07 16 26 *FULL SHOW* Tech graveyard; Dems vs Israel; Bagpipes in Elizabeth

Dad, Disney activities are on Lingo Kids. What? Moana and Elsa and Marvel Spider-Man, all of them. On Lingo Kids? Yes, Dad, on Lingo Kids. That's pretty cool. I know. You just lost them for the rest of the afternoon. Worth it. Full of fun activities inspired by Disney's Moana, Frozen, Zootopia, Marvel Spider-Man, and more. Lingo Kids is where little ones discover more about favorite characters. Lingo Kids! Everything kids love. Download it for free. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our war fighters, delivers mission-ready intelligence, advances life-saving health care, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT behind America's invisible advantage. Got plans this summer? A brewery crawl? Another lake trip? The same festival you've been to three times already? Do something different. This August, Virginia International Raceway becomes the ultimate summer destination. Watch Inns' Michelin GT Challenge at VIR. August 21 through 23rd brings some of the fastest sports cars to battle through VIR's legendary corners. Camp with friends. Enjoy live music and experience a weekend you'll actually be talking about afterward. Start planning now at govir.net. One month, you're slammed. The next, you're chasing bids. Small businesses live with that reality. Your software costs shouldn't. Autodesk gets it. Autodesk for small business makes it easy to start with Autodesk flex, a pays you go way to access the tools you need when you need them. With prepaid tokens, you can use more than 100 Autodesk products without locking into a long-term commitment. Go to Autodesk-A-U-T-O-D-E-Sk.com slash small business, all one word, today. And see how Autodesk Flex helps your business pay only for what you use. Autodesk Flex. When your workload changes, Autodesk changes with you. K-O-A, an I-Hart Radio station.

guaranteed human. All right, good morning. Happy Thursday. Just because I can, let me start with something that's not very important. Gina, what was that bar that you just mentioned that showed up in that survey and have you been there? I haven't and I was actually about to look it up because it said it was in Rhino and it was. Bar 38. Okay. Let's see. Because you've been to all the hip spots, so I was wondering, I was wondering if you've been there. Bar 38 in dinner. If anybody's been there, text Gina at 5669-0 and tell her what to expect. Number 38. Bar, okay. Just called number 38. All right. Yeah. And it's a. And it's supposed to be, there it is, number 38. All right, I see it on the map. Right by Chestnut and 36th Street. Are you going to go check it out? I would check it out. I honestly don't get to Rhino as, oh, I do know this place. They have like a huge outdoor area. But no, I still haven't been. I don't get to Rhino as often as I probably should. Well, you could ride a scooter on the sidewalk to get there. I sure could. Everything would be. Hey, they do now yell at you for riding on the sidewalks. Who does? The scooter. Oh, the scooter yells at you. The scooter does yell at you when you're on the sidewalk. It does not stop you from riding on the sidewalk, though. Step in the right direction. All right, we have a ton of stuff to do on today's show, everything from a little more soccer talk to high-tech graveyards. I mean, graveyards for tech, not high-tech graveyards for people. That's a different thing. And somehow, Gina arranged... for people playing bagpipes to come to the studio in a couple hours. So that's going to be fun. We actually did that some months ago. Is it the same group? Different group? Different group. Actually, Neabender hooked us up with the Elizabeth Celtic Festival, but we had the Irish Festival earlier. Yeah, right. You got all the bagpipes. And I've always wondered, like we... We say Celtic, but the basketball team is the Celtics. Yeah. And I don't know if they're both right, ones, you know, or if it changed over time. Is it a win coop, wine coop situation? Yeah, could be. It could well be. All right, let's briefly talk about the soccer game last night. Holy cow. Gina, did you watch? I didn't. He didn't. Okay. It was during my nap time. I meant to, and then I woke up and went. Oh, I missed it. I bet you are so bummed that you missed it. So it was Argentina versus England. England, if I remember right, was a slight betting favorite, even though Argentina on paper is higher world ranking. But I think England was the favorite in the game, if I remember correctly. And England, so nobody scored in the first half because that's how soccer goes sometimes.

And England scored a little bit into the second half. They're up one-nothing. And then they went into the soccer equivalent of a prevent defense. And they subbed out some of their offensive players, subbed in some defenders. And from there, it just allowed Argentina to apply offensive pressure for a long time, half an hour or something like some crazy number like that. And... I think people are going to look back on this as a really bad decision by the British coach to just trying to go into a, I mean, it's one thing, right, for NFL fans, sometimes you hear this line that the only thing a prevent defense prevents is winning. And it was kind of like that, right? I understand getting into a defensive posture when you're up, but not that early, not with half an hour to go. And not when Lionel Messi is on the other team, the greatest. player probably in the history of the game of soccer. He didn't score yesterday, but he had the assist on both goals. And so Argentina scored with about five minutes left. in regulation time. Now, of course, there was going to be some, always going to be some stoppage and injury time and the few minutes they make up for the hydration break and all that. But England scored with about five minutes left in regulation, and then they scored again six and a half minutes later, so a little bit into stoppage time. And that was it. And Argentina is like their... fourth miraculous comeback in this World Cup tournament. So it's going to be Spain versus Argentina on Sunday. And that should be an amazing game. And Spain has played a near perfect tournament. They only allowed one goal the whole tournament. They're just, they're just an absolutely complete team. You'd have to say there's. Their strength is probably their defense, even though their offense is good too. And Argentina's strength is probably their offense, even though their defense is good too. And it should be an absolutely incredible game. I know not everybody listening cares about soccer. I get it. I get it. But I saw this quote that I just want to share with you from Harry Kane, who is the captain of the English team. And he said, I don't think I'll ever understand what just happened out there. If I'm being honest, it's really tough to take. Our whole focus this past week was on stopping Lionel Messi. Every meeting, every session, it was all about limiting his impact. And in a way, you look at it and think we did. We stopped him from scoring. But that's the thing with him. Even at 39 years old, it's just unbelievable. You think you've done enough. And then he goes and produces two assists, two decisive moments that complete. changed the game. That's the level he's at. To go from winning the game to losing it in the last seven minutes, it's devastating, absolutely devastating. We were in control. We were so close and then it turns just like that.

The lads are hurting. We're all disappointed because we know how big this was. But sometimes you come up against a player who can change everything in an instant. And tonight, that was the difference. So that is attributed to the English captain Harry Kane yesterday. All right. So there's that. Let me talk for a minute about President Trump's speech tonight. We don't really know what's going to be in it. But we do expect based on something Trump has said and some things some of Trump's people have said that at least some of it is going to be. about election integrity, maybe fraud, you know, Trumpy's stolen election kind of stuff. I expect he will talk about either China or Russia or both trying to influence the 2020 election. The question is, will he have anything new to show that is credible? There have been some rumors out there that the CIA covered up. I think it was Chinese efforts to influence the election. And now that Trump has his guy in charge of the CIA and especially his ridiculous lunatic guy Bill Pulte as director of national intelligence, you know, maybe they're going to put together some stuff. And what I just hope is whatever they put together, if they come out with a claim, whatever the claim is, whatever the claim is. I hope they have some really credible evidence for it. That's the main thing. I doubt they do, but I hope whatever it is doesn't sound like a lunatic conspiracy theory. So putting aside whatever you think about stolen election, just one quick thing. And I will talk more about this later. This is, if he spends a lot of time talking about election integrity. It's not good politics for Trump. Yes, it kind of motivates the base, but that part of the base is pretty motivated already. They're not going to change their vote based on what Trump says or doesn't say about stolen elections right now. But the average normal American probably wants to hear why are we still fighting in Iraq? Which by the way, Iran, I'm sorry, in Iran, which I support, by the way, but we need to understand how he's thinking. And what's the administration doing about cost of living? The more time President Trump spends looking backward, the more normal voters are going to say, this is an administration that does not understand me or care about my concerns. So I should probably vote for Democrats, not just in the midterms, but in the presidential election two years after that. So it's a very dangerous political move for President Trump.

