I want to do some follow up on that. I assume that agreement that we should waive the employment requirement. We should be focusing on the raw material, raw inventory side of it, which makes sense to me. Yeah, so I think we have reached out to the directors of the last year's event with regard to getting the top ten list of excellent products. And the question that I was given back to, are we interested in seeing the top, call it five to ten products in terms of unit sold or in terms of revenue from those? Because for example, you know, you might not have six dollars. I'm not sure, I don't know whether either I know enough about the production and manufacturing, you know, or what the production scheduling is at the different dispensaries, including figure as to know the idea that you can have the biomass frozen or whatever or oils, the produce the product. You know, I don't know that that would be different than it is now. When the production now needs to go into a product, there is no adult use to compete with it, and there will be adult use to compete with it. You know, that being said, I do appreciate the, you know, the commitment that Shane certainly seems to be making.  And I'm guessing, you know, it just sort of feels like we have to accept that that will be the case. I think it's a reasonable interim, you know, approach to take. But I would say, you know, there have been supply issues that I think Shane did a great job of explaining a lot of why they happened. But it does concern me a little bit that, you know, we don't know what the future looks like. You know, all the seeds that are being planted, we don't know what's going to grow. And it could be something, you know, that I think is unforeseen but really imaginable that would make it possible that I think the medical program could not be prioritized. I apologize for the dog. Anyway, that's my concern. I don't know if there's something you can feel about it. I feel that, you know, we have to go into it for some reason.  And I think it is a big problem, especially when you see what's happening in some other states. And the issue is how do we prevent that from happening? And we said, well, let's develop the baseline of products that the dispensaries have to keep. Now, to get there, what I need to understand in order to be able to articulate to a recommendation of the board is when Shane's saying, well, focus on doing reserves for the raw material or raw inventory or product, what does that mean? And so how does that break down? And then how do we develop a reserve from that? And then before we even get there, I mean, what I'd also like to know is from the other three license holders, if they would recommend the same measures or if it's easier for those dispensaries to focus on products rather than the raw material. So, Magor, Jim, do you have contacts with the other license holders just so it doesn't need to be another formal appearance, but if you just get some maybe just interview and get some feedback and we can work towards making that that recommendation because that's that's one of the big ones is just to develop be able to inform the board on what that's going to look like as far as if we're going to recommend reserve baselines for the raw inventory. I just need to know what kind of what we're talking about and everyone's on the same page with that. And hopefully there's a cooperative and willing to change is to support the medical program in that regard. You know, if I were to understand the idea of the biomass reserve, you know, basically flower, let's say it is 50-50 the demand and flower is half of it and there will be a supply of flower that would be the same for an adult use market. It would be the concentrate product that would be in slightly different formulations of a thick or potentially a product that doesn't exist at all in the adult use market that would be at issue. And those would be made my understanding of what would be reserved would be dismalance, oils, frozen, you know, flower, plant materials that can be processed into the oils or dismalance that are needed to make those concentrate based products, those other different events. And, you know, so to me the question is, is there a production capacity that would allow those products to freely make it to the market in a way that's equal or better to what happens now, which is easy, but, you know, has its ups and downs, which I think are understandable. So I think that's the question. Honestly, it's not, besides the word, it's not much more than where we started because it isn't an agreement to set the product aside. It's just basically we have the raw material to make it. And I'm not sure whether they're promising the immediate production capacity to get those products made. I think that's being prioritized, but again, it's sort of good faith. I think that we have to take that. And the last thing I'll say is that in the future, when this starts up in the spring of 2022 or in January, when it takes over the registry, you know, it's my hope that there are the future oversight committee that exists and will work with the PCP will be in a position to, you know, work with the dispensary in a different way than we ever happen.  What can you do? And again, you know, it seems better to proceed with constructive, you know, optimism than to assume the worst, which I would want to do that it just, we won't be prioritized. Well, but, but yeah, I mean, I want to do what we can to try and protect the medical patients. And certainly there will be a probationary period when they have a better understanding of what the demand looks like from the adult use market and what, you know, what these dispensaries can sustain ultimately as far as their set asides of reserves for the medical patients. But the more we can, the more we can recommend to make that protection that the better off medical program is going to be ultimately if I'm willing to listen more on that. But for now, you know, if we could get some input from the other license holders about that, I think that'd be helpful. The other thing I had my notes that James mentioning, and we don't have to tackle it now, because I think it might be might be more of a ultimately a compliance issue. But I went ahead and said, Hey, is there anything else that's not working? And what he seemed to say was more of an kind of an inventory issue on how things are counted or stacked against you. Do you remember that part of the conversation? What did you think of his suggestion there? Did you know enough about that that issue because that was that was new to me and I wanted to at least bring it up, raise it and see if we need to deal with it or not. I want to be sure I'm referring to the same issue you're bringing up now. So that was when she was discussing rather than dividing medical and adult use from all the way from seat to sale together until you get to the essentially when you're creating actual products. Yeah, right. Your guys thoughts on that I didn't. I wasn't as well informed on that at the time. I thought about his recommendations per or not. So I wanted to get your input. That makes sense to me