Welcome back to War Economy and State. This is the Mises Institute's foreign policy podcast. I'm Ryan MacMacon, executive editor with the Mises Institute. And joining me as always for this podcast is Zachary Yoast, one of our preferred foreign policy writers and just general experts, especially on Eastern Asia, which is why I bring them in because I know so little about Eastern Asia. So we're trying to give you a good, well-informed, well-rounded view of a variety of different regions through this podcast. But this time we're going to look a bit more at domestic politics. And I think we're just going to start off with talking about the debate from last week, the GOP debate up in Wisconsin.  I think they are mostly for performance. It's really about candidates saying all the things they'll do.  That never seems to get applause. And also the people in the audience are always like big time GOP donors and activists. And there's absolutely nothing normal about the people who sit in that audience. So all the applause is always BS. And I'm always reminded of how Ron Paul once, when he was being criticized for his anti-war positions, noted that Jesus, one of his titles was the Prince of Peace, for which he was soundly booed by the Republican audience. So that's the quality of people that go to these things. But nevertheless, the debate can be useful for drawing out some of the opinions of some of these candidates. And so I think we're just going to go through and and rank these candidates on less bad to absolutely horrendous. I think maybe we'll be the scale we will use. And Trump wasn't here, of course, at that debate. So we'll kind of have to talk about him a little bit separately. But just looking at my general impressions of the debate, I'll just come right out and say I thought that the least bad was Vivek Ramaswamy. And then behind him, not as good was Ron DeSantis. And then everyone else was was terrible. And probably the most despicable of all was Mike Pence, who's just horrible on every level. I mean, the guy just oozes slime. That was my general idea of these candidates. And three topics really came up during the debate, which was Ukraine and US support for Ukraine, monetary and military. The general attitude toward China came up. There weren't a lot of specifics about Taiwan policy discussed. But nevertheless, you get an idea from the candidates as to how much do they think the United States should antagonize China. And then the other issue was and this often isn't regarded as foreign policy, but it is was the the topic of military action in Mexico, where DeSantis, for example, was saying, yep, now we're going to launch missiles into Mexico. We're going to do all sorts of military intervention to to cut back on immigration and drug imports and all that sort of thing. And so that I think is an important issue as well. Yet again, the the American tradition of humanitarian interventions, which is, as I'm sure how that would be phrased, another stunning success, I'm sure it will be the latest humanitarian intervention. If that is pursued, so we'll just talk out generally here. And then I think we'll we'll we'll go into some of the details about why we rank these people this way. And so, Zach, what were what were your general impressions of these candidates and like, you know, from least bad to horrendous? Yeah, I was exactly the same as you, Vivek DeSantis. I'm not sure if I'd say Pence was the worst or Nikki Haley. They were both quite horrible, but that's the only area I differ. Yeah, that was my general impression. I'm I'm actually quite stunned at the stances Vivek has taken publicly, not only in the debate, but before that at his big foreign policy speech at the Nixon Library about the I think it was the Thursday before the debate where I had not to pay attention to him at all until someone I know said, Oh, Vivek is giving this speech on the Newman Road doctrine, which is the audience might recall, we did a episode on and I wrote a paper for the Libertarian Scholars Conference. So I was like, Oh, well, this could be good. And at the at that talk, he was I mean, he was on fire. I couldn't believe it. I mean, with politicians, it's always pandering.  But the way I frame it is you don't need the prostitute to love you. You just need the prostitute to be good at pretending that they love you. And that's how I view politicians. And it's nice to be pandered to for once, you know. And and I think Vivek is doing a lot of pandering on Ron Paul's birthday. He was like, happy birthday, Ron Paul, we need to complete your revolution. I don't know to what degree he's a true Ron Paul fan, but it's encouraging when politicians think they need to say those sorts of things to you. So I'm excited to see what happens there. And there are some other changes in the GOP. I'm sure we'll talk about that, I think, his rhetoric reflects. Well, speaking more generally on these, just who are you going to pander to and when and why, though Bishop had an article last week, right, on as a follow up to the debate and looking at, OK, well, knowing that the Trump wing of the rank and file in the party is not something you can ignore, are you going to pander to it or not? And so it's clear that Vivek wants to capture that part of the party rank and file and he's better than Trump on foreign policy. And clearly he's trying to hit all of those same positions in one way or another. And that's what, though, noted in this article in that those top candidates are people who at least have something Trumpian about them. Ron DeSantis is the same way. And Ramaswamy is actually better than DeSantis, I think it had kind of hidden those those Trump positions and doing so in a convincing way. And that may just be due to the fact that Ramaswamy doesn't have really a political history and he doesn't have loyalties to any existing power structure and things like that. I mean, don't forget that Ron DeSantis was a Guantanamo prosecutor, basically, and so the guy's certainly not guilt free in terms of his involvement in the police state and the spy state and the war on terror and all of that. But looking at that, then, yeah, you can see how some people are seeing there is real value toward positioning themselves as the Trump type candidate and you're really seeing that, I think, in terms of foreign policy and Glenn Greenwald a few days ago had some similar comments on when he was on a podcast talking about, hey, look, all the top candidates, there are these people who are expressing anti imperial views for the most part. And they're, of course, then being horribly attacked by the mainstream GOP establishment on that, which is again, who is mostly actually at the debate. And so it is just very interesting to see the positions that they're taking, that there is actually a debate within the party. Now, how much of an honest debate it is? I mean, how would that translate into real changes? If someone took office, it does make a bit of a difference, I think. As you said, right, if you have someone who's going into office and he has decided that the governing coalition he wants to have, that is, where is he going to draw his support from? And he's going to have to draw support from then people who he promised to have less crazed and aggressive foreign policy. If that's what you have decided is going to be part of your message, it's going to be difficult to completely abandon that. That doesn't mean he wouldn't then the CIA comes in and sits him down and says, well, you can't just leave Ukraine. You have to do X, Y, Z. I could see, obviously, Ramaswamy caving on that to some extent. But he would come back and say, well, I can't totally cave. I have to give my constituents that I promised something in this side of the bargain. So then you've got a slight scale back then in Ukraine aggression. Whereas if you had Mike Pence or Nikki Haley in there, they'd be like, yep, I always promise to just escalate the war in Ukraine. Thank goodness the CIA is here to give me additional reason to do so. And then you're going in entirely the opposite direction. There's no sort of compromise on the part of the national security state whatsoever that they're being forced into. So yeah, you do want a candidate that you force into a box who feels like he's got to make some concessions and promises in a more anti-imperialist direction. And so that's good. It's always important to not declare any of these candidates to be your friend and trustworthy or anything like that. The whole point is to make them afraid to double cross you and make it clear that, OK, we'll give you our support, but we expect you to actually do something. And that's that's the whole. That's how a democratic public is supposed to function. It's supposed to punish politicians who don't do what they say does a very bad job of that. But nevertheless, that's the dynamic we should be hoping for is that we can force some of these people to actually embrace slightly more sane foreign policy just because they're afraid that they would lose their support and money because of it, whereas some people decided, oh, screw Trump, hate him, don't want to have that as any part of my governing coalition. So there's your Haley and your Pence and probably your Christy candidates there. And that's that's how it's going to go moving forward. And we didn't really say where Trump was in our rankings, by the way. But