Joel Pollock (3:11)

Good morning to you. I hope you can hear me and see me and everything. It's really impressive, by the way, that you guys are keeping this going. And I'm just looking on the Rumble platform. There are over 2,000 people watching live, which is incredible. So congratulations to you, and I think that means this is becoming a regular thing, and I'm really happy about that. So let me dive in. First of all, I am Pollack. I am the new opinion editor of the brand new California Post, which just Started a week ago today and I'm in Santa Monica, California right now, although my family and I have temporarily relocated to Washington D.C. since the Palisades fire. So I go back and forth. So if you see me complaining on Sunday about the ice and snow in D.C. and there's Monday of sunrises on the beach, that's why I am very happy to be here. And I miss everybody on this rumble stream. I miss everyone who was at the memorial last weekend. For Scott, it was an incredible experience and I've actually never been part of a memorial like that where every stage really added something special. I've watched it now three times and go back and watch it. You don't have to feel guilty about watching it at one and a half speed. That's just fine. But go back and watch it. It's incredible. And I'm just amazed at the connection we all made with each other. We hung out afterwards. It was really great. And you see people at these events and unfortunately they happen too often. But you see people that you've seen at other memorials or you see at conventions and there are debates that people have online about various topics. And then you see each other at these big events where you realize a lot of those things don't matter. And it's just great to come back together around what we all share in common. I want to show you a couple things that are special, but first I'm going to talk a little bit about a reframe that I have felt very helpful because as I thought about what I would say today, I thought of so many different things I could say about Scott, about what I'm doing on the biography, about what I'm learning about Scott's lessons in my own life. But I decided to narrow it down for this episode to one reframe. And maybe if I'm invited back, I could do more reframes or more lessons in the future. But these things are occurring to me all the time. And so I'm going to get into that reframe in a minute. But let me just show you a couple of things that are interesting. So I have a funny way of writing and I actually wrote a book. It's an ebook on Amazon called How to Write. And I have my own method for writing. I have terrible writer's block. I had an incredibly difficult time when I was at college writing my senior thesis because I would stare at the blank page for days on end and think of all the things I needed to say, but I had no idea how to say them. And I got very little guidance. My thesis advisor said, well, make an outline and then just write point by point to the outline. But that didn't seem right to me. And in the end I finished. But I wrote a massive amount overnight, and it was an incredibly awful experience. And I just decided I never wanted to repeat that again. So I came up with some writing techniques, and one of them is called the visual block method, which I can explain another time. You'll see a little bit of it here in what I'm about to show you. But one of the other things I started doing was writing longhand. I don't do that for every book I write, but I find that producing a physical product, pen on paper, ink on paper, motivates you to keep writing. And it doesn't matter if what you write is nonsensical, out of order, disorganized. When you write on paper, you know you're going to have to come back and do another draft. So you take the pressure off and you just write whatever needs to be said and you discover what needs to be said in the course of writing so you know you're going to come back and fix it. You just get everything out on the page and it keeps you going from one page to the next, one day to the next. So this is my longhand so far of Scott's biography. Now, if you can't read any of it, don't worry about that. It's all in my scrolling cursive writing. You can see a little bit of my visual block method because I've got each page divided into paragraphs or four lines each on this particular notebook. Sometimes it's three lines each, but I basically write visually. I write according to blocks that I create on the page. And that's great because it motivates you to fill the block. If you don't know what you're saying, you fill the block. If you have too much to say, you trim it to fill the block. And it just keeps you going from one idea to the next. So this is the early draft of Scott's biography that I'm working on, and I try to go topic by topic. I may rearrange these as I go, but. But I'm at the point in the draft where I've worked through Scott's early life and his career in banking in the Bay Area, moving on to Dilbert and then moving on to other businesses that he started, like his restaurants, which he talks about in some of his books and he spoke about often in his live stream and other ventures that he did. And now I'm moving into some of Scott's theological views, which I think are very important to some of his other views. So this, of course, is Scott's famous book, God's Debris, which I have with me here. And I'm going to go through what Scott said, why he said it, where these ideas might have come from in his own life, and how he interpreted them later as he developed his own theories of managing the reality and simulation that we live in. So that's the biography project. It's a little bit every day. I probably devote one hour to it a day. I have an incredible amount of work to do with the California Post. I've got four kids who I love, I've got a beautiful wife, and I'm constantly cleaning up and doing other sorts of household chores. So there's a lot to balance, the good things and the difficult things. And I think if you can find an hour a day to focus on a creative project, you can really move it along. One of the best lessons I learned about creativity was from a book called the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, which many of you may have heard of. But when you get into the practice of writing early in the morning and you get into the mentality of I just need to do a little bit every day to move it forward, eventually you become amazed at what large things you can actually accomplish. I think about Scott often in this context because he would say, you need to schedule time to exercise every day. And even if all you do is drive to the gym parking lot and sit there and then go home, you still count it. No, you didn't do exercise, but you still went to the gym. And once you get yourself in the habit of doing it, eventually it becomes something bigger. It becomes more rewarding. And that's a lesson you can apply to a lot of other things in life. What I want to talk about in terms of the reframe has a little bit to do with what I mentioned before about the challenges of managing workload and work life balance and all of that. When I think of Scott's lessons. Scott taught us how to apply different filters to reality. We all understand reality through a filter. I've got CNN on, on my TV here in the hotel room. And their filter is completely different from Fox the Ice incidents, for example. CNN sees it through a Nazi fascism filter that this is the American version of fascism. We have the secret police arriving in communities and dragging people away and demanding to see their papers and taking children and all kinds of things. That's the CNN narrative. And they allow a little bit of diversity around that viewpoint. But essentially you're forced to talk within that narrative. If you go to Fox News, the narrative is very different. This is law enforcement. It is a filter of fulfilling campaign promises, securing the border, making America safe. And there you can talk about the dramatic drop in crime since the ICE enforcement started because crime has fallen everywhere. It's not something that one mayor is doing or one governor. It really is about the national policy of rolling out ice. And you talk about commitment that Trump made and voters are getting what they voted for. And this is all building up toward the midterm elections. And as Scott often noted, traditionally the party out of power does better in midterm. So you'd expect Democrats to do well in the midterm elections unless something big happens. And something might happen. But we all have different filters, which is the point of this little digression into the news. And we can choose our filters. This is Scott's point. So if you want to live in the world where we're governed by a Nazi regime and you have to be afraid everywhere you go, you can live in that world. However, that world might not correspond to reality. And you might consider a more productive filter, which is the other side's filter, which is the law enforcement filter, that if you obey the law, things will generally go pretty well with you. Or you can