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Feb. 26, 2025 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:26:24

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1109

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	Oh, sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I was just reading this brand new edition of Islander.
	But, in the meantime, welcome to the podcast of The Lotus Eaters, episode 1109. My, how time flies.
	It's the 26th of February, 2025. I'm your host, Connor, joined by Carl and by Josh.
	And today we're going to be discussing America's pervert-occupied government, why Europe's going mad, and Japan's record-breaking migration.
	something very close and painful to my heart.
	Before we do begin, it's a Wednesday, so at three o'clock, if you are a member of Lotus Eats Premium Subscription, and you should because we've got lots of good content behind the paywall, I'll be doing Thompson Talks where I'll be discussing ARK, CPAC, the banality of British values, and an interesting announcement.
	So you go over there and catch that live.
	But unless there's anything else, gents, we'll get into today's stories.
	So Doge is currently conducting a financial revolution in the US, trying to cut government waste and attempt to balance the US's bloated budget.
	but predominantly Undo the diversity, equity, and inclusion infiltration in all of America's institutions.
	And I would humbly suggest that if they look over to the intelligence departments, they might have missed a few eligible candidates for sacking, as recent leaks by Chris Rufo over at City Journal have pointed out.
	Before we get into America's pervert occupied government, go over and consume something nourishing.
	Issue number three of Islander is out.
	It includes excellent essays from Carl.
	Myself, I'm in this one.
	Rory has a fantastic short story at the back.
	It's been lovingly edited, beautifully illustrated, and this time we've printed them in advance to avoid issues of the distributor that I know lots of people had last time.
	It wasn't our fault.
	Everything's in decline at the moment.
	So, you should get your copy and regular email updates.
	It's up there for $14.99 over at shop.lotuses.com.
	Please do enjoy.
	Now, what I'm referring to in terms of must revolution...
	He sent an email to pretty much every federal employee in the government, absolute millions of them.
	The email, which I've read from friends that work in the State Department, reads, What did you do last week?
	Please reply to this email with approximately five bullet points of what you accomplished last week and CC your manager.
	Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments.
	Deadline is Monday at 11.59 EST. He sent the exact same email to former CEO and employees at Twitter as well before firing back.
	80% of the staff, and for the most part, Twitter works quite nicely.
	Now, a bit of a bot problem, but they should get on that.
	A third of employees, according to Politico, have already complied and responded.
	Now, Musk obviously doesn't have the power himself to fire loads of federal employees, but the purpose of this is to register how many of them are actually active and checking their email.
	Because then Trump can say, okay, if you guys didn't comply with this, either your...
	Doing make-work jobs, you're working from home, you're not actually checking your emails and you're just a parasite on the taxpayer, or you're engaging in what they call, euphemistically, strategic non-compliance.
	Basically, you're quiet quitting or gumming up the works and trying to frustrate Trump's agenda as a member of the permanent unelected bureaucracy.
	And so Trump's given them a second chance to comply, and some of the departments, like Health and Human Services, Transportation, few others, have gone, oh okay, you serious about this one?
	We better respond to this, otherwise you're all going to get sacked.
	I've seen a few things about this, and lots of media outlets have been really upset at this demand, as if it's somehow an untoward thing to do.
	But this is pretty standard in lots and lots of different industries.
	And if you can't come up with five bullet points to justify your existence, then you're really, really not pulling your weight, are you?
	And I don't know why they're making such a fuss about this, because it's actually...
	Being done with quite a degree of caution, if you know what I mean.
	They're not necessarily being gung-ho about it, and in fact, I would have liked to have seen just, you know, you're out, you're fired, you're fired, you, you, and then, you know, just pointing over the back, someone just clearing loads of them out.
	So they're being quite methodical and fair, which...
	Elon's got experience of this.
	He's like, wow, I will literally find out what people actually do, and those people who seem to be full of S are just gone.
	I mean, the fact that...
	Three million people, at least, from what they're giving here.
	I don't know what the American bureaucracy is.
	Ours is half a million, more than.
	If America isn't on three million, my God, and only a million of them are replied.
	I mean, two million of them are literally out to lunch.
	Obviously don't turn up to the office, obviously don't do any goddamn work.
	Get rid of them!
	It's not even controversial.
	It's not a difficult thing to do.
	If you turned to me, Carl, as my boss, and said, Josh, name five things you do in a day, I'd be like, I could do that right now.
	Yeah, of course.
	Wine.
	Ag.
	That's just a matter of passion.
	That's a fair point.
	Josh is the office Karen, he enforces standards, etc.
	But point being, yes, I agree with you, but the purpose of the system is what it does.
	And if the system...
	Increasingly hires a number of do-nothings on diversity characteristics, then it's not about public sector productivity.
	It's a left-wing patronage scheme.
	And that's why they're upset.
	Yes.
	And we've identified a few of those people in this segment.
	And the purpose of this segment is actually to say, hey guys...
	You missed a few.
	So, this caused complete ire among all of the associated NGOs from the patronage network.
	Fox News have profiled a few of them.
	I won't go into all the various groups here.
	They've said that some are funded by Soros.
	It's basically like a network of race communists who want to abolish ICE, sympathize with Hamas.
	They're all the same people.
	They gave loads of money to former Democrat congresspeople like Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush, all the busted flushes.
	But what's more interesting is not...
	These NGOs that are attached like barnacles to the aircraft carrier of the US state.
	It's the permanent bureaucrats inside who have yet to be fired.
	Now, something else that's contested, and I know people will say, well, hang on a minute, you know, Doge hasn't quite done what it said it's done.
	Because it hasn't touched a lot of the entitlements and it's probably going to need to do that to balance the deficit.
	Wall Street Journal have done a breakdown of exactly how much Doge has saved compared to how much it has said it has saved.
	And their contention is that Doge is claiming to have cut $55 billion on its website.
	Now, USAID is only $1.2 billion there and obviously that's under Marco Rubio's jurisdiction.
	It might get reactivated, especially selectively, but I think the people in Rubio's team are keen for that not to happen, so fingers crossed.
	The Wall Street Journal analysis projects the actual savings of Doge is closer to 2.6 billion over the next year if spending levels remain constant and about 2% of the funds would have gone to contracts related to DEI.
	Now this means still that millions and billions are being wasted on DEI, that that snips.
	Not nearly as much as we were hoping for.
	Unfortunately not.
	So they're going to have to do a lot more of Curtis Yarvin's policy of rage, which is retire all government employees in order to make sufficient cuts to try and...
	Deliver public sector accountability and productivity.
	You can start at the Federal Reserve if you want.
	But one thing I wanted to say was that Dodge actually do have their work cut out to a certain degree because for some government departments they might not necessarily spend as much money as other ones, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the amount of money saved is proportionate to the amount of work you need to put in.
	And so I understand why they maybe not hit the ground running as quickly as some people would like.
	But so far, I think they've actually done quite a good job considering the amount of time they've actually been doing it.
	Any amount of reduction is good.
	Exactly.
	There are two things here.
	The direct savings of Doge aren't going to be the entire savings of the Trump administration.
	So, if the Trump administration does away with the Department for Education, that can't be laid at the feet of Doge.
	There's a lot of money saved.
	Or, for example...
	A department regulating small businesses is probably going to cost the economy a lot of money, but they're probably not spending as much on personnel as HHS. So even if they cut large amounts of HHS, it might translate to fewer actual savings than just doing away with all those regulations and unleashing the economy.
	So there's a bit of fudging the numbers here.
	Anyway, even though, you know, Doge might not be cutting as much as we want or as much as they're stating, it's still a net good.
	It's still a plank in the Trojan horse of revolution that is...
	Bursting through the gates of the deep state, and that's fantastic.
	One example they use here of why they haven't saved as much, which just sounds like putting up a Mengele memorial in Dachau to me, but more than a quarter of the contracts listed by Doge were already paid, including $168,000 for terminating a contract with HHS for an Anthony Fauci museum exhibit that had already been fully installed.
	That's what a US taxpayer wants to hear, isn't it?
	Like...
	It's also worth pointing out that just the optics for Trump of reining in all of this stuff is wonderful, isn't it?
	I think actually when it comes to the midterms in 26, he's going to do relatively well if the US taxpayers hearing, look at all the things we're stopping the government spending your money on.
	Basically, when it comes to the next tax year...
	If the average taxpayer in the US finds they're not paying as much, that's when it's going to matter.
	As long as they've got inflation under control, because the Fed is doing some shaky and rogue things of interest rates.
	See what happens to Liz Truss for a warning.
	But there you go.
	Hopefully midterms still serve Trump well.
	Now, if Doge hasn't made as many cuts as we would like, I would suggest that Musk and Trump's other appointees have an abundance of candidates to...
	Retire forcefully.
	And we go over to the National Security Agency, the NSA, because Chris Ruffo over at City Journal has got hold of some leaked transcripts of an internal chat room with NSA employees.
	And I'm just going to read a little from the report before we look at some of the...
	Disturbing?
	Screenshots?
	So, City Journal have cultivated sources within the NSA, one current employee and one former employee, who provided chat logs from the NSA's Interlink messaging program.
	Makes you think of Blade Runner 2049. According to NSA press official, all NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission-related material on Interlink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.
	So, if you go off-topic and talk about non-work things, you could get sacked.
	Nonetheless, these logs, dating back to two years under the Biden administration, feature word-ranging discussions of sex, kink, polyamory and castration.
	It's worth mentioning here that the NSA, of course, are responsible for accessing American people's data directly.
	So these people are responsible for your privacy, and when you hear what they're talking about behind closed doors, it raises a lot of questions about how ethical they've been.
	About these sorts of things, because I would imagine that with this kind of unchecked government power, a lot of untoward things have happened.
