[lukeyboy]

Have added to my playlist, cheers

[nai]

The show which has viewers exactly reflective of national polls is... University Challenge! (weirdest stat of them all?)

Question Time isn't it?

[Falling Down]

As Sean had mentioned Band of Brothers on another thread I rewatched it with W who had never seen it. She loved it and I did too. It’s really stood up well considering it’s over 20 years old.

I then discovered this podcast just before we went on holiday and we’ve both really enjoyed listening to an episode each day. 

The sound quality on the first episode with Tom Hanks is a bit crap but it gets better from there on in.  Each episode features a member of the cast, a writer or the production team or both. Really interesting and at times, quite moving.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/band-of-brothers-podcast/id1583082956

[dunnyg]

I've been listening not darknet diaries, which is. About cyber crime/hacking, but doesn't need any specialist knowledge.

Really interesting stuff, and the guy isn't too annoying for a yank.

[Yossarian]

Have mentioned on here but the Rule Of Three podcast (comedians deconstructing their favourite comedy) is great - the Frasier (Miles Jupp) and Airplane (Charlie Brooker) ones are brilliant.

This is / was one of my favourites for a while. Other excellent episodes include Rufus Jones / Midnight Run, Mat Baynton / The Big Lebowski, Anna Crilly / Human Remains, Robert Popper / Fawlty Towers (have listen to this at least a dozen times), Joe Thomas / The Office - Quiz Night.

Kids and I almost exclusively listened to Off Menu, until we discovered Three Bean Salad (https://pod.link/1564066507) which has now completely taken over all car journeys. The collective musings of Mike Wozniak, Henry Paker, and Benjamin Partridge, with a listener suggested theme each episode. I would advise starting at the beginning and going through them in order. Various themes / tropes have emerged over the show's history, which often earn themselves specific jingles, including The Regal Zone, Provincial Dad Chat, and Digestive Tract Talk. You will probably love it or hate it.

[duncan]

This got lost in Power Club a while back but should be here:

If you’re the kind of person that loves a 6 hour nerd-out about how Olivier Messiaen influenced Radiohead’s Kid A then Bandsplain could be for you. It’s a music podcast mostly about 80s and 90s indy/alt. rock made by white American and British men. The twist is presenter Yasi Salek is neither. The first few minutes will tell you if her valley girrrl persona grates or is fresh and entertaining. It works best when the guests offer a contrast as in the Radiohead, Talking Heads and Clash episodes.

[jwi]

This got lost in Power Club a while back but should be here:

[...]

Tangentially, I have enjoyed Rick Beato's interviews with old musicians on youtube. (I'm not a big fan of his 'angry man shouting at clouds' round-ups of current popular music, however).

Some of his interviews are pure gold, including

Keith Jarret


Billy Corgan


Brad Mehldau


Yngwie Malmsteen


and many many more, including Sting, George Benson, Pat Metheny etc.

One of the reason the interviews work so well is that Beato dwell on the technical aspects of music making. The artist become very relaxed when talking shop. Even the famously spiky Malmsteen seems to be totally at ease. Chapeau.

[yetix]

Not a good podcast in this sense, but what is with the pro trump propaganda episode on the nugget?

[edshakey]

Just had a browse. Troubling.

[stone]

Not a good podcast in this sense, but what is with the pro trump propaganda episode on the nugget?

I'm tempted to have a listen.

I liked his discussion with Anak Verhoeven about her far-out (IMO) religious views. I thought he was an exemplary interviewer for that. I suppose she is also a cutting edge climber so that gave it some tangential relevance for his podcast. 

My guess is that he might be troubled by how climbers tend to be of a type and so how, as a pod-cast producer, he could be guilty of inadvertently facilitating climbers becoming even more insular. I think it is good for everyone to be exposed to and perhaps thereby gain empathy with different people.

I really liked Ed Balls "Travels in Trumpland" https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bdpvh5 . The Trump supporters came across very well in that IMO. If I was American, I would be campaigning against Trump, but it is vital that isn't confused with hating or even disrespecting Trump supporters.

[jwi]

Surely no one is taking their political cues from someone because they are good at eating little food and holding on to very small holds?

