 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 Wednesday. I guess it's early afternoon here in Puerto Rico. Morning if you're on the West Coast and of course evening already in Europe if you're listening from over there, which I'm sure some of you probably are. At least that has been the history of these morning news roundups that we've had more European listeners. So again, thank you all for joining me. As you can see, the time kind of bounces around depending on my schedule as it evolves in the mornings. Meetings, calls, things like that happen and I have to figure out how to do it all. But anyway, we're committed to doing these every day and we'll stick with that until travel season starts up again. And we'll have to skip the day as I travel. All right, there's a lot to talk about today. There's a ton in the news as always. Of course, we should mention that today is the 81st anniversary. Anniversary is that commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. As a complete surprise, at least as presented in most history books, complete surprise. Japan attacked the United States, attacked the United States Naval Base in Hawaii. The US Navy was completely ill-prepared. There was no intelligence that was coming in those days. There was no ability to survey. There were no satellite pictures. Didn't really know where the Japanese fleet was. And this was a complete surprise. The Japanese bombed the facilities in Pearl Harbor, destroyed a number of ships, sank a significant number of the US Navy, the Pacific, the Navy and the Pacific. Japanese used not only bombs but also kamikaze pilots, pilots who crashed the airplanes and committed suicide and crashed them into the ships. I mean, there was some intelligence and, yes, it was ignored. There was also a reason to believe Japan was going to attack given the restraints on trade that the United States has imposed on the Japanese. And, you know, Ayn Rand thought, I think, from what I understand, thought that basically FDR was doing everything he could to get the Japanese or the Germans to attack, that he wanted a war, that he couldn't initiate the war as preemption because there was a big faction within the American public and within the administration. There was anti-war, there was kind of pacifist. So he needed either Germany or Japan to attack so that he could launch a war. He could get it forward to the war. I think that's speculative. I'll let the historians chime in on all of that. But the bottom line is that the United States was surprised and 2,000 Americans were killed during the attack and, of course, not only did the attack launch the entry into World War II of the United States in the Pacific, not only was that a declaration of war by Japan against America, obviously, but immediately after the attack, the Nazis declared war in the United States in the East so that the U.S. now had a two-front war. You know, there's an incredible story there to be told about how the U.S. took its manufacturing capabilities, peacetime manufacturing capabilities and turned the country into a war footing and basically built better weapons, more advanced weapons, more technologically sophisticated weapons, more innovative weapons, and at larger scale than either the Japanese or the Germans by far so that within a couple of years, as of December 41, by the beginning of 44, the United States has by far the dominant military power in the world. It is crushing the Germans in the East and it is crushing the Japanese in the West and the United States managed to fight a two-front war which is very unusual. Hitler tried and failed a two-front war in the East and in the West, fought a war far from its territory, so supply chains, supply lines, very, very, very difficult and yet crushed its enemies, both the Japanese and the Germans. There was a lot to be learned from that war and from American success in that war, but we will leave that for another time. That is for a longer show and a longer discussion and maybe bringing on an historian to back some of the data up, but there is no question that the ability of the U.S. to kind of muster the resources after the Tech on Pearl Harbor and to dominate the world militarily is an amazing story, an amazing story. All right, commit teacher. I always have a hard time with the name. Thank you for the support. Really appreciate it. As you know, we use Super Chat to fund these shows, both the morning shows and the evening shows. We have a target for each. We have a $250 target for the morning shows and a $650 target for the evening shows. It's important that we reach our targets. If we want to maintain this kind of schedule, it has to be monetarily justifiable. So please consider supporting the show. Whether you want to ask a question or not, you can use one of those stickers to support the show, even if you're not asking a question. For those of you, and I know a dominant number of you, watch or listen to the show, not live and can't participate in the Super Chat, please consider becoming monthly supporters on Patreon. It seems to be the popular platform right now, but you can also use Subscribestar. You can use PayPal. You can use uronbookshow.com. You can use Venmo. There's a large variety of ways in which you can support the show, but I really, really do encourage you to support the show to keep this going because otherwise we'll have to find other ways and other venues and maybe trim back the shows in order to be able to keep this going. Let's see, just because this is relevant, Caleb says, thanks for recommending Victor Davis Hansen's book on World War II last