 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Brookshow. On this Friday, March 1st, beginning of a new month, hopefully everybody is having a great week or having a great week and looking forward to the weekend. All right. Sorry today's a little early, a little off-schedule, but it is what it is, stuff going on. Starting in mid-March, I expect to create a much more regular schedule for these shows. I think I'm going to change the format quite a bit. More on that in mid-March, but expect more regularity, at least when I'm not traveling, from the show starting sometime around March 15th, 16th, 17th, something around there. All right, let's jump in. I do have a hard stop at 12. So, 12 recent times. So, kind of news out of the relationship between Israel and Ukraine, which I think is quite interesting and a real kind of strategic shift. As I think you know, because we've discussed this on the show, Israel has been, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, reluctant to all-out support Ukraine. The statements that it basically supports Ukraine, it sent humanitarian aid. It was condemned invasion by Russia, but not in too harsh of a terms. And basically it has maintained what one could perceive as a neutral stand with regard to the Ukrainian-Russian war. And the primary driver of that is the perceived need by Israel to maintain good relationships with Russia. This has many reasons to it. There is a very large Russian population in Israel. There's a huge migration of Russians into Israel in the 1990s, who still have family ties and other ties to Russia. There is also the fact that many of the oligarchs actually have dual citizenship. They have Russian citizenship and Israeli citizenship. I think there's a lot of coordination between Russia and Israel with regard to the oligarchs. But I think most fundamentally is the fact that Russia plays a big role in the Middle East. In particular, Russia plays a big role in Syria. Russian troops are in Syria. Russia has a navy in Syria. It has an air force in Syria. It has special forces in Syria. And it has its most advanced ground to air missile systems stationed in Syria. Israel operates in Syria. Israel is constantly, Syria is a, you know, what do they call it? You know, basically it's a state in a civil war. Parts of Syria are still controlled by the central government. But there are vast areas of Syria that are controlled by other elements. The central government in Syria is affiliated with Iran and is very friendly to Hezbollah, an enemy of Israel. Other areas in Syria, some of them are controlled by al-Qaeda, sympathetic groups. This is why the United States still has a presence in Syria. ISIS groups are still in Syria. Again, this is supposedly why the United States is still there. But anyway, Israel flies regularly over Syria at bombs just this morning. I think there was an announcement that a senior Syrian military commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was killed by the Israelis in Syria by an airstrike. Israel has been knocking off leaders of the Iranian Republican Guard and of Hezbollah in Syria since the beginning of the war in Gaza. And it is actively engaged over the skies in Syria. Israel does not want confrontation with the Russians. It is not interested in war with Russia. It is not interested in the Russians aggressively deploying some of their best weapon systems in Syria. Israel has its hands full. It doesn't need a war with Russia. And I think that is, or even if it's not a war, an engagement with Russia. And I think that is a big part of why Israel has been kind of, up until now, fairly neutral with regard to the Ukrainian Russian situation. That seemed to all change yesterday. In the UN, the Israeli ambassador to the UN gave a scathing speech, an scathing anti-Russian speech accusing Russia of genocide in Ukraine. And basically announcing that Israel is an ally of Ukraine. And it was also announced yesterday that Israel will start supplying, for the first time, weapons systems to Ukraine. Right now, all that's been mentioned is radar to detect incoming missiles and incoming drones. We don't know if this is the Iron Dome system. I mean, if Ukraine had, I don't know if Israel can produce enough to supply Ukraine. But imagine if Ukraine had a large number of Iron Dome systems protecting its skies. It would be a game changer in the war with Russia. It would literally reduce dramatically, if not reduce completely, the threat of some of these drone swarms, the Iranian drone swarms. And also short-range projectile missiles and short-range ballistic missiles attacks on Ukraine. I mean, Israel has proved that its Iron Dome system is amazing at dealing with hundreds of projectiles launched all at once. At the same time, Israel could supply them with an Iron Dome. It could also supply them with the Arrow anti-aircraft and anti-missile system, which has proven effective against long-range ballistic missiles and, of course, against aircraft and drones. It is one of the most sophisticated missile systems in the world. And Israel actually has now an anti-hypersonic missile defense system, which I'm not even sure the United States has, but Israel has. I don't know if they have enough to be able to sell them, but they were at the Paris issue displaying this missile