[spidermonkey09]

Or more likely, like so many podcasters (not grimer obviously  ) he's developed some sort of hero complex like Joe Rogan and feels it's his duty to inform the public 

Podcasts have a lot to answer for!

I had a look at the blurb/synopsis of the relevant pod and it looks to be presenting itself as a balanced discussion (albeit a totally unnecessary one, given it's a climbing podcast) . I presume when you actually listen it isn't? I can't listen as it seems to be locked unless I give them some money.

[stone]

I can't listen as it seems to be locked unless I give them some money.

This link is free (I'm using a lap top) https://thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/kaizen-asiedu

[yetix]

Honestly try and give it a listen and then express your feelings.

[seankenny]

I looked at the interviewee’s Twitter page. A pinned tweet linking to an article about his ayahuasca experience and then lots of Trump hero-worship. It’s all vibes, I guess.

[petejh]

I had it on in the background this morning out of interest, after seeing yetix and edshakey's posts here.

I don't find it 'troubling' - it's just two people who've made the choice to be internet talking heads an important part of their life, talking politics. Although I couldn't be arsed listening intently both sounded to me to be reasonably intelligent thoughtful people who acknowledge nuance, and there's a strong thread running through the discussion about freedom of choice / freedom of speech. They both seemed to be expressing that they think that Trump is a deeply flawed character with many negative values. For them, despite acknowledging Trump's many negative impacts they don't feel the Democrat side represent enough of a positive expression of their ideal of a liberal democracy either. If that's what they think then fair enough. I don't agree on Trump. But I do have some small degree of agreement on their underlying thread of freedom of speech / small government / control of narrative part.

At least they're trying to have a thoughtful discussion.

Personally I think Trump's character and his values are too negative to ignore but I get why a US citizen may not want to vote for the democrats - Kamala Harris appears to be an absolutely bloody awful person to be leader of the US, although I doubt she'll 'lead' much rather than be led by her advisors. Beyond abortion rights she doesn't appear to stand for much or hold any strategic vision. But she's probably/hopefully mostly harmless in the big picture. If I were a US citizen I'd still probably vote for her just as a vote for 'not-Trump'.

This made me chuckle: 2hr 11sec: ''a few years ago I'd have been too scared to do this for fear of being labelled something bad''.

 

[stone]

Honestly try and give it a listen and then express your feelings.

I was worried that it was going to be like "Dan's Book" or something. It really didn't seem like that to me.

I'm interested in what in it was deemed quite so objectionable.

[edshakey]

Fair enough, I'll give a bit more detail than my brief comment previously.

After seeing yetix's post, and with a few mins to spare before heading out, I went and scanned through the podcast, mainly just clicking on chapters in spotify. In the cumulative 5/10 mins I heard, they kept talking about being disillusioned with politics - reasonable take. But then there were also far worse ones. I've since also looked him up and watched one of his instagram videos, so here's just a few of the objectionable takes of his that I've come across so far.

- "I don't like politicians who frequently lie" as a justification for voting for a man who lies relentlessly, not just about policy he won't follow through with, but also complete fabrications that stir up anger and hatred in an already divided country.

- "And remember, last election it went from the previous 33mil to 65mil mail in ballots" is said without elaboration, hinting at the fact this points to electoral fraud, while not making any reference to the fact this was mid Covid and people were taking steps to limit public interactions. It's this kind of "just saying/just asking questions" debate tactics that I think loses you credibility fast - come out and say what you want to say, don't just hint at it so you can maintain some sort of air of innocence.

"The MAGA supporters had understandable skepticism about the election, especially when you consider that Trump was leading in the election counts, and then suddenly he wasn't leading anymore" yeah, that's those mail in ballots. Not a huge leap to understand that there's a difference between the demographics of in person and postal voters. If there was some enormous conspiracy to steal the election (of which zero proof is yet to be found, remarkable given the supposed scale of the operation), you'd think they'd make it less obvious than letting Trump pull out a lead and only then do they add the fake votes.

"It's a fair criticism that he uses some incendiary language, but he did also say he wanted peaceful protests" well maybe it was the incendiary language that's the problem. You can't throw the word peaceful in every now and again and it excuse the barrage of less peaceful rhetoric he's spewing the rest of the time.

