Hello and welcome back, dear listener.

This is episode 432 of the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

I'm Trevor, aka The Iron Fist.

Scott's been away because we've had different interviews and stuff.

He hasn't been away, he's been ensconced in regional Queensland.

How are you, Scott?

I'm good, thanks.

Trevor, yourself?

Very well, very well.

That's good.

G'day Joe, g'day listeners.

I hope everyone's doing well.

And you may not have heard Joe so much in the last couple

of weeks, but he was there in the background managing the tech stuff.

Joe, how are you this fine evening?

I'm good, evening all.

Very good.

So if you're in the chat room, say hello.

And, uh, yeah, this is our normal sort of panel discussion where we

just, uh, go through a grab bag of different topics and try and figure

out what's going on in the world.

We've been trying to commence the segment with a rip off from the PEP

podcast of what we're grateful for.

Scott, what are you grateful for?

I'm grateful for the fact it's got a little bit cooler up here, actually.

It's um, Winter in Mackay usually lasts two or three days.

This time it seems like it's gonna last three or four weeks because it has been

rather chilly up here in the mornings.

Hmm.

Yeah, anyway, that's what makes me feel grateful.

Right, Joe, anything that you can share with the audience,

or yours is quite secretive?

I'm grateful for fluffy pyjamas, I think, at this time of year.

Yeah, there you go.

You know, one of the coldest winters you could ever spend, dear listener, would

be in a worker's cottage in Brisbane in the middle of winter on a cold winter.

These wooden houses in Brisbane, I remember we were living in one, and

There's no insulation, you've got 5mm gaps in the floorboards, the

wind whistling through, they're not built for cold weather, and yeah,

you can really struggle on a winter's night in Brisbane when it does get

cold on the odd occasion, yeah, so,

who's in the chatroom?

John's there, and Essential Lord Don, good on you guys, um, let's

look at what's on the agenda.

Um, a little bit about Facebook issues, um, a little bit of a comparison

about, about the sort of Gaza crisis and the voice that I'm going to

make, stringing those together.

Um, uh, recent polls, Scott, about how Albanese is going.

Some great videos about submarines with, uh, a green senator, um, grilling

one of our defence officials, um, instances of propaganda all over

the world and Australia, UK election called, French election called.

Um, and maybe, hell, even a quick overview of whether democracy's

working in amongst all that.

So, um, that should keep us busy.

Scott, have you got an early A hard, a hard out at, at nine o'clock PM

if at all possible.

See how we go.

So, um, yeah.

Okay.

So let me get back to these topics.

Um, Facebook issues.

First of all, dear listener, um, we had issues where we didn't have

people on our Facebook or YouTube channels there in the live stream

for a while, and you probably weren't getting notification about Facebook.

through Facebook like you might have in the past.

So, um, if you go onto our Facebook page and scroll through some of the recent

posts, you'll see of changes that you probably need to make to your settings

in order that you get notified of when we're going live for the podcast, if

you want to join us in the chat room.

So if you've been missing those notifications and therefore haven't

been making the live stream and you want to receive the notifications and

then look for that post and follow.

So, speaking of Facebook, Scott, the Coalition has vowed to raise the minimum

social media access age to 16 within 100 days if elected next year, saying

it's one of their top priorities.

What do you think of that idea?

Ah, it sounds like a great idea, but I think he's barking up

the wrong tree because all the kids have got to do is just um, increase

their age by three months, three years when they actually go into it.

You know, it's, they've just got to march back their actual date of birth by

three years and then they're suddenly 16.

Right.

You know?

It's one of those things, I just don't, I think the horse is

bolted on, on um, social media.

There's nothing anyone can do about it.

It is what it is.

So you're saying that they'd be relying on the kids

to be honest with the truth.

Yeah, exactly.

Which they're not going Well,

Joe, the other alternative is to do what they're threatening to

do around porn, which is some form of ID system, which is idiotic.

Because either the porn companies are responsible for verifying that you're over

18 and you giving them your personally identifiable information, uh, or They

are going to have to outsource it to another company, uh, yeah, company.

Either way, basically the list of all the porn you viewed is going to be

linked to your personally identifiable information in a database somewhere

that hackers are going to breach.

So the only way to enforce it would be to force people to

somehow divulge Identification information that is then verified.

Yes.

And who wants to be releasing key identification information?

It's, you know, I'm still very pissed off at Optus and Medibank

Private because they both got hacked.

And you know, ever since then I've been getting bloody text messages

every night saying that I owe money on a toll and everything else.

Oh

no, no, you get, everyone gets those whether you've been hacked or not.

Yeah, no, it's just one of those things.

I just find it.

I do not want to hand over any more information that has already been

stolen about me and put on the dark web.

You know?

This is all a beat up because, dear listener, for my sins I read the

courier mail so you don't have to.

And it's been on a campaign for 12 months, basically, on the dangers of social media.

And the reason they're doing it is because the Murdoch, um, Don't like the social

media, um, businesses because they take eyeballs away from their media businesses.

And those guys have also decided they're no longer going to pay that fee that the

government sort of introduced that these groups had to pay for sharing news sites.

So they're pulling out of that arrangement.

So it's not because.

Murdoch and the Fairfax Nine Empires are concerned about the well being of kids.

They're just trying to ruin the business of, of Meta.

And, um, and so they're just beating up, um, a whole bunch of things.

Of course, the opposition jumps on board because They are the political

wing of the um, News Limited?

Yes, and um, and that's how we get to this situation.

So, um, it just is an idea that it seems impossible to implement.

And another just hair brained crazy idea from,

Mr.

Dushen.

Brought you nuclear power.

Well, exactly.

Yeah.

I'm pulling out

of the Paris Agreement.

Yeah.

But, despite all that, I'm going to jump ahead to, um, Despite their list

of crazy ideas, which this is just one of them, Scott, a poll came out

in, um, in the Sydney Morning Herald, which was a resolve poll, and, um,

basically, Uh, Dutton comes out ahead as the preferred leader over Albanese.

Bloody hell.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I know Albanese, you know, we've got a very much Donald Trump

and, um, we've got Donald Trump in Peter Dutton, we've got Joe Biden in Albanese.

Neither side is particularly good, but, you know, you gotta, you gotta choose

the bad from, bad from the worse.

So that's why I just think to myself, I think you've got to vote Labor

this time, or you've got to, you've got to give your higher preferences

to the Labor part the coalition.

If you're at all sensible, you'd have to, but yeah, 36 to 35.

Now this is, um.

I mean, Dutton is a character.

He's more noticeable than Albanese.

Yes,

yeah.

And, uh, a couple of theories is that, uh, cost of

living is really hurting people.

And they figure Labor's been around long enough to blame them for it.

It's, it's, it's part of the thinking.

Yeah,

but cost of living is not really the government's fault.

You know?

Oh yeah, it is.

How?

Well, uh, basically by the way they redistribute wealth.

Yeah, I suppose.