	It raises the issue, who watches the Watchers?
	And apparently nobody was watching the Watchers.
	Well, they were all watching each other, chagging each other's mouth.
	Well, yeah, it seems to be something like Reddit-occupied government, right?
	Yeah, pretty much.
	Not inaccurate, actually.
	Also, what you're referencing is the Patriot Act, of course, and that means that they had a backdoor, so to speak, to all of your devices.
	So they would be able to access your iCloud, your chat logs, and so if these kinds of degenerates, politically motivated degenerates, had access to all your data, kind of worrying.
	But there you go.
	I'm sure Tulsi Gabbard, who's now got this under her jurisdiction, will be investigating all of this.
	So Rufo writes.
	Very good.
	She's on it.
	According to our sources, sex chats were legitimised as part of the NSA's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
	What an own girl.
	We've got to allow them to be complete pervs.
	Why?
	Because otherwise we're not woke.
	But this is how they square this, right?
	All NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission-related material will result in disciplinary action.
	The purpose of this is what it does.
	Reddit is non-missionary.
	So gay sex is the mission-specific material of the American State Department.
	At least under the Biden administration.
	I could have told you that already.
	Wasn't there the video that came out of the Senate?
	Yeah, that was a Senate aide.
	Yeah, well there we go.
	It's just a normal part of the culture.
	Yeah.
	Fair point.
	So activists within the agency used LGBTQ plus employee resource groups to turn kinks and pathologies into official work duties.
	According to the current NSA employee, these groups...
	It's so classic.
	Like, if this was like, I don't know, the office or something, you know?
	It would seem like a ridiculous brass ice kit.
	That's the thing.
	It's just so stupid.
	Walk into a meeting room and it would just be an orgy and they're like, oh, we're having a team building meeting.
	Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
	It's the pride equivalent of putting the stapler in a thingy of jelly.
	At least that's less damaging.
	Yeah, point being.
	So apparently, according to the current employee, these employees spent all day recruiting activists and holding meetings with titles such as privilege, ally awareness, pride, and transgender community inclusion.
	And they did so with the full support of NSA leadership, which declared DEI was, quote, not only mission critical, but mission imperative.
	Yeah.
	The active source at the NSA claimed to have witnessed hundreds of sexually provocative discussions, which, he added, occurred mostly on taxpayer time.
	The former NSA source, who is familiar with the chat, recalled being disgusted, and if you have children listening...
	Put smear phones in for the rest of this.
	Disgusted by a particularly shocking thread discussing weekend gangbangs.
	How is this keeping America safe?
	Keeping America safe?
	Yeah, exactly, yeah.
	Isn't this all, you know, isn't the entire modus operandi of the NSA to detect terror attacks?
	Tax, right?
	Yeah, but you forget the intelligence agencies have been reclassifying terrorists as traditionalist Catholics and saying the rosary is a hate symbol, meanwhile completely overlooking Islamist terrorism and all the transgender shooters we've had recently.
	Looking in all the wrong places.
	Yeah, so we're going to look in some horrible places because we're going to look at some of the transcripts that Chris Russo has so generously posted to X. Thank you very much for this.
	Yes, there's a really nice thread here.
	So the first one is...
	There we go.
	The first one...
	Is about male to female transition.
	So here's one employee.
	I mean, honestly, the rest is nice too.
	Wearing panties without worrying about anything showing, because he's had snip.
	Seeing my reflection in the mirror, wearing leggings, but the pee thing is something I never thought of.
	It's really nice.
	Mine, referring to his neo-vagina, is everything.
	I found that I like being penetrated.
	Never liked it before gender reassignment surgery, but the rest is just as important as well.
	I can say this was one...
	Thank God the terrorists didn't win.
	Yeah, one million percent worth it.
	Despite having to fly to Thailand, pay out of pocket in the recovery, I would not change anything if I had to do it...
	Over, again, of course, these are the people I trust to keep America safe.
	You told me that this was a plant by Al-Qaeda to justify them over the NSA. I might believe it.
	Can you imagine sending this back to George W. Bush?
	George Washington?
	Well, not anyone.
	He'd be like, I'm becoming king.
	No, we need the Patriots Act.
	We need the NSA to keep us safe from the terrorists.
	Here's some leaks from 20 years in the future.
	He'd be like, what is this?
	What am I looking at?
	Hey, are you implying that NSA agents discussing how he can wear leggings and bikini without a gaff under it is not mission critical, Carl?
	What a terrible time to have eyes and ears.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Oh, don't worry, it just keeps getting worse.
	So, here's another one.
	They say that we want hermaphrodite babies in order to advance transgender ideology.
	An intersex birth would be a great opportunity to raise a kid as non-binary and let them choose later.
	It's such a caricature of woke.
	It's like...
	You just want Ash Sarkar to have to weigh in on this.
	Did it go too far, Ash?
	Didn't he say anything about this stuff?
	Credit to these people for being able to hold down a full-time job whilst in a padded room.
	Yeah, they're probably chewing on the walls of the cell.
	There's a bunch more in this thread as well.
	There's one trans employee discussing hair removal, particularly getting my butthole zapped by a laser.
	Hello and Lotus Eaters out of context.
	Thanks for that.
	And saying...
	And saying that they're talking about their installed plastic breasts with language like booba, deaf happy so far with how HRT has given me to booba.
	Yeah, it's just Reddit.
	Just pure Reddit.
	I thought that was...
	Goddammit.
	BBC Pigeon for a second.
	I'm sure it's not a form of patois.
	Yeah, there's discussions about laser hair removal.
	Medical science is going to give me tits one way or another.
	So it's just fetishists.
	That's more true than they realise, but it's just in their food.
	EGP fetishists.
	Always was.
	It's literally that meme of the astronaut holding a gun to your back.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	It was always about being a porn addict.
	Just Posey Parker, totally vindicated by this.
	I want her appointed head of the Home Office.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	One NSA official claims to use it, its pronouns.
	Oh, God.
	Operative Pennywise.
	I love the argument.
	They're always dehumanizing us.
	Yes, I'm an it.
	Oh, okay.
	Yeah.
	Hi, it, its user here.
	While I understand we can make some people uncomfortable, keep in mind that the dehumanizing aspect either...
	There we go!
	There we go!
	They literally used the word dehumanizing.
	I haven't even seen this.
	But literally, I'm going to talk about dehumanizing, but I'm actually going to describe myself as an it, an object.
	Let's hear them out.
	Just preposterous.
	Yeah.
	Oh, we're talking about something name.
	Its pronouns are it and its.
	And if they look weirded out further, clarify that those are the pronouns it chose.
	When we call a ship a she, when you use female pronouns to refer to a ship, we are humanising the ship.
	The pronouns humanise the thing.
	It is literally what you've stepped in on the street.
	It's like, oh, look at it.
	People want to demonise themselves, Carl.
	Quite literally demonize.
	Literally demonizing themselves.
	They're also discussing the intimate details of their polycules.
	A polycule is a polyamorous group.
	Story time, ladies and gentlemen.
	But not everyone is dating everyone else.
	There's actually a really good infograph of it on the Rain webcomic.
	It's just Reddit.
	It's just Tumblr Reddit.
	So mine looks like a triple bond with P2, double bonds with P3, and P4, who have a triple bond between each other.
	As long as they're putting up a bridge.
	It sounds like they're making loads of comparisons to...
	Chemistry here.
	If you've got to have, like, I think they're on something chemistry.
	This was only in 2024 as well.
	It's not like these are historic chats.
	Yep, welcome to the Biden administration.
	Jesus Christ.
	And you wonder why America's been in terminal decline.
	Think of the most disgusting, ugliest, poly, couple, whatever they call them, polycule.
	That's what's running the NSA. Oh yeah.
	So all those people, sack.
	They also say that she defended Assad's killing of his own people, so I assume they've read a Barry Weiss column or something like that.
	Then there's a Z-they who says that they should be working to block RFK's confirmation as department for HHS secretary.
	Should they?
	Is that in the NSA's purview as an institution?
	No, but do you remember when the FBI agents that were having an illicit affair said that we're going to ensure that Trump doesn't get elected or stay president?
	I don't think they want to stay within their mission brief.
	That's funny, isn't it?
	Yeah, it seems that they're insistent.
	There's one more as well, which I found really weird.
	NSA, DIA, and Navy intel officers were debating whether or not Chaya Rychik, Libs of TikTok, and Ben Shapiro should remain remembers of the tribe.
	Oh.
	They said we should expel them from the tribe, direct quote, because they spew hate speech.
	So they're not Jewish anymore.
	Yeah.
	So the American government is paying...
	It's good news to Ben Shapiro.
	Yeah.
	The American government is paying your yarmulke card.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Hand it over, Ben.
	The American government is currently paying trans-Jewish activists to debate who is and isn't Jewish on taxpayer time.
	Again, there's loads of these people that can be sacked.
	I don't normally watch Ben Shapiro's show, but I might tune in for this one.
	It was good.
	He surely replied to this.
	He spoke to Chris Rufo about it.
	I'm going to have to watch that.
	That's actually going to be funny.
	There's also a racial patronage scheme going on, because of course it wouldn't be gay race communism without race communism.
	So NBC have written this piece weeping, but it's very mask off.
	So remember when you said, well why wouldn't you just fire these people?
	It's almost like some kind of racial patronage scheme.
	They're like, yes!
	How else would black people enter the middle class if it weren't for massive redistribution?
	So they write, She's a tax collector.
	Remember this, she collects your taxes.
	They're literally the lowest of the low in the Bible for a reason.
	Also, they're presenting government jobs like they're a work program.
	Yes, they are.
