No, no, no your boat
Lovett or Leave It- 1,503 views
- 27 Mar 2021
Biden faces the press. The press forget the pandemic. And the Suez Canal is RED on my map and google is telling me to go around? Comedian Danielle Perez joins to talk news and snacks. Jason Concepcion and Renee Montgomery are here for our version of the Elite 8. And it’s infrastructure week with transit researcher Alon Levy. Oh and Justice League is good.
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Love it or leave it is brought to you by Neum, think about everything you've ever learned about getting healthy. There's a lot of contradictory information out there and things like that old fashioned food pyramid aren't much help. I hated that food pyramid. Well, briefly, it was awesome. It was pretty awesome when the key to losing weight and staying healthy was 10 servings of carbs a day. It was a wonderful year.
Was it one year? I felt like that was most of my life. That was the food pyramid.
It was a long time. And I remember I saw Nigella Lawson say on a cooking show, it's a myth that fat is what causes you to gain fat and hit me like a ton of bricks. It was my that was my red pill I got by Nigella Lawson. The point is, it's not about what you just ate, but about how you eat.
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You're welcome to love it or leave it vacc to the future. So we have to travel to get those for this guy, President David. Like an. And when you can get. Thanks to the future of that incredible theme song was sent in by Stephen Garza, if you want to make a Vaccine The Future theme song, please send it to us and leave it at Crooked Dotcom before we get to the show. In case you haven't heard me talking about this already, Jason Concepcion is officially joined cricket and launched his podcast, Take on head over to the Take on YouTube channel to watch full videos, along with Jason's digital video series, All Caps NBA, which is so much fun for any NBA fan search taken on YouTube and smash that subscribe button for excellent new content every week.
Jason and Renee Montgomery, who is his co-host for the podcast, will be on later and they are fantastic.
Also, we have brand new Emily's Guardian show, Mirch, which we just can't keep in stock. It just goes get your friend of the Peapod shirt now while they're still available. Obviously, I reluctantly go along with this, but you people can't seem to get enough of it. Crooked dotcom dotcoms store on the show this week.
I'm joined by the host of Take Line, as I said, Jason and Renee for a little March Madness. And I had a great conversation with transit researcher along Lévy about the cost of infrastructure project in the U.S., its infrastructure week at podcast. I'm on, apparently.
But first, she's a stand up actress and writer. Please welcome Daniel Perez. Daniel, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for being here. Let's get into it. What a week. On Thursday, President Biden held his first solo news conference after a great deal of consternation from the press. And finally, it was here, a chance for reporters to ask tough questions like this.
Do you believe you'll be running against former President Trump? Oh, come on. I have no idea. I have no idea what the Republican Party do you. That's right.
There are more questions about the election in 2024 than the pandemic in 2021 because there were zero questions asked about covid-19 Danyell.
They forgot nobody asked about the pandemic. They forgot that we're in a pandemic. That literally like the reason I flew with two masks on and a face shield and rubber gloves and didn't drink a single thing. The reason I'm dehydrated while traveling now, they forgot to mention that.
So I'm so I'm sorry. I'm trying to hydrate.
You have to be of a certain age. I need to say moisturizes. The body is 70 percent water. I have to I have a daily intake I need to stick to.
Can I tell you something? I recently had a similar experience, and I will tell you, I made this decision, which was I drank a ton of water and a big Diet Coke, probably a mistake like before I got to the airport and that because I was like, you know what? I need my caffeine. I need my water. I'm going to because I believe in hydration. All right. We're two people that believe in hydration.
And I said, all right, I'm going to try to make it. It's like a two hour flight.
I was like, I'm going to I'm not once I once this mast goes on, it stays on. I'm not touching it again. And then I like halfway through the plane. Right. I was like, oh, no. Oh, I'm thirsty. Oh, I'm real thirsty.
And so then I took a little mini bottle of water and I went into the bathroom and I drank it in the bathroom. How do you feel about that?
I don't feel like the bathroom was more sanitary than the rest of the cabin.
I mean, we all make our own risk calculations, our own security theater. But there was what was was interesting is there was a couple that got on the plane super late, I think, because they wanted to get on as late as possible. They both had double masks. They had the face shield. They wiped everything down. They were wiping like crazy. The pilot had to ask, like they had to make an announcement to say, like, please sit down.
We can't leave until these wipers sit down.
And they finally finished and they were like, so careful, clearly. So where they sat down. And then I looked over like halfway through the flight. And they were just they were going they took their Massoudi chips.
And I was like, all of that, all of that, just that performance art of like, we care. We are on the right side of this. And then they're going to risk it all for some chips. That's what's shocking to me, is that people get on planes. A lot of people talk a lot of shit. How not me. I'm going to keep my mask on and then they're going to risk it all for a sonship, arguably one of the worst kinds of chips.
We can talk about it, we can talk about it. I think there's a place, there is a place. I think the problem is a sonship. It is its own category. It's definitely worse than a potato chip and it's worse than a pretzel. It's worse than a tortilla chip. It's worse.
I mean, you just simply kind of snacks that are chips that it is worse than. Yes, totally. I was like, it's a strong argument. You're making my argument for me.
I'm globule. I look, I agree that I have not done the best job making a case for the Sonship. But here's the point. I obviously like no potato chips are better than pretzels. That's just how it is. They're better.
But every once in a while you want a pretzel because it's its own thing. Once in a while you're like, you know what?
I don't know. This pretzel is what I'm looking at. I don't know whose pretzels are for.
They're salty. And those are for me, only kind of pretzel I fuck with is a soft pretzel, you know. OK, right. German. I can get behind that.
I like that. OK, I don't disagree. We don't we don't have to be there. We don't need conflict between you know, we don't.
We just started what I was trying to say. We have to I'm like halfway through I have to get a circle back. But what I was going to say is and yet once in a while I say to myself, I want to sonship. I'm going for it. It's a sonship day. Once in a long while, once in a long while, I go past the salt and vinegar potato chip.
I go past the normal, the regular, the classic potato chip.
And I say, it's a sonship day. It's a sonship day.
They have whole wheat in them.
It says it says it has whole wheat, whole brisket got the Triscuit, you know, a lot of Trescott lavatories.
Now when they got to the end of the press conference and nobody had remember to ask about it, it really reminded me of this, the annual Coorg Star Trek convention, where once a year sci fi buffs take their lips off the barrel of a loaded gun and spend half a day adjusting their eyes to sunlight.
Know the constant. I would be happy to answer a few questions. Oh, yes, so many questions. Let's do it. Do do. Yes, you that.
Oh, yes, I have a question. Oftentimes my household sponges accumulate an awful amount of buildup. What can I do to prevent this?
That's an excellent question. It's very important to thoroughly wring out your sponges after every usage. This will prevent the accumulation of grime and bacteria. A dry sponge is a happy sponge.
That's not a Star Trek question. What the hell? This is all shit.
In fairness, while there weren't any questions about the ongoing global pandemic, they did cover a lot of substantive issues on Afghanistan, North Korea, immigration, the border, voting rights, the filibuster about the filibuster.
Biden said this with regard to the filibuster.
