Episode 1698 Scott Adams: How to Fix All The Fake News, Trump Is Being Trump Again, And More Fun
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
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Content:
"News Buddies" an app to fix Fake News
Anti-Lynching bill passed by Congress
California reparations committee
President Trump's provocative Putin statement
Will Smith, Chris Rock situation update
Ukraine War Update
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome, yes, once again, to the best thing that's ever happened.
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams.
Now, I don't know if you've noticed, the regular viewers, that if I tell you you're going to have a good day, It will make it more likely.
Why? Because reality is subjective.
You might have exactly the same amount of problems, but if you come here every day and I tell you it's going to be great, it'll be a little bit greater, as far as you can tell.
And that's all that matters. Now, how would you like to...
Take this experiment up a notch.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and there is plenty of science to suggest, indirectly, that it might make your day better.
But I guarantee it.
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of tank or gel, a canteen, a glass of vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. Now join me for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it will be sipped around the world now.
Go! Exactly.
I see in the comments, if I may read this comment, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
A lot of people would put it in the top ten.
But I think it probably belongs in the top three.
I will allow that the birth of your children, possibly your wedding day if things went well, could be better days, maybe, maybe, if those things went perfectly.
I would say the bad version of all those things is still worse than the good version of Coffee with Scott Adams.
But the best, I'll give you, I'll give you that the best version of those things would have a little bit of an edge.
Well, here's an update.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
It's a fake news update.
Do you remember? Do you remember the story about the guy who wanted to vote back in 2020?
He wanted to vote, but he could not find any way to get a government ID. Here's an update on that story.
He still doesn't exist.
Still doesn't exist.
Okay. All right, next item.
How would you like me to fix fake news?
I mean, actually do it, like right here.
I'm going to perform a magic trick.
Are you ready? I'm going to describe an app, or maybe it's a process.
It doesn't have to be an app.
It could be something that gets the same thing done.
And it goes like this.
Number one, how much do you dislike commercials on your television?
I think you don't like them at all.
Wouldn't you wish that if you were watching live TV, where you can't fast-forward, that you could have something entertain you during the commercials, and yet, here's the key, and yet, have the thing that entertains you during the commercials...
Be on the same topic or within the same field as the show you were just watching.
And so I submit to you what I call News Buddies.
What it is, it's a live stream, could be on an app, but it could be just live stream, that is at the same time as the live network broadcast or cable broadcast of CNN, Fox News, MSNBC. And so if you're watching any of those shows, you can have a call up on your other device.
So let's say you're watching the news on your television, because you're a certain age, you watch a television.
And you call up on your phone a little person, a real person, who at exactly the same time, for you and other people watching the same show, will be your little news buddy.
It'll be like a little avatar that just sits there on your phone and is completely silent, mostly, during the actual broadcast.
The moment the broadcast moves to a commercial, you can silence your TV and then have the little news buddy say, you know, that story you just watched, that's kind of fake news because it's a little bit out of context.
Here's what they left out.
And what would you rather do?
Would you rather listen to the commercial?
Would you? Would you rather listen to the commercial?
Or would you rather listen to somebody tell you what was wrong with what you just watched?
Which is more entertaining?
Because that's all that matters, right?
Now let's say it's free.
Could be. Could easily be free.
Because if you put it on, let's say, on YouTube...
You could have maybe the commercials run...
I don't know, could you do this?
Make the commercials run on your buddy app at a different time as the ones on the TV so that you never get commercials at the same time.
I think you could do that.
But you could do it on an app if you build it yourself.
And so therefore, you wouldn't have to listen to the commercial, maybe it's just running in video, doesn't even have any sound, while the news buddy is talking.
Now, let's say that you don't like one of the news buddies, because it looks like that's another propaganda.
You pick another one.
And other people can judge the other news buddies and pick one you like.
So there should be somebody who...
And by the way, there wouldn't be any copyright problem, because the news buddy would not be showing the stream.
You would have to have your own separate stream for CNN or whatever it is you're watching.
Now, you have the news buddy doing a little fact checking while the live news is on.
And then the news buddy could even, hold on, it gets better, send you links to the fact checks.
Huh? Huh?
In real time.
In real time. So your little news buddy, as soon as it goes to commercial, it says, you know what they said about climate change?
Well, some people say that that's not true.
Here's a link. You'd be like, seriously?
I totally believe that.
There's a link that says the opposite?
Bing! Now, how many senior citizens could handle...
You know, having a news buddy on the phone plus the TV on.
Okay, over a certain age, I'll give you that it would decline in usability.
But it's also over the certain age that they're not as active in anything.
So, you tell me that People in their 50s and 60s can't handle opening an app on the phone.
I say, no, of course they can.
