In this episode we discuss:

(04:14) Lidia Thorpe

(23:10) Balloons Again

(26:19) Chinese Cameras

(32:59) China

(42:17) Seymour Hersh

(01:02:46) Ron DeSantis

(01:07:36) Native Species

(01:10:00) MRI and MS Diagnosis

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We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining

review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yeah, I dunno how long we, we've been playing that intro.

You need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

And for a long time now, it's been the listening to the Iron Fist and a bunch of

other characters, not the Velvet Glove.

And I'm pleased to say to you, listener that returning to the fold,

the prodigal son himself Scott, the Velvet Glove, welcome back Scott.

Good evening, Trevor.

Good evening, Joe.

Good evening everyone.

How are we all tonight?

Yes, before we get onto your circumstances, Joe, the tech guy,

, reliable as ever is here again.

Thank you Joe.

No worries.

Well, what's your story, Scott?

I mean, we've been waiting for you to get NBN and you finally got it.

Yeah, I got NBN because I got NBN because I moved down to Rockhampton actually,

so I'm now living in Rockhampton.

Mm-hmm.

. And it is probably still the arm, Peter Queensland, which I think is what

you've described it as before, Trevor.

It's not, you know, it could be worse.

There are worse places for sure, but it's it's not too bad.

I've gotta flatten everything up here and I'm not very far away

from work and it's really good.

The position was that Yeah, the last job didn't work out, so I've moved down

to Rockhampton, so I'm Fair enough.

I'm a little bit closer to the better half . We see each other twice a month now

rather than once a month, which is good.

Yeah.

Well that's a shame it didn't work out, but at least now you've got NBN

and you can be on the podcast again.

So that's one of the silver linings to the whole thing.

It is.

I've got fiber to the node.

Right.

Very good.

So it's working perfectly.

And we're up and running again as the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

We're gonna talk about news and politics and sex and religion.

Scott, of course, you've been listening to the podcast religiously, so.

Mm-hmm.

, you've been hearing my views about China and America and other things,

and I gather you've got stuff that you want to complain about, but no, I

don't really wanna complain about 'em.

Oh, I disagree with, oh.

We'll get onto that.

We'll get onto the disagreements.

We'll get onto the disagreements later.

Yeah.

So, dear listener, if you're in the chat room, say hello, Brahman's there.

Good on you, Broman.

And Alison is there as well.

Good on you, Alison, making your way into the Curia mail and an

article, which was good to see you.

You did very well, Alison.

Thank you very much for that.

That was really good article about religious instruction.

Looks like there's a reporter there at the Curry Mail who's interested

in the topic, so that'll be good.

Hopefully would've put a bit of pressure on Grace, grace about that.

So, alright, dear.

We've got a bunch of topics we're gonna be talking about Lydia Thorpe.

More balloons have been shot down, Chinese spy cameras,

Seymour Hirsch and Nord Stream.

You can imagine my delight when that story came out.

. Surely when you saw that story, dear listener, you would've thought to

yourself, Trevor's gonna enjoy that.

And you're right, I did enjoy it.

I'm still enjoying it.

And a few other topics.

If you have got an app that shows chapters, have a look.

It'll show you the topics and the little timeline so you can

jump and skip around and go to different chapters if you want to.

Also a couple of things.

The, the podcast feed that you are getting, you are going to

start seeing the I F G Evergreen episodes start coming through there.

So there's gonna be a separate podcast called I F E G, evergreen, but which

will get sort of topics that are more international and more evergreen, but

you're gonna see them on subscribing the way you are at the moment as well.

A couple of other things on the website, there's a newsletter you can subscribe to

and you'll get basically the articles that I find during the week and other stuff.

So, ah, there's other admin stuff.

I'll leave it to later.

Scott, let's jump in on.

Lydia Thorpe, who was the the Greens spokesperson for Indigenous Matters.

And she resigned from the Greens because she wasn't

necessarily happy with the Greens.

Were obviously wanting to head to a position where they supported the voice

and she wasn't sure she wanted to do that.

She was more interested in being sure that sovereignty wouldn't

be seated in this process.

And so she had an uncomfortable relationship with the Greens

policy and ended up leaving probably to everybody's relief.

What did you think of that, Scott?

. It's one of those rare occasions that I think to myself, I can actually

understand where the greens are coming from because they've actually, they

haven't actually said out loud, but apparently they've said it behind closed

doors that they ought to get their seat back, but they can't because the

seat belongs to her, not to the Greens.

Now, she was elected on, I don't know how many votes or anything

like that, but she didn't get very many for herself as an individual.

She got them cause she was running under the Greens band.

I can tell you, Scott.

Yeah, go.

Go for it.

Yeah.

Individually.

So, dear listener, I'll just interrupt with a bit of background on this one.

Scott is, of course, the Constitution establishes the

mechanism by which we elect senators and speaks only of candidates,

doesn't mention political parties.

We have electoral laws that give two options.

You can vote above the line for a party or below the line

for an individual candidate.

And in Lydia Thorpe's case, there were 40,174 personal votes below the line.

Meanwhile above the line was 529,000 . So according to this article from

Michael Bradley and Crikey simply she's in the Senate because her party

got the votes that put her there.

Yeah.

And that's one of those things in there was also another article I was

listening to on the New Daily podcast.

No, not the new Daily podcast, the democracy Sausage podcast.

And they were saying that that was where the conversation first

started about the whole thing.

It belong, the seat belongs to the party, not the individual.

So that was the whole argument was where it was birthed there, and they were

saying that, It was quite uncomfortable for them and that type of thing.

They did everything they could to try and keep her in the tent, but eventually

she said, no bugger, and I'm outta there.

Then she has apparently come back and said that she will vote

with the greens on environmental matters or matters of climate.

So she didn't actually go to the environmental matters.

She said Matters of climate, and that was a war that was about all

that she was offering The greens.

Mm-hmm.

So that means that the Labor Party still gotta convince the greens to

support them on the environment, on the on the climate matters.

And they've also get po pock over the line too, which shouldn't be too hard.

So that's not too bad for the for the Labor Party.

Do you think that Lydia Thorpe is actually going to side with the coalition?

No, I don't.

I don't think that she's going to.

Move that far to the right or anything like that.

It seems to me that she was uncomfortable in the greens because

they weren't left wing enough for her.

So on left wing, on indigenous issues, yes, absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, and that is the thing that I think is going to turn around, bite

her in the backside because she has the, said, the quiet part out loud.

She has mentioned sovereignty.

She hasn't actually said what sovereignty means or anything else.

She said that's, that's what she wants is sovereignty.

She hasn't explained what that's going to mean for us . What's not enough details?

Not enough details.

Is that what you're saying?

Scott said she wants a treaty.

Yeah, no, she wants a treaty.

But you know, this is the.

You know, everyone out there, you can throw rocks at me and call me a racist if

you like, because you didn't get in line.

Yeah.

, you can all call all three of us racists if you want to.

But you know, it's one of those things I just don't see how the

hell you're gonna negotiate a treaty with a group of people that are

not under any sort of sovereignty.

They have lost their sovereignty.

Their sovereignty was pinched when the British came and

stole their country from them.

You know, there's no point dressing it up, colon colonization or anything else.

