The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Thursday, 25th, ground up. Every day during the week we've got, there's a lot going on in the world right now. So it's relatively easy to pick up stories, but we'll do that. Let me remind everybody that tonight we'll be talking to Aaron Smith from the Iron Man Institute. We'll be focusing on different issues around Stoicism, the success of the Stoic movement and everything else. And yeah, join us. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and it'll be super, super interesting. All right, let's jump in. As you probably know, because it's in the top of the news everywhere, Ron DeSantis yesterday announced that he is running for president. Finally, made the announcement, and he made the announcement, well he made the announcement earlier but really the launch of the campaign was really done on Twitter. The attempt was made to do it through Twitter Spaces and Elon Musk's account. But it turned out that so many people came or whatever, there were significant technical problems and the whole thing was delayed by 16 minutes and ultimately they had to abandon Elon Musk's account, move it over to David Sacks' account. David Sacks was the moderator of this event. And then with a somewhat smaller audience, it could continue. DeSantis came off at least early on very canned. He had a canned speech. He had canned one-liners, so it didn't have kind of the natural flow of what you'd expect from kind of a, what do you call it, a conversation on Twitter Spaces or something like that. But a lot of people listened to it. He got a lot of press out of the fact that he decided to launch on Twitter. Who knows whether it's successful or not. I did find it a little stilted and somewhat humorous that all the people who asked questions were under DeSantis fans, big shot names who happened to be under DeSantis fans, people who worked for him, people who support him, people who openly support him, so all their questions were amazing softballs. You also got a sense of what he's comfortable talking about. Almost everything has to do with kind of the cultural issues. That is his shtick. That's what he wants to talk about.  Trump is going to be in. This came across also in this interview with Fox later on last night. And that is basically the difference between him and Trump is they agree on the issues. The difference between him and Trump is he gets stuff done and Trump doesn't.  So, yeah, this will make it more interesting. Trump was already, you know, all fired up and attacking, has been attacking under DeSantis for three, four months now, trying to dissuade him, I guess, from running. The fact that Trump failed is a good thing. Having DeSantis in the race is probably good, just as another counter to Trump. But I think what we're going to discover is that DeSantis, in terms of ideology, maybe not in terms of personality and in terms of character, but in terms of ideology, is not somebody that we should be supporting. But we'll see. Time will tell. Debates will tell. His speeches, policy positions on different issues will tell. But all I can say is the last four months of not being positive when it comes to DeSantis. Just the one thing DeSantis will differentiate himself on policy-wise from Trump will be on the one good thing that Trump did, which was arguably, which is Operation Whoop Speed. DeSantis will try to run an anti-vax campaign and differentiate himself on that level from Trump. So it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. Whoops, I lost. I had this other item I was going to talk about that's gone, disappeared. Yeah, no, there it is. In relation to the whole vaccine thing, I just thought this was interesting. There's a lot of talk about excess deaths and stuff in the United States among young people, early 20s and teenagers. And the conspiracy theories are quick to pounce on that as proof that the vaccines are killing young people. But the reality is that what is actually happening is a massive increase in deaths from fentanyl. It really is astounding and it really is sad and disturbing the extent to which this is happening. You know, right now, one in five deaths of people between 15 and 24 in California is the result of fentanyl. And nothing the government seems to be doing, and this doesn't surprise anybody, seems to be helping or seems to be stopping this or seems to be preventing any of this. Drug overdoses now kill two to three times as many people in California as car accidents. And since 2017, deaths related to synthetic opioids, which is 50 times stronger than heroin, have increased 1000%, 1000%. So, yep, I mean, and the solution, of course, is to militarize the border and go to war with Mexico and slam the cartels. And as if that is ever as if doubling down on the war and drugs on a failed policy on a policy that's clearly unequivocally failed from day one has failed. Doubling down on a failed policy on a drug on a worn and inanimate object as if that is going to be the solution for fentanyl. It's just unbelievable. Anyway, the Santas is going to make the race interesting. I'm glad he's in the race. You know, we'll see what happens. He's being a lot of money to the race, a lot of money. Not only is it doesn't look like a lot. Musk is going to support him, which is going to give him a big boost in terms of voice that he has. But he has already raised a lot of money from from different business groups and from different wealthy individuals. There was a hundred million dollar voter outreach push in New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Iowa. It's going to be maybe the most organized, sustained, get the voter out kind of effort that maybe we've ever seen. It's going to be sophisticated. It's going to be high tech. And the Santas has a lot of money and he's going to be dealing with a lot of money. Whether he can dislodge Donald Trump from the prime position, from the lead position in the Republican race is hard to tell. I think that the, I think the most likely scenario is going to be that Trump gets indicted, maybe in Georgia, but it also looks like the special counsel, Jack Smith, is going to indict him over the mishandling of classified information. It looks like they have some real evidence and they have some real evidence of trying to hide the fact that he had these documents, in ways that are much, much worse than Pence having documents and Biden having documents. But what Trump did to hide it and to prevent the FBI from accessing it is, seems to be a real threat, a real legal threat to Trump. So it could be the one, the Santas is the nominee, not because he defeats Trump, but because Trump is forced out of the race by all his legal problems. We will see. So far, no legal issue hurts Trump in the race, so anyway, everything just bounces off of him. So, so we'll see, we'll see what actually happens. But it does look like this document issue is not going away for Trump and is a real issue. All right. Let's see. Oh, before I get, I wanted to, I wanted to start to show off with this before I get up to the Chinese malware. Important item in the news, which breaking news just, just happened a few minutes before the show started. So I just wanted to congratulate the Pacific Legal Foundation, PLF Pacific Legal Foundation for two victories in the Supreme Court today, Supreme Court, and I don't have the details. I'm not going to be able to give you a details of this. Maybe, maybe we'll get somebody from PLF on the show to talk about this. But one is a weakening of the Clean Waters Protection Act. So the left is freaking out over this, but basically saying that the regulatory agencies don't have as much power as they think they have. And this is consistent with a theme for the Supreme Court, particularly Judge Gorsuch, who are very against the administrative state and want to rein in regulatory agencies and rein in the administrative state more broadly. So they, they, you know, consistent with I think the position the Pacific Legal Foundation took, the Supreme Court decided to narrow, narrow the power of regulators with regard to the Clean Water Act. I'm sure that is a positive. And then let's see, there was another one, and I think this is the right one.  I don't know much about the details. Again, another Pacific Legal Foundation victory. Supreme Court sides with 94 year old woman who accused government of stealing her home equity. This sounds like some kind of a domain case or some kind of taking case where the government came in and took somebody's property and didn't compensate them appropriately or didn't compensate them at all or whatever. So it'll be interesting to know on what grounds they ruled. But, but excellent, excellent anytime we can rain in government power in anytime the Supreme Court sides with property rights and sides with raining in government regulatory power or government taking taking clause power. That is that is a good thing. So again, congratulations to all our friends and including the many objectives who are at the Pacific Legal Foundation for the amazing work that they do in trying to protect and in succeeding in some cases protecting our liberties in front of the in front of the courts. Okay, really, you know, I think an important story and somewhat of a scary story, you know, about the Chinese. So, China, yesterday it was revealed by Microsoft, and by a number of different government agencies in the United States, a national security agencies, that they've discovered a Chinese hack, Chinese malware that was in critical infrastructure, existed in critical telecommunication infrastructure all over the United States. The hack hadn't done anything yet, but it was positioned to be able to shut down networks, reroute networks, maybe listen in on conversations. Maybe one of the more, one of the more distressing aspects of this is the fact that this malware was found in, in addition to many places in the United States was also found in Guam. Guam is of course a US protectorate, just like Puerto Rico, but on the Pacific Ocean, Guam is the location of the FOS base, the US FOS base closest to Taiwan and closest to China. Guam would be basically the place that the United States would use the stage operations in any kind of conflict with China, stage operations in any kind of attempt to defend the Taiwan, the Taiwan Straits. And so this is, this is a crucial, a crucial facility, it's a crucial telecommunications hub for any kind of military action in the Pacific, particularly in the, in the western Pacific, particularly close to Chinese shores. The Chinese having the ability to shut down Guam, shut telecommunications out of Guam, would significantly harm America's ability to engage in military operations on that side of the Pacific. So the fact that they had infiltrated, I'm curious and I try to read through the stories and haven't found that. Was it Huawei, was it Chinese equipment? Was it just malware? Or was there actually also physical equipment that was involved? And none of the stories say what the equipment, the telecom equipment actually was in Guam and in other places that this was malware accessed. You could imagine if, if it was one of the Chinese companies that installed the hardware, they would have created a back door to allow this malware to come in. If it's Western technology, Western switches, Western telecommunication technology, switches, boards, and they still got their malware in, that's an even worse sign in many respects. Anyway, the, both Microsoft and a number of US again organizations have put up data and information and how to combat the malware. They have shared this information also with our allies, particularly in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, who are a part of kind of the Five Eyes Intelligence Network, work, all these intelligence services work together. And they've shared it with commercial operators of telecom