Episode 202: USS Iowa Turret Explosion

Well There‘s Your Problem

The episode opens with personal updates from the hosts, including Victoria's new role at Traction PNW and a discussion on vintage Jeep owner

Key takeaways

• Victoria Scott has joined Traction PNW to assist trans people fleeing hostile states via Project Open Arms.
• The expansion of Brightline in Florida is criticized for creating dangerous grade crossings that split neighborhoods.

Main topics

• USS Iowa Turret Explosion
• Saudi Arabian Oil Crisis

Notable quotes

The oil-based economy is dying. It may already be dead.

Conclusion

A chaotic exploration of how engineering flaws and geopolitical shifts

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) My local's been going this whole time. Speaker 3 (0:01) Yeah. Yeah, mine too. I expect to see this in the Speaker 1 (0:03) final episode. Speaker 3 (0:05) Flashback. Speaker 1 (0:05) Zencaster hasn't started yet. Speaker 3 (0:07) No. Furthermore, the virtual camera is not recording. Speaker 3 (0:16) The screen. Speaker 1 (0:17) What is it recording? Speaker 3 (0:19) It is recording nothing. Speaker 1 (0:21) You shouldn't do that. There we go. Nope, Speaker 3 (0:23) that's Audition. Okay, it's me. There's Zencaster. Right. Okay, hold on. Let's see what we... Speaker 3 (0:35) And a flashback. Speaker 1 (0:37) Anyway, Liam, I got a Jeep. Yeah, what'd you get? Speaker 3 (0:39) We got to do a sync point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, well, yeah, but I want to Speaker 1 (0:42) talk about my Jeep. Speaker 3 (0:43) Well, we'll do the sync point. Then you can talk about the Jeep because otherwise it will be confusing for Devin. All right. All right. Three, two, one, mark. Okay, good enough. That was crispy. Speaker 1 (0:57) 1992 Cherokee XJ. Are you kidding? I am not. four liter high output. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OBD-1, five speed manual. It's Speaker 2 (1:07) a Speaker 1 (1:07) Laredo, so it's got like the nicer seats and stuff. Yeah, Speaker 2 (1:10) yeah, Speaker 1 (1:10) yeah, of course. But Speaker 2 (1:10) it's manual Speaker 1 (1:10) everything. You know, crank windows, no grooves, no ABS, which is good because I don't want to deal with any of that shit. I've already put nice tires on it. I need bushings, but like it's sweet. It was owned by one guy and that guy was responsible for the deaths of seven people. So it's got really good Well, There's Your Problem Providence. Speaker 3 (1:29) Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd say so. It was Speaker 1 (1:32) purchased new by Joe Wilcox, who led the doomed Denali expedition in the 60s. Wow. Yeah, he didn't drive it very much, so it's got like 142,000 miles. Yeah, I got a crazy deal on it, so I'm back among the auto-enthusiast living. Plus, it's like Pete Chrysler, back when they were good, they were like two years out from inventing the Dodge Viper. Speaker 1 (1:59) recalibrating the American auto landscape. So it's, you know, like that one brief moment where it looked like the end of history was through and America was just going to like slowly improve forever. We had the Cherokee XJ. We were on our way to having the Viper. Bill Clinton was president. Speaker 3 (2:12) Yeah, Speaker 1 (2:13) that was Speaker 2 (2:13) definitely Speaker 3 (2:14) better. Speaker 2 (2:15) Yeah. Speaker 3 (2:16) Amtrak was expanding. Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:18) Can you imagine like that sentence now? Like Amtrak is expanding like new routes and shit. New long distance routes even. They Speaker 3 (2:27) had the Kentucky Cardinal. They had the National Limited. No, they didn't have the National Limited anymore. Excuse me. That Speaker 1 (2:34) was actually, I think, back when the Cascades started playing around with the idea of, like, what if we did high-speed rail at our own trackage? We'll have this ready by, like, 2005. Speaker 3 (2:44) Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, that Florida high-speed rail was coming. What else? And Speaker 2 (2:51) not to blame Brightline, because I do... think that the vast majority of people who get murked by Brightline had it coming. I Speaker 1 (2:58) completely disagree, but go on. Speaker 3 (3:00) Florida High Speed Rail was killed by people who would later go on to invest in Brightline. That's a different episode. That's this episode. Speaker 2 (3:12) I've seized the radio stations. Speaker 3 (3:15) That's a whole kettle of fish right there. That's, oh boy. Some shit happened. Hang Speaker 2 (3:22) on one second. Yeah, there we go. Speaker 1 (3:25) No, Brightline and like... Brightline mostly kills people because they're cheap. The thing is, they do anti-car propaganda by showing you the three fatalities caused by some assholes swerving around seven lines of crossing gates, driving in the opposing traffic, and then getting their Nissan Ultima completely vaporized by a train. But the vast majority of the people they kill are people who live on one side of the tracks and don't have the car. and have to walk across tracks that they don't protect and just like split apart neighborhoods for like miles on end without any easy access. Those people had it Speaker 2 (4:03) coming, sorry. Speaker 1 (4:05) 80 mile an hour trains are not like, it's kind of like, it's like a helicopter, like a military helicopter or something, right? Where it's like, oh yeah, I would hear it