Who knows, maybe he'll surprise us, though. Maybe this stuff we're being given about it being mostly about election integrity. Maybe it's misdirection, and he'll do something different. We'll see. A listener had a concept that I'm going to turn a little bit to something that I think might be a little bit more useful for Gina. So. The listener text says, Epic, maybe you can pick out a new tattoo when you go for jury duty. But that has me thinking, like if you do get called, but you decide that you really don't want to serve on a jury, even though I do think serving on a jury would be fun, just make sure you go in short sleeves, right? Wait, first off, do you have the choice? About what? Serving? No, no, but I'm saying if you... are desperate to try to get out of serving, then you can make yourself so unappealing to the attorneys that they will excuse you. Like you could be in the original pool and they say, no, we don't want her. And, you know, someone like full of prison tattoos, especially if it's a capital murder case or, you know, rape, arson, some kind of high degree felony case. And they see, you know, you've been inside. I mean, would they look at my experience? Like, they'd see the tattoos and be like, well. Yeah, I mean, I think we live in a very judgy society. And they would see those full sleeve. I mean, we just talked about this with Karen the other day. Yep. Right? And so if they see your tattoos, they wouldn't know that you did this as part of your research into your abnormal psychology Ph.D. Oh, right. They would. And they would just think, right, this chick did some hard time. Right. And, but the thing is, I don't know if, if, like, if you were an attorney and you saw someone there who you knew did some hard time, would that make you, let's say you're the defense attorney. Okay. Would that make you? more likely to want that person on the jury or more likely for that, you know, you don't want that person off the jury. I don't know. If you're the defense. Yeah, if you're either one, you can answer either one. Well, I think the defense, maybe they might say, well, she's seen the other side. Maybe she'll have a little bit more compassion. That's what I'd think too. Yeah, right. That's what I'd think too. So I would just say, you know, on your jury duty day, if you really want to try to not, you know, if you have to go in, but then you don't want to be in, go in short sleeves. Okay. Which you almost never do for obvious reasons. Right. But anyway, I thought, I thought that was pretty smart of that, of that listener. Hey, I want to mention something to you is a story that's up on my blog at roscominski.com, which takes you to my substack page now. And you can subscribe for free there. to my substacks. So you'll get the, what I call the blog cast, which is just a blog note about the broadcast each day. And then I write occasional other articles or do occasional other videos that will show up as well. So you could subscribe for free at rosskaminski.com, K-A-M-I-N-S-K-Y, and I hope you do. And one of the things is that I often post stuff in the blog that I might get to in the show, but then...

Often I don't get to because I'm busy wasting your time talking with Gina about tattoos rather than talking about what's going on in the news. But sometimes I put stories in there that I only intend to even briefly mention. And this is one of them. And when I say I only intend to mention it, it's not because it's not a great story. It's because it's a long story and I don't want to get into it on the air. But there's an amazing story that I have posted again at rosskimoski.com and the Thursday blogcast. And it's from the Associated Press, and here's the headline, a 12-year-old baseball standout trains through tears after Venezuela quakes leave him homeless. And just the story is really quite remarkable about this young kid, 12 years old, who, you know, some of his friends are. are dead or missing or orphaned or hurt or whatever. And the whole thing about baseball culture in Venezuela and how it could be your way out of poverty. And you hear these stories. And one of the things I thought to myself, I'm not being, not joking around with this. One of the things I thought to myself is that I think it's close to impossible for most Americans. even the most low-income Americans to imagine what third world poverty really feels like. And this story is really something. It's up on the blog at Ross Kaminsky.com and the Thursday blogcast, go check it out. All right, a listener, more than one listener, has asked for a dragon update. So I just texted him and asked him for a dragon update. And here's what I've got for you. The nerve blocks are starting to wear off. I'm starting to be able to move my foot and wiggle my toes. I still have the pins and needles feeling, but there is movement. It's a very different type of uncomfortable now. L-O-L-L. So far for my knee, it's just achy, not a lot of pain, but I've only been awake for an hour or so, and we'll see how the day goes. This is exciting to me as not being able to move and feel my leg was just weird. My plan is to be back on Monday in some capacity. I have an appointment on Friday afternoon, so I will know more then. And then I asked him, are you on crutches or stuck in bed? And he said, I was able to go to the restroom yesterday using crutches, but that's the only time I was out of the bed yesterday. So that's your dragon update. So perhaps you will be back. Perhaps you will be back on Monday. We will see. Did you scroll through these photos on his Instagram? No. Because I certainly did not. Wait, so what are they? He posted a photo of what looks like probably his leg on his Instagram page. But it also says, warning, explicit content, knee surgery photos in the next few slides. I have not scrolled to see the next. Oh, I need to see that. You want me to scroll? Yeah. I'm not looking. Oh, seriously? All right, Gina's pointing her phone at me. That's blurry. You can't see anything. All right, Kim, next one. All right.

What are they? You know what? Siri, you know what it looks like? If I were to tell you that that would be like a space telescope picture of a planet? With, you know, some, at least from my distance, I think you might believe me. It's a, I think it's a, yeah, you could have told me Artemis II. Yeah, it looks like an Artemis 2 picture of something in the solar system. It's a little bit blurry. I think what it is is an arthroscopic, like little tiny camera inside Dragon's Knee, but to me the images are blurry. Before meniscus torn and flipped opposite where it should be. after menisca's back in place and smoothed out. Okay, but I wouldn't call that gross. No, I wasn't going to, it showed us explicit content. I wasn't going to look at it, but no, it's not, it's not bad. It's not bad. All right. I mean, the injury probably is very bad. Yeah. All right. There we go. So check this out. Here's something you don't see every day. The prime minister, prime minister of Iraq, a new prime minister, his name is Ali al-Zaidi. So AL, his last name, AL-Z-A-I-D-I. So. Iraq has long been, at least since after Saddam Hussein was deposed, in a difficult situation because there are plenty of Shiite Muslims there and Shiite militias and Shiite politicians who are very much under the influence of Iran, which is the dominant Shia power in the world, really. Of course, there are also lots of Sunni Muslims. Most of the rest of the Muslim world, especially in the Middle East, is Sunni Muslim. And I'm not expert on this, but you can think of the division a little bit. Don't don't. I don't want to make the parallel too close, but a little bit like Catholicism versus whatever form of Protestantism you want to name, right? So they're both forms of Christianity, but they're quite different from each other in their own ways. And adherence to one may often think that adherence to the other one are very wrong, even though, like, let's say Catholicism and... I don't know, being Methodist, right? Still about Jesus and it's still the Old Testament and the New Testament. A lot of it, to the outside observer who isn't involved in any of it is the same. But if you were to ask, you know, a Baptist versus a Catholic, they would say our religions are quite different. Okay, so I'm oversimplifying. But this, so Iraq is in this position.

So literally and figuratively because they're next to Iran where they have to deal with this and they don't want Iran and the people who are influenced by Iran within their own country attacking them and revolting and all this stuff. And so the previous prime ministers have been from the American perspective a little bit too Iran oriented. And this new guy is trying to figure out. how to do a better job balancing, kind of moving away from Iran a little bit, because there didn't seem to be much future there, and creating better relations with the United States of America. So anyway, that was a very long way of telling you that the prime minister of Iraq, this al-Zaidi guy, came here, and there's a photo of him sitting in the Oval Office. And it looks like President Trump reached out to shake his hand. They shook hands and then the Iraqi Prime Minister put his other hand on top of President Trump's hand. So basically President Trump's hand is between the Iraqi Prime Minister's two hands and a big smile on the Iraqi guy's face in this particular picture. And what's remarkable about it is not that the guy came to the United States. It's that last week, the same Iraqi Prime Minister. was in Najaf, in Iraq, in Iran, I'm sorry, in Iran for the, no, I take it back. Okay, he was in Najaf, that's in Iraq, but he was there for the funeral procession of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was, you know, one of the, Israel basically working with the U.S. killed him. So imagine that. Imagine a prime minister of any country. It happens to be Iraq. going from in one week attending the funeral procession of the now dead recently, recent supreme leader. and then coming to the United States and shaking hands in the Oval Office with the president of the United States. And Trump, look, he's a very transactional guy. He's not going to hold it against that guy that he went to that thing. In Trump's mind, he's going to be thinking, yeah, the guy's doing what he has to do to try to maneuver the country and not have a rebellion and all this stuff. Trump said we have a fantastic champion. He's been a great fighter, a great fan of America. I think he's going to be there for a long period of time, which is always a dangerous. prediction to make in that particular country, you never know. But in any case, it's quite a thing to see this guy with a big, and I don't know, I got nothing against this Prime Minister of Iraq to the extent that he's going to move away from Iran and towards the U.S., I think that's great. I'm not being critical. I just think it's an amazing thing to see him shaking hands with Donald Trump in the Oval Office less than a week after attending the funeral procession of. the former supreme leader of iran is quite

A story. All right, there's still an immense amount of stuff to do on today's show, everything from graveyards for tech equipment to bagpipes in studio and a little more on soccer as well. We'll have Keenan in studio to talk about a really cool soccer story actually. Gina's got an update for us now. Oh, I saw the story. I saw the story and I thought about Rocky Mountain Men's Clinic too. That's pretty funny. Give us an update. K-OA news time 64. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says that service members, age 30 and older, will now receive annual testosterone screenings as part of their routine health assessments. Ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute. best. Troops under 30 can voluntarily choose to get the test and should treatments be recommended, service members have the choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy. Helen Bernie is an assistant professor of urology at Indiana University. Testosterone is much more than just a sex hormone. It's a biomarker of a man's overall health. And so when we have low testosterone, this can contribute to fatigue, reduced muscle strength, decreased endurance, impaired concentration. Egg Seth added that the program is part of the department's commitment to providing elite medical care and maintaining the physical and mental readiness required for combat. New South Carolina Republican Senator Darlene Graham will be meeting with President Trump at the White House today. Graham pointed to take over the seat of her late brother, Senator Lindsay. Later in the day, Trump will be welcoming the president of El Salvador to the Oval Office. And then around 7 o'clock our time this evening, the president will be delivering an address to the nation. Our country has to shape up. But this, what we're going to be talking about Thursday is. It doesn't get bigger because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country. We'll be discussing other things too. We'll be carrying the president's speech live here on K-O-A. And while wildfires continue to burn across our state, wildfires in Canada and Minnesota. causing air quality issues across large sections of the U.S. The smoke was dense and hazy Wednesday from Minnesota to Michigan and upstate New York and further into the northeast. The smoke is expected from Ohio to Wisconsin with some possible over Philadelphia, Chicago, and Minneapolis. It'll keep heading South Friday into more of the Midwest, Appalachia, and the East Coast while things start to improve in the north. I'm Michael Castner. Your next update in 15 minutes from the Common Spirit Health, K-O-A Newsdesk. I'm Tina Kotek on K-O-A. Let's go now to the K-OA Traffic Center with a look at your Thursday morning drive. Here's Jonathan Steele.

