Episode 1621 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About Our Lying FBI and Everyone Else Too
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Don't bring digital devices to China
2/3 of Democrats want to end filibuster
FBI's Jill Sanborn can't answer anything
Tells for lying
12,000 Olympic athletes, fully vaccinated, visit China
Adam Kinzinger's use of word "narrative"
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One more thing and we'll be good.
So how many of you saw Senator Cruz interview the FBI representative?
Shelly was right.
That's funny.
All right. Let's start with...
Some of my favorite stories.
So apparently at least one country has told their athletes when they're going to the Olympics that they can't bring their laptops or their smartphones to China.
I forget which country.
Was it Netherlands or someplace?
Belgium? I forget who.
It doesn't matter. The point is, is there anybody here who knows you can't bring your own or doesn't know?
Is there anybody here who doesn't know that if you go to China on business, you can't bring your own laptop or your own phone?
How many of you know that that's a thing?
Or to Russia, yeah.
I imagine there are a number of countries that would be similar.
But when I talk to business people who go there, some of them actually will shred the laptop that they brought to China so that nobody can use it.
Like, not ever even accidentally.
You take it back and you never open it again after you leave China because they give you a special one just to travel to China.
And you literally put it in a giant mechanical shredder.
You don't even erase the data.
You shred the whole device.
That's how bad it is.
Now, how would you like to be a spectator at the Olympics?
You're just a spectator.
You're just traveling there to, you know...
Watch the Olympics. And you can't bring your own laptop or your own smartphone.
Have you been on vacation anywhere without a laptop or a smartphone that's your own?
Have you ever tried that?
Do you know what a giant problem that would be to travel?
I can't even imagine it.
Now, I suppose you could have a burner phone and some kind of internet access, but you wouldn't feel comfortable putting your password in anything, right?
Would you sign up for any kind of thing that required a password if you were in China?
It doesn't matter what laptop you're using.
So I don't think that anybody should ever travel to a place where you have to shred your laptop when you get home.
Let me give you a travel tip.
I'm not really a big traveler, so I don't know the most about traveling, but I can give you this one travel tip.
If you're planning on going to a destination which requires shredding your phone and laptop when you get home, maybe don't.
Maybe put that a little bit lower on your bucket list until you can travel there without shredding your phone when you get home.
It makes me wonder if the Olympics are really some kind of giant honeypot where the real play here is for China to get all their DNA and their digital access.
Imagine how many countries China will have access to digitally because I imagine a lot of people will actually bring their own smartphone there.
But China's going to have access to all of that if they want it.
I mean, they can get into everything, I think.
So... Look out for that.
I saw an article in XXL magazine, and I don't know if this is real.
Can somebody confirm this?
Is Kanye West, who I call Ye, really moving partly to Russia?
And he's going to have a house there?
Is that real? I'm going to treat it like it's real.
Kanye East, somebody says.
If he moves to Russia, he'll be Kanye East.
It's pretty funny.
Well, I'm not positive it's true, but I can't imagine anything that would be more annoying to his ex-wife than moving to Russia to live like an oligarch.
It's not my imagination, is it?
Is it that everything Ye does is more interesting than everything everyone else does?
Because did you ever wake up in the morning and say, what am I going to do today?
I don't know. I think I'll move to Russia and live like an oligarch.
That's one of those things that I've never even said to myself when I consider all of the things I could possibly do in this world.
Never once have I said, I could get a Dasha in Russia and live like an oligarch.
That sounds pretty good. So, anyway, if it's true, I hope it is.
But it also is another, let's say, foreshadowing of the future of Russia and the United States as allies.
I'll just keep saying it until it happens.
It might take 20 years.
But we will be allies with Russia.
It's going to happen. It's just inevitable.
It's a question of when. I'm wondering, what is your opinion on flying thousands of people into China for the Olympics, then dispersing them back to every corner of the world with a new virus?
I think the Olympics is crazy in the context of the pandemic.
It's crazy. Now, as much as I think everybody should have freedom to do what they want and no mandates and all that, This is a specific kind of an event which is almost guaranteed to be a bad idea in a pandemic.
Seems like it. But maybe China is so good at crushing the virus that nobody will spread anything when they're there.
Maybe. Well Rasmussen has a poll about the filibuster question.
If you don't know, in the...
