We shouldn't get too carried away. We shouldn't declare World War III or an alien invasion yet.

But I think this is a meaningful thing to watch and clearly foreign intelligence is interested

not only in the data that they might be gathering with these balloons, but also in seeing how provoking us might play out.

Welcome to The Lost Debate, a show for Politically Ecclectics.

I'm Robbie Gupta.

And I'm Ricky Schlaught.

Well, Ricky, how goes it?

Things are okay.

I haven't really left my apartment in days on end because I am really on the deadline with the book. But the good news is it's out for pre-order on Amazon. So anyone who's interested, it's called the canceling of the American Mind. And you can grab it there. It'll be out in October. So this is an early shout-out. Congratulations. That's huge.

Thank you. It's exciting. What does it mean to get to that point? So what are you doing?

So you say you're getting ready to get the book out? Like, so what does that, what does that mean?

So our full manuscript needs to be in their hands in two weeks. And that means, you know,

checking every fact and making sure that everything is spick and span.

And then it goes through a few rounds of proofreading.

And there have been some shortages with like supplies in the publishing industry.

And printing has been a bit of a disaster.

So we're trying to get as ahead of it as possible.

But, you know, there's some fun stuff that's happening, too,

of like working on the cover and getting quotes from people reviewing the book. And so it's,

we're moving from the terrible portion of just never leaving my house to some of the more

fun aspects. So what is the cover going to look like? Do you know yet? Yeah, it's on the Amazon listing. It's like an American flag with X's instead of the stars and like the stripes are falling. It's very cool. I'm into it. I think it's cool. It's nice and modern and fresh. I'm no expert, but October seems like a really good time to release a book from what I gather.

But that's what they tell us. I'm just trusting the process. Great. Well, congratulations. I'm

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