Yeah, we're still good out here. No problem spot so far. We did have a delay on 85 coming down into Brighton there just a short time ago at 168th Avenue, but that has disappeared as far as the backup. So maybe it was just a momentary stall or something. I-76, yeah, in from 85, still sluggish. 270 also a bit busy there out of Commerce City. And we're seeing a steady increase up north on I-25 down from 104th, coming into downtown somewhat sluggish, but we're still wide open to and from the tech center, although 225. is kind of busy. And from Parker, stays slow back to I-25 and everything else still good. Pena is still white open to and from the airport. Jonathan Steele on K-Wa, 8.50am and 94-1 FM. This report is sponsored by Stand Up to Cancer. Joe Buck and John Smolts welcoming you back to the city center convenience mart. Uh-oh. She's looking at the cigarettes, but she just grabs the gum off the counter. Stand-up to Cancer and Rally want you to reduce your risk for cancer. Go to take a healthy stand.org. All right, let's do it. Happy Thursday, my favorite day of the week. I'm Ross. Thanks for your company, Gina and Shannon. And I always appreciate your spending some time with us. And I think you are well aware by this point that Keenan Dixon from the K.O.A. Newsdesk is a huge sports fan. He has 27 television screens in his living room so he can watch every sports event at one time. Quite a remarkable thing. And he loves soccer. And I actually probably, I like soccer a little better than maybe the average American does, having lived in Europe for a while and watch soccer over there as a huge. sports. So Keenan and I talk about this from time to time. And as I was walking through the newsroom earlier, I made a comment about how Yamin LaMalle of Spain would be facing off against Leonel Messi, who's literally, literally twice Yamin Lamaul's age. And Keenan had a great story to tell. Yeah, it's crazy, but Lamin Amal just turned 19 on Monday. Okay, so just putting this into context, two years ago, he won the... the European Championship with Spain as a 17-year-old. I think he was 17 by the time the final happened. And now he's 19 playing in the World Cup final. And he gets to play against Messi. All right. This is a guy he's from the Barcelona area. He's from Catalonia, just about 20 miles north of Barcelona. And he grew up a Barcelona fan. His family, huge Barcelona fans. And it's like... poetic and something you would see in a movie almost like a like a blessing maybe i don't even know it's crazy but when messy was 20 he was playing for barcelona and unicef wanted to raise money by selling a calendar of barcelona players just interacting with fans and like different settings and i think there's somewhere they're like cooking in the kitchen and uh this one was going to be for messy to take a picture with like a baby that was bathing in front of like a red backdrop and uh Laminia Mall's family entered this raffle. They won, and in 2007, they got to go and take pictures with Messi. And so, Messi walks into the room, and there's a baby in this little plastic bathtub. And it's Laminia Mall, and his mom is right there. And apparently, Messi was really awkward about it. And, I mean, it's kind of a strange setup anyway, but the photographer, Joan Montfort.

kind of set up the shoot to have it be a very unique setting where it's not just, oh, let's take a picture with these great soccer players. It's a human taking a picture with the human, essentially. But Messi is holding Laminia Mall in these pictures. And these... kind of resurfaced two years ago during the European Championship. And back then, Laminemal said he would love to play in a final against Messi. And now they get to play against each other. So Laminumal, 19 years old and six days or so come Sunday's final is going to go against Messi, who is 39 years old. And both players are unbelievably talented. And the story is just incredible. That's really nuts. Yeah. Laminemal's baby picture is Messi holding him. I mean, it's like destiny or something. It really is. It's like the, I don't even know, like the blessing. It's almost like being baptized by Messi, essentially. That's a good way to put it. All right, if you had to bet on the game, which team would you bet on and why? I think the smart bet would be Spain, but the... Just understanding how this tournament has gone would be Argentina. Argentina has had a run that has been improbable. They had to go to overtime against Cape Verde, which we talked about a few weeks ago. They took Spain in the World Cup opener, and they drew with one of the top teams in the world. So honestly, Cape Verde should get a lot of credit here because they took Spain and Argentina the distance. Yeah. The only team to do that in this World Cup. Argentina has had a ton of comebacks. I mean, I was talking about it in sports earlier. They have 19 goals in this World Cup. 12 of those have come in the 75th minute or later. Like there's just no quit in the team. They have all the talent in the world. They have the experience from being there in 2022 and winning the World Cup against France in a very similar fashion where they had to come back in. score a couple of goals late to just send it to overtime. Right. Game after game, Argentina, against Egypt, against Switzerland. Against Cape Verde. And then yesterday. And yesterday. Unbelievable. And I don't know, I don't know whether. It's an incredible thing that they're able to mount these comebacks and it shows great things about the team and how likely they are to win. Right. Or whether the fact that they like don't score until the 75th minute shows that maybe. Yeah. Well, and the smart bet, again, is Spain, they've only given up one goal in the World Cup, which is it's an incredible run. And this being the... longest World Cup ever. They added another game by adding 12 more teams. It's completely different. Also another note on this Messi-Yamal connection. Messi debuted with Barcelona when he was 17, came over from Argentina when he was 13, joined their youth academy, rose all the way up, and he was one of the youngest debuts.

Incredible player for Barso for many years. Laminia Mall, when he was 15, debuted with Barcelona, and he still plays with Barcelona. He said he never wants to play for another team. He played on the Barcelona professional team when he was 15 years old. 15 years old. He made his debut. Yeah. Yeah. And when he was 17, he was nominated for the Ballandor, which is the MVP of all of soccer, everywhere. And he was... 17 years old, the youngest player to be nominated for that. So, Laminia Mall has had a great World Cup as well. Messy has kind of stolen the show because of all of his incredible heroics and the goals that he's scored, the assists he's had. So, yeah, the story just lines up. There are so many storylines with the World Cup every year, but I think this one is so unique because of just this picture 19 years ago. What time is the game on Sunday? It's one o'clock. One o'clock hour time. On 6.30k. Do they play where the Jets and Giants play? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. It'll be there. In that stadium, 80,000 will be in there and a billion watching around the world. Unbelievable. Yeah. All right. Thanks for sharing that story. I love that. Lamin Yamal's baby picture being held by Leonel Messi. What are the chances? Destiny. Destiny. All right. We're going to do some news weather and traffic. And then a very interesting story about electronics graveyards. Dad, Disney activities are on Lingo Kids. What? Moana and Elsa and Marvel Spider-Man, all of them. On Lingo Kids? Yes, Dad, on Lingo Kids. That's pretty cool. I know. You just lost them for the rest of the afternoon. Worth it. Full of fun activities inspired by Disney's Moana, Frozen, Zootopia, Marvel Spider-Man, and more. Lingo Kids is where little ones discover more about favorite characters. Lingo Kids! Everything Kids love. Download it for free. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our war fighters, delivers mission-ready intelligence, advances life-saving healthcare, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT, behind America's invisible advantage. Got plans this summer? A brewery crawl? Another lake trip? The same festival you've been to three times already? Do something different. This August, Virginia International Raceway becomes the ultimate summer destination.

