coast and TBD get into the ways that almost everyone on the political Left ignores the reality that people on the Right may feel actual disgust when, for example, contemplating sexual reassignment or fear when seeing a representation of African Americans protesting. While those responses are not well-grounded, they are nevertheless authentic, and simply dismissing them assures that no solutions will be agreed upon.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: East Coast asks TBD the question we have all been waiting for: "What would the world be like today if every human in history had been more like her?" Hilarity ensues.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: SlippersTBD and I chat a little about the GOP Cult. At one point I make reference to a passage in a book about the history of the Scots-Irish in the United States which is from Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS: SlippersTBD and I chat a little about death. Surprisingly, things go better than expected.
https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die/ideas/nexus/
The Second Amendment episode.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/state-alabama-took-his-gun-away-when-authorities-gave-it-n1269234
https://archive.ph/GBVc9
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): The following articles are considered:
"It’s not just Trump who’s angry at China" from The Washington Post;
"China’s bid to repair its coronavirus-hit image is backfiring in the West" also from The Washington Post; and,
"Consider the Possibility That Trump Is Right About China" from The Atlantic.
Both EC &WC are pretty pissed at China and more specifically at the CCP. For all intents and purposes, China has murdered the global economy and there must be a reckoning. With regard to the idea that Trump was "right" on China, EC maintains that it was akin to guessing at the answer on an exam and getting it right by luck. Trump is a xenophobe and a racist so of course, he was happy to take the public position that they are the enemy. In his personal dealings, he and his family have always been more than happy to do business with China (i.e., make money from while screwing over the American worker). Ample documentation of Trumps long and loving relationship with Chinese manufacturing can be found: here, here, here, here, and here.
WC mentions this 2009 article from WIRED:
"Apocalypse Not: Behind the Swine Flu Hysteria"
and this snopes.com article on Smithfield's sale to China’s biggest meat processor, Shuanghui International Holdings:
"Was Smithfield Foods Sold to China?"
EC Make reference to China's evolving capacity to make its own microprocessors, an assertion that he finds support for here and here.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): This episode hits on three main points: 1. We now know that Taiwan got it right. China lied to the world about the outbreak, and the World Health Organization is now doing China's bidding and giving them cover as they try to avoid blame; 2. There may be a higher number of asymptomatic cases in the population than was previously thought and that is a good thing; and 3. China's irresponsible permitting of so-called wet markets and general trade in wildlife is the cause of the pandemic and China should be held to account for its crimes.
In this episode we make reference to several news items:
COVID is not the first pandemic that the WHO's Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has messed up.
EC mentions a nurse from L.A., Ms. D’neil Schmall, who is now in NYC. She gives an emotional account of her experiences in the trenches here.
The story of a Buffalo National Guard Unit that has trained in corpse recovery and is now deployed to NYC is told here.
A study showing more asymptomatic positives can be found here.
Also, from The New Yorker, "The Best-Case Scenario for Coronavirus Is That It’s Way More Infectious Than We Think."
Also, from The Spectator, "COVID antibody test in German town shows 15 percent infection rate."
Also, from New York Magazine, "Oxford Model: Coronavirus May Have Already Infected Half of U.K. Population."
The L.A. Times article on Chinese wet markets is here.
The interview from vox.com with author Michael Lewis about the presidency as a risk management job is here.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): Recent reporting The Globe and Mail by Mark Schiefelbein (byline The Associated Press)--"WHO's early coronavirus response raises awkward questions about Beijing relationship" raises some troubling questions about what China knew and when with respect to the dangers posed by the outbreak that began in Wuhan. Most concerning is that China used its influence to spread disinformation about the threat level and continued to allow travelers to spread all over the globe at the same time as they sealed off the Hubei region from internal travel. It is difficult to understand why that willful decision to expose the rest of the planet to the disease is not a frontpage scandal 24/7.
Also, noted in the episode is this quote from WHO's Senior Advisor to the Director-General Doctor Bruce Aylward:
"The big question is, are they [China] hiding things? No, they are not."