year, Reddit this summer, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, I highly, highly recommend Victor Davis Hansen's books on military history. I think the superb, I don't like much of his other work, but I do like his work on military history, particularly World War II, but also Greek military history, great military generals. There are a number of those books. He's got a more recent book on who had the more advanced weapons systems because there's this mythology around the Germans having the best tank and the best plane and the best missiles and all that. And Victor Davis Hansen is excellent on debunking all of that and showing that the U.S. by far had the best weapons systems, the freedom. Freedom produces the best technology and you can see that in the U.K. and you can see that in the U.S. So highly recommend Victor Davis Hansen on war, on war. All right, so Paul Haber justifies a much longer discussion, which we will have, I'm sure, one day. All right, just quickly, not on the list of topics, but Time Magazine announced the person of the year, I guess this morning or last night. Unsurprising, I think anybody could have predicted this, but the person of the year this year is Zelinsky, the president of Ukraine. I think while deserved, I think he has been, I mean put aside whether he was a good president before or not and how corrupt he might have not been and how democratic he might have been or not been before the Russian invasion, but he has been spectacular since the Russian invasion. He will go down in history as one of the great political leaders in terms of warfare. His skills as an actor, I think, have come, have manifested itself because he has a flair for the dramatic, but a flair for the dramatic is super important in this context because he has managed to motivate and inspire the Ukrainian people and as a consequence has been able to inspire and motivate and allow the generals to do what they do. I don't know who's responsible for the tactics. The tactics have been brilliant, I think, given a Ukrainian situation given that not a single military expert in the West predicted Ukrainian success. I mean, you have to give them, you have to say that it is truly, the military tactics of the Ukrainians has truly been brilliant and a massive success. They have thoroughly surprised pretty much everybody in the military world in terms of how well they have done and I think Zelinsky has been phenomenal. He's truly been phenomenal. I'm not looking for a ride, I'm looking for ammunition. I'm paraphrasing at the beginning of the war that was one of the best lines ever for a war president to make. It expressed his heroism and his commitment, the fact that he stayed in Kiev when the Russian troops were just a few miles outside of it and where clearly Russia was sending units to try to assassinate him, the fact that he has been to the front, that he's talked to soldiers, that he has not left Kiev, that has embedded his Kiev, that has become as many missiles as have hit Kiev. He has stuck with it. So what can I say? I think Zelinsky has been a truly heroic leader and well-deserved. I would vote for him in a heartbeat. And yeah, I mean, yes, he might be getting weapons for the West, but somebody has to use those weapons, somebody has to have the tactics to use those weapons, somebody has to deploy them appropriately. You know, brilliant. Everything that Ukrainians have done have really been brilliant, particularly when you compare it to the pathetic, horrible, incompetent nature of the performance of the Russian army and Putin as Commander-in-Chief. Yeah, good for Time Magazine for picking a great person of the year. Not always, they don't always, well, they don't always pick up a good person. Sometimes the person of the year is an evil person. And they could have just as equally picked Putin as a person of the year. Arguably, Putin is the one who set up Zelinsky without Putin acting. Zelinsky would have been, would have been nothing. All right, let's see. We all know Georgia runoff was yesterday. Warnock versus Walker, Warnock is one. This is the first, I think, election, midterm election in which the party, the president's party has since FDR, that the president's party has actually picked up a Senate seat. This is a truly, this election was a massive defeat for the Republicans. A massive defeat for, you know, Trump supported candidates in swing states. I think he's something like 14 to two or something ridiculous like that. A massive repudiation of Trump and a massive repudiation of this popular streak in the Republican Party and of these, these type of candidates. It is a, it is a, you know, it is a testament to the fact that people that even in a state like Georgia, which is not a Democratic state and I don't think will go Democratic, the governor of Georgia approved that by winning decisively, quality of candidates really, really matters and the people will not go come out to vote for a lousy candidate. They even, if that candidate is on their quote side. Republicans need independence in order to win. They need some of the independent vote. They can't win just appealing to the base. And these absurd, ridiculous candidates like Walker, who, who, who, you know, you probably, none of you, if you run businesses would probably hire. Nevermind want him representing you in, in the Senate. Warnock is not a popular candidate in Georgia. He is a progressive. He is part of the left wing of the Democratic Party. And yet he came out looking so much better than the nutty Walker. So this is a repudiation of, of the, of the Republican base that elected