I believe we should go back to a position of the filibuster that existed just when I came to the United States Senate 120 years ago, and that is that it used to be required for the filibuster. And I I had a card on this. I was going to give you the statistics, but you probably know them. That used to be that that from between 1917 and 1971, the filibuster existed. There were a total of 58 motions to break a filibuster that whole time.
Last year alone, there were five times that many. So it's being abused as a gigantic way. And for example, it used to be you had to stand there and talk and talk and talk and talk until you collapsed.
And guess what? People got tired of talking and tired of collapse.
Joe Biden is like, that's funny, because in our marriage, he talks until I collapse. But seriously, I love him. We have a great marriage. That's what she said. That's what she said about it.
But he talks until I collapse, are in denial, obviously.
So I was wondering how we're going to get to Joe Biden following. Yeah, it was tough three times. We haven't covered it. We haven't covered it. We haven't covered it.
But I bet I bet Joe Biden's a fan of Khateeb, you know, get knocked down nine times, but you get up ten. Mm.
That's right. Oh that's right. That's right.
Biden also had a very strong answer when asked about Republican attacks on voting rights across the country, deciding in some states that you cannot bring water to people standing in line, waiting to vote, deciding that you're going to end voting at five o'clock when working people are just getting off work. Deciding that there will be no absentee ballots under the most rigid circumstances is all designed. And I'm going to spend my time doing three things. One, trying to figure out how to pass the legislation passed by the House, number one.
Number two, educating the American public. The Republican voters I know find this despicable Republican vote. Folks out and outside this White House, I'm not talking about the elected officials, I'm talking about voters, voters.
That was a great answer. Great answer. Yes, really fits with some of the polling we've seen from Data for Progress and with Change research emphasizing this is nonpartisan.
It was a great answer, Joe. Here we go. You've flown all the way home now, land that plane.
And so I'm convinced that we'll be able to stop this because it is the most pernicious thing. This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. Yeah.
What? What does that mean? This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. I don't know who what does it mean?
So now, Danielle, it's time for a segment we call Joking With Joe. This is a new segment where we break down a soundbite by President Joseph Robinette Biden. So, all right, let's break it down. Obviously, Joe Biden thinks voter suppression is bad. So in context, he must mean that these suppression measures are worse than Jim Crow. When I first heard this, I assume that must be a person. Jim Eagle must be a person that I've never heard of named Jim Eagle.
But quick Google, no luck there. No Jim Eagle.
Oh, and then. Yeah. You think it's going to be a real person? It's not.
And then my reaction is because the eagle is more predatory than a crow. Well, that's what I thought. Higher up the food chain chain. Yes. Yeah, but that's not right, obviously, because that's what I thought. That's literally what I thought it was like. Eagle rules would be worse than crow rules because eagles are bigger and more dangerous. But no, not correct, because in context, Danielle Jim Eagle is clearly better than Jim Crow, then it's about a kind of like aesthetic judgment or moral judgment about the birds themselves, that eagles are in some way better than crows and eagles are majestic creatures soaring above and crows are little fucking dicks running around on the ground.
That's what he must meet. That's what he means. It's a.. Crow. And it really reminds me of how in The Lion King, like the hyenas are the villains, which is really bringing a lot of like human energy and judgment to that world.
Because if you're a zebra, it doesn't really matter if you get killed by a hyena or a lion. The lion are just monarchs who want to retain power. They're not inherently better.
And I'm realizing, as I say this, Daniel, that not only have I made this point before, I think I've made it recently on this podcast.
Oh, you just love The Lion King. It's OK. It's Hamlet. It makes sense in our in our day and age, you know, monarchies are tumbling because of zebras, because of in March, because it's you know. So, yeah.
I just want for I would just like to see a Lion King story that centers the zebra or that at least ends in an election. Like what Simba is in charge. He's not even he doesn't even live here anymore. He moved away. He doesn't know what things have been like. You just can't wait to him. Oh, he's a lion, though. He gets to be in charge. You had the right parents.
You sure did. Anyway, also during the press conference, Biden made news when he said he trusts fate, but he expects to run for a second term. I would be proud to be the president's running mate yet again, said Vice President Kamala Harris as she placed several bolts in her pocket that may have come from a railing.
It's not clear where those boats were from.
She's loosening a railing, you know. Yeah, yeah.
She also trusts fate, but she's also making moves.
Yeah, well, as you know, as we all learn from Linda Hamilton in Terminator two, quote, Colin Judgment Day, no fate.
But what we make I never seen Terminator. Is it good? Gasping for air because you haven't seen it. You're just like flames, flames, flames on the side of my face. Here's what I would say. Flames on the side of my face. Here's what I think. I've just learned something which which is you have this wonderful, very vulnerable right now.
You when I hear that somebody now, obviously my first instinct is to lunge, but then I realize what a gift. What a gift. You've not seen Terminator or Terminator Part two, Colin, Judgment Day. That's so fun. You got to watch Terminator, then you get to watch Terminator Part two, one of the greatest action movies ever made.
And just Linda Hamilton just crushes it. It's so good. That's so fun. Do you not do you like action movies?
Oh, sure. I like when things blow up. You know what a big fan of the Fast and Furious franchise. I like that.
I love it because it's about family and it's about cars and it's weirdly turned into a superhero franchise. I love really Bear.
It's really barely about family.
It is, though, is it? Is it it's all about that little house in Echo Park and they just want to sit Coronas in front of it while they work on cars. That's all it's about. Charleson, Hobb, all about family. Helen Mirren family.
Oh, now I saw Shazad Hobs.
That was not a movie about Van Gogh, not the sister, the mom, a whole family thing that loves crime. OK, yeah, they love him well.
And you got the rock. He got not only his whole family, his whole Homeland band together to create an analog system of weddings and police and fire and oil.
I until this moment, I realized that I have completely blocked out the memory of the fact that they arranged the movie so that the guns turn off at the end of the movie. So the only thing that they have is Whitsun history and they've got their, you know, historical weapon.
Okay, they've got their knowledge there. Know how they know no one island like they know this island.
Speaking of whatever we were talking about a while ago, speaking of vice president, speaking of Kamala Harris, he'll also loves family, maybe not Joe Biden so much since she is holding around those nuts and bolts from railing.
Speaking of Vice President Kamala Harris, she walked past members of the military without saluting and the clip went viral in a very specific corner of the Internet.
As conservative, Grifter's pretended to be outraged. She hates the troops.
They say she hates the troops. But then the military news site, Task Purpose and many others were quick to point out that there's no regulation that says the president or vice president should salute the troops. And it was never something the vice president did because the vice president isn't even in the chain of command. Pens just started doing it because he's a schmuck. And for presidents, the practice is just something Ronald Reagan decided to start doing one day. This is also my Kamala Harris isn't required to eat two pounds of jelly beans called Doug mother or illegally trade arms for hostages to fund military operations in Nicaragua.
We don't they don't have to do it.
She's not required to. But, boy, is it fun.
Yeah, don't trade arms for hostages because you have to do it because you want to do it for the love of the game. In other news this week, Jordache has started offering covid tests.
But if you want free delivery, you have to throw in like a milkshake or something just to get just to get you that amount where the title dollar limit, ten, twelve dollars, whatever it is in your area, in your region, it's sad when you're ordering just for yourself and they put a bunch of tests in because they can't believe all that food is for one person.
