What's up, you guys? Thank you for the already thumbs. Okay, so today, we're gonna attempt a dirt... I don't think it's a brand. See, we're gonna try to do a dirty pour. That's really, is it a dirty pour? Well, if you're gonna put all the colors in one cup and then pour it, you're gonna get it dirty. Like, that's the dirtiest. So, we need to make a milky white, which that's probably not gonna be enough. There's no way this board, eight ounces is not enough. That's more than a 15 inch round. We do six ounces.  You're gonna need more resin. You probably have to turn your hat backwards. Do you have gloves? Okay. Hey, hi, how are ya? They're special.  Yeah. Yeah, well, let's, you get some millet. Oh, sorry for that movement. Hey, hi, how are ya? Welcome you guys. If you're new here, I'm Erica. That handsome fella hanging out the window is my fiance. And his name is Jeff or Thornton or Jeffrey, if he's in trouble. And we're artists till death. We go live every day, usually at 6 p.m. central, except we're on Tuesdays, usually at 2 p.m. central. And we usually work with resins sometimes as other art stuff, but it's always art. And we're happy to have you guys. It's always, always art. So, we just want just a little. What we're gonna do is make a base. It is basically a very- Tone down white, watered down white. Yeah. Soft white. A very transparent. So, that's a four ounce cup and you put not a lot in there at all. Sorry if you guys heard that and it was loud. I don't even know how that's still, okay, it's just because it's- No, you're good? I think it's good, I think. It's just because you had a lot on the tip. Jeff's testing the opacity by repainting the tip black. What are you chewing on, Bobo? What do you got? Can I have that? Can I have it? Thank you. So, you can't see that. It's blown away, it's filled with a paint. Well, drop a little bit more clear in there because that's gonna be the main color anyways. Guys, hey, hi, how are you? Thanks for coming in and seeing what we're up to today. We're super excited you're here. Well, and I also wanted to do some of that clear down, just clear and like, swish it around. Or should we not do that? No, it's a good idea. I just, just let me know if I need to make you more. Let's just try to do it on this side first. So, you don't wanna put clear down. Oh, God. No. It's gonna be like- Customed G-E-Poxy? Or custom G-Poxy? Hello? No, you need to turn your hat around backwards. Culture Kiwi, hey there. How are things in Australian? Oh, edge, I can't read. Words are hard. It's still see through it. What did you prep it with? Just scraping. So, I wanted it to be transparent and I wanted you to be able to see through it. So now you're just adding a little bit more white. Transparent white. I want it to be more opaque and this is definitely gonna do it because I put about just as much as the other time. You're just adding it to your already white. Lisa, I'll have those results tomorrow. So we're gonna, we'll do a dirty pour on this side. That's what I thought we were doing. And I- Well, we are, but I just want this to be- Okay. Hi, Carrie. What's up, Susan? Finally made it. I think so. So, let's make some of this. You guys, I don't know why she lets me just kind of do what I want to do. Well. Because I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just seeing it. Let me just, before you do that, you know you don't want that much pink. You already know you don't need that much. Well, if you're gonna do something over here, we're gonna save it. I still don't need that much pink. I don't know what you want me to, what are we gonna do with that? Okay, so if you look at the reference- If we're gonna make a dirty pour. You still don't want that much pink in it. Two ounces? Four ounces? Well, I want enough to make it, we're gonna do a dirty pour, right? Yes. See, this is why. You just said you don't know why I let you do just what you want to do. I think that's, ooh, breaking out the gold. So, right now, he's putting some gold leaf into the clear. It's like, oh, the variegated. Yeah. Kujo, lay down. It might be a lie. All right, so I mixed that in with this, and we are going to put, I wanna make this nice and opaque, but quite a bit of this. What is this? Sherbert, by Just Resin. We sell this color on our website, you guys. This color is amazing. Look at that. You know what I'm thinking is, this is gonna just eat this pink, unless we make this pink nice and opaque sati. What brand of black gloves are those? Ask the Real DJ Fruit Loops? Real DJ Fruit Loops, these are our gloves. And even remember, we have the flyer somewhere up here. I try to keep the flyer and stuff when we buy stuff. If you send me an email, I customize these for us.  I need another, I need another, I'm gonna darken this with a little bit of purple. I'm just gonna use my own. Should we just use this? Sure. Let's try to use this. This will be, this is what I want to darken. So I'm just using this golden permanent violet dark. Probably shouldn't use this like this, but. Hey Valerie. I'm just gonna drop a little bit of color in there. There's a sherbet and then carnation pink by Just Resin. Look at that. How beautiful is that? That's like six drops so far. I just want this to be a little bit heavier than the other ones. So what is your take on this babe? Like. I take it and do a marble that's not overtaken by your pink. I was just gonna pour a, I was gonna pour it in these white lines. Just the pinks and no white in it? I don't know. This is just an experiment y'all, okay? Don't judge me for this. I don't even think I have any white. What's y'all's favorite pink? This is gonna be a lot, but I want a lot. So what I'm gonna do, okay now, I'm gonna do this. I know this is probably gonna be way too much, but clear. High, high, high. I want it to be in and out and over. I'm gonna short a breath or I have to reach across something. Use a compressed air. Oh man. I forgot about this guy. We've got people moving in next door. I'm moving out. High, this is gorgeous. I just wanted it to be very soft, but very aggressive. Sherbet. Sherbet. It's just you like. I know I use a lot of heat, but I wanted it to be like in and out and over and top, but I think for that, I need to do like layers, you know? Like add the white, the real opaque white now. Where's the fire? I think that would be a fun countertop. And if you could tilt it, I can't imagine what that would look like. You could tilt this one and find out. I don't know, but I'm worried a lot of this stuff will go away.  Yeah, when it goes over the gold leaf, it looks bad.  Like layers is where it's at for something like this. I liked it first. I shouldn't have tilted it. No bueno. Those pinks and the white on top of it, those colors together look really good. The opaque white right now would define it. Yeah, well. Sherry said, I love pink. I thought it was gonna be way too much, but it's actually really pretty. Yeah, it's not a super, you know, super duper pink. It's just prettier than like, what's it called? Pepto-Bismol. Pepto-Bismol. Y'all please keep dating forever, especially after marriage. Oh, we'll always have time for date nights. It's something we promised ourselves. Okay, so let's dirty pour this other part. We're using Stone Coat Art Coat, which is awesome because it gives us a super, super long working time. So Jeff already has the carnation mixed up right here.  Oh, and we have some champagne too, so I don't have to mix the champagne. Bless you. Yeah, I shouldn't have tilted that. Like what I should have done, paint it, put down a nice, like that white and that creamy white, let that set for a day, then go back over it with some clear and some of this pink and some white, and like build later. Maybe I got time for that. Jeff says go easy on him. So the colors and the design that's in our cover image for this video is a piece like marble vinyl that I have on the boys' little penthouse thing. And it has a little bit of a champagne color in it, so I'm gonna mix a little bit of that. There's also what I see as a dark white and a light white. So I'm gonna mix a super pale white. I'm just gonna start with very minimal. Just kidding. I want this part to be, I need less of the opaque and more of the pale, so that's why I switched it up. So I actually want mine more pale than Jeff's pale. And I'm gonna leave it a little bit partially mixed. Champagne's such a fun color. Have you guys used it in anything? It's like a super soft tan gold. Shane wants to know why you don't run spray paint on a stick through it. We have a gloss white here somewhere. So that was a little bit too soft. I want it to be more pale, I mean more opaque. I have on XL gloves, so they are way, way, way too big. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna put just some lines of this dark color that Jeff made just straight on this board. Some clear, actually more clear.  So you really wanna put down a good grease the pan layer.  And so it'll have that depthy look. See, this could be a finish all by itself. Beacon, look at my finish all by itself. Kujo, enough. The whites to start though. I don't have any white yet. I'm gonna dirty pour it. The paint there, sister. A bit of paint. How is there blue in here? Why don't you do that to the whole thing? Well, I was trying to get you to do this to the whole thing. And I just want a little bit of the pink. Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. More of the transparent whites, the opaque whites. A little bit of our pinks, more of the translucent. Yes, Monday. For some reason I keep thinking it's like Monday or something. True. All right, now I'm just gonna give this just a little spin to create movement. Here's our dirty pour of marble in theory. BD, do you need this for TikTok? Are we good? No? I know, but give me a minute. I wanted to see what it would look like with, tell me that doesn't look like marble. Oh my God, it's the best geode I've ever done. Y'all for real? How geode is that? And I didn't even mean to. But for real, for real, for real though, it's very marble. Judy the transparent white is just a very small amount of my titanium. Let's put some of this on Jeff's side. Pardon me while I make another dirty pour. I forgot to add my champagne. Oh well, we'll put it in Jeff's side. I did. So Jeff's side's gonna have a lot more of the opaque white. But you saw, I added very little of the pinks in there and it still basically took over. I didn't want that much pink in there. If I tried to do that again, it would be like, nah, verbatim, it would say that to my face. Okay, oh, gotta do a little bit more pink and then we'll give it a little spin for movement. I don't wanna like toot my own horn, but I'm gonna do that again. I'm gonna do that again. Yeah, the gold flex in the resin kind of interrupts the flow of it in general. Maybe we can swipe it. I say maybe we can swipe it, but it's just gonna make a mess. We're gonna make a mess together. Okay, okay, ready? I'm not ready. Missing him. When all else fails, swipe, no side. Be you hated your side. You know those ice creams that have chocolate chips in it? Kind of what it looks like. Anyways, that's what a dirty poor marble looks like. I am not mad, but what do you guys think? Have you guys done marble look before? What colors did you use? Well, come do your side then. It's not what? There is a gloss on Kujo. Enough. Geody. It is geomarble. Enough, lay down. But it's geomarble. Like this looks like marble. Hey, Stephanie. Well, thank you. I absolutely love that compliment. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Is there anything in the dust-free zone? I think it's open. I'm gonna do a big piece now of this marble look. I'm gonna have to revisit this marble geode, like the geodirty poor look at some point. I didn't honestly, I did not mean to do a geode. It just happened. What would spritzing with alcohol do? At this point, not a lot. There isn't really anything in it that would react with the alcohol. And since I'm using art coat, all the effects that would be caused would essentially melt away if any effects would happen at all. Because the resin has such a long working time, it's gonna have a lot of room, a lot of time to move and adjust. I did not hit any heat on the side, so I'm gonna do that. I don't wanna do a lot of heat. I don't want it to move too much. It's just enough to start popping the bubbles, the bublase, I'm just gonna have to like run. There's no way to catch them all. Okay, okay, okay, I'm going. It's just soupy. Promise it, that's free zone. And we made it out. What are you talking about right now? He's precious. That's why my, I think that's why my face looks so dark. Smush coasters with what's on the table. I have one coaster and I will do that for you. One side of that and one side of that. No, not with dark coaster. Oh no, no worries, Shelly. We're here to do the test, so you don't have to. However, because our coasters are brown, it's just not gonna look quite right. And you're alcohol-spirit. Yeah, you guys see, it doesn't work. It's not, it's flat, it's not gonna do anything. I'm trying to prove, babe. Well, what about? That's a shiny, that's like a metallic. That's a rose gold. It's a rose gold. Wow, we have a gloss up here somewhere. Chees and crackers almost just died, I think. I know we have gloss, this is. I'm so glad no one saw that, but you did what? Okay, we got a gloss white. Just get a lot. What is happening? Okay, gloss white. I have resin on my hand. I should have snoozed it, I'm sorry to everybody. Where's the spritzy? Snooze for. See, has to be glossed. What? But since this is. Big spray. Can do Ronda's Italian drip. But since this is art coat, it's not gonna stay like this. It's just gonna grow and blob out because the resin's still so soft. For art coat, I would recommend waiting at least an hour, maybe an hour and 15. You want it so that you can pull the drip off the bottom and it'll do a string about this long. I'm telling you, Ronda's, Ronda's the bee's knees. If you haven't watched her stuff, get to it. She's my people. We'll be going back down there soon. Completely redo that green marble, geode and lake countertop. So, be excited about that. Hi, bub, bub, wanna come up? Is that what you want? Good, cute little head bear. So you guys, thanks for coming in and seeing what we're up to today. And did you notice on the hamburger today that staying the size, it didn't go blue, it didn't make that weird. And I wonder if because I've put that stuff in front and then I kind of... I guess? Sorry, guys, I'll give you my recipe one day. Oh, everybody who has questions about what this is. Not supposed to be there. You already showed it. They already showed it? You already showed the client. No, but she knows about it. She's... Yeah. Has she seen it? She doesn't, she doesn't watch. I'm gonna let Jeffrey show you. You guys ready? Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Robin, what number did you text? So the outside is the lay. And then there's a wave from the sunset. So, Sun City. And then this amazing turtle. Now we got scuba divers. Look at this woodgrain. It's a shipwreck and coral and a school of fish in the background. More turtles. All these sun rays. Bubbles. More turtles and coral. It is, it's going to Hawaii. This is not saving who is in for it just yet. Yeah. If you guys think about who all we know in Hawaii, it's about four people. Because we have a couple of viewers that are in Hawaii. We got Ocean. And Ocean. And they're 101 viewers in Hawaii. What are you doing, bup, bup? What are you doing? And then Laura Taylor is like from Hawaii. These are my boys, if you guys don't know, that's Kujo on the left and Bowie on the right. And they're my big boys. And Kujo's ready to go pee on stuff outside. So I'm about to head out. Epic, very nice, it's awesome. Wow, she will love it. That's awesome, that's awesome, that's fabulous, should be in a welcome center. Jeff is super talented. A holiday home in Hawaii, question mark? No questions. I can't answer that because it's going to be a surprise. Anyways, I hope you guys have an awesome day. I gotta take the boys out to go pee on things. And yeah, you guys are amazing. If you have any questions, comments, leave them below and I will get back to them as fast as I can or shoot me an email.  And everybody be kind of one another. You never know what someone's going through. I'll be on a Sunday afternoon, we do the tests. So you don't have to, you should do it. Okay, fine, okay, fine. Anyways, you guys, have a good day. Be kind of one another, never know what someone's going through. And I love you guys, bye. Meh, you ready to go outside? Belly, ready to go outside? No, cool.


