 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show on this Friday, February 9. I think today is going to be a fun show. It is a lot of laughs. Not because anything is really that funny, but because the alternative is to sob violently. So I think that, I think that, oh, no video. OK, yeah, sorry about that, guys. Anyway, I think that it's kind of aesthetically funny, actually, in a sad, pathetic kind of way. So let's just jump into it. And I think almost all the stories have a comical, pathetic view. All right, I want to talk quickly about Taka interviewing Putin. It turned out exactly the way I suspected it would. I've listened to some of it, not all of it. And I intended to listen to all of it. I might do tomorrow's show just on this interview because it's so good. It's so perfect. It so reinforces things that I've said about Russia, about Taka, about the whole, about the whole, about the right. It reinforces everything I've been saying for months and months and months and months. So it's great to, I might just go over the whole interview with you guys or, you know, segments of it because, right, it's two hours long and I can't comment on everything. But I wanted to show you this one segment because it is so funny, absurd. I mean, this is the theory of the absurd. So not only is Putin feeding Taka in this interview Russian propaganda, but he's also feeding Taka Nazi. I mean, Nazi from Nazi Germany propaganda. And Taka, Taka challenges him? What do you guys think? Do you guys think he challenges him? No, no. All right, so let's watch this segment. I'm going to show it to you. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Just read the translation on the first slide. Now, I have verified with Russian speaker that this is indeed what Putin said because I thought this was a joke, right? I think a lot of people online thought this was a joke. But, you know, watch this, right? The polls overplayed and forced Hitler to start World War II by invading them. Why did World War II start on September 1, 1939 in Poland? It didn't want to negotiate. Hitler had no other choice but to start bringing his plan to life in Poland. What do you do but laugh? And Taka's facilitating this. He's facilitating this nonsense. It was a disgusting, fawning, ridiculous interview. And worse than that, Taka didn't prep. So he was surprised by many of Putin's answers, in spite of the fact that his answers were obvious. I knew exactly what his answers were going to be. And Taka was surprised by them, particularly his whole thing about why did you invade Ukraine. And Taka's surprised that he goes into a history lesson. If you've watched my discussions of why Putin invaded Ukraine, why Putin invaded Ukraine, then it's basically Putin confirmed everything I said on his interview. And Taka just bought it. Taka just swallowed it. And Taka did nothing, right? It was a pathetic interview. That is integration. There was nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing you couldn't have found out by reading Putin's previous talks. There was no real pushback, except the one point about the worsty journal journalist. And that led nowhere, Putin handled it. And it just moved on. And Taka got nothing from it. It was, sorry, but it was pathetic. He shouldn't have done it. No American journalist should be interviewing Putin. And it turned out exactly the way I expected it to be. That is just providing Putin with just one more avenue for his propaganda. That's it. And Putin doesn't lack avenues. So for Putin, what the hell? Why is this not working? Yeah, maybe it is. OK. All right. So yeah, I thought it was despicable and ridiculous. All right, let's start to bite in. Talk about funny. This is the president of the United States of America. As you know, he withheld documents, top secret documents, just like Trump. But he withheld them and had them on his premises. He didn't at least engage in obstruction of justice when they came to take them away. He didn't hide them. He cooperated. But he had these documents. And not only did he have the documents, he read them aloud to people without the right classification. He read them aloud to somebody writing his, I guess, biography or writing stuff. He wanted to show that he was right and that Obama had been wrong with Afghanistan. Anyway, the report from the independent council is filled with, wow, I mean, filled with this guy's president of the United States, really? Are you guys serious? This is a segment I'm going to read to you. He writes, in his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended, and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began. He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate. This is the debate with Obama. There was one so important to him, among other things. He mistakenly said that he had, quote, had a real difference, unquote, of opinion with General Carl Eichenberg, Barry, Eichenberg. When in fact, Eichenberg was an ally who Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Biden. So Biden couldn't remember stuff, stuff that you would think is pretty straightforward and pretty obvious. And, yeah, the memo goes on to say, why were you not prosecuting him? Why do we not recommend that he be brought to trial? This is, I mean, I don't know. This is hysterical, right? This is why they don't recommend that he be held criminally liable and put in front of a jury trial with regard to this. He says, quote, these are lawyers. This is the independent counsel. Quote, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury as he did during an interview of him as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. So they probably wouldn't get a conviction because they're going, you know, he's kind of nice. He's kind of sympathetic. He's well-meaning. He doesn't have. But he's really clueless. President of the United States, let me remind you, not just some trivial second character. They later in the memo describe Biden as having, quote, diminished faculties in advanced age. I