It's like, I know this is I know this is pizza and wings and a salad. The salad is pretend, but I didn't need to cover test. It's just me here. It's just me eating.
I just can't wait to have like a drawer filled with like just jammed with covid tests that I'm never going to throw away because one day I just feel like I'm going to need it, you know.
No, I totally. That's so funny. No, I totally hear you.
It's like this is the drawer where I keep you know, it's like Taco Bell packets, covid tests, chopsticks, because because, you know, there aren't chopsticks in the bag. You're fucked.
Yeah. Yeah. Chopsticks, covertness spoons.
Also, some hand sanitizers that filled the gap during the pandemic have been found to have contained carcinogens.
So this is the problem.
When you end up buying off brand items because the brand names have run out, you have no idea what's in there.
I like to know when I'm using a chemical I bought on the Internet that it went through rigorous safety testing until the agency responsible was eviscerated during a Republican administration. And it turns out the enforcement systems are based around the honor code and once a decade inspections by an agency run by a future lobbyist who will be employed by that company. This is America and there are rules.
I'm going to be real. I don't know if that was pro Amazon or against Amazon, but I was able to get tampons delivered to my house within 90 minutes.
So I'm going to I'm going to say pro Gavin Newsom announced today that Californians over the age of 16 will be eligible for the vaccine by April 15th. Unless you're one of the two million people who signed the recall petition. No vaccines for you. Those are the rules. You signed the petition.
You don't get vaccinated. I don't know why it's allowed, but it's allowed. I don't think it's right. I don't think that's fair. Feels like something's wrong, but. Well, you know, he's the governor, Gavin Newsom.
Oh, man. I remember when he cheated with his campaign manager, his wife. I love that's familiar. Yeah, yeah, he goes for he's fun, he's fun guy. He's a hearty.
BuzzFeed News reports that Facebook is working on a version of Instagram for kids under the age of 13. It's going to be great for children. All children will use it, said the cartoon villain. Imagine looking at what Instagram and Facebook has done to our brains and deciding that the problem is it needs to be for 10 year olds.
Oh, my God, I'm so thankful I don't have a child. I don't even want to be on Instagram. I was like slave to Instagram.
I not even like children. I don't even want that. I don't want that for them, you know what I mean? Like, that's sad.
Think of the children she uses. I just can't wait for them to, like, activate the child army, like through Instagram. Do you know what I mean?
Like it. Yeah. Now I know it's going to be like a bunch of Chucky dolls, like children are just going to start animating like a bunch of fucking Chucky dolls with knives and jump robes and start attacking us all. I think it's more agile. They're small, they're small.
They can fit into little places. I think sometimes that tock is actually where that war will begin because it seems like part of what Tic-Tac does is it gets trending doing something terrible to someone you love and like. How far could they take that, you know, like, all right, it starts by throwing a slice of cheese at somebody's face. Next thing you know, it's worse.
Next thing you know, you're like the whole block of Jarlsberg over your parent's head and you're holding it down and they're screaming until they aren't anymore. And now you're being tried as an adult and you're like, I am literally a ten year old who was doing the tick tock cheese challenge. Can I live? And then you're going to go to prison with over millions of followers. That's not right.
That isn't right. That's not right. That's not right.
And how can something be wrong if a million people liked it?
Doesn't make any sense.
That's not fair. Well, on Tuesday, one of the world's largest container ships got stuck sideways in the Suez Canal in Egypt, blocking traffic on the crucial trade passage. A local plumber was hurt.
Your mark, there's your problem is your problem. I love the love. I love the characters. Thank you for saying that.
Anyway, seeing that ship stuck there in that passage did remind me, if you are doing Akito diet, don't forget to eat fiber. You need those leafy greens. You know what I'm saying?
You got to got to got to. Has it just has to go through. My roommate Tokito are there. I still love them. I want to just put that out there. Well it is hard now. I don't know that frustrating until like hey everything that I love like me and cheese. Everything is covered in oil in my kitchen.
It is a shame that one aspect of going Kaido is that part of the way you lose weight is by burning calories.
Talking about it a lot. That is one of the part of it.
Part of it is like losing weight by losing friends and losing people close to you. And that's also part of it.
Yeah. Really just hanging on by a thread. What I love about Angie. I mean, you know, you'll you'll mend fences, you'll mend fences when this is done.
I can't stop thinking about the moment they realized that they weren't just going to potentially get this ship stuck. Things weren't going bad. But there was definitely a moment where a couple people are in, I don't know what you call it on a ship or a passenger on a bridge.
No, no. I'm told what the pilots, the captains o the captains. The point is, there was a moment where all of a sudden the person driving this ship realized that they had just blocked the Suez Canal. And the panic sweats the book, the Suez Canal we put in. It's not working. It's not working. And they tried going forward. We can't go forward, can't go back, can't go sideways. We are fucking stuck. I have blocked the Suez Canal.
I'm so fucked. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And then it never ends. It's like it's not like a couple. It's still there. We're having this conversation on Thursday.
This is like you're just sitting there being like I it's so that is such a fuck up at work, that is such a fuck up at work. You can never be like you are the person who blocked the Suez Canal. If you go to the Wikipedia for Suez Canal, which I have now done, it starts with Napoleon and then it's like Napoleon. It's conflicts between Israel and Egypt. It's a long history of the Soviet Union, the Cold War.
And then right there at the bottom, it's and then some schmuck blocked it with a boat. It's such a it's like people thought over this space to have this access. You blocked it with a fucking ship. That's so embarrassing. That's the most embarrassing thing.
Look why he's on that page. You know, he did it by hook or by crook.
You know, he made it. He made it.
I do love that you that you're you're giving him this credit of, like, having panic sweats and like, he feels really bad about it. But I've been in New York for a week and people while traveling here all the time and they don't feel bad at all. He could just be like, go around, wait, what are you going to do? You know, what are you going to do?
What are the first day I got here, there was an ambulance blocking the road. The ambulance, when the building got out, a dude then goes to the car behind him and it's like, hey, you see, there's an ambulance here we go round the next street.
You know, this is going to be a while.
And then he got in the the you know, that's your bad look. You saw that, you know, it was going to happen.
So you're going to take another route for finding another way. Hey, it's called it's called the Cape of Good Hope. All right. And at the Cape of Bad Hope.
Go around all around. Go the fuck around the Suez Canal. I'm using it. Go the fuck around. I'm sorry.
And you know, can. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte received a warning from wildlife officials after killing a radio collared wolf near Yellowstone National Park without first taking a mandated education course. You know, who else could have really used the warning that fucking wolves are like, oh, you only get a warning for killing a wolf.
It feels like there should be a stronger punishment, a warning. I mean, the wolves are already dead.
Yeah, it was tagged up. Oh, you killed a wolf. I follow a lot of foxes on Instagram. They're not wolves, but similar vibes, similar vibes. I like their first. And even though I follow them on Instagram, I still do want one.
Yeah, no, I, I definitely I feel like I watched a documentary about an attempt to domesticate foxes out of Russia.