	And that's what the Soviets basically did.
	Yes.
	And FDR. But I repeat myself.
	Yeah, same thing.
	Yeah, exactly.
	For decades, the federal government provided both reliable jobs and guardrails to offset systemic racial bias in hiring and promotions.
	It's so naked.
	It's so mask off.
	The American government is just one giant affirmative action plan, basically.
	Offering an alternative for capital B black workers who might be overlooked or ignored in the private sector.
	Right, so when they have to compete in the market...
	They don't get a job.
	I tell you, it did crack me up when AA just packed his octopus diagram in.
	He came up with this really elaborate theory of how gay race communism spread everywhere, and literally the day all of this started coming out, I was like, no, okay, that was all wrong.
	It was just the US government.
	It was just the US government!
	And it so is!
	Apparently, the US government played a crucial role in helping black workers like Vadim join the middle class and thrive.
	But vast cuts by the Trump administration, on behalf of taxpayers, led by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, God bless boys, are threatening to close down that once dependable path to financial stability.
	Oh, boo-hoo, you're gonna have to get a real job.
	Yeah.
	The government, which has about 3 million employees, is the largest employer in the country.
	That statement alone should be staggering.
	I mean, that's more than the Chinese army.
	Um, yeah.
	Chinese army's 2.5 million.
	We actually have more per capita civil service than the Chinese do.
	Oh, I know, but we're just a smaller country.
	Yeah.
	The NHS has got something like 1.3 million, whereas the Chinese army's 2.7.
	I looked it up the other day.
	Yeah, the NHS is more than McDonald's, isn't it?
	Oh, it's crazy.
	Yep.
	Great.
	It's absolutely mental.
	Another target for UK Doge, if you're listening.
	Many of the workers fired were either for new hires or told they were let go for subpar performance.
	This is the 75,000 that they've already sacked.
	Quote, Do you want to see an interview with one of them?
	Go on then.
	You couldn't make this up, right?
	This is a Houston black IRS employee who tells his sob story about how he has now been deprived of a ladder to the American middle class.
	...with Michelle Choi to share how he's feeling and his message to those in power.
	Nothing there.
	Nope.
	Nothing there.
	As he waits for an official termination letter to arrive at his front door, Jason Charles shared the toll the last 48 hours has taken on him.
	I can't believe this is happening, and it happened so fast.
	Like I said, I was just in training.
	I was just in training.
	I waited four months to go to training.
	Just to be fired.
	He's one of 6,000-plus federal employees who work for the Internal Revenue Service fired this week as part of mass layoffs happening under the Trump administration.
	The majority of those workers, like Charles, were probationary workers employed for less than a year.
	Charles told us more than two dozen employees were laid off from his office here off Gessner.
	He says it took over a year to get his dream job as a tax-exempt officer dealing with nonprofit organizations and compliance.
	I wanted to serve the people.
	And despite recent news...
	Taking that money.
	How are you feeling?
	Numb, confused, sad, angry, lost.
	When did you get the official notice?
	Or was there an official notice?
	We never got official notice.
	I got word from managers that had to be in the office yesterday.
	We waited there all day until maybe 12, 1 o'clock.
	Then it was kind of like a firing range.
	They lined us up, took our equipment, and sent us home.
	His pride and passion taken away.
	Excited.
	I was so excited to learn the job.
	I was telling my manager not to be the best.
	Yeah, I was going to say, he's not getting an Oscar for this.
	It's not like I have...
	I have no sense of it.
	I knew this was coming!
	I knew it.
	How would you feel if you did work for the IRS?
	get people to hear what happened.
	According to a statement sent to KHOU-11, Yeah, so that's the kind of people they've sacked.
	It's hard to feel sorry for them.
	So one final suggestion before we wrap up.
	I helped Ian Hirsi Ali with this piece basically on the Department of Justice's Community Relations Service, which anytime there's like a terrorist attack or something, they send out a community leader.
	Trans or Muslims or black.
	Oh yeah.
	To go and represent this.
	And this is actually baked into law by Title X of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009. So if Trump actually just repealed all those in executive order, you could immediately defund the entire racial grift industrial complex and all of these activist groups that the government is currently mandated to fund.
	So Tulsi, get on the NSA. Elon, keep going on the IRS. And Trump, get rid of the Civil Rights Act.
	We can ensure that American taxpayers aren't lining the pockets of these race communists.
	Excellent.
	Right, Samson, just a quick thing.
	The Rumble Rants thing seems to have crashed.
	Right, okay.
	Yeah, no problem.
	We'll just carry on.
	I'll do them there.
	So, I would like to talk about why Europe appears to be going completely mad over Ukraine.
	Because I don't know whether anyone's noticed, but Keir Starmer looks like he's in the Führer bunker.
	Like the Russians are literally coming over the hills and are about to storm Berlin.
	And actually nothing like that's happening.
	Actually, nothing really has changed.
	At all, actually.
	There's been no particular significant movement or action.
	What has happened is people have spoken.
	There's been talking.
	And it's making them all freak out.
	And I'm going to explain why they're all freaking out.
	Because a lot of people seem to...
	Well, a lot of people are just looking at the way that all of Europe is responding to the Trump administration, and they don't understand.
	Why these things are going as they are.
	And so I'm going to explain it.
	And one of the things you should do is go and get the latest copy of Islander because this is actually kind of core to the analysis.
	There's a lot of essays in there that will explain the different forms of political impulse that underpin everything that we do.
	And the Europeans have one, and the Americans and actually the Russians have another.
	And that's why we've arrived at the point that we've arrived at.
	So just to give a quick explainer from full fact here, which is nice...
	The last time there were any sort of threat of a peace deal in Ukraine, just to remember, all of Europe has been 100% on board with total war against Russia in Ukraine.
	Certainly the states have, not necessarily.
	The citizens themselves.
	Yeah, sorry, the governments of Europe.
	I should make that clear.
	I'm talking on a state level here.
	I'm not talking on a citizenry level because what choice do we have in all this?
	And there was no threat of peace in Ukraine.
	No threat of peace?
	Yeah, no, that's literally what happened in 2022 when Boris went over and scuppered it.
	You know what's really threatening?
	Peace.
	Yeah, no, it is.
	I'll explain why they view peace as threatening as well, actually.
	So Boris went and interceded there.
	And so this changed on February the 12th when Trump got in and was like, look, Vlad, we need to sort this out.
	Can't have people dying forever.
	And so they had a 90-minute call where they agreed that they've both got shared interests in making peace come about.
	And nobody has been more threatened by that than the European Union and Keir Starmer.
	So this has been something that's very much upset them.
	Rubio and Lavrov went to Riyadh on the 18th of February to have a preliminary talk about these things.
	Zelensky is not happy about this because he wasn't involved.
	Then Trump started attacking Zelensky, frankly, in ways I thought were just unfair.
	Zelensky isn't a dictator.
	There's a reason for it, of course, because the Biden administration never once called Vladimir Putin during the entire thing.
	So the strategic play, whether you like it or not, is that Trump thinks he can butter up...
	Vladimir Putin said that he's going to make him more likely to come to the negotiating table and make concessions, whereas he already recognises that Europe has financially and morally doubled down on Zelensky at every available opportunity, so he's trying to take a couple of cards away from Zelensky, give them to himself, and make it look like Vladimir Putin has more to do.
	Yes, but the primary thing is he's essentially bullying Zelensky.
	He's basically saying, no, you are going to be under my thumb, you are in that place, shut up.
	Or I will literally bully you on Twitter.
	Other than lunch money, it's minerals though, isn't it?
	It is, yeah.
	And Zelensky has capitulated to Trump's demands on this.
	But that's kind of ancillary to what's happening here.
	But anyway, so yeah, Pete Hegseth, US Defence Secretary, said, look, you're not getting your 2014 borders back.
	Russia is going to take the Russian-occupied and Russian population of Ukraine over to Russia.
	And this is something that is just going to be the way it is.
	Because...
	There is an argument from the Russian side that, hang on a second, promises were made to us, and so this is why Trump said that Ukraine provoked the war.
	It's a controversial thing, but there is an argument to it, and I'm not saying I necessarily endorse it, and I would say I don't support an invasion or something like that, but this isn't about what ought to be.
	This is about what really is.
	And so they...
	It points out that in 2007, basically, the conversation between Georgia and Ukraine entering NATO was essentially put on the table and began percolating through the institutions.
	And of course, Russia invaded Georgia in...
	Was it 2022?
	Where did Russia invade Georgia?
	I'll look it up.
	And so you can see this is a part of a long-standing pattern of what Russia would say is defensive actions against the expansion of NATO, right?
	Okay.
	Fair enough.
	Apparently 2008. 2008?
	Crimea was 2014, wasn't it?
	Yeah.
	So it was Georgia 2000. I thought it was...
	For some reason, I feel that it was much more recent than that.
	It's just the way time's going.
	Yeah, apparently, yeah.
	Yeah, but the point is, since this point, you can see that the Russians have been making, from their perspective, what are defensive moves to secure areas from becoming part of NATO, right?
	Because in 2007, this was all floated and started going into the system, but nothing has actually happened, right?
	And Hegseth on the 12th of February said that, look, the US doesn't believe NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.
	Whereas, of course, Zelensky is actively asking for that, and of course, all of the European leaders are like, oh yeah, we definitely want Ukraine in.
	Well, Kamala Harris, right before the invasion happened, promised it.
	And this has been something that Putin has been guaranteed by various American administrations would not happen because he views it as NATO being too close to his own borders, which, again, you don't have to like Russia or agree with him to understand why he would feel that way in his position, right?
	So, anyway.
