Good morning. You are back with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are continuing our committee discussion and consideration of Prop 2, clarifying the prohibition on slavery and indentured servitude in the Vermont Constitution. And the committee was hoping to have an additional perspective on the history of our Constitution and on what clarifying this prohibition would mean for the state of Vermont. And so Mr. Gillies, you were requested and I am so thrilled that you had the flexibility to be able to drop what you were doing on this Thursday morning and join us. So thank you so much for being here and we would welcome you to share your perspective on the Vermont Constitution and on the proposed constitutional amendment. Well, thanks for inviting me. I'm Paul Gillies. It's pronounced different than it's spelled. I spent my life correcting one way or another. And I've had some experience with the Vermont Constitution. I've written a book about it. It hasn't been published and I've lectured on it and I think I might have caught it once or twice. So anyway, what do I know about it? Well, I know that Article 1 was one of the unique sections of our Constitution, one of the few that we didn't copy from Pennsylvania, that it has remained essentially unchanged with the exception of the change to in 1924. And when I spent a couple of years since I've looked at this question of the Proposition 2, my first reaction was that it was unnecessary that although I think there's a sensitivity here about the way things are written, it's not all true. We don't bind somebody, for instance, send them to prison for debt anymore. It's not all perfect, but then the Vermont Constitution isn't perfect. There are many sections of the Vermont Constitution that we have never respected or we've moved ourselves away from. The literature in Vermont history has recently shown that there was a lot more slavery in Vermont over the years than you would believe if you'd accepted the 1777 Constitution as eliminating any possibility that there was slavery. There's an infamous case of the judge of the Supreme Court, Stephen Jacob, who had a slave, had purchased a slave. I think they said recently that they had found the bill of sale for Dinah. And when she got older, she was thrown onto the welfare of the town of Springfield, I guess it was, or no, Windsor. And the town sued Jacob for her support and the Supreme Court, of which he was a member, all always stepped aside, said, well, no, slavery is not allowed in Vermont, so we couldn't possibly treat her as a slave. And the town had to end up paying for her wages. But there was a number of early, well, the census I think in 1791 showed that there was half a dozen slaves, and there was a professor at the University of Vermont who wrote a book about it. And yet, in all the 200 years since then, I don't, I haven't heard anyone raise a possibility that slavery was authorized in Vermont because of this section, and certainly we have the U.S. constitutional amendments which took care of that. So I suppose we could go through the constitution, Vermont constitution, line by line and strike things we don't like. But I mean, I don't think there's any objection to the way that the Proposition 2 is written, but as I say, my first reaction was, this may be a little bit more sensitivity to things that aren't law, and there I am. Thank you. Questions from committee members? Representative Murlake. Good morning, and thanks for coming. I just want to make sure you can hear me. We're getting used to some new technology here, and I know I'm not familiar with it, trusted as well. So thanks for affirming that. Kind of a bigger question. Do you see the constitution, either the state or the nation as a living, breathing document that was written in paper, not in stone? I like that sound of that. I long believe that we don't pay enough attention to the, particularly the Vermont Constitution, and I think in history, you have periods of 10 or 20 years at a time where it never appears in anything other than the decennial amendment process, but I think it's obviously a fundamental document, and the Supreme Court is treated as such. In some seasons, it has had more sensitivity to its uniqueness, as opposed to the U.S. Constitution, particularly in the area of search and seizure, and I believe it is obviously a living document, and it could be livelier. Thank you. Representative Leclerc. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Paul. How are you, sir? Good. Thank you. I think you started out by saying that you questioned whether it really needed to happen or not. We had another, I guess you would be a constitutional expert come in as well. Professor Teachout and Peter Teachout. Yes, sir. He's admitted that he's sort of been on both sides of this discussion as far as whether he feels that it's justified in changing the language or not. Would you characterize your position as that you, and I recognize we're sort of just calling you last minute here, has your feeling about this change changed or not personally? No, I guess not. I mean, I don't know that I've ever stated a position as to whether I would, I probably would vote for it. I mean, it's not offensive, but it's just, it's almost overkill, I think is where I'm thinking. It's almost too sensitive to things, but no, I guess my reaction is today the same as it was then. I recall reading what Professor Teachout wrote about it originally, and it was pretty good in summarizing how I felt at the time. I haven't read anything recently. I think constitutional amendment is an important question, and I think it needs evidentiary support for us to start meddling with the firmament here, and I don't know that there is any justification for this other than kind of cosmetics. Representative Anthony. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you very much, Paul Gillis, for coming on short notice. I have not vacillated, as has been described in respect of Peter Teachout going back and forth between reverence and practicality or sensitivity. I've always viewed the language and the act of amendment as a very serious matter, but after all, it's not for wise men like yourself or myself or anybody, frankly, to control the process is, after all, a vote of the people after, if you will, the iterations preceding the votes. And so it's not for me to project my reverence for history onto that exercise. I can't help, though, but say that when Peter Teachout did point to the change in the level of sensitivity, the level of scrutiny, the level of awareness of the history and legacy from the 19th, 18th, and 19th century, it simply reinforced my view that we have changed from even 10 years ago in respect to our attempt to, how shall I say, rescue some of the tragedies of the 19th century and failed reconstruction and Jim Crow and various things which were horrifyingly real and embedded in law, and unaddressed by the federal constitution even after the Civil War amendments had been adopted. And so my sense is that there's a lot of unfinished business that explains why the sensitivity is what it is. So I'm leaning towards respecting that sensitivity, even though I count myself as a real appreciator of historical fact and historical evolution. And that's where I am, and I suspect that's what's changed from, as I say, even a decade ago. It's an awful lot of things that the Vermont Constitution should say that it doesn't say enough, and I realize that's not before you now, but a few years ago when I was teaching Vermont Constitution, I challenged the students to design an article in the Bill of Rights that would protect the environment. And there's nothing in that Constitution that says that. And then there was the Equal Rights Amendment, which failed back in the 80s. And I think if there was a need to correct or to underscore the principles of opposed being opposed to slavery, which I think that they say train is left to station, but that there could well be a more articulate way of stating that than just taking some words out of the first article. But I'm not a believer that because it's old, it should never be touched. I think our history of just not being able to amend it, except every 10 years before the 1974 amendments meant that it became a very conservative document. And it was, I think there was only 29 amendments over the history of when it's been adopted. So I think it would be great to I think it would be great to have a more comprehensive look at the things that we don't like in the in the Constitution so that we can fix it up. You know, the Constitution says that you don't, that you meet once every two years. And that was early gotten around by special sessions. Now it's the it's the recess session. And again, it's, well, that's where I am. I'm not here to defend the original language. I think that I think that there have been several dozen decisions that have been made over time by the Vermont Supreme Court interpreting article first. And none of them have found it wanting in any way. I think Senator Benning was was the one that made the most memorable attack on it or tried to use it so that he could he could drive his motorcycle without a helmet. The Supreme Court didn't allow that to go through in part because they said that the fundamental principles of enjoying and defending life and property acquiring, possessing and project protecting property and pursuing obtaining happiness and safety did not go into the issue of motorcycle helmets. A valid attempt I can imagine entertaining. Representative Bihovsky. Thank you. I'm struck by the here by the importance of the context of history and the fact that our laws and our Constitution are and have always been written by people with power and influence. And what we heard in testimony from the people who did not have the power or the influence to be able to write the words on the page in our Constitution is that this is important and that we and I think we need to listen to the people who given the context of history had no say in what the words on the page were. I think we have to check in with our own power, our own identities and really start and ask ourselves who doesn't think this is important and why that is. You know when we look through the context of history those documents were written largely by land owning white men and we've made shifts and changes to our Constitution to include more people in those processes and the structure is still largely exclude many. And so I think it is really important to look at the whole picture here and when we're hearing from the people who didn't get a say that this is important I think we owe it to them to listen. Oh sure. I think it's important to remember that until 1870 that the people didn't vote on the Constitutional amendments that it was done through the