I've gotten this very strange gadget that has become a really integral part of my evening routine.

I may recommend as an object list, maybe today, maybe some future episode, I don't know,

but that is essentially this like shoulder-bearing harness booklight that is extremely over the top.

It's not portable in the least, but it gives you like several lights out.

So when you're reading like picture books to kids it's

like very convenient but it very much looks like something that like ripley would use to explore a

derelict spaceship at some point uh looking for the carcasses of her former crewmates or something

like that uh you know he's got this kind of gritty 1980s james cameron style you know sci-fi sort of vibe

but uh you know it's become this like kind of an affectionate tool of our bedtime routine that I recommend. So I don't know. That's, that's for the other parents in the crowd. I think, Mike, that's just you. But something to think about if you do a lot of like late night reading or for Tyler Ari, if you guys are trying to like read late at night around your partner, this is when you really get like the full spectrum light illumination, which I really appreciate. I was going to say,

I have a nightlight book reading nightlight too. It's just my bedside lamp. I usually have,

it's my, you know, my partner's a very heavy sleeper. And so I just just turn on the lamp.

Oh, the luxury of the days. That is,

that is, that is, that is a phase where the days where my wife would pretend to be comfortable with me reading by my bedside table while she was sleeping are long gone, my friend. At a certain point you had the relationship where the honesty comes forward and nobody likes that. That's the true end of the honeymoon phase. I'm happy to hear you mention Ripley actually because the first stuffed

animal, which I ever bought for my relatively newborn son, was about an 18-inch plushy of the

xenomorph from alien. My kids, my son, we got at a visit to the one of the San Diego Zoo,

maybe some other zoo or aquarium, got him a very cool, legitimately plushy of a fairly large octopus, but it's a very realistic octopus right down to having like a plushy little beak kind of underneath on the underside, if you will. And so my daughter now is too, because my son's a little too old for it just takes it and loves just take it and just sclam it against her face like the tentacles like going around around and I'm like this is kind of a terrifying vision I'm not sure I'm supposed to feel about this but you enjoy it so I think we're just going to ride with us and it's okay it sounds like a Halloween toy that Mike would have in his house it sounds sort of terrifying well Mike would spring that on his children. That's the difference here. My

daughter's doing it to herself. I was going to say, Scott, I don't want to tell you how to raise

your own kids, but I think you may be teaching the wrong lessons of how to approach an octopus

in the wild. If you scare them when they're young, they become inoculated.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Rational Security. I am your host, Scott R. Anderson, thrilled to be back with you for another episode of the podcast where we invite members of the Lawfare team to join me as we try to make sense of the week's biggest national security news stories. And oh boy, what a week it has been. I think we are in one of those moments where every week we have way more stories and we actually have time to talk about this week. Certainly that is how it felt. But we have a couple of big stories that are on the front page of the newspapers as we speak. We want to spend some time on today. So let's not waste any time. Let's get right into it with my three guests. Thrilled to be joined this week. Once again, by Law Affairs Executive Editor, Tyler McBride. Thank you for coming back on the podcast. And thank you for promoting me from managing editor. I'm sorry. I've never understood why managing an executive, which one is really, who is you managing and who is executizing who exactly. No, it takes backsees.

No one, no takes vaccines. That's right. Natalie, you're out. Tyler, you're in. Apologies.

That way. Also thrilled to be joined once again by Lawfare Senior Editor. I think that is their proper aging and status in terms of ranking. You're not the most or least senior. You're just senior editor, Michael Feinberg. Mike, thank you for coming back on the podcast as well. Thanks for having me again. And joining us as well is Lawfair's Public Service Fellow. One of Lawfare's Public Service Fellows. Ari, Tapa Tabat Dubai. Ari, thank you for coming back on the podcast. For your third or fourth appearance now. I think you've become a little bit of regular characters. We're thrilled to have you back on. Who's counting? Yeah, thanks for having me. I keep careful count everywhere, and I posted on a bulletin board, as you know in the common area for competition purposes, just as I do with my children at home. With all that said, let us get into the stories, because it really has been a big week full of really

...