system and trying to get clients. You could imagine them supplying that kind of system to the Ukrainians, taking out the one huge advantage the Russians have in the air with their hypersonic weapons. Of course, Israel could supply many other weapons, tanks and armored personnel. Now, Kerry is the best in the world and in many, many other weapons. Israel is in the midst of a war, so it's not clear that Israel is in a position to supply weapons overseas. It has a hard time enough with its own requirements for ammunition, but Israel is not taking any real losses with regard to heavy equipment. So, who knows? Now, Israel is, I think, gearing up for war in Lebanon, so it might want to keep much of its weapons systems in reserve. But it is interesting, and how engaged Israel becomes with the Ukrainians is a question. Now, what does explain this strategic shift? I think the main explanation for this is the fact that Russia has gone basically all in on the enemies of Israel. Not only have we seen over the last year or so, Russia intensifying its relationship with Iran, positive relationship, allowing Iran and has been allowing Iran free reign in Syria. But more than that, Russia now is in a sense funding the entire Iranian drone industry, which has to worry Israel as they develop more drones, the technology gets better, maybe they even are using some Russian expertise in their drone building, and Israel is worried and concerned about the closeness of the relationship between Russia and Iran. More than that, though, Russia has also expressed sympathy and support for the Houtis and Hamas. Indeed, the Hamas delegation is going to Moscow. I think it's this week or next week to meet in Moscow. It's one of the few places in the world where Hamas gets a red carpet treatment, and with Houtis getting red carpet treatment. So in a sense, Russia has clearly articulated where it stands with regard to Israel. It stands with Israel's enemies, and I think Israel has decided enough of this neutrality. We need to support the side that is just and right, and the side that is opposed ultimately to our enemies, and therefore it is siding with Ukraine. Again, it depends what kind of weapons systems the Israelis can deliver to Ukraine, but in Israel has some of the most advanced weapons systems in the world, it could very much change the dynamics of Ukraine, at least in terms of self-defense, at least in terms of protecting Ukrainian cities from missile attacks from Russia. Alright, and it's going to be interesting, by the way, to see how this impacts Israel's ability to operate over the skies in Syria. One of the interesting things that came out is a member that he could, actually somebody I know, but I remember that he could, went on this Twitter rant, basically it was on RT, Russian Today Television, went on this rant about how Russia, once Israel is finished with Hamas and finished with Hezbollah, Russia will pay a price for supporting Hamas. In other words, this, he could member went on a rant saying that, beware, Russia, Israel is coming for you. Now, I don't know what he's thinking, I don't know what that means, I don't know what Israel can do to Russia. Well, it can do a lot of harm in various ways, but does Israel really want to announce publicly kind of almost a declaration of war against Russia? Probably a major mistake, but this guy, I know him, I've met him several times and he's a passionate guy, and maybe he lost his cool a little bit. Alright, that is Ukraine, Israel, Russia, we will keep watching that. It's sure to be fascinating in terms of the developments. I'll also just say quickly about Gaza, this thing that I talked about yesterday, about 100 Gazans being killed during a distribution of supplies. The haters of Israel are going wild with this, as if the UN is going crazy with this, everybody's going crazy with this, as if Israel did this on purpose, massacred people and it's going to get a lot of play. I explained I think what happened yesterday, I think that is the most reasonable explanation so far for what actually happened. But given Hamas and given what Hamas has done for many, many decades, even if some Israeli soldier went wild and started shooting into civilians, the response to this is way out of proportion relative to the response for any Hamas action that kills civilians. Remember, Hamas has been launching hundreds of projectiles into Israeli cities, hoping, intending to kill hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of Israeli civilians. And those missile launches against Israeli population centers do not attract any condemnation from the United States, they do not attract any condemnation from the world's bleeding hearts. The bleeding hearts in the UN reserve their condemnations only for acts that Israel engages in. And the bias, the duplicity, the hypocrisy, the evil is blatant and quite disgusting. Alright, videos come in from Alexei Navalny's funeral and from the ceremony at the church and then the ceremony at the burial site at the graveyard, the cemetery. And it's quite stunning, thousands and thousands of people came out, both, and these are different people because there's a distance between the two, both at the church and at the cemetery. Think about this, this is Moscow in February 1st of March, it is really