Ambitious Crossover Attempt

Jen and Noam discuss the comedians who attended the Riyadh Comedy Festival for the money that they didn't need, what happened to the food on the Global Sumud Flotilla, the chances of Trump's ambitious plan to end the war in Gaza gaining legs, the people who don't seem to want to end the war in Gaza, and the increasingly awful deployments of ICE / National Guard in US cities.  We wrap up the episod...

Noam and Jen discuss…well how everything sucks right now. From the shooting at a Dallas ICE facility, nihilism, how political affiliation doesn't explain much anymore, online brainrot, Tylenol, and the Comey indictment, things aren't looking so great.  But in an effort to cheer ourselves up, we talk about two things that don't suck: the long-awaited Silksong drop and the manga / Netflix anime The...

Jen and Noam manage to get past their (technical) issues and record an episode on the Jimmy Kimmel Saga now that it's over (?), the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, and news of a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas that we don't have any details on yet so it's best to just wait for details instead of speculating. 

Noam and Jen finally return from their hiatus (it's all Noam's fault; he moved) just in time to discuss the murder of Charlie Kirk. While there is still a lot to unpack, we give our thoughts on the immediate aftermath of the shooting, focusing on the online reactions to the news. We spend some time discussing how internet culture is starting to seep into the real world and the consequences that ha...

Jen and Noam discuss the ongoing situation in DC and the agents from…well we can't tell which agency they're from since they don't have ID and their faces are completely covered. Of course, we can't not talk about the infamous DC Subway attack and the staged re-arrest of sandwich thrower Sean Dunn.  From there, we move to GQ's ill-advised profile of Hasan Piker and the quest to make him the left w...

Noam and Jen return to discuss the back half of last week, which had more going on than most full weeks. We talk about the Gaza occupation that may or may not happen, the upcoming peace summit with Putin and Trump but not Zelensky, how Noam is not a Mossad agent sent to infiltrate American social media, and the ick of online sports betting. 

Jen and Noam record a late episode this week discussing the American Eagle nontroversy and the end of the culture war, Trump firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn't like the job numbers, Jim Acosta's insane decision to interview a dead kid, and the ongoing situation in Gaza.

Noam and Jen did an extra long episode, because it was an extra long week. We start by discussing the tea on Tea, the vibe-coded app that was long on 2018 nostalgia but short on information security. Aside from the irony of repeating past mistakes, we discuss the shortfalls of relying on LLMs to do your heavy lifting for you, especially if you don't have the knowledge needed to check the outcome....

Jen and Noam kick off this week with a tradlife PSA - don't cheat on your spouse, and don't have meaningless sex. Also, don't let a handler ruin your big chance at connecting with Emma Stone. Next we explore the not-so-curious case of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert getting the axe (well, in 10 months from now) and how, despite this all being fairly SOP for a company getting ready for a merger,...

Noam and Jen tackle one of the more insane weeks in internet discourse. First, we have Grok going a little off the rails and becoming MechaHitler for 16 hours. Does its meltdown say more about AI, or the humans that it learns from?  Then we have the Man Who Never Dies, Jeffrey Epstein, who did not make any lists or files and did indeed kill himself. At least according to the DOJ and the FBI, membe...

Jen and Noam take a (slight) break from discussing politics to talk about internet drama. We go over the reveal that everyone's favorite topic of discussion, Zohran Mamdani, identified as African on his application to Columbia, the Ethan Klein lawsuits and if they will set a precedent for what counts as fair use, Robert O'Neil's grifter heel turn, the latest Pixar flop, and the value of just letti...

Noam and Jen finally record this week's episode! We talk about the big NYC Democratic primary upset of Andrew Cuomo by Zohran Mamdani, what is going on with the Iran-Israel conflict and Syria possibly joining the Abraham Accords chat, the Trump v. CASA that was not about birthright citizenship but nationwide injunctions, and the Fresh Prince of Ipswich deciding that being antisemetic is a easy way...

Jen and Noam discuss the war thing that happened last week, including (well, mostly) the US strike on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. Was it a good idea? What is the state of the Iranian nuclear program now? What happens next? Are we getting a ceasefire? Will Trump get his coveted Nobel Peace Prize? What really happened in the lead-up to the US strike? Is MAGA going to forgive and forget if...