So in Congress, if you want to get something passed and the other side doesn't like it, even if you have a majority, it's not good enough.
You've got to have 60% or else the team that doesn't want you to win can do a filibuster, which basically is a way to stall until you can't get anything done.
Now, what that does is it makes it hard for even the majority to get anything done.
So they only get things done that really have a lot of support on both sides.
So is it bad to get rid of a, let's say, safeguard in Congress that makes you really, really have to get some of the other side on board to get something done?
I would say that's a good idea.
Conceptually, it's a good idea, wouldn't you say?
Forget about the detail of what bill you're talking about, but conceptually, don't you like the fact that it's really hard to get anything passed?
Because you have to get both sides on board.
I mean, seems a pretty good idea.
Or at least some people on the other team.
And that's a very credible system, in my opinion.
Well, it turns out that because the Democrats have some specific things they want to get passed, and the filibuster would presumably prevent that, they're trying to get that changed.
And down to just a 50% majority would get something done.
And how many Democrats favor getting rid of one of the most important safeguards in all of our republic?
Two-thirds. Two-thirds of Democrats want to get rid of one of the most important safeguards in the republic because they want to get something done.
Have I ever mentioned that Democrats consistently fail to understand human motivation?
It's the same problem every time.
It's never even a different problem.
It's the same damn problem.
They act like humans will not respond to incentives and enticements.
But of course, the very minute you make this rule go away, the filibuster, will be about the same minute the Republicans take charge of Congress.
So do they really...
Have they not planned ahead to know that they would be giving up all of their power to get a few things in the short run that the Republicans would presumably try to reverse?
They'd have to get a president in there, too.
But, I mean, they only have a few years to get done whatever they're doing, and it's going to get reversed because the filibuster will be gone.
So when you see the incredible consistency of the same mistake...
I don't know why more people don't call this out.
You always have the same flaw with your system, Democrats.
A complete blindness to how human beings act.
It's weird. All right, let's talk about the...
You all saw, or I'll bet many of you saw, Ted Cruz grilling an FBI... Some spokesperson or head of...
I don't know who it was. But somebody at a high level in the FBI was talking on a Zoom call.
Official. I assume they're under oath because they're talking to a member of the Senate in that context.
And I want to see if we can go through how to detect lies.
Are you ready? So the question was to the FBI, and Ted Cruz asked it a whole bunch of good lawyerly ways, was the FBI involved, or any FBI people in any way associated with the FBI, were any of them involved in January 6th, meaning undercover people in the crowd?
And, of course, Ted Cruz asked it a number of ways, you know, to get at it in different angles.
And the FBI... Spokesperson, Jill Sanborn, said, let me give you a direct question.
Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th?
Yes or no? Ted Cruz asked.
FBI's Jill Sanborn answered, I can't answer that.
Now, is it fair for the FBI to say we can't answer questions about sources and methods?
Is that fair? Do you agree that, generally speaking, you don't want to force your intelligence or your law enforcement people to give up their sources and methods in public?
I mean, that seems fairly safe.
But didn't you ask yourself why she can't just say no?
If the answer was no, would you be giving up any sources and methods?
Would you? If you had no involvement, what sources and methods would you be giving up?
Now, is there anybody in the United States who doesn't understand that the FBI and law enforcement routinely put their assets in organizations they think they want to watch?
We all know that. So what exactly source and method would they be giving up if they said that Ray Epps or anybody else was working for them?
What would that be giving up?
That's the part everybody knows, that they have informants and assets, right?
So... How would you take that answer?
What would be your interpretation of, I can't answer that, when the answer is a yes or no question?
Somebody said she did answer it.
She did answer it? She said, I can't answer that.
Later, when he asked a more specific question...
Let's see. The more specific question was, was anybody associated with the FBI or under their direction involved in any illegal activity?
Did you see that question? So Cruz asked if anybody at the FBI or anybody that the FBI had worked with was involved in anything illegal, and what was their answer?
Not to my knowledge.
Not to my knowledge.
Doesn't that sort of indicate they might have been there?
And isn't that a very specific answer?
Because she could have said, no, we didn't have anybody there.
And then when asked about the violence, she could have said, I just told you that we didn't have anybody there.
So if she'd answered the other question differently, that would have been easy.
Um... But, did anybody see Ray Epps do anything illegal on video?
