An Irish Stew Video for 14 June 2026

[00:00:00]Hello book and welcome back to another Irish stew video where we talk about a whole bunch of things not just books mainly not books at all although we will talk about book quite a bit to talk about about book where we look at uh some things that have interested me or that I might have something to say about for the world and then the United States and then broader YouTube and then book and finally me uh and when it comes to the world again the number one story that you're going to be hearing is uh today is of this alleged peace deal, this lie about a peace deal between uh the United States and Israel and Iran for a war that the United States started that Donald Trump started at the behest of Benjamin Netanyahu in order to distract the country from the Epstein files in which he is clearly revealed as a monstrous sex predator, raper, and killer of children. The worst thing that any human being can be. It is clear that he is revealed as that in the Epstein files.

[00:01:03]As if that wasn't obvious already from being Jeffrey Epstein's best friend and supplier of girls for over a decade.

[00:01:11]Uh this war uh tore apart uh an agreement. Trump tore apart a diplomatic agreement that had been worked on for a long time to a lot of serious people. Not just John Kerry in the United States under Obama, but lots of other people too. Signitories to that deal included China and Russia that Iran would not develop a nuclear weapon, would not work to do that to develop or to acquire one. Uh but because that deal was headed by a black man, Donald Trump doesn't believe it's real and destroyed it and is now working hard uh to come up with a stop gap measure that will be much worse than that along the same lines as that. In other words, he's he's working he's he's not working hard, but his his regime is working hard to come up with with a draft of that original agreement, that John Kerry agreement that Kerry would have rejected in the first couple of weeks of negotiations as not being good enough.

[00:02:05]Now, the regime, the Trump regime will take that as a win if they can get it.

[00:02:11]Uh but they're not going to get it.

[00:02:13]They're not going to get it. The the the main subject in the news is just a lie.

[00:02:16]and and the fascist friendly mainstream media is just playing along because they don't want to upset the boss. They don't care about informing the public anymore.

[00:02:26]They don't care about telling the truth anymore. They don't care about investigative journalism anymore. They don't care about any of that. They only want to curry favor with the boss. So if you read the headline of the Washington Post, once upon a time a major American newspaper, paper that brought down a president. If you read a headline from the Washington Post, it reads, "You United States and Iran to close deal within a day. Trump says, but Thrron yet to confirm."

[00:03:00]Now, the Washington Post knows perfectly well, the people of the Washington Post know perfectly well that 90% of the people who consume any kind of news at all. I would say probably 70 80% of the people in the world don't consume news.

[00:03:11]But 90% of the people who do only consume the headline.

[00:03:15]And fascist friendly mainstream media realizes that and realizes that if that's true, well, if you're going to lie about the boss, you'd better get the lie into the headline because nobody's going to read longer than that. But if you accidentally tell the truth in the headline, the boss could be very angry uh and shutter whole divisions of your paper or sue you for $10 billion or something like that uh with with a a domesticated collar and leashwearing judge to make it all happen. Uh so they put a lie right there in the headline. First of all, Trump doesn't say anything like that. He doesn't he he's said 10 contradictory things in the last 24 hours about this.

[00:03:52]You could pick any one of them. But the main thing is the second part of that headline is but Tyrron yet to confirm.

[00:03:58]That is a lie. It's not that that is a spin or a misreading of facts. That's a black and white lie. Tyrron has denied.

[00:04:07]It hasn't re it hasn't yet to confirm.

[00:04:09]It has denied that anything like what Trump is describing is happening. It is said categorically these things are not happening. That is not yet to confirm.

[00:04:19]That is denied. But they can't put that in there because the boss would be mad.

[00:04:25]Uh the uh the Netanyahu government is going to continue to to its conquest of Lebanon, which means there isn't going to be a peace deal. Now, if Trump is working himself up in the rhetoric to well, I keep trying and I keep trying and I don't see any other any other way except to drop a nuclear bomb on Tyrron, kill three million people.

[00:04:50]Uh if if that's what this is all about, well that could very well be. He wants a place in history. He wants it more than anything. And that would get him a place in history. He doesn't care what kind of a place in history it is. He already has a place in history. He's the first US president ever to deny the peaceful transfer of power. He's the only US president ever to incite, organize, and try to lead in person an armed insurrection to overthrow the government. He's already in the history books. this though, uh, I'm willing to nuke you to stop you from getting a nuke. Uh, this could all be preamble to that. Uh, I don't know what kind of advice he gets, what kind of advice gets through to him at all. No idea really. Uh, I don't know if I don't think there are any scientists left in the Trump regime.

