The Olympics, and other News Bites

Well, good afternoon, everyone.

This is the 86th episode of the secular

Foxhole podcast.

Hello, Martin.

Hello, Blair.

Great to have you back on.

Yeah, same.

Today we.

It is the day after Independence Day here in

the United States.

Yep.

So we, Denise and I got to see some fireworks outside our front door at night from

a local baseball stadium, and we didn't have to pay, so that was fun.

And.

But today I've got four or five stories, so it

might be a buffet instead of a new sandwich.

How is that?

Yeah.

And some of them are bad and some of them are good.

So. Well, one of them is mixed, if you will, because it's conservative related.

Yeah.

So. But I can go right into them if you like.

One of the good things.

Longtime objectivist Jason Crawford announced

recently that his roots of progress organization has now become an institute.

So. Roots of Progress Institute.

And that would be his roots of progress.org

dot.

And so congratulations to Jason and the staff

there at roots of progress.

I know that they're doing valuable work about

fighting for progress studies.

That's great, great news.

And hopefully we could get him on the show in

the future.

Yes. Yes. And also, I recently watched the Ayn Rand Institute released a video of

Ankar Gates 2007 speech, Atlas Shrugged, America's second Declaration of Independence.

And it's a very powerful, very powerful speech, in essence, explaining why Ayn Rand's

novel and her philosophy finished the job that the founders started.

They were great political philosophers, but they tied it to the quicksand of the

altruistic dominant philosophy at the time and sadly, still dominant today.

But they tied an egoistic political philosophy to the quicksand of altruism.

And the reason America is fading, and speaking for myself, is because altruism has taken

over, so to speak.

And so that I will provide a link to that

YouTube video, because that's well worth watching, taking about 50 minutes of your

time.

And some big news.

Well, let me, I'll save that one.

Let me go to some other news in the Heritage

foundation, which is a conservative think tank, has released what they call Project

2025.

And in that release, or thesis or program, if

you will, public policy, their playbook, so to speak.

If Trump is elected, this would take place in the first 180 days of the new administration.

And I'll read some of the high points, restore the family as the centerpiece of american life

and protect our children, dismantle the administrative state, and return self

governance to the american people.

I have a related story about that after I read

these.

Secure our God given individual rights to live

freely what our constitution calls the blessings of liberty and defend our nation's

sovereignty, borders and bounty against global threats and some other things.

But that's pretty much the gist.

The highlights of it, of course, the

contradiction is rights aren't given to us by God.

They are inherent in the nature of man.

And isn't that rational faculty, how, how.

Influential and big is heritage? I remember, I mean, the logotype, and back in

the day they did pamphlets and books and so on.

Well, I thought it was not so conservative.

It was more, maybe not liberal or classical

liberal, but back in the day, I thought it was.

Yeah.

More independent in that way.

Not the party line, the republican party.

But maybe I'm wrong.

You have to remember that conservators always paid lip service to free markets, but

they always caved, always caved when push came to shove.

And so they never really, because again, Miss Rand pointed out what in the 1960s, that you

can't, freedom requires an egoistic philosophy, if you will, and self sacrifice

has no part in that equation.

Yeah, it reminds us, it's good that we highlight it because it's interesting to see

how this will play out with different think tanks and groups and ideas.

And so I think it also will be to ask Robert Traczynski to come on the show again, also

because he has done lots of studying and how to say, mapping it out and see, because

sometimes it could be hard to see a trend and the positive things and negative things in

what's happening right now.

Right.

And we will not talk about the debate, for example, or what's going on.

It's like a very low point.

But then to see the long trend and see the

possibilities and opportunities and also important things on the local level.

So you have something about that?

I believe so, yeah.

Hold on a second.

I'm scrolling through some things.

I just wanted to make sure.

A couple of these articles I got from armstrongeconomics.com, i believe his first

name is Martin Armstrong.

He served in the Reagan administration.

He's still around, and he's got some pretty sharp insight into some things.

But that project 2025 is.

I found that on his website.

And let me think here.

What else do I have to talk about?

Whoopsie.

I need to get back to my right page.

Come on.

Now, you have about this oil company, right?

Yes. Right.

That was the chevron.

The Supreme Court overturned the Chevron doctrine from the 1980s.

And I, although I haven't studied it fully, I believe it basically curtails the

administrative state, which is a good thing.

