Oh yeah, a lot of stuff. Let's uh look at our stocks. They look to be up. And the locals people going to have a special comment section right here. Here you go. Good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization. It's called Coffee with Scott Adams and you've never had a better time. But if you'd like to take that experience up to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny shiny human brains, all you need for that is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or cherine, a canteen jug or flask or vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. And it happens now. Go. Good stuff. Well, I don't know if you heard, but uh Elon Musk and uh President Trump are having some difficulty. You you probably read a million takes, so it's time for mine. The only one that matters. Number one, did you not think it would be impossible for Elon Musk to find a way to make his dealerships safe from all the domestic terrorists? Well, he did. That the last thing that would be attacked by a Democrat today would be a Tesla dealership. So suddenly total security with a few tweets. Now I don't think that's why he did it. Uh I also don't think that it's some kind of, you know, 5D chess. I don't think it's some kind of agreement they made. Uh it would be a weird kind of an agreement if they did. But uh let me give you my takes on it. First of all, I don't believe that there's a phone call scheduled for today, right? So, at one point, we heard that uh Trump and Musk would be talking, but at the moment, it looks like that's not going to happen. Uh Jonathan Carl was reporting that. Um but here's what I liked about the situation. Number one, I was kind of proud of the way Republicans, especially, you know, the the big pundits, the way they were handling this. So instead of taking sides, people were just sort of expressing some kind of affection. You know, they they like both. They the most common comment was that it was like watching your parents fight. Now, that's a pretty good compliment. And you know, we've talked before how Democrats um they're a different animal. And Republicans are more forgiving about, you know, any any bad thing that happened in particular. You know, if you still like the the person in general, you're still good with them. So, I think that's part of it, too. So, the the fact that Republicans didn't want to throw either of them over the over the edge, I like I like the fact that we can simply wish they weren't fighting and not have bad feelings about either one of them especially. But a lot of people pointed out that when uh Musk complained about well not complained but accused uh Trump of having an Epstein connection, you know, more so than what we already know uh that that was too far. How many of you thought that? That maybe the other stuff was fair. you know, if he criticizes a bill or he he criticized something in the bill, but not not that seemed too far, right? Well, the first thing you have to know is that he started out by criticizing just the bill. And did that help? Does anybody remember the bill being rewritten because Elon criticized it? I don't. Now, what would you do if you're Elon Musk and you haven't gotten the attention you need, which by the way, I remind you, attention is the first step in persuasion. And when he was when he was simply saying, "Hey, this doesn't cut the budget enough." No attention. I mean, a little bit, but it didn't change anything. So he went to a level of risk and controversy that you and I probably would never have gone to. How much of that is the secret of his success? Because when you talk about uh Musk, you you tend to talk about how smart he is. But the other things that make him successful is that he's not willing to take no for an answer. He he doesn't recognize, you know, game over. Um he's willing to sleep on the floor and he's willing to take enormous risks to get something that he believes in is, you know, a solution to an existential uh problem. So here's what I think. my my armchair psychologist says that uh he might be bipolar. Now, he's he said that himself. So, in some interview I checked on Grock. Um someone asked him if he's bipolar and to me it seems like he's obviously bipolar and there's a manic phase that comes with that. Now, the manic phase can make you unbelievably productive. I know because I have it. So, when I hit my manic phases, oh my goodness, do I get a lot done, but there is a little negativity that comes with it. And the negative, and maybe you've noticed this if you've been watching me for a while, the negativity is that you increase your tolerance to risk to a level that other people can't understand. So, how often has that helped him solve some gigantic problem or, you know, fight through some wall just because he was manic and nothing was going to stop him? It feels like this might have be one of those situations. Now, some people are saying, you know, he might be on some kind of stimulants or something, but uh I don't know anything about that. I don't see any uh direct evidence of that. But if so, it might be accelerating what would be a normal, you know, manic episode cuz the the Epstein island thing that's got um excess risk written all over it. It just isn't something that you and I would have done in our normal state of mind. But I don't think he would either. I