cold, you can see how well dressed they are, how coats and everything. It's cold, there's snow on the ground. But more importantly, in both events, security forces are out in force, they are taking pictures, they are documenting who is there, anybody who comes there is in a sense risking getting on the wrong side of the Russian security forces. They were chanting Navalny, Navalny, Navalny, you know, they were clearly supportive of Navalny. And I think this show of support in spite of the risk that these people are taking on by being there is an illustration of why Putin had to kill him. Navalny, for whatever reason, and I don't know Navalny well enough and I don't really understand the psychology of charisma, particularly well, was incredibly charismatic and really brought out and became a symbol of the opposition against Putin and the opposition against the current regime in Russia. Whatever his qualities as an individual human being, he became that symbol and he really, you know, rallied people around him. Now I don't think he was a real threat to Putin. But who knows over the long run, who knows if something bad happens, what could result. I think the Russian people are basically sheep and have accepted Putin and accept pretty much anything Putin does. But Navalny, you know, stood something in them that scared Putin. And therefore Putin had to get rid of Navalny and did and did. And there was some talk about maybe there was going to be a prison exchange when Navalny was going to be released together with the Wall Street Journalist in exchange for this guy in Western Europe who sent us a life promoter. But I don't think Putin wanted Navalny in the West either. Putin didn't want Navalny alive. I mean, he tried to poison him once and he sent him to Siberia and he killed him. And now he's dead. Tchaikovsky, by the way, is unconvinced. In his lecture Friedman interview he does what he always does. You know, this is a standard practice. I'm only asking questions. I'm only asking, you know, I don't know what the truth is, but I'm just asking questions. You know, you guys can accuse me for just asking questions. But is it possible maybe, is there an incentive maybe for the Biden administration to actually kill Navalny? I'm not saying that happened. I don't know. Indeed, I have no evidence that that happened, but I'm just asking questions. That's what I do. I'm a journalist after all. So I ask questions. That is so dishonest. That is such a logical fallacy and it blatant attempt to manipulate people. It is the embracing of the arbitrary. All in the name, this is how conspiracy theories get going. Very few people start out with conspiracy saying, no, this, yeah, they really do this. The aliens do come down. You say, yeah, well, is it possible? I don't know. Maybe it's, maybe it's true. I don't know. Yeah, one of my, I think one of my goals in life now is to do as much as I can in the little world in which I live, which is pretty small. To point out how disgusting, awful, horrible. And what is it? Adam Carlson, a weasel, Taka Carlson, actually is. I mean, I wasn't very successful in convincing people that Trump was, all of those things, you know, and I probably won't be too successful with Taka Carlson after all. His interviews gone a millions of years. But what the hell? It's, it's probably therapeutic for me to try anyway to know that I am at least on the side of justice and truth. All right. That is Navalny. Oh, interesting. So Elon Musk. Elon Musk is suing open AI and its CEO, Sam Altman. Elon Musk is open AI for those who don't remember. Open AI is, is the makeup chat GPT and Sam Altman is the CEO was fired and then brought back with all the drama around open AI and chat GPT. And at the time we discussed the strange corporate governance structure of open AI. The fact that it was a nonprofit that then established a for-profit subsidiary and that it had a board that was not beholden to investors. It was a board that was beholden to a nonprofit charter and it was committed to following that charter. And that charter specified explicitly that it was, it was there not to make money, but that it was there in order to develop AI for the greater good of humanity. Right. And, and not to profit from it directly. Anyway, Elon Musk is suing them for a breach. Of that charter, the nonprofit charter on which they were founded. Elon Musk was one of the founders of open AI. He left the board in 2018. He was one of the founders of open AI as a nonprofit organization. It's only later in 2018 when they founded, when they created the for-profit subsidiary, they left the board. So he is, he also, I think was part of the seed funding in a sense of, again, it wasn't a, it wasn't funding. It was a contribution. It tax deductible contribution to a nonprofit entity. I think he put in $40 million. And so he is claiming that the startup that he co-founded is now, you know, is now basically a for-profit and is countervailing its charter and its original intent. In that sense, he's claiming and alleging a breach of contract. This is part of the problem of these silly ways in which to structure businesses, clearly what are businesses. There is no points. I mean, nonprofit owning a for-profit. It's just the confusion and the challenge of the whole thing is absurd. What