take a completely different filter, which is that I don't have any power as an individual citizen to have any impact whatsoever on these things. They don't really affect my life. So I'm going to adapt a completely different filter that focuses on what I can do today. I don't have to get directed into this political conversation. I take an interest in politics. I know what's going on. But I turn the sound down, I scan the headlines. I don't have to read the articles. You take a different filter. But the point is, choose a filter that helps you, helps you achieve something. The best filter isn't necessarily the one that corresponds to the facts. It's the one that helps you get where you're going. And I've really struggled in recent days with the workload that I have. The California Post is an amazing publication, but unlike where I worked for 15 years, Breitbart News, the California Post is not just online and it's also in print. And print newspapers have deadlines and the deadlines are non negotiable. When you work in the online world, you give yourself a little leeway. You can go earlier you can go later. But in the print world, things have to happen at a certain time. They can't happen before and they can't happen after. They have to happen at a certain time. And that means that for about five or six hours of the working day you are stressed out beyond belief. I'm pretty chill right now, but in about 15 minutes my time is no longer my own and I am thrust headlong into this storm of news and articles and changes and edits and fixes and meetings and checking back in and social media and did you remember this? And it's crazy. And yesterday I work on Sundays because I have to prepare the Monday paper. Yesterday I was trying to manage all that while at the same time also being a good parent. So I had my son's indoor baseball practice in the middle of absolutely frozen Washington D.C. they have at least an indoor facility, so I had to take him there. That was about a 40 minute trip from our house. And then I had my daughter's rock and roll concert. She's in the School of Rock program. So we had to come back from baseball practice in time to see my daughter perform Nirvana. She's very good. She was excellent. It was also her birthday, so I did not want to miss her concert on her birthday. And in the midst of all that, I'm trying to work. And that would be a challenge even if I lived in la. It's not just a DC versus LA thing. It's not just a remote work thing. If I were in la, if we all lived in la, and we will again one day soon, hopefully. But if we were all in one place, I'd still be managing that challenge because I have children and I love my children. I love my family life. It's the reason I do everything I do. So I would have had that really tough balance to strike. And it was exasperating. It was really, really difficult. And it wasn't as if yesterday was extraordinary in any other real way. Because even though my daughter had this concert, it's not like Sunday is a free day. She also has rehearsals on Sunday when she doesn't have a concert. So I've got to run around. We have four children, so my wife and I often split them up and we do different things with different kids. We don't really have a choice of leaving all the kids with one person or another. Except my wife is very indulgent because she lets me do this bi coastal thing. So she's got the kids now. When she's away, I watch all the kids. She was in the Navy Reserve for 11 years. So I often had the children to watch, although we had fewer of them, so maybe it was a little bit easier. But it's a challenge. It's a massive challenge. And you start to have very negative thoughts. And the thoughts you have are things like, this is why Americans don't have kids. It's just so hard. Work is hard. It's incredibly difficult to balance all these things. We can't afford a nanny right now, so how do we go forward? I mean, we have the situation we have. We'll just manage it. But you can see why people on the outside looking in might think, this is not really something I can afford to do or want to do. And you really just can pull yourself into a complete funk. And it happens every single day because you have childcare responsibilities, family responsibilities every day. And if it's not the children, it's the groceries, it's cleaning up the house, it's doing whatever you have to do. Sometimes it's something unexpected, an illness or, God forbid, a car accident. These things happen, and you have to manage them alongside all the other things you have to do. So I remembered an important thought that I had a few years ago, and I think it's a reframe. And Scott didn't use this one, but I think this thought falls into the category of Scott Adams reframe type of ideas. And that is that sometimes managing feels like not managing. That is to say, you can be managing a situation and you feel like you're not managing it, like everything's out of control, things are spinning to the side. You feel miserable, you're upset, you don't know how you can go on. But you come to the end of the day and you look back at the end of the day, and actually, you finished all your work. Your kids all got to their events on time. Maybe a minute or two late here and there, but everybody's safe. Everybody got dinner, and eventually everybody's in bed. And wow, I can't believe things are calm right now as I'm heading to bed, turning in for the night. They felt so out of control earlier today. And I think it's just important to remember that sometimes when we feel that way, that's not the reality. That feeling of helplessness, of frustration and stress, isn't necessarily a sign that you're failing. It's part of the feeling you're going to have when you're managing many different things. And we don't live in a simple time where we manage only one thing. At a time none of us lives there. In fact, maybe human beings never lived there. Even before technology and all the different things that captivate our attention and compete for our time. Even before all that, people had so many things to do, maybe more things to do. When you think about the fact they didn't have labor saving technology, doing the laundry took all day. So this is something we've had to do for a long time. And I think it's just important to remember, number one, it is important to take a break once in a while. So I have the Sabbath on Saturday for religious reasons. I take one day where I'm not doing anything. I think that's important. So you manage the other six days. But in addition to that, when you're in the thick of it, don't panic if it doesn't feel right. Because managing sometimes feels like not managing. And. And when you think about that, reframe, it really helps you understand that what you're doing could be objectively right and objectively successful, even if what you're feeling subjectively doesn't feel that way. Now, there are some situations where that feeling of being out of control is something you want to pay attention to. Maybe you are doing too much, or maybe things are too difficult, or maybe you need to change the system you use to run your day, or maybe you need to change jobs or you need to figure out another arrangement. So don't ignore that signal. But you're going to have that signal even when you're succeeding. And that's especially true of parents with kids. Kids are wonderful, but they also do random things at random times. Random things happen to them. You can't control when a baby gets sick. You can't control when a kid gets hurt or a teenager comes home in a bad mood or they get a bad grade at school, or whatever it is. You have to accept that certain things are beyond your control. And so you're going to feel out of control a lot of the time. I'll just close with this. There's a thought that I have now as I'm telling you this. There's this great movie with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton, the late Diane Keaton, Parenthood. A lot of other great actors in the movie as well. But there's a scene where Steve Martin argues about whether the carnival ride that's best is the roller coaster or the merry go round. The roller coaster is scary. It goes up and down, but it's thrilling. The merry go round just goes in one direction and might get a little dizzy. It's a little boring, but it's always the same and he decides that the merry go round is better. He's just so stressed out. So many kids, so many challenges. And there's a scene later in the movie where his kid starts destroying the school play on stage. His kid is causing chaos and the camera starts rolling as if he's on a roller coaster. And eventually, instead of looking around in absolute horror at the destruction his child is causing on stage and terrified of where this roller coaster is taking him, he starts laughing and enjoying the ride. And I think that's the transition that we have to try to make. And I have to try to do it again today. I don't know if I'm going to succeed, but I think that reframe is just one to keep in mind. It has helped me in the past that sometimes when you are managing, it feels like you're not. So that's my reframe.