I think if he were not having sort of a a manic episode, and I'm just guessing, by the way, I'm I'm not some expert, but to me it looks like he he took his risk profile and he just ramped it up until he could break through. Did he break through? Are we talking about the budget uh more seriously than we were before? Yes, we are. So when I say somebody's manic, that doesn't mean they're doing the wrong stuff. When I say they're at a higher risk profile than you or I would be in that same situation, that doesn't mean it's a mistake. That could be why he's the richest man in the world and you're not because he's willing to say, "What is this take?" And then his body just goes, "Boom. I'm going to give it to you." and uh he he definitely seemed risk risk averse, you know, during the little tiff. Now, today I saw a uh a message that sounded like maybe had cooled off a little bit. Maybe um Trump apparently is not treating it like it's his biggest problem or his biggest issue he has to deal with, which is exactly right. One of the things we like about Trump is that uh I hate to say transactional because everybody says that but kind of fits. So if tomorrow uh Musk turned out to be exactly the person that Trump needed to get something done, then they would be friends again and all would be forgotten. So we kind of like that about Trump. is a good role model that way that you don't have to throw out the entire person if there's, you know, something about the person that you like. So, my one of my favorite parts was uh if you haven't done this yet, you should watch watch the Democrat um pundit reaction to them getting what they think they wanted. Now, what they think they wanted was a rift between Musk and Trump. Well, what would happen if they get it? Well, they got it. But the funny part is looking at their faces. Um, and and I'm going to come up with a uh a phrase that I think I made up. I call it a rat smile. So, here would be a regular smile. Hi, I'm smiling regular. If you're listening on audio, this just imagine a regular smile. But then there's the the smile where the eyes are too closed and you look a little like a rat. So the Democrats are giving all these rat smiles and it's kind of hilarious because they think they're getting what they want, but really they're just observing. They're not getting anything. So the the only thing they got is that the biggest target they had against Trump just went away. Their target went away. You know that even though Trump was super uh popular, um Elon Musk, they did a good job of saying, "Oh, you're just doing it for your your business interests." And so they had something they could attack. And now, well, now that Trump said it, Trump actually suggested that maybe Elon wasn't that bad until the EV credits went away. Uh, which I think may may have been part of what triggered uh Musk to take it to the next level. I don't know for sure but uh what uh what Musk has done is he has satisfied the first rule of persuasion uh and he's got your attention and it's attention not about Epstein. You'll forget about that eventually. Trump Trump just brushed it off because it's it's not based on any information or anything. He's just he was just um causing trouble. So, here's what I would like to see. I would like to see Stephen Miller and Elon Musk sitting in the same room and talking about this bill. Stephen Miller um is if if you're a you know proTrump person, you would probably agree with this. Stephen Miller is one of the most capable, wellspoken, smart, you know, MAGA people maybe of all time, right? He's just one of the smartest people. But he keeps telling us that this is not a spending bill. Okay, I get it. I get it that technically it's not a spending bill, but really are you telling me that the bill that determines how much you spend is not a spending bill? Now, that's not big words. They try to weasle you or they try to fool you into thinking one thing is another. It's a big bill with lots of spending that can be adjusted by Congress and some people think it should be less. So for Stephen Miller to say publicly you that we have to understand it's not a spending bill and the idea is that future future bills would be the place that spending is cut is so disingenuous sounding now and maybe maybe it's the best our community has. You know maybe um it's too late to change it so he's just trying to try to get to the next phase with another bill. maybe, but uh it does seem to me that uh the other bills are going to be impossible to cut in costs. Now, I'm no expert on the uh government budget process, but is it not true? Let's see who said this first. I think it was uh Pablus. Pablus, where are you? We'll get to it. But I'm not sure the other bills can even be uh cut unless you have 60% vote in the Senate. And since we know we can't get 60 votes, it doesn't look to me like the the cuts are ahead, does it? So, um, somebody's asking about Elon's black eye. Who knows? I mean, I I I think the correct opinion on his black eye is that he's got a toddler. That seems like a perfectly, you know, good explanation. No reason to believe anything else. Yeah. So, Cynical Pablus has a quote I'm going to get to, but he asked uh Cynical Pablus asked on X, uh, can somebody explain how you get to the point where you could actually cut something given that it would take 