I should note that I think Ramiswamy is way better than Trump in terms of he's far less ambiguous about the sorts of things he's willing to say about foreign policy, whereas Trump. I don't know if Ramiswamy said anything about Iran, but Trump, of course, so bad on Iran and on China and just likes aggressiveness in general, as long as that's his stance. And then, of course, Trump was just embarrassing himself with the way he was slobbering all over the dictators of Saudi Arabia when he went there. So he's got lots of bad stuff in terms of his foreign policy. Whereas if you could if you could really get Ramiswamy repeatedly on the record, making the source of promises, I think that would that would be good. But DeSantis isn't going to go as far in that direction, but he would certainly be an improvement over Biden or any of the Republicans other than maybe Trump or Ramiswamy. Right. So two two points. One is that your spot on on whoever gets in the White House is going to have a huge bureaucratic machine working against them if they want to change foreign policy. And that's what I loved about Vivek's rhetoric so far in foreign policy is he has staked out of you so far in my direction that even if he only got a quarter of it done, it would be a huge improvement is my sort of view. So he's he's so far in what I view as my direction that he can't wiggle out of it unless he's just, you know, going to lie. On DeSantis, just to be clear, why I was displeased with his performance when they finally got around to talking about Ukraine, which is right around the hour mark, they said, raise your hand if you want to stop sending aid to Ukraine. Vivek raised his hand and DeSantis sort of waved his hand around and talked and then Brett Bear was like, so to be clear, what are you saying, basically? Do you want to stop the aid? And DeSantis did not say I want to stop the aid. He said our aid has to be contingent on Europe stepping up. So that's a very different position. And we have a perfect track record of letting the Europeans free ride all over us. And I have, I mean, I think so has mentioned this in the past.  But his rhetoric in public and how he was, he took a strong stance against Ukraine, then he walked it back. That is not going to fly, given the institutional problems in the national security state. You need someone who's unambiguously has a clear vision to fight against this bureaucracy. And I don't even, I mean, it's not like that would be an easy fight. So that's why I was very disappointed in DeSantis on that. Yeah, yeah, that's an important distinction to make. And yeah, he clearly your interpretation. I mean, I don't think you're like exaggerating anything, right? He literally just kind of like sort of tenuously put his hand up when asked if they were opposed to further aid to Ukraine, or as Vivek just threw his hand up, basically.  And so Vivek again is better than Trump on that, just simply by saying, what are we doing here? It doesn't serve our purposes. Yes, he explicitly said Ukraine is not a priority for the U.S. Yeah, I was a true statement. Yes. And yeah, to go back to Trump, Trump appointed Nikki Haley to the U.N. Nikki Haley, who during this debate said that, quote, the U.S. needs Israel more than Israel needs the U.S. And of course, he also appointed John Bolton to his administration. So Trump has a horrible track record when it comes to personnel. I mean, literally there is that low level administration staffer writing anonymous op-eds in the New York Times saying, you know, we're working to undermine Trump from within the administration. So Trump has horrible judgment when it comes to staffing. And I mean, right at the end, it seemed that someone woke up to this fact and they started making better decisions that the Colonel Douglas McGregor, they're like, get us out of Afghanistan. And they nominated my former boss, Will Ruger, very good strainer realist to be ambassador to Afghanistan. For the purpose of getting us out. And but that was too little, too late. And Trump has now in an interview said basically has like three ideas for his VP. One is Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota. One is Henry McMaster, the governor of South Carolina. And the other is Vivek. Vivek is very different from Kristi Noem and McMaster, who are sort of run-of-the-mill status quo neocons. So again, it's like, where is Trump coming from? What is he doing?  And I mean, things he says like, how in the Ukraine war in a day? Nonsense. Not going to happen. I mean, no matter how good of a deal maker you are, there's not really much of a deal that can be cut currently. So, yeah, I now when it gets into the actual practical politics, I'm not too optimistic. Vivek can win the primary. But I mean, people have said from the beginning, it almost seems that he's running for a spot in the Trump administration, whether that's VP or something else. And VP could be great, because who knows where Trump's going to be. But also Treasury Secretary, the Secretary of the Treasury is automatically on the National Security Council. So that could be potentially encouraging as well. Yeah. And I think another, as you talked about with those fees, just this shift in the GOP, where there is this constituent, someone feels the need to talk to. And I think one of the most sort of groundbreaking shifts in this is that heritage has been lost to the Neocons, the Heritage Foundation, which was always Neocon Central. The former head of foreign policy at heritage is now at the Hudson Institute, which as some restrainers say, is just a front for laundering foreign money into the United States. See, he's now at Hudson, and I mean, he wrote this like white paper, basically saying we need to break Russia up. And this is crazy. Also, he's British. I don't know if he's an American citizen or not either. But I would say there's this ground shift and their new president, Kevin Roberts, has been quite active on Twitter on the Ukraine issue. And they've had some faux pas, some sort of cringe things, like comparing the Hawaii wildfires to Kiev and things like that.  But Kevin Roberts's Twitter, which he now follows me, by the way, after I dropped a piece I wrote that came out in the in Lon Liberty, which is Liberty Fund's publication. Someone there had wrote a piece saying that all of the arguments against further aid to Ukraine are feeble. And I wrote a 2000 word essay arguing, you know, that's not the case. And here's why. So I think it's good that Roberts thought my argument apparently was good enough to follow me back on Twitter. I mean, I'm not exactly in any way a neocon. So I think that's an encouraging sign. And there was also, I don't remember if it was in Politico or where it was, but basically talking about how Heritage has been working super closely with DeSantis to the extent that the DeSantis campaign has like heritage people like gives them access to like speeches that DeSantis is going to give. And he they are apparently the ones pushing him on Ukraine to be more, you know, in the vexed direction. So and I did not see it, but I read that it would be happening. During the debate, this Bill Kristol aligned group put out this ad of all these sort of people, the youngest of which was not below 55, saying how they support continued aid to Ukraine. And Heritage, I didn't see the ad. I don't know if I missed it or if it didn't play on what I was watching. But arguing against that. So I think that's so encouraging. And it's also there's on the subject of this divide.  And I was quite astounded when I learned that some blue collar people I know loved Vivek Irene. I mean, Vivek is not a Christian. He is a Hindu and he is brown. And, you know, I was quite surprised that people I know were saying he is the spoke the most sense. I mean, these are very pro-Trump people. And Vivek is very says pro things about Trump. But they said he was speaking the most sense of anyone up there. So I think that's encouraging because I've seen people say, oh, Vivek, he's brown and not Christian. He there's no way he's going to get anywhere. And I was like, I've seen it firsthand. That's not the case. So I think that Vivek's position is the future. And actually, one of the clearest parts in the divide where that divide became clear was when Pence was like, everything's fine in America. All the American people are great and virtuous. It's just a government that's bad. Everything else is great. And Vivek is like, we're living in a dark time. We need major reforms. Things are not all hunky-dory. That is entirely how I suspect everyone under 55 views the current situation, whereas Pence and Nikki Haley and Chris Christie are living in like 2003 neocon fever dreamland. Also, this is just too good to pass up. Chris Christie did go to Kiev and meet with Zelensky. And it didn't get brought up in the debate, but Chris Christie literally gave Zelensky a handwritten copy of the lyrics of shoot, what's it called? Keep on believing or whatever it is by Bon Jovi. That's, you know, we've talked so much about how the U.S. arsenals are depleted. That's what we're reduced to aiding Ukraine with is handwritten Bon Jovi lyrics, so. Well, of course, that whole everything is fine in America thing. That's so the old tired kind of Reagan era. America is the greatest country in the world. And how dare you criticize it? And we should just be making America greater. And this sort of like pro status quo thing, which is really weird and which I can't imagine resonates, as you say, with anyone under the age of 55 in the United States.  