Okay, so kind of talk about, one, what salute to Lowndes County's finest is and how Mario here was one of the catalysts for getting it going.

Yep.

So Salute to Lounge Finance is an organization that's made up of a committee, basically.

And every year up until now, every year we had a first responders appreciation luncheon where we bring them in just like we will tomorrow at noon at the American Legion.

And we feed them and we just show them how much we appreciate them.

They get a lot of gifts from the community.

Hundreds of gifts are handed out.

And so, again, how Mario wraps

I have a go-to at something you do, and I do apologize.

This is kind of a go-to sermon for me simply because I have to give it at the feast.

It was asked to fit into what the feast was, and about a month ago, somebody mentioned the story.

Oh, I'd like to hear that again.

So, okay, I'll do it again.

For anyone that's been here, yes, I've given this two or three, four times, whatever.

We can adjust ourselves to that?

Yeah, that was really great news for shoppers.

Food price inflation has been a real headwind there for consumers the last few years.

The annual food price inflation at 1.9%, things like grocery food prices in general and some meats as well, prices are going down there as well.

Looking at more broadly, things like global commodity prices, there are signs there that there might be a bit more of a moderation to come, but really the story will be next year.

Uh, how has your, uh, you know, your own career evolved alongside the Microsoft transformation?

So it was...

I...

At this training company, um, our CRM was built on FoxPro.

Now, just to give you an idea, that means it was, it was never designed to use a mouse on it.

It was designed to use keyboard shortcuts and, uh, and, uh, key combinations.

It was, um...

Sure

So what do you got on the table that you're gonna try to push through before they leave again?

Well, I think the big thing that we're all focused on, um, and as you guys have talked about, is the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Safety Program, right? AB1613 by Wilson.

Um, that bill, uh, is in its final committee jurisdiction, uh, the Appropriations Committee, and then it's gonna go to a final floor vote before it might end up on the governor's desk for a signature.

Uh, there's still some ongoing discussion about the programmatic structure of that bill.

Uh, one of the big things is, you know, are street legal vehicles subject to the operations of this safety program when they are operating in OHV areas, right, in, in, in off-highway areas, whatever those might be.

And so those are ongoing conversations that the groups have been having with the author's office.

I, I think we've identified and agreed that you want anybody who's recreating in these spaces to participate in that safety program, right? It doesn't matter, um, once you're back there, you know, you want the person, you wanna know that the person coming at you has been safety trained, and they wanna know that you've had some safety training-

You had, uh, a couple other bills to talk about.

Will we see the same?

Yeah, lots of differences here.

You know, for example, their unemployment rate, probably more than 15%.

You know, it's been very, very tough for them.

Looking at regional areas, you know, unemployment's likely to be a lot lower in the South Island, probably a bit higher than the headline figures for Auckland and Wellington.

And also looking at the sectors, you know, the good sector, for example, construction, job losses will be pretty strong there, manufacturing as well.

For services, reasonably mixed, but very strong for the primary

Given where you thought we would be in terms of this recovery, I know we've had a bit of topsy-turvy thanks to Iran and thanks to Trump, but how's it tracking? Consumer confidence was up in the last survey, business confidence up in the last survey, manufacturing doing well, services coming back?

Will we see the same?

Yeah, lots of differences here.

For example, their unemployment rate, probably more than 15%.

It's been very, very tough for them.

Looking at regional areas, unemployment's likely to be a lot lower in the South Island, probably a bit higher than the headline figures for Auckland and Wellington.

And also looking at the sector's The good sector, for example, construction, job losses will be pretty strong there.

Manufacturing as well.

Services coming back.

Would you first, though, just tell us a little something about why a vestry is special? Like, what makes a vestry different from, say, a board?

I think it's important to realize that we often recruit members to our vestries who bring particular skill sets, especially from the business world.

Accounting, human resources, education, physical plant management.

We also recruit people who've had previous either not-for-profit or investor-owned board experience.

We need to set the stage, especially as clergy leaders, that serving on a vestry is not the same as serving on either a not-for-profit board or a commercial board.

While they share similar responsibilities for the stewardship of financial, human resource, and capital within the congregation, they also are responsible with the clergy for the spiritual growth of the congregation.

And that's a responsibility I think that we often overlook and don't spend enough time on.