60 votes and that will never happen. So, correct me if I'm wrong. We have Stephen Miller telling us that the current bill is quote not a spending bill, but when we get to the ones that are spending bills, there is no chance in hell that we could cut it. Is that true? That that's my current understanding. So imagine being Elon Musk. You've been asked to sacrifice so much and you did to come up with a bunch of Doge cuts and a bunch of Doge processes and you do all that work and then it looks to you like nothing serious got cut. Can you even imagine how you would feel about that? Well, I'd be I'd be flipping out. And if uh and if my mere complaining wasn't enough, depending on where I was in my manic phase, I might go just absolutely freaking nuts on whoever put me in that position. And that looks like the president. So, can they ever uh work together and get past it? Yeah. It doesn't mean they will, but yes, there's nothing that would stop them from, you know, figuring it out um if they want to. So, I'm not super concerned about uh that conversation. Um you know, I think yesterday Elon threatened he would decommission the Dragon rocket and Trump was saying they should save money by cutting all the contracts to Elon. None of that should be taken seriously. Um, I wouldn't worry about any of it. But let me tell you what I think it is not. It is definitely not 4D chess. It is definitely not something that Musk and Trump came up together with and said, "All right, you say this and I'll say this." No, it was definitely wasn't that. Um, and then, uh, Mike Ben said a video today, uh, in which he reminds us how important, uh, Elon Musk was to Trump's success, which adds a little fuel to this because if you think, my god, you know, you're only president because I, you know, deliver free speech back to the country in the form of X, which is true. Um, I if I'm a top financial backer and I if uh if Musk is the reason that the other tech bros felt safe to back Trump, and I I think that is part of it, then uh Musk probably was important enough that you could argue that Trump would not have been elected. We it might have even been hard to hear from him without X. But let's check on some other people uh like Ran Paul. So Ran Paul is talking about this uh latest bill. He says, "We've now increased spending at the get-go more than all of Doge cuts." He said, "I think Elon Musk did an amazing job and we're dwarfing it with new spending." And then he goes, this is Rand Paul. He says, "This has always been a bill that was hijacked and conceived of by Lindsey Graham to explode the military caps." Well, I don't know about that. Um, do you think Lindsey Graham was trying to cleverly explode the military gaps and that's what this is all about? Maybe. I mean, I wouldn't rule it out, but I wouldn't I wouldn't have a an instinct on that either way. But related to that, there's a CIA officer uh darn, I didn't write down what podcast this was on, but on a podcast recently said that u and I don't know that this can be proven, but the CIA officer says that bank account records would show that Lindsey Graham is laundering money from the Ukraine war back into his personal bank accounts. Now, I have not seen any evidence of that and uh it doesn't surprise me when there's some ex CIA guy saying stuff that sounds sketchy. So, I don't know if you can believe that exactly, but it's out there. So, some of the mystery may have to do with Lindsey Graham and wanting to get money for Ukraine, at least Ukraine. Mario Noel um did a post on X in which he described the fall of Rome as basically our exact current situation that we uh overextended which is what Rome did uh had too much military need compared to other things and uh apparently Rome just had massive inflation. And they they took their little silver coins and you know they they reduced the amount of silver in it and they kept doing it until there was basically no silver and then they were broke and then they went out of business. Rome did. Some would say it didn't go out of business. Some would say it's the Vatican I guess. But um I was starting to think that every major power um unless they were killed by an army were destroyed by their own spending because you reach some point where nobody can say no and there just too many people who are on the take. So we're kind of there. How much would you want to see Steven Miller and uh Elon Musk in one room with nobody else and just turn the camera on and say, "All right, you guys talk about the spending bill and why the Doge cuts don't seem to be enough or why they're not there." and uh just see them see them work it out cuz I would love to know u if there's any middle ground there and I don't think that Musk talking to Trump about the details of the bill. That doesn't seem like the right right approach because Musk would be in the details and Steven Miller is in the details, but Trump, you know, he he knows the big picture, of course. So, that's what I want to see. I want to see Steven Miller and Musk talk it out while we watch. Representative uh Thomas Massie um who's one of the few people maybe the only one who reads these gigantic bills. He found uh in in the bill there's a provision banning state and local governments from regulating AI. Now he points out that that would cause um that that would cause uh states to