It rolls back their power to just create laws

without Congress's approval and puts it back in Congress.

So they actually have something to do.

Haha.

Or they should do something instead of always figuring out ways to.

Yeah, maybe we should look down to south american, see what the new president is

doing there.

Taking out the chainsaw.

Symbolic.

Yeah, Argentina.

The Argentina.

Yes. Yeah.

So. But that's good to have.

And then you have some.

Yeah, talk about Europe and what's going on there on the Olympics and so on.

Maybe that's the.

Yeah, yeah, hold on.

I think I actually, sadly, I think I've lost

that.

Hold on, I'll try to find that.

The 10 billion euro Paris Olympics disaster.

Yes.

Armstrong economics.

Yes, hold on a second.

I want to read some of that because it's very

sad and pathetic.

This was a story in the, again,

armstrongeconomics.com from June 7.

So I'll just quote a little bit of it here.

The French are outraged by the amount of money their government has spent on the 2024 Paris

Olympics.

The government has already spent €9 billion on

the games, but costs continue to grow daily, and it is now estimated that it will cost

France at least €10 billion to host the games.

There have been countless mishaps when

building arenas that have multiplied costs.

Parisians know that their city cannot hold the

estimated 15 million visitors.

Macron believes he is royalty, and hosting the

Olympics has always been about boasting rights as it never results in a profit for the loose,

the hosting country.

Okay, and here's, here's the clincher.

Emmanuel Macron had the audacity to announce that open water games would be held in the

Seine river Seine, which is brown, unsanitary, and completely contaminated by sewage.

Macron said that he and the mayor of Paris would take a swim in the Seine on June 23 to

show the world that it is not floating water of waste.

Is not a floating water of waste.

Creative protesters, the French decided to

show their disgust by collectively pooping in the river on the day the president was set to

swim.

Websites were constructed to tell people in

neighboring cities precisely when to poop in the river so that it would reach Macron in

time for his swim.

The river was still utterly polluted on June

23, and Macron conveniently announced that he would delay his swim until after the July

election, in which he was swept out of power.

Yeah, so there's like a story.

And please remind me for the future that we

should look into your neighboring country, Canada, and what's going on there with the

president and his.

How should you say it's special word in that

in Swedish.

But when you hire and get your, your college

or you know, school friends or relatives and what nepotism.

Yeah.

And so that's something to look into.

I saw and watched a video where it was pretty,

very short video but in that few minutes it was really, I was like wow, it's really

handpicked in a bad way.

So yeah, I think we should come back to that.

So thanks for going through this blair.

Are you interested to hear a little bit about

statistics since last time? And also of course we could talk a little bit

about future plans at vent.

Let me throw in one more quick curveball.

I'll find the link and send it to you as well.

But I just readdez Stephen Moore who's an

economist here in the United States.

He runs a daily newsletter and he, one of the

blurbs he had was about the labor win in England.

They threw out the conservatives after ten years.

And the way he put it was that that conservative party was focused more on

nationalism than economics, in other words.

So let that be a warning to the christian

nationalists here.

Yeah, I see a pattern here.

Yeah.

That's something to think about.

And also I think we should have some kind of

roundtable or debate discussion about alternatives out there or inside the so called

main parties or.

Yeah.

What's going on here.

But again, I think Robert Traczynski could

talk about that.

So.

Yeah.

Thanks for that blair.

Sure. Now you got some good stuff.

Yeah, I'll run through some stats and being so called on the soapbox a bit for our

future.

And no sad puppy dog, I'm a cat person, talk

about the situation opportunities also in these times.

So the captivate stats from the web, you can say web hosting or it's the podcast hosting or

a sounder hotel as I call it in Swedish.

So there you could see the statistics and the

siever trend and what's going on.

And we have, it's like a cycle of 28 days.

So it's like you can see the trends of and since last time we fewer unique listeners but

not much.

It's around 100 but it's more downloads on 28

days, 172 downloads and 98 unique listeners and regular there.

In order to get support or sponsors and others you have to have several digits behind that.

You could have thousands and so on in order to get that in the regular advertising model and

so on.

But you could also find niche and specific

support.

So I want to talk a bit, little bit about

that.

But we are hanging there and around seven

downloads per day 97 downloads per average per 28 days or around a month.