Erica (21:36)

That's amazing. I love that, Joel, and I think a lot of us are feeling that way too. I don't have kids and I don't know how anyone does it with kids. I swear, I give you guys so much credit because I can't imagine adding another one human life to take care of. So that's crazy. Good advice, you guys. I know you have a hard out and we are so grateful that in this crazy schedule you took time to be here with us today. And yes, you have an open invitation. We want you to come back anytime, all the time. And I also want to say thank you so much again for your beautiful remarks at Scott Service. If anyone still hasn't seen it, I encourage you and Joel, you took us on such a visual journey with your words. You told a story and you are just an incredible writer and thoughtful person. And yeah, I sobbed the whole time, but you just took us on this journey with the really good news at the end. And I love you so much for that and for being such a great friend to Scott. Like, I just, I have so much respect and love for you. You guys. Do you want to say anything to Joel before we let him go?

Marcella (23:01)

I just wanted to thank you, Joel for taking all the time. I mean, it sounds like California Post is great, but it's going to need a lot of your time as a Californian. We need you. We really need a new governor. I mean, it's like I work in downtown LA at times and it's like worse than a third world country night. I was born in a third world country. So you know, if anything you Know, I know that it's a lot of sacrifice for you and your family, but truly know that you're making a difference.

Joel Pollock (23:36)

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thanks, guys, for keeping this going.

Sergio (23:40)

Quick question, Joe. Oh, yeah, quick question, Joe. What is your percentage, your slaughter meter percentage for the midterms? That was one thing that Scout will do for us. And I don't know who's going to slaughter who, but what are your.

Joel Pollock (23:59)

I would say right now there's a 75% chance that Republicans get slaughtered in the midterms, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen that way. And I'm focusing on California, and I think there are going to be some important changes in California. But I think, look, the party that's out of power is always money, much more motivated to vote. It doesn't really even matter what the issues are. I mean, the issues can be completely made up, nonsense. But if people have a sense that they don't control anything in government, they don't control their own lives, and they get frightened and told, you have to go to the polls to change that, then they go. But I've just lived through so many of these cycles now that you laugh at the reasons people give for what they're doing. I mean, take the phrase drain the swamp, for example. Okay, Donald Trump drained the swamp. You know who said drain the swamp? First it was Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. In 2006, they swept to power in Congress by promising to drain the swamp. Now, people went to the polls, Democrats went to the polls. 2006, we're going to drain the swamp. We're going to drain the swamp. As soon as they got power, the swamp was bigger and badder than ever before. And people just vote based on things that, as Scott would say, are often a fake because they cite reasons. They'll say ICE or whatever. But if you actually ask someone who's really opposed to ice, and you don't have to agree with everything ICE is doing, but if you ask someone, well, we have borders, right? You have to have borders. So how do you have a secure border if you can't patrol the border? And also if you can't enforce immigration laws for people to overstay their visas or aren't here legally, there really is no substitute. You need to have some kind of law enforcement that does it. You might not, again, you might not like the way ICE is doing it. I'm not, I don't want to get into that debate. But the idea of abolishing ICE which is motivating so many people right now is just crazy. It's crazy. And if you point to one Trump accomplishment, I mean, if you. If you don't believe he accomplished anything else, one massive Trump accomplishment is he closed the border. He actually closed the border. So are you now telling voters you're going to open it up again? You think people want that? I don't think people want that. I think people want a legal immigration system that works, and they want some humane approaches to people who have been here for a long time. And maybe we can integrate people into our society. People might have different ideas about that. But do you really want to open up the border again to millions of people coming from all over the world? We don't know who or why or what. And crime going up and everything. Nobody would logically say that, but they're all marching to this tune. And again, it's not the only time it's happened. Republicans have had their things as well. Well, I mean, I'll give you one example. In 2014, Republicans took the Senate unexpectedly. What was the big issue in 2014? Well, there were a lot of issues, but the Ebola outbreak. I don't know if you guys remember the Ebola thing. And Obama got frustrated. And I wasn't an Obama fan, but I sort of understood why he was frustrated because the Ebola thing was hyped so far beyond what it actually was. It became a fake because people were going to vote because Obama didn't stop Ebola. But, you know, they were like a handful of cases, and most people survived. And, you know, but it's just one of those things that, you know, people attach their motivation to something else. I think the party out of power is always much more motivated. People feel like they don't control anything. They want to get control back, and they don't always know what to do when they get it, but that's usually how it goes.