Which appeared in the vox.com article "China’s cases of COVID-19 are finally declining. A WHO expert explains why" by Julia Belluz. It appears that Dr. Aylward's comment is difficult to square with the facts as we now know them.
Other links that are mentioned in the article:
Trade Advisor Peter Navarro NAILED it (tragically nobody in the WH listened);
promedmail.org is a scary place; and,
The Field of Blackbirds.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): What have we learned so far from living during The Great Struggle? That extended supply chains are no bueno. The Slippers lads hash that point out and also dwell on materialism, greed, human stupidity, and the and a host of other delightful topics.
Nobody has given this gigantic ass-ache a proper name yet so we are dubbing it "The Great Struggle." Moving on:
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): So much news every day. The Slippers Lads discuss the potential of a newly approved SARS-CoV-2 test and speculate on why Germany has such a low CFR so far (it seems that a robust healthcare system and a lot of testing has allowed them to do an excellent job of isolating vulnerable individuals). Next up is a discussion of Dr. Anthony Fauci's latest estimates for the Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. (apparently SARS-Cov-2 is the virus and Covid-19 is the disease much like HIV is the virus and AIDS is the disease that HIV itself causes). WC remains calm and (while in no way happy about the suffering that is happening) is comfortable with the estimates Fauci is providing (100,000 to 200,000). EC, on the other hand, sees the metaphorical field of battle as drenched in a fog and is concerned that the U.S. will see many many more than 200,000 dead before this pandemic is arrested (all the while hoping that he is wrong and that our interventions will curb the disease shortly). Along the way, they take a look at this tracker which is pretty slick and gives data for every county in the country.
Lastly, the Slippers Lads take a gander at "It Took a Global Pandemic, But Generation X is Finally Getting Love" by Courtney Dabney which appeared in Paper City. WC waxes nostalgic about his childhood and recounts winning a bikeathon that he participated in to raise funds for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and expresses pride that several of his children are now working in grocery stores. EC listens attentively but offers nothing in kind.
Remember: We are posting links to relevant news items daily at /r/TheSlippersShow!
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): EC tries to make two points: 1. Although Trump's popularity is creeping up, if he had acted even a little bit presidential he would likely be much higher (due to the well recognized "Rally Effect"); and, 2. Trump's plan to have his followers all mix together in church on Easter Sunday sounds like a public health disaster. WC gamely plays The Devil's Advocate role for which many of us have come to love him. Only a little fur flies and the lads agree to come back another day to keep trying to sort it all out.
The two articles that are the focus of this episode are this one about the Rally Effect; and, this one about what is likely to happen if we try to "Reopen America."
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): So our Covid-19 sequence continues. In this episode, we expand upon our ideas for moving out of the "hard" clampdown and back into a functioning economy. The seemingly (to us, anyway) innovative aspect of the plan that we have developed is that extended stays in hotels by young, healthy workers who normally live with vulnerable individuals should be able to live in government-subsidized hotel rooms and receive meal stipends to 1. protect the vulnerable; and, 2. help out the hospitality and restaurant industries.
Make some time to absorb this one and then you can spend the rest of your valuable time on other mission-critical activities like pacing, fretting, worrying, hand wringing, and softly rocking back-and-forth, arms wrapped around knees, and trembling ever so slightly with a catatonic expression while emitting a high-pitched, almost ultrasonic keening sound.
Here is a link on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that EC spoke about.
