The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this Monday, December 5th. First day of our new era of daily news updates from the Iran Book Show. You'll see how quickly I regret this. It's going to be intense to do this every day, but we are working on it. All right, just to let you know, tomorrow's show will be at 11 a.m. East Coast time. 11 a.m. East Coast time, and I'll try to let you know a day in advance when these shows are going to be happening. Oh, we got Jonathan. Jonathan, thanks for being here early, stepping in with the super chat, and he says I'm the warm-up axe. I guess Jonathan is going live in a little while, so don't miss Jonathan Honing's show on ARC UK. So I think with so many shows, I'm going to be bumping into other people's shows more often now than I have in the past. So we'll see how all that works out. All right, so we're going to be doing these shows today. I'm really going to try to stick to like 30, 35 minutes because I have something I have to run to. We're going to try to keep these shows short. That's the whole point of these. And yeah, we'll hammer these out and see how it goes. Rob says it reminds me of when Lenny Pico was doing his daily show. Yeah, Lenny was doing two hours a day, and I've considered that. And if I could clear my schedule out and then not have an evening show at all and just have a two-hour show during the day, if these shows get the same kind of viewership as the evening shows, I'll consider that. So let's see how all this evolves. Let's see if it evolves in a healthy way. Somebody says you'll miss the Morocco-Spain game tomorrow. That's right, I will. I'll miss the beginning of it. I think I'll be back in snow. I'll miss most of it. I'll miss the heart of it. So be it. I can't add to all my other coordinating efforts the World Cup. That's way too much. I apologize to many of you who are watching Japan and Croatia play right now. And I know they've gone into overtime and they might go to penalty kicks. And here you are torn between that and the show. So we'll just have to bear through it in the next few weeks while the World Cup happens. I will make sure that I'm watching like the semis and the finals. We'll have to work around that because I do want to watch those games. So we'll see what happens. All right, let's see. We're going to jump into the three stories I've listed. And again, we're going to do everything pretty quickly. I'll just remind you that we do still do super chat on these. A goal on the morning shows us $250. So please consider asking a question or just showing support like Jonathan did without a question. And of course, questions with higher dollar amounts get priority and also get us to the goal faster. And I get to bug you less about the whole thing. All right, let's jump in. A couple of new stories just before we get to the new stories I listed. So tomorrow is the runoff in Georgia between Warnock and Herschel Walker. And yeah, it doesn't look good for Walker is what I'm seeing. You know, it does look like the Democrats are going to pick up the Senate seat. It will mean a rare occurrence where in a midterm election, the party in power actually gained seats, at least in the Senate. And I think it makes a difference not right now because the Republicans hold the House, but it could make a difference in the future. You know, this seat is going to be held now for six years. And 5149 for the Democrats means that minutiae and cinema have less influence and less power within the Democrats. So anyway, for what it's worth, we'll see tomorrow. Tomorrow is the election. Tomorrow night, I guess we'll see if that prediction holds up. But it does suggest strongly that the quality of the candidate matters.  And you could see that by the extent to which Kemp won the governorship. He crushed Stacey Adams, in spite of Stacey Adams being a super popular Democratic candidate. Because all else equal, Georgia is a Republican state, but all else is not equal. Republicans nominated a really awful candidate in Herschel Walker, together with the bad candidate in Arizona and the bad candidates in Pennsylvania. And they lost all those seats, and I think that'll continue here. So quality of candidate matters, the quality of the human being matters over the long run, even in politics, I think. I might regret having said that, but anyway. All right, one other quick one. I saw this this morning, Supreme Court today is hearing the case of a Christian graphic design artist. I think they're actually in session right now. They're actually hearing verbal arguments right now, as we speak. They're hearing the case of a Christian graphic artist who objects to designing wedding websites for gay couples. So this is a dispute about religious liberty. This is the kind of case that I think is very, very tricky, because we have anti-discrimination laws in our books. And we've accepted anti-discrimination laws in our books coming out of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Why would we make an exception for discrimination on the basis of religion? Now, you could argue that the discrimination laws are against the Constitution. They're certainly wrong. I agree that they're wrong. They're morally wrong. They're politically wrong. They're anti-the Constitution, as I understand it. But it doesn't matter at this point. At this point, there is another interpretation. And if you cannot, if the law does not allow you to discriminate based on race, should it allow you to discriminate based on religious affiliation? And if it does allow you to discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation, but not on race, where is the borderline? When is something ideas and when is something religion?  