[00:05:40]So, I don't know that there's anyone there to tell him what even a small nuclear detonation in Thran would do to the ecosystem of the Middle East.

[00:05:48]Uh, not to mention the fact that it wouldn't be a small detonation. It would be the beginning of nuclear war. I don't know if that's going to happen, but either way, you certainly won't know it from reading the once the once reliable Washington Post. Thrron yet to agree.

[00:06:04]They yet they have yet to confirm the details of this non-existent peace plan that they are saying they are not part of. They are not been consulted. They're not going to do it. It's not going to happen. It's not real. Uh so that's the the only international story really. So we can move on to the national news.

[00:06:22]Uh where among many other stories I mean the big story today is is this ridiculous white trash gathering on the lawn of the White House. this UFC fight to celebrate Donald Trump's birthday.

[00:06:35]That is not what the regime thinks. All the members of the regime say this is that this is to celebrate Donald Trump's birthday. Yes. Which is synonymous to them with celebrating the 4th of July.

[00:06:45]As far as they are concerned in the inner circles of their religion, Donald Trump is personally biologically the nation of America.

[00:06:54]Doesn't exist outside of him. No one else is an American. It's just him. As far as they're concerned, they're celebrating both things with a white trash event with uh two commentators from two drastically different outlets that I heard just in the last 12 hours say that in addition to everything else, the ugly architecture, the ridiculous nature of the event, it will also be attended by the worst people in the country. Both of them just matterof factly said that that is true. And the members of Trump's religion a few months ago, month, you know, a year ago, they would have had to learn to live with that. Now they're proud of it. They are the worst people in the country. And now they're proud of it.

[00:07:33]They are They have signed off on pedophilia. They have signed off on child rape. They will sign off when it becomes when that part of the Epstein files drops. They will sign off on child murder. They'll sign off on all of it.

[00:07:44]If God does it, they'll sign off on it.

[00:07:45]And they're all going to be there in the audience. And that, you know, you could make that the news. But then the item that I paid attention to was Luigi Manion.

[00:07:55]Uh some of you in this country may remember the name of Luigi Manion. He is the absolutely drop deadad gorgeous young man, 28 years old, uh who stalked and shot dead uh CEO of United Healthcare uh and is now he will go on trial in September for this. And the the latest wrinkle of news to come out of his defense team is that they are contemplating a psychiatric defense uh to forstall prison. I guess as far as I know, as far as I've been able to tell, Luigi Manion is a hero in prison.

[00:08:27]So, he's not it's not like he's facing any kind of adverse circumstances there.

[00:08:30]They absolutely love him. Uh I can't imagine that would be any different if he went to an actual penitentiary. But uh the the psychological the talk that's coming out of his defense team is pretty funny because they're they're pointing out that he was a normal, you know, upstanding young guy that he had lots of friends, sociable smile, plenty of activities, and that he became increasingly agrieved at the state, the predatory state of American health care system, especially as embodied in United Healthcare, which denies almost all of its claims. It's basically a scam. If you're paying into United Healthcare, you're not going to get anything for that money. The minute you have any need for it, they have a fance of lawyers to make sure you don't see a penny or to make sure that your co-pay is $50,000 anyway. Even if they give you a little trickle of money, you you you don't have to do much reading to duplicate the reading that Luigi Manion saw when he was examining the subject. And you don't have to do much of that reading to come to uh a pretty straightforward conclusion about the only means to remedy that situation.

[00:09:39]Uh you certainly don't have to to read about that very long to devise to develop an opinion of your own about the United Healthcare executive who was shot dead.

[00:09:56]You don't have to read about him and what he knew about his job and the imperatives that he gave to his staff very long to come up with an opinion about him.

[00:10:08]You will be what you would be wise to hold that opinion to yourself of course and you will be shamed by the fascist media in this country if you voice it. A husband loving father you'll hear the same things about him that you heard about Charlie Kirk. Uh but uh Charlie Kirk radicalized tried to radicalize was successful in radicalizing a few thousand biddable young men into becoming the kind of proton-azi Christian fascist that he was. Whereas the guy who was shot dead on the street by Luigi Manion ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and was fully intent as we know from his inter office memos from his emails was fully intent on ramping that number up.

[00:10:57]So if he'd been hit by a truck at the pre-dawn hour in New York and killed outright, you wouldn't be shamed in as much in your responses to that. Even as it was when the country that has been brutalized by healthcare, by insurance, the insurance scam, when the country at large learned what had happened and who had done it and why, there was cheering in the streets.

