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Episode 499 - BRS and Hypocritical Reasoning
Here is what AI thinks this episode is about:
This podcast episode meticulously examines the ongoing discourse surrounding pivotal global events, with a particular focus on the recent arrest of Ben Roberts-Smith, a highly decorated Australian serviceman accused of heinous acts during military operations. We delve into the intricacies of public perception regarding military conduct, interrogating the moral obligations of civilians to critique actions undertaken in the theatre of war. Furthermore, we analyse the tumultuous geopolitical landscape, spotlighting the escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and the immediate repercussions of Israel's military actions in Lebanon. This episode aspires to provide a candid, intelligent analysis of these pressing issues, while also reflecting on the broader implications they hold for international relations and domestic narratives. As we approach our milestone episode 500, we invite listeners to engage with these complex themes as we endeavour to uncover the realities of our world.
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Transcript
We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.
Speaker B:We need to learn stuff about the world.
Speaker A:We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.
Speaker A:We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker A:Yes, momentous events have been happening in this world in the last seven days, in the last 14 days because.
Speaker A:Oh, hang on a second.
Speaker A:Why is that?
Speaker A:Can you hear, can you guys hear the music?
Speaker B:No, I can't hear any music.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Must have been just me.
Speaker A:All right, this is the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker A:I'm Trevor, AKA the Iron Fist, over there in regional Queensland with the ceiling fan swirling above his head, Scott the.
Speaker C:Velvet Glove, how are you?
Speaker B:Not too bad.
Speaker B:G', day, Trevor.
Speaker B:G', day, Joe.
Speaker B:G' day, listeners.
Speaker B:I hope everyone's doing well.
Speaker A:Hopefully they are.
Speaker A:And Joe the tech guy.
Speaker D:Evening all.
Speaker A:So, dear listener, Tuesday night, because I was busy last night, we used to do it always on a Tuesday night, so.
Speaker A:So as we, as we come up to episode 500, this is episode 499,.
Speaker C:Little twinge of nostalgia.
Speaker A:Getting ready to podcast on a Tuesday night.
Speaker A:So that's what we used to do.
Speaker A:Sit around the table at my place, big pack of guys.
Speaker A:We used to have the, the, what do you call it, the sound desk sort of thing operating Joe.
Speaker A:And we all sat around and then Covid came and sent us scurrying away where we had to do it remotely.
Speaker C:And that ended up being far more convenient.
Speaker A:But here we are.
Speaker A:Well, dear listener, what are we going to talk about?
Speaker A:We'll talk a little bit about Ben Roberts Smith and his recent arrest while being mindful that we've got to be very careful about what we say.
Speaker A:So we'll be treading carefully, making more comments about what people have been commenting rather than on the actual case itself.
Speaker A:Hopefully, hopefully we won't breach any laws of sub judicy and whatnot.
Speaker A:So we'll be doing that.
Speaker A:And then of course the whole straight.
Speaker C:Of Hormuz, the blocking by Iran, then the blocking by Trump and.
Speaker A:The ceasefire, the ten point plan, the immediate action by Israel to just start bombing Lebanon and doing it really a Gaza on Lebanon.
Speaker A:Like they are smashing southern Lebanon into smithereens in a, in a fashion very similar to what they did in Gaza and are still doing in Gaza.
Speaker A:And we'll have a bit of fun with various Donald Trump videos that I've come across in Donald Trump tweets, where it is just getting more, more manic.
Speaker A:By the day.
Speaker A:So, first off, Ben Robert Smith was arrested.
Speaker A:And the thing that I find on this one very strange myself, and again, I've got to be careful as I say this, but commentators both on Facebook, sort of friends and former friends and also columnists in newspaper or Murdoch newspaper magazines who come out and basically give the line, well, if you haven't been in the theater of war and under fire and you don't know what it's like to be a soldier, then you.
Speaker A:It's not up to us to be judging these men who are doing magnificent work for us.
Speaker A:And until you're in that situation, shut the fuck up type of stuff is.
Speaker C:What these people are saying.
Speaker C:Joe, what would your answer be that you can say to that?
Speaker C:Or should I say just give the obvious retort to that?
Speaker D:I was gonna say, until you've been in the thick of war, you can't judge the Nazis for their war crimes either.
Speaker A:True.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:I mean, this.
Speaker D:False.
Speaker C:You can't judge a rapist.
Speaker D:Well, exactly.
Speaker D:I mean, it's ridiculous.
Speaker D:I. I think possibly for those foreign listeners, Ben Roberts Smith is the most decorated living Australian serviceman.
Speaker D:He's one of Victoria Cross, was a member of the SAS regiment, and is accused of 13 murders, I believe, in the course of his duties in Afghanistan.
Speaker D:And this is murders of unarmed civilians.
Speaker A:The bit that gets me is these people who are defending our brave soldiers and take that viewpoint.
Speaker A:I want to say to them, what about the dozens of his fellow SAS officers who seem to be ready to testify against him?
Speaker A:Do you support them as well?
Speaker A:If your theory is that.
Speaker A:That we must support our soldiers, then these guys are at opposite ends of a spectrum here.
Speaker A:It doesn't seem possible that you can support both.
Speaker D:Yeah, I mean, I've also heard the argument that he was just following orders, which he argued at Nurenberg.
Speaker B:Does got thrown out at Nurenberg.
Speaker D:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, I.
Speaker A:Careful, Scott.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm going to be very careful.
Speaker E:I.
Speaker B:Well, I better not actually say that.
Speaker B:Give me.
Speaker B:Come back to me.
Speaker B:I just got to think about exactly what to say.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it's just one of those things.
Speaker B:I do not want to get the podcast in trouble by saying the wrong thing, that's all.
Speaker A:Yeah, but I just.
Speaker A:If you're going to look at it from one point of view, namely believe our soldiers, trust our soldiers, respect our soldiers.
Speaker A:If you haven't been in that situation, you can't say anything.
Speaker A:It just doesn't square with the fact that there's a bunch of his fellow soldiers who are at the opposite End of the spectrum.
Speaker A:So what do you say?
Speaker A:What do those people say to those soldiers?
Speaker A:It's an illogical position to hold.
Speaker D:Oh, it's cherry picking, isn't it?