And also what I say, I mean listeners, they listen how they want and Sam SETi that we want

to have on the show also and talk about a specific thing about conference podcast

conference had a thread there both on LinkedIn but also on Mastodon, the podcast index social

and also a podcast episode of Pod News about Apple.

I am in a way an Apple fanboy and I think you are that also.

But we are also critical how we getting pressure and how it's doing in different ways.

But the listeners regular podcasts are so called free to listen to compared to an

audiobook that costs money.

So that's a dilemma and a challenge there.

So the listeners listen how they want.

But it's important for us as podcasts to say

that there are new modern podcast apps where that could use the RSS technology and advance

that and adding features and also so you could get support for the content creators,

especially what I'm thinking about the guests.

So I said in a post where that I want to get

onboard our guests.

There are more than 30 now blair during the

years.

So we could add the split to them in the long

run.

They could add something and get something for

being a guest on our podcast.

That's trust.

That's right, because they are creating content but it will take time with

onboarding and to get used to it.

But I think it's very crucial for us as

podcasters and then it's up to us to educate and learn and then also the podcast listeners

and hopefully we'll guest our listeners also at least at their own episode that they have

been guests.

That would be nice, that would be nice.

But it will take some time for doing that.

But there the latest cycle then 28 days it was Pocketcast that are a big podcast app that

have gone more and more into this value for value and podcast in 2.0 there it was lately

3.5% the latest month using pocket casts and I think it got acquired by WordPress.

It's really the, you know, association that are powering WordPress.org dot they bought

pocket costs.

So I think there you could see interesting

things in the future and then fountain that we have been promoting and talking about and

using ourselves.

They had 2.3% so at least around yeah 5.8 or

almost six and last time it was around 10%.

But it has to get more.

But it will take time because the big legacy podcasts are so dominate and of course Apple's

podcaster app is default installed on every iPhone.

So you have to do an active choice and find something.

So that's why it's important for us as podcasts to talk about it and give a tip about

there are new than podcast apps out there.

True.

And then I'll take a sea pair of tea.

Cheers.

Cheers.

From the list there have changed a little bit and you see, you like to see how

many countries and places overall and I think it's adding up every time.

Good.

So last time it was United States on the top.

This time it's Netherlands.

I don't know if it's because Adam Curry, I'm

joking a little bit.

Have been visiting the Netherlands or we have

new listeners or we have.

I know there are one, at least one objectivist

in Netherlands that I met at the conference in 98, living in Netherlands.

So it could be that or something else.

And then last month it was Canada.

Second, now it's United States.

Then it was Germany, now it's Canada.

A month before it was Switzerland, now it's Australia, United Kingdom, now it's Sweden.

Last time it was Finland, then Spain and then Australia, now India again.

Overall, India has been a big because of so many people, of course.

And then Sweden last month and now it's United Kingdom.

And then it was Malaysia and now a country called Adur.

They haven't pinpointed it.

And then Spain lost month and now it's

Belgium.

That's new one.

So overall it's like it's the same but also some new ones.

And the list is adding up or adding more countries over time.

I like that.

I like that.

So that's interesting to see how we can develop that.

And again to save this call to action to get to have repeat and we will write like some

kind of text and maybe adding some sponsor messages so to speak.

But support our podcast and then go to the support page on Captivate.

So that will be included because recently we got a nice donation there.

Yes.

So that was very nice.

A guest that asked about that and then send

us.

So we appreciate that very much.

So we are totally okay to get support that way.

Also in fiat because you know, we.

And that's what I will come.

I could jump to that.

I did at the end here in our document around

the budget or cost per month, depending on how we count a bit, captivate is around $20 per

month.

We need having a podcast host hotel and I like

them.

Yes.

I have myself start a new podcast about my wellness and well being journey home

because they are very into podcast 2.0 also.

That's also around $20 per month.

Ringer that we're using now is $20 per month.

I'm using also boom Costa.

And we have used boom Costa as you know, guests.

That's $20.

And your pod page that you are using in the

secularfoxhole live, it's also $20.

So it's adding up at least $100 or more per

month.

Yes, yes.

In order to run.

So, I mean, it's a hobby, it's a passion

project, so called, but never ending, I hope.

Of course, it will end someday, but we are not

thinking of that right now.

But we don't want to end, how to say, too

early? No, sad puppy, we want to conin you.

So we really appreciate the support.