You know, you can, you can argue, you can certainly argue that house prices and

everything else is the government's fault.

But also taxation.

Hang on a second, you can't argue house prices are, unless you consider

all the run up to where we've got to.

Yeah, I know.

That is the government's fault.

It's not the, it is the current government's fault because they have

not taken the bull by the horns and they've actually, they've actually

said, we're going to remove, we're going to remove those, those, uh, tax

advantages to in, uh, to investment.

Yes.

I mean, they could have started doing something.

I don't know that it would have had an effect yet, but they could have

started.

No.

Had they actually started it, then they would have actually, they would

have actually had, they would have had an argument, everything over the

opposition, that they could have said, look, we are trying to do something about

it.

Hmm.

Hmm.

So a lot of the commentary has been about the, um, sort of responses in this

poll to economic things, but as I was reading it, uh, and I agree with this

writer, Uh, where did I get this from?

This is from the Michael West blog, and he was saying that um, um, uh, that

the focus was on the economy and the climate, but I suggest the reading on

national security is in many ways more instructive, and he writes here, It was

all about proving to Australians that Labor is the better party to manage

defence, pushing defence spending to 2.

3 percent of GDP.

Which was 15% more than the previous bipartisan target of 2%.

So as we know, dear listener, the Australian Labor Party adopted fully

everything that the coalition was proposing in relation to defense

and then has gone even further.

And as the writer says here, how's that worked out for you?

Um, after all of the donations to the US and the UK arms manufacturers.

And our agreement to sign up to AUKUS.

In this reserve poll, Wenner asked, which party would perform best

on national security and defence?

42 percent answered Liberals, and only 23 percent said Labor.

42 to 23.

After all of the just bending over backwards by Labor to adopt the full

foreign policy, defence policy of the Coalition, and even amping it

up even more with agreeing to give the Americans and the British large

sums of money in advance for nothing.

It's incredible, Scott, like, they should, they tried to be a small target

on this, or maybe they just believe it, maybe, I think Miles is a believer.

Yeah, I think Miles is probably a believer, but I don't believe Albanese is.

And, and they thought that by being a small target and by agreeing

with this stuff, that somehow, people who are keen on, on hairy chested defence

matters, would be willing to vote Labor.

Just

doesn't work that way.

No, it doesn't work that way.

You idiots.

So, there we go.

So, you know, when you said before it doesn't make sense about economics

with, uh, housing policy, etc.

That's one where, if you really cared about defense, And you

wanted lots of defence spending.

You couldn't criticise Labor for not spending as much as Liberals.

No, exactly.

They've completely lost that vote anyway.

Because you can never satisfy the Murdoch press anyway.

They'll always complain.

No matter what you do, they'll always complain.

So, anyway, um, that's a lesson, I think, for Labor in terms

of the small target tactics.

So

while we're on that,

I'll get back to those other topics, but I've got some great videos here, which

I don't know if you guys have seen, but this is, uh, Green Senator Shoebridge.

With one of the defence officials, let me get his name, um, let me just see here,

um.

Vice Admiral Meade, is it?

Or is that just a name that Shoebridge has made up?

Yes, that's it.

Yeah, so Green Senator Shoebridge with Vice Admiral Meade at some

sort of Senate Uh, hearings and, um, I found this really interesting.

So have a listen to this, uh, first one now.

What if the United States determines not to

give us a nuclear submarine?

Is there a clawback provision in the agreement?

Well, that's a hypothetical that I'm not going to entertain.

I'm not

asking about a hypothetical, I'm asking about what's in the agreement.

It's not a hypothetical.

Is there a

clawback provision in the agreement?

The US has committed to transferring two nuclear

powered submarines to Australia.

You know that's not my question, Vice Admiral Mead.

I'm asking about, right now, as we sit here, is there a provision in

the agreement that we get our money back If the US doesn't live up to

its side of the bargain, surely you, surely you included that.

Are you telling me you didn't?

US is committed to transferring two nuclear powered submarines and

the procurement of a third one.

So there's no clawback provision?

We

are investing in the US submarine industrial base

of three we get one or not,

whether we get one or not, you cannot be serious.

What do you think of that?

I'm not surprised.

Yeah, you showed that last week.

Oh, did I?

Yeah.

Ah.

Did I show the second part as well?

Uh, I can't remember.

I'm going to show the second part.

I didn't think I showed them last week.

Yeah, you did.

I didn't think, I didn't think I interrupted Cameron.

What was his name?

With Cameron Leckie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You showed Cameron.

I'm going to play the second one as well.

I don't care.

I think it's so important.

I'm going to play, I'm going to repeat it.

Here

we go.

You know that the United States legislation provides.

That the United States can only provide an AUKUS attack class submarine to

Australia if, first of all, the US Navy provides an advice that it won't

adversely impact their capacity, and secondly, that after receipt of that,

the United States President approves it.

You understand that that's And if neither of those things

happen, we don't get a sub.

You agree with that?

I agree with that.

So does the agreement provide, the one under which we're shelling out 1.

5 billion next year, 1.

8 billion the next year after that, another 1.

7 billion, maybe more, over the rest of the decade.

Does it provide that if the United States Does not provide us with an Orcas

submarine, that we get our money back.

The US will provide us with an Orcas submarine.

No,

no.

Did you not, did you not understand that my question wasn't about some

future hypothetical, which you'd be quite right in taking point.

I'm asking about what's in the agreement.

No, I

think I'm Is

the reason you won't answer what's in the agreement because it

embarrassingly fails to have that You're

talking about a future hypothetical.

I'm talking about what's in the agreement

now.

The US will provide two transferred submarines

and one on procurement.

It

may be embarrassing.

Just one at a time.

It may be embarrassing that you've entered into an agreement that sees

Australian taxpayers shelling out 4.

7 billion which we don't get back if we don't get a nuclear sub.

That might be embarrassing but that's not a reason not to answer it.

Does the agreement have a clawback provision?

I reiterate my statement, the US is committed to

transferring two US submarines.

You see, the

only way of reading that answer is no.

And

one in particular.

And it's

embarrassing, Senator.

That guy is a clown.

This is the calibre of people we've got responsible for

this sort of decision making.

No wonder we are in the mess we are in with this contract.

See, God alone knows why he just didn't say there is no clawback provision.

Move on.

You know, because he was exposed a hell of a lot more than what he was.

Yes, it was.

He actually just said, no, there is no clawback provision.

Then Shoebridge would have had another couple of lines and that sort of

stuff he would have thrown at him.

And then he could have actually said, that's offensive, Senator.

And then they would have moved on.

Anyway.

Yeah.

So, we, we.

They've

got no training, do they?

I cannot believe that someone wouldn't understand something so

basic as to say, no, there was no clawback provision, Senator.

But the basic part is when you hand money over to people.

Yeah, you gotta be able to get under a

contract of supplying something you have in the contract.