coming and then it's like, no, you wouldn't. It is Speaker 2 (4:15) over. By the time you hear it, it is too late. It's done, right? You are a fine red paste. Speaker 1 (4:20) Yeah, and especially in the US where everybody's like, oh, a train is like a 15 mile an hour BNSF, you know, seven mile long just-in-time freight shipment. Precision scheduled, not an 80 mile an hour passenger train. I am Speaker 2 (4:33) ashamed that I bought into that propaganda then. That's crazy. I had no idea. The stuff I've read, right? It's like... not much beyond like okay this person like drove onto the tracks yeah Speaker 1 (4:45) no uh the miami herald did an incredible long form piece of like years i remember seeing Speaker 2 (4:51) that yeah it Speaker 1 (4:52) was it was really depressing but it was so good and a lot of it is kind of like it's an engineering problem in the same way all the rest of this is where it's like if you build something fundamentally flawed in a way that people will necessarily have end up taking shortcuts because you have because Speaker 2 (5:07) they have no other option Speaker 1 (5:09) then they are going to die. It's like the same problem we have in like with like Sound Transit in Seattle, where we built a bunch of the light rail at grade across a bunch of intersections. And like it always has car accidents and like, you know, injuries or whatever at deaths. And it's like, well, yeah, because you split apart a neighborhood for like seven miles with the, you know, active train tracks that are used every five minutes or whatever. Like, of course, it's going to cause problems. It's like, you know, anyway, I that I won't give any credit. Speaker 3 (5:37) It needs to be elevated anyway because of South Florida, you know? It's going to have to do Speaker 2 (5:42) it sooner or later. It's coming, folks. Florida Department of Transportation hasn't Speaker 3 (5:48) helped at all by building those insane roads and intersections like right through the train tracks. Speaker 1 (5:53) Or just build some fucking elevated walkways for people. People don't Speaker 2 (5:59) use those. Or those fun, there's like wildlife bridges that they have in Europe. We have one Speaker 1 (6:04) of those here. I love it. I Speaker 2 (6:05) didn't know that. Speaker 1 (6:06) Yeah, we have one over I-5 in Washington. Oh, you have mentioned that. Yeah, yeah, Speaker 2 (6:10) yeah. Speaker 1 (6:10) Yeah, because, you know, the great country for which I'm very patriotic, Washington State. Speaker 3 (6:16) Yeah. And speaking of states, oh, wait, that's a bad segue. Hold on. No, that's good. Speaker 1 (6:22) Keep it. Speaker 3 (6:24) Welcome to Well, There's Your Problem, a podcast about engineering disasters with slides. I'm... Justin Rosnick. I'm the person who's talking right now. My pronouns are he and him. Okay, go. I Speaker 2 (6:37) guess it's me. Fuck. Jesus, I wasn't ready for that. We had a Nova Speaker 3 (6:41) situation. Speaker 2 (6:42) Nova, yeah. I'm Liam McInnes and my pronouns are he, him. I guess. I don't know. Speaker 1 (6:47) Hi, my name is Victoria Scott. I'm the person who's talking right now. My pronouns are she and her. I am the podcast quotas of trans women for today. Speaker 3 (6:58) Yes. Speaker 1 (6:59) Since November is... She's dead. I can't believe Speaker 2 (7:03) that Speaker 1 (7:03) she's Speaker 2 (7:03) dead again. Speaker 1 (7:04) I know. Got a real necromancy situation going on where she just keeps dying and being revived. Speaker 2 (7:10) Well, I had something, but it's gone. Speaker 1 (7:13) Well, and the thing is, I haven't... My wife's about to Speaker 2 (7:17) leave. I'll be right back. You guys can go. We never Speaker 1 (7:20) saw Speaker 3 (7:20) Liam again. Speaker 1 (7:21) Yeah, he died. People have been asking me about this, so I should probably just address it. I have a job. I finally I left the well, there's your problem jobs program because I got an actual job. I still have my podcast trend girlies mo about automotive culture. I don't know what it's about. The collapse of empire and also cars. Speaker 3 (7:40) Yeah, Speaker 1 (7:41) but I have a job working for a nonprofit here in the city of Seattle helping trans people who are fleeing hostile states. So it's kind of like, you know, a dream job sort of situation for me. It's about to Speaker 3 (7:56) say business is booming right now. Speaker 1 (7:57) Yeah, we're boy, how do people love our services? Which, you know, obviously, like we're really small and we don't like a ton of funding. So what we do is a lot of like mutual aid and peer support stuff. But yeah, I'm working there and trying to like help build out a lot of the new stuff that we're doing, assuming we get some more resources, assuming that we can get some people sort of. volunteering and on board with us so uh yeah it's called traction i work for this segment called project open arms which is the initiative to like help people flee a lot of people end up coming to seattle not all of them do um we help people go to twin cities and chicago and even like i think we've had a few that are like philly and baltimore and kind of like easy to see board um but uh yeah so that's i probably won't be on here a ton i've got like a couple episodes i want to write um Speaker 2 (8:44) Oh, I assume you were telling them about your new job. I just wanted to make sure I knew what you Speaker 1 (8:49) were Speaker 2 (8:49) talking about. Speaker 