mean, this is who the Democrats are putting up. This is who is the representative for the Democratic Party, for presidents of the United States. I mean, this is insanity, insanity. I mean, and this just reflects either Biden is delusional, which is quite possible, given his diminished faculties. Or he is unbelievably arrogant and believes that it's OK somehow, given his diminished faculties, to be president of the United States. I mean, this is truly absurd that somebody in the state could be president of the United States. Is, not could be, is currently, never mind another four years, president of the United States. Biden was offended by all this. So he immediately called the press conference, declaring that he was not diminished, that he had a great memory. He had a perfect memory. Within a few sentences of declaring his memory fantastic, he confused the president of Egypt, El Sisi, with the president of Mexico, Obogado, and confused the two. God, there should be an age restriction on presidents. It should be probably something like 75. Presidents should be able to not only have their full cognitive abilities with them, but they should be able to multitask. They should be able to be thinking about multiple things at the same time. There are lots of things going on. In the case, let's say, of a war, it's complex. There's a lot going on. You're going to get conflicting advice from conflicting generals and so on in terms of font policy, in terms of you need to remember who you spoke to and who you told what. In terms of domestic policy, you have to handle Congress. You have to deal with them. You have to do it all at the same time. War, font policy, domestic policy, Congress, economy. All of that, you have to be able to juggle. This guy is not capable of doing that. And yet I know you won't like this. But neither is Trump. They're both too old. And they were never that smart to begin with. I mean, Biden was not exactly sharp when he was young. I'd like to see our presidents be in their 50s. I mean, I think that's peak performance. It's you've got peak energy. You've got peak mental acuity. You've got enough of the worldly experience. Enough of a worldly experience. Or Trump is a disaster. Who is he confusing the other day? Oh, yeah, Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi. I mean, Trump is completely, he bamboozles you with his energy and his confidence. But his mind is fried. Now he never had a mind to begin with, right? I don't think he's smarter. I don't think he's smart at all. And he's losing it. And again, four more years, right? In four more years, he'll be over 80. I'm 62. And you know, I'm all together and everything. But you notice this. My memory is not as good as what's 10 years ago. It's just not. So I think 50s, right? 50s, you've got enough life experience. You've got still youthful energy. And your mind is fully functioning. And it can multitask. And it can handle multiple things. Your memory is intact. That's presidents should be in their 50s. And they should not be God. They should not be in the 80s, not even for a portion of their presidency. That could be the portion in which important stuff happens. Anyway, you know, what do you do with this situation that we're going to have? You have to choose between Trump and Biden. It is an absurdity that America is in this situation, is putting in this situation, could be in this situation. It is just an insane. It says so much about our political culture. It says so much about our philosophical culture that this is a possibility. All right, that's working. OK. All right, don't forget, you can ask questions on the Super Chat. You can engage. You can support the show, just $1.99, $5.99, $10.90, whatever you want supports the show. But we do need to kind of make targets. All right, another funny one. It doesn't stop. So some of you, particularly Scott, but some of you were super excited about Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis brought kind of a conservative attitude, a free market attitude, a attack the woke attitude to running for president. And he was going to be the savior of the Republican party and, of course, the savior of the country. The country, he was going to be a great president. But every day that passes, he seems to disqualify himself more from being president. In spite of the fact that he is not 80 years old, the guy has lost it. And basically, with this latest move, disqualified himself from being president. Ron DeSantis supports HB435, that's the House version in Florida, and SB586, which is the Senate version. Both these bills, I mean, this is the same bill basically, would ban the production. I mean, again, it's just so hysterical. It would ban the production of cultivated meat. And any restaurant or store that sells it would risk having its license suspended. That is, Governor DeSantis has decided that in the state of Florida, no more fake meat. You can't grow meat. To hell with genetic engineering. To hell with biotech. To hell with biology. To hell with, I don't know, GMO meat, whatever. You cannot grow meat. Not acceptable. No more lab meat. It's gone. So any restaurant and store that sells it, God forbid, to a willing customer will lose its license. Republicans in Florida claim there's not enough research has been done to ensure the product's safety. So they know. Republicans in Florida are experts in product safety. They are experts particularly in meat. Experts particularly in meat. And they think it's the government's job to stand between a consumer and a producer and tell them what they can and cannot eat. Even though the FDA and the US Department of Agriculture, our regulatory agencies from above, have approved the sale of cultivated meat from two companies, GoodMeat and Upside Foods, the state of Florida is not having any of it. And the reason is, it's not about safety. It's not about safety, right? We'll get to why in a second. So this is DeSantis. I know the legislation is doing a bill to try to protect our meat. You need