Hi, my name is Rachel Black with the Asset-Building Program at the New America Foundation, and joining me is Matt Unreth from Wider Opportunities for Women. We have just concluded an event that we called Poverty, Inequality, Mobility, Oh My, and we are asking our panelists, including Matt, how are people really doing since the Great Recession, and you have produced a way of evaluating that. Tell us about BEST and how people are doing according to that metric. Sure. Wider Opportunities for Women has, for over 10 years now, tried to produce a budget standard that provides a sense of how families are doing against a normative understanding of what need is. We look at the true costs of basic expenses for people who are in the workforce and their families. We've produced a new measure called the Basic Economic Security Tables, which looks at the cost of basic expenses plus the cost of saving for retirement emergencies for over 420 different family types across the country, as well as looking at the value of employment-based benefits for those families as well. We produce about 800 tables or over 800 tables for every county and every state in the country, looking at what are the true costs, again, the basic expenses that families face, and then deducing from those costs, what are the incomes that families need to earn to cover all of those basic expenses, and again, put a little bit of money away for emergencies in retirement, and meeting that, that income need we label as economic security. And Matt, how is this different from poverty and how it is what you're considering, both in terms of income and expenses, differ from the threshold that Census uses? Sure. So the Census threshold is a relatively archaic measure. It's about 45 years old. It's a judgmental estimate. Exactly, yeah. And they look at the cost of a food budget, a basic low-cost food budget, and they multiply that value by three, and that's the income level that they define as poverty. Is that as arbitrary as it sounds? It's as arbitrary as it sounds to a degree. In the 1960s, the food budget did constitute something close to a third of a family's budget, but that's no longer the case. And our best actually points to that. The best points to housing, transportation, and child care, which didn't actually make up that much of a budget about 50 years ago, now make up a large majority of a family's budget. But we're measuring something different than poverty. We're measuring economic security.  So poverty and deprivation is one thing, and should be measured and understood. Economic security is something else. So I understand that WOW has just come out with a new report that looks at different demographic groups through the lens of the best tables. What are some of the key findings from that report? Sure. So when you produce a measure of income need and you're trying to label economic security as the question needs to be answered, how many people actually reach that level? So for a single worker in the United States, it costs about $30,000 a year to make ends meet for a family of four. It's close to $70,000. And again, we're measuring a pretty baseline understanding of what need is, so a pretty bare-bones budget. So based on those income thresholds, we compared those to 2009 census data and found that of all the families that have a respective best table that go along with their family makeup, 45% of all Americans lack economic security as we define it. The problem is, of course, as it usually is, much worse for women and people of color. For example, Hispanic single mothers, 91% of them lack economic security. So it's pretty stark data. It presents a significant challenge for us in terms of our policy responses. Well, let's go with that. You have helped paint a very stark picture about the scale of the problem. Help us understand the scale of the policy response that's going to be required to help move that needle. Sure. So as I said, nearly half of the country lacks economic security as we define it. So we're talking about a much different population than those who might fall below the federal poverty level. So increased funding for social services that are only targeted towards people who earn less than, say, $10,000 a year are not going to help all of those families who are just scraping by, just getting by paycheck to paycheck and are one financial problem away from catastrophe. Those programs aren't going to help them become more economically secure. So we need to think outside of the context of, again, basic social services and look at policies and programs that are going to help people deal with their biggest expenses. So being creative and thinking about radically expanding transportation infrastructure that people can get to work via public transportation and not can avoid the high cost of owning a car. Family friendly workplace policies are extremely important so that people actually have the flexibility to work in a job that might be different hours but might pay higher wages. And then we really need to look at making asset building programs more progressive so that they're targeted towards low income families that really have difficulty saving for emergencies in retirement because the costs of housing and transportation and childcare are so high. That's great. And you do have a couple of line items in the best index, both for precautionary savings as well as retirement and other forms. Given the constraints that you outline and the rest of the best, how do you expect that families are going to be able to dedicate part of their limited resources towards non-immediate needs? Right. It's a lot to ask for when a family really is having trouble just paying their bills. It's difficult to think of how they might be able to adequately save for retirement, which could be 34 years away. And it's a large question with not a simple answer. I think that there's certainly a large part of the federal budget that's devoted to asset building. Again, that's more towards those in the upper end of the income spectrum. But creating, for example, universal child savings accounts so that families can start thinking about how to help their child get into post-secondary education, which is increasingly more important for later job prospects, or helping low-income families gain bank accounts or retirement accounts and have that be a part of their thinking in their budget. Because in the best, savings and asset building represent only 3% to 6% of a family budget. So it's a relatively modest amount compared to these other expenses. It's something that doesn't seem like an enormous task when looking at just the breakdown of family expenses. Again, it's really hard to think about saving for retirement when you can't pay your rent. But if we can structure policies and programs that might incentivize families to start thinking about that as an important economic security strategy, that can go a long way. And that's really helpful to say that in our own work we see that really having access to the same accounts and incentives that are available to people higher up on the income scale really become core determinants of whether or not people lower on the income scale can save too. So it really is about targeted policy, not whether or not low-income families can save because we know that they can. They can, exactly. They just have to have the vehicles and policies in place and the incomes to be able to do it. So even within the asset building field, we still need to emphasize the importance of good jobs and having people have access to incomes that can support a family and allow for asset building as well. Matt, where can we go to find out more information about the best? Our website, www.wowonline.org. If you look up the Family Economic Security Program or our Basic Economic Security Tables Initiative, you can find our report, which is available nationally as well as for the eight states that we've released the best for so far. And we just released, again, our demographic analyses. That's also available on our website. Great. Thank you. And for a catalog of policy ideas that span the range of short-term savings policies and programs to those for retirement and longer-term purposes, you can check out the asset buildings program, asset agenda 2011, which you can find on our website, which is assets.newamerica.net. Thank you.


Item Number- SCP-054 Object Class-Safe Special Containment Procedures- Subject is held in a watertight isolation room, outfitted with specialized climate control equipment. An ornate fountain filled with water stands in the center of the enclosure. Maintenance personnel are required to wear NBC suits while inside the containment area and must spend 10 minutes in a special drying room after exiting. In the event of a breach, a surrounding area should be evacuated, and the enclosure flushed with liquid nitrogen. The fountain's chemical levels and volume are to be monitored and maintained. Spring water from water should be used as SCP-054 is highly sensitive to hydrological conditions. SCP-054 has developed a mistrust for human males during its confinement. Thus, assignment of female personnel is recommended. Description Out of the water, the subject most often appears as a female humanoid, with a mean volume of 90 liters, comprised entirely of water. Other forms are possible, commonly geometric shapes. When it enters a body of water, it becomes indistinguishable from its surroundings. The subject must periodically return to a body of water in order to maintain its volume due to evaporation. Initially found, it was moved to Site-08 for further study. Subject was initially curious about Foundation personnel, and seemed to enjoy interacting with maintenance staff and researchers, and mimicking their forms. After a number of weeks, the creature apparently felt comfortable enough to remain out of the water during routine monitoring, though it retreated when attempts were made to study its composition. SCP-054 is apparently composed of normal water, with no detectable differences compared to ordinary spring water from the same source. No thermal, electromagnetic, biological, or other phenomenon has ever been detected in its body that would suggest how it animates. Water lost by SCP-054 to evaporation exhibits no special properties when condensed. Experiments with SCP-054 were halted following data expunged to researchers injured. After this