You know, here's the lawyer speaking is you immediately think up in your

head all of the things that could possibly go wrong, and then right in

the agreement what happens if those things occur and what the result is.

So that, that's the whole point of a contract, is to work out while

everybody's happy and friendly, what's to happen in various circumstances.

And the fact that these guys have got nothing just shows how we have just

totally capitulated to the US on this.

This is where we're, because the US doesn't have the capacity to build

these submarines, we're sending money so they can improve their shipbuilding

facilities to make the submarines that they're going to charge us for.

And the

same is happening in the UK.

So, um, here's the UK scenario.

Is there a provision in the UK agreement that says if we don't get

the submarines, we get the money back?

So the UK is committed with us to co build SSE Hawkers.

So we could go through those steps again and we'll

come to the same conclusion.

building the most advanced

and capable submarine down in Osborne, transferring what is a

greenfield site into one of those complex Manufacturing places in the world.

You know the Navy can't get HMAS supply to work?

20, 20, 000 job opportunities.

Is that in the UK or the US?

Australia.

20, 000 job opportunities.

Why not

Australian manufacturing, Senator Shoebridge?

Oh, I, I would love to see, I would love to see, uh, the better part of 10 billion

invested in Australian manufacturing.

It's just This agency is spending it on US and UK manufacturing, Chair.

Why do you love US and UK manufacturing realise we don't

have a submarine?

I quite like Suebridge.

He comes across pretty good to me.

You like him, Scott?

Uh,

not

really.

Come on!

We've spent, Scott, nearly nine years whinging about submarine deals.

Yeah, I know.

And this guy is nailing this Admiral.

Yeah, I know, but he's just, he's shown us one side of him.

But, you know, I just think to myself that, um, We're going to find out exactly

what the Greens are like when the Labour Party almost loses the next election.

Can't you say?

And they're

going to actually take over and they're going to force the Labour Party

down the road and that sort of stuff.

Now, I take that They're going to force the

Labour Party to be slightly more left than they currently are?

Oh no, what a bad thing!

No, it's a good sort of thing, but, you know, I just want you all to remember,

the um, The, um, what was it called?

The, uh, the cap and trade thing that, um, Rudd wanted to do.

Now, that wasn't a carbon tax.

That was a genuine market policy.

The Greens got hold of it and that sort of stuff and said you've got

to have a fixed price on carbon.

And that's when Julia Gillard then had to concede it was a tax.

That's when it all blew up.

That's what gave Anthony, that's what gave Tony Abbott the, um, the kicking

on that was the Greens policy, where they created a carbon tax when they

didn't need to have a carbon tax.

And, and for the next three centuries, they will have to pay for

that decision in your mind, despite,

because the other parties

have never made such a critical error either, have they?

The other party has never betrayed.

The other parties have never made such a betrayal, have they?

Well, I'll have to work, I'll have to think about

that, but they probably have.

Yeah, that's the point, Scott.

You're really harsh on them for I'm

very harsh on them because they actually carry on like they're

perfect, and they're not perfect.

You know, that is the thing that I find really objectionable about them.

It

could be worse.

It could have been Dr.

No lying about how your bills were going to go up by 400 a year, and

how you wouldn't be able to cook your Sunday roast or something.

Yeah, I know, and that was ridiculous.

That was ridiculous.

Scott.

Just on that particular issue alone, just that shoe bridge in that hearing

was just giving it to that Admiral in a way that I thought was very, very good.

It

was very, it was very good line of questioning.

I've got no doubt about that.

Yeah,

I thought that was good.

I mean, he may well disappoint on some other issue down the track and, you know,

we'll call him out when he does, but at least at that particular moment, Somebody

was held accountable to some extent, if only through embarrassment, um, on, on

this orchestra where really they're all such nameless sort of fakes, you know.

Names, faces, faceless names, whatever.

Yeah.

And it's good to see somebody in front and getting grilled for a change.

So anyway, I enjoyed that.

So, um, yeah.

So, um, but America has promised to give us one, honestly.

Yes.

Yes.

And he's saying, I won't answer that.

It's Shibbridge was right on him saying it's not hypothetical

to say what's in the contract.

Hmm.

It's a very good line of questioning, but, you know, I

still don't like them anymore.

Yeah.

Even though I'm committed to vote for them for the next two elections.

Good.

I'll give you some more reasons later on, Scott.

We'll get to those.

I

know what you're going to go.

You're going to go through and you're going to talk about how

they want to increase the morning royalties and everything else.

Yeah, you'll be

happy with

that.

Yeah, I'm very happy with that, but I mean, it's

only one, that's only one thing.

Yeah.

Hey, um, let's just briefly talk about the sort of Gaza Palestinian

Israeli conflict sort of thing.

And, um, I've, well, what we're seeing is that a lot of, um, you

know, you have people who are of the left who are rightly criticising.

Israel for what it's doing in Gaza.

And you have the Israeli government and supporters of the Israeli government

basically alleging that anyone who criticizes them is anti Semitic.

So it's that sort of right, you're a racist as the As the argument

to try and stop people from, from criticising the Israeli government.

And, dear listener, it just struck me, as I was listening to all this, that, um,

a similar thing happened with The Voice.

In that, um, some of us were ready to criticise The Voice because

we didn't like the particular political project that it was.

The Voice.

Not because we're racist, but we just didn't like the idea of what was proposed.

And many on the left, and many associated with The Voice, were very quick to label

their, um, their opponents as racist.

And, um, I, I would reckon that many of those same people are now being labelled

racist themselves because of their position when it comes to Israel and Gaza.

And I just feel like saying, hmm, how does it feel?

Not very nice, is it?

Like, both sides in both arguments, the pro The Voice and pro Israel,

are very quick to, um, to come out with the racist label against

people who are their opponents.

So, as I, as I said, Debating tactic.

Very poor.

Did you notice, um, that Hizb ut Tahrir has just been

granted charity status over here?

No.

So, they are a pro Islamist group.

Um, Majid Nawaz, the, um, UK broadcaster,

Mm.

Uh, was in jail in Egypt, uh, for political beliefs from

being a member of Hizb ut Tahrir.

Right.

And they were They are a pro Islamist group.

They want to caliphate, uh, but they think that they can do

it through non violent means.

And so they are fundraising for the Gaza Strip at the moment, but

of course they're fundraising for Hamas, who also want to caliphate.

And they've gained charitable status.

And they've been given

charitable status in Australia.

They've been banned as a terrorist organisation in the UK, only recently.

Right.

Because when Majid Nawaz was a member, he joined in the UK, it was legal.

And then went to Egypt and he was jailed for being a member of an illegal group.

Right.

I never saw that anywhere, Joe.

Okay,

where did you see that?

Uh, probably on Apple News, I can't remember which newspaper.

Right, right,

yep.

His voice, he's obviously got exactly the same sort of, um, when

you listen to the accent, he's reading the right type of news.

He's, he's what?

He's reading the right type of news, you can hear it

from his accent, he's British.