Speaker A:Yes, that's right.
Speaker A:It's hypocritical.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And some very smart people very happy to hold such, such views that are so illogical.
Speaker A:It surprises me.
Speaker C:Well, it used to surprise me, but after 499 episodes and 10 years, unfortunately it no longer surprises me.
Speaker D:I think it's the same as corruption in the police.
Speaker D:I think anybody who wants to uphold the ideals of Australia would be offended by the allegation and would want the truth to come out whether he's guilty or whether he's innocent.
Speaker D:They would want it investigated and a very public scrutiny because I think we need to be seen to be not as bad as the opposition.
Speaker D:You know, there's this argument that, well, of course there were no innocent people in Afghanistan, therefore any action was justified.
Speaker D:And I don't know that that's the case.
Speaker D:So I think, you know, I don't.
Speaker B:Think any of that.
Speaker B:I don't think that you can justify any action based on the morality of your enemies.
Speaker A:No, you know, some people will.
Speaker B:I know some people will.
Speaker B:And I'm reading, I'm reading every day by some of those idiots that actually say that, you know, he should be.
Speaker B:They shouldn't actually, they.
Speaker B:That it was wrong to arrest him.
Speaker B:It's like Joe said, you know, we've got to have a full and thorough independent investigation.
Speaker B:And then at the end of those investigations, which is why I believe the Office of Special Invest, why the office of the Special Investigator did actually go through it and that sort of stuff.
Speaker B:And I think he was at a.
Speaker B:She.
Speaker D:Not sure.
Speaker A:I don't, I don't know.
Speaker A:But it's definitely a specialized section that was built to examine these, these allegations.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that the end of it, at the end of it all, they recommended he be arrested and charged.
Speaker B:Now,.
Speaker A:I agree with that.
Speaker A:Did you hear why, did you hear why it was done in such a public way on the airplane?
Speaker D:The argument was it was a distraction to take away from Albanese's poor handling of Iran, slash, whatever, the fuel crisis.
Speaker C:So Albanese rang, had contact with that.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:With.
Speaker C:With the prosecutors and said, I want to discuss with you the timing of the arrest of Ben Robert Smith because it'll distract from some other difficulties I've got.
Speaker C:Is that what people are trying to say?
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker D:I, I suspect it's probably more to do with there were allegations of witness Tampering in his civil trial, what I.
Speaker A:Heard was doing it in New South Wales gave some sort of procedural benefit.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So rather than.
Speaker A:I think he might live in Queensland.
Speaker D:I believe so, yeah.
Speaker A:And I think that there was some sort of procedural benefit in arresting him in New South Wales.
Speaker A:So that's why.
Speaker A:Yes, but I haven't heard a lot about that.
Speaker A:So it does seem odd that.
Speaker A:That he wasn't just, you know, he had offered to attend at court or at a.
Speaker A:At a watch house or with police if they were ever going to arrest him.
Speaker A:So it just seemed odd that they did it that way.
Speaker A:But I think that was the explanation was something to do with a procedural advantage for the prosecution in the New South Wales jurisdiction.
Speaker B:So forgive me, I'm just a dumb accountant here, but how come there are differences in laws that cross the States when it's a federal charge that he's being arrested on?
Speaker A:Do you know what?
Speaker A:It might have simply been that it meant that the courts that he were appear.
Speaker A:He's going to appear in are New South Wales courts and that's where all their office, where all their investigators are.
Speaker C:Based and they don't want to travel to Queensland every time they.
Speaker A:Well, there might be something as simple as that.
Speaker A:I'm not sure, but that I saw something like that.
Speaker A:So, anyway, we'll see.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And can I say this?
Speaker D:I was going to say there's also a lot of arguments about whether he should be facing a court martial.
Speaker D:And the answer is he's no longer in the army.
Speaker D:And also, war crimes are not under the jurisprudence of court martials.
Speaker B:Ah, exactly.
Speaker D:It's a.
Speaker D:It's a civil charge and therefore it's a civil trial.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker D:And he's Anyway.
Speaker D:Now.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So anyway, he's been charged.
Speaker A:He is innocent until found guilty or innocent until.
Speaker A:Guilty until proven.
Speaker A:Yeah, until proven guilty.
Speaker A:And he may walk away from all this.
Speaker A:It will be a long.
Speaker A:Well, what are we going to take a long time to get to the final verdict of this one?
Speaker D:I'm sure it'll be at least two years.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And we'll see how that all plays out.
Speaker A:Right, let's talk international stuff.
Speaker A:And it's hard just to get away from Iran, Israel, us, Trump, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker D:You know the Mango Mussolini.
Speaker A:Yeah, basically we've got the Mango Mussolini.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The yellow.
Speaker A:The yellow fascist.
Speaker C:As in that what you're sort of saying, really, with Donald Trump.
Speaker D:Well, yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So what we've had is crazy Jewish Zionists persuading crazy Christian fundamentalists to Attack crazy Islamic mullahs.
Speaker C:That's what's been happening here.
Speaker A:It really does seem like Netanyahu has for decades been making his way to the White House and imploring every US President to attack, attack Iran.
Speaker A:And he's finally been rewarded with one.
Speaker B:Who he was stupid enough to follow the, follow his advice.
Speaker A:Yes, that seems to be how it's panned out.
Speaker A:So, so it's really bringing, who would have thought, 499 episodes ago, Scott, that we could say by the time we get to 500 it will be clear that the US empire has peaked and.
Speaker C:Is on the way down and is.
Speaker A:No longer easily seen as no longer the empire it was.
Speaker A:It's a.
Speaker A:When when they talk about in history, when they're looking back at the American empire, we've got Iran as able to thwart them.
Speaker A:The US military not in a, in a guerrilla style Vietnam type situation.
Speaker D:Vietnam was the same but, but it.
Speaker A:Wasn't in the sense that they're kind of fighting fire through fire.
Speaker A:They're countering water with missiles, with missiles.
Speaker A:They are threatening to blow up the best sort of military assets that the US has and the US is having to back down.
Speaker A:They're having to send their aircraft carriers way off and they're not able to do what they normally do.
Speaker D:More importantly, it's not even missiles.
Speaker D:It's cheap drones versus their very expensive interceptor missiles.
