What a Hell of a Way to Dad

This week, Nate and Milo discuss the peculiarly British phenomenon of calling for the Army to be deployed domestically--whether it's to quell a social conflict or fix a logistics issue. They love to call for the Army to be sent in. We get to the bottom of what this means, and why people want it. Listen to the whole thing on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/57234686

DadChat ends at 13:09! This week, Nate and Francis explore two themes. First, the story of a guy dressed as a ninja attacking a Special Operations aviation unit at an airfield in California (this really happened). Second, the theme of being Opposing Forces during military training and how much fun it is to cause havoc while shooting your fellow soldiers with lasers. You can read the ninja piece he...

This week, Nate and Francis discuss a recent Politico article about anti-vaxxers and covid deniers partying hard at the Lake of the Ozarks resort in southern Missouri. It's an article from July, but we'd wanted to discuss this for a while for one specific reason: Francis's whole family is from southern Missouri, and this piece speaks to a particular mindset that might be hard to comprehend from th...

This week, Nate and Francis speak with friend of the show and investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein about the various things he's got going on: reporting on DHS, reporting on labor law violations, and reporting on people in the military deciding to refuse one specific vaccine--it's a great time. Ken's got a new story out about how the leaders of the Senate GOP endorsed 'Afghan Resistance' have a...

Nate and Francis return to have a DadChat in which we discuss the facts: we're getting older, we can't post as hard anymore, and we just don't want to be mad online. But we're embracing it, and we have hope for those of you worried about the inevitable march of time: you stop caring about dumb things. Hope you enjoy! For this week's bonus, did you know there's a book of 'Violent Nomad Skills' by a...

This week, Nate speaks with Hussein Kesvani, a notable serious journalist and cohost of Trashfuture and 10,000 Posts podcasts, about a recent phenomenon in Britain: the decision to evacuate a bunch of dogs and cats from Afghanistan while leaving behind all the Afghan staff from the charity involved. We also touch on Taliban super-poster accounts and the ways Global North countries try and demonize...

This week, Nate speaks with Alice Caldwell-Kelly ( @AliceAvizandum ) from the podcasts Trashfuture, Well There's Your Problem, and Kill James Bond, about the 2009 Armando Ianucci film IN THE LOOP, in which the British TV series 'The Thick of It' visits the topic of the Iraq War and James Gandolfini plays a grumpy American Lieutenant General. Why are politicians in both countries such deranged frea...

This week, Nate speaks with Afghan-American community organizer Arash Azizzada ( @87films ) about his group Afghans for a Better Tomorrow ( @afghanstomorrow , @afghansforabettertomorrow on IG), the work they're doing to advocate for safe passage for Afghans, ways in which the US government could make it easier for people seeking refuge, and what he wishes Americans knew about our country's involve...

We brought on Joe Kassabian of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast to discuss the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, and we try to push back against the politicians' line that the Afghan military didn't want to fight--and ask call for everyone who can assist Afghan refugees (even if all you can do is humiliate your elected officials) to do so. For this week's bonus, we're reviewing films that everyone o...

This week, Francis and Nate speak with reporter and author Spencer Ackerman about his new book REIGN OF TERROR, a comprehensive history of the War on Terror. Particularly, we home in on the concept of how the culture war created post-9/11 requires veterans to never question the war itself if they want to retain any respected status.  It's a phenomenal book that we both loved, and we strongly recom...

If you don't like DadChat then skip this episode! This week, it's a DadChat with Nate and Francis. We discuss gardening, Francis' daughter starting her own podcast on her tablet, why libertarianism appealed to middle class white kids in the Midwest in the 2000s, our mutual fixation on Redwall books as kids, the underappreciated art of actually talented bass guitar players, and much more. For this...

This week, Nate speaks with reporter, academic, and cyclist James Stout about the history of Antifa. What started as a reaction to European fascism became a movement often cited and rarely understood, but James's academic research is focused on this topic--and, particularly, the 1936 Popular Olypics, an anti-fascist international competiton cut short by the advent of the Spanish Civil War. You can...

Dadchat/weather discussion until : 0:19 until 14:47 Transphobia in the UK discussion : 14:47 until 23:29 Repatriation of Pat Tillman jersey : 23:30 until end This week we discussed a recent story from Stars and Stripes about the repatriation of memorabilia from the Pat Tillman USO at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. In case you didn't know, they named the USO after Pat Tillman despite his only real c...

