urope and the entire river cruise industry might have to get shelved. So that felt like it was about me.

Somebody says it's for 70 year olds and up. It's also for people who like to write because I would love to just be able to sit on the balcony while the scenery is going by and you know just finish my book. So yeah there are times to vacation actively and then you know there are times when you don't need to.

But we're watching that and then at the same time Europe is having these gas and electric shortages. So in Europe it looks like depending on the country various countries are handling it differently because the energy shortages they're going to have cold showers some places. They won't be able to turn on the business lights at night for some hours. They won't be able to have open doors with the AC on which probably is a good idea. And in California I got a call from my local energy company asking me if the energy company could control my AC in my house to turn it off when they have the load balancing issues. That's right. My PG&E the energy company in California called me at home and says can we stick some technology to your house so we can turn off your AC if we need to?

Now they did say, let me be clear, that it would be for 15 minute periods in which they would keep circulating the air so you'd still be circulating. And they said you should experience maybe a two degree increase in temperature before it kicks back on again. Now if that's what it did that wouldn't be too bad would it? If they could really deliver that. If they could keep the lights on everywhere they need to be kept on and all you had to do was maybe twice a day on the hottest days you set your temperature at 75 for 15 minutes it goes up to 77. You know you go shopping for those 15 minutes you come back it's already down to 75. You're fine. No big deal right? It's a reasonable thing to ask. Is it? Because once they can control your AC do you think they're going to stop with 15 minutes? They say they would but I immediately said no. And I didn't say no because I didn't want to be a team player. I said no because it's just too much control over my life. And also I work at home and I need a certain temperature and I don't want people controlling it for me. Yeah slippery slope.

All right there was a surge in cartel violence in Tijuana. Unless hundreds of national guard got called up to quell a bunch of violence and murders and stuff in Tijuana. And the cartel that owns Tijuana they said they were going to respond to it by killing any citizens who went outdoors. The cartel just threatened that if I guess some of their members got imprisoned by the military action and they said if they don't get their people back they'll kill everybody who goes outdoors.

So let me ask you this. The first time you heard me say let's drone the cartels what was your first reaction? Why can't it happen? I mean sounds nice talking tough but it can't actually happen. And then you heard that Trump had brought up the subject during his term and he had been sort of scoffed at and dismissed. No you can't attack Mexico. What do you think now? What do you think now? Now I think that the odds of it happening are 50-50.

What do you say if you asked me two years ago the odds of droning the cartels? I'd say really low. Five percent tops right? No more than five percent. What do you say now? What would you give the odds of the US taking direct military action against cartel assets in Mexico? Go give me the odds. Give me your odds. I needed a percentage. 25, 25, 100, 60, 40. I'm reading some of these off now. 65, 25, 50, 10, 25, 35, 70, 100, 0.

All right so we're all over the board. We're from zero to 100 but there are a lot of people in that middle zone now aren't they? So how many times have you seen this pattern emerge that when I take a position the issue itself seems to be moving at about the same time? And have you ever wondered am I just good at finding a parade that's already moving or am I moving the parade? Have you ever asked yourself that? What do you think in this case? Because I'm positive that public opinion about attacking Mexico has directly followed my lead. But is it a lead or am I following? What do you think? Am I leading or following? Is it just obvious that this is the question we should be asking and other people would be asking at the same time if I didn't exist it'd be exactly the same? What do you think?

Well here's the thing. I can't tell so I don't know the answer to this question myself. I'll tell you what I do know. I do know that members of the government pay attention to me. Can anybody confirm that? Because that's the sort of thing I'd rather see you say it because if I just say it it doesn't sound different. It sounds different. But can you confirm that from your own observation? Would you say that somebody is watching? All right so on Locals they're saying yes and I see some yeses over here. So I don't know. Could be a coincidence.

But here's what I think happened. There are some ideas that you can't entertain until somebody's normalized them. And that's what I did intentionally. I took the wildest idea, attacking Mexico, and I said it until it was normalized. That's what I did. Now if all you have to do is say it in a reasonable voice and say it often and people will get used to hearing it and then they'll think well I know it's not impossible right? That's all it is. So the persuasion that I used was to normalize through exposure. A very common easy to predict method because you can get used to this. This is something my mother used to say. You can get used to anything if you do it long enough including hanging. If you get hung you'll get used to it if you do it long enough right? So that was the joke.

But the idea of directly attacking the cartels is unimaginable until people are talking about it and then you go well people are talking about it. I guess it's not so unimaginable. So that's where we are. We're talking about it.

TikTok. I saw a thread