Speaker D:So they're firing, you know, $100,000 drone and being taken down by a million dollar interceptor which as a war of attrition just forces your energy enemy to waste money.
Speaker A:So it's sort of, you know, I.
Speaker B:Have actually heard that before, Joe too, I read it a few weeks ago that they reckon that this is going to come down to a battle of who's got the, who's got the deeper pockets because Iran can actually throw up, you know, thousands of these drones and the Yanks have only got a limited number of interceptor missiles to deal with them.
Speaker D:And we found this with the Russians, with Ukraine is you throw a thousand drones in the air and they can do that.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:The best air defense system just can't cope sheer volume of, of, of missiles or of drones.
Speaker D:They can only track so many targets because the assumption was he were fighting a near peer who was using a few very expensive missiles.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So we're going to talk in a little bit about the 10 point peace plan and how short lived the peace was because it seemed almost immediately afterwards Israel just started bombing Lebanon.
Speaker A:But what, what do I say before we get to that just, you know, not only is Iran winning the physical war in this, they're also, they're also.
Speaker C:Winning the shit talk war in this one.
Speaker C:Various Iranian embassies, particularly the South Africa one and others, they're generating these great.
Speaker A:AI video clips and just other messaging which is taunting and poking fun at America.
Speaker C:And that sort of comedic sort of response like this one from the Iranian consulate in Hyderabad which was typical of.
Speaker A:This is the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaker C:Isn't social media if someone blocks you, you can't just block them back.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:Really lots of clever stuff like that.
Speaker A:There's these videos going around with like Lego characters.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I've seen many of them.
Speaker A:And you know, poking fun at Americans and basically saying in very clever ways that appeal to a broad young audience.
Speaker A:Ha ha, we're winning.
Speaker C:You're not.
Speaker C:And, and really just sticking it to them.
Speaker A:I really.
Speaker C:Talk.
Speaker C:They're winning that war too.
Speaker D:I think just because Trump is so terminally online.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker D:I, I think this is very much two fingers up at Trump.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker D:I think any other president, I mean obviously they wouldn't have been stupid enough to do this because all of the war plans said they will shut down the straight of Hill.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And look what's happened.
Speaker D:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker D:But given the man is terminally online and seems to live his life via social media, he, it's just, you know, it's trolling him, isn't it?
Speaker B:It's guiding him into, it's getting him into risking the entire US fleet, you know, because I think that the US fleet that is over there, if he did actually try and attack the straight of Hormuz, they kill them all before they even got around the corner.
Speaker B:You know, it's just one of those things.
Speaker B:What's the 25th amendment of the U. S. Constitution?
Speaker B:They can actually take someone out who's not mentally fit, isn't it?
Speaker D:But that would, that would then just put Vance in his place.
Speaker B:Yeah, I put Vance in his place.
Speaker B:But you know, then I suppose if you had enough Democrats in the Senate and that sort of stuff, you could actually impeach him too.
Speaker D:You need 2/3 majority, don't you?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker B:But I just think to myself right now they could almost get the 2/3 if anyone wanted to impeach the, the orange bastard.
Speaker B:But I don't think they get rid of Vance very quickly.
Speaker D:No.
Speaker B:Anyway, it's just one of those things.
Speaker B:I, I don't know where it's going to end up, but I think America's best Days are behind it now than what they are ahead of it.
Speaker A:Civil war, Scott,.
Speaker C:Put your money on that.
Speaker B:No, I'm not going to put my money on it because I think to myself that Americans, yeah, they probably are dumb enough to actually pick up arms and that sort of stuff against each other.
Speaker B:But I think to myself that the more level headed people in Illinois and New York and California and that sort of stuff, I don't think they're going to put up with that sort of nonsense.
Speaker B:Like I think that they would actually hit back and hit back hard.
Speaker A:Well, here's a scenario, Scott.
Speaker A:Midterms go really bad for Trump.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Trump says it was rigged.
Speaker A:There's no way that that's a correct vote in the lead up to the time for the next presidential election.
Speaker A:He goes, the midterms were rigged.
Speaker A:It's clear that the, there's electoral fraud going on everywhere.
Speaker A:We can't manage our electoral system.
Speaker A:I'm going to postpone the election until we can get this sorted out and stays.
Speaker A:And half of the country says yeah, that's okay and the other half, namely California, Oregon, etc, on the West, New York, etc.
Speaker A:On the east, goes, you've got to be kidding.
Speaker A:And they then decide to leave the union like that could, I could easily see one of his successes refusing to accept or hold or accept an election result and the country being split 50, 50.
Speaker A:And you got to remember a lot of them, they're split geographically already.
Speaker A:Like it's not like, you know, they live in very separately already.
Speaker A:So you couldn't imagine that happening.
Speaker A:Is that like.
Speaker B:I could not imagine that happening, but I just think to myself that if they did decide to split away from the union, would that necessarily result in a civil war?
Speaker B:Are they, are they allowed to leave the union?
Speaker A:Well, normally you end up in a civil war because the.
Speaker C:They say you're not allowed to leave.
Speaker C:Forcing you to stay.
Speaker B:Well, if they, if they did actually want to force people to stay, then I could actually see that descending into violence.
Speaker B:But I think to myself that before that would happen you'd have to, you'd have to have the majority armed forces and that sort of stuff prepared to follow what are basically illegal orders.
Speaker A:And it'll split as well.
Speaker B:The military, military will split as well.
Speaker B:Well, they could actually end up splitting I suppose, but I don't know, it's.
Speaker A:Just I'll have to fight over the spoils.
Speaker B:Who gets to fight over the spoils and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker B:Now what's still, what still scares the out of Me is you've got the world's largest nuclear arsenal there.
Speaker B:I mean, do you want the Republic of Gilead armed with nukes?
Speaker A:Well, that's what they're going to be fighting over.
Speaker A:Who controls?
Speaker D:Oh, that was the argument against Iran, wasn't it?
Speaker B:And that was the argument against Iran.
Speaker B:But, you know, it's just one of those things, like.
Speaker B:I don't know, it's just.
Speaker B:I hope it doesn't descend into civil war, but it could actually end up going down that way.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:The coasts fire.
Speaker D:Flyover country.