Walker. There were better candidates. There were candidates that could have beaten Warnock and yet the base still chose Walker. And this suggests real dangers for 2024 when it could very much be that the base picks as the Republican nominee for president, somebody who cannot win, who cannot win a general election just like Walker couldn't win in Georgia. I don't know if anybody's going to learn any lessons from this. The Republicans in the house seem to be kind of imploding as well. McCarthy is trying to be speaker of the house and yet he's getting opposition from the populist Trumpist side of the spectrum, even though he is super Trumpist already, but he's not enough. He's not committed enough. He's not, doesn't total line enough. It could be that as a consequence of all that, they get some kind of moderate Democrat or moderate Republican speaker of the house because because they need, they'll need some Democratic votes in order to appoint the speaker. So the Republican Party is in real trouble. It's, it's, it doesn't have a direction. It doesn't have leadership. It's leadership is floundering. It is, it is breaking apart. This is all Trump. This is the consequence of Trump being president. This is the consequence of winning in 2016. This is the consequence of his dominance over the political party. This is, this is what I kept telling you and I've been telling you for seven, eight years now that the Trump will destroy the Republican Party. He is destroying, is in the middle of destroying the Republican Party. And, yeah, and it's, it's, it's, it's horrible. It's horrible because we need an opposition party. We need to be there to be a party that opposes Democrats. We need there to be a party that at least nominally is for more free markets. And I think that I don't know that that party exists even with Ron DeSantis, where fear, the more we learn about, we'll discover is, is a smarter Trump is just as bad as Trump. We'll see, but that the better elements within the Republican Party are going to get crushed by all of this and, and whether the, whether the country ultimately wants this Republican Party, whether in the future they're going to nominate people better than Walker, whether the primary system is built to nominate those kind of people. We will see, but I, I, I, I, my guess is, my guess is, you know, toughness is not what's lacking in the Republican Party. What's lacking in the Republican Party is one decency, just basic human decency. Just, just the party that used to say, remember they used to say character matters. Remember those days? So what the Republican, Republicans need is to rediscover character and the character matters. That'll be step number one. And second, they need to decide what they actually stand for, what they actually stand for. And that is, do they stand for the founding fathers? Do they stand for liberty and freedom? Or are they just a party that's against the Democrats? And if it's a party that they're just against the Democrats, they might just hand the Democrats power and control. Because I don't think people will vote for a party that's just against the Democrats. All right. So, Judge will run off another repudiation of Republicans, another repudiation of the, of the, of this Republican Party and what it stands for, another repudiation of the people who nominated these people and of course a massive repudiation of Trump. And how will, how will the, the Republican Party recover from what I think is a massive defeat in this, in this midterm election? I do not know. I do not know. All right. TCM, TSMC. Is it TSMC? Yes, TSMC. We've talked a lot about micro, you know, chip manufacturers, microprocessor manufacturers, TSMC, is the largest in the world, not just the largest in the world, by far the most sophisticated in the world. It is more advanced than Intel today. It is the leader in chip manufacturing. Well, they have just announced partially because they're getting subsidies from the Biden administration. They have just announced a second facility in Arizona that they are building. They will expand their investment in Arizona from 12 to 40 billion dollars. Arizona will be where they will produce some of the more advanced semiconductors in the world. This is part of this whole effort to diversify supply chain. I don't think this is just a consequence of the CHIP Act, which a lot of Republicans voted for. I don't think it's just a consequence of government subsidies. I think it's also a consequence of pressure from companies like Apple and other American companies. And I think European companies to diversify the supply chain. I think everybody is worried about being over-reliant on Taiwan for the world's most sophisticated chips. They want TSMC to diversify its own supply chain, that is to diversify its own manufacturing base. Part of that diversification is the Arizona plants. They're also diversifying into other places around Asia. Those places will probably be fabricating the simpler chips. I think the Arizona facility and the Taiwan facility will be the two that actually have the more sophisticated one. Samsung, the other major manufacturing, major manufacturing of the most advanced chips in the world, will also be opening a plant in the United States. It details the stuff forthcoming, and they will also be working hard, I think, to diversify the supply chain, because the fact is that I think their customers are going to start demanding it. NVIDIA, AMD, which used to manufacture their own chips, now basically only design chips. All these other companies are going to acquire that the chips not just may be made in