1 (8:49) Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I probably have a couple episodes I still want to write, but I probably won't be on here as much because, well, there's your problem job program. It Speaker 2 (8:58) has a 100 % successful placement rate. So one of the things I was talking to Rin about, first of all, congratulations. I know I said the two off air, but genuinely, congratulations. Thank you. It is rewarding. It is. But Speaker 1 (9:11) it's rewarding. Speaker 2 (9:12) Yeah. but one of the things i was talking to rin about she was like hey like um when she was i think i think like sam sent in his invoice um and and my wife was like uh hey sam's like the reason and i was like yeah and she goes oh my god it is a make work program and i was like yes it is Speaker 1 (9:32) yeah yeah but it worked like it works it works it works Speaker 2 (9:35) call Speaker 1 (9:36) call this podcast the new deal uh because they There sure is some progress in this works administration. Speaker 3 (9:43) We're jobs creators. We create the jobs. Speaker 1 (9:47) Yeah. Speaker 2 (9:47) That's my favorite thing is we're an economic engine of growth despite our own best intentions. Speaker 3 (9:55) We're the only company hiring in Philadelphia. The problem is we don't hire in the city. Speaker 1 (9:59) Yeah, but I'm back today because November is dead, as previously mentioned. And so, you know, I gotta... I got to help out. I got to cover. So I have no idea what we're even talking about. And Speaker 3 (10:13) speaking of death, Speaker 1 (10:15) what you see on the screen in Speaker 3 (10:18) front of you are two turrets, each with three 16-inch guns, one of which doesn't look so good. May have had a problem, fell off its elevation. There's a lot of smoke. That's right, folks. We're talking about that time when the USS Iowa's number two turret exploded and then the cover-up of that explosion. I Speaker 2 (10:47) do want to acknowledge that other podcasts in the Napothaea Extended Universe had done this and we're doing it now because, shut up. Speaker 3 (10:54) Yeah, exactly, exactly. Look, there's no, the statute of limitations on that has expired. Speaker 2 (11:05) Oh, man. It's going to be a real shame when we have to resurrect you from the dead, Roz. Well, Speaker 1 (11:10) no, that'd be great. I'll be back from the dead. The Speaker 2 (11:11) only podcast Speaker 1 (11:11) with a 100 % fatality rate. Yeah. Speaker 2 (11:14) Or like the surgeon we talked about who, like, the surgeon with a 200 % or 300 % fatality rate because he died, the patient died, and Speaker 1 (11:23) the Speaker 2 (11:23) guy died of shock. That's us. In podcast form. But I can't wait for my mom to listen to this one when she's trying to brag to her friends about her son, the successful podcaster. Speaker 1 (11:35) Thank God my mom's dead, so I don't have to worry about that one. Oh, okay. Well, now I feel bad. My parents are Speaker 3 (11:42) dead. But before we talk about that, we have to do the goddamn news. Speaker 1 (11:48) Oh, we don't have the goddamn drops. Jesus Christ. Speaker 3 (11:52) What is Speaker 1 (11:53) this, episode five without it? Yeah, I think so. Speaker 3 (11:56) Something like that, yeah. Speaker 1 (11:57) I think I've now been on more episodes without it than I was with it. I Speaker 2 (12:01) just don't understand. I do literally understand because November's getting a mixer and November's also not here. No problem. But at some point, we gotta do a new stinger that's just us playing a recording of us doing that. Speaker 3 (12:15) So there's... The oil crisis deepens as Saudi Arabia invades Yemen and is immediately repelled and the Houthis bomb all the oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. It's really funny. Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:33) It's a Speaker 3 (12:34) really funny thing that happened. As someone who is a great fan of our president, Degrowth Don. Degrowth Don. This is... this is an amazing development there's going to be no oil which means no cars the thing which means trains and Speaker 1 (12:53) i Speaker 3 (12:53) think it's incredibly funny here Speaker 2 (12:54) right no 92 jeep laredos huh yeah how's that oh yeah no okay so i bought i bought Speaker 1 (13:00) that jeep and literally it was like the next day that everything was like oh god it's all over Like that was when the glue started to come up. Yeah, I was like, cool. 15 miles a gallon. Sweet. This is right. I knew. Here's Speaker 2 (13:12) the Speaker 1 (13:12) thing. I waited all summer to buy this car until I had like a job and some stability. And I was like, the minute I buy this, the entire global economy is going to collapse. Like I know it. And it literally was the day of. And so actually, I take credit. Death to America. I did that. It's actually me for buying my Jeep. No, the thing that's funny about this, right, is that it's like, do you mind if I go off for a second? Speaker 3 (13:35) yeah so Speaker 1 (13:36) entran girlismo this week i have written we're recording tomorrow uh but we are we have six or seven pages of notes on the history of yemen because i was like i need to know what's going on here yeah of course um fascinating country Speaker 2 (13:48) genuine life Speaker 1 (13:49) yeah seriously it's like it it should absolutely get more play as usual the u.s funded infinitely the worst thing happening and eventually Given enough