meat, OK? You're going to have meat in Florida. We're not going to do that fake meat. Like that doesn't work. Even if you as a consumer, as an individual consumer, would like it, Florida is not going to allow it. Not going to allow it. And Scott, of course, trusts state regulators much more than he trusts federal regulators. So he's on board with this status intervention in our lives. The reason is, of course, that farmers don't want this. And the reason DeSantis is partially using is, look, this whole thing about fake meat is all a ploy by the left to reduce greenhouse gases. And eliminate cows. And we like cows. And we're not going to buy into anything that has to do with the environmental climate change stuff. So he is anti-woke, anti-left, and therefore he's pro-meat. And he's anti-you making a choice about the kind of meat you get to consume. It is now the state of Florida that determines what meat is appropriate for consumption by individuals. It's bad enough that we have to rely on an FDA and whatever. Now we've got a second layer of state regulators that are going to ban stuff that the FDA has approved. God. I mean, are these people electable? No, DeSantis is not electable. He's a little fascist, just like the next person I'm going to talk about. And the next person is Elizabeth Warren. DeSantis Elizabeth Warren, perfect transition. This is Elizabeth Warren on Twitter. Fewer Doritos in your bank. Fewer Oreos in your box. Less toilet paper on your roll. You aren't imagining it. Big corporations really are making you pay the same amount, sometimes more, for less. It's called shrinkflation. And we've got to crack down on it. So now they're going to have a bill that says, once you have X number of Oreos in a box, you will always have X Oreos in a box. X Oreos in a box, right? So when both sides do nutty things, both sides on the Iran book show get called out. They get called out because they're all frigging fanatics out there. They're all statist. They all want to intervene in your life. They all want to regulate your existence. They all want to regulate what you buy and how you buy it and what price you buy it and what quantity you get in the box. Of course, if the food companies actually did the opposite, they kept the same number of Doritos and Oreos in the box, but increased the price to reflect inflation, then Elizabeth Warren would be freaking out because inflation is called by the profit motive. And the Biden administration would look bad. This is actually this fewer stuff in the box in order to keep the price stable actually helps the Biden administration because the Biden administration doesn't want inflation. And this reduces, appeared, perceived inflation. But she wants to have a crackdown on shrinkflation. There's a good one, shrinkflation. You didn't know that existed. But then President Biden figured he'd outdo Elizabeth Warren. God, I told you this was a funny show. It's hysterical. He says in Twitter, you ought to be able to fly with your child and sit next to them without paying an additional fee. It's time all airlines offered free, fee-free family seating. You say that fast. Free, free family seating. Now, what would happen if they offered that? It would mean that all of us, all the rest of us on the plane, would be subsidizing this kid. So basically, I think conservatives are actually going to like this because they want more kids. And if we could reduce the cost of flying for kids, maybe more parents would have more kids because it would reduce the cost of having kids. And Republicans are really into that. So maybe they'd support this bill. And to help with that, all us who are not flying with our kids would subsidize the people flying with their kids. I think we should do the opposite. I think we should penalize them for flying with their kids because their kids are so often obnoxious on the airplanes. And they make flying much less enjoyable. Anyway, President Biden wants to regulate how much the airlines charge for who, where, and what's he. All right, finally, here's one where the Democrats are right and the Republicans are wrong. Go figure, right? And this was bizarre, right? So this is a bill. It's local. It's in Minnesota. And what the Democrats in Minnesota want to do is they want to actually eliminate a regulation that restricts builders to make sure that their X number of parking lots, parking spaces, for any unit that is billed when they build condo buildings. So it's these parking requirements that exist all over the country. And what the contractors are saying is these parking requirements are arbitrary. They're crazy. They often require you to create a massive amount of parking when people are using cars less and less because they're using Uber more. Why not let, here's a concept that maybe everybody should learn from, why not let builders and consumers, developers and consumers figure out how much parking consumers actually want and developers will build that into it. You know, these requirements actually decide these requirements, how much separation between one parking spot and the other. They have to be, and all of this, dictated from above by government. It's all these parking regulations dictated from above by government. Anyway, the Democrats in the state of Minnesota, and God forbid, but it's true, represented Ilhan Omar. I mean, so some of the worst Democrats are sponsoring this bill to deregulate a little bit of building in Minnesota to reduce the cost of building, which is great. Who opposes this? Republicans are going apple-plactic. No, no, no. We can't support anything promoted by the left. If this is a leftist bill, basically I've seen tweets like this. If this is a leftist bill, we're against it. We don't want it. We're done. The one thing Democrats and Republicans share, 100% no qualms, is a complete dedication to statism. The state must run our lives. The state should be all-powerful. They just differ on the details, on the details. But this is just today pulled off of some of the news