one little corner of Asia. But even if those Asian companies continue to have a dominant market share, that they at least start building factories in other places around the world so that if we cut off the supplies, if there's some way that the Chinese can cut off supplies from Taiwan or even cut off supplies from South Korea, that the world economy doesn't come to a complete halt because there are no chips, there are no semiconductors out there. I think overall good news, I hate the idea that the US government is subsidizing this because I fear that through subsidization we'll get inefficiencies, less productivity, we'll be backing the losers rather than backing the winners. That's usually what government does. So I wish the government just stayed out of it. I think this was a process happening anyway, even without government intervention. All right, let's see quickly. Russian oil. Russian oil continues to be a story. I talked about it. I think I talked about this yesterday. But as you know, a number of US allies have all signed a pact that basically restricts Russian oil and the global market to sell it below $60 a share. And of course they can't really tell the Indians at what price they can and cannot buy oil from Russia or other parties and what they can and cannot buy. So what they have done is they have made it impossible for US and European companies to facilitate that. So the ships can't be European or American and the insurance companies can't be European and American. They will only insure and they will only ship if the oil in those ships is $60 a barrel or under. That is the condition under which they will ship the oil. So the way this is playing out is kind of interesting. So first of all, you have to remember a lot of ships that carry oil, a lot of the tankers carry Greek flags. Greece is a major shipping country. It has very favorable shipping regulations. So a lot of companies flag their ships in Greece. That is supposedly Greek-owned ships. Greece is a part of the EU. Therefore Greek flagged tankers will not carry Russian oil unless there is some kind of documentation that proves that the oil is being sold for $60 or less. Second, almost all the insurers, 90% of all the insurance on Russian oil is bought in London. There is this, of course, massive insurance market has been since the beginning really of insurance. And again, the same thing happens. So what's happening is the Turkey, in order to get into the Black Sea and go and get the oil from Russian ports, you have to get through the Bosphorus straits into the Black Sea. Turkey has basically closed those straits to any ship that cannot show that it has insurance. And of course, those ships can only get insurance if they're selling off under 60. And that's one way Turkey is participating in this idea that the oil traveling through the Bosphorus straits, that is the oil coming from Russia into the Mediterranean, can only be oiled that is sold for $60 or less. Of course, the whole $60 or less is a bit of a cop-out, right, because $60 still provides the Russian economy with significant revenue because $60 Russian oil is still profitable. It's still profitable to Russia. We're talking about something like $20 billion a month of oil profits that even with this cap, I think what happened was that the United States and Europe were afraid to cap it at, let's say, 40 and force Russia off the oil market. So this is the compromise, right? One hand, should we fund our enemy? The enemy that is invaded a country? The enemy that is clearly working against our interest? Or do we want oil prices to go up a lot because Russian oil will be off the market and that will hood our economy? So what we've done typical modern world is we will reduce their profits but still give them some and we will hood our economy with just a little bit. So compromise. Sellout is more like it and emboldens Putin to just keep going instead of getting Putin to completely capitulate. There was one other point I wanted to make about oil and I mean what will be interesting about the $60 cap is if oil prices start going up, oil prices so far as I predicted have gone down because of fear of recession. During recessions, demand for oil goes down, oil prices have gone down. China eliminating or reducing or loosening its zero-COVID policy might cause oil prices to go up a little bit as oil prices go up, that $60 becomes a bigger and bigger discount relative to world prices but the Russians are still incentivized to sell even at $60 because some profit is better than no profit and they need the money in order to fund a crumbling economy and a devastated economy that has very little sources of revenue other than selling natural resources. All right, I think that's all I wanted to say about oil. All right, let's see what was the other... Oh, QAnon. Kind of an interesting story, I haven't read a lot about this, but yesterday a German police, German authorities arrested at least 25 people in Germany. Authorities said that these people were involved in a QAnon-inspired plot to overthrow the German government. The group was planning a violent attacks on government institutions including Germany's parliament and began organizing in November of 2021. So this is hard to tell what exactly is going on there, how serious this is, how armed they were, but obviously German authorities felt the threat was legitimate enough to arrest 25 people. I didn't realize that QAnon was kind of a global phenomena. I certainly knew that Germany had a share of wacky right-wing nuts. I guess it has a history of that, and it's... There you go, it's kind of