Could you ballpark a percentage of the pie for each of those? I

From a PM's standpoint, just how comfortable or uncomfortable are you with the chip trade?

Hey, Dom, thanks for having me on again.

Uh, very comfortable with the chip trade because when you look at how these companies are performing, uh, they can't keep chips on the shelves and their earnings are proving it quarter after quarter.

So, um, to, to my guest's, uh, last point, uh, if you see any correction in chips, I think you have to go ahead and dollar cost average in because, uh, this is a long story.

Um, AI is proven in companies across the board that are gonna be using this and j- and chips are how you're gonna get there.

So, um, I'd stay in this trade and continue to dollar cost average in.

What exactly is on your radar with regard to earnings, specifically those non-AI names?

names?Yeah, Dom, uh, listen, it's, it's a great question.

How does she backtrack on one of the two upcoming cases that are being heard in October, and could this possibly be, as Alan Gottlieb alluded to, even an eight-one decision? How do you see this shaking out, and kinda compare Kavanaugh's original statement about taking the case, and do you still believe he might be the one to write the decision?

Yeah, well, I think-- I, I don't think there's a real debate that at the end of the day, the U.S. Supreme Court in June of twenty twenty-seven is gonna issue an opinion that says AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles cannot be banned by states or any government agency under the Second Amendment, period.

The question is gonna be, how broad is that written? Uh, is it gonna cover, you know, other things? Will it speak maybe a little bit to the magazine issue, even though it won't-- or, or to suppressors? Even though it won't officially decide those cases, will it have language in there that can be used down the road? Will there be further guidance for lower courts to say to lower courts, "You need to start behaving, or we're gonna start summarily reversing you in an embarrassing way moving forward"? And, and in some ways, Mark, here's gonna-- What I'm about to say is gonna sound a little counterintuitive.

In certain respects, I might actually prefer to see a six to three win with the six so-called conservatives in majority and three liberals in the minority, as opposed to a nine-zero.

The reason why I say this, and again, it's, it's very nuanced here, is that if you have the nine justices together, it will be unanimous.

That will be very good in certain respects, but you're going to have to write that majority opinion, taking into account the views and the editing process of the three liberals, which means they may work to narrow the scope of the opinion that we in the Second Amendment community are gonna be able to use going forward.

Perfect example of this, if you recall, like a year or so ago in the Smith & Wesson case where the government of Mexico marked sued Smith & Wesson and the gun industry.

Now, if you're the anti-gunners who are very quiet right now, Mark, what is their plan going forward? [chuckles] What can we expect from them after a slapdown in June of twenty twenty-seven?

Sure.

So the proper approach here, in my view, is we win AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, which will be a massive victory, 'cause basically the anti-gun billionaire class has spent all their money on this banning of these guns the last decade or so.

Then what we do, Tom, is we go after and win at the Supreme Court the suppressor issue, because suppressors, unlike magazines, have no offensive capabilities in the sense that, you know, no one is getting killed in a mass shooting with suppressors.

So you, so what we, but here's the thing, the methodology, the interpret- uh, the, the approach to interpreting the Second Amendment is identical to suppressors and to magazines, right? Neither in and of themselves are guns.

Neither of them in and of themselves go bang, bang, right? They're kind of, uh, uh, accoutrements or accessories-

I was thinking about this before you came on, and you talk a lot about the methodology, and that we're establishing the methodology, and I'm thinking, what does that mean? And I think what you mean, and to explain it to those of us who are not lawyers, you're actually saying that the courts are actually issuing a set of rules and say, "These are the rules you must use when you are examining these cases." Isn't that what the methodology is?

That's right.

They're basically setting forth the criteria or the approach to interpreting the Second Amendment, 'cause there's two things to keep in mind, Tom.

[laughs]

When horses, uh, the alpha horse works with the mares or other horses, what he'll do is he'll move his body towards another horse, and without even touching, the other horse will step off.

Okay? So b- by that, or, or what I used and what...

how I translate that with guys that I'm working with is ask her to come towards you, ask her to bring you something, um, because what happens is you get an automatic, um, opportunity to realize her willingness, right? And once you've got her willingness, oh, okay, so then maybe I can ask for my needs to be met.