And here, for what it is worth, is a draft of the proposal that we have been discussing:
A NEW APPROACH IS NEEDED TO COPE WITH THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK
That the greatest public health threat of the modern era is also our most profound economic crisis has created massive trauma for the United States and the rest of the world. Although the future may appear benighted, we suggest that a viable solution is within our current reach once we understand that Covid-19 is not one event but two. To the elderly and the infirm, it is virulent, but to the young and healthy, it is not nearly as dangerous. Our response in the United States so far has missed the mark because we have been trying to force a single solution on a binary problem. Permit us to expand on the idea that Covid-19 is not a “one size fits all” pandemic.[1]
On March 18th, Bloomberg News Online published an article by Tommaso Ebhardt and Chiara Remondini titled “99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says” that reports on a study of deaths from Covid-19 in Italy.[2] The substantive takeaway is that 99.2 percent of deaths in the sample population were patients who had serious pre-existing illnesses (such as diabetes, hypertension, or heart disease). Importantly, almost nobody was healthy when they contract the virus died. That finding is hardly and an outlier. The Los Angeles Times, [3] using figures published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control,[4] reports that the Case Fatality Rates based on just under 45,000 patients was 0.2 percent for ages twenty to twenty-nine; 0.2 percent for ages thirty to thirty-nine; and, 0.4 percent for ages forty to forty-nine. Any death is awful, but clearly, Covid-19 is not taking a vast toll on the under fifty set.[5]
If those reports are substantially accurate, we have the opportunity to use those finding both to save lives and to rescue our imperiled economy. The following steps are necessary:
Those who can work from home continue doing so for the time being;
After a “hard” lockdown of two or more weeks, healthy people under thirty who work outside of the home and do not live with individuals in high-risk categories return to work in planned phases over a few weeks. Older workers get phased back into the workplace as testing for the virus ramps up (obviously everyone would be called upon to continue to limit their unnecessary travel and social mixing until the crisis has passed).[6]
Healthy people who work outside of the home and live with vulnerable individuals present a particular problem because China found that seventy-five to eighty percent of Covid-19 transmissions there took place within family clusters.[7 at 3:50] Happily, the obvious solution (and one of the main ideas here) is to utilize the excess capacity in our hospitality industry, providing temporary government-sponsored housing for able workers while simultaneously putting stimulus dollars in the pockets of hotel ...
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): This time, on a very special episode of The Slipper Show, we try to solve the worldwide Covid-19 crisis. A public health expert might be able to poke holes in our suggested approach, but at least we give it the old college try. We encourage listeners to get on board with the team for the Big Win and try to improve upon our concept. Our "work," such as it is, relies on two particular articles from the popular press that you can find here and here, so give it a spin and see what you are able to come up with to improve on our novel approach to slaying a novel coronavirus.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): We open up by covering some "positive" Covid-19 News items: We might still be able to get food; a better test might be coming soon; and, there might be a drug that greatly reduced hospital stays for those who are sickest. There are a lot of "mights" in there, we'll need to see how it all plays out. We also briefly discuss how the strangely low death toll on The Diamond Princess cruise ship seems to have been anomalous.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): Summary to be determined (Although this time we deliberately avoid the stock market, politics, corona, hoarding, and the like).
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): Summary to be determined (Probably the stock market, politics, corona, hoarding, and the like).
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): Summary to be determined (Probably the stock market, politics, corona, hoarding, and the like).
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): Summary to be determined (Probably the stock market, politics, corona, hoarding, and the like).
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): Corona-Chan (a.k.a. Covid-19 (SARS coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2) is the topic de jour.
Johns Hopkins has the best tracker, find it here.
Some of the points that are made herein go to this article, and this one and EC also refers to the promedmail.org website where all of the infectious disease nerds hangout. The gist of it boils down to neither of the Slippers Boys sees this outbreak as "The Big One" so far, but neither is fundamentally opposed to stocking up on some necessary supplies to be ahead of the game if things start to come unglued. It seems that some regions will be able to "flatten the curve" while the medical systems of other may get overwhelmed. Efforts to prep for general mayhem should be made wisely, and EC observes that a lot of people just want to spend money (on items like firearms), but not invest time in training (so that they might be able to, you know, hit a target in a stressful situation). After this episode was posted this article appeared and it goes a long way to explaining why there is so much potential for this thing to go sideways, even if it may have looked trivial to begin with.