	When it comes to the negotiations, it does seem that the Russians have won the war, which isn't terribly surprising, given that Ukraine's like a quarter of the size of Russia, and Putin had clearly been preparing his economy to deal with this.
	And so when America starts putting sanctions on Russia, actually it just leads to inflation over here, because Russia produces huge amounts of raw materials, huge amounts of fertilizer, huge amounts of food.
	Toss on goods actually went down in Russia, didn't they?
	Yes.
	It became cheaper.
	Yeah.
	And so everyone was well aware that Putin had basically judo-flipped the West, using our own reliance on their...
	I mean, look at Germany's energy problems and things like this, right?
	So Putin knew that this was coming, and he had prepared for it.
	We were not prepared for it, and the sanctions didn't work, right?
	And so Trump has been like, okay, yeah, fair enough.
	They've won this war.
	Let's just come to the table and talk about it.
	They're taking lots of territory.
	They hold all the cards.
	Now, this made Keir Starmer freak out, right?
	Absolutely freak out.
	And you probably saw him delivering this speech like a hostage negotiation.
	Like, someone was like, Keir, you have to read this on camera now.
	No time to prepare.
	Read these things now, right?
	And so we'll go through.
	It was embarrassing, right?
	There's a kind of, like...
	Just a domino effect, whether it's like catastrophe after catastrophe after catastrophe.
	And so, we'll go through some of these, because it's just remarkable, right?
	So, he says to Ukraine, okay, the UK is with you.
	Today and every day.
	From His Majesty the King, to the NHS workers volunteering hospitals in Ukraine, to the communities that took Ukrainian refugees to their heart, that's why I signed a 100-year partnership with Zelensky last month.
	Because we believe in Ukraine's fight today, the country's incredible potential to thrive in the years to come.
	I don't care about Ukraine at all.
	But they view it as part of their kind of imperium, right?
	Ukraine was due to become another part of the European Union, and we'll get into that in a bit more.
	But notice how the country's incredible potential to thrive.
	Part of this can be chalked up to virtue signaling.
	I believe that they genuinely believe it.
	I believe they think this.
	But of course, when Starmer says, I'm going to station 30,000 troops in Ukraine, he's not going to do it.
	He knows that he can make these commitments while actually we're under the thumb of the global American empire.
	And until recently, the Americans have supported progressive expansionism.
	So now, rather than 30,000 British troops being stationed there, or NATO troops, Trump will selectively station NATO troops to protect his mineral reserves.
	Rather than just protect Ukraine and its borders.
	To be fair, that's probably what they would have always done anyway.
	It would have, I think, been largely symbolic.
	But it would be scaled down.
	And also Trump would then be able to say, I've kept my promise not to station any more American servicemen overseas, while also using the EU and NATO as a glorified security force.
	But the point is, he just views Ukraine as an economic zone.
	Which is not surprising, considering Keir Starmer is a harsh materialist.
	But he says...
	Russia does not hold all the cards in this war because the Ukrainians have the courage to defend their country.
	But there are far fewer Ukrainians left to defend their country.
	You have to accept at some point that you run out of manpower, you ghoul.
	And he says, because Russia's economy is in trouble.
	No, Russia's economy doesn't seem to be in trouble.
	And because they...
	Self-sufficient, aren't they, as far as I'm aware.
	Yeah, because we made them be self-sufficient.
	We've also driven them into the arms of BRICS, and the entire purpose of Trump's resource grab is to ensure that, one, America becomes a proper economic challenge to BRICS in terms of raw materials, but two, that it can try and pry Russia back away from allying with BRICS. And he says, because they've lost the best of their land forces and their Black Sea Fleet in this pointless invasion.
	I've seen various estimates.
	Somewhere between 160,000 to 500,000 men.
	I mean, that's a lot of men, but it's Russia.
	Russia's way of war has always been attritional.
	They don't care.
	Also, their equipment was cheaper to produce than the stuff supplied to the Ukrainians by the Brits, Europe, and America.
	And they have now a full wartime economy.
	Roaring on for three years.
	And also their equipment is uniform, which makes things a lot easier when you're a military.
	If it's coming from all of the European countries and America, it's more difficult to train troops to use that stuff.
	So Kirsten obviously appears to basically be delusional at this point.
	I mean...
	It just seems to be wishful thinking.
	I want it to be that Russia's economy is failing and all of their men are dead and their equipment is all broken and they've got no fleet.
	No, I don't think that's true, Keir.
	And so he says, look, so what we're going to do is step up our military support to Ukraine.
	We're going to provide another four and a half billion in military aid.
	Right, so Keir Starmer intends for the war to continue.
	That's what he's saying.
	And same with the EU. They think the war is going to continue.
	We're going to train even more Ukrainian troops and help them mobilise even further.
	So, for Keir Starmer, there is no end to this that isn't a total Russian withdrawal from everything, right?
	He will sacrifice every man, woman and child in Ukraine if it means Vladimir Putin loses a foot of ground that he has taken, which is mad.
	Until you understand what he thinks he's fighting for, right?
	Secondly, he's going to keep up the economic pressure.
	He's going to make a series of...
	Why is the word not onto my tongue?
	I literally just used it.
	Sanctions.
	To force Putin to make concessions, which I think he's going to do that.
	And then he's going to bring the collective strength to the peace effort.
	It's like, okay, what does that mean?
	This is all nonsense.
	You are...
	Totally delusional.
	And you think that this is going to be the case.
	And he says, quote, Can Russia take over all of Europe?
	No.
	After a long, drawn-out war with Ukraine?
	I don't think so.
	I mean, Russia couldn't even take all of Ukraine.
	Yeah.
	No, that's not going to happen.
	And also, the border's going to be militarised and people are going to expect another potential incursion, right?
	Well, I mean, they're going to be prepared for one, but it's not going to happen.
	Russia, like, it's not going to...
	Like, Keir Starmer is acting, and he says in other places, like, he thinks Britain will be directly under threat from Russia, and it's like, that's not going to happen, Keir.
	There's also, there's kind of a whiplash that we get, which is inducing, I think, our collective apathy here, which is that Keir Starmer is attempting to sound Churchillian.
	I mean...
	Boris Johnson explicitly tried to fashion himself as Churchill, which is why the peace deal was scoffered.
	And so we're locked in this idea that it is permanently 1938 and that anything other than militarising Ukraine until the heat death of the universe is considered appeasement.
	But the problem is they've got this attitude of Churchillian foreign policy abroad and then appeasement to every single tribal minority they import into our country at home.
	So they're literally Chamberlain at home, Churchill abroad.
	And so why should we care about being Chamberlain...
	Why should we care about being Churchill abroad if you're currently destroying my home at home?
	Hence the sort of apathy of us lot around here.
	But it's also too late for appeasement when you're three years into the war.
	Appeasement happens before the war, idiots.
	But anyway, moving on.
	So obviously Keir Starmer is convinced that this means...
	We're going to go to war with Russia, and so he's willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine, as if the Russians are worried about the British military, whether it's like 72,000 men.
	They do have a good military, but we're not necessarily...
	It would be a peacekeeping thing, so we're not going to be in the front lines, as I understand it anyway.
	No, no, I'm not saying the British military isn't good.
	What I'm saying is it's tiny, right?
	It is absolutely tiny.
	Like, Britain's got like...
	Something like two or three times the population we had when we had a world empire, and now we have half the manpower in our army, right?
	We've got the lowest reserve since the Nepodionic War.
	Yeah, exactly.
	We are not a fearsome military power, and so imagine Vladimir Putin going, oh, Britain's going to deploy, oh yeah, what, 30,000 men?
	Piss off, you know.
	Russia's got 600,000 men in Ukraine at the moment, right?
	He can get away with saying this because it's performative, because basically we're just acting like the Americans do.
	It's not just performative, because if you watch him speaking...
	He is speaking through conviction.
	I saw him in question time yesterday.
	The Labour frontbench looked like they were on the verge of having to go towards Hitler.
	They looked deathly.
	This to them is deeply serious and it's representative of the end of a world order and it frightens them and they are genuinely thinking that it might happen to be 1938 again and actually they're going to go to war with Putla over there, right?
	Even though...
	It's to work on his moustache.
	A normal person who's not invested in either side would say, okay, Putin's war goals are fairly realistic and he seems to have achieved them.
	Our war goals are mental, and we will never achieve them, and yet our guys are doubling down and will fight forever until every single Ukrainian has been wiped from the map.
	I'm very cynical about this, though.
	I think everyone in any position of power knows that it's all rhetoric, and it's not actually real.
	I don't know, because you can see the tension in Starmer's face when he's talking about this.
	Unlike the EU guys.
	There's a reason when Vance went to the EU, one of them started crying.
	This is emotionally real to these people, and they really believe in what they're saying, and I'll explain why in a second.
	We had a conversation with one person whose position we can't disclose.
	This was last year.
	And he said, never underestimate the level to which boomers in either the US State Department or the UK Foreign Office and that were...
	Eager to get their go against the Soviet Union.
	Like, some of the people were actually stationed at the Berlin Wall and never got to trade shots with the Russians, and so they now see this as their chance.
	It's like, Russia as an entity, even though it's completely different, haunts the boomer mind.
	It totally does.
	And so therefore, that's driving our foreign policy.
	Why does every problem in the world stem to the boomer's unrealistic view of the world?
	As Napoleon said, when revolution comes, never trust a man below the age of 40. Over the age of 40, rather.
	Yeah, that's true.
	But anyway, so...
	Keir Starmer today published this in the mail.
	Putin's aggression threatens us at home.
	He's arguing in this that literally Russians are going to rock up with soldiers on British shores and they will take us over.
	It's like, that's not going to happen.
	This is not going to happen.