[00:11:23]Loving husband, father of children, right? Still, there was cheering in the streets as you sometimes as sometimes happens when a good-natured golf buddy, a loving husband and a father of children decides to dedicate his life to evil.

[00:11:37]And the psycholog the psychological defense that Luigi Maniot's lawyers are contemplating is that when he learned all about that, well, it pushed him over the edge, which makes me wonder uh who's going to be doing the psychoanalyzing for I would say probably 70% of the country.

[00:11:54]uh what what his what his defense team is describing. They're using psychological lingo to do it. But what they're describing is exactly the mental state that anyone comes to the minute they start reading about this subject.

[00:12:07]So as a psychological defense, I don't know that it's going to float cuz any judge is going to see that. And judges have probably felt that not for themselves. They probably have first rate health insurance, but probably their cousins don't.

[00:12:23]I I be I would be willing to bet that if we were talking about sodium penol levels of complete honesty, you would have to look pretty hard to find anyone who didn't react to the death of that United Healthcare CEO in the exact same way. Uh so I don't know what that is, what that tokens as a psychiatric defense. That'll be it'll be interesting to follow. I'll be f I'm of course be following the trial if there is one.

[00:12:52]uh if if nuclear war has not happened by then, then I'll be intensely following the trial. But that brings us to broader YouTube. And broader YouTube for me is usually the subject of rabbit holes. I usually go down rabbit holes, especially when I'm dodging a deadline or when I'm squirming because I don't really want to do a deadline and I kind of sort of am.

[00:13:11]Uh uh and the deadline the the rabbit hole that I went down this time around is one that I've gone down before. the so-called dead internet theory which posits that a huge percentage of everything that you see online is fake is bots is is algorithms only not humans responding to algorithms but algorithms themselves responding to themselves bots making bots and bots making content bots that were programmed a year ago to do that and to keep doing it so the programmer programmed the bot so that it would not need further programming.

[00:13:51]You're going to keep building on this.

[00:13:52]You're going to keep doing this with increasing complexity. You're going to learn from your own complexity and keep doing this. And you know, a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, I thought, well, no, I there's this little corner of book. All these people are real. Uh they're not fake. And there are other channels that I watch, plenty of them, where that's not true. They're they're not fake. Uh but the morning that the of YouTube watching that started that rabbit hole, I encountered one channel after another that was entirely AI and a couple of them were so good that it took me about 15 seconds to realize that I was watching and listening to AI.

[00:14:35]Uh and I thought that infuriated me of course because that is the dead internet theory brought to life. And then I I moved on to other channels where where humans were sitting at desks in their studios talking to me about the dead internet theory, but they were reading a script from a teleprompter that had been generated by AI, I guess, and thinking that that's not obvious, that that's not immediately obvious. AI writes in a certain way. It doesn't write in any other way yet.

[00:15:04]Uh so you have a you have a subject in mind. You can't even be bothered to write it yourself. if you're just going to tell AI to write a script for you about the fact that AI runs the internet.

[00:15:14]Uh, and then, you know, the the sort of cherry on top of this whole subject is that I've been getting a couple of comments recently that are obviously AI generated. They're obviously bots.

[00:15:23]They're just it's just the cut and paste script talking points of the Trump cult religion. Just cut and paste talking points. No human behind them at all. uh and you you know you click on the user and you get a brand new profile with no followers, no history at all. That's that that's a bot. Although there are plenty of bots out there that have been taught, they have been programmed, they are learning on their own that that is a telltale sign. So they will generate bot accounts to follow them so that it doesn't look that obvious. Uh it it the dead internet theory is fascinating. I I uh if you've got, you know, 15 minutes, you want to restrict yourself definitely. But if you've got 15 minutes and you've never heard of it before, you might find it interesting, especially if you are a content creator on social media because social media is choked to the eyeballs with bots. uh as I have said on this channel many times like for instance I think this channel has 20,000 subscribers and no exaggeration at all at least 18,500 of those are bots at least that I don't have more than much more than a thousand people actual flesh and blood people who watch this channel whether they comment or not I don't have much more than that and I don't believe anybody else does either I I think the the overwhelming percentage of the numbers that we are seeing and sometimes chasing some of you chasing here on book are just bots.

[00:16:51]They're just bot numbers which really should underscore the ridiculousness of the whole thing. But anyway, it's a fascinating subject. That is my my YouTube rabbit hole. Then we can move on to book. What a bounty of book. This of course is a Sunday.