So the people that you're really trying to reach, even the older segment, can absolutely turn on a simultaneous app.
That's not even hard.
So here's something that I would like to give you as a general concept.
If I had told you before you'd ever heard of something called a jury trial, that I was going to design this justice system where 12 of your peers would be selected and then vetted by lawyers, and we'd have all this checks and balances and a judge, but ultimately there'd be 12 people who would decide if you go to jail or not.
How many of you would have thought that would work?
Seriously. Be honest with yourself.
If the jury system had never existed and somebody described it to you and said, I got this great idea, would you think that was going to work?
Really? I don't know.
Some of you, maybe. Maybe better than the alternatives.
What about the Supreme Court?
Think of all your problems with the Supreme Court, all the complaints you have.
If somebody had described the Supreme Court before anybody knew it ever existed, it was just a whole new idea, Would you have heard that and said, yeah, I think that's going to last at least 200 years.
People will find that very credible.
I don't know. Maybe.
Maybe you would have thought it was better than the other ideas.
So, you know, that'd be good enough.
But I'm not sure that we're so smart that we know that we can't engineer systems.
To at least make us satisfied that we've done the best job we can.
So when I was talking the other day about could you have a Supreme Court of fact-checking, how many of you said, you can't do that, because then the fact-checkers would just be bought off by somebody, and then you think of all the reasons why it doesn't work.
I get that.
Every one of the reasons why you offer that that wouldn't work If you designed it incorrectly, yeah, you're right.
It wouldn't work. But don't underestimate the ingenuity of the public to design something that does work, even if we get it wrong 19 out of 20 times.
If you just keep chugging along, you're going to get something that works.
So when I talk about this NewsBuddy app, the only thing I'm trying to transmit is Is that you'd be surprised how many thorny, impossible-seeming problems could be solved if you just chug along and try enough things.
Doesn't mean this will be the solution, to have a little news buddy, because the obvious thing is they become corrupted, blah, blah, blah.
But we do have a history...
Of solving problems that I would say are like this-ish, in the sense that you can't imagine how you can get the bias and the criminality out of it.
But we seem to largely be able to fix those things.
It just takes a while. So, I don't know if the news buddy's away, but something cool could probably fix the fake news.
I don't think what's going to fix it is competing platforms.
That's my best guess.
Do you? Do you think that the fake news will ever be fixed by somebody coming up with a competing platform?
Oh, that's all the good news, so we'll watch that one instead.
Doesn't feel like it, right?
And so since we've tried that, in effect, should we not try something else?
Right?
Somebody cleverly is saying, so when did you create this NewsBuddy app?
It would have been smarter to develop the app before giving you the idea, but I feel like it's more about the concept of designing systems that work.
It's not even about the app.
I don't have that much interest in that kind of an app.
But it was a good question, yes.
It was a good question.
All right. One of the coolest things about being me, if I can be all about me for a moment, and why wouldn't I be, is that every now and then I'll wake up and just something cool will happen that's just so cool you can barely contain yourself.
And you didn't know it was coming.
It was just, hey, that's cool.
I was curious about something related to a story I'm going to talk about later.
And in order to talk about that other story, about an author being cancelled, I wanted to Google myself And see if, you know, what's the highest rated thing about me?
To see if it was negative or positive.
And to compare it to this other story.
And I discovered that something like three days ago there was a story that the Dilbert comic is going to be featured in a, or already is, in a Rick and Morty episode.
And I guess they go to an alternative universe or something.
And... They go into an alternative universe where there's a Dilbert world and the desks are eating the people or something.
And here's what's weird.
So this was four days ago, actually, this was published.
How in the world did I not know about this for four days?
How in the world could there be a Rick and Morty episode all about Dilbert?
It took four days for me to figure that out, and I had to find it myself.
Nobody mentioned that to me?
None of you? Nobody?
Really? Seriously? There's not one of you?
There's not one of you who already knew that and thought to mention it?
Come on! I rely on you to...
To tell me the obvious stuff.
Four days and I didn't know that.
Now, call my agent.
I don't have an agent for that kind of stuff.
I have an agent for my books.
But not a general agent.
So, here's what I'd like to say.
Rick and Morty is just about the best thing on television.
And... Being featured in that, even if they mock it, I haven't seen it, so I don't know if they treat it like a cultural icon or they treat it mockingly.
Either way is fine with me because I'm such a fan of the show.
Somebody says my audience doesn't watch Rick and Morty.
What's wrong with you?
You should. I would say it's my favorite animated film.
Could I say that?
Yeah, I think I could say that.
I think it's my favorite animated show of all time.
Including my own.
Well, finally, the Biden administration and Congress has passed an anti-lynching bill.