Oh right, I see, yes, yeah.

Um, yeah, I guess I've sort of, tuned off anything Majid Nawaz

says because he sort of went crazy there with his anti vax stuff.

Oh yeah, yeah, so this was pre all that, when he was saying that effectively

he'd been indoctrinated and he was reached out by moderate Muslims when

he was in prison and changed his mind.

So certainly that bit was quite interesting.

The other, um, similarity with the voice debate and the sort of, um, Israel

Gaza debate is, um, you know, in the voice debate, when you had members of

the Indigenous community who would come out against the voice proposal, they were

seen as traitors to their, to their ethnic or their, or their race, if you like.

And, um, And dismissed by the left quite quickly.

So the sort of Jacinta Nampijimpa Price's of the world and Mundine's and

even, um, who was the guy in Tasmania?

Um,

Michael Mansell?

Yes.

People like that, um, were sort of dismissed.

And, um, you see a similar thing happens with the, uh, Israel sort of Palestine

Conflict where you've got lots of

self hating Jews.

Well, you've got lots of

Jews coming out who are saying I'm Jewish and I am against This sort

of Zionist project if you like and that's seen as a powerful Um, uh,

sort of argument and it's used to sort of counter the racism argument.

So it's a similar sort of phenomena where, where they will grab somebody who should

be within the tent and say they're an example of somebody who's criticising

what's going on, even though they are a member of that particular tribe.

So that's going on as well.

Um, I've got a clip of a lady who is a Jew and she is in a crowd and she

cannot believe that fellow Jews are protesting against what Israel is doing.

And it's clear that these other people are fellow Jews, like they

are, there's no doubt about it at all.

And, and she is You can see the, just the look of bewilderment on her face.

She cannot believe that a fellow Jew would be against the

Israeli cause in this matter.

So, mightn't play so well on the audio, I might cut this one out from the audio, but

for those 11 people who are with us live.

If you haven't seen this one before it's interesting It's just

ladies kind of loses her mind in disbelief that fellow Jews would be

Criticizing the Israeli government.

Have a look at this

one This is the cause of the actions of the Zionist people.

What are you talking about?

That's what our ancestors did!

We lived in a beautiful peace.

How can you say that?

You're a Jew!

We lived in a beautiful peace while a stream of people of hundreds

of years How can you say that?

You're not a Jew!

You're not a Jew!

How dare you!

We're Zionist women!

Ah, they eventually lead her away, and um.

It's funny how the people that she was claiming weren't Jewish, spoke with

an accent that suggests that English wasn't their first language, and she

had a very strong American accent.

Indeed.

Whilst claiming to be an Israeli.

Indeed

think, is she claiming to be Israeli?

She's claiming to be Jewish.

Yes.

Yeah.

But you know,

and her mindset was, well, if we are Jewish, we must

agree with what's happening.

This is our people.

And no thought that maybe you could be a member of the group, but

disagree with what the group is doing.

Mm-Hmm.

That was just a impossible concept for her to hold.

Um, and she would scream, I'm Jewish, and they'd say.

I'm Jewish too.

Depressing and instructive at the same time, perhaps?

I don't know.

Hopefully interesting.

It's one of those things, I don't think that, um, we're going to

get back to normalcy until the Israelis stop the, stop the invasion of Arafat.

Yeah, it's not going to stop, they're going all the way,

they're just wiping them out.

So, yeah.

Um, French elections have been culled.

Scott, and this followed the European election where lots of French people

voted for the far right candidates in the European election and strangely

Macron decided to call a snap election

and

it's not looking good.

No, exactly.

It's um, it's, he's called a snap parliament entry election, which, um,

Well, I don't think they're actually going to see the far and right forming

a workable majority, but I think his own party is probably on the ropes and

there is a new left leaning organization that's just, left leaning coalition

that's just been set up and that type of thing there's to, so he's, he's

getting attacked from both sides, but I just think it's a suicide mission.

You know, God alone knows why he's done it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Strange decision when he just got smacked in the European poll to decide.

Well, that felt good.

I'll do it now in my domestic situation.

It's quite funny what went on

with the Republican movement though.

Sorry?

The Republicans.

So the leader of the Republicans said, oh, we're voting for Marine LePan.

And his committee said, no we're not.

He locked them out of the office so that they couldn't hold a

vote to get him out of office.

They then found a spare key and got into the office, held a vote to kick him out.

And he's holding on to the Twitter account, but nothing else apparently.

Yes.

So, um, so yeah, they're in a bit of a mess.

But, um, the, uh, so according to this article, the far right bloc are in the

lead with 362 seats, and the left, um, has formed a popular front, uh, spanning

anti capitalist radicals and social democrats, and they're ahead in 211.

And, um, Macron's centrist bloc is ahead in only three seats.

And all of those are seats for French people who live abroad.

Yeah.

So 362

for

the right.

So he's pretty wiped out.

Yes.

It does look like he's going to be wiped out.

He will, he'll remain as president until 2027.

I understand it.

But he's going to have no sort of working majority or anything

like that in the parliament.

So he's not going to get anything done.

Yeah, to exemplify some of the craziness in French politics, which

you just mentioned some of it, Joe, um, So, Alain Fingelkraut, one of France's

foremost Jewish intellectuals, says he might be obliged to vote for the Le Pen

group in order to block anti Semitism.

And as a reminder, Le Pen's party was co founded by a former

WAFN SS sort of operative.

So that's sort of, uh, Le Pen's party with its Nazi roots, a Jewish intellectual says

he's going to be obliged to vote for that group in order to block anti Semitism.

And people would say, Why would a Jewish intellectual side with

a far right fascist politician?

And the answer is because the fascist far right agree with Netanyahu about the

need to suppress the political or social presence of Muslims and Arabs in the West.

But far

right are fine with Jews as long as they're in their own country.

Yes.

So, um, so the far right are on the side of Netanyahu and so some Jewish

voters in France are tempted to vote for the, for the Nazi, for the

party with the Nazi origin, because it's more likely to be in favour of

Netanyahu and the Zionist project.

That's how weird things are getting.

It's

that horseshoe thing, isn't it?

Where the, where the sort of the far right and the far left Well,

you know, you've just got to remember that the Second World War

started with the entente between the fascists in Germany and the communists

in the Soviet Union, you know?

Yep.

Let's move on to propaganda.

So, as Caitlin Johnston was writing, she says, um, on propaganda, Once you

see the corporation behind the cartoon, once you see the empire behind the

performative puppet show of official politics, you see it everywhere.

You see it in the movements of the imperial war machine, you see it in

news headlines, you see it in the phony justifications and narratives.

That are being spouted by Western political midi class.

I agree with her.

I'm as I'm reading stuff.

I am just just seeing propaganda just everywhere shameless propaganda

a Report came out from Reuters.

So Reuters dear listener is a reputable news organization a worldwide And they

came out with a well researched report that basically revealed that at the

height of the COVID 19 pandemic, the U.