Speaker B:The coast.
Speaker B:What, Sorry.
Speaker D:Versus flyover country.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:The flyover country is where all the nukes are located.
Speaker D:Yep.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, but the controls are in.
Speaker B:In the.
Speaker B:In the coast.
Speaker A:Where's the button?
Speaker B:The buttons.
Speaker B:The button's always with the president.
Speaker D:Well, exactly.
Speaker D:No, the football is with the president.
Speaker B:The football's with the president.
Speaker B:Okay, what's.
Speaker B:What's the difference between that and the button?
Speaker D:The football is a briefcase with all codes.
Speaker B:Okay, gotcha.
Speaker D:And it's the codes you need to launch the nukes that I don't think there is an actual button.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Anyway.
Speaker A:Anyway, end well, if.
Speaker B:Well, you're destroying my future holiday plans because I'm going to go to Canada next.
Speaker B:But after that, I was.
Speaker B:I was actually hoping that there would be a Democrat in the White House, in which case it'd be safe for me to go back to America.
Speaker B:But anyway, I still got a few places I've got to see over there.
Speaker A:I've got some clips just we mentioned before.
Speaker A:You know, Netanyahu has been pushing for this for a long, long time, trying every American president.
Speaker A:This is John Kerry, who I think was.
Speaker A:Senator John Kerry.
Speaker D:Yeah, wasn't he?
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:What was that?
Speaker D:Wasn't he a senator?
Speaker A:I think so.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker A:I think he was also involved in a foreign relations post of some sort, like.
Speaker D:Yeah, I thought it was peace negotiator, wasn't he?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Wasn't he actually a.
Speaker B:Now, forgive me if I got this wrong, but I thought he was one of the vice presidential candidates at some point, wasn't he?
Speaker A:He was at one point.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I couldn't tell you which side he was on.
Speaker B:Was either Democrat or Republican, wasn't it?
Speaker A:I think Joe's looking it up.
Speaker A:Or maybe he's just right.
Speaker D:He was Secretary of State under Barack Obama.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:Secretary of State.
Speaker A:There we go.
Speaker A:So here he is being interviewed, talking about Netanyahu approaching presidents.
Speaker A:There's a bit of an intro to this, but anyway, I'll Play this.
Speaker F:You've probably sat across the table from Prime Minister Netanyahu more than any, almost anyone else out there.
Speaker F:And he and Israel are, of course, big factors here.
Speaker F:There's been recent reporting, you probably saw in the New York Times, that Netanyahu was taken into the situation where he basically pitched Trump on attacking Iran.
Speaker F:Were you ever part of any conversations like that?
Speaker F:I know he's made that pitches to past administrations.
Speaker F:Were you ever a part of that?
Speaker F:And were you surprised that he was able to convince Trump to do this?
Speaker E:Well, I was part of any number of conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu, conversations.
Speaker F:That takes place in other countries to strike Iran.
Speaker E:Yes, he wanted us to strike.
Speaker E:He came to President Obama, he made a presentation to ask to strike.
Speaker E:President Obama refused.
Speaker E:President Biden refused.
Speaker E:President Bush refused.
Speaker E:The only president who has agreed to this, obviously.
Speaker A:There we go.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker D:So he negotiated.
Speaker D:Sorry.
Speaker D: He initiated the: Speaker A:So he'd been around a bit, I.
Speaker C:Think, qualified to make the statement that he just made.
Speaker C:And it's no surprise, but that's.
Speaker B:It's no surprise to me because Netanyahu has always hated Iran and, you know, he's always seen them as an existential threat to Israel.
Speaker B:But, you know, I find it utterly ridiculous that the Yanks have turned a blind eye to Israel's nuclear weapons program, but they're actually prepared to actually bomb them.
Speaker B:Bomb the living daylights out of Iran for having a.
Speaker B:Wanting their own nuke.
Speaker B:And also, who could blame them for wanting their own nuke?
Speaker B:Because, you know, have they, has anyone touched North Korea since they developed their nuclear weapons?
Speaker A:Correct.
Speaker C:It'd be one of the first things I'd be doing if I was a Iranian president.
Speaker C:For example.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's some crazy times.
Speaker C:Did you see the footage of the president with his wife and the Easter Bunny?
Speaker B:No, I didn't see that footage.
Speaker C:Okay, you're going to see it now.
Speaker C:I'm sorry, for those who are on audio only, but this is just worth seeing for 21 seconds.
Speaker C:That's just the craziness of this image,.
Speaker E:Torian.
Speaker E:I don't think it gets much more hostile than Iran.
Speaker E:They're capable fighters.
Speaker E:They're very tough people.
Speaker E:And there are others like that.
Speaker E:You don't mind when the enemy is weak, but that enemy is strong.
Speaker E:Not so strong like they were about a month ago, I can tell you.
Speaker E:In fact, right now they're not too strong at all, in my opinion.
Speaker E:But we're.
Speaker C:I don't know, I, I find that just the weirdest image of, of Trump and Melania on that balcony in this comical stupid Easter bunny looking around beside.
Speaker D:Him as he's making you not hear about.
Speaker D:He was with some toddlers, primary school children.
Speaker D:I don't know if it was an Easter egg hunt or something to do with Easter.
Speaker D:Anyway.
Speaker D:And these small children.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:And he was going on about Obama stealing.
Speaker D:Not Obama, Biden stealing elections or something and going on.
Speaker D:Oh, that was.
Speaker D:It was all about the auto pen.
Speaker D:So there's three and four year olds and he's banging on about this auto pen.
Speaker A:Well, you know, he's banging on worry.
Speaker B:About the auto pen there.
Speaker B:He reckoned that he, that Obama signed all these.
Speaker D:Ob Biden had signed all these presidential orders, only he hadn't signed it.
Speaker D:Basically, people had just rubber stamped his signature with his auto banner.
Speaker B:Okay, gotcha.
Speaker A:So he's just in the middle of, of trying to ruin an entire civilization.
Speaker C:And blow it to smithereens and telling people about that.
Speaker C:And meanwhile this cartoonish Easter bunny is right beside him.
Speaker C:I just found that the most incongruous sort of combination of things.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker A:Go on, Scott.