The ideas count. Is this generalizable to ideas more broadly? If I want to hang a sign out saying, let's say, if a Republican wants to hang a sign out saying no Democrats allowed or something like that, is that acceptable if they believe in no discrimination? What are the limits of discrimination? So all of that is interesting because of a mixed legal system, because of the mixed economy, if you will. I mean, my ideal, of course, my ideal is no laws against discrimination. Let people discriminate freely. But if you have laws against discrimination, on what basis do you apply them sometimes and not apply them other times? On what basis do you apply them at all? So I think a really interesting case, if you remember the cake case, years ago, the wedding cake case, that, see, it seemed like that was ruled in for, quote, religious liberty. That is they allowed the wedding cake maker to discriminate against, I think it was the gay couple. But it's not clear because that case ultimately was ruled on a kind of technicality. It wasn't a decisive rule one way or another. So is this going to be a decisive rule one way or the other? And how is the court going to rule if it is? And, you know, is the court, this is, I think, the interesting question, is the court willing to make religion different than everything else? So you can discriminate based on religion, but not on ideas, not on color skin, not on any other parameter. And that would be interesting that if religion gets a special place, which it should not have, religion should be dealt as every other idea is held. And, you know, so there's a, so far I think most of the questions have been from the left. Brown Jackson asked about a photography store in a shopping mall refusing to take pictures of black people in Santa's lap. So they're making the relationship with race. But again, it's not clear, you know, how that plays into the anti-discrimination laws and how they are. There's also an issue of interracial marriage and so on. So we'll see. I mean, this is going to be interesting to see how the court rules on it. Again, I think the simplest thing is just to get rid of all anti-discrimination laws and let the market, if you will, work. All right, let's set up some of these issues that are on the list. They're going to be, I'll just say now we're going to have a bunch of discussion on economic issues in the days and weeks to come. I didn't involve any today, although Russia also needs an economic issue. Primarily because we're going to hit a lot of them and the news is yet to come later this week. And next week we've got the Fed decision about raising interest rates. So we'll get to all of that. There's news of the real estate market. There's a lot of stuff going on economically and expect economics to be a big issue as we move further into the year and into next year. Because just economics is going to be at the top of mind, I think. All right, so earlier when was it a week ago? So we did a story about Elon Musk being really ticked off at Apple about accusing of Apple of threatening to withdraw the Twitter app from the App Store. About saying that Apple has withdrawn all its advertising from Twitter. And then Musk using that opportunity to go to attack Apple about the 30% take that Apple, the 30% fee that Apple charges on any transactions that happen on the app that would affect any kind of like the blue check mark that sold 30% of that $8 fee to get the check mark would go to Apple. And Elon Musk was complaining about that and calling it attacks and so on. And he was generally not in a good mood when he came to talking to Apple. Well, after that all blew up in the papers about two days later or three days later. Elon Musk, I guess, got invitation from Tim Cook and had a meeting with Tim Cook at the Apple headquarters in, I guess, is this still in Cupertino? I'm not sure where it is, but it's in Silicon Valley, so in the San Jose area. So Tim Cook and Elon Musk had a meeting. It would have been fun to have gotten a transcript of that meeting or to have a little bug in there and be able to tell you exactly what was said.  