incident, containment protocols were updated. Subject thereafter exhibited signs of mistrust and aggression around male personnel, which made up the majority of the original research staff. Subject reclassified Euclid. Partial transcripts, Audio Journal 054-A Water loss experiment. Subject becomes withdrawn and inactive when denied access to water. Its compact shape is theorized to reduce surface area exposed to evaporation. For the first few days, it moved eagerly to greet anyone entering its enclosure and behaved excitably. Possibly indicates an understanding by the subject that we control its access to water supplies. Subject ceased this behavior yesterday, presumably in recognition that no help was forthcoming. Temperature extremes testing. We got authorization to attempt subzero testing this morning. The subject became lethargic as the temperature fell and eventually froze completely. Spectroscopy of the ice crystal revealed no abnormalities. Ice chips were collected for study. This is in stark contrast to its behavior in the 95-degree tests when it became aggressive and attempted to escape its enclosure. We've submitted a work order to combine the climate control equipment with the subject's standard enclosure as it has begun to resist efforts to transport it to experimental chambers with increasingly desperate behavior. Memory and Conditioning Evaluation Subject has proven unexpectedly adept at navigating complex mazes and solving puzzles. Dr. Seskel has finally overcome the problem of motivating the subject by the application of electrical shocks and or silica desiccants. He joked that we should have trained a fetch in no time, and after observing his methods, I think he might be right. Note, subject to be allowed a 48-hour recuperation period, it seemed to be lacking in its progress at the end of the week's experiments. Acid base incorporation experiment. Last log entry. I am starting with a 0.5-mol hydrogen chloride solution. I have no idea what will happen, but if this thing incorporates homeostatic mechanisms like I suspect, then we should get some insight into how it maintains its form. Temperature in the enclosure has been lowered to 278 Kelvin to help control 54's increasingly erratic behavior. Addendum 054B After five years with no incidents, subject rating has been downgraded to safe on recommendation of Dr. W... Experiments will resume under the auspices of Biology Unit E7. Caution should still be exercised when interacting with subject. Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-053, Young Girl, right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


Hello everyone. Welcome back to our channel IndianRadiologists.com. Today I am here with an interesting case that I would like to discuss with you. I recently had the opportunity to present this case at the 2022 annual conference of the North American Society of Cardiovascular Imaging last month. A 32-year-old female presented to the emergency department with acute onset dyspnea and productive cuff. Her vitals included a rapid heart rate and respiratory rate with a pulse oximetry of 85%. She was started on BIPAP and electively intubated to help with the work of breathing. Her recent past history included outpatient treatment with prednisone for known seropositive rheumatoid arthritis. She also had known asthma and remote sinus surgery. Her rheumatoid arthritis was initially diagnosed in 2012 with a strong positive anti-CCP and negative rheumatoid factor. She had a sinus surgery in 2016, was diagnosed with asthma in 2018 and was being treated with steroids and long-acting beta-agonist inhaler. She also had an episode of angioedema in 2020. Recently, she suffered from an on-and-off productive cuff resolving with antibiotics but recurring. Her family history was unremarkable. On the current presentation, serial chest radiographs revealed fleeting opacities that rapidly progressed within a duration of five days.  These findings can be characteristically seen in cryptogenic organising pneumonia or eosinophilic pneumonia. They can be commonly due to ARDS or bacterial pneumonia. They can also be seen with the broad differential of pneumocystis gerulisinimonia, edema, hemorrhage and pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. CT of the maxillary sinuses showed maxillary sinusitis. Patient was referred for a cardiac workup due to mildly reduced function on echocardiography. CT angiography was performed and showed normal coronaries. Right-heart catheterisation had normal findings. Patient was then referred for a cardiac MR. The cardiac MR was performed on a 1.5 tesla system. Cine cardiac MR showed global hypokinases with superimposed regional dyskinesis of the left ventricle and a mild mitral regurgitation. A native T1 map showing elevated native T1 values in the septum and the lateral wall. Late gadolinium enhancement cardiac MR showed extensive subendocardial and focal near transmural enhancement in the LV as well as the RV and the papillary muscles with the relative sparing of the apical segments. Blood work showed absolute eosinophilia. Rheumatology tests revealed the negative status for C-enka, P-enka and atypical enka. Infectious etiology workup was negative. Fish was negative for all these myeloproliferative diseases. Bronchoscopy and broncoalvular lavage had eosinophils for which the patient was started on steroids and anti-mass cell antibodies. Repeat bronchoscopy and endobronchial biopsies after intubation revealed necrotising eosinophilic pneumonia, a finding that is highly atypical for classic eosinophilic pneumonia or allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis. Endomyocardial biopsy from the RV free wall was negative for eosinophils. A note regarding endomyocardial biopsy, it is known that the yield is generally low for this indication often cited around 25%, which may increase to about 50% with voltage guidance. Voltage guided biopsy was discussed in the station but not pursued because the biopsy of the RV free wall carries a risk of perforation. Later, patient developed pulmonary thromboembolism in the right low bar segmental and subsegmental pulmonary arteries, as well as multiple bilateral lower extremity deep venous thrombosis. A constellation of all these symptoms were most concerning for hyper eosinophilic syndrome versus Anka negative eosinophilic granulometasis with polyangitis. The patient was started on high-dose steroids, empiric antibiotics and one dose of interleukin-5 inhibitor. Following this treatment five days later, a follow-up CT scan showed improvement in the ground glass opacities. Coming to the discussion, patients with hyper eosinophilia raises the possibility of following etiologies. It could be an idiopathic hyper eosinophilic syndrome or related to primary hyper eosinophilic syndrome, such as myeloproliferative disorders or T lymphocyte variants. Secondary hyper eosinophilic syndrome related to medications or parasites. Eosinophilic granulometasis with polyangitis or vasculitis and hyper eosinophilic syndrome of undetermined significance. In this scientific study, it was seen that patients with eosinophilic granulometasis and polyangitis had a history of asthma and fewer of these patients presented with arrhythmia than those with hypersensitivity. This pie chart shows the overall prevalence of eosinophilic granulometasis with polyangitis in patients with eosinophilic myocarditis as well as their prognosis in relation to freedom from death, hypertension and arrhythmia. To establish a diagnosis of eosinophilic granulometasis with polyangitis, the 1990 American College of Radiology criteria requires a positive biopsy for vasculitis and at least four of the six criteria below. In the prodomic allergic phase, asthma and rhinocenositis, eosinophilic phase, blood eosinophilia and tissue eosinophilia and a vasculitis phase that would show mono or polyneuropathy and migratory or transient pulmonary infiltrates. A previously published Lanham criteria roughly around 1984 required all the three features including asthma, peak peripheral eosinophilia more than 1500 and systemic vasculitis involving two or more extra pulmonary organs. With regards to the cardiac involvement, it is known that Anka-negative patients has a higher rate of cardiac involvement than the Anka-positive patients and the endomyocardial biopsies typically reveal eosinophilic infiltration and endomyocarditis but not vasculitis. The pathogenesis and pathophysiology of eosinophilic granulometasis with polyangitis is incompletely understood and is complex with an interplay of TH1 and TH2 activity. Asthma medications are known to enmask eosinophilic granulometasis with polyangitis and its manifestations. This is a great pictorial that explains the differences in organ involvement between Anka-positive and Anka-negative subtypes. Patients with Anka-negative status having a more of a cardiopulmonary involvement. The scientific paper shows that patients with EGPA have an Anka-negative status and would have a cardiomyopathy. Then the scientific paper shows that on cardiac MR, eosinophilic granulometasis with polyangitis has mostly a subendocardial diffused late gadolinium enhancement pattern and as we saw in our example apical sparing. The publication shows that the presence of cardiomyopathy is a poor prognostic indicator and a predictor of death in these patients in a univariable and a multivariable analysis. Coming to interval developments, our patient was presented at the multidisciplinary conference and after discussion between rheumatology, hematology and infectious diseases, a decision was taken to initiate cyclophosphamide. This treatment led to gradually improving symptoms and patient has been feeling well without any cardiac symptoms. A recent PET CT that was obtained 6 months post-treatment had no evidence of cardiac inflammation. To summarize in patients with eosinophilic granulometasis with polyangitis, asthma, rhinocinositis and peripheral eosinophilia can precede cardiac involvement by many years. Myocardial involvement is more likely to be noted in Anka-negative patients and cardiac MR have characteristic imaging features with a diffuse subendocardial late-catalanium enhancement with apical sparing that would help to completely avoid endomyocardial biopsies which have a particular low yield in this indication. These are some of the resources for further reading. Thank you so much for your attention.


Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Andreas, for the nice introduction. Thanks to all of you for attending this very early morning session. I was in consideration of the great variety of ails that this city offers. It's really appreciated. Yesterday have been said already, flowers are nice, but I don't really see my slides. So what we do at the Institute for Information Law that is so relevant for our project. In the first presentation, Nils very effectively identified what the problems are in connection with the use and reuse, especially of data. I have under this point of view a much nicer task. The one to tell you that there is still hope. We can overcome many of the legal hurdles that copyright and especially the sweet generous right in the case of databases imposes on the use and reuse of data. So we have seen that we have a variety of IP rights that could impede us as researchers or as practitioners to use the information that is available. This great variety, as said, can be based on many different IP rights. We are focusing mostly on two of them, copyright and even more on the sweet generous right, as said. We have a problem. Can we know beforehand if we can reuse those data? Because that's the point, right? I mean, we, as Andreas introduced at the beginning, what would be nice is to achieve a structure where we know beforehand, not a structure where the technical part does the job and then the lawyers arrive and says, sorry, you can't do that. You just wasted the last six months and that's not because you're bad, the loss that's willing or not give conditions to our use of data. Nils clarified how speculative can be in certain situations to establish beforehand whether a given type of use of data is allowed or not, since the exceptions and limitation to the sweet generous right are very narrow. If we take the directive, we can see that there are only just a handful of them and none of it, none of them is actually mandatory. So it's up to the national states to decide whether to implement them and if he has to which extent. And we have seen a couple of examples of how Germany and the UK implement those type of exceptions. We see that they are very narrow and hardly they can offer as a framework that allows reuse without any type of concerns. Is there a solution? Yes, it's not the solution to all of our problems. It's not the ultimate great definitive one, but it's something that probably allows us to do the job. There are call licenses which are we can define for our purposes as authorizations, usually in the form of contractual agreements that the right holder gives to a specific or an indeterminate amount of people to do certain activities with protected material. Of course, it would be much easier if the exceptions that were mentioned were, for example, mandatory in the whole European Union and were much more harmonized or even better uniformized in a way that there wouldn't be different treatment depending on the European country where we are. But this is another story. It's very long. There are a lot of effort to moving into this direction, but there are also a lot of hurdles to get there because of course the interests that stake are many. So let's remain on the topic of that we believe can offer as a good solution for the time being, again, licenses. Why they are so good? Well, basically because they allow us to do what we want. Probably most of you are familiar with the usual licenses employed in software development called Free Libre Opens of Software. So if you use any Linux-based solution, Apache-based web servers or any other development tool that usually is identified with being Free or Opens of Software, you are using 80% of the cases a license called general public license developed by the GNU project. This license allows you to reuse the software to modify it and to redistribute it. That's why, differently from other development tools, you don't have to acquire licenses paying royalties for them, so thanks to a license. So the licenses can allow us to do basically what we want. The legal system grants to the right holder a very strong amount and numerous amount of rights. And building on that, the license says, well, since you have all these rights, you are also in the position to license them to grant people the authorization, the permission to use and reuse your software, your data, your literature under the following conditions. That's the pros, what's the cons? Well, do we know what we want? Not always, it's very hard. There are technical and also legal problems connected with that. As in any technical field, what a person that develops the software or application or database infrastructure know about his needs and how to translate these needs into legal terms. So taking care of a whole bunch of different rules that might apply or not is a completely different type of analysis. That's why very successful are a type of licenses called standard form contract or standard form licenses. So licenses that are basically pre-packed, they are prepared. You don't have to write yourself your own agreement, but you can use somebody else's licenses that are already prepared. They should be written down in very sound and robust manner under, of course, a legal point of view. You don't have to waste your time in negotiating these licenses. Often, especially among departments, you have to negotiate the conditions at which a given software or a given cell line or some biological material can be sent to another laboratory for what type of uses. This type of transaction costs sometimes are, in terms of negotiations, in terms of money, are very high. They can take up a month before the agreement is achieved. And this, of course, again stops innovation research because it requires time and money and legal competencies. So standard form contracts are a solution to that. Again, the GPL, Creative Commons licenses, open database license, all these licenses that you can identify by name, they are standard form licenses. They are some sort of defective standard that people use. There is some trust created around them by the use of basically all of us. And they offer different type of advantages, especially to that they have identified in the second point are enforceability. They are framed in a way that given any legal system, they have a very high degree of enforceability, meaning they work in this legal system. In open air, we are not sure exactly how many countries, but I would say around 30, with 30 different legal systems. Are we sure that specific data released with one specific license operates in Germany, as well as operates in Sweden or France or Portugal? That's another issue that we have to consider. But thanks to this type of licenses, this aspect is also addressed. And also, of course, compatibility. If you combine different type of data, another thing that you want to achieve is compatibility between the licenses. The examples that I'm bringing here is, well, three types, but we will see them of Creative Commons licenses. The reason why I'm using them as an example is mainly because the fact that they are very widely used. There are, of course, others that for mainly time reasons, we cannot address it here, but they are part of our legal analysis. Creative Commons especially have, in my opinion, this type of advantages over other type of licenses. On the first place, of course, they are standard form contracts. They are created through an open and participative process. So if you participate to, for example, the mailing list or the legal task forces, you can actually contribute to develop the legal structure of the license in a way that is very similar to how free software is developed. The idea behind it is that, of course, the more people working on that document make it possible to identify every possible legal bug and fix it. They are also customizable to some extent. So using Creative Commons, you can decide whether or not to, for example, use, well, attribution is given in any case, but share alike. So if you allow the use of your data, in this case, the condition that they reuse needs to be distributed under the same terms. So similar to what the concept of copy left would be in the field of software. You can use non-derivative condition or non-commercial. And you can choose to insert or not disclose this. And they are expressed in three languages. It's debatable whether this is advantage or not, but they are expressed in legal terms. So they're real document in human terms. I don't really agree with this terminology because it suggests that we lawyers are not humans, and I can grant you that we are. But the human language would represent a very short summary of what you're allowed to do and what you're not. And then another one that is usually called the machine language, which is basically metadata information attached to the work that determines how this dataset or any other work is to be distributed under the license point of view. I'm almost about to conclude. The three licenses that I want to point out just briefly are the Creative Commons public license where we can attach or not the conditions that we have seen before. So attribution, share alike, non-derivative, non-commercial. The version three, which is the one currently in use. Version four, which is the one that should be released very soon. And the CC zero and show you how these licenses deal with the sui generis right. Basically, the CC is 3.0 in the unported version, meaning the international one says nothing about the sui generis right, which means that in this case, this right is still reserved to the right holder. What does it mean? It means that even if you have a repository of works or of data released under a Creative Commons 3.0 unported license, this does not mean that you can, for example, datamind that repository because the sui generis right has not been licensed. In the 4.0 to overcome this problem, the sui generis right that we have identified in the previous presentation is included in the scope of the license, meaning that if you choose to employ a condition like pure attribution, which is the most liberal, also the sui generis right is licensed under this pure attribution condition. If you choose share alike, also the sui generis right is released under this condition, the fact that it needs to be share alike. So if you redistribute it under the same terms of the original license. And finally, the CC zero, which is a general waiver of all the possible rights that attach to a work or a data set. In this case, you basically waive the right holder. This is another issue that we cannot address today, but it's another important aspect. You need to be the right holder, which usually doesn't correspond or not necessarily with the author. But anyway, the right holder waives every possible right. And in this case, we would have a situation that in the field of software is more similar to what a BSD license would allow you. So free reuse under almost no condition. I have a couple of more slides just outlining the specific wording of these different licenses. I don't think we have to go that much into detail, but of course license, the slides are available. So you can take a better look at them and see how specific words wording changes and how this reflects the reflexes into the licensing or not of the sui generis right. And of course, if you have any type of question, request, et cetera, you can ask your legal partners. As I say, as Andreas introduced at the beginning, believe it or not, at least our commitment in this specific project is real research. And this means that we have to implement our results, our structure within the project, because this is the only way to create a workflow that reduces to a minimum the risk connected with copyright or sui generis right infringement. If we create a structure and after that, we figure out that, oh, well, we should have paid more attention to this issue that creates a lot of overhead, a lot of cost, a lot of implementation of solution that could have been implemented since the very beginning. So writers, emails, offer us a beer and talk and we will try to address hopefully all or some of the issues connected. Been a bit long, but thank you very much for your attention.