Council of Sensors and the Constitutional Convention. But I don't doubt that self-interest plays a role in all legislation or constitutional amendments. And I certainly think you have an obligation to listen to what people have to say. But in the historical context I don't know that I agree that the say the first 100 or 150 years of Vermont history were ruled by self-interested white supremacists because I don't think they even thought of themselves as that. I think there was I think there was when I look and read about what people say when they're in our legislature and again as governors I see I don't see any of that prejudice or that that approach. I see I've been writing for the last three years and writing a book tracing the history of Vermont through the governor's inaugurals and the response of the legislature to the proposals that the governors make. And I can tell you although I was there were times where I felt a little jaded about the process that it's an extremely inspiring process and that the best words of the best governors inaugurals should be enshrined on the walls in the State House. And I don't see I think there was prejudice against women. I think there was that maybe hasn't even yet been overcome. Our race racial history is complicated with and it isn't as much the the black experience as the other minorities that were treated poorly over time by Vermont, the French and the Italians and the Irish and the Native Americans. And if they have positions you should listen to them. But I would say overall I don't to the extent that we take a lens and look at history and see it as a as a disreputable experience. I don't that isn't that isn't what I my in my experience about my reading. Certainly wasn't the characterization that I was trying to make simply that that there were that the people who wrote it that the people who wrote it was a narrow perspective and we have wider perspectives now weighing in who weren't at the table then saying that this is important. I think it would be ideal if we really believed in direct democracy that we would provide a way in the Constitution for the voters to propose amendments. For the same reason I believe that there ought to be access to public opinion petitions for town meeting but our law does not allow that. We we are a representative system and the direct voice of the people is rarely heard except on election day and that's just to decide whether somebody gets elected or somebody doesn't except for the constitutional amendment which is the last vestige of our direct democracy I think. I've written about the referendum in Vermont history in some 17 times the legislature has asked the voters what do you think we should do and in the majority of those cases the voters have said to do this and the legislature has done the opposite or the question was asked like when should the prohibition law or when should the what was it the when should we build a new state office for the Supreme Court on this date or on that date not shall we or not. Quick questions from committee members. Well Mr. Gilles I really thank you again for rearranging your Thursday morning to come and spend some time with us and and help us understand your perspective on the history of our constitution and making changes to our constitution. We are going to be holding a public hearing tonight and it is our intention to move this constitutional amendment to the floor of the house after some committee discussion tomorrow and so you should see it up for floor action next week and if all goes as planned on your general election ballot in November 2022. Well thanks for inviting me. Interesting. All right that is all we have on the agenda for this morning committee. You have some constituent service time this afternoon between lunch and work and floor will be at three o'clock. We may have up here floor debate again. I'm not sure what's on the floor. I didn't see anything. We're on the floor today. It's just got third reading of 157 and it's an adjustment but both an adjustment and then a second reading so it's yeah yeah so that'll be a debate but a long couple of questions around that. All right thank you for getting him in. Yeah I appreciate that. That was thank you Andrea. She managed to track him down while he was running errands. Pulled him right out of the hardware store and said go home to your computer and I don't think you were here but he would be an excellent resource for the fences around cemeteries discussion. Shall we? Shall. Okay I want that. So clear. Andrea would you be able to share the the fence cemetery fence bill with Mr. Gillis and ask him if he would be interested in testifying on the history of fencing around cemeteries sometime in the next week. Sure I'll send him an email. Thank you. We're still on live so just let me know when you're done. Committee any other committee discussion I think what I wanted to do before we before we wrapped for the day was a little more committee discussion on the charters that we looked at yesterday. It's my intention to build into our agenda next week a visit with the chair of the Essex Select Board the unified Select Board and the village trustees just to get a sense of how their conversations are going around the separation of the two municipalities. What else would you like to hear? There were a few things we needed to do in order to get Springfield in shape to move forward. So any other questions or concerns with respect to Springfield? The one piece of commentary that the two representatives from Springfield that I spoke with last evening was that if we were going to make a choice between truncating the language to have it reflect the edits that Tucker had talked about that they're they're a little worried they have a little bit of worry and concern that maybe some other things might get lost if we do that and that we maybe should not shorten the bill just for the sake of reducing the pages but they asked me to share that perspective. So Tucker was saying that the authority to change select men to select board or select person or whatever gender neutral term is one that would shorten it. By three or four pages I think. Yeah yeah and they were worried that if you did that it just might might be confusing to folks looking at the different iterations of the bill so we might not have that concern but that was their concern and I said I would pass a law. Okay. Did they have any requests in terms of the substance of the bill? They would think would appreciate that we pass it as as whole as it as as holy as we can. Do we have committee agreement that we would like to remove the unconstitutional we get to do anything any other community that was going to be the first thing on the chopping block and they said well yes that notwithstanding we they they understood that that was something we would probably remember. I think there was a couple other points up the question across you know brought it like I flirted the line I'd like yeah but the one that's blatant I think representative Hosey was the one that said cut it so I think it's already been right that was we did that yesterday representative Anthony. The one that sticks in my mind as most unusual I guess is the language that prohibits revisiting a further charter change and I I'd have to go back and and read our watch our YouTube to spot it but I could sense that that was really trying to reach into the future which generally I'm against in terms of binding people to enact today forward in time and that also in the revision in the reconsideration language I'd have to go back and read it to see what troubled me but it seemed to mean that one's choice of of rethinking was circumscribed in a way that I'd never seen it before in my experience in municipal charters that gave me pause I guess is the way I'm not against it it's just very unusual and flies in the face of being able to address changing circumstances thank you. Yeah I'm wondering if perhaps you could pop that into an email to you know pull that language out pop it in an email to legislative council and just ask him to flag that for some committee discussion when we look at the bill next week I would like to understand whether that is a provision that is that appears in other town charters because it does it does seem to be a little bit suspect I would say. Thanks I'll be happy to send it my inquiry to Tucker on both points. Thank you. I think Peter and I were talking about the same thing but I ran into one of the reps this morning we were discussing that and if I if I understood him correctly it's in current statute now it's in their charter currently for some reason I kind of I thought I missed that and there was going to be new language but apparently it's been there and they felt that it's worked well so far but. Okay so representative Anthony did you hear that context? Yes I did I still will ask Tucker whether or not it appears in in other charters that we're unaware of so my sense of unusualness is misplaced perhaps. Super breath quickly. Thank you did I hear Tucker say that they had gone through a long process of going through all statutes and changing you know select men to select boards and that sort of stuff so was my understanding that it may not even be necessary for them to include that in a charter change? Yes that's I believe what I heard him say yes that you know the number of pages where the only change that appears is that you know is changing select men to select board is unnecessary in this bill. Other committee discussion about Springfield. Alright now we come to the part of the show where I ask for a volunteer to be the captain of this project as it moves forward and reminding folks that I want everyone to have a first turn before before we default to people who've already had a bill. So who wants to who wants to be the captain of Springfield? Representative Marwicky how do you feel about being the captain of Springfield? Well I'm glad to do that I have reported the bill already but I'll take this. You'll take round two I think representative Hooper is going to end up reporting Burlington Charter which will keep him on his toes for the next several weeks I would imagine. I think representative Lefebvre has one in the hopper should we decide to move the cemetery bill. Representative Colston has PR 2 representative Gannon I'm holding in the wings because he's got lots of things that I want him to do. Madam chair? Yes sir. I have tag teamed before with rep Colston I'm happy to tag team with representative Marwicky if you want to partition it in some digestible way because it is a long presentation for sure. Yes representative Leclerc. One moment here. Representative Barry C had a lot of questions about the Essex Charter changes seems to be the content expert in that and that's coming. Well I was just going to get to that because that is also on our list of bills to to assign and the the default is often to give the community representative sitting around our table the first crack at presenting a charter change but given that representative Vihosky lives in the town and not in the village of Essex I wondered if you would prefer to take a pass on reporting Essex Charter change. I would prefer to take a pass and I'm happy to take Springfield as the one person who hasn't reported a bill or doesn't have a bill in the hopper if that makes more sense.  