S.

military had a secret campaign in the Philippines and other countries.

Basically, through social media, running fake accounts, trying to

convince Filipinos that the Chinese, uh, vaccine and other sort of Chinese

sort of face masks and test kits and other things were, uh, a bad idea and

not to trust them and not to use them.

End.

They were basically doing that, not because they believed it, they didn't,

it was because they were trying to counter the influence of the media.

Essentially the goodwill that China was generating by providing

these things to the Philippines.

And this isn't just some conspiracy theory unproven.

Like, it's pretty much been acknowledged by, uh, a senior defence department

official acknowledged the US military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage

Chinese vaccine in the developing world.

So US Defence has more or less come out and said, yeah, we did it.

It was started by Trump, continued a little while under

Biden and then stopped by Biden.

This was in a country in the Philippines.

Yeah, Biden shut

it down when he found out, was basically what the article said.

And Facebook had come to them and said, you're going to have to stop doing this.

We're trying to.

stamp out fake information and you as the US military is spreading it.

Yes.

And we know it's you and it's obvious that it's you, that these

are fake accounts and we can see it.

And they had to ask a couple of times, I think, um, for this to

stop and it eventually stopped.

And, um, what else do we have on there that was of interest?

But

you know, Trump vaxxer anyway, so it doesn't surprise me.

Yeah.

And, uh, the other thing was that, you know, basically.

Facebook was saying, this is a pretty hand fisted operation.

It's obvious what you're doing, it's very sloppy.

And nevertheless, the Pentagon, who was using a group called General Dynamics

IT to do this work, has since, um, given that same group Another 493

million dollar contract, um, to do similar work elsewhere, presumably, so.

Yeah, um, blatant propaganda that caused great harm in the Philippines, which

had a very low vaccine uptake rate.

Even someone like Duterte was just, um, um, tearing his hair out trying

to get his people to take the vaccine and was threatening people with jail

if they wouldn't take the vaccine.

And he's having to battle, um, the US PSYOPs operation on this.

Not some unproven conspiracy theory that may or may not have happened.

I thought

he was a friend of Trump.

Yeah, because he was murdering the drug dealers.

And so Trump appreciated him, yeah, because he was a strong

man, he was a strong leader.

But don't get between Trump and trying to build up China hate.

Well, that's

true.

Yeah, and of course Trump doesn't have friends.

Who said he had a friend then?

You, Scott.

I didn't say anything.

That

was

the imbecile.

So anyway, that was one type of propaganda.

Um, that's sort of a hard, traditional propaganda.

You want a bit of soft propaganda?

Um, New York Times.

Um, according to the New York Times, America's support for Israel's war in Gaza

has to Cast a shadow over Biden's efforts to restore the United States traditional

role as a defender of democracy and a beacon of international law.

This is by Erica L Green, White House Correspondent.

Correspondent, um, that's what you get in the New York Times.

It's 2 a week and I'm reading that one on your behalf, dear listener, as well.

So that you don't have to.

Um, Australian propaganda.

We've got an article, front page actually, of the Australian, which,

uh, was comparing Adam Bandt and the Greens to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Eight mentions of Hitler in the column.

Here's one paragraph for you.

Like Hitler, Vant uses propaganda, discontent and

fear mongering to gain support.

He finds support amongst anti Semites and uses climate action and anti capitalist

rhetoric to feed his supporters.

Vant would massively raise taxes and drive business from Australia.

His rhetoric on tax and anti business plays to his supporter

base, much as Hitler did.

And, like Hitler, he gets support from some individuals and businesses.

So there we go.

Interestingly, I've just been watching a documentary on

Hitler and his rise to power.

And

some of the phrases in the documentary, you could literally

put Trump and America in there.

And it would word for word.

Yeah, he promised to make Germany great again.

He promised.

It was all of these different things and I'm going, I've

heard this very, very recently.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ah, dear.

More propaganda for you.

This is from the Courier Mail.

Um, did you guys would be aware that there was a sort of a rescue mission

where the Israelis went in to Gaza and recovered four of the hostages?

Yeah, now, didn't, is it true that, um, another six or seven

hostages were killed in that, um?

I,

I've never read that anyway.

Okay,

gotcha.

No worries.

No, I've

only heard that they rescued the four that they were after.

Yeah.

And there was an article in the Courier Mail, um, it, the article was a

thousand and seventy five words in total, describing the operation, the precision of

it, the bravery of the Israelis, Um, the tension, the sort of, it was a bit like

that, um, Victory at Entebbe, that sort of operation they did when they raided the

aircraft in Ethiopia or wherever it was.

Uganda.

Thank you, Uganda.

A thousand and seventy five words and right at the very end in the last

paragraph it says Um, uh, the Hamas media office said 210 people were killed.

Nothing else was in the article about the, the, the just, the slaughter

of many innocent people that took place in return for the war crimes.

Apparently if anybody moved and it wasn't one of

the hostages, they shot them.

Yes, of

course.

Yes.

And, um, but yeah, an article that was 1075 words and right at

the end the Hamas media office said 210 people were killed.

I mean, the big story of that was that Israel was prepared to go in and to

rescue four people willing to just slaughter, uh, hundreds of people and,

and maim hundreds more, not caring whether they were women and children.

Um, That's the story which they completely ignored.

But that's what people are reading.

At least if they're reading the Courier Mail.

Ah, even on the Israeli's own Twitter site, they say, for example, there

are no innocent civilians there.

Like, I was just, I was um, listening to a Sam Harris, um, podcast.

Yeah, he's making sense one.

Hmm.

And, he had Bill Maher on, and they're talking about the whole Israel Gaza

crisis, both of them just shaking their heads, going, well what's

Israel supposed to do, what are people complaining about, this is the only

option Israel had, and, uh, you know, Hamas is terrible, and uh, well, you

know, people have lost their minds.

Essentially is what Sam Harris was saying.

People have lost their minds.

Yes, he's saying people have lost their minds for complaining.

about what Israel is doing.

Of course they had to do it.

They were attacked, so this is what they have to do.

Without any recognition of the innocent kids that are killed in this.

You know, I've got no doubt that Israel had to respond, but

the the way they have responded is well and truly over the top.

You know, they have gone above and beyond what was necessary.

Anyway, that's the propaganda that way.

So we've got a UK election, Scott, um, kicked off by Rishi

Sunak announcing it in the rain.

Totally soaked, um, and, uh

Did you see that the CEO of the Tory party is also, uh, some bigwig

in a private health provider in the UK that is seeing record profits because

the NHS can't cope and is bankrupt?

are digging people off to this private medical provider.

Doesn't surprise me in the least.

Doesn't surprise me in the least.

But, um, because they hold the sort of press conference, we wanted

to hold it in front of 10 Downing Street, out in the street, sort

of with that iconic sort of thing.

And, and because it is a public space, like there's a protester there who on

a loudspeaker was playing, um, music?