Zelensky and Bush to give joint pro-war presentation. War criminal George W. Bush and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be appearing at an event next week at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, in partnership with the U.S. government-funded narrative management operations Freedom House and National Endowment for Democracy. The goal of the presentation will reportedly be to address the completely fictional and imaginary concern that congressional Republicans won't continue supporting U.S. proxy war efforts in Ukraine. CNN reports, quote, Former U.S. President George W. Bush will hold a public conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky next week with the aim of underscoring the importance of the U.S. continuing to support Ukraine's war efforts against Russia. The event, which will take place in Dallas and be open to the public, comes amid questions about the willingness of the former President's Republican Party to maintain support for Ukraine. Ukraine is the front line in the struggle for freedom and democracy. It's literally under attack as we speak, and it is vitally important that the United States provide the assistance, military and otherwise, to help Ukraine defend itself. David Kramer, the managing director for global policy at the George W. Bush Institute, told CNN. President Bush believes in standing with Ukraine. The struggle for freedom event will take place on Wednesday in partnership with the Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, end quote. Now, to be clear, there is absolutely no reality-based reason to believe Republicans will meaningfully shy away from full-scale support for arming and assisting the Ukrainian military. The proxy war has only an impotent minority of opposition in the party, and every bill to fund it has passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. Some MAGA Republicans have claimed that funding the war would stop if the GOP won the midterm elections, but they were lying. There was never the slightest chance of that happening. Bush, you may remember, drew headlines and laughter earlier this year with his Freudian confession, in which he accused Vladimir Putin of launching a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq, I mean, of Ukraine. The fact that the President, who launched a full-scale ground invasion which destabilized the entire region and led to the deaths of over a million people, is now narrative managing for the US Empire's current aggressively propagandized war says everything about the nature of this conflict. Also appearing with Bush will be the leader who's slated to become the face of the US Empire's next proxy war, Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, CNN writes. Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen will also take part in the event next week. She will deliver a recorded message in which she is expected to underscore that the struggle for freedom is a global challenge. And sure, why not? If you're gonna manufacture consent for proxy warfare against multiple powers as your empire flails around, frantically scrambling to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world, you may as well save time and promote them all on the same ticket. Many people who support the US proxy war in Ukraine now recognize that the Iraq war was a horrific disaster. But Ukraine isn't the good war, it's just the current war. Western propaganda means people always oppose the last war, but not the war that's currently being pushed by the propaganda of today. The US provoking and sustaining its Ukraine proxy war is no more ethical than its invading of Iraq. It just looks that way due to propaganda. It is only by the copious amounts of propaganda our civilization is being hammered with that this is not immediately obvious to everyone. In the future, assuming we don't annihilate ourselves first, the propaganda will have cleared from the air enough for people to look back with clarity on 2022 and realize that we were lied to, yet again. It's easy to oppose the last war. It's hard to oppose current wars as the propaganda machine is shoving them down our throats. Everyone's anti-war until the war propaganda starts.


The study identifies three conserved notochord-specific enhancers in the mammalian brashiri-T-TB-XT gene, which are responsible for controlling its expression in the notochord and causing specific trunk and neural tube defects when deleted. These enhancers are conserved beyond mammals in the brashiri-TB-XTB lochia fishes and convey robustness and adaptability as an ancient basis for axis development. This article was offered by Cassie L. Kemler, Jana Smolakova, Hannah Amaran, and others.


After a busy weekend mixed with rain, sleet and snow, road crews have been out non-stop since Saturday. Josh Peterson shows us what remains to be done in the aftermath of the Christmas storm. While many of us were with family and friends gathered around a Christmas tree, MnDOT snowfighters were out in full force. Since Saturday, it's been all hands on deck, pre-treating before the storm hit, maintaining the roads during, and now clearing the roads before the next storm system hits. We're roughly up to like 20 to 22 plows, so probably I think 18 of them were out in the area yesterday. For the Beltrami County Emergency Management Office, no major incidents occurred over the holiday weekend. We had some spinouts and some people that left the roadway and some other vehicles that hit each other. Nothing too out of the ordinary for your typical storm. For MnDOT, it being a holiday weekend actually made it easier for the snow plows to treat the roadways and remove all the snow. So with the holidays, there are less people out on the roads, and when there's less cars on the road, snow plows have more room to maneuver, so more room to work, but also it's less compaction. So the snow that does fall doesn't get compacted to that road surface. Even though the storm has passed, there's still plenty of work that needs to be done. Currently in both the Bemidji and Brainerd areas, most of the roadways are classified as partially covered with snow. In Bemidji, Josh Peterson, Lakeland News. And if you are planning on traveling anywhere this week, MnDOT recommends checking their website for current road conditions. We have posted a link on our website at lptv.org slash news. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Dozens of sailors packed the T-Stell Newman Visitor Center in Santa Rita, Guam to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the Battle of Midway. The actions taken by the individual sailors who fought in this battle, the strength of their character and firmness of their resolve, is why this battle is so significant in our history and why we commemorate it today. The Battle of Midway is the ultimate statement of our Navy professionalism and resolve. Today we pause to remember and honor the spirits of those individuals and how they serve with honor, courage, and commitment. As a seaman, I thought it was very important to know the facts and the history of the events of World War II as a turning point in history. It's very important to know when we started to win the war. From Drunk Region Mariana's, I'm Shannon Marie Santos.


We're on to the favorite session of the Council on Initiated Discussion, and again, orientation for the new Council members. Up until this point, and we're at 422, the agenda has been controlled by NHGRI. We brought to you the things that we think are important or relevant or the business that needs to be done, but now we're turning the control of the microphones back over to you. And if there are reports that, looking ahead to future Council meetings, if there are reports that you would like to have on specific programs, if there are important issues that you've heard brewing in your institutions or at national meetings that you want to bring to our attention, if you have ideas about new initiatives that could be considered. I think we've told the story before, but the origin of the SEGs, the Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science, actually came out of a Council-initiated discussion a dozen years ago. So we're turning the microphones over to you, and we're all ears, and I deal very well with awkward silences. Any topics you want to hear about at upcoming meetings? I think at May Council we currently have slated presentation by the new Director of Nationalist and Minority Health and Health Disparities, correct? I don't think we have it locked in the date, but that was on our list of things to do. I think you locked in the date. Okay. So, Eric, in your report this morning, you gave updates, had a lot of great stuff, but we didn't get an update on the search for the NOM Director, can we get an update on that? I can only give you an update by saying that the search process is still ongoing. So, I think it's getting at a late stage, certainly, but a person has not been identified, I believe interviews are still going on. I would hope that individual would be identified by the next Council meeting, if not before, but it requires all things to work their way through, selections to be made, and appropriate due diligence done, and acceptances, and negotiations, and all the usual things. So, I mean, it's been put, you know, that and the head of the Precision Medicine Program I think are two very high priorities. I would also tell you, there are, it's a very busy search time. They're searching for a new head of the Child Health Institute, a new head of the Mental Health Institute, at least one or two other searches, I know. So, it's a busy time for NIH leadership to be conducting searches, but I know that NOM Director is further along than almost any of them. I think, certainly, once that person is identified, and the Director for the PMI is identified, it'd be great if we could hear from them. Oh, no, that's an easy one, absolutely. And in the minutes from the last meeting, we had talked about having additional presentations from FDA. Yes. Bob Kaliff. Yeah, Rob Kaliff. So, we saw that, Rudy and I were reviewing, the issue with Rob is that he's been nominated to be the Commissioner and that is trying to percolate its way through the Senate with some potential obstacles. That may be an awkward to ask him to do this at this juncture, so we haven't yet. And, you know, we'll see if he's ever confirmed. Obviously, you know, there's time running out on the Obama Administration and how many more things the Senate is going to approve in terms of nominations. But, yes, I agree that would be awesomely valuable.  