Because I'm not sure I did.
Did you? I saw him do things that looked sketchy as hell.
And if he had been working for the FBI, would any of that been illegal?
I don't know. I feel like a prosecutor could probably find something.
But if the FBI's spokesperson here, Jill Sanborn, if she said something like, not to my knowledge, wouldn't she simply be saying, I don't know if what he did was a crime?
That would be different from saying, I don't know what he did.
You're just saying, I don't know that what he did is a crime.
Because I don't know. I watched the video and But is inciting a riot, if he's just telling you to get close to the building or to go inside, is that exactly illegal?
So here's the question.
It might be illegal, but was she lying if she said, not to my knowledge, because she's never looked into it?
If she had never looked into it, could she say, not to my knowledge?
She could. That's a little bit overly specific, isn't it?
Because if she knew that no FBI people were there, she could say for sure, no, there was nobody involved in the FBI or in any way with anything illegal.
But she said, not to my knowledge.
That's overly specific, isn't it?
Let me give you a lie detection tip.
The overly specific answer.
I'm going to give you an example.
Let's say you suspected that your...
Your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife.
Let's say somebody said they were spotted at some kind of restaurant or something.
And somebody gets back to you and you say to your boyfriend, girlfriend, you say, I heard that you were with X at this restaurant.
Is that true?
And what if the person you question says this...
As if I'd have time to take an Uber to that restaurant.
That's an overly specific answer because the question had nothing to do with an Uber.
In fact, maybe the restaurant was next to work or walking distance or maybe it was only five minutes away.
But the answering with a question, you know, or sarcasm, as if I'd have time to take an Uber there...
That wasn't even in the question.
So Ted Cruz's question wasn't, do you have knowledge?
He asked, did it happen?
And she said, I don't have knowledge of it.
That's a little too specific, isn't it?
So always look for the overly specific answer.
Here's some other ways to tell a lie.
The angry accusation, if you ask somebody if they did something...
Did you take that last cookie?
You left the seat up on the toilet.
What? What?
What's that have to do with taking the last cookie?
So if somebody angrily accuses you of something unrelated, that's basically a confession.
You should take it that way.
So if you see the overly specific denial...
That's a lie. And the attacking you when you simply ask a question that could have been a yes or no question.
And then there's also the half confession.
Do you know what the half confession looks like?
Did you murder Bob?
I did not murder Bob.
Well, here's some evidence of you with Bob with a gun in your hand.
Oh, I was definitely with Bob with a gun in my hand.
But I didn't murder him.
And then you say, but the video, I can see you're actually firing the weapon in the direction of Bob.
I mean, I can see it right on the video.
And then the person said, yeah, yeah, I had a weapon and I fired it in the direction of Bob, but I wasn't firing at Bob.
Like, that's crazy.
So that's the admitting half of the thing.
That's always a... All right, here's my provocative question.
Do you know what kind of people the FBI employ?
Well, lots of people.
But one of the kinds of people that the FBI employ are people who are good at detecting lies.
People who are good at detecting lies, because they do that for a living, right?
They're FBI experts.
Who are good at interviewing people just to see if they lied.
How much would you like to hear an FBI expert on lying tell you if Jill Sanborn was telling you the truth?
Wouldn't you like to hear an FBI agent who is an expert at this tell you if the FBI is lying to you?
I would. I would.
Let's see. Maybe if there's somebody who's a producer who's watching this, it can't be hard to find that person.
I think if you Google on YouTube, you'll find an FBI, well, an ex-CIA person, I think.
But I think you'd probably find an ex-FBI person who is an expert at this.
Just put them on the show. Say, what do you think?
If somebody said this who was a perpetrator, a suspect, would you believe them?
All right, let's make that happen.
As I've said many times, the default assumption from your government is if they won't tell you what you want to know, you have to assume that they're lying.
Assume they're lying. If they're not transparent, the assumption of guilt has to be given.
So we would assume, we don't know, but the assumption is that that's a confession that the FBI was involved in January 6th.
So personally, I accept it as a confession.
That my worldview now incorporates the FBI response as a confession.
Anybody else? Is there anybody else who processed that as a confession?
A few of you, right?
I think some of you agree with that.
All right. Let's see what else is going on here.
Do you know somebody named Vox Day?
