Speaker 1: It's like the UAW, but the A doesn't stand for auto.
Speaker 2: It's one more thing.
Speaker 3: I'm strong and getty, one more thing.
Speaker 4: Before we get to whatever that is. I've been meaning
Speaker 4: so naughty. I'd been marry naughty, warning you. I've been
Speaker 4: meaning to complain about Wait, geez, we've been talking about
Speaker 4: micro was it called superprocessed foods ultra processed foods? So
Speaker 4: I shouldn't be eating anything and that comes in a
Speaker 4: plastic sack anyway. But I've been meaning to complain about
Speaker 4: the plastic sacks. The modern plastic sacks are so sucky,
Speaker 4: the kind of material they are. They don't rip like
Speaker 4: they used to. Like, you can't open the plastic inside
Speaker 4: a cereal anymore and then have it be together in
Speaker 4: such a way that you can pour cereal out. It
Speaker 4: shreds into different pieces and you just got to mess
Speaker 4: on your hands.
Speaker 3: And it's funny. There's an article in USA Today today
Speaker 3: about that the effort toward having a smaller carbon footprint
Speaker 3: has led to these kinds of plastics, for like chip bags.
Speaker 3: You know, if you ever open it, it just rips all
Speaker 3: the way down the side, and only your pretzels fall
Speaker 3: out on the floor. It's not like the old days
Speaker 3: where you can just open the top and it's cheaper
Speaker 3: and greener. I'm guessing it has more to do with
Speaker 3: cheaper than greener, but the main one is it's not
Speaker 3: your imagination. Beverage containers are harder to open than they
Speaker 3: used to be, which is good news. I'm not just
Speaker 3: getting weaker and losing my grip strength because of the
Speaker 3: caps on so many things getting smaller and not as deep.
Speaker 3: You can't get much of a grip on it anymore.
Speaker 3: And it's just it's just factually much more difficult to
Speaker 3: open things than it used to be. So if you've
Speaker 3: come across that, it's example of products like.
Speaker 5: I had a hell at a time with one of
Speaker 5: those milk cartons that has the little screw top in
Speaker 5: the middle of it the other day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they use they used that as an example. Those
Speaker 3: are super shallow. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, you can't get
Speaker 3: a grip on it, and they they used that as
Speaker 3: an example.
Speaker 2: All that reminds me I have not yet eggnogged.
Speaker 3: About.
Speaker 1: I got to put that off as long as possible.
Speaker 1: The fact that I'm doing okay, waight wise right.
Speaker 3: Now, Katie, do you know Joe's eggnog game.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: Well, I used to say, back in my younger and
Speaker 1: wilder days when you should have known me.
Speaker 3: That, back when you're hanging out with Pete Hegzeth.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, all the times we had.
Speaker 1: Uh, if you can't read the newspaper through your eggnog,
Speaker 1: it's U two a.
Speaker 2: Week, got it?
Speaker 3: Okay, got in our Our old boss used to have
Speaker 3: a party at his house where he had make eggnog
Speaker 3: with a big block of Hoggin DAW's ice cream in
Speaker 3: the song.
Speaker 2: Made from scratch egg nog.
Speaker 3: It was so freaking good and you'd be knee walking
Speaker 3: drunk by the end too, which was really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, goes down like a well, like a milkshake.
Speaker 3: Knee walking drunk. I haven't heard that one either. I
Speaker 3: like it. That's a Georgia bushism and he knew so drunk.
Speaker 3: The old style milk carton caps were twenty one millimeters tall,
Speaker 3: while the new ones are seventeen millimeters tall. That's a
Speaker 3: difference of nineteen percent. That seems to be enough to
Speaker 3: make it impossible to grip by most people. And see,
Speaker 3: you just can't get a grip on a top of
Speaker 3: the dang thing, and I've had that experience and thought
Speaker 3: of my just weaker, what is the problem here? Uh
Speaker 3: so people haven't And the other thing, I haven't had
Speaker 3: this experience yet. They've made the plastics so thin on
Speaker 3: a lot of bottles. When you twist the lid, the
Speaker 3: whole bottle twists so you can't get any resistance to
Speaker 3: open the bag thing up.