Maybe I can ask for s- uh, ask her to do some work on herself, whatever it happens to be.

And that, that's something that, that also you mentioned earlier that, that is a real indicator of whether should I stay or should I go.

Is she willing to work on herself? Is she doing anything? Even if it's going to gym, you know, that's still working on herself.

Yeah

Just get on a phone call, show up, show up real and have a conversation and see if TPM is the right fit for you or, or do another program.

Yeah.

I think you made a good point there is that there is no force and there's TPM isn't for everybody.

So we qualify guys whether they're right for us and vice versa.

So there's an opportunity to at least have, and our advisors are exceptional in terms of their ability to read a situation and give some immediate input as to some breaking the seal type actions that you can take to immediately have a positive benefit.

And the challenge with that is that, you know, you take that step that somebody, either a friend or an advisor at TPM gives you, and it has a small result, right? Oh, she's got off my case or, you know, that situation has been remediated slightly.

And then they stop.

It's not inherent as we might think it is.

But in a nutshell, what was your workload like during that span of four matches?

Sure.

So first things first, consistency over volume is the ideal approach, right? I would rather do dry fire five minutes every day than to dry fire two hours on a Thursday.

You know what I mean? So it's a consistency thing.

we have to meet or exceed a reasonable practice schedule that is written down.

I write that down physically with a pen on a piece of paper.

Real quick, the reasonable side of it.

Cause I'm excited about that one.

So who is he? What is he? What are his challenges?

He has.

Luke Ma is the river keeper on the Birrarung, on the Yarra River.

And he has, as you say, a number of challenges.

He patrols the river most days and he's looking for any spillage into the river, anything coming through the drains, you know, the litter build-up, that sort of thing.

But in actual fact, his job does sound quite big.

There is a real person, you know, called the River Keeper on the Birrarung and it was a job that was done by a friend of mine, Charlotte Sterrett.

What happens now?

If someone came to you, a young entrepreneur, how would you sell them on seaweed? Why seaweed?

Well, I think, you know, it's...

Certainly, from an industry standpoint, as we start to scale that, it's an opportunity, right? And we see, again, if the right product opportunity is there, we think there's room to tell that story.

Obviously, in Canada, if I go to a local grocery store here or I go to an H Mart, for example, a very established that services the Asian market, where there's literally half an aisle of seaweed products, in a store in British Columbia, of which none of them, for the most part, are British Columbia products.

We'd be trying to guide that into creating a product that would actually cater and be tailored to really a North American palate.

So that's an important piece.

We're thrilled, I'm thrilled, from the seaweed space, to actually be on this from the seafood perspective.

And is there one thing that if someone's coming to you that you think they should know before they start a seaweed business, before they get into that venture?

Mm-hmm

... to understand.

Uh, for many, many, many decades, every state in the country has a civil commitment process where if someone is truly mentally ill to the point of being a danger, going back decades, there's been a process whereby you can be adjudicated mentally defective or mentally incapacitated or mentally ill and, you know, you know, put civilly committed, uh, for treatment or whatever.

That is not new.

What is g- So, so the problem for the anti-gun movement, Tom, is that because of that, there's been all these due process protections that have built up over the years.

So what the anti-gun movement did is they did a little, uh, uh, movement here and they said, "Well, we want red flag laws," which is a form of civil commitment, but without the due process.

But now the Supreme Court has just indicated in this Hemani case that there needs to be some sort of pre-deprivation process before someone can be punished.

So you wanna explain what's going on there and what, where you think this case is gonna go?

And how did the allotment group begin?

Well, it, it's really a, kind of another development to the gardening group.

About seventeen, maybe eighteen years ago, we started the gardening group, and we were keen to develop the, the group so people had a, a space that they could work on together.

And through a local community funding foundation, we were able to get funding to rent a plot on a local allotment site just outside Norwich, and where we had a raised bed built.

It's an area that's about one meter wide by nine meters long, and with help from the, the local men's shed and our maintenance man and, and colleagues at, at work, we got a raised bed built with, uh, plastic composite planking and then got, I think about sort of eight tons of soil delivered and had it all barrowed into the raised bed.

And then we started to, um, plant up different crops, um, with the members.

And we also, as well as working with blind and partially sighted adults, we also have a, a children and young people's family service as well.

What have been some of the best moments in the group?