So he's become my new mascot, so he's criticizing my record of predictions.
And he went through my record of predictions and said, where I said I got it right.
And then he analyzed it and said, no, you got that totally wrong.
And I'm thinking, reasons?
No reasons. You just got it totally wrong.
What about the next one?
I make my claim, and he goes, no, you got that one totally wrong.
What? Yeah, and how weird that his name sounds like Vax.
But anyway, there's this weird situation I've told you about, which is the people who got everything wrong because they're not good at analyzing things, when it's all said and done and we actually learn what was true and what wasn't about the pandemic, you know, did the vaccinations help us or hurt us and all that other stuff,
once we know it, The people who were not smart enough to analyze it in the first place will also be not smart enough to know if they were right when it was done.
Which is really annoying.
The people who got everything wrong are going to be positive they got everything right.
Because the same lack of understanding of how anything works would go in their original prediction as well as their analysis of how it turned out.
They don't become smarter toward the end of the process.
Let me just give you this one example from Vox Day.
So he says that I made the wrong decision by taking the vaccination.
That I definitely, no doubt about it, made the wrong decision by getting vaccinated.
What would you say? Would you say that was, could you score that as wrong?
Like you're sure of it.
It's wrong. See some yeses?
Well, none of his business, but I say it publicly, so it is his business in a way.
Because you did, so some people say I made a mistake.
Now, let me ask you this.
Was the vaccination a yes-no question?
Was it yes-no?
Because the only way it could be a yes-no, meaning it's definitely a bad decision, or it's definitely not, the only way it could be definitely yes or no...
Is if you knew a lot more about the vaccination, right?
So if you knew the future, you would know if it was a bad idea.
But if you only know the present, do you know that?
Because in my world view, people who got vaccinated are protected from the more, let's say, the worst outcomes.
Does anybody disagree with that?
Has anybody seen any news that would disagree with the fact that vaccinated people are dying less?
They're still getting infected just as much.
But they're dying less and by a lot.
That's still true, right?
I mean, I believe that's universally considered true.
So, how could somebody say that I made the wrong decision with our current information?
Is it possible I made the wrong decision?
Well, it's possible I chose wrong, but it's probably not possible I made the wrong decision.
Do you see the difference?
It's definitely possible that I chose wrong.
It's not reasonable to say that I decided wrong.
Because the decision is without information.
So whichever way I went, vaccinated or not vaccinated, it would have been without information.
Because there was no option of having information about the future.
I only had information about the past that I didn't totally trust, and the present that I didn't totally trust.
But I didn't have any information about the future.
Is long-haul COVID worse than long-haul getting vaccinated?
I don't know. Nobody knows.
And so, if somebody is positive that the decision was right or wrong, that would be somebody who's just bad at analysis.
Would you agree with me with this point?
If somebody said, I think you made the wrong decision, that's a reasonable opinion.
I think you made the wrong decision, completely reasonable.
You totally made the wrong decision, guaranteed.
Is that reasonable? Given that I didn't have information either way?
No way to know either way.
So I would say that it was a risk management decision that was really closer to a guess.
Now what kind of background would one have to have to think that in a situation where the information is not available and you are just guessing, that you made the wrong decision?
What kind of background would you have to have?
You'd have to be an artist.
I wonder if Vox Dei is an economist or more of a writer.
Of science fiction.
Yeah, he's an artist.
So when you get criticized by artists, the correct response is hashtag artist.
Because the moment you start dealing with it like you're having a rational conversation, you almost immediately realize you're not.
That you're not. I've said this before.
If I have a disagreement with somebody who is a trained economist, Here's how the conversation goes.
I believe X. No, I believe Y. Why do you believe X or Y? Well, here are my assumptions.
Oh, well, one of those assumptions I don't agree with.
Where's your data? Oh, here's my data.
Oh, I don't think that is reliable enough.
Well, I think it might be.
And then you know exactly where the difference is.
Usually a difference in assumption.
Not a difference in analysis, because two people who are trained economists would probably analyze things similarly, meaning they would do it correctly.
They would know what to compare and what not to compare.
But an artist is just going to be like, I'm pretty sure I'm totally right.
Can somebody tell me when it's...
15 minutes before the hour.
I don't seem to have a clock here.
Oh, yeah, I do.
OK.
All right.
A couple more things.
those.
