Speaker 1: Meaning a live man like this man letting butterfly, flatting
Speaker 1: and wing big down in the forest. Man, it gonna
Speaker 1: cause a tree fall, letting five thousand miles away.
Speaker 2: Man, nobody see nobody else. See you don't need no
Speaker 2: man like you followed another story and you got directed
Speaker 2: for like that. That's when man don't eat and dag
Speaker 2: on the panel. Man matter? Man? All right?
Speaker 1: Ron Dodson, back from my court mandated U weekly discussion
Speaker 1: on the Iran War.
Speaker 2: How are you doing, man, I'm doing pretty good all
Speaker 2: things consider.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I obviously, just to speak at a sort of
Speaker 1: a broader level, big picture, I understand both sides with
Speaker 1: regards to discussions of Iran, between people on one side
Speaker 1: who say, this is clearly, you know, a massive pressing issue.
Speaker 1: It is the news and has been for five weeks.
Speaker 1: And alternately, I understand why people are sick of it.
Speaker 1: I myself, to a certain degree, I am sick of it,
Speaker 1: and so obviously I'm having rawn on to discuss a
Speaker 1: particular piece of that. This is perhaps a more broad
Speaker 1: topic relevant to this war and our ongoing relations with Iran.
Speaker 1: But I sort of joked when we started, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go overboard. I think about one show a
Speaker 1: week at least for the duration of this war is
Speaker 1: probably warranted. But ron with all that said, great to
Speaker 1: have you back on. And what are we going to
Speaker 1: launch into.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to talk today about the the what
Speaker 3: I call the nuclear developmental ladder and nuclear proliferation more broadly.
Speaker 2: The purpose of that being so that not so that
Speaker 2: suddenly we can all be a bunch of experts in
Speaker 2: a very technical area, but so that we can have
Speaker 2: we can know when we're being manipulated by the heralds
Speaker 2: of the day, so to speak. Uh. And so there's
Speaker 2: there's some I think this is a pretty balanced message.
Speaker 2: Actually there's hopefully at the end we'll see Okay, maybe
Speaker 2: there's some reason here. But also there's a whole lot
Speaker 2: of misconceptions about nuclear development cycles that just need to
Speaker 2: be dealt with and in a way that that we
Speaker 2: can all just get a firm grasp of when are
Speaker 2: we being when are we being led carrot and stick?
Speaker 2: Because that's not that doesn't make for good voters, good
Speaker 2: Twitter posters, for folks having a just maybe an informed
Speaker 2: conversation with your wife and kids or the guy that
Speaker 2: you work with. So that's kind of the point today
Speaker 2: is let's try to demystify and de mythify some of
Speaker 2: these this nuclear weapons thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so just today or yesterday, I'm not entirely sure.
Speaker 1: When the video dropped, Marco Rubio put out a brief
Speaker 1: two minute video explaining, which you know, it's sort of astounding,
Speaker 1: we've gotten five weeks and this is only now happening.
Speaker 1: Why we are at war with i ran The stated purpose,
Speaker 1: we'll say, which is, effectively, we don't want Iran to
Speaker 1: have a large enough conventional armory that they can shield
Speaker 1: themselves long enough to construct a nuclear one. And therefore
Speaker 1: that is why we are at war with a rant
Speaker 1: to prevent them from becoming a sort of middle eastern
Speaker 1: North Korea. Now, there are several things there. One, it
Speaker 1: assumes that we we could do such a thing, right,
Speaker 1: we'll set that aside. But also it assumes that the
Speaker 1: Iranians have for a long time been pushing for nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: and as you know, Vamp said, nuclear weapons that could
Speaker 1: be miniaturized to such a degree that they could be
Speaker 1: smuggled into the US, detonated as a suicide bomb, or alternately,
Speaker 1: you know, fire rained down from the sky, right, intercontinists,
Speaker 1: intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles, the really scary stuff. So obviously,
Speaker 1: the Iranian nuclear program has been in the news for
Speaker 1: much longer than that, certainly going back to the Obama era.
Speaker 1: But let's be honest, we destroyed or were told that
Speaker 1: we destroyed Iran's nuclear sites less than a year ago.
Speaker 1: So ron for the thinking man, where do we start
Speaker 1: with this?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: What are you know? The facts as we as we
Speaker 1: can sort of verify it.
Speaker 2: Well, let's let's just take it from Let's just go
Speaker 2: through kind of the chain. And for first of all,
Speaker 2: I think you can admit, and a guy on the
Speaker 2: right can admit, yes, a crude nuclear device maybe within
Speaker 2: the reach of a state like i Ran, but a reliable,
Speaker 2: deliverable nuclear weapon is a product of a really a
Speaker 2: far more demanding chain of engineering, testing and integration than most,
Speaker 2: if not all, the public discussion acknowledges. So that's kind
Speaker 2: of so what does that mean? Well, so you really
Speaker 2: have to go from or to deliverable weapon, and what
Speaker 2: does that require? And what happens is in the in
Speaker 2: the in the in the popular level, you know discussion,
Speaker 2: the Fox News discussion, we equate those two things and
Speaker 2: there's a huge difference between or yellow cake and a
Speaker 2: W eighty seven or W eighty eight. Those are our
Speaker 2: kind of our thermonuclear there's a it's from here to
Speaker 2: the moon from there, So what does that mean? So
Speaker 2: the the claim that you hear on TV is nuclear
Speaker 2: weapons are a flip a switch that you flip, and
Speaker 2: that's not true. It's a ladder that you climb, and
Speaker 2: it's it's it's like the concave climbing wall. Every every
Speaker 2: next handhold gets exponentially harder as one who is a
Speaker 2: horrific climber. This is why I picked that. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I I can kind of do the ones that are
Speaker 2: kind of slope the way I like, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: i'm I'm. I'm shocked at the spider monkeys that can
Speaker 2: climb that. And the question is Iran a spider monkey?
Speaker 2: And no, the answer is no. So what are the
Speaker 2: What are the stages? So you can think of it
Speaker 2: kind of in five broad stages, and there's some intermediate steps.
Speaker 2: But again, our job here is not to make us
Speaker 2: all experts. Our job here is to get informed. So
Speaker 2: Stage one is resource acquisition uranium. Iran's great with that,
Speaker 2: they've got three or four sites. Uranium is not a
Speaker 2: rare earth element, it is it is relatively plentiful in
Speaker 2: the Earth's crust. You just got to go dig and
Speaker 2: process it. And they they have and and so they've
Speaker 2: got plenty of uranium domestically and that's not going to change.
