After the comic malfunctions of a self-driving car, which drove its passenger/prisoner in endless circles, Unexpected Elements rounds its attention on the humble circle.
Explore how one man calculated the circumference of the Earth 2,000 years before GPS was invented, then be spellbound by the Magic Circle and the mysterious woman who broke into it. And as we hit the five-year anniversary of the Covid pandemic, we take a look at the cycle of infection and mutation, before asking, 'why don’t we have one antiviral pill that kills them all?'
We’re joined by evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar, who calculated Dunbar’s number; that is, the maximum number of folks you can hold onto in your circle of friends... five? 500? 5,000? Robin reveals how many REAL friends science says you can have.
Presenters: Marnie Chesterton, with Camilla Mota and Phillys Mwatee
Producers: Harrison Lewis, with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell and William Hornbrook
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to sign a slew of executive order on his first day in office, including multiple that pertain to securing America’s southern border with Mexico.
“I think people are going to be pleased with the executive orders he is going to sign,” Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, told "The Daily Signal Podcast," adding, “I'm familiar with many of them, but I'm not going to get ahead of the president on that.”
Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump from January 2017 to June 2018, said had he expects the president to “go back to what was successful” at the border during his first administration.
“We go back to Remain in Mexico, third safe country agreements, end catch and release, continue building that wall,” Homan said.
While many the Americans who voted for Trump will likely be pleased with the president’s actions to secure the border, Trump’s border and immigration agenda will also be met with resistance, Homan predicts.
“I think we're going to take a lot of hate,” he said. “We're going to be sued every day, numerous times. I think you'll see the left try to control the media. They're going to show the first crying female, first crying child, and say how inhumane we are. But they won’t to talk about the 340,000 children that they've failed to take care of," Homan said, presumably referring to the Biden administration.
The leftist corporate media will “tell one side of the story,” Homan said. “they'll try to vilify us, but they're not going to stop us from doing [our] job.”
After what he has witnessed while serving both as a border Patrol Agent and in ICE, Homan says he does not care what the media says about him.
Homan joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” for a special bonus edition to discuss the resources the Trump administration will need to carry out deportations of illegal aliens, and what information he expects to be uncovered regarding the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border.
In 1880, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was commissioned to compose a work in honor of the completion of a new cathedral.
What he wrote became one of the best-known, over-the-top, and difficult-to-produce pieces of music in history. Despite its popularity almost 150 years later, the composer actually thought it was one of his worst works.
Learn more about the 1812 Overture, how it was created, and just how crazy it actually is to properly perform, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
ButcherBox
New users that sign up for ButcherBox will receive 2 lbs of grass-fed ground beef in every box for the lifetime of their subscription + $20 off your first box when you use code daily at checkout!
Vic is back, and we're diving into the latest from Capitol Hill! We're covering Senate confirmations, Biden's farewell address, and the implications of a new agreement in the Middle East. Tune in now!
"Herta Müller should share her Nobel with the Securitate." This comment by a former officer in the Romanian secret police, or Securitate, was in reaction to hearing that Müller, a German writer originally from Romania, had won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. Communist Romania's infamous secret police was indeed a protagonist in Müller's work, though an undesired and dreaded one: most of her writings are deeply and explicitly anchored in Ceaușescu's Romania and her own traumatic experiences with the Securitate. Müller's file traces her surveillance from 1983 until after she emigrated to West Germany in 1987. She has written extensively in reaction to reading her file, but primarily addresses its gaps, begging the question what information the file does in fact contain.
The Secret Police Dossier of Herta Müller: A "File Story" of Cold War Surveillance (Camden House, 2023) is an in-depth investigation of Müller's file, and engages with other related files, including that of her then-husband, the writer Richard Wagner. Valentina Glajar treats the files as primary sources in order to re-create the story of Müller's surveillance by the Securitate. In such an intrusive culture of surveillance, surviving the system often meant a certain degree of entanglement: for victims, collaborators, and implicated subjects alike. Veiled in secrecy for decades, these compelling and complex documents shed light on a boundary between victims and perpetrators as porous as the Iron Curtain itself.
Chile is more than just spice, writes Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and Cal Poly Ethnic Studies professor Victor Valle in The Poetics of Fire: Metaphors of Chile Eating in the Borderlands(U New Mexico Press, 2023). By tracing the meaning of chile as a plant and chile eating as an act. Valle shows how Indigenous cultivation and culinary practices troubled colonizers, sustained cultures, and fostered exchange. The Poetics of Fire calls for decolonization of chile cultivation and a renewed embrace of Indigenous ideals toward land and nourishment, arguing that chiles serve as a connection point between pre-colonization Indigenous societies and twentieth century (and beyond) Chicanx and Latinx communities. At once food studies, Indigenous studies, and Latinx studies, The Poetics of Fire dispenses with Scoville units and instead thinks about how chile is a window for understanding a decolonized world.
Joe Biden’s presidency officially ends at noon on Monday, when Donald Trump is sworn in... again. And along with the end of Biden’s presidency comes reflection on his legacy as leader of the free world. Biden made his case for the history books during a farewell address Wednesday night from the Oval Office. But despite some notable wins, Biden also tallied some painful failures – on inflation, the war in Gaza, and maybe chief of all, his decision to run again in 2024. Alexis Coe, presidential historian and bestselling author, weighs in on Biden’s legacy.
Later in the show, a Pasadena resident reflects on evacuating from the LA fires.
And in headlines: Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency told senators during his confirmation hearing that he believes in climate change, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chose state Attorney General Ashley Moody to replace Sen. Marco Rubio, and TikTok users brace for the app to potentially shut down this weekend.
We're talking about where Americans are in for the coldest temperatures in a year. In some places, it will feel like 40 degrees below zero.
Also, just like the effort to ban TikTok, the push to save TikTok is getting bipartisan support. A ban might not go into effect this weekend after all.
Plus, we'll recap two rocket launches, including one that ended in an explosion.
And a feud between co-stars has spawned another lawsuit naming more A-list celebrities.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