Maybe that's what happened. I mean, Tim Cook is clearly the adult in that room. But, you know, the consequence of that is that that day, Elon Musk came out and said, no, no, I made a mistake. He didn't say I made a mistake, but he implied I made a mistake. Apple is just clarified that they never really threatened to take the app off of the app store. And we talked about moderating standards or whatever. And then today, I guess this morning, or was it yesterday? December 5th, 7.15 a.m., so it's this morning, Musk said that Apple is fully resumed advertising on Twitter. Indeed, right now, Apple is the biggest advertiser on Twitter. Musk said that when he met Tim, quote, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the app store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so. And then now Apple is the largest advertiser on Twitter. It turns out that others are also coming back and advertising on Twitter. Amazon is planning to start advertising on Twitter again. So Musk has obviously reassured people about whatever fears that they had about moderating policy. And I think they're all straight. I doubt Musk said Tim Cook's straight, but anyway. And of course, Musk has stopped complaining about the 30% fee that Apple takes. And I guess for now, there is a ceasefire at the very least between Apple and Twitter. We'll see where that goes. Twitter is actively, and you could argue somewhat desperately, trying to win back their advertisers. It's a real challenge, I think, and really important for Twitter. Twitter, I don't think could survive for many months unless it gets these advertisers back. In spite of Elon Musk's interest in getting on a subscription basis, he needs time in order to build that out. And given the amount of debt that he has, given interest payments and that debt, given how much money Twitter is losing every single day, he has to get the advertisers back. And that's why I think that in the power struggle between Elon Musk and Apple, clearly Apple has the upper hand. Elon Musk needs Tim Cook much more than Tim Cook needs Elon Musk. It's not even close. I think the fact that Musk removed Kanye over the weekend from Twitter probably helps with advertisers. I think he is showing that while there is no objective standard out there for determining who stays and who's not, his subjective standard is in the long run maybe not going to be dramatically different than a lot of the... It's not going to allow for the kind of worst case scenario that I think a lot of advertisers are worried about. So I hope Twitter survives. I hope Elon Musk is a huge success. And as a consequence, I hope that the advertisers do return to Twitter. And the Twitter figures out the right balance between wanting to allow as much speech as possible on the platform and having some standards that would justify advertisers advertising on the platform because you're taking a risk as an advertiser because you want to be careful not to be associated with certain types of speech. All right, so that's Apple. Let me just say something. Apple, I'm a big fan of Apple, but let me say something negative about Apple. I don't think this is particularly new, but it is important to say and to clearly articulate my disgust at it at Apple's action. I mean, one of the challenges and one of the things that happens pretty much for any company that has significant engagement in China is that the Chinese government requires them to abide by certain requirements. You know, I think Google, before Google was kicked out of China, provided the Chinese government with all kinds of information that it shouldn't. Other companies over the years have done things when China has asked that they should have not, most of which has to do with transforming IP. But a lot of other things, a lot of things that have helped China become the kind of police state, surveillance state that it has become. A lot of that has not been possible without technology from the United States, from U.S. companies and technologies from, actually from Israel. Israel has sold China a lot of its surveillance technology. So it wasn't surprising, but it still was shocking and disappointing when there was a story, I think it was last week, that in the latest update of Apple's system software for the iPhone, and I guess the iPad, in China, they had made the ability for phones to communicate with one another through, I think it's dropped something, was it called, I forget the name of it, but it's the ability to phones to communicate one-on-one without going through the network. I could just put my iPhone next to your iPhone and they, you know, you can transfer files and do stuff like that. Well, protesters all over the world, airdrop, thank you, thank you, Robin. So airdrops, airdrop was a way in which protesters could communicate with one another without having to use the cell network, cell network which could be controlled by the relevant country, Iran, China, wherever the protest happened to be. China can control that pretty easily. So, you know, Apple's had that ability to do. What happened is in the latest update for the iPhone and iPad, the latest update is iOS, that feature, the feature of airdrop working without cellular connection was turned off, made impossible in China. So we can still use it. All of us can still use airdrop, but it's been turned off in China, which is super depressing, super disappointing. Obviously, this is a request the Chinese government made, this is not a request, a demand that the Chinese government made. It's unbelievably disappointing that Apple has succumbed to that. On the good news side of this, Apple is actively diversifying their supply chain away from China, moving significant assembly of iPhone to other places. That's going to take probably five years to really get into place. A lot of that will move to Vietnam and to India. So, very, very