just gives them as a business person more flexibility to apply product to either or without having to distinguish where it came from. Those are my feelings as well. I think in the interest of sustaining the medical program, you know, allowing kind of these efficiencies seems like the obvious choice to me. I think determining that early on in the process, which is going to be medical or which is going to be adult use could potentially, you know, not be beneficial to medical, which is ultimately what we don't want. And what is really the difference between the two? How would you separate them out and why would this be for one population and that for another brand? Those are my questions. So what is a lot more difficult for Shane? I think to answer the math question, I think you really wouldn't separate them until you get to that product phase because that's only where you're going to see the differences in the higher concentrations of THC or maybe some specifically formulated products. But other than that, I would agree. I don't see a long line where they would be different until that kind of final stage. And that gives a flexibility if you have a whole bunch of one thing and a little less of another and you can put them together for different concoctions. I did just want to make one, just if we can go back just for a second time around the register to purchase and I'll just sort of say from the prevention perspective that to eliminate that would be increasing access to a young adult population. Not really because it'll be sort of a one hurdle that may or may not reduce. So if access is a risk factor which it is for any substance misuse, then that's the kind of place where like you don't want too many outlets around schools. You don't, you know, these types of questions of access. It's one of the primary ways to reduce misuses by reducing access. So I'd like to put that in the notes but at the same time recognize that most businesses don't have to register their clients, you know, or their shoppers before they come in. And if it is, you know, if they're looking, if their product is medically safe and their advice is right then, you know, it's, I just want to sort of make the point that access is a significant factor in prevention. Maybe that's not the, maybe that's a bottleneck for a short period but not for a long period. And I mean, they're going to get through, they're going to register, they're going to purchase. Either way they're going to purchase but sometimes it's just going to be less access. I don't really see that really changing but I just want to make that point. No, thank you. And after we wrap up discussion of Shane, I didn't want to get to Jim and just the update from the meeting they had last week that we didn't get to last Thursday and we can bring up those points in the second map. But Jim, did you have more to add on that? Yeah, what I was saying is, you know, I do think that I absolutely agree wherever the efficiencies that can, you know, financially help the medical programs stay strong, I think that's important to have the dispensaries have the ability to do that. The only thing that I can see that could be a difference could be testing based, you know, the testing standard for adult use is the same from start to finish as it is for medical medical matter, you know, if there are additional medical testing that's being done, you know, and also I would say that I hope one of the things Shane talked about is the number of strains available in a broad spectrum of treatment which is popular in medical cannabis circles and so there might be flower that is specifically, you know, grown for medical reasons, either because, you know, that's terpene profile or the different kinds of PHC versus the different, you know, types of CBD, CBN, all these different things, the profile might be different. And the one last thing I would say is there are cannabis strains that are being bred that are incredibly high in PHC and some of those are being shown to have certain, you know, specific profiles to them that could in the future prove to be effective in a medical program. So I would hate to set up a situation that doesn't allow for a higher PHC flower than is allowed, something like that. So it's just to be the double magic there. You know, understood. And so, yeah, there are going to be some challenges to crafting this baseline reserve that we keep discussing. Yeah, that's another issue. Okay, well, I think, are we in agreement that the seed to sale tracking should be generic until whatever point in time that it's going to be processed. And at that point, they can make the distinction between medical and recreational. I would agree. I would agree. Okay. All right, I'll put that down on another editorial list of recommendations. With respect to the testing, I don't know why it would be different. I mean, does anyone know the reason why you'd have distinct testing between the medical and the adult use products? Well, you might be testing for a lot of components in a medical product. You know, the number of chemical components, the types of PHC, types of CBD, CBN, all these various components, my limited understanding of testing admittedly shows results where you get eight parameters, 10 parameters, and it's different. Different testing is different. And I could see potentially for medical you might be looking at more of the chemical profile than is necessary for adult use. That's the only reason I can think that testing would be different as perhaps done to a different degree. But my chemical profile, Jim, are you talking about to check for the presence of different types of THC or CBD or CBN or for different pesticides just for safety for medical patients? Well, I would think the pesticides would be the same for anybody. They would be the same for consumption. But what would be unique to the medical patients would be the psychoactive chemical profile, the THC, the CBD, that, you know, for instance, when somebody says we heard, I forget when it might have been Jettlin, Dolan said this about how much she likes using a one-to-one CBD, THC blend. You know, those are the kinds of things that we can't foresee as medical research begins on cannabis, what types of testing we might need to see in terms, I think a medical patient will be interested in seeing more than adult use would need to. And from a prevention perspective, there would be more about the potency and the amount of THC being assessed and patients or others being informed of that just so you don't get that youth who's had two joints or something and has no real resilience and then all of a sudden does this massive THC level and then goes into a psychotic break. So it's really from a prevention perspective. It's mostly about the measure of THC, potency and transparency about what it is. But I think in terms of the lab testing for contaminants, it's not going to be different between medical and adult use. But even with what Jim was saying, and we have a number of NACP members that are lab testing facilities, so I'm going to check with them as well, but from what you were describing, just the ratios