They've done that in Russia. Will sell you domesticated foxes. You can buy them. Yeah. But I think it's probably worse than a dog in a lot of ways.
Oh for sure. Worse than you need. I definitely live on just one woman who lives with her Fox, and she's always talking about like this is the reality of living with the fox. And when they get happy, like, you know, when a dog agreed to and it's like happy to meet you, foxes will be like and that does it. No stop no matter how old the fox is, because you think it's like maybe a puppy behavior.
It's like no. And like Fox we think about dog P, Coyote P, you use that to keep away animals like Fox. We got to be ten times worse than that, even if it's just us worse.
I don't want it in my house. They're cute.
I admit Prince Harry has taken a job as an executive at a Silicon Valley startup. A spokesperson for Prince Harry told reporters he built up a ton of goodwill from that Oprah interview. If there's any left over after this, he might try rap.
Oh, my God, Prince Harry, I.
I love that Prince Harry is like a good fit for like this Silicon Valley like culture, you know, just like he's friend right. In with the tech pros.
Yeah. I just. What is it like if you get to work and your boss is fucking Prince Harry you like? I got to explain to him how everything works, how like money works, how like going to the store. Like how out of touch. Like what do you what do you how do you how do you Prince Harry, you going to tell me what to do now. I do what Prince Harry says. I'm a random kid. Maybe rich kid.
Harry has is really good in the imagination department and like dreaming up like on subs because he's like, what if everyone just did things for you? And he's like, wait, people don't live like that.
Like you don't live like that. I've lived like that. Why don't we just make an app called Buckingham Palace and literally it's just people doing shit for you.
It's just Buckingham, but no vowels. That's what the app is. It's just called Buckingham Buckingham.
And you're, as you say, that it's sort of hitting A, lowercase B, lowercase B, and as you say that, I'm realizing that it is the goal of many apps to make like the gig economy treat you like royalty.
You know, I said, yeah, Shake Shack, please. Yeah. Oh, five dollars. Yeah. Take these to Kinko's and like fax them and copy them for me. They hang this television. TaskRabbit. Yeah. Does he do you think Prince Harry does that, the kind of double clap from, from cinema.
Maybe that's like the sound that that makes like once you're like orders been processed now like someone's on their way up.
And finally, Jay Leno issued an apology on Wednesday for his long history of racist jokes that targeted Asians. I'm sorry that this has distracted from the great passion of my life, he said, vilifying Monica Lewinsky.
Thank God Jay Leno. I'm just glad that so many white people are taking this as the time to center themselves. You know, when Asians are being murdered and attacked daily and white people are like, But me, remember me? The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Daniel Perez, it has been so lovely to talk to you.
This was great. So much fun. When we come back, Jason and Renee, don't go anywhere.
There's more of love it or leave it coming up.
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You know, I would say this, but it's the perfect.
But that makes it easy to have a glass of wine and not overindulge. The cans may look cute and tiny, but each can is a glass and a half of wine perfect when you don't want to open a bottle of wine just for yourself, a 24 pack is equal to eight bottles of wine. I think it's great to have can wine. I think the fact that there's this custom of having glass bottles with corks is so stupid.
And then what's and then very fragile glasses that you pour in. It's so dumb. Just asking asking for a mistake.
Yeah, it's dumb.
Therefore, facts are great for gifting, hosting and social distance.
Hanks They used to shove a rag into a wine bottle and then dip that in wax.
They're like, that's the only way. That's the way we've done it.
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Keeps that conversation. And we're back. He is an Emmy Award winner and host of Crewcuts newest podcast tagline. Please welcome Jason Concepcion.
Wonderful to be here. Delighted. And she is a WNBA champion, co-owner of the Atlanta Dream and the other hosts of Take On. Please welcome Renee Montgomery.
Listen, I love Jason's answer. I can't top that, but I'm happy to be here. Let's go. So good to have you both on the show. It's so exciting to take. Line has launched. It's my favorite sports podcast. It's the only one I listen to. But I love it.
I love it. I'll take it. Yeah, definitely.
I have two topics I just want to touch on. All right. One sports related, one less sports related Renney. You know, this is something you've been talking about on the show, but it's been something that's in the news a fair amount. Can you just talk a little bit about what it's been like having to argue against these anti trans bigots who are pretending to be advocates for women in sports?
Well, I feel like a lot of people are trying to fight a fight for women's sports. And the women in women's sports are like, not we're good.
Like, we don't need you to fight this battle like we're good. And what I mean by we're good is that no one in women's sports is concerned about a trans person playing in women's sports.
Everybody must have seen the movie Juwanna Mann and thought it was a real life thing. Nothing has ever happened in real life like Juwana man. But people are taking this fictional story and be like, well, what if a guy decides he wants to just dominate and then he wants to be trans and now play the women's game and he's going to be the best ever and ruin the women's game? Like, that's silly. I don't even know how else to say it other than is silly.
If we're not concerned about it, then why should you be? And that's that's real. And and we have our first trans person in the WNBA and Alasia Claridon. And for us to know her to be close to her and understand her her plight, it blows our mind, you know. And so I just think that people need to not if we're not concerned about it. I keep saying that because we come out and say, no, we're not concerned.
We're going to people like, no, you're not good. This is going to be a big problem. And it's not a problem.
It's a problem that people are trying to make a problem. And you said it, they're trying to attack a certain group and yeah, not on our watch.
I was sometimes like I had to leave a sports camp because some of the kids figured out I was gay first. And they but I did the musicals, you know, they would let me do the musicals.
Yeah. And like, what I sometimes think is like a soft lib is like, oh, but it's about competition. It's about like who's going to be the best and who's going to be the toughest and who's going to be the strongest.
And sometimes I just think that like some athletes are incredible and go on to be professionals. But for a lot of kids, it's just like it's just a fun thing to do after school.
Am I giving into this at all to be like, why are you so focused on the competitive aspect and so and not focused at all on just like this is a way for the vast majority of kids who play sports to like, have fun after school and make friends like it doesn't matter if they get a trophy. Nice soft lib.
I can answer that easily in a sense of people want something to attack about trans people and this is the only place where they feel like they have some type of substance. There's no substance there.
I think Jason's the one that told me like there's zero cases that prove what people are trying to say. Like it doesn't happen. It's not it's not realistic. But if you can't just outright attack trans people, you're going to find ways to attack trans people. And that's what you see happening.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think there's two levels to it as well. On the top level, just as Rene pointed out, there's actually zero cases of the kind of thing that Republicans are worried about.
It's never happened. It's legitimately never happened, ever.
So on a on a hard core like meritocracy, who's the best? Who's the fastest? Who's Gemini's?
It's just literally not not an issue like it's never happened. It's like voter fraud, like there's nothing there.
And and then to your point, John, like sports is such a powerful force for teamwork and for integrating people into a cultural structure, into mainstream society. You know, sports has been a major motor in mainstream society of bringing people formerly outside of the mainstream into the mainstream.
And it does the same thing. You know, when you're a kid, it's so important. Like being accepted is the most powerful thing that you could imagine when you are a child. And so sports are just tremendously important in that regard.
Speaking of people striving to be accepted, this won't work. There's a lot of fans out there who wanted to accept Justice League.