Speaker 2: And honestly, that's not a huge deal. Now we get
Speaker 2: to the real stuff, conversion and enrichment. So what does
Speaker 2: conversion mean. Conversion means you've taken it from or into
Speaker 2: a form. You combine uranium with fluoride and so it
Speaker 2: becomes this this new molecule that is easily turned into
Speaker 2: a gas. So at about fifty degrees celsius, you can
Speaker 2: that that uh, that combination of uranium and fluoride becomes
Speaker 2: a gas. And now you can enrich it via centerfuge.
Speaker 2: So how does we'll get into the indo because that's
Speaker 2: where a lot of the talk comes in, is in
Speaker 2: this centerfuge deal. And we'll explain that a little bit
Speaker 2: again without getting too technical and without a bunch of
Speaker 2: pictures and all that kind of thing. We'll describe that.
Speaker 2: So that's stage two conversion enrichment. Stage three is weaponization.
Speaker 2: So that's where you develop a what's called the physics package.
Speaker 2: And that's not just the pit or the part that explodes,
Speaker 2: but all the stuff that goes around it that helps
Speaker 2: it explode. And then you have stage four, which is
Speaker 2: testing in validation, and then STAY five delivery system integration.
Speaker 2: Iran is at stage two. Okay, So those other three
Speaker 2: stages are orders of magnitude harder beyond a certain kind
Speaker 2: of first elementary step, and we'll talk about that. Okay,
Speaker 2: So stage one uranium. It's necessary, but it's trivial for
Speaker 2: iran because uranium's not rare mining and milling that these
Speaker 2: are industrial processes. It's not exotic and yellow cake and
Speaker 2: yellow cake. It's it's yellow to our eyes and powdery.
Speaker 2: You've seen pictures. You can go google it right now
Speaker 2: and see what it looks like. That's try let me
Speaker 2: see if I can remember this. Try uranium octo oxide.
Speaker 2: It's it's eight oxygen atoms and three uranium app or
Speaker 2: uranium atoms, and so you're oxidizing uranium to make this
Speaker 2: yellow cake, and that's just makes it stable. And then
Speaker 2: that's not a weapons material. And so in the Earth, uranium,
Speaker 2: which again is plentiful but ninety ninety nine point three
Speaker 2: percent of it is uranium two thirty eight and only
Speaker 2: a point seven percent of it naturally occurring in the
Speaker 2: ores called pitch blend. Maybe you've heard of that before
Speaker 2: in your high school, uh, you know your high school
Speaker 2: science class. Only seven percent of that is uranium two
Speaker 2: thirty five and uranium two thirty five. These different versions
Speaker 2: of the same element are called isotopes. Uranium two thirty
Speaker 2: five is the one that is able to sustain a
Speaker 2: nuclear reaction. So you have to end That's why you
Speaker 2: have to enrich. Okay, so you have to get that
Speaker 2: and you have to get that natural two thirty five
Speaker 2: point seven up to eighty between eighty and ninety five percent,
Speaker 2: and in order for it to be weapons grade. And
Speaker 2: so right now, Iran has I think the latest numbers
Speaker 2: are about four hundred and fifty kilograms. We don't know
Speaker 2: how much of this is accessible. About four hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty kilograms that's enriched to the sixty percent mark, so
Speaker 2: not weapons grade. But to be fair, that distance between
Speaker 2: sixty and eighty to ninety percent is doable in the
Speaker 2: in the not long term. If they have in this
Speaker 2: why well we'll talk about how that happens. So having uranium,
Speaker 2: here's what you need to think of. Here's your big picture.
Speaker 2: Having uranium is like having crude oil. It tells you
Speaker 2: nothing about whether or not you can build a Ferrari,
Speaker 2: you know, a V eight engine, much less a jet engine. Okay,
Speaker 2: you might be able to build a very simple two
Speaker 2: stroke engine. And that's kind of where Iran is. And
Speaker 2: we'll talk about what that analog device is. And stop
Speaker 2: me at any point if you have any questions, Jay,
Speaker 2: because this is.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 2: just completely overload listeners without any breaks.
Speaker 1: But so forgive me if this is too far outside
Speaker 1: the scope of what you want to talk about. But
Speaker 1: I think it's important to understand, well, why is Iran
Speaker 1: enriching uranium?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Are they only doing it so they can usher in
Speaker 1: an apocalypse so that they can, you know, turn Los
Speaker 1: Angeles into a smoking crater or is there a legitimate
Speaker 1: reason to go about that.
Speaker 2: Well, there's kind of a legitimate reason. So number one,
Speaker 2: Iran with the help of the Russians, And that sounds scary,
Speaker 2: but it's really not. The Russians don't want nuclear proliferation
Speaker 2: anymore than we do. So. But Iran wanted the ability
Speaker 2: to power their country via cleanly with with with nuclear plants,
Speaker 2: so Russia helped them, uh fuel fuel their plants. But
Speaker 2: other than other than that one plant, and they have
Speaker 2: several uh or have I don't know what the state
Speaker 2: status of them is right now, you know, uh, real
Speaker 2: quick sidebar. Traditionally, when we've gone to war, we've had
Speaker 2: press embedded in you know, Vietnam, World War two, uh,
Speaker 2: the Iraq War one and two, we had press embedded
Speaker 2: in the and and that's kind of a normal thing.
Speaker 2: We've got nothing now. Part of that is it's hard
Speaker 2: to do you embed in in on the you know,
Speaker 2: on an aircraft carrier at the bases and stuff. You know.
Speaker 2: But the fact that we don't have any on site
Speaker 2: press coverage, we're having to rely on a bunch of
Speaker 2: uh uh you know, ocent feeds is a little bit
Speaker 2: problematic to me. But anyway, so they do have So
Speaker 2: you do need to enrich in order to get to
Speaker 2: medical uranium. That's twenty about twenty percent. And you do
Speaker 2: need to enrich to get to a nuclear fuel in
Speaker 2: the sense for a power plant, but that's about five
Speaker 2: to seven percent depending on the design. Older designs require
Speaker 2: a higher like the the graphite reactors. As I understand it,
Speaker 2: the Russian designs needed a higher level of enrichment in
Speaker 2: order to maintain a chain reaction. So anyway, the reason
Speaker 2: they've enriched to sixty percent is so that they can
Speaker 2: have and this is the and I consider this kind
Speaker 2: of legitimate, is so that they can have a bargaining
Speaker 2: chip in order to get out of the sanctions regime.
