Hello everyone, this is Dr. Ahmed Ergin, and this is the SugarMD channel, the ultimate diabetes channel. Today, we are talking about psyllium, psyllium husk. So, one of our watchers, followers, asked a question and his name is James B. And he says, thanks for the information. Since watching your channel and following your tips, my A1C levels have gone down. I have a co-worker that is trying to suggest I take psyllium husk with my meals. She says it will help with blood sugar. Is it true and any recommendation on the amount one should take daily?  Not looking for a prescription, but a ballpark. What can I find on Google is pretty vague. Thanks. All right, I think that's a very good question. So, James, here's your answer. Psyllium husk actually is very good for diabetes, number one. And I'll tell you the evidence behind it and how strong is the evidence we'll get to that. But I'm gonna summarize a few things and I don't I don't want you to jump to the conclusion. So, be patient. The video is not gonna be too long, I promise. But sometimes knowing a little is worse than knowing nothing. So, try to understand the whole thing. It's not gonna take too much, believe me. So, there's some data that says that it helps with the diabetes, data that it can help with cholesterol. And then I explain to you how it does. And also, there is data that says that it helps primarily the constipation, right? Constipation and diarrhea. Well, which one do you hate most? Everybody is different. I hate diarrhea more than the constipation. And I tend to have occasional diarrhea, especially when I don't eat right. So, I'm gonna tell you buddy. When you eat sweets and some bad food, especially when you eat outside, that can cause some diarrhea. My body rejects it, I'm telling you. So, but if you are having constipation, psyllium definitely helps. Interestingly, it helps with diarrhea too. And here's why. Now, psyllium is basically a fiber, right? It's a 70% soluble fiber and 30% is insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber basically attracts the water in your intestinal system. It starts collecting water in the small intestine and then it carries that to your colon. And then it creates this bulk reaction because it attracts the water. And the bulk stimulates the perstalsis in your colon. So, as a result, it makes you just push whatever's in there, all the junk that is in there. So, there is some chelation feature because it's it's basically like a glue, you know, it will just also pick up stuff that's not good for you, not just water. It also actually picks up the sugar as well. So, sugar gets attached to it or gets sucked into it and then it's not absorbed as quickly, okay?  So, that's the basic problems of any fiber. That's why we always emphasize the plant-based diets because plants have a lot of fiber. Like we have eggplant video, for example, one of my favorite fruit, not a vegetable, but a lot of fruits and vegetables guys have a lot of fibers. So, that's why we emphasize eating those a lot because those will reduce or dampen the spike of the blood sugars that comes in the diet. And of course, the more fiber you eat, the longer you will feel fuller. And you're not going to feel like you need to snack. Again, what drives the hunger a lot of times is you're eating carbs, especially simple carbs and pastry and all this junk. And it spikes your insulin and your blood sugar. Your blood sugar starts dropping because your insulin spikes or you end up taking insulin if you're on insulin.  And then you feel the hunger.  So as a result, fiber, wherever it comes from, is extremely helpful. Now, soluble fibers are also very helpful, especially the one in lentil. We have a video about the lentils as well. You can check that out. But the soluble fiber is also good for your cholesterol as well. So what soluble fiber part of does, actually, it binds the bile acid. So if you know a little bit about bile acids, they're actually made from cholesterol. And there is what we call enterohepatic circulation of cholesterol. So basically your cholesterol is made in the liver. It is sent to the bile in your gallbladder. When you eat food, it is sent in for digestion of the fat, especially. And it had to help absorb the vitamins, fat soluble vitamins, and that that bile is reabsorbed to the liver and so that your liver can use it again. You know, our body is very efficient. We don't want to waste things. Of course, some of the bile is wasted and then bacteria changes the color of the bile, and that's what gives you the color of the poop. OK, so if you don't know, just in case. So but bile acids are reabsorbed. Now, fiber, soluble fiber and and saline husk also basically binds that bile as a result. It's not reabsorbed. So if there is not bile coming back to liver, liver will be like, well, the ball didn't come back. Anybody? Where's the where's the bile? I need bile. Well, your liver is not going to scream it like people do to each other. OK, so liver will say, OK, you know, I'll just pick up some cholesterol from the blood and then your LDL will be picked up from your blood to make the bile. And everybody is at peace. Your cholesterol goes down. Your liver is happy. Your body is happy. Everybody is happy. So fiber as a result is very good, especially soluble fiber. So psyllium husk has soluble fiber and insoluble fiber that helps both the gastrointestinal movement, but also cholesterol. And as we discussed, preventing the blood sugar spikes as well. Now, the next question is how much to take? Well, that depends on how much fiber you eat. So if you are eating salad every day and you're trying to have all those, you know, plant based foods in your diet, you probably will not need as much psyllium husk.  Well, then in this case, you probably need some psyllium husk because you need fiber, dude. So if you cannot eat fiber, if you have this aversion against good food, then you will need some sort of supplement. And I think in that case, psyllium husk will be really helpful. And if you are having, as I said, diarrhea or constipation, although you're eating well, maybe you need more fiber. So everybody's needs are a little different. So the typical recommendation for psyllium is like five grams, you know, per meal. Now, why five grams? Because it's typically recommended to have 25 to 30 grams of fiber in your diet, at least every day. And in America, I don't know other countries as much, but in America, people don't even get near that half the time. Well, most of the time.  Now, another problem with going such a high dose is if your body is not used to fiber, you are going to get bloated body. That's a side effect. So if you start, you know, like anything, OK, so any supplement, any new food, group, whatever, even lentils, like if you're not used to lentils, you start eating lentils.  I'm telling you, just get used to it. Tell your family that you are getting into a new venture and they need to put up with you or just start small, slow and, you know, build up like anything else in life, right?  I mean, right now, thank God, we have like around 80,000 subscribers. We didn't start with that. We start with one subscriber. That was me.  And that's amazing. I'm so happy that I'm helping so many people. I hope this video is helpful for you as well. So but the bottom line is you start slow and gradually build. So you can start with once a day and see how your bowel takes it. You know, if you feel like, oh, it's kind of helping or or at least there's no side effects like too much bloating or gas, then you can try to increase that after maybe a few days and try to take twice a day. And then maybe try to increase it to three times a day, depending on the benefit you're getting and the lack of side effects is going to help you to increase your intake. Now, what are the serious side effects? Sometimes people get allergies to that. You know, some people who are sensitive to this kind of stuff will probably have some runny nose or some teary eyes, whatever that has been reported. And then, like I said, the bloating is going to be your major problem. But otherwise, psyllium is pretty much a very natural fiber that comes from a plant that is produced in India and Mediterranean region. So overall, a very healthy addition to your diet if you have to. So I hope that video helps you guys. And if it does, remember to subscribe to leave a comment and like and share. Thank you guys. We'll talk to you later. All right. Thank you for watching. And I want you to be more informed and more educated. So to do that, go ahead and watch this next video right here.


Australia's solid economic momentum suggests faster rate hikes. Australia's economy expanded faster than forecast last quarter as households stepped up spending, bolstering the case for an outsized 40-basis point interest rate hike next week. Gross domestic product advanced 0.8% from the final three months of last year, taking the annual pace to 3.3%, government data showed Wednesday. That was higher than estimates and outpaced the pre-pandemic average of around 2%. In response to the stronger result, the three-year government bond yield jumped to 2.925%. Overnight index swaps or pricing in a 40-basis point rate rise by the Reserve Bank of Australia at Tuesday's meeting. RBA Governor Philip Lowe is likely to view the data as validation of his hawkish pivot after raising the cash rate for the first time in 11.5 years last month to 0.35%. Some economists, including those at ANZ Banking Group Limited and AMP Capital Markets, are predicting a 40-basis point move next week. The report shows a fundamental story about improving consumer spending, some signs of business investment and government being a solid driver of growth, said AMPs Diana Malsina, who expects the RBA's cash rate to hit 1.5% to 2% by year-end. They will want to get ahead of the inflation outbreak. Money market pricing shows the benchmark at 2.7% by December. What Bloomberg Economics Says A record rise in inventories flattered one-cue growth, and could be a drag going forward. It may take until 2-H for a clear read on the underlying health of the economy. James McIntyre, Economist For the full report, click here. The household-saving-to-income ratio fell to 11.4%, the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic, from 13.4% as the increase in households spending outpaced growth in household income, the ABS said. There are questions about the durability of consumer spending in coming quarters with wages growth rising at half the pace of CPI in the first three months of the year, even as the labor market is the tightest in five decades. Low expects a jobless rate below 4% will spark a faster pickup in wages. In a positive sign for a pickup in labor costs, Wednesday's data showed companies wage bills climbed 5.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier. Other details from the GDP report. household spending jumped by 1.5%, contributing 0.8 percentage point to GDP growth. Government spending climbed 2.7%, adding 0.6 point. Imports were the biggest drag on GDP growth climbing 8.1% from the prior quarter, the biggest increase since December 2009, and detracting 1.5 percentage points from GDP. Dwelling investment fell 1%, cutting 0.1 point. Dwelling affected supply chains and weakened activity in construction and mining. Hidden economic risks lurk for new Australian leader Albanese. New treasurer Jim Chalmers acknowledged some of the strengths of the $2.2 trillion, $1.6 trillion, economy, while pointing to accelerating inflation that squeezing households and a darkening global outlook. The international environment is difficult as well in becoming more so, he told reporters after the release, citing risks of a U.S. recession. The other big concern in the international environment is the Chinese management of COVID. Their approach to COVID does pose a risk as well to our domestic economy.