I want to talk about justice, OK, today.
Oh, I like. I love the transition. Thank you, Justice League, the Snyder court. Yes, I can't believe it. It's good, Jason. It's good, Renee. Have you seen it?
I have not. I've got to say, you guys got it because I had, like, I know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about.
It is good. It's good against all odds. Here's how I feel about it. I on the one hand, I'm glad.
Listen, I love I love a fun movie. I love to watch movies. I'm glad that this movie exists.
This is a movie that is an improvement over the previous iteration of Justice League in the main elevates and fleshes out the back story of Cyborg. As a kind of aside, one of the main kind of like controversies around the production of this movie was the actor Ray Fisher's allegations against Joss Whedon, the director who took over from Zack Snyder on the first Snyder cut that he had fostered a toxic workplace.
And I think it's not a great look for Joss that in the context of those allegations, that the main most substantive difference between the two movies is that, like all of Ray Fisher's parts were cut out and have been put back in the movie.
And now it's actually like a quite powerful story that sets up his stakes.
Also, the, you know, the only main black character in the movie, that's pretty huge. So I I'm glad it exists.
I also feel that the way that it came about, which was like from a social media driven campaign by some of, you know, the most toxic parts of fandom, it's not great.
I don't think that those forces should necessarily be rewarded when they, like, flat out attack people and demand that a cut be released. I don't think that that's positive, a positive force for our world.
But listen, the movie was good and I'm glad that it exists. And I am listen, as a mostly a Marvel guy, I am shocked to be sitting before you saying this Snyder cut was good.
Snyder was so shocking. It was I can't believe it. What I liked about it, too, is that because people watch it over the course of the week, there were such defiance.
And then it was like, no, you were right. It is good. It's crazy. I am shocked that it is good.
And look, it was a lot of like Zack Snyder bullshit, you know. Yes.
And and I'm and 20 percent of the movie is in slow motion, like legitimately 20 percent of the movies in slowmo.
And like, it brings over some of the, like, masculinities stuff from Batman versus Superman, ultimate addition. And again, I will say the ultimate decision also better than theatrical. I'm sorry. It's just the case.
And it made me realize, though, that, like, OK, so here's what we've realized. 60 percent of Zack Snyder is the worst amount.
We either got to have zero percent or a hundred percent. And I've decided that conversationally.
I would like to introduce a concept like if someone tells you a story and like you can't follow it, it's a little like, hold on to say, hold on a second, give me the Snyder cut.
And what that means is that means take your fucking time.
Right. We go through all the details for hours in your worst tendencies at the end of it. Seventy million dollars in reshoots.
Just give me a look. I can't follow this. I just give me the Snyder cut. Just waste my time. I'm OK with that. Jason Renney. Yes. Before I let you go, it is March Madness. This is a period of time in which things are happening. They really are real. They're they're taking place all the time all around us.
Apparently, the elite eight begins on Monday, as we all know, in honor of that of the Elite eight and proud of them. We are for reaching such a place in competitive sport.
We are going to build our own bracket.
Oh, but it's going to be about oh, it's it's going to be about snacks.
Oh, yeah. I see. What's going on. Oh, I love it. Oh man.
I think that I have a low bracket. I already know they didn't tell me beforehand that we were going to tournament up. I would say right now I might have some low seeds in the tournament.
I'm just here's the thing. Here's the thing.
If there's one thing I've learned from being adjacent to American society when it comes to sports, sometimes schools are called Bucknell and they do quite well.
You know, like I'm aware of that. I don't I don't know what's happening with a school called Gonzaga. I have no idea. But I know the name.
And sometimes they sometimes unexpected. Oral Roberts, Oral Roberts, Oral Roberts.
Always hear about Oral Roberts around this time of year. All right.
So now so let's throw it up on the big board. It's time for Østergaard. Yes. Why March Madness?
This is the bracket some sort of committee was involved in creating. Some of your teams are on there.
We have some facet things. I don't even know what they are to learn about them.
Here is what we've got on the board. Nachos, spoonfuls of peanut butter that come with you to the couch. That's important. It's not just a spoonful of peanut butter. Will you take this all the way to the couch? Wow, we have kettle corn, we have double stuffed Oreos, we have what is this lumpia Shanghai Lumpia, Shanghai, they're like.
And it's basically like a spring roll, like an egg roll. Oh, and eggroll, we have mango smoothies. We have wings. And really, honestly, truly the the underdog, the the fan favorite. Nobody thought they would get this far.
We have apples to apples, apples with an Oral Roberts like run small school, small school.
Not a hard lot of heart, not a lot of money.
I know I got apples.
They defeated baby carrots are. All right. All right.
First up, who all right. Who's going to win? We got nachos versus spoonfuls of peanut butter, a spoonful of peanut butter that comes with you to the couch. What do we think? Wow, I'm.
I'm not technically. Yeah, I'm going nachos, too. I just. That said, I want to just get a little clarification. Only the spoon is coming with you, not the jar.
The jar stay on the counter because you're showing discipline.
You take the spoon, leave the jar that it's a set in your hand. A little disappointed, bitter popsicle nachos.
I see. I'm I'm still going. Nachos, nachos when they get that clarification.
No, but you were right. You're right. You're right. To to to dig in. Next, we have kettle corn versus double stuff. Oreos, this one we can all weigh in, but to me it's not particularly close.
Oh. Which one is it that. Oh because no one wants it double stuffed. Right. That's just way too much filling. That tells me that you have the discipline of a professional athlete that tells me everything, that's why you're you all right? And that's why I'm me, all right.
That's why they didn't let me go on the varsity tennis team. And you all right. Are you. Oh, my gosh. Jason, what do you think? Got to break the tie.
I'm going to go. You know, my apologies to you, John, but I am also going to go kettle corn.
I think it's too arterial inside of a double stuff. Just too much.
It's just too much like the you know, the the balance of the original Oreo is perfect and chemical and also a little bit healthy, a little bit helps with the originals.
Wow. OK, next up, we have lumpia Shanghai and Mango Smoothie. Let me quickly explain.
It's a it's a fried spring roll, like an egg roll. And it's got like we usually like a meat fillings and a pork sesame oil carrots. Delicious. It's one of those things you can only eat.
If you eat one, you're going to eat one. Oh, my goodness.
And this is a disgrace because I'm going with the Shanghai and I was a movie.
All of this movie. Yeah.
I don't I don't think mangoes. Mangoes. Look, mango smoothies. Just proud to have gotten this far. It's like taking pictures, making smoothies, taking pictures made this way.
The Great in the morning. It's not even the snacky like you know, you're watching something good. You want a cool drink, but it's flavored and it's like a milkshake, but not. I'm going with Shangla. All right.
We have the winner. We have the winner. Next up, its wings versus again, first in our hearts, apples. That's right.
I'm mad that wings got mashed up with apples.
Actually, it was a very tough bracket. Tough bracket. That's why I don't think they're going to put this one one verse sixteen. Right. They're like, come on.
Listen, you know what they say, an apple a day makes you wonder where the wings are. I'm going to go with these wings.
Wings takes it wings takes it to work. It's time for the final four.