one-to-one, CBD or THC or MAT, what you were saying as far as potency, when the testing is going to be, they're going to need to test for that regardless of it's adult use or medical. Yeah, you haven't sang that across the board. Yeah, so I'm trying to figure out, and maybe Jim, if a certain medical patient is looking for, I don't know, maybe specific things across the spectrum that an adult use test wouldn't cover, but I think it still would. But I'll look into that a little more. That seems like a company product line question. You know what I mean? It's really like, hey, we can offer you this type and that type, and we put it together and we get this type. I think that that has, you've already gotten to the place of your different primary components and you just sort of putting together mixes for the market, whether it be for the adult use or the medical. The relevance is what you were getting to before, Jim. If there is different testing, then is that going to require different CPCL tracking then with the chains recommended? Yeah, I mean, like I said, I don't know the answer, but I do know the question because as a consumer, I can go, I believe it's more than, it could be a product labeling, I think as Matt suggested, you could have a product label that is formulated, but it could be a flower as well that somebody wants to vaporize or turn into an animal or something themselves. And it, you know, I think I'm getting into the fine details of this, but my understanding is that, you know, you don't necessarily test for every single, you know, you might have THC levels, but people on our next looking for THC A-levels, you know, it might not be necessary to elicit. So I'm just, I'm leaving open the possibility in a way that allows for the most efficacy of the cannabis for our medical patient. Understood. Jim, go ahead. Do you have your question? Hi, so our lab testing protocols, are that subcommittee should have some decisions made relatively soon that maybe it would be worth waiting to see what the adult REC side lab standards and testing protocols are going to be before we decide whether or not we need to go over and above that for the medical side? I think a question that I would like to have answered by this subcommittee is whether we're going to require third-party testing for the medical dispensaries because they are going to be integrated license holders, so they will have a testing license and whether they can test their own product or not should be, I think, something that I'd like to see a recommendation on. Sir, I mean, my recommendation is third-party. Jim, Meg, Matt, did you have any other opinions? I guess I was in a cannabis conference recently and the one big thing from Colorado that said was get it state tested because it's the way that will be most consistent and it doesn't leave you open to sort of wanting to alter the test, not that that would happen. Well, we'll see what the lab testing subcommittee comes up with, but I don't think there's a state testing lab that's going to be recommended. Right. I'm not sure why they were so emphatic about that except for maybe there was some... I think the only concern with relying on third parties is simply a timing issue. You know, if there's only a handful of third-party labs in the state, I think I would be a little bit worried with how quickly they could turn around specifically medical product, but definitely open to exploring that. I would say that on the oversight committee, we have a lot of feedback on the need for having third-party testing. And I'm saying that in some objective ways. I don't actually look at the test results and I'm not sure, you know, there's a lot of things that have been said about how testing has been done and the idea of whether, you know, you can test yourself. Self-testing is, you know, reliable. I would say there's a large group of at least vocal... a vocal group of medical patients who feel like you cannot have testing that you do yourself. You need a third party to do it, whether you're having another dispensary to it or, you know, a state lab or a private lab. I think that if that isn't the case, it's going to be always a... talk about issue ongoing. I think you're right, Meg. That's the big concern is the delay and that's what you've seen across cannabis and the hemp industries, frankly. But I don't know, it seems to me just a fundamental issue. If you're testing your own stuff, that's a big inherent conflict. So I don't know how you get around that. It's even just for appearances like you were saying, Jim, or just, I mean, I think you're asking for trouble. So I mean, even if it's from the perspective of if you have the existing four or five license holders testing each other's product, because if they're going to all be integrated licenses, they should all be up and running with their own testing just as quickly as they would for self-tests but have them test each other, but don't set it up for that same testing would be my recommendation. We don't have to take a vote on that now, but think about it, because I would like to take a vote on that in the next meeting. But that's a good segue. Jim, if you could, you sent me an email. Was it last week that you had the meeting or the week before? The update from the registry or the, sorry, I'm trying to put up your, pull up your email now. Are you talking about the oversight committee proposal? Yeah. Right. So, yeah, basically the update I can give you is that we are at the point where the oversight committee has created a draft document that it is agreed upon, the board members, and we have posted it and put it out for a public comment period that will end next Wednesday with a meeting where my intention is for it to be mostly public comment for that next board meeting. And we have passed the document along to all the various stakeholders. You know, I think that Bryn just, you know, sent back to me that it seemed like we're on schedule to be able to review this in our subcommittee and then pass it through in time for the board to be able to make their recommendation on time to the legislature. You know, so I would imagine besides the public comment we'll get, there'll be, you know, some decent amount of discussion in our subcommittee as well. And so that's the document I forwarded to everybody and we can begin a discussion of that at any point. Yeah, you just want to give us the, can you give us the highlight of how the committee is comprised? Yeah, hold on a second. We just hold this up for a second and I don't have a printed comment. Does it help if I be next to me? Does it help if I screen share it? Would that help you, Jim? Sure, that would be great. I mean, it's good to take me once back and otherwise to pull it up. Actually the easiest way for me to do it will be from the document I sent. You guys. Yeah, I've got it here. Your terms begin in February. Yeah, yeah. So this is all based on the current statute as it exists and the primary changes have really gone into this first paragraph really where we talk about the establishment of the committee. You know, it's getting much more of a definition here than it did