Owen Gregorian (27:17)

All right, thanks, Joel. I don't want to keep you any longer, but a lot of what you said resonates with me. I went through a lot of the same experiences with my kids, so I'm in agreement on all of it.

Joel Pollock (27:28)

Thanks, everyone.

Erica (27:29)

The audience thanks Joel. Oh, you guys, I love Joel. So, listen, we're going to talk more news in a minute, and I'm going to just play something for you quick. Let me just turn this light off, because it's right. And I'll post it after the show so you guys can all have it. But thank you to anyone who did send some clips and Jay Plemons, thank you for making this for us. But, you guys, I think you're gonna love this, and I will post it after. Okay, ready?

Scott Adams (voice clip) (28:04)

Actually been crying. I've been laughing so hard. I've been laughing for 10 minutes straight since I saw this.

Joel Pollock (28:10)

George Phyllisopolis, a newscaster, would hinge on several.

Marcella (28:15)

One, source of information.

Erica (28:27)

Viewers might be.

Marcella (28:28)

More inclined to trust his statements.

Erica (28:30)

Conversely, if he has been wrong before.

Marcella (28:32)

Or shown bias, viewers might question his claims.

Joel Pollock (28:35)

3.

Marcella (28:36)

Context of the information. Would make his assertion seem less credible or might suggest that he is part.

Joel Pollock (29:14)

Of a broader misinformation.

Marcella (29:20)

From a storytelling perspective, whether George is portrayed as a credible newscaster or as someone engaged in gaslighting.

Scott Adams (voice clip) (29:49)

Oh, I've watched this thing probably 15 times, and I. I literally cry every time I watch it. Like, tears just shoot out of my eyes against my glasses.

Erica (30:04)

Oh, my God. Do you guys love that? Nothing better.

Sergio (30:12)

That was awesome.

Erica (30:14)

Thank you, Jay. Jay is the bomb. You guys, if you're not following Jay Plemons, please do. And if you guys are hearing this, could you drop Jay's name in the chat for everybody to follow? He's at jplemons, and he's just so good to us, and I needed that laugh. We could probably have one that's like 25 minutes long with all of the laughing, but that was me. Amazing. All right, so I'm gonna just say let's go with the news, Owen and I know you dug up a bunch of great stories.

Owen Gregorian (30:49)

All right, we'll dive in at Sergio's request. I think I'm going to start out with the Grammys. Trump posted a truth social about that, so I'm just going to read it to you. Here's Donald Trump's post. The Grammy Awards are the worst. Virtually unwatchable. CBS is lucky not to have this garbage litter their airwaves any longer. The host, Trevor Noah, whoever he may be, is almost as bad as Jimmy Kimmel at the low ratings Academy Awards. Noah said incorrectly about me that Donald Trump and Bill Clinton spent time on Epstein Island. Wrong. I can't speak for Bill, but I have never been to Epstein island nor anywhere close, and until tonight's false and defamatory statement, have never been accused of being there, not even by the fake news media. Noah, a total loser, better get his facts straight and get them straight fast. It looks like I'll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless dope of an MC and suing him for plenty of dollars. Ask little George Slopadopoulos and others how that all worked out also ask cbs. Get ready, Noah. A gonna have some fun with you. President djt. There you go, Sergio.

Sergio (32:03)

That, that was amazing. Thank you so much.

Owen Gregorian (32:06)

Appreciate it.

Erica (32:08)

No one writes like that, man.

Owen Gregorian (32:11)

I think Scott would have had a big laugh about that.

Erica (32:14)

Oh yeah?

Owen Gregorian (32:15)

Yeah. So I, I didn't watch the Grammys. I don't know about you, but I had no interest at all.

Marcella (32:20)

I like, I like when he writes the, the capitalizes worse. But then what really made me laugh is he says Noah said incorrectly about me that Donald Trump and Bill Clinton spent time on Epstein Island. And then he writes wrong because he is so visual, you know, and so expressive. What did Scott say his language was? I forget.

Sergio (32:49)

Get.

Marcella (32:51)

We had a word for it.

Erica (32:53)

You remember? You mean like a linguistic kill shot?

Marcella (32:58)

No, he called the, the, the language that the, the Trump used.

Erica (33:05)

Visual.

Marcella (33:06)

Visual. But he had a word for it. I, I forget.

Erica (33:10)

Anyone in the chat, let us know if you remember looking at.

Sergio (33:14)

Now I can see all the comments now, Erica. Really? Well, I can see YouTube now.

Erica (33:19)

Oh, good.

Marcella (33:20)

Everything.

Sergio (33:20)

Yes, I can see. I have a big screen. I see Sophia, John Durham, Big Moro.

Marcella (33:27)

Vo. Voy.

Owen Gregorian (33:29)

That's.

Erica (33:29)

Oh, Voy.

Marcella (33:30)

He's. God would say that, that Trump wrote Boise like you could feel it and hear it when you're reading it.

