Personal notice, danger is my stock and trade. If the job's too tough for you to handle, you've got a job for me. George Valentine, right in full detail. Yes, it's Let George Do It, brought to you by PREEM, P-R-E-A-M. The new miracle way to cream your coffee. In a moment we'll begin tonight's transcribed adventure of George Valentine. But first... Oh, the new way to cream it is to hurry but get PREEM. That's PREEM with a capital P. If you appreciate real convenience, you'll be delighted with PREEM, P-R-E-A-M. The wonderful new way to cream coffee. This new dairy miracle in instant powdered form never sours, never turns. Keeps indefinitely while sealed. Open for everyday use. PREEM stays fresh tasting to the last spoonful. Whether you keep it on your kitchen shelf or in your refrigerator. That's just one reason you'll prefer PREEM to all other coffee creaming products. PREEM has a rich, luscious flavor you'll love too. That's because it's made from fresh, sweet cream milk products only. Yet PREEM is less fattening. Use PREEM in your coffee instead of coffee cream and you get up to 50% fewer calories. Best yet, thrifty PREEM saves over one third on coffee cream costs. Try PREEM tomorrow. P-R-E-A-M. Hurry, get PREEM with a capital P. And now, tonight's adventure of George Valentine. The man under the elm trees. Dear Mr. Valentine, you may not remember, but you and I had a very interesting talk once in the smoking car of the streamliner. At least as far as Mayville Junction we did. Anyway, that's why I feel I can call on you now as a friend. I live with my little sister, Mrs. Leticia Packler. She's got too much money. More than's good for any woman. She can't control it and I can't control her. Unless you help out, there's going to be a loud crash at the end of the line. Now, I warned her that you might be coming. Coming to visit is an old friend, of course. Hold on, Bruxy. What's that guy's name? Del Hanigan, remember him? People you meet on trains. Well, anyway, so Leticia or no one else will suspect the real reason you're here. You see, the big trouble is my sister likes to make friends too, only the wrong kind of friends. The kind that ought to be in prison. Sincerely, Del Hanigan. The name still means nothing. And as for Mayville Junction, I'm darned if I... Oh, George, how could you? Well, I know I didn't actually go there, but I started two once and I've always loved the place, even if it is a tiny little. So that's it. The backward seat of learning, huh? You're would-be alma mater. Just because their football teams weren't as good as... All right, Angel. All right. Let's go boula-boula, even if it is at Mayville College. Oh, you must be Mr. Valentine and Ms. Brooks. That's right. Why are you so much earlier than I expected? Look at me. I'm all over with cake-flower. There's going to be a picnic, you know. The faculty welcoming committee. Oh, but I'm so glad to meet you. I'm Tisha Patler. You're... How do you do? Hi. And this is Skinny Adams. Skinny lives with us, you know. And, man, I didn't see you salute the flag. Uh, well, I'm not in uniform. I'm the keeper of the flags. What? The flags at the college. Used to be on the grounds and flowers committee, but I'm not any more doctors, as I couldn't. But what I'm really interested in is in chemistry. Now, you look like a serious-minded young man. Do you realize that I actually saw a bloloslav of nitrogen fame? And he says to me, Adams, he says to me... Oh, Skinny, please. Now they don't want to hear your stories now. Besides, if you're going to feel strong enough for the picnic, you'd better lie down, hadn't you? I'm sure Del's put up the beach umbrella over your hammock. All right, all right, Tisha. I know what's good for me. See you later, Mr. Adams. Oh, he's exasperating at times, but he's such a dear. It's just that he talks and talks day and night. He talks and talks, and none of it makes much sense. Who is he, Mrs. Packler? Skinny? Well, 10 or 12 years ago, he was an assistant or something in the chemistry department. Ambitious, but not very successful. And there was an explosion. It, well, affected him. The doctors say that he's borrowed more than his time by now. He can't stand any strain or undo shock or too much heat. Well, why isn't he in a hospital? What? What good heavens! The college gives him his pension, and he has his choice. After all, they say I take better care of him in the boarding house than they could. Well, if you'll just come inside, I'll fix you a lemonade while I'm finished baking my cookies. Where's Dale, Mrs. Packler? Down at the ice plant getting some salt for the ice cream freezer. He and the other rumor. The other rumor? Mr. Stevenson travels in jewelry, you know. But I bordered him a week. Mrs. Packler, your brother didn't tell us about your husband either. Oh, excuse me. Tom passed away, you know. It's been six months.  Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, it's just silly of me. It's just, well, on a holiday, people can't help wishing for the things that are past, can they? Well, no, I guess not. But, uh, a holiday today? And you mentioned a picnic. It's the welcoming, that's all, for the faculty. Oh. None of us are really connected with the college, you see. But next week, a new term starts, and that's how all of us in town make our living off the college folks. Oh, we have a parade and turn out the town band and have potato races. Oh, I see. Oh, I guess we just try to pretend that we're part of it. Pretend that there's some excitement in our lives. That it isn't true that nothing ever really happens in Mayville. Suspender weather, I call it. Good and hot. There's no doubt about that. Now, down to the facts. Who's going to win the Coast Conference? S.C. or is Stanford going to up its price? Uh, let's hold the sports page, Mr. Hannigan. You wrote us a letter, remember? Said your little sister had more money than's good for a woman. My friend, she's got 40,000 smackaroos. How do you like that? Where'd you get it? Life insurance. That crazy, no-good husband of hers. He's dumb, that's all he was. He got himself killed dragging his own shotgun backwards to a fancy. He's dumb, you see what I mean? I see you didn't think much of him. Well, he paid the premiums. Yeah, but he was a waster. That's all he was.  Let me teach you. Slave herself up to the elbows. She still does it. Boredom students, can't pay their bills. Nursing all the characters, like that scientific earbender back there in the hammock where they met her.  She ought to travel like I do. See the world. Yeah, but she makes the wrong kind of friends, you said. Kind that ought to be in prison. The kind that lead to crisis at the end of the line. Now, who is it you're so worried about? The other rumor? My friend, you guessed it. Stevenson. Rick Stevenson calls himself. Been here one week and he's buttering her up already. Buttering her up? Oh, sure. He knows his stuff, all right. First he goes to work getting next to that guy, Adams. But he's really aiming a t-shirt.  Okay, so the border's making passes at your sister. So what? My friend, that man is phony. A far flusher, I tell you. Listen, chest hardware, he says he's in. What? Jewelry, selling fertility pins. If he knows the difference between the DU shield and the brass door knocker, I'll eat my hat. I've been around, I can tell. Honorary chairman to the decouse once. Mr. Hannigan, suppose he is giving out a phony line. Your sister's old enough to watch out for herself, isn't she? What do you expect us to do about it? Well, for God's sake, snoop around. Nail something on the nosy fortune hunter so we can run him out of town. He's out to teach his money, I tell you. Well, what of it? So are you, aren't you? Huh? Isn't that the real idea? Now, how do you think she could spend it?  First class, maybe, with her paying the bills. Well, at least I'm a brother. At least I'm thinking of it. What's the matter, my friend? You saw her because I got you down here at something that don't look so important? No, no, I kind of like Mayville. Only when it comes to listening to stories, I'd just as soon hear them from little skinny atoms. Hey, listen to me, will you? No, I actually saw a tinsky, the biochemist and British love of nitrogen. And I saw a diaper jelly. I joined you sound asleep. Yeah, and still trying to bend people's ears.  Look at his face, it's so red. Man of his age, and in his condition, coming out here in the sun. George, of course, the umbrellas come down. Yeah, you better wake them. Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams. Hey. Hey. It's all right. She here.  What do you mean? Hey, I haven't been saying things, have I? No, no, no, of course not. We just came out. No, don't you lie to me. I can always tell when a student's lying. I'll have you know I've got every one of my senses. I was hurt in an explosion, I think, but I can see and the things I see and I can hear better than you think. You were just mumbling, Mr. Adams. Did I say anything about the elm trees? The elm trees? Come on, come on. Something I've seen. A man under the elm trees? No. That's good. Now, who did that? Hmm? That umbrella. That umbrella was up when I went to sleep and know it was. Oh, take it easy, Skinny. The catch probably just slipped down.  