The Final Four, we have nachos, kettle corn, lumpia, Shanghai and wings. OK, stuffed nachos versus kettle corn. What do we think? I am calling kettle corn again.
For real. Wow.
I'm going to. I'm going. I'm going nachos. This time I think it's one of the more perfect snack foods. It comes with its own container. Yeah.
I'm going to go with all that cheese, you know, all that she said like it's Basili lactose intolerant. OK, so I'm just I'm just saying all that cheese.
I just think I just think if you say it the way I would say all that cheese nachos say and one of those words, one of the better.
Yeah. One of us has won two championships and and it's not the one who's speaking or the other one. It's the one who wants to have the healthy snack.
Well, time in the tournament has passed me by.
Here's the thing. Here's the thing. All right.
What I'm gathering from this is well, while you have many trophies, there are food champions on this. Yes. And that's something that I think Jason and I are going to have to claim that I understand.
Look, I understand my strengths and weaknesses of food. I've had to eat so discipline my whole life that I think my brain has made me think that those are the good snacks like mango smoothie apples. My brain loves those snacks. So I understand that's my weakness.
That is so cool. I think that's a strength. I envy and admire you greatly. Next up, lumpia Shanghai versus Wings.
Oh, boy. Tough. This is like the one this is like a one verst, one seed.
Yeah, it's really tough.
Shanghai. Yeah, I'm going to go with Shanghai. It's making me want them. Part of the reason I put them on this is because I really miss having them. I haven't had them in a while. They're delicious. I'm going to go with the Shanghai be Shanghai takes.
I think that would be considered an upset. I think that's an upset too. I think it's an upset too. But they that that that's OK. That's what happens. That's what happens. It happens sometimes March Madness. Sometimes that happens. It's the wildness.
All right. Final finally will be a Shanghai vs. nachos. We have East versus west.
I don't know. But, you know, I'm going to go with nachos here. I think that it's it's just a thing that many people can agree on.
People see a plate of nachos. They like it. It's simple, but it's hard to do. Again, it comes with its own little spoon, little plate. You could dip it the way you want too much cheese on it. You shake some of it off, you can dip it, dip it in salsa. I'm going to go with the nachos.
OK, I have a question. This is the championship bracket, so I need more details. Are these nachos that have meat with it? Like are these loaded nachos? Are these just the nasty all that cheese NoDoz?
I think we'll call them loaded. I think we ought to assume that they're loaded. They're loaded.
OK, that means maybe it's not all that she's maybe it's all that cheese and sour cream and and ground turkey and all of that. Is that what we're saying?
You heard that right, Jason, that she put right here? It is great turkey. I once again went for the healthiest option available. That's why Renee Montgomery is a two time champion.
Drake, you're trying to pig out and all of a sudden it's ground turkey coming on these nachos.
I know my weaknesses.
OK, so I just put on your worst day. That is my best day. That's what we're discovering.
Your cheat day is my being as good as I can be. Only when it comes to food.
I'm like, you know, blame it on the sports. I love it. That was so exciting. Well, what are your answers, though? What nachos wins not just not just wins, OK, who's who's big wins.
Nachos snack you was that.
I think. I think that's Jason was Jason first Jason in the championship. It was.
I didn't want to bring that up because I have so much respect for my competitors.
Oh I'm a complete competitor so I had to know this. Food, wine. Oh my God.
Listen, here's Renee, obviously. Let's face it. You brought apples, mangoes to a snack competition.
While that means you clearly lost this, it does mean you're winning in every other way.
Possible winner winning wife Rock and Jay-Z.
This was so much fun. Thank you so much for being here, Renee. The competitive spirit in your eyes. You're so mad. I can see it. I love it.
I could have made up snacks if I knew this was the case. OK, now this is better. I like. I think it's better I think the truth is better. I think the truth is better. Everybody check out Take Line. It is an incredible show. You will love it. And Britney. Jason, thank you so much. When we come back.
I had a great conversation about infrastructure and one of the most important aspects of infrastructure we never talk about with a mathematician and expert along.
Lubie, don't go anywhere. There's more of love it or leave it coming up.
Love it or leave it is brought to you by better help. 2020 was interesting. OK. Every time it's like, yeah, yeah, it was interesting, so let's do a mental health check in. How are you? Really shitty. What do you need right now? Yeah, not great. Therapy can help, Tony. Thank you. What is therapy? It's whatever you want it to be. Get some tools to help with motivation, depression, anxiety, battling your temper, stress, dealing with insecurities in relationships or at work.
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And we're back. They are a globe trotting mathematician turned mass transit. Expert, please welcome Alan Levy. Good to see you. Great to see you, too. Thanks for having me here. OK, so on Thursday at a press conference, President Biden took a questions on a host of issues, but he talked about infrastructure. He said it's the next major initiative of the administration. There is a multitrillion dollar infrastructure plan in the works. As an expert, as a researcher, does this excite you?
Does this get your blood pumping? Are you pumped?
Yeah, I'm actually pretty excited to see what what useful spending can be handled, especially when people are talking about, I guess, in the United States. You say Green New Deal here in Europe, which say green deal about using infrastructure to invest in things that are not just pipelines and more highways, but also and things that enable a prosperous green transition.
People to judge who is now secretary of transportation. He's been saying good things in terms of moving away from the primacy of cars and how we think about infrastructure investments. One thing that you've written about that I think is really important. You know, we talk a lot about the need to invest in infrastructure, but not a lot about how we do it. Can you talk a little bit about this core problem that the United States has of the price of the projects when we do finally invest in them?
Yeah, there's this big and unfortunately growing problem in the United States. So I'm familiar predominantly with public transportation infrastructure. The cost of that in the United States is very high by global standards. Some of the examples that kind of started all of this was when I was living in New York and it was kind of curious about the idea of expanding the subway system so that it would be able to get to more places so there would be better connections. And at the time they started building Second Avenue subway phase one and the cost of that project by one point six, one point seven billion dollars per kilometer, I think it's two point seven billion per mile.
And I thought, OK, it's expensive.
New York is an expensive city, the big, expensive city. And then I started poking around other cities and I realized, no, actually, if you look at, for example, Paris are also a large, expensive city, a very high wage. It has a lot of older infrastructure. Actually, the lines that they've been building recently are more complicated than Second Avenue subway.
Same thing with London, Tokyo, Madrid, Milan, Berlin, Seoul. And they noticed nothing costs as much as in New York. So this turned 10 years later into the transit infrastructure project. And it's on w w w dot transit costs, dot com, where we have this database of hundreds of subways. It's almost every subway built in the world since 2000. And the five most expensive lines in the database are exactly the five that are in New York.
Hardly anyone goes over a billion per kilometre. The global median for subway is not elevated lines is about two hundred fifty.
So we're at seven times roughly or eight times roughly. Yeah. New York. Yeah, New York is the rest of the United States. And I thought, OK, that's just a New York problem, because maybe in the 2000s it looked like Los Angeles was not such a bad thing. But it is the constant Los Angeles of exploded in the last 10 years. California High-Speed Rail, which in 2008 seemed pretty reasonable, costs more per kilometre of line than the average French high speed train.