We're having with the FDA and there's lots of topics we brought, people from the FDA here to a council meeting and that was very helpful. Returning to that would be terrific. I think just the timing has to be right. It has to be the right person right now. It's a little awkward. Maybe by may it would be better, but it's on the list. I agree. Hi, this is Jay. Hi, Jay. What's up? How are you doing? I've been listening. So I wanted to, it's a good time. I wanted to bring something off that I think we talked about two ago. But I think I forgot to bring it up and I think it just up in the last session, we had two councilors. One was a council of accounts which was a length of investigator initiated R01 that current act possible readdressing of that. If I remember from the discussion that we had two councils ago, there was general feeling that this was a legacy of caps that were imposed by councils during the early commitment to the project. And some past tenacity could be wrong about that. I think I followed both of that, although you're chopping a little bit on and off. I'm going to look to Jeff and Terry or anybody else to help me with this, but under the general discussion of history, of why we limit lengths of RO1s in an automated fashion the way JLG is and what was the reasons why we continue to do it, do you want me to, I mean, one of the immediate things, I mean, let me start, but I do want somebody else to come to the microphone. I mean, one of the immediate reasons that we have tended to do that was with the general attitude that genomics, unlike many other areas of science and NIH supports, is moving very quickly and there's many developments happening and that it seems that having things on relatively shorter leashes than compared to longer leashes gives us greater chance to make sure that we are capitalizing on new advances. And so the ideas in general are we have kept our grants a little shorter and certainly once the budget's got to be tight, I think that was another reason to keep things on a short leash with great uncertainty, but Jeff, do you want to expand on that or that's basically the rationale? There's not a lot to add, but that has been advised from council over a number of years. I'm not sure that we've explicitly discussed it at council for the last five years, but when we've mentioned it, we haven't heard much alternative opinion, but that doesn't mean we couldn't discuss it at council. We have to understand what the implications are, either way.  And then we certainly tend to keep our major programs on something like a four-year cycle as opposed to a five-year cycle again, because the science just gets turned upside down so many times every four years. So that's the rationale, Jay. And I think we did briefly, I remember a couple of councils that we briefly touched on this as a topic area, but I guess the question is, take that, you know, what do people think? I mean, we have sort of gotten comfortable into that mode, and is there a serious opposition to it, or is there people agree with this general rationale? Well, I mean, I think it would be good to hear how, what damage it's doing. If that seems to be an indication, is that there's a problem with that. It's not a policy, it's a practice. I was just going to ask, do you know what stats are on typical media links, or the cap? You mean stats across NIH? No, an NHGRI for investigator driven. So I think it's a good idea to defer this to May, just in fairness to Jay, because Jay, we really are having a very difficult time understanding you, and maybe there's something to be said to bringing some data to the council, and it gives you guys a chance to think about this, and tell us why it's no longer appropriate to have the, I think the majority of our RO1s are three years. And so what harm that may be causing, or what could be, what would be the benefit to extending that length. But let's do this in May when Jay will be in the room. Actually, while it's true, our RO1s are generally three years. For certain programs, we make the R21s three years, which is actually longer than they usually are, because we think some of the research topics are super challenging, and it's really hard, particularly with smaller amounts of money, to make the amount of progress you're going to need in order to have the data you'll need for an RO1 application. So we've gone both ways, but again, those are smaller amounts of money. So Jay, you're mostly focusing on RO1s, right? Investigative initiated RO1s? Focusing on RO1. Okay. So I agree with Rudy. So let's do that. And we already heard a request for some data. So we will bring you a more informed set of information to have that discussion at the next council meeting. That sounds good. I think it'd be helpful for comparison to have equivalent kind of information on the non-investigator initiated awards and what their length are. Like, are the RO1s significantly shorter than everything else? Because that would seem to be like an incongruity to me. But. Okay. Are there topics either to discuss now or to put on the agenda for future meetings? Okay. Back to you, Rudy. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. A couple more things need to be done in open session. Next up is the review of the Statement of Understanding. It's just a matter of time before I refer to this as the MOU, Memorandum of Understanding. So if I say MOU, I refer to the statement and I apologize for that. The Statement of Understanding is the description of how we will conduct business between NHGRI and the council. We do this every February. We need you guys to approve the MOU. There I go already. And we do this in February because the new council members are here. So I'm not going to, it's a four-page document. I do encourage you to read through it. It's pretty plain and simple language. I'm just going to race through the basic principles right now. What's outlined in the Statement of Understanding is the responsibilities of council and a description of the actions that council can take. There's also a description of the administrative authorities that NHGRI staff has. And that means the things that we can do without council approval or bringing it to your attention. So every application that is submitted and undergoes peer review each round must undergo a second level review at the council meeting. We put many applications on the closed session agenda and we will discuss those when we get into closed session. There are many more applications that we don't put forward because we assume the review was appropriate. And we know what to do with those applications. We don't need your input and we're not required to bring them to your attention. So there is an activity that goes on called the on-block vote. That will happen at the end of the second day of council. And all the other applications that we're in for review are approved by you in the on-block vote. Now, at least the full standing members of the council have access to all of the summary statements for all of the applications. As you go through them, if you see an application that is not on the CSA that you want to have discussed, you need to bring that to our attention and we will let it do that for you. Council can take four actions. You can concur with the IRG. You can defer the application with the belief that it received an inappropriate review. You're essentially sending it back to be re-reviewed. You can vote the application as either having high-program priority or low-program priority. Or you can defer the application not because it received a poor review, but because you need more information to do your second level of review. Those are the four things that council can do. The staff has the authority to, and we do, implement something called expedited council concurrence, ECC. There are four council members that serve on the ECC subcommittee. It's Bob, Gail, Grant, and Jay Shenduri. About a month before each council meeting, they receive a list of applications for the current round. They tend to be from programs that have set aside. So SBIRs, STTRs, many of the LC applications, the investigator-initiated applications, are put on the ECC. The subcommittee reviews them and gives approval for those. Again, any council member can look at the list, ask for any of those applications to receive a full review at the meeting. Why do we do this? We do this to try to spread the work for the grants managing staff. They're going to get hit with a bolus of activity after the on-block vote tomorrow. If we can start some of the award-making process upstream, and again, from set aside, so we don't think that these are particularly contentious discussions, that's what the ECC is about. You will get a report in the electronic council book of the ECC actions for this round. So even those of you that are not on the subcommittee can see everything that's going through. Staff has authority to make supplements to existing grants. The limits of those supplements are $150,000, or 25% of the total award amounts, whichever is greater. In the case of very large grants, and we do have some, such as the sequencing centers, we're capped at a million dollars for a supplement request. So anything outside of those limits have to come to council. Again, there is a report in the