Do you ever wake up and just go, huh? It's today Today is today. It's good. Good. It's good day. It's gonna be a good day. It's already a good day Look at the sun shining. I thought I was gonna be raining washed my truck last night And I was all sad because I'm like, oh, I'm gonna drive into the rain in the morning so far so good But let's not speak too soon. We got to go that way into Canada or in Fargo, North Dakota starting our day We're going home just a couple more hours Go straight up north on Interstate 29, which will turn into Manitoba Highway 75 in Canada Drop this empty trailer off at work and head to the shop. Should be home for supper I was up pretty late yesterday came here late at night. I got here at like 1 30 in the morning. I think I Went and had a shower. I Edited my video off this way see we can get out of this lot Feels good driving a nice clean truck in the sunshine I was looking at the forecast yesterday, and it looked like it was supposed to be thunder storming today But maybe it passed over at night I can tell that my hood is a little dirty with dust Which means it probably rained during the night because it was perfectly clean when I went to bed. Well, that's okay We'll fix it at the shop. I want to go home No load behind us Just a whole load of sailboat fuel and motorcycle doors Oh, where did you come from sneaky sneaky? I'll allow it. Oh now you Okay, okay, I'll allow it one more. I'll allow it I'm a good guy. Okay. Remember that Could have cut you off. I had the power.   Oh Boy took her pretty wide there. You see that it gets weird when it gets in our right This is the oldest settlement in North Dakota That's right up here at the Canadian found that that truck road very rough though it rode like a tank Not a very smooth ride. I'm not sure if it was just the truck model or all Western stars ride like that Yeah, very stiff suspension very You go further back the back I say For the bet how about that? Let's try that Was that too far? But that also I can hear myself think And because fuel prices are very expensive right now and When there's nothing on that deck There's nothing being paid But that's okay. I Chose to come back empty cuz I wanted to be at home for the weekend And it wasn't that bad just down the road pretty much Still pretty clean. I must say not bad Not bad the blue beacon always does a good job in Fargo Better than I ever do I can never get it as clean I don't know why I have all the tools and all the stuff But I have to sit there and scrub it by hand if I wanted to be so clean and they just have like six guys With a bunch of water and chemicals and suddenly Clean, you know, I got to sit here and sponge bath it if whatever you get it Probably sponge bath. Anyways, that's the only way I can get a clean. It's nice scrub down. Yeah, everyone deserves a good bath But I'm going home now It's been a good trip. I want to have my weekend Not bad pretty straight not quite straight yet very close though Every time like I'm gonna put lines on the floor or like tape or something I'm gonna put something on the floor so I can back in easier straight because you have no idea how many times I have to back This thing in I'm too crooked this way. Oh, I went too far this way and Finally I get it straight. I Know I'm just complaining. I should just go home. I just stopped compiling that


Going on everyone Sam here with late in sports carjament four boxes for Tom C. Got one 23 definitive one 23 flawless collegiate football One 22 23 top two way for champions league museum and one 23 bowman draft super jumbo Good luck here Tom start with super jumbo again. No paper. We'll ship out of this time 14th game with 30 this season Chef clearly says yeah Jumbo Diaz right there. It does 24 until this Now it doesn't say jumbo Diaz anymore Not not for 300 seconds. It won't say jumbo Diaz. Let me see bud. All right jumbo Can play him Spencer on that one Sorry jumbo Was it wasn't your night tonight Wyatt Langford and a true blue first of Jace Barofin on the base to 150. We missed jumbo Not by me so much, but you will be missed It's an office quote right there. I Like the delay too. He wasn't talking Yeah, it's like Erica Jake DeLeo he got it by by committee Yeah, by a proxy. He got it this time Christian opera Andrew Walters just retoring Bryce Eldridge Seth Keener to 499 first refractor Otto for the White Sox nice one there Tom Grats buddy Joe Jones and Bryce Eldridge all skeins on the glass Yellow Lunar Crater 75 Ariel Castro for the twins gradient paper to 199 chase Jaworski Dylan had Kevin Sim Luke Schlage Lucas Gordon. It's Clemmie first base auto CJ Caifus Going to the guards Rhett Lauda all skeins and Lunar Glow first Joe Redfield rock Rizio to 499 Soto person Waldrip Juanita Mitchell Rio's spow you who not first base auto for the Giants This one there I got this James wood Really got a jumbo five this time though. It's true. I only got a jumbo five jumbo 300 Yeah, Charlie Soto to 199 Joe Whitman first for the Giants Shears their house Gabe Gonzalez Quinn McDaniel Jayce young Mercedes Max Anderson first base auto for the Tigers Nice one there Tom Wood and Colt Emerson Colt Emerson And here's your link again to 10 bucks And box basketball We'll rip it it fills for sure. No problem at all on that Well Super jumbo Diaz What's up, like the super jumbo Diaz? Yeah Not bad. Take it purple Tommy Troy 250. That's one there Tom for the D-vax Scorn out not good. Wow to a little 499 Brian Acuna for the twins Baby Acuna I Confirmant like the L2 She's Paul Skeens first the neck of our life double up the same time Miller Adrian Santana by itself Well carry Cam Collier CJ K this Roger Arias noble mired 499 or the Marlitz Congrats on that Miami face and Skeens face All right, so I'm gonna get on to your next one in just a sec here Made another like two bets.  What are we doing? On Celtics. All right, Tom. Let's do your flawless collegiate Hey, thanks Chris picking up a couple of personal's appreciate you buddy. Mr. Chris see flawless collegiate hobby for mr. Tom True, but they couldn't win tonight and at least win me a dollar. I would have been cool Would have been a lot cooler if they did what happened staff man. He's sweet. I get It's pretty sweet right there. Okay. Okay I'm in Starting off we've got a Derek Hall that is at 20 of 25 or Auburn two-color two-color We've got two of 25 Caleb Williams Nice one there. I didn't know he was in this. I was could I was convinced this guy was did not sign Convince 5 of 25 Jackson Smith and jigba. Nice one there Cuz I honestly with all the boxes this I've opened I've not seen him once so nice That's on a JSN now can confirm he's in this personally Cedric Tillman that is RPA 3 of 25 Two-color for the Tennessee volunteers and the Cleveland Browns nice one there Tom Cool one coming up here to two of 20 that is gonna be a Rashad Bateman from 2021 flawless collegiate My guy say Raven legend actually playing very well this year Rashad Bateman 12 of 25 Rishi Rice two-colored RPA or the chiefs in the SMU Mustangs SM at you mustangs Rishi rice and then seven to ten Doug Flutie nice one there Boston College played a couple of different places Collegiate stud Doug Flutie campus legend. Yeah, as it would say it's very true Absolute campus legend. All right, Tom. We've got Joe Montana to a five for Notre Dame They're first in case Best as a bill of course shade even say that. Mm-hmm. That's sick dude two or five John L. Way, so we have two Emeralds to five one Montana one L. Way very nice not as good as you could ask for two gem carbacks But as good as you can get for two gems Oh And then really nice one here how about ten of ten Jersey number both pro and collegiate Justin Herbert Hey brats on that Tom Let's play a war in two. That's far. We'll take that Well, we will absolutely take that herby. Well, herby action. God. He's got such a nice signature, man Yeah, I really do love herby signature. Shout out Justin Herbert for his signature. Mm-hmm. I Think never moves. Nope You know, it's a herby when it's a herby Very nice congrats on that Tom Well, we've got empty case didn't sound great. Yeah You a for museum 2223 tops you a for champions league museum collection museum collection What's up already on to the next You bet this one or no 6am or something. God. It's insane dude Sonali lampard Rafina and a 75 Antoine Griezmann Or at let it go Yeah, let it go 250 Warren Zire Emery that is going to be at 350 rookie reverence for PSG John H with a bowman mega. Thank you, John Appreciate your buddy Very nice. We got Mason Mount that is going to be at 16 of 99 for Chelsea Mason Mount Jersey Auto player Warren memorabilia 16 of 99 and then at 176 out of 250 is Roger E match use memorabilia for man city Very nice and then of course 123 definitive Let's do it Tom See something nasty out of this. All right. That is going to be at Jeremy Pena for a 40 Jersey for the Stroh's very nice very nice Yeah, I ate a 15 at you Darvish three colored patch Grats on that one you at Davish again. That was just took off the top thingy Uh 27 of 50 Matt Olson Jersey Auto For the Braves Yes, sir Yes, it is that is one of 25 Anthony Volpe Crats on that one Tom very nice on the rookie auto for the eggs. Yeah, there you go. That's my boy three of 40 My guy, mr. Craig B. Gia Jersey are Craig at B. Gia nice one here is gonna be a Francisco Alvarez defining rookie patch autograph card for the Mets on the redemption that'll play Take that all day for sure show for show nasty patch on this one That is gonna be nine of ten Freddy Freeman Know what this is something stuck to the frame. I got it off. There we go Nine of ten Freddy Freeman, that's nasty Grats on that one Tom This is dope dude. How about a triple auto? Dale Murphy Chipper Jones round of the Cunha junior. That's kind of insane man. Congrats on that one Tom fire Three Atlanta legends so sick man Yeah, Freddie signs clean. Yeah, he does. He always does Grats on that one Tom. That's gonna do it for your personal Tom Thank you as always for the support buddy who appreciated my man. We'll get him right out to you


7 activities for teaching the present perfect for the ESL classroom. Teaching new tenses to students of a foreign language is often not as easy as you might anticipate, especially when the tense you are trying to teach them does not exist in their native language. The following 7 activities for teaching the present perfect for the ESL classroom will help your students pick up the tense in no time. 1. Great accomplishments. This is a great warm-up activity to make your students understand what the present perfect is all about. After teaching the structure of the tense, have your students write down two to three things they have accomplished in their lives. When they are finished, have your students share their statements with the class, for example, I have won a speech contest, I have traveled to America, or I have learned to play the piano. 2. Have you ever? This exercise can be an add-on to the great accomplishments game or also played separately. For this activity, have your students write down statements about what they did in the simple past on a sheet of paper, for example, I ate Thai food yesterday. Next, have your students exchange their sheets of paper and add statements using the present perfect and the word before, such as and has eaten Thai food before. Then, start a discussion about whether other students have or have not done the activity mentioned before. 3. How many times since? Have your students come up with common daily activities and collect the responses on the board. Next, call up the students in turn and ask them how many times they have performed this action since a certain point in time, for example, how many times have you brushed your teeth since last night? A student might answer, I have brushed my teeth twice since last night. Once the students feel confident, have them form questions with the vocabulary on the board and ask other students. 4. Great ambitions. Ask your students to write down two to three things that they have not done yet but are planning to do. This exercise focuses on the correct usage of the word yet together with the present perfect. A possible answer could be I haven't been to Europe yet, so I really want to go there next year. 5. Most deprived. Have your students move their chairs to sit in a circle, one student stands in the middle of the circle and announces something he has never done before. All of the students who have done it, need to stand up and find another chair. And the student from the middle of the circle also needs to find an empty chair. The student that is unable to find an empty chair, takes the next turn. 6. Bucket lists. Have your students create a bucket list for this year, the summer holidays or their life. Next, the students present their bucket list items to the class and ask their peers if they have done one of the actions they mentioned. 7. Sins or 4? These two words are often confused by students of the English language. Therefore, it is recommended to spend quite some time covering their differences. Have your students form an equal number of statements using Sins and 4 and share them with the class. Start a discussion about the sentences and explain any incorrect usages. Are you ready to teach English abroad? These 7 activities for teaching the present perfect for the ESL classroom are ideal to help your students understand the structure and usage of the present perfect. Thanks so much for watching. We are ITTT the leading provider for TEFL and TESOL training courses. If you like this video, please subscribe by clicking that button down here and click on any of the videos here on the left for more interesting teaching tips for getting certified to teach English abroad and online.