I think this post was enough to paint a pretty good picture
https://www.instagram.com/thatskaizen/p/DBkyn3gROkg/?hl=en-gb&img_index=1

10: Realising that not only is Trump not just the lesser of two evils, but actually has the potential to be one of the greatest presidents ever

In my opinion, he's a small time "life coach", who's worked out that he can harness people's disillusionment with politics for his own gain, and is capitalising - the idea that people would pay money for his knowledge and wisdom is saddening. He's half enlightened centrism, half conspiracy theorist (or as he would put it, "alternative hypothesis proposer") and given what Steven claims to care about (as mentioned even at the start of this show), it's disappointing that he would choose to give airtime to someone like him.

So yeah, I stand by troubling. Not least because it really goes to show how high the chance of a second Trump term really is - he's picking up voters from unexpected places.

----
Sorry, forgot to reply to the comment from petejh

I had it on in the background this morning out of interest, after seeing yetix and edshakey's posts here.

I don't find it 'troubling' - it's just two people who've made the choice to be internet talking heads an important part of their life, talking politics. Although I couldn't be arsed listening intently both sounded to me to be reasonably intelligent thoughtful people who acknowledge nuance, and there's a strong thread running through the discussion about freedom of choice / freedom of speech. They both seemed to be expressing that they think that Trump is a deeply flawed character with many negative values. For them, despite acknowledging Trump's many negative impacts they don't feel the Democrat side represent enough of a positive expression of their ideal of a liberal democracy either. If that's what they think then fair enough. I don't agree on Trump. But I do have some small degree of agreement on their underlying thread of freedom of speech / small government / control of narrative part.

At least they're trying to have a thoughtful discussion.

Personally I think Trump's character and his values are too negative to ignore but I get why a US citizen may not want to vote for the democrats - Kamala Harris appears to be an absolutely bloody awful person to be leader of the US, although I doubt she'll 'lead' much rather than be led by her advisors. Beyond abortion rights she doesn't appear to stand for much or hold any strategic vision. But she's probably/hopefully mostly harmless in the big picture. If I were a US citizen I'd still probably vote for her just as a vote for 'not-Trump'.

This made me chuckle: 2hr 11sec: ''a few years ago I'd have been too scared to do this for fear of being labelled something bad''.

 

Tbh, I'm not sure it is fair enough. The Democratic party may not be the ideal, but in what world is Trump any closer to a liberal democracy?? I don't disagree with your sentiment about there being problems to address, but I really don't see how Trump is a solution to that - or at least, how he's close to a solution to those problems, without creating a raft of other issues alongside it.

It's not hate speech, it's not offensive, it's not violent. And it's not "Dan's Book". But I don't think it's as harmless as just a simple nuanced debate like you say.

(Final point, something I forgot to mention - regardless of viewpoint, I'm not a fan of podcasts where someone is trying to sell you their product. Someone doing an interview as part of an autobiography book tour? Probably fine. Someone trying to sell you their life coaching business? Less keen.)

[petejh]

Sorry, forgot to reply to the comment from petejh

I had it on in the background this morning out of interest, after seeing yetix and edshakey's posts here.

I don't find it 'troubling' - it's just two people who've made the choice to be internet talking heads an important part of their life, talking politics. Although I couldn't be arsed listening intently both sounded to me to be reasonably intelligent thoughtful people who acknowledge nuance, and there's a strong thread running through the discussion about freedom of choice / freedom of speech. They both seemed to be expressing that they think that Trump is a deeply flawed character with many negative values. For them, despite acknowledging Trump's many negative impacts they don't feel the Democrat side represent enough of a positive expression of their ideal of a liberal democracy either. If that's what they think then fair enough. I don't agree on Trump. But I do have some small degree of agreement on their underlying thread of freedom of speech / small government / control of narrative part.

At least they're trying to have a thoughtful discussion.

Tbh, I'm not sure it is fair enough. The Democratic party may not be the ideal, but in what world is Trump any closer to a liberal democracy?? I don't disagree with your sentiment about there being problems to address, but I really don't see how Trump is a solution to that - or at least, how he's close to a solution to those problems, without creating a raft of other issues alongside it.