Speaker 2: And they have offered repeatedly. They're they're now deceased Supreme
Speaker 2: Leader Patata Fatwah against nuclear weapons development. Uh. And it
Speaker 2: has long been the Iranian position that they would submit
Speaker 2: to I a e A inspections upon removal of sanctions.
Speaker 2: This seems like a complex. A no brainer to me
Speaker 2: is why why would we not want a pro if
Speaker 2: and even for the neocons. Honestly, let's take the neocon position.
Speaker 2: The neocon position, you know, says prosperity equals democracy equals
Speaker 2: let's get along with our neighbors, you know, prosperity in trade,
Speaker 2: you know, forget the cosmopolitan byproducts of that. But but
Speaker 2: it seems to me for the longest time, and Obama
Speaker 2: this swhere. You know, we make fun of Obama's palettes
Speaker 2: of cash, but uh, I think Obama. You could make
Speaker 2: the argument Obama hand the Iranians pretty well. They didn't
Speaker 2: cause any problems. They kept in their lane, they didn't
Speaker 2: cause any issues with it. They weren't threatening to send
Speaker 2: missiles all this stuff. So, you know, far be it
Speaker 2: for me to praise one of the worst presidents we've
Speaker 2: ever had, Barack Hassean Obama. But uh, I think he
Speaker 2: handled the Iranians in a you know, at least you
Speaker 2: can argue a rational way. But it's always been their position.
Speaker 2: We don't want nuclear weapons, but we do want out
Speaker 2: of this long term. We're a Shia nation. You need
Speaker 2: to get over it. That's what we are. We self
Speaker 2: identify as that uh you know, and until you quit,
Speaker 2: get us off the sanctioned regime. UH, We're going to
Speaker 2: keep this enrichment capability. The problem with the Iranians has
Speaker 2: been uh and to jump ahead a little bit, is
Speaker 2: that they have used their oil proceeds to fund uh
Speaker 2: you know, uh hamas uh uh uh some terrorism that
Speaker 2: that uh that tends to uh harass our most beloved
Speaker 2: and trusted ally in the Middle East. So and we
Speaker 2: have long there's a sense in which, you know, the
Speaker 2: the realist or the classical realists says, is it good
Speaker 2: in a balance of power situation to have one actor
Speaker 2: have that much control over one of the world's most
Speaker 2: valuable choke points? What are you going to do about it? Though?
Speaker 2: That's the question, And that's a little bit beyond the
Speaker 2: scope of what I want to talk about, because we
Speaker 2: were told that one of the main reasons we were
Speaker 2: going to war is because they had two weeks towards
Speaker 2: reigning down hell fire on the world. And that's what
Speaker 2: I want to mainly deal with. And if you want
Speaker 2: to talk about some of that other stuff, that's fine too.
Speaker 1: So does that sorry even answer answer were but sorry
Speaker 1: I interrupted you. We were moving up.
Speaker 2: So moving up to change, so, so just real quick,
Speaker 2: so remember Iran is not dependent upon an external uranium supply,
Speaker 2: So no level of sanctions, no level of anything other
Speaker 2: than literally taking the country over, is going to change that.
Speaker 2: They are always going to have access to uranium. Uh,
Speaker 2: so they can internalize the entire fuel cycle. This is
Speaker 2: why enrichment exists, existed to the in the first place,
Speaker 2: and that's why, uh, you're not going to be able
Speaker 2: to completely ever do away with that. So I don't
Speaker 2: know if y'all are concerned with the how the uranium
Speaker 2: enrichment process works, I'm going to be very very brief.
Speaker 2: You convert the this uranium oxid oxidation, you know, the
Speaker 2: U three eight, You convert that to a process to
Speaker 2: this uranium hexafluoride. That's that's the enrichment stuff. You use
Speaker 2: gas centerfuge. You heat it up so that it sublimates,
Speaker 2: it becomes a gas, and then you have a series
Speaker 2: of these gas centrifuges, and all they are is you
Speaker 2: put the gas in this long cylinder that has basically
Speaker 2: kind of a weather van kind of thing inside that
Speaker 2: spins it up really really fast. And because two thirty
Speaker 2: eight the isotope, that doesn't do much for us for
Speaker 2: enrichment because it's just a tiny bit heavier, it moves
Speaker 2: to the outside in the two thirty five generally because
Speaker 2: it's lighter, stays in the middle. So you you you
Speaker 2: try to remove the center part of the centerfuge process
Speaker 2: while it's spinning. You remove that you tube thirty five,
Speaker 2: and each stage just is a to nine amount more
Speaker 2: pure and it's a cascade. So you'll have two hundred
Speaker 2: of these centrifuges in a row row, kind of like
Speaker 2: daisy chained hot water heaters, but skinnier. And so as
Speaker 2: it's taking out that you're putting it into a new centerfuge,
Speaker 2: and it's spinning it up. In every stage you get
Speaker 2: a little bit more of the two thirty five versus
Speaker 2: the two thirty eight. So that's how centrifuges work. This
Speaker 2: is what was destroyed by a work of the CIA
Speaker 2: and Masade when the stucks Net program was put in.
Speaker 2: And these are the the older versions of the centrifuges
Speaker 2: were Semens run by Siemens controllers. Semens is a German
Speaker 2: electronics giant, and uh so these these centrifuges had Semens controllers.
Speaker 2: Stuck's Net was a program that infected the Semens controllers
Speaker 2: to while they were spinning to stop and start them,
Speaker 2: which would like a dryer that has way too many
Speaker 2: towels on one side, they would get unbalanced and tear
Speaker 2: themselves apart. Amazingly effective. Uh and uh kind of a
Speaker 2: brilliant look. You got to give those the the Israelis.
Speaker 2: We know the Israelis were behind part of it because
Speaker 2: that stuck'snet code but was actually released. People found it.
Speaker 2: The way it propagated was through through broad propagation, and
Speaker 2: the source code had Miritis in it. Miritus is uh.
Speaker 2: If you go back to your Book of Esther, Esther
Speaker 2: is myrtle Latin for esther is is miritis. And so anyway,
Speaker 2: the Book of Esther takes place in Persia. So that's
Speaker 2: how we knew Masad was in on the game. Anyway. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you've got enrichment. What happens after enrichment, well, uh,
Speaker 2: you you so to close that loop? Uh, Iran has
Speaker 2: the capability at varying enriched, varying enrichment levels. But we
Speaker 2: don't know what is left of these of these centrifuge
Speaker 2: enrichment cascades. We don't We did bomb their system. These
Speaker 2: are not super robust. I mean, they're not like, you know,
Speaker 2: super fragile. But if if you you know, you can
Speaker 2: damage them or take them offline. If it does, it's
Speaker 2: that's not hard. If it's just a matter of getting
Speaker 2: to them because you you know, Iran's placed them in
Speaker 2: very secured areas. So that and again that leap from
Speaker 2: sixty percent enrichment to ninety percent in enrichment is smaller
Speaker 2: in effort, but it's it requires massive, massive cascade coordination.