And I'm hoping this will...
Maybe stop the tide, this rising problem of lynching, which I don't believe has happened in a long time.
I don't know anybody who's opposed to a bill against lynching.
You could argue that the states already did it.
But I don't mind that the government, you know, the federal government makes it official, if you could say that.
I would say maybe it wasn't the most important thing we were working on.
So if it was easy...
You know? It didn't cost anything.
Eh, okay. I mean, I feel like it was unnecessary work, so I'm not sure I would have done it.
It solves a problem that doesn't really exist.
But as a messaging thing, sure, I agree with the message.
So if it didn't cost too much, eh, I'm not going to hate it.
But I wonder, was anyone on the other side of that argument?
Like, who? I mean...
Anybody who took the other side of this argument was really not playing this right.
Because, you know, and I understand you might say something like, oh, we already have laws, why waste our time?
I get that. But don't say it.
Don't say it.
I understand if you think it.
But how in the world could this be politically smart to be the one who gets singled out for being against it?
It's such an obvious trap.
Here's how I would have played it.
If I were in Congress, just so I don't get caught in this, you're against the anti-lynching bill?
I would have been more for it than anybody.
I would have been for digging up people who had been for it just to kill them again.
I mean, I would have been so for it that if they ever talked to me, I'd say, are you kidding?
I'm like the number one person in favor of this.
Which would make sense, because I have identified as black for a while.
But I noticed a trend.
And can you tell me if this is bias or is this real?
Okay? This is just something I observe, so there's no science to it.
There's no data to it. Just sort of my observation.
Okay? Does it seem to you that Democrats are tough on crime when the crime isn't one that's actually happening?
Am I wrong about that?
I mean, we've got the lynching.
They're tough on lynching, which, thankfully, is basically not happening.
If it ever does happen, yeah, I mean, we should go as hard on whoever does such a horrible thing as we can.
But it's interesting that they would pick that as where they'd be tough on crime.
Do you remember when the Democrats thought Russia collusion was real?
Well, they were pretty tough on that, weren't they?
They were tough on that crime that, oh, wait a minute, that didn't exist.
Yeah, so they're tough on that crime that doesn't exist.
They're also tough on a lot of crimes of people thinking things wrong.
So if you're thinking things wrong, they're really tough on that.
I feel as if Democrats are not really understanding the whole tough-on-crime concept and where to apply it and when not to apply it.
Is it just me?
I don't know. It feels like a trend or a pattern.
Maybe just my imagination.
Apparently the number of workers in the workplace, which is exactly where the workers should be, If you see a worker not in the workplace, send them back.
They belong in the workplace.
Even at lunch.
We'll have no goofing off.
All right, apparently there are more people using drugs in the workplace.
But I was surprised that they say it's risen to 4.6% of a bunch of people who were randomly tested.
And I thought to myself, only 4.6%?
What workplace could you go into and find only 4.6% are on drugs?
And I thought, oh, oh, just certain drugs.
Just certain drugs.
If you tested all the people who were on the drug that would affect their performance, how many would that be?
Well, that would be all of them.
It's just some of them are legal.
Some of them are prescribed.
It's coffee. It's booze.
But I would guess that 75% of the workforce is consciously changing their brain chemistry through drugs, one way or the other.
I mean, maybe it's only on the weekend.
Maybe it's sugar.
Anyway. Joel Pollack has an article in Breitbart in which he's talking about the reparations efforts in California.
And he points out, and I never thought of this before, that California had never been a slave state.
So I live in a state, California, there have never been slaves here.
It's always been a free state.
But we're talking about, and there's some kind of committee, to come up with A plan for reparations or to see if it's practical.
And they've spent quite a bit of time so far, and here's what they came up with.
It's just a preliminary, like, beginning decision to throw other black people under the bus.
So, progress so far.
By a committee that apparently is largely black to decide that only people who can prove they were descended from slavery in America would be eligible for the reparations.
So the very first thing that a largely black committee did was find a new way to divide people.
This time dividing black people in America.
And in so doing, they came up with a new standard in which you'd have to be able to demonstrate you were descended from slaves if any reparations were ever approved.
So it's all very preliminary.
To which I ask the obvious question.
Is it not discriminatory to ask black Americans to have identification for some government process?
Because we know that voting, it would be discriminatory to require a government ID. But yet the Committee on Reparations believes that the same public that would find it a burden, or at least some of them,
would find it a burden to get government ID... Would be able to plow through and prove through, what, I don't know, DNA or maybe a search of the public records that they had descended from actual slaves in America.
I'm not sure this committee is moving the ball forward, if you know what I mean.
I think they came up with a standard that is so provocative that they've reduced the chances of reparations.