There will be approximately 12,000 athletes in the Beijing Olympics, the Omicron Olympics.
Place your bets.
12,000 completely vaccinated athletes.
Now, I don't know how many of them are boosted, but we would assume that they're all double vaccinated, would you say?
Fair to say.
Fair to say all 12,000 athletes will be vaccinated.
Probably at least two shots, right?
All on the same page? Based on your belief of how dangerous or not the vaccinations are, how many people do you expect to die during the Olympics?
And of 12,000 vaccinated athletes, 12,000 vaccinated athletes, would you change your mind about the safety of vaccinations if zero people have a heart problem during the Olympics?
I just want you to commit.
Would you commit that 12,000 vaccinated people working as hard as they can during the competition and training for it, would you agree that if zero of them die, you would at least question how dangerous it is?
No? That wouldn't make you question it?
12,000 is quite a few people.
If the vaccinations were safe enough...
That fewer than 1 in 12,000 had a problem, would you consider that dangerous?
Suppose one. Why not?
So I'm saying most people say no, but give me a why not.
Comments are going by pretty fast.
Are you saying it's because it wouldn't be statistically significant?
There are 12,000 vaccinated people.
Remember, now here's the context.
Here's the context. It is widely reported, although I believe not true.
This is my personal opinion, not based on facts.
My personal opinion is it's not true that high-end athletes are dying on the field in Europe and other places.
Because a lot of people who say that the vaccination is dangerous, I think Dr.
Malone said this as well, that if you look at the high number of high-end athletes who are dying, just like falling dead on the field, that there can be no other explanation than the vaccinations, people say.
Now, other people say, well, if you Google this, you'll find out this has been happening since 2018.
So the high number of people inexplicably dying while competing...
It has been happening since 2018, two years before the pandemic.
It is something happening.
There's definitely something happening.
But it was before the pandemic.
Now, how many NBA players have died after getting vaccinated?
How many NFL players have died after getting vaccinated?
Now, the total number of NBA players isn't that much, right?
But also the total number of professional soccer players in Europe isn't that much.
Would you say? What would be the total number of professional soccer players in Europe?
5,000? Would you say?
5,000 maybe? Just guessing.
So if maybe out of 5,000 athletes you believe, I don't believe this is happening, but if you believe that out of 5,000 you could tell that there's a problem because enough of them are dropping dead, Then wouldn't you expect that 12,000 top athletes, all vaccinated, somebody would drop dead, wouldn't they?
I'm not saying that you can prove it.
I'm going to put my prediction out there.
My prediction is that there will be zero confirmed vaccination illnesses that happen during competition.
Now, can I make a commitment to you?
Let's reverse this.
Let's put the pressure on me.
I was putting the pressure on you to make a commitment.
Let's reverse that. Let's put it on me.
If two people who are competing in the Olympics have some kind of a heart or something that makes them pass out...
No, not just passing out.
Let's say it's a confirmed real problem.
They didn't just pass out.
A real problem, like a heart problem.
If there are two of them...
During the Olympics, and we learned that that's unusual, I would need to know what past Olympics have been like.
If two people have a heart issue or something that seems coronavirus-related, or no, vaccine-related, if two of them have a vaccine-looking problem, I will change my opinion.
Fair? We'll only take two examples, and again, this is not science, of course, right?
It's not a randomized controlled trial.
But in terms of my opinion, two incidents during the Olympics would make me say, holy shit, we've got a problem here.
Is that fair? Now, I'm not saying that two would confirm it, and I'm not saying that zero would confirm there's no problem.
Can we get on the same page there?
None of this would confirm anything.
But if you're looking for, you know, strong signposts, I'd say two problems would convince me that there might be something there.
Zero problems should at least nudge you in the other direction.
Doesn't have to put you all the way there, but nudge you.
All right. I saw a comment from user Astro Bot Jones on Twitter.
He said that in 2010, and of course this is long before the pandemic, he had a really rough flu, just your ordinary seasonal flu, but sometimes you get really bad ones.
He said although the symptoms went away after a few bad days, he said he looked awful for two weeks, felt it for months, with weakness, malaise, and fatigue for months, and he believes that it aged him by a few years.
In 2014, there were 8 million professional soccer players in Europe.
Really? 8 million professional soccer players in Europe?
I think that certainly questions what professional means.