But yeah, California has mountains to cross that. That seemed reasonable. Since then, the cost overruns have led to much higher unit costs and even the supposedly easier parts of California in the Central Valley cost a lot more than they should. I think maybe one point five or two times as much.
We claim we're going to we want to build this high speed rail line between Northern California and Southern California, you know, connects San Francisco to Los Angeles, San Diego, and then it spends a decade not happening. And then the plan gets restricted. And now what we're left with is a train that connects Bakersfield and Mercede to basically a tiny portion of what they had planned to build. And you can there are many issues around infrastructure where you can blame partisan politics, Democrats versus Republicans, Republicans underfunding thing.
But that's not what's going on here. Right. Like this isn't this isn't exclusively an issue about Democrats versus Republicans.
Yeah, exactly. Maybe if we have time for this later, there is a part where you can blame Republicans, but I'm excited about that much. We can get to that.
But it is it's a very subtle thing. It's it's not like let's say, oh, Bush is full of cronies or Trump will is going to do something, something a lot smaller than that. But I don't even think that they had this in California and California. It's just the agency didn't really look very hard about how to build high speed rail. They were the sort of people who visit Europe for a couple of days or visit Japan for a couple days and say, oh, we like these trains, let's have them at home, which is completely valid.
It's just that the follow through was something very different. The planning was not done based on any kind of global best practices, and the result is that the costs ended up being really high and this kind of killed high speed rail in America. I mean, not forever. I mean, they can do a restart right now. I hope they do. But it says a lot that they're talking about restarting in Texas between Dallas and Houston, Dallas and these are enormous cities, but kind of like the most important high speed rail line in America is not Dallas to Houston, it's Boston, to New York, to Washington.
Yeah, and that's just not happening so far.
Unfortunately, you look at some of these distances, right? Like, you know, Madrid and Barcelona can be connected service far fewer people than, say, San Francisco to Los Angeles, far fewer people than New York to Boston or D.C. to Boston.
Yeah, it gets to be a technical question, even just about how we bid out these contracts. And in other countries, they have standards that are different than just cost. Right. It's like you don't just give a contract to the person who says I'll build you a train for the cheapest price. You say they have to have a good plan. They have to have a good time frame. You have to do it. They have to have real oversight.
And ironically, in our projects get extremely overpriced, in part because somebody just submits a low bid that they'll never be able to ever fulfill. There's nobody who catches that early. They get the contract and then lo and behold, they can't meet any of their deadlines. They can't do any of the things they said they would do.
The wait is generally higher in lower cost countries. Again, it is not exclusive and sometimes contracts are low bid, but it's more common to do maybe 50 50. I've heard even 60 40 where the technical score is 60 percent. There's something that I think is exclusive to Madrid, which is that they do 50 percent technical, 30 percent price, 20 percent speed. So how fast you can build it in Madrid, they believe that you should work fast.
This is not universal to the low cost world. So, for example, France is a medium cost country. Early on when we were building the database, the median project in cost per kilometre was actually the Grand Paris Express project that they're building a 200 kilometre automated suburban metro system which are capable of doing, first of all, because Paris is an enormous city. So this is the right scale for Paris. And second, because their costs are not so high.
So some of this is like differences in the systems. We have an adversarial system. There are lawsuits that slows things down. There are these kind of built in hurdles that we have that are hard to mount, even with really expert, professional, hard charging public servants who take this on and want to solve this problem.
But like part of it is about rewarding, investing, celebrating, having a culture of excellence amongst the kinds of people that don't often get attention.
And public planners, people inside the government, the person who oversees the private contract. Yeah, a person who's excited about this and goes to Rome and is like, how the fuck did you build a subway next to the Colosseum? Or like goes to France and is like, how did you how did you manage to build a new subway line when there are so many historic buildings right above you? Like how do we like how much of this is that problem of just having years of drained public agencies, years of underfunded these things?
Yeah, exactly. How do we how do we address that piece of it?
So I promise that there would be a slight slug on Republicans. Good in Massachusetts. This is there's this kind of privatization of the state trend that began in the United Kingdom and in the United States. In the United Kingdom, they had to more intact civil service to privatize in the United States. In many ways, it never did the kind of civil service building that was done in Europe in the post-war era. And mind you even found American costs were elevated.
It was in the 1930s. Already, New York was building at a factor of four premium relative to London and Paris. Then things exploded. So they would have privatized government contracts to these to public private partnerships on the idea that the private sector is more efficient in the public sector, which, by the way, in the United States, it's very clearly true that the public sector is less efficient, the private sector is more efficient. The problem is privatization is a government program.
If you can't do government programs, you cannot privatize something they called Prudence Theater, where you say, oh, we can't give you got to do this. This is too much, but make this program smaller. So because of this mentality, which, again, in Massachusetts, you can kind of see where Charlie Baker did this and then it continued when the governor was a Democrat, when it was little Patrick, there was kind of reticence to fund the head office correctly.
It gets to the point that it's the head office. Public sector workers are underpaid relative to market wages, the salary of a project manager in the Boston private sector and transportation is one hundred forty something thousand dollars a year. Boston is a very wealthy city. Project manager is a senior title. Yes, this is how much senior people get paid in such cities. But the NBA does not pay one hundred forty something the NBA pays think 106 or 108.
I forget which.
Right. So what you're saying, right, is that like, OK, you want a private company to bid and build something, but you have you're going to do that. Then you need to measure twice, cut once, invest in the people have talented, smart. Yeah, exactly. Proactive leaders in the government who are rewarded for being creative, being innovative, figuring out problem solving.
Yeah, exactly. Oversee the projects from inside the government, and we don't have that. So, for example, when you do various ways of doing contracting, I recently talked to someone handling procurement on some of the pieces of the subway expansion in Stockholm. Sweden is one of the lowest cost countries in the world to build things in which you might not expect because Sweden is a very expensive country in general and just started in trouble.
And, you know, they have environmental standards. They have labor standards. They have yeah.
They have stronger unions. They have stronger unions. Yeah. So my understanding is that it's much less adversarial. But but the point I'm making is that in Stockholm I was asking, OK, how do you handle design and construction? And and I was told that design is mostly done in-house. Sometimes they supplement it with consultants, but it is done in-house. So they contract out the construction know the construction will also include some design modifications. This is always really important to think that murder's California is the change order, because if you asked the former CEO of Madrid matrimonial, Melissa Menar in Madrid is probably the lowest cost city in the world for this.
I believe that he said there is no such thing as 100 percent design underground. There are always tiny geotechnical surprises. There's always something that delays the project by a week. That's fine. It's a week. It's not a big thing. You just need to make sure it's priced in so that it's not going to reopen negotiations and lead to a lot of contention.
What does it look like to see President Biden to see our country take this seriously?
So Bill Clinton said something in the 1990s that is incorrect. He said that there is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what is right in America. And that's the problem. Americans understand the United States functions decently well about many things. And this includes people who maybe exaggerate the extent to which Europe works in general, that they think that maybe because Europe has a better health care, it's better at everything. Even people like that understand that the United States is a very strong private sector and they try to maybe bring it in.