disappointing. Apple, it's a company that should know better. Of course, every American company has done this in China, but still, every time you hear about it, it just shakes your confidence and also, I feel for the Chinese people who now are taking much more risk than they would otherwise have to. Quickly, because we are, every time I think this is going to be quick, it's longer than I thought. Russian oil, the EU, the United States, and a number of other of America's allies have agreed that they will not sanction the purchase of Russian oil at over $60 a barrel. Now, it's not that the US, and this is to reduce revenues for the Russians. That is, Russian is obviously getting huge amounts of revenue from the sale of oil. They're using that revenue partially to prop up the economy and partially to fund the war in Ukraine. I don't think what the West wants is to completely see that supply of oil go to zero, but it doesn't want Russia to quite benefit as much as it has been. So what they've done is they've compromised as usual, right? And they basically said, okay, we're going to limit it to $60. Now, it is not the case that this is going to allow the United States, Europe, and other of our allies to buy Russian oil at $60 because they have all the governments, including the European Union, I think starting this month, are prohibiting the purchase of Russian oil at any price. But what it does is if India wants to buy Russian oil, then it can still buy it. Indeed, it can pay any price it wants. However, if India wants to buy insurance on that oil, if India wants to use international ships to transport that oil, if it wants to buy insurance on the ship to transport the oil, if it wants any kind of other third-party arrangement that involves a company from the US or a company from Europe which oil trading requires, it's not just a cash deal between two parties, there's all kinds of infrastructure required. The US companies and European companies will be banned from doing that, and thus it will make it much, much more, quote, expensive for the Indians and others who are buying Russian oil to buy it at over $60 a barrel. So they are likely to go to the Russians and negotiate down to $60 a barrel and therefore be able to buy the insurance and be able to facilitate the transaction through Western banks and do all of that that is available to them today. So that is what has happened. My guess is $60 a barrel is probably a price that countries like India think they can get out of Russia, and I think that was part of the compromise, that's part of the thing. They could have just banned all purchases of Russian oil and penalized all countries that purchased it. They obviously didn't want to do that because they didn't want India to go the other way, and maybe even China, who knows who else is buying. We know India is buying Russian oil, not clear who else is. There's even some argument that Russian oil is being taken off of some boats, put on other boats and then sold to the US as if it's not Russian oil. Who knows what's actually happened out there in the high seas, but certainly we know the Indians are buying it. So they came up with $60 after a lot of wrangling. This will probably reduce the amount of revenue Russia gets, although there's also a thriving black market all over the place, and I'm not sure anybody's keeping track of everything, but this is where we are. We'll see what happens this winter with the natural gas situation in Europe so far. We haven't heard any disasters in Europe. I did a show about that. Jeff, thank you for the support. By the way, it was still like $188 short of a goal for their morning. Don't make the first regular batch of news roundup shows be the one that doesn't reach a goal. That will now be good motivation. So hopefully somebody's out there who is willing to step in and cover the difference. Okay, finally, and then I'll do some super chat. So that's the opportunity to support the show through the super chat. Quickly, it looks like China is loosening up its zero COVID restrictions. We will see whether that is real. I think the Chinese right now are primarily motivated by fear, the fear that if they loosen it up too fast and then they get an epidemic in a major city in China and people start dying or people start flooding the hospitals, even if they're not a lot of deaths, but just flooding the hospitals, then I think the local authorities, while the national government might want to start loosening this up and start seeing what happens and freeing up the economy and allowing a lot more freedom when it comes to these COVID restrictions. It's going to be interesting to see the local governments that will have to deal with any flooding of the hospitals, how they are going to, how they're going to deal with, you know, with all of this, and how they're going to deal with outbreaks and whether they will be tempted to go zero COVID, because that's kind of, quote, I mean, that's what everybody has done when they've panicked. They're willing to let it play out. And then the other big question is going to be, I think when, because I don't think this is if, is when is China going to announce a deal for importing large quantities of mRNA vaccines or announced