the, what Elon Musk is seeking is a court ruling that will ask open AI to make its research and technology available to the public, that is go open source and prevent the startup from using its assets, including its most advanced AI model, for the financial gains of Microsoft or any individual. Elon Musk is primarily targeting Microsoft in this deal because Microsoft provided an incredible amount of funding for open AI and is the beneficiary of a big part of its technology. Again, and Microsoft is for-profit, it's not exactly a non-for-profit corporation. Musk, of course, it's important to mention. Musk, of course, has his own AI business that he has started in a sense competing with open AI. It would be incredibly advantageous to his business if open AI basically went out of business or at least went out of business as a for-profit entity and made public college research, which then companies like Elon Musk's AI firm could then utilize and use. His company is called XAI. It's under the banner of Twitter. It's supposed to be the truth-seeking AI. We will see when it comes out how, I guess it's available for people who are premium plus members on Twitter can get access to it. But once it's available, broadly, we'll see how truth-seeking it really is. But anyway, this is an interesting lawsuit. It follows up on all our discussion of open AI months ago. It's going to be fascinating. It puts some ultimate and Microsoft on one side and Elon Musk on the other, and that conflict should be interesting. And I will be following this and keep you updated on how it develops. All right, let's see. We've got two more stories. Okay, CHIPS. The CHIPS Act, the United States, if you remember, set aside a significant amount of money, 30-something billion dollars right now. They are about to announce who is going to get that money for CHIPS development in the United States, or CHIPS manufacturing in the United States. CHIPS are already developed here, but they're not manufactured here. They're about to decide who gets that money. The requests for funding have come in. They've got over 600 requests for funding. The requests for funding have requested double the amount that the administration has allocated for these subsidies for manufacturing CHIPS. Remember, this is the CHIPS Act that passed Congress. It's a bipartisan bill. It is expected that a lot of the money that ultimately is allocated will go to Intel. Intel is the only American company producing and who is seeking to produce the most advanced CHIPS in the world. Remember, in NVIDIA, everybody talks about NVIDIA. Everybody's talking about, you know, NVIDIA has gone like this. The stock has gone up. It's been this unbelievable success story, primarily because they discovered that the CHIPS that they developed in the past for graphics is a CHIPS that works incredibly well for AI. And they have doubled down on AI, and they are basically the, you know, in a sense, creator of AI CHIPS in the world. And they're making a fortune selling AI CHIPS to all these AI companies that have raised huge amounts of money into server farms, Microsoft and Google and everybody else, and they market capitalization. Their value has just gone through the roof. But it's interesting that NVIDIA doesn't actually make the CHIPS, right? NVIDIA designs the CHIPS. NVIDIA actually, you know, places the CHIPS, you know, in the servers. But NVIDIA, or actually maybe it doesn't, maybe it sells at a server's manufacturers, NVIDIA is mainly a CHIPS designer. The CHIPS themselves are made by TSMC, you know, TSMC, which makes these CHIPS for NVIDIA. They make them primarily in Taiwan, but they also have facilities in Singapore and they're building a big facility in Japan. They're also building a facility, of course, which is subsidized by the Japanese government. They're building a big facility in Phoenix, Arizona, which will probably be, who knows? I mean, it's a $40 billion project for TSMC. I think it's primarily a project for TSMC to appease the American government more than anything else. But the actual project is probably not in TSMC's real interest. It's already faced numerous delays. It's not clear that they'll ever have enough employees to man it. It's not clear that they have the staff to put it together. And we will see when and if TSMC actually produces CHIPS in Arizona. Intel, in the meantime, is building a $20 billion project in Ohio of all places. And they're expecting to start producing in 2026. And it's expected that a big chunk of the 30-something billion dollars that the United States government is going to hand out to chip manufacturers will indeed go to Intel because it's a U.S. company and because there's a history and because Intel is the only hope of U.S.