Yeah, maybe. Hello, you two. I'm Rick Stevens. So I gather. My name's Rick. I know. I know. I've heard all about you, Miss Brutes. You're here for the holiday. Yes, that's right. We like a quiet college town. Relief from the city, isn't it? Okay, come on, Skinny. Hey. It's 12 o'clock. You sure, Rick? Is that lady ready? Yes. She's going to wait for the town parade out on the side porch. Maybe you folks would like to join us. Thanks, Mr. Stevenson. We'll be with you in just a minute. All right. Whatever you say. A darn hot day. George. Yeah, Bruxy. About an hour and this son might kill a man like Adams. Might need it. Well, it certainly would make him very sick. Yeah. Put up that beach umbrella, will you? What? Go on. Put it up again. All right. There. Darling. Yeah. The kind of catch that can't slide down. Somebody pushed it down. You're all outside now, George. Good. Thanks, Bruxy. But what if Mr. Stevenson guesses that we've been in his room? I'll worry about that later. Try the closet there. Where there's smoke, there's fire, Angel. And we've got to work fast on the few sparks we know about. I agree. Somebody's trying to turn welcome faculty into Memorial Day. Yeah. But it seems so impossible. That poor, harmless man. I don't see why anybody would want it. Yeah? A letter. It was in the pocket of Rick's sport jacket. Suspender weather has one benefit. Federal State's Life Insurance Company. Just a note on their stationery. Stevenson. On July 14th, the company paid $40,000 to Mrs. Packler. Husband died in a hunting accident. Suggest you look into it. Rick Stevenson must be an insurance investigator. Let me see that. They're clipping in the same envelope. Old one. Mayville Herald, March 21st. Our town was grieved to hear of the unfortunate death of Mr. Tom Packler. His shotgun was accidentally discharged as he was crossing a fence near his own back property line just half a mile from his own house. Tom died in the meadow he loved so well under the familiar canopy of the... Bruxy. Under the elm trees. Do you love good coffee? Then you'll love the wonderful new way to cream it. Cream. P-R-E-A-M. A 100% dairy product in convenient powdered form, cream creams coffee instantly, deliciously, and at a savings of more than one-third the cost of coffee cream. Once you try it, I'm sure whatever you use for creaming your coffee now, you'll prefer cream. And wait till you hear how many other wonderful uses cream has. In cream sauces, dressing, soups, souffles, tempting new desserts. Yes, cream can actually make your meals more delicious every day of the year. More economical too. For complete information, you'll want to be sure and send for the valuable free cream recipe booklet we're offering you absolutely free. You'll be delighted with the wide variety of delicious, quick, and easy to prepare cream recipes in this new booklet. To get your copy, simply drop a card or letter with your name and address to Cream Test Kitchen, Box 959G, Columbus 16, Ohio. Cream Test Kitchen, Box 959G, Columbus 16, Ohio. Tage of this outstanding offer now. Send for your free cream booklet right away. And now, back to George Valentine.  He's apparently so dangerous to someone that an attempt has been made on his life. In the other rumor in Mrs. Packler's boarding house, Rick Stevenson, at first he seemed to be only interested in Mrs. Packler's money, but now Rick seems to be an insurance investigator interested in her husband's death. Well, if you're anything like George Valentine, you know there's a lot more going on in the little college town of Mayville than talk about ice cream and football. Won't you have some more, Miss Brooks? Oh, thanks, Mrs. Packler, really. You know, last year I had six dishes of ice cream and still went out to the picnic. I kicked the football father and the coach did. And won the Sacrace, too. Remember, Tee-Tee? Sacrace. Tom Packler carried you all the way. I remember. He did not. He did too. No, he didn't. Just because he listened to you ramble on and trying to make yourself important, make people listen to nothing. All the famous scientists just saw that nobody ever heard of it. What? Hey, brother slob, chinchkin, de frajele. You know what, brother slob? Tee-Tee's husband was the only man in town too lazy to stop his wreck of the Hesperus. Dale, please, you've been drinking. Well, gosh, what's the celebration for if you don't have... Under the andries. What's that? What's that, skinny? Heh, heh, heh. Come on, Professor. I think you and I better take a little stroll outside before it rains. Yes, thank you, Mr. Stevenson. What on earth is the matter with everybody? Miss Brooks, there's still an hour until the faculty picnic if you'd like. Miss Packler, I think we'd like to take a little walk ourselves if you don't mind. Of course. I have a couple of things I wanted to pick up now, the five and ten. See you later. Too much thunder in the air for me. Me, too. Young man, if you're going to fall in beside us, you better salute the flag. Uh-oh. Yes, sir. I'm still keeper of the flags. The wreck of the Hesperus is still good for some jobs. Of course you are, Mr. Adams. Why, sure. You know, the first thing I noticed about the old house here was that flag hanging up there in the balcony of your room. Yeah, it used to be on the grounds and flowers committee for a while, and before that, well, maybe I was only an assistant in the chemistry department before her. Uh, wait a minute. You know what I noticed about your flag? Hey, hey. Well, look at it. The blue field there, Mr. Adams. It's in the wrong direction. Your flag up there is backwards. What? See? Oh, yes. Oh, sure, gee. No, no, excuse me. No, I'll run up and fix it. No, no, I'll do it. It's my job. I'll do it. I'll do it. Poor guy. But at least we're alone again. Come on, Angel. Where to? A telephone. One that's in a booth instead of in a public hallway. I'm going to talk to the police. Yeah. Lieutenant Johnson in the city can run a fast check for me. The insurance company's angled. Everything about it. Come on, we'll cut across and back at the house. Well, if Rick Stevenson is the insurance company's investigator, they certainly must suspect that it wasn't just a shotgun accident. Yeah, right. Or he wouldn't be here. Besides, the clipping said Packler died under those elm trees. And Skinny's got a secret about what he saw under the elm trees. Murder, maybe. Yeah. You can just see the trees from his hammock at the edge of the meadow. So George, somebody's taking down that umbrella must have been an attempt to get rid of him before he tells what he knows about Rick Stevenson. It shouldn't be hard to get rid of him.  George, this would be the Packler's woodshed, wouldn't it? Yeah. Sure, I guess so. But this piece of wood, it's the same color and the same shape as those things on the front of the house, the balcony railing. The posts that hold the railing up. And to reach the flag, you'd have to lean against the railing. Yeah, come on, Angel. Look, you can see it from here. I didn't notice before. The corner post is missing. I'm sorry, Skinny, did I hurt you? Are you all right? Hello, young man. I had to stop you. If you'd leaned against that railing, the corner supports off. It's loose, see? See there? Hello, young man. Listen, someone was trying to make you fall. Have an accident.  You know something. You've got to tell me. You saw something out under the elm trees. Now what did you see there? It might rain, young man. It might rain. Come on, Mr. Adams. You're going to stay with Miss Brooks while I attend to some very necessary business. How is he, Brooks? Shhh. Skinny's asleep. Did you get Lieutenant Johnson? Yeah. He has a man checking the local police and the insurance company. A man will get in touch with me here. What about Rick Stevenson? I don't know. I didn't see him. George, this time, we ought to be able to tell who did it. I mean, putting the flag backwards and fixing that railing. Whoever is trying to get this guy is taking advantage of circumstances. Same as with the umbrella. So if we ask around, all we get is conflicting stories and denials from the guilty one. Oh, listen. Hello? Yes? Who's that? Who? Tisha. Tisha, what is that? Well, I don't know. It's long distance. I don't know who they want to talk to. It's the police, I think, but it must be the wrong number. George, you'd better wait a minute. No, no, wait a minute. No, no, no. Tisha, give me that. What? No, give that to me, Tisha, that calls for me. It's nothing important, really. It's just that I want to talk. Hello, yes? Yes, this is he speaking. Yes. Oh, you did? Yeah, I get it. Yes, thanks very much. Yeah, I guess that winds it up, doesn't it? Well, Tisha, that... Tisha, where'd you go? Tisha! So Stevenson's in touch with the police, too. Angel, I think maybe now we can stop being suckers. That call was for me. That's right, operator. I was disconnected. Hurry it up, will you get my party back? Police in the city, hurry it up. What was that? You'll be all right, skinny. Just thunder. Wonder where Del Hanigan is all this time. That wasn't thunder. Round this way, Ruxi. Yeah. Replace Packner, kept his guns. The shop must have been here. The woodshed. Hold it. Rick Stevenson. Yeah. And he's dead. Here comes the rain.  Maybe he was back of the shed when we... Screen door. And he's back in the house now. Come on, Angel, from here it's easy. There's only one person that can be. Mrs. Packler? Getting dry? I was out for just a moment. The clothes on the line. There aren't any clothes on the line. Please get out of my kitchen. I have to take the cookies out. Wrap them for the picnic. Please, they'll get cold if I don't. It got me. I'm sorry, Mrs. Packler. But let's call me a detective. You'd better sit down. Now then, why did you do it? He found out. Mr. Stevenson found out. He was coming to get me. After he talked on the phone, and he came looking in the woodshed, the place where your dead husband's guns were. Or the shotgun was that killed your husband. Stop it! What's the matter? Were you afraid Mr. Stevenson would find that shotgun, examine it for evidence or something? I don't know. He was coming to get me. I had to kill him. Why? I was putting his fresh linen away yesterday when I found an envelope. Insurance company. A note about me. A clipping about Tom's death. I know. I guessed before that he was up to something. So many questions about me. And he wasn't a jewelry man like he said he was. He spent so much time getting close to poor little skinny Adams, asking him questions.  It's a strange way for you to talk. Oh, may the Lord forgive me. But skinny hadn't much longer to live anyway. I couldn't have killed him but an accident. Sure, sure. Like the umbrella or the flag because you were afraid he knew something, weren't you? He did. Under the elm trees. He kept saying it. And I knew sooner or later he'd tell Mr. Stevenson. He'd tell him we'd seen me shooting my husband. My husband was no good. An egg aloof. Mrs. Packler, I don't know what it is skinny saw way out under the elms. But it couldn't have been very much. What's that? He brags about returning his senses. Well, if ever there's a man in this town who'd learned how to hang the flag, he's the one. But when it was backwards, I had to tell him so. That's right. He couldn't see.  He'd been out there dozens of times, admiring it. But he couldn't clearly see that far even. You mean... Mrs. Packler, there was never any real evidence against you concerning your husband.  Perfect, except for a guilty conscience. Perfect crime? But Mr. Stevenson... I know, I know. The note that said Stevenson, Mrs. Packler's got some money. Husband dead suggests you look into it. Well, Rick Stevenson just had a friend, an accomplice at the insurance company. That's all.  You're lying! You're lying! No, no, you didn't need to shoot Rick.  No, no. That's right.  