Speaker B:I just found it absolutely hysterical that the Christians over there are still backing him when he used the holiest day on the Christian calendar to actually gloat about America's war.
Speaker B:Wartime.
Speaker B:What's the word I'm looking for?
Speaker B:Wartime brilliance and that sort of stuff.
Speaker B:And he also said that, you know, an entire civilization is about to be blasted out of, out of the planet.
Speaker B:You know.
Speaker A:Yes, it was, it was an only in America moment.
Speaker A:So here's also what some commentator argued as, as the best summary of America that this commentator had ever seen.
Speaker A:I'll play this one short clip.
Speaker F:Deadline that President Trump has set.
Speaker F:APM has threatened to destroy a civilization.
Speaker F:How does an investor process that.
Speaker C:When the American president threatens to blow up?
Speaker C:Sly zation.
Speaker C:What you really need to know is as an investor, how do you process this?
Speaker C:Is this a kind of buy or not buy?
Speaker B:This is a.
Speaker B:She's obviously a financial journalist and that sort of stuff.
Speaker A:She was just asking.
Speaker B:She was trying to make it relevant to her particular field of expertise.
Speaker B:And I could see that she was wondering what the hell was going on over there.
Speaker D:The answer is when you've tipped off your investors, then you can sign the ceasefire.
Speaker A:Yes, that's right.
Speaker A:The tip is get the inside knowledge.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, quite, quite the culture they've got going over there.
Speaker A:Meanwhile in Iran, when Trump threatened to blow the place to smithereens by it was 10am, giving four hours and said he was going to just attack their power stations, their nuclear sites, etc.
Speaker A:Bridges.
Speaker A:What did the Iranian people do?
Speaker A:Actually went out and stood beside their infrastructure as like, as ready to be martyrs to say, well if you're going to blow up this power station, you can blow us up at the same time.
Speaker A:So they actually put themselves forward as like human shields to, for the infrastructure that Trump was threatening to blow up.
Speaker A:Like in Iranian culture, as I understand it, there is quite a strong martyrdom sort of complex in the sense that they really revere it.
Speaker A:If you die as a martyr or then you've, you've performed your duty and it's quite a strong complex in that culture.
Speaker A:And you know, how many other places in the world if the Americans threatened to blow up your infrastructure, you wouldn't.
Speaker B:Actually go and stand.
Speaker C:How many Aussies would hold hands around that?
Speaker C:You know, the Tarong power station?
Speaker B:Well, I wouldn't.
Speaker C:In a demonstration like it's a coal fired one.
Speaker D:Definitely not.
Speaker A:It's a pretty incredible show of resolve by the Iranians.
Speaker A:So I'm, I'm impressed.
Speaker B:I think that they're actually ready to overthrow their regime government.
Speaker D:Well, particularly not up now.
Speaker B:Yes, no, exactly.
Speaker B:Like, you know, I just think to myself that they've got to, you know, if Trump was any sort of student of history, he'd realize that bombing doesn't work.
Speaker B:No, it didn't work on.
Speaker B:It didn't work in Berlin, it didn't work in London and you know, it didn't work in Vietnam.
Speaker B:You know, the, probably the only case that you could say where bombing actually worked was possibly Hiroshima, but that was the first time that they'd ever used a bomb like that.
Speaker A:What do you mean it worked?
Speaker B:Say again?
Speaker A:What do you mean that was.
Speaker D:It ended the war?
Speaker B:It ended the war.
Speaker B:You know, it forced them to actually accept the idea of unconditional surrender.
Speaker A:Now the evidence is that they were surrendering anyway like that, that there's more evidence that they did that to demonstrate to the Russians what they could do rather than ending the war and forcing Japan to surrender.
Speaker A:That's a story that is up for debate, that one but, but fair enough.
Speaker B:Anyway, it's just one of those things I was always brought up saying that the war ended after the Yanks dropped the second.
Speaker D:If you'd seen how, how, how they fought for the outer islands, if they were going to Defend the home islands to any degree the same.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Then the casualties would have been much higher than what they were eventually it.
Speaker A:Makes sense, but I believe that is propaganda, that the true evidence is that they were ready to surrender and everybody knew they were and they knew that the Russians were coming from the other side and that in fact this was preemptive and unnecessary by the Americans as a way of really demonstrating to the Russians, look what we've got.
Speaker A:Rather than the wall.
Speaker D:The choice of targets was they wanted a city that they hadn't already firebombed because they wanted to show how much damage it did.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Which is why they chose those two cities, you know, because, you know, even if you, if you look at the number of casualties, I think it was 75, 000 in one blast or something like that.
Speaker B:If you compare that to the fireballing raids of Tokyo, you know, they killed hundreds of thousands there.
Speaker A:So I wouldn't agree with you, Scott, on the idea that bombings never work and, but except for Hiroshima, because that wasn't that, that wasn't a case of your spice getting what it supposedly was supposed to do.
Speaker A:That was more propaganda, I believe.
Speaker A:Anyway, where are we up to?
Speaker A:There's a few people in the chat room have suddenly discovered that, yes, we're, we're going on a Tuesday night.
Speaker A:Noisy Andrew, thank you for your comments.
Speaker A:Hello, Alison, good to see you there.
Speaker A:Noisy Andrew chipped in and said they were asking for surrender terms for months before the bomb was dropped.
Speaker A:There we go.
Speaker B:Well, I think that they might have been asking for surrender terms, but they weren't prepared to ask.
Speaker B:They weren't prepared to concede to unconditional surren because they wanted the Mikado to remain in place.
Speaker B:It was only after that the Yanks modified the surrender terms and said, you can keep the Mikado there, but it's got to be a constitutional monarch like it is in Britain.
Speaker B:Then I think that's when it became more acceptable to them, I think.
Speaker A:Well, my reading is that they were fully ready to surrender and.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I think that the story I heard was that Hirohito actually said to his cabinet, it's time for us to give up.
Speaker B:And then after the first blast, after the, after the first blast in Hiroshima, he said, we've got to surrender.
Speaker B:And then two days later, they dropped another one on Nagasaki.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Had they actually modified the surrender terms and everything, like, they probably could have ended a couple of weeks earlier.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So, I mean, so we've had peace talks and basically at the beginning of the so called peace.