-owned chip manufacturing coming back in the United States. We have other chip manufacturers in the United States. There's a Foundry company in New York and there's a memory company out of Idaho. But those companies do not produce the most advanced chips. They produce earlier-generation chips. The most advanced chips in the world today are produced in Taiwan and in South Korea soon to be produced also in Japan. Note that that area in the Pacific, very vulnerable to China, is where we get all of our most advanced chips in the world today. That is a national security issue. It's one of the reasons the United States better be investing in their Navy, better be investing in their ability to protect the shipping lanes from South Korea and Japan and actually be invested in protecting Thailand itself. So much of what we do today from weapon systems to everything, to cars, to everything we have around us, is dependent on chips and that's only going to increase. And of course AI chips, some of the most advanced chips, we're just going to become more and more dependent on those. All right, quickly, this is a feel-good story. I came across it. It's just a cool story. A startup by the name of Zoom just raised $140 million in an e-founding round at a valuation of $1.3 billion, a $1.3 billion company. It's out of Redwood City, California, still producing billion-dollar companies in California. And it's a school bus company. It basically provides school buses to school districts. It provides a school bus driver and a technology, and this is the important part, that makes the school buses run on time. Some of the school buses, Zoom doesn't say exactly how many of them, some of them are electric, some of them are internal combustion, although they hype their electric buses. But these buses are, the algorithm is designed, is run by an AI. It's designed to optimize the routes. It is guaranteed to bring the kids, pick them up on time, drop them off at home on time, and therefore very, very friendly to parents. Parents can also download the app, and the app keeps track of exactly where the school bus is and exactly the time when the kids will be dropped off or picked up, so that if there is a delay, the app announces it to parents. They are now in more than 4,000 U.S. schools in cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston, and they have plans to expand dramatically across the country. Who knew you could build a business around school buses and ancient technology? And the woman who built this business is an immigrant to the United States, Ritu Narayan, Indian names, I assume from India, yeah, parents are from India, and I think she was born in India. She struggled with the question of having a career, having a successful career in tech at eBay and Oracle, and at the same time having to worry about school buses being laid, her kids not catching the bus, having to take the kids to school and therefore be laid to work, or the school bus not picking them up and dropping them off at home, and therefore she having to drive and get this kids from school, and she noticed that a lot of parents had these challenges, so she initially created a business that basically was basically an Uber. An Uber chauffeured kids to school with a fleet of vetted private drivers. Parents arranged rides ahead of time and tracked their child's location through the Zoom app. Now this was very safe, very secure, but only could attract parents who could afford this, who were well off, and so it was a relatively small segment of the population. It's relatively expensive to run all these Uber cars running all over the place. But in 2019, when she was asking some school districts to promote this Uber-like service, they came back to her and said, well, why don't we use the technology you have to make the buses more efficient? We'll hire you to provide us with buses and to provide this efficiency. And basically she thought about it, huge risk. The business was making her money. She scrapped the business model, pivoted, invested in buying buses, and started this new business, now valued at $1.3 billion. I mean, I think this is fantastic. It shows that innovative spirit, that constant innovation, even in areas where you don't expect AI or algorithms or software to have any real impact. It does, you know, these small improvements on people's lives. Something like this just makes it much easier for women to have a career. Something like this reduces anxiety for parents in terms of where their kids are and picking them up and all of that. And it's just a beautiful thing to see how we can apply, still apply innovation to making our lives just incrementally slightly better. Of course, a progress like this is not going to be captured by all the pessimists who think the world is falling apart and life just becomes marginally a little bit better. Nobody remembers how, nobody remembers how difficult it was in the past, but we're just a little bit better off. We have a little bit more time. We have a little bit more choices. We can pursue our own values a little bit more. And this is how real progress in terms of human satisfaction actually happens. And it's not observable always in the economic numbers. And it's not observable by many people in the population who are so wired and so geared towards finding the negatives and all the things, blocking them and preventing them from advancing in life. I love stories like this from Nero, of women, men like Nero and other entrepreneurs who just are not willing to settle for the status quo and willing to take huge risks in order to improve the world in which we live. All right, let's go to our super chat. We're running, yeah, I think we're going to be okay, but we've got about $52 to get to where we need to be. All right, Sivanos, $50. Thank you, Sivanos. Sivanos says, it sounds like Musk is exploiting the goodwill. Everyone