Whatever the top league is, I doubt...
I guess I'd question that statistic.
But if that's true...
That is an important statistic to put in the mix.
Alright, so here's my point.
I believe I've had the same experience.
How many of you have had the experience of just having a bad regular flu, like one that just kicked your ass, and you didn't feel good for months?
Anybody? I feel like I've had that experience.
Yeah, a lot of people say yes.
So when you're looking at long-haul COVID, the thing the economist would tell you to look at is not compare it to how you feel when you feel good.
So if you're trying to decide if you have long-haul COVID, don't say, how do I feel today, a month after the COVID, versus feeling great?
Don't do that. That's the wrong comparison.
Compare how you would feel after a regular flu, that happened to be just bad, compared to a month after the COVID. And if both cases, you know, often you feel like you're still getting your ass kicked, then maybe it's just the flu, right?
Now, it doesn't prove anything.
I'm just giving you a little extra context.
I'm still concerned that long-haul COVID could be a thing, but also concerned that long-haul getting vaccinated could be a problem.
We don't know. Here's something that was revealing.
Adam Kinzinger, I guess he's part of this January 6th committee, and when asked if they will have enough to have some kind of a finding, he answered that question in a very unusual way.
He said that they believe they will soon have a, quote, powerful and substantive narrative.
Narrative? Narrative?
Wait, what? And then he went on to say that even though they didn't have everything maybe you could have, they have a lot.
And so he says, I think if everything shut down today, we'd be able to put out a powerful and substantive narrative.
We still have more information, obviously, we want to get, he added.
Now, who uses the word narrative in that context?
Now, I do understand it's a correct use of the English language.
I do understand that if he has no...
Political intentions whatsoever, the word works, right?
It is actually a correct word to describe somebody who could put together a story with all the facts that they know that would give you a good idea of what was happening.
I guess you could call that a narrative, right?
But don't we almost always use that word to mean bullshit?
Don't we? When was the last time you heard narrative Without knowing that the context meant bullshit.
I've never heard narrative used outside of the context of obvious bullshit.
Have you? I mean, seriously, have you ever heard the word used in any other context other than bullshit?
I feel like Adam Kinzinger just admitted that the entire process is bullshit.
Can I get my FBI lie detector guy?
Hey, got some more work for you.
Get over here, FBI lie detector.
What does it mean when somebody says that their own story is a narrative?
It only means one thing.
Am I wrong? What is the second possible interpretation of that?
Did you become aware in 2017?
Aware of what? Oh, yes, when I ask for an explanation in narrative form, but not in politics.
If you're doing a writing class, yes, you might ask for a narrative in written form.
But if you're talking about politics, it only has one.
There's only one definition politically.
All right, well, I've been trying to ignore this Novak Djokovic story, you know, the number one tennis player trying to get in to compete in the Australian Open, but they wouldn't let him in because he's not vaccinated, and then he said that he wanted to get in because he'd been previously infected, and then that almost worked, but then we find out that after he was infected, he gave an interview with a guy and didn't tell him he was infected.
So he had a long interview with a reporter after knowing he was positive and didn't tell the reporter.
So Novak Djokovic managed to go from one of the most popular athletes in the world.
People really like him in the tennis world, if you don't follow tennis.
He's really popular. And he just turned into just an asshole, basically.
We have to reserve judgment.
He might have a reason for whatever he did.
It would be good to hear his side of the story.
But in terms of what's happening to his reputation, wow, this is a bad week.
That's a really bad week.
Too bad about that.
There was an abstract, meaning nothing like a confirmed trial or anything, in which some folks put some...
Looks like some marijuana cannabinoid acids from hemp to see if it would defeat COVID. Now, I'd like to read exactly how they explained it because I know a lot of you like to get tips on writing.
So I'm going to show you how well written this was.
Really easy to understand.
Usually when you hear science stuff, you might say to yourself, well, I'm not a scientist in some of these words I don't understand.
But here's some good, clean scientific writing in this abstract.
It says, affinity selection mass spectrometry was used for the discovery of botanical ligands to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.
You with me so far? Cannabinoid acids from hemp, cannabis sativa, were found to be allosteric as well as orthosteric, ligands.
So this is important.
The ligands were both allosteric and orthosteric because sometimes when your ligands are just one or the other, those are like bad ligands.