Speaker 2: So anyway, so enrichment is where it's a way to
Speaker 2: think about that is enrichment is where physics meets industrial discipline.
Speaker 2: It's not brilliant or conceptually complicated. It just takes sustained competence.
Speaker 2: And so you know that's where again, that's where Iran is.
Speaker 2: Let's I'm going to skip ahead in my presentation because
Speaker 2: you don't I don't you know. There's there's the Basher.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna mention there's the Basher power reactor that's
Speaker 2: low proliferation. That's the one the Russians built. That's the
Speaker 2: one that the Russians fuel and supply and maintain and
Speaker 2: remove the fuel. And they did that because they didn't
Speaker 2: want They said, look, we'll fuel this and we'll remove
Speaker 2: the fuel because we don't want you having plutonium because
Speaker 2: plutonium you can use if you enrich and then using
Speaker 2: rich fuel in a reactor, one of the byproducts can
Speaker 2: be plutonium. We don't want you having that, so we'll
Speaker 2: remove the fuel. Iran said, that's great. We get basically
Speaker 2: we get you're coming and we've got a service contract
Speaker 2: with you. Awesome, So that's not a viable path. The
Speaker 2: Tran Research reactor uses twenty percent enriched uranium that basically
Speaker 2: produces medical isotopes, which provides the justification to twenty percent.
Speaker 2: Can they use that twenty percent to jump start their chain? Yeah,
Speaker 2: but we've got twenty percent enrichment isotopes all over the US,
Speaker 2: you know, But that's is it an issue? Well? I
Speaker 2: mean yeah, but inspection fixes all this, right. So Obama
Speaker 2: tried to deal with this because the well and then
Speaker 2: you have the Iraq a raq A r Ak heavy
Speaker 2: water reactor and this is this one's kind of the
Speaker 2: problem because that's designed for natural uranium and heavy water
Speaker 2: and that's where you get plutonium. So that one's an issue.
Speaker 2: That's an issue. Neokon not neokan. This needs to be
Speaker 2: I think this this is the one you need to
Speaker 2: deal with. And Obama dealt with that under the JCPOA,
Speaker 2: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that was the twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen agreement between Iran and the USA, UK, France, China,
Speaker 2: Russia and Germany, and that restricts their nuclear program in
Speaker 2: exchange for some sanctions relief. That's kind of in a
Speaker 2: This war has thrown that into a complete that's out
Speaker 2: the door right now. So you know, if you're gonna
Speaker 2: bomb us, we're not gonna. But so anyway, that was
Speaker 2: the one area where they submitted to IAEA inspections. So
Speaker 2: Iran in that case chose showed their good faith. Look,
Speaker 2: will you're worried about this reactor. We're subject to these
Speaker 2: uh i a e A inspection the i a e
Speaker 2: A Inspection regime here, So they showed good faith not
Speaker 2: to the You notice there's one nation that didn't sign
Speaker 2: that Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. So all right, so
Speaker 2: weapon weaponization. So now we've got we know how we enrich,
Speaker 2: we know how we mine, we know how we enrich.
Speaker 2: What do we do now? We want to create a weapon.
Speaker 2: This is where everybody said, this is where they are, Well, okay,
Speaker 2: could they there's there's there's two paths you take to
Speaker 2: making a nuclear weapon, well three paths, but but we'll
Speaker 2: put the third one aside for a bit. The first
Speaker 2: is a gun type of device, and this is one
Speaker 2: that if given the materials, you me and three or
Speaker 2: four guys and a really good machine shop, and if
Speaker 2: we had enough uranium, could possibly build one of these. Okay,
Speaker 2: this is not a complex it's a very complex from
Speaker 2: an engineering standpoint, it's not complex from a nuclear science standpoint.
Speaker 2: So what's the concept. Well, this is the bomb that
Speaker 2: was dropped on Hiroshima. Didn't need any testing. It was
Speaker 2: just a gun type of device. This was a Little Boy.
Speaker 2: And all you're doing is firing one subcritical mass into another.
Speaker 2: When you get enough uranium two thirty five together in
Speaker 2: a close mass that reaches what's called critical mass, and
Speaker 2: you get a sustained you get a sustained nuclear chain reaction,
Speaker 2: and if it's super critical, you get an explosive critical reaction.
Speaker 2: And this is how we built Little Boy. And what
Speaker 2: is that? So there's no need for complex timing or
Speaker 2: implosion symmetry. We'll talk about that. This can be built
Speaker 2: without testing. You kind of know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 2: It does require large amounts of highly enriched uranium. We
Speaker 2: only used eighty percent enriched in Little Boy. But that's
Speaker 2: why it was so inefficient. Little Boy was only about
Speaker 2: one percent efficiency and it's incredibly large and heavy. Why
Speaker 2: is that?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: How does one of these things work. Imagine a gun barrel,
Speaker 2: and we actually used a navy gun barrel. We we
Speaker 2: took it from a naval surplus replacement gun barrel, and
Speaker 2: we had a a cylinder of uranium eighty percent uranium
Speaker 2: two thirty five and then a hall cylinder that was
Speaker 2: designed to fit together over here at the other end
Speaker 2: of the gun barrel with high explosives behind it. And
Speaker 2: the idea is you, just like you're firing a gun,
Speaker 2: you draw the explosives, drive this hollow cylinder to meet
Speaker 2: up with the with the solid cylinder of machine uranium
Speaker 2: two thirty five so fast that they reach super criticality
Speaker 2: and it blows up. That's the simple thing. The hard
Speaker 2: thing is is around that. In order for this to
Speaker 2: really do much of anything, you need what's called a
Speaker 2: neutron reflector, usually beryllium, although you can use other heavy things,
Speaker 2: and you wrap that around this target area. And what
Speaker 2: that does is that makes sure it's neutrons that are
Speaker 2: making this chain reaction go. You want those neutrons to
Speaker 2: not escape, but stay within this confine pross area to
Speaker 2: make the reaction more efficient. You get more neutrons, you
Speaker 2: get more fission. Each fission each atom that that uh
Speaker 2: undergoes fission reduced produces several million electron vaults. That's what
Speaker 2: provides the energy. So you have this, yeah, to.