who supposedly wants AI developed for the greater good. All he's really doing is using the legal system to try to sabotage the loot, the effort as a competitor. Seems pretty bad on first look. I tend to agree with you, Sivanos. I don't know enough about the case and I don't know enough about this, but note that Elon Musk is one of the pessimists when it comes to AI. AI is going to kill us all, has been something he has been advocating for several years. He is also one of the leaders of the movement to get AI regulated. He wants the government to regulate AI. I mean, how ridiculous and crazy is that? So he is, and at the same time, he's developing his own AI company. So, yes, I think it's completely legitimate to wonder about motives. And yes, he could be concerned about the fact that this was not the intention for which he gave $40 million, but it might also be a bigger story in terms of his suspicion of profit motive around AI, his suspicion of AI, his suspicion of the negativity of AI, and the idea that if the government comes in to regulate AI, Musk's company will have a comparative advantage. It'll be involved in the regulatory discussions. And if you can, if chatGPT is crippled and some of the big tech companies are crippled that we know Google is not crippled because of the justified really negative precedent gotten around its release of Gemini, Musk will be in a particularly good position to dominate this field. All right, John has several $20 questions. Let's go through these. I read the reason for limiting the eligibility of presidency to U.S.-born citizens was to protect the country from foreign influence. And then he continues, silly when you realize that there's collectivism and then there's individualism and that the ideas behind each of these philosophies are taught and injected into our culture through education and our top intellectuals. And he continues, so where you're born seems irrelevant to the ideas you embrace, in my opinion. Don't you think you're on that a foreign-born citizen such as yourself who can fully grasp the principles of freedom just as well as any U.S.-born citizen? And actually make fun amazing president of a free nation. Also, I apologize for the chain super chat. It's much cheaper this way. But if you disapprove, I'll try not to do it this way anymore. More characters is expensive. No, this is fine. The chain is good. Thank you. I mean, that's an $80 question and I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. I would argue, given me as an example, suggest that some immigrants understand the principles on which this country is based. The ideas of the founding fathers and their principles, the ideas behind the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, better than 99% of Americans. I would argue better than the justices of the Supreme Court, better than anybody in politics today. I will posit that I understand it better than all those people. So, yes, I think I can understand why the founders did it. There was a certain fear of smuggling in foreign influence. You know, it does make sense to have some requirement where you're in this country for X number of years, 20, 30 years or something where you're established as a citizen. You're established as somebody who belongs in the culture. You're established as somebody who knows something about this country and what it is. So, yes, it would make sense to change that. But at this point it doesn't matter because anybody who understood the Constitution, anybody who really understood what this country was about, anybody who grasped fully the Declaration of Independence and everything it represented could not get elected today in the United States. So, you know, it would be nice to include foreigners in the choices that we have. But it's not for lack of choices that we have Trump and Biden. It's because that is where the country is. That is where the country is. The country is unprincipled, non-ideological, and therefore is swinging between just, you know, insane positions and insane people and incompetent people and people who have no understanding, no zero understanding of what America is. They use the term, it's almost sensuals to hear somebody like Donald Trump talk about America first or somebody like Biden talk about the interests of America. They have no concept, zero. So, I agree with you completely, John. Sadly, I don't think it would make any difference right now. Hunter Hunter, great show on the left, de-growth agenda, completely anecdotal, but the biggest de-growth advocates I've ever met was a couple of Christian theocrats who perhaps unsurprisingly thought the Taliban was kind of based. Well, that's not surprising at all. I've said this over and over again. As I, you know, the Catholic theocrats who are anti, you know, who are, what do they call themselves? I forget now for some reason, I forgot what, but they're anti-Libbles, the unlibbles. They are very environmentalist friendly. They are very de-growth. They don't believe growth should be, is important, should be practiced. I saw this with Andrew Sullivan, who I respect a lot, but Andrew Sullivan is a conservative and he was advocating for what he calls rocking chair conservatism, back porch conservatism, which is a conservatism of stagnation. There is a significant