Our friend Niko joins us from Nanjing to discuss living through the pandemic in China and the contrast in responses worldwide. We also get into learning the language and managing cultural divides, from the funny to the bureaucratic.

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

It's the August Q and A episode, where we culled your anonymous questions and work through them for your pleasure and edification. From the Dao De Jing to heroin, from the 12th Imam to the IWW, we give quick answers to a bunch of your topics.

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Seinfeld voice: "What's the deal with television?" Beloved curmudgeon 'Ed Buck' returns to talk about his TV-watching experiment and the prestige TV boom.

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Our beloved third mic AgileTablet returns to answer your questions about food and life. We talk about Central Asian cooking, personal goals and even our favourite spices.

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Our pal Goatstein returns to discuss language learning as a hobby before we get back to our common disgust at the US military. We talk about a recent Vanity Fair article about murders at Fort Hood in Texas and the conspiracy of silence around the Troops.

Article: “The Only Thing I Knew How to Do Was Kill People”: Inside the Rash of Unexplained Deaths at Fort Hood. (Vanity Fair: July 6, 2021) Link: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/inside-the-rash-of-unexplained-deaths-at-fort-hood

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Our pal Freddy returns to discuss the classic theological and philosophical problem of evil. Often used as a knockdown argument against belief in God, we talk about the contours of the debate and how thinking about the problem helps us think through our concept of God.

Intro music by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Our friend Akh joins us to talk about his journey to Mecca to participate in the Muslim pilgrimage of Hajj. We work through the basics of what's expected of the millions of people who travel there in a typical year, from the heat to the religious fellowship. We also discuss a bit about the city of Medina and other aspects of Saudi life.

Intro music by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Tom and Don chat about the news - the life of John McAfee, the release of Bill Cosby, rising prices and the recovery, the heat wave, and Donald Rumsfeld. Then some questions about Islamic crypto, the future and struggling with faith.

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Increasing freedom is the official reason for almost every policy offered by both the right and the left. We tend to agree that more choice is better, but that's not always enough. We discuss how this rhetoric can be pretty flimsy as a way to make social decisions. This takes us into topics like socialist planning and the decision of some Catholic Bishops to possibly deny Joe Biden communion.

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Tom catches us up with his move and then we get into your questions. We get into lapsed Catholics, the corrupting influence of power, superstitions, regrets, time travel, professional comedians, Palestinian health care and a few more.

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.