I'd also be happy to tag team with representative Marwicky if that makes more sense but I do I do think it makes the most sense for me not to be the presenter of the Essex the city of Essex Charter. Thank you representative Leclerc. I recognize I had an enormous lift with 223 trying to recover from it but in the fairness towards committee here I'd be happy to participate in the Essex Charter presentation one because having been on a select board there is a little experience I can draw from to hopefully make answer some potential questions but I'll just throw that out but I do think it's large enough that it would require so you you're suggesting that maybe a little very city very town work on Essex might absolutely yes I think that's wonderful as a as a city in town who are not currently clamoring for attention to divorce or marriage or living together or whatever yeah there you go hey we used to we used to share a sewer truck a vector of course the sharing of the vector fell apart but anyway we do share a sewage so representatives Leclerc thank you for volunteering to team up on Essex and we will have a little more testimony from Essex next week and representative Vihovsky and Merwicky you you too can work together on on Springfield and I will allow you to flip a coin or say not it or whatever in terms of who presents on the floor but what I would like to do is ask you to spend some time figuring out which parts of the charter you think the committee ought to consider leaving out or or in some other way just flagging for me for scheduling purposes where you think we need to hear more testimony and or do more work on the bill I you know now that we are back in this meeting environment where we are hybrid and I you know and and people are able to be in the building I would love to share some of the work of figuring out who else needs to come and testify so that it's not me and and representative Gannon trying to to figure out all of the witness list for the coming week I do appreciate that and I think I am also cognizant of the feedback from Rep McCarthy that I think what you were saying is that Springfield would like charter change the remaining tax for the most as much as as much as possible but I think they recognize there are some things so I would then we have to look to the sense of the committee is to what people think should be chopped today so and I look forward to working with representative Bajowski on this and we will we can email try and figure out the next step that work thank you excellent so what else do we have on our list Madam Chair when might we be taking Burlington up again I would like us to spend a little more time hearing from Burlington folks during the week next week and we'll also hear from the Village Trustees and select board from Essex next week Rep Bajowski Representative Hooper asked the first half of my question if we have witnesses we'd like to hear from on the Burlington Charter is the best thing to do to just email you what we're thinking Chair Madam Chair yes please that would be super helpful anything else on any of the charters that we were looking at I think we have those assigned and under control the only other bill that we took a look at this week that we haven't currently made a decision on or assigned to anyone is the one the cemetery bill relating to investment of the perpetual care funds by cemetery associations and I don't mind doing that as long as John helps me with that well we need to take a look at what we did for municipal cemeteries because I think we should follow I don't mind talking that through and looking at what we did for the other one and helping it do you I think what would be really helpful just in terms of getting up to speed on what was done before for public cemeteries is if you tried to make an appointment to meet with Tucker if he's meeting virtually you can pop into a corner with you know and do a zoom with him or if he's in the building maybe you can sit down with him but if you could ask him those questions and pick his brain as much as possible to understand I think it would be great if we sort of batched those two and aimed to vote them both out on the same day I know that it makes for a bit more work for you to do it simultaneously but um but I think it might make for a smoother sale through the floor if we what was the other thing we did that I'm looking right now but what was the other so we had like two different things what was the other thing we did cemeteries and something else there were two cemetery builds yeah cemetery fence oh museum it was per dm pay your guys have got commissions and that so we've got a subgroup working on boards and commissions yeah um and then that per diem bill will be based off of what we decided for boards and commissions yeah I batched that together because the board of commissions bill had a proposal on per diems and I wanted us to put all of those ideas in front of the committee and uh and make a decision on how to move forward all right am I forgetting anything no I think we've covered I think those we worked on I feel like I'm juggling that was every time it's feeling like I'm juggling you know swords where it didn't start your statement then with Alexa Alexa what have I forgotten yes all right uh representative anthony thank you madam chair uh despite all the humor am I am I correct that I've been invited to partner with my uh good friend from the town on the reportage of the city of Essex junction um yes I think that would be a very delicious um uh team you know you guys got the one two going on there so we have been yeah definitely got a sense of humor all right any other questions about work that we've done this week that you think is outstanding or lingering yes this isn't a question about that but I ran into Nick Adlerton in the cafeteria yesterday and he had said that he has set up a schedule for folks wanting to come in and look at certain maps or whatever so I just thought if people don't know about that there is a schedule that you can sign up for a certain time I guess to look at maps with him yes yes that is um that's a really good point so members of legislature can go on his uh his scheduling um app and see when he has open office hours times and so he's going to leave open um you know basically any time that he's not in here in committee with us or in senate go well no it's not go box the senate reapportionment committee so yeah he will make himself available and um and folks can meet with him all right representative anthony is is that madam chair an appropriate announcement to our colleagues because I'm sure there are some areas in the state and those representatives know full well that the current lines cannot survive and it might be worth our while to have them uh directly connect with uh and get an appointment but I'm not sure they would automatically know that unless you announced it on the floor so I'm trying to be respectful of the fact that nick is brand new to this process and I may be I mean yes ultimately we want to make sure that people know that um that they have access to that resource um but I don't really want to open the floodgates for him uh today or tomorrow because he is scrambling to work with legislative it to get our redistricting website up and running and test all of the links for the various districts so that when we send the letter out um communities will be able to look at their own redistricting and so I I want him to be able to focus on that because that is the most critical step in the process that we need in order to be able to give the communities the information so they can come back and tell us um what they think of the proposal so um I would uh not want to inundate him with individual appointments just yet and peter there already exists our current house districts with the 2020 census data which shows deviations for each of those districts and that would indicate to members whether or not it's likely that their districts would have to be redistricted I mean if you just look at we have deviations that go over 20 percent so I think as as any member here can explain that I think to another member that pay look there there's you know a problem you know if they if they say you think I'll be redistricted well your deviation is over 20 percent so yep yep it's yep it's nice to be some changes if I can too the other thing that needs to be explained to folks too is you may have worked out your district to a proper deviation but how did you do it I mean did you did you have to you know intrude on another district that maybe put them under or over so there's a lot more to it than just correcting your district and it's not all that helpful if 150 house members come in and say here this is the solution because my solution might throw his district out of deviation or vice versa and and so yeah I mean too many cooks in the kitchen like we have as people around this table we have to figure out how it all fits together totally understand and agree first things first sure yes we don't care about him he's gonna be in a rubah for goodness sake all right other any other questions about about the work that we've done so far this week all right excellent be productive this afternoon and I'll see you all on the house floor at three and then again in our public hearing at five forty five so that we can be ready to go at six