Am I wrong? I think they just reduced the chance that this could ever happen.
Let me tell you what you would have done if you wanted to increase the chance.
Just find something that Republicans like, too.
That's it. Just find something Republicans like.
For example, about something that would improve education options for everybody who's low income, which would be Very beneficial for the black American community because they find themselves in the deepest hole, especially with the education system.
So if you say, let's fix the education options, maybe add choice, whatever, for everybody, then the Republicans can say, wait, did you say for everybody?
And then they say, yeah.
And then somebody says, but you know, this will disproportionately help The black public, because they're in a deeper hole, and the Republicans say, we don't freaking care, as long as it's applied evenly.
Right? Nobody's going to complain if it's applied to everybody evenly that it has an outcome that's a little biased.
That's everything Republicans want.
So if it were hard to do it, I'd say don't try.
But given that it would be the easiest thing in the world to do, Just come up with a plan that Republicans like.
Vote. Done.
Bring the country together.
Fix the biggest source of systemic racism, which is the unequal education system.
But if you fix the unequal education system, granted, there's a whole lifetime of people who aren't going to get that benefit.
Or they could.
Maybe do something with training and adult education as well.
Maybe. But if you did something that people liked, well, maybe you'd guess something.
That's all I'd like to suggest.
How about this?
Is it possible for Trump not to be Trump for a minute?
Yeah.
Don't we all think that we could be Trump better than Trump?
Now here's the problem.
For some things, it feels like we could.
But there are a whole bunch of things you know you couldn't.
When you saw his letter talking about his hole-in-one that he got, And, you know, even people who are not fans had to admit it was well-written.
It was just hilarious and on point, and it was just sort of perfect.
It was self-mocking without being too self-mocking.
It just had everything. So as an entertainment and a piece of writing, it was just brilliant, in my opinion.
But then he does this.
But then he does this.
He's so hard...
To unambiguously like.
So I'm a fan, of course.
And I liked him personally when I met him.
So I liked the family. They were all very nice to me.
So I have only positive feelings about them personally.
But he's in an interview with, I guess, Just the News, John Solomon.
And Trump called on...
Russian President Vladimir Putin to release any damaging information he has about the Biden family?
Come on!
Come on.
He's up.
So Trump is up something like, I don't know, seven points against whoever runs against him, if he were to run as president again.
You know, he has this pretty much commanding lead and situation.
The only thing he could do wrong is say something that could be spun as him siding with Russia.
It's the only thing he could do wrong.
And he knows exactly what he's doing.
He doesn't fly close to the sun by accident.
If this looked like an accident to you, you haven't been paying attention.
This was no accident.
This was someone saying, watch this.
Watch this. I feel like that's all it was.
I feel like he just said whatever is the most provocative thing he could say that would force people to demand an apology or a clarification, which would not be forthcoming.
So, you know, when you see this sort of thing juxtaposed with his statement about his hole-in-one, the hole-in-one statement should give you a tip-off Of when he's tongue-in-cheek.
But it won't. Because the people who want to interpret it as entirely serious, they're just going to do that.
So to me, I wouldn't have done it.
I wouldn't have done it.
But... Would I have been President of the United States?
No. No, probably not.
So whatever he does keeps working in some ways.
And then we're all geniuses when something doesn't work.
We're like, oh, we saw that coming.
Why didn't he? Well, I don't know why.
We're all confused a little bit about why things keep working.
They shouldn't work. But he seems to know how to harness energy.
In this case, he created energy under nothing.
And then the energy will come directed back at him.
And then because he's an energy monster, he'll redirect the energy to his advantage.
So first he creates the energy, then he hands the energy to his enemies.
They throw the energy at him.
Hey, hey, hey, look what you said.
And he says, oh, I got more energy back than I gave you.
I gave you like 10 pounds of energy and you gave me back 1,000 pounds.
Thank you, thank you.
Redirect. Watching him do this in real time is just such a lesson on managing the public and everything else, I guess.
Well, even the friendly news sources, the friendly to the Democrat news sources, are noting that Biden's gaffes are becoming a little bit harder to explain.
A little bit harder to explain.
Um... But now they've resorted to the ridiculous.
This is another, Joel Pollack also said this in a tweet.
By the way, if you're not following Joel Pollack on Twitter, you should be.
Don't wait for me to talk about it.
But anyway, when the White House defended Biden talking about, you know, Putin should not be in charge, it sounded like he wanted him removed, but then he got walked back, and now they're saying that Biden was speaking in his personal capacity.
And as Joel points out, there's no such thing as a president's personal capacity.
What? What?
You know, maybe in some weird philosophical way, but not in a real way.
If you are the President of the United States and you give an opinion about what should happen in foreign affairs, it's not your personal opinion, even if it is your personal opinion.