Speaker 1: Take it to a much lower IQ version. Think of
Speaker 1: it as you know, one of those like YETI vacuum cups,
Speaker 1: right that keeps the heat inside. Yeah, obviously to a
Speaker 1: different end, but that's sort of.
Speaker 2: The the works. The reflector works as a neutron insulator.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. This is keeping the coffee hot. And
Speaker 2: we're talking in microseconds, okay, because these this reaction happens,
Speaker 2: you want as many iterations of this chain to happen
Speaker 2: before the thing just the heat and ex the heat
Speaker 2: makes it blow apart. Okay, So you want that reflector
Speaker 2: keeping those neutrons in. Then around that you have in
Speaker 2: a five to six inch cylinder what's called a tamper.
Speaker 2: And this physically and the best material for that is
Speaker 2: uranium two thirty eight. You get a little extra, but
Speaker 2: you can use tungsten, you can use, you can use.
Speaker 2: But the goal of this is to something that's incredibly
Speaker 2: that is going to keep this explosion together for a
Speaker 2: couple of more nano micro microseconds, so that more of
Speaker 2: this reaction happens because all that matters is the last iteration,
Speaker 2: so it's it's a chain reaction, so it's happening logarithmically.
Speaker 2: So if you can keep it together for two more iterations,
Speaker 2: that's one hundred or one thousand times bigger of an explosion.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense. So literally, you have a neutron reflector,
Speaker 2: and then you have a tamper, and this is massive
Speaker 2: and he to keep the thing together. So this gun device,
Speaker 2: the barrel has to be massively heavy just to hold
Speaker 2: this together. And then this tamp, this reflector in tamper
Speaker 2: together is very is much heavier than the barrel. And
Speaker 2: then because this is an inefficient device, you need a
Speaker 2: couple hundred pounds of uranium to make it work. So
Speaker 2: this gun device is large. Little boy was about eight
Speaker 2: feet including the casing and altimeter package and everything about
Speaker 2: eight feet long, and was close to twenty thousand pounds
Speaker 2: all told. So that's not going on the top of
Speaker 2: a missile. The Iranians can put about five hundred kilograms
Speaker 2: on top of a missile. They're short range. They have
Speaker 2: some space launch vehicles as well, nowhere near. So this
Speaker 2: is the type of device they could, theoretically, if left alone,
Speaker 2: over time, build without testing.
Speaker 1: So Ron, I'm not a physicist or a tailor, but
Speaker 1: would it be possible to strap one of those devices
Speaker 1: into a vest and walk into a grocery store.
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, And the whole idea of suitcase nukes, those are
Speaker 2: that's fantasy. You can't get. There's a there's a threshold
Speaker 2: below which you can't go due to you need a
Speaker 2: certain amount of critical mass, and then you need a
Speaker 2: certain amount of something to make it super critical really fast,
Speaker 2: and that just takes size. We got artillery shells, you know,
Speaker 2: we got a critical mass down to about this size
Speaker 2: with the explosive deal, and those were incredibly unreliable and
Speaker 2: incredibly inconsistent. You'd get ten kilo tons or a hundred
Speaker 2: kilotons and it was just kind of a roll of
Speaker 2: the dice, and so we we stopped that program. But
Speaker 2: the suit there's never been a such thing that could
Speaker 2: fit in a Haliburton case. That's just science fiction because
Speaker 2: of the just the physics involved. But anyway, so this
Speaker 2: one device that theoretically you could build without testing is
Speaker 2: incredibly large and incredibly heavy. We were able to deliver
Speaker 2: it because we had the B twenty nine and it
Speaker 2: took a special version. The Anola Gay had to be
Speaker 2: stripped of certain amounts of equipment and everything just to
Speaker 2: carry this massive thing and deliver it. So anything any
Speaker 2: other type of system, when we talk about that, requires
Speaker 2: massive amounts of testing. And why does that matter? Because
Speaker 2: you test a nuclear device, we're going to know about it.
Speaker 2: The Brits are going to know about it, the Russians
Speaker 2: are going to know about it, the Chinese are going
Speaker 2: to know about it. We have incredible systems underground, atmospheric,
Speaker 2: on water. These tests leave a have a very defined signature.
Speaker 2: It's why every time the North Koreans, who aren't a
Speaker 2: obvious aren't a part to you know, a partner in
Speaker 2: the in the Nuclear non Proliferation Agreement. That's why whenever
Speaker 2: they test something underground, we know about it. So there's
Speaker 2: ways to try to hide it, but you know about it,
Speaker 2: usually via seismic It leaves a seismic fingerprint and you
Speaker 2: can't help but there be some isotope leakage. So anyway,
Speaker 2: so the Iranians aren't going and by the way, we
Speaker 2: have no evidence at all that they have any enrichment
Speaker 2: beyond sixty percent, which it would to even do one
Speaker 2: of these devices. They if they built one of these devices,
Speaker 2: they can't deliver it. I mean, in theory they could
Speaker 2: put it on a ship and sail it somewhere. Uh,
Speaker 2: but we've we've you know where their ships are anyway. Uh,
Speaker 2: but they're not putting it on a missile. No way
Speaker 2: to do that anything beyond that. So an implosion device,
Speaker 2: like all our devices now are implosion devices, and they
Speaker 2: all have secondary so thermonuclear secondaries. And that's why we
Speaker 2: our re entry vehicles are so small because it's a small,
Speaker 2: smaller fission stage and then a fusion stage that fuses
Speaker 2: uh uh you know hydrogen deuteride. Uh. Anyway, really cool,
Speaker 2: really cool science beyond the scope of this talk. But
Speaker 2: we basically construct a miniature sun, which scientifically is really cool.
Speaker 2: And uh but that's why, like our re entry vehicles
Speaker 2: are only four hundred kilograms and about four feet long
Speaker 2: and only this big around that takes such a level
Speaker 2: of complexity and testing that Iran is fifty years from
Speaker 2: something like that. We would know what they were doing
Speaker 2: at every stage, So that's not an issue. The concern
Speaker 2: is so anyway, implosion think about it this way, implosion
Speaker 2: or that next level of deliverable type of device that
Speaker 2: can be made smaller is not just harder. It's a
Speaker 2: different category of difficulty and it requires a testable and
Speaker 2: mature scientific ecosystem. That's a whole different thing you have.