that they've developed an mRNA vaccine themselves. At some point, the only solution to reduce hospitalization and reduce deaths is vaccination. And the Chinese vaccines are significantly inferior to the mRNA vaccines. So China is going to have to, at some point, go the route of mRNA vaccines. I don't see how they avoid that. So we'll keep watching. They keep watching. I don't think they're scared of them. They wanted the IP and they wanted the IP associated with them. And the, and Moderna and Pfizer said, no, they are trying to develop them themselves. But, but they didn't get the IP from the Western companies. Maybe they'll have to sign a deal without the IP. That is, maybe they'll just have to buy. We'll see what happens. It's an ongoing story. It's an important story. It's a big part of the motivation of Apple diversifying away from China. It's a big motivation, I think, for a lot of supply chains to diversify out. The challenge, of course, is that it's easier said than done. You have to build facilities overseas in places like, like Vietnam and India. You have to find engineers. You have to find people to build these things. You have to then make sure that the ports can handle the loads. India is further away than China to the United States, at least. So India would probably supply Europe through the Suez Canal, but in Vietnam supply the U.S. But this takes time. This is not something. And by the way, the diversification out of India, out of China into Vietnam, for example, has been going on for 10 years, at least, because cost of labor in China has actually gone up, as productivity has gone up and as standard of living has gone up. All right. As I said, we'll have a lot more economy in the days, weeks to come. Let's jump to now some of the super chat questions. And again, let me remind you, we're now only $170 short. This is still quite a bit short. So, oh, Phan Hopper just jumped in with it a bit. So we're actually a little bit better than that, but still we're quite a bit off. So particularly if you can afford to do a $50 to $100, so I don't have to stay here for a long time, please jump in with one of those. All right. The first question by John is a difficult question. So it's a challenge. What is an FX swap and why is it important or is it important? Okay. So an FX swap is when you, let's say you have two companies. Let's say one company has debt. Let's say an American company has debt in Europe to European bondholders in euros. And let's say a European company has debt in America in dollars to its borrowers. And let's say all their revenue is in their local currency and they don't want to pay out. So the American company doesn't want to have to pay out debt in euros because the European company doesn't want to have to pay out debt in dollars. They want to keep it in the currency in which they generate revenue. They can swap. What they can do is they can swap the currency at which and so they would have a contract that says I will pay in a sense, I will take on the responsibility of paying your debt in the local currencies. The European company would stop paying for the American company in euros and the American company would stop paying for the European companies in dollars. The American company for the European company in dollars. So that each would match, for example, their own currency in which they get revenue with the payments that are being made and they would both be in the same currency and that way they would reduce their foreign exchange risk. So they would enter into a contract that swapped these under certain conditions over a certain amount of time with certain provisions. Now usually that is done with a bank in the middle. Now why is this important? Typically it's not, but the Bank of International something just released a report in which it said that this is the bank that kind of oversees all the central banks in which it said that there is this potential, what do you call it, a potential blind spot that the regulators have not noticed and that is that there is $80 trillion of these swaps outstanding and given the pretty volatility in exchange rates over the last year that some of these agreements might be in trouble. That is some people might regret having done the swap because one currency has gone in a direction that's opposite the other currency and it might be a situation where there are some real issues. These deals are happening at something like $5 trillion a day, at least they did in April when people wanted to get out of certain currencies and into others but again some of those currencies like the dollar went up a lot over the summer and then has gone down quite a bit over the last month or so. Now it has the potential going up again depending on what the Fed does. So that volatility potentially creates some issues in the banking system because any one of these swaps is actually managed by a bank and that bank might have made commitments to the two parties for the swap and that bank might be obliged to fulfill its commitment on both sides and yet one of these parties might not be fulfilling its obligations to it and you can see that there would create a mismatch that would place the bank in a difficult situation or problematic situation