equipment, they've shared this information with others so that this malware can be taken down and made ineffective, which would be really crucial. So, yeah, there was no, this didn't result in any destruction, didn't result in any negative act so far. But the existence of the malware suggests Chinese capabilities and suggests where the Chinese are focusing. That is a little scary. This is all a part of a hacker group that the US believes is part of a Chinese government and part of a Chinese government effort. The difference between Chinese hackers and Russian hackers is that with the exception of the one Chinese hack that stole information about government employees, Russian hackers are constantly on the offensive. Russian hackers are constantly using their hacking systems to get money, to get information. Chinese hacking is more passive in a sense that A, it's therefore when they need it for emergencies for when there is a conflict. And B, it's primarily focused on espionage, primarily focused on getting information, primarily about technology, about stealing trade secrets, stealing business secrets, technological secrets IP, that's the primary focus. But here you saw something that was being installed for a time of conflict where they could basically shut down the US's capacity to wage war against them. It's good to know the US is on top of these things. It's good to know that they, at least in this one case, figured it out. It is interesting that Microsoft is probably, it's probably Microsoft that discovered this and then brought in the US agencies. And again, that's a good thing. It's a good thing that we have private enterprise, private businesses in the US that are on top of these things and that are helping out. And I think more likely that they have the capabilities to discover these kind of things than even the government does. I think it's a big story just because of what the potential is. All right. A lot of stuff coming out of the Ukraine-Russian war. But most of it is, and I've talked a little bit about it. But I think the most interesting thing to come out is, is really a lot of insight into Russia, if you will, that is coming out from the videos and the statements from the owner of the Wagner group. Pugosin. Pugosin is an ally of Putin. He is one of the oligarchs. Part of the money he made as an oligarch, he invested in creating this basically a private army, the private army of the Wagner group. It is the private army that ultimately took Bakhmut. It took them only 10 months to do it, but they did take Bakhmut in the end. It is a private army that is fought more fiercely and more effectively than so far any unit of the Russian army has fought. But Pugosin is a Putin ally and yet over the last few weeks has become a massive critic of the Russian Department of Defense, a massive critic of the generals running the Russian military. He's just basically criticizing left and right the Russian military operations in Ukraine. And it is surprising because, I mean, obviously he is very well protected, so is unlikely to fall out of a window anytime soon. But it is surprising that such a dissent as he is expressing is permitted and allowed by the system. Now he is quite close to Putin, so it's interesting that somebody close to Putin is expressing such criticism of the Ministry of Defense and the Minister of Defense of the generals running the war. India-Putin is not acting by firing his Minister of Defense or firing the generals in the war. So there is a very interesting dynamic going on, a power dynamic going on inside Russia, which I am not an expert on, so I don't know the details of it, but it is, I find it interesting. I also find specific critiques of Russia interesting, and I'll get to that in a minute. It just shows you, I mean, to me what's really fascinating here is that Pugosin, who is right there, right on the front lines, is more critical of the Russian war effort than the Russian, what do you call them? There's people on my chat and there's various people in right wing America who just gobble up Russian propaganda and just spit it back at us mindlessly. So they think that Putin cannot do anything wrong, that the Russian military is the greatest military in human history, that Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. Pugosin has a much more realistic view of what's going on in the world, is willing to express it, and it's somewhat stunning that all these Putin worshippers in the west are far more supportive of Russia than Pugosin actually is, and Pugosin is right there. Now, I'm sure they come back would be, I'm sure if some of them won the chat right now, they come back would be, and I know you don't understand, you're on. This is all part of Putin's 3D chess. Pugosin is just one more element to love you, I don't know to sleep or to make you believe that there is conflict within Russia. When there isn't, this is just part of a grand strategy to actually defeat the West and to defeat. I mean, we know that once people start embracing personality worship as they did Trump and as they have Putin, their leader, their leader can never do wrong, can never do wrong.  So I want to quote, I want to read you some quotes from Pugosin, because I think he's quite interesting, right? So Pugosin has no question about who's got the upper hand in this war right now, and whether Russia has succeeded or is succeeding in achieving its goals in Ukraine. So here's, I'm reading you from Pugosin and granted, I mean a lot of this is BS, but just go with it and go with the language, because this is a quote from him, right? Quote, we came in bursh, we came in burshly, trampling all over Ukraine's territory in search of Nazis.  We came up to Kiev and, I'll put it in plain Russian, shot the bed and retreated. Then on to Gershon, shot the bed and retreated. And somehow things aren't working out for us. The special military operation has done for the purpose of denortification while we've made Ukraine into a nation that's known throughout the world. They're like the Greeks or the Romans at their peak. And as far as demilitarization, if they had some 500 tanks at the start of the special military operation, now they have 5000. If they had 20,000 capable fighters before, now they have 400,000. What kind of militarization is that? Now it looks more like we did the opposite. Somehow or other, and we militarized Ukraine. Absolutely true, as I told you from the beginning. Whatever happens, Putin's lost this war. Alright, some more stuff that's kind of fun. Okay, so here he's complaining about the children of the oligarchs, the children of the elites. He says, in the best cases, the children of the elites shut their traps. But some of them allowing themselves to lead public luxurious, carefree lives. It's important to remember, the elites aren't the only ones with kids. And while the kids of the elites are smearing creams on themselves and showing it on the Internet, ordinary people's kids are coming home in zinc, blown to bits and mothers are crying over their sons. This split could end like in 1917. Just as an aside, 1917 was the Russian Revolution. This split could end like in 1917 with the Revolution. When first the soldiers rise up and then they loved ones follow. And it's pointless to say there are hundreds of them. There are now tens of thousands of relatives of dead soldiers. There will almost certainly be hundreds of thousands. There's no escaping that. And it's all going to end with a sebbatholomne day massacre in a single moment. The opulent lives of the children of the elites will end with people raising them on pitchforks.  And when you go to their funerals, when you start to bury them, that's when people will say things are fair. So here is predicting a revolution because the elites are not sending their kids to war. The oligarchs are not sending their kids to war. And he's saying there are hundreds of thousands of family members now of kids who have been killed during this war. They're not going to accept that the elites that govern them of what pouring creams over their faces while their own kids are dying. Now whether this is true or not, I don't know. But this is coming from Russia, from an ally Putin's. From somebody who's broadcasting this freely on Russian media. This indicates a little bit the conflict with them. But we'll see what his solution is. And then he's asked about the future of the war. On the future of the war, there's an optimistic scenario and a pessimistic one, he says. I have little faith in the first one. That is he has little faith in the optimistic scenario. The optimistic security looks like this. Europe and America get tired of the Ukrainian conflict. China sits everyone down at the negotiating table. We agree that everything we've already snatched is ours. And everything we haven't snatched isn't ours. But the odds for this are slim, he says. Here's the pessimistic scenario, which he thinks is more realistic, by the way. The Ukrainians are given missiles. They train their troops and they no doubt continue their offensive. And they try to counterattack. It's possible that this counteroffensive is successful in some places and they restore the borders to where they were in 2014. That could easily happen. This is the head of the Wagner group saying. They'll attack Crimea.  They'll cut off our supply routes. So we need to be ready for a difficult war. Some people in the West who grovel before Putin should listen to this guy and maybe take some perspective from him. Now, how do you fix all this? How do you fix Russia? This is him. This is again the head of the Wagner group. We're currently in a state where there's a danger of just pissing away Russia. So we should declare martial law. This is the solution. We should declare new waves of mobilization. And we need to transfer everyone we can to work on ammunition production. We need to cut the fat. Stop building new roads and new infrastructure and work only on the war. And this is the killer. Listen to this quote. Russia needs to take a page out of North Korea's book for a certain number of years. Close all our borders. Stop pulling punches. Bring back all our boys from abroad and work hard. And then we'll seek some kind of results. So the way to fix Russia is to turn into North Korea. Because that's working out so well for the North Koreans. Oh, God, you can't make this stuff up. You really cannot make this up. I mean, Putin is bad. His critic, in a sense, is a thousand times worse. All right. Yeah, somebody says so. All right. Not much of a victory, but a victory nonetheless. OK, quick Iranian story. Scary one. Over the last two years, there's been a series of tunnels constructed in a mountain near the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. Now, these tunnel systems are really worrying both non-proliferation experts as well as intelligence analysts who've been monitoring the construction for years via satellite photos. Power plant in Nanette. We compared the two entrances and exits of the underground facility, which we know the actual height, the elevation of those at the mountain, and we know there's the elevation of the mountain itself. And this underground facility, we estimate to be anywhere between 80 and 100 meters below the ground. The depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as a typical bunker, buster bomb. And so the Iranians are trying to build resiliency into their program, and it's evident here. For its part, Iran says. All right. We've got, yes, we had the story about Iran broadcasting in the background. Sorry. Yeah, audio broken. OK, so anyway, I'll repeat the story. The story is about Iran. The story is about the fact that the Iranians are building a deep in the mountain facility close to the nuclear facility in Nanette. So deep that US large bunker busting bombs will not be able to bust this bunker. They're building it deep with the intention. Everybody agrees of moving nuclear operations in there and developing nuclear weapons outside the reach of Israel and the United States. You know, every year that passes, every month that passes, every day that passes, that the United States and Israel don't do anything substantial to stop and to destroy. Fundamentally, systematically destroy Iran's capabilities vis-a-vis their nuclear program is a day where they gain more strength. It's a day where they gain more confidence and it's a day where they gain that brings them closer to having nuclear weapons. Today, I think it was announced that the Iranians launched a ballistic missile that has a range of 2,000 miles. That puts Israel easily within their range and it puts Europe within their range and it puts all American facilities in the Middle East within their range. And if you match that up with a nuclear bomb, Iran then holds the world hostage. Look what Russia is doing vis-a-vis limiting what NATO will do with Ukraine and what the United States is willing to do because they have nuclear capabilities. Imagine what happens when the Iranians get them and they hold the world hostage with that capability. So somebody, Israel, the United States better act soon before it's just too late and irreversible.  