Watch Inns's Michelin GT Challenge at VIR, August 21st through 23rd, bring some of the fastest sports cars to battle through VIR's legendary corners. Camp with friends, enjoy live music, and experience a weekend you'll actually be talking about afterward. Start planning now at govir.net. The headlines, they move on, but the heartache and the terror, they do not. Iran and its terrorist proxies are continuing to target Israel. Hezbollah continues its attacks in the north, forcing families to live under constant threat. But Israel is not only defending her people, she is standing on the front lines against terror that threatens us all. Even when the news crews leave, the international fellowship of Christians and Jews, they remain. Every day, they are on the ground, providing life-saving aid. Now near Israel's border with Lebanon, a Hezbollah drone recently struck the home of Yelina. Widowed earlier this year, and living alone, she was trapped inside by the blast. Thankfully, she was not injured, but she remained displaced. It's hard these days, she says, but I don't want to leave. Well, as Christians, we are called to stand with God's people and pray for those defending Israel, and protecting the freedoms we hold dear. I want you to join the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in praying for the peace of Jerusalem and for the soldiers, families, and civilians carrying the burden of this fight right now. Visit prayifcj.org. That's prayifcj.org.

All right, good morning. So maybe you've been in this situation in the past. We have too many electronics, one, just in our life in general, but too many electronics becoming junk, not because of maybe a cracked screen or it's losing its charge, but actually just because of an issue that is completely out of the consumer's control. So the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, or Koperg, for short, updated its online electronic waste graveyard. It's a database that really shows devices. that are now pretty much trash because the software has expired or they've lost their support. Joining us to talk a little bit more about it is executive director of Koperg. It's Danny. Danny, appreciate your time as always and I appreciated all those little gravestones of the sad electronics that are no longer with us due to the lost support. But it is a big deal because some of these things I remember having an iPad in the past. where I turned it on. It worked just fine. I had it for so long. And then I was like, why can't I do anything with this? And it took me so long to realize it was the fact that, sure, I could still take photos. I could still maybe like look at my gallery, but I can't update anything because the software that used to be on it is not available anymore. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there was over 100 items in the last decade and a number that we lost in the last year. I mean, these are beloved devices. And yeah, they're otherwise usable devices, but because they're internet connected, you need server access or software updates, and companies are under no obligation to give you those. And so they can make the decision to just cut that access off. And these otherwise usable devices are now going in your junk drawer. I wonder how much of... So it sounds like, yeah, I'm sure we all remember the old term planned obsolescence, right? And they kind of force you to buy something new. And I wonder, thinking about Gina's iPad example. So if you have an earlier iPad and has a much older processor, is it possible that there's a legit argument that the hardware is just not up to handling the newest operating systems? And therefore, you really can't update it. And that happens from time to time. Like on an older Windows computer, you know, it'll say, sorry, you can't update this to Windows 11 because it doesn't have the hardware you need. It's hard for me to know whether they're really telling the truth or whether they're trying to force you to do something for some reason. Yeah, absolutely. As I said, manufacturers are under no obligation to provide you these software updates for eternity. And there's likely going to be moments where these devices do age out. We just think based on where technology is at today, you know, a lot of the devices in our graveyard.

They only lasted three years, four years, five years. I mean, that just seems ridiculously short. You think of the Kindles. We lost 13 Kindle models this year. I mean, they just allow you to read a book, and that's just not that technologically hard. So it does seem like a lot of this is being driven by, you know, pushing us to then buy newer models, and that's just wasteful. So the Kindle was the one that surprised me the most on the list because there's some niche devices on there. And then there's some things that you use all the time like phones and laptops. But for the Kindle, I feel like it can't be that challenging to be able to just download another book. And when you explain that the software is obsolete, it means that like you could still technically read the books that are currently on your Kindle, but you couldn't get any new books, correct? That's correct. Yeah, these are devices that still work. I mean, people can still look at the book that they downloaded. I mean, reading hasn't changed that much in a thousand years. And so the technology of it, it's not that sophisticated, but these kindles are now losing. the ability to download a new book, not just buy a new book, but even access those books from a library. So that does seem that falls much more in the planned obsolescence camp than it does. There was some technological reason this Kindle can no longer accomplish its simple task or needed some security update because, you know, you downloaded a book. I wonder if some clever person could find an intermediary device that could get access to the Kindle store and then pass the book along to your existing Kindle, a little, little piece of software. So why does this bother you so much? Yeah, I mean, for us, a big part of this is just waste. I mean, we're looking at in the graveyard that we produced and the products that were there, we're looking at a potential of 1.7 billion pounds of electronic waste that were created simply because you lost software support. And even if you try to recycle all that, and that's great if you can recycle it, we should just be able to use it longer. That's really the best use. of these products and all the resources we put into them. So for us, a big part of it is waste. And then ownership. I mean, do you really own something? Did you really buy something? And if you don't know ahead of time, you could buy something. And then three months later, they tell you, oh, we're cutting off service. And so that's not the way a market should work and consumers should know ahead of time how long they're going to get the software updates and support before they buy something. We're speaking with Danny Katz, executive director of Koperg, talking about this electronic graveyard that they have on their website. And Danny, I am curious of like, when you talk about different devices, is there any requirement or do any devices currently tell you how long you'll be able to have? Because I remember the Windows 11 thing. They were giving warnings forever, letting you know that this could become obsolete because a lot of people had PCs that they relied on.

But is that a requirement or do we see anybody actually do that when you purchase a new phone knowing that it might not be something you can use later on? Yeah, manufacturers are under no obligation. We're starting to see policymakers head in this direction, both here in the United States and globally, but there really aren't any requirements. We'd love to see Colorado take this step. We're already a state that's got a lot of right to repair laws that give us access to tools to fix our stuff. It'd be great if Colorado took a step and said companies need to disclose. a commitment, make a commitment of how long they're going to support your device before you buy it. So that is something policymakers can do. And companies could just do this as well. There's no reason we need a law. They should start doing this, but I think a law could help create that level playing field. Danny, give listeners the information of where they can find these if they feel like they're in the situation and realize that their device might be part of this graveyard that you have there. Yeah, it's at our website, KOPHERG Foundation. That's C-O-P-I-R-G Foundation.org. Danny Katz, executive director of Koperg. Appreciate your time and intention to this. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Ross, I thought it was wild that there was like devices on there that was like a juicer. There was like a coat that I assume probably has like Bluetooth capabilities. Maybe it's like a heated coat where you can adjust the temperature of the coat. That was obsolete. There was so many devices that don't even think of. How does a watch go obsolete? There's just random, right? Yep. You know, I have historically been a pretty early adopter of technology. So I have some of these old iPads and an old Android thing that I can't even get into anymore. And, you know, I think what's a, not, not, I'm not frustrated with, with Danny, but just the thing with this issue is there's not a darn thing you or I or anybody listening to us right now can do about it. Right? It just is what it is. And Danny can tell us about the graveyard and warn us about this obsolescence, but we can't stop it. Yeah. Nothing we can do. He said he hopes that like lawmakers are pushing to maybe have those disclaimers more on devices of saying, hey, you've got to let us know how long it will actually be in use before it is, you know, in this graveyard. But you're right. It is one of those unfortunate things if they raise the awareness. But that doesn't mean that these companies have to do anything about it. Right. And even with legislators, I don't know how much legislators can do it. It's an interesting question. I just don't know if there's a real answer. A listener sent in a text asking if we might speak briefly about what President Trump did a few days ago.

massively reducing the size of a couple of national monuments in Utah. And it's actually quite an interesting story. And I think I will honor that listener's request and talk about that briefly right after we do some news weather and traffic. We've done something that was, I think, very desperately needed. It was very unfair to the people of Utah. And now fairness has been brought back. It's going to be better taken care of. And they'll be able to use it a little bit. That was President Donald Trump on Monday, a topic that we're going to cover here just for a couple of minutes because a listener asked us to a half an hour or an hour ago because we like to honor your requests when we can. So that was President Trump signing a couple of executive orders earlier this week. shrinking the size of two reasonably well-known national monuments in Utah. One is called Grand Staircase Escalante and the other is called Bear's Ears. And this is a bit of a ping pong game between Donald Trump. and Democratic presidents. Let me share with you from the Salt Lake Tribune a little bit. The two orders collectively cut nearly three million acres out of monument protection, including 1.69 million acres from Grand Staircase Escalante and one and a quarter million acres for Bears' ears. Those are both national monuments. About 90% of the land previously protected in each monument, right? So Trump trunk the size of the national monuments by about 90%. Now, this is still federal land. It's just not national monument designation. So what does this mean? And again, sltrib.com. Lands cut from the monuments will now be open to mining applicable to mineral and geothermal leasing laws. Both monument proclamations say the areas have resources like uranium, copper, and zinc that are critical to the nation's resource independence and national security. Someone from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance says there are meager resources in the monument, but that doesn't mean people aren't going to stake claims. Well, that could be true. Staking a claim doesn't mean that much. What really means a lot is after you stake the claim, then you do a feasibility study where you do a little bit of drilling to see how much of a resource is in that ground, in what concentration? Can it be economically mined, right? Like if you have... If you have a thousand tons of gold in a fairly small area, all right, worth mining. If you have a thousand tons of gold.