He was going to duck out because he'd intercepted my phone call. My phone call that said the nosy Mr. Stevenson was exactly what your brother guessed he was. A confidence man out after a widow's money. You know, there's something about crisp, tangy fall weather that makes coffee time more enjoyable than ever. And there's no time like now for discovering cream. P-R-E-A-M. The delicious new way to cream coffee. In instant powdered form, cream is made from fresh, sweet cream and milk products only. Naturally, it has a rich, delicious flavor. What's more, cream is so convenient, so economical, you'll prefer it to all other coffee-creaming products. You see, cream never sours, never turns. Sealed, cream keeps indefinitely. Opened for regular use, cream stays fresh tasting to the last spoonful, whether you store it on your kitchen shelf or in your refrigerator. And thrifty, say, cream saves over one-third the cost of coffee cream. And then something every calorie counter should know. Cream is less fattening. Use cream in your coffee, and every cup contains only about half as many calories as if you used coffee cream. Try cream, P-R-E-A-M. The new way to cream it is to cream it.  The sun's out and we're the townspeople walking in faculty. Remember? Oh, George, I don't feel much like it. I know. But life is full of aches. At least we save skinny atoms, don't we? You know, there's still something I don't understand. I mean, skinny did see something. Coming here, he was so excited. The elm trees, he kept saying. Yeah, Angel, maybe I've got that figured out, too. All poor skinny wants is attention. All day he's been acting as though he had a secret, as though he cooked up a surprise. Surprise? Surprise? Oh, no, Mr. Valentine. I just finally learned something, that's all. Yeah, skinny? People don't like to listen to people tell people what people want to listen to. Is that so? Even if you have to make it up. Oh, no. Oh, yes, indeed. Now, in other words, at the time, this man I saw once out under some elm trees. Oh, there, listen to me now, all right. It's football season. So, I'm going to tell you. Listen, everybody. Did I tell you about the time that I saw Newt Rockney under the elm jing south bend? Yes, sir. Newt Rockney. Tonight's adventure of George Valentine has been brought to you transcribed by Prem, the new dairy miracle in instant powdered form. Try it. You'll prefer it to all other products for creaming your coffee. For Prem is the most delicious, convenient, thrifty way to cream your coffee ever discovered. Let George do it stars Olin Suley as George with Virginia Gregg as Bruxy. Let George do it is written by David Victor and Jackson Gillis and directed by J. C. Lewis. Also heard in tonight's cast were Alan Reed as Dell, Florence Ravenall as Tisha, Pat McGee as Adams, and Lawrence Dodd-Kinn as Rick. The music was composed and presented by George Wright, your announcer, George Crowell. Join us again next Monday night, at the same same station when amazing new Prem, P-R-E-A-M invites you to let George do it.


Coming up on DTNS, Huawei throws a Hail Mary. Google makes a play to win at pay in India and Bob Iger's dream. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, September 19th, 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from Studio Feline. I'm Sarah Lane from the shores of Lake Merritt in Oakland, California. I'm Justin. And I'm Roger Chang, the show's producer. We were just having a lovely chat on Good Day Internet, the wider show surrounding Daily Tech News show. If you're like, hey, you know what, Daily Tech News show is great. But I would like more of Sarah and Justin and Tom and Roger. Well, become a patron at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Pocket Cast slightly altered the terms of the new plan we told you about yesterday to offer its app for free, but charged for a premium service. Now, yesterday, the company announced that users who had paid for the desktop and web versions of the app would get Pocket Cast plus premium service for free for three years. But some users were upset because they had been promised lifetime access when they originally bought the apps. The company has changed that to give lifetime access to Pocket Cast plus to anybody who bought the web or desktop version of the apps. The journal Scientific Reports has published a correction to an article on the increase in enlarged, external, occupational vertebrates found in the back of the head. This was because it was widely reported that smartphones caused horns since the paper determined posture caused the protuberances and speculated the usage of mobile devices could be the cause. The correction removes references to smartphones and tablets and makes it clear that there is no evidence of a connection between device use and the formation of the bony bumps. So get off the horns of that dilemma. Tuesday, the High Court of Paris, the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris ruled that European consumers are legally free to resale digital games bought on Steam. French consumer group UFC K. Croissier filed the lawsuit four years ago. The court rejected Steam's argument that Steam is a subscription service, noting that Steam sells games in perpetuity, not as part of a subscription. EU law allows all goods, including software, to be sold used. However, Valve told Polygonet will appeal the decision and the decision will have no effect on Steam while the case is on appeal. Apple moved up both iOS 3.1 and iPadOS release dates to September 24th, which is six days ahead of the original September 30th release date. iOS 13.1 includes automated series shortcut actions, a new share ETA feature in Apple Maps, data separation for enterprise devices and bug fixes for iOS 13. Have you heard of those? There are quite a few, according to many reports. Airpod sharing and new home kit features, which were announced originally for iOS 13 aren't going to roll out until sometime later this fall. Yeah, I mean, I'm not having any bugs with mine, but you know, with any OS update, there's going to be bugs. If you're worried, don't upgrade until September 24th and you get all the patches and everything all at the same time. All right, let's talk about the big announcement from Amazon. Justin, indeed, Tom, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced Thursday that Amazon has signed on to the climate pledge, which promises to become a carbon neutral company by the year 2040. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change called the Paris Agreement aims to make the world carbon neutral by 2050. Amazon wants 80% of its energy to be reusable by 2024 and 100% reusable by 2030 toward this goal. Bezos says Amazon is placed in order for 100,000 electric vans from Rivian to start hitting the road in 2021. 15,500 Amazon employees previously pledged to walk out of work on September 20th in protest of Amazon's support of fossil fuel companies. Similar pledges have been made by Google and Microsoft employees and a letter was sent by Microsoft employees Thursday protesting a Microsoft partnership with Chevron. To be clear, the big problem Amazon employees had with Amazon was the support of fossil fuel companies. Amazon's Jeff Bezos did not announce any change in the deals with fossil fuel companies with Amazon. He did address it. He said, like, wow, you've got to give him better tools first before you can blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But really what this is about is I think it's significant that we have seen one of these tech companies for the first time react. There's been a lot of these kinds of walkouts, protests, letters, petitions happening for a while. But until I was seeing an company actually react, I wasn't sure whether that was actually doing anything or we as consumers would feel any effect. I'm not sure this will affect us as consumers yet or if it will how, because it's a lot of we're going to do things, not we have done things. But I think it's significant that we actually saw Jeff Bezos get up on stage and say, OK, here's what I plan to do. Yeah, I mean, 100,000 electric vans are not going to make Amazon carbon neutral anytime soon. That's for sure. But OK, it's a start. It's it's this is a lofty goal. I mean, he's undercutting the Paris Agreement by a decade. And I don't I don't think this is entirely lip service. I think that if Amazon can do this and not, you know, eat into their bottom line too much, there's there's no reason not to. But it's also it's Amazon. I mean, to think of the carbon footprint that this company is currently emitting and how it would emit 0 percent of that at any point in our lifetime is that's a tough one. Especially if you believe that they are moving out into more of controlling their own distribution chain by, you know, possibly having their own airline or shipping company or something like that, like they're building airfields for. So that that will be a question to me. It's a press release. Look, don't tell me about the labor show me the baby. And I hate to be, you know, a negative on something like this, but it just kind of seems like a announcement that was made. So there wasn't any further a sturm and drawing amongst the employees at bottom of decade. Congratulations. Let's just see if he follows through on it.  I think it's more than just a press release. I think they really do plan to try to do this stuff. But I also think a press release is significant in this case because we hadn't even had that before. And those Rivian vans are new. Rivian, the SMR podcast guys were talking about the Rivian SUV and the Rivian pickup truck, which both look really nice. Who knows who knew they had vans until Amazon decided to order 100,000 of them, but apparently they have vans. So there you go. Roku released updates to its express and ultra streaming boxes. The Roku Express can now be entirely powered by your TV's USB port. They even give you an adhesive strip, so you can just stick it on the back. And remember, this isn't the streaming stick Roku. This is the one where you still have to use an HDMI cable to connect it. But it might as well be a stick at this point. It streams an HD is now 10 percent smaller than the outgoing model, which means it's about half the size of the Roku remote. And it costs 30 bucks. The Roku Ultra has been upgraded with a faster quad core processor, more RAM. They claim it's 17 percent faster at launching channels and 30 percent faster at app launches. The Ultra remote also includes two programmable shortcut buttons that can perform any function available through voice commands from launching a specific channel to adjusting TV settings. And that costs a hundred dollars for all you Roku users. Roku also announced Roku OS 9.2. We'll start rolling out to streaming devices with TVs to follow. The new OS adds something called Roku Zones, which when you go into search will aggregate a content by genre before you even start searching. It also adds sleep timers, new search options, the ability to control multiple Roku's with your voice through Google Assistant or Amazon voice services. So, you know, some nice to haves, but I'll be honest, I want some real solid performance updates with OS 9.2, especially interface updates. And I'm not seeing that here. Roku owns the. So your friend, family member, co-worker doesn't have a streaming