Calgary. Audio. Ladies and gentlemen, it is January two thousand twenty two. I am at Bolinsky and this is the prevailing narrative. And as I always tell you, this is your weekly dose of sanity. And a place that could use a little dose sub sanity or two these days is Australia. A lot been going on in Australia. They've taken a very unique approach to COVID. They call it, I believe, Fortress Australia, and that has been caused for quite a bit of commotion in terms of, you know, the government trying to enforce COVID restrictions and riots and protests, cops knocking on doors, things that nature. And we've been hearing stories out of Australia about this for quite a while now, but it all reached a bit of a crescendo and and a little higher media visibility this week as there's been a big controversy around the entrance of number one men's rated tennis player Novak Joe kovich Um and his participation in the Australian Open and whether or not his visa would be approved for his participation, and he was detained at the airport and you know, I'm gonna get into the details of that with my friend and Australian basketball star and former NBA champion Andrew Bogatt. He is on the ground in Sydney and it will give us a dispatch from down Under in just a moment um, and after we get to some topics, and he and I discussed the situation in excruciating detail. But I first off wanted to just frame the conversation by acknowledging that a lot of people are getting the basic facts about this situation incorrect, both those in the media and those who are commenting and commenting on it. Um. First off, there's no requirement to be vaccinated to enter the Australian border. A lot of people think that's true. It is not. You do have to quarantine for fourteen days though if you, uh, if you're not vaccinated. And Djokovic had gotten an exemption on that because he had, in an alignment with the letter of the law, he had been previously infected with COVID and recovered within the last six months. So that's not what this controversy is about about him entering the country without being vaccinated. Um. His medical exemption was done through the Australian Open, the tournament itself, that's where he got a direct medical exemption from UM. And so just right off the bat, this has been kind of scrambled and a lot of people while this has kind of become a the proxy war in the battlefield for the pro vaccine um, uh, those who are pro vaccine against people who are more skeptical of the vaccine. I'm sorry, I'm not going to use the word anti vax because it's far too broad, UM, but I think a lot of people got the basic facts wrong. So Bogut and I we're gonna get into that. We're gonna get into a lot of other topics around, you know, COVID protocols and pro sports, and he'll tell us a little bit, give us some inside scoops on some of the stuff he experienced in the NBA for all you basketball fans out there. UM. As of the moment as I record this, the decision regarding Djokovic UM is still pending on whether or not they're going to allow him to remain in the country and UH particip Peyton the tournament. So I guess we'll find out a final ruling soon. But obviously this has become a bit of a cause to Leb and he's a very newsworthy guy, and we'll get into it in detail. Um, another guy who you cannot deny is newsworthy, although I sometimes hesitate to discuss him, Um, Donald Trump. So last week was January six, the anniversary of the cat well, the Capital Insurrection or the Capital Riot, depending on who you're talking to and which lenses your seeing things through. So my goal with this podcast is to try to tell the story of modern times, right the forces that affect modern life and your place in it and in recent history. And you just can't tell that story without Donald Trump and some analysis of his place in it. And so now that we've got a little distance from him and from January six, so yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and do a little Trump retrospective on you know, his candidacy, him as president, and it will lead into my thoughts on January six and some of the surrounding events and reactions to it. Um. So Jesus man, it's hard to discuss Donald Trump because either there's there's no middle ground. Either you've got someone waving a maga hat who loves him, and I kind of wonder where this affection comes from or you've got someone who just loses their freaking mind and considers him the devil. And if you say one positive thing, no matter what else you say, uh, they want to they want to paint you as some maga hat wear. And people's brains just seemed to melt when you mentioned this guy's name. Nevertheless, he needs to be discussed. And sorry, but I'm going to acknowledge that he had pluses, minuses, advantages, disadvantages. He did some good stuff, he did some bad stuff, and yeah, a lot of the bad stuff was around his reaction to losing the election, which I believe he did. Um. But you know, you can't ignore the great man theory. Don't lose your mind that I use the term great man theory not necessarily that Donald Trump was great. But the theory is that history is largely explained by unique individuals that have extraordinary impact. Okay, and you can say what you want about the dude, he had extraordinary impact. So let's take a little trip back in time to the days even before the two thousand and sixteen election and campaign, when Donald Trump wasn't necessarily a politician, before he came down the escalator at Trump Towers, and he started when he was more of a pretty much a flamethrower on Twitter and veering in quite an odd right wing direction in during the Obama years. And one thing that I think was unforgivable that I'm not going to forgive Trump before UM was his dalliances with the Birther movement. UM. And you know, while I think a lot of the claims of racism around Donald Trump are were fabricated or exaggerated, I understand why some people might believe he's racist because the Birther thing was inexcusable. And if I'm an African American and I'm sitting there and seeing this guy try to paint, you know, Barack Obama, and I take issue with him as a as a as a strap just right in a lot of ways. But it seems like a very admirable guy who tried to play by all the rules and project be a uniter and project you know, an image of poise and integrity. While I don't think he always lived up to that, but UM guys seemed to to do what America asked of him, right, And Donald Trump is sitting there trying to portray him as some exotic foreign agent fraud and and that's not cool, Like I do not support that, And I understand why a lot of people were piste off at him, and and his image was irretrievably poisoned from engaging in that. Okay, but then you get to him announcing that he was going to run for president and his campaign and you cannot deny it. I'm sorry. What the guy did in two thousand sixteen was extremely impressive. The guy start off pulling to three was not a politician, the first outsider ever to essentially and just spit in the face of the entire political establishment. Did you see him shred all those other republic kings on the debate stage and it's crazy. And his platform, the MAGA platform for two thousand sixteen, there were a number of aspects of it that were right on target. There were, but there were problems that other people were not solving that Donald Trump acknowledged and gave and promised to solve. And you know, on the one hand, okay, you got to solve them. But on the other one, when nobody else is willing to admit these things were a problem. In the land of the blind, the one man is King and so um, he was the first Republican to acknowledge Iraq was a funk up. I mean that's big, Like the Republicans just ostrich head in the sand on Iraq for god knows how long. Donald Trump's policies in terms of, you know, acknowledging the faults and failures of globalization and the impact on this country, China's economic one, unilateral economic warfare on America, and how we needed to reinstate both our border physically and economically, these were all good things. These were all right. These are also places where he kind of intersected with Bernie Sanders at the time. Right, Globalization did not treat everyone in America so well. And you can't just sit there and expect, oh, well, this factory moved to China, and my town has been gutted and I have no meaning in my life, and you know, half the people in the town are on disability and opioids are flooding in and you just allow that to fester, Like you can't blame people for being kind of piste off and looking for someone who at least acknowledges that that's a problem. And Donald Trump did an understanding. Um, some of the failures of NAFTA in the North American Free Trade Association deal, UM, the Trans Pacific Partnership one. Really, you guys want, I think a fascinating conversation that explains a ton about, you know, the next twenty years in American politics, actually a little bit longer. Remember a guy named Ross Perro ran for president once Clinton was elected, and al Gore was his vice president. I think maybe um, while the NAFTA was Clinton had proposed NAFTA essentially to recalibrate trade, free trade amongst America, UM Mexico and can it up. And Pero was against it because he said, listen, this will will lead to economic efficiencies overall, but these are gonna be top heavy. This is gonna screw the workers in America. And Larry King hosted a debate between al Gore in favor of NAFTA and Ross Pero against NAFTA, and al Gore's claim and he made it very eloquently was that, listen, once we find the economic efficiencies of free trade with shipping low, low skill, low cost work off to Mexico, that's gonna allow repurposing of of labor and economic resources in America to be more efficient, and hey, yeah, well some people are short term going to have to change careers and lose their jobs. They're going to eventually be shuffled to higher paying, higher skilled and more efficient uh work. And Pero and just his no nonsense, you know Texas billionaires, just like that's just that's ridiculous. And hey, Ross, Pero turned out to be right, man, Pero was right, Gore was wrong. And if you go google that Ross Perot al Gore debate, if you're into this stuff, I think it is freaking gold. I think it is a great, great debate and informs so much about why Donald Trump won in two thousand sixteen. Um. Also, he ran a better campaign than Hillary Clinton. I mean, what the funk was? I'm with her. It's the worst god damn slogan I've ever heard. Who's supposed to be inspired by that make America great again. You can call it tacky, you can call it cheesy, but it's got a ring to it, and it's appeals to a lot of people. Not I'm with her, So you know, you got it. Except the guy ran a good campaign. What he did was impressive. Um, then he becomes president, what did he do wrong? What do you do right? Um, quick to the note of some of the things he did right, everyone forgets isis was running wild in two thousand thirteen, fourteen fifteen, he he took your ice is real good. You have to give him credit for that. He stopped the domestic terrorist attacks. Um. He finally put pressure on China. And you know, while it was a process, and finally, after thirty years, some on one American politician at least put a contrary counter force pressure on China in terms of stealing I p um essentially trade all its all its tariffs going in one direction and all these policies that harmed American workers at you know, and made Chinese factory owners in the countryside, you know, multimillionaires and screwed over American workers. And I'd love to get deeper into this topic. But yes, Donald Trump made progress on that. It led to rising working class wages. Okay, his economic policies did lead to rising working class wages. Um. His Supreme Court choices were very good. They were. While Donald Trump was a flamethrower, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Barrett Cone are sensible, moderate types, right, those were good choices. Eventually he started off on a bad foot with border policy with Mexico. But eventually, while he didn't get a wall built, he got Mexico. He essentially threatened Mexico with economic sanctions and they started taking care of the border. Right. It's not just a one way thing. The Mexican government can do a lot more to enforce those coming from that direction, from South American, from Mexico past the U. S. Border, and Trump got him. Trump Trump incentivized them or threatened them into the right policies, and that was a benefit. He also covered. Right before COVID, he was writing high killed Solomani um Uh, the the Iranian terrorist, and everyone was expecting that that was gonna have major repercussions and backlash. Donald Trump rolled big. His bet was that Iran was a paper tiger and wouldn't respond, and they didn't. Aside from that, he fostered the Trump administration, fostered a approachment and a thawing of relations between Israel, Saudi Arabian, a lot of other Gulf Middle Eastern states. I mean, these are good things. Um, Okay, what did Donald Trump do bad? A lot of stuff he did badly as well. First off, one of the you know one of the the positive aspects to his um to his platform in two thousand and sixteen was a focus on infrastructure. American infrastructure is a joke. Our country looks like it's it looks like it's three d years old. You go to other countries, you see their public services, their public transportation, airports, roads, bridges, whatnot. And you compare that to what we have in the US. We don't. We look way behind. And Donald Trump says, hey, I'm a real estate developer, I'm a builder. We need we need to direct some funds towards infrastructure, to renewing this infrastructure, and that will also put Americans back to work. Donald Trump completely shut the bet on that he did not pass any infrastructure bility, called it infrastructure week twenty times UM, and he failed that now is a massive failure. I think people underestimate how much of a failure that was. UM. He hired very poorly. Did you ever notice how he kept on shooting on everybody who used to work for him, John Bolton, Rex Tillerson, Uh, John Kelly. It's like, dude, if everyone you hire you end up firing and then having to go tweet some nasty comments about like what does that say about you? Like that's that does That's not an indicator of executive competence that you keep on hiring people and then you know, end up on bad terms with them. Um, he promised to get out of Afghanistan. He didn't do so, I mean he was tapering it down. UM. I mean I would I can't imagine he would have done his bad a job of exiting as Joe Biden ended up doing. But you know, he said he was gonna get out of Afghanistan. And while he made some progress there, and I think that he was good about at least tape tempering. UM. A lot of pugnacious you know, foreign policy excesses by the Republicans, Like he didn't get out of Afghanistan. Um, he didn't do anything to fix any you know, the Affordable Care Act or or improve American healthcare. That's another topic that he talked big about. UM. Similarly with uh fentinal imports from China, and that was part of his claims about border security. I mean, he failed on all these things. And he was too he was unnecessarily divisive, Like sorry, you you don't get to act the same way as president when you are in the public sector and pick the same fights and talk the same ship. You got to conduct yourself in a different manner. It's like everyone when you go after Lebron or go after these other private sector figures. Like, sorry, bro, you're in the hot seat. You chose this. You're gonna get criticized, and like, how are you going to bring the country back together? Like if every person who says anything even mildly critical of you, you go and you alienate every person who affiliates with that person. Like that's not that's not a healthy way to run the country. Um. And so that's just a small list of his failures. The Russia thing, UM, yeah, I'm sorry. The Russia thing was completely exaggerated by the media and by the Democrats. UM. I don't want to get too deep into it, but please one go to your homework on the steel the Steel dossier and it as a reference material, um, and a basis for claiming collusion between Trump and the Russians. Um. The Steel Dossier has been comed, if not completely debunked, primarily debunk it was bullshit. Um to the claim about Russian interference on the Internet and Facebook ads. Guys, you gotta do your research. Go look into it. The Russians spent something like seven, like even worst case, two million dollars in Facebook ads? Do you know how much Hillary Clinton spent? Stopped pretending that a handful of ads from like some Russian troll factory did anything to change this election in comparison to what, like, think about the totality of all the other posts that were already on Facebook or circulating. Do you think like the handful of posts put out there by some Russian troll farms moved the needle at all when most of those posts