sad that these right-wing nuts, QAnon nuts are now in a position where they can really... They're getting weapons and they're threatening government institutions. Just one quick additional item. I think I said this yesterday, but the Trump Organization, the Trump Organization, not Trump or his family, has been found guilty of 17 counts of falsifying records and tax fraud. This is after the CFO was basically thrown to the sharks, so it's funny how the organization was indicted, the CFO ultimately pled guilty to tax fraud, and the CFO will spend time in jail. I'm not sure the organization itself will have to pay fines, but it's an interesting, the Donald Trump and his family weren't even charged in the case. They weren't even charged in the case. Even though this involves their organization. It doesn't just bear their name, it's their organization. And this is bullshit legal retribution. This is tax fraud, and the CFO didn't even try to fight it because it's clear what it actually was. So, you know, every time you go after a politician for something that they did that is bad, it's political retribution, then forget about a system of government. That's bullshit, and it's more knee-jerk, my tribe versus their tribe kind of response. It's interesting that I haven't covered this story yet, but I will. It's interesting that there is the Court of Appeals where Trump appealed this whole FBI monologue confidential papers case. He appealed it, it was appealed to an appellate court, a three-member appellate court, those three members, two of them, Republicans appointed by Donald Trump. God, you should read their decision. I mean, they basically lamblast both Trump and the lower court that gave him wiggle room and gave him some credibility. They cited unequivocally with the FBI and with the National Archives, Trump appointees time and time and time again have shown that they're willing to stand for the rule of law and not just vote partisan politics. And I've said many times that I think the legal system, our court system is the healthiest part of our government right now because it seems that the court system is the least tribal of all of them. It's the least tribal of all of them. It's the most respectful of the rule of law, the most respectful of actual facts and reality. All right, let's see. Let's do some super chat. We're at about halfway in terms of raising the $250 that we try to raise every show to keep these going. So I appreciate those of you who've already contributed to the super chat. Hopefully we'll get some more contributions so we can get to the $250. You don't have to have to question. You can do like Vladimir, Vladimir, thank you Vladimir, who just did a sticker and a contribution so you can do that. I know some of you can't afford a lot of money, so anything you contribute is greatly appreciated. But the fact is that every person right now watching the show puts in a buck, a buck 20, a dollar 20 cents, we will reach our goal easily. So actually all you need is, yeah, anyway. So, you know, as a response to Mike Plea, I guess people will see if people do it. All right, Andrew, Andrew asks, what is your variation of Mike Pence? Do you think he has integrity? No, I don't think Mike Pence has integrity. I think Mike Pence is a sellout. I think Mike Pence is not a good guy, not an honest guy. I think he's another one of these power-lusting politicians. He just doesn't have the personality to ever be successful, particularly at it. Remember Mike Pence was Donald Trump's vice president. He agreed to that. He stuck with Donald Trump for four years. He's been very slow to condemn Trump on things that needed condemnation. He told the party line with the one exception on January 6th, which would have required complete brainless nobody. Who knows what would have happened if Mike Pence had followed Trump's advice? Clearly that wouldn't have been upheld by Supreme Court. Clearly Trump would have been out of the White House and Mike Pence would have been disgraced for the whole of eternity. So the fact that he did the right thing at the last minute, yippee, he did the wrong thing for four years by backing up a president that did not deserve and was not qualified to be president any one of those days and should have been impeached twice. So I'm not a fan of Mike Pence's. Oh, I'll just add, I wasn't a fan even before he was chosen of his P, because Mike Pence is super religious. I mean, not a little bit, but super religious committed to religion. The reason Trump took him is because of Mike Pence's reputation in the evangelical movement as being this super committed to religion guy. So I do not think he deserves as much credit as he's been given for what he did on January 6th. I think that was like anybody would have done that, anybody except Trump. And I mean, look, remember how many Trump administration people resigned that day or the day after? I mean, he didn't take much to realize what Trump was doing was was was a nutty, anti-constitutional and horrible. And, you know, there was just a few who stuck by him, very few. Matthew says, have you met Peter Bogosian? No, I have not. Do you have an evaluation of him? And have you seen his street epistemology experiments? I've not seen a street epistemology experiment. Sounds kind of interesting. I'll look into it. I mean, my general evaluation of him, I mean, is mixed. You know, again, he's very good at criticizing Woke and very good at showing the absurdities of the modern left, of the crazy left in academia. He's been excellent at that. I think his leaving his university was very courageous. Of course, he