[00:17:06]uh that is the second day of the traditional weekend here in the United States and most places of the world. Uh and that means that a lot of people will have a little extra time to devote to their channels. I've noticed that a lot of time to devote to making a video or the time you finally need to sit down and edit a video. I don't edit my videos, but plenty of people do and that takes time. I've been I've been told that it takes a lot more time to edit a video than it does to make a video. Uh sometimes people won't get that time to do either one of those things until they have a few days off. So the weekend tends to produce some top-notch videos and uh I want to link to quite a few of them today. Like for instance, Michael Kvon has his new uh Sunday Penguin where he he picks a different Penguin classic from his from his collection and talks about it on Sunday. This time he did Mary Shel's the last man.

[00:18:02]uh and in this really lovely lovely cover illustration of this new Penguin classic. I don't know if I have that edition. I wouldn't want it though. I he Mike gives a great discussion of The Last Man and all that it's about and a little bit about Mary Shel and the the sad impulses that would cause her to write. Uh he doesn't mention I don't think I don't remember him mentioning in the course of his video. Uh but then again, maybe that's not the kind of video that The Sunday Penguin is. He doesn't mention it anywhere in the course of his video what a boring book it is. Now, it's not at all worth your time to read. He doesn't mention that, but maybe he's just commemorating it as a penguin, but it's interesting to watch. The video is interesting to watch. Uh, and there was uh Jim at Mystery and Mayhem uh did his announcement video for Private Eye July, an event coming up for its I think second year coming up just a couple of weeks. We're doing Private Eye July. I will be one of the hosts. I'll make a separate introduction video of my own, but Jim's was worth watching. He and uh and uh uh Roy reads anything have come up with new elaborations, new iterations of of uh interaction. If you want intera an interactive private eye July, you can just read private eye stories if you want. You'll be fine there if you do that. But they've come up with new fun interactions that I'll I'll link to Jim's video and I'll make one of my own.

[00:19:16]Um then there is Liam at Liam's Lysium.

[00:19:19]He did Liam's leapings. Every once in a while he will do a reading roundup where he will do it's called Liam's leapings.

[00:19:25]one was they're so good. They're so fantastic. He manages to get in a lot of reading even though he's also actively writing and has spawned children who apparently mess with his phone and has a job and as you know a social circle and all. He's a perfect example of people just sticking at making book videos even when they've got distractions. And more importantly, Liam sticks at reading while he's got those distractions, which I've been told is impossible. I've been told that's impossible. And yet, we're all doing it.

[00:20:01]I mean, I am an easy target here because I don't I don't do anything else. I don't move from this fainting couch.

[00:20:07]But, as I've been pointing out, the rest of you should by rights be even easier targets because you still managed to get a lot of reading done even though you have lots of other things to do. And bless Liam's Liam's leaping videos are are wonderful. Anyway, uh and then there's uh talk about wonderful. Uh Robin Song Reads did a video about the the H prefectural library. He found a wonderful library with a huge English language section of books. Uh and he did a vlog about it. An utterly delightful.

[00:20:40]you know his channel, you know an utterly delightful vlog about it, about going there along the streets and on the train and then wandering around in the library. And he picked a few books and edited that footage into him sitting back in his his the little, you know, one room apartment that we share in Kyoto. Uh, and talking about those books uh, and it was fascinating. It's a long video. It's like an hour long, but you won't want it to be shorter. It was wonderful. Now, he did this as an extension of April adventures. This is this is June adventures because of course the underlying sentiment, I think, of his April adventures is that our adventures out in the bookish world never end. They just continue. They go on and on. I'm perfectly okay with that.

[00:21:26]Uh, and he also had used this video as a call to the rest of us to show him your library. Film you yourself going to your library. He's made that request a couple of times and so have a couple of other people. It always tempts me. I don't know how to edit. I don't know how to do a vlog. There are I could still do it without that. Uh I could just film myself going to the Boston Public Library. It's just Well, first of all, it's been murderously hot here. So, no, no, that that shouldn't be a knock because I'm pretty sure it was probably very hot when when Young Robin Song Reeds was making his video, too. He did it anyway. Uh, also I don't know I don't know how the folks at the Boston Public Library would take that and I don't use my library which is the ultimate thing. It makes me it would make me feel like a bit of a fraud because I it is my library uh the old building the McKim me and white building and especially Bates Hall. U it is my library and it always will be but I don't use it anymore. I can't conceive of doing that.

[00:22:31]I just I mean I I guess in a situation like Robin Song reads I could conceive it because we have a tiny apartment. We have barely any room for our vegetarian food. Uh we we wanted a nice cozy space.