I have some longs for tomorrow. I have some shorts for tomorrow. I have kind of a bit of everything. But if we go into day two again, and there is no commitment to one side of the market, you're gonna find yourself in something called chopstick, which everybody is talking about. Welcome to Access to Trader, the number one community for those who are committed to taking control of their trading in order to achieve success, profitability, and longevity. Thank you for joining us. Here's Dan Shapiro to help you find your edge, master your process, and own your future. Hey guys, good evening everybody. Welcome to another edition of the AccessToTrader.com Nightly Rapper Show. I hope everybody is doing okay. So I had a very frustrating session to kind of start my week. Let's talk about it real quick, right? Really quick. So if you guys watched the nightly video from over the weekend, right? We had our first close over the 50 day moving average, which was kind of a big deal for the technology sector. So when we opened down this morning, I wanted to always, I never throw away my game plan, it doesn't make sense because openings, pre-market futures, whatever the case may be, is not an indicative way to kind of look at failure or success of the stock market. Market changes on a dime and up openings go red, openings go green and everything else in between. So when we opened lower today, my initial comments were, well, the fact that the bulls reclaimed the 50 day moving average. And if you look at pre-market, a lot of things were pretty flat, right? Considering we were down 50, 60 handles on the NASDAQ, it wasn't really, there wasn't really a lot of stuff that was down a lot. Amazon had a really good positive notes coming out of Morgan Stanley, they talked about a five, 6,000 handle. Everything was down like a buck, 50 cents, a dollar, nothing, right? Nothing, so I said, you know what? Let's give it the first 30 minutes, let's see exactly if the bulls can go red to green, start reclaiming Friday's price action and see if the last two days of the week was going to manifest into kind of a bigger stretch. That didn't happen, right? That absolutely didn't happen. And once we started selling off, this is about, this is 9.30, I want to give the bulls kind of a doubt. Around 10.30, you can clearly see nothing was rallying. Matter of fact, not only was nothing rallying, you started seeing some pretty good, pretty good retracements from Friday's channels, but the hardest part about a retracement from Friday's channel, you're always expecting to some sort of rising support is going to hold it and they're going to snap back. And by 10.30, we were about $3 below that 3.26 level, which is a 50 day moving average and going lower and lower and lower. The problem with the sell off, well, I don't use the sell off, but the problem with the back test, this morning around 10.30, 11.30, 12.30, right? Three hours in a row, it was very methodical, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.  And I said, but this is so odd, not only are things not rallying, but they're not really going down aggressively. In other words, we're not seeing any really big call or put activity yet, right? We haven't seen anything. I go, this is very, very odd. And then slowly, but surely you started seeing some pretty big bets coming in on Tesla to the downside, June 550, 500 puts, okay, that's cool. And they were coming in in pretty, pretty steady flow. You started seeing some other names, the video getting some out of the money puts as well. And by two o'clock or so, I was like, all right, you know what? These things are starting to come in now. Tomorrow should be a premium session. So just keep this in mind, 9.30, I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. 10.30, we have $3 below supply by around noon, right? 12.30, one o'clock or so, we started finally getting some pretty good aggressive put buying by 2.30, I went to the post office, dropped off my taxes. And I said, all right, tomorrow's setting up really big premium, right? Like really big premium to the downside. And then by four o'clock you look up and they literally, this is the last candle a day, they rallied the cues $3 into the clothes, which is incredibly frustrating. And the reason why it's incredibly frustrating, if you look at the chart right now on the cues, you say to yourself, well, what saved the market? Again, I get it technically. I understand technically what saved the market and this was the rising support, which I believe this morning was supposed to be challenged and then rally from there. So I get why we bounced, right? I get why we bounced. I don't say why we bounced so aggressively.  We just rallied $3 off the lows on the cues, but we closed and the bears took control over the 50 day moving average, right? So we're kind of not here, not there. And the frustration part from my own trading today was Amazon was good. Amazon was good. I caught a piece of the move to the upside. And then the strongest stocks that were still strong, this is when things were coming off the bottom a little bit, there was absolutely no follow through. So I'm sitting there and I'm sitting there. So I lost some money this morning, but I said, you know what? I'm looking at the big picture. It's not anything meaningful. It doesn't make a difference. But you know what? Everything is setting up so good, like so good for tomorrow's session. We're gonna get premium and everything's gonna be all right in the world and we didn't get that. So the frustration level is I'm looking at charts and there's some good-looking charts for tomorrow, right? And the oddest part about the good-looking charts for tomorrow, they were the same good-looking charts over the weekend. So nothing fundamentally has changed. And a name, for example, I've got forbid my e-signal work, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with a chart, for example, like Facebook. Facebook had a good setup for today if my charts would ever load up. And the moral of the story is it still looks pretty good for tomorrow if we rally. But the problem is, and again, showing charts and not there, but the problem is when you look at the macro environment of the market, we still have to appreciate that we close underneath supply. And when you go into tomorrow's session, I have some longs for tomorrow. I have some shorts for tomorrow. I have kind of a bit of everything. But if we go into day two again and there is no commitment to one side of the market, you're gonna find yourself in something called the chopstick, which everybody has gone through. But when it's very, very painfully obvious, it becomes very, very frustrated because you're trying to understand the price action. You turn around and say, it doesn't make sense, but you know what? It makes sense at the same time. And usually I have a good night, I have a good idea of what I want to do for the next day. And I have a pretty good game plan. And I'm kind of going really non-bias. This is the first time, I think, going into tomorrow's session, let me just reload my e-single. I think this is the first time going into tomorrow's session that it's gonna be a very, very tough time, right? It's gonna be a very, very tough time for me to have a bias tomorrow until I really see the whole group, not just one stock, not just two stocks. Either the whole group get really, really good to the upside or completely lose today's ranges and start challenging last week's lows. That's the best way to do it. And when you have a market, right? When you have a market that is so non-committal, and that's the best way of saying it, there was so much lack of commitment going into today's session, you could burn mental equity. You could take like a paper cut. And today, for me, it was a pretty much a paper cut tape, but it's not the point. It was the point that I couldn't figure out the price action. I get what happened last week. I understood prior to last couple of days of the week, we were also three weeks worth of sell by. So I got all that part. What frustrated today was the random moves back to the upside, the random moves back to the downside. And today's basically point of view was we didn't get enough confirmation channels to the downside, but yet nothing wanted to confirm back to the upside as well. So it was one of those days that, you lost some money, you feel okay with it. Because again, you didn't keep on pushing the envelope and turn a paper cut into a severed head. So that's part, right? That's part of the course. It's the cost of doing business. I get that part. But usually when you look at charts afterwards and you turn around and say, I got it, okay? Or here's the dynamics of the market. Or maybe this group was outperforming everything else. And all I got today, literally as looking at a bunch of charts today, all I got today was a lot of confusion. And the one thing that I've always maintained for years and years and years, right? You don't have to have the answers for everything, right? I really don't have the answers going into tomorrow. I think I'm gonna wait for a lot of data. I get that the bulls failed to reclaim back to back days the 50 day moving average. That's not a good thing. But at the same time, these random spikes into the close now, three sessions in a row, regardless that we were down today or not, three sessions in a row has really got me thinking. So my question going into tomorrow's session, again, this is a very rhetorical question. There's no possible way you could answer it until you actually see tomorrow's session. Well, what the hell's going on, right? Like literally what the hell is going on? And there is no answer for that. But sometimes, and again, I don't care how long you're trading, what your experience level is, the size of your account, what you've been through the market. Sometimes you just gotta take a little bit of step back and say, I need more, right? I need more confirmation. I need more data. I need to see the whole, right? Not some of the parts. I need to see the whole to kind of validate a better opinion. So when you look at a channel, for example, like a Facebook, right, to the upside, it looks pretty good, right? Amazon today had really positive notes and had a pretty big move. And again, you can see another continuation channels and it had weekly 3,300 calls come in. So right, you can make a case. Hey, you know what? We are resilient right now. The sellers are tired. You can see that by spikes into the clothes, but at the same time, you can turn around and say, well, not so fast. We've been selling off for three weeks. We had a dead cab balance. We reclaimed the 50 day moving average. We lost the 50 day moving average. We put in a lower high from Friday's clothes. Yada, yada, yada. We're about to retest the lows. All to be determined. So sometimes folks, you gotta throw up the hands and say, look, I don't know. I have no idea and I'm okay with that. You know, if you start believing in yourself that you can solve questions, right? Have the answers for everything. You're deceiving yourself. It's an ego thing, right? It's trying to convince somebody else that you're right, that you're perfect. We're not right. We're not perfect, okay? We're human beings. We're gonna eff up, right? We're gonna eff up a lot. And sometimes you're gonna have sessions that you don't understand, that you don't have a firm understanding of where the pulse is, right? You see it. You try to accept it.  So going into tomorrow's session, I'm Delta neutral, man. I really am. I'm Delta neutral. I'm okay with today's loss. I'm okay with that. I made some money on Amazon and I lost a little bit of money on GameStop, which ironically is up $10 for my entry. And I lost a little bit of money on Zoom because I, you know, it just got rejected as well.  