found a job at the University of Austin and I think is one of their first instructors. He seems like basically a good guy. I haven't seen what he proposes in terms of the positive, what he actually stands for. We know what he stands against and good for him for standing up and having the courage to stand against all that. But I'm curious in terms of what his positive values and what he stands for. But I'm curious about this street epistemology thingy. All right, thanks for all the $20 questions now. We're making a study to really make a dent. We're down to only $80 required, you know, to get to our goal. So four, another $420 questions that were done unless again somebody wants to step in and just get us there. James says, unrelated, I just thought of this. If a pregnant woman is on her way to the abortion clinic and is murdered and the killer didn't know she was pregnant when he killed her, should he be charged with two counts of homicide or one? You know, I don't know and I don't think it's that important. A count of one homicide is enough to, I think, send you to jail for the rest of your life or worse. I don't know if adding on a homicide should matter in a real justice system. He didn't know she was pregnant. It doesn't matter. She didn't want the fetus. So I don't know and it doesn't really matter. I don't really care. You can do it either way. I could argue either way. I could argue really either way because you could argue he didn't know and she didn't want it or you could argue it doesn't matter. She was pregnant. There was a potential life there and he destroyed it. But I don't think you treated, in any cases, you treated it as a full human being. All right, because it's not. All right, let's see. Debbie, I'm loving these morning news roundup shows. Thank you, Debbie. A great way to stay informed by insightful and rational analysis of current events delivered by someone who shares my values. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And we'll keep going as long as there's support for these. We'll keep going. David Arsenaugh has the right idea, right? If everybody watching the show right now does what David Arsenaugh just did, which is $2 on $2, then we'll get to the goal quickly. We're just, thanks, Noel. Noel says I'm a fan of your book. He's a super rational. He's a super rational. Good morning, Noel. Thank you, Noel. $50 Canadian dollars. That helps a lot. Get us to where we need to get. And so we are, let's see, we're only $29 away from our goal. So hopefully somebody will do $30 and we'll get there. Okay. John says, I've been horrified by comments on social media regarding Zelensky being named man of the usual. U.S. is sending billions to Ukraine instead of helping people here. He's a crook, et cetera. What do you make of this? Well, it's, you know, both the right and the left at extremes are fans of Putin. They like Putin. They like authoritarianism. For the right, Putin represents manhood. He represents a tough guy. He represents, you know, I don't know if you saw this, but Russia just passed a law banning all depictions of gay, of homosexuality and all kinds of other stuff, all manifestations of homosexuality. So they're tightening their anti-gay laws significantly, which the right loves and the right thinks is fantastic. And then the left hates America and hates the West is therefore, you know, friendly towards anybody who stands up to the West and stands up to America. And therefore they support Putin as well. Plus, Putin is, you know, you could argue as a kind of socialist and they love authoritarianism. So both left and right, both people on the left and right love Putin. They therefore hate anybody who's standing in the way. And then the other aspect of it is they hate the U.S. And therefore anybody that is an ally of the U.S., anybody the U.S. allies with is infected by this hatred. So they hate Ukraine. Why? Because it's an ally of the U.S. Because fundamentally they hate the U.S. And that's true of the right and the left. Both are, you know, both right and left are, at the right, at the far right, far left, are anti-U.S., fundamentally anti-everything to do with America and pro some forms of authoritarianism. And therefore pro-Putin. So I don't get excited by it. You know, it's, and by the way, I include on the far right some of these paleo-libertarians who are pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine. They are, they invented America hatred and America bashing, starting with Marie Rothbard. So I despise all those guys. So, yeah, you know, I think Zelinski is fantastic. I think he's a real hero. I think he's the only politician that I know of in the last, I don't know, 20, 30 years, and I might be, you know, maybe you can point out that I've mistaken here who I could consider a hero. There's no other politician out there that I would consider heroic, not one of them. All right, Jennifer, thank you. Really appreciate the support. Let's see. Okay, we've got a bunch of $5 and $10 questions. We're only $25 short of reaching our goal. So it would be, it would be great if somebody stepped in. All right, let's see. Michael says, in pure Japan is what happens when people actually take Yom Chazoni's ideas seriously. Well, not just in pure Japan. I think ultimately Putin's Russia and Oguan's Turkey and, you know, Oban's Hungary. I think when Yom Chazoni's ideas are taken seriously, you get a rise in nationalism across the board, in pure Japan being won. I ultimately think that Yom Chazoni's ideas in terms of nationalism necessitate, in some countries, necessitate a move towards kind of the fascism of the