Noam and Jen spend most of the episode discussing the current escalation of the Israel—Iran conflict and our various thoughts about it. Noam also teaches you how to make a nuclear bomb, kind of. Neither of us is sure where things will go from here, since so far, this attack and counterattack have not gone the way everyone expected.  We also discuss Trump's comments on immigrants and the new direct...

Jen and Noam discuss…all of the things. We unpack the Trump - Musk breakup (for now), Terry Moran being suspended over a tweet that was correct but not nice, the Trump administration getting involved in places it shouldn't, Alex Thompson outing a source for lying to him in the past, Karine Jean-Pierre's new book (and political affiliation), and of course the LA riots and not believing everything y...

Noam and Jen start out by discussing the Glenn Greenwald sex tape, because those are words that go together now. From there we move into discussing the Western media uncritically repeating a Hamas lie that Israel attacked Gazans who were in line for humanitarian aid, since the connective tissue between the stories is Israel being accused of things it did not do.  We take some time to nerd out over...

Jen and Noam discuss Biden's big cancer announcement, the timing, the susness, how people can be very weird when it comes to cancer, and some of the revelations in the book Original Sin . We also talk about the tragic murder of two Israeli embassy employees outside of the Capital Jewish Museum and the difficulty of extending grace to those who never return the favor. Jen also gives her Grand Theor...

Noam and Jen discuss the mind numbing amount of stupid that took place last week, like people pretending to be very upset about James Comey's dumb 86 47 post,  the umpteenth news cycle about Joe Biden's mental state (not his cancer diagnosis thought, that was announced after the recording), and Sam Seder running into the brick wall that is Ezra Klein and the Abundance plan for making housing more...

Jean and Noam discuss the audacity of Trump accepting a "gift" of a luxury jet from Qatar, how we still have no idea what is going on with the tariffs, the ongoing saga of the media vs John Fetterman, staking one's reputation on defending someone you don't personally know, the flare up in tensions between India and Pakistan, and whos ceasefire is it anyway. 

Noam and Jen discuss a politician with alleged mental impairments that would keep him from being able to do his job. No, not Trump, John Fetterman. Also, the tariffs are coming, but the first rule is you don't talk about the tariffs. To wrap up the politics part of the pod, we spend some time talking about the Karmelo Anthony - Shiloh Hendrix dueling GiveSendGo campaigns and the new fad of taking...

Jen and Noam are not certain what is going on. Businesses are not certain what is going on. The president seems certain about what is going on but is he really? All of this uncertainty is certainly not making the market or voters happy. We do our best to try to figure it out, from tariffs to immigration policy to the bizarre Time interview with Trump.  In keeping with the spirit of the show (and b...

Noam and Jen the ongoing immigration saga involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration's refusal to bring him back to the US despite a unanimous SCOTUS ruling to do so, Senator Van Hollen's very odd trip to check in on Garcia, the virtues of just doing things correctly the first time, another SCOTUS ruling against Trump's immigration policy, and what happens from here.  We also spend a...

Jen and Noam talk about tariffs some more because we're not off that roller coaster yet, and who knows when we will be. Who has tariffs, who doesn't, how much, and what is being subject to tariffs…well, that may all change by the time you listen to this episode.  We also talk about the brewing fight / constitutional crisis over the Kilmar Abrego-Garcia case. SCOTUS says he needs to come back, but...

Jen and Noam talk about tariffs. Not just a stream of expletives though, we have a thoughtful discussion about the concepts of tariffs as a policy, their inherent drawbacks, whether any of this is a good idea, how does one measure success when a goal is not defined, Israeli dairy farmers, cronyism, child labor, America's post-industrial economy, what manufacturing should be reshored, and a rant ab...

Noam and Jen return from an unplanned break just in time to discuss a titanically bad week in American politics. We have Cabinet members inadvertently sharing classified information with the editor in chief of The Atlantic, a president who is out of the loop on important matters of national security, pardons and commutations for sale, and and the debate around due process for potential deportees. ...