trump's response seems to be to screw the pooch as pubically as possible for no good reason. Has he shorted the market massively and now wants it to all blow-up? Perhaps, because if I wanted to steer the economy into the rocks, I'd be creating a crisis of leadership at a critical juncture just like he is. In any event, we are at a significant moment. It is difficult to see how the administration will maintain if the economy craters or if the virus does infect 100MM or more Americans, as some models predict. In E25 I'll have to ask WC how we can get reparations some out of china. I'll suggest that at the very least we can inform them that because their irresponsible behaviors created a global pandemic, the U.S. is no longer obligated to pay back any of the debt that they are now holding. He'll love that I am guessing.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): West Coast has some ideas about how everything would be just ducky if the United States just stayed home more often and let the rest of the crazy world do its thing without us. East Coast is basically neutral on the topic at first but he becomes agitated when he considers that we both import and export petroleum products on a daily basis. At one point the discussion turns to crime statistics and East Coast makes passing mention of research that links drops in the crime rate to the removal of lead from gasoline, you can check out some of that work here.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers):
Our long national nightmare ends here as we wind up the seemingly interminable journey through Adrian Pabst “China, Russia and the return of the civilisational state” article from New Statesman.
Drollery ensues as the Slippers Boys generally rank of Putin and Xi and the consider the possible spread of CORVID-19.
Also, here's that article from The Guardian on Prescot Bush being one of Hitler's bankers ("I just think people should know, Liz."):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): As our plan to rebrand as "China Today" was thwarted (name already taken) we moved on to discuss the Sticks & Stones comedy special that Dave Chappelle had recently put out. A general discussion of what's funny follows and a spirited critique of cancel culture is provided. The gist of it all is: PC stuff is lame and unfunny. Who knew? This should have posted back in September '19 but, as faithful listeners know, we've been busy. Thankfully, the topic is evergreen so nothing of value was lost in the lag.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): This one is from The Vault, WC and I recorded it back in mid-July. It has been just gathering dust, but it seems like we were going to use it to break up the China Marathon so now is as good of a time as any to let it drop. There is a lot of talk about the influence of illegal drugs on society and then a bit of a kerfuffle at the end as me and WC get into it over Trump's Acts of Treason (my words--not WC's) but it all winds up nicely in the end.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): After an even longer absence caused by EC returning to student status to add yet more letters after his name, we are back. Our analysis of the Adrian Pabst “China, Russia and the return of the civilisational state” article from New Statesman continues. Shades of the 80s film The NeverEnding Story are starting to show up.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): After yet another delay caused (mainly) by WC going on vacation we return to our analysis of the Adrian Pabst “China, Russia and the return of the civilisational state” article from New Statesman. Shades of the 80s film The NeverEnding Story are starting to show up.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): After a long delay caused (mainly) by software issues, we return to our analysis of the Adrian Pabst "China, Russia and the return of the civilisational state" article from New Statesman. If you are keeping track, we have hit Part Three of this arc, and it looks like there are at least two more in the offing.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): We are positively whipping through the Adrian Pabst "China, Russia and the return of the civilisational state" article from New Statesman at a dizzyingly high rate of speed. I think that we actually make it through two entire paragraphs this round. But keep in mind, The Slippers Show is not a books-on-tape program. We work through these articles in an unhurried fashion that respects the ideas that they present and allows thoughtful commentary. Mind you, we still trash a lot of those ideas, but we do so at a pace that is reflective and permits careful deliberation.
TBH, I dreaded editing this thing and put it off for almost a week because I feared that it was redundant to the previous episode. But once I got into it, I actually sort of liked it and I am overall kind of happy with how it turned out. Anywho, give it a listen. Both of us get our points in, and a few of them even seem to stand up to limited scrutiny, so we have that going for us, which is nice.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): This episode is Part One of a deep dive into an article by Adrian Pabst that ran in The New Statesman in May of 2019. WC is gaga over it whereas EC is largely unimpressed. The article's main thesis is that the hopes that the United States had for ongoing world dominance based on the spread of liberal democratic norms have faded and that Russia and China are on the rise with their "civilizational" claims to legitimacy now destined to triumph. EC finds Pabst's entire approach to be conclusory and ponders where Russia and China will wind up after leadership transitions occur. While he firmly believes that another Trump victory will indeed spell the end of the Rule of Law in the United States and effectively doom the Nation, he is unwilling to concede that Russia and China can just "run the table" moving forward and get all that they want without question. Ultimately, his position is that the United States is its own worst enemy and any unraveling of the west will be by our own hand.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): This time we located a dank little starterpack called "I'm a Classical Liberal."