Nazis. All authoritarian regimes who plant the flag of fascism in the name of states, are nationalists in the sense that Yom Chazoni would like to distance himself from, but it's a logical implication of everything he stands for. Even though I think he himself is horrified by that, but it is. You don't get to make your own definitions. How did the Japanese not think they would wipe out for doing what they did? Did they think by the time the U.S. retaliated, its navy and Japanese Empire would be too entrenched and movable? Oh, they thought they were invincible. They thought the gods won their side. They thought they were going to win this. They had basically stomped all over Asia with no opposition. They had gone from victory to victory. They thought America was weak. They thought America was a paper tiger and might actually cut a deal. They were convinced of their own invincibility, just like the Nazis were, just like ultimately the communists were. The bad guys are convinced that they will win and they can win, and nobody can stop them. It's part of being an authoritarian blinds you to reality. That's why you become authoritarian, and it's part of that blindness, that blindness of the blindness to reality, to the damage this is doing to yourself and by implication and the fact that free countries are far more powerful than authoritarian companies. They don't learn that from history. They don't think in those terms, so yeah, they were convinced they were going to win, just like Hitler was convinced he was going to win. To the last minute, I think he was convinced he was going to win somehow. I mean, again, they're mystics. All authoritarian, ultimately, are mystics. Andrew, thank you Andrew, got us $2, $2 away from the goal. Andrew says, I will, I try not to spend all my money this early in the day, but what the heck? I'll skip lunch. Don't skip lunch. Why can't you stand listening to Netanyahu? Well, because he's a liar. He is a manipulative lying politician. One of the best I've ever seen. But, you know, so he says stuff, and it's great stuff, particularly when he's being interviewed in the US or when he's interviewed in English. He says stuff and it's really, really, really good stuff. And I know he doesn't mean a frigging word of it. I know that he'll contradict it tomorrow in the policy that he passes in the government. He'll contradict it tomorrow in what he says in Hebrew. He'll contradict it tomorrow in how he governs. I mean, Netanyahu wrote one of the best books ever written on terrorism and how to deal with terrorists. And as soon as he became Prime Minister, within months, he negated everything he wrote in the book by basically being chummy and making a deal with Yasser Arafat, who in the book he said you can't make deals with. You know, in his interviews he talks about the founding fathers and he's inspired by Madison and he's inspired by this and inspired by that. You can't see that in the way he governs Israel. You can't see that in his complete capitulation to the theocrats in Israel. He's not better. He's worse than the alternative. He's absolutely worse than the alternative. There's no realm in which Netanyahu's better. He's not better on foreign policy. Basically, everybody in Israel agrees on foreign policy. In foreign policy, there is no left in Israel anymore. And he's not better in economics. He's basically run Israel for, I don't know, two decades now, almost 13, 14, 15 years. And he's done no new liberal move from an economic perspective. Others are far more likely to move the country in a free market direction in Netanyahu. He's proven he won't do it. And he's worse than the others in a sense that he's completely put aside every other policy issue because he's not differentiable. You can't differentiate him from his opponents politically. The only major issue in which you can differentiate them is he is willing to give the ultra-orthodox and the ultra-nationalists everything that they want. He is committed to providing the ultra-orthodox religious Jews in the parliament with a commitment that their kids not serve in the Israeli army, even though everybody else's kids serve in the Israeli army, is an exemption based on religion. And he's willing to heavily, heavily subsidize. There is no peace now in Israel. Peace now didn't even make it into the parliament. Peace now, which is merits, got so few votes, they didn't even make it into parliament. There is no left when it comes to foreign affairs in Israel. The left does not exist. There is a center and right. That's it. And Bibi is in the center. He's not even right when it comes to foreign affairs. He's lost two wars to Hamas. He lost the war to Hezbollah. There is zero value here. Zero value. I've said this in past shows. Israelis have figured out that compromising with the Palestinians only leads to more bloodshed. They figured that out and they won't vote for political parties that are radical in the sense that they vote for those parties. Netanyahu is another thing. He subsidizes the ultra-religious so that the men don't have to work. The men study all day. They pray all day. The women work and they get subsidies from the government. So he's basically a welfare theocrat. And it's disgusting what they're doing in Israel right now. It's disgusting the people they're putting in the government. It's disgusting who they're giving power to. It's much more horrific than the alternative power base. Indeed, many of the parties running against Netanyahu and who won't be in his government are people who used to be with Netanyahu in the same political party whose political views