time and money, that did happen. And now we are now, like, this is just another form of blowback, right? Is that we don't have oil now. But the thing that's funny, right, is like, most of Saudi Arabia's crude goes to, like, Asia. And all of the Saudi oil fields are on the, like, eastern half, in the eastern province, like, right along the, where the Strait of Hormuz is. They ship it all out through the Strait. And so obviously they haven't been able to do that for a while and how they've managed to keep things from like completely going haywires. They've got this huge pipeline that carries 7 million barrels a day from the Eastern province all the way to the West where they ship it through the Red Sea and down through the Strait of Bab el-Mendab, which is where Yemen is. It's like between Yemen and Djibouti. Djibouti? Djibouti. Djibouti. And it's a really tight choke point, but like, you know, they're still getting oil out via the sea and they can ship it over too. uh so like southeast asia and primarily china um and so the thing that's funny about how this has worked out is uh saudi arabia has been engaged in a proxy war as part of the civil war between yemen's like officially recognized government and the houthi rebels which kind of actually run the whole place at this point uh for like 14 years and the houthis are now have taken control of a bunch of the islands in um the street of bab el mendeb and they said they're gonna start blowing up saudi ships but only saudi ships so the us doesn't want to get involved because we're busy in iran right um so we're actually not going to help the saudis here we aside from giving them infinite amounts of money and we're going to sell them f-35s and stuff um Speaker 2 (15:37) which means they're immediately going to the chinese but that's fine Speaker 1 (15:40) Yeah, well, and also, you know, Houthis just took out an F-15 this week. Like, there's dudes in cargo shorts with, like, AKs over their shoulders posing on the blown-up tail of an F-15. Hell Speaker 2 (15:51) yeah. Speaker 1 (15:52) Yeah, Houthis, complicated ideologically. They do, they are not, like, a progressive force for good or socialists or whatever, but that shit goes hard. It just, it's just cool. But China has managed to suppress most of their oil, like, demand globally. like for imports by using these massive reserves that nobody knew they had. And they're finally running out of that. And they really need oil again, just in time for the Houthis to now basically shut off Saudi Arabian exports to Asia. So China has been arming Iran, which has then been sending the arms to the Houthis, who are now blowing up Saudi Arabia. And now China has to go to Iran and be like, hey, can you please tell them to stop doing that? Because although we enjoy you fucking up America's... oil supply maybe it's complicated um now it's with our money uh and so now the can really hit the fan because if china starts running out of oil they import like nine million barrels a day i want to say this is like reduced demand jesus christ yeah and like they have they they the reason that they have been able to do this for so long is they had basically put a ban on exporting refined goods, but the capitalists got kind of antsy and they started exporting them again and now they're burning through their supplies really quickly. So it's completely out of America's hands. We have nothing to do with this. They're like, we can't stop this if we wanted to. The beehive is fucked. It doesn't matter what the swelling is now. That's that's not up to us. It's it's in the bees hands. So Speaker 3 (17:24) it's, you know. What did you think degrowth was going to look like? Vibes? Essays? No, sorry. We're here. Folks, the oil-based economy is dying. It may already be dead. It just hasn't stopped moving yet. As someone who owns a bicycle, I am excited. Although I still need to, I need a new inner tube for the rear tire. It punctured like two days ago. Speaker 3 (17:52) The Speaker 1 (17:52) thing is, Roz, do you like to eat food? Speaker 3 (17:55) Yeah, eating food is pretty good. Speaker 1 (17:56) This may affect you. I'll tough it out. Have you seen how much diesel fuel currently costs? Oh, it's like infinity dollars. Speaker 3 (18:05) Yeah. Speaker 1 (18:05) They're Speaker 3 (18:06) pricing it in quarts in California. Yeah, I saw that. Speaker 1 (18:10) It's like 10 bucks in California. It's nationally, I think, the highest it's ever been. And of course, since the U.S. doesn't have electric freight transport anywhere. Basically every single thing that you need to Speaker 3 (18:23) buy. Conrail got Speaker 1 (18:23) rid of that in Speaker 3 (18:23) the 80s. Speaker 1 (18:24) Yeah. Unless you do, like, unless you have a farm and you live on the commune and everything you grow just fits you and you don't need society at all, which, hint, you do, it's probably going to suck. Unless you, like, make a ton of money, in which case I imagine the K-shaped economy thing will just continue. Yeah. You'll never know this. Speaker 3 (18:46) Folks, folks, time to invest in oil as a commodity. um this Speaker 1 (18:50) guy named brent is just cleaning the fuck up Speaker 3 (18:53) dude brent's brent's doing so great right now brent and his friend west texas i don't know why they call him west texas but you know anyway Speaker 1 (19:01) the the funniest thing about this pipeline is that um what's his name uh chris wright