portion of the right which is post stagnation. They don't want the latest technology. They don't want AI. They don't want economic growth. They don't want, and I think to some extent Donald Trump presents that. They don't want trade. They don't want improving standard of living. I mean, they want it and they don't want it. They want it in areas where it doesn't take American jobs or force Americans to compete with foreigners or anything like that. They want stagnation. It's in the attitude towards immigration. So it doesn't surprise me at all. This is a problem that while in the form that I discussed the other day is primarily on the left, it's a problem that crosses into the right as well. Andy says, just showing support. Happy to catch a live show. Thank you, Andy. I really appreciate that. Michael says, I've seen a few videos from YouTubers on why they quit. The key to longevity seems to be posting videos when it's convenient to you rather than trying to meet a fixed schedule. Yeah, I mean, most YouTubers don't do live shows. Most YouTubers produce their shows and then post them. And they don't particularly, I guess, enjoy the process. I'm doing right now eight shows a week. And I'm doing them in the morning and in the evening and all over the place. And what I'm thinking right now, and this is what I'd like to do, is to go to a once a day format, longer shows, where the first half of the show is dedicated to news and the second half of the show is dedicated to a broader topic. So something like, let's say, I'm not committing to this with something like two to four, two to five every day, like a Rush Limbaugh radio show, right? In which I dedicate the first hour to the news roundup and the rest to a broader other topics. And that way, I don't have to do shows at night, which is becoming harder for me. I just am more tired as I get older. And it also kind of regulates my life. So for me, this is an improvement. For me, the challenge is, how do I squeeze the show among other things? The easiest thing for me right now, I think to do, and I might change my mind, but right now, this is what I'm thinking, is to every day block a certain number of hours for the show and just not have anything scheduled. And everybody in the world who interacts with me knows from two to five year olds doing a show, nothing else can be scheduled during those hours. And my life is simplifying in other respects as well. So it's going to make, I think now this is possible. I don't think it was possible a few months ago, certainly not a few years ago. I think it's now going to be more possible. So other than when I'm traveling, you know, and I know, and everybody else who wants my time knows. It's just in the calendar, it's fixed. That between these hours, I'm doing a show every single day. And now there'll have to be some variations because Mondays, I'm teaching a class. I won't be able to do it those times of show. So Monday might be a little different, but everything else will be. So that is what I'm thinking right now. I've asked you many times, I've done polls. If I did a show from two to five, three to six, eight to 11, whatever, what do you prefer? And the answer is all of it, you know, there's no consensus. So I'm just going to pick what's convenient for me and hope that I can still attract the audience. And more importantly, many respects hope that I can still attract the revenue from the super chat that I am today. But we will, we will be, it will be organized like that moving forward and it will be mornings, news roundup. I mean, not mornings, first hour news roundup, second hour, second and potentially thirds are blocked out three hours. Might only go to every day will change it, depending on how many questions you have, depending on the topic is it a big topic, a small topic. But we will go anywhere from one from two to three hours, four times a week, Monday will be a little different. Probably no shows on the weekend that will free up my weekend. So I'll be doing as many if not more hours, but if fewer chunks and fewer blocks, which I think is going to make my life easier. Now, if you guys hate that idea, particularly you guys who do the super chat and who, you know, who basically fund this show. If you guys who fund this show hate this idea, then let me know because I need to know that because I'm counting on the fact that super chat will continue. And you guys will still listen and you guys are willing to entertain a longer format and but condensed rather than. I mean, I'll do the same number of hours, probably more hours, but in more condensed form. Anyway, that is my plan. I'll have more specifics when I get back from Europe. I'm traveling to Europe next week. And and we can I'll give you the details and I need a rush now because I've got a 12 o'clock break. If you told an unprincipled person, the Shahzad that he was unprincipled, he would deny it. But why wouldn't he be glad? I think a lot of people would be glad. A lot of people reject principles. It depends how intellectual they are. It depends on how aware they are of their own way of thinking. I think a lot of people would be glad and say, this is great. Yes, of course, I mean principles principles don't work. Principles are disasters. And and Sylvanas know the end of news roundups as a standout. So