Good morning friends and welcome back to the channel. Today I'm going to be taking you with me on a full day of cardiology consoles so you can see a typical day in my life. So hopefully you're excited. Now for the weeks that I'm on consoles I typically don't have to get into the hospital until around 8 or 9 a.m. But still I got to get ready for the day. And if you've been watching this channel for a while then you know I like to get up about an hour earlier before I have to leave so I can work on my own personal projects. And during that hour or two I enjoy some quality time with my puppy by taking him out to use a restroom and enjoying this beautiful sunrise. And as soon as we get back upstairs I enjoy the most important part of my day which is coffee and enjoying some breakfast. Today I have a delicious bowl of oatmeal with little touch of money. And then I usually use the remaining time that I have left to work on personal projects like videos for the MD journey. But now it's about 7 to 7 30 a.m. So it's time for me to get going. Now usually I'll leave my pager in the car because let's be real.  But the first thing I'll do is try to figure out which patients my cardiology fellow has paged me to see for that morning. And when you look at that I already have my first few to see for the day so better get going. So I'm off to the hospital which currently is about a 25 minute drive and maybe it'll be faster if one of you want to lend me a Ferrari but until then I use that extra time to listen to an audiobook. Today it's the TB12 method by Tom Brady. When I finally get past getting to the hospital finding a parking spot and walking the 10 minutes to actually get into the hospital first thing I do is start reading about the new consults. But first let's take a step back. What's a consult in the first place? How is it even different than other services in the hospital? In case you're not familiar with the terminology being on a consult service means that I don't actually have any patients of my own to take care of. Instead I behave as a consultant by providing advice or expertise for a specific problem. So currently I'm on the cardiology consult service which means I help answer questions for other health care providers related to the heart. So things like chest pain, shortness of breath, arrhythmia, heart attacks and more. So now that that's out of the way time to see our first patient. So first to start the day at the first patient I have to see is a middle-aged lady who comes to the hospital complaining of shortness of breath. Now this patient already has a known history of heart failure which means that a heart muscle isn't as strong and causes her to back up fluid thus making her short of breath. Now for every patient with a history of heart failure the main question is why are they having exacerbation? For this lady the answer was pretty obvious. She had a history of arrhythmia that wasn't well controlled otherwise known as atrial flutter. Now to better understand what atrial flutter is it's better to first describe how the heart works normally. Now usually the top and the bottom of your heart communicate in tandem. One beat from the top equals one beat from the bottom. But in atrial flutter the top starts to beat a little bit too often. Think of it as a drummer gone rogue and as you can imagine this can be both uncomfortable but it's also not physiologic for the weight that the heart is supposed to function. For this patient it's actually causing her to be more likely to have a heart failure exacerbation. So my recommendation for this patient two things. First we have to get rid of some fluid with some diuretics and most importantly we have to get her out of this rhythm by shocking her heart in our EP lab to make sure she gets back into her normal rhythm thus reducing the chances that she goes back into a heart failure exacerbation. So pretty cool stuff to start the day if I say so myself. Now the rest of my morning is spencing a combination of old patients I need to follow up on and new patients in the ED most of them complaining of chest pain and throughout the morning I'm starting to realize that if there's one reason that I'm relatively skinny it's the amount of steps that I get in the hospital. Now today I'm going to be attending a lecture and manage to grab some amazing coconut curry and rice on the way. To be honest I'm craving some more just by looking at it but now after I enjoy that delicious meal and that lecture of course it's time to get back and see what new consults I have to see you for the afternoon and at least for today most of the afternoon has been spent talking to the teams for the patients that I saw during the daytime as well writing my notes and recommendations and just when I thought it was almost time to go home at five o'clock just my luck we get another consult and this one the classic cardiac problem chest pain. Now this one's from the emergency room so I have to see those patients sooner than later so I make my way downstairs. In the midst of an active COVID pandemic I have to make sure that I just play it safe so I'm just going to go ahead and gown up for this patient. Now this patient was a man in his mid 40s who had been having on and off chest pain for the past few weeks which concerned the ED providers. And now if there's one thing that I know and I want you to remember after watching this video is that the heart is not the only thing that can cause you chest pain and so in this particular case in this particular patient I saw that I could reproduce his exact chest pain just by pushing down on his chest which is classic for costocondritis or otherwise known as inflammation of the rib muscles. But most importantly I could comfort the patient telling him that this is likely was not his heart. What was interesting about this patient is that he had a history of heart attacks and strokes in his family starting as early as 40 which is relatively young. So just to make sure I wasn't missing anything I looked at his EKGs and his test results and a while he overall looked okay and the most important thing that I needed to do for him is make sure that he saw us in clinic to keep tabs on him. So after typing up my recommendations in the form of a note as well as speaking with the ED providers it's finally time to go home and because it's been a long day it's definitely time to take a serious nap because let's be honest that curry from earlier started to cause a food coma so time to go home. And so with that I go ahead and call it an end to the day and my shift is finally over. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. If you did and want more videos like this in the future support the channel by hitting that like button. Also consider hitting the subscribe button and notification bell so you can be the first to see our next videos. And if you're interested in doing better in medical school and you're just tired of trying to figure it out yourself check out some of our free as well as paid programs down below. But as always guys thanks for watching. Hope you guys enjoyed this video and I'll see you next time my friend.


Good morning everybody welcome we're delighted to have you here and on a glorious morning it's absolutely fabulous of course we deserve it for the weather winter we had you know the tough winter welcome to all of you to the military strategy forum and my special thanks to our friends at Rolls Royce who make it possible for us to make this series available to the policy community in Washington and we're very delighted to have Mike Vickers with us this morning I was serving up in the Armed Services Committee when I think I can't remember the years I think it was nineteen ninety no nineteen eighty eight when we created the program 11 and the whole special operations command socom etc. and I think that we actually had Mike in mind for who would be the leader at socom it took a while for us to find him you know and at the time Mike was of course serving in the CIA had a long history in special forces and came to the administration to become the the Solic commander or the Solic assistant secretary back in 2007 and we were it was just the right time when when he was brought in the Bush administration asked him to come in to give some direction and it was did a masterful job and of course then Bob Gates felt that no one would be better to replace Jim Clapper than Mike to be the undersecretary for intelligence I think it's been masterful service Mike we've been lucky as a country to have you at this crucial time I know it's been challenging and wearing assignment but you shouldered it so wonderfully and the whole community is grateful for what you've done we're going to have a very interesting session this morning and Kath is going to be leading the question and answer period I expect this is going to be a very vivid and lively session so would you with your applause please welcome Mike Vickers undersecretary for intelligence well thank you Dr. Hamry for that really gracious introduction and thank you and to Dr. Hicks for your distinguished service to our country and to CSIS for putting on important forums such as this I thought I'd make a few remarks this morning for about 20 minutes and then take questions as the standard format next slide please all right good I'm qualified now on this thing okay so I'm going to talk about these four topics and given that this is a military strategy forum I'm going to try to move beyond my intelligence brief a little bit and talk about some of the implications for strategy for national security strategy defense strategy and intelligence strategy as we as we look at these issues before I do one of the themes I'd like to leave you with is the tremendous change that's taken place in our intelligence capabilities over the past decade and the even greater change that we foresee looking forward one of the aspects of this is the revolutionary impact precision targeting has had across our intelligence enterprise whether it's in counterterrorism operations whether it's in cyber operations or classic human intelligence and espionage and to illustrate this I'd like to if you'll indulge me I'd like to tell a joke that my former boss secretary Bob Gates used to love to tell about the old way we did business many many years ago supposedly an intelligence officer was working at a in a foreign capital at a diplomatic cocktail party you know trolling the diplomatic circuit as we often do looking for hard targets and unfortunately this officer had a little bit too much to drink and so his mission attention wandered a little bit toward more amorous pursuits rather than traditional hard targets and across the room at this big reception he spotted what he saw was a vision of loveliness and a flowing red gown so using all his appropriate tradecraft he approached the target and made a pitch asking the target if he could have a dance and then he's to his shock the target immediately rebuffed him and said I'm rebuffing you for three reasons first you are drunk second this is not a waltz it's the Peruvian national anthem and third my I'm not a woman I am the cardinal Archbishop of Lima so we're a little better than that today we we enable our case officers with more precision targeting and our and our other operators as well next slide please so I'm gonna go through a range of national security challenges the continued terrorism threat by posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates being the first one the key point I want to leave you with here is while we've had a lot of success in severely degrading al-Qaeda core in the Pakistan Afghanistan border region they continue to pose a threat particularly a reconstitution threat down the road but the three biggest threats are really al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula centered in Yemen and the growing al-Qaeda threat in Syria and al-Qaeda's affiliates of course are spread elsewhere and they're taking advantage of what we call the metastasization using a cancer analogy across the Middle East and in North Africa and that is the conditions that are created by our ungoverned spaces and the historic transformation that's underway in that region there's also of course the threat of a homegrown violent extremists as we saw with the Boston bomber and and others as well and so this really remains job one for the intelligence community and and our special operations forces as well the Syrian Civil War prevent presents a particularly vexing national security challenge it's a horrific civil war with 150,000 dead it's a humanitarian crisis of mind-boggling proportions with some 9 million internally displaced or