	You sound delusional, and yet this is the Prime Minister's forward-facing position.
	Totally unbothered by Islamic subversion currently happening.
	No, no, they don't care about any of that, right?
	Because that's part of the plan.
	That's all part of the plan.
	That's normal for what we are.
	It's not normal that Putin is able to do what he's doing.
	Some things are planned for and regulated, and other things are not.
	And that's the thing that he's so bothered about.
	And so the last thing he wants is an unregulated world, and that's what Putin is threatening.
	Macron has ruled it out, but he's also in other places said, yes, I will.
	Schultz, before he got...
	I was saying, you know, we're going to do stuff.
	In fact, I've got a thing on Schultz here.
	He's probably going to be the coalition partner as well.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And Schultz, he's going to hang around in the background even if there's nothing else.
	But he says, look, we don't want an independent European force.
	We want the NATO forces doing it because we want it to be a big coalition.
	Lithuania's defence minister said that, look...
	Trump was right about Europe's defence spending and military strength.
	We don't want to hear it, but it is true that Europe isn't really in a position to do this itself, which is why Scholz is like, well, we need NATO behind us, right?
	But this is leading to a rift.
	And so we ended up seeing this rift at a UN resolution that was recently passed.
	It looks like what's going to happen is Trump and Putin are going to negotiate peace.
	Whether this holds on or not is anyone's guess.
	But it is the liberal international establishment that is freaking out about it because of the nature of what's being done here.
	Because they...
	I mean, this was the most pathetic thing in the world.
	It shows you the UN, right?
	The instantiation of the global rules-based order is a nothing.
	It's an absolute nothing.
	Apart from, it's kind of like an emotional support...
	No, I really mean this.
	Like a llama they take on the planet.
	I'm laughing because I agree.
	I'm not joking.
	It's basically like this emotional support meetings they have, right?
	And so there was a resolution that was passed in the UN to end the Ukraine war.
	And Russia and the United States both voted against this.
	And this made them freak out.
	It's like, well, hang on a second.
	Why isn't the US voting with us?
	Is that because Trump is going to do this in a different way to you?
	They sit down.
	They want their rules-based order.
	Right, we're going to sit there.
	We're going to sign these.
	Everyone's going to agree on the rules.
	And Trump has said, no, I'm just going to literally speak to Putin and we're going to get it done.
	And that's it.
	I don't need your rules-based order, right?
	So what we are looking at here is two ways of running the world.
	We've got the Imperium of the International Liberal Rules-Based Order, which was the European Union, Biden's America, Canada, the Anglosphere, the West, whatever you want to call it.
	Five Eyes, yeah.
	The Five Eyes.
	Imagine that placed out on a map, right?
	And opposed to that, say that's in green.
	That's us, that's the good guys, the liberal.
	We sit down at the UN and have these resolutions.
	Basically globalism.
	Yeah, but it's managerial globalism, right?
	And then alternative to that, so that is the sphere of the end of history, like the Francis Fukuyama types.
	And then outside of that, you have the great men of history.
	You have the Putins, you have various other sort of dictators, Kim Jong-uns and stuff like this, who act politically in a way that is...
	Counter to the rules-based order.
	They don't care.
	I don't need a rules-based order.
	What I have is political power that I'm going to exercise using my will and the force that we have behind it.
	And Trump is one of those guys.
	So is, again, like him or not, Netanyahu as well.
	So the Israelis have done the exact same thing.
	is they've disregarded the UN resolutions, the International Court of Justice, the Biden administration, trying to rein them in and just said, no, we're just going to bomb the absolute hell out of Gaza and turning it into a parking lot until Hamas and Hezbollah are gone.
	And it's only through Trump saying, I'll help you manage the Gaza problem, making a deal, this has been brought to an end.
	Exactly.
	Well, it's hard power versus soft power as well, isn't it?
	It's not just that.
	It's not that the international rules-based order can't use hard power.
	It absolutely can.
	What it's about is the method by which you approach resolving problems.
	And so they are what, in fact, I'm going to use Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia to give us a theoretical framework on this.
	So Mannheim points out that the bourgeois liberal is a rationalist and he wants to use reason to solve every problem.
	So he addresses in this whether there could be such a thing, therefore, as scientific politics.
	And this is what they all want to do, right?
	They want a science of politics.
	Political science already exists.
	Yeah, but it's such a misnomer.
	It is.
	It's such a misnomer.
	There's no science being done.
	They want to set the business of the state on rails.
	Precisely.
	In fact, he's got a great quote here that I'm going to read.
	It says, We are therefore distinguishing between the rationalized structure of society and the irrational matrix.
	And already you can see how this applies to world politics, right?
	This is why they call Trump and Putin a madman.
	Exactly.
	And this is why they say Trump and Putin love each other and they're kissing them.
	Because they act in the same way.
	Obviously they're rivals.
	They're obviously rivals, just they come from a different paradigm.
	Trump comes from this irrational paradigm and they are rationalistic.
	And again, this carries on.
	It's just so good.
	The chief characteristic of modern culture is the tendency to include as much as possible in the realm of the rational, as in the ever-pervasive nature of bureaucracy that wants to literally bureaucratize absolutely everything about your life.
	They can't help it.
	To reduce the irrational element to the vanishing point.
	And so he says conduct, therefore, in the sense that we use it, means that it doesn't really begin until we reach the area of the irrational.
	So everything up until this point is rules-based.
	And so you don't really need to...
	You follow the rules or you don't follow the rules.
	The nature of your character...
	Doesn't matter, right?
	And that's very important to the rules-based order, which is why they literally bring in God knows how many foreigners and say, well, look, who cares about their character?
	If they're following the rules, they're fine.
	It's like, no, no, you know, I don't want this guy on three different bloody speakerphones like Samson had on the train in today.
	Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	No, no, it's the character.
	The conduct of these people matters, right?
	But these people don't see that, and they don't think this way.
	All they're thinking is, right, no, we've systematized, we've rationalized, we've rule-based all of this, and therefore, this is all fine.
	And where we have dominion of the rules, there is good, and there is order.
	Where we don't have dominion of the rules, we have chaos.
	And that's what Trump is promising them.
	In Schmittian terms, they're rendering things apolitical, because they presume to be neutral, they presume to be settled, they presume to be on rails, and they are terrified of Trump.
	Putin, Xi, for various reasons, acting in their own expressly national political interest.
	Yes, and this is what Francis Fukuyama actually talks about in the end of History and the Last Man.
	So Fukuyama gets a lot of stick, but actually I think his analysis is basically correct on the way that these things are done.
	And so he begins it on the sort of platonic tripartite soul of reason, spirit, and the appetite.
	So reason is, of course, your rational mind.
	Your spirit is that part of you that...
	...fights when you get punched in the face, you know, that stands up for yourself, that demands dignity and respect and acknowledgement from your peers.
	It is the part of yourself that holds you to be important, that you view yourself as an important thing.
	And then, of course, the appetites are your just base pleasures.
	This is Eros Thumos Logos, right?
	Yes.
	Thymethes?
	I'm going to call it Thymos, which is what Freaky Armor calls it.
	But the point is, you can see how this fits into the different paradigms that we're looking at.
	Obviously, your reason, the logisticon, is where the European Union wants to live.
	It's like, no, this is how everything ought to be done.
	Why?
	Because we're soft-handed bureaucrats and we're afraid of...
	And this makes us comfortable.
	This makes everything predictable.
	We know what tomorrow is going to be like because we set the rules and everyone's going to follow the rules.
	And you can see why it meshes so well with the appetites.
	So yeah, go and be degenerate.
	Your character does not matter.
	That you follow the rules is what matters.
	Whereas when you've got someone who comes from the Thymus, like, I mean, literally, like, Putin, Trump, you know, any of the sort of great dictators, you know, come from this.
	But also any of the great politicians.
	Winston Churchill.
	With someone who comes out of the Thymus.
	Nigel Farage is a Thymotic man.
	He's not an EU bureaucrat.
	You can have your criticisms of him or whatever, but he's one of those guys who's like, no, I care about the history and the dignity of the United Kingdom, and I want to see it sovereign.
	All this sort of stuff.
	So it's not that you have to be a bad person to be one of the great men whose order is based in Thymus.
	But you can see from the other side, well, Obama, Biden, Blair, the Tories, Starmer, they're all Davos men.
	They're all the international rules-based order guys.
	They don't live in the thymus, but they can get on with the appetite.
	Sorry, go on.
	It's also worth adding there that in this rational rules-based order, they're sort of modus operandi, and the reason for doing it, in part, is to predict the future, as you said.
	But, of course, character, I find, is the better judge of character.
	Yes, it is.
	Because it predicts future behavior in a much more reliable way than simply, you know...
	Saying, well, you didn't follow the rules.
	Well, you're pigeonholing the possibilities there, aren't you?
	You're not viewing what is possible based on the actual evidence in front of you.
	It presumes the universal, correct nature of the rules, and it also presumes that the unpredictable, well, what they consider the unpredictable nature of the thematic politics is actually as unpredictable as you think.
	And it's actually not.
	It's actually completely...
	Like, any idiot can actually predict how it's going to go when, you know...
	Trump and Zelensky have an argument on Twitter, right?
	You can feel it in your gut because you're looking at the big dog fighting the small dog.
	Yeah, Trump has political pixie dust.
	Yeah.
	Zelensky doesn't.
	But the point of the character, though, this shows everywhere, right?
	Now, much has been made of Vladimir Putin's relationship with dogs.
	There was a Chinese guy who was holding this dog by the scruff of its neck, and Putin sees it and goes, oh, no, no, no, and goes over and grabs the dog.
	That speaks to his character, right?
	Now, whether you like Putin or not...