box. They want to cut the cord and you are just giving them a stocking stuffer or office Christmas gift or something like that. It is twenty nine ninety nine. That's a slam dunk for something that's beyond a stick. The Amazon fire stick, at least as of now, who knows if they'll discount it for the holiday season is thirty nine ninety nine. So they are at a very competitive spot price wise with that. But I'm with you, Tom. Look, it's all the Roku's I've had are great. But at the end of the day, you can see the difference between a polished user interface like Apple has or even Amazon has with their devices. I don't know. The Roku Ultra 17 percent faster channel launches, guys. I mean, that's not the OS upgrade, though. That's not going to prove my existing Roku any. So I mean, that's also it's something. But I've gotten faster channel launches every time Roku's upgraded their hardware. I'm ready for something else. Like, I know everybody hates the Apple remote, but man, can you zoom through menus with that thing? It is butter smooth and it's fast. I'm sitting there with my Roku going chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk. Yeah, sometimes the Apple is the Apple remote is too fast, too fast. Yeah, totally. And how to use it. But you're right. Like anybody who's owned a Roku is very familiar with that. Like, I'll just wait until I've scrolled through all that. Yeah. But meanwhile, look, the Ultra is nineteen ninety nine or ninety nine ninety nine. So this is more somebody that you actually like. This is a substantial Christmas present, but compared to the Apple TV, which is at a buck fifty, at least now of that is again, it's very competitive. This is where Roku lives right now is the budget version of it can do the same thing. Amazon's Fire TV, I think, has the best balance between good interface and affordability. But then you're in the Amazon universe, you know, so they just recently got YouTube back. Roku does have still the advantage of being like, hey, we don't we don't stop people from using our platform. Yeah. Yeah, Roku, I think it was well, Roku was first in many ways. And it used to be the the the only way that I could watch HBO content, for example, before I came to the old Netflix player. Yeah. And and it's still I still have it. It's in fact, it's also it adhused to the back of my TV, but I did that myself so you can't see it. But it's it's my backup box all the time. It's there. I don't use it unless I have to. But it still works. But I get what you're saying, that the interface has almost surprisingly changed very little over the years. So it's cutesy and everything. And if I think it's the first kind of cord cutting experience you have, great, fine. But then when you see other interfaces, it's it's it can be hard to go back. So what's Bob Iger dreaming about these days? I'm glad you asked, Tom, an excerpt from Disney CEO Bob Iger's memoir titled The Ride of a Lifetime. Lessons learned from 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company was published by Vanity Fair, making all the headlines as the following line regarding Apple CEO Steve Jobs, quote, I believe that if Steve were still alive, we would have combined our companies or at least discuss the possibility very seriously, end quote. The context of this is a much longer chapter about Iger getting to know jobs and convincing him to sell Pixar to Disney and then working with jobs as a board member and then becoming friends. Yeah, I mean, this line comes very far into this chapter. And the chapter is is just a love story of Steve and Bob becoming friends and how Steve hated Disney when Bob took over. But somehow they gained a mutual respect and had and loved each other's bold ideas until finally they agreed to sell Pixar. And Steve was like, yo, softy. And Bob was like, ah, come here, give me a hug. And then he gets to this line of like, you know, I believe that if he were alive, we would have just we would have just been such good friends. We would have combined our companies. So to me, this line feels like a throwaway, maybe a very calculated throwaway that he knew would grab headlines. Don't get me wrong. But it's it's not saying we definitely had plans to merge these. No, it's like we I think we would have combined companies. Or maybe we would have just thought about it because because we were pretty close and hugged these sorts of these sorts of things. And maybe this is all completely factual and nostalgic and all of that. But I believe they were friends. Sure. Sure. Exactly. But it's very easy to say something like that about somebody who can't be like, well, that's not what happened. I mean, look, this is a CEO memoir. This is not here to accurately report the facts. Although I don't necessarily know that there's anything inaccurate here. This is a cementing of the mythology of the man that is Bob Iger. Bob Iger's legacy, aside from being somebody who definitely made the Disney corporation far more powerful than it was when he found it, is the genius whisperer. And the first genius he successfully whispered to was Steve Jobs. He convinced Disney to buy Pixar. I believe everything in there about how much the board was against it. And the way he talks about it, much in the same way that you've heard him talk about how we talked to George Lucas, how we talked to how he got Marvel, how he negotiated to buy most of Fox, basically. This is what he does. He is the Nick Fury and Steve Jobs is his Iron Man. And so you would look at this as, hey, before Iron Man died, we were really thinking about him taking over shield. Well, this is this is even saying, I believe that if Iron Man were still alive, we would have done this other thing, or maybe at least talked about it. Like that literally is the quote. Look, this is something that I do believe in, though. I mean, I do think that Steve Jobs had a fundamentally different view of what content curation was that I don't know if Tim Cook does. I think Tim Cook's strength, obviously, is as a supply chain guy. And he has led Apple faithfully in that regard, although it means we get a few more skews these days than we probably would if Steve Jobs was still here. But like, I do think that this is a this is a thing. I do think that this is and look, oh, yeah, I think that Iger believes it. But that's far from saying it was going to happen or would have happened. I don't know. Folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, be sure to subscribe to DailyTechHeadlines.com. All right, we got a couple of big stuff to talk about before we're done here. Huawei launched the 6.53 inch Hail Mary. I'm sorry, Mate 30 Pro with a 2400 by 1176 display that curves over the edge of the device. That screen serves as a speaker, just like it does on the P30 Pro. Inside is the powerful new Kirin 990 system on a chip, a 4500 milliamp hour battery, at least eight gigabytes of RAM, and either 128 or 256 gigabytes of storage. There are three rear cameras on the back to 40 megapixel sensors with wide, ultra wide lenses, an eight megapixel zoom, as well as depth sensing and time of flight sensors. The camera can shoot 4K 60 frames per second video, a super slow mo function with 720p video at 7680 frames per second. There's also a 32 megapixel camera on the front that supports augmented reality, photos and videos, as well as gesture control for scrolling and eye position detection for screen orientation. It knows, oh, your eyes are there and your screen should be there. The phone can do 3D face unlock, but also has an in-screen fingerprint reader supports 40 watt fast charging and 27 watt wireless charging runs Huawei's EMUI 10 over Android 10 open source. Oh, here's where the specs aren't so great because it doesn't come preloaded with Google Apps or Google Play services because of the trade restrictions in the US. This is the first big phone from Huawei that doesn't. But Huawei says, forget that. We're going to spend a billion dollars on incentives to promote our Huawei mobile services app ecosystem. There's even a vegan leather backed model with an IP68 water and dust rating. Pricing for the Mate 30 Pro will start at 1,099 euros for the 4G version, 1,199 euros for the 5G version. That's pretty affordable for those kinds of versions. There's also a pro Porsche design RS model that starts at 2,095 euros and includes 12 gigabytes of RAM, 512 gigabytes of storage with a Porsche designed red and black leather back. When will it arrive in Europe? I don't know. Huawei didn't say. All right, just for completeness sake, Huawei also showed off its GT2 smartwatch, its earbuds, three wireless noise cancelling headphones and several smart TVs. The poor smart TVs. You're like, come on, we were really good too.  Yeah, this is can you imagine? I mean, the prices are staggeringly low. Can you imagine really any large competitor that would be capable of making a phone with these specs being able to price it like that? Wouldn't happen. There are a few specs as Tom alluded to that we can go through now that in fourth and 20 it can throw the ball at least 50 yards and have any laterals and rugby to try and get it in the end zone. Folks, Huawei has a problem. They are a company under siege and yet specifically in Europe and in China, they are a prestige smartphone maker. This is probably the only thing that they do know now they can count on. So yes, they need a big phone. Yes, they do need it to be a success and they'd prefer for you to buy the Porsche Virgin.  