only mimicked and replicated other posts that were already in circulation. Like, it's just even one good summation of this. This even from Time magazine, no fan of Trump. Um and this was from right after the Mueller report. Mentioned that the title is the Muller report is embarrassing for Trump, but it doesn't call into question is two thousand six win? That's the best I can sum up the Russia thing. Okay, yeah, Trump kissed Vladimir Putin's ask too much, but what his policies were not particularly Russian friendly too. Yeah, he definitely did not reject h the idea that there were some foreign actors helping him. But there was no There was this deep a dive as you could possibly imagine, and there are evidence tying him in the planning or the communication to the Russians. The evidence wasn't there, right, And if you look at the particulars of this, it doesn't seem like it just seems seems like Vladimir Putin wanted to funk with the Americans, wanted to funk with Hillary Clinton, and so we engaged in, you know, a little hijinks here and there, and as just incredibly unlikely that this swung the election one way or the other. But go google that time article, Go Google, go look into Russia, uh, Russia, how much Facebook ads, what they spent on Facebook ads, and see if you think that made any difference in the election. Um, okay. Then we get to COVID. Very smart person in analyzing Donald Trump's failures around the coronavirus mentioned that, yeah, Donald Trump was was elected to fix old problems, not new problems. And I thought that was very insightful because that that was true. Donald Trump is saying, there's our politicians have been failing us, ABC, D, E, F, and G, and I'm gonna come in and fix it. But he didn't mention he was not prepared and he was not talented. He's not skillful and handling new curveballs. And the biggest one that that, the biggest curveball he was thrown was covid um. From a logistics perspective into our strategy, I mean, he wasn't much worse than anybody else, right, I mean, all you've got all those Democratic politicians in February and even into early March, got Nancy Pelosi encouraging people to go and celebrate the Chinese New Year, the Blasio same thing, and a ton of those a ton of those politicians in New York. Um. And you know the idea that everybody else woke up and Donald Trump woke up a month later late, like that's that. The evidence doesn't not support that. That's not what happened. However, he was a terrible communicator. Okay, he was not able to communicate, Like, don't mention the flu unless you know that this is like the flu. Just know, if you try to throw out flu stats and it turns out that this is more dangerous than the flu, you're gonna look like a schmuck. And he did look like a schmuck um when he was in those early briefings with Fauci. I mean, he just did not come off as a serious, informed person, did not come off as someone who was empathetic in the least. Um even it was tweeting out like while COVID's raging, criticizing, you know, crapping on the Dems and then seeing n and they're bad ratings. It's like, no one wants to hear that in when when circumstances get serious and he it just felt like Trump wanted to continue with his you know, with his antics and his high jinks and his his Greatest Hits album and was looking forward to his rallies and didn't really recalibrate to meet the seriousness of the situation. Um. However, from a strategic perspective, once he did turn towards COVID policy in terms of Operation Warp speed um, you know, private public partnerships and reigniting American manufacturing to get PPE and things like that, I mean, he was you know, okay, I mean, he wasn't amazing, but he was not bad. He certainly wasn't much. There weren't a bunch of other people that were that much better than him. Um. But you know, then you go along and it's like he's going through that campaign in two thousand twenty and people want to are concerned and worried about their future, about their business, about their lives, and he's like crapping on Joe Biden for being senile and is deadbeat drug addict son for being a deadbeat drug addict. Like this isn't serious stuff, Like what that's not what people wanted to hear. Right, if you've been better about tying some of Hunter Biden's foibles to actual you know, corruption from the Biden family, which there's evidence of. Uh, he tried to do that, but not very well. I mean that would have gone over bed. And then aside from that, I don't talk too much more about it. But that first debate, the first debate, Donald Trump came off like a completely unhinged lunatic. And I mean even compare comparatively for how Donald Trump usually comes off. I mean that was an abomination, Like he was just an unhused You're not here to just make fun of some old guy, don You're here to communicate why your vision from America America is better than the other persons and so I think he probably lost the election on that first debate, you know, despite what the loudest voices like to say. A lot of people were on the fence and they saw that debate and they're like, all right, I don't feel comfortable with this guy in these circumstances. And he he kept on telling us that Joe Biden was going to be a drooling idiot. And Joe Biden came off fairly you know, average in that debate, and in comparison to what Trump had promised everybody. You know, Joe Biden passed with flying colors, grading on a curb. So sorry, don you should you shouldn't. Student's set expectations for him so low. Okay, Then we get to the actual election and the election night and Trump's response, um mad, Even just from a strategic perspective, it was horrendous, right, I listen, this election deserved some scrutiny. You have what ten times as much mail in voting as there's ever been before. Of course, like, yes, we should be watching and monitoring this election and its integrity and the process is more carefully and trying to see if there was any misbehavior or fraud. Right, that's only natural. But Donald Trump, on note the basis of just his instinct and no evidence whatsoever, starts screeching and tweeting out I won by a lot. Well, okay, dude, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You better have the goddamn evidence or you're gonna look like an idiot. And that's what he looked like. Okay. He had his chance to go and show if you're gonna make claims that firmly, that loudly and that big, that for the first that someone stole the election for the President of the United States from you, that they deliberately went and fucked with ballots um and and exercise the levels of power to ruin the integrity of the voting system, like you better have the receipts, right, and he didn't. Every court court case that he filed was dismissed. He had his chances, both in front of Republican judges in front of judges that he had appointed, and none of it came to anything. And even just from you know, listen, I'm open to the idea that there these are things that needed to be looked at or addit the goddamn elections, But you completely ruin your credibility, you become an unsympathetic figure. And he has poisoned the process by making these ludicrous conclusiony wide eyed, wildly claims right off the bat, And that's what he did. And I forget what I think, just from a strategic perspective, that's not smart. You want to preserve your positions, right, if you think something's wrong, then maybe you say, like seeing some strange stuff here there, and are we're gonna look more deeply into it, folks. Um, I'll accept the results either way, but we need to look into this more. And that's just such a better strategic approach and it was just beyond him to be able to do so. So then we get to January six, another just absolute strategic freaking food bar by Trump. What did he think beneficial was going to happen for him that day? You know, you know how many supporters of it was? I don't know, anywhere from a thousand to three thousand, maybe even less than that. Hey, these these yokels go and march down towards the Capitol building, and this is going to catalyze someone to interfere with the election elective process and anoint me do what the court system couldn't do an annoint me president? Like what just what a failure of of strategic planning? That was perfectly right off the bat. And yeah, man, sorry, well I don't think that he expressly and explicitly encouraged them to go, um overrun the capital and participate in a riot or commit violence. Like if you're you know that the crowd has amped, you know, and you're it's talking recklessly and you can feel that, like you have to take some responsibility from it. Every crime is based purely on deliberate intent or knowing intent. If you're criminally reckless, I wanta take criminally out of the picture here, But if you're reckless in your behavior, your chat, and that's that sparks a causal chain that results in some damage. Like that's on you, okay, you you are culpable for that. That's what happened. Man. Sometimes you play with fire and you get burnt. And that January six was it was a fucking travesty. It was abomination. And yeah, people going and attacking the Capitol building, um, you know, attacking police officers, even though some of that was exaggerated. Um, the property damage to the capital and interfering with that process, and that's that is unforgivable and inexcusable. But what it is not is an insurrection. Okay, guys, I understand why the Democrats are trying to play this card. But an insurrection is as an attempt to seize control of the government. Okay, at no point, at no time was there. And that's why this was such a failure. For at no point in this entire her episode was there any actual or even semi palpable threat of that whatsoever. What this was was a riot that happened all the features of a traditional riot. Right. You have a mob, you have civil unrest, you have property damage, you have mobs attacking people, you know, a particularly piece of property, um overrunning law enforcement officials, things of that nature. And it also happened to happen at the Capitol building, which make does make it worse. Okay, that is a sim an American symbol of government and freedom and our social contract. And yeah, there's more of a punishment for writing at the capital than there is for rioting other places. However, once again, this remains a riot, not an insurrection. Um. Glenn Greenwald put it very eloquently that the January six riot was some sort of serious attempted insurrection or coup was laughable from the start, and it's become even more preposterous with the passage of time and emergence of more facts. The United States is the most armed, militarized, and powerful regime in the history of humanity. The idea that a thousand or so Trump supporters, largely composed of gen X and booms who had been locked in their homes during a pandemic post anything approaching a serious threat to overthrow the federal government of the United States is such a self evidently ludicrous assertion that any healthy political culture would instantly expel someone suggesting it with a straight face. And so then he says, putting the events of January six into proper perspective is not to dismiss the fact that it was a lamentable event. Like January six was bad. The people who breached the cat went and went into the Capitol, whether or not they attacked human beings, Like, yeah, they need to be punished. Okay, this is a riot, and I'm not excusing anyone, uh any writers from punishment. However, not everything that it's bad is the same category or scope of bad Okay, this was a riot at a uniquely damaging place. It was not an insurrection or a coup. And so then when we think, okay, well what's the response and and how are the Democrats exploiting this or not exploiting this? Um? And is it useful? Because then look, so I understand why they're trying to frame it as an insurrection. Okay, it's politically advantageous. Um. It makes Trump look bad and validates, you know, any number of criticisms of him, which once again is why he was so stupid to even risk it. Um. But you start looking at how the Democrats and Joe Biden and the Biden administration are trying to reflect and frame January six and one, yes I disagree with it, but to regardless of whether I disagree with it, and are we sure the way they're doing this is actually giving them a political advantage? And did you see their January sixth pageantry last week? That was a freaking cringe fest. And Kamala Harris equating January six to Pearl Harbor in September eleven? Like who who outside the most resistancy anti Trump resistance sticker on their car? People here that and think anything less than this is insane, right, like bringing out the cast of Hamilton's to engage in god knows what, and like singing, you know, sing Kumbaya, carding out Dick Cheney that look, look, we're going to show American solidarity because he hates Trump too, one of the most damaging politicians and public figures in the history of America. We want to a lie with him. Is this supposed to be an advantage to them? Like how many people are looking at them, trying to inflate and exaggerate the gravity and the harm from January six? Are looking are really buying their story? And I know I don't, so I don't want to project my own feelings onto other people, but I really do wonder, like, do you think that the swing voters or even a lot of moderate Democrats are looking at this and hearing the way Kamala is describing this and thinking this deserves a national moment, a day of remembrance and whatnot. I mean, I've got a question that I don't. I think I think they're barking up the wrong tree. I think they're pretty tone deaf um And aside from its just being stomach churning and just such a such a good indicator of the levels of cringe that emanate from this administration on in the progressive movement these days on an daily basis. Um, so yeah, I think the Democrats are overplaying their hand. I think January six a horrendous riot at a sacred place that needs to be punished, not a freaking insurrection, not a coup. It would be like claiming attempted murder because someone shot someone with the water gun. Okay, even if there was an attempt to kill someone, we know that there was no actual chance of it happening. Um. And even beyond that, you start seeing a little horseshoe theory. And just like Trump being completely tone deaf and talking about his freaking ratings um within the context of COVID, and like March twenty, you've got CNN just blasting out a tweet on January seven about how their January six coverage was their highest rated day and god knows how long it's like, Okay, if you're if you're trying to claim this is such a dark, dire, serious day that your narrative of this is what needs to hold, Like all right, isn't that kind of contrasted by you just trying to brag about your ratings like that doesn't hold. Okay, all right, that was a long Donald Trump retrospective, So listen. This is not a political podcast, although some people might think of it as such. No, I see it far broader. But politics is one subcategory, and a and a prominent subcategory, and for better for worse, you cannot fill out the picture in American politics in recent history without talking about Donald Trump. I hope not to have to talk about him much at all going forward. But uh, that was the retrospective my thoughts. I'm sure I have no doubt some people are gonna mischaracterize them and call me a Trump lover or Trump paiter, or god knows what. But that was the I laid it all out for you guys right there. To anyone honest who's giving an honest reading of my assessment, there should be no confusion. That being said, time to move on. Okay, So let's talk about another little aspect of clown world and some of the foot soldiers of clown world. That would be the fact checkers. Okay, so off the bat, you hear fact checkers. This seems like a very noble purpose, right to ensure or that that people are not lying, that there's not people in the public marketplace of ideas who are falsifying things, and that there's a neutral service to verify or at least call out people who are engaging in falsehoods. Right um. However, that still needs to be done properly. And fact checking, meaning actual fact checking, is checking facts, right, things that are measurable, definable, verifiable. Uh, what is the country with the largest land masks in the world. That's a fact? Um, who was the first president of the United States? That's a fact? Two plus two weekuals four. These are things that are definable that you can actually are provable right or wrong, you know, accurate or inaccurate, true or false? Right. Um. We've clearly detached from that, and fact checking is no longer provided by neutral services, but it's in fact an industry that is essentially engaging in one side or other of a debate. Right. These fact checkers are not supposed to be an editorial page and even some places where they might disagree with something that somebody posts or a point of view or a claim or an