on almost everything is the same. But who refuse to completely capitulate to the worst theocrats in Israel today. All right. Let's see. Liam says, where is Alex Epstein's interview with Jordan Peterson? I can't find it. I bet Alex could get him to have you on. Don't be so pessimistic. You know, these bets are meaningless. I don't think Alex could help get me on anybody. They have to want to have me on. And Jordan Peterson knows who I am and people have asked me to have me on and he's clearly decided not to have me on. We'll see. Hopefully that'll change. I don't see. Alex's interview with Jordan Peterson, or Jordan Peterson's interview with Alex, however you want to, has not been released yet. Jordan Peterson will release it in the coming days, weeks. Hopper Campbell says, do your parents and siblings even know how famous you become? Do they not quite understand what you do and how you make a living? Have I become that famous? They get a broad sense that I'm pretty famous, but I don't know that I'm as famous as maybe you think I am. Hopper Campbell also says, didn't Ayn Rand believe FDR knew it? Was going to happen and let it occur just to enter the war? How come all our aircraft carriers were out of the harbor that day? I don't think they were out of the harbor for that reason. But yes, Ayn Rand thought that FDR knew and he welcomed it because he knew that the only way the American people would enter the war is... the only way the American people would enter the war was if America was attacked first. So he basically egged the Japanese to attack us because he wanted to enter the war. Okay, Gayle Canada is a fine tea land vastly underdeveloped. I hope something changes. The precious minerals, chips, tax and energy industries can be developed and traded with the U.S. I hope so. I mean, I don't understand why we don't have a complete 100% free trade zone with Mexico and Canada, not NAFTA. Just all countries committing to lower tariffs to zero. That would be amazing and I think all three countries would prosper dramatically. Frank says, what was the role of oil exports that led up to Pearl Harbor attack? How could this be a colossal and intelligent disaster? Part of the issue was not oil exports. The United States put an embargo on steel on Japan, which I think was the right thing to do. I'm not sure Ein Rand agreed with me, but agrees with me. And as a consequence, the idea was, this is Ein Rand's interpretation, FDR was doing anything to Japan to try to pin them in a corner and try to force them to attack the United States. He wanted them to attack the United States. It was a colossal intelligence failure. Part of it was that people didn't believe the intelligence that was, there was some intelligence that suggested this was happening, but the analysis wasn't there. Again, if you believe FDR wanted this to happen, maybe he suppressed the intelligence. Lee, thank you Lee for 20 pounds. Under UK law, all children must receive a suitable full-time education. My friend argues that without this law, bad parents would not send their kids to school. Thus making the law good, please, can you refute this? I mean, he's right. There was a certain percentage, I think a very, very, very tiny percentage, of parents that would not send their kids to school if you didn't have this law. I think there are all kinds of ways to deal with that. What would the kids do is one question. I don't think anybody would employ them even if you didn't have child labor laws. Children are just not very productive. So I don't think they could work for living. So what would the children do? I think neighbors and other people, communities, would put a lot of pressure on parents to send their kids to school, partially because these kids would become a menace in their community running around uneducated. So I think there are social ways in which we can force them. But the point is that kids belong, not in the ownership sense, but in the sense of responsibility, to their parents. And they get to decide what happens. And as long as they don't physically abuse them, the state has no business. I agree. Some parents, a very, very tiny number of parents, probably wouldn't send their kids to school. Although I think a lot of kids would want to go to school and go to school voluntarily. Kids are not that stupid. We have to accept the fact that freedom means that people are going to do, some people are going to do really, really stupid things. And we have to embrace that. Some people are going to do stupid things. Equal to reality. Thank you for the support. Commit Tija. I should talk. I just call you Bischak. Bischak is easier. Thank you. Catherine. Mendez. Thank you. We passed our goal, so thank you to all of you. Caleb says, have you seen Heather Haying's resignation letter from the University of Austin? Personally, I thought it was very good. No. I need to look for that. That sounds like an important story. So I will look for that. Thank you, Caleb. And M. Puru says, cheers from Denver. Thank you, M. Puru. All right, everybody. Went way too long, much longer than I wanted, I think, because of the super chats. Thanks, everybody. We made our goal. And I will see you all tomorrow morning. Have a great rest of your Wednesday. Don't forget, those of you who'd like to support the show, who don't listen live, you should still support the show. You're still getting value from the show. Value for value. Please consider becoming monthly supporters of the Unbook show at a, you know, $2,500, $250 monthly contribution. That would be fantastic. We really need to get the monthly revenues up. Thanks, guys.