	He obviously loves dogs, and this is something that is...
	It shows he's from a different world.
	Like, I can't imagine an EU bureaucrat would have seen this Chinese guy holding a dog and going, oh, no, no, no, no.
	An EU bureaucrat would have stood there and goes, well, I'm not supposed to formally do something.
	The complete inverse of this would be that Starmer's stage-managed, very quick laying of the wreath at Southport and then being whisked away by his handlers.
	Yes.
	He couldn't do anything spontaneous or emotional.
	Yes.
	And why would he want to?
	You know, it's not in his character.
	The rules say, I lay the wreath.
	I lay the wreath and then I piss off.
	And it's because of a profound inconfidence in himself.
	to be able to set the boundaries of politics.
	Exactly.
	So he has to stick to the rules otherwise he loses his position whereas Putin can basically set up these dog-based photo ops.
	It's basically whether you see virtue as being internal or external.
	Can you be virtuous in yourself or is it a system in place to encourage virtue?
	Is your politics rooted in your thymos where you're prepared to fight for the boundaries?
	Right.
	I mean, all of this war is Putin fighting for the thymotic boundaries of Russia.
	Saying, no, we as the Russians will have these boundaries, and we will fight for them.
	And the Europeans not liking this.
	Trump's the same, very much the same when it comes to the McDonald's stuff.
	This is all like, no, no, I think this is cool.
	I think this is, you know, American.
	This is all in the sort of spirited part of it.
	His entire, like, frame is all part of the spirited part.
	It's imminent transcendence.
	Yes, yeah, it very much is.
	And this gets results, right?
	This gets results.
	I remember when this happened a few years ago, probably like six years ago now, whatever it was, and Trump and Kim Jong-un are shaking hands on the demilitarized border between North and South Korea.
	Everyone was like, this is preposterous.
	No, this is how thematic politics works.
	This is how great man politics works.
	When you have an understanding that you're both operating the same way, this can happen.
	For example, you could see something like this could have happened.
	I mean, you can see why the...
	Allies and the Soviets were able to get along, right?
	Because they were both going for this kind of rationalized, rule-based order, whether you agree with the Soviet order or not.
	But you can see why they can get along, because they're speaking to each other in the same language.
	These guys are speaking the same language, even though they're on opposite sides.
	And what this does is put the rules-based order on notice, right?
	They are like, oh my god, the great men of history are taking over again.
	We're screwed.
	I read this, and he just said, Starmer has to basically pretend to be Churchill.
	Yes.
	But the problem is, you cannot be Churchill, because Churchill was thymotic, whereas Starmer is the civil service in a badly fitting suit.
	Exactly.
	But these guys don't understand this.
	They would never be able to give you this analysis that I'm giving you.
	All they can do is react in the way that they react to these things.
	But say, the US is now the enemy of the West.
	What does that mean?
	How can America, which is essentially the lodestone of the West, there's a heart of the West at the moment, it's where all Western innovation comes from, it's where the power is, it's where the money is, how can that be the enemy of the West?
	Unless the West means the international rationalist, rules-based order that has been since World War II projected across the West, and Trump now is like, no, we're just going to do this old style, in the same way that ancient kings would have done it, just out of the thymos.
	It makes more sense, and it actually makes sense.
	And it's not just that.
	Like, you know, foreign policy.
	Yes, America is Europe's enemy now.
	So, yeah, it's the enemy of the international rules-based order.
	Trump wouldn't be the enemy of Napoleon, right?
	Trump and Napoleon, they might be rivals.
	They would understand each other.
	But no, Trump is an existential enemy to the rules-based order because he's prepared to deal with things on his own terms in the way the old world was done.
	And this is what they're afraid of.
	This is why they're freaking out.
	Because what they can see on the horizon is the end of the rational, logisticon-based order.
	They can see, oh my god, we might have to go into a world of unpredictability, where we have to show strength, where we have to project confidence, where we have to actually nurture our own character.
	And as you can imagine, this is a terrifying prospect.
	To the average Soviet-EU bureaucrat.
	So, anyway, I'll leave that there.
	I'll probably do a more detailed analysis on this at some point, but I really think this explains why the European Union is about to freak out and do something stupid.
	Same with Starmer.
	They're about to freak out and do something really stupid that doesn't have to happen.
	Very good.
	Do we want to do rumble ruts?
	Yes.
	Sorry.
	Cranky Texan says, don't underestimate your military.
	It may be small, but it's been strengthened through diversity.
	Yeah, well, the problem is modern militaries are just numbers games these days, really, aren't they?
	Also, our military is entirely white.
	Yeah, but it's...
	They've tried to make it diverse.
	Sorry, the military itself isn't diverse, but the people in charge have diversity in their minds.
	The use of straight white male pilots who are applying to join the RAF, it's like...
	Hedgehog Dilemma says, And that's what they're most concerned about.
	That's what they're most concerned about.
	A return to realistic power politics rather than the fiction of the, oh, you know, Ukraine is just as important as Russia in these negotiations.
	It's like, no, Ukraine is not.
	And you wouldn't need to say it if that were the case, right?
	If that were true, you wouldn't say it.
	But anyway, as time dictates, I'll let you carry on.
	Okay.
	So, oh, I should probably have the actual equipment first before I start.
	There you go.
	Good way to start.
	Thank you.
	Japan has faced its biggest jump in foreign workers recorded in its history, and this article is framing it as a labour shortage.
	By the way, Japan has no shortage of people.
	You've been to Japan.
	Did it feel like there was a shortage of Japanese people to fill jobs?
	No, it has an aging population, an inverted demographic pyramid, but they're also on the cutting edge of financial services and robotics, so you would think they might be able to automate some of this stuff rather than presumably hiring...
	Like, foreign slave labour.
	And of course, robots, although I did see a video recently of one attacking a crowd, they tend to come with less adverse social consequences, directly at least, than some of the people they're bringing in.
	And I've talked about this, about how there are people from Africa.
	People from places like Pakistan, and in particular they're concerned with the Kurds, and we're going to touch on them briefly today.
	And I covered that here, talking about their cultural enrichment, because of course Japan needs to be improved by becoming more diverse apparently, and are saying that how...
	The replacement of Japanese culture has already started to begin in certain areas and some of these actually got translated into Japanese and got quite good views.
	So the Japanese translation there, almost at 400,000 views.
	That's my favourite dating sim.
	There's one of me, you, and Stelios if you just scroll down slightly on the right-hand sidebar.
	Oh yeah, so there is.
	Another one's been translated.
	My favourite thing about this is that someone in the comments referred to Dan as the Bearded Baron, which is an excellent nickname.
	This guy is just laying out the facts and the Bearded Baron is just astonished, I think they said.
	Something like that.
	I just thought that was brilliant.
	What a wonderful wave of words they have.
	And then...
	I explained what had happened to Britain and how there's already a blueprint in place.
	This seems to operate in stages and there is a very clear formula in which immigration ruins your country.
	And Japan's at an earlier stage than many European countries.
	But they seem to be mirroring these effects perfectly.
	And then finally I looked at what had started in 2025, how they looked like they were opening up to things like Indian labour as well.
	And that's what Britain has done.
	And it's not really jump-started our economy.
	In fact, our economy's not really grown at all, even though we're told that we need immigration to grow our GDP because GDP is the only thing that matters, apparently.
	Well, 95% of all visas every single year are given to non-net tax contributors.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And if you want to support our work and for us to continue covering Japanese politics, what you need to do is buy this wonderful magazine.
	Not only is it aesthetically beautiful, and I was very impressed with some of the graphics.
	I'm going to show you just a little page, but you can't read it.
	You're not allowed yet.
	But look at it.
	It's beautiful.
	If you get a copy, translate it into Japanese, make a manga and send it in.
	Exactly.
	But this magazine, lots of really interesting articles, an aesthetic work of art.
	Very much recommend it.
	I'm looking forward to reading this when I finally get my hands on a copy.
	Distribution is going to be very speedy this time around, I'm told.
	So check it out.
	Go buy it.
	It's not that expensive.
	Cheaper than a book.
	But anyway, one of the main groups that the Japanese are upset with at the minute, you're going to have to rein in your surprise here, the Chinese.
	Who'd have thought?
	Are they really the most disruptive?
	I think they're just the biggest affront to their politeness culture.
	Don't underestimate intra-Asian racism.
	Oh, I don't, I don't.
	Don't worry, there's enough racism in Japan to go around for lots of different groups, I think.
	But the Chinese, in particular, have been occupying the discourse, and then there have been people here, look at how widely this has circulated, 13 million people viewed this, of them just being frustrated that the cases blocking the route, which is inconsiderate, and I'd be annoyed as well.
	I can attest to the Japanese having much better civilizational standards than the Chinese.
	Oh, no doubt.
	It's not even close, is it?
	And I can understand why they're annoyed, because they're not playing by the rules, are they?
	They're not playing by the implicit politeness, and I would be annoyed as well.
	And then you get things like this.
	What this is, is a woman, a Chinese woman, who was going to the toilet in the street.
	What?
	Number two.
	What?
	In Japan.
	But, like...
	Our Chinese immigrants seem a lot more civilised.
	I've never had any problem with a Chinese immigrant.
	I know.
	I've never seen them do anything disgusting.
	I wonder if it's just...
	Because of geographic proximity and the ease of travel, you get a lower quality.
	I was about to say that.
	When we opened up the doors to the Indians and Nigerians, the real terms wages of Nigerians and Indians went down in the UK because of the sheer volume.
	So we were getting the dregs of their civilisation.
	I wonder if the Japanese are basically getting the Chinese dregs.
	I wouldn't be surprised based on that.
	But obviously this riled up a few people and it did the rounds again.