There's a lot of people not doing so great. So of course, Pence was wealthy. Things things are fine. And this is an old tactic to like in debates is you're up there just criticizing America. I, for one, think America is a great country. And you're just sitting up here trying to demoralize people and tell people that America is bad. Just a nonsensical sort of thing that often gets brought up, especially if you criticize the economy. I've had that leveled at me in my last job when I would give presentations as an economist and I would note problems with the economy. And then there'd always be some like local government, Republican hack talking about how, well, I love America and I think the economy is fine. So it's some sort of delusional thing that they engage in. It's quite Soviet, actually.   Right, well, that was a formal Nazi crime, was demoralizing the troops by criticizing any military action. So yeah, you got to accentuate the positive at all times, which by the way, as some research about World War II has shown, was basically a de facto slogan during World War II, was you weren't allowed to criticize the war effort at all. You had to accentuate the positive. So the old timers on the debate side of this clearly think that's a thing. And all that needs to be done is like some minor chipping around the edges. And you notice this also, we've talked about this in the past about how when you're a true foreign policy hawk, you never have to prioritize anything that there's always room for another war, always room for more military spending. And that was a point that Pence made in his comments with Tucker Carlson, where he's like, well, we can also, we can both fix all the cities and fix drug problems and make everybody's life better and also wage more war in Eurasia. We don't need to choose. And Nikki Haley said the exact same thing here too, is that, yep, we can do all these wonderful domestic things and then also fight a huge war in Ukraine. And so it's just never ever suggest to me that there are priorities and that there are limits to the power of the American state. We can always do both and everything all at once, all the time, and cost is no object. So that's clearly the neocon, the financial position on things. And as you note about some of the debate going on inside the party, going back to Kevin Roberts there at the Heritage Foundation, this was discussed a bit in Foreign Policy Magazine in a recent article talking about this divide in the party. And he noted that there was actually something of a divide within the Heritage Foundation itself between its foreign policy people and the top leadership, specifically Kevin Roberts. And he noted that Roberts had written an article and op-ed in The Hill, as he phrased it, Roberts blasted members of Congress for prioritizing Ukraine's aid over the hurricane disaster relief, unquote. And I mean, it wasn't that terribly that specific. What he was saying was that this obsession with Ukraine is just really betrays the ruling classes disregard for the American domestic situation, which several people have made that point. And it seems like a plausible point. But the way the author of the foreign policy piece phrased it is that he comes back and he says, well, more mainstream conservative voices believe that Roberts is wrong. And Ramaswami, of course, is completely wrong. Well, it's kind of a weird thing to say is that the head of the Heritage Foundation isn't the mainstream, doesn't count as the mainstream. Yeah. I mean, it's the definition of the establishment. Exactly. On the right, and do you see? And so then this reporter then goes and he quotes a former admiral named Mark Montgomery with this hardcore neocon organization called Foundation for Defensive Democracies. And so then he quotes Montgomery several times saying then, well, really, anybody can see that democracy is under threat and this is the red line that we have to establish in Ukraine, blah, blah, blah. So even this supposed reporter who I looked up his bio and he didn't have any particular background and GOP foreign policy or anything like that. But he's choosing a side here and saying, oh, yeah, well, the warmonger position is the mainstream GOP position and anyone like Roberts or Ramaswami who questions it is clearly the fringe position. Now I would agree Ramaswami's clearly a fringe position when you're looking at the last 25 years of US foreign policy but it's a fringe position that clearly resonates as you've noted with a large portion of the rank and file. If it didn't resonate, then Trump wouldn't have been doing perfectly fine with that constituency while having a restrictionist, a restraint based foreign policy. At least in rhetoric. Yes, and I mean you could always point out that it could have been worse all along but as some people have pointed out, Biden is actually just carrying forward Trump's foreign policy that there haven't actually been any major changes there. So apparently the Dems are okay with Trumpian foreign policy. So I agree, anything in the direction of what Ramaswami is saying would be a significant departure from the status quo and you're gonna see huge pushback from people like Montgomery and just the huge network of neocon foundations in Washington. But the fact that someone from the Heritage Foundation would even venture the idea of criticizing about Ukraine spending at all and then you've got two guys up there taking a better position compared to of course what has been the traditional Bushian position for the last 25 years. I mean, that's a little bit of progress but I think I would only allow myself some actual optimism if Ramaswami actually got the nomination and did quite well or managed to show some real popularity. So I'm gonna wait and see if Nikki Haley's poll numbers get worse and worse, they actually took a slight, like a two point bump or something after this which really doesn't mean anything. But if she fades into the background as I expect Pence to do then it could really be to end up with three or four guys who are realizing that they can't just be total hawks all the time and expect the nomination. So we'll see how that goes. Right, yeah. I've already, I mean, it's unfortunate but I've already seen Vivek doing a little back peddling on the issue of China and Taiwan. I was static during his Nixon library speech because he basically was like, we're gonna retrench from Asia. And I mean, some of the specifics of his various plans, I'm not sure how feasible they are but this is an election where people say crazy things. But he was like, we're going to get rid of strategic ambiguity and we're going to say, we're going to defend Taiwan until 2029 after which all of the chips will be manufactured in America. And then we're going to say, we want to defend Taiwan basically. I was like, oh, this is great news. I definitely take that deal. We're gonna retrench from Asia. I mean, this sounds amazing. And you use the, everyone over there needs to step up to contain China. Well, then on Twitter, he was like, we'll go back to strategic ambiguity after 2029. I'm like, well, that's not as good but all of his rhetoric of, you know, Taiwan needs to defend itself. I mean, that's entirely in line with my views. I mean, I wrote a white paper on how that could happen. And he also got some flack in the media for like, we need to open an NRA office in Taiwan.  But I think that's actually entirely, I mean, it's not exactly the cornerstone of what American policy should be but I think it's quite true. We can look at sort of three different examples of countries in history resisting invasion and or deterring invasion via sort of the armed people's movement, basically. We have Switzerland and World War II, which we've talked about, which I mean, they were psychotic in their level of arming the people.   And it worked. Switzerland successfully deterred the Nazis, the Axis invading. The other example is the home army in the UK during World War II, which was an entirely sort of self. It was a groundswell movement of the basically, old people too old to fight and people too young to fight, basically wanting to arm themselves in preparation for the Germans invading. It went, I think it was like over 1.4 million people strong and Churchill sort of embraced it for political reasons of like, look at all these people, we better, you know, make them happy. I mean, there was a huge sort of popular led movement. And then we can contrast that with the Volkssturm, I think it was called, which was the Nazi movements to arm the people to resist the Soviets.  There's a book on that by a blanking on his name, but he's done that the independent Institute, he's done a whole bunch of work on gun control in Nazi Germany, gun control and occupied France, all sorts of stuff.  Then it's like, oh shoot, we're being crushed by this ginormous Soviet army. So they were just arming the Volkssturm.  I mean, I think it's actually, I'm unknown how many casualties the Volkssturm had, but it was enormous, especially in places like Prussia, where, I mean, those were Germans who lived there for hundreds and hundreds of years.  