But these are like good ligands.
They're both allosteric and orthosteric, and that's good.
Oh, this is even better.
They have micromolar affinity for the spike protein.
Micromolar affinity. Yeah, a lot of your compounds won't have any micromolar affinity for anything, but this is good stuff.
And then more, in the follow-up assays, so they were just doing this in test tubes, not in people, essentially, the cannabigerolic acid and cannabidiolic acid prevented infection of human epithelial cells by pseudovirus expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and preventing entry into the cells.
Importantly, Okay, science.
Science-y stuff.
So this could explain why I've not yet been infected.
Do you know how many potentially useful COVID treatments I'm on right now?
So I'm already on a prescription Pepsid anti-acid, which is suspected to be one of the things that helps with COVID. I'm also...
On budesonide, which is just a normal asthma inhaler that you use every day just to keep you from getting asthma.
That also is indicated as useful for it.
And now marijuana.
I have more marijuana in my system than blood.
So if you figure out my good BMI, so my BMI is good, and I'm full of chemicals that automatically fight COVID, I think I'm pretty good.
I think I'm pretty good.
Looking good. Well, although our FBI can't be trusted and all of our other systems are broken, thank God our election systems are completely credible.
Thank God. Oh, oh, I've got a challenge here.
I'm sorry. No, no way.
PK83, I don't want to have to block you for this, but this is the most objectionable comment I've ever seen.
And... Hold on to your hat.
This is what he says. He says, I smoke ten times more weed than you, Scott.
I don't know if I can take that kind of insult.
I might have to block you.
No, I'm going to let you go.
I'm going to let you go. You get a pass.
But that's a provocative statement.
All right. Rasmussen did another poll and they asked, would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who would advocate reducing prison time for criminals?
What the hell? Can somebody tell me what time it is?
Oh, I think I have to go in a minute.
Last story. Would you be more or less likely to vote for somebody who wants to get rid of jail time?
18% said they'd be more likely to vote for somebody who was reducing jail crime for serious crimes.
18%. 7% said they weren't sure, said they weren't necessarily against letting criminals out of jail to commit more crimes.
So 18% thought they'd be more likely to vote for the person who was in favour of more crime.
And 7% weren't opposed to it, so let's see.
18 plus 7.
18 plus 7 is...
25.
So 25% of the people surveyed, surprisingly, surprisingly, were not too unhappy about extra crime.
So... Got that?
I saw a tweet about how many people in Congress had traded and made a whole bunch of money and beat the market average.
And the implication is that they did something sketchy.
Because it looks like insider trading.
Because their trading success was way too good.
And the list had about 30 people.
Who beat the S&P 500, which would be a sign of good investing.
So out of Congress, how many people in Congress?
435? How many people are in Congress?
430? What's the number?
I'm bad with my politics.
All right, well... So there were about, you know, 30-some that beat the average.
But about 10 of them only beat the average by a little bit.
So that doesn't mean much, right?
Because people are all over the average, some below, some above.
So if you throw away the people who beat it by only a little bit, and only look at the people who killed it, like really made a lot of money, there are about 20 of them.
Okay, there's 438, somebody say, or 430...
Oh, and we're counting both...
I don't know if they were counting Senate, too.
I guess they were. 538 if you count the Senate.
Okay. So let's say out of 538, they found 20 people who really, really invested well or lucky, but they had really big returns.
Do you think you should be alarmed if 20 people out of 538 had a really good investing year?
Yes or no? That's exactly what you'd expect.
You would exactly expect something like 20 people would kill the market, and probably 20 people lost a bunch of money.
It's the most expected thing you could possibly see.
Now, apparently the timing of some of the trades was suspect.
Completely different question.
If the timing of the trades is suspect, you have to look at that, right?
That means something. But the fact that 20 people out of 538 had a really good year, and, like, really good...
One of them is...
Well, it doesn't matter who.
But one of them had a pretty big return, and it could have been one company.
Like, if somebody bought Apple Computer three years ago, they killed the S&P 500, didn't they?
Just buying Apple Computer.
Simply the most ordinary thing you can do.
If any of them invested in Tesla, but maybe had three stocks.
So you bought three stocks, one of them was Tesla.
You would have killed the market.
It wouldn't mean anything.
It just meant you bought what a lot of people bought.