Their country was stolen from them.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, so that was where they lost their sovereignty, was when the

British came and pinched it from them.

So a bit like the Chinese and Taiwan.

No, I should just give up.

No, we're not gonna go there.

It's been decided.

So just don't reen that can of words.

That's what you're saying, isn't it?

No, it's not.

What I'm saying is it is I'm saying that, you know, they have lost

their sovereignty a long time ago.

They haven't replaced it with anything.

So who the hell are we gonna negotiate a treaty with?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

There you go.

Bromines got a, yeah.

Allow me to play devil's advocate, but, and thank you prom.

When New Zealand managed to negotiate a treaty with their indigenous

people, Scott, their, their indigenous people were represented by a king

or queen or something like that.

So they had someone they could negotiate with.

We don't have anyone like that over here.

We've got a group of people that are tribes that, you know, they are all

from the same indigenous background.

They don't all speak the same language as they do and as the MAs

do speak their own language, you know, they've got different languages

for different parts of the country

. So who the bloody hell are

I'm against the treating myself, but the reasons you're giving are not the

best ones I've heard, I have to say.

Fair enough.

And that's fine.

Cause what you seem to be saying is, is that if there was a king or

queen around, that would be quite useful and it would've been, it would

be legit, it would be legitimate.

Right.

Or, or an elected leader had, sorry, e even a democratically elected leader.

Yes, exactly.

If you had someone that was elected , or someone that was born in, born to be

in that lead, you have someone that you could negotiate with, right?

You've got no one like that.

What if you got a culture that doesn't have leaders, that

just has a, has an elder group?

And doesn't have a leader, like you're, you're imposing a western system of

negotiation that people who may from all, but then, well, then they would say, well,

we've got this group and we've, we, we are gonna amalgamate all these people.

No worries.

That's described by Marcia Langton in her mm-hmm.

in her, I'm just playing devil's advocate here, by the way.

Yeah, no worries at all.

But if you can, if you can get a group of people together like that

to actually be a, why haven't they done that representative body, then

you've got someone that we can talk to.

Isn't, isn't that what that wasn't it Maca or what was, it wasn't that statement

called, that was Macata Commissioner.

Yeah.

Isn't that thought was something to do with truth telling, wasn't it?

Yeah.

But isn't, isn't that, and, and the Marcia Langton document and all that,

really just an amalgamation of the tribal elders saying what they want.

Okay.

I haven't read anything.

Marcia Langton has the, or whatever it's called.

I'm very sorry.

I haven't read anything Marcia Langton has written, so I am very

ignorant on that, so I can't comment.

There we go.

Brahman, I beat you to it.

See, Brahman just chipped in.

She was typing.

She wrote, you might be able to negotiate with an elected group.

What shall we call it?

I I How about, oh, I don't know.

A voice

Well, you can call it that.

Just, just don't intro it in the Constitution.

Why wouldn't you en No, but see that's, that's the whole point.

Okay.

If we can go into the voice now.

Yeah.

Obviously we're heading down a rabbit hole here now, so this is a good reintroduce.

This is a good reintroduction of the Velvet Glove.

Yeah, exactly.

Cause I just, I don't, I don't follow your, I don't follow my scripts.

You got written down exactly my own way.

Yeah.

The voice, the voice in itself.

I don't have a problem with it going in the constitution because that

will, that will, that will stop the Tories ever destroying atsic again.

You know, which is what the Tories did they to, they came into office

and they, they stripped away asic and stripped its funding and got rid of it.

Mm-hmm.

. . Now that was Atsic had its own problems, but it was very brutal

what the coalition government did.

Then they just tore it down and threw it out and didn't replace it with anything.

This way you are never gonna be able to do that because it's in the constitution.

So you've gotta get a, you are gotta get the majority of votes in the majority

of states to actually get rid of it.

So that's not a problem.

Putting it in the constitution doesn't worry me.

Mm-hmm.

, where I'm headed with the voice thing right now is that I was very much, yes.

Very much in favor of it.

Now I'm not so sure.

And, and Olivia Thor is partly behind your Yes.

Your recent hesitation Yes.

Because of this sovereignty issue.

Well, the, the sovereignty thing, you know, she won't explain what sovereignty

actually means and what's says she, what the suggestion gonna cost.

It is going to be very expensive if you want to compensate

them for past crimes . Mm-hmm.

, it would be extraordinarily expensive to compensate them.

Mm-hmm.

for that type of thing.

Mm-hmm.

. Now, diva then think that we should ignore that.

No, I don't, I do believe that there should be some sort of, I can think

it's called the Macata commission.

That's where they were going to sit there and they were gonna tell

the truth about what happened.

And I have absolutely no problem with that because to the best of

my knowledge, none, none of my four bears were involved in that.

If they were, I am not, I do not believe in intergenerational

guilt or anything else.

So I do not believe that it was passed down to me through any sort of

val genetics or anything like that.

Mm-hmm.

, so I've got no problem with that.

, I do believe that we do have to have that sort of conversation, a very frank

conversation with with everyone in the country so that everyone understands what

was done, who did what, and who did whom.

And I think that is very good thing to do.

I also don't have a problem with the war Memorial , going to have

some sort of what's it called?

The the displays from the frontier wars.

I think they're a very good idea that we actually end up going there.

We can start having that conversation with the population so that

we understand what was done.

Now then, I dunno, where you then go from that?

Do you allow that sort of thing?

You know, when you, when you start saying the big C word,

then it gets very expensive.

What's the big C word?

Compensation.

Oh, right, okay.

The other C word.

Okay.

No, there is another C word, which I won't use, but Cancer.

Yeah, sorry.

Cancer.

Yeah.

That's usually so, so let me get it straight.

At this stage, if there was a vote tomorrow, I would probably vote.

I would probably vote yes by tomorrow.

If I, if I had to make, if I had to make a choice tomorrow, I'd vote yes.

But I do understand what you're saying about it.

I do understand, you know, you were saying that you think it's racist because it

gives, it gives people inherited rights.

I agree with you.

It does give people inherited rights.

Well, and also it separates people by skin color.

It does, for sure.

And even then you need, at what stage do you then say, you know, at, at what

stage do you then say, you know, your 15% Aborigine background doesn't wipe

out the other 85% of your background.

Mm-hmm.

That's tricky.

. It is extraordinarily tricky.

I mean, at what stage do you actually say you are not black enough?

Mm-hmm.

, you know, and that is a very difficult thing for anyone to actually say.

Mm-hmm.

. And it does make me sound terribly racist by saying it, you know, now I'm

not, I don't consider myself racist.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, now if you were to really sit down and have a conversation

with me, I'm no doubt someone would be able to pull something

apart and say, oh, you are racist.

Well, maybe I am, but I don't consider myself to be racist.

It's one thing that it's one thing that I don't know, it's

just a very difficult thing that we're gonna have to come across.

We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to deal with as a country.

And that is why I believe that we are better off not ignoring what

happened, but if we can somehow, move forward as a country with

our eyes on the future rather than always looking in the review mirror.

I think that would be better.

Mm-hmm.

? Yes.

Well, you know, personally I find it a divisive issue because discussions

like this always end up in them and us.

Yeah, I agree.