Speaker 2: Most folks don't know. Like we have pantexts in the
Speaker 2: Texas Panantal, we have our facility in Tennessee. These are
Speaker 2: massive to build tests and house the the pits. So
Speaker 2: that's the nuclear material and the science package, which is
Speaker 2: what the physics package, which is what turns it into
Speaker 2: a deliverable warhead. These are massive scientific undertakings. My cousin
Speaker 2: in law who was a contractor for the nuclear UH
Speaker 2: in the nuclear UH sub fleet. He participated in the
Speaker 2: refueling of nuclear submarines, the Los Angeles Class. He was
Speaker 2: recruited to go work for Sandia uh UH and UH
Speaker 2: with a possible uh sypath with pantecs and this guy
Speaker 2: is He ended up going into the super Computing UH
Speaker 2: the Supercomputing uh UH division of Dell Computers. These are
Speaker 2: very specialized, highly highly trained. Everybody knows who these people
Speaker 2: are are. They work in these massive scientific undertakings. Because
Speaker 2: this is a very complex deal and Iran has nothing
Speaker 2: like that. So anyway we've talked about testing, we can
Speaker 2: talk about miniaturization. I kind of feel like i've, you know,
Speaker 2: real quick. So so warhead weight and size restraints. We've
Speaker 2: already talked about how the Little Boy guns style device
Speaker 2: just can't be miniaturized beyond a certain degree with it's
Speaker 2: it's just big and heavy. So if they wanted to
Speaker 2: build something that was actually miniaturized and deliverable and hardened,
Speaker 2: you're talking about massive weight and size constraints. You would
Speaker 2: need a specific re entry vehicle that's different from a
Speaker 2: conventional warhead, conventional T and T or the offshoots of
Speaker 2: T and T. See the plastic or solid the solid
Speaker 2: type of explosives are very hardened. You can there's there's
Speaker 2: no real vibration constraints. You get them to wherever you're going,
Speaker 2: and as long as you have a good igniter or
Speaker 2: you're they're gonna go boom. Very different from a deliverable
Speaker 2: physics package. So uh, and then miniaturizing a nuclear device down,
Speaker 2: I mean, we talked about that a little bit. You
Speaker 2: can go and google the W eighty seven slash W
Speaker 2: eighty eight program if you want to, if you're listening
Speaker 2: and you really find this interesting and see all that
Speaker 2: was in a lot of this. The Federation of American
Speaker 2: Scientists have a great site that basically tells you how
Speaker 2: this was all put together and built. I mean without
Speaker 2: you know, you're not gonna go do this in your backyard,
Speaker 2: so it's actually kind of okay. But you can look
Speaker 2: at the FAS dot org and read up about all
Speaker 2: the steps we we're now most people think we're a
Speaker 2: model or two beyond that. This was when I was
Speaker 2: studying this in school, when I studied, Yes, I was
Speaker 2: accounting finance double major, but I wrote my senior thesis
Speaker 2: in well actually infusion and tacamac design. But I studied
Speaker 2: all this stuff. That's why it's interesting to me. At
Speaker 2: that point, the W eighty seven W eighty eight, which
Speaker 2: went on our Poseidon and try it well, our Trident
Speaker 2: missiles and our minimm missiles, that warhead was the state
Speaker 2: of the art. Then I think we're a stage or
Speaker 2: two beyond that. But this is where my training stopped.
Speaker 2: You can anyway, you go to FAS dot org and
Speaker 2: put in W eighty eight. You can read all about
Speaker 2: this if you're really interested about what it would take. So,
Speaker 2: so what it matters for nuclear delivery remember warhead mass limits,
Speaker 2: re entry vehicle design, and then you have accurate c
Speaker 2: versus yield trade off. We're not really worry about that.
Speaker 2: So anyway, what does Iran have in the sense of deliverability?
Speaker 2: So they have short range ballistic missiles and they have
Speaker 2: a couple of intermediate range ballistic missiles. The main thing
Speaker 2: the difference is being in range and difficulty of maintenance.
Speaker 2: A short range ballistic missile is all solid two stage
Speaker 2: and solid fuel. So it's like a firecracker. You can
Speaker 2: set it over there, very low maintenance. You like the fuse,
Speaker 2: it's going okay, hey this The intermediate range are two stage,
Speaker 2: but the upper stage is liquid fuel and that's much harder.
Speaker 2: These are. These are much less stable, much less storable.
Speaker 2: There's usually a cryogenics, not always the non cryogenic wayte
Speaker 2: to fuel. These are very, very toxic. So I think
Speaker 2: there was a video that came out the other night
Speaker 2: of the upper stage falling in part of Israel and
Speaker 2: this red smoke coming out. Dude, that will kill you.
Speaker 2: You breathe in that red smoke, you are dead in
Speaker 2: five minutes kind of thing. It will eat your longus
Speaker 2: out from the inside. So this isn't These aren't fun things.
Speaker 2: And then the Iranians have a three stage space launch vehicle.
Speaker 2: I think they the space launch vehicle conversion is what
Speaker 2: they use to try to launch something towards Diego Garcia,
Speaker 2: which was never gonna work. These are completely different guidance packages.
Speaker 2: A ballistic missile is like a single use well they're
Speaker 2: both single use in theory, but use you use this.
Speaker 2: It's designed to hit something on the other end of
Speaker 2: a ballistic curve with very good aiming on the front
Speaker 2: end and minimal course correction. A space launch vehicle uses
Speaker 2: a closed loop, constant course correction type of model so
Speaker 2: that you can get something into orbit. But neither one
Speaker 2: of them have the capability to have that kind of range,
Speaker 2: just due to the to the payload trade off. These
Speaker 2: are designed to deliver five hundred kilogram type of things,
Speaker 2: and these the range that they needed to get to
Speaker 2: Diego Garcia was such that we think they basically didn't
Speaker 2: even have much of a payload. They just wanted to
Speaker 2: see if they could launch something and you know, taunt us.
Speaker 2: That's my opinion. There are people who disagree with that.
Speaker 2: So a space launch vehicle proves that you could throw
Speaker 2: something into space into orbit. It does not prove that
Speaker 2: you can deliver a nuclear weapon through the atmosphere onto
Speaker 2: a target. Just a completely different thing. So anyway, that's
Speaker 2: kind of let's let's kind of land this plane, so
Speaker 2: to speak, and then we can have kind of question.
Speaker 2: You know, I'll let you talk because I know I've
Speaker 2: been lecturing. Basically, here's the thing. Tier one with Iran
Speaker 2: latent capability. They have uranium, they have enrichment infrastructure that
Speaker 2: we've tried to we supposedly just completely utterly destroyed. Well
Speaker 2: we don't know, but they have a tech nical knowledge base.