But the private sector does different things than infrastructure. There's kind of curiosity that is still, unfortunately kind of lacking where there's this idea that, you know, the United States really is not the frontier of this. The United States needs to understand how to import and implement foreign expertise. And you don't do this by privatizing the state, even to a foreign corporation. So you don't privatize the state. You need to have this expertise in the public sector.
This is something that Spain did Spain self flagellating all the time. People in Spain understand that people in Germany and France live better than they do. So what does Spain do in the 1980s as it joins the European Union? It goes to France because they see, oh, France has these really cool high speed trains. Let's import that. They go to Germany because certain systems within Germany, they understand even then work better than in France. So they figure out how to combine these systems and that's how they build Spanish high speed rail.
They're constantly curious about what goes on elsewhere in Europe. I might even add the places in Europe that have nationally connected high speed rail networks tend to be the ones that look up to France, like Spain and Italy, whereas Germany, which looks down on France, never built that. Germany has a very good intercity rail, but it's not high speed rail. Germany has kind of what's called medium speed rail, maybe a few high speed bypasses, but it's very different.
And even the things that France does better than Germany, Germany, you can't see it emotionally.
They can't allow it. Yeah, Germans can think, oh, let's learn from Italy. Germans think that Italy is for pizza and vacations and Spain is good for vacations. The there's no idea that they should learn from southern European engineering. Infrastructure is a failure of the United States. And you need to understand that you're not at the frontier and you need to imitate and and not say, oh, let's just give it to Elon Musk. Elon Musk. I mean, he's not an American, but he he's lived in America since, like, age twenty.
His business culture is America.
And that's what I was going to ask millennials. So you don't think the Hyperloop is going to get it done? You don't think that that's the solution?
I mean I mean, if we're talking about trains in general, like Hyperloop or similar things in the hundred years. Sure. In fifty years, maybe in ten years. No, forget about it. It's not a mature technology. When you're at the frontier, progress is incredibly difficult.
I want a train from Los Angeles to San Francisco. That's what I want. It seems like it makes a ton of sense.
It makes a ton of sense. It makes a ton of sense. It's just the California High-Speed Rail Authority. They need to understand how it's being done elsewhere. And they look even little things, especially in the Bay Area. We're done without understanding how these standards work. For example, in Europe, they they had agency turf battles that led to proposals to put tracks underground in the suburbs of San Francisco. When there's plenty of room for everything, they just it would require cutting Bart.
So it would require cutting the subway. They said half a billion dollars, but somehow it mushroomed, I think, to a billion and a half. Now, a billion and a half is not most of the cost over. But it's a lot of it is little things like this, or they had oversized viaducts in the Central Valley for no good reason.
I just I like the level of. Detail that you have on every single project that you have brought up. I like that, but I mean, actually it's actually something that I think is good right now is that a lot of urban transit agencies, the technical teams, for anything that interfaces with apps seem to be very solid. OK, a lot of front and stuff like communicating information to passengers about where the trains go. That seems rather solid in New York.
You have these dynamic maps.
Terrific. We have apps to tell people that we don't have enough trains going to nearly enough places and we never will.
I know that is a problem. Yeah, you need reliable trains and reliable buses. Neglect buses, please. You need systems to connect. It's not just physical infrastructure is the frustrating thing. It's everything surrounding it. So, for example, it's the timetables. You've built your rail network. How are you going to timetable so that people can connect between two cities that are maybe not on the same line? How are you going to make it so that people can connect between the buses and the trains?
The buses and the trains are not generally planned in coordination except within central cities. So if you're trying to get between, let's say, a point within Worcester and Boston, if you're in downtown, there's a train. If you're not in downtown Worcester, there's a bus that takes you to downtown Worcester. But that bus is going to be on a separate fare system from the train car. It's going to be right on a separate timetable. You can't connect.
All right.
We got look, here's what we've learned today. We've got problems we've got to work on. We've got to send some city planners and some public officials. They got to go to Spain. They got to go to France. They got to go to Italy. Let's take notes if to come back and we have to pay them more.
Yeah. And they've got to go to Sweden. And it cannot be just a three day trip in which they only talk to the managers. It has to be only going to get in the weeds. Yeah, it has to be. I mean, there are exchange programs between railroads. I don't know if the United States participates in them, but I know that there are between various European ones and also within between Europe and Japan. All right.
Yeah, let's get some of those. Let's give some of these French and Spanish and Italian and Swiss and German and Swedish experts. Let's get them in here. Yeah, you can hire them.
Allen Levy, thank you so much. It is great to talk to you. And I hope we can find ways to get people interested in this topic because like, you know, we're going to talk about this big infrastructure package. But if we don't figure out how to do this better, it doesn't matter what we spend. We will we will not be able to have the trains, planes and automobiles we want. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you so much to Allan Levy for joining us. When we come back, we'll end on a high note.
Don't go anywhere. Is love it or leave it. And there's more on the way. And we're back because we need it this week. Here it is, the Hinode.
I love it. My name is Jack. And my high note for this week is that I am financially secure after not receiving unemployment for seven months. I was very nervous that I was about to return to homelessness. And finally, the government can prove I've been able to pay off the end of my lease and put that money on my new apartment, get out of debt and still have a little nest egg to make sure that I'll be secure for the near future.
I couldn't be more relieved to have agreed to be there.
My high note is all about my wife's priority because not only did she just get her first vaccine and not only are we celebrating our ten year anniversary, both of which are high notes, the thing that really gives me hope is that she also just got her eighth student path to citizenship exam and become a U.S. citizen. She's been working with an amazing program in West Liberty, Iowa, for five years, teaching English and civics and helping folks navigate this absurd system.
And I'm so proud of her for continuing to do it. Even when classes had to be canceled by covid, she found ways to keep connecting with her students so that they could continue their process. And then she expanded her mission, walking Spanish speakers through the registration and absentee voting process and just making sure that any new citizens could vote in November. So I just want to shout her out for giving many of us hope here. And thanks so much for everything you do.
Hey, John, this is just going through my car in Lakewood, Colorado. It's really hard to have a high note this week after the tragedy our community suffered yesterday. But I do want to celebrate my wife this fall. We welcomed our first child. And since then, my wife's been working from home to finish her dissertation and hydrology while trying to wrangle a six month old baby. She's about to defend her PhD in about an hour. I'm so proud of her.
I know she's going to pass. So I'm walking into my consumers right now to buy her some flowers. And today we're going to celebrate her. But tomorrow we're going to use the energy we have and get back to protesting, to donating, organizing and doing what we can to make sure that our daughter grows up in a world safe from gun violence. I hope you and yours are well and you have a great week.
Hi, this is Tim from Buffalo, New York. Our Final Four, The Week. My wife and I, we are celebrating the one year anniversary of adopting our pandemic puppy. He's a lovely. Little ball of fluff left tyranny's necks, and my wife got the first vaccine shot and I am getting nine today, so that's what we got. Well, thanks.
Thanks, everybody who called in. I know it's been incredible. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, the call to one, three, two, six, two four, four to seven. Thank you to Daniel Perez, Jason Concepcion, Renee Montgomery, Alan Levy and everybody who called in. There are 591 days until the 2022 midterm election and we got election in 2021.
All right. We've got a lot of elections coming up. So, you know, focus on that, too, and have a great weekend.
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