The image quality is potato, but you get the idea. Anywho, we kick this thing around for most of an hour and have some fun with it as it points to a lot of what is animating our current political discourse at the moment. EC also put together this nifty guide with links to wikipedia articles in case you are not familiar with some of the individuals and media entities that are featured:
Sargon of Akkad
James Damore
Christopher Hitchens
Gavin McInnes
Jordan Peterson
Milo Yiannopoulos
Sam Harris
Dave Rubin
Plexico Gingrich
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Gad Saad
Cenk Uygur
Reputed Sex Pest Joe Rogan
Notorious Manlet Ben Shapiro
The Daily Wire
The Daily Caller
Tucker Carlson
Christina Hoff Sommers
Prager U
Steven Crowder
American Enterprise Institute
There are also references to Russian Trolls being obsessed with Black Lives Matter; Camille Paglia--mainly that EC couldn't recall the name of the institution that she is posted at (it's the University of the Arts in Philadelphia); Desmond Napoles (a.k.a.: Drag Kid); this article about the Trump administration's war on wildlife; and this multipanel meme from 4chan /pol/:
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): Of course we had to say something about this lulz-fest.
[as one would expect, YouTube took the original video down so we now have to link you to a mirror]
That foul-mouthed junior psychopath bills herself as "Soph" (formerly "Lt. Corbis") and she's more fun then a barrel of ebola-spitting cobras (a modification of an idiom that admittedly establishes a pretty low bar for what "fun" is). The notion of trying to harness her fractured take on life captivated our attention, so we decided to dedicate a show to examining her already trademarked brand of dyspeptic kvetching. Actually, although a lot of it is toxic by design, we both think it's fairly amusing on a whole as she manages to pepper some pretty funny moments among her various incendiary rants. As WC observed, "It's like if Lenny Bruce was reincarnated as an edgy, adolescent protofascist shiksa with a (hopefully) curable chromosomal disorder." We suggest that you check out at least enough of the source video to get the drift, and then enjoy our deconstruction of it all. What a world, amirite?
Also, as part of his ongoing and subconscious effort to sabotage the show, WC keeps making references during our podcast to a different Soph video that only he watched. Internally confused, EC tries to play along and does a reasonable job of not blowing the whole thing up. Here's the link to that low-key genius trainwreck that only WC had seen, if you're curious.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS (ghostwritten by East Coast Slippers): So at this point both of our regular listeners know the drill--we record an episode, East Coast edits it and rushes to post it, and then West Coast gives it a listen and reels off his genius summary. At this point I (EC) have edited and posted, so now we wait for WC to do his magic. As a placeholder I will comment that this is Episode Three of our epic analysis of an article by Justin Peters from slate.com that itself analyzes the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast which is about the podcast that showcases its eponymous host/reputed sex pest Joe Rogan. It's getting pretty meta all up in here and we are anxiously awaiting the day when someone else, in turn, does an extended podcast that dissects our three part arc. I don't know for sure what West Coast can add here, we were just trying to complete the cycle, really. I guess we will have to wait and see.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS: This is Part Deux of the Justin Peters take-down piece of The Joe Rogan Experience and quite frankly this thing goes off the rails at the end.
Initially, Team Slips note the tactics that Mr. Peters employs to belittle, demean, and discredit Mr. Rogan not for being merely an atypical arbitrator of our mad times, a "common man" willing to provide a platform for the non-conventional wisdom crowd, but ratherfor being an evil, racist, sexist, anti-intellectual svengali who slyly tricks his guests (whom he plies with drugs, alcohol, and three-hour interviews) to proclaim their true depraved beliefs for viewers who lap up the milky vitriol like kittens.
Mr. Peters then informs us--without any tender of evidence of course--that in fact all guests are really just shameless hucksters either hocking wares or heresy and readers invited to laugh at them for daring to debate wokeness, PC culture, and really any skepticism against the unstated tenants of Mr. Peters orthodoxy (that of course mirrors that of his Slate readership). WC Slippers suspects that he would be picked near-last for kickball under these rules (in spite of his shapely calves).