stories. Four stories, two of the Democrats are bad, two of the Republicans are bad. Right there, right? All right, final two stories. Rogan, Joe Rogan, and if you saw this with Joe Rogan, cut a deal with Spotify, $250 million. His previous deal was $100 million. This is two and a half times, but it's not just a number. It's not just $250 million. The $100 million deal that he had in the past gave Spotify exclusivity. This deal doesn't give them exclusivity. He can post the stuff on YouTube. And I think everywhere else, he can distribute it broadly. This expands his market dramatically. Theoretically, Spotify's revenue from his show could reduce it quite a bit. And yet he's getting more money. And this is astounding. And what it suggests is just how much money this guy is making Spotify. It truly is astounding. And as I've told you in the past, making money is great. Whether it's a Democrat or a Republican or a populist or kind of a nothing like Joe Rogan, he's a good interviewer, but nothing much more. It doesn't matter. Good for him. He's great. Fabulous. $250 million. I thought one aspect of this that was interesting beyond the sheer magnitude of the deal that he cut, do you remember not that long ago when the $100 million deal was cut all the way to a year or two after that, there was a lot of calls within Spotify and outside, within the leftist community, to cancel Joe Rogan? I mean, massive calls, including employees of Spotify itself, to cancel Joe Rogan. Not only has Joe Rogan not been canceled, not only has the left failed to cancel Joe Rogan, but they've 2 and 1 half times his income on the second deal without any restrictions on what he says, without any restrictions on who he has guests, except, I guess, no objectivist. But unbelievable. So it's good to see that at least people like Joe Rogan who can afford to stand up to the work, stand up to them and Spotify stood up to the work and will continue to stand up to work, given this massive contract and the amount of money Joe Rogan is making Spotify. So good for Joe. Thumbs up. Finally, this one's just an interesting, not a funny one, but just an interesting one. You remember Sam Altman? Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. He is a massive innovator in the space of artificial intelligence. He has been a very successful entrepreneur. He was, of course, the guy who was fired and then brought back by OpenAI. Anyway, he has a new project in addition to running OpenAI. He has a new project. And I guess this one could qualify as funny, too. Because basically what Sam Altman wants to do is compete with the US government. The US government, if you remember, has this bill. I think it's a $200 billion bill called the CHIPS Act, which is to build chip manufacturing in the United States, bring chip manufacturing back. The government is subsidizing it left and right. It was a bipartisan bill. Democrats and Republicans trying to manipulate our markets again. Anyway, Sam Altman is like $200 billion is penny change. This is way too small. This isn't going to have an impact on the world. So he is out there raising money, raising private money to really blow up chip production, blow up, I mean, in the positive and not in the sensitive of blowing it up, in the positive in terms of growing it. He is out there raising somewhere between $5 to $7 trillion, God, that's $5,000 to $7,000 billion, to basically dramatically, I mean, orders of magnitude, grow chip building capacity in the world. Mainly AI chips, but any kind of chips, the whole gamut, including very sophisticated chips. So Sam Altman is out there raising money from private individuals. He's also going to places like the United Arab Emirates for their state fund. But this is basically a private initiative to go out there. It's a for-profit initiative. The idea is to make money. But this makes what the Biden administration and the Republicans did look pathetic. And it also shows how, OK, we need more capacity of chip manufacturing. We probably need to diversify where it's made. It's too dependent on Taiwan and South Korea. And he is a private entrepreneur stepping in to actually make that different, make it different. Solve the problem. This is not a solution sitting around waiting for the government. Not a solution that the Democrats or Republicans. This is a solution of private markets. And this is how it's done. And people always say, ooh, there's too much capital, barriers to entry. I've never heard anybody trying to raise $1 trillion, never mind $5 to $7 trillion. It's truly ridiculous. So I mean, total US corporate debt issued last year. Total US corporate debt issued last year is $1.44 trillion. The combined market capitalization of Microsoft and Apple, the two highest valued businesses in the United States, is $6 trillion. She's talking about raising more capital than the total worth of Microsoft plus Apple. I don't know if that's possible. But just the scale of the ambition of it is exciting and thrilling and I hope is successful. I think it's just fabulous, just fabulous. Good for Sam Altman, good for the markets, good for capitalism, good for whatever free markets we still have and I hope he succeeds. I hope he succeeds. But the reality is that our world in the future will be powered by chips, will be driven by chips that already is. It's hard to survive without it. But it's, you know, this is the key product of the 21st century, no question. And Sam Altman wants a big chunk of it. I mean, I mean, he mainly wants AI chips. That's really what he wants. He thinks that what is constraining his AI is not the algorithm, what's constraining his AI he believes is computing power. I'm a little, I'm skeptical of that, but you know, obviously I'm not an expert on AI. All right, that was the news for today. Most of it quite entertaining. Hopefully you guys were entertained. Let me see, we got a few stickers, maybe not. We need some stickers. We got Graham. Thank you, Graham. I really appreciate it. And we've got Scott, but not the