spread out over a hundred square miles because it's just diffuse and not concentrated, then that likely cannot be economically mined. Having a claim itself doesn't mean much. The latest proclamation also disbands the Bears' Ears Commission, which had a bunch of different Native American tribes involved making decisions over some of the land. Now, here's the thing that I think a lot of people don't understand. And that is that the government of Utah and Utah's members of Congress. never wanted these monuments to be large, right? The governor of Utah, the members of the House and Senate from Utah, they all support what Trump did. Now, there's a lot of folks who, you know, write for newspapers who tend to lean left and like the idea of the government protecting everything without even actually knowing what that means. But Trump actually reduced the size of these things. In his first term in 2017, and then Joe Biden. restored grand staircase Escalante and to the original boundaries and expanded bears ears. And now, so it's been this kind of ping pong back and forth. Representative from Utah, Celeste Malloy said both of these monuments were created over the unanimous opposition of Utah's federal delegation, our governors, the county commissioners, the locals who are worried about losing multiple uses on federal lands. So basically what happened was Bill Clinton designated Grand Staircase Escalante in 1996. It got a little bit bigger later. Barack Obama did Bears' ears in 2016. Last quick thing I'll say about this. The Antiquities Act, which is the law that... is used to designate these does not say anything about reducing them or eliminating them. And so this stuff is all been in court, still in court, and we just don't know whether the president actually has the authority to undo them or make them smaller. And I think that's a very interesting question. And we'll learn about it at some point in the not too distant future. Or maybe distant future. It is federal court after all. All right, I see this story on CNBC. right now. I hadn't heard it before. And it's very interesting. It's very interesting. Let me back off and just do a macro thing here for a second. I haven't spent much time on this show talking about...

how President Trump and his family have done so much to enrich themselves through the presidency. I don't think it really needs a lot more people adding to that because we've heard the story a lot. I think everybody knows about it. And it would probably just make me mad to talk about. All of this stuff with issuing cryptocurrencies and selling stupid watches and shoes. And it's just, it's not okay, but it's also not going to stop. And it's, by the way, it's probably not illegal. It's just unethical and I don't like it at all. But I don't have a lot more to say about that as a general thing. But this story, this is really, really interesting. And in a sense, this is taking the, I'll use the word corruption. It's taking the word corruption. It's taking the corruption to another level. And all right, so. This is actually a press release. So truth social is owned by Trump Media and Technology Group. So they own truth social. Truth Social is where Donald Trump posts almost all of his social media posting. He does very little on other platforms and has done very little on other platforms. since the founding of truth social, which makes sense. He wants to attract people to go to truth social because he owns it and he wants more eyeballs there or he owns some of it. And he wants more eyeballs there and the more eyeballs you have on a particular platform, the more advertising you can sell and you make more money. And this is, that's not. You know, truth, socials. That's just the model. It's Twitter, it's Facebook. It's everything. They're basically advertising platforms. I don't understand your field goal thing. Yeah. All right. He was kicked off of Twitter and then Elon Musk let him back on. So he's on Twitter. He's on Twitter. He's been on Twitter since Elon Musk bought it. But he doesn't use it very much. Anyway, okay, so here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'm taking too long to get to the point. President Trump posts stuff on truth social. some of which can move markets, right? If President Trump posts, you know, I strongly endorse so-and-so for Congress, that's not going to move a market. But if President Trump were to post something about the economy, about what we're going to do in the war just before it happens, about something with tariffs before it happens, anything like that, you could easily see an immediate move in the market.

which might be a big move, might be a small move, but you got to remember that for people who are very, very short-term traders, you could make an immense amount of money on a fairly small move in a fairly short time, if you were reasonably convinced that that move was going to happen. So. Truth Social or the parent company of Truth Social, Trump Media and Technology Group, has announced that in a couple of weeks, they are going to launch what they call the Truth API. A API is a programming interface that allows you to connect directly with the servers behind the user interface. Right? So if you would go online and you go to Twitter or truth social or whatever, oh, I think I see bagpipe people in a reflection here. And you, what you're seeing on that screen is the user interface that is then displaying to you. based on how some computer program says to display it, the information in a database that's running behind the scenes. The database behind the scenes, you know, President Trump will go online. He'll type in some kind of quote unquote truth. It'll go into the database. And then the user interface like their website will display whatever it is that Trump posted. So what? Trump Media and Technology Group is doing with this API is they are selling faster access to the highest ranking true social accounts. Now, of course, the highest ranking true social account is and almost certainly always will be Donald Trump. And I, you know, I imagine that there will be a lot less activity on truth social in general once he's not present anymore, but we'll have to see how active he stays on there. But what they are doing now is they are offering subscriptions to this faster data feed. In other words, people who pay money to Trump's company will get faster access to Trump's social media post and thereby be able to trade on the information before anybody else will, but only if you pay money to Trump's company. Wow. And they are not subtle about this. This is from their own press release, not a news analysis. Let me read this to you. Truth API is designed for organizations most impacted by the cost of a delay in information. This includes high frequency and algorithmic trading firms that require a low latency, machine readable feed rather than manual tracking. The API uses familiar industry standard delivery methods to deliver truth social posts to our customers in milliseconds.

expected to provide continuous 24-7 coverage and includes a historical archive going back several years. So there you go. So this takes the corruption to a new level. If you want the fastest access to what Trump posts on a social media platform that he owns, then you need to pay his company money and you will get access to those posts a few milliseconds faster than anybody else. It also may encourage him to start saying more market moving stuff. on the social media platform so that they can then get more high frequency trading companies to sign up and pay them the money. You know, Trump has done a lot of things that I don't like. There is a lot of corruption in this, or self-dealing kinds of corruption in this family and this administration, and it's all gross. But this takes it to a new level. This is not okay. All right. Hi there. I'm Ross. That's long-sleeved gene over there. Producer Shannon behind the glass. For those who've been asking about producer Dragon, he sent us an update a little bit earlier, saying that the nerve blocks that they had to do on his leg because he had a lot of pain when he came right out of anesthesia are just wearing off now so he can move his toes a little bit and all. And he's feeling a little bit better about all that. And he hopes to be back on Monday. We'll see. We'll see. He's got a follow-up appointment tomorrow. We'll see how all that went. A couple of quick things that I wanted to mention. Hold on. Let's see. Where did this go? So old things are new again. And this happens all the time. There was a period of time when Bell Scott Bottoms came back. Gina, did you ever buy any Bell Scott Bottoms at a thrift store? Do you? I could imagine you in Bell Scott Bottoms at a music festival somewhere? Yeah, probably. But as far as old things being new again, you're still not down with cottage cheese? No. No. Absolutely not. All right. Okay. So cottage cheese is made a comeback. Gina's not down with it. But I saw another one that I liked is slightly more serious than cottage cheese, although apparently some people do take that seriously. And here, this is from Axios. Chess is young and hip now. I like this story. I played, you know, some chess as a kid, but I was not, you know, good enough to be on the high school chess team or anything, just messing around a little bit. It's a fun game, but it's for much bigger brains than I have. But this is a cool story. Chess is no longer just an old school pastime. Young men and women are making the game their own. The pandemic, pop culture, and a wave of content creators have turned a centuries old game into a Gen Z phenomenon. They quote a 30-year-old chess master and teacher named Levi Rosman. He says it was not the coolest thing in the world to be a chess player when I was growing up. This guy's 30. He says, nowadays...

Kids come up to me who love chess, and they look like they would have bullied me in high school. I love that story. There are now popular chess live streamers, including this guy, Rosman, who goes by Gotham chess. There are chess dating clubs, chess nights at bars, chess romance scenes on television. And it's not just men, although it's mostly men, but it's not just men. Women are now live streaming and learning the game. Mr. Rosman says his YouTube audience went from about 99% male in 2020 to more than 10% female today. All right, one step at a time. We'll get there. And viewers of his video. How to play chess are now about 25% women. Younger people are now more likely than their elders to play chess, according to recent UGov data. As of June 1st, there were 6.4 million active U.S. players at chess.com up from 4 million just a year before. That's actually quite massive. That's a 60% increase. That's amazing. And there was a nearly 10% increase on Eventbrite, which is sort of an appointment and ticketing and invitation kind of site. But 10% increase in chess experiences on Event Bright from 2024 to 2025, they've told Axios. Chess Grandmasters keep getting younger. Now, you may recall, I actually didn't see this, but Gina, do you see the Netflix series called the Queen's Gambit? I actually didn't see it. Exactly what I was thinking about when you said that. I did. And believe me, if you watched it, you too would want to learn how to play chess. Well, tell me a little more. Anya Taylor Joy is like the lead in it and she's just a stellar chess player. Like this is truly just her going through competitions and they do all these tight shots of all these quick moves. Wait, is she an actress pretending to play chess or she's the actual chess player in real life? Anya, whatever you said. Oh, that's the actress in real life. And then I don't know what her name is in the show. It came out in like 2020. Yeah, yeah, that's right, 2020. And... Yeah, all I really remember is like she was in an orphanage, and then they realized that she was kind of like a prodigy chess player. And so then her, there's a lot. There's a lot there. There's a lot there. There's a lot more. There's a lot more to it. But if you watch it, it has that vintagey feel where you're just like, yeah, I'd pick up chess. Yeah. I'd give it a shot. And there's a, the name's escaping me, but there's a famous pair of female. twins who are great chess players. And so, you know, between the Queen's Gambit, yeah, that's like six years ago now, but chess is making a comeback. And I think that's pretty cool. There was, I guess, a major cheating scandal in chess. I vaguely remember reading about this. And then a chess bot called Mittens.