I'm not so sure about the Iranians. After all, they are religious fanatics. Don't ever count out religious fanatics when it comes to taking suicidal actions. So scary stuff out of Iran.  Kind of cool good news, right? So this guy, let's see what's his name. This guy, a good Yan Oscom. Sounds northern European but hard to tell. Anyway, was living in China in 2011. He got into a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. And for 12 years, he's been trying to, they've been trying to fix it, all kinds of therapy as well. It was just published that they have devised this brain-spine interface that uses artificial intelligence, thought decoder and artificial intelligence, thought decoder. Which is detects electrical signals in the brain and matches them to muscle movements. So it detects the electrical signal of the brain signaling move leg and it matches them to the muscle movements. So it creates the etiology of natural movement from thought to intention to action and they manage to preserve that. And they've created a digital bridge that spans the injured part of the body. Now this is amazing, stunning, stunning. It's a mind-body, you know, its ability to intervene positively in creating and reconnecting mind and body. As a consequence, over the last year since the implant was inserted, he's attained the ability to walk to climb stairs. You know, even when the, you know, and this ability has shown signs that it is causing neurological recovery. That is, that the, even the damaged part is regenerating because of the stimulation. This is truly, truly amazing stuff, right? This is a guy who's been paralyzed and leapt down and now can walk and send a steep ramp. He still needs a walker for the steep ramp, but he can stand, he couldn't stand before.  That is cool stuff. And it suggests more than anything, the kind of potential that we have in the future. The kind of potential that we can attain, which I think is very exciting. All right. Okay, let's see. What else do we want to do here? All right. Let's go to Super Chat. This is cool. Okay, so we're about halfway in the Super Chat. We still have about $120 to get us. Good van Oskom is from Netherlands, Muras Love says. Muras Love, thank you. Appreciate that. So it does sound like a good van. That sounds like a Dutch name. So he's from the Netherlands. All right. So it's still about $120, $130 short. So please consider asking a question or just providing support. We have 73 people watching. So a couple of dollars from everybody watching right now would get us to the target. All right, let's see. Tom, what about him? Oh, it's great to see you back. It's been a while since Thomas has been with us live. Thomas says, does the Ukrainian victory mean just pushing Russia out of Ukrainian territory? Or should they somehow try to take Moscow and outright defeat Russia and reclaim the Crimea? Sorry. I think because you're dealing with the nuclear power, I don't think it's realistic to think that you can invade Russia and actually take Moscow. I do think that a Ukrainian victory and Ukrainian support could encourage better elements within Russian society to revolt against Putin and to create a revolution that replaces his regime. So I do think that is a possibility. So you could take Moscow but not directly and not by military force by internally with Russians. And I think that's what is going to have to happen if we're going to see regime change in the Kremlin. Either it would happen within the Kremlin where one faction deposes another faction, or it will happen through some kind of revolution as the head of Wagner Group suggests. But it's unlikely to happen and I don't think it's possible given Russia's nuclear capabilities. This is why it's so important not to allow a country like Iran to gain nuclear weapons. It's unlikely to happen through a Ukrainian invasion. And I don't think that's smart of them to try to do an actual invasion. Michael asks, did you see Matt Walsh's new crusade is against medically assisted suicide? Yes. I did a whole show on that. He's worried Canada's lack of law surrounding suicide would be adopted by the U.S. Maybe the trans issue is being played out. He needs a new crusade. No, he's been playing both of these. The anti-assisted suicide has been on his agenda for a while. I did a show about this. I did a show about the Canadian system. I am a big supporter of lax assisted suicide laws. I'm a big supporter of assisted suicide. I don't think obviously people should be encouraged to commit suicide, but I think if somebody has decided they want to commit suicide, we shouldn't resist that. We shouldn't stop it. And if doctors can help make it smoother and make it easier and make it less painful and less difficult, I'm all for that. I have no problem in people ending their own life. I think for healthy individuals, nobody should. But if you have the right to life, you have a right to decide when to end it. And as I watch all the people deal with life and the difficulties and the pain and the destructiveness of old age, having the possibility of ending it, I want to have that possibility. And if you can't have assisted suicide, maybe there's a black market for a pill you could take to end it. But you've got to have that option in a world in which we can live into very... Physically, we can keep our bodies going, but we can't stop certain pain. And to a large extent, you have issues with dementia and you have issues where you're losing your mind. If people want to commit suicide in order to avoid all that, good for them. And if there are mental health issues that lead people to suicide, then so be it. It's not anybody's responsibility, including the government, to stop people from committing suicide. It's not the government's job to decide which reasons are legitimate for committing suicide and which are not. That's a job for individuals. I did do a whole show on this. If you search my back shows or search YouTube, you can find it. It really is disgusting, I have to say. The conservatives are taking vis-a-vis assisted suicide. They want to keep people alive so that they suffer. They want to keep people alive so that they can't fulfill their lives because that's what religion demands of us. Suffering and life at all costs. Again, it's the same evil argument they use with abortion. It's a flip side of that argument they use with their antagonism to assisted suicide. James asked, do you think fighting competition, thinking of Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, Jack Dempsey, is in our DNA? How will more technology impact competition in people? I mean, I don't know what it means to say it's in our DNA. I think we want to be really, really good. There are contexts in which in order to see how good we are, you have to set it up in a competitive environment. You set it up versus somebody else. Sports and, unfortunately, war or physical combat are ways in which we have done this in our past. I don't think that's the same in business because the business world is fundamentally a win-win kind of competition. But, you know, sports is in a sense zero sum. Somebody wins, somebody loses. So what does it mean to say it's in our DNA? It's our desire to survive, a desire to thrive. It's part of what makes it, it's part of what it means to survive. It's kind of part of what life requires, part of what life means. And I think that that competitiveness comes out of that desire for life. And it applies in different realms and, again, sports is a good illustration of it. And yes, I think it's a healthy part of that desire to live and that desire to be successful. How will technology impact it? I don't know. I mean, it'll make it possible for us to improve ourselves. You know, you'll have, you already have performance enhancing drugs. Those will only become more sophisticated and more difficult to trace. You'll have more, you'll have technologies that just makes us stronger, more physical able, more physically versatile in every dimension. You know, but, but we'll all have that. So people will still be able to compete at whatever level the technology places it as, places it at. So hopefully that answered your question, James. Mike says, sounds like protesting, you want to petered out. Yes, I think they have, as I said at the time, I think the real challenge of the protest movement, it had no real support from within. It wasn't quite ready for a revolution, for the revolution to happen. It needed to have some support either from the military or from the police or from the National Guard, from somebody or from some element within the clergy. And it didn't not not substantial enough. It shook up the administration there. It's still shaking it up. It still, it still hasn't ended completely. There's still a real challenge going on with in Iran around the brokers and around authority and who has authority. But this phase of whatever's happening in Iran, the phase of the demonstrations that happened at the end of last year, early this year, that seems to be over. And we'll see what kind of lasting long term implication it has and whether ultimately it'll help embolden a real revolution in Iran. I hope that ultimately is the case, but it hasn't happened yet. All right, we are $90 short. So a few $20 questions and we get there. So or just a few like Maryland, $10 contributions on a sticker. Stephen did $10. Thank you guys. And RDF and Catherine and John Bales, all of these people have contributed. Colleen started us off with $10 right at the beginning of the show. So thank you everybody for supporting the show and adding to it. A few more of those and we get to our target $250 for the show. Okay. Not your average algorithm. I meant to address this on last night's program. I now identify as an ambulance. My pronouns are we. Identify as an ambulance. Why would you want to do that? You should identify something fun if you're going to identify something. But I guess we who is not bad. All right, James, will you leave Puerto Rico in the event the tax code changes? Do you see taxes increasing significantly in the U.S. over the next five to 10 years? I probably would leave Puerto Rico. Ultimately, if when the tax code changes, mine won't change until 2036. I'm grandfathered in. So I'm not worried about that. Do I think taxes in the U.S. are going to increase significantly over the next five to 10 years? Probably not. Not significantly. They will increase at the margins, particularly on high owners. There's still a race between Democrats and Republicans and who can relieve more people of taxes on the lower and middle income areas. And then increase taxes on high owners as much as possible. And I think that trend will continue. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Republican president actually raises taxes. Of course, George Bush did. Not George Bush. Trump did on all Americans by raising tariffs, which is of course a consumption tax on certain goods. So I don't see income taxes or corporate taxes rising dramatically. Even the proposals that the Democrats are putting together raise corporate taxes to less what they were before Trump lowered them. And on the income tax, their primary proposals have been really taxing people over 10 million, over 50 million, really taxing the richest of the rich. Primarily through some kind of wealth tax or something like that. So I just don't see for most Americans, for 99% of Americans, I don't think their taxes will go up a lot other than tariffs, which are a consumption tax on all of us. I wouldn't be surprised if taxes on the 1% rise significantly though. And again, there seems to be agreement between Democrats and Republicans on the need for that in one way or the other. Frank says, with trans women participating in women's sports, would it be fair compromise if she started to swim or raise five seconds after the gun sounds off?  The reality is that I don't think trans women should participate in women's sports, period. But my position on this is it's not a mind business. It's something that the sports leagues need to decide. And sports leagues should be private entities, not for profits, I assume, or for profits, I don't care. And sports leagues, NCAA, sports administrators, professional sports leagues, they need to decide these things.  It's not fair and it's wrong and it deprives women who are born female to actually participate. But I think that's what the sports leagues decide. If somebody wants, it's just like drug enhancing stuff. And I think sports leagues should decide what enhancements should be allowed and what enhancements should not be allowed. There's no right answer. There's no wrong answer in a sense of politically. There's a right or wrong answer, I think, just in a sense of propriety, even morality. I think it's immoral to have trans women participate in women's sports, even though it should be legal. So I don't think it's a political question, but I do think it's a moral question. James has, have you done a show about building competition, about building competition up in people or children to push for excellence and being better? No, because I don't think competition is the essence of being better and doing well. I think that's too much of a second-handed external motivation to be good and to be successful and to push oneself. I think the primary motivation to be successful and to push oneself and what I talk about a lot is every individual trying to be the best that they can be. Every individual in a sense making themselves the best that they can be, irrespective of what other people do. So I don't think, I don't think people or children should be pushed to be better than the other guy. I think they should be pushed to be the best that they can be, and that should be the focus. I don't think competition is essential in that regard. Sylvanus, thank you Sylvanus, $50, really appreciate that and almost at the goal, $37 away from the goal. Eh, we're so close. Hi Iran, in the fountain head, when Gail comes to realize how he is second-handed, it seems like Rand is hinting at some level of determinism. She uses the phrase born to be a second-hander, thoughts. I don't think so. I don't think that she's, certainly I know that, you know, she does not stand for determinism of any kind. But there's a sense in which at some point in life, after the choices that you make, usually quite young, it's very difficult not, it's very difficult to reverse whatever character traits those early decisions make on your character, those early decisions shape in your character. And if you make the wrong decisions, and if you shape your soul to be a second-handed soul, to be a, which is a contradiction in terms because the soul can't be second-handed, but a second-handed mind, then that's what you're going to be and it's very difficult to overcome. It's almost like you're born to be a second-hander. So I think she viewed as like being born a second-hand, not as a second-hander, not born as a second-hander. So it's like being born, but I'd have to find the exact quote. So, her view is that Gail is so entrenched in this way of thinking. So much of who he is and what he is, is entailed with this kind of thinking. So much of what he did through his childhood to reach where he is today, immerses him in this kind of thinking, that he can't get out of it, that he's in a sense stuck with it, and he can't reverse the second-handedness. Hopefully that answers the question. Thanks. All right. Brie says, the Wagner group guy sounds like he is planning a revolution, not predicting one. He has an army and could be trying to get the Russian generals to join him. Well, I mean, he's constantly attacking Russian generals. So he might be trying to get somebody to join him. It's not Clay Hu, and at the same time he's pretending that he's a friend of Putin's and he's just attacking the Ministry of Defense and attacking the other oligarchs. So it's very difficult to say exactly what his motivation is, but it certainly does seem like he is well positioned to be the one to lead such a revolution. Philip, hi, Philip. You addressed excess deaths and suggested fentanyl as a factor. However, excess deaths can be observed in all age groups and across multiple countries. Considering this, what other factors might be causing this phenomenon? There's a lot of factors causing the phenomena. I talked about this on earlier shows. You know, there are other countries that are not experiencing excess death, countries that have high vaccination rates, so it's not the vaccines. There's no evidence of vaccines. But in the United States, violent crime is up across many age groups, particularly the young again. Suicide is up. And certain health related issues up primarily because there's an argument that a lot of healthcare was, what do you call it, ignored or a lot of healthcare was just not provided during those immoral, ridiculous lockdowns that were forced on us during COVID. So there's a general deterioration in people's health. Other causes, you know, other causes, those are the primary causes that I've seen. But if you look at the United States, which I can't remember exactly, but when I looked at the United States, I did a show on this. It was clear that the dominant cause of excess deaths was, and by the way, fentanyl use is not, fentanyl excess deaths is not primarily in the 15 to 24, so I just used that statistic because that came up in a news story this morning. But fentanyl overdoses and what are called deaths of despair, which are often overdose deaths, but also alcoholism, liver failure, kidney failure, that primarily is middle aged men. So you're seeing it in 45 to 55 year olds. There's a huge, you know, there's a spike that started in 2014. It was identified in those excess deaths and those continued into the post-COVID period. So you're seeing that spike as well. So there are a variety of things in play, but there's zero evidence, literally zero evidence that the vaccines have anything to do with it. By the way, people are still dying of COVID, primarily old people, but people are still dying of COVID. There was also, if you remember, there was also a, because during COVID, there was like no flu. There was in the years post-COVID, a huge spike in both flu and in this other viral, what is it, AVS, a respiratory AVR, a respiratory virus that hits babies or very young children and very old people. And it gets you into hospital. Fennemine was actually in hospital with this RSV. Thank you, Jennifer. RSV, which also was suppressed during COVID and then exploded in the years after COVID and led to excess deaths as a consequence. So a lot of reasons for the excess deaths. Again, excess deaths are not uniform across every country in the world and a lot of countries that vaccinated are not seeing excess deaths. All right. So we are now $14 away from the goal. Let's somebody step in and get us to the goal just for the fun of it, right? James, do you think China is spying on Chinese citizens in the United States and globally now openly because no action was taken in Hong Kong? What happens next? Yes. I mean, I think they are spying globally. We know that. I talked about this kind of police station that was found in New York City and where the people were arrested as basically Chinese agents spying and trying to influence Chinese who were living in the United States. I know Chinese dissidents who live here get harassed by Chinese people in the United States constantly. So I do think that's happening. To what extent is the cause of that Hong Kong? Probably to a large extent. I mean, generally Hong Kong was a testament to the West's weakness. I think it abolded China. I think the West is starting to take China more seriously. But, you know, it's hard to recover from the weakness of Hong Kong. We will see. What next is hard to tell. Yeah, we will see. It is interesting. And this is just a side story. It is interesting that the number of Chinese people trying to illegally immigrate into the United States is spiking. And it's at all time high. It's in the thousands now. They're crossing over the southern border. They're trying to get here in any way they can.  These are Chinese spies. Most of them, though, are just people trying to get out of China and escape. And they're going through horrific conditions. And many of them go from China to South America and then go up through Panama and through Mexico and try to cross into the border and ask for asylum in the U.S. That is not an easy road. A lot of people die on that road. But it used to be no Chinese. And now there are thousands that are making that journey and trying to get into the U.S. James G. says, love for you to do a short segment or part of a show on the rise of Texas. How much does it cost to review a video on the topic? Well, I mean, a topic for a show is $1,000. I mean, if it's just a segment of the show, you know, just offering me. Just let me know what the number is and I'll do that. I'm not sure what the rise of Texas means. But, you know, if you've got a video that I can watch and analyze, that would be great. And some statistics that I can look at. I'll definitely do that. Just make me an offer, I guess, is my point. Bash Bandigan says, the left say richest pay no taxes. This is true. No, of course not. Richest pay. The most taxes is a percentage. And suddenly, the richest pay the most taxes by far in terms of dollar terms. But, you know, the left has all kinds of tricks like they don't count the capital gains tax. They don't count the corporate taxes that the rich pay on their corporations. They don't count all kinds of taxes that the rich actually pay. You know, they count what is convenient for them. But no, the rich pay the highest rates. And per capita, the highest amounts dollar wise by far than any American pays. So the media is wrong. All right. Thank you, Stephen, who got us over the target. So we made it to $251. Thank you. All right, everybody, I will see you tonight. We're talking to Aaron Smith about stoicism. It should be a fun, interesting program. So join us for that tonight at 8 p.m. East Coast time. And I'll do it. We'll also do another news update show tomorrow, Friday. All right, everybody, see you tonight or Friday or some other time. James, yes, 175 is good to go. Just send me, well, send me the video. Send me the video first and then send me the money. So let me see that I can do it. Let me see that I want to do it. And then, but I think it's doable.  Thanks guys. I will see you tonight stoicism eight o'clock and then.