electronic council book of all the supplements that have been made by the staff in the last round, so you can see what's there. And finally, in the event of the catastrophic act of nature, or... An inch of snow in the DC area, right? Like that which is... Or prediction of snow, exactly. We have the authority to stage the council meeting in an electronic format, whether that would be a telephone call or a big email exchange or Webex or something like that. So it's a four-page document. I encourage you to read it. But I do need you to approve the statement of understanding. So can I have a motion to accept the second? All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you very much. The conflict of interest statement. All right. My favorite part of the council meeting I'm going to read. I'm going to read the chant. Before I retire, I hope to have this memorized. You must leave... Now, this refers to all the applications that will be reviewed in the closed session. You must leave the meeting room when applications submitted by your own organization are being individually discussed. In the case of state higher education or other systems with multiple campuses geographically separated, quote, unquote, own organization is intended to mean the entire system except where determination has been made that the components are separate organizations for the purpose of determining conflict of interest. You should avoid situations that could give rise to charges of conflict of interest, whether real or apparent. For example, you should not participate in the deliberations and actions on any application from or involving your spouse, your child, a recent student, a recent teacher, professional collaborator with whom you've worked closely, a close personal friend or a scientist with whom you've had longstanding scientific or personal differences. The NHGRI staff will determine the appropriate action based on recency, frequency, and strength of such associations or interests, either positive or negative, and will instruct you accordingly. In council actions in which your vote on a block of applications without having any discussion on any individual one, the so-called on-block vote, your vote will not apply to any application from an institution fulfilling the criteria noted above. Please sign the conflict of interest and disposal of confidential materials forms, which are provided in the envelope at your chair, and they'll be collected at the end of the closed session. So we have one other action that is not on the agenda. I do. So the normal rotation for council members is that after serving four years, they would rotate off at the September meeting, and then the new council members come on board in the February meeting. Well, there are always exceptions to the rule. And if you need a definition of an exception to the rule, we offer Jim Evans as a shining example of that. All kinds of exceptions. If you need to have proof that he's a unique kind of person, ask him after the open session his adjourn to show you his DNA tattoo. That wasn't a joke. That is not a joke. And it is not a temporary tattoo either. On a more serious note, Jim has been an incredibly valuable advisor. He was not available last September, so we imposed on him to come back for the February meeting. You've been an incredibly valuable advisor, largely because you've been an early adopter of clinical sequencing. You've also embraced the value and the concept of embedding LC research in a clinical sequencing center. And you've been an important proponent of that. At the same time, I will tell you that many times in the middle of discussions and debates between the left side and the right side, genomic science and genomic medicine, I have heard Jim speak out and say, you can't forget about the importance of the basic science component here. That understanding function is critically important to really be able to garner all of the important clinical utility that we get out of these variants that are found associated with specific diseases. So, Jim, I've always found you to be a very balanced person. And we're really grateful for your time and effort that you've given to us. So we thank you. We will miss you and we wish you the very best. We have some lovely parting gifts. We haven't quite perfected the home version of the council game. That was a joke. I really appreciate it. I'm thinking it's probably not a bottle of scotch, even though it's the right side. No, this is the government. But that's right. It's been an absolute honor and a privilege to get to serve on council. I do have a lot of colleagues on various councils who they just take it as a matter of course with other institutes that you're a rubber stamp. And I definitely don't feel that that's the case here. So I really appreciate it. And it's just too bad that I finally feel like I'm getting the swing of it. And that's my last council. So thank you. And with that, you can gavel us to closure. I will gavel us to closure. And let's go through now what we're going to do. So you want me to do this? Sure. So we're done for the day, except for council. We're going to, this council meeting, I'm going to have two executive sessions with the council. Staff doesn't necessarily know about all the details, but I'm going to have a one right now as soon as we can clear the room in essence, and then my usual one tomorrow at lunch. So I would propose we take about a 15 minute break. It gives the AV folks a chance to clear these cameras and so they can go home, give staff a chance to clear out of the room and they can go home. But council, you can have a 15 minute breather but then come back here and we'll have our, the one couple of things we want you to talk about executive session tonight and then how are we going to handle tomorrow? Well, I need an addendum to that. We need, because of the availability of phone reviewers, we actually, we're going to tear down the cameras here, come back into closed session. We're going to do the LC Sears. Oh, I'm sorry. We're doing one thing today. We're doing one thing today because the availability of phone reviewers. Oh, so people can't. Then we'll clear the room and you can have your executive session. I forgot about that. I'm sorry. And when we get into closed session, I'll have an announcement for the staff about the catastrophic snow storm coming our way. Right. Okay, so we're going to break for 15 minutes. Got it.


No, he's, you know, I mean, I think when you see guys have success, but he's got a great wife and his kids and he just looks like things are all kind of coming together. So you're happy for guys like that. You know, I followed him, you know, when he was at BC and then the ability for us to be able to add him to our football team. So he's done a great job and you guys hit on a lot of it. He doesn't look for a lot of recognition. He's been very consistent for us, very productive. We put him in a lot of different places and asked him to do a lot and he's been great to coach. Well, AJ spoke yesterday. He had said that he's really grateful for the emotional deposit you make with the players and the connections. Now for you, why is that so critical to go beyond X's and O's and on the field and actually connect with them?  I think that he was honest. He was thoughtful. He was sincere and it is a business. This is a business and there's things that come up within this business. You have to let players go. You have to make decisions about contracts and that can get muddy sometimes. But I think the honesty and truth and sincerity and being authentic and it wasn't easy. I mean, it wasn't easy to get to know AJ the way that I know him now. And it's hard for me to have a relationship that's like that with 69 players, with 53 guys on the practice squad, on the active roster, 16 on the practice squad, the guys that are on injured reserve. I mean, there's 80 guys that come through this building, 80 players. And so, you know, I do my best to try to get that relationship with everybody.  Because there is a, you know, there's a connection there that you've got something that you believe in and that I told them about love. Love isn't, you know, making excuses for guys.   Excellent stat that I think you guys lead the league in scoring on your first possession, second half. What is that significant? Are you making note of that? What does that say maybe about what you guys are doing at halftime or does that say? Well, I do know offensively we take input from the players, you know, about what worked, what we like, what do we feel like we can do. I go in there, I go in at a defensive side, offensive side, I see Keith and Todd, you know, working about, hey, here's where we're going to go.  And, you know, those are always going to be critical, you know, those last couple minutes of the first half where we've been able to get some stops and some points or, you know, not allow points or not allow teams to double us up and gain some extra points there. They had the big play in the past game against the Saints. Adrian says he's pretty comfortable catching the ball. Those guys starting to feel working in and feel better in the past game. Yeah, those guys just have to catch the ones we throw. And I think they've done that. And so, you know, it's a package that we'll have to use. And Ryan's, you know, in the past whether teams are dropping out of there, you don't have to be able to get it down to those guys. 49ers last week, I'm running out of football. Use Devo Samuel five or six times running ball. AJ had those kind of characteristics that he might be able to do, you know, something like that. If you guys ever thought that might help. AJ had to carry last week. You know, it's five or six too much. I'm curious. I'm sure it would be if we, if we ran him five or six times, it'd be too much. And if we only ran him once, it wouldn't be enough. Sweet. May been long Evans do pre Davis McNichol's swam. Have a great Friday.