and that's what the Bank of International, Bank of International, BIS, Bank of International sediments is warning about that this might be a problem, that this typically swaps, don't appear on people's balance sheet, it's an off-balance sheet thing so it's harder to monitor, it's harder to know what's going on, it's harder to know how well they're doing whether it was a good decision or bad decision, ex-post. So it's just warning about this, whether this could turn into some kind of significant crisis. Potentially if you've got some big massive moves in currencies, we've seen a lot of moves but if we saw even bigger moves, we might see some problems there in the banking system what BIS is basically saying, telling the regulators, keep an eye out on those banks, they're not putting them on their balance sheet but all these transactions are happening so it's somewhere, somebody's taking on some risk which is not necessarily being reflected. Oh God, I asked for more super chat questions so they're flowing in. All right, Big Worm asks, just paying for the content I consume as far as this case, the law is forcing evidence of what I have a problem with. To me the government is infringing on the First Amendment right by forcing this service. Which service was this? Which service was this? Yeah, I'm not sure which service you were talking about, Big Worm, but yes, I mean the government shouldn't be forcing anybody to do anything but that's why if this is the discrimination case, there shouldn't be anti-discrimination laws because the government shouldn't be intervening. But it shouldn't be on religious grounds, I should just be able to say, no I don't like you and I don't want to serve you. I should be able to discriminate on any basis that I want but for the government to say we accept discrimination on religious grounds but not on any other ground I think is very, very dangerous. Okay, Iron Mail Cut says, how about declare the US Navy will not protect any ships sailing in and out of Russia? Probably in and out of Russia they don't need US Navy protection. I don't know how my, you know, depends where Russia is exporting to but for the most part I think a lot of those shipping lanes are pretty free of pirates and I'm not sure how involved the US is these days in protecting them. But there's a lot we could be doing if we had a proper foreign policy with regard to Russia. There's a lot we could be doing, but of course we're not. We still have an embassy there, we still pretend like the legit country. Fred Alper says, who do you think will be your next guest? When do you think it will be, have you reached out to Scott McDonald to be a guest? I don't know. I just got back from three months of traveling basically. Let me get settled in this week and I'll create a schedule and start inviting people. But no, I've not invited anybody yet and I don't know who my next guest will be. Partially depends on their schedule, partially depends on my schedule. So working on it. Big Whom says, I'm saying that government forcing someone to go against their religion is the issue. Constitution is the highest law. Yes, but why forcing somebody to go against their religion is not okay, but forcing somebody to go against their other ideas is okay. I'm saying religion shouldn't have special status. And I don't think one should read the Constitution as providing religion with special status. I think the Supreme Court should say it's an issue of ideas, not an issue of religion. Okay, Adam says, what are the features of Twitter that lead you to use Twitter rather than Facebook, et cetera?  I despise Facebook. I don't understand how it works. It gives me a gazillion options. It has five different messaging applications. It's become a monstrosity. It has video, but it's not clear. Anyway, it's a monstrosity from my perspective. I don't even go to Facebook because I can't understand it. I have a private page. I have a business page. They're linked, but they're not, but they each... It's just too complicated. The beauty of Twitter is it's super simple. It's super simple. You can post what you want to post. There are certain restrictions on how to post it, but it takes very little effort. It's very, very quick. Simplicity. Simplicity is what it is. And I think that it actually is a forum that facilitates debate and discussion more than Facebook does. But again, I don't use Facebook because I find it too complex and too difficult. And then Facebook is just being... I mean, I've tried to advertise on Facebook. They won't let me advertise because they think I'm a bot. They think I'm like a Russian bot in Puerto Rico. And I keep proving to them that I actually live in Puerto Rico and then they give me permission to advertise and then they restrict me from advertising because they don't believe I'm Puerto Rico. And I prove to them I'm Puerto Rico. So it's just... It's part of this kind of bureaucratic... But I can't figure out how it works. I can't figure out where I am. I truly cannot stand Facebook now. It used to be great, but it's become too complex. When I open up my Facebook page, there's so much going on there, I don't know where to start. It's the opposite of Twitter. Twitter is simple, straightforward. You