And it's, it encourages a division based on skin color and categorizing

of people based on skin color.

And really the problem is a class problem.

And that's how these things should be addressed.

And it should be, are you oppressed and in what way?

And I don't care what your skin color is, that's the important part.

Cuz ultimately there's some very successful.

Indigenous people around.

Yeah.

Jonathan Thurston as well.

And, and there are some white people around who are doing it really tough.

And for me it's about class is the issue.

And it's a strange approach that we have to some of these things.

Like I keep thinking of the football where we have n R L games of LAX versus whites.

And I think if you looked at America and said, let's have an NBA game or a, or

a, or a or a football match where you have an NBA game, black versus whites.

Well, could you, could you wrestle up enough whites?

Exactly.

The idea of a blacks versus whites sporting encounter

in the us it's laughable.

It wouldn't happen.

Yeah.

They'd go, what?

That's not bringing people together.

Mm-hmm.

. And yet that's what we are doing here.

These, these things are not bringing people together so.

Yeah.

Host of reasons like that.

There will be an episode.

Dear listener, this is all just little teases because , there will be an

episode which will be the definitive, every, every single argument knock down.

Yep.

Argument.

That's it.

The full, I think we should have Bronwyn involved with that because Yeah.

You know, because she said no.

The voice will simply be a group representing indigenous people

with which the government cons consult when developing legislation

that affects indigenous people.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Fair enough.

But Bronwyn in, you know, one of the areas of the law that I have a reasonable

understanding of is the Income Tax Act.

Now, the Income tax Act is, is set up by the Commonwealth government and it doesn't

make any reference to indigeneity or not.

Would they have to consult the, would they have to consult with this group of people?

Because that legislation would affect indigenous people.

Yeah.

I don't know if, if it disproportionately affects indigenous people by taxing

something or not giving a, a, a grant for something that would majorly

affect indigenous people, then yes.

You would be consulting on that.

Hmm.

This is like the critical legal theory where, okay, you pass a law that is

particularly harsh on public drinking doesn't mention that black or white.

It just so happens that the majority of people who are then charged

with that crime happen to be black.

Yeah.

It's systemically racist, even though it's not said to be racist, you know?

But my, you know, the thing that I would say in response to what

Brahman has written there, my first, I'll just repeat it again.

The first part, the voice will simply be a group representing indigenous

people with which the government consult when developing legislation

that affects indigenous people.

It presupposes that indigenous people all think the sign about issues.

It's incredibly insulting.

Indigenous people think the same, the voice is going to go, there

are a range of views, and this is one end, and this is the other end.

Here is all the middle.

And guess what it, it probably very likely represents what the spectrum

of Australians generally think.

I just think the idea is racist to suggest or to imply that black people

will all think the same and if they think differently like the rest of the

community, then isn't that what our elected leaders are doing at the moment?

If you were wanting, you were worried about representation of voice.

Arguably indigenous people are overrepresented in the parliament

compared to the number of indigenous people there are, and

Asian people are underrepresented.

If you are really worried about people having a voice because they're

underrepresented, you'd actually have an Asian voice Parliament because

their voice isn't being heard.

But then guess what?

I don't think Asian people all think the same.

So when you go and consult them, you're just gonna get

a variety of different views.

So this, this is, I can maintain a consistent approach to this whole matter.

And and that's where the women are under underrepresented, certainly

not so much the liberals Labor Party more because the, the Labor

Party has got basically 50 50 now.

So yes, the liberal party definitely underrepresented by women.

You know.

Hello Sharon.

How are you?

Right.

So, that's some initial thoughts on the voice.

We will have a more extensive talk about it at another time.

Lydia Thorpe has got you thinking anyways, got a little bit of hesitation

because of the sovereignty issue.

Yeah.

It just strikes me that it's possibly gonna open up a can of worms.

Mm-hmm.

And Stan Grant, who you know, used to, has really plummeted in my estimations

of him recently, has come out in said, he says, well, not all indigenous

people agree on the voice, but the one thing we all agree on is sovereignty.

And I thought to myself, you know, do they, yeah, exactly.

It's just one of those things.

It's anyway.

Anyway.

Right Scott?

Balloon.

Last week we spoke about the balloon that was shot down over the years.

Yeah, that was a little bit of over overkill, wasn't it?

And since then, dear listener, three more objects have been shot down.

One of them over Canada, I believe, but it's the Americans doing the

shooting and a lot of vague talk about what these objects actually are.

They're sort of refusing to be too firm about what they are.

Probably because they're just simply weather balloons and well, they don't

really know that they're a weather balloon that was 300 foot wide and the

end well is one of these 300 foot wide.

I did not read that.

Yeah, no, I didn't read that.

We, no, no.

We were sent a link.

Really?

Yes.

With a 300 foot wide.

Yeah.

And, and, and the, the payload was the size of a small jet.

Oh, okay.

The balloon was Okay.

The balloon was 300 foot wide.

Yes.

So the payload was the size of a small jet.

Right.

Which was the size of a bus type thing we've heard about.

Yeah.

That was the first one, like, yeah.

Yes.

I think, yeah.

So, and apparently it wandered over missile silos.

Yeah.

But you know, they're asking the in different press conferences where

they're talking to the military, and the military are saying, oh, you know, we,

we can't really say at this point what the object was that we just shot down.

So they're saying to them, well, how do you know that there wasn't somebody in it?

It wasn't that sort of object.

It was like, well, when your pilots looked at it before they pressed the trigger,

you know, what did they describe it as?

Ah, I don't have that information in front of me.

Well, does it look like they'll, they'll have video.

They'll know exactly what it is they don't want.

They're not saying is because the.

Answer the truth is uncomfortable because it's just a simple

weather balloon or something.

You don't really know that it wasn't a spider device.

It could well have been a spider device.

It could well have been a weather laid out on unlikely.

It was more than likely a weather balloon I laid out on a table

for display if it was anything.

Why do they use missiles?

Not a machine gun.

That's what I like.

I don't know.

That was one of the things that I thought was ridiculous because they,

they came out and they said that no, they fired side winders at it.

Which is a, which is a missile.

Yeah.

Which makes no sense because I agree with you.

They should've just used machine guns in the, in the front of their, front of their

jets to blow the, blow the balloon apart.

Well, isn't it easier just to launch a missile?

is guided and you just, that way you can't miss.

It's kind of embarrassing.

You fill that off a few rounds and miss, isn't it?

, I suppose, you know?

Mm-hmm.

. It's one of those things I just thought there was a hell of a beat up by the

Republicans . I think Joe Biden was left with no choice but to shoot him down.

Yeah.

Just shows the insecurity of Americans.

But David from is a conservative commentator.

He said in a tweet if he shoots down one more balloon, Biden gets

a giant stuffed Pikachu toy from the concession era like that.

And Scott, not to be outdone by the US freaking out about a balloon,

Australia decided to remove China made cameras from the war memorial.

Yeah.

The concerns the devices could be used for spying on the war memorial.

That seems a little att So, you know, what if it was used for sp.

You know, it's not around our parliament or anything else.

It's around the war Memorial.

Well, which is a historical, which is a historical museum.

So everything that was on display in the War Memorial has already been talked

about ad nauseum here in this country.

It's been very much publicized by our historians.