It doesn't even mean anything when you're the actual President.
And it's funny that That it takes somebody to actually say that before you say, oh yeah, there's not really a difference.
All right, apparently Chris Rock is selling tons of tickets to his stand-up show, so he's coming out way ahead.
So now we have the weird situation where, unless this was fake news, and I worry that it was, because I saw somebody else say that he didn't make any statement about it, but I saw a statement that Chris Rock said in which he apologized.
That happened, or was that fake news?
Did I get taken by fake news?
I think he apologized, right?
Somebody says it's fake.
Oh, really? Oh, it was a fake.
Oh, wow. Huh.
Okay. The fake news was very good.
It was a well-written fake.
But at least I could smell it a little bit, enough to ask the question.
All right. Wow.
Okay. Anyway, Chris Rock is coming out ahead because he's selling a lot of tickets.
And I think people appreciated that he didn't get violent, that he didn't freak out, and he went on with the show.
And even if you think he shouldn't have said what he said, you're not really going to come down too hard on a comedian being a comedian.
Especially, I think there was evidence he didn't know about the alopecia.
Which is perfectly believable.
So, no, it wasn't a staged little flap, I'm sure of that.
So Chris Rock comes out ahead.
How about Jada Pinkett Smith?
Did she come out ahead?
I'd say yes.
Because do you think the women hate it when men defend them like that?
They don't hate it.
Nope. Nope.
They might say they do, but they don't hate it.
And I'd be surprised if she hates it.
So I think she came out ahead on an interpersonal level.
How about did she come out ahead in any other way?
I would say yes.
Because she's very...
She's been classy about not commenting, except I think she did one meme she posted about being here for the healing or something.
So basically, just no comment except one positive one about healing, I guess.
Good. I think she also brought the message about what Propecia is.
And more importantly, more importantly...
How emotionally disturbing it is for the person with it.
It would be real easy for you to say, well, of all the problems, that's not the big one.
And by the way, she's rich and beautiful.
And didn't she shave her head because she wanted to anyway?
I don't think so. I think probably it was always alopecia.
Just a guess. But, you know, I think she came in ahead.
Am I wrong? I think she looks good.
I think a message that she'd like you to understand, which is people suffering from this probably have more of a suffering than you would imagine.
I think she looks good.
How about Will Smith? He got an Oscar.
He got a standing ovation.
He apologized. Now that's not fake, right?
That Will Smith apologized for the hit?
I think he did. And I feel as if it won't affect his movies.
I don't think so.
I feel like everybody came out ahead.
The Academy Award got better ratings.
The media got clicks.
I had something to talk about.
You were entertained. Is this the weirdest situation in the world?
Literally everybody came out ahead.
I'm not wrong about that.
I mean, you know, Chris Rock suffered one slap...
And then sold four times as many tickets and got rich.
And he's more relevant than he's ever been, and I don't know.
It looks like he came out ahead.
Some people say they lost respect for Will Smith, but here's the thing with celebrity.
It matters more that you made people like you than you made people dislike you.
Because the people who were sort of willing to dislike him, in other words, they were probably lukewarm on him in the first place, they weren't going to buy his tickets and go to his movies.
The people who already liked him, they'd probably like him a little bit more, and more likely to buy a ticket.
If I had to bet, I don't know it'll hurt his box office appeal at all.
I don't think it will. You might lose some, but then gain some.
Hard to say. Well, Putin has apparently refocused his army on the east.
And people say, is this a change in strategy or a sign he is losing?
What do you think? Why is Putin refocusing away from capturing Kiev and focusing on the east where he's already got control, so he's going to consolidate control?
Why would he do that?
Is it because he's losing, or is it just good strategy?
And it was his plan all along.
Well, I would guess that whatever his plan all along was, it got some modifications.
But it might be that they can just ignore Kiev until everything else is settled and then go back.
Or maybe they don't want to keep incurring losses around Kiev, if that's where they're the most losses.
So maybe he's just cutting his losses during the time he's negotiating.
So it doesn't look like he's losing anything.
It looks like he's winning. We don't know, basically.
That's the bottom line.
But I'll tell you what the big problem here is.
In order to make peace, doesn't one side need to think it's losing?
There might be exceptions to that.
But generally speaking, you don't really get peace until one side thinks it is losing or will lose, right?
And the problem is they both think they're winning, right?
So Putin, I think he can make a very strong case that he's winning or will win, even though it will cost a lot.
I think he can make the case he's winning.
And I think that Ukraine is already making the case through their propaganda that they're winning.
So Ukraine can't say, hey, we're totally winning this thing, but we'll give you lots of things for peace.