refugees who have fled the country about two-thirds and one-third and a continuing humanitarian crisis and of course it's giving rise to a significant terrorism threat there as well as the president noted in his speech at West Point we are committed to supporting the Syrian opposition to help them in their stand against the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad and to help them determine a help these help them fight for the right of all Syrian people to determine their own future and then finally to deny terrorists the sanctuary or safe haven that they're currently enjoying in Syria and we will work with the Congress to ramp up our support for the opposition now we come to Russian revanchism I get teased about using the word revanchism but it has many aspects but probably the most concerning currently is the destabilization going on in eastern Ukraine and what we in the special operations community would term unconventional warfare well Russian forces have pulled back their troops from the border region they have not seized their support for pro-Russian separatists in in eastern Ukraine and that threat remains to the government of Ukraine and its territorial integrity cyber threats these threats and the range from intellectual property theft to disruptive denial of service attacks to destructive attacks through malware so emerging domain that has moved very rapidly over the past couple years we've had destructive attacks against South Korea against Saudi Arabia and denial of service attacks against the US financial sector as director clapper made clear in his unclassified annual threat assessment the likelihood of future destructive attacks is increasing there we go my first test okay proliferation and use of WMD the next the next issue for us we continue to have concerns about the Iranian and North Korean nuclear and missile programs Iran has made considerable progress in its ability to enrich and stockpile uranium and has continued to work on its missile programs North Korea as director clapper indicated in his annual threat assessment as we assess is expanding its use its facility for uranium enrichment and has restarted its graphite moderated reactor and continues to develop long-range missile programs most notably the intercontinental KNOA that it has displayed publicly a few times the I already alluded to this earlier about the persistent volatility across Middle East North Africa and South Asia that will likely be with us for a long time to come and we'll give rise to a range of national security challenges this is really one of the key enduring challenges I think we face along with a couple of others on this slide or on the previous slide in the previous one all right a transition in Afghanistan the president announced right before his speech at West Point that we will maintain a 9,800 troops in Afghanistan and by the end of 2000 and calendar 2015 we will reduce that posture approximately in half and consolidate the force on Kabul and Bagram and then no later than the end of 2016 we will reduce it further to a normal embassy-based presence centered on Kabul Afghan forces assume the lead for combat operations last year and at the end of this year combat operations in Afghanistan will cease we will continue to train, advise and assist Afghan forces and to and to pursue our continued counterterrorism mission in in the region and the rise of China this China of late has engaged in provocative behavior in maritime disputes across the East Asian literal is continuing its military modernization and has attempted to counter US engagement in Asia by asserting that the United States is a declining power which we will most certainly not and we will remain a Pacific power the key thing I would like you to take away from the previous two slides is that when you look at these in total a number of a senior intelligence officers director Clapper my good friend former CIA director deputy director Michael Morell an acting director haven't seen this range of challenges on an administration's plate in our careers you know we may be wrong about that but that that's our collective judgment second point is that taken together these are highly asymmetric challenges the years are not directly head-on-head some of them are even further an unconventional or novel is in the cyber case or in indirect in terms of challenges in happening across the region or the relationship between economic power and national security power the other point that I want to highlight is that unlike the Cold War where we had one really enduring and not to be discounted national security challenge and then a series of crises a number of these are likely to be more persistent than enduring and so again that really creates some challenges for strategy as you deal with injuring very difficult to solve multiple problem sets some of you may remember in the late 1970s in the Department of Defense we developed in response to the situation in Central Europe an offset strategy to counter Soviet military power and then followed that up through the 1980s with a series of other strategies to reinforce that and bring it into the Cold War as I look at it today we need a we not just one offset strategy but a series of them to deal with these specific challenges and then the final point I want to make is that also critical to being dealing with these set of enduring challenges is the continued economic and technological leadership of the United States which as former Secretary Gates and others have said you know as a national and is national security imperative for us okay now I'd like to talk a little bit about the relationship between intelligence and national security we always say it's the first line of defense at this time going forward we really really do mean it the benefits that it gives us is informs our national security policy again if you're the president and his top advisors and you're trying to make sense of this wide array of challenges intelligence is the first thing you need to have to understand the world in which you're dealing with and then for our operators our war fighters and other operators our intelligence capabilities really enable what we call intelligence driven precision operations when directed by the president the intelligence community provides him with additional options in between diplomacy and and the overt use of military force these are very important as well and then of course our principle race on detra is preventing strategic surprise and very challenging today as we look forward I would add one other point as we look at this and that is intelligence is a significant source of advantage for the United States today and it's an advantage that is very important to us but it's also one that has to be used aggressively but also prudently to make sure we're helping our leaders solve problems and not adding adding to their problems and of course as you conduct operations there's inherent risk in them and so the risk gain is something that we look at all the time and continue to evolve all right now I'd like to talk about some investments we're making in capability areas to sustain this intelligence advantage well into the future I've grouped this into five areas to focus defense intelligence and our integration with national intelligence on the defense strategic guidance that dr. Hicks worked on so ably a couple years ago I guess it was and the president signed out and then our quadrennial defense review which we just completed and soon to be released national intelligence strategy I group our major priorities into five areas global coverage the ability to operate in what we call anti-access area denial environments a key power projection a challenge for us sustaining our capabilities in counterterrorism operations and adding to them in counterproliferation building out our cyber capabilities and then strengthening our ability our capabilities and counterintelligence and security so let me touch on a few of these first global coverage this really enables everything we do across mission areas and as the budgets flatten or decline becomes even more important given the global distribution and diversity of challenges that we face I can't say too much about the specifics and in many of these areas but I will say a few things the first as director Clapper said in Colorado Springs a couple weeks ago and Betty SAP our director of the NRO mentioned at a conference in Florida about a month ago there are big changes ahead in the way we use our overhead space architecture some of the biggest changes in my view that we've seen in in several decades it will be possible as director Clapper mentioned through techniques such as activity-based intelligence and associated architecture capabilities to go with it to have persistence we've never had before to where we can look at things for long periods of time and you can imagine the the benefits that will give us the second aspect that I will I believe will be revolutionary as we go forward besides persistence is integration rather than having an overhead architecture as Betty SAP described it that that is a set of individual systems with supporting systems we will have for the first time going forward to really integrated architecture that can tip and queue and there's tremendous benefits that come from that we're working to strengthen our crypt analytic capabilities and then our national level defense human capabilities that's run initiative we call the defense clandestine service in the anti-access aerial denial environment this is really associated with our rebalance to Asia and to keep pace with high-end challenges we're working on assured persistent intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance and the resiliency of our of our space architecture and that's about all I can say it at that point but the third bullet is really kind of indicative there and that is we're focused as a strategy on adapting some of the techniques we've learned in counter-terrorism where we have gotten incredibly precise and apply that to these higher-end environments in the counter-terrorism area the predator and reaper the unmanned aerial aircraft unaffectually known as drones have been the signature weapon of our counter-terrorism capability over the past decade much as the improvised explosive device has been the signature weapon of insurgents and terrorists it has enabled the most precise campaign counter-terrorism campaign in the history of warfare and it is our most effective instrument we are very healthy in this area but we are looking to make enhancements in some advanced sensors as well as extending the range of our second-generation platform considerably our operate our integration between our operators and intelligence is another key advantage in both of these areas and something we're working to sustain as well and then back to the challenges chart as the CT problem evolves and shifts on us we're at a turning point not just in national security strategy but also in the counter-terrorism arena of the need to rebalance and rethink some of the ways that we've done business what has really worked what is adaptable to the evolving threat what is not and what do we need to invent a new okay on cyber capabilities that we're making significant progress in developing a cyber force to defend our networks to support combatant commanders and to defend the United States if called upon to do so and the associated support structures to go with it intelligence capabilities as you would in any new domain whether it's space or cyber or others key to making that cyber force effectively and we've had a number of great sessions including some here at CSIS is really our partnerships with industry our partnerships across the US government with Department of Homeland Security and the FBI but also with industry in terms of particularly in the area of information sharing and then finally counterintelligence and security as a result of WikiLeaks, Snowden, Fort Hood and the Navy Yard review Navy Yard attack excuse me and the reviews associated with those four incidents we've taken significant measures now to strengthen our capabilities against insider threats whether it's workplace violence or espionage and are establishing an insider threat center going forward we're also working with the Congress and with the OPM looking to and the DNI looking to shift our the way we evaluate people for positions of responsibility and security clearances through a method called continuous evaluation if you think of rather than snapshots in times where you do an investigation and then you wait several years and you do it again this is more a continuous stream