Erica (33:41)

For sure.

Sergio (33:41)

That's a good point because even if we were talking about if Owen should do, you know, the drum voice or just say it, he doesn't need to do the accent because the, the, the, the, the writing itself is voicey. That's true.

Marcella (33:56)

Yes, we could.

Sergio (33:58)

So I'm glad you did your own Owen.

Marcella (33:59)

Although we would want Owen to do a little bit of a Trump.

Owen Gregorian (34:05)

Maybe I'll work on it. I'm not very good at it right now. I can practice. All right, so go into a little bit of science. There's a story about used concrete lasting up to 100 years in New buildings. So apparently you're going to start seeing used concrete blocks. It says that old concrete slabs and new buildings can be used for 50 to 100 more years. It'll cut emissions and waste and construction. Apparently they analyze buildings in Sweden and Finland with computer simulations with simulated threats, and it says their lifespan was 50 to 100 years. I think this is based on having some kind of silicone based coating to cut corrosion up to 70%. So sounds like they're trying to reuse their, their cement and their concrete. Not sure if I'd really want to get used concrete in my building, but I guess it's A good thing. So there's, there's some science for you, apparently, on the AI front or the data center front. Meta is spending $6 million on TV ads that is claiming that data centers bring jobs. And they use an example of Altoona, Iowa. Amazon's running similar ads in Virginia saying data centers connect us to the world. Apparently it's this big blitz of lobbying and advertising to try and convince everyone that data centers are good for you. So there's a quote, one executive said, if we're going to spend tens of billion dollars this year on capital projects, we probably should spend tens of millions of dollars on messaging. And this is also probably in response to the fact that over two dozen projects have been blocked or delayed this month. They're also targeting lawmakers with their messaging. Trump had come out already and said that big tech needs to pay their own way. And then someone named Diane Poppins warned. What I very much worry about with this ad campaign is localities committing to this industry and then saying, In 10 years, what have we done to ourselves? If you didn't notice the siop, it's coming soon to an outlet near you that Big tech is going to try and convince you you should have more data centers in your backyard. So look out for that.

Erica (36:18)

So, Owen, what does that mean, a data center? What, like what is it?

Owen Gregorian (36:22)

Well, it's a, it's basically a big building with a bunch of racks of computers in them. But what it means is that it would be using a ton of power.

Joel Pollock (36:31)

Right?

Owen Gregorian (36:32)

And you know, I've been in these data centers. I mean, it's really just like an empty office building kind of thing, like a big warehouse looking type of building. But some of these are getting really big, like many football field size buildings. And if you can just imagine a building that size with computers stacked floor to ceiling every inch they could fit in there, you know, it's using a ton of power, a ton of heating and cooling, really cooling. And it just, it's a huge resource drain. And, and yes, it does require some jobs for people to run the data center, but not that many jobs, frankly, because most of the time the computers don't break and they just run 24 hours a day. And it doesn't really take a lot of jobs. I mean, there'd be some jobs to build them. And I think a lot of electricians and plumbers especially are making bank right now building out data centers. But once they're built, they pretty much just run for years and they don't really require a lot of people. But Data centers I've been in were mostly empty. They had cubicles and areas for people to work, but those days are long gone for the most part. You might have a few people for security and maybe a few people to just take out a component when it breaks and swap in another component to replace it. But other than that, it really doesn't require a lot of people. So they're trying to convince you it's going to create a bunch of jobs and it will create some jobs, but probably not very many and probably not even enough to account for all the energy usage that they're going to have. So if your electricity bill goes up to double or triple, which I think is happening in some places, it's not going to make your life better to say, oh, a couple people got a job.

Erica (38:09)

Right.

Owen Gregorian (38:10)

So that's, that's what's going on.

Sergio (38:12)

Oh, and so they're reframing the data centers as useful as maybe a source of a heat or something like that, like your home.

Owen Gregorian (38:22)

I don't even think they're reframing the heat as good thing. I think they're just saying it's going to give more jobs to the area and it's going to connect you to the world, so you're going to get all the benefits from it. But I, I don't know that I buy most of that. I mean, I think most of these things are built out for AI now. And, you know, to me, it's questionable what benefit the local citizens are going to get out of that. You know, it's usually going to be people all over the world. And there are, there is a free market around this, too. I mean, like India, apparently. I think I posted a story about this as well. They're saying they're not going to charge any taxes to data centers that are built out in India. So if you build an AI data center in India, you're going to get free tax, you know, like tax free operations for some number of years. So there are other countries that are trying to get this and I'm sure from Trump's perspective, he'd rather have it all happening here. But, you know, again, I just, I think the, the equation looks very different when you're talking about your local area.

Erica (39:21)

Yeah.

Owen Gregorian (39:24)

So. But it looks like the PSYOP is on to convince you that these are a good thing. All right, now there's, on the science studies front, there's a new tool that apparently reveals that 10% of cancer papers are potentially fraudulent from paper mills. They apparently had a machine learning tool that flagged 10% of 2.6 million cancer papers. And they were looking for specific textual patterns in retracted papers to try and recognize similar papers. And they said they have 91 accuracy in identifying these suspicious papers. And this is a big rise that the suspicious papers were like, 1% in the early 2000s, and now they're 16.4%. So on top of the fact that maybe half of all studies can't be replicated, it looks to me that now, like, they're saying there's probably 16.4% that are just straight up fraudulent. And, you know, it includes things about gastric cancer, liver cancer, bone cancer, lung cancer. And the risk here is that it's skewing trials and it's skewing patient care, that these things might convince doctors to act differently and it might not be accurate. So that's fun. But it does look like they're at least finding them. So that's a good thing that they're coming up. Learning tools. Well, I think Scott would probably start with all data is fake, and all data that matters is fake. And I think he'd probably, you know, say, you can't really trust any of this stuff. And I don't know. He wouldn't. I don't think he'd be surprised by it at all. He probably would have also said, just ask Scott. What do you think?