Dadchat ends at 17:43 We're going to cover the events in Haiti and Cuba next week, but for this week we decided to do an episode where we discussed England's performance in the Euros, the logistics of dropping fish into a lake from a plane, and what it's like for Francis to be a former Midwestern stoner now able to purchase legal weed. This isn't a politics-heavy episode but we enjoyed discussing...

Dadchat ends at 14:57 This week, we read a special investigation about an Army lieutenant colonel who's managed to push the edge of the military's (insane) adultery laws--by faking deployments, faking the death of one of his children, and juggling 6 partners on the side. It's wild! Get the news story here: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-officer-affairs-women/ For this week's bonus, Nate expl...

Dadchat ends at 16:28 This week, we discuss news that a shady Republican billionaire is funding a National Guard deployment to the US-Mexico border. This wouldn't happen if South Dakota wasn't run by a psycho, but we're slightly concerned about the precedent. We also discuss the cultural freakout of a large chunk of white Americans over the past 13 years, and what it means given that history, as e...

Dadchat ends at 11:10 We review two pieces this week. First, we discuss news that the Taliban have captured a huge chunk of Afghanistan's provincial districts since May: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/22/americas/afghanistan-taliban-districts-intl/index.html   We also discuss a story from the Washington Post about the National Guard reporting food scarcity and money insolvency because, as Guard v...

Dadchat / Truck chat ends at 21:52 This week, Nate and Francis discuss a recent article in the Associated Press about missing military weapons--everything from pistols to 40mm automatic grenade launchers--which are turning up at crime scenes across the US. You can read the article here: https://apnews.com/article/government-and-politics-business-gun-politics-crime-6caba27108d05a8b7c1860959d1ae130...

    England chat ends at 23:31   We have a story about the German military using a logistics contractor to repatriate all the beer they'd brought to Afghanistan ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57386704 ). However, before we could get to that, we had to respond to criticism that we're unfairly biased against Britain. The answer is: yes. So, we discuss some spicier aspects of Britain's cen...

Dadchat / weather chat ends at 5:52 New York politics chat ends at 16:59 This week, Nate and Francis discuss a recent story that US Air Force nuclear missile custodians based in Europe accidentally disclosed the locations of their munitions by creating open-source, search-engine-indexed flash cards for study. For our bonus, it's the Zoo Crew: Francis, Shocks, and Joe discuss a recent self-publishe...

This is an unlocked Patreon bonus episode -- to hear more like it, sign up at https://www.patreon.com/Hellofawaytodie Warning: this episode contains strong depictions of intimate partner violence, murder, and fatal drug use This week, we're speaking with Rolling Stone journalist and Army veteran Seth Harp on the topic of a string of murders and unexplained deaths at Fort Bragg, NC. Did you know a...

Dadchat ends at 10:50 However, it's followed by Britainchat, which ends at: 27:40 This week, Nate and Francis discuss a TPM article in which it is revealed that the January 6 riot participants are trying to make the case that they have diminished capacity because they watch too much Fox News and that Trump made them do it. Will it work? Who knows, but we also argue for accountability and against d...

This week, Nate speaks with Intercept journalist Ken Klippenstein about two recent stories of his -- one on the topic of the US DOJ threatening to prosecute MIT researchers for questioning allegations of fraud in Bolivia , and the other on the topic of CBP spending hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-drone technology , to include proposals for armed drones under their command. Sounds normal to...

This week, Nate is joined in studio by friend of the show and repeat guest Milo Edwards ( @Milo_Edwards ) of the Trashfuture and Masters of Our Domain podcasts, to discuss the recent story about French generals threatening to do a coup against Emmanuel Macron if he isn't even more Islamophobic. We also discuss a similar phenomenon in Britain, in which the specter of a military coup was wielded to...

Dadchat ends at 11:52! You have been warned! Have you heard that the Pentagon budget is going up more? Yes, even more. What is that spent on? Well, a lot of it is spent on dumb garbage that gets disposed of creatively, and we're here to discuss it. However,  before we talk about that, we talk about a story about an Army Major getting imprisoned in a Polish sex dungeon while blackout, in which stri...