	As you can imagine, we see this sort of thing.
	Constantly in the West now.
	We expect better from the Chinese, though.
	We do.
	That's gross.
	I know you guys like holes in the ground, but still, it doesn't have to be in the middle of what looks like a pretty urban area, does it?
	It's in the middle of a high street.
	I know.
	Shops around.
	Apparently...
	This is a story about how Chinese people are refusing to clean up after themselves in fast food places.
	And they're saying, like, it's such a hassle.
	I'm not going to.
	And they say that even in Europe and America and Africa, they don't clean up after themselves.
	They're using our multicultural societies.
	The British do clean up after ourselves, thank you very much.
	But he means even in Europe, the Chinese don't clean up after.
	Oh, I see.
	In a communist country, there's no such thing as a public space that you treat with consideration.
	So this is just that.
	The Japanese are very family and private space.
	There's no sense of collective ownership.
	That's true, yeah.
	And another thing is that the Chinese are going on holiday tours and then just vanishing into the mist like Hannibal Lecter.
	They just sort of blend into the crowd and apparently...
	Except the Japanese one, ironically.
	Yeah, so lots of Chinese illegals are supposedly in the country now, which obviously comes with all of the fun of illegal migration, as well as the fact that they're taking up lots of university places and school spaces as well, and they're talking about how some schools are actually...
	Teaching children in Chinese and how they're taking over, more or less, and trying to dictate terms in education.
	That's crazy, considering the Chinese birth rate is also stratospherically low.
	Yeah.
	They're half of school places.
	That means...
	That's just madness.
	There's no shortage of Chinese people.
	I don't think they're going to run out.
	Well, yeah, there's still like 1.3 billion of them.
	Yeah, but of children, specifically, because China is, again, still a heavily-weighted ageing population, so that's just...
	Another thing here...
	At a history conference held at the end of last year, Chinese students made up the majority and demanded that presentations be changed to Chinese.
	We've seen this sort of thing in Britain, of course, haven't we, where road signs are changed and certain public speeches, not to Chinese, but to other languages.
	Well, the Confucius Institutes in universities are a great example because now the universities are so reliant on Chinese student funding that they've been told not to fail Chinese students, even if they can't speak English, and the Confucius Institutes basically police the behaviour of Chinese students on campus, and then there was the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Bill that was already passed through Parliament.
	The Labour government wanted to axe because of pressure from the Chinese Communist government.
	So this is also, some of the rhetoric has caught up to some degree with Europe to a certain degree.
	It says, under the current system in Japan, foreigners can join insurance after three months of coming to Japan, and not only can they themselves, but their dependents also receive treatment worth 160 million yen by paying a few 10,000 of yen.
	What if a lot of foreigners came to Japan for medical treatment, like the Chinese?
	Aren't we paying taxes for foreigners?
	Yes, welcome to the club, buddy.
	That's exactly what happens.
	It ruins your economy.
	Everything starts falling apart.
	Take our word for it.
	They will destroy you.
	Our National Health Service is now advertising.
	As an international health service, it's like 200 nationalities, one NHS. That's an actual mural that has been commissioned.
	Half of London's social housing is first generation immigrants.
	We're paying for foreigners to live here for some reason.
	No one can explain it.
	And interestingly, this has had an effect on rice, more than anything.
	There's been, basically, the price of rice in Japan has risen sharply.
	Some claim up to as much as 90%.
	Really?
	And factors like poor harvest, inflation and increasing demand have played a part.
	And also Japan imposes a 778% import tariff on rice as a protectionist measure for their own domestic industries.
	Maybe against the Chinese.
	It is, yeah, because Japanese rice is better than Chinese rice.
	But also, China's going to produce God knows how much rice.
	Exactly.
	You don't want to flood the market with cheap rice, necessarily.
	Especially using slave labour, which the Japanese don't use.
	Apparently the Chinese are also partly to blame for this as well because it's becoming a luxury food good in China for the Chinese elite and the problem is in China they're worried that the local variants aren't safe and so they're buying the Japanese stuff because they have higher health standards and they know that they can eat this without fear of getting sick.
	You could impose health standards.
	It's your country.
	You can do it.
	You can just do things.
	Just be high trust.
	So apparently it was 160 tonnes last year of rice, which in the grand scheme of things isn't a massive amount.
	This is according to Japan's National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations.
	What a mouthful.
	But this is more than triple the total in 2013, and it's only increasing.
	And so it seems like unless Japan is even more protectionist of its rice and keeping it domestic, this is only going to increase and put more pressure on an industry that's already pretty strained.
	And many of the rice growers have turned to the Chinese market as the home market is supposedly also to some degree shrinking.
	And apparently Japanese products cost two or three times the crop grown in China or the US because apparently some rice is grown in the US as well.
	But they're trying to grow these industries more and apparently people are giving them...
	Giving Japanese rice is a gift for Lunar New Year, and that's another big boom, and a spike in the sales, apparently.
	But it's got to the point where they had to release 200,000 tonnes of emergency rice stockpiles, which is a very Japanese thing to hear.
	Most Asian headline.
	But what's the emergency?
	They don't have enough rice.
	The emergency is they're being flooded by foreigners.
	Yes.
	That's the emergency.
	There's no shortage of rice.
	The demand has gone sky high, right?
	They're not growing rice.
	So there's also been this, and I've translated this picture, and it says, providing stockpiled rice is a secret trick, so it would be a problem if someone did it.
	The price of rice I'm currently brewing has crashed, and I'm going to die because of the loss.
	So they basically stockpiled lots of rice when there's a shortage.
	And then the Japanese person here, because this is, I think, being done by largely Chinese people, what they've said up there, which I'm not going to translate, is, I think it'd be better if you did die.
	So they're taking it well.
	And also, there's another post here that's done very well.
	Apparently Chinese people are buying up rice.
	This happened with PPE in Australia right before COVID, didn't it?
	That's right.
	Do you think they would preserve rice in a way that's appropriate for them to resell it?
	There is a possibility that rice containing highly carcinogenic rice mould, I'm not going to pronounce that, may be distributed.
	Because, of course, one of the main reasons that the Chinese are buying the Japanese rice in the first place is that they can't guarantee that the rice they're getting in China is safe for consumption.
	And so they're concerned, well, if the Chinese are buying our rice and holding onto it, are they storing it in a way that is responsible?
	Exactly.
	And so this is causing a massive problem because it means that Japanese are now worried about trusting their own rice.
	That's mad.
	Which, you know, as such a food staple as rice in Japan, it's crazy that this has been allowed to happen in the first place.
	And I understand it's a difficult problem to solve because, you know, you're going to have to limit the...
	You say Chinese people can't buy rice.
	It'd be funny.
	Just don't flood your country for the foreign nationals and turn it into a low-trust hellhole.
	The easiest solution, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	And apparently there have been sort of things that have been advising people to cook for children in ways in which they don't eat as much rice.
	And they say, have fish and vegetable dishes as the main dish.
	This Japanese person saying, it's too dystopian.
	Tears.
	Instead of that, please criticise the government and the Liberal Democratic Party a little for the sake of the children.
	So they're very upset that they're going to have to change basically their diet to accommodate.
	Shinzo wouldn't have done this.
	No.
	Thimotic man.
	Exactly.
	Read.
	Thimotic man.
	And that also brings us on to another group that's been causing problems, and that is...
	The Japanese to try and translate that.
	Hey, look, you know, if you're Japanese hit me up, I'm sure I can help you out.
	So, another group that I've talked a lot about is the Kurds, and this is something that's very close.
	You know what Japan was lacking?
	Barbershops.
	Muslim immigration.
	Yes.
	That's what it needed.
	And, funnily enough, all are the same problems.
	Oh, really?
	So, this is a Kurd, 21-year-old, who's got a suspended sentence from a liberal judge for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
	This sounds exactly like Britain, doesn't it?
	This could have happened over here.
	Where a Muslim who doesn't have the same horrific response to this sort of thing, they go over there, they start acting as they do, and cause the same problems.
	Apparently he was arrested again after being released on a suspended sentence, and he was arrested for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in a car park.
	Why wouldn't he do it again?
	Oh, if he got away with it, yeah.
	Literally, he's going to be let go.
	Then why wouldn't he do it twice?
	Yeah, and this is exactly the same thing that's going on in Britain.
	Just don't have these people in your country.
	Don't let them in.
	Learn from our mistake.
	The entire Islamic world is not going to add anything to Japan, I'm afraid.
	So I actually really personally dislike Japanese culture, right?
	Oh my goodness.
	All of it.
	The aesthetic.
	You can't dislike the samurai and the Edo period and things like that.
	No, but modern Japanese culture.
	Oh yeah, anime's great.
	It's anime.
	YouTube comments.
	It's going to be horrific.
	You're talking about the stuff that comes to the West, right?
	Rather than...
	Like, their history and their martial history.
	Yeah, no, no.
	Modern Japan, right?
	I kind of despise it.
	It's not as prominent as you think over there, fortunately.
	It's mainly exported, but yes.
	Maybe not, but like, you know, every time I've seen Japanese food being prepared, I'm like, I'd never eat that.
	That looks disgusting.
	I don't like...
	These foods are lovely.
	Sushi.
	I hate...
	Raw fish?
	Why would I want that?
	It's good.
	The shime is nice.
	No, I hate Japanese food.
	I don't like...
	I don't like the sound of the language.
	The sound of the language kind of bothers me.
	They have a very similar speaking pattern to the English, actually.
	Yeah, they do.
	They have a specific word for um.
	I'm not saying they don't.
	I'm saying I don't like it, right?
	And I just sit there and I see all the cultural output.
	I see the sweets.