So they pulled out all the stops, but features like this are put into a phone months and months and months ahead of time. So they kind of had an inkling that this might be in the offing from the trade restrictions, but these specs were were nailed down for the most part before that. Huawei would have come out with the same phone had there never been any trade restrictions on them from the United States. They're just a really good maker of phones. And thank goodness for them that they are because at least they have a fighting chance of selling some of these. But even with all of these specs, it's going to be hard for people to get over even the perception that like, well, but it doesn't have real Android, even though it's Android, it's not the Android that comes from Google. It's not the Android that gets the security updates from Google. And it certainly doesn't going to have the Google Play Store on it. Well, so that's that's the big question, right? Some people are going to say that is everybody going to say that. How many? Yeah, I mean, it's Android, right? Yes, Android. It's just like a Huawei different kind of Android. I don't think that. Well, I was about to say, I don't think that many people care. I think a lot of people care. I think the company may still sell a lot of phones to people who say, Android is Android. Don't really know the difference as long as it mostly functions the same way. Look, can your phone do the thing that's all people care about? And if part of that thing is something that they're used to doing in the Google Play Store or with that Google presented OS, then it will be a friction point and we'll see how much they have to pay for it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the well, it says Android, I guess that's still Android or that Android is not the Android logo I'm used to. Where's the Google Play Store? Which one will go out? Yeah, I don't know. Well, Google wants a new platform within the Google Pay app, not Play, but Pay app in India, the spot platform lets merchants create many stores called spots inside Google Pay. The spots will surface at relevant times for users like your cab spot might show up in the morning or your favorite restaurant might show up at lunchtime. Existing apps and websites can become spots with just a few lines of JavaScript. Google Pay also gets support for tokenized cards that can use NFC to pay with a phone. Visa cards from four banks are already now with MasterCard and RuPay and a few other banks promised to be on the way within months. Google Pay has 67 million monthly active users right now in India, putting it right alongside Amazon Pay, Paytm and Flipkart's phone P or Pay. WhatsApp is going to add peer to peer payments by the end of the year. So everybody wants to be the WeChat of India in this crowd. And today was Google's pitch to become that. Also at Google India, the Vodafone Idea phone line launched. That's where if you're in India, you can call a number toll free and ask a Google Assistant questions in English or Hindi. No, no charge. There's no charge to use it. There's no charge to make the call. It's just Google Assistant available by phone. Additionally, Google Lens now supports Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu translations. And finally, Google Research India will open in Bangalore led by Dr. Manish Gupta, an ACM fellow and Infosys Foundation chair, professor at Triple I.T. Bangalore. The center will work on machine learning, computer vision, languages, speech systems and other related areas. Well, this is Google. Yeah, Google. If so, if everybody wants to be WeChat, Google is getting pretty close if folks in the country actually take on a lot of these features, really cool. The spots feature is really cool. The phone line idea is extremely smart and obviously very calculated. I mean, imagine how many how how many people for free might have a question and just get used to saying like, just call Google, Google will know. Yeah, which means you can use Google Assistant from your feature phone, right? Yeah. And then you get used to that. And when you're going and finally upgrading to a mid range smartphone, they say, well, this one has Google Assistant built right on the phone. You don't even have to call a number. It's like, you remember when I used to people used to do Google via text message, like Google search via text message. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I'd forgotten all about that. Like that was a thing. I mean, that's how Twitter launched was being like, we're going to let you post by text message. Exactly. Right. Like that was just a fascinating element of like Google's built for this. They've always been built for like, let's scale down our product to make it worth it. India, obviously a tremendous growth market that has taken on to these kinds of pay systems like much of the developing world as I think it's smart. I mean, and also I just think any way that we can continue to bring innovate innovations to merchants and sellers, you will be rewarded for it. Yeah, this this market could be the thing that saves Huawei. If Huawei were able to sell its mid range phones well in India, I don't think a Mate P 30 Pro is going to save it in India. But if they could make some headway in India, that could be the hedge they need. I don't see any evidence of that. And when you're kicked out of the Google Play Store and suddenly everybody in India is like, I might be using Google Pay. But even if they're not, they're using something from, you know, Flipkart or Paytm, which also they're probably getting from the Google Play Store and can you get those companies to develop something for your Huawei mobile store? I don't know. I don't know if you have the cash aid for that or not. A lot of questions. But this to me is it's, you know, it's not the only market. There's a lot of markets in Africa that are up and coming and important. Certainly, China is not done being an important market in the US and Europe. Of course, they're all they're all important markets, as is the Middle East. But but man, India seems to be the one where if you want to get ahead of your competitor, it's a really good chance to do that. Also interesting how many not only how many monthly active users Google Pay has in India, but how long the company must know that folks are already within the app, like, OK, let's add spots to give give more incentives to merchants to become part of this program. When was the last time I was in any pay app on my phone? I don't do like I don't even know how to launch it really. I just got my phone. Sometimes it works or sometimes I forget to do it. Venmo is popular here in America. It doesn't even compare, though. This this is North Americans as North Americans. We have no idea what this is about because this is not about being in your pay app. This is about your pay app having become the platform in which you do everything in China. In China, WeChat is your everything. You don't go out without your phone with WeChat on it. And that's what Google Pay is trying to be here. Nobody's been able to do that in North America because I don't know. I guess we're too set in our ways or something. Well, I think we also have a far more built out system where like we all have solutions for the little things that a lot of these are able to kind of be born fully featured with, you know, like we have a chat that we've been using. We have text messages. It's going enough. And I think it for a lot for a lot of folks or go ahead, Justin. Yeah, all I'm saying is that like there were a lot of we piecemeal put together our digital lives and then we're like, oh, cool, we can do pay here too. We're in a lot of these countries based on a lot of the apps that we had. They're like, cool, we'll just put all these features in and you're also paying with it. So it's totally something that you need every single day. Yeah, I think I think my experience with a company that tries to do all in one is people going, stop trying to do all in one stuff. You know, stop it.  It's really annoying. I don't want to pay people within Facebook. Why would I want to do that? Which is funny because it's like, OK, if if it was a WeChat or something that was it made sense and was completely accepted, then that that actually is the more convenient way to do things. But it gives one company a lot of control. So there's two ways to look at it. Totally. Thanks to everybody who participates in our subreddit. You have complete control over us. Well, OK, you have partial control, but we'll take it. You can submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. We're also on Facebook. Join our group Facebook.com slash groups slash Daily Tech News Show. And we'd love to get your emails and talk about them on the show like right now. Yes, exactly. Vince actually wrote it and said, I got some of our five year anniversary DTS merch in the mail today and it totally made my week. Thank you so much. And you know what, Vince, it made our day to get your email that it made your week.  So thank you, Vince, and congratulations and thank you. Also, a faithful listener wrote in because we were salivating over that huge HP curve monitor that can handle two devices at once yesterday. And this faithful listener said, you guys are really doing a great job on the show. So treat yourself to that monitor if you get the chance. You heard it here, faithful listener, monitors for all. You too, Justin. We're going to need more vences for that to happen. But yeah, monitors for all, small American flags for others. Thanks, everybody, who gives us feedback every day. And some days they're just warm and fuzzy like today. So keep them coming, questions, comments, all the good stuff. And thanks to Justin Robert Young for being with us today. Justin, what's been going on since last week? Well, of course, for friends, you can follow me at the politics, politics, politics podcast, you can find that wherever you download podcasts. Just search for politics and then either my name or politics, politics, politics. This week, I think we had a great week of content. You on Tuesday got a interview about gerrymandering, if that's something that's interesting to you, including the fact that Sarah, do you know where the name gerrymandering comes from? I don't. And I would love to know. It's the combination of the man who drew the first weird looking district or one of the famous weird looking districts in Boston and a salamander. His name was Jerry, the district looked like a salamander. And so that's where we get the very serious topic. Yeah, gerrymandering. Wow. I was so happy to hear you talk about that on that show because as a kid, I had a little like scholastic book of political cartoons and they had the gerrymander cartoon in that book. And it's always been one of my favorite political cartoons because I think the cartoon is really what popularized it because governor Jerry's district drawing it like a salamander. Yeah, that was so great. So go ahead and do that. And then, of course, on the PX3 Prime episode, which came out yesterday, we talked all about why Kamala Harris's rise in the polls during the summer has not lasted and Bernie Sanders becoming the giving tree to Elizabeth. So it was a good good analogy about the giving tree. Hey, folks, we are in our last month of the classic DTNS Patreon rewards. You've got to become a patriot right now to get the last wave of the classic rewards before we get you all new and improved awards starting October 1st. And if you want to find out what those awards are ahead of time, we had some great feedback from people and we have nailed down what we're doing at DailyTechNewsShow.com slash Patreon. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com is where to send those emails. And if you'd like to join us live Monday through Friday, 4 30 p.m. Eastern, that's 20 30 UTC, put it on your calendar and see you tomorrow and find out more at DailyTechNewsShow.com slash live back tomorrow with Lamar Wilson and Len Peralta. Dr. then this show is part of the fraud pants network. Get more at FrogPants.com. Club, I hope you have enjoyed this program.