Man, this whole Greg Roman thing, it's been crazy. It's been crazy because you look at a quote, and when you saw the quote initially, it was like, whoa, hold up now, Giro, really? But then, this is why I always say it's important to look at context. And that's exactly what we're gonna do today is look at the context, and still see if it matches that same craziness that came from the quote. So, getting right into it, the question came from Garrett Downing. He said, it looks like Lamar Jackson is throwing the ball really well. Just what's your perspective on the way he looks throwing the football so far? Greg Roman's response was yes. I mean, I think it's the best I've ever seen him throw it thus far. What are we three days in? And he's throwing it probably better than I've ever seen him throw it. He's really worked hard in the off season and is showing, so he's got to build on that. It's really exciting. We're all very excited about that, and now we've all got to get on the same page so we can function as a unit and put that performance, take every ounce of that performance and maximize it. So, so far, so good. Nothing wrong with what he said. He said Lamar Jackson is looking the best that he's ever looked. And Lamar Jackson has looked really, really good. He's been very decisive. He's been very accurate. Oh man, the past two days I cringe for him. Yes, when I seen him throw the ball on point right in the chest and then somebody would drop it. Oh, it was tough. I know Justice Hill, he had a drop. Devon Duvenay, he had a huge catch, but he did have a drop two days ago to what? I mean, get it out on training camp. Get it out of your system in training camp or the drops and whatnot. This is the perfect time to make all the mistakes in the world because on regular season, yeah. But anyway, and we know mistakes will still be made because nobody's perfect. So that's, it's part of the game. But anyway, the first part of the quote, no problem. That's fine. Let's get to the second part. And it came from a follow up question from Ryan Mink. He said, does that open up the offense or open up the playbook anymore? The way Lamar Jackson is throwing the ball. And Greg Roman said, no, we got the playbook and we probably have legitimately 20% new stuff. But what it will do is I might call the game differently. I might call different plays that are in the playbook. So this is where things got a little bit tricky because with what Greg Roman said is sounded like, all right, well, Lamar, he graduated now. Now I can call some different plays. Now Lamar is doing this stuff. He's throwing the ball better than I've ever seen him. Now I can really dip into the playbook. That's what it sounded like. And I think that's most people's frustration with Greg Roman is the fact that we've heard this before and we haven't seen results. Remember, oh, hey, we're gonna have Lamar Jackson on the center this year. Remember that? Yeah. Oh, we got so many plays in the vault. Oh, man. Remember that? And I know there are more quotes, but I cannot think of them off the top of my head. But oh, we're gonna be forging a new identity. Oh, yeah. So that's what's been frustrating about this whole quote. It's like, oh, now you wanna really dip into that? Well, he says he's gonna dip into the playbook. I think with a lot of Ravens fans that have been frustrated with Greg Roman as an offensive coordinator, it's the fact that he'll talk a big game, but when we watch the games, it's like, ooh, yikes. There's been some success now, but there's also been a lot of big yikes moments. And a lot of times, for me personally, the big yikes moments that I've seen is just in the flow of the game. There's been some games with just such a lack of a flow. And you know, defenses, they can interrupt stuff, but a lot of times it seems like Ravens can be their own worst enemy. They can be their biggest enemy from preparation. Before the play even started, guys not being lined up in the proper spots, getting the play in with like five to three seconds left. A lot of stuff can be just sloppiness from jump.  And then just a lot of the plays themselves, it's like they won't be in rhythm with the game. And they won't attack the weaknesses of a defense. And even if they may be attacking the weakness of a defense, but then they'll go away from it and it's like, huh? Why are we doing, what's going on? Situational play calling. Oh boy, that has continued to just be frustrating. Frustrating. I think after 2019 was obviously a beautiful thing. Now it's Greg Romans, first year's offensive coordinator, Lamar Jackson, one MVP, we know. But like I told y'all, back then I questioned it. I said, hey, what's next? How is this offense going to evolve? How's this offense going to take the next step? 2020 was a COVID year.  Nothing like this has ever happened before. But then at the same time I was thinking, oh, but, well, the Ravens, they're gonna have the same offensive coordinator, so we got an advantage. And they did have a lot of success, but then a lot of them same issues, they continued to happen. Then in 2021, there were a lot of injuries, as we all know. But in my opinion, with all the injuries that there were, injuries really put coaching on the forefront.  Because it's like, man, we really gotta step up now because when you have great players, and you obviously want all the great players in the world, but if you have great players, they can cover up a lot of stuff. They can do so much for you. They can overcome, and then a lot of times they can execute better too. They can execute the game better than a player that may be a backup and whatnot. And that's no disrespect to anybody that's a backup. But a lot of times that's why great players are great players. That's why starters are starters and backups are backups. A lot of times starters are the ones that can win the game, backups, they may keep it close or whatnot. But starters are your starters for a reason, a lot of the time. So, but starters and great players, playmaker, they can overcompensate. But then when you lose a lot of those guys, that's when coaching really has to step up. And again, with the Ravens and especially the offense, the issue is far deeper than just Greg Roman. And we've been saying that, we will continue to say that because the issue is far deeper than Greg Roman. It's Raven's philosophy as a team. It's their philosophy as a team. Greg Roman could get fired tomorrow. Ravens will still have that same philosophy. And with Greg Roman, I do think, and I've said this before, that I do think this is his last year. Whether he gets fired or not, I do think this is gonna be his last year with the Ravens. And I think James Urban too. I think the Ravens are gonna move in a different direction with both of them, simply because of the different hires that they've made. The way that the Ravens have been hiring people and the people who they've been hiring, it just seems like they are getting people to sort of push Greg Roman and James Urban out respectfully. So we'll see how that goes. Now, with Greg Roman, I hope he doesn't get fired because that would mean he was having a lot of success. But we'll see. I just want this team to do well. And I really want them to maximize the talent that they do have. I want them to get some more talent, but also I would like them to maximize the talent that they do have. And that's been another thing too. They have not been putting guys in position for success. They have not been using guys to their strengths, playing guys to their strengths. That's been another frustration with this team. As far as running the ball, oh yeah. When they, the way that they put runners in position for success, oh yeah. All day, they got that. J.K. Dobbins, we done seen it. Gus Edwards, we done seen it. Lamar Jackson, we done seen it. But the way that in the passing game, more so with receivers and stuff, we ain't seen it. We ain't seen it. Mark Andrews, he's a tight end. We get that he's been the baller. Shout out to Mark Andrews. But that's why this offense that people always say, oh, it's designed for Lamar Jack. No, it's designed for Greg Roman. It's designed for Greg Roman. This was not designed for Lamar Jackson. This was designed for Greg Roman. Greg Roman specialties, run a ball, run a ball. And they like, in my opinion, Lamar gonna get his. We know Lamar gonna get his rushing yards. But Lamar, he cannot be, in my opinion, the focal point of the running game. We know what he can do with his legs, we get that. And we know Raven, they took full advantage of what he can do with his legs, we get that. But he should not be, in my opinion, I don't think he should be the lead in Russia. I know he gonna get his, he gonna break off his runs and whatnot. But let your other guys lead that running backs. We'll see how the season goes, man. I mean, and again, I think everybody's biggest concern, at least mine, I can't speak for everybody, but a lot of people, their concern is just, all right, you talked a good game, but what are you gonna do now? And should it really take until year four of y'all two being together for you to open stuff up? Really? Lamar's already shown he could pass in college. He's already shown he could pass in the pros. It's like they continue making it like Lamar is this elementary player who's in college or something. Like you get old, like, maybe that was a bad example. Like they make it seem like he's this, yeah, like he's an elementary school kid, but he's in college with all these, these adults and whatnot. And like he gotta work his way up. How do you think, how do you think you have still, are you still here as an offensive coordinator? Who do you think saved the head coach's job? Like, again, we know Hoppa was on his way out of there. He was gone. They put Lamar in and whoo, Hoppa was like, whoo, okay, my cheeks can go down there. But that's something to think about, man. Gotta think about that. And it just seems like they, again, I don't think the Ravens have not maximized Lamar Jackson as a quarterback. They have not. They have not maximized him as a quarterback. And they really like, it's crazy that we still having the same conversation in this Lamar Jackson's fifth year. Same conversation in his fifth year. That the Ravens have not maximized him as a quarterback. And that's the frustrating part for me. Like when are they, like again, Greg Roman said it, hey, take every ounce of that performance and maximize it. When are they gonna do that? That's my biggest question. When are they gonna do that? When are they gonna open up this offense? When are they gonna open up this playbook? Cause they've been talking for a long time, but we still been seeing the same stuff. That's our issue. Well, my issue. Stuff like that gotta get fixed, man. It's gotta get fixed. Now again, is Lamar Jackson blameless? No, not at all. Lamar Jackson certainly got his stuff he gotta work on too. Now, one of the things that we've been talking about a lot this off season was Lamar Jackson taking like check downs and stuff with Lamar Jackson taking what they're giving him. And I saw a lot of that yesterday at training camp. He was going through his progressions or whatnot scanning left, right, left, right, left, right. And then he was like, all right, dump off. He throw it to the running back. I said, oh, okay, there we go. And again, you cannot discount it just because it's training camp because training camp is where everything starts. So it was just, it was nice to see that. So hopefully that translates to when they get to the real game. But anyway, we'll see how this thing goes, thing keeping clean, I love y'all. I appreciate y'all and we out, man.