Mm

... specifically.

I think a lot of guys don't share their sexual shame for fear of rejection, and my encouragement would be, and I've spoken with a lot of men, I've worked with a lot of men, [laughs] um, that, not without exception, sure, um, but women generally will, uh, appreciate the openness, the vulnerability, and be willing to, to... and there's an acceptance there.

Yeah.

All of those kinds of things.

Um, lack of, of confidence can come up, and, and as a result of the transparency and her acceptance, uh, we have a very close, connected, intimate life, uh, relationship.

A high level of trust.

Um, she absolutely believes in me 100%.

So Mark, tell us, what was the standard way, let's say, in the 1980s, maybe the early 1990s, of booking European rail travel? How easy or fiendishly complicated was it?

Well, it was simple, but not necessarily competitively priced.

Basically, up for the whole of the 20th century, right up until the 1990s when Eurostar started to emerge, you had a kilometric tariff, a very simple mileage kilomet- kilometer-based tariff in every country.

And every national rail operator gave every other national rail operator two things; a table of distances between all their border points and stations, and a set of tariffs for how much dosh they wanted for one, two, three kilometers, 100, 200, 300 kilometers.

And using this, every national rail operator, including British Rail, could compile a set of through fares from, in our case, London, to any major cities they like, Rome, Seville, Moscow, Helsinki, Stockholm, anywhere.

And of course, these tickets were built up of whatever British Rail wanted for the boat train to Dover, what SeaLink wanted for the ferry crossing, the distance in France from, say, Calais to the Swiss border, what the Swiss wanted at their tariffs from the Swiss border to the Italian border, what the Italians want, and so on.

So that was great.

But just to be absolutely clear, I would need to buy all of these things through, uh, uh, through the same retailer, whether that, I guess, could be Eurostar, German Railways, or an independent retailer like Trainline?

Why don't we start off with that, and maybe you could help the listeners, give them some hopium on, uh, why the Supreme Court hasn't taken an AR-15 case yet?

Well, the reality is freedom is on the march in America.

Do not kid yourself.

Do not believe what the mainstream media says.

Let me put this into some perspective, folks, and Toby.You know, I worked with the Trump campaign.

I was a media surrogate for President Trump.

I was on the Presiden- tr- presidential transition team for Donald Trump in 2016.

And I pointed out in the comments section that, uh, you mean the first time SCOTUS actually directly, directly headed this up in 2008 with the Heller decision? But, um, it's amazing to me that this sentiment still exists, and you just pointed out some great historical quotes by those who were here at the founding era, uh, and how the individual right to keep and bear arms was not a collective right, and how it was, in fact, an individual right.

... before we got here, but-

Well, I mean, it's just the reality on the ground is, is that the, when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, you know, we're winning.

You know, we control, uh, the federal government.

I'm not saying it's perfect.

Nothing's perfect in life, right? But, uh, the trend is our friend.

Uh, we're see- and, and here's the weird thing, Mark.

In some ways the bad news is good news.

Am I right in that assessment, do you think?

You invited rare earths Mark again? Oh.

No, great, great.

And, and Emily, I didn't do it in a, uh, the sky is falling way, um, and I spent a lot more time at the dinner parties talking about the goodness of rare earths, not, not the downside.

But I, I talk to every person that sits next to me on either side on the plane.

I will talk to people in the airport.

I will talk to everybody to educate them on what these issues are and why they are important.

No direct government ownership yet.

Um, we are meeting with the Department of War.

I knew you were going to say that because we talked over there.

Well, I mean, it's just the reality on the ground is that when it comes to the right to keep firearms, you know, we're winning.

You know, we control the federal government.

I'm not saying it's perfect.

Nothing's perfect in life, right? But the trend is our friend.

And here's the weird thing, Mark.

In some ways, the bad news is good news.

Is the cavalry coming to those states now?

Do you feel comfortable with that, Mark, over at Four Boxes Diner?

Yeah, I think the trend is our friend.

So here, let's step back and understand big picture what's going on in America today.

And it's very good news for gun owners.

It's not perfect.

The war is always being fought.

We always have barbarians at the gate.

Mark, do I have to explain again that every single mass shooting in this country occurs in one of these gun-free zones? What is it that Pittman's not understanding about this?