have to accept a gigantic you know data center maybe where they didn't want it but uh I feel like this might be necessary in other words if AI is really the difference between you know the country surviving and not surviving then probably we need the federal government to remove as many restrictions as possible and allow our biggest companies to build whatever they need as fast as they can. So although Massie is he's obviously uh um he represents his local constituents and he's doing a good job of it, I suspect the larger military need for AI is probably a bigger priority. So yes, it will be bad for some local people who don't want that data center to be built near their house, but it's also good to keep the country safe. So all right, so uh here's a cynical Pablus. He says uh uh how is it possible to achieve the bill Elon Musk Thomas Massie and Ran Paul want without 60 votes in the Senate and he kind of challenges people to come up with it and I saw the comments and nobody could. So, we've got this weird sleepwalking toward disaster thing going on where if you say something like our current spending will kill us for sure, the answer will be, "But look how good the priorities are for what Trump ran on." And then you say, "Okay, did you hear anything I just said? Our current spending will kill us all for sure. Yeah, but did you see how how magna perfect all these things are? Okay, you're not hearing anything. The current spending will kill us all for sure. I don't know. I I I think you're ignoring how good this bill is for all the things that Trump ran on. No, the current spending will kill us all and then repeat it. It's like one side isn't even talking, right? Are you having the same experience that that one side is just ignoring the existential threat which is guaranteed? It's not it's not even a risk. If it were just a risk, then I'd say, well, I guess we're taking risk. No, we're walking directly toward a gigantic hole in the ground and there's absolutely nothing that looks like it would stop us from falling in. That I think that's where Musk is. It's where I am as well. So anyway, um so saw a clip. Yes, this morning actually I saw a clip where Trump says that we have a deal with China cuz he had a phone call with President Xi and for some reason he doesn't seem to be able to clarify whether that deal was an entire trade deal with China or something smaller about rare earth magnets. And then I thought, well, obviously, you know, this is the biggest story in the country. I mean, it's bigger than the Must thing. So, obviously, it'll be just all over X if there's a giant trade deal with China. I can't tell. Do any of you know? I'm assuming that it's not a comprehensive trade deal. Um because that would be surprising. There are too many too many elements in play. But it's just rare earth, right? Do any of you know you I could have uh maybe check rock before I got on. Um somebody says that Trump is asking must to join him tonight to work it out on the ninth green. I don't know about that. Anyway, so stock market is up, which could be just a a bounce response because the Elon thing looked like a big deal, but really isn't a big deal. So, I'm just looking. Um, they're trading state visits. I know that. But none of you know, right? None of you know whether there's a comprehensive trade deal, which would be the biggest thing in the world, versus only rare earth. I don't know why Trump would be so vague about that. So, I'm going to guess it's only a deal about rare earth because the other would seem like a bigger deal. All right. Well, according to Breitbart, the US trade deficit has narrowed by record amount. I guess there were a lot of exports right after Liberation Day. Now, I wouldn't expect that trend to continue. Um, I think that might have something to do with what happened because of Liberation Day and the tariffs and the uncertainty and all that. But maybe maybe Maybe our maybe Trump found a way to narrow our uh trade deficit. We'll see. Keep an eye on that. Meanwhile, uh just the news, Ben Weeden is reporting that the uh Trump tariffs uh are going to slash the deficit by $2.8 trillion over 10 years, according to the CBO. How many of you believe that? How many of you believe that the uh Trump tariffs will slash the deficit by 2.8 trillion over 10 years? I'm going to say no. Everything over 10 years is Yeah. 10 years. Uh in 10 years we'll find ways to change so many things that that this estimate will make no sense. Um, but that's better than raising the uh raising the uh deficit. So maybe don't know. Um, according to the Gateway Pundit, Representative Comr is uh sub he's going to subpoena the Biden White House physician. Have any of you seen a picture of Joe Biden standing with his uh White House physician? And the White House physician has a dumb and dumber haircut and he looks like a character literally from the movie Dumb and Dumber. And and then Biden himself looks, you know, kind of dumb in the picture. And I thought to myself, how in the world can you pick a doctor who looks like he came out of the movie Dumb and Dumber? Like, how do you do that? Anyway, that's my only comment about that. Maybe he'll tell us something we need to hear. Meanwhile, according to the daily skeptic, if you want some good news, uh the global greening, in other words, how uh how much vegetation