in the past. In the past, you know, we're recommending here that not only it have a more of a physical location but a strong digital presence that will basically create an ongoing back and forth capability between the public, the oversight committee, and the cannabis control board. We recommend in here as well for a budget for oversight which we have not had in the past, you know, and I think the desire there is to really thief up and strongly be able to take on the role of advising the cannabis control board as much as possible. So we want to be in a position to have a committee in the future that can spend the money to bring in witnesses, do research surveys when necessary. And then we did not have German as actually prior to this recommendation. So, you know, that was something that was unanimously agreed upon by the current board members. And we, you know, at this point, the Department of Public Safety has been the oversight board home and has given us our administrative support, so to speak, and this is imagining, assuming that the cannabis control board will do this in the future. And then the makeup of the committee is really quite different than it was in the past. The committee in the past had members appointed from each of the different dispensaries, and with really no instruction other than they be appointed, there really was not any guidance in the rules at all about what they were going to do or how long they would be there. And then a decent amount of the board were members that were really, I would say, from a different time period. The oversight committee was created in part, my understanding is in response to the cold memo during the Obama administration, and it gives seats on the oversight committee to the League of Cities and Towns, the Chief of Police Association, Sheriff's Association. There was a lot of focus, to be frank, on protecting the public from the medical program, which I think really speaks more to what the time was. And so we have made a recommendation that this board is going to primarily be made up of patients. And I know that a lot of the language we put in here in terms of chosen by lottery and randomly and whatnot is going to be, I think, heavily debated how we do this. But we very consciously debated and decided that it would be best to base these register patients out of the registry itself, for the caregivers rather than recommended by a dispensary. This seems like it randomizes it a bit more, which was a concern a lot of the board members had. We also wanted to make sure that there are healthcare professionals on the board so that we can be researching and advising on the healthcare science and medical matters as well. And try to put in a broad definition of the types of people that can be in there, can be doctors or practitioners, naturopaths, osteopaths. We really tried to not define it because there are so many healthcare practitioners, I think, that would be suitable to recommend patients the program and understand also the use of cannabis as a medicine. And then the next item we have in there was pretty highly debated on whether or not to have a cultivator on the committee that has not been the case in the past. And I think this discussion went hand in hand with the questions about caregivers being cultivators and the board in part being very concerned that we separate the idea of at least professional cultivating on a broad scale from being a designated grower for a medical patient. And I think those issues, we've moved them forward quite a bit. But the idea, we did get just barely a positive vote on a cultivator. There were board members opposed to this and who just couldn't see why you would have a cultivator talking about medical cannabis. But I think a really large, you know, the other group felt pretty strongly that, you know, this is a plant-based medicine and at this point, especially where the science and research is limited, that the cultivators definitely offer a lot of connection and insight to the plant itself. And I think it's also a good balance to the dispensary, being the only provider of the medicine itself and getting another voice in there. So we did decide to go ahead and make that recommendation that we include a grower in there and that is the... Yeah, well, you know, we were going to, you know, yeah, this was debated to a third degree. There was a vote about leaving public safety in medical, but it really seems like it's being covered elsewhere, you know, in the adult use program. And that's the burden of safety, you know, is primarily going to fall at least public safety just in a broader umbrella that we didn't feel like it needed to be specifically addressed within the medical oversight itself. So in the end, we had talked about a transitional period to have a member from the Department of Public Safety sitting on the board, but that was really less from a public safety perspective than a, you know, sort of bureaucratic perspective. The Department of Public Safety has been running the program, and we felt there was a lot of knowledge and experience there that might benefit the oversight. But, you know, we also discussed that and felt like it's going to occur naturally between the cannabis control board and the Department of Public Safety. And so it wasn't necessary to build that in to the committee itself. We, in the past, the oversight committee only really was obligated to meet once a year, and it was really for the purpose of putting together a report to get to the legislature to try to incrementally change the laws as necessary. And, you know, obviously, you know, I don't think that that was the oversight committee was not really set up in a way that allowed for ongoing oversight issues to be looked at, you know, other than what might be reported to the Department of Public Safety and the registry. So, you know, given that there is going to be an ongoing report of relationship, advisory relationship with the Cannabis Control Board, we debated four to six times a year and ended up leaving it in six times a year for meetings. And then I would imagine, you know, we're looking to have a coordinator in an ongoing way that will keep communication with the public and the dispensaries and Cannabis Control Board ongoing, which is really, I think, necessary for the medical program. And that is the recommendation. You know, we have rules that govern the committee that are basically, you know, perform on-type rules that are not specific to medical cannabis specifically. And so we didn't really address those, you know, Robert Wohl's plus kind of thing. This was the main part of the statute. The other part of the statute that existed really were what set up the registry within the Department of Public Safety. And that was something we didn't need to address since work either. So there you have it. Thank you, Jim. And so to your earlier point from a preventionist perspective, even though it might be somewhat academic, but the registry isn't going anywhere. So it sounds like, Jim, this committee will be set up and it'll be under the auspices of one of the CCB members and they will meet with the CCB