Mentally wise, it was a big deal because again, I went from really good premium set back to the downside tomorrow into who the hell knows, let's see what happens. So let's talk about today's session. And again, it started off okay. There was nothing wrong with today's session, right? So I put in a bunch of, and here's my morning notes. I'll give the bulls the benefit of the doubt for the first two candles of the day after the queues are reclaimed to 326 levels. Any close beneath that is bearish, right? So we got a close below 326. The longer they build above is bullish. It's Monday morning, no need to rush, let this all play out. So I started putting in pivots, right? I started putting pivots to the upside and Zoom. This is, you know, again, this is where, here's one of my, here's my second trade of the day. Amazon was my first. So Zoom, I bought the 310. So what happened was it went to 310, went back to 308. So the second entry was 310, right? So I get long, I get long Zoom. It goes up like nothing, goes up like 50 cents and right away gets slammed. I was like, look, once the level gets slammed, I'm okay with that. Maybe there was a reload seller. I'm okay with it. It took a dollar loss, moved on. Facebook, 317 needs to build. I still think Facebook needs to rebuild 350. 317, Apple never got close. Peloton never got close. NVIDIA never got close. Good job for all you guys who traded Funko. This wasn't a name that I was trading. For all you guys who did, great job. Funko, 25 needs to build. Here was Funko, right? Here was Funko. It took out the 25, took out 25 and a half. One, two, 26, 17. If you traded it, God bless. I did not. It's not really my thing. PRMW, triggered right at the close. I still like this chart. PRMW 1740 needs to build. It literally closed that right on the close. I still like it. I still definitely, definitely like it. Into tomorrow's session. There's a big premium, excuse me. There's a big macro channel coming up on the Feb eight channel. So keep an eye on that if you are long into the overnight and Amazon, right? For experienced traders only 32, 60 needs to build. So I got long Amazon and what did it do? Instantly dropped like 10 points against me, right? Like I'm telling you, this is how my day was going. So it dropped 10 points against me in seconds. And then it rallied seven, eight points instantly, blah, blah, blah. So I took some sales. I was like, look, I have no idea what the hell's going on today. I'm so confused. Amazon's trading the $5, $6 spread. And as soon as I sold, they ran up a little 20. So I really knew right away, this just wasn't my day. Oh yeah, it is what it is, right? It is what it is. I made some money on Amazon, lost some money in Zoom. So I said to myself, I'm not getting anywhere, but you know what, it's okay. Let the market play out, I'll get something better. Netflix never got there, take on the way up. And I started putting in pivots to the upside, $593 on the upside of Tesla. And I'll show you a downside pivot as well. GameStop looks great on paper, right? Went to $185, not for me it didn't. So here was GameStop, right? Here was GameStop. So it took out the 70, right? It took out the 70 and put in a high of 171 in retrace. Usually when they go back to that high in the second entry, usually good things are gonna happen. So I buy it on the second entry and it goes up, and it goes up 50 cents. Like literally, like nothing followed through to it. The strongest names didn't follow through. And then the stock, so I sell it, I lose two bucks on the trade. And then the stock goes down, and then the stock goes down what, five? Okay, all right, cool. And then I look at it two hours later, and it's at 72. And then it goes down another $4, right? And then yada, yada, yada, it runs up like six into the close. So you had a state, you literally had to be in GameStop for 19 hours to get this move. What do I need to put 19 entries to get this trade? So again, you can see how my day was going. And this is where I turned around and said, you know what, I'm good, right? I'm good. I don't need to bleed all day. I'm good for the day.  I'm okay with that. Paper cut, paper cut, paper cut is better than severed head. And I'm okay for tomorrow. Biggest problem for me tomorrow is, well now I have no idea what the hell's going on. So that's that there, Funko on deck. Good job for everybody. You took Tesla 5.69 for bills below can flush. Again, size buyers come in for the 500, 4.90s and went all the way down to 5.61. I still like the macro level here. And this is what I was talking about. Nothing wants to go down, but nothing wants to go up, right? All the downpivots are still valid, but nothing's really going down. Nothing's really going up. And that was basically, and that was basically the reality, right? You had Tesla coming back in for what you guys would call Tesla, good job. But that was the reality to take. Very frustrating day. There was no continuity, no follow-through. A lot of sitting, a lot of data grabbing, a lot of patience, but you know what? That's the game. If success was linear, everybody would be rich and everybody would have such a fun and easy time doing this, but it's not. Hopefully we'll get some sort of clarity tomorrow. But if not, again, patience is the game. You don't need to trade every single day.  Guys, have a great night, everybody. God bless, and I'll see you all tomorrow.


Since the early 20th century, X-rays have been used to determine structure of materials through diffraction. Today, X-ray diffraction, or XRD, is a common characterization tool for material scientists. XRD is used to generate a diffraction pattern corresponding to the crystal symmetry of the material. The type of pattern and its position can give information about crystal structure and lattice parameters, and other information can be determined such as residual stress, crystal size, and oriented growth. This video will show the operation for one-dimensional X-ray diffractometry using a Brucker D8 focus instrument. Upon entering the XRD room, the user should take notice of the operational lights on the side of the instrument. The ready and on lights should be illuminated, while the alarm and busy lights should be off. To unlock the doors, the user presses the open door button. The alarm light will blink while the doors remain unlocked. To open the doors, the user pulls the two black handles towards themselves simultaneously, then gently slides the doors apart by the metal fixtures. X-rays are generated by accelerating electrons into a copper target. X-rays are directed towards the sample where they diffract. Angles of constructive interference will diffract X-rays into the one-dimensional detector, which transduces the X-ray intensity. The X-ray beam leaving the X-ray generator is confined by the divergent slit. The length of the sample that is illuminated by X-rays depends on the diffraction angle and divergent slit size. A narrower divergent slit produces sharper diffraction peaks at lower intensity that can help resolve closely spaced peaks. On the detector side, there is an anti-scatter slit, which reduces noise caused by scattered X-rays from amorphous material or air. The diffraction slit further controls the resolution of the instrument. In between the two slits is a piece of nickel foil. Nickel has an X-ray absorption edge between copper K-alpha and K-beta, causing it to absorb more of the higher energy K-beta X-rays while letting more of the K-alpha X-rays pass through it. There are various types of sample holders for different samples. No matter what type of holder is used, it is important that the surface of the sample is flush with the top surface of the sample holder. This sample holder has an adjustable stage to change the height of the sample. After loading a sample, the sample holder is placed onto the base of the sample stage fixture. The sample holder is lifted up from above so that its top surface is flush with the top of the sample stage. Then, the sample stage fixture is gently pressed up, locking the sample holder into position. The doors are closed by gently sliding them together by the metal fixtures, and then locked by pressing the black handles in simultaneously. When the doors are locked, the alarm light will stop blinking and remain off. Now it's time for the user to set up the scan using the instrument software. A scan method can be created or modified using the XRD Wizard application from the desktop. From the application screen, a new method or previous method can be opened. The user can set the 2-theta scan range, step size or number of steps per scan, and time per step. The X-ray generator power for the scan can be adjusted up to 40 kV and 40 mA. Finally, the scan method is saved. Operation of the instrument is done through the XRD Commander application. Before starting a scan, the X-ray generator power must be slowly ramped up to its desired output. First, voltage is increased at 5 kV increments by typing in the next value and clicking the set button. The X-ray generator is allowed to rest for 10 seconds before the user increases to the next set point. This slow ramp in power will ensure increased longevity of the X-ray generator. Next, the current is increased at 5 mA intervals in the same manner. After the target power has been achieved, the user can set up the next scan by clicking on the jobs dropdown menu and selecting jobs. This will open a new window where the user can add a sample ID, select a parameter file, and save location for their sample. The user starts the selected scan by pressing the start button. This will open the shutter of the X-ray generator and begin the scan. Two red lights are illuminated on the X-ray generator when the shutter is open and the goniometer moves into its starting theta and two theta positions. This goniometer has a stationary X-ray source with moving sample stage and detector. But other XRD instruments may have a stationary sample stage with moving X-ray source and detector. During a scan, the busy light will be illuminated. When the scan has completed, the X-ray generator shutter will automatically close and the busy light will turn off. Now the sample is ready to be removed. The final position of the goniometer may make it difficult to remove the sample holder. The user can adjust the goniometer position manually by changing the theta and two theta values to 30 and 60 degrees and pressing the move drives button in the XRD commander application. To remove the sample holder from the sample stage, a latch underneath the sample stage is gently pulled while holding onto the sample holder. Before leaving, the status of the alarm light is checked. If the alarm is on, the user will contact the lab technician for assistance.