Speaker 2: I mean the Iranians are these are these are north
Speaker 2: of one hundred on the uh uh w ai s
Speaker 2: for uh Bell curve. I mean these are this is
Speaker 2: as a group a bright people. These are capable people.
Speaker 2: They have a crew device potential possibly achievable, not deliverable.
Speaker 2: Tier three is a reliable implosion weapon nowhere near nowhere
Speaker 2: on the radar nowhere. And they've and they by the way,
Speaker 2: that that gun type device again to just hammer this home.
Speaker 2: We have no evidence anywhere that they have enriched beyond
Speaker 2: sixty percent, or that they've tried to test or construct
Speaker 2: any device. And then a Tier four is a deliverable
Speaker 2: missile warhead. That's science fiction for the Iranians. So the
Speaker 2: debate often jumps from Tier one to Tier four as
Speaker 2: if they are adjacent, and they are not. These are
Speaker 2: separated by years of compounding difficulty. Again that ladder that
Speaker 2: think of it as I'm climbing that I'm at the uh,
Speaker 2: I'm at the the climb wall, and it keeps just
Speaker 2: getting more and more folding back on itself in difficulty.
Speaker 2: So that's how you make that's kind of the ladder
Speaker 2: of nuclear development. This is why we have not this
Speaker 2: is why it's it's not easy, but you can police
Speaker 2: this pretty well. And uh, Iran wasn't. We have no
Speaker 2: evidence that they were anywhere close to any of this,
Speaker 2: but you scare people with ah, they've got uranium, and uh,
Speaker 2: that's kind of where I think we were. So there
Speaker 2: were I think obviously either either the players just didn't understand,
Speaker 2: or they were being manipulated, or there are other factors involved.
Speaker 1: All right, Ron, thank you, that was incredibly informative, and
Speaker 1: you sort of touched on what I wanted to bring
Speaker 1: up in that last remark. So, to what degree is
Speaker 1: the worry over the Iranian nuclear program legitimate? And to
Speaker 1: what degree is it effectively uh a post talk justification
Speaker 1: for something we wanted to do anyway?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was absolutely a post talk justification
Speaker 2: for what we wanted to do anyway. That being said,
Speaker 2: I do want to be I want to you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of tend towards classical realism. You have to
Speaker 2: the Neocon idea, and it's it's it's kind of like, uh,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like dispensationalism. It's kind of internally consistent,
Speaker 2: but as a meta narrative flawed.
Speaker 3: Uh Uh.
Speaker 2: The neocon idea is that you bring war to these
Speaker 2: people in order to change them. The the classical realist
Speaker 2: I do it? I mean, or do you include them?
Speaker 2: Do you game theory this in order to incentivize them
Speaker 2: playing nice in the sandbox because you have no way
Speaker 2: of enforcing anything else. And that's kind of where I am.
Speaker 2: I think the the neocon idea is, look, we had
Speaker 2: we we we created chaos in in Iraq, in Libya,
Speaker 2: in Syria. Uh, why not in Iran? And that deals.
Speaker 2: Now we get a bunch of birds with one stone,
Speaker 2: and I think that's kind of the way this was thought.
Speaker 2: And we can use nuclear this nuclear threat as a
Speaker 2: way to move public opinion, because nobody's gonna go sit
Speaker 2: through Ron's lecture on nuclear proliferation in the ladder of development.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of where I think the calculus was.
Speaker 2: Do I think that's where Trump or Rubio or or
Speaker 2: any of these other players were. I, you know, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know these guys, and the guys I do know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I don't think it's fair to
Speaker 2: to talk about them in a public form. They can
Speaker 2: speak for themselves, but I just don't have enough visible
Speaker 2: I just don't know. I do know very much where
Speaker 2: the lobby is on all this. And they were fine
Speaker 2: with chaos, uh and using you know, they were fine
Speaker 2: with chaos, And I think do I think all of
Speaker 2: it was completely dishonest? No. I think that there is
Speaker 2: a certain paranoia due to world events, and and you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to paint with a mop that there
Speaker 2: is you know, I spoke with I was Tucker and
Speaker 2: Darryl Cooper's guest at one of his h when he
Speaker 2: was doing the big town hall public town halls and
Speaker 2: uh and oh good night. Roseanne Barr was the guest.
Speaker 2: And Roseanne was very entertaining and uh she but you know,
Speaker 2: she's a Jewish lady, and she was very when I visited,
Speaker 2: she visited with us, and she was very open that Look,
Speaker 2: we were raised to be afraid everyone is just waiting
Speaker 2: to throw us in the ovens and and and indicate.
Speaker 2: So there's uh, this is what we were all raised with.
Speaker 2: This is what we were We were shown these videos
Speaker 2: and movies from a very early age. So I think,
Speaker 2: you know, and I had a little bit of a
Speaker 2: public falling out with Dave. Uh uh real boy. And
Speaker 2: you know I always got along with Dave, but uh,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to air anything publicly, but but
Speaker 2: he basically accused me of wanting to throw Jews in
Speaker 2: the ovens, and which is just ridiculous. But there I
Speaker 2: don't think all of that paranoia is dishonest. I think
Speaker 2: it's unfounded. I think it may be uh unjustified. But
Speaker 2: but but there is a certain amount of this paranoia
Speaker 2: that comes from the the way a lot of these
Speaker 2: folks will raise the environment and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense? I'm trying to be as fair
Speaker 2: as possible to the psychology of this. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's born of a faithful following of Torah, uh whatsoever? Uh? I,
Speaker 2: you know, and I think this paranoia is used by
Speaker 2: certain political actors to advance a a a strategy that
Speaker 2: has little or nothing to do with a faithful Jewish
Speaker 2: way of life in the levant you know this is.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense? Oh?
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. You'll you'll hear a similar story from
Speaker 1: uh one onn a writer right speaking about very similar experiences,
Speaker 1: you know, with her parents, basically saying like, you know,
Speaker 1: watch out because all your friends at school one bad
Speaker 1: day and they'll throw you in an oven. And okay,
Speaker 1: you know, we could say that that's from a certain
Speaker 1: level ridiculous, but you've got to understand that does produce
Speaker 1: a certain result in people. It does, I think is interesting.
