I'll jump in here to let you all know that this interview will be taped in front of a live audience on June 13th at 11AM in Austin as part of an event being put on by The Texas Public Policy Institute. We are in the process of securing a number of tickets for Ricochet members. We'll have more information about that next week. We'd also be interested in having an informal Ricochet meetup in Austin on the evening of June 12th.

We'll look into that. Thanks for the heads up.

katievs, you can't leave now....you just won a Ricochet coffee mug! 

That sound of the squirrel being chased across the desk was Dennis' minions trying to fix the audio. You win some, you lose some. For more Dennis but less echo, I recommend this edition of the podcast from last fall. 

Foxfier, write us at support@ricochet.com and we'll get you set up with the premium podcasts. You shouldn't be having that much trouble with them. 

All good suggestions. Just remember to use this link for a free audio book of your choice. 

I'm no professional, but all of the podcasts are archived on individual show pages. You can access those pages by clicking on the title of the show on the podcast area of the right sidebar on the front page. 

I was at a taping today of the show today. It is very, very funny.

Second update: well, evidently, they shot and killed the Mountain Lion for having the gall to show up without permission in a shopping mall.  Breathe easy, everyone. Our seat at the top of the food chain remains secure. 

Breaking: Mountain Lion captured about 3 miles from Blue Yeti's house. Sorry BlueAnt, we are rehabilitating him and returning him to the wild. 

Alligators have been around for millions of years, pretty sure they were there long before the golf course was. And it's not just golf courses -- have you been to Florida? They live in in lakes, streams, the inter-coastal waterway -- just about everywhere the water isn't too salty.  

And how exactly does one kill man-eating predators pro-actively anyhow? How do we know ahead of time which ones are man-eaters and which ones aren't?  Or should we just slaughter them all just to be sure?

If a parent is irresponsible enough to let their toddler anywhere near an alligator, don't kill the 'gator for behaving exactly as expected, arrest the parents for gross negligence. We're conservatives. We're supposed to care about personal responsibility and using our God given intelligence to assess danger and risk, especially when it comes to our children.

If you are stupid enough to wade into a clearly marked alligator infested lake to retrieve a $2 golf ball, you deserve to be eaten. To penalize the alligator for doing what comes naturally seems grossly unfair to me. 

Because Facebook knows so much about us --  where we live, what we are doing, who our friends are, what we like, etc, they can offer large but extremely targeted audiences to advertisers. There have recently been some questions about exactly how valuable that information is, but that's the theory anyhow. 

To that end, a good general rule of thumb about Facebook or any other web site is that if the service is free, you're not the customer, you're the product. Once you understand that paradigm,  it starts to make a bit more sense how a site like Facebook is worth billions.

I just think it's way cool (no pun intended) that we have a listener/member in Iceland. 

The Grove is within walking distance of West Hollywood, one of the largest gay communities in the country. This isn't merely a political stance, it's a marketing hook.