y'alls Tammy with collard valley cooks and today we're making something new Japanese pie it is coconut pecans and raisins and an egg custard type feeling it's a lot like a French coconut but with extras I have to say it's delicious we're gonna start with three-quarter stick of butter melted in our bowl we're gonna add one cup of sugar this pie should be really good imagine it's like a con pie on steroids it's gonna be really delicious alright so you got your sugar in there now we're gonna put in three eggs and we're gonna mix that together so I'm just gonna crack my eggs one at a time put them in the bowl with my sugar there's one and three the wire whisk and mix this together well I'm gonna go ahead and put in a little vanilla sugar two eggs three-quarter stick of butter melted with a little vanilla now we're just gonna fold in our pecans coconut and raisins so the recipe cost for three-quarters cup of pecans there's three-quarters cup of pecans now we're gonna do a half a cup of raisins I'm using the golden raisins I'm using golden raisins and we're going to use a half cup of coconut light coconut okay we're gonna fold these ingredients together in this bowl can you be still for two seconds we're gonna pour it in our pie shell we're gonna bake it at 325 degrees for one hour I'm gonna get this in the oven I'm gonna put it on one side because I'm actually gonna be cooking a castor roll on the other side of the rack so we're gonna put this on the left side here and this will bake for a whole hour I'm ready to dig into this Japanese fruit pie so I'm gonna cut it still a little warm on the bottom but I just can't wait I've never had one so I just now this pie had a lot of eggs in it and keep in mind it is still warm but it's cutting good even when it's warm but it's just warm right in the middle okay looks good pretty let's give it a try you can look at it on my fork you can see the raisin the pecans coconut and the eggs that it up really well so it's got a nice custard filling tastes like a it tastes like a French coconut pie with pecans in it and raisins it's really really good it's really really good I'm gonna have to make this for my daddy I can't quit eating it right the great thing about this pie for Thanksgiving or the holidays is that you can wrap it up this pie has been wrapped for three days and we've been opening it up and rewrapping it I'm gonna show you how great it looks after three days at room temperature so the great thing is that you don't have to refrigerate this pie for Thanksgiving or the holidays when you got everything else in the refrigerator I'm going to slice it and flip it upside down so that you can see that it's still nice and dry on the bottom it doesn't get soggy and it's just a great pie to make so that you don't have to have room in your refrigerator to store it and boy is it delicious thanks for watching Colored Valley Cooks where we cook like mama did y'all make a Japanese pie I think everyone will enjoy it


As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Peace be upon you and welcome. Upholting the Fatamiah's rituals and science is very important and it is incumbent upon the believer to do so. The believer must get himself ready and not just spiritually but physically as well. Firstly, spiritually by infusing oneself with knowledge concerning Lady Fatamiah, please be upon him. It is incumbent upon the believer to research, read, and listen to the merits of Lady Fatamiah, please be upon him. And to propagate her message and to show the world the oppression that she has faced from those who wore the crown of his lap and took the leadership unjustly. These obligations need not approved because they are more clear than a shining sun on a hot summer day. But we will provide to you a source. The holy messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and his family has said concerning his holy project, peace be upon them. I love those who love them and I'm at war with those who wage war against them. This narration by the holy prophet, peace be upon him and his family is a well-known famous and established report amongst the entire span of sects in Islam. Hence, we can conclude that propagating the message of Lady Fatamiah, peace be upon her is an obligation from the contextual stand of the narration of the holy prophet, peace be upon him and his family. Secondly, the physical preparation falls under our dress code, our manners, morals and ethics. It spans the entire category of one's appearance inside and out. During the Fatamiah days, the believer should wear black attire. The black attire is a Sunnah tradition of our prophet and Imam, peace be upon them. Wearing the black attire is very important because it materializes the inner feelings and propagates them to the world. When someone sees you wearing black, they will involuntary ask, what is the reason for this attire? At this point, the eyes has been broken and the conversation will flow. You will be gone to answer their questions. Hence, the black attire is seen as a prerequisite and eyes break at the main events. This Sunnah is found throughout the books of history and we learn it from our prophet and Imam, peace be upon them. As an example, we will narrate to you a report. It is reported that Imam Al-Hasan and Al-Hussein, peace be upon them, wore black attire in the city of Kufa after their father's master. We take our Imam, peace be upon them, as an example. And during these days, we wear black attire for their mother's master. Another crucial point to raise here is that during these days, we must lessen our lofty and useless conversations. If it was our mother's funeral, God forbid, but we do so, I think not, because it would be unethical and immoral to do so. It is important to add as well that our reports have told us that even the general gatherings we're in, there is no remembrance of Allah or the Holy Progeny, peace be upon them, is a useless gathering.  Let us pray to Allah that we are able to uphold the fast meant signs and rituals so that we may be able to propagate her message across the globe.  Peace be upon your father, husband, and progeny. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.


We're coming to you live from my home office, which I'm so loving, and from downtown Honolulu from the studios of Think Tech Hava'i. Today, our guest will be a chef of Aloha living the American dream. He wants to share with you that the love of food is so important if you can have that quality and to have the love of food. Today we'll be reminding you that your DNA is not your destiny. A simple lifestyle change through proper nutrition and diet can make a world of difference. And chef is working on these dishes that are not only healthy choices but also very beautiful with the colors of the rainbow. What we would like you to take away from today's show is that you are what you eat. How you take care of your body through food choices will make the difference in the world for you and for your future. And now I'd like to introduce to you Hawaii chef of Aloha, Chef Chai. Aloha chef. Aloha Wendy. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. You know, Chef Chai, I met you when you own your restaurant in the Aloha Ta'a marketplace and it was such a beautiful marketplace where you would bring the local celebrities to our tables and to our hearts every day of the week. And do you miss that? Thank you. Well, you know, I miss those days because those in the time that I have a lot of local entertainers and you know, a lot of friends and then people all overcome and enjoy the Hawaiian music and Hawaiian fusion food that I create. But you know, just like anything else, time move on and you have to move along with it. Right. And but well, what a great memory and many memories back there. And we continue on with your new restaurant. So Chai, we want to learn a little bit more about you. So tell us before coming to Honolulu, where did you come from? I grew up in Bangkok, Thailand. So grew up there after graduated and I travel around and I stopped in Honolulu. And this is my home for the last over what in 30 years now. Wow. That's a young picture boy. Wow. But looks the same. Looks the same. So Chai, but you came first to Honolulu or did you go to Kona or another island? Actually, when I first came to America, I went to New Jersey and I stayed there only for a few months and I didn't like it. And they moved to LA. I stayed only a few weeks and I don't like it. And then I have a job offer on the big island as a chef for one of the Thai restaurants. So I moved there and I stayed there about a couple of years. And then I took a vacation, came to Honolulu and then love it here. And I decided to move and that was over 30 years ago. Right. Wow. That's amazing. And so you tell us about your family. I know we have a photo of your family and your sisters and that's amazing story.  Definitely. I grew up in a big family. We have seven children, five boys and two girls. So Joy and Niki who you met before that, my oldest sister. And then I'm the youngest one. And I grew up in a restaurant business. My mom had a restaurant in Thailand. So since I was eight, nine years old, I hang out with her every day. I went to the market with her. So that's how I learned all my cooking is from her. She teach me how to pick the fruit, the vegetable, the meat. And that's what made me become who I am today. It was her. She gave me the most solid foundation. Wow. I love to hear those stories when a son or daughter follows the traditions of the family and the culture. So we just are so appreciative that you kept all those great memories. And Chai, that you let us experience Thailand here in Hawaii. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And Chai, I also know that now that you're in Hawaii, I know that you love to purchase local produce and herbs. And I know that you support a lot of the local farmers. And they're very appreciative of that because your cuisine is not only delicious, but it's also very aesthetically beautiful. And it's because of the colors of the rainbow that you're picking. You know, your herbs and all of the great things. And I know that you and your sister, Joy, have green thumbs.  