The Chinese already know exactly what the War Memorial is talking

about, so one, no, no, no.

It's West Spies go to have their secret conversations, , because

no one else goes there.

Yeah.

I like the war memorial.

I've been there a few times, so it was really good anyway.

How long ago was that?

Oh six or seven years ago.

Okay.

Yeah.

I quite liked it.

You know, I think it there's a lot of glor glorifying of war by the sounds

of it, and shows off tiny toys and sort of beats, there's no doubt about that.

What a wonderful thing war is rather than what a tragic thing it is.

Yeah.

There's, there's absolutely no doubt about that.

Mm-hmm.

probably the most meaningful part of the whole trip was the I forget

what it's called, but it's that main alleyway where you've got all the

names up in, I think it's bronze anyway, the war with all the names of

people who died fighting for Australia.

Something.

Yeah.

You think yourself, Jesus Christ, that's a hell of a lot

of guys that have been killed.

Mm-hmm.

. Now, the only good thing is that as you go through, Memorial.

You can see the numbers of, you can see the numbers of conflicts have gone

up, but the casualties have gone down.

So that is a good thing.

But it's casualties on the side.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

You know?

Well that's right, because you don't, the only ones that count Russian,

Johnny Foreigner, you know, make me sound like a real racist here, but you

know, it's just one of those things.

It's just I understand where you're coming from, Trevor.

There is a fair amount of glorification of it.

Like you what jingoistic is, what it sounds like to me.

Yeah, it is a little bit jingoistic.

I preferred the older stuff like going through the second War and

the second World War stuff, and the first World War was very, . Mm-hmm.

, you know, that was they've got an old, that was, that was a tank outside the

front of the Queensland Museum that was Maisto, which was a German tank from

the First World War, which was captured.

They've got another one of them down there . And they've also got one of those meit

jets and that sort of stuff's down there.

Do, do, do you walk outta the war memorial thinking to yourself, oh man, we

gotta make sure we never do that again.

Oh, well, I do because I actually think like that.

I, I actually, because I walked out past all those names , so that was the last

place I actually saw was all those names, and I just thought to myself, we've got to

do everything we can to make sure that we don't get involved in another scrap Joe.

You buy a Chinese security camera and you look at it.

and you've got no way of knowing whether this thing is secretly

sending signals back to China.

Like we got no capacity to look at these things and work out.

If there's some, usually they connect to a network and it

would be across the network.

They're phoning home.

Yeah.

So assuming they're behind a properly set up firewall, the chances are slim.

Yes.

And you couldn't look at inside the chips of these things and figure, oh,

you couldn't figure, you'd have to, you'd have to destroy one, and then you'd

have to hope that you got the right one.

I mean, there was the story of the motherboards that were being assembled

in China and one of the chips was not what they thought it was and had

some custom firmware built into it.

Right.

. And that was a scare about four or five years ago.

Right?

Yeah.

They suddenly discovered these motherboards that have been putting

computers all over the place.

And firmware installed by the Chinese factory that weren't on

the original design specifications.

Okay.

So why, why by the putting a virus out there, if you can just Hunt literally

sold a something into the motherboard.

Absolutely.

And, and look, the, the NSA were doing that to Cisco

routers coming out of America.

Right.

Where certain places of interest were ordering routers through Cisco.

That's right.

That's right.

They would be sidetracked during the shipping process.

Cisco actually didn't have any knowledge of it.

Ah, they were really, yeah.

No, they were moved to a third party warehouse Right.

Where custom firmware was installed.

Right.

Which even if you upgraded the latest and greatest version the back door

still remained because it was physically on chips that were on the Yeah.

Yeah.

That's why I was more than happy to say to Huawei when they were

wanting to take over a 5G network.

Yeah.

Sorry guys.

Too much risk, like let's just gotta draw a line somewhere.

Yeah.

And again, with a, with critical infrastructure, that is very

different to a consumer device.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

So if, if someone can shut down your critical infrastructure you can imagine

Ukraine in its current conflict, so much real-time intel is being passed by members

of the populace back to military command with an app running on a smartphone.

Yes.

If the Russians have been able to just go throw the kill switch, all

of that intel would've just gone.

There was so much useful yeah.

Basically the population.

Yeah.

Just the civilian infrastructure would be leaking so much information and already

they're targeting power stations and Yeah.

Heating things.

you, you, you don't want to give your enemy the ability to

cripple your means of production.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

. Yep.

So anyway that's what's happened here locally.

There's a tweet by someone called Go Lip, which said not to miss out

on the frenzy over spyware fears.

The Australian Custom Service decides to ban in all imports

of Chinese made party balloons.

Yes.

Just, my, my guess is it's a choking hazard for small children or something.

Was that the petit advocate?

No, no, it's just some somebody tweet.

Okay.

Right.

Scott, before I launch into Nord Stream and Seymour Hirsch, yeah.

Do I say anything about China?

Like just generally In my view, I've expressed over the last two, three

years, I think you are probably.

Ignoring the fact that you are dealing with an autocratic society that is a very

much a top down command country, which you do exactly as the leadership tells you,

or you find yourself in a Chinese gulag.

And it's one of those things that I just feel that you are just a

little bit too flippant with it.

That's my major criticism of you.

Okay.

Because, and is, is China unusual in that or is it just

like every other super killer?

Nah, it depends.

Like, you know, the United States, yes.

Apart from Guantanamo Bay, you do have, you know, a very large adult

population in the prison system, but you don't have a systematic.

Well, I suppose you could actually argue that it is systematic that you do have

denial of burial . So it's, yeah, it is fairly brutal, but it's not as bad as the,

as the political control that they have in China, you can call Trump a Cheeto without

being sent to prison, whereas Exactly.

Whereas you see Winnie the poo, Winnie the poo, you can go to prison.

Mm-hmm.

It's one of those things, it's it's very brutal and I find it really

disgusting that they have no knowledge of what happened in June, 1989.

You know, they, the local, the population, it doesn't get told that.

And is, and is that unusual in, that's the interesting, if you

suspect that the scammer that is contacting you, is Chinese.

Then you make references to June, 1989 and the monitoring software on their

internet connection shuts them down.

really That sounds like urban legend.

Yeah.

Sounds like urban.

Sounds like this sounds like an urban, urban legend myself.

But it's just one of those things I I find that really quite

disturbing that they have got no clue what happened in June, 1989.

Mm-hmm.

Now, you know, there are all sorts of arguments that the the speech

that Bob Hawk gave was full of errors and that type of thing.

I don't know what the truth was, but certainly a hell of a lot more

happened than what the Chinese government is prepared to admit.

And possibly less than less happened than what the what the

democracy protesters actually were arguing for what actually happened.

It's one of those things, it's, I don't know where the truth lies, but the truth

lies somewhere between those two points.

That's, you only complained about what I've been saying,

Scott, then that's not too bad.

You're pretty much, I do think much full government with me if that's the case.

No, not really.

I, I , I can't go through everything, you know, I'd have to go back

right through my original notes to find the original arguments.

But, you know, it's just one of those things I think that I think

someone's gotta explain to the CCP that they actually won that civil war

and that Taiwan is now an independent country that lives on its own.