like you do with credit checks and we believe it will have a number of advantages okay let me conclude by talking about the importance of intelligence integration this was the focus of the 9-11 Commission and there are four areas I'd like to talk about some of this honestly predated 9-11 and it has been at work it's been the process of a couple decades of work and then of course others have really accelerated since then responding to evolving threats the first one is integration within agencies the CIA I knew in the 1980s is not the CIA of today it is vastly more integrated in terms of its major components and and directorates and it produces big dividends by doing so our intelligence agencies work much closer together it's hard to find a case where a single intelligence agency has been responsible for a a significant intelligence breakthrough or operation the bin Laden case is a particular example of that were CIA NSA and NGA worked in extremely close partnership to produce the intelligence case that we need and that that really is the model going forward director Clapper and I have made it a top priority to make sure that our national and defense intelligence programs are integrated and transparent to each other we make a number of joint investments together we depend on each other's capabilities to do our missions things that you would think of as tactical capabilities perform some critically important national missions and our tactical operations in the department depend critically on national capabilities and then finally the partnership between the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency is very important across the board in a number of intelligence areas and in capabilities and so with that I'd like to conclude and I'd be happy to take your questions with Dr. Hicks thank you very much Secretary Vickers for your your great remarks and good morning to everyone I'm Kathleen Hicks I run the international security program here at CSIS and you covered truly the waterfront and I think it gives us a very rich conversation opportunity here with the audience and I'll turn it over to them for questions in a few minutes but there are a few things I thought I'd start with this last issue that you raise there's two issues on your last slide you raise one generally on integration and specifically ending on the DOD CIA piece let me take the first part of that we really have come in the time that you've been in your positions within the Department of Defense from 2007 to now from the world of trying to transition from need to know to need to share to to I hope a culture of need to share that was the intent but now of course we've had a series of incidents that test that Snowden being the most recent I'm wondering if you can give a sense of where you think the community is and where the community needs to be on this issue of how much to share how to control information have we swung too far or in fact we just need to accept that there are risks that come with a need to share culture thanks well the we continue to have a strong need to share intelligence our national security strategy depends on enabling partners that requires intelligence sharing and to make the national security apparatus effective across the interagency both domestic and foreign also requires a high degree of intelligence sharing while also protecting need to know so in that vein we are modernizing our information technologies to try our information systems technology systems excuse me across both the IC and within the Department of Defense to try to strike a reasonable balance there between the need to protect information and also distribute it in the IC it's called eyesight which is the IC ITE which is intelligence community intelligence technology information technology enterprise and in the department we're moving toward a system called the joint information environment both of those are cloud based and will give us some security advantages along with with other technologies so in a way it's really the right balance to be struck but there is you know some things like bin Laden had to be compartmented intensely as you know others less so but we can't really move back from the the information sharing environment we just have to do it more responsibly and then your your you ended on the DoD CIA Nexus and that's an area where you and have been particularly effective at bringing the two agencies together the president in his West Point speech last week reiterated his call to transition more operations more emphasis from CIA to DoD on the counterterrorism direct action piece and I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit about how that transition is going he had talked about that previously and what the challenges are facing the Department of Defense as it takes on these missions these direct action missions instead in some cases have been done by the CIA well I don't want to go into much detail here let me make a couple points one our assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism Lisa Monaco will be making a speech in the very near future as a update on what has progressed since the president's speech at the National Defense University last May and so I don't want to steal her thunder and so I'll leave that to her but also suffice it to say we have been working since last May and actually before to implement the president's guidance DoD does precision counterterrorism operations and make sure we have an integrated counterterrorism capability across our IC and the department to meet the president's needs good and let me stick with ISR moving beyond not necessarily just unmanned but just ISR in general I think you made a compelling case for why intelligence is so important in an environment that's as diffuse in its threats as unpredictable probably in its threats and we can we can talk about Ukraine and others but there and but the pressure on ISR in that kind of environment is incredibly intense and you alluded to the flat budget the budget environment is not conducive to a great deal of increased investment in in many areas how well do you think ISR fares in that budget environment and are there areas of particular concern that you have in terms of how we make sure the entire intelligence enterprise is well resourced sure so as secretary Hagel made clear in the quadrennial defense review areas of key focus for him is intelligence surveillance reconnaissance cyber and special operations forces and so we have the priority we believe it requires that said as you know we have to be very focused in our investments and what we prioritize and so in ISR or in other capability areas undersea warfare long-range strike bomber etc we're focusing on a critical set of investments that are very important to our Asia rebalance and those have been protected in the department as well as the continuing capabilities will need for the counterterrorism problem and the instability across the greater Middle East and then the cyber challenges and so that's why I've grouped the capability areas that we have one of the challenges that we face in ISR but really across the department I would say is that now more than ever you have to have an intelligence portfolio approach to investment and so you know you may recall with the different national security challenges we faced in the 1990s one could think about a joint force that had capabilities that could stretch either right or left as necessary we've long since and thanks to your leadership we've long since abandoned that notion in the department and so we carefully adopt across the spectrum of challenges we've had a series of target investments in each area more of an outside-in approach high end and low end and then see what meets in the middle and that seems to be the best way to beat our national security challenges right now but with flat and declining budgets it's it remains a challenge well let me press you just slightly harder on that are there areas on the intelligence side that are particularly worrisome to you I'll give you a complete hypothetical but maybe this is one you know growing the required human in the right you know language skill sets with the right focus given again the diffusion of the threat are there areas that you can point to that are something we should be thinking about as a country as we move into further into the 21st century on the intelligence side sure so for some of these investments they depend on either technological advances or making sure significant resources are provided for some of our global coverage and ni access aerial denial capabilities for others such as strengthening our human capabilities it is really more about human capital it's not a big budget issue as it is a professionalization language training posture integration and number of things that take time to transform a force but you know it's more in the the the softer side of business but no less hard because you're changing institutions from one to another and then in cyber you know very very evolving field and developing the capabilities but they depend on other capabilities as well but then also they depend on public private partnerships and so without in each case there's a critical dependency that's different however in these capability areas and so those are the challenges I try to wrestle the ground with director clapper okay let me just ask one more question then I'll turn it over to the audience I know we have a lot of folks here who are ready to to test your test your knowledge base across the breadth of what the department is doing with the intelligence community is doing let me ask you a really obvious question about Ukraine which is you know how well prepared do you think the intelligence community was to see Russian intent in terms of the annexation of Crimea in particular and are you know are we now refocusing energy on Russia as a result of that action and subsequent activity by Russia so I guess I would answer that that you know Russia is a complex intelligence challenge and it's something that we have been working since the end of the Cold War in the intervening decades but it has been triggered really by there's been spikes because of build-ups to crises or actual crises so for example the invasion of Georgia in 2008 and then and then most recently Ukraine the invasion of Crimea was done very suddenly and so as director clapper and others have said the intelligence community did a pretty good job of providing overall warning to the magnitude of the problem but there's things we could always do better in certain areas and then you know we're very good at once confronted with a crisis in term in responding to it and getting better and better and so we've continued to improved as the crisis has shifted to you know what I described as unconventional warfare in eastern Ukraine and then you know the next part of the challenge which you alluded to in your resource the question is really the longer-term challenge posed by this significant change in Russian behavior and how we adapt the the community to it so we're in you know it's a work in progress but but it's definitely on leaders radar screens okay I've left large swaths of the world uncovered so I'm sure we'll have some questions on those and I see one all the way over here and please when you ask your question state your name and your affiliation hi thank you for being here today my name is Christine Vargas I'm from Avacyn but I also just returned from Egypt as a monitor for democracy international and my question having just been on the ground there is from a DIA defense standpoint how are you evolving policies for intelligent sharing with key international partners especially those with the challenging transitions on their hands well our our intelligence sharing is is usually done almost always about a bilateral basis and it is tailored to the specific requirements of that partner and we do it our individual agencies depending on the case may have relationships with counterparts in a given country but we do this on an integrated fashion approach what we call the director of national intelligence representatives so we funnel both our military intelligence as well as various forms by our national agencies through this one conduit to a national or to a international partner and that applies in Egypt's case as well as others we have one right here thank you about Kutelya McKay in Institute I'm from Georgia you mentioned as one of the challenges Russian revanchism and I kind of like this world because it largely describes the mood in Russia but revanchism is much wider then geographically linked to the Ukraine so my question is what is the scale your assessment