Erica (41:09)

I think he'd say, who. Who ran the study, Follow the money, you know, what was the motive? That kind of a thing.

Owen Gregorian (41:18)

Yeah, I mean, it'd be interesting to know the business model behind a lot of this stuff. I think part of it is just people beefing up their own credentials, because I think, you know, you do have this publisher perish thing that you have to. To keep your job as a researcher, you have to put out studies. And so I think the more studies you put out and the more of those are cited by other studies, the more status you get in the scientific community. And so you might get promoted, or you might get more grants or you might get more funding. And so I think that's the business model behind it, is that every study says, hey, we need to also study this other thing that's related to this. And so it's basically setting you up to ask for another grant. And so I think it's really, you know, probably using AI in many cases, but these paper mills are just churning out papers, and I think they're even selling them to scientists that don't want to write them themselves for. For some reason. And it's a Bunch of fraud. But I think that's.

Sergio (42:13)

Is that going to change or is going to just be like that for. So you think it's going to change or there's no momentum towards any revolution on that? Because I haven't seen anybody doing anything about it. Just, you know, I know we've been talking about it for a while, but is there anything being done about it? Just like a doge for university?

Owen Gregorian (42:33)

I don't know. I mean, you know, the, the article does say they're going to pilot the tool as a pre peer review tool. So they're going to maybe have a filter that doesn't accept papers that look really suspicious. So that may improve things. But I don't expect the trend to stop because I think it is very attractive to a lot of scientists to say if I can get, you know, twice as many papers published, then I might get twice as much money. And there's a whole lot of money behind all this stuff. So follow the money would tell you that this is going to continue. And I think AI is very capable of generating paper. It probably can be done ethically where you actually do the study and you get the data set and then you just tell AI, write a study based on this or write the text that goes with this, or at least create a first draft and then I'm going to review it, make sure it's all right. I'm going to make edits and stuff. And I could by the argument that that might raise your productivity and not necessarily sacrifice the science. But I also think in many cases the AI could get it wrong and it is risky thing to do. And it's probably also very easily for a scientist to just be lazy and say looks good to me and not really check it very closely. And I think the whole process is flawed in the peer review process too. There's been articles about that that I posted in the past where they, you know, they don't even get access to the data set most of the time. So you don't even have the data itself to scrutinize. You're just scrutinizing that person's analysis of the data, which is the stuff you read when you read the study. And so that really limits what a peer review process can do because if the data looks wrong, you know, if it looks fake, they're not even going to be able to tell that. They're only going to be able to tell, you know, does your analysis of it look right or does it look like you made it up or something? It's a lot harder to do that. But I think this machine learning tool might be a step in the right direction. But I think, you know, to me there probably needs to be a more rigorous overhaul of the whole process. And I think more transparency rules that you probably should have to disclose your data when you're doing peer review at least. But probably in my mind, you should probably also disclose it when you publish the study so that other people who want to replicate it can also see the data. I don't really see why you would hide it unless you have something to hide.

Erica (44:52)

Right. All right, so there's always something to hide.

Owen Gregorian (44:57)

More fraud. And you know, Scott might also just say whenever there's a lot of money and there's a lot of people involved, there's going to be fraud.

Sergio (45:04)

Are you getting away from your microphone? Because there was some comments that maybe the volume was coming down.

Owen Gregorian (45:10)

I've got a headset on, so no, I don't.

Sergio (45:12)

Oh, that's good now. Perfect.

Owen Gregorian (45:14)

Now I'll try and stay still. So then we also have a one way heat diode that's been invented that will help batteries survive extreme operating conditions. So it looks like it's a way where this diode will let heat go one direction but not the other direction. And it seems they're claiming this is something no one's ever done before. So I'm not sure exactly what this diode is or how it works, but maybe if there's someone who understands electronics better than me, I think I understand what a diode is in concept, that it's like one of those little electronic components that you make circuit boards out of. But you know, I think it is something that apparently will transfer the heat in one direction but block it going the other way. And I think that's meant to be. You know, it might like your iPhone operate when it's hot outside. Or obviously it also has potential applications to EVs or satellites or AI data centers. So that, that seems kind of cool to me. I mean, but is this, is this.

Erica (46:12)

Another thing that's going to have to be mined by, you know, or like I'm wondering what the diode is made of, like what it actually is. Maybe somebody knows.

Owen Gregorian (46:22)

I don't have the details on that. I can look it up maybe real quick.

Sergio (46:25)

But a diode is a one way valve, a one wave, one way electronic valve, basically. So it only allows current one polarity.

Erica (46:34)

To go one direction.

Sergio (46:36)

Yeah, like, but if, if it's about heat, it's about keeping that heat, you know, retained I guess, yeah.

Erica (46:45)

Andy, I'm dying. Andy. Andy says hello. Uyghurs. Yes, I know, that's what I'm wondering. Like are people gonna have to mine like, you know, what's gonna happen? I just, I like the idea making batteries last longer and be more efficient since that's such a crazy process itself.