Greetings and welcome to the introduction to astronomy. In this lecture we are going to talk about the Big Bang, which is our model for the origin of the universe that explains how it formed. So we want to take a little bit of a look at the history of that and how we come to understand how the Big Bang might work. So let's go ahead and get started here and what we see is that some of the very earliest thoughts of this were given quite a while ago, in fact back in the 1920s by Georges Slamatre. And what he found was, what he suggested was that the idea of the Big Bang was this primeval atom that broke apart and forming the present atoms in the universe. So this was an idea of fission that things had split apart. And it was compared to the end, we were looking at the end of a firework show, just watching the fading embers of the universe, which is all that was left after this primeval atom broke apart. So the suggestion was that it started as something big and then broke apart. Now we have to think that this was long before we understood nuclear physics. At this time we really didn't even understand what powered the sun, we were just getting a handle on that. So what we know now is that the universe must have been, even with that the universe must have been hotter and denser in the past. So we do know that that is the case. But some of the very ideally ideas of the formation of the universe even go back just about a hundred years. Now what we look now more recently in the 1940s, we have nuclear fusion was beginning to be understood. We had now learned that nuclear fusion was the source of energy for the sun. So this is where the sun got all of its energy. George Gamma said that the universe built the heavy elements through nuclear fusion. And that's what happens in the stars, and he suggested that the universe did the same kind of thing. This is actually relatively similar to the ideas that we have today, except that now we say that only the very lightest elements formed in the Big Bang, hydrogen and helium and maybe small amounts of lithium, and that all of the heavier elements had to be formed within the stars. So let's look a little bit about how we can understand what was going on in the very earliest part of the universe, very earliest times. And what we see is that the temperature must have dropped very rapidly. In fact, going from one one-hundredth of a second after the Big Bang, being one hundred billion Kelvin, and after three minutes dropping to just one billion Kelvin, and then after just one hundred thousand years, a very short time compared to the fourteen billion year age of the universe, it was down to three thousand Kelvin. And what dominated early on is that radiation dominated the universe for that very earliest stretch of the universe, when things were happening here, and that goes out to about, probably into about this range, we can see radiation dominates, and it isn't until we start to begin to form particles and atoms here that radiation becomes less and less important in the universe. But we also know, because radiation dominated, we have to remember also that energy can be converted to matter by Einstein's equation, E equals MC squared. And what that means, we usually think of it in one direction, that we can take a small amount of mass and make a large amount of energy. But it works the other way around as well. We can take large amounts of energy and make small amounts of mass as well. It requires very high temperatures because it requires lots of energy to do this. But when the temperature is six billion Kelvin, that means that you could create electron-positron pairs, and you would get this primordial soup that would form that would have mixtures of energy and electron-positron pairs that are just popping into and out of existence. You have to go even higher temperatures because the electron-positron are a lower mass. You need even higher temperatures of 100 trillion Kelvin to be able to produce proton-antiproton pairs. But this was something quite achievable. We were getting temperatures like that in the very first fraction of a second of the universe. Now, how would this have evolved then? What would have changed? And what we can learn as we look at the very earliest time that we know of is this 10 to the minus 43rd seconds. And if you can imagine drawing those 43 zeros after the decimal point to get to this very first instant of the universe. And the problem is, because this is where everything started from, but at this point, even time, our concept of time starts to break down. So our equations become meaningless at this, and we simply cannot know anything that early. But it's important to try to understand because it's when everything was happening. Later times, when we get down to about one-one-hundredth of a second, we have a little bit easier understanding. And in fact, this is the time when we would have had electron-positron pairs forming. So you could have two gamma rays, lots of energy come together, and that would create an electron and a positron. And you could then have that positron and that electron meet up with another one, and then form a... and then form two gamma rays. So it was a constant changing between matter and energy at this point. So we were switching back and forth between... you could switch back and forth between matter and energy. And this is what was happening with the positron-electron-positron pairs. They were able to form these constantly. Now, as we got a little further along, about one second into this, neutrinos were able to escape. So we're finally getting to the point where the universe is low enough density that neutrinos were able to escape. And they, if you recall, neutrinos can travel through just about anything, but they do not interact with a lot of stuff, but the universe was so dense before one second that even neutrinos were trapped and unable to escape. They would be unfortunately extremely hard to detect, but would give us some evidence of the very early history of the universe. Now, as we go into later times, we can understand a little bit more. And we're getting into a little bit later, up to three minutes, we're actually starting to form atomic nuclei. That's what we see in the second image here. We can have protons and neutrons combining to form deuterium, a form of heavy hydrogen, which could then help form helium, and finally form helium. Four, which is the standard helium that we see? This is what was going on in those first few minutes after the Big Bang. We took hydrogen and converted it to helium. Essentially, the universe was like a gigantic star fusing hydrogen into helium. But by the time we reached four minutes, the universe had cooled too much that we were no longer able to fuse elements together. So this gives us, again, a very early history. That's why the early universe only formed hydrogen and helium. The temperatures cooled off too rapidly before there were sufficient quantities of helium for helium to fuse into carbon. So everything beyond that on the periodic table had to be formed after the Big Bang in stars. By studying deuterium, we can look at the density of the early universe. We can tell us about the density of the ordinary matter in the universe. It does not tell us about dark matter. And we can then see what else... talk about what else is beginning to form there. So what we see here is that we kind of went in stages. We first formed particles. Even before this, we would have formed proton and antiprotons. But then after this, we formed the electrons and positrons. And then we began to form simple atoms, actually nuclei. And then finally, after a few hundred thousand years, we were beginning to form the larger, large actual elements. Now what this leads to is what is the evidence for any of this with the Big Bang? And what we want to see is, you know, what kind of evidence? What can we see that shows that the Big Bang is correct? We say that it is our current model. But any good theory has to make predictions. So we need some kind of predictions that are made. And one of the predictions that the Big Bang makes is that at about 400,000 years, electrons and protons would combine into atoms. And at that point, the universe became transparent. Before this time, no radiation could travel through the universe. It was constantly being absorbed and re-emitted. So just as we cannot see into the center of the sun, it was too dense, there's too much absorption and re-emission of the radiation, until it actually reaches an area where the opacity is small enough that it can escape, we can't see anything. And at this point, matter and radiation decoupled from each other, and electromagnetic radiation like light could travel through the universe. This is the key because this can still be detected today. So detecting this radiation from the early universe would be a very important key to... a very important piece of evidence for the Big Bang. So how can we detect this background radiation? Well, first of all, let's look a little bit about the history of it. In the 1940s, Alfred, Herman, and Gamal got together and were thinking that the universe would have had a temperature of 3,000 Kelvin when it became transparent, as we've just talked about. They had determined this in the 1940s, and what they knew was that the universal expansion would have stretched this radiation. Something at 3,000 Kelvin would be a very cool star and is emitting primarily in the infrared part of the spectrum. So at that point, the universe would have been glowing in the infrared very brightly and would have had even a good amount of visible light just throughout the entire universe, even the empty space, would have been filled with this background radiation. However, expansion has now increased this by a factor of 1,000. So it has stretched these wavelengths that used to be in the infrared by a factor of 1,000 and would now be more comparable to a temperature of 3 Kelvin. And that would be in the radio part of the spectrum. However, at this time, we didn't have the sensitivity of the instruments, and we were just beginning to really put good radio telescopes together. So we were able to then be able to see what was going on. So with Penzias and Wilson in the 1960s, actually did detect this. And in their thing here, in their telescope here, they were trying to detect not the cosmic background radiation. They were actually looking for other radio signals, and were trying to detect those signals and get the best signals they possibly could. And what they found with their telescope is that they found radio waves that were coming from every direction that they looked. And they looked for sources of interference and were trying to eliminate all of those and eventually found that they simply could not, that there was this little bit of a glow that was coming from everywhere in the universe. And this was actually the detection of that background radiation. So how can we measure this? We've got better instruments that can measure it in more detail now. And in fact, in the 1990s, COBE, the Cosmic Background Explorer, measured the radiation spectrum and found it to be a perfect fit to a black body of 2.73 Kelvin. If you look here, the green line is the black body spectrum and the COBE data are shown in the red. And you can see that they match up almost perfectly. We don't generally get experiments that match up that perfectly. So this really fits it and fits it extremely well and is a great to confirms the predictions of the Big Bang model. So any other model is going to have to also be able to explain this background radiation. Then are there variations? We see it as fitting very well, but what are the variations in the microwave background? Well, we actually do see that there are some variations. And in fact, when we map out the entire sky, we see that we have some here areas in the red, which are warmer areas and some areas in the blue that are very cool areas. So there are some slight variations, but these are measuring tiny fractions of a degree. These are not measuring tenths or hundreds of a degree. We're talking tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of a degree in variation. So while there is some slight variation, it is not very large, but it is important because this is what gives rise to the structure we see in the universe today comes from these denser areas and these less dense areas that we see. And that has given rise to the structures that we actually see today. Now, what this leads to is we have to try to understand the density of the universe and what we mean by the density. And what the density shows is that there are then possible geometries for the universe. So when we look at these variations that we see by the Planck satellite as we see here, we can see that there are very significant variations. So Kobe gave us our first measurements of the original background. Now we're able to get some here, but we're seeing the Planck satellite has given us maps of the entire sky. So this is an entire sky picture going around the sky, looking at all the different places. So looking for the background radiation from all the different areas. And what we find is that this helps tell us the shape of the universe because it is related to the density. And there are three possible geometries for the universe. And what we can have is one of three things. We can have a spherical or closed universe which is like this, where parallel rays, things that start out parallel, will eventually meet off in the distance. There is a flat universe which is what we're used to thinking about here, where parallel rays will go on forever. And there is a hyperbolic open universe where parallel rays will diverge and get further and further apart over time. So we will have to come back and look at these to try to understand what the shape of the universe actually is. So the results that we get from this are, first of all, that we find that the density is equal to the critical density. So that tells us that there is a flat universe, that the universe is very flat based on our measurements. We also find that the age of the universe to a very accurate amount is close to 14 billion years, about 13.8 billion years with only a very small error estimate. We also know that dark energy accounts for a large percentage of the universe, being 68.5%, and that the matter content, including ordinary and dark matter, is only 31.5%. These are all consistent with the values that we have found and the information we have found from the microwave background. And do recall that only 4% of the universe is ordinary matter, so most of this is actually dark matter. Most vast majority of this is dark. So in terms of dark matter and dark energy, that makes up about 96% of the mass energy in the universe. So this is kind of what we found. We have learned. We know the age of the universe. We learned something about the density. But of course, how does this tie in with the fact that the universe appears to be accelerating? And that is very interesting and some things that we will look at coming up in a future lecture. Because if the universe is accelerating, we would expect it to be open. So there are some other things that have to come in here, so that the Big Bang is not the complete explanation for the universe, but is a very good start and does match a lot of things very well. So let's finish up, as we do, with our summary. And what we find is the Big Bang model explains the observations that we see of the universe today. In that early universe, we formed hydrogen, helium, and maybe a small amount of lithium, and that was it. The rest was formed in stars. The cosmic background radiation provides evidence for the Big Bang. And variations in this background will tell us about the early history of the universe, how the structures that we see today are formed, and can also tell us the ultimate fate of the universe. So that concludes this lecture on the Big Bang. We'll be back again next time for another topic in astronomy. So until then, have a great day, everyone, and I will see you in class.