So I think we can see, where's Taiwan look like? Taiwan does not look like Switzerland. And it certainly doesn't look like the UK in terms of having this mass popular support to resist the invasion. I mean, in polls they say they want to, but in reality, their draft is a joke. There's this Wall Street Journal piece, I think in 2021, where they were like, people were interviewed in their reservists in their tiny amount of training. They're like, I spent all day moving tires around raking leaves or watching American war movies, you know? So I think the vague spot on to point that out, that culturally, is Taiwan prepared to defend itself? I'm increasingly doubtful. Yeah, I don't see why that's such a crazy idea is to do. If, how has this not always been a typical instrument of foreign policy is, well, in exchange for all the money and freebies we give you, we're also going to try and influence you in terms of your own views. And use our own soft power or maybe to get you to be more like us. It's now, of course, being a non-interventionist, I'm just generally against spending money on Taiwan. However, I just don't see how it's any worse to try and convince them that they should arm themselves. It's just anything that's just out of the norm is just condemned by the GOP establishment is just crazy. And that's the other thing. Taiwan, at least until now, has been buying weapons. I mean, we give away tens of billions of dollars in military aid every year. But including to Egypt, we give them like $4 billion a year and they're like trying to sell 40,000 rockets to Russia. But Taiwan at least buys its weapons. And I mean, there's dispute about like, oh, you want to sell weapons to Taiwan? What are you, a neocon? I think it's good to sell weapons to Taiwan. And much, it's definitely at least an improvement over just handing out pallets of cash. So people can, I mean, really it's like credits. Here's a Northrop Grumman credit to buy stuff from our lobbyists who are entirely captured us. That was another great line from Vivek when he told Nikki Haley, oh, you're going to be on the board of Northrop Grumman or whoever. Which also apparently she was like next to bankrupt like in like 2018 or so. And after she left the Trump administration, now she's declared millions and millions of dollars in assets giving, you know, $100,000 speeches or whatever to these interest groups. So, which I mean, it's just really it's open bribery. These have seen- Yeah, it's clear where she comes down on that. And that's who her friends are is the Pentagon, the weapons industry. That's just so much of her career has been based around that. And so it's no surprise then that she's a China hawk. Pence, of course, is Christie. It's all just the same old stuff. We got to fight them over there. We're going to fight them in the streets of San Francisco sort of thing. Well, they say that by Ukraine also. Oh my goodness, yes, I wrote that down. Chris Christie said, we will be next when he's listing off all these Russian war crimes. And Pence said that we have to fight them over there. So we don't have to fight them over here. I mean, the most absurd, clueless. I mean, I can't wait until these dinosaurs are extinct when it comes to running US foreign policy. Cause these are just absurd canards that are so detached from America's security.  And I eagerly await the day that happens. Well, you know, if I'd been there, I would have asked, please detail for us how exactly this Russian invasion of North America would take place. Tell me where the boats are that they would use for this. Tell me the airplanes that they would fly to North America to bomb Americans without us noticing that they were approaching by the way. It seems like you would have to, to get that sorts of troops necessary to North America, it would have to be like something like the Dunkirk evacuation in reverse. Right? We're gonna load a bunch of Russians on fishing boats and some cargo vessels and sail them across the Atlantic and, or I guess maybe to Alaska from Northeastern Russia. Shotco. Hey, they conquered the Aleutian Islands.  And part of it is like in the popular imagination, Russia's always invading the US. I mean, there's several popular video games. I can't remember what the one is called. It was fun, but it was basically so absurd. It was the Soviet Union is collapsing in the mid-80s. So they launched this enormous war that would not be feasible at all to try and shore up the collapse and they invade Western Europe. They have an amphibious landing in Southern France and all these cargo ships randomly show up in Seattle Harbor.  And then modern warfare two called duty modern warfare two. They, this spy satellite falls and so they're able to hack into the US spy satellites. And so they don't realize there's this massive Russian armada and there's like an aerial assault on Washington, DC.  Also North Korea invading was the premise of the remake of Red Dawn. And it's just like, these are fun things to imagine. But I think people take them a little too seriously because like being anywhere within the realm of possibility.  We have nuclear weapons that could be used at the entire multi-thousand mile journey across either ocean. I mean, it's just... That's not a 40 minute voyage across the Pacific Ocean in case anyone was aware of that. Yes, but it resonates with this audience, I guess, with the GOP. It's just astounding the sorts of claims that they make. And I just hope you're right. I mean, I hope that people are just starting to see the ludicrousness of it, just the paranoia of it. But boy, is it not dying a fast enough death for me. Now, of course at some point realities are gonna take over, right? You can't just keep printing up trillions of dollars to fight more wars and just hope that you don't get a huge inflation hit. You can't just keep doing that and hope you have all the personnel that you need and that everything's fine and then commit to wars in Asia, in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East and maybe another expeditionary force meddling somewhere in Latin America all at the same time. And it's all just gonna be fine. I mean, the level of faith you have to have in the ability of the government to execute plans perfectly is just astounding, which is why it's always been so ludicrous that these conservatives who say, well, you know, the government can't do anything right or they can't run health care.  Oh, but they can run three or four wars all at once and it'll all turn out fine. That's just still clearly a prevalent attitude in the GOP and we clearly still have a long way to go. And you can just look at the issue of Mexico too. We'll just mention that. I'm very curious for how serious I've interpreted all this like we're gonna invade Mexico as just being election time rhetoric.   Well, and it also invites war with China because another element of it was not only did Haley recommend this? I think this was Haley's point. No, no, it was DeSantis, I believe, where not only are we going to use military force against the cartels and shoot dead anyone who tries to come across the border with drugs in their possession, I guess they'll receive a trial on the frontier and be executed right there. I'm not sure exactly what the plan was there, but also it sounded like he was planning to board ships, Chinese flagged ships as they approached Mexico to make sure that they weren't importing chemicals from China into Mexico. And this is just bonkers stuff. And basically what they were saying is, well, will embargo Mexico from the sorts of things that can be used to make fentanyl. And so if that was an actual thing that would be carried out, you're just inviting war with China then. That's another dimension on top of that.  Oh, and by the way, there's women and children, of course, in the general vicinity of all those cartelists at all times because they just live in towns and villages. Just wiping those towns and villages off the map is your policy. But then on top of that, they wanna control trade essentially between Mexico and China and anyone else that they decide Mexico shouldn't be trading with because then it'll come across the border. So would that actually happen? That's so into the realm of just messing up what you've got going within one of your largest trading partners. Yeah. And declaring and destabilizing even more a country that's right next to the United States, they can't control the border now. We're supposed to believe that creating a major refugee situation in Northern Mexico is going to improve that situation. I mean, that's just the level of stupidity if anyone actually thinks that this would improve things is quite amazing. I mean, I have viewed all this talk of literally invading Mexico as being on par with whenever people are like, we're gonna deport all the illegal immigrants in America. Who knows how many there are now, 15 plus million.  