know exactly what's going on. Shazbot, Frank wants you to talk about the Iranian man who was killed because he was cheering for the US team. I will talk about it, but I haven't read the story. I can't talk about stuff that I haven't read the story about, so I don't know anything about it. Does it shock me that somebody was killed in Iran because they were cheering for the US team? No. I know a lot of Iranians were cheering for the US team because they viewed the Iranian team as representing the government and even though the Iranian team protested against the government, they still viewed the Iranian team as representing the government. They were used that way before the World Cup and people wanted the Americans to beat them because they want that as an undermining of the Iranian regime, which is a good sign that they're open to that because they used to be very anti-American in Iran, even the people. All right, so let's see. You and a friend of mine are really selling me on chat GPT. I might even boot my computer after a long time to use the AI while I'm at it. I'll become a member of your YouTube channel. Cool. Thanks, Fred Harper. And yes, I mean, I saw something today where somebody asked chat GPT to tell the story of the three pigs from an objective perspective, from an Iran perspective, and I'll read it to you on one of the shows, on one of the future shows. It's actually quite good and it gets Iran in a way that I don't think most people get Iran. It's weird. I mean, truly. I mean, chat GPT, everything I've seen about it related to Iran is better than what I see for most people relating to Iran. All right, Michael says, did you hear Andrew Clevin's recent rant about Iran copying Basquiat in a view of capitalism? It would be a disaster. I think he would have you on the show. And no, I know Andrew Clevin. I don't think he would have me on my show.  He despises Iran. And I don't believe you would have me on the show. I can try. And if you want to encourage him to have me on my show, go for it. Maybe he will. John says, I always value your perspective, Iran. I appreciate the daily videos. Any thoughts on Turkey's future in NATO relating to the ongoing excursion in northern Syria and you found Islamification? The new the sunification is not newfound. The sunification has been going on since Erdogan achieved power, which is almost 20 years. And it's slow but systemic and systematic and and ongoing. And he's received support in spite of that. I don't see them leaving NATO. I don't see NATO having the balls to kick them out. So, you know, we will see. I don't think anybody cares about the ongoing excursion. about the ongoing excursion in northern Syria. Indeed, Donald Trump gave him a thumbs up for it, so I don't think that matters to NATO. NATO's worried about Russia. If Turkey overly sides with Russia, let's say Turkey supply drones to Russia, that might be a basis, but for now I think Turkey's part of NATO and I just don't see NATO having the guts even to get rid of, get rid of Turkey inside NATO.  All right, thank you, John. Thanks, everybody. We didn't quite make our number unless somebody wants to step in and do $75 just for fun because I don't have time to answer questions. I am going to run 43 minutes, still about five, six, seven, eight minutes too long, so I'll work on it. Croatia won a penalty, I was hoping Japan would win. That is too bad. Japan deserve to win after their victories. All right, so Croatia goes up. Asia is not going to be represented, it looks like in this world cup, in the quarterfinals. All right, it's mainly a European quarterfinals, dominated by Europe. All right, everybody, have a great day. Let me know what you think about me talking this fast because I'm talking much fast on this show that I'm doing the other shows, if it's okay. I will see you all tomorrow, 11 a.m. Eastern time. Talk to you.


Will Ferrell is one of the worst comedic actors in all of Hollywood, yet his film Elf is a must-watch for many during the holiday season each year. I think it's time we actually take a look at this movie with a fresh pair of eyes. Elf is a 2003 Christmas comedy, if you really want to call it that, starring Will Ferrell directed by John Favreau and written by David Bernbaum. First, I want to be clear. I absolutely detest Will Ferrell. The man can act. The only movie of his that's even remotely decent was old school, and that was mainly because of the rest of the cast, not Ferrell himself. You're my boy, Blue! Will Ferrell on his own, or even with John C. Reilly, is 100% horrible. What? Did we just become best friends? Yup. Don't get me wrong. John C. Reilly is a terrific actor, but I really don't care for his comedic stuff because he really tries too much to be like Ferrell. In order to write the script for this video, I really had to force myself to watch the movie on my own without anyone else forcing me to. This was an incredibly difficult task for me to undertake. It was almost like one of Hercules' 12 labors.  