assertion just because you disagree or you think it's loosely supported doesn't mean it can be fact checked, for instance, And so that popped up um something that was a little more high profile recently in regards to Dr Robert Malone, UM, one of the inventors of the m r n A vaccine technology has been banned. He's become kind of a pariah. And so where did all pariah's go, Who are dissidents and heretics on on COVID, They go on the Joe Rogan shows, very popular, it was a highly a very popular episode, and on that Malone one of his more grandiose claims is that all this nonsense around COVID and so many of the decisions that seem more authoritarian than rational are based on some sort of mass what he called a mass formation psychosis um, a mass the claims of a mass formation psychosis. That's a very broad concept, right, and that's not something that is fact checkable. That is not a definable thing that you can say yes or no. You can say, hey, that's crazy. Right. Similarly, someone could say that Weakened at Bernie's Two is the best motion picture of all time. A lot of people are gonna look at that and say that it's blatantly on its face, an insane thing to say. But it's not a fact, right, It's not an assertion of fact, and thus it cannot be fact checked. So Reuter is one of the supposed fact checkers that supposedly has validity and credibility. Here they decided to fact check Malone's claim of a mass formation psychosis. Here there's a Reuter's fact check. No evidence of pandemic mass formation psychosis, say experts. Okay. Fact checking is not relaying what experts say. Okay. Experts may give an opinion, they may give a point of viewer, a position supported by other evidence. That is part of a debate, part of an argument, part of a discourse. That is not something that is fact checkable. That's not a fact that you are determining is objectively wrong or right. Okay. And this is another blurring of reality and satire where you have fact checkers, say, are all these headliners that fact checkers are proclaiming that things are false that aren't necessarily true or false. They're not even verifiable or falsifiable. They don't fit within that rubric of things that can be fact checked. Anyways. This continues to happen over and over and over again. So I wanted to take a little bit of a deeper look when first off, think about how many fact checkers claimed that the the people even once once again people not even saying that they're the coronavirus was for sure as definitely the result of a lab leak, but suggesting it might be and that it needs to be looked into. Right, how many people just said, hey, there seems to be some evidence that that the this virus escape from a lab. We need to look into it. And how many fact checkers came out and said that that was debunked. Right, You can't debunk a suggestion to explore something, Yet they tried to do that. Um, a piece that's very good on this. Actually want to back up just for a second here, Okay, So to think about to go back and and how this internet fact checking industry, because that's what it is. It's an industry and it operates by by commercial incentives and motive just like anything else. Right, So back during the two thousand's, during the first phase of of blogging, and a lot of you know, voices popping up on the Internet, and hey, we don't have all the information. We don't have a grip on all the information that's coming uh into public channels through a handful of newspapers and networks that have been around for a long time. There's all these new channels of communication, so hey, that creates more uh more risk of falsehood. That there's more opinions and more positions being uh put out there into the universe. Thus we need more fact checking. Okay, great politic fact snopes. Some of these internet sites popped up that seemed to be at first glance, credible, neutral sources that were just straight the facts. Hey, is this claim factually true or factually falls? Seems to be going along pretty well through most of the two thousands, that first era of blogging UM, and then into the two thousand tents. But then you take a look at our most recent era UM an Axios piece This is from two thousand twenty Actions fact checking goes mainstream in the Trump era, and it's a look at fact checking organizations from a business perspective, and it's something like it shows a graph um with how many active fact checking projects or companies and something like fifty back in two thousand fourteen, it's now over three hundred, So that's six x pretty much. The amount the number of participants in the fact checking industry that are trying to portray themselves as the neutral source of truth, right has increased sixfold to three hundred. How much truth is there? How much falsehood is there? Do we need three hundred fact checking organizations? And if so, are any of them competing against each other? And if they are competing against each other, what are they competing over? And how are they supposed to beat the other guy? Right? Because these are all businesses and they want to operate like businesses, and they want to beat their competitors. Um as axios mentions, um. Yeah. You know. In the early two thousands, fact checking became a movement amongst reporters um around from two thousand and eight to two thousand and twelve, there was still some debate around news outlets where fact checking, about where fact checking belonged and whether fact checking was a legitimate form of journalism. So we're not even necessarily sure that fact checking is a legitimate piece of the of the media journalistic ecosystem, right, But it seems like we should have someone out there looking, uh, keeping everybody honest. But that needs to operate within a very narrow uh line of sight and and line of credibility, and be very precise. There's no room for air here because you see what happens once fact checkers start becoming editorialists and part of a debate. Okay, So that that then brings us to Robbie So I admittedly I've never been able to pronounce his last name, Robbie saw of s O A V H. One of the writer's over at reason. I've liked a lot of the work that he has done. Um. And he mentions another aspect of this new fact checking industry. Um. The title is Facebook said my article was false information. Now the fact checkers admit they were wrong. So you'll go on social media on Facebook, Twitter, um, Instagram primarily and now all the time, because Instagram is is the number one place where you will get these labels, these stickers marking something um uh, marking something you know as fact checked or misleading or false or anything, or directing you to another source. It's all over the place on Instagram in particular. But as we know, Instagram owned by Facebook, so from a corporate perspective, it's Facebook. Um. So Robbie tweet essentially just posted a relay of information from a post in the Atlantic. He wasn't even posting it himself. He simply was relaying information about a study that I'm actually gonna get to in a minute or two. When we talk about kids and masks, um, the c d C was using some kind of jan Kie and and faulty studies to justify their their childhood mask guidance, and Robbie tweeted. Robbie posted that on Facebook in his post was quote unquote fact checked, labeled and removed. And so you're wondering, well, okay, who's doing this? Who a Facebook is supposedly the arbiters of truth? Who are who's the verification mechanism? Like, who are the internal fact checkers? And then you look a little bit deeper and you see that this is all outsourced. Okay, Facebook, Google, Twitter, they all outsourced their fact checking. Facebook and Google both launched multimillion you know, they launched programs from multimillion dollar fact checking grants. Those grants go to third parties. So what's happening here is that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, they're all hiring third party companies as contractors, essentially, as vendors, to be their fact checkers right, Um, so, okay, it serves to think who are who are these organizations? What makes them credible? Who polices the fact checkers? Who is to say that they don't have an agenda? Are they credible? Who are these third party fact checkers? Facebook has are eighty third party organizations. If you want, you can go there there on Facebook, right, you go to Facebook dot com, you go, you go search. Um. They have a list on Facebook of our independent fact checking partners by country. And you've got two countries here and they've got fact checkers and all of them. Um. So for ins who are these organizations here in the US? The Associated Press? Okay, I mean they they're historically supposed to just be kind of a news wire, right They just published just the facts. Press releases news stories. They're not in the business of determining truth or fiction. Right. Um. Science feedback, and that's the one that that was censoring, Robbie. Um. The USA today, The USA today was never a respected publication. Yet now Facebook is hiring them. Facebook is saying, we want to be arbiters and determiners determined what is fact or fiction, but we can't do it ourselves, so we need someone who's better than us at doing it? Okay, we're gonna pay the USA today to do it. I mean, that's insane, right at the very least. I mean, you can anticipate or this needs to be audited. This entire system needs to be audited to see are the fact checkers doing their job properly? How are they getting paid? What are their incentives? Right, would seem to figure, um, but that's not happening. It's just instead more of this ridiculous blurring of of reality and satire where fact checkers are clearly trying to stamp and solidify one particular narrative or the other. And I think we all know, at least on the social media platforms and most realms of the galaxy, which side's narrative they're trying to hammer home. Okay, it's not that's not any secret. And you know if people on the left even using the term the left, but anyways, liberals the most of these fact checking organizations, particularly the ones that are hired by Facebook, Google and Twitter, they're putting their thumb on the scale for you guys. Okay, And if you're wondering why a lot of people in the middle and obviously conservatives, but also people in the middle are starting to get a little suspicious of what's going on. It's because these fact checkers are putting out blatant nonsense, like you cannot fact check whether or not a mass formation psychosis exists. That is, an opinion might be a shitty opinion, but you can put you you can present a counter opinion to an opinion, but you can't call it true or false. You cannot put it within the prism of a fact or a fact check. But that's what they're trying to do. Um. This is somewhat coming to a head around a lawsuit by John Stossel, who's an independent journalist who, depending on who you talk to, is a little bit more of a you know, centrist, libertarian or a lot of people think very conservative. Um. And he put out a post um saying that the California forest fires were the result of forest mismanagement, not climate change. Okay, that's once again, that is and that is a position that is supported or unsupported by other facts. That is not in and of itself an assertion or claim of fact. But they labeled his post uh, they fact checked it as false. First off, he's correct, right, you go do any digg and go look at California's forest management and how much the environmentalist and the specialist say how many square miles of forest they're supposed to clear each year, and then go look at how many square miles they actually clear. Gavin knew some light about something like seven hundreds. He underestimated by about seventy times how many square miles of forest terrain that they had cleared for brush to prevent forest fires. So they're mismanaging it. Okay, you could theorize that, yes, there's also climate change elements that are contributing to the California fire situation. But John Stossel's claim in his headline was far more true than it was untrue. But yet they went ahead and labeled it false. So Stossel said, all right, screw it, I'm gonna put their feet to the fire. I'm going to suthe them. So he sued Facebook, essentially saying that in falsely labeling and falsely labeling his post false, that's because you know, he's claiming that this is a false assertion that since it's not something that necessarily and be true or false, it can be more true or more false. Is it's a position for up for debate that labeling it objectively as false defames him is a false statement of fact against him that then damages his reputation. Um. I'm not entirely sure he's got sound legal claims in terms of defamation there Um, but I think he's got a colorable claim and I'm glad that he brought the case. But more, what more is more interesting is Facebook's response to this. So Facebook responded essentially admitting and asserting that that their fact checkers are yeah, just putting out another opinion. That was their defense right face. In Facebook's motion to dismiss the suit, they essentially claimed that these fact checks in the labels, the placing of labels on third party post or on posts that go on Facebook or Instagram are just protected opinion right in in Literally, their attorney makes this case in their motion to dismiss Stossel claims focus on the factory articles written by Climate Feedback. Climate Feedback another one of their third party fucking clown fact checker organizations, not the labels that fixed through the Facebook platform. The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory. To the contrary, they constitute protected opinion exactly. It just admitted it. All. This internet fact checking is not fact checking. It's giving another side of the argument. It's a counter argument. It's part of a debate, okay, which is fine. Hey, you know me, I'm all about debate. That's great. I want people arguing and counter arguing and presenting opposing opinions and having that discourse. But what you can't do is label is pretend that one of your opinions or one of your counter proposals or positions is fact checking. That's not okay. And that's what's going on here, right, and that is just tearing apart more trust in the system sullying and contaminating our information ecosystem just a little bit more. And the social media companies are dead wrong on it, and they're dead there, they are entirely. The guilt lies with them, and everyone just seems to be fine with it. Nobody. Well, some people really do speak up, but there seems there's seemingly nothing nothing that can be done, right, I mean, I guess what are the solutions here to essentially extricate ourselves from these platforms? But I don't know. I think these platforms. I'm typically defensive of Facebook generally in terms of his content moderation, because I think Zuckerberg, you know, he holds off the barbarians at the gate that want him, that want Facebook to moderate content even more, I think he's usually on the side more often than not of free speech. But this fact checking bs, I mean, this is this is ridiculous. No, this is a total breach of trust. It's falsification. They're lying to people and like I said, another blurring of reality and satire because you're looking at these posts you know, on the on the what's trending on Twitter, and it's all a fact. Uh. Trump saying he's got the best hair on Earth is incorrect, fact checkers say. And it's just like, this is ridiculous. Nobody takes this seriously, and it serves everybody's interest to have the the sources of information in the information ecosystem to be taken seriously. And also popping up in the news again this week, the never ending mask debate. It's a question for two thousand twenty two, I think Vegas should take odds on this. Will we still be having these discussions and debates around masks? By Q four two thousand twenty two, I think that's that's gonna be the barometer of the health of society whether we still have to go through this nonsensical topic once again. Um. Anyways, the mass debate popped up against this week in Mass because the UK decided to reinstitute masking in schools. The UK had been relatively hands off in terms of masking grade school children. Um, they were not alone. There's a number of other European countries that do that that did not mandate masks for public schools. In fact, the European Center for Disease Prevention does not recommend masking kids in school. Um. On trash that with the CDC here in America, which probably has the most aggressive masking approach on Earth. Um, you know there their guidelines are that all kids too or over should be masked in school. There's no other country that has that, that has that approach, literally, not one. You can go look it up. Um. But I guess the CDC has a certain degree of wisdom that nobody else has. UM. So the mass debating that popped and so why it became controversial out of the UK because the government outright admitted that they didn't have any