what is the scale of the geographic scale of the Russian revanchism and where are the areas you anticipate next crisis linked to the Russian revanchism thank you well that's why I had that broader challenge of revanchism rather than specifically the Russia-Ukraine crisis on that slide and I think there are a number of challenges there is you know as we saw in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine most recently on the border and in Crimea there's a power projection challenge in what Russia calls it's near abroad and former Soviet Union but then there is also a panoply of other influence means and unconventional threats that range from energy coercion to cyber to unconventional warfare as we see and and those threats may be the greater longer-term challenge in a sense because they are highly asymmetric and you know they're not traditional military power and so our strategy with our allies and partners needs to take account of those as well but that's how I see the longer-term challenge thank you Mateo Faini Princeton University I'm a little puzzled by the administration's attempt to essentially set a new rule in terms of espionage saying that espionage conducted on other but that state-led espionage on corporate entities done to advantage other corporate entities of one's own country is essentially unfair I find this puzzling for a number of reasons few other countries recognize this rule it would be extremely hard to enforce not last because if you know that a country is conducting espionage against you have no interest in revealing that you know that kind of thing so I was wondering could you tell us what well first of all could you allay some of these concerns tells us what what the rationale is behind this attempt by the administration to set new rules and whether or not you think it has a reasonable chance of being successful thank you so I wouldn't care you know the president was very clear in presidential policy directive 28 on our signals intelligence architecture that the United States does not and will not engage in economic espionage and to to and to benefit American companies and international competition as you noted that practice is not universally followed by some other countries in the world I would defer to my economic colleagues on this but you know we think a a global system that will produce economic prosperity for all is is you know it would be most conducive to having open international competition without states stealing private secrets and handing them off to their own national companies if you follow that logic then companies bear additional costs that they would have to do to protect their systems that I think are not economically productive I'm drawing on some of my economics training in grad school but I don't think that's the kind of international system we or international countries should favor and I think that's true across the board so I want I don't think it's necessarily new but it is definitive on our policy on Eric Schmidt with the New York Times secretary vickers thank you a two-part question on Syria if you could explain to us a little bit more about the options the Pentagon administration is considering for DoD to assist arming the Syrian rebels and what operational and other challenges that poses the second part of the question is at least for insurgents along that border between Syria and Iraq it seems to be disappearing can you assess for us the ISIS threat in Western on bar right now and assess how Iraq has been able to deal with that threat given the support the US has provided to them so far okay thanks Eric so first on expanded assistance to the Syrian opposition I don't want to go further than the than the president did in his West Point speech we are developing options across the administration and consulting with Congress on this and I'll that's about as far as I can go right now on the threat posed by ISIS as you called it or as we call it ISIL Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant it is a challenge both in Syria and in Western Iraq which is why we look at this as increasingly as a regional problem this is the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq that most of them most of the leadership went to Syria after being significantly degraded in Iraq and there they have ambitions to pose threats broader in the region and and outside the region and so it is a very malevolent terrorist group and one that we're increasingly focused on they broke as you may know they broke away from al-Qaeda recently you know I guess al-Qaeda was just too nice for them and and then as far as your question on Iraq through our Office of Security Cooperation we continue to provide assistance to the Iraqis and across the instruments of the US government to meet the challenges in Iraq well this or rock is a is a you know the conditions that give rise to the to the challenge there you know have a lot to do with political challenges they've had as well as a significant terrorist threat and so there has to be political and economic solution as well as a counterterrorism solution to this problem and they they've made some gains in beating back isle and and bar and and containing its spread elsewhere but it's a significant challenge to the government. Hello David Scruggs renaissance strategic advisors question was you mentioned in the context of cyber working with the industry as a partner but industry really works across other areas with the intelligence community as well given all that's happened in the last three years how is departments working with industry gonna change going forward either in subtle or important ways. Well I think it's an imperative you know did it you know be very honest you know it's the current environment and developments hasn't helped that partnership there's some important legislation moving through the hill right now to try to set the conditions for that that we we support and it's just something you know as a country we're gonna have to solve because the threat isn't going away. Sir George Nicholson CT and special operations consultant for SOCOM. Kathleen you alluded to the relationship I think between the CIA and DOD and Mr. Bickers you probably remember at the OSS dinner John Brennan got up and said there was not a better relationship in the history that exists today but how much of that is personality driven because of your background because of Secretary Yates and Panetta and a few years ago the former DNI testified in front of the Senate committee about do we need to relook at title 10 and title 50 authorities do we need to look at something to codify those relationships better under something like a title 60. You know so the the fact that a number of us have worked together for a lot of years clearly helps but I forgot who the French politician who said the grave you know graveyards are full of indispensable men you know I think it we've put enough things in place that it will survive their current leadership it's a very good way to do business and and the challenges we face dictated. I don't think we need a you know we've evolved a lot since 2009 and this beginning of the administration and the title 10 title 50 title 60 debate we you know are very very integrated and go back and forth very easily and you know that part of the systems working really well. Peter Humphrey I'm an Intel analyst are you happy with the level of our dependents on foreign intelligence services or maybe possibly should we be moving most fraction of our budget to get our own independent capabilities at times or in fact are we going the other way just to save money. Well we have plenty of independent capabilities and you know periodically in some country or crisis you can find you are too dependent on foreign liaison reporting but I think we've learned from those experiences in the past and so we we leverage I mean we we depend on an international network of intelligence partners but we have robust you know lateral capabilities as well and you know one can always adjust the the system but globally I think it serves us quite well. I think many computer experts feel that the in an attack on a network the advantages with the attacker and the defenders are really in the weaker position. I was suggested here at CSIS yesterday by one speaker that in the case of say attacks for instance for espionage purposes on US networks that there be some type of response to the attacker besides just trying to beef up the defenses in given this situation. So if this these experts are right what is your advice to the administration basically when you have to tell them we can't really stop the attacks because the attacker has the advantage. What's the policy. But various suggestions have been made for instance code of conduct between countries about what they're going to allow to do or you know proactive counter attacks to attacks to disincentivize attacks. So what advice are you giving up the chain on this? Well I'll keep my advice up the chain private but let me let me try to answer your question. So one I'm not sure I agree with the premise that the offense has an enduring advantage in the cyber realm. I mean it's a very dynamic field and cybersecurity has evolved you know it's a big growth industry and it's evolved quite a bit. That said you know there are a lot of what one would describe as soft targets and so if you're looking to steal something among many things or attack something among many things that's a hard defensive problem and it's also as I mentioned earlier in response to you know cyber policy you know an economic strategy it's not you know it's not sound economics to have to invest so much in defenses. And then so then in terms of the appropriate response even if offense gets harder it still will be feasible and there still will be softer relatively softer targets to harder targets and so the instruments you can deploy against that policy is one code of conduct is this really in people's interest to carry out this kind of conflict you know again this is a new and evolving domain and so some of the policy discussions are in their early stages as well as potentially other methods law enforcement blocking and attack you know the tailored to the circumstances so I think in cyber as in anything else you need to deploy the full range of instruments and you know it's an evolving field. Okay last question right up front. Jane Furchin with exchange of media group my question is what's your solution about the cyber security issues between US and China and what's your response about the new Chinese report released on May 26 accusing US of hacking of China and hacking activities involve companies like Microsoft and Google thank you so much. Can you repeat the last part on Google and Microsoft? Yeah there is new report from China accusing US of hacking of China the hacking activities involve companies like Microsoft and Google thank you so much. So I'm not aware of a report about Microsoft and and in Google back to the question about cyber norms and cyber policy we have a cyber working group to work with the Chinese on establishing cyber code of conduct and others that you know it's an important initiative and we certainly hope it will continue. Okay Secretary Vickers you've been extremely generous with your time this morning we put you through the ringer and I appreciate you being as forthcoming as you are able to be obviously you have a position that is particularly difficult in terms of in terms of providing us unclassified information and we appreciate your willingness to come down here today and talk to us so please join me with the audience please join me in thanking you


What's good YouTube, this your boy Chihuahua, back at y'all again with another speed art video. If you're new to the China, go ahead and hit that like button, comment, subscribe, make sure you hit post notifications so you will be notified every time I drop something. In today's video, I had to draw that boy, Kobe man, you know what I'm saying? They retired both of his numbers yesterday, he the goat, he always gonna be remembered as one of the greats, man. He put in a lot of work to be in the position he in, so I had to go ahead and show some love to Kobe man, you know what I'm saying? The black mumble turned them into a Dragon Ball Z character, ultra instinct form, you know what I'm saying? I still got the giveaways coming you guys, I'm still trying to plan to see how I'm gonna do it, how I'm gonna pick the winners. I appreciate y'all for your love and support man, we finna stay going up, I'm finna stay keeping that heat coming for you guys man, so thank y'all for the love and support and I'm out this thing.