Which seems like a name Gina would like a lot. A chess bot called mittens and an infamous table slam have kept the game in the zeitgeist. Anyway, here's the end of the Axios note. No matter your age, learning chess could be a winning move for connection and self-improvement. Mr. Rosman says if you're impatient or too aggressive or you have too much of an ego or you're bad at regulating your stress and emotion, chess kind of exposes this and challenges you to fix it. I dig it, and I love the idea that young people are picking up chess. Coming up next, what's next, Gina? In studio? Some bagpipes. Bagpipes. Dad, Disney activities are on Lingo Kids. What? Moana and Elsa and Marvel Spider-Man, all of them. On Lingo Kids? Yes, Dad, on Lingo Kids. That's pretty cool. I know. You just lost them for the rest of the afternoon. Worth it. Full of fun activities inspired by Disney's Moana, Frozen, Zootopia, Marvel Spider-Man, and more. Lingo Kids is where little ones discover more about favorite characters. Lingo Kids! Everything kids love. Download it for free. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our warfighters, advances life-saving health care, combat cyber threats, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT. behind America's invisible advantage. Got plans this summer? A brewery crawl? Another lake trip? The same festival you've been to three times already? Do something different. This August, Virginia International Raceway becomes the ultimate summer destination. Watch Innsa's Michelin GT Challenge at VIR. August 21 through 23rd brings some of the fastest sports cars to battle through VIR's legendary corners. Camp with friends. Enjoy live music and experience a weekend you'll actually be talking about afterward. Start planning now at govir.net. The headlines, they move on, but the heartache and the terror, they do not. Iran and its terrorist proxies are continuing to target Israel. Hezbollah continues its attacks in the north, forcing families to live under constant threat. But Israel is not only defending her people, she is standing on the front lines against terror that threatens us all. Even when the news crews leave, the international fellowship of Christians and Jews, they remain. Every day, they are on the ground, providing life-saving aid. Now, near Israel's border with Lebanon, a Hezbollah drone recently struck the home of Yelina, widowed earlier this year, and living alone, she was trapped inside by the blast.

Thankfully, she was not injured, but she remained displaced. It's hard these days, she says, but I don't want to leave. Well, as Christians, we are called to stand with God's people and pray for those defending Israel and protecting the freedoms we hold dear. I want you to join the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in praying for the peace of Jerusalem. And for the soldiers, families, and civilians carrying the burden of this fight right now, visit pray-IFCJ.org. That's pray-IFcj.org. Oh, yeah, we're going to be jamming in here. Jamming the bagpipes music. I was actually hoping that would still be going there for a second so you could hear the bagpipe being tuned up. Do you tune a bagpipe? Yeah. How does that? So why don't you do some introductions here, Epic, Gina? Okay, the annual Celtic festivals taking place this upcoming Saturday and Sunday, Casey Jay Jones Park in Elizabeth. And joining us in studio to talk a little bit more about it is Hank Bradshaw. He's the athletic director for the festival because we'll talk about some of the games that take place as well. And Neil Gillette, he's the piping competition coordinator who is just tuning up, correct? That's right. Tuning up the bagpipes, which I always say you should be in radio with the voice that you have, but also the bagpipes as well. Good morning, guys. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Thanks for having us. So can I go back to that question? How do you tune a bagpipe? Okay, so very shortly, what we try to do is we tune the drones to the part that makes the music, the chanter. And we either make the pipes a little bit longer, which makes it go flat or shorter, which makes it sharpen up. So we can tune the pipes. The problem with tuning the pipes is it's a reed instrument. moisture makes it change pitch. So you tune a minute ago, but you've been playing for a whole minute and you kind of need to tune it again. It's like sometimes a pain. I don't think I realized it was a reed instrument. I think like I think a wind instrument because you're inflating a bag, right? But you're playing into a reed and then what? Have the pipes, several pipes that you play as well? You blow in one one pipe. It's called the blow pipe. And it... fills up the bag, and then you've got four other pipes that go out of the bag that sound. Three are drones that just go wah, and then you've got the chander, which makes the melody. And the chander is a double read, and the drones are single reads, if you know what that means. Single read, it'd be like a clarinet. Double read, it'd be like an oboe. So the reads are in the output, not the input. That's right. Did you ever play an instrument? Not a wind instrument. No, I played violin and a little piano, but so no, never anything like that. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, very cool. All right, so I also have one other dumb question. And either one of you guys can take this. So it's the Celtic festival, but it's the Boston Celtics. So which is it and why? Celtic or Celtic, are they both fine? Is it something that's changed over the years? Did it used to be pronounced one way and now another way? Inquiring minds want to know.

Do you have the ad? Okay, sure. Go ahead. So, so it is Celtic, if you're referring to anything, except the basketball team. In Boston, it's kind of like local rules prevail and custom. I've lived several places in the country and lived in Arkansas. It was Salado, Arkansas, it's Salado, Arkansas, it's Salado, Texas. It's Lima, Ohio. It's Lima, Peru, you know? Right. Right. Cairo, Egypt, Cairo, Illinois. It is Wincoop, Winecoop situation like you're asking. Okay. Gina, why don't you ask a smarter question than Mike? Hank, I'm going to start with you here because I love talking a little bit about the Scottish athletic events that take place at the Elizabeth Celtic Festival because there are some wacky ones in there. There might be some events that people have not heard of before. If there was one like, don't miss or let me try to explain this event to you, which one would you choose? Well, I think probably the fan favorite is probably going to be the Caber competition, where it's that big kind of almost telephone pole that they stand upright and they're wearing a kilt. They pick it up, they run with it and try and flip it and over end. So that's probably one of the, it's real fun to watch and it's probably one of the more popular events. But they're competing in all nine events throughout the day. So it's just like a decathlon. They're not just coming to compete in one event. They're coming to compete in all nine, which also includes some fun events, which is like the sheaf toss competition. It's a sheaf. I didn't say sheep. It's a sheaf. It's a simulated bail of hay. They grab with a pitchfork, and they throw it up over a crossbar, and they need to get it over the crossbar, and the crossbar kind of keeps going up and up and up. And those are just like a couple of events that are very unique to the Highland Games. But you also think we have the stone put, which sounds a lot like the shot put. But it predates the Olympic shot put. So it's actually a stone that they throw for distance that's not perfectly round. You know, so a lot of these events kind of predate the Olympics that we have here today. And it's kind of the, almost kind of the Celtic Olympics. I think a huge attraction for me would be if I could get haggis. Will I be able to get any haggis? Ooh. I don't know about that. I actually think legit haggis is illegal in the United States. But I really want some. Well, you can do it, but the health concerns are quite. Yeah. That's why you have operating room type of stuff. That's why you have scotch with it. Kill whatever the. Kill whatever. Would you settle for a meat pie? Yeah, I definitely would. Okay. Yeah, I definitely would. I had haggis in Scotland, so I do like it. I'm sorry, I'm very silly today. Oh, well, your first name is Ross. You're half Scottish. You're right, which is a Scottish name anyway. All right, Gina. I don't know. Okay, I was looking at some of the music on the list, and I was really excited to see the name Marion Goodland because I've had her on often on Colorado's morning news. She's fabulous, the chief legislative reporter of Colorado politics. But I didn't know that she also plays the harp.