conclusive evidence that masks really had any significant impact um on the spread of COVID in these schools. Number one. UM, not just that, but number two. You know, you not only have to get the data on what the impact and the benefit of the masks and schools are, but also you have to balance that out against greater uh, greater friction and you know, more cost to masking kids. Once again, they you know, younger children, they're less experienced and not necessarily conscious, interfering with their day to day life experience, um is more impactful then you know, an adult who's built up some resiliency and is conscious and and can stand alone on their own two feet UM. Tons of kids. It makes communication difficult. That's what school is. Its teachers communicating with students, students communicating with others. That's the that that is the basis of the you know, the the youth education experience, and this interferes with it. UM. But yeah, the UK came out and said a study of a hundred twenty three schools in England, schools where face coverings were used saw a bit of a drop in absences, which you can you know, ostensibly traced to those were getting COVID. UM. But it was really a drop from maybe five to three percent. It was statistically insignificant. And once again, if you're looking at that, it still means that the schools that did not have mass mandates, for the most part, did not have a lot of absences. It's just that the schools that had that did have mask mandates might have add slightly less absences. Right. Um. But either way that the the government outright admitted, you know that the our our data isn't conclusive, but nevertheless they reinstituted it. Um. And so we're thinking about why it's so difficult to get conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of masks. It's because the entire foundation of the mass debate is flawed in and of itself. Right, the statement masks do not work is a stupid statement, and the statement masks do work is also a stupid statement because they're meaningless. Okay, the the whole generalizing about masks and saying they work or do not work, it simply has no relevance to any rigorous debate about any specific topic, right, because you it matters one what type of mask. We know some masks impede particles and air and and uh, and you know viral flow a lot more than other masks do. That's why what what do you think? And nine is it's description is how much protection it provides you. Um, And so you've got which mask in which setting, and more importantly in the one that nobody ever talks about is duration. Right, we all know, and even the very you know, even the very pro mask literature acknowledges that, and pretty much anything short of an n quite a bit of air is still in. Particles are still escaping, right, and they're still coming in. Right. It can't it can't keep out all the particles. It can't keep in all the particles. So think about it, right, Let's say you know a mask reduces the exchange of particles in and out right, So okay, it's better to have in for a certain amount of time. It's better to have a mask than not to have a mask. But if you drag that sample says in the duration out right, the same overall amount of particles and air is going to pass through the mask over a certain amount of it. So let's say it reduces it by right reduction over the course of ten minut It's is is pretty much the same as you extend that out, someone's breathing in and out in the same in the same space for you know, fifty minutes, they're going to have released more particles in the person who was wearing a mask over the course of the first ten minutes. The CDC acknowledges this. UM. There is a a matrix that I posted where the CDC essentially it is giving guidance on the time it takes to transmit an infectious dose of COVID nineteen. So it's got this grid set up, so you've got nothing cloth mask, surgical mask, and nine nothing typically and once again these are just these are generalizations. Okay, this is the CDC guessing, but at least they're acknowledging that this is stratified UM. Wearing nothing. Usually it'll take about fifteen minutes for COVID to transmit wearing cloth mask, twenty minutes, a surgical mask thirty minutes, and nine two point five hours. And then if you kind of multiply that out, and if there's two people in a setting and they're both wearing and ninety five, they could pretty much be with each other four you know, a week at a time, and it's unlikely that they will transmit COVID. Okay, but what if they're not wearing and right, what if they're wearing a cloth mask or a surgical mask, which are far uh far less effective. Whether or not a cloth mask or a surgical mask that might have that might be effective over the course of twenty minutes, a half an hour, even an hour. If you've got kids that are sitting in a classroom or are circulating amongst each other, uh for six to eight hours a day, as there are in schools, the masks eventually are not gonna do much. Right. So if you're control if you're comparing group control groups from one school that has kids, you know, in the same space for four or six eight hours to another school that has kids in the same space for four or six eight hours, all all the control groups, right, all all units in the data set are keeping kids in space for for durations of time where a mask will no longer have you know, have its usage, right it which no longer go unless they're wearing at ninety five, which predominantly they're not, it's not going to keep out the particle in the airflow, right, So that's why you're not seeing any conclusive data on the effectiveness of masks and schools because all schools, all schools keep people in the same setting for such a long amount of time that it reduces that that it drives down the effectiveness of the mask to to a statistically insignificant level. Right. I mean, hey, if you if I'm thinking about this incorrectly, by all means, send me a note. Provides some input. But think about it. If a mask is not perfect and it's still allowing some for some particle inflow and outflow and particle transfer, like, it's effectiveness for ten minutes is not going to be the same as is its effectiveness for an hour. And so when you have people in the same space for a longer duration of time, the effectiveness starts to compress. Um. So are public health officials acknowledging this? They're not really acknowledging this. And in particular, as I mentioned before, the CDC. So the c d C is adamant about masking public school you know, elementary school kids. Um, but that case is starting to have some warts. Uh, that cases starting to become impugned. Right. So The Atlantic, once again not a right wing publication, and has taken COVID very seriously. Recently published a piece that I mentioned earlier in the fact checking segment about the titled the CDCs flaws flawed case for wearing masks in schools. So Rochelle Wilenski went on a bit of a publicity tour about masks and schools before schools open back up last fall, um in you know, August, September, October, and she kept on referencing this study for Arizona Public schools UM and her her claim was that the studies showed and its basis for comparison was outbreaks in school It was whether or not a school experienced an outbreak. Okay, So first of all, we need to know what their definition of an outbreak is, and we'll get to that in a minute. But the CLIs what she kept on claiming is that the outbreaks were three point five times more likely to happen in the schools without mask mandates or without mask as opposed to the schools that had mask mandates. But and and as you'll see in this piece, um, that's kind of faulty reasoning based on the data in the first place. And Jonathan Ketchen was a public health economist at the University at Arizona State university who was involved in kind of the structuring of the study in the first place, even said you can't learn anything from the effects of school mask mandates from the study says that the data was inconclusive. Um, you've got about a dozen other experts in the article who reviewed the research and came to the same conclusion, and so looking a little more closely at it, it compared about six hundred about six seven hundred schools, seven hundred public schools. There were two hundred ten schools that had a mask mandate and four hundred eight schools that had no mask mandates at all. Okay, so the two d ten schools that had mask mandates had sixteen outbreaks and the schools, uh, the four indred eight schools that had no mask mandates had a hundred and thirteen outbreaks. Because its first of all, if you're looking at the schools that didn't have mask mandates, that's like over three hundred and fifty schools. Three that's three hundred and sixty seven schools that did not have mask mandates that had no outbreak. Okay, well, that's interesting. That's a pretty like the majority of the schools in the study that didn't have mask mandates, experienced no, no outbreak, did not you know, trigger whatever the alarm was that was supposed to say. Okay, uh, this is now a bad result from not having masks. They didn't experience it. That's still the overwhelming majority of those schools. But even looking even going a little further into the data at the distinction that the CDC makes is faulty. First of all, they looked more closely. A lot of the schools that did have mask mandates that were considered to have not had you know, put in the category of no outbreaks. Uh, they were open. They they a lot of them opened. Uh later in August. They had less dates Uh during which they were open. This less dates for there to be an outbreak. Okay, that's so first off, Um, looking a little even closer and terms of what was considered an outbreak, an outbreak was two or more students contracting COVID from the from what could be considered the same uh, the same cluster, like two people are we are you sure we're going to consider that an outbreak. I don't know if that's a relevant threshold. It feels like you need a higher threshold to constitute an outbreak. And also because these kids don't live in a bubble at school. They flux you, They go in and out, they go in between school and other environments. So if you if two kids is an outbreak, you can't necessarily with assurance know that they contracted it in school. You need more people, Like if you wanted to set the bar at you know, ten twenty, Okay, then you're increasing the likelihood that this cluster, that this outbreak actually occurred within the school environment. If it's just two kids, I mean, they could have gotten it anywhere else. You don't know that they got it within this environment. So the study had all types of flaws. Um. This Atlantic piece goes into it in detail once again, the c DCS flawed case for wearing masks in school. Um. I would love this to be the end of this discussion and everybody acknowledging the incontrovertible facts that COVID four kids for young people, yes, is essentially just the flu. Okay, I'm not trying to minimize the threat of COVID to other age groups, because there is a threat. Once again, go look at don't take my word for it, go look into the actual hard data around one the flu and around to COVID. Okay, the flu actually as a U shaped curve. It's it's it is more dangerous to both young children and to the elderly, but those you know, fully grown adults that are that are in the middle of the age curve, it's not as dangerous to COVID is more linear, incredibly dangerous to old people, and incredibly not dangerous to young people. Okay, there's just an overwhelming amount of evidence that supports this. Yet we're still trying to fit everything. We're still trying to analyze this virus around the experience for for young people and for children, for school aged children along the same lines of other of other age groups. That just makes no sense whatsoever. So unfortunately, this will not be the end of the MASK debate. I'm sure it is going to continue. We'll see how things go once oh Macron teeters out over the coming weeks, which it's already on its way down in London, it's already pretty much through its cycle in South Africa where it was discovered in sequenced earlier, and it will be through the American system in the next two to four weeks, depending on territory. UM. I hope everyone Stays Safe. Also in the news this week, our good friend Leah Thomas, if you're called Leah Thomas UH is a transgender swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania UM. Formerly born a man, transitioned to UH to femalehood recently and within you know, had previously been on the men's swim team, and within eighteen months of of of competing for the men's swim team, was then competing for the women's swim team and kept on beating her teammates right, and the teammates were kind of we're not taking it so well and saying, listen, you know, we're all for inclusivity and whatnot, but we're competing against someone who literally was on the men's team two seasons ago, and we have to take second place. Why And this doesn't seem to make any sense. And Leah Thomas kept on tearing up the Ivy League UH Ivy League swimming this year and was breaking records and had a perfect record. But Leah finally appears to be infallible. UM. Leah finally lost a race, and oddly enough and ironically enough, it was to a transgender swimmer who's technically transgender but is a female. Born of female and has yet to take any hormone therapies. That's why this female was allowed to participate continue to participate in female swimming. UM their name was at least the current swimmer beat Thomas is going by Isaac headig Um Isaac Hennig as a female has not undergone gene gene affirming hormones or any sort of therapy, thus not running a foul of any Ivy League rules, but continued to compete in the women's compets Asian and beat Thomas UM. Aside from the strange contradictions of the situation on its face, UM this obviously I allow. You know, some people wonder, hey, Matt, why do you focus on this issue so much? Because it's the type of thing in denying basic foundational realities leads to these inevitable absurdities. As I think I've mentioned before, right, So, if we're going to redefine our basic notion and understanding of who we are as humans, you know, based on biology and chromosomes, I find that newsworthy. Particularly. I think this is something that needs to be studied and investigated and dissected. So that's what we're gonna do. So, Uh, the Ivy League issued a formal statement, right because you know, okay, these these swimmers who are are IVY League students, they're not just athletes, they're student athletes. They're causing a fuss, and they're speaking out in in opposition to allowing recently transitioned males who are now female to swim against other natural born females. So the IVY League was not essentially told them to go piss up a rope. They said not stop complaining. Inning the IVY League itself issued the following statement. Over the past several years, Leah and the University of Pennsylvania worked with the n ci A to follow all of the appropriate protocols in order to comply with the n A policy on transgender athlete participation. The IVY League has adopted and applies the same n c A policy. Then they follow this up with the IVY League reaffirms its unwavering commitment to providing an inclusive environment for all student athletes while condemning transphobia and discrimination in any form. So, to make no bones about it, this is this. The IVY League, a very they vaunted institution, considers this a civil rights issue. Right. The allowance of members of born one one sex with one set of chromosomes and genetics, who then take hormone therapy in line with certain n A protocols to then compete against those who were born of that opposing sex and gender. Right, So the IVY League isn't you know that they don't want to hear it. They say this is a civil rights issue, and preventing these people from participating in whichever side of this competition they wish to is a matter of justice and civil rights. Um, that's kind of odd, don't you think? Are are we really thinking about this in the proper way? And also why are these strange battles? And why are these peculiar social conventions emanating out of elite institutions so much? Right? Uh? And this is not the first time in history we've seen it where an elite class, the supposedly most educated, most polished, and most ambitious portion of society, starts seeing a lot of strange battles that lower classes or the non elite of that society don't really participate in. And so I think it's all relates to an interesting concept called elite over production, which I will get to in a second. But I think it can also to kind of tee up elite over production. Um, A guy named Rob Henderson who's kind of guess a sociologist or behavioral science science uh student or grad student does great content on Twitter, and he, you know, talks a lot about some of these dynamics. And he tweeted out in ref to the Social