Miss Brooks. Starring Eve Arden. For some time now, our Miss Brooks and Miss Daisy Enright, both English teachers at Madison High, have competed for the affections of Mr. Boynton, Madison's biology instructor. Their rivalry may be compared to the spectacle of two fine boxers, skillfully sparring for an opening, or two master chess players, carefully planning each move, or two great generals planning attack and counter attack. Or a couple of dead-end kids armed with broken milk bottles and brass knuckles. Several weeks ago, I finally conceived a plan of attack that was certain to eliminate Miss Enright forever more as a rival for Mr. Boynton. The first part of the master plan called for my going on an intensive diet, and after living for weeks on carrots, dried fruits, and leachy nuts, the supreme moment arrived when I could say, Mrs. Davis. Yes, Connie. I'm ready now to sit for my portrait. Oh, I'm glad, dear, because I'm too weak to stand. Well, that day, I sat for our town's newest portrait photographer, Laverne of Hollywood, on Walter Denton's special recommendation. And if I do say so myself, when Laverne snapped that shutter, I looked like a living doll. The following morning, Mrs. Davis couldn't restrain her curiosity any longer. Connie, please tell me, why did we have to go through all that for just one portrait?  That portrait of me by Laverne is going to be a surprise gift to Mr. Boynton as a reward for the great honor that's just been conferred on him. Oh, of course. You mean his being appointed head scout master of Eager Beaver Troop 32 of the Boy Scouts? Yes, that's it. Mr. Boynton is the head, but probably least eager of the beavers. Well, Mrs. Davis, what do you think of my idea? I mean, presenting Mr. Boynton with a framed photograph of myself. Oh, it'll make a lovely gift, dear. Will it be a four by five or a five by seven? A 16 by 24. The idea is for Mr. Boynton to see a great deal of me. Oh, of course. And 16 by 24 is the largest size. Is that it? Outside of wallpaper, yes. Madison's most beauty is faculty member. Oh, hello, kids. Miss Brooks, how did you like that photographer Walter sent you to? Isn't Laverne of Hollywood the most? Well, his prices certainly are. Still, I'm not complaining, and I'm thankful to you, Walter, for sending me to him. But do me a big favor, will you? Don't under any circumstances tell anyone about the gift I'm giving Mr. Boynton. Also, let's keep your Mr. Laverne strictly to ourselves. Don't tell a soul, not a female soul. Oh, I get it. And fear not, Miss Brooks, your secret is sealed up in the chambers of my mind where it will remain solidly entombed, like, like... Like the answers to my last English quiz. Just don't tell anybody. Oh, don't worry, Miss Brooks, I wouldn't dream of... Yeah, don't look now, but I think I see Miss Enright approaching on your starboard bow. Well, batten down my hatches and prepare to abandon ship. I wonder what she wants. Well, besides Mr. Boynton, I haven't the faintest idea. Ah, you'll soon find out. Yeah, come on, Harriet, we've got to get to class. All right, Walter, see you later, Miss Brooks. Bye, Harriet. Well, good morning, Miss Brooks. And how is my dear friend this morning? If I can find one, I'll ask her. You have such a charming sense of humor. Gay, effervescent, bubbling, like a slightly moss-covered fountain. Well, it's been nice chatting with you, but I must be on my way to class. Oh, well, just a moment, Miss Brooks, I stopped you for a reason. It concerns Mr. Boynton. But Mr. Boynton? Yes. You see, I have a delightful surprise for him as a reward for the honor he's just won. Really? Now, Miss Brooks, the only reason I'm discussing the question of gifts with you is to prevent us from both giving him the same thing. Oh, well, there isn't a chance of that, I assure you. No, I suppose not. I'm presenting him with a framed photograph of myself taken by Laverne of Hollywood. And that's something you could never possibly have thought of, unless we were sisters living under the same roof. What do you hear from Mom, sis? Can't be serious. You mean you intend giving him the same thing? That's what I mean. But where on earth did you get the idea and drop dead Walter Denton? Yes, yes. As a matter of fact, Walter did give me the idea. I've already had my picture taken. I was supposed to pick it up this afternoon, so I'm afraid you'll have to. Well, I'm supposed to pick mine up this afternoon, too. So I'm afraid you'll have to. Very well, darling. I see I'll have to convince you to back out the hard way. Here, you may look at the proof of the picture I'm giving him. Certainly, it must be pretty awful. Wow! I don't look too bad in a French bathing suit, do I, dear? I don't know. Where is the suit? I thought at first it was a speck of dust. Then, right, this isn't fair. Besides, Mr. Boynton would never display such a photograph, unless it had a calendar under it. Now, I have a feeling you'll love it, darling. Men being men. And now, what did you say you were getting him, dear? I don't know.  Well, it was quite a blow to hear that Ms. Enright was going to surprise Mr. Boynton with a photograph of herself at the same time I was. All morning, I thought of how to prevent it, but without success. So in order to be certain my lunch hour would be free for additional thought, at noon, I took every possible precaution to avoid passing our beloved principal's office. I walked down the back stairs, passed the women's lockers, through the cellar, then through the furnace room, up the stairs to the furnace room door, which faced the rear of the cafeteria. As I opened the door quickly, it landed against something soft. You can help me up now if you want to. Oh, my goodness, sir, I'm terribly sorry. But why were you shaving all the way back here? I wasn't shaving, Ms. Brooks. My face was just propelled into my custard pie. I'm being a tray of food. A tray of food? But I don't see any food. How could you? Thanks to you, I'm sitting in most of it.  Cops! Mr. Conklin, I'm terribly sorry, but I had no idea. Don't ever mind what's done is done. I suppose I can brush most of this stuff off. I wanted to have a word with you anyway, but hardly under these circumstances. Now, to be brief, it has come to my attention that a few of my teachers are considering patronizing a certain notorious photographer in town. A notorious photographer? Yes. This man, Laverne, has been making his living up to now in Hollywood, taking cheesecake pictures of cinema starlets. Such a man can have nothing but a corrosive and demoralizing effect on the community. And I'm sure Mr. Stone, the head of the Board of Education, would concur in this opinion. How do you know, sir? I asked him. Therefore, henceforth, Mr. Laverne's studio will be considered out of bounds to Madison's personnel, and any teacher or pupil found on or near his premises will be ruthlessly dealt with. Is that clear, Miss Brooks? Yes, sir. Then I won't detain you from your lunch any longer, and please pass the word along to any teachers you meet in the cafeteria who have not already heard my edict. But aren't you coming in for lunch today, sir? With you in the same cafeteria, I wouldn't dare. Well, see you later then. Well, hello, Miss Brooks. Oh, hello, Mr. Boynton. I was hoping I'd run into you down here today. I wanted to treat you for lunch. Sort of celebrate the award I won. Well, Mr. Boynton, how thoughtful. Is that the lunch and the bundle you're carrying? And the bundle? Oh, no, no, Miss Brooks. That's some track pants for later. I intend giving my mother a photograph of myself by Laverne of Hollywood. That's why I'll need these track pants for my photograph. You're posing in just track pants? That's right. My mother always liked my athletic pictures at college, so I thought I'd pose for one like that now. I wanted to be a complete surprise. Don't we all? Well, aren't you taking an awful chance after Mr. Conklin's edict? Well, because Laverne's studio is out of bounds. I've thought about it, Miss Brooks, but since I'm already committed, I'll take my chances. When are you going down to have this photograph taken? I have an appointment with Laverne at four o'clock this afternoon. Four this afternoon? Yes. It's the only time he has opened for weeks. Some woman is supposed to come in to pick up her picture a little before that, and I'm supposed to follow this woman. I know. You were supposed to follow this woman for the past six years, but you sure picked a heck of a time to start. Miss Brooks, the only reason I came into your classroom was to explain what happened. The it's true, Laverne paid me 10%, but you see, I... Walter, it's a little late for explanations. By now, because of your recommendations, everyone in school is having his picture taken as a surprise gift for someone else. But worst of all, because of your galloping jaws, Mr. Conklin has declared Laverne out of bounds. Oh, I didn't mention him to Mr. Conklin. Laverne sent him a special calendar of his beautiful girls for Christmas, and Mr. Conklin tore it up. Are you certain? Of course I'm certain.  It figures. Well, perhaps I have misjudged you slightly, but my particular problem is to prevent Miss Enright from giving Mr. Boynton her picture. Well, I think I've got a way to eliminate Miss Enright. Quick, clean, and easy. Yeah, I thought of that, too, but she refuses to eat the cafeteria food. It's nothing like that, Miss Brooks, but I know she can't pay for her picture until the first of the month. And if you can convince Mr. Laverne that she's a bad credit risk when you pick up your picture, he may not give Miss Enright hers. Who's your study teacher, Lucretia Borgia? Say, that might work at that. Of course it will. Well, does that prove that your interests are uppermost in my mind, Miss Brooks? And that my plugs for Mr. Laverne were not only for personal gain, but also mere boyish enthusiasm. Walter, your boyish enthusiasm stopped when you traded your celluloid rattle to the baby next door for his gold teething ring. Later that afternoon, in spite of Mr. Conklin's edict, I was in Laverne's studio. When he showed me my portrait, I told him how happy I was with the result. Well, I'm delighted that you're pleased with my work, Miss Brooks, and I hope the others who are coming in this afternoon are equally satisfied. Uh, you're expecting Miss Enright, aren't you? Ah, yes. Do you know her? Mm-hmm. Oh, yes. Good old Skippy is a... Skippy? Oh, that's just a friendly little nickname that the loan company gave her. Ha, ha, ha. Good old Skippy. Always the first to skip a payment. She skips payments? Yes, but she's so wonderful. You know, she never has less than a half a dozen men chasing after her. Well, she must be quite popular. They're all from the collection agency. Oh. I think perhaps I'd better hold on to Miss Enright's picture until... Who's that? Oh, well, probably Mr. Boynton. He's also a teacher. Oh, I've got to get out of here. My picture is a surprise for him. He mustn't see me here. Quick, where can I hide? Where? Where can I hide? Oh, goodness. This is exciting. I feel just like we're being raided. Now, over there, Miss Brooks, that door leads to my dark room. You can stay there until I get rid of Mr. Boynton. That's it. Right through that door. Oh, Mr. Boynton, just in time, I see. Mr. Laverne, this picture you're taking of me is to be from my mother. And I'd like a relaxed, informal pose. Oh, nothing else but. Would you like one of those studious shots?  