So Ukraine has to make an offer in the peace deal that reflects their propaganda.
And so they did.
Their propaganda says we're totally winning this thing.
And so they made an offer that you wouldn't have made unless you thought you were going to win the thing.
And of course Putin thinks he's winning, so he's not going to accept an offer that suggests the other side's winning.
That's not going to happen.
So how could you possibly have peace?
The only way you can have peace is somebody who's got to lose, or be in the direction to lose, or it looks like it's going to happen any moment.
Now, I heard a term that I had not heard before, which is, what is it called?
It's about when an army is getting ready to collapse.
Oh, a culminating point.
So this is Michael Ryan, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy.
So he thinks, he speculates, and I don't think this is a widespread opinion yet, but he speculates that the Russian army might be reaching a culminating point.
Now, as I understand it, the idiot explanation of that is you have enough food until you don't.
And you have enough ammunition until you don't.
And the don't part can happen suddenly, and then everything falls apart.
Right? Because if you're looking at how much ammunition you have, and it's just enough to escape, it's not enough to attack, what the hell are you going to do?
If you don't know there's more coming, all you have is this much ammunition, and you think, well, I could probably do it to cover my escape...
But I don't think it's going to help me attack anything, and it doesn't look like it's going to change.
You would instantly go from offense to defense, right?
Same with food. If you have food, you keep fighting.
If it's the first day they tell you there's no food, you say, wait a minute, did I hear that right?
Today's a no-food day?
When does the food come back?
They're like, well, we don't know.
They keep attacking our food trucks.
It's a culminating point, I think, if I'm interpreting it right.
So the Russian army, at least in pockets, might be approaching a complete disintegration point.
But if it happens, it would happen quickly.
Somebody says the Viet Cong ate rap meat.
Yeah, it's hard to...
Completely understand what people will do to survive, so I suppose they would just start raping the Ukrainian countryside.
But even that would be the army falling apart, because even to rape and pillage, they'd probably disperse.
So, what do you think?
If you had to guess, is any significant part of the Russian military force near a culmination point?
Well, I'm guessing no.
If near means in the next month, I'd say no.
And if it takes longer than that, then Russia will just find new ways to get supplies, I suppose.
So it looks like there's something about this situation where everybody can resupply.
But if you can't resupply quickly or well...
Maybe you can keep limping along to do a peace deal without reaching your culmination point.
So here's a story I read in one publication.
I forget which one.
I think it was a British publication.
That one of the reasons that Ukraine is doing such a good job of defense is drones...
But not the big ones.
Not the kind that come from Turkey and look like a big rocket.
I'm talking about the little ones that you might have at home.
So apparently there was some effort in Ukraine that was fairly advanced to sort of self-organize all the people who knew about drones.
Military or non-military, it didn't matter.
And they formed some kind of a quasi-drone air force, Of small drones.
And they're cobbled together in various ways and different models.
And part of the story said they were having trouble getting parts because things are banned in certain countries.
To which I thought, that doesn't make sense because NATO would just give them the parts.
I mean, if it's a military thing, I can't imagine that those restrictions would be permanent.
If we wanted to arm Ukraine, we could certainly get them some hobby drone parts, I think.
But the story goes that that little unit with the well-trained people that were a part of it would go out on some kind of four-wheeled vehicles at night.
They'd have their night-vision small drones, spotting stuff, and they would blow up the most strategic things.
So they'd blow up whoever's in front, And then once they slowed things down, they'd look to pick off, you know, colonels and officers and, I don't know, supply trucks and stuff, that sort of thing.
So if you can pick and choose, after you slow them down, you basically can just stop a whole convoy.
And it looks like, to some extent, maybe they did.
Now remember, every story that comes out of this region It has to be suspect.
It's all propaganda. Fog of war.
But it's what I was expecting to hear.
So remember, I'll tell you this too many times.
You'll be sick of it. I think I was the only person I know of.
There had to be more.
But only what I heard saying that the Ukrainians would be unusually effective because of new technology that we had not seen employed before.
This is that. Now, if this is true, and that's a big if, This would be a clear case of smaller drones being deployed in a way that had never been used this effectively before.
Yes, small drones have been used for a long time, but not like this.
So it's more about the way they're using it and effectively building a drone Air Force attack unit to strategically attack things.
Now, here's the thing that I found fascinating.
You wondered how the small drones could get through because, of course, Russia would have jamming stuff to be able to jam the signal, right?
But apparently the strategy is they wait for the Russians to launch their own drones because apparently you can't really have a convoy in 2022 without your own drones.
And you would kill your own drones if you sent out some kind of suppressing signal.
So the Ukrainians would wait for the suppressing signal to be turned off, which means the Russians are launching their own drones, which means you can launch your drones.