No one has ever actually even put out a proposal as to how that would be done. I viewed it as just sort of red meat for, you know, people at the bar who are like, oh yeah, deport them. It's like, okay, how? So I'm not too concerned about it. I do not like the rhetoric at all though because as we talked about in our Monroe Doctrine episode, I mean, I think we need to be wooing Mexico. We need to be improving relations with them. I think we should get them back in the real treaty. You know, if we're gonna be Western hemispheric centric, Mexico number two trading partner, you know, not to mention how many people of Mexican ancestry live in the United States, we should be trying more for the Cumbaya approach. And I mean, of course, there's no discussion of how American domestic policy on drugs and immigration is why the cartels are so powerful. I mean, it's a perfect bootleggers and Baptist situation. You know, I mean, we could help undermine the cartels by reforming drug policy by, you know, any number of things, but. Well, and that's one of the, a good comment by Vivek was, well, it was a bad comment by Haley where he was talking about right cutting back support for Ukraine and Israel and all of these far away U.S. allies. And instead, so then Haley comes back and says, oh, don't be so delusional as to think America doesn't need friends. We need to have all of these friends. And yet at the same time, then they turn around and they have no interest in making friends with countries that are right in our backyard and are far more important friends. Mexico is a far more important friend than Israel ever could be because Israel simply doesn't help U.S. interest very much. Whereas Mexico, of course, helps U.S. interest a lot. Being friends with Brazil, Argentina, all those countries having back to the Monroe Doctrine thing, right? Having your close by neighbors be in a very close trade and diplomatic relationship with you is what's important but the Republicans are just more interested for the most part of the establishment in being friends with countries like Saudi Arabia or useless countries like Ukraine. I mean, it's just really amazing. They only define their friends as countries that just happen to support NATO expansion or some other sort of war hawkish position. Actual defense, friends in service of actual defense of North America don't seem to actually be any concern to them. Right, I mean, one of my essential foreign policy motto is like I should get a tattooed or something is states don't have friends, only interests.   And it also, I mean, it flies in the face of a century of U.S. foreign policy. You know, we had the treaty with France thanks to the Revolutionary War. They invoke it, Revolutionary France invokes it and George Washington just tosses it out the window. I mean, of all the friends we've had, you know, France played a huge role in our becoming independent.  You know, it's just drives me crazy when people are like, oh, we're abandoning our friends and, yeah. All right, well, we'll go ahead and end this episode of that as we're finished expressing our disgust. We'll go and wrap up this episode of War, Economy and State. We'll be back next month with another episode and we'll see you then.


Again, with the praise of Allah, we begin seeking His aid. We begin asking for His forgiveness. And we ask His protection from the evil of ourselves and from the evil that is in our actions. Whomever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomever Allah misguides, none can guide. And we bear witness that there is no God but Allah alone that He has no like. And we testify that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, literally the man of praise, is his slave and final messenger. Praise be to Allah as well for gathering us on this day of gathering, on this day of Juma'a. Just as he brought the hardship together on that first day, the day of Yawm al-Mithaq, the day of the Covenant, when Allah asked us, Allāhi stābi rabbikum, am I not your Lord? And we bore witness after witnessing his Lordship. We bore witness and we said, Bella, indeed you are. So then this Juma'a, this gathering, is a reminder of that previous gathering, as well as a warning of that upcoming gathering that we are warned about, Yawm al-Qiyāmah. And this life is set between those two poles, between Yawm al-Mithaq and Yawm al-Qiyāmah. And on that day we will be questioned whether we remain faithful to that first primordial Covenant. We begin today with a reminder about praise. This is in following with the Qur'an, where Allah opens the Fātiḥah with praise. He says, Al-ḥamdu liLlāhi rabbil ālamīn. All praise belongs to Allah. And praise belongs to someone and to Allah specifically because all good belongs to Allah. Every praiseworthy trait belongs to Allah. Every attribute of perfection belongs to Allah. And so this praise that is concentrated in the divine then shines down onto this world and it shines particularly onto the man of praise, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. The man who is most deserving of praise, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, of whom Allah says, Muhammadun Rasulullah. The man of praise is the messenger of he to whom all praise is due.  And this meaning is then summed up in a verse of the Qur'an. And this verse is possibly the central verse of the Qur'an because it tells us what is life and what is the relevance of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and our beloved messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. What is his relevance to this life where Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says, وما أرسلناك إلا رحمة للأالمين. And we did not send you or Muhammad save as a mercy to the worlds. Notice then we should ask what then is mercy? We hear about mercy all the time. We hear about hams all the time. And just as we began with hams and moved to mercy, so too did Allah and the fatihah. الحمد لله رب العالمين الرحمان الرحيم. All praise is due to Allah, the most merciful, the intimately merciful. So what is rahmah? Who is ar-Rahman? Who is ar-Rahim? In the Arabic language, the word for rahmah mercy is related to the word for benevolence. It's related to the word for desiring good for others, for having a good will that bestows blessings onto others. And mercy as well in Arabic has a condition. And that condition is that mercy can only be given to those who are in need. Because it's only those who are in need will be receptive to mercy in the first place. And thirdly, that mercy can only be complete and perfect and without limits and therefore infinite. When mercy is directed towards both those who are deserving of it and those who are not deserving of it. And when it includes every type of need, whether the need is material or spiritual, whether the need is in this dunya or in the akhirah, whether the need is something major and tremendous and extreme, or whether it be something minor and minuscule and minute. And so in total then, if we take all of these meanings together, who is ar-Rahman or ar-Raheem, it is he who is benevolent towards the needy. And we are all in need of Allah. Ya ayyuh an-nas, an-tumul fukara'u ilallah. You are all in need of Allah. Wallahu ghaniun hamid. And Allah is without need and praiseworthy. And so ar-Rahman ar-Raheem is he who is benevolent towards the needy. And so he fulfills and satisfies all the wants and all the needs of those who are in need, whether they be minor or major, whether they be in this dunya or in the akhirah, whether we be deserving of it or not, and this is all without exception. This is ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. It is every good imaginable, every good experience in the world is a manifestation, is a theophany of ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. There is, however, to just oppose this reality, something else to consider. Which is that if Allah's mercy is in fact infinite, why is it that we are at times in need? Why is it that we have needs in the first place? Why hasn't Allah fulfilled them? And so we might think, where is Allah? Where is the mercy? We might think, there are tribulations in this world and misfortunes and trials and difficulties and hardships. Where is ar-Rahman? Where is the all-merciful? And if we find ourselves thinking these thoughts in the depths of our hearts, then we should recognize that this thought is directly from shaitan, because it has the qualities of the khattur shaitan, it has the qualities by which you know the thought has come to you from shaitan. And that quality is that this thought is based off of falsity and deception, is based off of a lie, is based off of believing something that is not true. Or have you not heard the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam say in a hadith, Inna umma ti'umma ta'al marhooma, Laysa aalayha aadabun fil aakhira, Inna ma aadabuha fil dunya, al-fitan wa al-qatlu wa al-zalazulu wa al-fitan. My community is indeed a community shown mercy. It has no torments in the afterlife. Its punishment is only in this world, killing earthquakes and fitna. So pay attention then to the words of your Prophet. Reflect on these words, ponder these words. My community is a community shown mercy. How? Through killing, through earthquakes, through fitna. That's Ajit. Killing earthquakes and fitna are signs of mercy. They are not signs of Allah's wrath. How then are these a mercy? Why are these a mercy? Because it removes the aadab that would have been in the akhirah and puts it in the dunya. In other words, it removes the punishment that would otherwise be owed in the akhirah due to our constant shortcomings to our constant failings in fulfilling Allah's rights. This then is hikmah. This then is mercy. Because Allah, he doesn't owe us anything. We are His creation. And being His creation means that we hold no rights over the Creator. And because of this, He could have left us in dunya without any mercy. He