normal Scott. We've got Scott M. I think that's a different Scott. So thank you for the sticker. We're still pretty far from the target. Remember, this show is exists because of support by viewers and listeners like you. Those of you who watch live get the special privilege of being able to help fund the show by using stickers as super chat. The rest of you get to fund the show by using Patreon and PayPal, which all of which basically makes the show possible. So important to keep that going. And thank you, Paul. Maybe 9.99, a few people doing 9.99, which is, if we get 15 people doing 9.99, we're basically done. And you can ask a question, but you can also do a sticker like Paul did and get us the Gale, the 2.99. That's great. That is the way we get. We chip away at the target, but Siberian did $50 as a question. What do you think should be the model evaluation of Russians of modest means who choose to stay in Russia instead of emigrating? You know, I don't think that one has to have a particular strong model view of them. By staying in Russia, there's no question they're supporting the regime, but one can understand that it's very difficult for some people to leave. It's not clear where you should emigrate to. And of course, it's not clear that, you know, again, where they were emigrating and how they would support themselves. The people who have left are predominantly people who either have money or people who have jobs where they can work from anywhere. There are a lot of Russians in tech that have moved, and of course, there are a lot of Russians, you know, with other abilities that they can use their skills in Georgia, Kazakhstan, or somewhere in Europe, or in the United States, if they can get here. I mean, part of the challenge for Russians would be that most of the West is closed. Most of the West does not accept them not because they're Russians, it's just because immigration is very, very difficult. Legal immigration, getting a job, taking care of yourself, very difficult. I want a few minutes at Armenia. I guess they're in Armenia as well, but you know, I know that in Tbilisi, you went through the roof, real estate prices through the roof because the number of Russians that have moved there, somewhere in Turkey, a lot of in Turkey, ones who have maybe Jewish heritage or in Israel, they're all over the place. But, you know, you can't, at the end of the day, if they truly have modest means and it truly is difficult for them, I guess they're stuck there and they will suffer the consequences of whatever Putin puts them through. And it's sad for them, it's sad. People who want to leave, but can't leave for a variety of reasons, it's tragic because they have to suffer whatever this unleashes on them, whatever Putin unleashes on them. All right, Cassandra, thank you. Alex, thank you. All right, we're chipping away, but we still got, I still need 10, 12 people to step in here with a sticker and something, not asking, yeah, 299, 5999, anything like that would be great. Thank you, Siberian, really appreciate it. Siberian from Siberia? Siberian, that was one of his, only his third Super Chat question, so thank you, really appreciate that. John, Elizabeth Wan wants DOE, Department of Energy, to restrict Bitcoin miners' use of energy. Well, of course, why not? Which industries might be restricted next? Miners have been required to submit detailed records of use of electricity to DOE. It doesn't surprise me at all. I mean, Elizabeth Wan has been in a campaign against Bitcoin and crypto since the end of 2022. Yeah, I mean, because of her, basically they closed down Silvergate, Silvergate shut itself down. I think she played a role in the banking crisis in the spring because of her kind of going after banks that dealt with Bitcoin, signature bank probably was shut down partially because of her and she's generally wants to try to make everything related to Bitcoin more and more difficult. So she's definitely anti-Bitcoin and anti-crypto more broadly. The excuse of climate change, energy, it makes a lot of sense. So I'm not surprised that she's using that tactic to try to shut it down, but just one of many ways in which she's going after them. And she will, and I think you should expect that it's gonna become very difficult to mine for Bitcoin in the United States. And I think a lot of miners have moved overseas, they've moved to other places. There was a time when a lot of them moved to Russia. I'm not sure they're doing that anymore, but Kazakhstan I think has quite a few. I mean, what they're looking for is places that have cheap energy. And where, you know, there's some political stability, some semblance of political stability. Yeah. So what other, you know, what other industries you know, it's so hard to tell. Any industry that they don't like, gun industry, private universities, private colleges, Elizabeth Warren went after them for years. There's probably other private industries that she decides that she hates and payday lenders. I don't know, they haven't used the energy argument on those guys because none of those are heavy consumers of electricity, but who is a heavy producer of electricity or consumer of electricity who she might not like? The list is probably long. I would be very wary, but that is gonna be another tool in the tool baskets of the fascists. All right, let's see, Neocon, I used to be a Trumpist and you helped me get away from it. So I am thanking you and I hope you can get more people out of its cancer to America. I appreciate that and I hope so too, I hope so too. I mean, it seems that whatever I've done, whatever impact I've had to the extent that it exists is too late. It looks like the Republicans are nominating Trump. In Nevada, Nikki Haley couldn't even win. He was not on the ballot and she couldn't even win against none of the above, none of the above beat her. And then he won the caucus. I mean, Nevada has a weird structure. So I don't think she has a chance in hell at this point. Sadly, Trump is it for them. Wyatt 