Latvia

But again, the biggest issue with the conflict zone piece is these conflicts that we're dealing with, they're state versus state, right? This is not Iraq and Afghanistan in the global war on terrorism, and you have a defined enemy that's a terrorist group recognized by the United Nations, right? You have individual states, and these conflicts are cross-border, and Russia-Ukraine isn't just affecting Russia-Ukraine.

It's spillover into Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, right? It's Georgia.

It's a conflict in the Middle East, where you have how many countries are, how many countries and airspace, airspaces are being affected? And they all are supposed to share information with each other on how this is happening? Like, Iran's not gonna share information about when it's gonna launch missiles and drones with Jordan, and there's three airspaces in between, hypothetically, depending on the way the missiles or drones were launched.

They're not telling Saudi Arabia, "Oh, by the way, we're gonna launch some missiles at Jordan, and they might go through your airspace." That's what's supposed to happen technically, but, like, we all know it's not.

Ooh.

Now, I'm gonna tell everyone right now, if you live in New York or wherever Danny's from, you're not gonna be able to bet this because New York does not let you bet on the Latvian Virslīga, but Buckets lets you bet on the Latvian Virslīga.

We've got a matchup taking place right now.

We're in the fifth minute between Liepaja taking on Ogres United.

Norway says the United States has not approved its request for information.

Latvia says it sent several requests for mutual legal assistance and has received no response.

British authorities have also sought unredacted material from the United States for an Epstein-related investigation.

Yo, these are our allies asking our Justice Department to help them investigate crimes and possible wrongdoing connected to a man whose entire operation was rooted right here in the United States.

Apparently Jeffrey Epstein falls into some special category where everybody suddenly needs to move at the speed of frozen molasses.

Funny how that keeps happening with this particular fucking case.

And that of course brings us to Latvia.

and Latvian police say that they have identified a Latvian victim connected to their investigation.

What are we afraid of finding out? Seriously, what's so dangerous about letting investigators investigate Epstein? If Poland wants records connected to Polish citizens, send them.

If Latvia has identified a victim and needs American evidence, help them.

If Norwegian prosecutors believe American records matter to their cases, work with them.

If British investigators need unredacted documents for a legitimate criminal inquiry, give them what the law allows them to have.

He wasn't German, but had German parentage.

He was actually born in Latvia, part of the Russian Empire at the time, and he was living in Antwerp and working at the docks in Antwerp and had knowledge of naval matters.

So when Antwerp was taken over, invaded by the German army, He was selected as a possible recruit.

He was also quite unbottled because he was short of money and tends to be a good recruiting sergeant for quite a lot of spies.

And there were, especially in the east end of London, there were a lot of people from mainly Jewish, I suppose, because there was a lot of anti-Jewish feeling in Russia, but they set up quite a lot of political organizations.

And these tended to be fairly revolutionary and left-wing and radical.

And one of these were some Latvian anarchists who, in order to basically bankroll their political agenda, decided to rob a few banks and jewelry shops.

And part of one of these anarchists break-ins, they were caught, and there was a gunfight, and some of them fled.

I don't have their recipe.

And somebody is like, I can't believe people are waiting in line 17 minutes for that when I grew up in Latvia where we didn't have food.

Like, come on.

I'm just at the State Fair.

Yeah, as I said, I don't know how much money he got from Zulfa.

I mean, before Zulfa, up until then, I mean, he got a world champion to come to his backyard, okay? The guy from Latvia, what was his name again, Ahmed?

Mauricio.

I can't remember his name to be honest.

Had the world mobilized to stop Hitler when he invaded the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938? there almost certainly wouldn't have been either the Holocaust or World War II, which is why Europe is so united in this effort.

If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine, his administration has already suggested that both Poland and Moldova are next, with the Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, also on the menu.

That would almost certainly lead to another war in Europe.

And China is watching.

These are all the things I'm very apprehensive about.

And I suppose I'm uncomfortable with, well, I'm not uncomfortable, I'm just worried about, I think, was it four or five thousand German troops deployed to Latvia, Lithuania over the last few days? I saw them on the motorway, on the autobahn, heading up the road.

I suppose, look, we're living in worrying times.

And I, you know, the heat was dreadful, the fires, but watching the farmers in France drive down to help the firemen, It was wonderful.