six times a year at least really to see how good of a job we did in setting up one of the recommendations we can give to the board and how they're continuing the medical program. So that's good to see on the phone that it is actually six times a year. What I would say is that, you know, I think that it isn't completely clear from how the wording is in this proposed draft statute in terms of whether it's meeting with the Cannabis Control Board six times a year or the Oversight Committee is. And I think the reporting function of how the Cannabis Control Board hears from the Oversight Committee, whereas I didn't get debated much through the board, my understanding was that the way the advisory committee is structured, because you're going to have the chairman of the Oversight Committee work in the Cannabis Control Board's advisory committee, you will have a natural influx of information, you know, coming through in that way. But I think also, you know, day-to-day ongoing concerns that people have about the medical program, which, you know, I think patients would like to know that they're being expressed more frequently. I think the mechanism for getting those to the CCD will be, I think, more, you know, bureaucratic within the offices, but perhaps it needs to be written into this statute. Very good. Other than the manner in which the meetings will take place, what other issues does this subcommittee need to take into account from the draft proposal, do you think? Well, you know, I really do think the main issues are going to be budgetary. You know, how much the Cannabis Control Board is able to get in terms of being able to fund this or how that will work. And I think the makeup of the members themselves will be, you know, I think are discriminating. Again, my apologies. My dog hears me talking. It makes dinner time always. And I think that also the mechanism of appointment, you know, this is the Cannabis Control Board itself pretty strongly that this was the mechanisms we recommend are lottery in some places and then selected by the Cannabis Control Board. You know, I would imagine those are we looking at as well in a practical way to, with input from Chairman Pepper and other board members as to what's practical and makes sense. We decided not to include the governor or the legislature in picking any of these oversight members because there really was no expertise in any of those areas. And the controlling bodies for the oversight committee will have been, you know, reviewed by the legislature governor. So I think that, you know, we should touch on all those issues, whether people agree on the makeup, you know, I think, you know, we can make some changes if necessary should the CPD feel, you know, they want the mechanism to be different if that matters in our recommendation. Sure. And I'll comment down on a second. Jim, I just wanted to see if we had public comments. No public comment in the room. Okay. And I want to hear from Meg Matt and Jim and Brynn, but the makeup of the committee at least from the three items I have to look at it. So how to meet with the board, the budget and the appointment committee. It makes a lot of sense to me. I like that there's a majority of caregivers. I don't mind a representative from the VGA. I don't mind, you know, the exclusion of public safety or the legislature, the governor, but I don't mind the lottery selection process either. Those are my initial impressions. Meg or Matt, did you have any items for discussion at least on the makeup of the committee right now? We can discuss it more in the next meeting, but those are my thoughts when I looked at it when you sent it, Jim. Oh, I think you're muted. You want to go first, please? Uh, sure.


Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Last week on the Arc Review, we spent some time, well, a lot of time, defeating Donkey Hote Doflamingo on the island of Dressrosa. And this week, we are off to visit the realm of the minks on the island of Zo. Zo is the 28th arc in the series, consisting of 23 manga chapters and 29 anime episodes. A downright, merciful amount coming directly from Dressrosa. And I don't just mean that in a joking way either. One of the main appeals of Zo to me is its length. For more specifically, the sheer amount it manages to achieve within such a short time. First up, we get to explore a new visually stunning location after having some fairly visually flat back to back arcs during punk hazard and Dressrosa. Zo was a feast for starved eyes. Especially in the anime where Toei made some uncharacteristic use of fantastic colour. But the setting of Zo really speaks for and becomes a character itself. And that's probably helped by the fact that the island is, in fact, a giant elephant. It was just such a cool idea and it paid off during the climax of the arc with Zunesha absolutely wrecking Jack, a character who we will speak more about right now. Jack acts as the main antagonist of the arc, but not in a traditional way. In fact, his part in the story is told almost entirely through a flashback involving a five day long battle against the mink tribe. And I love Jack as a villain. He's powerful, relentless, and has a legitimately terrifying presence, much like his Captain Kaido. It also helped that Jack was introduced with a bounty of one billion fairies. And I'll say that number once more, one billion fairies. Even if you don't put any stock in bounties, this number was absurdly high for the time, and you know it still is for today. And it really lets us know that we are about to tangle with some of the world's most powerful individuals. And you know, speaking of powerful individuals, we cannot ignore Inuarashi or Nekomamushi, the two figures who were able to fight on par with Jack. These guys were a very unexpected dose of amazingness into the story, with great designs and wonderfully over-the-top personalities. Although I have to say that despite being a dog person, I definitely prefer Nekomamushi's character design.  All in all, I find it absolutely ridiculous that I love these two characters as much as I do. Because we are over 800 chapters into the story at this point, and these two characters have no right to just stroll in out of nowhere and be as amazing as they are. And that also applies to the entire mink tribe in general, who were pretty fantastic. It was a huge boost to the depth of the one-piece world to have an entirely new race introduced. That explained intriguing mammalian characters such as Beppo and Pecoms, rather than just leaving them completely unexplained, like the random cat and dog people in Dragon Ball. Very importantly, Zou also saw the reunion of the Straw Hat crew, well, most of them. This half of the crew vanished halfway through Dressrosa, and they were sorely missed, at least for me. At the same time, this made me realize that I really do appreciate the idea of the crew being split up, because it allows for certain members to receive an increased level of focus that they would otherwise be unlikely to get if the entirety of the Straw Hats were present. But splitting them up also benefits the Straw Hats who take a break