Welcome to George H. Smith's Excursions into Libertarian Thought, a production of Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute, narrated by James Foster. Barack Obama, Social Darwinism and Survival of the Fittest, Part II. When Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner applied their survival of the Fittest Doctrine to a Free Society, they reached conclusions that differed radically from the position attributed to Social Darwinists. True, the sacrifice of one individual for the benefit of another is the general rule for lower life forms, and this may also be true of the lower forms of human society, militaristic, authoritarian societies that Spencer and Sumner, following the legal historian Henry S. Maine, called Regimes of Status. But in the course of social evolution, as Regimes of Status gradually gave way to Regimes of Contract, as voluntary cooperation replaced coercion as the dominant mode of social interaction, a fundamental transformation occurred in the conditions of social existence and in the corresponding standard of fitness. In a free society, people are able to pursue their own interests as they see fit, provided they respect the equal rights of others. As cooperation in a Regime of Contract replaces exploitation in a Regime of Status, the Fittest prosper not by coercing others, but by assisting them through voluntary exchanges. Adam Smith had previously dubbed this process the Invisible Hand. Here, as elsewhere, Survival of the Fittest is an iron law of social existence, but this standard of fitness is far removed from that invoked by the specter of social Darwinism. Voluntary cooperation, not coercive exploitation, is the standard of fitness in a free society. Spencer and Sumner emphasize that market competition differs dramatically from biological competition. Market competition, unlike biological competition, produces immense wealth, thereby making it possible for many people to survive and prosper who otherwise could not. Moreover, the sophisticated division of labor that develops in a market economy generates specialization, and this specialization generates social interdependence, a condition in which every person must rely on the cooperation and assistance of others for necessary goods and services. The solitary individual cannot produce everything he needs or wants in a market economy, so he must persuade many others to assist him. This condition of survival cultivates the character traits or virtues necessary for peaceful interaction, those civilizing mores, as Sumner called them, that make social interaction not only productive and mutually beneficial, but pleasant as well. To associate market competition with biological competition is to misunderstand how Spencer and Sumner and other classical liberals viewed the market. Biological competition in which one individual survives at the expense of other individuals is a zero-sum game, whereas market competition is a positive sum game in which all participants gain from voluntary cooperation. Therefore, it is precisely in a free society that social Darwinism does not apply. In a society with an advanced division of labor and where we must give others what they want in order to get what we want, the fit are those who can enlist the voluntary cooperation of others. When success depends upon persuasion rather than coercion, social fitness is measured by one's ability to influence others by offering them something of value, that is, by benefiting them. But what about the poor, disabled and disadvantaged? Popular mythology about laissez-faire liberals propagated in one textbook account after another depicts them as implacable enemies of charity and other efforts to help those who cannot help themselves. If we are to understand the views of Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner on charity and related matters, we must first understand their roles as pioneers in sociology. Spencer is widely acknowledged as a founder of the functionalist School of Sociology and Sumner, during his many years as a Yale professor, did much to establish sociology as a legitimate discipline in American universities. Spencer and Sumner believed that natural laws, that is, laws of cause and effect, operate in the social world as surely as they do in physics, biology and other natural sciences, and they believed that a basic purpose of sociology, science of society, is to discover and formulate these causal laws. They also believed that social causation is extremely complex and that ignorance of this fact has led to many ill-conceived political measures. In the study of sociology, Spencer had this to say about those who offer simplistic political solutions for complex social problems. Proximate cause and proximate results are alone contemplated. There is scarcely any consciousness that the original causes are often numerous and widely different from the apparent cause, and that beyond each immediate result there will be multitudinous remote results, most of them quite incalculable.  Where there is little or no awareness of social causation, political superstitions abound, including the belief that government has a special power transcending that of mere individuals to eradicate social problems. The ordinary political schemer is convinced that out of a legislative apparatus properly devised and worked with due dexterity, maybe had beneficial state action without any detrimental reaction. William Graham Sumner made the same point in a number of his essays. Three facts, he said, are essential to an understanding of social causation. First, social phenomena always present themselves to us in complex combinations. Second, it is by no means easy to interpret these phenomena. Third, we cannot conduct controlled social experiments of the sort used in physical sciences. Sociology is therefore an extremely difficult discipline, one that requires years of study and observation. Nevertheless, virtually everyone has opinions about social problems and what is needed to solve them. This generates the dangerous notion that people acting through a government can eradicate any social problems they wish if only they have good intentions and sufficient determination. As Sumner put it, the assumption which underlies almost all discussion of social topics is that we men need only to make up our minds what kind of society we want and that then we can devise means for calling that society into existence. This is the basic fallacy in socialism and other utopian schemes to remodel society according to preconceived ideals. For instance, if we believe that everyone has a right to the good things in life or to equal wealth, then we need only empower and instruct government to implement these moral ideals. Such fallacies flow from what Sumner called a sentimental philosophy. The sentimental philosophy starts from the first principle that nothing is true which is disagreeable and that we must not believe anything which is shocking no matter what the evidence may be. It touches on one side the intuitional philosophy which proves that certain things must exist by proving that man needs them and it touches on the other side the vulgar socialism which affirms that the individual has a right to whatever he needs and that this right is good against his fellow men. Sumner and Spencer criticized this way of thinking in a manner similar to that of F. A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Murray Rothbard and other modern free market economists. Central to their analysis is the doctrine of unintended consequences, a theory that was developed in considerable detail by Herbert Spencer who called it the multiplication of effects. In social affairs, according to Spencer, the effect is more complex than the cause. A single cause such as an economic regulation will generate a complex network of effects and each of these effects in turn will cause innumerable other effects as purposeful human beings adjust and adapt themselves to the new conditions. This is why social legislation, despite the best intentions of legislators typically generates unintended and detrimental long-term consequences. Spencer throughout his many books and essays discussed hundreds of legislative measures that exacerbated the problems they were intended to solve. Spencer and Sumner opposed state charity, that is charity that is coercively financed through taxation and both favored voluntary charity. This was a crucial distinction since they believed that coercion changes the essential nature of an act and alters its impact on society in general. Nevertheless, even in their own day the positions of both men were frequently misrepresented. Spencer opposed coercive state-enforced charity but he favored charity that is voluntarily bestowed. As a matter of justice one should not be forced to help others but as a matter of personal or religious ethics one may be obligated to help others. Spencer noted with consternation that his views brought on him condemnation as an enemy of the poor. In one essay he observed that it was becoming more common for the rich to contribute money and time to the poor and he praised this trend as the latest and most hopeful fact in human history. Moreover, the final chapters in Spencer's The Principles of Ethics are devoted to the subject of positive beneficence, the highest form of society in which people voluntarily help those in need. These and many similar facts scarcely fit the common picture of a Herbert Spencer devoid of humanitarian sentiments. One must read Spencer's extensive treatments of poverty in the poor to appreciate fully the outrageous misrepresentations of his critics. That Spencer was offended by such lies is dramatically illustrated by the fact that he broke off a close friendship of some 42 years with Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's bulldog, after Huxley had written that according to the Spensarian individualists a poor man should be left to starve because charity interferes with survival of the fittest. In reply to this accusation of reasoned savagery, Spencer wrote, For nearly 50 years I have contended that the pains attendant on the struggle for existence may fitly be qualified by the aid which private sympathy prompts. Even after Huxley apologized, it took several years for the friendship to heal. Thank you for listening to Excursions. To learn more about Libertarian philosophy and history, visit www.libertarianism.org.


Hello, I'm Philip Kwanza, a cognitive science major at the School of LSA here. I'm a research assistant for the Institute of Fire and Injury Prevention for Michigan Medicine. And our focus is improving mental health of young people who've experienced gun violence and other form of violence like throughout our state. I was wondering, Governor Whitmer, what is your approach to addressing continuous violence that occurs in Michigan communities and also especially through our young people? I'm grateful that you're in the program that you're in. I think, you know, it's going to be really important that we've got a strategy to address the mental health aspects that we're all confronting. We know that mental health is an issue pre-COVID, but it's been exacerbated by the pandemic, the isolation, the loneliness, the despair that people have felt over the years and the anxiety about not being able to control or know kind of what's around the bend. And we've made record investments in rebuilding our mental health system in this state.  It had devastating impact and we've never recovered from it. What we have tried to do is wrap our kids, especially in K-12 settings, with the support so that they can have the assistance to get back on track. We have put money into building the first psychiatric hospital in Michigan in decades. We're trying to incentivize people into going into mental health fields from social workers to psychologists to psychiatrists and counselors. I mean, this is a huge need and we need more people who pursue this profession. So there's a lot of work being done around mental health generally. When it comes to gun violence, you know, I think that the steps that the legislature is poised to be taking. I'm hoping they're taking these votes right now or at some point today, I think is a step toward addressing gun violence. But, you know, gun violence is not just the mass events that you train for your generation. Sadly, it's had to train for over and over again. We saw play out in Oxford and in East Lansing a few weeks ago. It happens every single day in this country, every single day in the state. This is the biggest threat to young people right now in this country is gun violence. In combination with a mental health crisis, we can see how serious this moment is. And that's why, you know, I say we're not just going to think about it or pray about it. We're going to take action and we're on the precipice of taking some substantive action. It will not fix the problem. We've got a lot more work to do. But it's something that I welcome and I'm grateful for partnership as we address this. And I would invite you to jump in with us and where you think there are opportunities or voices that aren't being heard or needs that aren't being met. You know, I'm interested in pursuing all the facets to gun violence that your generation sadly has trained for for a long time and has been surrounded by.  And I'm going to do everything that I can to try to mitigate that.