Yeah. It was starting from, you know, when we moved here 30 years ago as a Thai chef, there are not many ingredients that you can find. You want to looking for a holy basil. They don't have it. You're looking for kalungal. They don't have it. Kaffir lime. You can't find anything. So we end up growing ourselves. But now the farmer is so good. They work with all the chefs, see what we need. We told them what we're looking for, what we want. And they pretty much grow anything we want. So now we grow less. But before when we first moved here, we grow everything ourselves. Wow. So basically you kind of started the farm movement from farm to table and having the fresh and best herbs and ingredients for your food. That's the secret, guys, okay? Getting it fresh from the earth. And now that he works at the local gardeners and farmers and produce suppliers, he can tell them what he needs and they'll produce it for him. And you want to use local because if you buy from mainland, it will take about three, four days just to shift forward from the mainland to here. And by then you lose a lot of nutrition. Growing in Hawaii, pig and eat, that's the best way to do it. Wow, Chai, that's amazing. I mean, that's cutting edge because everyone's kind of getting on that bandwagon now about eating fresh, healthy, locally sustainable food that we grow. And that you and the chefs here are really appreciating that and utilizing that in your menus. So we, the customers, the consumers, we appreciate that so much, Chai. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thank you.  Oh, my God. And I know that takes a lot of work because I just do this one segment and it's just you and me talking story. And it's still a lot of work, putting things together, making sure we have all the right information. But you had to do all the shopping for ingredients and the timing had to be right. So do you miss all that planning and being live on TV?  Because when I had my cooking show, I had the opportunity to go in different kitchen, work with different chefs, learn how they see criticism. And that's what my cooking technique or my ability to cook much better than when I started 30 years ago. Wow. So that's the trick of the trade, right? Just sharing knowledge amongst all of you and I'm sure that you all do that.  But you've also, as you mentioned, had the honors of working with so many different celebrities, whether you're working with them or whether you're preparing food and events and banquets around their request. I mean, I'm always amazed that you get to just rub shoulders with them and prepare such good cuisine for them. So I have a photo here with you and Robin Leach. And all we know is that he was the star's host of the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. So tell us a little bit about why you were with Robin Leach. Well, we become good friends when he visited to Hawaii. So every time when he came to Hawaii, he would stop by at the restaurant and we become a good friend. In fact, he even hosts his show, Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous in one of my restaurants, Singa Tai in Waikiki. Oh, yeah. And he showed them how to do the Thai fruit carving, the Thai dancer. But in that picture, it was me and Chef Fred DiAngelo, which we represent Hawaii to do an international star chef challenge in Las Vegas. Wow. And of course, we won first place. So we meet all other states.   And so that's why we love, love your food. So now I have a photo of you in your Capulani restaurant, your new restaurant, new of how many years, how many, how long have you been there in Ocai? Seven and a half years now. Wow. I remember you going there just waiting for you to open it up there.  I know that you were the featured chef of Hawaiian Airlines and their first class cabins, as well as some of the other foods on board. And so what were you reading? Actually, I wasn't a featured chef. I was the executive chef and it was my plan all along. I was with Hawaiian LA for about eight years. And when I joined them, they have about 2,500 employees. When I left eight years after, we have more than 5,000 employees. And all the guest chef program was my idea, who bring along different chefs too. I think why just offer me myself to the whole, because we go all over the world. So I wanted the passenger, or we call our guests to experience all other chefs, all other friends with it, how I have to offer. So it was my idea who bring in all the guest chefs. And after that, I left. Wow. That's tremendous. So I know that you had to go to a lot of the ports to just spot check and make sure that the local chefs were preparing up to your standards, which are really high. And so I know it's kind of frustrating sometimes because they're not going to be like who you are. And if there could be a chef chai in each port, that would be so incredible, but cannot, because there's only one chef chai. And fortunately, we get you home and housed here that we can just enjoy your food and that level of quality at all times. But I know you did your best while serving and working with Hawaiian Airlines. And I know I heard many, many great things about dining onboard first class style on Hawaiian Airlines. So mahalo for representing so well, chai. Oh, thank you. And same thing, working for Hawaiian Airlines also enhance my cooking ability because when we travel to Korea, we have to do a food that Korean people would enjoy, but also have to have a touch of Hawaiian there. And that's what we offer when we fly to Korea, to Japan, to Australia, to New Zealand, or to the mainland. So the food have to be complimented with where will we go. And creating the menu is one thing that if you have to understand your passenger or your guest or where you're going, you have to make the food that simple enough that 22 different kitchen can make it the same way.  Wow, that's a very big task. And you know, chai, you're so humble because you always give credit to visiting and learning from others. And so that's what your really uniqueness is. And I love that about you is that you're constantly learning and keeping up with the times and wanting to just make your customers happy. And that's why you're so successful. And I so receive that and enjoy that. So thank you, chai, thank you. Oh, thank you. And just like, you know, people change, right? Time change, you know, 30 years ago, nobody liked spicy food. Now people love spicy food. So you have to change yourself along with the scene of the food scene. The times, yeah, for sure. And then I also know that you keep very busy because if it wasn't for the situation now, I would not be able to have this interview with you because you're like, Wendy, I got to prepare for tonight and tomorrow and the next minute. You'd be like, no way. So thank you for isolation that we get to have you for 30 minutes. Oh, thank you. Yes, oh, thank you. And I know you hardly ever say no to all the different nonprofits and the fundraisers. And you're always giving back to the community by participating with many of these events. And I know that I always ask you, can I volunteer with you? I want to help serve.  Thank you. You always support the community as well. Thank you. But I just love serving side by side with you and just being part of your amazing food team. And this photo here is shown with, I believe we were at the Salvation Army. And usually you're serving up to like 600, 700 people. Is that correct? Yeah, Salvation Army, they have their annual fundraisers. So anyway, between 700 to up to 1,000 in the past. Wow. And you know, I love just coming out early with you guys because it's not like we're going to make a four family of seven or eight. You guys are preparing planes for 1,000. And I just love just the pound, pound, pound. And you're like the commando in chief officer. Just telling your staff and your army, your crew what to do. And they just perform and it just gets done and then boom, it goes out and boom, another order comes in and each course is done. And it's just such a high, an exhilarating high. And I just love working on those events with you. So thank you again for that. Also, I know that you've used your beautiful restaurant many times for fundraisers within your restaurant. And again, personally, I've used your facility, your beautiful restaurant a couple of times. And here we are with Nick Voyge.  And Nick always talks about that day and that beautiful restaurant. And he always mahalo shift chai for allowing this to happen so that we could raise such great funds for each nonprofit that we represent. So again, mahalo chai for just being so gracious. And so now that we talk about all these great things about what chai has accomplished. And now we just want to just take it back to today where we're at. You know, you've accomplished so much in your career. You supported the community like no one that I know. And I need to ask you just a few questions about this chapter in our history of COVID-19. So would you mind sharing with us chai how this situation has affected you and your business? I think this is very unexpected right at COVID-19. So people don't know how to respond. So we're all learning along. And then just like the government and anybody else. But you know, we always survive as a human. As a Christian, God will never punish us. He knows how much we can handle. And we will move along to it. And it's not simple. It's not that easy. But it's not the end. And the food will have to change the same thing. That's why I say you have to move along the time. But after this, I create a new menu. So my food will focus more on healthier, the beauty immune system. So I'm going to do a lot of red beads. I use the garlic. A lot of garlic. The food that's going to build your immune system. And if you eat good, your body is strong. Your body is strong. The virus is not going to be able to attack you. So it will go a little bit bigger. Yeah, it's very important what you eat. And to me, I think you always have to know. If I'm a diabetes, for example, then I know sugar is bad for me. I would try to avoid that kind of food. If I have a high blood pressure, if I want to eat a potato, I will go with sweet potato rather than regular potato. So you have to choose what food is good for you. It's going to mash you. So I always want to look at the positive that comes out of anything negative as such a time as this. I'll never say mahalo to COVID, but I'll say mahalo for isolation, for giving us the time to reevaluate who we are, where we are, and maybe reevaluate your business. And so that's exactly what you're doing, Chai. And I'm so excited when your door is open again to receive that new menu. Because I know your menu back in front. I know everything on your menu. And I'm just waiting for all the great new discoveries to come through. So I wanted to ask you, what technologies are you using to keep up with things right now? I know that you've got a YouTube station going and you're working on YouTube. Because like same thing, when we first start stay at home, it's a chain for a lot of people. You never have to stay home for weeks or months. So eating is very important because now I don't know why you're going to eat junk food. So I, when I was so bored and somebody asked me, can I share some recipes? So I create my YouTube channel. So if you go to my YouTube channel, I post over 10 recipes already of how to cook simple dishes that are very healthy, it's good for you, even have some sugar-free dessert. Wow. So go to my YouTube and check it out and subscribe and enjoy. And I will keep posting more and more recipes. And you know, Chai, that's so gracious of you. I know you come into your restaurant and you set up the whole set and you start cooking. I mean, that's your passion and you never let anything come between you and it. And you're there cooking, you know, probably in solitude and cooking for us and allowing us to just have that greatness of food into our bodies, even though we can't get what you cook, you're going to allow us to try it. And you know, it's not going to come out as good. I know. If you follow my recipe, it will come out because one thing, we never hold back or teaching people how to cook because I want them to enjoy.  