She is an amazing harpist. She is kind of like, wow, you do something else besides harp. I heard that you were a reporter or something. She is famous in the harp circles. And for her to, she'll bring out. of truckload of harps basically. And people, I think she brings like 10 harps or something and does the harp clinic. You can learn to play the Celtic harp at the Elizabeth Celtic Festival, either on Saturday or Sunday at 11. And you... It's pretty darn neat. I fan girl over her legislative reporting. Other people might fan girl over her heart playing. So I see both here. I mean, she's fabulous. But yeah, it shows that she's 115 Saturday and Sunday as well. You can hear her play at the Celtic, Elizabeth Celtic festival as well. What would be something for either one of you guys that happens at the Elizabeth Celtic Festival that is maybe not one of the big famous things like throwing the telephone pole that you think is just really cool that people should check out, like an Easter egg kind of thing, just some hidden, little hidden gem? You go first, Neil. All right. Well, both of you have the benefit of these brochures in front of you. We have several things where people can try things. They can learn to play the harp, kind of, you know, in an hour. Adjust your expectations. But the kids get to do a passport to the clans, and they also, the older kids get to do the Celtic Quest. There's whiskey tasting. You know, you can try this. Okay, I'll try the whiskey tasting. There's the family. Twist my arm. Family Cayley, where you can learn to do Irish social dancing. They call it Kaylee dancing. Kaylee means party. And we do the party at 12 noon. I know it should be an evening thing, but by the time we're done with the day, we're done. So there are lots of things. We have the children's parade. Every kid gets a kazoo. And then we lead them from the children's glen where there's lots of stuff for kids to do around the whole park. And then we end up at the Scottish athletics where they get to learn how to toss a kid's caver. A real cabor, not a cardboard tube. So. people can get involved. And that's what it means to go to this festival is you can try stuff. You just don't sit down on a chair with a beer, although you can do that too. All right, Hank, real quick. Give us something that you think people should see at the festival. And then Neil, while he's doing that, you can get your bagpipes ready to roll. We'll play it out at the end.

I think my favorite, one of my favorite parts is the children's Glenn. You know, they have a whole area there designated to kids, getting the creativity going, get them to learn about the Scottish and Celtic heritage. And also, like Neil said, there's a parade. This is a family-friendly event where kids are encouraged to be active and be interactive with everything that's going on. And I think that's probably one of my favorite parts is it's for everyone. We have something for everyone to do there, especially the kids. If you've got a bunch of kids, bring them kids under 10 or free. Website for people? W-W-W-E-Celtic Fest, F-E-S-T dot org. Elizabethcelticfest.org, Saturday, 9-5, Sunday, 9-4, and let's hear some. Fantastic. There's a lot more where that came from. If you go to the Elizabeth Celtic Festival this weekend, Elizabeth Celtic Fest.org to learn more or just show up. You'll see all the signs when you go to Elizabeth this weekend, 9 to 5 Saturday, 9 to 4 on Sunday. Dad, Disney activities are on lingo kids. What? Moana and Elsa and Marvel Spider-Man, all of them. On lingo kids? Yes, dad, on lingo kids. That's pretty cool. You just lost them for the rest of the afternoon. Worth it. Full of fun activities inspired by Disney's Moana, Frozen, Zootopia, Marvel Spider-Man, and more. Lingo Kids is where little ones discover more about favorite characters. Me? Everything kids love. Download it for free. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our war fighters, advances life-saving health care, combat cyber threats, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT. behind America's invisible advantage. This is the race fans wait for all year. EMSA returns to Virginia International Raceway, August 21 through 23rd, as the world's top GT teams and drivers battle for championship points on VIR's iconic road course. See Porsche, BMW, Corvette, Mercedes-AmG, Ford, and more competing wheel-to-wheel. Three days of racing, paddock access, and non-stop action. Secure your tickets now at racevIR.com. That's R-A-C-V-I-R.com. The headlines, they move on, but the heartache and the terror, they do not. Iran and its terrorist proxies are continuing to target Israel. Hezbollah continues its attacks in the north, forcing families to live under constant threat.

But Israel is not only defending her people, she is standing on the front lines against terror that threatens us all. Even when the news crews leave, the international fellowship of Christians and Jews, they remain. Every day, they are on the ground, providing life-saving aid. Now near Israel's border with Lebanon, a Hezbollah drone recently struck the home of Yelina. Widowed earlier this year, and living alone, she was trapped inside by the blast. Thankfully, she was not injured, but she remained displaced. It's hard these days, she says, but I don't want to leave. Well, as Christians, we are called to stand with God's people and pray for those defending Israel. And protecting the freedoms, we hold dear. I want you to join the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in praying for the peace of Jerusalem and for the soldiers, families, and civilians carrying the burden of this fight right now. Visit pray.IFCJ.org. That's pray.ifcj.org. Well, that was a lot of fun. That was really good. Thanks for booking that, Gina. Those guys are awesome. And the Celtic Fest sounds like it's got a lot going on. Also, K-Oa's Neabender in this newsroom. She's really helped in booking them and getting them on the air with us today. And a texter did ask if there is a shortest kilt contest, which I don't think. There's a long list of events that are on this flyer here. I don't think that's one of them. And I wonder if they're talking about, yeah, never mind. Shortest Kilt Contest. All right. Yeah, I mean, we're doing a fairly silly show, and that's a fairly silly question. So, well done. Let me talk a little bit, because I've had this for a couple days, and I've wanted to talk about it. The Ukraine-Russia War, just for a couple minutes here, because it's really, really interesting what's happening. And that is... Ukraine seems to be getting the advantage on Russia now in large part because of how incredibly rapidly they have developed drone technology and anti-dron technology. And I'm sure they are working with the United States on this stuff. Right. A couple of days ago, the United States took out some kind of Iranian submarine. I don't think the Iranians care very much, but anyway, we did it with a sea drone. And it's a kind of sea drone we've used before. It's actually made by an American company. But that same day, we attacked Iran in some locations. It was reported with one-way attack drones. Now, I don't know for sure where those came from, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are either Ukrainian or developed with the help of Ukraine. I don't know that for a fact, but it wouldn't surprise me. This is how advanced Ukraine has gotten. There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago about Russia, about a Russian ship being sunk very near a high end.

compound that's thought to be maybe one of Vladimir Putin's, you know, hideaways. And this is quite far away. It's near Crimea. It's quite far away from sort of central Ukraine. And yet the Ukrainians attacked it. The Institute for the Study of War. which has some of the best ongoing day-to-day information about this war and also the Iran situation. Their website, by the way, is Understandingwar.org. They had a couple of headlines in the past few days I wanted to share with you. Here's one. This is from July 12th, so four days ago. Ukrainian forces have struck 9-0 Russian oil tankers in the Sea of Azov since July 6th. as part of their intensified campaign to isolate occupied Crimea. So this is fascinating, too. It's not just about attacking Russian infrastructure, attacking. They've been successfully attacking Russia oil refineries and storage depots deep inside Russia itself is part of the reason now there are gas lines and shortages in Russia, putting a lot of political pressure on Vladimir Putin. The other thing they're doing, and this could be one of the most spectacular backfires we've seen in quite some time when it comes to this war. So you remember that during the Obama administration. Vladimir Putin took much or most of Crimea. And Obama didn't do anything about it. Now, you know, to be sort of fair, while Crimea was part of Ukraine, it did have a lot of ethnic Russians, people who speak Russia. And it's not insane putting aside invasions and all. to wonder whether Crimea might be more fittingly part of Russia than part of Ukraine. But they just came in and stole it, right? It wasn't really a conversation. They came in and took it. And obviously, that would not leave Ukraine very happy. So what Ukraine is doing right now, they are attacking Russian assets around Crimea. and making it apparently so that it may become possible for Ukraine to take back Crimea. And I have seen some reporting that ethnic Russians in Crimea are leaving and going to Russia because they think Ukraine's going to get it back. Can you imagine? I mean, this was a war that most people thought would have Vladimir Putin walking. triumphantly through Kiev within a week or two of the start of the war. And now it's four and a half years later. And the Ukrainians seem to have.

The advantage. One more headline from Understandingwar.org. This is from the next day. July 13th. Ukrainian forces continue to intensify and expand their strike campaign aimed at denying Russia's ability to sustain logistics and transport fuel to occupied Crimea and isolate the peninsula. I said this maybe a week ago. I will say it again. President Trump... has a habit, it's not the only thing he does, but he has a habit of... Picking a side when he's pretty confident that side is going to win already so that then he can add it to his statistics of being on the side of a winner, right? So he will endorse a candidate he thinks is going to win already, and then he can say the candidate won because I endorsed them. Now, you will recall the terrible scene between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. sitting in the White House with really the main argument being between JD Vance and Volodymyr Zelensky, but then Trump got involved and the relationship got very bad for at least a short time. And Trump said, you have no cards. He said that to Volodymyr Zelensky, right? Remember, you have no cards to play. And Trump doesn't ever want a side with someone he thinks is going to lose, even if it's the good guy, because Trump doesn't care about good and bad. Trump doesn't care about right and wrong. He only cares about winning. Now that Ukraine has cards to play, now that Ukraine is striking deep into Russia and seems to have the advantage over Russia in some ways and is retaking some territory in eastern Ukraine, all of a sudden they've got cards and all of a sudden President Trump is at least a little bit. changing his tune. All right, this evening at 7, KOA is going to air live President Trump's primetime speech this evening. And Gina just talked about it a little bit in the news there. We don't know exactly what's going to be in it. We've been given very strong reason to believe that the president is going to spend some time. talking about election integrity and perhaps he will offer what he thinks is evidence of some kind of foreign shenanigans in the 2020 elections. We'll see what he actually comes up with. I'm pretty skeptical of all of that stuff. I'm not going to spend more time on that part right now. I want to talk about the politics of it for a second. So earlier in the show, I said, I think it's, I think it's. bad politics to spend a lot of time looking backwards like that, right? We're talking about an election that was almost six years ago, and the presidency that happened afterward, after that, you know, the Biden presidency, as terrible as it was, and it sure was, worst president in my lifetime, Joe Biden. You know, that's over now, and Trump won again, and here we are. Now, I should be a little more.