Today, we're going to be talking about the six different business models that you can operate out of a cloud kitchen. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Cloud Kitchen series. My name is Wilson. Make sure you guys subscribe along the journey as I share a lot more tips, tricks and hacks on how to build a small business and how to build a restaurant with you. So I've been getting a ton of emails about Cloud Kitchen, and that's the reason why I decided to do this series specifically on Cloud Kitchen. Now for some of you that don't know what Cloud Kitchen is, I've definitely created a video like this that talks about what Cloud Kitchen is, and I've also created a video about what is the pro and what is the con of operating a cloud kitchen. So definitely check out these two videos right here. Now without further ado, we're going to dive into the first and most popular model, and that is the independent model. How does that work? Basically, you would get your orders through multiple different third party apps such as Uber Eats, Postmates, Grubhub. Once you get that order, then you can create your offering at your commissary kitchen in this Cloud Kitchen, and after you're done preparing it, you put it at the front desk and then your driver would come pick it up and brings it to your customer. And we're talking about one brand only. So for example, Wilson's Waffle. You get an order through Uber Eats. After you get it, you prepare all the waffles. It's done. The front, this guy comes and pick it up and on goes to your customer. The beauty about this model, once again, is the fact that it is super easy to operate. It doesn't have much upfront costs, and that's the reason why this is one of the most popular items and models out there in today's age. For those of you that are a little bit more ambitious and feels like that, you know what, you have much more to give. Then I would recommend the second business model, which is a multi-brand model. Same thing with the independent model. You get your orders through Uber Eats, Postmates, what not, third-party apps, and then you start creating your offering and then it gets delivered to your customers. Now, the only difference is that you're running multiple brands through the same kitchen. For example, I'll be running Wilson's Waffle, I'll be running Shushi Town, and I'll be running Donut Empire. So all these brands that are on these third-party apps, I'm running out of this one cloud kitchen. And why is it the fact that we would want to run multiple brands? It is because you would be able to capture much more market share. For example, you might feel like Waffles today, and for example, Susan might feel like Shushi, and whereas David might feel like Donuts. And this allows you to experiment with different types of offering within your neighborhood, and in turn allows you to actually test out what works, what doesn't work, what is popular, what is not popular. And that's the reason why this brand and this model is also very, very popular for those of you that are a little bit more ambitious and that wants to try out new and different things. As a bonus insight for you guys, Rebel Foods does an amazing job with this model. What they do is basically they look at their demographic, they look at their geography of surrounding neighborhoods and popular items that are selling really well, popular restaurants within the area, and from there onwards, they're able to gain insight about what they could potentially do with their own cloud kitchen and in turn capture even more popularity and enhances their chances of success. The third model is Mid-Ground Model. What does Mid-Ground Model mean? It means exactly the same thing as our independent model. Basically, you order through third-party apps, you get it created within your cloud kitchen. The only difference is that aside from getting it delivered to your customers, now customers can actually come into your cloud kitchen and order straight from there and pick up from there. Now, not a lot of cloud kitchen, ghost kitchen offer this type of service. So definitely, if you're signing up with your cloud kitchen within your area, you need to make sure that whether they offer Mid-Ground level or not. A lot of times they don't because the reason why cloud kitchens are so popular is because they're located at areas that are off from the population density. So a lot less walk-in traffic. Why is that the case? It is because rent is exceptionally cheaper at these industrial zones. So if you're looking for Mid-Ground level to actually take in walk-in traffic as well, that is a little bit less popular out there. If you guys find any value from this video whatsoever, make sure you smash the like button so then that way, I know to create more of these videos for you. Now let's get back to regular programming. The fourth cloud kitchen business model is the brand-owned model. What does that mean? It means that you can only receive orders and sign up with one third-party delivery app such as Uber Eats. They force you to sign an exclusive deal with them and in turn you create the item and then you get it delivered. So this is the brand-owned model. Why is that the case? It is because these third-party apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, GrubHub, they understand that as cloud kitchens, we always sign up with multiple different third-party apps, which in turn doesn't give them that exclusivity and also monopoly that they're looking for. So they force you that if you want to sign up with them, you must only use one third-party app. And that is a common thing that we're seeing more and more that is happening. So for example, with Wilson Swaffle, our brand will only show up on Uber Eats if we do decide to go with this model. Now some of the advantage of going with a brand-owned model is the fact that a lot of times they would actually push a lot more business to you and advertise you a little bit more because they want you to be successful. They want you to only rely on their brand in order for them to be in business, in order for you to be in business. Now the disadvantage of that is because of the fact that you're only banking on one platform, you basically put all your eggs in one basket. Let's say all of a sudden, Uber Eats charges you $500 in advertisement fees. You have no choice but to pay that. And that's the disadvantage of going with only brand-owned models. If you guys want to learn more about the pros and cons of running cloud-based kitchen in general, definitely check out this video. I go over in detail about the pros and cons. The fifth type of cloud-based kitchen models would be the hub and spoke pod model. And this is usually for people and companies that are a little bit more established that wants to have a bigger reach. And the only difference between this and the independent model is that they actually have something or a kitchen that is centralized. They create everything from this kitchen that is half made. For example, Wilson's Waffle. Wilson's Waffle, I would create basically all my dough from this kitchen that is a centralized kitchen. And then I would ship these to individual cloud kitchens around the city. And in turn, I can service the people that are around my area. Now, once again, this is not that popular of a model for the general public because you're investing much more into this. This is much more for advanced operators who wants to have more market share within individual pots of the city. The sixth and final cloud kitchen concepts out there is the outsourcing model. Basically the only difference between an outsourcing model and an independent model is the fact that whenever I get my items, they're basically pre-packaged, they're pretty much done. And all I'm doing is take it out of the package and I put the finishing touch and then I serve the item, get the delivery drivers to come pick it up and send it off to my customers. For example, with Wilson's Waffle, basically I'm buying it from Costco. I take off the wrapper, I heat it up, I add some sprinkles on there, now it's completed. That's what outsourcing model means. It means everything is outsourced already. Now, this is also a quite a popular item out there, but nonetheless, do know for one thing that our customers know exactly what it tastes like. If it tastes like eggos, why would they purchase from you? Which is the reason why I would not recommend doing an outsourcing model altogether, I would actually recommend doing independent model or the multi-brand model. So there you are, the six different types of cloud kitchen business models. I know this is a super popular idea. It is very novel, so not a lot of information are out there for you to decide what types of models you should choose. And that's the reason why we created this video just for you, so then that way you can make better judgment in making sure that you sign up for the right model. A lot of reasons why you would want to consider the different models is it comes back down to your budget, it comes back down to your stress level that you wanna have, whether you have multiple partners, the location and how ambitious you are. At the end of the day, I would highly recommend you see cloud kitchen as only a stepping stone for you to test out your concept. Because at the end of the day, cloud kitchen is really relying on many different parties and you don't wanna rely on other parties, you wanna make sure you take control of your destiny, which is the reason why if and when your brand does well, what are you gonna do? Once you have proven out the concept, it's time to jump into a brick and mortar and that way you can have a much more stable stream of revenue and you're not gonna be held by the next from these third party apps because we all know they take a ton of margins of your revenue. I really hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, make sure you smash the like or check out my other videos on cloud kitchen. Otherwise, I'll see you guys in the next video.