could have left us in complete anguish and misery which is the natural state of the dunya. And this will not have been unjust for Him because we don't hold any rights over Him. And yet, and yet, even though He could have done this, it was within His power of Her and within His justice to do so. It was out of His mercy, out of His grace that He did not do so. But He showered us with blessings and mercy and He showered us with gifts. He gave us homes and families with good food and with blessed drinks which may quench our thirst. He gave us a beating heart and a conscious mind which we need to live. He gave us medicine from the earth with which we may heal our sicknesses. He gave us vehicles to travel around so that we might go and get what we need and that which we may just experience leisure and see the glorious blessings and creation of Allah. He gave us schools with which to get an education. He gave us knowledge with which to better guide ourselves in the dunya and the akhira. And He gave us a masjid and a community and fellow Muslims so that we could all receive Allah's guidance through the example of His exemplar, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. وَإِنْتَعَدُواْ نَعْمَطَ اللَّهِ لَا تُحْسُوْهَا If you were to enumerate or count the blessings of Allah, you would be unable to encompass them. So what Allah is showing us, what He's telling us is that the goodness that He has shown us far outweighs the pains and the hardships, far outweighs the afflictions and the difficulties. But only the people of gratitude will actually see this. Only the people of gratitude will notice these blessings. While the people of kufran, the people of ingratitude, and kufran comes from the same word as the word for kufr, unbelief or disbelief, the people of kufran, they complain. They only see the negative aspects of their lives. And so when things are going poorly, they say, woe unto me, where is Allah? And when things are good, they hop on by, they sail on by and they forget that Allah is facilitating all of this for them. These are the people of ingratitude who overlook the undeserved goods that Allah has given them and showered upon them in this dunya. And so then on top of all of this undeserved good, that Allah showed us mercy, but He did not have to, and He showed us far more mercy than He showed us hardship and difficulty. Then even the minor hardships that He showed us, even that small amount of difficulty and pain and tribulation, even that has a mercy in it, even that has a wisdom in it. Because everything apparently evil or bad or disliked that Allah has decreed, is only decreed for a greater good. That's the meaning of mercy, a greater good that comes from it. And there is no evil that Allah has decreed where He sought it for its own sake. And we see examples of this that Allah is al-Mujbir, He is a healer, just like al-Jabbar can also mean the compiler, al-Jabbar can mean the healer. And we see examples of this with doctors and healers, where someone may need to get his limb amputated if the limb is diseased, it has some sort of sickness and that can't be removed otherwise.  But if you knew the wisdom, if you knew what was in that limb of disease, and if you knew the consequences of not amputating the death limb, that the disease was spread throughout the body and eventually killed the host, then there would be no difficulty in understanding this. Then the pain would be bearable and would not be insufferable. This is the wisdom in every trial, but it requires wisdom, it requires insight and perception. And just as this type of mercy is found in Allah's actions, so too do we find it in Allah's rulings. Allah famously says in the Quran, وَلَكُمْ فَلْكِصَاسِ حَيَاتُ وِنْيَا أُولِ الْأَلْبَابِ O people of discernment, O people of vision, you have an qisas in retributive justice and an eye for an eye punishment, you have in qisas life.  Ajeem, the death penalty is saving life? How is that so? This is because qisas is a deterrent, is a deterrent from others who would do evil, who would commit atrocious acts of criminality, is a deterrent from them, from committing further crimes, from their potential evil. And so in this way it's a mercy because this hukum, this act of implementing the sharia, takes into account the interests of the whole, it takes into account the benefit and the good of the whole rather than just the individual. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, also mentions in a hadith, though anna fatimata binta muhammadin saraqat laqataatu yadaha, were Fatima the daughter of Muhammad to steal, I would sever her hand. This is not cruelty, this is not causing pain for the sake of causing pain, this is a mercy. Don't you think that the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would have mercy and care and concern for his daughter? Don't you think that the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam who was sent as a mercy to all of creation, to all of mankind? Do you not think that he would first and foremost have mercy for his daughter, his beloved daughter Fatima of brother Allahu ta'ala anha? And yet he says I would cut off her hand. And so this act of severing the hand in the sharia as it's commanded is still an act of love and mercy, even though it might not appear so. It's still an act of love and mercy because there's a greater good in it, there's a greater benefit in it, which is lifting the burden and ugliness of that major sin of theft. This then is the wisdom of taqlif. This is the wisdom of Allah burdening us with the sharia because while at times the sharia may seem difficult and hard and we may question why did Allah do this in the first place? It's so hard for me, it's so difficult for me to implement his commandments and to avoid his prohibitions. Then you should know that yes, there is a temporary pain. Yes, there is a temporary difficulty, that's why it's called taqlif. But it's a temporary pain for a much greater good. It's a minor hardship that's endured to prevent a much greater hardship in the future. The sharia then, even with his difficulties, are instructions for how to navigate this dunya because if you were to leave the sharia, you would fall off the boat and then you would be on your own in the raging currents of the ocean. And the sharia, even with his difficulties, is a love letter. It's a love letter from Allah Azawajal to his beloved, his Habib, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And so anyone who takes leave of it, anyone who decides, I don't need this today, I don't feel like implementing the sharia. Then he is saying, I can take leave of Allah's love. I can take leave of Allah's mercy. I can take leave of Allah's wisdom. And he does this at all at his own peril. I'll say to you this, I want to end with a hadith, a famous hadith, narrated by Sina Umar ibn Khattabra, Allah Ta'ala Anhu. Where he narrates that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he once saw a woman after a battle, she was walking amongst children who were captured as prisoners of war. And whenever she found a baby amongst them, she would stop and nurse the baby and make sure that the baby had the milk that it needed and that the baby was cared for. And so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam turned to his companions and he said, Ahtarounahadihi tarihatan waladahafinnaar. Do you think that this woman would throw her child, her baby, into the fire? La'allahu arhamu bi'ibadihi min hadihi bi waladihah. Verily Allah is more merciful to His slaves than she is to her child. Verily Allah is more merciful to His slaves than she is to her child. This then is the reality of the world that we live in. This then is the reality of the trials and tribulations that we encounter and that which we must face. And so if we each pause for a moment and think about those difficulties that we encounter in life, those moments of constriction, those times where we wish things were easier, we should recognize that whatever difficulty that is, that is no reason to doubt Allah. It is a reason to have greater iman and faith in Him. For is there any doubts for us as believers that Allah manages this entire affair that it is by His hand that the wind blows, that waves crash on the ocean shores, that a war breaks out in one part of the world and that peace is brokered in another part of the world? Is this not by Allah's command and by His decree? Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when if we look at our own lives with an eye of gratitude, we will see innumerable examples of Allah's mercy and of His undeserved blessings upon us? Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when He has promised it over and over in the Quran? He has started every chapter except one of the Quran with Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, emphasizing His attribute of mercy. Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when He has sent the man of mercy, Muhammad, the man of mercy, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, to all of the worlds? Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam informs us Ashadun Nasi ablaan al-anbiya'u thumma al-amthal fal-amthal? The most tried, the most severely tried of people are the prophets, then those most similar to them, then those most similar to them. And if this is how Allah shows and expresses His love to His most beloved and those who are most like His beloved and therefore beloved, should we not welcome the tribulations? Should we not welcome the afflictions and the hardships? Not for their own sake, but recognizing this is from Allah. This is from the all merciful. Who else would we want anything from? Who else would we want to bring anything to us? Allah says in His noble scriptures, in the Quran, Allah and His angels pray to the Prophet, Ya ayyuhaladina aamanu sallu alaihi wa sallim utasneema