To me, I think those kind of things I want my friend or the viewer to have that experience to share the best food with your family, with your loved one. Wow. And so now I got to ask you one more question. How do you feel about the risks of reopening? What's your steps to like, say coming up, are you just going to open? How do you feel about the risk of reopening? I think you just have to educate and teach all the employees to make sure they understand what the risk, what we need to do to make sure that the safety is, besides for themselves, is for the co-worker and their customer. And we can do, take many seats out. So, you know, like, we're just going to, we have to follow the CDC guideline that, you know, the six feet apart and all other wash your hands often. And that's very, very important. And we're probably going to wear a mask, everybody, both front and how and back of the house.  I think you have to protect yourself. Don't wait until it's too late. Right. Very good. Good advice. And I know that you've been up on things. So you're preparing. And I know you're just getting itchy, but we're getting to that part about reopening. But, you know, I just wanted to, as we mentioned, being in isolation, you took the time, you're listening to your friends about different recipes for diabetes, diabetic friendly, people that they can come and still come and enjoy your food. And I know that you've been working on some great healthy desserts because one of our viewers right now is asking me, does he have any great healthy desserts coming up? And so, Chef Chai, take it away.  But tapioca is not good for your digestion. It's high in the top also. So I use a sheer seed pudding. And I use coconut milk so they're no cream. They are no... I don't use any sugar. I use a monk fruit or stevia. So people with diabetes can enjoy. So the dish will be sugar-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, GMO-free. And it's all healthy and good for you. And I can say, you know, you are what you eat, right? So if you eat good, your body will respond. I remember when I first met you, I drink a lot of soda and you told me it's not good.  It's very hard for me when I try to cut down at all one time. Now I drink less and less and less soda and sugar. And I try to drink more of the tea and I try to drink something else.   And you know, viewers, that's exactly when I met Chai. He's not a massive vegetarian either. He did drink a lot of soda, but you know what? He said, Wendy, I'm not going to drink so much. And he's found alternatives to sugar, which are natural, like the monk fruit. And then he's really excited about it. And we have a photo of some of the desserts or a dessert that you created, the hollow, hollow dessert. And I'd like everyone to see that because I know that you're going to try to bring that onto your menu. And it's just amazing. It's again, aesthetically beautiful. And it's his take on a healthy hollow, hollow. And so when we do a program called the Shred 10, that means we can't eat processed sugar. We can't eat dairy and all of that. But I can still have hollow, hollow because it has the natural foods, the natural sugars that I can eat during that time when I'm trying to detox my body. So Chef Chai, thank you so much. And if we go back to that picture again, I know that other vegans, when they come to your dining room, Chai, I know I really promote the item on the left, the vegetarian terrine. It's beautiful. It's the rainbow. And I know a lot of my friends just love that. I know it's not the easiest thing to make, but that's why it's so delicious. Can you tell us a little bit about that, the terrine? The terrine is one of the dishes that, you know, we do a lot of catering. So often when they do a catering and when I present that dish, all the vegetarian or vegan guests, they're so appreciative. They say, every time we go to an event as a vegetarian, we only get a rice or a side dish or something. This one, we get a real meal because to me, I think people will eat with the eyes, right? And so I want to present something very beautiful. And the curry is very healthy. We use coconut milk, so they're no cream. So they're, so everything is cholesterol-free. And the ingredient in the curry, like the curry leaves and stuff, it's so good for your body and flavorful. And I think that what you have to eat is healthy. Right.  So the healthier we can eat, the better we're going to look. And as we age, we want to age gracefully and in wellness and not in sickness.  And so if you continue to drink sodas and eat naughty food from cans and processed food and processed sugar, yeah, the chance of you having what your parents had are very great. But if you know that that's the case, if you decide to eat more food like what Chef Chai is trying to produce for us, the healthier food, you know, food that he's creating from scratch, from the gardens to the table, we have a better chance of beating these diseases and these issues. So your DNA is not your destiny. Don't ever receive that and know that you have an opportunity to change that. And so Chai, I'm so really grateful that your heart is right there with all of us. And you know, here in Hawaii, we have over 600,000 diabetics.  But they know when they go, there's all going to be butters and creams and milks and, you know, all the, all the things, which are lovely, but if we can have a few selections, like, I could go to your restaurant and eat the vegetarian terrine, the pumpkin's, kapocha pumpkin soup, I could eat that, the eggplant souffle, there's a lot of great things. And I know there's more to come. And then I would top it off with the hallo, hallo, chai style. So. And one of the vegetables that I recommend to use for the people with diabetes, because you don't want to eat rice, but you still need some kind of starch or something.  And you cook it just like a pasta. Now there's no carp in there. And it's so healthy and it's good for you. That's why, to me, I think, lucky we live in a 21st century where you can go online and research what is good for you and what is not good for you. And being me, you know, before, I don't eat any vegetable and a lot of people don't. But what I, I educate myself by, I may not be able to eat spinach or broccoli, but I can eat zucchini. I can eat some other queen that have lighter in flavor, less bitter. And it's health and also eat a lot of fruit. So I think it's important that you got to eat to make sure that moderation and everything is the most important. Right.  But you know, I got to sneak in this next slide, okay? I'm so grateful. This is Mother's Day at Chai's because this has been a tradition every year, chai. My kids and I have dinner or a brunch at your place and I could not, not put this in. I stuck it in. I'm sorry. But all your favorite dishes are here. And trust me, you go to his website, look at these, this, this buffet. My friend said, Wendy, you just pick one or two of these selections. I said, no, that whole thing will be accustomed according to the portion of how many you ordering. And it's a selection. It's like going to his buffet and taking a little bit of everything, a sampler of everything is what you're going to enjoy. So chai, mahalo, mahalo for doing that and that, you know how much I love the lamb and even I'm a plant strong. I always make exceptions to have your lamb and it is the best. So I appreciate you for doing that. And I know that you're almost, you're getting close to selling out on Sunday, but on Saturday, people did an order for Mother's Day. They can get all these, the vegetarian terrine, the lamb chops and the rest of the goodies. So I think you can still take some more orders on Saturday, but call early guys because don't stress them out. You know, look good and stress. Yeah. And then also chai, I want to make sure that we put up a slide here to share with people and that your Facebook page, your YouTube channel. So go ahead and share that with us before we close. Yeah, follow us on the Instagram, on Facebook. We always share all the information, whatever specials of cooking or recipe. It's always posted in all our social media. So please enjoy. And thank you for having me. For preparing all those great meals online for us on your YouTube station. We appreciate it. I watch you. I get motivated. Then I'm like, oh, but I got to cook it. So I'm going to wait for chai to open. And as soon as you do chai, we're going to welcome you back by going and enjoying all that great food. So thank you so much chai for spending this afternoon with us. We appreciate you. We appreciate your heart and your level of integrity that you always serve us with. So mahalo to you chai for being here with us. Thank you, Wendy, for having me. And you know, thank you for all you do for the community. You've got a towel. I love it. And hopefully people appreciate and go to that direction. Yes. Thank you. Well, you're leading them there. And together, we can make this happen. Everyone taking baby steps towards taking their health back. So mahalo chai and aloha and happy Mother's Day to all the mothers. Yes, happy Mother's Day. Aloha. Aloha, everyone.