Speaker A:Netanyahu put out a statement saying, as you know, a two week temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran went into effect tonight in full coordination with Israel.
Speaker A:Now I want to emphasize this is not the end of the campaign.
Speaker A:This is a way station on the way to achieving all of our goals.
Speaker A:Like they're really just saying, yeah, okay, we stopped for two weeks, but don't worry, we're gonna, we'll get back into action soon.
Speaker A:Just a momentary delay.
Speaker A:Like how can you negotiate with these people?
Speaker A:They're not interested in a permanent peace at all.
Speaker A:So it really came down to an argument where the, the Iranians said that the ceasefire includes Lebanon.
Speaker A:And immediately after the ceasefire was agreed, Israel just starts bombing the out of Lebanon, southern Lebanon, like, like just immediately.
Speaker A:And so the Iranians go, hang on a minute, we got a peace deal here.
Speaker A:And then there's all this argument between the two as to the US saying, well, it wasn't part of the deal.
Speaker A:An Iranian saying, yes it was.
Speaker A:And we've got sort of the Pakistanis was as the, as the intermediaries.
Speaker A:And you know, you've got J.D.
Speaker A:Vance involved at this point saying, what is it with these crazy Iranians?
Speaker A:Why would they think that, you know, the peace deal would include Iran's allies?
Speaker A:But meanwhile America wants the peace deal to include their allies, Israel and the Gulf states.
Speaker A:So on the one hand they were going, it's, it's crazy to think that this is going to include Iranian allies, but of course it's going to include Israeli and American allies.
Speaker A:The hypocrisy of these people, shameless.
Speaker A:So yeah, Vance said it's bizarre that Iran would want the world, the war to continue over its desire to protect a foreign country, Lebanon, that has nothing to do with them.
Speaker A:So why, why couldn't the Americans say to, to the Iranians, sure, Lebanon's included in the deal?
Speaker A:How hard would that be?
Speaker A:Israel wouldn't let them because Israel wants to keep bombing Lebanon.
Speaker A:Like from the, from the American point of view, you've come to a deal, a peace deal.
Speaker A:It's not that hard to say, of course Israel will stop bombing Lebanon.
Speaker A:There's nothing there that Americans want.
Speaker A:There's no interest there.
Speaker A:The only reason why they wouldn't include Lebanon in the peace deal is because the Israelis somehow.
Speaker D:Oh, they realized that they couldn't rail the rain the Israelis in.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So they were making a deal where they couldn't control one of the actors, namely their ally Israel.
Speaker A:Because Israel must have said to him, no point Making that deal because we're not gonna, we're gonna keep bombing Lebanon.
Speaker B:It's one of those things I had actually read fairly recently that, about a concept called Greater Israel, which is where Israel is going to grow its borders and everything else.
Speaker B:They reckon that southern Lebanon's the next, the next cab off the rank.
Speaker B:They reckon that they're going to bomb the southern Lebanon, then occupy it.
Speaker A:Well, the images now where they are, you know, with Gaza, you would see, you know, a large city block of buildings that had been basically explosives placed in there and the whole thing detonated and flattened.
Speaker A:They're doing the same in southern Lebanon now.
Speaker A:And, and they're, they're, they're literally reducing entire towns to rubble where the buildings are completely gone.
Speaker A:So there's nothing left of these, of these Lebanese towns.
Speaker A:They're doing exactly to Lebanon what they did to Gaza.
Speaker A:They're out of control.
Speaker A:Insane psychopaths, these people.
Speaker A:Yeah, they are, they keep, they keep doing it.
Speaker A:So it's like that, gone.
Speaker A:You want to say something?
Speaker B:No, no, it's fine.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So the 10 point plan that the Iranians put forward, number 10 was ceasefire on all fronts, including Israel's conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Speaker A:That was, that was, you know, item number 10 in the 10 point plan.
Speaker A:And Trump in one of his tweets said, we received a 10 point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.
Speaker A:And then his, his spokesperson, that Carolyn Levitt, I think her name is she, she, after all that comes out and says this.
Speaker F:I've seen a lot of inaccurate coverage today from the media about these negotiations and these plans already.
Speaker F:So let me be clear and correct the record.
Speaker F:The Iranians originally put forward a 10 point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded.
Speaker F:It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team.
Speaker F:Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that plan as being acceptable to the United.
Speaker A:How can you deal with these people?
Speaker A:Like what, what is the point of sitting in a room with these people?
Speaker A:They're completely nuts.
Speaker A:Like, lie.
Speaker A:They go back on their word.
Speaker A:They, they refuse to genuinely enter with a view to negotiating to a mutually agreeable solution.
Speaker A:The so called leaders of the free world that are our allies, that we have shared values with, like at some point I know the Spanish president, Prime Minister, whatever he is, has come out pretty strong and saying what's going on with the US And Israel is terrible.
Speaker A:Like just categorically stop it.
Speaker A:We're not letting you use our airspace and come out pretty Hard.
Speaker A:Not many.
Speaker A:I can't really find any others in the, in the west who have said that.
Speaker A:Plenty in this, in the Global south have said that.
Speaker A:But surely it'll only take one or two Western leaders to come out and say, enough's enough, no more.
Speaker A:This guy's an idiot.
Speaker A:You're no longer an ally, the deals are off, blah, blah, blah, and a bunch would follow, surely.
Speaker B:I have actually heard.
Speaker B:I have heard the French have actually got pretty close to saying it and that apparently the British have pretty close behind them.
Speaker B:Now, I couldn't tell you how accurate that is, but it's just one of those things that I have read.
Speaker A:The incredible part of all this is just that you get the rantings of.
Speaker C:Donald Trump's mind published on Twitter.
Speaker A:And Joe, what's happening in the chat there?
Speaker A:Something weird?
Speaker C:Is something.
Speaker C:Is somebody doing something?
Speaker D:A spammer.
Speaker A:All right, thank you.
Speaker A:Have you guys been reading any of Donald Trump's truths lately?
Speaker B:No, I don't.
Speaker B:I don't bother.
Speaker B:I just wait.
Speaker B:I. I figure I'm going to get the cream of the crop once the.
Speaker D:I was going to say I've seen a few screenshots.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Just for fun, let me just run through one of his.