Somewhat unexpectedly, that leads to a five round boxing match between EC and WC that cannot really be described but you are free to pick the winner based on your own biased viewpoint.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS: This Olympic-sized episode is the first in a set of three wherein Team Slippers painstakingly reviews an article written on Slate.com by Justin Peters about the Joe Rogan podcast series.
If you saw Magnolia at the theatre back in the 90s (or perhaps on your Sony Betamax), you may recognize this as a piece that swings for the fences but ultimately fails (or at worst winds up looking like a pretentious, experimental film school disaster. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to decide which it is).
As the back in forth is as witty as it is dense (you also must decide whether or not this is a double entendre) we were forced to note a few of the "highlights" in "bullet format" like corporate shills at the national sales meeting in Tampa (and the numbers were waaaay down):
-- One of the Slippers Boys actually knew Joe Rogan back in the day;
-- Our present scourge: deplaforming, or (in Rocky and Bullwinkle style) maybe deplatforming jerks represents a public good;
-- What should the limits of free speech on social media be? Alas, we may dwell on this a tad too long;
-- The perils of criticizing religion and or any non-western culture--and why criticizing western loons gets a green light but disparaging non-western loons is often verboten; and,
-- Some musings on the current death sentence that is taking out the opposition via pronouncing them racist, sexist, or homophobic: the triumvirate of the cult of identity politics.
Of course the aforementioned only represent a sliver of the erudition contained in this piece of pseudo-journalistic criticism.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS: Well, we had to do it because it was a very significant event and we are claiming to be a news and politics podcast.
The New Zealand Mosque shooting is our topic for the episode.
Obviously, as close to the event as we discussed it, our intent was to thoughtful and respectful to those in mourning and to decry the murderer, whose name we choose not to dignify in print.
EC Slippers maintained his measured logical approach with respect to mass shootings, their origins, and the fallout that they create.
WC Slippers took an alternate approach, noting that many recent attacks on immigrants should really be referred to as attacks on refugees.
WC Slippers notes that many refugees differ from immigrants as the refugees were displaced due to U.S. foreign policy (think Iran 1953, where it all went wrong).
A real journalist would probably lament that we played it too safe, perhaps trying too hard not to offend. WC Slippers can live with that. I can't speak for EC Slippers but I would imagine that he concurs.
SUMMARY BY WEST COST SLIPPERS: On this episode the Slipper's boys take on political tolerance. Can it be taken too far? WC generally preaches tollerance and that being nice will be more likely to be effective.
EC Slippers asks: Must we suffer fools? And shall we endure the willfully ignorant or the insane?
WC Slippers retorts that there are those who are sincere and misinforned whom are a product of their geography and their upbringing...who should be heard out and entreated rather than belittled. And their insights, mainly divinely inspired must be taken at face value rather than as pure folly. Because dissing them is rhetorically ineffective.
The talk moves onto the illogical; what shall we do with those with untenable racist positions?
And then some additional points are made that sort of follow the initial concerns.
Nothing is really resolved.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS: On this episode of The Slippers Show, EC Slippers and his compatriot, WC Slippers discuss the U.S. healthcare conundrum, actuary science, personal responsibility, the potential utility of social ranking scores (doubtful, but "what if?"), the purpose and nature of persuasion, and a winding daydream pondering the average person's ability to back off of their favorite, pet position. You will not be graded.
More specifically, EC Slippers presents his testimony about the somewhat accidental rise of the U.S. health care system and its current shortcomings (including the allocation of resources and the undeniable presence of interests whose bottom line perhaps non-maliciously thwarts the possibility of a better managed alternative). Both members of Team Slips agree that those who cannot pay through no fault of their own yet find themselves in need of care should be helped. There is then discussion regarding those that make knowingly bad choices for their own health, yet wish no pay no more than those who make better choices.
The final segment is sort of like Flann O'Brien's "The Third Policeman": the Slippers Boys lead you to believe that you'll be treated to a serious discussion on the potential merits of assigning a social score (like China--WC Slippers almost couldn't get past that, but played along with this thought experiment for the good of the listeners...listeners, ha! that's rich) but then digress into an almost incomprehensible stream of consciousness musings on the limits of arguing with those with whom you differ. They wander down that path so far that they literally argue about whether or not the world is flat or spherical. EC Slippers seems sure it's round.