Math placement is important. The purpose of math placement is to determine which math course is right for you. It can impact how much money and time you spend on your education. This could get in the way of you graduating, especially if you put math off, as many students do, and then they don't graduate because they just need that one math course. We are here to support you and want you to get into the best math course for you. At Highline College, we do math placement in many different ways to serve you best. What does math placement look like at Highline College? Math placement steps. Determine which math course you need for the degree you are seeking. Meet with an advisor or check out findyourpath.highline.edu to see all of the degree options Highline offers and determine what interests you the most and what math course is required. Figure out what math placement method is best for you. We can place you by looking at your high school transcripts, AP scores, GED test scores, or classes or test scores from other colleges. We prefer that you use these methods, but if none of this work, we have a placement test called My Math Test. So you want to take My Math Test? If you do take My Math Test, we recommend several ways to do your best on this test. Take an initial assessment. Come to the PTC in the library and take this for free. Use the individualized study plan to review and refresh your math skills. Attend one of our two brush-up workshops face-to-face or online. A faculty member will guide you through the study plan and answer any questions you have. After you have refreshed your skills and feel confident that you are ready to get your final math placement, come back to the PTC to take My Math Test again. Remember, you are not alone. Don't worry. You've got this. We are always here for you if you have any questions. You can always call the placement and testing center to ask for advice or to get additional resources. Let's review. Determine the college math class that you need for the degree you are seeking. Figure out what math placement method is best for you. High school transcripts, GED, My Math Test, etc. Enroll in a math course.  Do your homework. Form a study group and access tutors at the Math Resource Center. Don't let math be a barrier to completing your degree.


Sometimes intervention takes moral courage. Just like the practice it takes to be a champion athlete, it takes practice to be morally and ethically ready when called upon to make a difficult decision. Rushworth Kitter often spoke about moral muscle memory in the same way we think about physical muscle memory. One way to do this is start small. Retired general Ann Dunwoody used to say never walk by a mistake, implying that if you do you have lowered the standards. That also means we shouldn't overlook the tasteless joke you might have heard a friend tell. Part of abiding by this signature behavior is to correct discriminatory behavior when it occurs. We intervene to protect and we intervene to keep standards high. Lead well this week.


Red contacted just to briefly give an overview of what I will cover today and I suppose very much I'm going to focus on where we find ourselves now in Ireland, the economic circumstances we find ourselves in. I'm going to outline for you the strategy we have in place to tackle our current economic difficulties, and just provide you with some information on the progress we feel we have made ac oedd y dweud hynny ni oedd gael. Rwy'n cael ei wneud bod nid i'w cwntec yma, am y cyd-rhyw mwyaf, ac os ydych chi'n gofynnu'n meddwl i'w gweithio sydd yma ac ydych chi'n gweithio'r gyfer mwyaf o'r Diyarysu Cymru o'r ganddofnod o'r ddechrau. Roeddwn i'n cael ei ffordd o'r mynd yna, ac mae'n gweithio i Japanur, rydyn ni'n gweithio'r Diyarysu Cymru yn y cyfnodd cyfrifiadau cyfrifiadau that are very much underperformed, relative to European and international peers. And it was really only in the 1980s that the economy started to expand at a modest rate. The economy started to pick up slowly during the 1980s, what this graph shows, is the growth rate of over five-year periods. Yn y gweithio yng Nghymru, y Llyfrgell 80 a y Llyfrgell 90, Arlandd yn y cyfnod o'r cyfnod yng nghymru yn y Llyfrgell 12 o'r 15. Yn y Llyfrgell Prydyn, mae'n mynd i'r 70% o'r perffredig o'r Llyfrgell. Yn y gweithio yng Nghymru, mae'n mynd i'n ymgyrch o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r Llyfrgell. Mae'n gw operated yng Nghymru yng Nghymru yn llawer o'r gwaith deudio yn y gyd-1990 oed.  Bydd hyn yn maen nhw'n meddwl i'r unrhyw o'r anum, o'r diwrnod oedd y rymdau y 1990-on ar y cyfnodiaeth, oherwydd y cofnodiaeth gyda'r 1997, mae'n cael ei ddod i gyfnodiaeth gyda'r EU-15. A dyna'r cyfnodiaeth yma yma, ddod yn ddаю'r cyfrannwch ac yn ddau'r cyfnodiaeth, by Ireland's ability to attract foreign direct investment to the Irish economy. Now, as we moved into the first part of the last decade, I guess what happened in this period was that the economy still continued to perform fairly strongly, albeit not at the heady rates of the late 1990s, but the composition of growth changed. The economy became less competitive and growth was driven by domestic demand and particularly has been well documented by investment in housing and in residential investment. This together with, I guess, these developments left Ireland pretty poorly exposed when the international economic crisis hit in 2008. As you know, we have suffered a very serious economic contraction. GDP has fallen by about 11% from peak to trough. And this hit our public finances very, very severely, with tax revenues falling by some 30% between 2007 and 2009. Now, so we have suffered a very, very severe shock. Just to give you a snapshot of some of the things I'll cover later, we are now working through the imbalances that had built up in the economy over the earlier part of the last decade. Having suffered a very, very serious contraction in economic activity in 2008 and particularly in 2009, we are starting now to see a slow pick up in economic activity. This graph shows the rate of growth in GDP, the rate of growth, or should I say decline as it is in employment and the current account balance. And what you see is that growth returned to the economy in 2011. The rate of decline in employment is still falling, but at a much slower rate. And the third aggregate shown there, or the third indicator, our current account has moved into surplus. And I'll talk a bit about those developments in more detail as I go through the rest of the presentation. So that's just a little bit of context. Now, in terms of the theme of our discussion today is strategies for economic recovery and strategies for economic growth, well, what's our strategy? Well, in a way, our strategy is threefold essentially, three pillars to our strategy for economic recovery. And this strategy is obviously articulated in the Troika programme, which we have agreed, which the government has agreed with the IMF, the European Commission and the European Centre Bank. So there are three main planks to that. Firstly, to recapitalise and restructure our banking system. Secondly, to restore order to our public finances. And thirdly, to restore competitiveness, to improve the economy's competitive position, and to lay the conditions for a return to sustainable economic growth. And I'll talk a little bit about these strategies now as I go through the remaining slides. Firstly, just to say a little bit about the programme. The programme obviously involves financial assistance in the total amount of 85 billion euro of which 67.5 billion euro is being provided by our external partners. As I'm sure you all know, this is not a free lunch. This programme is subject to very strict conditionality. A series of particular conditions or reforms are agreed by the Irish government with our Troika counterparts. And we have to report on these every quarter and we are subject to a review mission by our Troika partners. The good news is that we have met all of the conditions so far. The Troika was here just last month and again confirmed that we had met all of the conditions for the latest period. Now, at the heart of this, the Troika programme is a programme to improve our public finances situation. And this takes the form of a multi-year programme of fiscal consolidation over the period, well going right back to 2011. But if we just look at it from here on from now until 2015, basically the programme involves a set of annual adjustments roughly broken down as between two-thirds of the adjustment being made on public expenditure and one-third in terms of increases in taxation. And you see the figures there in the budget for 2013 introduced by my Minister in December. That laid out comprised a total adjustment there was some 3.5 billion euro as again broken down as between an adjustment at expenditure of about 1.9 and revenue raising measures of a one and a half million euro. And for 2014 and 2015 taken together, the budgets for those years will involve an additional adjustment of about 5.1 billion euro. And the aim of that is to bring the budget deficit to agreed 3% target by 2015. I think it's important to bear in mind to that as well as this this kind of programme of consolidation and the Troika programme does involve various commitments to try to improve the quality of public finances in a longer-run perspective, very structural measures to improve the quality of the public finances. And these include the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed late last year. We've established an independent Irish fiscal advisory council and adopted a medium term expenditure framework. So these I think are important changes designed to ensure that we try to avoid getting into these kinds of difficulties in our public finances again. As well as the programme of consolidation and the various actions to restructure our banking system, the programme does include a strong structural reform component and this is a very this is I know an issue