No matter how long you've struggled or how many attempts you've tried to be free, you can be permanently delivered by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's believe right now for your total deliverance. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for that one who's crying out for freedom now. And I ask you, Father, to cause them to sense the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We come against every attack of the enemy in the mighty name of Jesus, that every addiction be broken, every chain be broken, every spiritual bondage be broken. For your word declares, whom the sun sets free is free indeed. May they receive that freedom now in Jesus' name. Amen. Now let me know in the comment section if you sense the power of the Holy Spirit working and subscribe so that you and I can stay connected.


When my dad insisted on visiting my uncle for a week, my kiddy self couldn't have been more excited. I must have been young at the time, real young, maybe 10, 11? Memories fogged up, and you say, it's probably because I'm repressing something real. But this is real, through and through, that, or I really am insane. Now as I was saying, my family was going to visit my uncle Waco for a week one fine summer. Of course, his real name was Tom, but everyone called him Waco, except for mom. Mom called him Hillbilly Chain Smoker Psycho a few days before we drove down from Maryland to his ranch in West Virginia, which spurred on her argument with dad even further. Yada yada, I'm not here to talk about my parents' marriage. Uncle Waco was tall and skinny to the bone with a beard that went down to his stomach. When dad asked him why he wouldn't shave, Waco said it's because he wants to look like a wizard, had a gimpy leg he had to limp on, and a busted bone or two. He may have been dad's brother, but he seemed thrice his age. Anyways, it was about the third day of our little vacation.  It was real peaceful, quiet countryside when Waco wasn't busy screaming at vultures. Which is why Waco built Dali, a scarecrow just as tall and thin as he was. Creepy thing must have been eight or nine feet tall. Waco went overboard. Apparently it was named after a character from some book he loved. You see old Dali out there? He stuck a finger out towards the scarecrow, larger than any normal scarecrow should be. A wicked smirk struck across its sack face, coated in shadows by a musky old baseball cap. He's a feller, I say.  What's Dali like? I asked. Truthfully, I planned to play with Dali later. He could go on some great adventures with his height. Ah, he's awfully nasty. Oh, never mind, I thought. Clever too. Nasty and clever is a combination, all right? Want to know how he got so tall? How? Well, you see, long before I settled down here, some old man lived with his kid. Every night the kid would go to sleep in that bedroom. Waco pointed to a cracked window on the second story, the window of my room for the week. And boy, could that kid sleep? No sound in the world could wake him up. Until one night, when the moon was full and the frogs were singing love songs, he decided to stay up way past his bedtime, watching Simpsons on TV.  So mimicked a scratching sound. And then, I asked, well, he huddled up in his covers and went, who's there? But nobody answered. He asked again, and this time he heard a giggling on the other side of his bedroom door. But not normal giggling, it was like sandpaper, scrubbin' on gravel. Now the kid was scared out of his mind, but he still asked again. The giggling got louder. The kid was about to scream for his mama, but the door suddenly slammed open, and there, standing in the doorway, was old Dally with a grin on his face and straw for bones. He walked in and, well, nobody saw that kid again. I gulped, but kept my posture bold. I was a big boy, after all. But Dally's way too big to fit in the door. Nah, back then he ain't.  Wacko chuckled and patted the top of his head. That story's fake, I said. I'm sure Dally doesn't mind you thinkin' that. He hasn't eaten in a while, after all. Wacko hooded and hollered like some sort of coyote. Nah, you run along now. Your pa wants help with makin' dinner. Didn't he ask you to help him? I'll tell you where I keep the ice cream if you do it for me. Vanilla? Chocolate. Deal. After helping dad prepare some burgers on the grill out back, and after consuming a tub of ice cream, much to mom's displeasure, it was getting late. But alas, the fireflies were coming out. Hundreds, me and my brother, pranced around the yard, desperately trying to snag one or two while hurling insults at each other and giving off playful slaps. Laughing at jokes, leaping through the sunset, dancing as Journey's new album blared over the radio Wacko had set up. Not a phone in sight. Good times. Hey, kids, it's nine. Time to come in. Dad called from the back porch, but it was barely dark out, and I was in energetic puppy of a kid. Just ten more minutes. Big bro moped, and dad's a softy. We wrestled a little as the moon peeked over the wheat, big and round and gorgeous. It's 9.30. Get yourselves in bed, mom called from the porch. Please, mom, just a few more minutes. We just started having fun. I pleaded, I'm not a sucker like your dad. Get in here, she said. I crossed my arms and pouted. Big bro had already started towards the door and was looking at me like a little dumb-ass I was. Well, I ain't going in, I said, you best come in, boy. Uncle Wacko appeared at her side. Dally's already tall enough. I stood in angry thought, but gave in. I didn't think the Dally story was true, but I was tired and the frogs were singing love songs. After some sharp words and my father's begging, I made my way to my bedroom and peeked out the window. Though it was hard to make out, I could still see Dally's silhouette standing like some sentinel of the copper fields. The story was fake, just as I guessed. I crawled into bed, but alas, no sleep for me. I was never a heavy sleeper. So I twisted on my bedside lamp and pulled out an issue of Teen Titans Cyborg was my favorite. It was during this little reading that I heard it. A long, low, scraping sound that sent shivers down my spine. In the blink of an eye, I shoved the book under my pillow and turned off the lamp before flipping around in my bed so that my back faced the door.    I heard more scraping, more scratches, than a pause, than more scraping, than more scratches, than a pause, than more scraping, than nothing. Leave me alone, I groaned. And then I heard him chuckle and realized my mistake. The kid in the story had spoken too and gotten killed for it. No, no, no, screw that. I shot up out of my bed with tears in my eyes and I fumbled the window open. I clambered out onto the roof, looked out to the field, dally was nowhere to be seen.  What if he was next? No, no, I needed to run. You can call me a coward, but I was less than 12 years old. I leaped from the overhang and onto the soft dirt below, thankfully not a long fall. Digging my bare heels into the dirt. I bolted, didn't know where, because before long I was surrounded by a forest of wheat painted pale by the full moon. Keep running, Jack, don't you stop running till the sun rises. But I wasn't an athletic kid. It wasn't long before I was wheezing and gasping through the fields, my foot falls light against the soil. But a glimmer of hope shone through. The path, the path leading back to the front porch. I stopped on its edge, then fell into a G.I. Joe prone, because I heard footsteps, but I'd stopped walking. A tall, bone thin shadow with a baseball cap took up the space between patches of wheat field. Old Dally was holding something like a tiny box in one hand, then another hand fiddled with the top of the box in bright light shone from its side, the beam of a heavy duty flashlight. Because this old Dally was Uncle Waco. Jack, Waco called out in the night, look Jack, I was just messing boy, didn't mean to spook you out into the fields, follow my voice. I breathed a sigh of relief, so it had been a prank. I popped up from my hiding spot at the edge of the wheat and prayed to God that Waco didn't see me shivering. I'm over here, I said. Waco's eye shot in my direction, and he yelped like a fox.  Frank would've killed me if you were gone in the morning. Waco clapped me on the back, and I flinched. I, uh, I won't tell dad if you get me more ice cream. I said, Yeah, yeah, let's go back and check you for ticks, maybe toss you in the bath.  