It's developed its own democracy . It is independent of the people's

Republic of China and it's got to be respected as an independent country.

But they're never gonna accept that, are they?

You know, they honestly believe that it's all part of.

The hundred years of humiliation that they've gotta actually, they've gotta

actually take Taiwan back to reverse the a hundred years of humiliation.

Mm-hmm.

You know, now it wasn't enough that, you know, you know, it certainly they,

they took back Hong Kong, they took back Macau, which is fine because they

were, they were leased to foreign powers

. But it's just, I didn't have a

It's just Taiwan.

That is a very different story.

It is in, it is, it is now an independent country.

It, they speak the same language.

They eventually have exactly the same food . But I think that China would

should, would do well to understand that Taiwan is now an independent country

and I believe that what would be very good is if someone could actually

force them to the table and say you've actually, you've gotta sit there and

you've gotta talk to your brethren.

Chinese, you've actually got to.

Extend the hands of friendship and that sort of thing, and they've gotta and stop

the horrible things that are happening.

Why?

What are you gonna ask now?

? Well, what horrible things are happening?

Nothing.

Well, okay, China, nothing.

Like what, what is the terrible thing that's happening is China's simply

saying, we reckon it's still part of China and we're not giving up on it.

And that's it.

Shoes at it from time to time, don't they?

Yeah, they do.

Shoot, they didn't, they don't actually shoot at the country, but they do actually

shoot, they do actually shoot inside the territorial waters . It's just a hang on.

But when they shelling islands off the coast is, is, I

couldn't tell you about that.

There's enormous cooperation between the two countries.

People move from Taiwan to China on business and work all the time.

I agree.

Like all they've done is said.

We still think you're part of China, but they haven't actually done anything nasty.

No.

Have they?

But there is an argument that the, that the whole military operation

where they keep encroaching on Taiwan, pulling back the last second

. It could be, it has been argued before

used to it , so that when the day comes that they're just going to not stop.

They're gonna roll over them.

So they're preparing military exercises, so they should stop doing that.

Well, certainly looks like they're preparing to.

But you don't know whether or not they are the fuck.

Fuck is this ? I've got some iCloud thing that's come over.

You too.

Hang on a second.

Jesus Christ.

Right.

I can't see you right now, so, you know, it's, it's my Chinese friends in there.

Yeah.

They could be trying to shut kicking in.

Yeah.

They could be trying to shut me up.

You never know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's one of those things.

It's just that I, yeah, I, I understand where you're coming from, but you

know, all, all that's done is said.

We still claim that island.

Yeah.

And they've done nothing else, right?

They've done nothing bad to Taiwan.

No, no.

Not yet.

Haven't imposed any sanctions.

They allow people free to move between the two, the island.

It's, it's just a statement.

Look, eventually Taiwan will come back into the fold when economically

they see it as advantageous.

You know, if it is seen as if it is ever seen as advantageous.

Now, you know, that is right now Chi the Republic of China has got the virtual

monopoly on the manufacturer of chips.

Sorry, who has Well, the Republic of China.

Taiwan, right.

Does have that virtual monopoly on it.

Yeah, but you were saying that earlier, Taiwan is officially the Republic of

China and China is the people of Of China.

People of China.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

So it's just one of those things that yeah, but the chip

superiority is coming to a close.

Yes, it is.

There's no doubt about that.

Like the Yanks have already started to manufacture their own chips and

the Chinese are looking at acquiring the equipment, that sort of stuff,

to manufacture their own chips too.

So, you know, that will probably be the end of Taiwan as a functioning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alright, well, we'll have time to talk about China over the

coming weeks and months, Scott.

Yeah, absolutely.

Just listening to too much.

Monty Python.

Wait, what's Monty Python got to do with this?

I like chin Chinese . Yeah, that's, I don't have my soundboard here.

No.

Ah, where am I?

Okay.

Nord stream.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I've gotta get another beer before you get started on that.

Hang on a second.

All right.

All right.

Well, Scott, you do that.

Scott's getting a beer while he's doing that.

I'll fill in with just some other administrative stuff.

Let's see.

Yes, go to the website.

Oh, by the way, dear listener, so this, I, I edit the audio on the

podcast episode to chop out the ums and hers using a thing called descript.

And it's a little bit rough on the edges, but I think it's worth it.

If you want to hear the ums and hers then.

Watch the YouTube version of the show because that doesn't get edited.

So that's something you can think about.

And people who contribute through Patreon, they get the show notes

through the Patreon system.

If you are a donor through PayPal, then I put the notes into a Dropbox.

And if you're not getting access to those and you'd like that, then let

me know and I'll organize it for you.

So, right.

So Seymour Hirsch, also known as Si Hirsch came out with an article

in his sub ck which was basically telling a story of somebody who was in

Seymour or Hershey's words intimately connected with the whole affair as

to how America actually went about.

Blowing up the Nor Stream pipelines and that it was America who did

it through a concerted effort.

And so we're gonna talk about what he revealed and bef it's

Team America that went in Yes.

. And so that, you know, what does he say?

And can you believe what he said and what does it all mean?

That's a good framework of where we're headed with this one, but we need a

little bit of a recap about just to set the scene as to what America was saying

in the basically when Russia invaded Ukraine and what was America saying about

the Nord Stream pipeline at that point.

And you're gonna hear from to Newland, who was the number

two at the State Department.

And you're gonna hear from Joe Biden.

Okay, this I'll just play this type.

Here we go.

I wanna be clear with you today, if Russia invades Ukraine one way or another,

Nord Stream two will not move forward.

If Russia invades that means tanks or troops crossing the the, the

border of Ukraine again, then there will be we, there will be

no longer a North Stream two.

We, we will bring an end to it.

But do, but how will you, how will you do that exactly?

Since the project and control of the project is within Germany's controls,

we will I promise you, we'll be able to.

He was very confident.

She was very confident.

And at the time I'm looking at it, I'm going, why would you say that?

Unless you.

Thought that you were actually gonna blow it up yourself.

Like how can these people say that, that they were bringing in to Nord stream

with such confidence other than if they intend to blow it up themselves?

There is no explanation when you hear those words other than Yeah,

they were planning to blow it up.

So right from the get go, they're pretty much seemingly admitting that

that's what they're up to anyway.

Oh, actually, and I've just got one more clip here that I'll play

before we start talking about things.

Let's see.

This one here.

Yeah.

And this is when Nord Stream was blowing up and the Russians

said, well, clearly it wasn't us.

This is Joe Biden.

It was a deliberate act of sabotage.

And now the Russians are pumping out disinformation,

In hindsight, well, just a lying character.

Oh, okay.

Seymour Hirsch, who is he?

So from Wikipedia, born in 1937, and an American investigative journalist

and famous for exposing, is it Mik?

My Mik Jessica, my lie.

I thought my lie Vietnam was, yeah.

And the coverup of that, which basically was one of the

contributing, major contributing factors to ending the Vietnam War.

And his other major one was the Abu Gra prison and the mistreatment of detainees.

He's got a really so stranger then basically Yes.

Not afraid to spell it out.

So for the Vietnam story, he won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting

and may maybe the Swedes extra item.

Yes, yes.

Put him in Julian Belmar.

He also, yes.

He won two National Magazine awards in five George Polk awards and he

received the George Orwell Award.