Speaker A:One of his recent ones.
Speaker A:So there you have it.
Speaker A:The meeting went well.
Speaker A:Most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, nuclear, was not effective immediately.
Speaker A:The United States Navy, the finest in the world, will begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaker A:At some point, we will reach an all being allowed to go in, all being allowed to go out basis.
Speaker A:But Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying there may be a mine out there somewhere that nobody knows about but them.
Speaker A:This is world extortion.
Speaker A:And leaders of countries, especially United States of America, will never be extorted.
Speaker A:I've also instructed our navy to seek and interdict, interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran.
Speaker A:No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.
Speaker A:We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the straits.
Speaker A:Any Iranian who fires at us or at peaceful vessels will be blowing to hell.
Speaker C:Iran knows better than anyone how to end this situation which has already devastated their country.
Speaker A:The navy is gone.
Speaker A:The air force is gone.
Speaker A:Their anti aircraft and radar are useless.
Speaker A:Kymani and most of their leaders are dead.
Speaker A:All because of their nuclear ambition.
Speaker A:The blockade will begin shortly.
Speaker A:Other countries will be involved with this blockade.
Speaker A:Iran will not be allowed to profit off this illegal act of extortion.
Speaker A:They want money and more importantly they want nuclear.
Speaker A:Additionally, and at an appropriate moment, we are fully locked and loaded and our military will finish up the little that is left of Iran.
Speaker A:President Donald J. Trump's not interested in mines.
Speaker D:He's interested in miners.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker D:So he didn't write that.
Speaker D:It's far too articulate.
Speaker A:That was probably a bit articulate.
Speaker A:He probably sat back and, and just.
Speaker A:And it was too long.
Speaker A:But so it.
Speaker A:We went from open the straight then to his allies help us open the straight to.
Speaker A:We don't need the straight open to open the fucking straight or I'll destroy you all.
Speaker C:To wheelblock the straight like that's.
Speaker A:Yep, that's where we're at.
Speaker A:Incidentally today I seem to see on a few news sites that in fact Chinese chips and others have been passing through the strait because Iran has allowed friendly nations to pass through for a minute.
Speaker D:Two million a ship.
Speaker A:I don't know that the.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Are they all paying the 2 million?
Speaker D:I thought that was the case.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And that Chinese ship went through the so called US blockade and was not stopped.
Speaker A:So I'm hearing stuff where the Chinese have said you can't blockade our ships if they get through the strait of a move they're getting through.
Speaker A:So it will be interesting to see whether the US Navy proceeds with the threat of stopping Chinese ships who have been allowed through the strata.
Speaker A:For Moose Scott, what do you reckon Will the Americans.
Speaker B:I don't think the Americans luxury agrified China.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know to myself that they're quite happy that China's sitting on the sidelines right now.
Speaker B:But you know, this whole thing was started off as a way that Donald Trump thought that he could up China I think more than anything else because this, Most of that 20 of the oil that goes out of the straight of Hormuz ends up in Chinese, in Chinese factories and that type of thing.
Speaker A:So I think the problem was he had success in Venezuela nabbing Maduro.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Which meant that he got punched drunk and everything else.
Speaker B:He thought he could go in there and do it quickly.
Speaker A:And when Netanyahu whispers in his ear, it said you could take on Iran, that country, they'll fall over, there'll be a color revolution, you know, that it's a mess and you'll have another victory.
Speaker A:He believed it unfortunately had a, a kind of a victory in Venezuela.
Speaker A:And I think that has led to him thinking this military stuff really works when.
Speaker A:And it was quite impressive to Be.
Speaker C:Able to send in a military and.
Speaker A:Abduct the president of Venezuela and his wife.
Speaker B:Ignoring the rules of the world and that sort of stuff.
Speaker B:You got to ignore the international war.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:You can get away with a whole lot of yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I think that's the problem is he had a bit of a win there.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker D:Yeah, I mean, allegedly he had inside help, so.
Speaker B:From Venezuela.
Speaker D:From Venezuela, yeah.
Speaker A:Did you know that he is planning on becoming the president of Venezuela because his pole number in Venezuela are so good.
Speaker B:Really?
Speaker C:You don't believe me?
Speaker C:Check out this one.
Speaker C:I don't know if I'll get through the hole.
Speaker C:Yes, here we go.
Speaker C:Check this out.
Speaker E:But to the victor belong the spoils.
Speaker E:So we haven't heard, we haven't heard that in, I think maybe hundreds of years now with Venezuela.
Speaker E:And we just so you understand, the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela.
Speaker E:So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela.
Speaker E:I will quickly learn Spanish.
Speaker E:It won't take too long.
Speaker E:I'm good at language and I will go to Venezuela.
Speaker E:I'm going to run for president.
Speaker E:But we're very happy with the president elect that we have right now.
Speaker E:The, the people that are running it.
Speaker E:If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals, they fired the police, they fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House.
Speaker E:They fired everybody.
Speaker E:And you know what?
Speaker E:They had, they had a mess.
Speaker E:And you know what happened?
Speaker E:ISIS formed.
Speaker E:Those generals and those soldiers got together, the police got together, they all got together.
Speaker E:They formed isis.
Speaker E:Not going to happen with us.
Speaker E:So Venezuela has been an incredible.
Speaker E:It's been an incredible situation.
Speaker E:We went in, we were very successful military power like nobody has ever seen.
Speaker E:The general, Venezuelan general said, I was on that site, I said, I've never seen ferocity like that.
Speaker E:I've been doing this for 40 years.
Speaker E:He said, I've never seen it.
Speaker E:They, they hit us from 17 different.
Speaker E:It was, they were all set.
Speaker E:They saw that big, beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford, in that case, and planes were pouring off it at 1:00 clock in the morning.
Speaker E:So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right?
Speaker E:And we were all ready.
Speaker E:They had their equipment, it was Russian and they had Chinese equipment.
Speaker E:It was all set.
Speaker E:They were going to give us a fight, he said.
Speaker E:And then they came, and they came at speeds like we've never seen.
Speaker E:And they came at 17 different angles.
Speaker E:The general and his People, that was a lot of angles.
Speaker E:They hit him from every angle.
Speaker E:He said, we knew it was over in three minutes.