516, Valiant claimed that ARC UK not produces the most popular objectives, content by views on YouTube. Was that a dig and is it even accurate? It was probably not a dig. It was probably just boasting. Is it accurate? Probably for longer videos, I think my one minute videos probably do better than their videos, but they're long form videos, which are 30 minutes long, are doing phenomenally well, much better than my videos and much better than my live shows. There's a life. They have shifted to doing almost everything Israel. They have mastered the quality of provocative, what do you call it, titles and provocative thumbnails. And it's one issue. And on any other issue, the videos do not do well, but then the Israel issue, they've gone through the roof. Good for them. I mean, the same thing happened if you remember to AI when they published two things on Israel and those two things went through the roof. For some reason, the stuff I published on Israel, which I think has equally good titles and stuff doesn't take off. So I don't know why, maybe because I've probably so many things, maybe the algorithm, maybe you guys don't share it enough. I don't know. I don't know how these things happen. They've also spiked in terms of subscribers, although they're still significant below where I am and where I is, but they've spiked in terms of subscribers, but views on the videos on Israel are very, very high and probably the highest of any objectivist out there. It'll be interesting if they can translate that into broader action, broader visibility. We'll see. And good for them. Justin, please invite more guests. Jason was great. I mean, I tried to do it once a week on Thursdays. It doesn't always work out because of my schedule, but Angela basically has a list of people. She's trying to contact and trying to get guests. Sometimes can't get a guest for a particular Thursday or sometimes I move things around, like I think next week it's on a Wednesday and on a Thursday and Wednesday is Valentine's Day, so we're not having a guest. So, you know, I'm trying to have a guest every Thursday. I thought Jason was great as well and he seemed to enjoy it, so I'm sure he'll be back soon. Akira Felix says, Scott's actual name is Scott the Rhino, you're on. All right, true, true. I don't think Rhino is right. No, I mean, we need to come up with something better than that because Rhino is like conventional Republican and he's like a left-hating, willing to cooperate with anybody who is also left-hating. So, I mean, hating to the point of, I'll cooperate with anybody as long as they hate the left. So, I don't know if it's Rhino. We need to come up with something that describes that particular feature of, you know, be a status, be everything, it doesn't matter, control what beat I eat, tell me when to get up in the morning, tell me when to go to sleep and what exercise to do. All of that is fine as long as you hate the left and with you. So, I don't know, there has to be some new acronym we have to come up with to describe that particular form of attitude. I was gonna say thinking, but it's not thinking. E-A-E-Ots. I think AEI is an important factor to consider in the election. Who almost like to keep their hands off it and keep it relatively free to develop? I don't think either one, I don't think either party will keep their hands off of it. I think they'll all wanna regulate it. It really, the question is who do you think is more likely to regulate it in a way that helps them politically? Put aside controlling the industry, but literally helps them politically. And actually think the Republicans are more dangerous here just because I think the Republicans are thinking more about any assistance they can get politically whereas the Democrats just wanna regulate it because it's a business. The Republicans I think will wanna regulate it in a way that helps them win elections. And you already seen that and I gave the example of the one in Slovenia, Slovakia, not Slovenia, Slovakia. All right, Brownie 003. If you could plug into the current Boston Celtics roster any NBA player of all time in their peak to help them win the championship this season, which player would you pick? I mean, God, any one of the players, you know, there's so many players you could pick that would instantly make them a winner. You know, you could, you know, you could put Magic Johnson as their guard, but you know, you could put, and they'd win the championship without any problem. You could put Larry Bird as the power forward and you know, move Tatum to small forward and what's his name to and Brown to another guard position. You could bring in Bill Russell to be a center. Now I'm only thinking Celtics players, right? But any great center, that's what they're really missing. Imagine if they could bring in right now a Shaquille O'Neill or Bill Russell, Bill Russell was a Celtic, so that would be more appropriate. That's it, I mean, nobody will ever beat them. I mean, they would dominate like no other team, but any of those players, if you've been a bird, a Russell, a Magic Johnson, a Jordan, Michael Jordan, even a Shaq, if you bring in a world, you know, a top three, top five all-time center, I think it's all over. All right, Frank, Jason called Charles Mario Races based on what? We didn't ask him, so next time he comes, you can ask him based on what? You know, Jason suggested that there was stuff that he had written in his past, which suggests racism. I think it's just bizarre to even conceive of these IQ, racially IQ graphs, who the F cares? There's something suspicious in making a deal out of that and talking about it and publishing it, and not to mention the fact that it's the whole discussion, I think, is anti-scientific. But anyway, I've talked about IQ enough in my past. Propos says, according to Fox News, the state representative that introduced the meat bill said the meat is an affront to nature and creation. There you go, it's a theocracy. But Scott is okay with the theocracy as long as