Hello lovelies, welcome to Hilary Home. I have another unboxing for you today and this has to do with the nail goals. My 2021 glow up goals which include learning how to look after my nails. So I recently discovered a new place called nailpolishdirect.co.uk and oh my days. I've been enjoying hanging out there, learning more about nail care and of course buying some stuff. So first off we have this Dadi Oil and it is basically a nail treatment oil which is got natural oil and it's organic and it's got a blend of 21 essential oils. So I'm looking forward to using that on my cuticles because my cuticles benefit from having oil. The next thing that I got is the OPI Nail Envy Treatment and the Nail Envy formula helps nails to give them a stronger harder longer natural nails. So I'm kind of wanting to use this on the base of my nails during the two days that I don't have nail vanish on them. I also wanted to try out some Mavala nail polishes because unlike traditional nail color apparently Mavala's unique formula delivers microscopic air pockets that allow nails to breathe ensuring that natural nails are cared for. So I'll be reporting back on how I get on with those. I also asked my 18 year old niece what nail vanish she uses because she has some most amazing nails and she recommended these Berry M under the C nail polishes because they're too toned. So I'm excited to try those ones out. I've been enjoying looking after my nails and having nail polish and one of my favorites so far has been the OPI Infinite Shine range and I've been using it with the Sally Hansen double duty top and base coat but I actually decided that I was going to get the OPI branded top coat to go with the Infinite Shine stuff because the Infinite Shine is kind of like a little bit of a mixture of gel and normal nail vanish so I decided that I was going to try it and I got it from nail polish direct because they're really reasonably priced and they do free postage packaging as well. This next package is from eBay and this came about because I got a little bit obsessed with OPI Infinite Shine and I started reading loads of articles about what are the best colors for summer, what's the best shade and it told me about these two shades that kept on popping up everywhere that I went to look everywhere online whether that was on YouTube or on blogs or on those big glossy magazine sites and that is Big Apple Red and Cajun Shrimp and let me tell you the bottles look amazing. I was lucky enough to find them on eBay at about half the price and they look absolutely legit and I'm super excited to try them as very soon and especially to try them with the top coat as well because oh my gosh you guys look enough to nails I cannot believe it took me until I was 14 nearly 41 to discover that it is so much fun to add color to your fingers like this. Okay let's have a sneaky look at these shall we so this is the daddy oil and I think that this is used a lot in salons and yeah a little goes a long way with the cuticle oils I have found so I thought that I'd try this. It's got a really lovely neroli orange mandarin smell to it so quite a vibrant but not in an annoying way and this is the nail envy nail strengthener which I got the 3.75 mils because I have found that with these things a little goes a long way. Now the nail strengthener the nail envy treatment comes in different colors as well in case you wanted to tint your nails whilst you were treating them and taking a look at the OPI infinite shine top coat you can kind of see how thick it is and it is supposed to create a really glossy shine that doesn't chip really as much as other top coats and I did find that when I used the infinite shine even though I was using the Sally Hansen top coat it wasn't chipping. Now let's have a swatch test and have a look at what this frozen berry actually looks like from Malvala so remember I got this one because it's supposed to have technology that puts air pockets which means that it allows your natural nails to breathe and it's supposed to be better for you so I'm gonna see if that works or not but how gorgeous is that color that's gonna be the perfect spring color okay now for under the sea tell me you don't think of the little mermaid when you think of under the sea it's a gorgeous two-toned color with some coral and red the brush looks really nice and wide which I have discovered makes for such a nicer application so that's the under the sea by Barry M and as you can see it's got a really gorgeous shifting color with what looks like micro sequins micro glitter and now this is the big daddy this is the OPI big apple red this is my first full-on bright red nail color and oh my gosh it looks amazing I cannot wait to try that um so the nail color that I'm wearing is actually blue it's a remel nail color and that was my first time trying out blue I'm not convinced that blue is the color for me but here is Cajun shrimp which was stated as hands down the best summer nail color ever so again I'm super excited to try it and it looks so bright and popping and orange and oh guys I am so excited I cannot wait to show you my manicures when I get down to it these are the latest additions to my nail polish collection I'm keen to try out the OPI with the OPI top coat and see how I get on with that and I'll be back very soon with showing you my manicures of the week manicures of the month and until then guys stay safe and keep well take care of yourselves goodbye


Highway 105. Readers, turn left on Highway 105. Highway 105. This road for 99 kilometers. Duke Street, Highway 594. Duke Street, Highway 594.


The photo editing software UrbanView is an open source software available on the internet. In this screencast we will focus on the download of UrbanView via the home page or the download of the portable version via freenet.de. Then we will focus on the installation, process and the basic setup. Then we will continue with the opening of images and the resizing of images before we will finish with the editing of images and the final saving. So first of all we will start with the download via urfinview.de. The home page will open and we will find the download button on the right hand side. If we click on it a new window will open and you just have to click on the big green button download now to download the file. Then save the file and install it on your PC. The second possibility is to download the portable version as already mentioned via freenet.de. When the website opens you can find the download button on the right hand side as well and you just have to click on download now. Again you have to save the file before you can begin with the installation process. After installing and starting the program you can still change the language if necessary. You click on the upper menu bar on options and then on change language. After installing and starting the program you can still change the language if necessary. You click on the upper menu bar on options and then on change language. In the next window you can find the available language choices which you can choose via clicking on them and confirming by clicking on the okay button. Now if we want to open an image in Urban View, we just have to click on file and open. Then we can select any image saved on our computer. Editing images with Urban View is fairly easy. There are different possibilities to change the size of an image. You just select in the upper menu bar image, resize, resample and all options are displayed in a pop-up window that opens subsequently. The image size for instance can be displayed in pixels, centimeters or inches and also in DPI. The image size can be changed manually. Standard image sizes can be found on the right-hand side in a radio button selection list. The image size is changed as soon as the selection and changes are confirmed with the okay button. If you want to cut out a specific section of the picture you can select the part by tracking the mouse over this part while pressing the left mouse button. Afterwards you can find under edit the option crop selection. By clicking it a new image is created consisting of the selected part and you can save it as a new file. In order to change the color, the contrast or the brightness of an image manually, you click again on image and select the option color corrections. You can have different setting options in the following window. All changes are shown in the preview window on the right-hand side. When the result of your changes is satisfying for you, you simply confirm them with the okay button. Of course we can also undo these changes in the menu bar. In this example we will save the image as JPEG. Go to file and save as. We will set the quality to 100% in this example. Remember the higher the quality the bigger the size of the save file. But if you want to get your own experience with OpenView just download it and practice with the help of this tutorial.