I mean, people actually like this movie? I don't understand it. In fact, people actually make watching this movie a yearly tradition. First, let me say, I can understand the appeal. It's a movie about innocence and Christmas time. It's about a guy who, while a baby snuck into Santa's bag and ended up at the North Pole, being raised by elves as an elf. Even though he's human, 30 years later, he learns he isn't actually an elf and takes a trip to the big city to find his dad, who's on the naughty list, and didn't even know he existed. The synopsis is okay, and honestly, if any other actor portrayed Buddy the Elf, I might have enjoyed it. But Will Ferrell is quite possibly the worst comedic actor in all of Hollywood. Okay, what? I just, I don't know if there was anything I could have done to prevent it. So I wrote this while watching the movie, and I'm at the very beginning when Bob Newhart introduces the film. Already, I feel my blood pressure elevate. The attempt at an old-school, traditional Christmas movie introduction is appreciated. But just the mere fact that it's an introduction to a Will Ferrell movie seriously makes me want to hurl my brains out into the garbage can. I will say, Newhart did a great job with his introduction, and Ed Asner makes for a pretty decent, although grumpy Santa Claus. You know what? You got spunk.  The classroom scene quite obviously shows how badly this was filmed. I mean, it's quite noticeable that they filmed Ferrell separately from the others, especially when the one elf looks up at him, and he looks down at her. His line of sight doesn't even match up for crying out loud. Then, when Buddy sits on his papa's lap after he discovers he's human, I've seen better special effects in a sci-fi channel movie. I mean, how the hell could someone who's over six feet tall not realize that maybe, just maybe, he might be a little different from all the other elves, who are like three feet tall.   It's like he knows he doesn't have a comedic bone in his body, so he just cranks up his voice and expressions to eleven in order to make up for it. One line. Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder? These are two eleven. The movie itself would have been a lot better if they got someone like Peter Dinklage to play Buddy, because I could see how a little person like Dinklage could mistake himself for an elf. You feeling strong, my friend? Call me elf one more time. Which is actually a quote-unquote joke in the movie. I understand this was supposed to be a fun family film to watch at Christmas time, but what exactly is so fun about it? I know, I know. Bah humbug, right? I say bah humbug. But from a personal perspective, the best part of the movie, other than the end, was when Ferrell got attacked by the raccoon.   Here's the thing, could they not have found any other actor to make a fool out of themselves for this movie? I can name like ten other actors off the top of my head at least, who would have been better for the part than Ferrell. Johnny Depp would have been perfect for the role. I was worried he was getting a little dodgy in the middle part, but then that finale. Wow! Peter Dinklage, Matthew Broderick, Seth Green, Jack Black, Mike Myers, Johnny Galecki, Tom Cruise, Elijah Wood, and Sean Aston, all would have been a thousand times better than Ferrell. I know, I know. Peter Dinklage is in the movie, and in all honesty, when Ferrell called Dinklage an elf, it was pretty funny. He's an angel. Let me help, let me help! But I think someone else in the role of Buddy would have had me rolling on the floor with laughter during that scene.  I guess that's because he doesn't really have to act at it. He is quite possibly the king of idiots, and some of the things he ate in the movie really made me want to hurl. I did find myself laughing a few times and getting into the movie, but only when Ferrell wasn't on the screen. It could have been a really decent Christmas movie, but Ferrell ruins it with his over-the-top nature. I understand he's meant to be over-the-top and have a child-like nature, but it seems that Ferrell does the same thing in nearly all his movies. It doesn't matter what character he plays.  He's kind of like Melissa McCarthy to me.  But then I saw other movies starring him and was like, oh no. It wasn't just the character he was playing. It really made it difficult for me to feel sorry for the guy because he acts like that in nearly all of his movies. And I feel like he's probably the same way when he has sex.  Whoever is able to put up with him likely just lays there and thinks, where the hell did I go wrong? If you enjoyed that video, make sure you hit the subscribe button right there so you stay up-to-date on all things geek culture. Also, go ahead and check out one of these two playlists on the side for more videos just like the one you just watched. I'm Shannon from Comic-ConTV, the only place on YouTube where all geek culture collides. Take care, geeks.


Hi, Adam from Spotlight here. Have you ever heard of Slow TV? If you haven't, check out in the description a whole program just about it. And if you have, stick around because this is a special Spotlight Slow TV of my walk in the woods. Come Joe. Come Joe. Come on. Come on. Come. Nope. Come on. Stay with me. Good morning. Oh, no. Stay here. Stay here. Stay here. Stay here. Stay here. Stay with me. Stay with me.  This way. That was a dog who was not too friendly. My dog. Sweet Joe. That's it. That's it.