Academy Awards got better ratings. The media got clicks. I had something to talk about. You were entertained. Is this the weirdest situation in the world? Literally everybody came out ahead. I'm not wrong about that right? I mean you know Chris Rock suffered one slap and then sold four times as many tickets and got rich and he's more relevant than he's ever been. And I don't know it looks like he came out ahead. Some people say they lost respect for Will Smith but here's the thing with celebrity. It matters more that you made people like you than you made people dislike you. Because the people who are sort of willing to dislike him, in other words they were probably lukewarm on him in the first place, they weren't going to buy his tickets and go to his movies. The people who already liked him probably like him a little bit more and more likely to buy a ticket. If I had to bet I don't know it'll hurt his box office appeal at all. I don't think it will. He might lose some but then gain some. Hard to say.

Well Putin has apparently refocused his army on the east. And people say is this a change in strategy or a sign he is losing? What do you think? Why is Putin refocusing away from capturing Kiev and focusing on the east where he's already got control so he's going to consolidate control? Why would he do that? Is it because he's losing or is it just good strategy and it was his plan all along? Well I would guess that whatever his plan all along was it got some modifications but it might be that they can just ignore Kiev until everything else is settled and then go back. Or maybe they don't want to keep incurring losses around Kiev if that's where they're having the most losses. So maybe he's just cutting his losses during the time he's negotiating so it doesn't look like he's losing. I think it looks like he's winning. We don't know basically. That's the bottom line.

But I'll tell you what the big problem here is. In order to make peace doesn't one side need to think it's losing? There might be exceptions to that but generally speaking you don't really get peace until one side thinks it is losing or will lose. Right? And the problem is they both think they're winning. So Putin I think he can make a very strong case that he's winning or will win even though it will cost a lot. I think he can make the case he's winning. And I think that Ukraine is already making the case through their propaganda that they're winning. So Ukraine can't say hey we're totally winning this thing but we'll give you lots of things for peace. So Ukraine has to make an offer in the peace deal that reflects their propaganda. And so they did. Their propaganda says we're totally winning this thing and so they made an offer that you wouldn't have made unless you thought you were going to win the thing. And of course Putin thinks he's winning so he's not going to accept an offer that suggests the other side is winning. That's not going to happen.

So how could you possibly have peace? The only way you could have peace is somebody has got to lose or be in the direction to lose or looks like it's going to happen any moment now. I heard a term that I had not heard before which is what is it called? It's about when an army is getting ready to collapse. Oh a culminating point. So this is a Michael Ryan, formerly former deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy. So he thinks, he speculates, and I don't think this is a widespread opinion yet but he speculates that the Russian army might be reaching a culminating point.

Now as I understand it the idiot explanation of that is you have enough food until you don't and you have enough ammunition until you don't. And the don't part can happen suddenly and then everything falls apart. Right? Because if you're looking at how much ammunition you have and it's just enough to escape it's not enough to attack what the hell are you going to do? If you don't know there's more coming all you have is this much ammunition and you think well I could probably do it to cover my escape but I don't think it's going to help me attack anything and it doesn't look like it's going to change. You would instantly go from offense to defense. Right? Same with food. If you have food you keep fighting. If it's the first day they tell you there's no food you say wait a minute did I hear that right? Today is a no food day? When does the food come back? Like well we don't know they keep attacking our food trucks. It's a culminating point I think if I'm interpreting right.

So the Russian army at least in pockets might be approaching a complete disintegration point but if it happens it would happen quickly. Somebody says the Viet Cong ate rats. Yeah it's hard to completely understand what p