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS:
I'm not gonna lie to you, this is The Slippers Show that you'll tell your children that you listened to at work while pretending to do the 3rd installment of the new FCPA compliance module of the new e-learning platform. Xanadu. No, not the Olivia Newton John movie in the 70's that brilliantly flopped. Xanadu, no, not the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem you had to read in your east coast prep school sophomore English class. But Xanadu, Ted Nelson's (Ted Who?) visionary plan for the best version of the internet and his corresponding four truths:
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Most Authority is Malevolent.
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Most People are Fools.
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There is no God.
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Everything is Wrong.
Wait, what? Yes, this episode will cover suspicions of authority, the nature of those that would seek to wield power, our friend Ted Nelson, and the idea that the best way to elect public officials is by lottery. Again, wait, what?
EAST COAST SLIPPERS ADDS:
At one point we discuss a decine in life expectancy in some counties in the the U.S. Here is a link for that:
People In these US Counties are at risk of dying early
SUMMARY BY WEST COAST SLIPPERS:
For those of you who think the Slippers boys are just pals who chit chat: hold the freakin phone. Ok, I may be over-hyping the actual content but you could tell they were about ready to start yelling.
ECS posits that English and Dutch intel suggest that The Russians sought to influence the 2016 election. WCS Slippers, duh.
ECS boldly proclaims that WCS willfully denies the evidence that Trump and Co conspired with The Ruskies despite overwhelmingly evidence and is possibly insane. For the record, while gentlemanly in demeanor, WCS strenuously disagrees with this characterization.
ECS Slippers also notes that the Russian Dossier is irrefutable and that WCS is a moron for not agreeing....WCS would note that Cohen noted yesterday that he'd never been to Prague and he had no direct evidence that Trump collude with Russia. WCS smirks. And then smirks again...because of course the Russian Trump Dossier is not verified. According to James Comey.
WCS also notes that WCS is a flat earth simpleton who can'y help believing because of his malfunctioning brain. WCS, hmm, uh huh.
This is the intermission because the Slippers boys start going all over the place and debate the China risk, Mueller as anti-christ (WCS posits), the ruling class and their hubris, and Obamas adorable habit of ruling by pen and blackberry, and whether or not the president should be the only executive...and other stuff.
SUMMARY BY EAST COAST SLIPPERS:
Relevant links:
The Russian Agency
Dutch inside Russian hacking center and also here
Robert Mueller is an American hero
Things that have changed hands:
Polling Data
Money
America's Influence
100s of contacts between Trump's criminal organization and Putin's
The Dossier: Nothing Wrong Here
Glenn Simpson Did Nothing Wrong
Putin & Russia got everything that they wanted
[if you are in a rush just scroll halfway down the page to the section captioned "The Administration"]
Things West Coast Slippers said that I wish I had seized on (in my defense there was an amazing amount of nonsense flying from his side and I did pick up on a fair bit of it). For best results, listen to the episode before you read this and see how many of these you pick up on:
His description of an upper-crust that moves ahead and through privilege goes to the "right" schools and then on to rule the planet directly describes the path that Trump, a spoiled and selfish child who never grew up, took (except for the good grades part). I should have pounced all over that.
His tu quoque pivot to Obama. That's classic for a conservative who hasn't got a leg on which to stand--make it about Bill Clinton, HRC, or Obama. I'm surprised he doesn't drag in FDR more often and it was stupid of me to let it go. Just like the other irrelevancies (the Page/Szork affair; who paid for The Dossier?), it is the most common of red herrings. But what about Her emails, right Slips?
Having a panel for the presidency will not improve things if everyone on the panel is a lunatic and makes horrible choices. It is not difficult to find three, nine, or one hundred treasonous Republicans who will carry Putin's water and march in lockstep as the crash the U.S. into the rocks while enriching themselves so just having a panel is not going to change things. The Constitution that The Framers put in place aimed for the three branches to check each other. Over a couple of centuries, we have drifted too far toward a unitary executive who wields too much power and a weak, Republican-led Congress that has midwifed the current abomination of a Russian-controlled system into being
The Glen Simpson stuff. I have attached an article that makes sense of his meeting with Veselnitskaya. Astonishing sense, really. Why wouldn't someone working on investigating Russian meddling want to meet with a Kremlin agent?