is growing on the earth, uh thanks to higher CO2 is striking new heights. So, you don't hear about that as much, do you? So, the world is getting way greener, and that has to do with CO2. uh most of you knew that was going to happen. But the other things the Daily Skeptic, this is uh Chris Morrison's writing, uh things that are also not mentioned so much anymore is that the Arctic the Arctic sea level uh has uh not been shrinking since 2007, which would be counter to climate change predictions. And the uh the Gulf Stream has not reduced which would be counter to climate change predictions. And there's been a record growth in the Great Barrier Reef for the last three years, which is very counter to the climate change predictions. So, if I haven't told you this recently, wait till you find out about climate models. Um, in other news, the Washington Examiner is writing about how uh you remember uh Ibram Kendi, he was the uh author and activist who was an anti-racist and he got funding after the George Floyd stuff. He got funding to create an anti-racist research center. So, now that a number of years have gone by, how do you think the anti-racist research center is doing? Well, you would not be surprised that they're closing down because they didn't get anything done. uh Washington Examiner Review of Public Records found that anti-racism centers at five major universities uh got generous support after the 2020 George Floyd stuff. And uh looks like none of them have achieved really anything of value, so they're all just closing down. Surprise. You never could guess. Uh, according to neuroscience news, uh, they can make AI be funny, especially with memes, but they can't make AI as funny as the best human can be funny. So AI can be funnier than some human who's not very funny, but the best funny human is still substantially better than AI. And uh as I've predicted that will stay that way as long as AI is these large language model things. Maybe when maybe when we get some entirely new kind of AI it'll be different but at the moment um humans have the advantage. So I still have a purpose. Let's check in with the uh Pacific Palisades where there was a big fire in Southern California earlier this year. And apparently nearly 300 uh residents have decided to sell their properties rather than rebuild and uh only a hundred have begun reconstruction. Now, why would so many people sell the most valuable real estate you can imagine after it gets cleaned up? uh rather than stay there and build when they're so lucky to have such amazing real estate. The answer is it's California. So, as a gateway pundit points out, um just just the fact that getting anything done in California is a nightmare. Uh a lot of people said just give me my money and let me get out of here. So at the same time uh California Democrats have issued a dance video in which they several of them are dancing to Usher. Why did they create a dance video of cringy middle-aged people who need to go to the gym? I don't know. Maybe because they thought they couldn't think of anything useful to do for the country. So, they're like, "I've got an idea. A dance video showing that white people have no uh have no no dance moves whatsoever. It was very cringy. You're going to have to see it." Um over at UC Berkeley, as you know, the president of uh the United States is giving some pressure on the funding to various uh entities that are not doing enough to uh battle anti-semitism and DEI. And so the University of California's staff members are going to do a uh firstofits-kind lawsuit uh a class action lawsuit against Trump for their research funding cuts and they think that they hope that this will become a model so that others can use it to get their funding back as well. So obviously the funding is for very important stuff otherwise you know they wouldn't be fighting so hard for it. Let's see. Um here's one example. Uh one of the lead plaintiffs is a history professor named uh Christine Filio. Um and uh I guess her funding was cut by a4 million dollars and uh the funding would have gone to a study uh to study Greek Orthodox Christians in the 19th century Turkey. So, those of you who are depending on the results of a study of 19th century Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey, well, you're going to be very disappointed because it looks like that funding has been cut. Um, but also that's not the only thing that got cut. I mean, it's not all like worthless sounding stuff like that. Here's one. Um, the director of the clim project climate at UC Berkeley Law Initiative, uh, what they wanted to study, but it got cut, is they wanted to study using drones and robots to find cheaper ways to monitor methane emissions from landfills, which is a major contributor to climate change. So, um, did we really need drones and robots to measure methane from landfills? Because I thought we had all these climate models that were so well tuned that could tell you what the temperature will be in 80 years. And you're telling me now that I needed a robot and a drone to get accurate enough information to know if the temperature goes up in 80 80 years. Um I'm going to say that probably we don't need that but got cut. In other news, interesting engineering is reporting that uh Amazon is building an indoor I guess a gigantic uh test place for