Yes.

Things Can Only Get Better.

Yeah, that's right.

The song he was playing was Things Can Only Get Better.

Which was the song that, um, got Tony Blair into number 10.

Yeah.

So, uh, so he's playing that and Rishi Sunak is in his expensive

suit, absolutely saturated, um, yeah, announcing the election.

Apparently he's a man of the people.

He hasn't always been well off.

He didn't have.

Sky Television when he was growing up.

Yeah, dear listener, he's in an interview and, uh, and yeah, he's trying

to pass himself off as a man of the people who didn't have everything and his family

pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and, you know, obviously they did without

things and had sacrifices and, And the interviewer's pushing him and saying,

Well, what did you have to give up?

What sort of things?

And he goes, I don't know, all sorts of things.

You know, come on, well, what did you have to give up?

Oh, all the sorts of things most people You know, everyone's

experience is different, you know.

And then really when pushed, he goes, You know, well, for example, I

didn't have Sky Television when I was

When I was a kid.

You do know what they call the little box on the back of

a satellite dish, don't you?

What do they call that?

A council house.

Right.

So yeah, that was, um, that was that.

Um, what else have we got about, uh, the UK election?

Um, actually, I think I've got a, I think I've got a clip.

This is by a UK politician.

Um, yeah, this is a Tory politician.

And his, uh, his advice for voters.

I've been in power for a long time and I recognise people who

feel like it's time for change.

Actually we represent the change that's needed.

Labour represent more of the same.

They might have different faces, but they would be the ones carrying on the failed

British state that has caused so many

There you go.

Labour would be more of the same.

Of the same problems that have failed this country, is his claim.

If you want change, you would go for the Tories.

Who've been in power for the last 10 years.

Yes.

Hmm.

This is the sort of Wellian doublespeak we're in these days.

People just talk bullshit.

Yes.

Yeah.

No

consequence.

The Tories are going to get trounced at this election.

Of course they are, they do, they do.

Yeah.

You know, I noticed you, um, I noticed you, uh, They're saying Scott

will be happy about conscription.

Um, you asked me whether or not I would, what I would do if I was a

dictator, a benevolent dictator, and I said that I wouldn't mind having

some sort of conscription reintroduced into Australia for both boys and girls

at age 17, age 18 for 12 months, and then after that, they could decide if

they wanted to stay in it part time.

I'm not running for an elected office, so I'd never actually say

that publicly because that's going to backfire on him very badly, you know?

Right, okay.

Apparently they can do other volunteer work or something like that and don't

have to necessarily do conscription.

He's trying to actually make it sound like it's a, uh,

warm and fuzzy sort of thing.

Conscription Service and all that sort of thing.

It's just, um, he's actually calling it National Service, not Conscription.

But it's just, I just don't understand what, you know, what sort of era he was

brought up in where he actually thought that conscription was a good idea.

You know, he might have grown up with his father and that sort of stuff.

Well, I don't know who his father was.

When did his father emigrate to the country?

I couldn't tell you.

You know, it's just one of those things.

I wouldn't have thought that he was old enough to be conscripted, but

maybe his parents were over there.

National service ended

in the 50s, I think.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

It seems a strange way to try and attract the young vote,

uh, to introduce such a rule.

Mandatory conscription slash voluntary labor.

Um, yeah, good luck with that one.

It's dead.

He's just a fool.

Yeah.

Ah, okay.

What else have we got on the UK election?

Um, of course, when, um, the, uh, you know, Brexit went through,

uh, Boris Johnson and others were convinced they were going to get

a great trade deal with the US.

And, um, Boris Johnson in 2017, we hear that we're first in line to do a great

trade deal with the US, Liz Truss in 2019.

My main priority now will be agreeing to a free trade deal with the US.

Dominic Raab, Cabinet Eminence at around the same time, said, President Trump

has made it clear again that he wants an ambitious trade agreement with the UK.

Then, Rishi Sunak on the same subject last summer, For a while now, that has not

been a priority for either us or the US.

There we go.

So, they thought that maybe they would strike some deal with the Yanks,

a trade deal to make up for being out of the European Union, um, and

of course, that's not come to pass.

So, there we

go.

Um, what else have we got here?

You see, um, Nigel Farage got milkshaked.

Oh, did he get milkshaked, did he?

He got milkshaked and then somebody threw liquid concrete at him,

as well.

Liquid, liquid concrete?

Yeah.

Like just a mix of

Wet concrete.

Quick, quick, okay.

So,

it was an only fans who threw the milkshake at him.

And of course, everyone's going, well, well done to Daily Mail for

telling everyone where they can subscribe to her whilst being outraged.

Right.

But then some pensioner went, oh, well, if she can do that, I'm

going to throw concrete at him.

There you go.

There you go.

Uh, quickly in the Ukraine.

They're putting everything up for sale, the Ukraine government, um,

they're selling off large state assets to help fund the military and bolster

the economy that's been battered by a gruelling war, and um, beginning

this summer the government will auction some 20 state owned companies.

So, not only are they losing a generation of men, they're now

going to lose the common property belonging to the people as well.

It could be worse, they could have been forced to by

the European Central Bank.

Yes, indeed.

One way or another, the West was going to get its hands on Ukraine assets.

Yes.

I was just thinking of Greece.

We can do this the hard way or the easy way.

Yeah.

Scott, you're keen on democracy?

Yeah, I am.

What are you going to say about it?

It's

a bit overrated.

Western.

Is it democracy?

Is it a democracy in the US?

When your candidates are Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and

effectively that is your choice.

No, that is a ridiculous situation, and um, you know, I think the

American system is flawed with having electoral colleges and everything else.

I think they should, if they're going to have a first past the post system.

Uh, ballot and that sort of stuff that should just be run on pure

numbers and that type of thing.

If you get more than 50 percent of the vote, then you are the elected president.

That way, the slave owning states wouldn't have had power ever.

Yeah, I know.

Which is one of the things that would have been good.

But they wouldn't have joined the union without that, so.

Yeah, I know.

They never would have joined the union.

But anyway, it's just one of those things that I just think it's now Now

that slavery is, well, I would hope a distant memory for the Americans

It's still legal in America.

Sorry?

It's still legal in America.

Is it?

For convicted felons.

Right, okay,

gotcha.

Anyway, you know

The point, my point is that, okay, you can have voting booths

and a voting day and candidates.

But if the system works in such a way that the only two possibilities are

either Joe Biden or Donald Trump, who nobody wants, who clearly are not good

candidates that should be proposed in any working democracy, you have to really

say that it's not a democracy anymore if that's what's thrown up as the options.

It might have the facade of a democracy, But you have a voting day.

But if that's your, if that's your options, it's not really democracy, is it?

Doug Douglas Adams mentions this way back when he wrote Hitchhiker's Guide.

Right.

He said they, they could choose whichever lizard they wanted to vote for.

That's it.