Speaker 5: Yes, I had a really embarrassing moment the other day
Speaker 5: where I took the cap off of my water bottle
Speaker 5: and apparently I have a hulk grip because the hand
Speaker 5: I was holding it with the water just sprayed everywhere.
Speaker 5: And I was like, okay, wow, I don't know my
Speaker 5: own strength.
Speaker 2: Yeah, squeezing too hard?
Speaker 3: That is interesting. Well, they got to find the sweet spot, obviously,
Speaker 3: and make the lids a little taller.
Speaker 1: Speaking of squeezing too hard and finding the sweet spot,
Speaker 1: here's good news. This is one of Michael's pet causes.
Speaker 1: He's marched, he's twitter hashtags, he's written letters to Congress,
Speaker 1: and that's the rights of prostitutes in Belgium and the
Speaker 1: good news. Belgian prostitutes have been given full employment rights
Speaker 1: as sex workers under a new law that entitles them
Speaker 1: to social security and pensions.
Speaker 2: Finally, the law is creating a new category of employment.
Speaker 1: I would try the French, but I haven't studied French
Speaker 1: in many years. Essentially sex workers, which requires an official
Speaker 1: employment contract. This will cover and regulate working hours and pay,
Speaker 1: including prostitutes working part time as gig workers or while
Speaker 1: studying in higher education.
Speaker 3: I'm a part time prostitute.
Speaker 1: I'm a student and I do sex work on the
Speaker 1: side cover my tuition.
Speaker 3: I'd be racking up over time, yeah, exactly, time and
Speaker 3: a half. Yeah, and putting more toward your retirement exactly right.
Speaker 1: I can't wait till I get off my back and
Speaker 1: can take a rest or something.
Speaker 3: And I retire when you're like thirty, probably from that gig.
Speaker 1: Says Don Bowens, director of the Belgian Union for Prostitutes.
Speaker 2: What do we want? What do we want?
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 3: Quote?
Speaker 2: We could have never dreamt that we would be here now.
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing is that we now
Speaker 1: make access to social security possible.
Speaker 3: We did a full panel with sex workers once years ago.
Speaker 3: Do you remember that, Yeah, I do in studio.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was very very interesting, and I know I've
Speaker 3: gone back and forth on this and whether it should
Speaker 3: be legalized, so that then have you'd have some rights
Speaker 3: and police protection and stuff that you don't now. But
Speaker 3: then the experience with legalized marijuana in California is that
Speaker 3: you have as active an illegal market as you ever
Speaker 3: did in just a different way. Because I have a
Speaker 3: feeling that, you know, the cartels or Chinese massage slaves
Speaker 3: are still going to exist even if you legalize prostitution exactly.
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorite, not that it's good,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it is clear one of my favorite
Speaker 1: illustrations of secondary consequences. And on down the line, you
Speaker 1: legalize prostitution, there is absolutely still going to be exploit exploitations,
Speaker 1: sexual slavery, underaged girls being raped for money because they
Speaker 1: can't give consent, they're underage, it's rape. The most horrifying
Speaker 1: parts of sex trafficking will continue to exist, and the
Speaker 1: cops will no longer have the ability to investigated and
Speaker 1: intercede in it in the same way right because it
Speaker 1: all exists barely behind the scenes of the not as
Speaker 1: horrifying stuff.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 1: It's like the young junkies in you know, all the
Speaker 1: cities of Blue America who got saved over and over
Speaker 1: again by getting arrested and having some compassionate cop saying hey,
Speaker 1: you don't have to do this, here's this program whatever.
Speaker 1: It just it makes all of it too easy, including
Speaker 1: the really really unpleasant stuff.
Speaker 2: And you got that.