And that could be monetary, but it could be

also spreading a good word, maybe helping out the market and whatnot.

So we will talk more about open to have a corner in our episodes there, and also what

the podcast index did.

And I will repeat that from the last episode,

and I will see here around the time.

So help us out.

None of this is free.

If you get any value from this project, and

for us, it's an ongoing project, or if you just believe in it and want to help us out

with hosting fees and paying the bills, a donation of any amount would be great.

I like that statement.

And we will carve it into our personal voice.

But we want, we don't want to beg.

We don't want to have the listeners, because

it's against our philosophy to sacrifice anything.

That's correct.

But we want this.

And we have to talk about and to joke the

religious people in church and so on.

And they have what that's called, the

instruction called collect tithing.

Yeah, that after the sermon, you ask for

support, right?

Yes, exactly.

But no pressure.

That's right.

That's also true.

And this podcast index social on Masterdon had very interesting now discussion

there.

And I wrote the thing here that said, I have

now listened to Moretz, Kaminsky, and Roland of Albie.

I'm not a techie, but I think I will be able to handle the channel or hub as a potential

future premium album user.

My goal is to add 30 plus guests to the split

and then get them to use a new modern podcast app in the future.

How could we have an overview of Boostergram streaming, Satoshis, etcetera, in one place,

alternatives to Concheck, and I want to continue to use Sam set as true fans.

And also Mary Oscar's fountain podcast app, etcetera.

Value for value, the hashtag so and that Adam Curry here he said gave some suggestions and

so on.

I like this digital town hall or place to talk

about this because it's open, it's free and it needs to get rolling so to speak, and getting

easier for non techie person or normal so called people to get it.

And so we will continue to talk about this.

And yeah, and there I will include in the show

notes an article that was on a service called Descript blog that using podcasting services

and tools and whatnot.

And they saying the article here or blog post,

what is value for Value podcast monetization.

So we will talk more about that in the future.

But this all be that in because there we will talk about this.

Albeit if they handle monetary transactions, you could guess talking about regulations.

Do you know what could happen then? You have to go to the bank system or

regulators and so on and have a special license for that.

And that could be for a small startup hard.

So that's why the big banks are there or

PayPal and others and stripe and strike they have could manage that.

But a small startup with an app don't have that funds and strengths.

But then if you get classified as doing monetary transactions or it's a special name

for that, then you could be in a dangerous position.

So that's why they say they don't want to be in that.

But then they have a solution for us non tech user that's setting up this hub or this node

or whatever you call it.

And they will help us to get this in order to

be able to accept and get donations in the future also.

So I think it's interesting development.

And then Adam and Dave talked about that on

the show and lots of suggestions and ideas.

So things will happen.

That's good.

And I will also include with some of the

guests that I have on the podcast, podcasting 2.0 pod podcast and they had a guest from

Rss.com comma that's also a hosting company.

And they said which podcast hosting company is

for sale.

Yeah that was captivates owns podcast about

the podcast industry and there were some interesting things about Spotify and about

advertising and so on.

So listen around in 21 minutes into the show

and also 35 minutes into the show about podcast in 2.0 and value for value.

And yeah, so I think so the RSS they had with RsS.com comma we're hosting, they had this

podcasting innovation podcast and that is like a showcase for how we could use new services.

And with podcasting 2.0 and value for value interesting, like chapters, for example, and

other things like fact.

So I think that's for now.

Anything else as an ending note, Blair.

I do want to finish up by saying that finally the Ayn Rand Institute is leaving

California.

They are moving to Austin, Texas.

Yeah.

And that, yes, it is good.

And that is also because their longtime dream

is finally coming true.

They have broken ground to build the Ayn Rand

University, also in Austin, Texas.

So that's major, major news in the world of

objectivism.

Yeah.

And that something that certainly gladdens my heart, so to speak.

Yeah.

But so I thought that's.

I thought we'd end the show on that great

note.

Yep.

And, Martin, I appreciate your time.

Yeah, same.

And we will talk again soon.

And I got to read that book that you wanted me

to read for the next episode.

Mark, is it Michael Ballerner and, yeah.

I don't know, except, yeah, yeah.

If we can get them.

And if we can get them.

Yeah.

So that's a wrap.

Yeah. Talk soon again.

All right, Martin.

Take care.

Bye bye bye for now.