So, um, so yeah, it's just a comment that just the trappings

and facade of a democracy, uh, I think the US is demonstrating that

it's just not a democracy anymore.

And I don't know if you guys have seen how bad Joe Biden is lately on any

clips, but the guy is obviously suffering dementia and senility and I think

they've lined up one debate with Trump.

In the, in the run up to the election, but I

think they've actually argued for two and that sort of stuff.

Now I'm not sure whether he's going to get two, but he might,

he'll probably just get one.

I bet you there won't be one.

I, I, it seems impossible to me.

There are not enough wonder drugs around that could beef him up

for the hour that he needs to be.

Um.

Well, he's proved everyone wrong, hasn't he?

Everyone thought that he was going to get power and then Harris

was going to take over and he's running for a second election.

Yeah, I know.

It's, you know, that was when my estimation of him went right down

because he always said that he was just going to be the transitional candidate.

He was going to transition into a new, there was going to be a new wave of

Democrats that were going to come up and he was going to, he was going to actually

personally anoint someone to take it over from him, which presumably would have been

a hell of a lot younger than what he is.

But he hasn't got out of the way.

It seems to have fallen victim to his own hubris.

Oh, and don't forget Trump is only three years younger than Biden.

Yeah, I

know.

I know that.

But you know, you've just got to look at Joe Biden and that sort of stuff

to realise that he's not all there.

Yes, let's have a look at him here.

Some of this isn't going to work well for the audio version, probably

cut it out of the audio version,

but

for the 10 people who are watching.

Watley and Essential Lord Don and John and others.

Uh, here's a little bit of, uh, Joe Biden.

She knows so long as she's denied our freedom.

I'll just, uh, try that one again.

She knows so long as she's denied our freedom can never be secured.

What the

hell was he

saying?

Nobody knows.

So, so that was him, uh, just, just talking gibberish.

And something

about there's no loss that cannot be denied, our freedom something.

Yeah.

But, uh, he's just slurring.

Yeah.

And here's one where he's with some, uh, world leaders and

a parachutist lands nearby.

And Joe just starts wandering off.

Um, really looking like a dementia patient here.

People clapping, there's no audio on this one, and there he goes.

Now, even if there was something interesting off to the side, you

would kind of, at a meeting like that, you would gather some of your fellow

leaders and say, Hey, check that out.

But he sort of just wandered off and, um, and they had to get him and say,

no, you should be looking over here.

And he just looks old and he's just.

Done for, isn't he?

So, yeah, it's really quite sad.

I think that somebody is being sort of strapped to the wheel

and made to work and keep going.

Yeah,

it's, it's like a, you know, it's, it's like what 300 odd million people and

that's the two you've got to vote for.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

And in the chat room, John says, Trump is in a race to senility.

Have you seen highlights of his speeches lately?

Yes I have, John.

Here's a bit of Donald Trump, just to even things up.

Very short period of time.

So I said, let me ask you a question.

And he said, nobody ever asked this question.

And it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT.

Very smart.

He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight

and you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery

and the battery is now underwater.

And there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there.

By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately.

Did you notice that?

A lot of shark.

I watched some guys justifying it today.

Well, they weren't really that angry.

They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were,

they were not hungry, but they misunderstood what, who she was.

These people are quick.

He said, there's no problem with sharks.

They just didn't really understand a young woman swimming now who really

got decimated and other people too.

A lot of shark attacks.

So I said, so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat.

10 yards or here.

Do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, water goes over the

battery, the boat is sinking?

Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted?

Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?

Because I will tell you, he didn't know the answer.

He said, you know, nobody's ever asked me that question.

I said, I think it's a good question.

I think there's a lot of electric current coming through that water.

But you know what I'd do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted?

I'll take electrocution every single day.

He's demented too.

Well, he's never made sense.

We're going to have to listen.

Ted, he's never made sense.

He's always,

yeah, I know.

He's always just carried on like a fool, but he's just getting worse.

Yeah.

And we're going to have to listen to that shit for another four years.

When he gets elected.

Well,

or

when he doesn't get elected, we're going to have to have his, the

election was stolen for four years.

I honestly hope he does not get elected.

And I hope the Republicans actually, once, once he loses and that sort of

stuff, I hope they actually have the sense to cut off all ties with him.

We can only hope for an infarction.

Sorry?

For an infarction.

What's that?

Heart attack.

A heart attack.

All right.

Well.

Considering the shit that he puts down his mouth, it really shouldn't be far off.

Yeah.

As I said before, from an Australian point of view, he's probably going

to be the first one of the likely candidates to just cancel AUKUS

and

say, stuff that, not doing that.

And you're

not getting your money back.

Yeah, which is what we need.

So,

because Trump is really good at stuffing people he's got agreements with.

Yes, indeed.

Even in one of his speeches there, he's complaining that

the teleprompter wasn't working.

And he's saying, you know, really shitty job by the people who set this up,

you know, I'm not going to pay them, they're not getting paid for this job.

He doesn't

pay anyone.

Yeah.

No,

exactly.

Yeah.

Um, what else have I got here?

I'm surprised you can find a liar to represent him these days.

Hmm.

Have you guys been, uh, I actually, um, there's an article which was,

if China became a democracy, would it still be rejected by the West?

And, um You know, what does the West want?

The West wants China to become like the West.

To be a democracy and to remove all trade barriers, to allow

foreign investment and to basically operate the way the West does.

And you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, According to the theory of Western capitalism,

that supposedly would make China even stronger than what it is now.

Because, you know, the theory is, oh, you know, the sort of modern

liberal Western democratic system that we've got is clearly the best.

And if you were to have China adopting that system.

Then in theory, it would be even stronger and more successful than it already is.

And why would they want that?

Probably because they know that in fact it wouldn't make them

stronger and more successful.

It would just allow US corporations to come in and buy up everything

for cheap and take advantage.

That's right.

So they know that the system they want to impose isn't going to be beneficial for

China because they wouldn't want China becoming even bigger than what it is.

But um, So yeah, I thought that was an interesting, um, sort of

thought experiment in this article.

And what else was in that one?

Um Um, oh, are you guys keeping track of what's happening in Georgia at all?

Uh, only vaguely.

Yes.

Georgia,

then Georgia the country?

No, no, yeah, Georgia

the country, as in next to Azerbaijan.

Yes.

No,

I have not seen anything about it.

Right.

So Georgia has basically passed legislation, uh, which requires.

Um, let me just say here, um, a law requiring non governmental

organisations and civil society groups that receive at least 20 percent

of their funding from abroad to register as organisations carrying

out the interests of a foreign power.

So if you've got an NGO that's at least 20 percent funded from abroad,

you've got to register as a foreign.

It's a foreign group, basically.

And the West is going nuts over this.

So European leaders are saying, you can't do that.

And we've got leaders of countries.