Speaker E:We were waiting for him.
Speaker E:Their equipment didn't work, and there's a reason it didn't work.
Speaker E:Someday we'll explain that to people.
Speaker E:They pressed the button.
Speaker E:Nothing happened.
Speaker A:17 Different angles.
Speaker C:They came at them from 17.
Speaker C:And I love the bit where his poll numbers are so good.
Speaker C:They've never seen poll numbers like that before.
Speaker C:As if somebody is running a poll in Venezuela, who would you most likely be popular?
Speaker C:Is he as president, Donald Trump, Nicolas Maduro, or whoever?
Speaker C:As if polls are being run in Venezuela where Donald Trump is an option for president, and then, in fact, the polls have him leading as the option for president.
Speaker C:And the guy, you know, he learns.
Speaker A:He'll have to learn Spanish, but he learns Spanish very quickly.
Speaker A:He's good with languages.
Speaker C:He can't even speak English.
Speaker B:Say again?
Speaker A:He can't even speak English.
Speaker B:I mean, yeah, no, he can.
Speaker A:That is the rantings of a lunatic right there.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And we have to.
Speaker A:People take him seriously as if he has a strategy behind all these things that he does.
Speaker D:He's playing 5D chess.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:There are idiots out there who say, oh, you know, this is all part of Trump's stick.
Speaker A:And, okay, sure, he's bullshitting, but he's doing it strategically and that's what he does.
Speaker A:And blah.
Speaker A:Like, honestly, Honestly.
Speaker A:Ah.
Speaker A:Chadlean's in the chat room.
Speaker A:So does Iran see us as a friend to China or the US?
Speaker A:Can we have some of China's oil?
Speaker A:Hard to get info on what all this means to us.
Speaker A:Will we run out?
Speaker A:So Iran would see us as part a hardcore ally of the United States because we came out in support of the military action first up.
Speaker A:And we kicked the Iranian ambassador out of the country not so long ago on spurious grounds.
Speaker A:And we've never said a harsh word against the Americans.
Speaker A:So if there was an Australian oil tanker wanting to make its way through the Strait of Hormuz, it wouldn't be allowed through as a friendly country, that's for sure.
Speaker B:It's one of those things, I think if you ask.
Speaker B:If you ask the average Australian, you probably still got more than 50 are in favor of the alliance with the US but I think to myself, those numbers have shrunk dramatically compared to what they were when I was a kid.
Speaker B:You know, when I was a kid, you never thought.
Speaker B:You never thought twice about the Americans, that they were allies, they were our friend and that sort of stuff.
Speaker B:Whereas over years and that sort of stuff.
Speaker B:And you see the way they're behaving, then you think to yourself, no, they're not a good global citizen at all.
Speaker A:Terrible.
Speaker A:There we go.
Speaker A:Well, gentlemen, do you have anything further that you wish to add of any particular note?
Speaker D:Not on that, no.
Speaker B:No, not really.
Speaker A:All right, well, we'll see what develops over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker A:Not sure when episode 500 will appear.
Speaker A:Dear listener, Obviously we need to make it a bit of a reflective episode of some sort of.
Speaker B:God's sake.
Speaker B:We're going to look back at what we've actually said in the past, are we?
Speaker A:No, no, because that's just too hard to do.
Speaker A:Like, that's too hard to do.
Speaker D:But I thought you had your AI bot trolling through and summarizing it all for you.
Speaker A:Maybe I could.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Can I do that?
Speaker A:Can you.
Speaker A:Can you just give that to an AI bot and say, Listen to 500.
Speaker A:Maybe not 500 episodes, but if you've.
Speaker D:Got the transcripts, which.
Speaker D:I thought you had some website that was doing the transcript.
Speaker A:It does.
Speaker A:There are transcripts.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:I think you can feed it at the.
Speaker D:Point it at the transcripts and tell it to ingest those and summarize them.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:The problem is a lot of the AI bots, as we've learned, are not very.
Speaker A:Not very happy when they hear stuff that's critical of the US or Israel and.
Speaker A:And try and water things down.
Speaker D:So maybe you need the Chinese bot, then.
Speaker A:Maybe I do, yes.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker C:Charlene says LOL highlights what sounds.
Speaker D:Like she wants some audio clips of her.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So, no, there won't be that.
Speaker A:It'll be.
Speaker A:No, it's impossible to trawl through over 500 episodes and try and pluck those bits out.
Speaker A:That will be for future histories.
Speaker B:Is Shay.
Speaker B:Is Shay Lane.
Speaker B:Is she still abroad or not?
Speaker B:Or is she back home?
Speaker A:I'm assuming she is, but, yeah.
Speaker A:Where are you, Shay?
Speaker A:Are you assuming you're overseas still?
Speaker A:So probably two weeks, I would say.
Speaker A:And then after that, I think probably have a break of some sort.
Speaker A:Maybe just a podcast, a month or something in the meantime.
Speaker A:Oh, Charlene's back home.
Speaker A:Very good.
Speaker A:When are you down in Brisbane next, Scott?
Speaker B:Sometime in June, when my.
Speaker B:When my brother's over here from China and they're sort of stuffing.
Speaker A:Trying catch up with Shay.
Speaker A:That would be nice, but what was I going to say?
Speaker A:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker A:I'm just trying to think what will happen after episode 500?
Speaker A:Not sure.
Speaker A:We'll see.
Speaker A:Maybe just one a month.
Speaker A:I feel like writing stuff, so I feel like, I feel like writing a opinion newslettery type thing and with podcasting once a month or something, I'm not sure.
Speaker A:But anyway, we'll, we'll see what happens and I'll be thinking about that, but.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Well, until then, bye for now.
Speaker A:Talk to you in a couple of weeks time.
Speaker D:Yeah, and it's a good night from him.
Speaker B:Good night.
Speaker A:You would have, you would have thought after 499 episodes, we could have got.
Speaker C:That right without you guys talking over.
Speaker A:The top of each other.
Speaker B:Well, you know, we've only been doing it for the last hundred or so, so.
Speaker B:Yeah, you can forgive us for it up every now and again.
Speaker B:And Shailene, I was just thinking about that beer that we're gonna have.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Bye everyone.
Speaker B:Bye now.