Oh, would you prefer to pose bare in a leopard skin? A leopard skin? Oh, you'd look just snazzy. Oh, no. No thanks, Mr. Laverne, what I want. Oh, goodness, that must be somebody else from the school. From the school? Oh, holy smoke, your place is out of bounds for us. Oh, I got to get out of here. Now, where can I hide? Where does that door lead to? The dark room, but I... Oh, hey, gosh, it's dark in here. Why, it'd be completely dark if it weren't for that dim purple light over the basin. Anybody got a slingshot? Oh, gosh, you startled me. What are you doing here? I just know that streetcar gag won't hold up. Well, you see, Mr. Barton, I was... Yeah, probably the same reason I'm here. Well, I think that's Mr. Conklin out there now, Miss Brooks. Undoubtedly checking up on us. Goodness knows how long we'll have to stay huddled together in this stuffy dark room, maybe half an hour. Or an hour, or two, or 12. Or maybe Mr. Laverne will forget about us and go on a vacation. We may be here quite a while. Well, I suppose we might as well do something while we're waiting for Mr. Conklin to leave. Yeah, we might as well, night and day. We might as well do that. We certainly might. What'd it be something for two people to do together in a dark room? Two guesses, and I can't stay puckered forever. I've got it. Of course. What did nothing of it before? The ideal thing. Yes, Mr. Barton? We'll develop some of Laverne's pictures for him. Bolton development, this is. Maybe I'd better take a peek outside and see what's going on. No, Mr. Boyne, let them lead their lives and we'll lead ours. Just one little peek. Miss Enright, if I let you have the picture, are you certain you can pay by the first of the month? Oh, absolutely. You may even get your money sooner. If Miss Brooks pays me the $300 she owes me. Miss Brooks owes you $300 skipping? Eh, Miss Enright? Yes, and I just hate to ask that poor bankrupt soul for the money. Just isn't like me to hit anyone when she's down. Not when you can kick her in the head instead. Heavens, Miss Enright. I had no idea, Miss Brooks was... Who's that? Probably someone from your school. Walter Denton has sent me a number. From the school? But this place is out of bounds. Oh, quick, where can I hide? Well, I'm having splendid success with the dark room. But, Miss Enright... Oh, my goodness, it's dark in here. Where's the light in this place? Oh! That's not a light switch you're turning, Miss Enright. That's my nose. Miss Brooks, what are you doing here? I was doing fine until you butted in. Hello, Miss Enright. Why, Mr. Boynton? Quiet. Quiet. I think I hear Mr. Conklin's voice. Mr. Conklin? Oh, if he finds me here, I'll be fired. Well, don't worry. There's a civil service exam for county dog catcher coming up. You and Bill... If we're all quiet for a minute, maybe I can take a look outside. No, no, Mr. Laverne. I look ridiculous posing in that leopard skin. But, Mr. Conklin, you said you wanted an unusual portrait of yourself, didn't you? Well, of course, but I prefer to pose in my own skin, if you don't mind. Very well, sir. Who's that? Who? Who? Who? Good grief, I must be seen in here. This place is out of bounds. Where can I hide? Where? Where? Where? Where does that door lead to? The fraternity room. There you go. Goodness, this door must be automatic. It opened up for me just as I approached it. I'm just lucky none of my faculty know I'm here because... Hello, Mr. Conklin. Hello, Miss Brooks. Have you ever heard about it? I could hardly bear to look any one of them. Hello, Mr. Conklin. Hello, Mr. Boyden, in the face. Besides, they'd have so much on me, I'd probably never live it down as long as it. Hello, Mr. Conklin. Hello, Miss Enright, as I remained at Madison. They'd hold it over me, do everything in their power to force me to do whatever they wanted. And there's nothing I could possibly... Hello, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boyden, Miss Enright! Then I haven't been talking to myself. No, but you soon will be. But what were all of you doing here? Just a moment, sir. I think I hear Mr. Stone's voice out there. Mr. Stone? What will I do? I'm ruined! What can I tell him if he finds me in here? We might tell him Mr. Laverne's hobby is collecting school teachers. Oh, that's the use. I couldn't stand the embarrassment of having Mr. Stone find me.  Oh, no, don't do it, sir. Mr. Stone! Good heaven! Holy catfish! Oh, I don't know. I think Mr. Stone looks cute in that leopard skin. Arthur Allsburg and Lou Derman with the music of Wilbur Hatch. Mr. Conklin was played by Gale Gordon. Others in tonight's cast were Jane Morgan, Dick Crenna, Bob Rockwell, and Whitfield, Mary Jane Croft, and Frank Nelson. Be sure to be...


Hi, I'm Daniel Weisberg, search advocate at Google. And I'm Hilal Ma'oz, engineering lead for Search Console. First of all, thanks for joining me today, Hilal. Thank you, Daniel. This is the very last episode of the Search Console training series. And we are going into the bits and bytes of the product. And who better than you to talk about it? Sure, Daniel. Always great to chat about what we do and how we do it. Today, we'll talk about what happens under the hood in Search Console. We'll focus on two areas. How Search Console actually works and how it fits into the search ecosystem and how we think about features and go about building them. Before we go into the nuts and bolts of Search Console, it's important to say it out loud what the team is trying to accomplish. Our mission is to provide data and tools to help site owners improve their websites and optimize their appearance on Google. The product extracts important relevant information from Google's Search Internal Systems, reports it to site owners, and enables them to improve their website performance on Google. Now, you may be asking yourself, what exactly is the search ecosystem? Daniel, can you take that one? Sure. First, there is the web where millions of websites publish content all the time, including you watching this video right now. Second, there is Google, which controls the web, finds content, and stores it in the Google index. It extracts all the relevant information from every page so that it can retrieve the best results for user queries on the Google Search results page. And third, there are search users looking for answers and navigating from search results to their desired web pages. Search Console is the main communication channel between Google Search and site owners, basically you. The tool provides information on how your site performs on search, and it provides technical information on potential issues Google found in your pages. From working together with the team from some time now, I know they're always monitoring Google internal systems and data sets for important website information. They're also tightly integrated with other Google Search teams to make sure Search Console is ready for new features. And of course, we keep our ears open to learn what are your needs. There are numerous reports and features on Search Console. We organize them into three main groups. The Search Analytics group displays all the relevant user activity data related to website performance in Google Search. The reporting group focuses on helping you track issues, debug, and validate fixes on specific pages or entire websites. The configuration group manages site and user configurations, as well as alert settings. Hilal, can you give us a little more information about each of those groups? Sure, Daniel. The Search Analytics group is the part of the team that works on retrieving and reporting data from our internal systems about users' clicks and impressions on search results. There are billions of search results every day. We process that information and store data for every site for a period of 16 months. This information is mainly surfaced through the performance reports, where you can slice and dice the data to learn more about patterns and anomalies in your Google Search Trust. The reporting group is the part of Search Console that surfaces how your pages are seen by Google Search. For example, is Google finding all your pages? Are there any errors that prevented Google from crawling your pages? Are there issues with your structured data implementation? Google crawls pages from millions of domains. It looks for hundreds of signals supporting dozens of search features, such as AMP, recipes, and FAQs. The information is available through actionable reports that help you debug, fix, and inform Google to start a validation process for pages you just fixed. We also offer testing tools to enable you to trigger the entire search stack for any given URL. For example, when you type a URL in Inspect URL, or the rich results test, we run a simulation of the Google Index and give you the information we find with high fidelity. This enables site owners to debug any URL on their site easily and effectively. Accounts is the group responsible for managing site and user configurations. Their primary goal is to help site owners verify their sites and get access to their accounts. And of course, to prevent anyone that is not site owner to see your Search Console information. This group also handles all the emails that you receive from Search Console. They do that for dozens of other types across all the different reports, making sure you never miss an important change or update. Well, now that we know how the Search Console team is organized, let's talk a little bit about how the team develops the reports and tools that you use. The process can be roughly divided into three main steps. I know it's the third time in this video that we've grouped something in threes. Coincidence? Maybe. The first step is to define what can help a page succeed on Search. We check that Google crawls the pages and gets all the content the site wants to share with us. Example, for topics such as mobile friendliness, core web vitals, or structured data, we define all the signals that can validate their implementation in every page. That leads us to the second step, which is to build a pipeline to go over all the pages in the index periodically and classify them against these signals. If we find that a page fails for a specific website, we collect all the relevant details, such as the reason the page couldn't be crawled or why we're unable to use its structured data. And finally, the third step is to build reports to share this information with you using the Search Console interface, which is where you can see this information for your site. For a complete picture, we publish dedicated documentation articles where users can learn about these new reports and better understand the information being displayed. Keep in mind that Google is always evolving, so new opportunities to shine on search arise frequently. Our job as a team is to keep up with these changes and build an effective way for you to leverage new and existing search features to the fullest. Daniel, before we forget, there's one last point to discuss before we part. The team is always looking for feedback from the search community.  If you have feedback, make sure to submit it through the product or mention us on Twitter. Thank you so much for joining us today, Elen. And thanks for all the work you and your team put into this. It's helping lots of websites to succeed on search. Hopefully now you will understand a bit more about how and why the Search Console team builds features in the product. If you like this video, make sure to check out the Search Console training series in our YouTube channel. You'll love it. Stay tuned. Oh, I just realized the holidays are coming. Are you doing anything, Daniel? No, not much, but I'll definitely take some time to rest a bit. This year was challenging to say the least. True. So let's take this opportunity to wish the SEO community a wonderful holiday season and a happy, peaceful and healthy New Year. Here's to a great 2021.