And when you think about living journalists who have revealed big

stories, he's right up there as possibly the most, he's now Yes.

, he's buying into conspiracy theor in as do Yes.

If, for example, you were an insider to the plotting of

the blowing up of Nor Stream.

and say for example, I don't know that you were pissed about it because you

saw it as a breach of ethics and law and everything that you thought America

should stand for and doesn't anymore.

Or, or if you read this story and you're upset that the president was a big mouth

about your secret military operation, no, you're not gonna be upset about

that cuz that was actually helpful.

But we'll come back to that.

You know, if you are wanting to spill the beans and leak a story on the

entire planet, probably the first person you would go to would be

Seymour Hirsch, I would've thought.

Is there any other journalist that you might have gone to then?

Greenwald.

So, yeah, . So you know, if you had that sort of story, he's

the guy that you would go to.

It makes perfect sense that he would be the one releasing the story.

So that's that point of view.

And already what you've got is you know, minnows in the media trying to

portray Seymour Hirsch as some sort of nut bag who can't be trusted.

And he's a renegade and really trying to downgrade his reputation.

So don't believe the story because Seymour Hirsch is an idiot.

That sort of stuff is, is already going out there.

In fact, on his Wikipedia page, very shortly after he broke the

story, somebody went in to edit it and put in the first paragraph

that he was a conspiracy theorist.

And since then that has been re-edited.

And so yeah, that's the sort of thing that happens even to somebody like SI Hirsch

is working on his reputation so that people won't believe what he's reporting.

So, and even like the Business Insider Newspaper had a headline like this,

which was the claim by a discredited journalist that the US secretly blew up.

The Nord Stream pipeline is proving a gift to Putin.

So calling in, yes, calling him a discredited journalist and

claiming that this is just a gift to Putin, so pay no attention to it.

And so, s Hirsch's response to the smear campaign is, I've been told

my stories were wrong, invented, outrageous for as long as I can

remember, but I've never stopped.

In 2004, after I published the first stories about the torture of Iraqi

prisoners at Abu, grab a Pentagon spokesman responded by calling my

journalism a tapestry of nonsense.

He also said I was a guy who threw a lot of crap against the wall.

I won my fifth George Polk award for that work.

So, Probably a sign that he is on the right track is the smear campaign.

And the other thing before you get into the detail of what he

said was he released it on his ck.

So, dear, dear listener, CK is kind of like medium it's sort of like a place

for people to blog and you subscribe and pay money, you know, Patreon sort of way.

So as Craig Murray says, it's a clear indication of the disappearance

of freedom from our so-called Western democracies that si Hirsch.

Arguably the greatest living journalist cannot get this monumental revelation

on the front of the Washington Post or the New York Times that

has to self-publish on the net.

So that is a thing like really well-respected journalist breaking

one of the biggest stories for years has to be done on a blog.

Isn't done in a mainstream.

Yeah.

But you know, the important news is who had sex with who

Or married at first Sight.

. That's right.

Yeah.

So that's the sort of lead up to it.

What did he actually report?

It's quite a long, lengthy article as you can imagine.

But here's the, the number of it is that the US Navy's Diving and Salvage

Center can be found in Florida.

The center has been training highly skilled deep water divers for decades.

Last June, the Navy divers operating under the cover of a NATO exercise,

planted the remotely triggered explosives that three months later

destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines according to a source with direct

knowledge of the operational planning.

And he goes on there was a.

Vital bureaucratic reason for relying on graduates of the center's.

Hardcore diving school neithers were the divers, were navy only, not

members of America's special operations command, whose covert operations must

be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and house

leadership, the so-called gang of eight.

So they purposefully used navy divers so that it wouldn't be reported to

Congress if this is what would happen if they were using special operations.

Okay.

What else does he say here?

So the Norwegians were complicit?

Yes.

So I'll get onto that.

So America had real fears about Nord Stream.

Hooten would have an additional and much needed major source of income.

And Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low cost

natural gas supplied by Russia while diminishing European reliance on America.

So he sets up reasons why financially and strategically America didn't

want Germany and the rest of Europe getting cheap gas from Russia.

And so he sort of sets up reasons for that.

Skipping through a bit.

So in December of 20 21, 2 months before the Russians tanks rolled into the

Ukraine, Jake Sullivan convened a meeting of a new tasks force, men and women

from the joint chiefs of staff, the C I A state and treasury departments, and

asked for recommendations about how to respond to Putin's impending invasion.

And it became clear to participants.

That Sullivan wanted the group to come up with a plan for the

destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines because this was something

that the president really wanted.

And over the next few weeks, members of the c i A working group began to

craft a plan for covert operation that would use deep sea divers.

And so throughout all this scheming, some working guys in the CIA and the State

Department were saying, don't do this.

It's stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.

Nevertheless, they kept going ahead.

They figured out a way to blow up the pipelines, and essentially when there

was a NATO exercise going on, that gave them a great excuse to have all

sorts of naval equipment and divers rummaging around in that area where they.

Put these bombs onto the pipelines and they didn't want

them to blow up immediately.

They decided they needed to be able to use a trigger and blow them

up at some other time when, so it wouldn't be obvious that it was done

just after they were in the area.

So it was about three months time between when they attached the bombs

and when they were eventually blown up and they were able to blow them up by

flying over the pipeline, dropping a boy, which would emit a signal, which

would then cause the bombs to explode.

And it says here that Norma was the perfect place to plan the

mission because the US military had expanded its presence inside Norway.

And the Supreme commander of NATO is Jen Stoltenberg is served

as Norway's Prime Minister and.

Basically, Norway was a good group.

They could be trusted to keep it secret at superb sailors.

And the destruction of Nord Stream, if the Americans could pull it off,

would allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe.

So I think we mentioned last week, que bono who benefits, if

you're not sure of who's behind something, ask yourself, well, who

would've benefited from this action?

And that all lines up with the que bono theory as well.

So Norway likely, you know, well in this article site who's just

saying they helped and they had technical expertise in diving.

They knew the area and they had financial reasons for wanting it to happen as well.

So let's see what else he's got here.

It was the timing said all that and remote detonation and oh, now it's

about the story when he was letting it out that I've gotta find that bit.

So, you mentioned Joe, that they would've been annoyed that Joe Biden

basically said, we're gonna, we have the capacity to stop the pipeline,

which was sort of giving the game away.

And according to this article that what did cause surprise and an annoyance

initially, but it actually worked to their advantage because it meant that

it was no longer a covert operat.

Because they'd more or less admitted to what they were doing, and were

therefore not bound by certain rules relating to covert operations.

So let me just try and find Scott, make some comments on that while

I'm trying to find this section.

You got any thoughts on Nord Stream and the Yanks?

Do you believe the story?

What's your impression of it?

Well, I would've hoped that the Yanks wouldn't do it, but it

wouldn't surprise me that they did.

It's the, you know, it's like I was saying to the other day, they're the only

ones that have got the ability to do it.

I hadn't, I hadn't known anything about the Norwegians, but, you know,

that wouldn't surprise me either.

It, it's possible the Yanks did it, there's no doubt about that.

But would they have actually done it?

I don't know if Donald Trump was still in the White House, I'd say yes, they did do.