that Japan is facing as well. They need to consider different types of structural reforms to improve the growth potential of its economy. I think it's important to say that we are starting from a reasonably good position if you look say at the work of the OECD which is a pioneer in this area or a leading authority in the area of structural reform. Ireland scores pretty well on multi annual assessments of the flexibility of the economy in terms of its labour market and product markets. Notwithstanding that the government is active in implementing a series of reforms under Troika programme, obviously some of these are very much centred on improving the delivery of public services so there's a very ambitious programme of public sector reform and that has yielded very substantial reductions in costs of running the public service. It's been about 13% in public service salaries over the last number of years and by 2015 it's estimated that the public service will be one eighth smaller than it was in 2007. A critical issue facing Ireland and many countries in the OECD including I know Japan is the ageing of the population and one of the actions I think a critical long term reform that we have now enacted in Ireland is to increase our state pension age from 65 as it is now in a number of steps to reach 68 by 2028 when it will be the joint highest in the European Union and again this will in terms of you know looking at the public finances in a longer term perspective this is a very important reform. The problem also incorporates a number of microeconomic reforms in the area of the labour market and in product market reforms including the deregulation of some aspects of the medical and legal professions rationale there is to lower barriers to entry and increase competition in these professions which have been hit or through quite sheltered. Reflecting our very high unemployment rate there's also a series of labour market reforms which the government has pursued since taking office just over two years ago there was a major overhaul of sector wage setting mechanisms in a number of sectors and the government has launched a number of initiatives designed to increase employment and tackle unemployment this includes the jobs initiative which was a measure aimed at targeting jobs creation in labour intensive sectors mostly tourism the pathways to work program which is a labour market activation program designed to try to tackle them very serious problem of long-term unemployment now facing the Irish economy and to help the long-term unemployed find their way back into the labour market and on Friday some of you may have heard that the latest action plan for jobs for 2013 in fact was announced by the Minister for Jobs Enterprise and Innovation and this comprises a series of very specific action points all designed to increase jobs and to improve the efficiency of the labour market so that's what we've been doing now the last part of the presentation I just want to kind of try to bring together where you know what what have we you know is this all working and just to talk a little bit about the challenges that that still face face our economy I think firstly for me the probably the the the stand out development or achievement thus far has been a very substantial improvement in the competitiveness of the Irish economy and as a small open economy competitiveness is really the key to to to economic growth and what you see here in this on the graph on the left hand side is that relative to the eurozone average our labour costs are projected that by 2014 they will have improved by almost a quarter vis-a-vis the eurozone average so it's a very substantial improvement and in a way this is reflected in the performance of our export sector exports have now recovered to and in fact are now above pre-crisis levels so this again is a very significant development and as we would have I guess anticipated export growth is sort of the driving the initial phases of economic recovery and this is reflected obviously in a very significant improvement in our current account which I mentioned earlier the current account has moved into surplus and I guess you know the improvement in the recovery in in exports reflects some of the I guess enduring advantages we enjoy economy still is very open we have a presence in high technology sectors which are less prone to perhaps the cyclical downturns facing some of some of the other European countries which have found themselves in difficulty we have a well educated workforce and our population structure is still relatively favourable by by European standards and the various league tables that are compiled by different international agencies in terms of a country's attractiveness for foreign direct investment still show us doing pretty well there are issues we have to address obviously but you know in terms of key indicators our metrics like the availability of skilled labour flexibility of our workforce and the incentives available for foreign firms to invest in Ireland we are still doing pretty well in terms of the fiscal consolidation program well that's that's on track two the target for 2012 was a general government deficit of 8.6% of GDP we think in fact it will come in under 8% now the European Commission published its latest forecasts for the European economy on Friday and it's saying it I think projected that the outcome will be 7.7% of GDP so we're on target and all of the various targets for the primary deficit that's the deficit excluding interest payments and for net debt targets set out under the Troika program all of those targets have been met so far and so the program is on track to bring us to a situation where the primary balance that's the budgetary balance less interest payments should be in surplus or be it a small surplus by 2014 and the economy has returned to growth now this is not by any means anything like the seller growth rates we enjoyed in the past but the economy grew by we are estimated by about just under 1% last year and we're expecting a modest acceleration to growth in GDP of about one and a half percent this year with a gradual recovery over the medium term growth averaging about two and a half to two hundred quarters percent over the medium term and it's just important to say that these forecasts obviously to incorporate the latest information and forecasts of the international economic agencies so that is incorporated into the numbers and there's a table there showing our relative performance vis-à-vis some of our some other EU economies I guess the ultimate verdict on all of this is the one that the bond market you know decides and what you see here is a very substantial improvement narrowing in our yields and differential vis-à-vis the core EU economies of Germany in France and in fact a 10 year bond rate is now below 4% in fact and our treasury management agency has auctioned a number of short term issues and has plans to issue more so I think this is really you know a very significant development but as my secretary general said at a recent gathering this obviously assumes that we continue on the track that we're on so we have to implement the remaining commitments under the Troika programme because that is in a way in many ways probably priced into these bond yields okay having said all that we cannot in any way afford to be complacent because the economy faces very significant challenges as I've said the pattern up to now is that growth is being led by exports which is what we would have expected and that is very much on foot of the gains in competitiveness that we have secured however obviously the international economic situation and the situation in the euro zone remains very challenging and obviously that limits what we can achieve we are still you know I think for this process to to really prove successful we need to see a recovery in domestic demand but that is very difficult in circumstances where we are embarking on a very significant programme of fiscal consolidation and you know we still have a number of private sector imbalances household indebtedness to walk through so that is going to be a slow process but really a recovery into domestic economy is critical to an improvement in the labour market and an increase in employment and reduction in employment so the government is looking at what it can do to stimulate and support a domestic economy because we know that this is really critical to secure an improvement in the labour market position so just by way of conclusion covered a lot of ground and I hope I haven't confused you with all of those graphics so I think a couple of key messages firstly the economy has returned to growth 2011 for the first time in four years we do believe that the you know inherent strengths of the economy are still in place and in particular we have managed to secure a very substantial improvement in the economy's competitive position which has given rise to strong export growth and we have implemented all of the targets under the troika programme and a return to the markets is underway but obviously you know we still have a lot to do I think we have made a significant and determined policy response to the difficulties we face we are in course to eliminate to correct deficit by 2015 a determined approach is being pursued to sort out our difficulties in the banking sector there's been a large improvement in competitiveness and obviously the government is now very focused on trying to take any whatever initiatives it can take within the very difficult constraints it faces to improve the situation in the labour market and that obviously remains the standout challenge facing the economy now with a non-employment rate of 14.6% that really is is what I think now the government is very much focused on so I leave it at that I hope that's been of some interest to you in setting out you know our economic strategy here in Ireland and I look forward to participating in the rest of your discussion thank you for your attention