from the story, because when we get to see them again, they come back almost completely fresh. Every panel featuring Nami, Chopper, Brooke, and Sanji had me completely hooked, simply because they were there. And I was really keen to follow them all into a new arc. But with that said, I was also more than happy to enjoy my time during Zou, because it's such an unconventional arc for one piece in terms of structure. I think Zou is best described technically as a bridging arc connecting Dressrosa and Hulkic Island, kind of like how Jaya connected Alvaster and Skypeer, and usually those sorts of arcs, well, they're alright. But at times they can feel very much like a stepping stone in order to get to the real meat of the story, especially in Lesser Manga. But Zou very competently tells a compelling story of its own, with some very unexpected plot twists. The one I'm particularly referring to is the Rizo is safe moment, which is one of my favorite portions of the arc. Before this point, we as readers were led to believe that should the minks discover the samurai allies of the Straw Hats, all hell would break loose. However, in a classic Oda-esque fashion, this was flipped on its head entirely and resulted in a moment with a disgusting amount of emotional depth. Sadly, I can't quite say the same for Rizo himself though, because I've not been too keen on the designs of the citizens of Wano up until this point, and Rizo really puts me off. However, I do very much enjoy that there is a ninja with such a gigantic body.  So he does have that nice bit of charm going for him. But that brings up the other wonderful aspect of Zou. Not only does it act as a bridging arc between Dressrosa and Hawkeic Island, but it was also a very strong seeding arc for Wano through the formation of the Ninja Pirate Minks Samurai Alliance, as well as the aforementioned events featuring Jack. In fact, it did such a good job of hyping me up for Wano that I was actually pretty disappointed, when we transitioned into Hawkeic Island. But hey, that is not the fault of Zou at all. Zou also dropped a bit of a bombshell on us in the form of the Road Poneglyphs. The existence of these items offer a direct connection to Raftel, and for the first time in the history of the series, it flagged that we might actually be getting pretty damn close to the goal of finding the One Piece. Or at the very least, it solved the mystery of how to get to Raftel and why no one else has managed the task up until now. Because, very cleverly, two of the Road Poneglyphs were in the hands of Yonko. Also rather cleverly, this gave the straw hats a personal reason to get involved in the conflicts against Big Mom and Kaido, rather than simply fighting for the sake of others as per usual. Something else that really surprised me during this arc was the presence of Capone. And what surprised me more is the fact that I actually quite liked him. Capone had traditionally been one of my least favorite members of the worst generation, but seeing him in action here very quickly changed my mind about his character. In a similar vein, Pecom's part to play in all of this was also quite a pleasant addition. I didn't really care too much for him after Fishman Island, but just like Capone, I warmed to him quite quickly on Zoo, especially while he was wounded and quite literally being carried around by Luffy. It added a lot of levity to this previously super serious lion, and it made him an enjoyable figure to follow during a highly enjoyable arc. And I mean, Zoo is just great. It's not an arc that holds most of the great moments of the series, and as a result, I believe that it will never really stick out in the minds of fans as one of the truly great arcs in the series. But I find it very difficult to criticize Zoo for, well, anything. The length was perfect, the location was intriguing, characters were amazing, the pacing was on point, the story revelations were highly impactful, the action in the flashbacks was beautifully drawn, and it was the break we needed between two massive arcs segueing seamlessly into the future of the series. And because of all of that, Zoo ended up on my top five best arcs in one piece list, and if I were to remake that list one day, I feel like its position would be pretty damn secure. But that pretty much does it for Zoo. Next week, we will be declaring war against one of the four emperors as we depart on another colossal adventure to Whole Cake Island. If you enjoyed this video, then feel free to like, favorite, or subscribe. And if you aren't anyway keen on supporting this independent channel, then please do feel free to check out my Patreon, Discord server, or Twitter, the links to which are in the handy description below. Finally, please do comment with your thoughts on Zoo. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.


It's useful to keep in mind the following idea. Notation and terminology aren't standardized until a research area is dead. There's no question about what the derivative of a function is, and so the notation for the derivative is always dy dx, unless it's y' or dot y, but in any case it is standardized. Graph theory, on the other hand, is mostly a development of the past century. Other results are being discovered continuously, so notation and terminology are not standardized. Get used to it. And that's why this guy shows up every now and then. Take it, Ralph. One reason notation and terminology change is that we might discover we need to capture more context. We've been using d sub v to indicate the degree of a vertex, but since we've been adding edges to a graph, the same vertex v might be in different, but related, graphs. So we'll start to use the function notation d of v to indicate the degree of a vertex. One advantage is that function notation allows us to include indices. So d of v is the degree if the identity of the graph is unambiguous, but if we have to specify, we can include the graph as an index, d g of v, d h of v. Now previously we found that if we added an edge to g and found it to be Hamiltonian, if the degree sum was at least n, then g itself was Hamiltonian. Now note that our premises are that g plus u v is Hamiltonian, and the degree of u plus the degree of v is greater than or equal to n. Since we need both, we can choose which one we assume and which one we make our antecedent. And this gives us a different version of the same result. This time we'll assume that our degree sum is greater than or equal to n, and then if g plus the edge is Hamiltonian, then g is Hamiltonian. Now it should be obvious that if our original graph is Hamiltonian, adding an edge leaves it Hamiltonian. If we put this together with our previous result, we get a pair of conditionals where the antecedents and consequence have switched places. And so, putting them together, we can combine the two results in an if and only if theorem. But we really shouldn't. That is to say, if and only if theorems are great for textbooks, and they're good for gaining street cred among gangs of roving mathematicians, but they're not quite as useful when you think about mathematics. We should avoid if and