Hello, I'm Dr. Joy Soondorf. I'm excited to tell you that starting early next year, Kaiser Permanente will be able to serve our members in Santa Cruz County. In January 2017, we'll be opening medical offices in Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, and Watsonville. Our members will have access to Kaiser Permanente's high-quality, coordinated primary and specialty care, as well as laboratory services, x-rays, pharmacies, urgent care, and more. This is in addition to the convenience that our members already have like our 24-7 nurse advice line and online features that let them email their care team, refill most prescriptions, and view lab results. Plus, we're partnering with Watsonville Community Hospital to provide local hospital services and inpatient care, including labor and delivery. Of course, you can always visit one of our Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Santa Clara or San Jose as well. As a Santa Cruz County resident for the last 25 years, I'm genuinely delighted that Kaiser Permanente is coming to our community. I'm really looking forward to taking care of my patients right here in our hometown. Kaiser Permanente is excited to come to Santa Cruz County. We look forward to helping our members and community thrive.


Welcome to our red meat and wool growth program, livestock technology expose. For those that don't know me, I'm Jodi Rizai O'Brien and I'm one of the team leaders in the red meat and wool growth program. Some of you may know me from my role as the program manager for Sheep Connect South Australia. Together with my husband Darren, we farm at Khan Cutter on the west coast. The program, red meat and wool growth program is delivered by the Department of Primary Industries and Regions to accelerate growth in the red meat and wool sector. With a major focus on rebuilding the flock and herd. The red meat and wool growth program is supported by meat and livestock Australia, sheep and cattle industry funds of South Australia. Australian wool innovation through Sheep Connect South Australia and Animal Health Australia. Our livestock tech expose are important part of our ag extension efforts, along with other activities you may have heard of or been involved with, our livestock enterprise planning, livestock ag tech adoption rebate, producer tech groups and our focus farms. For more information about these, grab one of our resource folders down at the tent, which got more information on the program. Also contains a range of case studies, fact sheets and other important product information. Today's expose all about promoting, understanding and adoption of ag tech in the livestock production community. We've got a great lineup of speakers talking about the application of different tech in livestock production systems and that will take us through to lunch. And then after lunch we'll have a lineup of tech exhibitors and networking opportunities. We've got great exhibitors today and they're keen to engage with you, talk about their tech and get feedback from you. So go and engage with them, ask them plenty of questions. We'll have lunch and then each of the exhibitors will have a chance to give us a short pitch style talk on their offering. And then you'll have the opportunity to interact with them, have a conversation. We welcome it. Encourage you all to be COVID safe. Please wear your mask when you're not eating and drinking, particularly inside. And we'll break for morning tea at 11 o'clock. Lunch will be served down at the tent and that's supplied by the Kapanda Football Club. If you've got any questions, come and see me or one of the team today from Redme and Wolf Growth Program.


This elderly man taught his inconsiderate neighbor a lesson when he blocked his driveway. Nightmare neighbors, their job goes with the title, right? Some of us are lucky enough to have neighbors who want to help out whenever they can, from watering our plants while we're on vacation to making sure our trash cans get put away at the end of the day and everything in between. It seems that though some people will go to any length to make sure that our lives are as peaceful as possible. The best bit? Some of us are so lucky that we never even have to talk to our neighbors. Isn't that like living the ultimate life? Even though many neighbors want to keep to themselves, it looked as though one was about to go above and beyond any levels of being inconsiderate. Thankfully, this neighbor was there to make sure he learned his lesson about blocking his driveway. There have been many times where neighbors go to war. It could be blocking someone into their driveway, having loud parties that go on all through the night or discovering a hidden love of playing instruments as loudly as possible at all hours of night. Whatever the case, it might not be long before one move can see the whole street divide. Little did this man know, but his life was really about to get split. Literally. It looked as though his new neighbor was about to make more of an impression on the street than anyone ever thought possible. Surely they'd be able to find common ground eventually, right? Many of us move into our forever homes and grow to become a huge part of the neighborhood. Oliver Lynch was one of the many people living in Osceola, Florida, and it looked as though he had quickly become a prominent feature of the neighborhood. At 79 years old, Oliver had lived in his house for around 25 years where he'd grown to become friends with many of the neighbors. After all, so long in the same neighborhood meant that he was a regular face around the place. However, someone was about to move in and shake up the peaceful community in 2015. Oliver was used to living a life of peace. Now he was going to have to fight for the rights to his quiet home more than ever. It turned out that a new neighbor was about to move in next door. There was an empty plot of land, but it seemed that was all about to change. Although Oliver had grown used to the open space next to his home, he admitted he had no issue with someone turning the area into their home. It didn't take long for the construction work to start. There were machines coming and going as the house began to take shape. What would the new neighbor be like? Would they have any irritating habits or would they soon slot into the rest of the neighborhood? Only time would tell. Unfortunately, Oliver was about to learn that his new neighbor wanted to make more of an impression than he first thought. The 79-year-old returned home only to find something unusual waiting for him in his driveway. The new neighbor had grand plans for this build. However, Oliver never realized those blueprints included a huge portion of his driveway. That's right, the neighbor had lined up a row of cinder blocks through Oliver's driveway that went all the way back to the fence dividing their yards. Oliver tried to move them out of the way, but it was too late. It looked like the neighbor had thought of everything as he had cemented the blocks into place. There was no way that Oliver would be strong enough to get them off his driveway, and now they were there to stay. At least that's what the neighbor thought. Oliver was determined to get them removed while learning why the cinder blocks had been placed there in the first place. There was no way that someone was going to take over Oliver's property while he was out. Oliver couldn't believe that his neighbor had waited until he was out of the house to place all the cinder blocks down the middle of the driveway. He might have been enjoying the senior years of his life, but Oliver wasn't going to rest until the situation was cleared up once and for all. In fact, he soon admitted that there was no way he was going to be bullied, no matter who the neighbor was. Oliver soon located old copies of the deeds that proved that two 12-foot driveways could be built side by side. However, there was nothing about the neighbor having the rights to invade onto his land and steal half his driveway. Oliver had no idea why his new neighbor thought he would ever be able to get away with such a thing. Perhaps he hoped Oliver wouldn't notice the addition. Although Oliver was holding proof that his neighbor had no right to cement all the cinder blocks through the middle of his driveway, it looked as though he was on his own for this fight. Oliver contacted the local authorities for advice. Sadly, they told the homeowner that it was Oliver's fight and he would either have to pay for someone to remove the blocks or take his neighbor to court. There was nothing they could do and Oliver would have to foot the bill. Thankfully, Oliver took his story around the world. The neighbor might have wanted to avoid any public attention, but his actions were soon seen across the planet. The pair were eventually able to talk and come to an agreement. It looked as though Oliver had won. The cinder blocks were finally going to be removed. Sadly, the neighbor's actions had been enough to see him become the talk of the neighborhood. Now no one was looking forward to his permanent arrival. Moving into a new neighborhood can be tough for many of us. After all, many of us have no idea who our neighbors will be, who to avoid or who to be careful not to upset. Although some try to blend in with the crowd, others want to make their mark. It looked as though this neighbor had done everything to make sure they got off on the wrong foot. Sure, he wanted to build a new house on an empty plot of land. However, Oliver was about to suffer as a result. Oliver had been busy all day running errands. He'd been out of the house for many hours, but surely there was nothing to worry about. After all, it had been his neighborhood for the last quarter of a century. Oliver knew he was safe. That was until he returned to see a line of cinder blocks blocking off half his driveway. The homeowner soon had everyone's support. However, Oliver would have to work hard to get the case back on his side. No one could understand why the new neighbor had blocked off the section of Oliver's driveway. In fact, Oliver was left wondering what his new neighbor was going to do with an extra few yards of concrete. Would that tiny space really make such a big difference to his house plans? It looked as though the extra space was just what the neighbor wanted to complete his look. However, there was no way that Oliver was going down without a fight. It didn't take Oliver long to find all the proof he needed that the driveway was his and it was nothing to do with his neighbor. Surely this would be enough to get the law on his side and see the cinder blocks removed once and for all. After all, Osceola County admitted the records Oliver had been given were up to date and had all the information he needed. Sadly, it looked as though things were about to take a turn when Oliver pushed his case one step further. The records might have been accurate, but the county confessed there was nothing It turned out that because the blocks had already been placed and cemented to the ground it was now up to Oliver to have them removed. This wasn't the news the homeowner was hoping to hear. In fact, Oliver was now left with very few options. He could pay out for someone to remove them or take his neighbor to court. That was