Do I believe Joe Biden did it?

I don't know.

He's certainly he's certainly got the ability to do it, but So

you're, you are still doubting the veracity of the story, basically.

Ah, you think it, it's just one of those things.

It does seem so incredible that it is just one of those things that you've

really gotta think long and hard about.

But it is one of those things that I, I don't know.

It's a possibility that it's right.

I think it's all the Russians fault because had it not been for the Russians,

if the Russians had never invaded Ukraine, none of this No, no, no.

Would've happened.

No, no.

If they hadn't stoked up fear about nuclear power back in the sixties

and seventies, Germany would never shut down its nuclear power stations.

They wouldn't need the Russian gas.

And therefore the Germans, the Germans shut down the nuclear

power stations because of Fukushima more than anything else.

But it's one of those things like, I mean, you know,

I just wanna tell this bit that I was trying to find, I I found a bit.

So yeah, where we had Newland and we had Joe Biden basically saying,

one way or another, Nord Stream's gonna finish and the report is

going, well, how you doing that?

You don't control it.

It's under German control.

And he's going, don't worry about it.

It's not gonna happen.

So in this article it says several of those involved in planning the pipeline

mission were dismayed by what they viewed as indirect references to the attack.

Biden and Newland's indiscretion, if that is what it was, might have frustrated

some of the planners, but it also created an opportunity according to the source.

Some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline

no longer could be considered a covert option because the president just

announced that we knew how to do it.

The plan to blow up Nord Stream one and two was suddenly downgraded

from a covert operation requiring that Congress be informed.

To one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence

operation with US military support.

Under the law.

The source explained there was no longer a legal requirement to

report the operation to Congress.

All they had to do now is just do it, but still had to be secret.

That's interesting.

I find that part really interesting.

Obviously it wasn't secret.

Hmm.

Well, but lots of it cut out a lot of people finding out still obviously people

had to know who were in the planning of it, but just reduce the numbers.

I found that part really interesting.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

You know, like I said, I hope Biden didn't do it, but it

wouldn't surprise me that he did.

Who do you think did it, if not the Americans, I don't know.

Someone , who would be your next choice if not the Americans.

Okay.

Well, possibly the, the Youngs are the only ones that could actually pull it off.

You know, if, if, if that's right, if the Norwegians were, were pissed off with the,

with the Russian gas too, then they would probably have the ability to do that.

But the Yanks are the only ones that have got the explosives and that type

of thing to actually go ahead with it.

I dunno, maybe the Norwegians have got the ability to blow it up, but

potentially, but the thought of Norway blowing up a Russian pipeline without

consulting America, . Yeah, it does seem, it does seem somewhat farfetched.

You know, the thing that gets me about this whole thing is people have the

temerity to say, oh, Russia did it.

It defies all logic.

No, cuz Russian did it.

Yeah.

So anybody who said, oh, the Russians did, it has to be immediately discredited.

They're talking another language.

So it can only be America and.

Possibly the world's most suitable journalist for revealing the story

has revealed a story that on the face of it, lines up and look, stranger,

stranger things have happened.

I guess maybe this guy's bullshitting si hurst and it didn't pan out that

way, but I'd put a reasonable sum of money on that being the truth myself.

I can't see any other explanation.

Yeah, but you are very anti-American though, . Yeah.

Yeah, because look, Caitlin Johnston agrees with me, Scott, she wrote

an article and she said My sources also corroborate Seymour Hirsch's

report that the US was behind the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

And her sources are logic, common sense, and public statements

by US government officials.

That's true.

Yeah, I know.

Mm-hmm.

Ah, okay.

I didn't, I was gonna put in something here about Joe Biden

on the State of the Union speech.

Did you see it at all?

If you didn't see it?

I'll move on.

I did see part of it.

Mm-hmm.

He apparently performed very well.

You know, he's, yeah, he often looks quite daughtery and senile, but

no, he's far too old for the job

But in the state of the Union speech, I don't know what drugs

he was on, but he was quite lucid.

Yes, he was.

So he put on quite a good performance and this talk of him going for

a second term on the back of that, so boy, they're on anyway.

Yes, indeed.

Of the oligarchs.

Yeah.

So I mentioned Ron DeSantis last week, and I came across.

Look, I don't even know much about Ron DeSantis, but you know much about him.

Scott, he's a crazy right-wing nup job.

He's he was an acolyte of Donald Trump . He's he's spending his

state's money on shipping immigrant illegal immigrants to the blue states

. You know, he's just a nut.

He's a, and he's also, he was actually being investigated for kidnapping

really, because potentially he lied to the migrants to get them onto a plane.

They flew to Martha's Vineyard and then dumped him in Martha's Vineyard, and

basically it was moving people across state lines under false pretenses.

And so there, there's a criminal investigation being opened up.

, ah, this doesn't sound right, this doesn't sound right because Profit Charlie Shamp.

Had some good things to say about DeSantis.

Really?

I'll just show you some of this.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, he was also, we need to walk on DeSantis because the Lord is

going to use him in a powerful way.

Mm-hmm.

I had had, several years ago, a vision that I went into where I saw

tomb palm trees because that hair, and I saw one of them was planted in

California, the other one in Florida, and I said, Lord, who are, who?

What is this?

These two palm trees?

He said, this palm tree from California is Ronald Reagan.

This palm tree that is in Florida is Ron DeSantis.

He said Ron DeSantis, or Ronald DeSantis.

Mm-hmm.

is the second, has an anointing similar to Ronald Reagan.

And I saw Ron DeSantis as a, as a tree of righteousness, that palm

tree, and I saw it uprooted from Florida and brought to Washington, DC.

and planted in Washington DC and as the storms came, he was not moved.

That's right.

There's, there's something about Ron DeSantis that we

need to begin to pray for.

Yes.

We need to begin to look at, because his ultimate future is to have a position

in the United States as the president and be planted in Washington DC and

he would be like a Ronald Reagan.

Yeah.

Wow.

And you doubt that a country that produces that can can bomb North Stream pipeline.

You just, you, they're good.

How they can do this with a straight face.

It'd be interesting to know whether this guy really knows that shit he's talking

or whether he swallowed his own Turo.

Well, it was backer wasn't, it wasn't the host.

I dunno.

Ah.

I hear on that guy.

Yeah.

But I cannot believe there's still, you know, after everything

we know about Ronald Reagan

. Mm-hmm.

, you cannot believe that anyone with a straight face would say

that he was a brilliant president.

You know, he, you know, I know he stood up to the Russians , but, you know,

he was a nut . See, Scott, you don't have to throw people into gulags when

you can control mines in this way.

Yeah, I know.

But it's, I'm just, I hate that.

I hate that there for a bit of comic relief, but I think you're

finding it too depressing.

It is a little depressing because Ron DeSantis is also that fucking idiot

that's gone through and he's, you know, he's the one that's behind the, don't

say gay bill and all that type of thing.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, where he, he's actually trying to, The what's the word I'm groving for?

He's trying to doctor the education system to actually, he's also opposed to critical

race theory and all that type of thing.

It's just, you know, and there was a beautiful meme that

I saw today on Instagram.

It was that little black girl . She was surrounded by what, sorry, hang on.