Michael Saylor created the Saylor Foundation because he had a very simple, very earnest and very bold idea. Education should be free. Rapid changes in technology are making the distribution of information faster, easier and cheaper. Increasingly, the distribution of and access to education can be universal. We've reached an inflection point where it's now cheaper to learn to read on a tablet computer than it is to learn to read on paper. More people can access mobile networks in the world that can get access to running water. So network access is greater. And as that happens, you've got this profound, disruptive, egalitarian, utilitarian tornado that's blowing through everything. If I can actually provide 12 million books for free to someone with an iPad, that means I can provide 12 million books to someone for free in the middle of a jungle of Burma. If I can automate education or project it, then maybe people that don't live in the first world can get just as educated as people that do. The question is no longer, does the need exist? The question is content. The question is form. The question is distribution. Countless providers of open content from the humble teacher to the most venerable institutions are opening the doors. Sailors harnessing technology to deliver free education around the world, pushing the open education movement forward and creating greater access to these resources. I believe that open education is important because not everybody has access to the traditional higher education system, whether that's because of financial reasons or whether that's simply because of location. To have this access to an open educational resource like Sailor provides really new opportunities for students who might otherwise have been excluded from the higher educational system. I think having the ability to log on from anywhere in the world with Internet Connection and look at resources that are vetted by experts, that are assembled by experts, and that are trustworthy is really just an ideal way for these students to gain that level of education that they might otherwise be excluded from. Access to the Internet is outpacing access to higher education in the United States and abroad, but would-be students shouldn't have to drink from the fire hose of free information. We've called upon college educators, discipline experts, to help us discover, vet, and organize the very best of what's around. Our contribution is, in a word, design, the transformative marriage of form and content. We unite superb learning materials with well-wrought courses. The product is a portal to substantive, scaffolded, asynchronous education for a few hours, a few years, or a lifetime. Let's take a closer look at how Sailor is curating, developing, and distributing free education. On our homepage, we list our areas of study, including a general education program and 12 complete academic majors. Art history, biology, business administration, chemistry, computer science, economics, English literature, history, mathematics, mechanical engineering, political science, and psychology. As an example of how our full courses of study are laid out for the students to work through, let's consider the history major. Selecting the link for history brings up a description with detailed instructions on how to proceed, followed by a roster of courses designed to capture the range offered in a typical college catalog. The history major within the Sailor curriculum is similar in some ways, but also differs in some ways from your typical university or college curriculum. Where it's similar, of course, is that each course replicates roughly a 15-week semester course that you would have at a college or university. The materials are very similar readings as well as analytical materials, and that allows the student to achieve that same level of understanding that they would in a typical college or university classroom. And we also, in the course structure itself, we offer all the same basic courses that you would have to take in a history major at a college or university, a basic world history curriculum, U.S. history, or Latin American history, or even Asian history. Where we differ to is that we offer a diverse range of courses that might not typically be taught at a university. It's certainly not every semester. We offer some courses that we were really excited to put together, but that would be courses that a professor might teach perhaps once in four years. And so the way we structured it is that we have these unique courses that are always on and they're always available to anyone who has access to the website. I think offering these diverse courses really gives the student a much broader and deeper knowledge of history. Once a course outline is created, our professor consultants search for and vet open education materials for various content creators in the higher-ed landscape, matching content and form to build a dynamic learning environment for students. For example, in History 104 Historical Methodology, the art and craft of the historian, our professor consultant, Dr. Benjamin Schwantis, has incorporated a wonderful openly licensed lecture from MIT, a seminar in historical methods by Professor Ann McCants. While this lecture has tremendous worth on its own, the value is added by placing it in a larger structured learning context, among other materials. Similarly, in History 201, the history of Europe from 1,000 to 1800, our professor consultant has decided to include an openly licensed Yale lecture, the Enlightenment and the Public Sphere, by Professor John Merriman. Again, a great lecture, but now it is connected to a larger learning landscape that students can access in one place, sailor.org. To see how all these fantastic OER materials are connected and incorporated into the sailor structure, let's examine a course, say History 212. Clicking on its link brings up a page with a short introduction. Just below that, the student will find the course overview, everything he or she needs to read, watch, listen to, click on, and learn. While we're here, it is important to note that each course is designed to provide a student with the same level of information contained in a traditional college classroom setting. We've listed time advisories for each unit to let students know how long it should take them to work through the materials. We also list learning outcomes to highlight specific lessons students can take away by successfully completing a course. The time advisories and learning outcomes are designed to help students navigate the asynchronous learning environment. Furthermore, our materials are placed in sequence. Clicking the first resource uncovers a link to the material and some brief instructions. When finished, the student can move on to the next resource working at his or her preferred pace. As in all our courses, the consultants first look to open education materials for resources to incorporate into the learning experience. For example, Professor Schwantis has included a reading assignment from a public domain American History book published online by the U.S. State Department. Our professor consultants work hard to find high quality open educational resources from a variety of providers. When they don't find something that meets our needs or standards, we find high quality copyrighted material available freely on the Internet. Then our permissions team reaches out to copyright holders to simply ask for the rights to host or re-license those resources, such as this presentation on the history of slave trade routes. We now host over 1,000 high quality educational resources from this process. We first look to existing OER materials and are pleased with a positive response to our permissions initiative. We also have examples of open education content created specifically for sailor.org by our professor consultants. In History 2012, American Civil War to the present, I developed a series of lectures that complemented the reading materials from each unit of the course. And I used the resources such as recording tools, Microsoft Paint, a drawing pad to create these online blackboard lectures that would help engage the students, showing them images, writing key terms or perhaps key descriptions on the board. And I say board, I mean literally the screen of the computer, as I would go along and present perhaps a 15 or 20-minute lecture. And these lectures are tools that are, as I said, complement the readings for each unit and give that student a broader, more engaging experience of having a professor sort of help analyze or help explain kind of the highlights of the materials. And so in most cases a student might want to listen to the lecture first and sort of gain a better understanding of the highlights and then engage in the readings, or I'm sure some students could approach it just the opposite, could do the readings and then listen to the lecture in order to sort of confirm or explain to the materials that perhaps they didn't quite understand in the readings themselves. Let's turn to these types of lectures which are distributed under Creative Commons Attribution or CC By license. In a number of our courses, our professor consultants have created original OER materials, such as readings, assignments, and assessments to help the students measure progress along the way. For example, in History 101 Ancient Civilizations of the World, our professor, Dr. Konchi-San's Canberra, created a reading titled, Society and Religion to supplement existing OER materials and made the reading available under a CC By license. An example of sailor-created course assignments can be found in History 102 Early Globalizations. For this course, our professor consultant, Dr. Dean Costin-Terras, has created reading questions for most of the course units along with answer guides to allow students to check their work. These materials are also made available to the larger educational community via a CC By license. Each course culminates with a final exam administered through the open-source learning management system Moodle, where the student can obtain a certificate of successful completion. We believe that our course wear is truly high quality, but how can we be so sure? It's all very well to ask a highly qualified professor consultant to build a course and select its resources. But we're taking an extra step and have committed to engaging additional professor consultants in peer-reviewing all of our courses to ensure that we're doing the very best we can. When we are peer-reviewing a course, the first thing we look for is accuracy. We want to make sure that when we send a student to a website, we want to make sure that everything on that website is right, because the internet is a blackboard that when you put something on it, it never goes away. So if you're going to do it, the sailor foundation always wants to make sure that it's done right. So having experienced designing courses not only at sailor, but also at a traditional accredited institution. The best part of that is that it's not only just on you, but eventually your courses at sailor get peer-reviewed, which is something I never had the opportunity to have at a traditional accredited institution. So at sailor, now you have people that do teach at other universities and institutions looking at what you're doing and commenting and giving you feedback. So in some ways, it's almost even a better process. Now that we've explained how we develop our courses and looked at some ways students can utilize the resources on sailor.org, we'd like to share a little about some new projects, student e-portfolios, and the Media Library. We're developing an e-portfolio system to help students track their progress. With this tool, students can declare a major, enroll in courses, view their transcript, and access their earned badges. They'll also connect with other learners around the world, sharing resources, asking and answering questions, and building networks. While portfolios will allow students to stay on top of their course progress and grades, our forthcoming Media Library will organize every resource from our courseware into a fully searchable, robust database, open to the whole world. The future is bright for open education, which we think translates to a bright future for hungry learners. The question is, how far can we go? OER can go really as far as people's imaginations. I think education is absolutely a right. I think that everyone can learn. Everyone does learn to whatever extent they're capable. And I think the more and more you make it accessible to people, the more they'll learn and the better lives they'll have. We agree the sky is the limit. We look forward to working with the OER community to help further connect the dots and pave the way for students to obtain quality education at zero cost.


2030, I envision a Wikipedia that is inclusive, that is gender-balanced and that is locally relevant. I see that with the increasing automation and growth in technologies like OCR, speech-to-text, artificial intelligence, the very basis of the movement that is the collectivism would be disrupted in a massive way. 70 countries are coming together to learn, to work and celebrate how big and diverse an international movement we are. The Wikimedia conference gathers a lot of people who are involved in planning, strategic meetings and things like that to build bridges between different user groups and affiliates and it brings us all together to exchange ideas and to think strategically about the movement or our movement where we are heading. My wish is that we will be successful in this process and we can actually have people on board the whole way and actually have this inclusive strategy that we are dreaming of for the whole movement. Movement strategy update now. It's time for them. Hello. Hello. Ah, yes. Okay. So last time I stood in front of you, we were here in process planning. There was a board meeting in November in which the board said this seems like a good way to move forward and now we are here at the end of, it's February, right? At the end of February with Wikimedia coming up, annual planning in the works. We've been having a lot of conversations with folks here in this room, with folks in our community and ultimately come to a few goals for movement strategy and I just want to review those quickly. Identify a cohesive or coherent direction that aligns us all and inspires us around what it is that we might do. We trust goodwill and alignment within our movement. Part of the outcome is the process itself. Better understanding the people and institutions that make up our movement. Build a shared understanding of what it means to be a movement. Building relationships that expand and enrich our movement over time. Today I'm going to talk to you about something very exciting that has been happening for the past months. We have been incorporating new voices to the conversation and by new voices we mean experts, we mean thought leaders, we mean partners, we mean allies. But the most exciting part is that a lot of affiliates across the globe are also engaging in this process and they're organizing their own events. So far we've had events in Chile, in Cote d'Ivoire, in Poland. This is the consensus findings that we have to date. Wikimedia should be an influencer in shaping world policy for access to knowledge. Inclusivity and new representation can be only forged on lower barriers to entry. As learning platforms evolve, we need to think beyond encyclopedia. Knowledge sharing is highly social. Privacy and anonymity are still relevant. There's something that you could say about... It doesn't matter if we don't all understand. But why are you here in Ukraine? I didn't understand anything. And in English? I was invited here. We also have a big agenda. We have a lot of ideas. It means that Wikimedia can find almost everything you want to know about the world. To bring more educational resources, more educational networks to collaborate with Wikimedia and its projects. Most of the time there is this issue that Africans don't get a chance to see their own story. My ambition has always been to get more content around Ghana and Africa on Wikimedia and make it accessible to the world. It's also my wish that in the near future we can successfully make every Wikimedia feel less alone. I would like to see more people involved from different regions in different continents and different contributors because at the very end we are all human beings and we have knowledge that has to be shared. Get all the content from all the societies, all the communities in the world. Make Wikimedia a truly global knowledge resource.