You've been out here for hours. I checked all three of the other fields, and you still hadn't sauntered back inside. I beamed it being called tough, scared? Never was. I was just being tough. Yeah, I'm really tough. I once beat up six dudes at school. Well, why'd you do that? They, uh, they were kissing my girlfriend. You have a girlfriend? No. Then why'd you beat them up? They looked at me funny. Waco shot me a smile filled with rotten teeth as we kept on walking, the conversation coming to a very temporary end. Our footsteps seemed quick, like they were repeating. Weird. So, was the dally story real? I asked, keeping to Waco's side. Weirdly enough, he took a side path to the left instead of continuing towards the house. Normally, I would question it, but there was a chest-freezer in the shed where he kept his ice cream, and I figured he was going to give me it before taking me back. Well, Jack. Waco spoke louder. I'll tell you a secret about the dally story I've never told anybody else. He laughed as he turned right onto another path. Away from the shed, I think the weed was too hard to navigate for me. Waco leaned and whispered, softer than a mouse. It was meant to be made up, but he's behind us. Look, he thinks he's sneaky. He gulped, ingripped my forearm, and then leaned back out and shifted back to his cherry old self. Ain't that the darkest thing, huh? Yeah, I gulped, going along with the act. Why were we leading it through all these weird off paths instead of just going back inside? That really is the darkest thing, I continued. Waco continued to lead me down another path, and for a second I thought he was playing another trick on me, but he was shivering like a leaf. What if Dally really was following us? What if some nightmarish scarecrow really was just waiting for a more wicked opportunity to pounce and stuff me full of straw? We veered right onto another dirty path. The wheat field was a maze of darkness and breeze. The flashlight was a shield against the night.  I brought myself even closer to Uncle Waco's side, as if an old man with a gimp leg and rotten teeth could shield me from old Dally. That scarecrow who was probably just a few meters behind us giggling to himself. Waco turned onto a path through our right again. We were looping back around to the main way. Why are we going in a circle? I whispered, I don't want him to follow us in. Suddenly there was a loud pop, like someone going mad on bubblegum, but the bubblegum was Uncle Waco's hip and the chewing caused him to fall onto the dirt. Our flashlight, our beacon, tumbled at his side and flipped over backwards so that when I went to help Waco up, the flashlight beams weren't big enough to shine over all of him. But my little eyes still narrowed as two long, raggedy pant legs were illuminated by the light. My eyes wandering up the gargantuan silhouette and landing on Dally's two tiny dots emitting a supernatural orange so faint, yet so harsh, like I was looking the devil himself in the eye and daring him to blink. I heard a sound like sandpaper being rubbed against gravel over and over again and then the figure began to walk closer on its stilt-like limbs. I broke into a sweat as this weird feeling broke over my head like I was many miles away in a place with people who spoke languages I didn't and felt in ways I couldn't. Like I was a little boy in a big war, like my bones were slightly out of place. It was as if a door had been opened somewhere out in that field and I'd been shoved inside and fed to the wolves. Go run along, boy, run along without this old man. Waco waved down the path and for a moment I truly considered it because Dally's steps were long and imposing and the noise wouldn't stop. But G.I. Joe never left his soldier behind. I hoisted that old kudup, dug my nails into his arm, and a thin, sleeved appendage warmed its way between us and flailed around with the strength of a tree trunk, sending us both flying in opposite sides of the path and into the wheat. Adrenaline had made its home in my mind and my instincts were screaming at me to just book it. So I did. I sprinted off into the wheat field for as long as I could but one of my feet caught on something and I face planted into the dirt. I flipped over to my back and breathed in. I needed to calm down. All this running would tire me out and then Dally would outpace me and turn me into crow food. But what about Waco? Was he all right? What if Dally got him? I needed to save him. And then I heard footsteps. I knew these didn't belong to Waco. Waco would be screaming my name and dragging me back home if he'd gotten away yet. A patter of footsteps couldn't be more than a few feet away from me now. So I held my breath as tight as I could and I became as still as a stone. I listened as the footsteps got farther away and I sat up and tried my best to peek my little head over the wheat. I saw the silhouette of Dally's back, then the silhouette of his hat's brim and those hellfire eyes staring back at me. I'd made a mistake. Dally was between me and the house, a glimmering fortress of wood and electricity. Giggling away like sandpaper on gravel, his legs swung around and his arms dangled to his side and Dally began his stride towards me. Long stretchy steps that shouldn't be possible for a man made of straw.  I turned backwards and dashed to the left, then the right, then I sprinted left as fast as I could. Dally could outrun me easily, but he's got a head made of straw, so I ducked to the right at the climax of my sprint and lay prone in the wheat. If Dally had seen me move, I was dead. But he strolled right past my crumpled form, one foot made of hay landing just beside my curled fist. He kept on moving. I sighed as quietly as I could and I glanced upwards. Dally was a few yards away and I saw him lurch forward into the wheat, giggle and pull out a raccoon. I could have sworn the next gravelly noise sounded angry. I began to get up as he seemed to examine the critter closer and slowly stalked my way in the direction of the house. Then his slinky arm whipped the raccoon to the side and the little creature came running through the wheat towards me, hissed, then ran the opposite direction.  In the paleness of early morning, it must have been around six by now. I could see his full form. A stitched up overcoat thrown over straw skin and wooden bones. A smile but none of the sack hood that compromised his head. One of those legs shot forward and the chase was on again. But I wasn't fast enough. I thought I was getting ahead and I'd almost reached the driveway but something as tough as bricks yanked me backwards like I was dangling off a cliff and a bungee cord just snapped. I felt bristles on the back of my neck as my feet left the ground.  I could see at the foot of the sky, the top of the sun starting to peek through. Then Dally snapped his gaze to the right because a cinder block had hit the side of his head. Uncle Waco stood a few meters away, hat barely poking above the wheat, let the boy go. His voice wavered. Dally let out one of those giggles and then a chase began. I was still being slung around but Dally had a free hand for when he caught Uncle Waco and judging by his speed, he would catch Uncle Waco. And catch Uncle Waco he did. He was slung up into the air by the back of the neck just like I was. We squirmed and wriggled against Dally's straw grip though it felt more like steel. Let us go, dammit! Waco begged to no avail. I pounded my fist against Dally's wrist but it did nothing. I screamed out into the morning. We were doomed.  And then, far off, the familiar hoot of a morning dove echoed through the air and the first golden beams of sunlight found the scarecrow's back and it stilled. No more chuckling, no more iron grip, just straw and rags. Me and Waco fell to the earth with a pair of thuds. Boy! Waco wheezed. You better come in when Mama tells you to. Of course, Waco brought me back to the house and I got a chance to clean the dirt from under my nails and rub the straw and wheat from my every joint. My heart still pumped like it never had before, even though the danger had long passed but had it. There were still three days left of this vacation, still three more nights of chancing a visit from Dally. Nah, Waco wouldn't let it happen. The family was confused when Waco announced a surprise bonfire in the backyard, a confusion that mounted when he piled on so many branches and enough tinder to melt the arctic. I was the only one who understood when Waco wandered off into the fields as we all cooked s'mores by the inferno he'd built. I was the only one who knew why. He was dragging a particularly tall scarecrow out to the pyre and I was the only one who knew why I shrieked like a banshee when its head rolled off its shoulders and landed at my feet with two fiery holes beneath the baseball cap. I don't know what happened out in the field that night with Dally and Waco. I don't know if I'll ever share this feeling with anybody else. It was like for a night I got a short peek into a world I didn't understand, one I didn't want to understand, one the morning sun saved me from. Waco understood how I felt. He was there. After the incident he'd stop by our home in the city and check up on us now and then tell us crazy stories. Then sometimes me and him would share a soda or two by a fire. He passed away on his trip back home three years ago. Car accident. I miss him. I still can't fully describe what happened that day. It's like my brain is ripping out memories one by one until nothing's left but a giggle and a bittersweet summer vacation.  But that's how it is. That's how old Dally was. I haven't felt something like that since then. That feeling of being somewhere I shouldn't be. And frankly, I don't want to. I don't want answers to what happened. I don't want logic and rules. I just want to be able to sleep without nightmares.