So they've got this whole drone-electronic battle going on that is...
And I'll say again...
I don't know if we're really reading the actual tactics of a thing happening or it's total bullshit.
It could be, like the ghost of Kiev and all the rest, it could be complete bullshit.
But it sure sounds right.
Sounds good. Alright.
Ukraine allegedly, and here's another maybe bullshit fake news story, allegedly fired some artillery into Russian territory.
And at least one report, and I don't think any of this is confirmed or even reliable.
It may have been like a weapons depot or ammunition depot or something like that.
But here's my question.
Why is Ukraine waiting so long to attack Russia?
Who made the rule that only Russia can attack inside Ukraine by Ukraine's military, which must have some capability, Why can't they attack Russia?
I've never really understood that.
Is it because Putin will get mad?
I mean, he acts like he's kind of mad right now.
A little bit. Somebody says no ability, but that seems so unlikely.
Are you telling me that they can't even get a terrorist attack into Moscow?
Not recommending it.
Not recommending it.
I don't recommend violence.
But I'm wondering about the strategy.
Because if the problem is that the Russian citizens are not getting the message of what's happening over there, how do you send the message?
That's how I'd send it.
If I were an unscrupulous leader and didn't care about casualties, I would start blowing stuff up in Moscow any way I could through individual agents.
You know, because... I've got to be honest.
You don't have to blow up things like the Twin Towers with spectacular attacks.
I'm pretty sure, and I don't want to get into details, and you shouldn't either, but with no exaggeration whatsoever, I'm pretty sure I could take out a city by myself.
Am I wrong? It wouldn't be that hard, I don't think.
I think I actually could.
Now, I'm not going to tell you how I would do it.
It wouldn't be straightforward.
But... Yeah.
I mean...
Yeah, it's doable.
Right. I don't want to give you ideas, but all I want you to do...
Those of you who say it can't be done, just look at the comments from the people saying yes.
The people saying yes have already figured out how to do it.
The people saying, no, it's just that you haven't figured out how to do it.
And I've never understood why the Islamic, you know, the terrorists who are the extremists, I've never understood why they only do attacks one way, because it's so limiting, when they can just take out a whole city pretty easily.
Nobody does it. I don't know why.
Alright, well, don't get your ideas from me, but I don't understand why Ukraine isn't doing it.
There must be some strategy behind that.
And here's some Disney fake news.
I've been ignoring this whole Florida don't say gay bill because it's not really don't say gay.
So I guess the bill in Florida that schools will not be allowed to teach anything about sexuality to kids below a certain age.
Is that true? Did I summarize that correctly?
Because I'm not really following the story.
But that's basically it.
Okay, people saying yes to that.
And that seems fairly reasonable, right?
I can see how most parents would say, no, leave that to us, at least up to a certain age.
If you're teaching a 14-year-old about birth control...
Then you have my attention, right?
That maybe you can make the argument, and I'm not going to make an argument pro or con here.
I don't want to get into it. But you can make the argument that the school would be a good way to capture that because parents don't do a good job at it.
You can make an argument. But it's hard to make an argument that the parents shouldn't be solely in control of the earliest impressions.
For something of that importance.
But here's what I'd like to say.
The opponents of that have turned it into a don't say gay meme, basically.
So they're characterizing the don't teach our kids anything about sexuality.
They're characterizing that as, oh, you're not allowed to say gay.
Which, of course, is total misrepresentation.
But as a misrepresentation, it's really good.
So persuasion-wise, really good.
I mean, let's just look at this.
First of all, it's got a say and gay in it.
What happens when you put a rhyme in something?
If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.
We've talked about this many times.
If it's fast and sticky and it rhymes, in California they had a thing about putting on your seatbelt, and it was click it or tick it.
Click it or tick it.
These are all good. So yes, don't say gay looks like professional work to me.
It could be accidental and then it caught on.
Could be. But it looks professional because it's got technique built into it.
A little bit more than you normally see from something that occurs naturally.
So I'd say somebody who's got some skills came up with that and I'd say that it probably works.
Now there was a video I saw on Twitter In which a Disney public, a Disney official of some kind, was saying that they're striving to make 50% of the characters in Disney content to be either LGBTQIA, and I don't even know what the IA is anymore, and racial minorities.
So that between the two categories, they'd like 50% of their characters.
And of course, people were outraged.
People were outraged.
Because they said, you're so woke.
Why, Disney, why must you force, you know, 50% of your people in your movies to be racial minorities and LGBTQ? Why?
Well, all off for a reason.
It could be that that's exactly what the country is.
Could it be? Could it be?
That what Disney said is, yeah, we want our movies to reflect roughly what the country is, which is that.