or mark wright or whatever the guy who runs the department of energy was out on like cnbc like don't worry this pipeline that they just blew up that was how they were getting all of their oil out of the country will be fixed in like couple days no one will notice Speaker 2 (19:19) will it and it's like every Speaker 1 (19:20) single specialist mag i read about this was like people are like if it's fixed within a couple of months that will be quick and also now that it can be struck it will never be peaceful again like this is just never going to be like it's gonna be like the straight right where it's like some oil leaves from it but it's never gonna be like a sure bet ever again um so everything will just get worse again we just can't tap the brakes runaway train midterms in like what a month and a half Speaker 3 (19:46) There's an interesting development in oil and gas related to the midterms, actually, which is the Texas Railroad Commissioner race is competitive. Oh, Speaker 2 (19:55) God, yeah. Speaker 3 (19:56) Holy Speaker 2 (19:56) shit. Beau French is an insane person, as we learned. They Speaker 3 (20:00) got a guy who's too racist for Texas as the default Texas Railroad Commissioner. And just so everyone's aware, the Texas Railroad Commissioner. is the de facto regulator of basically all oil and gas in the United States. You know, just because you have so much power over such a large market as Texas. The Railroad Commission doesn't regulate railroads anymore. It only does oil and gas. Was Speaker 1 (20:30) that the guy who was freaking out about like UT students? Texas, yeah. Celebrating? Yeah. Because they were like not white and he was like, America has fallen. Speaker 2 (20:38) Yeah. Like Speaker 1 (20:39) openly. Speaker 2 (20:40) My favorite thing is, and like, obviously you shouldn't trust these people. They're snakes just like him, but that fucking Karl Rove is like, nah, I'm going to vote for the Democrat. He's vaguely funny to me, which is also how I learned that Karl Rove was still alive. Speaker 3 (20:55) Well, his opponent, John Rosenthal, is like, you know, protect trans people, anti-Zionist, Jewish state assembly member, all this other stuff. Like, we got, they got... the potential for the world's most progressive oil and gas regulator in Texas right now, just because Beau French can't shut his mouth. It's really funny. I'm excited for Speaker 2 (21:20) it. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. I want to hear. I want to read you something funny. I'm on. I'm on. He's dead. Beau French's wiki page. This is a fun nugget, right? Ready? Beau French was a business partner of Chris Kyle. the author of American Sniper, one of the law enforcement training company, Kraft International. Following Kyle's death in 2013, French and a business partner were sued by Kyle's widow, Tara Taya. Taya? That's not a name. Taya. For allegedly forcing her out of the company. Although French and the partner denied the charge and the suit was later dropped, the parties reached a settlement agreement in 2014, which stipulated French not use Chris Kyle's name. like this logo or image amazing that Speaker 1 (22:02) guy i do love how much they all screw each Speaker 2 (22:04) other over oh yeah because they just all these people hate each other right like they're just it's just a matter of like being a useful idiot like it's just Speaker 3 (22:11) like like like the guy is so so bad that he is he he is gonna throw the least competitive political office in the United States. Like the least competitive important political office. Karl Rove, welcome to the resistance. Yeah. Speaker 3 (22:31) So on that very small bright spot, again, if you are in Texas, vote. Make sure you go to the polls and vote for John Rosenthal. What the fuck is Trump doing with the Kennedy Center? I Speaker 1 (22:53) don't think he's going to run a bulldozer. Yeah, I don't. Apparently. Yeah, Speaker 3 (22:57) no, this is I mean, this story, I know that like. this is not the most insane thing going on right now, but like, what the fuck is going on with the Kennedy Center? Speaker 1 (23:07) I think the best way to view Trump at this point is like, you know, it's countrywide family annihilator. I think so, yeah. Like, I don't like how this is going. I will simply, I'll destroy it. You know, this is somebody who's like, oh, I don't get to like have the toy. Well, I'm going to kill all of you. Speaker 3 (23:28) Yeah, Trump's had this like vendetta against the Kennedy Center for this second term. It's because... He tried to put his name on it. And then the judge said, you can't put your name on the Kennedy Center because you're not John F. Kennedy. And now, and then, you know, his new board has claimed the Kennedy Center is bankrupt. And I don't know. I'd been in the... And it's falling apart. And, you know, I don't know. I've been in the Kennedy Center several times. It looked basically fine. Speaker 1 (23:57) Yeah, well, I mean, he's like ripping out trees in D.C. to like build another golf course. And he wants to build a stupid like arc to triumph. And like the that we you know, we went for Train Girlismo and we covered the Freedom 250 Grand Prix. It was around the footsteps of the Capitol and like in the middle of the National Mall. And it's like it's all it is. It's insane going to D.C. and seeing how much he has tried to remake that city in his image. And like it is. Obviously, it's