If you did not already do so back at E2, before you read this Episode Guide or listen to this show, take this test (five minutes or so, not affiliated with The Slippers Show in any way)
If you take it after listening you will skew your results, so do it before.
Did you take the test? If so, well done!
West Coast Slippers reacts to the following articles and items suggested by East Coast Slippers:
- The brains of liberals and conservatives are "wired" differently, and some of the most notable variations are observed in respective responses to danger and revulsion.
East Coast Slippers makes mention of Williams Syndrome, you can learn about that here.
The "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" comment by East Coast Sippers may (or may not) be owed to John Steinbeck.
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The much watched AOC takedown of money in politics
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The FOXCONN deal in Wisconsin
At the end of E4 the Slippers boys briefly touch upon the question of Trump's election and bolstering of the Republican ticket by racists. East Coast Slippers promised some support for the idea that racism was a significant component of the outcome. Here it is.
1.WC Slippers is very worried about plastic. Which is strange because he is a right-wing loon that wants the planet to implode (according to EC Slippers). Hilarity ensues when the lads discover that, in spite of ample prior planning, the format of the show has become confused.
- Again, bizarrely, WC Slippers, the right-wing foil, is outraged that so few own so much and suggests that it's a scam and is probably responsible for all of the alarming populism and nativism we've all been hearing so many rumblings about of late.
East Coast Slippers mentions a report that the United States is experiencing the greatest wealth disparity since the Gilded Age. Here it is, NZ Herald to avoid The Washington Post paywall.
At one pont East Coast Slippers launches into a top-of-the-head discussion about credit card interest rates. His numbers turn out to not be perfectly accurate (he's close, but not dead on). these two links will clear any confusion up:
South Dakota eliminates usury laws
It gets much worse that 29.9 percent
Also, when East Coast Slippers said that he was behind six proxies, he meant to say that he is behind seven (he went back and counted).
- Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Slipper's Boys are unable to fully debate the surveillance technology kerfuffle because East Coast Slippers refuses to accept the validity of the source that West Coast Slippers quotes: The Washington Post. More accurately, East Coast just refused to pay to read the article as The Post is owned by the richest man in the world. WC Slippers strenuously disagrees with that logic (illogic?). A spirited exchange about the internet and its origins and utility follows.
Before you read this episode guide or listen to the podcast, we suggest that you take this test (five minutes or so, not affiliated with The Slippers Show in any way):
This is the Meta Episode. In other words, why do the Team Slippers guys think that they should be entitled to burgle your time? What do they want to tell you, and what is their motivation? This is the ground floor debate betwixt EC Slippers and WC Slippers regarding what the tenor, meaning, and vibe of The Slippers Show ought to be (they mostly agree). At one point East Coast Slippers make a vague and uncited reference to an academic article, it is "Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization" by Iyengar and Westwood from 2014. You can read a free PDF of it here.
The Slippers boys discuss China. WC Slippers contends that China is an existential threat to the Western hegemony. To bolster his position he lists debt-trap diplomacy, military aggression (think South China Sea), One Belt/One Road, IP theft, and mercantile practices. EC Slippers asks for proof of a legitimate threat rather than another harebrained right-wing conspiracy. The China articles that are covered are from The New York Times and can be linked to here. The video of Bill Clinton that West Coast Slippers alludes to seems to be this one. There is talk about life expectancy in the United States, some clarity can be found here. China's debt can be a little difficult to pin down. Part of the confusion emerges from what one means by "debt"? Are you asking about the government's debt, or the debt of the population and business entities, or both combined? What about difficult to track debt that is "off balance-sheet"? Here are some reports from Bloomberg (which some claim is a reasonably reputable source for economic stuff): https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/chinas-debt-bomb https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-lehman-debt/?srnd=premium