Owen Gregorian (46:59)

But it's possible. I mean, the other thing I'll point out, and this of course is buried at the end of the article, is that this has only been demonstrated theoretically. So they haven't actually done the experiments to see if it works. And so it's at the very early stages. So I don't know if this is going to be real. Just like a lot of these studies where it's kind of an early thing that has been simulated essentially. But we'll have to see if it really works and whether it actually does what they say it is doing. And it doesn't cover exactly what materials it's using. So I don't know if it's going to have a mining impact or not. But you know, I think what Scott might say about this is like, you know, maybe this thing will be nothing, maybe it'll be something. But you know, we're seeing battery technology innovations all the time and so I think we are going to see this golden age of batteries that Scott is been predicting. So you know, stay tuned for that and we'll see how this works. I mean, cooling is one of the problems that you have to solve with batteries. And you know, EVs sometimes catch fire and AI data centers as we just talked about have big heat issues. So you know, if this can help with that, then it might actually be a really cool thing. So we shall see.

Joel Pollock (48:12)

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Erica (48:32)

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Owen Gregorian (48:42)

All right. Getting into biolabs. Apparently there's been raids in Las Vegas and California relating to biolabs. This latest story is about Las Vegas where the FBI and the Metro police raided a Suspected illegal biolab in Las Vegas on Saturday. It looks like it might be linked to another one that's in California that had HIV and Covid and Ebola to call back to Ebola. It looks like the Fresno lab was found in 2022 and had COVID test pregnancy tests and 35 freezers with bodily fluids and genetically engineered mice.

Joel Pollock (49:19)

They.

Owen Gregorian (49:19)

It doesn't look like they know exactly what was in the Las Vegas one yet, but they just raided it, and it looks like the LLC that's tied to this is part of a federal case against Chinese citizens for misbranded devices. So that's fun.

Erica (49:33)

Yeah. What could be wrong with an illegal bio lab?

Owen Gregorian (49:37)

Yeah, I mean, I don't know what's going on with that, and I don't know why they're doing it here. That's the weirdest thing to me. Like, you know, we had all these biolabs that we heard about in Ukraine and other places in China, and I don't really understand why someone would come to the United States and try and do this stuff, but it is scary to me because, you know, again, these things need to be very carefully controlled. They're. If you have these dangerous things, you gotta have all these safeguards in place to prevent it from getting out. And I think these illegal ones clearly would not have all those safeguards. So.

Erica (50:05)

Well, and, you know, there's 10 more we don't know about.

Owen Gregorian (50:08)

Yeah, yeah. So there's your nightmare for today. And we've got all the anti ICE activism going on. People are clashing with law enforcement.

Sergio (50:24)

The.

Owen Gregorian (50:24)

The GOP candidate, apparently that's running to replace Waltz. His name is Patrick Knight. He was slamming the sanctuary policies and saying the law is not a buffet table where you just pick and choose which laws you're going to enforce today and which laws you're going to ignore that the rule of law matters. Knight is a Marine vet and an ex CEO. He's running to succeed Waltz amid all this fraud scandal and, you know, billions of dollars that have been flowing to these fraudulent places. And Knight is calling for an investigation on the violence with ice. He says the law, any. The loss of any life is tragic and there should be a full and transparent investigation with both the state and federal government participating and let the facts drive the accountability. And so he seems like a reasonable guy. He seems like he's saying the right things. His plan is focused around the economy, affordability, education, rule of law, efficient government. I'm not sure that he really has a chance in Minnesota, but it does seem like he's got the right platform. So.

Erica (51:24)

Well, so Minnesota needs a knight, right? They need like a knight in shining armor. So let's say I hope people like him and I hope there's no dodgy stuff. I mean, how much more dodgy can you get with politicians there? But hopefully, hopefully Minnesotans just want to have some law and order and have their hard earned money put back in their bank.

Owen Gregorian (51:49)

Yeah, and we've got more, you know, anti ice activism going on. Apparently there's 34,000 Minnesotans that volunteered as ice watchers since the Renee Goods shooting. They're using signal to track them. Tom Hellman is saying his operations are going to continue and justice is coming for the agitators. There was an incident where some of these agitators attacked an LA journalist and told live streamers to look the other way, where they turned their cameras away while they were attacking this guy. And the LAPD did intervene in this riot, essentially where they. This is the same one. I posted a story yesterday about someone who used a slingshot to try and fire some kind of metal at the ICE officers. And they set a dumpster on fire, which is a nice metaphor. And they had anti ICE graffiti. So yeah, there's more of that going on. I think we'll probably see a lot more of that. And then on the funding side, there's a story that apparently these anti ICE activists got $3.3 million from a Soros back charity, the Headwaters Foundations for Justice gave 3.3 million to them since 2014 to 16 different anti ICE groups. And they list a bunch of the groups. You know, the Headwaters group quote is what we are seeing in the streets of Minneapolis and across Minnesota right now as a fight for collective liberation in real time. So a nice communist message we got going there. So yeah, we've got a lot of funding coming from Soros and other people to these groups. And it's all organized as I think we've all seen.

Sergio (53:36)

Erica, can you invite Soros as a guest? Can you invite.

Erica (53:40)

Oh yeah, totally. No problem.

Owen Gregorian (53:42)

And then to round round this out, there's an a Long Beach, California mayoral candidate who just called on 55 local gangs to unite and fight ice. This guy's name, Rogelio Martinez. And he called on these 55 gangs to come to City Hall. His quote is, I'm calling all 55 gangs in my beautiful city. I'm calling the Latino gangs, I'm calling the Cambodian gangs, I'm calling the Filipino gangs. I'm calling the black gangs. I'm calling the Pacific Islander gangs. I'm calling all gang leaders to meet me right here, Long Beach City hall, this coming Monday. ICE needs to get out of Long beach, and this is the only way I know how to get them out peacefully, but with strong force. And Robby Starbucks summed it up by saying Democrats are basically doing organized crime.