only if constructions. We should either state both conditionals, or we could use the and conversely construction. And that theorem suggests that adding edges between vertices where the degree sum is at least n doesn't change whether or not a graph is Hamiltonian. And this led to the idea of closing a graph by adding edges between non-adjays and vertices whose degree sum was at least n. So, for example, we might try that with a graph shown. There are six vertices. Since a and e are non-adjacent, and the degree sum is at least six, we'll add an edge. Note that now the degree of a and e are both four. Since a is non-adjacent to f, and the degree sum is at least six, we'll join a f. Since c is non-adjacent to e, and the degree sum is six, we'll join ce. And the remaining pairs of non-adjacent vertices have degree sums less than six, so we won't join any of them. And so we could say the graph produced this way is the closure of g. Or can we? If we have more than one pair of non-adjacent vertices whose degree sum is greater than or equal to n, we have a choice of how we add edges. So it's conceivable that different choices lead us to different graphs. So suppose we try to close some graph g. We might add edges e1, e2, and so on in that order to produce some graph g1. Or we might make a different set of choices and add edges l1, l2, and so on, also in that order to produce a graph g2. So if we make the same choices, we'll obviously end up with the same graph, so let's assume at some point we make a different choice. So let ek1, the edge between u and v, the first edge we add to g1 that is different from the edge we add to g2. In some sense, this is where we first make a different choice. So up until this point, we've made all the same choices. So let h be g plus all of these common choices. And that means g1 is h plus some extra choices, and g2 is h plus some extra choices, where this k plus first choice is actually different. Now in g1, we would have added the edge ek1 between u and v. But we'd only add an edge if the degree sum was greater than n. So we know that the degree of u in h plus the degree of v in h has to be at least n. So while we didn't add it as the k plus first edge in g2, we would have added it eventually. Unless it's possible that at some point the degree of u, v, and g2 drops below n, but this can't happen. Can it? No, it can't. So this means that every edge we added to g to produce g1 is an edge we would have added to produce g2, if not at one point, then at some later point. Since we can make the same argument about the edges we added to g to produce g2, this means the edges we added are the same, even if we didn't add them in the same order. And that gives us the graph on n vertices formed by repeatedly joining non-adjacent vertices whose degree sum is at least n is unique. And this means that our process of adding edges will always lead to the same final graph, and consequently we can define the closure of the graph. What's important is that because the closure of the graph is unique, then we might be able to infer properties of the graph from the properties of its closure. And you might notice what I did here simultaneously using the term closure, with the notation we're going to use. And that's because I'm a brilliant author and presenter, and it's also generally good style. And that's because this will help you navigate around the different notation and terminology that's used by different authors and researchers. Where was I? Let's see, brilliant author and presenter, oh yeah, there we were. So suppose the process of producing the closure yields the following sequence. So we add edge 1 to produce g1, we add edge 2 to produce g2, and so on, eventually arriving at the closure of the graph. And suppose our final graph is Hamiltonian. Since we produced it from our previous graph by adding some edge where the degree sum was at least n, then our theorem says that the previous graph is also Hamiltonian. And by the same logic, the graph before that is Hamiltonian, and in fact, all of our graphs are Hamiltonian. And this leads to an important result, if the closure of a graph is Hamiltonian, then the graph itself is Hamiltonian. And why not? It should be obvious that if a graph is Hamiltonian, its closure must also be Hamiltonian. And consequently, we can combine our two conditionals and say that g is Hamiltonian if and only if its closure is Hamiltonian, but we'd rather say that if g is Hamiltonian, its closure is Hamiltonian, and conversely.


Hey, how's it going today? So we're going to talk about gaslighting today During our morning cup of Jonathan today, I have I don't want to work anymore I want to be cherished put up on a pedestal and taken care of mug. No, that's not narcissistic so our so talking about gaslighting so and The reason why I want to talk about this today is recently. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine a woman who During the course of our conversation. She said she I gas lit her Now if you're not familiar with gaslighting, it's the term of when somebody says Contradictory to their own words or contradictory to your words as And it typically it's done as a it's well the perception is it's done as a manipulation tool to undermine your sense of reality And this is certainly talked about quite frequently for those who have narcissistic personality disorder So I want to give you context of why I'm bringing this up because I have a female friend I've developed a pretty good relationship with a woman recently She originally lived in Los Angeles. We met up as friends. She then subsequently moved to Utah and we seem to talk a couple times a day Sometimes I just feel like we're boyfriend and girlfriend with each other With the amount of time and we talk about a lot of different things particularly We listen to two different podcasts. One is the Mark Groves podcast I got highly recommend it. The other one is spiritually hungry podcast with Monica and Michael Berg and so you definitely check those out And we talk about a lot of personal development together So during the course of the conversation, I can't remember the particulars. Please forgive me I can't remember what happened, but I guess I had said something to her and She took it a certain way. So then when she said it back to me. I said I didn't say that and As soon as I said I didn't say that she said I gas lit her in other words I was I was saying Contrary to what I'd said something like one or two minutes or four minutes earlier I can't remember the timeline and I wish I could remember the context of what it was And in that moment, I said no, I didn't say that I was literally defending my position. I didn't say that And she goes you did say that and it occurred to me that maybe I did say that and what in that moment I was having an absolute memory lapse. This is why I can't even remember what the context was I was having a memory lapse of what I literally said just moments before So I was watching a video and I want to lean into this a little bit more about gas lighting And I was watching a video yesterday About 15 different psychological behaviors and one