	I see the food.
	I see...
	You'd love it if you went there.
	The cities.
	And I'm just like, I've got no interest.
	But the thing is, I can understand that, like...
	This is kind of like the Oriental version of Britain.
	I can understand why there would be some sort of Italian who'd be like, no, I just hate Britain.
	I just hate everything about it.
	I hate the sound of the language.
	I hate the terrain.
	I hate the buildings.
	I hate everything about it.
	I could understand it.
	If you're watching and you're Japanese, by the way, this is not typical of what we think of you, by the way.
	No, no, this is my personal opinion.
	I just don't like it.
	I love Japan.
	No, no, but I'm not saying people shouldn't like Japan.
	I'm just saying I personally don't, right?
	But I don't want to see Japan overrun by a bunch of barbarians and changed into...
	Something terribly different.
	Like, you know, there's nothing wrong with them being something I don't like.
	I'm not going to demand that they be something I like.
	You know, okay, that's fine.
	You guys have fun.
	It's just not for me.
	That's great.
	I don't want to see, like, a bunch of fucking curds going...
	I shouldn't swear, sorry.
	A bunch of curds going over and, like, raping children.
	Or a bunch of Chinese and just running...
	Oh, we're going to turn this into China.
	It's like, this is awful, man.
	You know, this is awful.
	And I say this as someone who's got no interest in Japan or Japanese culture at all.
	Like...
	So...
	Here are some Kurdish immigrants shouting the Japanese must die.
	Just this is awful.
	Guest in their country calling for the death of the native population.
	We also have this.
	This is not necessarily anything new, but yeah, get rid of them while you still can.
	And there's also been this as well.
	A Kurdish organisation has called for a ban on hate demonstrations because lots of people have been demonstrating against the Kurds being...
	Rapey monsters, which they are.
	Not all of them.
	Not all of them, but...
	Some run barbershops, I'm sure.
	Yeah.
	However, there have been so many barbaric cases that it's understandable that Japanese society is having an immune system response to this.
	And they're trying to weasel their way into getting 5.5 million yen in damages for having these demonstrations against them.
	Just leave.
	Yeah.
	Just leave.
	Why is there a Kurdish organisation in Japan?
	It should be.
	It should be prescribed as a terror group.
	Well, not necessarily as a terror group.
	If they're saying death to the Japanese...
	Oh, yeah, okay, fair enough.
	But it just shouldn't be allowed that foreign people come in and are allowed to organise in your country.
	And again, I say this as not someone who's a lover of Japan.
	Someone who doesn't like Japan.
	But I'm like, no, look after yourselves.
	Look after yourselves.
	You have to.
	Otherwise you won't have a Japan just like we don't have an England.
	And also...
	You've seen lots of Japanese people getting very angry about this.
	You thieving, bold, mad native.
	Go back.
	I think that's just a translation thing, calling him a native.
	I think the word is probably closer to savage.
	Probably, yeah.
	It's translated by Google.
	And the Prime Minister finally addressed...
	The Kurdish problem as it's...
	We're going to see Muslims dress up in Japanese outfits saying, oh, they're just as Japanese as the rest of us, bro.
	The funny thing is, they're all wearing Western suits as well.
	We cannot coexist with foreigners who do not follow the rules, is what he said.
	Welcome to our world.
	It needs to be a bit stronger than that.
	David Cameron said multiculturalism failed in 2015 and then continued to open the board.
	Yeah.
	Words are cheap, actions are better.
	And yes, this has been going around.
	Japanese right-wing circles saying the only way to save Japan, illegal immigrants disguised as refugees, mass deportations.
	Godspeed.
	Yeah, it's what you need to do.
	It's the only way to preserve your culture.
	And it's getting to the point where left-wing outlets, this one's a South Korean one, are saying that they're targeting Kurds because they're racist.
	And we've seen it all before.
	It's like, you see all these horrible things that the Kurds are doing to you?
	Ignore your morals and your senses.
	Why don't you care about my feelings instead?
	Listen, Japan, you're not, like, historically liberal, right?
	I expect you to say yes.
	That's what I expect from the Japanese.
	And if you don't say that, I'm going to be very disappointed.
	Also, notice the flag they're flying there.
	Yeah.
	Interesting.
	Imperial Japanese flag.
	But yes, I can see all of the problems here are mirroring perfectly those of Europe.
	Even with the Chinese, the same sorts of things are happening where they're hollowing out their own little section of Japan to create their own enclave where it's about their culture and not the Japanese culture.
	And all it does is undermine Japanese culture, weakens you, weakens your nation, and you have to pay for it.
	There's no incentive to do this whatsoever.
	I've seen no real benefit to Britain from multiculturalism.
	And so the best thing to do, as this says, is...
	To send them back home.
	You know, China's not that bad.
	Kurdistan, I mean, might become a state.
	They can go back home.
	There's no harm done.
	You know, they're not going to die.
	They can live a perfectly fine life.
	They just don't have to live it in Japan.
	So Hedgehog's Dilemma says, I spent the best ten years of my life in Japan.
	Man, I'm going to have nothing but people in my mansion.
	Whining that I don't like Japan.
	Other than this recent batch of immigration, it's an amazing family.
	I've never made a secret of it.
	He says, I will buy gold-tier memberships and copies of Islander for everyone I know if you stop Josh from making these segments.
	Truly the blackest of pills.
	Look, man, if we stop talking about it, it doesn't stop it happening.
	That's the thing.
	I'm not a lover of Japan, but I'm entirely sympathetic to watching an ancient settled nation losing its culture because of a traitorous elite.
	And I don't want that to happen to the Japanese.
	At all.
	I don't want to have it anywhere, frankly.
	But when it's happening to someone that I'm not going to say isn't beautiful.
	Japan's definitely beautiful.
	People wouldn't have such attachment to it.
	In the same way that loads of Americans are attached to Old England.
	There's clearly a beauty there.
	It's just not for me.
	But I hate to see it.
	I absolutely hate to see it.
	And so I can't stop him from making these segments.
	You can't have your white pills if you don't eat your black pills, okay?
	You can't close your eyes to these things.
	Hey Lotus Eaters.
	I finally got around to editing my first video comment, so hopefully I can make more improvements going forward.
	Last week I went snowshoeing in the Alpine Lakes wilderness area, which I'm sure you'll see more of in the future.
	My goal was Surprise Lake, but the snow eventually got too deep for me to keep going.
	Still worth the trip just for the scenery, especially before all the snow melted.
	I hope y'all are having a good winter so far.
	Looks wonderful.
	Looks beautiful.
	I'm very, very jealous.
	Very Islander-appropriate.
	If only Swindon looked like that.
	And gays of all stripes, plus your standard fair, seething, rogan-listening bros.
	Few of them would call themselves Republic unless they be...
	Sorry, it's the main complaint that there are loads of gays that aren't attracted to this writer.
	Yes.
	No, I thought so.
	I mean, I can see why you're at this party with this description now.
	Thanks.
	Not the gay part.
	No, definitely.
	Well, gee, golly gosh, and fuck me up the wrong end.
	What?
	What?
	I didn't hear most of that, because it got turned down for some reason.
	Too late.
	No, no, it's fine.
	Move on for time.
	You know, whenever the topic of architecture revival comes up, everyone always just posts neoclassical or even beau arts.
	Oh, I love those styles to death.
	It's all very continental.
	I think whenever we talk about it in England, or especially here in North America, any architecture revival should look like our own styles.
	It should look like the Americanized beau art skyscrapers like the Flatiron Building, or Art Nouveau, the obligatory Art Deco, or Streamline Modern.
	Maybe even push into the 50s with something like Googie.
	Really, I just want to live in the future that Batman the Animated Series promised me.
	If that weren't clear enough already.
	What a beautiful sound that was.
	Inefficient blimps over Art Decker skyscrapers.
	To be fair, I was thinking about this the other day.
	Blimps would actually be a nice holiday, right?
	Because they used to have.
	Well, the Hindenburg.
	Yeah, but that's the thing.
	And everyone freaked out about it, right?
	I feel like a holiday's always improved in your ability to relax when the prospect of an immolating, fiery death and collapse to the ground is in the back of your mind.
	That happens with planes.
	Not for me, because I don't fly out of Europe.
	Okay, but planes crash.
	These things happen.
	Sometimes they get flipped over because women are completely piloting it.
	Last holiday I drove there.
	But they used to have a week-long journey over the Atlantic on fancy blimps and stuff like that.
	That sounds cool.
	You're going to have an aerial Titanic.
	Yeah, a week in the air is a lot of risk.
	What if you're above the...
	What if you're way through the Atlantic and there's a storm?
	Anyway, yeah, sorry.
	Going on.
	Observing monkeys at the Monkey Mountain in Japan.
	Damn.
	Lovely.
	These are some very well-behaved monkeys.
	Normally you see them stealing people's stuff and holding them to ransom.
	I think that's...
	Yeah, I think that's New Kyoto.
	Even their monkeys are well-behaved.
	Yeah, that is true.
	Very polite.
	Yeah, I bet.
	Thai monkeys are bastards.
	Good morning from Beppu, Japan.
	There's a view from my window this morning in our hotel here in Kanawha.
	See, how does that one look?
	Homely and awesome.
	Soulless.
	No, I just don't like it.
	I don't have to.
	Terrible.
	I'm allowed to not like it.
	Right.
	Hey, we got the comments.
	Are we going to have to wrap up?
	Yeah, we haven't got time.
	Okay, we're being culled, I'm afraid.
	Come back in 25 minutes for Thomson Talks.
	It'll be an interesting episode.
	Thanks very much, gents.
	Otherwise, we will be back tomorrow at 1 o'clock.

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