That's what the country is.
Here are the actual numbers.
58% of the country is white.
So remember, she said 50% would be minorities, but 58% are white.
So you'd say, oh, that's a little high.
No, because she said minorities and...
LGBTQ. What percentage of the population of any population, let's say the white population, is also LGBTQIA? And it's about 6%.
So if you start with your 58% are white in America, and then you're not counting 6% of them as being LGBTQIA, you get about 52% are white and LGBTQIA. Straight, if that's even the word anymore.
And Disney just said, that's what we're going to make our content, just like the people.
Now, how many of you were offended when you heard they were going to make their content just like the public?
Probably some of you.
Am I right? Just because nobody did the math, and when you first hear it, you're like, whoa, what are they doing?
That seems like too high.
And I think there's a known phenomenon where people are bad at estimating what percentage of things there are in the country.
That's a known thing, right?
This is one of those. And I cheekily tweeted about this, and I said that in related news, 40% of all sick days in the workplace are on a Monday or a Friday.
40%. Can you believe that?
That's an outrageous number.
40% of all the people calling in sick are doing that, coincidentally, on a Friday or a Monday.
Huh? How about that?
Oh, wait. Monday plus Friday...
Would be two end of the five work days, which is exactly 40%.
That's right.
I actually did a Dilbert comic about that.
All right, so...
Here's a story about Alex Epstein, author.
He's got a book coming out called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.
And apparently there was going to be a Washington Post article he was warned about that was going to try to cancel him and paint him as a racist because he thinks there's a moral reason for...
Apparently he argues in a book I haven't yet read, but plan to, that there's a moral case for fossil fuels.
Now, I think you've all heard the argument.
I would assume that you're going to get lots of good meat on this.
But other people have made the argument that fossil fuels are better for the poor than they are for anybody.
I guess it's supposedly good for everybody, but the poor especially need it to survive.
Because they need energy.
If you can't get it another way, you're going to have to get it that way.
Now, here's the thing. Do you believe...
That there's a real thing where the media colludes, or maybe even just one media entity, to write a hit piece to take out the reputation of somebody who has a book that goes against the narrative.
Do you believe that's real?
It's very real.
Okay, you're all saying yes.
I wasn't sure if you were all convinced.
No, it's very real.
Bloomberg, one of the Bloomberg publications, did this to me when I was saying good things about Trump when he was starting to get traction.
So you could see people getting picked off one by one, and I survived.
Now, I told you earlier that I googled myself, and I was trying to see if that Bloomberg piece was still the top hit.
Because for years, for years, it was either the top or one of the top news hits was a hit piece.
Because it was a big publication, and it was recent.
So it sits there at the top.
Now, it's gone away, and I wonder if it ever deserved to be there.
Because it went away. I don't know.
There weren't that many new things that were like major news pieces to replace it, but it went away.
So these are the things that I wonder about.
I understand that the...
The book by Robert F. Kennedy, the real Anthony Fauci, he was also subject to the media colluding to basically ignore that book.
I think he had no book reviews but sold a million books.
How do you sell a million books and not get a book review from one of the major publications?
It's collusion of some kind.
All right, so I would recommend to you Alex Epstein's book.
It's coming out in May, I guess, called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.
And like I said, I haven't read it, but obviously people have seen advanced copies.
There's definitely an effort to make sure that whatever is in that book is not seen as credible.
So you should ask yourself why, Would they try to kill a book before it even comes out?
And the best reason to do it is that it's true.
That's the best reason.
So I'm thinking that there's some good stuff in there that somebody really wants to die.
All right. All right.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is just about everything I want to say.
And I think you'll agree that this has been a peak experience for most of you.
For some of you, the very best thing that will happen today.
For some of you, others, it will just be the beginning of an amazing day.
No, I cannot send your book that you send to me.
Do you know it's embarrassing when people ask me to fill in a form and I tell them I can't?
I'm disabled. I'll tell you that.
My drawing hand has a...
Focal dystonia, which means there's literally nothing wrong with my hand.
And I'm still disabled.
Because the only thing I can't do is write with a pen.
It's the only thing I can't do.
I mean, I could juggle, play the drums, I could play any instrument.
The hand is perfect.
There's nothing wrong with it physically.
There's a little mental glitch...
That happened because I overused it, and then the brain said, you can't do that anymore.
And that won't let me. My hand won't work when I put a pen in it and put it to paper.
It just freezes. So I draw left-handed, but I've never taken the time to learn to write left-handed quickly enough that I could fill in a form.
I mean, if I took forever, I could.
It's called a focal dystonia.
It's related to the voice problem I had.
They often travel in pairs.
But thankfully, they don't...
Thankfully, they usually don't go in more than pairs.