Vice President Schaefer-Brace's congratulations to the scientific team, the editorial team that first executed this client set of work and translated it into a document that people have referred to in the coming years. The partnership between ADV and PERI has been really a wonderful partnership over the years. Going back over our records, we see that the first grant from ADV came to here in 1975 and there have been 30 projects that have been supported by the bank to a total of $20 million. And that's a significant investment in the years program. I want you to keep that number of $20 million in mind if I'll get back to that number. Certainly the partnership with the ADV in areas of something that I personally have been involved with is something that I was able to benefit from in my research agenda. When I was at theory as a research scientist, it was kind of a real job. We had a really 1990s something called the Ranked That Low Little Rice Research Consortium that was created and it was funded by the Asian Development Bank. And that program focused its efforts in the rate-fed areas of rice production in Asia. And we embarked on a number of projects, that's the one I funded from the bank. The people said, you're crazy, you've never worked. One of those is Spontal Rice Research. We're doing it today, it's certainly something that is relevant. But now, one of the 15 years later, we have a plethora of rice products that have been disseminated across South Asia. They're being adopted by farmers to get a record rate. So that support from the bank back in 1991 is something that is translating into real impact in the lives of the poor today. I think it's that visionary support that is so important. Likewise, the Asian Rice Product Technology Network that the banks have supported for over a year. One of the products that came out of that network is bacterial leaf-like resistant rice varieties. The estimated impact of those varieties in China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India today is estimated at $20 million per year. Think of the $20 million total investment in the area, and just in one project, the impact has already quantified at $20 million per year. The impact of the flip-talking varieties is going to be massive. So because the bottom line is that the investments that the bank has made in the area is partners, are tremendously good investments. Another example of the division of the bank, banks on and on the division, by the way, is supporting hybrid rice research. Hybrid rice in the mid-90s was considered to be something that really wasn't ever going to work in the products. But the bank invested in that, and now we have a rapidly growing hybrid rice industry in the products. The private sector is joining now with the area and with others to take this technology to seal it when there's a big difference in productivity around the region. So those are just a couple of examples that indicate that the bank's partnership with the area and with our partners has been extremely productive. The rice wheat consortium, as Vice President mentioned, really has germination in the early 1990s as a regional effort. The bank has been supporting steadily since then, and we see now, again, after almost 20 years of support, an outstanding record of accomplishment. Very relevant technology to be taken up by partners, serving the natural resource base in a position to deal with some of the challenges that might have changed the planning of water availability and so forth. So we're very, very proud of our relationship with the bank, and we're delighted that the bank has posted this book launching as an indication of their pride in being associated with this. To all of you in the bank, thank you so much for your support, and I think we're just at the beginning of another phase of transparency.


This 2014 Dodge Challenger RT Classic is stock number 11899Z. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used sports car and Dodge Challenger headquarters. This 2014 Dodge Challenger has the 5.7 liter V8 Hemi engine, which pumps out 375 horsepower. This car has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off and this car is 100% ready to go. Bright white clear coat is the color and we shoot all of our videos in 1080p 60 frames per second. So if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, smartphone or television turn them on right now. Because it is definitely your best way to check out the quality and condition of the car before seeing it in person. So you can make a smart buying decision from the comfort of your own home. And if you just like the video and want to subscribe to our YouTube channel in the lower right hand part of the screen is a gold subscribe button. Click that and then click the bell notifications to get updates on videos we do each and every day here at Summit Auto of our amazing inventory. 20 inch polished aluminum rims comes with Goodyear Eagle RSA 24545 ZR20 tires. And these tires have right around half the tread left maybe just a hair under. But still decent tread left on those tires. Front fender is in excellent shape. The stripes are in really nice condition part of that RT classic package. This one does have the HID headlamps front bumper and lower balance are in excellent shape as well. Didn't see any scuffs or scrapes or cracks and the hood is in excellent condition. No dents or dings on there. Passenger side front fender looks really good. No major dents or dings on there and the passenger side rim. No major scuffs or scrapes. As you go down this side of the car take note of how clean the body is how reflective and mirror like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and you just cannot make the trip down but you're still interested in purchasing the car you can see the car hear the car and of confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at.  We sell a lot of cars out of state and in state. So you can have the confidence that you're dealing with the right car and the right people. Back rims in pretty nice shape just one minor little scuff on the back there and the back tires have just as much tread as the front tires. Maybe even just a little bit more. Coming around to the back of the vehicle the rear bumper is in great shape. You do get the chrome tipped dual rear exhaust back up parking sensors deck lid spoiler and deck lid are in excellent shape. It does come with a car cover and the back storage area is in nice condition. You also have spare tire and that's where your battery is at. And it comes with the original shift knob for the car. Nice and clean back there that shuts nice and solidly and as you go down the driver's side just as clean as a passenger side no dents or dings on the rear quarter. And for full disclosure this back rim is absolutely perfect. Driver's side door looks really good and it does come with heated power mirrors. As we look inside the vehicle this one comes with the black leather and suede interior. You get the RT stitched into the backrest, side curtain airbags, the white stitching, no rips or tears on the seats, power driver seat with lumbar and weather tech floor mats come in this car, auto headlamps, power windows, power locks and power mirrors. The back seats, very clean as well, no rips or tears back there. It does have the latch child safety system for any child car seats you may want to put back there and those straps on the top help you put those seats down to get into the trunk. We'll hop inside, turn the radio on, turn the ignition on so you can see the miles and everything. This one has 27,275 miles. You do get a compass and outside temperature display. The white faced instrument cluster is in really nice clean condition. Comes with the leather wrapped steering wheel, no rips or tears or scuffs or scrapes on there. Cruise controls on the right, Bluetooth and information center controls on the left and it does have the paddle shifters because this one has the automatic transmission.  It also has a hard drive on it where you can store music and pictures and there's 20.32 gigs worth of space there. Climate controls down here, heated seat buttons and stability control as well as a sport mode. Has the Mopar shifter on there, passenger side floor mat and seat are in excellent condition. I don't think this car has ever been smoked in, smells very clean inside and the headliner is in great shape. You do get the power sunroof, map lights, home link buttons for your garage door security systems and lighting systems and the auto dimming mirror. We'll start it up and then check out under the hood. Starts right up, sounds really good. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video you will have been able to tell just how clean this car is all the way around inside and out. Under the hood we have the 5.7 liter V8 Hemi motor. Engine bay is very clean, runs very smooth. Once again this car has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. It does have a K&N cold air intake. There's your emissions sticker and once again it's been fully safety inspected. Fluids topped off, fresh oil and filter change and this car is 100% ready to go. HID headlamps. I would highly recommend this car from a quality and condition standpoint and to see more pictures of this car, one of our other 450 new used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, Challengers, Chargers, Mustangs, GT500s, Camaros, Corvettes, you name it we got to go to that website right there www.summitauto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at www.summitauto.com and if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to www.youtube.com www.summitauto.com Remember to like, subscribe and share and click those bell notifications to get updates on the videos we do daily. In fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on the upper left to link to more challenger videos like this one in the upper right. A link to this vehicle on our website in the lower left and a link to one of our latest YouTube videos. In the lower right click those, check us out and we're super excited to be helping you with this very clean 2014 Dodge Challenger RT Classic in bright white clear coat. Thanks again for checking out the video.


The Labour Party governorship candidate for IMO, Ethan Archonu, and scores of his supporters on Thursday stumped the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Abuja to demand the true certified copy of the just concluded poll in the state. Archonu, who was accompanied by the national leader Kennedy Ahano too, also accused the Electoral Empire of playing a double standard in the November 11 off-cycle election. The protest came two weeks after INAG declared Governor Hupu Zodima of the All Progressive Congress winner of the election. The APC candidate pulled 540,308 votes to beat Samuel Anyaou of the People's Democratic Party who scored 71,503 votes and Archonu who could only secure 64,081 votes. Our state coalition agent duly asked INAG not to announce any result that the coalition started very early that day, even while voting was going on, uploading to the portal, to the IRF, that started while even voting was taking place, was still ongoing. So how did that happen? That they should go to their back-end server and confirm the results they were about to announce that they are not correct. So INAG refused to do that. That returning officer insisted because you could see that he had an agenda. So we duly wrote to INAG asking them to review that election that they are not supposed to announce, they have already announced that election even before the seven days that we are allowed for review have passed. So INAG now we wrote on Monday, we asked them to give us access to the same results that you claim that we lost, that you declared, up to today as we speak here, we have not received a permission to collect the citations of that election.


The money goes to send the kids to the Kentucky Sheriff's Boys and Girls Ranch. Like we did last year, the people were very generous to us last year. I mean, we know the economy's bad. But these kids, this might be the only chance they have to go anywhere or do anything and if the people can help, we greatly appreciate it. Like I said, we know the economy's bad and they can't, we understand that. But any help that they can give us, we greatly appreciate it.