[00:22:44]There's plenty of plants and whatnot. Uh but in a situation like that, in a tiny one room Japanese apartment, you can't have bookcases full of books. And that situation applies all over the world to where no matter where you are, you might want to just take advantage of the library. If you found a nice library that has a huge collection of stuff, you might want to do that. No need for shelf space then. Uh I remember when I felt that way about libraries, not just the Boston Public Library, but the other libraries in Austin and in Iowa City. Uh but I don't feel that way anymore. I get books in the mail and I get books at the Brattle Bookshop where I don't need to worry about when to return them and whether or not it's pelting down rain that day. uh and where I can brutalize them. I can write in them and whatnot.

[00:23:31]Uh and I don't need a place to work. I have a laptop computer. Last time I had a library as a home away from home, those things didn't exist. I have a laptop computer that is the whole world.

[00:23:42]It's a workstation, an editing station, a reading station, a music station. It's everything. Uh and it's right here.

[00:23:50]Meaning that I don't need to go anywhere to do any of those things. Meaning I don't need to leave my little dog. I can just stay where I am.

[00:23:57]Uh, so it would feel a little bit fraudulent, but I hope that other people take him up on it. Definitely. I love it when people show me their libraries, especially if they actually use their libraries. I could actually picture it.

[00:24:10]There's a branch of the Boston Public Library that's just 5 minute walk from where I am. And it's it's a new building, newer. I remember the old building. It's a newer building. It's nice. It's a nice building. Uh, it's nice and modern. it it, you know, it's it's fairly open. It's not that big.

[00:24:28]It's kind of cozy. It has chairs and tables and whatnot. It has apparently nice staff.

[00:24:34]That would not be a hardship to go and make use of that library, but I don't I'd be a stranger there. I I don't know.

[00:24:40]Anyway, his video is captivating. You're going to love it. And one of the elements of it wasn't to do with libraries. It was to do with the books that he was finding at the library I found fascinating. Actually, I found two of the things I found fascinating. One is that a lot of the books that he pulled down off the shelf were originally written in Japanese. And I'm just wondering, you know, how far along he's coming and being able to read them without going to the English language section of the library. But two was a concept that comes up over and over again when he's talking about these books, which is, do they or do they not have a spark? Do they spark when he looks at them? I found that fascinating.

[00:25:14]Spark being a kind of inherent interest that they have even when you know comparatively little about them. What is their inherent interest? How much do they draw you?

[00:25:26]I love that concept. I know that thing that such a thing as a spark is real, but I don't know what it is. I've never known what it is. It's very much in operation. If you go, for instance, to your local used or new bookstore and you don't know anything about the books you're looking at, some will spark and others won't. And where does that come from? I I just I find it fascinating. Just absolutely fascinating. Uh and uh that is it for well there's lots of other stuff for book, but I I'll stop there because those that's a great group of links and one of them is really long.

[00:26:03]And then we get to the me section.

[00:26:06]of this Irish stew video. But unfortunately with the MI section on a lazy Sunday, it's a boiling hot Sunday here in Boston and it's a very lazy day.

[00:26:15]My little dog does not uh have any interest really in going outside when it's boiling hot. She really doesn't have any interest in moving at all.

[00:26:24]She's just a a limp dish rag next to me.

[00:26:28]as long as she's next to me, as long as my hand is, you know, is idly stroking her. Uh, she really has no interest in in doing anything. So, the me section is not really that interesting. Not that it ever is, cuz I'm a lonely old shutin who just moves from his little bookroom to his fainting couch and back. Uh, the biggest me section that will happen today is that this is Sunday. So, two big things are going to happen today.

[00:26:53]One is that my little baby dog is going to get a BAT, which she doesn't like. Uh, but she puts up with it. She doesn't like the process, but she loves how it feels afterwards. Uh, and we do that we do that on Sundays, weather permitting. If it's not if it's not freezing cold or anything like that, then we do that. Uh, and the other is the foot locker because I during the course of a week starting on Monday morning, I let the foot locker here. It's not I'm not traveling with it anymore. It's traveling days are over. Instead, it is my all-purpose table here next to the fainting couch. And I uh let it accumulate with just everything from the week.

[00:27:35]Magazines, letters, uh books, just everything. I just let I let everything accumulate on there. And then on Sundays, I whisk it away. I get rid of it all. I make it so that it's nice and clean uh for Monday morning first thing. So, those are the two things, but those aren't very interesting. They aren't as interesting as somebody going out to a prefectual library and showing you the remains of an old castle for Pete's sake. I don't have anything like that this time around. So, I'm just going to I'm just going to wrap this up. I'll leave the appropriate links. Uh but I'll be back. Thank you book two.