We begin with the praises of Allah SWT and the thanks to Allah SWT for allowing us to be here today on this special day of Juma, Alhamdulillah. I bear witness that there is no God except a God and that Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, is his last and final messenger. Brothers and sisters, in the few moments that we have today, inshallah, I would love to talk about this concept of success. Today, everyone is trying to sell us their version of success. Everyone is trying to tell us what success is and what success isn't. Everyone is trying to push their version of success on us, whether it be our professors at college or whether it be you two personalities, what have you. Everyone is trying to tell us that success is if you talk this way. Success is if you dress this way. Success is if you drive this car. Success is if you treat your women folk this way. However you have it, everyone is trying to tell us what success is. But as Muslims, brothers and sisters, we already have a definition of success. We just heard it. Hayyalal falaa, come to success, come to success. Allah SWT is telling us multiple times a day to come to success. We have our definition of success, Alhamdulillah. Allah SWT is telling us to come to success. SubhanAllah. And so we have to find out what is success, right? Allah SWT is calling us to success. What is it?  Hayyalal salaa, hayyalal falaa, success, come to prayer, come to success. So prayer is success, and that is true. Worshiping Allah SWT's success, doing the five daily prayers is success. But success is greater than that and broader than that for us brothers and sisters, and that's a beautiful thing. But in order to see it, we have to have our Akhira glasses on. We have to have the glasses of the next life on. We can't be looking through the lens of the dunya, we have to be looking through the lens of the Akhira in order to find this greater and broader success. When we start to look through the lens of the Akhira, everything can become success for us. So what is success? Again, we talked about how it is prayer. But success is anything that brings pleasure to Allah SWT. Success is anything that brings pleasure to Allah SWT. And so when we look with the Akhira glasses, everything can become the pleasure of Allah SWT. The pleasure of Allah SWT is in the smiles that come from our father and our mother. Success, the pleasure of Allah SWT is when we give a good word to someone. Success and the pleasure of Allah SWT is when we spend time with people and make people feel better. The Prophet SAW said in the authentic hadith, and this is the English translation, so please forgive me if the translation is a little off. But the translation of this hadith is the following. The Prophet SAW said that it is more beloved to me to walk with my brother in need than to spend time in Ithikaf in the masjid. What are we saying by this? What are we trying to highlight? What is the Prophet SAW trying to tell us? That even just spending time with somebody who needs our attention can bring about the pleasure of Allah SWT and therefore brings about true success. SubhanAllah. So may Allah SWT give us the Taufiq to have true success. And brothers and sisters, every single one of you didn't need to come here today. You don't have to be here at MCC East Bay in Pleasanton, California at 2.43 p.m. on Friday afternoon. You don't have to be here. You could still be at your work. I know today's a holiday, but you could still be at your work. You could still be at your desk, shipping your code, writing whatever article you need to write.   Why? Because you know this is true success. This is success, brothers and sisters. Being here right now, taking time away from our busy schedules to remember Allah SWT for a moment. This is true success. And unfortunately, people are looking for success in the wrong places. They're looking for success where success is not to be found. And it's driving them insane. It's driving them mad. They keep looking. They keep looking. They keep looking. My success is in my next job promotion. Success is in the next job promotion. Success is when I update my LinkedIn profile. Success is this. Success is this. And success is not to be found there. And so then they're driving themselves crazy. They become crazy. They become mad. They're like a hamster on a wheel just running, running, running, but not going anywhere. The hamster's not going anywhere. The hamster just gets tired. One of the famous psychologists, he had a definition of insanity. He said that insanity is, his definition of insanity was the following. He said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. And so people are doing the same thing over and over and over again expecting something different. Expecting some type of enlightenment. Expecting some type of fulfillment. But they're not getting it. This is insanity brothers and sisters, and I know we've shared these stories, these comparisons in a previous khutbah, but Alhamdulillah reminders are good, but our scholars tell us, they define the dunya in two ways and they're very profound. The first definition one of our sheikhs tells us is that the dunya is like salt water, it's like sea water. When you drink sea water, you get more thirsty. When you drink sea water, you get more thirsty. So the second you take a sip, you think you're fine, but you're only satiated for about a minute or so, and then you're more thirsty. The sodium makes you more thirsty. This is the analogy that they give for the dunya. Another analogy that our scholars give for the dunya is like, the dunya is our shadow, is like our shadow. If we go outside and stand in the sun right now and we see our shadow and we try to grab our shadow or interact with our shadow, we can't.  You can't reach it. Every time you try to interact with your shadow, it's not possible. It doesn't work.  SubhanAllah. When you walk, your shadow follows you. But when you try to interact with your shadow, it's always evading you. This is how the scholars describe the dunya. SubhanAllah. So brothers and sisters, we need to have our Akhira glasses on. We need to have the glasses of the next life on. And when we do this, then we understand what true success is. Then we can find the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in every little thing that we do. And when we find the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in every little thing that we do, that is true success. That is true success. Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for forgiveness, for verily he forgives all sins. All praise are due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Brothers and sisters, our religion is so beautiful and it's so easy. It's so beautiful and it's so easy. And we always try to make it so complicated and so hard. It's so beautiful and it's so easy. When we take a sip of water, when we take a bite of food, when we have a good interaction with a friend or a family member, all Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is asking from us is to say Alhamdulillah. All praise is due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.  You're rewarded for that sip of water that you had. You're rewarded for that bite of food that you had.  All you have to do is say Alhamdulillah. Just remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Look how simple and easy our religion is subhanallah. And when we do something wrong, when we do something wrong, when we mess up, because we're not perfect. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala could have made us angels, but he didn't make us angels. He made us human beings with all our flaws and all our problems. But what makes us better than the angels, brothers and sisters? What makes us better is the fact that we can understand that we make a mistake and we still turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and we ask him for forgiveness. So when we make a mistake and we mess up, all Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is asking us to do is to turn to him and do Toba. One of his blessed 99 names is Tawab, the one that turns back. When he turns to him, he turns to us in no anthropomorphic or physical way. But when we turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he turns to us. Subhanallah. Look how beautiful and simple and easy this religion is. It's really not that hard. It's very simple. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala asks us to provide for our families and take care of our families and to toil in the dunya, but not to forget him and to realize that success is truly from him.  But in the eyes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, what you did was huge today. Taking time out of your day to come here to sit and remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for a short moment. This is all Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is asking for us. This is all Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is asking of us. It's so simple and it's so easy and unfortunately we make it so confusing and so hard for people. But the Prophet ﷺ made the religion easy for people. He made the way of life of Islam easy. When the Prophet ﷺ was sent to the people of Makkah, when he was sent to Arabia, it was an age and a society where everyone was doing whatever they wanted to do. People were walking around at the Kaaba without any clothes on. People were burying their daughters. People were eating whatever they wanted to eat, doing whatever they wanted to do, treating people however they wanted to treat them. It was a society of just whatever. People were free in quotation marks. People were free. And then the Prophet ﷺ came and he put guardrails, the boundaries that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has set on us. And the whole society turned around and eventually it took time and it took energy, but the whole society turned around and accepted this religion. Why? But why would they do this when the previous life that they had was a life of freedom and doing whatever you want and saying whatever you want and being however you want? Because they realized and they understood that true freedom and true elevation was in the submission to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That true dignity was in the submission to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And brothers and sisters for us, we're going back to a society of that time where everybody wants to be whatever they want to be. People don't even know what they are anymore. You look at somebody, you can't even tell what they are. But we understand that true submission and true success, is in the submission to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us Taufiq. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us realize and understand how easy this religion is so that we can turn back to him, continuously turn back to him, to turn back to Tawab, the one who turns back to us. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give us Taufiq. Let's raise our hands in prayer. Our Lord in this world is better than we are in the hereafter. Better than we are the believers of the punishment of the Fire. O our Lord, forgive us, forgive our sins, O our Lord, grant us mercy and mercy. We give you the God, we seek forgiveness from Allah. We ask you, Jannah, I will return you from the Fire. Allahumma innaka afoon tuhibbu Al-Afuaf, afoon na ya kareem. Allahumma innaka afoon tuhibbu Al-Afuaf, afoon na ya kareem. Allahumma innaka afoon tuhibbu Al-Afuaf, afoon na ya kareem. Ya Allah, we turn to you in this moment right now. Ya Allah, we turn to you. We turn to you and we ask you for your forgiveness and we ask you for your khid and your lutf and your afya. Ya Allah, we ask you to be gentle with us. Ya Allah, we ask you to allow us to worship you in an easy and gentle way and to give us Taufiq to worship you. Ya Allah, we ask you, Ya Allah, to put barakah and our marriages, to put barakah in our families to take care of our youth, to elevate our community. Ya Allah, we ask you to be gentle with all of us.