half-assed and half-baked like everything else he does because these are not intelligent fascists and they're not good at what they do. But the attempt is to basically turn D.C. into as much of a monument to Trump as it is to Washington. I will say, Speaker 2 (24:42) David Roth, formerly of Deadspin, now of Defector, has said something that I think is true, but I can't remember the exact quote, but basically what he said is that Trump is going to take us all with him, essentially. Yeah. We all have to get in the boat with him. And I think that like this Kennedy Center representation is very like, like very true. Right. Because like, I mean, I do think that like having the Kennedy Center is a net good and makes sense. Like as the idea of like showcase the arts and also the Virginia. What do you do over there? The Virginia High School Theater Awards. Speaker 3 (25:17) Oh, that was the last time I was at the Kennedy Center, which admittedly is quite a long time ago now that I think about it. But it was, yeah, Bishop Iron High School was nominated for a Cappy. So my brother was in the theater program, so I got to go to the Cappy's awards ceremony. That was a pretty good time. I don't think the building has, I mean, the place was immaculate back then. I can't imagine it's deteriorated enough in like 10 years. Like that, you know, you have to demolish it. Speaker 1 (25:47) I think this is part of it too, right? Is it like they would rather they, as part of the like capture of all truth, they have to regulate everything with like direct control of like what the narratives are, what stories can be told. And they can't do that with this. I don't know why. I don't know if it's like the way that it's structured or how the board was set up or whatever. And so it's preferable to just destroy it because it's embarrassing. Speaker 3 (26:11) I guess so, yeah. When I Speaker 1 (26:12) went to the fucking Smithsonian, I went to the Natural History Museum when I was there for that stupid, god-awful, fucking fascist shit show of a race. And they had an exhibition for America's 250th about the national animal of America, which is the buffalo. And their entire exhibit mentioned nothing about how the extermination of the buffalo was an attempt to genocide Native people. Speaker 2 (26:37) Right. Speaker 1 (26:38) There was no link. And so it's like, cool, we've we have now established like this alternate history where everything is sanitized and fine. And if you can't if you can't do that in totality, it's not going to work. So you might as well. And they're just starting in D.C. It's like it's a it should be a state that's not they get more control and leverage over the shit. It really actually drives me insane. But also at the same time, it's kind of like a little funny. Like, I'm not going to lie. D Speaker 3 (27:02) .C. statehood Speaker 1 (27:02) now. Speaker 3 (27:02) Yeah, D.C. statehood now. But also, Speaker 1 (27:04) like, it was kind of funny when they knocked on the East Wing, you know? That Speaker 3 (27:07) was pretty funny. That is way funnier than demolishing the Kennedy Center. Fair, yeah. The East Wing was kind of a shitty building. You know, I agree with Trump on the ballroom. That's the thing. The ballroom's a good idea, right? The other stuff he's done. really bad ideas. Going Speaker 1 (27:27) to the polls in 2028, like, well, he destroyed the economy. You know, he hates trans people. ICE is out of control, but the ballroom's a good idea. I got a ballroom. The Speaker 2 (27:37) ballroom is Speaker 1 (27:37) a good idea. Who Speaker 2 (27:38) was the president of Liberia during the Liberian Civil War? Charles something. I don't know. Okay, well, he had a campaign slogan that was, he killed my mother, he killed my father, but I shall vote for him. Speaker 2 (27:54) Charles Taylor, maybe. Yeah, Charles Taylor. I am so good at knowing things. I was talking to my mom the other day about how you can't import snus anymore because of de minimis and explaining that I am now a single issue voter for getting my importation of snus back. Speaker 3 (28:14) Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, there's so many. It's been a while since we did a mainline episode. There's so many news items to cover, like the Canadian tariffs. in canada that Speaker 1 (28:24) they just forgot to land oh Speaker 3 (28:27) right yeah no they did a bad job on that one yeah probably a Speaker 1 (28:32) bunch of other shit happened i don't remember i don't know i mean i've i've i've taken the stance of um i because obviously there's been a bunch of like anti-trans turns from like democrats who have no oh yeah they're trying to push that guy and i'm like cool i i'm not i like i have pride i i won't vote for you i might actually go vote for the republican just to spite you I don't understand why they keep... We Speaker 3 (28:54) could all lose. Speaker 1 (28:54) Propane tank strapped to the bicycle. We Speaker 2 (28:57) could all Speaker 1 (28:57) lose. Like, fuck you. You think you can make my rights optional? Well... Speaker 3 (29:03) It's frustrating to see them looking at what the Labour Party did and saying, yep. Speaker 1 (29:08) Good idea. One for one for it. That's Speaker 3 (29:10) our path, boys. Speaker 1 (29:11) Yeah, well... They, you know, all respect to, like, British leftists, but having used that as a cautionary tale, I've... turned i've entered that into my model of the