Sounded like you were against critical race theory earlier on with

the with the indigenous discussion.

But, sorry, keep, keep going.

No, no.

I'm not critical race theory . I don't have a problem

with it in the United States.

I don't have a problem with it in Australia either.

I just think that Sovereignty and that type of thing has gotta be

explained to us before we actually buy it off more than we can chew now.

Yeah.

Sorry, I've diverted you.

Sorry.

No, it's okay.

The and he's, he's just opposed to all that type of thing that he's actually

trying to, and there's this, sorry, there's this beautiful thing I saw today

on Instagram there, that little black girl

. She was surrounded by white federal

the desegregation of schools.

Mm-hmm.

And it said if this little girl can live it, then there's no reason why

your little girl can't learn about it.

Yes.

You know, and that is very true.

Mm-hmm.

Hey Scott, are you all for protecting our native species against imported predatory

species that are sort of, causing them to.

I suppose so what I was too.

It's a trap.

. Yeah.

No, that's exactly what I was just thinking about Indigenous

was I was, I was in favor of protecting native species as well.

Until I saw this.

Australians love native animals.

They're need to bring us joy.

We've had a sad invasion.

Feral animals who destroy the Center for Invasive Species Solution needs some help.

Let's think of our environment.

Ozzie Wildlife Pain is felt

one verse more than enough.

There's a special group.

Invasion Species Solutions.

Trust a philanthropic opportunity.

Help native.

A must.

Philanthropic and corporate partners are invited to join in.

Folks.

Environmentalist, primary producers help them win purpose.

He's up for it.

Yeah.

It is a national issue.

C i s s really cares with new tools and good products.

Invasive species won't be there.

Al is that the governor General's wife?

Yes.

It's, it's like a school concert, isn't it?

Everyone just goes, wow, your child's special

Anything with the governor General?

She gets, she trots herself out and gives a speech in that format.

People have to listen to it.

Yeah.

I thought it was a setup with the, the native species.

Were gonna be the.

Indigenous people and the invasive species were gonna be white people.

. No, I wasn't heading that direction.

Eradicating to allow the, the, the native species to flourish.

No, I wasn't heading in that direction.

Just uh, isn't it?

Yeah.

So we first came across her, I think.

Yeah, we first came across her because she would in the morning she would

exercise while reading the Bible.

Reading the Bible, yes.

Yeah.

So we can joke about American leadership, but that's what we've got going here.

Oh look, a final one coming to the end here.

Scott, have you ever had an mri?

Yes, I have had an mri because I might as well tell the listeners and

this also goes out to Sharon too.

I was relatively recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Mm-hmm.

So I got sent off for an MRI and that type of thing.

I went to the doctor and I said, I'm having some difficulty swallowing.

And she said, okay, I'll send you off for this brain scan , which they did.

And they just found a lesion on the base of my brain and they said,

well, he is got a lesion here.

We better send him up for an MRI to find out how many lesions he's got.

Well, bloody hell, I did have quite a few lesions.

I had six or seven of them at that stage.

And they they did the full brain MRI and spinal MRI . And I went down

to see a urologist in Brisbane and I got told that I had n I had N.

You'd already self-diagnosed via Dr.

Google.

I was self-diagnosed via Dr.

Google because I, I got the brain scan and I was just, I typed in the message

from the radiologist into Doc Dr.

Google and Dr.

Google said that it was ms.

Mm-hmm.

. So I said that to neurologist and he said, well, he says, having seen your

scans and being a neurologist, he says, I think that's what you've got.

So, yeah, I have had an mri.

I've got another that I just booked today in May.

Mm-hmm.

. So I'll go and have one of them every six months until two years is up.

And then after that I'll be going there once a year for an mri.

Mm.

Yeah.

Well, dear, well thank you for adding to the diversity of this

podcast because No worries.

We were just a, we were just a Crohn's Disease podcast, but now we can add ms.

Yeah, exactly.

, that's the that's our div our means of diversity on this podcast, considering

just three white, yeah, that's right.

And regional.

And you are a regional Queensland slum lord as well, so, yeah, . So . I'm

not quite a slum lord up here yet.

I've, I've bought, I've just rented my place out in Mackay and you

know, if I still, if, if I still like my job in six months and the

job still likes me, then I'll buy something up here too, so, mm-hmm.

. Okay.

Well, can you get an MRI in Rockhampton?

Yes, I can.

Okay.

Just be careful.

Don't take your gun into the MRI machine because a lawyer in Brazil ignored orders

to remove all metal objects from his person while accompanying his mother.

For an M R I scan the strong magnetic field, pulled the gun from

his waistband and it discharged.

At the same time, eventually killing him.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

So yeah, don't take a gun into an mri.

No, I won't be taking a gun anywhere.

. Mm-hmm.

I found a YouTube video of, and they were dismantling an old mri and

they said to the medical students, have at it, you, you've got a couple

of hours, throw whatever you like into the MRI and see what happens.

I think they, they've eventually got an office chair dangling on a robe.

Right.

Being pulled towards the mri.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just to show the strength of the Magnus on it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so there we go.

Alright, look, I had an other article there, but that's not gonna fit in really.

So I think we'll call it a night at this stage.

Welcome back, Scott.

Good, thank you very much.

Trevor.

It's good to be back.

We'll explore all of your thoughts in more detail later on.

. Thank you.

In the chat room.

Essential, Lord.

Dawn says he's pre-diabetic, so I add that to the list.

Pre-diabetic what?

You're borderline diabetic, you're not quite over the threat.

Okay.

And John Simmons says, good luck.

Champion to you, Scott.

Alright, I'll be fine.

Thanks John.

Everything's good.

I actually I did have my second m i after my first infusion and they

showed that the three holes, which were all concerned, they're all much

smaller than what they were originally.

So that is the absolute best result I could have expected.

Mm-hmm.

, the result I was hoping for was that there was gonna be no movement either

way, but I got an, I got an excellent result, so I would just have to wait and

see what this next MRI in May turns up.

Cuz after that I go in and talk to the, I talk to the neurologist again via Zoom

and I'll find out then whether or not the holes are still the same size or

whether they're a little bit smaller.

Anyway, we'll have to wait and see.

Well after this podcast, Scott I can diagnose that you are currently

operating on all cylinders, intellectually , after listening to

the Gigi's wife, your brain larger.

That's right, that's right.

We've all developed a few brain holes.

Yeah.

I cannot believe that woman wasn't even, does she?

Is she not self-aware of just how fucked in the head she sounds?

No.

Ugh.

That's, yeah, that's it.

I remember seeing one of those auditions, you know, the singing shows

The Voice or something like that.

Oh yeah.

Actually it was a dancing one.

Yeah.

It, it was either dancing or a singing one.

And this girl did this performance where she was just terrible.

Like really terrible.

I think it might have been a dancing one.

And the judges just said, thumbs down.

And she said, am I one of those people who.

Doesn't know how bad they are.

And the judges said, that's right.

You're one of those

At least she had some self-awareness, she had enough self-awareness to think

she might have been in that category.

Yeah.

So.

Right.

Okay, we're gonna leave it there.

Uh, Thanks everyone in the chat room.

Talk to you next week.

Bye for now.

See you then.

Bye now.