It's not hate speech, it's not offensive, it's not violent. And it's not "Dan's Book". But I don't think it's as harmless as just a simple nuanced debate like you say.

(Final point, something I forgot to mention - regardless of viewpoint, I'm not a fan of podcasts where someone is trying to sell you their product. Someone doing an interview as part of an autobiography book tour? Probably fine. Someone trying to sell you their life coaching business? Less keen.)

It's still fair enough for them to have their discussion and broadcast it though, that's what I was saying was 'fair enough'. And if they believe wat they say they do then it's 'fair enough' for them to. Like you, I disagree with them as I said in my post.

But the chance to counter their opinion as you so excellently did wouldn't have arisen without hearing their point of view - I get the distinct impression some people think it's an affront to their civil liberty to listen/read/consider any opinion they disagree with. But as you've just proved, disagreement is essential to better understanding.

[edshakey]

I suppose I'd prefer to be hearing disagreeable points from someone whose business seems a bit less grift-y. But that might be too much to ask!

[stone]

From what I could make out, their main points and my reactions to them:

It was/is wrong to hide Biden's senility and then have his "team" govern around/via him. -fair point

The Democratic Party does all it can to stifle ground-up internal democracy and open primaries. They have entirely avoided a primary for this presidential candidate selection. -fair point

Trump's no-nonsense approach to foreign policy means that other countries behave well and know the USA will leave them in peace if they do. That was demonstrated in his 1st term. People who have not directly experienced war don't appreciate how terrible war is. -I agree that warmongering is v bad and that it is good that Trump isn't a warmonger. I'm not so sure though that it isn't just luck that his 1st term was relatively peaceful.

The USA has a crisis of "western-lifestyle" disease brought about by bad food and lack of exersise. The Democrats are dismissive of it at best and at worst actively resist any efforts to address the issue. Trump has at least sat down and listened to people wanting to tackle the issue head on. I agree that's an important issue. I agree it would be great if Trump helped solve it. I'd be astonished (and delighted) if he did.

Trump gets smeared and grossly misquoted (knowingly) by Democrats and some in the media. I agree that is bad.

It is bad that Trump is a rabble rouser but everyone has downsides and sadly it works politically. Yes it's bad.

[edshakey]

This seems to take a slightly biased approach to a few of these issues. I may have missed bits in the podcast where this is addressed, but from what I have heard from Kaizen, he doesn't seem opposed to being selective with what he chooses to mention.

From what I could make out, their main points and my reactions to them:
It was/is wrong to hide Biden's senility and then have his "team" govern around/via him. -fair point

And Trump? Not sure how anyone who's watched his recent conferences can say he's in any better health than Biden really. He's had multiple instances that would have provoked the same outrage about health that Biden got. The Republicans loved to complain about it while Biden was still running, but I don't think any of them were ready for him to drop out and then have Trump face those same questions.
To be clear, I agree Biden should not have run. But to state that without questioning Trump's health too is only half of a reasonable point.

The Democratic Party does all it can to stifle ground-up internal democracy and open primaries. They have entirely avoided a primary for this presidential candidate selection. -fair point

Ok, yes, Harris did not go through the usual primary process. I'm not sure why she should have done though? Campaigning was already well underway when Biden dropped out (ie that debate had already occurred), so would the Dems really just drop everything for weeks, months even, to run a second full primary for the candidate, wasting campaign time? No, they had to act quickly - some state ballot deadlines were approaching, and I'm sure the Rep voices calling for her to do a 'proper process' would have loved the idea of stopping her even appearing on the ballot. Ideally, she would have gone through the primary process first time round because Biden wouldn't have been running. But it ended up in this relatively unprecedented scenario, and I think they acted in a reasonable way given the circumstances. The loudest opposition was from the Trump campaign: I think that says more about their concerns than it does about the concerns of Dems who'd be involved in candidate selection normally.

Trump's no-nonsense approach to foreign policy means that other countries behave well and know the USA will leave them in peace if they do. That was demonstrated in his 1st term. People who have not directly experienced war don't appreciate how terrible war is. -I agree that warmongering is v bad and that it is good that Trump isn't a warmonger. I'm not so sure though that it isn't just luck that his 1st term was relatively peaceful.