it hates the left. Affront to nature and creation, maybe next, they will make us use bows and arrows to hunt for meat. Yeah, it's completely insane. And this is the modern, this is the Florida Republican Party that so many people want the federal Republican Party to emulate. They are the standard, but this is a theocracy. This is theocratic. J-Dog, what preparations would you recommend before attending A-R-C-E-U? I know there's a reading group, any other resources to review beforehand, also any suggestions on what to see or do in Amsterdam. Oh, wow. You've got the red light district in Amsterdam, definitely worth a walk through once. I wouldn't go back necessarily, but once you want to see it. The museum, the Reichen stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, like I can't pronounce, is the great museum there. They've got unbelievable Rembrandts. They've got a number of Vermeers. They've just got great art. It's just one of the great museums of the world. The other thing that's great about Amsterdam, I mean, if you're interested, the Anne Frank Museum is very powerful, kind of about Anne Frank and the Holocaust in there. What else? You know, the thing about Amsterdam is that one of the most fun things to do in Amsterdam is just walk around. It's such a pretty city. The weather's not going to be great because it's going to be March. It's going to be cold. Bring warm clothes. But really think about walking the city, enjoying the canals, maybe even take a boat thing, go on a boat tour through the canals. That's really fun and really interesting. You'll get a little bit of the history of Amsterdam. But just walking around, getting a sense of the place, it is, and I might talk about this in my talk in Amsterdam, it's in many respects, you could consider Amsterdam as the birthplace of the modern world in many ways. Certainly modern capitalism, it's the birthplace of the first stock market. It's also the birthplace, unfortunately, of the first central bank. But it's the ideas that come out of Netherlands and the attitude that comes out of Netherlands in the 17th century, out of the 16th to 17th century, Netherlands changed the world, changed the world much more so than Venice. It's because Venice is rich and successful, but it's unintellectual. Amsterdam, the Netherlands are the intellectual start of the Enlightenment. And it's a really, really important place from the perspective of the history of modernity, which I think is the most important period of time in human history. And so just enjoy it, walk around, go to the flower market, see what's going on. It's a thrilling place. I'm trying to think of the other... I mean, if you want to take a ride over to the Hague, it's not that far. You can probably take a train. There's some more Vermeers at the museum in the Hague. Go with a pole. Maybe the most famous Vermeer is at the Hague. So that is worth doing. So encourage you. Yeah. And by the way, anybody interested in attending my public speaking workshop, I will be doing one right after the conference. So the conference ends on Sunday night. I'll be doing it on Monday all day, small groups. So far, we have four registrants. We can take six more, but no more than that. But if you're interested, please email me. Iran at youronbrookshow.com. $750 for full day, a lot of one-on-one. And I think it'll be fun. We've got four people. Yeah, so if you can afford it, if you've got the time and you get any value from it, please consider joining us. It should be interesting. And this is true of people participating in the conference or anybody anywhere in Europe who may be not coming for the conference but would like to come to this, would love to have you, would love to be able to do this, particularly those of you in the Netherlands. I know there are a lot of objectives now in the Netherlands. If there's anybody out there who would like to do the public speaking seminar, please let me know. Iran at youronbrookshow.com. Optimus, this is his first Super Chat question. So thank you. This is from India. And he's figured out how to use the Super Chat. So thank you. Rediscovered your channel lately as the American right has gone nuts. Appreciate the sanity and objectivity. Cheers from India. Thank you, Optimus. Really appreciate that. And yes, the American right has gone nuts. I'm glad you find this channel to be a haven of sanity. All right, guys. You know, I don't like to do this, but we got like $77 to make it. We've got 112 people listening. Like $199 from half of you gets us over the top. Please consider just doing less than what, a cappuccino, a latte. In the next like one minute, two minutes, because we've got one more question, and then we're off. And I'm doing an interview with a guy in Nigeria today. So I'm doing an interview on tribalism for Africa, for an African audience. That should be interesting. Ruedown says, I went back to your blog talk radio show to get some clarity about cartels and learn so much. You used to go deeper into subject, also happier, huh? Yeah, I think I was, I've been worn down by the politics. I'm curious what topics you found interesting and that I went deeper into back then. Would love for you to send me an email with a list of those that you found particularly interesting. I'd love to redo them. Yeah, because I think there are a lot of shows. You know, I feel like it's a part of the challenges that I think, oh, I've talked about that already, right? But I forget that I talked about that, what, six years ago. And most of my audience now either doesn't remember that or wasn't with me six years ago. It's a new audience. So please consider sending me just lists of topics even if I've talked about in the past that you think would be interesting to bring back or interesting to talk about today and resurrect, happy to do that, a work on trying to be happier. I did a happy show today. It was very happy. We laughed a lot, didn't we? I mean, we laughed at people, but we laughed a lot. Kudababa says no doubt about the happier