of the things it talked about how our memory can confuse us and Because we oftentimes remember things in bits and pieces not in its totality And you would think gosh if it was something just moments earlier. You would have this fresh memory and What I was recalling in that moment was there was okay, so here's what happened. I wish again I wish I can remember the context. I was sharing something in particular and Whatever I said I meant something different So this oftentimes happens as well sometimes what we're saying what we're thinking in our head and what comes out of our Mouth can be so different that in the moment when I said I didn't say that it was because I meant something completely different So Who's so as I reflected upon this well, who's right? Well, because did was it that I said was it that I said something that I meant something different Was I actually gas lighting her was she maybe gas lighting me? What if it was the other way around what if I had said it properly and she heard it differently? So this is where this gets so tricky Especially and I was irritated that she labeled it gas lighting because it's as if it was something intentional if it was something manipulative and yet I suspect in many cases When you're experiencing something it so a couple things might happen a you may say something and mean something else Okay, or you might say something and Completely forget it so when it comes back to the time to revisit it and what I mean literally forget it you didn't you might deny saying something or might Claim that it's something different because you literally have forgotten and I suspect this happens to men and women as well This isn't necessarily narcissistic personality disorder because human beings are rather Dysfunctional in the sense is we're not perfect. We're not Autonomous, we're not robots where we can literally have this memory and a recall that's absolutely precise in fact oftentimes our perceptions of what happens can be totally different than our our Recollection of what happens So I think rather than judging it and I'm and this is why I'm talking about this because I'm getting rather tired of the Constant talk about narcissistic behavior. Look at human beings individually can be very selfish Okay, it's just natural to be selfish. We're born as selfish beings in a way We're literally born for other people to take care of us Okay, so to characterize it and listen listen, I am not here to suggest that people who haven't experienced some terrible Events in their life with a partner that couldn't cause a lot of trauma and distress But the same time if you're constantly living it over and over by reminding yourself I was with the narcissist. I was with the narcissist I was then you're reliving the trauma bond instead of finding why were you mostly attracted to this person and Heal that part within yourself rather than focusing on the person focus on your own individual empowerment At the same time I'm here that the reason why I'm having this conversation is I think it's hugely important to recognize that human beings Make mistakes yourself include it. I mean look at I made a genuine honest mistake and quite frankly I can't even I don't even know Maybe she was gaslighting me. Maybe I was gasolineing her. Maybe I perceived it a certain way Rather than judging everything my invitation for everyone is to look at each other with compassion with love Because when we remove the judgments when we remove the the the the the blame We actually find some greater inner peace within ourselves It's just an odd listen This is just an invitation to look at things a little bit differently. That's what I'm here to suggest today So was I gaslighting her? I have no idea was it intentional? Absolutely not and I suspect in many cases when this happens. It's because human beings oftentimes don't remember Remember things or they might say one thing, but they genuinely in their brain They're mean being something else and it doesn't correlate between the two And so rather than judge that I just want to invite a little more compassion and love into each individual And maybe we can find a bit of harmony between ourselves. Is this sinking in is this resonating? Please let me know please share this with your friends. All right. This is part of my midlife love mastery group video I hope you found value in it if you did please tell your friends about my group midlife love mastery send them to my website Jonathan as late calm have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group or check out all the other things I offer in my private coaching my Instagram that sort of thing all right I'm going to wrap up this videos I always do first off give myself a big gigantic Jonathan bear hug of self love I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm asking to turn to someone a pet a teddy bear pillow and give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love And let's face it we could all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Bye. Bye now. Bye. Bye


Hello. I've been pondering on how microbiologists can contribute in these difficult times. So before I consider that, I wanted to say as FEMS president, also as former president of the UK Microbiology Society and also ISME, I wanted to pass on my very best wishes to you all, whether or not that you're part of FEMS, because this period is actually tough for all of us. And it's a learning experience very much for us all. And I'm especially concerned for the disruption of our community, particularly our early career researchers. And FEMS is looking for ways to support our community and ensure that there are opportunities to present your research and to get quality feedback to from senior scientists. Because what I'm finding is that this pandemic is linking all of us into one community. And microbiologists are playing many, many roles. I see this on social media every day. Many are contributing directly to research to understand SARS-CoV-2 better. They're delivering online teaching and student support in the development of potential vaccines and treatments and in the testing and tracking. But also very significantly, many of you are contributing to scientific communication, just so important. I am many, many different media outlets and all of this is massively helpful. So thank you. I mean speaking personally, I certainly know that this pandemic has turned my life upside down as one after the next and my commitments just seem to be being stripped from my diary. So for the many societies within FEMS and others or partners, I've been so looking forward to participating to coming scientific conferences during 2020. I was looking forward to participating in the summer school and the FEMS conference in microbiology in Belgrade in July. Now, sadly, I won't get to meet and get to know many of these societies and microbiologists. But I promise I'll be twice as active in 2021, a pandemic committing. But I do think that there will be some positive outcomes too from COVID-19. And I'm already seeing a much greater spirit of cooperation within the microbiology community. And it's wonderful to see that.