Agreed on the last point - I don't think Trump being president had anything to do with the lack of war in his term. And his 'no-nonsense' approach seems to stretch to just picking a side and supporting them whole-heartedly. See his stance on Israel: he's chosen to side with them, and is yet to say anything that indicates he would discourage flattening Palestine by any means. I don't see that as a good foreign policy.

The USA has a crisis of "western-lifestyle" disease brought about by bad food and lack of exersise. The Democrats are dismissive of it at best and at worst actively resist any efforts to address the issue. Trump has at least sat down and listened to people wanting to tackle the issue head on. I agree that's an important issue. I agree it would be great if Trump helped solve it. I'd be astonished (and delighted) if he did.

Yeah agreed that there is an issue. However, nothing about Trump, or the current Republican party, would indicate that they are better placed to deal with this than the Democrats are. Not that Dems are doing well, but this is a man who has shown himself to be ignorant to real science in the face of his own beliefs/delusions, why would we ever think he would do a good job at tackling this? Obviously it would be great if Trump solved it, because it would be great if anyone solved it. That's very different to think that he actually can.

Trump gets smeared and grossly misquoted (knowingly) by Democrats and some in the media. I agree that is bad.

Deliberate misquoting is bad. Reporting can have an angle without having to resort to this.
However, I do also think that in other ways, he gets held to a different standard, in his favour. The amount of complete nonsense he can reel off and it barely make it into the body of an article is remarkable. Harris would be eaten alive for similar behaviour. So I think it goes both ways.
Also, Reps like to complain when he gets called out on objectionable statements by saying "oh well he didn't really mean it". Not sure that matters! He said it, he should be held accountable. This is where the line between smearing and accountability blurs and I'm not convinced Trump gets as hard a time of it as his supporters like to think - they often just don't like that if you say something inappropriate, the media can call you out on it.

It is bad that Trump is a rabble rouser but everyone has downsides and sadly it works politically. Yes it's bad.

[Wellsy]

Trump is a racist sexual predator, a bigoted man whose intellectual grasp of even his own industry is minimal, never mind complex issues that he clearly knows fuck all about and has no desire to learn anything of. His instincts are authoritarian, his movement is fascistic, his party is an array of theocratic, regressive ghouls who wish to strip rights and exploit ordinary people

If the above is not bad enough he's a proven liar, he has no respect for democracy, he's a fraudster and a criminal. It's not just that he shouldn't be President, he shouldn't be in charge of anyone. In fact given that 23 women have accused him of sexual harassment, assault and so on he should probably be behind bars.

Let's not miss the woods for the trees. One may have many criticisms of the Democrats, I certainly do, but anyone defending Trump or trying to point out his qualities is at best, at best, a useful idiot. To me the CNP and his guest are either morons or hold actively disgusting views or both. They deserve all the slagging off they're getting and more.

[teestub]

Among many low points I think the worst two for me were:
- the pretending the Trump was some foreign policy expert who’d actively stopped there being any new foreign wars during his first term, and would just whip in and sort out Ukraine and Israel Palestine as soon as he got in. It seems likely that he would ‘sort out’ Ukraine by stopping funding and allowing Putin to take the territory he wants, which may be fine if you’re a life coach in LA, but not great for Europe. Lord knows the amount of Kompromat on Trump.
 I’m not smart enough to know how much the Trump Abraham Accords (lauded by the guest) increased the likelihood of a Palestinian attack on Israel but I’ve read commentary in that direction.
Every military person, most recently General Kelly of course, seems to think Trump is a total liability, I’m sure ‘Kaizen’ (formerly Derek but he decided Kaizen sounded better) would say all these intelligence and military types are part of the problem.
- the massive downplaying of the ongoing issues since Roe vs Wade being overturned for access to abortion. The guest said if people didn’t like the new rules in their state they should move, and that maybe people should be less promiscuous if they don’t want to have children. The whole abortion section was incredibly tone deaf, and the guest tried several times to say that it was essentially an either or choice between stopping a world war or having access to abortion.

[Neil F]

I thought I might have a listen to this Nugget, to see what the fuss was about.

That was until this devastating revelation in Pete's earlier post, which put me off completely:-

.....2hr 11sec....