Marcella (54:33)

They're basically creating the perfect storm. Democrats aren't stupid. They're doing something that Scott always told us. They're creating fear and they're creating visuals and they're using this like Ms. Now. I did watch it this morning. Morning, Joe. The thing was Parliament. They're like talking about it as if we are being invaded by ice. We Americans are being arrested. Everything is like super ultra, you know, extreme. But it's basically the ICE hoax that you as an American are also targeted. They brought up the Texas Senate District 9 win last week. There was a win by a Democrat in a Republican district. That's fourth war. I don't know why that sounds.

Owen Gregorian (55:36)

That's me. Sorry.

Marcella (55:40)

So they basically, they are using this in order to win in the elections. But we must counteract is not like what it means. And, and I have to remind everybody, yes, I did did have altercations with and killed two different people. Those are going to be dealt with in the courts and so on and so forth. But there are so many women and men probably that have been killed in this country by illegal immigrants. I'm an immigrant. I understand that. Yes. We don't like violence. We don't like being arrested. We don't like having a force go in. But at the same time that's not being talked about is all of the Lake and Riley of this nation. And so I do want to say, like this is being used completely. I'm sure Owen knows this is like the hoax. That's why they're funding Soros, is funding it so well. It's, it's serving them in the right direction. And how do you combat such a hoax? You know, if anybody has any ideas. But basically one of the ideas would be to show somebody says, nobody turn Marcella in. No, I'm legally here. So it shows that, that there is another side. You know, the, the, the people that they go and arrest, there's a warrant for them. There's, there's more. They don't just go in and take anybody by force. So I don't know if you have more to say on that.

Owen Gregorian (57:26)

Yeah, no, I think you summed it up. I, I think the courts need to deal with it and I think everyone else should just stay out of it. And you know, I don't know how to solve all this frenzy that we've been seeing people whip people into from the Democrat side. But I think the best we can do is try and use our persuasion skills and our information warfare skills to try and counter the narrative. I mean, that's the best I can think of is just to say, you know, you shouldn't be defending criminals, you shouldn't be defending illegal immigrants, you should be letting law enforcement do their job and not getting in their way. And I think Tom Holman in my opinion is doing the right thing, saying he's going to continue doing what he's doing and he's not going to back down and he's going to bring justice to the people who are interfering with, with law enforcement. So I, you know, if you're smart, you're going to stay away from the state stuff. And so I think you're going to find that a lot of these people are the useful idiots that are just being whipped into an emotional frenzy and a lot of them are going to regret it.

Sergio (58:25)

And I'm gonna say that not all mayors are doing.

Erica (58:29)

Go ahead sir, gna say that.

Sergio (58:30)

Like my local mayor for example, is exhorting everybody to be peaceful, to protest. So I'm not going to say not all mayors are like so extreme like on the left, you know. But yeah, we have to be careful because it can happen anytime. So everybody be careful out there. Gotta mace with you.

Owen Gregorian (58:50)

All right, so we'll end, we'll end with the latest conspiracy theory. Apparently Epstein is a KGB honey trap. The according to some of the documents. Now that I would put this definitely in the conspiracy theory cat category, but apparently there's 1056 times that Putin was mentioned in the latest Epstein drop and Moscow was mentioned 9,629 times. Epstein met with Putin after the his 2008 conviction and he had an appointment in 2011 with Putin. According to an email, he was planning another meeting in 2014 that was canceled. In 2010 he offered Andrew. Andrew, I think that's the, the, the English guy, the prince, a 26 year old Russian. So there's some quotes saying she's 26 Russian, clever, beautiful, trustworthy and yes, she has her email and apparently the Bill Gates stuff about the STDs was after. Apparently Bill Gates said he had sex with some Russian girls. So there's at least some evidence pointing to the KGB in Russia being behind Epstein. I will caveat this very much by saying that the article Again, buried in the article, it says there is no documentary evidence that Epstein was involved with or that Russia was involved with any of the Epstein stuff. So this is all speculative. It's all just documents that happen to mention these people. There's no real hard evidence that proves that all this stuff happened. But that's the latest conspiracy theory is that the KGB and Putin are behind Epstein.

Erica (60:27)

Oh, it's so fun. It's like the best soap opera ever. We'll see.

Marcella (60:32)

We'll see.

Erica (60:33)

I do like the. The dripping out of these files.

Owen Gregorian (60:36)

Netanyahu and Mossad must be loving this.

Erica (60:39)

Yeah. Oh, yeah. They were like, woohoo. So you. You all have been amazing. This is such a fun show today. I want to remind you guys that, you know, we don't have to be completely spun up, and this is coming from me over the news. It's okay to also do what's best for you. And maybe what's best for you is not feeling like raging and panicking over the news is going to solve something. So let's make sure today we take a beat to look at our own personal lives and the things that we need to do that will benefit ourselves and our family and our friends. And then how to manage our time, too. I like how Joel said, maybe try to find an hour a day to do something creative or something that, you know, just sparks some happiness within you and always be useful. Tomorrow, you guys, we have a great guest. We have Steve Cortez. He's going to come on with us, which is so fun. So we'll have Steve Cortez here tomorrow, and we're going to talk news, and he has some projects he's working on that he wants to share with us. So I love you guys. We love you guys. Let's have a closing sip in honor of our beloved Scott. Thank you for hanging out with us, and we appreciate it. I love you guys. Did you guys hear what Joel said? He misses us. And I was messaging you guys. I was having a bad day on Sunday, and I was like, I miss you guys. Oh, all right, you guys, look at. Oh, and he's sipping. Okay, look. Love you guys. To the. To our beloved Scott.

Owen Gregorian (62:16)

To Scott.

Sergio (62:18)

To Scott.

Erica (62:21)

We love you, Shelly.

Sergio (62:24)

Love you, Shelly.