network the quote from Zuckerberg in the Social Network movie, how do you distinguish yourself in a population of people who all got six hundred on their ssay? T s okay. So that's what it is, elite over production. That if you're producing so many people at the top end of an accomplishment's curve, like they're putting in so much effort for not as much reward because there's so many people at the high end of that spectrum competing over a smaller and smaller pie, or let's call it a a a pie that stays the same the same size. So here's how a gentleman named Peter Turchin describes the concept of elite over production. So it's not just the capitalist class as such, but also lawyers, professionals, journalists, and cultural figures. These are the most vaunted positions within society. That aspiring elite seek to enter into in order to move up the social ladder. Yet what happens when the numbers of the elite and those who wish to enter the elite classes become too high for society to adequately accommodate Again, so, once again the numbers of the elite become too high for society to accommodate. Right, So you have all these people expecting these really big rewards and the good life of having gone to the right schools and gotten all the good grades and accomplishment, being smart and polished. But then they get there and they're just they're fighting over scraps. And that leads to some very strange as as church And describes it intra elite warfare. Right, So you start seeing these battles amongst the elite that over really strange topics. UM and I think that explains a lot of what we're seeing around gender in particular UM in the Ivy League, in a lot of other elite institutions. And you know, be on the lookout definitely, you know, on your own time, go go investigate this this ethos elite over production and Peter Churchen and I think it it explains a lot about you know, the a parent despair that a lot of America's high achievers are currently living under a lot of a lot of these odd social dynamics and evolutions. Right, So, um, we'll see how things play out. We'll see if Leah Thompson can you know, we'll see that the battle between Leah and Isaac and Ivy League swimming and and who takes top rain as as the season comes to a close. But uh, not the last that we've heard on the transgender college and athlete issue and be looking for a lee overproduction and when the impact of that starts, it seems to materialize as you scope out society. Other than that, Once again, it was a pleasure, Thank you for joining us. This was the prevailing narrative. Coming up. In just a moment, I will be speaking with NBA star and former NBA champion uh Andrew Bogett. He is on the ground in Sydney, Australia and has been monitoring both the situation in Australia since they it seems to be a unique outlier experience for COVID and also the controversy around Novak Djokovic. Um and you know his attempts to UH to get cleared to play in Australia and the Australian Open. Things got pretty crazy out there, so there should be an interesting discussion. UM, I hope you enjoy it. Talk too soon and we'll have more of the prevailing narrative to the break, Ladies and gentlemen. This is the prevailing narrative. I'm here with NBA champion UM number one overall pick, former All NBA center Andrew Bogett, and we're here today. Let's talk about a couple of things related to a tennis star, Novak Djokovic, and some controversy that he has gotten into and surrounded him regarding his participation in the Australian Open recently, in his entry into the country of Australia. And I think that that really plugs into some other relevant COVID topics. One, you know, and we'll get to why, but Australia's unique experience around COVID it's impact and some of the controversies springing up more generally around professional sports and a couple of the let's call it dissident athletes that have kind of not been UH and not really fallen in line in terms of COVID and and vaccine protocol. And uh, I think that that kind of you know, splays out in a couple of really interesting directions. Um. But first, Andrew, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks over me so Um, Australia is very interesting and looking back over the last couple of years, there are to kind of whether or not you consider Australia a Western nation. But the two let's call it westernized nations that really had seemed to have outlier experiences where one Sweden into cod Sweden and to Australia, but in completely um antithetical ways. Sweden decided right off the bat, we're not shutting anything down. We accept the virus is gonna virus, it's gonna circulate, will take somewhat of a herd immunity approach, and we're just gonna get you know, we're gonna we're gonna rip the band aid off, get through this entire situation more quickly. Seems to be of a strategy that at least fulfilled that promise, and that they haven't had more, you know, any significant amount of COVID death since about May, and and that strategy seems to have played out. Then you've got Australia UM, which apparently was able to lock its borders before any community outbreak back in two thousand twenty, and then took more of what some people are calling a fortress Australia approach. That they were keeping the borders locked, not letting anybody in, tracking all infections and in fact locking down internal borders to make sure that there was no community spread and they you know, and and taking a far more authoritarian approach keeping people locked down for some most other countries did three or four months, they were into the seven to eight month range UM. And and that that's the approach that Australia took. So we out here in America we see the videos, we hear the stories and in the tall tales about you know, police showing up and announced at people's doors. Uh, people being dead bolted into their homes for months at at a time, Teenagers getting five thousand dollar finds and arrests for simply being found on a beach at night, things of that nature. So, you know, if you could just give us a little freestyle for yourself of your own experiences and and what's the reality for those living in Australia and fortress Australia over the course of the past two years. Yeah, it looks pretty close. Um think it's we're probably the most hardcore in the world, I would say, Um, you know, we obviously locked out our international borders, not only for incoming but outgoing. You needed you need to lodge a permit with the government just to leave the country, and they could actually deny you from leaving the country. And that that even goes for people that are dual passport holders or dual citizens of other countries that they have to get permission from data government just to leave, which was horrendous in itself. Um. They've made traveling between state borders within the country an absolutely nightmare, so much so that you know things things were open. Let's say one week you're going to stay for work, um, and then while you're in a state for work, they say, well, we're not letting our residents back. You were shutting. We're hard shutting the borders. So now you've gone somewhere for three or four days for work, you can't get back to the very home you're paying bills for, you're paying taxes for, your wife and kids are at And there were some people locked out for most a year from getting back to their very own properties that they're paying bills for, which is absolutely horrendous. There's people camping on the borders waiting for the borders to open up, intense on football fields. It's just it's just crazy how how far the government he has gone. And we're one of the most overlegislated countries in the world. Before COVID, I mean, our government, local, state and federal have had their noses in our affairs every minute of the day. There's fines for everything, there's there's taxes to everything, and now it's just gotten worse. But I guess I mean for me that the most disappointing thing is you've got the politicians sprucing what they spruk, going to do what they do. The most disappointing thing is that people that that the everyday people that have just lapped it up and and have have not questioned it, have just thought, yet, this is perfectly normal. Our government has the best interesting mind. Even though the government continuously has made dramatic errors, they have lied the narrative changes a week by week basis, Like right now we still have mandates for the vaccination where you can't go to certain places without the the first two doses, whereas yesterday that the CEO of fires and has said the first two doses are rendered useless. So why don't we still have mandates. No one's asking these questions. It's just like, oh, that's fine that the government, the government will help us out. So that's a that's a question, right. So you know, out here in America we hear about the we we anticipate that given are much more individualist approach, that if they governments were taking that type of measure, that things would get really hostile and adversarial between the people and the government. And then we see some videos of protesters and riots. But you know, some other people seem to portray Australia is simply having a different culture and and just different thoughts around government intervention and like you said, more people are on board. I mean, is there kind of a one all for one, one for all feeling um and and under line culture in Australia that that drives people to submit to this type of this type of authority And okay, hey, if we have to lock down for two years to save one life, great or is there a lot of resentment against the government and and is there kind of a a simmering hostility from the populace. You know, it's interesting psychologically the resentment. It isn't so much towards the government. There's a minority of people that myself who happily call out the government. The resentment for people that have had to whether they had to take the two shots to keep their job, whether they have to abide by the vaccination protocols, to do whatever they wanted to do. It's it's more ridiculive than that. It's more that I did it social juicy, So it's that mentality of wearing handcuffs and I'm in chains? Why aren't you? That's probably more scary than anything to me because they know that they didn't want to do it. Deep down. There's a lot of people that did it for you know, employment reasons. They did it to be able to go to events and restaurants, they need to be able to travel. They didn't do it for health reasons. It's point blank, that's the majority of people did not do it for health reasons. And now that now that they are essentially then more piste off that why haven't why aren't you in chains? As well, and that that that is just a whole different narrative here, and it's becoming more and more prevalent where it's not got nothing to do with the health, It's got nothing to do with any of that. It's like I had to do it, not even want to do it, so should do and that's that's that's the basis at all. And it seems like that's a lot of the basis for the controversy around Djokovic that will get to in in a minute or two. Um. And one more question about Australia in general. Do you think this aligns with Australian national character because Australia's reputation internationally and amongst those who travel is very, uh, a little more free flowing and libertine and chill and kind of surfer culture of of world travel ors who were always your backpacking around Europe and you run into Australians and pretty fun loving bunch, and then it seems to really conflict with the you know, with a more scolding shaming culture that seems to have sprung up around covid. Um. Yeah, do you think that this is a strange departure from the Australian national character or or kind of more consistent with what you've seen out of your out of your nation folk in the past. That that national character you're referring to is long gone. The crocodiletally mentality, that that that that that's being that's been gone for for decades. But we we we have a lot of good people here that we have a lot of people that are you know, we can call a toll Poper syndrome. If you grow too fast, we start becomes too big people, he would love to cut you down. And I mean do a fantastic job of just absolutely cutting people down when they get too big or when they think you you're getting too big for your boots, they'd like to cut you down. But it's it's it's just being slowly the right of the import from under our feet slowly by government over the last twenty or thirty years. In my opinion, it hasn't this hasn't just being the COVID things has slowly been Like I said earlier, they're in every aspect of your life every day that you can get fine to something every minute of the day. In Australia, you can get you can get tax for something every minute of the day. You can have, you know, so much so as we've got neighbors telling our neighbors we've got you know, that's what they've they've they've done. It's like, you know, good people break bad laws, right if there's bad laws, good people break bad laws. But the mentality in Australia right now is, hey, it's the law you're breaking, and I'm gonna talent you no matter what that law is. Though it could be Hey, you know, if my dog takes a shoot in my backyard, the law is are going to throw it over my defence into my neighbor's yard. That's the law. That's stupid law. But then you have someone telling you for doing it or not doing it. That's kind of the mentality here. It's like, you know, if I have the suffer the consequences of the bad law social do, and that's that's pretty scary, you know. And and the government here has done, you know, there's done an interesting hand to the job where they've got they've got people policing it more than they have to, you know, and that's you probably see it to an extent in the US and certain states of California, maybe New York, and the more overpopulated states where it's people are shaming other people to conform into whatever the narrative is. Um, we're seeing that a lot in COVID and that that that's what the consensus is, at least in Molbourne and Sydney, the two bigger cities here, that's what the consensus is. It's like people are going to shame you and tell on you and call the police on user. You can perform like they have to. And this was something that you don't believe you would have seen out of your your fellow arses in Yeah, I mean the nineties a kind of as a kid had started a little bit of the narrative was starting to change with government. But yeah, like I said, look at the country my parents migrated to in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and most murgrants came here for it was a free country quote unquote. The Australians have never had any conflict on their soil. We've been spoilt to an extent where we haven't had hardships and haven't had the problems of other other nations around the world, which was with communist regimes and socialist regimes, so we haven't to experience that it's been, you know, like you said earlier, sunshine beaches, free flowing beer, you know, hanging out. That was that was the sixties, seventies, eighties, Um, where I think it was too easy, whereas now people are in the malays of like, our government would never do that to us. Our government always has the best interests in mind. Um, they kind of don't, you know that the times they don't at times have to make decisions for for Daddy China, or times you have to make decisions for, you know, something from the economy that doesn't help the people necessarily, you know, and people are just so blind to that. And that's sort of kind of I don't think you awaken those people up ever, but you just want to try to get him back to the back to the middle where they can see both sides of the argument. And so you mentioned Daddy China, and that's interesting because you know, while Australia, um, while Western nize de nition, although not in the West end, you know, from an Anglo background, for the most part, it's in the Chinese sphere of influence. Um, what would you what do you see, you know as the kind of economic dependence or of dependence that Australia's falling under regards to China. We weren't by China, There's no doubt about it. Like you really, no matter what people what people think and say, I mean, they they're single handedly are propping up our property market. Our property market is one of the most expensive in the world. Sydney and Melbourne are single handedly propped up by the Chinese market that they're in bed with. All influential politicians and prime ministers and premiers are all inbedded with someone in China. Um. They have their technicals basically in every part of of everyday life. It's just you just don't see it. You know, you're not going to see it in the mainstream media. You know, like they own their own ports here, they own airfields here, they own some of that commodities with water and whatnot. They're um, you know, and alignment to that kind of stuff. You know, they thinkers in all the parts here in Australia and it's you know, we needed it at one point, but now it's it's it's kind of getting you know, we're really dependent on them, and um, if they if they flip the switch on certain things for us we'll be in trouble because we will be able to get supplies for certain things. And I think US was gone through a similar thing a couple of years ago when obviously try and try to try to stop that, which I thought was a really good, good decision. You don't want to be beholding to anybody, and I thought that was one of the one of the good things that he did. I wish we'd do in Australia. I mean, my father was mechanic, so he was in trade and you could kind of notice even back then he's not a he's not a scholar or a book scholar by any means. He was an everyday workers man, but he could see that. Let's say, you know you've got an often desk, right, Um, the issue was, you know you could you could get it from China for a hundred dollars. If you get it locally made out of quality by local trades man, there's probably fivellars. So what was happening was most corporations, most businesses that were ordering these desks for an example, will just be like, I'll just bunding from China because I can say I can say, you know, five dred dollars per desk. Right. The issue is that that then railroad, the crafts and the people that work with their hands in Australia, the local economy, they just stopped doing it because they're like, I can't, I can't make it for hundred dollars. It's gonna I'm gonna end up losing money. So what happens they face out there's no more of those people. You fast forward twenty thirty years now you're beholding strictly to China because no one's making this ship in Australia. Let's say China says, hey that desk now is that's not a hunter anymore. It's five. You can't exactly say I will make it ourselves. You've got no more qualified trades me to do it. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing a lot of these industries I'm being with being too muscle cars and it's the same thing like restoring muscle cars. A lot of a lot of stuff now that is going over the Philippines gone overseas because you can just get done so much cheaper. And what I'm noticing here with with people that do still do the restorations, they're all sixty seven year old men um. They've only got another probably ten years left in the trade, and there's no young blood coming through because they see it as that it's going to become automated, it's going to become whatever it's gonna be done overseas. And that's the scary prospect when you look towards the future of you're you're going to be strictly beholden to that country and whatever they do and say, you're gonna have to kind of bout you otherwise you're not gonna get the supplies the country. Yeah. Yeah, China has made no bones or secret about trying to explit economic and manufacturing vulnerability of other countries and take advantage. And you know through the Belt and Road program that their whole ideas that to the if if there is a nation that needs infrastructure, needs manufacturing, they can provide it in exchange for some incredibly one sided loans business terms or other infrastructure projects. And most of how we think about that is in terms of a lot of that traditional quote unquote third world in Africa or other parts of East Asia. Um, but I think people might be underestimating the extent to which they've got their tentacles in Australia as well. Um, So moving on to the Djokovic controversy specifically, Um, we'll get into we'll lay it out for you know, I'll kind of give you my thoughts in just a moment. But boots on the ground from someone you know, high uh notable resident of Sydney seeing what's going on right now, what are you noticing how much of this is a palpable controversy that you know, your everyday citizen is feeling in Australia right now, Because once again we see the videos and we're like, this is crazy. These are riots about or protests about some guy participating in a tennis tournament. And how much of an impact is this actually having on the ground of the country. Well, it's the same gene. It's it's you know, the media is praying him as as the devil and a guy that's haunting the system and cheated his paperwork. I mean, there's a course today that it's still gonna deny him from playing. Um, it's not official yet, but it's looking like it's going to go that way. We're still waiting for the confirmation. But I mean it comes back to what I said earlier. People people don't want him here, they don't want him playing based on the fact that I had to do I had to do it. I had to I was forced to do whatever I didn't want to do against my world because I was going to lose my job or I couldn't vacation or recorded leave the country. Um, and this guy hasn't had to do it. So he's enemy number one and the media has just painted him as this this enemy. So um, that's that's kind of the interesting thing watching that. And I mean he's gone through a core process. Last week with the judges even said I don't know that if there's any more that he could have done as far as his paperwork went, released him immediately. And that's Australia, like you go through these kangaroo courts processes. He's got ticked to be free, but yeah, they can still even you know, appeal that now and still potentially turfy him, you know. And it's yeah, I just people people don't see the bigger picture. They think it's like, if I had to do it, so should he. You know, the media paints it is millionaire, he's got all these perks. He thinks he's better than us, that that's how the every day person that doesn't read between the lines sees it. I see differently. I see I see him as if he if he can win and stand alone. It's it's a precedent for the people then to be able to do that. Right. Um, Yeah, which values you prioritize? Right? If the value is solidarity, compliance and submission, and in certain circumstances there are benefits to that. But it seems like when there's no um, when the qualifying underlying logic that and it's just about making sure that someone else is required to make the sacrifices that you made, that seems to poison the well a little bit. And I found this um and I found this quote, this comment from Deputy Victorian Liberal leader David Southwick, um pretty telling. And this was David Southwick in response to the original decision to give him an exemption. He called it a disgrace, describing it as a kick in the guts to every Victorian who endured months of lockdowns and suffered personal setbacks during the pandemic. So essentially, what they're saying is despite there being no real health risk to allowing this exemption and being no underlying safety justification or even legal justification. We made the sacrifices and we accepted that the pain and suffering. So we we don't want anyone being able to being exempt from that, and we want everyone else to have to make the same sacrifice as we do. I mean, I question whether or not that's a noble and a noble rationale and noble way to to run a society. I mean, you're familiar with this, David Southwick, gentleman, and I mean, would you say that's a pretty fair assessment of how a lot of people are viewing things in Australia. That's that quote could be trout into beings of Australians, um, you know, and that's that's the job the politicians of the media do. They will instead of looking at the government and the Prime Minister and the premiers, let's blame that Djokovic. It's his fault that we're in this pandemic. He's he's the people like him or the reason why we are so many case numbers. That's how colluded and stupid people have gone, right, And it's hard to sell people the other way, you know, and you look at look at job situation. You know, by the very own rules of other double vaccination were told at a lot. You know you can protected for up to six months max, right, max max three or four generally on average. Right, So I'll be nice to the question. So if there's a tennis player that had their second those nine months ago, they'll find a company. So is it still for help and and I want to just be clear. I think maybe it would be helpful for the listeners to just get a quick uh rundown of what the actual laws are and the claims and alleged claims of what he did or did not violate. So a lot of people are under the assumption that you need to be double vas to enter the nation of Australia. That's false, that is not correct. There is no requirement to be double vaxed. There is a requirement if you are not too then quarantine for fourteen days. So his entrance and his his waiver on entrance was not a waiver to enter the country, but it was a waiver to have to quarantine for fourteen days. And so what would be Yeah, the bet the basis for a an exemption and that is recent uh recent infection and recovery. If you've recovered and if you've been infected and recovered based on a positive PCR test, and you could prove so with the last six months, you don't have to quarantine Djokovic. He has he he has a positive PCR test um from December I believe it's eighteen and that's more than two two months, two weeks before he tried to enter the country, and he would qualify under that exemption. Also, people were under the impression that his exemption from vaccination was once again, Uh, it wasn't to enter the country. It was an exemption of vaccine exemption to participate in the tournament. There's a baseline default requirement that anyone who participates in the tournament has to be double vaxed. But they're a number of medical exemptions to that, and Djokovic isn't the only one who got a medical exemption. And apparently the process of medical of determining a medical exemption is done blindly. You don't know the doctors who from the Victorian Health Department that are assessing the exemption request don't know the identity of the person. So the claim that he was given an exemption because he's the number one play that doesn't hold true. Either so you've got all these these narratives floating around around the basis of this exemption or why he's getting special treatment or which laws he supposedly broke or violated, and they're all incorrect. So so what as a legal basis, what is the Australian government trying to nail him on. They're essentially trying to nail him on some uh falsehoods in his original travel declaration. As I'm sure a lot of people see these days, you sign and file a travel declaration when you're going from country country to country. These days, most of these questions are checked the box kind of you know, rubber stamping. But one question was have you traveled within the last fourteen days? Djokovic did incorrectly falsely answered that that he had traveled to believe it was to serve you or to another country in mid December, so that was inaccurate. And then two apparently it's not clear whether the the prior infection and recovery within the last six months qualifies is a quote unquote health exemption where that that's the qualification. So the minister the ministry is trying to nail him on him checking the box for a medical exemption based on prior infection, when while that is an exemption of some sort, it's not technically a medical exemption. So I want everyone to be clear on how trivial and how more process and administratively they're trying to nail him on stuff as opposed to him being directly violating or or in uh in in opposition to any particular loss. So I want to make sure everyone's clear on that um is there, and not only that. The other thing is have have now going on a on a sneak campaign where they have said that the media has jumped on board, of course and said that he he was he knew he was kind of positive on he went and did a kid's clinic, He didn't self isolating. Now they're going that route as well, that he's a you know, he's a he's a covid idiot. Yeah, yeah, and it's it's just such, it really is, Okay, So you're looking for is this good faith or bad faith? And bad faith is trying to manipulate available evidence or videos or or other materials to paint someone in an an inaccurate light. Right, So in this case, Djokovic, his positive test, I think was from the sixteen, I believe the sixteenth. He was then shown um on the to have been at various public events on the fourteenth and fifteenth. There was originally a claim and a lot of information, a lot of claims circulating that he tested positive on the fourteenth to try to smear him as someone who knew he was positive and deliberately went to these events with youth, with journalists and whatnot, and it turned out to be totally inaccurate. No, he did not have he had not tested positive. He had been at an event where others had tested positive and that's why he went and got tested. But his test came back negative. So that's the information that he was working on at the time. But you can see this is an unfortunate case study of how this information travels so quickly, how it how the what the discourse can become poisoned. And a lot of people can use these types just to pick an innocent picture of a tennis star at a tournament or a media event and use that to smear them for their own purposes. And that that seems to be what's happening here. Yeah, no doubt, I mean it's and it's it's it's it's blamed. I mean easy. Look, it is an election year here, um elections coming up up a year, our state election and a few a few states Victorias, which is the most the most hardcore with days in lockdown. That's my home state where I'm I'm from originally, so there's a lot of pressure from that. And politicians have obviously been stood up a little bit by Djokovic. And it's kind of like that episode of The Simpsons, I'm not sure if you've seen it where they want to kick and that is pretty much where we're out in Australia, Like it's like you embarrassed us, We need to kick up the ass, you know own It's that's that's why I have a I have a strong feeling that Djokovic will not be flying in the strain open. I'm wrong, but that's just my feeling. Yeah, And it seems like they're just trying to make an example out of him, that he that the public reaction to his exemption, which was one medically sound and to legally sound based on the laws they're both they both passed both the medical and legal smell test, yet it didn't pass the public sentiment test. The public sentiment turned against him, and the politicians are catering to that and trying to make an example out of this guy. Exactly right. And so there seems to be a pretty significant Serbian popular You've got a lot of people who are who are taking to the to the streets um and uh and you know, protesting uh in favor of Djokovic. I mean, is that just is that something that's a hundred people and not really you know, it's it's being inflated, or is there a strong public sentiment that's being expressed in his favor? I look more. You know, the Sybians things are very very passionate people when it comes to sport, you know, and they don't don't take no grups to someone insulting a country, no matter what he did. So you had you had a fair few Serbian fans when he was locked in the immigration hotel. We're out out the front of his hotel singing and dancing and um. And then when he came out of that courtroom, they were around his car, cheering and yelling and so much. The police pepper sprayed again, which is what they're being doing over the last two years here with any kind of descent or protests is just pepper spray. And we even we had rubber bulls shot protesters last year, so they go pretty gun home with that. But yeah, I mean, the Serbians are definitely passionate about it, but as far as everyday Australians, like I said, the consensus for them is that he should be booted. Wow wow, very interesting. Gonna be interesting to see what what the sentiment is long term in Australia. I mean, unfortunately, it sounds like you have a pretty grim projection and that this is the new normal of the population except um, you know, more highly regulated, regulated, more authoritarian uh society. But we'll we'll have to see how that plays out. Um on from Djokovic to the sports world more generally or more specifically, you know, the league that you have the most experienced with, the nba UM. So the the n b a UM has in terms of American sports been a little more restrictive. They've under Adams over the last few years. They've always trying to be portraying themselves as a more kind of socially conscious and or activist league, and that would seem to go with a more restrictive approach towards COVID UM also in particular given the Rudy Gobert incident, which was one of the early high profile UM transmission cases of a high profile American celebrity or athlete contracting COVID that led to the league shutting down in March two thousand twenty. UM, what we'll get the highest profile dissident there has been, Kyrie Irving will get to him in a second, But what have you been here in UM from the inside, underneath the veil, the word from you know what? What's what are the