world that i will do everything possible if you are an anti-trans democrat i will in in the state of washington i will devote my life to you losing i Speaker 2 (29:31) mean that seems reasonable rational to me like yeah yeah Speaker 1 (29:34) and i'm sure plenty of people tried that in the uk as well i'm not saying that people didn't i'm just saying that like i i have become insanely hardline immediately uh but that also happened um a bunch of children's hospitals stopped providing care to trans people even though they were in theoretically safe states and a bunch of attorneys general won't do shit about it because they're all cowards just capitulating Speaker 2 (29:54) before anything's even happened yeah yeah Speaker 1 (29:56) yeah they lost like another two F-16s or whatever since we recorded last two I think oh Speaker 3 (30:02) that's just keep piling Speaker 1 (30:04) them into the earth like over the US haven't Speaker 2 (30:07) looked one up there yet Speaker 3 (30:08) that's true except for Voyager yeah well That was goddamn news. You know, there's a Zencaster drop function. We could just put the sound effect in there. I've Speaker 2 (30:26) always wondered why we haven't done that, but that's okay. Speaker 3 (30:28) Yeah, that makes sense. You know, whatever. All right. So before we start, I want to acknowledge, like, the main source for this podcast is a book called A Glimpse of Hell. Great time. Yeah. Charles C. Thompson II, who was a producer for 60 minutes, I want to say. It's a very, very good book. You should go read it. I mean, what we're going to be able to talk about here is like barely scratching the surface of just how fucked up the accident was and also the investigation. And just everything about the events we're about to discuss. I mean, there's so much detail. It's a fantastic read. Go out and buy this book, even if you don't care about battleships. It's just, if you want to, like a hell of a story. But anyway, first we must ask, what is Battleship? Speaker 2 (31:29) Obsolete. Speaker 3 (31:31) Yes. Speaker 2 (31:32) I can't believe he died live on air. Speaker 3 (31:34) No, not quite. So a battleship is essentially a really, really big, a battleship is, you know, as like a popular term, right? I don't know. You could assign that to any kind of Navy ship, but a battleship as like the formal term is a specific kind of very, very large. very very heavily armored ship that has very very very big guns on it and you can point those guns at things that you want to go away crucially Speaker 1 (32:10) if you're talking with somebody who has ever been in the navy ever even if they're like a disillusioned vet um and i know this from personal experience if you want to piss them off call any boat with a gun on a battleship i Speaker 2 (32:21) love that Speaker 1 (32:21) yeah it's like a great way to annoy somebody you care about Speaker 3 (32:27) But yeah, a battleship, it's bigger than a destroyer. It's bigger than a frigate. It's smaller than an aircraft carrier. It's bigger than most kinds of ships out there. It is much more heavily armored. Like the idea of these things is we're going to take out the big guns. And even if we're under like heavy enemy fire, we're getting hit by shells, torpedoes, all kinds of bullshit. Well, we can still keep going. You know, in practice, though, the way these were deployed a lot of the times was sort of like, we're never going to send these things into the type of conflicts that they're designed for because it's going to be such a morale loss if they sink a battleship. It's Speaker 1 (33:14) a DPS that you're unwilling to use. Speaker 3 (33:17) Yeah, pretty much. And the USS Iowa class pictured here, right? This was... the largest class of battleships built by the United States with the biggest guns and the heaviest armor. And we stopped after that. There was another class designed afterwards, but never built because people realized, oh, we just build an aircraft carrier. Good Lord, the Speaker 1 (33:41) aircraft carrier. Yeah. Speaker 3 (33:42) Yeah. I Speaker 1 (33:43) do really like that. You can see the like the little sideways drift from the bow wave. Yeah. Because it's moving itself sideways from firing its guns. The guns Speaker 3 (33:54) are really big. They're really big guns. They're pretty Speaker 2 (33:57) cool, actually. Yeah. Speaker 1 (33:59) So anyway, Speaker 3 (34:00) these made sense when you were building them just before World War II, which is when the Iowa class was started. And, you know, they fought World War II. They fought in Korea. The USS New Jersey fired its guns in Vietnam. And then it was like, you know, these things, we really don't need them anymore. They put them in the mothball fleet. You know, maybe you could reactivate it in case of a major conflict. And then President Grandpa was elected. Oh, God. Ronald Reagan, our first President Grandpa. Speaker 2 (34:35) Fuck. He ruined everything. It's midnight in America, all right? Everyone's fucking dying. Everyone's dead. Fucking do not consult an astrologer. What's going to happen to learn if you have to shell the Soviet Union, dickhead? Well, President Grandpa Speaker 3 (34:52) consults his astrologer to find out if he has to shell the Soviet Union. And the answer is yes. I hate everything. We need a 600 ship Navy to counter the Soviet Navy. the notoriously competent institution yeah i was gonna say well Speaker 1 (35:10) yeah