until Oliver thought of a third option. Now Oliver wanted to try to talk to his neighbor to see if they could get to the bottom of the situation. The homeowner hoped he would see how ridiculous it was to go to court, plus Oliver didn't want to have to stand up and fight this case. He just had to hope the neighbor would see the sensible sign. Sadly, their talk didn't have the desired effect. Oliver was no closer to getting them removed and it looked as though the neighbors were going to be forever at war. It was during their talk that Oliver learned his neighbor was a minister or something like that. However, this only angered the homeowner even further. Oliver believed placing the cinder blocks of his neighbor's religion. Could he really be so un-neighborly before even moving into the neighborhood? Oliver knew his neighbor had no right to concrete wherever he liked, but it looked as though he had no other choice but to seek legal help if he wanted them gone. Oliver was running out of options. After all, he tried talking to the authorities and had even spoken to his neighbor but he just wouldn't listen. He needed a way to make him stop and think about his actions. Suddenly, Oliver had an idea. He wanted to go to the local media. Now he could tell the whole world about what his neighbor was trying to do and hopefully guilt him into changing his mind. It was the perfect way to get people talking. It wasn't long before people from across the nation joined forces and stuck up for Oliver. It looked as though everyone wanted to help the homeowner remove the cinder blocks but there had to be a way to get to the bottom of the issue. It was Oliver's driveway and now he was being held captive in his own home. It would be enough for the neighbor to come forward and put the situation right after sneakily laying the blocks behind Oliver's back. It looked as though the neighbor's actions and the news coverage was enough to make quite the impression on the rest of the neighborhood. It seemed that no one was happy to hear about his cinder block plans. In fact, many believed the new neighbor was a bully and wanted to keep him out of his new home permanently. The frosty welcome probably wasn't the reception the neighbor thought he would get before moving into a new house Oliver might have had the public on his side but the homeowner was still no closer to getting a result than when he was set out on his mission. Now he needed to contact the news station once again to make sure that every aspect of the battle was covered. Hopefully another story would be enough to get people talking more than ever. Oliver hoped the story would travel around the world and that it would be all his neighbor needed to see sense. He had to try anything that he could. There was a lot of back and forth and Oliver was now one step closer to the final result he had been hoping for all along. Why? His neighbor had been in contact. He wanted to talk. It appeared the neighbor had seen the coverage and now he could be about to set the record straight once and for all. Sadly, the neighbor would have to work hard if he wanted to make sure that he wasn't run off the block before he even arrived. It turned out the neighbor had some records of his own and he wanted Oliver to see that he believed the land on the driveway was the plot of land. However, Oliver had his own set of records. Thankfully, the neighbor soon agreed that Oliver was in the right and decided to have the blocks removed from the driveway. It looked as though the two neighbors could finally make peace with one another after so long of fighting. The neighbor confessed that he had never intended to cause such a scene when he placed the blocks. In fact, he admitted that the entire event had been a huge misunderstanding as he had been given the wrong information. And thought he'd purchased it when he bought the plot of land. Thankfully, it appears as though the entire event has finally been put to rest after so long at each other's throat. It appears as though the two neighbors have been able to put the entire event behind them and moved on from the cinder block incident. Many people followed the story as it unfolded as most hoped that Oliver would get the results he expected. Thankfully, many people were relieved to see the pair had grown to become friends after all this time. They were about to become neighbors. However, the bad feelings wouldn't pave the way for the rest of their friendship. Even supposing those few extra yards truly did belong to the new neighbor, what possible good could they have done him? They were in the middle of Oliver's driveway and the neighbor clearly couldn't do much with them if he wanted to. It really seemed like placing the cinder blocks had no other explanation except to thumb his nose at Oliver, who has never forced to field any claims to the area surrounding his home where he's lived there. Oliver's predicament could only be described as a Kafkaesque situation named after Czech Jewish author Franz Kafka who often wrote about the futility of man's struggles against immense, uncaring bureaucratic machines. That must have been what Oliver felt like as he was forced to defend a claim to the driveway he's owned for a quarter of a century to be told he was right and still to receive absolutely no help from the local authorities. Was he proud or turning in his grave? What would you have done in Oliver's situation? Would you have resigned yourself to having part of your driveway commandeered for no reason whatsoever? Or would you have gone to all the effort of fighting like he did? With no help from the government and a seeming unwillingness to listen to reason by his neighbor, Oliver had nothing but grit and perseverance. And wasn't it lucky that he did because his neighbor eventually relented to think he would have been stuck by the government. In the end though, the story is about bullies and standing up to them. It's just a few yards, Oliver might have told himself. It's not worth the effort of going to so much trouble. Why not just let him have it if he wants it so bad? Going through life picking the path of least resistance is tempting, but to quote Elvis Dumbledore, we often have to choose between what's right and what's easy. Oliver clearly chose what was right and the universe deemed fit to reward him. Although news outlets on both television and online, countless people have had the chance to chime in and say how relieved they were that the situation was finally brought to a happy conclusion. Praying this issue is finally resolved so this man can live his life in peace, one commenter wrote. Another highlighted the importance of communication and how merely sitting down and having a conversation might have nipped this situation in the bud. Oh well, better late than never. Depending on where you live, it's almost impossible to go without at least a minor problem between you and your neighbors. Whether it's them talking loudly on the phone late at night or dogs barking early in the morning or them stealing your parking spot, it's almost impossible not to run into some type of conflict with those living near you. The important way, however, is to approach the situation and handle it. If you scream at them right away, they'll be much less likely to respond. Good fences make good neighbors, they used to say, and perhaps that's true. And building a fence on someone else's property, definitely won't make a good neighbor. Some people manage to go their entire lives in places with only having polite interactions with their neighbors, a smile and a wave in passing or perhaps borrowing some sugar or eggs when needed. Others have different interactions entirely with their neighbors and it can either be a positive experience or a very negative one. There are even plenty of people who are lucky enough to have no issues with their neighbor. Many people consider those living nearby to be some of their best friends. They'll go to each other's birthday parties and barbecues and even get together for other important events. The only problem could be that if some sort of problem does arise, people are not just dealing with their neighbors, they are also dealing with their friend. There are even those types of people who don't even introduce themselves to their neighbors. They are just keeping to themselves and that's it. This can be more common for people living in apartment buildings because obviously they have more neighbors than a typical standalone house in a neighborhood. That being said, it might seem a little odd not even to know the name of the person living next door, especially if you live there a long time. Regardless how different types of neighbors interact these days, it's still nothing like how it used to be. They could expect their neighbors knocking on their doors to meet them, welcome them, and maybe even give them a homemade pie or casserole. No people tend to be slightly more hostile and keep to themselves now. Then, of course, there are those who cement cinder blocks through driveways. We all have that person in our life who always seems to be trying to take advantage of their fellow human being and the funny thing is, quite often they don't think they're in the wrong for doing so. Believe it or not, but sometimes people actually don't believe in right or wrong. They believe in opportunities and if they see an opportunity to grab something, they'll be sure to grab it regardless of whether it's right or wrong. Perhaps the most basic analogy is someone who pushes people in line. When you're waiting in line at the store or you're waiting in a long line of cars there are two types of people in this world the courteous people and the ones who cut everyone off. We've all been there you're sitting in a long line of cars and no one's moving because you're stuck in traffic. I don't know where a speedy vehicle will come up from the side and try to pass everyone and sneak in front. In many ways, that's what's happening in this story. Now it just so happens that when it comes to the story, there's another element of playing. The concept of ageism. It's clear that the person who put the cinder blocks on his new neighbor's lawn was someone who thought he could get away with something. But once he realized that his new neighbor was an elderly man he probably scoffed and figured things would be even easier going forward. He never expected his new neighbor to fight back the way he did. Don't judge a book by its cover, of course. This also reminds us why we should never judge a book by its cover. We all think we know everything and whenever we meet people we don't realize how often we box them into various categories. Whether it be age, weight, ethnic background, religion or anything of that nature we find ourselves making snap judgments on the turn of a dime. Whether or not these judgments are correct they aren't based on any concrete data and it's important to avoid that. But more than anything, the reason the story is so wonderful is because it's about what happens when you stand up to a bully. People in life will constantly try to bully you around and it's crucial to let them know it's unacceptable. These strong figures may seem intimidating and unbeatable but quite often they're very easily defeated by a simple display of confidence.