Speaker 1: And this is a point that Eric Weinstein made in
Speaker 1: both of his conversations with Tucker, which were quite good,
Speaker 1: they're worth your time, And he mentioned that there is
Speaker 1: sort of a self fulfilling prophecy to these in the
Speaker 1: sense that that attitude will produce persecution people won't like you,
Speaker 1: either on a personal or a national stage. And to me,
Speaker 1: and this is a going back to a conversation you
Speaker 1: and I had, geez, I guess the last time, you know,
Speaker 1: we kicked off something with Iran, which is effectively, well,
Speaker 1: if Iranian leadership didn't want nukes before, they really do
Speaker 1: now simply from the perspective of you know we mentioned
Speaker 1: Pyongyang early here, Well, if you are the enemy of
Speaker 1: the global you know, the global liberal order, well you're
Speaker 1: looking around for well, who's made it and who hasn't?
Speaker 1: And right, sure there are problems with North Korea, but
Speaker 1: you know, no one's launching ill conceived five week wars
Speaker 1: with North Korea because you know it's a crazy guy
Speaker 1: with a gun.
Speaker 2: Well, they have king sex and that's what nuclear development
Speaker 2: gives you, and the threat of it gives you a card.
Speaker 2: And if you're going to give that up, then you
Speaker 2: do because you do have a target. If if your
Speaker 2: ideology isn't uh neoliberal, look at the Look would the
Speaker 2: Russians have been invaded by NATO had they not had nukes.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about after the Soviets, I'm talking about the Russians.
Speaker 2: I think there's a you can at least make the
Speaker 2: argument that they would have been. And why is it?
Speaker 2: Because are the Russians? Uh is Putin really looking to
Speaker 2: and everybody goes, oh, well look what he's doing with Ukraine. Well,
Speaker 2: we were looking to set up shop next door. Uh provoked.
Speaker 2: Go listen to this where Scott Horton is outstanding, his
Speaker 2: book provoked outstanding. I'll throw a plug at a at
Speaker 2: another podcaster. But uh, the but the the the the
Speaker 2: reason the Russians are hated is because they're not neoliberals,
Speaker 2: and there's some cultural bias because there's some powerful oligarchs
Speaker 2: of a certain ethnic inclination that were muscled out of
Speaker 2: being the Northern European cheekdom. So you know, there's part
Speaker 2: of that where a true russe in in In Putin
Speaker 2: said no, you're you're gonna you're gonna serve Russia or
Speaker 2: you're out and we'll take all your wealth. And uh anyway,
Speaker 2: that another topic for another day. But but the point
Speaker 2: is it's not up for discussion because the Russians have
Speaker 2: the King's x uh so, and Iran isn't neoliberal. Okay,
Speaker 2: what strikes me is as as non rational is let's
Speaker 2: say we do go in the end result of this
Speaker 2: is a complete Persian or I say, I keep saying Persia.
Speaker 2: There there are a thousand ethnicities within this area. The
Speaker 2: Persians are like the Han Chinese, they're the dominant and gifted.
Speaker 2: If you know, we're we're human biodiversity realists here right. Uh,
Speaker 2: they're the gifted class that and just like the Han
Speaker 2: are in in China uh and South Asia uh uh so,
Speaker 2: or or Southeast Asia uh so? The so the it's
Speaker 2: it's it's the Iranians. Which is this kind of the
Speaker 2: result of three thousand years of Persian imperial dominance? Uh?
Speaker 2: Are you know they are the way they are? And
Speaker 2: and and uh. But if you balkanize this region and
Speaker 2: you turn it into chaos, now you're gonna have five
Speaker 2: or six actors with with hegemonic with quasi hegemonic control
Speaker 2: or the ability to close the straight How does that
Speaker 2: make sense as opposed to as opposed to one that
Speaker 2: you may not agree with their philosophical, non neoliberal point
Speaker 2: of view, but at least it's one group that you
Speaker 2: deal with. Now you're gonna deal with five or six
Speaker 2: That makes that makes no sense from a from a
Speaker 2: game theory standpoint, but I don't think it's been thought of.
Speaker 2: I think it's we just want chaos because there's there
Speaker 2: is a push for a greater Israel. And I don't
Speaker 2: want to be you know, too speculative about Israel's you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think there is a monolithic Israel. There's like
Speaker 2: Cood and the and the kind of the atheist socialistic
Speaker 2: like Cood version of what they want, the Net and
Speaker 2: Yahoo vision, and then I don't know what the rest
Speaker 2: of Israel wants. They've been out of power for so long.
Speaker 2: Who knows, you know, I really don't know. If some
Speaker 2: if if one of these other groups got control, who knows,
Speaker 2: maybe they'd be just a different same song, you know,
Speaker 2: different verse.
Speaker 1: So Ron, this has been a fascinating discussion. I learned
Speaker 1: a lot as happy to have you. If people are
Speaker 1: interested in you and your work, well where can they
Speaker 1: find more of it?
Speaker 2: I have a piece coming out about this very thing
Speaker 2: in the American mind, the UH, the uh uh out
Speaker 2: output of the more daily and regular output of the
Speaker 2: Claremont Institute that should be coming out either or later
Speaker 2: to or maybe tomorrow UH. And then I have UH
Speaker 2: and I have other pieces there and then I write
Speaker 2: for American Reformer on more Christian theological issues, occasionally write
Speaker 2: for Responsible state Craft, which is a publication of the
Speaker 2: Quincy Institute for UH for Realism and Restraint. And then
Speaker 2: I write on my substack at the Eyes of Apilles
Speaker 2: or you can find it at Ron Dodson dot substack
Speaker 2: dot com. And then I'm on x causing you know,
Speaker 2: great consternation.
Speaker 1: Well again, man, thank you so much. This was fascinating.
Speaker 1: I'll be sure to grab that piece from the American
Speaker 1: Mind when it's up included in the show notes, sprails
Speaker 1: everything else as far as my stuff, Jaburton Show anywhere
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts if you want the episodes early
Speaker 1: in ad free. I know the ads are irritating, but
Speaker 1: I gotta live somehow, so it's sort of ane. Yeah
Speaker 1: pay j yeah, thank you. This is what I've been
Speaker 1: saying for years now. Uh wait, never mind, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to make that joke because anyway, five bucks a
Speaker 1: month on Patreon, substack or comroad no ads early not
Speaker 1: a bad deal. It's twenty eighteen cents an hour, I
Speaker 1: think is what it comes out to. So I'm working
Speaker 1: for it, right, I'm not one of these guys that
Speaker 1: puts out one show a month and charge you ten
Speaker 1: bucks for the privilege. Anyway, Ron, this is fascinating everyone
Speaker 1: at home. Keep your head up well, I can't last forever.
Speaker 1: Good Night,