because i mean please Speaker 3 (35:11) look up the kursk disaster yeah Speaker 2 (35:13) i was gonna say Speaker 1 (35:14) this is before they gave all those ships to pepsi right so like Those were clearly the prime of the world's fleet. Speaker 3 (35:22) Yeah, yeah. Definitely not a navy that can just sink its own ships just by hanging around too Speaker 2 (35:28) long. Speaker 3 (35:28) Let Speaker 2 (35:29) me Speaker 3 (35:29) just check. Speaker 1 (35:29) I'm Speaker 2 (35:30) going to Speaker 1 (35:31) go to the Wikipedia page for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and just do a quick count of how that's been going for the 21st century. Speaker 1 (35:42) There's like 19-year-olds in gamer socks taking down the prime of the... I guess it's still Soviet fleet. I mean, they haven't really upgraded their ships since then, have they? Pretty much, Speaker 2 (35:55) yeah. Speaker 1 (35:56) Have they built any new war materials since they became the Russian Federation? So I'm actually Speaker 2 (36:01) looking up the same thing. They can't Speaker 1 (36:04) have. Speaker 2 (36:04) I mean, they've got to have built... All that money went straight to grift. Surely they built... Like, I don't know, like a littoral combat ship, something like that. I mean, we barely built those. You know what I meant, though? A green water navy thing. You know what I meant? Like a little guy, right? Like a riverboat cruiser. A bathtub toy. Speaker 3 (36:24) Hold on. Speaker 2 (36:25) Victoria and I are both on the wiki page. Yes, go ahead, Ross. Here Speaker 3 (36:30) was the plan as part of the 600-ship Navy. Now, some ships we're going to build new. Some of them we're going to reactivate from the reserves, including the battleships. Fuck it. What's going to go wrong? What is it Speaker 1 (36:43) about having Alzheimer's that makes you want to build bigger battleships? Speaker 2 (36:47) Oh, hang on. Hang on. Victoria, they focus on submarines such as, I kid you not, the Lada class and the nuclear... Oh, boy. yassen class nuclear power attack submarines design work commenced in earnest in the 1980s the first submarine was built in 1990s to early 2010s with commissioning in 2013 i assume they've all been sunk and everyone on board them is dead all Speaker 1 (37:12) right so i guess they have built some new stuff okay so russian federation you know blowing up a russian federation uh naval ship in from a 19 year old ukrainian in gamer socks flying a drone from like a thousand miles away Speaker 3 (37:26) I mean, they have an awful kill ratio because the ships usually sink themselves before they're even in sight. You know, but yeah. So, all right, we're going to reactivate the battleships from World War II. This is the most Ronald Reagan idea I think he had. So Speaker 2 (37:45) I have several questions about this, which Speaker 1 (37:47) I'm sure will be answered, but I'm looking at the Russian Navy wiki, so I can't be bothered. Speaker 2 (37:51) So do they, do they, like, This has got to involve, like, not just, like, you know, okay, we're just going to send it out to sea. This has got to involve, like, retrofitting for, like, navigation, stuff like that. Like, ageist systems. Yeah, okay. There's a Speaker 3 (38:06) comprehensive modernization program with new armaments. Let's look at some of them, right? Oh, for Christ's sake. We have our old friend. Oh, look, a civilian airliner. Kill, Speaker 1 (38:18) kill, kill! It looks like a landlord special minion. Speaker 3 (38:24) They put some extremely heavily armored Tomahawk missile launchers on there. Oh, what? Yeah. Jesus Christ, look at this. The idea being that you could still use it like a battleship where you're getting constantly shelled by Germans and launch a Tomahawk missile at Speaker 2 (38:45) them. Speaker 3 (38:45) That was Speaker 2 (38:45) obsolete in 1930. Speaker 3 (38:51) They got other anti-ship missiles on there, right? They have a cool drone they can launch. And this is to aid in aiming the artillery, right? Because, well, isn't that the thing, right? It's the artillery. That's what we want to hear about. None of this modern shit. Speaker 2 (39:10) Why? Okay. This is a legitimate question. Why are we then not just building more artillery? That's got to be cheaper, right? You just get a bunch of howitzers and string them together. Speaker 3 (39:21) Well, I mean, yeah, you're on the right track here, Liam, because all that modern armament is a bunch of liberal bullshit. This is the real thing. It's why we got Speaker 1 (39:32) to go back to the steam cannon launchers on aircraft carriers, Speaker 2 (39:35) too. Speaker 1 (39:35) We're going to do the Great Speaker 2 (39:36) White Navy, huh? The Speaker 1 (39:37) Great Speaker 2 (39:37) White Fleet? Yeah, I remember Teddy Roosevelt. Speaker 1 (39:39) Wait, Riles, I got a question for you. How does the Iowa class compare to the Trump class? I don't Speaker 3 (39:45) know. Well, so the Trump class is currently only an idea. Well, yeah, but like we have the AI drawn schematics. I have no idea. God, Speaker 1 (39:55) if you're if you if you are an elderly person and you ever find yourself thinking about how good battleships are, you should go to a like. cognitive specialist immediately. Speaker 3 (40:06) Time to see how good you are at drawing the clock. Maybe reconsider your Speaker 1 (40:11) driver's license. This is a public safety announcement. Speaker 3