So the foreign ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Iceland, as well

as head of the German Parliament's Foreign Relations Committee, Are in

the crowds in Tbilisi protesting this law by the Georgian government, a

law which it's democratically elected government has passed to say we

want to control foreign owned groups and what they do in Georgian soil.

And, um,

You do realise that this is a mirror of the same laws that

they've introduced in Russia to suppress dissidents, basically?

Yes, and it's also the same law that's been, um, produced in the US and in

various other European countries to also sort of monitor and control dissidents.

foreign owned corporations.

So as the, um, the head of the Georgian parliament said, the wording of their

law has actually got a lot in common with what, um, many European groups have done.

So the sort of crux of the article is that, that everyone acknowledges

that the Georgian parliament.

is a democratically elected parliament.

There's no question that the last election was dodgy in any way.

The parliament has passed this law and the article is stating that essentially,

there are protest groups who represent a minority who are complaining about it.

And that this is kind of what these colour revolutions are that's been taking

place, similar to the Ukraine, where you've got groups that are backed by

American interests and other interests who, who encourage the minority to, um,

to sort of protest this and basically develop a scenario where we've got

these plucky dissidents, um, Who are, who are wanting Georgia to integrate

with the European Union, and we in the West should be supporting them.

in their democratic cause, but we've got a democratically elected government passed

a very, very strong majority resolution to say that they wanted the laws.

And this is the sort of nature of what a colour revolution is.

And the idea that you would have leaders of foreign governments in the streets with

the protesters Protesting the laws of the Georgian government is quite extraordinary

and we're going to hear more about Georgia down the track, um, because, uh,

different elements are trying to create another colour revolution, if you like.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that it's Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia,

which are the Baltic republics, who are very, very scared of Russia.

Um, and I'm wondering whether they're worried about a

similar crackdown in Georgia.

That's happened in, you know, South Ossetia and various other

places where Russia has taken over and helped some friendly people.

Hmm.

Bit of Lebensraum.

Hmm.

We've, we've now got the US government has basically levied sanctions

against the parliamentary members of the Georgian parliament and

their family members saying, you're sanctioned because of this law.

Hmm.

Yeah.

More about that topic later, Georgian Parliament and, uh,

and the colour revolution that, uh, is being organised there.

Um, what else have I got on that one?

Um, might give you more on that one next week.

Um, 9.

16.

Look, one final thing on China, because I've got this video, it's been sitting

here for a while, and, uh, just to finish off with, because I quite like

this one, because people don't realise, um, the technical capacity in China,

and they think that it's just cheap, cooley labour that's sitting at tables.

Um, and there's a lot of, uh, robotics, a lot of automation, a lot of high

tech manufacturing going on in China.

And you would be aware, dear listener, that We had that whole thing with,

um, with the chips where America imposed sanctions on the selling

of, of computer chips to China.

They're having to madly scramble to make their own chips now

rather than importing them.

And, um, I've got here an interview with a guy who is now, let me get this

straight before I go too much further.

Um, uh, Chinese expertise, so.

Um, this is Philip Wong, Chief Scientist at TSMC and Legendary Professor of

Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, so yeah, so the guy talking,

Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, um, one of,

if not the world's leading scientific figure in the field of semiconductors.

And he's about to talk about, uh, China and its capacity technically.

What about China?

China is I don't think we could ignore their capability.

Uh, they have, let me talk about something that I'm, I'm familiar

with, just research, right?

I'm academia, I know research.

Years ago, we go, we have technical conferences and we see papers

from China and say, ah, forget it.

Just quality is so bad.

It's not even competitive.

That was probably in the eighties and the nineties.

No.

They're better than us.

They're better than us.

If you look at, look at, uh, papers, uh, publications, data from key

conferences in the chips business.

For example, in the International Electronic Devices Meeting, which

is a device technology conference, the biggest one in our field.

International Satellite Circuits Conference, the circuits and system

conference in our field, the two biggest conferences in our field.

You basically, basically flipped.

Years ago, the U.

S.

had the majority of the papers.

I remember there were roughly about 40, 60, 40, 40 to 50

percent of the papers from the U.

S.

and China, maybe 20, 30 years ago, there were no way to be found.

Today, uh, China and Asia, uh, the papers are more than 40%, almost close to 50%.

And the U.

S.

has steadily declined from 40, 50 percent to 30 to 40%.

And the rest of the world, principally Europe and Japan, has

basically fallen off the cliff.

So, the research and development, the research capability in Asian

countries, China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and so on, have really

become the strongest region in terms of producing good quality research.

very much.

I'm not just talking about quantity, it's quality and, uh, the only

thing that I see that The U.

S.

is still a little bit ahead in coming up with the new ideas, what the Chinese

always say going from zero to one, namely starting from nowhere, nothing,

and come up with this really new idea.

And if I look at the, what I would call, New idea that is

not been discussed before.

The U.

S.

still, if you read the research papers, the U.

S.

still is the principal place where these new ideas come from.

But once These new ideas become known.

Then You

see mushrooming of new ideas in other places.

Exactly.

And, um, I feel it in my everyday research with my students.

My

gosh.

Any new ideas that we come up, new ideas that we come up with Once they

become known, this is a good idea.

Next week it will show up in China.

It will show up in China, not only that they do it better than you.

Yeah.

I can't, cannot compete anymore.

They have better resources.

They have more students.

They have more, more funding from the government.

I cannot compete anymore.

I have to get out of that field.

There we go.

So, dear listener,

there's

the future, like it or not.

It's very much like Japan was in the semiconductors back in the 70s and 80s.

Yeah.

where, you know, new ideas weren't coming from there, but

as soon as an idea came out, it was improved upon, miniaturized.

Um, I have questions because I know that, and certainly in medical research, a lot

of the papers, the Chinese papers, uh, have possibly got falsified information.

So I wonder, sure there may be papers, but are they verifiable?

Are they repeatable?

Which would be interesting to know.

But certainly the big problem is patent law.

I know that there are some start up places in Shenzhen, some small business

start ups, What do they call them?

Not concentrators, something along those lines.

And they're saying, yeah, you have Incubators.

Incubators, there you go.

You come up with this great idea, you know, all the fabrication places

around, you get a PCB printed round the corner, you can get somebody

to 3D print you something else.

The problem is you go and do that and you find there's 200 copies

out on the street before you've actually got yours on the market.

And so, yes, there's this, all this innovation and great ideas,

but the problem is, uh, holding onto intellectual property.

Otherwise somebody else is stealing it and making it cheaper.

Well, all the sanctions in the world, it's going

to be too late for the US.

The horse has bolted, I reckon, on that one.

So, dear listener, 8.

23, 9.

23.

Scott, you've done well to hold on an extra 23 minutes.

Thanks for that.

You're around next week?

Yeah, I'll be around next week.

Very good.

Joe, you're not going anywhere?

Uh, I've got no plans.

I'll be here.

We'll be, well, you'll be there, dear listener, hopefully.

We'll talk to you next week.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from me.

And it's a good night from him.

Good night.