you have to explain why that's a no, Sylvanas, because I still have the first hour will still be a news roundup. She'll still be here and you if you don't after the news roundups over, you can go and leave. So it'll still be dedicated completely to news roundup. It will just be instead of then waiting five hours to do another show. I will continue with the other show right after it. So think about whether you're really opposed to it. Whether it really does offend in some way. All right, Matt says, is the United States gifting a loaning resource to Ukraine? I think most of the most of the stuff is gifted. Most of it is a lot of it is what is the best timing for you, Sylvanas? Tell me what the best timing is. I'm curious. I mean, you're a big supporter of the of the of the of the show. So it's important for me. But you've been here when I've done shows at 2 p.m. East Coast time. So it's 2 p.m. East Coast time. Good for you. Would you prefer 1 p.m.? Would you prefer 3 p.m.? What is the best time for you? I'm curious. Most of the resources that U.S. is giving Ukraine are resources that are about to expire like ammunition about to expire or weapon systems that the U.S. has plenty of probably doesn't need probably will never use. They're just being mothballed. They are mothballed. So most of the stuff that Ukraine is getting from the U.S. is stuff that would go out of commission anyway. The net actual cost of these things in terms of stuff that would not have to be replaced anyway is much smaller than the $100 billion that they claim. No, I'm curious of the time. I'm curious of the time because the time the time is somewhat flexible. I agree. Would you accept a deal to pay off all student debt and shut down the education department? This is a great opportunity for Republicans to get rid of unless agency by giving Biden what he wants. Yes, I probably would accept that getting rid of that in exchange for doing away with the education department and all government lending for education and all government requirements vis-à-vis education and title IV and title IX and title whatever all government involvement in education at the federal level. I would take that deal, but nobody else will and Republicans wouldn't because they don't want that deal. Kabuta also Erwin Schiff died in U.S. prison for protesting income tax and stone is still exiled in Russia. I know huge injustices, Schiff, but Schiff, you know, Schiff, this is the law in the United States. What do you expect? I'm hoping some president pardon Snowden, but unlikely to happen. But Schiff, you know, you live in a certain country, you know what the laws are. Don't break them on purpose. What's the point? You then die in prison. Andrew Traga, an insight into the thugs of mine. Tony Soprano therapist encourages him to use less fear and intimidation and dealing with others. He confusingly asked, how do you get people to do what you want? Yeah, offer them a value. What a shock. Offer them a value in return. Thanks, Andrew. Absolutely. Adam, whenever I see Secretary Blinken, I just roll my eyes. He's the embodiment of hand-wringing and low self-esteem. Do you get the same impression? Yes, I get it from almost all politicians. Different, different, but they're all low self-esteem. I know of very few politicians that I get the impression of high self-esteem, if any. All right, Sivana says, this timing for me, I, of course, respect you doing what you want. I believe I voted for the morning in the polls, but I almost never do morning shows. Never works for me. Like, today is so unusual. But all right, taking into consideration, thank you. Afternoon to five is when I'm ending work. All right, I will take that into consideration. I'm, you know, maybe tomorrow we'll run a poll. I'm on the East Coast, so take that into account. I'll run a poll tomorrow. Give it one more shot, give you, like, just a few options, like three options, and see if there is, within a scope that I could actually do it, right? Within a range that I could actually legitimately do it. And we will go to, we will go from there. All right, everybody, thank you. Really appreciate it. By the way, one of the things we'll do for those of you not listening live is split the show into two and publish it afterwards as two separate shows. Brownie 003, do you think the Celtics have their best roster since 2008? Yes, certainly since 2008. One of the best rosters they've ever had. They should be able to win it all this year. It'll be a major disappointment, I think, if they don't. I need to just catch more games. I've not caught many games this year, which is unfortunate because they're playing so beautifully. All right, everybody, I need to run. I will see you all tomorrow. Remember, it's an AMA. Ask me anything. It is at 3 p.m. East Coast time. It's at 2 o'clock. Feedback you guys want to provide me on my plan. You can send me emails as well. So you don't have to just do it here. Those of you who really, really, really love the evening show at 8 p.m., let me know if that's just so much better than anything else. I don't know what Savannas would think if I started the show at 6 and ran it to 9. Probably not going to do that, but what would happen if I did that? Yeah, feedback. Love the feedback. All right, everybody, I will see you tomorrow.