I am the host of think tech Hawaii's law across the sea program. Today we're going across the sea to meet with Gerald Thomas in Kobe, Japan. Gerald Thomas, or he lets me call him Jerry is a Canadian barrister and solicitor. But he's lived and worked in Japan for over 25 years. He is the founder and president of Thomas consultants international. Which provides services to international businesses. And the community that comes to Japan. And Japanese lawyers. I've asked Jerry to tell us what he has learned about life and law. How he got to Japan. And what's it like to be a Canadian barrister and solicitor. Working. And living. In Japan. So welcome, Jerry. How are you? Good to very much Mark. Very nice to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. Oh, I find your story. I could call it that very interesting and I want to first point out, you're in Kobe. Japan and Kobe, if we could put up a map is on the southern part of Japan. In Honshu. And you, that's where you live. And that's where you are now and I want to, I want to ask you want to go in a little bit more. And let's talk about how did you get to Japan?  Here you are Canadian barrister and solicitor. And but you're, you know, you spent substantial amount of time in Kobe, Japan. Well, how did that come about? Give us a background. Mark, it's a simple love story. If I have to put it that way, because I met my wife who is from Kobe during my law school years or actually right before I went to law school and she was studying in Canada. And prior to that, I had no relationship with Japan at all. I mean, I did martial arts. I did karate, but I had never been to Japan. But I met my wife in the summer of in the summer of 88. And that was it. And so as I went to law school, I thought that the role or the life of an international lawyer would be very interesting. So I focused my studies on international law specifically looking at Japan as a market. And it all evolved through that. And so I was lucky I had an end in the sense of my wife being from Kobe. And then my practice kind of evolved as after I finished law school, I was going every summer back to Japan. I married my wife in 88 or 89 actually, sorry. And so during my law school years, we would go back into summertime. And then after I finished law school, I went to Japan for a year to study Japanese and work. And then I got called to the bar in 1991 or in 1993, sorry, at the end of law school after my one year in Japan. And I went to Japan again for another year. I thought a year or two to again focus on the law and working with Japanese lawyers. And I enjoyed it so much I just never went back and opened up my own consulting firm and it all started from there. Okay, so it's all about love. That's what I hear in America. That's right. That's the base. Love is the base. That's a good story. I like that. And you love Japan. You love Kobe also, I guess. Is that right? Now, Japan is a beautiful place to live and to work. I mean, it has its challenges without a doubt, especially the language. But there is support. And I always had, in a sense, family in Japan, my wife and her family, because they're from Kobe. And so it was something where my time in Kobe, especially initially, was always with support. So I'm very grateful for that. And in the international legal community, I had some key supporters which really were wonderful. And that's the way Japan works. So what did you do? I mean, when you got to Japan, were you able to work?  That's a good point. What did you do?  And that's what I did before I got called to the bar. I taught English as a second language. I taught that with a language school. And through that teaching, because my focus was business, I met many international or many business people, Japanese business people that wanted to practice or work abroad. And so I came into contact with that market. Once I got called to the bar, I did a one year working with the Japanese law office in Osaka, which is 25 minutes away from Kobe. And so I had one year of actual working in a Japanese law office. After that, I saw the opportunity to work with many law offices. And that's why I started my own consulting firm, so that I could provide my services to a number of Japanese law offices working on international projects on a per project basis. And that's how things kind of evolve that way. I am not licensed to practice law in Japan. And so to get around that and to follow the law, of course, because it's very important to follow Japanese laws. I made the Japanese lawyers themselves, my clients. And so the worry is, you know, among non people that are practicing without proper licenses is that you're going to damage the public or that you're somehow going to mislead the public. But if my clients are the lawyers themselves, nobody was misled. And I was able to support the lawyers as a, I say a silent partner in the background, helping them with their international negotiations, helping them with their documents, proofreading, translating. And that's how my business evolved. Okay, and I do want to ask a little bit about that, but first I want to ask you, you know, you were a foreigner. I mean, you spent a lot of time in Japan before you started working, you got married to a Japanese lady in Kobe. And you work, you lived there and you had family there. What are the pluses and minuses about being a foreigner? I mean, was it hard just to be a foreigner that lived there and tried to work? Or how did that come about for you? Well, as a foreigner, you know, I always compare it to a dancing bear in a circus. If you look at a dancing bear in the circus, everybody claps and says, oh, that's such an interesting dancing bear. But you don't want to take them home with you, right? And so it's something where there are pluses and minuses to being a minority in Japan and a visible minority at that. And Kobe at the time didn't have a lot of foreigners where I lived. You know, there was a foreign community, an expat community in Kobe, but I didn't live there. I lived actually very close to my wife's family just on the outskirts of the city. So it's something where I was really where I was. I was the only foreigner in the community. And that has a plus and a minus. I mean, the plus side is everybody knows them clearly not from there. And Japanese people were generally very supportive and very helpful. On the other hand, you had to get used to being stared at. You had to get used to the kids smiling and laughing and pointing. And like I said, you take the minuses with the pluses. The pluses outweigh the minuses by a lot. And you've obviously like it and love it as we've learned and enjoyed your life there. And now tell us about your business. What is your consulting business? Thomas Consultants International. What do you do? What's that about? Well, my clients are all Japanese lawyers primarily that, you know, I do work with some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies because I do corporate training as well. So actually I taught presentation skills 25 years ago before the pandemic and zoom and everything made, you know, video conferencing a normal part of working life. But it's something where back then lawyers really didn't have resources to help them get training, you know, on how to speak or how to proofread their documents or translation. And so I provided that kind of support service so I would meet the lawyers. They would have projects that they'd be working on and I would help them perform their work in the background. You know, and because I'm not licensed in Japan, I could never take clients on my own for legal work. But I was very happy to work with the Japanese lawyers and they took the credit for the work. And at the same time, though, lawyers understand and they're appreciative. And, you know, I got the respect of they knew that I was helping them do their work. And so that's how my business evolved. It's really one of the first and the only company I know that's actually doing this in Japan. And 30 years ago, it was very controversial because some people were concerned whether I was practicing illegal or not. And so I actually had a meeting with the largest organization of lawyers in Japan, the Japan Federation of Arts Association.  And so I was able to continue my business. So that's interesting.  But so you serve as a bridge and a support for Japanese lawyers.  Thank you, Mark. Yeah, I am allowed to practice as a foreign arbitrate. That is allowed even though I'm not licensed in Japan as a lawyer, I'm allowed to practice as an arbitrator under the rules. A mediator now that is something that I am also allowed to do provided it's in an international context. So if one of the parties is non Japanese, I am allowed to serve as a mediator. So for example, international marriages, you know, when they're talking about custody of the kids, things like that, or partner disputes, a certain commercial disputes between a foreign company and a Japanese company, I can serve as a mediator. And that's where I primarily do my work, not on the arbitration side, but on the mediation side. My own philosophy of working is much more to support the parties to reach their own conclusion rather than being a judge that says you win, you lose, and that's it, it's over. And so my background really is cross cultural negotiation before I became went to law school. I was a psych major for behavioral and educational psychology. And I found that that applied very well dealing with parties under stress, helping them find a solution to their problems. And that's where, you know, I enjoy my work the most as the media. You know, it's very, very interesting. All of your background leads you to where you are all the things that came into your life. From your, you know, before you became a lawyer, before law school and now meeting your, your wife in Canada and then becoming a lawyer and then it's, it's leads you it seems to me all of these little factors. Where do they come from and then, and then you're there. I said it best, right? He said no experience is wasted. And I really believe that. Yeah, well, one thing you mentioned, you talked about working on divorce cases. And I have handled some cases involving children and who gets custody. How do you deal with that in Japan because children I know in Japan are, that's a treasure. How, how do you deal with that with the cultural custody issues? Yeah, well, I mean, there's the head convention, which really rules in terms of where the child should be in custody, but in Japan, between two Japanese people that are getting a divorce. The children usually go to the mother. And that's a cultural thing. It's, it's practical on one side, but the courts are supposed to find the best environment for the children and there is a general tendency that those children are best with the mother. When we take that into an international context, it makes it very difficult because even if the father was the primary caregiver, the mother was a professional woman, for example, a flight attendant or, or a doctor. The case is being made that was the children are still better with the mother. They get to use if the father is the non Japanese and the mother is Japanese while the children get to develop their Japanese skills better in the mother's home. And seeing that that that makes things very complicated. And a lot of times I have to explain to the father that this is not a prejudice in terms of you as a foreigner, but in Japan between two Japanese people, the children often go to the mother too. And that's very difficult. And so these these child custody cases are very, very emotional. And my heart bleeds for them, both sides and the children, especially. Japan does not have joint custody. That's a very big difference between, you know, the US and Canada, where we can say, well, you can share the custody of the children, as long as you guys can do it, responsibly as adults. Japan doesn't have that. It's one or the other 100% and the other person gets visitation. If they're lucky, a couple of hours a month. That's it under the court. So it's a very different system. And you as a mediator, I guess, because your knowledge of culture in Japan, you try to express that to the parties so that the result is peaceful. Yeah, well, that's right. And what I say to the parties is that it's much better for you guys to forge a solution together than to have some judge come out as a third party and say, you get this, you get