nuanced about it. When I say it's bad politics, it depends what you're going for, right? It depends who your, who your target is. So are you trying? Is the president trying, so everything he's going to do now, it will be about one of two things. It'll be about either trying to get Congress to pass something, or it will be about trying to get voters to turn out and vote for Republicans in November. Those are the only two reasons the president would be speaking now. So as far as legislation, you know, he may want to try to. push the Senate harder to pass the SAVE Act. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think there's any amount of pressure that he can apply to the Senate that will get the SAVE Act passed, but it's very important to him and he might not give up. Now, if you're thinking about the elections, and this is always true, it's not just these elections, and this is not just about Trump. This is a thing that's always true. There are two very different groups of voters that are around in every election. One is the base, and one is everybody else. And I'm going to use these terms loosely, but by the base, what I mean is people who, if they vote, which is very important if, and we'll get to it. If they vote, you know which way they're going to vote. They're committed to one party or one politician or whatever. They are the base. And at least when that politician, like Donald Trump's base, is on the ballot, they turn out. Other years, maybe not. So Republicans have had a very difficult time in off years when Trump was not on the ballot. All right. So that's one group, the base. The other group, everybody else. Now, of course, the Democrat base, they've got their base too, and those folks will never consider voting for Donald Trump and will likely never consider voting for any Republican. So let's exclude them. Now what we're talking about is everybody else who is either a loosely affiliated Republican. Not highly motivated to vote necessarily and not someone you call part of the base or a swing voter. And there are plenty of swing voters out there. There are plenty of people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump. Right? There's plenty of them. So the thing is when it comes to these political strategies, it is not impossible but difficult to motivate the base. with the same message that motivates everybody else. Because they don't tend to care about the same things, at least to the same degree. Now, the base does still care for some reason that I don't entirely understand, but whatever, about the 2020 election. And Steve Bannon, who was a very well-known mega, you know, influencer podcaster.

whatever you want to call him, believes that... Trump talking about the 2020 election and election integrity is good. Steve Bannon says, and I quote, the election integrity revelations coming on Thursday and thereafter will be the exact tonic, the MAGA grassroots base need to fire them up to remind them of what they are really fighting for in these crucial November elections. So that's what Steve Bannon thinks. And he could be right. I don't think he's right, but he could be right. Some people will be motivated by that. I just don't know how many of the hardcore base, even of the hardcore base, remain highly motivated the way they were, let's say on January 6th, 2021 about the 2020 election. January 6th was five and a half years ago. Now, Senator John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of Louisiana. He said, and I quote, if you're asking me when moms and dads lie down to sleep at night and can't, what are they mostly worried about? I would say cost of living. That's what I believe, but he's the president. He was elected by the people and he can talk about whatever he wants. And a piece over at Politico talks about a particular Republican who says he's scared bleepless about this speech because. It's not so much that they're worried about what the speechwriters will put in it, but rather what Trump will ad lib if he starts getting into the election integrity and stolen election stuff and things he might just say off the cuff. And the risk that I see, and I've said this before, I'm going to say it again and I still think it's true, the risk that I see. is that every minute Donald Trump spends during a speech focusing on something that happened in the past is a minute he's not spending, focusing on something that's happening now or in the future. And unless he has an absolute bombshell with proof that is so rock solid that even... you know, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN would look at it and say, you know what, he's right. Unless he has that, he should be spending almost all of his time talking about now and the future and not the past. Because if you can't talk about now and the future, then normal voters will think this guy doesn't understand me and my concerns. And that's what they care about most. Forget about the tribalism. What they care about most when they're thinking about who to vote for is, do they understand me?

Do they understand what I'm worried about? Are they trying to help? And every minute President Trump spends talking about the 2020 election, he's not trying to help. All right, I don't think we're going to have time to take a bunch of listener texts on this. So I'll just throw the question out to you. And you can answer it in your own mind. Don't bother texting it in. But Gina's going to share the story with us. But the question that comes to mind for me with this story is, if you had a billion dollars. what's something that you would buy? And in your own mind, the answer, whatever the answer is, has to cost at least $5 million, right? So I'm not talking about a $200,000 car or a $50,000 watch. If you had a billion dollars and you had to buy something that cost at least $5 million, what would you buy? And I'll just say, Gina, maybe this thing that you're going to talk about. You'd buy Gus? I might, yeah, I might buy, it's awesome. Gus is a 12 and a hat. half foot tall, 38 feet long, 183 fossil bone elements of a T-Rex skeleton, what they believe might be the most complex T-Rex ever discovered, as in like put together all in one giant dinosaur. Sold at Sotheby's on Tuesday for $50.1 million. The most expensive set of dinosaur bones ever sold at auction. They were expecting the estimate to be like 20 to 30 million. And then they watched like a 10-minute bidding war take place with seven different bidders. And the winner was anonymous and by the phone. Wow. So we have no idea who owns Gus. Do we know even if the bidder is American? Do we know any? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Which is a little controversial because a lot of people wanted Gus to have the opportunity to be in a public collection. Right. Some type of museum or somewhere where people could could view it. You don't know if this person bought it for some private collection. If they're a billionaire that's just going to have Gus in their house, if you could even just have Gus in a house. They just have no idea who it is. And I guess you can remain anonymous. Sure. I mean, why not? I mean, I don't know how you're going to display, unless you're just going to put it in your house and not show anybody. Yeah. And then you can remain anonymous. Apparently, and I saw this in the Fox News article about this, Gus was actually found on a private ranch in where in South Dakota. Yep. And this dude had found some fossils. And thought, let's look for something bigger. And then they started looking for something bigger. And then the guy died, but they kept looking. And they found Gus. Yep. And Gus is named after the cattle ranch owner. who was Gary, but I guess he went by Gus. Went by Gus. And yeah, unfortunately, he died before the full excavation even happened. So like you said, they found piece after piece, and then they had to do this whole extensive excavation to try to put it all together like several years. But he passed before he could actually see the full, complete Gus. So it doesn't really say, but I'm guessing based on this that Gus, Gus's estate, Gus's wife, Gus the rancher owns this.

And gets the 50 million. Oh, good point. I would think so. I would think so. Yeah. That's amazing. Would you buy this if you had a billion dollars? I'd be worried that Gus comes to life at night. That's a good one. I think you guys do a lot of staging around Gus. I mean, there might be, you don't know. I feel like maybe he's happy that he's complete again. You know, he's not scattered all over the place. He's actually one full Gus, but it's hard to tell from that face, you know. And it looks sort of like he's smiling, but it also sort of looks like he's about to rip your head off. Yeah, could be, you'd ever know. There's tiny little T-Rex arms. Yeah. Never know. All right. So I'm going to ask you to think about this overnight rather than give an answer right now, Epic Gina. If you had a billion dollars, don't answer right now, if you had a billion dollars and you had to buy something that cost at least $5 million, but preferably more. What would you buy? And for listeners, too, I'll try to remember to come back to it tomorrow, or Gina will remind me because I have the memory of a goldfish, and we can talk about it tomorrow. But I'd love, don't text your answers right now because I'm leaving. Michael Brown's up next and he doesn't even look at our text line. Have a great, great rest of your Thursday. Mom, can I have Lingo Kids? Stop, Lingo Kids, please. When did we become the Lingo Kids' house? No idea. Last week it was dinosaurs. This week it's... Why Lingo Kids? Because it's the best thing ever. We can play games. With astronauts, wild animals, and superheroes. With more than 4,000 interactive games, songs, and shows, Lingo Kids is the number one entertainment platform for young kids. So, no dinosaurs? And dinosaurs. Dingo Kids! Everything kids love. Download it for free. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our warfighters, advances life-saving healthcare, combat cyber threats, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT, behind America's invisible advantage. Got plans this summer? A brewery crawl? Another lake trip? The same festival you've been to three times already? Do something different. This August, Virginia International Raceway becomes the ultimate summer destination. Watch Inns' Michelin GT Challenge at VIR. August 21 through 23rd brings some of the fastest sports cars to battle through VIR's legendary corners. Camp with friends. Enjoy live music and experience a weekend you'll actually be talking about afterward. Start planning now at govir.net. One month, you're slammed. The next, you're chasing bids. Small businesses live with that reality. Your software costs shouldn't. Autodesk gets it. Autodesk for small business makes it easy to start with Autodesk flex. A pays-you-go way to access the tools you need when you need them.

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