robots. It'll be in San Francisco and it will be a humanoid park. So humanoid is because the robots are human form and it's like a custom indoor obstacle course to get the robots ready for delivering packages for Amazon. Um but to me it sounds like a playground for robots. How how much how much training would you have to give a robot until it knew how to deliver a package to every kind of different doorway and steps and every every kind of weird situation and and then of course they're going to get robbed, right? What happens if the robot has a package and a a bad person runs up with a mask on and just grabs the package out of the hands of the robot? Is the robot trained to do what? I mean, it's not going to fight them. So, there are a lot of questions about these humanoid robots. I don't know. I feel like there's some better solution than humanoid robots, but maybe not. Uh, meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran has ordered thousands of tons of ballistic missile ingredients from China. Great. So, that should go well. Uh, thousands of tons of ballistic missile ingredients. So, it doesn't sound like Iran is giving up anytime soon. And in other news related, the Washington Times, Bill Girtz is writing that uh China has long held a military doctrine, I guess you might call it, in which they're trying to affect the brains of the other side. So there a whole bunch of different ways they can do it. But um the thinking is that the old way of war where you would send you know hordes of people in one direction and they would all get mowed down or stuck with swords doesn't work so much anymore. So, they're going for various cognitive weapons and uh makes me wonder, would you even know if somebody hit you with a cognitive weapon? Because some of them just make you angry or they hurt your morale. I don't know. So, cognitive weapons, it's coming. And according to Politico, China is helping Russia pull ahead in lethal drone uh race with Ukraine. How many drones do you think? Well, according to Politico, Veronica Mila Zerova, um Ukraine managed to uh make let's see uh up to a million tactical drones in the first years of the war. And they're aiming to produce 2.5 million tactical drones and 30,000 long range strike drones just 2025. 2.5 million drones. Now, I guess most of the good drones are the ones that uh can't be jammed because they they they run on these enormously long fiber optic cables, which doesn't even seem like it would work. I can't believe that they're really drones that are attached to a cable. It It doesn't seem like that could work, but it does. And meanwhile, um, let's see. And then the Russia drone producers, I don't know if how we know this, um, can make up to 15 Oh, no. Uh, uh, this is long range ones. Oh, they'll make more than 30,000. And they'll make up to 2 million small tactical drones. So, what happens when there are so many drones that all the humans are killed the moment they walk outdoors? Cuz we're sort of there. Um, apparently the Ukrainian soldiers um if they're on the front line, they can never go outside because they can't see the drones and the drones are pretty good at picking off anybody who walks outside. So apparently there's a mental health problem on top of being on the front lines of you of the Ukrainian war, which sounds like a mental health problem by itself. Uh that you can never leave your little enclosure because the minute you walk outside, they just kill you. And I think that works both ways, by the way. I think I think the Russians can't walk outside at all. So what happens if if you add like another million drones to that? 2025 or maybe 2026 is going to be lit. The entire sky over Ukraine and Russia are just going to be solid drones. So, it seems like their little cables would get mixed up. Well, according to Breitbart News, Oliver Lane is writing that uh Trump is going to threaten both Russia and Ukraine with sanctions uh if either of them don't get serious about making peace. To which I say, there can't be any sanctions left. Are are you telling me that there are sanctions left that have not been used that are so good it would make them seek peace for the first time? I don't believe that. I'm going to have to hear some examples of what those sanctions would be. I don't believe that at all. And even if they sound good on paper, it's got to be the kind that are easy to thwart. So, it's going to be something like uh we're going to sanction the people who buy oil from uh Russia and then we'll find out that 80% of the oil is bought by China and we don't want to sanction them because, you know, they'll sanction us and blah blah blah. So, I don't think we have anything. My my best guess is we have no leverage whatsoever for uh at least on Russia anyway. So that's my take for today. I think your uh Elon and Trump situation will work itself out. Um if what it does is it gets us serious about cutting the uh deficit where we have not been serious before then I would say that's a step forward. But, uh, at least we're talking about it with a little more seriousness than we had before. So, I'm going to take the win on that. Uh, not for me, but for the country. And that's all I got for you today. So, everybody else, I'll see you tomorrow. But if you're on locals, I'm going to say goodbye to them privately in 30 seconds. All right, locals.