conversations circulating within league, actors and players about these restrictions, whether they think they make sense and if there's any dissension from the players or or let's call it, you know, internal mayhem around around the COVID restrictions. Yeah, I think that's a mix. There are some players that are questioning then ality, but that they're so scared us to do it publicly because we see what what car you went through? We you see what you know if if you know the NBA specifically, but sports in general generally, you know covered by journalists and beat writers that are you know, they're the luxury to being able to work from the laptop at home. They're pro lockdown, their pro mandates are generally speaking right the majority of people in that industry, whether or not, and they have drifted in a strangely liberal direction over the past decade. I think that's a story that also needs to be told that until two thousand to two thousand twelve, your sports writers and the and NBA journalists and media um did not really have an identifiable political slant. But now they can be kind of safely coded um as a whole, you know, in the direction of the left. And it's another strange dynamic that's arisen that I don't think enough people are talking about, but definitely interesting. Yeah, I mean why that needs to be built up in sports is hold on a conversation about why we need to know what you've used up politically? UM. I mean actually, as the journalist, you're a beat writer covering the team. I want to I want to read about what the team is doing. I don't care about your views on pro lockdown. In the line of questions, the way they ask athletes questions, they sit them up to answer things a certain way. It's so blatantly horrendous when you when you see it. But look, I mean there are players that are questioning, questioning and all. There are players that have had COVID three or four times. There's the left to isolate. There are players that have had both vaccinations with the booster that still have to isolate, left to wear masks, they left social distance and they still can't go out. So I mean there are some frustrations of people just saying like, you know, like what else do we need to do? How much times the goalpos is going to move? And from what I understand, the owners are strongly against any kind of hub hub ever again, um, I don't I don't see that happening. I think they're going to continue to track on and just try to play this season out. Um and just moved through the herbs and they have to like Toronto right now, no fans, I mean Canada's Canada, very some little Australia with their restrictions, so they've got no fans right now. But I know the owners will will not go to a hub. We've got similar issue here in Australia with dallying one already owner in the Sydney Kings where have some issues with a bunch of teams that just coming down with eight or nine cases every other week, so in there's games that have to be postponed. But once again, I hub here as well with the HUB last year, and it was was not good for for owners and what was not good for clubs making a profit. So I don't see that happened in the NBA or horse Rian. The NBA got it. And you mentioned that most players and this is something that that kind of goes on said, Um that the vast majority of players feel one way, but feel uncomfortable expressing it publicly. UM, and they see what happens when someone like a Jonathan Isaac or a Kyrie Irving, UM, you know, gets off code and and deviates from from the program. Um. But one player who you've played with, who you know personally, and who has expressed some dissension, although it was through a meme, is Lebron James he uh, he posted a he posted, he posted an Instagram meme. UM, without getting into the details of suggested that oh, Macron doesn't seem to be anything more than the flu Um. That didn't seem it didn't seem to get him too much public blowback, maybe because it was somewhat subliminal or or nuanced or otherwise because it's Lebron. But did look? Did that the Brian Post and the league's biggest star and the biggest worldwide brand, commenting on this, did this you think empower players at all? Has that shifted the calculus here? Shifted the um um where the leverage lies in some of these battles over how the league should proceed a little bit. Look, it was open ended um behind it being a joker. I mean, there's plenty of different ways you can play it, depending on what the narrative is around him. But it's nice to have someone at least ask the questions. I mean, look, there are other players that probably want to say something that can't can't fortunate their free agents there rookie deals that that main deals that they need to just tew the line. Which is which is interesting because you always here NBA, NFL, you know, baseball whatever, Like I'm a grown man. No one tells me what to do, and it's like, buddy, put your musk on, okay, you know, so, um, I always find that very very interesting. But yeah, it's just it's just it's it's head scratching that we can't even it goes into a deep topic of we can't even ask questions, like, you know, you can't ask questions about about the masterly working. Um is the social distancing at an airport while you're lining up to check in. That's all good and well, and you're crammed on a plane like sidin anyway, face to face, Um, you know, the six months for the vaccinations and the boosters and okay, far as the CEO says, the first two are useless with doromicrons, so why are they still mandates? As soon as you ask these questions, someone tries to box him anti vACC conspiracy furious, you know, and without with the basic not like asking questions is part of the process in in uh, in discovering truth. That's kind of part of the idea. And they want to they want to just dismiss that. And I was like, no, that that's compliance and submission. I mean, the just asking questions isn't to cast isn't too uh, it's not disingenuous. Asking questions is part of a logical exploration of a of a decision or a policy. Right. And you know, our buddy Ethan Strauss and who's been covering ring some of these topics, and you know, he's an interesting allegory for a lot of the stuff that he had to quote unquote stay on code when he was working for UM larger, you know, more traditional media organizations like ESPN and the Athletic. Now he's on sub stack and he's spilling a lot of the t and he asks all these questions. UM in a recent piece on Kyrie Irving, you know, titled let Kyrie Come Home, and the the utter absurdity of Kyrie being able to practice at the Brooklyn facility but not being able to play in the games, or the absurdity of unvaccinated players from visiting teams being able to play in Brooklyn, but Kyrie Irving not being able to play in Brooklyn. And these are are direct and express logical inconsistencies and not small ones. And yet we're being told that anyone who objects or anyone who objects to a logical consistency like that that makes no sense, is a priory. It's very strange. Yeah, unless just admit it's not about public health at that point. That's you know that there's Ellinus well where we don't want Carrie to play in Brooklyn for public health reasons, or it's like, well he's around, like you said, if it's to protect the arena workers, the fans of people in Brooklyn Arena that are coming to watch that game, okay, it's to protect them. Well guess what, Like you just said, he's practicing around Kevin Durant and all the guys every day. So if here's this super spread vaccinated guy, he's just given it to all them and now they're going arena and spread it to anyone everybody anyway, Right, it's it's nothing to do with public health. It's he has not conformed. He has not told the line of the government or the state or whoever it was, or the team. You know, you look at the brook and book on its owner, Josiah Um really all in vacts, you know, at all costs. I'm not going to let carry play. He needs to learn this that we'll start to lose some games and guess who. Guess who we let play? You know, So he's that about public health again. But it's just it's just so frustrating because logically, when you look at it, like you just said, he's around the team, he's around the staff, he's around the physios and assumations and coaches, but he happy in the arena in Brookborn games. But every other time the day's fine. Um, that's not about public health at that point. That's theatrics and it's it's it's a punishment to Kari for saying you you didn't conform and do what we want you to do. This is your punishment. So as sooner we can get to a point logically where we can admit that, let we can slowly start to move on, but they keep hiding behind it's for public health, public health. It's not logically does not make sense, not at all. And we're starting to see here with om crom and it being so easily transmissible and a lot of the uh a lot of the supposed covid angels now being infected, they no longer get to suprene and kind of, you know, pose as as the responsible ones as that they because they never forgot covid um. Once that narrative and that personal narrative is blown up, all of a sudden, they become a lot more forgiving about the other particular dissension. Right, So, I think it's going to be an interesting next six to eight weeks on how the goal post shift there Um, that was interesting. You mentioned that the NETS owner is in particular a particular Um kind of COVID alarmist? Is there? Have you we know that? You know, we'd imagine most of the players feel one way, but they're afraid to speak out. Um. Have you gotten any word that there's any conflict or disagreement between the owners because you know, although some of them are younger, most of them are older and higher risk categories and higher risk from COVID. Um, any any word from you know, from the the NBA on owners who might be at conflict on their approaches towards COVID and that how that may or may not be informing league policy. I'm not sure the discussions are behind closed doors, and I just know the owners what I said there. They're strongly against the hub. They're not They're not going through that hub thing again. Um, but I control the awesome owners. The question what's going on? But I think business trump's all end of the day, um whatever whatever, the league and the learners come together and say, how can we keep our business going? You know, don't know a luxurious position where they can continue to kind of somewhat function throughout this where most most businesses and people and every day people can't you know, you know, your business gets shut down from close contacts. You've got close the restaurant, your cup at the NBA can navigate that and still somewhat exist throughout this with private jets and extra security and space out flaws on it. So they're in a luxurious position. They know that, and they're going to I think the owners the business decision is going to trump the health one. For the most part, they're just quietly, We're going to preach, you know, all about health and keep everyone safe. But at the end of the day, if their bottom line is half a billion to the loss to the end of the season, I think they'll take the business decision over the health one. Yeah, I'd imagine so. And we'll see if that plays out on a more micro basis that if Kyrie Irving listen sooner rather than later, we're going to be seeing very low COVID numbers here in the United States. And once we do, and we have for a little while, um, are people going to quiet? Are these these institutions and organizations that are trying to force this complete and supposedly for public health reasons, but more so because they have to get everybody in line. Are they going to kind of quietly forget about punishing the dissidents? And you're seeing it with the Los Angeles Unified School District on them punting for nine months on on childhood vaccine requirements, I mean six eight months from now, are they going to quietly issue a press release provoking the vaccine UH mandate? Are the Brooklyn Thatt's going to quietly find a way to onboard Kyrie for the two thousand twenty three season. Um, only time will tell, but I think the smart money's on the playoffs. Yeah, I mean I'm waiting to see because, like I said earlier, the mandate that they've got the two shots the last up to six months, right, so the fox seeking what are we at? We're almost in January, right, so most people that had their had the double doors mandate in mid last year, they're already the equivalent of an unbaccinated right by definition what we've been told. So with the with the playoffs starting up in May, will he then allowed to play home games by then? That's what I'm watching waiting to see, because um, theoretically, logically, health health wise, yes, he should be allowed to play. You should be a low to play today because he's probably passed that six month threshold of course. Um, so that's that's the one on witness whether whether he's allowed to play in the playoffs. Imagine, imagine the playoff series only plays three out of the sinning games. I mean it would be it was. I was never into Kyrie's you know, quirky stick, but it is entertaining to watch him be kind of the thorn and the side and the Canarian the coal mine. Um and uh and and it leads to some you know, on the one hand of curdist but also fairly amusing uh situations here um and then to your point, um, I don't know if you saw it yet, but even today it was released at least I don't know if it's official, but that they're suggesting that they're there could be a way to reintegrate Kyrie as long as the Nets pay a fine, which I mean, once again pretty much yeah, yeah, okay, you know, as long as we can punish you, it's okay. There's no real public health justification. Everyone's gonna be safe. But hey, as long as we can get our our pine of blood out of you will will allow you to play again, UM, which would very much align with what we've seen from some of these hypocritical organizations in the past. UM. Speaking of of organizations, one that you played for that's very near and dear to the heart of a lot a lot of my followers and listeners was the Los Angeles Lakers. UM. You know, obviously with to the extent that you are are comfortable describing some of which you saw organizationally there, we've been trying to monitor and chart the palace intrigue with the Lakers, a family business run very smoothly and competently by Jerry Buss for decades, I mean, inarguably the most properly run organization and professional sports through the eighties, nineties, and two thousand's UH encountered some some troubles once Jerry Buss turned the organization over to his son, Jim Buss, in conjunct with his daughter Genie Buss, and trying to kind of sort the the UH kind of specialization of authority between the two of them, and then with Genie finally having it, UH, you know, saying she's had it with Jim firing her brother, taking over the organization and installing Magic Johnson, who then proceeded too in a blaze of glory, resign and accused essentially everybody else involved in the organization of some wrongdoing um, although in a fairly friendly way, and it seemed that things were falling apart. But then strangely enough, it seems out of the ashes of that came a a an NBA title UM in two thousand twenty one UM sorright in two thousand in two thousand twenty UM. Once anything that you saw organizationally with the Lakers in terms of who was in charge, who really was the the bad actor um or or kind of you know, selling the well in the Lakers organization, and any any quirks or particularities of that situation that you know you feel comfortable discussing that that would be of interest to Laker fans. Yeah, Look, I wasn't. I didn't. I didn't go to leave there in the greatest of books. I mean, you know, I was basically like to go on there, which which is fine its history now, but you know I was signed on the fifth thing. I came off a broken leg, so I wasn't healthy that they signed me saying look, I said, I don't want to sign with you guys on a on guarantee and then get way from my family out to l a um and they said, no, no, no, we just want to keep some flexibility. But if you're healthy or even getting healthier by January, we won't waive you. And um, January I was playing, I wasn't, I wasn't hundred and healthy, but and then ended up waving me anyway, which was kind of missippointing because because their record was so bad. Um and if you remember, that was the year that everything was kind of be in position towards getting le Bront the following year. So look, I saw a lot of good things, a lot of bad things. Um. You know, the Magic Robed relationship was interesting. It was kind of a half playing game. But then in public that are cling best friends. But um, the development for the young guys when I was there was wasn't wasn't great because they were just that was continuously put in those are they going to be here when the Bron gets here? Everyone knows le Bron's coming. You remember they gave KCP that that