this, it's over. And if you can do it together, that's better for, it makes you want to hold to the rules that you've agreed to. If you agree to the rules, you tend to follow them better than when somebody imposes them on you. And so, a mediated solution, I believe, is by far the best than one that's given by a third party judge. Right, right. I agree with that. Now, I want to talk a little bit about Kobe because Kobe has had some experiences very similar to Maui. But first, let's just put up a photo of Kobe and tell me what Kobe is like, what the city is like. Yeah. Kobe is a beautiful city. I mean, it's about one and a half million people. And it's very similar to Seattle or to Vancouver in Canada because it's on a port. It's a port city and you've got all that international transportation trade. And actually, Kobe was the first city open to foreigners, you know, in 1867, basically. And for that reason, there was a foreign settlement and Kobe very early on. Now, that has changed over the years. But Kobe is a beautiful city. It's a half hour from Osaka, which is, you know, eight million people. It's a little bit further from Kyoto, which is considered, you know, the seed of Japanese culture. And so, it's a beautiful location with the mountains and the water and, you know, the port. It's a really nice place to live. Okay. Now, I want to, I want to now focus a little bit on kind of the experience we've had in Hawaii quite recently and ask about your experience in January 1995. Kobe was hit by a massive earthquake, the Great Hunshin earthquake. What can you tell us about that? Where were you? What happened? Yeah, well, I was living in Kobe with my family. I had two children at the time and my wife was pregnant for a third. And we live in a place called Arima, which is part of Kobe, but it is a hot spring town similar to Banff, Alberta, Canada. It has a hot spring and that is, it's 90% of tourism is what keeps that city going. And I was there with my family, my wife's hometown. And at 8 or at 546 in the morning, suddenly the ground left me. I was in air because the first shock of that earthquake was what was vertical drop and then things started shaking and everything came off the walls. It was just, I'd never been in a major earthquake before. Japan always has smaller earthquakes, but this was a massive earthquake. We had cracks in the walls. We had everything come down. It was shocking. Fortunately, the roof was fine and the walls could be repaired, but it was just shocking. And I remember saying to myself, I mean, this is an earthquake. And I remember that during, for example, the Great Tokyo earthquake, the Kanto earthquake in 1923, most people died from fire.  And that was just thinking like a machine. It just, you know, self-preservation. People started coming out of the buildings and it was just shock. Where we were, we were not in the epicenter. We were about five kilometers away. So we were actually one tenth of what had happened. What had happened downtown was 10 times on the scale, one level on the scale higher than what we had experienced. But what we experienced still caused massive damage. The final count was 6,400 dead. And now you've got to understand, Kobe was a very confident city. We had not had a major earthquake like that for hundreds of years. So Kobe, despite other places in Japan having sizable earthquakes on a regular schedule almost every 70 years, every 50 years, Kobe was really spared all of that. And so we didn't have earthquake experience like that. And then this massive quake was just beyond anything. And very similar to Maui in a way. I mean, Maui was not an earthquake, but the result was the same. We hadn't experienced that exactly, but there was a lot of death involved. And how did Kobe handle it? How has it handled it? What did it do? And what has been the result of the people in Kobe having to deal with that disaster? Yeah, well, it's very interesting because actually that earthquake was considered a turning point for volunteerism in Japan. It was very interesting because we had massive influx of volunteers supporting the people in Kobe. And the national government of Japan actually made January 17th National Volunteer Day. And it's become one of those turning points where volunteerism just expanded exponentially from that time due to what happened in Kobe. And so many laws were changed regarding support to the local population in the event of a disaster. And the volunteer communities will rush to the scene of an earthquake or natural disaster in Japan based on the experience that was found in Kobe. And it was very newsworthy. A lot of people reported this. And what was very interesting, even the local Yakuza organization. Kobe actually has one particular Yakuza organization, which is one of the biggest in Japan. And the organized crime organ actually was one of the first people to set up support networks to get resources and supplies to the people whose houses had fallen down. 400,000 buildings became uninhabitable at that time. And everybody chipped in. And I think that everybody chipping in in the local community and the extended community was really something noteworthy about this earthquake. Well, we're seeing a lot of help come from all around the world and within Hawaii also from various people. We're still at the beginning stages here of trying to get back to where we should be. But it sounds like what happened, some good came out of this. I mean, some good people coming together and a positive thing came out of this. Now I want to ask you, were lawyers involved? Were the Bengoshi, the Japanese lawyers, involved in how were they? And there's been some criticism of lawyers being involved in these type of things. But just what happened in Kobe and what happened with Japanese lawyers? It's surprising because when we think of lawyers, we don't usually think of them as an essential service like doctors and firefighters. But the reality is that there are a lot of legal issues that happen as a result of these disasters. For example, many of these buildings became uninhabitable and the landlord said, I'm sorry, but you have to leave. And these people said, well, what do we do? We pay you to rent. We want our money back or we want our deposit back. And there are a lot of legal issues about that. Of course, a lot of legal issues about insurance. But these people needed a way to be able to express their need. And the lawyers often would help them fill out the forms, would help them fill out the insurance documents so that they could make a claim so that they could get compensation. These things where the lawyers are so important, because many of the people are elderly or have no legal experience, that the role of lawyers is essential. And especially also the role of the law societies to support this and make sure that the legal support that's being given is being properly given. And so that nobody's taking advantage. You know, when I think of Maui and I think of the situation there, I say all this property is suddenly going to be available. And you have to make sure that you don't get, you know, the foreign interest coming in or people taking advantage of people in a weak position. And lawyers can help with that. You know, and especially like I said, the bar associations can really support the Japanese population or the Hawaiian population or in a disaster in Japan, the Japanese population, get access to the compensation they need. So you've seen the positive aspect of lawyers helping after the Kobe earthquake. And we're seeing it too in our bar association is stepping up and so are lawyers. There is some, you know, sarcasm and negative comments. How should lawyers deal with that type of thing when somebody, I mean, there says things about, well, you're just doing this for the money. Yeah, well, I mean, there is a significant social, social activism that lawyers participate in. And people sometimes forget that, that we're in this, of course, where it's our career. But on the other hand, there's so much pro bono work being done. There's so much work above and beyond because lawyers truly want to contribute to their societies. They truly want to contribute to their communities. And those that are the most sarcastic often don't really know what the lawyers are doing or what they're trying to do. And once again, the bar associations can help coordinate that and make sure it's done in a proper way because lawyers only exist because they're able to help society. Otherwise, there'd be no role for them. And it's something where in a disaster like this, the lawyers should be stepping up and helping and they can help so much on the document side, helping people get access to information. And there's always going to be naysayers. There's always going to be those types of people. And the lawyers have always functioned with that. And we will continue to function that way to ignore those people. And so some of the important things that lawyers and bar associations have to do is educate people also, just send out the word and tell them what we're doing and how it's beneficial. So there is that.  You walked through a disaster in Kobe. Also, and you've been working hard with different aspects of the legal community and the international community in Kobe. I want to ask you just some general questions. What have you learned about life and people from your time in Japan, especially with respect to the disaster of the Kobe earthquake? You know, it's interesting because I think the thing that I learned the most is that as human beings, we go through the same emotions and the same points of our life, birth, marriage, death. All of these things, even though we may be from completely different cultures, we feel the same way. And we go through the same range of emotions. A disaster in Hawaii or a disaster in Japan. People cry the same. So you deal with it, you know. You're saying we're all connected. We're all. We are very much connected. We're not different races. We are the human race is what I hear you say.  And that's where we can really connect with each other is and that's where I think the volunteerism and support from country to country. When we have a disaster in one place that other countries contribute, they send their teams and things like that. It's so valuable because we share a common humanity. Is there anything in Japanese culture or Canadian culture that has helped you? I think that, you know, Canadian culture is very, very international in the sense that, you know, we have a lot of immigration. In Japan, they don't. And it's something where Japan has issues regarding population decline. And simply, they have to open up more. And I think that as they open up more, they're going to see the benefits of that. And it's going to be something that is going to help them reach a better, better economy and a better appreciation for the different races and different cultures. So between Canada and Japan, they're very different, but there are some common themes that I know they share. And living in Japan has been really wonderful to be able to see those from both sides. So the background you bring from Canada can contribute and help in Japan also. I think so. We have just a few seconds left, Jerry. And I just, you have a couple words that you could tell people on how to deal with disasters, including the, you went through a disaster. Yeah, it's the worst year of my life without a doubt that year. But what words of wisdom or advice would you give to people to deal with disaster? You know, you never forget those moments, but you can move on and change. And things do get better, you know, and that's the thing that it's going to take years to recover, but piece by piece, you will. And Kobe now is a beautiful, vibrant city again, different than it was before the earthquake. There's a beautiful picture of it. And we still, you know, every January 17th at 546 in the morning, there is a group getting together with a candlelight vigil every year. So we never forget, but we can come back from that. And Kobe has come back with it and I'm sure Hawaii will too. I'm sure that Maui will come back. And yeah, and that's what you have to remember even in the worst times. Things will get better. Well, Gerald Thomas, thank you very much for being my guest today and providing words of hope and inspiration. And your own experience has been very helpful. And it was good to hear your story. So thank you very much. Aloha. Thank you, Mark.