part. And somebody said, yeah, I come across too angry. All right, we'll have to change that because I'm not an angry person. And in my day-to-day life, I'm not angry at all. You know, it comes across on this just because, God, everything out there is so frustrating. It's so... I guess Trump did this to me. This is my Trump, whatever. Trump really did this to me. He changed my life in negative ways. If you're interested in the African show, it's Gebenge De Woyin. You can look him up. The way to spell it is, well, let me put it in the chat. I'll put it in the chat and then you can maybe search him. Maybe you can find his podcast somewhere. It's right there. That's his name. And I think he's a podcaster in Nigeria. I think it's Nigeria. I've done his show before, right? Yeah, he's definitely from Nigeria. I've done the show before. And I'll post, he'll send me a link. I'll post the show on my videos so you'll be able to see it at some point down the road once he is on his channel. I'll post it on my channel so you'll be able to see it. I did it before. It was a good interview, so I was happy to do it again. Thank you, Roo. Let's see, Robert Nayser. Another good show as we near the end of the week. Yes. Oh, tomorrow. Two announcements quickly. Two announcements. Tomorrow we'll have a show at 3 p.m. East Coast time, usual time. Maybe I'm going to do Putin. I don't know. I'll be angry again. I might do Putin in the interview with Tucker. I might choose to do something completely different. We will see. We will see. And then on Sunday, I'm doing a members-only show, members-only. You can still become a member and join that show. So this will be a members-only show on Westons, on the movies, Westons. And what I think what I'd like to do is assign you homework for the show on Westons is bring your favorite five Westons, you know, and why you love them, what you like about them. But we're going to do a show on what makes Westons Westons, why they're interesting, what was the heyday of Westons, what happened afterwards. We'll talk about spaghetti Westons, the collapse of Westons, spaghetti Westons, modern Westons. We'll talk about the whole thing on Sunday. It'll be Sunday afternoon because in the evening there's the Super Bowl, so it'll be probably Sunday at like 2 p.m. eastern time or 1 p.m. eastern time. I'll be advertising it. But yeah, if you're not a member, please become a member so you can attend the show. You can become a member for five bucks a month. So please do that and I hope to see you there. All right. Vandy says, where is this African podcast? I just told you. Robert Nasir says, too angry. What the something something or what the actual heck is the tone down version? Thank you, Robert. Hey, Iran wanted to support the show and point you to my email in your inbox subject, the YouTube analytics. Thanks for the great content. I've seen the email. I've read the email. I'll be in touch. I'm so behind. A lot of you have sent me emails, particularly people who've offered to design the website. I've seen those emails. I will get to you. I will answer everybody probably this weekend. I need to catch up on email. I'm behind. There's just a bunch of stuff that just needed to get done this week. And I'm getting I'm slowly clearing out to the point where these are the next. And I really appreciate the help with the YouTube analytics. And I'm going to call you on it. But part of the part of the thing to think about. I write in the email is what are we actually looking for that? There's a lot of data. But what can we use the data for? What is achievable? Yeah, I mean, how do we how do we turn it into something useful? But that you're the analytics expert. So maybe you can also think about that. Robin Asia says, considering the topics you cover, this is the least angry show out there, at least without being a complete hippie like Lex. Let's be nice to Lex. Lex is a friend. He's a good guy. We want him to have more moral, you know, certainty and resilience. But take my stance, but it is what it is. Jason says, tell them now, Star Wars is not a Western you're looking for. Star Wars is not a Western. It's not a Western. You know, it's got certain characteristics of Westerns. It builds on a certain Western tradition. A lot of movies do, a lot of action movies do. But Westerns have particular characteristics. Particular characteristics that are, I think, interesting and that make the conflicts more intense, make the conflicts stronger. And we will talk about that. Aesthetic characteristics that are uniquely Western. A way of shooting, the particular scenery, a particular place and a time, particular types of characters. Star Wars is not a Western. Star Wars is, what is that? It's the Japanese guy, Kawasawa made a movie that Star Wars is based off of the Fortress something. I can't remember. Anyway, thank you guys. Almost made the target, but we got pretty close. I appreciate everybody's support. I really appreciate all the superchatters and all the Monte contributors and everything. Everybody who makes a show possible. I will be here tomorrow, 3 p.m. I don't know if to do the show on Taka and Putin where I basically show. I told you so, I told you so, I told you so. Maybe I should because people forget. Hidden Fortress is the name of the movie, Kawasawa movie that Star Wars is based on. But Westerns on Sunday, like Mark just listed his five favorites, but what Mark really should be doing is becoming a member and joining us on Sunday to tell us why he loves Hainoon because I could make the case. I could make the case. I'm not saying this is my position, but I could make the case that Hainoon is a pretty anti-American movie. So, yeah, we can talk about it. It's in my top five, too. But yeah, top five Westerns. Bring top five Westerns to Sunday show. Members only. Become a member. Don't forget, it's not that difficult, not that expensive. Music in Hainoon is phenomenal. It's not grating. It's phenomenal. All right, everybody. I will see you all tomorrow. Bye.