Yeah those ones are 19 foot pounds. All right guys we're moving right along so we got a first bracket completely bolted on and torqued down. Now we're on step 17 we're going to be putting on the next bracket that bolts to the first bracket. And it's going to take a couple of bolts right here. So here we go. Something ain't right. That bolt bottomed out. That one should have went flush. It didn't bottom out. I stopped. No I got you. All right we got our second bracket bolted on. Now we're torquing it down. All right so now we're going to move along to step 18. And it looks like we're going to be installing the other bracket setup which is the big bracket setup with the tube spacers that holds the actual supercharger head unit on. So we're going to get all of our pieces set up and get ready for that. All right guys so as you can see we got our big main bracket loosely assembled by hand. There's three tube spacers that you have to install behind it. And we're going to go ahead and tighten down these bolts real quick and then we're going to torque them down with a torque wrench. All right time to get the torque wrench out. Torque those bolts fully down. Those are the big ones that I should still be the same torque. Yeah 30. All right guys so we have this bracket fully torqued down. Mount it all up. Just to recap tell you real quick so the tensioner right here that comes assembled on the bracket already from torque storm and in the instructions they do tell you have to unbolt it from their bracket in order to get this bolt through the main bracket into the other bracket right here. And then once you get that bolt in and torque down then you need to reassemble the tensioner back onto the main bracket and then torque down the 15 millimeter nut that's right here. And then that is pretty much it so we are moving right along. Process is going very easy. Everything's bolting right up. Lining up like it's supposed to be super super simple. So the moment we've all been waiting for we're at step 20 here and that is we're going to be mounting on the supercharger head unit. So we have the supercharger right here in this box. Let me get some junk out of the way and there it is sitting here in the bag. So we're about to put this bad boy on the main bracket. There you go torque storm. All right so we're going to get all of our bolts and hardware ready for this thing and go drop it on the bracket. Other thing I want to mention real quick guys the supercharger from torque storm comes with oil already in the supercharger. There's no need to add oil. They tag them and they specifically say right here units filled with six ounces of oil tested and ready to run so you don't have to do anything. No adding oil to it or anything bolt it on you're good to go. But in the future when you do an oil change on this thing and you drain all the oil out they only hold six ounces of oil and torque storm on their website they sell the oil and pre-measured bottles ready to go. Easy peasy. All right Mopar fam we are back and look what we got going on over here. We got the torque storm supercharger sitting in the bracket we're about to tighten up all the bolts and then torque them down to spec but pretty much all the brackets are on supercharger is about to be bolted in place permanently and then it'll be time to start working on our little crossover tube and again this is not going to be an intercooler setup it's going to be water meth setup only so we will only have a tube a short pipe running from the top of the supercharger here to the throttle body and we have already loosened the band on the torque storm supercharger and clocked the outlet going up because we're going to be running a 90 from here and then over and then our other pipe will have a 90 already made into it going right down into the rubber coupler so pretty much that's our plan so we're going to start torquing some bolts down we're going to be torquing these bolts down to 29 foot pounds which is approximately three to four rat tats or a good dugga's or if you guys watch the channel mo fuck us bottom bam torque storm supercharger head unit fully mounted torque down ready to go so now I say we go ahead and we put the belt on hell yeah let's do it let's throw on a belt all right mo par fam we are back and as you can see we got supercharger on obviously now we got a belt we have the factory ram accessory belt installed and for those that don't know the torque storm supercharger setup runs its own separate belt just for the supercharger you retain your factory a serpentine belt so that's another reason why I love these systems it's got its own dedicated belt unlike the pro charger kits use one massive long belt that usually is nothing but a slip fest and a bunch of nightmares that's for sure the other thing is these belts and pulley systems is eight rib all of their kits come eight rib pulleys and belt all your cheap pro charger kits unless you upgrade the pulley drive system on them they all come six rib not torque storm you get an eight rib drive setup that is going to be badass it doesn't slip works awesome there you go all right so now it's time to build the top pipe for our crossover and then this pipe is also going to have our blow off valve our iat sensor and our method injection nozzle installed in this short pipe right here that's going to go between the supercharger outlet and the intake manifold inlet so there you go moving on as soon as we get this pipe finished up we're going to show you exactly what we did and how we did it


Welcome to the rugged rockhound today. I'm gonna make a short video on cutting some things open I've got a few things laying around that I felt like might be fun to cut open and I'm gonna cut open some of that red horn coral, right? Okay, let's take a look here. I have some here in connection because the tile saw can get pretty loud I production And an apron basically to help keep the water off me. I Have a few things in here to cut. We've got a few geodes Some red horn coral and a few odds and ends that we're gonna cut into and just see what we find. Let's get cutting Okay, I've got all my protective gear on let's get started on the first one All right, let's go ahead and start off with the geode See what's in it. That's how she looks Now don't worry if you can't see it very good right now I am going to show some nice close-up pictures at the end of the video Okay, so stay to the end and you'll see some nice close-up pictures of these So you can see them better Let's do another geode This one is more like a thunder egg It's all filled in. It's pretty though Now some of you might think whoa, I'm getting my hands so close to the saw technically. It's not a saw It's a grinder. It's a very thin grinder.  So don't hold your finger on it But it's not very dangerous All right, let's try a piece of red horn coral look at that Now it kind of broke off right at the end So maybe I'll try and clean that up a little bit. That looks a little better, don't it? Eventually I'll grind it down to polish it That'll be down the road though. I don't have the equipment for that yet. All right next up We'll do another geode Okay, that one looks a bit more like a geode done it Better better than the other ones so far as geodes All right Let's try another piece of red horn coral Hey, this one's really nice. Take a look at that. Cool Okay, let's do a different one this time. Let's do This this is some a Picasso marble comes from southern Utah I collect this a long time ago when I was going to school down there Anyway, let's see how the Picasso marble looks after we cut it right there. She is Pretty rock, isn't it? I Have some better pieces, but they're much bigger and I won't be able to cut those until I have a bigger saw but for now That's what we got. Let's do some more red horn coral now unfortunately sometimes You get a piece of coral that doesn't have very much red in it It happens Okay, let's do another geode. Huh? Look at that geode. It's got something yellow in it Hmm might be like calcite or just clay even I Don't know interesting Okay Got another interesting one right here Looks like maybe a piece of moss agate Let's cut it open see what's like Look at that. Definitely a very mossy. It's more like a moss jasper than a moss agate. It's still pretty cool Okay Last one is a geode Last cutter last geode. Here we go All right, I cut open the last one and it turns out it's it's a thunderegg again Not bad looks pretty nice That's all of them All right, just finished cutting everything open. There were some good things in there So I'm not so good things but let's go ahead and take a look at them all nice to cleaned up and a nice close-up picture so when you cut them It leaves a lot of little Basically dust pieces from the grinding on it and it's hard to see without getting it wet So the pictures are gonna take are gonna be with water on them So you can see kind of what it would look like if it was polished So let's go ahead and show you those close-ups That's all the specimens Some of them are pretty nice. Maybe some not so nice Overall not a bad day and it's always just fun and relaxing to cut them open. I hope you enjoyed I hope you maybe learned a few things and I'll see you on the next video