twenty million dollar deal and then another I think it was fifty million year on year deals because he was with Lebronze Agency, so that was clearly a favor. Not taking anything away from KCP, but that was clearly a favor for the agency to actually performing better under that contract. And I think a lot of people were anticipating, yeah, he did um and you can't. You can't the player. It's not his fault. I mean, it's a good agent, I guess at the end of the day. And I mean they did. They did famously have him turned down million from Detroit a couple of years before that. But but he was signed with these big one year deals at the time and people like, why are they doing that? Well, that was a favorite of the port Bridge Port and then I'll bring the bond to you next year. So I was part of all that kind of It was just it was just it was a trend warter year when I was there, they were just trying to trade water. They knew lebron and I think had already given them basically as closed for a promise as he could have six months prior to him starting there, so they knew that was all lining up an now we're starting to build that team. So it was all about staying in the cap as much as possible, and not over spending for anybody developing if you're the younger guys, and then obvious moving a few of those guys on um to get Leon. But look at it wasn't It wasn't the most professional time when I was there. Like you said, there was a transition going on with ownership group, there was. Like I said, the Robin the Magic relationship was kind of kind of interesting. I mean magic. It wasn't around a lot. But he poppies heading to a training position every now and then then try to change things and this and that and what do you haven't been here right? It seemed like he would pop he was. He was working on so many other projects. He was owning the Dodgers, and he was expected to have a full time position or also share kind of a full time position with Rob Polenka. And when someone's sporadically involved but has the authority of someone who's boots on the ground doing the work each day, that's a recipe for conflict. It is. And he's look, he's the most media savvy, he's Mr l A. He could literally go and take a shift in the middle of the middle of the court and the fans still love him right, Like he's got that kind of that power in l A. He can do every once, which which is he's an't people would argue. But as far as running an organization, you know, it's very very hard for you to rock up to one training session out of seven. See the guy has a good session, and then you're like, that guy should be playing more minutes I wanted to play more, and you're like, yeah, it was like it was that kind of that kind of reactionary stuff that I noticed, and yeah, it was what it was. It was just an interesting time. They transitioned pretty well though, Um you know, rock Link obviously turn that into bringing in Lebron and a few a few other guys that got lucky with the bubble and coming together at the right time and they stole a championship. But look, I wasn't wasn't a way I would run. I would run a team, that's for sure. And they have the unique ability to make glaring mistakes and and put a band aid over and because they're l A, people still want to come there. Right if if they ran, if they were running that team and that was a small market team like Indiana, Yeah, the mistakes, the mistakes that they made four or five years ago, back a decade. But because you're l A, you know, l A New York, these kind of teams, they really have the opportunity to that you can literally scrub your draft picks for five yeares straight. You can bomb out on three or three or four free agents, which the Lakers did. They overpaid for a bunch of free agents, and you still be okay at the end of the day because you're l A. So that they're kind of lucky in that sense. M hm. And another iconic franchise that you played for for a while was the gold State Warriors during um what could be termed a dynasty and would love your thoughts on the what what's unique about playing for a team that's that successful, that's that that's operating at such a high level. Was there any particular, you know, particular magic aside from pure talent and just Steph Curry during is during his prime and the right pieces, what what was what were the unique experiences of playing with a historically great team like the Golden State Warriors of the past few years. I think that the best thing about the first thing I had there. Obviously I went back for for a dip in the water two years ago. But it was just the way we built it was. That was the most feeling thing, right. It wasn't It wasn't a super team. It wasn't. It was later on when Katie came. But the first chief that we got was a bunch of guys that all were number one, number two options at one point on their team. Myself Milwaukee on Tregadala in Shrilly and Denver, David Lee in New York. You obviously drafts Stephane, Clay and Draymond. Everyone just kind of brought in and we just made small tweaks along the way um and everyone bought into their role. And at least we had guys at the right times of their career to be able to buying two different roles. Like, Hey, you know, Milwaukee, I was one number two options every night. I knew I was getting a minimum of ten shots some games closer towards twenty. And then you get to Golden State, I'll be here to be like hey, man, like I want some of Clay Thompson's and steph curry touches you on be on a plane out of their quick smart So it was like, hey, I'm only going to get towards three touches, but I need to get ten boards. Just block two or three shots like some people up on screens, UM fail to shoot out of some people every now and then provide a physical presence of the Warriors. Hadn't had for decade inside of paint and let's def and Clay do the thing that you factor in daily. At All Star years, they started coming to his own gramon Green. We didn't know what to have stop with him as a as a second round pick or their first round pick. UM. So it all just kind of came together and we just slowly built it up. Went so it went to the second round that that my first help of the year, UM, and then went to the first round the following year against the Clippers, and then and then marked backs and moved on. Step came in and the third year win a championship. UM. So could gone from the Warriors that won fifteen and twenty games. Three years prior to that, I was I was boot the owner was doing for training, trading Montelis for me. UM. I remember that night it was Chris Marlin's jersey retirement, and that trade happened the night before said, I was going to give a speech about Chris Marlin and the fans are born in you know. So I went through all that and it just just put the franchise back in a position that they would then even have a meeting with Kevin Durant further on down the track. And then obviously I got moved to three ups. Have space for that dan, Kevin Durant, But yeah, he comes and comes on and they created they created a dynasty. So um and they're still, you know, looking like one of the championship babies this season as well as play coming back. So I mean, I love being a part of what that was. And if you could do, if you could have a case study about a team rebuilding the right way, I've been a lucky along the way. Like no one thought Dreamond Green was to be the player he was, um player he turned out to be. You know, when we drafted and um, you know have forget we had to Harrison Bars as well. If it's Zeally um and you know, no one would have thought that that team would have been put together championship. But as it slowly went on, it was small tweaks by the GM, by the coach and it'll just kind of piece together and we did it the right way rather than the You know, I'm not a fan of super teams and I'm not a fan of the best players coming together. I don't like it. I'm not a fan of it. I get it, I understand it, And probably the media is a little bit to blame because there's some whole tame players. They get a knock because they don't have a Chip Barkley, these kind of guys. So I guess a lot of these new age players think, well, I need to get this on my resume, so and the media can't head on me for the chip, so I'll just join with tw superstars. So you gotta blame the med a little bit for that. But for the most part, I don't like it. I love seeing teams that draft right, make a few tweaks and free agency, they have their superstar, they do it, and they win a championship. I love. I love watching that journey ten times out of ten rather than you know, your Miami or even your Golden State with Teddy and so last question, and related to that, taking aside your personal feelings about whether or not you like super teams, taking the most objective view possible. Do you think that the super team era has contributed to the overall health of the NBA and it's product because another story that you know, our buddy E think covers quite a bit um is a lot of declining attend you know, a lot of declining metrics for the NBA. Um, they're still keeping some strong profits, however, ratings are really in the dumpster, and a lot of people claim that that's just a lot of that attention as eyeballs have been shifted over to digital snippets and more shorter formed content, and that claim proves out a little bit, but not entirely. I mean, do you think the league is in a healthy place right now? And if not, is the problem that a lot of at least my thesis is that a lot of casual fans have lost, uh, lost interest in the game because they can't track player movement. There's no there's no built in, there's no nobody's building rivalries and if you're not someone who's a super fan, you don't necessary early Uh, there's no you don't build any rapport with any of the teams because they're shifting players so often. Yeah, I think so, I think um because of the clipser of issues. Some say political activism all that kind of stuff. Some say player movement, but like if you're a small market team, it's just you know, you've basically got two or three four years with that superstar player or that rookie superstar player before they want to get out. And that's what we're seeing. I think there's gonna have to be some rule changes push from owners looking there going to stop the Lakers or the Yankee type teams and just sort of going try to overpay. But then then he didn't incentivize guys um at least they need given it any for teams to protect them. I mean, z Willinson is probably the next one. Look at the best situation. He signed his rookie man extension, gets that nice bump up from his home team, and now he can just leave. That's wrong and a Zion like from a betting man. You know, if he gets in shape and healthy again, he'll sign at max with them and then one out in a year or two. And I think that hurts a small markets. It's so hard. Like small markets, you have to, like I said earlier the week as example, small markets have to be methodically almost perfect with their draft. Otherwise let's back ten years, whereas a big market can just be like, we'll just over to spend on the next superstar if we screw up our draft. So I think there is some issues there. I think it's a number of things. I think the NFL the advantage is there's so much build up week to week for that one game. I think he has a lot of games. Theres a lot of gamers in behave that they don't matter if we're being honest, you had a two games. Theres a lot of games. But right now, you go to a Detroit Versus Okay, see game, what would you go? Would you go and watch that and pay pay for it live? You can see a couple of the young guys development wise, but you know, you know that it's a tank. You're almost for both teams and developing. Then you've got all the all the lower management and rest you might you might pay for Lebron coming to the town then and then he comes and rest, you know, and that that pisses a lot of fans off. So there's a lot of different, you know, circumstances that are affecting it. But I think I think you know, Strass is one of those guys easy on this hill for three or four years and now coping a lot of ship from his colleagues and former colleagues because I think he's hating. But the numbers don't lie. There is there is definitely a dwindling UM. Now, what can you say? The attention span of kids is less than they want. Like you said, they want to watch those snippets. That don't want to sit down and watch a whole game. That's an issue within yourself because that's advertising. So I think there is an issue. I'm not sure how how they fix it. You know, there's the reports of this season tournament they're trying to do for a million dollars each player that if you win a mid season's tournament. I mean, the fact that the fact that they're trying these the fact they're trying these kind of things or disgusting them to me is absolutely if your products not broken, you're not trying. You know, you're not trying to fix it. You should have many grups. That's you know. Whenever you hear this stuff about ratings, UM, I laughed at the one A couple of it was about a year ago. This is um NBA doing fantastic even though ratings at all time why something? Even the journalists that cover it are so scared. Yeah, yeah, the ratings are down and did now really you just gonna just stust it, honestly, But I don't think it's gonna die. Don't get your own, But I think there are some concerns when when you're trying to float to a mid season tournament in already eighty two games season, on top of now ten teams that are in the playoffs slash plane. You want to have a mid season type champions league as well, I'm gonna start asking questions, why, why why you didn't? Yeah, yeah, Once you start turning to the gimmicks, that is not a good sign and a very interesting to to monitor. The war On noticing you can't notice the logical conflicts of certain COVID policies. You can't notice the fact that the NBA's ratings are at an all time low. If you do, you're a hater, you're a denier, you're a priety or this you're that, I don't know, strange strangeness. War On noticing that some people are trying to fight um. But regardless, we're I'm into the end right now. Um, Andrew Bogat, thank you so much for joining us a dispatch from Australia, Boots on the ground, UM, a lot of particularities about the COVID situation in Australia, the Novak Djokovic controversy, and a lot on the NBA and surrounding issues. UM, thank you so much. I know you also have a podcast, so if you want to tell us where we can find that and where we can find you on social media? Yeah, social media Andrew bog first name, last name on on Instagram when I'm not Shadow band that is. I think I'm still shot down at the moment for for asking too many questions, um, Facebook, Twitter, Um. And then and get it as well. Actually just got on there, so that's going pretty well. And then the podcast is road Bogus r O g U E b O g u e s road Bogus one words. It's basically on all popular podcast platforms and a road bogs on Instagram and Twitter. So are we. I do a lot of like out of the park stuff, like some some weird ship. I do a weekly basketball show I do on my journey on podcast, which is kind of an autobiography from when I was, you know, a kid to now because a series by series with with my age and then I do similar stuff to what you're doing, where I try to get influential people and politics and business and just talk about the craziness of what's going on in the world. So I do a little bit of a little bit of it all and going to ramp it up a little bit in the new year, trying to set up a proper studio and get it get a bit better production wise, because a lot of as high tickets do right now, don't do anything. I don't know any videos. It's an audio only at the moment. So we'll get you into the twenty one century, don't you worry. Get beautiful face on people's TV screens when I'm talking ship. So other than that, that's it. I love it, And yeah, you know, I'm sure we'll be we'll be our ship talking. The ven diagram definitely covers a lot of similar grounds, so I'm sure we'll have you on again to discuss some other stuff in the future. Um quick. I would be remissed before I didn't shout out our buddy Dan Moldavan, the the self styled official Australian Ambassador to UH to the professional basket ball world. So Dan, I know it's killing you not to be involved in this conversation, but we'll get you integrated one of these days. UM, And so with that, we're signing off. We'll see how this turns out on the official ruling with Djokovic and UM, everybody, thank you for joining us. I am at Bolinski once again. You can listen and subscribe to the Prevailing Narrative on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you're listening right now. Make sure to follow me on my socials at Matt Bolinsky m A T T B I L I N s k Y. The Prevailing Narrative is a Cavalry Audio production and association with I Heart Radio, produced by Brandon Morrigan, Executive produced by Dana Burnetti and Kegan Rosenberger for Calvary Audio. I'm at Bolinski