Speaker 1: And then there's this I can't remember. There's probably a
Speaker 1: clever name for it. It's the principle the speed limit is sixty,
Speaker 1: they don't expect you to go sixty, but you're sure
Speaker 1: as hell aren't gonna go ninety. And that I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's a Latin phrase for that legal philosophy,
Speaker 1: but to keep the really ugly stuff going from happening,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a law that's not super strictly enforced,
Speaker 1: just so when we see the super ugly stuff we
Speaker 1: can jump in and do something about it. And I
Speaker 1: realize that's kind of wishy washing, and I wish the
Speaker 1: world didn't work like that, but it does. Getting back
Speaker 1: to the hose of Belgium.
Speaker 3: I assume the Johns would dig this because it's legal,
Speaker 3: and oh yeah, you don't have to worry about.
Speaker 1: Unless you're a real Sickoh yeah, yeah. One important important
Speaker 1: employment right is that sex workers are able to refuse
Speaker 1: a client or sexual act without fear of being sacked
Speaker 1: by their brothel. Say the Belgian sex workers.
Speaker 3: Sacked by a brothel is a good price?
Speaker 2: That's a phrase. Yeah, yeah, isn't it.
Speaker 1: The exercise of the right refusal opens a protection period
Speaker 1: of six months, during which the sex worker is protecting.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that's just the legal ease. It gets a
Speaker 1: little troubling here, Okay. Employers will have to meet workplace
Speaker 1: safety requirements such as an emergency panic button, and hygiene
Speaker 1: rules require that rooms must be a certain size, equipped
Speaker 1: with clean betting and bath linen, as well as condomes
Speaker 1: and access to shower and toilet trees.
Speaker 3: Yeah, betting requirements, you like, how often are you changing those? Ah?
Speaker 2: Cress so often is possible?
Speaker 3: Ew?
Speaker 2: Yeah, where's the put? Did I skip over that? Somehow?
Speaker 1: Some of the gals talking about how, uh, since they
Speaker 1: don't get time off and uh, where is that?
Speaker 2: I sort of got I read that in this article.
Speaker 2: That's funny. I'm probably skimming over it.
Speaker 1: But this one gal's talking about because we have no
Speaker 1: vacation or anything like that. I had to work till
Speaker 1: I was eight months pregnant.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Okay, see that's awful. That's a cake
Speaker 3: of somebody to be doing that. Oh my god. Ah
Speaker 3: ew yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, there are many examples of a couple
Speaker 1: continuing their amorous activities well into pregnancy.
Speaker 3: That's fine, healthy and fine and fun. On the other hand, okay,
Speaker 3: that's not what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: No, right exactly, but paying for it, and she's got
Speaker 1: to show up to work and do it just because
Speaker 1: she's got to put food on the table.
Speaker 2: It's just and she's about whole shop.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: Hey, so Brandon, funny story. Now that you're twelve, I
Speaker 3: feel like you're old enough to tell you right before
Speaker 3: you were born, you're getting poked in the eye. Yeah,
Speaker 3: dang it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. It's just it's so demeaning. Yeah, don't
Speaker 1: demean yourself, folks. It's there's a cost to your soul.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to quantify. I mean, is this job a
Speaker 1: little demeaning, Yes, yes.
Speaker 3: It is as demeaning is being eight months pregnant and
Speaker 3: taking the high hard one for somebody for cash. No,
Speaker 3: not that demeaning. Yeah, god, that's rough.
Speaker 2: It's a rough line of work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, true.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: We should try well, I guess we have it kind
Speaker 3: of in uh Nevada at the Brothels. It's kind of legal, true, yesh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I ain't ben so, I don't know what it's like.
Speaker 1: Belgium was the second country in the world, dude, to
Speaker 1: criminalize prostitution, after New Zealand in two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: It's a little hygiene requirements, you say, I'm all for that.
Speaker 2: Oh please?
Speaker 1: Yeah, as many as you, as many as you, all
Speaker 1: of them, in favor of all of all exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, which tupe ofware lives do you find hard to
Speaker 3: open this email? Les? Second? Well, I guess that's it.